AN: Hey everyone, just saying hello again and responding to a few comments and recent favorites. Thanks to the new "favoriter," alucard32, I appreciate your interest in the story. Also, to HK Target Shooter, I hope I don't disappoint with Theron's plans, or – at the moment – lack thereof. I started this story thinking it would be quite a bit shorter, but it's looking more and more like I'll be working on a sequel in a bit, so I wouldn't expect anything from Theron in terms of weaponizing the tech as of now. Once he does, I bet he'll have learned from the mistakes of the would-be Sith conquerors of the past, his ancestors included.
Theron walked before Kralle into the dark tunnel that the tracking subroutines had pointed them towards. The HUD of Theron's mask showed that the Rakatan tech was down this path; however, the tunnel ended in a wall of pure durasteel, at least half a meter thick. He and the Sith both ignited their sabers and proceeded to carve through the wall, each cutting a semicircle into the wall that eventually connected with the other. Theron raised his hand as the cut out began to fall towards him and, with a small application of his will, the circle of durasteel flew away and landed with a huge crash against a far wall. "Whatever we're looking for was sealed off," Kralle noted.
"Thank you, Darth Obvious," Theron growled as he deactivated his saber. "Did you also discover that we're on Nar Shaddaa?" He shook his head and climbed through the gaping hole in the wall, flicking the flashlight in his mask on as he did. He swung the beam of light around, looking for any clue as to what the Rakatans were searching for. Unfortunately, it seemed that the only sight he was greeted by was further hallways. Kralle scoffed and followed him, her saber still alive in her hand.
Theron walked slowly, the mask amplifying noises and directing him as to their origin. Thus far, he had observed nothing of note. He glanced down at the coordinates of the Rakatan tech, then back up into the path ahead. He half-faltered in his next step when he saw a shadow jump across the edge of his light's beam. He slowly pulled his lightsaber from his hip and thumbed the switch. The scarlet blade erupted into being and bathed the areas surrounding the flashlight's beam in an eerie, bloody glow. Pipes running along the walls suddenly seemed like arteries pumping blood throughout the sector. Theron glanced over his shoulder, catching another shadow crawling along the pipes running adjacent to the path. "We're being followed, Kralle," he said, clutching his saber even tighter.
"'Thank you, Darth Obvious,'" Kralle replied mockingly. Theron growled in response. While he returned his attention to the map, he extended his Force perception to warn him of any incoming dangers. Every noise was amplified within his mind, yet somehow became infinitely quieter. The noise itself wasn't what he was paying attention to, after all. It was the source. He "heard" the water drip from the pipes long before it even began. Womp rats scurried across the ground, and Theron could have grabbed the small, quick animals with one hand. He even was able to raise his saber into the path of the incoming creature flying through the air.
The creature's flesh sizzled against the red plasma of Theron's saber, causing it to split in half vertically down the center. The bisected being angled around Theron's form and hit the ground so he stood between the symmetrical halves. He glanced at one half of the body and flipped it over with his foot. The mask scanned the genetics of the creature for a moment until, finally, "Ongree offshoot. Heavy mutation possibly due to generations of inbreeding and/or radioactive exposure." Theron examined the body, agreeing with the assessment. The creature had the same squid-like head and orange skin tone the Ongree were known for, but its limbs bent in awkward directions, more useful for a quadrupedal existence. Theron examined the other half and noted, also, that the two sides were not completely symmetric; one side seemed somewhat broken, as if affected by a stroke. The ordinarily human-like feet of the Ongree had also devolved into talons useful for climbing. Theron was sure that, instead of generations, this had been millennia of devolution.
"What is that?" Kralle asked, disgusted. Her saber quivered, rapidly moving the red-bathed shadows.
My fault, Revan said.
"Dead," Theron told Kralle before moving on through the darkness. To Revan, under his breath: "What the kriff do you mean 'Your fault?'"
I've been here. I – There is Rakatan technology here. A seed I planted four thousand years ago. By now it must be a – a tree. I can't even imagine what it could be like.
"What does that mean? It's tech, it should waste away, just like that Foundry," Theron hissed.
No. The Foundry was destroyed, that's why it won't work anymore. But this... seed was never destroyed, especially if the slaves descendants are still, well, "alive."
Theron considered this. "Can this tech help get rid of whatever Nihilus did to me?" he inquired.
I doubt it. It runs on the Force: with the energy of the Universe, it can make anything into matter. Food, water, droids. Once the Ongree became animalistic, maybe the machine recognized that they didn't need droids to defend them, Revan hypothesized. Anyways, the machine is like you. Part of this... station I found. It destroyed the Rakatans, took away their Force potential. It killed them. But if they've come back...
"They likely have the method to stop something that devours the Force," Theron finished quietly. He raised his saber again, and another highly mutated Ongree collapsed onto the ground in the shadows. Chattering and howls began to run through the shadows – the slaves' descendants communicating their fears for the new invaders.
"They'll soon attack en masse," Theron told the nearby Sith. He raised his saber and turned it off. "Let me give them something to make sure they don't." White lightning erupted from the young man's hands, eliciting more pained shrieks from the Ongree mutants. Howls of pain and the smell of sizzling flesh drifted towards Theron and Kralle, drawing glee from the Sith and a numb, silent apology from Revan's descendant. Eventually, as the screams of pain quieted and the unmistakable aura of death settled around the area.
With a sense of finality, Theron let the flow of lightning die out and let his hands fall to his side. As the electricity faded from the dead bodies, the muscles in the Ongree went limp and their bodies thudded to the floor. Kralle struggled, at first, to count the thuds of each corpse as they hit the ground, but was soon overwhelmed by the sheer number. She stared, somewhat awestruck, at Theron. He turned from her without a second look. "We need to keep moving," he said.
"Why do you even have me here?" Kralle asked as they continued to walk. "It's obvious you do not need me."
"I need to get to Nihl and kill him somehow. Otherwise, I probably would have killed you at the Senate Tower, too," Theron replied. "To speak frankly." He continued walking away from Kralle.
I'll have to kill him before he kills me, then, Kralle thought to herself. After Nihl is dead, I can get the jump on him.
I doubt it, the voice of doubting reason within her mind stated, causing Kralle to freeze.
Soon, the duo came upon the location designated by the Rakatan coordinates. "By the Force..." Theron muttered as he approached it. Up a huge flight of steps stood what he could only think of as a 'heart.' He noticed that the pipes all across the wall led straight to the machine, the veins and arteries pumping materials to and from this Rakatan "heart." Theron ascended the stairs with a single mighty leap, and stared at the powerful, logic defying machinery. He took off his mask, as the energy flowing through the room was interfering with its instruments.
"Karee tanja! Erma suponta kelrato!"
Theron turned to stare at the creature that had screamed at him. It was a creature, just about one point eight meters tall. Twin eyestalks stuck out from the sides of the alien's tall, oval shaped head. It wore black armor at periodic locations on its body, including on its three fingered hands and its biped legs held a claw on its heel; it stood on the balls of its feet and its toes dug into the metal it stood on. One of its arms was hooked around Kralle's throat, and the other hand was holding a cylindrical, lightsaber like weapon. "Tranta karee tanja! Suponta kelrato!"
Oh, great. You don't understand Rakatan, Revan groaned.
And I should? Theron asked sarcastically. I must have just forgotten it from my school days.
Do you want help or not? Revan asked.
"Are you going to save me!?" Kralle screamed.
"Tro ja! Karee tanja!"
Well, I suppose I'll take what I can get, Revan, Theron responded. Hopefully before my only ticket to killing Nihl disappears.
Just... tear it from his head, Revan suggested. Tear it from his head and shove basic into his. It's not that hard, just... a little brutal.
Theron shrugged and walked down the stairs. The Rakatan scout shouted and made a movement with its head. "Na pana! Karee tanja!"
Theron ignored the shouts and continued walking forward. Eventually, the Rakatan ignited its weapon, and a purple beam of energy erupted in a curved blade from the cylinder. It threw Kralle to the side and rushed at Theron to kill him. His lightsaber flew up a moment before the Rakatan's blow landed and the curved plasma blade ricocheted off of the red blade. Theron then pressed his advantage and slashed through the wrist of the alien, but the Rakatan twisted out of the way at the last minute. It raised the saber up to level with its head and pointed the tip towards Theron with both hands on the hilt. Theron shrugged and raised one hand out, stretching his mind to connect with the Rakatan's.
For a moment, time seemed to freeze. Then Theron began to brutalize the mind of the alien, who began to shriek in terrible pain. He was pulling information from its mind, forcing the firing of multiple neurons simultaneously. The creature's mind was pulling itself apart.
Of course, tearing information the information from the Rakatan's mind was not easy on the human's brain, either. The sheer force that Theron was exerting on his own mind made him feel as if his head was going to split open then and there, exploding with the information that he was absorbing. Conjugations, declinations, idioms, all of these flooded into Theron's mind. Then, he began to see other things. The beginnings of a war plan, an invasion force, the location of the advance squadron, and a piece of tech that the Rakatan mind revered akin to a god. Theron grabbed a hold of that information and began to dig deeper, following it to the source. It returned the Force, reversed the endless decay of whatever the Star Forge had done to their species. And perhaps, whatever decay had been given a foothold in Theron's soul.
Theron released the creature's mind and it fell, dead, to the ground. The Gray Jedi stumbled as the connection of the two life forces was quickly severed and his mind began to acclimate to the information he had just bonded to his mind. He looked down at his saber, deactivated and clattering against the metal floor.
"What did you do to it?" Kralle asked, frozen and staring at the limp body of the Rakatan.
I didn't mean that brutal, Revan said. It's not supposed to kill them!
"It doesn't matter," Theron replied to the voice, aloud. "I know everything it knew, now."
Silently, he took the note to heart for future practice, but Theron quickly shoved the admonition to the side and looked up at the Heart. The Force seemed to flow through the area, grabbing onto everything. "Are you going to help me up!?"
Theron turned slowly to the Sith on the ground. Useless, he thought to himself as he approached her. She's bound to betray me sooner rather than later.
"I thought the Sith did not believe in help," Theron noted as he approached the Sith. He kept his hands buried in his pockets as he stared down at the woman. His grip on the mask tightened as he thought further on her inevitable betrayal. She scoffed in response and pushed herself up to her feet. That was when Theron made his final decision. "I don't need you."
She stared at him, confused for a moment. Then, "HA! HA HA HA! Yes, you do," she said, brushing off his statement with dry laughter. "How else are you... going to find... Nihl..?" Her eyes widened and she glanced over at the Rakatan. Her lightsaber flew to her hand and she rushed forward to kill Theron.
Without igniting his own saber, Theron raised his hand. With a gentle push of the Force, he guided Kralle's wrist into his own hand. He pulled down and twisted her hand until her wrist broke with a loud, echoing snap. Her lightsaber clattered uselessly against the ground, deactivated, and she screamed out in terrible pain. "Don't even bother with the pheremones," he told her as he grabbed her by the throat. "I'm immune." He slowly reached out with the fingers of his mind, clawing his way deeper into her brain.
I don't want you dead just yet, he told her, his thoughts echoing from inside her mind as if her own. I'm no monster. No Sith. The words burned her mind, a hint of dark cruelty that ran like an undercurrent from Theron's mind. A hatred and... a hunger. The hunger was a freezing wind that felt like a knife carving her mind into small pieces, sectioning it off like portions.
When she asked the question, it was aloud, body and mind together, "What are you?"
Hungry, the cold answered, somehow the same voice as Theron, but a distinctly different personality.
Then, Theron was back. It's taking a lot not to kill you right now, Kralle. So please, don't resist. I might not be able to fight off you and the hunger at the same time. Ah... here we are.
Kralle screamed in pain as Theron's astral fingers dug into the information he had been seeking. His sloppy use of the Force telepathy began to tear other information, other personality with it. Sith Alchemy, her mother's name, both these pieces of knowledge as well as Nihl's location were ripped from Kralle's mind. As Theron's mind retreated whole and unharmed from hers, the cold finger of the Hunger let itself linger for a moment, feeding on the ever growing fear inside of her.
When Theron finally, completely left Kralle's mind, he checked her pulse and let her form drop from his hand. She had fainted from pure, unadulterated fear. It had nearly overloaded her heart, a sight that would have been terrible to behold. He pictured it for a moment and shuddered at the thought of what he could do. He knelt down next to the unconscious Zeltron. "I won't kill you, just as I said, Sith," he said, his eyes a dull yellow of anger and rage. He took a deep breath and the unnatural color left his gray eyes. "You knew about the tracking transponder in the Eagle and you didn't deactivate it. Found it on our way to Kashyyyk. You wanted me to kill Rhen, Van... Ana. I see... that's what you and Nihl want. As much as I hate to admit it, part of me wanted to do it on Coruscant. Kill them."
Theron stood up and thought, briefly, about killing Kralle for withholding the information he had discovered in her mind. It would have been so easy, so fulfilling, to use his heel on her unconscious throat, strangling the life from her body or snapping her delicate neck. In the end, he still decided against it; it was only what Nihl would expect, even want, from him. With a twirl of his cape he looked up at the heart. Moments later, it disappeared in a flash of light, onto the Eagle. Perhaps I can use it as a bargaining chip with the Rakatan Scouts on "Lehon," he thought to himself as he walked back to his mind flashed back to the image still burned into his mind, of the red saber he wielded carving through the Rakatan army. I need to get rid of this hunger, one way or another.
SWSWSWSWSW
Ana and Van crouched over the unidentified alien's body while Rhen and Horn, both wearing pheremone filtering masks, tended to the comatose Doctor Klou – Darth Kralle, in reality. Horn had seemed surprised – astounded, really – that the good doctor had pulled the wool so far over the Triumvirate's eyes. "Yeah, just like that other kriffing Sith... the Chancellor, was it?" Ana had mocked, drawing only an ireful silence from the Grand Master.
"Do you know what it is?" Van asked the Imperial Knight, worry dancing across his face.
Ana looked up from the dead cylinder in the creature's hand. "I don't know. It reminds me of Theron's report on Nihilus. The creatures he saw in his visions."
"You didn't see the visions?"
"No. Rhen the only one who was there. Says he's sure that Theron saw something, but he didn't see it himself," Ana replied. Her attention had been returned to the cylinder.
A moment later. "Looks like a lightsaber," Van supplied.
"Hm," Ana grunted in response. She looked for a place to tear the device open and examine its innards, but couldn't find anything. "Maybe, maybe not." She shook her head and pocketed the weapon before walking over to Rhen and Horn. She pulled her pheremonal filter onto her own face and looked down at the still unconscious Sith. She reached down to examine a huge bruise on her throat, shaped like a hand.
The woman awoke then and there, her eyes wild. They grew in clarity as they focused on Ana. "You. He's going to be waiting for you," the Sith said seriously before breaking into a mad laughter. It broke off just as suddenly as it began. "What's inside of him? What monster is your boyfriend?"
Ana reddened. "I... What do you mean?"
"He's not even human, is he?" the Zeltron asked, her eyes growing in fear as a memory began to echo through her mind. The woman began to froth at the mouth. "Stop him, please. Kill me, save me, please..."
"Theron is not here," Horn snapped. Her hand flew across the Zeltron's cheek and the shock seemed to bring the woman back – at least a little – to reality.
"You can arrest me now. I'll – Ha! – I'll tell you anything. Just keep me safe from him, please," the Sith begged. "When he Falls... please, just keep me safe!" The woman fell apart again, screaming noises halfway between panicked laughter and broken sobs. "PLEASE!" The wails continued, growing in intensity. Ana gripped the crystal in her pocket fearfully, hoping that it was not the only piece of Theron that truly still remained.