"Popular history depicts the Liberation as a mass uprising of oppressed humans against their alien conquerors, but there is little physical evidence to support this. Few of the Tyrants' warships, buildings, or equipment were preserved, even in a ruined state. Further, there is no evidence for massive battles on any inhabited world during the supposed time of Liberation. More likely something far less romantic happened. The Tyrants, for reasons of their own, merely withdrew and left us to battle each other." Taith Onderas, Before the Despot: A Review of Early Tionese History, 551 LE
Despite her shock, the Forcesaber instantly blazed to life in Essan's hand. She hefted the blade and stepped in front of Erakas, interposing herself between the young human and the four Rakata who filled the corridor ahead of them.
Then came another shock: three more luminous blades extended, this time from the fists of the Rakata. The creatures made striking poses but did not lurch forward. The one in the rear, whose withered blue-green hide seemed to indicate age, stared at the Jedi with narrowed eyes and empty hands.
It was a standoff. Erakas froze behind her and she shouted his name, then realized all words were trapped inside the still-sealed helmet of her vac suit. Carefully, she shifted the Forcesaber to a one-handed grip and tapped her wrist-mounted control panel.
Then, over exterior speakers, she called, "Erakas! Get your sword!"
But he did not. Instead he stepped to her shoulder, helmet hanging from his right hand, and with his left he touched the translation computer attached like a badge to his chest. He called to the Rakata, voice trembling, "We didn't come here to harm you! We thought… we thought we were going to rescue…. rescue you."
As he spoke the computer processed his words and relayed them as sinuous hisses. The lead Rakata barked back in a completed different, far more vicious-sounding language, and he took two steps forward.
Essen stepped in front of the Erakas again. Her blade was nearly within striking range of the lead Rakata. She snapped at them, "Step back! Put down your weapons!"
Behind her Erakas muttered, "Damn, damn, damn... the setting…. Wrong setting..."
As he fumbled with the computer Essan's eyes locked on the nearest Rakata. She watched its feet, its shoulders. The second it tensed to strike she would spring ahead. Three against one were poor odds and two not much better, but she dared hoped these ones would be weakened by the low oxygen. And if she fought them back, she and Erakas could retreat to the Hand, and then…
"I've got it," Erakas said and raised his voice. "Listen, we don't… we didn't come here to harm you! We're… we're friendly!"
This time the computer translated her words in that fierce and guttural tongue. The Rakata hesitated, but none put down their swords. However, the unarmed one in the back released a series of snaps and growls. The warriors hesitated again, and Erakas's computer said in a tinny, toneless voice: "Lower your weapons now."
The warriors did not lower them. The old Rakata growled again and shouldered its way to stand beside the leader. It looked straight at Essan, opened its sharp-toothed mouth, and spoke in what was now a hesitant, halting voice.
And it was speaking in Tythan.
"You… are with… the Force?"
Essan's jaw dropped. She couldn't think of anything to say.
Erakas said, "Yes, yes, we have the Force. We're Jedi." As he talked the computer translated his words into Rakatan, and they made the three warriors recoil.
But the elder stood its ground. Holding up open hands it said, "Dying… we are dying… we need… help."
"Good. We can help you."
"Erakas!" Essan snapped. "What are you doing?"
"What we came here for." He managed to keep his voice firm but she could see in his eyes that he was as confused and terrified as her. The Rakata were nightmare monsters from the murky dawn of Jedi history. They were supposed to have disappeared from the galaxy but these ones remained as a battered revenant, isolated, hunted, desperate, now dying on a forlorn rock in space.
It was a Jedi's duty to help those in peril and Essan would have done so without thought, were they not Rakata.
She remembered the old tales of how these aliens had literally powered their galaxy-spanning empire with the dark side of the Force. Yet when she tried to examine those three warriors she did not feel the Force's raw, angry energy flowing between them and their weapons, as it flowed through her Forcesaber. Those glowing blades looked similar, but they didn't seem to be Forcesabers at all.
Then Erakas surprised her again. She heard him say, "Master Talyak, do you hear me? Master?"
She looked back and saw him speaking into his suit's comm system She could not hear the reply in his earpiece but Erakas said, "We've found the survivors, Master. They're… they need our help. I think… hold on."
He looked at the Rakata and asked, "How many of you are there?"
The elder didn't wait for the computer to translate. It said, "Alive are… seventy and four."
That was a lot of Rakata. It was a lot of anything. The Hand could barely hold that many bodies; its air recirculation system would be pressed to the limit.
But Erakas didn't care. He said, "Seventy-four, Master. I don't think we can do this by EV suit. Can we get the Hand closer? Right, squeeze in the canyon. Set the airlock. We'll have to burn through the hull from the inside-out. I'll feel where you are. Good. We'll see you soon."
With that he closed the connection and looked to Essan. The reckless panic was still in his eyes, but so was something else: grim resolve. He'd vowed to come to this ship and rescue its inhabitants and he was going to do just that, no matter who they were or what it cost him. His conviction might be the death of them all.
Then he looked to the Rakata and pointed at the warriors. "We're going to cut out of here with those weapons, you understand? We're going to cut through the hull and get all of you onto our ship."
The warriors didn't look less confused after hearing the translation, but the elder asked, "Why… you do this? Why? You are… Jedi?"
Erakas swallowed. "That's why. Because we're Jedi."
-{}-
There were things going on that Talyak did not understand. He sensed that much, but no more. Erakas and Essan had discovered something on that ship which had shocked them to the core, and it would probably shock Talyak soon enough.
He found he didn't care. He was just glad to be doing something. During the long outbound ride from Tython he'd become increasingly afraid that the Force was spread so thin in his galaxy as to be worthless. When they reached this Tion cluster and the Empire of Xim, his fears had been confirmed. Here was a despot who ruled over hundreds of worlds and billion of lives, and entire planets had been despoiled in his conflicts. His drama made that of the Je'daii and their Force Wars seem minuscule. And the worst part was, the Force had no role in Xim's Empire. Conquest and death, defeat and victory, all happened without its involvement. They three Jedi and their so-called universal power were just ineffectual bumblers on a grander stage.
So it had seemed to Talyak, until this moment.
Right now the Force mattered. He mattered. So he gripped the Hand of Light's controls with all four hands and roused the ship with direction thrusters. He kicked off from the surface of the planetoid, maneuvered it so that its airlock faced the crashed ship, then guided it carefully into the tight space of the canyon.
There was no room to maneuver. He thought for a moment that the Hand would get wedged between walls before it could even nudge hulls with the other ship. He heard the hull scrap against rock, and then the entire deck shuddered as metal shells kissed. He exhaled and sent a short sensation through the Force, telling Essan and Erakas that he was ready for them.
He received no reply. They were clearly busy themselves. He pushed himself free of the chair and began to ready the Hand of Light for whatever surprise they were bringing.
-{}-
The scouring of Gamma-718's asteroid field had been underway for one hour and forty-seven minutes when Captain Sovane approached Jaminere and said in a husky eager voice, "Viceroy, I think we've found them."
Jaminere's attention had started to wane, but he snapped alert. "What do you have?"
Sovane led him to one of the sensor stations and gestured to the screen. "We picked these up on high-resolution visual sweeps. It's deep within the asteroid field and we haven't been able to match it with heat or energy signatures yet, but, well, you can see for yourself."
Jaminere bent closer to examine the monochrome image. Everything was blurred for the high magnification level, but a red circle had been drawn around one object amidst the jagged, mis-shaped asteroids. This one was ovoid and smooth, with two long mandibles jutting from the forward section, just like the ship at Endregaad. Sovane tapped the controls and cycled through a few more images, each with the ship circled as it drew close to a large planetoid.
"It disappears from view after these images, sir. We think it landed on the surface."
"I didn't see any efflux from thrusters."
"No, sir. We haven't been able to pick up any heat signatures either." The captain hesitated, then ventured, "They may have some method of propulsion we're not familiar with."
"One we can't detect?"
"I don't know, sir. But we've seen the ship and we know its destination."
"Any sign of the larger one?"
"Not yet, but we'll keep searching."
"Good. Deploy four hemioliae with one company of marines each. They've already been briefed on a seizure strategy. Send them into the asteroid field with six battlebirds as escorts."
"And the Harridan?"
Jaminere thought a moment. "Get me a line. I'll tell Captain Felric to hang back but deploy his battlebirds in a broad formation. If we flush out anyone else, we need to be ready to catch them."
"Very good, sir."
Sovane hurried off and Jaminere stepped more smoothly toward the communications station. The second ship might be hiding elsewhere in the asteroid field, but that planetoid was an ideal shelter for a vessel so big. Maybe they'd seize both targets at once, maybe this was just the first stage of a longer hunt. Either way the wait was over, and things were finally moving.
-{}-
There they went, Kroller thought as he watched a group of hemioliae and battlebirds deploy from the dreadnought. The smaller ships began cutting slowly but surely into the asteroid field, winding their way around drifting rocks toward the large planetoid on which those three strangers had settled. He was actually a little surprised the search had only taken them two hours, but it had to end some time. The Imperials were relentless and when they wanted their quarry, they were bound to get it.
Which meant it was time for self-preservation to rise to the top of his priorities list. He counted ten Imperial ships moving into the belt, plus the dreadnought and polyreme holding outside it. The latter had moved over two hundred kilometers away from its partner but had started edging back toward its former position. Clearly, the Imperials were convinced they'd found their prize.
It was that prize which concerned Reina. She moved quickly at her console to open a hail to the foreigners' ship. "Hey, can you hear us? This is Reina Kroller on the Gravity Scorned. Is anyone listening?"
"I hear," said the voice of that alien leader, Master Talyak.
"I don't know if you can see this, but you've got incoming. I'm counting ten hostile ships moving on your position."
"I understand. We have… people outside."
"Erakas? Essan?"
"They are… in other ship."
"Well you'd better get them out and make a run for it as soon as you can. We'll try to hold them off here." Reina closed the connection and twisted in her seat to look at her father. "If we get deeper into the field we can snipe at those hemioliae from behind, maybe get some to chase us."
"We can't take on ten ships," Vaatus said.
"Well, we have to do something, otherwise they're goners."
"You've seen what they can do with that ship. They can fight their way out of it."
"Not against ten ships."
"They'll do what they can," Kroller said firmly. "And so will we."
He began to flip switches and warm engines. They'd been running cold to avoid detection and it would take several minutes before they were ready to burn. He hoped the Imperials were suitably distracted by their main targets.
Reina asked, "What are you thinking, Dad? If we can draw off one or two—"
"We're not doing that." He winced in anticipation of what came next.
"Well, what are we going to do?"
"The only thing we can do, and that's save ourselves. We've only got a small window before that polyreme gets close enough to cut off our escape route. We run now, we just might make it."
Her voice tensed with anger and disbelief. "So they saved our lives and you're just going to let them die?"
"Yes."
He didn't watch Reina's face, but he remembered the accusation in her eyes when they'd fled Estaria. It was going to be even worse this time. She might never forgive him; their relationship might be forever changed after today.
But Kroller could live with it. It was preferable to getting himself and his children killed in someone else's quarrel.
As the ship hummed to life he called to Vaatus, "Get those guns ready."
"Already under manual control," the Nikto sounded eager to go.
Kroller flexed his hands on the control yoke as he watched his scanners. The hemioliae and battlebirds had passed them by entirely and were getting deeper and deeper into the asteroid field. The dreadnought might launch missiles at them but from this distance, Vaatus had a good chance of shooting them down. And the polyreme wasn't in play, not yet.
The window was closing. Time to punch through. He said, "Reina."
She didn't respond.
"Reina!" he yelled, "Patch in a connection to the Raxus beacon. We need to jump as soon as we can."
"And leave them behind." She half-whispered, half-growled.
"If we're not ready to jump then we're dead, you hear me? So get ready!"
He didn't watch to see if she complied. She either would (reluctantly, impelled by mortal fear) or she wouldn't. Either way, it was time to run.
He tapped direction thrusters, pushed the Gravity Scorned to a safe distance from the asteroid which they'd used for shelter, then swung his nose toward the open starfield beyond the drifting maze.
Then they leaped ahead on a blazing flare.
-{}-
"Sir, we just picked up something else on our scanners," Sovane reported.
Jaminere looked up from the bright tactical screen. "They're leaving the planetoid?"
"No, sir, this is different." Sovane bent over to point out a new marker drifting across the display. The readout marked the ship as a light freighter of Tionese design.
"Run a full scan. Cross-reference with the records from Endregaad. There was a third ship there." He was certain what the results would show. He'd dismissed them as random scavengers before, but apparently they were the third piece to an increasingly complicated puzzle.
He examined the tactical screen anew. The Ascendant had disgorged most of its hemioliae and all of its battlebirds, and he mentally cursed himself for tossing away all their fastest ships. The dreadnought still carried several Livien cutters which might be able to intercept that freighter before it escaped to lightspeed, but they'd lose crucial time scrambling crew and prepping for launch.
And then he received a welcome gift. Two Imperial starships dropped out of hyperspace at the edge of the asteroid belt, near the Ascendant's original entry point. The tactical screen quickly marked them as the polyreme Termagant plus Alacrity, a small but swift Cronese harpice. Admiral Kadenzi's reinforcements had arrived with perfect timing.
Jaminere snapped his fingers. "Tell them to intercept that freighter immediately. Can we get a sitrep from the planetoid?"
Sovane relayed quick orders to the communications team, then reported, "They've located both alien ships, sir. They're hiding in a canyon on the surface."
"Excellent. Launch boarding parties. Tell them to cut through the hulls if they have to, I want those ships and as many of their crew as we can take alive."
Sovane quickly relayed that order too. Jaminere clasped the edge of the table hard and stared at the screen, waiting for the next change. Everything was still in the air, but he stood to grab all three pieces of the puzzle.
And once they were in hand, he could figure out how they fit together.
-{}-
Vaatus's weapons control console had a subscreen patched into the Gravity Scorned's wide-range sensor system, and he was watching it the exact second that two new Imperial warships dropped out of hyperspace.
In that second, he knew everything was lost.
The nearest newcomer, a Cronese harpice, accelerated quickly toward their position. They'd yet to fully clear the asteroid field and Reina, sitting sullen at her nav console, hadn't said yet patched in a path to the nearest hyperspace beacon. Now they'd never get the chance, because Vaatus's screens lit up with alerts for an incoming missile.
"Do you see it?" Kroller yelled.
"I see," Vaatus said, and took the gunnery control.
Before the missile even got close to detonation range, Kroller cut thrusters, threw them into a sharp turn, then fired main engines again. Vaatus got report of another missile launch as the Gravity Scorned dove back into the asteroid field. His father began bouncing them back and forth, weaving around chunks of space rocks in the hopes one of them would catch a missile. These Imperial warheads had good guidance systems, though, and they began to weave as well.
They were also following the heat-trail left by the Gravity's burning engines. Vaatus could see that, and as he tracked the missiles he aimed ahead of them, anticipating the turns they'd take in imitations of his own ship. When he tapped out his first stream of bullets they went wide, but he recalibrate and released a second volley. This one collided with a missile head-on and detonated it.
The second was still on them. Kroller put the ship through more evasives, winding a near-circle around one large asteroid in the hope of running that missile into its surface, but when they pulled clear the warhead was close, too close. Vaatus released an involuntary yelp, then twisted his gun and fired two more bursts. Both bullet-streams missed and the missile drew even closer.
Then a stray asteroid, probably no bigger than Vaatus himself, rolled into their immediate wake. The missile ran straight into it and exploded. Concussive force buffeted the Gravity as well, knocking all three of them about in their chairs.
"Do we have damage?" asked Kroller.
Vaatus began running diagnostics. No reports of hull fractures, no leaks. Several stress alerts but no breaks, not yet.
"We're okay," he said in relief, then remembered they weren't okay at all. The Imperials had driven them back into the asteroid field, and a look at those long-range scanners told him the harpice was pushing to the belt's edge in pursuit. The harpice was bigger than those hemioliae and battlebirds currently swarming the planetoid, but it also had enough powerful guns to blast a modest pathway through the field if it so chose.
And it looks like they had. Vaatus's scanners registered a wave of explosive impacts as the harpice plunged in after them. It looked like the Imperial wanted them bad. Almost as bad as the strange, secretive foreigners they'd been accidentally, and now fatally, thrust together with.
"Reina, as soon as we can get clear of this field we need to jump!" Kroller shouted. "Get us a line on a beacon. Raxus, Tion, even Endregaad. Whatever you can manage."
"Working on it," she said, breathless and scared.
At least she'd had some sense knocked into her, but Vaatus feared it was too little and too late for them all.
-{}-
No one could tell if they'd been saved or damned, and the most confusing part was, the Scourges did not seem to know either. The fact that they were Scourges at all beggared the mind yet that was what they called themselves, pronouncing that word (and that alone) the same both languages: Je-dai. Perhaps, Shen wondered, those syllables meant something else to them.
What they meant to his people was clear. As they worked to gather survivors and move them through the Sanctuary, Shen asked his mother, "How can we trust these Scourges? You know their language, but—"
"I know little," Quoll said. "Only scraps from the archives, barely enough to communicate. Their computer is more fluent."
"Then… how can we believe them?"
"If we do not go with them, we die," she rasped. They'd been waving survivors down the halls and the thin air left them quickly exhausted. She slumped against a bulkhead and said, "You felt them in the Force… that must mean…. something."
"But they are the Scourge! They destroyed our civilization!"
She wagged her head. "Our civilization fell… when the Force left us. It was already leaving when we… attacked the Scourges."
"We attacked? But the other Elders said—"
"The Elders are dead." Her chest heaved. "Reading the scraps of history… I wondered what really happened… why the Force left us… whether we deserved it."
Shen was faint as well, but he steadied her with both hands. "Then why do I deserve to have it?"
"Maybe you… do not. You must prove yourself."
By saving his people. It was that weight of destiny again, but at least this time the door to salvation was opened. It had been opened by the Scourges, and it felt like his entire world had been upended, but there was no place to move but forward. The only other option was death.
Most of the survivors were already moving to chambers near where the Scourges were cutting through the Sanctuary's outer hull. Shen took his mother by the shoulders and began to move her along at the tail end of the stream. He was surprised to see Kaim and a few other youths moving against the flow.
"Elder Quoll," Kaim said, "Let us take you to the front. You need to be first off this ship."
She waved a hand. "Let the others go… ahead of me..."
"But Elder—"
"I am weak," she said, "not… feeble. Younger lives… are worth more than mine."
Kaim wanted to argue but Shen shook his head in warning. Then a thought occurred to him. "Kaim, take your people. Get the object we retrieved from the crash."
It seemed like forever ago since they'd stumbled on that burning pod on Endregaad. Kaim blinked in surprise, but took the orders without question. As he passed he added in a low voice, "Bring your mother to the front. Rone and the others are helping the… the humans cut through the hull."
Shen recalled a face barely glimpsed through its sealed helmet. "I don't think the one with a lightsaber is human."
"My point is, Rone will protect her."
"I know. Go, get the pod."
Kaim pushed ahead with his handful of warriors in tow. Shen took his mother by both shoulders and said, "He's right... You should be in front. Then you can speak with the Scourge."
"Very well," Quoll acquiesced, "Take me."
Shen began pushing his mother up the line. He didn't waste oxygen by shouting for clearance; when the other survivors saw the last surviving Elder they quickly made way. It was only when they neared the final chamber that the corridors became crowded and Shen had to pry open a path. It was mild exertion, but he was feeling ready to drop from exhaustion.
When he reached the outermost chamber he saw one Scourge, still in its space suit, thrusting its blazing weapon into the wall. At the same time Rone was spearing his own lightsaber into another point, and they moved their weapons in slow arcs meant to conjoin. Both superheated blades sparked and flashed as they melted metal and left smoldering wakes.
The human Scourge had put his helmet back on so that he might breathe his own oxygen supply, but Shen still recognized him by the metal sword magnetically clipped to his waist. Shen walked beside the human and tapped him on the shoulder. The bulbous helmet turned from the burning arcs to face him.
Shen couldn't even attempt their language, so he said in his own, "Are you certain you will cut directly into your ship?"
The translator pinned to the human's chest droned out a translation, then turned the reply back. "I know our ship is on the other side. I can feel it."
"With the Force?"
There was a longer pause; then the human said simply, "Yes."
Quoll hung off her son's side and asked something in the Scourge's language. He held his mother against him as the human replied. His translator said, "We did now know who you were when we came."
But they'd come. Shen felt a faint bond between himself and this human, felt it in the Force. Each was confused and frightened and wary, but shared mortal peril had a way of overcoming even history. They had no choice but to trust each other. Would trust survive if they escaped? Shen was afraid to find out, and he sensed the human was too.
He gestured to the wall and said, "That is a thick hull. There are many layers you will have to cut through."
The translation machine replied, "We know. We will cut deep."
After a minute, Rone and the other Scourge carved through the first layer of the bulkhead. The Scourge used the Force to wrench the circular portion away and levitated it to the corner of the room. The alien did it easily, with just a flicker of thought, and Shen was both envious and humbled. These creatures had been trained in the Force their whole lives; Shen's education amounted to little in comparison. These Scourges must have built themselves a mighty empire by now, while his own race had collapsed.
Two sabers began to carve into the next layer of hull plating when the lights flickered, died, and winked back on again. Something rocked the entire deck, causing the people in the back corridor to shout in panic, but the shifting stopped as quickly as it had come, and relief washed over the crowd.
But not over Shen. Something was wrong. The human Scourge noticed it too; he began looking around the chamber for the cause of his distress.
The other Scourge withdrew her saber from the wall and snapped something in her language. The translator only carried the human's reply: "I don't know."
"What is it?" Quoll asked her son. "What do you feel?"
"I'm not sure." Shen said, and before he could guess fresh panic ran through the crowd. It came from far away, deeper inside the ship, but frantic murmurs welled up from down the hall. He and the human started toward it together, stopped, looked at each other, then continued step-matching-step.
After turning two corners Shen was already exhausted, and was stopped for breath when one of Kaim's companions pushed into him. The other young warrior, panting, grabbed him by both soldiers and declared, "There's more of them."
"What?"
"Them!" He stabbed a claw against the human's chestplate. "More Scourges! They're cutting in from the outside! It's an attack!"
Shen whirled on the human and drew his lightsaber but did not ignite it. He heard those words translated into the Scourge's tongue and felt the shock spread through him.
The human's reply was urgent, almost panicked, but his translator relayed peril in the driest tones: "Someone else has entered this ship. It is not us."
-{}-
Talyak knew the enemy was coming before they reached the Hand of Light. First he felt them in the Force as a cold nearing malice. Then he scampered back to the cockpit and checked sensors, which confirmed that a starship roughly the same size as his own had set down on the surface of the planetoid, just beyond the cusp of the canyon. His sensors did not mark the soldiers who departed that ship and strode across the rugged plain in their black-armored, combat-specialized vacuum suits, but Talyak could feel them in the Force, all twelve individual minds as they crawled down the canyon wall, walked across the hull of his ship, and prepared to break inside.
These were professional soldiers, probably the most loyal and well-trained janissaries in Xim's war machine. Less than three minutes elapsed between their disembarking and their wiring directional explosives around the Hand's cargo access hatch, which would allow them access to the entire ship once blown.
That was more than enough time for one Jedi Master to be ready for them.
As soon as he sensed them he'd hurried into his vacuum suit, and had just sealed the helmet when he felt the troops outside the cargo door tense with anticipation of a localized explosion. Talyak preempted them by opening the door from the inside. As it swung outward he sprung through the gap. The Force and the planetoid's light gravity both worked to his advantage, and he arced over the heads of three stunned soldiers before dropping himself in the midst of them. The boots of his vac-suit, two pairs of fists, and his thick insulated tail smacked hard against the hull before he reared onto two feet.
Then the fight began in earnest.
Every Jedi was trained to fight with blades. Outsiders questioned why they did not use firearms or other long-ranged, more advanced weapons, but no Jedi ever did. They understood that to wield a sword required you to wield your body, and to wield your body most effectively, you had to master the Force. Thus the blade became an extension of your very being, as natural as your own arms and eyes and lungs.
Mal-Oba Talyak was not fond of violence and did not pick up his four blades often, but when he did he demonstrated what mastery truly meant.
He pivoted on one foot, lifted his tail, and smacked it hard into the nearest man. The impact knocked two soldiers together but the third hefted his rifle and aimed. Talyak could see it was not a slug-thrower that relied on internal combustion to propel its weapon; rather, this was a miniaturized rail-gun that flung magnetized razor-discs as fast as any bullet but did not require oxygen to spark. At this range it could punch through Talyak's suit and kill him instantly.
So he swept two of his sabers upward, caught the barrel between them, and shoved it away. The soldier tried to wrestle his gun back down but Talyak drove two more sword-tips into the soft joints along the sides of that armored abdomen. Essan's Forcesaber would have burned through these men's armor and killed them instantly, but Talyak was not willing to dance so close to Bogan's shadow, so his strikes required extra precision. Each blade slipped between plates, tore fabric and then flesh. When Talyak jerked them out, liquid marbles of maroon blood spun into the airless void.
Eleven more. They were all moving toward him and Talyak sensed the next two razor-discs as they were fired. With precise slashes of his sabers he knocked them away, then used his lower arms to spear through the two soldiers struggling to their feet. As he pulled those blades loose, two more jumped over the gap of the left-open cargo hatch and charged Talyak with electrified lances. Before they could get close enough to shock him he threw the swords from his upper hands; they speared through the vacuum and, with Force-strengthened impact, smashed through the soldiers' helmets, exposing their faces to the vacuum, killing them within seconds.
There were still seven left, and they were coming for him on all sides. Talyak couldn't afford to be encircled so after pulling back his two sabers, so he used a Force-propelled leap to throw himself out of the canyon and onto the rocky plain. Another touch of the Force begged the soldiers to follow and so they did, using miniature rocket-boosters on their armored suits to leap out of the chasm.
Talyak was waiting for that too. He used the Force to pluck two small space rocks drifting above the planetoid and drew them in. They slammed hard into the nearest soldiers, cracking open their helms and tearing open their vac suits. The other five soldiers had already landed and he found himself slashing all four swords at once to bat away their razor-discs. They moved to encircle him once more, and he didn't know how he could last against all five. In the corner of his eye he caught the soldier's ship, an Imperial hemiolia, parked on the rocky surface. He felt more souls inside of it hurrying to deploy and join their comrades in this capture. Against so many, not even the Force could avail him.
And then the hemiolia trembled. It jerked on its landing struts like it had been punched, and when Talyak dared look closer he saw holes bursting across its hull, each a geyser of oxygen and sparks into the vacuum. Entry marks, he realized, from a hail of bullets.
One of those bullets struck deep: something inside the hemiolia exploded. The fireball launched the damaged gunship away from the planetoid and it tumbled frantically toward the field of small and lethal asteroids.
Then Talyak saw a blaze of the engines and the familiar form of the Gravity Scorned. The freighter pulled a sharp turn, veered low over the planetoid, and released another spray of bullets. Two of the Imperial soldiers seemed to explode into black-armor fragments and spotches of blood. Talyak lurched toward a stunned remainder and pushed two sword-tips through his helmet, shattering it. The other two fired razor-discs at him but he ducked low, then called on the Force one more time to pick both men up, sweep them off their feet, and fling them far upward, clear of the planetoid's weak gravity, until their fast-shrinking forms tumbled helplessly through the void.
He spared one short look at the Gravity Scorned, still flying low overhead, then turned back to the canyon and the Hand of Light. His fellow Jedi needed him now more than ever.
-{}-
Reina had no idea what she'd just seen, but it had been amazing. Twisting nearly free of her crash webbing to see through the cockpit porthole, she'd watched as the Gravity Scorned's guns blasted away two of Xim's soldiers, after which that six-limbed Master Talyak had crushed one's armor with his swords, then (and this was the truly incredibly part) he'd tossed the other two clear of the planetoid entirely. He didn't even touch them; he wasn't standing nearly close enough for that. She just saw him raise all four of those saber-tipped arms and suddenly the soldiers just took off, flailing their limbs pathetically as they went careening into space.
Master of what she didn't know, but was definitely master of something special.
Unfortunately, that something wasn't enough to solve all their problems. That Cronese harpice was still blasting its way through the asteroid field as it inexorably chased them, four battlebirds were swarming close by, and any one of these tumbling space rocks could cause the Gravity irreparable harm. Vaatus was currently swinging his gun toward the nearest Imperial ship while her father wrestled the controls furiously and was muttered a constant stream of under-the-breath profanity.
Reina couldn't help either of them from her station, but maybe she could do something just as useful. Despite what the rest of her family thought, they weren't in this alone. She tapped the comm system and patched in a hail to the foreigner's ship.
"This is Gravity Scorned," she called. "Master Talyak, can you hear me? Are you there?"
After a moment the alien's voice scratched over her comm. "I am here. Thank to you."
"Just, uh, trying to help," she lied. "Did you pick up those survivors? Can you take off?"
"Not yet. We will gather them. Soon."
"How soon is soon?"
"I do not know."
"What about your ship? Is it damaged?"
"No."
"And your guns?"
"Not… at right position. Not yet."
"But they work, right?"
"Yes."
"Good. Then we can blast our way out together. See you soon." She closed the line and called to her father, "You hear that? We can punch out together."
Kroller was too busy with his stream-of-consciousness swears to reply, but Vaatus snapped, "We're gonna get punched first! Incoming missile!"
Kroller snapped them into another series of tight maneuvers, winding around a smaller asteroid before diving down to the planetoid. G-force pinned Reina to her chair, slapped her against its restrains and nearly snapped her head into her console. Her vision wavered toward black-out until she heard the muffled crack of the Gravity's turret gun.
"Got it," Vaatus said, more relieved than triumphant.
Kroller tipped the Gravity back into a level flight. It felt like a hundred-pound weight lifting off her chest. Her father called, "Everyone okay?"
"For now," she panted.
"One battlebird coming in from behind us, another's angling in from topside," Vaatus reported. "We'll be in their missile range soon."
"Then we keep running," Kroller grunted, and with another hard twist he pushed them away from the planetoid, away from the only friends they had in this place. Reina wanted to protest but acceleration pumped out all her breath. Like it or not, she was just along for the ride.
-{}-
The invasion of their Sanctuary was the greatest disgrace yet. The winding halls of the clan's ancient stronghold had become a maze of combat.
The enemy must have burned through the Sanctuary's hull at two different points, because the line of survivors was quickly cut in half by a pincer movement. When Shen joined the battle the corridors echoed with screams and electric crackles; the thin air was rank with ozone and ash.
He ignited his lightsaber and pushed against his fleeing clanmates. Rone and a handful of warriors followed, blades lit. And (still to Shen's surprise) the human Scourge followed, holding his metal sword in both hands. He had neither the words nor the time to ask why this one didn't use a lightsaber like his comrade; he was merely grateful for the help.
But there was only so much they could do. Shen first glimpsed the enemy from the distance of a long dark hall. They were encased in gleaming black armor and faceless; some held long lances with electrified tips, while others sported thick-barreled slugthrowers in two hands. He'd heard the humans had weapons that could spew bolts of plasma—beam tubes, they were called—but when he drew close he saw they launched something else entirely. Thunder cracked from the rifle-mouths; projectiles burst free and immediately expanded into electrified nets. He watched as his fleeing clanmates were caught by those nets and collapsed, twitching and helpless, to the deck.
Shen, Rone, and the other warriors threw themselves over their prone comrades and swept wildly with their lightsabers. They carved through the first rank of enemies but more appeared from down the hall. They fire another volley of nets, which caught two of Shen's comrades and dropped them. Then one of the faceless black warriors tossed a small black sphere. Shen had no time to react; the sphere hit the deck, bounced, then burst into a blinding flash of light and smoke.
He felt something yanking him hard, pulling him back. His clawed feet dragged across the deck and he opened his eyes only when he'd come to a halt.
The Scourge stood over him. Shen was exhausted, too weak to stand, but the human made a small gesture with his hand, and arms of the Force brought him to his feet. The human spoke frantically, but his translator was still placid when it said, "You must go to our ship. Now."
Shen turned instead to run back into the fray, but Rone emerged from the battle-filled corridor and shoved Shen back. "Get out of here. Get to your mother."
"But—"
"We cannot save everyone. But we can save you."
Shen wanted to protest, but Rone and the human both took him by the shoulders and pulled him away from the battle, down the crowded corridor where escape waited.
-{}-
One more twist and it was done. Essan grunted and pushed her Forcesaber through the final centimeters of outer hull, then released her mental grip on the weapon. Force energy still crackled through her body as he pulled the inert saber back. She called on her power one last time to pull the carved-out circle free and toss it into the corridor beyond.
She knew in an instant that they'd connected with the Hand of Light's airlock. The initial burst of oxygen was so strong it almost knocked her back, and the Rakata nearest to her sucked in deep breaths. Light spilled into the dark ship as well, and she peered into the Hand's bright interior to see Master Talyak's long, furred face. Essan wrenched her helmet it off, tossed it up to him, and said, "Take as many as you can."
She felt the Rakata behind her surge toward the hole, and felt shock stagger Talyak. The Talid sent her a soft question in the Force: Are you sure?
Her answer: No. But these are the ones we came here for. She sent more feeling about that: I will go help Erakas.
Then she turned and left her Master to deal with the Rakata. As the creatures clambered through the burned-out hole they didn't look like nightmare monsters, just dirty, tired, frantic refugees. Maybe they were the former, maybe the latter, maybe both. Maybe the Jedi were spelling their own doom through this act of heroism. Essan simply didn't know.
But Erakas needed help. She felt that clearly. As she pushed deeper into the Rakatan ship she saw the elder, the one who'd spoken scraps of Tythan, lingering at the back of the chamber.
Essan waved her to the hole. "Get aboard," she said. "Go."
But the old Rakata shook its head and rasped, "My son."
Could monsters have family? Essan gave up asking and charged deeper into the ship, following Erakas's Force-signal. He was engaged in battle and, after a few sharp turns, she found him and a few younger Rakata battling a wave of black-shelled Tionese soldiers.
No, not battling; it was a fighting retreat. The Imperials released electrified nets that dropped two Rakata before her eyes, while others charged ahead with shock-lances. Erakas's metal sword was no good against that. She watched as a powerful charge jumped up his blade and arced all through his body.
She threw herself into the air, curling herself tight to arc between the Rakata's tall heads and hallway's low ceiling. When she landed the Forcesaber blazed to life and she cut through the nearest soldier. Head flew from shoulders but more attacked. A grenade sailed through the air and she was barely able to turn it back to its thrower before it exploded in light and smoke.
Electricity still jolted through Erakas's nerves; his movement was jerky, his steps halting. She yelled at him, "Go!" pushed him away with the Force, then turned to battle the enemy.
And the enemy kept coming. They surged up the corridor like a storm, a black cloud. Essan stood before them, Forcesaber blazing, desperate to hold them back but they were too many, they were too strong. She was just one Jedi and there were some things not even a Jedi could hold back.
As they surged toward her she saw Correa standing against the ravages of Tython. She saw herself, failing all the time.
In that moment all her angry determination faltered; a weariness overtook her, and the Forcesaber sputtered and died in her grip.
Appalled, she tried to find her rage and return the weapon to life, but it was too late. The Imperials were on her. Shock-lances stabbed chest and abdomen. The insulation of her vac suit meant nothing. Pain overwhelmed her and she lost control of her body. She did not feel herself fall to the deck; the last thing she knew before her blackout was the Forcesaber tumbling from her hand.
-{}-
Erakas felt it when Essan fell. He turned and looked down the hall but could see nothing in the flickering darkness except the surge of black-armored soldiers.
Behind him he felt Master Talyak beckon: Come, now!
But Essan—
Now!
In that moment he was a young and frightened padawan again, and he obeyed the word of his Master. Erakas and the remaining Rakata staggered for the exit chamber. Their wounds and faint breath made them sluggish, but they moved faster when they saw the light from the Hand's interior breaking through the carved porthole. As they moved one Rakata came to meet them. It was that elder who'd spoken Tythan to them, and it fell against one of the younger warriors, looking its blue-skinned body over.
"Let's go!" Erakas called, and his translator relayed his cry tonelessly.
Then he heard the clink of a grenade, and then the room exploded. Smoke and light swirled around; his vision turned into a sheet of red. He heard the whirr of burning blades and the crackle of shock-lances, but the only thing he felt clearly was Master Talyak beckoning to him in the Force.
He followed that signal and staggered ahead. His hands found the rough burned-through edges of the porthole and looked back. Through fading red he saw bodies falling, spears thrusting, the crackle of electric bolts, the swing of blazing swords. He'd dropped his own metal blade somewhere down the hall; he'd forged it under Master Sohr's instruction and he'd never get it back.
Then a body fell into his. One young, blue-skinned Rakata slammed into him back-first. The creature was dazed and struggled to pull away, but an invisible hand dragged them both. They scraped through the porthole, over its rough edge, over the smooth frame of the Hand of Light's airlock, into the luminous heart of his own ship.
Then the door slammed shut. Master Talyak, looming over them both, said, "We are out of time. Come!"
Then he rushed to the cockpit. Erakas, dazed and panting, pushed himself from his knees to his feet and lurched to follow.
-{}-
Shen lay face-up on the deck of the strange Scourge starship, trying to wrap his mind around what had happened.
His mother's embrace. The flash and smoke of the grenade. Quoll was wrested from his arms but he'd lurched for her. Bodies slammed into his; an electrified pike skimmed his side and shocked his nerves. Then Rone appeared through the glare and haze, pressed their faces close. His friend and rival snarled at him: "Go!" Then a strong kick to the chest knocked him away.
Away from his mother, his friend. Into the safety of the Scourge's ship.
The lightsaber was still in his hand, clutched tight. A talisman of what he should have been and a memento of his failure.
He heard the ship hum to life around him, then the moans of his clanmates. He pushed himself upright and wandered the ship's halls in a daze, even as it bucked with takeoff beneath him. He counted them huddled in the corridors, as dirty and dazed as he was: five, six, seven. Ten, eleven, twelve. Fourteen, fifteen. Fifteen, plus him, out of over a hundred who'd been on the Sanctuary. His mother was not among them, nor Rone or Kaim, nor Vosh. No, Vosh was dead. Gone. And Rone and Kaim and Quoll—
He couldn't bear it. Shen staggered through the halls, following the dim and undecipherable sound of the Scourges talking. He found two of them sitting in the wide-windowed cockpit: the human and a shaggy, six-limbed being of a species he did not recognize. Four hands worked a flurry over the ship's controls and the viewport panned across a field of swirling asteroids and blazing thruster-trail. He did not understand anything but he clutched the doorframe and watched the dance of light and fire, stone and space, not really caring if they survived at all.
-{}-
Kroller wanted to live, damn it. It shouldn't have been this hard. Everything kept getting worse and, really, the appearance of two more Imperial ships when they'd been ready to run was just overkill. Like the universe kicking you while you were down and pissing in your face for good measure.
He'd managed to shake off missiles, then he'd managed to shake the battlebirds by finding a cranny in a mid-sized asteroid. Not that they wouldn't find him eventually, but it gave them a chance to catch their breaths.
Then, of course, that big blazing harpice caught up with them. It began pummeling their rocky shelter with bursts from its big plasma guns, and the Gravity Scorned's cockpit began to rumble around them.
"I think it's time to fly," Vaatus suggested.
But fly to where? What was the question. Kroller checked his scanners as he retracted landing claws. There were still battlebirds out there and they'd converge on him as soon as he flared his engines. If the harpice didn't get him, they would.
Then something else lit up his screen. Reina said, "They're pushing clear!"
She didn't have to specify which them. The Gravity Scorned was a couple hundred kilometers away from the planetoid, and if they both ran simultaneously they might be able to pull their pursuers in opposite directions.
It was the best chance they had. Kroller pushed them away from the asteroid with directional jets, then fired main thrusters. The Gravity raced toward the edge of the asteroid field in a straight line. Acceleration pinned him to his seat as he said, "Reina, get us a beacon!"
"I'm on it."
"Vaatus—"
"I'm on it too."
Kroller nudged the control stick as necessary to dodge asteroids but his eyes were mostly on his scanner. The Imperial ships saw two different prey taking off and, bless them, hesitated for a few crucial seconds. Then the harpice veered to pursue the strangers' ship while battlebirds veered after the Gravity.
That would be enough, he prayed. He wove around a few more rocks but kept his burners on hot to keep out of missile range, though the battlebirds were closing fast. Then, to his shock, he saw that the Hand of Light was following their outbound vector. So much for splitting the pursuit in two. But that foreign ship was fast, it was powerful, and Kroller watched in awe as its guns pounded the harpice, punched past its kiirium armor, and slowed the big ship down. At the same time one battlebird peeled off pursuit of the Gravity and raced to intercept the Hand.
That one promptly vanished from Kroller's screen. Maybe these people were worth having as friends after all.
He was almost clear of the asteroid field now. He called, "Reina?"
"I've got a beacon," she said. "How does Argoon sound?"
"Sounds good enough."
He began warming the hyperdrive. Through the porthole he could see the mammoth form of the Cadinthian dreadnought moving to intercept, but it was too far to stop him now. Nor could it stop the Hand of Light; that ship was catching up fast.
"Right, we're heading out," he heard Reina say into her headset. "Setting course for Argoon. Can you get out? Good. See you on the other side."
So he still wasn't done with those people. Kroller wasn't sure if that was good or not anymore.
Finally they breached the edge of the asteroid belt. All he saw ahead of him was black space, speckled stars, and the ominous warship that wouldn't catch them in time.
Then an alarm wailed and Vaatus reported, "Missile's inbound."
"Not for long," Kroller said with satisfaction, then pulled the throttle and flung them into the safety of lightspeed.
-{}-
They winked off the screen in quick succession: the Tionese freighter first, then its alien partner. Standing beside Jaminere, Captain Sovane sucked in breath like he was bracing for punishment.
But Jaminere merely stepped back from the table, stretched his sore shoulders, and said, "Get me a link to the ground team, please. My headset."
"Yes sir," Sovane said with a shaky nod.
Jaminere adjusted his earpiece and nudged the microphone in front of his lips. The comm line clicked open and he heard the familiar voice of Colonel Belmenos. For a mission as important as this, Jaminere had sent a man who'd been with him since the beginning.
"This is Redfist One," Belmenos said.
"Redfist One, this is the Ascendant. Sitrep?"
"We have secured the crashed ship, sir. We've got sixteen wounded plus eleven dead."
"They put up quite a fight."
"Yes, but we overtook them. We're still scouring the decks but we've gathered forty-three live captives so far. We're still counting dead bodies. Some seem to be by their own hand."
Interesting, Jaminere thought, but not relevant right now. "Are the captives all alien?"
"Yes, sir." A tiny pause. "Physical parameters match the description the Tyrants."
Live Tyrants, after all this time. He'd dared hope but he'd not been able to believe it. He still couldn't; he'd only accept it when he saw the captive monsters with his own eyes. Xim would be ecstatic.
"Correction," Belmenos added. "We've taken one other captive. Humanoid female, red skin. We can't identify the species."
Another puzzle-piece that needed fitting. "Bring her along with the rest. Are your hemioliae able to make the return trip?"
"Yes, sir, though we lost one going after the smaller alien ship."
"I saw that. Its crew?"
"We lost the entire team, sir, but I believe they were able to fulfill their secondary objective before they were wiped out."
"You believe?"
"It may take time to find the signal, sir."
"I understand. We'll turn an ear for it. In the meantime, get those captives up to the Ascendant. I'll send in a salvage team for the alien ship."
"Understood. Is that all?"
"Yes. Tell your men they did good work today."
"They'll appreciate that, sir. Redfist One, out."
The line closed. Jaminere leaned forward, fists on the tabletop, and stared at the screen. One hemioliae lost, two battlebirds destroyed, the Alacrity injured, plus the lives lost on the ground team. All in all, a very small price for what they'd gained and they might gain more yet.
"Contact the Harridan and coordinate a salvage mission," he told Sovane. "I want Alacrity and that alien ship retrieved from the belt. Also ready a berth for the away team. Send fire teams to guard the ship once it lands."
"Of course, sir."
"And prepare a courier drone," he added with a tiny smile. "I have a very important message to send."