Chapter 20: Shadows on Malachor
Sleeping wasn't exactly easy for the siblings. In order to do that, they had to take a moment and meditate right after their respective partners had finally gone asleep beside them.
Being Legionnaires, and not being particularly tired, they only needed 5 hours before waking up again. As they left their beds and dressed almost in unison, Ezra and Jaral met finally in the middle of the base and greeted each other while waiting for Ahsoka and Kanan to show up again.
"How you coping, sis?" Ezra asked.
Jaral sighed. "I must say, I can't help but agree with Darvos. I've been told to be a Jedi just a week ago. I don't even have my own lightsaber yet, and I'm asked to go looking for ancient knowledge about the Sith with the Inquisitor probably on our tail."
"I know." said Ezra and put a hand on her shoulder. "But you're probably the smartest among us, so if there's a mystery to solve, you're perfect. And don't worry, I won't let anything happen to you." he reassured her.
"I know you won't, Ez. Thank you." she said mustering a half-smile.
"How about we meditate a little until the others arrive?" the boy proposed, and the sister nodded.
Ezra knelt down while Jaral sat cross-legged. They both breathed at their own pace as their minds slowly sank into the currents of the Force.
Their thoughts unconsciously drifted into their memories. Especially the ones of this last year. Both of them had found love, their original family had come back together against all odds, they had finally saw the establishment of a new base, a place they could somehow call home.
They had experienced loss as well. Some comrades in the fleet had died in front of them, but such was the cost of war.
"What if it happens to someone closer to me, next time?" a single thought made its way into Ezra's mind.
He shook his head, trying to regain focus. That was not gonna happen! He would make sure of it.
Jaral, on the other hand, was busy looking into the Force in search of answers. Why her potential with the Force had arisen only now, of all times? The Force must have had something in store for her. But what could it be? Protect her brother? Finding the answer about how to destroy the Sith? Was her role in the grand scheme of things supposed to be a minor one or a major one?
Thousands of scenarios ran across her mind but they only managed to confuse her more and more, to the point that she decided to drop the subject in her mind. It was definitely too early for her to understand what the Force wanted from her. He remembered the vow she made in the Temple: whatever happens, she would only listen to the Light, and abide by the will of the Force.
Their meditation was interrupted after a few minutes when Ahsoka showed up. She herself was meditating in a more isolated place. Kanan reached them not long after.
"All set?" the male Jedi asked, gaining an affirmative nod from the others.
"Let's go." Ezra exhorted. "It's a long way to Malachor, from what you told us."
Kanan nodded. Supposedly, it would take them two rotations to get from Atollon to the coordinates of Malachor, so the sooner they left, the better.
Just as the camp was starting to wake up, the Force-sensitives boarded the Phantom and departed with Chopper on board.
The trip luckily went smoothly. Following the major hyperspace lanes of the Outer Rim, making a stop on the planet Quermia, in the Nilgaard sector, where they were still very much unknown, the group bought some more food and refueled the ship.
For the moment, the siblings retained from asking about Malachor, since the older Force-sensitives seemed unwilling to talk about it, deciding they would wait by meditating, talking with Sabine and Darvos a couple times before they had to go radio silence on Malachor, playing some of the holo-games on their omni-tools or just chatting. Ezra in particular enjoyed poking his sister about her plans for the wedding ceremony that would be held, hopefully, in a few weeks.
They also used this time to explore a little the Codex that Jaral had been given about the Milky Way. Ezra still hadn't given an extensive look at it and this seemed the perfect way to spend time. Even Ahsoka and Kanan joined the study session for curiosity. They learned about the Imperial Federation and how it unified the home-planets of most of the species of the galaxy. They learned about some history, about the Reapers' War, about Empress Benedetta and her work to make her Empire a 'Federation of Equals', as her court was staffed with specialists and advisors of any species and her capital, Rome, had become pretty much the center of galactic power, science and culture.
Eventually, though, the time for carefreeness ended. As they were approaching Malachor, Jaral was at the commands, Kanan and Ezra standing right behind her seat while Ahsoka was talking with Rex via hologram at the end of the small fighter.
"Once we drop out of hyperspace, we'll be going dark." the Togruta updated the old clone.
"Are you sure about this?" Rex asked with his arms folded in the front.
"Yes."
"Ahsoka, you don't have to go to Malachor alone. I could be there in two rotations."
"I'm not alone, Rex." Ahsoka tried to comfort him.
"You know, I could've ordered you to bring me with you." Rex joked.
"You don't exactly outrank me anymore." Ahsoka replied in kind.
"In my book, experience outranks everything."
Ahsoka chuckled. "Then I definitely outrank you, now."
Rex shook his head with an amused grin, before turning serious again. "May the Force be with you."
Ahsoka made a serious nod with her head before closing the transmission. Then she headed to the front with the others.
"So, what does Rex knows about Malachor that you still don't want to tell us?" Jaral asked calmly while still keeping an eye on the instruments.
"Malachor has always been off-limits to Jedi." Kanan explained grimly.
"Why?" Ezra asked.
Kanan sighed. "Old legends. Stories told us as younglings in the Temple."
"There's always a bit of truth in legends." Ahsoka sentenced.
"If Malachor is off-limits why would Master Yoda send us there?" Ezra asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I don't know, but I trust Master Yoda." Kanan said. The beeping of the control panel interrupted him as he looked out of the viewport.
Five seconds later, Jaral brought the ship out of hyperspace and they came in front of Malachor. The planet looked more like a despoiled moon, a tomb world, even from the orbit.
"There is something for us here." Kanan finished the sentence he had left hanging.
"Yes," said Ezra. "something that will help us to stop the Inquisitors."
"Knowledge." Ahsoka concluded.
Silence fell as Jaral, aided by Jinx and Chopper, led the Phantom toward a point on the surface where the two machines had intercepted the thermal trace of a small ship.
As they came out of the dusty shroud of clouds, Ezra spotted something strange among the dead surface. A giant crater with a plain black surface and some strange pillars forming a circle in its center.
"What is that?" the boy asked.
"I don't know." Jaral answered. "But the ship we're tracking seems to be there."
"Then take us down." said Kanan. "Let's see who else is interested in this place."
The girl complied and delicately touched down near the strange monument. They landed on the strip of the planet which was witnessing a sunset, although it appears that the planetary rotation was slower than most of the civilized planets, going over 40 hours.
The group of four left from the door of the Phantom while Chopper remained in the socket. They scouted around, but saw no ship.
"Weird." Jaral said, inspecting her omni-tool. "The signal is coming definitely from this crater."
"Chopper, get a fix on its location. Must be around somewhere." Kanan said and Chopper agreed.
The organics then moved toward the nearest of the pillar. Ezra noticed that they resembled giant teeth, but they were polished statues made with some pitch black volcanic glass, similar to the floor they were stepping on. Was this an old volcano?
When they arrived in front of the monument, they saw inscriptions on it.
"What are these things?" Jaral asked.
"It's in the old tongue." Ahsoka exclaimed with a bit of curiosity and inspected up close the writing.
"Can you read it?" Kanan asked.
Ahsoka mumbled. "I can try. It's an old form, I can only make out a few words."
As the Togruta started to mumble in the ancient tongue, watched curiously by Jaral and Kanan, Ezra felt a whisper coming from the strange obelisk. It wasn't like the usual humming. This felt more quiet, but also strangely...appealing.
Without realizing it, Ezra raised a hand and went to touch the column.
"Ezra, no, wait!" Ahsoka screamed, but it was already too late.
Ezra posed his gloved hand on the black rock and his hand left a red print. From this red print came out a red line that went to the floor which started to rapidly crack.
The Force-sensitives had barely the time to gasp in surprise as the floor cracked open, sending them all to fall down for a dozen meters.
Ezra and Jaral instinctively activated their armors to absorb the impact while Ahsoka and Kanan managed to slow down with the Force.
"Everybody ok?" Jaral asked, getting back on her feet almost immediately.
Everybody else groaned in positive so she simply helped Ezra on his feet and then they reached Kanan and Ahsoka who were staring apprehensively in the other direction. In front of the group stood a pyramidal structure with a red tip, the floor of volcanic stone turned out to be the cap that was hiding an ancient structure and what seemed to be like the ruins of a city. Only a few spots on the surface allowed the sunlight to get partially inside this sort of cave.
"What is that?" Ezra asked.
"A Sith temple." Ahsoka simply answered. The siblings gulped down before falling in line.
In order, Ahsoka, Kanan, Ezra and Jaral formed a line and marched down the hill they were and into the ruins of the old settlement. Only now they noticed that the field was littered with humanoid statues covered in cinder-like material and poised in various positions. It didn't take long for the siblings to realize that those were actually corpses.
"This was a battlefield, wasn't it?" Jaral asked.
"So it seems." Kanan commented.
Then, Ezra and Jaral's omni-tools started to bleep. Chopper had traced the ship they were looking for and sent the data to Jinx, who sent the coordinates to the siblings' helmets.
"The ship is right that way. Let's move." Ezra exhorted, indicating a point near the temple.
Then he stumbled on something that made a metallic clank and he looked down, noticing that it was the hilt of a lightsaber. Intrigued, the boy grabbed it from the floor and ignited it. It was a green blade with two minor spikes at the hilt, which gave it the form of a cross. The saber quickly fizzled out as it was tarnished by probably millennia of neglect. Ezra dropped it down again.
"Seems like it wasn't a simple battlefield." Jaral commented. "Here a massive battle between Jedi and Sith took place. So what happened that convinced the Jedi to erase any trace about Malachor's existence?"
"Something terrible." Ahsoka said grimly. "Something that the Jedi believed it was better if it was forgotten by everybody."
"How lovely." Ezra commented sarcastically as the group resumed the march.
Now the boy removed his armor's plates and left only the nano-suit, while Jaral kept her own fully raised.
"Ahsoka," Ezra called out. "you said we're for knowledge. What kind of knowledge?"
"The forbidden kind." Ahsoka replied. "To defeat an enemy you have to understand them."
"Then I guess we're in the right place." Jaral added in a calm tone. "That temple seems likely to hold many useful knowledge about the Sith."
"Likely." Kanan said. "But remember, if there's a ship down here, we're not alone."
"Wait!" Jaral whispered suddenly, taking out one of her batons and her E-11. "I detect some movement." she announced.
The others stood on guard, but not a moment later the sound of a crimson lightsaber igniting filled the air and a whirlwind of red came down at high speed on Jaral.
The girl ignited her baton and Ezra his lightsaber. They both intercepted the double-bladed lightsaber, forcing its wielder to jump back. It was a slender figure with four fingers per hand, the face was completely hidden by his helmet and he wore the uniform of the Inquisitorius.
Ahsoka and Kanan ignited their blades as well.
"Three Jedi?" the Inquisitor said with a cawing voice, and immediately started running.
Jaral shot him some bolts, but the Inquisitor dodged them nimbly as he kept running.
"After him!" Ezra exhorted and everybody started running.
The group followed the Inquisitor through the ruins. Jaral stayed in the back, adhering to her support role for this mission, while the three Jedi stayed at the front.
Ezra, being faster with his nano-suit on, was about to reach him, but the Inquisitor launched three micro- grenades behind him and by the time Ezra noticed them it was too late. The grenades exploded, making a large portion of the floor collapse. Ezra wasn't in the blast radius, but yelped in surprise and terror as gravity dragged him below.
"Ezra!" Jaral and Kanan yelled in unison.
Luckily, Ezra answered. "I'm ok!"
There was not time to rescue him, however, as the Inquisitor was running again and Ahsoka was after him. Kanan did the same while Jaral peeked down the hole. Ezra had fallen only a few meters, but even with one of Force-enhanced jumps he couldn't make out of there.
"Go with them!" he ordered. "I'll catch up."
Jaral couldn't help but agree. After all, her brother was unharmed and she trusted him to keep his word, so she ran after the other Force-wielders.
"Sure, I'll catch up…" Ezra mumbled to himself as he realized he had no idea where he was.
"Jinx, status report." he said, but no answer came. "Jinx." he said again. He checked his omni-tool and noticed that Jinx was in a forced stand-by. What could be causing that, Ezra had no idea, but that meant he was alone, for now.
"Great. Where am I?" he commented.
"I know where you are." a tired voice said, startling the boy. "You're with me."
Ezra turned around, but in the dark he could only barely recognize a hooded figure sustaining itself with a cane. The boy ignited his lightsaber and pointed it toward the mysterious person.
"Please, put away that weapon," the man pleaded. "I, I mean you no harm."
"Stay back." Ezra intimated. "Who are you?"
"Forgive me, it…" the man stuttered. "It's just, I've been alone for so long. It's been years since I've spoken to anyone."
"Yeah, right." Ezra said sarcastically. "And how the hell did you survive for years here? There is no food or water, and I don't see a ship nearby."
"Ah...I meant...I've lost sense of time. My ship crashed. I'm trapped, marooned. I've had to scrounge and scrape to survive."
Ezra wrinkled his nose. "Well, I've to get back to my friends. If you help me, we might just give you a passage off-world. Do you know how to get back up there?" he said pointing the saber at the hole in the roof.
"Oh...yes. I might have a way to help you. But tell me, why are you here?"
"I'm afraid I cannot share that information."
"You are here for my same reason, aren't you? To seek knowledge."
Ezra was taken aback but tried to stay focused. "It's in the temple, isn't it?"
"And I know the secret way to get inside but, but I'm too old. I...I...I need help to open the door."
Ezra got near the man, who was curved on his cane.
"All right. Show me this doorway." he said with authority.
"Please, this way." the hooded figure said pointing an arm.
"You first." Ezra said suspiciously.
"You don't trust me."
"Well, I don't know you."
"Then let's change it then. Call me..."Old Master."
The man was nearer to the light of Ezra's saber and the boy could distinguish the colors of the skin of his interlocutor. It was a mixture of red and black, but it was difficult to say if it was all paint, or only one of the colors was. But what caught Ezra's attention were his irises, which seemed to have the shape of a sun and were yellow with a red border.
"You call me 'Jabba'" Ezra returned.
The man huffed in amusement. "This way, then. 'Jabba'".
Not seeing any other opportunity to get away, Ezra decided to follow, but first he used his bond to contact Jaral.
"How far is this place, anyway?" the boy asked.
"Are you worried about your friends?" the 'Master' asked.
"They need my help." Ezra simply replied.
"Yes...*sigh*...and with good reason. The Inquisitor is powerful."
Ezra stopped in his tracks. "Wait, you know about the Inquisitor?"
The old man stopped and turned to face the boy. "He's my enemy."
"Were you a Jedi?"
The man hesitated. "Uh, not exactly...but I was a Force-wielder. Long ago…"
"So you were a Sith!" Ezra pointed the tip of the saber again at the man's face.
"The Sith…" the man chuckled eerily. "The Sith took everything from me!" he said with a bit more of force in his voice, but still it seemed like a whisper. "Ripped me from my mother's arms, murdered my brother, used me as a weapon, and then cast aside."
Ezra could feel that he was telling the truth and couldn't help but feel sorry for that old man. Ezra had been lucky and his family was still there, but he remembered the pain when he thought he had lost his parents forever. Meanwhile, the old Sith was going on with his rant about being abandoned by the Sith and that they took his power from him.
"I know how you feel." Ezra said. "The Empire took my home. It even took my parents, but in the end I found them again. I remember the feel of loss, though."
The 'Old Master' seemed now very interested. "Do you...want revenge?"
"I want justice." Ezra said defensively. "And I want to destroy the Empire, so no one else has to suffer what I suffered."
"Yes, yes, and you shall have it. For I have discovered the key. The key to destroying the Sith."
The two Jedi and the Padawan in armor were still chasing the Inquisitor. For that purpose, Jaral seemed to be the perfect hound, because she was way faster than all the others. Since she wasn't supposed to engage him directly, she opted to just anticipate his movements and block any shortcut that he might use to get back to his TIE fighter, that Jinx and Chopper had by now pinpointed exactly.
Kanan had already ordered Chopper to fly and reach the TIE before the Inquisitor.
The girl simply forced the Inquisitor to take the long road. As the dark-sider was not that faster than Kanan and Ahsoka, all she had to do was to be upon him whenever he tried to take a shortcut and forcing him to stop and fight, which would give the two Jedi the time to catch him, or find another way, which he regularly did.
This allowed Chopper to complete his task of reaching the TIE and hijacking it. He even used the fighter's cannons to knock the Inquisitor out, allowing Ahsoka and Kanan to capture him. The dark-sider had no choice but to let the Jedi handcuff him and make him kneel in front of his TIE.
During the chase, Jaral felt a signal coming from Ezra's bond. Something about meeting someone in the underground level he fell in and now they were both looking for an exit.
As he released the last door to access the chamber, Ezra collapsed on his knees, together with the 'Old Master'. He had just had to use his anger and appeal to the Dark Side to lift those heavy doors and it wasn't something he was used to do. The experience was particularly draining. He had to take off his armor now, as even that was started to feel like a useless weight.
"If you don't do what must be done," the hooded man said to him. "there will always be limits to your abilities. Seize the power. Seize the knowledge. Don't become like me, Jabba."
The two raised on their feet.
"My name is Ezra." the boy said. "My real name." somehow, he felt like he could trust that guy.
"Real name? Yes...I once had a real name. So long ago, I can't remember." the man finally took off his hood, revealing a Zabrak with red skin painted with various black symbols. "Now, I'm just called...Maul."
Ezra found the tone in Maul voice definitely not creepy, but right now, the Zabrak was his only ticket to get out of the chamber again. So the boy followed the old man down the stairs in front of them and they arrived inside a big room. A large and deep pit separated them from the other side of the cave, where there was a triangular pedestal onto a rocky pillar.
"There it is." Maul said. "The key to destroy the Sith."
Ezra peeked better, and noticed something familiar.
"It's a holocron!" he exclaimed. This one, though, was pyramidal, not cubic.
"You...know about them?" Maul was genuinely surprised.
"Yeah, my Master has one too. But this is one is different."
"Because it is a Sith holocron. One that contains all of their secrets."
Ezra's eyes widened. There it was! The key to destroy the Sith. The very reason he and the rest of his companions out there had undertaken this quest. How to reach it though?
The three Jedi gathered around the knelt Inquisitor.
"You're the fourth Inquisitor we run into." Kanan said. "How many of you there are?"
"More than enough for the three of you." the Inquisitor replied mischievously.
"What are you doing here?" Jaral asked.
"Hunting."
"Who are you hunting?" the girl asked urgently as a suspect grew in her mind.
"A shadow." the Inquisitor cryptically replied.
Jaral took Kanan aside and whispered.
"It's not good. I'm afraid they're after the guy Ezra just met in the under-level."
"What?" Kanan almost yelled.
However they were interrupted by a small quake that rocket the soil. They all looked toward the temple, which started to light up, a crimson light bathing the various engravings on its walls.
Jaral was the first to distract her gaze, only to notice that the Inquisitor, exploiting the Jedi's distraction, had clicked a button on his left wrist.
The girl lifted him up violently and grabbed his cuffed hands.
"What did you do?!" she intimated.
The Inquisitor only replied with a sinister laugh.
Ahsoka and Kanan noticed what was going on.
"We need to find Ezra." Ahsoka urged.
"Chopper, get back to the Phantom and be ready to leave." Kanan ordered. Chopper beeped affirmatively.
They all started running toward the entrance of the temple while Jaral pushed the dark-sider to run.
The girl was particularly on edge because she could feel cold and worry coming from the other side of the bond. But now the signal was strong enough for her to understand where to go.
"Follow me." she said to the other two Jedi.
Eventually, she led them in front of what seemed a secret chamber detached from the temple. The stone doors seemed particularly heavy and imbued with the dark side.
"He's in here. Along with whoever he found."
"There's no way Ezra could have lifted this doors alone." Ahsoka stated. "Who did he find?"
The Inquisitor cackled, earning a scowl from Ahsoka and Kanan. Jaral, on the other hand, looked in the direction they just came from, still holding the Inquisitor's arm and noticed two old acquaintances.
"We got company!" she said.
The other Jedi turned around and noticed the familiar black-suited figures of the Fifth Brother and the Seventh Sister, lightsabers already ignited.
Ahsoka and Kanan ignited their lightsabers while Jaral stood behind to keep the captured Inquisitor in her grip, even forcing him to kneel again so he was in an uncomfortable position to try any attempt of escaping.
As the Jedi and the Inquisitor clashed too near to her, Jaral took one of her batons and ignited it. In doing this, however, she didn't consider how reckless the prisoner in her hands was. The Inquisitor quickly realized that the plasma on that baton could quickly break his cuffs, so while Jaral was keeping her eyes on the battle, making sure that none of the Inquisitors got past her allies, the one beside her just pressed forward and with remarkable precision, managed to put the small chain on the plasma, even though the slightest margin of error would have ended up with him losing some fingers, or even an entire hand.
The girl was caught completely by surprise and stumbled back, giving an opportunity to the Inquisitor to push her away with the Force with a hand, while using the others to recall his own lightsaber from Kanan's belt. Luckily for her, the Inquisitor deemed safer to jump away and rejoin his 'siblings', especially when the door of the chamber suddenly started opening.
From the door emerged Ezra, who immediately ignited his lightsaber once he saw the Inquisitors.
"Ezra!" Jaral exclaimed.
"Hey, sis." the boy gave her a quick smile. "Kanan, Ahsoka, I've brought some help." he added.
Then Maul walked out from the chamber, to the dismay of Kanan and Ahsoka.
"What fun!" Maul said before laughing.