Lilija lay, unconscious, on a steel bed, metal restraints on her wrists, ankles, and forehead. She wore an operating gown. Two beings, so mechanical now that it was difficult to tell what race they might originally have been, stood on each side of the bed. They held vibro-scalpels in their hands, ready to cut. Dotted lines ran along Lilija's lightning-scarred neck. Golden threads ran along her face, down her neck, along her arms, and to her feet. A bright overhead light illuminated her, leaving the rest of the room in shadow. A small black box sat at the head of the table, open.
Ursbrung stood at the head of the table. He put his hands into the light on either side of her head.
Lilija, eyes still closed, murmured, "No. Leannon." She groaned.
Pausing, Ursbung gazed down at the woman. The two cyborgs gave each other surprised looks. She should be fully sedated and unable to move or speak.
"We begin." Ursbrung placed his hands on Lilija's temples. The golden chords lining Lilija's limbs began to writhe like eels in boiling water. Lilija's mouth twitched. Ursbrung began to chant in ur-Kittât, the ancient language of the Sith, his voice swelling and cresting. The thin golden threads splayed out from Lilija's body like long spider legs, reaching and scrabbling. The two cyborgs retreated from the table in alarm.
The clawing gold threads arched up and over Ursbrung, his voice growing in strength until he yelled at the top of his lungs. The cords tried to wrap around him, even moving gently about his face, almost caressing his skin, but Ursbrung continued to chant. The cords shivered and tightened, but they couldn't quite reach Ursbrung. Ursbrung flexed and pressed on Lilija's head. She screamed, long and loud. The cords began to writhe randomly, lashing out like animate whips, causing the cyborgs to flee to the corners of the room.
Ursbrung still chanted, but now his voice softened and almost became a song. He slowly pulled his arms back from Lilija's head. As he did, some of the golden threads slid into the space between his palms. The rest of the cords struggled and fought, lashing onto the table, onto Lilija, swinging around Ursbrung but still not touching him. The black box, covered in runes, remained unmolested.
The Sith Lord brought his hands over the box and fell silent. He grit his teeth and pushed. The cords whipped through the air so quickly they made a noise, like a whine, but Ursbrung forced some of the writhing mass into the box.
Ursbrung roared so that the room shook. Lilija stopped screaming and her face relaxed.
The veins on his human temple began to stand out. He continued to use the Force to push the struggling golden cords into the box. The last of the cords slipped inside and Ursbrung slammed the box shut. Keeping his hands tight on top of the box, he looked at Lilija. Her chest did not rise and fall. "Now!"
The two robotic beings rushed towards the table. One began to cut on her throat, the other attached a multitude of machines and cables to her arms, head, and chest. Ursbrung reached out and put his palm on her chest. With a shock of lightning from his hand, he restarted her heart.
Lilija woke in a bed under a thick, warm blanket tucked up around her chin. She blinked as a faint light illuminated steel, curved walls. She breathed. One deep breath. Then another. Tears came to her eyes. It was easy. Her hands lay at her sides. She moved her hands up over her body under the blanket to her throat. She felt smooth metal under her fingertips.
She was hungry. But it wasn't the soul-cannibal hunger that haunted her. She wanted fruit. She moved her hands to her face, her fingernails scratching gently over her cheeks and temples. Gone.
She started upwards, sitting straight up in the bed. The dim light came from Ursbrung's robotic white eye. She could see his silhouette in a meditative pose, his hands on his knees. As she looked at him, he opened his human eye, yellow-orange in the dark.
"Do you feel it? The potential? The chaos of an unknown future? Empty. Formless. Nothing binds. Nothing supports. You are born anew into terror and wonder."
Lilija shivered. The moment felt both terrifyingly real and unutterably fantastic. Free like she was floating alone in space. Ursbrung slowly stood. In the absolute quiet she could hear her own breath. It sounded... normal. "Can you stand?"
She pulled the blanket off her legs and slid off the mattress onto the metal floor with bare feet. The air felt cold on her skin. Her tongue flicked out between her lips. The Dark Side had both sharpened and deadened her senses. She could hear her enemies, but not taste food; see through shadows, but her heart had died within her. She brought a finger to her mouth and put it to her tongue. The slightly salty taste of her own skin. Alive. She could feel her own heartbeat on her tongue. Alive again.
"See the world with fresh eyes. Can you remember a holy place?"
Lilija closed her eyes. She saw snow falling on the bare heads of two young girls. She felt strong, warm arms wrapped around her shoulders and chest, her back pressed against him. Little voices laughing. She hadn't been able to remember.
"Thank you." Her jaw trembled. It was a whisper, but it was her voice, no longer a grating gasp. "Thank you."
"We hurt each other, old friend. But we can heal."
She opened her eyes. In the dark, a monster stood before her. One perfectly round, white eye, one a hellish orange, set in a handsome but marred face. A tear ran down her cheek. Fear came over her, and also sorrow. "I am sorry, Ursbrung. It was Vargas, it was never you."
"The past is dead for you now, Lilija. It is dead for me. Yet, we are needed."
Nodding, Lilija stepped forward. Her legs felt weak. "What must I do." Her body was thin and wasted. The Dark Side no longer coursed through her. The Crown had sucked at her body and soul, but she felt her spirit growing inside her. An old strength that she had forgotten.
Ursbrung joined her in the center of the room. "Never let your emotions possess you again." He took her hands. "Remember your rebirth. Remember your holy place."
Lilija looked down at their intertwined hands. She felt so tired.
"You need rest. We go to rescue your daughters. And the galaxy."
Grunting, Djurisk rose, lifting a burning tree trunk on his shoulders. It fell to the ground with a heavy thud. Pandemonium surrounded him. His troops were running around like frightened womp rats.
He roared and his voice filled the space between the shattered trees. "Silence!"
All the enforcers stopped and stood still. "Assemble!" Soldiers, some of them barely able to walk, hustled into two lines in front of Djurisk. A few voices whimpered from under logs and branches, but none dared cry out.
Djurisk counted his men. Only thirteen left standing. He made them stand at attention for an extra moment. "Tend to the wounded." The soldiers scattered, but with purpose. Standing taller than any of his men and looking more like a hulking droid than an Advozse. He surveyed the scene. Something had exploded, flattening the trees away from a central point.
The girl. Ahlea. Djurisk didn't have lungs anymore, but a sensor read the input from his brain and a speaker made a low growling noise. Then he laughed. A few soldiers turned to look at him, but with no new orders forthcoming, they went back to their work.
It had almost been too easy. All he'd needed was a bit of distraction and an electro-net. Then the girl went off like a bomb. Impressive. He'd killed Jedi before. And Sith. He'd had their lightsabers mounted to his new armor.
Before Ahlea, he'd been getting bored. Sure, the Jedi were annoying, but predictable. Then the girl. Just a child, but she'd stopped him. His troops had seen it.
He looked down at his new body with electronic blue eyes. He'd killed two dozen Mandalorians for the beskar. Forced the top body shops on Nar Shaddaa to give him their best. He wasn't going to get knocked down in front of his men again. He would be unstoppable. Then she knocked him down with a tree and hit him with a bolt of lightning. Not that weak stuff that the Sith shot from their hands. A true bolt from the sky. It had somehow streaked past the trees and hit him on the head. His systems could handle all but the worst Sith lightning, but not what that girl did. Part of him wanted to rage. Throw a boulder-sized hunk of tree into the sky and scream. His vocalizer made a hissing noise. That wouldn't do anything for his troops. Or him.
So he looked around at the destruction, seeing a strange beauty in the concentric rings of shattered trees. If he still had a jaw, he'd have smiled. He'd knock this girl down. He knew it. She was special. He knew that, too. A rare kill. He flexed his beskar hands, grinding metal fingertips against metal palm. He felt something that he hadn't felt for a long time. Real excitement. Adrenaline no longer pumped through his veins, but he could still feel it in his mind.
He began to stomp around, lifting trees off his troops. He'd trained them and paid them. They were good fighters. Then he saw a droid with a Twi'lek head sticking out from under a tree. She'd come to protect the girl. He'd killed her after a struggle. She was strong, but he was stronger and faster, and a lightsaber to the neck would end anyone. Djurisk chuckled. Well, anyone but him.
His troops all carried trackers in their armor. So he helped find and rescue all the living and dead. Eight gone. He could replace them, but he laid their deaths at Ahlea's feet. They had run, as they should. He would find them. This planet wasn't big enough to hide and the Hutts controlled the spaceports. Speaking of the Hutts, he should speak to the Hutt. He raised his left arm in front of him and, with a thought, started a holo-call. After a moment, a human answered the call, her bespectacled face looking weary even in the buzzing light of the holocall.
"Yes? What do you want?"
Djurisk snapped, "Give me Torpig."
"He's indisposed." The woman looked down and began typing something.
Djurisk growled. "Just because the Hutt hired me doesn't mean I can't kill and replace you."
The woman blinked and pushed her spectacles higher up her nose. "He's sleeping. If I wake him, he'll kill me." Her bored monotone made it sound like death wasn't such a bad thing. "What do you want to report? I'll make sure Torpig the Hutt hears it."
"Hmph. I am hunting two jedi. They are clearly here to challenge his authority. Take his wealth. Also, there is a full grown white beast here. The kind he likes. I will hunt them for him. I will require more money."
"Of course. How much more?"
"Five thousand."
"I'll let him know and send you a wave once he responds. It may be some time."
Djurisk ended the call. He casually bent down and picked up a piece of tree trunk as wide as a man was tall. With an electronic grunt he threw it at a distant tree. It hit with a satisfying crack and thud.
"Boss," one Djurisk's soldiers called, "we got a live one."
The big cyborg loped over to the soldier and saw a young woman laying on the ground. A section of tree trunk lay across her hips and one of her arms, but she remained conscious. Djurisk recognized the woman. She'd shot her, yes, there was the blaster wound in her chest. The woman struggled to breath and muttered to herself deliriously. With a practiced eye, Djurisk guessed that she'd collapsed one of the woman's lungs and that the second lung probably wasn't far behind. She'd die soon.
The young woman's eyes were wide and unseeing. Her mouth moved, but barely any sound came out. Djurisk knelt down beside her and put his ear to the injured hunter's mouth.
"Have to save the Queen… save her… the kuninkaan chose her… save her… can't die, can't die," she groaned and continued to rave.
Djurisk whispered, "I'll save your queen. Who is she?"
"Ahlea," the woman gurgled, "Ahlea. The kuninkaan chose her. She'll free us. Free us."
Djurisk paused. "The kuninkaan choose Aylayl's rulers?"
The woman nodded faintly, swallowing, struggling to breath.
Standing up, Djurisk said, "Leave her." He looked down at Strathi, his robotic blue eyes glowing. "Royalty. Hmm."
Ursbrung surveyed Aylayl from space. Lilija lay sleeping in Devon's bed. He would rest later. He felt destiny brood over him… over Aylayl. Something was about to be spawned in the misty forests of this boondock planet. Something that would change the galaxy.
He'd been listening to everything his scanners could pick up. A battle had just occurred. Small, but easily registered. Then a highly encrypted call, short, had come though. He tasked his ship's computer to decode it.
Then he leaned forward, staring at the planet. This was no coincidence. The Force brought the two Kenna girls here and him in their wake. He'd had his own plans and goals. Suddenly, the meaning of the friendships, betrayals, and pain of his adult life seemed to turn at once like a hall of mirrors. All he could see was Aylayl. He slowly opened his right hand and gently closed it, as if grasping for a shining jewel.
He rose and walked silently back to Devon's room. He knocked on the door and said, "We have arrived." Lilija stirred, pulling a blanket off her.
Zed's circuits were buzzing. Despite his many protests and complaints about Kura, she was still his patient. He carried her dead body inside. It tore at his programming to not be able to do anything for her. He was not a morgue droid. He was a doctor.
Finally, all of Djurisk's soldiers left. The droid pulled himself up and then his body opened like a steel flower. Kura's limp body fell out. Zed sighed as he closed himself back up. He still hadn't run all the necessary algorithms to operate properly. Perhaps if he had, he'd have moved fast enough to save Kura.
Nevertheless, he could not leave his former patient like this. Protocol called for a burial. Zed removed heavy chunks of splintered trees to clear a small patch of earth. He then dug a shallow grave and buried Kura. With a thick metal fingertip, he carefully wrote Kura's name into a long piece of wood and pressed it, standing tall, into the ground. Now headless, Zed tried to wipe the dirt from his hands.
Zed's sensors picked up a groan, inaudible to the human ear. He immediately moved towards the sound. Perhaps a sentient needed a skilled doctor. Indeed! He found Strathi, eyes closed, breathing shallow. The droid, now far bigger and stronger than he was used to, carefully removed the fallen tree trunk from on top of her. He had some medical supplies. Eric was quite thorough. They would have been no use for Kura, but perhaps he could save this human. He administered a medpack and, in his opinion, clumsily checked her vital signs. This new body was not up to his standards.
A twig snapped behind him. Zed did not stop treating Strathi as seven robed, masked and hooded beings approached. They each wore a mask in the shape of a different animal. Snouts, teeth, ears, and wide eyes. One mask was white with large golden irises.
"If you need medical attention, good sirs, please wait a moment. This one is in dire need of my services."
The one wearing the kuninkaan mask said, "Tell us. What happened here?"