The Yevethans were dead.
They had fought like men, or aliens in this case, possessed, with the suicidal boldness and strength that only the knowledge that they were already dead could provide. They threw themselves at the column I led into their hastily formed defensive lines and barriers, while their engineers frantically fought with the mainframes that would unlock the turbolaser batteries in the section of the super star destroyer the aliens had chosen to make their stand in.
It had been a nasty fight, up close and personal for nearly the entire time. I'd kicked and punched just as many Yevethans to death using Teras Kasi as I'd cut to pieces with my lightsaber or dashed against bulkheads with the Force.
Commander Atten had doggedly stuck to my side the entire time, making kills with his vibroknife in one hand and E-11 blaster rifle in the other as he followed in my wake.
It was valiant, it was even heroic if one wanted to look at it that way and it was futile from the start.
As I said, the Yevethans were dead. And they stank.
I blinked from the smell, which I was sure would be even worse if I took off my helmet, and looked over the hallway where the final fight for control of the turbolaser battery had happened. The floor was covered with chopped Yevethans, so much so that I'd be walking on flesh instead of durasteel when I left this position. To my left was the control console the Yevethans had been frantically trying to get into before we stopped them and through the transparisteel window in front of me was a very nice view of Yevetha.
I smirked, the mud ball did look better with a few burning holes pounded into its surface. Victory Star Destroyers, model small from the distance, circled like carrion birds around a section of the planet that was home to the Imperial colony on N'Zoth. I could faintly make out a thin stream of landing craft heading down to the planet. At least my ground pounders would be able to stretch their legs.
The sounds of footsteps brought my attention back to the hallway, Commander Atten and a squad of troopers were double tapping the dead with vibroknives. I approved of the cost saving tactic. Tibanna gas was a vital resource after all.
I looked at the console the Yevethans had been tampering with and twitched a hand in its direction. The console snapped from its mooring and smashed itself against the bulkhead. Sparks crackled from the wires in the floor where the console had just been.
A weak groan of pain sounded from below. I looked down, a Yevethan was still alive it seemed. He, or she, clawed forward to grab onto my feet. He mumbled something in his own language at me.
Snap-hiss!
A red blade hovered over the alien's head.
"A good effort, Yevethan, a good effort." I told the alien before my blade swung down, separating the alien head from alien shoulders. I extended my senses, confirming that there were no more Yevethans still alive before holstering my lightsaber.
"Status report Commander?" I ask, looking over at the approaching stormtrooper squad.
Commander Atten takes a moment to salute me before answering, his E-11 blaster rifle clasped against his chest. "All clear in this battery my lord. I have two squads mopping up the adjoining corridors. The rest of the men are sweeping the dead for survivors."
We both understood that Imperial stormtrooper doctrine called explicitly for there to be no survivors unless ordered otherwise. So 'looking for survivors' was another imperial euphemism for taking no prisoners.
"Very good. Inform the squads to hand over disposal duties to the Intimidator's naval troopers once they arrive." I ordered. "Let the Navy's finest earn their pay for today. We are going to the surface."
"Yes my lord!" Brix Atten's voice was a tad more cheerful. Stormtroopers and the Imperial Navy troopers had a fierce rivalry. Atten was pleased to lord the Corps superiority over the naval troopers.
As we walked back to the magtrain station that would allow us to traverse the Intimidator's gargantuan interior, I called the command center.
"This is the Inquisitor." I said once the call connected. "Report on the status of the purge."
"M-my lord, the purge is nearing c-completion." The voice of the major I had first spoken to answered me. "Thirty-nine of all ships currently docked at the shipyard have reported that the alien contingents on their ships have been liquidated."
"And the other ships?"
"I understand that those ships are in the final stages of eliminating alien resistance."
"Hmm, that is satisfactory, for now." I told the major. "Do let my forces on the station know if any ships require reinforcements, they will be pleased to assist you. Notify me when the purge has been completed."
"Understood sir. Major Neff out." The call ended.
Hmm. I prodded the Force with a silent command for knowledge, but nothing came back to me. The threat on this shipyard had been eliminated. I'd let the shipyard reorient itself from the purge before I started distributing Yiaso's orders to them. I reminded myself to pull a manifest of the ships Black Fifteen had in its docks.
As we flew across the Intimidator on its internal magtrain system, I couldn't help the pang of envy I felt at having to hand this ship over to Yiaso. Surely I would put it to better use. I was here and he was so far away. I had earned this ship, Yiaso hadn't!
If he wanted a super star destroyer so much, then he should-!
The stone embedded in my arm sent a pulse of fire through my nerves, halting my train of thought as I useless tried to shield myself. But the pain was too great for my mental shields to isolate! I gripped my left hand tightly to stop its twisting from the fire running through my nerves. A few seconds later, the stone stopped its torturous magic and pain slowly faded from my nerves.
I was panting and… shivering. Shame rushed through me at the sign of weakness and I forced my limbs back into compliance. Damn my enemy! Damn him to all the hells!
But noncompliance had been driven from my mind. Ja'ce Yiaso had taken up the leash Palpatine had once held, and Yiaso had removed the slack of our former master. There was no choice but complete obedience to the Grand Inquisitor's wishes.
For now.
A short time later, I made planetfall on the surface of N'Zoth.
XXX
Air hissed through the shuttle as the boarding ramp lowered, the pressures of the shuttle and the planet meeting each other. I sniffed the new air, it smelt of mud with a faint trace of ionized tibanna gas. My helmet was clipped to my belt as I had decided it would be better to be seen without one on the planet. I'd look more of a victorious conqueror that way.
I walked out onto a landing pad, located on the outskirts of the imperial citadel that stood at the heart of our colony on N'Zoth. There was a great tramp of boots meeting durasteel as what looked like a whole battalion of army troopers came to attention. The battalion, in lock step, parted in the middle, presenting a path for me to go to the other end of the landing pad where I could see a huddle of officers. A patrol of TIE fighters screamed overhead, flying towards the countryside.
I strode down the space the battalion made for me, my stormtrooper escorts following in my wake, each army trooper saluting as I passed them. Halfway through the formation, a gust of wind blew across the landing pad, causing my cloak to swell around me and flutter in the wind. Black flags with the imperial cog on them that lined the landing pad snapped in the wind as well.
"My lord." The officers greeted me with sharp salutes. They were wearing combat attire, which for the Imperial Army meant bucket helmets and torso covering breastplates over their usual gray uniforms.
I nodded in response to their greeting, schooling my face into a look of indifference. It was nighttime in this part of the planet, but the western horizon was glowing with the last rays of dusk. The east, however, was lit by the burning of the planet itself as the molten earth and superheated gas from my fleet's planetary bombardment wrecked mass destruction on the geography. I reckoned that the scars from the bombardment would last for a century or two before the ecology reclaimed it.
It would give these aliens a lasting reminder of the cost of defiance.
"Has General Benzenti subdued the insurgents yet?" I asked, still looking at the eastern horizon. Squinting and calling on the Force, I could just make out the hazy outlines of AT-AT walkers trudging towards the burning wastes.
"The last pockets of resistance in the city are in the process of being eliminated, my lord. Our advance forces were able to relieve High Colonel Rikland forces. The General anticipates the colony will be under our full control come the morning." The leading officer of the huddle told me. I felt that this officer was rather well informed as to the General's thoughts about the state of the situation. Perhaps he was an aide in the command structure.
The same officer followed my gaze to the east. "The native insurgents still have units in the countryside that were not removed by the bombardment. The General has deployed flying columns and our armor regiments to hunt them down."
Yes, he was definitely an aide.
"I trust the General will be able to provide me with the rest of the relevant details." I turned my attention to the office. "Take me to him."
I was ushered into the citadel. Its hallways were not empty, but neither were they full. Every man I saw moving had a purposeful stride but I could sense the tension and nervousness they all had in the Force. Clearly the Yevethan revolt had been completely unforeseen by the security forces.
The command center of the citadel was nestled deep in the fortress and unlike every other place in the building, it was packed to the brim. A torrent of voices slapped me as I entered the command center. I studied the emotions of those in the room through the Force. No obvious panic was revealed to me. But the officers and aides were frazzled.
Except for the cluster of men huddled in front of the large holotable in the middle of the command center.
I opened my eyes. General Yondel Benzenti was conducting a continental war from the holotable, directing columns and airsupport that were represented by miniscule dots on the holoprojection. His subordinates quickly and concisely transmitted the orders as they were received while aides brought updates that were handed to them by members of the command center's staff.
The middle aged general, seemingly having felt my eyes on him, turned away from the holotable. His aides and underlings followed his gaze.
"My lord." The general greeted me with a salute. The command center echoing his words. I suppressed the urge to fiddle with my ear as the noise washed over me. Very good acoustics in the room.
"General Benzenti. What is the status of the fighting?" I asked, making my way to the holotable.
"Our forces have engaged numerous minor insurgent positions and holdouts that either survived the orbital bombardment or were too close to the colony to be engaged from orbit." The general stiffly reported, looking at an invisible object over my shoulder. "Colonial security forces, headed by the stormtrooper contingents from the 7,849th Legion. High Colonel Rikland has been directing them since we relieved the siege of the citadel some hours ago."
Benzenti gestured to a bald man in a light gray uniform, which was stained with sweat around the collar and armpits and dust on the legs and boots. High Colonel Rikland had a rectangular face with bush eyebrows above his squinted brown eyes. His thin lips were pursed.
"Lord." He bowed his head.
"High Colonel." I gave him a minute nod of acknowledgement. For all his outward stoicness, Rikland emanated a squeezy uneasiness in the Force. "You and I will be having a long discussion once this situation is resolved."
"Yes lord."
"What is the state of the colony?" I demanded to the room. Datapads were shuffled between hands before being passed over to Benzenti's aides, who quickly gave them to the general. The aides then removed themselves from my sight, as they saw it.
"Several districts have been destroyed or are in a state of uninhabitability following the alien insurgents attack. The colonial command center was stormed by Nil Spaar and his Duskhan Free Army commandos, where they killed Commander Paret and the colonial administrators. Five sections of the outer walls have been breached but our perimeter has rendered that a nonconcern." Benzenti told me, pointing out each matter of interest on the holotable. "Most civilians are sheltering in the emergency bunkers. Power is on the fritz but the COMPNOR compound stands strong. Luckily for us, the remaining insurgent holdouts are clustered around the COMPNOR compound, so we have them trapped between cold imperial durasteel and the…zeal of our friends in CompForce."
Chuckles broke out across the command center from the general's words. As I had learned many times over my short career in the field, no one in the military liked COMPNOR or that organization's paramilitary branch, CompForce. As a matter of fact, they were being too relaxed now. Undoubtedly
"I would hope so, General Benzenti." I smiled and glanced around the room. "The fighting ability of CompForce is well known across the galaxy, along with their diligence in executing their duties. I am pleased to learn that one half of the colonial security forces did not fail in their charge to protect this city from the Empire's enemies. "
A chill descended on the military men in the room. Treason, I felt, was a word that only lost its value the more it was bandied about. The hinting of treason and its wages, the unseen noose of fear caused by the specter of treason looming over someone, that produced results.
Good, I thought, it had been getting too chummy in here.
"This city will be back under imperial control by dawn, General. Am I understood?" I locked eyes with the man.
"It will be done, Inquisitor." He understood the reason for my words. Perhaps due to the briefings I had given him and Masal, he had even expected them. He also understood that my words were not directed at him and his staff.
Good. Competency needed to be collected and the collection needed to be tested from time to time to ensure all the pieces still had their shine.
XXX
The world was nothing but gray mist as far as I could see.
I looked around in vain for any source of light. There was nothing. Then I looked for shadows in the mist, trying to spot any structures I could move towards.
Still nothing.
The mist was motionless, I realized. Lifeless as stone and just as uniform as one.
I shivered. When had it gotten so cold?
Now that I noticed I was cold, the shivering intensified as if it had only been kept at bay by my refusal to acknowledge it. It now reaped its vengeance for that ignoral.
In seconds my shivering intensified and my teeth started clacking together. My breath fogged in front of me and I swore I could feel frost forming on my eyelashes.
Ravaged by the coldness, I hugged myself for warmth only to feel my hands and arms touch cold and clammy flesh.
"w-what?" I forced out.
Looking down, I let out a groan of dismay. I was naked. Completely naked and freezing to death.
What was going on!?
How had this happened to me!
Then a lance of pain shot through my side. Deep, deep in me.
I looked further down and with horror saw a deep, deep cut in my side. Another groan left my lips as I saw, through my blackening vision, that the wound went to my belly button.
Blood was oozing out of the wound and I could see charred meat and organs inside.
My legs collapsed from under me, sending me sprawling onto the mist obscured floor. I didn't register the pain in my knees from the fall as my vision tunneled in on the wound. This was a killing blow. I knew that in my soul. One deliberately placed to ensure that my death was slow and agonizing.
This… this was wrong!
Who had done this to me?
I suddenly felt that an enemy had not struck this blow. But that was impossible! I was slain, would be slain. I was the living dead, only kept alive by the stubbornness of my body. I clutched at the Force with weak commands, demanding that answers be revealed to me. Demanding power to staunch, if not heal, this blow.
Nothing. No rush of the Force obeying my commands, no fire from the Dark Side at my unspoken entreaty for the power to stave off death. I was alone.
Alone except for Death in this purgatory between life and death. I knew in my bones that I couldn't escape. My head lolled back as horrible coughs erupted from my lungs. Phantom fluid was in them.
I was dying.
"Are you sure about that, tirones?"
Out of the gray mist strode an armored man. His lower half was obscured by strands of looping mist, but I could see his upper half just fine, even with my fading vision.
"Ignato?" I mumbled out past numb lips.
If it was Ignato of Lettow, my mentor, things had changed drastically for him. He looked..alive now. Color had been restored to him. His flesh a warm tan, his hair a cool black. His banded iron beaten and torn in places but still shining with the chrome finish that a smith had labored to apply. The bloody viscera of his jaw a vibrant crimson stain.
Either he was closer to being alive, or I was closer to being dead.
"Perhaps." The ghost cryptically answered.
"H-help m-me." I pleaded. I was in such pain. I was so cold. I did not want to die. Not like this.
"No."
My accusing glare, for that was all I had left to me, made the flensed man elaborate.
"No power of mine can save you, Tirones. That is not the power of the Bogan. It will not assist you in your times of need. It will not comfort you as you die. It will not nurture you when you are weak." Anger rippled across Ignato's patrician features. "That is the Ashala, the so-called Light Side. The Jedi plead and beg for it to aid them. Not us, tirones, we command."
Ignato's voice faded away and his body dissolved back into feature's mist, and several distorted voices spoke up, clashing against each other. Competing to make themselves the most heard.
"Power is to be taken. Ripped away from cooling corpses to be added to yours."
"No one will grant you power."
"No one will help you gain power."
"Earn your power and the Dark Side answers."
"You are born alone and you will die alone."
"No one is connected to anyone or anything."
Ignato reappeared from the mist, but a different voice left his bloody lips.
"Chains…chains are meant to be broken, Andorak" That was my voice.
"Break them, or die."
With a great gasp of air, I lurched upright. Cloth tugged and snagged at my arms as they flailed around. I was trapped!
My eyes opened and my struggles ceased.
I was in the quarters I had taken in the colony's citadel. I was alone.
My heart raced in my chest and my lungs greedily gulped down air from my gasps. Sweat was pouring down my body. My body!
I threw the sheets off my and stared down at unwounded flesh. I patted my hands clumsily around where the wound had been. Nothing, not a spec of pain.
I whipped my head around, taking in the chambers again. Everything was as I had left it…thirty minutes ago.
A dream then.
A nightmare then.
A vision then.
A premonition then.
All of them, or none of them?
I swung my legs over to the side of the bed and took in the dark room. I was alone.
No, I was not alone. I looked down at the enchanted stone that had been plunged into my left forearm and left to fester. A cursed cancer inflicted on me by him.
My right arm thrust forward and my lightsaber flew into my hand with a slap of flesh meeting plasteel.
I looked at my lightsaber, studying its familiar features. The slightly worn ignition studs. The double emitters. The folding half moon handguard. I could draw this weapon perfectly from memory alone.
It was cold.
The Dark Side surged at my command, sulfur filled my nose…
And my fist closed over the lightsaber. Metal squealed and sparks flew as I compacted that cold, cold weapon into a mangled ball of purposeless metal.
Two tiny red crystals fell out of the ruined lightsaber, landing by my feet.
They twinkled in the darkness. Every face of the diamond shaped jewels was flawless. Machined to perfection. Uniform in its artificial creation. There had been no error, no chance, no life put into these mass produced gems. Just like there was nothing but mindless programs put into the creation of that lightsaber.
They were cold.
I crushed the red gems into dust with my feet.
I looked up and in the darkness I could see my own sulfur yellow eyes reflected in the darkness.
A/N: here's to my first handle at subtle Force shenanigans. If you didn't understand everything that happened in the vision/nightmare/dream, good. You're not supposed to. Yet. In some ways I feel like this chapter is the spiritual sister to Chapter 26 aka the torture chapter. See you all next chapter.