Three hours later, the shuttle exited hyperspace. I barely noted the transition from hyperspace to realspace, entrenched as I was in my meditation. The Coruscant system was teeming with Imperial IFF signatures. I could tell because of the flurry of pings and automatic scans the shuttle's systems started reporting immediately after the transition.
I had loaded up the shuttle's comms with my ID codes before launching off from the Adamant, so the systems automatically replied and remained on a steady approach towards Imperial Center. On the edge of my senses, I could feel the barrels of turbolasers aiming at the shuttle.
There was a ping chime from the shuttle's main console. The codes had been accepted. I felt the immediate danger pass in the Force.
Another hour until I was in the planet's atmosphere. I sunk back into the swirling black of the Dark Side and continued to meditate. Immersed in the Dark Side, I fed it fuel. I fed it my anger, my hatred, my fear. Every slight, insult, and grudge I had with Yiaso, I pulled it up and raged against it. I hated Ja'ce Yiaso. I hated him with an all consuming passion. The Dark Side responded with glee, its presence rising in concert with my growing rage. It's power flowed rapidly into me, strengthening me, emboldening me, urging me onwards.
I made no effort to conceal my presence in the Force. Rather I flared it, all the power I was gripping trumpeting out a challenge in the Force. Yiaso would know that I was here. The planet, that dark, writhing mess of life and death, felt like it pricked up in acknowledgement of my approach
Certainty cemented itself in me. Yiaso was down there. I could sense it. It was night time on the part of the planet I was quickly approaching. The sun would rise on a world without Grand Inquisitor Ja'ce Yiaso, I swore to myself.
Or I'd die trying.
My shuttle blasted through the defense grids at top speed, my Inquisitorial codes allowing me to cut through traffic lanes as I pleased. As the shuttle's autopilot pleased in this case.
On the edges of my senses, I felt a familiar ship, now filled with life that it hadn't before and lurking behind Centax-1. So the Intimidator had made it to the Core successfully.
I felt the shuttle rumble slightly as it reached Imperial Center's atmosphere and opened my eyes. I could see the neon filled skyline of the ecumenopolis looming in front of me. Swiftly rising from my kneeling position, I took the controls and disengaged the shuttle's autopilot.
As I descended towards the planet, raindrops began to hit the shuttle's viewports and as I steered the shuttle towards the Imperial Palace the storm intensified.
"Strange." I muttered. I was focused on flying but I had a nagging feeling that storms of this caliber weren't supposed to be possible.
As I neared the epicenter of a storm that I was more and more convinced was unnatural. Should I be hearing war drums? I could feel the glee of the Dark Side more and more as I continued flying.
At last I could see the Imperial Palace. Just in time too, my helter skelter approach towards the Imperial Palace had caused patrols to scramble to intercept me. I could see them gaining on the radar and the shuttle's comm channel was lighting up with several incoming calls. I had the foresight to silence it when I took control, so my ears weren't being assaulted by what I assumed was several demanding calls trying to tell me to change course.
I could see Yiaso in the Force now. If he had been hiding his presence, he had stopped doing so. I smiled. Soon.
Then the shuttle was buffeted by an explosion and I was jostled around in my seat. Shaking my head, I looked around to see a TIE Striker off my right and left side. I watched as the Striker on my right fired its cannons. The resulting explosion right in front of my shuttle buffeted me about again.
How dare they try to stop me?
I gathered the Force, took one hand off the shuttle's controls and pushed.
The Dark Side snarled as I snarled and the Striker to my left was swatted downwards by an invisible hand. Then I spun around and pushed. The wing of the Striker on my right snapped inwards and slapped into the cockpit. Then I slammed the throttle all the way forward and locked it in place.
Someone in the Palace had gotten word of my unauthorized approach because as my shuttle sprinted across the relatively flat plain that the Imperial Palace dominated, the anti-air batteries opened up. Now the shuttle was continually shaking from near misses and glancing hits.
I spat a curse and re-engaged the autopilot. This is why I hate flying! Too little control, too much risk!
I ran over to the back of the shuttle and punched the landing ramp controls. As the ramp lowered, a wall of howling rain and screeching wind slammed into the shuttle's cabin. I peered down at the fast moving ground, trying to ignore the turbolasers zipping past.
"And a one, and a two, and a…three!" I counted out.
Then I jumped out of the shuttle and plummeted towards the ground. My stomach lurched as I felt gravity pulled at me, now the ground was in sharp focus instead of moving.
One, two, three, four, five!
I shoved my hands downwards and pushed. The powerful force blast buffeted my fall and when I hit the landing pad I was going just slow enough to tuck and roll instead of going splat.
I lept to my feet and looked around. This was the same landing pad I had used the last time I had been at the Imperial Palace. The rain continued to fall and the winds whipped my cape around. I made it.
A thunderous explosion shook the Palace. I looked up to see the fireball my shuttle had turned into once it hit the upper levels of the spire(one of three) that made up the Inquisitorius compound at the Palace. I was pleased to see that I had hit the tallest spire, as I had intended. The destruction made me laugh with abandon, glee rushing through me at the destruction. Yiaso had valued the symbol those towers gave him,
As chunks of duracrete tumbled down the outer walls of the palace, I took an idle moment to entertain the thought that I had managed to hit Yiaso's office and had just turned him into an alien barbeque.
That was wishful thinking, I knew. Yiaso was still alive. I could feel his presence in the Dark Side of the Force. Yiaso was strong in the Dark Side, despite his alien nature. I could almost see the roiling pillar of power he cast into the Force.
It was different from me, from how I interacted with the powers of the Dark Side. More electric, crackling, zip-zap; compared to the fire, the consuming blaze, the deafening roar of flame, that I perceived the Dark Side as.
I frowned. That had been harder to put into words than I thought it would be. But Yiaso was alive and he knew I was here. Good, I wouldn't have to waste time hunting him down.
I strode into the palace, thunder crackling in the sky. The door whisked open silently. I looked around the mundane hallway. No guards or menials in sight. I couldn't sense immediate danger nor feel people nearby.
Curious.
I moved on, passing perfect ambush spot after perfect ambush spot. Still, no move was made against me. I could feel Yiaso's presence, and he wasn't coming to find me. He was waiting for me. I probed into the Force. The alien fucker was below me. Strange, I had expected him to be in the upper levels.
Keeping my guard up, I took the stairs down. The elevators were still working, I had checked. Not that I would use them, of course. Elevators, despite their many electronic and mechanical safety measures, could be sabotaged with deadly results in mind.
Lower and lower I went, deeper into the bowels of the Imperial Palace. Despite the many hundreds of meters of duracrete between me and the outside, I could still hear the thunder from the storm. I was breathing faster than normal and the war drums were ringing in my ears. Yiaso's presence grew nearer and nearer in the Force as I descended.
Finally I was on the right level. I exited the stairwell and peaked down the hall. A taller than normal door faced me. The Force did not tell me of any immediate danger and Yiaso still wasn't moving. As I moved forward, my boots landed on something soft. I looked down and saw my wet boots dripping water onto a red velvet carpet.
Ahh.
How theatrical of Yiaso.
The Dark Side enjoyed the operatic setting as well, judging by how it surged as I neared the doors. I thrust a hand out and the two doors flew open, slamming hard into the walls.
Ka-thud!
I entered the dim audience hall where Yiaso had gathered his inquisitors just a few short months ago. Instead of the cold, clinical, hall filled thrones I had last seen, now I stepped into a charnel house. The audience hall remained cold, unnaturally cold in fact. The temperature didn't hide the smell.
Even through the filters of my helmet I could smell them. Arrayed in a scattered cluster around the red imperial cog mosaic at the center of the oval shaped hall were seven bodies. I slowly walked up to them. They were contorted in absolute agony and all of them seemed to be pulling at their left arms. I peered at the closest corpse. The stone in its arm had turned see through and shiny, like polished glass. I poked the body with my boot and blinked in surprise as it crumbled into ash and bone.
They had been carbonized. They still had their stones in their arms. I looked around, there were no lightsaber marks on the jewel mosaic and aside from the one I had just turned into a pile, their lightsabers were still on their belts.
"Fitting, isn't it?" A familiar voice echoed from above me. I looked up. Ja'ce Yiaso lounged on his throne, staring down at me with a sneer. The faint lighting of the audience hall gave the horns sprouting the appearance of a shadow crown. His eyes, dyed a virulent yellow, gleamed down at me with hatred.
"They were born nothing, became nothing and returned to nothing." He continued, he made a dismissive gesture with one of his hands.
He sounded calm, he looked calm. I was not calm. I wanted to kill him.
Discipline, I told myself. Leash the power to my will, I will strike when I will, not before.
"What about that one?" I pointed at the normal corpse, dressed in zeyd robes, lying at the feet of Yiaso's throne. A few meters away was a chopped off arm with a stone still embedded in it. The remaining arm had a lightsaber still gripped in it.
"Faster than the rest, but she still amounted to nothing." Yiaso replied. "But you, brother, seem to desire more."
His lips slowly curled into a snarl. "You did this."
"Yes." I made a show of looking around the audience hall. "Are the others taking vacation?"
Now Yiaso audibly snarled. "Oh yes. I felt it when you broke the stone I gifted you, as designed. But the others also felt it. I must say, brother, it is poor form to take action without alerting your allies first."
"Allies of convenience." I retorted. "I was using them and they were using me in service of our mutual goal."
"Yes, well…they followed in your footsteps quickly enough." Yiaso shifted upright on his throne. "But not quickly enough. I alerted those loyal to me and they moved against the traitors in our midst. Unfortunately, they were too weak to stop all of your friends, brother."
"If they died, good. Only the strong survive."
Yiaso nodded at my words. "True, true. Which is why I disposed of them. It is a regrettable dip in the Inquisitorius' numbers, true, but after I am done with you, dear brother, I can refocus my efforts on returning these wayward akk dogs to their proper place."
He stood up from his throne, his zeyd robes rustling audibly as he moved.
"Are you going to ask me where they've gone?" I asked, unclipping my lightsaber from my belt.
"You obviously don't know." Yiaso's right hand twitched and his own lightsaber appeared in his grip. "Besides, you are responsible for ruining over ten years of effort. Control of the Inquisitorius was mine, the Ruling Council was about to fall in line, Pestage was turning to me for guidance. The Empire was in the palm of my hand!"
He moved down a step.
"But then, you played your little trick brother. It took two days for the fighting in the Imperial Palace to stop. Everyone saw my Inquisitorius fall apart! My position has suffered near irreversible damage among the Ruling Council and Isard is sweeping in as we speak to worm her way into completely controlling Pestage!" He roared, fury etched into this face. And he took another step.
"Outmaneuvered by a woman, that must sting." I sniped. Yiaso ignored me.
"Now I must retreat and rebuild. Bide my time. Wait for Isard to make one of her usual mistakes and then retake control of the situation." Yiaso continued, taking another step. "I was about to depart when I sensed your approach."
Yiaso was halfway down the stairs that led up to his throne now. He spread his arms and bared a smile. "And I understood that the Force had obeyed my will."
"What a coincidence. I was about to say the same thing." I chimed in.
"Then we agree, brother."
Of course we did. I looked up at the furious zabrak and saw an unbearable tyrant who had dared to enslave me just like Palpatine had done. He looked down at me and saw an intolerable defiance of his control, his dominance of the Inquisitorius. We were now equally unacceptable to each other.
Life would not be worth living until one of us had killed the other. The Dark Side howled its joy in the Force.
Only the strongest survive. Only the worthy rule. Only victory determines the strong and the worthy.
Nothing else mattered.
Snap-hiss! I ignited one of my blades and moved into a defensive posture.
Snap-hiss! Yiaso ignited his lightsaber and, gripping the hilt with both hands, raised it over his head. I watched as the shadows in the room were pulled to Yiaso, writhing around him like the tentacles of a squid. The cold became worse. I could see ice forming on my helmet's visor
"Your suffering will…be…legendary!" Yiaso screamed in hate.
"No one will remember you existed after today!" I matched his hate with my own.
Yiaso screamed, leapt in the air and plunged straight at me. I roared and jumped up to meet him.
We swung and our lightsabers clashed together, scored with the thunderous applause of the Dark Side.
A/N: Gotta set the scene properly. And I gotta reference 'thunderous applause' because its a classic. The fight against the Grand Inquisitor begins at least, and both Yiaso and Andorak are playing for keeps. If you couldn't tell, Palpatine did mess with Coruscant's Force presence over the years. It's not a nice place for a non dark sider to be right now. Which I interpret as why Luke decided to not locate his Jedi Order on Coruscant.