PART FOUR: A TRUE JEDI
Jaden flew her X-wing around the outside of the planet, careful not to alert Tavion's ships as she passed. She landed in a remote area close to the Valley of the Dark Lords, the burial site of countless Sith Lords spanning millennia. As she hopped out of the cockpit, she was greeted by a familiar and welcome sight.
"Jaden, you made it!" Jas Harin, accompanied by Jaccyn and Master Tionne rushed forward from an arch set into an ancient stone wall they'd been guarding. "Did you find Rosh?"
"He's hurt, but safe. Kyle's taking care of him on one of the Republic cruisers. Any sign of Tavion?"
"Not yet," Jas replied. "We're trying to locate Ragnos' tomb. Master Skywalker's group landed in another part of the valley to search for it."
"Then I'd better get going," Jaden said, starting towards the arch, feeling it was the best direction to go before Tionne placed a hand on her shoulder to stop her.
"Hey be careful, this place is crawling with dark Force users. We all go together." Jaden nodded and let the Twi'lek Master Jedi walk ahead of her into the passage, into the catacombs.
The passageway was pitch black, they used their sabers to light the way: The dim glow from Jaden's yellow saber mingled with Jas's orange, Jacyyn's blue and Tionne's purple to create enough light to see several feet ahead of them. It created a beautiful sunset effect on the ancient stones of the wall, perhaps the only thing of beauty this site had seen in centuries.
The passage started to go downward, turning into large steps that descended into blackness. They kept their ears open, their Force senses on the alert, but there was nothing.
They soon saw a dim light ahead and entered a large room with a vaulted ceiling. In each corner, Jaden immediately noticed the tarnished gold statues of robed figures holding perfectly cut crystals above their heads that glowed amber, reminding her of similar statues in the Crystal Canyons. Torches along the wall were lit so that they didn't need the light from their sabers anymore. In the center of the room lay a coffin and there was no visible way out.
"How do we get out of this room?" Jacyyn said, a little too loudly for his own good in the dim, eerily sacred silence of the place.
No one immediately answered, but they quietly spread out and carefully searched along the walls, bringing their lightsabers back out so as to get a better look. Jaden slowly approached the coffin, standing directly in front of it. As evil as the Sith could be, they buried their dead with some amount of respect and care, but that was just an outside observation. On the inside, Jaden disliked the dark, oppressive feeling of the place; it felt like a crushing weight had been balanced on her shoulders, reaching towards the darkness inside her that wasn't hers, but put there by the scepter of Ragnos. She nearly jumped when a hand reached out and touched her shoulder.
"I know my dear, I know." Tionne's voice was soft. "It's alright, you don't have to hold onto it, it's this place, not you. Once you recognize that, it's not yours anymore." The Twi'lek Master's eyes were misty, gentle, totally and completely different from that of Alora's. She, and everyone else for that matter still hadn't heard the full story of what happened on Taspir III, but the kind look on Tionne's face told Jaden she knew all she needed to and that was alright. Jaden didn't try to stop the tear that rolled freely down her cheek as Tionne gave her shoulder one last squeeze before moving on to searching the room again.
"Look for the things your eyes will deceive you in, use your Force sight instead," Tionne instructed.
Taking a freeing deep breath, Jaden looked up and side to side, noticing again the statues in each of the corners. She turned around to get a better look at the ones behind her. Wait a second…
"Master Tionne, do you see this, the statues." She pointed to the ones closest to the door they'd entered in by. "Do those look closer to the coffin than these?" She turned and indicated the ones behind her. Tionne and the others stepped forward, squinting. Jacyyn's eyes widened.
"I think you're right Jaden! These closer to the door are further out, but what does that mean?"
Jaden didn't answer right away but rushed forward to examine the floor behind the statues nearest the door. "See these scrape marks, that means these statues have been moved! And more than once!" She then examined their crystals, then looked back at the other ones. The statues behind the coffin, their crystals seemed to line up with a circular hole just above their heads.
"This one's the same!" Jas called out from the other statue.
Jaden moved to the middle of the room again and held out her hands towards the statues in question. "Okay! Then in that case, this might just be our way out of here." Her companions gathered around her in front of the coffin as she simultaneously pushed both statues back into their places, lining their crystals back up with the circles above their heads.
Something must have worked because after the sound of the statues scraping across the stone floor back into their rightful place ended, the sound of more stone scraping against stone commenced, and the small group of Jedi found themselves suddenly plumenting downwards.
Rosh writhed on the gurney, in and out of consciousness, delirium making him see and hear things he knew deep down were not real. Medics and doctors swarmed around him, trying to administer medicine without hurting their patient further.
"Hurry!" Someone near him shouted, or at least, that's how it sounded to him. "We have to get this all off before he goes into the tank!"
More people surrounded him, the sound of cloth tearing and medical shears cutting something near his shoulder.
Rosh panicked. He didn't know who these people were or what they were doing, but he didn't like it.
Rosh, calm down! It's okay, they're trying to help you!
Rosh stilled. That was Kyle's voice he'd heard in the midst of the fog surrounding his brain. From what he could see, Kyle was nowhere in the room with him. Despite that, and the myriad of deliriums swirling around his mind, he listened to his master and let the doctors do their work without resistance.
Kyle stood behind a wall of glass, watching everything, making sure his student was treated fairly. He'd reached out through the Force, sending a message of calm and peace to Rosh, hoping the shock would fade and he would stay still long enough for the doctors to do their job.
It seemed to be working. The medics were having no trouble stripping Rosh down to his undergarments, preparing to submerge him in the nearby bacta tank. The thick, gelatinous substance would get to work instantly, accelerating Rosh's healing process.
A New Republic officer entered the room. "Sir, you're needed on the bridge."
"Sorry, but I'm a bit busy now. That's my student on that table in there and I aim to make sure he's gonna be okay before I leave him."
The officer shifted uncomfortably on his feet. "Sir, it's urgent. It's Senator Mothma. She… wants to talk to you about your student."
Kyle raised an eyebrow, then reluctantly followed the officer out, glancing back once more to whisper, "Hold on, Rosh. Hold on."
And Rosh heard it. It was the last thing he heard before finally slipping into a peaceful slumber as his body was lowered into the bacta tank.
The coffin finally stopped moving. Jaden and her friends had been standing on some kind of movable platform on which the sarcophagus was laid. Once she'd pushed those statues back into place, some kind trigger for the platform sent them plummeting several stories down. They were in a vast room filled with pillars and lit torches. Statues of robed Sith stood like gilded sentries also carrying burning censers.
Real, live Sith from Tavion's cult were there as well, their dark gazes immediately drawn to the Jedi intruders. They stood guard at two doors on opposite sides of the room.
Jaden and her companions lost no time in recovering from their sudden drop and got to work. Jas teamed up with Jacyyn to fight the Reborn stationed behind them at a large door, and Jaden and Tionne took on the ones directly ahead of them. Jaden rushed up a short flight of stairs that led to a landing. She met the nearest Reborn at the top and took a swing at his middle. When he brought his saber up to parry, she dropped to a crouch and stabbed him in the gut. Out of the corner of her eye Jaden saw Tionne's blade coming right for her.
"Jaden down!" The Jedi Master screamed as she stabbed her violet blade forward.
Instantly dropping, Jaden watched two blades cross mere inches above her face. She realized that the Reborn Tionne had gone after must have broken away and come at her from behind. Tionne pulled her opponent's saber up with her own and pushed him back, stepping over Jaden. Once she was in the clear, Jaden jumped up to join the fight.
Tionne and the Reborn fought near the edge of the landing and its twenty or so foot drop to the hard stone floor. Jaden and Tionne swung at the same time, their sabers locking in front of each other. The Reborn caught both and struggled to push back. Jaden and Tionne locked eyes and nodded in unison. With each taking a hand off of their sabers, the Jedi and the scholar Force pushed at the same time, sending the enemy flying off the edge. He landed with a thud several feet away and an even louder crack, then there was silence.
Jas and Jaccyn looked up from their fallen enemies across the room and nodded grimly to their companions. They regrouped in the middle near the coffin, but kept off the platform.
"Where do we go from here?" Jacyyn asked. "The door back there is locked."
"Same with the one Jaden and I were near," Tionne confirmed. "We must do as we did back in the tomb. We need to spread out and look for secrets not seen with the eyes, but with the mind and the senses. Remember your training."
They all moved methodically around the room, searching. A large grated section in the floor around and under the central coffin revealed an entire room below them, filled with coffins lining the walls, a 'burial vault,' as Tionne called it. But there seemed to be no way in there.
Jaden came back to the door she and Tionne had fought their Reborn at, up a flight of staircases that converged at a landing before a great door. Several large stones framed it, some off color and sticking out at odd places. Jaden closed her eyes and saw them, golden orange like embers, glowing symbols like the ones in the training grounds and the tomb on Chandrila, but more twisted and angular. She moved her head down towards the floor and saw a pattern, a sequence, in her mind's eye.
"I think I found it!" She called out to the others.
"Us too!" Cried Jacyyn.
Jaden hurried down the stairs and met them at their door, using her sense to see a symbol glowing at its base. Tionne examined it, then straightened up.
"This door will not open without first opening and going through the other. That symbol I believe means 'The Journey.'"
"What does that mean for us?" Jacyyn asked.
"It means that in order to unlock this door, we must first take a journey before the reward of our destination. We must follow where that door on the landing behind us leads, and hopefully we will find the answer that will open this door. We all go together."
When they raced back across to the other door, Jaden looked again with her Force Sight and matched the sequence of symbols on the floor with the ones around the doorway and quickly pushed them in. The door opened, its ancient stones scraping the sides of the frame as it rose. The four Jedi looked into a torch lit hallway and the sounds of a duel drifted up to them.
"I thought Jedi were powerful, guess I was wrong!"
"Oh please, just put down your weapon or it'll be worse for you!"
"That sounds like…" Jas began. No one said anything else but rushed down the passage to aid their friend and ally, battling a staff wielding Sith with two blades of her own, glowing light blue and yellow-green in the dimly lit space.
"Streen, look out!" Tionne cried to her apprentice.
"Look, Senator, I appreciate you wanting to talk to me, but I've got an injured student back in the med bay that needs me."
"It's that very student, Katarn, that I'm worried about." Senator Mon Mothma looked as regal as Princess Organa herself, standing as straight as an arrow, her formal white robes pressed and clean, her auburn hair arranged in a practical, but lovely fashion that complemented her age and status. "I'm also worried that you're not taking this seriously."
Kyle crossed his arms. "He's not part of the cult anymore if that's what you're wondering."
"And you know this, how?"
"Look, when you're a Jedi, you know, you sense it. Rosh has changed and for the better. Jaden was there too."
"That's all good for you Katarn, as you are a Jedi. But I am not. Where is Jaden Korr now?"
"She went to Korriban to aid Luke and the others."
"Then she cannot help in vouching for him." Kyle didn't answer, he could already see where this was going. The Senator continued. "Bringing a member, even a former member of Tavion Axmis' cult on board this ship is no small matter, Katarn. I hope you realize that."
"I do," Kyle ground out. "But I wasn't about to just let him die either. He's a good kid, he only joined the cult because he was afraid of being killed by them. He no longer belongs to the dark side."
"Be that as it may, a change of heart does not wipe out the crimes he may have committed."
"'May have committed?' Are you kidding me?" Kyle exasperated. The Senator raised her eyebrow at his tone and he adjusted. "Please, Mon, we still don't know if Rosh did anything criminal or treacherous."
The Senator sighed. "That is true, but we can't just let our guard down. We'll have to have his room put under heavy guard until this situation with him, and the one on Korriban is resolved."
Kyle bowed his head slightly. "Of course, Senator."
"Update me when you capture Axmis. Perhaps then, we'll know the full extent of Penin's involvement."
Kyle merely nodded, then took his leave. He checked in on Rosh one last time before he left, peering in through the window on the outside of the room. The poor boy was still fast asleep, floating in the bacta liquid, but was already looking far better than he did an hour ago. Several New Republic officers, all armed, stood around the room and outside the door. Kyle sighed heavily, praying that Rosh wouldn't be guilty by association and that he'd truly done nothing worthy of capital punishment.
He finally tore himself away from the glass, he'd been away from Korriban long enough, it was time to end this once and for all.
Jaden watched as her Zabrak friend blocked a blow from the Reborn in front of her with one saber and, per her master's warning, immediately brought her second behind her just in time to catch a strike from one who'd appeared there. Jaden, Tionne, Jas and Jacyyn all hurried down the passageway to aid Kalil. With five Jedi against two Sith, the battle was hardly a battle at all. They soon were panting and patting each other on the back, and Tionne quickly asked her apprentice how she'd gotten down there.
"There's a tunnel up there," she pointed towards the room's high ceiling where they could just make out the silhouette of a doorway near the top. A large, thick cylindrical stone column rose out of the center of the room and looked to be level with the doorway. "I think there used to be a walkway between the door and this column, but I just jumped it, and around here," she walked them around the column to the other side, "There's hidden bricks that I pulled out to make a staircase. The Sith were the worst architects."
"You could say that again," Jacyyn said and they all laughed, tension they'd been holding in evaporating.
"Wait, Streen," her master said in a serious tone, "where's your partner? Where's Goran?"
Kalil's face wore a shocked expression at first, then it loosened up as she gestured casually as if it were nothing serious. "Oh, he's fine! He didn't want to follow me in but I knew there had to be some big secret down the tube we'd found so I left him up there to stand watch, that's all."
"You what?!" Tionne barely kept her voice in check. "You know Goran needs to have someone with him, to be patient with him and have grace for him. You left him behind because you thought he was slowing you down didn't you?"
Kalil tried to shrug it off but ended up hanging her head in shame. "Yes," she replied, voice barely above a whisper. "I'm sorry Master."
"Then take us back to where you got in here and left your charge behind," Tionne ordered. "Better together, remember?"
"Better together," Kalil repeated. They climbed the hidden staircase and followed her to the top, jumping over to the tunnel. They entered another big room with a gaping hole in the floor. Kalil took them right to it.
"See." She knelt down near it and pointed inside. "The cult members have been here for awhile, they've rigged electrical lighting down some of these tunnels that don't have torches."
"Lead on, Streen. Perhaps also, the mystery of the door we found will unveil itself." Tionne gestured her onwards and the rest followed close behind.
The tunnel led slightly up, coming out into a room lined floor to ceiling with hollowed out shelves built into the walls and on those shelves, were coffins.
"Another burial chamber," Tionne said grimly. "But not the one below the room we had dropped down into." She turned to her student. "Streen, was this where you got in? How many cult members did you run into?"
"It was further on," she said. "We have to keep going through this room. There weren't many cultists or Reborn around but I did have to deal with a few of them, not very challenging."
She led on through that room, passed under a huge arched doorway that led into a grand looking hallway, lit by more torches on the walls or held by more robed statues, until they entered another burial chamber, this one holding its dead inside two large stone blocks out of which were carved the shelves for the coffins. To Jaden, she realized it was probably meant for slightly more important persons because of the lack of space to store coffins. Many pillars and statues also bedecked the room in the same style or Sith architecture she'd come to recognize.
Someone could get very lost here, she thought.
"Over here, at the back of the room!" Kalil called. They all converged in a back corner where Kaili stood near a huge gap in the wall. "This is where I got in." She gestured for them to look inside. "But be careful, one wrong step and you're dead."
Tionne ducked into the gap, then Jaden. The stone ledge they stepped onto was only big enough for the both of them. Below was the unmistakable red glow of lava far below in the earth, the view somewhat blocked by thick beams of obsidian. The view above was much the same except the glow of lava was exchanged by bright daylight.
"This is why Goran didn't want to follow," Kalil explained. "One wrong move on an untimed jump…"
"And you thought leaving him alone up there was better?" Tionne asked.
"There were no cult members in sight, I don't even think they knew about that opening."
"Nevertheless Streen, you never leave your partner." Tionne stared her student down, a battle Kalil always lost at, particularly when paired with the use of her last name, so she looked away.
"No excuses," she muttered. "I'm sorry, Master."
"Stay here," Tionne said. "I'm going up to get him. Jaden, take Jas and Jacyyn down this tube, I spotted another tunnel down there. Go and see where it leads, call me on your coms if you find anything. I still sense Sith in these catacombs and we must make sure to rid all of them if we're to have a chance to defeat Tavion. Streen, you wait for me."
Jaden inhaled deeply before taking the plunge. The looks of encouragement from everyone wasn't so much a "you've got this" statement but more of a "please don't die on us" but she'd take whatever pat on the back she could. She landed on the first beam about ten feet down without incident and carefully took her time in lining up her next descent. Jas and Jacyyn had decided to follow her one at a time, waiting until the person ahead of them moved so as to have as much space as possible. With this method, they successfully, and safely, made it down to the chamber Tionne had spotted.
It was a very dark, narrow tunnel that went slightly up and twisted and turned, leading into a small room lined with coffins along its walls. Two cultists were there to greet them.
Lightsaber met lightsaber and soon two more Sith were laid to rest inside that tomb. They passed through two more chambers identical to this one and dispatched four more Sith: Two cultists and two Reborn. The room they entered immediately after the last small burial chamber was vast and wide. More coffins locked away as if inside a vault. The first thing the three Jedi noticed was that part of the ceiling was a large grate that looked into…
"Guys!" Jaden whispered excitedly to her friends. "We're under the room with the locked door!"
Both men looked up and squinted hard, their eyes widening.
"You're right!" Jas replied. "We might find the answer to unlocking that door down here, I can sense it."
"And I can sense you, Jedi," a dark voice from some corner of the room ahead of them growled. A dark dread tried to settle itself on the three Jedi as the voice made its appearance, flanked by two others. It was a Reborn Master, and his two apprentices.
"Jacyyn and I can take them, find a way to open that door," Jas whispered. Jaden tilted her head ever so slightly to show her acknowledgment, then they made their move. Both men rushed forward and engaged the enemy while Jaden held back a moment, then rushed past to the other end of the room. With one eye on the duel behind her and the other searching the walls on this end, she spotted two chains on either side of her, bolted to the floor and leading up to the ceiling. That's one of two problems down. She slashed through the first chain, dodged one of the Reborn who'd broken away from the fight and threw her lead saber into the other chain.
"Lookout!" Jaden yelled as the large grate that was a part of the ceiling collapsed. Jas and Jacyyn barely jumped clear as it smashed into the floor, pinning one of the Reborn under it, killing him instantly. His master and fellow Reborn raged and rushed at Jaden, who barely escaped a strike from one of their sabers.
The men came to her aid, keeping the Sith busy as she glanced around for something, anything else might be a secret. She blocked another strike, then saw it, on the back wall, two narrow stone pillars that looked like some kind of counterbalances going up into the ceiling.
Jaden ran towards it, sensing one of the Sith on her heels. She threw her secondary saber straight at the counterbalances and turned, just parrying the Master Reborn's strike. Behind him, Jacyyn's blue blade pierced through his back and out the other side. Further back, Jaden spotted Jas, breathing heavily, standing over the body of the other Reborn. They'd won this fight, and they'd opened the door. It was more than what they could've asked for and they were grateful.
Climbing up the sides on the shelves in the walls, they managed to jump through the large hole now in the ceiling and into the room they'd started their journey in.
"Oh!" Jaden slapped her hand to her forehead. "I need to tell Tionne what we found!" She pulled out her comlink and pressed a button. "Master Tionne, we found a way to open the door. Do you copy?" There was static, then, finally, an answer.
"Yes, I copy, I think we found the entrance, come outside! And hurry!"
With a questioning look plastering her face, Jaden went through the now opened door, followed by her two companions and into bright sunlight.
Jaden, Jas and Jacyyn came out of the tomb onto a wide, sandstone ledge that dropped down several hundred feet to the valley floor covered with sand and ruins. A narrow sandstone staircase ran down the front of the ledge down the side of its wall all the way to the sandy ground below. But what had immediately grabbed their attention was the hulking figure of a Reborn Master locked in combat with Tionne and Kalil. Goran's orange saber was drawn but stayed off to the side, letting the more advanced in skill Jedi fight until he found an opportunity to jump in without interfering.
Jaden and her friends advanced forward, striking when they could, but this Sith, he was stronger, faster. With one fell swoop he pushed Tionne nearly off the edge with a blast of Force power, lightning crackling as he shot it towards Jacyyn and Jas, knocking them to ground as they writhed in pain. Jaden barely avoided the lightning, remembering what happened to Fennac, praying the same wouldn't happen to the guys. Kalil was struck in the face with the Sith's free hand as he advanced on Goran.
"Why do you hang back, little Coward?" He growled, his heavy footsteps an omen of doom.
"Goran!" Kalil screeched, pushing herself up and running with all her might that the Force could aid her with.
"Kalil, no!" Jaden let out the scream too late even as she also rushed to join the fight.
Kalil had barely put herself between Goran and the Master Reborn before his saber, meant for the young Togruta, was stabbed through her abdomen.
No one had time to process what they'd just seen, Tionne had just enough presence of mind to get up and join Jaden, and, before he even turned around to gloat, the Reborn was stabbed twice in the same way as Kalil had been. Jaden watched the red light in his eyes fade to black as his heavy body slid off of her and Tionne's sabers.
Jaden extinguished her lightsaber and rushed to her friend's side. Kalil had fallen into Goran and he'd just managed to fall somewhat gracefully against the wall of the tomb, holding her upper body partly in his lap.
"Kalil, no please!" Jaden said as she pushed closer, grabbing and holding her friend's face in her hands, trying to pass Force power into her, to heal her despite the fact that she already knew it was too late.
"No, Jaden, don't," Kalil whispered weakly. "It's… it's okay. I'll be… alright."
Goran's face was a mess of tears. "But it's my fault Kalil, if I had just followed you. If I wasn't such a coward…"
"No!" Kalil coughed heavily, blood beginning to trickle out of the corner of her mouth. "No. You're no… coward. I was- wrong to leave you behind. B-b-better t-together, right?"
"Oh, Kalil." Tionne was beside them now, Jaden realized this was the first time she'd ever heard the Twi'lek call her apprentice by her first name instead of Streen. "Forgive me, please."
"It's nothing, Master. Don't have to for-'' She coughed again so forcefully that Jaden was afraid her friend would never speak again, but she gathered herself after a minute, and continued. "Forgive. Nothing to… forgive, Master. I'm the one th-that's sorry." Her eyes were starting to glaze over as she looked up at Goran. Jaden felt Jas and Jacyyn behind her now. "Gor, nothing here- is your fault. D-do you… hear me?" Goran nodded through his tears. "Good. Good." Kalil rested her head back against Goran's chest, her own barely rising, a rattle beginning in her throat. But before they thought all was over, her eyes fluttered open once more to look over Tionne, Jas, Jacyyn and finally, Jaden. Memories of their mission together on Zonju V came flooding back, of speeding up on that damned swoop bike, Kalil waiting for her, fresh cup of caf in hand. In spite of her tears, she smiled. Capture the Flag and all the times she'd trained with Kalil and Arta-Mess, it was all precious time she hadn't known was slowly running out and she decided she would never take it all for granted again.
Kalil's eyes brightened for a moment at the sight of her friends. She couldn't speak, but Jaden heard the words loud and clear in her mind: "Tell Arta I said 'Farewell for now. You were my best friend, and I loved you like a sister in arms. Better together.' And Jaden, tell Rosh I'm glad he's back."
Jaden nodded, tears streaming more and more freely as her friend, one of the eight students brought all those months ago on The Yavin Runner II, took her last breath.
