There was no movement for a long moment. The figure in the gateway wore a dark hooded cloak that was whipping wildly in the violent winds. It wasn't much taller than I was; Khem certainly towered over us both. The clouds had completely blotted out the sky, and the only lights were the bright floodlights illuminating the scant 10 meters of cleared, paved ground between the communications array and its surrounding wall; everything beyond was pitch black.
"No witnesses," I reminded him again. He growled his assent. Khem led the way, his large broadsword drawn once more, which gave me the courage to continue forward also. The figure didn't stir from his place blocking our exit, but behind him, my Cathar eyes caught a flicker of movement. What I'd thought were shadows beneath the jungle trees shifted, moving against the direction of the furious winds, and from the darkness emerged what I first thought was a wall of some sort. It came closer and resolved into three massive beasts which shoved past the human like he wasn't even there. They moved on all fours, body covered in smooth, armor-like plates, with powerful, pincer-like forelegs almost twice the length of their hind legs, which was necessary to support the enormous shield of bone that fanned out around their heads. Their eyes were about level with mine, but the frill extended as wide as my arms could reach and a full two meters higher, with little tusks or horns that studded the edges. Yozusks. Two vicious-looking fangs about the length of my hand framed each monster's face, and I wondered whether this was one of the venomous variants. We would have to be extra wary.
The figure before us didn't seem to be making any overt, grand gestures, but whomever it was certainly was in command of the creatures. His hood had been torn off in the wind, revealing a young human man with dark curly hair and sharp features. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut as the yozusks scuttled forward, always carefully keeping themselves between us and their master. I held back as they focused on us, their hard scaly feet barely making a sound in spite of their size. My nostrils filled with the scent of the approaching rains over the swampy decay of the jungle around us and the sharp stink of my fear.
"Keep behind me!" snarled Khem urgently. He was probably feeling the pressure of the explosives at our back; I knew I certainly was. To be safe from the potential blast, we needed to at least be outside the cleared perimeter when the time ran out. I called lightning and struck one of the beasts, holding it in a concentrated stream. The yozusk shuddered and shrieked, a hissing, rough sort of sound like stones grinding together, but when I let it go to target its fellows, it popped right back up and advanced with no sign of distress. I wasn't sure if that was the mind control exerting its effects over it, or if it was just the unique physiology of the creature that did not make it very vulnerable to electrocution.
Khem batted away the first creature that reached us and blocked the second, his great clawed feet scraping against the duracrete as he was shoved backwards. I dodged myself, zapping the third creature before it moved against us again, but the first beast was moving in tandem with the second now, and Khem was forced to retreat at an angle to keep them at bay. The Communications building was very near our backs now.
"Follow me!" Khem roared as he dashed quickly to one side around the building. He was faster and more agile than I was, and I wasn't prepared to follow him. I stumbled in my hurry, and an overwhelming feeling came through the force-the unbearable urge to dodge, that a yozusk's spear-like front pincers were imminently going to pierce my body. I lunged sideways, failing to tuck and roll due to the bulky pack on my back. My hands slammed into the duracrete hard, but I didn't let that stop me. I was scrambling away, claws extended, because I could sense that while the beast had missed skewering me as it had intended, I was an instant away from falling to it again.
I didn't have the time to fight back; I was too focused on survival. The next moment, Khem was there, cursing at my clumsiness and hacking at the beast's pincers as it reared up on its hind legs in surprise. It gave me the second I needed, and a stream of lightning poured from my hands, entering the nearest creature and then leaping to the second. I could feel it wanting to arc to Khem, and I concentrated all my will on forcing it to go beyond my companion. For one instant, I thought it would defy me and shock the Dashade. I pushed hard, and it leaped forward into the third yozusk in a grand, glorious chain of electricity. I could only hold it a moment. Then the lightning stopped arcing to the third, and then stopped arcing entirely, but it had been enough. Khem was taking full advantage of that second of full immobilization to cripple one his foes.
The dashade was focused on his opponent, so I awkwardly pulled myself to my feet, feeling the heavy pack on my back shift as I twisted so that I could maintain the streaming lightning. It was tiring, but the sharp fear that I felt, that I was desperately trying to keep from verging on panic, was more than enough to buoy my energy reserves. I immersed myself in the dark side, feeling its icy wind whip around my mind in eerie parallel to the storm bearing down upon us. As my connection to its power grew and I ended my lightning attack, time seemed to slow around us, and I was able to gather my bearings and concentrate.
The minds of the yozusks in front of us shone in the force, far brighter than any normal beast usually did. It almost reminded me of sensing other force-users, seeing how they burned with life and energy. They felt foreign, almost artificial to my mental touch, and it echoed with the same signature that their Human master had. He was certainly directing them forward, and the desperate loathing I sensed from the beasts was entirely his and emanated from his connection with them.
The human had made no moves to confront us personally, so it was a safe assumption that his most powerful ability was his beast control, and I suspected that in a more conventional fight, Khem and I would've crushed him like the slug he was. If I kill you, I wondered, eyeing him in icy abstraction, what happens to your monsters? His yozusks were keeping me from getting near enough to hit him, constantly blocking any line of sight I might've had. Khem had managed to disfigure one with a powerful strike to the head, cleaving off a good portion of its face and injuring its main limb, but still it scuttled around, alternately rearing up to stab with its forelegs or ducking in to rip with its fangs. Neither of us had managed to get behind their armored frills to strike a killing blow.
The three yozusks were trying to separate me and Khem now. One of them focused on me while the other two attempted to shove and batter him back, away towards the outer perimeter wall. I shocked my creature, but once again, when the lightning ceased, it jumped right back on its feet to come at me again. The air smelled of ozone and blood; I sensed more than saw the creature try to swipe his claw at my face; I dodged to the side, feeling it miss me by centimeters. As I came down, I smashed my palm into the ground, channeling the lightning out and around me. It blasted the creature back into the wall of the Communications building, and it was slow to stand back up.
Deep in the force as I was, I sensed the moment that something else entered the fight. A new sense of malice niggled at the edge of my mind, and a new shining spark appeared on my mental assessment of the battleground. The beastmaster had seized hold of another creature in the jungle, which was even now making its way out of the trees to us. Khem and I were barely holding our own, hampered as he was by protecting me and by our own vulnerable position and the impending destruction. I didn't want to imagine what might be even now coming to join the fight.
"Get me an opening!" I screamed at Khem. He didn't understand why suddenly my priorities had changed from dealing with the deadly imminent threat to taking out their puppetmaster, but he obeyed without question, knowing as well as I did that I needed a clear line of sight if I was going to electrocute the sith controlling these beasts. He roared deeply, leaping forward to cleave his sword down on top of the middle yozusk's bone frill. His blade dug deeply into the shield, and Khem swung his whole body on the blade, using leverage to flip the beast to the ground. I shocked the third beast as it tried to attack him from behind; the first was still regaining its feet. Khem had to take an extra second to yank his blade free, but as he flexed his powerful muscles, he pulled the beast around so its shield slipped sideways, blocking its fellow and leaving me with the first clear shot at the enemy sith I'd had since the yozusks had first made themselves known.
I didn't waver. I fed my fury and rage and fear to the dark side (How much longer did we have until the comms center exploded, anyways?) and a concentrated, brightly purple blast of lightning arced across the cleared space to strike the human, who stood undefended in the doorway to the perimeter. He screamed and crumpled to the ground, and I felt his grasp of the beasts weaken. The yozusks roared, rearing up and stabbing the air with their claws; I could feel their fear and pain as the mind control slipped, and it distracted me enough that the Sith was able to gather himself and try to reassert his command over them. The other beast outside the wall had faltered as well, but while I drew myself up again, the human summoned it forward, into the perimeter to defend himself. Even as I watched through the force, he flung his mind wide and a moment later, a second spark lit, larger than the first, quickly bearing down on us.
I didn't give him the chance to use them to attack.
I sent another bolt of lightning shooting forward, and as it plunged into my victim's chest, my rage and hatred broke his concentration entirely and I felt him lose his grasp of the force. He screamed, writhing on the ground for a long moment, but I wanted him dead, and as much as it would've satisfied my vengeful nature to make him suffer a while for trying to kill me, I knew we didn't have much time left. I poured myself entirely into making his heart stop beating, and I felt the force connection to the yozusks sever with a snap as his life left his body and he slumped limply in a twisted heap.
From through the open gateway, I heard an eerie howl that started high and plummeted until it was a growling roar. I couldn't see the gundark clearly through the darkness, even with my Cathar vision, but I got the impression of sleek fur and powerful, bunching muscles as its head turned this way and that, gigantic pointy ears twitching to pick up any echoes. Farther into the woods came an answering howl-the creature's mate? With another cry, it lowered back onto all six limbs and bounded back into the trees.
Khem's massive hand gripped me and I was abruptly torn from my concentration as he flung me behind him. It hurt as I landed on my left side, striking my elbow and hip with enough force to leave bruises, but was infinitely preferable to the goring he'd saved me from. Now that the sith was no longer controlling the yozusks, they didn't fight with the single-minded aggression and unity that we'd experienced before. I quickly rejoined the battle, trying to use my force lightning to give Khem the opening he was looking for. As I'd done before, I pushed, shoving my power forward until it arced from one beast to another, chaining them all and forcing them to their knees as they shuddered and shook. Khem wasted no time. He darted forward, striking first one and then the next and then the next behind their great bone frills. Each gave a single cry and fell dead at our feet.
"Come!" ordered Khem, dragging me up and hustling me over the bodies of our enemies. "Time grows short!" As we passed the dead sith, I paused to kick his cloak to the side. It revealed his crest, the jagged teeth of the symbol iuriz, a letter in one the ancient Sith alphabets and the mark of Darth Skotia. I smirked at the thought that I'd just killed another of Skotia's apprentices. I left his corpse to be destroyed by the explosion or eaten by scavengers. Khem would not tolerate any delay; he huffed and hauled me by my arm farther into the forest a ways, well outside of the potential blast zone.
I'd barely begun to catch my breath when the communications building, still somewhat visible through the branches, exploded in a plume of fire and smoke that shook the ground and sent pieces of stone and metal flying. The perimeter wall contained the blast for the most part, but I was very glad that we'd escaped.
"Rest," said the Dashade, and I leaned gratefully against a tree and watched the fire burn.