Tears That Reach The Sky
Darkness. Coiling, whorling, pooling in a tumult. The breath of the galaxy. Something was wrong. Out of place. It was hard to perceive, but tangibly there. There was darkness that belonged, the breath of the night. And there was darkness that did not, lurking, clinging like tar.
And then flame ignited it, searing like shining diamond did not. Fire across the galaxy, harsher than any star. It blobbed and burned and stuck to her form, even when she raised her hands to escape, sloughing over her gnarled fingers.
As the merciless heat burned her, through agony and a silent scream, she saw two, intense red eyes glaring at her from the deep cosmos. A gaze of malice, daze of hate. Judging. The glare of suffering.
Suffering.
The red vanished. Revealing scared, hurt grey eyes. They pleaded, they needed her. She had made a promise. Help me!
She tasted acid, helpless as she burned, watched the eyes dissolve, liquefy into the black. A flaming hand tried to reach, willed itself to pull out and reach. Her finger met only floating soup, and the fire spread, consuming the viscera too. There was nothing she could do. But there was. Hot ichor clinging to her body, searing her nerves, her bones, her teeth and lips and muscles, she pulled, a diver ascending. It was like climbing an intangible mountain.
She was falling, she was rising, she was burning. There was no hope, there was
always hope.
Then a scream cut through the night. The whimpering, melting eyes looked at her once again.
Taking a sharp, gasping breath, The Dark Woman woke. "Angel!" One hand clutched her shoulder, feeling phantom horror. Her skull ached. She hovered a few feet off the leafy ground. Sweat clung to her, not from the lush jungle. Somehow she'd curled into a ball in her trance, and as she realised she began to unfurl. Uncoil.
Letting her boots touch the leafy ground, she fought to steady her breathing. The robe clung to her, lank and dank with slick sweat. The pain subsided, faded, and The Dark Woman returned to normalcy. Mostly.
Something was missing.
Looking around the secluded grove, overgrown with alien flora. A little simian creature peered out at her furtively from the undergrowth, and the red sky was spotted with asteroids. Across the grove, a stoic figure sat cross-legged on a rock. He was clad head to toe in wrapped cloth, traditional masked visage unmoving.
"Sing?" he asked, evenly.
"Yes," the Dark Woman breathed. Slowly, she crossed the grove, taking a muja fruit slice. She ate it, feeling it wash the aftertaste that still lingered away with something sweeter. She offered a second slice to the simian. It glared at her suspiciously, then scampered up a branch and swiped it, nibbling from safety.
There was a long pause. "Dead? Or alive?"
'I… don't know." That. That was what was missing. "I cannot sense her at all."
With a sharp whistle, the pot boiled, and the Jedi Master sat on his haunches, two arms taking it and pouring, a spiced steaming aroma flooding the room, collecting on his bare blue skin. With his other pair of arms, he steadied the cup, and passed it to Katarina, then repeated the deft pour to his own. "Your forms are coming along swimmingly," he said, looking across the table at her, pouches under his snout flaring with each syllable. He had a lavender tattoo down one side of his face, framing milky white eyes that shone with life, and a loosely-tied tangle of clumped locks that spilled down the back of his cloak.
The room was small, with a curved ceiling hewn out of the Saleucami rock. Other parts of the temple used metal, permacrete, wood, but this particular one had been selected by its occupant to suit his tastes. All sorts of papers, small statues, pictures, icons, and beads sat neatly arranged around stone-cut shelves, and there was a low table in the middle, with cushions around it. A modest day-room and office both.
Cho'na Bene didn't wear a lot, metal pauldrons to secure the cloak, hand-made leather vambraces, and a beaded loincloth. If not for the brace of lightsabers at the belt, it would be hard to tell he was a Jedi to the untrained eye. He looked down at Katarina out of necessity, almost twice her height when sitting, and his earrings jangled together. "But we must work on your philosophy, I think."
That clearly took the girl aback as she picked up her hot cup. "I study every day," she countered, looking a little precociously up at him.
"You do, but only particular types. You follow what interests you, which is good," he agreed, "But life and the horizons we broach often spin-shot at us that which we do not expect, or enjoy." Taking a brisk sip of his own drink, taking in the rich off-sweet flavours, he mused thoughtfully, tapping his label with one of his lower arms. "I shall compose a song while I am away, and we'll see if you can unpick it when I return."
Looking a shade darker, Katarina tutted. "That should be a good challenge, Master," she replied, very curtly.
Hairless brow wrinkling in amusement, Cho'na watched her fondly. "Now I know you wish to come along, but I would be wholly irresponsible if I allowed it. Dromund Kaas is no place for children, even Jedi children."
"I am not a child," she replied, with a little bite, but still polite.
With a slight sigh, he shook his head. "Incorrect, I'm afraid. You are very mature for your age, but you are still in my care, and I must consider accordingly. We both know, that you know, that I know that. And we both know that you knew I would not allow you to join me this time."
"I know," she replied stubbornly, "So I shall stay here." Indeed, precisely here, being amusingly childish and saying as little as possible. It was almost enough to make Cho'na laugh.
Sucking the last of his small drink, he rocked up to sit on tip-toes, regarding her. "Young lady, if you insist on misbehaving as you have been, then we also both know I shall have to punish you. Which is frankly not something I relish. Use your time here well - speak with your friends, do some studying, ponder your hobbies? I know I have a fascinating orb in one of my drawers."
His padawan just pouted in stony silence.
"No? Well then, I have a task assignment for you, an instruction from a master to his padawan. Two task assignments, actually." Merrily, he took out a small sphere, the casing of a thermal detonator, with obvious modifications and a movable switch. "This is not a grenade." He tossed it and she caught it on reflect. "Tell me what it
is when I return. You should balance it with your other charge." A snap of his fingers, and there was a soft trill.
The tiniest, serpentine, beaked head poked around the door, followed gradually (after a long then neck for a couple seconds) by a stubby body with a pair of grasping arms, more substantial legs, and a tail as long as the neck. The creature itself was no bigger than a house pet, but it was definitely wild, with leathery sand-green skin and curious, furtive eyes.
As it investigated into the room, Cho'na continued. "This is a Neek. Its safety and care are your responsibility until I return." The Neek was starting to climb onto the table, scratching at it, nearly knocking over the pot from its cradle before Katarina hurriedly snatched it away and shut off the stove a second before a determined animal head investigated further.
"What?" she replied, starting to get up, looking down at the creature then up at Cho'na - and then quickly rescuing a cloth map from being nibbled.
Cho'na winked. "They are entirely harmless, but I brought it here with persuasion with The Force, so it is entirely untamed. Have fun!" And with that, he stood up entirely.
"You can't be-"
"I can - it'll be good for your growth, and I daresay you'll get along swimmingly. Oh careful, those are breakable!"
The Neek had gotten its head right inside an open bottle and was lapping up blue milk excitedly. In alarm, Katarina summoned the bottle away carefully, having to wrestle with the Neek's arms for a second as it hungrily tried to keep hold.
Pop!
Out its head came and she had the bottle closed up tight. After she put it down (and before she could check on what the Neek was doing next) she found herself pulled up into a close, warm hug. "I am very proud of you," Cho'na said gently, "Take care."
In spite of herself, Katarina found herself hugging him back.
"Proud enough to change your mind?" she asked hopefully.
"No. Oh, watch out it's going for the manuscripts!" He released her so she could dive after the trilling animal. "When I'm back, tell me the significance of this task philosophically." And then he stepped out of the room.
Within the hour, Katarina was about ready to curse his name as she chased after her inquisitive reptilian charge.
Once the very cutting edge at the start of the war, the Nu-class attack shuttles were finally no longer able to compete with the LAAT variants, and had begun to be superceded in their other roles by the Theta-class's increasing prevalence and advances in models. Production had ceased, and while it was inefficient and pointless to actively decommission them, there would be no more Nus, and they would slowly phase out of use, then existence. This particular craft had seen many conflicts and been upgraded, repaired, overhauled, numerous times. But now, there would be no more second lives. It was therefore an easy requisition on short notice.
Clinical and pressurised, the door hissed back, allowing the wayward acolyte and Master Bell into the hold from the cockpit. Each occupant turned to look at her, none exactly friendly.
Ventress had fought about half of the Jedi here under various circumstances. Eerin had surprised her by how tenacious she'd been, but in hindsight her master had been tricky. Bene, she might have killed his master? She had fought the Myneyrshi himself twice. The old lady, never encountered, had dismissed her file as weak, but she was somehow difficult to look at. Maybe it was the holoprojector displaying the planet that interfered, especially as Ventress strode up to it, exactly opposite the strange fanatic.
Eerin dipped her head to one side, Kenobi's friend gazing through those huge, bulbous pupils. "Ventress, welcome." It was neutral, and not terribly welcoming, but it was the most she was getting for sunshine and friendship. "We're ready, and we've started our descent." Ventress could feel the hulking metal shift, bearing them gradually towards their destination.
"Dromund Kaas's hostility is not to be overlooked," she began, gesturing with her palm over the globe's curve, "It is precisely nothing more or less than the environment a survivalist Sith cult would want most. It will claim the insecure, the insincere, readily, but it is nothing next to the Prophets themselves. I do not expect all of you to survive." She made an artificial smile at them that was just stretching lips away from her teeth.
"It is the song we sing, and the path we meander," intoned Bene, tapping two of his hands against his bare haunches. He would fare best, Ventress thought.
"And a path with company," added the fifth Jedi, Master Shryne. Never met, he had a file, but she could read him like a book. Weak, uncommitted, he would likely not survive. The unassuming man was pointing at a corner of the projection - where holos of three medium frigates had jumped in system, escorted by a small fleet.
The old woman's nostrils flared, and her eyes stared into the projection. "No Force user… cloaking intent within action. We shall have to wait for the other shoe to drop." There was a rumble as the ship breached atmosphere. "And we cannot wait. We must strike before those frigates arrive, take as much ground as possible. You all know your assignments."
"And may The Force be with us all," Bant concluded. There was a circle of fists which Ventress did not join - and doubted she was expected to.
Then the rumbles and shakes began, flak buffeting the shields and making the craft judder. Ventress smelled oil, the hydraulics stressed, as the Jedi shod their cloaks. Again, Ventress didn't bother. They were an odd assortment. Most of them robed, but Bene wore almost nothing, while The Dark Woman wore padded leathers offset with cloth sleeves.
They could sense their descent, all collectively willing the craft down, coursing its safety. Shryne slung a backpack and switched the holo to exterior view, unveiling the jungle below. It was raining, stormy as often, and the sorry looking temple strewn amongst the canopy belied the nest of malice deep inside. "Drop in twenty," he said, goatee bristling. Ventress could feel his fear.
The Dark Woman met Ventress's eyes as each of them crossed to the drop ship doors. "I will be watching," she said at Ventress, severely, without quarter. The bald woman just nodded passively. That was as she expected.
Shryne began to count down, holding up a detonator. "Five."
The ship shuddered harder than before, its fresh welds groaning, straining.
"Four."
With a sharp crack, their shields failed. No more hits.
"Three."
Eerin and Bell exchanged a glance, the meaning of which Ventress didn't know.
"Two."
Shryne was definitely going to die.
"One!"
Bracing herself, Ventress felt her calves tensing, ready to-
"Drop!" Shryne pressed the detonator, and all six of the group leapt.
This particular Nu-class shuttle concluded its life as the preprogrammed droid pilot was cleansed in explosions. It had taken careful preparation to weld, cut, join, and set up the fractures in the hull, and the ship blew apart, spilling its passengers across the dark sky.
Like birds of prey, the Jedi and Ventress rode the waves, curling The Force around themselves to shield from the explosion. They rode the shockwaves down, spreading out as if just debris. Icy rivulets smacked Ventress's bald head, the spray chilling her. Good, she liked that, the slap of reality, the unyielding material to complement The Force. The six plummeted through the air, each seeking their target. Ventress stared at the rapidly approaching forest, cloak billowing around her. Almost, almost-
Now.
Twisting, she pulled herself from the sky, arresting the momentum to cushion herself and landed crouched on a tree branch. Bene was visible, scampering on all sixes along a branch in the distance. Sensing the others, Ventress gazed through the foliage and crept down, as they began to descend upon the lair - their prey.
Wind whistled with the rain, as if the world itself was trying to sap them. It was, Ventress reflected mutely. Picking her way between the boughs, she kept her eyes on the jagged teeth of spires that was the Dark Force Temple, strewn and cracked across the gorge below, a mouldering ruin just out of reach of the swampy hollows that stretched between the maws of the landscape. Or it would've been a mouldering ruin if not for the heavy AA guns blasting at the skies. Above their heads, above the jungle, the space battle began in the sky, flashes of lights like lightning. On the other side of the valley, the Coalition main landing force that had escorted their decoy ship were touching down, spearheading the overt ground attack.
There would be no ordinary clone battalion to meet them, more swamp-adapted droids and some of Sidious's elite handpicked battalions, some mercenary, some clone. Obviously a feint would be expected, but sometimes it was in the art of it.
As Ventress landed weightlessly on a large branch overlooking one of the crumbled citadel's battlements, she studied it, to see how it might have changed. Not as much as she had expected. There were sentries of course, but the bulk of defenders were drawn off. She could sense the prophets, scurrying around like self-important rats, no doubt making their obsessive hand signs and sigils. As for what she could see, it was a classical Sith construction, very later period, imitation more than original. That same style though - large block shapes stacked, with deliberately rough obelisk spires that almost resembled her own tattoos, any ornamentation long since crumbled away.
Eerin alighted next to Ventress, and the Rattataki didn't even react. "It's fancier on the inside. Camouflage." The Mon Calamari nodded, rain glistening down her clammy skin. Then, the two of them vaulted over and dropped to the outer battlement, a blind spot that didn't have enough time to be adequately checked. She smelt fear, hate, cretinous feelings. Eerin slipped down past the battlement, wasting no time in her path. Good. She would live, Ventress had learned the hard way once about underestimating her. Probably could take her in a rematch though, her master had been tricky, and Ventress had hardly been able to kill him, but she had made the wound bite.
Dashing along the rampart, she had a role to play though, and in many ways she knew it well. Shock and awe, devastation. Hurtling through the rain, towards the apex of the main building, she leapt, landing right in the middle of a courtyard that was evidently being used as the central defence command.
"Weakness!" Igniting her blades she tore through the barely reacting tactical droid and its bodyguards, paused only briefly by hurriedly murmured chants of hooded prophets that deflected her blades, but then her sheer force of will pushed past and the nearest two fell. The temple played havoc with machinery, even slugthrowers, made them unreliable, only lightsabers being spared - it was a feature baked in to the dark vergence of the site. She could smell the Sith alchemy fighting to keep the droids working at all.
Clumsy stumbling with lightsabers, many of the Prophets were shocked, but Ventress did not wait. Reaping her way around the courtyard, she parried and sliced, mowing her way through droids and not one of the sorcerers could stop her for more than a couple seconds. The droids lumbered against themselves, favouring dead-steel weapons over blasters that could only occasionally work, and Ventress could deal with them at her pleasure. Her focus was to rip the guts out of the local strong points, the Prophets.
That should get their attention. And so it went, Ventress joined by the bright azure of Bene igniting his sabres from a perch on one of the towers, shoulderpads glittering in the rain. The weapons hissed as he dove down to join. He moved fluidly, a dance in the downpour, cutting his way towards Ventress, but not so close as to make it easy to charge at both.
Then The Dark Woman and Bell descended and it got even worse for the commanders. A symphony of blasphemy upon the holy site, a grand desecration. Ventress couldn't help but grin perversely at how both would not react well to the framing. But it was! A cleansing overdue - Ventress hadn't liked the Prophets even as an acolyte. Necessary but infuriating.
Boom! A detonator blast nearly caught her, and she reeled, twisting away, cloak lashing out to whip at the debris. A flip, and she landed.
No more distraction then.
All thought fell away, and the red did the talking. Red long knives. Whirling her death, she sidestepped a sparking blaster, gutted one robed prattler. Guttural spitting chain-fire raked her way, cast from a crazed wielder and she twirled between it, closing the distance and severing mechanical heads, then mortal limb from body.
In a sweep she cleared space, rattling doid parts, and she caught a fork of lightning cast by a prophet. He was strong, canny, dancing around her swipes like a puppet.
Narrowing her eyes, Ventress cut his strings in her mind's eye. Then cut his strings. The unworthy scum had sent out their disposables first and now more formidable prophets were coming. So be it.
There was a clank as a spider droid began to hobble over the wall from the outer field, bringing its gun to bear, and labouring with a glowing energy about it, baffling droiddom by continuing to move.
Leaping past one blast, a second, Ventress snarled, and timed her third to vapourise a squad of droids. She caught a prophet reaching out to chant at the spider droid, and dashed close to sever his hand. No thank you.
As he sunk to his knees clutching his stump, Ventress played for time deflecting reams of fire from the remaining enemies - they were thinning out, but reinforcements would be coming. The spider had taken to targeting Bene now, and that was all the room she needed. "Bell!"
Nodding, the burly man cut short his own duel with a young but tenacious prophet, and threw the carcass at the spider. It was shot down mid air, but as the turret swivelled to its target, Bell and the Dark Woman gripped from afar, pushing up. With a scream of metal, the large droid was plucked from the ground, limbs warping, and thrown across the courtyard, rolling and shedding pieces violently until it hit the outer wall.
Next to Ventress, the handless Prophet wailed, bringing up a thermal detonator. With a sharp wave of her fingers Ventress sent it flying at the spider droid - and the prophet did not let go on time. The boom brought them more time to recollect - and also a lot more cover, with the open space in ruins and the command module in pieces too.
Ventress and Bell ducked behind the turned up stones for a moment. The Dark Woman did not. She careened across the battle, separating metal, limb, and more. In a flurry of amethyst, she carried the shock of their attack like a crest, two prophets down, leaping to chop a third at the neck, easing past twin-linked turret fire from the wall, it was effortless, like walking between raindrops. A swallow, Ventress wondering if she would ever want to fight such a person. There was even less regard for the self than in most Jedi. Uncomfortably reckless to watch.
Bene was something else entirely, chanting as he danced, a rhythm. Almost an anti-chant to the Prophets' words, but there was no power to it she could discern. He was an odd one, but more understandable.
"Sunless night, bless my soul,
Bear me home, take my coal,
Lo sing the marches,
Building in the marshes,
Harrowing the herald of morning light!"
It wasn't any Force tradition she knew, but presumably it helped him concentrate.
The break was ended though, as suddenly The Dark woman stopped, falling still, body still poised from catching the lightsaber she'd spun across to decapitate two, and the severed droid arm in her hand falling from her fingers - black fire scattering all around her but missing her by some miracle. Turning, she began to walk, almost lazily deflecting shots, looking up at the sky. What-?
Then Ventress sensed it too, and Bell, and Bene had stopped singing. A sick, twisted discomfort that loomed and coiled in the back of her mind but was somehow right at the front too.
A fiery crack burst across the sky, fading to what could be a meteor, heading straight for the ground some distance away.
"Skywalker," The Dark Woman pronounced, now close enough to speak to Ventress and Bell, "Master Bell?"
Bell nodded, grimly, but determinedly. Standing, he climbed the ruined wall, which was now more of slope. "He's going to land in the main battle. I'd be with my troops, might slow him down."
As Ventress watched him go, she shook her head. "That's a stupid way to die."
Bell turned back, and smiled. "Then it's a good day to die." Then he was gone, leaving Ventress with a once-again-singing Jedi, and another who only paused to give her a withering look.
There was no time for a confrontation though, even as Ventress felt a sneer crawling onto her face. Reinforcements came - clones through the outer gates, clearly finally realising their command had been flanked, and more from the belly of the temple, decked in dark grey with red visors - Palpatine's elite Shadowtroopers corps, driven by what looked to be the true Prophets' strength.
Blades up again, Ventress charged.
Anakin Skywalker had opted for an unusual entry into the system. Clearly unwilling to give himself away early, he'd loitered behind, taking his starfighter in by hyperspace after the battle had begun. It was borderline impossible - but there were definitely a couple hotshot Jedi aces who would at least claim they could do it. Taking a course that went right through the raging space battle, hitting nothing, and dropping out close enough to the atmosphere to almost scrape. And then dove straight down at maximum speed. It burned his fighter, R2 unit squealing in protest, paint peeling away from the fuselage and wings.
The friction and speed blossomed a cone of fire around the small ship that signalled to everyone below. Just diving right at the ground.
Closer.
Closer.
Rocketing, thrusters and solar cells on the verge of burning out.
At the last possible second, the ship sharply right-angled, pulling out of the suicide dive so low he nearly hit a hapless soldier.
The Hero of the Republic leaped from the ship, canopy blown off.
When he landed, Bell was waiting for him. In a better universe, he would have just stuck his lightsaber into that stupid face and that would've been that. But it wasn't a better galaxy, and Anakin growled hatefully, cloak billowing around him as he blocked the sweep and landed. It sent a shockwave that sent Bell back a few paces - and everyone else to their feet.
On the hill just outside the front gates, surrounded by both sides of a war, they clashed, duelled. It was… even. Bell's viridian blade bounced blows off an impenetrable azure defence and had to devote just as much time blocking. Every. Single. Blow.
"We need to get troops in here!" The Dark Woman barked, spinning a web of defence that soaked up the rain of agony a senior prophet had cast. That wasn't the danger though - it was the nuisance that made the danger lethal, a vine you could trip over. Ventress steeled herself, then launched into the fray again.
The prophets were definitely getting harder, but it was somewhat comforted by the updates from Bell. Updates here having the form of Dun Möch they could pick up over the commlink.
zzzt- "Have you asked Palpatine about Orvax yet?"
A furious growl spat across Bell's comm.
"Well how about Senex? Oh wai-" zzztzzt- "best of friends! Did you know their sla-" tzzzztzzt- "scoops for hands?"
Well at least someone was enjoying themself.
Asajj Ventress had certainly not lied, Bant mused, as she picked her way through the archway lined with fangs angled downwards. Terentatek, judging by the shape. The passages were no longer the dour, foetid ruin the exterior and initial halls had pretended. Gleaming marble, polished perfectly, granite as a secondary stone to prevent monotony, but it was primarily pearly and somehow cramped. Not somehow - this was a classic ancient Sith technique, slanting the walls in as they got higher, allowing for halls that were tall, spacious, but nonetheless feeling cramped.
The long tunnel seemed haunted, carved with swirling clouds, foggy but bright. Picking her way through, she ignored the distant rumbling, following a very precise trail, a thread she could sense. It had taken her longer than hoped, but faster than expected, evading Prophets, most of them scrambling outwards to join the fight outside. Masking her presence was difficult, she could feel probes at her future, trying to scry where she might be. She fed them little false visions, expectations - surely the future was the one where she was outside, or up on the command ship.
A sharp turn, then another, and Bant found a larger antechamber now. Ceilings two stories, alcoves with statues, and a fine red carpet marking paths through the space. In the alcoves stood proud, gold and silver statues, of humanoid figures, ancient Sith. They stood motionless, and the hall was empty.
But those statues…
Keeping quiet, and her eyes alert, Bant kept well away from any of them, as she crept through. The archways were draped in shut curtains - open ones where Prophets had hurried through. Layered, pleated white ones that blended with the marble - and in some places those same curtains hung at the walls, and sometimes the walls were just carved like the curtains, gathered and formed in very fine sculpting. It was disorienting to look at, much less find her way by sight, so she looked past the mere sight and on the telltale trail of her quarry. Picking an archway, she noiselessly slipped around the drape.
Another long corridor, the passage turning back on itself. When it did, the wall had a rectangular cut halfway through it, running all along the length of the rest of the way, an open window. It looked black. Peering through it, Bant saw black, emptiness, aside from a few pinpricks of light. There was the feeling of cool air on her face, and as she strained her eyes up she could see some sort of glowing shapes.
A courtyard?
Only one way to find out, she followed the passage, which had angled slightly down. A gradual descent, until she came to a curtain next to where the cut window ended. It was solid, stone, not a curtain.
And yet… gills rippling, she shut her eyes, and then
looked. The wall of drapery was a separate piece of stone to everything else. A gesture with a hand, and it slid sideways, a door.
Pulling herself through carefully, Bant found that there was a much larger slab of door just next to the one she'd opened, and there was a matching 'curtain' stone door on the other side of it. On the huge door was carved two robed figures duelling, and she could only make out the detail maybe two thirds of the way up - it must've been at least six or seven metres. She could hear her breath echoing.
Echoing? Turning, she was on a ledge. It was wide enough that Obi-Wan could probably have a little tea stop here if he brought a small chair and table. But not much more room than that. There was no railing. Over the edge, was an abyss. This room was huge, cavernous, a deep pit, circular, with four ledges like this one at each side, each housing a huge door, and two smaller 'curtain' doors to either side. The walls, smooth and featureless, had cut windows in the stone here and there, passages between the ledges and other rooms, like the one she'd followed. But those walls stretched up and up and up until they finally met at a glowing mosaic eight-pointed star that pierced the darkness, and ringed around a hole that let in the night. Directly under the hole, in the middle of the abyss, was a round platform that floated.
She'd heard about that, scraps gleaned from frenzied dogma, litanies, and fables in her digging at Palpatine's cult. The chamber itself was more of a marvel though, in its vastness, and the completeness of the blackness below.
There was no time to stop. She had to continue after her quarry - and she saw overhead little lights of the space battle through that skylight. In the distant gloom, she saw more robed Prophets scurrying around on the other ledges. Waited her moment, then stepped back to the wall, and took a running jump to throw herself across the endless void, to land into a roll on one of the other platforms. Close, she could smell, sense her quarry.
Picking the left-hand 'curtain', she pulled it open and stepped in. The huge stone door - at least this one - had been fake, a veneer wall, and the passage looped around behind it, its cut window giving her a sight into an empty chamber. It met with what she assumed was an opposite passage from the other 'curtain', and forked again. Bant picked the right fork. She came to a triangular door, flanked on either wall by alcoves that each had… a statue.
Stepping up to the door, she ran her hand over it, over its glyphs, deciphering them with her mind, and a little experience. Not hard, it was simple enough to feel the inner mechanism and-
Bant's mind prickled.
There was a crunching, groaning of stone and metal. Falling back into a roll, she hopped up. The statues were animate, shaking off stiffness and paralysis, limbs moving like automatons, and she could sense the darkness coursing through them. Each ignited a lightsaber, as ancient as the constructs, acrid ozone stench flooding the space.
Bant had
not heard about these. Drawing her lightsaber, her bronze blade met yellow, and she tested one. It was good, embodying someone's skill, but not great.
Three blows traded, and it lurched, almost falling over itself in a more dangerous swipe that nearly took her head off. Erratic, disjointed, and that was the danger. The second one interrupted, and Bant found herself on the defensive.
Back a pace, then two, deflecting evenly, before she found her footing. Leaping right between the blades she whirled her weapon and cut one at the waist. As she landed, she turned and blocked a vicious sweep, sickly green meeting uncomfortably close to her face.
A quick flick, and she batted the green blade to the side and drove her weapon to the hilt in the statue's chest.
With an ominous, wailing crack, it broke apart into pieces, crumbling across the carpet.
Reaching out with her senses, and a webbed hand, Bant searched for any sign of awareness left in the ruined remains, but there was none.
Shutting off her blade, she hunkered down and picked up one of the lightsabers that had rolled to her feet. She recognised it! Mattik Cyan, reportedly a casualty of Order 66. She'd known him for a time, same Youngling Clan. This was his hilt.
There was something so… dead about it. It made her sick. She checked the other one, not one she knew, but she suspected it too had once been a Jedi's. Putting both on her belt, she stood and inspected the door again.
Where was she? Ah, yes, of course.
Drawing her hand across a central glyph, she signed the Secret Hand of the Inevitable Emperor - a rite from the Prophets' codex that curled fingers to match a tri-bladed tattoo all Prophets had on their palm, their symbol of membership that bound them to the cult.
"Render me onwards," Bant murmured, "Render me dark, render me always, render me stark. None stand before me."
With a click, she felt - and could see - the mechanism in the door, gripping it with The Force, eyes shining as she looked beyond reality, curling a field of stars to unbolt the door.
Within, the room was like a meeting antechamber, smaller than the earlier one, and shrouded in deep blue light that suffocated all else. Aside from a little washpool in the centre, it was fairly featureless, made smaller than it was by the curling inner wall that reached from the ceiling.
Stepping through the blue, Bant looked around. There were other doors, but the trail called her to that pool. It was shallow, but the trail led here. Stretching her midnight-cast hand into it, she once again had to look beyond the material - ah. The bottom of the pool was not real, it merely pretended as such to the unbelieving.
She dove in. It was a vertical channel, and came to a floor where there was a triangular opening on one side, which somehow held the water back. It was no trouble to slip through, and she found herself out of water once again, in a tall square room with slanting outward walls, an angled pyramid floor, and a balcony. There was one of those stone curtain doors, but it sensed locked, unyielding to her.
Two more statues stood on plinths at the back of the room, and they awoke almost as soon as she got her bearings. Shambling, creaking, they stumbled towards her, another green lightsaber on one, and blue on the other.
Chancing it, Bant threw her hilt at one, igniting the bronze blade in the air and it clashed with the blue, then whipped around and tore through the construct's shoulder, foul alchemy shattering.
The other kept coming and threw itself at Bant, who had to hop back, retrieving her lightsaber with a deft summon. Holding it up, she swallowed, recognising the stance - and with a glance, the hilt - of her opponent. Master Kolar's, who had gone with Master Windu. The gait and style was a pale imitation, grotesque, but it was undeniably a threat.
Narrowing her huge eyes, Bant closed the distance, and they clashed. It was quick, chaotic, Bant ricocheting sweep after sweep, then falling back to absorb the vicious counters. A push with The Force sent the statue back reeling, and its metal groaned as it lurched forward again.
Deflecting a vicious overhead strike, Bant saw her opportunity and swept upwards, putting the enemy off centre, and then she spun and ignited the other end to sear into the torso in one move.
It wasn't enough to take it completely down, and it shuddered on its knees, leaning over, trying to bring its weapon up, other hand grasping.
With a quick motion, Bant slashed up its middle, and the statue collapsed.
Two more hilts, added to her belt. How many more furnished this temple?
The question would have to wait, for now, she looked up at the balcony - and felt a familiar presence. Master Shryne!
Sensing her in turn, he emerged, looking down at her. A wordless wave, then he put two fingers to his lips and vanished. A few seconds later, and the stone 'curtain' opened, Shryne walking through. "It looks like this way leads outside, it's pretty rocky but it's not far from our transports."
Frowning, Bant nodded. Useful, but not what she was searching for. "Our exit then, we'll have to keep searching. Up here." Gesturing at the triangular opening into the column of water, she led the way up, back to the blue room. It was odd, like the trail was circling back on itself, and she had a better idea of her quarry. But why had it led her here first?
Ventress was rapidly cementing the view that she did not like The Dark Woman. Fighting together somehow did not bridge any kind of base understanding like it had Bell. They moved with each other, fought together, but it did not equate to any kind of… anything. The Jedi was a closed book to her, rare in itself, but she almost entirely disregarded Ventress's presence outside of mechanical necessity.
Ventress hated to be ignored. Thoughts interrupted again, as they cleansed the courtyard of the last of the reinforcements - some of their own troops now pushing through the gatehouse. Bell had gone dark - they could sense him, and a lot of stress, but clearly he was needing to put all his attention into Skywalker.
Weaving around two Prophets, she found she couldn't touch them through a thick cloud, and instead hacked through their supporting troops. Redirecting rocks and bolts of darkness the pair shot at her, she reached out and throttled them, clinically.
That was it, a breather bought for now.
Bene hopped down, discharging his blue lightsabers. "Tis a breach, but the transports have landed - we must hurry, contest their zone. They need not win, merely escape!" And with that he dashed across to one of the opposite walls, scurrying up to mount the battlement.
The Dark Woman wasn't far behind. "With us, Acolyte!" she called behind her, and Ventress nodded. Then, she heard a clicking.. And smelled threat. "Danger!" she called simply, then whirled to home in on the source. Sith statues were creaking to life, bringing up weapons, and shambling to begin cutting through their troops.
Oh, unsurprising that Dooku had left out some details when she'd been here before. If the fool himself had even known.
Cutting a circle around herself, Ventress felled the first statue to reach her. She recognised some of the motions they lurched with, but it was a pale imitation.
Dodge, sweep up, turn and jab, a flick, buzz and clash, then three were downed. Action a blur, the woman carving her presence across the space like a reaper of death. Spin and slash up, linking her weapons together to change her style.
Whirling her formed doublesaber through statues, the dance of death continued. It was elegant but altogether decisive, final. Decapitate one, bisect another, leap and deflect three more, severing hand, then midsection when that wasn't enough.
Ventress could taste the ghosts of fallen Jedi echoed in the constructs. It was creative, and she presumed somewhat effective at unsettling her companions.
"The click of the marching- no no that won't work." Bene continued his bardship, how he was keeping memory of what he crafted was quite beyond Ventress. He leapt down from the battlements again to join Ventress for just a few seconds. Helping to stem the momentum that had interrupted their troops. "A dirge in the land, and two in the sky!"
With a spin he isolated them one by one, cutting a way through. "Fairwell, tortured friends, may peace find your memories." And just as soon he was gone again, up the wall, and with the situation contained, Ventress followed this time, skirt and cloak billowing.
Over the parapet, they came to a flat moor just past a secondary gatehouse - and it was where the transports had landed. Republic troops and alchemically reinforced droids protecting them from behind crates, metal panels, portable trenches, whatever they could to improvise, as Prophets fled into the holds. The important ones, of course. The more expendable were trying to hold the Jedi off.
Bell was still silent, though comms were spotty as it was. She couldn't sense danger, so it could only be going
so badly wrong for him.
Splitting her red blades again, Ventress crossed them, and advanced on the battle line.
That was when the Terentatek roared, great viciously clawed beasts, bipedal, twice as tall as any human. One galloped out of a raising gate to the side. Then another. Then a third, on all fours like a simian. A very spiky simian with alchemically hardened carapace and an inherent wrongness to their sense.
This was getting worse, but she'd known that going in. And so she threw herself at the abominations!
As Bant found the passage that ran around a red-carpeted chamber, she knew they were getting close - and that there was someone else here, someone dangerous. Not Anakin. Not Blackhole.
Running her webbed hands along the edge of the cut window, she kept her eye on the chamber, as she followed the passage around, looking for a door they could fit through. There! Her quarry, but she couldn't reach them yet. A nod to Shryne, and he nodded back from under the starry clark he'd purloined. Bant had one too, and it was quite comfortable if not for the… vibe. Something unpleasant about it. Harm had been done by its owner, unwarranted harm.
Following the corridor around at an angle, it finally opened out to a slope down that they had to follow. It came out in a columned hall under the carpeted room she'd seen.
Following the thread of fate she had been scenting, she led the way, bustling across the hall, signing The Eye to passing Prophets, a customary greeting. Bant masked her and Shryne both with the Force, cloaking their fates, to allow them to seem just as any Prophets expected to see - but then they did have pressingly urgent matters, so it was an easier infiltration than it might normally be.
Coming to a lift, she pressed a button that felt right, and then the pair waited as they ascended. Quiet, blending in, committed to the plan, embodying and becoming the role of Prophets, just for a time.
As they stepped out, they came up short in front of a short man with bulging humanoid proportions and a raggedy beard and widow's peak touching off a manic expression, even under his hood. Big flappy ears, knobbled fingers and bare toes poking out from his cloak. And his eyes, dark as the night of space, just like the cloak, and glittering like it too, the starscape. He was a Bimm, and Bant had heard of him, in her investigations, in tales whispering in the dark underground spiritual circles she trawled. The repugnant stench in The Force flooded over her, his presence unveiling.
"Kadann."
He smiled, and bit into a muja-fruit.
"Master Eerin, Master Shryne. The Inquisitor and the Apostate. Oh, you might not have gotten that far yet, Master Shryne. My apologies." Beaming merrily, he rubbed his hands together. "You have done excellently to make it this far! But it's quite useless, you know. Come, the light side must be preserved, and it may as well be you. Follow me, and I guarantee your lives will be quite comfortable in house arrest."
Narrowing her round eyes, Bant shook her head. "So certain are you?" She could sense Shyne's disquiet, trusting her to do the talking. "Then you know why we have come?"
Stopping, mid-turn, when he realised neither Jedi were following, Kadann turned back. "Of course! The jittering braymonk ever aptly predicts the merrygoals that brave the bisthmuth paved road. The sin in the eye. All for nought, it is really quite futile."
Starting to talk around him, hand hovering at her belt, Bent kept her eyes on him, replying. "And upon their return, for days and nights, the merrygoal quests."
"Quests!" He agreed, eyes crinkling. He stood where he was, but kept turning to keep face with her, disregarding Shryne entirely. "But I have foreseen! There is only cynical cleansing, the scrub of the sore that is not a sore!"
Reciting, Bant just looked at him pityingly. She could taste his power, his confidence, but for all its worth? Not worthwhile.
"But here lie the true, and the way and the cant, the end that is spun. It is the journey, the journey, over the horizon, where the celestials weep, tears that reach the sky."
Baring teeth with his smile, as Bant completed her walk, now on the other side of him, Kadann clapped. It was not a clap of complete sincerity, but she felt she had impressed him, in a way. That made her uneasy, made her gills pulse and ripple in the air.
"Well reasoned. Try and save them, as you understand it, but it will only end in misery. I have seen it."
"Your cynicism expects them to be unsavable?" she replied dryly.
"No, because I saw myself doing this!" His hands flashed, dropping the fruit, and lightning burst from his soft fingertips.
Bringing up her lightsaber, Bant caught the lashing sparks, channelling them along the bronze blade. Eyes focussed, but unfocussed, trying to blot out the sense of him nearly crushing her thoughts. A step back, then another. Focus! She pushed back, and swept her blade, deflecting the lightning to discharge across the walls, crackling and searing, smoke erupting from the squeal.
And then Shryne cut through one wall, yes!
As it buckled and fell, the huge slab threatened to swat Kadann. With a deft wave of the hand he held it, but it was all they needed.
Funnelling along her trail of fate, Bant ran, willing Shryne to run with her. A blast of sparks, then another, missing, snatching just short of her boots.
Through a door, she closed it, then she and Shryne took it in their minds, and warped it, rending metal. Not long but it would do.
They were inside the carpeted room, and at last they were here!
Children, tenagers, babies, toddlers, over fifty, of all kinds of ages and dozens of species. They clustered together in the room, behind a handful of nannies. Or the sick idea of nannies. For a second the feeling of traumas, of countless little and large crimes crashed across Bant, as she sensed every vile thing done to the younglings.
Nostrils flaring, she banished the fear, the outrage. She must focus now. Turning her mind upon the confused nannies, she approached commandingly, ignored the pounding on the door that sounded a lot bigger than the fist of any Bimm. "Brothers, sisters! I am here to escort you, the evacuation shuttles are ready!" Signing The Eye at them, her eyes bored into theirs, overwhelming their strength, a little sleight of mind.
Obediently, they nodded.
"We must escape! With me!" Holding her weapon aloft, she ran to the cut window of the passage, and began to cut it larger. Shryne joined her, and between them they cut open a proper doorway.
The escape was tense, the party hurrying out, Bant leaving Shryne to bring up the rear as she led them up to the main chasmic chamber. In her head she could feel Kadann, wrestling with her, trying to pry a warning to his mages, and she was pulling every mental trick to turn it back on itself, keep his call isolated.
Leading the children and nannies to the blue room, she ushered them in hurriedly. Glancing past them. Where was Master Shryne? Ah, here he came, his cloak singed but unhurt.
"We'll need more time!" he gasped as he came to the antechamber.
"Together then." An exchanged nod, and their hands stretched out, tearing and pulling at the great false monolithic door. Out it came, cracking wall and support as it went, demolishing its antechamber. A controlled cave in to block the stone curtain passage.
Releasing the crumbling slab, they let it break apart and block the way behind them. Bant released a breath. A shooting jab inside her head told her Kadann had definitely gotten calls out, but with a block like that, and allied troops she could sense flooding into the temple, they at least had a little bit to get everyone down through the water.
Turning, Bant led Shryne into the blue room.
And stopped dead.
There was a hooded figure standing by the little pool, veiled in the room's light. It matched his lit lightsaber. Bant knew him, but also didn't know him anymore.
"Hello there," he sneered, face twisted mockingly.
A pit of dread twisted in her.
"Anakin." Stepping in front of Shryne, she dropped her starry cloak. In a single motion, she drew her lightsaber again, lighting both ends, and holding it horizontally, in an opening stance, one foot behind. Bronze breached the blue, the only other colour.
Anakin remained still, blade held down at his side. "Do you imagine Obi-Wan will weep for you?"
+++++
Merry Christmas! A little surprise for you all. I hope you've all been nice.
There will be a part two, but you don't get to know whether it'll be before or after All The News Not Fit to Print
