The galaxy is in turmoil. A year has passed since the rise of THE GALACTIC EMPIRE, and its relentless war machine rolls from system to system, crushing any resistance.
Jedi MASTER FIONN and his padawan YONN OSSIM have lead a ragtag group of clone trooper deserters and refugees through the unexplored expanses of the OUTER RIM, thus far evading capture – but the Imperial spies have found them at last, and the EMPEROR has sent the dreaded Sith Lord DARTH VADER to destroy this last glimmer of hope…
Dull thuds reverberated through the hull of the battered Republican cruiser, and the field of stars outside the observation port was dimmed by the occasional bright flash of exploding plasma. Turbolaser fire. From an Imperial Star Destroyer.
The door slid open and Yonn Ossim entered the chamber. Master Fionn turned to observe his young padawan as he crossed the scuffed floor. The young man’s robes, while simple in cut, were resplendent in a rainbow of hues ranging from burgundy to deepest indigo. Even Ossim’s golden learner’s braid, though mandated by the Order, seemed a deliberate and cared-for ornament on his shoulder.
“He comes for us at last, Master,” the young man exclaimed as he reached Fionn’s side by the window. “The time is now. We cannot run any longer.”
“We can, and we will,” Master Fionn sighed. He was weary of this discussion. They had had it many times over the past grueling months. “It is not cowardice, but prudence. Can you not feel Vader approaching? The Force sings with his power. It is a gale against my senses. We cannot stand against him.”
“Perhaps you cannot, for your shaking knees.”
Master Fionn turned to his apprentice, black face grimly lit by the blaster fire outside the ship – but there was no anger in his voice.
“He will kill you. Or worse. I will not allow it. You are still my apprentice!”
Ossim’s cheeks blossomed in the flickering light.
“Were there still an Order, I would have passed the Trials already,” he announced. He pulled himself up straighter and puffed his chest out. “I am a Jedi Knight! I will face him where you dare not!”
Master Fionn watched his padawan stride away; watched the haughty step and the incensed air. Felt the Force thrum with the boy’s self-righteousness and excitement. He shook his head.
“Lieutenant Bitter!” he called. The trooper emerged from his post outside the door, his white armor scarred and scuffed. “Prepare all shuttlecraft for launch and a hasty jump to lightspeed.”
“General? We’re going to use the boy as a diversion?” The old soldier sounded concerned. They had all fought in the Clone Wars together. He had watched Ossim grow up.
“Yonn has chosen his fate,” Fionn said sadly. “May the Force be with him.”
*
The stage was set. Yonn had chosen to make his stand in the briefing hall, not only because it lay in his enemy’s path, but because of its atmospheric lighting and because of the view it afforded of the battle raging outside the wide, panoramic windows.
The young Jedi sat in the middle of a raised dais in the back of the hall, meditating in preparation for the battle to come. He could sense Vader approaching. A shiver of elation – and of fear. His master had been right: the Force hummed with the power of the approaching darkness.
The high doors slid open, revealing a tall, black shape towering among the shadows of the hall beyond. The silence was broken by a loud, mechanical breath, like a pressure valve releasing natracid steam. It was true, then: Vader was an invalid. Yonn’s trepidation eased somewhat.
“I have awaited you, Dark Lord,” he announced loudly, as if before an audience. The security holocams were recording, after all. “Your Sith master loses his apprentice today.”
Yonn awaited a response to his challenge, but Vader gave no sound other than his menacing breaths. In fact, he had not acknowledged the Jedi’s presence or even moved since he strode into the hall.
Yonn ignited his half-pike saber with an elegant flourish and spun it in an intricate pattern, letting its brilliant blue radiance dance over the glistening floor of the briefing hall.
Still no acknowledgement from the dark figure. Only when Yonn halted, uncertain, did the Sith light his blood-red blade. The dull glow seemed to make the tenebrous shape of the man grow even darker, and the ominous hum seemed to resonate in the young Jedi’s bones.
Yonn struck, a quick twist of his body sending his blade in a dazzling arc. Vader was slow and ponderous; he hardly seemed to move at all – and yet he deflected Yonn’s blow, and the many that followed, seemingly without effort. Like a silent wall, Vader stood impervious to Yonn’s twirls and pirouettes, his strikes and his lunges. Yonn did not even notice that he was being driven backward until he felt the cold glass against his back.
Yonn was spent. He desperately scanned the Dark Lord for a sign of fatigue, any token at all that the full depth of Yonn’s might had made any impact – but Vader stood as silent as before. His black mask was emotionless and inscrutable. Opening up to the Force, Yonn tried to probe the Sith’s mind, but met that same mute resistance.
And yet… the shape of that resistance seemed familiar. Yonn had sensed this presence before.
“Skywalker?” he gasped.
It all happened at once: the pain, the pressure, the feeling of his windpipe constricting, the muscles in his neck being squashed into mush, his aorta rupturing, the grinding sound of his splintering vertebrae vibrating through the base of his skull like churning bits of gravel in a leather bag. The supposedly unbreakable vitranium pane cracking behind him. And all around, a howling storm of pain and loss and anger, battering against his senses.
He felt his cheekbone shatter against the titominium floor before even sensing the shift in balance. A loud, terrifying sound made him realize that this eternity of agony had only filled the space between the Dark Lord’s wheezing breaths – and then it ended. Another sudden shift. Glittering shards of vitranium. The howling of venting atmosphere, then silence. Cold. Darkness.
I
The medical frigate was dead in space, much as Keevah had suspected. The TIE bombers had hit the main generator first, then life support. Standard Imperial operating procedure; very efficient. And in their usual haughty nonchalance, they had left the wreckage as it was: rife with opportunity.
Keevah Tohn was a salvager, a scavenger. She was the kind of woman who saw treasure where others saw junk. But drifting down the silent, dark hallways of the dead hulk, she had to admit: she would likely find little of value here. The wreckage was at least five years old; vacuum exposure and interstellar radiation would have worn down almost anything by now. The best she could hope for was to find a shielded section where there might be metal components that weren’t yet too irradiated to sell as scraps.
Her comm crackled and her helmet was flooded with beeps and whistles.
“What is it, LE?”
LE-1216, Keevah’s repair droid, was exploring a different section of the wreck. It’s various sensors made it a valuable aid on ventures such as this.
“A power signature? Where?” A blinking waypoint appeared on the holographic display on Keevah’s wrist. “I’m on my way.”
*
They dragged it over to the waiting Rimstrider, Keevah’s repurposed old tugboat. The woman was cursing her luck all the while. The one salvageable object in the whole wreck – and it’s more trouble than it’s worth! A bacta tank, still trudging along on a dying backup battery, with a living occupant still comatose inside. Gained nothing but a mouth to feed, Keevah thought bitterly as the airlock recompressed. She removed her vac-helmet and shook out her feathery mane. Someone else might have sold the tank to the Hutts, occupant and all – but Keevah despised the practice of slavery, and she despised its practitioners even more. She had no choice but to revive the poor shteekah.
“Hook the tank into the ship’s systems, LE, and start the wake-up sequence.”
LE unfolded its many-jointed limbs and trudged off towards the cargo hold, bacta tank in tow. Keevah fed a set of coordinates into the navicomputer before joining the droid. She had found the wreckage in an uncharted part of the Outer Rim, and it had seemed untouched – but she had learned not to linger in such places. The Empire had eyes and ears in every corner of the galaxy, and it did not look kindly on activities outside its own control.
Keevah looked closer at the man in the tank as LE drained the bacta fluid into the waste disposal. He looked wretched, and not only because of what was likely at least five years growth of straw-colored hair and beard. He began coming to as LE hoisted him onto a cot in a corner, and his hands immediately went towards his neck.
“Stay calm,” Keevah said as she saw the panic rise in the man’s grey eyes. “All your vital signs are stable. You’ll be fine.”
The man let out a distorted, metallic groan. His hands quested across his throat and probed the unfamiliar surfaces. His injuries must have been gruesome, Keevah thought. His neck from shoulder to skull, and even part of his jaw, had been rebuilt with droid prostheses, cold metal screws and hydraulic pistons which dug into his flesh like greedy fingers.
“It hurts,” the man’s robotic voice rasped. Keevah wasn’t surprised. Whoever did this botched the job. “Where are we?”
“Aboard my ship, the Rimstrider,” Keevah answered. “I found you in an old wrecked Republican medical frigate. I’m Keevah, by the way.”
“Yonn Ossim,” the man mumbled, casting his eyes around the cargo hold and the various bits of salvage Keevah had gathered. “You’re a scavenger?”
There was a tone in the bedraggled man’s distorted voice that Keevah didn’t care for.
“I am a Hand of the Marakhi, a once proud people forced to live in squalor by the Empire!” she said angrily. “I’m out here rummaging through filth to provide for my people!”
“Peace,” Ossim said placatingly. “I meant no disrespect.” He ran his hand through his lank hair, still wet from the tank. “How long have I been asleep?”
“The wreckage looked to be from the early days of the Empire,” Keevah said, “Five years or more.”
“And the Emperor still reigns.” Ossim’s shoulders slumped. Then a strange look came into his eyes: shame and anger, it seemed. “And Vader?”
“The fist of the Empire. Whole systems surrender at the mention of his name.”
An alarm blared, and LE whistled and scurried off. Keevah shot to her feet.
“Someone’s hailing us!” she cried. “We’ve stayed here for too long!”
She rushed off to the cockpit, and Ossim followed on weak legs. Outside the viewport an Imperial patrol frigate loomed and a stern voice came through the comm static.
“This the Imperial Light Frigate Vigilant. You are in violation of a restricted zone. State your identity and your business here.”
“LE, prime the hyperdrive!” Keevah strapped herself in the pilot’s chair and furiously tapped a number of controls. “This is the independent hauler Rimstrider,” she sent over the comm. “We received a distress call from this location and decided to investigate, sir.”
“You’re lying,” the Imperial officer said calmly. “There are no signals coming from this wreckage. In fact, our archive records show that this vessel was destroyed in an engagement nearly five years ago. I surmise that you are here conducting illegal looting, and I am hereby placing you under arrest as per paragraph 186-B of the Imperial Charter of Territorial Governance. Prepare to be boarded.”
“Well, that was a rewarding conversation,” Keevah said venomously. “Strap yourself in – we’re about to get ourselves heroically blown up during a daring escape.”
“Wait,” Ossim said. “Hail them again.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Keevah was about to make a snide reply, but something made her pause. A tingle, a sensation, ran across her scaly skin and made her feathery mane ripple in a cascade of iridescent blues and purples. Like in a dream she flipped the comm switch on.
“We simply responded to a phantom distress signal,” Ossim said. His voice was warm and soothing, despite its metallic aspect. “We are innocent, and you will let us be on our way.” Keevah felt a low hum at the edge of her hearing, like an unseen insect.
“You simply responded to a phantom distress call,” the Imperial officer said. His voice was uncertain and dazed. “You’re innocent. We will let you be on your way.”
“Thank you, officer,” Ossim said. Keevah shook her head. The cockpit suddenly seemed deafeningly silent. “Take us to lightspeed.”
The hyperdrive roared and the stars outside the viewport dissolved into smearing streaks of color. Yonn laboriously made his way to the ship’s little galley and slumped onto a seat. Keevah sat down opposite him with a solemn look in her eye.
“You’re one of them,” she said, in a whisper as though the Empire could hear her. “A Jedi!”
Ossim would not meet her gaze. “Once, perhaps,” he said bitterly. “But the Jedi are no more. Vader has destroyed them.”
“Not you!” Keevah grabbed his hand. “You’re here! You can save us!”
“From Vader? How?” Ossim’s harsh voice mingled with the thump and whine of the hyperdrive, filling the silence.
“From the Empire,” Keevah said. “It’s been six years since the Empire drove my people from their homes. All over the galaxy, it’s the same. They’re tyrants and bigots, and they will crush anyone who doesn’t live up to their standards under their wheels before planting their flag in the mangled corpse. For six years, the galaxy has waited for someone break the war machine. We’ve all been waiting for the Jedi to return.”
A conduit broke and began venting gas in one of the corners. LE scuttled into the galley and hastily began patching the break. Yonn’s eyes saw right through the chittering droid.
“I don’t suppose you have a place to start?” he said.
Keevah shrugged. “We’re going to need to pick up a few things.”
II
The port of Trembah Nor began as an illegal mining operation many centuries ago. The hollowed-out asteroid soon became a meeting point for the sector’s vagrants, bandits, and other undesirables, and its improvised markets became flooded with goods from every corner of the Outer Rim – especially goods not readily available elsewhere.
Keevah had perused Trembah Nor’s noisy marketplaces on many occasions, sometimes buying and sometimes selling, but always looking over her shoulder. Pickpockets and back-alley robbers she could deal with, but she feared the eyes that shone with less greed and more suspicion. The Empire did not often come openly to places such as Trembah Nor, but no corner however shady was spared its insidious spies.
“This way,” she hissed to the man at the stall next to hers. Ossim had shaven and shorn his hair short, but his prosthetics still made him stand out, even hidden beneath a somber blue hood. She turned and led the way through a narrow alley, stopping by a low doorway off the filthy street.
“Whatever components you need, Tzeeta will have them,” she said and rang the bell. “But his price will be steep, and steeper still if he thinks he can make more by selling you.”
The door screeched open, and the pair stepped into the oily murk beyond. As Ossim’s eyes adjusted, he became aware of a cramped room filled from floor to ceiling with every conceivable type of mechanical and electrical component. At the back of the room, a vast, diffuse shape sat behind a counter laden with bits of machinery.
“Keevah! Welcome back to my humble shop!” a greedy voice called. In huttese. The slug-like shape leaned forward, and a dim ray of light fell across a slimy countenance with hungry eyes behind greasy spectacles. “What brings my favorite customer back to me?”
“My friend is building something,” Keevah said in a friendly tone. “I told him Tzeeta’s is the only place to find what he needs.”
“Right you are, my girl!” Tzeeta’s laugh made Ossim queasy. Which Hutt clan did this merchant belong to? One of the independent ones? Or one aligned with the Empire? Whichever was more profitable, no doubt. “What is it you’re making, boy?”
“An art project,” Ossim said evasively. “It’s a gift for my mother. I need a four topah long casing, a tanerium power cell, and focusing lenses.”
“Oh-ho,” the Hutt chuckled. “Making Mother a night light, are we? That will last her a lifetime, at that. Tanerium doesn’t come cheap.”
“I do love my old mother dearly,” Ossim smiled. “I don’t suppose you have any kyber crystals lying around, do you?”
“Well, now!” Tzeeta’s glistening face lit up with a nasty smile. “That is not a request one often hears. Even more seldom, these days. They say the old Jedi monks used those in their laser swords. But the Jedi are all gone, aren’t they, boy?” There was a knowing glint in the Hutt’s eye. “I suppose you want it for its color.”
“For its color, as you say,” Ossim agreed. “None better.” He quietly shook his head at Keevah, whose hand had crept towards the blaster on her hip. “Now, listen.” Tzeeta’s sickening smirk suddenly froze. Keevah felt that dull thrumming in her bones again. “This night light is a surprise for my mother.” The Hutt’s eyes were bulging and his tongue was writhing between his slimy lips like a dying snake. “She won’t be hearing anything about this from you, will she?”
*
“No crystal, as I thought.” Yonn handed the various pieces he had gotten from the Hutt merchant to LE, who stored them in a compartment in its chassis and strode off towards the berth where the Rimstrider was moored.
“Can you build your saber without one?” Keevah asked, nervously watching the milling crowd in the marketplace.
“No,” Yonn said. “The kyber crystal is the heart of any lightsaber. It is attuned to the living Force, and amplifies the power from the cell thousandfold. No other substance has these properties. Without it, like the Hutt said, I am building a flashlight.”
“What do they look like? Could I find one if I looked around the market again?”
“Unlikely. They are rare, and difficult to identify even to a trained eye. A kyber crystal is a living thing, and it only gains its distinctive properties once it has bonded with a Jedi of its own choosing. Until then, it is colorless and indistinguishable from ratarr, melark, toshon, or any other similar natural crystal.”
Keevah looked up from the pendant around her neck that she had been contemplating.
“So you’re saying that even if we found one of these rare crystals, it might not choose you? And then it would be useless?”
Ossim smiled. “Maybe,” he shrugged. “But the Force has a way of bringing the right pieces together, if it wills it. More often than not, the puzzle completes itself, unsought after.”
“Right. That’s why the galaxy’s such a bright and happy place, I guess.” Keevah straightened up and pulled her pendant from her neck. “Well, try this then. It’s a talisman that my tribe’s shaman gave me when she chose me as Hand. She said it’s a melark stone she found among the ruins on the world where my people has taken refuge. It might be kyber. See if it chooses you.”
Ossim took the small, opaque stone that Keevah proffered him. It felt warm against his palm, and for a brief moment a jolt of trepidation shot through him. Then, a pale glow seeped into the facets and penetrated the muscles and tendons of his hand. Blue, like his old one – but there was a dull, reddish shadow at its heart.
“Huh,” Keevah said. “I guess the Force hasn’t forsaken us after all.”
III
Ossim closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He sat cross-legged on the floor in the Rimstrider’s cargo hold, the various bits and pieces he had bought arranged around him. He held Keevah’s stone gently in his upturned palms. It was humming with the Force.
He unfolded his senses, let them quest outward. Delicate filaments, fine tendrils of perception branching out from his center. He felt the disorderly clutter of the cargo hold, he cold metal of the ship around him, but beyond that, beneath it, permeating it and him – the vast ocean of the living Force, lapping against the edges of his mind.
The pieces of metal and wiring began dancing in the air around him, floating on little eddies of Force. Ossim could not tell if it was his will or that of the Force which guided the components as they assembled, but he quietly abandoned wondering. The question was irrelevant, without answer, and it was holding him back.
He turned inward, carefully examined the moorings which tied him to the physical, and gingerly loosed them. A single step, but a dangerous one; as a padawan he had heard many tales of careless searchers who had dissolved into the vastness of the Force. A drop you must be, old master Yoda had often said. Fall into the sea, one with it become, but remain a drop you must. Ossim had often struggled with this question. I can pour a drop into the sea, and I can lift a drop out – but is it the same drop? Can it be?
Perhaps the answer had always been “no”. Perhaps the solution is to not emerge the same. Ossim let go of his fears and dove into the ocean. Beneath the calm surface, he became aware of many currents churning in all directions. He felt his self unravel like a torn tapestry, and for a moment fear drove him to collect himself – but then he quieted his mind and allowed the flow to carry him away.
Spread out across the galaxy, Ossim sensed darkness. Terror and grief created dissonant tones in the sweeping song of the Force, a jarring chorus of lament and fury which drowned out any notes of joy or peace. Ossim felt the darkness color him, creep into his spirit, poison him. Vader. The fraying strands of Ossim’s mind resonated with anger and hate, and they began probing the fractures, following the fault lines back into the heart of the darkness.
Then a touch of light, like a feather brushing against Ossim’s senses. A presence, an essence, a hint of a shape familiar and missed, a warmth and a welcome. Master?
Find me. A whisper on the wind, and a gentle gathering of Ossim’s threads. The young Jedi felt himself centering, being collected and cleansed by a the light of a sunrise, felt more than seen. A tug at his heart, a scent of moisture and of growth, a joyous choir of life.
Ossim opened his eyes. Keevah’s glowing stone settled into its chamber and the casing slid shut, and the finished lightsaber, half-pike hilt as long as his arm, settled into Ossim’s waiting hands. Qurn. He had never heard the name, but he felt the rightness of it. He knew where it was, like one hand finds the other even in the blackest night.
“Enter these coordinates into the navicomputer, LE,” he told the droid. “I must find Keevah.”
*
They were asking all the wrong questions.
Years of shady deals and risky operations had made Keevah develop keen instincts. She could typically sense when something was off within moments of entering a room, or being introduced to a stranger. And these two set off every warning bell she had.
First of all, they were too nice. On Trembah Nor, no one was nice. “Mind your own business” was the rule, and the denizens were always quick to set you straight if you ventured outside the lines. But this Norrakh couple – unassuming, grey and mouse-like – had bowed and scraped and offered her a fair price on the supplies they offered. They had been polite.
Keevah was desperately searching for a discreet way to extricate herself from the interaction. Looking around the quiet marketplace, she suddenly realized that the marketplace was quiet. The customers at the other stalls all had a rough look to them, which in itself was not unusual for Trembah Nor – but they were all intently studying whatever goods offered by the stalls without haggling or being accosted with bargains by the stall merchants. In fact, the merchants all seemed to be mysteriously missing and their precious wares left unattended. Keevah got the distinct impression that the commodity being inspected was her.
“Where is the Jedi?” the little Norrakh man asked her casually and fixed his big, innocent eyes on her. The charade was over, then. “You gain nothing by protecting him. If you give him to us, the Empire will overlook your offenses. They’ll even reward you for his capture.”
Not just robbers, then. As the thought crossed her mind, she saw the white glint of Imperial stormtrooper armor in the alleyway leading to the marketplace, blocking her escape. They had come in force, and chosen not to rely solely on mercenaries. The Empire meant business. She had finally done it. Shown up on their radar. In a big way. She hoped that the reward would prove worth the risk.
“Tell Tzeeta I said ‘hello’,” she told the Norrakh woman, and shot her husband through the abdomen. Blaster bolts whizzed over her head as she dove into cover behind a preet-kebab vendor’s stall. The smell of ozone mingled with the odors of sweat, filth, and roasting meat.
Keevah had counted six mercenaries, and at least a dozen stormtroopers were pouring into the market from all directions. She had her blaster pistol, and she had long since been forced to learn how to use it – but her position was untenable. She quickly downed two of the mercenaries and rolled – through a puddle the contents of which she’d rather not contemplate – behind a low wall surrounding a well in a corner of the square. Cover on three sides. Better. But not good enough.
The troopers were taking up firing positions behind the stalls, and were taking turns keeping her suppressed. They were disciplined and well trained. Short of jumping down the well, Keevah saw no way out. She feared that the Marakhi would be losing a Hand today.
Then the Jedi was there, a light in the gloom, a figure out of myth and legend. The hum of his saber seemed to drown out all other noise, and Keevah was filled with an eerie calm as she watched the purplish blue blade dance among the white shapes of the troopers. It was a spectacle, a graceful ballet of light and shadow, the harsh flashes of the blasters filling the air and the elegant figure spinning, twirling his bright flame.
It was over as quickly as it had begun. The Jedi stood among the corpses of the troopers, smoke and the scent of scorched flesh rising from their wounds. He deactivated his saber, and silence and darkness fell upon the scene.
“Come,” Ossim said, his metallic scratch fraying the peace of the marketplace. “We must leave this place.”
IV
The Rimstrider descended through the dense canopy, the roar of her engines upsetting the stillness of the green temple below.
Ossim stepped off the loading ramp onto the lush, moss-covered soil and took a deep breath. The jungle filled his senses, the green, the scent, the sound; a riotous cacophony of life, bright sparks bound together by the deep web of the Force. His master had chosen well. In this sea of voices, one whisper was impossible to single out.
And yet Ossim’s gaze was inexorably drawn to the hooded figure that stood in the verdant gloom between the gargantuan trunks standing as mute sentinels around the clearing. Keevah emerged from the ship, eyes bright at the sight of the opulent growth. It occurred to Yonn that the Marakhi might well be a jungle people as she stepped into a shaft of sunlight and her iridescent plumage glittered. Her graceful form, though covered by a stained lastiprene vac suit and odd-colored bits of scavenged ceramium armor plating, reminded him of a bright jungle bird as she lifted her downy face to the fingers of light questing down through the gaps in the canopy. Then, she too became aware of the figure striding toward them with a smooth, feline gait. “Is that him?” she asked, practiced wariness rekindled.
Master Fionn’s greying hair and beard emerged from beneath the hood, and for a moment, Ossim was uncertain of his own intentions as a flash of anger surged within him. But it fizzled into a slow warmth as the old man smiled.
“My young apprentice,” Fionn’s deep voice rumbled, teeth white in his dark, wrinkled face. “It is good to see you.” He was tall and powerful even in his advancing age, a lion of a man, and his cheer and apparent wellbeing suddenly irked Ossim. “I believed that Vader had been your end, boy.”
“Nearly.” Ossim’s distorted voice made the word sound harsher than he had intended. Fionn glanced at Ossim’s rebuilt neck, and the pity the younger man saw in his old master’s eyes pained him more than his injuries. “It was Skywalker who betrayed us, master. Kenobi’s apprentice. He is Vader; I sensed it in him.”
Fionn solemn face, rough and seamed, became troubled. “These are grave news,” he said. “There were those in the Order who believed that Skywalker was a child of prophecy. We all sensed it; though brash and undisciplined, he was undeniably powerful.” He shook his head, tight, grey curls shuddering as leaves in a sudden breeze. “It may be that we must retreat further into the Unknown Regions if we are to remain hidden.”
A third man came stalking between the trees, clearly emerging from a hidden watchpost, blaster rifle in hand. Though age had put a stoop in his shoulders and silvered his hair, he still had the stiff bearing of a soldier.
“Bitter!” Ossim called. “You’re looking rough around the edges.”
The new arrival shrugged and lowered his rifle. “Aging twice as fast as other men’ll do that to ya, Commander, sir.” His gravelly voice was somber. “I was made to die young.”
Ossim and Fionn exchanged a knowing look, and the old master smiled wryly. “The Lieutenant still has trouble finding his place in the living Force, old friend,” he said.
“You’re a clone trooper,” Keevah said in amazement. Bitter gave her a sharp look, clearly incensed that a civilian would interrupt a discussion between officers.
“I was,” he said gravely. “I led the General’s platoon.”
“So when the Emperor seized power -”
“We fought with the Jedi for years,” Bitter cut her off. “Some of us were loyal to more than a flag.” He turned to Master Fionn. “I’ll set yesterday’s stew to heating, General,” he said, and marched off.
The sounds of life seeped back into the silence. Ossim gestured at Keevah.
“This is Keevah Tohn,” he told his master. “She found my bacta tank and revived me.” He watched the older man’s face closely. “She wants me to destroy the Empire.”
A shadow crossed the master’s wrinkled brow. “Does she?” he said thoughtfully. “How? Will you charge at the Imperial Palace on Coruscant, blade drawn?”
“You are Jedi!” Keevah burst out. “Paragons of justice and compassion, symbols of hope! Declare yourself, and the people will rally around you!”
“And call down the wrath of Vader and his Emperor on all our heads,” Master Fionn said calmly. Ossim sensed his master retreat into himself. The old man pulled a fold of his robe tighter around him, but Ossim had noticed the elegantly curved hilt of his saber still strapped to his chest before it was hidden. “It would end in tragedy, child.”
“But is she not right to say that Vader and the Emperor must be destroyed, Master?” Ossim felt his voice tremble with barely contained frustration. “Is it not our duty as Jedi to confront the Sith and chase away the shadows they have cast upon the galaxy? Must not the traitor Skywalker be punished?”
“You tried it once, Yonn.” Fionn shook his head. “And learned nothing, it seems. See what happened.”
“Because you would not stand with me!” Ossim felt his anger rise, and beneath it, hurt and betrayal. “Have you not cowered in your burrow long enough? What have you accomplished in your exile?”
“Be mindful of your feelings, Yonn!” Fionn’s dark eyes lit up. “Have you looked inward, at what really drives you? I sense a darkness in you, young padawan!”
“I am not your p-” Ossim’s voice was cut short. Master Fionn cocked his head as though listening.
“I sense it too.”
Silence fell in the clearing, a complete, dead silence. The soft light filtering through the branches overhead seemed to dim, and the warmth of the sun seemed stolen away. A great dread gripped Keevah’s heart, and her hand crept to her blaster. The blades of the Jedi ignited, but the darkness seemed to press against their violet and green radiance.
In the pit of the darkest shadow, two golden fangs flashed and illuminated a small, ragged figure, hooded and masked. A wrongness radiated from it, a fracture and a sickness which seeped into Keevah’s gut.
“A Sith assassin!” Ossim hissed. “The Empire has found us!”
With a high-pitched shriek the dark figure lunged at the Jedi, its two golden slashes twirling at incredible speed. They danced from Ossim’s broad strokes to Fionn’s intricate thrusts, deflecting one and parrying the other, and always moving, moving, spinning and writhing and evading. Ossim’s blows struck with great power, and Fionn’s delicate flourishes dazzled and confused with artful subtlety, and yet the small shape between them danced ever away.
Then a bolt of lightning drove the combatants apart. Lieutenant Bitter, wielding an old republican heavy warp caster, had taken up position at the edge of the clearing. The heavy blasts tore ugly scars into the dark loam of the jungle floor and drove the small whirling shape back.
Ossim saw his opportunity and slashed at the aggressor, connecting and tearing the black mask from the assassin’s face.
“Wait!” Master Fionn called.
It was a girl-child no older than ten. Above the small cut that Ossim’s saber had left on her cheek, two golden eyes were wild as those of a hunted beast. Fear and pain radiated from those eyes as heat from twin stars, powerful enough that Ossim’s senses were nearly overwhelmed. There was great shock, also, but not from her. Ossim sensed tumultuous turmoil from his old master.
The three of them stood so a moment, each trying to make sense of the others, Force thrumming and churning between them. Then the girl shrieked, the howl of a desperate animal, and pushed outward. It was a wild, unfocused lashing out, but the Force of it left the two Jedi stunned. Then, the shadows seemed to lift, the sounds of life returned to the jungle about them – and the girl was gone.
“We must go after her!” Master Fionn gasped, his voice unsteady.
“Why?” Ossim helped Bitter to his feet. “She is no doubt halfway to her ship already, and troopers will surely follow. We must leave.”
“She must be destroyed. She must!”
Ossim had never seen his master this shaken.
“We should focus on Vader and his Emperor,” Ossim said. “Cut the heart from this darkness, and the shadow will surely lift from that half-trained whelp.”
“You do not understand.” Fionn sat down on a stump, hands nervous and fidgeting. “She is my responsibility.” His low, rumbling voice suddenly seemed thin and feeble. ”She is my daughter.”
The sounds of the jungle rushed in to fill the stunned silence. Ossim’s stomach sank.
“How is that possible?”
“It was a few years before the war.” Fionn’s gaze bored into the earth at his feet. “Shortly before I took you on as my apprentice. I formed… a bond with a fellow Jedi. Vilia.”
“I remember. She was excommunicated when it was discovered that she was with child. You were the father?” Ossim suddenly felt anger rise in his gut. “You watched the Council cast her out, and you said nothing?”
Fionn’s black eyes flashed.
“It would have been my undoing!” he said. “I could feel the darkness pawing at me. For a time, she made me ignore it, but I felt it in my core. What we did was wrong, and she was punished for me. I thought that my shame and guilt was my punishment, but I see now that I must correct my mistake for good.”
“Your mistake?” Ossim felt sick. “So all your words to me about controlling my passions were hollow. And now that you find that the fruit of your sin has ripened, you intend to sever the branch. You betray her, as you have betrayed the Order, and me!”
Ossim stood up, his outrage coming off him like the heat of a furnace. “What other lies have the Jedi told? What other faults were covered with false piety?” He trembled with fury, and the mossy earth trembled beneath him. “Corruption and weakness! No wonder that Skywalker has cut the Order down unopposed.” He turned to Bitter, who looked crestfallen. “Here sits your great general,” he spat at the old soldier. “Where has he led you? Away from your purpose, into the dirt! Join me, and I will give you the war you were born for! Together we will destroy Vader and restore the galaxy!”
Ossim strode off toward the Rimstrider. Bitter remained for a second, indecisive.
“Go, old friend,” Fionn said quietly. “Protect him from himself. Where I go next, I must go alone.”
V
“Yohrabin was once the heart of a great kingdom spanning a hundred systems,” Keevah said as the thrumming Rimstrider dropped out of hyperspace and entered orbit above the dull, grey orb. “My people lived here as subjects of the King. But the King died and his realm fell into pieces. The shamans of the Marakhi say that this place was cursed, and we did not set foot on it for millennia.” She sighed. “Until the Empire drove us back here.”
“And you say your people will fight?” Bitter seemed to have his doubts. “They’re soldiers?”
“They’re good people who have been trampled on,” Keevah snapped. “Give them a Jedi to rally behind, and they will fight.”
“The Jedi are dead,” Ossim said, pondering. “They have failed us all. We must find our own path to freedom.” He leaned forward, staring intently out the viewport. “I sense a great power here. There is darkness, anger and suffering… but great power.”
*
For thousands years, the city-planet of Coruscant had been the center of galactic civilization. It had been the heart of the Republic and the home of the Jedi Order, and was now the center of the Empire’s great machine. And yet, beneath the surface of order and justice, there had always been layer upon layer of corruption, crime, and suffering. Coruscant was a brightly colored fruit with a rotten core.
Even the Jedi, who would travel across the galaxy to fight for peace and justice, had only rarely descended into the filth beneath their feet. Fionn had only journeyed into the underworld on a handful of occasions, with Vilia. It had been her pet project, attempting to bring the Light of the Force into these dark, oppressive slums.
The thought of her sent a quake through his core, and he thought that he could hear her voice calling his name. It lead him deeper, and he reluctantly followed.
*
The Circle of Shamans all bowed to Ossim as he stepped into the ramshackle hall at the heart of the Marakhi refugee camp.
“Welcome, Master.” The Head of the Marakhi extended her hand in the customary greeting. “Our Hand tells us that you have come to aid us, and we are grateful.”
“I will end Darth Vader,” Ossim said grimly. “I have come here because Keevah claims that you can help me.”
A murmur rose and spread through the gathered Marakhi. Keevah shuddered under the sharp gaze of the Head, but then she drew herself up straight. “I believe that we can stand together,” she said, loudly enough to reach even those crowded at the back of the hall. “I believe that with the aid of the Jedi, we can cast off the yoke of the Empire.”
“Perhaps.” The Head scrutinized Ossim thoughtfully. “How do you mean to do this? We have no ships. We have no weapons.”
Ossim looked around the hall. Haggard men and women, dressed in rags and lit up by dying fires. “I’ve been told that this world was once part of a powerful kingdom,” he said. “Is there anything left?”
A shadow passed across the Head’s wrinkled old face. “Ruins,” she said. “Cursed ruins which we do not enter. There are dark magicks there that we dare not disturb.”
“Yes, I sense it too.” Ossim closed his eyes. “A great darkness. It calls to me. I must face it. Show me the way.”
The Head of the Marakhi hesitated for a second.
“The King’s tomb, deep in the gorge,” she said. “Come; it is not far.”
*
There where echoes of her everywhere. Fionn followed them deeper down into the coreward levels, where the punishing temperatures and the heavy, noxious air made the place inhospitable to even the hardiest of vermin.
Vilia had come here after her banishment. Perhaps she had still held hope that she could make a difference to the lost souls cowering in the oily shadows. Fionn saw her forlorn specter wander the darkened corridors, huddle among the refuse in the corners. The phantom cry of a child pierced his heart.
Fionn was accosted on all sides by creeping fingers of sticky darkness, and he kept himself shut tight against their prodding and pinching. He refused to let the darkness in. He could not – he knew that once it had taken root in his heart it would fester and grow.
Yet no matter how hard he fought to shut her out, he felt the child’s presence like a writhing mass of madness in the shadows ahead. Leave, it howled. Don’t hurt me! She could run no further; she had reached her innermost lair, the safest place she knew, and now her back was against the wall and she was snarling, baring her teeth at the hunter she felt approaching.
Fionn paused, standing on the brink of a black pit. An old foundry, a vast basin where the molten blood of the planet had once spurted forth from a pierced artery in the bedrock, to be collected and processed and used in construction of the sprawling city above. At the bottom, the girl’s golden sabers where blazing angrily against the gloom, waiting for him.
*
The shadows were impenetrable in the vast stone hall. The throne room, once the heart of the old King’s palace carved into Yohrabin’s bones, had become his tomb. Ossim ignited his saber, and the pale violet gleam revealed colossal pillars supporting an unseen ceiling high above. The air was thick and still, as if heavy with the silence that had not been disturbed in millennia. With each step, Ossim’s feet stirred a soundless cloud of dust that danced and whirled in the eerie light.
Ossim stepped further into the hall, and the shadows swallowed the pillars, leaving him a small bright speck in an ocean of murk. An eternity seemed to pass, and Ossim began wondering if he would drift in these shoreless shadows forever.
Then the King himself appeared. A life sized statue, carved from a single piece of ebony black stone, seated on a great throne. It held a dull, dark crown in its hands, a twin to the carved peaks on its brow, and at its feet a great, black sarcophagus rose from the dusty floor like a rock breaking through the surface of a still pond. A single, blood red stone glinted like a baleful eye in the black crown, lit by a sickly inner light.
Ossim reluctantly stretched out his hand toward the crown, his questing fingers shying away from the anticipated touch. But before his trembling fingertips could connect, a great, rumbling wave of Force rattled his bones.
Who dares disturb my slumber? There was no sound in the dark hall, but Ossim quaked and shivered. I am the Sith King! A specter, a shape of solid shadow, rose from the seated statue.
“I am Yonn Ossim!” Ossim squared his shoulders. “I seek the power to destroy my enemies!”
Who is Yonn Ossim? The dark shape waved its shadowy hand dismissively. Its rumbling voice shook the stone floor. You have the stink of a beaten botthdog about you, defeated and humiliated. I keep my crown for my worthy heir. It was meant for the strongest of my sons, but he never came. His brothers slew him, tearing my Kingdom to pieces between them. Each of my sons was a mighty lord. Who is Yonn Ossim to lay this claim?
Anger lit as a searing flame in Ossim’s breast.
“I stood against Vader!” he shouted. “I lived where all else perished! The Force has led me here, to claim this crown, to rid the galaxy of the Sith. It is my destiny!”
Destiny? There is no destiny; only power and the will to seize it. The Force does not take sides. The vague shape strode toward Ossim, a blade of shadow in its hand. Only strength can grant your desire – as it is with all desires.
*
The child fought like a rabid beast, howling and snarling. Fionn danced away, defending doubly against her slashing blades and the dark images borne on the waves of her rage.
A hooded shape approaching. A red blade. Mother is thrown aside. The laughter.
Fionn was reeling under the barrage. The golden slashes whirled and tore the shadows.
Crackling lightning, reeking ozone. Mother shrieks and howls. The pain crashes like waves. The laughter. A wrinkled face beneath a hood.
It was all spinning faster, faster, the blades, the shadows, the images.
A kind voice. Searing pain. Faster, harder, better. Never good enough. Anger. Hatred. The laughter. The fear.
Fionn could make no sense of it all. He saw only fragments, felt only echoes. His own walls kept the darkness out, kept him from understanding. Fear grasped at his heart when he realized what he must do.
He lowered the floodgates, and the shadows rushed in to sweep him away.
The old man came, and Mother died. The old man wanted her strong. He hurt her, he scared her, he took care of her and he was kind to her. She did as he said, but she knew that he would kill her. He is always with her. The fear. The anger. The laughter.
The darkness enveloped Fionn, flowed through him. He let it seep into his core, opened himself up and let her in. They both looked into his depth, and found Light there. He let it grow and envelop her and chase away the shadows. Her raging madness quietened and stilled, and he opened his eyes and looked at her.
“Tayah,” the old man’s soothing voice rumbled, and the girl burst into tears.
*
Their blades crossed, Ossim’s broad beam of violet light clashing violently against the Sith King’s flickering shadow.
The Jedi have made you weak, the specter rumbled. You deserve to be crushed.
“The Jedi have been the guardians of peace and of the Republic for thousands of years!” Ossim cried, spinning his half-pike saber in a complicated pattern.
And now the are gone. The Sith King lunged fiercely, breaking Ossim’s rhythm and knocking him off balance. They and their Republic, crushed to dust. Because they were weak.
“We were betrayed!” Ossim slashed crosswise, desperately trying to regain his footing. “The Sith deceived us!”
A great rumble, like a storm wind, shook the vast hall.
Treachery! The Sith King was disgusted. It is a coward’s tool. Power is to be won by power; that is the Sith way. These pretenders are unworthy of the name. They are weak. They must be destroyed.
“Then give me the strength to do it!” Ossim cried. “Give me your crown, and your knowledge, and your ships, and I will strike down Vader and his Emperor!”
No one can give you strength. The King renewed his assault. He drove Ossim backwards, away from the throne. It must come from yourself. You have hate; you have anger; but you do not use them! A great blow cracked the stone floor between them. You mewl of the Jedi and their peace. “Peace is a lie. There is only Passion. Through Passion I gain Strength. Through Strength I gain Power. Through Power I gain Victory. Through Victory my chains are Broken. The Force shall free me.” Each stanza of the ancient creed was driven home by a thunderous strike against Ossim’s weakening garde, each heavier than the last, hammering the young Jedi to his knees. These words mean nothing to you. The Jedi have taught you to fear your passions. The Sith King turned his back and walked away. You can never defeat the one who beat you, dog.
Vader. A great rage rose in Ossim’s breast, fanned by a pain he dared not look at. He let out a tremendous shout that shook the hall and lunged at the Sith King’s ghost. His fury bled into his blade, fuelling each ferocious strike and lending speed to his whirlwind twirls and twists. Finally, with a great sweep of the radiant blade, the dark specter shattered into a swarm of shadowy tatters, dissipating with a sigh into the gloom.
The blood red stone throbbed with a dull gleam in the Sith King’s black crown.
*
Far across the sea of stars, Master Fionn looked up from his daughter’s tears and shuddered.
VI
“The Empire comes! We have been discovered!”
The frantic calls echoed throughout the refugee camp, and a great clamor rose. Keevah stepped out of the gathering hall and swept her eyes over a hundred feathered heads, in frantic disarray, and beyond – the gargantuan hulk of an Imperial Star Destroyer, hazy through the twilight atmosphere, hanging seemingly motionless above the distant horizon. Already, the thrum of the great engines reached her, as a vibration in the ground before her ears detected the sound. Soon, she knew, the high pitched whine of the TIE-fighters would precede their distinct H-shaped silhouettes.
“Gather your kin!” The Head had emerged from the hall behind Keevah and was shouting orders over the hubbub. “Leave your possessions! We must scatter into the hills!”
“Stay where you are.” A metallic, grating voice, unnaturally loud as if borne on more than air. “The time has come to stand and fight.”
A hooded figure stepped out of the shadows, and a violet beam of radiance tore the twilight apart.
“The Jedi!” Keevah’s heart lifted, and she strove to outshout her panicking brothers and sisters. “The Jedi comes!”
The flickering light of the torches fell on Ossim’s face, half hidden behind a visor of black iron, and glittered in the red jewel of the Sith King’s crown. It gave him a fearsome appearance, like a grim warrior-king sprung from legend. Power radiated from him, and Keevah felt it fill her heart to the brim. Several of the Marakhi fell to their knees before him, and Keevah felt herself, as if in a dream, follow their example.
Ossim touched a control on his gauntleted wrist. He wore pieces of ancient black armor over his old blue robes, Keevah noted. There was a rumble deep in the earth that drowned out the roar of the approaching Star Destroyer’s engines. In the hills and the ground, all over the valley, gates and doorways grated open and lights flickered on after lying dormant for millennia.
“The armories are open,” Ossim’s metallic voice rang out. “The fleet awaits. Take up arms! Follow me! We will drive the enemy from our door!”
*
Lieutenant CT-8573, once known to his many brothers as Bitter, surveyed the bustling hangar, and his heart swelled. Home. For five years, Bitter had sat in the jungle with nothing to do but think. And the more he thought, the more he ached. For every question he pondered, more arose: Who was he? What was his purpose? To whom was he loyal? Never any answers, not even from the all-knowing Jedi over whom he stood watch.
The Jedi. Bitter had followed the banner of the Republic, carried by the Jedi, through three years of war. He had bled and sweated, and watched his brothers die, on orders given by the Jedi in the name of the Republic. They had led, and he had followed – because that was what he was created to do, but also because he believed in what the Republic stood for: order, stability, security.
Bitter’s world had made sense. Until Order 66 came through.
Order 66, directly from the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, decreed that the Jedi Order were enemies of the state guilty of plotting to seize power and overthrow democracy. And it commanded Bitter and his fellow troopers to execute the generals they had followed through fire and water.
Most troopers had stayed loyal to the Republic. Bitter had stayed loyal to the Jedi. Later, in the jungle, Bitter had often wondered who had been right. He had looked at his general and seen an old man hiding in the woods. A fugitive. The Galactic Republic had been reorganized into the Galactic Empire. The flags had changed, but to Bitter’s mind the values were the same: order, stability, and security. For some, true – but had that not always been the case? There had been crime on Coruscant and slavery in the Outer Rim then, same as now. And there was peace. The rise of the Empire had ended the Clone Wars. Was that not the purpose for which Bitter and his many brothers had been created?
Endless questions. No answers. I am just a clone. This thought had often ended Bitter’s musings in the past. He had never been meant to understand such things. He was meant for this. Bitter watched the Marakhi scurry about the hangar, readying the fighters and gearing up for battle. This was familiar. This made sense.
“How are the preparations going, Lieutenant?” Ossim’s voice crackled through the comm unit in Bitter’s old helmet. Familiar. Bitter snapped to attention, even though the Jedi was not there to see it.
“Things are progressing on schedule, Commander,” Bitter reported. “These Marakhi are undisciplined, but I’ll sort them out, sir.” When the Jedi came down to inspect his soldiers, there wouldn’t be a speck of dust on their armor, Bitter resolved. Not while this old trooper lived and breathed.
*
The first wave of TIE-fighters that came screaming over the mountain range had not expected any opposition, and was cut down by the ion gun emplacements. The second wave was accompanied by bombers, and headed straight for the cannons. Ossim ordered his Marakhi fighters, hidden in the surrounding hills, to flank them in a pincer maneuver. When the third wave of TIEs arrived, a chaotic melee broke out in the skies above the Marakhi camp.
Ossim watched the confusion on the holodisplay in the troop compartment of a small Sith personnel transport. A handful of Marakhi soldiers stood around him, fidgeting and nervous, pale in the ghostly blue light.
“I still don’t see how this is going to work,” Keevah said impatiently. “Shouldn’t we be out fighting? Or protecting the Circle?”
“Have faith in the Commander,” Bitter called back from the cockpit, where he was helping the Marakhi pilot navigate through the fray. “He knows what he’s doing.”
Ossim took a deep breath and the soldiers settled down, the nervous glint in their eyes dulled. “We are close,” he said. “Get ready.”
He closed his eyes and unfolded his perceptions, reaching out towards the massive ship just ahead. His senses swept over the grey, dagger-shaped hull, filled with the sparks of thousands of souls – all scurrying about like insects, checking controls, reading instruments. He searched the minds of the officers in the command tower until he found the right one. The shield control operator. There was no struggle; the man was as weak and malleable as a peshtohn sheep.
“It worked! We’re past their shields!” Bitter’s voice was full of the excitement of battle and victory.
“Then set a course for the bridge,” Ossim said calmly. “And fire.”
The troop transport, having nimbly navigated through the firewall created by the Star Destroyer’s point defense turrets, opened fire and tore a gaping hole in the hull protecting the bridge, moments before slamming through that hole at full speed. The loading ramp lowered, and Ossim stepped out into the smoldering wreckage followed by Bitter, Keevah, and the Marakhi soldiers.
Ossim’s lightsaber blazed a furious path through the surviving bridge officers. Storm Troopers crowded in and lit up the billowing clouds of smoke with blaster fire, which bounced harmlessly off the shining blade.
“Push them back,” Ossim ordered. Bitter and the soldiers advanced their positions. “Keevah, do as I showed you. That console.”
An alarm blared and the blast doors slammed shut, sealing the bridge off from the rest of the ship.
“The netrezine gas is flooding all compartments and corridors,” Keevah reported. “Vital signs are fading all over the ship. They’re all dying.” There was a slight tremble in Keevah’s voice, but she steadied herself. “Everything worked, just as you said it would.”
“These Imperial destroyers aren’t all that different from the old Venator-class destroyers the Republic used during the war,” Bitter said, looking around. The Marakhi soldiers were cheering.
“Access the data core,” Ossim ordered. “And send word to the other settlements to gather here.”
*
“This is a great victory.” The Head of the Marakhi bowed low before Ossim’s dark shape. “You have saved our people and struck a blow against the Empire, Master. We are forever grateful.” She straightened her back and raised her voice so that all Marakhi gathered in the square, large groups already gathering from other villages and camps, could hear. “Our myths speak of a great hero who slew a terravan dragon that was threatening the tribes in the ancient past. The people named him Qahnahrin, the Vanquisher, and made him their king.” She bowed once more. “As Head of the Circle of Shamans, I give you this name, and I swear to follow you wherever you lead. For freedom! And the Marakhi!”
A great roar of approval rose from the crowd, and yet, to Keevah, the light of the torches seemed to dim and flicker in an unfelt gale. The last light of the sun passed over the mountain peaks to the west.
Qahnahrin stood on the raised platform, black crown hiding his face, and raised his hand to the emerging stars. An eerie silence fell.
“Man the fleet,” the Dark King commanded. “The Emperor has summoned the traitor Vader to his Summer Palace. We go to end them, and their Empire, and bring peace to the galaxy!”
VII
The garden world of Tyssh had been a quiet retreat for the galaxy’s rich and powerful for generations. The many luxury resorts and hotels had hosted Republican senators and chancellors, and now entertained Imperial officers and governors. But most importantly, Tyssh was home to Emperor Palpatine’s grand Summer Palace, and opulent yet stark monolith casting its watchful eye over the indulgences below.
The system was well guarded: several Star Destroyers patrolled the outer orbits, and orbital heavy cannon platforms hung in the sky above the planet itself. But the Empire had grown complacent, too secure in its own power – the unexpected appearance of Qahnahrin’s fleet in orbit had thrown the defending forces into disarray. The invaders had come out of hyperspace too close to the planet for the orbital guns to target them, and the patrolling Destroyers where too far out to stop the assault. As a result, Qahnahrin’s captured Star Destroyer was steadily advancing toward the surface, enveloped in a swarming cloud of battling fighter craft like wenkgnats buzzing around some lumbering beast.
Fionn watched the chaos in appalled silence. Such death and destruction. And at the heart of it, he could sense his old apprentice, deep in a swirling black shadow. His apprentice. His responsibility. An army between them, and all around, the might of the Empire closing its iron fist. And from the planet below, echoes of an even greater darkness. Fionn wavered.
He looked over at Tayah where she sat at the helm of the small stealth ship. The tiny hands working the controls were covered in old scars. The girl still had not said a word, and she avoided eye contact. But the chaotic feelings radiating from her, that deep, overruling fear and anger – they were quieter. Not gone, but less violent, less consuming. When Fionn had explained that he must leave her to face this darkness, she had taken him to her ship and refused to let him go alone. Fionn took strength from his daughter.
“Let us see what this ship can do,” he said. “Take us in.”
The girl’s ship was unlike any Fionn had seen, even during the war. An Imperial prototype stealth ship, sleek and quiet as a shadow. The girl piloted it masterfully, slipping between the furious combatants filling the skies above Tyssh. No blaster fire sought them out, no angry voices woke the comms. They were invisible.
But not to the Force. Fionn sensed Ossim’s shadow growing in his mind as they approached, and his old apprentice sensed him. Fionn could feel his dark tendrils of perception questing out, probing his defenses, learning even from the muteness of his walls. Ossim could not sense his thoughts. He would not know from whence they were coming. But he knew that they were. Fionn could sense Ossim’s calm satisfaction, his certainty that this was as it should be – yet boiling beneath was a cauldron of anger.
They docked at a small auxiliary airlock without opposition. The girl’s Imperial codes were accepted; Ossim had not bothered to replace them. The arrogance Fionn had always overlooked in his apprentice now stared him in the face. Had he been blind all these years that they had fought side by side? Had he been so absorbed with controlling his own threatening passions that he had not seen them rise in the young mind that he had been given care of?
Soldiers in menacing armor filled the corridors, bearing emblems unfamiliar to the Jedi Master. An angry boy had left Qurn, only days ago. In those few days, Ossim’s slow embers had blossomed into an inferno, and he had become a dark warlord in command of an army and a fleet. He had discovered some hidden power that Fionn did not understand – one that he sensed would have been better left untouched.
*
The fight was not going well. Lieutenant Bitter stood on the bridge of a small frigate and watched space burn outside the viewports. To the naked eye, the forces seemed evenly matched: the Imperial TIEs appeared to be destroyed at a roughly equal rate to that of the Marakhi Sith fighters. But the tactical holodisplay at the center of Bitter’s cramped bridge told a different story: the Marakhi fighters were only barely keeping the TIEs off Qahnahrin’s command ship – and behind them, at least three enemy destroyers were closing in on the battle. In a matter of minutes, they would be caught between the Imperial reinforcements and the planet’s surface – and then they would be crushed. He hailed Qahnahrin.
“Commander, I see no way to win this,” he said frankly. “We should disengage and retreat before those destroyers catch us.”
“I will not turn tail and run.” Qahnahrin’s voice was cold with fury. “You wanted a war, Lieutenant. Fight it.”
“With all due respect, sir, this isn’t war.” Bitter felt desperation grasp him. “This is slaughter. The first rule of any war is to manage your forces. We’ve committed everything we’ve got to this engagement, and we’re being decimated!”
There was no response; the Commander wasn’t listening. The destroyer pushed on undeterred, and Bitter’s bridge was filled with the panicky voices of fighter pilots looking to him for leadership.
Leadership. I’m just a clone, Bitter thought once more. I was never meant to lead. So what was he meant to do? Die? Millions of his brothers had died. For the Republic. For the Jedi. For the Empire. They had been created, grown in vats and test tubes, for that very purpose – to fight and die. But these Marakhi? They were people. They had lives and destinies beyond war. They had hopes and dreams. Who am I to tell any of them what to do?
Just a clone. With years of fighting experience.
*
Adjacent to the bridge of the Star Destroyer, there was a wide observation deck where great windows allowed one to view the mayhem taking place outside the hull in all its glory. The lights in the chamber had been dimmed, so that a vague gloom filled the corners, intermittently illuminated by a blaster bolt or fighter craft erupting beyond the vitranium glass. Fionn sensed Ossim’s hand at work. His perceptions prickled, and he halted, the girl’s silent steps ceasing beside him.
Dark shapes, at least a dozen of them, coalesced from the shadows. Warriors in black and blue armor, armed with long, dull blades. A royal guard. He sensed fear blossom in the girl by his side, and he felt a vague reaching from the dark figures scrabble at his walls as they slowly formed a circle around them. Ossim had attempted to train them.
They attacked as one, their blades cutting glittering arcs through the gloom. Green and gold, Fionn and the girl ignited their sabers to meet them, and the blades clashed. Cortosis, that rare metal, capable of deflecting a lightsaber. So seldom used during the long peace of the Jedi. Fionn had never seen it first-hand.
A wild dance. Blades glittering and gleaming. The darkness, pressing heavily against their senses.
VIII
“You must stop this!”
Keevah was horrified. Outside the vitranium windows, her people was dying a pointless, senseless death. Behind them, reinforcements had arrived; ahead, the planet loomed as a green, impervious jewel; all around, the swarms of enemy fighters were tearing the Marakhi fleet to tatters.
When she was first chosen as a Hand of her people, Keevah had been full of hope and eager to do her part. Then, over the long years of scavenging and smuggling, of dealing with the worst filth that the galaxy had to offer, she had slowly begun to despair. The might of the Empire had seemed insurmountable, the strength of her people waning with each passing day. But she had held out hope that the Light would return. Then, she had discovered Ossim: a bright knight out of story and song, a savior come to deliver them from the darkness. Her heart had soared again, thinking that the tide had turned. Even when Qahnahrin rejected his Jedi teachings and took up the Sith King’s crown, she had seen only a strength lent to the Marakhi by fate.
Now, that strength was consuming her people, burning them up in the fires of its hatred. She looked at the dark shape looming on the silent bridge and no longer recognized the man she had pulled from the bacta tank. This was a towering monolith of pure hate, a thunderhead of unstoppable fury inexorably sweeping toward the planet below.
“We must pull our people back and flee!” she pleaded. “Yonn!”
“I will not turn back.” The Sith King did not turn to look at her. His jarring, metallic voice filled the bridge like a noxious odor. “Nothing will stop me. Vader will pay. I will see him beaten into the dust!”
The dull thuds of distant explosions reverberated through the Star Destroyer’s vast hull. An alarm blared. The shields were buckling under the combined fire of a hundred fighters.
Qahnahrin seemed unfazed, his gaze still fixed on the world below.
A group of Marakhi fighters broke away from the fight and prepared to jump to lightspeed. Qahnahrin absentmindedly aimed the Star Destroyer’s turbolasers at the fleeing vessels. Keevah pulled out her blaster and pointed it at Qahnahrin’s back.
“Let them go!” she screeched. “Order the retreat, or I will end this myself!”
A searing wave of anger not her own washed over Keevah, and a terrible pressure squeezed her throat shut. “You would betray me?” Qahnahrin rumbled. “I, who will end this threat and restore peace to the galaxy?” Keevah was dashed against a bulkhead, and her lax body fell senseless to the floor. The Sith King closed his eyes.
“The final test approaches,” Qahnahrin said to himself. “The last obstacle to be overcome.”
The Sith King turned and marched across the bridge to the back of the room, where the heavy blast doors hissed open. In the darkened room beyond, Master Fionn and the wild girl stood among the wrack of his defeated guard. Qahnahrin halted by the door and turned toward a wide window.
“So the apprenticeship ends,” his metallic voice rasped. “Have you come to witness my triumph, old master?”
“I have come to pull you away from this path of destruction, Yonn,” Fionn said somberly. “It is not too late. Turn back!”
“The Marakhi are dying for me.” Qahnahrin made a sweeping gesture, indicating the battle still raging beyond the glass. “Because they see the truth. They have named me Qahnahrin, the Vanquisher. I will end Vader. If you choose to stand in my way, I will end the Jedi as well.”
“All is as the Force wills it.” Fionn ignited his green flame. Beside him, the girl flashed her golden fangs. Qahnahrin’s violet blade danced out to meet them.
They clashed, slashes of color and light tearing at the solid darkness. The Sith King struck with heavy blows that shook the deck beneath their feet.
“It is good that you have brought the girl,” Qahnahrin grated. “Perhaps a young mind will see the truth that an old one is too narrow to grasp.” Blow after blow, the dark shape pushed them back, anger and hate washing over them like waves crashing on the rocks.
The Star Destroyer shook. The Imperial destroyers had caught up with them and were pouring a barrage of turbo laser fire across their dorsal hull. Deck after deck were losing power and atmosphere.
“You cannot win this,” Fionn said, deflecting a slash and dancing away. “You were doomed from the start, but your pride will not let you see it!”
“You lie, as you have always lied!” Qahnahrin’s anger throbbed against Fionn’s senses. “This child you have brought is the fruit of your lies – and your weakness! You could not even bring yourself to destroy her. Frailty, indecision, cowardice – you are everything that doomed the Jedi! Just like the Order, you deserve to be replaced with better things.”
The dark king pushed Fionn away in a mighty expulsion of Force that threw him across the room. Qahnahrin then turned to the girl.
“You are strong,” he said, parrying her vicious flurries. “With guidance you can be great. I can give you that.” He reached out, into the girls chaotic storm of emotions. “I see your mind. The Emperor haunts you. I can help you destroy him.” He paused, and with great effort tore the girl’s sabers from her grasp. “Your father failed you, before you were even born,” he said. “Join me, and we will crush our tormentors.”
For a second, darkness swirled in the girl. The torture she had suffered at the Emperor’s hands swept through her like a wave of bile, and a vision of him bleeding, begging on his knees filled her with a savage joy. Then she looked at her father, struggling to his feet in the corner, and a speck of Light chased the shadows away. The only light she had ever known.
“No!” she shrieked, her frail voice tearing through the oily thickness of Qahnahrin’s insidious influence.
Like a great storm wind, the Sith King’s anger rose into a hurricane.
“Who are you to reject me?” he howled. “You are nothing!” He aimed a mighty strike at the girl’s heart.
Fionn lept into Qahnahrin’s path and caught his violet blade, turning it and countering it. Powerful feelings competed in the old man’s breast, fear, concern, but most of all love. Love for the girl huddled on the deck, dazed and whimpering. With a strength he never knew he had, the Jedi Master drove the Sith King back, blow after blow, until finally with a fierce slash he clove the black crown from his apprentice’s brow, shattering the dull red jewel.
Qahnahrin sank to his knees, humiliation roiling in sickening waves around him. He looked up at his old master, a silent plea in his grey eyes. Fionn’s green flame hovered at the Sith King’s throat.
“No.” Fionn lowered his saber. “No longer will I destroy that which frightens me. Who am I to decide who lives and dies, who is good and who is evil? Who’s to say what can be saved and what is lost forever? Perhaps even Vader may yet be saved. Perhaps even you.” He looked over at Tayah, who was whimpering where she had fallen. “I used to fear that my love would bring the dark, but it has driven the darkness from this child. It drives me now.” He lifted up his limp daughter off the floor. “Only you can save yourself, Yonn Ossim. Let go of your self, or it will crush you.”
Master Fionn stepped through the blast doors, leaving the broken Sith King in the darkened hall.
IX
Just a clone, Bitter thought again. All around him, his men were shouting over the screeching alarms. No one. Just a mind in a body. Outside the frigate’s viewports, the remaining Marakhi ships were in disarray. The Imperial forces were boxing them in, rounding them up for the slaughter. Then what is a man?
All his life, Bitter had followed orders, certain that those who gave them were wiser than he, more important – better – than he could ever be. He had trusted others to make the right choices for him, because he had believed that he could not make those choices himself. Even when he had disobeyed Order 66, the choice had been made for him: General Fionn had countermanded the Chancellor’s order, and Bitter had trusted his general. Orders were for others to give and him to follow.
But these orders were wrong. Bitter could see that clearly. The Marakhi were outnumbered and outgunned. The advantage of their surprise attack had passed. They would not reach the planet’s surface, and even if they did, they would never make orbit again. The only viable strategy remaining was a tactical retreat – but Qahnahrin, his commanding officer, had ordered him to keep fighting.
The offense had been doomed from the start. Bitter reluctantly admitted that he knew that, and had known it the moment Qahnahrin had briefed him on the plan. Every instinct drilled into him by his lifetime of military training and experience had told him so, but it had also told him to trust his superior. To follow orders. He had been taught that his commanding officer always knew more than he, understood the situation better than he could, would win the day in ways he could never imagine. And he had seen the Jedi perform miracles. Many times.
But the Marakhi were dying. The first rule Bitter was taught as a child on Kamino, before the strategies and the discipline, was protect the civilians. The most valuable resource in the galaxy was life, and the purpose of a soldier was to protect that life – or die so that it may live. The Marakhi weren’t soldiers, no matter how much Bitter had wanted them to be, no matter how hard he had tried to train them in the short days before this attack. They were farmers and laborers, civilians who had taken up arms in desperation. Bitter respected them for choosing to fight – but they were not soldiers.
Qahnahrin had herded civilians here to be slaughtered, and he had ordered Bitter to be their shepherd. But Bitter was not a shepherd. He was just a clone. A soldier.
Protect the civilians.
“Sound the retreat!” he barked. The Marakhi farmers and laborers on his bridge froze and turned to him. For leadership. “There’s no winning this fight,” Bitter said, and opened the fleet-wide comm channel. “We’re pulling out! Move to sector Alpha-T-0 and prepare to jump to these coordinates on my mark!”
*
Traitors. They were abandoning him. Him! Qahnahrin, the Sith King! He, whose destiny it was to destroy the Empire and bring peace to the galaxy!
Fury boiled in Qahnahrin’s heart as he limped onto the bridge and began aiming the turbolasers at the fleeing Marakhi. They deserved to die, all of them. He hated them. He was the one who had given them the ships they were escaping in; he was the one who had shown them how to stand up against their enemies. Thieves! Cowards! They would all die, just as Vader would die! Vader, who had broken him, who had tossed him about as a toy, who had humiliated him.
Searing pain. The sound of the blaster only reached him later.
“I won’t let you murder my people,” Keevah said. There were tears in her eyes, but she squeezed off another shot, which struck Qahnahrin in the side. “You were meant to save them. You were meant to be the one to bring the Light back to us!”
Qahnahrin roared, a great, earth shattering roar of rage, anguish, and betrayal. He reached out and grabbed the woman who had betrayed him, squeezed her and crushed her, as if all his pain would go away if he only snuffed her out.
Keevah fell to the deck, bruised and broken. Qahnahrin fell to his knees beside her.
“Yonn,” the girl said feebly, the life pouring out of her. “Who are you?”
You are meant for great things.
There had been tears in his mother’s grey eyes that day. He had been too young to remember anything other than that, and her words, when the Jedi came to take him away. They had told him that the Force was strong with him, that he would grow up to be a hero and a symbol of hope to the people of the galaxy. He had trained every day, he had studied and he had learned. When the Clone Wars raged, he had been a great warrior.
Jedi were not great warriors. War does not make one great, Master Yoda would often say. The Jedi were protectors, guardians of peace and justice. They were selfless, thinking only of others – and fighting only for the sake of the innocent. Aggression, violence, war; these were the provinces of the Dark Side. But the Clone Wars had blurred the lines. The Jedi had led the Grand Army of the Republic, as generals, as warriors. And Yonn Ossim had been great among them.
And Vader had crushed him without effort. Because Yonn Ossim was no Jedi. He was a warrior, a commander, strong and proud. And his pride, broken by Vader, had led him even deeper into darkness. The Jedi teachings had not failed Yonn Ossim – he had failed them.
Day broke over Tyssh. The sun crept over the curving horizon and filled the bridge of the scarred Star Destroyer. Yonn struggled to his feet and limped to the command console. On the deck, next to Keevah’s lifeless body, lay the broken shards of the Sith King’s black crown.
*
“They’re breaking off the pursuit!”
The Marakhi on the bridge of the frigate cheered. Bitter stared at the holodisplay in disbelief. The Imperial forces were indeed abandoning the chase, leaving the ragged Marakhi fleet to move safely away from the battlefield. Qahnahrin’s command destroyer, pocked with blast scars and billowing black smoke into space, was accelerating toward the planet.
“He’s drawing them off us,” Lieutenant Bitter said. “Prepare to jump to lightspeed, right away!”
*
The nose of the Star Destroyer had just begun to blaze in the upper atmosphere when the concentrated fire from the pursuing Imperial ships ruptured the fuel tanks. Explosions ripped through the hull, from stern to bow, brilliant blossoms of flame and smoke unfolding from the dull grey metal. At last, the main reactor core ruptured, and the gargantuan ship was annihilated in a blinding flash and a hurricane of sound and heat that swept across Tyssh’s verdant surface. The smoking debris rained as a shower of falling stars across the dawn sky before disintegrating entirely.
*
The old Jedi Master stood on a hill overlooking the camp. The Marakhi were busy, building shelters and gathering materials from the surrounding fields. The coordinates to the hidden world had been found in the navicomputer of one of the old Sith ships. It was deep in the Unknown Regions, far beyond the grasp of the Empire. For now.
“You’ll be safe here,” he said quietly. “But I still think the camp would be more easily defensible deeper into the forest valley.”
“The rich soil here is more important,” Bitter said. The old trooper had put his scarred armor away, and was wearing a simple tunic. “We aren’t warriors; we’re farmers and workers.”
“As you say, Chieftain.” Fionn smiled. At the foot of the hill, Tayah was playing with a group of Marakhi children. Their whoops and laughter came drifting up to the two old men on the hill.
“I take it you’re not staying, then?” Bitter wasn’t asking.
“The Emperor will come for the girl,” Fionn said sadly. “We must be far from your people when he does.”
“What will you do?”
“Train her. Teach her. Love her.” Fionn began walking down the slope toward the group of playing children. “Nourish the Light in her.”
In the sky, three brilliant suns blazed with a gentle warmth.
*
Riverblossom 