In the opposite corner of the room was the Sith apprentice, sitting cross-legged on the floor. She was turning the hilt of a lightsaber over and over in her hands, as if somehow drawn to it. Gnost-Dural recognized the weapon he had forged while still a Padawan on Coruscant. She had witnessed his lightsaber skills during their battle; now it seemed she was intent on finding some explanation in his weapon. Gnost-Dural sensed and sympathized with her confusion: she had been raised to believe the power of the dark side dwarfed that of the light, and she was unable to convince herself that a Jedi could so easily have bested her in combat without some kind of inherent advantage.
“I could teach you how to use that,” he said.
Startled, she glanced up at the prisoner, taking a moment to realize he was drawing on the Force to “see” her.
“I know how to use a lightsaber,” she said defensively.
“I could teach you how to use it properly,” he explained. “Not as a clumsy weapon guided by hate and anger, but as an extension of yourself that protects and defends those in need.”
The interrogators glanced over, their curiosity piqued by the exchange. Noticing them, the Sith stood up, suddenly self-conscious about sitting on the floor as if subservient to them.
“Karrid warned me to watch for your tricks,” she said.
“This is no trick. Karrid is afraid of me—you sensed it. But I am not afraid of her.”
“Because you are stronger?” she sneered.
“Because the light side teaches us not to be afraid. Don’t you want to live free of fear? And anger? And hate?”
For a second Gnost-Dural felt a connection with her, and he thought he might reach her. Then a wall of blackness fell between them, and the connection was gone.
“Your friends are dying out there,” she said, her voice filled with spite and venom. “Can you feel it? Darth Karrid and her ship are tearing them apart. I should be at her side for this victory to share in the glory, but instead I’m here watching over you!”
“Then go,” Gnost-Dural said. “I’m not the one keeping you.”
One of the interrogators laughed, and the Sith silenced him with an icy glare.
“I don’t need you or your weapon,” she said to Gnost-Dural, tossing his lightsaber into the corner of the room with the rest of his discarded property. Then she crossed her arms and stood with her back to the door, staring at him defiantly.
The Jedi sighed, knowing the opportunity was lost. But before hope could slip away completely, the shackles on his wrists and ankles sprang open with a sharp click, dropping him to the floor.
Theron!
Gnost-Dural reacted with the superior reflexes and blinding speed of a true Jedi Master, already in motion before the others even realized something had gone wrong. He landed on his feet, his lightsaber flying from the corner and into the outstretched palm of his right hand, the blade springing to life with a sharp hiss. At the same time his protective goggles flew up into his left hand and he yanked them into place.
One of the interrogators slammed his hand on the button to activate the machine, but with the prisoner already free of his restraints nothing happened. His partner reacted with more sense, pulling his pistol. Darth Karrid’s apprentice made the wisest choice of all. She turned and fled out the door.
The guard with the pistol fired, but Gnost-Dural batted the blaster bolt aside. He saw the second guard reaching forward to hit the alarm, and knocked him back with a powerful Force push. Two quick steps closed the distance between them in the small room, and he ended both their lives with a pair of clean, efficient cuts of his glowing blade. Then he raced from the room in pursuit of Karrid’s apprentice, ignoring his Jedi robe and clothes still lying in the back corner of the room.
He saw her disappear around a corner at the end of a twenty-meter hall, and he gave chase. She was waiting for him as he rounded the corner, her own lightsaber drawn. She tried to impale him, hoping his momentum as he came barreling around the corner would carry him right onto the deadly tip of her outstretched blade. But Gnost-Dural twisted to the side; her thrust only traced a thin line across the topmost layer of skin of his bared chest. Ignoring the smell of his own charred flesh, he retaliated by driving an elbow into the Sith’s jaw, sending her stumbling back.
She threw up her lightsaber in a defensive stance to hold him off, but one-on-one she was no match for the Kel Dor. He came at her with a flurry of intense strikes drawn from Juyo, the highly aggressive seventh form of lightsaber combat designed specifically to overwhelm a lone opponent in a one-on-one duel. The chaotic patterns and haphazard sequences picked apart the Sith’s defenses in a matter of seconds, the battle ending with Master Gnost-Dural plunging his lightsaber through her chest and out the other side, impaling her as she had originally tried to do to him.
As her corpse toppled to the floor, Gnost-Dural was already on the move, headed directly for the Spear’s control room to face Darth Karrid yet again.
Theron had no idea if his plot to free Gnost-Dural had worked or not. Just as he finished slicing into the holding cell’s systems and released the Jedi’s restraints, Darth Karrid shut him out, rerouting the pathway through another relay.
Realizing she would soon do the same with the turbolift, he decided to get moving or he’d end up trapped in the engine room. Grabbing his slicer spike and tucking it into the top of his boot, he dashed over to the captain’s uniform he’d carefully folded and set on the floor. He considered then quickly rejected the idea of spending the time to pull it on; a stolen uniform wasn’t going to fool the security teams converging on his location.
Grabbing the pistol with the bent barrel just in case, he turned the wheel and pushed open the maintenance hatch. The corridor outside was blessedly cool; he actually shivered as the climate-controlled air washed over his sweat-soaked body.
The sound of the nearby turbolift as it cranked into operation set him in motion. He had reached the first bend in the passage leading to the far side of G Deck when he heard the door open.
Glancing back, he saw several heavily armored security guards step out. Fortunately, it took them a moment to notice the man in his briefs running away from them at the far end of the hall. Theron had just enough time to dart around the corner as blaster bolts struck the ground and wall beside him, missing him by the narrowest of margins.
Theron didn’t think he’d have any trouble staying ahead of the Imps in their heavy armor. But after half a dozen more running steps he pulled up lame and cried out in pain, hopping on one foot as his left calf seized. Despite his efforts to stay hydrated during his time in the sweltering engine room, his body was rebelling. The muscle had cramped up, a brutal contraction so tight it felt as if it was going to rip itself apart. Any movement of his toes or ankle caused bolts of fire to shoot up through his body, and trying to put any weight on it almost made him pass out.
Suddenly the soldiers in the armor didn’t seem that slow. Bracing himself with his left hand against the wall, he hopped down the corridor on his good foot, teeth clenched against the agony emanating from his knotted muscle. He heard the heavy footsteps of his pursuers closing in, and he half turned to fire off three quick shots back down the hall.
He didn’t bother to aim; his blaster’s warped barrel would have made it impossible to guess where the bolts were headed. All he wanted to do was send a warning to his pursuers, hopefully slowing them down. The pistol made strange sounds as he fired. Instead of the familiar sharp, reverberating twang, the shots sounded almost wet, with a lower pitch. With the bolts impeded by the warped barrel, the blaster’s power pack wasn’t able to fully discharge the intense energy buildup generated with each shot. He could feel the heat radiating out from the power pack in his hand, and he knew he couldn’t keep shooting without risking a power pack overload and a deadly explosion of superheated gas.
On the bright side, the cramp was fading as he rounded another corner, and he was able to carefully put weight on his left foot again, though he still w
asn’t able to run at full speed. He pressed onward, hobbling along and hoping the security team behind him was the only one he had to worry about. If there was another team coming down the lift near Karrid’s command chamber he’d be trapped between them with no hope of escape. To his relief, when he rounded the final turn he saw the long corridor leading to the entrance of the command chamber stretched out before him, totally empty. He shambled down the hall, but just as he passed the turbolift the door flew open.
Theron tried to wheel around and deliver a spinning kick to the first guard coming through the door, but as he planted his left leg and tried to push off for leverage, the calf seized up again. His leg caved beneath him, and instead of pulling off a dazzling martial arts move that left his opponent incapacitated, he ended up in a sweaty pile on the floor.
“Theron!” a familiar voice said, and he looked up to see Gnost-Dural standing over him, lightsaber in hand.
“Thought you were another security patrol,” Theron grunted through the pain as the Jedi extended a hand to help him up.
“I ran into them on my way to the lift,” the Jedi replied, his voice grim. In a lighter tone he added, “Why are you in your underwear?”
“Didn’t want you to feel awkward,” Theron said, nodding at the Kel Dor’s own near nakedness as he leaned on him for support.
He stepped gingerly on his cramping leg and winced in pain. Before the Jedi could ask about it, a pair of guards from the pursuing security patrol poked their heads around the corner and fired. The Jedi stepped in front of Theron and batted away the blaster bolts before using the Force to hurl the guards back around the corner. From the grunts and groans it was clear they had slammed into the other members of the team hard enough to inflict real damage.
“Come on,” Gnost-Dural said, using one hand to help hold Theron upright while the other kept a firm grip on his lightsaber.
Together they staggered the last twenty meters to the sealed door ahead of them. Theron dropped to a knee to relieve the pressure on his injured leg, pulled the slicer spike from his boot, and set to work on the door.
At the same time, Gnost-Dural hurled his lightsaber down the hall, striking down a guard who’d dared to peek around the corner.
“I can’t hold them off forever, Theron,” he said. “And reinforcements are on the way.”
As if summoned by his words, the turbolift door slid open again, spilling out another half dozen armored Imperial soldiers.
“Got it,” Theron said, yanking his spike free and crawling forward on his hands and knees as the door slid open.
Gnost-Dural was right behind him, and as the guards in the hall opened fire, the two men rolled for cover on either side of the door’s interior. With the bolts ricocheting off the floor, the Jedi reached up and jammed his lightsaber into the access panel on the wall, sending off a shower of sparks as the door slammed shut.
To Theron’s surprise, the room was empty except for a control panel along the periphery, a large, opaque crystal sphere in the center, and three figures with facial tattoos and black robes sitting cross-legged on the floor around the sphere. Two were human males—one younger with white skin, the other older with dark skin. The third was a male red-skinned Sith pureblood. Their eyes were closed and they appeared to be lost deep in meditation.
Gnost-Dural sprang to his feet and hurled his lightsaber, but he wasn’t aiming at any of the figures on the floor. The whirling blade flew over their heads and ricocheted off the crystal sphere before returning to the Jedi’s hand, leaving no mark on the surface.
Simultaneously, the eyes of all three figures on the floor snapped open and they sprang to their feet, their weapons flaring to life. Instead of conventional weapons, the Sith held a pair of slightly shorter purple blades, one in each hand, while the dark-skinned man wielded a long, double-bladed lightsaber that seemed to shift between crimson and black.
“I see you’ve got some new friends,” Gnost-Dural said to the apprentice he had faced before.
When he didn’t reply, the Jedi said to Theron, “Let me deal with them. You find a way to get inside Karrid’s command pod and stop her from destroying the Republic fleet!”
CHAPTER 32
DARTH KARRID HAD TO ADMIRE the Republic fleet commander. Realizing they couldn’t exchange blows with the Ascendant Spear, they’d switched tactics, scattering to harry her from a distance while employing a series of hit-and-run attacks and feints to frustrate her and extend the battle.
The defensive strategy gave them no hope of inflicting any actual damage against the Spear, but it prevented Karrid from wiping them all out in a single glorious attack. Instead, she was forced to hunt down each ship one by one. She began with one of the capital ships, turning the Spear on an intercept course as her target used a series of random and unexpected changes of direction to try to evade her. The other vessels in the Republic fleet tried to distract her from her goal, firing at her flanks while keeping to what seemed a safe distance.
But with the Spear there was no safe distance. Even as she closed on the first capital ship, choosing one of the three at random, she was able to target one of the corvettes swooping in on her starboard side. The Spear’s guns roared as the corvette tried to veer off at the last second, but the ion cannons were able to penetrate the shields, ravaging the hull and knocking out all power other than emergency life support.
Instead of changing course to finish off the now helpless corvette, Karrid continued to bear down on the capital ship, relentlessly pursuing it as she hammered away with her turbolasers, rapidly draining what remained of their shields in preparation for the coup de grâce.
The other two capital ships converged on her, guns blazing. Even the Spear’s deflectors couldn’t hold up for long against their coordinated assault, and Karrid was forced to break off from her original prey … but not before unleashing a final volley that crippled the engines.
She changed course and accelerated, circling up and away from the other two capital ships before coming around to face them. The vessels wisely broke off in opposite directions, so she chose one at random and resumed her pursuit, knowing this one wouldn’t be saved by an untimely intervention of the others … not with one of them forced to limp along at a fraction of its top speed.
Before she could engage the second capital ship, however, she felt a sudden drop in power, and the Spear slowed noticeably. It took her a moment to recognize what had happened, and then she realized she could no longer sense Quux, Ordez, and her apprentice. Something had broken them out of their meditative trance, forcing Karrid to rely only on her own power to control the vessel.
Briefly turning her focus from the battlefield to her immediate surroundings, she sensed a battle raging in the command chamber outside her impervious crystal sphere. Gnost-Dural had escaped and come for her. Karrid returned her attention to the battle, confident her new followers would be more than a match for the Jedi. And though it was more difficult trying to control the Spear alone, she had done it before.
At the same time, she sensed another intrusion attempt from the saboteur—this one coming from the control console outside her command pod. She batted away the clumsy attempt, knowing he would try again—one more distraction to further slow her down. Though it would now take longer to finish off the Republic fleet, Karrid knew that victory was still inevitable.
Jace had tasted defeat before, but never as bitter as this. Though the battle would drag on, he already knew it was over. Republic casualties were mounting; he’d lost several support vessels, and one of his capital ships was barely mobile. Now Karrid was coming after the Aegis.
The Spear was closing in on them, though more slowly than before. He didn’t know if Karrid was being cautious, or if she was merely toying with them, but it didn’t matter. Her ship was still too fast and maneuverable for them to outrun. And with only one capital ship still able to come to his aid, there wouldn’t be enough of a threat to force her to break off her attack.
“Enemy coming in
range,” the helmsman noted.
Jace realized he meant they were now in the Spear’s range … they were still too far away for the Aegis to fight back.
“Divert all available power to the deflectors,” he said, knowing it would only buy them a few more minutes. “Shut down everything except life support and sensors. Even the weapons systems.”
The bridge suddenly went dark, lit only by the glow of the screens.
“Going to end bad?” Teff’ith asked from somewhere in the blackness.
“Very bad,” Jace answered.
Gnost-Dural rushed his three opponents, hoping to put a quick end to the battle. His blade flickered and danced as his body went into a series of spins and leaps. Karrid’s apprentice—the one he’d fought before—retreated, but the two newcomers met his assault head-on, driving him back with their aggressive counterattacks.
Realizing he wasn’t just facing raw apprentices this time, the Jedi switched back to a more defensive strategy as his enemies pressed forward. The Sith’s twin purple blades came at him from all angles, a high slash from the right; a low cut from the left; a pair of diagonal chops. The human’s massive double-bladed lightsaber was more direct, crashing down in a repetitive series of overhand strikes as he tried to bludgeon his way through Gnost-Dural’s guard.
The Jedi Master met and repelled each and every attack, holding his ground behind a near-impenetrable wall of defense. Even with the apprentice joining the fray, he didn’t waver—the Soresu style, when performed perfectly, could keep numerous attackers with a variety of styles at bay indefinitely … or at least until exhaustion and fatigue forced Gnost-Dural to make a mistake.
That was the great drawback of Soresu: it demanded a passive role—it could delay defeat, but it couldn’t bring victory. And at three against one, his enemies would not need long to wear him down. Fortunately, despite the impressive individual skill possessed by two of his three opponents, his foes were not attacking him as a group. They lacked unity of purpose. They didn’t time or coordinate their attacks, occasionally even getting in one another’s way.