4.11

The cacophony of battle intensified as the Doughnut entered combat in earnest. Dozens of turbolasers fired every second, echoes of their staccato bursts traveling through the hull. Lucrehulks were too large to shake when firing even massive weapons, but their cavernous internal spaces both jumbled and magnified all sounds. Outside sound-proofed compartments such as the bridge, the chaos was worse than any industrial plant. It was under such less-than-optimal conditions that I was setting up a proper welcome for our unannounced guests.

Individually, neither the Vaagari fleet nor the Jedi strike team was truly dangerous. There were enough turbolasers and security droids to handle either problem; things became dicey if the Jedi aimed to cripple our ability to fight external threats. A dozen of the lightsaber-toting space monks could wreak absolute havoc if they aimed for maximum collateral damage instead of trying to take over the ship, especially guided by the Force to exactly where we didn't want them to go. To counter that, I positioned much of the Doughnut's internal security to defend Engineering, the power feeds to the turbolasers, and the shield generator. As long as enough armed droids to prove a genuine threat to a team of Jedi were in a location, their danger sense would have them avoid said location. The downside to that was that due to the ship's massive size there weren't enough droids to cover everything, and trained Force-sensitives would find the holes in that coverage before you could say "precognition".

In the Force, the invaders shone like a dozen torches in the darkness, the dimmest easily an order of magnitude brighter than the average person. With the screaming shadow of the slaver fleet so close, those torches seemed to flicker, even gutter as if by gale-force winds, yet still they advanced while drawing heavily upon the Force. A network of bright filaments seemed to connect them all into a united front against the coming storm, bonds of mutual support that seemed to focus on the brightest light of them all, a harsh glare burning away any impediments. There was no serenity or peace in their leader, only an unshakable conviction as he drew on the others to make himself brighter still.

In various security feeds, the Jedi strike team looked far more mundane. The youngest of them - though not the dimmest in the Force - was a teenage girl barely into adulthood, bringing up the rear. Eight others - six men, two women - made up the center and flanks of their formation, all dressed in brightly colored robes, none of them older than forty. And in the lead a trio of older men in dark brown robes, two in their late sixties, one much older than that. Jorus C'Baoth, the leader of the whole Outbound Flight project, looked as if he had escaped from some old folks' home or asylum; wild, thick, bleached white hair, yellow skin tightly wrapped around bone, too-wide brown eyes staring at everything with both casual disdain and an aimless intensity, his stare fixed on things only he could see. All twelve of them seemed to be waiting for something as they moved from the secondary airlock they'd cut open and deeper into the ship's cargo holds.

Far be it from me to disappoint them. At the press of a button, the ship's artificial gravity increased by a factor of five in all places except the central sphere. Even as they braced against the sudden pull, turrets deployed from every corner and started raining rapid-fire stunner shots down on them. The added weight made the rapid deflection maneuvers so much harder. In addition, it cut down on their mobility severely. Even with the Force, running while carrying an extra quarter-ton was a daunting proposition, and the kind of acrobatics Jedi were famous for was nigh impossible. Worse still the defense turrets were on the ceiling, dozens of yards above the Jedi in the cavernous holds, and stunners were both hard to deflect and useless against machines.

The Jedi started running, albeit at a snail's pace compared to their usual performance. Unfortunately for them, the Doughnut's interior had been rebuilt with anti-boarding designs in mind and the ship was enormous; the closest relatively safe area was more than a mile away. The ship did not have its full complement of internal defenses and wouldn't for some time; there weren't enough turrets to bring down a dozen experienced Jedi working in concert. That was fine; the goal was not to take them down outright but wear away at their stamina until their ability to focus and draw upon the Force dwindled. At this point in time, the most Jedi had experience with were brief police actions and maybe the occasional brief battle like Galidraan. Having to fight for prolonged periods without rest was not something they were prepared for. C'Baoth seemed to grasp this quicker than the others and started using the Force to attack the turrets directly. It was here that turrets made a difference over droids; they could be much more heavily armored and their far simpler electronics could be built like circuitry in artillery shells, meant to withstand tens of thousands of gravities for brief periods. Turret after turret was broken, crushed, or torn off its moorings, but it was neither a quick nor easy process; it took almost as much effort as running away while blocking the stun shots would have.

Twenty minutes later, a far more worn down Jedi team reached the connection between the outer ring hull and the Doughnut's central sphere. All of them were panting and drenched in sweat, with shaking limbs where a few stun shots had gone through their defense, robes torn and singed. Their presence in the Force had dimmed by a considerable margin, so I decided it was time for part two of their warm welcome; a thousand security droids charged at the Jedi's position from multiple nearby corridors. They must have seen the ambush coming but from how the defense plans had been implemented, the only ways to avoid it would have been to either remain in the cargo holds and deal with the turrets, or take detours into even more secure areas with other droid groups to pin them down while the ambush force hit them from behind. Exhausted as they were, they couldn't outrun droids in the high gravity environment either. Seeing the future was not as useful when all your options were bad.

As soon as the fight started in earnest, I pressed another button. Ten seconds later, every compartment within a thousand feet from the Jedi had vented its atmosphere into space...

xxxx xxxx xxxx

​

Despite foreknowledge of Jedi abilities, years of preparing the ship against just this kind of boarders, and many mad scientists contributing to the designs, the fight took longer than expected. C'Baoth and his strike team had fought fiercely for another quarter-hour, somehow ignoring the vacuum, taking down all but a hundred of the security droids. Had he brought the Outbound Flight's full complement of Jedi the outcome would have been different, forcing us to reveal the highly illegal force of assassin droids we had onboard. But due to the old Jedi's overconfidence, they'd been stopped by our more conventional defenses. Only two of the Jedi had died in the fight, the ones who'd been taken down early before a breathable atmosphere could be restored. Whatever technique they'd employed to protect them must have been one requiring them to actively focus.

"Put the survivors in the security cells under heavy sedation," I ordered the droids on the scene. "The two bodies should be put in cold storage. The Republic will want them back despite - or maybe because of - their recent insanity." Seriously, taking over fifty thousand people as essentially their slaves? Whatever C'Baoth had been smoking must have been really good.

"Roger, roger. Nine prisoners, two bodies for storage," the commanding droid responded, drawing my attention like iron filings to a magnet.

"Repeat that, B-2!"

"Nine prisoners, two bodies for storage," the security droid did with mechanical precision. "Is there a problem, Lady Andrim?"

"Bet your metal backside there is! There should be ten prisoners, not nine!"

"Negative. We only engaged eleven hostiles." At that correction, I immediately checked the recordings of the fight. At first, I saw C'Baoth leading the other Jedi in the battle, the old man destroying droids left and right. But after a while, the recordings seemed to... change. C'Baoth's image faded away as if it had never existed, the last record of his presence before the fight begun.

BOOM!

Durasteel was torn apart as if from a shock-wave, the blast doors to the security center bending inwards as a really pissed Jedi Master walked through. With another gesture, several-feet-thick slabs of metal bent the other way, forming a crude seal over the entrance; they would not open unless forced to. Ears ringing both from the shock wave of C'Baoth's arrival and the last vestiges of whatever he'd done to my mind fading away, I stumbled back and fumbled for the nearest weapon.

"Illusions are the least of a Jedi Shadow's powers, but even parlor tricks can grow teeth after a near-century of Mastery," the old Jedi told me conversationally. "Let's see how well the Sith do when not hiding behind traps and robotic minions, shall we?" His glowing emerald lightsaber rose to a guard position even as his exhausted, sweat-covered face stretched into more of a rictus than a smile.

"Did you master said illusions by using them on yourself?" I shot back. "Because from where I'm standing, you certainly sound delusional."

"Sadly the Jedi Council, in their blindness, agreed with you," he said through gritted teeth. "Only I saw the signs, foresaw the threat looming in the shadows. A threat that could not be defeated from inside the failing Republic, but with a new Jedi Order founded beyond the reach of your dark master? Tens of thousands of colonists capable of bearing Force-sensitive children, chosen by me. In but a generation we'd have power enough to crush you."

"Yeah, you're saying 'New Jedi Order' but all I'm hearing is 'slavery' and 'personality cult. I wonder why."

C'Baoth's retort came at a blindingly fast Ataru leap. He was exhausted, affected by both the loss of fellow Jedi and the horrors of the Vagaari fleet, had no armor and no weapon but his lightsaber, and was a bazillion years old. Which meant I only nearly lost my head five times in twenty seconds. Forget about attacking back; barely fending him off was all I could do, while lightsaber scrambling to block the darting and twisting the emerald blade. It was not at all like fighting training or even assassin droids where I could rely on the Force to predict their swings. C'Baoth's future actions seemed to split and split again, going in divergent, mutually exclusive futures as he predicted my own predictions of his strikes and moved to invalidate them.

"You are strong in the Force - very strong. But sheer strength is no substitute for experience. Your Soresu form is crude, undeveloped. Have you ever fought against other lightsaber users?" he mocked as he pushed me back.

"I'm not following the advice of someone half a century into retirement," I snarked back as I vaulted over a console and tried to reach the emergency exit. "Will we have to put this fight on hold for your bathroom breaks, old man?"

"Dun Moch is an effective tool if you know how to use it; your childish insults are not." He waved a hand and the frame of the emergency exit twisted, fusing with the metal of the door. It'd have to be cut open, and he wasn't giving me time enough for that. "You are but a Sith apprentice, lacking the tools to engage a real Jedi. Even won through treachery, the lightsaber you bear is not yours. It is just a tool rather than an extension of yourself which, coupled with your inexperience, is a crippling weakness."

Well, he wasn't wrong. I'd modified Altunen's saber for my own use, but had neither bonded with nor dominated the crystal as Sith usually did. The difference might be negligible against droids or gangsters, but given how C'Baoth broke through my guard again and again despite being half-dead, facing a Jedi with it had been a bad idea. The only reason I was still alive was my lightsaber-resistant armor blocking over a dozen blows, but that wouldn't work forever. It was already becoming uncomfortably hot, and the right elbow joint had almost fused into a useless lump. A split second later, the Jedi Master delivered a rotating, two-handed, Force-assisted blow that knocked my saber off my hand, then almost instantly reversed his spin in an attempt to decapitate me. I desperately countered with the Force, barely throwing him off-course.

"No more insults to give, little Sith?" he mocked me once again, throwing waves of Force that tore apart several consoles and tried to crush me as a beer can against the nearest wall. Instead of trying to stop them with pushes of my own, I absorbed just the portion that would affect me alone, remaining standing despite the barrage. "At least your Master taught you to use the Force better than he did the lightsaber."

"Why are you calling me a Sith?" I demanded, shoving pieces of debris at him to keep him away from melee range. They bounced off an invisible bubble around him, which I immediately have begun to undermine and drain away. If I could get a single good hit in...

"Isn't it obvious? As strong as your presence is in the Force, how could you possibly conceal your use of the Dark Side?" Note to self: practice Force Concealment more. "But the time for lessons is long since past, and I grow tired of this charade." An immense pressure like a giant's fist clenched against me, lifting and slamming me against the wall. "For your crimes against the Jedi and the Light, there can be only one sentence."

The pressure grew and grew no matter how much I tried to push it off or counter it. C'Baoth was a Jedi Master with at least a century more experience in using the Force than me, and with more raw power than Altunen had had. He could kill people across a star system like Vader if he tried and against him, I was totally outclassed. My armor groaned and begun to buckle. Everything I could try would not change anything in a contest of raw strength, except for one thing. I would die here, Father would die as well, and the Sith would win. And that could not be allowed to pass.

"You... think... I'm using... the Dark Side?" I gasped. "Then... try this on... for size." And with no more hesitation, I reached out to the Vagaari fleet. To the hundreds of thousands of slaves that screamed in their cells, terrified that their lives would be ended by a turbolaser blast... and even more scared that they would not. To the millions that had died screaming in the past, their agony, horror, and tormented spirits still echoing in the Force. I delved into that mire of torment and did not fight the darkness it contained; I welcomed it. I took in all those screams, the suffering, the voids left behind by millions of deaths, gathered them in then let them all out in a scream of my own.

The air itself was torn by my Shout in the Force, the scream echoing with the voices of millions. C'Baoth's grip on me was shattered, the very walls were rent, and the old Jedi Master's body and spirit struck by every bit of power I could channel from what the Dark Side freely offered. Bones snapped, flesh and skin tore, both his and mine. Channeling more of the Dark Side than one could control had dire consequences, as many Sith eventually discovered. But there was a solution to that, for I was not yet done. Once again I reached out, not for pain or fear but for all those slaves' desire for vengeance. After being tormented for so long, most would be willing to visit any sort of atrocities to their captors if only given the change. And the Vagaari themselves? Greed and gluttony motivated them above all else, a desire to have more and more without end. All that I channeled, and forged a link between C'Baoth and myself. It was not a chain. It was not a weapon to lash out at my attacker. It was a mouth, full of hunger and gnawing teeth.

The old Jedi leaped up, tried to reach me with his lightsaber, and put an end to it. He did not make it. He has begun to age decades, centuries even as he got closer, his wounds blackening with rot, his body turning first decrepit then downright mummified. In the Force pieces were torn off his presence, eaten by my own until nothing was left. He did not become one with the Force; he was just snuffed out even as his physical form was reduced to dust and blackened bones.

Then the pounding in my head overwhelmed my last, frantic efforts, and darkness fell...