Star Wars: Darklight
by AB
Chapter 14
Hunted
"You should be… my name is Kaa'ara and my parents were killed so that you could exist." The loathing obvious in Kaa'ara's voice.
"No, I did not choose this, how can it be my fault? I am really truly sorry for what happened to you, I really am but it is not my fault or doing." Tern countered. His tone of voice not angry or scornful.
"I… "
"You feel sad… beyond sad. I do as well, I'll never know what it is like to have real parents, what it feels like to have siblings or a place to call home."
"I… you are correct. Your genetic code is based on mine… I guess that makes us some sort of siblings… "
"I suppose… " Tern's voice trailed. "Where are you?"
"I am in the weapon's core. Me and a hundred more, drained of our Force-Energy. Of our Dark side. The others have been in here for longer and can no longer think straight."
"You… you are in the weapon core? You are one of those who fuel it?" Tern asked thinking.
"Yes."
"Are you powerful in the Force?"
"You are based on me. You are only stronger than me because of the midi-chlorian manipulation after."
"Then you can perhaps control the others with your will?"
"I can try, why?"
"You are connected to a machine and that machine is connected to the rest of the ship. If you are powerful enough to control the others you can try controlling the ship. It is killing my friends."
"Yes, I can try." It was the first time Tern heard pleasure or joy in her voice.
"It was a pleasure to meet you Kaa'ara but now I feel so tired. I think I'm going to fall asleep for a bit." Tern felt as tired as he ever had before with every fiber of his being aching.
"No, you fall asleep now you'll die. That is why everyone else dies, they fall asleep, they surrender."
"I… so tired… help me, please."
"Tell me of your life so far. I barely remember how it was before."
"Mum, we jumped with them, you did it." Volun ran to his mother.
"No, I did not do anything, they jumped and we were in their Hyperspace bubble. I just hope we're not heading to Moraband. I hope they stop to repair first." Cyra challenged.
"I don't think that we're heading to Moraband. I'd go to Tython… if I was him."
"Why?"
"Why not? He has Tern, he can kill him any time he wants, but will probably… leave him to whatever scientists onboard to understand how he lives after being hit by the Life-Eradication laser. I'd go to Tython, complete my Master's mission and draw you out. He knows you can't leave Tython alone, you can't allow him to Eradicate all life on it."
"Yes, but I'm coming with the same fleet that just destroyed two Life-Eradicator cruisers and your cruiser is severely damaged."
"Perhaps I have more ships coming to Tython once the attack on Moraband fails and news of Tython and Balmora come."
"Perhaps… well I have the fleet following us once they mop up in Balmora, when he jumps out of hyperspace and the fleet catches up to us we'll destroy him." Cyra replied sitting in a chair on The Pilgrim's bridge.
"You have to wake up, NOW!" Tern heard Kaa'ara's voice in his head. He was no longer in his fighter's cockpit, he could feel it.
"Wh… what is it.?"
"They have brought you onboard and are about to cut you open. You must wake up." Kaa'ara urged him.
"How do you know?"
"I have taken over the others' minds and am taking over the ship's controls. I "heard" Darth Solus order his men to experiment on you."
Tern woke up. He powered up his lightsaber even before he was fully up from the surgical bed they had placed him on.
He opened the ventilation cover and crawled in the shaft urgently in of need of sleep. He crawled and crawled in the vent shafts until he felt safe enough to sleep.
"What the fuck is going on? Why are the lights flickering?" Darth Solus cussed to one of the Officers in the bridge.
"We do not know my Lord. We are looking into it." The scared officer replied.
"Search faster. I do not like to wait."
"S… sir we are jumping out of Hyperspace."
"What? We have arrived in Tython already?"
"No, my Lord we are between solar systems." The cruiser came out of Hyperspace and to a complete stop.
"Find what is the matter and fix it! We are sitting ducks out here. Call the fleet from Moraband."
"My Lord we just received a data burst from Dromund Kaas. It's from Conclave Leader Darth Incendius… there will not be any further reinforcements, we… you are to eradicate life on Tython, kill your mother and brother and the failed Sith'ari or to not return to Sith-space otherwise… " The officer was cut short as Darth Solus enraged powered up one side of his lightsaber and cut off his head.
"Clean this fucking mess up and get us back on course to Tython." He left the bridge for Tern's holding cell.
"Commander, cancel the tests on Tern, I'm coming to end his life."
"M… my Lord… he has escaped. We are trying to find him." A very scared commander replied through the com.
"WELL FIND HIM!" Darth Solus bellowed and terminated the connection to the commander's com.
"We jumped out of Hyperspace?" Tern asked Kaa'ara when he woke up after a good eight hours of sleep.
"Yes, I have assumed complete control of the cruiser. Your friends are outside firing at us. The cruiser is not firing back."
"You should jump back to Hyperspace or we'll be destroyed." Tern warned her.
"It is only one ship and I do not care, I have suffered for far too long."
"I can help you, Volun and Cyra can help you and you can help us destroy the Sith. I have suffered as well, perhaps less than you but I do not want to die before killing the Sith who have caused so much pain and suffering to so many."
"Fine, I will help. I… there's a planet of legend. I'll jump us there."
"Why that planet? What is its name?"
"I do not know it, but something… someone has been singing to me to go there. You have heard the song as well, I know you have."
"I do not think so."
"Your mind is never calm enough to hear the song but you have heard it, all those who know the Dark Side of the Force have heard the Song."
"You are not getting us to Moraband are you?" Tern worried.
"No. I hate that place. No never again. No this is a very old Sith Shrine, very different, encased in ice. The song wants you to visit the shrine. I think you have much to learn there."
"An ice world? How do you intend on getting us down there once we arrive in orbit around the planet? The Sith on this ship will never let us off. They want to kill me and you are in the core of the weapon." Tern inquired.
"I'll crash the ship of course." Kaa'ara replied matter-of-factly and as if Tern should know this already.
"Ma'am they're jumping out of Hyperspace." Garos called Cyra out through the coms.
"What? We've not arrived to Moraband or Tython yet, have we?" Cyra asked puzzled.
"No. We are in mid-space." Garos replied equally confused.
"Something is wrong. Let's take advantage of it, send out the first beacon to the fleet." Cyra answered.
"Beacon released, they know we're here."
"Don't waste time, Volun take the rear turret, I'll take the front one." Cyra mounted the turret and started firing.
"Garos make a flyby around the bridge, its' shields are down let us cripple it." Volun said through the com. Cyra could practically see his grin.
Garos pulled the throttle sticks turning The Pilgrim right then left to avoid various structures on the cruiser's superstructure, flying them to Charon's bridge.
"They're not firing back… " Volun thought. "They must have detected us by now, why are they not firing?" He whispered to himself as he kept firing on the cruiser.
"Mum why are they not firing back? Can't be they've not detected us by now?" He asked a few short minutes later as yet another of the cruiser's turrets went up in flames.
"It is weird. The whole thing is. Not only are they are not firing at us, they dropped out of Hyperspace in the mid-system void in the first place. Let's take the opportunity whatever the cause of it." Cyra answered sending a photon torpedo hurdling towards the cruiser's bridge.
Volun saw the torpedo travel the short space between them and the bridge and impact it shattering the vacuum-proof windows and exploding in a fireball that wrecked the bridge.
"I hope Bragus was in there." Bragus was Darth Solus' real name before he turned to the Dark Side.
"Bragus died long ago. I hope Darth Solus was in there." Cyra corrected her son.
"They're jumping to Hyperspace… how? The bridge is done for." Volun wondered when they too jumped to Hyperspace, captured in Charon's Hyperspace bubble.
"I jumped us back to Hyperspace. We should arrive in the planet in a few hours but you have to keep moving or he'll find you. He'll kill you if he does. He now has his apprentice searching for you as well.
"What is going to happen there… on the planet?" Tern asked in his sleep.
"I do not know. If you live… you'll learn of the Dark Side, if not… I'll kill the Sith for you. All of them." Tern could almost taste the malice in Kaa'ara's voice.
"What am I going to learn? If I live through the encounter with Darth Solus?"
"To listen to the song of the Force. I do not know what more."
The fleet arrived in Tython. They received the data burst from The Pilgrim's beacon and jumped straight back to Hyperspace, leaving behind a small part of the fleet to safeguard Tython, as they had done to Balmora as well.
In Tython's second academy a young Padawan woke up to find the Sith Siege having ended.
Lavos Kenofi had always been a rowdy, undisciplined boy. At the age of fifteen he still had that boyish look about him looking at least two to three years younger. He still had no facial hair and only his legs had developed any body hair so far. What he missed in body and facial hair though he more than made up for with the hair on his head. His blond, unruly hair fell all over his head, covering his ears, pale green eyes and cheeks. He had a lean athletic body from running around all day to spend some of that energy and he of course missed not one opportunity to pull at his pride and joy every chance he got like almost every other human male teenager in the galaxy.
He was passionate about his ideas and relentless in defending them. Something that occasionally earned the ire of his instructors.
He had been thinking it for a long time but when the Sith attacked and the Jedi did virtually nothing to stave off the Sith's advance he was certain. He did not belong in the Jedi order.
Then the siege around Tython began with rumours of the main academy on Tython having been raided by the Sith and he had no choice but to remain in the safety of the second academy's grounds.
Now the siege was over and he found himself not wanting to remain in Tython anymore.
"Master Virdu." Jedi Knight Virdu was his instructor and Master. "I wish to leave the Order. I do not belong here." Virdu looked at him dismissively.
"You are a Padawan, you are not ready to go out into the galaxy alone."
"I do not care. I will join the Coalition. They have Force Sensitives there."
"You leave now you may never come back." Virdu insisted in the worst way he could have.
"So be it." Lavos turned and left. He headed to his dorm room, picked up what few possessions he had and "borrowed" one of the Order's Jedi Starfighters docked in the academy's hangar bay.
He flew away escaping the planet's atmosphere. The sight he faced there made his jaw gap open. The space near the planet's outer atmosphere and low orbit was full of debris. The ships the Coalition fleet had left behind patrolled the area picking up what few survivors there were and performing repairs on their hulls.
"Woah… this must have been one hell of a battle… " Lavos flew at the direction of one of the larger cruisers.
"Can anyone hear me? My name is Lavos Kenofi, I want to join you." He tuned his communicator to all available frequencies.
"This is the Coalition cruiser Fidelity. Who are you?" The cruiser hailed him back.
"I am Lavos Kenofi, I am… was a Jedi Padawan, I wish to join your fight against the Sith."
"How old are you, son?" Someone from the cruiser asked him.
"It does not matter. I wish to board and join." Lavos replied resolute.
"So be it, our leader Cyra Antari can decide what to do with you back in the Headquarters. You're cleared to land in hangar two, place three hundred." Cruiser command replied.
"Tern… no matter what happens, I am glad to have met you even as I have." Tern heard Kaa'ara's voice in his head. He was crawling through the vents as silently as he could.
"Why? What's happening?"
"Nothing, we have arrived at our destination and I am about to crash us into the planet."
"Why? That may kill us?"
"No, I will adjust our entry-angle and place all power to the shields and life support as well as engines. I want to wake up now. I have been inside this thing for far too long. See you later… brother." Kaa'ara went silent. A second later Tern felt the deceleration that comes from exiting Hyperspace.
"I can feel it… I can hear it. The song you spoke of." Tern panted from the effort and the claustrophobic environment.
There was no reply from Kaa'ara. A few seconds later he fell forward as if the cruiser had impacted another vehicle in front of it. They had started their atmospheric entry.
"Why is the cruiser heading to this planet? We must leave this place at once." Cyra spoke out loud to no one in particular.
"Why? What is it? It's not in the star-charts." Volun wondered.
"It is the location of an ancient yet powerful Dark Side shrine."
"A Sith Shrine out here?" Volun could see in the star charts their position in the galaxy and they were on the opposite side of it from Sith space.
"No, ancient, before the Sith." Cyra added.
"That's… old. We can't leave… " Volun left the rest unsaid. Before his brother was dead and Tern recovered from the cruiser.
"I know. Why would the cruiser come here?"
"Mum, look! It is entering the planet's atmosphere… why?"
"Whoever is in control is clearly not a Sith trooper. They are going to crash the cruiser into the planet." Cyra answered. "Garos, take us in after them, this impact will not kill my eldest if he wasn't in the bridge before."
Garos took them in, staying close to the cruiser but not so close as to be in danger from any debris.
The cruiser descended, a ball of fire streaking across the planet's atmosphere. Its shields gave out shortly before it impacted the glacial surface. It dragged for hundreds of meters, breaking up as it did into two main parts and lots of scattered pieces displacing ice and snow in its path.
"My god… Tern, please be safe." Volun whispered as The Pilgrim landed next to one of the two larger of the cruiser's fragments.
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