Scheduled chapter is here. You hit 5 reviews, so there's an extra chapter tomorrow.
***
Booster Terrik, his artificial eye flashing, set aside the datapad he'd been studying for an hour straight.
"I don't believe it," he rumbled, looking at the face of the woman sitting opposite him in full dark brown armor.
Well, a "face," anyway.
It was a metal mask depicting a face.
Stupid and pretentious.
"But it's true," the uninvited guest declared calmly.
"I don't believe it," the former smuggler repeated stubbornly.
"Daddy," Mirax, sitting beside him and studying the same information as her parent, addressed him quietly.
"Don't interfere, sweetheart," the large man answered sternly. "Listen, lady, why don't you just get out of here..."
The next moment, he was rubbing his forehead, bruised by the datapad he'd set aside that suddenly flew into his head.
"I am not a 'lady,'" the woman said. "I am Saarai-kaar, leader of the Order of the Jensaarai. I doubt you've forgotten that."
"Well, go back to your Order of pseudo-Jedi, then," Booster snapped, touching the already swelling lump. "Before I call the police and have you thrown out of here to a Hutt."
The face mask tilted, as if the woman behind it was trying to look at him from a different angle.
"Do you really believe the Axis police will interfere in the affairs of the Order?" she clarified.
"And I thought this Dominion of yours was a state of law, with laws and all that," the former smuggler said sarcastically. "So it turns out it's all just loading vacuum into the cargo hold? Like always—all are equal, but some are more equal than others? Or how am I supposed to take your words?"
"Daddy," Mirax said more insistently, carefully setting down the datapad with text open on the screen. "Please, be quiet."
"I'm not going to be quiet when my grandson's fate is being decided!" Terrik fumed. "I didn't bust my ass for some random..."
A second datapad rose dangerously into the air.
"Daddy," Mirax said placatingly, placing a hand on her father's shoulder and looking him in the eye. "Please, go get some caf from the kitchen."
"You can't have caf, the doctor advised against it," the former smuggler cut in, clearly signaling that he wasn't going to be gotten rid of.
"Blue milk, then."
"There's a glass of it on your side of the couch."
"Dad!"
"I'm not going anywhere!" the giant growled. "Don't you see this is all a load of bantha poodoo? They'll fill your head with nonsense, then take my grandson to their temples, make a Jedi out of him, and that's it! We'll never see him again!"
"Booster Terrik—you are a very difficult man," Saarai-kaar stated. "Either you're illiterate, or you're trying to seem that way. It's all written in the contract. In sixty languages. Surely at least one of them should be familiar to you if you don't understand the basic one."
"La... Saarai-kaar! You can tell anyone you like about your full board and 'we're not like the Jedi,' but I've seen enough crap in this galaxy to take anyone at their word!" Terrik Senior now looked more like a small rancor.
"Yes, that's exactly what the contract is for," Saarai-kaar said calmly. "It clearly stipulates the rights and responsibilities of both parties. Sign it, and legally, legal relations will be established between your family and the Order."
"Which you'll wipe your ass with the minute you get our grandson! That's not going to happen!"
A heavy sigh came from under the mask.
"Remind me, exactly how did the Dominion deceive you?"
"They took away my Star Destroyer!"
"You had Imperial property confiscated," Saarai-kaar corrected. "And I believe you were compensated."
"Then you don't know much!"
"So the Terrik Family Freight transportation company just appeared out of nowhere?" the Order leader clarified. "And your priority access to liquidated fleet assets was arranged completely by chance?"
"None of your business!" Booster sulked. "I didn't ask for that!"
"And I was told it was part of your terms."
"Nothing of the sort!"
"In that case, I will inform Vice Admiral Pellaeon so he can conduct an investigation and bring the guilty parties to justice. All the former military property you've acquired will be bought back into the treasury at the original prices, with compensation paid to you."
"No need!" Booster squirmed. "Since when do Jedi know the laws about buying back decommissioned property?"
"We are not Jedi," the Jensaarai repeated like a mantra. "Knowing and following the laws is one of the things that sets us apart."
"Hard to believe..."
"And what if the child has no gift for the Force?" Mirax asked, interrupting her father. "What then?"
Booster shifted in his seat, showing his displeasure.
"That possibility exists," the Order leader didn't deny it. "And we don't rule it out either. But, as stated in a separate section, in that case, your son simply won't enter the Order of the Jensaarai."
"So first you'll fuss over him while he's useful to you, then give him the boot and send him into a big, unfriendly world?" Terrik asked.
"Booster, what part of the contract are you even reading with?" A note of displeasure was heard in the woman's voice. "It's explained in plain language in the contract that neither Mirax nor her child will be removed from society. During the pregnancy, we provide patronage and medical support—full support. You will be monitored by the best doctors before and after childbirth. The child will receive all necessary attention and care. No one intends to separate him from his mother. It's just that instead of civilian medical workers, specialists from the Order will look after him."
"And after that?" Mirax asked.
"If a blood test of the child reveals an ability to channel and use the Force, the Order will offer you full boarding," Saarai-kaar said.
"Removal from the family!" Terrik Senior grumbled.
"No," Saarai-kaar said in a tired voice. "Until the age of enrollment in the Order, your child will live in the family, and specialists from among the Jensaarai will observe him instead of civilian ones. Health, development, speech onset, motor skills, logic, associative thinking—we will monitor all of that. Elective classes according to a developed individual schedule."
"We're not poor people, we can hire whoever we need ourselves."
"Dad, please stop!"
"If it is confirmed that your child is Force-sensitive, without diminishing the merits of civilian specialists, I will note that he will develop best under the supervision of a Jensaarai who cannot be deceived by a little person. He won't be able to hide his problems or fears. While he is small, he cannot express his thoughts for one reason or another. Our specialists sense the child more subtly. And if so, we will help the parents raise not a little manipulative hysteric, but a full-fledged, literate personality. Who will then begin training in the Order."
"And if he doesn't inherit Force sensitivity from his father?" Mirax asked quietly.
"In that case, you and your child will receive the most perfect perinatal observation available in the state," Saarai-kaar shrugged. "I don't know if this will reassure you or not, but I already sense in him," she pointed at Mirax's rounded belly, "a strong connection to the Force."
"We don't need any outside educators!" Booster stubbornly insisted. "We'll raise him to be a normal person, not one of your Jedi-Jensaarai!"
"Forgive me, but you won't be able to do that," Saarai-kaar said. "Those sensitive to the Force see, feel, perceive this world differently than ordinary beings. And the approach to them must be the same. What will you do if your grandson one day kills an animal with the power of his mind and enjoys it? Or mentally influences a peer and comes to love controlling others? Or if his abilities prove dangerous to those around him? How will you explain to him how to close his mind from the background of others' thoughts? History knows only a few examples of beings sensitive to the Force who could harness their powers on their own. For the most part, it turned into a nightmare for everyone around them. The Order's patronage program for promising families is precisely aimed at ensuring that such problems do not arise in the Dominion due to the accidental or deliberate negligence of parents."
"And otherwise—what?" Booster Terrik asked sarcastically. "You'll kill him?"
"If he poses a danger to those around him—the Shadow Guard will find him and eliminate him," the Order leader said simply.
"You would give the order to kill a child?" Mirax gasped.
"A child..." Saarai-kaar fell silent. "A child... Almost five years ago, on a remote planet, a baby was born. With a very powerful gift. It manifested at age six. The family was not Force-sensitive, which indicated the woman's infidelity. The husband wanted to kill her, but the son killed his father. Then he brutally tortured his mother to death. She died in agony over several days. After that, he subjugated the village, putting to death anyone who disagreed. At ten years old, he met his real father, a Sith Lord, and killed him, subjugating the entire planet. And a hundred years later, he united the remnants of his people, created a new Sith Empire in the depths of the galaxy, and a thousand years later, he descended upon the Old Republic. Trillions died, but that's not precise information. Because, for example, no one knows how many he killed on his own planet before turning it into a barren desert."
"He lived over a thousand years?" Terrik was surprised.
"The Force grants access to possibilities that are fiction for most beings," Saarai-kaar replied. "All wars between Jedi and Sith began because someone self-taught or half-taught came to power and decided they were smarter than everyone else. Nothing good ever came of it. That's why the Dominion government resorted to harsh measures—all Force-sensitive beings must be accounted for and under the Order's control. Preferably, they become part of the Jensaarai."
"You promise not to remove the child from his family?" Mirax clarified.
"The training will be difficult, but the Order does not intend to create fanatics like the Jedi or Sith," Saarai-kaar said. "I am a mother myself, and believe me, years of separation from my child did me no good. I have no intention of putting anyone else in that same position. That is my position, dictated by personal experience. The Dominion leadership supports me in this. Only a child raised in a family can be sufficiently socialized and prepared for adult life. To understand what love, care, household responsibilities, what is allowed and what is not. We do not take away childhood from children, youth from teenagers, or life from adults. Membership in the Order... You could call it a vocation job. Where you come for a certain time, do what is necessary, and then return to your family."
"So my grandson will be home every evening?"
"Unfortunately, no," Saarai-kaar said. "While it's too early to talk about this, to reassure you, I'll explain. The training will consist of several parts. General education—according to the Dominion's schooling standards..."
"So they'll definitely teach him to read and write," Booster snorted.
"The second part is the theory and history of the Order directly, a gentle introduction to the philosophical foundations of our teaching and the basics of controlling the Force. You could call it patriotic education. The training will be based on the principles of the Dominion's cadet classes. Discipline, instilling practices of self-sufficiency, maintenance, hygiene. The older the children get, the more time the Order will devote to training their abilities. But not at the expense of fundamental truths and general education. By the time they finish school, the child will be educated in all required disciplines and will have a set of state-issued documents."
"So far I haven't heard about when he'll be at home," Booster Terrik grumbled.
"The children will have free time when they can contact home via the HoloNet—daily. In emergencies, the Order will deliver the child to the parents if circumstances require. Once a month, students will be able to meet with their parents in person—on weekends. Then they will return to the Academy. The issue of parents visiting students at the Academy itself hasn't been resolved yet—we're trying to find the most suitable option."
"And what happens after graduation from your Academy?" Mirax asked. "So, he's learned the school curriculum. And what comes after that? By my calculations, that's around the time for service in the Defense Forces."
"Yes, the training program is scheduled so that children finish school in the year they come of age. After that, the choice is theirs. They can leave the Order and remain under its observation. And the life of an ordinary citizen begins. Defense Forces, educational institutions, and so on."
"And the second option?" Booster asked. "There clearly is one?"
"Of course. If a student decides to stay in the Order, they enter our 'institute.' They study the Order's disciplines more intensively, alongside distance learning at a chosen Dominion military educational institution. In addition, they undergo military training, just like any ordinary citizen in the Defense Forces."
"So from a cadet school, they become a cadet at a military academy, basically?" Booster was taken aback.
"Jensaarai protectors are viewed by the Dominion as elite soldiers, specialists who stand guard over their state," Saarai-kaar explained. "Naturally, they must have knowledge of weapons, tactics, and learn to operate equipment. To be, and possibly command, troops, a protector must understand what it means to be a soldier. Without service in the Defense Forces, they won't understand that."
"Isn't that a bit much to pile on young people's heads?" Booster clarified. "Your Jedi science, plus military brainwashing... And what if he doesn't want to be a soldier? Maybe he wants to be a medic or an agronomist?"
"The Dominion's military academies have, in addition to the core programs, the same training directions as civilian ones," the Order leader said. "Military medics, military engineers, military pilots, diplomats, researchers, archaeologists, and so on. Yes, you can rely on the Force by sending a Jedi to negotiations. But the Jensaarai prefer to use Force-users with diplomatic training in such situations, rather than a randomly chosen free knight. According to the teenager's talents, recommendations will be given by the Order. And don't forget—he will always have the opportunity to contact his family, except during mission deployments."
"And wouldn't it be simpler to raise them like the Jedi?" Mirax asked quietly. "Not separating them from their families, of course, but training them directly as protectors of the state, guardians of peace, rather than soldiers with lightsabers?"
"The Jensaarai Order are defenders of the state, not guardians of the world," said Saarai-kaar. "There's a vast gulf between those two concepts. A defender of the state can only truly be one when he is raised as an individual, not as a fanatic ready to butcher dissidents at every opportunity and offer himself up as a sacred sacrifice. Force-sensitives are more closely connected to this universe. They can do more than ordinary beings. And so we have the right to demand more from them. Not just to wear brown cloaks and humble robes."
"Too much hassle," said Booster. "I hope by the time my grandson grows up, you'll have a less cumbersome training system."
"You mentioned you had a child," Mirax said unexpectedly. "What's his specialty besides state defense?"
"He's a pilot," said Saarai-kaar. "A licensed pilot for small and medium-tonnage vessels. Including combat craft."
"If he ever decides to stop waving his glow-stick around, give him my card," said Booster. "Tell him to call when he gets tired of it..."
"He won't get tired of it," Saarai-kaar said softly. "My son chose his path and accepted all the burdens of his fate as a true Jensaarai. Neither he nor I have ever regretted it."
"Easy for you to say — he's probably stationed at some headquarters..." Booster snorted. "We know all about those well-connected sons..."
"My son is currently fighting the Dominion's enemies," Saarai-kaar replied calmly to the barb. "At this very moment, while you and I are speaking, he is battling an incredibly strong and powerful opponent, enduring the pain of losing his own apprentice."
Mirax and Booster stared wide-eyed.
"You... can feel that?" the Corellian woman asked, addressing the head of the Jensaarai Order.
"Every one of his emotions, every pain he experiences, every nervous breakdown," confirmed the woman with the mask for a face. "When I said Force-users require a special approach, I meant this too."
Booster couldn't find anything to say in reply.
And Mirax, picking up her datapad, simply placed her signature on it.
"I hope everything will be alright with your son," she wished, handing over her consent for the Order's oversight.
"So do I," replied Saarai-kaar.
And from the younger Terrik, the pain and anxiety that saturated the woman's voice did not go unnoticed.
* * *
Gantoris watched as the battle erupted between his mentor and the Dathomirian witch.
Their energy blades (if such a term could apply to the damaging element of a light-whip) traced complex patterns in the air, interrupted by frequent flashes as the energies collided, separated, and collided again.
The apprentice, overcoming the pain of his wound, allowed the Force to fill him, calling upon this wondrous energy.
He felt the poison, born from the Dark Side of the Force itself, seeping into his body.
"Kkhak!"
The native of Eol Sha groaned and doubled over as a terrible pain twisted in his stomach.
He tried to straighten up, but his body was suddenly shaken by a prolonged coughing fit. Gantoris raised his hand to cover his mouth, and when he lowered it, he saw it was covered in thick patches of blood.
Another searing pain rolling through him forced him to his knees.
His Master had shown him how to use the Force to save himself from poisons and diseases.
But unfortunately, those lessons were superficial, mostly theoretical.
And they dealt exclusively with poisons produced by sentient beings and known to science.
Against Dathomirian witchcraft, there was no cure.
Or at least, Gantoris didn't know one.
So he did what he could.
Using a medkit, he infused his body with bacta to boost his immune system.
He channeled the Force to contain the infection, tried to filter his blood...
And grew more and more aware that it wasn't enough.
The poison needed to be burned out.
Another coughing fit nearly paralyzed Gantoris.
He raised a hand to wipe the sweat rolling down his face and felt something warm and sticky on his cheek. A thin trickle of crimson tears seeped from the corner of his eye.
The poison had spread throughout his body, damaging his vital organs.
Inside, he was bleeding everywhere, the blood oozing out through his eyes and nose, his ears, his pores...
He could still fight, for now.
So he minimized his body's movements, letting all his efforts focus on healing.
The Force would help.
The Force was all-powerful.
And as Gantoris lay there, he watched the battle unfold before his eyes.
Master and witch seemed to dance to a song of life and death, a melody known only to them.
It was a dance of cruelty reflected in the Force.
The two combatants had sized each other up with the first series of strikes and counters.
One lost ground, then regained it, as they struck and parried.
The Dark Side grew stronger.
For a moment, it seemed to Gantoris that time had receded, had flowed away, each time the opponents fought in what seemed like slow motion, executing a series of attacks and blocks amplified by the Force.
Fodeum unleashed an avalanche of lethal strikes upon Silri.
The witch reached deeper into the Force and deflected every single deadly thrust.
She leaped and dodged, looking for a breach in the Jensaarai's defense, but found none.
He spun and weaved, testing the weakness of her own technique.
Neither succeeded.
Silri lunged at Fodeum like a furious bolt of lightning, but shifted aside at the last moment.
Her whip cut through the air, but didn't reach the Jensaarai's back, meeting his lightsaber instead.
His second blade flew, aiming to decapitate the witch.
She had no chance to parry the move, as her whip was wrapped around the blade of the Jensaarai's first sword.
Silri didn't even try to free it.
Not by conventional means.
She deactivated the energy whip and reactivated it, deflecting the blade and saving herself.
But that was the Jensaarai's trap.
The moment Silri freed Fodeum's first sword, it immediately followed the second.
And just as the witch deflected that strike, the hilt of her whip was cut in half.
Silri herself barely managed to keep her fingers.
But as soon as the blades returned to Fodeum's hands, Silri pulled to herself the green-glowing blades of the fallen witches.
Now each combatant had two swords.
And judging by how easily they moved and wielded them, both were highly skilled with paired weapons.
Suddenly, after exchanging a couple of strikes and counters, Fodeum hooked one of the blades onto his belt, leaving his left hand free.
He clenched his free hand into a fist, squeezed it tight, and imagined all his rage sliding down into his palm and collecting there.
Then, when the witch's weapon rebounded from his block, turning her slightly to one side, he opened his hand and released the accumulated power within.
The Force lashed out like a wave, striking Silri and flinging her against the shiny metal of the blast door.
The Jensaarai called upon the Force again, let it surround him, and then leaped, becoming a blurred silhouette.
Before the witch's blades even began their swing, he had already moved.
By the time the blade of green energy passed through the space where he had been, Fodeum had landed softly beside Silri.
His Force swelled with a wave of triumph.
So much so that Gantoris could barely react to what he sensed in his master.
A star from the Dark Side seemed to blaze within him.
And he unleashed all that power upon Silri.
She almost immediately lost her balance — just a little, but it was enough.
He struck swiftly; the superheated blade of his own weapon pierced the witch in the stomach.
The Jensaarai slashed the blade across the witch's chest and, with a circular motion, broke the distance, evading her counter-thrust.
Gantoris rejoiced, seeing Silri collapse weakly to her knees, but a second later realized the triumph was premature.
Now in her hand was the lightsaber of a slain witch.
And green lines stretched toward her, connecting the witch to the corpses of her fallen servants.
Gantoris nearly cried out in horror when he realized that everyone killed on the bridge had become part of the web Silri had woven.
Fodeum didn't hesitate and attacked again.
But his thrust was stopped by a green sphere surrounding the witch.
Before his eyes, her wounds healed, and she herself seemed to grow even younger and stronger.
But the corpses... every single one of them had turned into mummies — bones wrapped in withered flesh, covered by their clothes.
A green fire flared in the witch's eyes.
"I have the life energy of dozens of sentient beings within me, Dominionite," her voice sounded as if reflected by a thousand echoes. "You cannot defeat me, human. Never."
The witch dispersed the shield around her and assumed a stance, demonstrating her readiness to continue the fight.
"I'll kill you to death," Fodeum's voice was equally hollow.
And there wasn't even a hint of amusement in it anymore, as there had been before Magash's death.
Gantoris had seen before how his master surrendered to the Dark Side and became a predator, a born killer.
And only corpses lay in his path.
But now...
Now it was different.
Now this was no longer Fodeum Sabre De'Luz.
Now it was the very terror of the Dark Side of the Force that was attacking Silri.
The lightsaber blades clashed again.
* * *
As strange as it was to admit, Silri was his equal in strength, the Force, and training.
She was clearly trained not only to fight with a light-whip and Dathomirian magic, but also with more traditional means, like a lightsaber.
The combatants were too evenly matched to gain more than a temporary advantage.
They hurled pieces of equipment at each other with the Force.
They sliced, hacked, and cut with lightsabers that buzzed angrily from the constant strain.
They tried to throw each other off balance, disrupting their control, and barely managed to catch their breath.
Punches, kicks, knees, and elbows...
The combatants used every weapon at their disposal against each other.
Battered, covered in bruises, wounds, and scratches, both looked ready to collapse.
Even Fodeum's Cortosis-coated armor lay shattered into pieces scattered around.
When the Jensaarai's muscles weakened, he remembered his fallen student and found the strength to continue.
Where Silri got similar endurance, he had no idea.
At some point, they switched to identical Force techniques.
Blasts of jagged lightning erupted from them, and the storm of battle raged with monstrous fury.
With every strike and parry, thunder exploded.
With every kick or punch, lightning cut across the bridge like a fiery spider's web.
Silri was faster than Fodeum, well-trained, but he was stronger and drew upon reserves of the Force that were forbidden to her.
He was going to kill her.
He was going to win.
Both knew where they drew their power from.
The Dark Side of the Force.
Fodeum was not afraid to let his emotions amplify his strength.
His conscience did not torment him for using his anger and hatred as vessels to draw more power than his body or spirit could give him.
He was a Jensaarai defender, trained to use the power of his dark feelings.
Deflecting another blow, Silri slipped out of her opponent's reach.
For a moment, he did not follow her.
He just looked at her, illuminated by the red glow of his lightsaber and the striking lightning.
Then Fodeum turned to his anger, releasing his hatred for the person standing against her.
He let the unstoppable melody of rage sing within him, renewing his strength and resolve.
The bridge filled with the emanations of the Dark Side of the Force.
Fodeum snarled, plunging himself completely into the abyss of emotion and bloodlust, compensating for the pain of losing his student.
The Jensaarai doctrine implied defense.
Not attack.
Safety.
Which he had failed to give Magash.
Silri returned his scream, unleashing her own hatred and anger, her refusal to lose.
In the light of the miraculously surviving lamps, both called upon the Dark Side of the Force.
Strengthened by its power, they threw themselves at each other again, and their struggle became even more devastating.
Thunder roared around the two enemies, accompanying every blow, kick, and lightsaber strike.
Lightning danced across the ship's bridge, piercing the remains of the interior with its energy.
Silri struck; her anger amplified the force of the attack.
Fodeum dodged, spun, and returned a skillful counter-thrust.
The lightsaber blades crackled and sparked, rebounding from each other again and again, while the Dark Side of the Force grew stronger by the moment.
Now it was like acid, eating away at each of them from within.
They fought, burning out, giving more and more of their strength and themselves to the battle.
Silri, hoping for a moment's respite, enveloped herself in the Force and rose above the middle of the bridge, retreating.
Fodeum followed her without a moment's hesitation.
He immediately recognized her attempt to casually finish off the wounded, motionless but still living Gantoris.
And he thwarted it, pulling his student back with the Force.
He had lost one pupil, but he would do everything to protect the second, to prevent the complete failure of his teaching.
Silri understood this instantly.
And she began to strike for certain, trying to distract the Jensaarai into protecting the wounded man, thereby weakening his vigilance.
A good try.
The woman got so carried away with her flank attack that she didn't notice how the swarm of small fragments he had formed had turned into a weapon.
The woman cried out as dozens of projectiles pierced her body and passed clean through.
In an instant, she turned into a bloody piece of meat.
But before he could deliver the final touch, the wounds on her body closed with a greenish haze.
Dathomirian witchcraft had saved her life again.
But at the same time, Fodeum noted that Silri had become weaker.
Not exhausted, but noticeably yielding to him.
It seemed that all the power she had gained from absorbing the fallen bodies weakened whenever the witch sustained significant damage to her own body.
Well, that seemed to be a weakness of her body.
He should use this.
He deflected her next attack and unleashed Force Lightning upon the witch.
To his surprise, she didn't do the same, but chose to avoid the deadly technique.
And in the very next second, she was ready to counterattack.
Fodeum and Silri rushed at each other, converging over the remains of the damaged central platform.
The Jensaarai's lightsaber raised high.
Silri's blade in a deep low thrust.
The witch made a feint, intending to strike him from a different side than the deceptive maneuver suggested.
Fodeum gave nothing away.
And a second later, he would have been gasping for air like a fish on dry land, falling with his lungs pierced by a side strike.
But the witch had completely overlooked that he had two lightsabers.
It was with the second that he parried her attack.
And with the first, he cut the Dathomirian woman's body diagonally.
The woman fell, but immediately became covered in a green glow.
Fodeum was merciless.
Like a machine of death, he pressed forward, deflecting her counter-thrusts and landing one slashing blow after another.
The woman's body was covered with dozens of cuts and wounds, but they all closed up with witchcraft.
But the Jensaarai could already see that the witch's strength was leaving her.
Her regeneration had become slow, and by the time they separated, the deep wound on the tattooed woman's cheek remained as the same cauterized scar.
Silri ran her hand over the ugly mark.
Fear appeared in her eyes, quickly turning into horror.
Excellent.
He had promised — he had demonstrated.
And now it was time to kill her.
In the cruelest way possible.
* * *
Fodeum's weapon began to move with a speed he had never demonstrated during training sessions.
Gantoris watched the battle, simultaneously feeling pain and rage that he could not overcome the poison.
The Force helped contain the damage, but he still couldn't find the method to destroy the infection.
Couldn't do it with what Fodeum had taught him.
But at the same time, he saw before him how his master used the Dark Side of the Force without a shred of conscience.
And was defeating one who had practiced this teaching since birth.
This gave him food for thought.
What if the poison of the Dark Side could only be defeated by the Dark Side itself?
Gantoris didn't know the answer for certain, but he definitely wanted to live.
After all, the poison, no matter how perfect, was finite.
It spreads through the body, but its power, its essence, its structure are unchanging and constant.
Whereas the Dark Side, as the Master had shown, is capable of growing stronger with every moment.
You just need to start a chain reaction.
Gantoris could not heal himself with the Light Side of the Force.
So he allowed his pain to trigger a chain of associations that awakened the Dark Side of the Force within him.
Pain breeds malice.
Malice, in turn, kindles his anger.
And anger, like molten metal — just as burning and unrestrained — turns into pure, star-radiance-like rage.
And now it flows through his veins along with his blood...
No, it replaces that fluid.
Turns it into its tangible form.
The Force floods him, just as the lava fields on Eol Sha flood everything around during a catastrophe.
For a moment, the poison met the Dark Side.
It reacted to the kindred nature, perceiving it as fertile soil through which it could sprout.
But the moment Gantoris's rage engulfed the poison, it was defenseless against the currents of energy it carried.
His blood boiled, his body ached with pain, and the Eol Shan arched his back in a silent scream.
His consciousness burned in the agony of the Dark Side poison dying within his body.
But his consciousness also could not withstand the pain born of this destruction.
Gantoris's brain simply shut down, plunging into an abyss of oblivion.
* * *
Parrying the first sequence, Fodeum caught an echo of his student's suffering.
He was distracted, checking on his condition.
And nearly lost his life when Silri struck at his throat.
The Force guided his hand, so the thrust was blocked.
The Jensaarai confirmed the student was in relative order and returned to his primary mission.
Blocking Silri's weapon, he raised his blades upward and slammed his boot into her chest, channeling the Force into it.
The witch flew sideways like a projectile fired from a cannon barrel and crashed into a bulkhead.
The opponent snorted in surprise when Fodeum didn't rush to finish her off: both understood that her intention to counterattack at that moment was no secret.
Silri lunged forward.
Fodeum deflected her attack and stepped back to regroup.
She had started the fight ferociously, expecting to finish their skirmish quickly.
Now she had to reconsider her strategy.
"You're not bad," she admitted. "But I was trained by a four-thousand-year-old Sith, a general in the army of Revan himself!"
"I don't care," Fodeum replied dryly.
He rushed forward again, and the bridge filled with the hiss and crackle of lightsabers that had managed to clash several times in the span of two heartbeats.
Either of them could have lost their life long ago if they tried to react to every single movement.
But today they were in the grip of the Force itself.
It was the Force that had raised their confrontation to a level beyond the understanding of sentient beings.
There were no familiar sequences, combinations, or skills.
They instinctively sensed each other's strengths and weaknesses, then tried to avoid the former and exploit the latter.
They called upon the Force, letting it flow through their bodies and guide their weapons.
They gave themselves to the Dark Side completely, unconditionally.
Their weapons became extensions of their hands, and each responded to the other's attack with equal effectiveness.
This was a battle of titans.
Fodeum understood that Silri had spent recent years training not only to spite her enemies and not only in building her criminal empire.
She had diligently studied the lessons of ancient mastery.
He, on the other hand, had only recently returned to active service as a Force-user and was learning by leaps and bounds what the Dominion could provide to the Jensaarai Order.
Where Silri used pressure, he countered with skill.
Her nearly flawless swordsmanship he bound with his perfectly honed reflexes.
The Force whispered advice to both him and her, so the duel continued, despite it seeming impossible.
Fodeum was not intimidated by Silri's words about who had trained her and what place he occupied in the Dark Side's food chain.
Before his eyes stood the example that even the most persistent training, the most elegant approaches to teaching, could lead to failure.
And besides...
He had had many teachers.
He had personally reviewed the contents of Grand Master Biel Ductavis's holocron, found on Ossus.
Besides knowledge of ancient history, it contained so much that changed the understanding of the Jedi's nature and customs.
The worldview of the fallen Order, lost through the centuries, now lived in the teachings of the Jensaarai.
Techniques that were once forgotten or relegated to the category of the Dark Side of the Force were actively used.
Not by everyone, of course — only by those who could maintain the strength to control the dark side of their own essence.
So it was unclear who possessed a greater wealth of knowledge and skill in the Force.
Fodeum blocked Silri's weapon and struck her with a precise thrust to the stomach, but the witch managed to leap away, kicking him in the head.
The man dodged, but the opponent also escaped the danger zone.
Fodeum ignored her taunts.
Just as he ignored the caustic little voice inside that whispered that he had long since lost control of the Dark Side, that he should let go of the reins, allow his consciousness to surrender...
Fodeum went on the attack.
In the past, he had always been afraid to subjugate his will to the raw emotions that fed the dark side.
Now he had no such weakness; for the first time, he tapped into his potential.
And the Dark Side whispered that he was utterly foolish to desperately try to control it.
The man drove Silri back with fierce, sharp blows, forcing the witch to retreat.
Backflipping, she tried to catch her breath, but her opponent was relentless in his advance.
He lunged forward sharply, almost landing a slashing blow to the witch's leg — she managed to defend only at the last moment.
His blade was deflected at the last second, but he swiftly followed up with another series of powerful thrusts and lunges.
The woman kept retreating, steadily driven back by the fury of her opponent's relentless assault.
Every time she tried to change tactics or resort to trickery, Fodeum anticipated it, reacted, and seized the advantage in the prolonged duel.
She relied on experience; he crushed her with raw power and his close connection to the Dark Side.
And she was failing, weakening, starting to panic.
The resolution was inevitable.
They both knew it.
Silri was strong in her arts, but she couldn't get even a couple of seconds of breathing room to use them.
The Force in the Jensaarai was too great.
Only some unexpected maneuver could save the head of the Syndicate, but they had been fighting for so long that she could no longer surprise Fodeum with anything.
Whatever the Sith she had spoken of had taught her, Fodeum had already seen every possible sequence, series, lightsaber movement, and trick she could perform.
She had likewise studied everything he could throw at her.
And now, the only thing that could decide the battle's outcome was one of them tiring first.
But they both knew one of them would make a mistake sooner.
And Silri, seeing the seething rage in the Jensaarai's actions, grew desperate.
She leaped, spun, dove, performed feints, tried to strike from impossible angles.
She had completely shed her human guise, becoming a cornered beast.
And that animal in human form possessed all the qualities of something that walked on four legs and wore fur.
She became a wild, reckless, frantic force of nature.
And the more the madness of the Dark Side consumed her, the more Fodeum let her slip away.
It was as if they had swapped roles.
He had started this fight like a madman, while she was calm.
Now, it was the complete opposite.
It had taken only a few glances at Magash's lifeless face for reason to prevail in him.
But that old cheerfulness, mischief, and youthful zest were gone.
He had crossed the threshold of maturity.
Not physical, but mental.
He had stopped thrashing about and found his own path.
One very similar to the old one, yet as different from it as a corvette is from a Star Destroyer.
He no longer needed all those trappings of a "good guy."
He wasn't one.
He had become the very essence of terror—and the panic in Silri's eyes confirmed it better than any detector.
His rage had frightened her; now his calm self-control, soullessness, and murderous calculation drove her deep into a loss of composure.
She fought, but each of her strikes was weaker than the last.
More and more often, gaps appeared in her defense, gaps that seemed deliberately left to lure him into a trap.
But Fodeum was relentless.
He kept breaking her, destroying her mind with the fear and panic taking root.
He had promised her terror.
A man must keep his word.
"Stop!" she screamed when, instead of piercing her shoulder with his lightsaber blade, he struck her with his armored fist, breaking the facial bone on the right side. "I'm ready to accept punishment!"
The woman tossed her lightsaber aside, spreading her arms wide, begging for a merciful execution.
Fodeum stood a meter away and swung his blade.
Silri closed her eyes, smiling blissfully.
She had accepted her defeat.
And now she awaited deliverance from her torment.
The Force erupted with surprise, bitterness, resentment, and confusion the moment Fodeum spun on his axis and landed a kick to her head.
Hurled several meters to the side, Silri looked at him with a gaze full of fear, her face bleeding.
The anticipation of death had only convinced her she was doing the right thing, that death would free her from her complexes.
"I surrender!" she tried a new game, suddenly realizing things weren't going the way she wanted. "Take me prisoner! I... I know everything the Syndicate knows! You need me!"
There was a grain of truth in her words.
But he couldn't let her live.
Fodeum coldly extended his hand and reached out with the Force to touch the mind of the fallen predator.
The woman screamed, and her wail grew more like the incoherent howl of wind on a stormy coast as he delved deeper into her mind.
He was assaulted by a collage of images and sensations.
Her entire life flashed before his eyes, in the smallest details.
He saw Dathomir, saw Zann and Urai, saw the battle in the Emperor's vault on Coruscant.
He saw the stolen shuttle and the flight into the void, precisely following the coordinates from the Sith holocron.
And then, finally, he found what he was looking for.
"You are useless garbage," Fodeum said, ceasing the assault on her mind.
Silri trembled finely with fear, lying on the deck in a fetal position.
Her gaze was fixed on a single point in space, but the woman seemed to see nothing in front of her.
Several seconds passed before her expression gained any semblance of awareness.
And Silri's first emotion was rage.
"You! You!" she screamed, getting to her feet. "What the hell are you, anyway?"
"I am your executioner," Fodeum said, breaking her jaw with a straight punch.
The woman screeched like a vulgar market harpy in the Susevfi bazaar, but the next blow silenced her.
And broke her nose.
Fodeum deactivated his blade, seeing the witch was panicking.
She scrambled, realizing there would be no mercy, and instantly pulled the nearest lightsaber to her.
Fodeum ducked under her utterly amateurish thrust, crushed the bones of her weapon-wielding wrist, then grabbed her other hand by the collarbone and slammed his helmeted head into her face as hard as he could.
The armor's helm turned Silri's face into a bloody mess.
Her lightsaber clattered to the floor, and Fodeum punched her in the gut.
When she doubled over, he raised her right arm and broke her elbow with a strike from his open right palm.
When she screamed, he added a kick to the face, knocking her onto her back.
The witch rolled onto her back and tried to crawl away from him, leaving bloody splatters on the deck.
Without the slightest moral qualm, Fodeum stepped onto her legs, slowly walked up her body to her back, then kicked her in the back of the head, slamming her face into the floor.
Silri was already speechless—only gurgles and wheezes came from her.
But Fodeum had promised terror.
Grabbing the woman by the hair, he lifted her face to his, simultaneously removing his helmet.
The witch's eyes, filled with fear, widened in surprise.
"You... you're just a kid!" she lisped through her broken lips.
After that, she could only wheeze, clutching her throat—Fodeum crushed her trachea with a knife-hand strike.
A fist blow shattered her lower jaw and knocked out her teeth.
He felt her agony and savored it.
But this was still not enough to avenge Magash's death.
Now Fodeum realized he had felt more than just a teacher's affection for the little witch.
But it hadn't matured into anything beyond fondness.
Silri's body rose into the air on currents of the Force.
She clutched her throat, as if she could still fix something.
Extending his hand to the side, the man called a stream of shards from the broken terminals to him.
There weren't many.
But it would be enough.
With a gesture of the Force, Fodeum arranged the shards around Silri's neck.
She was still conscious, desperately grasping at her throat.
"I find it fitting that you experience her death yourself," Fodeum broke the silence.
At that same moment, the sharp edges of the broken glass bit into Silri's neck.
Shallow, just a couple of millimeters.
She let out a wheezing scream, but this was only the beginning.
The shards began to move like teeth, cutting through her skin, flesh, tendons, severing veins and arteries.
Fountains of blood sprayed in all directions, but that was just the start.
The shards moved slowly, as if savoring the process of sinking into the warm body.
Three minutes later, Silri's beheaded body crashed to the deck, spilling blood all around.
Her head, eyes bulging with terror and pain, was secured to Fodeum's belt.
"Teacher?" He turned his head, seeing Gantoris, barely standing, looking at him with surprise and fear. "Are you... alright?"
"Perfectly," Fodeum replied, unleashing the Force he had accumulated into a thick, shiny armored door.
First, the plate bulged outward.
On the second attempt, the alloys of the two strongest metals in the galaxy were simply ripped from their housings and flung into the corridor.
And Darth Deimos, Terror Incarnate, strode away.
* * *
"Sir," Lieutenant Colonel Tierce approached me and handed me a datapad. "The full operational report."
"Thank you, Grodin," I said, looking up from the data. "Is Silri dead?"
"Yes, sir. Protector Sabre De'Luz has promised to submit a personal report once he finishes his meditations. The Shadow Guard has him under observation; he's potentially dangerous."
"Prepare the guards for the possibility of neutralizing him," I ordered.
"Already done, sir. Sonic blasters from Geonosis have been issued to the guards as well."
"Report to me when the Guardian is ready to jump," I ordered. "The Baneblade remains under Commodore Brandei's command until further notice."
"It will be done, sir. May I inquire about the start time for Operation Beta?" Tierce asked.
"Clan Ordo needs time to discuss the information that was stolen from us," I said. "They may look alike, but their personalities differ. Eventually, they'll reach a common decision, but until then, they'll be debating it. And staying under our surveillance."
"Yes, sir. Do we pretend we know nothing?"
"The 'Nulls' are thirty-five percent smarter than ordinary people," I shared from the report by their creator, Orun Va. "But even they need to create a plausible reason for refusing to join us. We have time to set the stage for their betrayal. Just thirty-five percent less time than planned."
"Should I hasten our agents in the Alliance?" Grodin immediately understood the gist.
"Exactly, Lieutenant Colonel. It's time to merge the poles. And Captain Tschel is clearly bored already, not to mention the General."
----------------------
If you're enjoying this, give your Power Stones, leave a comment, drop a review.
It all helps promote the story.
And every 250, 500 and 1000 stones adds a bonus chapter. Every 5 reviews too.
You can support the work and read 140 chapters ahead: patreon.com/Granulan