=== Maximus ===
The Thunderhawk shook around them as it tore free from the battle barge's hangar clamps, the deep, grinding roar of its engines reverberating through Maximus' armor and into his bones. Through his helm, he watched Coruscant swell beneath them, the planet-city a vast ocean of light and spires as the fleet tore out of hyperspace above it. Around them, other strike craft peeled away in practiced formation, streaking toward the surface like falling stars, but Maximus' focus never left the red rune flickering across his internal display, the target rune marking the Jedi Temple.
Sebastian stood opposite him in the troop bay, towering in his reforged Terminator plate, the Darksaber mag-locked at his hip, black flame barely contained along its edge. The other Astartes were silent, weapons locked and ready, red optics glowing in the half-light of the hold. No one spoke. They did not need to. This was not a battle of glory or conquest, it was an execution of intent, a line crossed that could never be uncrossed. The Thunderhawk punched into atmosphere, the hull screaming as heat and resistance clawed at it.
The pilot's voice cut through the vox, clipped and emotionless, announcing weapons release. A heartbeat later, the Thunderhawk shuddered as the massive witch-bolt payload dropped away beneath them. Maximus caught a glimpse through an external feed, an enormous warhead streaking downward before detonating above the Temple complex.
The explosion was a blinding blue-white bloom that rippled outward like a silent scream. Towers cracked and sheared, stone and durasteel collapsing in cascading avalanches as an ethereal mist spilled downward, thick and luminous, rolling across the Temples courtyards and through shattered windows.
The Thunderhawk angled sharply, engines flaring as it lined up with the Temple's grand entrance. For a split second, Maximus saw figures scattering below, robes, armor, silhouettes frozen in shock, before the world became motion and violence. The gunship slammed into the façade like a battering ram, plowing through ancient pillars and vaulted stone, tearing a wound straight into the heart of the Temple. The impact threw Maximus forward against his restraints as masonry exploded inward, statues shattered, and bodies vanished beneath falling debris. The sound was deafening, a shriek of tortured metal and collapsing stone that drowned even the Thunderhawk's engines.
The craft screeched to a brutal halt deep within the main hall, its hull gouging a scar through polished floors now buried under rubble and dust. For a moment, there was only silence broken by the settling groan of the Temple itself, the blue mist drifting through the wreckage like ghostly fog. Then the blast door thundered open.
"Purge the Unfaithful!"
Sebastian hit the floor of the Temple like a falling star, ceramite boots cracking marble as the Darksaber came alive in his grasp, its edge roaring with black flame and lightning. The first Jedi never even understood what was happening. They were still coughing, clutching at their chests as the Witch-Bolt mist stripped the Force from their souls, eyes wide with sudden, helpless terror, when Sebastian was among them.
His blade carved a burning arc through robes and flesh alike, cutting clean through one body and into the next, the heat of it searing the air itself. A man tried to raise a saber, hands shaking, but Sebastian drove forward without slowing, shoulder-checking him into a column before taking his head in a single contemptuous sweep.
Maximus was already airborne by the time Sebastian took his third step. His jump pack howled as it hurled him out of the Thunderhawk's ruined belly and into the heart of the hall, the Thunderhammer igniting in his hands with a bass-throated thunderclap that rolled through the chamber like a storm breaking indoors.
He came down in the midst of a knot of Jedi who had managed to ignite their sabers, their blades flashing instinctively even as confusion twisted their faces. The hammer struck the floor, and the impact detonated outward in a sphere of raw force. Bodies were lifted, then erased, reduced to vapor and shattered fragments as the shockwave tore through them and sent chunks of stone and shattered statuary screaming through the air.
Maximus rose from the crater he had made, already moving, swinging the hammer in a brutal, horizontal arc that crushed one Jedi mid-leap and hurled another across the hall to splatter against a wall.
Behind them, the rest of the kill-team poured out of the Thunderhawk like a living wall of ceramite and bolter fire. Ten Astartes fanned out with practiced efficiency, forming overlapping fields of fire as heavy bolts screamed through the mist-choked air.
Explosions ripped through the hall in rapid succession, detonating inside bodies and turning men and women into clouds of blood and fire. A Jedi Knight charged one of them, lightsaber blazing, skill and discipline carrying him forward even without the Force to guide him. The Marine met him head-on, letting the blade glance off his pauldron before firing point-blank. The bolt round detonated in the Knight's chest, tearing him in half and painting the wall behind him red.
Another Jedi managed to close the distance, desperation lending speed to her movements as she slashed at a Marine's legs. He simply stepped into the strike, armor screeching, and brought his combat knife down through her collarbone, pinning her to the floor before tearing the blade free and moving on without a second glance.
The hall was chaos now, screams, detonations, falling masonry, the roar of engines still cooling behind them. Jedi tried to rally, tried to form lines, tried to fall back and regroup, but the loss of the Force left them slow, clumsy, mortal in a way many of them had never truly experienced before. Sebastian cut through them like a blade through cloth, pivoting, striking, advancing relentlessly.
He split one Jedi from shoulder to hip, kicked another down the steps, then hurled himself forward with a burst from his jump pack to meet a Master who had managed to keep his footing. Their blades met for a heartbeat, blue against black flame, before Sebastian twisted his wrist and punched his shield forward, smashing the man's guard aside and driving the Darksaber straight through his chest. He wrenched it free as the body fell, black fire guttering along the blade as if hungry for more.
Maximus barreled through a collapsing section of the hall, stone raining down around him as he smashed aside rubble with contemptuous swings of his hammer.
A trio of Jedi leapt at him together, coordination born of long training overriding their shock. He met them head-on. One died to a backhanded strike that crushed his skull inside his hood, the second was caught mid-air and slammed bodily into the floor hard enough to leave nothing recognizable behind, and the third managed a wild slash that scored Maximus' breastplate before the Thunderhammer came down and ended the fight in a blast of blinding light. He did not slow. He did not pause. Every step carried him deeper into the Temple, closer to its heart, leaving nothing but ruin in his wake.
Around them, the remaining Space Marines advanced methodically, clearing corridors, firing into side chambers, executing wounded Jedi where they lay. Some begged. Some cursed. Some tried to fight to the last, sabers flashing uselessly as bolts tore them apart.
The Witch-Bolt mist still hung heavy, glowing faintly as it clung to walls and ceilings, turning this sacred place into a killing ground where peace and tradition meant nothing against bolter, hammer, and blade. By the time the echoes of the Thunderhawk's impact faded, the great hall of the Jedi Temple had become a charnel house, its once-pristine marble slick with blood and scorched black by fire and lightning, as the Imperium's chosen pressed onward, unstoppable, carving a path toward the inner sanctum with ruthless, unrelenting purpose.
Through shattered archways and collapsed ceilings, more Thunderhawks slammed down onto the upper terraces and courtyards, their ramps crashing open even before they had fully settled. From within poured Mandalorians in scarred beskar, jetpacks flaring as they fanned out in disciplined waves, blaster fire stitching across the halls while Astartes captains strode among them like walking siege engines, directing the assault with curt gestures and clipped vox commands. Any Jedi who tried to rally, to form a defensive line or shepherd the younger initiates away, were cut down almost instantly, caught between precise Mandalorian fire and the merciless advance of power-armored giants who did not slow, did not hesitate, and did not give ground.
Dooku emerged from one of the newly arrived Thunderhawks with none of the urgency or violence of those around him. He walked through the chaos as though it were rain falling from the sky, his cloak brushing past broken stone and fallen bodies, his expression distant and closed.
He looked among the faces of those who had fallen, and knew he would not find Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan. He had made sure of that.
Lightsabers flared nearby, their blades erratic without the Force to guide them, and were extinguished just as quickly, either by bolter fire or by a single, crushing blow from an Astartes. Dooku did not look back at the dead, did not flinch at the screams or the thunder of war reverberating through the ancient halls. His eyes were fixed ahead, toward the heart of the Temple, where records older than the Republic itself were kept.
When he reached Maximus and Sebastian, the two giants already standing amid the wreckage of a shattered transept, he merely inclined his head once, then turned and began walking deeper into the complex.
They advanced through corridors once lined with statues of revered Masters, now broken and toppled, their serene stone faces shattered beneath falling masonry or pulverized by stray blasts. Jedi who tried to bar their path were dispatched without ceremony; those who dropped their weapons or staggered back, coughing and disoriented from the lingering blue mist, were either stepped past or cut down depending on how long they lingered in the way.
Sebastian moved like an executioner made manifest, the Darksaber's black fire casting warped shadows across the walls as it carved through resistance in swift, brutal arcs. Maximus followed close behind, his null aura alone enough to send surviving defenders scrambling, his thunderhammer resting against his shoulder should anyone be foolish enough to challenge them. Behind them, Mandalorians secured intersections and sealed off branching corridors, turning the inner Temple into a tightening kill zone.
At last, they reached the Jedi Archives. The great doors stood closed. Dooku stepped forward, placing a hand against the smooth surface, his jaw tightening as old memories stirred: hours spent here as a younger man, debates held beneath these vaulted ceilings, knowledge pursued with hope rather than desperation.
That man felt impossibly distant now. He stepped aside, and Maximus drove his boot into the doors. The impact thundered through the chamber, shattering ancient locks and tearing the entrance open in a storm of fractured stone and dust.
Inside, the Archives loomed vast and solemn, towering shelves rising into shadow, holocrons and data stacks glittering faintly in the dim light. The sounds of battle faded, replaced by the low hum of machinery and the crackle of damaged systems.
Dooku directed them toward specific sections, his voice calm as he ordered data cores ripped free and consoles forced open. Servitors and tech-adepts hurried in behind the Astartes, interfacing with systems and records that had not been touched in centuries, while Mandalorians stood watch at every entrance.
Somewhere within this labyrinth of knowledge lay the coordinates they sought, the trail that would lead them to Tython.
===
The archives were deathly quiet, the vast chambers stripped of their usual hum and murmur, reduced to the soft crackle of burning data slates and the distant thunder of battle echoing through the temple's bones. Maximus stood at the center of it all, his thunderhammer resting against the floor as he watched his brothers and the Mandalorians fan out, locking corridors, sealing blast doors, turning one of the most sacred places in the Republic into a fortified kill zone.
Servo-motors whined as Astartes took up firing positions among shattered hololiths, while Mandalorians moved to cover angles, planting charges, watching for movement. The air still carried that faint, acrid tang of the witch-bolt toxin, but Maximus could feel it thinning, bleeding away with every passing second.
Librarium consoles were torn from their mounts, ancient Jedi databanks cracked open by armored fists and brute-force logic engines. Scrolls, holocrons, and crystalline memory spires were ripped apart without ceremony, their secrets laid bare by Imperium cogitators interfacing directly with alien systems.
For all the reverence the Jedi held for knowledge, Maximus felt nothing as centuries of history were reduced to raw data streams pouring across his visor. Vulkan mattered more than all of this combined. Vulkan mattered more than the Order, more than the Republic, more than whatever fragile sense of balance they claimed to protect.
A Mandalorian officer called out, voice sharp over the vox, and Maximus was at the console in moments, towering over the flickering projection. The coordinates were there, but they were wrapped in layers of encryption so dense they might as well have been adamantium. Grandmaster-level locks. Biometric seals keyed to a single living being.
Cin Drallig.
Maximus stared at the projection for a long moment, then slowly straightened. His gauntlet tightened around the haft of his hammer as calculations ran through his mind, each one ending the same way. There was no bypassing this. No clever workaround. The Jedi had built this lock precisely to prevent what was happening now. He keyed his vox, his voice calm, heavy, utterly certain. "Maintain lockdown. No one enters or leaves this chamber unless I say so."
He turned to Sebastian, who stood a few paces away amid the ruin, blackened armor streaked with ash and blood, the Darksaber resting casually in his grip like an extension of his arm. "The encryption's keyed to the Grandmaster," Maximus said. "We need Drallig. The toxin's been in the air for close to fifteen minutes."
Sebastian's helm tilted slightly, and even without seeing his face, Maximus could hear the smile in his voice. It was low, eager, stripped of any pretense. "Then we hunt," he said, rolling his shoulders as the massive jump pack on his back hissed and adjusted, its vents glowing faintly. "Let them find their strength again. I would hate for this to be boring."
Maximus gave a single, sharp nod. Around them, bolters were checked, power weapons reactivated, Mandalorian rifles brought up to ready. The Jedi would be waking up soon. Good. He tightened his grip on his hammer and turned toward the darkened corridors beyond the archives.
"Find the Grandmaster," he ordered. "Bring him here, dead or alive."
And then they moved, predators loosed into the wounded heart of the Jedi Temple, ready to turn its halls into a hunting ground.
===
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