by James Luceno
He ducked under a slash from the male, lunged forward, and took the Jedi by the throat. He lifted him from his feet and held him suspended in the air, gagging. The Jedi’s brown eyes showed no fear, but did show pain. Malgus roared, squeezed hard, then dropped the body and stood over it, blade at his side, breath coming hard. The battle still swirled around him and he stood in its center, the eye of the Sith storm.
Malgus finally spotted Master Zallow ten paces away, whirling, spinning, his green blade a blur of precision and speed. One Sith warrior fell to him, another. Lord Adraas landed before him, trying to take Malgus’s kill for himself. Adraas ducked low and slashed at Zallow’s knees. Zallow leapt over the blow and unleashed a blast of energy that sent Adraas skidding on his backside across the hall.
“He is mine!” Malgus shouted, charging through the battlefield. He repeated himself as he passed Adraas. “Zallow is mine!”
Zallow must have heard Malgus, for he turned, met his eyes. Eleena, too, must have heard Malgus’s shouting. She emerged from behind the column, deduced Malgus’s intent, and fired several shots at Zallow.
Zallow, his eyes on Malgus throughout, deflected the bolts with his blade and sent them back at Eleena. Two struck her, and as she collapsed Zallow used a Force blast to drive her body against a column.
Malgus halted in mid-stride, his rage temporarily abated. He turned and stared at Eleena’s fallen form for a long moment, her lavender body crumpled on the floor, her eyes closed, two black circles marring the smooth purple field of her flesh. She looked like a wilted flower.
Anger refilled him, overcame him. A shout of hate, raw and jagged, burst from his throat. Power went with it, shattering a nearby column and sending a rain of stone shards through the room.
He returned his gaze to Zallow and stalked toward him, his rage and power surging before him in a palpable wave. Another Jedi stepped in front of him, blue blade held high. Malgus barely saw him. He simply extended a hand, pushed through the Jedi’s insufficient defenses, seized his throat with the Force, and choked him to death. Tossing the body aside, he moved toward Zallow.
Zallow, for his part, moved toward Malgus. A Sith warrior bounded at Zallow from his left, but Zallow leapt over the Sith’s blade, spun, slashed, and cut down the Sith.
Zallow and Malgus closed. They halted at one meter, studied each other for a moment.
A human male Jedi Knight separated from the swirl of battle and stabbed at Malgus. Malgus sidestepped the blue line of the blade, punched the man in the stomach, doubling him over, and raised his own blade for a killing blow.
Zallow bounded forward and intercepted the downstroke. Zallow and Malgus stared into each other’s faces and the rest of the battle fell away.
There was only Malgus and his rage, and Zallow and his calm.
Their blades sizzling in opposition, each used the Force to press against the strength of the other, but neither had an obvious advantage. Malgus shouted rage into Zallow’s face. Only a furrowed brow and the tight line of his mouth betrayed the tension behind Zallow’s otherwise tranquil expression.
Feeding off the anger from Eleena, Malgus shoved Zallow away and unleashed an onslaught of overhand slashes and crosscuts. Zallow backed off, parrying, unable to respond with blows of his own. Malgus tried to split Zallow’s head but Zallow blocked again and again.
Malgus spun into a high, Force-augmented kick that hit Zallow in the chest and sent him flying backward ten meters. Zallow flipped and landed upright in a crouch near two of Malgus’s Sith warriors.
They lunged for him and Zallow parried one blow, leapt over the second, and spun a rapid circle, cutting down both Sith.
Malgus, burning with hate, flung his lightsaber at Zallow. He guided its trajectory with the Force, and it spun a sizzling path through the air at Zallow’s neck. But Zallow, riding the momentum of his attack on the second Sith, leapt into the air and over the blade.
While Zallow was still in the air, Malgus unleashed a blast of energy that caught the Jedi unprepared and sent him crashing downward into a pile of rubble. He lay there, prone.
Malgus did not hesitate. He mounted the column of his anger, shouting with hate, and leapt twenty meters into the air toward Zallow. Mid-jump, he used the Force to recall his blade to his hand, took a reverse two-handed grip, and prepared to pin Zallow to the Temple floor.
But Zallow rolled out of the way at the last moment and Malgus’s blade sank to the hilt in the stone of the Temple’s floor. Zallow leapt up and over Malgus, landed in a crouch, reactivated his lightsaber, and pelted across the floor back at Malgus.
Eschewing speed and grace for power, Zallow loosed a flurry of rapid strikes, slashes, and lunges. Malgus parried one blow after another but could not find an opening to mount his own counterattack. Lunging forward, Zallow slashed crosswise, Malgus parried, and Zallow slammed the hilt of his saber into the side of Malgus’s jaw.
A tooth dislodged and his respirator was knocked askew. Malgus tasted blood, but he was too deep in the Force for the blow to do real damage. He staggered backward a step, as if the blow had stunned him.
Seeing an opening, Zallow stepped forward and crosscut for Malgus’s throat.
As Malgus knew he would do.
Malgus turned his blade vertical to parry the blow and spun out of the blade lock. Reversing his lightsaber during the spin, he rode it into a stab that pierced Zallow’s abdomen and came out the other side.
Zallow’s expression fell. He hung there, impaled by the red line. He held Malgus’s eyes, and Malgus saw the flames of the burning Temple reflected in Zallow’s green irises.
“It is all going to burn,” Malgus said.
Zallow’s brow furrowed, perhaps with pain, perhaps with despair. Either way, Malgus enjoyed it. He waited for the light to disappear from Zallow’s eyes before jerking his blade free and allowing the body to fall to the floor.
The shock hit Aryn with little warning, the sensation as sudden and powerful as a blaster shot. Her body spasmed. The tranquillity bracelet in her hand, the bracelet given her by Master Zallow, snapped in her clenched fist and the tear-shaped bits of coral rained to the floor.
She doubled over, moaned. Her stomach sank. Her vision blurred. The room spun. Her legs dissolved under her and she felt herself slipping, falling, sinking. A fist formed in her throat, throttling the cry that wanted release and allowing it loose only as an aborted, grief-ridden wail.
Through their connection in the Force, she felt the sharp stab of agony that Master Zallow experienced, felt her own breath hitch in sympathy as he took his final breath and died. The line of his life, usually so bright in her mind’s eye when she felt the Force, usually so close to her own line, vanished from her perception.
Beside her, Syo’s sharp, surprised intake of breath told her that he had felt something, too.
Despite her pain, the rising despair, the reality settled on her immediately. She had seen it in the eyes of the Sith male.
“What was that?” Syo asked, his voice seemingly far away, but his question fat with ugly possibilities.
She lifted her head, her long hair dangling before her face, and stared across the room. Both Sith were standing, their bodies tensed, knowledge in their eyes.
“We are betrayed,” she answered, her voice a hiss.
She left it unsaid that her Master, the man who had been a father to her, was dead.
She was surprised to find her legs sturdy under her as she stood up straight. A group of people stood near her. No, not people. They were statues, Alderaanian statues. She was on Alderaan for peace negotiations with the Sith.
And the Sith had betrayed them. She had fought the Sith on Alderaan before, during the battle for the planet. She would do so again. Now.
“How do you know this, Aryn?”
But Syo’s voice, his doubt, did not erode her certainty.
“I know,” she spat.
The Sith knew, too. They had known all along. She could see it in their faces.
Her view distilled down until it consisted entirely of the two Sith and nothing else. A roar filled her ears, the crashing surf of grief and burgeoning rage. She heard a voice calling her name from some distant place, repeating it as if it were an invocation, but she paid it no heed.
Both Sith eyed her, their stances ready for combat. The man wore the same contemptuous sneer, the curve of his thin lips uglier than the scars that lined his face.
“Aryn!” It was Syo calling her name. “Aryn! Aryn!”
They knew. The Sith knew.
“They knew all along,” she said, speaking as much to herself as Syo.
“What? Knew what? What has happened?”
She did not bother to answer. She fell into the Force, drawing on its power.
Time seemed to slow. She felt as if she existed outside herself, watching. Her body moved across the antechamber, her boots scattering the coral of her bracelet. Violence filled her mind as she moved among the statues of men and women of peace.
“Aryn!” Syo called. “Do not.”
She did not reach for her lightsaber. Her need would not allow for such antiseptic justice. She would avenge Master Zallow’s death with her bare hands.
“No clean death for you,” she said through the wall of her gritted teeth.
Some distant part of her recognized her emotional slippage, recognized in passing that Master Zallow would not have approved. She did not care. The pain was too deep, too fierce. It wanted expression in violence and the two Sith in the room became the focus of its need.
The male Sith reached for his lightsaber. Before he could activate it, Aryn unleashed a blast of power that lifted both Sith from their feet and blew them into the wall. Two Alderaanian statues, caught in the effect of her power, slammed into the wall to either side of the Sith and shattered into chunks.
The Sith must have used the Force to cushion their impact, for neither appeared hurt. Both leapt to their feet and spaced themselves apart for combat. Hilts came to hands and their lightsabers made red lines in the air. The male held his blade high over his head in an unusual style, awaiting her charge, light on the balls of his feet. The female held hers low, in a variant on the medium style.
Behind her, Aryn heard the hum of Syo activating his blade. She did not slow her advance. Using the Force, she jerked the male’s hilt from his hand and brought it flying into her own grasp. Then she tossed it aside, and his sneer melted in the heat of his surprise.
She advanced on him, heedless of the woman, imagining the feel of her hands on his throat. He answered her approach with a blast of power, but she made a V with her hands, formed a wedge with her will, and deflected the blast to either side of her. More statues toppled, shattered. The female Sith, caught in the deflected blast, was thrown backward ten paces.
She closed to five paces, four. The male Sith took a fighting stance. They would fight not with lightsabers but with their hands—close, bloody work.
Aryn used the Force to augment her strength, her speed. She felt it flowing within and around her, turning her body into a weapon—
“Aryn Leneer!” a commanding voice said, Master Dar’nala’s voice. “Jedi Knight Aryn Leneer!”
Syo, too, called to her. “Aryn! Stop!”
The combination of Dar’nala’s and Syo’s voices penetrated the haze of her emotional state. She faltered, slowed, stopped. Reason elbowed its way past her emotional turmoil, and she gave voice to her thoughts. Without taking her eyes from the male Sith, she said, “The Sith have betrayed us, Master Dar’nala. The negotiations were a ploy.”
Dar’nala did not speak for a moment. Then, “You … felt this?”
Tears fought to fall from Aryn’s eyes but she forced them back. She nodded, unable to speak.
Master Dar’nala’s next words hit Aryn like a punch in the stomach.
“Listen to me, Aryn. I know. I know. But hear me now—Coruscant is in Imperial hands.”
Aryn’s breath went out of her. The statement did not make sense. Coruscant, the heart of the Republic, had fallen to the Empire?
“What?” Syo asked. “How? I thought—”
“That cannot be,” Aryn said. She must have misheard. She turned from the male Sith, who had recaptured his sneer, to face the leader of the Jedi delegation
Master Dar’nala stood in the archway, her skin a deeper red than usual. Senator Am-ris and a senior Jedi Knight, Satele Shan, flanked her. The Senator, a Cerean whose ruff of white hair topped the cliff of his furrowed brow, towered over the other two. His worried eyes looked out from a wrinkled face but focused on nothing. He looked lost.
Satele, on the other hand, looked as tightly wound as an ion coil, her gaze fixed straight ahead, her auburn hair mussed, the veneer of her neutral expression unable to mask the emotion boiling beneath it.
Neither Am-ris nor Satele seemed to notice the destruction in the hall. Both looked dazed—blank-eyed refugees wandering through the ruins of events. Only Dar’nala seemed composed, her hands clasped before her, her eyes noting the details in the room—the broken sculptures, the position of Aryn relative to the two Sith.
Aryn wondered what had transpired in the negotiation room. For a fleeting moment, hope rose in her, hope that her fellow Jedi had perceived the Sith betrayal and arrested or killed the Sith negotiators, but that hope faded as the lead Sith negotiator, Lord Baras, emerged from the chamber and stood near Dar’nala.
His wrinkled face could not hold the smugness he felt. It leaked out around the raised corners of his mouth. His dark hair, combed back off a widow’s peak, matched his dark robes and eyes. In a haughty baritone, he said, “It can be, Jedi Knight. And it is. Coruscant has fallen.”
Satele visibly tensed; her left hand clenched into a fist. Am-ris sagged. Dar’nala closed her eyes for a moment, as if struggling to maintain her calm.
“As of now,” Lord Baras continued, “Coruscant belongs to the Empire.”
“How—?” Aryn began, but Dar’nala raised a hand.
“Say nothing more. Say nothing more.”
Aryn swallowed the question she wished to ask.
“Deactivate your lightsaber,” Dar’nala said to Syo, and he did. The female Sith did the same.
“What happened here?” Lord Baras asked, his eyes on the Sith brother and sister, the ruin in the room.
The male Sith bowed, used the Force to pull his lightsaber hilt to his hand, and hooked it to his belt. “A slight disagreement, Lord Baras. Nothing more. Please forgive the tumult.”
Baras stared at the male Sith for a time, then at the female. “It is well that the disagreement did not lead to bloodshed. We are, after all, here to discuss peace.”
He seemed almost about to burst out laughing. Am-ris whirled on him. Satele grabbed the Senator’s cloak, as she might a leash, to keep him from getting too close to Baras.
“Peace! This entire proceeding was a farce—”
“Senator,” Dar’nala said, and took Am-ris by the arm. But Am-ris would have none of it. His voice gained volume as he gave vent to his anger.
“You did not come here to discuss peace! You came here to mask a sneak attack against Coruscant. You are dishonorable liars, worthy of—”
“Senator!” Dar’nala said, and her tone must have reached Am-ris, for he fell silent, his breath coming fast and hard.
Lord Baras appeared untroubled by Am-ris’s outburst. “You are mistaken, Senator. The Empire is here to discuss peace. We simply wished to ensure that the Republic would be more amenable to our terms. Should I understand your outburst to mean that the Republic is no longer interested in negotiating?”
While Am-ris reddened and sputtered, Dar’nala broke in.
“Negotiations will continue, Lord Baras.”
“You are ever the voice of wisdom, Dar’nala,” Baras said. “The Empire will expect a return to the negotiation table at this time tomorrow. If not, matters will go … poorly for the people of Coruscant.”
Dar’nala’s skin darkened further but her voic
e remained placid. “Our delegation will discuss matters and contact you tomorrow.”
“I shall look forward to that. Rest well.”
Am-ris cursed Baras in Cerean and Baras pretended not to hear.
As the Republic entourage picked its way among the rubble in the hall, among the rubble in their hearts, Aryn felt the mocking eyes of the Sith male upon her and could barely contain a shout of rage. Before leaving the room, she knelt and picked up one of the coral beads from her shattered bracelet.
Malgus surveyed the ruin. The shell of the drop ship still smoked and burned in places. Bits of blackened metal dotted the hall. Walls and columns had been reduced to piles of jagged rubble. Cracks veined the walls and ceiling. Light from the day’s dying sun traced dust-filled lines from roof to floor. Bodies, many of them Sith, but more of them Jedi and Republic military, lay strewn about the floor, amid the rubble. A few groans sounded here and there. The Mandalorian stood in the Temple’s shattered entrance. She held her helmet under her arm and the sun glinted on her long hair. Her eyes moved across the destruction, the hard line of her mouth showing no emotion. She must have felt Malgus’s eyes on her. She met his gaze and nodded. He returned the gesture, one warrior acknowledging another. She pulled her helmet back on, turned, ignited her jetpack, and lifted off into Coruscant’s sky. The Empire would see to her payment.
Of the fifty Sith warriors who had assaulted the Temple, perhaps a score remained on their feet. Malgus was displeased but not surprised to see Lord Adraas among the living. They, too, shared a look across the ruin, but no mutual gesture acknowledged their kinship as warriors. Neither credited the other with anything.
With the battle over, the remaining Sith warriors assembled near the drop ship and raised their fists in a salute to Malgus, shouting a victory cry amid their fallen foes. For a moment, Adraas stood among them and did nothing, merely stared at Malgus, then he, too, reluctantly joined the salute. Malgus let his tardiness pass.