Star Wars: Slave Of Darkness

The tomb walls reflected the light given off by the lightning pouring from Olia's fingertips. Judging from her smile, she was enjoying the task far more than I would have.

Ianna had screamed herself hoarse within the first few minutes, any notion of resistance burned out by pain.

That was half an hour ago. Now, she barely had the strength to writhe on the ground and had instead curled into a ball as much as she was allowed.

Gaarurra stood beside me, shaggy arms crossed over his chest. His mouth was turned down into a frown, but he said nothing. Like with the Tu'kata, I knew he wasn't happy with this.

"It's almost over." I murmured, though to who I didn't know.

His eyes glanced down at me for a moment before he slowly nodded.

Finally, the time had come. I could feel Terrak's righteous anger as soon as he entered the tomb, burning through the gloom.

"They're here." I said a little louder, to be heard over the lightning.

Olia scoffed but cut off the stream of pain and hatred. She flexed her fingers like she was working out a cramp.

Ianna whimpered and curled up as much as she could. Her clothes were smoking and patches of flesh beneath were charred black with electrical burns. Her limbs twitched against her will even as she forced them to move.

I nodded to Gaarurra. Without a word, the Wookiee moved to one of the corners of the room and started climbing one of the stone pillars, his clawed fingers finding purchase where human fingers would only slip and fail. Soon, he was on the ceiling, his head twisted to watch the floor below.

I turned my attention back down just as I felt his presence diminish to non-existent.

If Olia was bothered by it or had even noticed, she didn't show it. The ex-Jedi paced, the anger and frustration building beneath her skin.

It didn't take long for the missing twin to arrive in our chamber…alone.

Olia fumed, "Where's the Jedi?"

"Oh, that's easy." I replied dryly and without pausing…

…abruptly spun in place. My lightsaber slapped into my palm and activated in the same motion. Red met green in a crackle of energy.

"He's behind us."

Garsh, his large eyes devoid of emotion, held a green-bladed lightsaber with a long handle in a two-handed grip as he pressed down on me.

"I wonder where you got that…" I said aloud between grit teeth as I pushed back against him, not really expecting an answer.

He must have built it here on Korriban. No way he got that past security.

The Quarren was forced to disengage as Olia's lightsaber sprang to life and she charged. I took the opportunity to back off myself and get a handle on the situation.

Terrak was about to make his move, but Gaarurra dropped down from the ceiling behind him. One shaggy paw clamped down on the Zabrak's mechanical arm just before he was thrown back into the hall he'd come from.

The Wookiee only paused for a moment to look back and nod before charging after his prey. Just as planned.

As soon as Gaarurra was past the threshold, I used the Force to activate the detonator. My helmet automatically dampened all incoming sound as the shaped charges exploded, sending shards of ancient stone flying back into the chamber and causing the ground to shake beneath our feet as the archway crumbled.

I could feel the shards bouncing off my armor. Some slipped through the cracks between the plates but failed to pierce my undersuit. Even though I'd been expecting it, I was still staggered by the pressure wave even as I braced myself for it. The wave of dust kicked up by the explosion flowed over us all, obscuring my sight for several moments.

As the dust settled, I could see that both Olia and Garsh had been knocked off their feet and were dazed from the shockwave. While Olia had known it was coming, I'd given no warning as to when I would be detonating the charges.

They didn't stay that way and both recovered quickly, demonstrated when I leaped at Garsh and tried to slice him in half. The Quarren rolled away from my strike and got back to his feet, though he was still a bit unsteady, his ears more than likely still ringing and throwing off his balance.

Benefits of wearing hearing protection.

Olia was…less than pleased with me as she got up, "Son of a Hutt! You couldn't have given me a warning?!"

Luckily, my smile was hidden behind my helment, "And give him a warning too? I think not."

A nice, unsubtle reminder that we were not friends.

Garsh, likely trying to buy time to recover his wits before engaging both of us again, retreated down the hallway. Too bad for him that it wasn't as safe as he thought.

"We need to push him deeper into the tomb." I stated, "And not go running out the other way."

"Yeah? And how are we going to do that?" She asked to hide her own disorientation.

"I have my ways. Keep going. I'll catch up."

She paused, narrowing her eyes at me for a moment in suspicion, likely wondering if she was about to get caught in another one of my traps. But she knew that Garsh was getting away and that dealing with both him and Terrak at the same time would be more difficult. In the end, tactical expediency won out and she was soon running after him.

After taking a moment to make sure she was gone, I placed my empty hand against the wall and raised my Force Sight. Beneath my palm, hundreds of strands of my Force-imbued webbing covered the wall, stretching down the halls.

I could see Garsh sprinting down the corridor, a bright light against the tomb's gloom pursued by the stained aura of Olia. Pausing to make sure I had the right one, a spark of lightning jumped from my hand and into the strand beneath it.

The charge traveled down the strand in the blink of an eye before spreading out into a complex web. It wasn't strong enough to completely constrict the webbing, only cause it to move. All at once, the web sprang off the walls and blocked the hallway leading back to the surface.

Even though it wasn't visible to the naked eye, Garsh would likely feel that something was off and avoid it until he could figure out what was wrong. Olia was just the extra incentive to go deeper into the tomb.

Next, I turned my will to the disabled droids.

"Rise." The Force intoned my words with Power as I grasped at their behavior cores and sparked life within them.

Ancient servos whined as the rusted droids rose to their feet, drawing ancient Sith warblades and blasters. Red cyclopean eyes flared to life in the darkness.

"We have Jedi to kill."

...

Green and blue clashed in the gloom. No lights guided their wielders save for that given off by their weapons. No words were exchanged between them, but the girl's yellow eyes glared daggers at him.

The girl's style wasn't anything the Jedi had not faced before. Ataru was characterized by its relentless aggression…and was an unfortunately common sight in these times of strife among both the Jedi and the Sith. A failing of his Order, he thought.

A sin that he himself was guilty of.

He would admit that the girl was at least skilled, forcing him to rely on his actual skills rather than the ones he had been pretending to accrue at the academy. Had she stayed with the Jedi, perhaps she might have become hailed as one of the style's many Masters.

Frustration roiled at the back of his mind like an angry storm at the situation he now found himself in, but he dealt with it as he always did: Channeling it into his bladework rather than allow it a chance to find purchase in his mind.

Aggression was met with greater aggression. Blows backed with the Force hammered at her offense, driving them to the side as his own assault sought to claim the girl's life. He was intent on finishing this battle as quickly as possible while his foes were separated.

As he pushed her back, her expression showed that her certainty was wavering. She knew she was outmatched and was stalling for time. She was waiting for something and was growing more frustrated every moment that it did not appear.

The Jedi had recognized the trap for what it was the moment Terrak had sensed his sister's distress, but he could not stop his student from going, nor could he stop himself from following. He also recognized that the girl was not the mastermind behind it.

Olia was powerful and well-trained, a fact that she was proving now. He judged that she had been on the verge of Knighthood before her Fall.

But for all her skill, she was blunt and straightforward. She might have thought of torturing Ianna to draw Terrak to her on her own, but she would never have employed demolition charges as her opening shot.

No, this was Aldrex's doing.

Despite the animosity between the two, it wasn't difficult to figure out how he got the girl to work with him. There were few things that Fallen Jedi despised more than other Jedi, reminders of what they had once been.

Olia's uncertain expression hardened into one of rage and suddenly, things changed. She switched her lightsaber to her left hand and smacked aside his with surprising strength, nearly causing him to lose his grip on the weapon even with both hands grasping it.

The girl's free hand whipped up and cracked across his face. The Jedi's vision exploded into stars and pain as synth-leather-clad knuckles met his cheekbone with a resounding crunch. The force behind it nearly bowled him over.

He hardly paused, having suffered worse injuries before, and simply used the momentum to reposition himself. His lightsaber hummed as it cut through the air, parrying the sudden surge of attacks to prevent her from leveraging her new-found brute strength again.

But it didn't stop him from wondering what the source was. In the light cast by their weapons, he could see the veins in her neck had turned black and bulged unnaturally. 

It may have been some unnatural working of the Dark Side that she had learned while exploring the tombs…or from some artifact that she had retrieved.

As the battle continued, it wasn't just her strength that had changed, but her style as well. Gone was Ataru and in its place were the brutish strikes of Djem So. Trading mobility for sheer power, she was attempting to batter down his defenses and pin him in.

Fortunately for him, she was not nearly as skilled in this form.

'Still,' He noted mentally as yet another blow nearly ripped his lightsaber from his hands, 'sometimes skill can be substituted with sheer might if one possesses enough of it.'

The Jedi paused for a split-second before throwing himself backwards with a Force-empowered leap. But before he could make it far, something had wrapped around his foot and yanked him violently to the ground.

When he landed, he let out an involuntary grunt as the air was pushed from his lungs.

Another lightsaber ignited, adding a bloodshine light to the dark hallway.

"Room for a few more?" Aldrex asked, his voice tinged with an electronic edge from his helmet. A white cable extended from his left vambrace and stretched to the Jedi's boot.

Grimly, the Jedi stood, cut the cable from his foot, and ignited the other end of his saberstaff.

He could almost hear the grin in the acolyte's tone, "Magnificent."

Behind him, a dozen red eyes leered out from the darkness.

Soon, red, blue, and green clashed in the gloom.

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The first book of this fanfic has been completed on Patreon, you can look it up in the collection alongside the second book. You can visit Patreon if you want to read in Advance.

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