Masterfully done, Ire. I had an inkling as many as ten chapters ago that the Forerunners were indirectly responsible for all this, and even so, you did not disappoint in the great reveal. It gives me a vaguely pleasant feeling to know that at least one of my predictions was correct, though I was a little disappointed that Gravemind and the Flood didn't make an appearance; I had almost convinced myself that he was the one manipulating things behind the scenes. But that's the paranoid, Flood-hating Halo fan in me, I suppose.
Ah, Kerrigan, the word 'megalomaniac' seems almost underwhelming when describing someone of your hubris. But then again, anyone who's played a game like Civilization or Europa Universalis can probably sympathize with 'conqueror's boredom' after you've cleared the map.
And that ending... well, suffice it to say that this reader is eagerly awaiting the next chapter. One can hardly expect to end on a cliffhanger of that magnitude and not expect to see demand for an update go through the roof.
"There is a high statistical probability of death by gunshot. A punch to the face is also likely." - Legion
"The machine is strong. We must purge the weak, hated flesh and replace it with the blessed purity of metal. Only through permanence can we truly triumph, only though the Machine can we find victory. Punish the flesh. Iron in mind and body. Hail the machine!" - Paullian Blantar, Iron Father of the Kaargul Clan, Iron Hands Chapter
"Okay, I'll have the truth with a side order of clarity." ~ Dr. Daniel Jackson.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." ~ Stephen Colbert
"One Drive, One Partition, the One True Path" ~ ars technica forums - warrens - on hhd partitioning schemes.
Hurrah, fabolous chapter after awesome crescendo . For all my minor quibbles on adjectives and verbosity, this is just getting better and better .
Photography Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
Simply incredible. The only complaint I have is that I'd like to see more stuff from the Chief's point of view. Though as we're apparently in the GFFA now, I expect his foreign eye will become more important.
Vendetta wrote:Richard Gatling was a pioneer in US national healthcare. On discovering that most soldiers during the American Civil War were dying of disease rather than gunshots, he turned his mind to, rather than providing better sanitary conditions and medical care for troops, creating a machine to make sure they got shot faster.
Incredible chapter, Ire. So the Forerunners are behind all of the major sci-fi universes. So now we have no idea where Tassadar and Kerrigan are, and Chief and Jacen are on Coruscant, I think?
The Vortex Empire wrote:Incredible chapter, Ire. So the Forerunners are behind all of the major sci-fi universes. So now we have no idea where Tassadar and Kerrigan are, and Chief and Jacen are on Coruscant, I think?
I second the more stuff from Chiefs POV request.
Well not ALL of them, they haven't been identified as The Lords Of kobol, the Altairans the Timelords and of course in reference to the greatest scifi of them all.. the magratheans.
Awesome job noble ire I could hear the song from the end of clone wars echoing in my head as I read, i was anticipating the final tie in with Vaders activities.
but seriously for the love of crap don't be like "AlbertG" on fanfiction.net and ahve this giant fanfic universe tied together with stargates :-p
Actually I guess you effectively did that but you did it so much more artfully it wasn't like being smacked on the head with it.
"Since when is "the west" a nation?"-Styphon "ACORN= Cobra obviously." AMT
This topic is... oh Village Idiot. Carry on then.--Havok
Dominus wrote:Masterfully done, Ire. I had an inkling as many as ten chapters ago that the Forerunners were indirectly responsible for all this, and even so, you did not disappoint in the great reveal. It gives me a vaguely pleasant feeling to know that at least one of my predictions was correct, though I was a little disappointed that Gravemind and the Flood didn't make an appearance; I had almost convinced myself that he was the one manipulating things behind the scenes. But that's the paranoid, Flood-hating Halo fan in me, I suppose.
I had toyed with a role for the Flood in the story, but beyond the indirect reference in the last chapter and the Chief's holodeck simulation at the very beginning of the story, I decided not include them. Among other reasons, I thought having two pestilent, biological swarms featuring as foes would be a bit much.
The Vortex Empire wrote:Incredible chapter, Ire. So the Forerunners are behind all of the major sci-fi universes. So now we have no idea where Tassadar and Kerrigan are, and Chief and Jacen are on Coruscant, I think?
The Chief and Jacen are indeed on Coruscant; I'm glad the implication was clear enough. I had considered including a billboard on one of the skyscrapers with "Welcome to the Imperial Center, Population: 60,000,000,000,000,000. Please fly safely" on it, but I figured that subtlety would suffice.
Themightytom wrote:
but seriously for the love of crap don't be like "AlbertG" on fanfiction.net and ahve this giant fanfic universe tied together with stargates.
Actually I guess you effectively did that but you did it so much more artfully it wasn't like being smacked on the head with it.
Thanks. I have actually stumbled onto the fanfiction you're talking about in the past, although I will admit I never got past the first few chapters. I'm happy that you approve of the execution more, even if the concept is quite a lot to except. Then again, what crossover isn't?
Vendetta wrote:Richard Gatling was a pioneer in US national healthcare. On discovering that most soldiers during the American Civil War were dying of disease rather than gunshots, he turned his mind to, rather than providing better sanitary conditions and medical care for troops, creating a machine to make sure they got shot faster.
Hawkwings wrote:What do you mean, only one chapter left?
I did say, a few pages ago, that The Rift wouldn't exceed 72 chapters. As it is, the story has either one or two chapters to go, epilogue not included.
Hawkwings wrote:What do you mean, only one chapter left?
I did say, a few pages ago, that The Rift wouldn't exceed 72 chapters. As it is, the story has either one or two chapters to go, epilogue not included.
All good things must come to an end. I wonder how this good thing will end, though.
All right, it looks like it'll be seventy three chapters, after all.
---------------------------------------------
Chapter Seventy Two
The Master Chief padded quickly along behind Jacen, careful to keep a few strides behind the Jedi. The younger man had been moving at almost a run since they had left the site of the rift opening, loping around corners and plowing past open doorways, apparently without a second thought to who or what they might run into. Decades of experience behind enemy lines precluded the Chief from any such luxury, and the Spartan was finding it increasingly difficult to keep pace with Jacen while still scanning the neat, austere walls for disguised security devices and dampening the impact of his boots against the polished floor. He might have abandoned the pretense, but the Jedi’s earnest demeanor and the pommel gripped firmly in his right hand kept the Chief on edge.
So far, they had encountered very little in the way of life. The Chief had spotted a stiff, metallic figure stepping through a far doorway, but it had seemed not to notice them, and Jacen had briskly assured him it was just a service droid. Beyond that, the Jedi had spoken little, and only given the vaguest idea of why they had suddenly departed the row of windows and the remarkable view beyond. The Spartan had learned to trust the supernatural intuition of his companion and followed without complaint. Nevertheless, the Chief took careful stock of their surroundings as they past, trying to form a mental map that could lead them back to the dead-end corridor, the best – and only – bet the Chief could think of for extraction.
The mission clock at the edge of his vision was ticking steadily upwards. 01:39:40. They had spent more time in Kerrigan’s portal than he had thought.
I hope you have a better hold on things than I do right now, Cortana.
He dismissed the idle thought. Of course Cortana had the situation under control. She was a systems hacker by design, and better at her given profession than any Spartan was at his or hers.
The environs that rushed by gave the Chief few clues as to their tactical situation, but he had cobbled together a working theory. The symbol he had spotted on the plaque had been that of the Galactic Empire, so they could only be in Jacen’s home galaxy. The Jedi had fleetingly confirmed the supposition and mentioned the word ‘Coruscant’, another artifact from his brief time in the realm that the Chief could recognize. Coruscant was the capitol of the Empire, and the skyline they had left behind seemed sufficiently grand; it had been quite unlike any human city he had ever seen, and the Chief doubted that even the Covenant had anything that could compare to the glimpse he had seen, hundreds of multi-kilometer skyscrapers stretching out into in the dusky horizon.
The Chief had to assume that they had landed somewhere significant, but Jacen reckless advance didn’t seem to have triggered any alarms, and no familiar white suits of armor or trim, dark uniforms had presented themselves. Each successive corridor was vacant save for the occasional raised terminal or piece of statuary that embellished square sitting areas or communications hubs connecting the hallways at even intervals. The level seemed to be abandoned, a suspicion reinforced by the doorways that would occasionally slide open as they moved past. Each revealed a small living suite or office area, and many of them seemed to have been stripped and vacated in a hurry.
Passing through what appeared to be a security checkpoint, the Chief was relieved that the guards had packed up as well. If his luck held, whoever might have been watching the pair of intruders were also absent.
Finally, Jacen stopped at a bank of turbolifts. He looked them over quickly and then made for the farthest, but the Chief laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Before we get in that thing, I want to know what we might be dealing with on the other side,” he said. “Where are we?”
Jacen glanced at him a moment before looking back at the lift. He was plainly anxious to keep on moving, but the Chief didn’t ease his grip. Blaster bolts and ravenous alien killing machines were one thing, but he knew that lack of information was one of the surest ways to end up a post-op statistic.
“Coruscant, like I said,” the Jedi replied. “Beyond that, I’m not sure.”
The Chief stared at him calmly. “If you’re not sure, then why are we running deeper into this place?”
A pain expression crossed Jacen’s face, and he looked earnestly at the turbolifts again. “We’re running out of time, Chief. Let me go.”
“Only when you tell me what’s going on.”
Jacen’s free hand balled into a fist, but the Spartan could tell from his face that it wasn’t in anger.
He’s afraid.
The Jedi fixed the Chief in a stare and he held it, confident that the other could tell even with the curved sheet of composite between them. After a moment, Jacen inhaled deeply and his fist loosened, but it did not fall away entirely.
“I’m not really sure myself, Chief. It’s a feeling, just a feeling, but I’ve got to follow it. When we were in that rift, I saw something…” He trailed off for a few breaths. “I have to be sure. You don’t have to follow me. In fact, you shouldn’t. Get back to the corridor. If the rift comes back, it’ll be there. I’ll be all right by myself.”
The Chief considered the Jedi. It was clear that nothing short of violence was going to sway him, and if it came down to a fight, he honestly wasn’t sure if he’d be able to stand in the man’s way. Besides, he had to admit, the prospect of doing something, even if it meant barging into unknown, potentially hostile territory beat an hour of idle sight-seeing.
“I don’t think so. I’ve had enough of solo ops. Now, which lift?”
Once they entered the small cubicle and the doors closed behind them, Jacen entered a trance-like state, his eyes unfocused as a hand hovered over the control panel. The Chief used the time to scan the chamber for obvious signs of observational equipment. No security features were apparent, but the Spartan had led enough infiltration missions to know that it didn’t take that much work to make cameras and sensory triggers all but invisible. Nevertheless, when Jacen finally settled on a destination, no alert sirens sounded above their heads and the lift slid compliantly into motion.
The Chief could sense the speed of the conveyance in spite of its dampening systems as it shot upward, and was impressed by how long the trip took. By the time the time the lift slowed to a stop, he was quite sure that the structure they’d stumbled into was at least as large as the skyscrapers he had seen looming outside.
Soundlessly, the doors slid open, revealing a niche of other turbolifts. The space opened onto a far larger room, nearly as long as the hallways they had left and tree times their width and height. Life-size marble figures on pedestals posed grandly along its middle, with turbolift niches and the open mouths of corridors dotting each long wall. As the Chief eased out of the lift, his blaster drawn, he noted the Imperial seals mounted prominently at either end of the room, huge disks of black against pristine, white walls.
“Clear,” he whispered.
Jacen was already striding into the long chamber. He stopped by the statue of an older human male with a disdainful expression on his stone lips, ignoring it in favor of the half-dozen hallways that converged around them.
“Which way?” he muttered to himself, turning from one to the next, his probing eyes obviously seeing well beyond the confines of the room.
The Chief was about to ask just what exactly the Jedi was looking for again when a faint hum from ten meters down the chamber pushed the question from his mind. By the time the sound gave way to the soft hiss of gliding metal, he was pressed against the wall of the niche, weapon arm raised at his side. Jacen had ducked into a corridor across the way, and the Chief could just see him, flush against the wall as he was. They exchanged a furtive look, and the sound of multiple pairs of feet filled the chamber.
-------------------------------------
Reginald Barclay was not in high spirits. His brief stay in the brig of Darth Vader’s star destroyer had been positively agreeable compared to his time in Covenant hands – he had been cleaned up and eaten his first adequate meal in weeks – but the gray tunic that had replaced his tattered uniform and the heavy binders on his wrists were grim reminders that he was still a prisoner. He tried to twist his wrists inside of their metal restraints, but they wouldn’t budge. Barclay blew out a noiseless sigh.
You’re still alive, Reg. That’s all that matters.
But his resolve was slowly eroding under the weight of hopeless captivity and exhaustion. Barclay had only been allowed what felt like a few short hours of sleep in his lonely detainment cell before being roughly awakened and escorted to a large hangar bay. There, he had been thrust face to face with the towering Dark Lord again. This time, however, there had been no questioning and no painful mental incursions. Barclay had simply been shepherded into a waiting shuttle in Vader’s wake and crowded with a complement of stormtroopers and a small, dome-headed astromech droid into a rear compartment.
The windowless passage had deposited him on a small landing platform, blustered by the first real wind he had felt for months. Before Barclay had had a chance to enjoy the fresh air or fully appreciate the scale of the building before him, soldiers had hurried him inside. The interior was grand even to Barclay’s tired eyes, high-ceilinged promenades lined with towering, intricate mosaics and antechambers dominated by courtly statuary, all of it cast in stark black, white, and gray.
And yet, the place had seemed eerily vacant. Stormtroopers, some of the bearing distinctive blue decals on their crisp, white armor, seemed to flank every entryway and patrol every corridor, but even they were strangely small against the grandeur of their surroundings. Barclay only saw a few others; army officers busy with datapads stopping to salute their lord, harried-looking staff pausing to stare at the procession, a scattering of droids. They even passed one man, a pale, slightly overweight dignitary in a flowing robe who watched them in bald-faced terror. If the Dark Lord noticed any of the attention, he didn’t allow it to break his fast, purposeful gait.
At length, Vader had dispensed a few curt, unintelligible orders to a black-uniformed officer attached to the group and disappeared. The Dark Lord’s words had been gibberish to Barclay, deprived at last of the precious universal translator, but the look of consternation and confusion on the officer’s face had required no translation. The engineer had tried to derive a measure of comfort from that; at least he wasn’t the only one at the whim of forces beyond his control and comprehension.
Barclay felt a firm shove in the small of his back, and he stepped forward. The lift had come to a stop while he had been lost in thought, fighting through weariness to contemplate the ultimate destination of the inexorable parade. Any illusion of escape from whatever fate awaited him had long since been dismissed by the Imperial might arrayed about him, but the unheralded resolve that had pulled him through the trial with Flitch kept his mind working, staving off the despair that had all too often claimed the engineer in the past.
Something rubbed against Barclay’s leg and he looked down. An optical nozzle on the little astromech droid’s squat head swiveled up to meet his gaze, and the droid loosed a brief series of chirps and whistles. The man understood the machine’s language as well as the words of his captors, but he thought he caught an air of apology in the sequence of intonations.
Weakly, Barclay smiled at the droid, and it chirped twice more before rolling away on its squat trio of legs. The stormtroopers escorting him gave the machine a respectful berth, allowing the astromech to weave as it liked through their ranks. Another attempt to keep his mind focused, Barclay had tried to puzzle out why the thing had accompanied them. Surely, it wasn’t a security measure; the half-dozen armored soldiers were more than enough.
Perhaps it’s a prisoner, too. My new cellmate.
As the formation emerged from the turbolift bank and advanced down another quiet hall, Barclay watched the droid clip the Imperial officer a dozen paces in front of him. The man grunted in surprise and the little machine responded with a loud razzing noise before veering away, back towards the human captive. The officer followed it with a glower, but turned away without another word.
Barclay watched the astromech with mounting curiosity.
Looks like someone put in a special word for you, little guy. I hope you are my cellmate. Just as long as you don’t have the temper of the last one.
------------------------------------------------
Six stormtroopers, each armed with a standard E-11 rifle. One officer, pistol holstered at his hip. Another human, unarmed, with hands restrained. A tech droid.
The Master Chief watched the complement move past, taking in every detail with quick precision. He was only meters from the Imperial soldiers, and he knew that there was nothing between him and half a dozen blaster bolts save the insulated walls of the stormtrooper’s helmets. The Spartan’s motion tracker displayed the contacts as a blob of red, barely separate from the tiny vector that was his suit. Just one casual, sideways glance…
The Chief’s heartbeat quickened slightly, but he kept his breathing steady and even. He felt the internal contours of the gauntlet wrapped around his sidearm, could feel its weight. The regimented click-clack of the stormtrooper’s boots filled his ears, but the poised trigger finger did not twitch, and his body was still. The officer passed from view, then the first pair of soldiers, then the second…
As the Chief watched the other unarmored human slip beyond the far wall of the turbolift niche, directly between the latter pairs of Imperial troopers, the man tilted his head in his direction, following an irregular movement of the group’s astromech droid. The Chief was certain that the man didn’t see him, and he only caught a momentary profile himself, but it was enough.
Reginald Barclay.
The Chief managed to suppress any physical manifestation of surprise, but his mind immediately began to work furiously. The Starfleet officer had been lost during the Republica’s transit through the Reach system, and the Chief had watched Captain Picard give a few parting words for the engineer, yet another blow to the Enterprise’s dwindling crew. The Chief had always suspected that the Arbiter was more than a match for the traitor Flitch, but he had never maintained any illusions of ever seeing the Sangheili warrior again, much less the hapless hostage he had vanished attempting to save.
And yet, here the awkward, introverted engineer was, escorted, alive and apparently intact, by a guard of soldiers worthy of a high-ranking dignitary.
With the last stormtroopers passing from view, the Chief shot a questioning glance at Jacen, hoping that the Jedi might be able to shed some light on Barclay’s bewildering appearance, but the opening across the way was empty.
The Chief found himself unsurprised by Jacen’s sudden absence. The unexplained determination had never left the younger man’s face even after the Chief had refused to leave him, and he knew that kind of focus would not permit any delay. Obviously, Barclay’s presence was not what drove the Jedi, and consciously or not, he had taken advantage of the distraction to shake off his last restraint.
Good luck, Jedi, he thought, checking the mission clock at the fringe of his vision. Just don’t be late.
The volume of footsteps on tile had begun to decrease, and the Chief knew that Barclay had his escort were approaching the end of the long chamber. If they left the space, he could easily lose them in the unfamiliar complex, or run into additional guards in the attempt. It was already seven on one.
The unfavorable odds, particularly considering his load-out – a single blaster pistol and one extra clip – gave the Spartan pause, but the doubts over his next move never entered into the mental calculus. He had been isolated from his other companions and objectives, and an ally - clumsy and awkward but an ally nonetheless - lay in hostile hands. There was no other alternative.
Soundlessly, the Chief stepped from the shelter of his alcove, bringing the backs of the Imperial complement into full view. The rear soldiers were ten meters away, with their officer another three ahead. Barclay walked at the center of the group, the astromech trailing just behind him. In a moment, the Spartan had sized up the situation, fixed the rear stormtroopers positions in his mind, and leveled his blaster at the back of the engineer’s head.
His breathing was steady. His mind was clear.
“Barclay!” he bellowed.
The prisoner’s slow gait faltered and he dipped to the left, in the process of looking back. The soldiers surrounding him responded similarly, whirling about with their rifles at their hips. For the moment, the Chief ignored them; his focus was on the trim, capped head of the officer Barclay’s sudden move had revealed.
This was the Chief’s element. A narrow shot, hostile contacts close at hand, a life riding on his aim. Training took over. He pulled the trigger.
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Tassadar’s world was pain.
The wound to his stomach he had been able to bear. It was agony of the flesh, easily washed away in the reserves of power that he had summoned to purge Kerrigan’s corruption from his mind. But when she had kicked him into the rift and his mortal coil had seemed to fall away, the pain returned and grew like a fire across oil. Before he could even comprehend the sensation, it had nearly consumed his mind, robbed of its fleshy shell and laid bare to anguish that swiftly transcended its corporeal nature.
He roared in pain and frustration, but now sound emerged. He felt the flames washing over him, but he could see nothing. The space beyond his eyes, and his eyes themselves, were voids. Nothing but torture existed for him now, pure, overwhelming sensation.
Another disappointment, Tassadar? I’m hurt. I thought you, of all of them, would put in a bit more effort.
There was another mind with him now, barely perceptible beyond the blistering sheath. Tassadar felt it and his psionic eye, the only extremity left to him in the empty place, sharpened and probed outward. The inferno intensified, almost withering the psychic tendril, but he endured. Another desperate push and it was through, and the Protoss could perceive his foe clearly for the first time.
Kerrigan was unmasked, her cloying sheath and cruel illusions cast aside. She was a thing of energy and emotion, as raw and elemental as any being he had ever imagined. Beneath roiling tongues of dark psionic power, perpetually consuming and tearing free from one another, knots of malevolence squirmed like bloated worms. Tassadar had touched a mind like this once before, in the instant between his final assault on the Zerg Overmind and the treacherous salvation of the rift, and he could see the same foul contours now, the same primeval wretchedness.
The Overmind had not simply been evil. It was not insane or covetous. Hatred, anger, bloodlust; nothing so petty and insignificant. It was consumption. The Overmind existed to grow and devour, to claim lives, species, planets, galaxies, everything for itself, until nothing else was left. It was this elemental force that Tassadar perceived in the Queen of Blades.
But she was not quintessence. As Tassadar looked upon her through the fire and the void, he could see breaches in the raging sea of her being. There were holes that the self-consuming shards of intent could not fill, and in them there was conflict. The Overmind has failed; his creation was not unitary, not perfect. Deep beneath the lashing waves, a human mind was still trapped, stripped of everything but its fear and the will to be. The discord infected every part of Kerrigan, and emotions that the Overmind would have disdained bled from her. Greed, rage, and even… doubt.
She drew deeply from wells of power to contain the discordant impulses, sources that did not originate from within her. Rather, she sucked what she required from the emptiness, like the parasite that refused to die within her. The void engulfing them, Tassadar realized, was just another trick.
It will be your last.
Tassadar willed the fires of pain to cool. The act exhausted his last internal reserve, but the agonizing sheets turned to ice and shattered, and with them, Kerrigan’s obscuring façade fell. Suddenly, he was drifting in a sea of energy, not light, not dark, but simply there.
He drank deeply.
That’s more like it! Kerrigan’s thoughts overlaid onto his, snide and self-assured. Zeratul could not touch the power that is dormant here. You will make a far superior conduit.
Claim me then, my Queen! I will not await your pleasure!
Still siphoning all he could from boundless streams of energy that seemed to pour from the black, Tassadar’s very essence flared and he burst forth. The two shapeless, ageless manifestations of thought collided, and the space around them transformed once more. The great sea of power morphed into raging river, and Tassadar felt himself tumbling trough it, entwined with Kerrigan’s toxic being. Four nexuses of energy loomed around them, springs from which the primal torrent surged. On the edge of his conscious mind, the Protoss perceived more, uncounted wells that fed the churning ocean, but one of the nearer sources swelled swiftly, and he felt the current no more.
-----------------------------------------
Barclay stared at the barrel of the blaster. The weapon was meters away, but to him it loomed just before his eyes, dark muzzle and circular bore identical to the dozens that had menaced him over the last weeks. The sharp report still echoed in his ears, and the skin on one side of his neck chaffed with heat. There were no other sounds, and nothing moved.
This is it?
He hadn’t expected his journey to end so suddenly. In quiet moments, Barclay’s mind had dipped into a variety of half-baked, grim fantasies that involved exotic tortures or fiery crashes. In more sensible moments, he had pondered the prospect of simply sitting alone in a holding cell for the rest of his days. Compared to that, an unannounced blaster bolt to the neck wasn’t so unwelcome. Besides, it didn’t hurt as much as he had expected. In a slow stupor, he raised a hand toward his throat, anticipating the muddiness of blood and charred flesh.
Behind him, a loud thump echoed in the silence. In the same daze, Barclay turned away from the blaster until he caught sight of a smoking mound of black cloth on the floor several meters ahead of him. Bemused, he peered at the odd shape more closely, until his eyes fell on a limp white hand emerging from the gangly lump. It was the commanding officer of his escort. The man’s head, above which the thin smoke hung, was mercifully hidden by the contortion of his back.
The stormtroopers around Barclay were moving now, scattering with long, glacial strides and sedately raising their blaster rifles to chest height.
Barclay continued to peer at the Imperial officer. The heat on his exposed neck had begun to dissipate.
All right, Reg. A near miss. Now, don’t be an idiot and stand there until someone gets another shot off.
The world around him suddenly accelerated back into life, and the sounds of battle assailed his ears. Stormtroopers shouted unintelligibly to one another, and several fired off shots barely more than an arm’s length from him. The familiar smell of ozone filled his nostrils.
To his left, there was a gust of heat and a strangled cry. Barclay looked down into the blank, black eyes of a stormtrooper’s helmet. The chest of the man’s polished, white suit was marred by a carbon-rimmed, coin-sized hole.
Run!
Beyond the fallen soldier, an open doorway split the far wall. Without a second thought, Barclay leapt over the man and ran for it, wincing each time a chunk of the floor or an elegant fixture exploded into shrapnel.
A hand grabbed his left arm, and Barclay skidded to a halt just meters from his escape route. Blindly, he turned on the hand’s owner, raising the only weapon at his disposal. Another white-armored head filled his vision, and he swung both arms at it. The heavy binders connecting them slammed into the side of the soldier’s helmet and sent him to one knee, releasing Barclay’s arm in the process. Freed, the captive started to make for the safety of the doorway again, but stopped again after a few steps.
The remaining four stormtroopers had taken up positions straddling the width of the chamber, their backs turned towards Barclay and their fallen comrades. From positions behind corners and cracked stone benches, the quartet were zeroing in on a large statue at the center of the long aisle. The brief firefight had already cratered it beyond recognition, and the combined blasterfire of the group was swiftly reducing the humanoid form into a charred column of rock.
As Barclay watched, a figure behind the statue popped into view, squeezed off a pair of shots at the nearest trooper and retreated back into cover. The bolts rocked the wall next to the stormtrooper, but his armored protected him from the burning shrapnel, and he returned a withering barrage that sent sparks flying across the withdrawing combatant’s green armor.
Barclay held the fleeting image of the worn battlesuit in his mind, suddenly oblivious to the danger he was in. He had not fully appreciated who had fired the shot that had felled the escort commander until now.
The Master Chief!
A flurry of questions and doubts assaulted the engineer, but they were dispelled when a large chunk of the Chief’s cover broke off and clattered to the floor. A couple of the stormtroopers had shifted their E-11s into auto-fire mode and were spraying the makeshift redoubt with a devastating volume of fire. Barclay knew that the statue wouldn’t hold much longer, and even the Spartan could take on that kind of directed firepower at close range.
He could still run. The stormtroopers were thoroughly distracted, and the open doorway still beckoned to him, tantalizingly within reach. Running had saved him before; he wouldn’t have survived the furor in the Covenant Council Chamber if he hadn’t been able to find cover.
And while he had watched from relative safety, the Arbiter had nearly died at the hands of the hulking Tartarus. For all he knew, the valiant Sangheili had succumbed to his wounds on the Chamber floor. And what had the evasion bought Barclay? Another brush with death at the hands of Flitch, and fresh imprisonment.
Not again. No more running.
The stormtrooper Barclay had knocked to the ground had regained his balance, and he saw the man raise his rifle in the prisoner’s direction. Barclay’s eyes locked on the blaster, and he leapt straight at the man, his bound arms outstretched. The two collapsed to the floor on top of one another, and the engineer managed to grab hold of the rifle’s grip. The stormtrooper still held his weapon fast, and Barclay knew that he wouldn’t be able to out-muscle the man, but he didn’t have to; the blaster lay in front of them, aimed at the backs of the soldier’s comrades. Barclay fumbled desperately for the trigger, found it, and squeezed as hard as he could.
The spray of crimson bolts carved a wide swath of blackened craters across the ceiling, cleanly missing all of the Imperial troopers, but contact from their rear and the shower for debris from above was enough to draw their attention. Fire on the Chief’s position lessened momentarily, and that was all he needed.
Barclay watched the Spartan tear out from under cover, his pistol blazing with precise fire. One stormtrooper was hit before he could respond, and the Chief had closed on the next before he shot off another bolt, advancing with blinding speed. There was a crack of metal on reinforced ceramic, and the white-armored soldiers spun into a wall. The Chief was drawing a bead on the third trooper when Barclay’s vision exploded with stars.
The soldier he was tangled with had delivered a sharp knee into his stomach, and Barclay found himself unable to breathe. His grip on the rifle weakened and it was torn easily from his hands. Another kick turned the engineer onto his back, and it took all of his will to keep from blacking out.
He heard the click of a firing mechanism, and peered up through bleary eyes. The stormtrooper was kneeling above him, and the muzzle of his blaster was bare centimeters from his heaving chest. The soldier barked something, but Barclay could do nothing but wheeze. He saw the trooper’s finger tense on the trigger of the E-11.
Suddenly, the stormtrooper shouted out in pain. Arcs of electricity sparked up the back of his armor and wreathed his neck, and he began to convulse. The electric pulse intensified, and the soldier fell sideways to the floor, his hand frozen uselessly on the weapon.
Confused and still breathless, Barclay pulled himself onto one elbow and cast about for the source of the paralyzing blast. At his feet, the squat form of the astromech droid sat on its trio of rectangular feet, the receptors on its blue-paneled head aimed at the unconscious stormtrooper. A long, pronged instrument protruding from its side retreated back into its vertical panel with a whir of gears, and the droid turned its domed head on Barclay.
“Thanks,” he said uncertainly. “Thank you.”
The astromech whistled happily, and then turned its glassy receptor back down the corridor.
Barclay glanced at the motionless stormtrooper, breathed deeply to slow his pounding heart, and began to rise. As he did, a shadow fell on him and the engineer looked up so quickly that he almost tumbled back to the floor.
The Master Chief stood over him, a new E-11 propped against his shoulder. The Spartan’s armor bore a few fresh, blackened score-marks, and a thin, transient line of sparks rippled from his back down the side of his breastplate, but he appeared to be uninjured. The same could not be said of the other stormtroopers; four white-clad bodies lay motionless in the hall behind the Chief, neatly dispatched by blaster bolts or physical trauma their suits had failed to mitigate.
“Thanks for the distraction,” he said in mercifully intelligible English as he helped the man to his feet. “Lieutenant Barclay of the USS Enterprise?”
“That’s me,” Barclay replied, clutching a bruised elbow as he stared at the supersoldier. “And you’re… the Master Chief, right? I mean, if I’m not crazy. You’d know. If you’re him, I mean.”
Barclay looked at the Imperial soldier at his feet again, worry creasing his face. “I’m not crazy, am I?”
The Chief stepped over the stormtrooper and walked around Barclay. The man grimaced, suddenly annoyed at the anxiousness that had been in his voice, and turned to follow the Spartan.
“How did you get here?” he asked. “Where are the others? Where are we?”
“Later,” the Chief replied without turning back. “Right now, we have to get out of this hallway. Each of those soldiers has a comm unit in their helmets, and at least one of them must have gotten off an alert. Now, grab a weapon and follow me.”
Barclay stopped and cast about, settling on the blaster that the trooper he had knocked over still clutched. The immobile man’s grip was still tight and he had to haul at the steely fingers before they released the rifle with an almost mechanical slackening. Barclay shivered, hugged the weapon close, and jogged away to catch up with the Chief, who had already come to the end of the long chamber.
The Spartan stared at the huge Imperial cog for a moment and then set about inspecting the doorways to either side. One was evidently another turbolift, as evidenced by the sizeable control interface mounted beside it.
“We should get off of this floor,” Barclay offered.
The Chief shook his head. “If these lifts can be deactivated remotely, we’d be trapped. I’d rather not get in one until we have to.”
The other door was sealed fast, and did not budge even when the Chief tried to wedge his gauntleted fingers into its seam.
“We’ll have to find another way,” the Chief said shortly. “And fast. If we weren’t being watched before, someone’s going to be looking for us now.”
Nervously, Barclay scanned the walls and ceiling for any obvious surveillance equipment. He saw nothing, but the Chief seemed uncomforted by that fact and immediately turned back down the corridor. When Barclay made to follow him, he noticed that the little, dome-headed droid had trundled along with them. As he watched, the astromech rolled to the locked door, planted itself in front of it, and popped open a hatch on its curved side. A thin, plug-tipped arm shot from its chassis and the droid inserted it into a small port near the base of the doorframe.
As it worked, the machine rotated its dome head 180 degrees to face Barclay, and it emitted a plaintive series of tones.
Barclay stared into the bulbous, black eye. He had been fascinated by droids during his brief time onboard the Republica, but he had lacked the time to learn more than a few cursory technical details about them. Many of the Alliance crewers he had encountered seemed to regard the machines, many of them squat maintenance models like this one, as simple pieces of equipment, so many walking toolkits or talking energy conduits, but a few others had viewed them with a great deal more respect. Barclay recalled one technician holding a lift door for a square-headed unit, just as though it were any other member of the crew. To someone who had served his entire career on ships where automation was exclusively integrated into bulkheads, the idea had been extremely curious.
Then again, perhaps it wasn’t so strange. Commander Data was no more flesh and blood than the little astromech, and no one who served more than a day with him would dismiss the android as a simple computer.
His eyes lingering on the droid, Barclay called to the Chief.
“Wait! Come back!”
The Chief was back at the end of the corridor in seconds, his blaster at the ready. He looked from the interfacing droid to Barclay, plainly uneasy.
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure,” Barclay said, shaking his head. “It was with Darth Vader when we were escorted into this place.”
The Chief stiffened sharply. “Darth Vader?”
He leveled his blaster at the droid. The machine spat something unpleasant at the Spartan, but did not interrupt its work.
“Wait!” Barclay shouted, slapping a hand on the raised muzzle. “It saved my life back there! I don’t know if it’s Vader’s or what it’s doing here, but… I think it’s trying to help us.”
The Chief glared at the resolute R2 unit, his weapon still aimed fixedly at its tubular body. The little machine stared back with its round, expressionless lens for a moment, and then started to whistle and beep again. The tone was no longer indignant; it seemed to Barclay that the droid was calling out in alarm. Furthering the impression, its head turned back towards the wall socket, as though it were fixing the sum of its energies on whatever it was trying to do.
A distant hum manifested behind them, and both humans turned to see that several of the lights on the lift’s control panel were newly lit. Immediately, the Chief turned his weapon on the turbolift door, backing away as he did. Barclay followed suit, almost tripping over the droid as it continued its fevered task.
The R2 unit loosed a loud whistle, and a firm pivot of its interfacing arm sent the locked door panels retreating into the wall. The droid wasted no time in retracting the apparatus and skating into the space beyond.
“Chief!” Barclay shouted earnestly.
The humming had grown into a low rumble from below. The Chief paused a moment, swept the open doorway with his blaster, and was through it, Barclay at his side. Another moment and the doors closed fast, unmarked by the fugitives’ passage.
-------------------------------------------
Sharp corners and broad passageways marched swiftly past Jacen’s eyes, an endless, unchanging landscape of drab colors and lifeless artifice. He moved without any real sense of direction or orientation, any measure of caution he’d maintained before gone. His legs seemed to be moving in isolation from his conscious thoughts, guided only by the sensation that had taken hold of his mind and refused to loosen its iron grip.
He had perceived her on some level almost since the rift had deposited them on Coruscant. At first, he had not fully understood the significance of the distant familiarity; it was like déjà vu, or a dream that he couldn’t quite remember. Still, something had compelled him to follow the indistinct path that existed only in his mind, a minor eddy or occasional fluctuation in the Force that pointed him down one hall and through another door. Nevertheless, he had kept himself alert, and as he and the Chief had progressed further into an increasingly familiar labyrinth of deserted Imperial formality, the hair on the back of his neck had begun to stand on end. There was something wrong here, an unsettling presence that transcended the simple massing of stormtroopers.
The appearance of the patrol had brought the peril of their situation into clearer focus, and Jacen had almost resolved to turn back in spite of the beckoning impulse.
Then, as he had watched the first soldiers pass from his hiding place, a wave of recognition had nearly overwhelmed him. Strangling a gasp, he had retreated further back, grabbing the wall for support. He had felt the wrenching, unreal presence before, on Poloon Three, only days after he had awakened onboard the Enterprise. That time, it had cast him into unconsciousness, and he had never really been certain what had overcome him.
Now, on a level that seemed to transcend the Force, he understood.
Darth Vader was near.
He was a bloody ghost from a dark past Jacen had never fully understood. To him, Vader had been a fable, a parable on the dangers and subtle allure of the Dark Side. The man behind the black, nightmare mask was distant, reachable only during his few glimpses of the Dark Side, and then only briefly. After all, to a member of the Solo line, Vader was more than dead and gone; Master Skywalker had been sure to temper his cautionary tales with those of redemption, recounting Anakin Skywalker’s victory over Emperor Palpatine and the darkness within himself at Endor. In Jacen’s world, Vader had ceased to be and Anakin had died a hero. His own brother had been named in the Jedi’s honor.
But this was not Jacen’s world. The Vader he felt was a towering storm of rage and dark power, undiluted by any perceptible light. Peripherally, he had known there was something else there too, but the Sith Lord was still distant, and he had been afraid to probe the sensation more closely.
He might have gathered the courage to touch the brooding aura again, but something else seized his thoughts. For all his might, Vader was not the thing that had drawn him so far; the other was still distinct, and very close. Somehow, Vader’s presence seemed to crystallize her in his mind.
Aayla is alive!
For an instant, he could almost see the Twi’lek Jedi. Through the Force, he felt her heart beating next his own and perceived the luminous blue of her skin. The flash of clarity was all to brief, gone again with harsh abruptness, but it left Jacen breathless. All at once, he remembered their first meeting and the singular connection they had shared, strangers united by the Force where the Force itself was foreign. He remembered his fast-growing attachment to the strong, confident woman, and the few, joyful moments they had shared.
Then, he felt the old, sickening helplessness. He recalled awakening after the escape from Poloon to find that she stayed behind to cover his flight. Through everything that had happened since, he had held onto the shame of that moment, unable to accept her loss and unwilling to forgive himself for falling in her time of need.
But she was alive. It did not matter how she survived, or why her presence seemed attuned to the darkness of the Imperial hub. She needed him, and this time he would not fail her.
Not even the Dark Lord of the Sith would stand between them.
----------------------------------------------
Jacen sprinted down a wide, windowless corridor, his footsteps echoing dully off of polished, ebony stone. The vaulted ceiling above him sloped sharply, emblematic off the massive, pyramidal face that was its exterior side. The Jedi now recognized the distinctive architecture, remembered his parent’s descriptions of the place and felt the truth intuitively; this was the great palace of the Imperial City, the crowning jewel of Emperor Palpatine’s New Order. Even in Jacen’s time, the colossal structure retained discordant vestiges of its grim past; now, it was a mountainous monument to the might of the Dark Side, and he had reached its summit.
No living thing stood in the Jedi’s way. Where silent, watchful sentinels in crimson raiment once stood rank upon rank, echoes resounded unimpeded. No stormtrooper would dare to take their place; the palace’s peak had been Palpatine’s innermost sanctum, and with its master usurped, it was his tomb. Even the least Force-sensitive could feel the lingering, perilous tendrils of his power.
Nevertheless, Jacen kept his lightsaber at the ready as he ran. He could sense that Aayla was in danger, and the extent of her peril seemed to mount with each step. Jacen tried to reach out to her, but his advance only seemed to cloud the other Jedi further, until direction was all he could perceive.
He squeezed the unlit pommel. That would be enough. Aayla was close.
And then, from behind an angled pylon of the ceiling, a massive gate came into view. Jacen skidded to a halt and tried to collect himself as he took in the towering, featureless double-doors. The sight of the obstacle, or perhaps what was beyond it, dismissed each calming mantra he could think of, and he was forced to make do with a short breathing exercise to slow his pounding heart. Counting gulps of air as he had done as a beginner seemed ludicrously childish in the gate’s shadow, but it worked.
On the sixth breath, Jacen stepped forward. He was prepared to force the doors aside, but they swung easily inward at his approach. As the barrier gave way, a red-orange glow illuminated his face, washing away the harrowing gloom of the antechamber.
The Imperial Throne Room was no longer the commanding, cathedral-like space its master had commissioned. Its outer half was shorn away entirely, the edges of its high walls and squared ceiling burned and blackened. Beyond the open, half-space, the Coruscanti skyline sat resplendent in the waning, ruddy light. Monumental as they were, the towers dotting the endless field of processed metal and anonymous life that was the world’s surface appeared small and insignificant from the vantage point, indistinct against the setting sun. The Imperial Palace loomed over its surroundings, peering down on them with the same smug contempt that had inspired its construction.
A single figure stood at the edge of the shorn floor. She looked out over the artificial landscape, apparently unaware of the Jedi’s arrival.
“Aayla!” Jacen shouted. His voice cracked, fading quickly in the open air, and he ran towards her. His heart pounded again, rhythm forgotten.
The Twi’lek did not turn or speak, or make any other move to acknowledge him. Halfway across the intact space, Jacen’s footsteps slowed, and he reached out to Aayla through the Force.
“Aayla?”
The being he felt was veiled. When he tried to touch her mind with his, the emanation of his inner self broke upon an invisible cliff face. The guarded warmth and focused strength he remembered were gone. In their place, cold artifice kept him locked out, obscuring thought and memory. All that Jacen could clearly perceive was a profound, alien power, one that Aayla didn’t care to hide or could not contain.
A gust of wind blew across the open chamber, buffeting Jacen’s confused features. He suddenly realized it was bitterly cold; his tunic was little protection against the chilling cross-breeze. Fully in the wind’s path, Aayla stood unmoved by the cold.
Confusion giving way to concern, Jacen took a few more steps forward and gritted through the icy draft, trying to think of some way to rouse the woman from her stupor. Before he could consider for than a few moments, however, she stepped back from the precipice and turned slowly to face him. Their eyes met, and words died in his throat.
“Jacen Solo,” she said, her tone perfectly measured.
The voice was wonderfully familiar. Jacen’s doubts blew away in the wind, and he felt aching relief flow through every inch of his body. Overcome, he covered the distance between them in a few long strides and threw his arms around her shoulders. She did not resist, and he tightened the embrace, reveling in the substance of her physical form even if he could still not clearly see her through the Force. Aayla’s arms moved onto Jacen’s back tentatively. At the touch of the right one, encased in an arm-length glove, his skin prickled.
“You’re alive!” Jacen said breathlessly, still holding her fast. “We all thought you were dead. I thought you were dead! I’m sorry I left you on Poloon. I was overwhelmed, but… but I’m stronger now. I’ll get you out of this place.”
“Solo,” the Twi’lek repeated quietly. “Ah, yes. The secret one. Darth Vader never did learn of you.” She chuckled. “Good. Very good.”
Jacen barely heard her. His conscious mind was still overcome with the release of tension that had brooded within the recesses of his being for what seemed like an eternity. Nevertheless, something about her response was unsettling.
“What happened, Aayla? Vader was on Poloon. I know that now. Did you face him? Did he bring you here?”
The alien woman was silent. Slowly, Jacen tried to pull away and look her in the eyes once more, but her arms remained fully placed on his back, holding him against her. Shifting uncertainly, one of Jacen’s hands fell on one lekku hanging from the base of her neck. Its skin was clammy and cold.
“Are you injured?” he asked, euphoria draining away.
“I am perfectly fine,” the Twi’lek replied. “In fact, I feel far better than I’ve felt in a long time. The air up here is… invigorating.”
The voice sounded the same as it had before, but as she spoke, Jacen felt and underlying resonance to the words that he had not noticed before.
“All right, then. We have to get out of here. I may have been tracked getting here, and I don’t know who might be coming after us. The Master Chief is back inside the Palace, and I think we have a way out. Come on.”
Jacen tried again to disengage, more firmly this time, but he found himself held in place by Aayla’s arms. When he tried a third time, the limbs pressed themselves against his back with unanticipated force and he suddenly found it hard to breath.
“Leave?” she asked quietly. “Feel the wind on your skin, Solo. Isn’t it glorious? Why would you want to leave?”
“What are you doing?” Jacen gasped, pushing uselessly against the lean, resolute muscles of Aayla’s limbs. “We can’t stay. Please, let me go.”
“But you wanted to be with me so badly, young Jedi. I remember the way you looked at me. I felt your joy at the touch of this body. Surely, no other has claimed your affections? Come, stay with me awhile. We have a great deal to discuss.”
Jacen sensed an immaterial hand settle upon his skull and press into it. At once, his mental defenses flared in alarm, but he was helpless as the outermost layer of his thoughts began to peel away, bewilderment and agitation pushed aside in favor of the thoughts and memories beneath. It took him only an instant to realize that Aayla was attempting to bore into his consciousness, and an instant more for blind shock to manifest an instinctual response. He pushed back against the violating tendril, and found that the Twi’lek’s mental barrier had vanished.
Darkness overcame Jacen so quickly and so completely that he blacked out momentarily, coming too utterly disoriented and without even basic muscular control. It was all he could do not to vomit.
His body moved away from Aayla’s, totally limp in her arms. Reeling from the sensory and metaphysical overload, unable to comprehend what he had just felt, Jacen’s head lolled backwards, bringing him face to face with the woman. The comforting hazel of her irises had disappeared; slit-black pupils encircled by coronas of red and yellow burned there instead.
“You are truly fascinating. Vader’s grandson? His offspring must have outlasted their mother.” The humorless laugh that followed was still in Aayla’s voice, but there resonance had amplified dramatically, and it rang in Jacen’s mind with far more potency then mere words could convey. The tone he heard was dry and cracked, worn with far more than simple age and heavy with a power that sprang from the depths of the Dark Side.
“No matter. You hold a secret of your own, one far more valuable than Skywalker blood. This one knew little of what brought you and your friends to this place, but you know far more, don’t you? Perhaps this… troublesome ordeal will be worthwhile, after all.”
A surge of adrenaline pulsed through Jacen, and he pushed away from the Twi’lek’s grasp with all the strength he could summon. This time, the arms fell away and he was free. He landed, just barely on his feet, two meters away, and was forced to simultaneously steady himself and hold back the renewed threat of heaving. The burning, slit eyes watched him with condescending amusement.
“Your weapon, Jedi.”
She pointed to a metal tube near her feet, dropped when Jacen had lost consciousness. He avoided her gaze, determined not to open himself up to another mental assault, but he did reach out for the pommel of his lightsaber. The weapon leapt obediently towards his outstretched hand. A thin smile split Aayla’s face, and she flicked two fingers at the shape as it flew. The lightsaber continued its course to Jacen, but instead of flying neatly into his palm, it arced away from the hand at the last second and the heel of the tube planted itself in the Jedi’s jaw with a crack.
Jacen reeled back with a pained grunt, but he remained standing. The lightsaber hit the floor between his boots, and when he bent warily to retrieve it, the other made no move to stop him. The blade snapped to life, and Jacen squared himself against the being he had come to save. His mind still swam, but his brush with the dark mind was clear in its meaning.
“I don’t know what’s happened to you, Aayla,” he said slowly, spitting out blood. “I don’t know how you could have fallen, but that doesn’t matter now. You were a Jedi Knight, and I know that you still are, deep down. I felt it, when you called out to me before. You can still turn back. The Dark Side isn’t the only path.”
She laughed again.
“What do you know of the Dark Side, boy? Through it, I have powers that no Jedi has ever attained, much less a deluded child, feeding off of the scraps that the Jedi Order left behind when it was destroyed.”
Jacen shook his head. “I… I am a Jedi. Just like Master Skywalker, and his father before him. Just like you, Aayla. We’ve both fought the Dark Side before, and we’ve both overcome it. Remember what I told you. Remember what Anakin was able to do. He was deceived by the darkness, thought he could use it for good. He came back in the end, and I know you can, too.”
He lowered his lightsaber. “I didn’t have a chance to really get to know you, but I knew from the moment we met that you were a good person. Whatever the reason, no matter why you let yourself fall, I’m sure it was for a just purpose. Remember that purpose now. Did the sacrifice work? Is this worth it?”
Aayla frowned. “My purpose? I can’t remember… I don’t…”
She placed a hand on her forehead, and turned away from Jacen.
“What am I doing?” Her voice was suddenly plaintive. “What’s happened to me?”
Jacen took a step forward, lowering his lightsaber still further.
“I don’t know Aayla, but I can help you. Just come with me. We can fight the darkness together.”
Another step put Jacen almost within arm’s reach of her. He saw the pained look on her face, and moved his free hand slowly towards her. As he did, she looked up, and the Jedi froze. The Twi’lek’s eyes blazed with malice and dark power.
“You really are an idealistic little fool. Perhaps you’re not so far from the old Order, after all.”
“Aayla…”
The spiteful smile returned. “As I said, little Jedi, you don’t know the power of the Dark Side of the Force.”
Blue lightning erupted from Aayla’s right hand. Jacen was completely unprepared as the current flowed into him, and barely perceived what was happening as the voltage seethed across his body, sending rivulets of agony coursing into his brain. He tried to raise his lightsaber to divert the flow, but the energy was already overpowering. Aayla splayed her hand, thrusting it forward, and the arcing stream of crackling force intensified. Jacen screamed.
He landed on his back, blown off of the floor by the force of the shock. The current ceased, but his nerves still burned with pain, and his senses were overcome by numbness. Dazedly, he tried to roll onto one side, only to find that Aayla was standing directly over him, her smile broad.
“Exhilarating,” she said, her voice entirely subsumed by the alien resonance. “It has been far too long.”
Jacen attempted to push away from her, yielding an uncontrollable series of hacking coughs.
“Please. Aayla…”
The Twi’lek crouched next to him. Before he could even try to stop her, she scooped up his lightsaber from the floor and clipped it to her belt opposite her own undrawn hilt.
“Even now, you don’t understand. The Dark Side is not simply the power to destroy. It is the power of life, more even than your vaunted Light. With it, the strong can persist, even when the weak mass against them.”
She held her arms up to her face, admiring them. “I’m sure that your master taught you that physical bodies are simple hunks of flesh, finite and interchangeable. It is the power inside them that matters. Most are bound to their physical forms, but true masters of the Force are not constrained by such weakness. They are truly limitless, and one body is easily discarded for the next. It is a simple matter to dismiss the simple minds within a new shell when one is needed.”
Jacen stared up at her, his eyes wide. He had dared to reach out towards her with the Force once again, and this time, he could perceive the being beneath skin and bone.
“Yes, young Jedi. Now you see. Sith do not die easily.”
Hmmm, I was expecting Palpatine to be in the Deep core, since it was clear that he was rallying his forces and confidantes (Pestage, etc') there.
Him possesing Aayla was a nasty little trick, if odd that he's suddenly so good at it, when in DE he had 5 years of practicing Clone-jumping before he tried (unsucesfully) to possess a jedi.
Photography Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
Nice, cant wait for the next (and last?) update. I look forward to, what I assume will be a major ass kicking.
"I don't believe in man made global warming because God promised to never again destroy the earth with water. He sent the rainbow as a sign."
- Sean Hannity Forums user Avi
"And BTW the concept of carbon based life is only a hypothesis based on the abiogensis theory, and there is no clear evidence for it."
-Mazen707 informing me about the facts on carbon-based life.
DEATH wrote:Hmmm, I was expecting Palpatine to be in the Deep core, since it was clear that he was rallying his forces and confidantes (Pestage, etc') there.
Palp's dying on Corruscant (at least I thought Vader and Aayla jumped him there) meant he had access to clones that he probably would have stashed all over the capital. And the Empire didn't dissolve, it just switched rulers, so Palp's didn't need to retreat to the inner core as in Dark Empire, he just needed to stay hidden. In OTL any clones he had on the Death Star (if any) went up when the station blew, and the Empire fell apart which forced him to regroup elsewhere. This version of the succession require him to regain power from within instead of rebuilding the Empire's military and mounting a campaign of conquest.
Him possesing Aayla was a nasty little trick, if odd that he's suddenly so good at it, when in DE he had 5 years of practicing Clone-jumping before he tried (unsucesfully) to possess a jedi.
She's not a Jedi anymore, she's fallen. I'd imagine that Palpatine could reprise his seduction routine (a little bit of knowledge for a little more trust of that tiny voice in Aayla's ear).
The rain it falls on all alike
Upon the just and unjust fella'
But more upon the just one for
The Unjust hath the Just's Umbrella
Aha, Barclay lives! That made my day, Noble Ire. Alas, I doubt we'll encounter the Arbiter again in this fanfiction, but I can at least take some small comfort at the pleasant thought that Flitch met his end on High Charity. Though I've steeled myself for the possibility that he might turn up again.
And all the other pieces now fall neatly into place. Admittedly, I didn't expect Palpatine to be hiding in plain sight on the capital, as it were, but upon second thought, we are speaking of the man who used himself as bait to sweeten the lure of the second Death Star for the Rebels.
And lo, everything shall come to a head on Coruscant, just as I had hoped. Suddenly, Kerrigan seems a rather less threatening foe when you consider that the two most powerful Force users in the GFFA are within arm's reach, as it were.
"There is a high statistical probability of death by gunshot. A punch to the face is also likely." - Legion
"The machine is strong. We must purge the weak, hated flesh and replace it with the blessed purity of metal. Only through permanence can we truly triumph, only though the Machine can we find victory. Punish the flesh. Iron in mind and body. Hail the machine!" - Paullian Blantar, Iron Father of the Kaargul Clan, Iron Hands Chapter
The plot thickens, something not easy to accomplish in the last two chapters. Even the last two chapters of such an incomparable piece of fiction as The Rift.
Conversion Table:
2000 Mockingbirds = 2 Kilomockingbirds
Basic Unit of Laryngitis = 1 Hoarsepower
453.6 Graham Crackers = 1 Pound Cake
1 Kilogram of Falling Figs - 1 Fig Newton
Time Between Slipping on a Banana Peel and Smacking the Pavement = 1 Bananosecond
Half of a Large Intestine = 1 Semicolon
DEATH wrote:Him possesing Aayla was a nasty little trick, if odd that he's suddenly so good at it, when in DE he had 5 years of practicing Clone-jumping before he tried (unsucesfully) to possess a jedi.
I'm not sure if I'd characterize him as being "so good" at body-jumping; for all his smugness, it did take him quite a long time to fully exert control over Aayla's body, and she was able mount some resistance against his will even after he was established within her.
Darth Ruinus wrote:Nice, cant wait for the next (and last?) update. I look forward to, what I assume will be a major ass kicking.
There will be one more chapter, and an epilogue.
Dominus wrote:Aha, Barclay lives! That made my day, Noble Ire. Alas, I doubt we'll encounter the Arbiter again in this fanfiction, but I can at least take some small comfort at the pleasant thought that Flitch met his end on High Charity. Though I've steeled myself for the possibility that he might turn up again.
I am willing to confirm that Flitch is quite dead. E-11s aren't weapons to be messed with.
And thanks for the praise, everyone. I'm glad that this revelation worked reasonably well. I'm always nervous when I write "twists"; blame M. Night Shyamalan.
Last edited by Noble Ire on 2008-07-27 06:39pm, edited 1 time in total.
DEATH wrote:Him possesing Aayla was a nasty little trick, if odd that he's suddenly so good at it, when in DE he had 5 years of practicing Clone-jumping before he tried (unsucesfully) to possess a jedi.
I'm not sure if I'd characterize him as being "so good" at body-jumping; for all his smugness, it did take him quite a long time to fully exert control over Aayla's body, and she was able mount some resistance against his will even after he was established within her.
Darth Ruinus wrote:Nice, cant wait for the next (and last?) update. I look forward to, what I assume will be a major ass kicking.
There will be one more chapter, and an epilogue.
Dominus wrote:Aha, Barclay lives! That made my day, Noble Ire. Alas, I doubt we'll encounter the Arbiter again in this fanfiction, but I can at least take some small comfort at the pleasant thought that Flitch met his end on High Charity. Though I've steeled myself for the possibility that he might turn up again.
I am willing to confirm that Flitch is quite dead. E-11s aren't weapons to be messed with.
And thanks for the praise, everyone. I'm glad that this revelation worked reasonably well. I'm always nervous when I right "twists"; blame M. Night Shyamalan.
We should do a poll over what his worst plot twist was, the trees, the hippy commune or water kills the aliens.
"Since when is "the west" a nation?"-Styphon "ACORN= Cobra obviously." AMT
This topic is... oh Village Idiot. Carry on then.--Havok
DEATH wrote:Him possesing Aayla was a nasty little trick, if odd that he's suddenly so good at it, when in DE he had 5 years of practicing Clone-jumping before he tried (unsucesfully) to possess a jedi.
I'm not sure if I'd characterize him as being "so good" at body-jumping; for all his smugness, it did take him quite a long time to fully exert control over Aayla's body, and she was able mount some resistance against his will even after he was established within her.
Darth Ruinus wrote:Nice, cant wait for the next (and last?) update. I look forward to, what I assume will be a major ass kicking.
There will be one more chapter, and an epilogue.
Dominus wrote:Aha, Barclay lives! That made my day, Noble Ire. Alas, I doubt we'll encounter the Arbiter again in this fanfiction, but I can at least take some small comfort at the pleasant thought that Flitch met his end on High Charity. Though I've steeled myself for the possibility that he might turn up again.
I am willing to confirm that Flitch is quite dead. E-11s aren't weapons to be messed with.
And thanks for the praise, everyone. I'm glad that this revelation worked reasonably well. I'm always nervous when I right "twists"; blame M. Night Shyamalan.
We should do a poll over what his worst plot twist was, the trees, the hippy commune or water kills the aliens.
Water, without a doubt. If they're severely allergic to water, why the hell would you land a a planet that's mostly covered in it? A thunderstorm would be like a nuke to them.
...Noble Ire, you consummate bastard. I somehow found a fic she's never noticed for years, burn through it in a fever of 'this shit is awesome' and finish off at stupid o'clock in the morning, only to find out that I've discovered it ONE CHAPTER from the finale. *froths*
Chronological Incontinence: Time warps around the poster. The thread topic winks out of existence and reappears in 1d10 posts.
Out of Context Theatre, this week starring Darth Nostril.
-'If you really want to fuck with these idiots tell them that there is a vaccine for chemtrails.'
White Haven wrote:...Noble Ire, you consummate bastard. I somehow found a fic she's never noticed for years, burn through it in a fever of 'this shit is awesome' and finish off at stupid o'clock in the morning, only to find out that I've discovered it ONE CHAPTER from the finale. *froths*
I live to serve.
I'm quite glad you've liked it, and caught it before the end. It's very gratifying to finish something of this length (fingers crossed), both due to the amount of time and effort I've put into The Rift, and the mental release of completing something I've worked on since the early stages of high school (as, I'm sure, the writing of the initial sequences shows; I still don't know what I was thinking with the whole "dialouge within narration paragraphs" thing).
. For all my minor quibbles on adjectives and verbosity, this is just getting better and better 
