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Triptych Chapter 14, Final Resistance

The smuggler's base had long been evacuated, the old Sith ships carrying the last of the Jedi and Sith were gone from its hangars, having left for the Republic and a final objective Revan would not reveal. Only one ship remained in the cleverly disguised stronghold. The Ebon Hawk, attended to by a Jedi pilot, sat alone in an empty hangar, waiting on the last two Jedi to enter and be on their way. Kuryama and Visas, however, had an important objective of their own to complete before they could leave.

Kept unconscious by a sedative gas filling his force cage, Akar Xiylehn, Sacred Saint of the Nihil Empire, was locked inside a tibanna diamond extraction chamber, its titanium-reinforced duracrete walls strong enough to withstand a hit from a starship cannon.

Visas and Kuryama could only guess at his powers, and despite all the security precautions they and Revan had taken, Kuryama was still unconvinced he was no longer a threat. A fear that was proving well-founded, as despite the tranquilizing gases, the Nihil leader was beginning to claw his way toward consciousness.

From behind a six-inch-thick plexicrete observation window they watched in silence, their probings with the Force finding barely anything of more substance or significance than the things they already knew. Akar was shrouded in dark power--a power that held billions in thrall and cut off utterly from the Force. He was the source, the center of the storm, feeding off the energy funneled to him by those willing slaves through their blind devotion to his power.

Kuryama sighed and opened her eyes, her worry growing. "Revan has placed too much trust in me."

"Do not say such things, Master," Visas admonished, "I have faith in you."

"I'm worried faith may not be enough, Visas. I am still not convinced it is possible to reawaken the Force in such a creature. Revan says I am proof it's possible, but I fail to see the similarities as he does. Nor do I have any inkling of how it came to be. He has given me an impossible task."

"Some things in life are impossible, Master," Visas reflected. "But most we simply do not understand how to overcome. Such things are only impossible when we believe them to be. I learned this upon the death of my old master. Before I came to you, I would have thought it impossible for him to die, for myself to be anything more than his slave. But in truth I had made myself his slave, and created his invincibility through my own unbelief." Visas frowned at her sternly, in the way her mother would sometimes do when she learned of something Kuryama had done that she disapproved of. "I believe you know this, Master. You cannot keep believing something simply because you fear it to be so. You have told me of your exile, and how you at first were firmly convinced of the truth of all the lies you had been given to keep you quiet. They broke you, kept you ever-more isolated in self-inflicted misery, until you freed yourself from the chains of your fearful beliefs."

Visas' admonition brought a smile to Kuryama's face. She had indeed learned. Believing something out of fear or want was ignorant at best, self-destructive at worst. "Thank you for that, Visas."

Their interchange was suddenly interrupted by a loud crack from inside the diamond chamber. The force cage had been destroyed, a system of shallow fractures were spread over the whole floor of the chamber like a spiderweb. The Sacred Saint was conscious and aware, standing erect and staring back at them through the plexicrete, inscrutable behind his mask.

He spoke, his words passing right through the thick walls and into their minds. "You can accomplish nothing by holding me. The Nihil Empire will crush the heathen religion of the Force despite your feeble efforts to stop our righteous cause, which transcends my existence. Now, even as we speak, a new leader is being chosen to lead us in our holy crusade against you heathens and blasphemers." The hatred in his words, unlike his visage, was unmasked--he held nothing but abhorrence for those outside of his extremism and was not loath to make it known to them.

"Some may find mercy by bowing to the Ministry of Light and its true teachings. You," he directed his words at Kuryama, "might even have been spared. You have lived without the Force, free from its oppressive grip. You could have been accepted as a citizen of our Empire. But like a true apostate you rejected your destiny."

Hearing Akar Xiylehn speak had the same effect as listening to the words of Rayaj clerics. It was terrifying. That Kuryama now knew how to counter the paralyzing fear did not take away from its intrinsic dread, she found herself holding her breath until his attention turned away from her and toward Visas.

"Nihilus frustrated the Ministry with his silence, but I see now what made him break from us."

Visas inhaled sharply at his sudden words, laden with such meaning.

"You are Miraluka, descendant of the Purged Ones, those who refused our Empire. The ancestors of your race were our rebellious cousins who went whoring after the Force and received spirit sight in return for their prostitution. Nihilus was to destroy the division of our holy authority you represented in preparation for the beginning of the New Crusade. I can see now that he failed."

As the words echoed across both their minds, Visas raised her own voice. "He did not fail. He destroyed my people. There is no one left of Katarr, save me."

A thunderous noise crashed through Kuryama's head--a laugh, she realized. Akar laughed at Visas. "Then you are the one who tainted him with the Force, cast him out from his own people. It is you who created the abomination. Know that my power grows, heathen, and soon this pitiful cell will not hold me. Your soul will be mine."

Visas said not another word, simply turned on her heels and left, her movements making obvious her distress.

Kuryama glared at the imprisoned Akar. "I hate you," she swore, feeling Visas' hurt reverberating in her wake.

xxxxx

Kuryama found Visas in a bedroom, sitting on the edge of a cot and shaking as if in the grip of one of her nightmares. When she spoke, her tone was even, but it only seemed to make her words worse. "Revan was right, Master."

"He was right?"

"Revan said I am the key and he is correct. Since encountering these Nihil, I have suspected that my old master, Darth Nihilus, was one of them. I am now certain he was a Rayaj cleric, sent, as Akar said, to exterminate my people. I believe his being caught in the storm of Malachor V changed him, damaged his mind so that he differed from the rest of his order. Perhaps he wished to know the veracity of the Nihil's belief that the Force is evil. For whatever his beliefs, he spared me so that I might give him the Force, and give it I did.

"We Miraluka see through the Force because our spirits are shrouded in it, in a place just beyond the physical world. I sense truth in what Akar says, that my people were once of the Nihil. The Force is about us but not of us, much the same way the scoundrels Atton and Mira can use the Force without feeling it.

"Because of my nature, and Darth Nihilus' predisposition, I opened him to the Force. And once he touched it, he ever wanted it, craved feeling its power even as he carried out his own crusade. He wished to wipe out every last being in the galaxy who felt the Force, because even as he lusted after its embrace, he lusted to feel its death, as do all Nihil. All because I made it possible.

"Revan was right; I am the key."

Kuryama sat down beside Visas and laid the Miraluka's head on her shoulder as soft sobs started to break her voice.

"My master forced me to lie with him, so that he could feed on the Force as it flowed through me. He gave no regard to the torture he inflicted on me as he took what he wanted. It began in the very beginning, from the first day of the death of Katarr until he sent me to kill you. Even when my body became numb to the pain, you could not imagine the horrors it still etched into my mind day after day."

Comforting the distraught Miraluka against her shoulder, Kuryama started telling a story of her own.

"Do you know why I don't allow myself to love anyone intimately? It isn't because of the Jedi Code, and certainly not the Dark Side. I've never been a model Jedi. Ten years ago I was closer to one than I am now, but I was never as strict in following Jedi law as some of the more zealous Jedi. The base reason was that my parents refused to abandon me completely to the Order, as most parents do. My mother knew some about the Force, so it wasn't hard for her to fit in at the Temple on Coruscant, where they would visit me as often as they could. So even as I grew up in the Order, I had the blessing of their guidance and care. I didn't entirely realize how beneficial their presence was until my father died when I was eleven.

"I am still thankful for what they did for me, as I believe their influence allowed me to see the necessity of Revan's treason against the Council in going to fight the Mandalorians. When I joined his battle, I felt liberated. Unfortunately, when I joined him and effectively left the Order, I made my first mistake--not by having feelings, but by letting them take a hold over me. The first few battles were as traumatizing as they could possibly have been, as I saw dear friends and comrades killed in the most brutal fashions. The horror of it all drove me in many different directions, until finally, convincing myself it was to cope with it all, I found myself having indiscriminate affairs; with other shaken Jedi, with fellow soldiers, even with Revan himself as I rose in stature.

"It was like I'd completely taken leave of my self-control and forgotten everything the Jedi and my parents ever taught me about emotions. Until one day I had to admit my waywardness to myself and put a stop to it. I'd become pregnant, and was ashamed to not even know who the father was. That was what it took for me to come to my senses, and I realized finally that reason wasn't my sole sovereign--this unconscious tendency of mine to form strong bonds with those around was beginning to run my life. I was misusing it and losing my sanity for it.

"When Kurt was born in my mother's house on Devrita, I made a promise to myself never to so fully depart from my discipline. If I were to lie with another man, it would only be once I was ready to put aside everything else and be married.

"Revan was immeasurably helpful, keeping everything under wraps until I could return to the fleet, where I knew I was still needed. But he and I immediately broke off our relationship, as I did with my other, less prudent affairs. Save for Revan and Jilon, I could tell no one else, because the others weren't even aware of my simultaneous commitments, and to tell them all I had a son whose father I couldn't name would have destroyed them and made me into the same emotional vampire I was determined not to be.

"Even so, keeping such a secret hurt me inside more than the news of my father's death, but the lesson was learned; our feeling serve us, but we should never serve them. I was finished serving my emotions. That's why until the galaxy no longer needs me, I can't love anyone. There are some who I love and value as friends, but I can't go farther than that."

There was a long silence before Kuryama continued.

"I think all these years I've been blinded by enough fear of the truth to believe I didn't know who had to be Kurt's father. That was just an excuse I gave myself so I wouldn't have to accept the man I feared most as his father. The man I watched grow ever more self-possessed in the name of justice. I know who it was and I can't hide from it anymore."

Her face and voice remained calm as Kuryama spoke his name.

xxxxx

The diamond chamber's massive door slid open with an ear-splitting screech, its massive weight scraping against the metal floor and giant rusty hinges squealing in protest. The pressurized air inside rushed out past Visas, whipping back the folds of her loose black robe as she entered, willing the door shut behind her. The automatic seal on the door engaged, a noise that made the inside of the extraction chamber ring like a bell--or a death knell.

Tears would have slid down Visas' face had she had eyes. But they wouldn't have been tears of regret or fear. Rather, they would have been of the relief she felt inside. Above the turmoil that raged within her, one thought stormed over all the rest: Her Master understood. Ever since touching Kuryama's echo in the Force, Visas knew that understanding was all she had ever wanted; understanding to liberate her from her daily terror, understanding of the pain she endured.

If anything, Kuryama knew pain - Force knew the last decade of her life had been full of pain - but she understood the sweet promise of life. She looked to the future instead of living in the past.

Visas would do anything to preserve the hope of such life as Kuryama represented. There was no sacrifice too great.

With practiced ease she let slip the thin black robes, let them cascade from her body like rainwater sliding off a jungle canopy. Naked, she knelt and addressed the waiting Saint, who watched her with implacable eyes.

"I offer myself to you, and submit to whatever judgment you may proclaim upon me and my heathen ways. I accept the authority of the Ministry of Light, and pledge my allegiance, my very life and will, to the Sacred Saint of the Nihil Empire."

There was a sudden impact to the air between them, an invisible shock wave that tossed her long locks of dark hair and ruffled Akar's immaculate robes. For a moment, Visas's body shimmered as if a mirage.

Akar let out a thunderous roar of anger. The walls cracked and split around him as he made his wrath known, yet Visas remained untouched where she knelt still, her head now touching the floor. The Saint bellowed again, and extended a hand toward the lone Miraluka, lifting her off the ground to hold her helpless before him.

"Fool!" he hissed. "There is no place under the bond for you. You have bought yourself no mercy, only given me your soul unhindered."

Visas answered him with a smile, her face a vision of peace.

Enraged, he passed his hand over her and her body began to dissolve. Caught in his grip, Visas did not struggle even as her body was reduced to a vaporous cloud. In a deep breath, Akar Xiylehn absorbed her very life force into himself. The black robes that lay like shed skin were the only signs of Visas' existence.

No sooner was Visas no more than a blue incandescence burst forth from the darkness behind Akar's mask. Unlike the ghostly blue of the Relay worlds, or the sickly blue of Darth Oden's destructive powers, this was a pure blue; a symbol of life rather than death.

He screamed a transcendental scream and clutched at his cowled head, as if trying to hold it together, and the light built in intensity, brightening until it was nearly pure white.

From behind the plexicrete barrier, Kuryama watched with awe. She stood motionless, watching, tears for Visas streaming down her face, until the light imploded on itself and forever silenced Akar's scream. His body fell to the floor, burnt and smoking, completely and utterly dead.

Kuryama knew without a doubt that she'd just seen the Force unleashed.

She could hardly believe it was all over.

Suddenly, she felt Force shades winking into existence all around her. Dead Nihil Pariahs and some of the spirits of the Treason Wall were come to thank her. She knew so many of their names: Kess, Myr, Kal, Salus, Soriente, Kalagi, Lazza... Kuryama went rigid as one in particular approached her.

The glowing figure of Visas Marr's Force shade, with soft, expressive eyes her body hadn't possessed in life, was one of the most beautiful things Kuryama had ever seen. There was a contented smile on her face, one she'd hardly ever used in life.

Kuryama was instantly humbled by sorrow for this woman who had given everything to help her succeed. "I'm sorry I drove you to this, Visas," she said with her head down, meaning every word.

Visas' shade put a hand under Kuryama's chin, lifted her head up. "I made the decision, Kuryama, not you. Friendship and love are bonds onto themselves, the Force simply makes them stronger. I have loved you from the moment I first touched your echo in the Force, and our friendship has only made the both of us stronger. Your strength and understanding allowed me to finally put aside my scars. I am at peace now, with the Force and with myself."

She was suddenly alone with the Force shade, and Visas' expression turned dire. "Kuryama, Revan needs you. In joining with the Sacred Saint, I was given a brief vision of the line of prophecy that he had been leeching from Revan, thus blinding him. The Nihil tear themselves apart as we speak. Darth Oden is seizing his chance to take control of the Fleet of Unification that approaches Coruscant. He will destroy the Senate and forever rend the Republic. You have done what you must here, with me, but now I fear only you can bring Oden to an end."

xxxxx

The raging battle in the streets was even more chaotic than it had at first appeared to the three. Atton, Rigel, and Mira found themselves caught in the midst of furious, brutal urban warfare.

Even if a lot of the combatants didn't have weapons, the pervasive hand-to-hand was every bit as deadly as the sporadic ranged combat. An open brawl on the streets had no rules, and anything and everything could be used as a weapon. Broken debris was picked up by numerous hands and used to bludgeon and maim, the heads and bodies of combatants were crashed through glass windows or slammed into unyielding walls by the rampaging mobs.

Even worse were the semi-organized groups consisting of little break-offs of Nihil military forces, split almost equally between the two warring factions. Well-armed and trained, they were small but lethal cliques, holing up in routed buildings and creating vicious crossfire.

Distinguishing between the two sides was sometimes frightfully difficult, the only difference being the miraluka's lack of the masks that were so signature to the Nihil.

An armed contingent of the enigmatic people accompanied the three of them. Lillik, the man who'd spoken to Mira, had offered to help them reach their ship and they had welcomed the assistance. A few of them were remarkably good shots, earning Mira's respect and Rigel's grudging admiration. Even so, navigating the hazardous streets was anything but easy. The group moved as fast as they could, gunning and hacking down any opposition from the Nihil who came charging at them from all directions, screaming and howling from behind their obsolete masks.

The enemy forces pressed in close around them as they approached the ruins of the shattered building in which Rigel and Atton had landed and hid the resourceful Whitecap. Atton shot from the shoulder with a rapid-firing Nihil energy rifle, mowing down unarmed hostiles that were attempting to storm their precarious position just behind a flaming crater filled with the burned-out hulks of transport vehicles. Mira lobbed a grenade into the face of the white tide, watched as the orange explosion enveloped the front-runners, sending charred bodies and limbs flying in all directions. Rigel crept over the lip of the crater to send sprays of repeater fire into the disarrayed Nihil.

There was desperate yelling in several languages and suddenly they were moving again. Heavy fire was now raging around them, and several miraluka were hit and went down hard, soon at the mercy of the white-armored mob. The fallen ones were dead within moments, and there was nothing any of the others could do but keep on running, shooting and slicing at their foes as they went.

Finally they reached the structure. Mira screamed at Lillik and his few men to follow them into the debris field where once had stood the majestic building. Twisted girders and giant shifting mounds of pulverized rock alternately left them exposed or concealed from their enemies. The underlying framework of the building was still mostly intact, the ghosts of its mighty walls little more than stripped skeletons trailing streamers of melted steel, offering only a shadow of protection from the battle.

Somewhere in the field of smoldering debris, Rigel promised, was his cloaked cargo yacht.

As the white hordes converged on the small group of beleaguered companions, masses of those without masks, the miraluka, were moving to counter, and soon a heated crossfire enveloped the broken building. Atton, Mira, and Rigel, as well as Lillik and his men, were trapped in the middle of the deadly firefight.

From his former experience as a soldier, Atton knew better than to stand between the lines of a heated battle, and pulled everyone down under what cover they could find. At the same time, Rigel came to an unsettling conclusion. Between all the weapons fire raging back and forth across the mountain of debris, some of it should have glanced off the Whitecap's hull, and nothing had. The ship wasn't there.

Over the din of the battle, he yelled in Atton's ear. "I think the ship's been buried by the debris!"

Atton was none too happy. "What!"

"We're right here the middle, right where we parked, and the ship ain't here! It's underneath us!"

"Maybe the Nihil found it, Rigel!" Mira suggested while she ducked behind a flat stone wall fragment, firing with her blaster over the edge.

"If they did then we're dead!" Rigel got on the ground and started digging.

Caught between the two opposing lines of fire, there was very little the others could do to preserve their lives other than help Rigel dig for the ship. To the relief of all, however, the ship was neither gone nor buried deep. Under just a few inches of dirt, dust, and rubble, Rigel made contact with the invisible hull of the Whitecap. It took just a few minutes longer for him to find the forward hatch.

"Come on, let's go!" he screamed, and Atton, Mira, and Lillik - whose companions were by now all dead - quickly rushed to the opening. Lillik, the last of them, took a shot straight to the back as dove into the ship, falling into Mira's arms, bleeding profusely.

Atton crashed the door shut and Rigel lurched into the cockpit to get the ship running.

As Mira held him, she saw Lillik's hood had fallen back. Aside from eyes bleached entirely white, his astonishingly human face was strikingly handsome. And this the Nihil termed a hideous disfigurement of life. Mira was appalled at their callousness.

Despite the obvious damage to his eyes, Lillik seemed perfectly able to see her, and gave a lively smile even as his pulse weakened and his breath grew shallow. "Freedom is beauty," were the last words of his life.

For an instant, Mira felt tears welling up in her eyes for this man she hardly even knew. However, the ship lurched suddenly, sending her tumbling about the floor grasping wildly for something solid to hold onto, and her thoughts instantly turned to more immediate problems. Her stomach threatened to empty itself as she felt the whole ship surge upward, inertial dampeners either ineffective or disabled in Whitecap's stealth mode. Giant beams and girders sliding off the plating of the ship made a horrendous noise inside the hold until the cargo yacht was free of the debris mound and in the open sky.

Rigel pointed the nose up and gunned the engines.

In the space above Malayvin, the guns of the massive Nihil fleet were turned on itself. Chaos reigned in space as it had on the surface, but now they had the advantage of stealth. Shrouded in its cloaking field, the Whitecap skirted the battle and made for the clear, ready for hyperspace.

As they began their journey back towards Republic space, no one was saying it, but they were all thinking it: Nar Shaddaa.

xxxxx

The starfighter hummed around Darth Revan as he brought it screaming into its final approach. Less than two minutes ago he'd launched from the hangar of the Gauntlet, dropping in out of hyperspace to keep the Nihil capital ship Holy Vow under watch. In a matter of seconds, his tiny ship punched through a blanket of defensive fire and streaked into the hangar of the crablike vessel. Allowing the Force to guide his reflexes, Darthg Revan turned the ship into a crash vector and skidded over the floor of the hangar, the friction shedding enough of the starfighter's speed to keep it from being demolished on the far wall.

In just another few seconds, the weapons in his hands ignited, slicing open the damaged cockpit of the starfighter, and Darth Revan, Lord of the Sith, emerged.

Damage control teams would be on the way, accompanied by security and military forces. He had to move quickly. In a burst of Force speed, he bounded across the hangar to slice open a thick door leading into the fighter squadron arsenal and quickly neutralized the automated defenses in the area.

There was no distraction; commitment was total. A deadly new being arose from the depths of his psyche.

Soulreaper lived.

Soulreaper lived to kill.

The mighty Nihil capital ship Revan stood within was now the flagship of Darth Oden, the Lord of Destruction. He had usurped control of the Nihil's Grand Fleet of Unification as the massive military force split itself in civil war. The Purists, those Nihil still staunchly at war with life under the Force, had flocked to his promise of the destruction of the Republic. His attack on the Senate on Coruscant was now imminent.

Darth Oden employed the services of one Rydak Tyll, of the Clan Izaya, Suppressor of the Force, the one responsible for Bastila's torture. Revan's sweaty palms savored the feel of the hard leather as he clutched the grips of his batonsabres so hard his knuckles went white. He bathed in the anger boiling forth at the renewed thought of the animal Rydak on his wife. The torture - the unendingly inventive torture methods of the Clan Izaya - went deeper than mere physical pain; Rydak had left Bastila barren.

Soulreaper lived to kill all who hurt the ones he loved.

It took Darth Revan ten seconds to slice through the next door and enter the open hallways.

Soulreaper was alive with purpose.

The batonsabres twirled effortlessly in his hands, and the perpendicular blades sliced searing swathes into the floor as Revan advanced on a security detail rushing to the scene of his starfighter's crash in the hangar. The knowledge of ancient Sith Lords past burned through in his motions. His fluidly moving arms and hands guided his twin sabres in savage, brutally accurate attacks, expertly chopping off limbs and severing heads. A light field of sparkling energy cast off from his whirling arms danced in front of him, absorbing or deflecting the piecemeal weapons fire directed at him in retaliation. He moved without hesitation or delay, killing any and all who stood in his way, unconcerned with whomever he might leave behind him. Whether they be mortally wounded or still full of fight, Revan disregarded the survivors. Better to let them regroup and spread the terror of his presence to the others.

Soulreaper was alive and hungry for the blood of Rydak Tyll.

Revan broke off in a run through the ivory halls, powering his way through the Nihil as they came. They were not his targets, they were obstacles. As body after body dropped behind him, there was no thought but for the next slaughter and the next and the next, until finally he would break upon his true adversary and destroy him with a single swipe of a red blade.

He could not use the Force against Rydak, for the sly Sith was well-versed in his talent of neutralizing and commandeering another's gift. But there would be no doubt when Revan's sabre exploded through his neck. With the abomination dead, Bastila's power would be unlocked from his malevolent grip, and the last of his hold on her would be relinquished.

Soulreaper screamed for blood--screamed for the blood of the one who had so abused and tormented the one closest to his heart, forever destroying the chance for children to be born from their union.

Through the sporadic Nihil forces, Revan stormed through the hallways. Turbolifts carried him higher into the ship, and closer yet to the battle bridge, where he expected the Zayan monster to be. Even should he not find Rydak where he expected, there was no longer an unwillingness to search for as long as necessary, Darth Revan and the Soulreaper within would not permit any deviation from his sworn objective. Darth Revan, the unflinching Sith Lord, would wait any length of time to see his plans come to fruition; Soulreaper simply did not care how long it took.

Resistance was thickening, signaling to him that he was come upon the vital parts of the ship. Revan stayed his mind from creating the kinetic barrier before him, opting to ward off the weapons fire with the bare blades of his sabres. He was acutely conscious that any slight mistake in his presence could give Rydak control of his connection to the Force. And in a way he was glad not to use his Force barriers, it served to intensify the battle.

He danced among the Nihil's energy blades, avoiding their attacks while skillfully pressing his own. Drops of sweat flying from his face hissed as they were vaporized by the hot blades of his opponents. He counted his individual breaths as he danced with death.

The Nihil were deprived of the Rayaj, and so could only hold him for so long before he broke into the battle bridge. The slaughter of the bridge crew was so easy for him that Revan had hardly noted all the bodies lying about at their positions before his burning gaze found the object of his hatred.

As the Nihil bridge crew were cut down right in front of him, Rydak awkwardly brought himself into a defensive position, having been caught completely off-guard by Revan's lightning attack. Even so, his crimson blade was handled expertly and turned aside the first blows from Revan's twin sabres.

The Zayan beast fought with inhuman drive, his technique a brutal but unsophisticated style easily overcome with Force attacks. However, pitting the Force against one of his skills was a fatal mistake, and Revan refused to be drawn in by his game of tempting weakness.

Darth Revan would not permit such a lapse in judgment. Soulreaper demanded death.

The sight and smell of his red sabres as they burst through Rydak's neck was intoxicating. At the instant of the Zayan's death, Revan unleashed a Force pulse, and Rydak's severed head and body flew backward into the bulkhead behind, splattering twisted gore and congealed blood over the walls.

As he stood panting, the calculating persona of Darth Revan immediately withdrew from Calum's mind, recognizing the finished deed. But Soulreaper refused to relinquish control. Soulreaper was not satisfied. Soulreaper still craved bloodshed.

A door opened, Darth Oden stepped in to gaze expressionlessly at Revan and the mangled remains of Rydak. "I suppose there is no apprentice, no matter how great, that could have withstood your fury. It is a shame to see a creature of such talent depart. Clan Izaya will never be the same."

Revan's mind already was disregarding Oden's foolish small talk, setting its sights on a new adversary.

He needed only point-two-five seconds to execute.

Soulreaper only wanted more blood.

Revan lunged at Darth Oden with the hot blades of his batonsabres, crossing them across the Sith's chest, and finishing with a violent cutting arc that sliced through flesh and bone. A boiling gash opened on Oden's well-muscled chest, smoking spectacularly and sending up a horrific stench.

But Oden did not fall.

Confounded, Soulreaper's presence wavered gossamer-thin in Revan's mind. Darth Revan, his inner tactician, laughing at his foolish error, took the moment to reassert its control over the blind brute.

Darth Oden stood perfectly still after having taken a lightsabre attack that would have neatly halved any other person in the galaxy, and the ghastly wound closed itself over.

While Revan's mind swam, trying to find equilibrium in the midst of its multiple and conflicting personas, he felt a concussion blast hit him full force. He had no chance to defend against Oden's assault, and lost consciousness before his body even hit the floor.

To be continued...

Description
Triptych Chapter 14, Final Resistance

The smuggler's base had long been evacuated, the old Sith ships carrying the last of the Jedi and Sith were gone from its hangars, having left for the Republic and a final objective Revan would not reveal. Only one ship remained in the cleverly disguised stronghold. The Ebon Hawk, attended to by a Jedi pilot, sat alone in an empty hangar, waiting on the last two Jedi to enter and be on their way. Kuryama and Visas, however, had an important objective of their own to complete before they could leave.

Kept unconscious by a sedative gas filling his force cage, Akar Xiylehn, Sacred Saint of the Nihil Empire, was locked inside a tibanna diamond extraction chamber, its titanium-reinforced duracrete walls strong enough to withstand a hit from a starship cannon.

Visas and Kuryama could only guess at his powers, and despite all the security precautions they and Revan had taken, Kuryama was still unconvinced he was no longer a threat. A fear that was proving well-founded, as despite the tranquilizing gases, the Nihil leader was beginning to claw his way toward consciousness.

From behind a six-inch-thick plexicrete observation window they watched in silence, their probings with the Force finding barely anything of more substance or significance than the things they already knew. Akar was shrouded in dark power--a power that held billions in thrall and cut off utterly from the Force. He was the source, the center of the storm, feeding off the energy funneled to him by those willing slaves through their blind devotion to his power.

Kuryama sighed and opened her eyes, her worry growing. "Revan has placed too much trust in me."

"Do not say such things, Master," Visas admonished, "I have faith in you."

"I'm worried faith may not be enough, Visas. I am still not convinced it is possible to reawaken the Force in such a creature. Revan says I am proof it's possible, but I fail to see the similarities as he does. Nor do I have any inkling of how it came to be. He has given me an impossible task."

"Some things in life are impossible, Master," Visas reflected. "But most we simply do not understand how to overcome. Such things are only impossible when we believe them to be. I learned this upon the death of my old master. Before I came to you, I would have thought it impossible for him to die, for myself to be anything more than his slave. But in truth I had made myself his slave, and created his invincibility through my own unbelief." Visas frowned at her sternly, in the way her mother would sometimes do when she learned of something Kuryama had done that she disapproved of. "I believe you know this, Master. You cannot keep believing something simply because you fear it to be so. You have told me of your exile, and how you at first were firmly convinced of the truth of all the lies you had been given to keep you quiet. They broke you, kept you ever-more isolated in self-inflicted misery, until you freed yourself from the chains of your fearful beliefs."

Visas' admonition brought a smile to Kuryama's face. She had indeed learned. Believing something out of fear or want was ignorant at best, self-destructive at worst. "Thank you for that, Visas."

Their interchange was suddenly interrupted by a loud crack from inside the diamond chamber. The force cage had been destroyed, a system of shallow fractures were spread over the whole floor of the chamber like a spiderweb. The Sacred Saint was conscious and aware, standing erect and staring back at them through the plexicrete, inscrutable behind his mask.

He spoke, his words passing right through the thick walls and into their minds. "You can accomplish nothing by holding me. The Nihil Empire will crush the heathen religion of the Force despite your feeble efforts to stop our righteous cause, which transcends my existence. Now, even as we speak, a new leader is being chosen to lead us in our holy crusade against you heathens and blasphemers." The hatred in his words, unlike his visage, was unmasked--he held nothing but abhorrence for those outside of his extremism and was not loath to make it known to them.

"Some may find mercy by bowing to the Ministry of Light and its true teachings. You," he directed his words at Kuryama, "might even have been spared. You have lived without the Force, free from its oppressive grip. You could have been accepted as a citizen of our Empire. But like a true apostate you rejected your destiny."

Hearing Akar Xiylehn speak had the same effect as listening to the words of Rayaj clerics. It was terrifying. That Kuryama now knew how to counter the paralyzing fear did not take away from its intrinsic dread, she found herself holding her breath until his attention turned away from her and toward Visas.

"Nihilus frustrated the Ministry with his silence, but I see now what made him break from us."

Visas inhaled sharply at his sudden words, laden with such meaning.

"You are Miraluka, descendant of the Purged Ones, those who refused our Empire. The ancestors of your race were our rebellious cousins who went whoring after the Force and received spirit sight in return for their prostitution. Nihilus was to destroy the division of our holy authority you represented in preparation for the beginning of the New Crusade. I can see now that he failed."

As the words echoed across both their minds, Visas raised her own voice. "He did not fail. He destroyed my people. There is no one left of Katarr, save me."

A thunderous noise crashed through Kuryama's head--a laugh, she realized. Akar laughed at Visas. "Then you are the one who tainted him with the Force, cast him out from his own people. It is you who created the abomination. Know that my power grows, heathen, and soon this pitiful cell will not hold me. Your soul will be mine."

Visas said not another word, simply turned on her heels and left, her movements making obvious her distress.

Kuryama glared at the imprisoned Akar. "I hate you," she swore, feeling Visas' hurt reverberating in her wake.

xxxxx

Kuryama found Visas in a bedroom, sitting on the edge of a cot and shaking as if in the grip of one of her nightmares. When she spoke, her tone was even, but it only seemed to make her words worse. "Revan was right, Master."

"He was right?"

"Revan said I am the key and he is correct. Since encountering these Nihil, I have suspected that my old master, Darth Nihilus, was one of them. I am now certain he was a Rayaj cleric, sent, as Akar said, to exterminate my people. I believe his being caught in the storm of Malachor V changed him, damaged his mind so that he differed from the rest of his order. Perhaps he wished to know the veracity of the Nihil's belief that the Force is evil. For whatever his beliefs, he spared me so that I might give him the Force, and give it I did.

"We Miraluka see through the Force because our spirits are shrouded in it, in a place just beyond the physical world. I sense truth in what Akar says, that my people were once of the Nihil. The Force is about us but not of us, much the same way the scoundrels Atton and Mira can use the Force without feeling it.

"Because of my nature, and Darth Nihilus' predisposition, I opened him to the Force. And once he touched it, he ever wanted it, craved feeling its power even as he carried out his own crusade. He wished to wipe out every last being in the galaxy who felt the Force, because even as he lusted after its embrace, he lusted to feel its death, as do all Nihil. All because I made it possible.

"Revan was right; I am the key."

Kuryama sat down beside Visas and laid the Miraluka's head on her shoulder as soft sobs started to break her voice.

"My master forced me to lie with him, so that he could feed on the Force as it flowed through me. He gave no regard to the torture he inflicted on me as he took what he wanted. It began in the very beginning, from the first day of the death of Katarr until he sent me to kill you. Even when my body became numb to the pain, you could not imagine the horrors it still etched into my mind day after day."

Comforting the distraught Miraluka against her shoulder, Kuryama started telling a story of her own.

"Do you know why I don't allow myself to love anyone intimately? It isn't because of the Jedi Code, and certainly not the Dark Side. I've never been a model Jedi. Ten years ago I was closer to one than I am now, but I was never as strict in following Jedi law as some of the more zealous Jedi. The base reason was that my parents refused to abandon me completely to the Order, as most parents do. My mother knew some about the Force, so it wasn't hard for her to fit in at the Temple on Coruscant, where they would visit me as often as they could. So even as I grew up in the Order, I had the blessing of their guidance and care. I didn't entirely realize how beneficial their presence was until my father died when I was eleven.

"I am still thankful for what they did for me, as I believe their influence allowed me to see the necessity of Revan's treason against the Council in going to fight the Mandalorians. When I joined his battle, I felt liberated. Unfortunately, when I joined him and effectively left the Order, I made my first mistake--not by having feelings, but by letting them take a hold over me. The first few battles were as traumatizing as they could possibly have been, as I saw dear friends and comrades killed in the most brutal fashions. The horror of it all drove me in many different directions, until finally, convincing myself it was to cope with it all, I found myself having indiscriminate affairs; with other shaken Jedi, with fellow soldiers, even with Revan himself as I rose in stature.

"It was like I'd completely taken leave of my self-control and forgotten everything the Jedi and my parents ever taught me about emotions. Until one day I had to admit my waywardness to myself and put a stop to it. I'd become pregnant, and was ashamed to not even know who the father was. That was what it took for me to come to my senses, and I realized finally that reason wasn't my sole sovereign--this unconscious tendency of mine to form strong bonds with those around was beginning to run my life. I was misusing it and losing my sanity for it.

"When Kurt was born in my mother's house on Devrita, I made a promise to myself never to so fully depart from my discipline. If I were to lie with another man, it would only be once I was ready to put aside everything else and be married.

"Revan was immeasurably helpful, keeping everything under wraps until I could return to the fleet, where I knew I was still needed. But he and I immediately broke off our relationship, as I did with my other, less prudent affairs. Save for Revan and Jilon, I could tell no one else, because the others weren't even aware of my simultaneous commitments, and to tell them all I had a son whose father I couldn't name would have destroyed them and made me into the same emotional vampire I was determined not to be.

"Even so, keeping such a secret hurt me inside more than the news of my father's death, but the lesson was learned; our feeling serve us, but we should never serve them. I was finished serving my emotions. That's why until the galaxy no longer needs me, I can't love anyone. There are some who I love and value as friends, but I can't go farther than that."

There was a long silence before Kuryama continued.

"I think all these years I've been blinded by enough fear of the truth to believe I didn't know who had to be Kurt's father. That was just an excuse I gave myself so I wouldn't have to accept the man I feared most as his father. The man I watched grow ever more self-possessed in the name of justice. I know who it was and I can't hide from it anymore."

Her face and voice remained calm as Kuryama spoke his name.

xxxxx

The diamond chamber's massive door slid open with an ear-splitting screech, its massive weight scraping against the metal floor and giant rusty hinges squealing in protest. The pressurized air inside rushed out past Visas, whipping back the folds of her loose black robe as she entered, willing the door shut behind her. The automatic seal on the door engaged, a noise that made the inside of the extraction chamber ring like a bell--or a death knell.

Tears would have slid down Visas' face had she had eyes. But they wouldn't have been tears of regret or fear. Rather, they would have been of the relief she felt inside. Above the turmoil that raged within her, one thought stormed over all the rest: Her Master understood. Ever since touching Kuryama's echo in the Force, Visas knew that understanding was all she had ever wanted; understanding to liberate her from her daily terror, understanding of the pain she endured.

If anything, Kuryama knew pain - Force knew the last decade of her life had been full of pain - but she understood the sweet promise of life. She looked to the future instead of living in the past.

Visas would do anything to preserve the hope of such life as Kuryama represented. There was no sacrifice too great.

With practiced ease she let slip the thin black robes, let them cascade from her body like rainwater sliding off a jungle canopy. Naked, she knelt and addressed the waiting Saint, who watched her with implacable eyes.

"I offer myself to you, and submit to whatever judgment you may proclaim upon me and my heathen ways. I accept the authority of the Ministry of Light, and pledge my allegiance, my very life and will, to the Sacred Saint of the Nihil Empire."

There was a sudden impact to the air between them, an invisible shock wave that tossed her long locks of dark hair and ruffled Akar's immaculate robes. For a moment, Visas's body shimmered as if a mirage.

Akar let out a thunderous roar of anger. The walls cracked and split around him as he made his wrath known, yet Visas remained untouched where she knelt still, her head now touching the floor. The Saint bellowed again, and extended a hand toward the lone Miraluka, lifting her off the ground to hold her helpless before him.

"Fool!" he hissed. "There is no place under the bond for you. You have bought yourself no mercy, only given me your soul unhindered."

Visas answered him with a smile, her face a vision of peace.

Enraged, he passed his hand over her and her body began to dissolve. Caught in his grip, Visas did not struggle even as her body was reduced to a vaporous cloud. In a deep breath, Akar Xiylehn absorbed her very life force into himself. The black robes that lay like shed skin were the only signs of Visas' existence.

No sooner was Visas no more than a blue incandescence burst forth from the darkness behind Akar's mask. Unlike the ghostly blue of the Relay worlds, or the sickly blue of Darth Oden's destructive powers, this was a pure blue; a symbol of life rather than death.

He screamed a transcendental scream and clutched at his cowled head, as if trying to hold it together, and the light built in intensity, brightening until it was nearly pure white.

From behind the plexicrete barrier, Kuryama watched with awe. She stood motionless, watching, tears for Visas streaming down her face, until the light imploded on itself and forever silenced Akar's scream. His body fell to the floor, burnt and smoking, completely and utterly dead.

Kuryama knew without a doubt that she'd just seen the Force unleashed.

She could hardly believe it was all over.

Suddenly, she felt Force shades winking into existence all around her. Dead Nihil Pariahs and some of the spirits of the Treason Wall were come to thank her. She knew so many of their names: Kess, Myr, Kal, Salus, Soriente, Kalagi, Lazza... Kuryama went rigid as one in particular approached her.

The glowing figure of Visas Marr's Force shade, with soft, expressive eyes her body hadn't possessed in life, was one of the most beautiful things Kuryama had ever seen. There was a contented smile on her face, one she'd hardly ever used in life.

Kuryama was instantly humbled by sorrow for this woman who had given everything to help her succeed. "I'm sorry I drove you to this, Visas," she said with her head down, meaning every word.

Visas' shade put a hand under Kuryama's chin, lifted her head up. "I made the decision, Kuryama, not you. Friendship and love are bonds onto themselves, the Force simply makes them stronger. I have loved you from the moment I first touched your echo in the Force, and our friendship has only made the both of us stronger. Your strength and understanding allowed me to finally put aside my scars. I am at peace now, with the Force and with myself."

She was suddenly alone with the Force shade, and Visas' expression turned dire. "Kuryama, Revan needs you. In joining with the Sacred Saint, I was given a brief vision of the line of prophecy that he had been leeching from Revan, thus blinding him. The Nihil tear themselves apart as we speak. Darth Oden is seizing his chance to take control of the Fleet of Unification that approaches Coruscant. He will destroy the Senate and forever rend the Republic. You have done what you must here, with me, but now I fear only you can bring Oden to an end."

xxxxx

The raging battle in the streets was even more chaotic than it had at first appeared to the three. Atton, Rigel, and Mira found themselves caught in the midst of furious, brutal urban warfare.

Even if a lot of the combatants didn't have weapons, the pervasive hand-to-hand was every bit as deadly as the sporadic ranged combat. An open brawl on the streets had no rules, and anything and everything could be used as a weapon. Broken debris was picked up by numerous hands and used to bludgeon and maim, the heads and bodies of combatants were crashed through glass windows or slammed into unyielding walls by the rampaging mobs.

Even worse were the semi-organized groups consisting of little break-offs of Nihil military forces, split almost equally between the two warring factions. Well-armed and trained, they were small but lethal cliques, holing up in routed buildings and creating vicious crossfire.

Distinguishing between the two sides was sometimes frightfully difficult, the only difference being the miraluka's lack of the masks that were so signature to the Nihil.

An armed contingent of the enigmatic people accompanied the three of them. Lillik, the man who'd spoken to Mira, had offered to help them reach their ship and they had welcomed the assistance. A few of them were remarkably good shots, earning Mira's respect and Rigel's grudging admiration. Even so, navigating the hazardous streets was anything but easy. The group moved as fast as they could, gunning and hacking down any opposition from the Nihil who came charging at them from all directions, screaming and howling from behind their obsolete masks.

The enemy forces pressed in close around them as they approached the ruins of the shattered building in which Rigel and Atton had landed and hid the resourceful Whitecap. Atton shot from the shoulder with a rapid-firing Nihil energy rifle, mowing down unarmed hostiles that were attempting to storm their precarious position just behind a flaming crater filled with the burned-out hulks of transport vehicles. Mira lobbed a grenade into the face of the white tide, watched as the orange explosion enveloped the front-runners, sending charred bodies and limbs flying in all directions. Rigel crept over the lip of the crater to send sprays of repeater fire into the disarrayed Nihil.

There was desperate yelling in several languages and suddenly they were moving again. Heavy fire was now raging around them, and several miraluka were hit and went down hard, soon at the mercy of the white-armored mob. The fallen ones were dead within moments, and there was nothing any of the others could do but keep on running, shooting and slicing at their foes as they went.

Finally they reached the structure. Mira screamed at Lillik and his few men to follow them into the debris field where once had stood the majestic building. Twisted girders and giant shifting mounds of pulverized rock alternately left them exposed or concealed from their enemies. The underlying framework of the building was still mostly intact, the ghosts of its mighty walls little more than stripped skeletons trailing streamers of melted steel, offering only a shadow of protection from the battle.

Somewhere in the field of smoldering debris, Rigel promised, was his cloaked cargo yacht.

As the white hordes converged on the small group of beleaguered companions, masses of those without masks, the miraluka, were moving to counter, and soon a heated crossfire enveloped the broken building. Atton, Mira, and Rigel, as well as Lillik and his men, were trapped in the middle of the deadly firefight.

From his former experience as a soldier, Atton knew better than to stand between the lines of a heated battle, and pulled everyone down under what cover they could find. At the same time, Rigel came to an unsettling conclusion. Between all the weapons fire raging back and forth across the mountain of debris, some of it should have glanced off the Whitecap's hull, and nothing had. The ship wasn't there.

Over the din of the battle, he yelled in Atton's ear. "I think the ship's been buried by the debris!"

Atton was none too happy. "What!"

"We're right here the middle, right where we parked, and the ship ain't here! It's underneath us!"

"Maybe the Nihil found it, Rigel!" Mira suggested while she ducked behind a flat stone wall fragment, firing with her blaster over the edge.

"If they did then we're dead!" Rigel got on the ground and started digging.

Caught between the two opposing lines of fire, there was very little the others could do to preserve their lives other than help Rigel dig for the ship. To the relief of all, however, the ship was neither gone nor buried deep. Under just a few inches of dirt, dust, and rubble, Rigel made contact with the invisible hull of the Whitecap. It took just a few minutes longer for him to find the forward hatch.

"Come on, let's go!" he screamed, and Atton, Mira, and Lillik - whose companions were by now all dead - quickly rushed to the opening. Lillik, the last of them, took a shot straight to the back as dove into the ship, falling into Mira's arms, bleeding profusely.

Atton crashed the door shut and Rigel lurched into the cockpit to get the ship running.

As Mira held him, she saw Lillik's hood had fallen back. Aside from eyes bleached entirely white, his astonishingly human face was strikingly handsome. And this the Nihil termed a hideous disfigurement of life. Mira was appalled at their callousness.

Despite the obvious damage to his eyes, Lillik seemed perfectly able to see her, and gave a lively smile even as his pulse weakened and his breath grew shallow. "Freedom is beauty," were the last words of his life.

For an instant, Mira felt tears welling up in her eyes for this man she hardly even knew. However, the ship lurched suddenly, sending her tumbling about the floor grasping wildly for something solid to hold onto, and her thoughts instantly turned to more immediate problems. Her stomach threatened to empty itself as she felt the whole ship surge upward, inertial dampeners either ineffective or disabled in Whitecap's stealth mode. Giant beams and girders sliding off the plating of the ship made a horrendous noise inside the hold until the cargo yacht was free of the debris mound and in the open sky.

Rigel pointed the nose up and gunned the engines.

In the space above Malayvin, the guns of the massive Nihil fleet were turned on itself. Chaos reigned in space as it had on the surface, but now they had the advantage of stealth. Shrouded in its cloaking field, the Whitecap skirted the battle and made for the clear, ready for hyperspace.

As they began their journey back towards Republic space, no one was saying it, but they were all thinking it: Nar Shaddaa.

xxxxx

The starfighter hummed around Darth Revan as he brought it screaming into its final approach. Less than two minutes ago he'd launched from the hangar of the Gauntlet, dropping in out of hyperspace to keep the Nihil capital ship Holy Vow under watch. In a matter of seconds, his tiny ship punched through a blanket of defensive fire and streaked into the hangar of the crablike vessel. Allowing the Force to guide his reflexes, Darthg Revan turned the ship into a crash vector and skidded over the floor of the hangar, the friction shedding enough of the starfighter's speed to keep it from being demolished on the far wall.

In just another few seconds, the weapons in his hands ignited, slicing open the damaged cockpit of the starfighter, and Darth Revan, Lord of the Sith, emerged.

Damage control teams would be on the way, accompanied by security and military forces. He had to move quickly. In a burst of Force speed, he bounded across the hangar to slice open a thick door leading into the fighter squadron arsenal and quickly neutralized the automated defenses in the area.

There was no distraction; commitment was total. A deadly new being arose from the depths of his psyche.

Soulreaper lived.

Soulreaper lived to kill.

The mighty Nihil capital ship Revan stood within was now the flagship of Darth Oden, the Lord of Destruction. He had usurped control of the Nihil's Grand Fleet of Unification as the massive military force split itself in civil war. The Purists, those Nihil still staunchly at war with life under the Force, had flocked to his promise of the destruction of the Republic. His attack on the Senate on Coruscant was now imminent.

Darth Oden employed the services of one Rydak Tyll, of the Clan Izaya, Suppressor of the Force, the one responsible for Bastila's torture. Revan's sweaty palms savored the feel of the hard leather as he clutched the grips of his batonsabres so hard his knuckles went white. He bathed in the anger boiling forth at the renewed thought of the animal Rydak on his wife. The torture - the unendingly inventive torture methods of the Clan Izaya - went deeper than mere physical pain; Rydak had left Bastila barren.

Soulreaper lived to kill all who hurt the ones he loved.

It took Darth Revan ten seconds to slice through the next door and enter the open hallways.

Soulreaper was alive with purpose.

The batonsabres twirled effortlessly in his hands, and the perpendicular blades sliced searing swathes into the floor as Revan advanced on a security detail rushing to the scene of his starfighter's crash in the hangar. The knowledge of ancient Sith Lords past burned through in his motions. His fluidly moving arms and hands guided his twin sabres in savage, brutally accurate attacks, expertly chopping off limbs and severing heads. A light field of sparkling energy cast off from his whirling arms danced in front of him, absorbing or deflecting the piecemeal weapons fire directed at him in retaliation. He moved without hesitation or delay, killing any and all who stood in his way, unconcerned with whomever he might leave behind him. Whether they be mortally wounded or still full of fight, Revan disregarded the survivors. Better to let them regroup and spread the terror of his presence to the others.

Soulreaper was alive and hungry for the blood of Rydak Tyll.

Revan broke off in a run through the ivory halls, powering his way through the Nihil as they came. They were not his targets, they were obstacles. As body after body dropped behind him, there was no thought but for the next slaughter and the next and the next, until finally he would break upon his true adversary and destroy him with a single swipe of a red blade.

He could not use the Force against Rydak, for the sly Sith was well-versed in his talent of neutralizing and commandeering another's gift. But there would be no doubt when Revan's sabre exploded through his neck. With the abomination dead, Bastila's power would be unlocked from his malevolent grip, and the last of his hold on her would be relinquished.

Soulreaper screamed for blood--screamed for the blood of the one who had so abused and tormented the one closest to his heart, forever destroying the chance for children to be born from their union.

Through the sporadic Nihil forces, Revan stormed through the hallways. Turbolifts carried him higher into the ship, and closer yet to the battle bridge, where he expected the Zayan monster to be. Even should he not find Rydak where he expected, there was no longer an unwillingness to search for as long as necessary, Darth Revan and the Soulreaper within would not permit any deviation from his sworn objective. Darth Revan, the unflinching Sith Lord, would wait any length of time to see his plans come to fruition; Soulreaper simply did not care how long it took.

Resistance was thickening, signaling to him that he was come upon the vital parts of the ship. Revan stayed his mind from creating the kinetic barrier before him, opting to ward off the weapons fire with the bare blades of his sabres. He was acutely conscious that any slight mistake in his presence could give Rydak control of his connection to the Force. And in a way he was glad not to use his Force barriers, it served to intensify the battle.

He danced among the Nihil's energy blades, avoiding their attacks while skillfully pressing his own. Drops of sweat flying from his face hissed as they were vaporized by the hot blades of his opponents. He counted his individual breaths as he danced with death.

The Nihil were deprived of the Rayaj, and so could only hold him for so long before he broke into the battle bridge. The slaughter of the bridge crew was so easy for him that Revan had hardly noted all the bodies lying about at their positions before his burning gaze found the object of his hatred.

As the Nihil bridge crew were cut down right in front of him, Rydak awkwardly brought himself into a defensive position, having been caught completely off-guard by Revan's lightning attack. Even so, his crimson blade was handled expertly and turned aside the first blows from Revan's twin sabres.

The Zayan beast fought with inhuman drive, his technique a brutal but unsophisticated style easily overcome with Force attacks. However, pitting the Force against one of his skills was a fatal mistake, and Revan refused to be drawn in by his game of tempting weakness.

Darth Revan would not permit such a lapse in judgment. Soulreaper demanded death.

The sight and smell of his red sabres as they burst through Rydak's neck was intoxicating. At the instant of the Zayan's death, Revan unleashed a Force pulse, and Rydak's severed head and body flew backward into the bulkhead behind, splattering twisted gore and congealed blood over the walls.

As he stood panting, the calculating persona of Darth Revan immediately withdrew from Calum's mind, recognizing the finished deed. But Soulreaper refused to relinquish control. Soulreaper was not satisfied. Soulreaper still craved bloodshed.

A door opened, Darth Oden stepped in to gaze expressionlessly at Revan and the mangled remains of Rydak. "I suppose there is no apprentice, no matter how great, that could have withstood your fury. It is a shame to see a creature of such talent depart. Clan Izaya will never be the same."

Revan's mind already was disregarding Oden's foolish small talk, setting its sights on a new adversary.

He needed only point-two-five seconds to execute.

Soulreaper only wanted more blood.

Revan lunged at Darth Oden with the hot blades of his batonsabres, crossing them across the Sith's chest, and finishing with a violent cutting arc that sliced through flesh and bone. A boiling gash opened on Oden's well-muscled chest, smoking spectacularly and sending up a horrific stench.

But Oden did not fall.

Confounded, Soulreaper's presence wavered gossamer-thin in Revan's mind. Darth Revan, his inner tactician, laughing at his foolish error, took the moment to reassert its control over the blind brute.

Darth Oden stood perfectly still after having taken a lightsabre attack that would have neatly halved any other person in the galaxy, and the ghastly wound closed itself over.

While Revan's mind swam, trying to find equilibrium in the midst of its multiple and conflicting personas, he felt a concussion blast hit him full force. He had no chance to defend against Oden's assault, and lost consciousness before his body even hit the floor.

To be continued...