Extra chapter for reaching 250 power stones. And 2 more reviews for another extra.
***
When Kom'rk and Jaing reported in, revealing what they had found and what they had done, Ordo asked only one question:
"Did it go well?"
"Perfectly."
Which meant everything was ideal.
Exactly as it should be.
The leader of Clan Skirata relayed orders to the remaining subordinates.
Within a minute, the remaining enemies were cut down in a crossfire.
The pressure point in this part of the dreadnought was eliminated.
"Return and regroup with everyone," he ordered the two brothers.
"Understood. By the way, a large enemy force is moving toward you. We counted over a hundred. Shooters, small arms."
"Not a problem," Ordo replied. "Yayax — secure the compartment. Omega — move to hold the approaches. Prudii, Mereel, A'den, and the rest," without batting an eye, he simulated the presence of Kom'rk and Jaing, "with me. We're moving to meet the main enemy force."
"Understood," the reply was singular, but correct.
"And what should we do?" Arligan Zey asked.
The silent Jaden Korr had clearly stopped being friendly, but when did that ever matter?
Jedi come and go, but the clan and its interests are eternal.
"Act according to the situation," said Ordo, who didn't need extra witnesses. "There's a squad of shooters over there; the Nulls can handle it themselves. You could cover Omega and Yayax from the other side."
"Fine," Zey agreed indifferently, waving for the Jedi to follow him. "Anyone else want in?"
Notably, no one responded to the offer — neither Venku nor Gotab, both pretending they hadn't even heard him.
That was the correct clan behavior.
Untimely, but correct.
"Good," Zey said impassively. "More enemies for us, then. Let's go, Jaden."
* * *
Fodeum Sabre De'Luz had encountered manifestations of the Dark Side of the Force many times before.
Even in this battle.
As soon as he approached the flagship Keldabe, he felt a deep hum, similar to what preceded uncontrollable rage and the urge to kill.
Only much stronger.
A manifestation of the Dark Side in its raw, aggressive, gut-chilling form.
The rancor charging toward him surpassed everything the Jensaarai had ever felt before.
A life force of enormous size and power.
Implausibly fast.
Wanting to kill.
Him, his students, anyone it was pointed at.
A monstrous beast, a predator on the hunt.
But it had made a mistake.
Before it stood not victims.
Before it stood the Jensaarai.
Both the beast and the Jensaarai do one thing: take life.
But if the former do it out of pure biological necessity, driven by instinct, the Jensaarai kill because of a duty they hold.
And that duty demanded killing.
For the sake of others' lives.
The rancor burst from the embrace of darkness five meters from the trio of Jensaarai, who were poised for battle.
The ship's emergency systems had kicked in to handle the main burden of keeping the vessel operational.
Crimson light diluted the darkness but didn't let it disappear entirely.
Sweetie charged forward, letting out a terrifying roar.
Fodeum didn't even flinch, watching it approach and admiring the speed of the massive beast.
Yes, there was something to admire.
When the distance between them shrank to two and a half meters, the Jensaarai and his students simultaneously thrust out their empty hands forward.
Anyone nearby with a connection to the Force could feel them reaching out to the energy of the universe that permeates all living things.
Like travelers crossing the Dune Sea who finally see an oasis, they drew upon the Force.
And released it.
White-blue light of Force Lightning illuminated the corridor brighter than the standard lighting system ever could.
The beast roared, shrieked, tormented by the electricity.
Its paws, tipped with sharp claws, slashed the air in front of it, hoping to hit one of its tormentors.
It didn't succeed.
And this, combined with the pain, drove its tiny mind to scream for the killing to continue.
The rancor was an animal, the apex predator on many inhabited and largely unexplored worlds.
It was believed their homeworld was the planet Dathomir.
There, the witches learned to tame these predators, even using them as mounts.
Fodeum was not a Dathomirian.
And Magash, for all her desire, lacked the ability to seize control of the mind of this living machine of death.
A rancor knows no fear, but it knows pain.
Like any living creature.
But the stronger the pain, the more it wants to eliminate the source of that feeling.
Fodeum felt that the rancor wasn't acting so much on its own as it was enveloped in an aura of the Dark Side.
Silri may not have been controlling the creature directly, but she was certainly doing everything to learn as much as possible about her enemies through it.
Well, let her...
Gantoris, twisting out from under another blow from the left paw, executed a backflip and struck with his lightsaber at the protruding claw of the middle finger of the creature's right forelimb.
Severing that claw and the bottom finger at the joint, the student didn't escape a furious counterattack.
He barely avoided a new blow when Magash, seizing the opportunity, followed the rancor's second limb and severed the tendons at its wrist.
The left hand hung limp.
But Fodeum realized the beast could still move the damaged limb when the rancor nearly impaled the Dathomirian woman with the clawed, injured paw.
Another swing of Gantoris's lightsaber cut the skin on the monster's leg.
The rancor let out a guttural groan as Fodeum, abandoning his Force Lightning attack, joined the fray.
Dodging the first powerful strike of the clawed paw, he made another deep gash on the beast's left leg.
When it reared up, hit its head on the ceiling, and roared in pain, the Jensaarai burned another deep furrow into its soft underbelly.
The monster didn't even pretend to be afraid for its life after this.
Its mind was under the full control of the Dathomirian witch, and this could no longer be hidden.
The rancor didn't want to die; it was too large to fall victim to a couple of lightsaber wounds.
Instead, the pain sparked a mad fury.
It clacked its teeth and claws, spinning, biting, and lunging at everything around it.
Gantoris dodged, leaping over one attack and dropping to the deck to roll under another.
Fodeum kept pace.
He moved so fast that he would have appeared as a blur to the rancor, had it not been so blinded by rage.
And with each dodge, the Jensaarai delivered another ruthless blow, severing masses of tendons and flesh like a skilled sculptor working a block of marble.
Magash, timing her moment, leaped onto the monster's single-clawed paw and, burying her blade into the flesh, ran from wrist to shoulder, cutting through skin and muscle.
Sweetie roared and tried to smash the witch against the corridor wall, but missed its target.
The witch did a backflip over its head, slicing off a patch of skin on its skull but not penetrating the bone.
The moment she landed on her feet, she was forced to roll away in the opposite direction, barely avoiding contact with a wounded paw sweeping overhead.
Swinging at the barely moving left palm, she split the middle finger-claw in two.
This only enraged the monster further.
Gantoris, seeing that the witch's roll had lost its momentum and the rancor intended to crush her like an insect with a blow from its damaged paw, shoved his comrade away with a Force push.
At that same moment, Fodeum slipped under the ranchor's paws, landing another strike on its belly.
Springing to his feet, the Jensaarai slashed across the monster's lower back, then hit the ranchor with a Force Push.
Lapchik roared like a runaway reactor cooling system, but refused to die.
The ranchor's legs tangled beneath it; it moved heavily and stumbled, as if performing some drunken spacer's dance.
Fodeum, by contrast, was swift and precise.
With every second, his opponent weakened, losing precious life energy.
Using the Force to accelerate, the Jensaarai sprinted to the corridor wall, pushed off it with his feet, and launched into the air.
Gantoris at that moment severed half of a forked claw with a precise strike, while Magash, with an accurate throw of a lightsaber, sliced through the monster's nostril and part of its right shoulder.
Feet moving quickly, Fodeum raced from the creature's tailbone to the nape of its neck, torturing it with the tip of his lightsaber blade.
The man ignored the beast's attempt to reach him with the single remaining claw on its right hand, slashing across its skull instead.
But to his surprise, the blade, sunken halfway, couldn't pierce the giant's thick cranial bones.
That didn't stop him, however, from using a cutting strike of the blade to shave off part of the occipital bone from the skull.
After which, he had to leap forward, pushing off the ranchor's snout with the Force.
Simultaneously throwing the lightsaber like a spear.
The energy blade entered the beast's eye, making it shriek as if being cut to pieces.
Oh right, it actually was being cut to pieces.
Fodeum landed on his feet, grabbed the hilt that returned to his palm, and then charged his opponent again.
Just a little more was needed.
To his left, Magash attacked; to his right, Gantoris.
By dividing Lapchik's attention, the three managed to minimize the threat to each of them.
Drashi ducked under the ranchor's left arm, driving her lightsaber blade into it with a practiced move and leaving a deep, gaping furrow in the beast's body.
Gantoris delivered a series of strikes to the disfigured right hand, managing to break it at the elbow joint.
Using the monster's right hand — the one it intended to attack Gantoris with — Fodeum climbed up to Lapchik's head.
Distracting the creature toward himself, he helped Gantoris avoid its focused attention.
And at the moment when the ranchor blasted him with the stale aroma from its maw, almost deafening him with its roar, the Jensaarai repeated his attack on its eyes.
One was already gone, but the other was still intact.
And it was large enough that the lightsaber blade couldn't reach the brain through it without adjusting the tactic.
Time was measured in seconds.
Even in moments.
With a jump, the Jensaarai vaulted from the hand onto the beast's snout, grabbing onto its disgusting nostrils.
A mouth full of fangs snapped shut in front of his feet.
Using acrobatics, Fodeum rose up, sitting on the creature's nose as if intending to ride it.
The Force warned him that the monster's enormous paws were already flying toward his back.
Mutilated, crippled, but still capable of squashing him like an insect.
Lapchik didn't even pay attention to the fact that both of Fodeum's students were mercilessly hacking at him from both sides, turning his body into a slightly seared piece of meat.
Through which even bones were already visible in places.
Closing its eyelids didn't save Lapchik from the well-deserved lightsaber blade in his only remaining eye.
The one that had survived until now.
Immediately after the white-blue plasma blade entered where it needed to go, the Jensaarai pushed it forward with the Force.
And pushed himself too, but upward.
The man soared into the air, performed another somersault around the ranchor's head, and landed a few meters behind it.
Raising his hand, he waited until the hilt of his weapon, after making several revolutions inside Lapchik's skull, pierced the occipital bone and flew out, its blade already extinguished.
"What a mess," Fodeum grimaced, seeing bits of brain and blood on his weapon.
Turning to face the frozen monster, the man pushed it with the Force, sensing the fading embers of its life.
Finally, with a miserable groan of air escaping its lungs, the beast toppled forward, nearly crushing both students, and died.
"Looks like we're the first ones to finish off Lapchik so... elegantly," Magash said with delight, staring at the enormous ranchor corpse in disbelief.
In the crimson emergency lighting, it seemed even more mysterious and terrifying.
"Elegantly?" Gantoris clarified, using Fodeum's help to pop his dislocated shoulder joint back in.
"Could have been worse," the witch grimaced, not a single scratch on her.
"Correction," the Jensaarai said, eyeing the thick blast door to the bridge. "In about two minutes, that 'worse' is exactly what's going to happen."
* * *
Silri watched what was happening and refused to believe it.
Her ally's fleet from the New Republic had been scattered.
Her own fleet was either destroyed or in the process of being captured by Dominion forces.
If any resistance remained, the enemy pilots or gunners were already taking care of it.
Even Lapchik was dead...
Where she had intended to win, escape the ship, and try her luck with a breakout on a light vessel, her plan had failed.
Lapchik was dead, and her enemies were burning through the armor separating the bridge from the corridor.
They would be here any moment.
Silri swept a rage-filled gaze over her subordinates, among whom were the five most powerful witches.
Her personal retinue.
Her last hope.
"As soon as they enter here," she hissed, gripping the hilt of her lightwhip, "kill them all."
The only answer was the silent determination in her servants' eyes.
She still had the chance to use a backup plan.
She had sacrificed her battle beast to understand what to expect from her enemies.
And now she was ready.
There was a chance she could defeat this cleanup team and get out of here.
The Dark Side of the Force was with her.
This battle was not yet lost.
Not yet...
* * *
TNH-0333 and Scorch stumbled into the central computer room when Vex, Fixer, and Boss were already unstrapping equipment from its mounts.
"And you didn't hurry," the girl snorted.
"That woman's a paranoid," Scorch complained. "Thirty-two tripwires over fifty square meters. And that's not counting the aerosol nerve agents."
"Find anything?" Boss asked.
"A couple of encrypted crystals. They were in a stash the sergeant found." Scorch nodded toward the flamethrower enthusiast.
"Fixer," the boss called to his deputy, "you'll handle decrypting the trophies?"
"Commander, I wouldn't risk that right now," he said, disconnecting terminals from the central computer's main data bus. "Who knows what else might happen. We barely made it as it is."
"Some kind of problem?" Scorch asked.
"Very big problems," the Twi'lek woman suddenly snarled, packing one of the enemy ship's central computer blocks into a shockproof case. "Some bastard deleted almost all the data from Silri's flagship central computer."
"'Some bastard'?" Scorch repeated.
"Almost all, ma'am?" TNH-0333 clarified.
"I think you know the answer, Six-Two," Fixer replied in a displeased tone, showing the black screen of his datapad. "Had to come up with something on the fly that would give us options..."
"Bastards," Scorch tore his helmet off in fury. "Are they playing their game again?"
"They're Nulls," Boss shrugged. "It would be stupid to think they don't consider everyone around them idiots with an IQ smaller than their shoe size."
"Sir," TNH-0333 addressed the Deltas' commander. "Is the data extraction mission a failure?"
"Not exactly," Boss admitted. "I doubt Silri was hiding the secret of Dathomirian dumpling soup on those crystals you found. And we weren't conceived in a dirty test tube either; we know a thing or two..."
"'We'?" Vex snorted.
"Sorry, ma'am. With your help, we managed to save the central computer from a full format."
"At the cost of my datapad," Fixer said sadly, staring at the black screen of his device. "Everything that was on there..."
"Oh, come on, I'll tell you where to find those feature films with Twi'lek and Zeltron girls," Vex giggled. "No great loss. Be a dear, and I'll introduce you to a couple of my friends..."
Fixer went pale, then red, and looked away.
Boss tried to massage his temples.
Right through his helmet.
"What films?" TNH-0333 didn't understand, looking at each of the Deltas individually.
"Don't worry about it," Scorch slapped him on the shoulder. "Nothing related to military secrets. Fixer just had about two hundred practical training films with an instructor from his GAR service days."
Vex burst out laughing.
"Boys, don't tell me you learned from THOSE kinds of films," she said, still laughing.
Seeing the embarrassed Deltas, she stopped.
"You bantha poodoo, you must be joking," she said quietly.
And only TNH-0333 didn't understand what they were talking about...
* * *
The remains of the metal lock, red-hot and dripping onto the floor in red streams and flakes, didn't fall apart.
The penultimate physical barrier standing between her and the Dominion's forces had fallen.
The lock had been blown out like a cork from a bottle.
Killing two bridge crew members in the process.
Silri didn't even flinch.
The death of some weak-minded beings concerned her the least.
The armored doors slid apart with the crunch of mechanisms and the sparking of wires.
The slaughter was about to begin here.
"Well, hello!" The voice of the being in brown armor interrupted her train of thought. "I've come to you all with a greeting. To tell you your armada has fallen. I'll twist your necks to the right if you don't surrender."
"Clearly got problems with the rhyme," Silri muttered, flexing her wrists before the fight.
There were three beings on the bridge.
A young, sturdy man, looking at everyone around him as if they were already dead.
A humanoid in armor covered in dozens, if not a hundred, scratches, burns, and cuts.
And...
"Magash Drashi," Silri addressed the witch with evident pleasure. "I didn't think you were stupid enough to come here."
"Bitch named Silri," the former puppet replied in the same tone, igniting her lightsaber. "Surprised you haven't tucked tail and run yet. How'd you like the show with your Lapchik being butchered?"
Silri felt a stab of rage but managed to keep her emotions under control.
Not yet.
Instead, she waved her hand.
"Now you're finished..."
Her words were cut off by the booming crash of the last armored door slamming back into place, cutting off those present from the corridor.
The figure in armor turned and looked curiously at the shiny, almost mirror-like metal.
"Hm... Isn't that a bit much mirror?" he asked.
"Your jokes won't help you," Silri said. "It's an alloy of beskar and ultrachrome."
"Two fairly strong metals, capable of withstanding even a turbolaser," the humanoid identified instantly. "Not bad."
"And they easily withstand a lightsaber too," Silri smiled, nodding her head to command her five witches to take the enemy in a semicircle. "Surrender, and I'll spare you."
The only way to get out of here was to take hostages.
Not exactly a reasonable option, but the only one available.
"Did you get concussed or something?" asked the humanoid in armor, shedding the remnants of tatters that had once been a cloak.
His voice was a mix of anger, disgust, and bitterness.
"How can you be so stupid?" he asked.
"Boy, do you have trouble with arithmetic? Here are six of the most powerful Dathomirian witches from the Nightsisters clan," Silri introduced herself and her five underlings. "There are only three of you. And I have three dozen crew members at my disposal. You have no chance. Then again, the three of you are obvious idiots. Didn't it occur to you that you were walking straight into a trap?"
"Seriously?" the humanoid in armor asked, cracking his neck with a movement of his head. "And here I was wondering why we were getting such a warm welcome. Though, the doorman in Lapchik was pretty lousy."
"You're stalling for time," Silri determined. "But it won't work. You can't win here, and you can't wait for help. My sisters made three of your strongest warriors in black weep like children and flee in disgrace. You're not fit to lick their boots."
"I categorically refuse to be under anyone's heel," the humanoid said with a sigh. "I am a Protector-Jensaarai from the order of the same name. My name, by the way, is Fodeum Sabre De'Luz."
The Dathomirian witch was barely noticeably flustered.
"Hidden followers of the truth?" Silri was surprised. "The Jedi destroyed you years ago!"
"Then I've got news for you — pretty soon ghosts are going to kick your ass," this... interesting Fodeum promised.
"'P... prayed on his lightsaber'?" she translated from the ancient Sith language.
She did omit the swear word that came in the form of a verb.
Prayed... But only more roughly.
"I knew that story was no secret to anyone," came a heavy sigh from Fodeum's side. "It happened once! What, now every random person I meet is going to bring it up for the rest of my life?"
"Did you really lose your lightsaber?" Gantoris clarified.
"It happened."
"And what about 'Your weapon is your life!'?" Magash Drashi asked caustically.
"Here we go..." Fodeum groaned.
"Clowns!" Silri barked. "That's what your surname translates to in the ancient Sith language!"
The man froze, as if...
As if hearing it for the first time.
"Well, mommy," came a heavy panting from under the helmet. "I'll remember this surname change... So what, there's a family curse on me or something?"
"Are you really warriors?" Silri asked.
"Cross my heart."
"Looks more like a band of circus-frauds," Silri admitted, finishing warming up her hands.
Harvest time had come.
But just as she was about to activate her lightwhip, the Force stirred, and one of her witches, who had been laughing at the loser, was involuntarily yanked forward, toward the enemy.
Magash Drashi, leaping up, spectacularly decapitated the Dathomirian, contemptuously kicking her head into the hands of another of Silri's supporters.
"Are we talking or fighting?" Magash's eyes blazed with amber fire, and her hands clenched the cylinder of her lightsaber.
With a hiss, the weapons of the leader of the Zann Consortium and her supporters activated.
"Thought you'd never ask," Silri bared her teeth, launching into an attack on her enemies and delivering the first strike.
Silri attacks.
* * *
"Sir," Lieutenant Colonel Tierce was all tact and punctuality. "The capture of enemy ships is complete."
"Results?" I asked.
"Ten Nebulon-B escort frigates, twenty-two Crusader II-class corvettes, nine combat-capable Keldabe II-class battleships," Tierce replied. "The remaining ships are heavily damaged. Mon Calamari technology has been destroyed."
"Prisoners?"
"The vast majority are Bothans from the Bothawui Defense Forces," Grodin said.
I noted Dia Passik's carefully concealed interest.
"Involve counterintelligence," I said. "By the time we leave the Karthakk sector, I want full information regarding their mission and their value for potential prisoner exchange."
"Yes, sir."
"Silri's flagship?"
"Boarding parties are defending themselves," Tierce reported. "Wounded Shadow Guards and the central computer have been evacuated. General Cain is requesting reinforcement from 501st Corps units to complete combat operations on the ship."
"Permission granted," I replied.
Grodin sent the order through his personal datapad.
"Any information on casualties among the boarding parties?"
"Shadow Guard Stryn is dead," the adjutant said.
So fate had not been so merciful to the former geological surveyor as it had been in the events I knew of.
A great loss.
The Shadow Guard wasn't large enough to turn a blind eye to the loss of even one being.
Doubly unfortunate that Stryn had been the hope for being able to counter Palpatine's Force Storm.
This battle had disrupted more of my plans than all of the New Republic's actions in the past year.
A clear difference between fighting a state and fighting criminal organizations.
The former are bound by laws, humanity, internal and external political advantages.
The latter do what is necessary to survive.
"Has Major Kreb returned from his mission?" I asked, this time addressing Pellaeon.
The Guardian's commander needed only a few seconds to check the information.
"Yes, sir. Avenger Squadron has returned from its sortie in full strength," he reported. "Major Kreb sustained shrapnel wounds to the left side of his body."
"Severity?"
"Penetrating soft tissue wounds. Vital organs unaffected. He administered first aid himself. There are symptoms of hypothermia, but the medical bay has already reported he won't even need a bacta tank. A few injections of kolto and he'll be good as new. Two days of bed rest are recommended."
Looking at Dia Passik, I said:
"Are you ready for the meeting and conversation?"
The young woman looked away.
"I'd like to watch the battle to the end."
"As you wish," I didn't argue.
And I wasn't going to point out that the battle was practically over — there was simply no need.
I understood her character.
She wouldn't back out of our agreement.
It was just that she needed to muster the resolve for a heart-to-heart talk.
Well, I wasn't rushing.
Sooner or later, it would happen.
And since the situation was under my personal control, it would happen precisely on schedule.
There was no more time to delay.
The meeting with Passik, who looked so much like her sister Tia, had clearly played a nasty trick on the major's effectiveness.
As predicted.
Now it was time for the cure.
I had no intention of losing Kreb.
In a situation where I would most likely have to hand over Baron Fel to Eric Shohashi's idea of justice, I had no intention of missing the opportunity to grow a replacement for him in advance.
* * *
Gantoris lunged forward, rolling to the side at the last second as the sinuous lightwhip carved a deep furrow where he had stood.
Springing to his feet, he saw one of the Dathomirian witches already charging at him, preparing to strike with what was clearly a captured Jedi blade.
And in her other hand, she held a Dathomirian blade emitting a green haze.
Interesting.
Gantoris activated his sword and assumed the stance of the third form of fencing.
Truth be told, it was the only thing he knew from Soresu.
His style was Djem So, the sixth style of fencing.
Thanks to his size and physical power, he could easily unleash a hail of blows on his opponent.
A teacher had once told him that because of his build and physical strength, many inexperienced observers would think he was using a faster style, like Soresu.
Or Ataru.
But the native of Eol Sha wasn't particularly acrobatic, so he spent time imitating Soresu.
And his opponent fell for the trap.
She started moving to the left of his blade tip, intending to strike from the side.
Smirking, Gantoris moved his weapon to the side, running his finger over the additional elements on the tiny control panel of his weapon.
In an instant, the blade length of his lightsaber tripled, piercing the witch through.
Her shocked look was full of despair and panic as the crimson blade pierced her heart, and a twist of his hand evaporated it entirely.
Deactivating the blade extension, Gantoris attacked his second opponent in his usual style.
* * *
Fodeum attacked at the very moment Silri decided to take Gantoris out of the fight.
He had no previous experience countering a lightwhip, but he was familiar with physics and had decent training in handling the Force.
That was precisely why he hadn't even tried to use his full potential in the fight with the ranchor.
The weapon came to life, and he turned in time to block a lightsaber attack on the return.
A second Dathomirian witch rushed at him, trying to strike while he was distracted by the fight with Silri.
Fodeum sank deeper into the Force.
He counterattacked, slashing upward at the second opponent's legs.
She parried the blow, their blades meeting with sparks and a hum.
Almost unconsciously, Fodeum broke contact, dodging a strike from a green blade aimed at his side.
A swift flurry forced him to retreat.
The man executed a feint, gathering himself to attack, and took a step back, creating enough open space between them.
He had exactly enough time to extend his hand toward an unsuspecting witch who was attacking Magash from the left flank.
Seizing her with the Force, he hurled her into the group of enemy specialists with such force that it swept them all into the "pit."
And his left flank became a little easier.
The stunned witch almost immediately began to crawl back, but Magash, seizing the moment, hit her with a Force Lightning.
A scream of pain rang out across the bridge and was cut short as Drashi's crimson blade decapitated the woman, along with everyone standing near the doomed witch.
Fodeum barely registered their deaths before his enemy was already upon the Protector-Jensaarai.
The witch was weaker than him, but grief and rage filled her with enough strength to push back a much larger and more skilled opponent with a series of brutal and desperate strikes.
Stumbling back, Fodeum was too distracted by Magash's actions as she dodged attacks, and didn't notice in time when Silri struck him with her lightwhip.
The young man recoiled, but the tip of the enemy weapon carved a considerable mark across his armor.
Though the whip itself went out as well.
The second witch, acting under the cover of this attack, was dumbfounded, trying to understand what was happening.
Fodeum explained.
With a discharge of crackling blue lightning.
At the last second, she twisted and caught the potentially fatal discharge with her lightsaber blade, absorbing its energy.
It was more of an instinct, a last resort, which made her vulnerable to one swift thrust from Fodeum.
From her dumbfounded expression, it was clear she had never encountered cortosis before.
But that didn't stop her from pulling herself together.
Fodeum's weapon flashed before the Dathomirian's eyes, but his blade wasn't fast enough to blind her.
Silri's henchwoman retreated, desperately parrying blows.
Fodeum pressed her, crushing her with his superiority, and would have finished it, but a blaster bolt embedded itself in his armor.
The cortosis coating was starting to fail under such intense fire, and that was a problem.
If he ignored the shooters, he could lose his reliable protection.
So Fodeum did a backflip over his head, adding momentum with a Force Push that sent his opponent flying straight into the marksmen.
Jensaarai, assessing the situation, rushed left.
Magash had just dodged her own opponent's thrust, sensed his approach, and leaped to the side.
Then she immediately charged the marksmen, hacking them into bloody mince while dodging the strikes from Silri's activated whip.
The Dathomirian witch, not having grasped the reason for the enemy swap, was taken aback by such audacity, but quickly regained her bearings.
Not that it helped her much, though.
Fodeum used the Force to gather several nearby debris fragments and hurled them at his opponent, mimicking simple, well-known Force techniques.
But the acceleration he imparted to the fragments turned out to be a big surprise for her.
She sliced through the large chunks and deflected them away, but the smaller ones embedded themselves in her left arm, causing the sword imbued with Dathomirian magic to fall to the deck and stop glowing.
Fodeum had achieved what he wanted.
The man sprinted, pushed off a control panel, soared up above his opponent, and struck her from above with his blade, feigning a desire to cut her down.
The witch raised her own weapon to block, which she obviously managed to do.
But the moment he landed behind her, Fodeum dropped to the deck on his chest and hands, letting Silri's fiery whip pass over him.
As soon as the danger passed, he straightened up, kicking his first opponent in the back and sending her flying away from him.
Immediately after, he used the Force to yank her back.
And the sword slid along the neck of the helpless enemy.
For a few more moments, the decapitated torso remained upright.
The charred edges of the body, where the head had just been, continued to emit a wisp of smoke.
Then it toppled forward and rolled into the pit.
"Engage him!" Silri shouted, shoving the very Dathomirian woman Fodeum had thrown away before the enemy swap towards him. "I'll deal with this trash myself!"
By the last, she clearly meant Magash, who had finished her local genocide of specialists.
"Gantoris!" he called out to his student, pointing at the need to help Drashi.
But the native of Eol Sha had his own problems.
His right arm was cut in two places, and a greenish smoke rose from one of the wounds.
Working with his left, non-dominant hand, the student was holding back the furious barrage of attacks from his opponent.
The mage, for her part, was holding her own fairly well against Silri's strikes and thrusts, so there was time.
Not much, but it was something.
Fodeum struck the witch with Force Lightning, but she easily defended with her lightsaber.
Though the bright discharges blinded her.
And her second blade missed its target.
Fodeum drove his lightsaber into the tattooed woman's chest and jerked it upward, splitting her from chest to crown.
Silri shot him a venomous glare.
"I'll finish her!" Magash's cry rang out, more like a howl. "You'll pay for everything, you monster!"
The girl threw herself at Silri with a soul-chilling scream.
Fodeum prepared to attack her from the side, but at that moment he heard a quiet gasp of surprise.
Gantoris stood staring at the greenish blade protruding from his back, in the area of his lung.
The witch standing behind him cast Fodeum a vengeful look, then unexpectedly dissolved into thin air.
"Banta poodoo!" the Jensaarai snarled, lunging forward. "They're invisible too!"
There was nothing new in this trick.
Fodeum knew of such a technique; even Magash had said that with Dathomirian magic, the witches could become invisible for a time.
Invisible.
But not intangible.
And that was exactly what he was counting on.
The man gathered his rage in his left hand and released a torrent of Force Lightning before him.
At first, he didn't notice, but then a human silhouette appeared slightly to his side.
And a second later, the very same witch came into view, screaming in agony.
Fodeum was beside her in a single lunge.
Then, mechanically noting that the lady was actually quite attractive, he drove his blade, burning with impatience, into her without a shred of regret.
With a practiced motion, he spun on the spot and split the opponent's body in half.
And he saw before him, a few meters away, Silri, whose light whip was lashing out for another attack.
Magash knelt before her, staring ahead with huge eyes, her fingers touching the hole burned through her throat by the light whip.
Fodeum scooped up debris and hurled it at Silri.
But before they reached their target, the light whip coiled around Drashi's neck.
The Dathomirian, who had dreamed of destroying Silri for her betrayal, looked fearfully at her teacher, who had accelerated with the Force but was still moving too slowly to prevent the irreversible.
Silri met his gaze, silently yanking the hand with the light whip toward herself.
Magash's head, with eyes terrified with horror and a mouth rounded in a silent scream, separated from her body and soared upward.
With a Force Push, Silri sent it flying so that the head landed in Fodeum's hands.
The Jensaarai stopped, staring into his student's face, completely ignoring the fact that Silri was now ten meters away, having retreated to the central platform before the main viewports.
Fodeum looked into the dead eyes of his student, and he shook with rage.
His student...
His contribution to the development of the Jensaarai...
His friend, though a wayward one...
Dead.
He hadn't made it in time.
He had misjudged the enemy.
He shouldn't have sent her so close to Silri.
The girl couldn't control her emotions and decided to kill the experienced witch on her own.
"The failures of students are the failures of teachers."
"You failed—she died."
"You couldn't handle it."
"You are weak."
Fodeum had heard this whisper before.
He knew its source.
The flame in his chest was raging out of control.
Like molten metal, it poured through his veins, heightening adrenaline, sharpening senses, casting aside the instinct for self-preservation.
"You pitiful insects, did you really think you could defeat me?" Silri laughed. "I killed the guards of Emperor Palpatine's treasure vault on Coruscant! And they were ten times stronger than you wretched half-breeds! I've changed my mind—I'll cripple you both here and make you my slaves! You will serve me! You will become my agents inside the Dominion! While I'm in prison, you will do everything for me..."
Fodeum felt a lump of life throbbing in agony nearby.
He slowly turned his head, meeting Gantoris's gaze.
On his face, distorted with pain and splattered with blood, agony was visible.
Barely contained pain.
The native of Eol Sha collapsed to his knees beside one of the consoles, trying to patch his wound.
But he was looking at Fodeum.
He couldn't see his eyes behind the visor of his armor, but he clearly knew the teacher was looking at him.
The student's lips, from whose eyes tears of grief for the slain student flowed, formed a clearly readable phrase.
"Tear her apart, teacher!"
Fodeum felt the last locks of his consciousness give way.
The flame in his chest evolved into a thermonuclear reactor running at full capacity.
A supernova was born.
"And while you're locked in here with me, I'll do to you what will turn you into my servants... I'll show you true horror..."
"Locked in here with you?" Fodeum asked quietly but imperiously, gently placing the head of his fallen student on the floor. "No, Silri, you're wrong..."
"Teacher!" Gantoris, overcoming the pain, threw him some oblong object.
Fodeum easily caught his student's lightsaber and activated it alongside his own, crossing them before him.
"You have locked yourself in here with me, Silri," were the last words spoken by the Jensaarai protector, Fodeum Sabre De'Luz. "And now I WILL SHOW YOU WHAT HORROR IS!"
The supernova in his chest exploded, incinerating the last remnants of humanity and self-control.
The Dark Side of the Force had triumphed.