Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance (53 page)

Darth
Chratis rallied with a series of bold, vicious strikes that cost
Shigar the ground he had made, and more. He struck back only with his
blade, knowing that he would lose if the duel descended into a free-
for-all of telekinesis and other Force powers. That was inevitable.
His only hope lay in Darth Chratis making an early mistake, giving
Shigar an edge. Even then, it was going to be hard. Sith didn't die
easily.

Neither
do Jedi, he told himself, even as sweat trickled into his eyes and he
tossed his helmet away, the better to fight unhindered.

"You
are growing weary, " said the Sith Lord. "Your resolve is
weakening. I can feel it. You know that you will never beat me this
way. Your only hope is to reach into your heart for the anger that we
both know is there. "

"Anger
will never rule me. "

"Think
of the Grand Master. Think of your homeworld and all who died there.
Tell yourself that I killed them, and seek the strength that
knowledge brings. "

"You
had nothing to do with Kiffu. "

"Didn't
I?"

Shigar
fought on, matching Darth Chratis blow for blow. The red blade took
three centimeters off his braid. He scored a line across the Sith's
right shoulder.

"You
cannot fight without the dark side. "

Shigar
silenced his thoughts and feelings. He was only the blade. He was
only the Force.

"You
cannot win without the dark side. "

Darth
Chratis sent a wave of lightning across the gap between them. Shigar
tried to catch it with his lightsaber. The shock coursed up the
blade, into the hilt, and from there into his right arm. It burned
like acid, much more powerful and insidious than the blast Eldon Ax
had hit him with on Hutta. It didn't just hurt. It ate at his
resolve, telling him to fight fire with fire, to use the Sith Lord's
own weapons against him in defiance of his own Master's advice. If he
didn't, he would surely die.

Shigar
fell to his knees, the beginnings of a scream whistling through his
clenched teeth.

Why
didn't she warn you? The whisper of doubt in his mind had a voice
now. Your Muster is famous for seeing the future, so why didn't she
tell you this lay ahead of you?

Because
there was nothing she could do about it. That's why. Her teachings
are weaker than those of the Sith, and she knows it. She knows that
the Jedi will lose the war that's inevitably coming. She knows the
Emperor will win. By keeping this secret from you, she has killed
you.

She
lied to you, just as the High Council has lied to you. They don't
care about justice. They are corrupt and weak.

All
you have to do is turn your back on them, and you will live.

Darth
Chratis's lightning passed through Shigar's body and down to his left
hand. There it concentrated into a ball, blindingly bright. Waiting
to be set free.

Strike
me, said the voice, and rise up again, stronger than ever before.

"Die,
" said Shigar in a voice that didn't sound like his own. "Die!"

When
he raised his hand, Darth Chratis wasn't even looking at him. The
Sith Lord's attention had been captured by a shadow that had fallen
across them. The thing that had cast it was enormous and bulbous,
like a fist as big as a city rising slowly out of the lake. Lava
dripped from it like water.

Such
was his shock that the Sith lightning concentrated in Shigar's left
hand fizzled out. The rest went with it, along with the pain. Shigar
understood then, with piercing clarity, that he had been the source
of all of it, ever since Darth Chratis's initial lightning strike.
The voice whispering in his mind-and the doubts it had expressed-had
been none other than his own.

His
lightsaber lay in blackened pieces at his feet. His suit stank of
smoke.

He
stood up. The thing from the lake towered over them, no longer
rising, just looming, blocking out the sky. The noise it made was
deep and resonant, like the song of a deep-sea mammal. It sounded
like a summons, offered in the language of worlds.

A
small silver dot moved across the sky: Stryver's scout. Beyond that
hung the brilliant constellations of the combined fleets. Flashes of
light danced among them, indicating that they were returning fire.
Shigar couldn't tell if they were firing at the hexes or one another.

He
looked down at his hands. His gloves were burned right through, but
his fingers and palms were undamaged.

This
is the path laid down for you, said Master Satele into his mind. They
were the same words she had used on Coruscant.

Shigar
almost wept with commingled triumph and despair. She was alive, but
where did that leave him? Was he tainted by the dark side even though
he hadn't actually struck out at Darth Chratis? Had Master Satele
truly known all along that it would come to this, and never warned
him?

Again
he thought of Larin, telling him that he was lucky for being lifted
out of obscurity to train for the Jedi Order. He had even believed
her, and found strength in the knowledge that his Master and the High
Council would endure. Whatever happens today, you'll go back to the
life you know.

Not
anymore.

The
galaxy is painted in black and white, he realized, feeling the truth
and certainty of it deep in every bone. But from far enough away, it
all looks gray.

CHAPTER
40

Thick
red currents pulled Ax irresistibly downward, tumbling her like a red
blood cell in a heart attack. Master Satele gripped her wrist so
tightly she feared her bones might break, and she gripped the Jedi
back just as hard. She could see nothing but her heads-up display and
hear nothing but alarms. The precise specifications of the Republic
armored environment suit were unknown to her, but she imagined its
cooling systems screaming as they tried to radiate the excess heat,
only to be overwhelmed and fail.

She
waited, but that didn't happen. They were tumbling just as violently
as before, but she wasn't getting any hotter.

Instead,
a strange feeling came over her, a feeling that was neither entirely
physical nor entirely psychic. For all the battering and pummeling
going on, she wasn't in any immediate danger of being crushed or
burned. The fluid just looked like lava. She wasn't being drowned.
Tasted, perhaps? Or embraced... ?

A
powerful urge to swim overcame her, but not to reach the surface.
There was something in the lake with them, something that wanted her
to come closer. She began to kick and struggle against the current.
Master Satele was a deadweight until she divined Ax's intention and
joined in the effort. They wriggled through the thick, red mass, body
length by painful body length, occasionally striking solid objects
being swept along with the flow. Some clutched at her, but Ax
couldn't tell if they were people or hexes, or an entirely new
manifestation of the Sebaddon phenomenon. Instead of stopping, she
swam on, following the only compass she had: her gut.

Her
questing fingers found something hard and stable submerged in the
lava-like liquid. It was smooth and slightly curved, like the side of
a submarine. She and Master Shan explored it, looking for a way in.
They found extrusions that might have been antennas, cannons, and
sublight drives.

A
ship. That was where she was supposed to go. Something inside had
brought her here.

Satele
Shan pulled her closer, touched faceplates. The red liquid parted
just enough for Ax to glimpse the Grand Master's private universe.
Her face was drawn but composed.

"Air
lock, " she said. "This way. "

"Do
you think it'll work in this stuff?"

"There's
only one way to find out. "

They
pulled apart, and Master Satele guided her hand to the panel she had
found. The controls were instantly recognizable. Ax had seen them on
thousands of ships. Thousands of Imperial ships.

She
pushed the top button: OPEN. A sudden current swept them closer as
the empty chamber sucked in fluid. When the door was completely open,
they swam inside and fumbled for the interior controls.

The
door slid silently shut, leaving the unceasing turbulence of the
fluid outside behind them. Ax floated in silence for a moment,
grateful for the respite, the chance to think. Where were they? What
was she doing? What had brought her here? She should be swimming for
the surface, not exploring sunken artifacts while the rest of the
mission fought around her.

"Are
you going to open the inner door?" asked Master Satele, pressing
close again.

Of
course she was. She'd come too far to turn back. Her instincts tugged
her on, despite her misgivings.

When
she touched the CYCLE button, pumps in the walls strained to drain
the fluid away. Weight returned, along with light and air. They
finally Jet each other go. Ax wiped her faceplate clear, and she saw
Master Satele doing the same. In the midst of such strangeness, she
looked as small as Ax herself. She was glad she wasn't alone.

The
inner door opened, revealing a stock-standard ship's corridor,
scuffed and dusty with age. Ax stepped out of the puddle left in the
air lock and put her dripping feet gratefully on a dry surface. She
checked her HUD. The air was fine. Cracking the seal on her helmet,
she swung the faceplate open.

All
she smelled was blood.

Master
Satele stepped up beside her with her faceplate open, too. "Any
idea whose ship this is?"

Ax
kept her thoughts to herself for the moment. She walked along the
corridor to the first intersection, mentally plotting the layout. If
this was a light cruiser, she decided, the command deck would be to
the right, holds to the left, crew quarters down the first ladder,
and engineering ahead. She chose to go right, and was rewarded with
success. The command deck was small, but felt spacious for being so
empty. No instrument panels glowed. No holoprojectors projected. The
only signs of life were the lights shining down from above.

"Generator's
clearly functional, " said Master Satele, "but the control
systems have been disconnected. If you're thinking of getting off
Sebaddon in this thing, you can forget about it. "

The
floor shook beneath them, and Ax was reminded that, although the
fluid that had engulfed them hadn't been lava, they were still
standing on top of a giant geothermal drilling site, on a world whose
skin was about as stable as a water balloon's.

The
ship rattled and creaked around them. The echoing of its many
complaints sounded like a voice, gradually fading into silence.

"Comms
are blocked by the hull, " Master Satele went on. "That
wouldn't have been part of the ship's original design. "

"They
never intended to go anywhere, " Ax said, "or to talk to
anyone. I bet this is Lema Xandret's ship. "

Master
Satele looked around. "No artwork, no personalized touches, no
signs of home. How can you tell?"

"There's
a freight air lock aft, " Ax said, avoiding the question. They
headed back the way they had come. "Let's see what's through
there. "

On
the way they passed row after row of empty rooms, confirming Ax's
feeling that the ship had been abandoned. Xandret and the other
fugitives had stripped everything useful or personal and moved it
elsewhere. Maybe the ship reminded them too much of what they had
left behind; maybe they had built more comfortable quarters
elsewhere. Perhaps they had kept it as a memento mori, as a symbol of
their isolation and abandonment, and never intended to use it again.
When they had returned to the galaxy, they had used a different ship
entirely, one they had built themselves.

Nowhere
in Imperial records, Ax realized, was the name of this ship recorded.
Unless she found a survivor, or some kind of record, she might never
learn it. That hole in her mother's history bothered her as they
walked and climbed through the ship. She knew it meant nothing,
really, and that sticking on this point was a kind of self-defense
against the much wider holes that might soon be filled in. But she
couldn't help wondering what it had been like to live with the rock-
solid reminder of your betrayal constantly at hand. Maddening,
probably.

The
aft freight air lock was twice as large as the one they had come
through on the port side. It was open, a tubular umbilical leading to
spaces unknown. The tube swayed and rocked uncertainly under the
influence of the fluid around it.