Twist of Fate/Part 8

The next day was a bustle of activity, and Tirien felt a new current of enthusiasm sweep Gizer Battlestation as news of the accord spread. Soldiers had a new spring in their step, and Narasi radiated so much pride that Tirien might have been promoted to Jedi Master. The Pantoran Knight himself found it difficult to share their excitement. He wondered if he had gone too far afield from what the Council wanted, but even then he wasn't sure that was the source of his disquiet. Something was nagging him, but he couldn't put a name to it. He tried to banish the fear; second-guessing was not the Jedi way.

He and Narasi were escorted down to the core of the battlestation again at lunchtime, but this time they ascended to the pole of the sphere, where they found a transparisteel-topped cruciform concourse that had been transformed into an assembly space. Bridges connected the central hub to three of its spokes, and far below Tirien saw a darkened service area. There were seats for guests and dignitaries in the last spoke, facing an open pavilion where a lunch table was lavishly set. An enormous copy of the accord was on a pedestal behind the table. A multi-species band was doing a sound check on the far side.

"Fancy," Narasi remarked.

"Ostentatious," Tirien replied quietly. "But ceremony and ritual can be important."

He led Narasi to the front row, where Rhosa and Jylo sat side-by-side. The Togruta raised a hand with a neutral expression, but Rhosa looked suddenly and profoundly relieved, as if she had been in pain and it had just dissipated.

"Oh, thank the Force, I thought it was just me," she said as Tirien sat beside her. She took his hand, and he caught a hint of telepathic disquiet from the contact.

They were on the same screen in an instant; as soon as she spoke, Tirien's misgivings returned. He might have dismissed them alone, but he saw in her dark eyes that they were sharing an unease, a subtle feeling of wrongness.

"Rhosa's concerned," Jylo explained, "but I don't sense anything."

"I don't know what it is," Tirien answered slowly, "but she's right. I have a bad feeling about this."

He felt Narasi tensing on his other side and raised a hand to still her. Jylo sighed. "You're just stressed, Rhosa…"

"I'm not," Rhosa said, looking a little hurt at the dismissal. "Is Tirien 'just stressed' too?"

"Probably," the Togruta insisted, without looking away from Rhosa. "He's the big Jedi diplomat, he's got a lot riding on this."

Tirien thought he caught a hint of dislike in the other Jedi's tone, but he didn't spare it any attention. Ignoring Jylo, he asked Rhosa, "Do you have a sense of what it is?"

"No," Rhosa admitted. "I'm just worried. This accord is important, I don't want it to fall through."

"Rhosa, we already—" Jylo stopped, looking at Tirien and Narasi. "You told Master Shadeez, and we've taken steps…"

"We sent the others back to the Crusader," Rhosa explained, ignoring Jylo's sigh of annoyance. "Our Padawans will be safe, and Arlya's a good commander if there's an attack—"

"Rhosa!" Jylo hissed, looking around them; various officers and Republic officials were filing into their seats. "You could make this fall through if you start a panic."

Rhosa and Tirien locked eyes, and the Pantoran nodded slowly. "Your comrades are safe, and we're both here. It'll be all right."

She took a deep breath, then nodded, squeezed Tirien's hand, and let it go. She closed her eyes, and Tirien sensed her dropping into a light meditative state. "You're right."

He considered taking a moment to drop into an elementary altus sopor position himself, but he sensed a sudden surge of focus from the guards and saw Admiral Arstyn walking to the dais, wearing his Republic Navy dress uniform. Karr Shadeez approached from the other side. Tirien and Narasi stood as the band played "All Stars Burn as One", then the two men drew out their chairs and sat.

The "ritual" turned out to be little different than a meal. White-garbed servants of a variety of species brought out each course, with a broad spread for Arstyn and a variety of drinks for Shadeez; Tirien gathered it was not worth potentially inhaling fatal oxygen for the Kel Dor to remove his breath mask. Tirien tried to project calm; Narasi was looking around antsily on one side, and Rhosa's closed eyes were dancing beneath their lids on the other.

Eventually a Bith took away Arstyn's desert, and a Mirialan woman brought forth a platter with two goblets and a jug of Gizer ale; Tirien could just see a straw for Shadeez next to one goblet.

"And here we are!" Arstyn announced in his command deck voice, booming through the room. As the server poured his drink, he said, "A toast to the defense of the Republic and the alliance of two noble forces to protect this noble world!"

There was polite applause. At Tirien's side, Rhosa twitched. He and Jylo looked at her, then at one another over her head. The Togruta frowned, and Tirien looked back.

The Mirialan was pouring Shadeez's drink, but she seemed to sense his gaze, because she looked up. Tirien stared at her, the three arrowheads around her left eye striking him as unaccountably sinister. For an instant there was surprised recognition on her face, as if she had just found a credit on the street. Then she smiled, right at him, and his heart sank.

"No!" he breathed, reaching for his lightsaber. At his side, Rhosa's eyes shot open, but it was too late.

The server knocked over Shadeez's goblet, spilling Gizer ale over the table and the Jedi's robes. With a plaintive cry, she said, "Oh, Master Jedi, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to!"

Arstyn cried out, pushing his chair back, but Shadeez reached for the fallen goblet. "That's all right, my dear, it was an acc—"

As he turned away, she reached beneath her white tunic, drew out a lightsaber, and swung the ruby blade as it snap-hissed to life. The blow sliced off Shadeez's breath mask and half his face. He fell back, radiating agony in the Force and instinctively gasping fatal oxygen through what remained of his mouth, as the woman brought her blade back down across Arstyn's chest, opening him from shoulder to hip. Both men fell from their chairs.

The Mirialan turned her gaze back to Tirien, leering, and raised her free hand. Shadeez's lightsaber flipped off his belt and into her grip, and she activated the blue blade. As Tirien got to his feet, she threw the lightsaber, and it spun toward him like a plasma discus.

Tirien reached for the Force, but Rhosa and Jylo were faster. Shooting to their feet, Rhosa Force pushed Tirien and Narasi to the ground while Jylo hurled himself toward the Sith. His blade was already out, and he deflected the whirling lightsaber in midair as he closed for the kill. Its angle altered, Shadeez's lightsaber hurtled toward the crowd.

Getting to a crouch, Tirien extended a hand to Rhosa even as her eyes filled her face. The lightsaber opened her chest cavity from shoulder to shoulder, decapitated an Ithorian behind her, and bisected a Human behind him before it finally dropped to the deckplates.

Tirien caught Rhosa as she fell.

"NO!" Jylo screamed, his multicolored face anguished. "RHOSA!"

He turned on the Sith, and Tirien was distantly aware of the Force blackening as the Togruta closed with the Mirialan. As the room erupted in panicked screams and the shouted orders of soldiers, Tirien lowered Rhosa to the floor, ripping off his robe and pillowing it under her head. She was jerking and choking, blood streaming from her lips.

"Rhosa, stay with me!" he commanded, laying a hand on her shoulder. He tried to channel her healing energy.

Narasi pushed a terrified Aleena out of her way and fell to her knees on Rhosa's other side. Together, they cradled the maimed Omwati between them. "Master, what do we do?!"

"Get a medical droid!" Tirien barked, but he realized immediately no one could hear him over the clamor. Summoning the Force, he bellowed, "MEDICAL DROID!"

Narasi covered her ears and Rhosa coughed enough blood to clear her mouth. Trying to support, her head, Tirien said, "Rhosa, stay—"

"Jylo!" she wheezed.

Tirien looked back. The Togruta had powerful strokes, but the Mirialan was astonishingly agile, dancing around him and checking his assaults again and again. Her white servant's cap had fallen free, and her red hair streamed around her. Tirien looked to Rhosa and back, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Go!" Rhosa managed.

He was no healer; he knew he could not help Rhosa. Wiping her blood off his hand and onto his robe, he told a wide-eyed Narasi, "Try to stop the bleeding!"

Even as he shifted Rhosa onto Narasi's lap, he felt the duel change. The Sith was retreating, deflecting a series of power blows, but as Jylo cried out in fury and brought down a Falling Avalance that would have split the Mirialan in half, she feinted a deflection and then slipped to the side. While Jylo was still on the downswing, she slashed up and shaved the triceps off his sword arm. He screamed, but the Mirialan just stepped casually behind him and stabbed him through the knee, then raised her blade for a killing blow as he fell.

Tirien barely made it. Hurling himself forward with the aid of the Force, igniting his blade in midair, he did not have enough propulsion to end her with a shiak strike through the heart. He just caught the woman's decapitating strike on the edge of his blade; she had enough momentum that she forced Tirien's own blade a few centimeters into Jylo's head-tail, and he collapsing sideways with a choked whimper.

The woman skipped back, bringing her blade to guard. Her violet eyes gleamed malevolently.

"Tirien Kal-Di," she said; her voice was rich, but edged with hate. She brought her free hand up to her saber and tapped a button on her wrist comlink; Tirien half expected the room to explode, but nothing happened that he could see. Distantly, he felt panic and death in the Force, but he could not spare the time to track it.

He stepped over Jylo's twitching form to put himself between them. "And you?"

"Alecto," she answered, working her blade in a slow, baiting infinity arc. "I've been waiting for this."

"You were the shooter on Taanab," he realized, teeth gritted. He had recognized her, but it had come too late for Arstyn and Shadeez. And Rhosa…

"Is that all you remember of me, Kal-Di?" she snarled. "Well, you won't forget me now."

They moved in such perfect unison they might have practiced. Tirien dropped into a natural Makashi stance, his sword hand forward, the rest of his body back, while Alecto came on with a two-handed assault. He checked her first strikes, retaliating with quick stabs to ruin her follow-ups. He lunged at her face and her heart, he cut at her wrists and knees, but nothing connected.

She was light on her feet, and for all the intensity and savagery of her strikes her style was oddly graceful, too. She twisted aside from his lunges easily, forcing Tirien to reorient his combat line. He cut at her legs, but she resisted the bait for a leap, staying grounded and giving way instead to force him to pursue. They dueled off the pavilion and down an aisle in the concourse; civilians were running through the far end.

"Get out of the way, Jedi!" Tirien heard. He sensed soldiers behind him and knew he was in the way of their shot, but he thought the fight would go even worse if he allowed the concourse to become a shooting gallery.

Alecto sprang back to avoid a cut, laughing. "Oh, let them try, Tirien!"

He charged, but she raised a hand, and the Force blew him back off his feet. He rolled up immediately, but even as he rose to one knee he sensed the preparation around him shifting to intent. "No!"

They fired.

Alecto's blade was a shield of red flame, and what she did not reflect she simply dodged. Soldiers died around Tirien as their own returned shots struck them in the face or chest, and the more died, the more easily the Sith parried the attacks of the survivors. Her red hair was a wild mess around her face, but she laughed as she defended herself.

Deflecting a shot she had reflected at him, Tirien got up and pushed the last two soldiers down with the Force. He sprang for Alecto, but she spared him a smirk before turning and running. He crossed a bridge at her heels, throwing a Force Push of his own at her on the run. She fell into an open stretch of ground, but slid on the smooth tiles, rolled up to her feet with the momentum, and spun the rest off in a leaping pirouette strike that Tirien just managed to deflect away from his neck. She threw herself back from his riposte, eyes narrowed.

Tirien circled her slowly, his green blade glowing before his body, trying to predict her escape. There were turbolifts throughout the concourse and who knew what rooms at the far end. Alecto's smile had faded into a glare, and she rushed him.

As Tirien fell back on defense, seeking an opening, he heard running bootsteps on the tiles, and then Narasi was in the mix, cutting at Alecto from the other side. Alecto parried and nearly cut Narasi's arm off; Tirien's lightning-fast lunge forced her to defend at the last second.

"Narasi, get out of it!" he barked, pressing Alecto back with a series of short stabs.

"We can take her, Master!" the Zygerrian insisted. She cut at Alecto's leg when Tirien stabbed high, but the Mirialan raised her leg over the low slash and kicked Narasi in the face. As she tumbled back, Alecto pressed Tirien hard, and he was forced to shift to blocks rather than parries, taking her cuts on the meat of his blade. He caught her in a saber lock; she was slightly shorter, and he tried to bear down on her to force her off-balance. But she pushed both their blades sideways and leapt into a spinning back kick that caught Tirien square in the gut. As he went down, gasping, she turned to Narasi.

The Zygerrian held back this time, forcing Alecto to attack, but she closed with no hesitation at all, and Narasi gave way rapidly, her eyes widening as the Mirialan's blows singed her tunic and came close to her body. In the Force Tirien felt Narasi's fear.

He catapulted himself to his feet, racing across the space; Alecto seemed to sense his approach, because she raised a hand and blasted Narasi back with the Force. Narasi hit the railing at the edge of the concourse so hard she fell backward over it. Dropping her lightsaber to the deck, she just managed to catch hold of the railing, her legs dangling over the long fall.

Tirien slashed at Alecto, but she leaped back out of range. With a casual slash, she cut the corner anchor of the railing, and the metal started to peel away under Narasi's weight. The Zygerrian screamed as the rail bent and she started to slide.

Tirien stretched out his free hand, holding the railing as level as he could with the Force. As Narasi tried to swing her legs up, Alecto began to retreat, grinning. "Save the girl or fight the girl, Tirien? What'll it be?"

She was right and he knew it. Alecto was too good; he could not maintain his hold on the railing and fight her at the same time, and if he committed to the fight, he would have to sacrifice Narasi. They were Jedi, and Jedi were prepared to die for the greater good. But today had already seen Karr Shadeez die and two more Jedi gravely wounded, and killing Alecto would not bring them back.

"Another time, Alecto," he promised, edging closer to Narasi.

She smirked. "I look forward to it."

He glared back. "I won't forget you again."

She winked, then turned and ran for the far edge of the concourse; Tirien saw her return her lightsaber to her belt and leap over the railing, catching a pipe and sliding down out of sight. With a snarl of frustration, he turned to Narasi, using the Force to wrench the railing back from the precipice; it groaned, but not enough to cover a horrible, metallic screech from elsewhere below. Wincing at the din, he caught Narasi by the collar of her tunic and hauled her back to firm ground. She sank to her hands and knees, but Tirien pulled her up to her feet. The Force brought her lightsaber to his hand, and he pressed in into hers.

He raced to the edge of the concourse, looking down, calling on the Force to improve his vision. The remains of a catwalk were visible some thirty meters below; at the end, both the door's metal and the stubs of the catwalk railing still glowed molten orange where it had been lightsabered.

Tirien had a boot on the railing to jump it anyway, but when he forced himself to think objectively, he knew he couldn't follow; Alecto was too thorough to have left him a clear path to her. Turning when he sensed Republic reinforcements closing on them, he pointed down. "Where does the door on that catwalk go?"

The sergeant at the head of the group looked over the railing. "Maintenance corridor, sir. The turbolifts inside run the diameter of the battlestation."

Returning his lightsaber to his belt, he commanded, "Shut them down. Every turbolift on Gizer Battlestation."

"We can't, sir."

"The assassin just went through there!" Tirien insisted. "If she escapes—"

"No—sir, the explosion…"

Tirien remembered Alecto tapping her wrist comm, and the following surge of chaos in the Force. Through gritted teeth, he asked, "What did she destroy?"

"Central Control's reactor, sir. We're effectively blind."

"Backup reactor?"

"Bringing it up now, sir, but it'll take fifteen, twenty minutes. It's programmed to prioritize defense coordination; maintenance systems come up last."

Tirien tried to purge himself of negative emotions, telling himself that it was done. Anger was of the dark side. Vengeance was of the dark side. Grief…

"Two Jedi were injured," he said, eyes snapping open. "What's their status?"

"Unknown, sir," the sergeant replied. "We just arrived ourselves."

"Go help them, the Sith's beyond our reach," he ordered. As they ran back the way they'd come, he rounded on Narasi and demanded, "Rhosa?"

Narasi shook her head, tears starting at the corners of her eyes. "B-By the time the med droid got there…"

Tirien closed his eyes again, turning to lean on the railing. He could feel it, now that he reached into the Force for comfort; he sensed the hollow where she had been. Looking up through the concourse's roof, he remembered her love for the stars. They seemed less bright now.

"Let's go," he said woodenly. "We'll…I'll need to tell the Council I failed."