Moments of Truth/Part 18

Somehow, fighting off nightmares of Lady Hadan, wrestling with a crisis of conscience and loyalty, and keeping one mental ear cone sensitive to whatever catastrophe had so plagued Narasi and Tirien interfered with Zaella's ability to clear her mind. Go figure. By dinner time, Narasi had accepted whatever state her shoulder was in and started trying to teach Gizmo to play fetch; she'd had to go into Marekka to find a ball small enough for him to carry, but too big for him to just swallow. Once, Gizmo had bounded into Tirien's lap in pursuit of the ball, and he had snapped out of his own meditative trance; after watching Narasi's progress for a while, apparently more bemusedly fascinated than annoyed, he had sealed himself in the cockpit for some peace and quiet.

Zaella watched her friend (there really was no denying it now) at work until a sudden, frantic rapping rang through the ship; someone was knocking on the raised ramp. Narasi got her feet under her, but Zaella waved her down. "I'll get it. Maybe if they see me they'll skip to the point."

"Be nice!"

Zaella hit the ramp button, and it lowered to reveal Jirdo Yushari.

"You!" she snarled, and she didn't have to reach for hatred to empower her; it came without even being called. Thrusting a hand out, she ripped her lightsaber off Narasi's belt before Narasi could even try to stop her. When the familiar hilt smacked into her palm, Zaella activated the crimson blade and raised it to guard in one move. "I'll kill you!"

"Wait wait wait!" Jirdo cried, raising his hands. "I surrender! I come in peace!"

Narasi bolted to her side; for a second Zaella feared she would put herself between them, but when she saw Jirdo, Narasi bared her fangs and drew her own blade. Zaella felt a swell of affection for her as Narasi snapped, "Drop the lightsaber!"

"Okay, okay! Take it easy!  Don't kill me!" Jirdo unclipped his lightsaber from his belt with two fingers and dropped it to the ground. Before it could land, Narasi pulled it into her hand with the Force.

"What's going—?" Tirien started as he strolled around the corner. When he looked down the ramp, though, his face hardened. "I see."

"I surrender," Jirdo repeated. "I'm unarmed. Please, I need your help."

"Our help?" Narasi hissed. "If you haven't figured it out yet, you're the bad guy here; these people need help from you."

"I know," Jirdo said. "I know, I get it. It all got so out of control…"

Zaella glanced to the side, keeping Jirdo in her peripheral vision. "It's a trick. Let me gut him and we'll be one down for sure."

"It's not a trick!" Jirdo said. "I need your help!"

Tirien narrowed his eyes; Zaella sensed him doing something in the Force. He said, "Come aboard, but consider yourself a prisoner. If you try to harm us, I will let Zaella cut your throat."

Jirdo swallowed, giving Zaella a nervous glance, but nodded. "Got it."

Zaella deactivated her lightsaber, but she pointed the hilt at Jirdo as he came up the ramp. Narasi backed away to lead him in, a hilt in each hand. Tirien did not bother with weapons, but the way he had beaten off Maia's attacks, Zaella figured he didn't need any for this idiot. The dark side demanded Jirdo's life; even as she thought of it she pictured stabbing him through the throat and watching him choke on his own blood. She suppressed the urge, but when she sealed the ramp behind him and he flinched, she couldn't help but grin.

"Sit," Tirien said, pointing to the deck.

Jirdo sat and cleared his throat. "I…uh…you have a gizka."

"Touch the gizka and I'll cut your arms off," Zaella growled.

Narasi smirked as Jirdo raised his hands. "Sorry! I just—"

"Why don't you skip to the part about needing help?" Tirien suggested.

Jirdo gave Zaella one nervous glance over his shoulder, then focused on Tirien. "Right. Okay…okay, look.  It's Maia.  I think she's in danger."

"She came here and unleashed the dark side on this village," Tirien answered. "She is in danger. I nearly killed her myself."

"I'm not talking about you! It's…this has all gotten way out of hand.  I never meant for it to be like this—none of us did…"  Jirdo stopped, tugging at his scraggly beard, and sighed. "No, that's not true. Bras did—or if he didn't, he's not unhappy about it.  He was always…this is how he'd have done it all along…"

Tirien crossed his arms and sighed. "Let's back up. You told us you were Jedi Knights.  There's some element of truth in the lie there for Maia.  Fill in the gaps for me."

Combing his trembling fingers through his hair, Jirdo said, "Maia was a Padawan. I don't know who her master was; she never wanted to talk about it.  But her master died in some fight—against the Sith, I think, but I'm not sure—and Maia didn't want to go to Coruscant."

"Disillusioned?"

"More…lost, I think. She didn't know what she was supposed to do.  Not the procedure, but, like…she wasn't sure what her destiny was anymore."

Narasi, who had moved to stand in front of Gizmo's cupboard even as the gizka peeked at Jirdo through her legs, asked, "What about you? Were you a Padawan?"

Jirdo shook his head. "Medical Corps. I—"

"You're Service Corps?" Narasi demanded. Zaella wasn't sure what it meant, but Narasi's tone gave her a good idea. "And you were pretending to be a Knight?"

"The Service Corps's important!" Jirdo had found some semblance of a backbone. "I'm a Jedi too!"

"You were a Jedi." Zaella found herself enjoying Tirien's calm-but-cold voice directed at someone else. "You abandoned any right to that title through what you've done here."

Jirdo clutched his head again. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess…"

"How did you find Maia?"

"She found me. I was on a relief mission way down the Corellian Run, but we got hit by a pirate attack and everybody else got killed.  She and Bras were already together; they picked me up."

"Was Bras a Jedi?" Narasi asked.

"He said he was a Padawan like Maia…" Jirdo shook his head. "We couldn't prove him wrong, but I'm sure he was lying. If I had to guess, he was a Sith apprentice and his master died—or Bras killed him.  Either way, they were already a team; I just joined in."

"And decided to come conquer Guudria?" Zaella asked.

"Maia and Bras already knew about it, so I came here with them. They said the Guudrians were in danger from the Sith, but it was too far away for anybody to care.  Maia said it was her destiny to defeat the Sith threat, and when she found Bras she knew where she had to go.  They both said we could take over, keep the planet safe, and be in charge—it seemed like an out-of-the-way little place for us.  We could be Jedi Lords, like the Tapani."

Zaella rolled her eyes. Tirien asked, "What happened when you arrived?"

"We…we set up shop, got the Guudrians in line. Bras wanted to conquer, but Maia came up with the idea of giving them tech and telling them about the Sith…"

"Whose idea was it to take hostages for Maia's guard?" Narasi asked.

"Maia's. She said if they all felt like they had a stake in—"

"And the fake religion?" Zaella interrupted.

"That was me," Jirdo admitted. "I was always really good at meditation when I was a kid; I visited a bunch of shrines with the Medical Corps."

"And why did you create the religion?" Tirien asked. "Just as a form of control?"

Jirdo hesitated. "I…the Whispers guided us."

"What is with that?" Narasi demanded. "If you mean the will of the Force, say it!"

"And if you mean the dark side," Tirien added, his yellow eyes narrowed, "then own the truth of it."

"It's…it's more complicated than that. Maia and Bras said they knew about Guudria, and they must have, because they had the coordinates, but…something else drew us here.  The Force is really powerful at Kharkûskyat—that's our—"

"—castle. Yeah, we heard," said Narasi. "So what're you saying? You built on top of a Force nexus or something?"

"Yeah, 'or something'." Zaella wondered if his obvious nerves were just because he feared her cutting his head off. "Maia selected the site, but we could all feel it. We had the Guudrians build our castle nearby so we'd be close to it."

"Close to what?" Tirien asked. "What's there?"

"Some ancient structure; I don't fully understand it, but I could feel its power. And it was a great location—central to all these villages."

"Our sensors picked them up on the way down." Tirien frowned. "There are no villages closer than seventy-six kilometers. Why is that?"

"I'm…not sure."

Tirien stared long enough that Jirdo flinched and rubbed the back of his neck. "Look, I don't know. They just said it was the Cold Lands and they didn't want to be close.  They tried to talk us out of building there; when we did, and nothing happened, I think it impressed them."

"I'm sure that was very useful to you," Tirien said, and Jirdo shrank down at the loathing in Tirien's voice. "Cold in what way? Climate?"

"No, it's pretty temperate. Not a lot grows, though.  We tried to plant some crops to feed the castle, but most of them died.  Even the ones that grew weren't really appealing."

Tirien and Narasi exchanged a look, then Tirien said, "Go on. You conquered and effectively enslaved the Guudrians—"

"It was never supposed to be like that!" Jirdo insisted. "This planet…look, it isn't what it seems."

Zaella started, and Narasi's mouth fell open before she looked at Tirien. The Jedi Knight controlled his reaction better, but not by much; his eyes widened and Zaella could actually sense his surprise for once. Jirdo looked around at all of them. "What?"

It took Tirien a second to rally. "In what way is it not what it seems?"

"The Whispers…what we heard…it was best for everybody if the Guudrians did what we said. They'd be safe.  But then you showed up, and everything went to hell.  And now Maia…"

Zaella gritted her teeth at the thought of Maia, the false queen who had somehow mastered the dark side overnight. Tirien glanced at her, and Zaella wondered if he had slipped through one of those holes in her mind to read her thoughts, because he said, "This morning Maia attacked us with lightning, combustion, Mind Shard. These are all advanced dark side powers, far beyond a failed Jedi.  Where did she learn this?  Bras?"

"Maia's stronger than Bras," Jirdo said. "That's why she's the queen, she was always the strongest of us. He's got nothing to teach her."

"Then where?"

"That's what I'm worried about! I think…I think she went to listen to the Whispers.  I don't know what they told her, but she looked so different when she came back.  And then today…"

"She fled from us," Tirien said.

"And Bras is still there…" Jirdo shook his head. "I don't know what they'll do—either of them. But this has gotten way out of hand.  I just want it to stop, I never meant to get into all this.  Can you stop it?"

Before Tirien could answer, more rapping on the ramp rang through the hold. Tirien tipped his head that way, and Zaella lowered the ramp to find one of Boss Mukka's messengers. "What? We're kinda busy."

"Be nice!" Narasi hissed from behind her.

"I'm sorry, Master," the Guudrian said. "But Boss Mukka and Jebba…they want you to come look at this. The clouds…"

"What about the clouds?"

The messenger looked over her shoulder; Zaella sensed her disquiet. "Please come see."

Zaella turned to Tirien, who sighed. "Let's go."

Jirdo shifted into a half-crouch. "Should I wait, or…?"

"You too," Narasi said, and she grabbed him by his robe and lifted him onto his feet. Her Zygerrian strength obviously caught him by surprise, and he lurched toward the ramp to get away from her, only to flinch back from Zaella. Zaella took a moment to savor his discomfort before she led the way down the ramp. It felt good to be armed again, especially with the prospect of maiming Jirdo at a moment's notice.

Once she was outside, though, her enjoyment fizzled. Even with night approaching it was obvious at once what had the Guudrians spooked: a wedge of black thunderclouds streamed toward Marekka, flickering with lightning. It resembled nothing so much as an arrowhead, moving against the wind, its far reaches stretching out to blanket the countryside. The afternoon sunset failed against the dense darkness of the clouds. Zaella took a deep breath, then coughed as a rank smell assaulted her nose.

Narasi frog-marched Jirdo down the ramp; Boss Mukka's messenger jumped a little at the sight, but when Tirien joined them, he stepped to the head of the party at once, staring at the approaching clouds for a long moment. Then he waved a hand, and as the ramp sealed, he said, "With me."

Their bizarre convoy made it to the square just as the thunderclouds reached the valley beyond the shrine. Jebba sprinted to them and said, "Master Tirien!"

"I see it," he said. "Get everyone inside their homes. Bolt the doors, nobody comes out until this is over."

Jebba nodded, but before he could even turn a gust ripped through the square, smelling of rot and sulfur. The branches of Marekka's Tree swayed and groaned, shutters banged and clacked all around them, and the doors of the Big House burst open.

Tirien looked hard at Jirdo. "Care to explain?"

"I don't know!" Jirdo looked shocked. "This isn't me, nobody told me anything about this!"

Scrutinizing Jirdo for a few seconds, Tirien grimaced and glanced from Narasi to Zaella. "Stay behind me. Center yourselves in the Force."

He turned back just in time to see Bras walk up the stairs that led to the shrine.

Zaella swallowed, her stomach churning. She had felt Maia's aura of fear and blown through it without a second thought; a lot of dark siders could create that kind of edginess on command, or even unconsciously, but Zaella was no Guudrian to be intimidated by cheap theatrics. This was different; this was a spine that wouldn't stop tingling, a bladder that clenched until her legs bent in, the feeling of so many predators circling overhead that she didn't know which way to turn to protect herself. She fumbled for her lightsaber, got it off her belt, and dropped it; her hands were trembling when she picked it up.

She was not alone. Narasi let Jirdo go, her ears flat to her skull, but Jirdo didn't run—he didn't even stay on his feet. Sinking to his knees, he stared at his colleague, who looked this way and that with a twisted smile Zaella could see even across the village. Guudrians fled screaming at the sight of him, and even those out of his line of sight threw themselves through open doors or pounded on closed ones.

Tirien closed his eyes, and drew a shaking breath in through his nose. Zaella felt her lekku clenching in terror; if Tirien folded, they were doomed. Dread filled her—dread of this horrible abomination, this thing that every instinct told her to flee from, to bow before, to beg mercy so it wouldn't rip her apart…

Tirien exhaled through his mouth, and it didn't shake on the way out. He opened his eyes, and though he swallowed, he set his face and stepped forward.

Bras spotted him as he advanced into the square. He tilted his head to the side…and kept tilting, until it was bent almost ninety degrees, one of his lethorns draped under his sideways chin. Like Maia's, his eyes were shadowed with bruises, and burst vessels trickled blood down his face, but he seemed delighted. Zaella wanted to cower in a corner, to hide from that insane smile. Bras breathed, "Je D i…"

His voice filled the square—not as Tirien's had when he used the Force to amplify it, but like Bras was standing beside every being, whispering in each of their ears. Worse, his voice echoed on itself, as if someone was trying to talk over Bras—like two men were reading the same lines from a script, but not quite in sync.

"Be gone," Tirien called—with only a raised voice, Zaella noted. Was he conserving his power, or was Bras limiting him? "Your tyranny over Guudria ends today."

"Do ES i T ind EE d?" Bras's double voice asked, amused. He lifted a finger, and Boss Mukka rose into the air, wailing as her limbs twisted and her chin strained against her shoulder. Tirien thrust out his hands, but Bras cast lightning at him, and Tirien drew his blade to defend himself. As Tirien caught the bolts, Bras kept right on twisting, and Boss Mukka screamed as her limbs broke…and then her head popped and faced her back, and she stopped screaming.

Some of the Guudrians cowering on the ground found the nerve to crawl for their lives; others covered their heads and curled into the fetal position. Barka caught his mother's broken body with a shriek while Zaella stared and Narasi moaned in dismay, but Tirien stepped forward, pressing his blade against the lightning stream. Bras faced him and grinned. " OH, I t HIN k no T ."

He unleashed lightning with both hands, and the force of it tore the lightsaber right out of Tirien's hand and sent it spinning across the square. Bras unleashed his fury…and Zaella's jaw dropped as Tirien caught it with his hands. His face contorted with effort and his arms trembled, but the blue-white lightning hit an invisible barrier before him, curving around him like he held an invisible shield. A deflected bolt scorched the ground; another shattered a pair of shutters behind them.

Bras snarled and stopped his lightning assault, but he raised a hand to the sky. The thunderheads rumbled and the smell of ozone filled the air; the next second, a bolt of true lightning arced down from the sky. Zaella processed Tirien's raised hands and his kneeling posture only in retrospect as her eyes recovered from the brilliant flash. Her ear cones caught the CRACK, though, and she looked in time to see a third of Marekka's Tree falling, carved away from the burning trunk.

Several Guudrians lay in the path of the falling tree. Tirien shot to his feet and reached out, and the branch slowed; Tirien groaned through gritted teeth, and the branch halted. The Guudrians clawed their way out of the tree's shadow, but Bras seized the opening and unleashed another blast of lightning. This time Tirien did not defend himself, and the bolts lifted him off the ground and blew him through a house's door.

"No! Master!" Narasi screamed. She drew her lightsaber, turning on Bras and snarling in challenge. "You want him, you go through me!"

"Wha TEV e R O r D e R plea S es you, l IT t LE Jed I ," Bras replied.

The idea of charging into that psychopathic smile turned Zaella's legs to water, but she tried to ice them over. Bras would slaughter Narasi; she couldn't let her…her friend face that alone. A whimper escaped her lips, but she drew her blade.

Bras laughed. "So m UC h th E be TTE r."

He leapt to meet them, wielding a green blade. They attacked as a team, but he beat them back with ferocious strength, cackling. " H o W I ha V e m IS sed TH is!"

Zaella almost nicked one of his horns, but he dodged and bludgeoned her back with the Force. Narasi attacked, but he met her slashes one-handed and spat on her. Narasi wiped the spittle from her cheek, lip curling in disgust, but Bras's eyes gleamed in the dark, almost glowing, and Narasi screamed and sank to her knees. Dropping her lightsaber, she clutched her head and shrieked, "No! No, PLEASE!"

Zaella leapt back at Bras, cutting mid-body so he could neither duck nor overleap it. He blocked instead, back-kicked Narasi in the face on the turn, and counterattacked. His style was all strength and brutality, some primeval Form V nightmare that stymied her Juyo. He wasn't so much better, she sensed, as he was…he was…

She couldn't think, couldn't concentrate. There was nothing but the green blade, cutting ever closer to her, and her leg burned, and her forearm burned, and smoke was filling her lungs and choking her, and she was going to lose her lekku, be a mutilated freak forever, there was no victory, there was no escape…

Narasi came at him from the other side, and as he turned to meet her Zaella gasped, patting her sweat-soaked clothes, checking her body. Her lekku were attached, but he had cut her leg and arm. She tried to take a step, but her leg buckled. She became conscious of heat on her brow, looked up, and only then saw that the remains of Marekka's Tree were on fire.

Catching Narasi in a saber lock, Bras kicked her back—and she went farther back than a Chagrian should have been able to kick her. She landed hard, but Zaella heard a voice yelling in Guudrian; she caught the word "Jedi". Looking past the flames licking their way down the tree's trunk, she saw a handful of Guudrians stumping toward Bras with axes and scythes. One threw his axe, but with a lazy flick of his finger Bras sent it back and buried it in the Guudrian's skull. A farmer lost his grip on his scythe, then howled as it swung back and hacked off his legs. The Guudrian closest to him reached for him, hands fluttering over the shower of blood, but the scythe spun again and lopped off his head.

The other Guudrians hesitated, raising their axes to defend themselves against the scythe, but the bloodstained blade dropped into the dirt and Bras spun back to Narasi. As she rolled to one knee, clutching her chest, Bras returned his saber to his belt and said, "Wo YU no KS h A dzu SKA ko SH ûjo N tû…"

The rest of the words were lost on Zaella; she covered her ears cones. Just hearing them sent worms of fear slithering through her mind; to hear them all would give those worms teeth that would devour her sanity and leave her a laughing, mad shell forever. When Bras finished he opened his mouth, and at first Zaella thought he was vomiting, or that his tongue had caught fire. Then she realized curls of oily darkness, mist thickened and soiled with night, were pouring down toward the ground. They pooled at Bras's feet, then stretched in Narasi's direction. An arm thrust out of the puddle of smoke, an arm ending in a clawed hand that reached for Narasi. She shrieked and retreated, and a whip materialized in the hand. Bras belched forth more smoke as the hand cracked the whip at Narasi's face.

Without warning, part of Marekka's Tree snapped away, and a flaming branch impaled itself in the writhing smoke. The arm lashed its whip wildly, but Bras recoiled from the fire. In the next few seconds, more branches rained down around Bras, caging him in. He hissed, and the smoke evaporated off his tongue; the hideous, half-formed monstrosity subsided into smoke that the wind wiped away.

Zaella turned to see Tirien, his Jedi robes ripped and a trickle of blood running down his face from a cut on his forehead, but a ferocious gleam in his eyes. He twisted his hands as he bent the Force to his will, and Zaella had to scamper back as the flames roared around Bras, leaping from branch to branch to trap him in a cyclone of fire. Flame scorched down from the tree, too, and Zaella thought, ''Die, die, die! Kill it! Kill him!''

The cage exploded outward; Zaella flattened herself to the ground as cinders rained around her. Bras stormed out of the dying flames and smoke, his robes scorched but his flesh…mostly intact. Zaella saw the bloody cracks around his eyes steaming, but at a glance she wasn't sure it was Tirien's flames that had burned him.

Bras dragged his hands over his head and down, and fire poured from Marekka's Tree onto some of the surrounding houses. Tirien ripped a branch off the tree and threw it at him; Bras raised a hand to stop it, but at the last second Tirien snapped his fingers and a thick twig broke off and impaled Bras through the forearm from palm to elbow. He roared in pain and ripped the twig free, but instead of blood gushing from the wound, it smoked; when Bras hurled the twig aside, Zaella saw it was charred.

Bras swirled his hands in a complex gesture, weaving the air until it condensed into solid darkness—absolute black, like he had cut a hole in the fabric of the galaxy and shown the void that lay under the world. Zaella remembered the horrible smoke creature and shrank away, but the dark coalesced and straightened into a long shard of emptiness that drank the firelight. Bras thrust his uninjured arm forward, and the spear of midnight black shot toward Tirien like a blaster bolt.

Tirien held out his hands, one bracing the other, and the darkness exploded before his palms, shrouding him. Narasi screamed and Zaella's mind went blank, but then the darkness receded, and Tirien was there—his palms were blistered and his eyes wide and startled, but he was alive.

Bras snarled and let loose a burst of lightning, and again Tirien caught the stream. Bras advanced, but so did Tirien, the Jedi's face screwed up with effort and concentration, Bras's face twisted with rage. Even as Zaella stared, a piece of Bras's cheek flaked off, exposing raw, charred skin beneath. She tasted bile in her throat.

They were within meters of each other when Tirien fell to one knee; Zaella feared he would be overwhelmed, but though the struggle showed on his haggard face, his shield held. So close to its source, the lightning stopped bending away from Tirien's palms and arced back; it did not strike Bras, but swirled between them in a sphere of light so bright Zaella raised a hand to shield her eyes against its glare. Bras stepped closer, and a low groan escaped through Tirien's gritted teeth, and they were almost within lightsaber range of each other, and the orb of lightning swelled…

And then it exploded.

Stray lightning bolts shot in all directions; one tattooed a line of scorch into the earth beside Zaella's foot. The explosion propelled Tirien and Bras in opposite directions; Narasi raised a hand and slowed her master before he hit a wall, but he still bounced off and lay insensible on the ground. Bras smashed off a house corner which had caught fire; broken by the impact, it brought down that whole side of the building while Bras fell into the street, his robes burning.

He did not put them out at once, and Zaella found her courage. Picking up her lightsaber where it had fallen, she limped in Bras's direction. Even a Sith Lord was vulnerable while unconscious; she would cut off his head and be done with him. Before she could reach him, he dragged his nails through the dirt and pushed himself up. His face was charred, and smoke poured from his wounds. When he saw her coming for him, he raised the hand Tirien hadn't impaled. Two of his fingers were twisted at unnatural angles, but the Force still stopped her in her tracks.

Her sword arm jerked, relaxed, then jerked again. Zaella felt it turning and grabbed her wrist with her other hand, trying to hold it in place. She remembered what Tirien had said about the body resisting manipulation, but no one seemed to have told her arm. It cranked, and twisted, and her lightsaber fell from her grip, but it was still turning…

No sound could be heard over the roaring flames when Zaella's shoulder popped out of the socket, but she loosed a bloodcurdling shriek as the pain tore through her torso. She fell, screamed again as her arm flopped, and lay in the dirt, ash covering her body and singeing her lekku, clutching her shoulder.

But Bras was screaming too, and he squeezed the wrist of one hand. Blinking tears out of her eyes, Zaella saw his fingertips burning away. Veins bulged in his lethorns, and from only meters away, Zaella could see his eyes had sunken deeper in his face in a way that had nothing to do with his bruised, cracked flesh. Even as she stared, a new crack splintered one of his horns.

"Us EL es S ! W EA k!" he ranted, shaking his hand as if to put out the invisible flames tormenting him. "Noooooooooooo!"

"NO!" For a second it was Bras's voice as Zaella remembered it, devoid of that off-sync echo. "No! I can hold it!"

A lightsaber came whirling through the air; Narasi had thrown Jirdo's blade. Bras drew his lightsaber with his wasted hand and deflected it, but not entirely; it gouged his shoulder, and he howled. When Narasi brought the blade back Bras cut the hilt apart, but another twig snapped down from the flaming tree and pinned him through the calf. He screeched, voice echoing again, but Tirien had regained his feet, and though he looked much worse for the wear, he stalked forward with that awful Jedi fury etched on every line of his face. The flames danced in his eyes, and the light seemed to shine out of him.

"I wi LL n O t end t H is w AY !" Bras wailed, and he turned and ran—ran pell-mell, as if he didn't have a half-meter chunk of wood sticking out of his leg. He threw himself down the stones toward the shrine and fell out of sight.

Tirien stumbled, falling to his knees. Zaella dragged herself toward him with her good arm, gritting her teeth against the agony in her shoulder. Narasi crawled to her master's side, holding him with a hand on his back and chest. "Master!"

He shook his head, blinking to clear his eyes. "The fi…the fire. We have to put it out."

Marekka's Tree was a pillar of flame from roots to canopy. Worse, the fire had spread to neighboring buildings. Short of summoning the river to flood the town, Zaella didn't know what they could do. But Tirien forced himself up and raised his eyes, squinting against the blaze. "I hope they're real…he brought them along…"

He closed his eyes and Zaella sensed him reaching into the Force, but he gasped. "I can't…I can't do it alone. I need help."

Narasi pressed her hands to him again. "I'll help. Just tell me what to do."

"I just…need a boost…"

Zaella could feel her channeling him energy. Hissing and whimpering, she clawed her way to them until she could grab Tirien by the ankle and channel him the last of the energy she had. She didn't know what he was doing, but she had decided to trust him; she couldn't walk that back, and she didn't think she would if she could.

Overhead, the thunderclouds rumbled. As Tirien concentrated, Jirdo appeared. "I can help you. I want to help too."

He raised his hands as well, reaching the Force up, and the thunder boomed. For a minute it only thundered, while the fire roared and Guudrians cried for help. Then Tirien gasped, leaning against Narasi, and Zaella felt a drop splatter against tchin. Then another, and another…and the rain began.

Retrieving his lightsaber, Tirien trudged after Bras, but returned moments later with the report that he had escaped. Narasi came to Zaella's aid, helping her sit up, and when Tirien returned she said, "Master, it's her shoulder. He dislocated it."

Tirien knelt beside her—Zaella didn't miss how heavily he dropped to one knee or the weariness on his face, but having him close gave her a fleeting feeling of safety that vanished as soon as Jirdo walked over and said, "I can help."

"You stay away from me!" Zaella snarled.

He had the gall to look hurt. "I was Medical Corps! This is what I did as a Jedi, I can help you!"

"I don't trust you."

Tirien raised his hands. "Zaella, I'll try to relocate your shoulder. Narasi, hold her steady.  Jirdo, numb the pain for her, and help me with the mechanics."

He looked right in Zaella's eyes and added, "I won't let him hurt you. I promise."

Zaella swallowed, but closed her eyes and nodded consent. She gritted her teeth through the whole procedure, but even though Jirdo's touch made her sick, he did numb the pain enough that Tirien rotating her arm only made her grit her teeth instead of shrieking. When her shoulder popped back into place Zaella gasped, but it felt better at once. She leaned her head against Narasi's; after a second, she realized Narasi was leaning on her, too.

Tirien stood. "Jirdo, if you want to help, treat the injured. Narasi, if you can stand, run back to the Second Chance and get the medkit.  Give Zaella a bacta shot in her shoulder and a dab for her injuries, but go easy; we're going to need it here."

The next hours passed in a haze. Under Jirdo's guidance, Narasi injected bacta right into Zaella's shoulder, then painted it on where Bras's lightsaber had marked her, wrapping the wounds under a house's thatched overhang before venturing back out into the rain. With her bad arm up in a sling, Zaella limped out into the rain to help, breaking down doors and flinging aside wreckage with the Force to liberate trapped Guudrians. Tirien used the Force to pile the Big House's benches in a heap and turn the long hall into an infirmary, where Jirdo labored over burned Guudrians and those with broken bones. He tore his fancy high priest robe into strips to stabilize splints or sling broken arms, intense concentration on his face as he meditated over injuries.

Narasi climbed onto still-burning roofs, ripping the fiery thatching away with the Force and flinging it into the square for the fire to die on the dirt. The downpour put out most of the other houses within minutes. The remains of Marekka's Tree burned long and hot, and at one point another chunk tore away from the blaze, but this time Tirien and Narasi were ready for it; catching it together with the Force, they managed to settle it in the square. Zaella thought of the bonfire during the village festival so many weeks ago. When at last the rain prevailed and the fire burned itself out, a twisted, blackened stake was all that remained of Marekka's Tree.

Barka clung to his mother's body, though at Tirien's prodding he consented to carry the corpse into the Big House. Boss Mukka was not the only one to have died; several Guudrians had been crushed by falling debris or succumbed to burns or smoke inhalation. Jebba took charge of the populace, rallying what Marekka had in the way of medical supplies and tasking his fellows to clear debris. Before the rain even stopped, Guudrians with axes began cutting limbs away from the fallen tree segments to clear paths. Mowba Dhukk's daughter, the village healer, worked alongside Jirdo despite having a bloody bandage around her own head and a splinted broken finger.

Some elderly Guudrians, unharmed but too old to be effective in helping, formed a circle around what remained of Marekka's Tree; most of them whispered to each other in their language or cried, though one or two walked over to touch the scorched bark.

It was midnight by the time everyone in Marekka was accounted for and the injured who would survive their injuries had been treated. Leaving Jebba in charge, Tirien led Zaella, Narasi, and Jirdo back to the Second Chance. They had emptied the ship's medkit of bacta and most of its other supplies; Zaella carried the case in her good hand, its few contents rattling. The rain had fallen to a drizzle, but all four of them were still soaked, and dripped all the way into the hold.

"You should lie down, Master," Narasi said.

Tirien ran a hand over his purple hair, spattering water on the deck behind him. "I have to think—"

"You have to rest," Narasi insisted, and she pushed him over into her bunk, ignoring his protests. The moment he laid down, though, he groaned and set his head back on the pillow.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Narasi said with a tired smirk. Glancing at Zaella, she asked, "You okay?"

Zaella prodded her shoulder. "I think so. It just aches a little."

"Good. Still got your lightsaber?"

Zaella touched the weapon on her hip. "Do…you want it back?"

Narasi hesitated. "I don't…"

She looked across the hold, and Tirien opened his eyes and shook his head. "Keep it. You've earned it back."

Part of Zaella was annoyed—You had to earn ''what's yours to begin with? What they stole?'' the dark side demanded—but she heard it as if from far away, a quiet voice in her mind. Most of her was tired, admittedly, but a lot of her was touched, too. She mustered up a smile.

Narasi smiled too, then turned to Jirdo, grabbed him by the neck with both hands, lifted him right off his feet, and slammed him into the bulkhead.