Revenge of the Jedi/Part 50

The Sith Lord had led Raven on a merry chase across the dais, while lightsabers shrieked through marble and lightning filled the air behind them. For a moment he had tried to fight from atop the holoprojector table, cutting at Raven's head, but when Raven got up there as well, he forced the Sith down with a few quick lunges. Raven pressed his enemy around the table, seeking a perfect opening, a single shot to end the duel and help Tirien and Lord Brascel against Gasald.

"I've done all this for her! I earned this!" the Sith barked between the crashes of their blades. "You won't take her from me!"

Raven did not bother replying, waiting for the moment.

Then Zaella screamed below even as the Force screamed in Raven's heart, and he felt pierced by a blow that left his flesh untouched but his spirit stricken. A glance showed him everything he needed to know; he looked in time to see Gaebrean fall, and Sir Kobold withdraw his blade as Raven's lascivious, ridiculous, gallant cousin fell and died.

Treason, Raven thought. ''Murder. Fallen Jedi. Cut the traitor down.''

Even as grappled with the desire for revenge, Raven saw an even greater danger—he felt Zaella's shock and loss building toward rage. Beyond the spiritual ruin that would consume her and all the good she had accomplished, she was simply no match for Kobold; she would be no more than another steadfast companion sacrificed to the traitor's blade. Raven was the last true Tapani Jedi left; it fell to him to see justice done.

He fell on his Sith enemy in a flurry of jabs, and as the Sith Lord adopted a defense, Raven slipped past his guard and impaled him in the neck. It was a poor blow—it missed the spine and the trachea, delivering neither quick death nor slow, cauterizing the carotid so the man could not even bleed to death—and Raven regretted the needless suffering. But the Sith fell, clasping his throat and jerking, and Raven leapt, the Force carrying him down to the lower deck.

He caught Zaella just as she prepared to spring; Kobold charged to meet her, but Raven hefted a fallen lightsaber pike with the Force and launched it at him. Beyond, he saw Yan struggling against two White Guards and a Sith; any of them should have been within her competence, but all of them were clearly too much.

"Don't," Raven warned Zaella, struggling to be the type of Jedi who protected rather than just a vengeful killer with a lightsaber. "Take Narasi, leave Kobold to me."

"He killed Gaeb!" Rage and grief swirled together inside Zaella, a funnel cloud swirling toward the tornado touchdown. "I have to—"

"He'll kill you too," Raven cut her off. "You and Narasi help Yan."

Zaella's lekku lashed her back as she shook her head. "He was—"

''A friend? A lover? More?'' Raven did not know what Zaella and Gaebrean had been, or whether whatever they were had been amplified or distorted by Gasald's magic. But he knew what Gaebrean had been to him, and he pictured the way all his family's faces would break when he told them—when he reported that he, the oathbreaker, had led his cousin to his death. Guilt sharpened his tone as he said, "You think I don't know?! I already lost my cousin, I don't want you lose you two as well.  Now take Narasi and help Yan."

He could wait no longer; the pike had knocked Kobold down, but the traitor was back on his feet now. Pressing Zaella toward Narasi, Raven went to meet him, whirling his green blade around his body before launching a staccato series of lunges. Kobold met his charge, and they dueled back and forth, stepping over the corpses of the slain and the hardening molten durasteel where lightsabers had gouged the deck.

"Betrayer," Raven accused, their blades snapping together twice in the time it took to say the single word. "Oathbreaker."

"You of all people call me that?" Kobold retorted. He skipped back to put some space between them, breathing hard. His hair was disheveled and part of his face bruised.

It was true, Raven knew; Gasald worked no sorcery but to amplify the truths they all knew in their hearts. He would be outcast from the Jedi Order for defiance and from his homeworld for his broken vow, and had he faced any other enemy, the reminder might have harrowed him. But against Baliss… "At least I broke my oath to do good.  You betrayed us—"

"For my master! For the man who gave me everything I have, everything I am!  If your father asked you—"

"My father never would," Raven snarled. "No true Jedi would. And Wisté didn't give you the Force; you were born with that gift, whatever your circumstances, and you threw it away.  And the most precious gift Wisté did give you—his son's friendship, his son's trust—you threw that away too.  Amaani's dead because you betrayed him."

Kobold screamed and launched himself back into the duel, and they fenced all around the lower ring, as lightning flashed and battle cries rang above them, and the dark side gathered. The whole world dropped away as they fought; nothing existed for Raven but Kobold Baliss and his flashing silver blade. He channeled the whole of his being into the duel, letting the Force guide him where it would, to whoever's end it desired.

He caught Kobold on an awkward lunge and twisted, and the older man's lightsaber went skittering across the deck. They both froze, panting from exertion, Raven holding his blade out in warning. Only then did he recognize the silence that hung over the whole, vast chamber, as if this temple to Gasald held its breath to see what would happen inside.

Kobold swallowed and arched his neck. "Do it."

As he remembered all the times he and Raina had played with Gaeb as children, Raven wanted nothing more, but he forced himself to stay the deathblow. I am an oathbreaker and an exile, but I am still a Jedi. "No. You deserve to die, Kobold, but I won't kill you in cold blood."

"Do it, Raven. You have to!"

Raven did not understand the manic gleam in Kobold's eyes. "It's over, Kobold. Your and Lezascan's scheme is over.  Gasald will die here, and we'll take you back to the Great Council.  You can't escape."

Kobold stared at him and laughed—a cracked, warped sound. "Escape? You think I want to escape?  I followed my master here—the best man I ever knew—and he's dead.  My best friend is dead.  My High Lord is dead.  And I'm dead too, Raven; you just haven't realized it yet."

He glanced at his fallen lightsaber—meters away, much too far—and Raven felt the stirrings of his plan. "Don't try it, Kobold."

Kobold's smile was fractured through.

"Kobold, you can help us escape," Raven urged; the words tasted foul on his tongue, but he knew what must happen if he failed to deliver them. "You're a good swordsman, you can still help. Try to atone, do something to make up for what you've done here."

"I killed your cousin, and even now you want to redeem me?" Kobold gave his broken laugh again, and Raven sensed him fraying. "I hope they don't exile you; I really do. You're a better Jedi than me—a better man than me."

"Kobold, please—"

"Tell Kaelora I'm sorry, won't you? And your aunt and uncle, and Cesylee…tell them the truth.  Tell them the Balisses' true colors shone through after all.  May the Force have more mercy on you than it has on me, Raven."

"Kobold, don't—!"

Kobold stretched out his hand, and his lightsaber flipped off the deck, but the Force readied Raven for the moment, and as Kobold caught the weapon, Raven ran him through the heart. He watched Kobold collapse, dead before he hit the deck, but he felt no joy, no rush of vindictive satisfaction; he knew only pity and disappointment as he stared at the fallen Knight.

Yan Razam ran by, and the heat of her wrath in passing staggered Raven a step, but her flight shook Raven awake, and he started up the steps, passing dead men along the way. He saw beings standing across the way and counted Tirien, Narasi, and Zaella…and at their feet, a crumpled, shivering form…was that…?

Raven had just felt recognition in turn when the ship shuddered and he fell at the top stair, sliding into a dead White Guard. Something had gone wrong with the artificial gravity—the ship was canted a few degrees, and all the others had fallen or were struggling for balance. Getting to his hands and knees, he called, "Tirien!"

Tirien started toward him, but the Kiss of Death bucked again and he fell. Crawling on his hands and knees, Raven said, "What's happening?"

"I don't know! Baliss?"

"Dead." Zaella rolled onto her stomach so she could look at Raven; he tried not to return her gaze, not sure what he would see there. "Tirien, we have to go!"

"Master!" Narasi cried.

Gasald was on her feet, shambling at high speed even though she seemed to have developed partial paralysis on one side. Tirien raised a hand after her, but flinched back in time with a slap of the dark side. Gasald threw the remnants of her body onto her throne, and it revolved into the wall; in a second, there was only black durasteel where the throne had been.

"No!" Tirien barked. He drew his lightsaber and said, "Raven, get the girls out!"

"Let her go, Tirien!"

Despair wracked Tirien's face. "We came all this way! We lost so many…"

"I know," Raven said, and heard his voice break. He had reached Tirien then, and he struggled to stand. "But we have to go. I need your help, Tirien.  Someone has to help Narasi walk."

"You—"

"I have to carry Gaebrean."

Tirien's eyes softened. "Raven, I'm sorry—"

"I can't leave him!" Raven felt his jaw trembling, threatening to shame him, but all he could think of was Bernius and a century of guilt over his ancestor…all they had gotten back of Donarius Kaivalt was a lightsaber… "My aunt and uncle…my cousins…they deserve…"

He could not go on, but Narasi seized Tirien's arm. "Master, come on. Dying here won't make anything better.  Please don't leave me."

Tirien squeezed his eyes shut, but replaced the lightsaber on his belt and said, "Raven, get Gaebrean. Narasi, here on my left.  Zaella, you're on point."

"Me? Why don't I carry Narasi and you—"

"Because you're better at deflecting blaster fire, and I think we're going to up against a lot of it!" As Raven bolted down the stairs, he heard Tirien's voice soften as he added, "I trust you."

"Me too!" Raven called back.

"Yeah…me too," said Narasi.

Gaebrean lay where he had fallen, mingled regret and surprise on his face. Taking his cousin's lightsaber in one hand, Raven lifted Gaeb's body across his shoulders. "Zaella!"

He flipped Gaeb's lightsaber through the air to her. "Little extra firepower."

The ship rocked again; as Zaella opened the door, Tirien took his comlink in the hand not supporting Narasi and asked, "Harshee, did you trigger the reactor?"

"Negative—couldn't reach it. We had to improvise."

Raven tried not to imagine Gasald escaping after all this, and he thought Tirien felt the same as he asked tightly, "What's going on?"

"The ship's under attack; fleets keep decanting."

Raven and Tirien exchanged baffled looks over Narasi's head. "Fleets, plural?"

"Yeah, it's chaos down here."

Another rock, the sharpest yet, sent Raven into a bulkhead, and Tirien and Narasi into Raven. As Raven groaned, Tirien grunted, "Is the Kiss of Death taking them on alone?!"

"No. Well, we're right in the middle of it, and we didn't expect that…"

"Harshee, what did you do?"

"We turned the shields off."