Igniting the Stars/Part 6

After they had synced their comlinks, Lishedra followed Cienis toward the Commons, drawing her robe snug over her body and gesturing for Bekli to do the same; the Chadra-Fan was so small she would probably be overlooked by most enemies, but Vandak was not most enemies. At her height she might have been a Jawa, and her high voice could've sold the impression if she'd spoken Jawaese. Still, Lishedra was satisfied; her Padawan would be just another tiny being keeping herself to herself in a galaxy that had far better things to do that inquire after harmless visitors. Elmir was much the same; no fewer than half a dozen times, Lishedra had seen Master Kirthi openly address a conflict while her Padawan—strong in the Force and a shade shorter even than Bekli—lingered, unnoticed, out of the fray and kept peripheral threats under control. And Cienis Favand, of course, was dressed like any spacer—he had a hydrospanner, a code cylinder, and enough tools arrayed around his belt that a casual eye would probably glance right past the two lightsabers in the mix.

Lishedra only wished she could say the same for the rest of the group. The astronomer, Lukkad, might as well have been carrying a flashing holosign proclaiming I 'M A J EDI , and while Master Kirthi and Krajjey wore slightly less conspicuous Jedi robes, their enormous height was already drawing stares from every Human and most of the non-Humans they passed. Grayv and Lishedra herself were little better, and even the most inconspicuous of them would not remain so long while traveling in a pack of eight.

"We need to split up," she declared. "We're drawing too much attention."

Cienis nodded and led them onto one of the Commons's famous skywalks, stretching from the spaceport hub to the mall the Sentinel had described. Theirs was but one of five skywalks that came to a confluence in the Commercial Commons, a mercantile district that was clearly the pride of Yractos; the streets were as clean as any Lishedra had ever seen in the Expansion Region, and notice boards five times her own height flashed advertisements for local restaurants, sales within the Commons, news and notices from the city government, and a five-day weather forecast. The five skywalks became the vertices of pentagon of walkways bordering a plaza three hundred meters across. From the center of each walkway, a smaller skybridge flowed into a column at the heart of the plaza, anchoring a central platform where the five skybridges met. The revolving holo projected from the platform's spire showed the Great Seal of Gyndine.

Unlike most Chagrians, Lishedra had spent little time on her homeworld of Champala, and so she retained some sense of taste where most adults of her species had lost it. She still had no real interest in eating as anything but a necessity, but she could taste a variety of food scents on her forked black tongue as she drew a deep breath; their part of the pentagon bordered a food court. There was no repulsor traffic allowed in the plaza below, and it was past the noonday mealtime, for a mercy, but at a quick glance Lishedra still put the bustling crowds on various levels at no fewer than a thousand beings and droids.

"Pairs," Lishedra ordered. "Knights and their Padawans, Cienis and Lukkad. Comm if you find Vandak before engaging, no matter what he's doing; it doesn't help anyone if you charge in to stop him doing something awful and die."

They nodded, though neither Cienis nor Lukkad looked happy at their pairing; Lishedra prayed the Sentinel would find a way to make Lukkad less conspicuous rather than Lukkad dragging Cienis into the limelight. "May the Force be with us all."

They divided, and Lishedra beckoned for Bekli, leading her down a flight of stairs to a lower-level observation gallery that fronted a promenade of stores. Bekli used a touch of the Force to take the stairs three and a time and keep up, but Lishedra slowed. "Don't use the Force unless you have to, he'll sense it. I'll wait for you."

"Yes Master," Bekli squeaked.

She stayed a few meters back so it was not immediately obvious they were together. Lishedra had no fear for either of them; like Master Kirthi, she had taken the shuttle flight down to Gyndine as a chance to speak to her Padawan, and she had no more to say that she hadn't already said. If the Force was with them, Bekli would never come toe-to-toe with Darth Vandak, and even if she did, the little Chadra-Fan had more tricks up her sleeve than met the eye.

Lishedra was glad, too, that Master Kirthi and Elmir had come in time. The Selonian Jedi Master was strong in the Force and a gifted, graceful swordswoman; her talents with a blade were the reason Lishedra had put her in what her youthful love of smashball had her thinking of as "the starting lineup". Even more, though, Elmir and Bekli were a great team, his Force gifts complementing her lightsaber prowess and agility, their close friendship helping them work together; should the worst happen and they be left to carry on the battle without their masters, Lishedra was confident her student would give Vandak far more than he had bargained for.

She strolled to the guard rail overlooking the plaza, leaning on it and turning her face to the breeze with a smile of relaxation that covered her gray eyes searching the crowd below. They lingered on a number of beings in dark garb, walking the crowd or huddled up in shadows.

"Panhandlers," Cienis said when she called it over the comlink. "They come here during the top sales times. Some of them sleep here too."

Lishedra looked at the chrono built into her wrist comlink; they had eight minutes until the time the Council had set for Vandak's presence. She forced herself not to move from her vantage point as the seconds ticked by and nothing continued into more nothing. Other spots might be as good but none were likely to be better, and Lishedra sensed the other Jedi had spread themselves throughout the Commons; positioned as they were, they could come at Vandak from multiple directions when he revealed himself.

Patience, she could still hear her own master counseling her, when she was a Padawan long ago. To act in haste is to arm the enemy. Lishedra had commanded in enough battles to appreciate how ruinous hasty action could be. She took a deep breath.

"He's here," Elmir said suddenly.

"Where?" asked Krajjey.

"I don't know, but I can feel his presence. I can sense…things moving.  They're coming to a head any second now."

Lishedra checked her chrono: one minute, forty-three seconds to go. She brought her arms inside her robe, letting the empty sleeves drape down, and took her lightsaber hilt in hand.

"There—the Embafani Skyalk!" Cienis cried. Then, apparently realizing how useless that was to the rest of them: "Above the fountains!"

It took Lishedra a few seconds to find the fountains amidst the hustle and bustle below—they were merely a series of nozzles embedded in the ground, spraying jets of water up to the delighted shrieks of younglings—and by the time she did the Force was pointing them out to her anyway. On a skybridge overlooking the fountains, there was some sort of scuffle between two humanoids and a shiny protocol droid. Even as Lishedra watched, the dark-garbed humanoid swatted the protocol droid's head off with a backhand, then seized the other man by the neck and snapped his head back with his other hand.

Screams started nearby, and panic flowed into the Force like a pent-up dam giving way. Lishedra touched her comlink. "Move."

She raced back up the stairs and bolted down the long promenade toward the skywalk, shouldering through beings who had stopped to gape at the confrontation. Only those closest seemed to understand what was going on, but the screams had excited everyone within hearing, and many beings down around the fountains had actually stopped to look up. Lishedra wanted to scream at them to run, but she dared not surrender the element of surprise before it was absolutely necessary.

A blur of motion caught her attention; on the promenade opposite, Master Kirthi had dropped to all fours for extra speed and was hurtling toward Vandak. In the pentagonal plaza below, Cienis was sizing up the height of the skybridge; evidently deciding he couldn't make the jump, he started waving civilians away and pulling stragglers by their arms to get them moving, Lukkad in his wake but looking up at the battle. She could not see Krajjey, but she felt him somewhere below her.

A family of three blundered into Vandak's path, and he kicked the child holding its parents hands; Lishedra saw the little girl fly back and smash into the skybridge's guard rail, and felt her death stain the Force. She was close enough now to hear the father's anguished scream; he threw himself on Vandak, who twisted his head around so hard his face stared over his back. His new-made widow shrieked in horror until Vandak seized her by the neck; Lishedra wasn't sure what Vandak was doing to her, but she jerked in his arms like he was electrifying her. A few brave or foolhardy souls nearby summoned enough courage to charge Vandak together, but he drew his paired lightsabers from beneath his tattered robes and, in a whirlwind of fire too fast to follow, he struck them all down, severed heads and limbs flying off the bridge and into the crowd below.

The dark side rumbled like overhead thunder as the crowds began to panic in earnest, and a sentient stampede slowed Lishedra. Master Kirthi rounded the central pillar at breakneck speed and reached Vandak first, one final bound onto the skybridge carrying her to stand on her feet. She drew her curved lightsaber hilt in a smooth motion, already lunging for Vandak with her green blade. He turned to meet her charge, and they dueled over the bridge. Lishedra took a chance on a leap, kicking off the promenade's guardrail and diving into the crowd clustered where it met the bridge. She used the Force to buffet civilians aside and clear herself a path forward, then charged into the fight.

After all the legends and horror stories Lishedra had heard, she had always pictured Vandak as of monstrous stature, some dark mountain of a man looming over the innocent upon whom he would descend like an avalanche. In truth, he was only Grayv's height, shorter than Lishedra and dwarfed entirely by Master Kirthi. Lishedra came in with an over-the-shoulder strike and Vandak's elbow gave a little as he caught it one-handed, and for a moment she wondered; there was no giant here, only a mad little monster in shabby robes, hair matted with filth.

Then he parried Kirthi away and turned on Lishedra, and her moment of foolishness passed.

Her Djem So was a pale imitation of Vandak's; in six moves she had no opening to counter and nearly died twice. His eyes blazed like hellfire, and Lishedra could almost feel the heat coming from him; the dark side was a roaring inferno inside and the vessel of his flesh was too little to contain it. His form and appearance meant nothing not merely because he was insane, Lishedra realized, but because he had so wholly given himself over to the darkness that nothing mattered but the fire within.

And, to Vandak, all the lives here—men and women, children, and Jedi—were simply kindling for the blaze.

Kirthi returned to the fight, and Vandak dueled between the pair of them, blades whirling too quickly for the eye to follow; Lishedra fought on reflex alone, allowing the Force to flow through her, to channel the skill, technique, and knowledge she had amassed over a lifetime into the weapon needed to bring the Anzat down. Kirthi was grace embodied, sallying in and dancing back out, her fencing line so perfect it might have been a recording for a holocron on Makashi.

Lishedra was just thinking she and Kirthi might, if the Force was with them, be able to end this alone, when Krajjey vaulted the guardrail from somewhere below and joined the fray. Now, three-on-one, Vandak could not stand his ground and was forced to give way. His Jar'Kai style of Djem So made him faster and more mobile than most Form V practitioners, but even he could not block one of Krajjey's blows one-handed. Lishedra tried to keep him between herself and Krajjey, not allowing him to put them in one another's way, and all the while Kirthi chipped at his defense from the other side, all speed to complement her fellow Jedi's strength. She nicked Vandak on the shoulder, and when he swung to retaliate Lishedra cut at his face and forced him to defend himself instead.

Vandak made for a double downward slash at Krajjey and Lishedra, then spun in a hurricane of crimson. Lishedra had recognized the feint and advanced, and she nearly lost an eye for her haste, recoiling at the last second; Krajjey took a cut across his forehead. Kirthi lunged through the inferno, but Vandak parried and rolled his back to her, flicking over his head on the spin. She caught the strike at her face, but Vandak completed his spin and stabbed her through her sword arm with his other blade. She cried out in pain and he brought his second blade down, amputating the arm completely. Before she could do more than process the pain that throbbed through the Force like an exposed nerve, Vandak crossed his blades high, then uncrossed them through her waist. Her upper body fell away, the claws of her remaining hand squealing as they scratched the bridge’s metal in Kirthi’s death throes.

"Master!" Lishedra heard Elmir cry; his voice put her own sorrow into the world, but she could not have said whence the cry came. She had to focus; nothing existed but the fight.

She and Krajjey came in together, attacking Vandak from opposite sides, but now he met them easily, and Lishedra was struck by the horrifying realization that he had merely been warming up. She heard the snap-hiss of more lightsabers igniting, and a second later Lukkad ran into view, cutting at Vandak's lower back. Vandak parried without even looking and back kicked Lukkad in the stomach so hard the Snivvian dropped to his knees, gasping. Grayv came in on his apprentice's other side, wielding his green blade one-handed as well, but Makashi was no longer the upset in the fight—Vandak still had all his greatest threats before him.

Canned foods soared through the air at Vandak, hurled by the Force, but he dodged most of them and actually cut one out of the air. He beat Krajjey sideways into Grayv, then came at Lishedra, who fell back on defense. She met his blows without trying to return to the attack, but he still twisted her blade out of his way. An ungainly jerk kept her head on her shoulders, but she screamed with pain as Vandak cut off one of her lethorns, and in her distraction he kicked her to the ground.

She gasped against the pain, eyes squeezed shut for a second as she gently touched the singed flesh and seared nerves at her shoulder. She struggled up to one elbow and heard Bekli calling her name. She saw her Padawan watching with wide eyes and drawn blade, clearly looking for an opening she couldn't find. Elmir was at her side, hands extended as he used the Force to buffet Vandak. Another of his Force pushes saved Krajjey from a blow that would have chopped him in half and gave Lukkad time to struggle to his feet and rejoin the fight.

Lishedra got her feet under her as well, calling on the Force to suppress her pain. Vandak blocked Lukkad's blow at his leg, then turned one of Grayv's lunges aside. He slashed at Grayv's exposed sword hand, and when Krajjey caught the attack on his own blade, simply rerouted and slashed Krajjey's shoulder instead. The towering ZeHethbra roared, but Lukkad's continued attack compelled Vandak to defend himself. Lishedra attacked Vandak from his blind side, lest he rain down blows on the little Snivvian.

Vandak held her in a saber lock with one blade, blocked Lukkad's strike down with the other, and swung up, shaving off most of Lukkad's snout. Lukkad dropped his lightsaber and gave a miserable groan through the cauterized hole in his face, spraying a mist of blood. Vandak raised him off the ground with the Force, then sent him off the bridge. Lishedra and Grayv both charged, but the Sith Lord turned on them and hit them with the Force so hard Lishedra skidded back into Bekli and Elmir, and Grayv would've gone off the opposite side of the bridge altogether if Krajjey hadn't caught him by the tunic.

Vandak slashed the bridge with his blades, then flicked a hand at Master Kirthi's fallen weapon, which ignited and cut another gash through the bridge, parting the guardrail three meters down from Grayv. The Anzat backflipped off the bridge the way Lukkad had fallen, and as her Padawan and Elmir pushed her back to her feet, Lishedra called, "Don't let him escape!"

She got a running start after Vandak, but she felt the dark side surge and she staggered as the bridge trembled and groaned beneath her feet; having weakened its structure, Vandak was tearing it down with the Force. Trusting the Force to carry her to a safe landing, Lishedra skipped over the wobbling support and leapt in pursuit. She slowed her fall into a roll and came up with a snap-hiss of reignited blade. She had just enough time to process Lukkad's corpse, broken against a stone bench, before a shrieking cacophony of twisted metal assailed her ears and she had to dampen her senses. The impact that followed three seconds later hit the nearby ground like an earthquake and nearly rattled Lishedra off her feet. She saw the fallen skybridge where it had splintered the plaza, sparks flying from severed electrical conduits.

The dark side assaulted her senses anew, and she saw Vandak through a cloud of dust and smoke, surrounded by civilians of multiple species, all of them gasping and writhing on the ground as Vandak trembled in their midst and did whatever he was doing to hurt them. Lishedra charged, but the Anzat defended himself with renewed vigor, and her vision was full of Vandak's red blades. The fountains were still going, and as Vandak battered her back, water sizzled against their weapons and soaked their clothes. Lishedra sensed Vandak was actually growing stronger, the death in the Force empowering him.

Grayv and Krajjey had come down on the other side of the bridge, but now they attacked Vandak in tandem from the other side, giving Lishedra just enough room to breathe. Then Vandak spun, battered Grayv's lunge aside with both blades, ran him through the chest from side to side with one, and hit him in the face with the other so hard that he not only stabbed through the back of Grayv's head, but his lightsaber hilt caved in part of Grayv's skull as well.

"NO!" Krajjey bellowed, and he swung with such force that Vandak, blocking on reflex, was swept clean off his feet and sent skidding across the ground, bouncing off the rubble at the foot of the fallen skybridge. Lishedra and Krajjey actually had to chase him down, and in that moment Cienis Favand attacked with two yellow blades, stabbing with one and slashing with the other. Vandak got back to his feet and parried them wide, and Cienis nearly lost both of his arms when Vandak slashed in; Bekli leapt and cut at his back, and though Vandak blocked her so hard he sent her flying, it gave Cienis the half-second he needed to dodge out of range.

Krajjey and Lishedra were only meters away, but Vandak deactivated one blade and turned on them, raising his empty hand. Lishedra realized the danger and angled her blade to catch the Sith Lord's Force lightning. But Krajjey, infuriated by the loss of his master, did not defend himself in time, and crackling forks of Vandak's lightning seared over him and hurled him, steaming, out of the conflict. Bekli came in again, but Vandak dropped his lightning assault and squeezed his hand into a fist. The little Chadra-Fan rose from the ground in his telekinetic grip, choking and wheezing.

Lishedra attacked to defend her Padawan, but though Vandak used his other blade to block her, he held his choke on Bekli. Lishedra and Vandak fenced back and forth while Bekli slowly died, but then Bekli dropped to her feet, gasping for air, and Vandak withdrew his hand as if it had been burned. He and Lishedra both looked in time to see Elmir lowering his hands and rushing to Bekli's aid.

Lishedra slashed and Vandak drew his second blade, but Cienis came in on Vandak's other side, and Krajjey was stirring. Vandak fought between them for a moment, and when he turned to swat Cienis down to the ground, Lishedra finally scored a hit, raking Vandak across the ribs. He only snarled, turning into a two-bladed slash; she caught him in a saber lock and held him, but as they jockeyed for position, she felt a sudden knife of psychic energy stab her between the eyes and screamed. Vandak forced her down as Cienis cut at his legs. He overleapt the blow, knocked Elmir down as the Drall came in with a slash, then turned and snarled at Cienis.

At once the Human screamed, dropping his lightsabers and holding his hands up. Pain lingering behind her eyes and blurring her vision, Lishedra saw raw, burned skin on Cienis's face where no lightsaber had touched him; even as she watched, the skin on his hands blistered in Vandak's gaze and the sleeves of his jacket started to char.

A waste disposal can hurtled through the air at Vandak; he turned and caught it barehanded, and Cienis dropped to his hands and knees, panting in obvious pain. Bekli had thrown the can, and Lishedra saw Elmir now bent over Krajjey, using the Force to revive him. Bekli cut at Vandak's legs, but had to spring back as he simply dropped the can on her. Lishedra forced herself back into the fight lest her Padawan duel the monster alone. Bekli was a bright spot of sunlight in the Force, but her light did not pierce Vandak's shadow, and even as Lishedra swung her weary arms into blow after blow, she sensed Vandak's power growing, the darkness drinking in their loss and fear to strengthen its vessel. With every breathed she inhaled the stink of her own sweat and the nauseating, charred meat smell of her maimed lethorn.

Even weakened, Lishedra's strong Form V kept Vandak grounded in place, opening him to Bekli's springing, acrobatic Ataru blows. Bekli had trained herself hard and well, and with a path to Vandak now clear, she barely let her feet touch the ground before she leapt into another vault or spin. Then Elmir came in to complement her and her skills doubled, fast becoming hypersonic, dangerous becoming lethal—Elmir's unmoving, determined defense put him in the way of every one of Vandak's counters to Bekli, allowing her to focus solely on attack. Lishedra got a glancing blow across his back from shoulder to shoulder, and when he snarled, Bekli nicked his cheek and shaved off a hank of greasy hair.

Krajjey had gotten back to his feet and was almost back in the fight as well when things went wrong. Vandak let Lishedra push down on a blow toward his face, then unexpectedly kicked her in the thigh. Leaning into her blow, the kick took her legs out from under her and she went down. Vandak blocked Bekli sideways through the air, hit Elmir with a meteoric barrage of blows, and cut off one of his legs. Elmir cried out and fell, and Bekli screamed, but she managed to hurl him away with the Force before Vandak could finish him. Krajjey returned to the fight, but it was obvious Vandak's lightning had taken something out of him. Like Lishedra, weariness slowed his blows and leeched some of their titanic strength.

Lishedra managed to stand, but she was limping when she returned to the fight, and the agony in her severed lethorn tore at her concentration. Cienis was tending to Elmir and Bekli running back toward them, but she shook her little head too. Lishedra had a sudden, horrifying realization that it was Vandak; in the midst of a duel, wounded and fighting two Jedi at once, he was using his powers to weaken them. Worse, Vandak himself had lost no strength; if anything he was getting faster, feeding on them. Lishedra felt the dark side gnawing at her, a slow bleed that would not kill, but exposed her to one who would.

Summoning all the light she could, anchoring herself without emotion to her Jedi duty to preserve life, she pressed in, and the darkness wavered, its claws finding purchase in her shield but not yet tearing it away. Krajjey had taken to fighting one-handed and grabbing at Vandak with the other hand, trying to get claws on him; if he could just seize that hold, Lishedra was sure he could simply rip Vandak's arm out of its socket. Vandak seemed to know it, too, for he fought more conservatively, keeping out of reach, feinting at Krajjey's sword hand and using light jabs to fend him off.

He slashed at Lishedra's face and she blocked, but he disengaged his lightsaber just before the blades met, passed her guard, and reignited it into her stomach. Lishedra gasped, dropping to her knees as the fire burned her insides. Don't drop the lightsaber, she thought desperately, and she clutched the weapon so hard in her sweating hands that the blade danced before her blurring eyes. ''Don't drop the lightsaber. You can fight as long as you have it.''

Krajjey made a grab for Vandak and almost caught him, but had to abort his attack as Vandak stabbed at his face. The Anzat swatted Bekli to the ground when she leapt at him, then used the Force to toss her into Krajjey. Krajjey caught her safely in his empty hand, but Vandak thrust out both of his own hands like a double punch, and the giant Jedi and the tiny one went flying together; a holo display in the center of the park shattered as Krajjey's bulk carried them right through it.

Vandak came for her then. Lishedra raised her blade to guard, but she could not force herself to stand; the fire inside was eating her alive. Vandak turned her blade aside in two exchanges and cut off both her hands. She screamed in pain, but had only a moment to process the cauterized stumps at the ends of her arms when Vandak caught her face in his powerful hands. He was screaming at her, and she felt herself weakening, felt the dark coming to snuff out her light. Her skull was cracking under his palms, the vision in one of her eyes went dark as his thumb dug in, and she knew the dying of the light.

There was death, and there was no Force.