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Chapter Text

3,653 years before the Battle of Yavin, 6,101 kilometres above Coruscant.

And so the battle raged.

For it was only right, only natural, only fair.

It was the scent of victory wafting and lazing on the air.

Ah, how beautiful it is to feel a galaxy’s hope kneel before you, just one cut away from begging, and two from death.

From the square viewport of the General’s Chambers, she saw flurries of glowing plasma bombarding the dreadnought’s shields – power surge, and so the lights flickered – but she stood tall, watching, hardly able to keep herself from smiling the widest she had for thirteen years.

For she was human, so she was indomitable.

Her life had led up to this moment, and she would be damned if it ever faded from her mind. In but a moment, she and the ship would be planetside, and finally, the Galactic Pox would be well and truly cured.

All she needed was to wait for the signal.

The portside antifighter turbolasers fired. The Republic’s defence, much like its rhetoric, was impotent. Fighters exploded, their debris peppering Space like the finest spice.

Victory tasted ever nearer.

Koray Chuchi knew she had agreed to this.

The defence of the capital came first, even before the lives of its servants.

And in times this dire, she had to reason that everything was necessary to secure the planet.

Because she couldn’t understand. She just couldn’t.

The best of the Republic and of the Order were far from the galactic Core, deep in negotiations with the Sith, negotiating a peace . Even thinking that word made spite bubble up inside her.

What kind of peace was this? Bombarding the other side’s capital and – she thought, anyway – cutting off all communication? This peace was a lie; just like everything which ever came out of a Sith mouth.

Maybe she could understand. But the battle was too hectic for philosophising.

She hardly even knew what was going on, even as she and the pilots she had grown to think of as far, far more than just soldiers advanced towards a Sith dreadnought. 

All that was concrete in her mind was that, if any time was wasted, the Republic; peace, freedom, and democracy, would fall. Everything was at stake. This was more than her life. More than anyone’s. In the Force, their lives would guide the galaxy’s future once they pass on, and in the Force, Koray felt their hearts beat as one, and in the Force, regardless of the battle around them, there was peace.

And so the feeling of peace spread over her, Lorna, Carth, and Jada, and they focused on their target.

Because they had agreed to this.

And now the Jedi and the soldiers bored through the crowded void of space for the Harrower-class dreadnought dead in the centre of the Sith offensive. Three of the four, together in perfect formation, linked by Koray’s perfect use of the Force, all in an incredible state of focus, banked forty-five degrees and flew perfectly between a Sith corvette’s communications antennae, and now were faced by the side profile of the massive, wedge-shaped  Harrower-class dreadnought, and with it its hangar bay: their target.

Lorna hung back behind the others, not going between the antennae and instead waiting for the others to do so, and then she opened fire on the comms units, thus severing them from their host. She flew under the now-floating antennae as the corvette’s antifighter defences increased in strength tenfold, but somehow, she wasn’t bothered.

Perhaps the calm was numbness, but more than likely it was just Koray’s influence. It was one of those Jedi things.

Lorna then quickly grabbed her throttle lever, and pushed it so hard forward it felt like it could snap off. With her thrusters running at maximum energy, she caught up easily with the others, and radioed over to them.

“Another comms unit out of order,” came the buzzing speech over Koray’s communicator.

“The less co-operation between their forces, the better.”

“That’s the first step to killin’ them off, is to stop their orders, ‘cause they isn’t any good at indepennant thinking,” came Carth over the communicator, speaking in that unique way that always set him apart, even among other Rimmers.

“Mm,” mumbled Koray, “as agreed, forward.”

“Affirm.” Jada.

“Ayy-firm.” Carth.

“ ‘firmative.” Lorna.

The dreadnought’s side hangar bay was shielded; they knew from experience that every inch of these things was shielded better than a rolling colicoid. Koray took a moment – though to any outsider it would seem to be less than a millisecond – and mentally mapped the entire ship, even the parts she couldn’t see. 

She reached into the Force, the infinite spring of knowledge and wisdom, and so she saw everything, every footstep taken beneath the dreadnought’s metal skin, every emotion, every corridor and chamber – everything inside the ship came alive, and so everything came as clearly into view as though she was standing everywhere in the ship all at once.

Ignoring for now the buzz in the hangar, there was a lot of activity in a small room further towards the ship’s frontal cone - the bridge. There was a sense of confidence radiating from every person there, so of course, they were Sith.

In the Force, there were no such things as Koray Chuchi, Lorna Naedi, Carth Gilladd, or Jada Hess. They were all one being, one collective pilot, and their ships were their clothes, as easy to control as shirts and as natural as skin. So, together as one pilot of four ships, they turned, and set sights on the no doubt heavily shielded bridge.

Laser-fire peppered them, both from other fighters and the dreadnought’s defences, but the collective pilot’s flesh, though burn-marked, did not feel pain, and so it flew on, even if one of the pilots’ portside control surfaces had been shot out, even if there was a missile behind them, because there was no such thing as ‘worry’ in the Force. 

The pilots all collectively aimed, barrelling through space just faster than the missile their readouts beeped incessantly in notice of, and readied their own missiles.

“Now.” Said Koray, and in unison the four fighters launched their missiles, which spiralled forth through space and smashed into the bridge shields with one collective explosion. 

The shields sufficiently protected it from harm as all the shielding power coalesced immeasurably quick in front of the bridge, sacrificing the defence of the rest of the ship in under a second to protect the bridge, and then the shielding returned to coating the entire vessel at standard capacity. Well, as standard as possible – the shield generators were already quite damaged, which was why the shielding was functioning so sporadically.

The fighters pulled harshly back and up into a loop, flying straight through the remains of the missile explosion and coming out of the loop upside-down, righting themselves with four simultaneous barrel rolls. The missile that had been tracking them couldn’t turn fast enough, and so it crashed and exploded into the Sith dreadnought’s bridge shields.

They turned back toward the dreadnought’s hangar bay.

The hangar doors began to open. Once they were roughly halfway open, the shields went down – only visible in the slight dimming of a blue tint – and at the same time the anti-fighter flak thickened, and in under a second both Lorna and Carth’s ships had been hit, but their courses stayed as straight as they could.

Koray took her right hand and put it to a pocket in her robes, sewn in on the chest, opposite to the heart. Inside the pocket was her comms unit. She retched up a sob she didn’t know she had and then held down the comms unit’s activator button. 

“It’s been an honour,” she said, tears somehow streaming down the noble Jedi’s face, “May the Force be with you.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Koray.” Lorna, in between sobs and grunts of exertion trying to keep her fighter on course. “Good luck.”

“I love you all. For the– agh! –for the Republic!” Jada, stuttering as a cannonbolt exploded her right wing, and her ship began veering wildly.

“I couldn’ have wished for better friends in the galaxy,”  Carth, “even since Korriban.”

A Sith Interceptor whizzed by, flying out of the hangar bay, quickly followed by three more. Jada’s fighter began veering even further right, and in half a second it had tumbled out of control straight into the dreadnought’s metal hull, right below the hangar door, which by now had begun to close.

The other Republic soldiers took either side of Koray, and acted as shields – as the now three fighters got closer to the hangar, Carth’s fighter was hit straight in the nose and it tumbled forward over itself, then exploded as the cockpit viewport shattered and the vacuum of space claimed him. 

The door inched further closed, and a Sith anti-fighter bolt made contact with Koray’s left wing, scorching and heavily damaging the tip, and causing her to bank severely – but with the Force’s assistance, she stayed on course. Who needs an astromech?

The door was almost closed. Lorna, from her viewport, saluted Koray, and then had her left wing severed by a Sith hyperlaser. Koray just barely passed through the hangar door – she heard paint scraping off the top of the cockpit hatch – and saw behind her Lorna’s ship smashing into the door and exploding. Koray’s rear thrusters were caught in the blast, and as her ship entered the hangar bay, it spun wildly, skidding along the floor with a deafening screech.

The hangar doors closed behind her, and her ship crashed into the wing of a B-28 bomber, one of tens lying in wait inside the Herald of Titan. The bomber was pushed to the side the tiniest amount by the force of the impact, and Koray’s own ship suffered a part of its previously-damaged wing crumpling.

Through the Force, Koray popped the canopy, and it sprung open, and she sprung out, summoning her lightsaber from her belt.

She sensed no Sith in the hangar proper – a few personnel were down the far hall, running towards her – so the lightsaber stayed deactivated for now, and instead she reached further into the Force, gave herself truly up to it, and through her the Force ran with inhuman speed from the fighter’s husk to a door near her. It opened automatically.

The Jedi ran down the hall, not stopping itself to think of such things as emotion. Its judgement could not be clouded – although this was not a conscious thought of Koray Chuchi’s mind.

Let’s hope the schematics are right, she thought, boarding an elevator, so we can greet the General properly.

Chapter Text

In the stale elevator air, Koray Chuchi felt like many things:

A 28-year-old, blue-skinned, yellow-eyed, and purple-haired Pantoran who’d never once been to Pantora, no matter how much she wanted to – because in the end, the Order always came first. That wasn’t Jedi dogma or anything, simply what she said to herself. It was related, of course, what with letting go of individual desires and all, and she had solemnly told herself she was simply extrapolating extra instructions from what already existed. Yeah, right.

The only thing she never strayed from was what she had read of Pantoran customs over all those hours she assured herself were not wasted in the Archives. She had learned at age 6 that Pantorans wore yellow markings on their faces to symbolise their family, and so she began doing exactly that – not to symbolise her birth family, but her Jedi one. She sometimes wondered what it would have been like to grow up with them. It was a curiosity that all Jedi entertained, and one that all Jedi disposed of, which she had done a long time ago.

A Jedi Knight fighting the most devastating war the Republic had ever seen, a war quite literally as old as she was, who had just lost three of her closest friends in a last-ditch effort to bring some sort of a halt to a battle that seemed impossible to win. With the Republic outnumbered twenty-five to one, there was hardly any hope for victory. But Koray had to hold on to hope, foolish as that may be, because in the end, hope was all she had left. She had to take out this ship’s general. She’d taken down a Sith Lord before. But Raxus Prime was different. Everything about it was different. At least then she knew what was going on, and her head hadn’t the time to drift during her waiting. 

A little girl, crying for the loss of her friends yet too focused to feel anything of it. Just 5 standard minutes ago she had been rushing to the hangar bay with the other pilots, putting together some semblance of a plan on the way with what little they had – just a few light corvettes, a couple of cruisers, and a contingent of starfighters. How are they holding up? Are they dead? Have all the Republic’s scant forces been crushed? How much of the dust is left? Is democracy intact? Freedom? Does kindness still exist? Has the galaxy been conquered? Was it all over? How many more had died? Was she…? No. Now was not the time to think of such things. Pull yourself together.

Live in the present. Think not of the future or of the past, for if you are not in the present you can change neither. Until the possible becomes actual, it is merely a distraction, in the words of wise Master Zallow — Master Zallow! Was he — oh shut up, you.

She fiddled with her robes. The air got stiller. Koray felt like she had been rude. Rude to someone called herself. She hoped she wouldn’t take too much offence.

The elevator doors opened to an empty hallway made of grey, red, and transparisteel. The little red display above the elevator controls said she was in hallway 83-C on floor A7.

Koray dashed out of the elevator, hearing her brain begin to whirr as the holoprojector inside was warming up to display the layout of a standard Harrower-class. She had never seen the floor plan, and certainly had never been inside one, but the Force was a pathway to many abilities, some of which could be… incredibly convenient. 

The Force was, as the quite blunt moniker called it, a force. Much like gravity. Everything from the star Coruscant Prime to the speckles of dust on a disused blaster had a gravitational pull. Some things were so small their pull was negligible, borderline nonexistent - but still there. The Force was incredibly similar. It was in everything, everything in the galaxy. And while some organisms had lesser, or negligible connections, so negligible they could simply never use their connection to any great effect, the connection still existed. Everything had its gravitational pull, and so everything had its presence in the Force. That presence: that was what gave Jedi their notorious ability of foresight.

It allowed them to peek around the corners of the hallways that were Time, right before turning them, so that they’d know exactly where the bumps in the carpet were, where the wiring was a bit faulty, where to watch your step on the loose floorboard, and which way to turn on their way to the General’s Quarters on an enemy ship. And how to keep it all nice, quiet, and stealthy.

She took a right. Double vision: Koray, now, running along to a fork in the hallways, and Koray, in a second, taking a left – so that was what she did.

Speed and stealth were of the essence. This couldn’t go on any longer than necessary.

The Sith Lady stood. Simply looking out the General’s Quarters’ square viewport. Square with rounded edges, of course. We can’t have another Heraldic Moon accident, can we, now? Tut, tut. She’d read about the accident on its millenary. Square windows made stress focus in the corners. Tiny cracks, and all it took was one, just one, getting too big, and all of a sudden the ship had a hole in its side, then the rest followed in implosion.

She heard, behind her, her holoprojector’s whine and whirr. It was warming up. Finally, finally–! She thought, the signal at last! And it took them long enough. A Jedi Temple can’t be that hard to take, can it? 

She made her way in front of the holoprojector and stood – for a moment, the thought crossed her mind to kneel, but no, Malgus and Angral themselves would not be the messengers. They’d never bother themselves with such menial labour. That, both Malgus and her could agree on. It would be some wobbly-kneed general or other underling, that was for sure. And why ever would a Sith Lady – Sorceress, Lord, whatever rank one wanted to ascribe to her, it didn’t quite matter – kneel to something like that?

She stood tall, cane in hand.

Then, in front of her materialised a face that was very familiar – her Admiral? Hm. Something was wrong. She just knew it from the way the hair on the back of her neck pricked up, or from the way the Force rippled through her, or perhaps from simple human intuition.

Admiral Wirral Nodd stood, back straight as a plank, with his hands held comfortably behind. “Lady Renliss,” said Nodd, tipping himself forward at the hips in a bow of greeting. He would have continued, but the Lady interrupted the words he hadn’t yet spoken–

“Have they sent the signal, Nodd?”

“I’m afraid not, ma’am. You and I do both know it will be soon,” came the tinny voice of the Admiral.

“I don’t need a lecture on patience, Nodd. You know that yourself. You almost cost this operation with how long you took getting this ship moving, and any better Sith than me would have replaced you then and there.” She jabbed the hologram in its chest with her cane. 

“I was simply concerned over the state of the communications array–"

Cella scoffed here. Incredibly minor damage.

"-But nevertheless do trust that I am eternally grateful for your mercy,” he bowed again, “Now, I contacted you because the Security Head notified me that it appears we have an intruder,”

The Sith Lady here looked offended even at the notion she’d be contacted for something so menial . “So? Send 5 troops to apprehend them and either take them out there or let them rot in the brig.”

“There’s more than that, my Lady,” and here a mask of worry seemed to appear on Nodd’s face, “it appears to be a Jedi. And they are heading straight for your quarters.”

The Lady’s eyes rolled. She was too important for this. “I will dispose of them, then. Once they enter, send an entire platoon to my chambers. I haven’t the time for any long battle.”

The Admiral nodded. “Yes, my Lady. It shall be done,” and then, his blue image disappeared.

The Sith Lady sighed, reeking with impatience.

Cella Renliss was better than some Jedi. She had a planet to burn. And now Her time was to be wasted on skewering another Jedi? Oh well. They were about to truly win the war, anyway. A minor delay would only mean she'd be late making landfall. Her lip tightened.

She turned back to look out the viewport. Cella Renliss could not tolerate lateness. On the Republic's last day, she would have accomplished nothing without winning herself a mountain of Jedi skulls to display on her mantle.

So she waited.

Running through the halls, Koray could not only hear the battle going on outside – she could feel it, too. Every hyperlaser that hit into the ship’s shields, every smattering of footsteps rushing to a battle station or another, every single trigger pulled, she felt it all, because in this moment she was pure focus, pure Force, and so in this moment she was everything and everything was her.

Every part of this ship and every lifeform aboard were a part of her: as the Force flows, it connects, as it does everyone and everything. It was a thread of twine connecting the every fibre of the galaxy, but it was only visible to those with the eyes to see. 

Any normal being would have a heart beating so hard it broke free of the chest, and muscles so fatigued they’d fallen off, from the sheer speed Koray ran with – but of course, she was no normal being. The Force calmed any soreness in her muscles, kept the blood pumping, kept her stamina past anything usually possible and made her body run. The part of her that called itself Koray Chuchi had temporarily vacated the apartment of her body, and the Force had taken up residency.

And then she came back. Standing right in front of a durasteel blast door. There was a red Imperial emblem on the front, and on a similarly-coloured display to the side it read: 

101-H • 10048

GENERAL’S QUARTERS.

Underneath the display there was an electronic keypad. She didn’t trust herself to put in the correct code – and here was the absolute failing of electronic keypads: how was she supposed to know which buttons to press if none had paint to fade from use?

Well, there was nothing for it. Koray took her lightsaber – which she found now had been in her hand throughout her hallway sprint, and had grown quite warm around the handgrip from her body heat – and pushed with a blue thumb the activation switch.

A green blade of pure energy zipped out of the little metal device faster than a being could blink, and because of this fact the blade weighed absolutely nothing, and handling the lightsaber when it was on differed very little from when it was off. It was something Koray had a hard time getting used to her first time – it was, as a layperson would put it, a mindkriff .

She twirled the green blade, bringing it up above her head and ready to stab through the durasteel, melting a nice little impromptu doorway for her to break in through, as was practically Jedi tradition after 28 years of war, when something quite peculiar happened:

The door opened.

She sensed it was a trap – wait, why hadn’t there been any personnel in the halls? – but stepped through the half-open blast door nonetheless, in spite of the hair on the back of her neck standing up, and the screaming voice in the back of her head – IT’S A TRAP IT’S A TRAP OH KRIFF KORAY YOU’RE DUMBER THAN A BAG OF ROCKS – and the subtle vibrations in the Force she couldn’t quite make out or understand, and the way something in her eye twitched and her robes seemed to swish away from the General’s Quarters as they opened themselves up to her, but she went in nonetheless, because by this point there wasn’t really anything else left to do.

And what she saw in there after stepping into the vast main room brought all of the creature which called itself Koray Chuchi back into her body

Oh no, she thought, oh no, no, no. Not now, not here, not her – a hand reached down to a point in her robes under which was hidden a short scar across her side, the tissue still tender, not yet healed and doubtful to, ever – anything but her.

Cella Renliss didn’t even need to turn around to tell who was there:

“It is the Pantoran, then?”

Koray felt her heart under her ribs. It wanted to get out.

Chapter Text

The main compartment of the General’s Quarters was by far the largest of the two rooms. Wide and open, but not particularly tall, with panelled walls, angled when they reached the ceiling, with slats of red light shining down. Two large red-and-black banners hung on the opposite end of the room, either side of the viewport, with the Imperial crest emblazoned on them. Across the walls were what looked like propaganda posters, depicting a somewhat younger Cella’s face and various messages, including ‘WORK To Free Your Souls!’ and ‘Be Wary Of The NEAR-HUMAN Danger!’  

There were various vents and lights along the floor, and at the other end the floor was raised two steps up: that was where Cella now stood, looking out a floor-to-ceiling viewport, silhouetted by the glimmering blue and gold of the Coruscanti horizon. A few paces behind her was the holoprojector, embedded in a plinth flanked by two tables, and in the centre of the room was a holotable. 

The bed-chamber was connected to the main compartment, just off to the side. It was much smaller, with a bed, numerous computers and interfaces, and a desk made from the wood of the Ch’hala tree – a tree she chose specifically for its wide use in and around the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. In the back of her mind, she wondered how the trees would look burning.

She heard that the Ch’hala’s roots made wonderful tea, and so she sincerely hoped that the Rescue Ops would use water, not foam, when extinguishing the Temple’s embers. The drink would be a nice gift from her to them. Whichever Jedi remained after the slaughter frankly deserved some tea. That strength would be a role model for all those in the Order – although Cella doubted any Jedi had it.

Reaching out through the Force, Cella telekinetically pressed the release switch, and the blast door opened. She wasn’t just going to let some no-name Jedi melt a hole through it.

Do you know how much a new blast door costs? 

The moment the door opened – and for a while previously, too – she knew exactly who was there. “Hm.” She didn’t even need eyes to see it: that Jedi had an unmistakable stench. “It is the Pantoran, then?” There was just the tiniest sliver of passive worry within the Pantoran that set her apart from every other Jedi – that, and a few other factors.

First: her fighting style. From the brief encounter they had had on Raxus Prime, Cella had managed to profile Chuchi’s methods almost to a T. The little thing had even managed to kill the snivelling little Anzati whelp, Lord Tongyl, but that was no feat – he had it coming to him, with the enemies he’d made, and half the skin was already sloughing off his piggy little snub-nosed face with age anyway. 

Koray Chuchi was an Ataru practitioner: this meant that the Pantoran regularly employed the most bog-standard acrobatics known to man to attempt to dodge a blade, and then she’d jump from somewhere tired and predictable and try to slash at you, and when that didn’t work the little dear would get grazed by a lightsaber and give up. What a pathetic excuse for a life-form. The simple fact that such weakness could exist in the galaxy, such blatant inferiority, unchecked, made the Lady’s blood boil like the finest Lagonite obber-leaf stew. Oh, how she had come to miss the simple things in life. 

Someday, my dear homeland, you will be reclaimed, thought Lady Renliss, swept gently up by the rightful hand of your one true God – with power vested in Her by the might of the Sith, and privilege of the Force.

Cella turned around, and, for the first time, looked upon the Jedi.

The second thing that set the Pantoran apart was exactly that: she was a Pantoran. It had been ridiculously easy to outsmart her the last time the two had crossed paths – most unpleasurably, if she might add. 

Koray Chuchi wore these ridiculous gold markings on her face – research showed that they were a thing of Pantoran ‘culture,’ supposed to represent one’s family through what were just some lines. Regardless of how silly it all seemed – family? It was almost laughable: she was a Jedi! She had no family, those baby-snatchers made rightly sure of that. It was frankly pathetic. No doubt, the little dear had never even had a shred of contact with the culture of Pantora, yet she still wore the markings and a little circlet on her forehead, too, like some sort of costume. Honestly. She would have had more respect for Koray if she was actually a part of this culture, instead of willingly demoting herself to such a charade of primitivism.

On her there was also a lavender robe with patterns of flowers on it. It just all looked so simple, so... primitive. It’s like the only thing these aliens can think of is nature. If it wasn’t so dirty, it might almost be cute. Oh well, Cella supposed that it was humankind that had made most of the galaxy’s technological advancements – it’s only natural that these lesser-developed beings have trouble thinking of things more complex than a plom bloom.

Now was no time for ruminating on the nature of alien intelligence, however. It was long established that certain beings were made to command, and others only had the intellectual capacity to obey: it was therefore only natural that humans had risen to lead the most powerful Empire the galaxy had ever seen, and the decadent Republic languished in the leadership of a Mon Cala.

Cella simply looked at Koray.

The Pantoran had radiated fear, apprehension, and dread since the moment the doors had opened. Good. It deserved to do nothing less than tremble at the pure might of humanity’s peak: Dark Lady of the Sith, Cella Renliss.

Koray Chuchi simply stood at the opposite side of the room to the Sith Lady. The moment she had laid eyes upon her, Koray’s brain sparked with the memory of Raxus Prime: the oil fumes choking the function from her brain, the clash of green and red, the way that Renliss had cut her along the side and the way it burnt and how she’d put her hand on the wound and it felt like molten rubber and if that was how it felt to die and how she hoped it felt better for Jada and Lorna and Carth and what if I made their deaths more painful and how I killed my friends.

Cella Renliss certainly felt something within her Jedi counterpart. “Just one Jedi Knight, for me? I would have thought they’d have sent more.” She tutted. “What have they got you doing, my dear?”

Koray, ignited lightsaber in hand, simply stared over at the Sith Lady. She pointed the emerald blade directly at the Sith, then, tentatively, she opened her mouth, nearly daring herself to say something.

“In the name of the Galactic Senate of the Republic,” she said, using a voice she didn’t know she had in her, her own words serving to calm her nerves and recentre her focus, “you are under arrest.” She looked at the Sith down her blade, strengthened resolve now solidifying into pure, untethered will; eyes narrowing, focused only on one thing: her mark.

The Sith Lady just stood there, unfazed, as impossibly still as anything anywhere else in the galaxy other than Coruscant.

Everything about the Sith Lady was done to set her apart.

No longer was she bound in the common-as-muck black-and-armoured robes she’d worn earlier in the war; a corset decorated with goldwork depicting a scene of speckled gold and silver stars surrounding swirling planets made of the same lay over the black-and-red dress, with hair black and in twin braids on the head and falling freely therefrom, and from the neck there hung jewellery made from the previously mentioned precious metals, and some brilliant Sarkanian rubies. It was always lavish displays of wealth with Renliss, and naturally such a thing could never lead to longevity; it destined to crumble, into nothing, as it all did – material possessions are impermanent, thus for any reasonable Forceful they must be purged.

She held a straight, black, wooden cane – well-decorated, like everything else she owned – which hadn’t left her hand since Koray entered. Make no mistake, it was no mobility aid; she was far too conceited to ever allow herself to display such weakness. Instead, the cane served as a symbol of status, at least Koray thought, because Cella stood perfectly tall with it. It only accentuated her impeccable posture, which let her look down her smug little nose at you with ease, so assured of her own victory she hardly thought it necessary to use a lightsaber, and that smugness made Koray sick. 

It was a horrible thing, to be smug. She couldn’t explain why – it just made her sick. Something about it was just inherently, intrinsically, indescribably wrong. Maybe that was the point.

Even her name – Cella Renliss – made her unique; not a Darth in sight. Formally, her title was Dark Lady of the Sith, so calling her Lady Renliss was more accurate, Koray supposed, but nobody really called her that. Her birth name was widely available; she’d previously been ruler of her home planet, Las Lagon, and it had become a widespread act of subtle disrespect among Republic troops to call her by her real name – to no apparent protest from her. 

And now, having a Jedi blade pointed at her from across a room and being put under arrest, Lady Cella Renliss did something that was not what Koray expected from a Sith threatened with custody: she stood her ground. 

The Lady chuckled. Her laugh seemed to echo through the room, the floor felt like it vibrated – the lights flickered – nevermind, it was just something hitting the Harrower-class’s shields. Even when the lights were out, her yellow eyes glowed. 

“Alright,” the Lady’s free arm stretched out, “come and arrest me, then.”

“What?” Koray faltered; her blade lowered a fraction.

“I’ve been bad,” Cella said simply. “Arrest me.” She did not try to move toward or away from Koray, simply planting herself right where she was, still perfectly haloed by the Coruscanti atmosphere and the shining lights of trades of plasma from side to side.

“What? No. You can’t just– that’s–”

“Well, isn’t that what you’re here to do?” 

“I–” The air stinked of a trap.

“Arrest me. Oh, but if you put me in a brig, do let me have a window seat,” Cella turned now, looking back out the viewport, “I’d love to see your Senate up in flames.”

“What? What do you mean, Senate–” Behind you , said the back of Koray’s brain, and in an instant she whipped around, and they were all there, at first glance fifteen Imperial troopers, blasters snapped to their shoulders, all having crept up right behind her. And while we were making such pleasant conversation, too, she thought. Oh well. Cowardice is the way of the Sith.

She could feel the troopers’ collective will summoning the intent to fire, and in an instant, the blue Jedi had snapped to the ground, letting the Force flow through her and in that moment not thinking at all, becoming a conduit of its pure will.

And right at that moment, all it willed was for her to get out.

So she did. 

Snapping to the ground, triggers were pulled and red energy came from somewhere – the air began to smell distinctly of ozone – and the Jedi known to some as Koray Chuchi skidded forward on the floor, sweeping her lightsaber widely as far as her arm could reach, pivoting her body with it, and with the Force to guide it the emerald-green lightning cut through four troops’ legs like a hot knife through butter, and with the quickness of it all, the other troops had only had a second to adjust the trajectories of their rifles, and even with their expertly trained reflexes, by the time their killing sights had found where the Jedi was, it was gone.

From the wall there sprang something green, or purple, or blue, and it cut through the middles of the five soldiers closest to it as it leaped forth. The other soldiers fired straight at it this time, but instead of getting hit like a decent sport, a green blur waved in front of it and the eleven remaining blasters’ bolts bounced straight off it, ricocheting into the wall thirteen times for every second.

They tried to fall back, clearly knowing that a battle could not be won if they were close to the Jedi – a firing squad couldn’t take down something like this , why hadn’t Admiral Nodd at least told them about – but the trooper to whom that thought belonged had been sliced, having her firing arm severed as well as the right half of her head.

The troopers continued firing at the blur, and it continued deflecting, sprinting toward them with unnatural speed, leaping from ceiling to wall to floor to ceiling to wall to floor to ceiling to wall until one of the ten left got a shot in on the Jedi – nothing substantial, but its long amethyst hair, which had been trailing behind it, trying desperately to keep up, had caught a stray blaster bolt, and even if the impact was far from debilitating the Jedi still felt it, and so it leapt as quick as lightning around a corner and into a maintenance corridor, whose door it had carved open into a dripping mass of molten metal.

She hid around a corner in the maintenance tunnels, and for the first time in a minute, Koray Chuchi took a second and breathed . From her hiding place, she projected her consciousness out past the corner and back into the main hall, and sensed two troopers entering the corridor.

Ah, she thought, so there were twenty.

She thought for a second. Something entered her head. Could surrender be an option? Well, they wouldn’t surrender, they’re on a Sith ship. If she surrendered, they’d just put a hole in her head. So there was nothing for it.

She sighed. Such pointless loss of life – no, what are you talking about, the defence of Coruscant is at stake, of the Republic, of democracy itself!

Did this loss of life have a point, so?

They’re enemy soldiers, Koray. You are fighting a war. Pull yourself together.

The two enemy soldiers in question had stopped halfway through the corridor, and were not advancing.

Koray then sensed something – a low-grade thermal detonator lay just at the precipice of corridor and corner. It wasn’t beeping, or flashing: it was to be detonated remotely.

That’s why there were only two.

One to blow the charge, and one to shoot the target.

She could wait, certainly; they were probably just checking to see where she was so they could send in more men. She could run out at them, and deal with them swiftly, and burst out of the corridor back into the main hall, and if she were quick enough, the detonator mightn’t be blown. She decided to choose the latter rather than the former, and found that she had already willed it into existence, and behind her lay the two Imperial corpses; in front of her were eight troops, their guns already aimed straight for her head, and a significant distance between them. She felt the General’s Quarters’ blast doors begin to close behind her.

The Force then inhabited her body, filling it perfectly like water would a glass, and through her it dashed forward, covering at least four metres a second, and in two of these seconds it was in front of one soldier, who happened to fall to the floor, and another, who happened to drop his blaster, and another, who happened to forget to keep his head on, and another still, who was so silly he had grabbed the blue hand and disrupted Koray’s run, and so as he went in for a headbutt she did the same, and the two skulls collided – one with the assistance of a helmet and the other with the Force. One fell, the other remained.

There were four soldiers left. Behind Koray, the door continued to shut.

She simply used the Force, and they all found themselves propelled away from her, roughly into the hall walls, so roughly that they did not get up for a few seconds, and once they did, Koray Chuchi had already slipped through the last gap of open blast door.

“Blast,” one soldier had said.

Another soldier, who was not a woman particularly given to profanity, let out a word so impolite it would make a Nal Huttese slaver blush.

“What’s Admiral Nodd going to say?” Said the third, now reluctantly dropping his blaster to his side.

The sound of lightsaber blades clashing could be heard.

“What will the Lady say?” Asked the last, and the rest fell silent.

Chapter Text

“Bisar, do you copy?” She heard the voice over her comms unit first, then it registered in her mind that a reply would be polite.

“Negative, interference, please repeat, Coya. Sorry.”

Something that sounded like a sigh on the other end. “What I said was, are you prepared? For the bombing op?”

Bisar became acutely aware of the speed at which her heart was beating in her chest. The Echani tightened her lips. “Yes… yes, of course I am. We just left the hangar. Why wouldn’t I be? And why ask specifically me?”

A slight chuckle. “Oh, come on, Bisar.” Dagan’s voice. Bisar looked over to the Corellian’s bomber, and she could just about see his helmet through the cockpit transparisteel between the twin wings. He had that signature smug sort of look on his… bucket. “Why wouldn’t we ask specifically you? After Ord Radama?”

“I– I do not wish to talk about...” Bisar looked down at Coruscant, wishing that they could go any faster than they were without their ships breaking up. She looked back at the Terminus -class they’d only recently departed. She’d even prefer to go back there than, for the third time today, talk about–

“Ord Radama was a travesty, absolute travesty for us.” Came the third and last voice over the comms. Bisar thought, not you too, Illya. Corporal Taroke was a master at pinpointing exactly what you didn’t want her to say, and then saying it anyway.

“We’ve been over Ord Radama–”

“Yeah, Bisar.” Illya again. “We’ve been over it, and we’ve near-unanimously decided it was… hm, let me check… your fault Coya didn’t have any thermals,”

“Really, I don’t–”

“Your fault Dagan got hit by that slug,”

“And didn’t he recover–”

“Your fault Lord Ichyn’s apprentice went apeshit,”

“One could argue…”

“And finally, the crown jewel, your fault we were stuck on that dump for three weeks extra.” Illya concluded, accompanied by hums of agreement from Dagan and Coya.

“Mm-hm. Well put, my Tarisian friend.” Dagan. Ugh.

“Mm. The only thing I can think of that wasn’t Bisar’s fault,” came the tinny voice of Coya over the comms, “was us getting this job. The Coruscant job!”

“Yes, yes, thank you, Coya…” Bisar said half-heartedly. It felt demeaning. Sometimes she regretted becoming this close of friends with these pilots… Bisar looked around through the transparisteel viewport, then down at her sensors, desperate for anything to change the subject with, and it was only then that she noticed something rather unusual on her sensors: “say, I thought there’d be more bombers…”

“Huh? I mean, uh, repeat?” Dagan. Coya scoffed at him; it was as much of a scolding as she could muster. She’d always had a soft spot for him: a slash to Bisar was a cut to Dagan, a punch to Illya was a slap to Dagan. No one could say why, but everyone could guess. It was one of those hush-hush things between the four. Quite the opposite of Ord Radama.

“Doesn’t this seem like too few bombers?” Bisar repeated. “For Coruscant? We were told there’d be hundreds initially, this feels like… I dunno, one hundred? Two?”

“Look!” Coya said. The Alderaanian was by far the most observant of the four. “The Herald’s not doing anything! Not a bomber to be seen.”

The other three pilots then either looked through their viewports or at their sensors, and either way it was true: there wasn’t a single bomber or fighter coming from the Herald of Titan.

“The Herald? Isn’t that Lady Renliss’ dreadnought?” Illya asked.

“Mm-hm,” Bisar responded, “and isn’t Lady Renliss the one who Dagan…”

“I do not wish to talk about–” Dagan.

“Aw, come on, why does he get to dodge, no protest, but if I try and avoid another mention of Ord Radama I get–”

“Cut it out, both of you.” Illya, sharp and simple.

Bisar sighed. “Do you think we should get in touch and ask if anything’s the matter?”

“Not it.” Coya said. Wait–

“Not it!” Dagan. Hang on–

“Not it!” Illya. Oh, come on, thought Bisar. She sighed.

“...Ugh. It’s always me, ” Bisar complained, “I mean, why would you even trust me after all the shit you raised over Ord Radama–”

“Now you’ll talk about it.” Dagan chuckled.

“You shut up. I’m contacting them now. I’ll be back on this channel in a minute.”

“Alright, good luck.” You could hear the smile on Illya’s words.

Bisar switched her comms unit’s frequency, then attempted to make contact with the Herald. “Hello? Come in, Herald of Titan, do you copy?”

A beam of blue light came out of the console in front of her, and within a second it had widened and coalesced into the image of a tall human male with a pair of quite gaudy mutton chops staining his cheeks, arms crossed.

“This is Admiral Wirral Nodd of the Herald of Titan. State your name and business, soldier.”

“Corporal Bisar Krikz of the Recompense, ” and here the Echani’s face scrunched up from nerves under her helmet, “contacting to ask, with the utmost respect, whether anything had happened to the bombers on board the Herald? ”

“What? No. Why would you ask that, Corporal? The signal hasn’t been given yet, and so we lie in wait. Do you copy, Corporal?” The blue Admiral Nodd seemed to have an air of indignation and offence about him – perhaps I should have worded that better, Bisar thought.

“I copy, Admiral,” and now Bisar grimaced under her helmet, infinitely grateful that her face wasn’t visible right now, “however, the signal, erm, has been given.”

Silence for a moment. Then, the Admiral’s tinny voice spoke, “repeat, Corporal? I could have sworn I heard you say that the signal has already been given, but… but that would be…” Nodd trailed off. Uneasiness seemed to overcome his face as it settled into a position that looked all too natural, the wrinkles in his skin being carved from showing this exact anxious expression over and over through the years.

“I repeat, the signal has been given,” Bisar said, wondering now why the Herald mightn’t have received it? Gasp – what if there was a mutiny? That would be fun.

The hologram of Admiral Nodd seemed to be chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Affirmative, Corporal, and thank you. Will that be all?”

Bisar nodded. “That will be all, sir.”

Nodd grimaced. “Our forces will be dispatched shortly. Farewell. Nodd out.” And then the blue man disappeared.

Bisar switched her comm unit back to the squad’s frequency. “Yaa-yaah. I have so much to tell you guys…”

“Oooh, do tell,” came Illya’s voice over the comms, followed swiftly by similar requests from Coya and Dagan.

“Sure, no problem,” said Bisar, “as long as you promise to entirely, entirely and unequivocally forget Ord Radama.”

Everyone else groaned.

Admiral Wirral Nodd stood in the centre of the Herald ’s command tower, held in place by a thick, viscous stew of disgust, disappointment, and dread. He stared down the holoprojector in front of him like it had just killed his entire family and then himself. The fists that lay at the ends of his arms held each other, cradling like two lovers terrified of the other’s anger. The fists tightened.

He heard his own voice: “Lieutenant Canches?”

The little Corellian scuttered over to the Admiral, who himself didn’t even need to turn; the boot-clacks in his ears told him everything any footsteps in his eyes could. “Yes, sir?” Canches said, standing now behind him.

Nodd turned. 

“Send it to every single person on the ship: the signal has been given. Make sure all of our bombers are out of the Herald as soon as possible. We must act fast, Lieutenant, there is no time to waste.”

“Yes sir, of course, sir,” Canches turned, about to rush back to his own post to issue the notice, when he paused and asked, “shall I notify the Lady, as well?”

“No. I shall do it myself.”

“Very well, sir,” and then Canches scurried off to his post. Nodd turned, now looking out the bridge viewport at the rings and lines of lights tracing the Coruscanti surface. One of his hands had found its way to his hip, where there rested a blaster pistol inside a holster. Deep breaths through his nose. He caressed the pistol’s handle, and the feeling of patterned metal under his finger served to put his mind at ease.

Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting, he thought. What will my future in the Navy look like? After this? This mistake, this horrific, horrific mistake? No doubt it will become my fault. The truth does not matter to people like – and then a new thought came to his head. 

“Lieutenant Canches?” He turned back around.

Canches turned around in his chair, staring straight across the bridge at the Admiral.

“Yes, sir?”

“Tell the bombers to double their efforts. There should not be an inch of that abominable planet which has not been burnt and razed to rubble and dust.” Nodd said this with such conviction that he found his head had shook, and with it his jowls. He found his jaw was trembling.

“Yes, sir.” Canches turned back to his console.

Nodd quickly forced himself to regain his composure. How embarrassing, he thought. I was never much of a public speaker. He then walked down the bridge, and through the doors which opened automatically at the end. There was a hallway there, at the end of which was an elevator. He did not walk much farther, only to the end of the hall, and stood against the wall. 

Nodd reached into his pocket, pulling out a personal holo. It would be best if no-one else had to hear this, thought he, keying a private code into his holo, then biting the inside of his cheek as the little handheld device whirred to life. 

In one hand Nodd held the holo, and in the other he clutched the hem of his tunic tightly. Breathing. Breathing, breathing, breathing. Like there was nothing else to do but breathe, and prepare.

Like he was not conquering a planet.

Koray Chuchi was the wind.

That was all there was to say: she was the wind.

And if Koray was the wind, then Lady Renliss was the heaviest boulder on the Morellian plains. She was completely, utterly still, even as the winds got closer, but as the hurricane loomed and made contact with the boulder it was blown the tiniest bit backward, even if by only an inch.

One arm of the spiralling, eternally spinning hurricane smashed into the boulder, which did certainly move, but not a single shred of rock was damaged. The wind blew at sonic speed, and the boulder moved again; was not damaged. The wind tore up a tree from the ground, and it hurled toward the boulder.

Cella saw the chair as it flew toward her. She didn’t even need the Force to guide her blade into it; her wrist simply flicked and the weightless blade cut through the chair with ease, a little nudge in the Force and the chair’s remnants made their way around her completely.

She took the cane-hilt in her hand and flourished it, preparing for the Pantoran’s next strike, but there was none. She sighed.

Enough of these games.

The Sorceress’s awareness exited her body. No longer was she bound by the simple constructs called eyes; she could see herself, the room around her; she could see the Admiral standing and chewing his cheek on the bridge above her, and in the room she was in, she noticed, as a glimmer in the corner of her eye, a dim light shining from somewhere rather peculiar.

It was right above her.

The little blue thing must have sensed that she had been sighted, for the moment Cella became aware of her she released her grip of the ceiling and fell down, blade in hand. I see why they call Ataru the way of the hawk-bat, mused Cella, as she simply walked out of the way, strolling along like a picnicking Hapan.

Koray landed on the ground with a loud, forceful thud, and her blade swung downward with such speed and ferocity it moved quicker than an eye could blink. If her mark was standing there, she would have been cleaved in two like nothing, but Cella Renliss was certainly something, for she had dashed out of the way as quick as the hawk-bat Koray was trying desperately to channel.

Not missing a beat, Koray leapt to her feet, and at the same time bounded forward, flourishing her blade, then slashing it up from the right, aiming for the Sith’s bejewelled torso – was blocked. Her blade of green bounced off that of red and redirected itself, going from the left and for the head – blocked almost effortlessly. 

The Sith gave ground, her Soresu impregnable.

The Jedi advanced, each blow from somewhere new, moving with such speed her green blade was hardly visible and she herself was only a blue blur, the green and blue mixing and contrasting and separating perfectly, as the blade swished and the girl dashed and leaped, both being the most recognisable colours of the Jedi, both being her, and both beating down on the Sith over Coruscant, the Jedi making their last stand, hardly thinking, hardly breathing, fighting the Sith beast, for if not now, when? 

The Sith gave ground.

This was not a battle of philosophies. This was simply a Lady versus a commoner. And the Lady was giving ground to the commoner like it was rations, and the commoner ate them up, taking the ground, and taking, and taking, not even bothering to look where it was going; why ever would it look a gift horse in the mouth? By all means, it would straddle that horse and ride it ‘til it was old and dying, then eat it over the winter once the supply trains couldn’t reach, and it couldn’t mooch for samples any longer.

The Sith gave ground.

And she kept giving ground.

And the Jedi kept attacking.

There was nothing in the galaxy but this battle; this was everything that could be done in this moment to prevent any more Sith from getting to Coruscant: strike the heart and the blood stops flowing.

There was everything in the galaxy but this; this was simply an annoyance, a chore, some menial busywork that the Force had thrown at her to keep her busy as she waited for the signal, and so she entertained the little thing, like leading a pig on with a carrot, for as long as she wanted, because the simple-minded creature couldn’t think of anything else. This wasn’t boring, just horrifically easy.

The Sith gave further ground.

The Jedi ducked down now, and gave a sweeping kick, which the Sith simply jumped over. The Jedi jumped up and swung her blade at the Sith’s middle; blocked, and the two blades connected, both pushing against each other, sparks flying away from the confluence, almost in fear, yellow friction-born fire lighting the room around them.

How funny. Cella entertained the thought, and leaned into the clash. Their blades pushed against each other, their circular power matrices battling for dominance. The crimson power of the Sith was winning. Koray saw this. With all her bodily strength – of which there was plenty – augmented by the Force, she sent a blue fist straight toward the Sith’s face. It moved quickly, so quickly any normal being wouldn’t be able to see it, but Cella’s hand moved lightning-quick and caught the fist with an incredible thud.

The fist slammed into Cella’s palm with such force that her arm was forced back, and the muscles of her forearm began to ache, but she resisted against it, and with a squint of the eye and a frankly rather uncouth grunt of exertion she forced the fist back, and Koray’s own hand hit her square in the face, and she shouted as they made contact.

The green lightsaber disengaged from the red as its wielder stumbled back.

The window had opened; the glass would shatter.

Something was muttered from Cella’s mouth, too quiet to be heard and too loud to be understood, too important to be computed and too insignificant to matter, but it was muttered nonetheless.

Koray recovered, but just as the Pantoran was about to resume the onslaught, an inky black spear jutted from nowhere, with some vague gaseous visible-yet-not substance floating around it in unknowably shaped black tendrils and clouds. Something twitched her brain. It began to spasm. Electric bolts of dread shot through it as she stared at the spear. She couldn’t look away from it. She wouldn’t look away from it. Why would she? There was nothing else for her to do. She was tiny. She was small. She was a murderer, and she deserved for this to pierce her and let her bleed onto it until her blood had christened the floor and until

The Bolt of Hatred is a perfect little thing, isn’t it? My dear, it’s quite spectacular; all your hate, your rage, all your very essence, all gathered in one… simple… stab.  

Isn’t that wonderful?

Just two words of an ancient tongue and you can weave the very shadows which serve as the Sith’s greatest ally – as all allegiances go, one simply must be subservient to the other – and a spike, or spear, or whatever you could call something shaped so beautifully complex no living eye could make head or tail of it, made of pure Dark Side energy – hate, rage, et cetera, do try to keep up, dear – erupts. And oh, how glorious it was. 

This was what Cella Renliss’s Soresu was for. You build this up, hiding it under the veil of defence, of secrecy, of weakness, then, when the time is right, once your impenetrable defence has proved itself, then is when you strike, for it is then that your power has built, and it is then that you will dominate.

However, it did seem that Koray Chuchi had dodged the Bolt – even if her most scrambled thoughts struggled to convey such a vital piece of information. Oh, she wasn’t to blame; something so simple and something so beautiful could hardly get along, yes?

The Bolt dissipated faster than it had appeared, and so slowly, too – its afterimage lingered for so long it felt like forever, and those seconds trudged by like boots in mud.

Cella was summoning her will again, and was just about to conjure another bolt – and this one straight for Chuchi’s heart – when she sensed the little bells and whistles in the holoprojector near the viewport beginning to whirr.

She was receiving a call.

Not now, she thought.

Cella deactivated her lightsaber, and, in the Force, repulsed everything around her with such intense power that Koray flew backward into the opposite wall with a bang, sliding down it absently, limply, leaving a slight trail of what could reasonably be assumed to be blood.

Cella appeared in front of the chest-up holopresence of Admiral Nodd.

He only said four words:

“The signal has arrived.”

He bit his cheek, but did not look worried. He stared her down.

“Late.”

Cella was composed, prim.

“Very well. I am occupied. I will be planetside shortly, and the ship in atmosphere – if my command is not absolutely necessary onboard. I can trust you with the Herald? ”

They both knew what she was saying with that remark: this is your fault, Nodd.

“Of course, my Lady.” He stared. “I am your humble servant.”

They both knew what he was saying with that remark: my fault? The orders to forget the comms unit were your orders, Renliss.

“Very well.” Cella nodded, and the holopresence disappeared – where it had been there appeared an emerald green blade, flying through the air toward her. 

You will fall like the rest, Chuchi.

You will fall like the rest, Renliss.

And they fought on.

Chapter Text

Outside the viewport behind them, a black durasteel horde of locusts floated down like a silken veil onto the Capital.

Koray’s legs shook the tiniest bit as they readjusted to having to stand – they faltered a little and almost gave way, but she ended up upright. Her eyes were not necessary, even without looking she could see the Sith was speaking to a hologram, and the door was left unguarded, and so she did the first thing she could think of: she made a run for it.

Her blade flung through the air, and through careful influence of its path Koray guided it toward the Sith, while she herself was already running for the door. This was a long shot, but she hoped to Ashla it would work. She ran as fast as she naturally could, and in a moment had reached the door, with a fist slamming onto the digitised release switch, thus opening it. 

She heard behind her the sound of blades colliding, and sensed her blade returning in the back of her mind, and stretched her hand out to welcome it back. It nestled warmly back in its blue nest, and her fingers wrapped around it in the hug it had come to know as home. A shadow crept up on her, and as the door opened she turned and blocked a strike from a crimson blade, which came falling down on her in a waterfall of force, and its wielder was not far behind, having dashed and leapt over the entirety of the room.

Cella’s assault forced Koray to take a step back through the opening door, blocking one strike, then another, then what felt like two different strikes as much – as much as the Force could help, all it could do was help, and this was too much even for that.

She had been pushed back to the end of the hall by the Sith, hardly even realising in her trance of focus, but it became mightily clear the moment she felt her back push against the durasteel behind her, and the red swatting the green and twirling in such a way that it caught it, and, in her shock, the young Jedi made a rookie mistake: she let the lightsaber fall from her hand.

Cella pulled the green lightsaber to her left hand, quenched it, and discarded it, throwing it behind her. The red blade stabbed into the wall to the right of Koray’s head, and stayed there, crackling and sizzling as it melted the metal around it. Cella’s left arm was planted on the other side of Koray’s head, and her knee flew upward into the Pantoran’s stomach, and it was all so quick Koray could hardly defend herself.

She bent forward in pain, but found Cella’s right hand – it had abandoned the lightsaber, still burning in the wall – on her neck, and it forced her head back. Koray could feel Cella’s breath, hot, stinging like a million and one viper wasps, not helped at all by the feeling of the blade’s heat beside her face.

Sweat dripped down her temple, with a thin layer already nicely settled on her skin – it was heating up. She tried to look away.

A hand roughly grabbed her cheek, and forced her face back.

“Oh, come on, dear, don’t be like that,” Cella’s voice drawled like treacle, laughing.

Koray felt the will to move leaving all the muscles in her body – no, come on, Chuchi, what would Master Daruke say? Resist, for fuck’s sake, do something–

Cella could feel its fear.

She hardly needed to force the resistance out of the Pantoran, just a simple nudge in the right direction did the trick.

She felt that all she had to do nowadays was nudge; having a reputation that preceded her served well enough to drain the wills of those lesser-than. She wished she could do more to the Pantoran, since she hadn’t yet had the chance to test the limits of such a creature’s mind. Of course, the mind of a Jedi isn’t exactly an even playing ground though, is it?

Koray resolved. She sank back, vacating the mass of her body, hollowing herself, opening herself, letting the body of Koray Chuchi be given up to pure calm.

I am one with the Force.

She didn’t breathe. Koray Chuchi’s body breathed.

The Force is in me.

She didn’t feel. What use was that?

I am one with the Force.

Koray Chuchi’s arm shot up, and the Force propelled it at such speed that it had near-instantly grabbed the lightsaber in the wall beside her face, and pulled it out, slashing it down straight toward the part in the middle of the Lady’s braids.

I am in control.

Koray Chuchi felt no fear, no sweat, no heat, no pressure, nothing of anything; all of these things were simply superficial, and her consciousness existed on a plane which so far surpassed these. She was in control, because she was the Force, and the Force was in everything.

That was how she knew the Sith Lady would dodge her own red blade, and, with the speed of a raging vhork, dash over to the other side of the room, using the Force to make up for the gap between herself and the green blade and pull it into her hand.

The device was unfamiliar, but the activation switch was still about where it should have been, and so the green blade burst forth. Cella felt to a handy little pocket in her dress, just at the hip, and pulled out a comlink. Click.

“Shut all blast doors in hallway 78-H, floor A7.” Click.

Cella then dashed down the hallway, and in the blink of an eye was at the other end, and fell to the ground, sliding right underneath a halfway-closed door.

Koray, too, had tried to run to the opposite end of the hallway, but she couldn’t make her legs run fast enough, and neither could the Force. The door shut in front of her, and she skidded to a halt, the tips of her shoes hitting into the door’s bottom rim. She stood. Her breath felt like sandpaper in her throat. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply. Thinking, just for a moment.

“Initiate Hostile Protocol Dur Sabon, floor A7.” She spoke into her comlink, already making a run for where she knew the nearest elevator was.

“Rep…, Lady?”

“Protocol Dur Sabon, floor A7. Do you copy?”

“...interference, but we copy, ma’am. Initiating Protocol Dur Sabon, floor A7.”

Cella had gotten into the elevator and shut the door behind her – she’d just narrowly dodged the Protocol. She knew she would. She dusted off her skirt, then entered her floor into the elevator.

It began to descend.

In the bridge, someone relayed the order, and another pulled a lever.

The air vents on floor A7 shut.

The artificial oxygen began to drain.

Koray’s throat began to feel a little bit tighter.

Now, alone with Cella’s lightsaber, she noticed it looked a lot like the handle of the cane the Lady had been holding. Hm. How… quaint.

The red blade hummed angrily; loud, deep, and fluttering – it was just a machine, but Koray thought, without much actual evidence behind her, that lightsabers could very well tell when they were being held by their owners and when they were not, by virtue of their presence in the Force. This was just a theory, of course, and the kind that can’t really be tested properly, really.

Now was not the time for things such as that, however, so instead of wasting much more time Koray stabbed the lightsaber through the blast door.

It melted through the metal very slowly, certainly not as fast as it would have cut through an astromech. Blasted blast doors. Once she was reasonably sure she may have gotten through to the other side, Koray began to carve a hole in the door, the blade sloughing through the metal like a foot in a swamp.

What she didn’t notice was the increasingly present smell of ozone.

Somewhere, Cella activated her comlink.

“Once the protocol has been carried out, retrieve my lightsaber. And make sure she’s dead.” 

“Affirmative, ma’am.”

“Renliss out.” And the comlink was deactivated once more, and stuffed into that handy little pocket. After a few seconds, the elevator stopped and opened. Another hallway, full of pilots clamouring to get to the main hangar bay; behind schedule. Cella tried not to think about that too much.

Would I be allowed to kill that Nodd?, she thought. Well, best not to try it. He’s an Admiral. And it’s hardly proper conduct to just throw a fit like that. No, hardly proper at all.

The pilots in the hallway stopped to straighten their backs and salute her, something which caught her mightily off guard.

“What are you doing? Now is no time,” she ran out of the elevator and down the hall, “move, move! We have a planet to burn, for kriff’s sake, move!” She quickened, her every stride augmented by the Force’s power, going that little bit further with that little bit more strength than the average human could muster.

Every pilot did so too, resuming their mad scramble to the hangar. Emotions of all kinds hung in the air: pride, ambition, and the festering linger of disgust. How could this happen? Disgust with themselves, and with the Empire – with her.

The dragon within her grew tenfold.

This was not her fault. They would see; they would all see, this impunctuality was down to Nodd and Nodd alone, that blasted Admiral. She just wanted to scream.

Once, before she joined the Sith, when she had reigned on her home planet of Las Lagon, her royal guards had brought her news of how her summer villa had been infiltrated and ransacked by a group of anti-monarchist insurrectionists. A few minutes later, the two guards who had entered her room had turned the blue wallpaper red, and five more hung from the lights in the hallway outside.

That was one of the great annoyances of the Sith Empire: unless you are the Emperor himself, you can’t just get rid of those who deserve it. You may have the power, but unnecessarily and arbitrarily are you forced to limit it, instead of letting yourself be the furious storm that Sithhood naturally demands of you. If you kill even one soldier, the entire Empire would come down on you. She knew from experience.

Ugh. It mattered not. All these soldiers who she knew hated her for this wouldn’t get far on the Herald. Her ship.

How dare they?

Dervij Eldun was anxious to get going. The Private’s Quarters’ air had turned stagnant with waiting. His every breath heated up the inside of his helmet, and his vocalizer only made it louder.

It was only natural, then, that Pvt. Sen noticed.

“Hey. Hey, Eldun. You scared?” He whispered. The back of Sen’s hand poked into Eldun’s back as the two sat in one of the bed-chambers. Eldun cleared his throat.

“...no. Shut up, Sen. The order’s coming any minute now.”

“Hey, don’t tell me to shut up, Eldun. That’s impolite, you know?” The hand hit into his back, harder this time.

“Just… wait for the order. Quit bugging me, Private.” Eldun replied, as quiet as he could. It was never good for these interactions to be too loud, and his nerves just wouldn’t let him go any louder. His mouth was having trouble moving as is.

“Private? Oooh, look at you, little farmboy getting uppity, is he? Tsk, tsk, tsk.” Sen raised his voice from a whisper.

“Shut up, Sen. I mean it, man. The signal’s gonna be here soon, and if you’re still mouthing off by then, we won’t hear it, and it’ll be your fault.”

“My fault? Ooh, sorry, then, my bad everyone on Nez Peron is a shitslinging little farmboy, who can’t see past his own nose for the shit he’s eating–”

“Aw, c’mon, that’s the worst one you’ve done yet, originality, man, that’s what you need.”

“You couldn’t do any better.”

Eldun shrugged. “I could.”

“Shoot, then.”

“No..? Private Sen, what are you talking about?” Eldun took the bigger man by the shoulders, jokingly shaking him, “the shooting’s to be done when we get to Coruscant, idiot! Do they teach anything on Dromund Kaas?”

“Yeh!” Sen shook himself from Eldun’s grip. “You, uh, wouldn’t know, ‘cause you’re, like, uh… farms or somethin’...”

Just in time, the holotable in the centre of the room activated, the red light coalescing into the familiar shape of the Admiral.

“Men,” came Admiral Wirral Nodd’s voice, “the signal has been issued by Lord Angral. Get to your fighters! Your bombers! Whatever you may pilot! Coruscant must burn! Go! Bring glory to your Empire! This is what all our lives have been leading up to! The Republic must fall; only then can our galaxy be free! Go!”

All that Eldun and Sen shared was a glance, then, at once, they leapt from the bedchamber. Eldun grabbed his rifle; Sen already had his on his back, so had to wait up. They ran out of the quarters together, ensuring to be close so that they’d end up on the same shuttle down. You could tell which one was Sen because his helmet had a blaster burn in the back, and which one was Eldun because he was tiny. His shoulder pad also had a nasty gash he’d gotten from a graul two weeks before. Both were equally recognisable to Sen.

“Where you gonna go for first, Sen?” Asked Eldun.

“I dunno. I’d like to get the Jedi Temple, y’know? Show those scum-fuckers what they deserve, see the monument to their… their… uhm…”

“Decadence?”

“Yeh, that. See their monument to their deckledents burn.”

Eldun laughed, but then stopped in his tracks. Sen almost ran him over, but thankfully stopped before Eldun could be crushed. They had both felt it, that much Eldun was sure of. So he looked to where his eyes were pulled, where that strange feeling had originated, and he saw Lady Renliss.

Sen saw her too. In an instant, both of their backs shot straight, and they saluted their superior, and so did every other Imperial in the hall. It was more a reflex than anything.

She looked confused, for some reason.

“What are you doing? Now is no time,” she burst out of the elevator with speed their eyes could hardly track, and indeed, Sen flinched, “move, move! We have a planet to burn, for kriff’s sake, move!” 

The two then immediately sprung back into action. Nearly unthinkingly.

The only thing they thought was a thought shared between the two: “to the hangar.”

They simply disregarded the Lady’s indignation – they had no right to question such a thing. Boarding their shuttle, all they thought was how cool it would look to see the Senate burn.

Cella was running down the hallway to the hangar, and turned a corner to see the door, almost blocked from sight by a swarm of pilots, clamouring to be the first to get through.

Cella hardly noticed them, stepping to the side into a cramped maintenance corridor and out the other end – after almost burning herself on a pipe that hung too low – and into the hangar bay.

She ran across, behind the engines of a B-28 that was struggling to turn on, under an ascending Pythar -class shuttle, and jumped over the wings of a Mark VI, coming down right on top of the entrance hatch behind her personal modified S-class light cruiser’s cockpit window.

It unsealed with a hiss, and she entered, landing nicely in the pilot’s chair that she had padded herself, once upon a time. The engines warmed up and flickered on with a roar, and the cruiser lifted off, its struts ascending into its body.

The doors were open. The shielding was down, and she flew through, out into the battlefield.

She did not fight.

She flew underneath the Herald’s body, then straight down – a beeline for the surface.

Lady Renliss would make landfall somewhere near the Jedi Temple. Maybe the Senate. Maybe 500 Republica. Whatever was closest.

It did not matter.

This was not to save face. The fighters they were sending out beforehand were just to keep up the orbital fight; keep the Republic’s forces above rather than below – it was Nodd’s fault the communications equipment had been damaged, and he should have had it checked long before it was time to go. It could hardly be her own fault simply for wanting not to waste time on damage that wasn’t even visible. She’d checked herself; you could only barely see a dent in the comms module, to any normal person it wouldn’t have been worth an ounce of attention, especially in such an important time as then.

 It must have been something on the inside – yes, that was it – something rusting, perhaps, or something burning out, or something like that. Maybe. 

She sighed.

Her cruiser broke atmosphere. The Coruscanti sky was golden; pillars of smoke stretched from the permacrete surface to the heavens where they dissipated. Bolts of blasterfire were being shared between a cannon mounted on a balcony outside an apartment block and a squadron of Sith interceptors.

The cannon did not notice Cella’s ship, which shot at the balcony under it with a heavy barrage rocket, exploding and nicely felling the both of them.

She flew on, toward one of the smaller smoke pillars.

Coruscant. It served as a microcosm of the Republic as a whole; the shiny exterior, plastered with the proclamations of democracy, freedom, and justice, only served to hide the endemic rot. The Senate dome stood tall, built on the backs of the spice addicts and gun smugglers who lived imprisoned in the city’s lowest levels.

Most importantly: today, it will fall.