Annihilation

by Drew Karpyshyn

From her tone Theron wasn’t sure if she was worried about them, or sarcastically pointing out something obvious she thought they were foolishly forgetting.

  “Theron and I can look after ourselves,” the Jedi assured her.

  “Tell the authorities that I sent you,” Theron said. “Grand Master Shan will listen if you mention my name.”

  “Grand Master Shan,” Teff’ith said, her eyes narrowing suspiciously as she put two and two together. “Theron Shan. You related?”

  “She’s my mother,” Theron said, the situation too urgent for him to even care whether Gnost-Dural already knew.

  He expected Teff’ith to make some kind of comment, maybe ask why he wasn’t a Jedi. But all she said was, “What’s in it for us?”

  “Another ten thousand credits,” Theron promised. “And a get-out-of-jail-free card if you’re ever arrested in Republic space.”

  “Deal.”

  Gnost-Dural turned his attention back to Theron. “You still need to get on the Spear. If you don’t sabotage the systems, Karrid will be able to escape the Republic ambush.”

  “I’m on it,” Theron said. “What about you?”

  “I’m going to convince my old apprentice to take her ship to Duro.”

  Pulling the hood of his cloak up over his head to obscure his features, the Jedi slipped out of the shuttle and took off, moving with the supernatural speed of one driven by the Force. Theron watched him until he vanished through the hangar door, leaving him and Teff’ith alone.

  “Can I trust you on this?” he asked the Twi’lek. “Millions of innocent lives are at stake.”

  “Ten thousand credits to deliver one message? Stupid not to do it.”

  “Good. Tell Satele Shan everything that happened here. She has to convince Jace to send the Republic fleet to Duro.”

  Theron wondered what the Director or Jace would say once they learned that a Twi’lek enforcer for the Old Tion Brotherhood now knew all the critical details of their top-secret mission. He’d probably get court-martialed, and rightfully so. But he trusted Teff’ith. More important, he didn’t have any other options. Not if he wanted to keep Duro from being the site of one of the war’s bloodiest massacres.

  He started to leave the ship, then paused to say one last thing to Teff’ith. “Remember,” he warned her. “Double-cross us and you don’t get paid.”

  “Got it,” she said, her lekku flicking in annoyance. “Said stupid not to do it. We not stupid.”

  Gnost-Dural was little more than a blur of motion and movement as he raced through the corridors of Reaver Station. The Imperial soldiers he flew past reacted with a mix of surprise, curiosity, and alarm, but he came and went so fast none of them fully realized what had happened. Left in his wake, they exchanged a few puzzled glances with their friends, then laughed off the odd but seemingly harmless encounter as their minds convinced them that the person who’d just run by couldn’t possibly have been moving that fast.

  He didn’t know exactly where he was going, but he let the Force guide him. When they’d first arrived at Reaver Station, he had gently reached out with his mind until he sensed his former Padawan. Now he was using her familiar presence—shrouded in the dark side, but still unmistakable after so many years—as a beacon to guide him to her.

  At the same time, he was careful to mask his own presence so as not to warn her of his coming. As he drew closer it would be impossible to completely hide himself from her awareness should she suddenly choose to focus her thoughts on finding him, but there was no reason she would do so. Not until he was so close that it no longer mattered.

  As he drew near the Ascendant Spear’s hangar, he slowed his pace. There were more people here, men and women returning from or heading out on shore leave. But none of the off-duty soldiers paid him any special heed. Those coming back to the ship were tired and inebriated, and those leaving were too eager to begin their leave to pay close enough attention to the hooded figure’s hidden features to realize he wasn’t human.

  That changed when he reached the two guards on duty at one of the many boarding ramps leading from the hangar floor into the Spear itself.

  “Who are you?” one demanded, stepping in his path.

  She moved with a sure confidence that Gnost-Dural recognized all too well; he knew there would be little chance of using the Force to persuade her to let him pass. Should it be necessary, he was ready to resort to violence to get inside, but he thought there might still be another way.

  He threw back his hood, revealing his alien features. He took deep, slow breaths through his mask, which gave off a deep, angry hiss in response as he tilted his head back slightly to make his tusks more prominent.

  “My name is Darth Malitiae,” he said, dropping his already baritone voice a full octave lower. “I have business with Darth Karrid.”

  The guard hesitated but held her ground, and he realized she would need more convincing. The Kel Dor extended his hand while simultaneously reaching out with the Force to apply a faint pressure on her windpipe.

  She threw her hands up to her throat and her eyes went wide with terror as her air supply was cut off. After a few moments he released his hold, causing her to collapse to her knees as she took in deep, desperate gulps of oxygen.

  “When a superior wants to pass,” he snarled, “you would be wise to step aside.”

  “Forgive me, my Lord,” the guard gasped as she crawled out of his way. Keeping her eyes carefully averted to the ground, she said, “I will inform Darth Karrid of your arrival.”

  “Darth Karrid is expecting me. I refuse to wait so my presence can be announced by some groveling worm,” he sneered as he brushed past her.

  The second guard made no move to stop him. Instead, he cowered off to one side, trying very hard not to be noticed.

  The Jedi moved quickly up the boarding ramp and into the Spear, not certain how long the ruse would work. Though the guards hadn’t dared to stop him, once he was gone they would almost surely inform someone on board the ship of their honored guest’s arrival. It wouldn’t take long after that for someone to realize something was wrong and order security to hunt down the intruder.

  Still guided by the power of the Force emanating from Darth Karrid, he made his way deeper and deeper into the ship. He could feel evil and corruption enveloping him, growing steadily stronger during his descent, and he knew it wasn’t because of his former Padawan’s presence. When Darth Mekhis had created the Ascendant Spear, she’d used a combination of experimental technology and Sith alchemy to imbue the ship itself with the energies of the dark side. By the time Gnost-Dural stepped into the turbolift that would take him to the black heart of the vessel, the Jedi was feeling physically nauseated from the effects. But he also sensed he was nearing his goal.

  As he dropped into the very bowels of the ship, the claustrophobic feeling of the dark side pressing in on him from all sides was so strong that he almost didn’t sense the soldiers waiting in the corridor just beyond the turbolift’s doors. At the last possible instant, the Force granted him a sudden premonition of the lethal trap. Pulling his green-bladed lightsaber from his belt he dropped to the ground, pressing himself facedown flat on the floor as the turbolift came to a stop on the Spear’s lowest level.

  The guards’ blaster bolts shredded the turbolift’s doors as they slid open, ricocheting over Gnost-Dural’s head as they carved an arc at waist height. The Jedi responded by lashing out with the Force, hurling the four heavily armored soldiers several meters back down the corridor. Before they even hit the ground he had sprung to his feet, charging toward them as he threw his lightsaber sidearm. The spinning blade struck the nearest of his foes, slicing through the chest plate of his battle armor and into the vulnerable flesh beneath.

  The surviving three guards didn’t try to regain their feet, instead firing wildly at him from where they lay sprawled on the floor. The Kel Dor angled his charge toward the side wall, leaping and planting a foot halfway up the surface to give him leverage for a high,
twisting spin that scraped the ceiling, his arms tucked in close to his chest and his horizontal body perfectly parallel to the floor.

  The unexpected move again caught the soldiers off guard, their bolts whizzing beneath him. He landed on his feet amid his still-prone adversaries, his lightsaber flying back into his hand as he recalled it with the Force. He turned sideways, narrowly dodging fire from the closest soldier while a pair of quick flicks with his lightsaber deflected the bolts from the other two harmlessly off to either side.

  The hard heel of his boot slammed down on the helmeted head of the man at his feet. At the same time he used the Force to pick up the other two and send them crashing into the ceiling before letting them drop back down to the floor. Momentarily stunned, all three were defenseless against the quick series of cuts and thrusts from his lightsaber that finished them off.

  Knowing reinforcements wouldn’t be far behind, he raced down the hall and burst through the door at the end, coming face-to-face with Darth Karrid and her two apprentices.

  They were standing in a large, circular chamber: his former Padawan in the center, a male human on her right and a female pure-blooded Sith on her left. Behind Karrid he could see a large crystal sphere, and on the side wall he saw a small control console. Otherwise the room was empty.

  All three of his adversaries wore black armor and sported the fierce facial tattoos so common in those who followed the dark side. Their lightsabers were drawn and ready, the shimmering blades casting a crimson glow over the dimly lit room. Clearly they were expecting him, though whether they had sensed his presence through the Force or had simply been warned by the guards outside, he couldn’t say.

  “I knew you would come for me one day, Gnost-Dural,” Karrid said, her lips curling into a smile of anticipation. “But even you should know better than to challenge me here on my own ship.”

  “A Jedi pursues the dark side, no matter where it tries to hide,” he answered.

  “Noble and foolish as ever,” she mocked. “You have no idea of how powerful I’ve become.

  “Malgus showed me the true power,” she said, her voice slowly rising with each word. “He led me down the path to greatness. He revealed the secrets you dared not face!

  “He taught me to embrace all the things the Jedi fear!” she shouted, her voice echoing off the circular chamber’s walls. “Now I will use them to destroy you and every follower you have brought onto my ship!”

  “I have come alone,” Gnost-Dural replied, remaining calm in the face of her growing anger. “It was my decision to send you to Darth Malgus. I started you on this path; no one else is to blame.”

  “How quaint,” she said with a sneer. “I thought you’d led a strike team here to kill me, but you just want to save your Padawan from the perils of the dark side.”

  “I will purge the galaxy of the evil I unleashed upon it,” he said, his voice betraying nothing beyond firm resolution. “Whether this ends in redemption or death is your decision, not mine.”

  Karrid casually twirled her lightsaber, carving long, lazy circles in the air as her apprentices fanned out to either side, slowly moving into position to flank the Jedi.

  “I heard tales of your great prowess in battle while I was on Tython,” she told him. “But during all my years as a Padawan I never saw any evidence of it. I’m curious to see how badly your reputation has been exaggerated.”

  Gnost-Dural sensed Imperial reinforcements drawing near. Spinning back to the door behind him, he thrust his lightsaber into the access panel on the wall, sending up a shower of sparks as he fried the circuits, sealing the door so nobody else could enter the room.

  He wheeled back to face Karrid and her apprentices and slowly circled to his left, keeping his back against the wall as he tried to gauge the strength of his opponents.

  “You’ve given yourself over to the Ascendant Spear,” Gnost-Dural warned his former Padawan, holding his own weapon steady in front of him, two hands on the hilt in a classic defensive posture. “It has consumed your thoughts and training. In learning to master this ship, your other skills have atrophied.”

  “That is why I don’t intend to face you alone,” Karrid said.

  A slight nod of the Falleen’s head sent her apprentices rushing forward, and Master Gnost-Dural braced to meet their charge.

  CHAPTER 24

  THERON HAD NO IDEA what Gnost-Dural was planning, but he knew he had to get on the Ascendant Spear quickly. Instead of heading back to the Golden Galley where he might hope to steal a boarding pass, he headed for the hangar where the ship had docked.

  The scene was one of chaos—hundreds of crew members milled around the hangar, clearly agitated. Six guards stood with weapons drawn, lined up at the base of each of the half dozen ramps leading into the ship, blocking the way.

  Theron slipped into the crowd, studying the guards. He quickly realized they weren’t allowing anyone to leave the vessel. Anyone trying to board was subject to a lengthy interrogation and inspection of their ID before being allowed to pass; the delay was causing a steady increase in the crowd waiting impatiently to be allowed back on.

  Whatever Gnost-Dural had done had caused security to clamp down hard.

  “What’s going on?” Theron asked a tall woman beside him.

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” she answered, clearly annoyed and not entirely sober. “I just want to get back to my bunk.”

  There were angry murmurs in the crowd, and a handful of people actually pushed through to verbally confront the guards at the base of the boarding ramps—something that would never have happened a year ago. Imperial citizens were raised in a military culture that trained them to respect authority. But the traditional discipline of the Imperial troops had been frayed by their recent setbacks in the war. And with hundreds of tired and drunk crew members coming back from R&R, tempers were high.

  An idea struck Theron. It was crazy, impulsive, and risky … in other words, just his style.

  He worked his way through the crowd, heading out of the hangar and back into Reaver Station. He remembered passing by a small security post: a room where the soldiers responsible for inspecting the incoming vessels could pass the time while they waited for arrivals. With C wing shut down to other traffic because of the Spear’s presence, the guard post was unstaffed.

  Theron paused at the door, glancing around quickly, and made sure nobody in the crowd of people passing by was paying any attention to him; they were too wrapped up in their own thoughts and conversations, or focused on meeting up with friends to enjoy their brief time on the station away from whatever vessel they served on.

  He pulled the slicer spike from his pocket, concealing it in his palm as he clipped it into the access panel on the wall. He was careful to stand straight and tall, his shoulders back and his head held high as he quickly sliced through the locked door; hunching over and other furtive behavior would draw far more attention from the people walking by than someone who clearly looked like he had every right to be there.

  The door slid open and Theron stepped confidently into the small room beyond before closing it behind him. The guard post was crowded—four chairs packed in around a large control console, with vidscreens displaying the various hangars across the station: EMPTY; PENDING ARRIVAL; SECURITY CHECK IN PROGRESS; CLEARED TO BOARD. Every hangar in C wing was set to the same status: INACTIVE.

  Because hangar security needed to know the number and size of incoming vessels so they could properly handle inspections, the guard post had access to Reaver Station’s external scanners and the early-warning beacons. The beacons were the first line of defense, strategically placed to detect incoming vessels long before they actually reached Reaver Station.

  It didn’t take long for Theron to slice into the system. The scanners currently showed a few dozen Imperial vessels in the sector, arriving, departing, or waiting for clearance from the central tower to land.

  He quickly verified that Teff’ith was gone; the status display of the hangar wh
ere they had docked now read EMPTY. Satisfied, he made a small adjustment to one of the settings on his slicer spike, then began to feed a steady stream of false data into the system.

  Several dozen vessels ranging in size from single-pilot fighters all the way up to full capital ships suddenly materialized on the scanners, popping into existence near the early-warning beacons. The data mimicked the effect of a large, well-coordinated fleet dropping from hyperspace all at once on the farthest edges of the sector. A few seconds later alarms began to ring out through Reaver Station warning of the simulated Republic attack.

  The sizzle and hum of clashing blades echoed off the walls of the cavernous chamber as Karrid’s apprentices engaged Gnost-Dural. Their attacks were basic variations on the Makashi style, a precise and economical lightsaber form designed for maximum results with minimal movement by stressing jabs and thrusts.

  Their skills were raw; like Karrid much of their training had focused on developing the unique abilities required to help their Master command the Ascendant Spear. They were still able to call on the fury of the dark side to move with astonishing strength and speed, but they hadn’t mastered the subtle art of allowing the Force to guide their blades. They were wielding the weapon instead of allowing it to become an extension of themselves.

  Nevertheless they were relentless in their attacks, and there were two of them. Gnost-Dural was forced onto the defensive to ward off their attacks, occasionally slipping in quick maneuvers drawn from the more aggressive Ataru form to keep them off balance.

  Darth Karrid merely observed the battle at first, keeping a safe distance from the deadly blade of her former Master while his focus and energies were drained by her apprentices.

  Realizing he would eventually wear down if he allowed the battle to become a duel of attrition, the Kel Dor countered with Djem So, the fifth of the seven recognized lightsaber forms. Concentrating his counterattacks exclusively on the physically smaller female Sith, he unleashed a series of savage blows, driving her into a stumbling retreat.