| Author |
Topic:
Rent in the Force Chapter 26 is up 06/25/03 Finished
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ZaraValinor
Registered:
May '02
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Date Posted:
6/19/03 9:06pm
Subject:
RE: Rent in the Force Chapter 23 is up 06/13/03 "It Is Too Late For Me"
- Date Edited:
6/22/03 8:31pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
ZaraValinor
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Chapter 24:Father
The Sith Lord Darth Nefarion stepped off of his personal transport, his black boots crunching the deepening hue of the Auna vines under his feet. The natural red, orange, and yellow color of the vibrating veined leaves had deepened even further with the turning of the season. They were also marked by the puff of condensate air that accompanied each breath from the Sith Lord.
Nefarion was like the night that surrounded him, he was cloaked in eternal darkness, hiding the smile of icy pleasure he felt at seeing his years of planning come to fruition. He had waited long for this day, the day that he would take Ben Skywalker and mold him into a being he could control; so much power in one boy was impossible to pass up.
All around him in the small clearing, secured by the initial wave of his Yuuzhan Vong Devotees, were the other warriors from such planets as Linnal, Belkadan, and Garqi. Planets so out of the way, already terraformed to the specifications of Yun Yuuzhan, that the New Republic had given them over to the Devotees without thought. They had flocked to him as word of the demigod Nefarion had spread across the galaxy, from villip to villip, word that their salvation was yet at hand. He had promised them the galaxy that the gods had promised them. He had taken on the mantle of those they worshipped, and in turn they worshipped him.
After Warmaster Tarsvin Shraq had contacted him with the success of his mission, Nefarion had declared their victory, and had called every warrior to move from their planets to the central system of the New Republic, Coruscant. They had moved in - not under the cover of his cloaking device, but openly, in the rightful Yuuzhan Vong technology that his followers created.
Nefarion had stomached the slimy technology with the stoicism of his training, knowing that it was only a matter of time before the Devotees and Separatists wore out their usefulness.
His cloak billowed behind him as he marched towards the Devotee Warmaster, the customary tattooing and scarring marring what was already a haggard face. Shraq bowed before him, a little more willing to trust that Nefarion was the god he had made himself out to be. “My Lord, the Jeedai's Temple is secured.”
“Good,” he said, brushing past the Warmaster and continuing forward, forcing Shraq to hurry to catch up. “What news of the Solos?”
“We have them secured in a cell about midway into the Temple, just as you requested, Lord,” Shraq said quickly, his head bobbing at the end in acquiescence of Nefarion's divine influence.
Nefarion did nothing but accept Shraq's current awe. Time would tell if it would stay. “What about Ben Skywalker and AnakinSolo?”
“Your apprentice reports that they are in the Temple, attempting to free the Jeedai,” Shraq responded.
The Lady Sarlana was proving her worth yet again. He had debated on whether or not to dispatch her after he had Skywalker; her power was growing, and her loyalty had been tested. He knew, even if she had not recognized it. She had passed the test, but there were stress cracks in her psyche that Nefarion was bound one day to press upon, and he did not want to be around when she broke. Still, he had use for her yet.
“Take me to the pinnacle of the Temple,” he ordered the Devotee Warmaster. “You are my shield, domain Shraq. If you succeed, the gods will honor you; if you fail, shame will fall upon your domain. You will be Shamed.”
Shraq gulped, his throat muscles tensing in the act. “Of course, m'Lord.”
Lady Sarlana, he sent the mind probe out to his apprentice.
Master, was the almost immediate reply, a weariness in her mind touch that Nefarion had never felt in his apprentice before.
Prepare the bait.
The secret would be revealed, and Ben Skywalker would be his.
A sly, knowing smile crossed over the shrouded features. It would have turned the hardened Warmaster, Tarsvin Shraq's stomach to see the coldness in it.
[/hr]
Tad was running with everything he had to catch up to his sister, just that all he had was two small baby-fat legs that would not carry him very far. Several times already, Aunecah had stopped to allow her younger brother to catch up, and she tried to give him a short pause to catch his breath, but the Yuuzhan Vong were not letting up. Now that she could feel the Devotees in the Force, she no more wanted to hang around them than she had before - their bloodlust was apparent to the little girl as she read them through the gift that was her family’s.
She was sure that her own abused legs were about to give up, when further down the corridor, past the shrine to Uncle Luke, was Uncle Anakin's friend, Analsa. “Analsa,” Auni called. “Help us.”
Analsa waved them forward, her kind face urging them to quickness. Aunecah found that her energy was revitalized at the sight of Uncle Anakin's friend. Someone older, who could help her and Tad get her family. To Aunecah's surprise, Tad pulled back on her arm, grinding his heels into the tile.
“No, Auni,” Tad said, as he struggled against his older and stronger sister.
Aunecah didn't have time for this. She frowned at her little brother, and said, “Tad, Analsa can help us. She'll lead us to Uncle Anakin.”
It was Tad's turn to frown. “Are you sure, Auni?”
Analsa came to meet up with them and she bowed over, scooping up Tad in her arms. She looked around as though searching out the nearest enemy before sighting Aunecah in her dark brown eyes. “Have you seen your parents yet?”
“No, the Vong took Grandma but didn't see us,” Aunecah answered, trusting with that child-like innocence that made young ones vulnerable. “They didn't see us, me and Tad have been hiding.”
“Until now,” Analsa said. Tad was as stiff as a board in her arms, his eyes white-wide with fright. “Come on.”
Aunecah felt very much relieved - she would no longer have to worry about keeping Tad safe, or herself for that matter. Children always believe in adults who will protect them, and Auni believed it more than most, having lived with Jedi heros since the time of her birth. But something nagged at her - the way Tad was acting especially frightened her. What was it that he saw that she did not?
Following Analsa, Aunecah felt these things whirl around in her mind. She was young, but a pensive child, and was given to long moments of deep thought. “Where's Uncle Anakin?” she asked, realizing that this was the reason she had felt relieved to see Analsa.
“He's with your parents,” Analsa answered shortly. “I'm taking you to them now.”
Tad finally contrived to speak. “Benny?”
“He's here, but not with your family. Ben's releasing the High Council,” Analsa answered, and for the first time Aunecah caught something different in the woman's voice, a deeper husk, resonant, like the bottom of an old oil barrel.
Aunecah fell silent as they continued to wind their way through the Temple. Where were all the Yuuzhan Vong? It seemed that they had come out of the stonework when they had finally found Aunecah and Tadeo, morphing out of shadow, like monsters from the stories that her father had told her in jest. Aunecah had bit her tongue, and in an aristocratic manner, very much like her grandmother, had declared that there was no such thing as monsters. But these Yuuzhan Vong were.
After a while they came to a stop, and Aunecah could feel her parents just behind the door, along with the rest of her family, save for Grandpa Han. He had yet to return to the Temple from his work on Mon Calamari. She pointed at the door, looking up at her brother. “See, Tad, they're just behind there. Can you feel them, Tad?”
Her little brother nodded, but refused to speak. Aunecah turned back to the door, where her parents were so close, yet blocked from her by the Yuuzhan Vong guarding the door. “How do we get past them?” she asked Analsa.
“We don't,” Analsa said, and grabbed Aunecah's arm in her hand so tightly that it hurt. Without another word to Aunecah, Analsa dragged her and Tad towards those beings who had been hunting them. As they approached, Analsa spoke. “I am the Sith Lady Sarlana. Take the girl in with the sacrifices. My Lord has plans for the boy.”
Aunecah's blood ran cold in her frame, and she struggled to get out of the vice-like grip that Analsa had on her, even as Tad struggled on his own, muttering, “No, bad man. No.”
As Aunecah struggled, she felt other hands, hands with sharp claws, grab onto her, and Analsa's voice boomed yet again in that hollow quality that Aunecah had sensed before. “Do not harm her. She is to be whole for the sacrifice.”
The Devotees pulled her away, and tears filled her eyes. “Tad,” she yelled, reaching towards her brother with all her strength, which wasn't enough against the sinewy muscles of the Yuuzhan Vong warriors holding her.
“Auni,” Tad responded, barely decipherable beneath the tears that choked him.
[/hr]
Ben and Keorra moved through the Temple with the speed and efficiency of a well-practiced Master and Apprentice team, as good as when he had worked with his mother or father, and it astonished the young seer. With all his fiber he wanted to turn back and head for where he felt his cousin Anakin and the rest of the Solo family. His cousin had been wounded, badly by the way Anakin's mind busily worked to heal it. Ben could feel him drawing on the power of the Force and the Yuuzhan Vong around him that their oombassl had connected him to. He was drawing from the strength that their presence gave his body.
Several times he had paused, his feet feeling as heavy as steel, that feeling of being pulled in two directions haunting him. He knew that each decision he made tipped the balance in the Force, felt the pressure in the Force build, dark and menacing. Nefarion had landed - he was on Coruscant, probably even in the Temple. To go, to stay, to stand, to fight - each decision, every choice, could ripple through the Force, and for the first time, he was tempted to see the future. To know what would come.
The desire frightened him. Do you know what the problem with the future is, Anakin? You forget the moment. The now. Yet the moment and the now gave him no answers - he was floating, lost on a wave of impending darkness. He and Anakin and Cherrz were the keys to stopping it, each of them destined by fate, 'Chosen' by destiny, to put an end to the imbalance in the Force.
The imbalance that had spanned over two generations, an imbalance teetered to both sides by those who had come before him. His mind was that of a Jedi, but his heart was that of a boy, just wanting to be made safe, as much as Aunecah or Tadeo. Yet there was no shelter to hide under, and he had to provide for his own safety and for those he loved.
Despite what Anakin had said before about giving Nefarion what he wanted, Ben now knew that there was no choice in the matter. The Jedi, his family, would die, or he would have to face the demons that lurked inside of him, the dark side of oneself that each being in the universe was susceptible to - and Nefarion stood at the apex of that darkness. A choice would be placed before him, two destinies to decide, and in the end he knew he would be making the wrong choice. The one that would lead him to be the Sith Lord of his visions.
But in the meantime he had the now, the light inside of him that scattered and destroyed those dark places that built up inside of everyone. He could disillusion himself and those around him by denying those places, those circlets of anger and hatred that had come from witnessing both his parents’ deaths, but to deny the truth was not Jedi. To face it, to move past it, was Jedi.
But do I want to be Jedi?
He and Keorra were paused just beyond sight of another room full of Jedi, blocked off by the scarred-faced, tattoo-bearing, Devotee guards. They exchanged knowing looks, coordinating their attacks with just a glance, something that if his parents had been alive to see would have reminded them of another Skywalker and a fiery warrior. But just as they were about to move, static from the Temple's intercom blared.
“What the...” Keorra started to say, but Ben cupped his hand around her mouth, shrinking further back into the shadows so as not to alert the Devotees to their presence.
She looked back at him, and he raised his index finger to his lips, pursing them slightly in a shushing form. She nodded, molding herself comfortably next to him.
“Ben Skywalker,” and there was no mistaken the voice that carried echoingly down the corridors from the loudspeaker. Analsa Vinn. “This is Lady Sarlana. My Master, Darth Nefarion, has something here that he thinks you'll want.”
Moments later, a tear-laden voice came over the loudspeaker. “Benny,” Tad said, tentative, not sure of what he was doing, just knowing that he was more scared than he had ever been before. So was Ben.
At his sides, Ben's hands turned into white fists, fury marked by the gesture. He shook his head in stunned disbelief. “Not Tad,” he whispered. “I can't lose Tad.”
“Listen up, Skywalker. I know what Solo said, but you will have no choice. Meet him at the top of the Tower of Light and the boy's life will be spared,” Analsa - no, Lady Sarlana - said. “If you do not meet him within the hour, we will start carrying out executions.”
A child, Ben thought, the harshness of the thought tearing inside of him like a rapier through shimmersilk. They would kill that sweet innocent child. Do sacrifices of this magnitude have to be made?
“And do not even begin to ponder that high Jedi moralism your family seems to have inherited all of a sudden. After we are finished with your family, we will start making other executions, perhaps say the younger students first, and moving up in age,” Sarlana came back to say. “Come alone. You have one hour - make the right choice.”
Choice; the word reverberated inside of him, like a skittish tauntaun in his mind. His grey-shot eyes closed, and in his mind’s eye he saw Tad, with that Solo smile and those green eyes that were like the light of multifaceted gems. Then his thoughts turned to the children he had taught before leaving the Temple, the little ones that his father and mother had taken so much pleasure in teaching, in watching grow. To go, to stay, to stand, to fight. Make the right choice.
“I knew I should have gutted her,” Keorra muttered next to him, her hand slipping into his to give it a brief squeeze. “We'll rescue him, I promise.”
He shook his head. “I won't put anyone else in danger. Enough people have already died for me. I couldn't bear it if you were one of them.”
Her violet eyes flared with disbelief and ill-suppressed anger. “You're not actually thinking of going, are you?”
“It's the right choice,” he said and felt as though it were. “This man is too powerful - he could have killed me back on Bellalt, I won't risk any other deaths. The worst thing he could do to me would be to kill me.” Please let it be that, he thought, because there was something else Nefarion could do, far worse than any physical pain. He could turn me into him.
Suddenly, Keorra was moving, and in a blink of an eye she had Ben's arms pinned behind his back and a hand to his throat, keeping him in place. “If you are so eager to die, then say the word, Skywalker.” Her fingers flexed on his throat. “All I have to do is twist.”
She could do it, too, if he allowed it. As much as her hand would allow, he moved his head towards hers. “Look into my eyes, Upoi Soulreader. Tell me what you see.”
“Un'kalla,” she whispered, not leaving her grip.
“Death is better than Kalla,” he continued. “But I'm not looking for death, I'm hoping for life. This is my path - you know it. You may not be able to touch the Force, but you can see it in my eyes, in my soul. It is the truth.”
“I'm afraid,” she admitted, almost in the same small voice he had used as they had dangled from a tension cord.
“Don't be. He wants me alive; as long as I can save one person with my life, it’s worth it. This will keep the whole Temple for a while. Enough time for your father and the rest of the Council to retake it,” Ben said.
She stiffened and her hand fell away from his neck. “My father?”
“You have an opportunity that you should cherish, Keorra Cereaslean Durron. I knew my father inside and out almost before I knew I had that mystical energy source known as the Force. I knew him on a deeper level than most children ever get to know their parents. And yet I continually argued with him because I feared my own weakness, feared that I could never live up to his expectations - that really came from only myself.” He locked her gaze in his own, in a stare so intense that it might have come from Luke Skywalker himself. “He loves you; I could sense that immediately.”
Her elfin features hardened. “He abandoned me.”
"For the first three years of my life, I was tossed around between Jedi, stowed from one hideout to the next, because I was a target because of who my parents were. Don't be so quick to judge his decisions. Find out who your father is,” he gulped as emotion filled him. “Because we never know when it may be too late.”
“But you do,” she said.
He nodded. “I do.”
“And you feel this is right,” it was not a question but a statement.
“This is my path,” Ben affirmed.
“Then go,” she said, yanking one of her blasters from its holster and checking the power gauge.
He frowned. “What about you?”
She gave him a quick peck on the cheek before the corners of her mouth peeled back into a cocky grin. “I've got some chaos to cause.” And with that she leaped at the group of Yuuzhan Vong, crowded in around the Jedi over whom they had thought they had achieved a victory.
[/hr]
“She's cocky,” Obi-Wan Kenobi observed as he and Luke Skywalker watched Keorra leap into the Yuuzhan Vong. “Your soon-to-be daughter-in-law.”
Luke's eyebrows hiked up his forehead. “You think so?”
“I should know by now when a Skywalker is in love,” Obi-Wan said, with a hint of humor despite the gravity of the situation.
“He's part Kenobi, you know,” Luke reminded.
“It took me a long time to realize my love for Zara and even longer to do anything about it,” Obi-Wan explained. “It is always harder to recognize your own feelings and be able to deal with them when you are a Jedi.”
Luke watched his son move off to meet the Dark Lord, willingly sacrificing his own life to save the Temple that Luke himself had built. “He's so young,” he thought out loud. “Too young to face what is up ahead.”
“I thought the same of you, not so long ago,” Obi-Wan pointed out.
“It seems forever ago,” Luke said. “I can't wait any longer, Ben. My son needs me. He has yet to recognize the emotions that are boiling inside of him. He has done so much, but he still needs guidance. He needs me.”
Obi-Wan stroked his beard thoughtfully. “It is time. You can only give him enough to buoy him, but you can't get involved any more than I did when you went to face your father on Bespin.”
Luke nodded. “How do I do it?”
[/hr]
Ben did not run through the Temple, he crept. He did not want to meet up with Nefarion any sooner than he had to. He dreaded stepping on to that rooftop, the remembrance of vision that the Tower of Light would bring, and facing off with the man who was the instigator of those visions. I will control my feelings, I will not let them rule me. I will fight with justice, and not revenge, in my heart, he repeated the mantra inside his head with each and every step he took up towards the Tower of Light.
Still, he did feel the anger building, and not just because of Nefarion's murder of his father - but all the other injustices that had taken place, all to gain control of the galaxy... to gain control of him. A trickle of fear coursed up his spin.
Fear is...
“Fear is the path to the Dark Side, Ben.” This time the voice wasn't just in his head - his eardrum responded to it, interpreted the sound waves. But how did the dead speak?
Spinning on his heel, Ben turned to face the direction the voice had come from. There, standing in an aura of ambient blue light, was his father, just the way he remembered him: strong, brave, kind, understanding, and loving. All those emotions, all those benevolent traits that had made him the great Jedi Master, were evident through a small smile that tugged at his wrinkle-worn face.
“Dad,” Ben breathed. Not able to believe what he was seeing. “Is it really you?”
That smile that was totally Luke Skywalker deepened. “Yes, Ben, it's me.”
The urge to fling himself into his father's arms, to feel that protection once again, begged to outweigh the knowledge that Luke was no longer in corporeal form. Once again, tears came to blur the grey tint of his eyes. This was his father, right in front of him, and yet he felt so far away. Touching him with the Force wasn't the same: it was like trying to follow every thread the Force produced, and trying to pick out which one was his father.
Even as he rejoiced in his father's presence, his face hardened in resolve. “If you've come to stop me from meeting Nefarion, you have wasted your time. I have to go. This isn't just about Tad and the family, this is about the whole Order.”
“In which everything hinges upon you, son,” Luke reminded.
Ben nodded. “I am the spearhead.”
“You are more than that,” Luke countered. “Besides, I did not come here to stop you, I came here to offer you guidance. You have not found your calm.”
“I can't,” Ben admitted in a soft whisper.
“You must,” Luke returned adamantly. “Ben, you know you can.”
Ben struggled for breath under the torrent of emotion that was flooding over him. “He killed you. He will kill Tad if I don't go up there, yet how can I trust him, Dad?” His fist balled up and slammed the wall behind him. “This is your department, this hero thing. Can't you take it from me? Can't you stop this from coming?”
Tears sparkled in Luke's eyes now. “You know I can't, Ben.”
“Then I will do what I must to save what balance there can be before I become like Nefarion,” Ben said, his voice now deadpan, emotionless, the voice of a man who knew he was fighting a lost cause but did not step away from the battle.
“The future is always in motion. This is defeatist talk. Your mother and I did not raise a defeatist,” Luke raged against Ben's words.
Ben's eyes were so grey that you could no longer see the blue/green color behind them. “Have you seen my visions? The Darkness that is sure to come?”
Luke's head fell forward, his shoulders slumping slightly under the weight of admission. “I have seen what you've seen.”
“Then you know what I fear?” Ben said.
“Fear is the manifestation of imagined truth, Ben,” Luke said, his incorporeal form coming closer. “We know that what you see is the future, but how do we know it is your future?”
Ben rubbed at his face in agitation. “Dad, you aren’t making any sense.”
“Many things in this life or death don’t make sense until we look at them in hindsight. Like trusting your mother. I don’t know how many times Han told me that I was going to get myself killed trusting a woman who had sworn she’d murder me. But I knew I could trust her, that she was not a danger to me. How else could I give her my heart?” Luke said.
Ben frowned at his father. He always felt that death would bring you into deeper knowledge of the Force, that you would suddenly become as wise as Master Yoda. He could see a greater sense of wisdom in his father, yet he could not decipher the cryptic message lying behind Luke’s words.
“I don’t know what this has to do with the Sith,” Ben pointed out. Somehow, this was not his picture of a reunion with his father.
Luke shrugged his luminescent shoulders. “Probably nothing. All I’m saying is expect the unexpected. Remember what your mother told you. Do not seek revenge. Revenge might cost you what you desire most.”
“And what if I don’t know what I desire?” Ben asked, and he could hear his own pain beneath the lame attempt to bury it.
“You know. Deep down you know, Ben,” Luke assured him.
The surreal aura around Luke did not keep Ben from falling under the intensity of his father’s stunning blue-eyed gaze. In that single assurance, Ben felt both ready and unprepared for the confrontation up ahead. “I’m sorry, Father,” he whispered. “I just wish that none of this had to happen. That you and Mom could be here now, that balance didn’t have the price it does.”
“Your mother will always be with you, as will I.” His father’s head suddenly jerked as though hearing a voice that Ben was not yet privy to. “I have to go, but know that your mother and I are proud of you. That the path is not nearly as visible as we think it is, even with visions. Remember that hate leads to the Dark Side, and that Nefarion is more than he seems.”
“Dad, I...” he paused, not sure if he could say it and then watch his father evaporate from his sight, as he had not so long ago on Bellalt. “I wanted to thank you for everything you’ve done. I don’t know if I’ll be able to see you again, but I just wanted you to know that... there was never a time when I didn’t want to be your son.”
Luke’s face collapsed in pained joy. “Thank you, Ben.”
-----signature-----
Proud Master to Meredith_Kenobi & Lolly_Tolly
"He full-on Obi-Wan'd me!"
Dean Winchester - Supernatural
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RebelMom
Title: TFF Secretary
Registered:
Apr '00
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Date Posted:
6/19/03 9:25pm
Subject:
RE: Rent in the Force Chapter 24 is up 06/19/03 "Father"
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wonderful father/son chat. I was crying near the end. I hope Ben takes his fathers words to heart.
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Short Story: Pressure Point http://boards.theforce.net/beyond_the_saga/b10477/26961243/p1/?7 Jacen Solo and Anakin Skywalker - as it should have been. TFF: Cheryl
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Aimeer9
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Date Posted:
6/20/03 5:06pm
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RE: Rent in the Force Chapter 24 is up 06/19/03 "Father"
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Wow that was a truly powerful father/son moment. Amazing 
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ZaraValinor
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May '02
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Date Posted:
6/21/03 10:58am
Subject:
RE: Rent in the Force Chapter 24 is up 06/19/03 "Father"
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RebelMom
wonderful father/son chat. I was crying near the end. I hope Ben takes his fathers words to heart.
I was really excited to write this part and I'm glad you liked it.
Aimeer9
Wow that was a truly powerful father/son moment. Amazing
Thanks. Ben needed to have a good chat with his father.
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Proud Master to Meredith_Kenobi & Lolly_Tolly
"He full-on Obi-Wan'd me!"
Dean Winchester - Supernatural
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Shloz
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Mar '01
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Date Posted:
6/22/03 12:30am
Subject:
RE: Rent in the Force Chapter 24 is up 06/19/03 "Father"
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This post had great suspense energy,as well as touching heart-to-hearts - I loved it!
I was quite breathless as poor Tad and Auni fell into Sarlana's clutches. My heart pounded as Ben and Keorra came (almost) clean with each other. And, finally, Luke's blue debut!
Really enjoying this - it's a privilege to beta!  (I'd like to stake my claim on the concluding episode, as well...  )
I have an awful suspicion as to Nefarion's identity, that just got worse after Luke's vague warning. (Yes, folks, not even the beta knows yet!) I'm hangin' off the cliff here...
Really excellent work, Zara. Not that I have any doubts, but keep it up.
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Episode III: Palpatine's "Road Map to Peace" with the Separatists... and to Empire.
Support those who battle today's evil - terrorism.
"So I said to him, 'George, the third film was a flop. Cute, little, bear-things?!'"
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ZaraValinor
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Date Posted:
6/22/03 8:45pm
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RE: Rent in the Force Chapter 24 is up 06/19/03 "Father"
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Thanks Shloz. The next post will reveal the secret and hope everyone is surprised.
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Proud Master to Meredith_Kenobi & Lolly_Tolly
"He full-on Obi-Wan'd me!"
Dean Winchester - Supernatural
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Shloz
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Date Posted:
6/23/03 5:52am
Subject:
RE: Rent in the Force Chapter 24 is up 06/19/03 "Father"
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Chapter 25 has been beta-ed and...
...well, you'll see...
BTW, I want to inform/remind everyone on this thread that the nominations for the JC Fanfic awards are now in progress at this thread.
Nominations are only until this Thursday (the 26th), so we'd better hurry.
Let's give this fic, series, and our wonderful author the acclaim and renown they deserve so much, as well as letting others on the board find out about what they've been missing!
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Episode III: Palpatine's "Road Map to Peace" with the Separatists... and to Empire.
Support those who battle today's evil - terrorism.
"So I said to him, 'George, the third film was a flop. Cute, little, bear-things?!'"
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ZaraValinor
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Date Posted:
6/23/03 8:33pm
Subject:
RE: Rent in the Force Chapter 24 is up 06/19/03 "Father"
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Thanks Shloz. You always manage to give me a boost.
Chapter 25: He’s My Brother
This can't be happening, Jacen thought. Not again. The oldest Solo boy was struck with a profound sense of déjà vu, seeing his brother dragged in with a ghastly wound that, although it did not look exactly like the one he received on Myrkr, brought up memories of that horror-filled mission and the cost it had claimed from the Solo family.
He still had nightmares of that day, when Anakin had gone absent in the Force, when he could no longer feel the brother he loved in the Force. Myrkr had been a dark place for him and his family ever since. He could still hear Jaina begging Anakin to heal himself, to take a break from the mission long enough to go into a healing trance. Yet Anakin had seen a different route, and had given his life to save the remaining members of his squad, allowing the mission to proceed, and succeed.
Anakin had fought through that devastating wound, had pushed Jacen to take Jaina and go. This lightsaber wound was rough, but Jacen did not think it was as bad as the one Anakin had received on Myrkr. The one he still carried the scar from.
The Yuuzhan Vong had brought Anakin in over an hour ago, and Jacen had taken upon himself the unpleasant task of dressing Anakin's wounds, tearing swaths of cloth from his own unisuit. He had marveled at the precision of the wound. No major organs damaged, it did not twist, so as not arch through bone and flesh - which would have surely have killed Anakin for good this time, cleaving him in half. No, this wound had been a debilitating wound, which told Jacen that for the time being Lord Nefarion and his Sithly apprentice wanted the Solo family alive and intact.
Now all they could do was wait. Jacen could feel Anakin's mind working, but he could not understand what the younger Solo was planning, or why he was expending so much energy when he needed to work on healing his body. Several times Jacen had reached out and tried to link with his brother, to put him in a healing trance, and Anakin had knocked him clean out of his mind. He didn't know if it was because Anakin was still angry with him, or that such an intrusion would limit whatever it was Anakin was doing. Nevertheless, it hurt.
Why did I let this breach continue? he asked himself, looking down at Tahiri, who was lying on the other side of him. He knew that a part of it had been Tahiri - that Anakin still held a placein his heart for his best friend, and felt as though Jacen had stolen her from that place - but that was only part of the breach. I have only done what I've thought was necessary.
And that's where Jacen caught himself. It was that pride issue that Uncle Luke had warned him about all those years ago, when he and Anakin had begun their great large debates, which had quickly been swallowed in arguments. He had never thought to consider Anakin's side of the Force, his particular gift, and take it into account of his own. The Force worked hand in hand as well as opposite of itself, and Jacen had forgotten that he and Anakin were on the same side, wanted basically the same things.
Jacen feared that if Anakin survived this, he still would be lost to him forever. A part of himself that he could never touch again, because he had pushed him away. He had not been the only one to tread off in a different direction, to widen the space between them, but he felt the responsibility of his part harshly. Would they ever be the brothers they had once been?
Jacen was interrupted from his dismal reverie by the sound of the training room door spurting open, followed closely by a Yuuzhan Vong leading his crying niece into the room with none-too-gentle force. Out of the corner of his eye he caught Jag hold back Jaina from advancing. His brother-in-law had seen what he had: if they even tried to move against them, the Yuuzhan Vong could quickly snap Aunecah in two. Nor did it escape any of the Solo clan who were presently conscious that Aunecah was alone, that Tad was still out there alone with the rest of the Devotees.
The Devotee tossed Auni to the ground. As the little one struggled to get up, she ran for the door behind the Vong warrior. But the door was already sliding back closed, and Auni thunked into it in a gesture of defeat. She stood there, leaning against the door, her tiny shoulders shaking, not looking for comfort from any of the adults in the room. Jaina rushed over to her daughter's side and gently lifted her into her arms.
“Auni, it's alright, Auni,” Jaina said, whispering into her daughter’s ear as she rocked Auni back and forth.
Jag was next to them in an instant. “Where’s Tad, Auni?” he asked.
Auni rubbed her head into Jaina’s shoulder, as if to erase the memory, the answer inside of her mind. “Analsa took him, Papa. They took him.”
Jacen saw his sister and brother-in-law cringe at Analsa’s name, felt Jaina’s anger peak, along with fear, in the Force. The set of her face, the way her brandy-brown eyes narrowed and pinched, reminded him so much of his mother after Anakin’s death. The degree was less, but still on the same level, and Jacen feared for his sister.
“The bait,” Leia whispered. “They’ve found the one thing that Ben will never forsake.”
Jacen nodded, knowing that there was an inherent bond, already formed between Ben and Tadeo as soon as his little nephew had been born. In fact, Jacen was sure there wasn’t anyone in this entire Temple that Ben would more likely trade his life for - and Nefarion knew it, too. Shivers went through Jacen’s spine. Just how well did this Sith Lord know his young cousin?
“Well, Ben doesn’t know that Nefarion has Tad yet. There’s still a chance that we can get to Tad before that happens,” Jacen said.
Tahiri squeezed his hand. “That’s a slim chance, my love. And we can’t leave Anakin unprotected.”
“Tahiri’s right,” Leia chimed in, seeing Jaina’s agitation grow in leaps and bounds by the moment. “We can’t just leap into the situation blindly. We can’t feel the Yuuzhan Vong in the Force, but we can focus on Tad, try to locate where he is in the Temple.”
“I can feel them,” Auni said, through sniffles. “Tad linked with me and showed me how.”
Jacen’s mind began to work around this new revelation. He knew his niece and nephew were quick to exchange lessons in the Force, and that this hadn’t been the first time in Solo history where the sister taught the brother or vice-versa. This information could work to their advantage. Jacen may not be on a par with Ben in strategy, but he was as close as it gets, and his mind began to churn in a way that it hadn’t since the first Yuuzhan Vong war. Because Jacen knew that they were now on the cusp of the second.
“Ben Skywalker,” the loudspeaker interrupted the hyperspeed pace of Jacen’s thoughts, “This is Lady Sarlana. My Master, Darth Nefarion, has something here that he thinks you'll want.”
“Benny,” Tad said, and Jaina gasped, her fists clenching around Auni.
“Listen up, Skywalker. I know what Solo said, but you will have no choice. Meet him at the top of the Tower of Light and the boy's life will be spared,” the Sith apprentice said. “If you do not meet him within the hour, we will start carrying out executions.”
“And do not even begin to ponder that high Jedi moralism your family seems to have inherited all of a sudden. After we are finished with your family, we will start making other executions, perhaps, say, the younger students first, and moving up in age,” Sarlana continued. “Come alone. You have one hour - make the right choice.”
Jaina searched her mother’s eyes desperately. “He will choose to go?” it was meant as a question, but there was no mistaking the finality in the words.
“He will go,” Leia said, nodding, pain etched in her aging but still beautiful features.
“Then we have no choice but to rescue Tad ourselves before Ben can make his sacrifice. The last thing we want to do is give Nefarion what he wants,” Jacen said.
From behind him, a tired voice muttered, “No, the last thing you want to do is waste Ben’s plan.”
Together, six heads turned to face the speaker. Looking pale and drawn, his eyes slightly glazed from over an hour of inaction, was Anakin, leaning on one of his elbows as he studied his family. A cocky lopsided grin spread across his drawn features, showing his amusement at their combined surprise.
“Anakin, you shouldn’t be out of your healing trance,” Leia admonished her youngest son. “You’re wounded.”
“I was wounded,” Anakin clarified, pulling at the strips of Jacen’s makeshift bandages, revealing smooth skin where just an hour ago had been charred and angrily red. “Ben is buying us time, time for the Jedi to retake the Temple. Nefarion has given him an ultimatum, one that, as much as I hate to admit it, Ben cannot turn down. The Force is propelling their confrontation.” He waved at his brother. “Help me up, Jacen, I haven’t got my full strength back.”
Taken aback by this unexpected change in events, Jacen could only stare at his brother before hurrying to comply with his wishes. “What do you have in mind, Anakin?” he asked.
His brother’s ice-chipped eyes snapped on him, searching his face with mysterious desire behind them. “Excuse me?”
He’s hopeful, but cautious, and slightly surprised, Jacen thought, feeling a pang of guilt that he had let this carry on so far. “I just thought you might have a plan,” he answered with a futile shrug. “We could use a plan at the moment.”
“Alright - who are you, and what did you do with my brother?” Anakin tossed the words out jokingly, but Jacen sensed the hint of truth behind them.
Jacen tossed him the same lopsided grin that Anakin had worn just a moment ago. “Let’s just say that I’ve changed in the time you were gone.“
”Ahhhhhh,” a scream filled the training room followed quickly by, “Jacen!”
Anakin and Jacen exchanged astounded looks before turning to Tahiri. “It can’t be,” Jacen muttered.
“Ben did say it was close,” Anakin returned.
“But in the middle of an attack?” Jacen said.
Anakin did a one-sided shrug. “When did a Solo ever come into the galaxy normally?”
“Can we debate this later, please?” Tahiri asked. Her teeth were clenched so tightly together in pain that the words came out in hissed stutters. “I’m about to have a baby here.”
“What do I do?” Jacen said, in a voice that lacked any of his vaunted Jedi indifference.
Jaina and Leia stepped over. “You don’t do anything. We’ll take care of this. You start forming a plan that will get us out of here and keep Nefarion from getting his hands on Ben.” Leia’s gaze steadied on Anakin. “Can you feel Ben?”
Running a hand through his evenly cropped hair, Anakin answered, “Yes, but he’s sending me feelings that I don’t like. He wants me to leave him to this. He knows he must stand alone in this fight, and he’s trying to make me believe it.”
“Do you?” Jaina asked, from where she was crouching beside Tahiri.
A long harsh sigh came from the very depths of Anakin. “It’s what the Force is urging. For now, it’s important that we retake the Temple.”
“But if we do that, it’s not likely that Nefarion will keep Ben on Coruscant,” Leia argued.
“That’s the chance we’ll have to take,” Anakin said painfully. Jacen was bowled over by such pain. “But I’ll get him back; I will get him back. I promised Uncle Luke.”
Grunts of pain came from Tahiri now as Jaina eased her against a nearby wall that held training mats. Jacen hunched next to his wife, grabbing Tahiri’s hand, squeezing it briefly as he placed a hand on her stomach. He sent out tendrils of the Force to soothe her pain. “Are you sure you want to come out now, little one?” he asked his unborn baby girl.
Tahiri gave his hand a squeeze back. “It’s time, Jacen.” Her face glowed with peace, even as the pain of the contractions rippled through her. “Ben was right. Our little one is going to be fine.” She took a deep breath. “And I know that you and Anakin must help to restore order to the Temple.”
“I won’t leave you,” Jacen said, shaking his head with adamant denial.
Jag’s hand fell on Jacen’s shoulder. “We won’t let anything happen to her.”
“You’re staying?” Jacen asked.
Jaina looked up at her husband admiringly. “After all the nieces and nephews he has, and with Tad and Auni’s births, I don’t think anyone else in this Temple is more prepared to help my new niece into the galaxy.”
A vice must have settled around his heart, because he felt that it had stopped dead in his chest, as he turned back to Tahiri. They had waited so long for this day, when the product of their love would be born, that he was loathe to leave her. “I don’t think I can, love.”
“Really, Tahiri,” Anakin said from behind him. “I can do this on my own.”
Tahiri’s green eyes linked onto Jacen’s brandy-browns. “You know what has to be done. Make this planet safe for our daughter.”
It was her strength that had first attracted Jacen to Tahiri, the quiet solidity inside of her that had kept her going after Anakin’s supposed death and her torture at the hands of the shapers. His hand came up, and his three middle fingers traced the scars running horizontally on her forehead. They were lighter than they had been when Anakin had rescued her from Yavin IV, but he could still feel the knotted flesh beneath the calloused skin of his fingertips.
“I love you,” he whispered softly.
“I know,” she said, grabbing his hand and kissing it before pressing it to her breastbone for half a moment. “Now, go with your brother.”
He nodded, his lips forming a kiss towards her as he stood up. Slowly, he turned to face his brother. “Together, brother?”
Anakin came to clasp his outstretched hand. “Together,” Anakin affirmed.
[/hr]
Ben broke out from the door leading up to the roof of the Tower of Light and into the cool night air... and into the world of his visions. The Tower’s platform was blanketed in a white sheet of mist, the cool moisture filled his lungs as he breathed harshly from his run up the stairs. Dusk was falling, and violent rays of purple and red shot through the mist as Coruscant’s primary set, bathing the whole scene in surreal bas relief.
A man stood amongst the mist, cloaked in the darkness of shadow that he had embodied on the planet Bellalt, when he had killed Ben’s father. He was close to the edge of the Tower’s roof, looking over the edge of the building. This is too soon. Have I stumbled into the future? Ben asked himself. Slowly, he walked to the precipice, and looked down to the surface of Coruscant, past the golden leaves of the Fasha trees. Thousands of Yuuzhan Vong surrounded the Temple.
Nefarion raised his arms, his robes looking like the wings of a demonic creature. Below, the Yuuzhan Vong cheered, screaming his name as if they had transferred their religious fanaticism to the Sith Lord. “We have taken the Jedi’s Temple, but it is only the first step towards the taking of this galaxy.” The Sith Lord’s voice boomed down towards the Yuuzhan Vong Devotees, with the help of the Force. “Yet, with the grace of the gods, we will conquer.”
Again the Yuuzhan Vong’s cries flittered up to reach Ben’s ears. “This can’t be happening,” he murmured to himself. “How can this be happening?”
The phantom shadow that represented the dimensions of the Sith Lord Nefarion seemed to float away from the edge of the Tower of Light and towards Ben. There was movement behind the dark robes, and a moment later an intensified red energy blade slinked out. “So we meet again, my young Jedi.”
Ben’s jaw muscles worked as he tried to gain as much distance between him and Nefarion as possible while still being on the same rooftop. “I’m not your young anything. Where is Tadeo?”
“He is in a safe place, until I get what I want,” came the smoothness of icy tones – smooth, but sharp, deadly.
“That was not our deal,” Ben said, clutching his own lightsaber pommel without igniting the deadly power held inside of it. He was mindful of his father’s words of not taking revenge. He was here for one purpose: to save Tad and the Temple. “I agreed to come up here because you said you would release him. Now where is he?”
Without being able to see behind the cowl, Ben had the feeling that there was a smile lurking underneath the shadow. “You are not in a position to make demands, my young friend.”
Why does he keep calling me that?
“What do you want?” Ben asked sharply.
“I want you,” Nefarion answered simply.
Ben snapped his blade on, and the aqua light of his saber spurted to life. “Well, you can’t have me.”
He and the Sith circled each other slowly, each postponing the inevitable. “Why do you not strike?” Nefarion asked.
“A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack,” he repeated the adage that his father had taught him all of his seventeen years. He felt at that moment that he was not alone, that his mother and father were standing on either side of him; every lesson they had given him, every memory stored in his mind, and their particular threads in the Force, ran through his brain.
Nefarion’s laugh might have at one time been affable, even friendly, but the coldness in his soul had sapped all the warmth from his voice. “I hope to relieve you of the Skywalker taint of idealism, Ben Jade.”
“I don’t think so,” Ben said, raising his saber up in a defensive position. “Now, where is Tad?”
“You want the boy, you do what I tell you,” now all laughter had left the phantom, the shadow of darkness incarnate. “Attack me!”
Ben’s hair was ruffled by the fall wind, but it wasn’t that frigid breeze that sent a shiver up his spine. “What?”
“Attack me, take your weapon and strike me down with it,” Nefarion taunted, tested, teased. The red light of his saber slashed the air, burning the mist, as he twirled it in his hand. “You fight me, and the boy will be released. You attack me, and keep attacking me, and the boy lives. If not...” Nefarion shrugged, “Tad dies.”
So it’s my soul or Tad’s life. How did a seventeen-year-old boy, orphaned by circumstance, make such a decision?
Nefarion made the decision for him, launching at him with the same sort of dogged ability that Ben had seen him throw at his father on Bellalt, and which he had just barely faced against. Ben blocked the initial blow with ease, but the strength of it fueled the dying embers of his anger. If Nefarion wanted him to attack him, then he would give the Sith what he wanted.
The blue of his lightsaber hit against the red of Nefarion’s numerous times in a quick staccato, both the Sith and the Jedi testing each other’s timing, their reflexes. Ben’s strategic mind picked up information from the Sith’s slightest movement, or the movements he could see from under that cloaking robe he wore like an essence.
“I think it is time that you are brought into the light, Lord Nefarion,” Ben murmured. His lightsaber arced through the air, but he purposefully missed any part where Nefarion’s flesh might be, and the intensified energy cut through the robe, shearing off a patch of fabric, letting the cloth blow to the Tower ground in the breeze of Coruscant. “Piece by piece, I will see what lies behind that robe.”
Nefarion’s anger peaked and then was cold inside of him, fed upon to add to the darkness of his soul. The red lightsaber struck out at Ben in sharp jabs, which Ben danced away from before cutting his saber downward, bringing Nefarion’s crashing to the permacrete. He felt Nefarion’s eyes on him, despite the fact he could not see them.
Between the sizzle of the lightsaber blades, Nefarion said, “Perhaps you will find that you are not comfortable with what you discover.”
“Discovery is uncomfortable, but it is the way we grow. It is the way we are formed and molded,” Ben said out of reflex. “And maybe you will find that I am full of surprises. Don’t get too uncomfortable.”
Ben backflipped over the sweeping red blade, turning on his heel as he landed to block another sweep from Nefarion.
“You trust too much in the light, young Jade.”
“You’re overconfident in the Dark’s success,” Ben said. He was tiring now, and he was still afraid to delve too deeply into the Force. It was Bellalt all over again. Many times he had speculated as to the reasons why Nefarion knew him so well, now he knew that part of it had been the fact that Analsa Vinn was his puppet. But there was more than that. He felt that the Sith had seen into his very soul, as easily as Keorra, and wanted to unleash the Kalla inside of him.
The Sith was an expert swordsman, coming at Ben from all directions, but the young Jedi pushed his body to the limit, performing moves that he had only seen in visions. Despite his efforts, Nefarion’s blood-hued blade met flesh on several occasions, cutting and instantly cauterizing the wounds.
“Touch the Force, young Jade, fall into it completely. Give in to its call,” Nefarion taunted him. The lightsaber licked out at him, and he danced out of its range by a hair’s breadth.
He wants me to delve into the Force, to become incapacitated by it, Ben realized. That way he could best me and do whatever it is he really called me up here for. Would Nefarion take him completely from Coruscant or was he foolish enough to think that the Jedi would not take back their Temple?
Mom? Dad? If there was ever a time I needed you more, this is it! But as Luke had told him, he and Mara would not be allowed to interfere in this confrontation. That even if they could, it would do no good, they could not come back to life and save him.
“Never,” Ben hissed between clenched teeth as he rushed the Sith Lord. Parry, strike, strike, parry. His lightsaber might have been a piece of molten metal in his hand, and Ben would not have noticed - it had become his hand, a living part of him, and all he felt was cold. “You don’t think I would make it easy on you, do you?”
“So you do have some of the Jade fire in you. Not totally cleansed from the weakness of your father,” Nefarion said.
Ben’s breath caught in his throat, as if a wind had suddenly gusted too powerfully, robbing him of even the ability to gasp. “You have no right to speak of him.”
“Why, because I finally relieved the galaxy of its greatest cancer, the weakness that has been holding the Jedi back?” Nefarion sneered, and with that his lightsaber doubled its efforts.
Ben’s shoulder was singed, and he pulled away as he felt it go numb. The blade must have gone deeper than he thought. Now that his right hand was useless, Ben quickly switched to his left. He was equally good with both, having trained left-handed with his mother, who herself was left-handed. In the midst of the distraction, Nefarion kicked out with his heel, spinning a kick that sent Ben sprawling across the rooftop, nearly to the edge, where he could still hear the roaring cheers of the Yuuzhan Vong.
By a miracle of the Force, he managed to keep his lightsaber in his grasp, but he was shocked - the pain in his shoulder nearly mind-numbing, and he refused to use the Force to dash the pain. What irony, he thought cynically. I am supposed to be one of the strongest Jedi in history, and I cannot even use the Force to block my pain. I fear touching it for fear I will lose myself.
Darth Nefarion’s blood-red blade came over him, followed shortly by the shadowed darkness of his being. Will he kill me now? Ben hoped. Will he end my pain? and he was not thinking of the shoulder wound, but the wounds he had been carrying since his mother’s death, the terrible knowledge that was his gift, that was his curse. Forever to know the future, but never to be able to change it.
“Go ahead and do it,” he said in a harsh ragged voice, so as not to reveal his great desire for it.
“Why would I kill a part of me?” the Sith said. “Why would kill what could be my greatest strength once he is tested?”
Ben frowned, his mind a maelstrom of confused despair. This Sith had murdered his father, had taken his life thinking he was cleansing the galaxy of its ‘weakness’, but declared Luke Skywalker’s son as his greatest strength. In his confusion, Ben did not even think to use his lightsaber, but tried to use the slim moonlight to see beyond the shadows of the Sith’s cloak.
“Who are you?”
“You already know, but you refuse to see. Think of the battle we just engaged in,” Nefarion said softly, but still managing to keep an air of cold as though the chill of Hoth was the only warmth he could seek.
With the perfect memory that was his from training, nearly from birth, Ben ran through it, taking note of every strike, every parry, Nefarion had performed. “No,” he murmured. “I refute this. I refute you.”
“You cannot refute me. I am a part of you, and you are a part of me, and together we will be one...” Nefarion said, lifting his free hand to the cowl and peeling it back, allowing a breath of ambient light to touch his skin. Long, ruddy brown hair came to the back of the cowl, the eyes were shot with grey masking the real color behind them, below the nose was a beard shaggy and untrimmed, but the features were unmistakable. They were the ones from Ben’s vision of darkness. The one he had believed to be himself. “...Brother.”
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RebelMom
Title: TFF Secretary
Registered:
Apr '00
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Date Posted:
6/23/03 10:30pm
Subject:
RE: Rent in the Force Chapter 25 is up 06/23/03 and it's a big one.
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*blinks* Brother? I'm confused.
Glad to see Jacen and Anakin working together again. Babies never arrive when you want them to.
Good job with the Nefarious/Ben duel. Ben kept himself under control. Glad to see that.
I'm going to wait anxiously for the next chapter.
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Short Story: Pressure Point http://boards.theforce.net/beyond_the_saga/b10477/26961243/p1/?7 Jacen Solo and Anakin Skywalker - as it should have been. TFF: Cheryl
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Shloz
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Date Posted:
6/23/03 10:50pm
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RE: Rent in the Force Chapter 25 is up 06/23/03 and it's a big one.
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Great Post!
The fight was wonderfully described. I'm also glad that Ben kept to his training. Of course, now we know that he really didn't have to doubt himself...
So, Ben's vision has come to pass, even more literally than he himself thought.
Speaking of which - I think there's a (rather long and complicated?) explanation due about Nefarion's background. I suspected that he was closer to Ben and his family than it seemed (I actually wondered if he was some sort of alternate future Ben or something), mainly because Ben thought he saw himself - based on the eyes - but also because I couldn't figure out how Nefarion had access to Padme (assuming that 'Padami' was our distinguished Grandma).
Anyway, I note that Nefarion consistently called Ben 'Ben Jade'. Does this indicate that he is only a half-brother, a son of Mara? He seems to hate Luke and what Luke represents (no-brainer for a Sith Lord, huh?), but respect the Jade name - meaning the Dark associations of Mara's beginnings? But when (and how) did Mara have another child?
Well, this was quite an Empire-class revelation. You're managing a brilliant parallel to the Original Trilogy, one truly worthy of joining the Star Wars saga.
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Aimeer9
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Sep '02
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Date Posted:
6/24/03 5:36pm
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RE: Rent in the Force Chapter 25 is up 06/23/03 and it's a big one.
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Whoa! Brother that is a surprise! I did not see that coming!
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ZaraValinor
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Date Posted:
6/24/03 11:03pm
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RE: Rent in the Force Chapter 25 is up 06/23/03 and it's a big one.
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[/b]RebelMom
*blinks* Brother? I'm confused.
Glad to see Jacen and Anakin working together again. Babies never arrive when you want them to.
Good job with the Nefarious/Ben duel. Ben kept himself under control. Glad to see that.
I'm going to wait anxiously for the next chapter.
The explanation of Nefarion's identity will be given fully in the next book, Thread of the Force. So hopefully that confusion will dissipate.
[b]Shloz
Great Post!
The fight was wonderfully described. I'm also glad that Ben kept to his training. Of course, now we know that he really didn't have to doubt himself...
So, Ben's vision has come to pass, even more literally than he himself thought.
Speaking of which - I think there's a (rather long and complicated?) explanation due about Nefarion's background. I suspected that he was closer to Ben and his family than it seemed (I actually wondered if he was some sort of alternate future Ben or something), mainly because Ben thought he saw himself - based on the eyes - but also because I couldn't figure out how Nefarion had access to Padme (assuming that 'Padami' was our distinguished Grandma).
Anyway, I note that Nefarion consistently called Ben 'Ben Jade'. Does this indicate that he is only a half-brother, a son of Mara? He seems to hate Luke and what Luke represents (no-brainer for a Sith Lord, huh?), but respect the Jade name - meaning the Dark associations of Mara's beginnings? But when (and how) did Mara have another child?
Well, this was quite an Empire-class revelation. You're managing a brilliant parallel to the Original Trilogy, one truly worthy of joining the Star Wars saga.
Yes Nefarion is only Mara's son. Also there will be further explanation of Padami's identity and what possessed her to help Nefarion. I think you've really got into my mind Shloz. I've told you this over PM but I was actually playing with the idea of future Ben coming into the past before I started writing, but then I wanted to stay with patterns of the trilogy. The loss of all crutches, abandoned and orphaned, then Vader's great admission compared to Nefarions, and so forth. So I was glad I could surprise you all. I have to blush, Shloz. Thanks.
Aimeer9
Whoa! Brother that is a surprise! I did not see that coming!
I'm full of surprises.
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ZaraValinor
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Date Posted:
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RE: Rent in the Force Chapter 25 is up 06/23/03 and it's a big one.
- Date Edited:
6/29/03 1:24am (2 edits total)
Edited By:
ZaraValinor
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Chapter 26: That's Impossible
The Sith Lady Sarlana struggled to maintain her grip on the constantly squirming and crying Tadeo Fel as she made her way through the Temple levels. Darth Nefarion had instructed her to gain enough distance from Solo and his family so that when it came time for her to kill Tadeo there would be no one to stop her. Despite her ruthlessness with Anakin, she had to steel herself for the awful deed. She had never actually killed anyone so young before, and couldn't help but see herself shining out of Tadeo's green eyes.
The image in those limpid pools wasn't of the hardened Sith Lady she portrayed herself to be, but of that little girl who had sat content on Padami's lap. She shook her head, dispelling the image of her past and returning to the droid-like mask she had donned all these long years under Nefarion's tutelage. She was a Sith, the greatest one since Darth Vader. She would stand by her
Master's side as the Jedi either joined them or were destroyed, one by one.
Reaching the communications center where she would make the announcement to Skywalker, she slammed Tadeo and herself into the room, dropping the boy into a nearby chair and igniting her lightsaber again so that the blade rested just under his chin, keeping him secured in the chair. Tears poured out of the boy's emerald green eyes, and he made soft gasping sounds, but he no longer screamed as he once did.
As she made her Master's ultimatum, Sarlana made sure that her voice was as calm and emotionless as the droid she appeared to be. Tadeo played his part perfectly, calling tearfully to his cousin with such an air of despair that Sarlana was sure that Skywalker was already on his way to meet her Master.
But then what? Her Master would have his prize, and he would have no need of her. Would this be the moment when she'd be forced to challenge him? It was something she knew every Sith moved towards, the goal of replacing the Master that came before them, of becoming the ultimate power in the galaxy, but now it felt very hollow and empty.
Tadeo sniffed and rubbed his nose with his sleeve, trying with everything in him to calm down, but scared beyond belief at the same time. The boy had potential, there was no mistaking that, although he did not come close to what Skywalker prohibited himself from touching. Such a waste.
“Would you be quiet?” she snapped at the little boy, turning angrily towards him.
Strangely enough, the boy scrutinized her, much in the same way Ben Skywalker had upon their first encounter. “You're sad,” he said, and reached up to trace a tiny finger along the course of her cheek. When he pulled it away, she could see the glimmer of wetness on his fingertip.
Weakling, fool, she cursed herself, and dashed her fingers across the bottom lid of her eyes. “I'm not sad,” she protested lamely.
“Then you're hurt,” the boy chimed, standing up in his chair to look at her at eye level.
She turned away from those probing eyes. “Just be quiet, kid, and this will all be over soon.”
The boy settled down to wait, and Sarlana took a seat as far away as she could while still being able to keep him in control. What was it with these Solo Jedi? They could affect her in ways that not even Nefarion or Tranx could, and they had tortured her - sharpened her to the very point of a Sith. Up until Nefarion had sent her to this forsaken Temple, she had known what she was meant to do: serve her Master, and one day surpass him in the ways of the Sith. That was before Nefarion had brought Ben Skywalker into the picture, before she knew of his plans for the young Seer.
Now she served him out of old habit, one that she felt comfortable with, but one that made her feel something she had never pondered before. Incomplete. Did that mean that she had felt whole under the weak guidance of the Jedi? And, if so, did that mean that power and domination was not inbred in her as Nefarion thought? Where did that leave her? A Sith, longing to be a Jedi, and yet unable to change her ways?
The bait is no longer needed, she felt the sense behind her Master's touch, even if they did not come out in those exact words. Destroy it.
Sarlana stood up with her ignited lightsaber in her hand, and approached Tadeo Fel. The boy had been napping in the chair, his headful of dark black hair cushioned on the chair’s armrest, his thumb nestled warmly in his mouth. His eyes opened slowly as she stalked him like a Togorian pirate; green innocence shined out at her, trusting the woman who would kill him. He sat up in the chair, his thumb still captured by his mouth, but did not move any further than that. Did the boy not know what she was about?
Run, Tadeo. Leave this place, her heart screamed, even as her mind yelled at it for silence.
Verbally silent, she raised her lightsaber in an aggressive strike, one that would have left her open to an attack by a Jedi, but one that would end the child's pain the quickest. The boy did not even twinge as he watched the blade rise up, the red ambient light reflected in his eyes. He is an obstacle to your Master's plans. He is a crutch that must be pulled out from under Ben Skywalker, just as Padami was for you.
A ragged breath, which suspiciously sounded like a sob, tore out of Sarlana as she lowered her blade.
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With the help of Kyp Durron, her father, Keorra had found the training room where the Solos were being held. It felt oddly strange that it was her father, and not Ben, by her side, but oddly comforting, despite her deep worry for her friend. She had noted, with a hint of morbid pride, her father's surprise as they fought together against the Yuuzhan Vong. Did he not remember that he had abandoned her to Upoi Warriors?
Watching her father, she thought that there were no two people more unlike in the galaxy. His eyes were a dark blue, standing out in a pale complexion, sleek hair running down to his neck where it was fastened by a ponytail. Whereas Keorra's skin was deep-hued, almost the color of honeywood, her eyes the deepest violet, that her mother had once said must have come from Coruscant sunsets, and her hair was so pale it was nearly white, cut short and standing in tufts on top of her head. Despite the obvious differences, Keorra could still see herself in her father. The same shape of the nose, the little quirk at the left side of their mouth when they smiled.
But a family was founded on more than familiar characteristics, and they had a long spacelane to go before she ever openly admitted her lineage.
“Corran should be ready with the distraction by now,” he whispered, self-consciously, next to her. She must be putting him really on edge if he was stating facts that she helped plan out.
She nodded nevertheless. “Ben speaks highly of him,” she said.
“How did you come to travel with him?” he asked what might have been a casual question - except for the intensity behind it.
“A mutual friend,” she answered, truthfully if not fully.
He frowned at her. “I thought you were with the Upoi?”
She gave him a look that would have melted durasteel. “I left. Do you have any more questions for me, Master Durron?” She purposefully used his title to remind him that it was he and her mother who had decided to leave her with the Upoi, not Keorra. “Or would you perhaps like to do a little rescuing?”
“Alright, get ready,” he said, giving her what she called, 'the Jedi Master look'.
It took all of her will to suppress a snappy comeback. Ben had begged her to take the chance to get to know her father, had wisely instructed her not to judge him too harshly, and she would not toss aside his advice so quickly. Instead, she made a show of preparation. Checking the gauge on her blaster to make sure she had enough power. The charge was getting low - she'd have to find another one, or switch blasters, soon.
“Here comes Corran,” Kyp said.
The two Jedi Masters and the sole Upoi warrior came at the Devotees as one unit, moving through their ranks with ease. Kyp and Corran remained close to her, making sure that she was filtered only a few Yuuzhan Vong. She chafed under their protection, but knew that they were unaware of her skills, and did not have Ben's knowledge of her ability. The Devotees were overcome quickly, having become lackadaisical in their wait to take over the galaxy, and those that did not fall under the Jedis' blades or the Upoi's blaster were soon retreating.
“Never thought I'd see Yuuzhan Vong retreat,” Corran remarked, as Keorra leveled her blaster at the door lock. “Whatever happened to ‘death under the gods’?”
Keorra snapped off a shot. “Do you want to go back there and ask them?” she asked, her voice full of saccharine.
“No thanks.”
Ramming the door with her shoulder, the locking mechanism came unhinged, and she snuck her fingers into the groove, pulling the doors apart. “A little help here?” she grunted to the two Jedi in back of her.
The quirk of a smile came on her father's face. “For a moment there I thought you had decided to take on this whole operation yourself.”
“Nice,” she replied, and together they peeled the doors back far enough to allow a gap for a human being to squeeze through.
Keorra went through first, and her ears were greeted by a cacophony of sounds. Mainly a woman in the corner, about ready to give birth. She searched the faces of the group, and found one that was familiar. “Anakin,” she called. He was hunched over with another man with a dark hair and a beard. By the similarity in features she guessed that it was the older Solo boy, Jacen.
“Keorra, what are you doing here?” he asked, standing up.
“Rescuing your sorry hide,” she answered cockily.
Jacen gave his brother a querulous look. “Who is this?”
Before Anakin could answer, Keorra stepped in. “Keorra Cereaslean - I'm a friend of Ben's, and he said you might need my help.”
“Then you know he went off to meet Nefarion,” Anakin said.
She nodded, feeling the pain of it once again, seeing the despair and yet the knowledge in his eyes that this was the only correct path for him to take. “It is what he must do.” She shook her head. “Come on. Masters Durron and Horn are outside. It's time you retake this Temple.”
“What do you mean by that?” Anakin asked, catching her verbiage.
“This isn't my fight, Anakin. Ben knew what he had to do to give you the time to take back what's yours, but that doesn't mean that Nefarion is going to get him,” Keorra said. She wouldn't let Ben fall prey to the thing he most feared. She was Upoi, and it was her duty to find and protect the Un'Kalla. “I'm going after Ben.”
“This is a Sith Lord you're talking about,” Jacen interceded, his eyes looking past her to the woman in agony behind them. “You can't swoop in on him like he was a Yuuzhan Vong. He'll know you're there before you even reach the Tower of Light. You'll be walking into a trap.”
Keorra gulped. She had heard stories of the time when her father had been possessed, if willfully possessed, by the Sith Lord Exar Kun, and she wasn't overly excited to be meeting up with such a formidable opponent. But the alternative left her heart cold in her chest. She knew Ben Skywalker well enough to know that he would only save himself if it meant saving another.
“Has Sarlana returned Tad?” she asked, changing the subject off of her and her impossible task.
Both Solos’ faces grew grave. “No,” Anakin answered, and she could feel the pain inside him as though it were her own. He had loved Analsa Vinn, and although he didn't know the Sith Lady Sarlana, there was still a feeling of tenderness for her, and the pain was unbearable.
“I'm sorry, Anakin. That was unfeeling of me,” Keorra said. “But there is still a little of Analsa in Sarlana - I saw it back there on the ship, and it seems you are the only one that can bring out that piece of her.”
“Are you crazy? She nearly killed him,” Jacen argued.
“But she didn't,” Anakin murmured. “And she could have.”
Keorra frowned. “What happened?”
“She stabbed him clean through with her lightsaber,” Jacen said heatedly, feeling the natural need to protect his brother.
The young Upoi Soulreader gave Anakin a quick once over. “He looks alright to me,” she stated.
Anakin smiled at her straightforwardness. “Quick healing,” he said softly. He faced his brother. “She's right, Jacen. It's what we've been planning for - retaking the Temple.”
“Let me say goodbye to Tahiri,” he said, and rushed off to the woman who for the moment was in a lull from the pain.
“I don't like you facing Nefarion any more than Jacen does,” Anakin said, folding his arms across his chest and pulling a stern face. “And I doubt that Ben will like it, either."
“Well, then, lucky for me that I don't answer to either of you,” she said tartly. “Ben does not control me, and neither do the Jedi.”
He gave her a pointed look. “But you would control Ben's destiny.”
She cocked a pale eyebrow. “You act as if you want Nefarion to take him.”
“Furthest from my wishes,” he assured her. “But Ben is unlike any Jedi in this Temple. He has a goal and a destiny that no one can comprehend. If he says that he must face Nefarion alone, then he must face him alone.”
“He is the sword of destruction sheathed,” she argued. “If he were to let loose the power he holds, then he could very well destroy the galaxy, making Palpatine and the Yuuzhan Vong look like a picnic. I am a Upoi Warrior - it is my duty to make sure that doesn't happen.”
“Ben won't do that,” Anakin countered.
She felt truth in his words, but was it his truth or the truth? “How can you be sure?”
“Because he has too much of his father in him,” Anakin replied. “Still, if you think this is something you must do, I cannot stop you.”
She tossed up her hands. “How can I not? You should have seen his face when he went off to meet the Sith Lord. He fears that Nefarion will take his soul, Anakin. As a Soulreader, I need to be there when he is tried.”
“As much as I dislike it, I don't want Nefarion to succeed in getting Ben off of Coruscant,” Anakin said. “I can't go after him myself; the Temple needs to be freed.”
“So let me do what you cannot,” she pleaded.
“I can't willfully put you in danger,” he said.
She quirked a smile. “What, do you want to duel it out right here?”
“From what Ben tells me, I'd rather not,” he replied coolly.
“This is my duty, and you have no choice,” Keorra replied.
“Then do what you must, Upoi.”
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Ben tossed his lightsaber at the Sith Lord's blade, pushing it away from him so that he could scurry backwards. He was already so close to the edge that he didn't have far to go. It wasn't himself he had seen in his visions, but this man. This man who claimed to be his brother. “No, it's not possible,” he murmured. “How is it possible?”
“By our dear mother,” the Sith answered, his voice a mockery of the title Mara held by right. “The great Mara Jade, the Emperor's Hand, the greatest assassin ever to live, until your father ruined her.”
Ben gritted his teeth. “My father saved her.” He looked back over his shoulder and was reminded of his vision. Each time he had chosen death, to fall over the edge, rather than become the darkness he saw in his future.
He looked up at Nefarion. The grey in the man's eyes had diminished, showing that his eyes were green behind the color-coded emotion, the hair was slightly redder than Ben's and the nose thinner than the young Seer's. He had accepted all this as the rigors of age in his vision, but now saw that this is what he would have looked like if he had not carried his father's genes. If he had held only the Jade-Kenobi side, minus the Skywalker.
A relief that was out of place for the situation filled Ben. He would not become this man, not for certain. He could sense that his destiny was as much in the balance as was the Force. But the relief was short-lived, as he caught the mockery in his brother's face. My brother. The thought did not soothe him at all, but caused the fire inside of him to become intensified, the anger he had felt at the insult to his mother to grow.
“If only you knew the truth of our mother, my young apprentice,” Nefarion said. “How she served our Master, the Sith Lord Sidious, with glee.”
“She was a child, corrupted by the man who preyed upon her,” Ben argued.
Nefarion cackled with manic joy. “She preyed on the helpless.”
Tears sparkled in Ben's eyes. “No,” he murmured. He could see his mother the day she died, defending the Yuuzhan Vong, perhaps some of them having designed the very disease that had nearly killed her. S | |