| abstract | - The fleet was readied. Every ship that could move (and some which had difficulty with even that) was patched up as best as possible, loaded with all the tibanna gas and missiles the Empire could scrape together, stuffed with troops, and prepared for war. Every soldier and thousands of hastily assembled volunteers from planetary police forces were crammed into anything bigger than a fighter. Tariun, Keltrayu, Corcer, and Rin spent hours building spare lightsabers for the Novices—there was no point to the Order of the Golden Empire if all its leaders died, so the kids would come to battle too. The plans were made, the strategy ironed out, the Force consulted, the order given. They attacked. Zogryth was brilliant, and the Tetrarchy caught completely by surprise. Reinforcements swarmed in and the Prime Fleet beat them back. A hole in the shield generator was an invasion corridor down the well, and troops flooded the planet's surface. Every square meter of terrain was a struggle, but they fought on. While Zogryth dueled with the Tetrachy fleet, Tariun and Keltrayu spearheaded the attack on the ground. A day and night of battle. Thousands dead on both sides. Key targets taken but now targets themselves for the enemy. The hope of the Empire in the balance. And now about to be lost. "Get me coordinates!" Tariun roared without any intended recipient in mind. He could see the shock tank lumbering along, closing the distance at its ponderous pace. The slow march of one who has nothing to fear. "I want artillery fire!" "No time!" Keltrayu bellowed, swatting aside a series of blaster shots aimed in his direction. Tariun couldn't disagree; without the ranges in place, the shock tank would be close enough long before the artillery commanders could hit it. Tariun remembered the tank at Tershin, watching it vaporize an entire column with a single blast. A gaping hole a third of a kilometer long—thousands atomized before they had time to scream. And this one was angled right at Rin's command bunker. Ripping the comlink from his belt, Tariun snapped, "Corcer! Get back here now!" "I'll try, but we're pinned down!" the Zaractok's tight voice came back. "Artillery fire falling nearby." "I don't care how you get here, just get here!" Tariun replied, returning the comlink to his belt. He could see the Massassi concentrating fire on the shock tank, but its shields ate up the assault. The tank slowed a bit as power was diverted from its repulsors, but the half-circle of blue that was its discharge plate was glowing brighter every second, and every time the Massassi exposed themselves, the flanking Tetrarchy troops laid down cover fire for their destroyer. "Organi!" Tariun barked, pushing his way back toward the bunker, and the youthful-looking Qua stuck his head out the back of the vehicle. "Get everyone out here! Everyone. Try to slow that thing down." "On it!" Te`net Organi replied, then turned back to the bunker, rousing out his fellow Novices. They poured out, activating their lightsabers, and tried to work their way forward. Shoving toward the front of the Massassi ranks, activating both his lightsabers to inspire the troops to make a hole, Tariun saw the tank grind to a halt. It was still dozens of meters away, but its crew had obviously decided they were close enough. The engines on standby, the vaporization pulse generator began crackling with its built-up charge. "LIFT IT!" Tariun screamed, and he stretched out with the Force. The tank wobbled slightly as the Novices joined his effort, but it was impossibly heavy. Tariun's rage grew as he pictured the shock tank vaporizing his baby sister and his best friend, and the front of the tank's armor buckled slightly. But the shock tank itself focused its four point-defense cannons and opened fire, mowing through the front ranks until even Tariun had to refocus on deflection to protect himself. The shock tank took a few shots at Rin's mobile command bunker, too. Its armor was up to the task, but the bunker wobbled and pitched Vessyk off one side. The Iscali landed nearby and got to his feet immediately, but a shoulder-fired missile sailed forward. It missed the bunker, but Eskol Kaartinen had to throw himself off the other side to avoid being hit; he vanished into the sea of soldiers below. Alone atop the bunker, feet spread to keep his balance, Keltrayu continued to deflect fire fruitlessly, his face contorted in helpless rage. No lightsaber could ever deflect the shock pulse. Sensing Rin behind him, Tariun saw her stumble out the back of the bunker. Her left hand found the lightsaber at her belt as Tariun called, "Rin! Can you block the pulse?!" He had seen his sister do amazing things, things not even a Force user should have been able to do. Rules of reality seemed to become only guidelines when Rin was the Force user in question. But her exhaustion was obvious, and she shook her head. "Not even on my best day." The discharge plates were spitting sparks. Swallowing hard, smacking aside a blaster bolt aimed for the center of his chest, Tariun said, "Run. Get away from here, Rin. Get them for us." Rin's multicolor eyes widened, and she shook her head. "I'm not leaving you two! Or them!" Tariun looked at the Novices, their new blades hammering aside blasterfire, lined up to die. He sensed Aquila Corcer battling his way closer but having a rough go of it. He turned his emerald eyes up to Keltrayu. The Human turned aside two more shots, then looked down at Rin. The anguish there was plain, but he looked back at the shock tank, then back at Rin, and his face suddenly smoothed over. He blinked his eyes as if he had sand in them, but managed a small, lopsided smile, then turned back to the tank and took a step forward on the bunker. At Tariun's side, Rin gasped as if she had been punched. "No!" she whispered. The look of naked terror on her face chilled Tariun to his core. "Keltrayu, NO!" Tariun looked up. Keltrayu hit the edge of the bunker at a run and leapt impossibly high, impossibly far. His hunter green blade sang in the air, turning aside hastily aimed shots. He reached the peak of his jump and began to drop, and a shot found its way past his guard, burning into his thigh. Tariun could feel the stab of pain in the Force, but Keltrayu's mind was focused like Tariun had never felt it before. He dropped toward the shock tank, and a second shot pierced his stomach as the Human pointed his lightsaber straight down. The point-defense cannons tracked him and missed; he was too close. He hit the tank hard, blade sinking through its armor plating. Tariun froze as the lightsaber passed through; the tank had lowered its ray shield to fire the vaporization pulse. Futilely, he took a step toward Rin to shield her. The next second, the glowing discharge plates went dark. Keltrayu's blade was sunk to the hilt, sparks flying around it, cutting into the power relay. The soldiers at the head of the Royal force cheered and surged forward. The shock tank bucked, and a surge of electrical energy shot out. It caught Keltrayu in the center of the chest before he could rise from his crouch, scorching straight through his torso and out his back, sizzling into the sky. There were no seconds of gasping, no pain in the Force; his Force signature simply winked out of existence. In the time it took Tariun to understand what had happened, Keltrayu was already dead. His body started to fall backward, the extinguished lightsaber slipping from his grip. Before he hit the ground, the shock tank exploded in a roar of fire, electricity, and shrapnel. The Tetrarchy troops around it were vaporized, Rin's command bunker wobbled from the aftershock, and the heat drove the Massassi back as it crisped Tariun's hair. Staring at the enemy lines, shock giving way to rage, Tariun raised his blades murderously and took a step forward. Rin screamed. The pain was everywhere. It was everything. Tariun screamed too, the lightsabers falling from his nerveless hands, collapsing to a fetal position and writhing in the trampled grass. Every nerve was on fire. The backs of his eyes were being chewed by acid. His skin was being flayed off. He wanted to stab himself with his lightsabers, but the pain was too much to reach them. Pain he could endure. Tariun Sakaros was a Sith Lord; pain was the way of the dark side, a path to power. But the Force reached into his mind and ripped at the darkest part of his psyche until thinking itself was too much. He was twenty years old, and across another battlefield, there was another explosion of blue energy. The dark side erupting as Khrado Sakaros died, cut to shreds by his Jedi attackers. The loss tore at his young soul. His brother was the best of them, by far the most powerful, unstoppable in battle. He wasn't supposed to die. He was eighty-five, but his Sith heritage kept him young and fit. The Human woman in his arms, aged and tired, was not so fortunate. Tariun's heart broke again and again, tears spilling down his cheeks, as he watched her smile at him before her eyes closed forever. Why weren't you there with me? Khrado demanded. Did you want to live so much that you'd rather me die?! Tariun tried to scream a denial, but it just came out a scream. I wish we could have had a child, Lorelai lamented, her voice gentle but her face showing her hurt and regret. I wish you hadn't talked me out of it. Didn't you want me to have your child? Tariun sobbed into the dirt of Tizgo V, beating his fists into the ground, misery and hatred and anguish tearing him apart. But…Lorelai had never said that. Perhaps she had thought of it, but never said it. He had feared she was thinking it, certainly. It had haunted him for years. But she would never have hurt him that way. And Khrado was dead and gone. He had never been a ghost, never appeared as one of those apparitions of Jedi stories and Korriban mythology. With all the effort he could muster, Tariun reached for the power of the dark side, struggling to separate his emotions from his mind. As he battled within himself, he became conscious of a power far greater than his own, and fixating on it helped him fight his way back to reality. Wrenching himself up to a sitting position, he opened his eyes. Rin was on her knees two meters away, and at the sight of her Tariun felt someone had blasted a hole through him, too. She rocked back and forth, shrieking and screaming, tears pouring down her agonized face. Her hands tore at her hair and clawed at her flesh, and her nails dug into her cheeks so hard that her rejuvenative blood dripped down her skin. Her Force Scream continued to wash out over them all; the shields had dropped, and at last the nuclear furnace was sent free. Tariun got to his feet and looked around, and he knew in that instant that what he saw would be with him until the day he died. No one within half a kilometer was even standing. The Massassi nearest were howling, clawing at their armor with their hands as if biting insects were crawling beneath it. One banged his head against the command bunker, blood glistening on his forehead as he choked out apologies in his own language. Vessyk was curled into a ball, weeping and shuddering from head to toe. Tariun heard Te`net Organi screaming for the mother he had never known, the one who had died in slavery before he was old enough to remember her. As far back as the artillery lines, the Sith Lord saw soldiers jerking on the ground like they were being electrified. The Tetrachy troops were screaming too, collapsed to the ground but their legs working as if they could outrun whatever they saw. Even as he watched, Tariun saw two soldiers fumble for their blasters, put the barrels in their own mouths, and pull the triggers to a spray of blood and dissipated laser energy. One Mezzel covered his eyes and shook his head as he screamed; when that didn't work, he all but ripped the combat vibroblade from his belt and stabbed it into his eyes instead, continued to gouge downward until his whole body grew still. A soldier pulled out a grenade and dove into a pile of his comrades; the flash wiped them all out. Tariun struggled toward Rin as if he was walking against a stiff wind; the Force lashed at his mind with every step closer. When he was within centimeters, he roared, "Rin!" She kept shrieking, and her grief slapped him like a hand. "Rin, STOP!" Tariun threw himself forward, grabbing his sister and shaking her. When she clenched her fists in her hair, Tariun swung a hand to slap her. Her left hand shot out and caught him by the wrist; the Force flooding her, she stopped the blow cold. She raised her right, and lightning coursed out, catching Tariun in the chest and hurling him back. He snarled in pain, feeling the burns on his chest as his back impacted the dirt, but pain was the dark side's friend, and it helped him focus. As he got up again, the Force Scream vanished, and he found Rin staring at him brokenly. Lurching to her side, Tariun caught her in an embrace as she collapsed against his chest. Her sobs wracked her whole body, her fingers digging into his arms so hard it hurt. As she wept into his burned and dirtied tunic, Tariun could see the soldiers and Novices around him shuddering on the ground, a few getting shakily to their feet. "Rin…" he started. "Keltrayu." She whispered his name, and Tariun felt her loss in the Force. Her Force signature was strangely hollow; some essential part of herself was missing. "All we can do is avenge him now," Tariun said, fighting against his own grief. With Rin's tormenting powers withdrawn, it was starting to sink in now. He remembered Keltrayu fighting beside him, sparring with him, helping to train the Order… Rin pulled back, and past her grief Tariun could sense something dangerous and monstrous growing. She nodded and clambered up, raising her left hand. Her lightsaber flipped off the ground into her grip. Calling his own weapons to hand, Tariun leapt onto the disabled command bunker and activated both blades. Raising them high on the battlefield, calling on the Force to amplify his voice, he roared, "Fight now! Fight for the Empire! Fight for Keltrayu!" Many of the soldiers seemed only semi-conscious; below, Eskol Kaartinen stared at him vacantly as if he was speaking an alien language. But a group of Massassi off to the right flank—the 11th Cohort, Tariun thought—got up and roared. "KELTRAYU!" a Massassi wearing the insignia of a major thundered, almost as loudly as Tariun had. The Massassi around him took up the cry, raising their rifles and firing a volley into what remained of the Tetrarchy front line. When they died in a flash with no resistance at all, the Massassi called Keltrayu's name again and surged across the battlefield. Tariun was right behind them when he heard Rin call his name. He looked down on the side of the bunker. Her face was pale and streaked with tears, her hair disheveled and her clothes dirty, but the fury in her heart was in her eyes now too. "Crush them," she said, and it was the voice of the Dark Lord of the Sith. "No mercy now." The rage in the Force was catching, and Tariun nodded. Turning back to the battlefield, he raced to catch up with the Massassi, every stroke of his lightsaber blades revenge for the friend the enemy had taken from him.
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