Power and Betrayal: Chapter 15

This Phase Walk inside the barrier . . . it felt weird again, and it gave her a shiver. That feeling of the entire universe being gone was just . . . jarring. She dreaded the day she'd ever have to feel this sensation again. Even if it were 1000 years away, it would be too soon.

She quietly dropped the holocron near the closest pillar and took stock of her situation.

His blades are all disabled. The holocron is safe. My leg is feeling better, but I'll still have to be careful with it. And yes, this barrier is definitely shaped like an egg. It's time for this chick to hatch. I just hope I can get all the rest of it right.

Reappearing from out of stealth, she walked forward with determination to the middle of the Trayus Core, and faced her opponent one last time.

"Listen, you." she said. He looked up at her and gave her his attention like never before. "I know you won't take it, but I have to offer it to you. We have already proven ourselves worthy. This is your last chance, your very VERY last chance. Stop this now, or you will be destroyed."

He looked at her and smiled. "The little one understands." he said, almost in a whisper. With obvious pain, he moved his right arm and held out that one last saber he possessed. His fingers almost didn't work as he struggled to display it for her. "Take his most prized possession to be judged worthy." he said, looking almost like he wasn't even really saying it to HER.

The inside of the miniature universe suddenly became a maelstrom of dust-and-debris-filled wind swirling like a tornado around the center where she stood, battering her body with stones large and small, and twisting at her so that it took considerable effort to not get spun around with it. The dust was so thick that--if she weren't a Miraluka--she'd have been completely blinded by it.

Strong on the outside, weak on the inside. This has gone on long enough.

"I think I see the problem." Kinnan said, again, seemingly out of the blue.

"I already know the problem, Genius!" Kari snapped back. "She's losing control."

"No, not that, the barrier." he responded. "I can see why Dianiss can't break it, even with her considerable--if disturbing--abilities: The barrier itself is shaped like an egg, and it's flexing to maintain its integrity--just a few millimeters, but it's enough."

"So what?!?" Kari yelled back, clearly losing her patience with him.

"So . . . think about the shape of any bird's egg." he said with the tone of a classroom professor. "From the outside, it's strong enough to support the weight of the full-grown mother. But from the inside, the smallest and weakest of newborn chicks can break it without any outside help. That's why Dianiss can't do it. But Galadina could . . . if she knew how."

Somehow, he felt this powerful need to TELL her.

Dina didn't even need to use the Force to grab Truthseeker. It was already there, right at her feet, in the most convenient location possible.

Dropping to one knee, she took it in her hand and held it tightly. Using the Force, she plucked a few of the larger rocks from the vortex and telekinetically surrounded herself with them for protection.

Here goes....

Holding Truthseeker vertically, she activated the Cordus blade so that it plunged into the glass-smooth surface of the red circle in which she stood. She adjusted the blade length so that it would slowly drill down deeper, melting away the structure of the giant embedded crystal until it created a hole nearly three meters deep.

I hate having to think of Dianiss as my enemy.

There had been a time--more than once, actually--when Dianiss had unleashed the full extent of her power directly at Galadina, and Dina had to stand firm against it. It was a terrible, painful, difficult thing. It required focus, it required determination, and it required strategy--and she only knew of one strategy that had ever succeeded.

Dianiss was currently outside of this egg, bringing the full measure of that power down directly on top of her. Knowing that made it all seem so simple now.

She examined the barrier itself, to find the highest point, and steeled herself. Aiming at that highest point, she took a deep breath and used the Force to push outward against it, right at the locus where she could sense it deforming in response to the bombardment it was receiving from above, and focused that push into a needle-sharp stab that concentrated all of her power into a pin-point surface area--exactly the way she'd done it before in the face of Dianiss' full power.

She felt the barrier crack.

She felt the barrier shatter into countless fragments and begin to dissolve away.

All at once the universe around her exploded outward, reappearing like the embrace of a long, lost friend along with the clear presences of 3--no, 4 actually--other long, lost friends nearby.

"She's done it!" Kinnan tried to say. His words were drowned out by the sound of Dianiss screaming--the kind of primal, Force-enhanced screaming that could damage your hearing.

"Annie, STOP IT!" Kari yelled, looking her friend right in the eyes while covering her ear cones with her hands.

Dianiss' eyes were completely glazed over with a fiery red color that caused Kari to physically tremble at the sight of it.

--

Dianiss never heard Kari. Dianiss could barely hear anything. She could barely feel anything except blinding, burning pain.

And just at the moment when she felt her connection to Galadina return, along with a glimmer of hope at the thought of having finally broken through the barrier, the voices of Malachor rose up like a massive chorus of death and despair.

It was so powerful, so intense, she couldn't hold on--she felt like she couldn't even breathe. It all just went . . . black.

Dina had mere seconds to act now. The Sith was already trying to reconstitute his barrier as much of the wind and dust spun outward, but he was not fast enough to prevent Dianiss' lightning from reaching down inside through the break that Dina had created and finding a target.

Still concentrating her needle-like push upward in a way that diverted the majority of the lightning's power all around her rather than right on her, she activated Truthseeker's Primus blade and held tight to it. When the blade was fully activated, she stopped her upward push against Dianiss' attack, allowing it to land directly on top of her while ducking her head down below the highest point of the blade's tip and holding her breath to channel the Force as a protective second skin.

Her double-bladed saber acted like a super-efficient lightning rod, drawing a significant portion of the electrical energy to the Primus blade that now pointed straight-up, and shunting as much of that energy as it could through the hilt into the Cordus blade which was embedded in the giant red crystal.

All the energy that had been routed into the crystal's core had no place else to go, so it began melting the crystal from the inside outward.

It only took a few seconds of having that kind of raw energy pour through it to completely burn out Truthseeker's power system and deactivate it . . . for good. As the electrical attack softened and stopped, Dina let out a heavy exhale and said a short goodbye to the finest weapon she'd ever had the privilege to wield.

But Master Zedemm's Truthseeker had served her honorably, and succeeded in it's final act as a functioning weapon. As the Sith's barrier was just about to reconstitute and close out the rest of the universe again, Dina returned it to her belt and touched the now-melting crystal with her hand, concentrating on using the Force to draw all that heat out of it to freeze it as rapidly as she could.

The sudden overheat/freeze cycle was too much for the Trayus Core, and it suddenly shattered into thousands of tiny shards accompanied by the biggest, loudest crackling sound Dina had ever heard. It was only due to the containment of the surrounding hardened rock that the crystal's shattered fragments remained held in place like an infinitely-complicated three-dimensional puzzle.

Without this nexus to draw power from, he can't sustain that barrier.

And just as the barrier was about to reform, it fell, never to return.

Dianiss fainted when the Core Crystal shattered, and Kari was grateful for it. So was Galadina, because it brought the massive electrical storm to a halt.

But as much as Kari wanted to make sure her friend was okay, she knew she had a more pressing concern right then. Grabbing her controller, she fired a tethered dart at Galadina that injected her with an emergency dose of kolto, then grabbed a second pack of kolto and lobbed it at Galadina so that it exploded on the floor forming a soothing green cloud all around her. "Check on Annie!" she yelled to Kinnan as she grabbed her remote controller and reactivated the pair of probes that had shut down inside the barrier.

--

The Sith looked at Galadina, dumbfounded. He seemed to realize that his abilities had just been kneecapped, but not understand why. All he could do now was use the Force to take hold of the sabers that remained within his reach.

Truthseeker was not functioning at all, and he still clutched tightly to the silver hilt in his right hand. But there were others.

Two yellow-bladed sabers that had fallen to the ground rose up and reactivated, then began moving towards Galadina. Kari saw this too and said "Oh, no, not THIS time!" as she saw the yellow sabers in motion and expertly threw a grenade down at them, which exploded on contact, destroying them both.

What Kari did NOT see was the lightsaber rising up and detaching from Dianiss' belt. By the time Kari saw the pink-bladed saber activating and moving towards her, it was too late to react.

At the same time, Kinnan's lightsaber did the same thing, spinning around to threaten him before he was able to grasp it in his own hand.

Kinnan leapt away, possibly wanting to get clear of a second grenade and certainly to put some distance between himself and his now-renegade saber.

Kari froze in terror. All she could do was scream out "ANNIE!" as a plea for help.

--

The Sith was left with little else to do but throw rocks and debris at Galadina. As the largest of the rocks came at her, she simply ducked or weaved away to avoid them, occasionally putting out her hand to use the Force to push them away. As she did this, her face was a mask of cold determination, taking one step after another towards her foe as if what was to come was absolutely inevitable. Thanks to Kari's intervention, she was again at full strength and even her wounded leg was now much better.

More to the point, she could feel the presence of Dianiss nearby, and the bond between them meant that she could draw power from Dianiss--not the crazy ancient Sith Lord power, but the genuine Jedi power of Dianiss herself, the same power that she'd felt ever since she woke up in Lord Zarvell's residence after her . . . 'death'.

She reached out in the Force in a way she had never done before, telekinetically grabbing the largest rocks available to her: the four large claw-shaped pillars that ringed the outer edge of the suspended rock core on which they both stood. One by one, she pulled each pillar loose from its base and threw it at him with astounding velocity. As she did, she punctuated each impact of her brutal cascade of rocky debris with a shout.

"THIS..."

"ENDS..."

"RIGHT..."

"NOW..!"

At each impact, he did his best to shield himself from the blow with the Force, but there was no mitigating the physical impact of objects with that much mass bashing him back and forth.

She even enjoyed the pain she was causing him . . . just a little.

--

The pink blade wasted no time moving in for the kill as it lined up with Kari's chest and stabbed at her. As it made contact, her screams suddenly stopped. She knew it was the end for her.

Her last thought was that she was right: Annie had indeed just been the death of her . . . .

The Sith was dazed by the pounding he'd just been given, and was desperately trying to counter-attack with anything he could. He threw rocks. He threw broken pieces of lightsaber hilts. He kicked up dust and wind to blow her away from him.

As Dina got closer in her march toward him, he even threw some of the teacher's bones. One of them was even still wearing a tattered leather boot.

None of it stopped her. None of it even slowed down her steady one-foot-in-front-of-the-other pace, and the look of worry and fear on his face was obvious.

--

In the darkness, the cry was not so much heard as felt. It was a feeling of terror, and that feeling was emanating from someone close to her, someone connected to her. She had to find where it was coming from. She had to stop it, and stop it at the source.

--

Kinnan was still attempting to grab his own lightsaber back into his control, both with his hands and with the Force. As each attempt failed, he continued to strategically retreat afterward. But eventually, it stopped harassing him and began to move towards Galadina instead.

THAT was a different problem altogether, and it had a simple solution--but one he'd hoped to avoid. Since he was no longer the target, it allowed him to jump towards it without having to worry about it counterattacking.

He made one last leap towards it and tried to grasp it for himself, which again failed. But as soon as he knew he'd failed, he said "E-M-P". At that command, his implants sent out a short electronic burst of energy designed to disable any electronics within a 1.5 meter radius.

Kinnan shook his head with obvious disappointment and a well-hidden surge of anger as he watched his own lightsaber short out and deactivate.

--

With her eyes closed, Kari was surprised at how painless it actually was to be impaled with a lightsaber.

...except that the lack of any feeling of being stabbed was also accompanied by the sound of the lightsaber blade shorting out and deactivating.

As Kari opened her eyes again, her hands were shaking uncontrollably from the adrenaline pumping through her, but she was still able to say a quick Thank-You to 'Annie Lynn' the exotic dancer for her lightsaber's 'safety mode'.

--

None of them saw Dianiss' eyes open.

If they had, they would have been--rightfully--terrified at the unnatural fiery red glow in her eyes, and the expression of uncontrolled anger that accompanied it. Instead, they felt the tremors of the groundquake that she caused which was concentrated on the giant stone structure suspended above the crater where Galadina and the Sith were fighting.

Within seconds, the entire 34 million tons of the core structure had twisted in place, cracking and crumbling the three rocky supports that held it up until one of them on the opposite side of the crater broke away and collapsed.

Without that third leg of the 'tripod' that held it, the core began to tip over, although it didn't seem to be falling down in spite of the lack of physical support. In fact, it was slightly rising.

The Sith was able to run back to the other support opposite them that stayed intact, since he was already close to it.

Galadina, on the other hand, was standing in the middle, and starting to lose her footing on the surface as it kept tilting more and more, trying to keep from sliding down the floor that had suddenly become a slope.

Kinnan's attention was entirely focused on the holocron, which had already slid down and off of the rock core's edge, and was now rolling down toward the low point in the center of the crater in the shadow of the core hovering above it.

Without a word, he leapt toward it.

In doing so, he set off Galadina's protective instinct. She knew she needed to get off the top of the core (which was quickly becoming the side of the core), and noticed Kinnan moving in a direction that would put him under the massive stone.

Suddenly, she felt whatever was holding the core up simply stop doing so and start pulling DOWN on it instead, and tipping it over even faster. Instinctively, she leapt to Kinnan, colliding with him in mid-air and preventing him from completing his leap.

A second later, the core had been rolled completely vertical (and a little beyond) when it made contact with the floor of the crater, making a shockwave that could be felt in the ground for over a kilometer.

Almost every loose stone in the crater was jostled away from where it rested, and even some of the stone from the crater walls was shaken loose, causing micro-avalanches all around the crater rim.

The crystal at the center of the core, already broken but still held in place by the hardened rock around it, was violently jarred loose from its stone container. Millions of crystal shards large and small spilled out and were scattered all across the crater floor, giving the entire bottom of the crater a dark crimson hue.



Kinnan immediately wanted to try again to get to the holocron, but all he could do was watch in horror as it was completely crushed into a thousand glass-like shards by the impact of the core on top of it. He tried to scream, but no sound came out. His mind refused to acknowledge what he had just witnessed first-hand.

The holocron of Darth Traya was gone . . . forever.

Having prevented Kinnan from being crushed under the multi-million ton stone, Dina leapt up to the outcropping where the Sith had escaped to. He was completely confused at what was going on all around him.

When she got close enough, she used the only remaining weapon she had available to her.

She punched him in the stomach.

He was caught off guard with that, and completely unprepared to fight back the same way. After she landed a few more solid hits to his chin and midsection, she brought her knee up and impacted hard against his groin, which bent him over enough that she could punch him hard in the nose with the ball of her hand and at the same time poke one of his eyes with her fingers.

He flailed back at her a bit with his handless arm, but she easily ducked and blocked his blows.

Then he caught HER off guard.

From behind, the teacher's robe had risen up and quickly wrapped around her head and neck, pulling her backward and away from him. She tried to keep hitting him, but he was too far out of reach. Soon after, the cloth had pulled her back far enough that she no longer had anything to stand on, and found herself hanging in mid-air from it. As she did, the cloth just tightened around her neck, crushing her windpipe and cutting off all her oxygen.

"No time-outs." he said to her, enigmatically.

She tried to extract herself from the crude noose, but instead succeeded in getting her left arm tangled in the robe as well, and realized that he was trying to tie up her right arm too. She used the Force as best she could to minimize her need to breathe, but there's a big difference between meditating without oxygen and engaging in the intense physical exertion of combat without oxygen. She started feeling dizzy and a little bit numb.

Only one way out of this now.

She examined the lightsaber in his hand. It was definitely a Jedi design--an older one--and except for the exotic crystal, all of its internal components seemed familiar enough, including it's internal continuous-pressure activation switch.

I wish this didn't have to happen this way. Forgive me.

She reached out with the Force and touched the activation switch herself.

He continued to clutch it tightly in his withered hand against his chest.

The blade activated instantly and shot straight-up, through the bottom of his chin, and out the top of his head.

The expression on his face, the last facial expression that he would ever make, was one of surprise, a tiny bit of admiration, and a generous measure of . . . relief.

As the tension in the robe released her, Galadina dropped to the floor below and landed gracefully--if a bit painfully--on her feet. She took in a long, deep, welcome breath of air and sat down to rest.

I did it.

--

Dianiss was sitting up, tears in her eyes, but a fiercely angry look on her face.

Leaning on her left arm, her right arm was outstretched toward the Sith's now-lifeless body. As she swung her arm from side to side, she flung the Sith's body hard against the wall, first on one side of the crater, then the other, and back and forth another 3 times before lifting him up and casting him down hard against the floor in the center.

"Annie!" Kari called out, turning toward her. "Stop it!"

"Get her under control." Kinnan said sternly. "...or I will."

He turned his attention to Dianiss and shouted "Do you have any idea what you just did . . . what you just destroyed? That holocron was the entire reason we came here, the thing I've spent the last 4 years of my life tracking down, only for you to destroy it right in front of me?"

Dianiss said nothing but stared back at him defiantly.

"The information in that holocron was the key to defeating the Emperor. You might have just single-handedly destroyed the Republic. "

"I want his saber." she said softly.

Kinnan's obvious anger at her was only redoubled. "You WANT?!?" he shouted back. "You don't get to WANT anything any more. In fact, your days as a Jedi are over."

"Just WHAT do you mean by THAT?" Dianiss said, rising to her feet.

"You are unfit for the Jedi Order." he answered, with steel in his voice that hid his outrage. "It's clear to me now that you are nothing less than a Sith Lord pretending to be a Jedi. You were born a Sith, and you'll die a Sith--because I'll see to it that you are expelled from the Order if it's the last thing I do."

"YOU'LL . . . WHAT?!?" Dianiss shot back, her voice trembling. As she did, her hands were shaking, and sparks of electricity began forming around her fingertips. Kinnan slowly rose into the air until he was suspended a half-meter off the ground.

Kinnan blinked his eyes, or rather did something with his implants that looked like he blinked his eyes, and they turned bright white. In a calm voice, he said the word "Dazzlebeam", and all Hell broke loose.

The implants projected a bright beam of light that illuminated the entire crater, but was concentrated on Dianiss since he was looking directly at her. The light flashed and changed colors, but remained harshly bright.

Dianiss tried to close her eyes, but the intensity of the light was such that the flashing pattern was still perceptible behind closed eyelids. She was instantly stunned, and he immediately dropped back down to the ground. Her whole body began to shake uncontrollably.

Kari was affected by it too, even though it wasn't being pointed directly at her. She too was stunned initially, then fell to her knees because she was no longer able to stand due to the muscle spasms over her whole body.

When the beam finally stopped, Dianiss was completely unconscious, and Kari was on her hands and knees vomiting.

"What just happened?" Galadina asked.

The chirp of the holoviewer that announced an incoming call caught Annanya's attention, as it was one of the unique sounds she'd assigned to a select few people that identified who was calling. This particular sound always managed to bring a smile to her face.

She walked over to the controls and pressed the button to answer the call. "Hola, Colonel." she said in a playful voice as the image formed. "To what to I owe the pleasure?"

She was disappointed to see that the image of Colonel Corvioch did not share her smile this time. "Anya . . . we need to talk. I'm already on my way to Tython, and you're gonna need to cancel whatever you have scheduled for the next couple of days."

"What's wrong?" she asked, now with a look of concern on her face.

"It's your Padawan. He's . . . I don't know . . . he's broken . . . somehow. And this mystical dwang is YOUR field, not mine."

Continue to Chapter 16 . . . .