The Malevolence carried four of the most influential and notorious conquerors the galaxy had heard of. One thousand years of uninterrupted corruption and quiet were suddenly changed into a growing unease and paranoia as they made their stand.
Their names were synonymous with pride, rage, spite, and avarice.
Let us begin with pride and rage as they train to sharpen each other's skills. Count Dooku parried the blades of General Grievous with the finesse and dexterity of one who has sewn tapestry to showcase a long history of experience. Grievous' blades flashed before him as green and blue failed to meet their target. Because, yes, Grievous was trying to kill the Count. The cybernetic General needed something to kill despite this being a training exercise. However, he knew the Count would survive and that holding back would be an insult as the Count danced through and parried every attack.
Reminding Grievous how the Count excelled him in skill and experience were the movements. Count Dooku's senses, agility, and strength excelled that of another human his age. He was ducking and flipping as naturally as an avian flicks its wings. Grievous did not mind too much, as the great battle was the only solace he found these days.
And then, Count Dooku ruins it by opening his mouth:
"Stop using the standard attacks," barked the Count as he effortlessly parried five quick strikes, "Use the unorthodox."
And here, Grievous demonstrated his deadliness to the Jedi. He wants unorthodox, thought the General. Grievous executed a move that was physically inhuman and demanding to even the most skilled Jedi: he spun his mechanically twisting wrists to disorient the Count. He slashed his green blade downward to obscure the Count's sight as he tossed his blue blade upward. Grievous twisted his lower body as it fell to catch the blade with his clawed foot. The General maneuvered his body back to deal a heavy blow with his lower appendage while standing on an arm, and when the Count blocked the attack, Grievous struck the Count with his green blade. By then, his body had fallen, so Grievous, still clutching the blue blade, scraped it across the floor to swipe at the Count's legs, sending a shower of sparks that forced the Count to flip backward.
But Grievous hadn't finished. He twisted his body at the speed of lightning to spin and draw momentum for his next attack. Grievous' green lightsaber would have cut a lesser man in half, but as the Count fell, he anticipated this and responded accordingly. When Grievous threw his blade up to slash with one and catch the other in a follow-up attack, he recreated the trick that killed Jedi Master K'Kruhk on Hypori. Of course, the Jedi healed from his wounds despite rending him from his torso. Damn Whipid physiology...
"How often must I tell you?" he bellowed over the hisses and whines of their blades crossing. "Control my central line!"
Their blades broke apart as Grievous quickly lowered both blades, forcing the Count to step aside. Count Dooku nodded, "Good," he drawled. Of course, the word 'good' was also used whenever Nute Gunray didn't need to spend an hour pushing his measly, sliming self before them. Good was said, never meant.
These thoughts pushed Grievous to launch himself at Dooku, but the old man waved his hand, and Grievous growled as his legs slid into two barrels nearby.
"Recover!" Count Dooku commanded, to which Grievous obeyed in earnest. He bounded toward the Count like a torpedo, flipping through the air with his lightsabers. The Count continued to be pushed back with the same bored expression he had.
"Faster!" He said, "More intense!" Grievous focused on the bored face of his and his effortless dismissal of Grievous' skills. He plunged and sliced at every imaginary image that bore the Count's visage. The white-hot, burning anger in his eyes never left the old man—
"You're holding your saber too tightly," he said before immediately depriving Grievous of his weapon, which landed gracefully in the Count's hand.
"Now too lightly." Count Dooku said, deepening his disapproving frown. Before these words could sink further into Grievous' mind, the Count hummed as he inspected the General's most recent prize.
Count Dooku, a Makashi aficionado, observed the blade, "Simple grip. A familiar emitter." He turned it over, "Conventional…yet uncreative."
Count Dooku eyed Grievous, seeing him now as the murderer of Jedi Master Hara'tsyth. He did not grip Hara'tysth's blade with any unrestrained anger. Many of his old friends and family were dying in the name of corruption, and Hara'tsyth made her choice. The General stowed away his blade by the others at his hip and said in that booming, synthetic ghost voice:
"Your training has served me well," Grievous pushed his cape back to showcase the other sabers, "It has awarded me many trophies."
Dooku stood tall yet did not relax, "Don't let your pursuit of trinkets cloud your reality. Remember what I taught you, Grievous: if you are to succeed against the best of the Jedi, you must have fear, surprise, and intimidation on your side." Dooku raised a brow, "For if any one of these factors is missing, it would be best for you to retreat. You must break them before you engage them. Only then will you have victory," The Count levitated Hara'tysth's blade before him, "and have your trophy."
Grievous wordlessly took that which carried the memory of Dooku's old ally. The mask he wore, imitating his skull long destroyed, could only show anger. The Count's blatant mockery did not deter Grievous; if anything, Dooku's cheap victory only invigorated him. Dooku's disgust with the General is always apparent; whether it was the cybernetics or Grievous' alien nature or both didn't matter. Grievous could have been thinking of how many Jedi he'd kill instead of any fantasies of Dooku's death, but Dooku didn't care to peer into his mind; the General's faith in the Sith Lord superseded any pettiness he may send toward the Count. They both wanted the eradication of the Republic. That's all that matters.
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Grievous and Count Dooku had vacated the training room to stand at the bridge of the Malevolence, leaving spite and avarice to exercise their skills. Ventress ducked and weaved through every beam of light, speeding to find her heart. Diomeni was incorporating Lus-ma into his attacks, a lesser-known lightsaber form that contained a rigid yet flowing form of movement. Every time Diomeni seized his saber to stab at Ventress, she would respond by backing away. Still, Lus-ma was to take the principles of Soresu's defensive capabilities and multiply them by ten. As Makashi's free-flowing parties and maneuvering were a response to Shii-cho's repetitive swings and slices, so too was Lus-ma the Sith's response to Soresu. To disguise unbreakable defense with an aggressive offense.
Diomeni's movements were not angry, however. As Ventress pushed him back to flip gracefully over her, he pushed his blade into the ground, the gray and metallic sparking, giving his red hair a searing appearance. He crawled over to her like an enchanted animal. He flicked his hair back to reveal his smiling face.
"But harshness! Where doth this unrestrained anger stem from, Queen of Death?"
Ventress could tell Diomeni was not taking this fight seriously. The two were a swirl of rose red and crimson lights nearly blurring in sporadic flashes to the naked eye, and he was having fun. She knew at once what his feelings were when she disarmed him, and he caught her blades with the Force mere centimeters away from his chest. The Rattataki queen knew he had more power to show, and yet…
Strong you are, young one. But not that strong.
She thrust that memory of Yoda treating her as a youngling into the depths of her mind as she tried to stab at Diomeni. The man laughed and dodged every swipe and slice with such speed and grace, and in such a prepossessing way, he appeared almost feminine. And his smirk as he did not attempt to take back his blades—
Her thoughts cut off as he cut through her outstretched form and relieved her of her weapons. Diomeni lifted the Sith Assassin in the air and slammed her into the cold, grey floor. She twisted her left hand out of the red-haired man's grip and punched him twice in the face. Diomeni pushed through and gripped her hands again, holding her hands captive over her head. She snarled at him and began using the Force to grasp at his throat. Not enough to kill him, but enough to send a message.
"You," came the inhuman growl of the inhuman man, "think you have teeth?"
Ventress could feel the haze seeping through her nose. She bent her face down, insulted once more.
"I can kill you anytime I want," She said with pure conviction. Diomeni growled and then smirked. His deep brown eyes blinked into the frosty blue of an Anzati, and the faint green hue on his neck faded away. The probing strings of his face stretched out to her face, one touching her nose and the other by her lips. She nearly retched as Diomeni continued to choke and waited patiently. An uncomfortable silence arose as Diomeni's question, silent but known too well after interacting with him for nearly a year, passed in her mind.
What's stopping you?
"Shirking hence from mine eyes," Diomeni purred, "when thine own tactics are used against thee?"
Ventress released her hold over his throat and used all her power to push him off. She could hear his laughter as he flew higher than she intended. Diomeni did twelve blinding flips through the air as he landed on his back. Ventress scowled, knowing he had let her win. The pale, bald woman scowled as she pushed herself to her feet. She watched as Diomeni lay on the floor a meter away, giggling like a child.
"Death on legs," He said suddenly, "and all you can do is pout."
"Don't test me, Anzati," Ventress seethed, "I'm in no mood for your perversity."
"Ah, yes," Diomeni nodded, "Your kill count has been run askew, has it not?" And lifted her lightsabers to his face, "Where are your teeth?"
"About to sink into your pale throat," Ventress rushed to him and, in the blink of her eye, caught a gray mist where he had once been. Diomeni was now a few meters behind her, the blades now in his throat.
"I'm not pale, Asajj," Diomeni smiled, his face a faint shade of deep red, "I can be whatever I want to be."
Ventress huffed and walked this time to him, "And not for philosophy either."
"I know," Diomeni said, throwing her blades back, and she easily caught them. "Too few people have time to enjoy their art these days. How I wish I could have seen Jabba's face as he gazed at my handiwork."
"That was twisted," She said in a tranquilized tone as Diomeni sauntered to him.
"Yes," he said as they now stood shoulder to shoulder, nearly touching, "Hutts are disgusting creatures."
"Don't they fit in your view of the galaxy?"
Diomeni craned his head down for his hair to tickle her bald head. She scowled, but only with half a heart. Then his hair began to annoy her as each strand seemed to act on its own, and she shoved Diomeni away. He merely laughed and gazed at her, the room, and something unseen with a hazy brown eye as if intoxicated.
"They," he said coldly, "don't fit anywhere in this beautiful, beautiful galaxy. And that's not philosophy, either." He stood in front of her and viewed her as his equal. Whether she returned this sentiment, he cared never to enter her mind. He knew what came next.
"It's not enough for some of us to merely exist, be beautiful and deadly, and have charisma, Asajj. You know we must climb, kill, and uphold ourselves to standards beyond that which have long since existed." Diomeni snickered, "If Hutts weren't born into power, they would be little more than animals. But they have claimed a reputation they don't deserve, and alas, we have no choice but to associate them with power. They live in unearned luxury behind the walls of an unbreakable empire thusly—even a king would hold resentment." He came within a breath's distance of her face, "And doesn't that starve your doubts on how their tale will end?" He held her lightsabers, pushed them into her hands, and lifted their hands while grasping them, "Doesn't that alight your mind on where our tale begins?"
Ventress held her lightsabers between his hands. She did not immediately snatch them and spit in his face, merely wriggling her fingers between his knuckles as he copied her. She looked down to see his capeless form and noticed how many cuts she had made in his suit. How much skin she had revealed, and he no doubt purposely allowed her such. Asajj was cursing herself for feeding his ego. He expects to coddle her like one of his consorts, and Asajj curses him for how willing he is to die for what he defines as…
Gently, Asajj took her blades back, "How many years was it again?" she asked lightly.
Before Diomeni can answer, a droid's voice fills the room, telling them they will exit Hyperspace in an hour. Diomeni, his face becoming suspiciously blank after that question, smiles. He disappears again in a mist and retrieves his cape from the bottom of the stairway that leads outside the room. Ventress watches how it flows back onto his form. He drapes it over his body and, once he opens it, reveals every cut and tear has vanished. Asajj blinks in shock, her blue-gray eyes narrow, and her lip curls as she marches toward him. But with every step she takes, it dissolves and turns into something else.
His smug smile as his deep brown eyes never changed to cool blue. She stood taller and began to smile wickedly. Diomeni has his philosophy, but who knows how long he could last without lying and cheating to survive? He was on the same ship as her, and they knew the fear of losing everything in the end, despite their power. He was not dissimilar to her. He could die and suffer just as he's killed and tortured. She was like him. And for reasons that she had yet to understand, she smiled.
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Mon Gazza had recently come under Separatist control, mercifully without the aid of Grievous, so it would make a perfect pitstop. It was a red planet from space, perhaps redder after the skirmish below. Putting it plainly, Mon Gazza's lifestyle was not too dissimilar to the desert planet Tatooine, only more refined in its architecture, which didn't say much. It was still stricken with poverty and violence as Tatooine and just as infertile in natural plant life and dust-covered. It compensated in its numerous spice mines and the podraces held there. It was a planet of sand and steel, sandy blankets, and durasteel graveyards for daring racers, rusted webs to hold up and protect homes, and some who make their homes in distant mountains.
And now, Mon Gazza belongs to the winners, the Confederacy of Independent Systems.
They marched together onto the bridge, each with their own cape following them: Dooku, the proud leader of the C.I.S.; Grievous, the furious cyborg with murder on his mind; Ventress, the woman who wanted to be a Sith Lord; and Diomeni, who found and kept treasures. Pride, Rage, Spite, and Greed—birthed from the corruption of the Republic, now made to destroy them by any means necessary.
"What do you mean the planet isn't ours yet?" Count Dooku demanded rather than asked. He glared at the wide-faced, holographic man with sweat and blood dripping down his forehead. His hair was disheveled, and he spoke to the Count with a quivering lip above an underbite:
"The stragglers," he breathed in a coarse bass, "are more coordinated than we thought. We've, that is, the droids are having a hard time adapting to their," He glanced away, "their tactics. I need reinforcements if I'm going to—"
"You need," Count Dooku said venomously slow, "reinforcements to deal with less than seventy stragglers atop a mountain…Tell me, do you even try to cross the bridge or turn after two shots?"
The man stammered a few times, but Diomeni came next to the Count before he could say anything. The man wanted to smile at the sight, but Diomeni's words froze his blood.
"Bloren," Diomeni said, smiling pityingly, "either find your stomach and cross that bridge, or come back to me, and I'll give your stomach on a plate to your son."
Bloren began to hyperventilate, "I'm, I'm suh-sorry, my Lord! I-I-I am— I will—"
The side of Bloren's head exploded in a flash, and Bloren's fear-stricken face remained wide-eyed as he fell to the ground. They heard a flurry of activity through the hologram. The image cut off, and Dooku turned quietly to Diomeni as the man smacked his lips.
"Lucky fool," said the red-haired man, "Maybe his son will be better." Diomeni shook his head and walked away from Dooku's side.
"Your soldiers have failed," Dooku said plainly. Diomeni nodded and didn't look the least bit embarrassed or surprised.
"Of course they did. This is their punishment." Diomeni smiled, "Bloren had the gall to breeze through my doctrine, lazily move behind his superiors, and, worst of all, think I would never notice. His death shall forever be a reminder to his son, and this boy must strive to be better."
All were silent, mulling Diomeni's words as he delivered this in his most benevolent tone. He could have told his tailor what color he wanted his synth-silk tunic for an evening of fun, not casually ordering someone's death. Count Dooku could appreciate it; he used this tone more often these days.
Grievous said below them, "While I can appreciate a desire to twist the knife, we are on a time limit. Let us deliver an orbital bombardment and be done with it."
"No, Grievous," Dooku said heatedly, "they're holed up in one of the few places that counts as civilization on this planet. We must keep that building intact until further notice."
Grievous glowered in his place until Diomeni said:
"Let us deal with these fools," Diomeni appeared by Grievous' side to put a hand on his cybernetic shoulder and smiled, "personally."
Asajj, who had been idly walking around the bridge, watching the droids and Neimoidians at work, smirked to herself. Her hands itched for something metallic, and her muscles yearned for physical activity. As the men spoke, she walked closer to the viewport, standing alongside Grievous. She imagined the world as a tiny blood droplet, one she could dip her finger onto and smear against the stars. Asajj wondered if Grievous imagined the same.
"Do you hope to join us down there?" She prods at the cyborg General, still as a specter and staring ahead.
"Indeed," He says simply, "I would be more effective and drive the vermin out of the holes, exterminating them on site. I am faster and stronger." He turned his reptilian eyes on her, "Such a small planet, wouldn't you say? Such a small and fragile planet…"
Asajj withheld any sign of anger. She remembered Grievous using these words on her, when Count Dooku had ordered her and Durge to hunt an intruder on a space station near the Outer Rim. That was when they first met, and Grievous overpowered her and Durge. Such a small thing, he had called her, such a small and fragile thing. The Count's deception invited Grievous' metallic claws around her throat— when she felt genuine fear since her duel against Skywalker on Yavin IV. Those yellow eyes she thought would have been her last sight as darkness enveloped her…
Asajj knew Grievous was goading her, testing her, perhaps to see if she was a weak lamb or had risen from this experience. The Count had used Ventress as Grievous' toy, and if she had been more powerful, this sad, tortured creature would not be here. Asajj turned away and imagined the planet as a droplet of blood.
After a moment, she says, "Only from afar, General."
Grievous made a noise that sounded like a snort, but that couldn't be because he couldn't laugh.
"How can you be sure they will work?" Count Dooku had asked, and now Asajj was paying attention to their words.
"We shall simply have to do as beasts do," Diomeni said, giggling, "We'll have to run or die—sink or swim, as I say. If it soothes thy nerves, my dear Count, then I shall go personally to oversee if the prototypes function properly, or if I'm to," he inhales and his face scowls, "break some bones."
Count Dooku stared at Diomeni, who presented himself as standing blithely to a new customer, then nodded.
"Very well," He said, "Ventress, Grievous, you are going with him."
If Grievous could smile, he would. So, Asajj did it for him.
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Hotel Lost Depth didn't have to last forever; in fact, it didn't have to last much longer. They just needed to hold out until they could establish communications with the Republic again or until the Separatists were ready to listen to them. Or until they came up with a better plan. Or until their rag-tag army finally ate all the food and drank all the alcohol.
Sunorr sat in the central room of the Hotel to think. The office was their first and last line of defense against the Separatists. This hotel was one of the last places that could be viewed as a window into the finer life one might have had years ago on Mon Gazza—a window into something that wasn't sand, harsh winds, or weakness. Despite being vandalized and shot at, it stood on Mon Gazza as though this were its finest hour. At least, that's how Bea'kra wanted to look at it.
He pushed himself out of the dusty bed in the center of the room and walked out. He scratched his muzzle and his pointed ears. Sunorr turned his walk into a broad-shouldered march down the halls of open-doored guest rooms, past the three-meter hole in the wall, littered with scrapped battle droids. Rubble shifted beneath his bare feet until a noise broke his gait. He peered off to the field of activity and makeshift beds of injured. The auditorium was never meant for these wailings or this battered and broken audience. Sunorr sniffed the smells of blood: Human, Calamari, Nikto, and others planted within the field of beds.
The Shistavanen nodded to a nurse, and the nurse nodded back as the Twi'lek applied bacta patches and gauze to the Arkanian's stump where his left arm should be. Sunorr walked up the numerous stairs, pushed the auditorium doors open, and continued to the upper levels. Now, the atmosphere changed. He sniffed the smells of ozone, blood, and fornication from his human companions; Sunorr, a Shistavanen and an isolationist, ignored these social activities and focused on what came next. His allies celebrated now, but who can say they will win without biting their tongue off?
He entered the elevators, miraculously working thanks to their youngest ally, and Chai Reel, his second in command, joined him for the ride.
"How are you holding up?" asked Chai, chucking a wrapper behind his back. Sunorr noticed but left his friend to his chemical dependency.
"I suppose," Sunorr replied, "I'd ask how our soldiers are faring, but…"
Chai gave the Calamari equivalent of a dry laugh, "Yes, I know. Humans."
"Eh," Sunorr said, "it's more of a mammalian thing than a human thing."
The elevator opened, and they walked out to a stairway. As the two climbed down the stairs, they found stains of black and grime, garbage, and, of course, droids pushed to the walls so they could walk. It was as if someone had worked feverishly to erase any sense of class this place once had. Chai and Sunorr continued walking past the ones checking their weapons, closer now to the reception desk, now their second and last line of defense. The reception space had on the left men and women discussing battle tactics with a flickering light overhead, while on the far right, others practiced with their weapons on the battered droids.
The reception hall was filled with jubilation and drunken respite. They had driven the Seppers back for a third time, so now was the time to party like there was no tomorrow. Sunorr knew there wouldn't be one, but who knows? Sunorr had also said he would never smile with these ingrates.
"More mammalian, eh?" Chai said, smirking, "Speaking from experience?"
"I think so."
"What does that mean?"
Sunorr sighed, "Never mind. Let's check the status of our tanks."
Sunorr and Chai walked to the remnant reception desk, once made of Kasshyk bark and now resembling a deflated fruit after burning on a pyre. At the head of the desk, Sunorr spoke with their youngest ally— their communications expert — who is currently in the process of building a subspace transceiver and, judging by the shock she received from connecting the wrong wires, impatiently so.
Sunorr said, "Kemsica, how's—" That was as far as he got.
"HOW DO YOU THINK IT'S GOING!" She rounded on Sunorr with a pitch almost imperceptible to human ears— how Sunorr the Shistavanen envied those humans.
"I mean, seriously, this isn't something we can get in the snap of our fingers!"
"I wasn't asking if—" Sunorr tried to say.
Kemsica showed her fingers, "I should know! I can't even snap my fingers! It's bad enough I basically had to scrounge around an electromagnet from scratch and create a proper power source that could support the mere thought of the bandwidth necessary to reach Falleen or Rodia—" She panted and rounded on Chai with a manic grin, "And hey, Chai! By the way, nice Chai! Sweet Chai! Dear, damned, frag-headed, gas-gulping, spice swirling CHAI!"
Chai gulped, "No need to curse."
"E CHU TA!" She exploded, "How about that, huh? For askin' me if we could reach Coruscant—stanging CORUSCANT— with this pile of druk you expect me to turn into high-end art! Don't you guys ever just wanna ask how I'm doing? Instead'a think'a yerselves every five seconds?"
Both Sunorr and Chai hesitated to speak. Until Sunorr said, "That what I was—"
"DON'T—" she jabbed a finger, "try to get smart, when you know full well that I'm keeping everyone alive because I hate the idea of watching you people suffer! YOU HEAR ME? YOU! NEED! MEEEEEEEEE!"
Sunorr and Chai watched as Kemsica seemed to deflate from her rant, as she hunched over like a tired racer after running a marathon. All who were close by paused in their activities to listen to the rant before they went back to before. Sunorr and Chai exchanged looks as Kemsica continued to pant. Until she stood back up, cheerfully grinning like the peppy schoolgirl she should have been, and said to them:
"So, yeah, I'm doing okay!" Then, she pulled something out of her pocket. The outfit she wore was a forest green jumpsuit worn by mechanics, perhaps two sizes too big for her, so the sleeves were cut by her forearms and knees. Her once-alabaster skin had gained color with her time under Mon Gazza's sun, and she had bactapatches on her left arm. Her once-plaited hair now lay flat and vibrant, its length reaching the tip of her spine.
Chai Reel looked at the once spindly girl. Is four standard weeks really that long? Chai couldn't think too long about this. Kemsica's oval-shaped face became peppy as she shoved a communicator into his face.
"There, dear Chai!" She said, "I fixed your communicator; now you can talk to your girlfriend."
"She's not my—"
Kemsica closed the distance with a stern look in her eye. "Do you want me to break you?" she said in a deceptively soft voice.
Sunorr spared Chai further Calamari sputters as he got between the two, grabbed the comm, and activated it. It sputtered for a few seconds before a feminine voice answered. Sunorr looked at Kemsica and patted her head with an appraising look. Kemsica pouted at this act but turned silently to her work.
"Jedi," He said in the comm, "How are my men? And…yourself?"
His communicator burst to life, "They are fine, Sunor." A pause, "So far, we seem to have driven them back. They're scared stiff, and the droids are just as confused. If we're lucky, I might be able to send a distress call to the Republic."
Sunorr's lip quirked, "Are you sure?" then added, "Then, perhaps I should send one of my men to scout ahead."
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"I would rather not risk their lives."
Sunorr actually chuckled, "You don't need to think like that. We are of this planet, and we've shown you how hard our hearts can beat."
Speaking of which, Sunorr looked at Chai, appearing antsy and squirming now under the Shistavenen's eye. As the voice on the comm said, 'Very well,' Sunorr pushed the device into Chai's hands. Chai repeatedly refused and tried to return it until Sunorr bared his teeth in a deep-throated growl. Chai flinched, listened to the voice, and let out a few confused queries before Chai shrugged, scratched his barbels, and spoke shakily:
"Hello, Jedi Hesmit," Sunorr rolled his eyes at how long it took for the Jedi to respond.
"Chai," said the voice highly before it lowered in pitch, "How are you?"
Chai shrugged, "Um, cooped up and…" and nearly squeaked out, "lonely. You?"
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Jedi Padawan Hesmit used her webbed hand to rub her eyes. She glanced around her to see three Separatist tanks stationed at their left and right flanks, the third tank right behind her. She stood under the shade provided by the hotel and the mountain nearly enveloping it. This mountain hugged the hotel, but its grip was waning.
"Personally," she said, "I wouldn't mind some claustrophobia right now. At least I had company then." She smiled at the long stretch of silence, knowing Chai had turned off the comm to hide his sputters. Despite Chai's apparent malfunctioning mind regarding her, Hesmit knew him to be a brave soul. After everything they had gone through in four weeks—her Master was dead, and that still hurt—her future was thrown into question. She was playing with a friend's emotions, and she was teaching Chai to play on her own.
She picked up a rock next to her, bounced it in her webbed hand, and tossed it with a Force-imbued toss to see if it could cross the calamitous gap where the bridge once was. The rock landed a meter short of the opposite side and fell away with the dirt, bricks, and durasteel fragments that once made the bridge. Hesmit stamped her foot and immediately hauled a brick next to her. She realized it was too heavy and, in a decision that her Master would disapprove of, suspended the brick with the Force and sliced it with her lightsaber. Her goggle-like eyes lit up, and she prepared to try again when the Comm crackled with Chai's voice.
"Yes?" she said, unconsciously hiding the brick behind her back, "What did you say, Chai?"
"I said," Chai crackled, "are you throwing rocks out there?"
Her large eyes swiveled nervously, "Why?"
The crackle, "Well," Chai's voice, "I just had a feeling…wait, you're not saying no."
Hesmit felt a warmth in her heart, and she looked down and kicked at her feet. Hesmit responded bashfully:
"Perhaps you are Force-sensitive."
Then Chai said, "Well, no, I guess— if there's one person I know well, it's you." and the comm crackled with what sounded like muffled 'oooooh' with Chai trying to shout over them.
When Hesmit tried saying something over the noise, I'm rather dull compared to others, Chai had told her that she wasn't to him, and now she was sure she could hear Kemsica's shrill and overbearing voice. Hesmit was boring, though; she had once told Chai maybe four or five days ago. At once, the memory came to her:
"I am sixteen years old, nearly an adult," she told him as they sat atop the CIS tank they had stolen. I take more interest in rocks and sand than anything else."
Chai sat closer, "Maybe you're just seeing something others can't."
Hesmit stared out for a moment before she turned to face him. "A friend once told me that once."
"Oh?"
"Yes," he hesitated. He's a bit…much, and perhaps a maverick before anything else. He would love it if everything was so extraordinary, just as he wishes to stand out." Hesmit shrugged, " Well, most Padawans do, but he already does stand out among us. But he's a good friend, and he's helped me out, even when the task ahead is more than he bargained for. Maybe I'll introduce you to him."
Chai brought Hesmit's dome head closer to his, "My interest is really only on you."
Hesmit chuckled, "Perhaps Zakriahs, my friend, I mean, would call you boring."
"Would he?"
Hesmit shrugged and nearly pulled away, "I don't know, he's hard to read."
Chai brought her back: "You know me, then, and maybe I am boring. Let's bore each other to death."
Hesmit and Chai smiled as the sun went down over them.
Hesmit blinked as she realized a shadow had covered her face and heard her comm crackling again. The message was all too clear: enemies were approaching.
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Kemsica jumped off Chai's back after severely teasing the guy and rushed back to the reception desk. She studied the mish-mash of machines surrounding her and found the remote she needed. Kemica, the youngest member of this group and their last hope, charged up the makeshift repeater display, smacked it when static plagued her sight, then stared into it. Kemsica's head drooped as her hooded blue eyes hardened, focusing on the large shape running towards them. When the display turned static again, she growled.
"C'mon!" Kemsica nearly punched the top. "GIMME EYES, YOU FRAGGIN PIECE OF STANG SLUDGE!"
By the Force, it finally settled on a clear picture, and Kemsica could see what the tanks saw. The AAT tanks they stole had been modified to Kemsica's needs: she had installed cameras in the front hatch of each tank, and each camera was connected to the controls. At a height of 4.32 meters, these tanks were designed primarily for droids. Sunorr argued, after Kemsica proposed remote control, that they needed as much manpower on the ground as possible. Kemsica had developed a system based on schematics of the Lucrehulk Control ship to which the droids were tethered. The design was cruse, and Kemsica had wished she had more than three tanks at her disposal, but her control had a 40-kilometer radius. If she hadn't accidentally destroyed the bridge, she would wholeheartedly have used the tanks to plow through the streets and help her friends escape.
"Everyone's trapped here thanks to me," She muttered to the figure on the screen, "but I can protect them all. We will see the stars again."
The tanks and Hesmit stood on the base of the hotel's grounds; the spacious area where speeders could park resembled a junkyard, so Kemsica had hauled the tanks up there as watchmen. They blasted away any starfighters, those Vulture droids she had heard about, and swarms of droids had been reduced to nothing. Thanks in no part to their resident sniper— speaking of which:
"Hey, Tiny," Kemsica's eye twitched at the nickname, "How's my heartthrob of a brother?"
"Kemsica, you twit," She returned indifferently, "My name is Kemsica. How's your depth perception?"
"Swell," said the snide and groggily voice, "I'm partially blind in my left eye and totally blind in my right."
"Least you got the left," She answered.
"At least I won't need spectacles after this," and Kemsica rolled her eyes at that remark.
"Chai's probably gonna marry the Jedi, Cha'a," Kemsica said plainly, "after that, you're her problem. Now, what do those saucer eyes see?"
Cha'a was silent for a moment. "Yeah, there's a ship that keeps hovering over there. It keeps circling overhead, but it's out of your range. I've never seen a ship like it."
"Describe it," Kemsica ordered.
"Gray-colored, maybe 26 meters long—no, wait. I think I know what this ship is." After a pause, "We might be in trouble."
Kemsica blinked, "Why?"
Cha'a's groggily voice remained the same even tone: "Because it cloaked."
Kemsica's heart stopped. She could swear it just stopped. Cloaking technology was expensive in the galaxy, and most who acquired it had to endure great pains to capture it intact. Whoever is piloting that ship…
Kemsica recomposed herself, "Search for shimmers in the sky, anything that looks like a mirror refraction. I'll send the rocket launchers your way." Then, remembered, "Did you get a good look at the ground?"
"Yeah," Cha'a responded, "I saw that quadruped. The dust and sand are obscuring it, but it looks big. Maybe as big as your tanks."
Kemsica nodded, "I'm gonna fire a few test rounds. Stand-by." The young girl inputs a few commands into her keyboard—fire for five seconds—and from there, she uses the handheld valve and twists it with the tiny red aurebesh letters she printed with paint on the sticks. The valve used to be part of a hose; now, she uses it as a compass to direct the tank's primary laser cannon. She twisted a ball on her left. It was inserted into a sensor apparatus to raise and lower the cannons. The only drawback was that all the cannons moved, and she hadn't found a way to move them individually.
Up ahead, the blasts hit a few of the dilapidated buildings that had suffered during the clashing. The enemy was likely the only ones hiding in the buildings, or so Hesmit told Kemsica, so Kemsica felt no empathy toward architecture. The quadrupedal creature kept running, kicking up dust in the air, and did not react to the blasts. Either this thing isn't alive, Kemsica thought, or it has nerves of steel.
"Cha'a, can you make it out better?" she said into her comm. Cha'a did not respond. Kemsica blinked, "Cha'a? You okay?" Still nothing, "Respond?" Now, the silence was too stilted and uncomfortable, and an uneasy feeling settled in Kemsica's gut—the news about a cloaked ship. Kemsica nearly contacted an extra group to join the rocket launchers already heading up to the tower when her comm burst to life.
"All fine up here. No sign of the ship." Cha'a's voice came out groggily as usual, if perhaps a little corakier.
"What happened?" Kemsica asked.
"I thought I was shooting the ship, but it was just an avian creature. It was normal size, nothin' special."
Kemsica's deep feeling hadn't lessened, "You still want the launchers?"
No response for a few seconds, then, "Yeah," Cha'a whistled a gurgling whistle, "I'd appreciate it."
Kemsica wanted to say more, but Hesmit's urgent voice came through the comm. Kemsica grabbed the comm, "Hesmit, say again!"
"It's General Grievous! General Grievous is here!"
Sunorr and Chai had been approaching Kemsica's station to get an update on the situation, but now they wish they hadn't. Kemsica's tanned alabaster had become so pale that it seemed to sap her sun-kissed tone. But the slicer girl acted like lightning. Kemsica aimed for the dust cloud closer to the bridge and ordered the tanks to open fire. On the static screen, she watched as the blasts missed their mark. The shape within the cloud was leaping and twisting, and Kemsica knew it was alive. She didn't know how Grievous, the droid General of the CIS, was doing this, but she didn't care. Now, the cloud was clearing, and her eyes widened. Perhaps the static on her screen could easily distort shapes, or maybe she was shocked to see Hesmit take to the broken bridge to confront the General.
Or perhaps she was shocked that the General's ride attacked her first.
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Hesmit knew she was being stupid and desperate and could feel that her future was ending. But she also knew she was a fighter and could, at the very least, die trying. Every Jedi knew about the General, his skills, and his reputation. But she was satisfied as long as the Force could guide her to the very end.
Hesmit took her blue lightsaber, used Force-speed to make her trip from the hotel to the bridge cut short, dodged the blasts from the tanks, and readied to thrust her blade into the General's chest. Where she expected a lightsaber to block her attack came the giant, clawed paw of an animal.
It batted her away, and Hesmit fell as a heavy shadow covered her fall and disappeared as swiftly as it came. Another shadow followed, and Hesmit coughed and cringed as she felt a liquid pour out a spot where it felt like her skin had been pulled off. Something had sliced into her skin, but she couldn't concentrate on that. Hesmit got back up, ignored the spots where it felt like a knife had pierced her clothes and skin, and chased the dust. It came closer to the tanks, and with each dodging of blaster fire, the shapes revealed themselves fully.
An earsplitting crash of a giant bass drum mixed with vengeance and hunger filled the air, and had Hesmit been closer, she would have gone deaf. The source of the noise could have been a missile—it was the animal Grievous rode.
They were feline creatures, glinting in long and tall bodies in what looked like golden armor, adorned on their large heads and bodies and legs, and on the saddle, Grievous rode one with a blue lightsaber in hand like a beacon. They rested on top of the tank at their left flank, Grievous dismounting the saddle, precariously stepping over its head to slice the barrel of the tank, rendering it inert, while the other yanked the latch of the tank with its massive claws.
No! Hesmit thought as she raced further toward the enemies. She chanced her luck with Force-speed, and as the animal with Greivous hopped off the tank, it noticed her and roared. The second animal broke off from the tank and barreled towards her. The combined roars nearly made her freeze, and she stumbled, but it worked to her advantage. When she and the animal met, she hit the floor and slid underneath it, hoping to pierce it from beneath. As she crossed beneath it, the predator surprised her as before she could stab its belly, it lept away from the blade and stood baring its teeth before her.
Hesmit glared at the creature, and now she had a better look at it. Beneath the armor, its fur seemed to sift like grass in the wind, and Hesmit couldn't tell if she was seeing apricot fur with red, jagged stripes or deep vermillion with black stripes that almost felt alive. When she swore the fur that the armor didn't hide changed to deep blue, Hesmit remembered. How Zakriahs would be obsessed with planets and their lifeforms, how she accompanied him in his research, and how casually he dismissed this animal before her—the animal from the strange planet Lygoria and their apex predator.
"Taidora," she whispered. The Taidora growled softly as if in reply. Then, its head perked up when Hesmit's comm burst out, "HESMIT, MOVE!"
Hesmit flipped backward on instinct, her body vibrating in the air as the blaster bolt passed under her to the Taidora. However, she underestimated the creature's prowess, and it leaped toward her with speed rivaling Master Yoda. Hesmit was yanked out of the air by her tattered robes, and felt the air leave her as she landed on the sandy ground. When she strained for her lightsaber, the Taidora dropped its paw over her wrist, jerking her webbed hand open.
Hesmit grunted, glared at the great cat, and tried pushing herself up. She tapped into what reserves of the Force she hadn't used for speed, desperate for any form of escape from the Taidora's hold. That's when it growled, slowly lowering its head to her face. Hesmit, with one side of her face planted on the hot ground and the other side as a hostage to a beast, realized its meaning.
Got to—need to tell them to shoot!
She heard an explosion before she could move her unguarded right hand for her comm. One of the tanks blew up. She heard great footfalls in a steady rhythm approaching her. The Calamari Padawan shifted her head, as the figures obscured the sun, and she glared as General Grievous dismounted with a loud thud.
"Grievous," she hissed, "how..."
She wanted to say something clever. Zakriahs always gripe about something clever or stupid—anything to make their enemies angry. But Grievous bent down, wrenched the comm link off her wrist, and, ignoring the continuous shouts of worry from Kemsica, turned it on.
"This is General Grievous of the Confederacy of Independent Systems," He boomed, "Your last line of defense is on her knees. This pitiful excuse for a resistance is at an end. Now, all that remains is that she be given a warrior's death. If there are any more Jedi hiding in your rat's nest, send them my way so they may be felled by my power, and I will take their lightsabers as trophies. But send them quickly, for today,"
The pressure she felt on her left arm had lifted. The Taidora was backing off, and Hesmit couldn't help but stare at how reserved this animal was. It stepped away from her and sat like a domesticated feline. Hesmit staggered to her feet, allowing feeling to return to her body. Grievous continued to stare with those reptilian eyes as she readied her stance.
"Today," Grievous continued, "death is here, and in full view for all to see. It is not the color black, the night sky, but the color of your bones. The color of my exoskeleton."
Grievous crushed the comm-link, "I am your death, Jedi."
Hesmit, winded and crushed, thirsty and tired, knew what to say to the monster as it pulled its stolen lightsabers out:
"We all must die someday," Hesmit smiled, "but I would die a Jedi then live as "death" any day, Grievous."
That was for you, Zakriahs.
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"We have to help her!" said Chai, pushing past everyone to reach the entrance. "Disarm the bombs!"
Sunorr, who had been restraining and restricting Chai's advance, said, "Belay! Keep the bombs on!"
Kemsica, watching them a few paces behind them from her desk, said, "But Sunorr, that was Grievous! The Separatist General!"
Sunorr dragged Chai in a chokehold. "I'm aware." After a few seconds, still walking, he lowered his voice to Kemsica: "But if we try to help, those creatures will tear us apart. And we'll get in the Jedi's way."
Kemsica scowled, "Her name is Hesmit…"
"And Hesmit is a Jedi!" Sunorr's features softened, his pointed ears drooping, "If anyone stands a better chance against Grievous, it's her. Let's try to have faith."
Silence between the three. Sunorr finally released Chai, the strength not gone but having been encouraged to go elsewhere. He gripped his rifle so that it shook. Kemsica suddenly looked at all her techs as though they were utterly foreign. Sunorr released no exhalation and began barking orders. All their most able-bodied and minded friends were flurrying across the reception area.
Kemsica, in the briefest sting of fear, took out a single piece of flimsi. She scrambled across the desk, ignoring how everyone began standing at the door. The doors that once were there were now gaping holes covered by the two-meter walls, still standing, and the wreckage of two vulture droids. Hermit's Master had destroyed them; in turn, they destroyed him. But Hesmit insisted on using this sacrifice as a massive barricade, cluttered but titanic in its aspect. Three legs of the Vulture droids made for cover, stacked on top of the other by the entrance, covered and roped on tight with a drape of curtains to block out the sun. The rest served as pikes against the entrance. It took all of Hesmit's power to lift the base bodies of the attackers to set up as walls where one could crawl under a small hole to exit the building. Desks, couches, doors, and anything they could get their hands on compensated for the rest of the untampered spots. No battle droid would be able to enter without having to dig their way through.
But Chai wanted to take it a step further. Adding on random areas of the barricade, thermal detonators lay hidden among the clutter. Realistically, someone like Grievous would come to set an example. If not him, someone essential and necessary to the course of the Clone Wars. The bombs were for them. And should Hesmit lead Grievous or those creatures through the foliage of scrap and garbage, they could bring about his end.
Kemsica finally found what she was looking for: a thin, silver bar resembling something of a pen and a detonator. She looked at the flimsi, the letters she had written still forming, crawling like a caterpillar. She crumbled the flimsi, remembered instructions imparted from Sunorr, and stared ahead as the ranks stood aiming a few paces away at the door. Her eyes found Sunorr, standing in the center, his hands on two pistols, growling.
"What are we looking at?" said a voice she didn't recognize. Kemsica spun around and came face to face with a handsome face and wild red hair serving as a mane. He bent up, looking down at her at his full height. "How's the barricade holding? Steadily against the might of a thousand fires?" Kemsica backed away as the man smiled, sweeping his cape back to reveal a rocket launcher.
Kemsica's eyes widened, and she drew a sharp breath. She recognized that weapon—it was one of theirs!
"Let's test that," he said to Kemsica, before a flash of red pierced by his side. Kemsica recognized the sound and ducked on instinct. A second after she hit the floor, Kemsica heard the sound of her techs being sliced, the sound of feet landing on her desk, laughter, shouting from Sunorr, and the burst of the launcher nearly deafening her. Smoke filled her space; she could hear herself coughing, and another explosion rocked the whole building.
How? She thought, How did they do this?
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A few minutes earlier…
"Respond!" The comm demanded. Diomeni drew his head away from the fish food, his tentacle proboscis lined with blood. They moved and twirled irregularly like eels before they disappeared on his face, and Diomeni took the comm-link off his wrist, ripping his off with a squelching tear, and spoke:
"All fine up here. No sign of the ship." Diomeni held his hand out, and Asajj took it daintily as a chauffeur would for a celebrity or a holo-film actress. She smiled, lips pursed, and then rolled her eyes. The ship sat before the hole in the tower, cloaked and parked, so to anyone watching them, it would appear as though they appeared out of thin air to stand on a tower.
"What happened?" The girl asked.
Diomeni said, "I thought I was shooting the ship, but it was just an avian creature. It was normal size, nothin' special."
"You still want the launchers?"
Diomeni blinked, then a smile crept onto his face. "Yeah," he nearly forgot to do the voice. "I'd appreciate it."
Diomeni pocketed the comm and turned to the Rattataki Queen, and when she tried to walk away, pulled her back to observe the land. Asajj took out a pair of macros, and though the dust was too thick, she did catch flashes of the image of Grievous hunched over like an animal on the prowl. Perhaps it was Asajj's imagination, but Grievous looked more alive than ever before. Diomeni smiled, putting an arm over her shoulder.
"My pets," He said, "Skota and Tasma have been yearning for action. And I think Grievous will sympathize with them, or rather, empathize. Who knows better about being a pet than him?" Asajj and Diomeni laughed together, "I do enjoy tossing them a bone."
"Your pets or Grievous?" Asajj asked.
"Yes."
Before they could laugh, they heard a clicking underneath Cha'a's body. A door beneath him tried to push the weight off. Diomeni and Ventress stepped lightly, never allowing their footfalls to be heard. The pushes against the door became harder and more aggressive, and a voice could be heard complaining.
Diomeni bent down and put a long finger to his lips. Asajj rolled her eyes but smirked. They could sense one last forceful push coming from below, so Diomeni levitated the body off the door. Three seconds passed. When the door burst open, Diomeni grabbed the man with a rocket launcher away, allowing Asajj to fall through.
She landed on top of the second man holding a rocket launcher, her lightsabers snapped on and stabbing downward into his chest. As she landed on the ground, her lightsaber piercing the stone floor, she looked up to see the last man making a break for it. She twisted his foot into the air with the invisible power she possessed, restrained herself from squeezing his ankle too hard, and rushed forward to slice him in half. His upper body hung in the air fell like a lump of meat, and she released his lower half.
Diomeni descended, lazily floating down like an apparition with the control of his power. Power was all too important to them. There was no Force; instead, it was power and those who used it. Diomeni brought his index claw-like finger, kneeled to the forehead of Asajj's first victim, and carved a symbol into it. Then, he placed twin pieces of golden coins over his eyes.
"Is this why," Asajj said, "some call you Lord of Lacerations? A measly little—"
"I don't have the flower on my person today. Only a seed." He walked past Asajj, paid no mind to the halved body of Asajj's second prey, opened his mouth, and placed a black seed within. Diomeni closed their mouth, walked back, and picked up the rocket launcher from behind him. As Diomeni and Asajj descended the pile of rubble that made their stairs, Diomeni explained a new strategy to her.
"The stains below have a trap waiting down below," He bared his teeth, "and I won't have my darling pets harmed by explosions."
They continued walking casually through the halls of their new prize. Diomeni paused at an intersection of halls and pointed to Ventress' left.
"They have an entire auditorium of injured and healing holed away." He took a small, black container for Ventress. "Take this and let their deaths be as swift as your next move. Thy divine swordsmanship must be saved for the front. Until then, let us—"
Asajj pushed the mechanism back into his hand and held it there. She looked at him with the gleam of her eyes.
"And what if I simply use my 'divine swordsmanship' and nothing more?"
Diomeni's eyes quirked. Then, he shut them tight, and when they opened, they were the frosty blue of an Anzati. He brought his face to hers, the proboscis slithering out. Asajj's form turned rigid in case he did something, but his face came next to her ear.
"Tsaiwinokka Hoyakut." He whispered, "Can you honestly tell me you can resist?"
Asajj's face creased in surprise as she felt one tentacle swirl at her ear lobe. She wanted to scowl as he faced her again. But she knew, of course, the ancient Sith art of raising the dead to fight again was too tempting to resist. She smiled at him and did something that surprised her later in the day.
She reached for his face and placed a chaste kiss on his cheek. Diomeni smiled. Asajj Ventress smiled. And so, they walked away to reign a holy terror unto these unsuspecting fools.
"Oh, wait!" Diomeni turned around, "Asajj?"
"Yes," she said and was handed a set of spectacles.
"Don't look directly into it," He said, and now they left.
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Grievous was better than her. There was no other way around it. Hermit was pulling every trick she had learned from her Master, who learned tricks from Shaak Ti, and they were what kept her alive. The Taidoras had made no attempt to attack, and perhaps the wounds or the sun had fazed her more than she believed, but they might have acted as referees. They clawed at Hesmit whenever she wandered too far from whatever ring they saw.
Most reports on Grievous described him as an offensive fighter, sending a barrage of spins and slices to overwhelm his opponents. It was no different here, although he was noticeably slower than she expected. The only scars she had received were from the animals, and after she and Grievous had broken away from a lightsaber clash, Grievous had shut off one lightsaber, walked over, and petted one taidora. The animal rumbled appreciatively.
Hermit gripped her blade harder, "Do you not take me seriously?"
"Why should I?" Grievous said, backing away and charging toward her. "When I attack at full strength, you shrink away."
Hesmit tried to enter the Circle of Shelter— a Soresu technique— she tried to concentrate on this state of mind, but her energy was dedicated to blocking and dodging. She could have no visions besides the metallic monstrosity before her.
"I come to this world," Grievous bellowed, "expecting a challenge!" He moves slower but with more impactful strikes, shaking her to her core. "But instead, I have to deal with a child! The jedi I've faced are already so pathetic; to think you are to surpass them!"
Hesmit lept over Grievous, but instead of delivering a killing blow by catching his blade with his foot, Grievous kicked her in her solar plexus instead. Hesmit landed on the ground, coughing out and clutching her chest in pain. She staggered to her feet, and Grievous looked down at her. The sun gave him an intangible glow that darkened the front of his body. His eyes bared down on her as he continued to speak and deliver a rapid series of strikes she was having trouble seeing. Every time she found a rhythm, he swept faster with his blades. Faster! Faster!
"Is there no one who can challenge me? No one in your weak and deplorable Order who can match me blows for blow? None who can provide General Grievous—Slayer of Jedi, Mighty General, the Nightmare of the Republic, the Claw of the Confederacy—the satisfaction I deserve?!"
Faster and faster, and finally, Hesmit wasn't fast enough. Hermit screamed as her lightsaber and her arm flew out of her reach. Yet, Hesmit did not succumb to the pain. The Mon Calamari Jedi found her clarity—it was not the Circle of Shelter, but it did allow her to reach her lightsaber through the air, out of her amputated left arm, and wield it with her remaining right. Hesmit flipped backward, over the taidora, and exposed her weapon again in a Shien stance. Grievous tilted his head as if saying, 'That's more like it.'
Hesmit caught her ragged breaths and gripped her lightsaber steadily. Hesmit backed slowly into the conglomerate of items they used as a barricade, hidden deep within the grenades and explosives that could kill Grievous. Her mind went to Kemsica, the girl of technology, and Sunorr, their leader and a father figure. And…Chai. Brave, awkward, sweet Chai. She was content to know that she might have had a happy future now that Hesmit knew it wasn't an illusion she made for herself. She would protect them.
But when she edged herself closer to the foliage of their most destructive defense, underneath the pikes, once Vulture Droid legs, whispering unintelligible growls as a cornered animal would, Grievous and the two taidoras…backed away.
Hesmit did not have long to wonder why when she turned around. The explosions were too fast for her to dissect and understand, and they consumed her and killed her instantly. Her last thought was about Chai.
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The noise up ahead within the auditorium calmed and reassured patients. We will be fine, they said; they're all solid and stubborn. We should go up and help, some had said. We can hold out until the Republic arrives, was the response they were met with. It didn't matter to Asajj Ventress. She took Diomeni's weapon—a unique bomb that his people had fashioned, one Count Dooku wished to reproduce soon.
She flicks the switch, and it makes a high-pitched whistle like a firework. A trained soldier would instinctively drop to the floor at the noise, but there were next to none, so the majority looked at the bright light. When it exploded, it was not a bright orange or red or blue pyrotechnic that dazzled and awed. It was an inky black, undulating circle with a tiny white dot in the center. In less than a second, it expands and flickers rapidly epileptically. The flashing of black and white is so instantaneous that ignoring even one flash would have to be done ahead of or feel its devastating effects.
The few who did not look at the flash were treated to the sounds of hoarse and shrill screams. These screams were beyond any wound that had been treated before, and Asajj watched as all who saw this cold and shrinking light behind the protection of her black, narrow spectacles. She wasn't even mad about not viewing the explosion directly; she only had the dying and dispossessed as her show.
As it dissipated, the screams died down, and many now lay motionless. Asajj Ventress began the ancient, complex spell of alchemy and Sith Magic. Motioning her hands in a swirl, she felt the pressure of this act surging within her heart to her mind. She held her hands before her skull, turned them around, and pushed the energy whilst speaking the ancient Sith language. She repeated this process as she felt the energy now taking a deep green, a foresty yet sickly color, slowly flowing and swirling and dancing to the freshly dead. Asajj's knuckles cracked as they eased back by her side, and she watched idly as the corpses wobbled and lurched on weak bodies or broken bones.
Some people who had not been exposed to the bomb, too shocked to move or scream, Asajj commanded to attack. The stragglers were crowded around and immediately became a part of the horde through bites. Asajj watched as the cluster of undead marched up the numerous stairs, and Asajj Ventress allowed herself a moment of glee.
"I am a Queen of Death," She said, "I am an Architect of Genocide, an Unyeilding Huntress, the Scourge of Rattatak," she smiled, "Ky Narec's Retribution, the Assassin who has waded through rivers of blood. I am…I will be Sith. For now, I'll settle with," She turned and followed her undead horde, "evil."
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"What is it that strikes fear into thine heart? Is it pain you can't endure or death do you part?" The voice whispered as the smoke engulfed the man with a red mane. Kemsica scrambled to find a pistol and fired at where he stood. The blasts riddled through the smoke of the rocket launcher, and it parted to reveal nothing. Nothing at all.
Kemsica gasped and pushed herself to her feet. Past the desk, she could see all her friends and allies scattering around to regain control of their senses. A man closest to the entrance shook his head and looked up to see the taidora pouncing on him. The man screamed as the creature's teeth gored into his flesh and tore a bloodied chunk out.
"Perhaps I am the Prince of Beasts…" The voice whispered before the taidora roared, drowning the sound. Everyone immediately aimed their blasters at the door and fired a volley of rifles and pistols. Then, the taidora hunched over, and to the shock of everyone, the bolts bounced off.
Fear overrode any sense of logic, and everyone continued to fire, and the taidora, seemingly smiling, stood still as a ball of transparent red energy encircled the creature in a ball. The second taidora burst through the thick smoke to attack more of the stragglers. Screams of anger and pain started to burst through Kemsica's muffled hearing, and as the light pierced through the smoke, General Grievous' chalk-white form came into view. Kemsica's heart sank, and she realized what she had to do.
She searched through the blaster fire and blood haze and found Sunorr parting from Chai's prone form. Whether he was dead or alive, she couldn't tell, but the Shistavanen found her eyes. All she needed to know from his eyes were plain and dire. Sunorr picked up his blaster and charged toward one of the taidoras with a war cry. He landed on the animal's back, and the beast roared with displeasure. Grievous had yet to enter, but he had both lightsabers ready.
Kemsica gripped the flimsi and the pen that looked like a detonator. Kemsica holstered her blaster, turned, and sprinted toward the elevators behind the reception desk. Anyone who wasn't holding the line followed, falling back. Kemsica, during her run, unscrewed the pen that looked like a thermal detonator and slid the flimsi in.
"Or perhaps I am the Vapor of Death…" the voice said again, and Kemsica looked up to see bodies falling down the stairs. These bruised forms moved drowsily toward her and her comrades. In her halting, Kemsica dropped the lid of the pen. She bent down to look for it among the dusty, rubble floor.
"Kem!" Someone shouted, and Chai jumped over her crouching form. He fired his blaster at…the zombies as they tanked his blasts. She hadn't noticed they were zombies; it was only now sinking in. She saw a pale, bald woman exiting from the central elevator, strutting leisurely through the groaning and moaning cluster of zombies. Chai noticed something on the floor and kicked it to her. It was the lid,
"GO!" Chai grabbed her as she held the pen, "GET OUT OF HERE!"
Chai kicked an undead away from her. Kemsica got up, turned back, and then forward, and she realized there was nowhere to go.
Grievous and beasts on one end, and Ventress and undead on the other. Kemsica…sighed. It was a sigh clearing away the sadness and fear and stress that had built within her. She looked at the pen in her hand, ignored the screams from both sides, and she screwed the lid back on the pen. She pressed the self-destruct code into the pen that resembled a detonator, pressed the clicker, and within the barrel, the flimsi burned away the information written on it. This would, in time, allow the closest recipient to the adjoining carrier to realize Hotel Lost Depth had finally been compromised. A signal would go out, sending a message to erase any information on any remaining device nearby that uninvited parties could misuse.
It also had an explosion that had a four-meter blast radius. The pen was getting hotter in her hands. Kemsica closed her eyes, tears sliding down her face silently. She had done as Sunorr requested. He would be proud of her. She had protected her friends as best as she could. Kemsica could feel the detonator pen hurting her skin. She heard the taidoras getting closer and the undead. She had done her best.
"The Lord of Lacerations," the voice said again, "Happiness, Strength, and a Ripper. But today," Kemsica felt the painful heat leave her, and she opened her eyes to see the man—handsome, tall, red-haired, dark-eyed— holding it and disappearing again in the blink of her eye.
"Today," his voice echoed, "I am a Savior."
And she, too, disappeared in a fogging, hazing mass of smoke.
----------------------------------------
Count Dooku stood watching the planet from the Malevolence. He smiled. Then, he remembered his present company and addressed the holographic form of a burly man with dark skin standing with a Rodian assistant.
"Can I assume that your guild is satisfied with the preservation of this hotel?" Count Dooku asked.
"Very much so," said the man, his voice close to basso profundo. "And do not worry about the damages. I'm sure they are trite and easily repaired." He turned to his assistant, the Rodian woman, "Liya, make a note for the list of providers."
"Yes, Mr. Kestor," said the Rodian in Huttese, writing on a flimsi with an odd, silvery smooth pen.
"No need." Count Dooku said, "House Serrenno will supply you with the necessary funds."
"Oh," said Kestor, "I see. How kind of you."
"Yes," Dooku said, "I'm in a good mood, and I believe this hotel can serve our purposes for the foreseeable future."
Kestor answered immediately, "Of course, my Lord. Liya, make a new note."
"Yes, sir."
"Then," Mr. Kestor said, nodding deeply, Liya following suit, "may fortune find you and your army on the turning away."
Dooku nodded, not entirely understanding the President's phrase, but he accepted it. The hologram fizzled away, and now, Dooku could enjoy his victory—no crime lords, no false faces, and no financial backers; only victory and the promise of more. Dooku's pride swelled, as Grievous' rage, Ventress' spite, and Diomeni's avarice saw the end of a sucessful expedition.
"Yes," Dooku smiled, steepling his fingers together, "This is a good day."