Session export: GJW XVII - [This Space Has Been Left Intentionally Blank]

Terran looked over at the Ewok in the pilot’s seat, mouth agape. “What do you mean, did I check the fuel manifolds? I’m the least mechanically inclined on this ship!” He ignored the obvious throat clearing from the cargo-row behind him, even if he could feel the not-eye sockets not-staring on the back of his neck. He flicked a few switches on the copilot panel in front of him, then twisted around in the other direction towards Isshwarr. “You checked them when we got back from Kinoss, right?”

The Wookiee gave him a very long, very loud stare. Then she grunted an affirmative and turned back to her own console.

“Fine, of course you did. Silly of me to ask.” He pressed one more button on his own console with the sort of definitive certainty that came from thousands of hours in this very cockpit and a lifetime of definitely almost always coming out ahead, then spun around to face his four passengers. He took a moment to assess their questioning looks, then smiled reassuringly.

“We’re definitely going to crash. But at least it’ll be quiet. Probably.”

With one eye and no eyes, Socorra and Atyiru looked at each other. The women nodded once, solemn as judges delivering a sentence.

“We are crashing,” they said in calm unison.

“We don’t know that yet!” Terran corrected quickly from the cockpit.

Sashar looked from one woman to the other. Wuntila followed suit, his broad frame pulled tight against the restraints as he appeared to decide whether questioning either of them would improve the situation.

Socorra slid one newly polished knife into its sheath with a soft, satisfied click.

“Well. Maybe crash,” she amended, her desert-world accent thick. “Timelines go hundred different ways.”

She gave a loose flap of one burn-scarred hand, dismissing the prospect of fiery impact as though it were nothing more than unfortunate weather.

“Socks.” Sashar stared at her. “Did you hit your head while I was gone? What in Slice are you babbling about?”

“Does RPG to face count?”

Sashar blinked.

“…Are we crashing or not?”

“Maybe?” Socorra lifted another knife, inspected its edge, then placed it in its sheath. “Clairvoyance like Farseeing, but much more kandosii. I see timelines. This one goes back and forth, but forked…” She tilted her head toward the cockpit. “Yes. We definitely crashing.”

Wuntila’s brows drew together. “And what is the practical application of this Clairvoyance? Can you stop the crash?”

“While that all sounds fascinatingly terrifying,” Terran called back, “how about we not crash? I would like to remain living. I also rather like my ship.”

Isshwarr roared from the pilot’s console.

“And my crew, obviously! Yes, thank you, Isshwarr.” Terran twisted halfway around in his seat. “Look, can this at least do something useful?”

Atyiru brightened. “Of course it can, sillies. It brought her back to life!”

Socorra sighed. “Sort of. Jumping timelines is not one for one…”

Sashar raised an eyebrow.

She returned the last knife to its sheath, added to the other two dozen, then lifted her single eye to meet his.

“What? What was your resurrection excuse, vod’ika? Clones are so blasé.” She pivoted back to Terran. “Pfft. Do I look like pilot? Crash still better than black hole down da line, after your caf spill.”

The cockpit went abruptly quiet.

Isshwarr began roaring again, louder this time, one furred arm thrust toward the bright tumbler sitting precariously above the console.

Socorra closed her eye and exhaled through her nose.

“For kark sake. Gods I hate ships.”

Colorful curses spilled from her lips as she stabbed at the safety latch and rose from her seat. Her heavy beskar footfalls carried her forward with surprising silence.

Terran spotted her approach and immediately leaned protectively over the console.

“What are you doing? You just said you’re not a pilot! Do not touch my ship!”

Socorra reached past him, plucked the tumbler from above the controls, and held it out between two fingers.

The ship gave another bone-deep shudder.

Beyond the viewport, Nei’kapo rolled beneath them in broken strips of green and brown, farmland and settlement lights blurring beneath the screaming descent. Farther ahead, half-swallowed by overgrowth and shadow, the remains of some forgotten war scarred the land near the distant outline of the Oligard Estate.

Socorra tilted her head, listening to something none of them could hear.

“Good news,” she said.

Terran looked hopeful despite himself. “We’re not crashing?”

“Oh, we crashing.” Her mouth smirked. “But not into mountain. Two degrees starboard, keep nose high until last moment. There, old ruin ahead. Thick walls, enough cover to hide ship from estate.”

Terran stared through the viewport. “You want me to crash into a ruin?”

“I want you crash somewhere we walk away without entire Collective knowing we came to steal their grand pooh-bah.”

Wuntila leaned forward against his restraints, his gaze settling on the distant ruins.

“Then put us down concealed,” he rumbled. “We proceed to the Estate on foot.”

It was not a suggestion. Even after all these years, that voice still carried the weight of command.

Socorra glanced back over her shoulder. Once, it had been enough to straighten her spine on instinct. It still was.

She simply hated that he might notice.

Sashar leaned forward beside him, eyes fixed on the approaching ruins.

“And if they are occupied?” There was no concern in the question, only interest.

Socorra’s eye narrowed as she looked back at him.

Ten years hidden away, with family buried, and blood unpaid. And still he leaned toward battle like a starving man toward meat. Of course death had not softened him.

“Then try not take all kills before landing, vod’ika. Some of us have very large debt to collect.”

Wuntila shifted in his restraints, the colossal blue Entar somehow managing to look as though he had merely been enduring the flight until someone finally mentioned violence.

“Occupied would be preferable,” he rumbled.

Atyiru sighed lightly. “I see death has improved neither of you.”

“Mm.” Socorra turned forward again, planting one scarred hand on the cockpit bulkhead as another impact alarm began shrieking through the cabin. “Finally, sensible plan.”

Terran shot her an incredulous glance. “That is your definition of sensible?”

“Land behind wall,” she told him, pointing toward the darkened ruins. “Bring us down.”

“Down” was not graceful.

Thankfully for the Arconans, the Gentleman Bastard not only had the Lancer-class’s heavy armoring to its hull’s bulk, but Terran had had it outfitted with strengthened deflector shields. Her pitiless pilots aimed her nose down and then pulled up at the last moment while breaths held and heartbeats stilled in seven souls awaiting deliverance, Sock’s single eye staring off into infinity. She stuck out a hand, yelping, “Atty! Like wife! Glove please!”

Atyiru flowed forward, seemingly untouched by the inertia of swift descent and understanding the strange request perfectly, and pulled the Mandalorian woman’s gauntleted glove off her other hand, bearing burn scars.

Socorra gripped the shoulder of the Kiffar’s dun duster, her littlest finger touching the side of his neck, a sliver of skin contact, axion to axion and electricity leaping across the gap. Past and overflowing, spilling futures unraveled before both their eyes, and in unison, they said, “Now!”

Kolot obeyed the cue, yanking on the yoke with his extended grips, yowling a string of Ewokese that had Isshwarr growling a reprimand at him. The Bastard’s belly touched blasted earth, and impact rolled through them, metal to flesh to bone, from the base of their heels to their teeth in their gums, rattling.

“Like— old— times—” Sashar grunted out, and Wuntila threw his head back and made a noise not quite a laugh, white teeth a promise of violence against his blue skin.

Those standing rather than strapped in were less lucky, Socorra pitching forward nearly through the transparisteel, and only the Wookiee matron throwing out an arm and reeling her back with incredible strength saved her. Atyiru’s body tumbled about the cabin and hallway, but a bracing barrier took the worst of gravity’s unforgiving barrage before it shattered with a singing snap. The Miraluka tumbled to a stop much like the ship did, finally slowing as it ground to a halt, a deep scour in the ground behind it, behind the ruins they had spotted.

Atty pushed herself up even as Wuntila tore from his harness, rising like a rancor. Sashar followed adroitly, and once Isshwarr released Socks and patted down both her boys for any injuries, the slight bickering in the cockpit resumed.

“…what do you mean, ‘so easy even you could do it?’ I’ve planted plenty of explosives!”

“Yubub nu bah wah nub yub.”

“‘So easy the blind one can do it,’ isn’t better, you little furball—”

Isshwar growled at them. The Wookiee slung on her weapons along with an impressive-looking backpack of what could only be some sort of bomb, born of the mind of an insane genius. They were, after all, intending to breach a rather fortified estate.

“He’s calling it ‘the Door-Knocker,’” Terran informed as he too gathered his patience and adjusted his coat, clomping down towards the loading ramp and ducking a few small sparks that sprayed from a damaged panel. “Let’s move before they find us.”

“The ruins are occupied,” Atyiru said, a mournful note to her tone. There was also a dreaminess to it, as though she wasn’t all there. “Marines. Thirty…fifty…no, more. They’re all connected. A hive mind. We’re all connected.” Her head tilted. Her cybernetic arms glowed with the light that sang under her synthskin. “We’re all connected…”

“Hey, stay with us, too.” The Kiffar touched her shoulder. He knew what getting lost like that looked like, and he knew — or thought he still knew — Atyiru.

“I keep her here, ay,” Socks volunteered, having found her glove and pulled it back on. She clasped Atty’s hand. “See, no?”

“I’m here,” the Miraluka assured. “Just also…there, we’re here. I will navigate us. We can bypass most of the patrols and minimize casualties.”

Her tone turned pointed at the end, and Wuntila’s nostrils flared.

“And leave the enemy at our backs? No.”

“It’s an invasion, Wun. Our ‘opposition’ is everywhere, and not every soul here is our enemy. I will not allow you to hurt these people when we are the ones destroying their homes. Only those we must.”

“Bah—”

“Enough gagging,” Sashar butt in, jamming the mechanism for the ramp to descend, Terran shooting him a slight glare. Hydraulics hissed, and hot, humid air rushed in, leaden with the taste of dust and ash. He held his saber in hand and strode out. “We’ve a head to take.”

T-6:00 hours earlier Arx orbit

Atyiru Caesura Entar Tyris Arconae appeared in the Grand Master’s ready room.

Darth Renatus did not blink. Rather, he lowered his datapad, a single gesture of his wrist dismissing the officers of the Iron Navy he was meeting with. Uji’s cane rapped as he went by too after a shared glance, and the projection abruptly reached out towards him, phasing through his arm like mist. Nonetheless, the Fist paused.

“Yes, Atyiru?”

“I just wanted to say…I love you, my friend. You and Satsi both. Thank you. I forgive you. Please forgive me.”

A suffering sigh suspirated through his nose. “There is not time for whatever antics you have done now.”

“Of course, I know, I know. Later, then?”

“Mhm…”

That left the aberration and the Lord of all the Brotherhood, whose golden gaze remained on her image.

“What is it, Arconae?”

“Oh, don’t be like that, Attiebuns.”

Eyes did not roll, but they did look up, gathering the strength and fortitude for a conversation with the Miraluka.

“Attybuns,” he enunciated, monotonous and drier than the Tatooine deserts. In that one word was half a dialogue: what do you want, why are you here, what plan is it now, have you found another knife to put in your back, how are the children, don’t you know I have a war to attend to, as do you?

“Well, you see,” and she was off, “As you know my empathic and psychic abilities are quite strong and I rather think we could use them to do more than simply shoot everyone to smithereens from space. I want to talk to Avitus Oligard. He is the key to ending this with Rath, I know it. And yes, I know, I know, blood relation is not always family, but they are all each other had left at one point, and that never really goes away. Avitus holds more than a system location. He holds who Rath used to be.”

“And this is useful?”

“Avitus would know the city, Rath’s estate, Rath himself. He could guide us through. He could talk to Rath. Reach through to him. Get him to surrender, perhaps.”

Thane suspirated. “There will be no surrender.” It wasn’t a bloodthirsty statement, but a resigned one, accepting the Collective zealotry.

“Not if we don’t try at all, there won’t be. If Avitus and Rath talk, we have a chance. But I am not putting that man back in the room with his abuser. And neither will you.”

One eyebrow quirked. Then the Grand Master seemed to recall whose projection he spoke, and was forced to voice, “Won’t I?”

Atyiru smiled at him the way she always smiled at him. “No. Because you are, as you have always been, a man who will not see a creature suffer if he can spare it. It is what makes you try so very hard and why Lady Lula loves you so.”

If there was any surprise to her knowing about the Lord’s relationship with the farmer, it wasn’t shown. It was Atyiru, after all, the incarnation of invasive matchmaking.

A long silence persisted, thoughtful, before Thane inclined his chin slightly.

“And to accomplish this you need…?”

“Only to speak with him. His mind to mine. And a team I can trust to see me to Rath. If he refuses me, then you have lost nothing. If I fail, then so be it. But if we succeed, this war could be over with so much less bloodshed.”

“…very well. You may spare an hour. Then it is departure on schedule.”

“Thank you.”

Opposition was instant and insubstantial. As soon as Sashar’s boots left the boarding ramp, a crimson blaster bolt dinged off his beskar chest plate, staggering him slightly. The Mandalorian’s helmet whipped in the direction the bolt had come, and his saber was up between them, catching a further two errant blasts. He kept moving away from the ship, giving his compatriots room to exit.

Wuntila was next down. He charged after Sashar, brushed past him and hollered inarticulately as he hefted his saber aloft, heedless of the blaster fire tracking him. The Dragon of Selen closed the distance between the ship and the nearest line of cover - a half-collapsed ancient stone wall - in record time, scaled it with one jump and grabbed a Collective rifleman by the helmet. The man screamed as his headwear was torn off, but it turned to a wet grunt and gurgle as The Magnificent Blue Beast smashed his head against the stone wall repeatedly until the noises stopped.

Two other Collective troops converged on Galeres’ Quaestor but were cut down by precision fire from Terran and Socorra, half hidden by the hydraulic struts of the boarding ramp.

And just like that, it was over. No other fire seemed aimed in their direction, and whilst the entire area was one massive theatre of combat, their particular little corner seemed quiet for the moment.

“Slice, Wuntila, what did you do to that guy’s head?” Sashar walked over, inspecting the corpse.

Wuntila shrugged and deactivated his unused saber. “I saw a fly on the wall and used his head to kill it.”

Sashar smirked behind his helmet, but the expression faltered as he looked around, counting the corpses. “I thought Atyiru said there were more than thirty hostiles in the ruin? We’ve only downed three.”

On cue, the Miraluka descended the boarding ramp with the grace of a dancer, her hands bereft of weapons. She raised a dainty hand, pointing to the south. “They’re massing. Give them about twenty seconds.”

Sashar swore before crouching behind the wall Wuntila had just vaulted, hefting his Mandalorian Assault Rifle and taking aim down the scope. “Firing line, aim south,” he said sharply.

Years of martial training snapped the command like a whip and Socorra felt herself moving next to him before fully registering her body doing so. Damn, I hate that he can still do that.

Terran and Isshwarr ducked down behind another wall, taking aim with dual pistols and a bowcaster respectively. Wuntila, never one for subtlety, stepped out into the clear, igniting Dragonsbreath with a sigh. Atyiru, however, simply joined Wuntila, staring sightlessly at the wall, her lips quirked into a smile as warm and lovely as a summer breeze.

The southern wall exploded and cyborgs poured through. The first dozen or so were cut down by concentrated blaster bolts from the two small fire teams placed either side of the ship, but sheer numbers won out and three made it past and charged at Wuntila and Atyiru. Wuntila’s saber was raised as he moved to step forward and defend the Miraluka, but she brought a dainty arm into his path, shaking her head gently, then walked forward herself. Turning her sightless gaze to the nearest antagonist, she strode to meet him.

“Stop. Protect Me.” Her voice reverberated with an otherworldly cadence and the cyborg was powerless to refuse her. He turned and opened fire on his comrades. Atyiru didn’t break her stride. She kept walking forwards, the Force pouring from her as her consciousness reached further out, ensnaring more minds of the Collective like a spider snatching up prey caught in its web.

“Fight one another. Stop. Drop your weapon. Lie down. Go to sleep. Run away. Flee. FLEE!”

The cyborgs proved no match for such an overwhelming psychic show of force. One by one they obeyed the myriad commands Atyiru threw their way, some simply flopping to the floor and spasming from mental overload. The Telepathic pull almost proved too much for Sashar and he had to fight every instinct to throw down his rifle and run, despite not even being the intended recipient of the mental onslaught. In moments, it was once again over.

“Shall we proceed, gentlebeings?” Atyiru asked, her smile cutting through the haze of blaster smoke like the sun after a storm.

Terran felt the corners of his lips twitch upwards in anticipation as he took aim for the satchel of explosives. The anticipation wasn’t his, but the unlikely trio wore each other’s emotions like broken-in shoes these days. This was always Kolot’s favorite part of any mission. A single breath, like the wind through the wroshyr trees in the golden hour’s stillness, then his Westar M5 kicked and the satchel ignited. He ignored the Ewok’s resignation in the back of his head - it hadn’t been nearly as flashy as the thermal imploder would have been - and followed Wuntila through the breach.

“That’s no pantry!”

Terran closed his eyes as he ducked through the dust and debris that obscured the newly-made entrance in the compound’s wall. He couldn’t see anything, but he had the sense of watching himself from two different angles as he maneuvered through the cloud of debris. He felt as much as heard the tonal shift as he passed through the breach. He opened his eyes and took in the long wall of batteries that served as backup power for what appeared to be some sort of manufactory. At a glance, he wasn’t sure if they were making cyborg parts, repairing cyborgs, or both. He shrugged - it didn’t really matter which it was for their purposes - and gestured towards the high capacity wall of batteries. Detonite tape flew from inside his duster and began unspooling itself across the length of batteries. Isshwarr came up behind him, shaking fur from her normally-glistening coat, and began to jury rig a detonator. The Kiffar sent her a wave of gratitude and moved forward quietly, following the rather louder footsteps of the half-human Juggernaut rushing headlong down the hallway.

As the small group made their way through the foundry, it slowly became clear that it wasn’t a manufactory or a repair facility, but both. Half-completed implants sat on the podiums of powered-down component printers and the half-putrid flesh of unrepairable cyborgs lay on metal slabs. The air of recent disuse was undeniable, as was the almost melodramatic disregard for life. It was ridiculous and tragic, and the Kiffar didn’t know whether he should laugh or weep.

Klaxons blared overhead as he came around a corner, catching up to Wuntila finally. The blue beast was engaged with a half dozen cyborgs, batting blaster bolts back at the bunch as he roared inarticulately. He stood in the middle of a wide hall, as if daring the enemy to gun him down. His blade, Dragonsbreath, wove a coruscating purple ribbon through the air, mocking their attempts. The shorter man ducked back, a practiced flick of his wrist launching his lightsaber from the concealed holster on his wrist. He caught it in midair as he came back around the corner in a rush, the copper blade igniting and joining the purple in a deflective dance as his blaster fired down-range at the group of enemy combatants. They fell in moments, to his blaster fire and their own, and the two men shared a look of silent satisfaction before moving in lockstep down the corridor.

This time his smile was all his own.

T-5:00 hours earlier Arx orbit

The room Avitus Oligard had been appointed was not a cell, but that was the most to say of it, as he was a willing guest on a warship. No, not a guest— a fulcrum.

“…who are you?” the thin man asked, exhaustion weighing his syllables. He had been healthier, in recent years, away from his cousin, away from the Seer and the Children, a tan to his skin from Jedha sun and frame taller, stronger, but fratricide was a heavy burden, and trying to stop more than one genocide even moreso.

The Miraluka’s lips were quirked. “Don’t you already know? You watched us all for so long.”

The former prophet grimaced, choosing a spot near her shoulder to focus on. It had worked with his cousin, and it still worked often now.

“Avitus,” Arconae said. “Please look at me. Well— it’s a bit irrelevant mechanically, yes, but in spirit!” Her tone softened. “It’s alright. You don’t have to fight anymore. You don’t have to be afraid anymore just to…just existing in your own body. The shame, that fear every single time you walk into a room, every breath around other people, every time Rath yelled…it’s over. It’s okay.”

“Get out of my head,” he hissed, wrenching up mental shields, “or I will make you.”

“I don’t think you want to hurt me.”

“You do not know me, witch.”

“Hum. You sound like your cousin.”

Avitus flinched.

“And,” she drifted closer, miming booping his nose without touching, very slowly and gently telegraphing the movement, “I know you better than you think! We crossed paths once, you know! You lot had sort of murdered Evant, and then you resurrected Rath, and Chelsie died for it, and then you all left the bodies there and so I could come along and resurrect Evvie, but that sort of thing, it leaves a stain, yes? The marble of the chamber floor remembered you. The stone remembered you. The halls hurt. I felt that pain. That grief. Your pain and grief. Your fear. To be alone in the Galaxy, without Rath, your world…to be rejected by him…even when he screamed at you, spewed all that hatred for what you were, talked about killing people like you in front of you…he always was your cousin, like your brother, once, wasn’t he? Before the girls died. He never hit you, before that day, and he needed you, he said he did, so it was worth it…wasn’t it?”

Atyiru came closer still.

“But it wasn’t. It was never right or okay, Avitus. You deserved better. You deserve better. It’s terrible what we’ve asked of you. What you have to do here. But you are very brave and very kind to try and save as many of your people as you can. I want the same thing. I want to help save them. Can you help me save them?”

“…how?”

She laid a hand on his and squeezed.

“Just let me in. I can take the pain and carry it for you for a little while. I’ll give it back, I promise, it’s yours. Just a bit of borrow…or copying, more like. And if I can bring back your brother, I will.”

Outside, klaxons began to sound, warning of the fleets scrambling soon.

In the flashing lights, Avitus lifted his eyes and met a sightless face.

“Alright.”

“Left, ahead.”

“Are you sure this time?” Terran asked, sharpshooter eyes glancing down the right corridor. He was second position, Wuntila an aegis in the first.

“I remember. It was supposed to be the pantry— Rath might have let him be at war councils but he didn’t want him at the table anymore, so eating there at night was easier… They’ve changed some things, the kitchens were converted to another foundry, it seems, but…” The Miraluka reached out, fingers brushing over the spot where, in her mind’s eye, a side table had been shoved when her cousin had been in a mood, storming past. The paint on the wall was scuffed, a gray-white line in the crimson she could not see. “His office is this way. Or he could be in the meeting room. Or the basement. Not the garden, though. He let that all die with Lizzy.”

“Di'kut, WHO? Who cares, what are you on about? Keep moving.” Sashar, bringing up the rear with Isshwarr behind, called up their line. Socorra held the fourth position, protected enough to confound their opposition with her illusions, while Atyiru was flanked in the center, their most protected as their healer.

“You no sense him ahead, Atty?” Socorra murmured, her accent blurring the vowels into rhyme. She idly polished the new cybernetic eye she’d ripped from the head of one supersoldier by wiping it on Kolot’s hood.

“I do and I do not. It is all…confuddled, mine, his. Not Rath. Me. Avitus.” She tapped her head, ears bending back. “And there is so much death in our wake…it stains the Force itself.”

“Only if you see it that way.” This time, the Erinos elder wasn’t joking. His tone carried the weight of lashes that had shaped many an apprentice. “They were good deaths. It was a good battle. Move on. Or carry it with you if you must, but move.”

“Left,” Atty reaffirmed, and Wuntila growled an agreement and moved forward.

The deeper into the house that was not a home they went, the more it became obvious the fortress was all but abandoned. They encountered more resistance from Atyiru’s conflicting memories meeting the change of the last six years since the assault on Arx than they did enemy forces. There were no staff. Rath’s Shikari were missing. Had the people all been deployed, or had more than Avitus been driven away by Rath’s rage?

The office was practically destroyed. Either a whirlwind or a tantrum had left it in chaos. There was blood on the floor in the meeting room with its tossed chairs, but it was old. Unease grew.

So did the deep, seething hatred below.

“Alright, party people, into the morbid and creepifying hole,” Terran declared as they agreed to try the basement levels, peering down.

“Going dark,” Sashar warned into his comlink, the voice of an old general knowing he was springing a trap. A single click came back on the line from their troops waiting in reserve.

“Egress will be fraught,” Wun rumbled to his Aedile, concurring with little more than exchanged looks as the two veterans assessed. It was why they’d needed to improvise an explosion at all.

“Eh, odds not so bad. Could be worse. Could crash!”

This time not even Kolot seemed to find Socorra’s past-and-future quip amusing.

The darkness awaited. Thick cabling lined the walls of a stairwell turned tunnel, bolted up as if feeding power to something easily the size of a hypermatter reactor. Nothing in Avitus’ borrowed mind had answers.

They descended.

“—contact!”

Blood sprayed across the stones along with scintillating light.

A mighty roar left Isshwarr as Terran was spun around from a blaster cannon bolt his prescient saber couldn’t entirely block. The mothering Wookiee fired her own shots as she charged up to the cyborg Marine responsible, making its body dance with impacts. She gripped its mostly metal head between her paws and wrenched ripping it clean free from its shoulders along with the attached cyberspine pulling wetly free, and tossed it aside.

That was the biggest breath they got. More Marines swarmed, crowding the group up to the stairwell, as bottlenecked as predicted. Wuntila gave his own bellow as he charged forth, scooping up the discarded head like a Huttball. He fisted open the cybernetic trap jaw and fully clamped it down on his neck target’s thigh, crushing the femur and headbutting the soldier when it buckled. Sashar was right on his heels, leaping clear over the feasting Blue Beast to land amidst their enemies and begin carving through them, citrine saber a golden executioner’s blade. Phanstasms of Atty and Socks ran for cover, drawing the fire of a large audience of the soldiers, only to spend their blasterpacks on empty air. Socorra’s puppets made easy pickings for Terran to shoot down while Atyiru brushed her fingers over his shoulder and willed his gaping wound closed. She sagged after.

“Good?” the Kiffar checked. Not a meter away, Kolot was curiously following the heavy cabling, climbing up it to consider running the length.

“I’ll manage.”

The carnage was swift and brutal. Another swarm cleared. They looked about to observe a vast underground space, utilitarian and militant. Clearly made to withstand orbital bombarding. More empty tanks of cybersoldiers lined some walls, while munitions were piled in organized spaces, lanes clear for vehicles. Catwalks above, offices.

“I don’t know,” the Miraluka admitted to the silent question. Kolot yubbed a nub. “But he’s probably right. We need to find out where this power is going. The anger…it’s strongest that way.”

She pointed, and her shaking finger led unerringly the same way all the lines did.

Swift feet, echoing steps. Minutes passing. Rumbling overhead, distant. The drip of water somewhere, drained and redirected from the lakes to cool something. They found him alone when they finally found him.

“Well you’re karking ugly,” Sashar commented, wrist rotating to twirl his saber. Terran squinted at him, as if judging that the joke could have been smarter had he made it.

“Rath. What have you done?” It was Atyiru’s voice, but it was his cousin’s question, trembling. What have you done now?

The Grand Leader of the Collective was more machine now than man, twisted and evil, and hooked into a massive device that seemed to be seated deep into the ground. Heat and power thrummed in the air, making it several degrees cooler on approach. Terrible red glowed from many of the devices, Ascendant crystals sparkling and refined.

“Filth,” the words were only just legible, but nonetheless carried a sneer that had the Miraluka flinching in a way she never would but Avitus had, a kicked kath hound. “The Brotherhood may send whatever ill they wish, but you cannot best me. I will wipe the Galaxy of you once and for all.”

“Issh, Kol,” Terran was saying softly to his crew, “any ideas what this is?”

“Grrrrwwwoowww.”

“Yub nub uh.”

“Yeah. Yeah seems like a pretty big karking bomb kind of thing to me, too.”

Wuntila didn’t wait for chatter; he charged forward and swung his saber two-handed at Rath where the equally large man was seated like a stone set into the machinery. Roaring blue plasma rebounded off an angry red energy shield, and the hybrid growled, swiping once again before retreating. His cobalt eyes grew analytical.

“Men.” Socorra rolled her one good eye and instead tested her own lightsaber against one of the cables leading into Rath. It was twice the circumference of her head, and while the blade did smoke and spit, hissing, the cutting seemed so insubstantial as to be almost mocking. “Pah. Is not no beskar, but is going to be long.”

“Find the shield generator, kill him.” Sashar began stalking around, searching. It wouldn’t be the first time he died disabling a shield for a final stand. “Let’s mess this shab up.”

“Issh, do you think you can—” a roar, the ripping open of a panel somewhere, “okay yeah, that.”

But the words were wind, as Atyiru slowly moved closer, to the edge of the barrier. She pressed against it, then through it, ignoring how her synthetic skin peeled back and burned, sloughing off the cybernetics underneath. How those circuits smoked and whined, shining brighter.

“Att-ee!”

“Rath, what did you do?”

“I will kill you all.”

But it was more machine than man that answered her/him. Socks pulled her body back, and Atyiru staggered, resisting, as she placed stripped palms on either side of her cousin’s cybernetic eyes.

“Help me,” she begged. “We need to access his mind.”

“Okie, but let go first, we burning!”

They drew back, ducking their heads together. A will of force pushed into the cyborg leader’s fractured mind, drilling into the gray matter that still conducted impulses from all those crystal-limned circuits. It was akin to pushing against a mountain. But push they did.

“Make him see me,” Atty whispered to Socks. “Make him see me.”

And that was Avitus.

The illusionist created the show, the stage: before Rath was not the Miraluka, but his cousin. The two stared at one another, one heartbeat flesh under metal, one metal under flesh. With the Force and without.

“You really want to kill me, too?” Avitus asked, a question that the real him had never dared, could never have voiced under the weight of a terrible love and more terrible fear. “All of them, and me? I never left you, not until you threw me away. For saving you!”

“You were a cancer and I should have cut you out sooner. You were always poison. To them, to me. You made me into a monster. But I’ll be rid of you all soon.”

One heavy, mechanical hand touched a panel. It hummed with energy.

“Cor'neria will be the beacon that wipes away your filth with its light. With our combined technologies and AI guidance, everything is ready. Should I fall, this planet will take all of you with me.”

“What about our people, Rath? The ones we started this for?! I loved Liz too. I loved Bella too! I loved you! And you loved them once. Stop this.”

“Coward. Cancer. Your tricks won’t work on me. I see through you. Witch.”

The backhand was swift, his reach longer than it seemed. Atyiru landed with a crack, Socks bracing her head from splitting on the floor. The Mandalorian woman spewed venomous expletives as blood dripped from her own nose, sweat covering her body from the mental strain. Around them, noise came back, to the rending of metal and tinkering of tools.

“Pfh…sh'top…” the Miraluka wheezed.

“Really big bomb, can’t just shoot him in the head, dead man’s switch, yeah, we heard the monologue, trying to stop it!” Terran called.

“Any plans?” Sashar and Wuntila had teamed up at Isshwarr and Kolot’s direction to start doing their damndest to dismantle the foreign technology. As they hacked at various components, the shield finally fell.

“Phhuh..llspp.” Atyiru gripped her own head, straightened her neck, and yanked her broken jaw back into place with a flesh-muted, wet clicking noise. The soft slurp of suction indicated the joint rearticulating before she healed it. “Said…bring me close again, Socky. Hold him!”

Socorra looked like she wanted to protest. Instead, she did as she was asked, guarding Atyiru bodily with her vambrace against any more strikes from Rath. The metallic Miraluka grasped on to his skull again and dug her fingers in this time. Wuntila took an arm on one side, Isshwarr the other. He writhed, but hooked up as he was, and dogpiled on, there wasn’t far for him to go to escape the so-called witch.

“You’re so deep in your own hatred, Rath.” Her words still slurred, but she could be understood. “I borrowed Avitus’ love for you. His horror. His pain. Well it’s time for you to see. See what you’ve done and become. Feel what he feels. What I do. Save your people. Let that be stronger than your desire to kill.”

Concentrating the remains of her will, she threw all she had at his mind, Light and Dark and memory. Avitus’. Hers’. The feelings echoing through the earth from the people of Nei'kapo, the fleets around the moons and the shipyards. The spirits buried in this dirt.

She took it all and passed it into him, just for a moment.

Rath made a choked noise.

“Turn it off. Let go. Let go of your hatred. Let your people go.”

For a moment, the chamber rumbled, and red light flickered around them, crystalline screams in wires, in blood. Rath roared. And then he fell still. Slumped. Mumbled:

“No, no, no…we…don't…want…this…”

“He’s willed it off, do it—” Atty had barely voiced the words before a blaster shot rang out.

Terran had been holding his Westar right next to the cyborg’s head the whole exchange. He shrugged one shoulder with a grimace as scarlet circuits painted both Atty and the cabled floor.

The Miraluka collapsed backwards into the arms of her allies, sound tunneling, the last sensation returning to her along with all those thoughts that of a bolt through the brain.

—- T-5:00 hours earlier Arx orbit

“May I ask you one last thing, Avitus?”

“What more is there to ask for?”

They stood at the intersection of a tunnel aboard the Legacy, him headed for the bridge, her for the turbolifts. He looked back over his shoulder.

“Why did you continue?” She was rubbing at her wrists, phantom pains of the scars on Avitus’ skin, neat lines there.

“I suppose I still had hope somewhere. That or the thought was simply too frightening.” He eyed her. “Why did you return?”

Atyiru smiled back at him, always. “I had someone I had to meet. Rude not to keep appointments, you know.”

The man actually snorted as he turned away.

“And a hope, too.” That was more to herself, and to the Galaxy. “Always a hope.”