Duel at the Dark Side Nexus
by
Bobby Derie
by
Bobby Derie
A kilometer of jungle burned, the dark smoke rising up from
the broken trees to merge with the black and grey clouds of the energy storm
raging overhead. At the end of the makeshift runway, a hatch opened in the side
of the crashed ship. Eiven Task stepped free from the Memory of Alderaan. Of average height for a human, he seemed taller
in the white armor modeled after the Royal Imperial Guard that had once served
Emperor Palpatine. In one hand he held his lightsaber pike, a meter-and-half
shaft of phrik alloy, in the small of his back wrested a small hold-out
blaster, and at his side rested a satchel containing his few treasures: a Sith
holocron, and the droid-head A1S1.
The low-light augmentations in his helmet kicked in and he
surveyed the damage. The hull at least appeared to be intact, and there was no
explosion so he judged the generator and fuel lines to be safe enough for the
moment. Black scars showed here and there, though whether from passage through
the storm or a laser blast Eiven could not tell. Then Task stared up at the
sky, and caught a glimpse of something as the yellow lightning rolled between
the clouds, a glimmer of reflected light. Behind the mask, he smiled. His
intuition had been correct; someone had followed him here.
Leaving the fallen ship, Eiven headed for the cover of the
trees. He reversed the ceremonial robe that came with the armor, turning the
white cloth to the inside and draping himself in black, raising the dark hood
over the white helmet. If the Force was with him, he could lose himself in the
rain forest and still achieve his goal…and perhaps even turn the tables on his
pursuer. Though he did not know precisely who his opponent was, he had an
inkling notion.
At the tomb of a Prophet of the Dark Side, Eiven Task had
encountered a Twi’lek that played at being a Sith; he had cut down her pathetic
followers and crossed blades with her. The duel had been brief and he had been
hard-pressed, but in the end he had escaped with a dark side artifact, leaving
her entombed. Months later, while scavenging the ruins of an old Jedi temple,
the pretender had laid an ambush. The twi’lek had recruited a dozen Force
sensitives and given them rudimentary training; however in the interval Eiven
had himself engaged in strenuous combat training, and had incorporated the dark
side artifact into his prosthetic left arm as part of a new a lightsaber. With
this new weapon, the two had dueled again, and this time only Eiven Task had
survived.
Yet…he knew nothing of the twi’lek, not even her name.
Someone had trained her. Someone had directed her to plunder the prophet’s
tomb. Someone was playing at being a “master.” The same person, Eiven felt
certain, who followed him. But his goal lay ahead of him, and so he continued
on into the jungle.
*
Broad-leafed undergrowth impeded his way, and the forest
swarmed with insects from microscopic to thirty-centimeter long horrors that
crawled, battled, loved, and died among the surrounding trees—wooden giants
that looked half-melted, the dull grey-brown trunks seeming to fan out and
puddle at the base. In the heavy armor Task sweated and picked his way onwards,
crawling over the fallen detritus of the forest and trying to avoid the noisome
creatures that inhabited it. In his pouch, a dull red light gleamed from the
edges and a familiar voice, muffled somewhat by the flap, came out.
“You are a terrible apprentice,” the hazy image of Darth
Modas said, and Task smiled behind his mask as he imagined the old hologram’s
familiar scowl. The original of the gatekeeper of the Sith holocron had lived
over four thousand years ago, in the waning days of the Great Sith War, and
held nothing but contempt for generations of would-be Sith. Still, after Task
had slain the twi’lek, the gatekeeper had finally relented to teach Task more
of his secrets.
“You have potential, and you have been trained.” The image
had said many times on the long trip from the Duros-world of Kelliban to the
jungle-world of Mimban. “But you allow your old injuries to limit you. Even
with your prostheses, you should be stronger in the Force than you are! Only
your own weakness limits you now.”
The left side of Task’s body, from collar to hip, ended in a
solid line of sunken pinkish scar tissue. The missing organs and limbs had been
replaced with cybernetic equivalents, so ribs of plastic and durasteel
protected the green pouch of an artificial lung, and tiny electric engines
whined to lift his skeletal metal arm, which rotated freely in the
ball-and-socket joint that replaced his left shoulder. The terrible injury had
precipitated Task’s current path; for drunken weeks he had though they had
severed his connection to the Force forever.
“You must go to a place steeped in the power of the Dark
Side,” the holocron-image rattled on. “There are many such nexi in the galaxy,
but I know of one likely to remain undisturbed. In the Circarpous Major system,
there is a world famed for its kaiburr crystals, that the despised Jedi prize
above all others for their weapons…” The gatekeeper continued to give its
instructions, but Eiven only half-listened. This close, he could feel the pull
of the nexus, tugging him onward. It stoked the need within him, and it was a
struggle not to give in and dash madly forward, but he forced himself to pick
his way through game trails and around trees and great protruding blocks of
stone that now emerged from the ground. He studied these with a professional
eye; they seemed of considerable age, and of regular size and shape, like
squarish teeth with depressions to one stone could fit with its neighbors.
Behind him, that nagging presence remained. Task forced
himself not to focus on that either.
*
The outlines of the building was buried under the roots of
trees, solid bark hanging in waves and stalactites like frozen syrup. This deep in
the jungle the rain was a constant dripping drizzle, but you couldn’t see the
sky. The tree limbs had all grown together into an endless canopy, distributing
the water almost evenly. Eiven’s robe was soaked, but the seals kept the water
out of his armor. Six meters away, the entrance to the nexus was a dark hole in
the undergrowth, an artificial cave whose outlines were half-hidden by dangling
roots. Task hesitated. There was a clammy itch to his palms, like when he'd been a
kid, standing half off a ledge and looking down. Whatever was in there felt
like it meant to suck him in…but that wasn’t what made him wait.
He thumbed the activator. The silvery-white half-meter blade
of his lightsaber-pike flared into life, steaming and sputtering where the rain
hit the glowing plasma. As if in answer, six crimson blades sparked into life
around him, and their owners crawled out of the undergrowth. The skeletal metal
frames of humanoid droids, painted in jungle colors, rust showing through here
and there. They moved almost silently through the undergrowth, surrounding him,
each one raising their blade in a different stance. Soft red light pulsed in
their chests, and Task’s helmet-vision zoomed in for a moment. Crystals.
A familiar pull came to him as he opened his senses to the Force. Normally
droids were dead spaces in the Force; these had presence, like living
things…strong living things. Force sensitives or adepts at the least.
Wary of these unexpected guardians, Eiven bent his legs
slightly and raised his lightsaber-pike overhead, blade pointed slightly down,
waiting for them to draw nearer. He recognized their stances; each represented a different style of lightsaber combat, as the old Jedi had fought, as he had been trained in. Ataru. Makashi. Shien. Djem So. Schii-Cho. Soresu. The only ones missing were Niman and Juyo...
“Ataru” attacked first, with an acrobatic leap that took the
droid spinning over Task’s head, its blade slashing down. Eiven responded by
stepping forward and bringing arm and pike up; the droid impaled itself
chest-first on the lightsaber pike, and there was a small explosion as the
silver-white blade sheered through metal and crystal. The smoking droid fell to
the ground and Task quickly recovered, spinning the staff around him to halt
their advance as the others moved in, and the droids quickly backed off, taking
positions around him.
“Makashi” stood in front of the entrance to the nexus in a
duelist’s stance; its chest-crystal glowed brighter, though Eiven could only
guess what that meant. To his left and right the droids held their blades high
and low—“Shien” and “Djem so”—and a quick glimpse behind him showed “Shii-Cho”
and “Soresu” blocked his escape back into the woods.
Task feinted a strike toward “Shien,” who back away a step
as “Djem so” moved forwards; the human quickly reversed, stepping backwards
towards “Djem so” while flicking the activator on the other end of his
lightsaber-pike. The second silvery-white blade emerging from the other end of
the staff caught the droid by surprise, slicing off its head. Undeterred, the
droid moved forwards, slicing down blindly. Eiven cursed as he dodged and spun,
the smoking red blades of “Shien” and “Djem so” barely missing him, and Task
smelled burning cloth and plastic where they had scored against his robe and
armor. Rising to his feet behind the beheaded droid, he braced his boot against
its metal backside and shoved it forward; the two impaled themselves on each
others’ lightsaber.
“Shii-Cho” and “Soresu” moved forward, attacking as a unit.
Task flicked off the second lightsaber-pike blade before he hurt himself with
it and shifted his grip to the back of the weapon. The added reach let him keep
the two lightsaber-bearing droids at bay, though the wild, random attacks of
“Shii-Cho” and the persistent, driving counterattacks of “Soresu” were driving
him back a step at a time—right towards “Mikashi.”
Backing up two steps suddenly threw the droids into a lurch,
and Eiven used the space to spin the lightsaber-pike around his body, using his
torso as a fulcrum as he moved into a spinning, aggressive series of attacks in
the Juyo style that caught them off guard—effective, but not something he could
keep up for long. As he moved in with a behind-the-back slash towards their
heads that the droids barely blocked, Task reached into the Force and thumbed
the activator on the lightsaber installed in his prosthetic left arm. The
bloodshine blade steamed and hissed as it hit the rain, the short blade
emerging from a special socket over the back of his hand; a contrivance Eiven
had modified into his armor to accommodate the lightsaber shoto. With a swing
of his arm, the red blade sliced through the droids’ knees, and a second swipe
through the torso served as the coup de grace.
Breathing hard, Eiven stood up and turned to face the final
remaining droid. “Makashi” stood in its dueling stance, rain dripping off its
servos. With slow deliberation, Task deactivated the bloodshine blade installed
in his left arm, and removed the sopping, half-burnt remnants of his robe. A
few spots of melted plastic and bare ceramic showed here and there where the
droids’ lightsaber blades had kissed him, though none had broken through. With
a blur of movement, Eiven’s cybernetic left hand went to the small of his back
drew out the hold-out blaster there; a squeeze-trigger model modified to
accommodate his gauntleted hands. “Makashi” managed to deflect the first shot
into the undergrowth, where a giant tick-like insect exploded in a splash of
boiling brown blood and innards. The second shot hit its optical sensors,
eliciting a squawk. The third hit the glowing crystal in its chest. There was a
brief explosion, and the metal form was briefly limned in coruscating arcs of
white lightning as the droid collapsed.
Task checked to make sure all of the droids were really
dead, or deactivated, or whatever, thrusting the lightsaber-pike into a couple
for safety. He didn’t want any following him into the dark.
*
Beyond the threshold, the air grew cooler, less humid. Eiven
waited as his eyes adjusted, the helmet’s low-light vision making as much use
of the little available light as possible, causing the dark to be tinged with
green as shapes became apparent. The chamber he stood in was a low-ceilinged
half-dome, the opposite wall dominated by the engraving of a skull-faced
creature with wings and tentacles, somewhere between a human and a krayt dragon
in outlines. Beneath this stone monster was a hole, barely three feet high.
The Force permeated this place. Task struggled to define the
sensation. Every sense felt sharper, every movement easier, the ache from his
hike through the rainforest and the battle seemed to recede, replaced by a
sensation of barely-constrained power. His self seemed to extend outwards until
he could feel the insects crawling behind the walls of this chamber, the roots
that had burrowed down through the soil to touch the stones overhead. The
presence—no the presences, for there
were two of them he knew now, that followed behind him, still some ways off. He
could feel their hatred and fear. Even more, he could feel that he was only at
the threshold of the nexus, and its true heart lay deeper within. Instinctively,
he got down on his hands and knees and crawled into the tunnel.
Stonework gave way to natural rock, and after three meters
in the tunnel even with the helmet’s vision augmentations Task couldn’t find
sufficient light to see by. He crawled alone through darkness, every centimeter
bringing him closer to the center. Some time later, he touched something cold
and metal.
Greetings.
The thought echoed in Task’s skull, slipping into his mind.
Instinctively, he flicked on the lightsaber-pike, and was blinded as the
silvery-white glare was reflected a thousand times. When he could see, Eiven
found himself on his knees in a crystal grotto. On the floor before him was
another crystal-chested droid. Its arms and legs had been cut off, ending in useless
stumps.
“Who…what are you?”
I am Kaiburr of the Shard. Ours is a sentient silicon-based
race. Once, long ago, a Jedi came among us and trained us. We took on metal
bodies and fought beside the great Order. We were the Iron Knights! Yet though
we fought beside them, they rejected us. Rejected me. So I left…and fell to darkness.
“The guardians?”
My children. I dreamed
of raising an army, yet they turned against me. Crippled, they left me here to
dream in the dark. Even crippled, they feared me. Such is the power of the Dark
Side.
A noise echoed through the tunnel from the entrance chamber.
Your enemies come for
you, and you cannot defeat them.
“I am stronger here than I have ever been!”
And it will feed them,
too—and if they are greater than you outside this place, they shall still
outstrip you within it. Yet it is a power that you can deny them.
Task frowned. “Tell me.”
*
In the entrance chamber, the two visitors staggered as the
nexus collapsed, a flash of light briefly lit the mouth of the tunnel. They
waited several minutes as Eiven Task made his way out of the tunnel, leaving
behind him naught but broken stones. Task had given the fallen knight his
wished-for release, and in his death-frenzy Kaiburr had unleashed his full
power. Eiven had knelt in the center of the storm, as the precious crystals
splintered and shattered around him. He could feel the Force seethe beneath his
skin, burning with his every breath; it saturated him, in a way he had never
known or felt before. It would not last, Kaiburr warned. But for now, it was
all the edge he needed.
Smiling behind his mask, Task confronted his pursuers. One
was a human he recognized as Marak, one of the twi’lek’s followers, whom Eiven
had crippled and left for dead at the old Jedi temple. Now his right arm ended
in a metal stump, a lightsaber hung off his belt, and fresh black Sith tattoos
scrawled on his arms and face. His hatred and fear burned within him. The other
was a tall, gangly muun he did not recognize, an older male with a wisp of
beard. His clothing was more practical, and reminded Task of an Antarian
ranger—complete with cap, jacket, and boots. A slim lightsaber hung at his belt
as well. A deep well of pain and anger seethed just below the surface, yet none
of it reached his eyes or his face.
With his left hand, Marak drew and ignited his lightsaber.
The red blade lit up the darkness. From the metal stump of his right hand, a
smaller red lightsaber blade emerged.
“Boy,” the muun said to Marak. “Don’t.”
The human ignored him, and charged forwards. Task said
nothing, but did not ignite either of his weapons. Holding the phrik staff in
both hands, he waited as the Marak came on. Eiven dodged aside Marak’s first
wild swing, blocked the second strike from the stump-blade with the staff, and
then whipped the end of the staff around. At the last moment Task flicked the
silvery-white blade into life. Marak’s head went flying past, bouncing into the
dark tunnel.
“Nicely done.” The old muun said. “He had the gift, but no
patience…and really, there’s only so much one can teach in a short period of
time.”
“You trained the twi’lek. You have been following me. Why?”
Task said.
“There is a contest being held. Some of the best
Force-empowered fighters in the galaxy. A game played for the highest stakes,
with a prize of power and knowledge to whomever survives. We have representatives
from the Jedi, the Sith, the Imperial Knights, the Jensaarai, and the Matukai,
as well as a few independents. I’d hoped one of my apprentices would enter…but
given that you’ve killed them both I’d say that you more than qualify to take
their place.”
Task considered. “Where?”
“Mos Eisley. Tattoine.”
###
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