Star Wars: Dark Future

This was like being omniscient. Oh, there were numerous tarry streaks drifting about the room in crisscrossing non-patterns, but the contamination of the Dark Side permeating the chamber was wholly insufficient as an obstruction to my Sight went.

Watching Ventress try to draw an even breath in real-time, I announced in a tone so mild, it was almost a caricature of the term, "We can continue whenever you're ready, Asajj."

...

The bluish-white illumination of the emergency lights seemed to dim around the assassin, as the clashing coronas of cold fury and hot rage that overlaid the Dathomiri like a negative aura suddenly seemed to sink into the still-heaving woman like fresh blood being soaked up by dry earth.

That was my first warning before she blurred towards me, her movements now fast enough, the interval between foreseen and reacted-upon had grown too small to trust, unless I fell more deeply into my Third Sight.

Matching her speed easily, the two of us flashed about the room. Ventress launching quick cuts and multiple slashes in rapid succession, while I dodged or redirected her blows. Waiting for an opportune moment in which to drop her.

The sound of her lightsabers cutting the air a near-constant thrumming, as the air in the confined space began to take on an ozone-like odor. Quiet grunts of exertion came and went, in between the slap of a hand against the inside of an arm, or the dull thuds of feet fighting for position in flurried exchanges as animated as anything happening above the waist.

Until a sharp, suddenly cut-off cry of pain was wrenched from the silver-haired woman's lips, as one of her lightsabers went skidding across the floor. Her right arm hung at her side, twitching spasmodically from the Teräs Käsi strike I'd delivered to the nerve-group inward from the ball of the shoulder.

Shaking off the injury almost instantly, the Sith assassin struggled to regain the initiative by toppling me with a series of kicks aimed at my legs, but as she did so, her focus on channeling the rage within began to slip. Anger surged up within the witch to try and drown the rising fear wafting from her in inky waves, but it was no substitute for her focused fury.

Driving my left heel into the inside of her right knee, I caught her left wrist as she struggled to turn a tumble into a falling crosscut. Only to find her drop suddenly arrested, when my arm didn't budge. Getting the toes of her right foot in contact with the floor, Ventress tried to break my grip by turning her body in a corkscrew, but I stepped in and checked her with my own frame. Forcing her to drop her remaining lightsaber by the simple expedient of squeezing until the bones began to squeak alarmingly.

Looking her straight in the eye, I told her with a hint of annoyance, "Congratulations, Asajj, you forced me to reveal a measure of my actual strength to take you alive and unharmed. I'll be killing your master before the year is out, which will lead to his master crawling out of whatever web he's spun for himself. Thank you for ensuring still more bloodshed. Is this violent and bloody temper tantrum really all you have to offer the galaxy?"

Glaring hatefully at me as she finally relinquished the lightsaber, Ventress snarled the question, "You could have done this on Tynna or Cato Neimodia?" When I simply nodded, her eyes narrowed to angry slits, until a cruelly pleased smile suddenly curved her thin lips upward.

"You're afraid of the one my Master thinks me too ignorant and stupid to realize he serves! That's why you've hidden your strength! You fear leading him to you, and now you've laid down a trail for him to follow. Good, I hope the last thought to go through your mind as your severed head hits the ground is of this moment!" The woman raged, all but spitting her vindictive hope for my painful demise in my face.

The temptation to try and shake the still-undiluted petulance, not to mention a hateful addiction to schadenfreude out of her momentarily surged to the forefront of my feelings, but I refused to give the assassin the satisfaction.

Instead, I told her quite evenly, "The future is always in motion, Asajj, but whatever does end up happening? You'll be too busy struggling to learn the trick of not going hawkbatshit-insane in conscious stasis, on whatever out of the way planetoid the Order finds a properly aligned Nexus to establish the new Ghost Prison within.

Oh yes, witch, why do you think so many of my brothers and sisters have been working so closely with Republic Intelligence? We've got lists of lists, naming the wealthy, politically influential men and women with Separatist loyalties.

I gave you every chance to avoid this fate, despite the fact you murdered a man I admired, and would have murdered my friend, had that man not given her what life remained to him. My name is Anakin Skywalker, and I swear by the Force to see you dead, before you see the inside of a Judicial courtroom. You're not going to go free on a technicality, or happen to escape-in-transit, because my very next call off-world is to the Shadows."

Without warning, I struck her a precise blow to her right-side occipital region with the side of my hand. The assassin instantly sagged in my arms, but I still checked with the Force to ensure she was really unconscious.

Sighing, I waved my free hand without looking to my left. Impassively noting the choked scream that left Rish Loo gasping in pain, as the knife he'd quietly reacquired clattered to the deck plating once more.

"I told you I wouldn't ask again, Rish Loo. Get your treacherous carcass over here, or I'll cuff the two of your cross-limbed, rather than simply wrist-to-ankle." The words were harsh, but inside I was exulting. Being able to easily resolve an ugly hostage situation involving a skilled Dark Jedi, without so much as a drop of blood being shed felt great. I felt connected to everything around me, and that prompted me to finish dealing with Ventress and Rish Loo, so I could get to helping their victim.

Watching the purple Gungan rubbing his wrist melodramatically as he scuttled over to me, I removed two pairs of collapsible cuffs from my belt-pouch, then roughly folded the long-limbed alien up, and cuffed him wrist-to-ankles with Ventress. The fallen priest complained loudly over this treatment, but I ignored him. Finally able to turn my attention to Lyonie.

The Gungan leader was still trying to shout for help, but his voice had finally given out sometime in the last minute.

Still compelled to obey the last command he'd been given, he continued doing his best to yell in an extremely hoarse whisper.

Studying the tall, extremely skinny Gungan head of state, I had a surreal moment, because if you ignored the tall ceremonial hat and robes, Lyonie really was the spitting image of Jar Jar Binks.

"How did no one else notice that?" I quietly muttered to myself. Instead of simply cutting the Sith artifact off of him, I took my time looking for the domination-collar's release-mechanism, because I imagined the Gungans would want their own Force Sensitives to examine the thing for Rish Loo's upcoming trial. The Gungans might be one of the most laid-back species in the galaxy, but Sedition and High Treason went over like a lead balloon no matter what planet you stood upon.

In fact, my study of Naboo and Gungan culture had revealed the only crimes for which the Gungans retained the possible use of capital punishment were those predicated on an attempt to overthrow or otherwise seize control of their government. The practice going all the way back to the difficult and bloody effort to unite their people which had occurred centuries ago.

Unfortunately, I ended up having to examine the Dark Side-drenched artifact with the Force to determine how to remove it. The rather triumphant score of the Force's song stumbled into shrill discordance for several notes as I did so, which meant that as I pressed the three necessary spots in rapid succession that unlocked the thing, I immediately found myself feeling like I needed to submerge my hands in a hospital-grade antiseptic for a few hours.

The necklace was old, no, ancient, and it contained innumerable vile echoes of the misery and despair its victims had experienced in its thrall. Now, understanding that Lyonie was actually conscious underneath these more obvious and gross commands, I hastened to finish removing the thing from his person.

Which left me entirely unprepared for the two-and-a-half-meter tall amphibious humanoid suddenly throwing his long arms around me and squeezing me with real zeal, the instant the necklace clanged against the metal of the deck.

"Oh! Mesa be-a thanking yousa so very much, Knightin Skywalker! Thatsa rottenest necklace that's evah bein! Isa couldn't besa doing not nothing, exceptin whateverin thingsa that villainin Rish Loo besa tellin mesa to besa doing!" Lyonie exclaimed in a loud whisper, rubbing his throat as he did so.

No sooner did he finish saying as much, when his eyes grew wide, with a horror I could feel rolling off of the Gungan leader in ever more intense waves. His next whisper was almost as loud as his usual speaking voice, but Lyonie seemed not to notice the pain, as he tried to shout, "The Generalin Tarpals! Isa bein made to be giben himsa orderings! Hesa bein told tosa attack da Naboo!"

Looking around wildly, Lyonie's long arms flailed for emphasis, as the Gungan leader stabbed a finger repeatedly at a chronometer that was part of an emergency panel situated just beneath one of the emergency lighting units, before hoarsely declaring, "Generalin Tarpal's orderings bein to send two battalions through da core, thensa up and out of da Solleu. Themsa being da distracting units, but there'sa bein manying other small-timin units.

They's already bein in positioning, and they'sa just be waiting on the distracting to be beginning! That'sa bein in one hundred and twenty-one minutes, but thisa one, hesa be makin mesa ordering da General tosa be maintaining communicating-silencing!"

Despite his present predicament, Rish Loo began to chuckle. The low sound quintessentially sinister, as the beaten traitor basked in the prospect of not being quite as beaten as I'd believed.

Glancing at the chronometer, I noted I now appeared to have exactly two hours flat to cross a third of the continent, and somehow stop the outbreak of the most pointless war in the history of warfare. One that neither side actually wanted to fight.

Fark.

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