A Life Not His Own: Chapter 14

The hiss-crack of lightsaber smashing against lightsaber reverberates throughout the training room. The blow against Nelani’s blade drives her back and causes her to stumble. Vader’s blade slices in towards her vertically, and she drops to the mat.

She suppresses a snarl, as she rolls back on her left hip, coming up in a ready crouch. As Vader advances, she slashes wide and level at him, the white and purple from their blades, creating highlights in her black hair. A feral light shines in her eyes, and matches the snarl that finally escapes her lips.

Vader leaps above her slash, twisting around and landing behind her. He stabs his saber down at the ground, where it catches Nelani’s return cut. Vader pivots and his foot kicks out at Nelani’s head.

She twists her head to the side, but Vader’s foot still connects with her shoulder, knocking her backwards. She uses the momentum of the kick to spin into a somersault, coming up on her feet with her blade once more held at the ready.

Vader raises his blade into a guard high by his right ear, the blade standing straight up pointing away from his shoulder, while Nelani faces him, her blade running from her left pelvis to her right shoulder, her chest heaving with her exertions, her exposed skin covered with a sheen of sweat.

She wonders to herself how he can fight in that armor, and not get overheated.

Nelani crashes her blade against Vader’s driving him backwards.

He pushes against their locked blades and she stumbles back a few steps. Vader advances towards her, his saber coming in fast and hard; and crashing against her blade. As Nelani struggles to parry his strikes, she feels something wrapping around her leg, and suddenly her right leg flies out from underneath her.

With a cry of pain, Nelani lands on her back, smacking her head against the hard floor and the feeling of something wrapped around her leg suddenly disappears.

Wincing, she levers herself up, rubbing the back of her head as she looks up at Vader. Vader extinguishes his saber as he stares down at her for a minute.

“You’ve done better this time. But you still get too focused on a single attack; did you not feel my attack through the Force?”

Nelani looks down at her saber. “I’m sorry Master, I did feel as you grabbed my leg, but I was so focused on parrying that I couldn’t think of something to do.”

“I understand, and you have truly improved. In fact, on this next mission, I wish for you to accompany me.”

Nelani pushes down her embarrassment at the praise even as she sits up straighter. “Really?”

Vader chuckles slightly, and Nelani looks down blushing. He places one of his gloved hands on her shoulder. “Yes really. We’re going to Rodia. There are tales of a new Vong weapon being developed there.”

Nelani jumps up and throws her arms around Vader. “Thank you for trusting me Master!”

She can feel the muscles in his shoulders and back stiffen from the hug, and she drops from him, letting him go, and once more lookes down at her hands. “Sorry, Master. I was just excited.”

He watches her for a moment, and then turns away. “It is all right Nelani.” With a swirl of his cape, he is gone, leaving Nelani to stare at the doorway he disappeared down, even as her cheeks burn with her embarrassment.

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Anakin closes the door behind him and leans against it heavily. He reaches up and pulls the helmet off, allowing the cool air to tease the hair that has finally started growing back in. Locking the door behind him, he walks over to his desk, and places the helmet on it, so that the red lenses would stare at him. He sinks into the chair, and looks into the sightless eyes of his mask.

“Why am I doing this?”

He doesn’t hear an answer, and does not truly expect one. After all, he knows the answer. He does this for revenge. To make those responsible for Tahiri’s death suffer.

“Why am I doing this to Nelani though?”

He still doesn’t hear an answer, but this time he desperately wishes he could. Every day she is around him, he watches as her Force presence darkens, as it becomes more like his has, yet part of him screams that he cannot stop until Tahiri is avenged. He hates himself for doing this to her, as much as he hates himself for his doubts over it all.

He runs his hands through the short hair that has grown back since the fire, sighing slightly as feelings of sorrow and despair still pound against him. He closes his eyes to meditate, and winces back from the Force. It is no longer warm and inviting, but cold and sticky. He wishes for the warm embrace of joy, or the scalding heat of anger.

This coldness, this apathy causes his despair to worsen. Yet the more he is around Nelani, the harder it is to hold onto his anger and hate. The harder it is to hold onto his sorrow.

Unbidden, the image of her in her training outfit assails him, especially as he had last seen her in the training room. A smile on her lips, her body glistening from the sweat.

He lets out a small growl as he stands and begins pacing the room, his frustration increasing with his every step. Wanting to get his mind off Nelani and how her hug felt, but unable, or unwilling, to meditate to do so.

Returning to his desk, he activates the console there, and checks on the preparations for his next trip. Smiling in satisfaction that the device he wants is ready; he turns off the console and once more tries to meditate.

Anakin closes his eyes again, trying to access the Force the way he used to, the way he did with Tahiri, but it eludes him. All he can find is that cold, fearful place within him. Silently he wonders if that is because he has fallen or because she has died.

As he embraces the cold and the fear, he decides that it doesn’t really matter.

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Jacen and Ganner are in a dingy cantina on Toporwa. A thick slime covers the walls, and floors. Jacen picks up his glass and looks at the amber fluid with flecks of something floating in it. He sniffs at the fluid experimentally.

Setting the glass back down without taking a drink, he looks at Ganner. “Why exactly are we here again?”

“We’re looking for you little brother, remember?”

“Right, remind me to smack him once or twice when we find him.” Ganner barks a short laugh in reply as Jacen continues talking. “I wonder how long Uncle Luke is going to have us do this; Anakin’s been missing almost a year now.”

Ganner gives a quick shake of his head, and then lifts his chin towards the doorway. “Our contact has arrived.”

A kubaz walks over and sits at their table, the stench that wafts off of him causing Ganner to wrinkle his nose.

[Are you the ones who seek the new Lord Vader?]

Jacen nods his head. “Yes we are.”

The kubaz glances around the room. [I saw his fight on Garqi. He destroyed a legion of warriors.]

Jacen looks across the table at Ganner for a moment, before turning back to the kubaz. “Garqi? We were unaware of his actions on Garqi.”

[Be as it may, he destroyed a legion of warriors in the training grounds, and then him and his apprentice, a young human female, disappeared.]

“Do you know where they went?”

[No. But he has been sighted on Lorrd, Agamar, Belkadan and Garqi. My question for you is where were the Vong next?]

Jacen hands the kubaz a number of credits. “Thank you.”

Without replying the kubaz slips out of his seat and leaves the cantina, nodding to a large yinchorri at the bar. Jacen places a credit chit on the table, and the two Jedi stand up, just as the yinchorri and two burly humans step up to them.

The Yinchorri hisses at them, “Jedi?”

Jacen shakes his head. “You’ve got the wrong people.”

Jacen expands his awareness in the Force, getting a feel for the three beings arrayed against him and Ganner, and frowns.

He can only pick up the Yinchorri. He glances at Ganner for a second, and then reaches out and swipes the nose of one of the humans, and his flesh appears to start peeling off, and forming a pool at his feet.

Jacen’s saber appears in his hand, as he steps forward, and ignites it. A quick slash and the Yinchorri falls away, dead before the two halves of him hit the ground. A second slash is caught by one of the Vong on their amphistaff.

He spares a glance at Ganner and sees him occupied with the other Vong warrior, and turns his attention back to the one he is fighting.

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Tsavong Lah orders his familiar to appear before him. While he waits, he watches the Vigollarkta, the sacrifice held every klekket to thank Yun Yammka for his blessings while the Elite conquer the Infidels.

He stands on the observation tongue, a snarl twisting his features as the thousand infidels are slowly pressed forward, and pushed into the immolation pit. He pushes down the desire to laugh as the infidels scream in their death throes.

A scuffle of sound behind him, and he turns that way and sees his familiar. Without responding he turns back to the immolation pit, as the last of the slaves deemed worthy sacrifices are thrown into the pit. After a moment, he finally speaks.

“I have heard from Nom Anor, he is impressed by the voxyn, and reiterates that we need to either retrieve Jeedai for our use, or send the animal out into the field. How goes your attempts to capture that Jeedai?”

“I have noticed that he attacks training grounds and weapons facilities. He is attacking our ability to wage war.”

“And how have you leveraged this insight into his capture?”

“We’ve prepared a trap for him on the infidel planet Rodia. It is only a matter of time before he attacks the facility where we create and train the Vagh Rodiek.”

Tsavong Lah turns towards Vergere. “This had best go off without problems familiar, I do not wish for another fiasco like the one which occurred in the shipwomb.”

Vergere bobs her head. “I understand and obey Warmaster.”

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Lu’ath stares out at the planet the infidels called New Plympto. He does so with a smile on his face, as he directs the Yoric-Vec to land in the woods to the south of the Yuuzhan Vong settlement. He looks around his bridge crew, at the faces which a few klekkets ago would fill him with disgust, but thanks to the wisdom of the Jeedai, now their smooth, unscarred faces fill him with pride.

He nods at them, and as one they rise from their stations, slipping into the cloaks which they had a former shaper create for them. Cloaks which if the fact that they seemed to twist and writhe even when the wearer stands still was ignored would resemble Jeedai robes.

Lu’ath looks down at the grashals and damuteks surrounded as they are by the slave and shamed warrens.

He looks back towards one of his company. “Tokra.”

The shamed warrior advances, and nods towards Lu’ath. “I charge you to go to Bimmiel, and spread the truth of the Jeedai. I shall go down among our brethren here and share the truth.”

“I obey, but I do wish to overthrow those who make us suffer.”

“I know, but first we must bring truth, then we can topple those who cause us to suffer. Only after we have shared the truth of the Jeedai with the others, will the truth of the Jeedai set us free.”

Lu’ath grasps Tokra’s arm. “May the Force guide and protect us, as we share its light with our brethren.”

A quick nod from Tokra, and he and the rest of the bridge crew retreat back to the Yoric-Vec. Silently the coral vessel lifts off and heads towards space. Lu’ath watches it for a moment, and then drawing his cloak tighter around him, walks down the hill, to the fields where the shamed will go with first light.