Greater Than the Sum of Their Parts: Chapter Ten

She hangs in the white. It stretches out as far as she can see in all directions. An endless sea of agony and pain, blistering through her neural pathways, chasing down every bit of sane, sapient thought she has.

In short she is going insane.

That is the only way that Noelani can begin to understand it. That is the only thing that she can believe. After all, the pain is everything now.

The pain of not being good enough to evade capture.

The pain of watching her Master get mortally wounded.

Even the pain of entertaining thoughts of joining her captors.

She would curl up and cry, but the Embrace which holds her, keeps her body pulled taut up off the floor, straining the muscles, trying its best to pull her joints of out socket, grinding her ankles together. The only thing she can do is allow the Embrace to pull and abuse her body, while she hangs helpless within its tentacles.

She would scream, but the pain has long since gone beyond even that simple relief. Now her throat is raw and ragged from when she was able to scream, even dreaming of speaking in anything above a whisper causes imaginary fire to flame within her throat.

Yet all of those things are not the reason she thinks she is going insane. The reason she believes she’s going insane has to deal entirely with the presence that she can sense in the Force. The presence that is slowly growing stronger, closer.

The presence that belongs to her Master.

She hears the thrum of a lightsaber coming closer, and for a second she wonders if her Master is going to kill her. If Tahiri will put her out of her misery, end the pain that she is in.

Then the Embrace twitches, pulling against her body even more, the pain she feels everywhere flares higher and greater.

And then she’s lying on the floor.

The cold stone feels wonderful against the cuts and bruises which adorn her exposed skin. As she rests there, she can feel her body pulling itself back into shape, overstressed muscles loosening, joints firmly reseating themselves into their sockets.

She struggles to stand, lifting her head slightly to see her Master.

Hope flairs in her chest.

She watches as Tahiri rushes Ulya, her blade held low, as her body is hunched slightly. Then the hope flickers away as Force lightning shoots out from Ulya’s outstretched hand slamming into Tahiri.

Noelani watches in horror as Tahiri drops to the ground, her saber rolling away with a metallic clinging sound.

Ulya advances slowly, still pouring the Force lightning into Tahiri’s shuddering frame.

Noelani stands, wondering what she can do. How she can help Tahiri.

She reaches for the Force, and feels its warm embrace. She can hear a warm, masculine voice in her head. Attack. Save her.

Noelani doesn’t hesitate.

She dashes forward, interposing herself between Tahiri and Ulya, sticking her hand into the path of the lightning, grabbing hold of it. Agony sweeps up her arm, and Noelani grits her teeth. She focuses on the lightning, on how it feels in the Force, focuses on the Force itself.

And with a snarl, turns it back towards Ulya, redirecting the unnatural energies back towards their source. The blue-white lightning slams into Ulya, scribing dark lines over her armor, wrapping around her, striking her nose and face repeatedly.

In the Force Noelani can feel Ulya’s pain, then she smiles and without meaning to speaks, “This is for hurting Tahiri!”

The lightning stops with a backlash of telekinetic energy which flings both Noelani and Ulya away from one another.

Ulya sits up from the floor, and snarls something in Yuuzhan Vong. The three warriors stand, their amphistaffs uncurling in their hands.

Noelani glances around, and sees Tahiri’s lightsaber. She calls it to hand, feeling the comfortable weight of the hilt, then presses the activator, smiling at the beam of bluish-white light which spills from the emitter.

She can still feel the Force flowing all around her, purer and cleaner than she had ever felt it before. More accessible than she had ever imagined possible.

She pulls it to herself, preparing for this fight, preparing to defend her Master and herself.

And reaches out and can clearly feel each of the warriors as they advance.

She stretches slightly and can feel the other Vong on the asteroid.

Focusing back on the three advancing warriors, she sets herself, her blade held at a mid-guard, waiting for the warriors to make the first move.

Knowing exactly what it will be.

She glances towards the one on the left, and the one on the right darts forward, his amphistaff pushing in towards her exposed side. Without even looking, she twists and positions her blade in its path, knocking the amphistaff out of the way.

They snarl something in their language and Noelani just laughs.

The lightsaber sings in her hand, a symphony of changing pitches as she allows the Force to guide her hands. She is constantly moving, her blade seemingly everywhere at once. But her blade is not her only weapon - she also kicks, and hits and picks up rocks with the Force to throw at them. She uses everything and anything.

The death of one of the warriors catches her off guard. The sudden cessation of life fills her awareness - pulls at her sense of self. As she pulls the saber from his throat, the warrior crumbles to the ground and Noelani just stares at him; a look of shock on her face.

I-I killed him.

Before she can think anything more, something heavy slams into her back, sending her stumbling. She trips over the body of the warrior she had just killed, falling to the floor, Tahiri’s saber slipping from her grip, and sliding away from her.

At the Force’s prompting, she rolls to her right as the tail of an amphistaff slams into the stone floor where she had just been. She rolls some more, as the warrior lifts his blade that way, leaving a shallow scratch across her back.

She looks around for Tahiri’s saber and doesn’t see it, then a hiss attracts her attention, and she glances up to see the fallen warrior’s amphistaff. Without thinking she reaches up and grabs the snake-like weapon, and gives it a subtle flick, causing it to harden into shape.

She rolls to her back, and lifts the amphistaff just as one of the warrior’s sends his in for a killing stroke.

She smiles at the shocked expression on the warrior’s face, and then swipes his legs out from under him, dumping him to the floor.

She gains her feet, just as one of the other warriors rushes her, and she grabs for the Force again, feeling his intentions, discerning what he’s going to do. She twists away from his attack, talking to the amphistaff, telling it through the Force what she wants it to do, what shape she wants it to assume.

The amphistaff twists its neck, angling out away from Noelani as she grabs with her second hand down near the tail. She grins at the two warriors facing her; more comfortable with the amphistaff now that it has taken the shape of a Gaderfii.

The two warriors slowly advance, separating away from one another, giving each other room to attack her. Noelani falls back, allowing them to separate a bit more. She darts to the left, and uses the head of her amphistaff to knock his weapon away, and then slices the tail across the warrior’s throat.

She is prepared for the feeling of death in the Force this time, so she doesn’t hesitate as she twists and slams the head into the stomach of the remaining warrior. He grunts, and she lifts the head up, slamming it into the warrior’s jaw. She rolls the amphistaff, and as soon as its mouth rests against the warrior’s throat it bites.

She pulls the weapon away as the warrior drops to his knees, holding his neck, howling in pain as the amphistaff venom attacks his nervous system.

Breathing heavily and crying silently, Noelani shoves the tail end of the amphistaff into the warrior. Dropping the living weapon as she pulls it out. She turns around looking for Ulya and doesn’t find her at all. Frowning she stretches out with the Force, looking for her that way and can barely make out her presence quickly falling away from the asteroid.

She takes another shuddering breath and drops to her knees. She glances around again, and sees Tahiri still on the ground where the Force lightning had dropped her. She crawls over to her as quickly as she can, and rolls her over.

Horror sets in and bile fills her throat as she absently starts saying a simple mantra, repeating the phrase over and over again: “Please don’t be dead.”

Her hesitant fingers reach out and press against Tahiri’s throat and she feels the steady but weak pulse. Letting out a sob of relief, Noelani lays her head against Tahiri’s chest and just cries.