Family Found: Chapter 13

Previous Chapter

---

Noelani stared at the yellow, feline eyes. There was something about them that shot cold through her heart. They seemed to embody everything dark and twisted that she had ever came across in her short life.

Every brutal thing she had witnessed, from the massacre of her foster family to her torture at the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong.

They scared her on a fundamental level, reminding her of the dark shade of herself that she had seen a few hours ago, when she had first woken up in this place.

She fingered the saber hilt at her side, and then making a decision, unsnapped it, raising it into a guard position in a single smooth motion.

As she thumbed the activation plate, brilliant violet colored light flooded the area, and she saw the flash of teeth from the hooded figure as it smiled at her.

The thrum of her saber beat against her ears, oddly in time to the pounding of her heart was suddenly joined by a second thrum.

The dark figure had ignited its own blade, one that was a blood-red.

Noelani dashed forward and slashed at the shade. A wild attack without precision or planning.

It easily parried her attack, and the creature's elbow jolted out slamming into the small of Noelani's back.

She cried out in pain and stumbled forward, dropping to her knees as the dark shade laughed.

The sound was horrid, a ghastly tearing hiss, which sent shivers down Noelani's spine.

She spun back towards the shade, her anger growing. She stormed forward, a yell coming from her lips as she smashed the blade into the shade, easily shearing it into two different pieces.

Stunned, she stumbled slightly as the remains of the shade fell to the ground. She blinked her eyes, and stepped closer to the creature, pushing at its hood with the toe of her boot.

To find Tahiri's face staring out at her.

"NO!" she screamed out in pain and surprise. The fear and anger fled from her as she remembered her Master's words about giving into anger.

She allowed the saber to drop from her fingers as she collapsed to her knees. Tears flowed, and she bowed her head, covering her face with her hands. Simply allowing the tears to flush the pain from her.

-----------------------------------

Tahiri stood back away from the drilling droid, watching it as it tried to gain access to the underground caverns where her apprentice and her friends were trapped.

She scrubbed at her face once again; worry worming its way through her heart, clouding her sense of the Force. Exhaustion played its part as well; she had not slept in what felt like weeks, but was in reality maybe a day.

Mara Jade came down the steps and stood beside her. Tahiri could sense that there was something which the older Jedi Master wanted to tell her, and while Tahiri wondered what it could be, she knew she could wait until Mara was ready to talk.

"Tahiri, why don't you go ahead and get some sleep. You look terrible."

Tahiri allowed her eyes to shift slightly and focus on Mara, a smirk coming to her lips, "We'll get enough sleep once we're one with the Force. For now, I'm going to wait here until those droids get my apprentice freed."

Mara snorted in amusement. "I had to try."

Tahiri nodded her head. "I know. And thank you."

Silence settled over the two women again.

As she watched the droid at work, she could feel the tension boiling in Mara. That need to tell Tahiri something; but to Tahiri it almost seemed as if she were afraid to do so.

Giving an internal shrug, she tuned Mara's Force presence out of her awareness and focused more fully on the droid.

-----------------------------------

Ben stared at the boy across from him and then stood up. "Why did you say I was dead?"

The boy laughed. "Aren't you? You were just sitting here, staring at the wall, content to let what ever happens to you happen. Then there is your whole unquestioning allegiance to Jacen Solo…"

Ben frowned and began to pace slightly. "I… I was just sitting here wasn't I? But I don't have blind faith in Jacen. He's my Master, I'm supposed to do as he says."

The boy shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe. Personally, I didn't listen all that well to my Master. I ran off on my own a couple times. Did lots of, well, random things that in the end didn't make sense."

Ben glared at him for a moment, and then replied, "And maybe that's why you're dead."

The boy shot him a look, and gave him an odd half-grin that Ben knew he had seen before. "Maybe. Possibly… probably actually."

Ben started walking around the room, knocking on the walls, listening at them for a difference in sound.

"What are you doing, Ben?"

Ben ignored him, just continued his circuit of the room. He completed the circuit and came back to stand in the center of the room, looking down at his hands as he stared at them. "I… I know there is a way out of this room. There has to be."

"Why does there have to be?"

Ben looked up at the boy, and smirked. "Well, for one, it's been over thirty hours since I woke up in here. If there was on way in or out, I would have ran out of oxygen by now. Secondly, I got put in here, so there has to be a way to do that."

The shade grinned again. "Are you using your head and thinking?"

Ben shot him a look, and shook his head. He suddenly grinned as an idea came to him. "Yes, I'm finally using my head."

He craned his neck, and looked up at the ceiling. The only place in the room he had not inspected yet. It was made from the same stone texture as the floor and walls, but set in the middle was a bright light, which Ben had to squint against.

He frowned, and looked down, uncertainty coloring his face. "I… I was certain that the answer would be up there…"

No answer came, and he looked around, to find that he was once more alone. He frowned again, and kicked at a pebble that was on the floor. "Lot of help you are…"

Sighing, he craned his neck back again, staring at that bright light. Then he took a step to the side.

Shrugging his shoulders, he centered himself in the room again, and pulled the Force to him, and jumped.

-----------------------------------

Poll twisted and turned, fear slicing through him with the anguished cries which echoed back at him from out of the darkness.

There was something broken and dark about those sounds. Something which both called to his heart and chilled him to the bone.

They were the product of a darkness and a misery which he could not understand or comprehend, yet at the same time, they called to him, begged him to find their source.

Whether it was to free it or to stop it, Poll did not know.

He kept his saber gripped tightly in his hand as he spun around on his heels yet again. The cries seemed to resolve themselves down into simple sobs. Anguished cries of misery and pain.

He shuddered, wondering just what was happening.

Suddenly, he spied the first bit of light he had stumbled across since he woken up in the catacombs. It was a bright spotlight a twenty meters or so down the hallway. He wondered how he had not seen it before, as it was there, shining brightly. No corners or doorways to obscure it.

Frowning, he took a single step forward, and squinted against the glare, just able to make out a dark shape that was sitting at the edge of the cone of light.

The dark form huddled on the ground, its shoulders shaking as it cried. Its misery and pain, and an overpowering sense of failure, beat in the Force, thrashed against his mental shields.

He shuddered at the feelings which that small quaking form woke in him.

And once again, he wondered if he was really worthy to be a Jedi.

A dark voice sounded beside his ear. "You're not."

Poll spun around, and looked, hoping to see who had spoke to him, but finding no one.

The voice sounded incredible close, yet infinitely distant. "You're not worthy to be a Jedi. You're a waste of time, energy and resources."

Poll shook his head, the despair in the Force beating against him, as he dropped to his own knees. "I… no… I…"

The voice hissed in his ear. "Useless. Less than useless. Just give in. End your life and yourself."

He suddenly realized that he still held his lightsaber in his hand. He looked down at it, remembering the pride he had felt when he built it.

Like a candle, that happiness was snuffed out of existence by a blast of cold harsh despondency.

He felt small and helpless and useless.

"Yes," the voice hissed in his ear again. "Use your saber on yourself. Give in. Give up. Join us."

He blinked open his eyes, and saw thousands of hands coming up out of the floor reaching for him. "Who? What are you?'

A dim form walked through a wall, a creature balanced on four legs, with massive tusks and sharp spines on its dark green hide. It stopped in front of him and stood facing him. Intelligence sparkled in its eyes, and the voice from before, not the cold echoing hiss, but the one that had laughed at him earlier, came from its mouth.

"They are the Darkness seeking more of the living. They feed on despair and despondency. They seek to feed on yours. This is a cusp. Live or die. Be a Jedi or not. But, decide you must." Its head bounced, and Poll got the impression that it was pointing towards the saber he still held in his hand. "They want you to use that on yourself. If you're going to do so, then do so and get it over with… otherwise grow up and walk out of here."

Then the figure was gone, and with that disappearance the despair crashed against him again.

Poll tightened his grip on his saber, lifting the weapon to his forehead as he listened to the voices that whispered all around him. The voices that promised relief and rest and freedom and an end to his pain.

A tear sliced down his cheek as his thumb rested lightly on the activation plate.

-----------------------------------

Kor struggled forward against the harsh biting wind, the cold which scalded her skin, even through her fur.

She struggled forward, determined to not give in, to not give up hope. She trusted in the Force and her friends.

She knew deep in her heart that she was a Jedi. She grinned as she strode through the coldness, a triumphant grin pulling her lips away from her teeth.

She had figured out the puzzle. Had discerned what these catacombs were for.

They were a test. A trial. You had to face yourself, your fears, even your very own darkness. You had to overcome yourself.

She wondered for a moment how many centuries these machines and ghosts had lain dormant until Noelani had activated them with that crystal of hers.

She saw a light shining brightly before her and she stumbled to a stop. This was the first time she had seen something like this in the catacombs. She frowned at it, sniffing the warm air that blew from the light.

Warmth! She thought to herself, and she began to stumble forward again, excited at the prospect of being warm once again.

---

Next Chapter