Chapter 54

Chapter 54

Sullust Libration Point ‘L5’, Sullust SystemRread latest chapters at novelhall.coma Sector

One tends to lose the meaning of time in hyperspace, even more so after days of continuous lightspeed. Watching the intricacies of the cosmos burn past the viewports in nothing more than a frenzied blur, stars and supernovas reduced to gleaming sapphire lines shooting through the void. In this otherworldly environment of somewhere between night, day, and twilight, even Harbinger’s internal chronos felt unreliable, ticking away in a steady limbo until they could resynchronise back in realspace.

It was well-researched, the speed at which certain hyperdrives hurled its host through hyperspace, but not quite understood. Such equipment were finicky, sensitive things, and even the lightest maintenance could change travel times–upwards to entire days, when transiting significant distances. The hypermatter feed, the hyperdrive motivator, the relativistic shield, all play their part, down to the smallest component. A hyperdrive was no more complicated than Anakin’s cybernetic arm, yet no less complicated than his lightsaber.

This, Anakin knew very well, and all who knew Anakin knew just as well. Excluding the precious few people the Chosen One held close to him dearly in his life, the Chosen One always seemed to prefer the company of machines over men. And the result? Harbinger and the cruisers of Anakin Skywalker’s personal division of the Open Circle Fleet were a definite cut above the rest. They were faster, and more responsive, and made a journey from Coruscant to Sullust, a journey that would normally take a fortnight, in less than half the time. And yet, every day they shaved off pushing their hyperdrives to the limit, every hour, minute, second–and it still felt like it wasn’t enough.

To make matters worse, they had no way of knowing whether they could still make it in time, beyond blind hope. Ships at hyperspeed ‘did not exist’ in the conventional sense, they were effectively cut off from all subspace–conventional–communications whilst in the simu-tunnel. Nor was hypercomm tech currently advanced enough to breach the walls of a simu-tunnel without hyperwaves being distorted beyond recognition.

Thus the only communication available was between ships within the same simu-tunnel instance, in which the entire division of the Open Circle existed. It was for this reason commercial freighters, supply vessels, and even military warships regularly hopped out of hyperspace even on long-distance transits; not just to reorient their bearings, but also to resync their chronos and check in with the galaxy. All the more in war, when the possibility one’s destination had changed hands was very real.

But Anakin wouldn’t risk it, couldn’t risk it. Leaping out of hyperspace, accounting for the fleet, and leaping back in could take hours, especially when wrangling over a hundred Venators in full. Time did not run linearly in this alien dimension, and every second counted in lives. They could wait and hope to detect the Sullust System’s upcoming hyperspace buoy sooner than later.

Even then, Anakin Skywalker knew something wasn’t quite right. His gut churned as he anxiously stared at the endless depths of the swirling blue ahead, his legs frozen in place even then.

“General,” Admiral Yularen’s gruff voice appeared next to him, “I am concerned about the possibility that we are heading straight into an ambush.”

“You think Rees Alrix has already lost?”

“This is the Rain Bonteri we are dealing with, not any Separatist commander,” Yularen tugged at his moustache, and despite his composed demeanour, Anakin knew his colleague’s habits enough to recognise the sign of discomfort, “I think you can forgive me for exercising severe caution on this instance, General.”

“What do you recommend?”

“I understand you intend on using Sullust’s mass shadow to force an extraction as close to the planet as possible,” Yularen said, “But might I suggest we extract at the outer planets, either Mumunubb or Munumubb? In this case, at least we won’t be leaping directly into an enemy trap, should there be one.”

“That will take time–”

“With all due respect, General,” the Admiral was clearly reaching the end of his patience with the Jedi General’s stubbornness, “But the only case in which we would be ‘too late’ would be if we manage to extract in the exact moment Alrix had been engaged in battle. It would require more than the stars aligning for that to occur.”

“...Very well,” Anakin receded, “I suppose you are raising this issue because we are approaching Sullust?”

“We had detected bypassing the Medth and Tshindral Systems’ relays,” Admiral Yularen confirmed, “We will be extracting in a few hours.”

“Get the men up to battle readiness,” the Jedi General ordered, “Inform Appo to get his buckets into the larties, and pilots to their squadrons. Where is Tallisibeth?”

“In her bunk, General,” Yularen replied dryly, “Catching some rest is far more productive than... pacing the deck, in my opinion.”

“I see you’ve warmed up to her.”

“She’s a hard worker, and gets along well with the troops,” the stiff Yularen admitted, “I may have drawn the short end of the stick for my Jedi General, but I couldn’t have asked for a better Jedi Commander.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, considering I chose her,” a short laugh spilled out naturally, releasing some of the tension coiling in his muscles, “Get her up here. And get the men ready.”

“Very good, General,” Yularen dipped his chin, and disappeared back towards the battle room.

Alarms rang wildly, klaxons blaring the sound of upcoming battle into the heads into a million grim-faced spacers and soldiers. Beneath the shut dorsal hangar doors, hundreds of pilots climbed into their starfighters, while clone troopers boarded their gunships, running through their pre-combat rituals. This was to be their third battle with Separatist viper, and the remembrance of their previous engagements have been carved into their memories.

“–Jedi Commander Esterhazy on deck!”

The snapping fabric of salutes didn’t seem to affect Tallisibeth so much this time around, as she half-jogged up to her Master’s place, “You wanted us to fight the Coalition Armada, Master, back on the Perlemian.”

“Not like this,” Anakin breathed out.

With a shimmer and thud, Harbinger lurched out of hyperspace, coming face to face with the rocky, barren mass of Munumubb. Behind the cover of the planet, a hundred Republic cruisers launched their complements of starfighters and combat escorts, massive turbolasers batteries groaning as they pointed their barrels towards Sullust, fully expecting an armed and ready enemy fleet to meet them.

Anakin found out what had been bugging him all this time.

It was silent. Too silent. The Force hung over the star system like mist over a graveyard, the stillness eerie and pervading. The cosmos was sheets of green and blue and red, and everywhere were but stars, twinkling like an infinite number of baleful eyes, the stellar audience of a battle only they witnessed.

“...We’re not picking up signs of either fleet, Admiral,” Anakin could hear Lieutenant Klev inform Yularen, “The system’s empty.”

“Deploy our recon fighter wings,” the Admiral immediately commanded, “Bring our fleet across Munumubb’s orbit and plot a vector towards Sullust.”

“Were we too late...?” Tallisibeth murmured, stepping back and descending into the data pits, naturally melting into the operators and officers as if she had always belonged there.

Hours passed, Admiral Yularen’s concerns unfounded, as the Open Circle Fleet carefully cut its way through the stillness of the black ocean, long-range scanners systematically sweeping every planetoid, asteroid, and satellite in the vast expanse of space. Anakin wrapped himself in the Force, its familiar presence like a quilt against the cold vacuum outside, even as he overhead his apprentice instructing the sensor operators in the data pits with a finesse one might expect from career officers.

She seemed at home, down there, as Anakin might feel at home surrounded by droids and machines, using her keen insight to guide the fleet towards objects of interest any normal person might not be able to pick up on.

“Found it!” Lieutenant Avrey suddenly exclaimed.

“Your training, Lieutenant!” Admiral Yularen snapped, “What did you find? Bearing? Range?”

“Distress signals on GAR frequencies!” Avrey clutched her headset as she jockeyed her station, Tallisibeth’s close gaze right over the officer’s shoulder as she observed the wavelengths for even the smallest detail, “Bearing oh-three-two relative, range... ten system astro-units! It’s faint, sir, but it's there! Must be running for days...”

Days. They were too late by entire days.

“Fix contact!” Jedi General Anakin Skywalker swung around, “Helm, bring us on that bearing! I want a precision jump right on top of it! Get a message down to medical; I want warm beds on standby, bacta patches and tanks!”

“Yes, sir!”

Admiral Yularen stalked closer to Anakin, his voice hushed, “This might be a Separatist trick, General.”

Anakin narrowed his eyes, “It isn’t.”

“Is that the Force talking, General?”

“No,” Tallisibeth climbed back onto the deck, “Out of all the tricks our opponent has in his bag, this wouldn’t be one of them. Klev, what are you seeing there?”

The sensor officer shrugged in frustration, grinding his teeth, “Nothing conclusive, sir. It’s ten system AUs out–that’s a hundred-fifty million klicks. It’s all too dark, too small. It could be debris, or a small asteroid field... but considering the reflections, I’m leaning towards the former.”

“Too dark, too small,” Tallisibeth echoed, “Doesn’t sound like active warships to me. Even if they’re flying cold, we would still be picking up waste heat. Anything else, Klev?”

“It’s right on top of Sullust’s fifth libration point,” Lieutenant Klev reported, “Stable orbit. If left alone, that field will stay there for a couple million years, I’d wager.”

Anakin almost didn’t notice the stars lengthening as Harbinger threw herself into pseudomotion–before throwing herself right out of it just as quickly. Then, where there were stars and void before, there was now a vast debris field, just as the sensor operator predicted. Anakin felt his chest clench as he spotted the telltale red-painted schemes of Venators and Tectors, half-bleached by solar radiation, half-slagged by enemy fire.

That red, the colour of the Republic and all it stood for, now seemed to flow like shed blood. Chunks of durasteel, bent and blackened. Lengths of wire and conduit, slowly wheeling end over end. There were drifts of transparisteel splintered into jagged shards, reflecting starlight. And there were men. A few were whole. Their bodies were bloated and blue and they looked surprised—mouths gaping, eyes staring. But mostly they were in pieces.

They stood upon yet another mass grave for millions of Republic spacers.

The stars continued twinkling.

“I want bioscans–” it took a mechanical whirr for him to realise he was clenching his fists as well, “And get Appo out there. Avrey, find and relay the sources of those distress signals.”

“Right away, sir,” the officer had repressed her usual enthusiasm, stoically carrying out her duty.

From their vantage point, Anakin could see the dorsal hangar doors sliding open, dozens or LAAT gunships pouring forth before the doors were even fully open. That sinking feeling only continued to deepen as they pressed into the twisted forest of steel, following the trail of destruction. It was obvious to all who won. There were scores of Republic-made hulks drifting about, many still intact, but they have yet to spot a single Separatist warship.

“...Right,” Tallisibeth muttered beneath her breath.

But Anakin caught it easily, “Right?”

“Turn right,” his Padawan pointed at the debris, confidence burgeoning, “If we want to find out what happened, we need to find Master Alrix’s flagship, which will be at the head. So, we’ll need to retrace the line of battle.”

Anakin raised an eyebrow, but turned to Admiral Yularen anyway.

“Helm; hard right,” Yularen nodded, “Meet her there.”

To their left, a colossal durasteel corpse drifted past the viewports, almost twice as large as a Venator, its wedge-shape far more pronounced. A Tector-class Star Destroyer. Its hull had been punched in several places, and half of its bridge had been shorn off the stalk.

“...Callsign Imperious,” an officer said aloud as he recorded each wreck they passed, “Callsign Red Fox...”

There was no time to dwell on it. The Battle Hydra–Alrix’s final thoughts rang over and over in his head–was not that kind of opponent. Yes... he could forget Rain Bonteri, but he could not forget the Hydra in the Force.

Anakin nodded decisively, “Bring us around. Prepare to jump north.”

“General?” Admiral Yularen questioned, “Are we rendezvousing with the Second Army?”

“We are still chasing the Hydra.”

Yularen’s lips thinned, “You are certain he jumped into enemy territory, without waiting for any reinforcements?”

Rain Bonteri was an anomaly. An aberration who could not be found in the Force... no, muted the Force itself. But Rees Alrix had a way of finding vulnerabilities where many could not. Vulnerabilities in a duelist’s guard, vulnerabilities in a fleet formation... or even vulnerabilities in the Force. And now, Anakin could see a fraction of what Alrix saw, a mere, miniscule fragment of her unique connection with the Force. It was because of this connection, that if there was a vulnerability within the Force, only she could have seen it so... tangibly.

If they wanted to find where Rain Bonteri was, all they had to do was find where the Force wasn’t.

A mission easier said than done. The galaxy was vast, the Force was vaster, and even the most powerful Jedi was but a single person. However... with Alrix’s dying breath, that void came in the shape of fire.

“Prepare a Priority Alpha transmission for Jedi General Empatojayos Brand and Governor-General Octavian Grant,” General Anakin Skywalker barked out, “Send exactly what I say! This is the closest we’ll ever get to putting an end to the Battle Hydra. We must not fail!”

As the crew rushed to and fro their stations, a newborn fire lit beneath them and spurring on action, Anakin found his attention dragged towards Tallisibeth, and the starchart she projected from her personal holoprojector.

“Tallisbeth, do you see it?” he asked.

There was a small, translucent pearl, a shimmering holographic star hanging 4,500 parsecs north of Sullust, along the Rimma Trade Route. It was within the heart of conquered territory, from which Rees Alrix’s infamous Hundred Days Offensive began.

“Yes, Master,” Tallisibeth replied quietly, as if she couldn’t quite believe her own eyes either, “Yag’Dhul’s aflame.”

⁂

Coruscant, Coruscant System

Corusca Sector

Barriss wrapped herself tighter in her zeyd-cloth cloak as she made her way deeper into the Jedi Temple. The halls, despite being empty due to the war, were busier than usual. There was a thrum in the air, heavy with the Force, as brown-robed Jedi hurried along instead of walking side by side in stately calm in an nervous atmosphere unheard of since the prelude to Geonosis.

Something happened.

That much was clear, even to those who knew nothing. Servants and caretakers and even younglings, all infected by the plague of anxiety infecting the unflappable cadences of Jedi Masters and Knights. But Barriss knew what happened.

The Separatists had destroyed Eriadu. Raked the world clean with orbital bombardment. It began with a contortion in the Force that all Jedi throughout the galaxy could feel, and then an abrupt end of ‘noise’ from the Eriadu System, a silencing of radio waves that could only be considered an apocalypse from a world as populated and industrialised as Eriadu.

Neary a week later, the first news of the Devastation of Eriadu reached Coruscant. Satellite telescopes from Uvena Prime had discovered Eriadu’s biosphere had been almost completely eradicated, and its atmosphere a chaotic, hellish mess in which otherworldly storms and hurricanes wreaked havoc across the surface of the planet. The death toll was uncountable.

All signs pointed towards indiscriminate orbital bombardment. And if that wasn’t terrible enough, Uvena Prime observatories also discovered signs of new self-replicating droid factories and industrial arcologies sprouting throughout Eriadu’s landscape.

Senator Shayla Paige-Tarkin, blood in her eyes, made a historic speech that mirrored Senator Padmé Amidala’s months prior, roaring for the death of the Separatist Alliance and galvanising the Republic Senate into passing a new bill that not only opened up a whole new slew of executive power to the Chancellor’s Office, but also forcefully nationalised many independent planetary and sector armed forces throughout the Interior. The speech was made all the more powerful, everybody thought, by the rumours that Senator Tarkin had attempted to commit suicide shortly after the first news broke.

Nevertheless, there was little argument from the Core Faction, even as the independence they had enjoyed for a millennia was stripped away. After all, there was but one thought reigning supreme within every senator; “if the Separatists were willing to purge a Rimworld, what will they do to us?”

Therefore, every effort was to be spent keeping the Core safe from future Separatist intrusions.

As for Barriss... it only further confirmed what she already believed. The Republic was rotten to the very core. Instead of reacting with rightful, righteous anger; instead of seeking justice; instead of doing anything that would punish the perpetrators of such a horrid act, they instead feared for themselves. Reactions within the Republic Senate... the soft gasps, the wide eyes, the dainty hands covering mouths... it was all as if they had not done the exact same thing to Atraken.

It was as if this result was unexpected, when the war they waged had already rendered thousands of worlds in hundreds of nameless campaigns utterly uninhabitable. What made Eriadu so special? Was it because it imitated the Core? Was it because its representative was a charismatic, powerful woman? Shayla Paige-Tarkin... watching her through the holoscreen, at that moment Barriss felt more for her than she did for every other senator combined.

What Rain Bonteri told her the day they met, and what she had realised since Atraken, now all seemed like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The rift between the Republic and Confederacy was but a disagreement. War was the enemy. The longer this slaughter drags on, the deeper both sides would dig their heels, the further the lines are drawn for depravity, the more atrocities appear palatable. It was a downward spiral that would not end, a grindstone that would keep on spinning, crushing those beneath it–until something was jammed into it. If no one else would do it, then Barriss would.

In this, she would suffer no compromise. Not even as the shadow of the dark side enveloped the Temple. Not even as its claws obsessively clutched the Order in unseen ways.

The shadows lengthened as Barriss turned away from the windows, into the halls that housed the funeral chambers. She heard the bells tolling. Once, they were a special, solemn affair, marking the end of a Jedi’s traipse on the mortal coil. Once. They now rang daily, as shuttles returning from the warfront brought yet another Jedi’s shrouded corpse, and how many more that didn’t.

Once the funeral chambers would be packed with other Jedi, filled with hymns and eulogies. Now they were empty, save for a few lonely figures standing over the biers that must be close friends... masters, apprentices. Whoever had any time left to attend the funerals. Then, the stone biers would sink into the earth, and the dead were one with the Force.

Barriss ignored them. Thousands of Jedi were dead, and only dozens of bodies sunk into the recesses of the Temple. Many of these bodies were nameless, many little more than mangled lumps of flesh and bone. She felt nothing for it. The funerals held a level of artifice that Barriss scorned, as if the Jedi were still trying to pretend as long as they continued adhering to funerary customs and procedures, these were still ordinary times.

She wanted to shout; maybe the problem isn’t whether we are holding funerals or not, but that we have to in the first place? Barriss sighed. Funerals were not for the dead. There was no death, but the Force. Funerals were for the living.

How many of her friends she would never see again? Barriss could wonder. How many of her original initiate clan were dead in the snows and sands, their bodies forever unclaimed? She had not attended a funeral since the one after Geonosis. Maybe she shan’t ever again. They all felt so meaningless.

That was the weakness of the Jedi Code, she felt. Even the Order’s response to Eriadu... was closed eyes and mutters some mantra or the other. They are all one with the Force now... something along those lines. There were some shed tears, some exhausted sighs, and what else? Nothing else.

There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no passion, there is serenity. That was the Jedi Code, after all.

Barriss could accept it, no longer. Why must she make peace with the fact that so many Jedi were dead? Why must she make peace with the fact that the war had destroyed so many countless homes and livelihoods? Why must she make peace with the fact that billions were dead on Eriadu?

Fear should be expected. Sadness should be accepted. Anger should be justified. Rage should be righteous. If one could walk through the likes of Atraken without feeling a thing... can one really be considered living at all? Feeling emotions was proof of life, not the dark side. It was letting emotions consume you that led to darkness, as Pong Krell did fall, and those who let their worst recesses consume them were no longer people, but savages.

Even now, emotions swirled within her, leading her forward, fuelling her. Fear of the precipitous chasm the galaxy spiralled into. Sadness at the great losses suffered. Anger against the injustice and unfairness running rampant across the galaxy. Rage against the terrible atrocities, mounting with each and every day. If desiring change was the path to the dark side, then she would gladly walk it nevertheless.

Despite her feelings, she turned into a funeral chamber anyway, feeling the darkness envelop her. The door slid shut behind her, and Barriss spotted a shrouded body atop the stone bier, waiting to sink into the surface. There was no audience, but three figures stood around it.

“Who’s this?” Barriss asked, her internal turmoil privy to none but herself.

“A nameless Knight,” Master Adi Gallia replied, “Maybe not even a Jedi... just one the clones who brought here claim to be. The Battle Hydra defeated Rees Alrix at Sullust, did you know that?”

Her breath hitched, despite herself.

“No,” she said truthfully, “I did not.”

“Barriss Offee,” a tall woman with red skin and clear blue eyes spoke up, “I once searched for Master Pong Krell. He was a master of Jar’Kai, and I wished to learn it.”

“He wasn’t even a master of himself,” Barriss replied emotionlessly, “How could he be a master of anything else?”

The alien shrugged, “Is it true you fought on the Separatist side to bring him to justice?”

“Yes. You have me at a loss.”

“Iskat Akaris,” Iskat Akaris introduced herself with a note of apology, “My master was Sember Vey.”

Barriss inspected the alien. She was slim and very tall, as tall as Anakin Skywalker or Rain Bonteri, with long, lanky limbs and especially long fingers. Her features were sharp, and her poise spoke of great skill in battle. Barriss decided she would not be the victor in any straight duel she had with Iskat. On the other hand, the Force swirled agitatedly around Iskat, which spoke of a lack of control. And the mention of her master...

“Geonosis?”

“In the sand.”

Barriss noticed a dried bloodstain at the foot of Iskat’s robes, almost black in the darkness, and ignored it.

On the opposite side, was the opposite of Iskat. A similarly tall, but muscular human, with tan skin and a strong, round face that was the kind to laugh boisterously. She found a blaster holster and no lightsaber, just as he wore not Jedi robes, but a casual garb one would not find out of place on either the streets of Coruscant or Raxus. But he was a Jedi, because he stood light on his feet and the Force rippled like a veil around him. A spy, she hazarded to guess.

And both of them... finely tuned with the Force as she had ever been, Barriss could clearly recognise the sinister coils of the dark side creeping around their spirits like thorny vines.

“Bode Akuna,” Bode Akuna greeted with a smile, “Jedi Intelligence.”

Master Gallia did not hesitate to retort, “There is no ‘Jedi Intelligence,’ Knight Akuna.”

“Sorry,” Bode raised his hands without a hint of apology, “I meant–Jedi attaché to Republic Intelligence. Welcome to this shady gang, Barriss. You really mixed up with the wrong folks, huh?”

Barriss was briefly stunned into silence, despite not showing a hint outwardly. Did he just call Master Gallia the ‘wrong folks’ right in front of her? Iskat was not so composed, and openly gaped, telling Barriss that she was not so alone in this endeavour as it may seem. Feeling a sense of camaraderie, she inched closer to the red-skinned alien and nudged her gently. Iskat closed her mouth with a click.

Master Adi Gallia cleared her through, head tendrils swaying, “Ready to receive your mission?”

Bode Akuna straightened, his lips thinning into a straight-edge line, a seriousness overcoming his stance. Both Barriss and Iskat did their best to emulate him, but they were not experienced spies.

“All ears, spymaster.”

“Good,” Master Gallia’s tone was short and clipped, “We have a Sith Lord to hunt.”

In the depths of her zeyd-cloth cloak, a certain device that fitted in the palm of her hand weighed as heavy as a mountain. So it begins, Barriss Offee narrowed her eyes, I’ve made it. Here, I will change the Republic. And if she couldn’t do that, then she would break it instead.