CHAPTER TWELVE
Damosus
She should have known this day would have come eventually. She just didn’t think it would have been so soon.
She slammed the suitcase shut over the clothes and supplies she had managed to stuff into it, sealing it tight. Her husband was already outside, preparing the ship. There would have been no point in trying to leave through the local spaceport, which would be locked down any minute now if it wasn’t already. They would just have to take their chances trying to evade the Tralon Star Force or whatever Star Destroyers were now blockading the planet.
Kalon was still asking questions, sounding like he was on the verge of tears. She knew she couldn’t blame him. He was only five years old, scared and confused. He couldn’t possibly understand what was happening and why. Even if he could, she couldn’t even begin to explain it.
Dragging the luggage behind her with one hand and holding her son’s hand with the other, Lysira rushed out of their now-former home and walked quickly towards the transport, already seeing her husband at the controls through the viewport. No sooner had the two of them stepped on board that the ramp closed behind them and they were taking off. After fastening Kalon in his seat, Lysira stepped into the front cabin and seated herself in the co-pilot’s seat, putting on her restraints as the ship lifted off towards the sky.
“I’m going to try to take us as far out from the sector as I can,” Varon told her, his hands gripped around the controls. “If we can get onto the Hydian Way, then maybe—”
“No.” Lysira shook her head. “They’re sure to have that route blocked off. We’ll have to take a different lane. There might be one connecting Pallaxides to Ord Sigatt. If we can take that one, then maybe—”
She was cut off by an alarm going off from the dashboard. Looking out the viewport, she could see a swarm of TIE fighters heading towards them, led by one with more angular, pronged wings.
“Too late,” she breathed, her heartbeat quickening. “He’s found us.”
“It’s not too late,” Varon protested, steering the transport away from the incoming fighters. “We can shake them off and—”
“And what, Varon?” Lysira snapped. “This ship doesn’t have any weapons. We can’t fight back.”
A volley of green plasma bolts shot overhead, shaking the ship. Kalon cried out from the back.
Varon gritted his teeth as he gripped the controls tighter. “I’m not going to let you die,” he growled. “I’m not going to let him take you away from me.”
More lasers shook the ship. Kalon continued to cry. Lysira sighed and she reached out to touch his arm.
“He’s not going to take me away from you,” she said softly. “Because we’ll die together.”
Varon frowned, keeping his eyes fixated on the sky. They hadn’t even come close to clearing the atmosphere. “But Kalon….”
“I refuse to leave him with them. It breaks my heart as much as it does yours, but… it is for the best. For all of us. He is just too young to understand.”
She knew any other mother would have balked at the words that had just come out of her mouth. But she didn’t care. It wasn’t as if anyone was going to know about this.
Varon finally broke his gaze from the viewport and looked at her, his eyes filled with regret and remorse. He let go of the controls and pulled her close to him, kissing her hair.
“I love you,” he murmured.
She didn’t get the chance to reply when an explosion rocked the ship and they started plummeting towards the ground.
* * *
Kylo Ren watched as the transport carrying the former Sith Lords Sedriss and Taral spiraled out of control and dived towards a field just on the outskirts of Roth’s Town. A direct hit from his TIE silencer had been all that it took to end the legacy of Darth Vorath once and for all.
A part of him could not help but feel disappointed. It had all been too easy; nowhere near the climatic showdown he had been expecting leading up to this. Surely two individuals who had once claimed the mantle of Dark Lord of the Sith would have put up more of a fight than this.
Just as he had been about to resign to this outcome, the voice of his wingman crackled through his helmet’s comm unit. “Lord Ren, watch out!”
Kylo barely managed to steer his fighter out of the way as one of the TIE fighters flanking him careened out of control and flew straight into another, the collision creating a fireball that consumed them both. Two more fighters went down in a similar fashion and Kylo had to steer his TIE silencer out of the way to avoid sharing their fate.
“What in the blazes is going on?” he growled.
His attention went back to the plummeting transport, which had somehow managed to right itself and was preparing to make a safe if rough landing in the field. Growling to himself, Kylo Ren dived his fighter after the transport, leaving the rest of his squadron to their fates. As he prepared to fire on the transport, an invisible hand suddenly gripped his ship and yanked it out of his control, sending him spiraling towards the ground. Unable to regain control of the fighter, he slammed his fist down on the eject button and launched himself out of the TIE silencer, just moments before it crashed into the field and went up in flames. Undoing his restraints, Kylo jumped out of his ejected seat while it was still in midair and used the Force to glide himself down, unsheathing his lightsaber before he touched down.
As he started to make his way towards the fallen transport, now inert on the ground, he saw its ramp lower and two figures stepped down from it, their hands raised where he could see them.
“Please,” Varon Sendor said, looking shaken. “We surrender. We don’t want—”
“A Dark Lord of the Sith surrendering?” Kylo Ren scoffed. “How unbecoming of someone like you, Darth Taral.”
Varon frowned. “I no longer go by that name. Neither of us are Sith anymore. We’re just people. We no longer pose a threat to you or your master.”
“It doesn’t matter what you think you are now. All that matters is what my master has ordered, and that is for your deaths.”
“Kill us then,” said Lysira Naris, once known as Darth Sedriss. “Obey your master’s will and solidify your status as his pawn.”
Behind his mask, Kylo’s eye twitched. He tightened the grip around his saber. “Taunting me will do you no favors.”
“Who said it would?”
Snarling to himself, Kylo Ren took a step towards them… only to stop, something causing him to freeze up. “There’s another with you,” he said.
Both Varon and Lysira frowned. The latter said, “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re—”
With a single gesture from his hand, Kylo Ren moved both former Sith aside to reveal the small child that had been standing behind them. To his surprise, where he had expected to see fear and confusion on the boy’s face was instead nothing but pure, unbridled rage. Tears stung his cheeks which were red with fury.
“GET AWAY FROM THEM!” the boy bellowed as he outstretched his hands and sent the Knight of Ren flying off his feet.
In the sky above, TIE fighters continued to crash into each other, leaving no survivors. Dark clouds began to gather in the sky, thunder rumbling as lightning flashed over the field. Laying on his back, Kylo Ren struggled to get back to his feet but an unseen force kept him pinned to the ground. He could feel the dark side radiating from all around him, with the boy at its epicenter. It was as if the child was serving as a focal point for the dark side itself. Like a vergence in the Force.
Helpless to move, Kylo Ren, son of darkness, could only watch as the darkness itself tore the sky of Damosus asunder.
* * *
General Pryde wasn’t sure if Damosus was known for its storms. In any case, he could clearly see one brewing over the settlement of Roth’s Town, where Kylo Ren and his squadron of TIE fighters had departed to, and it was slowly spreading out to cover the city of Alon as well. As he watched the storm unfold from the bridge of the Steadfast, Pryde heard one of his officers inform him that all twelve fighters in Ren’s squadron had been destroyed. No word from Kylo Ren himself had been heard yet.
While Pryde’s heart would hardly break if Ren had perished, he also wasn’t keen on reporting his death to the Supreme Leader. After ordering for a rescue party to be sent after the Knight of Ren, Pryde turned on his heel and marched down the bridge, heading for his personal quarters. Once inside, he patched through a connection to the Supremacy — the heart of the First Order fleet — and dropped down onto one knee as the Supreme Leader’s hologram materialized in front of him.
“General Pryde.” Snoke spoke his name as if this call was a pleasant surprise for him. “How goes the occupation of the Ojoster sector?”
“We have successfully seized Damosus, Supreme Leader,” Pryde dutifully replied. “I have already sent out the rest of my forces to seize Taris and Pallaxides. The sector will be under our control in no time.”
“Excellent. I have already received similar reports from the Tion Cluster and Dominus sector, as well as Coruscant. Everything is proceeding as planned.” Snoke paused for a moment, his eyes narrowing. “And yet… I sense something… powerful. A disturbance in the Force, perhaps?”
Pryde stayed silent, keeping his expression blank. He did not pretend to understand the mysticism displayed by Snoke and Kylo Ren, though he supposed it was no different than Darth Vader and the Inquisitors employed by Emperor Palpatine back in the day. Somethings never changed, it seemed.
After a moment, Snoke then said, “Continue with operations, General Pryde. I have something else I must attend to.”
Pryde bowed his head. “As you wish, Supreme Leader,” he started to say, though the hologram had already dissipated before he could get the words out. Huffing to himself, Pryde rose to his feet and exited from his chamber, wondering how better off the galaxy would be without these blasted Force-users.
* * *
Light-years away, Kane Skywalker could sense the brewing storm as if it was happening here on Lothal.
He had felt this raw power only once before, from a man who had been dead for nearly twenty years. A part of him wondered if that man had every truly died and that he was merely waiting for the right moment to return. Perhaps now was that moment. Perhaps today was the day Kane Skywalker had long dreaded.
Standing in the center of the site where the Lothal Jedi Temple had once stood, the clone of the Chosen One looked in the direction of the capital city, where Toah Jarsan and his companions were headed. He knew that none of them — not even Toah — could fully comprehend what his purpose here was or why the Abednedo priest had entrusted him with the map. He could tell them — he would tell them, if they ever returned — but he did not expect them to understand or to fully grasp what was at stake.
Lowering himself to the ground and getting into a cross-legged position, Kane Skywalker closed his eyes and began to meditate.
A long night awaited them all.
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