Gnost-Dural was able to exploit this single flaw to his advantage, drawing both of his more skilled opponents in at the same time by dipping his right shoulder and letting his blade slip a fraction too far forward as he parried one of his third foe’s clumsy thrusts.
Both seized the chance to come at him hard, looking to exploit the perceived vulnerability, allowing Gnost-Dural to spin quickly away in the opposite direction. Suddenly bereft of their shared target, the two Sith were forced to pull back and abort their attacks to keep from getting tangled up with each other, momentarily leaving the apprentice at Gnost-Dural’s mercy.
He wasted no time in disposing of his lesser opponent. The apprentice blocked two overhand strikes, but then overreached when the Kel-Dor feinted a third, leaving himself vulnerable down low. The Jedi turned his wrist and spun to his left, reversing the direction of his blade too quickly for the apprentice to recover, and removed him from the battle with a deep slash across the midsection that nearly severed the young man in two.
The entire sequence had taken less than a second, but even so Gnost-Dural barely turned back in time to ward off the next wave of attacks from the two more dangerous warriors. Once again he fell into the precise, efficient moves of Soresu to battle them to a standstill. But he could already feel fatigue creeping in, the intensity of the combat wearing him down despite the sustaining power of the Force.
Theron worked furiously at the command console along the edge of the room, knowing his slicer spike wouldn’t last much longer before burning out. He’d overclocked to 150 percent capacity as he burrowed into the digital labyrinth, looking for a way to get inside Karrid’s invulnerable crystal sphere.
This was different from slicing the relays in the engine room. The console was linked directly to Karrid’s command pod, an emergency override her apprentices could use to get her out if something ever went wrong—say, if the vessel suffered major damage while she was at the controls, leaving her comatose and trapped inside the crystal sphere. But every time Theron tried to activate the emergency override, Karrid thwarted his efforts. She wasn’t three steps ahead of him this time; without the support of her meditating followers she had slowed down to Theron’s level. But she had home-field advantage; she knew the inner workings of her ship better than he ever would.
Theron kept trying, waging digital war with her, painfully aware that time was running out. Gnost-Dural couldn’t hold off her lightsaber-wielding bodyguards much longer; the security personnel in the hall were using a plasma torch to carve through the disabled door, and outside the Spear was picking off the Republic ships one by one.
He cursed as Karrid booted him from the system, forcing him to start all over.
“Shields down to ten percent,” the helmsman said as another volley slammed into the Aegis, causing it to buck and heave.
Jace knew they’d already taken heavy damage; the only reason the alarms weren’t blaring through the ship was because he’d diverted power from the emergency response systems to the deflectors. With their shields down to critical levels, one more hit was all it would take to finish them off.
“I’m sorry, Jace,” Satele said, emerging from the darkness to place a hand on his shoulder.
He reached up and covered her hand with his thick, callused fingers.
“At least we fought the good fight,” he replied, squeezing Satele’s hand as they braced for the end.
Theron realized what he was doing wrong. He was trying to gain control of the pod’s emergency override—basically trying to pull control of a vital system out of Karrid’s grasp. But he didn’t need to control the emergency override to trigger it.
Instead of trying to take control of the system, he flooded it with a rush of false data. Critical damage reports from all sectors of the vessel poured in, the catastrophic failure of the entire ship setting off the emergency evacuation alarms.
At the same time he heard a loud hiss as the airtight crystal sphere popped open. Darth Karrid was seated in a chair in the middle, surrounded by a writhing mass of loose, dangling wires that only seconds before had linked her to the ship.
The Falleen’s eyes went wide and she screamed as the connection was broken—a keening wail of loss and suffering. Seeing Theron, she rose from her seat, pulled her lightsaber, and slowly advanced on him with murder in her eyes.
“Status report!” Moff Lorman shouted as the evacuation alarms rang out on the bridge of the Ascendant Spear.
“Has to be a system malfunction, sir!” one of the crew said. “According to this, we’re all dead.”
“Darth Karrid has relinquished control of the vessel,” someone else informed him.
The Moff hesitated, knowing his next decision could forever alter the course of his career … and possibly cost him his life. Darth Karrid had never turned control of the Spear over to him during battle. Not once. If she was incapacitated, then he clearly needed to step in. But it was hard to imagine how something like that could have happened.
What if she hadn’t relinquished control? What if this was just another malfunction? Or some kind of ploy to trick the Republic? If he tried to take control of the ship against her wishes, she’d have him skinned alive.
“Sir? Do you want to take command?”
“No,” he said. “Not yet. Not until we know what’s going on.”
In the darkness that enveloped the bridge of the Aegis, every second spent waiting for the Spear’s final attack felt like an eternity. Satele had turned her hand on Jace’s shoulder so she could grip him more tightly—Jace felt her squeezing as hard as she could. He didn’t mind; at least in their final moments they had each other.
Several more eternities ticked by. Then Teff’ith said, “Not dead yet.”
No, Jace thought. But we should be. Unless …
“This is our chance! Transfer all power to the forward guns! All ships fire at will! Fire at will!”
As the Ascendant Spear heaved and shook under the relentless Republic assault, Moff Lorman realized the alarms ringing out were no longer due to a malfunction in the system. His reluctance to take command of the Spear had left it vulnerable, and the Republic fleet had seized the moment.
All around him people were shouting, relaying damage reports from all decks. He had no idea if Darth Karrid was still alive, but he wasn’t going to hesitate a second time.
“Abandon ship!” he shouted, thumbing the button to transmit his orders to the entire crew. “By order of Moff Lorman, abandon ship!”
Then he jumped from his chair and joined the rush of men and women racing from the bridge toward the nearest escape pods.
CHAPTER 33
IN ALL HER YEARS learning the ways of the dark side, Karrid had never felt a rage like this. The alarms pealing through the ship only added to her fury; to her they were like the cries of her own child. The worm crawling away from her in his underwear had caused this. The maggot had violated her ship, his intrusion corrupting the Spear. He had befouled Darth Mekhis’s perfect creation. He had torn her away from her second self, severing the bond that made her whole. For that, she wasn’t going to just kill him. She wasn’t even going to capture him and strap him to the interrogation machine. She was going to hack him apart piece by piece, listening to him scream and beg for mercy as she hewed off his limbs one by one before gutting him and leaving him writhing in agony on the floor.
Theron didn’t bother calling out to Gnost-Dural for help as Karrid slowly advanced on him; the Jedi already had his hands full. He didn’t try to reason with his assailant, either—he could see the madness in her eyes.
She threw her lightsaber and Theron rolled out of the way, grabbing his damaged blaster from where it rested on the floor beside him as he did so. The blade cleaved the control panel he’d used to slice into the Spear and force her from her pod, and he realized she hadn’t been aiming at him—she was just destroying the thing he’d used against her.
The lightsaber flew back to her hand and she turned to Theron, who was still lyi
ng on the floor. He raised his blaster and pointed it at her, a hollow gesture considering he couldn’t fire it again without causing the overloaded power pack to explode.
She took another step forward, raising her blade to hurl it again, and this time Theron knew he was going to be the target. Just as the blade was released from her hand, the entire ship was rocked, knocking Karrid off balance and disrupting her aim by a few precious centimeters. The deadly blade carved a furrow in the floor just beside Theron’s right hand.
The room shook again, and Theron heard the distant sound of an explosion, audible even over the clanging alarms. It was followed quickly by several more detonations, and the entire vessel began to shake and shudder as the Republic fleet rained fire down upon them. Karrid screamed and wheeled away from Theron, racing back to her command pod so she could retake control and save her precious ship. She threw herself into the seat, the dangling wires coming to life, their tips burrowing into the implants of her flesh.
Theron squeezed the trigger on his defective blaster. No bolts came out, but the power pack shrieked and squealed in protest. He hurled the blaster in Karrid’s direction. It landed short and skittered across the floor, sliding up against the base of her command chair as the two halves of the sphere snapped shut.
Even through the impervious crystal, the explosion was loud enough to make his ears ring. It was impossible to see through the opaque crystal to witness the gruesome carnage inside, but Theron didn’t necessarily think that was a bad thing. As much as he wanted to defeat Darth Karrid, he had no desire to see her splattered all over the command pod’s walls.
But though their Master was dead, her apprentices fought on.
Master Gnost-Dural saw Darth Karrid leave her pod and head toward Theron, but he wasn’t able to break away from his duel with the two Sith Lords. As fatigue had whittled away the Jedi’s speed and concentration, he had stopped being able to stand his ground. The relentless pressure of his opponents had slowly driven him backward until they had him against the wall.
Despite what was happening all around them, their battle had raged on unabated. With single-minded focus his enemies ignored the alarms as they began to ring out. The explosions that rocked the ship and made the entire room shake had given them no pause. But the blast from inside Karrid’s command pod was so near and so loud it actually snapped the attention of all three combatants away from their duel.
Over the loudspeaker a voice rose above the alarms, giving the order to abandon ship. Gnost-Dural knew the Imperial soldiers outside trying to cut through the door would heed the call, but he wasn’t so sure about the two Sith in the room.
“You can stay and finish me off as this ship crumbles around us,” the Kel Dor said, gasping for breath. “Or we can call this a draw and make a break for the escape pods.”
The pureblood raised his purple blades as if ready to continue the fight, but he quickly changed his mind when his partner turned and raced toward the exit. A powerful blast of the Force sent the jammed door panel hurtling out into the now empty hall beyond. A second later they were gone, disappearing down the hall.
Another explosion caused the Spear to start listing over to its side. The artificial gravity systems should have reacted and automatically recalibrated themselves. But the damage inflicted by the Republic fleet must have been too great, and suddenly Gnost-Dural found himself slipping down the tilted floor. He slid out the door and into the corridor, joined a second later by Theron. The Jedi Master used the Force to keep himself from slamming into the wall; the SIS agent wasn’t so lucky.
“I think we’ve overstayed our welcome,” Theron said.
“Lead the way,” the Jedi offered.
The ship slowly continued to tip, and soon the side wall served as their floor. They reached the turbolift without seeing any sign of the two Sith Lords, or any of the soldiers they had run into earlier.
“Looks like we’re the last ones at the party,” Theron said as the lift doors opened and they awkwardly crawled inside. “Better remember to turn out the lights.”
“I think the Republic is doing that for us,” the Jedi answered as another series of explosions capsized the Spear completely and the turbolift shuddered to a halt.
From on board the bridge of the Aegis, Jace watched the mass exodus of nearly a thousand escape pods as the Imperials fled the Ascendant Spear. By his order, the fleet was still firing on Karrid’s ship. He thought about calling off the assault; he had no idea if his son—and Master Gnost-Dural—were still aboard. But the risk of a final retaliation, even as the vessel lay dying, was too great. As Supreme Commander of the Republic forces, he couldn’t jeopardize the lives of everyone aboard the ships under his command for the sake of a single person—not even his own son.
He tried to reassure himself by arguing that he didn’t actually have any proof Theron had been on the ship during the battle, but given everything that had taken place it was likely. Hopefully he had some way of getting off alive, though from what he knew of his son, not having a pre-planned evacuation strategy wouldn’t have stopped him.
The escape pods continued to deploy, shooting off in a hundred different directions. It would be impossible to track them all down … though it wouldn’t be hard to turn the guns of the fleet against them and wipe virtually all of them out.
“Just letting them all go?” Teff’ith asked.
“What do you care?” Jace snapped.
“Don’t,” the Twi’lek said with a shrug. “Just surprised. Thought you hated Imps.”
Lacking hyperdrives, the range of the pods was limited; most would end up landing on Duro’s orbital cities, where authorities would take them into custody. Some would head in the opposite direction, trying to make it to the system’s less populated worlds. There they would hole up, relying on the transponders to lead an Imperial recovery team to their location for rescue, but the number who would actually make it back to the Empire was minimal.
Besides, Jace thought, Theron might be on one of them.
He glanced over at Satele and saw that her eyes were staring off into the distance at nothing in particular. He recognized the look; she was reaching out with the Force to try to find Theron and Gnost-Dural.
“Are they out there?”
“I don’t know,” she said at last, bowing her head in defeat. “The dark side energies of the Spear make it difficult to see. Perhaps if we had a special bond …” She trailed off.
“Don’t worry,” Teff’ith said. “Theron’s tough. Just better remember to pay us when it’s over.”
Despite her seemingly cavalier attitude, even Jace could tell she was as troubled as the rest of them.
Theron had left his slicer spike behind in the control console of Karrid’s inner sanctum; at the time retrieving it had taken a backseat to avoiding getting chopped in half by her flying lightsaber. Without it, however, he was unable to slice into the turbolift to try to restart it. Forced to rely on cruder methods, he kicked the wall twice and a deep groan came up from the shaft below—or maybe now it was above. Slowly, the lift started moving again.
“I’m surprised that worked,” the Jedi remarked.
“Me and this ship have a bit of a history now,” Theron said with a wink.
When they reached D Deck the lift doors opened several centimeters, then stopped. Theron kicked the wall again, but nothing happened.
“Can you, uh, you know?” Theron asked his companion, twiddling his fingers in the air.
“Using the Force is more taxing than you think,” the Jedi told him. “Grab on.” Gnost-Dural took hold of the edge of one of the doors, Theron the other. Grunting and straining, they managed to make enough room to squeeze through. The corridor beyond was dark—even the emergency lighting had failed. As they climbed out onto the floor—what had been the ceiling before the Spear capsized—the Jedi ignited his green blade to light their way. The ship shuddered again, and they heard a deep boom—distinctly different from the sound of the explosions caused by the Repub
lic bombardment.
“Engine room,” Theron said. “Cooling systems must have shut down.”
He knew Gnost-Dural didn’t need him to explain what would happen when the hypermatter containment unit overheated—the resulting explosion would vaporize the entire ship. Scrambling down the hall, they reached the escape pod bays.
“Empty,” Theron muttered as they passed the first bay. “Empty. Empty. Empty. Ah—there it is!
“Karrid’s private escape pod,” Theron said with a smile. “Figured nobody would be dumb enough to grab it.”
They piled in as the ship began to shake even more violently than before. Theron slammed the button to seal the pod doors and Gnost-Dural punched the controls to jettison them out into space.
Theron looked back at the dying Spear through the rear viewport as they floated away. The ship erupted in a fireworks display of explosions, each one seemingly brighter and larger than the last. And then the vessel was consumed in a brilliant white flash, punctuated by the rapidly expanding ring of glowing energy that characterized a massive hypermatter explosion.
An oppressive silence hovered over the bridge of the Aegis. The sound of fingers tapping at control consoles and the soft electronic beeps from the workstations only emphasized the complete lack of conversation.
It’s been too long, Jace thought. Nobody on board could have survived that last explosion.
He glanced over at Satele, but she didn’t return his gaze. She was standing with her eyes closed and her hands clasped in front of her chest. Jace had no way of knowing if she was still trying to use the Force to find Theron, or if she was just trying to hold herself together.
“Signal coming in from one of the escape pods, sir!”
The crewman’s voice shattered the silence. Startled, Jace let out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding.