Chapter 11 - The Force Unleashed (1/2)

Part 1

Great Hall, Jedi Temple, Coruscant

I stalked towards Ventress and her Dark Jedi friend. The latter, a masked woman raised her lightsaber in an overhead grip and charged me. I pointed my left hand in her direction and unleashed a wave of lightning that she caught on her blade but was forced to stop by the intensity of the attack. My eyes never left Asajj's face, who looked at me with apprehension. She summoned another lightsaber to her left hand from the blackened corpse of the man I fried and prepared to face me with her two weapons. Her spine stiffened and I could see determination shining in her dark eyes. I smiled thinly.

”So you do have spine then. Splendid.”

I ceased my lightning ȧssault at the masked woman and sent a nearby piece of shuttle's wing flying her way. Behind me, the clones were deploying and opening fire on the remaining droids. The weapon pods mounted on the gunships were making mincemeat of any concentration of enemy forces that was sufficient distance from the Jedi fighting in the hall.

The woman jumped over the smoldering piece of metal that flew her way just as I expected her to do. She was slammed backwards by a telekinetic wave that I sent at her. She flew back, and bounced off one of the columns lining the Great Hall.

I returned my attention to Ventress, who was running at me with raised swords. I faced her with blood-lust roaring through my veins. The Dark side was whispering to me that my enemies were at my mercy and I should take exquisite joy in destroying them. For once I agreed with its seductive suggestions.

I called to my empty left hand the lightsaber of the fallen Mon Calamari Jedi, the plain hilt rising from the ground and floating to my open palm. I think that the kid would have approved that his weapon be used one last time against those who slew him.

The azure blade, the color of vɨrġɨn sea, came to life and I pointed it at the heart of Ventress, who was nearly upon me. My crimson lightsaber battered aside the sword in her left hand and the Jedi's weapon I held parried a diagonal slash aimed at my heart. In the first moments of our battle Asajj's torso was left wide open. I grasped the opportunity and I kicked her with my right leg like a battering ram. The sole of my foot connected with her midriff. My kick knocked the air out of her lungs sending her tumbling through the air.

I absentmindedly slashed behind me with the Jedi blade and deflected a scarlet lightsaber thrown at my back. The masked woman was back in the fight and she too had acquired additional weaponry. The Dark Jedi's own lightsaber was in her right hand but her left was gripping one of the saber-staffs of the fallen Temple Guards.

While she was sprinting my way she ignited the three blades. Her dark cloak and gray armor were illuminated by crimson and emerald glow.

The masked woman attacked me with sweeping strikes which I either parried or sidestepped. It was almost easy. The way she was wielding her weapons was awkward. She had let herself fall under the influence of the Dark side. While her attacks were powerful, they were erratic, lacking precision. If I paid attention I could dance around her the whole day without receiving a scratch.

I was not in the Temple for dodge training, though. The strength behind my strikes increased as I stopped testing her technique, which was lacking and not only because she was letting her anger blind her. I started cursing Darth Bane and Darth Sidious in Huttese. Properly trained, the woman I was facing would have been something to watch. As she was now, a mere initiate in Korriban's academy could fight with her and prevail. Despite her strength in the Force.

Both Jedi and the so-called Sith of this age were soft. Weak. However, there was hope yet for them. The war was young. There would be enough time for the survivors of both sides to be tempered and reforged. The flames of the Clone Wars would see to that, and if I had anything to say about it, neither the Jedi Order or the Sith would continue to exist as the corrupted abominations they were in this day and age.

I was advancing against the masked woman. My weapons were stabbing closer and closer to her body while she was desperately trying to interpose her blades between my attacks and herself. I rotated to the left, avoiding a clumsy counter-attack and used my momentum to batter aside her single hilt lightsaber. She stumbled to the side under the force of my attack and I twisted around once again and crouched under a weapon thrown by Ventress as she returned to the fight.

My left leg swung parallel to the ground and struck the masked woman in the back of the knees, sending her tumbling to the ground. I ”aided” it with a telekinetic push thanks to which she was thrown away, bouncing off the floor.

I felt Ahsoka's distress through our bond and threw the Mon Calamari's saber her way. I acted on instinct, not even realizing what I did before the azure blade was spinning through the air. A damaged Magna Guard had made its way to the still paralyzed kid and was about to crush her skull with its force staff. Nahdar's blade flew true and was buried into the machine's torso, held in place by my will. I tugged at its hilt with the Force and the saber moved erratically slicing the droid to pieces. I could feel Ahsoka's relief and gratitude. I gave her a small nod.

Ventress used that minor distraction to cross the distance separating us and attack. If she expected to surprise me, the woman was delusional. Her Dark presence was like a delicious morsel to my senses. Our blades clashed with the unique sound of touching lightsabers and I locked our weapons together. A deft twist of my wrist was all I needed to push her saber to my right. My left fist darted through the air and struck her right cheek. I felt bone snapping under the impact of my armor-clad hand.

The hit staggered her and I repeated it again and again, turning that side of her face into a bloody mess. A short and non-lethal lightning bolt later she was convulsing on the ground.

”You know, the definition of madness is doing the same thing again and again, expecting different results.” I quipped at the Dark Jedi attacking me.

She used telekinesis to send the remains of a few droids at me as a distraction and darted behind the scrap metal, with her lightsaber leading the way. I banished the metal pieces at the ceiling and rotated around her weapon which was trying to skewer me. At the end of my spin I stabbed at the back of the woman who was passing by me. My crimson blade entered her back and exploded through the armor over her ċhėst.

The masked woman stumbled a few steps forward and fell to her knees.

I did not expect to hear her rasping laughter. She used her left hand to remove her mask and turned her face towards me.

”You were deceived.” There was a smile on her disfigured face. Its right side was a sculpture presenting perfect features which could be the envy of any woman. But its left was deformed, with the eye mostly hidden by a drooping flesh. ”Ah, I see you've figured it out,” she chuckled. ”this was not as badly planned as you might think...” the words of the Chiss woman were lost to a fit of coughing.

”A clone. You are only days old.” I declared, examining the creature carefully through the Force.

If I had met the original or if there were two copies of the same type in the Temple I might have sensed the deception earlier. As it was there was nothing to tip me off besides her bad training, yet she was too powerful for a mere clone with no time to be trained. How?

My eyes widened. I remembered a game I played back on my Earth. It felt ages ago.

”The Valley of the Jedi.” I declared.

My attention snapped back to the dying clone of the Chiss woman. I could feel Ventress' confusion. She was on the ground a few meters behind me and was starring at the clone.

”Well played.” I congratulated the soon to be corpse.

She gave me a stiff nod.

”I have no regrets...” she coughed again. ”At least my death has meaning.”

”On the contrary child,” I shook my head. I definitely did not mean 'Well, done! You've thrown your life so now you can have a biscuit as a reward.'. ”Your masters saw that their pawns stood no chance against me, and found a way to address the issue of their incompetence. After all is said and done quantity does have its own quality.”

Behind me Ventress attempted one last ”surprise” attack. Foolish girl.

I ducked under one of her sabers and parried the second. Our eyes met. I grabbed her left wrist before she could attack me again with the lightsaber in that hand. I drew power from the Dark side to summon a lightning in the palm of my left hand. The same one holding Asajj's arm.

The Dark Jedi shrieked as energies born from the Dark side itself coursed through her body, lighting her nerves on fire. Her shouts were cut short when I buried my blade deep into her ċhėst. Our eyes met and I saw the spark of life leaving her. Then something unexpected happened. I could feel a bit of power flowing from her corpse into me as the Force in her body started dissipating.

I shook my head. That was something to think about later. I released my hold on the remains of what until a moment ago has been Asajj Ventress slide to the ground in a boneless heap and returned my attention to the dying clone.

As the Chiss woman was weakening so did the stasis field surrounded Ahsoka. The kid finally managed to cut through her bindings and stumbled to her feet.

”Thank you, Delkatar.” she mumbled with a sad smile and ran to the other wounded padawan who had been lying abandoned on the ground.

”Always, kid,” I smirked at her and returned my full attention to the dying woman in front of me. ”Such a waste,” I muttered to her. ”Is this what you truly dėsɨrė, child? To throw away your life before you had a chance to experience it?”

Inside I seethed with fury. What the Republic was doing with its clone army was bad enough. The Force cursed Separatists and that prick Sidious had gone a step further. This woman was a slave sent to die as a damn test! And she did not even know it! That was something that I wouldn't permit.

”Look at me!” I ordered.

Her hooded eyes met mine. She was weakening fast.

”Tell me what do you wish. Not what you were told that you want. But what...” I poked her in the ċhėst near the wound I carved in her torso causing her to wince. ”you dėsɨrė for yourself!”

I stared in her eyes. Through the Force, I could sense the rough conditioning which was used to give her the minimum knowledge needed to accomplish this sick test. The same incompetent butcher had carved a geas in her mind, convincing her that dying to accomplish her mission was all she could ever look up to. Whoever did that had just won a special fate when I got my hand on the bastard.

Now she got my undivided attention. With no real training or experience to speak of she had fought splendidly against the Jedi. That was something I had seen through Ahsoka's eyes. Her crude attacks were not a sloppy form or because of a lack of talent. On the contrary, during her battles she had drawn instinctive knowledge from the Force about the fundamentals of lightsaber combat. It was a rare talent that I had not seen in a very long time.

”Oh. What did you do?” she pouted like a little girl.

”Set you free, little bird. Now answer me. What do you wish?”

She looked at me with confusion. To be fair, it was a kind of a stupid question. She did not know enough about anything to know. Yet her answer was more than good enough.

”To live.” she whispered, amidst a fit of coughing. The days-old woman fixed my eyes with a determined stare. ”To win.” Despite being on her knees and my fingers holding her chin, she gave a small nod towards the lightsaber in my right hand which was pocking her painfully in the ċhėst.

I smiled at her proudly.

”You'll do.”

I let the hilt of my saber slip from my fingers and clatter to the marble floor. I gathered the Force to me and used the emotions raging within my heart to demand its cooperation. I subjugated the Dark side to my will, gathering its energies in my right hand. The power of the Light side flowed to my left palm. I placed both hands on the ċhėst of the expiring woman. Her mouth opened in a wordless ”O” and her eyes widened when the unleashed power of the Force blazed into her body.

I could sense the Jedi gathering around us and felt their eyes upon me. Ahsoka was shouting something but I could not afford to listen. I was literally holding the life of this woman in my arms. What little was left of her life force was gripped in my metaphysical fingers and held in place only by my will.

I opened myself fully to the Force, becoming a conduit for the energies I was manipulating. Light and shadow danced around us. Through us. I could see the wound I had dealt to the woman, and see that even without it she had only weeks to live. Whatever process was used to clone her original who was undoubtedly one of the Dark Jedi in service of Sidious or Dooku – was far from perfect.

”I will not let you die! I won't fail again!” I did not know that I shouted those words loud enough to shake the Great Hall.

The poisonous touch of the Dark side flowed like acid through the woman's veins, burning away strands of corrupted DNA. Right behind it, I poured copious amounts of Light side energy, modulating it in such a way to rejuvenate dying flesh and rebuild the basic code of life.

The hole in her ċhėst was sealed shut by newly formed healthy flesh. Her heartbeat became steadier and stronger, while my own heart was hammering within my brėȧst trying to jump out. I panted with the exertion of using so much power.

I was by no means finished but a warning I could not ignore was delivered through the Force. I quickly scaled down the energies I was channelling and looked around.

The battle was over. I was surrounded by the majority of the clones who survived the skirmish. My men were tense. They were gripping their weapons and I realized they were ready to aim and open fire. I wondered what had them on edge until I noticed the shouting. Yoda and Windu were arguing while Ahsoka was yelling at the Vaapad master.

In a loose semicircle around my troopers were scores of Jedi – both padawans and knights. Some were looking at the arguing masters but many more were starring at me.

I extended my senses beyond the woman I was busy tending. She was by no means alright but at least she was no longer in danger of dying any time soon. I had stabilized her DNA enough that she could sustain her own life using the Force. For more, she needed to see a specialist who could devise a therapy to clean up the rest of the mess. With my limited knowledge it was a small miracle that I was able to help her as much as I did.

I stiffened when I felt the emotions of the Jedi surrounding us. A small but still significant number were in awe by my performance. But most of them were afraid. Those people were giving me wary looks. I could feel it. They wondered how big a threat I was.

That was what Windu was arguing about. He was citing some kind of ancient law according to which the Jedi Order had jurisdiction over all Force sėnsɨtɨvės in the Republic. Which included me too.

I was a threat that could not be ignored, wasn't I? Damn Jedi!

=RK=

Part 2

East Ball room, Senate Building, Coruscant

Anakin was looking glumly around the big room. He was confident that if the worst happened he would be able to get Padme out of this deathtrap in one piece. The same could not be said about the rest of the senators and their staff. Many of those people were his wife's friends so he was reluctant to leave them to their fate, even if he was not a Jedi.

Truth to be told he had a lot of options, in theory. What he'll be able to pull off while saving most of the hostages was different matter. He could use telekinesis to dealt with most of the droids and mercenaries, temporally, but such an act was likely to set off the charges around the room. It would be very easy for one of the enemies hurled by such an attack to cross one of the laser beams keeping the hostages secure. After what happened on Master Secura's flagship not too long ago, Anakin was convinced that he wouldn't be able to use the Force to erect a force field around himself and the senators to protect them from the explosions. At best he'll be able to save few people. At worst, even with the Force raging through him, now that he used his emotions to fuel its power, they all would be turned into pieces.

Skywalker thought about trying to use what most people called the ”Mind Trick” to influence Bane but disregarded that idea almost immediately. Such a thing worked only on the weak willed and the bounty hunter was anything but. Failing in such an attempt was guaranteed to get people killed.

If he had his lightsaber he could have cut through the floor, provided there were not so many prying eyes... But that idea was not entirely without merit. He could use the Force to do it. It would not be fast but he might be able to weaken the thick metal enough, without being noticed, so one massive strike could cave it in. At least some of the senators had a good chance of getting away. Yet, if he messed up, he could shake the room and blow them all up to the stratosphere.

It all came back to the kriffing bombs! If they weren't there...

Anakin perked up at that thought and looked at the charges. He did not know how much explosive was in there or what kind. But he could see only the laser tripwires. He closed his eyes and concentrated on one of the charges. It took him more than a few minutes to make head from tails of what he was sensing, and then, Skywalker, had to suppress a grin. There was a built in receiver but no transmitter. The bombs were not linked by comms to detonate if one of them was tampered with. If they were, his plan would have gone down in flames. Anakin admitted there was no way he would be able to disarm all the charges at the same time. By the Force, he would only be able to work on two or three at the same time, at best, and there were nearly eighty of the things!

He concentrated on one of the charges with intangible fingers, and traced its internal mechanisms with the Force. Skywalker needed to sabotage the bomb in such a way that the enemy would remain unaware. It was a conventional explosive device. Which meant that there was a detonator in the compound that was meant to be blown up. After a minute of careful probing his ”fingers” found it. Then a second and a third. Whoever built the thing was a firm believer in redundancy.

With great care, Skywalker traced the wires that connected the detonators to separate power sources and thought about the best way to disable the device. It took him minutes of painstaking work to ensure that the bomb thought it was still armed and ready to go off. However there would be no energy racing to the detonators. The charge was little more than expensive wall ornamentation now.

One down. Too many left to deal with. Anakin hoped that the damn bounty hunter didn't decide to shoot more senators before he had disarmed most of the charges.

Minutes later he had dealt with four more bombs when he sensed a disturbance in the Force. Anakin paled, and his head snapped to where he was hearing the death cries of Jedi! It was the Temple!

Bane noticed his reaction and chuckled.

”So the rumors are true. You Jedi can feel it when a number of your kind dies,” the bounty hunter nodded to himself as if this was just a confirmation to something he knew.

”What have you done?!” growled Anakin.

”Me? Nothing besides what you see around you. Tell me, Jedi, do I look like a fool?! We always knew you wouldn't release Dooku, so steps were taken to release the good Count. The CIS wants him back.”

Skywalker stared at the mercenary's eyes and shivered. He was mistaken about the aim of the attacks. He could see it in the man's eyes. Bane had no intention of letting any of them go. Oh, Anakin knew that rescuing Dooku and Grievous were high on the Seps priorities, but in the end it was a secondary goal. Skywalker was a Republic general so he was painfully familiar with the strategic situation. The CIS held all the cards because GAR needed at least six more months to be truly ready for a war of this scale. Naturally, their enemies were not inclined to give them the needed time.

The nightmare on Naboo was siphoning precious naval units for the blockade. With the consequences of the attack on Coruscant, the Republic was in even worse situation. If the bastards managed to kill enough senators, the army was likely to be paralyzed while the remaining politicians scrambled to organize. If the political crisis became bad enough, the CIS could force peace on their own terms. A devastated senate was unlikely to be able to resist. At least not with the GAR put on the defense upon all fronts as it was at the moment.

Either that, or the Chancellor would be forced to take even more power to clean up the mess. However, in doing so Palpatine may damage the Republic beyond repair, the Republic he had been frantically trying to save ever since he became Chancellor.

Anakin glared at the bounty hunter but declined to reply. He closed his eyes and sat down as if he were meditating. He disregarded the muttering of the senators, and concentrated on the next bomb. He was quickly running out of time. Skywalker gritted his teeth as he felt another Jedi die, and continued to disarm the charges.

He was up to number fifteen when his concentration was shattered, almost detonating the explosive by accident. Skywalker could feel Ahsoka fighting for her life, and loosing. It was very hard for him to suppress the instincts screaming at him to run to the Temple and help his padawan.

Anakin shuddered when he felt every one of her close calls. When she was caught is some kind of strange stasis field, he was ready to jump through the air. If it was not for all the people around him, counting on him to protect them, Skywalker would have been halfway to the Temple by now.

His body shook with impotent fury when he felt Ahsoka's despair. Anakin could almost see the blade descending towards his helpless padawan. Then everything changed. A wave of Dark side energies exploded from the location of the Jedi Temple and drowned everything else with its oppressive miasma.

The last thing he could clearly sense from Ahsoka was relief. Anakin smiled in a way that looked just wrong on the face of any Jedi.

Anakin knew the source of that Dark power. He had wondered why Veil had not tried to save the hostages and him, but now he knew. His fellow general had gone to the Temple, and was unleashing a fury that matched the emotions within his own heart.

Skywalker just hoped that the rest of the Jedi would not overreact about Delkatar. He smirked and returned to dealing with the bombs.

Padme was looking at him in a way that demanded answers, he soundlessly mouthed ”later,” and then returned his attention to the delicate work of disarming the bombs without using his physical limbs.

=RK=