The soft hiss of a door opening.
And Mara Jade appeared on the threshold of my apartments.
The conversation with Agent Inek had completely driven from my mind the report that she had docked with the Guardian shortly before our departure.
Contemplating the situation in Allied Tion had shifted my focus from the upcoming conversation with the Hand to more global matters.
"Grand Admiral," she said softly. "I… would like to confess."
It never gets easier.
"I am listening," I replied, closing the holograms of art pieces from the peoples inhabiting the Tion Cluster.
"My message about you being in danger," the girl, like a straight-A student caught smoking in the restroom, modestly lowered her eyes. "Basically, I felt in the Force that something linking us was under threat…"
"Linking us"…
And what would that be?
"Your service is not under threat," I replied.
The girl slowly, like a heavy tank rotating its turret, shifted her head to look me straight in the eyes.
A certain unpleasant gleam appeared in them.
"Glad to hear it," she said.
Almost word by word.
I didn't like the pauses between the components of that short sentence.
"As am I," a slight nod toward the sofa. "Have a seat. There is another assignment for you."
"Of course," she said in an emotionless tone, sinking onto the sofa. "I am always happy to receive your orders, Grand Admiral."
There was a strange inflection in her voice.
Unfamiliar.
Very.
Not.
Standard.
And I didn't like it.
Ensuring that Rukh was habitually hidden in the shadows behind the sofa where the Hand was seated, and the ysalamir was blissfully stretched out in its cage a couple of meters from the sitting area, I relaxed somewhat.
I sat down on the sofa opposite her.
And looked the girl straight in the eyes.
"The assignment can wait. I want to hear the real reason you flew here, abandoning your plans." A slight, almost imperceptible narrowing of emerald eyes.
I had never noticed that in her before.
Never.
"R7," I called my astromech. "Arrange for caf and something sweet for Lady Jade."
The former R2-D2 beeped affirmatively and rolled toward the kitchen, the food dispenser, and the caf-maker.
The girl bit her lower lip slightly, looking me straight in the eyes.
In the days of my youth, that action was an unambiguous hint at…
Taking a deep breath, I looked down and ran a hand over my face in hopes of relieving the tension.
It didn't help.
I looked at Mara again.
The lip-biting became more pronounced.
There could be no mistake here.
By the stars, women, what is wrong with you?!
***
The Inquisitor threw stormtroopers and infantry into the attack first.
The Mon Calamari didn't seem to react to the enemy's actions at all, not even moving from his spot.
It seemed as though he was lost among the multitude of foes…
But that was not so.
The white-blue blade came alive, turning into a blurred smudge that began to rotate with mind-boggling speed, destroying any opponents near him.
The small-arms combat tactics taught in the Alignment—gradually closing with the enemy while maintaining suppressive fire—were playing a cruel joke now.
Alignment soldiers approached first one by one—an endless stream—warrior after warrior replacing one another from different directions to confuse the target, draw his attention, and strike from close range at points unprotected by armor.
But it brought no success.
The Inquisitor couldn't stand it—his nerves frayed.
Alignment soldiers opened fire with everything they had.
All.
At once.
By the time they began attacking in larger groups, they had to climb over the bodies of their dead comrades to reach Bre'ano Umakk.
A mountain of corpses.
A mountain that became a wall, then a rampart.
The Jensaarai Master was building a fortress of dead bodies around himself.
He did not stand still.
He circled as if in a dance of death, appearing now in one place, now in another corner of the Entrance Hall.
The dusty room could have explained the reason for the unending amount of agonizing gasps and screams on the command frequency.
But there was no excuse for it.
Stormtrooper armor possessed enough vision spectra to find an enemy in darkness and dust…
They were simply weak.
From a safe distance—hidden behind a mangled sheet of durasteel that had once been a gate—the Inquisitor watched the battle with involuntary admiration.
All that could be seen in the smoke and behind the backs of the warriors rushing forward to distract the mad Jedi were flashing blue sparks, occasionally illuminating the Jensaarai himself, who leaped and spun—always in motion, in an endless attack, breaking and crushing, littering the floor of the Entrance Hall with corpses and severed limbs.
"This is madness!" a young man in infantry armor—the commander of the Alignment infantry—appeared before the Inquisitor. "Can't we just blow him up? Gas him? Something like that?"
"No," the Inquisitor admired his old teacher against his will. "He must die by my hand."
"Then go and kill him!" the infantry commander roared. "I've lost a company in a minute!"
With a hiss and a characteristic hum, a crimson lightblade severed the pointless head of the useless man.
"And your life in a second," the Inquisitor found the pun on his subordinate amusing.
What did he care how many of them died?
One, two, a squad, a company, a battalion?
An entire legion, if need be.
If it weakened an opponent who had unexpectedly become so strong and powerful, it was worth it.
And it didn't matter how many soldiers died.
They were all expendable material that should serve only their masters.
They lived to satisfy their masters' desires and ambitions.
The rest—he didn't give a damn about.
***
Life not only presents surprises, but can itself be presented as a surprise.
Seeing the Mon Calamari in the far part of the Entrance Hall, destroying the enemy, Jehane suddenly realized that all the foes had retreated, throwing themselves at the Jensaarai.
"We're alive!" he shouted, rushing forward and grabbing a pouch of power cells and gas cartridges.
Afar, realizing exactly the same thing, rushed after him.
Diving behind another piece of cover, the partners shared the weapon wealth between them.
Weapons reloaded and ready for battle.
But judging by the fact that the Mon Calamari alone was killing dozens of fighters every second, and unit commanders were screaming in unison for help, calling for new units, begging for every free force to be thrown here, Bre'ano Umakk was doing quite well on his own with the extermination of the enemy.
"Remind me never to joke about him again," Afar muttered, firing his carbine at the nearest enemy soldier.
Yes, the Jensaarai was strong, but help wouldn't hurt him.
"Wait, did you ever say anything funny about him?" Jehane inquired, destroying a squad of grenadiers intending to blow up the Mon Calamari from behind with repeater fire.
"Not out loud, of course," the Zygerrian justified himself, picking off another. "I'm not suicidal. Look!"
Large pieces of construction materials began to rise into the air, swirling around the gifted one in a local tornado.
Providing him protection.
From everything.
"Is it normal that I'm scared?" Jehane asked quietly.
"If we get out of here alive—I'm getting drunk," his partner promised. "I've never seen a mess like this!"
No, this wasn't a fight.
Not a battle.
This was total annihilation.
And Jehane was incredibly glad he was on the right side.
There was no cowardice in that.
Just a healthy sense of self-preservation.
***
The enemy was losing fighters faster than fresh reinforcements could be brought up.
Because of the blocked entrance to the Temple, stormtroopers and infantry couldn't march in in a tight formation.
They were forced to break inside in small groups through narrow cracks between walls and vehicle hulls, through holes in ceilings and centuries-old vaults.
They attacked from everywhere.
But Bre'ano Umakk didn't notice it.
His attention was entirely fixed on the void in his chest.
That void rang with anger, hostility, and greedy triumph: the emotions of a former apprentice who had his former mentor caught in the tentacles of a trap.
The Mon Calamari felt no hostility or anger toward him.
To him, he represented nothing more than an enemy.
He no longer perceived him as his failure.
He was just a former friend who had been trusted and who had betrayed that trust.
And now the former apprentice had flown here to destroy his former mentor.
Every killing by Sith and their followers is perceived as a moment of triumph.
As confirmation of their strength, their power, the correctness of their chosen path, and the steadfastness of their philosophy.
They kill children, women, civilians, and soldiers with equal indifference—any crime is justified by faith in the Dark Side, which supposedly demands more sacrifices.
All of that is incorrect.
A tool cannot demand anything.
It possesses no mind.
It possesses no desires.
What sentients pass off as the needs and sacrifices in the name of the Dark Side of the Force are actually nothing more than their psychological needs.
Certain steps that must be taken to overcome one's internal standards and worldviews.
No one is born evil or good.
No one is born a saint or a villain.
It is all the result of a lived portion of life, communication with sentients, the results of victories and mistakes on one's life path.
Sith don't renounce loved ones and kill them for no reason.
They cut off their way back.
They strive to break all ties with their past.
Because they are ashamed of who they were before.
Before they gained their own power.
Like a child who fears a thrashing at home for a bad grade, they look for ways to purge from their memory everything and everyone who might remind them of the past.
It is all wrong.
You must not forget who you were before you achieved something.
You must not lose touch with reality.
Jedi took children at a young age, depriving them of maternal love and parental care.
Grown Jedi didn't know what a father's upbringing was, didn't know that someone could comfort them when they felt grief.
Sith… act almost the same way.
With the only exception that…
What exceptions are there?
Both teachings raise their followers so that they don't know and don't want to know anything about their past, family, the life they had before training began.
They are all the same.
No one is right.
The truth is somewhere between these calcified dogmas.
Bre'ano Umakk did not delude himself with the thought that the providence revealed to him was the ultimate truth.
There is no end to self-discovery.
There is only a lifelong path.
Overcoming failures, making mistakes, striving to care about something more than food on the table and water from the tap.
To live and strive, rather than exist, one needs a dream.
An idea.
Something more than simple truths and comfort.
The Force and the real world are inseparable.
Otherwise, the Force simply could not affect reality, and all the abilities of the gifted would be limited to non-material techniques.
But everything is otherwise.
Everything will be different.
The Mon Calamari smiled, understanding that he was fighting for a righteous cause.
The cause of his life.
He didn't regret in the least that he had learned this at such a moment.
Better late than never.
But understanding must come before irreparable mistakes are made.
Bre'ano destroyed opponents one by one.
From the void in his chest, he poured out compassion for the deaths he caused, reflecting in the Force as a continuous echo.
He radiated absolute empathy.
Perfect understanding.
He accepted the pain he caused by his actions; and shared the pain he inflicted.
He shared with those he killed every memory of life's many colors: the inexpressible whiteness of suffering, the red tide of rage, the black hole of despair, the blinding radiation of irreparable loss…
And the belief in his own rightness.
He understood and recognized the necessity of the actions of each side.
And was firmly convinced that it was impossible to act otherwise.
It was not just a struggle of blasters and a lightsaber.
It was a struggle of ideas.
The idea of giving a second chance to bring something new, good, light, WORTHY into the galaxy.
Against the blind faith in the necessity of eradicating dissent.
He did not hide—even though the enemy was incapable of understanding it—how much he loved it all, for all these phenomena are one: pain and joy, parting and reunion, life and death.
To love something means to love everything at once, for not one thing, not one emotion, not one thought in the galaxy can exist on its own, but only along with all the others.
The all-encompassing universe.
The Force.
All in one.
He knew that among the non-Force-sensitive opponents striving to kill him, there was still one who would understand.
Maybe.
Or maybe not.
That was his right.
His will—to act as he saw fit.
His freedom.
Which could not be limited.
But only as long as one sentient's freedom did not mean the infringement of another's freedom.
He projected his thoughts into the Force, hoping they would reach their recipient, that they would be perceived and understood.
He drew the Force from the depths of the Temple itself.
He swallowed it in gulps of purest energy, which like a drink of spring water, refreshed him and gave him new strength to fight.
He absorbed the pain and suffering, the joys and achievements that had occurred in this Temple over the thousands of years of its existence.
He used all this as fuel for his message into the Force.
He felt a return call in the Force.
He understood that his message had reached the minds of brothers and sisters of the Jedi Order hiding in various corners of the galaxy.
They were confused, angry, worried, frightened, interested…
Different views, different worldviews, different degrees of understanding of his messages and intentions.
But he had been heard.
Now only one small thing remained.
To offer a sacrifice and prove that a new view of the Force was worth fighting for.
Bre'ano Umakk did not fear this.
He understood and accepted the necessity of the step he alone had to take.
And he smiled.
Perhaps it was some sophisticated joke of the universe—to be blind all one's life, only to know the truth at the end of the road.
Perhaps this was the very test he had prepared for his entire life.
Yes.
Undoubtedly.
That was it.
Bre'ano Umakk smiled.
He was ready for the final test.
And so, crushing enemy soldiers, he began to move toward his opponent, who waited impatiently for the former teacher to tire and become an easy target.
***
A strike with the lightblade against an energy staff, an invisible loop lashing with destructive energy against the skin between the thumb and index finger of a stormtrooper who stood out from his brethren.
He was armed and trained for combat with a Jedi.
But it didn't save him.
He died before he saw the white-blue blade rapidly approaching him.
A whirlwind of a tightly wound somersault over the heads of two warriors fighting side-by-side… and their helpless fall as the lightsaber with one strike severed the bases of their necks and cut off limbs…
The astonished blinking of the eyes of yet another Alignment warrior as the energy point plunged into his open mouth, burning through the hard palate to the very bones of the skull…
In these brief flashes—the death Bre'ano Umakk brought to his opponents…
the sharp smell of burnt milk with metallic additives—that was the smell of human blood coagulating from the heat of the blade… a fringe of burning ice—strips of his flesh, cut by blaster shots…
The cold flame of controlled anger, poisoning the consciousness…
These were only weak interference in the symphony of the Force being performed by the Jensaarai Master.
The Force not only supported him, not only lifted and carried him away: the Force flowed into his veins so his heart beat in one rhythm with the rhythm of the surrounding universe.
He became the Force, and the Force became him.
He was unaware of the inevitability of death: cause and effect had vanished along with fear, and doubts, and pain in that same unending second when he had consciously stripped himself of self-possession.
He had a goal toward which he had walked for thirty long years.
And he was achieving it.
At one point, the stormtroopers and enemy soldiers simply ran out.
The Mon Calamari stopped for a moment, looking around.
Yes, he had killed all the opponents in the Jedi Temple Entrance Hall.
All those who had tried to kill him.
Except one.
The one who had been waiting.
And was now moving slowly to meet him, raising a blade in a position characteristic of Soresu.
Still standing under the vault of the remnants of the Jedi Temple's main entrance arch, he walked toward his teacher.
Not ceasing to nurture rage and anger within himself, strengthening himself with the help of the Dark Side of the Force.
Desiring power and victory.
Withering himself from within.
Burning himself out.
Bre'ano Umakk smiled, seeing what was coming to meet him.
He realized unerringly that this—right here, right now—was exactly what he had lived his life for.
His feet had stepped onto this path the day he was born; any success or tragedy, any foolish stunt and humiliation, every inexplicable turn of cruel fate had added a drop to that flow inside him that had built up behind the barriers of self-discipline.
Those barriers had been created by Jedi trying to smooth the sharp corners of his arrogance and fear; by the ruthless jokes of friends mocking his attempts to impress them; and even by training under a mentor…
"A Jedi makes nothing of himself, Bre'ano. Combat is not a game. For a Jedi, a fight is a foregone loss. A tragedy. If blood must be shed, a Jedi does it quickly, with surgical precision, with all due reverence. With sorrow."
So they told him.
Told him, repeated it, hammered it into his head.
And didn't believe it.
Didn't accept it.
Umakk had tried so long, so hard to be what everyone wanted to see him as; tried to restrain his fear, his biting jokes that sounded out of place and time; tried to be a good student, a good friend, a modest sentient, a true Jedi…
But under the vault of this arch, the attempts came to an end.
There was no reason to go on denying the truth about himself.
Playing the hero was not just permissible… it was necessary.
To hold this threshold, it was not enough to wound and kill, not enough to be restrained, surgically precise, and sorrowful. To hold the threshold, he had to not just strike, but strike without effort, without fear, with laughter.
With joy.
To hold the threshold, he had to dance, spin, and leap, drawing his opponents in.
Sacrifices.
He had to force them to consciously hesitate before stepping against him.
Had to make them afraid.
He spoke the words: a magic spell that broke the barriers and released the rushing torrent.
A torrent that washed away all the husk from him, leaving only what he had lived and was ready to die for.
The idea of a better future for his brothers and sisters.
The living and those who would replace them.
None shall pass.
In his hands was the blade of a fallen hero—his teacher's—which he had obtained with incredible effort, but now he was the hero, and it was not for him to fall.
He was ascending.
The Force thundered in him, and he thundered in the Force.
Stripping away prohibitions, leaving aside all conscious thoughts, listening only to his passion and joy, controlling them in this battle, he gained a power he had not dreamed of.
He became the fight himself.
He was unaware of the corpses littering the floor of the tunnel, which his feet nimbly bypassed on their own.
He was unaware of the mangled sheets of durasteel he himself had torn from the wreckage of the gates, rising and spinning around him to deflect blaster bolts fired at him by snipers and new doomed fighters stepping up for a new attack.
Unaware of the half-ruined statues from the atrium that the Force had drawn into the dance; of the giant figures of Jedi of many races inhabiting the galaxy that seemed to have come alive and stepped to his side, thundering, spinning, and falling, crushing dozens and hundreds of enemies and turning the atrium into a slaughterhouse.
And the outlines of ruined ancient walls, the lighting, or the number of attackers did not concern him at all.
A dozen?
A hundred?
A thousand?
How many enemies were carried to safety after receiving non-lethal wounds?
And indeed, were there any wounded in this battle?
Unlikely.
He did not seek to disarm them and take them out of the fight.
He stood for his ideals.
And killed for them.
How many enemy soldiers lay dead in the dust clouds amid the ruins and remains of the two Juggernauts?
He did not remember, for memory did not exist as such.
There was no past.
No future.
He was not even aware of himself.
Not aware of the Alignment soldiers and the former apprentice who had now become a sworn enemy.
He became the warriors he fought, bleeding with every one who fell from his strikes.
There was no more Bre'ano Umakk; no Alignment soldiers, no Jedi or Sith acolytes.
There were only dancers and the dance.
In this dance, all that is: from the spin of quarks to the slow rotation of galaxies, all in motion.
All in the dance.
All in existence.
***
The Inquisitor approached his opponent.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" he said, pointing to the bodies of the killed soldiers, mangled to shreds.
He was unconcerned that his former teacher was controlling construction debris, using it for defense and attack without the slightest harm to himself, throwing pieces of columns and ceilings to destroy entire squads of soldiers he, the Inquisitor, had sent to the slaughter.
"There is no beauty in these deaths," the Mon Calamari answered thunderously. "You sent these people to the sacrifice to weaken me. You sacrificed them in vain, because you only made me stronger. Your pettiness and mania have opened my eyes. You—the one who wanted to kill me for my weakness—have made me stronger."
"You will never survive this fight, old man," the Inquisitor promised. "I never rely on luck. And that is exactly why I always manage to survive. I always have a backup plan to avoid any trouble…"
"Always?" There was something in his voice that made the Inquisitor freeze in his tracks. "Any trouble?"
In an instant, the stone protection around the Mon Calamari turned into a stream of lethal projectiles that ground the new stormtroopers who had crept to the top steps of the main entrance into bloody trails.
The Inquisitor watched as all that remained of an entire battalion were pieces of bodies, streaks of blood, and brain mush.
He didn't even have time to draw air into his lungs to ask what his former teacher—acting by no means in a Jedi-like manner—was talking about.
His unspoken question was resolved by a sickeningly familiar sound… a click… a hiss… a hum.
Slowly, gracefully, fearing to see what he would be unable to tear his eyes from, the Inquisitor turned toward the new source of pale light in this ruined place.
Turned toward the light that itself sparkled with blue and cast whitish glints on the curves of the remains of the once-magnificent interior.
And discovered he was looking at the tip of a lightsaber only a centimeter from the tip of his nose.
"A lightsaber is a most interesting invention," Bre'ano Umakk said friendly, appearing only a couple of meters from him. "In all military history, nothing like it has been created. A paradoxical weapon, much like the Jedi who use them: peaceful warriors who kill in the name of life. Have you ever noticed? The blade is rounded; it has no cutting edge. But it is a lightsaber—and is itself nothing other than a cutting edge. No matter how you turn the blade, it always inflicts a cut. Curious, yes? One could even say, symbolic."
"What?" The Inquisitor opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again.
He wanted to ask what this senile old man was doing.
Why wasn't he killing him with the same ease he had with the stormtroopers and infantry?
Wanted to ask many other questions, but all he could manage was:
"What?"
And again, the Mon Calamari who had called himself a Jensaarai Master seemed to read his thoughts.
"You understood nothing," it was somehow terrifying that the Mon Calamari, whose body practically glowed in the darkness of the night, spoke in a cheerful tone. "Sith use a lightsaber to kill. Jedi claim they need it for defense, not attack. Но in combat, both sides use a lightsaber for both attack and defense. It is the same with the Force."
"You are a sick old man…"
"Think what you will, my former apprentice. I will give you only one chance. You can accept the new truth—and join me. Cast aside dogmas and become the best version of yourself. Or—you will not leave here alive."
The Inquisitor struck the white-blue blade with his own weapon without much difficulty and turned the threat away from his face.
"Whatever you've dreamed up in your head, old man, the only one dying here is you. With me—all the power of the Dark Side!"
"So be it," the former Jedi answered modestly. "But you will not achieve what you desire. Because with me—is the Force. The Unified Force."
The Jensaarai Master stopped smiling.
He stepped forward, moving into a combat stance.
And turned into a killing machine.
***
"This is getting too drawn out," Afar said, watching the battle of the two giants.
Though each was of normal height, one look at them was enough to understand—it was best not to approach them.
From the speed at which the blue and red lightblades flashed, hair in all immodest places stood on end.
"We need to think of a way to retreat!" Cross said. "And how to get the Master out of here before he does something that'll make me wake up in a cold sweat at night!"
"So what we've already seen—isn't enough?" Afar asked.
"I think this is only the beginning," Jehane admitted. "Need an exit, need an exit…"
But saying it was one thing.
Understanding and finding it was something else entirely.
His gaze darted around the Entrance Hall that had become a battlefield, but his brain, focusing on the confrontation between the two sentients, couldn't grasp how to escape from here.
And then something warm, friendly, light, beautiful as rays of a star, touched him.
He felt with surprise his mind clearing of extra and foreign thoughts.
Focusing on how to leave the battlefield.
The two of them, with Afar.
Something that couldn't be explained, without malice or imposing its will, suggested to him that only the two of them should save themselves.
That the Jensaarai Master had found his path.
Which he had accepted and followed to the end.
Along with this came the understanding that this mental contact was coming from the Mon Calamari.
Jehane had never been Force-sensitive, had never contacted them, and couldn't say what it was like.
He only felt a friendly piece of advice projected straight into his head: "Go. You have your own goal."
He didn't hear a voice, but for some reason believed the author of those words was currently in conversation with the man in the pompous black clothes with an Inquisitorius command bar on his chest.
And then they began the battle, and the Mon Calamari began to retreat.
The warmth inside didn't vanish, but it seemed to start nudging Jehane Cross somewhere.
His gaze fell on the smoldering hulks of the two Juggernauts.
And three machines had broken into the Temple…
"Afar… I have an idea."
"And how are we supposed to get Umakk out of this vortex?" the Zygerrian inquired.
"We can't," Jehane shared the revelation quietly. "He's doing everything so we can leave. Master Umakk stays in the Temple."
"What makes you say that?"
"He told me," Cross answered just as quietly, taking a heavy breath. "He intended it this way from the start. He just didn't think we were such idiots that we'd almost ruin his whole plan by staying."
The Zygerrian looked at the red and black lightblades flashing in the dark.
Looked at the breaches in the walls through which a little night light penetrated.
"Then we should get out of here," he concluded. "If the old man has something planned, it's clearly global."