The Guardian sliced effortlessly through hyperspace with its hull, leaving light-years and entire parsecs behind.
Sentients free from the duty watch rested and gathered strength according to internal shipboard regulations.
But unlike the ship, it was extremely restless in my quarters at the moment.
"Your report is accepted, Agent Bravo-One," I said after Captain Inek finished his report on the situation in the Allied Tion sector. "How critical is the situation?"
"The military command is in disarray," the agent said, without mincing words. "The commanders of the remaining destroyers intend to usurp power. One has clearly defected to Mi-Ha the Hutt with his crew. The assault legions purchased on Carida remain loyal to the command only thanks to the initiative of 'Moff Gronn,' who named me his successor. The situation is ready to heat up to a critical point at any moment. Mi-Ha the Hutt has moved to open defiance in the outlying systems. And is about to gain the strength to start destroying our legions one by one, subordinating planets to himself. Without sufficient fleet forces, I cannot prevent all this."
In other words—Inek has nothing under his command capable of overcoming even one destroyer.
If the garrisons still obey him, the commanders of the remaining large ships—do not.
And consequently—we may lose control of Allied Tion at any moment.
And the plan for the eastern part of the galaxy, for creating a tension point in the Alliance's rear, will fail before it has even begun to be implemented.
Rapid response to what is happening is needed.
"Activate our agency," I ordered. "All pockets of discontent—eliminate as much as possible. Consolidate power in your hands. Help will be sent in the shortest possible time."
"It will be done, sir," the agent stated, turning off the holoprojector.
Well…
The enemy struck their blow, no longer playing at trying to understand what was happening with "Moff Gronn."
This was expected, but not so quickly.
Well, the response will be appropriately harsh.
I activated the holoprojector, contacting the Shadow Guard and the Noghri Overclan in turn.
***
The distant stars, against which a darkened Coruscant could be seen, were once compared to gemstones in a crown, of which Imperial Center itself was the pearl.
A lone Lambda-class shuttle slipped out of hyperspace and, not at all bothered by the presence of several dozen Marauder-class heavy cruisers, headed straight for the planet.
The passenger, sitting alone in the spacious cabin, closed his eyes, fully immersing himself in the Force.
For him, distance or obstacles did not exist to find the object of his search.
The Dark Side guided him.
It was the Dark Side, with the fire of churning hatred, that led the man toward the planet where the bright star of a gifted one burned.
The very one he had caught during his meditations.
The one who would become his victim.
Jedi.
The Light Side emanated by him taunted, beckoned, and simultaneously burned the hunter.
It had been so long since he himself had used it.
Now that was in the past.
As was the name he had used in another life.
The Dark Side—that was his long-awaited weapon.
The power that breaks chains.
That grants victory.
That grants superiority.
The man sat with closed eyes, pleased with the coming events he saw in his meditations.
And he didn't care in the slightest that the pilots of his ship, soaked to the bone from sticky sweat, hated the day they were born into the world.
***
"We've really riled them up," Afar reported via comlink.
Explosions and the chatter of blasters sounded in the background.
"Retreat to the evacuation point," Jehane ordered, looking at the thoughtful figure in a brown cloak, patiently waiting for the arrival of the turbolift that would take him to the desired floor.
I wonder, what is that bag he's holding in his hands?
"Are you already there?" the Zygerrian clarified.
"Not exactly," Cross replied evasively. "The Master needs a little more time, after which we depart."
"I'd suggest you hurry," the partner admitted. "We're blowing up overpasses and surface highways, warehouses, arsenals, and a couple of barracks, but as it turns out, nothing stops them from tearing down houses and moving from block to block through them. I don't know why, but they're clearly upset. Looks like it wasn't worth sending a construction droid to their base, probably. Oh, but how everything blew up and burned so magnificently there! No offense, Jehane, but something tells me you won't have much time to get out of there."
"It's fine," Jehane said. "Act according to the plan. The main thing is to get everything we've found off-planet."
"I don't like your tone, buddy," the Zygerrian said. "I know a couple of holofilms that ended the same way…"
"End of comms," the Dominion agent cut off his friend, who was becoming inappropriately talkative. "Master, we'd best hurry."
"Get out of here," Umakk said resolutely. "I will do everything myself. It is my duty—to remind the Jedi of their conscience and legacy."
"That's all wonderful," Jehane stated. "But there are clearly going to be a lot of angry stormtroopers here soon. Afar seems to have ground quite a few of their comrades into the joints of a construction droid…"
"That is why you must leave," Umakk ordered just as the turbolift car reached their floor. "I feel the approach of the Dark Side of the Force. This is my fight."
"Maybe you ate something that wasn't fresh?" Jehane tried to joke, but the Mon Calamari left him without an answer, simply stepping into the car, which pulled him upward with the creak and rattle of falling plaster.
The Imperial agent stood for a while, reflecting on the consequences, after which he activated his comlink.
"Alessi, listen to me carefully. The plan has changed."
***
The shuttle touched down nowhere near where it was originally intended.
During the flight, the passenger had ordered the destination changed.
And now the Lambda, which had provided all patrols—in orbit and in the air—with the necessary highest-level clearance codes, was descending in the rear of the Imperial troop deployment near the Jedi Temple.
Scarcely had the landing ramp touched the permacrete when a man, wrapped from head to toe in all black, flew down it.
Black boots and trousers, a shirt and a cloak with armored spaulders and a hood falling over his eyes, hiding the upper part of his face.
Because of his fast pace, his cloak whipped behind him like the wings of a giant hawk-bat.
And because of this, the guards—both simple soldiers and stormtroopers—could see a lightsaber dangling at his waist.
Also, a dark Imperial uniform, on which a rank bar with the colors of the Inquisitorius could be seen.
The sentient's weapon, uniform, and behavior made it clear it was best not to stand in his way.
But one of the young soldiers, part of the guard company of the Military Commandant of Coruscant himself, clearly didn't know this.
And he stepped into the stranger's path.
"Identify yourself immediately and—"
His words cut off mid-sentence when a medium-sized transport container, flying in from somewhere to the side, knocked the young soldier's head off, smashing it against the armor of a nearby self-propelled walker.
Breaking one of the supports in the process, causing the machine to crash onto its side with a roar, kicking up a cloud of dust.
And as if that weren't enough, the crack of the long-unupdated permacrete under the bulk forced soldiers to scatter in all directions.
With a crash, part of the landing pad, converted into an artillery position for a single gun brought to the square in front of the Temple, collapsed, boding nothing good for either the walker or those who hadn't managed to leave it.
The stranger decapitated the second sentry who tried to block the way with a lightsaber.
The crimson blade came alive for a moment and retracted back into the hilt.
The stormtroopers standing near the entrance to the command field bunker didn't even move at the sight of the black man.
And he entered unimpeded.
Seeing before him a large tactical table and two officers examining a 3D image of the Jedi Temple.
"…the third squad is also completely destroyed," the duty officer reported to the commandant. "The mines react to metal and—"
The one he was speaking to was grimacing in dissatisfaction.
But he frowned even more when he saw the lightsaber-wielding newcomer before him.
"Who are you?" he asked sternly, jumping from his seat.
An invisible strike to the back of the knees forced the commandant to collapse to the floor, hitting his face against the edge of the table in the process.
"I ask the questions here," the newcomer cut him off harshly. "Why has the Jedi in the Temple not yet been destroyed?"
"There's a Jedi in there?" the duty officer gasped.
And at that same moment when the stranger threw out a hand, tipped with fingers clenched as if in a grip, the soldier fell with a broken neck.
"Useless," the Force-user spat, looking again at the Commandant of Coruscant, who was trying to stop the flow of blood with his hands. "I asked a question, General!"
"We are looking for ways to penetrate…"
There was another sound of a broken neck.
The commandant's body fell to the floor.
"No wonder Kaine lost," the man in black spat on the floor. "Useless biomass."
Without another word, he turned and left the headquarters.
Stopping beside the stormtroopers, he looked at the soldiers running some distance away, caring about how to save the lost equipment and comrades, and tossed casually to one of them:
"Inform all commanders that I am now in charge of the assault and Coruscant," his voice sounded with a threat and a promise of retribution.
"At your command, sir," the faceless warrior in white armor replied impassively.
Though even he was trembling somewhat.
***
With a slight creak, the doors of the Jedi Temple's communications center slid apart, letting out a modest figure dressed in traditional Jedi robes, with a cloak thrown over them.
But as far as Agent Cross remembered, Jedi wore white tunics.
And brown cloaks.
Master Bre'ano Umakk was clad in black robes.
Digging through his memory, Jehane remembered that the Jensaarai Order—at least those he had seen—had begun wearing specifically black tunics and black cloaks upon joining the Dominion.
Over which armor made of energy-weapon-resistant material was worn.
"Was he carrying those robes with him?" Cross thought, meeting the former Jedi's gaze.
"You should have left the Temple, Agent Cross," the Mon Calamari's voice sounded muffled.
And it resonated with doomed determination.
"Should have," Jehane agreed. "But I'm not obligated to. Thousands of Alignment soldiers have surrounded the Temple. Stormtroopers, infantry—they'll all be here soon."
"That is exactly why you should not have been here by this moment," the Mon Calamari said, heading toward the turbolift.
Strange as it was, after thirty years of ruin, the Temple's technology still worked.
Of course, primarily thanks to the work of the agents from Jehane and Alessi's squad.
"I'm not in the habit of leaving behind soldiers I go on a mission with," Jehane replied.
"Indeed?" the Mon Calamari inquired.
Cross thought about what, exactly, Umakk knew about the former Imperial agent's past.
Hardly much.
Including how Jehane had treated Elli.
Promising her a great future after the murder of Iaco Stark, but abandoning her, scurrying off to the service of the Empire.
And he returned…
So many years later.
For the sake of revenge.
"Now—yes," Jehane didn't mince words. "We came here together, and we'll leave together, Master."
"That is incorrect," the Mon Calamari had no eyebrows, but for some reason, it seemed to Cross that he was frowning. "What is coming—it is my fight. Not yours. They are here because I wanted to reach the minds and hearts of my former comrades. I sent them a message. And I took the opportunity to record it and set it on repeat. Sooner or later, one of them will respond."
"One Jedi against a battalion or two of soldiers with everything from blasters to man-portable launchers in their hands?" Cross clarified.
"I am not a Jedi," the Mon Calamari replied hollowly. "No longer."
He fell silent and simply walked.
Jehane walked slightly behind, trying to stay one step behind his left shoulder and trying to look solemn and majestic, if only not to show his quite justified fear.
He forced himself to think about something else.
About anything.
If he didn't stop thinking about how dire their situation was, he would collapse to his knees right here and turn his insides out.
The Alignment soldiers, as expected, had triangulated the source of the transmission and moved toward the Temple.
They had surrounded the ancient building, brought up equipment, and set up field headquarters.
The commanders had no great desire to poke into the unknown, preferring to send reconnaissance squads into the semi-ruined structure.
Which inevitably blew up on mines and tripwires set in the places of the least obvious path into the Temple.
This fact made the enemy hesitate—they were looking for a safer road into the Temple.
Using numerous recon droids.
And very soon, they would realize that there was no army or even a combat squad inside.
The assault would soon begin.
The turbolift doors slid apart.
"And I thought you'd decided to linger for some caf there," a Zygerrian sitting across from the exit on a piece of centuries-old permacrete that had fallen from a nearby wall met them.
Afar sat with a couple of blasters, several carbines, a bundle of thermal detonators laid out beside him, and was whittling a piece of rebar with a combat knife.
Strange as it was, he was succeeding.
And had been succeeding for quite a while.
A good hundred ten-centimeter sharpened durasteel pieces of rebar lay at the Zygerrian's feet.
"Agent Sagaal Shana," Master Umakk greeted him. "You are here too… This is incorrect. I ordered everyone to retreat."
"Yes, I heard," the Zygerrian said impassively, examining a sharpened piece of rebar.
Apparently, he was satisfied, as he set it aside with a good dozen just like it.
"And just like Agent Cross, you did not obey."
"I'm allowed," Afar sighed. "I'm a freelancer anyway. The work is done—everything we could find, we found. The Jedi beacon, judging by that delegation outside," he waved a hand casually behind him, where the ruins of the Entrance Hall, devastated during the destruction of the Jedi thirty years ago, were located, "also worked. I am a free sentient. The contract is fulfilled. The cargo and people—safe a hundred kilometers from here."
"Then what are you doing here?" Umakk asked.
"Cleaning rebar," the Zygerrian answered simply.
"Why?" the Mon Calamari inquired.
"So you'd ask," Afar sighed tiredly.
He looked from under his brow at the men standing before him and jabbed the mangled vibroknife toward both of them.
"The two of you decided to stop three battalions of soldiers?"
"Oh," Jehane spoke up. "Three already?"
"Another battalion of stormtroopers arrived about five minutes ago," Sagaal Shana explained. "On Juggernauts. I imagine that's what they'll use to start the breach into the Temple. As soon as darkness falls. They'll use the advantage of the armor. Since the magnetic mines thinned out their scouts on speeders, they'll act for sure. And they'll clear it floor by floor."
"I don't recall my guys setting any magnetic mines," Jehane shook his head.
"Well, I haven't been sitting here for ten minutes either," the mercenary spy smirked mirthlessly. "So, what's the plan?"
"Both of you—leave the Temple through the Lower Levels," the Mon Calamari stated. "I will meet them alone. This is my path."
"So," the Zygerrian summarized, setting aside another piece of rebar, "there is no plan. Nothing new, though. A normal workday in the office of a reckless boss. I'm in."
"Master, you can't argue with us," Jehane gave a crooked grin. "We survived Palpatine. And Isard. And Pestage. And half the government and leaders of the Imperial bureaucracy."
"Then live longer," the Mon Calamari replied. "Leave while there is still a chance."
"No," Jehane answered. "Only with you. Fighting stormtroopers alone is a foolish idea."
The Mon Calamari looked at Afar.
"What about me?" the latter feigned surprise. "I'm just whittling rebar, not bothering anyone. By the way," he pointed the knife at the thermal detonators. "New toys, took them straight off some grenadiers. Pretty powerful—we blew up a tank with one of those, and a bridge with another. So—be careful."
"This is incorrect," the Mon Calamari shook his head. "Someone must lead those who remain. And get out everything we found here."
"Alessi will manage," Jehane said confidently. "And we'll join them later."
"We won't join them," Umakk said with certainty. "Anyone who remains here after sunset—is a dead man. You have a different fate, agents."
Jehane placed the edge of his palm against his forehead and looked toward the entrance to the Jedi sanctuary.
Rays of the setting sun were visible through the holes in the walls.
"Then we won't die today," the agent concluded, looking at the Mon Calamari. "Is that what the Force said, that we have a different fate?"
"The future is in motion," Umakk reminded him. "And you, Agent Cross, still have an unfulfilled obligation. Only death awaits us here."
Yes.
He had an obligation to himself.
To find and kill Cronal.
"One more reason to come out of this mess a winner," the special agent smirked.
"And I'm free all night tonight anyway," Afar stated, finishing another piece of rebar. "Well, since the tearful motivational speeches are over, will someone help me set a few surprises?"
***
Doubtless, he feared death, but he had experienced the feeling before… and without the nausea that knocked one off their feet.
Jehane gripped the hilt of his blaster rifle, glancing at Afar, who was entrenched fifty meters away from him.
The Zygerrian was calm, but the agent knew perfectly well that it was no more than a front.
Cross looked again at the enemy soldiers who had appeared in the far part of the Entrance Hall.
As his friend had predicted—they didn't bother with further reconnaissance—they sent the Juggernauts ahead, using them to punch through the walls enough to be able to land a troop detachment inside the room.
Not the best decision for centuries-old architecture, but something suggested it was unlikely the Jedi would come here to settle who was right and who was wrong.
Jehane took another deep breath, calming himself.
Only the feel of the smooth, reliable surface helped him keep his face and not spatter the floor of his clothes with vomit.
No, he'd managed to participate in many scrapes, but three against three battalions of soldiers…
And with heavy equipment support…
His mouth filled with saliva, his ribs were churning. To keep from throwing up, Jehane squeezed his eyes shut.
"Cross?" Afar's voice, muffled and worried, came from somewhere below. "Now, don't you tell me you're having a panic attack!"
"Don't count on it," Jehane gritted out, shifting his blaster for a better grip. "When do we start?"
"You'll know," the Zygerrian said enigmatically. "Main thing—don't stick your head out. And turn off the external sound pickups on your helmet. Their lead Juggernaut is almost…"
Yes, the lead machine, with a roar and the screech of permacrete on metal, moved forward into the heart of the Entrance Hall.
Stormtrooper squads moved on both sides of it.
Jehane followed his friend's wish.
Now, whatever happened outside, he simply wouldn't hear it.
For a while, the machine on giant wheels moved without obstacle, until what Afar had been doing that "idleness" by the turbolift car occurred.
The explosion was so loud Cross's eardrums nearly burst.
The roar echoed many times off the Temple walls, turning into a true acoustic weapon.
Which, along with the lethal cloud of sharpened pieces of rebar flying through the hall, literally mowed down the enemy stormtrooper forward detachments.
Jehane activated all his helmet systems just as one of those same pieces of rebar slammed into the stone above his head with a ring.
Punching through nearly twenty centimeters of duracrete, it emerged halfway from the piece of ceiling slab Jehane was using as a temporary cover.
"Hutt," he hissed more from surprise than from real fear.
Looking out from behind cover, he saw that he had been slightly off in his assessment of the situation.
Not only the lead Juggernaut had been blown up.
Bombs turned out to have been laid in the path of each of them—Afar had apparently guessed the enemy's entry point well and prepared wonderful "surprises" for them.
But judging by the screams of the wounded and the rattles of the dying, they clearly hadn't liked them.
"Looks like the old man was right, then," Afar summarized. "No one gets out of here alive."
"Yeah, that's for sure," Jehane agreed.
Then a realization hit him.
"Where's Umakk?!"
***
Everything had fallen into place.
He understood what he hadn't been able to grasp his entire life.
Until this moment.
There was nothing to fear.
Unfortunately, only now did he know what it was like—to have it in your power to be who you truly are.
He didn't even need to know who he was.
He could decide it himself.
He could choose, and act.
Suddenly his life was filled with meaning.
The former uncertainty stopped tormenting him.
Not even a memory remained of it.
No weakness.
No doubt.
He had seen the unconcealed doubt on Agent Cross's face when he'd spoken that mantra of self-reassurance to him.
The reasons why he had allegedly been afraid to enter into a confrontation with Falon Grey's killers.
With Darth Vader, when he visited Dantooine.
Long-standing doubts and fear had vanished along with his indecision, which he had cast aside while recording the appeal to his brothers and sisters of the Order hiding throughout the galaxy.
He had found that key element which, it seemed to him, in no way fit into the concept he had developed over decades of fleeing from the Jedi legacy.
Ideology is worth nothing if you are not ready to give your life for it.
Not just to kill enemies, but also not to spare yourself.
The Sith did not understand this.
The Jedi lived it.
But the former were ready to go to any lengths to achieve their goals—except to sacrifice themselves.
The latter went to the block with heads held high without objection, but were not ready to cross the boundaries of their own created rules to achieve a goal, to eliminate a cause, rather than scurry around the galaxy like a fire brigade, dealing with consequences.
This was precisely why he had to do what he was doing.
This was a test of his faith, of his teaching, of everything he had taught the Jensaarai Order.
Master Umakk felt a searing impact on his shoulder, where the charge of a blaster bolt he'd missed had struck.
It had a sobering effect.
The weight of many years fell from his shoulders; his eyes lit up, as if sparks had begun to dance in a reddish heat.
He felt as polished to a shine as a brand-new combat droid, and as tough as a pair of them.
He felt anger and pain stream through his body.
Lending strength.
The weapon of the Dark Side of the Force lay in his hands.
He had taught that one should not fear the manifestation of emotions.
That it was part of any sentient being.
That the Jedi had erred in rejecting them.
And that even the Code itself prescribed not renunciation, but the control of emotions by sentients.
But until now, they had been just words.
Because until now, he had been no more than a theorist who was afraid to take up this weapon he spoke of.
He had Jensaarai in training who had grasped this truth before him and applied it for good.
He had taught Dathomirian Witches who were accustomed to controlling the Force and the Dark Side.
And their training had boiled down only to mastering the "Jedi" part of the new teaching.
But to teach someone both sides of the new science, to demonstrate all this in practice…
That hadn't happened yet.
Because he had been afraid of himself.
Afraid of falling to the Dark Side.
But now he realized that he had effectively turned his own works into a stillborn fruit.
And now he had only one chance to fix this oversight.
Otherwise, the Jensaarai Order would never be able to become what he saw as the future of the Jedi.
Umakk released his anger through his body, turning it into a lethal Force Wave.
He had not trained in this technique, considering it excessively destructive.
And again, he had concluded that he had driven himself into a trap.
What difference could it make whether your tool was destructive or not, if you were fighting for a righteous cause?
The Force is a tool.
You can't hammer nails with a hyperdrive.
But you can't cross the galaxy on repulsors either.
The scale of the Force applied must be commensurate with the threat and the goal set before you.
And in that case, there is neither a Dark, nor Light, nor yellow, nor red side of the Force.
There is only the sentient.
And their ability to direct the Force for good.
Or for ill.
The Sith are right.
It is not the Force that commands you, but you the Force.
The Jedi are right.
Uncontrolled power is a path of destruction.
There must be no petty revenge.
No greed.
No desire to rule over others.
No radicalism.
Killing in anger does not make you a monster if you did it for a weightier reason, rather than because someone stepped on your sore spot.
It is impossible to be hypocritical, saying that Jedi cannot kill anyone after the Order organized hunts for Sith, bombarded worlds, destroyed Mandalorians on Galidraan…
It is absurd and foolish to go into battle and behave like a droid, walling yourself off from the awareness of the deaths you have caused.
Only control and responsibility for one's actions separate a sentient from a monster.
And in no other way.
Reflecting another shot from a doomed stormtrooper, he stole a glance at the white-blue blade of his saber, which had pierced the body of an enemy soldier.
He looked with interest, as if the future could be read in the glow of the elegant weapon.
And he smiled at what he saw.
He felt a disturbance in the Force, a shove from the depths, a kind of impulse: the moment had come.
As if on command, the enemy soldiers stopped firing.
They didn't run, didn't take cover.
They simply froze, not taking their weapons off him.
They were waiting.
The Jensaarai Master ripped off his black cloak, scorched in dozens of places, leaving only the robes and light armor of his Order.
The armor and robes he hadn't worn until now, but had carried with him like a reminder of his cowardice.
Arteries burning with dark fire contracted, spreading the blackness of rage and anger around them.
The same as the one moving toward him.
His black cloak drifted smoothly to the floor, becoming a burial shroud for several enemy soldiers.
Bre'ano Umakk was no longer afraid.
He was no longer being hypocritical.
He had chosen his fate and was ready to meet it face-to-face.
The time had come to test his teaching in battle.
***
The Inquisitor was ready to hang the comlink on his belt.
He had just stopped the attack on the Temple, realizing that the Jedi was now exhausted as never before.
The time had come to appear himself.
But unexpectedly, the comlink erupted in a trill.
The device showed that he was being called from the Inquisitorius headquarters in the Pentastar Alignment.
Such calls should not be ignored.
"I am listening, Chief Inquisitor Dras."
There was no respect or awe in the Inquisitor's voice.
Despite the fact that he perfectly understood what his immediate superior could do to him.
Which Ollo Dras had become after the entire Inquisitorius learned of their Emperor's resurrection.
They had been redistributed by direction, becoming, for the most part, overseers and elite spies in place of the ingloriously lost Ubiqtorate last year.
Chief Inquisitor Dras had become the senior over the Inquisitors acting as part of the Pentastar Alignment forces.
"No, it is I who am listening to you, Inquisitor," the chief's voice resonated with undisguised irritation and unrestrained rage. "Why must I learn of the failure of Kaine's campaign not from you, but from the HoloNet?!"
A good question.
"I arrived on Coruscant to report in person and—"
"And since when has my headquarters been at Imperial Center?" the Chief Inquisitor inquired.
His voice stopped emitting any emotion.
Which meant that he knew absolutely everything.
And the fact that the Chief Inquisitor, when addressing him, had not even spoken his name, spoke for itself.
He had screwed up.
So the Inquisitor remained silent.
He simply walked toward his fate.
"What are you doing at Imperial Center, Inquisitor?" the superior rephrased the question.
"I sensed the presence of a strong Jedi on the planet. And I intend to destroy him. Here and now."
A chuckle came from the comlink.
"And can you?"
The Inquisitor did not answer.
He crushed the communicator in his hands and used the Force to drag aside a piece of wall that was preventing him from making his way into the Entrance Hall.
Glancing at the body-strewn floor of the Jedi's former home, the Inquisitor looked at the soldiers who were carrying out his order.
Then he looked around, searching for the target he had arrived for.
For which he had lived so long.
And after him moved the stormtroopers of the second battalion.
The first, judging by appearances, had fallen here in almost its entirety.
Squad after squad slid past the mangled durasteel, which hummed and creaked as it cooled.
The warriors vanished into the atrium filled with smoke and shadows, weapons at the ready, watching carefully for any hint of enemies appearing.
One squad immediately rushed to the only unmangled machine—to check for survivors in it.
Five minutes had passed since they left.
Five minutes since he'd stood here, waiting for answers.
Not one of those who set out for the Juggernaut had returned.
Only the roar of falling wall pieces—it echoed everywhere here.
The Inquisitor hurried there.
He had caught shades of the Dark Side and was therefore obligated to check what was happening.
He would not have managed to survive this long in this war if he had underestimated the Jedi.
And he found the one he was looking for.
A lone silhouette who, raising a hand with a glowing blade held in it, was demonstrating a ready stance from the arsenal of Form III: Soresu.
The Inquisitor looked at the sentient, whose appearance was hidden from him by a gust of dust-mist.
He was dangerous: like a sand panther that had gone out to hunt.
A soft but supple stance.
Concentration.
Ready to turn into a predator's strike at that very second.
A chill of superstitious dread ran down the Inquisitor's spine.
No, this was not what he was looking for.
Not a broken Jedi, mired in his musings on the destiny of the future Order.
Durasteel that had been tempered in a furnace.
A battle with such a rancor promised nothing good.
The Inquisitor gave the order.
Stormtroopers appeared to his left and right.
In that same second, the rank-and-file warriors were blown back as if by a gust of wind: the opponent had used the Force to gently hint that the one who had come for a duel should begin it.
And not hide behind the backs of those who would change nothing anyway.
The officers looked back at their commanders, who, in turn, were looking at the Inquisitor.
"You! Hey, you!" the latter cried out nervously, addressing the figure. "Who are you? And what are you doing here?"
The answer was a low, mockingly cheerful rumble.
"Do you not recognize me, vile apprentice? It is I—Bre'ano Umakk. The one who has stood and stands in your path."
It would seem one could relax.
For this should have been the one he sought to put to death.
The one who had found and taught him the art of weakness—the Jedi teaching.
The one he had dreamed of killing ever since he went into the service of the Inquisitorius.
And the one whose reflection in the Force had drawn him to Coruscant.
But it was not him.
There was no longer weakness in his voice, nor tomfoolery expressed in over-intellectual speeches that made no sense.
Did the former apprentice want a battle with SUCH a former teacher, who after thirty years of stagnation seemed to have found a second wind?!
Either way, the goal of the entire contingent gathered at the Jedi Temple was to find and silence the Jedi transmitter forever.
Because it would bring nothing good.
"Surrender! Hundreds of warriors are with me! You don't hope to stop us!? Alone!"
"I do not need to stop you."
There was something more in that statement.
Something fundamental.
Something that had drawn the Inquisitor to learn from this sentient once.
But much more powerful, weightier.
Invincible.
Something to be feared.
"We will achieve our goal regardless," the Inquisitor stated somewhat uncertainly, experiencing a panic attack as he had back on the Reaper. "Out of our way and you will remain unharmed!"
"You want me to step aside?" the Mon Calamari swung the glowing blade. "Come, move me."
The dust was clearing, and it turned out the one standing before the Inquisitor was exactly the one he had wished to find.
But this sentient was clad in black robes, and his blade, like a lethal arrow, was aimed straight at the Inquisitor.
His stoop had vanished.
His faded gaze burned with righteous fire.
And he wanted a fight.
And this was definitely no longer a Jedi.
This was… something more terrible than a Sith in his usual way.
Unstoppable, like a force of nature.
Something that could not be canceled, closed one's eyes to, and hoped that what was seen would pass on its own.
Before the Inquisitor was an OBSTACLE that would not move.
It could only be demolished.
"Thousands of warriors are on the way," the Inquisitor repeated, shaking a fist helplessly. "And you are alone, Jedi!"
"One… Jensaarai!"
"You are a madman, old man!"
It was unclear why, but the Inquisitor was scared to death of this creature.
The answer was a light and loud laugh, full of the feeling of joy and freedom.
"No. I am Jensaarai Master Bre'ano Umakk." The glowing blade came alive and traced a series of magnificent figures in the air, illuminating the whole vault and surrounding the Mon Calamari's body—full of unrestrained animal grace—with a rainbow halo. "This Temple," he stated with a joyful smile, "is my home. And I will not leave here until I have called all my fearful brothers and sisters back. Hundreds of warriors are with you? Excellent. It is a good night to die. Attack: one by one, or all at once. It makes no difference to me." Finishing the flourish, the blade balanced near Umakk's chest, and his white-toothed grin flashed in the darkness. "While I live—the beacon will work. Neither you nor your pack of rabid jackals will shut it off while I live. None of you shall pass."
Now that was a challenge.
The Dark Side called for a determination of who was strongest.
It burned from within like molten metal.
The Inquisitor unclipped the lightsaber from his belt and activated it.
"Let us begin, old man."
Master and apprentice charged into the attack.