Strike, parry, step back, and again. My heated body was slick with beads of sweat. Strands of hair clung to my forehead, stinging my eyes.
The black blade cut through the air, blurring into a single, continuous obsidian line. A high, pleasant hum accompanied every movement of my new weapon.
Curse it! A faint mark appeared on the makeshift stone mannequin, just slightly above where I intended. My control was still lagging. If I were to face an opponent of equal caliber, I would find myself in trouble.
The problem had arisen from an unexpected quarter: the lightsaber was too comfortable. Every blade I had used before was either too large, or the hilt felt awkward in my hand, or something else was off. But this one... it was perfect.
The difficulty lay in the fact that I had grown accustomed to clumsy hilts, allowing inaccuracies and minor errors to creep into my movements. Normally, these would be easily corrected with a few weeks of practice. However, because I had cycled through so many different hilts recently, these flaws had become chronic.
Now, I needed to burn the correct muscle memory into my soul. Every poorly executed technique created a breach in either my offense or defense.
Yes, I was stronger than most. But I was still far from the summit. A seasoned adversary would always find a way to exploit my slip-ups.
So, once more. Strike, parry, step back...
A pleasant, sickly-sweet aroma filled the room. If not for this remarkable chamber, I would have had to leave this sanctuary and go out on the hunt.
During my first day here, while wandering the floors in search of anything useful, I had stumbled upon this room. It was a relatively small space, ten meters by ten, filled with small trees of a species unknown to me. It was clear no one had tended to them for a long time, which was to be expected.
But that wasn't what mattered. My attention was drawn to the succulent orange berries. If they turned out to be edible, it would be a godsend.
The Force remained silent, so I decided to risk one. It tasted most like a gooseberry, only slightly more acidic.
I waited ten hours, exploring the structure for entrances and exits while mapping the layout into my bracer. There were no ill effects. My stomach didn't try to collapse into a black hole; there was no dizziness, no fever.
Having finished my makeshift tour, and confirming to my great disappointment that there were no treasures here, only empty stone rooms, a few halls with the skeletal remains of furniture, and living quarters with hard cots, I returned and ate a few more berries.
I didn't need anything else; they sated both hunger and thirst perfectly. I was almost entirely certain these plants had been engineered using the Force. Nature simply doesn't produce berries this efficient.
Regardless, I decided to linger in this wonderful place for a few days. I had food and a place to train; perhaps I could even scavenge some equipment. It wasn't out of the question that there were hidden rooms somewhere. The corpses on the subterranean level hadn't conjured their gear out of thin air. Given that their masks and cloaks had survived reasonably well, there might be more here.
The bastards organizing this atrocity under the guise of a "trial" hadn't even bothered to issue us armor. No, "dear acolytes," take these cloth rags that won't even shield you from the cold and go slaughter one another for the glory of the Emperor.
I wondered how many acolytes had died not in combat, but simply from a lack of food, water, or a decent place to sleep. And how many were even left? If the trial hadn't ended yet, it meant more than half were still breathing.
Well, no matter. What did I care about the others? If I could manage it, staying in this mini-fortress until the end of the trial would be magnificent.
But the Force had other plans.
That night, I was jolted awake by a shrill beeping. At first, I couldn't tell where it was coming from. It was close, but elusive.
It took me a few seconds to realize the sound was coming from beneath my bracer. It wasn't the bracer itself waking me, but something tucked under it.
Stripping off the device that had practically fused to my arm, I flipped it over. In the darkness, a yellow light blinked invitingly. Looking closer, I found a small device nestled where one of the plates covered the wiring.
It was a commlink! I thought I had lost it along with the rest of my gear.
Raking my memory yielded nothing; I had absolutely no recollection of how it got shoved in there. I could guess who did it, but as for the how and when, I was clueless.
Still, that wasn't the priority. If it was active, it meant someone from my team was nearby. And at the very least, he or she already knew I was somewhere in the vicinity. I saw no reason to hide from them or break our old agreements.
Gathering my things didn't take long. I had slept in my trousers, so I only had to throw on a tattered shirt, bolt down a couple of berries, and I was ready.
I moved quickly to the balcony that encircled the building. The structure was so well-camouflaged into the cliffside that unless you knew exactly where to look, you would never spot it.
I saw them almost immediately. Despite it being early morning, several glowing red streaks rapidly approaching the cliff were hard to miss. One was slightly ahead, the light from the blade illuminating a running figure beside it, with four more in pursuit.
The distance between the hunters and the prey was closing, slowly but surely. By the time my partners reached the wall, they would likely have only a few meters of breathing room. They might even be snatched by the Force before then. I had to act.
Taking a short run-up, I leapt toward the rock face. I made almost no noise, and no one was looking my way. Before my feet even touched the stone, I began to pivot, and the moment I felt contact, I pushed off, dropping to a lower ledge.
I descended without much trouble, cushioning my landing with the Force. Now, barely two hundred meters separated us.
From this distance, I could clearly see Lana limping. Unfortunate. It would mean the two of us fighting against everyone. Though the enemies weren't that numerous. Through the Force, I sensed they weren't a significant threat even to me alone, but I wasn't about to take unnecessary risks.
Crouching low, I ran along the cliffside, keeping to the shadows while suppressing my presence in the Force. Lana seemed to have noticed me already—her eyes were darting around frantically. The element of surprise was unlikely, but why not try?
The first group ran past me. It seemed Kamma had also realized what was happening; after a few dozen meters, they stopped and braced for a fight.
"It's over, Kamma. We outnumber you. You have nowhere left to run! Surrender, and perhaps we will show mercy!"
The pursuers stopped a few meters from me, seemingly oblivious to my presence.
"The word 'perhaps' in your sentence bothers me," Kamma replied. "It sounds far too unpromising. If not for that part, I might have considered it for more than a couple of seconds."
"Then you will die. And I shall be the one to do it." Stepping out from behind a rock, I saw one of the four moving slowly forward, spinning his lightsaber ostentatiously. "It's a shame your little friend Set isn't here, but no matter, we'll find him soon enough. I have a personal score to settle with him."
Well, well. It was the same idiot I had defeated in the arena. This isn't an island; it's a small village.
"Be glad he isn't here," Kamma shot back. "I'm certain he could destroy all your lackeys on his own." What a brat, I thought. So I have to take down the three subordinates while he takes the leader? Talk about a comfortable arrangement. "I'm sure even your Zabrak, whom you rely on so much, wouldn't be a problem for him. Admit it, without him, you're nothing. He's stronger than you, isn't he?"
Understood. Message received. Processed. The horned one dies first, fortunately, since he's standing closest to me.
"You're far too talkative for a future corpse."
"Yes, I love to chat before I kill all my enemies. As you can see, the chatting is over."
With a feral cry, Kamma lunged into the fray.
Almost simultaneously, I burst from my cover, still trying to stay in the trio's blind spot. But today, the Force was on my side. They were all focused on their leader's duel.
The Zabrak suspected something only at the very last moment. It was too late. My hilt was mere centimeters from his chest, and the dark blade was already erupting from the emitter.
The enemies moved too slowly. As if in slow motion, I watched the blade pierce his chest while the others began to turn toward me.
I saw eyes filled with pain and bewilderment. Through the Force, I heard the echo of death. Excellent. One down.
The moment the blade fully extended, I deactivated it. I remembered these two; they were ranked in the bottom third. They were no match for me.
But as a test of how much stronger I had become, they were perfect. It's one thing to feel it yourself, another to prove it in live combat.
Two dark silhouettes, dimly lit by their red sabers, began to circle me from different sides. I felt their fear; they knew the disparity in our power. They were afraid of me. And that feeling birthed a rage within them, rage at themselves and their own weakness.
They lunged almost simultaneously. Evidently, this pair had trained to act in unison. Through the Force, I felt them acting as one, as if exchanging emotions to coordinate their strikes.
One aimed for my chest, the other for my legs. Without my precognition, it could have been dangerous. Even if I killed one, the other would have wounded me severely, perhaps even fatally.
But history has no room for the subjunctive mood.
Shifting quickly to the side, I caught the arm holding the enemy's saber. I felt him instinctively try to pull away, which only made my job easier. His balance, already disrupted by my intervention, collapsed entirely.
I only needed to give a light shove forward, and the blade meant for my body plunged directly into the forehead of the second enemy. Two down.
The blade aimed at my legs scorched the earth as it fell from weakened hands.
I felt bewilderment, grief, and rage begin to ripple through the Force. All these emotions fueled the killer of his own partner, and likely his friend, making him stronger. Such a familiar feeling: the thirst for vengeance, the desperate need to punish the evildoer. But not this time. I have my own reasons to live.
Without giving him a chance to recover, I made a fluid, yet lightning-fast circular step. His back was completely exposed. My lightsaber hissed to life again, burning a hole through him.
A premonition of danger forced me to duck. A crimson blade passed inches from my face. A desperate attempt to catch his enemy, but it failed.
I didn't give him a second chance.
The half-severed body, marked by a charred wound, slumped at my feet.
I turned to see Kamma finishing off his own opponent. A quick exchange of blows ended in a feint.
A scream of agony filled the air. One of the First's henchmen fell to his knees, clutching the stump of his forearm.
"Mercy, I beg you! I was wrong, I'll tell you everything I know..."
A crimson flash, and then a severed head rolled across the stones.
"Are you sure we shouldn't have kept him alive?" I asked.
"I'm sure. Everything he could have told us, I already know. I doubt they'd trust this trash with anything important."
Kamma swayed but remained on his feet. Now, in the calm, I saw how haggard my partner looked. Dark circles hollowed his eyes, his cheeks were sunken, and his right shoulder was scorched by a blade. Clearly, the fight had been harder than I thought.
"You look terrible. You hungry?"
"Honestly, I'll die if I don't eat something."
"I wouldn't say no to something edible either," Lana added.
She was half-reclining against the cliff. Her red hair was a mess, clearly untended for many days. I thought I saw a few small twigs caught in it. One arm hung limp and motionless at her side. Her leg seemed unable to straighten completely.
"You look a mess, sweetheart." In response, I got an annoyed huff and what sounded like a curse. Well, if she's snarling, she'll live. "Let's go."
"Where?"
"To the Emperor, to complain about the unfairness of life." I didn't expect that from Kamma. He must have been through a lot to ask such questions. "To my temporary home, obviously. There's food, at least, and we can sleep."
Staggering, they managed to limp to the concealed entrance. Using the Force to move the stone, I helped Lana up the steps. With every step, she winced and swore quietly through gritted teeth. Her lips were white, and her sharp fingernails dug into my shoulder. I have a feeling I'll have marks there, I thought, but to hell with it, it's not the worst thing that's happened to me.
Kamma walked on his own, but he lacked the strength to hide the passage. It looked like I'd have to do everything myself.
After settling my partners in adjacent cells and bringing them a few berries, earning looks that made it clear what they thought of my belief that a couple of berries could feed a sentient, I went out to clean up the mess outside.
It would be bad if someone found this place before these invalids recovered their strength. I had to hide the signs of battle and haul the bodies inside. I figured the mass grave containing the remains of ancient acolyte-failures was the perfect place for them.
Fortunately, lifting a few bodies with the Force wasn't much of a problem. The hardest part was finding a severed hand in the gloom that had rolled away somewhere. The lightsabers found a place on my belt—excellent, more spare parts.
Camouflaging the signs of the skirmish took about an hour. Moving rocks with the Force was simple, but the ash was a nightmare. I couldn't exactly move it grain by grain, could I? There wasn't much of it, but hiding the tracks of six sentients was a real headache. But no matter, I managed.
I slid the stone shut just as the first rays of the sun appeared, feeling like a vampire hiding from the daylight.
I had to nurse my patients for several days with almost no sleep. While Kamma simply collapsed from exhaustion, waking only to eat before falling back into a stupor, Lana was a different story.
The girl was delirious, sometimes seized by such intense tremors that her body arched, and I had to hold her down with the Force to keep her from breaking her own bones. The one who was supposed to heal us now needed healing herself, but there was no one here to provide it. All that remained was to hope for the will of the Force.
After three days, the fever and tremors passed. But she still wouldn't wake. I had to crush the juice from the berries and force her to drink. It wasn't easy; her jaw was clamped so tight it was nearly impossible to pry open by hand.
Fortunately, the next day, our sleeping blue-skinned beauty finally woke up.
"Good morning. The birds are singing, the sun is shining. Isn't that a reason to be happy, eh?"
We met in the corridor outside his room just as I was about to bring him another serving of berries. He looked at me, then at the window where a pitch-black night reigned, and tapped his finger against his temple.
"Are you alright? You feel... different. Like the same person, but changed."
"Couldn't be better. What the Hutt happened to you two?"
"Do you want the short version or the detailed one?"
"Lana is sleeping the sleep of the righteous, and I've eaten and I'm in no hurry. So, talk."
Man, they really had quite the adventure.
Unlike me, it seemed they had been dropped on the same half of the island, so they found each other by the second day. Apparently, there were no beasts on their side, as they hadn't seen any, but there were mercenaries everywhere. These unpleasant sentients, equipped with blasters, rifles, explosives, and stars-know-what-else, had occupied the ruins of what was either a castle or an annex to a temple.
Basically, a well-fortified structure.
When Lana scanned the area, it turned out there were no fewer than forty sentients hunkered down there. Well-armed, with provisions and possibly even armor. At least, my partners thought they saw some suits of plate.
Using his stealth skills, Kamma managed to restock their food supplies and even got out without making a sound. However, all his focus had been on not being discovered—it would have been incredibly pathetic to be caught because someone tripped over you. Consequently, he hadn't managed to memorize anything useful.
But they weren't the only ones who wanted the treasures of that fortress. After moving a few kilometers away, they noticed a tail of fifteen or sixteen acolytes following them.
The chase lasted about a day; some of the pursuers dropped off, likely returning to the fortress or wandering off on their own business. But a few particularly stubborn ones kept at it, losing the trail only to pick it up again.
Deciding they could certainly handle five, they resolved to set a trap. Everything would have gone smoothly if the bombardment hadn't started. The pair was surprised when their pursuers suddenly changed direction.
By the time they realized why, it was too late. At the last moment, they managed to scramble into a cave, where they waited out the barrage. According to our sensor, another acolyte nearby was caught in the shelling but somehow survived and headed toward the center of the Darkness on the island.
The entrance collapsed, and falling debris injured Lana's leg and arm, at the time, it didn't seem serious. It took several hours to clear the rubble. By then, most of their supplies had been used up.
Emerging, they headed deeper into the island. Lana was getting worse, and their supplies were dwindling. To top it off, they were nearly caught by one of the scouting parties sent by the First. That animal seems to have driven the mercenaries out of the fortress and settled in there himself.
Another long chase followed, but this time they wouldn't let go. Eventually, they were driven into the canyon where I had established my hidden home.
"...And you know the rest."
"And I, like a true hero, appeared at the last moment and saved everyone."
"That's pretty much how it went. By the way, I think it's about to start."
"What do you—"
I didn't get to finish. First, I heard the distant drone of engines, and then I saw dark specks cutting across the sky. A moment later, the darkness was replaced by the light of numerous explosions encircling the island.
Even from here, I felt the powerful gust of the blast wave. One salvo, a second, a third... Only after the seventh wave did the bombers fly off, leaving behind only new landscapes of destruction and scorched earth.
The boundary had moved significantly closer now; less than ten kilometers separated us from the new perimeter.
Turning my gaze to my blue-skinned comrade, I saw an extremely pensive expression on his face. He always looks like that when he's thinking intensely.
"You've come up with something again, haven't you?"
"Precisely. It seems to me there's a loophole in these rules that might help us all survive."
"And what would that be?"
"I'm not sure yet; I need time for the thought to take a cohesive shape." He wasn't lying. Opening himself to the Force for a second, Kamma let me read his emotions. There was indeed anxiety and excitement there. I had felt it before, but not so clearly; I could have easily been mistaken.
"And what's the endgame?"
"If it works, our lives will become much simpler. As our Director said, 'one must strictly follow the rules.' Therefore, what is not forbidden is permitted."
Our conversation was interrupted by a muffled groan coming from the far room. Lana was sitting on the bed, her head in her hands. Cold sweat covered her forehead, and her hands were trembling.
I went to step toward her, but I was stopped.
"Don't. She's always like this when several Force-sensitives die nearby. It's best to give her time to come to."
"But—"
"Just trust me."
"If you say so."
True enough, within a few minutes, the pressure let go, and Lana looked at us with a clouded gaze.
"Food..." Her voice was raspy, like old, ungreased door hinges.
"Right away, milady." With a magician's flourish, I pulled a small container from my pocket and shook out a few berries. "Here."
Like a cat with a paw, she snatched the food and shoved it into her mouth. Juice ran down her lips and chin, dripping onto her clothes, but she didn't seem to care at all. An expression of boundless bliss froze on her face.
Having dealt with the rush of pleasure, she turned a much more focused gaze toward us.
"How long was I out?"
"A few days."
"To be precise, four and a half."
"Oh, you were counting? How sweet."
"Well, I had to record the exact time of death."
"You wish."
"You've made me truly happy."
"That's enough, you two."
"Don't interfere, Kamma, we've missed each other. Right, darling?"
"Right. So much venom has built up, I simply have to spit it out somewhere."
"Spider."
"Rat."
"Snake."
"Mole."
"Are you going to list every animal you know? Let's figure out what we're doing next instead."
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