Calm the heart, calm the mind.
These things simply wouldn't come to Magash Drashi; they melted like snowflakes in the sun, appeared for a moment, and then vanished.
Her anger had been growing with every step since the moment their trio, using the chaos of the battle, had docked with the hull of the battlecruiser Tatooine via a cloaked ship.
From the outside, it might have seemed like magic, and in the past, that's exactly how she would have described Master Fodeum's skill in piloting the plasma drill equipped with hybidium camouflage.
Seeing nothing around him, relying only on the Force and his own sense of danger, he guided the ship to the hull of the enemy flagship.
At the moment when proton torpedoes began to rain down on the battlecruiser, punching through the hull, the plasma drill attached itself to the armor plates and cut through them.
According to the plans from the studied trophies, the small utility room they entered wasn't visited by the crew when battle stations were sounded on board.
A simple storeroom, where the three of them—she, Gantoris, and the Jensaarai Protector himself—could catch their breath.
Then, the already exhausted Master, worn out by the flight and the incredibly difficult piloting, admitted he couldn't conceal them from the hostile environment on board the Galactic Alliance ship.
The operation, barely begun, nearly fell apart.
If not for Gantoris, who demonstrated to his companions how far he had progressed in studying the Force.
Almost all Jensaarai knew how to conceal themselves in the Force—for those who had hidden on Susevfi for decades, it was the only way to evade the Imperial agents scouring the galaxy.
The technique was difficult, but Magash, a native of Dathomir, couldn't back down—not after Gantoris had replicated the Jensaarai Protector's technique and become undetectable in the Force.
She had only managed it after several weeks of training—and this technique became one of the first she had learned as an apprentice in the Jensaarai Order.
But she had never learned to conceal herself visually.
Master Sabre De'Luz himself struggled greatly to manage it.
Gantoris excelled here too—everything came to him with extreme ease and simplicity, which made Magash a little envious.
It was the native of the distant dying planet Eol Sha who managed to visually conceal not only himself but also his two companions, allowing them to sneak onto the starship's bridge (even though they had to catch their breath from time to time, letting Gantoris recover his strength).
And now, the hour had come.
Grand Admiral gave the order, which they — packed into the farthest corner of the unforgivably large bridge with its sparse technical stations — began to carry out.
Just as with the mission details, Master Sabre De'Duz had explained the plan to eliminate the enemy command to them beforehand.
He would deal with the only Jedi on the ship himself.
Actually, a question arose: why should dealing with the Jedi be the Order's headache and not the Shadow Guard's, who specialized in such things?
But Fodeum didn't bother explaining anything to them, stating that those with whom they had stormed the criminals' fortress not long ago had more important assignments from the Grand Admiral.
So the old and experienced Jedi — who, though he had momentarily lost his composure from the brutal and mass simultaneous deaths of his subordinates, had quickly regained control — would be opposed by the Jensaarai defender Sabre De'Luz, appointed by the head of the Order.
And his two apprentices were to play "backup," destroying the bridge crew and preventing any other intelligent beings from the crew from interfering in the duel between master and Jedi.
According to the plan, they were to hold out for several dozen minutes, after which the starship would be boarded by the forces of the 501st Legion.
The stormtroopers were to land from the Guardian, which from the very start of negotiations was supposed to set a course to intercept the Tatooine.
And the latter, judging by the hull's trembling, was currently under heavy attack from bombers, which were damaging its defensive and offensive capabilities as well as its engines.
General Kota's flagship would not avoid being boarded.
And it would not deviate from the vector chosen for it by the Nautolan helmsman.
Because there was no helmsman anymore.
Magash had split his head in two.
As they say — face separate, tentacles separate.
* * *
As soon as Gantoris killed the nearest opponents from the bridge watch, it brought results.
The Force responded to his emotional state, caught him, enveloped him in its power.
He felt the seeds of fear sprouting in the souls of the Galactic Alliance soldiers.
When he pierced the watch officer with his blade, the guards spread out in an arc, holding their blaster carbines ready to fire to kill.
They couldn't understand how in just a second he had managed to destroy five who were nearby.
Gantoris had no intention of giving them time to find answers to rhetorical questions.
The apprentice called upon the Force and accelerated.
In his palm lay the hilt of a lightsaber; a red line cut through the air of the bridge.
He cleaved the soldier before him in two, drawing a black line across his chest.
With the same swing he cut down the soldier to his left, parried a shot from the other end of the control room, another and another...
This hesitation allowed a third Alliance fighter to recover and start shooting at him from close range.
But allowing such treatment was not in the rules of a native of Eol Sha.
He was quite exhausted when he used the Force to conceal his Dathomirian colleague and his master from detection.
But never before had he felt as good as he did in battle, when he had the full right and opportunity to take lives.
Not just breaking someone's fate, but killing enemies.
Every enemy killed is an ally saved.
Every life saved is a boon.
That's how they live on Eol Sha.
That's how he acted, becoming a Jensaarai.
The crimson blade cut through the blaster along with the hands holding it, after which Gantoris, throwing the blade at another guard, finished off the mutilated opponent.
With his right hand he sent a Force blast at the armless soldier, hurling him against the dura-steel bulkhead of the bridge with such speed that he died instantly.
Ignoring the bloody trail left on a section of the control room's inner plating, he extended his palm without looking, calling to himself the metal cylinder that had just cut down another Galactic Alliance soldier diagonally.
They aren't cowards — that was obvious.
But they were stupid.
For some reason, while firing, they came closer to him.
As if they thought that by doing so they would deprive him of the ability to quickly assess the situation.
If he were an ordinary human, then yes, his brain wouldn't have been able to orient itself so easily in what was happening.
But Gantoris had known from a young age that he was not an ordinary sentient.
Inside him, the Force slept.
And his master, who was now fiercely fighting an experienced Force user, had taught him to use it.
The Force was an ally and a tool.
And now it gave Gantoris the chance to savor the sudden surge of terror from the two guards who ran onto the bridge.
Someone had raised the alarm.
I wonder who that could be, since all the watch personnel were slaughtered?
But it didn't matter.
Gantoris had already chosen his targets and felt them aiming their weapons with sweaty hands, beginning to squeeze the triggers.
He threw his sword at them, and the blazing crimson blade, guided by the Force, cut them both down.
Calling the weapon back to his hand, the Jensaarai apprentice reached out to the side, ripping a soldier from his spot who was hiding behind a technical panel and had tried to shoot Magash in the back.
The Rodian, screaming something in his own language, gasped and went limp as Gantoris's will impaled him on the tip of the crimson energy blade wielded by a strong hand.
The apprentice listened to the Force.
More and more enemy soldiers were now running down the corridors toward them.
They weren't panicking.
They were composed.
They intended to fight.
Gantoris could practically hear their heels and boot soles thudding on the polished floor of the corridors.
General Kota's soldiers were running here to help him fight.
The apprentice watched the flashing lightsaber blades in the center of the bridge.
Fodeum was fighting General Kota.
The experienced Jedi skillfully opposed the talented Jensaarai, trying to pin him down and deprive him of mobility.
Gantoris's first impulse was to join the battle and kill the blind old man.
Judging by the emotions Magash was radiating, she wanted the same.
"Don't interfere!" the master shouted, parrying another thrust aimed at his throat. "Take care of the soldiers!"
And without another word, he turned back to the current battle, seizing a moment and driving a heavy boot into the blind man's head.
The latter, flying a couple of meters to the side, didn't even flinch and threw himself back into the attack.
"Let's go," said Gantoris, pointing Magash to the wide doorway leading into a corridor that would soon be littered with dozens of corpses. "Time to kill other enemies."
"We could finish off that old man together easily!" the Dathomirian snarled, biting her lips.
"If it were that easy, the master would have dealt with the Jedi already," Gantoris cut off, letting a wave of the Force flow through him.
The calm and muscle relaxation that came over him — that was exactly what was needed before the upcoming battle.
* * *
"Is this really not a droid?!" thought Fodeum, giving credit to his opponent's persistence and furious assault.
General Kota was clearly not young, but he was in excellent shape.
His blindness didn't hinder him — like a member of the Miraluka species, he used the Force to see.
Ysalamiri could have deprived him of that advantage, but bringing them aboard the Tatooine would have been a great folly.
Kota had clearly reached out to the Force before walking into the trap.
And must have felt the absence of the Force in key areas of the Dominion ships.
You didn't need to be a genius to establish the connection and prepare for the arrival of unexpected guests in the battle bridge of a Star Destroyer in advance.
Not to mention that ysalamiri would have deprived him, Magash Drashi, and Gantoris of the ability to use their own arsenal of abilities.
The Force aura of the attacking Jedi pressed harder on Fodeum, but his own aura resisted; the power of both sides was distorted by their very presence.
Fodeum had long since left the age when one underestimates the opponent and overestimates one's own.
He had learned everything about the Jedi that Dominion Intelligence and Grand Admiral Thrawn could provide.
But all that paled in comparison to what Fodeum saw before him at this moment.
"If this monster is a Jedi, then Darth Vader was clearly called a Sith as a joke," the Jensaarai thought.
Rahm Kota was a machine of death.
His pressure was so overwhelming that it was easy to get confused and flinch.
For every action of Fodeum, he had a countermeasure.
For every thrust — a parry.
The defense he employed was strong enough to withstand the Jensaarai's assaults.
Fodeum understood what was happening.
The Jedi was testing him, exhausting him, and studying him all at once.
He didn't rush in rashly, though he had plenty of opportunities to do so, which only strengthened the Jensaarai's opinion about the reasons for the prolonged confrontation.
Usually, lightsaber duels don't take long — opponents give their all, and a gap in skill or technique is quickly revealed and then exploited by the other.
But here...
Fodeum clearly and consciously admitted that he had not yet fallen to the floor of the Star Destroyer's bridge with his arms and legs chopped off only because Kota had quickly determined (though he didn't show it openly) the presence of cortosis on the Jensaarai's armor.
And so, instead of the usual tactic of hacking off limbs, the Jedi tried to strike the armor joints, where the cortosis-coated elements were either nonexistent or separated during movement, exposing the cloth under-armor of their battle suit.
The only thing Fodeum could counter his opponent with in fencing was his own fury.
Emotions fueled his power; he felt the might of the Dark Side enveloping him and growing within him.
The gift of rage, which the former inquisitor Obscuro had discovered and tried to cultivate within him, helped him be a little faster, predict the opponent's moves and techniques a little earlier.
General Kota was composed, outwardly calm, and acted like a battle droid.
No shouts, no quips, no sounds — nothing but the hum of lightsabers and the sound of footsteps, as well as fountains of sparks when the blades damaged equipment on the bridge.
There was no place here for reflection or adolescent complexes, verbal diarrhea or mockery of each other.
Both he and Kota fought with only one goal — to kill the opponent and survive himself.
The air filled with intertwining energy waves of the Force emanating from the fighting men.
Everything around turned into a chaotic and roaring tangle of bodies, lightsabers, and furious shouts coming from the corridor, where Fodeum's apprentices were turning Rahm Kota's elite soldiers into cooling corpses.
Another feint from Kota nearly cost Fodeum his head.
Where he began to tire, his opponent only intensified his inhuman pressure.
The Jensaarai doubled his physical strength with the Force, gripping the hilt of his sword with both hands and swinging, delivering a downward blow to bisect his opponent.
The Jedi dodged and directed a strike with his blue-bladed saber across the Jensaarai's throat.
The only son of Saarai-kaar parried the threat at the last moment, and immediately delivered a sharp kick to the Jedi's stomach.
From the blow, Kota doubled over and, staggering, flew back about five or seven steps.
Fodeum jumped lightly, flipped in the air, accelerated with the Force, landed before his opponent, and thrust his sword forward, driving it into the Jedi's chest.
But Kota wouldn't have lived this long if he couldn't dodge a straightforward attack.
The blue-white blade struck his left shoulder, tearing through it and the armor, as the Jedi rolled aside.
By the Emperor's black bones, he was good!
The next moment, the Jensaarai's figure dodged a slashing sword strike and dove away from the opponent, who delivered a telekinetic blow with his wounded hand.
The control panel shattered into pieces.
Fodeum didn't need to be asked twice to perform another trick that the Jensaarai had mastered.
Reaching out with the Force to the debris of the console, he changed their direction and turned them into a swarm of projectiles flying toward the Jedi.
Ballistokinesis surprised Kota, but not enough to make him a slow victim.
The Jedi surrounded himself with the Force, which deflected most of the projectiles, and Kota didn't even notice a piece of plastic that lodged in his cheek.
With the Force, Fodeum delivered a telekinetic strike at that unkillable Jedi, and he, missing the moment, flew back, hitting the bulkhead with terrible force, but his brains and innards didn't splatter across it, despite the power the Jensaarai had put into his blow.
The fight was beginning to take on an even more chaotic, uncontrollable character.
The Jedi and Jensaarai ran, jumped, rolled, and everywhere there was the hissing noise of blue-white blades meeting.
The lighting, damaged by their struggle, flickered, creating an oppressive twilight that was dispelled by flashes of short circuits.
Both opponents felt dozens of sentients dying outside the bridge, running into two furious concentrations of the Force — Gantoris and Magash Drashi.
But they continued their fierce confrontation.
Telekinetic blasts tossed the bodies of the dead and equipment into the air, hurled them against walls, scattered debris from the floor, which embedded itself in the fighters' bodies.
The bridge was filled with a cacophony of sounds: the roar of victors and the groans of the defeated coming from the corridors, accompanied by the hum of lightsabers and blaster fire.
Crackling and flashes of sparks, the groan of metal bending and tearing like wet paper, plastic and metal shrapnel, energy punctures and the hum of lightsabers...
The bridge of the Tatooine resembled a graveyard where its two keepers fought.
And both were in the center of this bacchanalia.
Throwing his opponent away, General Kota froze, listening to the Force, which howled from the increasing number of deaths: soldiers of the 501st Legion had boarded the Tatooine, sending ruthless battle droids and Assault Commandos ahead of them.
Fodeum took advantage of the situation and rushed toward his opponent, gathering the Force before him.
The moment his and Kota's blades met, the young Jensaarai defender released the accumulated energy.
The Jedi was thrown off the bridge through the main control post like a mass-driver round from an accelerator.
A groan of metal was heard — the Jedi's body smashed through a bulkhead and ended up in an adjacent room where the backup control post was located.
"When will you finally die?!" Fodeum exhaled, following his unkillable enemy.
The bulkhead, breached by the Jedi's body, was pushed inward into the reserve control post by the Force as soon as the Jensaarai approached the hole.
Blaster shots flew at him, which he playfully deflected and redirected back at the shooters.
At the same moment, Kota lunged at him from the right.
Fodeum, without hesitation, did a forward somersault, blocked a strike to his back with his blade, then thrust his left hand forward.
A Force push threw the old Jedi against the wall of the backup command center, smashing several screens with his body.
The young Jensaarai felt fatigue beginning to descend on him.
And with it would come death.
The rage inside him flared up again like a bonfire, and then blue lightning erupted from his fingertips.
Writhing, the lines of energy flew forward, knocking down two soldiers in their path, until they struck the Jedi Knight who was getting up from the floor, knocking him off his feet.
Kota put his blade in the path of the energy streams, but Fodeum knocked it away, using telekinesis to throw some device into the man's hands.
Force lightning sank into the blind Jedi's body.
He screamed in pain as the lightning began to tear his body, which became temporarily translucent from the dark power passing through him.
The Dark Side fury that had flooded Fodeum's mind let him savor his opponent's torments and pain.
All he needed to do was keep attacking Kota with Lightning, parrying the frightened crew's shots with his lightsaber.
"Control!" he remembered his own shout, used during his apprentices' training.
The steel vise of his mind strangled the temptations and pleasure the Dark Side gave him.
The stream of electricity ceased, and the Jensaarai defender himself nearly collapsed to his knees, feeling the weight of fatigue that fell upon him.
"Sith... spawn..." came Rahm Kota's pain-filled voice. "Now you will die!"
The old Jedi, on whose face the bandages had burned away, scorching his eye sockets, staggered toward him, pulling back into his hand the lightsaber that had flown away before the Force Lightning attack.
Oh, Fodeum had remembered to preserve his mind from Force madness at the worst possible time.
But he had no intention of giving in to the temptations of the Dark Side either.
The Force flowed through his body, easing but not eliminating the pain and fatigue of his strained body.
The Jensaarai rose to his feet and slowly assumed the combat stance of the Soresu form, which was perfect for defense.
He needed time to recover and launch a counterattack, so...
"You could have made a good Jedi!" General Kota said unexpectedly, stopping a couple of meters from Fodeum and leaning on a miraculously surviving control console. "I could teach you..."
"Thank you for the offer to join your Order, but I'm straight," Fodeum replied, increasing the amount of Force flowing through his body to relieve fatigue.
After the battle, he would feel so bad...
But these consequences of overexertion, if they happened, would still come soon enough.
"The Sith have misled you," said Kota. "Your future... If you follow this path, the Dark Side will consume you, make you its slave, a monster hungry for power and killing..."
"Old man," Fodeum groaned. "Let's skip the philosophy? I came to this ship to deprive your fleet of command and kill you. As you can see, the remnants of your forces are no longer receiving orders..."
"So be it," Kota said with inexplicable and completely idiotic pomposity given the situation. "I am not a killer..."
"I'll bet you're about to say that the hundreds of opponents you've cut down just threw themselves on your lightsaber," Fodeum laughed.
He clearly understood that Kota was having this dialogue to recover his own strength.
That was why the surviving crew members in this compartment weren't shooting either, though they were already taking cover.
Kota was hesitating, but continuing to prepare for battle.
Besides, Fodeum also needed to catch his breath.
"Renounce the Empire and together we..."
"Sorry, old man," Fodeum interrupted him, "but the very thought of doing anything together with a guy doesn't appeal to me..."
The Jensaarai wasn't taunting the old Jedi for nothing.
This technique was called Dun Moch.
Distraction and disorganization of the opponent through provocations, usually during a lightsaber duel.
Necessary to throw the opponent off specific thoughts, deprive them of concentration on the fight, and thereby weaken them.
And what could be more disgusting for a Jedi Templar than something ambiguous and offensive?
If Vex were nearby, she would definitely have given a thumbs-up.
And thrown in a couple of quips.
"So be it," Kota sighed heavily. "The Force knows — I did everything I could for your salva... Sith!"
The Jedi barely dodged the device thrown at him, rolling aside.
Fodeum lunged from his spot.
But his target was not the old Jedi, but the crew members hiding behind a wide control panel, preparing grenades.
Fodeum destroyed their cover with the Force, then decapitated all three with a single sweep of his lightsaber.
Catching their heads and bodies with telekinesis, he hurled his disgusting projectile at Kota, who was approaching with unambiguous intent.
But the Jensaarai had no intention of stopping.
For the confrontation with Kota, he needed not to be distracted by possible attacks from behind, and so he had to get rid of them before a turning point in this struggle.
And to do that, he would kill everyone here.
New victims had just been found.
He deflected a shot from a human male, then leaped over a short female Togruta with orange skin, then severed the blaster-holding hand of a third human female, and grabbing her by the throat with his free hand, slammed her into the floor, reinforcing the blow with the Force.
The crack of bones and squelch of fluids were heard.
Fodeum, without looking back, struck backward with his lightsaber, piercing the Togruta's heart.
He sidestepped, dodging a blow from the arriving Kota, backflipped to create distance, and thrusting his hand forward, pushed the Jedi away, while simultaneously grabbing the nearest crew member with the Force and breaking his neck.
With a lightning-fast motion, he separated the upper body from the lower on a Devaronian, and tossed the thermal detonator the Devaronian had primed toward the recovering Kota.
With a furious cry, the Jedi dove behind a control panel, escaping the explosion and shrapnel.
Fodeum didn't suffer from such an overestimation of that munition's importance, so he didn't move from his spot — he simply used the Force to pull a Duros male from cover and placed him in the path of the shockwave and shrapnel.
As soon as the penetrating elements stuffed him like a small gizka served at the table, Fodeum hurled the dying man at the head of the Jedi, who was peeking out from behind cover.
And immediately accelerated with the Force.
Kota was occupied by the comrade flying at him, so he took a step aside.
Only now, when the Force warned him of danger, did he realize how he had been tricked.
The man reflexively raised his left hand to defend himself — and it immediately flew to the side, severed at the elbow.
But his head should have come off!
Fodeum stopped, unleashing a flurry of powerful blows on his opponent, hoping that pain would cloud the Jedi's mind.
But that Hutt bastard refused to succumb to ordinary human feelings!
Seizing a moment when the opponent was absorbed in the lightsaber duel, Sabre De'Luz delivered a telekinetic strike from the side.
But Kota was ready.
He didn't use any serious techniques — he simply released an uncontrolled stream of Force from his stump, which threw the Jensaarai himself back about five meters.
Oh, so that was allowed?!
The man landed next to the cover of two more enemy specialists, whom he dispatched without even looking.
Kota was advancing.
Force techniques came hard to him, so he simply saturated his body, strengthening and fortifying it.
Fodeum parried his furious strikes, spinning like a nexu in a cage, protecting the vulnerabilities of his armored suit.
No extraneous thoughts.
No reasoning.
Only saving his own life and the desire to kill the enemy.
He was completely composed and focused.
But Kota suddenly roared like a rancor, crashing into him with renewed strength and a fury that was anything but Jedi-like.
It was so strong that even Fodeum was taken aback for a moment — and nearly lost both legs.
Kota seemed ready to kill everyone in sight, including his own allies, if any of them got in his way.
He wanted to kill, he needed to kill, to do it with his own hands and his own sword.
What an interesting specimen of a Jedi, though!
Fodeum allowed himself a smile.
The Jedi had broken.
Whether it was pain, the sensation of nearby deaths, or despair — something had clearly eroded the composure of the old warrior.
And if that was the case, then everything was fine.
He would burn himself out.
He just needed to hold on.
And wait for the right moment.
Oh, and there it was!
Fodeum ducked under the sword of the striking male Jedi, lunged forward, and grabbed him by the throat.
With his other hand, the Jensaarai controlled their crossed blades to prevent a close-range strike.
He lifted Kota, using the Force to help, holding him suspended, squeezing his throat.
Kota immediately began to choke; there was no fear on his eyeless face, but it was clear that he was in pain.
Well, of course!
Kota was flooding himself with the Force to keep his throat from being crushed, which was exactly what Fodeum was trying to do.
And so, he missed the obvious.
Kota curled up and slammed his knee into Fodeum's face.
The Jensaarai, with sparks bursting before his eyes to the sound of a broken lower jaw, released the old Jedi from his grip.
And at that same moment, he took a lightsaber strike to the stomach.
For a second, both opponents froze.
The enraged Kota stared at the hilt cylinders of his lightsaber pressed against the Jensaarai's stomach, and realization began to dawn...
"A curious case, yes," Fodeum agreed, driving an elbow strike that knocked the Jedi off his feet and sent him crashing to the deck.
Kota's lightsaber flew from his hand, and Fodeum pulled it to himself, simultaneously kicking the Jedi in the stomach and sending him flying.
Though he miscalculated the trajectory, and the general's body slammed into the ceiling a few meters away before crashing heavily to the ground.
Fodeum was already there.
The blade strike aimed at his torso missed — Kota twisted away.
But he couldn't avoid the kick to the ribs.
And then another one to the face.
"Surrender!" Fodeum offered, igniting Kota's weapon and crossing it with his own, bringing the tips of the energy blades to the Jedi's throat. "That's the only way you'll keep your life!"
Yes, Thrawn had ordered the general killed, but if there was a chance to take him prisoner, then why not?
After all, the Grand Admiral himself had, more than once in the past, traded valuable enemies for something useful to the Dominion.
And besides, the Force was somehow insisting that keeping this Jedi alive would be... disadvantageous.
Right...
"Never, Sith!" General Kota spat blood onto the floor. "I will not become an item at your vanity auction."
Outwardly, he remained calm.
But inside, the Force was accumulating.
The Jedi was doing it quite deliberately, which meant he was planning something very, very unpleasant.
"Well, as you wish," Fodeum shrugged, moving his blade.
His weapon swept downward, severing the Jedi's right shoulder joint, making him howl, instantly losing his concentration.
His right arm was no longer a threat, and the stream of Force inside the Jedi began to dissipate, no longer under the mental control of Rahm Kota.
Fodeum did not torment the defeated foe.
He simply raised a foot in its heavy armored boot and, with two strikes, knocked the stubborn Jedi unconscious.
Only then, realizing that no one alive remained around him, he took a couple of steps back and collapsed onto his rear, exhausted.
"Defender Sabre De'Luz speaking," he said weakly into his helmet's comlink. "Kota... Captured."
There was a moment of silence, after which the speaker in his helmet came alive with the voice of Grand Admiral Thrawn:
"Acknowledged, Defender Fodeum Sabre De'Duz. However, your orders were different."
"Well, sorry," the Jensaarai smirked. "If you want, fly here and finish off this monster yourself. I don't have any strength left, and besides, he's unconscious. You can chalk it up to my whim, but something tells me killing this man isn't the best idea. Maybe we can turn him?"
Thrawn was silent.
Then the comlink came alive with his voice again:
"A special commando squad is being dispatched to you, Defender. They will handle your prisoner. Casualties in your squad?"
Fodeum reached out to the Force and felt a gag reflex taking hold of him.
It seemed he had overdone it with the subtle energies for the time being.
"Magash broke a nail," he reported. "Other than that... Better than our enemies."
"Excellent work, Defender."
"So, what about Kota?" Fodeum, to be honest, had gained respect for his opponent.
Yes, he was a Jedi, a bit thick and inflexible, but what a warrior!
There were few among the Jensaarai who could fight so easily with lightsabers for nearly half an hour!
And Kota, it seemed, would have been able to continue for a very, very long time — if he'd had his arms and weapons.
"We don't finish off prisoners," Thrawn replied dryly.
And no further explanation...
Well, fine.
Let others decide the Jedi's fate.
Fodeum would not finish off an unarmed and defeated enemy — and he wouldn't let his students do it either.
That was not the way of the Jensaarai.
The threat was eliminated — and there was no reason to walk the path of the Dark Side any further than he already had.
And, strictly speaking, he should help his students...
But Fodeum simply had no strength left.
Kota the Hutt!
May he dream of a dancing Gamorrean stripper while unconscious!
What a way to run a guy ragged!
* * *
Gantoris was roaring with delight, squeezing the throat of an enemy special forces soldier, then threw the dead body — riddled with dozens of blaster bolts — to the floor, remaining standing over it, his sword blade held to the side, beheading another Alliance fighter and breathing heavily.
The fight still raged around him, and he stood at the very center of the storm of death.
Enemy fighters were desperately trying to take down a couple of Jensaarai students, hoping to reach the bridge of their flagship.
But Gantoris and Magash weren't giving them that chance.
Though the Dathomirian woman had disappeared somewhere in this jumble of human and non-human bodies, which, abandoning attempts to take down the Jensaarai from a distance, were rushing to close quarters, using shock batons as a weak alternative to a lightsaber.
Where would they get victory?
Gantoris finally spotted Drashi ten paces away.
Her blade flashed with insane speed in every direction from the raging Dathomirian woman.
A Republic special forces soldier put his electric staff in the path of the tattooed fury's thrust.
The weapon held the energy blade for only a few moments, after which the Alliance special forces soldier fell to her strike, followed by another who happened to be nearby.
Gantoris ducked a shot aimed at his head and slashed at the knees of the nearest opponent.
Screaming, the soldier fell onto his back on the deck, but an instant later, the tip of a lightsaber pierced his mouth and brain.
Ahead, beyond the mounds of dead special forces bodies, a new wave of suicide fighters appeared.
One of them, apparently the commander, jumped out from around a corner, realizing what was happening on the battlefield, and fired several shots at Gantoris.
His men immediately started taking cover, finding positions behind improvised barriers.
The Eol Sha native managed to deflect the shots aimed at him with his sword and sent the bolts back at the shooter.
But the commander managed to dodge and continued firing.
Now this was getting interesting.
"Cover me!" Gantoris ordered, beheading the last standing enemy with a sweep of his lightsaber.
Magash, giving him a glare, positioned herself behind and to his left, ready to cover his flanks and rear.
Gantoris cut his way forward, wielding his blade and the Force.
A rocket was fired at him, which he deflected towards the entrenched enemies.
The explosion tore them apart, after which the man accelerated, reached the enemy positions, and turned the wounded and concussed into the dead.
The corridor became unnaturally quiet.
No one was running towards them, no one was shooting...
Only the hum of two lightsabers broke the dead silence.
"Are they done?" Drashi asked capriciously, surveying the torn bodies of over a hundred enemy soldiers scattered across the deck.
"Looks like it," Gantoris agreed, speaking into his comlink. "Teacher, we've stopped the enemy soldiers."
"You can be proud of yourselves," came the tired voice of their mentor. "Return to the bridge — stormtroopers have already landed on the ship. A special commando squad is moving towards us to pick up the prisoner."
"We have a prisoner?" Magash was surprised.
Gantoris understood her astonishment.
The orders had been different — eliminate everyone.
Only data blocks were of value, but a group of three Jensaarai simply physically couldn't capture both the bridge and the central computer hidden in the depths of a line cruiser.
The stormtroopers would handle the latter, so...
"Uh-huh," their mentor muttered. "There's one. A bit of an oversight..."
Both students exchanged glances and, extinguishing their blades, headed towards where they had last seen their mentor.
* * *
A lot of time had passed since Ezra Bridger had fought against Imperial Assault Commandos.
And now it seemed to him that he had never done it at all.
Just five armored men had not only broken through to the central computer but also organized its defense before Ezra's squad managed to bring the situation under control.
At the cost of fifty of his men's lives, he had managed to fight his way into the compartment, killing four of the five enemy commandos.
But only one remained.
Seemingly — the most dangerous of them all.
And, praise the Great Force, that his flamethrower had run out of fuel.
Though their combat weapons — blasters and rifles — they had knocked out of each other's hands during the first phase of their hand-to-hand struggle.
Meanwhile, the Assault Commando drew an obsidian-black combat knife from a sheath built into his gauntlet, its blade glinting dully in the emergency lighting.
Ezra smiled crookedly and tensely.
He had seen such weapons in the hands of enemy stormtroopers before.
Obsidian combat knives.
Dangerous and brutal weapons that cut through bone as easily as a vibroblade cut through durasteel.
"Well, alright," the special forces soldier slapped his magnetic clamps — the flat backpack crashed to the floor, and a vibroblade, more like a cleaver, left its belt sheath. "Let's dance, 'doll'."
"My name is THX-0333," the Assault Commando unexpectedly introduced himself, tracing a figure eight with his blade. "I am the commander of the Fourth Special Squad of Assault Commandos, whom you killed."
"Um... And why do I need this information?" Ezra tried to joke, but the Assault Commando took it literally.
"I will avenge my soldiers, killed by you."
"Excellent," the Alliance soldier snorted. "I have the same plans."
The Assault Commando didn't even bother to reply.
He simply attacked.
Bridger blocked a thrust at his neck, but the opponent immediately landed a kick with his left leg to the torso.
The special forces soldier intercepted the limb, wincing from the pain in his side, and struck with his blade at the blocked thigh.
The Commando unexpectedly lost his footing, dragging the special forces soldier face-down to the floor, while simultaneously catching the hand holding the knife with his left hand and driving a right-hand punch into his face.
The opponents rolled across the floor.
Ezra managed to take an elbow to the jaw, which disoriented him for a few seconds, but he also managed to block a strike from the obsidian blade aimed at his throat.
His own thrust at the enemy's stomach was blocked by the opponent's left hand, after which he ducked under the special forces soldier's armpit, wrenching his arm back and applying a pain hold.
Ezra began to uncoil like a spring, executing a counter-hold, but took a boot to the face.
Staggering back, he blocked a series of blows to the torso, scored a cut on the enemy's chestplate, took a hit to the liver that made him scream bloody murder, nearly got a black blade in the throat but escaped with just a cut on his Adam's apple and retreated.
The enemy didn't even seem to intend to pause to plan his next assault.
He stubbornly pressed forward, confusing Ezra by switching the blade from hand to hand.
The special forces soldier waited for the moment, then kicked the weapon out of the Commando's hands.
At least he tried — the Commando caught his foot, dropping the knife, twisted it, and unceremoniously drove an elbow into his knee.
It hurt.
A lot.
But there was no break.
Ezra was on the floor again, got up, hissing in pain when he put weight on the injured limb.
"You're good!" he said involuntarily.
"I am a Dominion soldier," came the reply.
Following that, an armored fist slammed into Ezra's jaw, and a knee into his stomach.
On top of that, the obsidian blade cut through the chestplate of Ezra's armor like a hot knife through butter.
He only managed to retreat by a miracle — the Galactic Alliance special forces soldier simply fell, and the opponent, failing to react in time, took a kick to the back and flew to the deck.
Pulling a stimulant from his medkit, Ezra grimaced.
He hated those chemical tricks, but right now, unfortunately, it was necessary — to dull the pain, to regain control of his body.
Unlike this bastard, Bridger was not a master of knife fighting and preferred explosives.
Though he had used those to defeat THX-0333's soldiers — only by throwing thermal detonators at them had they managed to kill them.
While their commander had downloaded all the data from the Tatoo I's servers, and therefore had to be killed.
There was too much on the flagship that shouldn't fall into enemy hands — base coordinates, communication and access frequencies, the location of waypoint bases where they could resupply.
As well as the very hyperspace route the general's fleet had used to arrive here, remaining undetected until the very end.
Under these circumstances, Bridger couldn't take risks — THX-0333 would die, and the information chip he had hidden in his armor would be destroyed by the special forces soldier.
Only then could he think about how to save himself.
If he could, of course.
The Assault Commando didn't even seem to intend to fight his way to the exit, which was behind Ezra.
Well, yes, it was easier to kill the one blocking your escape than to break out and wait to be chased.
Bridger sighed and injected himself with the syringe-tube.
A wave of energy ran through his body, and the pain in his leg and body dulled.
"Shall we dance?" Ezra asked, waving the knife before his face and beckoning the opponent towards him.
The Assault Commando remained silent.
He seemed frozen, even tilting his head as if talking to someone on a comlink.
"Acknowledged, sir, working," came his calm reply to some order.
Ezra was about to ask what the conversation was about, but the Assault Commando didn't give him a chance.
THX-0333 was advancing again.
As if he never got tired.
"Is he a droid or something?" the thought flashed through Ezra's mind as he recoiled from the Commando's outstretched leg.
The opponent, bracing on the leg he had just used to attack, unexpectedly changed his attack vector and drove a good "one-two" into Bridger's torso.
It wouldn't have mattered if the combination had hit his chestplate or backpack.
But his spleen got the worst of it.
Good thing the chemicals were working properly and the pain was almost imperceptible.
The Assault Commando continued to shower him with blows.
Punches, kicks, even a headbutt with his helmet.
Ezra fought back, counter-attacked, managed to scratch the armor elements with his vibroblade a couple of times.
The Commando didn't even flinch.
He attacked again.
This time he struck the already damaged knee again, but Ezra hadn't put it in harm's way for nothing.
With a counter-move, he struck the stormtrooper's helmet with his vibroblade, but the Commando ducked in time and only got a scratch on the side of the helmet, while the Assault Commando locked his arm in a hold, arched his body, bringing his other hand to his blade.
Ezra felt a strong blow to the back of his legs and felt himself falling onto his back.
The hand with the vibroblade was trapped in the grip, and his wrist cracked, freeing the weapon, which the Assault Commando tossed aside before they crashed onto the deck.
Banging the back of his head painfully on the floor, Ezra felt his arm being pulled away from his body, as if the Assault Commando intended to tear it from its socket.
A moment later, the opponent twisted his lower body and both feet slammed down onto the special forces soldier's chest; THX-0333 used them to lock Ezra's head and torso, crossing them so that his other arm was also rendered maximally useless for countermeasures.
A classic arm-lock from the Imperial hand-to-hand combat arsenal, which almost no one could handle.
No one, except those under stimulants.
Twisting his other arm free, Ezra planted it on the floor, using his legs to help push himself up from the deck.
It was damn hard, but the combat cocktail and the relatively light weight of the Assault Commando made it possible.
Slowly though.
Getting onto his knees, Ezra barely reacted to the opponent stretching his arm with his whole body, causing incredible pain even with the combat chemicals.
Bridger got to his feet, intending to slam the enemy down from a standing position...
THX-0333 acted preemptively.
He bent at the waist, freed his hand for a moment, and landed a strong blow to the Alliance special forces soldier's jaw, disorienting him for an instant.
And then, like a spring, he whipped backward, inertially dragging the special forces soldier with him, even moving his body to the side so that Ezra's face met the deck.
The impact sent sparks flying before his eyes.
Ezra felt his limp arm being twisted behind his back, secured with a plastic zip-tie to a carbine on the back of his cuirass.
The special forces soldier tried to throw the opponent off.
At that same moment, the Assault Commando unceremoniously grabbed the back of his helmet and slammed his face into the floor with force.
On the fifth repetition, Bridger felt his consciousness slipping away.
"Sir," he heard THX-0333's voice through the cotton wool of fading reality, "data from the central computer and the special forces commander have been captured. Of the entire Fourth Special Squad of Assault Commandos, only I survived. Yes, sir, again..."
And then Ezra plunged headfirst into the saving darkness.
* * *
Grand Admiral Thrawn looked at Rear Admiral Mor sitting opposite him.
"Good work," Thrawn said.
"Thank you, sir, but without your help, it would have been much worse," Alexander admitted. "As it is... a couple of damaged destroyers, five destroyed cruisers, and three needing major repairs."
"And in return, we got three escort frigates, ten Home One-class star cruisers, an MC90-class line cruiser, twenty thousand prisoners, information from the enemy flagship's computer, a captured warlord, and the commander of the ground special forces. Not to mention that you received a practical demonstration of new tactics — both ours and the enemy's. Our modernized Golan IIIs were tested in battle," Thrawn listed. "They alone made Kota and the Alliance's venture doomed from the start. Though the enemy didn't know that. Even if you had executed the obvious maneuver, we would have lost half your fleet. The enemy would have been broken and retreated, but couldn't have achieved their goal. My intervention only adjusted the outcome. And besides, an inspection of the new Golan IIIs was long overdue. As you can see, they are protecting this system, along with your fleet."
"Right. Along with the planetary shields, ground-based ion cannons, and those good old w-165s on the surface of Makem Te, not to mention two legions of stormtroopers on the ground, fifty thousand droids, and three air wings of interceptors," Alexander thought.
And that wasn't counting the two dozen escort frigates that were outside the system, delivering supplies from the core worlds.
On the return trip, they would probably be loaded down with a convoy of trophies — leaving them in the Makem Te system, which was currently blockaded for all incoming and outgoing traffic, would be foolish.
"Get the defenses of Makem Te in order," Thrawn ordered. "Soon, additional cloaked asteroids and minefields will be delivered from the core worlds." right, on the escort frigates.
"Yes, sir. Any further orders?"
Thrawn wouldn't be staying here.
He had just "stopped by."
"Of course," the Grand Admiral said calmly. "Based on the information obtained from the Tatoo I's central computer, plan and execute a retaliatory punitive raid, Rear Admiral."
"Yes, sir. The plan will be submitted for approval in one standard week, sir!"
"That won't be necessary," Thrawn replied calmly. "I trust you completely on this matter."
Mor slowly closed his eyes, then nodded silently.
And mentally, he was cursing so hard that even the lowest Hutt would have been ashamed.
Thrawn had done it again!
He had "examined" Alexander again to make sure he could be capable of further actions without outside help!
And the blue-skinned Sith knew perfectly well that he had hit the mark with his help and remarks.
Alexander would now bend over backwards to give no grounds for doubting that he could win with the forces of his own fleet, without Thrawn's guidance.