Star Wars: Heir to the Sith (Part 3)

Chapter 29: Ella swallowed and squeezed the trigger.

Ella ran. She passed through the door at the end of the corridor, hating herself for leaving Lance, determined to make Hal, or Halva, pay for his treachery.

Her anger gave her strength. Her legs powered her forward with a speed and certainty she had never felt before, straight into the main chamber of the station's power plant.

Before her rose the main reactor, held in place by an array of ray shielding to prevent any radiation escaping. This room, she was sure, would have been on its own security circuits, with back up generators to keep it stable should anything else happen to the station's environmental controls.

There was also room to run here, and hide. Around the central core, contained in its numerous force fields, were consoles and platforms that looked over the chamber from the floor above.

"You? What are you doing in here? What's going on?"

Ella glanced over to see an Imperial technician emerge from behind a bank of flashing lights.

He was unarmed.

Ella ignored him and ran on, running up the steps to the next level, making sure she wasn't running into a dead end first.

She felt Mahon enter the room behind her and knew that she couldn't hide from him. His senses went beyond sight and sound.

Instead, she decided to confront him.

She raised her blaster and took aim.

"One more step. Just one . . . and I'll shoot," she said.

Mahon paused in the entrance, some distance away.

"You have no idea, do you? About what you are? About what we are."

"I've seen the things you've done," she answered. "There is nothing in common between us."

"Let me explain it to you," Mahon said. He gestured to the technician. "You. Where are the rest of the staff?"

"They've evacuated, my Lord," the technician said, advancing. "I am on duty just to keep watch over the generators–"

"Good," Mahon cut him off. He turned back to Ella. "What do you feel, princess? What do you perceive about him?"

She couldn't feel anything about the man. She didn't know how she had shared the experiences of others before: of the storm trooper who had been injured in the palace on Farsalt, or the feeling of pain she had experienced when Lance had been shot.

She didn't know how she had done those things. But she had.

"You do not sense him? Then let us try this."

The red line of his lightsaber burned to life, piercing the technician's chest and boiling his innards.

Ella watched, horrified and entranced, feeling a fleeting pain in her own breastbone that died as swiftly as the imperial who fell in a slump.

Mahon retracted his weapon and looked at the corpse.

"Did you not feel his life fail?" he asked. "Did you not feel the glorious event that was his last sigh? That is a scream in the Force to me!"

"It was not to me," she said grimly. "And it never will be."

"But I sense the doubt in you! The fear that you are like me. I have been trained since I was a child to hunt others gifted like us, but I have never found anyone like you or your master. Such power was supposedly driven from the galaxy in the great purge. It was a belief amongst us that only one man, a youth, had such power, that all the others were untutored and errant, with potential but no knowledge or skill. How I wished to pursue him, to prove myself beyond doubt! But he was always Lord Vader's personal project, and we were barred from any investigation into him. Instead, the dregs of the galaxy were given to us. The mystics and the mad men, the old priests and seers. There was little joy in such hunts."

He took a single step forward.

"But on Farsalt I bested your master and encountered you. And that battle, that collision between us, opened up something in me. I have grown since our last meeting, and I realise that you do not understand what you are. I have met and killed many who were gifted too. I see your strengths. You are a Force Savant, one with great potential. Even amongst the Jedi of old they were rare."

"What does that mean?" she asked, concentrating to keep the blaster steady.

"No two Jedi were alike," Mahon explained. "Each had their talents, and each were better in some than in others. The Force is life, and because of that its abilities are as varied and hued in countless, infinite ways. Many of which even the Sith have forgotten now. But in you I sense these wild talents. Talents that I do not possess, but would like to."

"What talents?"

"Those of us versed in the Force possess similar skills. We can move things with our mind. We can imbue our limbs with strength that is far beyond natural. We can convince lesser beings of sights and sounds and smells that exist only in their reality. Sometimes, we can even perceive the future, or the past. And we understand the importance of our instinct. We are in tune with the galaxy and hear its darkest desires. And yet, this is only the tiniest taste of what we can do. I know Lord Vader has kept so much from us, training us for specific purposes, limiting us to what we needed to know, and within you I sense uncharted talents."

"What talents?" she said again.

"Lord Vader could kill a man by thought alone. I have tried to emulate this talent. I have tried to strangle my enemies from a distance, but living things have a resistance that one must overcome to use this skill. I can knock a person off their feet with great concentration, but I cannot reach inside his throat and strangle him. Nor can I pinch a nerve in the brain or throttle a vein to cause a stroke. Perhaps you have such ability?"

"I do not want that ability," she answered.

"There are others. Many others. Once I was trapped for some days in an ancient Jedi temple. There were carvings on the walls, deep inside, thousands of years old. They showed that there were savants who could converse with plant and animal life, who could create light and darkness around a whole planet, who could transmute the elements at will, who could pacify the diseases in a body. Some who slept and dreamed for centuries at a time, and who would awake to deliver a great prophecy or warning before returning to their sleep again. There were those who could manipulate single celled organisms to create their own life, or who could make many thousands feel the pain and dreams of others, who could understand an object's history by touching it. Countless talents, beyond the count of stars of in our galaxy."

Mahon raised his hand to her and pointed.

"Yet we are rationed to the point of starvation, taught like an animal to do the basest of tricks. But within you are the secrets to new talents. Perhaps they aren't like those of old, perhaps they aren't so potent, but I am sure they are there. I can feel your ripples in the Force, and they are different to others, greater but less frequent."

Mahon activated his lightsaber and stepped forward.

Ella hesitated, but kept her aim.

"Don't do it," she said. "Please don't. Even after all you've done, to Lady Jish, to my planet, to me, I still don't want to take a life. Not even if I have the opportunity, as I have now. So back off."

"Opportunity?" Mahon repeated. "You underestimate me."

From the Assayer's other hand a second lightsaber lit up. He stood with both blades crossed at his knees, bathed in the twin red lines of energy, the scars on his face hideously illuminated.

"I am convinced you have secrets beyond your understanding. I will have them from you. Whether you are willing or not."

He advanced toward the stair, and this time didn't stop.

Ella swallowed, aimed at his feet, and squeezed the trigger.

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