Star Wars: Heir to the Sith (Part 3)

Chapter 35: "There is no strength in mercy!"

She saw her sister fall. Felt an agony of burning pain flare across her right side and threaten to paralyse her shoulder and arm. She felt her grip slacken.

The lightsaber drooped in her hand. A weapon without the will to wield it.

Her world was fractured.

Mahon turned to face her. He gave a cry of savage victory and brought his blade across her front toward her wrists.

The red flame was met by the green light in a collision of sparks and crackling energy. Her arm was forced aside, leaving her defenceless for Mahon to stab toward her legs.

Ella leaped backwards, stumbling frantically, Mahon in pursuit.

He stabbed again, so close as to leave a black sear marked across the side of her arm.

Even as she retreated, she saw how her vacuum suit adapted to the damage, healing itself to prevent any exposure.

But the pain of the burn followed in the immediate aftermath.

Mahon struck again, aiming for a slash that would cut her from hip to hip. Only by throwing herself backward was she saved, propelling herself with such force that she careened over a console ablaze with lights.

She landed on her feet and brought her lightsaber before her, just in time for Mahon's mad stab that impaled the console from the other side and set it ablaze in a bursting spark of light that threatened to blind her.

Mahon rose before her, smashing the remnants of the console from his path, hacking them aside with his saber, ignorant of the sparking wires beneath his feet.

He was a monster. Unstoppable. Relentless. Filled with hate.

Determined to kill her.

"Neerada - help!" she found herself shouting.

"He will kill us both, sister," Neerada said weakly. "You are our only chance. Remember, this is the man who destroyed your home and your people. He is the man who killed your king." Her voice weakened. "Use the anger, sister. Embrace the hate. It is our only hope."

"She is right," Mahon said, stepping free of the ruined console. "There is no strength in mercy. Nor pity or sorrow or patience. Hatred is strength."

He gestured with his hand, and a hundred metal fragments, so hot they were melting, flew from the floor and pelted her vacuum suit.

She threw her arms up to protect her bare face, and her forearms burned from the droplets.

"Argh!"

The front of her torso was stinging, and a similar pain burned on her jaw.

Ella wiped the area clear with her wrist and stared at Mahon through tearful eyes.

"It will scar you," he said. He pointed to his own face. "Just as you and Jish did to me on your dying world, just as–"

"No!"

Ella blinked away her tears and charged the man who had brought so much destruction. She thought of her adoptive parents and her best friend, of Valsum and all the love she had been gifted with.

Now all of that was gone.

Mahon took a step back in surprise, only barely making the parry.

But it was irrelevant to her. For she felt it then.

Now.

The Force.

Her pain fed her. It stripped all the banality of life from her and left her with a single purpose. Hate filled and angry. All so concentrated in the moment.

No future. No past.

Just the now.

Mahon moved again. He withdrew his blade, stepped away, and lunged at her with a speed that was slow–

That IS slow–

She reacted. The green line parried the red, beat it aside with a sparring glance and left him exposed.

There is no past. No future.

Just the present.

Ella beats him back. She advances. She enjoys his hesitation. His hesitation as it turns to fear. Fear that manifests itself on the wreck of his face in beads of sweat and a dilation of his pupils.

She enjoys it.

The Fear.

Mahon attacks again. He stabs: once, twice. Each deftly avoided by a side step and a spin.

No dreams. No nightmares.

Ella parries and beats his blade away. She forces him wide. He staggers back. His face is one of complete shock.

Her sister is shouting, but the words are too far away and meaningless, and besides, she chooses not to hear them.

No hopes. No fears. Just the now.

"I perceive you, Mahon," she says. "I know you."

He comes in again in a flurry of black cloak, swirling darkness, and red death, his face a mockery of civilisation, all burned and scarred and twisted by hate into something infinitely worse still.

Barely coherent, he shouts obscenities.

And she has to counter with only one, a word conjured from the collective mind of a tortured galaxy, the name of a place she has never heard before:

"Mustafar."

To those few in the galaxy who know it, it is a word of darkness. A place beyond myth. A place where pain is a creature sustained in an armoured shell, kept alive by unnatural magics and where torment is the only currency.

"Vader," Ella says in a whisper. "Mustafar. That is your story. Like the others."

Mahon stumbles back. His reaches to his face with his free hand.

"You don't know what they did to us!"

He swings wildly, attempting to push her blade aside.

Ella's hand holds. She does not yield.

"You are so weak, Mahon," she says, staring into his eyes. "Your power is deserting you."

She enjoys his fear. It is palpable. It has a taste.

Ella finds herself grinning in an unpleasant way. The pain on her jaw burns away, but it is pleasantly empowering.

She embraces it. She embraces all of it.

Their sabers cross and Ella forces Mahon back. She shouts and the whole chamber reverberates to the sound of her scream whilst Mahon himself cowers before it.

He slips in his retreat and falls to one knee. His blade is held at an awkward angle, his face wretched in his fear.

He knows he cannot defend himself.

"No . . . d-don't do it–"

Ella raises her saber in both hands and stares into his eyes.

Fear. It is beautiful to wield such power. It is beauty to see the terror of others. It is beauty to perceive your superiority over the insects.

She speaks again, but her voice is bitter, her decision final:

"There is no strength in mercy."

Ella Malquet screams and brings her lightsaber down with all her strength.

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