Standing in the shadows of the cargo bay, they regarded each other across the deck of Lignan.
"How should we proceed then?" Saes said.
Relin answered by deactivating his lightsaber.
He was no Jedi, not anymore, and would not fight with a Jedi weapon. Besides, only one form of combat could sate his rage. He tossed his lightsaber down into the pile of Lignan ore below him.
Saes took his point, tilted his head in acknowledgment. He detached his curved lightsaber from his belt and tossed it after Relin's. He flexed his clawed fingers, inhaled deeply.
"So be it, then."
Relin shouted and used a Force-enhanced leap to launch himself into the air toward Saes. Answering with a growl, Saes leapt into the air to meet him. They met midway, colliding over the Lignan, both of them filled with the dark side, stronger, faster.
Relin wrapped one arm around Saes, slammed his brow into Saes's face with the other. The bottom half of the bone mask shattered, raining shards down on the Lignan. Saes's lower tooth tore a ragged hole in Relin's forearm before it dislodged and added itself to the mask fragments raining onto the deck.
Saes slashed his claws across Relin's face. Relin used the Force to resist the blow, but it still dug jagged furrows into his forehead and tore into an eye, though he barely felt the pain.
They fell together, twisting, punching, slashing at a speed and with a force that looked blurry even to Relin. They hit the ground in a tangle of punches and kicks. Hate fueled their blows. Blood sprayed, bones cracked, the Lignan flared all around them as each drew on it in turn.
"I hate you for what you did," Saes spat between his fangs.
"I hate me for what I am," Relin said. He rolled away from Saes and from his knees fired a telekinetic blast that drove Saes through the Lignan ore and into a storage container. "But I hate you more."
He took mental hold of an entire storage container-Lignan ore fell from its open door like droplets of blood-lifted it from the deck, and dropped it on Saes.
Saes caught it in his own mental grasp before it hit. Grunting, Lignan ore flaring to life around him, he threw it back at Relin.
Relin dived aside and the container slammed into another. For the first time, Relin felt the waves of controlled rage radiating from Saes, an anger to match his own. Odd that Relin had never felt it before, in all the time they had spent together as Master and Padawan.
Saes stood and stalked through the Lignan scattered across the floor, the ore flashing as he passed it, consumed by his hate.
"You think rage days old can match mine, nurtured over decades? You think power born of infantile anger can equal mine? I have whet the blade of my hate for years, for this moment!"
He lifted a hand and a concussive wave struck Relin like a sledgehammer, drove him through the Lignan, and slammed him against the storage container. Ribs cracked and his lungs evacuated in a wheeze of pain. Saes continued to close the distance, his eyes dark holes behind the mask, his mouth twisted into a symbol of hate. He held up two fingers and Relin felt Saes's mental grasp close on his throat and begin to squeeze, pinching off his wheezes. Relin answered with a Force choke of his own, but it only slowed Saes for a moment before he resisted it with his own power.
Relin's vision grew blurry. Spots appeared before his eyes. He could not even gasp for breath.
Saes stopped before him, loomed over him, his eyes burning.
Feeding tendrils hung from the Anzat's cheeks, their ends a vicious nail of keratin. For a moment, it seemed as if the Anzat's head floated free in space, detached from any body, but Jaden realized that the creature wore a mimetic suit and had thrown back the mask and hood. The rest of his body simply blended in with the background, even up close.
Wrung out from his battle with the clone, Jaden raised his mental defenses too slowly and the Anzat projected his will into Jaden's mind.
Be still.
The words bounced around in Jaden's mind, found purchase in the ancient reptilian structures in the deepest part of his brain. His higher functions screamed for him to act, to defend himself, but the Anzat's mental projection lodged like a leech on Jaden's brain stem, froze his voluntary muscles and chained his will. He felt as if he might be dreaming, his mind in the grip of a nightmare, his body too paralyzed to react.
The Anzat's eyes flashed, the nostrils on his slightly upturned nose flared. He leaned in close, his face only a centimeter from Jaden's, but not quite touching, as if denying himself for a moment some treat he'd longed for. The Anzat's eyes impaled Jaden. He fought against the Anzat's hold on his mind, trying to dislodge the mind leech, but his mind, depleted from the battle with the clone, could not get free.
The Anzat sensed his failed struggle and smiled.
"I am Kell Douro," the Anzat said, his voice thick with an accent that Jaden could not place. "You are my salvation, Jaden Korr."
The Anzat took Jaden by the shoulders and the cables of the alien's appendages burrowed into Jaden's nostrils, the sharp point of the tip slashing sensitive tissues. Pain exploded in his mind, setting off a spark shower of agony before his eyes, but he could not move.
Kell inhaled deeply as he drove his feeders into the blood-slickened tunnels of Jaden's nostrils. He shuddered each time they pierced a membrane or slashed tissue. The lines of their daen nosi swirled around them, their motion rapid, chaotic, a reflection of Kell's own excitement. They became so tangled he had trouble distinguishing the silver of his own lines from the red and green that denoted Jaden's potential futures. His legs weakened at the thought of consuming the Jedi's soup, of understanding at last, after centuries of seeking, the map of the universe and his purpose in it.
He watched his lines enmesh Jaden's, strangle them, wipe out whatever future the Jedi might have had. His feeders pierced a membrane and squirmed for the Jedi's brain, his soup. Jaden's body shuddered.
Kell stared at the daen nosi, expecting to see Jaden's green and red end, overcome by the silver net of Kell's future.
Instead he saw Jaden's lines endure, saw his own lines knotted off and consumed by the dull gray strands of another. The three sets of lines resolved into a noticeable pattern. Behind the pattern, within the pattern, Kell saw the meaning of life, his purpose.
A blaster barrel pressed up against his temple. He felt it only distantly, thickly.
"Thank you," he said.
At first Jaden did not think he was seeing clearly, thought, perhaps, that his mind had retreated into dreams while he died. He saw Khedryn materialize beside the Anzat. Blood dripped from Khedryn's shattered nose, and his eyes were so swollen Jaden was surprised he could see at all. He held the BlasTech E-11 in his hands, the blaster they had seen in the armory off the barracks. He had its barrel pressed against the Anzat's head.
The Anzat's feeders started to retract from Jaden's nose.
"Thank you?" Khedryn said, stress raising his voice an octave higher than usual. "Frag you."
He squeezed the trigger and turned the Anzat's head into a fine red mist. The Anzat's body fell to the floor, blood pouring from the neck stump. The feeder appendages, severed from the nearly vaporized head, still dangled from Jaden's nose. Jaden sagged, wobbled. Khedryn steadied him.
"Are you all right? Jaden?"
Khedryn's voice sounded from far away. But it was drawing closer and Jaden was returning to himself.