The Right Thing for the Wrong Reason
Part 2
Of course they were doing it at change of shift, what better way to hide their plans.
The Next shift wandered in, as he crossed the thin surveying laser that separated the dig zones.
With Fendo’s pass it chimed a briefly affirmative signal and he was in.
Approaching from behind he mingled at the back of a small group of engineers as they waited on the Clones brining down a number of grav sleds, some empty some with strange devices on them.
“Arrange them around the entrance, begin propping the shaft.” Just another one of the engineers Karmack kept his head low and worked studiously along with the others setting supports on an entrance way.
It was tiring work after a full shift already, he started a healing…
…
There was no Song…
The Force was…
Gone
What sick twisted game were they playing, supressing the energy of the Spire – no doubt to make it safe to plunder and demolish it.
“You all right?,”
Karmack nearly jumped out his skin as a hand was placed on his weary back by a concerned looking Phindian.
“Fine…yeah fine…just…long shift,” he paused looking around and thinking fast
“Hey do you mind taking this beam, my backs gonna give out, I’m happy to take those cases instead,
“Yeah sure,” the worker replied eager to help,
“Just take them one by one inside,” he pointed a gangly digit toward the entrance covered by clone troopers,
Hefting up one case Karmack smiled and headed straight toward the entrance way, old pottery sharp underfoot, confidently he strode toward the small group of clones, noting the intricate carving around the entrance to the shaft they had opened was covered in old runes that looked familiar, he had seen them before in his studies of Mak’Tor history but wasn’t proficient enough to read them.
His heart beat harder as he got closer…just behind those white armoured goons could be a store of valuable Mak’tor relics, tomes, manuscripts, lightsbares…and he could be the one to secure them from the hands of this twisted Empire.
He swallowed dry as he got closer
Maker don’t let them stop me…One of the Clones adjusted his rifle strap, another tapped his helmet…everything seemed to be in slow motion as he approached – Karmack could feel the breath held in chest itching to escape and reveal him.
The Clone with a red streak on his helmet looked him over, noted the case, then stepped aside
“Head on through, take the first right follow the red guide lights,”
Still holding it all in Karmack stepped forward into the dusty tunnel, turned right. Then near fainted as he let his breath out.
He was in.
<<<<>>>
He got as close as he could, mingling among the coming and going workers, but without a pass he couldn’t get into the more restricted zone…
Stubborn Mack how’d he get a pass….Chillum’s finger twitched under his baggy work clothes, the sabre concealed within as he considered just how much of a lecture to give the boy…his heart was in the right place but he was just too rash about it.
But he could worry about the dressing down later, for now he just hoped Karmack kept a low profile and didn’t try anything…
<<<<>>>
The wrongness was overwhelming.
This cave…those crystals should be alive with light and song he knew…yet under the suppressive devices of the Praetorians they were dead and quiet, the plinth in the centre heavy and unmoving.
Karmack tentatively followed the three other workers placing their cases to the side, noting one Praetorian standing beside an unusually black object on a grav sled, and a young woman jotting notes on data pad with one hand a strange orb in her other hand.
But his eyes were drawn to the central plinth…something was…beneath the stone…calling to him…
Even though the Force seemed absent here…there was something deeper…older than the stars that cared not for the petty tools of this Empire which was mere dust on it age.
He stepped forward hardly knowing what he was doing
…….Ka….The word was in his ears…not behind his eyes somewhere
Kar….Kadyn noted the odd human worker walking toward the spire…and
felt movement in the aether….
Movement that shouldn’t be there.
They had set up Null Pillars to supress the power of the Spire’s Crystals while it was moved in accordance with Warmaster Valens instructions – the Legendary Elder Guardian had been here centuries before, destabilising the planets Aetheric flow as part of a long term plan to create a so called ‘dark side’ taint to limit the Jedi’s powers and perceptions, one the real Palpatine had unwittingly benefited from.
Karmack… He was almost an arms length from the pitted ancient stone, strange symbols not there before glowed along its length.
Karmack…we choose you to restore the balance…The words were not an offer, not a request, but an inevitability etched into his very destiny.
Even as Kadyn stepped toward the teenage human male the front of the Spire began to lift, Jisaea collected data on her orb turned as well,
There were three hollows in the monolith that was revealed, only two were filled, the missing one absent the so called Light Crystal Valens had destroyed centuries ago…the remaining two were known in Mak’tor Prophecy as the Dark and the Gray – a trinity of so called balance.
Despite the null fields the crystals still glowed, cracks in the Null pillars formed - their suppressive power in adequate against the build-up.
Karmack had never seen such beautiful crystals…the Red and orange pulsing…and more than that he had been
chosen to save the Shrine, to bring Balance to the Force, and yes surely that must mean to destroy this False Empire and it’s horrific Praetorians he convinced himself oblivious to the Dark side energy of the Red crystal that had no balance in Light.
“Get away from….” Kadyn’s words ended as a blinding flash slammed him back, the entire cavern rumbling. His Mark 7 Blackstone Armour more than able to compensate for the buffeting into the dull clusters of crystals in the wall that shattered on his overly heavy impact.
The Crystals left the Monolith as the Null pillars shattered and Jisaea squeezed her panic ring with her mind to alert the others.
<<<<>>>>
The entire excavation site began to rumble, sections fell into sink holes in the near twenty kilometre wide pit to his left taking workers with it in screaming horror.
Dust plumed in towers as tall as the skyscrapers around the former temple precinct, LAATs overhead wove and dodged…
Yet this was all secondary to the explosion…no…
Release of Force energy Chillum sensed from the cavern Karmack had entered.
There was no time to think, he had to move, as the Clones rushed inside he leapt the laser fence, the red alerts shrill tone lost to the crack of rock and shattering scaffolds as he lit his sabre.
<<<<>>>>
The Crystals hovered above his hand, filling him with power, in that instant he felt he could lift the very galaxy with one finger.
Kadyn quickly recovered, the signal already sent more forces would arrive soon, the teenage boy was staring at the crystals, the imbalanced emotional content of the ‘Dark Crystal’ feeding into his youthful fantasies of glory and conquest…the boy was barely twenty, only human, too young to understand the forces he was dealing with….
Kadyn had to end this swiftly.
Like oblivion lightning he struck forward in a smooth motion pulling hi Blackstone sword in a graceful arc that slammed into an invisible barrier about the boy.
Suddenly aware of the threat Karmack looked up and grabbed the crystals in one hand his sabre in the other.
With a heated anger at all the Praetorians and their so called Benevolent Empire stood for he pushed with the Force at the warrior who was bouncing back from the deflection.
Another kinetic blast slammed Kadyn across the cavern, the aetheric power too strong for his own kinetic shield or Blackstone armour to absorb – only those crystals could give the human such power.
Jisaea understood just as well, shikkar daggers spinning from hidden pockets in her trousers, lighting from her finger tips that arced harmlessly off the instinctual power the Crystals offered Karmack.
Noticing the woman he turned on her – the face so similar to the detested Princess Mira, the sweet voiced bitch manipulating and twisting people to her will…
In the righteous red haze of youthful fury Karmack imagined it was the Princess and the Empire with it he was killing.
<<<<>>>
Blue blaster fire shattered against his blade as he swept through the Clones – in the panic they had reverted to shoot on site leaving Chillum no choice.
In a swift pirouette he moved though the three of them severing limbs and head with his sabre, knowing full well the implications, yet he had to get to the Spire, to his apprentice before….
As he rounded the corner breath already ragged from the throat choking dust the cave in’s had yielded he saw he was too late.
Karmack stood over bleeding young woman on her knees, cruelty on his face as if every check and balance on his rage had been broken, his sabre swinging down to her neck, the yellow encased by glowing furious red from something he held in his off hand.
He didn’t just cut into her throat which resisted with unusual strength against the energy blade – but her mind – in the fluid waves of the pulsing dying song he heard the voice, the intent, the TRUTH.
The Praetorians were not human, not even meta human – something…better yet terrifyingly worse – and they would hold every thread as the galaxy burnt in war seeming without end, a wildfire blazing white with heat around the core, yellow and wicked down the galactic arms.
But no fire lasts forever, soon the fuel – the bodies of every race Karmack had ever scene and some he not, were spent, the inferno turned them to cinders.
Then Silence
Quiet
A galaxy turned dark except for a small flickering light in the centre where the Daemons returned from whence they came to a life of peace and plenty, at last feeling safe behind an adamantium wall of defences around the galaxy. Their peaceful perfect lives bought at the price of the genocide of Every. Other Species.
And they didn’t care – they just didn’t care – he stood upon the mountain overlooking half a dozen valleys of small farms between rich forest, laughter and joy, peace and plenty, the Outsiders a myth relegated to stories to entertain. No guilt, no sense of remorse, just joy.It was a heaven for a pagan tribe, it just waited for the galaxy to eat itself in war first – it had almost done so in the Clone Wars, but more was needed – and they were more than happy to guide it.
His fury rose to new heights…then he saw the quivering frightened woman’s face
I did that…The impulse so deep in him to kill, to harm died and was refilled with regret.
He fell down to his knees as the body before him dropped absent a head.
<<<<>>>>
He would more than Die….
Kadyn would kill him yes, take those crystals that had given him power to kill a real Person off him…but then…
They would resurrect him…and kill him again…and again…and again….until every star in the universe died – such was the punishment for harming a Female.
His muscles tensed and ready as a heady mix of combat hormones flooded his system, switching off emotion and pain sensation and enhancing cognitive speed, perception and physical strength and speed by half, he rushed forward blade craning toward the weak human skull.
Chillum’s blade sparked in defiance against the blow as the fractures in the rock ceiling grew larger and larger.
A swift punch Chillum barely dodged slammed into a falling piece of the mountain shattering it with explosive force.
“RUN!” he yelled to his apprentice, no time to counsel him or ask what had happened.
Karmack’s glazed eyes suddenly registered…Chillum’s blade was flashing white, spinning in defensive circles against a living shadow that would inevitably win.
Chillum could not hold the Praetorian long, already his arms were pained, legs sore, the weight of each blow was like a slab of ferrocrete, the Force, the Song was hammering through him at an inevitably fatal level just to keep up.
On jelly legs Karmack stood up, pained eyes looking to his master.
Run Son… the soundless words overtaken by the shattering of the roofs collapse as a tsunami of rock and rubble crashed between them.
Karmack ran.
<<<<>>>>
All is dustSome descriptive words in an old psalm he had never really paid attention to before.
From dust are all things forged…to dust returned He felt that dust now, choking up his mouth. If there was one consolation it was that somehow Chillum had survived the cave in…
It was black though…he couldn’t see a thing, only feel the scratching dust all over…yet it felt…wrong…
You’re alert…good…now you can tell me where yor accomplice isThe words were not quite words, more like thoughts dripped into his head…he tried to speak but the dust was chocking him.
ccch…ccckk“How long?”
“Perhaps a day or two, the stimulants should speed adaptation to the new environment”
Chillum could not hear them, could not see…for he hd nothing left to hear or see with.
Kadyn stood before the bubbling amnio-tube that contained the remains of the would be assassin.
The cave in had crushed them both, but Blackstone armour a kinetic shield and most of all Aethan physiology meant Kadyn had been dug out with only superficial wounds.
The human with only a dirty workman’s overalls for protection had fared less well. The flagging shred of meat that comprised his body had been rapidly stabilised, the dead tissues beyond repair removed until only a half head brain and three quarters of a spine were encased into the amnio-tube then jump started back to life with a Shatterpoint healing burst.
Whatever sensation the human body had last felt were now locked into its somatosensory cortex…most likely the crushing grip and choking dust of the collapse. They kept him ‘alive’, but not out of mercy…only intelligence – the right thing Chillum might say, for the wrong reason.
Speak human… Kadyn went on, his words translated to electrical impulses into the brains hearing centres
…tell me everything…<<<<>>>>
Ragged, dirty and stinking he let the equally unkempt crowd move him onto the ship.
Everything after the collapse of the spire was a blur of running, hiding, panting for breath, sipping foetid stagnant water where he could, trying to think of a way off world…
He needed to get home to get…
You are chosen, you will bring balance… The words no longer held the same glorious ring, they repeated painfully over and over a sting behind his eyes, an itch he could not scratch….
If Master Chillum were here he would tell Karmack this was what happens when you rush in.
Gulping down sweat drenched air he pushed into the overcrowded passenger compartment – standing room only for the four hour flight.
The sooner he got off world the better, the Council would help, would know what to do…and…
You must find the Crystal of light..Maker hopefully rid him of this incessant demand in his head.
He felt the shudder of lift off through the press of the crowd…even if he couldn’t reach M’Tzigon at least he could get to a Healing Centre….they would help him…they had to he was an apprentice who had just lost his master – finding other knights to help was the right thing to do…
So why did the reasons feel wrong?
<<<<<>>>>