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CoS Chapter 36
🕑 Added 2025-01-21 12:02:59 +0000 UTC39 BBY
It had just passed midnight when the Outer Patrols first encountered the intruder. The Serenno estate was built atop a vast mountain, overlooking the planet’s capital city. The forests that surrounded it weren’t as thick as those of the jungles below, growing in shallower steeper soil, but the canopy left the forest floor dimly lit even on a bright sunny day, and at night it was all but impossible to see.
Tan’ya wasn’t surprised to learn that the intruder had been caught by one of the many interlocking and crisscrossing patrols that went up and down the mountainside, but she was surprised to hear that they had a red lightsaber. Practically a signed guarantee that they were a Sith. The Count’s family was the obvious target for the assassin, and so the word was put out immediately to evacuate Athemeene, Ideon, and Madalee. The only one of Tan’ya’s siblings not present was Kenth who was safe in the New Temple.
Of course Tan’ya was to evacuate as well, but she paused long enough to strap on her armour first. The heavy plates of sacanium steel and plastoid were unfamiliar, but they would be enough to stop a blow or two from a lightsaber. She also grabbed a scattergun. The primitive weapons manufactured in the villages were hopelessly crude, but against the Sith the spray of metal grains had no risk of being deflected back at Tan’ya or her men, who were all similarly arming themselves. If there had been a better legal option on the Galactic market, Tan’ya would have chosen it, but none existed. If Tan’ya was going to arm her men with better scatterguns in the future, she would need to build the entire industry domestically on Serenno. There just hadn’t been time.
Tan’ya cursed, feeling like she never had enough time.
Briefly, she felt her father’s concerned mind watching, but he could do nothing for her from where he was on Phindar.
“Call up the Reservists.” Tan’ya ordered. “Any base that can get there speeders here in the next five minutes.”
Individually, Sith were usually more powerful than Jedi. Though there were exceptions, the successes of the Jedi in the past had been based around their ability to cooperate with each other in large numbers that the Sith could usually only dream of. Maybe If Tan’ya had half a dozen jedi working with her, she’d feel more confident about fighting off this assassin, but she didn’t even have Sturn! The useless old fool had left by himself in the middle of the night, mere hours before. Where he had gone, Tan’ya had no idea, but no one could reach him.
This whole thing stank of a conspiracy. If Tan’ya ever got her hands on Sturn again she’d have him shot! As gratifying as that might be, Tan’ya focussed her attention on buying enough time for her mother and siblings to escape.
The Serenno estate had been built during her grandfather Gora’s reign, and being the paranoid tyrant that he was, he had constructed a number of escape routes for himself in the event that he was ever betrayed. Those escape tunnels still existed, some of them exiting far away in the mountain’s below, but the one Tan’ya had in mind went to the cliffside where the exit was concealed as just another piece of rock face. Inside was a speeder, and the tunnel wasn’t nearly as long as the others, so it would be much easier for Athemeene to bring the children through. Not only that, but because it was Gora’s main escape plan, it was filled with traps to frustrate pursuers.
Aware of the threats her family was facing, Tan’ya had made sure the traps in the tunnel were well maintained for just such an occasion as this. The other good thing was it allowed Tan’ya to concentrate her defenses. Most of the House Guard was with her father right now, but the remainder should be plenty to guard the access tunnel and prevent the Sith from pursuing.
“Your Highness, you need to evacuate as well.” One of her men said, and Tan’ya hesitated to respond for a brief moment.
Maybe it was just the pampered princess inside of her speaking, but she had to admit that the idea of this intruder forcing her from her home to flee in the dead of night rankled a bit. Still, practicality won out in the end. Tan’ya wasn’t a coward, but she did know that historically even a Jedi Knight was hesitant to fight a Sith alone, and she wasn’t a Padwan yet.
“Command is yours, Lieutenant Buk.” Tan’ya informed the man, and he saluted her, before turning to issue orders.
Turning away, Tan’ya hurried up the tunnel towards her family. In the distance, she could feel the smouldering pyre of the Sith rushing through the Palace halls, trying to sense a way down to their location. It wouldn’t be long until he found it, unfortunately. Tan’ya, Athemeene and the House Guard had been trained to shield their minds, but baby Ideon was still too young, and at four years old, Madalees mental control was spotty at best. Ideon’s fear in particular was like a beacon in the Force, and clinging to his mother was the only thing keeping him from crying out even now. He might not have been trained in the Force, but Ideon could sense the frightful energy of the Sith as it approached and was frightened.
No matter what they did or where they hid, the assassin would be able to follow them. Tan’ya wasn’t even going to attempt to persuade Athemeene to separate from her own children from her safety, even if objectively it would be the smarter move.
No, the plan was to get the family to the barracks in the city. Even a fearsome Sith assassin would struggle to fight his way past ten thousand soldiers. Serenno’s reservists may not have been the Galaxy’s most elite fighting force, but the planet had a large population and there were plenty of men who would be eager to face danger for a chance at better pay.
As she passed through the tunnel, doors sealed behind her and turrets hummed to life, until she finally came to the speeder. Her mother and siblings were already inside, ready to go. Not only the two of them, but Vai was there as well. As a charge of the family, she was owed protection even if the assassin wasn’t specifically targeting her.
Despite the luxuriously wide interior of the vehicle, the extra bulk of Tan’ya’s armor made it hard for anyone else to sit next to her. There was a few moments delay as the speeder pilot asked over the coms. “Control, can I get confirmation that the skies are clear, over?”
Tan’ya searched with her mind, reaching up the passage to find the attacker, but he was nowhere to be found. The House Guard waiting in the tunnel were just beginning to grow uneasy, expecting to sell their lives for time, but no Sith came down the tunnels towards them.
Confused, Tan’ya brought up the compad in her suit's wrist. She thumbed through the security feed, searching for the Sith, but seeing him nowhere.
Control answered, “Can confirm. No aerial traffic on your flight path. You’re free to take off at any time.”
“Copy that. Out.” The exterior hatch, disguised as just another section of cliff face began to peel back, as the vehicle rose through the air.
A dark shape, moving with impossible speed and agility, dropped down and seemed to leap off nothing at all as it backflipped through the door opening. There was a yell, as one of the House Guards on the exterior platform raised and fired his scattergun, but it was already too late. Even mid air, the Sith flung out his lightsaber, and it streaked in a red line towards the rising speeder. Tan’ya reached out with the Force to try and bat it aside, but she just wasn’t fast enough as the tip of it speared through the windscreen and impaled the driver. Even worse, the dying man must have hit the accelerator as the vehicle surged forward rapidly towards the exit.
Without even thinking, Tan’ya seized everyone inside with her telekinesis, and jumped out the car door, pulling them towards the garage floor. Of course she wasn’t trying to hurt them, she didn’t pull with all the Force she possessed, but it was more than enough to launch Ideon from his mother’s hands, and Madalee who was too small to fit her seat belt slipped out as well. Tan’ya caught both of them, landing on her back and winding herself as she did to protect them from the fall. However Athemeene and Vai were both strapped inside the speeder, and neither of them came free with Tan’ya as the vehicle crashed partly into the edge of the garage door, and spun out with smoke flying from the engine.
Tan’ya watched in helpless horror as the speeder spun out of control to the forest floor below, where it disappeared from view. Finally, there was the sound of a horrific metal scrunch, and Tan’ya felt her mother’s mind black out. She was still alive down there, but in dire need of medical help.
Not stopping there, the assassin recalled his lightsaber to him, evading another blast from a scattergun as it flew into his hand. The two children screamed, terrified wails of fear for their mother, even as the Sith streaked towards them. With her arms underneath both her siblings, Tan’ya had to shrug them off to reach her lightsaber, and that crucial fraction of a second would have cost her life, if one of the House Guard didn’t interpose himself between her and the Sith.
The man died on his feet, lightsaber piercing his chest and emerging from his back, but even as it did he clung to the Sith. There was the clack of a breach closing, as one guard loaded his scattergun and raised it to fire on the Sith, who turned, putting as much of the dead guard as he could between him and the next shot. When it hit, some of the grains from the blast still pierced his exposed hip, but the pain didn’t seem to slow him down as he wrenched his lightsaber free and surged forward across the room, only to stop and pull back to evade a blast from a different guard.
For a moment, it seemed like the guards assembled in the garage may have been able to kill the intruder. The seven of them all had scatterguns, and the seven of them all faced a target caught in the open with no cover, even if he was a Sith wouldn’t be able to evade forever. Then the Sith threw his lightsaber in a spinning arc, guided by the Force to remove the target's head at the shoulder. All the House Guards were well trained and saw it coming, quickly rolling out of its path, but in that crucial half a second they weren’t firing, the assassin was able to close the distance. His foot lashed out with such force that the heel shattered one guard's helmet and sent him flying away to fall limply to the floor, while another whipped out his blaster pistol and fired. The Sith barely evaded that, calling his lightsaber back to his hand, but was tackled to the ground by another guard, who shoved a buzzing vibroblade into the Sith’s chest. The guard raised it for another stab, the Sith Maul grabbed his wrist and twisted. The blade fell from the guard’s hand, and the Sith snatched it from the air and buried it in the guard’s neck.
Seeing his friend, another guard shouted the name of his village as he pressed the activator on a grenade and threw it. Tan’ya saw the explosion coming, and threw herself over her siblings to protect them from the shrapnel, but needn’t have. The Sith easily snatched it from the air with the Force, and launched it back into the guard’s chest with the Force. It exploded, taking him out and the man next to him. Realising they were all armed with grenades, the Sith smirked, using the Force to depress the activators while it was still on the belt of another Guard. The man managed to snatch it from his belt and throw it away, but the assassin just whiplashed it back into him.
The Sith reached out to do the same thing again, but Tan’ya used her own control over the Force to resist him. Maul let out a surprised gasp as she was able to overpower his hold with the Force, and thrust the grenade towards him. He just barely threw up a barrier to protect himself, but one of the two remaining guards took the chance to shoot at him with his blaster. Maul just barely recalled his lightsaber and deflected the blast away, his face covered in burns from the heat of the grenade.
With a pained grunt, the guard who’d been knocked down earlier got to his feet. He whipped the smashed helmet from his head, and threw it at the back of the Sith where it hit the back of his head. Blood poured from the assassin’s open head wound, and he reached out with the Force to throw the man into a wall where he impacted with a wet crack, and fell to the ground, unmoving.
Seeing the Sith with the lightsaber again, the two remaining guards tried once more with the scatterguns. He threw up a barrier, buckling most of the spray but getting nicked across his head and arms. Tan’ya, seeing a chance, launched herself across the room to strike at him while his back was turned. He deflected her attack, turning to face her with his eyes blazing. Seeing the princess in danger, one of the remaining guards didn’t hesitate, he charged forward, tackling the Sith away, even as his head was carved apart. At the sith’s feet fell a primed grenade that fell from the dead soldier’s hands, and he tried to whip it away with the Force, but Tan’ya held it in place against his will.
The explosion sent her flying, but she was armoured unlike her foe. She stood up, looking over to see that he was still alive but his left arm had been almost completely destroyed, trying to contain the explosion. She turned, hoping to see the last guard was preparing some final trick, but she saw him dead on the ground, the shrapnel having punched several holes through his armour.
The wounded assassin at last turned to face her, and Tan’ya stood alone, the only thing between him and her siblings.
The lightsaber she summoned back to her hand felt almost worthless, as she watched him prepare to deal with her.
“You have a very violent mind for a Jedi.” A low, bass voice hissed. “Nothing at all like your Master.”
The assassin was speaking to her. It took a moment for her to connect that he was the one that killed Sifo with the knowledge that he was now mocking her with it. A spark of anger flared in her mind, but she ignored it.
“Why?” Tan’ya demanded. If only to buy time for a moment. Reinforcements were coming down the tunnel.
“Oh, you don’t know?” The Sith asked, barely able to contain his contempt. “Your Father betrayed us, girl. He was our servant long before you were born, and long after. Your whole fledgling empire was never meant to be anything but a wedge to break up the Coruscant Temple. Sifo came too close to the truth, so Dooku arranged for me to have a little alone time with him.“
“That’s a lie!” Tan’ya snapped back at him.
He sneered at her. “Just imagine what I’m going to do to mommy Athemeene, sweet Madalee, and little baby Ideon. If Kenth was here, I’d kill him too, but I promise you. I’ll be watching, and waiting, and when he leaves the New Temple I will find the moment. You and your family are nothing but a speed bump in our plan, a chance to spite your worthless Father.”
She could scarcely believe what she was hearing. The hatred and savagery of the Sith was insane, irrational, and totally pointless. He’d injured himself gravely on this mission, and he didn’t even seem to regret it at all just for a chance to hurt his foes.
“You won’t hurt anyone.” Tan’ya hissed. “I’m going to put you down, dog.”
“Oh?” The assassin smirked and pulled one of the scatterguns to himself from across the room. He pointed it at Tan’ya, and she had a second’s to realise that though she was wearing armour, her siblings were not, and she was all that stood between them and death.
Without thinking Tan’ya hurled herself forwards, trying to block more of the pellets with her body as the murderer fired. Tan’ya vision was consumed by sparks and smoke for a brief second, and she felt like she’d been slapped in the face, but wasn’t dead just yet as she brought her own lightsaber up to strike.
Her mastery of the art was massively incomplete, she wasn’t even a padawan yet and so he deflected her strike with a dismissive flick of his wrist that nearly wrenched the blade from her fingers. The only thing that kept her from dropping the weapon was the grip she had on it with the Force. His lightsaber flashed out, clipping her at the shin. The only thing that saved her leg was her armour, though she was sent sprawling to the ground, feeling the heat burn her skin even through the plastoid. The dark sider loomed above her, swinging his blade down and striking for her neck.
Tan’ya’s raised her arm just in time for the armoured vambrace to take the blow, and pushed out with the Force to try and throw him away, but he just leaned into the attack, smirking as his own telekinesis formed a wedge shaped barrier to disperse the worst of it. Gritting her teeth, Tan’ya doubled down, intensifying the waves of the force she was sending at him. Metal plating peeled up from the garage floor, lights on the ceiling shattered, and the smirk on that monster’s face was at last wiped from his face as he began to slide away from her. His barrier broke, and with a snarl he was flung away, to backflip and land, regarding her hatefully.
Though it was fatal to look away from an opponent in a fight, that second of breathing room was the only chance Tan’ya had to turn her head and check her brother and sister. She almost couldn’t help herself, turning her head to quickly glance to make sure they were okay, and was horrified by what she saw.
Ideon sat there frozen wide eyed in a spreading pool of hot crimson that was leaking from Madalee’s head. She lay face down on the metal deck, unmoving, as the Tirra’taka pawed at her, crooning miserably.
Tan’ya was not unused to the horrors of war. Long ago she had come to terms with the fact that civilian children were often casualties, no matter how much she wanted to avoid that. She had done her best to never commit any such atrocities, but she had always rationalised away the simple truth that it was war, and she couldn’t control every outcome. If a city chose to fight to the last as its streets were taken one by one, of course the innocent would die.
Whatever logical explanations she could have given for what happened disappeared from her mind. Seeing Madalee, the silly, annoying child who had insisted on the absurd name of Eggy for an ancient and majestic beast, dead on the floor seemed to Tan’ya like the most abominable thing she had ever seen. It wasn’t anger that she felt, or even fear. Hatred flooded her veins, burning through her blood like rancid acid. This murderer, this filth, this hideous dog, here to kill children for revenge! Revenge!
The pettiness of it. The work that had clearly been put into getting this far. Luring her father away to Phindar, somehow getting rid of Sturn, attacking in the middle of the night, all to satisfy his own pathetic grudge against her Father?!
It wasn’t enough that he died. He had to suffer. He had to burn and writhe in agony! Her head spun, she felt sick to her stomach, but her gaze locked onto the diseased filth just as he broke into a dash towards her.
The surge of the Force she sent into him felt nothing like the calm, bottomless pool of the Force as she’d known it before, but like the raging wind of a storm at sea. Waves of power crashed through her and were poured out over him, the abomination’s pathetic barrier was cast aside like tissue paper. He was thrown backwards, back slamming into the wall with such force that a crater formed around.
Even as she held him pinned there, she used her fine control to pull Durasteel rebars from the wall and bend them around his limbs, squeezing tight. The abomination howled in pain as his bones snapped, the lightsaber in his hand dropping from nerveless fingers. He tugged and he pulled, but a length of rebar forced its way around his waist, constricting his breath and crushing ribs. On the verge of killing him, she hesitated. Unsatisfied. A voice in the back of her mind told her it wasn’t enough, she could do more.
And it was right.
With a thought she ripped a plasma canister from the garage’s refueling station, and threw it at him. It smacked into the wall below him, crumpled and leaking volatile gases into the air. Finally, with him pinned in place helpless, Tan’ya let go of the pressure she’d been exerting. The roof stopped shaking, and dust stopped falling from the ceiling, as one final, delicate work of telekinesis activated the lightsaber the abomination had dropped.
The plasma gases ignited, burning a furious green as they consumed the Sith. Howling in pain, the worthless thing writhed and thrashed, smearing the wall behind him with blood as his feet burned away, even his clothes lighting on fire. Caught in the moment, Tan’ya laughed as she watched him burn. His voice cracked, and his deep voice declined to a hopeless shriek. Tan’ya was so focussed on enjoying his suffering that she only dimly noticed the sound of Ideon crying again.
Then she remembered what had driven her to such lengths. She turned and ran over to her sister, falling to her knees beside Madalee and turning her sister’s head over to see that her left cheek was shredded by the pellet and several of her teeth were missing, but her skull was intact. Even so, she’d lost a lot of blood, and Tan’ya cast about desperately, until she spotted the bacta spray on the belt of a dead House Guard. She snatched it up with the Force, and ripped the cap off with her teeth, before spraying the foam over her sister’s face. Very quickly the bleeding stopped, and Tan’ya prayed it would be enough to save her.
After doing so, Tan’ya grabbed Ideon, quickly checking the panicking, wailing toddler for injury. He was fine, the only blood on him was Madalee’s. Leaving him where she found him, though he tried to cling to her leg, Tan’ya scrambled up the ledge to peek out through the garage door to see the forest below. Through the dense canopy she couldn’t see her mother’s speeder wreck, but after a moment she felt the mind of someone reaching out to her. At first Tan’ya was disappointed to realise it was Vai, but in her fellow youngling’s mind she found an image of her mother. Legs broken, a deep cut in her arm, but still alive and breathing. The Youngling had managed to pull the two of them free just before the crash, causing them to land badly on the forest floor, but to not get pulped in the crumpled remains of the vehicle.
Then Tan’ya was confused to feel Vai was concerned for her, and fearful. At first she didn’t understand why, but then she noticed the horrible pain in her leg and wrist. Though the sacanium had blocked the lightsaber blows, the heat had melted the plastoids, and it was now clinging to Tan’ya’s skin. With an agonised yell, Tan’ya fell to the ground, clumsily fumbling at the armour she was wearing.
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Hours too late to do anything of use, Dooku arrived home. A pall hung over the Palace, excessive use of the Dark Side having upset the local currents and eddies of the Force. He didn’t even go inside it, knowing what he would find from the report the first responders had given. Instead he went straight to the city, to the hospital his wife and children were at.
His son Ideon was the only one to escape uninjured. The child desperately clung to his side, babbling energetically at his father for a short while before finally falling asleep in his arms. Not willing to put him down, Dooku carried him to Athemeene’s room.
His wife was conscious floating in a bacta tank. Her injured arm and legs were splinted together, and covered in stitches from the surgeries. He pressed his hand against the glass, saying nothing, and rather than reciprocate the gesture, she simply gazed out at Dooku through the fluid with eyes full of judgement.
Dooku supposed that he couldn’t blame her. Sighing and turing away, Dooku walked to the next room over in the private ward.
Madalee was still unconscious, her face stitched back together, a bacta facemask disguising the extent of her injuries. Dooku’s stomach roiled at the sight, and refused to imagine the extent of the damage. She was only four, maybe even the memories would fade in time. Dooku could only hope, and beg the Force for guidance, grateful that she was still alive at all.
Vai escaped with only a broken arm. Her dark eyes followed him as he passed her room, and he knew that she’d saved Athemeene's life. For that she would have his eternal gratitude, but he didn’t stop to say anything. He would repay her later, now he had to see his daughter.
Tan’ya was wide awake as he came inside. Her only injuries had been to her right forearm and left calf, where melting plastoids had stripped away layers of skin. The bacta patches would be enough to heal it, but he could see his daughter’s obvious discomfort as she lay on her back, trying not to aggravate her throbbing wounds.
“You’re not taking your painkillers.” Dooku began, but his daughter cut across him immediately.
“Because I need to speak with you.” She said through grit teeth. “I need to know the truth, father.”
The truth. Of course.
“You spoke with Maul.”
“Is that his name? Were you friends?” She demanded.
Dooku would have scoffed, but he could only hang his head. “I had the displeasure of meeting him only once before. If things had gone better today, I would have been the one to kill him at Phindar.”
She stared at him, before finally breaking his gaze and looking away from him. “So it’s true then. We were working for the Sith.”
“Not anymore, daughter. And never again.”
She looked over at him, disappointment in her eyes. “Father, what is this? What are we in the middle of? I need to know.”
Dooku sighed, pulling a seat closer with a flick of her wrist, and taking a seat beside her bed. He stared at her, wondering where to even begin. He’d had this conversation once with Athemeene, and even that was under better circumstances than this. Turning his head, he gazed down at Ideon, sleeping with his head on his father’s shoulder, and Dooku had to shut his eyes to keep the tears from forming.
He would not lose control in front of his daughter. Not when she needed strength. Coughing once, he cleared his throat, looking to her again.
“Before we begin, you should know that this family is the most important thing to me. I would do anything I could for you, Kenth, Ideon, Madalee and Athemeene. If I could return to my younger self, and change my course of action, the only thing that would stay my hand is the knowledge that none of you would ever be. Tan’ya, I love you, and I couldn’t be more proud.”
She considered him for a moment, swallowing once, before nodding. “But.”
“Yes. But.” He sighed, leaning back into his chair. “Thirty years ago, I had never even met your Mother. I couldn’t even have dreamed of this family, or known how important it would be. I was still a Jedi Master, and after a series of disastrous missions and betrayals, my faith in the Order was waning. I joined the Council, hoping to steer the Jedi in what I thought was a better direction, and found resistance to it from even the people I trusted most. I left the Council, embittered and despondent. At the lowest moment in my life, that was when I was contacted by a man. I didn’t know who he was at the time, but years later, when I was firmly in his grip and thoroughly controlled by him, I would learn his true identity. He was Darth Sidious, the Dark Lord of the Sith.” He met his daughter’s gaze. “You would know him better now as Supreme Chancellor Palpatine of the Galactic Senate.”
Comments
Guntah notarealname
Thanks, I'm really happy that patrons are pleased with the new chapter. Happy for any feedback, so if there's anything that could be better, please let me know.
Know Map Game
Wow, what a chapter. Happy Madalee is still alive that would’ve been heart wrenching. Interesting to see dooku being flatly wrong about Sidious being the lord of the sith when he’s actually still the apprentice. Makes sense for him to not know about Plagueis. Can’t remember if that already came up.
Guntah notarealname
Thanks, I'll fix that now.
Rykia
Also I don’t know if maul is dead dead now, but if he is, Tan’ya said, ““Is that his name? Were you friends?” She demanded”. It should be “was that his name?” Cause past tense.
