Face off

From TFC Galactopedia

In this piece, Zannah is nineteen and has just finished out her third year at the Imperial Academy on Coruscant.

Night on the edge of Invisec, Coruscant stank of ski taxi exhaust, rotting garbage and alien effluvia. The swirling fog left behind by the latest storm from this area's microclimate cloaked everything in soft gray. It was punctured here and there by the artificial stars of lighting on buildings, walkways, and passing traffic.

Zannah Lyles strode through the clammy mist at an easy gait. She had stopped to change her cadet uniform for civilian clothes before leaving for the meeting. The delay had her running a little late, but the group rarely got into full swing until later in the evening anyway. A blaster pistol hung low on her hip, and her vibroblade was tucked safely in her boot. It paid to go armed in this section of the city-world. Only a fool or an idiot would travel without some way to protect herself.

Her boots splashed through puddles of foul, oily rainwater. The greasy liquid pooled in any depression, the product of countless unseen spouts and gutters above. Zannah paid it no mind, long used to Coruscant’s unpredictable weather after her past three years in training as an officer candidate. Her instructors had been pleased with her performance thus far. Her marks, while not the best, were still on the high end of the scale. If she finished out the next term as she had the previous ones, it would be off to Carida for further training, and, hopefully, her first command. Her sergeant had cautioned against getting her hopes up. Promising candidate or not, the Imperial Navy was still very much a male’s organization. Likely she would end up on a leaky strike cruiser out in the gods forsaken Unknown Regions, commanding half a dozen semi-competent TIE pilots. It would still be an improvement to living in her mother’s shadow.

She paused while still several mega blocks and levels away from her destination, her nose wrinkling as she breathed the sour air. Something was wrong. Invisec always stank, but she caught a whiff of fresh blood mixed in with everything else. Zannah tensed, her hand dropping to her blaster. Out of the shadows shambled a slight figure, clutching at its side. For a moment the vixen stared at it, uncomprehending. Only when the light from a nearby holosign illuminated its face did recognition dawn on her.

“…Norri?”

“Z-zan…” The female huskie dropped to her knees, her blood mingling with the rainwater.

The lemorian rushed to her friend’s side, ignoring the mess that soaked through the knees of her jumpsuit. “Lady’s Name, Norri, what happened!”

“J-jumped at the bar… S-stormies!”

The vixen’s blood ran cold. “Oh gods… Did they-?”

“Dead, everyone’s dead…” A painful coughing fit wracked the other girl, bringing up a froth of bloody foam. “Had to… Had to warn…” The canine shuddered, drawing in a ragged breath. “T-too late for me…” Her eyes fell closed, her exhale a pained rattle.

Zannah knelt in a pool of rapidly cooling blood on the nondescript rooftop, holding the body of her dead friend close to her chest. Norri lay limp in the vixen’s arms, her lifeblood still leeching out from the charred pit the blaster fire had left in her side. Zannah felt the faint glow that had been her friend’s presence in the Force vanished like a candle snuffed out. Tears of grief stung her eyes and the hollow ache of loss filled her throat, choking back the scream she wanted to loose. They were gone, all of them. She would not discover until much later what had happened. Under the pretense of raiding a Rebel cell, Coruscant military police had descended on the cantina where the discussion group Zannah and Norri were members of often met. When the patrons protested, a brawl broke out between citizens and MPs. None of the weapons had been set on stun and anyone who fled the scene was shot at for ‘resisting arrest’. A few escaped with their lives, scattering into the labyrinthine Coruscant buildings. Norri was just one of many who had not been so lucky. She had managed, despite her wound, to find and warn the latecomer, Zannah, about what had happened before the unsuspecting lemorian could walk into the carnage.

Zannah hugged the limp body one last time before she let Norri slide to the cold permacrete. There was nothing she could do now. She whispered as she stood, her voice rough with unshed tears. "You did good, Norri, real good." The vixen turned, brushing at the tears that still clouded her vision.

"Hello, child."

The icy voice had a familiarity that froze the blood in her veins. Zannah sucked in a breath as a figure cloaked in black coalesced out of the foggy night. The man pushed his hood back to reveal a scarred white furred vulpine visage. His brown eyes were bloodshot and ringed with sickly yellow, and half of he black hair had gone stark white. Dark Lord Drakkon had once gone by the name Aerion Lyles. He had been a good man, a Jedi Knight of middling strength, and more importantly, Zannah’s own father. He had fallen into the clutches of Darksiders, taken captive by his own anger and twisted by the Sith into a vile parody of the man she had once known.

“F-father?” Zannah’s voice was a ghost of a whisper. Even half trained in the ways of the Jedi, she could feel the Darkness that oozed from him.

“My Zannah.” He opened his hand to her and smiled, but it was a cruel expression with no tenderness in it. “Come to me, child.”

She shook her head, fighting to break the spell. This was not the man she had adored as a child. This man was evil. “No… Father, this isn’t right.” Her hand closed on the butt of her blaster, but she did not draw it, not yet.

“Not right?” He laughed, and the sound echoed sickeningly off the faces of nearby buildings. “Of my children, it is you who hold the most potential. Ahh, my headstrong daughter who could not be tamed. You came here to Coruscant, to me. The Dark Side calls to you. Can you deny it? Join me now. Stand at my side, and everything you have ever desired will be yours.”

Zannah gaped at him. “Wha-? No! I’m a cadet. I’m going to be an officer. Then-.”

“What a waste.” He sneered. “Do you still not understand? No, child, you were meant for better things, a different calling.” Drakkon strode forward. “So what will it be? Will you join with us willingly, or must I teach you a lesson first?”

The younger vixen backed away from him, misliking his tone. “I- No, father.” A bolt of fear coursed down her spine and the fur on the back of her neck rose. “I-I can’t.” Her grip tightened on her blaster as she loosed it from its holster, clicking the setting over to stun as she did.

“You can. You will. You must.” His voice had gone cold and dire, his eyes boring into hers. “It has been foreseen. You cannot escape destiny, child, no matter how hard you try.”

“We’ll see about that.” Zannah whipped her blaster pistol up and snapped off a shot, only to cry out as the gun was wrenched painfully from her grasp. The stun bolt had gone wild, splashing harmlessly across the permacrete face behind Drakkon. Several granite slugs dropped off in its wake, but there was no other effect. The younger lemorian felt her heart drop into her stomach as her blaster pistol sailed over the edge of the roof to clatter into the unknown depths of Coruscant’s underworld. She reached for it, but to no effect. The moment’s distraction was a mistake. Drakkon was inside her guard before she had time to realize he had moved. A roundhouse punch split her lip and snapped her head back. Zannah staggered backwards, but slipped in the pooled blood and rainwater and went down hard. Drakkon’s booted foot caught her in the stomach and flipped her over. She climbed shakily to her hands and knees, coughing, retching, and spitting blood from her injured mouth.

“Pathetic little fool.” Drakkon cackled. “You have much yet to learn. On your feet!” He waited for her to stand. Zannah pushed herself into a defensive crouch, loose hair straggling damply into her eyes. “If it’s a fight you want, child, so be it.” The Sith Lord lashed out, knocking her first one way, and then another, their footsteps leaving drunken bloody paths on the permacrete. The vixen fought back, but he blocked more punches than she managed to land, returning twice the damage with his own blows. She reeled away, crying out as a hammer blow to the shoulder numbed her left arm. Her knees gave out and she slumped to the ground at his feet. Drakkon stood over her, gloating. “You see? You cannot hope-.”

His words choked off in a sudden hiss of utter surprise. The Sith Lord staggered backward several paces, his lifeblood rushing out as she pulled her vibroblade free. Zannah had freed the blade from her boot and put the last of her strength into one last upward rush, driving the point up beneath his rib cage to pierce his heart. “…Clever girl…” he murmured, and then collapsed in a heap on the permacrete.

Zannah stayed where she was. For several long minutes she stared at her father’s corpse as the freed Dark Side energies ravaged it and the blood began to dry on her hands. With shaking hands she cleaned her blade and rehomed it in her boot sheath. Slowly, with pained care, she managed to push herself upright. There was only one thing left to do. She limped to Norri’s corpse and pulled the blaster from her friend’s holster. Zannah set the weapon to overload and lay it between the two bodies, hobbling away as quickly as she could manage while the whine of its straining powercell built behind her. She was three levels and half a block away when the explosion hit, and still felt the vibration shudder through the nearest buildings. The vixen paused, slumped against a convenient support column, and let her eyes fall closed. With an effort, she forced horror and exhaustion back and continued on her way. She could not stop here. She had to make it back to her rooms to try and clean up a bit. After that, there was one last report to make.

Her father had been right about one thing. There was no way she could ever become an officer in the Imperial Navy now.