Operation Arrakis: Duel of the Fates

by Josh Cochran

"Jedi."

Sahhar's tongue twisted the respectful word into a sneered epithet. He looked perfectly calm, but I could feel the dark side blasting from him like a sun. Or rather like a black hole, trying to drag me down into its bottomless depths. He held his lightsaber across his body, its crimson glow reflecting in the gleaming black armor he wore. If Sahhar were even slightly overweight the smooth armor would make him look like an oversized beetle.

"You find something amusing?" he asked.

"Just imagining squishing your guts out like a bug," I replied.

"You are welcome to try."

Behind me I heard the clash of lightsaber against lightsaber. I could only assume that Sahhar had brought his pet Earthling with him and that Mike was dealing with the sadly overconfident adolescent.

"My apprentice fights yours," Sahhar said, sensing the direction of my thoughts. "In the end they will both die."

"Mike may be an irritating pain in the ass, but he can handle your pathetic Force-toddler. And he'd kill you if he heard you call him that."

Sahhar continued as though he hadn't heard me. "That will leave both of us without an apprentice. You have already given yourself to the Dark Side even if you are not yet aware of it. Soon you will take Hierce's place at my side."

"You wish," I said as I ignited my lightsaber.

"No. I foresee."

Even while Sahhar spoke I struck at him with a stroke that would keep him from seeing anything ever again. His own saber twitched in his hands and met mine just short of his temple.

"Do you not see? 'A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.' You are no Jedi!"

This time Sahhar struck first, a high overhand blow that would split me in half like firewood. I was alert, and if he meant to surprise me he failed. My blade stopped his well short of my head, but he was prepared for that. He quickly stopped and reversed his swing into an underhand swipe at my mid section. I jumped back just in time to spare the most delicate parts of my anatomy a great deal of pain.

"Sure, aim for the sensitive parts," I said. "You fight like a girl." He swung wildly at me, a quick swipe that I easily dodged. I slammed the fist wrapped around my lightsaber into his jaw. "You should add some variety to your wardrobe, you know. All this black makes you look depressed."

Sahhar waved his free hand dismissively. "Your words mean nothing. You have fought well, Jedi, but the time has come. You must make your choice." He swung his lightsaber at me again, and I caught it on the center of my blade.

"And that armor makes you look like a giant insect."

He pulled his lightsaber back and made the completely predictable low angle follow-up attack. "I can feel the Dark Side flowing through you," he said as I blocked again. "By now even you must see your destiny."

"How do you keep it that shiny, anyway?" I asked, giving his armor a look of mock admiration. "Is that shoe polish or something?"

Sahhar stepped back and held his lightsaber at the ready. "Join me and I will teach you the secrets of eternal power."

"Oooh! Does that include the ancient Sith armor waxing technique?"

"Join me...or die."

"Damn, do all new Sith have to take a class in using the same lame threats?"

I didn't see his foot coming until just before it landed in my stomach, and couldn't stop him from slamming the pommel of his lightsaber into my lower neck afterward. I countered with a wild, powerful attack more like the swing of a baseball bat than a fighting move. Sahhar blocked it and chuckled darkly. "Such passion. Doesn't the Jedi Code demand that you be at peace?"

"I'll be at peace when you're dead." I lunged at him with my lightsaber leading the way. To my surprise he didn't move to block or deflect, and I drove the blade into his armor until the emitter met the gleaming blackness covering his heart with a loud thump. When my brain caught up to my blade I realized that sound meant that the lightsaber's blade hadn't penetrated his armor at all. First the prison window, and now his armor has cortosis too?

I looked at Sahhar's face in astonishment. He laughed another of his annoyingly arrogant laughs. "You'll have to do better than that," he said. He threw his free hand out in front of him and the Force hurled me through the air.

My back slammed into something cold and hard – the durasteel leg of an AT- AT, I realized – and I had a split second to notice the ten foot drop to the ground as I began the fall. I landed on my knees and hands, but they collapsed under my full weight. As I lay senseless on the floor of the cavern the wet iron smell of blood filled my nose.

A tickle in the Force told me to move just as Sahhar leapt into the air. He thrust his lightsaber blade straight down between his feet, and I rolled away from my landing spot. He landed with both feet planted firmly on the ground and his blade six inches into it in the same place my chest occupied a moment earlier. Now fully conscious again I Force pushed Sahhar from behind and scrambled to my feet as he stumbled a couple of steps forward.

Sahhar's eyes burned with rage as he turned and hurled Force lightning at me. I caught it on my blade and advanced against it. Sahhar abandoned the lightning to swipe at me with his lightsaber but I dodged aside and felt only the stir of air as it whipped past me.

We stood facing each other in the center of one of the largest intersections in the broad avenues of the underground cavern. The AT-AT Sahhar had thrown me into was behind me, and another stood across the impromptu arena from it. A row of repulsor tanks completed the other two sides of the rough square. We stood silently facing on another, our lightsabers held at the ready before us.

Sahhar made the first move. He feinted a strike at my left side, and when I moved to block it he reversed and put all his strength into a lightning fast swing to my right. I barely managed to get my blade across my body in time to turn his attack. When the two sabers met mine yielded slightly. A few more inches and my own weapon would have sliced into my face.

After that there was no stopping us. My lightsaber met Sahhar's time and time again, quicker than the human eye could follow. I stopped trying for a killing blow and aimed only for a touch – when I wasn't busy defending myself. I had no sense of time or self, existing only to feel the Force and flow with its each command. I had never been as open to it as I was in that moment, a pure instrument of its will.

Or so I would have thought, if I was thinking at all. I don't know how long it lasted but after a time I began to get tired, as all mere humans do. The weight of my lightsaber in my hands came to me first as I swung it back and forth, up and down at lightning speed. Then I felt the ache of my arms, and the scream of my calves, and the desperate sucking of my lungs. Still I fought on, but I knew eventually I would slip up and give Sahhar the opening he needed. I tried to draw on the Force to refresh my body, but relief didn't come.

I took a step back, my chest heaving and the tip of my lightsaber bobbing up and down in time with it. My vision blurred at the edges and I was afraid I might collapse. As my head spun I saw myself from the outside holding a red lightsaber as I advanced against an unseen opponent. Then I stood over Lenka's blood-soaked body in a meadow filled with brown grass and leafless trees. I was in the palace. Becki stood beside me as Thayer cowered on his knees in front of me. I sat on a throne covered in leather and made of steel in front of a glass-encased room that made the cavern in Iraq seem tiny. Sunlight shone through the enormous windows on the supplicants who kneeled at the bottom of my altar. The face of John Wells, contorted in agony. Blood flowed freely down his cheeks and chin from a dozen cuts as he begged for mercy.

Then Sahhar stood before me again with that smug smile on his face. At first I thought it was strange that he hadn't taken advantage of my distraction to attack, but the truth came to me soon enough. "Stay out of my head," I growled. I Force-pushed Sahhar as hard as I could. He flew across the floor, but my push wasn't as powerful as his had been. Was it possible that he really was stronger?

I dismissed the thought and leapt to where Sahhar had landed. He deflected my first attack as I expected and jumped back to his feet. Before he had time to get set I swung again. He pulled his lightsaber back to protect his left shoulder. My mind didn't have time to process the snap-hiss I heard before fire shot through my left thigh. I screamed in pain and my leg collapsed under me.

Stupid! How could I be so stupid? I'd only seen him use one, but Mike had told me that Sahhar's lightsaber was double bladed. Now he stood over me with the second blade lit and I lay on the floor clutching my left leg. The scrape had been perfectly placed. It was excruciatingly painful without being permanently debilitating, but it very effectively incapacitated me. Sahhar could do just about anything-

I remembered that "Sahhar" was more than an abstract concept just in time to see his spinning blades descending directly at my throat. I pressed myself flat against the ground and swung my lightsaber over my body, the tip of its blade passing inches above my eyes. It struck one of Sahhar's blades and sent it flying away from me an instant before it would have sliced through my neck. I batted away his next attack with the saber in my right hand as I tried to pull myself away from him with my left.

I slid away from Sahhar inch by painful inch, but the Sith was relentless. He attacked again and again as I blocked his swings as best I could with my free arm. The pain from my leg threatened to blind me and it was only a matter of time before one of his blades found a hole in my weakened defenses. Dragging myself away was pointless since Sahhar had no trouble keeping up with me. I wrapped both hands around my lightsaber so I could fight more effectively, but I was still on my back defending myself against someone standing over me with two blades. The math just didn't work out in my favor.

I reached out to the Force again expecting to find the same emptiness I had before. This time though the relief washed over my body like a wave. My shoulders stopped aching, my breathing slowed, and the world came back into focus. A cool flow of peace and serenity trickled through me like a small river snaking through a scorching desert. It wasn't enough to quench the heat of my anger but where they met it was enough to soften the edges.

The river trickled over my heart and with only the vaguest interest I saw Sahhar raising his lightsaber high over his head for a killing blow. Then he was gone and I sat astride a speeder bike on a vast grassy prairie under an unfamiliar sky with a soft breeze blowing across my face. A warm, comfortable presence sat beside me on another bike. The prairie disappeared and I was leading a column of hundreds of frightened, ragged, and weary civilians through a valley. In the distance behind us explosions roiled up into the sky. Then they were gone and a jet fighter was attacking a large but defenseless transport plane. The attacker was just about to cross into my gunsights… The world was dark for a moment, then a familiar logo appeared on the screen in front of me followed by an even more familiar trumpet fanfare. A cheer went up from the crowd in the palace theater, and when I looked around all my friends were there, smiling, happy, completely accepting my presence.

I was on my back in the real world again. Swinging my lightsaber with both hands I met Sahhar's attack with such force that it sent him staggering back. The pain in my leg was gone but the ugly wound remained. I leapt to my feet without falling back down and faced him again.

"You are powerful," Sahhar said. "With training you could be unstoppable."

"I already am," I said.

Sahhar chuckled, his sarcastic laughter mocking me. "No. Not yet."

I stared directly into his eyes and said, "Prove me wrong then."

He charged me with his double-bladed saber held across his body. I stood ready, my own saber ready to block whichever of his blades lashed out at me. Three steps from me he twisted his hands in opposite directions and his lightsaber came apart. The two blades grazed across my body armor in opposite directions simultaneously, leaving a smoking X in their wake.

I went on the attack, trying to move so fast that he couldn't keep up, but everywhere my blade went it met one of his. Even with one of his blades occupied the other was always free for its own attack. He kept making my body armor his target, leaving a slash here and a mark there. Toying with me. Making a fool of me.

I was soon forced back to defense even as my anger grew. By trying only to stop his attacks I could keep his blades away from me but I wasn't making any headway of my own. Swing left and catch one blade, right to block the other, back to the left, right, left…. My blocks were meeting his attacks further and further up his blades, too, catching them closer to the end than the middle.

One block to the right looked like it would be the most poorly-aimed yet. It would strike his blade only inches from the tip. Just before they met, though, Sahhar touched a button on the saber's hilt and the blade shrunk to two-thirds its normal length. My blade flew clean over it, and the short blade slashed down the side of my right leg. I twisted aside quickly enough to avoid serious injury, but the burn still stung.

When I turned to face him again he'd shortened his other blade, too. "Aw, how cute," I said, "little miniature lightsabers." He ducked my slash and came up well inside the range of my saber. I tried to bring my blade up again but he kept it pinned down with one of his short blades and stepped in even closer.

I soon realized how wrong I was to mock his weapons. Sahhar lashed out at me with near impunity. He slashed, jabbed, and backstroked freely while I was able to block only a few of his strikes. He was so close that I had no room to move my lightsaber. I tried to step back but he moved with me. He abandoned his attacks on my gear and lashed out instead at my extremities. A slash burned across my left shoulder, another on my right calf, then my right arm, left leg, and they just kept coming. None were deep enough to do more than hurt fiercely, but as they appeared my frustration mounted. I was too busy blocking what few attacks I could to try to push him away.

Pressure built in my head as my anger grew hotter and brighter. When it could hold no more the world around me disappeared again. I stood on an enormous brightly-lit stage under a cloudy night sky. Thousands of people crowded in front of the stage, shouting and cheering as I urged them on. A pair of huge video screens showed me pacing back and forth across the stage as my voice boomed across the crowd. These people belonged to me. I could ask them to do anything, anything, and they would do it or die trying. I could feel the energy from the crowd, the power they gave me, the power I had over them. This was real power, the ability to control people and determine the course of their lives. In controlling people you could control worlds...or even galaxies.

You could even control Sahhar. The thought came to me when one of his blades slashed across my left bicep and brought me abruptly back to reality. The pain energized me and focused my mind, and with a few quick, broad strokes of my lightsaber I moved Sahhar back out of the range of his short blades. "Give up, Sahhar. You know I'm stronger than you. You don't have to die here. If you follow me we'll be unstoppable. If you oppose me I will end you."

"Follow you?" he repeated incredulously. "Ha! A Sith would never bow to a Jedi."

"You think I can't feel the Dark Side? You think I can't use the Dark Side?"

"You can feel the Dark Side," he said, "but I am the child of the Dark Side. I was raised by the Dark Side. Whatever you may feel is no match for the power of an entire lifetime."

"Spare me the bluster. Don't waste your only opportunity to leave this room alive. Join me; this is your only chance."

"No, it's yours," he snarled. "You have power, but not training. Only I can show you how to grasp the power you hunger for. Only I can fulfill your visions."

"What do you know of my visions?"

I lashed out at him with a diagonal slash that left a streak of cauterized flesh across his cheek. He struck back, but I kept him far enough away that his blades couldn't touch me. Soon enough he extended both to their full length, and when he did his attacks changed. He no longer aimed for my arms and legs but for my heart and my head. He lunged at the center of my chest with one blade, and just as I knocked it away the other came flying at my neck. This one I ducked under as I slashed my blade into his armor, throwing a shower of sparks through the air.

"It's unfortunate," he said. "You would have made an excellent apprentice." Both his blades fell toward me from opposite sides in a strike that would split me into four pieces. My saber was out of position; I might block one but not both.

I stepped to the right and threw my blade up between both of his, and pulled toward myself with all my might. The blade in Sahhar's right hand continued on its original course through the spot where I'd stood a moment before. The one in his left, the one my blade pulled against, came toward me. I flicked my wrist in a quick circle but with such force that the hilt was ripped from his hand. As it spun away from him I reached out and called it to my left hand. In the blink of an eye our fortunes had reversed. Now I had two sabers and Sahhar only one.

I wasted no time in pressing my new advantage. I released all the rage in my heart into my arms, battering Sahhar with a constant barrage from both blades. He held his own better than I expected at first with his remaining saber flashing back and forth to turn away both of mine. He missed one and I left a charred wound across the back of his hand. I laughed aloud at his grunt of pain. He didn't know the half of the pain he would feel. I slashed against his ankle and laughed louder as he stumbled to keep his balance. I could feel his pain and, for the first time, a measure of fear. I drank it in like sweet, refreshing water, filling the reactor of my hatred with fresh fuel. What a small thing he was. For all his talk it only took a pair of minor burns to begin to break him. I looked forward to seeing how broken he would be when they were fifty or a hundred.

Through my anger I heard the whisper of a cool voice in my head saying, Is this who you are? Is this what is in your heart? Once more the world disappeared, and I sat astride the speeder bike on the grassy prairie. I could feel the anger in my heart, but it seemed so distant, so out of place here. Like it belonged to someone else. Everything that happened in the last two weeks, all the anger, all the blame, all the desire, all the hurt, melted away under the tranquil sun and was carried away on the gentle breeze. This is where my heart lived. This is what I wanted to give to other people. Not slavery to my will. Not suffering and loss. Not death. Peace. The kind of contentment I felt in this moment.

This time I turned to see who accompanied me on the other bike. I saw her eyes and didn't need to see anything more. Those eyes had made such an impression on me the first time I saw them that I would never forget them. Lenka. I had stolen her peace. Sahhar and I had shattered her body, and maybe ended her life. If she kept her life could I ever restore her peace?

Lenka's eyes disappeared and I was surrounded again by death waiting to find a home. Finish this as a Jedi, the voice whispered.

Sahhar's lightsaber was moving, slashing diagonally up from his lower left. I blocked it with my right and he quickly pulled it back for another attack. This time he swung it across his waist in a flat arc. I met it with both of my blades, not only stopping it but driving it down and away from me.

My two blades, one a cool blue and one an angry red, pinned the tip of Sahhar's blade to the ground three feet from his right leg. My red blade held his red blade in place as I swung the blue one with all my might. It traced a line through the air just over his right arm and up over his shoulder. It skittered across the high, sloping collar of his armor and sliced cleanly through his neck.