The Confrontation

The confrontation with the Inquisitor.

---

The victory was ash in Kaelen's mouth. The distant, groaning collapse of the refinery was not a sound of liberation, but the ringing of a dinner bell.

The shuttle descended through the smog, its landing struts deploying with a hydraulic hiss that cut through the acid rain. It was an Imperial $\Lambda$-class, but its polished black hull and aggressive, angular lines spoke of something more than a standard transport. It reeked of the Dark Side.

"Vexa," Kaelen said, her voice lethally calm. "Take the children and your people. Go to the deepest tunnels. The ones that lead to the old city. Seal the way behind you."

"I'm not leaving you!" Vexa snapped, raising her blaster. "We fight with you!"

"You can't." Kaelen turned, her ebony face streaked with rain and grime. Her eyes, however, were burning. "This isn't a trooper. This isn't an overseer. This is... an echo. A part of the past I failed to bury. It's here for me."

The shuttle's ramp lowered.

A figure emerged, tall and impossibly thin, encased in glossy black armor that seemed to drink the meager light of Xylos. Rain sizzled and evaporated on contact with the superheated metal. He moved with a predatory grace, his boots making no sound on the wet ferrocrete. He stopped, a hundred feet from the cistern entrance, a black void against the grey world.

Kaelen stepped out of the shadow to meet him, her hand resting on the hilt of her saber.

The figure tilted its head, a gesture of cold curiosity. A mechanical respirator kicked in with a low, rhythmic sh-koff.

"The scent of you has been faint for so long, Padawan," a voice echoed, metallic and synthesized, yet laced with a mocking, cultured accent. "A ghost in the slums. We were beginning to think you had died with your Master."

The figure raised his hand, and a cylindrical hilt flew into his grasp from his belt.

"He knows who I am," Kaelen whispered, a cold knot forming in her stomach. "Vexa, go. Now."

Vexa saw the finality in the Jedi's eyes. This was a fight she could not join. She nodded, her multifaceted eyes filled with a new, cold fear, and vanished into the darkness of the sewer.

The Inquisitor ignited his blade. A crimson, double-bladed disc whirred to life, spinning with a sound like a predator's scream.

Snap-hiss. Kaelen’s amber blade was a defiant, steady light in the gloom.

"An unusual color," the Inquisitor noted, taking a slow, measured step forward. "The crystal of a failed Jedi, cracked by its new, broken master. It suits you."

"I'm not broken," Kaelen said.

"We shall see."

The Inquisitor didn't run. He lunged, crossing the hundred feet in a blur of Force-assisted speed. Kaelen was barely able to bring her saber up to block the two-handed overhead strike.

The impact sent her skidding back, her boots sparking on the ground. The power was immense. This wasn't a clone trooper. This was a trained, relentless, dark-side predator.

The spinning red blades were a wall of death. Kaelen was forced onto the defensive immediately, her amber saber a desperate shield against the onslaught. This was not the elegant fencing of the Temple; this was a brawl for survival. The Inquisitor used his saber like a club, leveraging its weight and spinning momentum to batter her guard.

"Your form is sloppy!" he taunted, his blade locking with hers, their faces inches apart. She could see nothing behind his black, reflective visor. "You fight like a gutter-rat. Where is the precision of Tethis Karr? Did he not teach you Form III before the clones cut him down?"

Kaelen roared, shoving him back with a Force-push. The Inquisitor barely budged, planting his feet and spinning his blade to deflect the telekinetic assault.

"That rage..." he hissed, almost purring. "You use it. Good. It makes you strong. But you are afraid to let it in."

He was right. She was fighting on two fronts: him, and herself.

He pressed the attack, driving her back toward a ruined bulkhead. He was stronger, faster, and utterly ruthless. Kaelen ducked under a spinning decapitation strike and thrust her blade low. The Inquisitor anticipated it, detaching the top half of his saber and blocking her strike with one blade while swinging the other at her side.

Kaelen cried out as the red blade grazed her ribs, flash-boiling her wet tunic and searing her skin.

She stumbled, falling to one knee. The pain was sharp, but the cold of the Dark Side touching her was worse.

The Inquisitor stood over her, his spinning blade held high. "Your rebellion is over. Your life is forfeit. The Emperor has decreed there will be no more Jedi. You are an... anachronism."

Kaelen looked up, not at the saber, but at the crumbling factory wall behind him. She was outmatched in a duel. But she wasn't a duelist. She was a survivor.

"You're right," she panted, clutching her side. "The Jedi are dead."

As the Inquisitor brought the saber down for the killing blow, Kaelen didn't block. She raised her free hand and pulled.

Not at the Inquisitor. Not at his weapon.

She pulled at the acid-eaten, structurally-compromised gantry above his head.

With a sound like a tortured scream, a ten-ton block of rusted durasteel and machinery ripped free from the wall.

The Inquisitor's head snapped up. His smug superiority vanished, replaced by a flash of surprise. He had to abort his attack, leaping backward and raising his spinning saber to shield himself.

The gantry crashed down where he had been standing, throwing up a cloud of pulverized concrete and rust.

It was the opening Kaelen needed.

She didn't press the attack. She ran.

She sprinted for the cistern hatch as alarms blared across the complex. The Inquisitor roared in fury from within the dust cloud. She heard his saber ignite again.

Kaelen leaped, feet-first, into the black, square opening of the sewer, landing in a crouch next to a terrified Vexa.

"Seal it!" Kaelen yelled.

She turned and aimed her lightsaber at the hatch's primary locking mechanism, a thick bar of steel. As Vexa hit the emergency release, Kaelen sliced through the lock.

The heavy plasteel hatch slammed shut with the finality of a tomb.

A half-second later, a molten red blade stabbed through the metal, punching a glowing, smoking hole where Kaelen's head had been. It was followed by another. And another. The Inquisitor was carving his way through.

"He's coming!" Vexa cried.

"Run," Kaelen ordered, deactivating her saber. The amber light vanished, plunging them into the near-total darkness of the tunnels. "He can't cut through it before we're gone."

They fled into the depths, the only sound their pounding footsteps in the sludge and the faint, furious thud of the Inquisitor hammering against the sealed door.

Kaelen clutched her seared side, the pain a sharp reminder. She had survived. But she hadn't won.

"He won't stop," she said to Vexa, her voice echoing in the dark. "The Empire will tear this planet apart to find us. The fight for Xylos... it's over. Now, we have to get everyone out."