Locke’s breaths came in ragged, labored gasps. He was vaguely aware of his suit’s monitors squealing at him--piercing, endless beeps that pierced the pained fog enveloping his mind and offered a handhold to consciousness.
“I want to sing...”Lidah?A hand on his shoulder. The touch was tenuous, brushing at first, but grew more firm around his armor. Locke gasped as he turned his head to look at her; the movement didn’t agree at all with his new wound. She was on her knees, grasping him.
“Why have I been sick so long?”Because they could never kill you, he thought, smiling weakly. Darkness blurred the edges of his vision.
It’d take a whole hell of a lot more than some rampaging fungus to take down Lidah Faine.
The Blind Eye sat quiet, some few dozen miles away from the battle raging around the Spire. Reflex, one of the few who stayed behind as the battle drew more and more away from the casino, paced. The Herglic’s heavy footsteps were restless, hurried — as if he sought to wear a trench into the floor.
Faine and her team were still out, and he hadn’t heard anything from them since they left. Io’an, who Faine had given command of the Eye to, had gone off to fight some hours ago, saying something about that Sith he fawned over — Michah something or other.
With Lovelace out leading the defense of an Exchange stronghold elsewhere, Hertz had taken command of the casino, with a few hands around in case the Archeri attacked, one of the Sith that showed up with Zarene earlier, and Reflex for company.
Reflex had mostly kept to himself in the communications control center, but as the battle dragged on without any word from outside, he grew ever more restless, ever more worried at what was going on.
So, when he finally tired of crossing the small room for what felt like the thousandth time, he ventured out to the main floor to see who else was about.
As he emerged to find had once been the grand gaming floor — now turned into the staging ground for desperate defenses against the Chorus — quiet, he assumed things could have been worse. It took a few moments for his brain to register the brilliant violet light streaming in through the windows wasn’t normal.
At all.
“What the hell?”
Hertz was standing near a large window, staring toward the horizon. Reflex trudged over to him. “What’s going on?”
Hertz pointed to the distance, where a mountain of purple crystal drifted steadily skyward. It blazed with incredibly light, lighting the fading twilight like a midday sun. All around it, the sky was ablaze with burning debris falling from the heavens, leaving trails of orange and purple fire in their wake. Reflex’s blood ran cold.
“They’re trying something,” Hertz said. “I suspect...”
“They’re trying to fire the damn thing.” Reflex suddenly found it hard to breathe. “They can’t do that right? I thought they needed the other ships, and they’re not high enough to hit the whole planet?”
Hertz was silent for a moment, considering. “If that’s what they’re doing, perhaps that’s not their intent. A line of sight attack would quiet most of the battlefield.”
“Most of the battlefield?” Reflex slapped a thick hand against the window. “Hertz, it’d quiet
us!”
The Firrerreo nodded. He seemed oddly calm. Reflex could not begin to understand how. “Then we’ll have to hope Ms. Faine and her team get it done.” Hertz looked at Reflex from the corner of his eye. “Whatever is about to happen will happen, and there’s not shit we can do to change it.”
The more Locke fought to stay conscious, the more he felt like he was trying to stop the Dune Sea’s great sand hills from moving with nothing but his empty fingers. The Spire shook around them, shaking and shuddering as it lurched ever upwards.
A sudden crashing, loud as anything Locke had heard in days, shook him to his soul. A monstrosity — a nightmare, surely — toward above him. The dragon’s head and neck and shoulders were wreathed in black scales. A crimson eye split its forehead. Locke thought it looked at them all for a moment.
“Vance, shield!”
A wave of flames washed over them. Locke saw Vance reaching up, a shield of the Force forming around them, and the flames parted. On the far side, Archeri screamed and withered to ashes.
Lidah was dragging him suddenly, and he groaned as the motion agitated his wound. Yet the pain jolted him from the miasma to the here-and-now. He opened himself to the Force as fully as he knew how and willed himself onward, moving with Lidah as much as his weary body — driven beyond its limits — would allow. Vance and Zarene were fighting to buy time. He could let their efforts be for nothing.
“Gotta... get the hell out,” he muttered around clenched teeth. With a moment of fleeting clarity, he pulled his lightsaber to himself. The pistol, left on the ground near what he uncomfortably realized was a pool of his own blood, could remain. It was replaceable.
“Never taken a ride on a dragon,” he said weakly to Lidah. He did what he could to scale Ashardalon’s thickly-muscled shoulder, though his assistance was less than he would have liked. “Hope it’s not too bumpy.”
The
Regent lurched forward through a field of debris high over Nar Shaddaa. In the distance, the remnants of the Archeri fleet were arranged in a haggard formation, attempting to cut through the Coalition fleet toward Nar Shaddaa. Behind the fleet, the Singing Spire’s shattered remains fell lifelessly toward the Smuggler’s Moon, lighting ablaze as they met atmospheric resistance.
Captain Valara Kuolo could only imagine the devastation the pieces that made it to the ground would unleash. But the Nagai woman felt little sympathy for those below. Had their protectors been stronger, the Archeri would never have made them suffer so. Pain was the price of failure.
But the people below were fortunate; that they could feel it meant they had survived to grow better.
“Captain, emergency transmission from the ground.” An officer looked at her, expectant. “They’ve sent attack coordinates as well.”
“Put them through,” she said.
“The Spire’s barrier is down! I repeat, barrier down! Requesting immediate bombardment on the Spire. Archeri are attempting to escape.”
“Alert Admiral Sorans immediately,” Kuolo said. “Open communications with the Republic commander and move the
Regent and all ships not currently engaged with Archeri forces into position.”
The comms on the
Enduring Flame rang like fire bells as a new burst of activity broke out. Horst exited his meeting room at a quick pace, buttoning his collar after his short break had been cut shorter. Beside him, a number of officers kept pace, watching his hands move as he spoke.
”I want firing solutions on every gun ready in 30 seconds. Have the helm adjust course to give us a clear shot, I want a direct line of fire. Tell the Regent to nail the northwest face, we’ll slam the southeast. And tell every allied unit in that sector to bail the fuck out.” Finishing with his uniform, Horst dismissed the officers with a wave of his hand as they re-entered the command deck, each power-walking off on their mission, fists clenched, eyes alert.
Horst took his place at the master console, setting his hands on the rim and leaning forward. The holographic representation of the battle didn’t rage quite as hard as it used to, but the sight of both dreadnoughts peeling off from the action along with their accompaniments was still a mite concerning. Taking two queens off the chessboard before the game was done was never a
good move, even if it was a necessary one.
But the move was made. Each dreadnought began to skim atmosphere as they descended as far as they dared, their hulls alight with burning air. Even from orbit, the second Spire below them stood tall and clear against the Nar Shaddaa skyline, its purple glow visible even from so high. As it rose past the buildings, each ship came about, their guns shifting in waves to lock on to their final foe.
”Solutions locked, sir. Regent is waiting on our signal.””All JMOC forces be advised. Glassing Sector 115-B ‘Cerbozz Pit’.” The first volley of turbolaser bolts dropped from each ship like rocket-powered stones, making the atmosphere around them scream and whistle with anger. In seconds, the sights and sounds became nigh constant.
Ashardalon’s wings beat at the air as the dragon sped away from the Spire. Locke had loosed his hold on the Force after the let go, and felt wearier than before because of it. The wind felt nice against his face; he’d asked Lidah to help him remove his helmet. Some part of him realized they were much higher up than he expected, soaring past fire-shrouded debris.
“I always knew I could count on you,” he said quietly, looking at Lidah. After a moment he shifted slightly, lifting his head to look at the rest of the battered, weary, team. “You all did well. I think we’ve earned a few days off, right?”
Behind them, red blasts from the heavens seared the sky as thunder in lightning in one. They crashed into the Spire, knocking great, molten slabs loose. They crashed around the Spire, pummeling the cityscape and setting fire once more to the Cerboz pit. Blow after relentless blow, they put onto the Spire, setting such fire to the air that Locke could feel the heat washing against his face.
Finally, the Spire began to tilt, its unfinished peak aglow like lava, and fall.
As it crashed out of the sky, back to the ground from which it emerged, a cry rang out in the Force. As Locke’s eyes fluttered closed, as his body gave up fighting for consciousness for the rest it sorely needed, he heard it.
It was a chorus, voices raised as one in a dirge. It was all emotions at once — joy for life lived, fury for sins unpunished, sorrow for a duty unfilled.
It was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard.
Horst part courtesy of Fromikeable 
