Carves a path of destruction through a large quarry

The V-wings screamed through the sky overhead without firing a shot at the village.

"Where did those other ships come from?" Isval asked, firing down at the transport and shuttle that had landed to either side of Goll's team and puked stormtroopers.

The quarry's floor was alight with blasterfire. Shouts carried up through the night air. Goll's people were trapped, pinned down.

She saw Vader bound out of the village at a run, lightsaber in hand.

"See him?" she said.

"See him," Goll and Cham said.

They fired by turns at Vader, at the stormtroopers. Someone from the quarry's bottom returned fire, the shots pinging off the stone and sending Isval and Goll back from the edge for a moment. Cham just kept firing, his jaw set, his eyes fixed.

"They're cut off!" Goll shouted, returning to the lip to fire. "We have to get down there or extract them. Get Faylin and the shuttle over here."

"She'll never make it through the V-wings," Isval said, and Cham knew she was right.

The men on the quarry's floor were dead, or soon would be.

Cham resolved to hurt the Empire as best he could before he died.

"Everything on Vader," he said. "Focus on him."

The three of them poured fire down on the dark shadow and the glowing red line he carried.



* * *



Mors watched through the cockpit viewport-impervious to small-arms fire-as soldiers on both sides shouted orders, fired their blasters, and died. The Twi'leks dropped to their bellies or knees and divided into two groups, each firing in a different direction, while the stormtroopers ran toward them in a crouch, firing as they came. Twi'leks screamed and died. Stormtroopers hit by blaster bolts flew backward or spun to the ground, their armor blackened by fire. Mors sat in her seat and watched it all unfold. It could-and would-end only one way. The Twi'leks were surrounded.

She looked up, saw the V-wings turning sharply to come back in on an attack vector. They must have found something along the top of the quarry at which to shoot.

Movement outside the ship caught her eye, and when she saw the source, it caught her breath.

Lord Vader strode heedlessly through the crossfire, cape flowing out behind him, his lightsaber cutting the air before him, deflecting dozens of blaster shots back at the Twi'leks, killing one, another, another. He did it all almost casually, as though his mind was on other things. The black lenses of his helmet were fixed upward, at the rim of the quarry.

As Mors watched, Vader exploded into motion, moving at a preternatural speed that left her mouth hanging open stupidly. Vader was heading directly for the side of the quarry, which was too steep for an ordinary man to scale. But Mors knew she wasn't looking at an ordinary man.

"Who is that?" the pilot asked softly as both of them leaned in their seats to follow Vader's progress. "Is that..."

Mors nodded. "Darth Vader," she said, and pitied the person or persons upon whom Vader had fixed his gaze.



* * *



"Those V-wings are coming back around," Goll said, firing down into the quarry at Vader, who was sprinting across the quarry's floor, coming on so fast that Cham would not have believed it had he not seen it. Isval had both pistols out and aimed, firing red lines at Vader. Cham was shooting as fast as he could, too, but Vader's blade was faster, deflecting every shot, sending fully half of them back at Isval and Cham and Goll, causing them to duck and cover.

When Vader reached the steep-walled side of the quarry he bounded up, caught a hold on some protuberance or other, crouched, and bounded up again.

"That's impossible," Goll muttered, but he kept firing.

Isval knew better. She'd seen what Vader could do. Nothing he did surprised her.

And now he was coming for them.

They kept firing, leaning out over the lip of the quarry to fire down the steep side, but Vader's lightsaber turned the air red before him and none of their shots so much as touched him. He leapt from one spot to the next, ascending, pausing only for a moment upon landing to tense before leaping again and ascending farther.

"How is he doing this?" Goll shouted.

Vader's cape flowed out behind him as he came, and he looked to Isval like some kind of mythological being, some dark spirit of death come to take a tithe of lives. She couldn't let him take Cham's. The movement needed him. And he had a daughter. She wouldn't.

"Get out of here," she said to Goll and Cham.

She looked down past Vader to the floor of the quarry. The firefight was already slowing. Goll's fighters were dying or dead. She could hear the V-wings streaking back toward them.

"Get out of here!" she said. "Now!"

Cham seemed not to hear her. He was firing rapidly at Vader, his teeth clenched, his skin flushed.

"Goll, get him out of here!"

She turned and looked back to see the V-wings bearing down on them. Goll followed her gaze, turned, and saw the ships incoming.

"Come on, Cham!" Goll said, grabbing him by the shoulder.

"I'm not leaving! You go!"

Vader leapt up again, again. His eyes were fixed upward, on Isval, on Cham.

"Go, damn it!" Isval shouted. "You have a daughter, Cham! Think of Hera! Take him, Goll! Remember our deal! Go!"

She stood up, making herself plain to Vader.

"What are you doing?" Cham exclaimed. "Get down, Isval!"

She turned and smiled at him, not a half smile, a full one. "I'm thinking through an exit. I love you, Cham. Now get out of here!"

And with that, before Cham could say anything, she ran along the lip of the quarry away from them, firing at Vader with both blasters as she went.

"Isval!" Cham called after her, but she ignored him. He loved her, too. He had for years.

"Do you remember me?" Isval shouted down to Vader, still firing at him. "Do you? I saw you on the Perilous before I blew it to hell!"

The sound of the V-wings streaking in sounded like a scream.



* * *



"Come on, Cham!" Goll said, and pulled him up by his collar. "Now! Right now!"

"I'm...not...leaving her!" Cham said, looking at Isval, trying to shake himself loose from Goll.

Above, the V-wings were roaring down on them.

Goll finally heaved him up, flung him over his back like a knapsack, and started running for the tree line. Cham cursed him, tried to shake himself free, but Goll was even stronger than he looked and Cham might as well have been a child.

"Isval!" he shouted.

Blasterfire sounded from above them, the V-wings opening fire. Trees splintered and cracked, huge chunks of dirt and stone exploded, and the concussive blast of the V-wings' firepower caused Goll to stumble. Rocks pelted Cham, most of them small, until a large one caught him in the temple. He saw sparks and turned dizzy. Goll seemed to be moving in slow motion. Distinct sounds disappeared, replaced by a dull roar. Everything went black.



* * *



Vader bounded over the side of the quarry, standing in the smoky aftermath of the V-wings' strafing run. The wind billowed his cape, and Isval could hear the rhythmic work of his respirator. She was eight meters from him, the man or god or whatever he was who'd done repeatedly what no one should have been able to do.

"You should be dead," she said, her voice hoarse. She holstered her blasters.

"As should you," he said, and his voice was as deep as the quarry. He deactivated his lightsaber.

She thought of Pok, of Eshgo, of Nordon, and everything in her boiled over at once. She shouted and rushed him, drawing a knife as she came, knowing even as she did that she'd never get close enough to use it but hoping somehow to take him by surprise.

Of course she didn't.

No one took Vader by surprise. How could they?

He raised a hand and somehow stopped her altogether. Her body would not respond to her mind. It was as though he held her in a giant fist. She felt her body rise, lifted off the ground, felt the knife fall from her grasp. Vader turned his head slightly sideways, eyeing her, and made a pinching gesture with thumb and forefinger.

Her windpipe closed and she could not breathe, could not even gag. She stared at him as her body screamed for oxygen, hoping to pierce him with her eyes, with her rage, with her hate.

Her vision went dark, narrowing down into a tunnel, at the end of which stood a dark figure in dark armor with his hand raised. In seconds she couldn't see. She could hear the slow, steady beat of Vader's respiration but could draw no breath herself. The world went dark.