Dark Matter: Episode 2

"The people," Sheefa whispered. "If this plant isn't running, the population here will be devastated by asteroids."

"2E," Vaux'avh said. "Are your scans complete?" 2E tweeted affirmatively, and the Sith nodded. "Then we're done here." She limped toward the door, Vulva quietly trailing in her wake.

"But what about all the..." Sheefa trailed off as her sister whipped her head back, and then fell in behind the others as a rear guard. "We're just leaving them? After all that?"

Vaux'avh nodded grimly.

The four of them made about the same pace through the complex as they had on the way in, moving slower due to injuries but without the intermittent attacks. Once they were out into the power plant proper again, Vaux'avh hobbled over to a control panel and tapped away. Sheefa made a slow circuit through the room, inspecting, but the sense of a threat faded further and further with every passing second.

"There," Vaux'avh said, as the lights surged back. Sheefa thumbed off her blade, though she kept the hilt in her palm once they started walking again.

"Thank you," Vulva said, over her shoulder, as they walked. Sheefa nodded reluctantly.

The path was equally clear leaving the facility. Vaux'avh's stride improved though the limp was still noticeable. Sheefa felt a similar sense of dread returning as they walked, though it was not focused on any one person. It was more nebulous. Something was wrong.

Vulva quietly returned to her quarters once they were back on the Conquest, while Sheefa and Vaux'avh continued on to the cabin. 2E gave the all clear after a systems check, and they took off.

As they passed out of range of the turbolaser network, one of the consoles in front of Sheefa began to blink and beep rapidly. "I'm reading a massive power spike," she said, trying to make sense of all the data.

"I know," Vaux'avh said coldly.

"The shielding on that reactor is down! We have to go back!"

"We can't do that. The reactor is going to blow."

"But those people—"

"It was intentional."

Sheefa turned and stared in horror at her sister.

"And it had to be done."

The console before her beeped frantically as the reactor went into an uncontrolled state. One by one, different systems across the moon that had been in contact with the Conquest blipped off.

She turned around, staring backward through the ship, as thousands upon thousands of souls winked out in the initial explosion. Many tens of thousands more were exposed to lethal radiation, doomed instantly with or without the benefit of the crippled turbolaser defense network. The second power station, in the northern hemisphere, was quickly overdrawn and blacked out as well, leaving the entire surface without power.

"Why?" Sheefa shouted. "Why?!"

"It wasn't enough to let the station remain powered down and leave the destruction of that facility to chance." Vaux'avh's face was even. Almost calm. "Even if asteroids pelted that surface unchecked for a century, the sanctum of Darth Indelyu would likely have survived, and I could not allow that. Nazaya had ordered the complete annihilation of his collected teachings."

Sheefa was stunned. "All of that to destroy a few holocrons?"

"Yes."

The ease with which she said it sent a terrible chill through Sheefa's spine.

"That room did not contain everything we knew Indelyu to have created, as well as containing several we were not aware of. This was his last known stronghold, and so any missing holocrons were likely to be hidden away behind a wall panel or in a similarly arcane nook. We could have spent years searching the premises and still not found everything."

"We wiped out thousands of—"

"It'll be millions before all is said and done," Vaux'avh said, interrupting.

"Stop," Sheefa screamed. "Just stop."

"It's too late to stop it now," Vaux'avh said, as Sheefa stormed off. The older Mirialan looked down, watching impassively through the ship's sensors, as the first wave of asteroids began to rain down.

***

Epilogue

Sheefa stalked into the pilot's cabin for the fifth time, shaking so hard that she could barely think straight. The words she wanted to unleash skittered away, again, in the face of sheer frustration. Horrified barely covered it, and through it all, Vaux'avh remained seated in the pilot's chair. She hadn't budged in hours.

"The first thing we're going to do," Vaux'avh said, breaking the extremely tense silence, "is find out how the Jedi found us. Someone has been keeping tabs on our movements, and that simply will not do.

"I hope you understand," Vaux'avh continued, "that your expulsion from the Jedi was always a certainty. Yes, they might have taken you back had today gone differently, but the time would have come sooner or later where your future would have hinged on renouncing your course and abandoning your ideals. You and I know that love is a source of strength, not a weakness, but the Jedi will never see that. They're far too blinded by their inadequate code to see reason."

Dozens of angry diatribes died without making it to Sheefa's tongue. Hundreds of rants. Her feet felt frozen in place, legs unwilling to move, and so, to stave off another condescending lecture, Sheefa blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "What was so awful... about that Darth that you needed to do... that."

Vaux'avh's head turned a fraction, enough to make out the lift in her cheeks and the corner of her lips. "Darth Indelyu's great treason was to believe, and espouse, that the Force was... how did he put it? Devoid of purpose, intent, or intellect. That there is no such thing as a Light or Dark side, and that the Force is merely a tool. That the corrupting influence of the Dark side was a lie that Sith told themselves to feel better about their atrocities. That they were drawn to the easy path because they were inherently weak."

She took a deep breath through her nostrils, pausing mostly for dramatic effect. "For the most part, I agree. In a vacuum, personal demeanor would be the deciding factor in whether a thing or an action is 'good' or 'evil'. Using the Force to strike down an innocent, or a murderer, has more to do with the wielder, or the target, than the weapon itself.

"However, we do not live in a vacuum. Both the Sith and the Jedi are all too eager to claim specific behaviour as being 'their kind' of behaviour. They dictate their whims from on high, and divide the rest of us into teams playing a grand game. They point us at our enemy, and say 'that is wrong. Do not be like that.'

"Unlike the Jedi, there is room within the Sith for someone with vision to rise up. To make changes. All it takes is sufficient power. Something Darth Indelyu lacked."

Vaux'avh stood and turned, and Sheefa gasped; the Sith's eyes burned red. "I will be powerful enough," she hissed. "Now get on your knees."