Star Wars: Darklight
by AB
Chapter 17
Embracing the Dark side and the Light
"Yes, I was called that once. I have come back to end the Force-Wars." Tern turned his head staring deep into Volun's teary eyes. "I've missed you more than words can describe."
SLAP! Having recovered from the shock Volun had stood up on his feet walked over to Tern and slapped him across his face before hugging him close. Tern had not resisted in any way or tried to stop Volun from slapping him.
Seeing his dead, or so he thought, love again made Volun lose it as six months' worth of crying released on Tern's shoulder.
Tern could only stand there feeling Volun in his arms, the boy's scent wafting up to his nostrils reminding him of things he had not felt for six months, almost seven.
"Volun… we need to get out of here." Tern whispered to him. The others were still shocked speechless to see him.
"What happened?" Volun hiccupped pulling back from Tern's embrace.
"I'll tell you everything, later. Now we need to leave. Your brother is coming and I… we are not ready to face him, yet."
"Why not? You just schooled one of the Sith Lords in the Conclave, my brother's superior." Volun asked as puzzled as ever.
"No, your brother has unknowingly disturbed a… – Tern took a breath – an old wound in the Force. One that I need to heal or close permanently but to do that I need to create a… different kind of lightsaber and to do that we need to leave now before he comes in with not one but two Life-Eradicators." Tern explained what he could.
"How do you know this?" Karos asked him recovering his voice.
"The Force told me, I can feel the ripples in it."
"Ripples?" Karos questioned.
"Yes, everything and everyone makes ripples in the Force. It is how we can feel the disturbances when something significant or someone powerful in the Force approaches. Your brother is powerful enough and has two Life-Eradicators with him. The ripples are considerable." Tern replied. "Where is your ship? We must leave here. The more your brother destroys life the more the hunger grows inside him and that is not good."
Volun and the others had ever increasing amount of questions but Volun could see Tern would answer them not now. "Follow me." He told Tern and walked off towards the shuttle that had brought them to the planet's surface.
"Before we go." Tern walked off five meters or so to their left stepping here and there with his foot for a few seconds before bending over and clearing the leaves and dirt from the jungle floor. "Karos throw me the explosives you'd rig the reactor with." Karos threw him the explosives. "Board the shuttle."
The others boarded the shuttle and waited for Tern. Tern opened a hatch and activating the explosives he threw them in. He ran to the shuttle and pressing the emergency close button he yelled to the pilot. "Get us out of here this is going to be a rather big BOOM!" The shuttle's rear hatch closed behind him. The pilot turned on his controls and powered up the engines. Just as they were lifting off they felt a small vibration beneath them followed by a distant sound.
"Faster!" Tern yelled. The pilot flying the shuttle removed energy from other systems feeding it to the engines and shields. A couple minutes later they saw a huge explosion mushroom out from the ground beneath the clearing they had landed on. The explosion radiated outwards almost catching up with them just before they cleared the planet's atmosphere.
"General Atos, calculate the coordinates for Nar Shaddaa into the fleet's Hyperspace computers. We need to destroy the Sith presence there, destroy Darth Gore's secret laboratory there and then free Illum." Tern ordered.
Through the ship's inter-com there came the General's reply. A short highly sarcastic chuckle. "I do not know who you are but you are no more my superior officer to be giving me orders than Volun is."
"You are mistaken General, I am Tern Amargo and you are to convene an urgent meeting of the Coalition's Faction Leaders. I've come back to end the Force-Wars General, do not stand in my way." Volun did not remember Tern being this resolute before.
"Don't make me laugh child, the Force-user Tern Amargo was killed six months ago, whoever you are you are not coming onboard my ship." General Atos closed the com.
"Sirs, General Atos has raised the hangar bays' shields." The pilot informed them.
"So be it." Tern walked to the cockpit, placed his hand on the glass and closed his eyes. "Fly into the Hangar bay right in front of us, the shields will not bother us." The pilot saw, to his amazement, Tern place his hand on the Shuttle's cockpit's glass and closed his eyes. Hangar Bay's shields lower and raise behind them.
The pilot landed the shuttle. Tern stepped outside with Volun and the others following behind him.
A hundred or so soldiers barred his way, weapons loaded and aimed at them.
"I do not wish to harm you. I wish to end this war. Step aside." Tern told them calmly. Volun, Karos and Ravela saw their lightsabers leave their belts and circle Tern powered up.
One of the soldiers tested the waters by firing at Tern. One of the levitating lightsabers around Tern deflected the shot sending it to the floor right between the feet of the soldier who had fired the shot.
"Step aside." Tern took two steps seeing the soldiers part way.
He walked to the cruiser's bridge with Soldiers not standing in their way. "General, if you would please open the bridge airlock doors?" Tern asked through the coms.
"No. Coalition soldiers… kill him." He heard the General's voice come from the coms. Tern shrugged and placed his hands on the heavily fortified secure doors separating him from the bridge.
Volun saw Tern pull his hands back to his side, turning his hips. The doors creaked and "groaned", the steel resisting Tern's Force ability. Tern pushed his hands forth rapidly. The door arched the opposite way and then arched Tern's way again when Tern pulled his hands back. Tern did this three more times before using the Force he pushed all the lightsabers orbiting him on the doors slowly rotating them until there was a gaping hole through it.
Tern gave off a Force-wave through the gap on the hole and stepped in through it.
Before anyone in the bridge could stand up on their feet guards, soldiers or General Atos, Tern waved his hands pushing everyone up against the ship's hull, holding them there. General Atos was levitated up in mid-air.
"Now, time is precious and we have little of it. If you would be ever so kind to call the Factions' Leaders holo-meeting so we can leave this planet." Tern asked in a calm yet mocking voice.
"No! I will not… " General Atos started and stopped almost instantly as a lightsaber's tip found itself almost at his throat.
"I will not ask as nicely again, General. Now… that meeting?" General Atos felt his feet touch the floor.
General nodded to an Officer, who Tern let move. The Officer punched some buttons and five hundred holo-figures appeared.
"Empty the room." One of the figures said. General Atos, the officers and soldiers vacated the room.
"You as well Cyra's son and allies." Volun placed his hands on his hips. "No fucking way."
Tern chuckled. "Volun… please?" Volun sighed turned and left. Karos and Ravela followed him.
"What will it take for you to accept me as the Leader of the Coalition?" Tern cut straight to the chase.
"Where is Cyra? She is the Leader of the Coalition." The same person asked.
"She is dead, has been for six months." Tern acquiesced.
"Preposterous! Volun has been lying to us? All this time? We require his immediate trial!" The Leader of the Corellian Federation barked.
"No, he did what he thought was right and it probably was." Tern dismissed the Corellian Federation's Leader.
"How can you say this? Who are you anyways?" The Corellian Federation Leader continued.
"What would you have done? If you knew six months ago that I was dead and that Cyra was dead? Let me tell you what you would have done. You would have eaten each other alive for who would be elected leader of the Coalition. You would have torn the Coalition apart and the Sith would have conquered the Galaxy. I am Tern Amargo and I am now your Leader."
Some, most of the Factions' Leaders laughed. "What proof would you require?" Tern's face was as serious as it could get.
"You? A child? Defeat the Sith?" One of the other Faction Leaders mocked him.
"I just killed Darth Gore with ease. I'd offer you come to Nar Hutta and investigate on your own but… there's two Life-Eradicator cruisers coming this way."
"How did you know this? We just learned of this from our spies in the Sith ranks." The Leader of the Gos Network asked him.
"The Force can reveal everything, if you know how to look."
"We need to elect a new Leade… aahhhh!!" One of the other Faction Leaders started saying when he and all of the other Faction Leaders levitated off the ground through their holo-projectors. Tern's hands extended outwards, his fingers stretched and his palms looking up. His eyes open. He powered up all the lightsabers around him orbiting them with his will.
"I am the new leader. None of you is a Force-Sensitive and none of the Force-Sensitives in the Coalition are strong enough to fight and defeat Darth Solus much less his Master and leader of the Conclave. Does anyone disagree? Feel free to remove yourselves and your forces from the Coalition. The rest of you we have but one mission for now. Destroy Darth Gore's secret lab in Nar Shaddaa and then free Illum. Whoever disagrees can leave now." Tern let the Faction Leaders back on the ground and powered down the lightsabers.
Thirty Faction Leaders left instantly followed by another fifty.
"We will follow you… for now but we want strong proof of your ability to lead this Coalition. Take Moraband." The Corellian Federation Leader stated making Tern laugh loudly.
"Yes, why don't you have me end this war right now while you're at it. No, Moraband will not fall yet. We will take Nar Shaddaa and Illum then I will kill Darth Solus as I promised the one I love six months ago. Then I failed to deliver, now I will not. Gather your fleets in Tatooine after we have finished with Nar Shaddaa we will meet there to make plans for Illum."
A different Leader spoke his reservations. Thirty minutes later the fleet jumped out of Nar Hutta with the meeting over and the Officers, General Atos and the rest of them back in the cruiser's bridge.
"So you are the Leader of the Coalition now? Volun asked him shocked.
Tern nodded. "Yes."
"How did you convince them?" A voice Tern had not heard before came in from behind them. He turned his head to see Lavos.
Before he could reply a woman in her twenties, Kaa'ara, came in the bridge through the lightsaber-cut and Force-abused door. "We finally meet… brother." She was giving it her best effort but her eyes portrayed her deeply emotionally charged state. She had long black curly hair, long thin legs and curved buttocks and breasts covered by a white and blue long dress. Her dark brown eyes glimmered with tears she hold back.
Tern walked up to her giving her his hand to shake. She instead hugged him. "We do not have the same parents you know. I have no parents." He whispered.
"Yes, but you are from my genetic code and since I am far too young to be your mother I declare myself as your sister." She whispered back.
"Fair enough." Tern smiled. He pulled back from her embrace.
"You are Lavos Kenofi, yes?" Lavos could not hide his surprise. "I appealed to their better natures, how I convinced them. I can be… persuasive and they came to see things my way."
"We have jumped out of Nar Hutta… how did you survive?" Volun's voice came strained.
Tern sighed. "You want me to answer now?"
"Yes, I do not care who else listens." Volun replied stubbornly.
"Okay." Tern sat on one of the vacant chairs. "I died." He said bitterly.
"How…?" Karos' voice trailed but the question was obvious. How was he here with them if he had died?
"I will tell you everything. Not much to say really. Your brother did kill me. When I was falling in the chasm I could feel my life drained from me. I could see visions of colour and light as I slipped into the void. I do not know how much time had passed but at some point I felt a warm presence. Something or someone fill me with life-Force, with energy. She spoke into my head. She said I had long to live yet if I could answer her one question."
"What question?" Kaa'ara interrupted him.
"What is the nature of the Dark Side, what is its purpose?" Tern replied. "I told her I did not know but the Sith must have it wrong for the Dark Side is part of the living Force and the living Force would never will life's end."
"What did she reply?" Lavos asked intrigued.
"She chuckled and then she told me I was the first one in sixty thousand years to have said this to her. That most of everyone else who had paid homage to her shrine believed that the Dark Side is the path to power or that they craved power like her pupils back during the days of the Je'daii and in their weakness sacrificed all to acquire it."
"Her pupils? The Je'daii? I thought that to be a legend." Lavos answered. "Before the hundred years' war of Darkness there stood an order whose members trained in both the Light and the Dark."
"No. The Je'daii believed there was no Light or Dark, that all was part of the Force and that balance in the Force came from understanding both sides. Yet they did not train in the Dark Side of the Force. An oxymoron that cost them their Order when a young member started learning and teaching others in the ways of the Dark Side." Tern answered Lavos. "The discovery of her practices and teachings led to the Hundred years' war of Darkness as the Je'daii members learning the Light Side of the Force could not abide by this even if in theory it had been in their creed."
"So where does "she" come in?" Ravela asked.
"She is the one who started all of this, in her ignorance, and will to learn both facets of the Force. She learned the ways of the Dark Side and then started teaching others but her pupils misunderstood her teachings as well as the true nature of the Dark Side and they rebelled against their Masters of the Light Side which led to the start of the Force Wars." Tern answered her before looking at his genetic sister.
"Much I have learned om these six months. Of me, of the Force, of the Light and the Dark. She gave life to me when my life had ended, twice now. When the Dark Jedi lost the war and were exiled she did not follow her pupils to their path in exile. Instead she found that planet and made the ice-desolate planes her home. Her home in life became a shrine to the Dark Side in death and in that shrine her Force-Consciousness created a holochron. One with the ability not only to store knowledge but to store experience and skill and with the ability to pass all that knowledge, experience and skill to whoever she wanted to." Tern took a breath before continuing.
"Nearly every Sith Lord and Dark Side user has paid tribute to her shrine yet she revealed the holochron to no one. Its knowledge, experience and skill now I possess. So to answer your question, Volun. I have been meditating on what I learned from the Holochron for the past five months and for the past month I have been closing the wounds in the force. Now only two remain. Darth Nihilus' mask and Tatooine."
"Wounds in the Force?" Volun asked.
"The Force is in every living thing, it surrounds everything and everyone. We all have both Dark and Light inside us for they are opposite ends of the same coin. When an act brings about the deaths of thousands or millions… or more lives in a single moment like the Death Star station destroying Alderaan in the Galactic civil war three thousand years ago or other such incidents like it a wound in the Force is created leaving a scar in the Force until it is healed. I have healed all of them except for two. One is in Tatooine the other one used to be in Moraband… now your brother wears it, has been wearing it since before I first met him in Tython when he first killed me, or thought he did."
"That's… just too much information… why could you not have come back sooner? I thought you were dead… I moved on." Volun's voice was full of sorrow and despair. "And now here you are, back an undying, conquering hero to save us all… curse you and your Force. It has cost me too much." Volun spat at Tern before leaving.
"Volun… wait… " Tern's voice did not stop the departing boy.
"So, why did you not come back earlier? Could we not have helped you close the wounds? Have you any idea how much he missed you?" Lavos questioned him. His tone was accusatory but not angry.
"So he moved on to you? I guess I can't hold it against him, you are cute and I was gone. Has he any idea how much I missed him? He was what I held on to when I was dying, when "she" was trying to save my life. All I could think of was Volun. All I wanted was to see him again one last time. One last time that never came. I could not have come back before. No one could learn of me being alive before it was time. I could not risk the Coalition having a traitor who would tell the Sith of my return. I have come back now."
"Yes, well… give him some time to digest all of this and decide what he wants to do okay?" Lavos left the room, going after Volun.
"It would seem fighting Sith is a lot easier than… this." Tern moaned.
Ravela chuckled. "You have no idea." She left leaving Karos behind.
"General Atos, notify me when we arrive in Nar Shaddaa." Tern told the General and left the bridge heading to find a vacant room.
"Are you okay?" Volun heard Lavos' voice coming from behind him as he lay on the bed looking gloom.
"Yes… no… " Volun sat on the bed's edge. Lavos sat next to him placing a hand on Volun's.
"You know I care for you right? I mean we've only been… "together" for a month now but still… you are infectious." Lavos tried not to giggle.
"Yes, I know. I care for you as well." Volun replied wiping some tears from his cheeks.
"But you love him don't you?" There wasn't bitterness or anger in Lavos' voice.
"No… yes… I don't know." Volun sighed. "I did love him before… but he's been gone for six months and now I learn that he's been alive for all this long and has not made any effort to contact me… " Volun trailed looking down.
Lavos gave him a hug for a few seconds before pulling back. Now he was in tears.
"I think we should… break this off now." Volun looked up at him, his jaw slacking slightly in shock.
"No, why? I… " Lavos placed a finger on his lips breaking him off.
"Yes, as you said you care for me… but you don't love me, at least not as you do… Tern. It is better this way. Better now than later with resentment." Lavos stood up and left.
Volun sat there alone swaying back and forth for a moment or two before he stood up and clenching his fists started walking. Fast.
Tern was meditating when he heard the door slam open as if hit by an external force. He opened his eyes to Volun's hand landing on his cheek for the second time in the same day. Tern felt rage and passion bubble up inside him and in a spontaneous reaction he slapped him back. Volun brought his hand back as if to slap him again, Tern grabbed it and pulled Volun to him. They rolled on the floor.
"Nothing… " Volun mumbled as their mouths met and their tongues commenced battle. "Not a single… " More tongue battling. "… word for six… oh god… " Tern removed Volun's tshirt over his face. "… I missed you so much it hurt… " Volun reciprocated.
"I've missed you as well. The only thing that has kept me going are my memories of you, of our time together." Tern replied attacking Volun's nipples with his mouth, teeth and tongue. Volun moaned and pulled him up for a sloppy kiss.
"Suck me." Volun commanded. Tern grinned and crawled down to Volun's sumptuous looking flaccid penis.
Tern took it in his hand and toyed with it for a bit remembering the feel of it before taking it in his mouth. Whole. Volun moaned grabbing hold of Tern's head through his now long hair.
Tern swirled his tongue over the bulbous, purple head, squeezing the tight balls below, bobbling his head up and down on the tasty morsel.
Volun felt Tern rub a finger over his hole and opened his legs giving him more access.
Tern pushed the finger inside going straight for Volun's joy-button. He finger-fucked Volun as he suckled on his dick, feeling the smooth texture on his tongue as it bathed the four-inch cock with saliva.
It did not take long for Volun to start groaning and face-fucking Tern seeking relief. His orgasm overwhelmed his brain sending off tendrils of pleasure up and down his spine when Tern's finger found his prostate rubbing it. Curling his toes and with his hips going rigid he shoved one final time on Tern's face cumming and being quite vocal about it.
"Oooohhhhh ffuuuuuuckkk!!!! Teeeerrnnnn!!" Tern held on to Volun's balls with one hand and inside his bum until Volun calmed down. Tern massaged Volun's prostate until the boy started squirming feeling uncomfortable and his penis had no more boy-butter to give his eager mouth.
Then the ship's speakers came to life. "Commander… Tern to the bridge. Commander Tern to the bridge. We are approaching Nar Shaddaa." The General's voice boomed all over the ship and their room.
"Hey! What about me?" Tern complained seeing Volun stand up from the bed, getting dressed.
"After. Serves you right for leaving me all alone thinking you're dead for six months." Volun pocked his tongue out at him heading for the door.
"So… does this mean we're back together again?" Tern asked hesitant.
"Not sure… we'll see." Volun answered with Tern not knowing if he was teasing him or if he was serious.
"Damn, he's gotten better at this." Tern thought as he put on his clothes and headed for the bridge.
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