The Archives

-Hesper Calix stood in the shadow of the rafters with Tantin. She could hear the unmistakable sound of lightsabers being ignited. Hesper looked down at Tantin, but remained calm.-

"It appears that the situation has escalated." She said as she looked down at Tantin.

For the first time, she felt conflicted. Should she leave him here and engage? No, this wasn't a sight for his youngling eyes.

It was sudden and there was no stopping it. It felt like he was smashed in the chest with a powersledge, and he flew just as far. Hitting a row of shelves old scrolls, books and a few datapads fell around and on him. Seeing stars he tried to get his breath but found it momentarily impossible to breath. Raising his eyebrows he tried to shake it off as the Sith attacked the Jedi he was with. After a second though he stood and shot his own hand out as his blade flew into it. The familiar SNAP HISS of his silver blade could be heard, the curved blade crackling to life. He is a Sith, do you really think your words will stop him?

Honestly he didnt even know why he had tried himself, maybe just to bide time. However that was now a thing of the past, there was only one thing to do and that was attack and hope that the superior numbers would stop this man. Stepping forward twice he swung the lightsaber from left to right in a bid to bisect the Sith. His irritation evident from the breath he exhaled. How could this one Sith get inside a Jedi conclave and not be notice, and how had he gotten so careless as to let him get this close.

As I twist and slash to avoid the projectiles, I see the Sith swing his unignited saber. Not about to fall for that trick again, I bring my own up and bash his blade away the second it ignites, dropping to one knee to brace myself against the ground. That blow parried, I bring my lightsaber down in an arc toward his right wrist. Not quickly enough. The thrust originally aimed at my midsection catches me square in the chest. Reacting instinctively, I unleash a Force push so powerful it sends us both flying in opposite directions, scattering the stone shards.

I land some six meters away and try to get to my feet, but can't. I shut my eyes and turn my mind inward on the wound, but I can tell immediately it's too grave. Knowing I only have a few moments, I open my eyes to take one last look at my surroundings. While I'd like to have seen the sky one more time, I suppose there are worse places to die than here, surrounded by years of Jedi knowledge. From here, I can see the entrance, and the boots of the Jedi responding to the commotion, charging toward the Sith with their lightsabers drawn. But too late for me. Everything's fading, but I'm aware of someone kneeling over me...Giannah, the Zabrak padawan who met me when I arrived.

"There's an old Sith outpost..." I whisper to her with effort "...near the Ancient Abyss. Some research...might still be there. Find it...destroy it, or claim it for the Order." When she doesn't move, I add, "Go!" and she sprints off the way she came.

I close my eyes again and the sounds of battle fade into the background. My final thoughts are of my sister, who has gone before me and with whom I'm about to be reunited. There's only peace now, and I die with the trace of a smile on my face.

Jud watched as the young woman fell to his feint with little emotion on his veiled face. He wasn't exactly happy he had to kill her, but he wasn't necessarily broken up about taking  her life. It was the knifes edge that he'd balanced on since the old days, since his ascension, and he wasn't about to change that. Not even for the life of a simple and foolish woman.

Jud's sabers retracted as the Jedi fell to the archive's floor, and he watched her for a moment, as her life ebbed away. The weight of his actions sinking in slightly as his face turned from a calculated sneer to a deep emotional scowl. "You foolish child..." He choked out. The image of Sylvis flashing through his mind and transposing her lifeless visage on the woman before him.

He was about to go over to the corpse, to apologize again, when the sound of heavy foot-falls was heard coming from outside the archives. Jud turned to see that the lizard had gotten top his feet... well more or less so.
Jud shook his head. "Why?" He asked plainly, raising his hands in a "Why" fashion. "One is already dead, an unneeded death..." He added as he continued forward towards Panno and the exit to the base beyond. "I would hate to have to make it two." Jud finished, seeing that the lizard was peering straight into his veiled face. The hate and rage bubbling in his slitted irises. "Forget this fool's errand and let me pass." Jud said with a pardoning wave of his hand. "And you can live to avenge another time." Jud stopped his advance a couple meters from Panno. "You are injured. Let me pass. There's no need for another senseless end, none at all." The Sith pleaded, and he was pleading.

Jud watched as the slightly battered Knight stepped aside and bowed in humbled conceit before him. The act in itself made the Old Sith pause, or maybe it was admiration. He hadn't anticipated the lizard to listen. In all actuality Jud had expected the Knight to commit to his earlier threat, but this serendipitous situation garnered a rare emotion out of the Sith.

Respect...

"It is the wise that know when to be humble..." Jud said, bowing to the Knight before walking towards the exit of the Archives. The sound of sirens started and shouts of others grew ever nearer. "And it is the humble that eventually inherit everything. So, do not be disheartened..." Jud ended as he walked past the Lizard knelling to the floor.
Jud's hooded head turned one last time to the Knight. The single pin-prick of his ruby red eye glinting in the dark veil over his smiling face. "Now, that's the spirit."

Without another word Jud stepped out into the Base's corridor seeing Jedi advancing on him from every conceivable direction. Their sabers lit and ready to exact justice for the Order. "Brave, but foolish..." He hissed, continuing his leisurely stroll towards the gated entrance; despite the onrush of Jedi.

The first two charging Jedi must have been close by, because they were meters in front of their brethren. Their charge was ill advised, but they came on anyways. Jud continued his stroll, as the first attacks were coordinated at his defenseless body. One of the Jedi had jumped up high, drawing their saber high above their head in an exaggerated way (Falling Leaf). That could eventually become a hammer blow to the Sith's head. The other had come straight in, stepping to Jud's right as he forcefully swung his saber double handed at the Sith's midsection (Sai tok).

Jud smirked at the exaggerated power-styles these two dead men were using as his sabers leapt to his hands. With a half step back, Jud slid his right side away from the devastating slash for his midsection, and in the same movement brought his right hand and saber down and around with the slide. His saber hitting the Jedi's strike away further, not allowing the Jedi to retort or defend himself. Jud savored the wide-eyed look of panic on the Jedi's face, as he realized his strike and momentum wouldn't allow him to react in time. With a flick of his wrist, Jud's saber swung down, taking the Jedi's hands clean off before redirecting and taking out the man's leading leg. The amputated Jedi fell to the stone floor howling in pain, as his comrade let out a defiant roar in protest.

The emerald green saber came down along with it's Jedi owner in a thunderous crackle of saber against saber. meeting with both of Jud's amber orange blades. Jud had used his sabers to make an X high above his head, as he hunkered down towards the floor. His back leg bracing him as the power strike hit. With the Jedi's momentum spent, and his feet still not on the ground, Jud pushed off his feet, uncoiling like a string. His saber's pushing forward and causing the Jedi to sift mid-landing, allowing his sabers room to work. As the Jedi fell backwards both of Jud's sabers uncrossed and looped around in a curt arch, only to intersect again at the Jedi's vulnerable lower half. The Jedi's feet eventually touched the ground... before the rest of him managed to.

At the ghastly sight of dismembering their friends, the other Jedi halted in their hasty advance and took up defensively guarded saber positions mere meters away from Jud.

Jud leered at them from behind his hood, measuring them with a cursory glance like that of a hunter. He disengaged his sabers, but they remained in his skeletal hands, their emitters towards the floor. "Let me pass..." He finally said in a booming voice. "Let me through, or I'll continue this slaughter." He continued with a slight smile of amusement, which they couldn't see. "And I assure you... It will be." The Sith finished, surrounded and cut off form his exit yet again.

Jud leered with predatory cunning from under his hood. His single ruddy eye the only feature to discern where he was looking. Jud was in a dilly of a pickle, his mission to the haphazard planet was supposed to be an "in and out" deal, not a full out roue with the Jedi. "So much for subterfuge..." The Sith mused to himself, chuckling at the failure of it all. One tiny pebble could divert a river, he thought. The proverbs of his youth ringing in his mind as he smirked at the Kel Dorian, and his kind proposal.

Jud was silent, along with his Jedi captors. The moments ticked by slowly, and even the amassed Jedi presence seemed to hold their collective breath for the Sith's response. "Surrendering..." Jud said finally. "Is such an ugly word, is it not?" He inclined his hooded head to one side, before continuing. "Parley, now that's a better word for this situation."

The Kel Dor's eyes narrowed, his ire rising slightly at the air of superiority coming from the Darksider before him. He took a deep breath, easing his mind back to a diplomatic state of being, before answering the Sith's proposal. "And what exactly would you suggest for terms, Darkling?" He said evenly.

Jud laughed at the "Darkling" comment before answering. "I've already killed two of your comrades, and maimed another." He started, using the days evens so far to aid in his bargaining. "And though you out number me..." Jud continued with a knowing shake of his head. "That isn't exactly an assurance that you'll overpower me, or outclass me." 

"Get to it, Sith." The Jedi stated in an unamused tone.

"Very well." Jud said with a shrug. "I'll surrender, but only if your best duelist can best me in single combat." The Sith smirked under his veil. "I'll even go so far as to fight without aid of the Force, and a single blade. Here..." Jud tossed one of his prized sabers towards the Kel Dorian, who caught the emitter in his hand. "Be careful with that, Jedi. It is my life, my pride. It's more precious to me than the lives of your men." Jud said sternly, pointing a skeletal finger towards his "good will" offering to the Jedi. "In other words... don't you dare lose it." Jud's voice was no more than a feral growl, his resolve on the matter of his saber absolute. "These are my terms. If you don't like them, then you already have one of my sabers. You decide the outcome, Jedi... and the continual survival of your men." He finished, crossing his arms. 

    

Jud looked back over his right shoulder towards the Knight, who was still obviously worse for the wear. He genuinely felt bad that he had devastated the archive, and left this man in such a state. It wasn't supposed to go this way, but they'd found what he was looking for before his arrival. He'd thought the knowledge his and his alone. Obviously it wasn't, it had been leaked, or somehow that woman had been studying the same as Jud. He gave the notion a shake of the head. It was preposterous, or was it? the evidence was back in the archives; with the corpse left on the floor. Others had known, and now there would be even more trouble in obtaining his means.

Jud was about to thank the Knight for telling his brethren to let him pass when a voice came from before him.
Panno could hear Jud let out a long sigh. "Remember what I said in the archives..." Jud said to the knight as he turned to face the saluting Jedi. "Only the wise, only the wise..."

"Ah, a Makashi man, excellent." Jud said with mirthful vigor. "It has been a very long time since I've met a practitioner of the old arts among the Jedi." He continued as he unclasped the broach at the nape of his neck. Jud's dark cloak fell to the floor, and he stepped out from it, revealing his corpse-like visage to the amassed Jedi. He grinned before igniting his remaining saber in his left hand, giving the Jedi a returned Makashi salute. "I do hope you've been studying... I'm not a novice."

The word "novice" hadn't even entirely left Jud's lips before he was on the move. He went straight in, jabbing towards the Jedi's solar plexus with the tip of his amber orange blade. To the untrained, it would look like he'd lost his faculties, coming in directly and with a jab, but it was anything but the mistake of a boaster. It was a feint, a ploy, and if the Jedi took the bait... this would be done sooner than later.

By the time I return to the Archives, the dead have all been cleared away, and droids are already attempting to repair the damage. "What happened to the ones who...well, the ones who fell?" I ask one of my fellow Padawans, who's overseeing the repairs. A sympathetic look in his eyes, he points me to the Medical Facilities, where a makeshift morgue has been set up.