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Legends of Darkover	By : SWOTBWOT Category: Star Wars (All) > Crossovers Views: 3427 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars, Star Trek, or Darkover. I am not making any money off this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Legends of Darkover
- 2-Chapter 2
- 3-Chapter 3
- 4-Chapter 4
- 5-Chapter 5
- 6-Chapter 6
- 7-Chapter 7
- 8-Chapter 8
- 9-9
- 10-10
- 11-11
- 12-12
- 13-13
- 14-14
- 15-15
- 16-16
- 17-17
- 18-18
- 19-19
- 20-20
- 21-21
- 22-22
- 23-23
- 24-24
- 25-25
- 26-26
- 27-27
- 28-28
- 29-29 & The End
- 24
- 25
- 26
Chapter 25
-oOo-
Tyranus had woken, if he could call it that, to fire. All along his skin, everything, everywhere, burned. His skin felt saggy and sticky in spots, almost liquified from heat. He could scarcely breathe, emitting a horrible wheezing that caused him to half-strangle. His blood pressure had fallen so far his vision was dim, and he knew he was in shock.
Sith teachings be damned. He concentrated on his Jedi healing techniques, achieving the first part of the desired state, shutting off the damaged nerve endings and cooling their frenetic signals of pain. Next, he elevated his sagging bodily rhythms, monitoring his stunned, half-working organs for damage. Third, he got the hell out of the cavern. His Force shield had taken the heaviest part of Catriona's blast, but had given out part-way.
Qui-gon and Inculcare were still fighting. Tyranus paid them no heed, slowly easing away from them with a crippled, crab-like motion. The darkness hid him, and he kept on until he reached the cage. Once on the higher level, he found the tunnel cleared of its rockfall—Qui-gon, he supposed, must have done it—and he swayed through on unsteady legs, bent over like a hunchback. He kept having to seize walls to hold himself upright. He continued until he found the collapsed ceiling in the first chamber, and made his way right up the side, using the sloping debris as footholds. The Force helped him over a few difficult spots.
Once out and blinking in the red sunlight, he realized he'd made an error. He wasn't inside the city. It towered above him on its plateau. He sat down, and applied a few drugs from his emergency medkit, which fortunately had been packed a little heavy on painkillers because of his teeth, and made a call to Naoboath. “Captain, follow the signal from my wristcom for a pickup.”
There was no acknowledgment. Tyranus tried a few more times before concluding the Jedi must have killed his pilot. The ship itself might still be intact, however. He'd better have an intact ship waiting for him. Without it, getting off this primitive blob of dirt would be tricky, especially with that planetary shield blocking all contact with the Nihilus.
Cursing Darkover, he made his way up the slope towards the broken city wall. In his injured state the hike took much longer than it should have. He was almost completely exhausted by now, having drawn on much of his bodily strength to sustain himself. Near the top he staggered through the broken wall and found he was in the most melted portion of the ancient city. The scene reminded him far too much of himself at the moment, and he was not pleased by the comparison. There was nothing to look at except for a rotating planetary shield generator.
Tyranus halted. He stared. He stared again in disbelief, and looked around. Here? The idiotic Jedi had placed it here?
Tyranus grinned, showing a few new holes in his dentiture he was not yet aware of, (a pair of teeth had been blown down his throat), and he raised his blaster and took aim. Though the shield refused to hold still—Tyranus was too much of a Sith to blame his own unsteady hand—he fired several shots, a few of which severed some of the shield's parts. It spouted sparks and died.
Then the Sith lord passed out.
-oOo-
Kirk and his party were donning trooper battle armor inside the corvette Mustafar, their unwitting victim. The corvette carried a dozen crew, all dead now save for one unconscious man, its pilot. Lord Ardais was probing the man's mind for the terminology Spock needed to use.
The silvery armor with its black, one-way face plates was ideal. Kirk's chief worry was that the Nihilus' mechanics were familiar enough with the Mustafar's crew to recognize them by sight, and they might sound the alarm before the assault team could even leave the docking bay. The anonymous armor would give them more time before discovery. From then on it would be a little dicier, a term Kirk used where another person might say 'staggeringly difficult.'
“I have it,” said Lord Ardais after a moment. Kirk had to admit the Darkovan had been very useful, invading the mind of the Mustafar's captain and causing him to turn off all alarms and disarm weapons right before Kirk's boarding party beamed over in a crushing blitzkrieg of phaser fire.
“Comfortable, Mr. Sulu?” Kirk asked his helmsman.
“Delighted,” Sulu replied. He was testing the strange controls cautiously.   Chekov was already plotting a course.
Spock had opened the communications link to the local squadron commander about the failure in the turbolaser's power compressors. “Permission to head for base for emergency repairs,” Spock asked.
“Granted. Make them quick and rejoin the squadron as soon as possible. Head for maintenance bay seven.”
While Spock spoke, Scotty went off to sabotage the compressors. Kirk glanced at Lord Ardais. The Darkovan was standing next to the pilot's head in a golfer's stance, lightsaber switched on.   He was aiming it at the pilot's neck.
“Wait,” said Kirk.
“Why?” asked Dyan in malevolent tones. “He must die, remember. You've already shot the rest of the crew. Why spare this one?”
“I'm not.” Kirk replied. He leveled his phaser and fired. The pilot's body vanished. “I stopped you because you would have left a bloodstain. The mechanics would have known something was wrong immediately.”
Lord Ardais gave him a sardonic look. “I congratulate you on your lack of civilized impulses, Captain.”
Kirk turned away, irritated by the expression—and the situation. “Do you have any thoughts about your foster-son's appearance?” he asked.
Dyan frowned. “The chieri claimed to be the God Zandru. By our standards the chieri are all mad, so I would not give it credence. If such a person as Zandru existed, I doubt he would have spent a thousand years hiding himself from everyone on Darkover. However, I do not know how my foster-son could have come across such a creature, unless the chieri dwell in the Forbidden City, despite its radiation. As for its appearance on your ship, no one knows the full extent of the chieri's laran. They use matrix crystals as we do—they were our teachers--and we are close enough to Darkover for laran communication with the planet. I've tried searching for Danilo, but cannot locate him.” His expression was perturbed, but he hid it almost instantly. “Nonetheless, we must see to our own battle. Shall I try to locate this Muun now?”
“Start with some higher officers,” said Kirk. “Don't alert Plagueis until you're ready to drop on him like a boulder. The fleet's admiral may know where Plagueis' personal quarters are, and that's what we need to find out if we're attacking him directly.”
-oOo-
'The greatest foe you face is your own emotions. Battles are won by calmness, and by maintaining your connection with the Force.'
Obi-wan recalled those words well, because they had been spoken by many of his teachers, including his master. The master who would soon know that Obi-wan had placed an entire planet in jeopardy. He was in a state of panic, his emotions running amok. Horrified, the apprentice took off like a deer up the slope towards the Forbidden City. He had failed. Darkover's cities would be destroyed because of him.
Panting and sweating, he reached the broken ring wall. From the top he could see the strewn wreckage of the planetary shield. A familiar figure was gazing at the wreckage. Nearby lay the body of a man. Sprinting, Obi-wan tried to assess the damage, praying that a repair was possible, but as he approached he could tell the destruction was too great.
The man lying on the ground was Darth Tyranus. The Sith lord wasn't moving. Was he dead or wounded? The other man was Qui-gon Jinn. His master was studying the wreckage somberly. Had Qui-gon just fought the Sith lord and defeated him? If so, Qui-gon was also too late.
“Master,” Obi-wan said. His voice broke. “I'm sorry.”
Qui-gon frowned at his apprentice, his face colder than a Darkovan winter. “Give me your lightsaber, Padawan,” he said sternly.
“Master, I--
“No excuses. You have failed me. Give me your lightsaber.”
“I—think I could still be of use, Master.” Obi-wan yearned to weep for the first time in years.
“Surrender your lightsaber!” Qui-gon demanded. The harshness of his voice startled the apprentice backwards. A thought tried to worm its way into his consciousness, that all this felt like a mind-trick, but Obi-wan was trapped in a horror of guilt, facing an angry master, and knowing that disaster was about to overwhelm everything.
The apprentice fell to his knees. With shaking hands, he held out his lightsaber. Even now, he was aware of the irony of his posture. He'd hoped one day to receive his knighthood this way. Now he was surrendering a Jedi's most sacred weapon in disgrace. He was being ejected from the Jedi order.
Qui-gon received the lightsaber and hooked it onto his own belt. Then he lifted his hands and placed them on either side of Obi-wan's head.
-Drain.-
The dark command was the first thing Obi-wan detected with the Force since his fight back at the tower. Energy was being sucked out of his body, draining away with vampiric speed. He threw himself aside, rolling, knowing he'd been a fool again. He'd already been robbed of much vital strength.
Qui-gon—or rather his doppleganger, smiled a little. -Drain,- came the command again.
There was no way to fight it. His Force powers were gone, and he'd already surrendered his lightsaber. He collapsed to his knees, too weak to stand. Where was the real Qui-gon? Wildly, Obi-wan tried to contact Regis, his master, anyone, but failed. The Dark Side shrouded his body, making his thoughts heavy and slow.
Daylight vanished with the speed of a shattered lightglobe. He could see nothing except utter darkness, feel nothing with his grasping hands, not even the melted pavement beneath him. He seemed to be floating in suffocating ink. Nothing was left except his own pounding fear and helplessness as he tried to flail his way out.
“Taint,” said Qui-gon. He was stroking Obi-wan's lightsaber as he spoke. The Dark Side crept into the mechanical parts, stealing its way into the Adegan crystals. Obi-wan felt vileness spill into his veins, worming through his mind. He fought the spreading pressure as hard as he could.
“I will offer you a bargain, Padawan,” said the not-Qui-gon. “I will spare this world if you join the Dark Side.”
-Drain,- came the mental command. -Taint,- whispered the voice to the lightsaber. Qui-gon removed the weapon from his belt and thumbed the button. The beam that emerged was Sith-red. -Join me and save Darkover. It is the right thing to do. You know it. You have failed miserably, and your honor demands that you sacrifice yourself to save this world.-
Again, Obi-wan felt the distortion in his thoughts. /Mind-trick,/ he repeated to himself. But he was confused and shaken as he floated in formless dark, and the agonized, altruistic side of Obi-wan, always one of the strongest parts of his personality, was now twisted against himself. If he could save Darkover by surrendering, he would do it. If this was the only way to protect the planet, he would agree. He'd been ready to give his life, and he would give more if he had to.
“Take this in the service of the Dark Side,” said Qui-gon.
-Corrupt,- came the final whisper.
The word bent Obi-wan with the tension of strappado. His will was going to break, shattered between the pressure of his guilt and the overpowering crush of the Dark Side. He strained against it with all his might, wondering why he should even bother. He had no Force powers left to resist. He cried out, feeling the tear beginning inside his soul.
The other laughed. “Why struggle so hard, my apprentice? You've already joined me. Do you know why corrupting you is so easy? You're already tainted. When you touched the Dark Side back at the tower, you destroyed your connection to the Light--destroyed it permanently. The Dark tainted you, marring you and making you one of us, the Sith. This is why your old master told you not to use the Force. Anything you attempted would come out dark. You can never become a Jedi knight, now. He did not want you to know. The Dark had already won you, and it claims you now.”
Obi-wan was too stunned to react. Qui-gon had known this?
-Corrupt,- came the sympathetic thought. It was almost gentle. -Give in to the Dark.- “It yearns for your total submission. Give it your worship, your body, your mind, your will.”
Obi-wan saw something brighten inside his mental shroud. A hand was holding out a lightsaber.
-Take it. Join me, my apprentice.-
“No!” Obi-wan cried out wildly. “I will not. I would rather be nothing than turn dark.”
“This world will DIE unless you take the lightsaber. Can you let yourself live with the pain, knowing you were the cause of its destruction?” -Corrupt,- came the whisper again.
A slight sound came, the motion of a body shifting. The voice of Darth Tyranus said, “You aren't worth sparing a planet for, you stupid boy, and he knows it.”
The cynical words cut right through the messy fog of confused emotions. With a flash, Obi-wan realized his guilt was out of control, and his altruism was leading him towards his own destruction. Tyranus was right. With redoubled will, Obi-wan fought furiously against the Force Corruption.
“You're still alive?” said the not-Qui-gon to Tyranus. He gave a sigh of disappointment.
“Fuck you,” replied Tyranus.
“You won't be much longer. You will soon become my donation.”
Tyranus opened an eye, and gave his colleague a squinting look of pain-filled puzzlement. “Since when did you care about donations? Oh, I understand. You lost. You lost to the frippery vapor. Ha, Ha. I'd laugh with more vigor, but not enough of you is left to be properly insulted.”
Obi-wan was still fighting, trying to understand. He felt something like a hand run across his face, feathery and spine-crawling as a spider. -Corrupt,- came the command again, far stronger than before.
Obi-wan shrieked from the strain, praying the real Qui-gon might hear him somehow and save him.
He broke.
His lightsaber was being held in front of his face. The apprentice's strength was gone, but he took it anyway. His hand flopped to the melted pavement, the weapon searing the ground with a noisy crackle. He was too weak to hold it upright.
Strange emotions ran through him. Anger at Qui-gon for burdening him with such overbearing responsibility. He was furious with Regis for luring him away at the worst time. He raged at the Jedi Council for condemning him to this impossible quest, for wasting a year of his life. He deserved better. He wanted to satisfy his own needs, his own ambitions, not another's. Revenge against his former friends seemed—sensible.
-Revitalize,- said the hand, caressing his skull.
A sudden energy filled him, but it was Dark this time, and familiar. It was his own strength returned to him, yet as different as the reversed image of his own face. It was the doppleganger of his own soul, what he would have been if he'd grown up a Sith.
“Stand,” said the other man. Obi-wan stood. The reddish daylight returned. He was facing Inculcare, the shell of illusion having fallen away. The High Inquisitor stood amidst a thick cloud of flowing Dark energy.
“Welcome, my apprentice. I give you your first task. Help me destroy your old master. With his ever-exquisite timing, he has chosen to join us.”
Qui-gon Jinn, the real one, was standing before them. He was holding a wounded Catriona awkwardly in his arms, his right hand bent at a bad angle. His eyes had taken in the destroyed planetary shield, and were now resting on the face of his padawan. Despair was not an emotion that came easily to Jedi masters, but Obi-wan thought he saw it in Qui-gon's eyes.
“Together now,” said Inculcare, drawing a lightsaber to match Obi-wan's. “Let's make this quick.”
-oOo-
“Authorization given for a short break while the Mustafar is being repaired,” said the Chief Technician, entering information into his datapad as he stood before Kirk's crew inside the maintenance bay. Mech droids and human mechanics swarmed inside the damaged ship to make repairs. Beneath his helmet, Kirk nodded. Lord Ardais had done his work.
“Come and join us,” Kirk urged. The officer joined the armored group without a word, walking stiffly under Dyan's mental compulsion. Unobtrusively, Spock swiped the officer's datapad. Just outside in the corridor was a restroom, and the group entered. Once there, they quickly cased the stalls while Scotty disabled the sensors. “Tsk, you wouldn't think they'd put security holos here, but they did,” said the engineer with disapproval. Kirk shot the Chief Technician into atoms. He could not risk discovery if he only stunned the man.
They waited for Lord Ardais to do his work while Spock and Sulu guarded the door. Dyan was bowed over his matrix, concentrating. The Nihilus was a huge ship, with a lot of minds to sort through. “Pick the nearest person and read his mind up the chain of command,” Kirk suggested. “They all should know the location of the bridge.”
“Be silent,” Dyan growled.
Kirk shut up.
Finally, Lord Ardais made a noise. “I have the man. Fleet Admiral Kopis. He knows the location of this Muun's personal quarters and has an access code, but he still needs the Muun's own permission to enter the rooms. I will have to seize Plagueis' mind after we enter the code from our side. But there are security holos all along the route that can reveal us. However, the corridors are thinly populated. Most of the ship's crew are out on the smaller vessels, or have been sent to battlestations.”
“Plot a way there and have the Admiral disable as much of the security network as you can. Mr. Spock? We need your expertise. Lord Plagueis will likely have a private holo system in place that the Admiral can't do anything about. But Plagueis should be busy enough that he's not paying much attention to his own ship.”
“I need no assistance,” said Dyan tartly. He yelped when Spock clamped a hand down on his head. Even Spock twitched a little at the joining of minds. “This is—distasteful, Captain,” the Commander admitted after a moment.
“And you have no emotions,” Dyan retorted. “How can you stand to live without a single passion? Oh, I see. What is this pon farr?” Lord Ardais smirked.
“The distasteful component has increased tenfold, Captain.”
“Gentlemen,” said Kirk firmly. “We need to get this done. Please stick to the task at hand.”
On board the bridge, Admiral Kopis personally shut down the programming for various sections of the security network, moving unobtrusively. Nonetheless, his behavior caught the attention of his second-in-command, General Nerilles.
“Captain,” said Dyan. “The Admiral is perturbed. He has already tried to contact the Muun in the past few hours and has failed to raise him.”
“Okay,” said Kirk. He was thinking rapidly. This was bad. He couldn't imagine why Plagueis would suddenly go AWOL before a planned assault, unless--
--was it possible? The Captain stayed silent. He didn't want to rouse speculation.
After a long moment, Lord Ardais' face became distorted. Spock reeled backwards.
“Spock?” said Kirk.
On the bridge, Admiral Kopis collapsed, dead.
“I've stopped the Admiral's heart,” said Dyan. “It will be a useful distraction. The Admiral thinks the Muun will detect the security breach once the holos go dead. We must leave immediately.”
“Okay,” said Kirk, suppressing his ire. He rapidly changed his mental timetable, wondering how many of these little surprises Lord Ardais was going to pull. “Spock?”
The Commander was holding his head. “I am uninjured, Captain,” he said roughly.
“That's faint reassurance, Mr. Spock. Let's move out.”
They left and walked quickly, Spock leading the way. All hands were held unobtrusively close to weapons, ready to draw. Dyan had been correct about the other crew members. Most of these were hurrying along corridors, preoccupied with their own tasks.
“We're heading for the base of the command tower,” said Spock in a low voice.
With every footfall, Kirk expected to hear a claxon. “What's happening on the bridge?” he murmured aside to Lord Ardais.
“Medics have been summoned. They suspect the Admiral has suffered a heart attack, as he was known to have disease in the organ.” Dyan smirked to himself. “Bridge command has been assumed by General Nerilles. He too, has just tried to raise the Muun to inform him of Kopis' condition, but failed.” Lord Ardais became serious. “Is it possible the Muun is not even on this ship, but out on one of the smaller vessels?”
It was a possibility, though Kirk didn't care to dwell on it. Plagueis was certainly keeping his location carefully hidden, especially from the other Sith.
“Captain? We've reached Security Level One,” said Spock. A detachment of troopers was guarding an entrance. One officer was listening to his wristcom, and by the half-caught words Kirk knew the troopers had just been asked by General Nerilles to rouse Plagueis. They weren't wearing battle armor, he saw with relief. Plagueis must not be expecting a surprise attack here on his doorstep.
“General Nerilles sent us to give you a hand,” said Kirk smoothly. “He thinks something's amiss with Lord Plagueis.”
After a short frown, the officer in charge turned his attention to the door and began to enter a security code. Kirk made a chopping motion, and a cluster of phasers fired. As one man fell, he hit an alarm toggle on a wall. Spock raced to shut it off.
“Go!” said Kirk to Dyan. This was the moment Lord Ardais needed to take over Lord Plagueis' mind, if he could.   Sulu and Chekov had taken up rearguard postures while Scotty tried to crack the other half of the door's code. Spock was programming furiously, trying to find a way to get the door open.
“There is no one inside,” said Lord Ardais in frustration. “No living thing responds to my mind. He is not here. He must be on another ship, as I thought.”
“Get the door open anyway,” said Kirk. He had a suspicion he wanted to confirm. He was already using his own tricorder to see if phaser fire could blast the door to pieces.
“Wait,” said Dyan. “I have a slight amount of the Aillard talent. Let me.” He placed a hand on the door and concentrated. A second later the door slid open.
“Inside,” said Kirk. “Shut the door behind us,” he said to Dyan. “Everybody divide up and search.” They spread out and searched the quarters, a set of small rooms sparely furnished and lined with security holo panels.
“Captain!” called Spock sharply as he entered a room. Even Dyan raced at the summons, knowing he would be needed immediately. Spock was staring at the floor.
All Kirk could say was, “What the hell?” even though he'd half-expected this.
An elongated figure lay on the floor. It was clothed in a black robe, its face almost completely hidden by a cowl. Spock jerked back the hood, exposing a rubbery face, pale and much too narrow. He ran his tricorder over the body. “Positive DNA match from the Jedi data,” he said to Kirk. “This is Lord Plagueis, and all his vital signs have ceased.”
The Sith lord had a large hole in the center of his chest. Blood had flowed down the front of the robe, spilling to the floor. “He's been dead for some hours,” said Spock as he examined his tricorder. “One of the other Sith lords appears to have succeeded in killing his superior, as is their custom.”
“Hey,” said Kirk. “This is easy! We're holed up in a secure spot and there's no more Sith on board to stop us. Lord Ardais, take over the mind of General Nerilles and have him disable the superlaser and other weapons. Make him call the entire fleet back into dock, and turn off the damned shields. I want them all together in one place.”
The Captain grinned fiercely. “We've got a gimme.”
-oOo-
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Legends of Darkover