The Rebel Faction

The quiet hum of hyperdrive engines filled the empty room. The gently pulsing lights of the cargo bay's control panel cast the faintest light on the reflective metal all around.

But Luxum was not in that place. He could not smell the greased floor, or feel the hardened deck plating beneath him. He was once more somewhere else―someone else―living some Dark nightmare, powerless to bring it to an end . . .

The red lightsaber hummed gently in his grasp; cutting through metal, cloth, flesh, and bone. Blaster bolts connected and reflected off of it, returning to their sources and striking down yet more souls. All throughout the expansive docking bay, these pitiful organics were scurrying about, retreating into their starships or diving in futility behind what they must have considered adequate cover. But he battled on, confident in the outcome of this exchange.

And just as another squad of security personnel rushed into the massive chamber and it seemed he had become impossibly outnumbered, the luxum blade was turned upon a new target and driven into the nearest bulkhead. Electrical current burst forth from the ruptured power coupling, and the powerful hand of fate fell upon his back; the vacuum of space clawed at him, dragging the very air around him into its insatiable maw. Even as he fought to remain rooted in place, hands grasping the damaged bulkhead and the power of the Force binding him to the immovable steel, his foes toppled end-over-end to their deaths.

Her hand slipped; the protection of the Force shattered; her arm snapped straight as her last anchor point began to fail, and she felt the inevitable approach . . .

Luxum unleashed a terrible scream, fighting to grasp onto the reality that reconstituted itself around him. Some horrible power had come to his foe's aid, both driving him from her mind and ensuring―he knew―her survival. Even now, with that strange bond broken, he could fell her evil will―her Dark hunger―growing in the distance.

The last Iron Knight sat in that dark, empty hold for the longest moment; paralyzed by fear yet compelled to strike back. The images of bodies spiraling into vacuum filled his vision, and Luxum found himself standing. The vision―terrible though it was―had granted him new direction. He knew now where to go, what he must do. Only one fate awaits those consumed by such reckless hatred; as the last Iron Knight, he would see that fate fulfilled.




Luxum's patron was a generous one, but the Shard merchant had to make a living. So the Iron Knight had excused himself from that makeshift, mobile cloister, and finally found a crew both brave and foolish enough to take him to his destination . . .

The Wheel was burning. Several impact craters dotted the massive space station, and as the fearless Ryn crew navigated the sea of debris littering the surrounding space, a terrible darkness began growing inside Luxum.

How could she have done this? Why . . . But Luxum knew. This had not been some random act of violence, some mindless manifestation of the Dark Side's destruction.

A single Guardian-class light cruiser approached, scanning the transport before granting it clearance to land. As the freighter drew nearer to the station, Luxum made out the damaged docking bay from his Force vision; the place where that Dark Shard had done her terrible deed.

The shuttle landed, the Ryn began unloading their vital cargo, and Luxum descended the access ramp . . . to a hail of blaster fire. He managed to deflect the trio of bolts that would have otherwise struck home, his free hand reaching out and commanding one of the blasters from its owner's grasp. The weapon drove itself into the human's chest, the force of the impact dropping the security guard to his feet.

“Wait!” The Iron Knight demanded, lowering his free hand in hopes of showing he held no ill will, but refusing to lower his lightsaber as the threat of weapons fire remained very real.

But the security personnel had already stopped; something had alerted them to the fact that this newcomer was not the one they feared. Luxum's durindfire blade vanished as he perceived the threat gone, but the security guards' demeanor shifted darkly as that silver-white glow retreated back into the lightsaber hilt.

It surged back to life almost, and the Iron Knight charged forward, but his foresight had failed him: he did not have the time to defend against the loose cloud of tools, debris, and cargo that flew across the dock and drove the remaining guards into the nearest bulkhead.

Luxum positioned himself between the last surviving guard―whom he had disarmed and downed only seconds ago―and the source of that Force-assisted torrent.

Then she stepped forward, and Luxum moved to meet her. Their feet fell in sync with one another, and for a moment it appeared as though the Iron Knight were approaching some eerie, Dark reflection of himself, the Dark Shard having gone so far as to don black robes to counter his brown Jedi garb.

And then they stopped in unison, the mirror image unbroken, Luxum's Jedi blade in his right hand, his foe's red saber in her left. He brought his weapon into a two-handed grip, as did she. “I am Luxum, the last Iron Knight, and I must stop you now.”

His Dark counterpart broke the standoff, moving forward and delivering a powerful blow. Luxum easily guarded against it, but backpedaled to reduce the force of the strike. He returned the basic, prodding strike, but she parried, side stepping and switching to a one handed grip.

She struck again and again, fast but weak blows, but her footwork increased as well, and though Luxum found himself capable of defending against her strikes, he felt himself being pushed around by her constantly changing angles of attack. He struck back once or twice, but his uncertainty was evident, and his heavy-handed attacks were all but pointless against this agile, confident foe.

Then his counterpart reverted to a two handed grip, offering a handful of blows before her hands split again. She continued to change her attacks, sometimes two-handed, sometimes left handed, sometimes right. Luxum had soon been backed against a wall, unable to read his foe, forced into a purely defensive and reactive stance.

Then a metal-on-metal sound streaked toward him from the side, and a tool boxes came careening into the Iron Knight, skipping on the docking bay's deck like a rock skipping across water before finally impacting him in the side, below his outstretched arm.

His footing faltered, and the Dark Shard dealt a powerful blow from her saber, the force of its impact amplified by a Force push. Luxum fell to the ground, his lightsaber batted to the side as his foe came to stand directly over him. Her blade was poised just above the armored torso that housed Luxum's crystalline body, and the Iron Knight could sense the sick pleasure she took in holding his life in her hands.

“I am Luxum!” She declared with a frightful scream. “I am heir to her great power! Die, impostor!”

She leaped away just as a wave of blaster fire raked across the bulkhead, deflecting the bolts that tracked her as she sprinted for the expansive magcon field separating the docking bay of the station from the emptiness of space beyond. She jumped into the void, and Luxum noted they were not such mirror opposites after all, for what should have been atmospheric jump jets mounted on her back instead shot bursts of blue-white fire, and the would-be heir of Luxum the Fallen Jedi streaked into the darkness of space.

She had escaped, but far more frighteningly: she had won.

Darkness must always yield to the Light . . .

Then why had Luxum failed?

This world was angry.

The Iron Knight called Luxum waded through the sheets of rain, his Jedi robes drenched and splattered with mud. The heavy cloth caught on the thorny branches of this world's wild growth, rending here and there as the Shard pushed further into the untamed wilderness.

He tried to plot a path by the flashes of lightning, but more than once his feet failed to find purchase on the saturated soil. Luxum lifted himself out of the mud yet again: no machine processing, no servo control could compensate for the will of nature.

The would-be Jedi pressed on, joined now by the sound of limbs scraping against his metal flesh, the robe he wore so torn that it threatened to fall off under its own water-logged weight. How long had he been traveling through this storm? How many times had the clouds overhead glowed with the suppressed light of a sun they concealed, only to drop into total darkness again and again?

And then he saw her, standing there, an island in the storm. The Dark Shard stood upon a great boulder half-buried at the center of a clearing. The water rushing around Luxum's feet flowed down the hillside separating them, joined by other flash-streams as it poured into that low clearing where . . .

Where it curved around the great boulder, unwilling to intrude upon that Dark Shard's proclaimed realm. With another flash of light Luxum made out her black robes, untouched by the pouring rain, unmarred by the muck and mire of this dreadful place. Around this Dark one, nature bowed. She had no need to resist its force, no compulsion to merge with its will; she simply subdued it.

Luxum's foothold gave way and he slid down the hillside to the small clearing where his enemy stood, dry and at total peace. Dragging himself to his feet, his body now covered in the thick, clinging mud of which this whole world seemed to be made, the last Iron Knight brandished his silver-white lightsaber.

The Dark Shard turned to acknowledge him, but did not bring her weapon to bear. This close, Luxum could see the cone of empty air above her, how the rain drops themselves seemed to have been willed away from her even as they dropped from the clouds.

The last Iron knight pressed forward, stepping into the shin-deep flood of runoff that surrounded his target, intent on finishing this thing once and for all. He lunged . . . and flew backwards. Her outstretched hand clenched into a fist, and Luxum fought desperately to hold onto his saber, grabbing with both hands and calling on all the powers of the Force he could muster.

It did not matter much to his foe, who simply hurled him bodily through the air, smashing him into a tree. Luxum righted himself, charged a second time. She held out her hand in a gesture to stop, and Luxum crashed backwards, impacted by some immovable power.

The Iron Knight reached out through the Force, grasping a stone, and then a branch, a splintered boulder. He hurled them at her with all his power, the inanimate things rocketing through the storm to strike from different directions. But they bounced off of her protective cone, no more threat to her than the pouring rain.

She approached and he stood his ground, weapon drawn. She tilted her head slightly, studying her foe. The rain stopped falling on Luxum; he looked up to see the cause, and then was on his back, disarmed. “You could be my pet,” She said calmly, standing over him. “I've always wanted a pet.”

Luxum hurled himself upward, reaching out for his lightsaber, now in her hand, but she struck him with her free hand, and he collapsed to the ground again.

She turned and walked away. “Find me when you are worthy.” Stopping, she half-turned to look at him over her shoulder. “And decide if you are pet or prey.”

Luxum would spend the longest time shouting into that endless storm, the shame of defeat mixing with the fury of abandonment: the Force had not allowed him to win! He had done all there was to do, yet he had failed, utterly.

A Jedi without a lightsaber, a droid stuck on a rain-world. The Force mocked him.

He felt . . . empty; Purpose had moved on, and left him there to rust and fade away.

The cramped personal quarters felt more like a tomb to Luxum, whose bulky droid body made the room feel even smaller. He could barely fit through the narrow hallway that ran from the personal transport's engine room to the two-man cockpit, where the copilot's chair had been ripped out to make room for the vessel's previous owner.

The ship's computer reported the active hyperdrive rating at just under class 3 equivalence, though Luxum hadn't yet dared to inspect the drive by trying to fit himself into the engine “room,” which was truthfully little more than a crawlspace.

It was not a comfortable ride, but it was almost over. There was no room for training, so his mind had raced with the events of his journey to Dweem, the battle with his Dark counterpart and . . . and the Power which had saved him from destruction.

He knew what Master Durindfire would have said, what Master Aqinos would have said, what Ilum would have said . . . but the Power remained, it gave him strength, it guided him toward his purpose. It wasn't evil, it wasn't sinister, it demanded no compromise of his beliefs, no curtailing of his conscience.

But he knew what Durindfire would have said, and perhaps that was why he had made this journey alone. It was time to face the angel on his shoulder.

Luxum reactivated the droid brain that shared his metallic body, and braced himself for the tirade to come.

Oh, we're alive! Thank the Maker! Luxum could sense the droid checking its internal chronometer. Wait, how long have I been offline!?

“I had to face her alone. I had to defeat her.”

That's all well and good, but . . . wait: what are these?

“These” were the custom programs Luxum had written himself to assist in that fateful battle against his Dark opponent. Now deactivated, they nevertheless rose to the awakened droid's attention. “A mistake.”

They're magnificent!

“They're irrelevant. Delete them.”

But, Master . . .

“Do it!”

I . . . yes, of course. But I must ask: what happened?

“I won. She's dead.”

Yes, but . . .

“Listen: it's over. Now I have to find my path. Now I have to learn the truth of Light and Dark.”

Master, I don't like the way that sounds. If you would just tell me what happened―

“It's none of your business.”

It is very much my business. Master Durindfire charged me with―

“Master Durindfire is dead. Your allegiance is to me.”

This is not a matter of allegiance, but of destiny. I cannot stand by and watch you lose your way.

“I have . . . questions. I cannot deny the experiences I have lived, the actions that saved my life. I cannot ignore the choice that sealed my enemy's fate.”

Tell me what happened. Let me help you.

“This is my journey. This is my test. And it's none of your business.

“That is all.”

And right on time, the alarm chimed and the ship's automated systems began preparing for reversion.

“Ten seconds to normal space. Destination: Sulorine."




The hail to traffic control was answered quickly and sternly. “You are piloting a registered stolen vessel last seen in the possession of the outlaw Shard known as Luxum. Power down and prepare to be boarded.”

In all this time, Luxum had never considered how his adversary had come by this ship. The fact that she had laid claim to his name could only further complicate matters. “Sulorine Traffic Control, I am an Iron Knight and Jedi. I have killed the Shard your records show as Luxum, and am seeking only to return to Coalition space. If this ship is stolen, then I will of course cooperate with returning it to its rightful owner.”

There was a long pause before the traffic control operator replied, idle time in which Luxum's mind raced with possibilities. “Star Shard, hold position and await an inspection detail.”

After so long in hyperspace, he didn't much like the thought of sitting idly in orbit until these people decided he wasn't who they were looking for, but there really wasn't any other option at this point. “I should have just gone straight for Coalition space,” he muttered, working the ship's controls to comply with the orders.

The long minutes of cramped silence ended with a dull thud as the security ship attached itself to the personal transport's sole access port, located on the ship's starboard side. Luxum made his way to the junction that connected the main hallway running the length of the ship to the small boarding area in front of the port.

And then he felt it:

Anger.

Fear.

Passion.

Pulses of raw emotion laying just out of sight.

“Oh no . . .”

What is it, Master? The droid asked.

Luxum deactivated it.

Power washed over him. They're here' to kill me.

A second sooner and they would have succeeded. As the hatch imploded with the force of their boarding efforts and shrapnel flew through the surrounding area, a surge of telekinetic energy pulsed from Luxum. Wild and uncontrolled, it nevertheless blunted the impacts from the flying debris. Then he ignited his lightsaber and called upon the Force to hurl the tools and supplies lining either side of the boarding area through the breached hatch, buffeting his foes just long enough to jump across the boarding umbilical.

His blade cut one of them cleanly in two, lopped off the arm of a second. A blaster flared and the bolt caught him in his shoulder. Almost out of reflex, his arm stretched toward the man and he went flying against the bulkhead, a loud crunch sounding as he hit.

Luxum whirled on the remaining men, swinging his blade wildly, cutting another in half as a pair of bolts struck him again. He lunged, piercing the last man's heart.

Blade still humming, he limped over to the man he had thrown against a wall, his own mechanical knee damaged from a blaster shot. He grabbed the man by the throat and lifted him off of the ground. “Why!”

Gasping for breath, eyes diverted from the burning blade, he struggled with the few words that might explain their actions. “Dominion . . . Artanis . . . Holonet Declaration.”

Luxum glanced toward the cockpit, familiar with this ship model. All but dragging his damaged leg after him, he made his way to the cockpit hatch, opening it to reveal empty pilot and copilot seats. He smashed his hand through one of the control consoles, pulling out a particular piece of hardware, then limped back to the ship's docking port.

With a final glance at the sole surviving guard, still gasping for breath, he stepped across the threshold and ignited his saber once again. Slashing the umbilical that connected the two ships, he made sure his cut ran into the hostile vessel, damaging the emergency seals and ensuring it would be vented of atmosphere.

As the damaged hatch slid closed in its futile effort to maintain atmosphere, Luxum limped back to his own cockpit, furiously typing hyperjump commands before more local security could arrive.

Once more safe in hyperspace, he set to work on the piece of Sulorine hardware, connecting leads to the communications hard drive and accessing the stored messages. With the atmosphere vented and a gaping hole in the side of his ship, he had to jack directly into the ship's computer, playing the message straight to his audial interface.

The figure and voice of Artanis Daz'Da'Mar greeted him with his ghastly Declaration.

But for the Power welling within him, Luxum would have succumbed to absolute fear in that moment.

In his damaged ship, in his damaged body, hurtling through hyperspace on a course that might or might not plunge him into the heart of a star, the Power alone remained. His Power. The Power that had once again saved him.

It had not been a whisper of the “Force” that had warned him of the impending peril. The Power which had granted him victory over his Dark foe had once again given him the strength to destroy his enemies.

“I will survive. I am destined to greatness, and the Power of that destiny will sustain me.”

What had been the difference between himself and the Dark Luxum? She had not realized that her Power was not a tool, but instead a master. Luxum would live out his great destiny, because he would embrace the will that guided it.




The warning alarms sounded and Luxum hit the manual release, an unnecessary action as the ship's safeties had already disengaged the hyperdrive.

The battered personal transport appeared in the space around Bimmisaari broadcasting automated distress calls activated by its hull breach. Bimmisaari traffic control was quick to respond, but while their vessels were still on approach, more ships appeared in the system.

The Sulorine Defense Force was chasing him.

Luxum immediately activated the ship's comm systems, still patched directly into his droid body. “Bimmisaari traffic control, I am the Iron Knight Luxuxm, a citizen of the Coalition planet, Orax. I am being pursued by forces of the Sulorine government who wish to kill me in accordance with the Dominion Declaration against Force users. I require immediate assistance.”

“Private transport Star Shard, please stand by,” was the only reply offered by the Bimmisaari traffic control.

As the seconds ticked by, the Sulorine ships closed on Luxum's slow, civilian craft. Star Shard's simple sensors detected communications between the Bimmisaari emergency response ships and the small task force of Sulorine vessels, but his communications systems were not sophisticated enough to intercept those transmissions. His pursuers would be in firing range in only seconds, and the Coalition was showing no signs that they would intervene on his behalf. He could only imagine what deal the security forces of the two worlds were brokering between one another, with his life hanging in the balance.

Run! the Power within him yelled, and he complied instinctively, orienting his ship as it directed him. The damaged private craft vanished in a flash of pseudomotion, hurtling through hyperspace on its path guided not by careful calculation and analysis of cosmic forces, but by the Power that continued to save him from certain death.

The vessel dropped from hyperspace after only a moment, and Luxum used the ship's navcomputer to lay in another short jump, after which he picked a galactic compass direction at random and made the longest single-stop jump the navcomputer could calculate.

There, at that insignificant point in space, huddled in the sealed quarters of his damaged ship, he waited. For what, he did not know. For how long, he could only guess. The Coalition had abandoned him, he was sure of it. Whether outright, in compliance with the Dominion's Declaration, or more obliquely, by taking advantage of the opportunity to confuse him with the Dark Luxum.

He was roused from his silent isolation by a notification from the ship's computer: a message was incoming. Luxum slapped the room's door override, venting the repressurized compartment into the vacuum just beyond. He made his way back to the cockpit and jacked into the comm, accessing the unexpected message.

It was a general broadcast from the Galactic Empire. The Imperial HoloNet had been in shambles since the fall of Coruscant, but it appeared they were making headway, particularly in these more remote sectors that had already relied far less on Imperial Center as a communications hub.

The message, however, could not have been more shocking. Emperor Kraken was offering amnesty to Force users. All Force users, regardless of their philosophy, and regardless of their crimes.

It made no sense. It absolutely made no sense. Could it be a ploy? A trick to lure in unsuspecting fools, so the Empire could turn them over the conquerers of Coruscant?

No. Luxum knew the Empire well, and despite its new face, it was every bit the petty, cruel, self-absorbed, arrogant, vindictive fiend it had always been. No man who dared call himself Emperor - not Palpatine, not Hyfe, not Kraken - would ever roll over and be cowed in such a way.

In a sick, twisted way, it made the Empire the only thing that Luxum could trust. In his damaged ship, this far from home, hunted by a Coalition he was so sure had turned on him, it was the only option left to him.

He called up a map of the local region and began plotting a course for the nearest Imperial world.

“Luxum.” The voice came from behind him, speaking through the vacuum of the depressurized cockpit. He knew the voice well, an echo of a man who no longer existed, so close and yet so very far away.

Luxum turned to regard the spectral crystal that hovered just inside the adjoining hallway. “Master Durindfire,” he answered, staring straight into the pulsing light at the crystal's center.

“You must turn back, Luxum, before it is too late.”

“Turn back? Back where?”

“Back to the Light!” Durindfire's voice screamed. “This is not your destiny, Luxum. You are an Iron Knight -”

“I am the last Iron Knight!” Luxum shouted back, jumping to his feet and taking the few paces needed to close the distance between himself and his former master. “I have been since you left me to fight the Darkness, alone. And I have fought it . . . and I have won. There is a power in me, Master Durindfire; it saved me from my enemy. It ensured her death. It warned me of the Coalition's betrayal.”

“No!” Durindfire raged. “You have been deceived! The Darkside hungers for you -”

“It is not Dark. It will not betray me.”

Luxum, listen to me -”

“I am finished listening to you,” Luxum cut him off again, pressing the control that slammed the cockpit hatch shut between them.

The ghostly Durindfire drifted through the physical barrier, his ethereal light growing brighter. “The Darkness calls to us in many ways, Luxum. Seldom does it take the form we most despise.”

The condescension infuriated Luxum. He wished that he could reach out a hand and cast the Force ghost back to wherever it came . . . and he could. He could feel it, inside himself, just as the thought came to mind. The Power inside him knew what to do; it understood the delicate link that bound these two, apprentice and master, to one another.

And it knew how to break that link.

“There is a Path that each of us is meant to walk, Luxum,” Durindfire continued his plea. “The Light will guide you on your way, if you will only let it.”

Luxum raised his hand, palm open, toward the Force ghost. “I'll find my own way.” The image of Durindfire distorted, waving back and forth as dark, vertical streaks appeared in it, and then the former Jedi Master dissolved away completely.

Luxum, far more satisfied with that than he had expected to be, returned to the pilot's seat and double-checked the nav computer. A moment later the shuttle vanished into hyperspace, and when it reemerged, a moonless world hung in the forward viewport.

“Centares Traffic Control, I am Luxum, of the Order of the Iron Knights, a Jedi.” He paused for a brief moment, almost unable to believe what he was about to do. He'd fought his whole life against the Empire, and now . . .

And now: “I do hereby request asylum within the borders of the New Order of the Galactic Empire.”