Star Wars_ Darth Bane 02_ Rule of Two - Drew Karpyshyn [101]
Before he could reach out with the Force to save himself, he felt a surge of heat in his blood as the orbalisks released a burning chemical to destroy the microscopic invaders. His skull felt as if it were on fire as his heart pumped the searing chemical through his carotid artery and up into the capillaries of his brain, but he could feel the nanogenes wither and die in the heat almost instantly.
Using the pain in his head to fuel his rage, Bane spun and leapt at the rancor, slicing both its metal legs out from under it. The laser cannons on the creature’s shoulders tried to fire at him, but in the more than two hundred years since its creation the power cells had lost their charge and the only result was a barely audible click. The torso fell to the floor, but the claws still clutched for him; Bane had to leap back out of the way before lunging forward to sever the arms at the shoulders.
That enemy vanquished, he used the Force to disintegrate two more advancing technobeasts, then felt something bump against his foot. He glanced down to see that the rancor’s jaws had clamped shut on his boot; it was trying to gnaw off his leg. Once again his orbalisk armor protected him from harm, and Bane sliced the rancor’s head from its body, relieved to see it finally go still.
There were still dozens upon dozens of the abominations in the chamber, closing in on him from all sides. Bane now realized that they couldn’t possibly harm him, but he also knew the technobeasts would not stop until he had reduced each one to pieces.
The slaughter lasted over an hour. He used his lightsaber to repeatedly dismember his enemies, conserving his Force abilities to stave off exhaustion in arms, legs, shoulders, and back. Three times during the one-sided melee he allowed himself to lose focus, his martial instincts thrown out of sync by the unnerving silence of his enemies as they were butchered. Each time his attention lapsed he was knocked to the ground by the blows of one of the lumbering creatures that got close enough to make contact and forced to battle his way back to his feet. Two other times during the battle he felt the burning in his brain as the orbalisks purged his system of yet another cloud of nanogene spores he had unknowingly inhaled.
By the time it was done every muscle in his body ached from hewing through hundreds of cubic meters of metal, bringing back memories of the long shifts he had endured in the mines of Apatros as a young man. From wall to wall the room was littered with the limbs, torsos, and heads of the technobeasts, the carnage made bearable only by the fact that there was no gore.
Kicking aside the remains with weary legs, Darth Bane slowly cleared a path back to the center of the room. He extinguished his lightsaber and hung it from his belt, then staggered forward, grasping the edges of the pedestal to keep from collapsing as his thighs and calves simultaneously cramped.
Gritting his teeth, he leaned heavily on the pedestal to take the weight off the locked-up muscles. Breathing deeply, he called upon what remained of his Force abilities to replenish his strength. After several minutes the spasms began to fade, and he was able to stand gingerly once more.
His body and will were exhausted; the smart thing would be to rest before attempting to use the Holocron. But he had come too far, and endured too much, to be put off any longer.
Still clutching the pedestal for support with both hands, the Sith Master stared at the talisman, focusing his will on bringing it to life. Slowly it began to pulse with a faint inner light of deep, dark violet, and Bane smiled.
Soon, all the secrets of Belia Darzu would be his.
19
I thought you had put this madness behind you, Johun,” Farfalla said with a disappointed shake of his head.
“It’s not madness,” Johun insisted. “He was there, Master. He saw it with his own eyes!”
Farfalla sighed and got up from his seat and began to pace, making small tight circles over the carpet of his private quarters. Johun remained