Shards of Expectation

by Diane Kovalcin

Summary: Cade Skwalker can't escape his destiny or the ghost of Luke Skywalker, either.

WIP

Timeframe: Legacy comic series

Characters: Cade Skywalker, Luke Skywalker OCs

Genre: PG, drama

Disclaimer: I do not own Cade Skywalker or Luke Skywalker or the Star Wars concept; Lucasfilm does. I am very respectfully borrowing them with no intent to profit. No credits have changed hands. No copyright infringement is intended.

Notes: This is for a cliffhanger workshop so there will be several endings. :)

The bubbles were everywhere, bright bubbles floating on the wind.

The colors were iridescent, flashing reds and pure golds and the blues of cold water, a microcosm of life encased in spheres of light.

Cade watched them drifting, bouncing against the rough stone, splashing, laughing, twisting into dancers impossibly thin and then they were climbing up, singing, shrieking as they went, spiders and lizards and darker things.

Bubbles in his skin and bubbles in his brain.

As he watched, the Light turned into screams and oozed blood and vomit-ripe smells of shredded carcasses and then everything faded away. Death was stalking him here. He could feel it in the wind and the shatter of bubbles.

But then death was always stalking him. It was a way of life for him these days.

He laughed at the irony; the sound of it echoed in the Sith Temple. Beyond, in the jungle, his harsh bray was answered in the far-off howls of Tuk'ata on the hunt but they weren't a problem.

He had bigger problems. The effects of the deathsticks he'd used only a short time ago faded away, forcing rainbow-lush euphoria back into desperate reality.

That hit was the last of his supply and he'd used it to avoid his future, his past, himself.

But that was all that he'd ever wanted, to keep out the demons. Deathsticks were the perfect choice; they crushed his ability to feel the Force, pushing it into nothingness. Such a wonderful feeling, to escape the Light and forget everything. It even kept out the the constant whine of that kriffing ancestor of his, that ever-noble, ever-nauseating Luke Skywalker. At least he wasn't...

"Deathsticks are aptly named, Cade."

Hell, he was back. Luke - kriffing - Skywalker,  lecturer and all-around bore. And Cade had nothing to use to shut him up. The drugs were all gone, just like his family, just like his friends, just like the Jedi.

He had nothing left, not even himself.

Staring at his ancestor, wishing he could just shut the old fool up, knowing it was impossible, Cade growled out, "Can't you haunt someone else? Like someone who cares about your damned Force?"

"It's your Force too. You can't escape your destiny."

He'd heard it so many times before. Destiny didn't stop the Sith from killing his father or destroying the Jedi. Didn't stop everything from going to hell. Didn't stop his life from shattering into a billion bloody pieces.

"Seen what happened to that destiny of yours. Jedi ain't around any more." He laid back down, closing his eyes, wishing Luke would vanish into the smoke of burnt memory.

His head was beginning to hurt and he needed to sleep. Maybe never wake up. He tried to ignore the scream of something alive being eaten a few dozen meters away. From the sound of it, several other somethings, likely  that pack of Tuk'ata, were fighting over the remains but Cade didn't care. Maybe they'd hunt him next.

"The Jedi survive. They could use your help." Another platitude. Didn't the man or ghost or annoyance or whatever the hell he was understand that they were gone? They, his father, his family were never coming back.

"Go away, just go away." He groaned out his pain. One eye slitted open, and then, grabbing onto a handful of dirt flung it at the glowing figure. Surprisingly, the honorable and deadly-boring Skywalker ghost faded away and it was dark again. 

He drew in a deep breath and, laying back down,  he closed his eyes and listened to the sound of crunching bones and snarls. It was comforting in a way, cycling between painful life and agonized death. A balance of dark and darker.

The hiss of dirt against stone told him that something was coming,  stalking him. The Tuk'ata must have caught his scent.

He lay there, trying to decide whether to get up and fight off the pack or ignore the danger and get torn to shreds. Both options had their pluses and the deathsticks had sapped his strength a bit.

Sighing, he relaxed into acceptance. He'd wait until they were a lot closer and then decide. Either way, he'd win and caring took too much energy at the moment.

But the touch of ghost-cold on his cheek was another matter. It would seem his ever-persistent ancestor was back. Luke Skywalker wouldn't take no for an answer.

He twisted around, opening his eyes, and wished he'd had another deathstick. It would appear that Tuk'ata had found him after all and sooner than expected.

They weren't alone.  

Cade said softly, "Come back to finish the job?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is one resolution of the cliffhanger but not the last one!

"No, Cade. I think you should finish the job. I'm slaving away all day walking these Sith hounds and you lounge around, smoking deathsticks and who knows what else."

As the Tuk'ata dogs began to snarl at each other, clearly bored with the argument and eager to destroy something live and wiggling, Cade's live-in lover, Darth Talon, was having none of it. She yanked on the chains, snapping at the hounds, "Down boys."

Cade just laid there, looking up at his sometimes girlfriend, wishing she would go find him more deathsticks and stop nagging him all the time. It wasn't as if he could find a job. No one would hire him after that disaster with Darth Cadeous or Callous or Calzone or whatever his Sith name was. Cade had tried but the Skywalker name ruined it for him. Luke Skywalker had been the savior of the galaxy and everyone expected him to follow in the boring, old guy's footsteps.

Cade didn't want to be the savior of the galaxy. He wanted to be a pirate, had wanted to since he was a little kid but no one would believe him. But everyone laughed when he insisted that he was a pirate; they all claimed he should be a good guy and that he should stop fooling around and go save someone. Plus no self-respecting pirate would teach him the ways of piratehood. So he'd ended up taking odd jobs or stealing or nothing at all.

Damn Luke Skywalker. Ruined all the fun. And now he was using deathsticks and living off his girlfriend's hound-walking business.

Pathetic!

He'd have to do something about it and soon.
 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Second cliffhanger resolution

He could see Jariah Syn's finger was twitching on the trigger. Cade only knew this because the bore of the blaster was scraping the tip of his nose and the hand holding it was hard to miss.

He looked up, past the weapon, staring into the hate-filled eyes of the man who had been his best friend for ten years. "Come to kill me?" he repeated softly.

"I'd certainly like to, Jedi scum." Syn was nothing if not straightforward. "There's a bounty on your head so high that I could buy my own ship and yours as well." He flipped the blaster away from Cade's face, motioning him to get up. "But only if you're alive. The Sith have plans for you."

He wanted to go back to sleep but he didn't think Syn would appreciate it; he might even shoot off a few parts of Cade's anatomy just to prove a point. After all, the Sith had said alive but they didn't say all in one piece.

Still, he took his time staggering to his feet. Deathsticks have a way of draining strength from a person and Cade's habit had cost him dearly. With little energy left and his Force-sense all but gone, the drug had done its job, numbing him to the annoying platitudes of the ghosts from his past, especially his oh-so-boring ancestor, but it wasn't helpful in escaping. His strength would return in time but it looked like his time was up.

Jariah Syn was about to turn him over to the Sith.

He had to admit that Syn had guts, coming to Korriban and using the Tuk'ata hounds to sniff him out. The Darths, Talon and Nihl and the rest, would just as likely turn on him as pay him off. But Syn had always had it where it counted - skill and audacity and brazen luck.

Syn also had a long memory. Jedi had cost him his family and he'd hated Force users ever since. Now, he was about cash in on that hate and Cade couldn't blame him. He'd hated a long time, too.

Now, it would end one way or another.

The ground was rough and stones scattered on the path. Cade stumbled, only to be jerked back upright by Syn and then pushed forward, toward the Temple. In another lifetime, he would have thanked his friend but now he could only scowl at him.

They were alone at the moment and silent. The Tuk'ata hounds had run off, looking for easy prey, and in the distance he could hear the rustling sound of the beasts searching and snap of underbrush as their victims tried to escape. It was a useless gesture. The hounds always won.

With the point of his blaster, Syn gave him another shove. "Keep going, Skywalker. I'm anxious to get my reward and leave this hell-hole."

Deathsticks and being too long in one position made him pathetically weak but he could feel his strength returning. He looked around, expecting the Sith to appear at any moment, pondering whether he should just let Syn take him to his death or whether he should fight back. At the moment, he was thinking that death might be a better option, although with the Sith it might hurt - just a little.

Scowling at his old friend, he said, "Does Blue know you're here doing this?"

He knew that Deliah Blue would never let Syn do something like this if she had known. Her love for Cade often got in the way of her good sense. But he wanted to make sure she hadn't followed Jariah here. That could be deadly to the Zeltron and Cade didn't want her blood on his hands.

Syn snarled back, "Doing what, getting rid of one more slimo Jedi?"

"No, killing a friend for money."

A flush of guilt crossed Syn's face and, to cover it, he shoved at Cade again with the blaster. As Cade staggered forward, hoping to regain his footing, Jariah growled, "She'll be better off when you're gone."

Cade could only agree. "Yes, I suppose she would."

A cold wind kicked up, and for a moment, Cade blinked grit out of his eyes. When he could see again, above him, high up among the rubble of the Sith Temple stood a lone figure. Black and red tattoos covered her lithe body, her black leather outfit clinging to luscious curves, gleaming black gloves outlining her hands. She would have been beautiful if she wasn't as deadly as a Vaapad.

Darth Talon had arrived.

Syn stood rigid beside him and then pushing Cade aside, shouted to the Sith, "I've brought your bounty, my Lady. Alive as promised. Just give me my reward and I'll be on my way."

With incredible grace, she leapt down from one boulder to another, legs and arms perfectly balanced as she moved, her tattooed lekku writhing subtly in the wind. Spiraling down, flipping into curved black-crimson beauty, she landed sure-footed onto the stone path next to them. She wasn't even breathing hard.

She didn't glance at Jariah Syn, keeping her gaze firmly on Cade. As she stopped an arm's length away, she traced one fingertip down his cheek and across his lips and then, laughing, back-handed him.

His head snapping back, Cade staggered, trying to stay upright. His mouth was full of blood.

Her smile was predatory, her eyes avid yellow and full of hunger. "I thank you, Jariah Syn. A worthy gift."

Syn was many things but he wasn't usually this stupid. That he chose to argue with a Sith Lord was foolishness beyond measure. "Gift? That wasn't our agreement. I've..."

"Little insect, I give you a choice. Leave quickly or die." She never even looked in Syn's direction. Instead her eyes were only for Cade.

"Who are you calling.... "

With incredible speed, her fist dove deep into Syn's gut and he went down with a roar of pain. As his friend curled inward and the sounds of desperation as he tried to breath filled the air, Cade knew what he had to do.

There was only one chance. Escape or die.

The snap-hiss and the ozone stench of a Sith lightsaber was never a good thing. But it was nothing to the smell of burning meat as she drew her saber lightly across Syn's chest. His friend was making whimpering noises and it looked like it was all he could do to keep from howling in agony.

"If you try to leave, I'll eviscerate him. Do you want another death on your conscience, Skywalker?"

He had to say it. "Jariah Syn is dead to me anyway." He glanced down, staring at his old friend for a moment, remembering all the times Syn had rescued him and all the times he'd done the same, and then he turned away and started to run.

From behind him, he heard an agonized scream.
 

The sound went on endlessly, echoing in the trees and inside his own heart. Another death on his conscience. Another wrong choice and someone else was paying for it.

He wanted to vomit.

It had happened before. Soft jungle sounds overlaid with shrill agony. Death carved into vulnerable, unwilling skin. The obsidean-black abomination polluting the Force with darkness. His father going down under a Sith blade, the smell of bubbling flesh and sharp tang of blood, the screams, the gurgling silence. It was gutting him even as the remembrance blurred into the now.

Not again, never again.

He couldn't do it, not even to Jariah Syn.

Bending down to grab at stones, realizing that his Force strength hadn't returned as yet, accepting that his lightsaber was hidden in his now-too distant shuttle and that he'd never reach it in time, knowing that it was useless to oppose the Sith but that he would die trying, he spun around and shouted, "E chu ta!"

The first rock bounced harmlessly off Darth Talon's blade and he grabbed another.

Laughing at him, she made a swipe of her lightsaber across Syn's chest. Cade could see that she hadn't gutted him after all. Instead, she'd been torturing him.

Jariah's head was back and he was whimpering in pain, his body writhing as he struggled to break free of the Force bonds. His chest was smoldering, the fabric of his vest flickering flame, glowing trails of singed skin and the faint smoke of burning flesh floating upward in the clear air.

But Syn wasn't dead yet.

Darth Talon looked up, smiling triumphantly, a satiated smirk of immense pleasure. Standing there, saber in hand, she was voluptuous, her red-black skin glistening, her body taut against the leather outfit, her eyes half-lidded. He'd seen the same look on Blue's face after they had made love but this was not love; this was obscenity.

As he drew back to fling the second rock, he could feel the beginnings of the Force returning to him. She must have felt it as well. Stepping lightly over Syn's panting body, she shoved her saber into his shoulder. There was a bright sizzle. Jariah screamed, his body arching upward and then he collapsed, silent.

"Changed your mind, Skywalker?" As the saber winked out, Talon stared at Cade and gave him a slow, long look and another lust-filled smile. She began to saunter toward him, her hips swaying softly, the lines of her body moving with sandpanther grace. "My Master will be pleased."

She gestured and the stone dropped from his hand. He couldn't move, could do nothing but stand there and struggle to break free of the Force bonds she'd used to ensnare him. But it was useless. He was well and truly caught.

Laughing softly, she reached out and pulled him to her, obviously enjoying his desperation, breathing into his protesting mouth, "Give into the darkness. It is the only way."

And then she kissed him and everything went black.


 

to be continued

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