The early morning sun beat down on the execution platform, hot, heavy, and oppressive.
Eralam could detect the faint audio cues of the firing squad's armor working overtime to keep the troopers inside cool. He could hear the chirps of static over commlinks as the officers in charge checked for the thousandth time that help wasn't on the way. The shifting of armor, the distant hum of charged blaster rifles, the uneasy murmuring of the actors brought in to play the excited crowd, none of it escaped the finely tuned audio receptors that were his ears.
He could hear the faint whirring of the repulsors that floated the camera droids. Every part of this execution was a show, produced for the benefit of the Empire. Those loyal to the tyrannical regime would be in for a treat: the death of a vile leader of the Resistance. Those whose loyalty wavered would be in for a sober reminder that the power they reviled was unstoppable.
The HoloNet had spent the last day recounting the capture of the Resistance leader Eralam. They gleefully attributed a list of crimes to the old Shard that would have shocked a serial killer and evil clown rapist cousin. They played up the noble sacrifice of the Peacekeepers who lost their lives in the battle, and completely omitted any reference to Prisoner 626, the Zabrak Force user who had successfully been freed from Imperial custody.
With the stage so skillfully set, how could Eralam do anything but make it a show to remember?
Some repairs had been made to his droid chassis. His severed arms and legs had been reattached, and while they couldn't do much moving, they did allow him to stand. That was nice. The Iron Knight didn't much like the idea of dying facedown on the ground. And while the troopers themselves were protected by ysalamiri, he was not within the bubble. According to the producer, the idea was to give him a chance to try to resist, in order to make it look good for the cameras. The veteran of the propaganda industry had been blunt. There was enough firepower focused on him to Base Delta Zero the entire town square where the execution was to be held. His chances of escape were essentially nil. But the citizens of the Empire didn't like to see a helpless prisoner get gunned down. They wanted to see the villain die, and they wanted to see the brave Peacekeepers take him down. The crowd was to pelt the Shard with objects, objects he could pick up with the Force and fling back. Nothing truly dangerous, but enough to give him the illusion of a fighting chance.
The producer was a pro, and if Eralam was correct, a latent Force user himself. He made it seem like he was giving him a genuine shot, sold it with the right mixture of sympathy, regret, and admiration. The Shard knew it was all an act, as artificial as anything in the square. But it was a good act, and he was more than happy to go along with it.
After all, he had his own plans.
There was not a chance he would leave this square alive. But that didn't mean he'd die alone.
After what seemed like decades, it was time. The cameras started rolling. A somber looking fellow in the robes of a judge read off the list of charges, and asked how Eralam pleaded. The Shard played along gamely, lifting his one good hand weakly and flipping the judge the bird. The crowd, paid actors every one, booed and hissed and began pelting him with rocks and bottles and other detritus. He replied, flinging back choice bits with maybe a little more force than was strictly necessary, but the actor that fell to the ground bleeding profusely from a cut to the head was a nice touch. The producer, safe behind the camera, gave him an ecstatic thumbs up. This was quality entertainment here, folks.
A trooper stepped forward and clubbed him in the back of the head with the butt of his rifle. He might as well have spat on the Shard for all the good it did, but eager to play along, he slumped down and let the chains that wrapped around his arms and neck bear his weight for a moment, as if stunned.
The judge proclaimed the verdict (guilty) and the sentence (death) for all to hear. The crowd roared theatrically, and Eralam cursed and raged against the chains.
Honestly, he was just wondering how long it would take someone to notice that this was going a little too easily.
Apparently, no one did, because the judge ordered the firing squad to take their places. Safe behind their armor and their hidden ysalamiri, there wasn't much Eralam could do to hurt them with the props on hand. Well, that wasn't strictly speaking true. One doesn't become a master of telekinesis by collecting bottlecaps, after all. There were plenty of stones that could be hurled with enough force to make a gunship think twice about getting too close. Peacekeepers wouldn't stand a chance at this range. But creasing a couple of brain pans, while satisfying, would only tip the Shard's hand at this stage. So instead, he lobbed bits of broken glass with unerring accuracy, and just hard enough to hurt. They struck the Peacekeeprs in the neck, hands, and other exposed areas. The hesitated for a moment, but were undeterred.
"Ready!"
The Sergeant of the Guard had a voice like rocks in a crusher. The firing squad raised their weapons in unison, coaxing as many metallic noises out of them as possible.
"Aim!"
It wasn't clear to Eralam how Aim was any different from Ready. Their weapons were already leveled at his chest, and at this range, aiming would hardly make a difference.
"FIRE!"
Crimson bolts screamed through the air, impacting more or less where the Shard's heart would be, if he was human. Only instead of showers of molten metal and clouds of smoke, there was nothing. It was like the bolts just vanished into thin air.
The troopers looked towards the Sergeant of the Guard nervously.
The old grizzled NCO was visibly shaken, even behind the opaque visor of the Peacekeepers.
"FIRE AT WILL!"
The troopers turned back towards the Shard and began unloading their blasters as fast as humanly possible. They were ceremonial pieces, semiautomatic and designed more for conclusive stopping power and pinpoint accuracy than battle. The troopers squeezed the triggers as fast as they could, and for several seconds, the everything but the screeching of bolts was washed away. When the ruckus finally cleared and the last trooper ran empty, everyone peered eagerly at Eralam. Surely that had done him in, right?
"You've got to do better than that, kiddies."
Not only was the Iron Knight unharmed, he seemed...bored. The chains that had held his arms and legs were glowing hot, but he didn't have so much as a new scratch on him.
"I'm a master of Absorb. I don't get excited for anything less than a rotary cannon."
As if on cue, dozens of drones poured out from their discreet hides. The production crew knew better than to risk not having them available, but they also knew it was best to keep them hidden unless necessary. Most of the public associated saw the drones as the friendly public servants that gave directions to lost children and helped little old ladies across the street. They had doubtless noticed the blasters they packed, but had paid them no mind.
The crowd surged back from the dais as the drones scorched everything within ten feet down to molecular ash, their blasters firing so rapidly it was hard to tell where one bolt ended and the next began. The troopers dived out of the way, trying desperately not to get hit by friendly fire. They knew the drones wouldn't hesitate to gun them down if necessary. Unlike the general public, they knew exactly how lethal the drones could be.
For a solid minute, the dais was bathed in crimson as destructive energy rained down upon the captive Iron Knight. When it finally let up, no one expected to be able to find more than scorched remnants of the once mighty droid. Instead, they found him standing there, unharmed, with the air of one who had been extremely disappointed by a much hyped holodrama.
"Is that all you've got?"
Now it was the drones' turn to scramble for safety as the three gunships that were circling the plaza opened fire. Their heavy repeating cannon were so powerful, the crowds felt the heat from the beams from as far as thirty meters away.
By this point, Eralam knew he was in trouble. If he was allowing the energy to pass through him, standing up to a barrage like that would have been doable. Difficult, but doable. But he wasn't simply acting as a conduit. He was soaking up every joule that came within reach, Absorbing it and damming it up into a vast reservoir that shined like the sun through the Force. Every Force sensitive within a kilometer had to have felt it as his presence raced outwards uncontrollably, buoyed by the vast quantities of power that suffused every corner of the Shard's being.
Eventually, something had to give. Eralam knew he couldn't keep this much power in forever. And truthfully, he wasn't trying to.
The Iron Knight had lived a long life. He had watched Empires, plural, rise and fall. He had witnessed the birth of liberty, and its inevitable decay into tyranny, only for brave souls to pay the blood price to start the cycle once more. This Empire was nothing new. It was simply the most recent incarnation of the old pattern, and it was ripe with decay. All it would take was a push, and it would topple.
Eralam knew better than to think his death alone would be that push, but maybe it could be the start of it.
Finally, the Shard had had enough. He could hold no more. His crystalline body exploded with the force of a nuclear weapon.
There was a brilliant flash. Everyone and everything within 100 meters was instantly incinerated. The air itself caught fire as a giant mushroom cloud rose from what had once been the plaza. The shockwave, a solid wall of heat and pressure, raced outwards from the epicenter at several times the speed of sound, toppling buildings and starting flash fires up to three kilometers away. Every window in the city was shattered by the overpressure.
Eralam the Shard, Master of the Order of the Iron Knights, was dead. Somewhere, in another universe, his counterpart would live on, unaware of the sacrifice made here. For the Resistance, those who waited in the wings to topple the dreaded Emperor, this would be a signal. The first blow had been struck. It was time to attack.
[member="Lady Kay"]
[member="Craxus"]
[member="Mark Sage"]
[member="Mirror Emperor"]
[member="Thrukk Gulpdar"]
[member="Ascendant"]
[member="Joshua DragonsFlame"]
[member="A. Dominion"]
[member="Kadala Skirata"]
[member="Ultimatum"]
[member="Nefertari Sovint"]
