“You’re still an apprentice, yes?” She gestured to the hall ahead- the corridors beyond were full of more walking dead men. “Show me what you can do.”
She said nothing, her only reaction to turn and disappear with speed. Daxa would hear the strangled sounds of combat down the hallway as Lin burst into each, cutting her way through with brute force and efficiency. These thugs were no match for a true Inquisitor, even the better-armed ones. In these confines, leaderless and without direction, the criminals were far more concerned with saving their own skins than coordinating a joint attack to overwhelm the Sith with numbers.
Lin crashed through a door into another apartment, but what she saw froze her in her tracks. In the centre of the large room was a large contraption, twice the size of a human, cables spooling out of it in every direction like a tentacled beast, connecting into a dozen other mechanical systems strewn across the room. With it were a dozen heavily-armed soldiers, unsheathing their cortosis weave blades to charge at Lin or raising their REC anti-Lightsabre blasters.
"
Activate it already!" one of the enforcers shouted.
"
It's not calibrate-"
"
DO IT!"
But the machine... it was unlike anything she had ever seen or
felt, for it gave off a deeply
wrong aura. Not of searing light or a shadow in the force, but a complete
void. An un-life that seemed to emit from it like radiation. The sensation was like a
ysalamiri field generator but bigger, and somehow thicker, heavier, like the exhaust flue of an industrial plant.
She felt fear.
Lin fought through it, willing herself to remain focussed. Time seemed to slow as she reacted immediately: she channeled her hate into her hand, flinging a solid core of
kinetic force at the machine. The Kinetite blast seemed to sputter as it smacked into the machine, knocking some components loose and setting off alarms in the room.
"
Don't let her destroy it!"
Another heartbeat, and the enforcers fired, but Lin had already dodged to the side. She flung her lightsaber, the crimson blade whirling through the air cut the cables and bite deep into the machine. Its rickety construction was apparent when it started boiling off actual exhaust smoke as its components broke apart. An implosion of air knocked several enforcers off their feet, with one unlucky enough to be close enough to the machine have his head ripped off his neck by the sudden vacuum, a moment before the implosion reverse and the machine exploded with heat and air and death.
Lin could feel the fear and panic gripping the enforcers even as they tried to remain disciplined, firing through the smoke at Lin. She relished it, fed on their fear. Lin could almost see the tendrils of power invisibly writhing from them, snaking out towards her, congealing in her outstretched hand, an accelerating on-rushing of power that threatened to overflow and overpower her-
And she released it, with control, with a mastery that came in the battle-haze of red sight. The fear poured back out into the enemies, the tendrile of power working backwards now, intensifying with her will.
Horror struck the enforcers, their eyes widening, their hearts racing, sweat secreting from their pores. Some dropped their weapons, others fired their guns wildly, missing Lin. In the sudden terror that gripped them, that wrangled screams from their throats, Lin recovered her footing and ignited her lightsaber again.
This wing of the apartment was cleared within the next few minutes, though nothing of note could be salvaged from the strange machine. Lin sighed in annoyance and idly kicked one of the loose panels across the floor, watching it skid down the hallway back towards
Daxa Zuul
.
![center]](https://imgur.com/zOIcum2.png[/center])
