Height of Ambition, Part Two
Posted on Sun Dec 14th, 2025 @ 11:18am by Reave & Kalen "Rex" Vickers & Thane & Bomoor Thort & Mentis
4,321 words; about a 22 minute read
Chapter:
Chapter VIII: Broken Chains
Location: Administrator's Palace, Cloud City, Bespin
Timeline: Week Two (Around a week after Irrikut)
OLD
The Baron moved through that distortion as if it did not touch him at all. He reached Mentis in three thunderous strides, sword trailing sparks behind him as it carved a glowing channel through the ruined floor. With his free hand, he seized the Rattataki mid-motion, blackened gauntlet clamping around his throat and jaw in a crushing grip that lifted him clear off his feet.
Mentis kicked, scrambled, choking, clutching out with the Force and his boots scrabbling for purchase on air.
The Baron turned slowly, deliberately, carrying Mentis with him like a trophy held aloft. His visor angled toward the gaping breach Reave had blown open. Wind howled inward, whipping ash and banners into a frenzy.
“You fall first.”
NEW
With a single contemptuous twist, the Baron swung Mentis bodily in that direction, toward the storm. Mentis flew across the chamber, skidding and bouncing across the fractured marble - momentum carrying him directly toward the shattered frame where Bespin’s open sky waited beyond.
Mentis skidded hard across the fractured floor, the growing howl of the storm outside masking his groans as he came to a halt before the shattered frame. His saber clattered beside him, its glow sputtering against the gale briefly before the automatic blade retraction kicked in and it slipped back into its inert state. The Rattataki seemed gripped with a panic, clawing at the floor, boots scraping to pull himself up and defend himself, but it seemed like something more than the blowing wind was acting upon him. Bomoor watched, still panting as the Baron continued his hold on the pale man, pushing him slowly towards the window frame; towards the open sky.
Bomoor staggered forward, throat raw from the bellow, his chest burning with every breath. He felt helpless once again as the man in his charge was guided unwillingly away from him, feet slipping and scratching as they helplessly resisted. That power grew again within him and he wrenched a hand to his side and his bronzium sabre rattled back into his palm with a desperate tug of the Force, its viridian light flaring defiantly against the storm.
Through the haze, he also caught sight of Reave darting between cover, his charges scattering cultists in shrieks and chaos. The Jawa was hopelessly outmatched, yet still fighting, his defiance a spark against the tide. Bomoor’s gaze swept the chamber, watching half a dozen cultists that had broken from the walls, their molten weapons raised, now between him and the Baron as they charged towards the defending Jawa.
Bomoor wrenched himself forwards, his lightsaber striking down one cultist with a powerful blow and then rose upwards through another that barely had time to turn and react to the Ithorian's sudden approach. The cultists forms crackled into charred heaps as he strode through, now fixed on aiding Mentis and hoping the Jawa could hold off against the remaining foes.
Now almost upon the Baron, Bomoor cried out:
“Release him!” but his voice rang hollow and ragged against the gale.
The Baron’s head tilted, faint eyes once again visible through the slits as he emitted a distorted chuckle that rasped through the helmet. He clenched his gauntlet tight and, with a great surge of strength, he delivered a final blast of energy that pushed Bomoor back once again and hurled Mentis fully through shattered frame and out of sight.
Bomoor staggered forward against the Force blast, arm outstretched, heart lurching as he thought he had watched the Rattataki cast into the abyss. The storm clawed at his cloak, lightning flashing jagged sympathy across the sky. But then, through the haze, he glimpsed Mentis’ pale form on a narrow durasteel platform that encircled this level of the tower. The man lay sprawled, battered but alive, clinging to the slick surface as the storm tore at him.
Bomoor felt relief, tempered by the still boiling anger that flowed within him. The adrenaline of nearly losing someone again was more than his body could bear and he nearly lost himself to it again. He needed to use it: nothing but his full power would be enough against the great wellspring of Force energy this opponent was unleashing upon them. Even then, it might not be enough.
The Baron did not spare him another glance. With ponderous inevitability, he strode toward the breach, molten sword trailing sparks behind him. His massive silhouette filled the shattered frame, cape snapping violently in the gale. Then, with a sudden burst of motion, he vaulted through the opening, armour and hate carried out into the storm.
The Ithorian’s grip tightened on his saber. He knew he could not leave his companion to face the monster alone and he launched off after the hulking metal-clad man, summoning Mentis' hilt to him as he faced the oncoming storm.
The Baron landed on the exterior platform with a great weight. The whole ring shuddered beneath him, bolts screaming in protest as the storm clawed at the tower’s spine. Lightning arced overhead, stark white against the roiling orange clouds, but the giant did not falter. The Kaiburr shard at his chest pulsed once, anchoring him against the gale as if the storm itself refused to move him.
Mentis struggled to rise only a few metres ahead, fingers slipping on the slick metal. The Baron’s blade dragged behind him as he advanced, sending a wake of glowing sparks tumbling into the abyss.
When he spoke, his heavy, distorted voice seemed to roll through the platform itself.
"You were shaped imperfect by the Master’s hand." He took another step, the enormous silhouette closing in. "His test for my power and judgement."
The sword lifted, haloed by stormlight, angled to strike the killing blow Mentis had fled once already.
Mentis watched the edge of the great blade held above him like a guillotine at his execution and he seemed to imagine the thunderous clouds as Axion's laughter, offering his final approval at the traitor's fate. His arms reflexively shuffled him back but part of him sunk heavy with grim acceptance and he barely moved an inch away.
But another sound cut through the storm: a crash and thud behind the Baron, metal screaming as something heavy struck the platform. The storm whipped the sound into a jagged echo. Then Bomoor’s voice cut through the gale, ragged but commanding:
"“Mentis! Defend yourself!”
Through the haze, his saber hilt spun toward him, the familiar crimson light flaring back to life as it tumbled through the storm. Mentis snatched it from the air just as the Baron’s molten blade descended.
The clash was excruciating; sparks cascaded in a torrent as plasma met the fiery steel once more, the storm itself seeming to recoil from the impact. Mentis’ arms trembled violently, arms buckling under the crushing weight of the blow. The heat singed his already-scarred cheek, the molten edge pressing closer, inch by inch with no sign of effort on the Baron's part.
He was holding, but only barely as the man loomed over him, Kaiburr shard pulsing with wild and untampered strength. He could feel Bomoor's feet pounding towards them as his back lay pinned to the platform, making it feel as though it would collapse beneath them, but Mentis knew he would collapse first: one heartbeat more and the blade would break through and it would be ended.
The molten edge pressed down inch by inch, as Mentis’ arms buckled and the Baron leaned in for the final drive. The storm howled around them, lightning skittering across the tower’s spires, reflected in the polished plates of the Baron’s armour.
And then- BOOM
A violent concussion ripped through the palace behind them.
The entire platform lurched under their feet as a massive explosion tore across from the palace, metal shrieking, stone fracturing, a gout of fire blasting through the broken windows. A silhouette cartwheeled out of the inferno, trailing sparks and debris - Reave.
The Jawa’s scream was swallowed instantly by the wind as his tiny form spun into the orange haze, cloak aflame, vanishing from sight.
The shockwave hit the exterior platform a heartbeat later.
The Baron’s killing stroke dipped just a fraction, but enough. His boots ground against the metal as the structure quaked beneath him, the Kaiburr shard flickering in irritation as it struggled to stabilise the sudden chaos.
He snarled behind the visor. It was a harsh, distorted rasp, and then his helm snapped toward Mentis.
With a single violent heave, he seized Mentis again, his gauntlet clamping onto fabric and flesh, and hurled him bodily across the platform toward the still-advancing Bomoor. The Rattataki spun through the rain-slick air like a discarded weapon, momentum carrying him straight into the Ithorian’s path.
The Baron stood alone for a moment, molten blade crackling, cape whipping in the gale as the storm raged around him.
He began to speak again, but even his tremendous voice was drowned out by yet another sound - a klaxon shrieking through the air.
The few functioning lights embedded along the tower’s crown flickered crimson, and agarbled automated broadcast crackled from rusted speakers along the superstructure - first in Basic, then Huttese, then a warbling Ugnaught dialect.
“STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY FAILURE — TIBANNA GRID OFFLINE — CITY DESCENDING. WARNING: REPULSORLIFT COMPENSATION LOST — EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY — CITY DESCENDING — SYSTEMS CRITICAL. REPORT TO SECTOR SUPERVISORS. EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY."
The platform shuddered again, tilting a few degrees toward the abyss, but the Baron did not move, and the storm still seemed to bend around him. Lightning split the sky behind his towering silhouette as he still gazed at his foes, seemingly unfazed by the impending loss of his home and personal empire.
“We descend together. My part in his plan is unbroken.”
Mentis arose, aided by a firm arm from Bomoor. He looked at the slightly older man and attempted to speak but only managed a cough from his winded chest and battered jaw.
"I know," Bomoor's eyes were dark and dour as he gazed past Mentis and at the Baron, "He is too powerful to face like this; even if we could overcome his reflexes, it will never be long enough to part him from that shard. He has made sure of that with that great suit of armour."
Reave rolled down to them and jabbered a few curt words of frustration before spitting out an exhausted cigarra butt in front of them. Up at the exploded hole behind him, twitching, jagged cultist figures began to seep out of the crack. But they were slower; somewhat wounded but still their eyes glowed with a fiery but aimless hatred.
While no challenge compared to the Baron, their presence would make retreating a foolish endeavour. Mentis dared to look around again at the Baron: his figure loomed across the platform, molten blade grinding against metal and sending sparks down like fiery rain upon the sinking city.
As words now escaped him, Mentis grasped his weapon again with trembling hands and felt the gaps in the dark leather that had been burned away by the violent fiery spurts from close proximity to the Baron's fiery blade. He could feel his heart pulsing even more violently than the glowing rock in his opponent's chest. The urge to run and hide danced around his mind and, as he had practiced since he had first struck down that young boy on Rattatak right through to the day he had ended Trey's life, he turned his fear into a passion. A deep, brutal survivalist desire: kill or be killed.
He saw his opportunity: his target standing boldly on an unstable metal platform high above the ground. It would take but a slice to bring it all down and the Baron would need not wait for the city to fall: he would fall first. Once more, he lit his blade, envisioned the movement in his mind's eye and cast his weapon out in the fastest saber throw he had ever achieved. The saber spun true, a scarlet streak cutting through the gale toward the support beam. For a clenching heartbeat, Mentis thought he had found his chance; the vision of the Baron cast down into the abyss burned bright in his mind.
The Baron’s helm snapped toward the spinning red blade even before it cleared the worst of the gale. The Kaiburr shard in his chest flared once, sharply, again like a heartbeat made of molten glass.
He took a single step, boots anchoring into the metal with enough force to dent it. His sword rose, not to block, but to meet the airborne saber mid-flight. The storm illuminated the moment - Mentis’ weapon was a streak of crimson, the Baron’s blade a roaring arc of white-hot metal.
They collided in a blast of sparks.
He twisted his wrist - and Mentis’ saber split cleanly in two.
One half of the hilt clattered across the platform, skidding to a halt against the Baron’s boot. The other half spun off the edge, tumbling into the orange abyss. The broken piece on the platform flickered, its crimson blade failing, stuttering, dying like a strangled gasp.
The Baron looked down at it. Then, deliberately, disdainfully, he drew his massive foot back - and stamped.
There was a sharp, crystalline scream as the crystal inside shattered.
Fragments of the crystal danced across the metal in a scatter of dying red embers.
Mentis collapsed to his knees, staring at the shattered hilt as shards of crystal spilled across the platform like broken bones. A hollow grief struck him. That saber had been more than a weapon: it was his companion, his shield against betrayal, the mark of his rise as a warrior within Axion’s flock. Now it lay ruined, and with it a part of himself.
The Baron’s boot lifted from the wreckage, grinding once more before a strip of red fabric tore free from the hilt. Mentis’ eyes followed the fragment as it drifted upward, twisting away into the dark sky. His chest tightened, a stray tear burning at the corner of his eye as he watched it vanish.
The Baron’s visor rose again toward them.
“Weak.”
The word rolled across the platform like a physical strike.
“Your blade was born of borrowed will. Your courage - the shape of another man’s shadow. You were forged to kneel, not to rise.” He advanced, sword dragging a molten line across the metal that hissed and sagged under its heat. “All your flailing… all your defiance… it changes nothing.”
Lightning split the sky behind him, his silhouette framed in fire and rain.
“I will die today.” His voice deepened, rich with dreadful conviction. “But in death, I ascend. My role is complete. The Master’s plan moves through me… into eternity.” He lowered the molten blade, pointing it directly at Mentis. “You… are dust.”
The Baron surged forward - then froze.
A new sound wove into the storm.
A rising hum - the thrum of engines, coming from below.
He turned, slowly, massive helm swivelling toward the lower mid-structure, just as an entire section burst outward in a plume of fire and steam, and a ship punched through the opening.
Angular. Weathered. Defiant.
The Red Raptor, climbing hard toward the collapsing summit.
The Baron lifted his molten blade once more, stormlight scorching along its glowing edge.
Mentis blinked through the haze, bloodied lips parting as his vision caught the silhouette cutting through the clouds above. Engines shrieked triumphantly against the storm, and he mouthed the name with a rasp that barely carried beyond himself:
“Rex…”
A voice reached him then, muffled and broken by the gale. Bomoor was shouting, but the words dissolved into muted warbles in his ears until the Ithorian’s heavy hand clamped onto his shoulder.
“Mentis! Pull it together!” The command was ragged but firm, “We’ve got to get back!”
Summoning what little strength remained, Mentis forced his body to rise a fraction, muscles trembling under the effort. Then the Ithorian's ebony arm did the rest, hauling him backwards and upwards, as the once level platform became more angled with every passing second with the now clearly sinking city.
The Baron turned fully toward the Red Raptor as it climbed through the storm, engines screaming against the gale. Lightning framed the ship in stark white for a heartbeat, close enough now that the Baron’s visor reflected its angular silhouette.
The Kaiburr shard at his chest did not flare, but instead seemed to compress.
The glow tightened inward, collapsing into a dense, blinding core of crimson light. The air around him distorted - not from heat, but from pressure, as though gravity itself had been rewritten in his immediate vicinity.
Then the space between him and Mentis simply ceased to exist. There was no leap. No arc. One moment, the Baron stood near the platform’s centre, and the next he arrived. The impact struck like a seismic charge, and the platform screamed as metal buckled under the sudden force, shockwaves rippling outward.
Mentis was flung backward in a spray of rain and sparks, his body slamming hard into the deck and skidding away in a helpless sprawl - but Bomoor took the brunt of it.
The Ithorian was driven sideways, boots tearing furrows in the slick metal as he was hurled toward the platform’s edge. His massive frame struck a bent support strut with a thunderous clang, momentum carrying him over. One arm snatched desperately at the railing as his weight dragged him down.
For a breathless instant, Bomoor hung there. Wind howled up from the abyss beneath him, clawing at his cloak, lightning flashing close enough to bleach the colour from the world. The city tilted another fraction, groaning as repulsorlifts failed in sequence somewhere far below, making his position all the more tenuous.
Risking taking his eyes away from the advancing cultists and the collapsing city, Reave rushed to Bomoor, trying in vain to assist him and ignore the other existential threats surrounding them.
The Baron stood between Bomoor and Mentis now. Unmoved. Unhurried. His blade rose again, already angling toward Mentis, toward the easier kill, as though Bomoor’s survival was no longer relevant.
“You learned nothing from the Master, ” the Baron in toned over the klaxons, voice steady despite the chaos. "Distance is a lie. Reality is a lie.”
Mentis began to speak, but winced as his swollen mouth and jaw made every movement sting. Still, he needed to answer the terrifying man. He spat blood in the Baron’s direction and the words came a fraction easier. His voice was hoarse but carried through the storm, raw with defiance.
“The only lie… is Axion himself!” he grunted, each phrase dragged out between ragged breaths, “Why worship a man… who would so readily throw you away?"
Mentis' words became steadier as his gaze burned through to the true person behind all that armour, "I saw how proud you were to receive his blessing… all those years ago. But has he ever thanked you for rotting here... poisoning and corrupting yourselves... all in his name? Is he here now to save you from death?”
For a heartbeat, silence hung between them, broken only by the storm and the blaring sirens of the city. Then Mentis turned his head to the skies once more, gaze fixing on the storm-lit silhouette of the Red Raptor ascending like the soaring bird of prey it was named for. His lips curled faintly, blood still at the corner of his mouth.
“I’d rather believe in someone that won't leave me behind. Someone that would fight for me.”
The Raptor lurched violently as Rex fought the crosswinds, alarms shrieking across the cockpit, Thane, G2 and Amare arrayed around him.
Thane and Amare felt it before they saw it.
A sudden, brutal displacement in the Force, like a blade thrust through water, followed by a spike of pressure so intense it made his teeth ache.
Thane's eyes snapped to the canopy.
Below them, on the collapsing summit, the armoured cultist moved again - impossibly fast, even for a Force user - and Bomoor vanished from where he had stood, left clinging to the edge of the world.
“Vickers-” Thane began.
“I see it!” Rex shouted, already lining up the shot, panic bleeding through his voice. “I see it, I see it!”
The targeting reticle flickered red, and Rex didn’t wait for orders. He slammed his thumb down.
The Baron’s visor was locked on Mentis, his molten blade hovering but unmoving. For a heartbeat too long he stared, tunnel‑focused on the traitor before him. Perhaps it was hatred, perhaps something had rung true about Mentis’ words: Axion’s absence gnawing at the cracks in his conviction.
Then came the sudden shriek of cannon fire. Crimson bolts tore down from the Red Raptor, streaking through the gale. The Baron moved with impossible speed, his blade rising, shard flaring, deflecting one, sidestepping another. Sparks cascaded as several shots grazed across his armour, scoring molten lines but failing to pierce.
But he could not stop them all. One bolt struck true, slamming into the crystal housing at his chest. The Kaiburr shard flared violently and its glow stuttered. He staggered, cape shredded, armour cracked, and for a moment the storm itself seemed to recoil.
The Raptor peeled off, too close to continue its barrage, charging upwards to loop back around. A brief silence followed, and the platform groaned as the Baron swayed slightly, smoking holes pitting his metal frame. Bomoor still clung to the railing, Reave at his side, while Mentis pressed against the handrails, all staring at the giant.
Was it enough? Was it over?
The Baron did not fall at once.
He dropped to one knee, blade planted into the deck like a stake. The Kaiburr shard at his chest pulsed, ragged now and fissured, yet each beat dragged the air tight around him, as if the storm itself were being forced to inhale.
Smoke poured from the seams of his armour. Plates hung loose. Something inside him whined and groaned, dying machinery refusing to accept its own failure. He lifted his helm slowly toward Mentis, and the faint slits of his eyes burned with a dull, stubborn light.
“Hear me… apostate.” The voice was broken by static and thunder, yet still vast. “You mistake blood for victory. You mistake pain for an ending.”
He turned the ruined helm fractionally, as though to include Bomoor, Reave and every witness around that sinking crown.
“This is not my true death.” The words came with ugly certainty. “He does not require my flesh. He requires only motion.”
The Kaiburr shard flared once, and the Baron’s gauntlet closed over it as if in devotion, not protection.
“Axion will achieve apotheosis.” he rasped. “Not because you failed… but because you exist to feed him. Every rebellion. Every loss. Every fear.”
A final tremor ran through his frame. He forced himself upright, first half a step, then another, his blade dragging a molten wound across the deck toward Mentis.
“And when he rises… he will remember the shape of your defiance.” A pause, almost intimate. “He will wear it.
He took a lumbering step forward towards Mentis, but he was staggered and unable to move as he had before. Perhaps the crystal's power had already left him as he seemed unable to fully lift the great blade he once held with ease. Yet still he marched forwards with terrifying purpose towards the Rattataki.
But he did not make it far; the cannons roared again as the Raptor came back around. A barrage hammered into him, puncturing the armour, tearing through plates. The shard flared and cracked, crimson light spilling wildly, but not destroyed. The giant reeled, boots grinding against the slick metal, until the final volley struck.
With a horrific cry that echoed across the sinking city, the Baron was driven back, toppled over the edge, and vanished into the dark gas below.
Cloud City did not fall all at once.
It came apart in stages, like a great organism finally surrendering its cohesion. First, the upper spires listed, their elegant curves shearing free as repulsorlifts failed in uneven waves. Entire habitation rings tore loose, drifting for a breathless moment in impossible silence before the gas giant claimed them. Tibanna collectors ruptured, venting long plumes of fire and vapour that briefly illuminated the storm like dying stars.
Then the core gave way.
The ancient lattice that had held the city aloft for centuries - engineered grace married to brutal industrial will - collapsed inward. Towers folded and walkways snapped. Platforms that had once hosted diplomats, merchants, smugglers, heroes, and monsters alike were pulled screaming into the clouds below. The orange abyss swallowed them whole, erasing shape, sound, and history alike.
From a distance, it looked almost peaceful.
The storm closed over the wreckage, lightning stitching the sky shut behind it, until there was nothing left but turbulence and fire far below there was no silhouette, no beacon, no trace that anything had ever stood there at all. The scars of the Cult of Axion, carved deep into the bones of Bespin, were dragged down with it, broken and dispersed into the endless churn of the gas giant, with no effort or ability shown by any survivors to escape their doom.
Cloud City - symbol of ambition, compromise, refuge, and corruption in the Old Empire - was gone.
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