That rather supposes that she needs to do more than shift her weight and let the cortosis grapple cord play out across her, crossing the arc of Maya's strike at precisely the right time, to defend against the attack she sees coming.  That said, she believes in defense in depth; she turns her slight lean backwards into the start of a backflip right over Lady Belōs' gravity tricks, covering for the move with another pulse of lightning from her saber hand.

It's nice when someone can actually fight. Maya dodges the lightning, evading Chataris' predictable follow-up as well. At the same time, she telekinetically flings a large piece of debris at Chataris' back, with a precise gravitational warp primed to help redirect it far sharper than it normally could when the Sith inevitably dodges it.

Inevitably dodges it?  Hmm, no.  She will be turning into it and cutting it in two with her 'saber, diving through the attack with a telekinetic wedge and leaving Maya to deal with the pieces she's, by simple geometry, thrown at herself.

Even better. Maya cracks a rare smile, and the two chunks whip past her on either side and orbit behind her before curving back at Chataris.

My, my.  A clever technique.  But can she make it work while also defending against, you guessed it, more lightning?

She can. If simple absurd quantities of lightning were enough to catch her, she would have died several Sith ago. The lightning deflects off her 'saber somehow, rather than merely being caught by it as most Jedi manage.

Clever girl.

Unfortunately, the force of that deflected lightning, spun by Chataris, knocks one of the rocks off-trajectory enough that she is able to dodge between them in a way she shouldn't have been able to otherwise, as she lunges forward saber-first!

Maya steps to the side, parrying Chataris' lunge and waving a hand to pull the Sith off course, further away from her. The rubble curves tightly around behind her and sweeps toward her back.

"Really, now," she says as she spins into the landing, riding Maya's Force technique, keeping her blade between herself and the Jedi at all times - and shatters the incoming rubble apart upon a telekinetic spike, grabbing a few pieces and whipping them at the Jedi at speed - "the same trick used thrice will hardly help more than the trick used twice did, Lady Belōs!"

Maya's not known for subtlety in combat. She's known for telekinetic bombardment, gravitic might, and unassailable defense, but not subtlety.

It might then come as something of a surprise that a delicately concealed loop of telekinetic force has built up around the Sith Lady's feet, and it suddenly tugs toward Maya as the Jedi lunges toward her in an aggressive strike.

Clever girl.

It's not enough, mind you, but she's very obviously impressed.

(Of course you wouldn't be known for subtlety in combat if you could help it!)

However, Darth Chataris is very much known for turning anything into an advantage, even disadvantages - and as she drops low to slip under Maya's strike for just long enough, letting the telekinetic force pull her closer in a way she couldn't manage to move with her legs, one might think that she had planned for this to happen the entire time.

(This time, she very much hasn't!)

The fact that this is a very awkward position to find herself in does not prevent her from taking every opportunity to reach her goals; a deft telekinetic flick of her own has the grappling cord - released from the hand she's now braced herself against the ground with (and the hand that she might soon launch herself up with, carried by the plasmatic crackle of Force Lightning) - swiping across the planes of Maya's possible strikes.

One could be forgiven for thinking Maya had expected that, from the way she deftly hooks a particularly sturdy bar of rubble through the cord and sweeps it further from Chataris' grasp, twisting gravity to hurl herself over the Sith's head and far past her range, with a parting slash as she passes, another few chunks of rubble following behind her to hammer at Chataris' defenses.

Her saber swipes up, allowing her to sever the bar just so as to ensure the grapple will not catch as it reels back in, even as lightning once more lashes out at Maya, rippling out from between the twin blades.  The ensuing rubble...  Well, that, she is in a relatively poor position to dodge, but not so poor a position as to prevent her from flipping over with a touch of Force into a sprinter's start and lunging, even as she is clipped by the edges of the waves of rubble coming and going, into a roll that brings her to her feet quite close to the Mysterious Force Device that is this room's centerpiece...  Which is starting to do something more than glow in prismatic colors.

The Mysterious Force Device opens, panels floating upwards and outwards like a flowerbud blooming, layer by layer; the Force ripples with promise at its center.

Maya parries Chataris' swipe, and catches most of the lightning on her saber, but a bit of it carries through to her, and she's surprised to find amidst the shock that rather than hate as she'd expect, the attack carries wry resignation instead, under a surprisingly amiable sense of battle-thrill. In her shock, her leap carries her farther than she expects — a rarity, given her mastery of trajectory — directly toward the unknown machine.

She's not where she would need to be, to actually trigger the machine, so she doesn't rush for it.  The Force has plans, she's sure - and she has dignity.

"Tell me, Lady Belōs," she says, blade drawn into a defensive guard now that she stands upright once again, "that you feel nothing from the heart of this machine.  That it is not calling to you.  That it is not where your future lies.  Tell me that, and tell me true, and I will let you strike me down.  But I can feel the weight of history, here, the nexus of possibilities unrealized - and so, I believe, can you."

Maya opens her senses to the Force, listening to her feelings, listening to this place.

Her connection to the Force rings like a cathedral bell, echoing richly through and around her.

She's not normally a seer, but brief flashes of visions overtake her for a moment.

A short girl, grinning playfully, pink and brown hair tumbling down her back, white streak curling past her face, fingers flying across the controls of a small ship.

A young human girl with short hair and a confident smile, unusual-looking saber hilts at her hips, beskar'gam around her body.

A smirking, black-haired human girl wearing Jedi robes, a brilliant green lightsaber in her hands as she spars with another Knight.

A lavender-skinned Twi'lek in snug-fitting leathers with a warm, open smile, lekku draping behind her, saber at her hip.

Maya gasps, hand clutched to her heart.

"What is this? Who are those girls?"

She catches only the edges of that vision - but that is enough to know.

"Your future, Lady Belōs.  The people who will find us, a millennium from now.  The people who will be yours, as you are theirs.  But I'm sure that you know your lifespan does not permit you to wait a millennium on its own; neither does mine.  Which is why the Force has brought us here."

She should not trust a Sith, but the Force rings with truth at Darth Chataris' words.

"No, at best I could make it little more than a tenth of the way there, mayhap an eighth. Which brings us to this place. This machine. What is it, how do you expect it to help us survive a millennium, and why are you helping me reach these people? Why do you plan to undertake this journey to the future alongside me? What is your game, Sith?"

Something is very suspicious here.

"In truth, there is a not insignificant streak of petty vindictiveness at the Sith Empire that has motivated me to this particular plan.  To see them try to rise again, from the bits and pieces that the internecine infighting of Darth Bane's line will have brought upon themselves, and to cut them down like the betrayers they are.  Not that I hold any loyalty whatsoever to the Empire myself, but...  It would be rather poetic.  And someone has to deal with all of its leavings properly.  Stars know the Jedi will fail.

"But that is not all of it.  That is not even half of it.

"I suppose I am here because the Force wills it so, if nothing else - but...

"A Sith is driven by their passions.  And my passion is compassion.

"Yes, what heresy this is, the Empire would hate it - and yet, I do not lie.

"I think you would have found your way here, with or without me.  But without me, you would have been alone in the dark.

"I can, at least, set up holonet taps."

"As for this machine?  It is...

"You have surely noticed, by now, the similarity of the structure here to holocrons.  That is not a coincidence.

"I know not why nor how this construction came to exist.  I certainly have not the slightest clue as to how I would replicate it, save the vaguest speculation that Force Alchemy must be involved somehow.  But I can, in fact, tell you what it does.

"You know that holocrons are often enough left with engrams of their creators - static, unchanging guardians of their techniques.

"This machine does something almost entirely unlike that, save that the result is, in fact, a holocron with a person inside.  A holocron...  With a living person's connection to the Force, and an animating intelligence."

A deeply bizarre idea, but the Force sings to her with how clearly this is the next step in her journey to filling the hole in her heart.

For that, she would do a great deal.

"A fully-sapient holocron, still in tune with the Force? Amazing. And that would provide a way to survive the intervening centuries. But you mean for me to believe your participation in this is just to spite your fellows and keep me company?" 

...If there is any time to do this, that time is most likely now, when the gesture can still matter.  When there is a true vulnerability to reveal by making it.

Darth Chataris takes off her mask.  The mask, it must be noted, that she is never seen without.

"You are correct, in a sense, that Darth Chataris has no reason to even want to do this.  However...  Darth Chataris has always been a mask."

She casts the mask aside in a single sharp gesture, the metal clattering against the ancient stone, as her Force presence, pulled so tightly to herself, slackens.  Maya can feel the torrent of emotions running beneath the surface as she almost absentmindedly damps her 'saber.  "And I am asking of you something that I would have hesitated to ask of myself.  It is the least I owe you to see this through."

"Oh," Maya replies softly. Her eyes play across Chataris' delicate orange scales, sleekly refined features, even while she feels out the other woman's more-open Force presence. 

What she feels of her emotions bears out her words.

Not Chataris, though.

"What should I call you, then, if we are to pass a millennium together until this future you are so intent on us seeing? And what do you aim to do when we get there?"