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Chapter Text

"Hey," someone said to me. "We're here."

Huh? I blinked, straightening up and suddenly feeling aches in my shoulders and back from how I had been slumped in a seat that was almost certainly not designed for such horrible posture, or for someone of my size. Then I blinked again, looking left and then right, wondering what the absolute fuck was going on.

I was inside some sort of vehicle, which had all gray and black colors. A few bits of white paneling and plenty of LED lights to give it that futuristic feeling. I was seated on one side, and the other seats were empty. There was a man looking at me with an odd expression on his face, his eyes watching my movements like one might watch an injured animal.

The reason this was so surprising to me was because the last thing I remembered was sitting down in a subway car after another sixteen-hour shift at work. In Chicago.

"Wassat?" I muttered, rubbing my face with a hand. Then I froze, yanking the appendage away from me and staring at it in horror.

It was red! And not like sunburn red, either. No sir, my hand was straight up blood-red. Not only that, I had black fingernails, and they actually seemed rather more similar to talons than fingernails, considering their length. They were, thankfully, blunt. I didn't have to worry about putting my eye out on accident...

Wait just a second here. What the fuck?

"Sir?" the man wondered.

"Yeah...I'm okay...sorry," I mumbled, shaking my head as I stood. I had assumed that the seats on this...vehicle were simply too small, but once I towered over this other person, I recognized that I was just some kind of giant. The guy shook his head and stepped back through a doorway, to the cockpit.

"I've got a schedule to keep, sir, please disembark."

Finding no reasonable way to disagree with him, I shuffled clumsily to the open airlock - an actual fucking airlock - and descended the ramp. My body was too large, too heavy...and it had an odd center of gravity, which made the task of moving rather more difficult than I had expected. The instant I passed over the threshold an oppressive heat wave hit me in the face so hard I almost choked on the air. And as I stared at the landscape that was revealed further with every step, I felt my blood pounding in my ears.

Holy shit. This was fucking Korriban.

I was a Star Wars nerd, okay? I had played KOTOR I, KOTOR II, and SWTOR, each countless times. I read books, novelizations of the films, and watched the TV shows. Half the time, when I played the games, I was trying to figure out if the Jedi philosophy actually made any sense, and the other half of the time I was unabashedly indulging myself in a power trip as I cackled evilly and destroyed the universe, carving a bloody swath through my foes as a power mad Sith.

So, yes, I knew what Korriban looked like. The reddish sand, harsh cliffs, and unbearable heat...granted, I had no way of knowing whether it had actually been hot in the video games, but it looked like a place that would be hot as hell, and I can now confirm that it is.

I also recognized, in full realism, the man that was standing impatiently on the pier, waiting for me to approach. Fucking Overseer Tremel. He only looked like a vague resemblance of the video game character, because he didn't have the luxury of the standard body type or preset facial features. He was of an average height and build, not remarkably muscular or even very intimidating. His face was tall, with a jaw that was rather too wide and cheekbones that were too low. His eyes did not glow with the Dark Side corruption, and due to his dark skin, I couldn't tell if he had the usual bruising of one whose body was ravaged by the whims of the Dark Side.

"Took you long enough, Xanot," he growled, crossing his arms over his chest. He spoke as if we knew each other. "We have a lot of work to do, and not a lot of time to do it. I may have done you a favor in getting you here ahead of schedule, but there are enemies here that you are woefully unprepared to face."

No shit. Wait, was this where I was supposed to say something? "What is my first assignment?" I hazarded, startled by my own raspy, contralto voice. I sounded like a woman who chain-smoked for thirty years, completely unlike the unremarkable fellow who had spent the last five years programming at a small insurance firm in Chicago.

The man gazed at me with something akin to disgust. "Pathetic. I requested the strongest of the hopefuls to be sent along ahead of time, and this is what they scrounged up? I've scraped more ambition off the bottom of my boot than what I can see in you."

Uh-oh. Bad news! Sith apprentices generally got axed if they didn't show the proper attitude, and I certainly didn't want to discover if a lightsaber in the ribs felt any better than it looked. "Forgive me, I am still getting my bearings. I have yet to meet a challenge that I could not overcome!"

Was that arrogant enough? And what the fuck was going on with my voice?

"That's because you are an idiotic whelp," Overseer Tremel retorted dryly. "You were recommended to me by your previous instructor, but I suspect it was due to your prodigious size. Muscle alone does not make Sith; you will grow beyond your physiology, or you will die. Your first obstacle will be an initiate named Vemrin, one of the most promising students here. Your first task is to descend into the tomb of Ajunta Pall and recover an ancestral war-blade..."

"Wait, do you guys replenish the war-blades down there for new students, or what?" I interrupted confusedly. "I mean, there can only be so many ancient artifacts...haven't these tombs been scoured ten times over?"

The overseer glared at me like I had just insulted his mother and pissed on his shoes. "It is a standard trial for acolytes that have spent several months at this Academy. Once you graduate, the blade is returned to the crypt."

I nodded. That, at least, made some amount of sense. "And the k'lor slugs are bred and released just to challenge us, then."

"I never said anything about k'lor slugs," the Overseer said, his dark eyes glittering at me. "But you're correct. It isn't something widely publicized. Your trials are no less lethal, even if they have been set before you by those that are greater than you could ever dream to be."

"Sure," I shrugged. Such dramatics...well, I suppose that was typical for Sith.

"Take that pathetic blade of yours to the tomb and try not to die," Overseer Tremel concluded. "When you've recovered the war blade, you must find your way through the tomb to reach the Academy. Give your name to the guard there, who will direct you to your dorm. Be sure to wash off the stink before you come to my office."

I nodded, and the man shook his head, walking away. I wanted to laugh at myself for bringing up that ridiculous point about the tombs, but now that I actually knew that the Sith Academy was creating something like Evil Disneyland down in the tombs of their greatest ancestors I almost wanted to sit down and laugh about it for a while.

Seriously, they were setting up a whole honest-to-God Sith theme-park down there for all the hopefuls. It kind of took all the gravitas out of things, as a matter of fact. But it made a certain amount of sense...after all, there were easily thousands of graduates from this Academy already wreaking havoc throughout the galaxy, and if every one of those had done something noteworthy or retrieved some powerful artifact then it stood to reason that the tombs would be fairly safe and empty.

I wondered if the Sith Inquisitor would get his Dashade. Then I realized I actually had to get to work, and a pit formed in my gut.

Holy shit I wasn't ready for this.

I stopped in the hallway and held a hand to my chest, between my breasts, trying to calm my racing hearts...wait! What - breasts?! My heart rate did indeed decrease, briefly, as I dropped my eyes to stare down at myself, recognizing several things.

I was very tall, muscle-bound, and stacked. My body was...not exactly feminine, apart from the huge honkers and wide hips. Even with those features I wasn't what you might call curvy, since my abdomen was built like a barrel. Each of my upper arms was as thick as a two-liter of soda, and I hazarded a brief fondle just to test the waters, realizing that my breasts were mostly muscle. I could probably win women's weightlifting championships, if my physique was any indication of my strength.

No wonder my center of gravity was different from what I was used to. In that subway car, I had been 100% sure that I was a man, and from my college years and athletic dalliances I knew that men had a higher center of gravity. While this body certainly had male characteristics...

Wait. I looked around the corridor and blinked, suddenly realizing that I was touching myself inappropriately in public. The overwhelming urge to just grab the hem of my trousers and check the precious cargo was difficult to resist, but I managed. I knew what I would find, anyway. There was something there that felt familiar, but it made no sense to me whatsoever.

If I still had a cock, then why did I have breasts? It explained certain other parts of my body type, however...male hormones. This was too confusing...and I had a task to complete, with no time to waste on my gender crisis!

I dragged my feet, walking through the spartan corridors of the dock, towards the sound of intermittent blaster fire. Yes, the constant struggle against the k'lor slugs was a feature of Korriban's academy, and one that I couldn't avoid if I wanted to live. It did cross my mind that perhaps dying would put an end to this nightmare, but for several reasons I didn't want to deliberately provoke my instructors.

Firstly, if I did die here and it wasn't a dream or a coma or something like that, then that would suck.

Secondly, even if it is a dream or a coma, I still feel all the sensations of this body, and dying would not be pleasant.

Thirdly, if they actually decided not to kill me, but decided on some other punishment, then I would end up in some horrible circumstance that I couldn't predict, which was obviously not ideal.

For those reasons, I would brave the fucking tomb and do my best. It was also entirely possible that I would die down there in any case, and would find out whether this was a dream, but if that did come to pass then it wouldn't be suicide at the very least. As I stepped out into the Valley of the Dark Lords, I peered over the railing and saw my first glimpse of a k'lor slug in full realism.

They were...horrifying. My mind absolutely recoiled from the sight of it, the twisted chitin and needle-like limbs, the undulating body, the way it burrowed half in the sand and the explosive bursts of motion. It was literally a horror-show. And yet...

I did not feel afraid, per se. My body felt tense, my muscles taut, but rather than feeling frozen with trepidation or anxious to flee, I had the overwhelming urge to jump down there and beat the thing to death. And I didn't have a lot of time to come to terms with my feelings, before I was acting upon them, taking the ramp at a light jog and drawing my newbie weapon. I fumbled for the activation switch with my thumb, already far too close to the squealing terror-beast for comfort, and only at the very last moment did I manage to activate it.

The training lightsaber was basically four channels of plasma held in some space-magic suspension. It was extremely hot, which surprised me, and probably also surprised the k'lor slug, if the way that it lunged at me, only to get caught on the searing edges of the weapon in my hand, was any indication. The unholy screech that the beast unleashed when the plasma sloughed against chitin and carved black scorches through its flesh was frankly something I could have lived my entire life without hearing.

But I had the very bad feeling that I would be hearing it again, and often.

The fucking thing didn't go down after the first brush with my weapon, dropping to the sand at my feet and thrashing as it went for my ankles. I jumped back, sweeping my weapon in a clumsy strike, and gave it another horrible, blackened gash for its efforts. The creature was weakly clawing at the ground now, trying to get closer to eat me even as it was dying. I put it out of its misery with a vindictive thrust directly down the teeth-filled maw.

[Achievement Unlock: First Kill]

[Skill Unlocked: Sword Proficiency]

[Skill Unlocked: Evasion]

[EXP gained: 32]

What? I blinked at the text that had appeared in the corner of my vision, turning my head to look more closely. But, as I turned my head the interface followed, as though I were wearing a VR headset. The moment I focused on the interface, more windows became visible, or perhaps they had always been present and were just now taking the forefront of my mind.

There was a window for skills, an inventory, a character sheet, and a map. Several colored bars indicating my current status, which I immediately recognized as HP, MP, and Stamina. I say MP, but it was probably actually Force Points. It was interesting that these mechanics weren't at all like SWTOR's actual game, and I will admit I had a moment of panic as I realized that none of my extensive game knowledge would help me to become powerful.

But I took a deep breath and focused on the immediate objectives. Survival, for one thing. Leveling up was the next. The Sith Academy was ruthless and dangerous, and I had Vemrin to compete with.

I did check out my character sheet, out of unbearable curiosity.

[Xanot] | [Class: Sith Warrior] | [LVL 1 - 32/100] | [Titles: Acolyte]

[Alignment: Neutral]

[Stats: 12 ATK, 8 DEF, 8 FORCE, 12 VIT, 9 SPD]

[Equipped Items: Training Saber, Common Clothes]

[No Status Effects]

Closing out of the character sheet, a little excited at the prospect of leveling myself and seeing what kinds of benefits I could choose from, I then turned my attention to the map. Unfortunately, it didn't display a complete outline of the entire area, but as I looked around, I noticed certain details like obstacles and cliff faces were added to the map as lines.

It would certainly help me avoid getting lost in the catacombs below. Speaking of catacombs, I suddenly realized that I had been standing there, staring at my interface, for quite some time, and that there were almost certainly other k'lor slugs lingering nearby. Hefting my weapon, I warily looked around, before I sighed and continued towards the mighty archway leading down, into the unknown.

Surprisingly, there weren't k'lor slugs literally every ten feet, and that was a positive thing and also a negative thing. It was good because I certainly didn't want to be tripping over those little fuckers everywhere I went, but on the other hand the atmosphere of the tomb was decidedly more...intimidating without the teeming mass of looters, k'lor slugs, and failed acolytes.

Just as I remembered from the game, there was a small outpost of soldiers hunkered down behind ammunition crates, and an absolute mess of k'lor slug corpses were strewn across the chamber floor in the kill-zone. For the moment, the fighting seemed to abate, and the soldiers slumped against the crates in exhaustion.

One of them, possibly the man in charge, saw me and waved me over. "Thank goodness you're here, ma'am. Lieutenant Calder, Third Regional Infantry," he declared. "We've been stuck down here for three days, with no end in sight. Supplies are running low."

"What's the situation?" I wondered. If the Sith were breeding the k'lor slugs on purpose, then why would a unit of soldiers need to come down here for an extermination detail?

The man sighed. "These damn k'lor slugs are breeding out of control. It's making it too difficult on the acolytes from the Academy, and the extensive burrowing is damaging the integrity of these tombs. Our unit was dispatched to destroy several of the egg clusters, and to inhibit k'lor slug breeding."

"How's that working out?" I asked dubiously, looking at the slaughter over the top of the crates.

"I've lost a quarter of my men," the lieutenant replied with acid in his voice. "We are not permitted to withdraw, but we can't make forward progress. If we die, our bodies will simply be used as food for another generation of these damned slugs."

I blinked. A bit more graphic than the game had been. Also, it was terribly depressing that these poor soldiers had to come down here to clean up the mess made by the Academy instructors, who had probably gotten careless with their breeding of the slugs. Shouldn't the acolytes have been tasked with this, as a training exercise and a challenge of their fortitude?

"I'm surprised they assigned soldiers to this, and not the students from the academy," I told the lieutenant my thoughts and he scoffed.

"If you'll pardon me saying, ma'am, the instructors at the Academy prefer to follow a set curriculum, and this incident was not on their schedule," the soldier remarked with a hint of disdain. "I'd like to request your assistance. You're under no obligation, of course. Technically all us soldiers are beneath you in the chain of command."

"Is that so?" I wondered. "Well, I have to explore this tomb for a task I've been given. I'm not sure what you think I could be capable of that you boys aren't, but you are welcome to send a few men with me. I assume you plan to use explosives?"

"No, ma'am," the lieutenant shook his head sharply. "We would risk a total collapse of several sections of this tomb. There are poison gases that are tailored specifically for the k'lor slug physiology, and we are outfitted with enough to make the species extinct on Korriban, if only we could deploy it. Our mission is just to place and detonate the charges in two of the chambers that seem to be the source of the infestation."

Poison gas? "I don't suppose you have gas masks on hand," I wondered faintly. Sure, the poison might be tailored for the k'lor slug, but did I really trust some Imperial scientist to get that 100% right? Weren't there literally thousands of species that could potentially be impacted by the poison? As Sith I had to guess I was one of the few species that had specifically been tested against, since the weapon was developed by an Imperial, but I still wasn't going to happily inhale that shit.

"No, ma'am," the lieutenant replied. "The gas won't be dispersed until we've effected a retreat from the tomb, after which it will be sealed for several months while the toxic compounds decay. Hopefully, in combination with a lack of food, these measures will reduce the k'lor slug population. And it will reduce the activity of any other creatures that might be lurking down here."

"Right," I nodded. It made a hell of a lot more sense than just throwing satchel charges at piles of eggs, like the game's quest. "Again, I'm not sure what you think I can do that you all aren't capable of. You're certainly better equipped for this than I am."

I gestured at my simple tunic, trousers, and training saber. I didn't even have a water canteen.

"They do tend to throw you acolytes to the tuk'ata on the first day," the lieutenant sighed. "Regulations forbid me from providing you with more than a few kolto injectors and stimulants, ma'am. But, nobody will begrudge you a sip of water. In any case, even if you were completely without a weapon, it's a fact that any Sith is far superior to the average trooper, ma'am. There's no need to be humble, even if you are just a student."

"Of course," I laughed him off awkwardly, rubbing the back of my neck. I really, really hoped that I didn't end up letting him down and dying pathetically. I was pretty sure that I should have been having a serious panic attack at the moment, but oddly my ability to feel abject terror seemed to be malfunctioning. "Well, fine. I don't know where your targets are, so we'll need someone that does know to come along."

"Right. Thank you for your assistance. Grump! Data! You're with the Acolyte."

"Don't thank me yet," I grumbled, as two men approached. They were both in full armor, and I had no idea how to differentiate between them. "My name's Xanot."

"Sir!" they saluted. The Sith were a bit strange about honorifics and titles, sometimes preferring to use only the male version and other times following the gender of the subject. Honestly, I didn't have time to give a shit, and I had no idea which gender was more fitting anyway.

"Which of you is Grump?" I wondered, looking at the left shoulder pauldron. There were white Aurebesh letters embossed on the red material, but it was just a serial code. I was honestly surprised that it was even legible to me. The man I was looking at thumped his chest.

"Right. Tell me about the conditions here in the tomb," I ordered.

"Sir! The k'lor slug population has spiraled out of control. They are using several of the larger chambers, with sarcophagi, for breeding, and are laying their eggs in the corpses," the other man, Data, explained. "K'lor slugs respond to loud noise and tend to swarm. They also scream to alert each other about intruders and are capable of spitting acidic chemicals."

"They can't dig through the stone, right? Or have you been troubled on the flanks?"

"No, they can't, at least not quickly, but they do tend to find the damnedest ways to get around behind our barricades, sir," Data answered. "Our first attempts were to advance and erect defensible locations at the crossroads, but we were overwhelmed."

"My weapon took a few strikes to take one of them down. How effective are your blasters?" I asked, starting to get a very bad feeling about this whole endeavor.

The two soldiers shrugged. "Not very effective, sir. The chitin on the adults is thick. It takes concentrated fire to bring them down."

"Excellent," I mumbled, shaking my head. Who would think of properly equipping their men for the conditions of the engagement, right? Not the local Sith leadership, apparently. "I was sent down here to get a better weapon. It might be advantageous to retrieve that before attempting to fight our way to the breeding chambers. Anything else down here that could kill us?"

"There was a memo about tomb raiders, sir," Data informed me succinctly.

"Really? How in the hell did tomb raiders get down here?" I wondered. "How did they get past our ships in orbit? And how insane do they have to be to crawl around in this death trap?"

"I'd wager that most of them are desperate locals, sir. They sell what they can find to traders that have permission to land at the settlements near the Academy," Grump put in. "Due to the number of jobs available in the settlements, there aren't very many options for people who need to buy food."

The implication there was that the unemployed would starve to death, and so they braved the tombs as an alternative to wasting away. I scratched my head. "This planet was not inhabited before our return, right? How did the settlements become overpopulated?"

"Most are slaves or servants that were brought here to support the Academy, sir."

"Right," I sighed. "And, just like the k'lor slugs, I suppose the Lords in the Academy couldn't be bothered to control the population? Forget it. Let's go get my sword, and then set your charges."

"Aye, sir!"

I took a few steps past the improvised barricade of ammunition, then halted. "Actually, one of you should take point. If I engage them first, you won't be able to shoot them without hitting me. If they get too close to us, then I'll keep them off you."

"Yessir!"

Holy shit I was bad at this. Leading troops...why did that lieutenant think I was qualified for this again? I honestly had no idea where the Tomb of Ajunta Pall was in this labyrinth, and my map didn't have a pointer or a marker indicating a quest objective...that would have been too easy. Neither of the soldiers knew where the Tomb of Ajunta Pall was either.

Thankfully for everyone involved, the layout of these tombs was actually vaguely familiar to me. I had played through the class stories for the Sith at least ten times, so even if it had been several months since my last play-through I could still sort of guide my small team.

The differences between this and the online game were incredible. It was dark...utterly black. The lights from my soldiers' guns and the yellow glow of my training saber were all we had to illuminate our surroundings. It was also quiet. Whispers of voices would echo down the massive, arched corridors, but I could never tell if there really was anyone speaking or if it was just a trick of my own mind.

[Skill unlocked: Force Sense]

Huh? Oh, shit! "Look out!"

The two men ducked as soon as I called out, and just in time. Blaster shots zinged down from the darkness, and almost without a moment's pause Grump and Data opened fire in return, a withering hail of red plasma filling the corridor. Distant shouts could be heard over the snappish retort of the weapons, and I could do nothing but stay kneeling, waiting. More shots returned, some coming dangerously close to me, and Grump shoved my shoulder as he moved forward.

"Cover! Take cover, sir!"

I ducked behind the stone, shaking. Not with fear, but fury. Who was shooting at us? I would make them bleed!

"Suppressive fire!" I barked and heard rather than saw Data open up in fully automatic fire. I slid out from behind the crumbling statue and sprinted forward, into the dark. But as the light faded, my vision seemed to sharpen, and I didn't slow even as a few haphazard blaster bolts hissed within inches of my face. If I hadn't ducked slightly, I would have been killed.

[Skill unlocked: Force Speed]

[Skill unlocked: Force Precognition]

They had only been twenty meters away from us, using crates and a pair of stone pillars as cover. I came around the side of a pillar and smacked the plasma blade in my hand against one of our attackers, hitting him in the jaw. The acrid stench of burning flesh filled my nostrils with each breathless pant for air, and the man screamed.

[EXP gained: 55]

There were five of them, and they had turned towards me the instant I had breached their cover. I faced their blasters, and time seemed to slow as I realized I had no way of deflecting, no way of evading. No options...and in the next moment they would fire. Again, I was strangely not filled with fear as I realized my imminent demise, only rage.

But then Grump was crashing over top of the crate, a bayonet affixed to his blaster rifle, and the tomb raiders missed me as they panicked, losing discipline. These were escaped slaves and commonplace men, after all, not trained combatants. I shoved the corpse of the man I whose face I had immolated to the ground and jumped forward, feeling an unnatural power in the motion.

[Skill unlocked: Force Leap]

In seconds they were dead.

[Level 2 Reached]

[Skill Levels Reached: Force Speed II, Sword Proficiency II, Evasion III, Force Precognition II]

[Attribute Bonuses Applied]

"Good work," I commented idly, bending to inspect the bodies. One of them had a nice-looking knife and a belt, so I took both items and equipped them myself. A secondary weapon never hurt. I was tempted to take a blaster as well...but I didn't want to actually end up leveling blaster skills, and I wasn't sure if using it would be a waste of EXP.

Also, the blasters looked like junk metal. It amazed me that in the Star Wars universe that kind of advanced technology could be so commonplace - even unemployed vagrants could somehow get their hands on plasma weaponry.

"Sir," Grump acknowledged, still sweeping the area with his flashlight. "No hostiles detected."

"We're alone," I confirmed with my extrasensory perception. I called back down the corridor, wincing at the harsh crack of my foreign voice. "Data! Sit-rep!"

"All good," came the reply, drawing nearer. I relaxed slightly. It would have been shameful if I had lost one of my men on the first encounter.

"Right. Isn't there a bounty out for these idiots?" I asked, still kneeling by the corpse. "What do they want as proof that they're dead?"

"Ears would suffice," Data remarked as he came around one of the crates. "What's in the boxes?"

"Artifacts, I'd imagine," I replied, drawing my new knife. Yeah, it was kind of gross...but a quest was a quest, right? Besides, this kind of thing happened historically back on Earth too. At least, that was how I rationalized my swift descent into barbarism. Once I had the left ears from each of the five dead men stowed in a small square pack that easily hooked onto my belt, I straightened up and tried to forget about them. "Let's move."

As we wandered ever deeper, I began to think. Could I actually tank some hits like the MMO? Or was it more realistic in that sense? I wasn't especially eager to test it, since I could quite possibly die if it turned out that blasters actually dealt the kind of damage one would expect out of a weapon capable of propelling superheated plasma. Let alone getting hit by a lightsaber...it really wouldn't make any sense if I could survive such a thing.

But if I really was just a breath away from death at every moment, didn't that make this whole universe like a thousand times more threatening? Just how many Jedi, Sith, and other extremely powerful opponents did the Sith Warrior run into throughout the class story? Let alone all the expansions! And the flashpoint content!

Holy shit, I was soo fucking dead.

Obviously, the goal was not to get injured at all and being able to predict the near future was certainly going to help with that. But there were times that no amount of skill, no amount of precognition, could save you. Flamethrowers, explosions, fully automatic turrets, ambushes, land-mines...all of these were tactics that could be used to place a Jedi or a Sith in a situation that they simply could not escape. I needed to be faster and stronger, more masterful, but also more cunning.

We arrived at a place that seemed vaguely familiar, and I realized it was the entrance to the Tomb of Ajunta Pall. Would I be criticized for having the soldiers help me? Probably. This was as much a test of my strength and will to succeed as it was a quest to retrieve a sword. With a small sigh I held up my hand and we came to a halt.

"I will proceed alone," I declared, turning to the men. "Keep your heads down, and don't get yourselves killed."

"Yes, sir," they saluted with a snap, already moving to take cover. Good men, those two.

The Tomb of Ajunta Pall was just as diminutive as it had been in the game. A single descending staircase, ending in a room filled with standing sarcophagi. The weapon rack with the Sith War Sword placed upon it was at the top of a short flight of crumbling stairs, and I snorted derisively as I approached it, discarding the training saber in favor of the superior weapon.

It was heavier and had a metal edge. A vibrosword, then. I always felt that the design for vibroswords had been far more interesting in KOTOR I and KOTOR II, but in SWTOR they were more like powerblades, with a rounded pommel and a significant amount of engineering. When I thumbed the switch the blade buzzed to life, a high-pitched whine that made my eyes water and my teeth rattle.

The coffins popped open, as expected, and I didn't give the droids inside any time. The war sword cut through metal easily enough, but it did take a bit of strength. Thankfully the droids were equipped with melee weapons themselves, and I had absolutely no trouble reducing them to scrap. It felt great, actually, to really let loose.

I hadn't been a very athletic man, and I certainly hadn't had any idea how to use a sword. But as Xanot I evidently had a great deal of experience with fighting, or perhaps it was the result of my skill [Sword Proficiency II]? In any case, I got myself halfway to level 3 as I ascended the steps once more and found my two soldiers right where I had left them, plus a pile of k'lor slug corpses.

"Glad you made it," Grump remarked, standing. "Heard the commotion."

"Just a few rust-buckets. Are you two ready to deploy those charges?"

"Aye!"

Chapter Text

[Xanot] | [Class: Sith Warrior] | [LVL 5 - 1466/1717] | [Titles: Acolyte]

[Alignment: Neutral]

[Stats: 35 ATK, 24 DEF, 26 FORCE, 40 VIT, 30 SPD]

[Equipped Items: Sith War Sword, Common Clothes, Combat Knife, Small Square Pack - Left]

[Statuses: Hunger, Weariness]

"I suppose you felt it was a reasonable waste of my time to rescue those pathetic Imperial troops," Overseer Tremel drawled. I was standing loosely in front of his desk, hands clasped at my front, watching as he came around to glare at me more closely. "And I heard you turned in a bounty for tomb raiders as well. Was my assignment not enough for you? Were you feeling like you needed something else to keep yourself occupied?"

"No," I answered simply, wrestling for control of my ridiculous temper. I hadn't been an angry sort of person before, but apparently the Sith species thrived on irrational anger. Who would've guessed? "There were advantages."

"Hm," Overseer Tremel's jaw clenched. "Yes, you proved your strength. You bloodied the sword and earned enough to feed yourself. I suppose I can't be terribly angry, even if you did waste half a day cavorting in dusty tunnels without my explicit instruction. Unfortunately for you, that time would have been better spent reviewing the materials that you will need in order to survive your next assignment."

I heard a door open and close nearby but didn't take my eyes from Tremel. He was the predator here, the immediate threat. The man himself did look past my shoulder, a small smile forming on his face. It wasn't comforting.

"Father, what is this? Is this the new acolyte you shipped in from Balmorra?" a woman asked harshly.

"Yes, yes," Overseer Tremel waved his hand. "Xanot, this is my daughter Rubelle. She is among the more advanced members of the academy at present, and you would be wise to learn from her example."

I finally took my eyes of the man and looked at his daughter. Her dark skin unfortunately made the pink scars that covered half her face stand out rather starkly, three parallel lines that ran from the center of her forehead down to her jaw. It was a miracle she still had her eye, unless what she had was really a cloned replacement. I nodded to her.

"Father, it was six months before I retrieved my war blade. What are you doing?"

"You do not need to know my plans to obey me," Overseer Tremel declared. "And you will not breathe a word of this to anyone..."

"Excuse me, sir, but isn't everyone likely to find out anyway?"

"Do not interrupt me, acolyte," the man breathed dangerously. "The situation here is tense, for both of us. Vemrin is advancing too quickly, and has caught the eye of Darth Baras, who flew to Korriban specifically to test Vemrin and his classmates. You, however, are woefully unprepared for the close scrutiny of any instructor in this Academy other than myself. They will eventually discover you, that is true. But hopefully in a week's time you are better prepared. If you are not, then you will die."

Idiot. Honestly, it was no surprise that he ended up getting gibbed by the player character in the MMO. If he thought he could condense someone's training from six months down to a single week, then he was literally insane. And the fact that the player character actually manages to grow strong enough to destroy Tremel in that time frame was also literally insane. Unfortunately for me, I knew that Darth Baras would hear of my exploits and demand to see me far too soon. I also knew that I would be pitted against Overseer Tremel, who was ostensibly a fully grown, card-carrying Sith.

I was more worried about the fact that he had a lightsaber, and I wouldn't have one.

"Now, here is a datapad containing information about the Sith traditions, the Code of the Sith, and the doctrines of the Sith Order. That pad will also be used for any other documents that you might need to read, so do not lose it," Tremel snatched the item from his desk and extended it to me. I accepted it, looking interestedly at the device. It was a lot like an IPad, except thicker. The size of your average hardcover book. "You will be tasked with interrogating three prisoners tomorrow morning and judging them accordingly. If you disappoint me beyond measure, then you die."

Threats of death were really getting old. It barely even registered as something I should be concerned about, at this point. "Alright. Am I dismissed?"

"Yes, get out of my sight."

I will admit, since I had been something of a nerd in my previous life, I was actually looking forward to reading what was on this datapad. The MMO had made allusions toward some kind of Sith tradition, but it had never really taken a coherent shape, and I admit to some frustration on that point. Hopefully this world actually had some kind of internal consistency, and the secrets of the Sith doctrines would be mine!

After dinner. Dinner, first.

The food was not the greatest, but that could have easily been my own mistake. I wasn't sure what kinds of tastes my new tongue actually enjoyed, or even what sort of nutrients I was supposed to be looking to ingest. The Academy's cantina was rather cramped, and the service wasn't great either, but what did I honestly expect from the Sith Academy? Frankly, after the long day in the tombs with Grump and Data, I could have eaten just about anything, and I didn't feel particularly satiated by the food. I didn't want to spend more money on a second helping, however.

My holocomm pinged, and I saw that the appointment for the interrogation was scheduled already, for 0430 tomorrow. Since it was 2122 currently, that left me only a few hours to read before I had to grab a few winks of sleep. I would have preferred to just go to sleep immediately, but...I also didn't want to fail the test tomorrow.

I knew the Sith code and the Jedi code already. Obviously, I only cared about one of those two codes at the moment.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.

The discourse I had been provided with opened with this and expounded about the nature of each predicate in detail. The most interesting points, for me, were the apparent difficulties in reconciling the Sith attitude of domination and exploitation, and the phasing of the final words of their code. 'The Force shall free me,' was a rather passive voice, after all. It made the Force the active noun, with the individual as the object. Yet the Jedi would be quick to accuse the Sith of attempting to enslave the Force.

There was an understanding here that most Sith didn't care to think about. The code was essentially describing life itself, the struggle of all things for survival and success. Nothing grew strong in a vacuum, only in conflict with something else. And without passions and desire, there was no need for resistance. Like a leaf floating on the river the passive individual is carried through life and deposited at their ultimate end.

Therefore, conflict was needed, and desires were encouraged. Strength results from the nature of the struggle, not from success alone. Most often, it was through repeated defeats that strength grew with the greatest speed. Power was a separate concept from strength, because strength was the potential and power was the actual. A strong man is nothing, if he does not exert himself properly.

Finally, victory comes through the proper use of power. The application of power requires awareness and wisdom, an understanding of the nature of Life, and a respect for the other powers that be. The galaxy was a system of living things, a thing that breathed and moved along a certain course, and the Sith dared to rise up and alter that course. And by doing this, their chains were broken.

Chains of what nature? That was a good question. And it was one that I spent much time considering, the words of the essay before me blurring together as I sought to understand it. The Sith felt constrained. Constrained by weakness, by the imposition of others, and by foolishness. To break each of these chains, they sought after ultimate power. Power above all, knowledge beyond all, authority over all. Only the paragon of this effort would truly be free, and even then he would find himself constrained further by the weight of responsibility, by the fear of loss, and countless other concerns.

Was it truly an impossible ambition? That would be a shame, wouldn't it? Or perhaps the Code had some deeper meaning? One that I could not grasp so quickly, in only an hour of reading?

Whatever the case may be, I had other reading to concern myself with. The nature of the Sith traditions, for example. Perhaps it would help me to see the wisdom of their Code more clearly.

The writing on tradition was over nine hundred pages long. Good grief. I checked the index at the end for the topics I was most interested in. Those being: the master-apprentice dynamic, the institution of slavery, and the value of life.

On the first topic, the essay read:

Without conflict, nothing can remain strong. As such, it is the imperative of one who is strong to challenge himself, and it is the imperative of the one who is weak to seek strength. There is no better avenue for this mutual strengthening than the relationship of a master and apprentice. Mastery of oneself is not a trade or an occupation, and the indolent ways of the tradesman are not the way of the Sith. For a Master to choose an Apprentice, the Master must be suitably impressed with the passion of the prospective learner. Competence, at this point, is not required. Even the dullest blade can be sharpened, if the metal is of good quality. However, a weapon forged of poor steel can never be more than a blunt instrument.

The Apprentice, once chosen, has accepted a sublime responsibility: to learn. But unlike a tradesman, the Sith is learning the ways and habits of power, and the only way to learn such things is through suffering and conflict. Therefore, Apprentice, challenge your master always. When the Master imparts strength, seize it with fervor. Seek out every advantage, every wise saying, every useful iota of knowledge. Be insatiable in your pursuit of strength, and do not permit pain or weariness to dissuade you. You can only succeed, and truly become Sith, if you desire it beyond all else, and sacrifice all to attain it.

The Master, of course, is the superior. What he deigns to teach, the student shall learn. What he keeps secret, the student shall strive to discover. The sacred compact between Master and Apprentice, unwritten and unspoken, is this: to teach, and to learn. If the Master seeks to hamper the growth of the Apprentice, then the Master harms not only the student, but also himself. This is because he can never truly grow if he does not adequately challenge himself by utilizing the Apprentices that are available to him. And if the Apprentice fails to become strong, or fails to learn what the Master teaches, then the Apprentice harms not only himself, but also the Master, because neither can succeed where one has fallen short of glory.

It is in these cases where a Master and Apprentice will come to be adversaries. It is a most bitter conflict, and inevitably one most harmful to the Sith. Therefore, if you are a Master, do not harm yourself by holding your students back from their destiny. And if you are an Apprentice, remember that it is not despicable to be weak, only to remain weak due to lack of effort.

It is through the raising up of other Masters, that every Master becomes stronger himself. Other challenges may test him, and he may progress in other ways, but a Sith can never truly reach his greatest potential if he does not raise up Apprentices so that they are his equals in strength and wisdom. It is through such Apprentices that the legacy of the Sith continues for all of time. And it is from such great Masters as Vodal Kressh, Naga Sadow, Ajunta Pall, and all who lie in the Valley of the Dark Lords, that we have even this small wisdom to share. Let them be examples for you, Sith. And if you fear the success of your students, remember that you cease to be truly Sith the instant you begin to only grasp at that which you have already gained.

Fascinating. I had always considered that the expectation of betrayal from the Sith Apprentice was the stupidest part of the Sith idea, since it necessitated stagnation. If a Master could only ever raise one successful student, then the number of Sith could only ever remain the same or become smaller. There were never any Sith that had no Master, after all, and once the Master was defeated, then only the one who defeated him was named Master. Or so I had thought.

Evidently, this was not the case, at least not at this time. Sith could just graduate their students with pride, like relatively normal people. I guess that was good? It didn't change the fact that circumstances would conspire to pit myself against Overseer Tremel, and honestly, I wasn't sure I had any desire to remain a student of that pompous man for any length of time. After that, it would be Darth Baras, but he would probably teach me nothing, at least not directly. I would be forced to travel the galaxy performing his dirty work, and then he would try to cast me aside.

In the end, if things proceeded as they had in the game, I wouldn't really be an Apprentice at all. Or perhaps the lessons were not meant to be explicit, and I was meant to be learning by being offered challenges to overcome? It was possible, but there were obviously things that could not be learned from slaughter.

In any case, the second topic. Slavery.

It is written, "Through victory, my chains are broken." And yet, the Sith have always practiced slavery. To the unwise, this is a contradiction. How can one strive to break chains, and at the same time place chains of a different sort on so many others? Well, the answer is quite simple. Slavery is merely a social agreement that reflects the nature of reality. Consider social hierarchies, which are common among many species. The ones known as the strongest are at the top, and the ones who are the weakest are at the bottom. For what reason are the weak permitted to live, and why do they tolerate the strong to raise himself above them, even if they could unite and destroy him?

It is because the strong make use of the weak, and the weak are protected by their association with the strong. The weak animal understands that it cannot survive in isolation, and so it submits to a stronger. And the strong animal recognizes that there is power in society that cannot be found in solitude, accepting the efforts of those who are weak. The weak creatures do not overthrow the stronger and take his position themselves because the hierarchy would collapse entirely into continual chaos if the leader was weak. At an instinctual level, most creatures are not willing to accept prolonged suffering, and because of this the servants do not often challenge their masters, despite their greater number.

Why should anyone who is strong tolerate this threat? A strong man cannot be everywhere at once, nor can he do all things at one time. As such, it is only natural for a mighty one to include in his activities certain other individuals. Should these others be of equal strength, and free to choose their allegiances? By no means! For the man that entrusts his power to others of equal status will soon find his power torn into shreds and stolen from him. Rather, a wise man enlists others who are individually weaker than himself, but who are equal to the task at hand. In this way, the potential harm of betrayal is mitigated, although the threat remains that they might coordinate against the master. Remember, you who would become Sith, that strength which is not your own does not truly belong to you. Such sources of strength may serve you for a time, but they will never truly be yours.

In the case of the slave, who is among the lowest strata of civilization, what do they have to offer anyone? If they were strong, or if they were wise, they would have earned a better place in society. One who has been made into a slave by defeat in battle does not typically remain as a slave for his entire life. The tendency of all creatures is to arrive at that place in society that is most fitting for them. Therefore, the weak, the content, and those who are defeated, will fall into the role of a servant, and if by some happenstance someone who is truly strong is made into a slave, he will eventually rise to the occasion and triumph. Or, perhaps, he will die in the attempt.

Certain others will claim that the ownership of sapient creatures is demeaning, or unjust, or that it is cruel by its nature. Well, perhaps it is demeaning, and perhaps it is cruel; who can judge these things? But the only justice in the world is strength, and so by that standard slavery is just. For it is the strong who rule over the weak. When the weak arrogantly seek to rule, all who entrust themselves to such weakness will suffer agonies incomparable to the rule of the strong. Namely, the rule of the weak is inevitably subverted by malcontents, jealous rivals, or simple corruption. If this persists, such rot will destroy the society completely and invite chaos. It is from the ruins of such things that a truly strong leader must always rise to create the next order.

For the wise Sith, a slave is either a useful asset or a waste of effort. If a slave no longer serves, there is no use in retaining them, not for the appearance of opulence or for misguided mercy. And if a slave is promising, then that slave should be promoted, rewarded, and given the tools needed for them to succeed, perhaps even to rise more prominently within the hierarchy. A powerful tool that is neglected in lowly positions is as much of a waste as a mighty position of authority that is occupied by an incompetent.

Therefore, the duty of the Master is to be the steward of the servant, and the duty of the servant is to spend themselves to the utmost for their master. When a Master abuses his slave, he harms only his own power, and when a slave betrays his master, he only discards his own life. A wise Sith does not entrust to a slave any task which requires true loyalty, because the loyalty of the weak is always uncertain.

Right. Well, I should have expected something like that since I knew from the games that the Empire was all about their slavery. The fact that the text didn't get into racism was rather surprising, but maybe that was somewhere in a later paragraph. Regardless, the final section and the one that would be most important for the judgment tomorrow was the section about the value of life.

It is observed that the Force arises from life, and thus it is proposed by some that all life is sacred and worthy of continued existence. The deliberate ending of life, therefore, is something that should be avoided. However, this argument fails on two points. First, it does not follow from the fact that the Force arises from life that the life itself is as important as the Force. Second, even if the existence of individual lives were somehow important to the Force, it does not indicate that killing should be avoided.

To elaborate upon the first objection, assume that the Force arises from life and only from life. Perhaps there is something beautiful to behold in this unique effect. However, all things must die, as is obvious. At the time of death, would the Force itself not weep and groan? Death itself should be anathema to the Force which arises from it. However, the Force does not become particularly disturbed at the time of death. Indeed, entire planets have died, and are dying, every moment. The galaxy itself should be crippled under the weight of calamity, as every instant sweeps millions of lives into oblivion, and yet it is observed that there is no such disturbance. The galaxy turns, uninterested in the deaths of the creatures that exist within it.

We can only conclude that the Force does not have any particular affection for individual lives or deaths.'

The Force is disturbed when a Sith, or indeed when any sapient being, exerts its will to claim the life of some other creature. This is because the individual who takes a life dares to make himself a Master rather than submitting to the Force. From this, we can conclude that the Force is primarily concerned about the domination of living creatures, and not about the cultivation of life as a whole.

Furthermore, even if we accept that the Force does cherish the lives of individuals, it does not follow from this alone that we should avoid killing. The desires of the Force are only expressions of natural tendencies, and are not commands that the Sith, or really anyone at all, should obey. A Sith exerts his own will, follows his own wisdom. If, in the wisdom of the Sith, a person must die, then the person dies or exerts their own power to contest the judgment and is victorious. The rightness of this action is determined not by the disturbance of the Force, but by the power of the ones involved in the decision. Does the victor improve himself as a result, or is he wounded by the act? Does the killer eliminate a foe, or does he gain himself new enemies? The Sith should remember that his actions are neither right nor wrong, only useful or wasteful.

Finally, any individual should be considered from the proper place of true wisdom. What is his strength? What is his potential? Is he a foe or a friend? Is he well-suited to his position or is he impeding the society? Can he be relied upon, or is he likely to turn traitor? These are the questions that one who has true strength must ask, whenever presiding in judgment over others. Whatever is not useful should be made useful, or it should be discarded. Is there anything to admire about the lives of sentient beings? Perhaps. But however admirable Life may be, Death also has its beauty, and indeed in equal measure.

By the end of that explanation, I was shaking my head. I mean, yeah, but also no. From the perspective of Force religion, it was pretty obvious that the Force didn't give a toss about people, but that alone wasn't sufficient to leap to the assertions that the text had made, about judging the value of life purely by its usefulness. Certainly, a man's life was useful to himself, or was of varying utility depending on who was doing the judging. So, what gave any particular Sith the right to preside over the others, determining who lives and who dies?

I knew that answer already, from the Sith perspective: power.

Regardless, I dragged my sorry carcass back to the room I had been assigned, yawning the whole way. By the time I collapsed onto the bunk, setting an alarm to awaken me before my appointment, I was already half asleep.

I'm not sure how much sleep a Sith adult is actually supposed to get, but I certainly didn't feel ready for the day's shenanigans by the time my alarm was blaring. I groggily slapped at the irritating, disc-shaped comm, silencing the alarm and throwing an arm over my face.

Fuck. I was going to kill someone today, in all likelihood.

This realization had put a bit of a damper on my mood, and as I trudged into the showers, I took a moment to savor the little things in life. Like cold water on a desert planet. Nice. I also paused in front of the mirror, inspecting myself for the first time since I had awakened in the Star Wars universe.

I was a lean, mean red-skinned demon-looking thing. I had scars on my body and muscles that looked like they were carved in stone. My shoulders and arms were especially bulky, with long, unrecognizable muscle groups on my abdomen that were unfamiliar to me as a former human. Obviously they were the usual for Sith...right? Hopefully.

My face was...sharp. Instead of eyebrows I had two jutting bone spurs that stuck out to each side, ending in blunt, downturned points. I imagined that getting them caught on my shirt accidentally would probably be uncomfortable. My eyes were large and colored a bright red, with a vertical slit for a pupil, like a snake's eye. The general shape of my face was triangular, and my mouth seemed a little too wide for my jaw. My hair was black, coarse, and long, and there was a pronounced widow's peak in my hairline. All in all, I had a fearsome visage, and could more easily be described as terrible than beautiful.

My body had feminine suggestions in some areas and masculine in others. My breasts, for example, were somewhat too large and bouncy to be described as male. Although my pectorals were ridiculously muscular, not all of the mass that was present there could be explained as muscle. They were rather rounded and way too much fun.

I had also grabbed my junk at some point in the shower, just to be thorough, and I have to say there were some perks to being reincarnated as a buff dude. "Size +1," I joked to myself under my breath, before returning to my room. Acolytes were provided with simple black robes, which I equipped before doing a series of simple stretches to limber up. I wasn't planning on offering any of the prisoners a trial by combat, but there was always ambushes by other students to consider.

I had forty minutes before the interrogations, so I wandered to the cantina for breakfast. I was thinking of trying something adventurous every day until I managed to figure out what I actually liked to eat, since I hadn't had any luck with it the night before.

Unfortunately, as I was carrying my bowl of some kind of sci-fi cereal floating in a sea of gooey blue milk, I saw a pair of acolytes waiting for me with combative expressions. With a small sigh I adjusted my course and sat down at a table, facing them. Slowly, I started eating my breakfast.

I had things to do, after all, and no time to waste with dick-measuring contests. A contest I would probably win, for the record, which was a fact as unfamiliar to me as the rest of my new life.

"So you're the upstart that Tremel shipped in," a snide voice rang out as the two idiots crossed the distance themselves. "Xanot, was it?"

"Right," I agreed, glancing at him with a raised brow. Raised bone spur? Whatever...Sith didn't have freakin' eyebrows, but whatever I had I was raising in challenge. "You must be Vemrin."

"Yeah, he's Vemrin. We thought to give you the courtesy of a warning: you don't stand a chance of catching Darth Baras' attention. You might as well tell Tremel so he can kill you and try again next year," the bulky fellow declared.

"Right," I repeated with a simple nod. "I'll be sure to let him know."

"Do you think we're joking?" Vemrin snapped.

I shrugged. "I don't much care what you're doing, Vemrin."

"Oh, I see. Bravado, is it? What, have you really bought into Tremel's drivel about pure blood? Ironic that he picked a freak like you to champion that cause," the older acolyte sneered at me. I blinked at him. Ohh, right...Tremel hated Vemrin because Vemrin wasn't a 'pureblood.' But that was pretty stupid because Tremel himself was human.

Unless Tremel was claiming he could trace his lineage back to the original fallen Jedi who had founded the Sith with the native species, but that seemed unlikely and pretty obviously irrational. At least judging the percentage of Sith species in the various cross-breeds that populated the Empire was a quantitative descriptor of purebloodedness, whereas lineage was a fuzzy, useless factoid.

As for the freak comment, well...he's got me there. In multiple senses of that word, I was definitely a freak. Freakishly large, freakishly strong, freakish rate of improvement...freakish sex. Was I male, female, neuter, intersex, or what? I was tempted to visit the infirmary to ask.

"That? No, I couldn't care less who your parents were," I answered honestly. "Right now, you're all talk. We're hoping to become Sith. So why don't we let our strength do the talking? Let's save our breath for fighting."

"Fine," Vemrin waved a hand dismissively. "If you want to suffer, then keep challenging me. It won't end well for you."

"Sure, if it makes you feel better to think that way," I drawled. "Seems to me that you're fearful, Vemrin. You'd rather I give up then challenge you. That will make you unbalanced."

"I don't need your advice, redskin." With that endearing epithet, the man spat into my cereal. I looked at the bowl he'd defiled and then back to him with a quiet blaze in my red eyes. I actually felt it like there were coals resting in my face.

"If you'll excuse me, ladies," I hissed, swiping the bowl and returning it to the disposal. "I have an appointment to keep."

Good Lord, what a pair of childish fools. I ignored them and walked to the other side of the Academy, where the prisoners were being kept. There were...a disturbing number of cages. Walking through the aisle between them, to where I saw the jailer with a remote in his hand, I heard the tail end of a familiar conversation.

"...chirp chirp. Yeeeow!! Fuck! That hurts you know?" Vette groused even as she shook out her trembling limbs.

"You're an insolent one," the cruel fellow mumbled. "Haven't you learned to shut your damn mouth yet?"

"You'll have to tell me one more time, I think...aaaAAAAH!" the girl collapsed as the collar shocked her for a few seconds too long. I approached and held my peace, even as my gut turned at the pitiable sight.

"Ah, you've arrived just in time. Three prisoners, for your convenience. You know it's strange, usually we have the acolytes fly off world to do the interrogation," the jailer remarked.

"Yeah, I guess I'm special," I replied with a shrug. "What do we have?"

"Overseer Tremel wants you to determine the fate of three prisoners. They are right this way," the man gestured with a hand, and took me past a collection of cages, to a group that was set apart, as if they had arrived at a different time. The familiar suspects were here, a woman, a man, and an alien...I don't remember the species. In any case, I already knew from memory that the woman had tried to assassinate an Imperial, the man was a former champion, and the alien was convicted on shaky evidence.

"Alright. What are my options?" I asked, making a show of inspecting the three. They were in pathetic condition, with bruises and red burns on their faces. Too thin. And they stank. The treatment of the prisoners wasn't my purpose here, however, and I put it to the back of my mind.

"Well, you can obviously choose to release them. Or you can choose to do a trial by combat, it's a traditional thing. And there's execution," the jailer explained. "The woman here was apprehended after attempting to assassinate an Imperial diplomat."

"I told you a thousand times, I had no idea he was..."

"Right," I cut across her objection, stepping forward. "Who hired you?"

"I was hired anonymously," she insisted.

"She's held on to that line, claims she didn't know her contacts were Republic," the jailer remarked. I nodded.

"Did you kill your target?" I asked.

"No!" she exclaimed. "I didn't even hurt him. I was caught before I could."

So, she obviously wasn't the best assassin in the galaxy. Honestly, I knew that Overseer Tremel would probably be happy if I handed her over to Imperial Intelligence, but after thinking over what the texts I had read the previous night had described this didn't sound like a scenario where offering clemency was the proper Sith course of action. If she had not only failed to identify her target as Sith, but also failed to kill him, then I hadn't any confidence in her capabilities. As such...if I were thinking like a Sith...

But, as a regular guy that worked as a programmer for years before mysteriously appearing in this galaxy, I wasn't sure the death sentence was very reasonable. I mean, from an Earthling's perspective she was a foreign agent that had attempted to kill a government official. Which was pretty bad. People could debate until they were blue in the face about whether or not the death sentence was justifiable on Earth, but ultimately it was empathy or religion that caused most people to balk at the idea of execution. And I wasn't feeling particularly empathetic...indeed, I felt almost nothing as I looked at the woman's bruised, pleading face. I knew she was terrified, I could even feel an echo of it due to our proximity, but somehow there was a missing link in the circuitry that would normally produce pity in my mind.

Fuck it. "She dies," I pronounced, turning away at once.

"Wait! Please!" the woman cried, but I didn't look back.

"Erm, Acolyte," the jailer, on the other hand, stopped me. "You have to carry out the sentence yourself."

"Do I?" Well, that sucked. I turned back to the cage, and like any thinking creature the woman had cowered as far from the bars as she could get. I reached over my shoulder and drew the war blade that I had retrieved from the tombs, stepping forward and holding out a hand.

The Force leapt to my call instinctively, dragging her forward until she was pressed against the cage. I thrust the blade through her chest, wincing in sympathy as she screamed in dying horror. Her hands shot through the bars and grabbed the folds of my robe, weakly scrabbling for a grip on my neck. I released her from my hold, and she slumped backwards, the vibroblade in my hand parting her bone and sinew like butter until she fell back and choked on her blood.

I felt a bit dizzy and had to take a few deep breaths with my eyes closed, unable to banish the sight of her face screwed up in a rictus of fear and agony. When I opened my eyes again, she was dead.

"Who's this?" I asked, clearing my throat as I approached the next cell. Try not to think about it...don't think about it...

"I am Devotek, loyal warrior of the Empire," the man introduced himself before the jailer could speak. "Please, acolyte, all I ask is for the chance to die with a weapon in my hand."

"Why is that?" I asked him simply.

"I served the Empire with distinction for years...and with one mistake, they cast me aside like it all meant nothing!"

"You should know that what is not useful is discarded," I cut in. "You fought for the Empire, you know how it goes. You could say it is what you fought to perpetuate. Or maybe you don't agree with the ways of the Sith?"

Devotek closed his mouth and blinked at me, but I only settled my weight on the back foot and waited for him to respond. I was honestly curious. It always struck me as strange that this man could have spent so many years ignorant of the fact that his days were numbered...didn't everyone that lived for the Empire know that the Sith would demand their lives eventually?

"Still, I would prefer to die in combat," Devotek eventually said, less confidently than before.

"Why?" I asked again. "Dead is dead. And I have no reason to grant you any request of yours. Or did you expect pointless mercy from Sith?"

"Perhaps not mercy, but honor!" Devotek spat.

"Honor?" I wondered. I thought of the samurai and the code that they followed, and also about the Sith doctrines that I had read. There was some small similarity there, enough that I could think on my feet and put together what I felt was the true Sith response to Devotek's situation. "Were you ever truly Sith, Devotek? The only honor that ought to have known or cared about was obedience, and you obeyed until you failed. At that point, shouldn't you have offered your own life as recompense? Your shame is complete, now that you are here begging for recognition from one who can't give it to you. You failed in your mission, and you also failed to learn the lessons of the Sith. The right thing for any Sith in your position would have been to return to your master and offer him your life. Your master then should have decided whether you were worth keeping. Clearly, since you are here, he either decided that your life was forfeit or you ran like a coward."

In America, it was unconscionable to think of rewarding decades of service with this kind of treatment. This was not America, and Devotek obviously had known his fate, or else he would not have had any reason to run. Was I willing to judge him as Sith to further my own agenda here on Korriban? Or did I act as a regular American man and release him to respect the accomplishments of his past?

"You're insane! None of the Sith I knew would have done such a thing," Devotek snapped. "He would have killed me!"

So he had run, then. I felt that it would only be fair to judge him by his own expressed code, and he had claimed to be Sith once. Perhaps not a Sith Lord, but a champion of the Sith nonetheless. He had chosen to abandon the Sith way rather than face what was certain to be his death, and in doing so he had discarded whatever respect he was owed by fellow Sith. Now, he was nothing but a waste. And if the Devotek of the past could have stood in judgment over the man before me presently, I was sure that his decision would be the same as mine.

"Then you should have died as a Sith, Devotek. That way, you might have actually died in combat, with whatever honor you dream of. In any case, I won't fight you now. Putting a weapon in your hand would recognize some measure of strength in you, but there is nothing that is worth challenging in you," I decided my course, reaching out a hand.

"Wait, don't...!"

I grasped his throat in the Force and had a moment of hesitation as I realized I was actually, honest-to-God Vader-choking this poor bastard. Then I clenched my fist and listened to bones shatter in his neck, the limp body crashing to the ground in a pile. Much cleaner than the woman, that was for sure...I would have to make sure to get the blood out of my robes later from that mess.

[Skill Unlocked: Force Choke]

[Skill Unlocked: Force Crush]

A small part of me, the human in the back of my mind, was screaming in horror. What the fuck was I becoming?!

The rest of me barely registered emotion, regarding the corpses I had left behind with dispassionate eyes. I came to the last remaining prisoner.

"This is Brehg. He got brought in for forgery charges, but he's maintained his innocence, even under torture," the jailer explained.

"That's because it's true!" the alien exclaimed in his native tongue.

I never knew what to do about this guy in the game. I mean, circumstantial evidence being what it is, and the fact that the poor fool had already been tortured...well, torture could be unreliable, but even so it was pretty telling that the guy hadn't cracked and told the inquisitors everything that they wanted to hear just to get them to stop. He must have a pretty resilient mind.

"So you're completely innocent?" I asked pointedly.

"I didn't say that," Brehg replied at once. "Only that I am innocent of this charge!"

"I see. Frankly, I don't see why this requires my input. Let him serve the sentence for forgery, if the evidence is sufficient. Or is the penalty for that crime also death?" I turned to the jailer.

"Uh...I don't know, actually," the man shrugged.

"If he will not confess, then he should be judged off the strength of the evidence. What evidence was presented?" I asked a follow-up.

The jailer shrugged a second time.

"In that case, let him go," I decided with a sigh.

"What?" Knash blinked.

"I said let him go. If we can't even present evidence against him, and he has not confessed under torture, then what can I do? It is a waste to hold him here," I explained.

"Oh, thank you! Thank you! There is justice in this world!" Brehg cried, literally. Big fat crocodile tears. It was a little pathetic. I turned towards the alien and shook my head. He would probably end up getting himself killed later...or my superiors might just kill him instead of actually letting him go. In any case, I was done here...and it was time to listen to Overseer Tremel tear my reasoning to shreds.

Chapter Text

He looked at me like I was a particularly interesting puzzle, and after exchanging greetings, I decided it was best to just let the overseer get whatever he wanted to say off his chest. I hadn't expected him to start a staring contest, however, and it was honestly pretty awkward for a bit.

"You struggled with that kill," was what he finally said. I blinked in surprise.

"Huh?"

"Eloquent, as always, I see. You struggled with the woman's death. Tell me why."

I swallowed my initial reaction, which was that any sane person should have struggled with that horror-show. Honestly, the way she had screamed, the gush of blood, the fear in her eyes...fuck me that was going to be nightmare fuel for years. Or it should have been, to any reasonable person. However, I had the tact to bite my tongue before insinuating that the Sith overseer was insane, partly because I would also be painted by that the same brush. My genius mind came up with, "I don't know."

"You don't know?" the overseer sneered. "Liar. Do you lack resolve, Xanot? Did you hesitate because she was a woman, perhaps? Is a pretty face enough to weaken you?"

"No," I answered, raising my chin. "I just wasn't prepared to execute her myself. I chose an inefficient method."

"Yes, you created quite a mess in the jail," Tremel drawled, pacing in front of me. "Bloodied your new uniform, in fact. Don't worry, that's a pretty common issue. We have slaves for cleaning up offal, and gore is the reason we chose black instead of gray for the uniforms."

Fantastic. Now I could also feel guilty about making some poor schmuck wipe the gore off the jail floors. I watched the overseer pace for a moment, but said nothing more.

"In any case, I want to ask you about your decisions. First of all, why did you execute the woman? Did it not seem wasteful to you?"

"I considered handing her over to Imperial Intelligence, but the fact that she never realized her employers were Republic, subsequently failed to identify her target as Imperial, and finally failed to kill him, made me reconsider. She was not an effective assassin, and she was used against the Empire by the Republic, unwittingly or not. For those reasons, I killed her," I concluded with only the slightest wince. It was callous, yes. It was cruel. It was decidedly not what I had ever imagined myself doing, and yet it was what I had done. Have you ever had a situation where you knew that you should feel terrible, but you didn't? It's a strange thing.

"Hmph. Well, I agree with your reasoning on every point, except for one. She might have been incompetent from your perspective, but there was always the possibility that Imperial Intelligence might have found other uses for her, uses which are now quite impossible since she is deceased," Overseer Tremel intoned seriously, aiming a finger at my chest. "Always consider the situation from more than one perspective. A failed assassin, she might have been, but she was also a newcomer to the business. With some time, she might have served the Empire well. Or, at the very least, she might have been used to lure out the Republic agents that hired her. In any case, she is now dead, so we will never know what might have happened. Death is a permanent state of being, Acolyte, and should only be inflicted after you have considered the situation completely."

"I will remember," I replied stoically. I didn't entirely regret my decision, even in light of his criticism. I felt a bit guilty about it, but it had been the most logical course of action. There was also the matter of her loyalty, which didn't seem at all assured. She worked for the highest bidder, and cared nothing for Empire or Republic, and she had only regretted targeting the Imperial because it had ended poorly.

Regardless of my feelings, Overseer Tremel had actually shared something important, and I hadn't lied when I told him I would remember it. I had thought that the Sith were pretty much all about mindless death, but that was evidently not the case. Or maybe a better way to say it was that it didn't have to be that way.

"Now, concerning Devotek. You explained yourself to him excellently, but I wanted to question you more closely about the things that you said to him. First, what obligation does the servant owe his master, according to the ways of the Sith?"

"The obligation of the servant is to spend himself to the utmost, reserving nothing to himself," I replied tonelessly.

"So you did your reading, despite your late arrival yesterday," Tremel mused. "Yes, that is what the texts say, but why is this the case? What benefit is there for the servant in that arrangement?"

I blinked. Why would that matter to Tremel? But, on the other hand, it would certainly be a question that I needed to answer for myself, as I entered the service of more powerful Sith. If I was to live by their Code, which was really my only option, then I would be expected to give 100% in my service, and I knew that I couldn't do that unless I truly desired it. And if I held myself back, I would be eventually discarded.

It wasn't at all like working at a corporation in America, which I had done mostly because of the pay and the benefits. In that environment, managing the expectations of the manager so that he didn’t assign ridiculous workloads was an art-form that I had been rather well-acquainted with. I never gave 100%, and was happy with the results. It had been an easy, comfortable life, despite the occasional long shift.

"Well...you can't expect promotions if you aren't giving it your best," I offered hesitantly with a slight shrug. I had never sought to climb the ladder, so it hadn’t mattered much to me. And I knew that my superiors had considered me competent for my position but not eligible for promotion. It hadn't mattered to me, since I wasn't ambitious.

"How shortsighted," Tremel sighed. "Well, no matter. In so little time I can't honestly expect you to grasp the nuances of our way. The reason that a servant should spend himself utterly in his master's service, Xanot, is because of the Code. Peace is a lie, there is only passion. A man that reserves himself, who holds back from his appointed duties, is a man that lacks passion. He is a man deluded by the lie of peace. For what reasons might a servant attempt this? For comfort? For safety? Or out of sheer laziness? Well, all these things are poison to the Sith. Remember that, if you wish to live."

It felt like a rather personal critique, and I couldn’t entirely hide my irritation. "I will remember," was all I said. Continuing to live was a pretty low bar, but that was pretty much my only goal so far, and already it had required me to essentially betray the cultural values that I had lived with for decades in my prior life.

"You indicated to Devotek that the proper course of action would have been to offer his life to his master," Tremel continued. "I thought it was curious, since that isn't mentioned specifically in any of the texts. Explain."

"As you said before, multiple perspectives should be considered before dismissal or death. While I assumed Devotek had failed miserably at his mission, and he was ashamed, he might still have had some use to his master. He had accepted the ways of the Sith, and so he knew that his life had lost its worth when he proved himself utterly incapable, but it is his master who should make the final decision to terminate Devotek's service, either by killing him or releasing him from his position," I answered. “Devotek reached beyond his station. He made that decision himself and fled from it."

"Xanot, always remember that the Sith way does not enshrine the society. The society exists to serve the strong. Loyalty, therefore, is not a virtue per se. Obviously, a master desires loyalty from his subordinates, but a subordinate may not benefit from loyalty to his master. So, what benefit is there for Devotek in this proposal?" Tremel asked sharply.

"As I said, Devotek had accepted the Sith way. Defeat is inevitable, failure is certain. By facing it directly and receiving his master's lesson, instead of proving himself a coward, he would have benefited himself by growing stronger, or in the worst case he would have remained Sith to the death," I answered confidently. "By attempting to escape his defeat by relying on past achievements and his pride, he abandoned what strength he might have had in favor of fear, therefore ceasing to be Sith and marking himself as worthless in the eyes of his master."

"Exactly right, and indeed the reason that he was slated for death was because he had failed as a Sith, not because he failed in that particular mission, although Devotek never truly understood this. A veteran like himself might have found purpose in teaching others to surpass his own achievements, if only he had remained true to the very end. But one who lacks resolve should never be allowed to teach others, because then he will pass on his own weaknesses," Tremel concluded. "So you not only read the text, but you understood it as well. All that remains is determining if you have the resolve to accept our ways for yourself. Of course, there is the final prisoner. You chose to release Brehg, who was accused of forgery. Explain."

"He refused to confess, even under torture, and I was presented no evidence of the charge against him," I replied at once. "There is nothing to be gained by torturing or imprisoning an innocent man."

"Yes, he may have been innocent, but he now has knowledge of inquisitorial procedure, and had seen the inside of this Academy. Releasing him is a loose end, a potential leak. You must not be satisfied with your first instinct, but always consider everything twice. Be cunning as well as forceful," Tremel growled, and I actually scoffed. "You would scorn my lesson?"

"Respectfully, it's bullshit, sir," I told him. "If the inquisitors cared to preserve the secrets of their torture methods, then they would have killed him themselves, and Brehg could not have seen anything of note from the inside of his cage in a jail."

"Remember who is the teacher here, and who is the acolyte. Not even an apprentice, and already you think yourself wiser than me?" Tremel shook his head and walked around his desk to sit down, glaring at me the entire time.

"It is the duty of the apprentice to challenge the master," I quipped, even though I rather expected some Sith Lightning for my cheekiness.

"You are not an apprentice yet, Xanot. In any case, Brehg was an insignificant insect, and his sentencing has no real bearing on your task. It reveals to me that you are not a bloodthirsty fiend or a careless fool, like many of your peers, so I am satisfied," Tremel remarked. "Your next task will be to descend into the tomb of Marka Ragnos to defeat a beast that has recently been sighted there. It was left there to guard his legacy, ostensibly, so all you must do is attempt to breach the tomb and it will come to you. Before you ask, no this one is not a curated trial for the regular acolyte. In order to surpass Vemrin, you must distinguish yourself beyond the usual acolyte here in the Academy. The sighting of this beast is the perfect opportunity. Bring me its head."

Apparently Tremel wasn’t into the zap-zap as a teaching tool. "I will. What does the beast look like?"

"All you need to know is that the beast is ferocious and bloodthirsty. If you run like a coward, don't bother coming back," the man snapped, turning his back to me as he returned to his desk. I nodded to him and departed from his office.

It had only been a single day since arriving in this world, and I was obviously already beginning to lose my grasp on my identity. Would the mid-level programmer from a nobody corporation in America have so coldly sentenced two people to die? Well...I suppose I had just done so. But now I was also Sith, and evidently my species didn't easily feel moved by the sight of blood or the pleading of others. How much of my regard for my fellow man had simply been emotional circuitry built into my biology? I had been perfectly aware of of their pain, their fear, their final despair...but none of that had managed to put a crack in my cold heart. Or hearts, whatever the case may be.

For that matter, how much of my identity was really mine to control? Would I have made the same decision if I was the human I had once been? Most of the people I had known, even among my own family, would have decried my actions as cruel, some might even have called it evil. I probably would have been sick to my stomach or lightheaded at the sight of all that blood. And while I would have liked to say that I had done it just to fit in among the Sith that surrounded me, there was also an unavoidable part of me that was certain of my decision. My explanations to Tremel had not been lies, after all. What did that say about me?

That morning, I cherished the last shower that I expected to take for several days. I had no way of knowing how long I would end up traveling the wilds. There were timers on the water, and minimal, odorless soap, so it wasn’t exactly a luxurious experience. Regardless, it was refreshing to let my mind go blank under a stream of pounding water, and I recognized that this truly represented opulence for a desert world like Korriban.

When the water stopped, I stood in front of the mirror and turned to the left and the right, looking at the sculpted muscles and lithe lines of my body once more. The question of my identity had brought me back to the flesh of my body. I was definitely feminine and couldn't ignore it any longer. I knew this because I thought I was smoking hot, and I had always been attracted to women...of course that could also have changed with my reincarnation, but I didn't think it had. I had yet to meet a man that I was personally attracted to in this universe, but I had admired a few of my female peers at the Academy from a distance.

I wasn’t about to go around flirting with Sith, I wasn’t that stupid.

Anyway, I thought that my own body was all long legs, thick thighs, round ass cheeks, and flexible lines of muscle. It was quite the ego boost from my thin, out-of-shape body from before. If I had met my new self on the streets of Chicago, I would have been turned into a stuttering mess of nerves, unable to meet this stunning woman’s eyes. And, of course, she would have been an alien and that would have been rather surprising. Turning to the other side, I flexed my impressive shoulders and my arms, a wide grin showing pointed, white teeth. A predator's teeth.

Not the icon of beauty anyone in America would have pictured as feminine, but certainly not masculine either, despite my genitalia. I was left in a middle-ground that was rather distressing, particularly since I was already beginning to question my identity.

I was a monster in more ways than one. Pink scars marred my red flesh in several crisscrosses. I also had crescent bite marks, parallel scratches, thin, isolated cuts, and a burn scar. The whole nine yards. On top of that, my flaccid third-leg was still larger than my human endowment had ever been in my previous life. I had no idea how large it might get...I was a little reluctant to stimulate myself in this environment, and unlike before it hadn’t been erect in the morning or at any other time of day. My hair, loosened from the tight knot that it had been tied in before, fell to mid-back in a damp tangle of coarse black curls. I was tempted to count the long hair as another feminine feature, but that was just cultural preference in the end.

I tried and failed to control the hair, eventually resorting to a messy pony-tail that I looped to shorten it. I didn't want an animal or a person grabbing my hair in a fight, even if it looked ridiculous.

Was I going to have to learn how to manage long hair? Or maybe it was worth cutting it short...I decided to leave off that decision since I had no idea if there were barbers in the Academy. I sincerely doubted it.

I spent the rest of morning preparing for my journey into the Valley of the Dark Lords. In the game, you just had to take a taxi over the tomb, and it was probably only half a kilometer hike from there. But I had no idea if the animal I had been told to hunt would fight me to the death, or if it would flee when it was injured, and if I had to track it for any length of time, I would need supplies. I used the compensation I had received from Lieutenant Calder to buy a rucksack, and I filled it with water, Imperial MRE’s from the Academy requisitions officer, a couple stims, kolto shots, bandages, and flares.

I also bought a lantern that hung from my belt, remembering how dark the tomb had been.

I had absolutely no experience with spelunking, ruins-exploring, or any other outdoors activity to be frank. As such, I was pretty sure I was forgetting something that might be useful, but since it was already nearly midday, I decided to get a move on and hope for the best. I had my war sword, my knife, and just about every other miscellaneous item that I thought might be useful.

It struck me as somewhat strange, walking out of the Academy's mighty arched entrance, that the other acolytes barely spared me a glance. I didn't see very many others prepared for extended trips into the tombs, and I'll admit I was rather envious of those that had the opportunity to take their training at a more sedate pace. I knew that once I destroyed this beast, Darth Baras would take notice of me and force me to challenge Overseer Tremel.

And that was the other reason I had prepared for such an extended absence. I needed to get stronger in the tombs, or at least I would prefer to be stronger than I currently was. Given Tremel's advantage in his lightsaber, I would require other strengths. In the MMO, you only needed to be level six or seven to kill him, but in the MMO the player character could shrug off a lightsaber blow with little more than a grunt of annoyance.

"Remember, automated transport is for official use only," the droid greeted me as I approached.

"Which destination is nearest to the Tomb of Marka Ragnos?" I asked.

"One moment," was the robotic response. It was a literal moment before it continued, "It seems that the Field Research Area is the closest destination to the Tomb of Marka Ragnos. Do you have authorization to depart?"

"I'm Xanot," I said, slowly. Would this be enough, or was I expected to hoof it? "Overseer Tremel is sending me to that tomb for a trial."

"One moment...authorization for departure of Acolyte Xanot has been found. Would you like to leave immediately?"

I nodded and approached one of the three airspeeders. The vehicle activated some kind of shielding once I had settled my rear in the seat and placed the rucksack in the passenger seat. A moment later I was flying. I have to say that being just a passenger on an automated flight path felt a whole lot like a roller-coaster, and despite how unremarkable such a thing might be for the average person in this universe, I enjoyed the short flight immensely.

It was the first thing in this new life that I had honestly enjoyed, and wasn't that just a kick in the balls? Sure, it was pretty cool to be adventuring in tombs and leveling up, but on the other hand those activities were fraught with stress and danger.

Korriban was hot, but I didn't seem to mind it. On an abstract level I knew that the sweltering weather would have given humans a hard time, and as I waited for the elevator that led down into the valley proper, with the sun bearing down on me in its full fury, I thanked whatever gods there were that they had chosen to reincarnate me as Sith. I don't think I could have survived here as a human...I had newfound respect for the human acolytes, even if most of them were fucking insane. There were also almost certainly hybrids, so maybe they were better suited to this weather than the Earth-type human I had once been. If I remembered my lore correctly, the Outer Rim didn't have many purebred humans. Somehow Zakuul had been populated by humans, or human-looking aliens at the very least. I had no idea how any of that actually worked.

Hybrids or not, there were many more human-looking people here on Korriban than any other species, even Sith. I knew that the fallen Jedi who had fled from the Order long ago had gone native here on Korriban, interbreeding with the Sith to create the bloodlines that in the present day were considered pure. In many ways, the human species was a relative of the Sith, considering the fact that they could make viable offspring. They might have had a common ancestor sometime in the ancient past of this galaxy. But I knew very little about Sith physiology, other than the basic facts. Red skin, coarse hair, exotic eye color. Apparently, I could also add heat tolerance to that list.

And lack of empathy. Or maybe that was just me? Had I always been a little anti-social, or was it a feature of my new existence?

It was also possible that the humans that were considered pure-blooded shared many of the traits of their red-skinned fellows, up to and including heat resistance and psychopathy. That was something to investigate at a later date...but if the Sith species was naturally vicious, naturally callous...well, it certainly explained a lot about the longstanding feud with the Jedi and the brutal traditions of the Empire.

I trudged across the sands, keeping my eyes open for any danger. In the game there had been failed acolytes and insane disciples everywhere, along with soldiers driven mad by the spirits in the tombs and ravenous beasts. But the valley was eerily silent. Which, for a desert, made sense. What in the world would all those people and animals have been eating or drinking? Obviously, the tombs were not a thriving ecosystem.

I hoped that this meant I wouldn't be swamped by dangerous things the moment I reached the tomb. So far my luck had been pretty good, all things considered. Definitely a lot less crowded than the MMO world.

How can I describe a tomb filled with Dark Side power to someone that has never experienced the Force? Even I struggled to comprehend what my sixth sense was telling me, approaching the darkened entrance with some trepidation. The Force is like a whisper at the edge of your hearing, or a mood that casts a shadow over your thoughts. And in this place, that whisper was cruel. It drew attention to the shadow and the slightest sound, it put emphasis on my own weaknesses and doubts, and most of all it breathed a cold, inviting power.

Every step that I took into the shadow was wreathed in this all-consuming attitude, a miasma of anxiety and burgeoning anger. And if I listened closely, I could hear echoes of the past, cries of agony and terror, shouts of fury and triumph. Mighty men had walked these halls, men who were far more powerful than myself, and it made me quail to even pass under their lingering shadows.

It was dark, but due to my Sith eyesight and the lantern at my belt I had no trouble navigating the wide corridors. It didn't feel claustrophobic because of the high ceiling, but every crumbling statue that loomed out of the darkness at my approach made my hand twitch towards the sword on my back. I had intended to kill some 'mobs' down here, just to gain some EXP, but it suddenly didn't seem like a very wise idea to linger in this place. However, I had no directions to follow to the supposed resting place of Marka Ragnos, so that meant I was doomed to wander for some time regardless of my desires.

The tombs were only so large, after all. I hugged the left wall and walked further.

Eventually, I heard voices. "...idiot. We can't sit around down here forever...we have to find food."

"Say it like it is, Birjek. We need to find another acolyte," said another, male voice. I paused in the corridor, drawing my weapon, but without thumbing the switch. The distinct buzz of the vibrosword might betray my location.

"Right, whatever. We have to do what we have to do," said the first voice. I couldn't tell if it was a woman or a man. "Those soldiers only lasted a few days."

"Well, grab your stuff then."

Ominous. Cannibalism? Well...I had wondered how anyone could survive in these ruins for any length of time. Although, there must certainly have been easier prey around here than sapient creatures. Or perhaps they had been here long enough that they had driven away whatever tomb-dwellers might have taken refuge here. Korriban didn't have the most diverse fauna, after all. Tuk'ata, shyrack, tarentatek, kinrath...that was about it.

Obviously an acolyte couldn't take on a tarentatek. Wait...wasn't the fucking beast of Marka Ragnos a tarentatek in the MMO? Shit.

"Well, well," the voices were getting closer. "I think our next meal is closer that we thought."

"Cute," I answered with a slight shake of my head. "What are you, failed acolytes? Banished from the Academy?"

They rounded the corner, and I winced when I saw them. Tattered clothing, battered practice sabers...caked blood and grime. Their hair was wild and long, matted with unmentionable fluid and dirt. Sand covered their limbs, and both of them were barefooted. They looked absolutely feral...and their dull, human eyes glared at me with a hunger that wasn’t completely physiological. There was something else staring out of their faces, something more numinous.

"Enough talking. Food doesn't talk," one of them tittered in a high voice, angling for me with a staggering step.

I didn't give them time to coordinate. Moving with Force-enhanced speed, I lunged for the closer opponent, binding his weapon with my own briefly before I twisted my wrist and bounced the point of my sword through his neck. His own weapon's heated plasma edges singed my shirt as I reversed course and jumped back, a weak slash missing me by a hair's breadth. As my feet touched the ground, the second cannibal was upon me, his weapon blurring in a wide arc, and I caught it on my sword at the last possible moment.

The poor timing made me stagger, and he bore down with a second and a third strike, trying to beat my defense aside and draw blood. I gritted my teeth and threw the Force at him desperately, feeling it catch and lifting him off his feet. He smacked hard against the wall beside us, and I instantly corrected my footing, rushing forward to land a killing blow.

He surged upwards, breathless and furious, and the Force crackled around us in visible red streaks of power. This one was talented. He deflected my lunge and threw an elbow at my face, the blow landing with a world-shaking crack. Stars flashed in my vision, but I knew his next move and blocked it deftly. Blood roaring in my ears, I caught his neck with my off hand and shoved his sword down with my weapon, slamming him back against the stone once more.

He kicked, his leg scraping along the side of his own blade, and then screamed like a stuck pig. I slammed him again, feeling the Force squeezing around us in desperate rage, then I turned and threw him into the ground with a roar that tore itself from my throat almost without conscious thought. The strength behind my throw was such that it cracked the flagstones of the tomb, and the broken body of the cannibalistic outcast laid there, motionless, as I caught my breath.

[Level 6 Reached]

I stood there, gasping for breath, for perhaps longer than necessary. Peering at the bodies of the two cannibals, I saw that they were human...but their flesh was sallow, and their veins were bruised. It gave them a corrupted appearance, more like walking corpses than men. I knew this was the Dark Side corruption that became so apparent to those that let the Force rage unchecked through their flesh, but it was also likely a symptom of their diet.

The bodies also didn't have anything worth taking. Not even credits.

The chamber that they had come from was a dead end, and it was littered with bones. Animal bones, humanoid bones, various skulls and piles of discarded offal. It smelled vile...but I didn't feel sick. The spatters of blood and the smoking fire that they had been using to cook their depraved meals made my mind recoil in horror, but unlike the visceral human disgust that I felt I should be experiencing I was only furious. It was insulting that two abject weaklings, failures, had managed to ambush and murder so many people. And it was evidence of criminal negligence that nobody had done anything about them before now.

Leaving the disgusting scene behind, I continued my exploration. The tomb was empty...and even the whispers that had haunted me before were quieter. I stopped at a central chamber for water, but my appetite was simply nonexistent, and I didn't bother with eating. This wasn't turning out to be the long adventure that I had planned for...the only other path to take would bring me to the Tomb of Marka Ragnos, of that I had little doubt.

But that tomb...it would contain the tarentatek. The fucking video game made everything seem trivial, a beast that was four times the size of a man could be defeated by a level six beginner using a practice weapon and the basic attack skill. But that crazed acolyte had given me a run for my money, earlier, and the trash mobs in this tomb were also supposed to be simple.

This wasn't a game, is what I'm saying. There was no guarantee that I could defeat this beast. Obviously, Tremel seemed to have faith, but I couldn't tell if that was just his usual idiocy or if he actually knew how powerful this creature was. The only things I knew about tarentatek was from KOTOR, and that was: Force resistant, thick skinned, and venomous. Not the fastest or the most limber opponent. But, its unusual abilities grew stronger proportionate to the Force power of its prey.

It was madness to try and use a sword against something like this. One bite, and I would be done for. Worse than that, its titanic strength probably meant I could be killed by a single bow from its clawed hands. But, I couldn't just choke the shit out of it with the Force since it was resistant.

I could throw stuff...like Darth Vader on Bespin. In fact, if I played it like Kreia at the end of KOTOR II then I wouldn't even have to get very close to it to use the sword.

I activated my weapon and then grasped it in the Force, waving it around clumsily and wincing at the feel of it.

[Skill Unlocked: Telekinesis]

It was clumsy and difficult, but all I had to do was throw the weapon, and then pull it back to my hand. Right? How hard could that be? The problem would be finding a way to pierce its hide, and I honestly had no clue what parts of the beast would be vulnerable. Trial and error was the only option, there. But that meant I had to survive for some length of time, staying out of the creature's reach.

I wished that I had bought grenades or land-mines, but apparently the Requisitions Officer wasn't allowed to sell any weapons to the acolytes of the Academy. Not even a better vibroblade. And I knew, of course, that the war blade they provided was literally junk. It was thousands of years old, and had been sitting in a tomb for all that time. Rusty and outdated, this poor example of a vibrosword was not the sort of weapon I wanted to rely on when it came to a hunt like this.

But there weren't any other weapons here. Those two idiots had only been using practice sabers and that was even worse than the war sword.

With nothing else to do but procrastinate, I heaved a sigh and started down the stairs. I could already see, about thirty meters ahead, that there was an unnatural violet light being cast by something, and I realized when I was closer that it was the strange, smokeless fires surrounding the massive tablet in the burial chamber of the tomb. I had no clue what the tablet said, and it didn't matter. If I remembered right, I just had to stand there for a moment and the beast would come.

Now or never. I took a step forward but hesitated. Looking around the gloomy antechamber, I saw a good deal of rubble already available, which was a positive sign. if the beast came out of the coffin like he did in the game, then that would create even more, but it really didn't make much sense for it to be there. That made me wonder where, exactly, the creature could be hiding...

I continued walking, standing between the sconces filled with unnatural fire, and waited. My grip tightened on the hilt of my sword, and my eyes swept feverishly across the chamber, one way and then the other. It was utterly silent, in a suffocating way. Finally, I heard it.

Distant footsteps. They were coming down the stairs. Heavy, and not at all hurried. The creature must realize that I had no escape, not if it was approaching via the only exit from this chamber.

I turned towards the archway that I had come through and pursed my lips. And then it came, a hulking creature of dark chitin and glittering, beady eyes. Its body was a collection of jutting spikes and hard plates, and it was dragging its claws on the ground as it walked. Its legs were stubby, but its arms were massive and had good reach. It had the posture of a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal, but I sensed the cruel intelligence in its eyes as it approached, brushing past the blazing fires without a care. It was unhurried, self-assured. The Force yawned out from it in malevolent anticipation, like it was a hungering thing itself.

I threw my sword, accelerating it with the Force so that it crossed the distance with an audible crack of wind. The weapon pierced the beast at the shoulder, penetrating about half the length of blade, and then stuck fast. Wrenching on it with the Force did nothing. And the creature was pissed.

[Skill Unlocked: Weapon Throwing]

[Skill Unlocked: Propel Projectile]

A roar shook the stones and made the Force tremble. I could feel it in my mind, a primordial sense of wrongness that was making my skin crawl and putting a chill in my bones. I scrambled backwards quickly, sensing the danger, and the Beast of Marka Ragnos charged. Rolling to the side in the nick of time, I felt more than saw the creature barrel into the wall, its claws scrabbling on stone to slow its forward advance. A pillar cracked under the force, but I didn't look back as I bounded twice, crossing the chamber, and reached out with the Force to grab the rubble I had spotted earlier.

Slinging each weighty chunk of sandstone at the creature's head, I could only hope that it dealt significant harm. Unfortunately, each thundering crash of stone breaking against the hard chitin plates of the tarentatek seemed to produce nothing more than noise. And it was increasingly making the beast angrier.

Not good. Not good at all.

This time, the creature did not charge. It was trying to corner me, approaching at a steady pace, keeping its arms spread to catch me if I should try to skirt around its side. And to my damned frustration, the tactic was actually working. The chamber was a hexagon shape, and I was being backed towards one of the walls.

The only way out was over the top. I bent my legs, breathed a desperate, wordless prayer to whatever nameless gods existed in this fucking world, and jumped. The beast hissed in fury, its limbs snapping towards me with unbelievable speed, but they were not long enough. Even the creature's own jump did not take it high enough to reach me, and I came down almost directly on the tarentatek's back. My foot slipped on the hard, bony plate, and I bit my tongue as I fell, my hands clawing for purchase, until I snagged the hilt of the sword buried in the creature's shoulder.

The momentum of my fall, combined with the blade that was already stuck in the beast, created a lever. Turning the weapon through meat and bone, I felt with exquisite detail how my movement was cutting through flesh. The tarentatek shrieked, swinging itself in a desperate circle, but this only made my body roll and flap violently, still clinging desperately to the sword that was only worked deeper into the tarentatek's chest.

Finally, the blade cut such a wide swath that it tore free, and I was thrown to the dust, rolling over the deadly blade and miraculously avoiding a cut myself. I didn't hesitate to crawl away, jumping horizontally like a frog to avoid the fist that came crashing down where I had fallen. I landed in a crouch and turned, but the tarentatek hadn't paused to lick its wounds, and was charging towards me with pure rage.

Well, that was fine. I jumped again, dodging a swipe from its claw by bare millimeters, and the beast crashed into the stone wall behind me. This time I waited a heartbeat, then threw my sword again, gritting my teeth and putting all my power into it. I felt the air in the chamber shift as the weapon snapped across the distance and buried itself in the skull, through the eye, all the way to the flared hilt.

The Force exploded. And the beast, too. It was a wash of purple energy that cracked and sizzled across stones, unnatural power drawing lines over the chitin of the tarentatek's body until, with an ear-splitting roar, the beast shattered like fragile glass, spraying black blood across my robes and the stones. My weapon clattered onto the ground below, surrounded by a spreading pool of the nasty stuff.

The power left in its wake flowed across the chamber floor and hit me like a truck, tossing me back against the wall with an incredibly painful smack.

[Level Reached: 10]

[Class Unlocked: Heir of Marka Ragnos]

[Skill Unlocked: Might of the Tarentatek]

[Skill Unlocked: Force Scream]

[Alignment Changed: Dark I]

I landed on my feet and swayed precariously, a palpable sensation of strength and euphoria filling me, and then I closed my eyes and sighed. Every breath, even choked by the stale air of this tomb, felt like a victory. My pulse pounded in my head, a palpable ache. Yet I had survived. The first thing I chose to do with my new lease on life was to reach back and unclasp my canteen, gulping down water in greedy gulps.

Next, I retrieved my sword from the pile of offal. What was this about the Heir of Ragnos?

[Heir of Marka Ragnos: Marka Ragnos was a Sith Lord renowned for his unstoppable fury. Wearing heavy armor and wielding his sword, Marka Ragnos was an unmatched force in battle. Having conquered the guardian of his tomb, you now follow in his footsteps. While wearing heavy armor you can withstand wounds that would be lethal to those who are not blessed by this ancient power. You also gain +100 ATK, and +200 VIT.]

Well, that was certainly something. And, from the description, I just might have found the edge that I needed to take care of Tremel.

Chapter Text

It was night on Korriban when the taxi dropped me off at the Academy, and I was thankful for that. After I ate a meal, alone, in the cantina, washed myself clean from grime and blood, and painstakingly removed the bloodstains from my robes in the washbasin, I slept like a damned baby until my alarm woke me at 0400.

Time to face the music. But first...I needed heavy armor to enable my skill. I found the requisitions officer right where I had left him the day before, and at this hour he was rubbing his face and chugging caffa like it was going out of style.

"You? I thought you got sent to die in a tomb," he muttered.

"Yes, that would be me," I agreed. "I'd like some heavy armor."

"You have a uniform, you know," the man pointed out.

"I'll wear the robes over the top," I replied with a shrug. "Besides, no one cares about regulations like that. I saw a girl wearing a crop top."

"Whatever, it's too early for me to care. You have credits?"

I nodded. There were still a couple thousand left from the good Lieutenant and the bounty I had collected on the tomb raiders. The officer pulled a standard issue trooper set and dropped it in the sand between us.

"Breastplate, boots, and greaves. Goes over the black under-suit," he pointed at each item, as if I couldn't recognize them myself. "It's six hundred credits for the set. Obviously you can't use the helmet or the arm pieces."

"The helmet makes sense, but why couldn't I use the arms?"

"Flexibility," the man grunted, taking the credits. "You can't raise your arms all the way over the top of your head, if you're in full kit. But with that sword of yours I imagine you can't afford that limitation. You'll need a custom set of armor for sword use, like Imperial commandos, and I can't get you that. Not with the low gear priority I've been given."

"No worries," I sighed. "This will do."

Hopefully it was enough heavy armor to trigger my passive from [Heir of Marka Ragnos]. If not, then Tremel was probably going to cut me in half. I could always try to block his lightsaber with my sword, but if he cut right through it then I wouldn't have anything to kill him with, and I would probably lose my arms in the deal.

My admittedly desperate scheme was to get him to stab me, grab his hand, and then kill him while his weapon was stuck. It he went for a beheading, that would obviously make my life a little more difficult.

I took my armor back to my room and equipped it, after some difficulty figuring out which clasps to loosen and which to tighten. Then I folded my robes over the top and looked at myself. I have to say, the black robes over top of the red durasteel plate was quite badass, even if it made it pretty obvious that I was wearing armor. I indulged in a moment of fantasy as I imagined having a cool helmet like Kallig or Darth Vader.

Maybe later. For now, it was probably time to tell Overseer Tremel of my success. Not that he didn't already know...every Dark Force user on the planet and probably in the sector at large could have felt the death of Marka Ragnos' tomb guardian.

True to my expectation, Tremel was awake and looking quite agitated when I approached his office. His keen gaze swept over my new appearance, and he said nothing. "I may have miscalculated, Xanot. Everyone in the Academy sensed the destruction of that beast...what exactly happened down there?"

"It was a tarentatek, empowered by dark sorcery," I replied simply, watching the dark-skinned man pale at my words. He shook his head.

"Unbelievable...and to think a mere acolyte could have...well, it seems that I sent you to your death," Tremel processed this revelation with quiet words, folding his hands together. "Do you hate me, Xanot?"

"No," I answered. Mostly, for Tremel, all I felt was contempt.

"You would be wise to hate me," Tremel sighed. "Indeed, if I had not orchestrated things to bring you here early, you might have become one of the most promising Sith in the Empire. As it stands, Darth Baras has requested your presence, and I fear that he will find you lacking. To fall short in his eyes is to court death."

"I will be sure to impress him, then."

Tremel scoffed. "It is not your effort that is the problem, Acolyte, but the circumstances at hand. Your training has thus far been condensed to a span of three days, prior lessons notwithstanding. It is...most unorthodox, and whatever you learned before coming here was either pointless or irrelevant. Darth Baras will test you with every word. Do not let your guard down."

"I won't," I assured. "Are you concerned about me, sir? Or only about the success of your plans for Vemrin?"

"Hm," Overseer Tremel gave me a complicated smirk. "It is the delight of every master to see their pupils become strong, especially when that strength serves his own purposes. So far, you have not only impressed me and survived tests that would have ruined a lesser man, but you have outstripped Vemrin's performance by leaps and bounds. What he accomplished in a year’s time, you have done in less than a week. Still, I fear that you could not face him directly...if only there was more time."

"I see," I said, nodding slowly. "Isn't my progress...unusual?"

"Of course it is," Tremel waved a hand meaninglessly. "Every once in a long while, someone is born who is a prodigy. Some are genius mathematicians, some are unstoppable generals. You, apparently, command the Force out of sheer natural talent. There can be no other explanation. You would have become a rising star in the Empire, and one that many would surely have desired for themselves. If you survive Darth Baras, you still might. That is my hope. Now, he has requested that you present yourself in his office at 0600. That gives you very little time to prepare, but...do whatever you must. Remember what I have said about him."

I gave another nod and departed, proceeding halfway down the hallway...only to be shoulder-checked in the empty corridor. By Dolgis, the idiotic meat-head that Vemrin always had at his side.

The big fellow sneered at me, reaching for his weapon, and I drew my own, putting a pace of distance between us.

"Look at this...no one around? Time to teach you a lesson, little redskin," the big man spat, his lips drawing back in a parody of a grin as he swung his sword. He called me 'little' even though I was taller than he was, by a centimeter or two. The first thing I noticed about his attack was how slow he was...and it surprised me. I deflected his blow and turned my block into a strike with the hilt of my weapon, breaking his nose. Blood gushed down his face and splattered on the floor, but I didn't leave it at that, turning with my strike and extending my arm in a draw-cut that opened a deep gash on his shoulder and chest. It wasn't forceful enough to cut through his ribs, but had probably left scratches on the bones.

Then I stepped back again, watching him. He sagged with pain, his harsh breath blowing blood through his nose before he caught himself and coughed through his mouth, spitting onto the floor. He curled his arm over the deep wound on his chest, shaking his head.

"Oh," said the man, faintly. "That's...fast..."

"Get yourself to a medic, you waste of skin," I snapped, shaking my head and shaking blood from my blade. Now I would have to clean it again, before meeting with Darth Baras.

Why had he been so slow? Was there some kind of advantage to having higher levels than an opponent? And, for that matter, was I actually a higher level than Dolgis? In any case, I had other things to concern myself with...such as surviving the day.

Meeting with Baras in the game had always been something that made little sense. Baras criticized Tremel for failing to hone the player's mind, but immediately after defeating Tremel the player is launched into a series of kill missions, basically acting like Baras' personal thug. Of course, Baras eventually plans to discard the player by backstabbing them, so it makes a certain kind of sense. But, on the other hand, the player is promoted to Lord after successfully defeating Jaisa Wilsaam's master, and isn't it an affront to the Sith for there to be a Lord that is not a true devotee of the Sith way?

In any case, it was hypocritical of Baras. Sure, Sith weren't overly concerned about being hypocrites, but it bothered me. On top of that, Baras makes a whole stink about Tremel being a traitor to the Sith for trying to subvert Vemrin's path to power, as if it isn't precisely the way of the Sith to create a meritocracy. In the end, Baras would ultimately allow Vemrin to die, which I thought was a waste but what could I really do about it? Vemrin has his place among the Sith, but obviously if I am his superior, I deserve to be placed above him.

Speaking from the Sith perspective, that is. A perspective that was increasingly becoming difficult to differentiate from my own private beliefs.

The difference between the plot of the game and my current circumstances was this: I actually knew the Sith Code. Tremel had given me the texts. Granted, I hadn't spent the first several months poring over them like the usual acolyte, at least not in this life. But I was a Star Wars nerd and had spent plenty of time thinking about the Sith and the Jedi.

I felt I could hold my own in a conversation about the code. Which meant that I would just have to wait and see how Baras decided to criticize me, eventually ordering me to kill Tremel. Because, in the end, it wasn't about doctrine or betrayal, it was just that Baras didn't like Tremel and wanted to destroy him. The best way to do that was to take his most promising plans and use them against him. So it was always going to end with me fighting Overseer Tremel.

The only question was: how?

After I ate my breakfast, this time choosing to try a couple stuffed pastries and a glass of fruit juice which, to my utter disappointment, were rather bland and difficult to eat, I wandered up to Baras' office on the second floor. My tastes were far from what they had been as a human, it seemed...sweets didn't appear to entice me at all.

It was empty when I arrived, which was different. If I remembered right, there were acolytes here receiving their next trial from him when the player arrives. But it made sense that there wouldn't conveniently be a mission debriefing happening at the random time that I happened to show up to have this awkward discussion.

"Come in," the masked man invited me, his basso voice echoing grandly in the chamber. I entered and gave a shallow, awkward bow. I wasn't used to bowing, and I just knew that it showed.

"My lord," I greeted him. That was the proper form of address, I think.

"So this is Tremel's secret?" Baras mused, leaning back in his high-backed chair. His outfit, in all the definition of real life, was actually pretty cool. Hard silver and flowing black cloth, with the intricate designs on his mask...it gave him a mystical appearance. He was like some kind of fat, dark wizard. "I have to admit, when I felt the tremors last night, I was expecting something...more."

Was I supposed to say something to that?

"Well, come and introduce yourself, woman," Baras gestured at me. I straightened and took a few steps closer to his desk.

"I am Xanot," I said carefully, pronouncing my name as I had heard from Tremel, with a ‘z’ sound for the ‘x’.

"Yes, yes," Baras seemed dismissive. "That's your name. But what are you? You can't be an acolyte of this academy. You see, I know all of the acolytes. They arrive on a regular schedule, and they depart only when permitted to. You, on the other hand, appeared out of nowhere, and none of the overseers could answer me when I asked about you. I don't suppose you can tell me how that happened?"

"Overseer Tremel arranged for my arrival, my lord," I answered at once. I honestly didn't feel that I owed Tremel anything, especially not anything valuable enough to look like a total idiot trying to conceal the obvious from Darth Baras.

"And which languishing waste did he take you from?" Baras asked blithely.

I swallowed. I actually wasn't sure. Fuck! Um...what was a convincing home planet for the Sith Species? I wracked my brain...and came up short. Staring at the Dark Lord in horror, I could only imagine the thoughts that were going through Baras' mind.

"Well? Spit it out, Xanot," the man said, his voice growing firm.

"Forgive me, my lord," I bowed again, more awkwardly this time due to my rising panic. "I was brought here from Balmorra."

I desperately hoped that was actually true.

"Interesting," Baras finally leaned forward and stood up. "Let me tell you something, Xanot. The way of the Sith is exacting and difficult, as is the way of all life. In order to rise above the rabble, you must have ambition and force of will. These things are not instilled in anyone without due time and suffering. Can you say that you have you paid that price?"

I swallowed. "Lord Baras, I..."

"It's Darth Baras, Xanot," he cut me off. "The customs and traditions of the Sith are one thing that you clearly have failed to learn. But I should be lenient, shouldn't I? You've only been here for three days. Preparatory schools aren't really expected to do much more than make you savage, after all."

"I..."

"Do not speak, Xanot, until I ask you a question."

I closed my mouth and straightened. Fuck me, this guy was terrifying.

"Now, Tremel brought you here early. He gifted you a war blade, shipped prisoners here to Korriban for your convenience, and tasked you to hunt a beast in the tombs of the Valley of the Dark Lords, instead of sending you to a foreign world. These are the trials of an acolyte, but they are mockeries. Who can truly grasp the wisdom of the Sith in a single day, so that they can judge rightly? And who can truly understand the power of the Dark Side in only a single night, so that they can survive the trial of fortitude? Don't answer me, Xanot...I wasn't asking you directly."

I shook my head and watched the large man descend the steps at a leisurely pace.

"Tremel chose well, evidently. You did not embarrass yourself with the prisoners, and you destroyed the Beast of Marka Ragnos. Clearly you are not lacking in raw talent. That creature had only recently been discovered, or else someone more worthy than yourself would have hunted it down and destroyed it. Well, I suppose I should congratulate you for your successes.

"But what I cannot congratulate is your clearly evident lack of will. Do you know why the acolytes compete with each other for the attention of the masters here?"

"No," I answered simply.

"It is because only those that have a passion for power should be granted it," Darth Baras intoned, spreading his hands. "The truest test of desire is to pit it against others. Who desires it more? Well, that is the whole purpose of your peers. To challenge you, to make you desire it more than they, to force you to become better than them, if you want to achieve anything. And if you fail too miserably, you are passed over. Left to die or to be chosen by someone lesser. The way of all life is competition and struggle.

"But because of Tremel, you have been doted upon hand and foot. Who has challenged you? Dolgis? One pathetic conversation in the cantina, and a spat in the halls, is not a rivalry! Tremel has wronged you greatly. Weakened you. His training, for one with such potential, is an affront to the Sith. Do you understand what I am saying?"

"I do," I replied, nodding.

"Well, then tell me," Baras finally stopped pacing, turning towards me completely. "What will be my judgment in this case?"

Oh, well...I was cheating, but okay. "You will command me to kill Tremel. Either I fail, and he is forced to destroy the object of his schemes, or I succeed, and it demonstrates my resolve."

"Shrewd," Baras approved. "Yes, very cunning. Indeed, you have seen right through me, Xanot. You must have learned something under that waste of breath. Tell me, what is the Sith code?"

"Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me."

"Hm," Baras nodded. I swallowed, praying that the conversation would end. No such luck. "What do you think of the code, woman? Do you find it wise?"

"I think...there is wisdom in it," I nodded.

Baras scoffed forcibly. "You have no love for the Code. Even a blind man could see it. You are holding yourself back from it, refusing to accept it. Why is this? What do you fear? Or do you have another creed? By all means, if you were taught something wiser, something better, share it with me now."

What the hell was I supposed to say? That I had a deeply ingrained respect for sapient life, and I felt that the Sith were needlessly cruel, needlessly selfish? That wasn't the answer he was looking for, it was only a criticism, and it made me a hypocrite, considering the lives I had taken so far in this universe. I cleared my throat, shuffled my feet...what did I believe in, that was keeping me from accepting the Sith way? Was it just fear?

No. It was... "My lord, I find that in spite of what I have seen, I still believe in justice. The Sith Code does not describe what is right, it only describes the way of things. To accept it apart from some other law is to accept that the will of the strongest Sith is just, purely because of his strength. I cannot do that."

"Fascinating," Baras mused. "You know, I've never once heard anyone other than Jedi spout such nonsense? Luckily, in your case, I can sense the Dark in you, so I am confident that you are no Jedi. That means you believe that drivel out of pure pride. The only reason that you would say this is because you disagree with the Emperor or the Dark Council. You think that your way is Just and their way is not. Well, I wasn't aware I was standing in the presence of one so great as that!"

I pursed my lips. "Isn't it the ambition of all Sith to one day take their rightful place among the greatest of the Empire?"

"It may be their ambition, but if they are truly Sith then they recognize strength when they see it, and they submit. After all, it is only their 'rightful' place if they are strong enough to keep it. And I am a loyal subject of the Emperor," Baras retorted easily. "There is only one Emperor. His will is the only Justice in this galaxy. What else can there be? Is it your will that we should all obey? Or perhaps, the will of the Force? Show me this justice that you speak of and tell me why I should obey it."

"I cannot."

Baras laughed cruelly. "Of course not. That's because it doesn't exist. The reason for the preparatory academies and the deliberate pacing of the trials here, Xanot, is to break you of these ridiculous notions. Nobody can say what parents will teach their children before they come to us, and we get this sort of nonsense all the time. Don't be too embarrassed...as we've already mentioned you've only been here for three days. But, allow me to save us all some time. There is no fairness in life. There is no justice, no equality. There is only power. It is a corollary of the Sith Code, you know. Or you would have known, if you were truly educated. What a waste your studies so far must have been. It's a miracle you even know how to read."

I merely bowed my head and gritted my teeth.

"Never fear, Xanot. I will give you a second chance. Go and bring me Tremel's lightsaber...and also his sword hand, just for good measure. If you do that, you will become a true acolyte of this academy, under my tutelage," Darth Baras declared. "If you run, you will die. If you lose to Tremel, he will kill you. Does this sound just? Is this fair?"

Wow, Baras was also kind of a dick. I shook my head silently, before I could stop myself, but he only laughed.

"Well, I think it is. And what I think is all that matters, for your little world. Go on now, Xanot. Let me see what you're made of," Baras turned away from me in dismissal.

Well, I couldn't say that I hadn't predicted it, but I certainly hadn't expected the conversation to be so...insightful. It was actually true that justice was the only reason I held myself back from the Sith code, and it was absolutely true that I had no logical reason for this conviction. To Baras, it would obviously appear as nothing but pride or foolishness.

It was a 21st century value, uprooted from everything that made it reasonable. I had no real sympathy for strangers, either because I was Sith or because I had never truly cared for them. I didn't believe in God, or any higher power that could reveal to us what justice was. Especially now, in the Star Wars Universe...what was it? The Force? the Force never once in its entire history revealed wisdom to anyone, never gave a list of laws, never taught anyone the meaning of justice.

My beliefs were a relic of a time that had never existed in this world. And, walking back towards Tremel's office, I realized that I wasn't going to be allowed to hold onto it. At least not in its current form. As Baras said, the only justice that mattered here was power. Maybe, if I could argue about this matter with a Jedi, they could convince me of their way...but I suspected that the Jedi didn't have a concept of justice either. To them, life was simply servitude to the Force and obedience to their own ancient traditions, which in the end were rooted in nothing more than supposition.

I was so lost in thought that I didn't announce myself when I arrived at Tremel's office, and I found him watching me warily.

"I didn't expect you back so soon," he said. I saw, in his eyes, that he already knew what I was about to tell him.

"Darth Baras has ordered me to kill you," I replied.

"Ah," Overseer Tremel sighed, shaking his head. "A master stroke. I hadn't expected anything quite so overt. But it is perfect. I either destroy you and all my efforts thus far or perish. Well...I will do you the honor of making it painless. I owe you that much, for my failings."

"You are confident that you will live?" I asked, honestly curious. I had no idea how powerful Tremel was, but to be Sith and to be an overseer at this academy, he must not be a total slouch. Obviously, in the game, he had died pathetically, but so had the Beast of Marka Ragnos, and that had been a fearsome thing indeed.

"Please. You are powerful, yes, but you are not Sith yet. And your weapon is utterly useless against a lightsaber," Tremel scoffed, palming the aforementioned lightsaber. "Just hold still, or I can't guarantee it will be painless."

I drew my war sword and held it at the ready. "I won't just roll over and die without a fight."

"I should have expected nothing less from you," Tremel replied with...pride? Seriously? We'd known each other for less than a week, and he felt strongly enough about my progress that there was pride on his face?

The overseer moved quickly, more quickly than anyone else I had met in this universe, but I was still able to keep up. His first blow was a wide sweep aimed at my belly, which I stepped away from. So much for painless, by the way! Pretty sure death by bisection was agonizing.

His second strike was a diagonal blow aiming to cut from shoulder to hip, which I sidestepped. I feinted with my blade, and he angled his lightsaber deftly, a perfect block, but I didn't let the vibrosword come into contact with the contained plasma. Then, since he was already in the proper stance and at the proper distance, Tremel lunged masterfully, and I raised my guard above the strike just so.

Perfect.

The lightsaber pierced me below my left lung in the blink of an eye. I felt nothing as I dropped my offhand onto his sword hand and crushed it in a powerful grip, holding his weapon utterly still. I saw the realization in his eyes a moment later, felt him try to raise his lightsaber to block, but my grip was firm, and he could do nothing as my sword pressed up against his neck. We were too close together for me to strike, so I could only push the edge against him. His unoccupied fist struck my arm, trying to direct the edge upward away from his vulnerable throat, but it was already too close. His strike only drove the sword into his jawbone and angled the blade upward. That was fine.

The vibrations of the blade were at such a frequency that it cut through his skull like it was tissue paper. I carved him from just under his ear all the way to the top of his head, and his face came off with a disgusting spray of blood and other fluid, followed by a sucking pop as various parts of his anatomy splattered onto the office floor and onto my robes. His body went slack, and his faceless body fell against me, jostling the lightsaber that was still buried in my gut.

Then the pain hit me, white hot and brutal. I screamed, a sound that was as unholy as it was deafening, shaking the walls of the academy as I bent over the weapon that was impaled in my abdomen. I scrabbled blindly, unable to see, unable to think, and somehow managed to switch the weapon off. It clattered onto the spreading pool of blood at my feet, and I fell to a knee, breathing through clenched teeth.

Holy shit that hurt...fuck! I blinked my eyes and swayed with sudden dizziness, but managed to stay conscious. Right...cut off the sword hand.

After separating the man from the front half of his head, dismembering his corpse didn't seem bothersome at all. I easily cut his hand off at the wrist and stowed my sword, caring nothing for the blood that remained on its edge. Then I staggered towards the office door...every step felt like a mile.

But I was sure that I would not be given treatment if I failed. I had to succeed...had to reach Baras...there was no choice...

It was like a dream. I remember walking, ignoring shouts of alarm, leaning against the walls, trying to breath and feeling awareness slipping away. But still I walked, one foot in front of the other, up to the second story. Into Baras' office. I tried to speak, I remember that much...then I fell forward and the world was no more.

Chapter Text

I was floating, and it was cold. There was something in my throat, something somewhat pliable but mostly hard and uncomfortable. It tickled my throat, and I had the overwhelming urge to cough when I realized it was in my trachea too. I tried to open my eyes but saw nothing.

The mask covered my whole face, I realized. I gagged and coughed at the same time, painfully, my hands jerking up to grab at the thick bundle of tubes that led into the device on my head. The moment I grasped it, intending to yank it from my face, I felt the fluid rushing around my naked flesh, thick, syrupy, slimy. My feet touched solid ground, and I felt air kiss my sticky skin moments before I completed my objective with another hacking cough, yanking the tubes out of my throat and tearing the straps that held the mask to my head with one powerful tug of my arm.

A mixture of blue-clear fluid poured from my mouth as I coughed weakly, blinding light striking my retina for a bare moment before I squeezed my eyes shut and swayed where I stood. I was okay. Alive. Breathe...in and out...

I opened my eyes again, and saw I was standing inside a kolto tank. There were droids outside, round and floating, with a large number of alarming medical tools dangling from their bottoms. Little red lights were peering at me from their chassis.

The kolto tank's glass slid down into the floor.

"The patient is awake," one of the droids remarked. "Remove yourself from the kolto tank."

I stepped forward shakily, a sudden chill making me tremble. My fists clenched as I barely managed to stay on my feet, overbalancing when I came to a sudden halt. I swayed dangerously backwards in overcompensation, feeling dizzy.

"Weakness is due to lingering effects from kolto treatment," the droid informed me. "It has been thirty-seven hours since your arrival in the infirmary, Acolyte Xanot. Your chances of survival were determined to be statistically insignificant, but Darth Baras indicated that treatment should proceed. This unit is glad that it was not a waste of Academy resources."

I stared, baffled, at the floating torture sphere. One of its scalpels twitched. "Thanks?"

"Please proceed to the shower directly to your right," the droid continued without acknowledging my word. "The chemicals still on your skin will delay your return to optimal function."

By 'shower' the droid obviously was referring to a single spigot that was placed a few inches higher than my head, without a curtain or any other means of assuring privacy. I had the distinct impression that this was more often used for cleaning surgical tables than washing patients, but I obeyed the directive and stood in front of it. A moment later icy cold water sprayed against me with surprising force, and I hissed, swaying and taking a half step back.

"Please do not exit the water until you have cleaned yourself of the chemicals," the droid behind me chirped.

Shuddering, I ran my hands over myself, gathering thick handfuls of the gooey stuff and letting the water wash it into the drain at my feet. It was surprisingly easy to get it off my skin under running water but getting it out of my hair was a separate matter. I spent at least three minutes wringing my hair, yanking my fingers through it, fighting with knots and stubbornly clinging stickiness. This was not helped by the fact that I hadn’t actually brushed it or otherwise attempted to groom my hair in all of the time that I had lived in this body.

Finally, the droid seemed happy enough about my hygiene and the water cut off.

"Well, if it isn't my newest acolyte," a sudden and unwelcome voice rung from behind me. Under the sounds of the shower, I had missed the door open and close. Suddenly painfully aware of my nudity, I looked over my shoulder and saw Darth Baras standing by the droids, without his mask.

His face was...pale. Deathly. I had expected to see fat, since he had a large frame, but there was no sign of obesity. Just largeness. Wide jaw, wider cheekbones. Large eye sockets. Minimal hair. White, dreadfully pale skin. Blackened veins. Eyes that peered at me with a baleful orange color.

"Darth Baras," I acknowledged softly, a bit embarrassed about my condition.

"Turn to face me," the Sith demanded. I didn't see lust in his eyes, but the command was startling, nonetheless. I obeyed, however, with my arms at my sides, still clenched into fists from the cold. Darth Baras didn't ogle me, his eyes only focused on the site of the lightsaber wound, sweeping over my pebbled nipples and shriveled penis with dispassion. That water had been freezing, didn't I mention that? "Remarkable. I expected the scar to be more prominent."

"How bad was it?" I wondered, looking down at myself. Where the lightsaber had pierced me, there was a pink circle about the size of an American quarter. It had tiny starburst lines extending from it in several places.

"Your back is much worse," Darth Baras mused. "The lightsaber was tugged from your wound at an angle, creating a longer cut. Piercing your liver and kidney, bisecting several lengths of your intestines, and puncturing the lower portion of your lung. It also cut through the back of your lowest rib and severed the diaphragm."

I looked at the Sith again, my mouth open in shock.

"And no cybernetic replacements were required...no cloned organs. You regenerated using the Dark Side, after a minor surgery to sew your guts back together," Darth Baras remarked, turning his face away after a moment. "Your body is even more of a marvel than your medical history would have had me believe. Your robes are just there, Acolyte."

I looked where he gestured and saw them. Gratefully, I clothed myself and then waited for him to speak. My armor was nowhere to be found.

"Walk with me," Darth Baras demanded, turning to the side. I followed, to his left and a pace behind him. He did not encourage me to walk at his side, and I felt more comfortable when I could see his entire frame. "You wore armor under your robes. Why? I don't think you were foolish enough to think that the troopers' armor can withstand a lightsaber."

"No," I agreed. "I wore it because I am more comfortable in heavy armor."

"Hm, is that so?" Darth Baras wondered. "Your training on Balmorra did not include instruction on the use and care of armor. Well, do as you please. Removing the melted durasteel from your abdomen would have killed a lesser specimen. That you survived it despite your own foolishness speaks to your fortitude, if not for your cunning. What was your plan in that confrontation?"

I blinked. "I knew that I couldn't block the lightsaber with the war sword, so I drew him into a thrust and held his wrist in place while I killed him."

"Suicidal," Darth Baras drawled immediately. "Sheer idiocy. If Tremel had aimed his blow slightly to the right, he would have severed your spine. If he had gone for one of your hearts, then you would have died in less than fifteen seconds. Or, if he had simply used the Force against you then you would have died like the untrained whelp you really are. Instead, he let his sentiment draw him into a contest of blades. Granted, he was your superior in swordsmanship and had the superior weapon, so he must have felt the risk was negligible. The fact that he didn't sense the trap indicates that you are naturally strong in the Force, but Tremel should have known that. As Sith you should always strive for the most effective action. The only acceptable way is that which best suits your purposes. Tremel had nothing to gain from challenging you with his lightsaber, and everything to lose. He was a sentimental fool."

I winced. I hadn't even considered that Tremel could just...choke me, crush my neck, blast me with lightning, burst my organs, or any of a hundred other terrible things. 'The Force is a weapon, let me show you how to wield it!' whispered the unforgettable line of the Sith trainer from the MMO.

"A true warrior must be skilled with his blade, but also with the Force, particularly where it concerns defense," Baras continued. "The fight is over before it can even begin if your opponent can stop your heart at a glance. Tremel had grown old, complacent, and foolish. Your victory over him is a victory for the Sith as a whole, but by no means was it an indication that you are ready to become Sith."

"Does it demonstrate my desire, at least?" I asked pointedly.

Darth Baras chuckled darkly. "Crawling through the academy with your dying breaths to drop a piece of the dismembered body of your foe at my feet...yes. I am pleased with your resolve. At the very least, you desire to live. Although your chosen strategy would seem paradoxical, in light of this. Unless you had some guarantee that you would survive such a wound, Acolyte?"

"I...had suspicions," I hedged.

"I thought as much, considering you've had serious injuries in the past," Darth Baras hummed. I didn't correct the assumption he was making. "Knowing your strengths, what you can endure and what you cannot stand, is paramount for anyone, but especially for a Sith. Perhaps you discovered your talent for regeneration in the past and wisely kept it secret. Tremel overestimated himself, underestimated you. He thought of you as a child instead of a threat. You, on the other hand, underestimated Tremel. You thought him a swordsman but not a true Sith. I suppose you pair of fools deserved each other. How do you feel, knowing that you killed someone who regarded you so highly?"

I blinked. "It was him or me," I replied at once.

"No passion," Baras criticized with a shake of his head. We came to his office and entered, silence settling between us as he sat himself in his chair. "Every living thing has its passions. Finding yours must be your first priority, if you hope to survive. You are months behind your peers, after all, and we are coming to the end of the Academy's lessons. Soon one of you will be chosen as my apprentice. I don't think I have to explain to you that you are at a significant disadvantage."

"What happens to those that survive, if you do not choose them?"

"There are other masters," Baras answered with a shrug. "And, if none choose to take you on, then you would join special forces and serve the Empire as a champion. Like Devotek, whom you killed. However, surviving the trials and failing to become Sith is...rare. Particularly now that the Dark Council has instructed us to bolster the number of Sith in the Empire. Some have taken that to mean that more of the acolytes are supposed to survive the training...I think that such a weak approach only produces weak Sith."

I nodded, deep in thought. I had no real desire to become Darth Baras' apprentice, to carry out his blood feud with that Jedi, serving as his enforcer afterward, only to be ultimately betrayed. As far as Sith masters went, Baras was pretty much the worst. At least in the game. He had taught nothing, asked for everything, and in the end betrayed his student.

But, on the other hand, I had no idea what to expect from anyone else. From what I knew of the Empire, every Sith was just as corrupt, just as insane. They were so deep in the power of the Dark Side that they disregarded their own Code more often than not, and nurtured sedition and treason against the Empire. The current generation of Sith Lords were petty, squabbling, deceitful, and wastefully cruel.

Darth Marr, Darth Malgus...those men were exceptions, not the rule. And Malgus ultimately had nearly doomed the Empire, despite his intentions.

"What is my next task?" I asked, finally. Darth Baras had contented himself to watch me as I stood in silence, thinking. I couldn't tell if he knew my thoughts, or much of anything. His face was as unreadable as his mask.

"You are a special case," Baras declared. "Your understanding of the Sith Code and our traditions is, of course, severely lacking. Your tactical abilities are at least mediocre, if you managed to defeat the beast in the tomb of Marka Ragnos. Your physical conditioning is your only outstanding attribute. With these things in mind, it would be natural for me to assign you a lengthy period of study, to grant you the chance to gain the knowledge you lack. However, the greatest failing of yours, beyond even your ignorance, is your utter lack of ambition and detachment from the Sith way. You will never become Sith unless you desire it, and studying datapads will do nothing for this.

"At the same time, I have many other acolytes that are bitter about the fact that you have joined their number so late. As such, I have organized a competition. Pardon me for not informing you earlier, you were rather unable to listen to my instructions at the time," Darth Baras chuckled again at his own joke. I blinked at him.

"What is this competition?"

"I have placed certain stone tablets in various tombs on the surface. The first three acolytes to collect one of the tablets and return them to me will survive. The others will be killed," Darth Baras informed me with wicked delight. "Oh, and I've lifted the restriction on murder for the duration of this contest. I hadn't thought that you would be awakening for another day, but since you've recovered so quickly only one of the three tablets has so far been recovered. Vemrin was as impressive as usual."

"What is it about Vemrin that pleases you, Darth Baras?" I asked, honestly curious. The man seemed like an entitled, contemptuous worm to me.

Darth Baras looked at me curiously, before he shook his head. "Vemrin is a weapon. His body had been forged for a singular, violent purpose, and he knows that he owes everything to me. What is there not to admire about that?"

"He disregards the Sith way and thinks of himself as greater than he is," I replied calmly.

"Is that so? What do you find objectionable about that, considering your own poor opinion of the Empire?" Darth Baras asked, bemused. "Well, if you think he is unworthy then you'll just have to humiliate him. Surpass him in every metric. Crush his dreams of becoming Sith under your heel. Revel in his futile hatred of you, and then cut his throat and watch the life leave his eyes."

I cleared my throat awkwardly. "That's a bit extreme," I hedged. "Surely someone like Vemrin has its uses...but not as Sith."

"Extreme?" Baras laughed in a cruel, low fashion. "Acolyte, you are going to find yourself quite miserable as a Sith if you can't take pleasure in the little things. But, no matter. Everyone has their own diversions. Besides that, I don't foresee any one of you taking Vemrin's place as my apprentice, not even a prodigy like yourself. He is...everything I require. This conversation is pointless."

Ah. Well, it actually made sense for Baras to select an Acolyte that was not destined to become truly Sith. His plans required one who was little more than a glorified assassin, someone that could destroy his enemies and who would forever remain weaker than him, loyal to him. A slave, in effect. In the game, of course, Baras had received one who was destined for legendary, almost mythical status, and that had led to the inevitable betrayal.

My main goal at the moment was honestly just to survive. Considering the kinds of enemies that I would go up against serving Darth Baras, it might not actually be very beneficial to defeat Vemrin and take his place. But what could I expect from life as Imperial Special Forces, or as the apprentice to another master? Darth Baras, at least, gave his apprentice a lot of freedom. I might even be able to position myself better for the ultimate betrayal, since I knew the ultimate end of things.

"If I am already behind in this competition, Darth Baras, then I should probably go get started."

"You should," the Darth agreed. "I will be watching your progress with interest, Acolyte. It would be...disappointing if you threw your potential away because you were holding on to pointless sentiments and baseless ethics. Perhaps another master in this Academy is feeling charitable and would be willing to accept a second-rate graduate."

I bowed stiffly and didn't respond to his jab. I knew he was just trying to make me angry enough to actually aim for the top position, and it irritated me even more that it was kind of working. I didn't want a ridiculous idiot like Vemrin appearing superior to myself, even though I wasn't particularly eager to become Sith. Baras was actually only half-right: it would be far more difficult to succeed if I didn't truly desire success, but I had many advantages. I wasn't sure if other people in this universe had levels or skills, but I hadn't heard anyone mention them, so it seemed reasonable to me that people either didn't have such things or didn't know about them.

In either case, the VR display I had access to in this life gave me an incredible edge. And the rate at which my attributes had increased seemed to indicate a prodigious level of growth. I was much, much stronger than I had been only three days ago. Perhaps not any wiser, but certainly stronger. I wasn't afraid of the other acolytes. I was sure that there were a thousand ways to kill me - poison, murder in my sleep, locking me behind a collapsing tunnel in a tomb, burying me in a landslide, etc - but I was equally sure that none of the acolytes would try those methods.

One thing I had noticed so far: Sith weren't very imaginative. They were cruel, they were callous, and certainly violent. But the Sith tended to make decisions that were predictable. The acolytes would either try to reach the tablets or lay in wait for someone who was successful to return to the Academy, where they would try to steal the tablet for themselves. Because so many of them were unhappy with me, they might try to gang up on me when I was out in the wilds of Korriban, but I figured they would probably cross their fingers and hope that I died in a tomb. And if I came back, then they would ambush me.

They might be Sith but they weren't completely stupid. Anyone that could take Tremel could probably take a few Acolytes. I was confident that they would wait until they had no other choice before challenging me. And if a few of them were brave enough to actually try for the tablets themselves, then I would probably find their corpses in the tombs, or I would run into them in my own search.

My first task was to replenish the supplies that I had used in my earlier venture, and then I had to somehow repair my armor. Someone had helpfully thrown the armor in a bundle on the floor of my assigned dorm, which was fine since all the pieces were there. The general disdain towards armor was understandable, since lightsabers rendered it almost completely useless. But it would still protect from shrapnel, blaster shots, vibroswords, bludgeoning, and an endless variety of other threats. Not to mention it gave me the handy ability to survive what most creatures would not.

The requisitions officer did not look amused when I plopped the ruined armor onto his desk. "Really?" his face seemed to say. And his mouth followed suit. "I expected something stupid when you bought this, but trying to survive a lightsaber thrust was just...wow. That's got to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard of anyone trying to do while wearing this armor."

"Thanks," I chirped, raising one of the ridges above my eye at the man as he inspected the melted ring in the armor's front. "Can you fix it?"

"Yeah, give me a half an hour," the man grumbled. "It'll be sixty credits."

I nodded amicably. That gave me time to eat something, before heading out. Today's attempt to find something that I liked to eat ended up on something that the cantina droid insisted was a delicacy among Sith: blood pie.

The spoon that they gave me was flimsy and small. I dredged up a mouthful of black, oozing liquid, encased in a steaming pastry, and glared at it. My mind was screaming, 'Noooo, it's so gross!' but my mouth was watering. I sniffed at it hesitantly, then extended my tongue and tasted the barest drop of the stuff.

Savory. A little spicy. It tasted like chicken curry, actually. I sighed through my nostrils and plopped the spoon in my mouth.

Fuck me, it was delicious.

I didn't ask what kind of blood was in the pudding, and nobody informed me. It was probably better that way, because it was the nectar of the gods at the moment and I would have probably instantly thrown up if I had been told it was human blood. Or even maybe Sith blood. I knew that there were some dishes back on Earth that had animal blood as a primary ingredient, but I hadn't ever tried those and hadn't ever wanted to try them. Cannibalism on top of that would be too much.

I really hoped that there were other cuisine options that I turned out to like besides blood pie. But, since I had finally found something that my taste buds seemed to enjoy I could just pick menu items that were similar to that and Bob's your uncle! Rare steak, for example, would probably be nice.

I retrieved my armor and paid for it, coming to the end of the funds I had earned on my first day here. I'd have to keep an eye open for opportunities to make a few credits. I had the good sense to ask one of the Sith milling around outside the Academy's entrance about that, and a few of them pointed out that I could bring back interesting items from the tombs that I visited, and the Officer of Imperial Culture and Arts would purchase them for ongoing research into Korriban's history.

I had no idea that the Empire had a Bureau of Culture and Arts, but okay.

My datapad had received a briefing about the contest twenty hours ago, while I was still floating in the tank. It included the tombs that had been chosen for the tablet fragments, which was helpful. There was also a medical report from the droid.

"Patient Xanot, under the circumstances of your arrival here on Korriban, it is understandable for there to be some minor difficulty in adjusting your organic systems to this new environment. Therefore, you are not formally being reprimanded for failing to take proper care of your health. However, there is an information packet attached to this message that contains basic standards of nutrition and hygiene for your species. It is highly recommended that you peruse the material at the nearest convenience. If you fail to present yourself in an acceptable manner, or falter in your tasks because of mismanagement of your own biological functions, then you will be retired. Good day."

Was this a passive-aggressive way of chiding me for getting stabbed? I paged to the information packet that had been included and choked on my breath.

'Sith Physiology and You, How to Care for Your Sith Slave'

What the hell was this? Actually...this might be really useful! I wasn't entirely sure what kinds of things I was supposed to eat, or how long I was supposed to sleep, or anything along those lines where it concerned Sith. You know, the kind of everyday information that any living Sith would come to learn just by existing. But...I didn't have time to sit down and read a book!

Whatever...I could read it while I walked.

Chapter Text

So, apparently the reason the droid had sent me the message and the book about Sith physiology was because I had been effectively starving myself for three days, despite the fact that I had thought I was eating as well as could reasonably be expected. That was embarrassing on its own, but the other things I learned from just the first chapter of the book 'Sith Physiology and You, How to Care for Your Sith Slave' were equally important. Sith had naturally high body temperature compared to other species and were warm-blooded. They had two hearts, and one of them was nearer to the solar plexus, responsible mostly for circulation to the legs and gut. Sith had to sleep for four hours in a twenty-hour day, but actually performed best if they followed Korriban's natural cycle, which was thirty-six hours long, with seven of those being night.

Sith could see in the dark and had an acute sense of smell. Their sense of taste, on the other hand was limited in comparison to humans, because they had far fewer taste buds on the tongue, and the membranes of the tongue were thicker. Furthermore, the Sith did not get sunburnt by stars that were predominantly yellow or red, but blue stars could inflict an uncomfortable rash.

Unfortunately, Sith had to eat a lot. Way more than I had been eating. Acceptable foods listed in the book were: meat, blood, or milk, each from common domesticated cattle and also certain species of insects. Sith, generally, were carnivorous, but could also eat a few starches like beans or potatoes, however these were not very nutritious. They absolutely could not digest cellulose or several other common plant fibers, not unless they were eating the contents of a stomach from recently slaughtered prey animals. The necessary enzymes would be in the gut of their prey, in that case.

Fruit juices, extracts, or simple sugars were fine. The book warned against attempting to feed a Sith using only cheap, processed grain products, and recommended supplementing the slave's diet with various organs such as the liver or heart.

I won't get into any more details about vitamins and other nutritional factoids. The book was very detailed, explaining how a varied diet was beneficial for certain slaves depending on their purpose, even going as far as to include a diet especially for pregnant Sith women. It wasn't hard to imagine why, since slaves were generally not Force sensitive and therefore a Sith slave would almost certainly be female.

Apart from diet, I also learned that Sith were apparently well-suited for violence or other jobs that other species balked at. The Sith species, according to the text, were generally not disturbed by death or by gore. They were also considered to be excellent sex slaves, because the Sith species apparently did not experience severe psychological trauma from rape, and they were as sensual a species as humans, with considerable stamina and longevity to boot.

That was where I stopped reading.

It was a little surreal to be reading about my own race from an outsider's perspective, and several times during my journey out into the wilds I had to stop and sit on a rock, rubbing my temples. I was still thinking of myself mostly as a human in the body of a Sith, and that meant I was somewhat appalled by the description. A carnivorous species that wasn't bothered by violence, death, gore, or even by being raped? A species that apparently didn't have a 'fight or flight' response but instead rocked with just the 'fight' response? They were the typical sci-fi, evil-orc type. However...while I was obviously uncomfortable with the description from a mental standpoint, I didn't feel disgusted on a visceral level.

My body, after all, was Sith, and wasn't easily perturbed. Even mental discomfort was more akin to cognitive dissonance than real displeasure, since I was obviously working with Sith neurotransmitters and neurology on top of Sith hormones and autonomic systems.

I was glad, at the very least, that I didn't discover some ridiculous quirk like 'sexual tension can kill you.' I was in the clear as far as that stuff was concerned, and the text had even mentioned in an offhand fashion that Sith were a somewhat solitary species. No eroge cliches were in play for my isekai adventure thus far.

But, drawing near to the entrance of one of the tunnels, I had to stow my datapad and be prepared for anything. Shyracks and tuk'ata were the main threats on the wildlife front, and Korriban had also had plenty of humanoid opponents in the MMO, although I couldn't imagine that there were anywhere near as many in reality. The tomb of Marka Ragnos had been absolutely brimming with outcast acolytes in the game, and yet I had only found two of them there myself.

Still, a handful of ambushers would be more than enough to bring a swift end to my life, if I was caught unaware.

I thought about what Darth Baras had said about my fight with Tremel, and it made me feel like an idiot all over again. I had thought the same thing multiple times while watching the Star Wars movies or playing the games: why did the Jedi and the Sith rely so heavily upon their lightsaber? Obviously, the Jedi didn't believe in using the Force for offensive purposes, apart from pushing people around or tricking their perception or throwing things. Or at least, they claimed not to use the Force offensively. Hypocrites.

Whatever.

But the Sith didn't have any compunctions about offense. Sith lightning, force choke, force crush, force drain...inflicting mental horror, paralysis, or breaking the will of their opponents. No book, movie, comic, or game had ever described just how defending against these threats worked. Sure, a Jedi could block Force lightning, but what defense did they have against choking? And what about the mental battleground? For one thing, reading someone's mind during combat would tell me exactly what they were planning on doing, just as long as I didn't get too focused on their thoughts and lose track of the pace of combat.

It was a whole new world above and beyond what I had even begun to consider. I didn't consider myself competent as a swordsman, let alone a sorcerer. The Sith Warrior class in the MMO had obviously focused on melee combat, but he hadn't been entirely without Force powers. Area slams with multi-target shock, Force choke, Force scream, Force push, a multi-target slow debuff, Force leap, Force barrier...all these were supernatural skills. An arsenal designed around full-frontal assault, shock tactics, and devastation. Utilized against defenseless opponents, such skills would permit me to plow through an army without much risk.

I hadn't been directed to any trainer in the Academy who had revealed the secrets of these skills, and the other abilities that I had gained since awakening had been unlocked by using them for the first time...which meant that I would have to experiment. Maybe I wasn't even locked into the abilities that had been used by the Sith Warrior in the game.

There were actually some abilities I could probably unlock without fighting real opponents. I was in an empty tunnel, surrounded by dust, fallen pillars, and the dim light of excavation lamps. It was one of the tombs closest to the Academy and wasn't overrun by dangerous things. I focused on the odd feeling of the Force within me and threw out a hand, visualizing a push with one of the nearby slabs of rock as a target. To my relief, a visible blade of air cracked from my palm and crashed into the rock with a thunderous boom.

[Skill Unlocked: Force Push]

Turning my extended palm into a fist, I imagined a shield preventing the falling bits of rock from striking me, and it materialized as a hazy sphere around my body.

[Skill Unlocked: Force Barrier]

I already knew Force Speed...but I hadn't tried any of the mental arts so far. Not even to sense what people's emotional state had been, in the Academy, which honestly might have helped me navigate the minefield that was conversation with Darth Baras. Oh well, I had survived well enough.

I continued my hike, emerging in the valley proper and looking up at the afternoon sky with a breathless gasp. The game really hadn't done this place justice...it was magnificent. Statues easily a hundred feet tall were carved into the canyon walls, and ornate archways marked the openings to each tomb. The massive doors had long since been cut open and removed from their places, but the empty portals yawned out of the shadows of the ravine like ravenous mouths.

It was painfully lonely, standing in this graveyard, under the shadow of such mighty men. Figures who had striven their whole lives to make a lasting mark, who had built this Empire, passed down their wisdom and their failures. These were the ones that had uplifted the Sith species from their tribes, who had codified the first words of the Sith Code in defiance of their Jedi brothers.

The men who had turned on each other like honor-less cowards, bringing down their own fortresses around their ears. It was the beginning of an endless cycle, a pattern of butchery and betrayal. I swallowed, mouth dry, and marveled at the fact that the Empire had come as far as it had with such difficulties holding it back from greatness. A civil war every other generation, led by the mightiest among their number...the Sith had killed each other more effectively than any Jedi or Republic.

'Loyalty is not a virtue per se,' I remembered Tremel's words.

I sensed the danger a split second before my death. Or what would have been my death, if I hadn't thrown a barrier up to deflect the blaster shot that angled for my skull, followed a heartbeat later by the echoing report of a blaster rifle. My barrier shattered with a feeling not unlike being doused in ice water, and I cursed under my breath. I jumped desperately to the side, ducking behind one of the towering legs of a statue, and reached out with my senses even as three more shots cracked into the sand where I had been standing.

The sniper was good enough to track my Force-enhanced motion, but not good enough to land a hit. I threw another barrier up, wondering if I would run out of Force points or get fatigued, and finally pinpointed the location of my attacker. They were in one of the tombs, and I sensed more than a handful. I couldn't tell which of the life forms was shooting, but they were easily fifty meters away, and the mouth of the tomb was at the top of the ramp, so I would have to cover a lot of ground while under fire.

I wasn't so eager to test the integrity of my armor against a blaster. The lightsaber had pierced it without pause, and while lightsabers were a far more powerful plasma than blaster bolts, I couldn't say just how much more powerful. If the blaster was even ten percent as strong, then it would probably melt the armor onto my skin.

Well...they could only shoot me if they could see me.

Gathering the Force once more, consciously thinking about how to apply my techniques in the most efficient manner, I whipped up a cyclone of wind, closing my eyes and letting my grasp on the power relax. The storm expanded, and I felt the sand biting into my skin, which was my signal to get moving. I let the storm precede me, then ran at its edge, sensing the blind shots of the sniper as they cut through the storm. Little teardrops of glass clanked off my armor or cut into my cheek, which indicated that the bastard had actually come pretty fucking close.

Too bad he missed. Drawing my war-sword I bent my knees and leapt, covering the final twenty meters in a soaring arc that took me over the top of my little sandstorm. I heard a shot of alarm, but paid it no mind as I landed at the mouth of the cave and threw out my arm

Push.

The explosion of power that rippled forward in a blade actually cracked the stones on either side of the tomb entrance, but the screams of fear and pain that followed informed me that my attack had been brutally effective. I shot forward, spinning my blade in a cut and stepping through the men that had been shooting at me. A few of them were trying to recover, but they weren't fast enough, moving sluggishly or, in some cases, too wounded to put up a fight. I had noticed that whenever combat or other stress was present time seemed to slow to my senses, and the effect had only gotten more pronounced as I leveled up.

Speaking of. [Level 11 Reached]

Was the time slow a Force ability? Some kind of passive skill? Perhaps it was [Force Precognition]. In any case, it made it so that I was entirely uninjured by the time my attackers were dead. It turned out that there were eight of them. Soldiers, by the looks of it. Deserters? I hoped so. It would have been terrible if there had been some case of mistaken identity, resulting in the deaths of a whole squad of loyal men.

As an afterthought, I fleeced the bodies for something worth taking, and I didn't find any communicators, so I assumed they were deserters. The first thing that a deserter would have to get rid of was the communicators and other transponders that communicated with central command.

This tomb was not one of the ones marked by Darth Baras as a site for the tablets, and I didn't want to put my neck on the line just for laughs, so I didn't venture any deeper. A final, lingering glance at the shadowed corridor was all I could spare, before I moved on. Deeper into the ravine.

It was remarkable to me how powerful I had already become, compared to the average soldier. Of course, the player character was a powerhouse in the MMO as well, but I hadn't actually considered the implication of that where it concerned myself, and my place in this new world. Those men had been trained; they had probably spent years of their life as professional soldiers. But it had been over in moments, nonetheless.

Tactically, they had been in a good position. At range, undetected. In fact, they might have actually killed me if they had more than one sniper taking shots. By the time they recognized that I had survived the ambush, it was all over. They would have been better served by laying down a blanket of blaster fire into the sandstorm I created, hoping to tag me in crossfire. Or even just blasting a volley of shots towards me at range instead of relying on a single sniper. I wasn't sure why they hadn't, apart from trying to conserve ammunition.

Perhaps it had happened too quickly for them to realize the best course of action. Or maybe they had been driven beyond rational thought by the strange effects of these tombs. In any case, they had crumpled before my power in moments, and I had barely broken a sweat.

The map of my VR interface, summoned by an idle thought, displayed the entrances to the tombs, and also marked the places where the tablet fragments were supposed to be located, according to my datapad. That was convenient. There were three markers, however, and I knew that one of them had already been delivered by Vemrin. I sighed; knowing my luck I would end up going through a whole tomb only to find an empty pedestal.

I took a long swig from my canteen and rolled my shoulders as I approached the next tomb. I didn't sense anything alarming, apart from the usual death, decay, and vague feelings of despair. But that was just Korriban being its typical charming self. This tomb was...not named on my map, or on the datapad. I was sure that it had a name, but I couldn't remember which tombs were supposed to be in the Valley of the Dark Lords, so that was probably why it wasn't labeled.

Regardless, the map didn't show the corridors inside, only a marker that was about half a kilometer deep. It was a long way to go, especially encased entirely by stone and bathed in darkness. Thankfully, I had my trusty lantern on my belt, and acute vision thanks to my Sith species.

I took four steps into the tomb before realizing that all the rations I had packed for adventures like this weren't actually edible for Sith-species individuals. I rubbed my face in frustration, sighing. Hopefully I could wrap this up before starving to death...I certainly wasn't going to resort to cannibalism like those two acolytes that had tried to eat me in the Tomb of Marka Ragnos.

I continued my exploration of this tomb. I didn't remember the enemies that were located here from the game. Starter planets were such a forgettable location, to be fair. In any case, I didn't have to go far before I started to sense other living things. Not animals, either. There were small groups of sapient creatures...Force sensitive creatures. Acolytes, perhaps? Maybe competitors hoping to kill me as they sought after Darth Baras' attention?

I turned towards one of the groups that I sensed and continued, keeping my weapon ready. The corridors were tight, too cramped for any real maneuvering, and I hoped that my foes didn't have the cunning to confront me there, where I couldn't dodge as effectively. It turned out that I was in luck, since the tomb opened up to a wider antechamber, one that was helpfully lit by a purple flame at its center. It revealed a trio of robed individuals standing in front of the doorway leading into the next chamber.

"She's come," one of them spoke into their wrist. Alerting their friends, no doubt.

"Well, well, if it isn't Darth Baras' exceptional new acolyte," the robed man on the left of the speaker drawled with subtle scorn. "We thought you would come. Vemrin informed us that you had awakened."

"Did he?" I wondered softly. That sounded about right...didn't he rile up some acolytes and point them at the player in the game, too? It'd been too long since I had last played Korriban, I couldn't remember. I hefted my sword. "Well, he sent you to die."

"Right," said the woman on the other side of their friend. "It's three on one, and our friends are coming."

"Then I had better take care of you quickly," I retorted, before jumping over the top of those purple flames, already swinging for the skull of the nearest acolyte.

Their own blades were drawn swiftly, and my opening attack was blocked. These three moved faster than the soldiers had, but still somewhat sluggish in comparison to myself, and after the initial block rattled the man's arms in his sockets, I battered his blade down and gutted him.

That was when I sensed the shock. Literally. Eyes widening, I let go of my sword and raised my arms over my face, clenching my fists and desperately praying for a shield.

[Skill Unlocked: Force Ward]

Purple lightning cracked like a whip and then boomed, shaking the stone floor and causing dust to rain down from the cracked ceiling. But I was not harmed, indeed a translucent corona had surrounded me like an egg and the lightning attack simply sparked across this invisible barrier, into the ground in a rough circle around my feet.

The man I had stabbed was choking on his own blood, weakly tugging at the weapon stuck in his belly. I dropped my hands to the sword hilt and sawed my weapon away from his bones, kicking him to the ground and quickly turning towards his friends. The woman was preparing another lightning attack, but she felt afraid now. I focused on her and instinctively reached out with the Force, capitalizing on the jangling nerves that were exposed to my senses like a bundle of sparking wires.

[Skill Unlocked: Disruption]

Her mind jolted at my blunt strike, delivered through the Force itself, and the power she had been trying to gather dissipated like a morning dew. Then her fellow lunged towards me with his sword, and I was forced to redirect my attention, deflecting his neat thrust and shifting my feet back to create space. I paused, flicking my eyes towards the other, watching shadows playing on the walls from the purple flames at our side.

Then I tapped my opponent's blade, slid the war sword along his own, pushed it up and then circled it down right as he tried to push back. His guard slipped, and I twisted my wrist in a deft motion entirely alien to my conscious experience. it was pure muscle memory, instinct, and murderous intent. My sword bounced off his own and went through his neck with a sound not unlike sticking an electric toothbrush in your closed mouth.

Immediately I tore the blade sideways, out of his neck, and slapped his weapon down as I stepped to the side, refocusing on the only remaining acolyte. She threw out her hands and a wave of power washed over my ward like water over a stone. Then she screamed, an unholy sound that actually seemed to strike my chest physically, forcing me to stagger.

I felt a maniacal grin on my lips, ears ringing painfully, and I screamed back.

The woman's face contorted, her hand spasmed, and she dropped her sword, staggering as she held her head between her hands, shaking it back and forth as if to dislodge the horrible sound. I didn't hesitate, sweeping forward and cleaving her skull in two while she bent over herself in agony or terror, I couldn't quite tell which.

"You!" a voice barked, and I raised a hand to catch a blast of powerful lightning from the newcomers. The bolts of light splashed over the shimmering, transparent shield that bloomed in the space a few inches from my open palm. Another group of three. More talented than the former, it seemed.

[Level 12 Reached]

[See Skills Report?]

Not now! And why had that message decided to pop up this time, specifically? Hello, I was a bit busy?!

Two of my enemies were circling the flames at a sprint, and the last was remaining where she was in the opposite doorway. I didn't want to try fighting those two while she was free to take pot shots, so I withdrew into the corridor the first group had apparently been guarding. A scream of fury followed me, and I smirked.

What, did they think I would just meet them head to head?

The two runners reached me first and attacked in coordination. But I could tell that they hadn't worked together before, since they were getting in each other's space too often, and their timing was not right. One of them could have occupied my guard and the other slipped his blade into my ribs, but they alternated blows instead, perhaps trying to avoid being cut by an errant swing.

Regardless, they were slow. Their techniques were probably flawless, or at least passable. It didn't matter. First, my speed allowed me to land a cut on the nearer acolyte's wrist, perhaps right through one of the bones in his forearm. His weapon dropped, and he fell back, literally. Dust was thrown up when his back in the ground. His fellow tried to cover him but tripped over a kicking leg. I tapped his sword aside and beheaded him as he tilted too far forward. His head bounced off the knees of his friend, who was then splattered by an obscene deluge of blood as the body crumpled sideways in an unnatural death throe.

I surged forward and thrust my sword through the fallen man's defensively raised palm and neck in one motion, pinning the appendage to his jaw. Twisting the blade as I removed it, I jumped over his choking form and met the final acolyte at the entrance, just as she arrived. She was expecting me, and had a storm of lightning ready to go, but I barreled right through it and put my shoulder into her chest.

She was picked up, breath escaping in a whoosh, and thrown back. She landed in the flames of the square sconce in the center of the chamber.

"AAaaaaiiieeh!" she screeched, clawing and kicking, eventually rolling out of the cursed fire and falling to her hands and knees. It wasn't a natural flame, and it clung to her like glue. It blazed, black and chaotic violet, churning like something alive. Something ravenous. Her voice rose in pitch and volume, then broke as her throat was scorched away. A rattle, dry and desperate, was her final sound.

Her hands reached for me as she collapsed, the last of the flames consuming every last bit of flesh, leaving behind nothing but blackened bone. Then the flames leapt back into the brazier.

I lowered my sword, suddenly crushed by the silence of the tomb. Well, that had been exciting.

Chapter Text

[Xanot] | [Classes: Sith Warrior LVL 6, Heir of Marka Ragnos LVL 6] | [LVL 12 - 1344/2597] | [Titles: Acolyte]

[Alignment: Dark I]

[Stats: 255 ATK, 432 DEF, 198 FORCE, 500 VIT, 213 SPD]

[Equipped Items: Sith War Sword, Combat Knife, Small Square Pack - Left, Travelers Backpack, Trooper Armor, Dark Robes]

[Statuses: Hunger, Weariness, Minor Malnutrition]

[Skills: Evasion III, Dark Regeneration I, Disruption I, Force Barrier I, Force Choke II, Force Crush I, Force Leap III, Force Precognition III, Force Push II, Force Scream I, Force Sense V, Force Speed IV, Force Telekinesis I, Force Ward I, Force Whirlwind I, Heavy Armor Proficiency III, Might of the Tarentatek I, Propel Projectile I, Sword Proficiency V, Weapon Throwing II, Shield Proficiency II]

I didn't encounter any trouble on my way back with the tablet, and idly inspected my character sheet as I went. It had been some time since I had looked at it, an there were skills I didn't recognize. For one thing,

[Dark I: The power of the Dark Side is familiar to you. You have desires and convictions which compel you. Your connection to the Force is stronger when you wield it with great resolve and commitment to your own ambition. Your desires leave you vulnerable to suffering. Your appearance is not much altered by the corruption of Dark power. Your sanity is mostly intact.]

I snorted in amusement at that final line. Right, okay dude.

[Might of the Tarentatek I: The lingering power of the sorceries dispelled by defeating the Tomb Guardian of Marka Ragnos is within you. You are somewhat resistant to mind-affecting statuses, and take slightly reduced damage from Force attacks.]

That might explain why those lightning attacks in the tomb hadn't breached my ward, even though it was the first time I had ever tried to use such a skill. And the ward was only level I, whatever that meant. How high did the Roman numerals go, anyway?

[Dark Regeneration I: Granted by the Heir of Marka Ragnos class, this skill represents the power that brings you back from the brink of death after receiving what would be a mortal injury for others. Your wounds will heal slightly more quickly and more completely. Loss of limbs is still permanent.]

I was curious about the proficiency thing, and the Roman numeral indicator, so I checked for more details, and was pleasantly surprised.

[Sword Proficiency V: You are skilled with the use of long, metallic blades. You can wield vibroswords or standard swords in your main hand, as long as they have weight and a sharp edge, and you use them with above average skill. However, your technique is uninspired and somewhat predictable, and you depend on a handful of dependable moves to carry you through combat.]

It seemed to me that there were several factors to take into consideration for combat effectiveness. The first thing was equipment. Like with Tremel, who had wielded a lightsaber, putting me in a desperate situation. The second thing was abilities. Again, with Tremel I hadn't thought at all about defending myself against Force skills, and could have been killed due to that oversight. Thirdly, there was proficiencies. Several of the acolytes in that tomb had been a bit better with their swords than their peers, and had taken longer to dispatch due to their ability to defend themselves. In the end, only my superior speed and strength, along with the Force resistance from defeating the tarentatek, had won that fight. And finally, I had to consider engagement conditions. Trying to cover the open terrain in a mad dash towards those hallucinating soldiers had been my gut instinct, but it had been far too dangerous.

As a takeaway from this venture, I decided to use the credits I had looted to buy myself a shield generator, rated for blaster fire but not lightsabers, and a hearty meal of mystery meat. Accompanied by a tall glass of blue milk - the infamous blue milk of the Star Wars universe - I actually found the food absolutely delightful, and the vague feeling of hunger that I had been ignoring up to that point intensified to a nearly unbearable level when I smelled the blood in the meat.

I probably looked like a savage, shoveling huge cuts of meat into my mouth and barely chewing before forcing it down my gullet and tearing another great strip from the flesh on my plate. I bought a second meal immediately after.

[Status Removed: Hungry]

[Status Removed: Thirsty]

[Status Gained: Stuffed]

I scoffed at the little bit of text that appeared at the corner of my vision, leaning back with one hand on my belly. Wow. I sat in the cantina and savored the music, the dim lighting, and the rather sedated atmosphere for a good while; I wasn't particularly anxious to start the final leg of my time on Korriban. If it followed the game, then I would meet Vette shortly, but it also meant that I would be pitted against Vemrin, and I had no way of knowing exactly how dangerous that fight was going to be. So far, the enemies on Korriban had been orders of magnitude more dangerous than the game's counterparts, even though there were far fewer. I had already nearly gotten killed multiple times.

I was alive basically because of good luck. That wasn't an acceptable state of affairs. If I wanted to survive life as a Sith I needed to have the skills and power necessary to protect the things I cherished, and I needed to have a place to apply those strengths for appropriate compensation, so that I could equip myself and feed myself. There was always the option of trying to defect to the Republic, but...would that be any safer? I would make powerful enemies that way, and there was no guarantee that the Jedi would be very welcoming. I had taken the first steps down the path of the Dark Side, and as Yoda says, 'Once down the Dark path you begin, forever will it dominate your destiny.'

Or something like that.

No, I wasn't going to run off to protective custody. That would only lead to a life on the run, perpetually exploited for my knowledge by Republic interrogators, and under constant suspicion by the Jedi.

After putting my dishes in the chute, I left the cantina and went to Darth Baras' office. It was empty when I arrived, so I went back to my room and flopped onto my bunk, leaving my ruck sack by the footlocker. Maybe just a bit of light reading while I waited...

I awakened to the insistent beeping of my communicator. Fumbling awkwardly with it as I blinked to clear my eyes, I managed to answer the call and mumbled, "Eh, hello?"

"Acolyte," Darth Baras growled, waking me up about as effectively as a slap to the face. I looked up at the little hologram of the large fellow and blinked.

"Darth Baras, what can I do for you?" I asked at once.

"Come to my office with the tablet you recovered," the Darth ordered, thankfully ignoring my ignoble greeting. "Your next trial awaits you."

"At once," I agreed, nodding my head.

The call ended. Cursing at myself for falling asleep, I quickly slung my pack over my shoulders and briskly walked back through the halls to the elevator.

Darth Baras was not alone in his office, and as I gave another awkward shallow bow, I looked at Vemrin out of the corner of my eye. He had a criss-cross of deep red scars on his face, and his left eye was bloodshot, glowing with a subtle red light that maybe hinted at a cybernetic implant. I couldn't actually tell...it might have just been Dark corruption. In any case, he wasn't very large, only coming up to my chin.

Wait, he was actually pretty big, I was just on another level of huge. I had almost forgotten about that.

"Acolyte, the competition has ended," Darth Baras declared. "You killed the rest of the competitors in that tomb. I would congratulate you on your accomplishment if it hadn't been the result of rank incompetence on the part of your peers."

"My lord," I bowed my head for lack of something better to do.

Darth Baras scoffed. "Well, show me the tablet, Acolyte."

I swung my pack around and opened it, removing the tablet fragment in question. it was about the size of my palm, and had unreadable scrawl etched onto its surface. I floated it over to Darth Baras without moving from where I stood, prompting him to snort as he snatched it out of the air.

"Amusing," he grumbled, giving the impression that it was the opposite of amusing. "I didn't expect one such as yourself to succeed so quickly, but clearly I underestimated you. As a result, I would like to offer you an opportunity that no other acolyte on Korriban has had for decades."

"Master! This upstart doesn't..."

"Silence!" Baras boomed, and his voice actually rumbled in my gut like a sub-woofer on high volume. I winced, keeping my eyes directed to the floor. "Vemrin, wait in the adjacent chamber. I have another task for you to complete, which I will explain shortly."

Vemrin knew better than to talk back to that, so he bowed stiffly and marched off.

"Vemrin has earned every advancement he has gained," Darth Baras told me once the man was gone. "He has bled for it. his survival in this Academy for so long is no accident. Furthermore, while some instructors consider my methods wasteful, I am not the sort of instructor that permits mediocrity to survive. How do you think he feels about you, then?"

"His world is crumbling around his ears, all because of me" I replied, copying the dialogue from the game, but in a tone of reflection. Honestly, despite how petty I thought Vemrin was, he didn't really deserve to die. The fact that he would undoubtedly force my hand was just a fact of life at this point, but that didn't mean I had any real desire to end his existence. "He hates me."

"Indeed. His hatred for you strengthens him. Regardless, if you wish to survive, you must overcome him. Now, there was a tomb recently opened that is rumored to contain a lightsaber crafted by a renowned Sith blade-master. A tomb-raider was apprehended at its entrance and is currently in our holding cells. Your task is to gain the cooperation of this lowlife and retrieve the lightsaber," Darth Baras declared. "I will send the related briefing to your datapad. Jailer Knash is already expecting your arrival. Acolyte, I don't think I have to warn you that this will be the most dangerous assignment that you have undertaken so far. Indeed, I anticipate that you will find nothing but death in this tomb. However, I see no other way to encourage you to embrace your passion apart from threatening your life, which appears to be the only thing that you hold dear. Now, go. Oh, don't forget what happens to those who try to run, Acolyte."

"It never even crossed my mind," I gave a little white lie, bowing. "The lightsaber will be yours shortly."

"In fact, if you manage to recover it, then it will be yours," Baras replied with a shake of his head. "Vemrin is not waiting for me. I imagine he seeks your death."

I wrinkled my nose. "Aren't you bothered by his insubordination?"

"I intended for him to disobey," Darth Baras answered easily. "Besides, if he kills you and retrieves the lightsaber, then he is more than worthy of becoming my apprentice. You, on the other hand, remain a mostly uneducated brute, even if you best him. Indeed, the insubordination I find more irritating is your continued presence in this office."

I pursed my lips, spun on a heel, and removed myself from his presence. Uneducated brute? Well.

A bit of honest excitement was welling up in my belly as I retraced my steps to the holding cells. Vette had been one of my favorite companions in the game, and if I could befriend her then I was sure it would be nice to have someone watching my back. Taking on these dangerous trials all by myself was all well and good, and I hadn't honestly felt lonely so far, but that didn't mean it wouldn't be better to have someone along for the ride.

I was a bit concerned that she wouldn't be up to the task of accompanying me on most missions, since I was a Force-user and she wasn't. But that was something we would have to figure out in the future. For now...

"AaAhh!" I heard her screaming even before the door to the jails had completely opened. The scene of Jailer Knash standing by her cage with cruel smirk on his face as he drove her to her knees in agony made me feel cold. My footsteps cracked like gunshots as I crossed the room, prompting him to turn towards me with that stupid grin on his face, like he was expecting to be commended.

I grabbed the collar of his shirt and hoisted him up, choking him with the cloth. "I need that slave in good condition, you waste of skin!"

"Ack!" he coughed, waving his hand. "M-My lord! Forgive, ugh, f-forgive me!"

I sneered and threw him into the cage. Based on the ragged scream he released on impact, it was probably a bit harder of a throw than I had intended. Vette had scrambled away from the bars, watching the altercation with wide, fearful eyes as I panted for breath, not because of exertion but out of sheer overwhelming fury.

"Give me the shock collar control," I demanded, looking at the pathetic man who was kneeling at my feet, head bowed. One of his hands extended, holding a small black remote that had a clip on its side. I took it from him and fastened it to the lapel of my robe. "Now, release the woman into my custody."

"As you desire, my lord," Jailer Knash murmured, moving slowly. He cradled his left arm against his chest, the absolute picture of wounded pride and pain. I was practically growling at him as he passed me; my eyes were palpably warm, and I knew that they were glowing. I didn't urge him to move slower, partly because I knew he was in miserable condition and partly because I was enjoying his pain.

That realization made me take a deep breath and try to control myself a bit. I wasn't that kind of person...or I hadn't been, and I wasn't sure I wanted to be. In any case, I didn't want to turn into somebody that was remotely similar to Knash, and relishing his suffering was the start of that journey. By the time the cage opened, I had directed my focus towards my slave instead of the jailer.

"You will come with me," I informed her, wincing at the sound of my voice. Too harsh. I took another deep breath and walked away from the jailer. Being close to him was making it too hard to concentrate on making a good first impression...

Oh, who am I kidding. That ship had sailed and sunk.

We were halfway down the corridor when I stopped and glanced at the skittish little thing that was following me. Had Vette been this small in the game? Oh, right...I was part-giant, apparently. One of these times I was actually going to get used to that. I sighed with exasperation and rubbed my nose with two fingers. "What's your name?" I asked, for the sake of introductions.

"Vette," she replied at once. "Um...thanks for that, back there."

"I am Xanot," I introduced myself, accepting her thanks with a nod. "Are you injured?"

She shook her head, head-tails swaying. "No, the shocks don't last long."

"Are your hands steady?" I asked more specifically, gesturing at her wringing hands. She hid them behind her back and nodded energetically.

"Yep!"

"Right," I sighed. Was she lying? Whatever...hopefully she could hold a damned blaster.

Wait...would she just end up shooting me if I gave her a blaster? In the game there hadn't been any concern about her loyalty, since any betrayal like that had to be scripted. But...she was a slave, and I was her master. The only thing guaranteeing her obedience was the collar on her neck, and that wasn't very reassuring when I was going into a dark, dank tomb with nobody to cover my back other than a slave of dubious loyalty. And if her personality was anything like the game, she was rather impetuous...and she had worked as a hired assassin at some point in her past.

"Are you hungry? Did they even feed you anything?" I settled on asking, eyeing her closely. She honestly looked like shit. Her blue skin was darkened in several places on her face and there were pretty clear hand-shaped bruises on her lekku. I couldn't imagine what tapestry of horror was hidden by her clothing.

She blinked at me like I had grown a second head and started a tap-dance. "Yes?" she replied, her voice pitching up as though in question.

I gestured. "Walk ahead of me. We'll get you food."

"Oh!" she perked up, but still looked at me suspiciously as she took a few steps past me. I watched her stride carefully. Yes, she was limping, despite the fact she was trying really hard not to show it, and her posture was a bit stiff.

I directed her around the corner to the cantina, but as we reached the end of the corridor, I took the turn a bit too sharp and bumped into her, observing as she yelped and winced in obvious pain, nearly falling completely onto the floor as she staggered away from me. The Twi'lek stared at me in fear, raising her hands to her neck in a futile gesture as though expecting a shock.

"You lied," I pointed out simply, reaching out to steady her with one huge hand on her shoulder. She flinched at my touch but didn't fall.

"I'm sorry!" she squeaked, shaking her head. "I...d-didn't want you to think I was useless!"

I tilted my head. I mean, she had watched me pronounce judgment on those prisoners, and had probably heard my little lecture to Devotek. In that case, I could see why she was concerned. Still, I needed her alive, and I needed her to trust me. To that end, "I need your help. You were caught raiding a tomb, and I've been tasked to retrieve something from it. If your injuries compromise our efforts, we'll both die. If you disobey or betray me, then we both die. And if you aren't honest with me about your capabilities, we'll probably both die. But work with me, and we just might make it off this planet. Got it?"

The girl nodded twice and gave me an unsteady thumbs up. "Um, yep! Got it. So..."

"Food. Then we'll do something about your wounds," I supplied out next steps. "Unless they are bad enough you'd prefer to deal with them first."

"N-No, I could eat a whole nerf I'm so hungry," Vette exclaimed.

I smirked and started walking again. I was mindful of my own idiotic approach to nutrition and asked, "Do Twi'leki even eat nerf steak?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed. "We can eat pretty much anything, you know. We’re the galaxy’s dustbin, practically. Haven't you ever met a Twi'lek?"

"No," I replied simply. "Do you eat blood pie? That's my favorite." So far, anyway.

She gagged. "Oh, yuck! Ew! I could, but why would I want to?"

"I don't suppose you know what kind of blood they use," I asked offhand as I ushered the girl into the cantina. She gave me a strange look and watched me for an awkward beat.

"You don't know?" she asked hesitantly.

I coughed into a fist. "Pick a seat."

"Ah," she seemed surprised and gingerly sat herself at a nearby table. She kept her back toward a wall and could see the entrance from her position. I wasn't sure if that was training or if she had been unhappily surprised one too many times, but either way I approved of her caution. I sat across from her, not minding the door at my back due to [Force Sense], and pushed the datapad on the table towards her.

"Order what you want. I only have two hundred credits so don't go too crazy. If we run out of money, we both go hungry," I said. She blinked at me; her large silver eyes were suspiciously bright. I narrowed my own gaze and tapped the datapad. "Well?"

"Okayyyy," she said slowly, reaching for the menu as though I was about to slap her hand. I sighed and leaned back on the stool, crossing my arms across my sizable bust. Fuck, I had almost forgotten about those...which was impressive considering their weight and size.

I fidgeted uncomfortably and tried once more not to think about it. I had crossed my arms so that Vette was assured I couldn’t strike her, and she did seem to relax minutely.

While she deliberated, I slowly drew my personal datapad and sent a message to the infirmary requesting a similar data packet to the one I had received about Sith species, except for Twi'lek. It was transmitted a few moments later, and I idly stared to read even as Vette pushed the menu away and stared at me with far too much curiosity. A droid trundled over to the table with a tray, and I flicked my gaze up to see what she had spent my credits on.

Three bowls, one with salad, another with some kind of stew, and a third with a pile of fruits, completed by a tall glass of blue milk. I looked back at my new reading material.

‘The Twi’lek species is one of the most populous slave species in the Empire. Widely considered to be attractive sexual partners by members of numerous species, the Twi’lek race has flourished in their role as servants, attendants, spies, sex workers, and household staff due to their natural diplomacy and social instinct. Twi’leki form loose groups of closely-knit families that do not necessarily have to be related to each other by blood and are fiercely loyal to the members of these groups. This natural instinct makes for particularly loyal servants, but also results in a common source of rebellion: perceived threats to their loved ones.

In order to maintain a Twi’lek slave for optimal function, a proper diet should be provided for them. The species is omnivorous, but they will have difficulty digesting certain tough plant fibers, and they do not derive much nutrition from bone or mineral-rich meals. Twi’lek saliva and mucous contain many neutralizing chemicals, and the species is naturally resistant to ingestible toxins as a result of this evolved defense mechanism, however this resistance rapidly becomes ineffective as the proportion of Twi’lek genes decreases in any cross-breed offspring...’

"Whatcha reading?" Vette ventured during a pause in her ravenous consumption of the feast she had ordered. I glanced at her and then back down at the text I had requested, feeling a bit awkward.

"Well...it's a manual on how to take care of a Twi’lek," I answered reluctantly, looking away from her stunned expression. I hastened to offer an explanation, "I have to ensure that you are capable of keeping up with me in the field!"

Vette choked on a laugh. "What...I mean, you Sith actually have owner’s manuals about that kind of thing?!"

"Well, how else are we supposed to figure it out?" I asked snippily, lifting my datapad once more and trying to ignore how strange this conversation had become.

"It's probably full of complete garbage!" she exclaimed. A pause. "What does it say?"

I blinked at her. "Are you really curious?"

She nodded and shoveled a huge spoonful of her odd-smelling stew into her mouth. I sighed and shook my head, looking back at the text and reading aloud. "This resistance rapidly becomes ineffective as the proportion of Twi’lek genes decreases in any cross-breed offspring. It should be noted that while an individual may appear to be Twi’lek to the untrained eye, they could have as little as ten percent Twi’lek genetics. Therefore, a DNA study should be conducted on new acquisitions such that..."

"Why are you reading about that?!" Vette exclaimed a bit loudly, as her cheeks flushed a darker hue of blue. I blinked at her.

Gesturing with the datapad at her food. "I was trying to determine what sorts of food we should buy for field provisions. It's interesting that your race is unaffected by most ingestible toxins, but the text is going on a tangent. Anyway, you wouldn't happen to know if you're a full Twi’lek, would you?"

"Um," the girl fidgeted in her seat. "No...sorry! My parents were Twi’lek. Well, they looked like Twi’lek."

"I won't feed you anything poisonous then, until you know for sure," I muttered, a half-assed attempt at a joke. By how pale she became, I don't think my dry humor translated well. I cleared my throat. "Just eat your dinner."

I skipped several lines and started reading again.

'A healthy Twi’lek diet is high in protein and fat, but low in carbohydrates. The formula to calculate the basal metabolic rate of your Twi’lek is,' a mess of numbers and operators that I had no desire to untangle. 'You should develop a diet for your slave that is tailored for their intended duties. Desk work or household chores are not energy intensive tasks, and don't require extra rations, but if your slave will be a field laborer or sex worker you might consider increasing their meal size. There are a variety of nutrients that are essential for Twi’lek health, and these are...'

"It's really embarrassing," Vette blurted out, looking at me with wide eyes. I blinked and lowered the datapad again, surprised that she was already comfortable enough to speak somewhat informally with me.

"What?"

"Just...that you're reading that! While I'm sitting here!" she exclaimed, waving a hand in a poor attempt to emphasize her words. She was still blushing, and I had to chuckle a bit, which only made it worse. She ducked her head and chomped down on another fruit, eating with the energy and lack of decorum that spoke of someone who tended to gobble their food without savoring it.

Someone that didn't often expect to have the time required to finish eating.

"Well, this information could be important," I remarked. "After all, who’s going to make sure you get enough vitamin besh?"

Vette groaned. "Oh stars, kill me now!"

"Unfortunately, I still require your talents," I remarked, stowing my datapad with a sigh. I could always read it later. When I looked up the girl was staring at me, a bit pale once more. I pursed my lips. "I'm joking. Relax, would you?"

She didn't seem to relax very much, but she did comfort herself with another bite of food.

"Are you going to make yourself sick, eating all that after being deprived for God knows how long?" I wondered. She blinked at me, looking confused again. I figured that was going to be a trademark of our time together.

"I should be okay," she muttered in between bites. She was almost done, anyway.

I shrugged and let her finish, watching as she licked her fingers of fruit juice and then tipped the bowl of stew up and gulped down the remaining broth. She settled back, wiping her lips with the back of her hand, and then her eyes met mine and she stiffened with a wince. "What?"

"Nothing," I shook my head. "Apparently you can eat whatever. Since I stupidly bought a bunch of rations that I can't actually eat, you can have those. We'll have to buy more for me. I don't know how long we'll be stuck in the wilderness or the tomb. So far, I’ve over-prepared. But who knows?"

Vette looked at me strangely. "Why'd you buy food you can't eat?"

"It's complicated," was my evasive reply as I stood up. "Come. We'll see what I can do about your injuries, then I'll visit the requisitions officer. I don't think the infirmary would treat you...at least not for free. You'll be stuck with my attempt at first aid for now, until I can scrabble together some more credits."

Vette seemed flustered and just waved her hands around. "That's fine! I'm okay, really..."

I sniffed derisively, catching an unpleasant amount of her unwashed scent, and walked at a slower pace than usual, heading back towards my assigned dorm. Vette was able to keep up, and actually followed along pretty close behind me. I sensed her trepidation and anxiety whenever another Sith passed us in the corridor, but we didn't draw that many curious looks. A slave was not an uncommon sight in this Academy...in fact, now that I was looking for it I was painfully aware of each servant that we passed.

The dorms were on the third floor of the Academy, and we had to take a turbolift. By the time we reached my room, Vette was wound up as tight as a spring. I let the door close behind us and gestured at the bunk.

"Sit down."

I heard her plop down as I pulled open my rucksack and removed one of the precious med packs. I had only bought three of them, using the money I had earned helping with k'lor slug extermination. In the game you just kind of stabbed yourself and your wounds magically disappeared, but as I opened the small case and found a series of different-colored injectors, a roll of gauze bandage, and small disc of some kind of soap-like substance, and a square of white cloth I realized that I had no fucking idea what I was doing.

I peered at the injectors. They were labeled for military use, with simple terms. Upper, downer - don't mix. Kolto. Infusion. The disc of ointment was labeled 'Burn/Abrasion Salve: Add Water.'

Well, that was easy enough. I took the canteen, which was half-full, and unscrewed the wide top to drop the disc inside. It foamed for a moment, and I closed the lid, shaking it around idly as I turned towards Vette. "Let's take a look. Shirt off."

"What?" she squeaked.

"They didn't just bruise your face, right?" I asked with a slight roll of my eyes. I looked away and opened the canteen again, reaching back for the cloth. The solid material of the disc had entirely dissolved and created a kind of bubbling gelatinous goop. Vette didn't protest further, pulling the plain gray shirt that she had obviously been provided by the jailer over her head. Her head-tails got stuck on the opening briefly, but she just shook her head and they flopped through, falling against her back, although this caused her to wince.

Someone had done a number on this girl, damn it all to hell. Wide, purple swaths of skin covered her right side, and I leaned to the side to see her back, finding it covered in long lacerations and dark splotches. She hadn't been provided a bra for her prison uniform, but I didn't even have a moment to admire the fact that there was a topless girl on my bunk. I was too appalled at her condition.

"Fuck me," I huffed, shaking my head. "Baras really wants me dead, doesn't he?"

"Huh?" she asked, covering her small tits with her arm and blinking at me.

"Nothing," I sighed. "Close your eyes, I'll start at the top and work down."

She stiffened up as I drew near, wetting the cloth in the strange medicinal goop before basically slapping her face with it. She jerked away immediately with a squeak of surprise, and I reached out to catch her shoulder, but that only made her cry out in shock and shove at my arm. I didn't want to hurt her further and released my grip, causing her to fall backwards with a sharp gasp.

Her ribs were probably fucked, judging by how stiffly she was holding herself. I hoped they weren't cracked, because I had no clue what the Hell I was supposed to do about that. Shove her in a kolto tank? Baras was probably not going to give me the time or the authorization for that.

"Easy," I chided, sitting next to her and gently holding her shoulder before she could try to sit up again. "Just hold still for a moment."

With that, I covered her face in goo. Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.

Dunking the cloth again, I industriously swiped it over her collarbones and neck, before easing her up to a sitting position. "Head-tails next..."

"Don't! Um...those are really..."

I lifted one and wiped it down before she could move away.

"That's cold!!" she yelped, gasping in pain as she startled again.

"If you hold still you'll stop hurting yourself," I informed her, lifting the other and applying the salve as generously as before. She shuddered but remained silent. I moved onto the bed and sat with the canteen between my legs, Indian style, to work on her back. Every place that the goop touched an open wound, it fizzed and bubbled like hydrogen peroxide does. I figured that was a good sign.

"Raise your arms," I ordered softly, wiping the cloth from shoulder to wrist, then each armpit down to her hips. I stood up again and realized her eyes were still closed, cursing softly as I cast about my dorm for a towel. I found one that I had used to dry myself earlier and shrugged, toweling her face with it and laying it next to her legs.

Then I hesitated, realizing I was both an idiot and a pervert.

"You can do your front," I informed her, holding out the cloth.

She glared at me. "I could have done the lekku, too!"

Yes, hence my earlier self-recrimination.

"Well, thank me later," I grumbled, looking away as she applied the salve to her breasts and ribs, then to her belly. "You were limping, too. Did they fuck up your legs?"

"Just...bruises," Vette answered softly.

I briefly considered asking her if they had raped her, but I felt that was a bit blunt. And even if someone had, what was I supposed to do about it? I let the matter rest for now, resolving to get the girl to a proper doctor eventually, and turned back to the med kit. I gestured vaguely. "Do your legs too."

[Skill Gained: First Aid I]

When she was finished, I decided to let the salve sit for a bit before letting her towel herself off. I didn't know if that would actually help at all. Whatever.

"There's a kolto shot," I mentioned, offering the injector. "How bad did they hit your gut? Internal bruising? Any possibility of a hemorrhage or whatever?"

"I'm...I'm probably fine," Vette muttered, looking embarrassed as she shooed my offering away. I stowed the injector and eyed her suspiciously. I was hardly aware of her near-nakedness, but she apparently was acutely aware, judging by the way she fidgeted under my gaze.

"Are your ribs broken or not?" I asked eventually.

She shook her head, eyes glancing up at my face before returning to the floor nervously.

I drew the gauze roll out. "I could wrap your middle with this...would that even help?"

"Have you ever done this before?" she asked exasperatedly, eyes flashing briefly with either concern or irritation. I turned away.

"No," I answered truthfully, and a bit testily. "I haven't."

She sighed. "Oh."

"You can probably dry off now..."

"The kolto salve takes fifteen minutes for maximum effectiveness," Vette said softly. I turned back to her with a raised brow. "I've...done this before."

I wasn't sure if she meant surviving the beating or applying the first aid.

"Well, sit tight then. I'll go buy some provisions. If anyone comes in tell them I'll kick their ass," I remarked, eyeing her one last time before marching away. Efficient use of time was important.

Hopefully the girl would still be there when I got back.

Chapter Text

I returned with actually edible provisions for myself and a standard-issue blaster for Vette, but I didn't tell her that the gun was for her. The Requisitions officer hadn't wanted to sell it, but I had convinced him by pointing out it was for my servant's use. I kept it in my ruck sack. She was actually still shirtless when I got back, drying herself methodically with the towel, and my dorm room smelled strongly of kolto. If you're wondering, kolto smells like fish oil.

Not pleasant.

"You're going to stink for days," I muttered, and Vette snorted.

"They do have...showers..." she trailed off, wincing.

I sighed. "I'm not going to shock you for suggesting a shower, Vette."

"Oh."

I didn't ask her what kind of fucking monsters she had served before ending up on Korriban. The way she'd been treated by whoever had brought her in was no better, and Jailer Knash had obviously been a total sadist. I sighed through my nose and inventoried our provisions again. Decent enough water supply, after I cleaned the canteen and filled it up again. Enough food for three days. Two full medpacks and one partial. The knife and lantern...I probably should have bought some rope.

Well, too late. I was out of money.

"Right," I said once she was dressed again and looking a bit steadier on her feet. "Are you going to die on me out in the desert?"

"Nope," she answered, popping the 'p.'

I nodded. "Before we head out, I'll clarify the situation. We'll make a deal, you and I. Obey orders, use your skills to help me out, and we'll get along nicely. I'll feed you and I'll do my best to protect you if we get into trouble. There will be no beatings or verbal abuse whatsoever. If you insult me, or lie to me, or otherwise make yourself difficult, then I'll figure out how to sell you or something after we do what we need to do in the tomb. If you disobey me intentionally, I will give you one warning, and after that I'll resort to the collar. If you can't do something that I've asked you to do, tell me why. Protect yourself at all times, don't throw your life away because you didn't want to ask me a question about something. The moment there's any kind of trouble, you will find cover and make yourself as unassuming as you can. Most of all, don't be stupid. Got it?"

Vette was staring at me with wide eyes. She nodded carefully. I knew she didn't have a choice but to agree and grunted at her response.

"Right. Well, we might just survive this. Let's walk and talk," I gestured at the door and kept her at my side, instead of a step behind me. As we proceeded down the corridor, I asked the questions that I had been burning to ask. "Do you know the way to the tomb where you got caught?"

"Yes," Vette answered quietly.

I nodded. "Well, that's good. I don't. Darth Baras gave me the briefing, but I haven't read it yet. What were you doing on Korriban anyway?"

She coughed into her fist with embarrassment. "It sounds stupid, but I found a tip about that tomb and thought that I could make some credits selling the contents."

I glanced at her over my shoulder. "There are better ways to make credits, I have to imagine."

"Yeah," she replied, entirely in agreement.

I shrugged. "Well, you're not the only tomb raider on Korriban. We might run into others. Who gave you the tip about the tomb?"

"Just...one of my contacts," Vette replied, shaking her head a bit. "He's slime, but his information is usually good. He didn't mention the squad of Sith troopers escorting a scientist from Imperial Culture and Arts."

I snorted. "Bad luck. But you survived."

"Barely," Vette scoffed miserably. I let her alone for a moment, descending the ramp towards the Academy entrance. When she spoke again, she was gesturing to one of the mighty statues of Sith by the entryway. "You know, as institutes of higher learning go, this one has to be the scariest."

"It's got a low rate of graduation," I replied with small amusement. Her eyes flickered back to me, but she didn't laugh. She looked a little amused, but more intimidated than anything.

My sense of humor was entirely fucked. I had been a pretty easy-going guy back on Earth, usually laughing pretty often. So far, I think I could count on one hand the number of times I had even gave so much as a chuckle. The heat of Korriban hit us like a truck, but I wasn't terribly bothered. Vette, on the other hand, instantly wilted a bit. I eyed here with concern. "What kind of temperatures are Twi'lek rated for?"

She snickered softly. "We're not a piece of equipment!" she retorted, and I couldn't tell if she was insulted or amused. "But...usually around forty-five degrees is the max. Korriban is dry, though, so maybe fifty-five."

"Hmm." I pulled out my datapad and checked the temperature. Forty-two. But it was already after the hottest part of the day, so the temperature would only be going down. For that matter, what kind of temperature could Sith handle? I changed over to my manual on Sith and used the index...90 degrees in super dry, down to 60 degrees for humid. I mentally made a note to stop and give Vette water every now and then, but apparently I wouldn't struggle with the heat.

If she fucking collapsed, then we were utterly screwed.

With that concerning thought, I eyed her again. "Are you sure your injuries aren't too bad? You could use the kolto shot."

"I'm fine!" she replied, narrowing her eyes at me. "Are you concerned?"

"I'm concerned you're going to quit on me halfway there," I answered evenly. I opened the briefing and checked the material briefly...the tomb was about six kilometers deep in the Valley of the Dark Lords, which was itself about three kilometers from the Academy. That was a pretty decent hike, and the automated transport didn't actually take us that direction. It was mainly for research teams heading down to the lower wilds.

"I won't," Vette told me. "You think I want to collapse in the middle of a desert?"

Good point. But what she wanted and what was really going to happen could very well be different things. I shrugged and started walking again, holding my datapad up to skim the briefing that Darth Baras had provided. Well, it was actually a briefing from Imperial Culture and Arts, labeled as a memo for the Imperial garrison of Korriban. The brief mentioned that the tomb was home to shyrack and various droids that seemed to be inactive, which instantly told me that they would probably wake up and go murder-mode.

The researcher hadn't gone very deep at all and didn't have any insight into the lock mechanisms. He did mention that the writings translated from the tomb entrance indicated that a famous swordsmith had been interred within, along with the guardians of his arsenal. Ostensibly the guardians were the droids.

Maybe droids that were centuries old wouldn't actually wake up and try to murder us. One could only hope.

"Did the droids in the tomb give you any trouble?"

"No," Vette answered at once. "They just...stood there. Creepy."

"It would be just my blasted luck if they decide to wake up," I griped to myself, but she clearly heard me judging my the soft snort. "So what...you were in the tomb and hit a dead end, so you tried to leave and ran into the soldiers?"

"Yeah, basically," Vette agreed. "I was planning on opening the lock, but I needed to rest for a bit, and I didn't know for sure about the droids. I didn't want to risk it running on empty, you know?"

"Right," I nodded. "They took your weapons and other gear, didn't they?"

"Yep."

Figures that they wouldn't have provided me with her personal effects. And I was flat broke, so there was no chance of buying her armor or more suitable footwear. I glanced at her feet and saw the loose sandals that the prisoners were provided. Damn, that was going to be a pain for a hike of this distance. Since there was nothing I could do about it, I held my tongue, but I slowed my pace a bit. We were still in Imperial territory, so there wasn't anything to worry about...although I guess Vemrin could jump out and try to gut me.

I figured he was smart enough to let me do all the hard work and then try to take the credit himself at the end. Even better, he was probably counting on my death. But, if Vette died as well then he would have to figure out the tomb locks all by himself, and frankly I didn't have a very high estimation of his problem-solving skill. Which meant he would try to make sure Vette survived and I did not.

The best-case scenario would be that he confronts me at the end of the tomb, like he does in the game.

Still...might as well warn Vette, "There's another acolyte, Vemrin, who will try to kill me in the tomb," I said, glancing at the girl. She was stroking a head-tail and looking at her feet, but at my announcement she kind of jerked and then stared at me.

"Wow," she replied. "Is that...normal for you guys?"

I shrugged. "Yeah, pretty much. Just...keep your eyes open. If another acolyte approaches, don't assume they are friendly."

"A friendly Sith...I tend to assume the opposite, actually," Vette said, and I smirked. It was pretty wise and a little funny.

"This one is human," I replied. She rolled her eyes.

We walked. And walked. Through a tunnel and past the openings of several tombs. Finally, we reached the edges of actively patrolled territory, and it was here that I moved to the side of the valley and sat on one of the stones. We'd covered several kilometers by now, but were still nearer to the entrance of the valley. I offered Vette the canteen, and she drank gratefully. I took a mouthful myself and stowed it. Then I looked at her again.

Would she shoot me in the back? If it meant freedom, she just might. But escorting an unarmed slave wearing sandals through a tomb infested by guardian droids seemed like a suicide mission. Giving her a blaster didn't even the odds much, but it was better than nothing at all.

"What?" she asked me suspiciously. I realized I had been staring.

"If I gave you a blaster, would you shoot me in the back and make a run for it?" I asked directly, propping my chin on a red fist and placing my elbow on my knee. This rock was a good height for sitting, at least for someone my size, and I wasn't in a real hurry to keep hiking.

Vette paled at my question and raised her hands, shaking her head energetically. "N-No!"

I tested that response in the Force. How did one figure out if someone was lying? I sensed surprise from her...confusion. Curiosity. Trepidation. Exhaustion. Lingering pain. She wasn't in as good of a condition as she was trying to make me think, that was a deception that I sensed. I was irrationally angry at this, but I tried to keep my face impassive.

I get trying to put on a brave face. But if she couldn't make it...if she slowed down too drastically at the wrong moment...then we'd die. And I had no idea if we'd respawn or if that was the end of the road. Better not to risk it.

"Drink more water," I ordered gruffly, tossing the canteen back. The fact she was so exhausted and still wounded probably meant I was safe. If she killed me and tried to make a go of things by herself in a tomb on Korriban, then she'd probably end up dead. I didn't understand why she refused the kolto shot. Did she think I was lying about the contents of the injector?

Vette returned the canteen, and I shook my head silently. I hated this...this whole lack of trust situation. Always second guessing, always looking over my shoulder. It was fucking shit. How did Sith get anything done, honestly?

Vette stared at me, and I stared at her. "When was the last time you slept?" I asked quietly. She didn't answer right away. I blinked slowly and stood up, causing her to shrink back slightly. "What did I say about lying when it comes to your health? Fucking Hell, Vette, I dragged you kilometers across the fucking desert in the sweltering heat and you're wearing prison sandals! I thought you were fine because you didn't say a single God-damn thing!"

I saw her flinch at the volume of my voice and reeled my emotions back in. I sounded like a racehorse, breathing harshly through my nostrils, and I paced briefly back and forth, flexing my hands. Right. We had stims and kolto. The only way to proceed was to use them, so she was combat effective. Sleeping in this valley was probably a death sentence, but if we took too long in the tomb, we would have to find a place to hole up and hope for the best. I wasn't going to pull watches with her, not when she could cut my damn throat in my sleep, so that meant making her sleep and pulling an all-nighter.

I rifled through the pack and withdrew the med pack. "The stim, and the kolto. Use them both."

"Yes, sir," Vette muttered, uncharacteristically submissive. She accepted the med kit. My heated gaze observed her as she applied each injector, one to her right thigh, the other to her left. I accepted the nearly empty kit back and stowed it. The gauze roll might come in handy.

"How long does that take to kick in?" I asked, frustrated with my lack of knowledge. That could get us both killed too, and I wouldn't know what I don't know until it killed us. Strangely, having Vette along put the danger of this undertaking in a more immediate light than my solo adventures thus far had done. I felt distinctly more perturbed by the prospect of dying than I had before.

"Only a minute or so," she answered, her head still bowed.

"Look at me," I demanded, stopping my pacing to square my shoulders with her. Her head rose slowly, like a scolded child. "I'm trying to keep us alive, alright? We've got a better chance at that if we're honest with each other. I know you're a slave and I'm a Sith. I know the Imperials were cruel, and the jailer is a bastard. I know you probably think I'm just spoiling for the opportunity to shock you or dispose of you or some stupid shit like that. Well, I honestly don't have the time or the mental capacity to play those mind games with you. Ever since I arrived here I've been an inch away from death. Frankly, I wouldn't necessarily blame you if you took this blaster," I reached into the bag and withdrew the weapon, "and plugged me with it while I wasn't looking. But I don't have a lot of options here. I need you to open the tomb's locked doors. Frankly, I think you need me to survive long enough to get off of Korriban. I'd like to phrase this as cooperation, but that won't change the fact that you're the one wearing a collar. Unfortunately, my life depends on the fact that you know how to open the tomb doors. So, that's how it is. Here's your gun. Now are we going to kill each other or are we going to start working together?"

"I'll help," Vette's hand was shaking a bit when she took the blaster, letting it fall to hang at her hip. "I'm sorry."

"Right. Now, how are you feeling? Exhausted? Dying? Heat stroke?" I asked, crossing my arms over my armor and narrowing my eyes.

"I'm fine, really," Vette answered, refusing to meet my eyes. I reached out with the Force and found that she wasn't actually lying this time. The upper was making her jumpy, and the kolto was making her a bit nauseous, but neither of those things could be helped and neither of them were debilitating.

"How big was this tomb, anyway? I'm not looking to sleep out here in the Valley, to be honest. Do you think we can get this done tonight?"

"The sun won't set for four hours," Vette remarked, gesturing at the dusk sky. "But in the tomb that doesn't matter. It's pretty big. I guess it depends on whether those droids wake up or not."

I was betting that they would. But...to be honest, what could a bunch of stupid droids do to someone that wields the Force? Obviously those guards had been placed into the tomb by a Sith, but it seemed stupid to think that the guy actually thought some droids were an effective defense. Perhaps he intended them to stop regular looters. The living corpses in the sarcophagi at the inner sanctum...now those might be intended to destroy a trespassing Sith.

But I would have a lightsaber at that point.

"I'm thinking it's best to decommission the droids when we come across them," I said, more to myself than to Vette. "That way if they wake up they aren't behind us and preventing our escape."

"You might wake them up yourself that way," Vette put in.

I shrugged. "They either won't wake up at all, or they respond to attacks, or they wake up when the locked doors open. If it's the first option, then it's no bother to cut them to pieces. If the second, at least we have the option of retreat. If the third, I would rather have all my enemies on one side."

Vette shrugged, proceeding a little nervously. "There are a lot of them."

I groaned. "How many is 'a lot?'"

"Well...I passed at least fifty," Vette said with a finger on her chin. "And I only took one of the corridors."

"Did they have blasters?"

"No, just vibroblades."

I nodded and started to walk along the valley once more. "Then we'll be fine."

The valley was deserted, which honestly wasn't all that surprising considering I had come through and killed a squad of soldiers and six acolytes earlier. Animal life seemed somewhat scarce on Korriban, and that made sense to me due to the ecosystem. I didn't sense any dangers for the entire walk down to the tomb...but I did sense someone following us at a distance. A long distance, about a kilometer and a half away.

Vemrin. Did I try to chase him down and confront him now? He would almost certainly sense my approach, and that gave him the opportunity to retreat or to choose the battlefield, which I didn't want to allow him to do. If I let him follow me into the tomb, then he wouldn't be able to run away as easily, and he would pretty much have to wait for me to open the locked doors before making his move.

I decided to let him follow us.

"Vemrin's about a click and a half that way," I said to Vette, gesturing over my shoulder.

She boggled at me. "What, can you smell him or something?"

I chuckled. "No. I can't smell much of anything other than your kolto perfume."

"The stuff stinks!" Vette exclaimed. We continued trudging through sand and rocky soil. "Thanks for that, though."

"Don't mention it," I replied. "I have a personal philosophy which differs from most Sith. It's the reason Darth Baras is making it so hard on me. Well, one reason. He’s also just an asshole."

"Sith have philosophy?" Vette wondered bitterly.

I shrugged one shoulder. "Most people do, even if they prefer not to think about it. In any case, I try not to create or endure unnecessary suffering. Other Sith couldn't care less...in fact some even embrace suffering as a path to power, indulging in sadism and masochism. They spread misery and pain and death intentionally. Most often they don't consider their victims as deserving of empathy, but sometimes they do empathize even with the people they torture. The guilt is just another source of pain, after all."

"That's...insane," Vette groaned, shaking her head.

I shrugged again. "From their point of view, it's frighteningly sane. However, I reject the idea that pain is the most powerful of passions. Indeed, too much hatred takes a Sith to near suicidal recklessness and ultimately destroys everything that they hoped to achieve. A certain amount of suffering is inevitable, of course. That's life. In any case, that amount is usually more than enough motivation, sometimes more than enough. I see no reason to invite additional pains, or to inflict needless suffering on others. Thoughtless blood-thirst takes a Sith to a dizzying height, but ultimately throws them to the depths of madness."

Vette hummed thoughtfully and didn't speak for some time. The sounds of our labored breathing filled the space between us. "How did you end up here? As a Sith acolyte?" she asked, eventually. "You seem passionate about it."

"You're the first to think so. Seems like I just woke up one day, and here I am," I answered vaguely, after nearly swallowing my tongue in surprise at the difficult question. "As a Force user, the Empire essentially conscripted me for training."

"Oh," Vette stopped for a moment, and I turned to look at her. "Do you even want to be Sith, Xanot?"

"Darth Baras would say I don't," I answered her, turning away and starting to walk again. I let my thoughts mull over her question for a good while. "Honestly I don't know. The Empire is...callous. The Sith Lords are constantly at each other's throats. The Emperor is absent. The Dark Council is aimless. The Moffs are too ambitious. There's foolish racism running rampant. It's easy to wonder what any one man could do about any of those things...and it is quite a mess."

"Man?" Vette wondered. I blinked then rubbed my face. Right, most people saw boobies and assumed 'woman.'.

"Turn of phrase," I waved her off. I didn't want to get into that. "In any case, I want to live. As far as I can tell the best way to survive in the Empire is to be powerful and useful. It is better to be a Lord than just another meat-bag on the battlefield."

"There's the Republic," Vette ventured hesitantly. I scoffed.

"Right. The Republic is a bloated, ineffectual bureaucracy whose war crimes are no better than the Empire's. Their admiralty is just as cruel as the Moffs. The Jedi may be less prone to wanton slaughter than Sith, but they are just as controlling. Their chosen method is not oppression, but repression, and they don't tolerate other Force religions, going as far as to use violence to enforce their supremacy," I replied. "Defecting would mean a lifetime on the run, under constant suspicion. Not to mention the Republic is extremely unkind to my species, thanks to our history of warfare. In any case, you probably shouldn't mention treason so casually."

"The Republic doesn't allow slavery," Vette argued mulishly. I stopped and kicked at the sand, glancing at her with a sigh. I hated to crush her rose-tinted glasses, but...

"The Republic deals with the Hutt Cartel," I said. "There are gangs trafficking sapients on Coruscant itself, their capital world. Slavery may be nominally illegal, but the law is enforced selectively, and most of the governors and senators have their slice of that pie. Their friends are permitted to operate their businesses, and everyone else is pushed out of the industry by Republic law enforcement."

Vette slumped and trudged past me. "How do you know?"

"Have you ever been to the Republic?" I asked instead of answering.

"No."

Well, neither had I. Not in person. Regardless, what I had said was how the Republic was portrayed in the MMO during the smuggler and soldier storylines. Even the Jedi Knight class story had brushed up against examples of corruption and cruelty among Republic leadership. "The Empire is cruel. But the Empire is honest about its nature, and it doesn't have to be cruel by definition. It could change. There are hundreds of billions of sapients living under its control, benefiting from Imperial infrastructure, Imperial protection, and Imperial administration. Just as there are trillions of people living under the Republic, a Republic which claims to represent justice and delivers injustice. I don't see much difference between Empire and Republic. I am an Imperial, but I am also Xanot, and I don't have to be defined by the Empire. I'm dealing with the cards I've been dealt. Trying to change that invites more trouble than I think it's worth."

"I guess that's all anybody can do," Vette murmured with a shrug. "It's just...it isn't right that people get treated like dirt and nobody cares!"

"I agree. But that happens everywhere, and what can we do about it?"

We subsided into thoughtful silence. It wasn't long before Vette pointed at one of the tomb entrances and said, "That's it."

The mouth of the tomb was half-open. Whoever had gotten inside had used explosives to break the thick sandstone blocks which had been placed over the entrance, and I also recognized why this tomb had gone unnoticed for all these years. It was half-obscured by the cliff face, which apparently had collapsed down to the valley floor at some point. This resulted in a kind of jagged C-shaped alcove which had the blast-point at its apex.

"I blasted my way in...man, you should have seen how outraged that researcher was!" Vette remarked. I snorted in amusement, shaking my head as I approached and activated the lamp at my belt.

"Can you carry the rucksack?" I asked, dropping the pack to the sand. Vette hefted it with a grunt, wincing as the straps dug into her bruises. I took a deep breath and tried to pierce the darkness, but even my keen eyesight had trouble making out anything more than vague outlines. There were droids in there, alright. Fantastic. "Here goes nothing."

I entered the tomb and my lantern cast its tremulous light on a squad of six droids that were standing in two ranks of three. The antechamber was round, and ornately decorated by statues of men that held the ceiling of up on broad shoulders. The torch sconces were unlit and devoid of fuel.

I drew my sword and thumbed the power switch. Advancing carefully, dust rising with every footfall, I reached striking distance and swept my weapon in an arc, beheading the first droid with a loud clang and scream of the supersonic vibrating edge slicing through old durasteel.

Then the droids jerked like marionettes, moving in unison. Red lights flickered on their hemisphere-shaped heads, and they drew vibroblades like some kind of ominous parade. Then they screamed.

It was the roar of an army, and it echoed from the depths of the tomb, shaking the floor and the walls. I grit my teeth, recognizing in that moment that I hadn't just awakened these first guards, but the entire tomb. They were coming.

I raised one foot and drove it into the ground, releasing the Force in an explosion that crackled around my body in arcs of red lightning.

[Skill Unlocked: Force Slam I]

The droids nearby were blown back by the wave, energy crackling over their metallic bodies, and I followed this with a powerful Force Push that slung their chassis against the stone walls, dislocating arms and legs, shattering their rusted armor.

They were faster than I had anticipated. I barely had time to turn my head towards the corridor that led deeper into the tomb before another wave of droids was pouring into the first antechamber, howling their rattling war-cry. I had a momentary vision of a horde of zombies because that was what these droids resembled the most in that moment.

Some of the first batch were picking themselves up for another pass at me. I swept all of them into another push that was shaped into an arc, denting their armor at the chest even as it blasted them back down the corridor, bowling through the coming swarm and causing a pile up in the shadows. I heard their limbs cracking together, blending with the storm of echoing footsteps that reached me from the depths.

My hearts were squeezing, the Force was screaming. I twirled my sword and jumped forward, striking the ground with another slam that erupted in the same lightning, this time in a directed wave that rolled over the dusty floor and struck the pile of droids like a bowling ball. The burst of blinding light from the lightning almost made me avert my eyes, but I had to shield myself as limbs and errant vibroblades flew towards me.

One of the droids jumped against the wall above the pile and lunged for me, but I cut it down mid-air and blasted another bludgeoning push down the corridor, smiling like a madman at the sound of screaming metal. Their limbs broke, their armor shattered, and they crumpled before my power like tissue paper. Droids had no defense against the Force.

I wished I could use Force Lightning...but in the MMO the only lightning that the Sith Warrior had access to was from Heroic Moment, and that was only unlocked by completing the Sith Inquisitor storyline. Force Slam was wreathed in red lightning, but it wasn't actually Sith Lightning. In the game that had just been a visual effect, which had apparently translated to actual shock damage in this strange world.

I advanced down the corridor steadily, throwing the mass of droids ahead of me in a roiling ball of howling vocabulators and shattered steel. There was one moment where the sheer number of bodies in the pile had nearly overwhelmed me, but all I had to do was leap backwards to give myself some space, follow that with another Force Slam to send a shockwave down the corridor.

Their numbers were limited by the narrow width of the corridor, and even though they were clawing over each other and trying to move along the walls like spiders, they couldn't make progress. I wasn't sure I was actually destroying very many of them, however, and felt that I was going to reach a stalemate...until I noticed that most of the droids in the pile were incapable of actual motion.

Their joints had been mangled too badly. So while they were happily screaming and making aggressive sounds, they couldn't actually swing their swords or even stand up. Some of them still could, but as the steel-grinder continued that number was smaller and smaller. Finally, when I paused in my continuous smashing to catch my breath, I was left entirely unmolested.

Alone with a sea of screaming droids.

There had to have been at least eighty of them. The scrap heap was so large that it filled up half the height of the corridor and stretched far enough I couldn't see its end in the darkness. With some resignation, I approached the nearest droids and used my sword to sever their heads from their torsos. The power unit was in the chest, but optics and vocabulators were in the head. If they couldn't see me or make noise, then I figured the droid was neutralized.

It was slow going. The cacophony of mechanical wailing was getting quieter with each droid that I dispatched, and once I got to some of the thickest tangles of metallic limbs, I was able to hack away at them with abandon, cutting off arms, legs, and heads with each swing. I felt like I was wading through a pool of steel, carving my own path through the masses. It was pretty therapeutic, actually.

[Level 14 Reached]

By the end of it I was drenched in sweat but flushed with victory. "Damn I'm good," I said to myself, feeling the silence descending to suffocate me. After a good ten minutes of constant screaming by those droids, I welcomed the deathly stillness of the tomb.

Vette crept through the aftermath, eyes wide as saucers. She entered the chamber where I waited and kept her distance from me, saying nothing. I gestured around us. "What now?"

"There are several keys," Vette said, approaching one of the reliquaries that was shaped as a tetrahedron. "But...a lot of other stuff that's worth credits to Imperial Culture and Arts."

"They'll scold me for taking it out of the tomb," I mused, before waving my hand. "But they'll buy it from me anyway. Go ahead and take whatever you can fit in the pack. After all, it will buy our next meal."

I watched as she looted the various urns, weapon-racks, shelves, and altars. By the time she circled back to the center of the chamber, our rucksack was already laden with ancient artifact, and she was twirling a steel pin through her fingers.

"First key," she chirped, raising it up.

"Lead on," I encouraged. "I don't think there's anything else to worry about until we open the locked door. But keep your blaster ready. There might have been stragglers."

"Right," Vette agreed, choosing one of the two passages leading out of the chamber and moving forward. I followed close, so that she could benefit from the light on my hip. My vision was pretty good even in the absolute blackness, but Twi’lek didn't have such good night-vision.

The Force in this tomb was...depressing. It wasn't just the fact that Death was so near, or even the fact that there were innumerable echoes of those who had lived and died before us all whispering through the flagstones and peering through the carved eyes of the statues. No, this tomb breathed of a certain inevitability...the crushing realization of futility.

In my past life I had never been to a place that felt this way. No church, no graveyard, no prison, no hospital...all places where the nature of mortality was ever so easy to see. None came anywhere close to this feeling. It was hard to breathe under its weight.

Or maybe that was just the dust in the air.

"Second key," Vette murmured, rifling through a suit of armor on a stand. I nodded absently, keeping my sensed strained to detect even the slightest hint of danger. Vemrin was drawing closer now...I sensed his hatred like a bad smell. It was filling this tomb, oozing from his aura as he crept through the devastation I had left behind.

My own emotions rolled uneasily in response, fury and contempt churning in my gut. I could practically taste them. Vemrin was a coward, plain and simple...and I hated him. He picked through the evidence of my victory, intending to snatch my reward from my hand, already confident in his victory. A fool and a coward.

Vette didn't say much in this place, and that was for the best. She gathered the keys and soon stopped stowing additional items in the pack. I noticed she was struggling with the weight of it, but I wasn't going to make her carry it all the way back to the Academy. Just until I was done destroying our enemies. In my strange, rage-filled state I couldn't spare the thought to be thankful for her persistence. It took far too long to reach the locked doors, and when we finally stood before them, I could actually smell Vemrin creeping behind us like the scum he is.

"Open it," I said to Vette. "Then hide."

She glanced at me, startled. I realized I hadn't informed her of Vemrin's approach and cursed my lapse in communication. Regardless, she entered each of the keys that she had collected and scampered to the side, ducking behind one of the statues. I turned away from the doorway to look into the shadows.

"Hello, Vemrin."

He emerged from the darkness like a ghost. The scars on his face seemed to glow red, and his eyes blazed with golden light. In his hands he held a war blade, identical to my own, and I sensed in him a power beyond anything that I had faced so far. Even Tremel had not wielded this untamed power. He had been so confident in his victory that he hadn’t called upon the Force in this way. The overseer had failed to bring his power to bear, had entered the fight without true passion. Vemrin, on the other hand, had nurtured his power for the entire journey into this tomb. He had gathered himself, centered on his hatred for me, and then he had gathered the Force around himself in a nearly visible corona of energy.

He did not speak, did not monologue or insult me. He threw his hand forward and screamed. A visible wave of power erupted from him, striking the ward before me and ringing like a gong. I twisted my palm and replied to his attack with a sonic boom that punctuated a force blast unlike anything I had produced thus far. It was not as large as his opening attack, condensed as it was into the size of a fist, but when it struck Vemrin's own ward the difference in our attacks was obvious from the ground-shaking boom that followed.

Vemrin sneered and leapt forward. I met his flying charge by stomping on the ground and unleashing a wave of energy, but he simple raised his elbows and burst through it with nothing more than a bellow of rage, red lightning crackling over the skin of his face and leaving pale red burns.

His blade crashed into mine, deflecting sideways. I danced away, but he was fast. Faster than Tremel. He stuck to me like white on rice, blade flashing faster than the eye could follow. I met him blow for blow, kicking with my leg to strike his knee and turning his blade aside in the same twist of my hips

He snarled like a beast, striking with his offhand, and I took the blow to the chest, feeling the bones in his hand crack against the armor. I saw the surprise on his face and suddenly laughed, driving my knee into his gut and shoving him back as he tried to fend off my sword.

The fool hadn't expected me to be wearing armor?

With the momentum of the fight reversed, Vemrin tried to make space. But whereas he had matched my speed while he was moving forward, now he found himself outpaced, unable to backpedal quickly enough. I bore down on him like a storm of steel, euphoria and triumph pumping through my blood, battering at his defenses with lethal cuts, each one intended to end his miserable life. Barely, just barely, Vemrin was scraping by, practically falling backwards in a continual rout.

Then I Screamed. The same attack he had used to open our combat, I used to end it. In close proximity, split between the blade-work and his increasingly desperate retreat, Vemrin didn't respond properly to the sudden Force attack, his ward coming too weakly and too late. The kinetic wave of my shout struck his chest and threw him like a ragdoll against the floor, where he rolled head over heels twice and then slammed against the feet of a statue.

His weapon had been blown away. I stood above him, panting for breath and smiling.

Vemrin coughed, wetly. He sat up slowly, his right arm twisted unnaturally at the elbow and his left leg bent ninety degrees the wrong direction. He wasn't going to be walking or swinging a sword any longer. I was wary of a surprise Force attack, however, and kept my focus entirely on my foe as I stalked towards him with death on my mind.

"After everything...this is how it ends?" Vemrin wondered. "I was destined...destined for power..."

"Sheer arrogance," I crowed, and struck. Vicious satisfaction filled me as I watched his blood spurt from his opened neck, and he glared at me defiantly as every beat of his heart pumped his life onto the dusty ground. And that was how he died, over the next half-minute. His breathing filled the quiet with wet gurgling, matching the sound of blood dripping from his chest onto the floor.

The golden light left his eyes, and he was just...a man. The scars on his face were pink, his eyes were blue. And he was dead.

I straightened up from my half crouch, unaware that I had even lowered myself to look more closely at his dying moments. My hearts were still racing, I could feel them. I turned away from the corpse and tried to calm myself, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth. The smell of blood had the opposite effect, however, and it filled my nostrils, made me feel too hot.

"Impressive," Vette commented as she slinked out from the shadows. I peered at her intensely, suddenly acutely aware of her injuries, of her diminutive stature, of her smell and the brightness of her eyes, which widened under my intense scrutiny. I could practically hear her heart squeeze powerfully in instinctual terror.

I looked away. She was not prey. I loosened my grip on the sword in my hand and nodded. "Thanks," I replied, gruffly. My voice was hoarse from the scream. "Stay...close."

I almost stopped myself from giving that order, uncertain if Vette was any safer if she was near me. But when I retrieved the lightsaber I was sure that another fight would come, and it would be better if she was at my back instead of on her own getting flanked.

The inner sanctum of the tomb was lit, dimly, by blue crystals that were still in their sconces, fastened to the wall. It illuminated a hallway that led to a staircase crowned by a kingly sarcophagus, which was laid on its back. Vette obeyed me, practically glued to my back as I walked between the rows of the less ornate coffins, undoubtedly filled with the tomb guardians.

I mounted the stairs and climbed them, hesitating when I stood beside the sarcophagus. The emotionless mask seemed to peer at me as I leaned over it, dropping my sword to rest my hands on the heavy stone. It seemed...irreverent, somehow, to just open up the resting place of this man. How long had he laid here, dead?

Well, the dead have no purpose for a lightsaber. I heaved and the stone lid of the sarcophagus slid free, crashing to the ground behind the base and throwing up a cloud of dust so thick I actually coughed and covered my mouth. But there, glinting in the eerie blue light, was the lightsaber.

I grabbed it, turning it over in my palm. My thumb fumbled for the small switch on its side, and I pointed the emitter away from myself as I pressed upon it. With the glorious snap-hiss that was so iconic for this weapon type, the crimson sword burst into life.

[Skill Unlocked: Lightsaber Proficiency I]

Vette squeaked in terror as one of the coffins cracked open below us. "Hide," I barked, turning towards the sound and jumping. The lightsaber in my hand was longer than the war blade I had been wielding, but weightless. Still a bit too short for my height, or so it felt. Turning it took some small effort, for reasons I wasn't sure about, but I managed to angle the weapon towards the undead that was trying to claw its way out of the coffin, easily beheading it. But there were others, already kicking their way to freedom, infused with hatred for the defiler of their master's grave.

They wielded lightsabers. Orange, violet, red, yellow...there were four of them. I heard Vette shouting, but could hear nothing over the roar of my blood, extending a hand and unleashing a blast of power as these shambling creatures sought to challenge me. I was power, I was fury, I was Sith!

I picked them apart one by one, using the Force to unbalance them. My technique was clumsy, but they were literally skeletal remains, so it was an even fight. I removed arms and legs, going for the neck only when I was sure I wasn't going to be tagged by a lightsaber blade. the fight was a whirl of color and flying dust, bursts of Force power, and shouts of triumph. In the end I was alone, shrouded by the wisps of dust and illuminated by my blade.

It took me longer than I care to admit, to come back to my rational senses. "You can come down, Vette," I called, bending down to gather the other lightsabers. A spare might come in handy...who knows?

Vette seemed to materialize out of the dust cloud, hugging herself. "You..." her words seemed to fail her.

I cleared my throat, a bit embarrassed at myself. I had probably looked totally insane. "I can take the rucksack."

"Let's...get out of the tomb first," Vette replied, looking at me with wide eyes. Was she afraid of me? I couldn't really tell from my senses. There was some fear in her, but mostly relief.

Retracing our steps was far more peaceful. We emerged from the tomb to blessedly fresh night air and cool temperatures. I pumped my fist and raised my new lightsaber in joy. "We did it!"

Vette laughed and I turned to her, a wide smile stretching my lips for the first time. I didn't count the smile I had given Vemrin as he bled out...that had been more of a sneer. She dropped the heavy pack to the sand and clapped her hands, and I bowed mockingly.

"Thank you, thank you," I put on airs. "Thank you very much."

When Vette stopped laughing I grabbed the canteen from the pack and took two swigs, offering the rest to her. When she was done, we still had a quarter of the water left, and I didn't think we would have to actually break into our rations. The walk back to the Academy was only about an hour.

I shouldered the pack and tested its weight by bending my knees. Child's play. I barely even felt it, actually. "Well, then. I think we've earned a shower and a hearty meal," I quipped, tilting my head back to look at the breathtaking night sky. An endless vista of stars stretched above us, like the entire galaxy was visible from down in this valley. "And a new pair of shoes for my Twi'lek, I think."

"This Twi'lek has a name," Vette griped, gradually relaxing as the dangers of the tomb were left behind. I waved my hand at her vaguely and started walking.

Chapter Text

We arrived at the Academy far too late to immediately report to Baras, and the Requisitions Officer wasn't at his post. That left us with no option apart from rest, so I took Vette back up to my dorm and peeled myself out of my armor, taking the towel and heading to the showers.

Vette stopped me at the door. "Um...you..."

I blinked at her. We stared at each other uncomfortably for several breaths. "Spit it out," I finally urged, and even though I intended it to be teasing my hoarse voice made it seem a bit harsh. I sighed and relaxed my shoulders. "I mean, what is it?"

"You have to take the shock collar off, or the water will trigger it," Vette blurted, speaking too-fast, ducking her head when she finished. I shrugged and rummaged for the remote, turning it over in my hands.

"How does this work, anyway?" I wondered to myself. The remote was smooth and had one large button on the top. Vette was shaking and had slumped to her knees, causing me to blink at her in confusion.

"D-Don't! I didn't mean anything by it, I'll just..."

"Stand up," I breathed, throwing the remote back into the ruck sack and approaching her. "Didn't I tell you I wasn't going to use that thing needlessly? I thought I had to deactivate the collar from the remote."

Vette sighed with a bit of poorly hidden relief and nodded as she stood up once more. "No, there's an interface on the back of the collar. You enter the code and it releases."

"I wasn't given any code," I told her, shuffling my feet in frustration. "I'll have to beat it out of Jailer Knash tomorrow. Use a washcloth for tonight, and just try not to get the collar wet. There's soap in the stalls...it's odorless."

I realized as I spoke that the reason the soap was odorless was probably because different species would interpret the aroma differently, and it was by no means guaranteed that a pleasant scent for Sith would be pleasant for humans or anybody else. In fact, how exactly had they managed to make it odorless for everyone? Impressive. Or maybe it wasn’t odorless to Twi’leki and she was going to think I was an idiot...

Vette just nodded at me, and I pulled my robes closed more tightly around my chest, striding past her. I was feeling sticky and too-hot, eager to stand under the water for the allotted minutes.

During my time on Korriban the one thing I had noticed was that the showers were always too short. I had forgotten to warn Vette about the timer...hopefully she could manage. I was sitting on my bunk, wringing out my troublesome hair with the towel, when the girl bustled into the room, her clothes sticking to her wet body.

"There's no towels!" she exclaimed. Oh, right...I had been provided with my towel along with my uniform.

"Clearly, acolytes were not intended to have company in their dorm," I grumbled as I pulled the towel away from my hair. It was pretty damp. "You can use this?"

Vette wrinkled her nose but accepted the moist towel, slipping back through the door for some privacy. When she returned, I could feel the irritation seeping from her and I wanted to giggle maliciously. I contained myself, thinking that she probably wouldn't appreciate it.

She did look pretty cute with her nose all wrinkled up and her lips downturned in a pout.

Last time I had slept in here I had been wearing my full kit, which had been a terrible idea and left me slightly achy in the morning. The first time I had slept in the underwear that I had been given, topless. I thought that Vette would probably not appreciate that, so this time I was wearing the undershirt of the acolyte uniform, a dark gray cotton t-shirt. I had removed the bra-thing that went under the shirt to keep things out of the way during combat – it got a bit cramped to keep that thing on all day, let alone all night.

The briefs and the t-shirt didn't leave much to the imagination, however. I hadn't been terribly concerned about it before, but looking down at myself now I could see the impression of my nipples against the shirt and the outline of my trouser snake. I scoffed at myself and laid back on the bunk, drawing the thin sheet over my body in an attempt to preserve Vette's innocence.

She was standing in the middle of the dorm, looking confused.

"What?"

Her eyes flicked to me, strangely alarmed. "N-Nothing..."

I shrugged and rolled over, putting my back to her. I wasn't exactly tired, but I was definitely ready for a few hours of sleep. I heard Vette rustling around behind me and wondered what she was doing...and then it occurred to me that I was occupying the only bed in the dorm room.

It was also a single, which was far too small to share platonically. I mean, Vette could have made herself into a blanket and draped over my body, for all the good that would do, but trying to lay beside me would only end with her getting shoved off in the middle of the night. I rolled over and peeked at her with one eye...she was stretched out on the metallic floor panels, using my rolled-up uniform as a pillow, with her head-tails splayed out on either side of her shoulders.

Her back was not going to appreciate that. And she was still wounded from the beating those Imperials had given her...

Fuck. I closed my eyes and tried not to think about it. A gentleman would have offered her the bed, but then I would end up sleeping on the metal floor. A lecher would have invited her to share the bed, but she had probably been traumatized enough by Sith and Imperials, so I wasn't going to add sexual harassment to that.

A jackass would just ignore her. Which made me a jackass, I suppose, since I ignored her long enough for sleep to claim me.

My alarm woke me at 0400, like usual. I stretched like a cat and sat up, letting the sheet fall from my shoulders, and watching Vette valiantly try to keep hold of her sleep as my datapad wailed piercingly. I leaned down and retrieved it from the pack, silencing the alarm.

"Still tired?" I asked the girl, and she opened her eyes groggily.

She nodded her head slowly. I sighed and stood up, stepping over her and starting to piece together my ensemble. "Take the bunk. I'll sell the stuff we got and take care of a few other errands. If I need you I'll come get you."

Vette thanked me softly and curled up on on the bunk so fast my head spun, covering her face with one of her lekku. I finished strapping my armor over the undershirt and briefs, then fastened my utility belt with its dangling collection of lightsabers around my waist. After that I donned the dark black robes, and finally I gathered my hair up into a messy knot behind my head, fastening it with an elastic band that I had picked up from the Requisitions Officer.

I gathered the ruck sack and slipped out of my dorm, leaving Vette to gather a few more winks of sleep. She deserved it, for surviving everything that she had.

Selling the collected materials went about as well as I had anticipated, with a harsh scolding an a reduced payout due to the fact that we had plundered the tomb and caused damage to the historical site. Still, the items were worth ten thousand credits. I didn't dare to sell the lightsabers, keeping them where they were clipped under my robes.

After that, I decided to pay Jailer Knash a visit.

"Hey, fucker, how's the arm?" I sneered the moment I entered the jail, startling him where he was seated at his post.

"My lord!" he groveled, bowing at once. "I trust that your slave serves you well? Is she obedient?"

"If you're about to take credit for that, I'll feed you your teeth," I snapped. "What is the code to her collar?"

"The code?" Jailer Knash straightened in confusion.

"The code required to remove the collar."

He looked at me with a suddenly blank expression. "Why do you require it, my Lord?"

"Is that any of your business?" I retorted sharply.

He immediately shrank from me and bowed again. "N-No, my Lord. I apologize. There is no code for the Twi'lek's collar, it was intended to be permanent. She is, after all, a criminal."

My gut clenched in fury and I spun on my heel before I could get myself in trouble, storming away from the jailer. In the MMO, hadn't the player character just reached over and removed it like it was nothing?

Well...now what? The next best thing would be to give her the remote, but it was obviously inconvenient to have the somewhat bulky collar poised to deliver agonizing shock at every moment of the day. Not to mention the fact that it made taking showers difficult.

If it would just apply a shock when it was removed, then that was probably fine. Vette would agree to a little shock to be free from its presence. But if it was set to kill the wearer if it detected tampering, then that was a whole different animal.

I thought about the problem as I checked my communicator for a summons from Baras. Surely, he knew that I had returned the night before? In fact, I sent a message to him asking when I should come to his office. I was pleasantly surprised when I received a civil response inviting me to meet him at once.

Or perhaps it was just a politely phrased demand. In any case, I didn't keep him waiting, and ascended the ramp to the second floor of the quiet academy with brisk steps. Baras was sitting at his desk, without his mask, and there were a pile of datapads on the surface. I knew conceptually that he was a spymaster, but the game had portrayed that mostly as a torturer and mastermind.

Apparently it also included quite a lot of desk work.

"Ah, my new apprentice," Baras drawled when he saw me enter. I bowed in my typical stilted fashion. "We will need to address your etiquette, now that you are officially my student. In fact, there are many things that you must learn, before I will entrust you with important missions. However, that can wait. What did you find in the tomb?"

"Droids, master," I addressed him as I thought best. "They became aggressive when I started to destroy them. But they were no threat to a Sith. I believe that they were present to discourage typical tomb raiders."

"Your slave was adequate to the tasks you required of her, I hope?"

"She was in terrible condition, but proved indispensable," I answered, and I knew that her injuries had been intended by Darth Baras as another trial.

He eyed me curiously, and I had the strange feeling that I had somehow failed that test. "You treated her injuries at cost to yourself and provided her with a lavish meal."

"She is more useful if she is in good health," I defended my decision. But I just couldn't stop my big mouth from adding, "And it was the right thing to do."

"The right thing," Baras hummed, shaking his head like a disappointed parent. "Was it right because she is more useful in good health? Or was it right because it exemplified mercy in your mind?"

I lifted my chin stubbornly.

"Well, you have the power in that relationship. It was right because you willed it," Baras decreed, putting his hands together in a steeple. "If I ordered you to kill her, that would be right. Because I am the power that has jurisdiction over you both."

"It would be wasteful."

"It would, perhaps, allow you to focus more completely on your duties as my apprentice," Baras retorted halfheartedly. "But, I won't make you kill her. Amuse yourself with her however you please. Perhaps that will teach you to make use of your authority."

I bowed towards him, even if it rankled to offer gratitude for something that should have been freely given.

"Now, show me the blade," Baras intoned. "I imagine there was a lightsaber in the inner sanctum?"

I pulled my robes aside to reveal the collection. "Many lightsabers. The tomb guardians were equipped with them, and there was one in the sarcophagus of their creator."

I demonstrated their colors for Baras, returning them to my belt after I showed each blade. They were varying lengths, I discovered. Each had a distinct hum, a different frequency. They felt different in the palm of my hand. Some were longer and more difficult to turn, others were shorter and practically felt like moving a laser pointer.

"A lightsaber is a weapon," Darth Baras said. "A tool. It is only as effective as the one who wields it. Most lightsabers use flywheels in the hilt to give the blade a feeling of weight. The energy from the power cell is compressed into small, weighted magnetic discs. Because they are frictionless, you can't hear them. Other lightsabers have no inertia. You might wonder why anyone would prefer a blade that has weight."

I nodded. "The lighter blade would be more lethal. Faster."

"Indeed. However, a weightless blade can be battered aside far more easily. And with a lightsaber, that chaotic motion could cause you to hit yourself while attempting to block your opponent's strike," Baras explained. "Early lightsabers did not have the inertia, and as a result lightsaber combat was short and lethal. Most swordsman did not survive more than ten duels, and the outcome was almost purely random. When two skilled swordsmen met, no one could predict the victor. The introduction of the miniaturized flywheel, small enough to fit in the hilt of the blade, changed that. Even having a slight amount of inertia is much preferable."

Fascinating. On Earth, various fencing weapons had only become popular because the average person wasn't wearing armor, and piercing weapons like the rapier were perfect for puncturing lightly armored enemies at longer range than the usual sidearm of the time. A lightsaber that didn't have inertia would be like a smallsword or a fencing foil. Obviously if a man with a real longsword came up against a noble using a smallsword, the noble would be hard pressed to block the swings of the longsword, and his smallsword would be likely to break.

For lightsabers, however, there was no risk of the blade breaking.

"Which weapon should I use?"

"Experiment with each of them," Baras advised. "I have not seen your form, but I assume it's terrible. Training sabers can only take you to the barest essentials of lightsaber mastery. When we arrive on Dromund Kaas I will have an instructor assist you in the use of your lightsaber. Since you wear heavy armor, I imagine that Form III suits you well. Or perhaps Form V. While you are on Vaiken Spacedock, purchase yourself a suitable armor for a melee combatant of your rank. The standard trooper armor is too restrictive for Sith, and too common for any ranking member in my power base."

"This one has no inertia at all," I remarked, indicating the yellow lightsaber. "Should I sell it to Imperial Culture and Arts? It's probably ancient..."

"If you wish to dispose of it, leave it with me," Baras waved his hand at me. "As my apprentice, I will provide you with a stipend sufficient to purchase equipment and sustenance for yourself and your slave. You will not seek employment or compensation through other means. If someone wishes to hire your skills or make use of your presence, they must contact me and negotiate for the privilege. This is one of several rules that I apply to all of my apprentices. I have sent a collection of information packets that I would like you to read before you arrive on Dromund Kaas. There won't be a test on the material, but if you don't learn and understand it you will probably die."

I blinked, then nodded. No accepting quests from random people, got it.

"Now, you have one week to arrive on Dromund Kaas. I trust that I can rely on you not to be late...I will be very displeased if you fail this very simple task," Darth Baras intoned, meeting my eyes firmly. "You will find the information about your new funds on your communicator. There is a shuttle that will take you to the Imperial Fleet, and it leaves every hour on the hour. Do you have any questions?"

"No, master."

"In that case, I will leave you with my final congratulations. I didn't expect Vemrin to fail me so spectacularly...you revealed his weakness. It is good that I did not trust him to perform the tasks that I will now entrust to you. I can only hope for your sake that I am not disappointed once more," Darth Baras concluded this ominous...compliment? Warning? Whatever it was, he ended it by shooing me away with his hand, and I left at once. I wasn't eager to hang around him longer than necessary.

I thought about leaving the yellow lightsaber on the pedestal of one of the statues beside the door to his office but decided against it. Even if I wasn’t going to use it as my primary, it might be useful to throw or to open locked doors.

I wondered if Baras considered me weak because he actually knew my skills and abilities and felt that his own were superior, or if he was just too arrogant to recognize what I was capable of? Or maybe he was just heckling me to try and get me to apply myself more energetically?

Regardless, I was now a Sith Apprentice. Whoopee, I guess?

I found Vette still sleeping, and it had only been about an hour and a half since my alarm so that wasn't surprising. I sat at the foot of the bed and read through some of the stuff that Baras had sent me while I waited for her to wake up again, and it didn't take her long to yawn and rub her face with one hand, shoving her head-tail aside as she sat up and blinked at me confusedly.

"Good morning?" she greeted.

"Good morning," I replied. "I have good news and bad news."

Vette slumped back onto the bed. "It's too early for this."

"The good news is we're leaving Korriban," I continued, and she instantly sat up again, clapping her hands together in excitement. "The bad news is that Jailer Knash didn't have the code for your collar. He said it's supposed to be permanent."

All happiness instantly fled from her, and she fell back a second time, covering her face with her hands. She peeked between her fingers with a complex look in her eye. "You actually went and asked?"

That was what she was curious about? "Of course. I said I would beat it out of him, didn't I?"

"Did you?" Vette wondered. Was that eagerness I sensed? She had a vicious streak, apparently.

"I didn't have to, he almost pissed himself when he saw me," I scoffed, shaking my head at the memory. "Do you know if the collar is intended to kill you if someone tries to remove it? I could just rip it off."

"That would hurt," Vette whined, touching her neck with one hand.

"Would it kill you, though?"

She shook her head. "I'm not sure it's worth all of that effort just to take a shower..."

Oh, she thought I was intending to put the collar back on again. The shock collar wasn't very useful to me; if the threat of pain was the only thing ensuring her obedience, then I couldn't trust her to do what I needed her to do. Unless I was planning to just use her to cook food, crack jokes, and do laundry. That would be a waste of her talents, however...and I would probably have a droid for that kind of thing. Well, not for the jokes.

"I'm thinking of removing the collar permanently," I said, lowering my datapad and looking at her. "You did what I needed you to do, and I'm getting you off of Korriban. After breakfast, we'll take a shuttle to the Imperial fleet."

"You...you're setting me free?" Vette breathed.

I nodded. "I suppose you could leave if you have someplace to go. Or you could tag along with me to Dromund Kaas. Baras is paying me a stipend that includes some money for your equipment and care. I will probably need your help again at some point."

Vette searched my face for a moment, then looked down at her hands. "A free Twi’lek is just a Twi’lek that hasn't been caught yet...that's what Nok Drayen used to say."

I knew she didn't agree with that. "You don't believe that do you?"

She scoffed derisively. "Of course not, Nok was a sick bigot. But a Twi’lek girl on her own on the Imperial fleet with no credits is a different situation than just painting my whole species with broad strokes."

"I'll be honest, the reason for removing the collar is because I couldn't trust you to fight my enemies at my side if you were only obedient because of fear. I don't need a pet or a maid...if you come with me, we'll probably end up killing people, and I'd depend on you for as long as you were a part of my team," I informed her seriously. "Cutting you loose on the fleet with little money and no friends isn't exactly kind of me...but I have to be on Dromund Kaas in one week, and I don't even know how long it takes to get there. Besides, you're obviously pretty resourceful if you've survived this long. I'd like to have you watching my back without thinking about putting a blaster bolt in it."

"People would assume that I'm your slave, collar or not," Vette mused, looking away from me.

"That assumption just means that they won't mess with you if they know what's good for them. Their misconceptions have no real impact on us," I put in. "What skills do you have, apart from getting into trouble?"

She glared at me and raised a hand, ticking off items on her fingers. "I can shoot blasters, pick locks, slice computers, and handle explosives. And I can use stealth field generators."

"What a scoundrel," I muttered bemusedly, stowing my datapad. "Well, I can't do any of those things. If you're willing to use those skills for my benefit then I'll pay for equipment, food, and lodging. And you won't have to worry about abuse. I want to make sure you understand it won't exactly be safe, and if you betray me for whatever reason, well...just hope I don't survive it. Or at least that I have time to cool off, I have found that I have a bit of a temper."

"I'd be working for a Sith, I think a bad temper is pretty much expected," Vette deadpanned. "Everything you just said is pretty obvious. Are you saying I could leave later, if I change my mind?"

"As long as you leaving doesn't directly lead to my death or disadvantage," I rubbed the back of my neck. "Well, let's get some food. You can think about it."

She snorted. "What's there to think about? I'm with you, for now, Xanot."

"That quick?"

"I'm sure I could run off and live on the knife's edge," Vette pointed out. "Or I can take my chances with you. As far as masters go, you're already better than the rest just for removing the collar. Besides, I've spent my whole life either running from powerful people or suffering under powerful people...maybe it's about time I made a powerful friend."

I nodded, flashing a quick smile. "You can call me master still, if you like me so much."

"Oh shut it."

Chapter Text

I won't soon forget the sound of Vette's agonized scream as I tore that insidious device from her neck, nor the look of gratefulness that I received once the tremors had stopped. I admired Vette's willingness to suffer for the sake of her freedom...or perhaps just for the sake of her own peace of mind. 'Freedom' might have been overstating things a bit, considering her new circumstances still involved traveling the galaxy with a Sith and obeying my commands.

In any case, with the stipend provided by Darth Baras, I bought her a standard Imperial reconnaissance trooper uniform that was pretty close to her size, sans helmet, and we had breakfast in the cantina of the Korriban one final time. Then it was time to leave this blasted rock behind.

We were seated in the shuttle in short order and informed that the journey to the fleet would take about three hours. It was a rather cramped transport for that length of time, but obviously there wasn't any other choice, so I settled in with my datapad to catch up on some of the assigned reading.

Darth Baras had provided me a manual on lightsaber modification, maintenance, and construction, a treatise on Sith traditions and etiquette, a guide to effective leadership, an introduction to Form III, the Way of the Mynock, and an introduction to Form V, the Way of the Krayt Dragon. In total, it was easily three gigabytes of multimedia, which translated to hundreds of hours of work. It was a good thing I was no slouch when it came to speed reading.

"What's next for you as a Sith apprentice?" Vette asked me as our shuttle escaped the atmosphere of Korriban. I was surprised at how minimal the turbulence of such a flight had been so far, since I had expected something more along the lines of 21st century plane. Obviously Star Wars had far superior engineering, but somehow it still surprised me that we were almost lazily escaping atmosphere.

I glanced at her and shrugged. "My impression of Darth Baras is that he is not what you might call a principled Sith Lord. He is looking for an enforcer, not a successor," I replied honestly, gesturing with my datapad. "For now I'll be learning how to perform whatever violence he wishes for me to unleash. I don't know what kinds of operations his organization undertakes, and I'm not sure how prominent a role he will ask me to play in it. I'm sure more will become clear on Dromund Kaas."

Vette pulled one of her head-tails over a shoulder and stroked it absently. "What do you mean by 'not principled?'"

I could tell that she was doubtful of the entire concept of Sith principles, and I couldn't blame her.

"Sith in the Empire take two broad shapes," I began to explain eagerly. It was something I had thought much about when my exposure to this world had been in video games and in books. "There are those who are Sith only because of the power they seek. And there are those who are Sith because they accept wholeheartedly the philosophy of the Sith and act according to its principles. Because the way of the Sith centers on strength and upholds the pursuit of power, it can be hard for outsiders to tell the difference. Especially since, when challenged, even the most cavalier Sith Lord will insist that he is a devotee of the Sith Code."

"I mean, Sith are power-hungry," Vette agreed. "Everyone in the galaxy knows that."

"Yes, and I'm sure the general public also knows the Sith to be deceitful, bloodthirsty, and generally loyal only to themselves," I compounded on her description. "But while every Sith must pursue power, often through violence, it is not necessary for the Sith to betray his fellows or to become an insufferable asshole. There are Sith who are motivated almost purely by self interest, and there are those who truly believe in the Code, in the Empire, and in the Sith traditions. In my opinion, the former kind of Sith Lord is ultimately a threat to the Empire, whereas the second is the Empire's strength."

"I don't understand," Vette whined. "If the Sith aren't supposed to be backstabbing, sadistic animals then why are so many of them exactly that?"

It was a good question, although Vette probably wasn't aware of it. "It could be that I am mistaken, and those backstabbing, bloodthirsty animals are the true Sith. In any case, according to Sith teaching, the only way to know for sure who is ultimately correct is through conflict and eventual victory. Which breed of Sith will survive in the end, and which will become extinct? That will determine the future of the Empire. And I suspect, the future of the galaxy as a whole."

"Well, what kind of Sith are you? Or which do you want to be?" Vette asked.

I smiled and leaned back in the straps of the seat. "Darth Baras considers me to be neither. He says that I do not have any passion for the way of the Sith and considers me foolish for believing that there is some justice in this world apart from ultimate power."

"Do you believe that, still? In justice?"

I shrugged. "I couldn't really say. If I did believe in it, I wouldn't be able to explain to you what it is or what it means. Only...where I come from there were certain things that were right, and then there were things that were wrong. Most people didn't think that these things were one or the other only because somebody powerful had said so, once upon a time. It was supposed to be fundamentally part of the nature of things. Do I still believe that? After Korriban...I don't know if I really do. It might be that the Sith way is the only way left for me."

The only sound between us was the hum of the shuttle's engines. Vette continued to play with her lekku, looking pensive, before she eventually sighed. "You're the weirdest Sith I've ever met, you know?"

"And how many have you met?" I asked her bemusedly. I sensed she wasn't sure how to respond and was happy to let the topic shift. After all, what the hell did I really know about these things? "How many of those have you had a chance to ask about their philosophy?"

"Well...three, and you're the first one to talk about this kind of thing," Vette admitted. "Even so! You're saying that your master is just using you for his own purposes."

"Yes, that's about right," I agreed with a nod.

"And you're okay with that?" she continued slowly, giving me a complicated look.

"I recognize that his intentions don't have to become my reality," I replied after a moment. It was actually the first time I had really considered this aspect of my circumstances for myself, and I was surprised by how comfortable I was with the way things were going so far. "He might not intend for me to thrive and outgrow him, but I will. Despite what he might think, I am more than merely a tool in his arsenal. And while he might be my Master, I have the power of self-determination. That is something no one can truly take from us; if they wish to stop us they can either kill us or break our resolve. But even someone who has been broken can always choose to piece themselves together again."

Vette scoffed. "It's kind of hard to come back from dead."

"Indeed. But dying isn't necessarily something to fear on its own. Dying for the wrong reasons, now that should be feared," I mused, recalling the words of a favorite poet of mine. "In the same way, merely living isn't necessarily good on its own. Living well, now that is something special."

After that, Vette left me to my reading, which I appreciated. Even if it was fun to talk about my thoughts, I wasn't entirely confident that what I had said was really what I believed, when it came down to do or die. A part of me thought that Baras was probably right...I wasn't really Sith at all. I didn't have the passion for their way of life that was demanded by their Code. And if that was true, then I would die.

In truth, what did I desire? Strength without purpose is waste, all the Sith teachings indicated this. And if my only ambition was, "I want to live," then I was sure to eventually stagnate. And if I believed what I had just said to Vette, that simple survival wasn't even a praiseworthy goal, then I surely needed to find another purpose beyond that.

The problem was that I hadn't really ever had a purpose before, not even in my previous life. I had been a mid-level programmer at a small corporation in the Mid-West of the United States, one man acting as a cog in a machine designed to make a profit. I had some friends and family members, like most people do, but that couldn't be called my purpose in life. I had been content to simply enjoy the comforts of home, of warm showers and decent food. Video games and books, comics and television shows...these diversions had satisfied my lust for adventure and need for meaning. I had been living vicariously, placing myself in the shoes of heroes...

But now, I was the hero. Or the villain, whatever the case might be. I was no longer playing a game or reading a story, I was living it. And my character didn't fall neatly into the categories of good or evil. Did that mean that the grand ambitions of the characters I had played once before should become mine? Did it mean that I should desire the grandest heights of power and pursue a lasting impact on the Imperial way of life? Would it even matter in the end if I did?

Reading about the Sith traditions made me realize something. The Sith code naturally required grand ambitions. Anyone whose goals in life were simply to have good food, good sex, and good sleep could not thrive in the Sith Order, not when it demanded the recognition of its first axiom, "Peace is a lie." Therefore, all of the titles and posturing, the etiquette of when to bow and when to nod one's head, all had been tailored to bestow respect on the ones who moved the galaxy. They were the Lords. Ambition, purpose, and the power to achieve them. That was what was deserving of praise.

Those who were happy with their lot, who had no ambitions, would serve the ones that did.

To become a Lord, a Sith needed not just cunning but the resolve to take action. They needed the strength but also the will to exert themselves. Such a will could only come from the desire to see their dreams become reality, in whatever form that might take.

Beyond that, a Sith Lord could not merely command strength, but needed to possess it personally. And that, precisely that, is where the Empire in its current form was failing, from my perspective.

For too long, many of the Sith Lords had maintained their positions by treachery and betrayal, preventing the rise of potential challengers by deliberately destroying the strongest among their own servants. These Lords existed only because of a delicate balancing act where powerful underlings could only be permitted to see part of the picture, and therefore were prevented from ascending to their proper position. In the end, those who were truly worthy of leading the Empire, who truly deserved seats on the Dark Council, and even perhaps those who truly deserved the title of Emperor, were all being placed in chains. They were put under glass ceilings. Oppressed. Exploited.

The systems of the Empire which had been intended to uphold the Sith way were actually stifling it, providing a means by which the ultimately weak-willed but cunning were able to take positions of power that were undeserved and therefore poorly managed. Furthermore, as you moved up in the hierarchy of Empire more and more of your energy and effort was required to simply maintain your position against usurpers, and less was directed towards the ambitions you were supposed to be honored for pursuing!

As said in the Tragedy of Darth Plageuis the Wise, "He became so powerful that the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power - which eventually he did." As all Sith eventually do. And most often, it was another Sith who dealt the killing blow.

The Sith were meant to grow stronger through adversity, and that included adversity among themselves. However, if such conflict was a no-holds-barred, total war then it only resulted in the deaths of many who could have served the Sith cause. Many were cut down before they could truly grow into their potential. The deaths which resulted from the infighting were wasteful, and when the strong used their strength merely to eradicate the weak then there was no challenge to force them to adapt, and there was no forward progress.

It also alienated everyone who didn't want to engage in that kind of contest against their own countrymen, and ironically it encouraged people not to be ambitious because of the myriad dangers that were presented to them should they choose to seek advancement in the Empire.

The problem with the plot of the MMO I was now living was that the player character was dragged through the machinations of Baras to greatest heights of Imperial power, then thrust into the role of the Emperor's Wrath, then put into conflict with the greatest members of the Empire, and after all that death and struggle, there was never provided any good reason for it all. After carving his bloody swatch through Imperial leadership, leaving Moffs and Darths in his wake, dethroning false emperors, and ultimately facing the Eternal Empire practically alone, the Wrath could only ever be said to have ended the ambitions of other men, never having a true vision for himself.

And, of course, I was now walking that path. Was that my destiny now, as well? No...if I survived long enough, rose high enough, then I wouldn't be content with such a status quo. What would happen to the Star Wars timeline if I reformed the Empire in some significant way? Would it survive longer than it had in canon?

Could it even, perhaps, achieve victory over Republic? Was that what I wanted to see?

In any case, Rome hadn't been built in a day, and neither would the Sith Empire be changed in a day. My priorities now should be growing strong enough to survive the conditions of the Empire at present, and that meant I had to focus on my reading instead of dreaming about my future.

By the time the shuttle touched down at Vaiken Spacedock, I had worked my way through a good deal of the treatise on etiquette that Darth Baras had included. I hadn't been aware, but evidently [Force Sense] was used a great deal in everyday conversation. For example, when greeting a stranger Sith the first thing was to appraise their aura, to determine their rank. Since I am an apprentice, those who are significantly stronger than myself should be addressed as "Lord" and if they are very much stronger then "Darth" was proper. Better to err on the side of caution, since it was flattering to call a Lord by the title Darth, but it could be insulting to call a Darth by the title Lord. The epithet, 'my lord' was used for both titles, however, just to make it confusing.

A bow was only strictly expected in formal settings. Crossing your arm over your chest and nodding your head was considered respectful to one of greater rank in everyday use. When greeting one of equal rank, merely nodding to acknowledge them was sufficient. No outward gesture was needed when greeting someone of lower rank.

Simple enough.

Where it got complicated was with various traditions. For example, when multiple apprentices were under the same master, they addressed one who had been apprenticed longer with the same respect as one who was their superior in rank. So, any apprentice of Baras that I encountered should be met with an arm over my chest and a nod, since I was undoubtedly the most recently acquired student of his.

There were countless other examples. It was a little difficult to keep track of everything, but I was sure that I would be reminded passive-aggressively by other Sith who I managed to offend somehow. Or maybe not passively at all, just straight aggressive. In either case, I could learn from my mistakes.

It was cold on Vaiken Spacedock. That was my first impression of the place, and I found that I greatly disliked it. However, if Korriban could be considered my home planet, then I was sure most places in the galaxy would seem to be cold, and this fact pretty much ruined my mood for the day.

I received a notice on my communicator.

'Darth Baras has arranged expedited transport for you and one other to Dromund Kaas on the armed freighter known as the Black Talon. You can choose to take a regular shuttle if you wish, but the regular passenger transports from Vaiken only depart every three days, and you just missed the last one. The Black Talon will await your arrival until 2000, if you do not report to the captain by then it will depart.'

I checked the time and saw that it as 1010, so I had a little less than ten hours. If I wanted to take the Black Talon...which I honestly wasn't sure I did. That was a flashpoint in the game, if I remember right...one that not many players chose to do. It had been intended to introduce people to the flashpoint mechanic but could be done solo in story mode.

Flashpoints generally involved combat against Jedi, and against other ridiculous opponents. Giant droids, mutated creatures, fucking tanks, etc. Was I even remotely prepared for that? Besides, where could I expect to find party members that were capable of such things?

Vette was with me, but...I glanced at her as we stepped out of the turbolift and frankly I couldn't imagine the slender Twi'lek charging headlong into a full platoon of Republic commandos at my side. If we went on the Black Talon, how could I expect to keep her alive while also contending with various boss-level enemies?

"What's your best weapon?" I asked Vette, checking the map of the spacedock and finding it helpfully labeled. The first thing, regardless of my decision regarding Black Talon, was to equip ourselves.

"Huh?" Vette tilted her head at me.

I sighed. "Which weapon are you best with? A rifle? Akimbo blasters? A knife?"

I really hoped it wasn't the knife. Vette's features cleared and she bobbed her head. "I'm good with blaster pistols. Never used a rifle before."

Well, I would just have to hope she could actually hit her targets. Strength scaling seemed pretty straight forward for me, since I had attributes and skills which grew according to my experience. But for Vette, I wondered how that would work. Would a blaster do more damage in her hands than anyone else's? Or did her ATK stat translate to accuracy instead of damage?

I couldn't actually see her statistics, unfortunately. It was possible that she didn't have them at all, and I was the only one in this universe who played by the rules of attributes and skills.

Regardless, I needed to check how much Baras had given us to work with, and then I needed to equip us as well as I could manage for combat against the Republic. Just in case I decided to take the Black Talon.

Which I wasn't sure about, still.

Vaiken Spacedock had everything. Banks, galactic market kiosks, and vendors of every conceivable thing. Armor, weapons, accessories, and even lightsaber parts. It turned out Baras had provided a hundred thousand credits, which was generous enough for me to get a pair of heavy blasters for Vette and a slicer's uniform that was actually in her size. The uniform came with various armor plating and a small shield generator that was rated for two direct hits from a standard blaster. She kept the other uniform as a backup, since they weren't offering more than a pittance for it at the kiosk.

Hopefully that would keep her from dying instantly on a battlefield. As for myself, I traded my soldier's armor and acolyte's uniform for a custom suit of Sith battle armor, complete with an intimidating helmet just like I'd always wanted. The helmet was both badass and also would protect me from a stray blaster shot in case I couldn't block it or evade. I did have the option to buy a helmet with a creepy voice-changer too, but I decided that was taking things a bit too far.

The armor was white, with a black under-suit. A full breastplate and segmented abdomen allowed for flexibility, and the shoulder pads were some kind of complicated jointed plate so that it only restricted my arms slightly. The white plates extended down to the elbows, and I had two gauntlets to cover each hand and forearm. In the full kit, there was none of my red skin showing, and it was rated for operation in vacuum.

Fitting all my coarse hair in the helmet was a bit of a chore, but I managed.

Vette gave me an uncertain thumbs up when I emerged from the 'fresher in my full suit, and I chuckled as I yanked the helmet off and carried it under my arm. My hair felt like a total disaster after the helmet, and I'm sure it looked ridiculous too. I glared at anyone that gave me more than a passing glance, and usually they ignored me after that.

I didn't wear the usual robes over the top of the armor, finding that the sweeping fabric was too troublesome to be worth it. The collection of lightsabers on my hip was fully visible to everyone.

It had taken two and a half hours to get our purchases made. "Lunch?" I wondered, checking my communicator. We had only spent twenty-eight thousand credits on equipment. There was still medical kits, stimulants, and munitions to consider. I wanted Vette to have grenades and plastic explosives, as a force multiplier.

"Sure," Vette agreed. "Maybe the food is better here than on Korriban."

"It's still a Sith cantina," I remarked, leading the way. "I wouldn't get your hopes up."

"Trust me, I wasn't," Vette assured with a smirk. "With Sith involved I generally expect the worst."

"Should I take that personally?" I wondered, looking over my shoulder. Vette just shook her head at me.

In short, the food was not better than Korriban. It was about the same. Although, for Vette, it might have tasted better simply because this would be her first meal as a relatively free Twi'lek who had survived her time on Korriban, so as far as she was concerned, I didn't sense any complaints.

"You said we have a week to get to Dromund Kaas?" Vette wondered. "It only takes three days or so in hyperspace."

"Right," I agreed. "There's a ship that could take us there leaving at 2000 hours, or we could wait three days and take the usual shuttle. If the shuttle makes additional stops, then we'd be late and I'd get in trouble with Baras."

"Also, finding a place to sleep on this station might be an issue," Vette put in.

I hadn't thought of that. Was there even anywhere for guests to sleep? "Well...I suppose we should plan on taking the ship out this evening, then."

Shit. I couldn't actually ask Vette whether she was alright with facing down a Republic warship, because I had no way of knowing whether or not the Black Talon would actually be called upon to intercept the defecting officer. It could be that we just ride on to Dromund Kaas and Grand Moff Kilran doesn't decide to get involved with us.

Even if I was certain that we would end up fighting Republic forces, I couldn't let on that I had such prior knowledge without bringing suspicion on myself. In any case, I would have to prepare us both for the conflict and hope for the best.

But I hated it. For one thing, putting Vette in a situation as dangerous as this didn't sit right with me, not when I knew that she wasn't going to be able to keep up. She couldn't jump thirty meters in a bound or run so fast that she became a blur. Couldn't fight ten men at a time and expect to win without injury.

Frankly, she would slow me down in the assault, so I had no choice but to have her stay behind or join the boarding party with the Imperial troops. And in either case I couldn't keep an eye on her, so she could end up dead like countless other everyday troopers.

Not to mention putting myself in this situation was an unwarranted risk. What did I get out of it? I'd probably level up a bit and learn some new skills. Was that worth the risk? On the other hand, I would risk running late to Dromund Kaas, but that would likely mean suffering literal torture at the hands of Darth Baras.

"Do you know how to handle explosives?" I asked Vette offhand, tapping my fingers on the table between us. She startled from her thoughts and blinked at me.

"Um...what kind?" was her hesitant reply.

"Breaching charges, remote detonators, grenades," I ticked the items off.

She shook her head. "No. I mean, I could probably throw a grenade, and I can disarm proximity mines, but I don't know how to set explosives or anything."

Shit. Well, grenades were better than nothing.

"I'll buy you a bandoleer and some grenades," I decided. "If you come up against a situation with dozens of opponents, like those droids in the tomb, I don't want you to be without options. With your armor and the blasters, you should be able to take care of yourself pretty well. If we come against Jedi, or cyborgs, or battle droids, or some other opponent that's beyond you, don't get involved; protect yourself."

Vette was blinking at me with intense curiosity. "Okie dokey, but...why are you saying this now? Are you planning on getting into a fight?"

"Me?" I shook my head. "No. Doesn't mean we won't get into a fight, though. And I don't want you thinking that you have to try and keep up with me in battle, regardless of your new equipment. The Force gives me power that those without it cannot hope to match."

"I get it, you're a tough cookie," Vette nodded. "What, you think I watched you blast your way through an army of droids and then get into a lightsaber duel that moved faster than my eyes could follow without realizing that?"

I hadn't realized my duel with the tomb guardians had been that fast. Well...at least my point had gotten across. "Good. I guess we'll get your equipment set up and then board that ship to Dromund Kaas. Who knows, maybe getting there early will net me extra pay."

Chapter Text

The woman that met us, flanked by a soldier at each side, seemed intimidated by me. Which was fair enough, considering that I was huge, armored, and also represented the mysterious, mercurial might of the Sith. She gave a crisp salute in British fashion, with the palm facing outwards and placed above her brow, then she clasped her hands behind her back. "My lord, I am Lieutenant Halden. Pleased to welcome you aboard."

"A pleasure," I greeted. I gestured to Vette, who stiffened slightly. "I am Xanot, and this is my associate, Vette."

Vette waved a hand. "Hiya."

The soldiers did not even glance at the heavily armed Twi’lek who stood a pace behind me, at my left. "We're pleased you reported in ahead of schedule, the ship can return to its intended route."

"Was it redirected to Vaiken Spacedock for me?" I wondered.

"The adjustment to our course was approved by Grand Moff Kilran," the Lieutenant remarked. Of course it was. Whatever hope that I had been nurturing about this adventure not turning into a fight with the Republic was quashed with that simple sentence. "While aboard the Black Talon, which is a military vessel, we've assigned each of you a bunk in the officer's quarters, and unfortunately must restrict you to the common areas quarters while we're underway."

"Reasonable," I mused, knowing full well that it wouldn't last.

We marched down a corridor to a series of cabins that must have been the crew quarters for officers. Each room only had two bunks, and there was a refresher shared between the six rooms, which meant that the Black Talon could have twelve officers.

"This room was cleared out for your convenience," Lieutenant Halden gestured to the nearest. "The refresher is marked just there. Meal times are 0500, 1200, and 1900. The mess is on deck two. Third shift starts 2200, so be mindful of noise."

I was vaguely amused at the speech, comparing it to the introduction that college students received when arriving at the campus dorm.

The lieutenant saluted again. "If you have any questions, just ask any one of the crew. We'll be departing shortly."

I nodded. "Right. Thank you, lieutenant."

The three soldiers departed. I glanced at Vette and then approached the room we had been assigned. Upon entering, I found it empty, which was a relief. I had half expected to find Kilran's droid in here. In the game, the droid had been part of the welcoming party, but I supposed that we would probably be diverted from our course mid-journey, so I should have expected it to come later.

"I guess we kick back and wait," I said to Vette, removing my helmet and setting it on the small table between the bunks. That was perfectly fine with me, I still had enough reading to do that I didn't mind down time.

Unfortunately, it did not take long for the excitement I had been dreading to begin. After the 1200 hour meal, while returning to our assigned rooms, Vette and I were met by one of the crewmen and informed that our droid had a message for us in the officer's conference room.

I sighed, moving to rub my face but realizing that I was wearing an armored gauntlet for one thing, and a full helmet for another. I smacked the glove into my helm anyway.

Time to face the music, then. I dragged my feet over to the room that had been indicated by the trooper, and then took a deep breath. Here goes nothing. I opened the door and stepped inside. The droid that was waiting for us was a rather unremarkable brass-colored protocol droid with green optics. Its chassis was vaguely man-shaped, and it had hands with three fingers. The same joints as a person, with hips, knees, and ankles.

"Welcome," it greeted in its mechanical tone. "I am ET-03, protocol droid. I specialize in cessation of hostilities, deception, and calumniation. I am pleased to make your acquaintance."

"I don't think the feeling is mutual," I replied dryly. "What do you want?"

"My master, Grand Moff Kilran, wishes to speak with you. Shall I put him through?"

"Was he waiting for me to arrive?"

"I notified him as soon as we began speaking," the droid responded. "He is now awaiting your permission to establish a a connection using my hypertransceiver."

"Go ahead, then."

The shape of the Grand Moff appeared in the air above the droid’s extended hands, using projectors that were built into its palms. He was heavily scarred, large, and commanding. "Apprentice Xanot, Lord Baras' newest acquisition," the Moff observed. "Well, it's a pleasure to meet the one who has been making such waves among the Sith."

"Making waves?" Have I really?

"Could it be that you aren't aware of the rumors? It is said that you graduated from the Academy in less than a week, after killing your first instructor and defeating a tarentatek in the tombs on Korriban," the admiral remarked. "Perhaps those rumors are exaggerations...but my contacts were quite adamant that it was true."

"Oh, those rumors," I hummed, reaching up to remove my helmet. I felt it was only polite. As I shook out my knotted locks of hair, I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, those are probably true."

"Excellent. Normally, a mere Apprentice would not normally be asked to intervene in a case as serious as this, but...unfortunately it has been rather difficult for me to get support from the Sith since the Treaty of Coruscant. Your master, Darth Baras, agreed to allow me to at least request your assistance in this matter."

"What matter might that be?"

"Your transport, the Black Talon, is one of the only available Imperial vessels that is capable of intercepting a Republic corvette that is fleeing from the scene of an ambush intended to capture or kill a defector, General Johnmark. Somehow, the traitor was able to link up with a Republic battlegroup, nearly assuring his escape, but we have managed to tie down the rest of his escort. the Black Talon was permitted to deviate from its course to pick you up, because I hoped that you would be willing to assist me."

I nodded slowly. "Be thorough. What would I be required to do?"

"First, the captain of the Black Talon has disobeyed a direct order from myself and is refusing to engage the ship carrying the defector, a Republic Thranta class corvette called the Brentaal Star. You will go to the bridge and correct this insubordination. Once you have reached the Brentaal Star, you must board this Republic ship and capture or kill the defector," Grand Moff Kilran explained simply.

I almost scoffed. That easy, right? Just board the ship and kill the defector. "Why should I agree to this? My master did not give me any indication that I was to obey your orders."

"Apart from serving the Empire faithfully, which should be the desire of every citizen, your aid in this matter would put me rather squarely in your debt. I'm sure someone as resourceful as yourself could think of some way that a Grand Moff might be of assistance to you in the future," Grand Moff Kilran replied smoothly. "Furthermore, it is in the interest of every Sith to live up to their reputation, I should think. It would be unfortunate if it were discovered that you don't."

Was that a threat? Well, fuck you too, buddy. "I am not particularly interested in killing Imperial soldiers. How do you propose I reach the bridge to discuss this matter with the captain?"

"I leave such details in your capable hands," the Moff waved me off. "Do whatever you wish, but failure in this matter would be...inconvenient for the Empire. Should I understand that you're agreeing to assist me?"

"Fine," I grunted. If Darth Baras had spoken with the Grand Moff before me, which he had implied, then I wasn't sure I had much choice. "We'll handle your defector for you."

"You have less than forty-seven minutes to intercept the Brentaal Star, after that your ship will be too far away," Grand Moff Kilran warned. "I look forward to hearing about your success."

Yeah, I bet you do. Instead of saying anything more, I simply turned away from the droid and walked past Vette's motionless form, stepping out into the corridor. One of the crewmen was standing by the door.

"You there," I addressed him. "I need to speak with the captain. Is he available?"

"Unfortunately, the bridge is off-limits to passengers while we are underway, my lord," the soldier responded.

"He has a comm, doesn't he?" I snapped. "Comm him."

"Ma'am, I don't have the Captain's comm, I'd have to contact my superior..."

"Then do that," I interrupted. "Whatever you have to do, get me in touch with the Captain. This is a matter of importance. If I cannot speak with him via comm, then I will have to go to the bridge to see him, whether it is permitted or not. Are you going to stand in my way?"

"U-understood, my Lord! I’ll…I’ll figure it out," the soldier saluted and marched off at speed.

I sighed and returned to the conference room. I was fine with waiting several minutes, just to see if this worked.

Thankfully, it seemed that somebody on this ship had common sense. The conference room's comm flared up and the handsome features of the captain appeared in the center of the table. "Sith, I was told that you wanted to speak with me."

"I have just been contacted by Grand Moff Kilran, who accused you of disobeying direct orders out of cowardice," I declared at once. Channeling my inner Darth Vader, I continued, "That would be very unfortunate, Captain. If it were true. I hope that there has been some misunderstanding."

The man's features were hard to distinguish via holo, but I preferred to think he paled. "The orders are suicide," he objected. "The Black Talon is an armed transport, but we don't stand a chance against a rated warship like the Brentaal Star."

"All the Black Talon must do is perform a boarding action and survive long enough for me to extract the defector," I said.

"Exactly," the captain snapped. "The key part of that being, 'survive long enough.' We don't have any way of telling where on the Brentaal Star your target might be. If he's on the bridge, you'd have to fight over four decks and eight hundred crewmen just to reach him. Our complement of marines is only eighty strong."

"The Brentaal Star's crew wouldn't be focused on shooting at you in that case. Besides, the Black Talon should be more maneuverable in real space. Once the boarding parties are aboard, you can withdraw and evade fire. I'm sure an officer of your rank and experience can think of a feasible plan. What an officer cannot do is refuse to obey direct orders. If you continue with your insubordination, Captain, then Imperial regulations require me to take action."

At that moment, the Grand Moff's droid spoke. "Per Imperial Code of Military Conduct, section 234, part C, obstinate insubordination on the part of any officer is punishable by any means deemed necessary by the superior officer at the time, in lieu of an official tribunal. In this case, the Sith Apprentice Xanot is the ranking officer aboard the Black Talon and is authorized to make such rulings in the field."

"Damn you and Kilran, both," the captain hissed. He set his jaw. "Fine. Then come along to the bridge, Sith. If we're all going to die, I want my crew to see the one who ordered them to their deaths."

The comm cut.

"My Lord, the captain may prove to be dangerously insubordinate during the operation and may in fact contribute to the failure of your mission. My recommendation is to execute him and replace him with Lieutenant Halden. Her record has been exemplary," the droid intoned.

"I'm sure it would do wonders for the morale of the crew if I slaughtered their captain before asking them to face a near impossible opponent," I retorted sharply. Then I just shook my head and marched towards the bridge. Nobody tried to stop me, and I thanked my lucky stars for that. I had always hated the fact that the player had to cut down so many Imperials for petty reasons, and this time I had saved at least one good platoon of men.

Not that even twenty additional soldiers would even the odds in any significant way against the Brentaal Star. Well, at least I felt better about the whole thing.

The bridge was deathly quiet when I arrived, marching past consoles and crewmen who stood stiffly at their posts, watching my armored bulk like one might watch a caged tiger. I ascended the steps and stood before the captain, who met my shielded eyes boldly.

"Right," the captain said. "I am Captain Benden, Sith."

"You know my name," I replied. "Have you redirected our course?"

"Yes," he replied tightly. "What is our plan?"

"Our plan is to engage the Brentaal Star, drawing close enough to breach their hangar with a boarding party. Once I am aboard their ship, they will have more severe problems to deal with than the Black Talon. I will clear the Brentaal Star, and your men will follow me to mop up any stragglers and to hold the turbolifts or intersections. When I have found and dealt with the traitor, we will return to the hanger and retreat," I outlined the general idea. That was how it had gone in the game.

The captain was looking at me like I was both insane and an inch away from cutting off his head. He slowly shook his head, reaching up to rub at his face with one hand. "Stars save us from amateur tacticians!" he groaned. "From the top, then. The Republic corvette will certainly try to shoot down the boarding shuttles. No matter how impressive you might be in a fight, if your shuttle is spaced by laser fire, I'm sure that you'd be as dead as the rest of us. Assuming any of our men are able to get aboard the Brentaal Star, it's already impossible to expect even our full complement of eighty rifles to hold the hangar bay against the defending crew, and you're expecting them not only to hold a defensive position but to follow you through the corridors of the Republic ship. Furthermore, while you are aboard the Brentaal Star, the Black Talon must survive constant bombardment from the Republic warship, whose weapons will be operated mostly by droids..."

I cut in at this point, cringing visibly. Thankfully my helmet prevented anyone from seeing my expression, "Alright, I take your point Captain. Let's forget about capturing the defector and just destroy the Brentaal Star entirely. We know where the reactors are for a ship of that kind. If a small boarding team can reach them and plant explosives, we can drop their shields and render their weapons inoperable at the same time. In that scenario, even a combat freighter the Black Talon should be able to destroy the Brentaal Star."

"That solves the issues of having to search the ship, but you still have to deal with the fact that our shuttles are going to be targeted by their guns, and you still need a way to escape the disabled vessel, which you won't be able to do if the Republic locks down their hangar," Benden mused slowly. "And they could easily do the same thing to us. While you're on their ship, they'll have their battle droids boarding our ship. It's practically standard procedure to use boarding action against a shielded warship if they close distance like we're planning to do."

"If the Black Talon moves close enough to the Brentaal Star, there won't be time for them to shoot at our shuttles," I replied. "And they will probably board the Black Talon, but I would assume, since they intend to escape, they will be using only whatever combat droids they have on hand. The Republic doesn't like to leave men behind. I hope your crew can handle droids, and of course you can destroy their boarding pods with the guns of the Black Talon just the same as the Brentaal Star can destroy our pods, at least until we're too close."

"The crew might be able to hold against the droids, if you aren't taking all eighty of the marines for your boarding action," Benden sighed. "This is a harebrained scheme, my Lord. Getting that close to the Brentaal Star eliminates our main advantage, which is our ability to evade their fire."

"Close proximity can also limit the number of guns that they can effectively bring to bear," I countered. "As long as the shields hold long enough for their power to be cut off, we win."

"Our computers estimated that the Black Talon could withstand eight minutes of sustained fire from the Brentaal Star," one of the nearby bridge officers cut in. "Once our shields are down, however, the Black Talon would be destroyed in less than seven seconds. Conversely, if we can drop the shields of the Brentaal Star, then it would take sixty seconds for us to destroy them. Assuming we are still operating with our current armament at that time."

"A dedicated warship like the Brentaal Star usually has two reactors, one at each side of the ship, and while designed to operate with both the ship is capable of relying only on one, overclocked, reactor for a few hours. To sabotage both of them, you'll have to cross the entire length of the engineering deck," Captain Benden exclaimed. "It's suicide, my lord. There will be at least one Jedi on board that ship, for a mission of this importance. Also Republic commandos, no doubt, and the usual battle droids. Normally it would take two hundred Imperial troops and five Sith Lords to successfully capture a ship of that size."

"But we aren't capturing it," I replied, nodding slowly. "We're destroying it. I can move faster than you might expect, so covering the length of the ship isn't a concern. Only the Jedi and possibly advanced battle droids are a real threat to me, and they expect me to be trying to kill the defector. The Jedi will be escorting him personally, I'm sure. I suppose if they vent the atmosphere of the whole deck that would be troublesome. My armor, thankfully, has an oxygen supply, but it only lasts six minutes. In fact, if I go across to the Brentaal Star alone, then there is no need to risk our men holding the hangar. They might destroy the shuttle while I'm not in the hangar, but I can always steal one of theirs for the return trip. We could then have droid pilots fly decoy shuttles alongside me."

"Someone has to plant the explosives, my Lord," Captain Benden replied. "You'll need to take at least an engineer with you. If you destabilize the hypermatter reactors in the wrong way, you'll destroy the ship and the Black Talon at the same time, since we will be in the blast zone."

"I was thinking of cutting the power couplings with my lightsaber, instead of messing with the hypermatter," I answered. "The reactor can remain stable as long as the lines connecting it to the ship systems are severed."

"Ma'am, those couplings are not easy to reach even on the engineering deck," another officer interjected. "Even the reactors of a ship like that are difficult to reach. Usually maintenance to those areas requires a dry dock."

"Even so, she has a good point," Benden held up a hand. "If we provide suitable explosives, she only has to place them near enough to the power couplings to sever the reactor from the main."

"If I may," interjected another stranger, "It would be better to target the energy transformers, rather than the power couplings. Starship hypermatter reactors generate power primarily through heat and pressure. Transformers are used to turn this into electrical power. The transformers are usually in a centralized location, since they require more frequent maintenance than other parts of the power system. There is a redundant circuit for life support systems that bypasses the main transformers, but the weapons, shielding, and magnetically sealed blast doors are dependent on the central circuit and would still be disabled if the transformers were damaged."

"Do we have a schematic for the Brentaal Star or for a ship of its class?" I asked. As though in response to my words, a floating diagram of the Republic corvette appeared, with its hammer-head shaped bow. It zoomed in to a spot on the engineering deck, where massive devices were highlighted in yellow. The transformers each weighed over sixty tons. "Damaging those might be difficult, considering their size."

"Actually, they are remarkably finicky pieces of equipment," the one who had proposed the idea rushed to explain. "Each transformer uses a kind of plasma suspension to..."

"Get to the point, Darryn," Benden interjected, fondly.

"Right," the younger man cleared his throat. "The transformers are highly pressurized, high temperature systems. Rupturing the containment will create a cascade failure and possibly destroy the bulkheads on that level, resulting in a rapid drop in cabin pressure. It should kill the crew in the engineering cabins and prevent immediate repair. Additionally, the energy coming from the reactors travels along massive conduits in the form of highly energized plasma streams, and the damaged transformers will leak lethal radiation unless the reactors are first shut down to allow for emergency field repair."

"Sounds like we have a plan, then," I declared. "I will board the ship and disable it. You will defend the Black Talon from boarders until I return. Then we will destroy the Brentaal Star and any shuttles or escape pods that attempt to flee. We will retreat before the Republic battlegroup can catch up and ruin our day. I will take a communicator and hail the Black Talon when I am making my escape, so that you don't shoot me down along with any fleeing Republic crew members."

"The entire plan relies upon your success," Captain Benden remarked, sounding strained. "Frankly, I have never seen or heard of any Sith succeeding in something like this, except possibly for Darth Malgus or Darth Marr before the Treaty. Even if you do destroy the transformers, there's very little hope that you could fight your way back through the Republic crew to reach the hangar and escape their ship."

"If I don't disable the transformers, we all die. If they are disabled and I do not return or make contact in five minutes, destroy the Brentaal Star and retreat without me," I ordered, pursing my lips. If I took that long to link up with the Black Talon, then I was probably either dead or captured, so it didn't hurt me to give the command. "But, Captain, I think you are putting too much emphasis on my role. If your men don't hold the Black talon, we all die. If you can't get us close enough for me to board, we all die..."

"I get it," Benden interrupted before I could continue, giving me a warning look. He was tapping something on the bridge console in front of himself. "Our odds have not much improved from the original projections. Six percent, according to the tactical computer."

I scoffed. "The computer is not familiar with my skills."

From the game, I remembered that Quinn was always woefully incorrect when it came to judging the success of the Sith Warrior using his precious probabilities. Of course, in the game there was infinite revives and plot armor to contend with.

In any case, we had cleared up most of the obvious sources of trouble with the plan, so that left all the not-so-obvious pitfalls. I was rather hoping that the Jedi was protecting our defector like I had so boldly predicted, and that I wouldn't have to face them. If they realized that my target was the transformers, then it was possible the Jedi might come to stop me, but I could probably complete my objective before they arrived.

Still, I might run into them while trying to escape. Facing a Jedi wasn't something I felt ready for.

"I will go to the hangar and wait for your signal," I said to the Captain. "For the duration of this mission, please allow my companion Vette to assist your soldiers in defending the Black Talon."

"Huh?" Vette piped up. "Hold on, Xanot, I..."

"She will certainly obey the orders of the platoon commander," I continued, turning my helmet to look at her face. She fell silent under what she must have assumed was a glare. In reality, I was just trying to judge her feelings. "Unless you think that this will create more problems than it solves, Captain?"

"No, I'm sure her aid will be appreciated," the captain waved his hand dismissively. "Lieutenant Halden, would you escort them to the hangar and assign Vette to a platoon? We will intercept the Brentaal Star in six minutes."

"Aye, sir."

The three of us departed the bridge, and while we approached the turbolift, I spoke to Vette over my shoulder. "Are you alright with this plan?"

"I thought we were a team, you know? But...I guess we talked about how I'd only slow you down," Vette sighed. "I'm fine with it."

"I will be moving too quickly for you to keep pace on the Brentaal Star," I agreed. "And I couldn't ask you to tackle impossible odds like that. It will be hard enough trying to hold the Black Talon against the Republic droids. Are you comfortable working with Imperial soldiers? I should have offered to let you sit this one out."

I saw Lieutenant Halden giving me a weird look, but I ignored her. Vette just shook her head. "I couldn't just sit around while the whole ship is fighting, and possibly about to explode," she replied. That was that, I guess.

Once I was directed to a shuttle, I gave a final wave at the lieutenant and Vette, before climbing into the cockpit.

I realized in that moment I didn't actually know how to fly.

Chapter Text

Take a deep breath, in and out. Okay, idiot, don't panic. In this universe, learning skills was as easy as applying myself to the task and hoping for the best, right? That’s all I had done so far. I strapped myself into the pilot's seat and splayed my hands out on the control panel, hearts pounding as my eyes swept across the various dials, levers, readouts, and blinking lights. There was one set of lights that seemed to be the landing gear, so I tapped the button and heard the hydraulic systems retracting the boarding ramp.

Another light pinged on the dash. "Intercepting the Brentaal Star in three minutes," the voice of Captain Benden came over. "If their hangar bay doors are closed, we will have to withdraw."

I had no idea how to respond using this console, but that seemed reasonable. I mean, there wasn't anything to do except get blasted to space dust if they had the hangars closed. Frankly, I wondered why they wouldn't have them closed all the time...unless they were going to deploy their boarding parties from the hangar. If I were the captain of the Brentaal Star, I would turtle up, divert power to shields, and just wait until my reinforcements arrived.

But it was always possible that we actually did present a serious threat to their ship, in which case their only option was to eliminate the threat. So, it was also possible they would do what they had done in the game, which was to attempt the destruction of the Black Talon as quickly as they could reasonably manage.

There was also the dawning realization that they could just close their hangars after launching their droids. If they did that, then I might not even have time to cross the gap between our ships, and even if I did manage to get on board there would be no escaping until the hangar doors opened once again.

I was losing confidence in my plan and starting to realize why the computer was giving us such low odds. My skills would have no impact on this battle if I couldn't make it onto the Brentaal Star, and the Republic forces had multiple easy counters that could prevent boarding. The Black Talon didn't have boarding pods, which could carve through the armored hull, since it was just an armed transport and not a battleship. The armament of the Black Talon was designed mostly for defense and evasion, not assault.

Still, it was too late now to change my mind. Right?

The landing gear had been fully retracted, and I fumbled with controls until I heard the engines of the shuttle whirring up behind me. The shuttle wobbled.

[Skill Unlocked: Heavy Machinery Operator I]

[Skill Unlocked: Shuttle Piloting I]

Oh, thank fuck. It was strange, learning skills in this world. Whereas a moment ago I had literally been flying blind, I now had a vague idea of what various controls were supposed to do, and it felt as though my body had taken on a mind of its own as I went through a mental checklist, erecting shields, aligning flaps, checking fuel lines and reactor operation. The ship computer queried me, asking for a flight plan, and I indicated that the target would be a Thranta-class corvette, and that we would be trying to land in the hangar.

The computer reminded me to check that the hangar doors were open before retracting landing equipment, before it stabilized our hovering. We were still in a holding pattern until we exited hyperspace.

I felt the slight hitch as our ship squeezed itself out of a literal tear in space and fell out of hyperspace and into reality once more. Instantly, I sensed the battle begin. The Force whirled in angry torrents around both ships, emotions running high throughout the Republic and Imperial crews. It felt like being splashed with cold water, compared to the muted existence of hyperspace. My hearts started to race.

The Black Talon rumbled with successive impacts on its shielding. Engines roared distantly. On the control panel in front of me, the sensor readout displayed our approach. The Black Talon was less than half the size of the Brentaal Star, and we were approaching quickly. The hangar doors opened, almost painfully slow.

Sooner than I felt prepared for, Captain Benden contacted me. "Go!"

I shot forward, the ship swaying awkwardly for a brief hitch as I grappled with the newfound skills, then I lurched out of the polarized shielding and into the vacuum of space. Silence engulfed the shuttle, leaving me with only the soft whirring of the reactor beneath my feet. I saw the Brentaal Star in front of me, only two hundred meters away, and getting closer.

The hangar doors were closing.

The computer pinged, indicating that exactly what my eyes had seen, and I cursed explosively, taking over from the automated approach and flooring the thrusters. Red highlights exploded across my vision as various collisions were projected, but we didn't have time to care about a happy landing. Each segmented portion of the blast doors slammed into place, silent as the vacuum of space, but feeling like another nail in my coffin.

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck...fuck," I chanted to myself, pressed back against the pilot's seat as we zipped across the distance far more quickly than I had expected. With a zing of harsh green light, turbo-laser fire deflected off the shuttle’s paltry shield in a brilliant explosion of collapsing defenses. A glancing blow.

I didn’t have time to come to grips with the fact that I had almost died in that moment. I burst into the hangar of the Brentaal Star before their hangar doors had even gotten halfway closed.

But I was going too fast, at this rate I was going to fly right through and out the other side! Except, those doors were also closing...so I’d actually just smash into the blast doors. That wasn’t any better.

I pushed the nose of the shuttle down in a panicked motion, and reversed the turbines as an afterthought, too slowly. Instantly I found myself thrown against the harness with a violent squeal of bending durasteel. Flaps flared out on the wings of the shuttle, the nose dipped, and then we crashed into the deck plating with thunderous BANG, rattle.

The transparisteel cockpit window cracked, the dashboard exploded into blue sparks, and it felt like the shuttle dredged a long furrow in the plating ages before it finally, blessedly, screamed to a halt. I instantly released my harness and flopped gracelessly onto the sparking console, yelping in pain and shoving myself away from the exposed electrical wires. The shuttle was tilted downward still, probably half buried in the Brentaal Star's hangar bulkhead.

The door on the side was probably jammed shut.

Igniting my red lightsaber, I cut my way out of the back, between the shuttle’s thrusters. The clock was ticking. With a push of the Force the impromptu doorway blasted away like the shot of a cannon, impacting the ceiling of the hangar with a thunderous explosion. It rained fat yellow sparks and bits of plasma in a curtain as I jumped out, using my handy-dandy gamer map to locate the targeted transformers.

Republic pilots and droids were barking boisterously and brandishing blasters, but I merely angled my lightsaber as I leapt across the hangar with Force-enhanced speed, heading for the main corridor of deck 3. I needed to get down to deck 4, the engineering deck. Any shot that came close enough to threaten me was batted back to the one that shot it, but very few of the Pubs could actually keep a bead on me while I was moving at [Force Speed]. The droids did better than the soldiers.

[Skill Unlocked: Lightsaber Deflection I]

[Skill Unlocked: Saber Ward I]

I touched down briefly in front of the doors and took off like a shot. Republic personnel that were in the corridor were summarily cut down as I passed them, moving too quickly for them to react beyond a slight exclamation or, in one case, an instinctive shot of their rifle, which went wide by inches. It seemed to me that the world was moving in slow motion, but I knew that it wasn't. I was divining the immediate future and moving at an accelerated speed, pulling the Force into myself until my skin was buzzing with it, and I could practically hear it roaring through my ears.

I’d pay for my excesses later, when my muscles screamed at me, and I got hungry enough to eat a bear. For now, the speed was worth it.

Changing direction felt like pushing through pudding, and there was a very real danger that I would run directly into the wall, but I managed to get the hang of bleeding speed off when approaching turns or groups of soldiers, smashing into them like a bowling ball but with just enough control that I didn't shatter my body against hardened armor plates.

The EXP gained notifications were stacking up at an alarming rate.

[Level 15 Reached]

The soldiers and other crew members were only worth a couple hundred EXP, and there were lots of them. They were swarming through the corridors, it was like a disturbed anthill, but they were in my way, and I couldn't afford to spare them. The crimson blade swept in wide, continuous arcs, cutting down three or four at a time, every step leaving death in my wake.

Several times I stumbled over corpses or sparking droid parts. Every time, my life, however brief it had been in this universe, flashed before my fucking eyes. One wrong move, and I was certain I’d take a contained bolt of plasma to the braincase.

[Level 16 Reached] appeared, surprising me. One of those poor Republic fuckers had been worth a lot of EXP...I didn’t have time to figure out why.

I had carved my way through two hundred meters of the corridor to reach the nearest turbolift, but of course I wasn't stupid enough to actually take the elevator. I remembered Obi-Wan and Anakin getting jammed in the Malevolence during the Battle of Coruscant, and I didn't have R2-D2 around to save me from that kind of dumbass mistake. Instead, I cut the doors open and used the emergency maintenance ladder in the wall of the elevator shaft.

I certainly wasn't going to let them get the better of me that easily.

Of course, the ship's defenders tried to crush me with the elevator as soon as they realized what I was doing, but I only had to use the Force to destroy the capsule that was hurtling down towards the top of my head, and that basically prevented the Republic from using this lift to send soldiers to deck 4, so I considered the whole thing a win-win. I left the crumpled mess of scrap metal wedged firmly in the shaft above me and barely avoided having a piece of scrap impact my skull on its way down.

It took me far longer than I would have liked to climb down to deck 4, a precious minute wasted, but once I blasted through the door and slaughtered the soldiers that were waiting for me, it was a short jaunt over to the transformers. There had been no sign of Jedi or any kind of advanced combat droid, so nothing I encountered could actually threaten me. Even the storm of blaster fire from the soldiers that had dug in outside the elevator had been trivial, with the combination of Force Barrier and Saber Ward.

The way they screamed as they scrambled away from my swinging blade cracked something in me. I tried not to think about it.

The transformers themselves were as gargantuan as I had expected. I palmed one of the extra lightsabers at my belt and threw it with a twinge of regret. I knew I wasn't getting that son of a bitch back. The orange-colored blade glittered as it arced across the room, punctuated by a scream of terror from one of the engineers on the catwalk. Then it impacted the side of a transformer and the entire room exploded.

I dove back through the doors just as the emergency procedure slammed down to contain the explosion, and I was halfway back down the hallway by the time the shock wave hit, throwing me head over heels onto the deck plating below. A roaring howl rattled the walls and ceiling, and the lights flickered twice before winking out completely. Battery-powered emergency lights blinked on shortly, bathing the interior of the ship in an eerie yellow color.

Okay, nice. Now I had to get back to the Black Talon. Somehow.

My comm beeped. "Excellent work, the shields are down," Captain Benden's voice rang out when I answered, peeling my bruised body off the floor to look down at his small holo figure on my wrist. "I'm afraid that there will be a slight change of plans, Sith. It's too risky to wait for you to return, considering the fact that the Brentaal Star closed their hangar doors. We will open fire on the ship at once. You should attempt to reach the escape pods."

My jaw dropped. Like hell they would! "Don’t you dare, you utter bastard," I growled, clenching my fist around the communicator so tightly I almost expected it to crumple into a ball of scrap. "That wasn't part of the plan!"

"Plans change. Frankly the chances of your surviving the destruction of the Brentaal Star are negligible, but if you do manage to reach an escape pod we will, of course, refrain from destroying it as we make our escape. Farewell."

Sixty seconds wasn't enough time to get back to the hangar and…

I sensed it before it hit. My last coherent thought was, “Okay, dude.”

The bulkhead about twenty meters away buckled visibly, then exploded inward. Molten metal and arcs of electricity filled the corridor, followed by rapid decompression which sucked all the shrapnel and debris back through the jagged hole that had been blasted into the ship by a turbolaser impact.

One of those pieces of detritus was my body, which flailed wildly and bounced off of two twisted plates of metal before wheeling off into the void. I was spinning wildly, aching but miraculously intact. But I was rapidly flying off into the unfathomable vacuum of space. The helmet UI began counting down the seconds until my oxygen was depleted.

I was waving my arms, but it wasn't helping. I couldn't control my flight, couldn't change the trajectory...no, no no, this wasn't how it was going to end! Fury gripped me and cut through my blind panic, making me pause and claw at the Force like a wild beast, drawing it to myself and wrapping my body in a bubble of power. I was able to halt my uncontrolled spinning by basically using the Force to create a barrier and pushing against it with my arm. It took some experimentation but finally I was facing the absolute destruction that was playing out above me, getting more distant every moment. The Brentaal Star was being shredded, concentrated fire was tearing across each deck and opening massive rips in the hull. Spurts of flash-frozen atmosphere and flailing corpses were being ejected into space where the squishy organic bodies were flash frozen, and cascading explosions were rippling across the surface of the ship.

The Black Talon, meanwhile, was gradually pulling farther away, putting distance between itself and the devastated corvette. Escape pods and shuttles that lurched desperately from the destruction were picked off by red anti-fighter lasers, and the green turbolaser batteries maintained their lethal assault on the main hull.

I grabbed the Black Talon in the Force and pulled. Obviously, instead of dragging the entire Black Talon towards myself, I ended up shooting through space towards the armed transport. I wasn’t using the Force to anchor myself to anything, which I imagined was necessary if using this skill for other purposes.

[Skill Unlocked: Force Pull I]

Holy fuck, this was almost exactly like sequel-Leia. I didn't have much time to exult in how badass I was- because hot-damn - before I realized I was going to splat against the side of the Black Talon, which would just be embarrassing. I quickly slowed my approach and aimed my body for the hangar. A hangar that was gradually closing.

It was like deja-vu.

The instant I slipped through the shielding the ship's gravity asserted itself and I fell a short distance to land on the deck plating, scrabbling for purchase briefly before I fell face-first onto the deck, bits of ice flaking off my armor and scattering across the metal plating.

Okay, not the most elegant entrance, but I had survived being literally spaced by a turbolaser impact, so bite me.

The sounds of fighting reached my ears, and I instinctively rolled to my feet, igniting my lightsaber in time to deflect a series of blaster shots from a squad of squealing combat droids. Sneering behind my helmet, I zipped across the hangar and dismantled the droids in a blur of movement, reaching out with the Force to identify other nearby opponents.

The beleaguered defenders of the Black Talon cheered when they saw the bright red arcs of my lightsaber blade mowing through the droids, but when I marched through the sparking remains of our foes, I did not share their excitement. In fact, I said nothing to them as I entered the turbolift and keyed in my destination: the bridge.

When I arrived, I heard the captain and the other officers locked in an argument.

"...betrayal of a superior! I will not be further implicated in your actions by also falsifying a report to High Command!" was Lieutenant Halden's voice.

"Damn you, Lieutenant! We had no choice! The Grandmaster of the Jedi Order informed us of the Republic's timetable, and the Sith had no way of escaping..."

The rhythmic impact of my boots on the deck drew everyone's attention...but there was also the fact that a slightly hazy corona of power was warping the air around my body. I could tell that this was happening because it was blurring my vision, but I couldn't bring it under control once I noticed it, and frankly I didn't want to. The blood drained from the captain's face as I ascended the steps, my ignited lightsaber humming in the sudden, total silence of the bridge.

The moment I saw him I knew I was going to kill him. It felt like...destiny.

"Hello, Captain," I greeted him, a veneer of calm covering my voice, once I stood in their midst. He was too busy gaping at me to give commands, so I leveled my lightsaber at the other officers. "Maintain our fire until there are no life-signs in the wreckage. Destroy all escape pods."

"Yes, my lord!"

"As for you," I turned back to the captain, who had straightened up and clasped his hands behind his back. I admired that he at least had a measure of dignity in the face of death. "I suppose I have you to thank for the fact that I was literally blasted into space moments after our communications cut. Was that a part of your plan or did you just get lucky?"

It was fortunate that my armor was rated for vacuum...it had been a whim that had prompted me to request that feature. I had played Mass Effect and knew that there were situations where an oxygen supply was not only useful but actually essential. As it turned out, my hunch had been a good one.

"Sir! We received communication from the Republic fleet indicating that their arrival would be sooner than we had anticipated. Given the circumstances, and your prior agreement to going down with the Brentaal Star in case there was no way to extract you, I determined that we could not wait for the time that we had agreed upon," the captain answered crisply.

"You should have informed me of this instead of gloating about my poor chances of survival, Captain," I drawled, deactivating my lightsaber and clipping it to my belt. Then I crossed my arms over my breastplate and started to tick items off my fingers. "You disobeyed a direct command from Grand Moff Kilran, and only when I encouraged you did you actually obey orders. Not only this, but you addressed me disrespectfully and displayed a persistent dislike for Imperial leadership. Finally, you disregarded my orders and proceeded with actions that you knew would most likely lead to my death. And, of course, you were just now attempting to have your crew falsify their after-action reports. Is this a correct summary of events, Lieutenant Halden?"

My helm turned towards her and must have seemed like a threat. She flinched away from my gaze.

"Yes, my lord," the woman replied in a subdued voice, her eyes flicking to the Captain's utterly betrayed face before she stiffened and put her hands behind her back.

"Well," I nodded my helmet and extended my hand, the Force compressing from its hazy aura into a palpable grasp that wrapped around the man's neck like a noose. "The Empire has no use for cowards and malcontents, Captain. I gave you a chance to do your duty, and you answered me with betrayal."

In that moment, as I was choking a man to death against the backdrop our continued bombardment I had never felt more like a Sith Lord. I felt the turbolasers firing in the deck beneath my feet. I watched fire and death blossom from the cracked and broken Brentaal Star. I felt Benden’s life slipping away with every desperate heartbeat. His fingers clawed at a grip that would not relent, leaving raised and bloody lines on his neck.

And I honestly couldn't tell you that I disliked it. Any of it. In that moment, as Captain Benden gagged on his dying breaths, and explosions cast their dim glow across the bridge of the Black Talon, I felt nothing but exultant triumph.

Chapter Text

"Any injuries?" I asked Vette as I peeled my breastplate off and dropped it beside my bunk. It felt great to be out of the armor, but the long-sleeved under-suit that I wore was plastered to my skin with sweat, and I had a very strong smell. The ship only had sonic showers, which were fine for removing actual grime via some sort of ultrasonic technology, but it did little for sweat or other fluids. Like blood, for example. I didn't find the smell of Sith sweat to be very repulsive. It rather smelled like a forest after a hard rain, or at least that was how I felt about it.

Thankfully, the blood had mostly been on the plates of my armor and hadn’t seeped into the under-suit.

Vette was wrinkling her nose, however. Either it didn't smell the same way to everyone, or her disgust was from my question. "No. It was crazy, but we somehow managed...there was one really massive droid that almost crippled our reactor, and I had to use one of those grenades you bought me to destroy it."

"That's what they are for," I nodded, wincing. I had totally forgotten about the droid boss from the flashpoint. "Although, you're lucky the grenade didn't cause a hull breach."

Vette scoffed. "I went for the lower-yield explosive, I'm not a complete idiot. Still nearly blew out my ears, and the Sergeant wasn't very thrilled about it."

Once my armor was completely removed, I sat down on the bunk and freed my hair, tugging fingers through the damp locks and wincing. It was a tangled mess...honestly, I hadn't brushed it or really even washed it very well ever since I had reincarnated, and it was starting to become a problem. At the Academy the soap provided was for body wash, and I hadn't worked it into my hair since I thought it might have been too abrasive, but I could tell that my hair was suffering. Not that I really knew very much about how to handle long hair. Or hair in general. I was used to the ‘buy cheap, apply sparingly’ method of shampooing.

"How did everything go on your end?" Vette asked, while looking at a particular streak of blood on the shin-guard of my armor. Curb-stomping one of the Republic soldiers might have been expedient at the time but getting the gore out of my boot was not going to be fun.

"Well...the captain tried to space me," I grunted, flopping back on the bunk with a sigh. I’d take care of the armor in a moment. "Idiot."

“He what?" Vette exclaimed, looking up from where she had been fidgeting with her hands. "Really?"

"Apparently, Grandmaster Satele Shan of the Jedi Order contacted the Black Talon and spooked him, so he decided to open fire as soon as the Brentaal Star’s shields had dropped instead of giving me a chance to get back. I was briefly ejected into space by a hull breach, but I pulled myself back to the Black Talon's hangar and rewarded him for his cowardice," I explained shortly. "The Republic didn't have anyone capable of stopping me aboard their ship. Or they were out of position, but either way it was quick. Their Jedi was probably defending the defector personally, and they sent their big droid over for the boarding action. That left no real obstacles in their engineering deck."

Vette was staring at me, and I turned my head to appraise her expression. Her lips were parted, and she looked...awed? Frightened? I couldn't tell.

"You survived the cold vacuum of space," she deadpanned.

"The armor I bought is EVA certified," I reminded her. "Six minutes of oxygen. Also, Sith and Jedi can hold their breath for hours at a time, if need be."

"It doesn't have a jet pack!" Vette exclaimed.

I waved a hand dismissively. "The Force was sufficient. Anyway, I'm glad you weren't injured. Hopefully this kind of engagement doesn't become the standard, but if it does, we might not be working side by side in the field. We didn't have time to discuss that before, but...I hope that doesn't bother you too much. Your skills are better suited to recon and sabotage than assault, whereas I will probably be in the thick of the fighting most of the time."

"Considering I would have died horribly in space if I had gone with you, I don't think I can really complain," the Twi'lek replied flippantly. Which was a fair point. "I hadn't ever seen a Sith in action until the tomb, but...I can see where the horror stories come from. The Republic ship didn't stand a chance, either..."

"They had excellent chances, actually," I responded quietly, with a wince. "If they hadn't tried to board the Black Talon, then they would have been perfectly safe behind their superior shielding and closed hangar. Instead, they opened their hangar doors and sent that huge battle droid and its company in an attempt to destroy us. That decision was what allowed me to board their ship, which was their first and most fatal mistake. The second mistake was not having their Jedi in the hangar. They were planning to buy time by putting the defector in a location that was hard to reach, so the Jedi stayed near him as an escort, but that gave me free run of the rest of the ship. Which was all it took, since I wasn't actually planning on reaching the man directly."

It had only taken four minutes or so for the Black Talon to eradicate every living thing aboard the Brentaal Star. Including all the shuttles and escape pods that had attempted to jump ship. The Black Talon had jumped to hyperspace, heading for Dromund Kaas, with five minutes to spare. Satele Shan and her battle group would arrive to the scene of a slaughter, too late to rescue anyone.

But that whole situation had really been far too close for comfort.

I glanced at Vette, and she glanced away, a strange look on her face. I reached with the Force, and sensed conflicting emotions, a tangle so intense that even with supernatural abilities I couldn't make heads or tails of it. It was a bit invasive of me to even look, so I pulled back, leaving her to her thoughts. I gazed once more at the ceiling and sighed.

Not so long ago, my life had consisted of a regular schedule. Subway rides, quiet desk work, and an evening by myself, watching shows or reading books. Playing games. Eating takeout. And while I should probably have felt that my new circumstances were worse, due to the constant risk of death, I couldn't bring myself to miss that old, quiet life. Nothing I had ever done compared to the rush of wielding the Force, to commanding a battlefield with such unmatched power like I had done aboard the Brentaal Star.

It was a little frightening how much I had enjoyed it. People died, after all. Hundreds of people.

"Do you think people just...live a normal life? Go to work in an office, then go on home to some apartment somewhere? Do they live safe, quiet existences, unnoticed by anyone?" I wondered. I had almost asked, 'do people here...' but had managed to omit the one word which would make me seem more like an outsider than I probably already did.

Vette suddenly laughed. "Of course, they do! Even in the Empire, that kind of work is probably more than half of what makes the galaxy turn. Somebody has to make all the guns, planes, tanks, and starships."

"Did you ever think about taking a normal job like that?" I asked, letting my head roll to the side so I could look at the girl once more. She shrugged, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back on her palms. I thought she looked pretty cute, but then again, I always thought she looked cute. This was Vette, after all.

"I was pretty much born into slavery," she replied. "First master was some big-shot businessman, and that was a pretty quiet life, I guess. We mostly did domestic work. Then we were sold and trafficked around the Outer Rim for about a year...my dad died during that time. Never really knew what happened to him. We were with this weird guy with three eyes for a while. Then I got bought by Nok Drayen. My mom and sister eventually got sold somewhere else, I guess."

"Nok Drayen...wasn't he a pirate?" I cheated a bit with my knowledge about her character. Vette looked a bit surprised.

"I guess even Sith heard about him. Yeah, he was pretty notorious in the Outer Rim," Vette nodded, a faraway look in her eyes. "Wasn't all bad. His daughter and I were pretty close...got into all sorts of trouble."

"Did you learn your skills working for him?" I asked curiously. The game had never really explained how Vette had become the scoundrel she was. At least not in detail. I wondered where she had learned to handle mines, use stealth fields, slice computers, and shoot blasters. Those weren't the usual skills for a young girl, let alone a slave.

"Some of them," Vette agreed. "Nok and Risha went on one of his harebrained schemes and never came back. His crew kind of fell apart...two or three of the officers tried to take ownership, but I managed to free myself in the confusion. After that I spent a few years wandering, taking odd jobs. Fell in with a gang or two. Then, Korriban."

"You just ended up on Korriban, as if it were a chance happening," I snorted. "That was quite unlucky."

"You're telling me," Vette commiserated. "I guess you could say the quiet life isn't for me. I could have probably done the quiet thing somewhere, someplace. Seems boring."

"Have you ever tried it?" I pressed.

"Have you?" she countered. I winced and looked at the ceiling again.

In the Empire, anyone that had Force potential was required to enroll in training at one of the satellite Academies. Korriban took the best of the other academies and made them into Sith. Recently, if I was remembering the lore correctly, that law had been extended even to slaves. Part of the problem with the looming war against the Republic was the fact that the Republic had many times more people under its jurisdiction, which meant that they had more Force sensitives, more officers, more soldiers. Theirs was the larger economy. They could afford to lose battles, lose planets, and even withstand the sacking of Coruscant. Even after all that, they were in a pretty solid position, strategically.

If the Empire had taken that sort of beating, it would have been over. The Empire's edge was in its decisive action, shock tactics, and elitism. The Empire dictated the battlefields, set the tempo of the war, and was constantly keeping the Republic on the defensive, pretty much on every front. It was a precarious game, however...if the Republic put together the military leadership to turn that situation on its head, then the Empire wouldn't last.

Which, in the game, it hadn’t. The glory days of The Sith Empire were coming to a close, even now.

"I think about it, sometimes," I said honestly. An odd smile found its way onto my lips, "Maybe, in another life..."

"I thought Sith were supposed to be at the top of the food chain in the Empire. But it doesn't seem like you have much choice about things," Vette remarked.

I scoffed. "I think pretty much everyone's choices are limited by circumstance. What planet are they from? What race? What social status? Are they beautiful, ugly, or unremarkable? Intelligent, or stupid? Strong, or weak? A prince has different limitations than a pauper."

"I guess so," Vette agreed after a time. "I would have liked to have had a peaceful life on Ryloth...without the slave thing."

I smiled again. "What would you have done, do you think? Do you picture yourself as a farmer? A weaver? A princess maybe?"

"What?" Vette sounded surprised. "I don't know! I guess I'd do whatever I could."

"Hm," I closed my eyes and sighed through my nose. "That's what you're doing now."

Silence settled between us, and I heard Vette rustling on her bunk. Sleep was just beginning to reach me when she spoke again. "Hey, Xanot?"

"Hm?"

"Are you actually a man?"

I choked on a laugh, sitting up. "Huh!?"

"Oh, forget I said anything..." Vette hurriedly rolled onto her side, facing away from me. I sensed powerful mortification from her, and it made me laugh harder.

"Wait, wait, what did you just ask me?" I insisted.

"I said forget it!" Vette whined, throwing an arm over her face. I slumped back, still chuckling.

It was a good question, though. "I should have expected you might notice," I eventually said, once my laughter had subsided. Vette slowly rolled over again, her flushed face peering at me from behind her arm. "I'm just...me. I don't know the details, actually. Maybe on Dromund Kaas I can get a full physical and figure it out. I’ve been planning to get us both to a real doctor."

"How can you not know that by now? I mean, how old actually are you?" Vette hesitated.

I shrugged. I didn't actually have an answer to that, either. "There were other things to be worried about. How old are you?" I shot back, rubbing my neck awkwardly. The honest answer was that I hadn't really been alive as Sith long enough for gender to come up as a matter of concern. Maybe the Xanot that had existed in this universe for years prior to my awakening on that shuttle had resolved the matter, but I had certainly not. I came up with some grade-A bullshit anyway, "Besides, it was never really relevant. People call me ‘Ma'am’ or ‘Sir’ or ‘my Lord’ and that's all fine by me, whatever they want. What really matters is whether they are intending respect."

"I'm nineteen. Doesn't it bother you if people use 'she' to refer to you, even though you..."

"Have a penis?" I finished for her when she faltered. She nodded. "Honestly, it doesn't matter to me. How could they have known? Besides, I'm Sith. I haven't had the time to be concerned about gender norms among the Lords, and frankly I wouldn’t care for them even if I had paid attention to them."

Not to mention I had no clue what the gender norms actually were for Sith but pretending to be a social maverick was a good cover for ignorance in this case.

"Huh," Vette rolled over again. "Anyway...I was just curious and all..."

She seemed content to leave it at that, but once I laid back all I could think about was implications. I mean, I hadn't exactly been popular with women in my past life, but I hadn't been celibate either. I couldn't even remember if I had ever been aroused in this life...was I even sure that my equipment was functional?

Yet another reason to see a physician on Dromund Kaas, I suppose.

It took another eighteen hours and two shuttle trips to arrive planet-side. The spaceport was gargantuan, in comparison to what I had been expecting from the game's portrayal. The setting of this universe had so far been relatively similar to the game, except for trifling differences such as the lighting in the tombs and the population. However, the capitol of the Empire did not have such a simple spaceport, which had been shown in the game to have only a handful of docking bays.

It was practically a sprawling metropolis on its own, with places ready for even capital ships to land if necessary. The shuttle had descended to a bay on the outskirts of the dock, and we proceeded towards what I thought of as a gate in an airport, where there were consoles ready for check-in.

There was also a weaselly little man standing there, sweeping his gaze across those who were disembarking from the shuttle. Many crewmen from the Black Talon had also boarded the shuttle to descend, granted a short leave to relax in Kaas City while a skeleton crew maintained the ship in orbit. The newly dubbed Captain Halden had indicated that the ship would remain for two cycles before continuing its regular tasks.

As we approached the man, he bowed obsequiously, such that I thought he might topple completely over. "My Lord, permit me to welcome you to Dromund Kaas on behalf of my dread master, Darth Baras."

Sending this slave to meet me implied two subtle messages as far as I could see. First, it showed that Baras was aware of my every move and had even been prepared to appoint someone to meet me despite the uncertain schedule of the Black Talon. Second, I wasn't worth a welcoming party that was more prestigious than this single peon. It was a warning and a small insult. He was also, perhaps, showing me what he considered was the proper behavior for a slave, which was obviously not how I had chosen to handle Vette. Unexpectedly, I found myself rather angry about the whole thing.

My voice was clipped when I said, "You have done so, now get out of my sight."

"If I have pleased you, will you then inform my master I have done well?" the man beseeched. I had already turned away, expecting him to depart, and at his words I felt my expression morph into a mask of fury and contempt.

"Frankly, I am greatly displeased. You disobeyed my wishes and continue to insult me with your presence," I snapped. "Leave now, or I will consider telling Baras of your disobedience."

The man practically tripped over himself in his haste to flee at this threat, and I swallowed the burning embers of my anger as I forcefully entered my identification at the console.

"You showed remarkable restraint with him," Vette mused.

I scowled at her, and she flinched slightly. "Have I given you the impression that I would abuse my master's servants?"

She didn't respond to that, simply shaking her head. I immediately regretted how harshly I had responded, but I swallowed the self-recrimination as well as my anger, tightening my hands into fists as I stalked through the wide corridors of the spaceport. What a fucking start to Dromund Kaas.

I followed the signs to the speeder rental.

The instant I stepped out of the air-conditioned spaceport and was hit with the wall of humidity on Dromund Kaas whatever was left of my excitement drained out of me. It wasn't particularly surreal to go to a different planet. I mean, I had gotten on a plane on Earth and traveled to different biome before, starting somewhere hot and ending up somewhere cold. This was very much the same, except it was not only the weather that was different.

The air also tasted distinct from the dry, metallic atmosphere of Korriban. And gravity was stronger here. It felt a bit like I was wearing a particularly heavy suit of armor, even though I knew that my armor was the same mass as it had been before.

The pilot had assured me I would get used to it, that Dromund Kaas was well within the category of ‘Standard’ gravitational force, but I was gritting my teeth as I chartered a speeder to Kaas City. The droid obliged, but with a caveat.

"Speeders are for official use only. Your slave is not authorized for independent operation of the vehicle."

I grumbled and gestured at the bike. "Get on," I said to Vette. The Twi'lek looked between me and the droid but didn't object. She threw a leg over the bike and grasped the handlebars, but before she could zoom off, I mounted behind her, scooting up against her back so that we were both on the seat. She gasped as I locked one of my huge arms around her waist and put the other over her hand on the controls.

"Off we go," I remarked, letting her have the stirrups of the device and simply raising my legs to squeeze the humming vehicle between powerful thighs. Vette lifted the speeder off its rest and in moments we took off like a shot, the wind howling past. Kaas city was only two minutes from the spaceport on a bike, but if we had been forced to hike the trail it would have probably been a half hour.

It was a good thing Vette was so small, or we wouldn't have both fit on the bike.

Once we touched down, I dismounted easily, already approaching the consoles at the speeder garage. I drew my datapad and interfaced with the city's general HoloNet, receiving several data packets containing the locations of vendors and a comm address for general information.

"We're a few days early," I remarked, looking at what amounted to a phone book with some amusement. "What should we do?"

"Dromund Kaas isn't exactly prime real estate," Vette snarked. "We never go to any nice places, Xanot."

"What, you didn't like the sand and the sun on Korriban?" was my reply. I was looking for a doctor or physician or something, and eventually I found a Family Medical Practice, shooting over a message requesting an appointment. An automated system replied at once asking for identification, and I replied with my official Sith credentials, which Baras had provided as part of his welcome package.

"Why would I have liked that?" Vette sounded confused.

"It's a perfect place to get your tan on," I continued absently, looking up at her baffled expression and then rubbing the back of my neck. "Do Twi'leki tan?"

"Do Sith?" was her retort, folding her arms over the chest of her armor with a raised brow.

"We redden," I lied. I had no idea if that was true...but I hoped that she didn't either, or at least she might interpret it as a joke.

She huffed and I internally sighed. I really, really needed to get a grasp on my physiology...but I was receiving a reply from the doctor's office in record time. Excellent! Oh...the appointment was "As soon as convenient." I continued rubbing my neck thoughtfully, wondering how that was possible. Maybe the doctor didn't have very many patients today?

"I made an appointment for a check-up, since it sounded like a good idea. Considering what we’ve been through. Both of us, I mean," I rambled a bit to Vette as I started to walk towards the given address. "Apparently their schedule is open. Strange."

"Right," Vette drew the word out skeptically as she followed me. "Did you threaten them or something?"

"What?!" I startled, shifting the rucksack on my shoulders and blinking at her. "Why would I do something like that that?"

She shook her head. "Never mind."

I grumbled reproof under my breath, continuing on. Kaas city was, thankfully, not exceedingly large. It stretched about twelve city blocks in two dimensions, but several of the structures were easily a hundred stories tall. And the seat of Imperial government on the horizon was easily the same size, or bigger, than the city proper. It was likely populated by thousands and thousands of bureaucrats and autocrats.

In any case, the doctor's office was on the fifth floor of one of the taller structures, which turned out to be something like a self-contained city district. Each floor was designated in the lift by a letter in Aurebesh, which seemed to correspond to the zoning. There were commercial districts, office districts, residential districts, and industrial districts. Several of the floors were marked with the Imperial insignia, so I assumed they were for law enforcement or public services.

The fifth floor was a commercial district, and the interior of the structure was about as expansive as the street outside had been, except for the ceiling that loomed about ten meters above out heads. There were footpaths between clearly labeled storefronts all throughout the structure, and I was smiling appreciatively as I wandered past the residents, who cleared the path in front of me with something akin to terror. Some of them even bowed as we walked past.

A time or two I had waved at these people, but that only seemed to horrify them even more. Apparently, a Sith taking note of your actions was scary.

In any case, the doctor's practice was in one of the shops on the floor, looking rather cramped. He couldn't have had the space for more than a waiting room, an office, and maybe one or two examination rooms. In any case, I entered and found a scene that wouldn't have been out of place on Earth.

There was a partition in the center of the office, with a sign for ill patients on one side and healthy patients on the other. Two families were present...and they both were on the healthy side. The first was a large man and a petite woman, both human, with a daughter that looked to be about six years old. The other was a red-skinned woman and a human man, and just by looking at them I knew who was wearing the pants in that relationship...and it wasn't the human. Poor fella. Or not, his wife was hot as hell. They didn't have children, at least not in the waiting room.

Both families were staring at me, and I shuffled awkwardly up to the window, where a vaguely human-shaped droid was waiting behind a transparisteel barrier. It had smooth coverings and white coloring, obviously intended not to startle children, and it moved at a glacial pace. I felt totally out of place, wearing body armor in a place like this, and carrying a military-style rucksack.

"Name, please," the droid requested, easily. Droids didn’t understand awkwardness, and just plowed through procedure without a care. I almost envied them, sometimes.

"Xanot."

"Ah, yes. The Doctor will be with you shortly, Lord. There will be no charge for your visit today, accept this as a gift from our humble establishment," came the measured response. "Please wait and do forgive the inconvenience. The Doctor is currently with a patient."

"It's no trouble at all, thank you," I replied politely. Even if it was a droid, I wasn't trying to be a jackass. I turned back, finding all the others still staring at me. But they had moved closer to each other, leaving five seats open. I shrugged my ruck sack off my shoulders and sat down, my bulk practically stretching over two whole chairs, and Vette remained standing awkwardly next to my right knee. "Aren't you going to sit down?"

I heard a quiet gasp and looked away, finding the little Human girl had escaped her parents and was trundling up to me. "You're big!"

I was terrible with children...or I had been, as a human. I was probably a right nightmare as Sith. I tried to smile at the girl, but apparently Sith smiles are not very reassuring because the kid stopped where she stood, suddenly losing her bravery.

"Charlie!" the girl's mother found her voice, rushing over and curling protectively over her little girl. "Please, forgive me, my Lord! She's quite precocious..."

"It's nothing," I hurried to soothe, fidgeting uncomfortably. "Really, don't concern yourself..."

"Thank you, merciful Lord!" the woman insistently tugged the girl back to their seat and proceeded to whisper furiously into Charlie's ear. The little girl was staring at me with wide eyes, tears gathering and ready to spill.

I sighed. What a total shit-show.

A few minutes later the door opened, and a man walked in, holding the hand of a little boy who looked vaguely confused. He was Sith, with the red skin and the cartilage ridges on his chubby little face. But he wasn’t as blatantly Sith as some I had met, and by that I mostly meant that he didn’t have any jutting spurs or gold piercings. Probably his father’s influence on display, there.

"Madam Tivv, pardon me," the doctor said with a nod to the red-skinned mother. They seemed to be communicating with their eyes. "Here is your son."

"Thank you," replied the dignified woman, bending down and gathering her boy up in her arms. "I understand completely."

What? Was there some kind of subtext I was missing, here? The doctor turned to me and bowed deeply at the waist, one arm over his chest. I recognized it as a formal motion, from inferior to superior. It had been in Baras’ textbooks. "Please, forgive the delay," he pleaded, a slight tremor in his voice as he remained bowed.

"Really, I understand completely," I replied, standing up. The man still did not move. "Err, raise your head, please. There's no need to apologize at all. I actually wasn't expecting an appointment so soon, so thanks for making the time."

"It is my absolute pleasure to serve the Sith in any way that you require, my Lord," the doctor replied. "If you and your woman would follow me to an examination room, we can..."

I froze and glanced at Vette. It would be pretty awkward having her along considering the questions I needed to have answered. I'd end up looking pretty dumb, since I didn't know basic information about my own physiology. "Oh, um...she can just wait here until it's her turn. I was going to ask about a separate appointment for her."

"Hm?" the doctor finally straightened up, looking lost. "Is she not the patient?"

My dumb idiot brain took a full three seconds to connect the dots. And when I finally did, I groaned aloud and hung my head in a pointless attempt to hide my mortification.

"Dammit, this is a family practice, as in for pregnant women or young children?"

"That is my area of expertise, my Lord. Sometimes, Lords will bring certain slaves from their households..."

I heard Vette choking on embarrassed laughter and glared at her in equal mortification, rushing to interrupt the man. "Pardon me...I meant to schedule a check-up for myself and for her. Separately. Like, a physical exam?"

"A-are you expecting, my Lord? Or planning to be?" the doctor asked faintly, looking as if there was nothing that could terrify him more than that possibility.

"God, no!" I blurted, waving my hands desperately and blurting a swift explanation, "I'm looking for preventative care, you know? Not like, preventing pregnancy, but..." I trailed off, rubbing the back of my neck. I looked helplessly at Vette, hoping she could deliver me from this conversation.

Vette couldn't contain it anymore and dissolved into giggles, covering her mouth with one hand and turning deep blue as she shook her head and held out a hand towards me beseechingly.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," I growled low in my throat. No help there.

The other occupants of the room were literally cowering, looking at Vette pityingly as though I were going to tear into her at any moment. Were Sith really so infamous? Yes...actually, yes. And, I realized, they probably should be.

I just sighed and tried to get a handle on myself. "Is there another office nearby, a general practitioner that you might recommend..."

"My Lord, I thank you for the honor, but surely there is a medical officer available at your convenience among your personal retinue. One who might be familiar with your medical history..." the doctor offered hesitantly.

"I haven't been attached to any particular command in the Navy, as far as I know," I replied, guessing that was what he was insinuating. I wasn't exactly sure what he meant by 'retinue.' "Besides, this isn't for combat-related matters. Although we did have a skirmish on the way to Dromund Kaas, there were no injuries for either of us."

"I-in that case, my Lord, I am perfectly capable of performing a standard physical examination. Please, forgive my misunderstanding!"

"Take a deep breath, man!" I urged him, concerned about the way he was trembling. I turned to Vette who was looking ready to swoon from the effort of swallowing her laughter. "And would you get a hold of yourself, Vette? Sorry about all this drama, Doctor. Let's get this over with so you can get on with your business."

The man bowed again and walked ahead of me. I pointed at the chairs and gave Vette a stern look, shaking my head to hide the fact that I was steaming with mortification. This whole scenario was outrageous!

The doctor took me to an examination room that was covered in generic children's cartoons, with chairs that were sized for little people. Yet another reminder that I was an utter fool. I entered and remained standing, since the examination table was only knee-high and quite possibly would collapse under my weight. The doctor shuffled in after me, moving towards the console on one wall.

"I must query the Imperial database for your medical history, my Lord. It will take just one moment," he said. "In the meantime, you may r-remove your armor, as you please."

It was interesting, how he tried to phrase everything as a suggestion instead of an imperative. Also, it made him sound rather stilted. I wasn’t sure this guy was used to dealing with Sith Lords, despite what he had said before about Lords bringing their women to his practice.

Maybe he had only hoped that was the case. Probably to avoid having a Sith as his actual patient.

I nodded absently and began undoing the various clasps and fasteners. There were three on the right side, under my arm, and one at the small of my back. Each one loosened a different set of the plates, and once each was undone, I could lift the breastplate and pauldrons over my head. The armored gauntlets slid off easily enough, and then there was only the utility belt and the greaves. First, I bent to unstrap the boots, stepping out of them and pushing them to the side. As I did so, I spotted a speck of dried blood that I had missed and scowled darkly. Damn boots – they were utterly impossible to clean, with three overlapping plates and multiple seams.

Then I had to remove each plate from the under-suit, before unzipping it from the neck to the navel and sliding the thick material down my whole body like a onesie.

It left me in my briefs and t-shirt, but this guy was terrified of me, and he was a doctor, so I wasn't particularly worried about modesty. If he tried anything I could probably break him like a toothpick.

And since this was Dromund Kaas, the heart of the Sith Empire, I did not consider my wariness to be paranoia. I straightened, pushing the pile of armor off to the side with my foot.

Once finished, I waited while the doctor appeared to be reading something, growing pale. When he finally turned back to me, he cleared his throat twice before he spoke. "My lord, given the severity of your recent injuries, I simply must refer you to a more qualified facility for a follow-up later today. You were treated on Korriban, but only by droid physicians. Since you entered my offices under your own power, I don't consider it an emergency, however I really must insist, if you'll forgive the presumption...I’m just not equipped at all for this sort...I mean, I couldn’t be responsible if..."

"If you feel it is necessary, then I won't argue with your expertise," I interrupted carefully. "What kind of follow-up are you recommending, exactly?"

"A deep-tissue scan at the local hospital," the doctor replied. He took a steadying breath. "They will be able to verify that the nerves and other sensitive tissue are healed properly from your lightsaber injury. I am concerned as well about the extent of the damage to your digestive tract, and they can also ensure that no lingering difficulties will cause trouble in that area. Your panels showed signs of slight dietary deficiencies even before your injury, and there haven’t been any more recent data points to draw any conclusion about how the injury might have affected you."

"The scar didn't give me trouble in combat, but it sounds like a good idea to have things double checked," I shrugged. I felt fine, but...I had felt fine when I sat down in that subway train and look at me now!

"It's scheduled for this afternoon. If you'll forgive another suggestion, I would recommend that you do not eat a lunch, just in case there are any surgeries required."

"It is sensible," I agreed, nodding my head. How many times was he going to apologize in one conversation? I was getting a little weary of his skittishness, to be honest. I decided to give some direction. "Doctor, the reason I made this appointment wasn't because of my recent brush with death. I haven't ever had a general physical. And, obviously, my body is not typical for Sith. I am unsure if I have been eating properly or otherwise maintaining a healthy lifestyle. And I am not entirely confident about my reproductive health or hormonal situation..."

"Ah...um, yes," the doctor shuffled, drawing a datapad and seeming to settle more confidently into his professional attitude. "If you haven't been told before now, you're what Sith medicine traditionally refers to as a ‘chimera.’ It's a somewhat old-fashioned term, so pardon me if you find it offensive. It originated as a descriptor for crossbreeds of various types and unfortunately hasn't been replaced in the literature, or in popular culture. What it means practically speaking is that there has been a genetic abnormality which results in several of the organs responsible for Sith hormone production behaving as you might find in a female individual, whereas the male genitalia manifested during gestation and influenced your body like they typically do for males. There are...several common complications that can arise from the mixture of female and male hormones, but at your age, my lord, you would've already encountered them and shouldn't have any trouble in the future. They arise most often during puberty. Furthermore, the more serious problems that arise from the genetic mutation were clearly treated via gene therapy very early on, although they didn't correct other more obvious traits. It doesn't say why they did this, in your file, but I assume it was your parents' choice."

"Hm," I nodded, assimilating this information carefully. "Are Sith chimera generally infertile or, em...impotent?"

"By no means," the doctor exclaimed, still scrolling through his datapad. "I apologize for reading the information directly from the regulatory practices, but I haven't had a similar patient in the past and want to be sure there are no mistakes. There are multiple genetic diseases that can result in Sith pure-blood chimera, but according to the last DNA panel that was conducted, on Korriban, you should be completely healthy. In fact, the gene therapy that your parents ordered included standard military modifications as well, which is unusual for infants, so you're far sturdier than the baseline Sith species. It was predominantly genes influencing the production of growth hormones which were left alone, and that is responsible for your feminine secondary sexual characteristics and your atypical musculature. It's an overproduction of several common catalysts which resulted in what I'm sure were rapid, uncomfortable growth spurts during puberty. Oh, and also for your considerable height."

"I guess the growth spurts were uncomfortable, but I didn't have a lot to compare it with," I muttered a lie, crossing one arm under my chest and holding my other arm in a self-embrace. If this was the reason I was so large and strong, then it had actually turned out alright, especially since I couldn't remember the trials of puberty in this body. "I just...haven't noticed any erections in the morning, or any at all, for a long time, so...",

The doctor blinked at me in honest confusion. "I apologize if you find this question difficult to answer but...were you ever educated about your species' particular biology, my lord? Do you have any Sith peers that you grew up with, or Sith parental figures? Anyone who might have explained things?"

"No," I answered with a relieved sigh. "Actually, I'm glad that you asked. I hardly have any idea what's typical for Sith, sexually or otherwise. It took me forever to even figure out the kinds of food I liked to eat, and that's probably why the labs from Korriban showed dietary problems."

"Hm, it does say that you were taken in for training much earlier than most, even for the periphery Academies. This is actually fairly typical for people that are raised in diverse environments without their parents. I actually had a human patient that thought they were hearing-impaired because they couldn't decipher radio signals, once, after they had been raised among the Bith," the doctor remarked casually, once more looking at his datapad. His eyes flicked up and then he stiffened. "Well, um, in any case, Sith don't experience some of what I assume you've heard about from your human fellows. Whereas infrequent erections may occur naturally in human males, sometimes without obvious cause or with minor provocation, a Sith will only become erect due to persistent or particularly intense stimulus, which very rarely can occur in dreams but not nearly as frequently as in humans. I can say more, but perhaps you would prefer some reading material on the topic instead?"

"Yes, that might be more convenient for everyone," I managed to say, calmly, despite cringing at what amounted to basic 'the talk' material. I was a grown-ass man and had no reason to be squeamish about this, dammit! Also, did Sith Academies not have a sex-education course? If they did, it probably included torture or something equally horrible, and I couldn't remember it even if there had been such a class.

"I've included the answers to other common questions that you might have," the doctor continued even as he transferred a good half gigabyte of data to my 'pad, "about Sith chimera and your specific underlying genetic condition. For now, I can assure you just from looking at you that the gene therapy avoided all the most common difficulties. However, the hospital's follow-up will be able to provide more detailed information about your bone density and muscle mass, which are the greatest concerns considering the growth hormones, so I would encourage you to request that information when you arrive at the follow-up appointment. There may be lingering effects from the rapid growth you underwent, but you're in excellent fitness and clearly haven't had trouble with shortness of breath, light-headedness, or poor circulation."

"That's good news."

"Indeed! Now," the doctor looked around the room and blinked when he noticed how low all the chairs were. "Right, let me just raise the examination table and I will test several common reflexes..."

The exam proceeded as one might expect from a doctor's visit. He used several futuristic hand-held tools to gather information that would normally be done by stethoscope or by turning your head and coughing. He also drew a speck of blood and placed it into the wall-console prior to performing the rest of his exam, and after a few minutes the computer dinged, and the doctor stowed his tools.

He read something off his 'pad and frowned. "Well, my Lord, everything looks very good apart from your blood panel. It isn't terribly alarming, but I would recommend perhaps eating an additional meal each day and drinking more water. I would recommend five and a half liters a day as far as water is concerned, and perhaps four thousand calories, perhaps more depending on your level of activity. But don't just focus on fatty meats, you also need blood and other nutrient rich foods. Lean flesh, livers, hearts, kidneys, bone marrow, and brains. A balanced diet is very important; the best way to think of it is to eat foods prepared from every part of your prey. There's a helpful diagram with more information on your datapad."

"Thanks, Doc," I grumbled, internally wincing at the smörgåsbord of body parts he had listed. Brains? Really?

"It has been my pleasure. If you have any further questions don't hesitate to contact my office," the man bowed again.

I had realized partway through the exam that he had interrupted his prior patient's appointment and postponed Charlie's to slot me in. I wanted to tell him that it wasn't necessary, but it had already been done, so...well, maybe it would prevent him from doing it again next time. If there ever was a next time? Probably not, but I’d mention it anyway.

"In the future, you don't have to drop everything to schedule me," I said as we walked back to the waiting room. Once I was attired in my armor again, the man's nervousness had returned. Evidently while I had been in underwear he had managed to forget, or at least push to the back of his mind, the fact that I was Sith and was carrying lightsabers. Now he was reminded every time he looked. "Just provide me a reasonable time. If it isn't an emergency, I don't want to inconvenience your patients. In fact, Vette can wait her turn if that's better for everyone."

He bowed, stopping in the doorway as I bent to retrieve my rucksack. "I can see her now, I've already delayed my appointments for today, my Lord. Thank you for being so accommodating."

Vette had jumped to her feet when we returned, and I practically pushed her towards the doctor before plopping into a chair and trying to ignore the presence of other people in the room.

It was a miserable wait.

When Vette returned, looking rather discomfited, I offered a wave to the doctor before hastening out of the office completely, barely giving Vette time to gather her things. I released a sigh once we were in the street and rubbed my face with my gauntlet.

It was hard and a bit uncomfortable, but the action felt necessary. I had been doing that a lot, hadn’t I? Maybe I should consider gauntlets with softer palms...

"That bad?" Vette asked.

"Talk about embarrassing," I grumbled. "I have a follow-up at the hospital this afternoon, and I can't eat lunch. I'll buy you something, though...maybe there's some good food around here?"

"Let's just find something quick, we can look for actually decent food when you can eat too," Vette offered, saying nothing about her own visit with the doctor, and I shrugged. Did I really want to know what had been said?

Probably not, considering her captivity. And the fact that the guy thought we were boning. Right, I was happy letting this whole episode slide into the past with a whimper. So, I did.

Chapter Text

I flopped onto the hotel mattress with an indulgent sigh, rubbing my muscled tummy with one hand. "Oooh, I ate too much..."

Vette laughed as she daintily sat cross-legged on the other bed, pulling a head-tail over her shoulder. "You ordered a feast!"

"I hadn't eaten since breakfast! And it was a military breakfast, at that..." which isn't to say that the military breakfast had been insubstantial. No, the standard rations on Imperial vessels were actually quite hearty. They just tasted rather too much like sawdust for my liking.

Besides, I had put the doctor's advice to the test and ordered myself a large steak prepared with a gravy made from the liver of some animal I had never heard of, followed by a dessert of meat pastries made with brains. Eating brains was only going to be possible for me if it looked like a muffin, and that probably wasn't going to change any time soon.

It had been delicious, however, if a bit unsettling to think about.

After the hospital visit, which had informed me that I was in unnaturally good condition for having recently been impaled by a blade of contained plasma, Vette and I had gone to one of the more famous local eateries in Kaas City, on the twelfth floor of the most affluent high-rise. It had cut into my allowance from Baras substantially, but after the kerfuffle with the Brentaal Star I felt we deserved a little celebration.

And it was, bar none, the best tasting meal I had ever eaten as a Sith. Actually, it was the best ever. I don't know if Sith taste buds were just more powerful than human ones, but nothing in my past life could compare to the taste of the food from the Sith restaurant, and I hadn’t exactly skimped on good eating as a Human.

Vette had wrinkled her nose at my choice of entree, but she had also been forced to enjoy Sith cuisine, since the restaurant catered specifically to Sith species. Her cut of steak had not been made with a liver gravy, however, and she had entirely passed on the brain-muffins. Rather, she had enjoyed some kind of lean meat with a kind of sweet glaze that had been broiled to perfection, and just smelling that from across the table had nearly been enough to awaken my apparently reluctant erection.

I exaggerate. But still, it would have been hilarious if food managed to be the first thing that got a rise out of me in this world.

"Did you find out what you needed, with all the doctors?" Vette wondered.

"Are you concerned about me?" I asked teasingly, letting my head roll so I could look at her. She huffed and turned away.

"Not anymore!"

"Hah!" I sat up and propped myself up on my palms. "Well, apparently I had a genetic disease as a baby, but my parents had some kind of gene therapy performed. They didn't completely correct its symptoms, so I remain what is called a chimera among purebloods. The pamphlet they gave me said it was not exactly common but not rare either, before gene therapy was a widespread practice. Nowadays most parents have the underlying causes corrected in the womb, if it can be detected that early. I'm no doctor, but Sith evidently have multiple organs that produce hormones and some of them are producing the female kind, but I have male genitalia, so I ended up as a sort of mishmash. An unnaturally large one, thanks to overproduction of growth hormones."

"Mishmash?" Vette parroted with a laugh. "You know, Xanot, your vocabulary is not very Imperial. You have a bit of the accent, though. And I suppose the Sithyness comes out sometimes, when you get really serious."

"'Sithyness?' Really?" I drawled. "What, exactly, is 'Sithyness?'"

"Don't give me that," Vette waved a hand before she settled her features and put on a faux Imperial accent. "I say, are you naturally incompetent or did that take practice? You had best make yourself useful to the Empire, or I could shoot you without a qualm!"

She managed to reach the end before she burst into laughter, and I just smirked and shook my head. "So, is it just being stiff and callous? I guess I can get that way...I use it to obscure the fact that I have no idea what I'm doing most of the time."

"Oh really?"

"Is it working?"

Vette scoffed but didn't answer immediately. "You seemed pretty confident whipping up that plan on the Black Talon."

"A complete fabrication," I declared, flopping onto my back and causing a quake in the mountainous regions of my bosom. I was never going to get used to that. "I let the bridge crew do must of the work. They could have suggested having a tea party with the Republic crew and I probably would have agreed to it. Hell, I ended up going alone onto a ship with hundreds of enemies, and then got betrayed for my efforts...Darth Baras is going to laugh in my face!"

"Well, it was pretty suicidal," Vette hedged.

I gasped theatrically. "You, too?!"

"If you had died, then everyone probably would have died," Vette said, seriously. "Even if we hadn't, what do you think would have been done with me after your death?"

Oh. I winced, dragging my fingers through my knotted hair and working out the kinks. It pulled on my scalp a bit painfully, but I didn't mind it. "That would have been bad," I conceded softly.

"I'd have been handed off to another master or killed," Vette clarified. "It hasn't been very long but working with you has been better than some of the other jobs I've done. Honestly, I was afraid that it had all ended just as suddenly as it began."

"I knew it was dangerous when Grand Moff Kilran explained the situation. Even though I killed Benden for his actions, refusing that order really was a reasonable decision. And even if he had been reprimanded and possibly executed on arrival, his crew and the ship would have survived," I mused. "If only he hadn't tried to kill me. I would have let him face the military tribunal, and they might have been lenient after he assisted me."

"Why did you agree to help the Moff, then?"

Good question. "Darth Baras agreed to put me on the Black Talon, for one thing. Even though he hadn't told me explicitly what he wanted, I felt that simply ignoring the Grand Moff would result in some trouble with Baras. And besides that, stopping a defector is an important mission. The Sith war effort depended on shock tactics and the fog of war during the last conflict, and our military doctrine hasn't changed. If there are traitors and spies in the ranks, we might not win the next war."

Vette sat up and faced me again. "Do you really care about the war?"

Hard question. I took time to think about my response, especially since I wasn’t what you might call a patriot by any stretch of the definition. "The Republic wants to essentially exterminate the Sith, either by genocide or cultural erasure. That is at the behest of the Jedi who are something of a religious rival," I began, slowly. "Even though I see the many flaws in the Sith Empire, it's hard to just accept total destruction. If they erase the Empire from the galaxy, then it can never become better or grow beyond what it is. And I totally disagree with anyone that claims the evils of the Empire are the fault of any one race or culture. Humanity and mixed breeds are just as prominent as the Sith blood in the empire and are often crueler. Blaming the Sith heritage for the evil in the Empire is just a way for Republic propaganda to demonize us."

"You feel that it's a defensive war, then?" Vette wondered after a beat of silence.

"Well, no," I conceded with a nod. "The Empire invaded the Republic partly because of ancient history and half-forgotten vendettas from generations past. But mostly because the ethos of the Empire demands constant war against worthy opponents and because the Emperor willed it. None of those things change the fact that the Republic will exterminate us if we lose. The Sith Empire as it exists today was started by exiles from the ancient Je’daii who dominated the native Sith on Korriban; the Jedi won't make the same mistake of exiling their foes this time around. Apart from exile, their only options are reeducation or extermination, and both options are the end of the Sith as a way of life."

Not to mention the fact that there was a puppet-master hoping that the confluence of bloodshed would create the circumstances needed for him to ascend to god-hood. That pretty much guaranteed that no matter which side won the war, the results would be horrific for the galaxy. A prolonged stalemate was preferable to any conceivable resolution, at least as long as Tenebrae/Darth Vitiate/Valkorian was waiting in the wings ready to swoop in and consume all life in the galaxy like the Angel of Death.

"I don't think the Republic would do something like that," Vette put in, thoughtfully. “That would be against their founding principles.”

"A Jedi cannot suffer the Sith to exist," I answered, shaking my head. "Therefore, we must become Jedi, or we must die. At least that is what their teachings would demand – basically they believe that those who are aligned with the Dark Side are a threat to the balance of Life itself. The Republic exists as a shell around the Jedi, and ultimately will act as the Jedi demand. Regardless of my feelings about the war and the Republic, I can't really promise that I'll be more careful about our missions in the future. I might be ordered to do equally dangerous things as the assault on the Brentaal Star. I can only say that I will do my best to survive and overcome. And I'll probably try not to volunteer for anything as overtly insane in the future."

"I suppose I should figure out a contingency plan," Vette groused with a severe frown. "If you're going to undertake suicide missions regularly, I shouldn't be surprised when one of them actually ends with you dying."

"I'm invincible," I retorted halfheartedly. If only that were really true. I wasn't about to test it.

My comm, which was on the bedside table between the mattresses, pinged. I checked it and saw a message from Darth Baras. 'If you are early enough to tour Kaas City, then you are early enough to begin training. Report to my offices at the following location at 0430.'

"Oho, looks like Darth Baras has been keeping tabs on me," I mused, sliding the comm back to the table and rolling over, hugging a pillow to my chest. "Also, we've got an early morning tomorrow, Vette."

Vette rolled over and threw an arm over her face. "Ugh."

She was still yawning by the time we caught an air-speeder up to the Sith Sanctum in the darkness of early morning. Dromund Kaas had two moons, with one dominating the western sky and the other being far enough away that it looked about the size of a penny. The lights from the city made it hard to see very many stars.

If there was just one thing that could be said about the Sith Sanctum, it was that the Sith had a talent for grandiosity. The structure seemed to sprout from the mountainside, and it was built in truly gargantuan proportions. Walking through its dark halls resulted in echoes, and voices tended to carry, returning in whispers to the one who had spoken.

There weren't very many people, at least not milling around in the common areas. In the Force I could sense a great deal of power concentrated on various places nearby, and I could tell that there were heated discussions and energetic exercises taking place. It was oddly tranquil, due to the silence, but the Force betrayed the fact that there was typically Sith activities taking place behind closed doors.

Torturing. Fighting. Fucking. Arguing. Brooding. Whatever the Sith were doing in here, they were doing it with passion, and it was making the Force turbulent. I felt it in the shivers that ran down my spine periodically.

Even Vette felt something, although she might not have known that it was the Force. It was obvious to me by her muttered comment. "Sith are definitely good at being spooky."

Baras had his offices on the main level, near to the entrance. It was actually less of an office and more of a multipurpose wing. While there was an office, and that was ultimately my destination, we passed through a wide-open dueling room and an interrogation chamber, passing what looked to be a small archive and a room full of cubicles, which I sensed was populated by Baras' servants or employees.

The office itself was basically a large desk with a console on its surface, a high-backed chair, and was otherwise almost completely empty. Baras was there, in his full ensemble, and he seemed to raise his head as we entered. "I see you decided to keep the slave," was his greeting. "I hope she amuses you. Certainly, she was of little use to you on the Black Talon."

"The platoon commander had no complaints about her assistance," I replied evenly.

"As if he would be stupid enough to brazenly scorn the assistance you offered him to your face," Baras scoffed. "The after-action reports indicated that the slave hardly engaged in the fighting and then threw a grenade while on board a starship, nearly killing the entire platoon."

"That's not..." Vette started, heatedly.

"Be silent," I snapped before she could get started, and Vette's jaw clicked shut mid-protest. Betrayed eyes flashed at me, and I felt a pang of regret, but I wasn't about to let her backtalk fucking Darth Baras. "I cannot verify the truth of the after-action report, master. I wasn't there during the thickest part of the fighting on the Black Talon."

"No, you were too busy throwing your life away," Baras agreed in a cool tone. "This was your first real engagement as Sith, so I wasn't expecting much. Frankly, I expected you to refuse the Grand Moff. Given your general lack of ambition and fervent desire to live, placing yourself in such a precarious situation seemed quite out of character for you. I was pleasantly surprised, until I actually read the details of the engagement."

"Allow me to learn from the experience, my lord."

"If you die, you can learn nothing, and everything you had learned up to that point was obviously insufficient," Baras snapped. "And it will be a waste of all my efforts. Why should I take any time to instruct you, if you are going to behave so unwisely?"

I clenched my jaw and straightened up, folding my hands behind my back. "What did I do wrong, my master?"

"First, you willingly placed yourself into an engagement which you had little hope of winning," Baras said, standing up and leaning over his desk with his palms flat on the surface. "A Sith knows no fear, that is true. There is a difference between what you did and the meaning of that maxim. Knowing your strength and recognizing when you are outmatched is the most critical lesson that you will ever learn, and it will contribute more to your survival than anything else. Allowing arrogance, blind loyalty, idealism, or anything else to guide you will only lead you to a premature end.

In general, Apprentice, Sith are unmatched warriors on the ground. Against foot soldiers and even some ground vehicles, a competent Sith faces essentially no risk. Even against sky-fighters, the Force is capable of tearing the enemy from the sky. However, against star-fighters and warships your abilities rapidly lose efficacy. Your speed is useless when you are trapped on board a starship that is separated from your foes by the vacuum of space, or if the entire continent below your feet is destroyed from orbit. Furthermore, deflecting blaster shots or evading fire is effective against small arms, but against turbolasers or artillery fire you have no effective defense. When your enemy is able to bring such weapons to bear, you should not foolishly throw yourself into desperate gambits that have little chance of success. That will only lead you inevitably to an ignominious death."

"I did not think I had the option to refuse that assignment, master," I offered softly.

"Did I ever command you to obey the Grand Moff?" was the equally quiet, vicious retort. I sensed Baras' cold fury and didn't dare meet the eyes that lurked behind his mask. "I did not. You obey me, and no other. The Imperial leadership has no leverage over you, or over me. I command them, not the other way around. He threatened to ruin your reputation, and you folded like a pathetic worm. You did more harm to your reputation with that than anything Grand Moff Kilran could have said about you."

So that's how it was. I bowed my head, cursing my shortsightedness. "I will do better."

"I am not finished. Once you had idiotically committed yourself to the task, you proceeded to confront Captain Benden, who had wisely determined that the mission was near impossible. However, he had disobeyed a direct command from his rightful superior. Yet you did not kill him or remove him from command for that insubordination, as required by Imperial regulations, but instead you left him in a position where he could continue to hinder your mission, ultimately culminating in his attempt to sacrifice you for his own peace of mind," Baras paused here to breathe harshly. "Afterward, you killed him in anger, when the one responsible for the entire sequence of events was yourself! Are you that much of a fool, Xanot?"

"No, master."

"Well, I have yet to see even a single iota of wisdom in you, Apprentice," Baras barked. "Allowing cowards, fools, and insubordinate weasels to plan your operation is the reason that you were sent, alone, on a suicidal mission. You survived it due to the rank incompetence of the Republic crew and sheer dumb luck. I am beginning to detect a pattern here, Apprentice. How many times has it been that you succeeded only because of blatant coincidence or the incompetence of your foes?"

I wanted to say that there was no such thing as luck, but it wouldn't have been very Sith maxim. The Sith did not hold with the idea of Destiny or Fate nearly as much as the Jedi did. Instead, I pursed my lips and accepted the criticism which was, frankly, well-deserved. I had already resolved to be more careful in the future, and it chafed to have Baras hammering that notion home.

"Since I have no confidence that you could understand the depth of your mistake without my help, allow me to explain in detail," Baras intoned dramatically, spreading his hands in front of his chest for emphasis. "If the Jedi on board that ship had been anything more than utterly incompetent, they would have been in the hangar waiting to intercept you, since a desperate boarding action was the only tactical choice for the Black Talon. Any tactical computer could have told them that this was your only recourse. If they had done so, you would have had to fight the Jedi before proceeding with your task, since you cannot outrun a Jedi like you did with the rest of the Republic crew. You, my Apprentice, are not yet capable of defeating any Jedi besides, perhaps, a padawan. Even a senior padawan might very well prove to be your superior. And Jedi do not fight alone, not unless they have no other choice! Against a standard team of two or three, you would have been cut to pieces. That would have put an end to the hopes of the Black Talon."

"Why are you so confident in a Jedi's skills, master?" I wondered.

"Once more, you demonstrate your complete ignorance," Baras cut. "Tell me, Apprentice, why were you able to carve your way through hundreds of Republic soldiers without fear?"

I blinked at the sudden question. "Because I am faster than them, and they have no defense against the Force."

"Crush them, throw them, shock them, choke them," Baras ticked off various options. "Droids and men have no answer to these things. You can terrify them, scatter them, turn them against each other in hysteria, crush their bones and joints, blind them, shatter their eardrums with a scream...need I continue? Without the Force at their command, anyone that chooses to face you is doomed to swift and inevitable defeat. What is the obvious problem with facing a Jedi?"

"The Force is with them," I answered at once.

"What a singularly Jedi-like response," Baras sneered. "Or, as they like to crow like the blind sycophants that they are, 'the Force is their ally.' Your arsenal of Force techniques is immediately rendered mostly ineffective. Any Force user of equal or greater strength can quite simply use Force Ward to nullify the effects of any direct Force ability. And a Force user who is weaker than yourself can still greatly reduce the effectiveness of such attacks, surviving what would be lethal for the Force-blind. And if they have a greater command of the Force than yourself, then you end up being the one at risk!"

I nodded. "I had no trouble facing other acolytes."

"You killed most of your Force-sensitive opponents with your sword," Baras rebutted. "And if they were vulnerable to any Force technique so late in their training, they deserved to die. Like Vemrin, who let his guard down at the exact wrong moment. Defending against the Force is the first and most essential ability of any Force user. However, let us assume that you are competent enough not to be instantly defeated by a Jedi's Force techniques, however unlikely that may be. Your arsenal of powers is reduced to indirect attacks, such as Force Lightning or Telekinesis, and of course your lightsaber, which you have wielded for all of a single day. Since you have shown no talent in Force Lightning, and Jedi are particularly skilled in Telekinesis, it's blatantly obvious that you would be forced to enter a contest of blades, which you would inevitably lose due to inexperience. Remember the fate of your former teacher, Tremel. Overconfidence, Apprentice, will kill you as surely as a lightsaber to the heart!"

"I understand."

"Do you really?" Baras hissed. "Allow me to impart your first formal lesson as my Apprentice: before you commit yourself to any fight, be sure that victory is within your grasp, or at least that defeat does not end in your death. The goal of all living things, but especially for Sith, is to survive and grow strong. The point which apparently requires emphasis in your case is survival! This is the difference between any brutish beast or a slave, who have little choice over when and how they fight, and the Sith, who revel in conflict but only when it will strengthen them."

"Then, if you order me to engage an enemy which I determine is beyond my strength, are you permitting me to refuse orders?" I challenged. "Captain Benden would have been removed from command and possibly executed for that same decision."

"Yes, he would have, and deservedly so. Who is meant to have the greater wisdom, the better grasp of the wider situation? Is it the subordinate, or the master? Obviously, the master is in the better position to evaluate the greater circumstances. Any direct order from a superior should be taken and obeyed, even if it seems foolish from the perspective of the subordinate. The greatest chance of survival in such a scenario is obedience, particularly when insubordination is justly rewarded with death," Darth Baras lectured firmly. "So, when I direct you to an enemy and command you to fight, you will fight, and you will win. Or you will fail me and die. Most of the time, however, you will have the freedom to choose your targets and the rules of engagement. As my apprentice, you will be my enforcer, and your objectives will be similar to the following: go to the private docking bay E4D and escort the cargo which is unloaded there to my offices here in the Sith Sanctum. Incidentally, that is your first assignment, although the cargo won't be arriving for another five days."

"The Black Talon would have been utterly destroyed if I had not been present, which was the situation when Captain Benden disobeyed his orders," I argued.

"Captain Benden is dead, at your hand," Darth Baras waved a hand dismissively. "It doesn't matter if his decision was justified or if it was not. Grand Moff Kilran believed that the mission was not without merit, either because it would delay the escape of the defector or because he actually thought that the Black Talon could succeed. In either case, Captain Benden did not have the rank or the information to contradict direct orders from a Grand Moff. If his ship was chosen to die as a diversion in order to benefit the wider theater of war, then he should have accepted that order and executed it faithfully. You might argue that this contradicts my prior statement about the primacy of survival. You are forgetting the fact that disobedience is certain death. There was no scenario in which Captain Benden was likely to survive the mission he had been given."

"In the face of certain death, it would seem that obedience is not beneficial."

"I believe someone I know once said, 'Dying isn't something to fear on its own, but dying for the wrong reasons.' The certain end of all life is death, all people should recognize this. Dying after proving oneself to be a gutless coward and a fool, well...I assume it's obvious that such a fate should be avoided," Baras quoted my own words from the shuttle off Korriban and I shivered. He was literally listening to my conversations now? "A Sith does not hesitate to kill, and therefore should also not hesitate in the face of death. Every Imperial citizen must uphold the way of the Sith, not only the Sith Lords, or else the Empire begins to fracture at its foundations. You recognized this when you pronounced judgment on Devotek, but you allowed a soft heart to mislead you when it came to Captain Benden. Do not make that mistake again."

I bowed when it seemed that he was finally finished. I manged to say, "Thank you for the lesson." without any sarcasm.

"Thank me by applying this lesson effectively," Baras snapped. "Now, I have neither the time or the patience to personally instruct you in the lightsaber forms. One of your seniors is waiting to meet you, another apprentice of mine, and he will teach you the basics. Mastery will be your own responsibility. I have arranged for your slave to undergo Imperial military training at the garrison of Kaas City. It will take her twenty-one days to complete it, if she survives. She is required to report to Captain Donin at 0630 and should depart at once so she is not late."

"Why would you do that, Master?" I asked hesitantly.

"If you are going to treat her like a soldier," Baras declared with an obvious sneer in his voice, "then she should at the very least be given the training every soldier receives. You know that she is better suited to domestic tasks or for your amusement, but you have made your decision. Unless you think she is too weak for the training?"

"No," I shook my head, sighing through my nose. If I argued that she couldn't hack it, then Baras would obviously insist that I make use of her in other ways, which I wasn't about to force on Vette. However, glancing at her and seeing the trepidation in her face made me regret bringing her to Dromund Kaas at all. Too late now.

"Then you are dismissed," Baras said, opening the console on his desk once more.

We left his office and walked in silence through the archive and torture chamber. The salle did indeed have a scarred, angry-looking human man inside, the one who was undoubtedly going to be my instructor. But I paused and turned to Vette, searching her face briefly before I sighed once more. "You'll survive this and do well."

"Right," she replied coolly. "Thanks for backing me up, earlier. You know, when you told me to bite my tongue."

"Look, I know they probably lied about you in those reports because of your race," I said. "But arguing about it with Darth Baras was only going to lead to pain. Besides, he knows that as well as I do, and was only using it to humiliate me because he disagrees with my treatment of you. I'm sure you fought as well as you could have on the Black Talon."

"Whatever you say, master."

Oh, she was boiling mad. Fuck, this wasn't a good way to part when she was going to be essentially out of contact for twenty-one days. "Vette, I'm sorry that you have to put up with this horseshit. Imperials are bigots, by and large. But they also respect strength. I know you're strong, so just kick some ass and come back to me. If you can't bear it after all that, we'll figure something out for you."

"You think they'll just let me go after investing credits, time, and effort into training?" Vette retorted, but I sensed that she had softened slightly. She also made a pretty good point, especially if they made her swear in when she completed the training, putting her under my command as a member of the Imperial Military. If they did that, then letting her leave would result in her being listed as AWOL. I had no idea what that actually meant in terms of law enforcement, but it couldn't be good.

However, "Being a trooper is a step up from slavery, right?"

"Is it?" Vette shook her head and walked away.

I likewise shook my head and entered the salle, meeting the baleful gaze of the middle-aged man who was tapping his foot impatiently. "You let your slave speak to you in that tone?" he asked me in a droll voice when I was near enough.

"She isn't a slave," I replied with a shrug. "Soon enough she will be a member of the Navy."

"If they swear in that alien trash, then the Empire really has become desperate," the man turned his head and spat onto the padded floor. "In any case, you must be Baras' new meat. I'm Tranch. Baras said you're useless with a lightsaber. Lose the armor."

I shrugged and set about undressing, but I left my black under-suit on. "Did he?"

"Take off the suit, too. Unless you don't mind it being burned." Tranch sneered at me as he drew two lightsabers from his belt. "These lightsabers are adjusted to be nonlethal."

I caught the one that he tossed me even as I unzipped the underarmor and used the Force to shove the whole pile into a corner. Clad only in my cotton shirt and briefs, I padded across the salle on bare feet and activated the saber he had given me. It had significant inertia, more than the blade I had chosen from the tomb.

"Show me what you're made of."

I barely had time to raise my blade before Tranch was upon me. I jumped backwards, aiming to create space, but he stayed at perfect distance with a kind of Force-assisted skip, angling his lightsaber for a neat decapitation. I blocked it, barely, but his weapon seemed to rebound and then twirl under my guard in a neat thrust that took me at the shoulder.

The pain was blinding, causing an involuntary scream to tear from my throat. I wrenched backwards, clutching at what I was sure was a brutal injury, but aside from a hole in my shirt there was only a tender burn. Not a ragged, gory hole.

"You're full of openings," Tranch hissed. "And slow."

I gritted my teeth and straightened, spreading out my stance and raising my weapon once more. This time, without the element of surprise on his side, I was able to sense his intent through the Force, and I also bolstered myself by drawing the power into my body as naturally as breathing. Our next exchange felt more natural, and I lasted about six whole seconds before his weapon cut across my sword arm and left me gasping in agony.

"Better!" he crowed. "You're starting to draw on the Force, but your will is weak. Halfhearted. You have to be forceful, or the Force will not obey!"

With that advice, he leapt at me. I snarled, shaking the last of the pain away and met him once more, straining to keep up with his blinding speed. We danced across the salle, the scream of lightsabers cutting through the air, ringing in my ears with the pounding of blood, and soon I found myself smiling, driving him back with a sequence of blows that had the skin around his eyes drawing tighter in concentration.

Still, after a good exchange he kicked me in the chest and sent me sprawling onto the mats.

"The lightsaber isn't your only weapon," he declared. "Don't become fixated on only one avenue of attack. Get up!"

I coughed, feeling short of breath, but called my weapon back to hand and stood up once more. If I couldn't beat this arrogant fool, then I wasn't going to survive the missions to come, and that was unacceptable. With that in mind, I threw myself back into the fight.

I didn't even land a single hit. After ten rounds, I found myself sore, covered in burns, and, humiliatingly, sporting an erection.

There wasn't a single iota of affection or attraction in me for that asshole, Tranch, but something about the rush of combat and the pain of every strike he landed was pushing my buttons. It was just my rotten luck that the first time I'd get an erection would be due to combat. Tranch was looking at me as I tried to catch my breath, still holding my gut where he had stabbed me for the third time. Then he deactivated his weapon and shook his head.

"Well, it's not entirely hopeless," he declared. "You're as strong as a bull and faster than any other bitch fresh off Korriban. You aren't drawing enough power to fully enhance your movements, probably because of your weight or weakness. And your technique is abysmal, but against an average swordsman your other advantages might make up the difference. In any case, Baras was right about Shien and Soresu.'

I only listened to his conclusion with half an ear. The rest of my mind was thinking about ugly things, trying to get the achingly uncomfortable hard-on to go away.

"Stand up," Tranch barked, suddenly. "Is a little pain too much for you, big girl? Or is it that cock you're swinging around? Don't worry, Sith-girl, you aren't the first apprentice that I've broken in for Baras, and all you purebloods get this way after a decent beating. You're not my type, so just forget about it. You'll be too sore to worry about that kind of thing soon enough."

I pulled myself to my feet and glared at him.

"Ooh, scary," Tranch wiggled his hands mockingly. "Right, I'm only going to show you once so pay attention. The first kata for Shien goes like this..."

He had demonstrated five different katas for Shien, and six for Soresu. Each time he ran through it, he had me repeat it ten times, and he corrected my mistakes with taps from his training saber and coarse words. Then we would duel, and once I was defeated, he would teach me another kata. Tranch was right...I forgot all about my dick after the fourth bout. I had other aches to be concerned about by that time.

By the time lunch came around, my muscles were shaking, and I could barely stand, yet Tranch didn't lighten up even after that.

[Skill Unlocked: Lightsaber Form - Soresu I]

[Skill Unlocked: Lightsaber Form - Shien I]

[Skill Unlocked: Lightsaber Proficiency II]

[Statuses Gained: Weary, Bruised, Muscle Fatigue, Aroused]

Baras didn't let me go back to my nice hotel room when it was over, either. There were bunks in the barracks adjoining his portion of the Sanctum, set aside for his people. I was assigned a footlocker and one of the bunks there and told to get some rest. I had enough energy to be annoyed about sleeping in an open dormitory like this, but, once I slumped onto the hard pallet, sleep took me in less than three breaths.

Chapter Text

I'll admit it: I had been getting overconfident. Since waking up on Korriban, despite close brushes with death on several occasions, I hadn't exactly faced any opponent that truly outstripped me. The tarentatek had been too brutish, Tremel had been too arrogant, and Vemrin had tired himself too quickly. There had always been a path to victory. It was no surprise that I had begun to think that I was simply an overpowered protagonist who didn't have to be overly concerned with trifling matters such as caution.

If the Black Talon fiasco hadn't been enough to dispel any notion of my superiority, Tranch fully beat the remnants of attitude out of me. Never before, in the previous life or in this one, had I been so thoroughly humiliated on every level. Repeatedly. His cruel taunts, crass remarks, and brutal strikes never failed to leave me feeling unbearably hot, covered in burns, muscles aching, and head pounding. Usually, I was left with an aching erection, just to put the cherry on top of my generous serving of humble pie. No matter how much I felt I improved, he was always just that much better. The gap between his speed and mine had been closed once I got the hang of truly channeling the Force through my body in combat, thanks to continuous repetition of the katas he had shown me on the first day.

But even if I was faster and stronger than he was, Tranch somehow always managed to be in the right distance, at the right tempo, so that he could strike me down time after time after time. Even the improvement of the lightsaber form skills that I had unlocked from the first level to the third did not give me the edge I needed to win in our spars.

It was only to be expected for someone that had clearly been using a lightsaber for years, but nevertheless I felt completely inadequate and more than a little apprehensive about my future as a result of these eye-opening sessions. Four days, and although I had grown in technical skill by leaps and bounds, I had not gained any main levels. My stats were the same as they had been before.

It seemed I could learn skills and advance in the ranks of those skills through practice just like everyone else, but I also gained levels in some skills when I leveled up. I only gained experience for my main level from kills, apparently. And my attributes seemed to only grow from leveling up, which begged the question of how my diet affected my constitution.

Quest rewards didn't really exist, at least not in the form of EXP. I hadn't actually gotten any EXP from helping the soldiers in the tomb on Korriban, other than what I had earned by killing K'lor slugs. The details of the leveling system would probably remain elusive, but I could tell the amount of EXP needed to level was growing at a slower rate now than it had in the first 10 levels. Regardless, I was certainly a prodigiously quick study according to the standards of normal people, and that was the only comfort I had.

Because if I was this inferior in swordsmanship, then it was an absolute certainty that I was also outmatched by someone somewhere out there in the category of Force abilities. Some Jedi Masters or Sith Lords would probably be able to break my neck with a mere snap of their fingers. And, in fact, there wasn't much of a divide between swordsmanship and power in the Force. After all, one of the central abilities of any Force-user was precognition...and knowledge of the future led naturally into changing the course of the future.

Eventually, the day had come for me to escort the cargo from a private docking back to the Sith Sanctum, as Baras had mentioned during my earlier dressing-down. If this was the mission, I remembered from the MMO, then the package was in fact a Republic operative who had been frozen in carbonite. And we would be accosted by several groups of hired thugs. I wasn't going to rely on this knowledge alone, since it was entirely possible that it didn't turn out anything like it had in the game. But just knowing that there was something to be wary of was a huge advantage.

With my shield generator active and my full armor equipped, I strolled through Kaas City, heading towards the docking bay.

The doctor's reading had been very helpful in choosing my diet, more-so than the droid physician’s handbook on slave care, and I actually felt far more energetic now than I had on Korriban, despite the number of beatings I had been suffering as of late. I had also picked up other useful tidbits about Sith. For example, five hours of sleep out of thirty-six was considered healthy. Or sleeping for five hours, then staying awake for thirty-one, I should say. Power naps weren’t very effective.

The sex-ed data packets that I had been sent was illuminating as well. Like the doctor had said, Sith generally required significant foreplay to achieve an erection – apparently lightsaber dueling was one suitable activity, at least in my case – and they were then capable of mating many times without significant rest. There were like big cats, that way. Sith were typically polygamous and patriarchal, forming family units consisting of a male and between three and five wives on average. The number of wives generally reflected success. That is to say, wealthy, strong, and fertile Sith males sometimes had more wives than the average, and sometimes these wives were merely status symbols or powerful vicars of the dynasty and not active sex partners. Even so, it was common for a powerful, pureblooded Sith male to produce tens of children, sometimes even nearing a hundred offspring before the natural progress of age caused impotence.

Why? Well, having many children was a status symbol, for one thing, and having powerful children was important for dynastic succession. The importance of the Sith dynasties was well established among the Sith Lords, but of course I was a first-generation Lord, and still an Apprentice. In other words, my parents had been Force-blind, which was a very telling factoid.

Sith children were more often female than male, at a rate of seven to one. This was due to the fact that there were multiple chromosomes in the Sith genome that affected gender, a fact I should have suspected from the doctor's remark about hormones. Male Sith were all Force sensitive, while females had roughly a twenty percent chance at Force sensitivity. This meant that among the Sith Lords there were generally an equal number of males and females, but fewer females achieved positions of leadership themselves as such Force-sensitive women were greatly coveted and would usually end up in prominent positions in the household of a mighty male Sith.

The important fact was that all male Sith were Force-sensitive. That meant my father could not have been a Sith, since I knew he wasn't a Sith Lord. But I was still considered a pureblood despite the fact that my genes must have been at least partially non-Sith. I had no idea why...was it just skin color?

Sith often made hybrids with other species, so my situation wasn't even terribly unusual. With humans being their most common inter-species mate. Sith males could apparently impregnate basically any near-human race, excepting the Echani and Arkanis due to genetic therapies that those species had employed en masse for eugenics purposes. Zabrak, Tholothian, Kiffar, Coruscanti, Mandalorian, Corellian, Alderaani, Twi'leki, Togruta, Zeltron, Mirialan, Chiss, and hundreds of other species could all make viable hybrid offspring with Sith. The actual physical features of those offspring varied wildly, and there wasn’t even a predictable genetic profile.

There was some kind of randomness involved in the gametes at play, apparently. It was frankly astounding that viable offspring could even be conceived cross-species, let alone go on to have offspring of their own.

Sith females were a bit less compatible with other mammalian races due to their comparatively high body temperature, which rendered unprepared sperm less effective. Human men and a handful of other near-Human races could still manage to conceive with a Sith woman, although it was more difficult. More penis-in-vagina sex was required to make a baby happen if the baby mama was a Sith and the daddy wasn’t Sith, basically. Force-sensitive Sith women were even harder to impregnate, and it remained something of a medical mystery.

On the flip side of the coin, Force sensitive men were apparently more virile, so it was probably a wash if both partners were Force sensitive.

I also learned quite a lot about the Star Wars galaxy that I wasn't sure I had ever wanted to know. For example, I read several pages about Sith suitability as egg-bearers for certain oviparous aliens, such as Geonosians, and it made me resolve to never, ever think about that particular aspect of reality ever again.

Ever.

In any case, one thing that training with Tranch had instilled in me was a constant awareness of my surroundings in the Force. I hadn't really maintained any observation of others because I hadn't made it a habit, and unlike other senses like hearing I actually had to exert my will to pick up anything with the Force.

However, I was able to keep a metaphorical eye on a pretty large area without too much conscious effort, and it was so useful in combat that I had pretty much utilized Force Sense constantly over the last five days. In a city like this it wasn't particularly useful, but it would certainly warn me if anyone nearby was intending to shoot me.

I arrived at the private docking bay early. In the game, the player had arrived late, and the attackers had already set their ambush, which made the scenario more dangerous than I felt it had any reason to be. I had decided to come early, thinking that they would have had to post their snipers in advance.

I was right.

The thing about ambushes was that they could be sometimes turn around on the attacker, if their plan was somehow anticipated. With only five men in the one team and four in the other, separated by the entire width of the hangar, it was pretty easy for me to approach the larger group, making it seem as though I was just looking for a place to wait.

In reality, I was moving obliquely towards the place where I could sense the mercenaries in wait.

Now the question was, did I simply attack them, or did I confront them and ask for their business in the private hangar? It seemed a little premature to draw a lightsaber on them since they had done pretty much nothing apart from trespassing at this point. On the other hand, they were preparing to ambush Imperial assets.

I was pretty sure that was what they were doing.

In the name of being reasonable, I decided to approach them, which didn't go unnoticed. I palmed my lightsaber, ready to ignite and deflect their shots if they decided to fire. The snipers on their perch, which was atop a stack of large metallic containers, did not swivel their guns, but I saw them grow tense as I stopped more than five paces away.

"Clear out of this hangar; it’s in use for Sith business," I ordered.

"We're your backup," the slender man lied smoothly, gesturing peaceably. He made a convincing show of it, but his compatriots were sweating bullets. I scoffed, gesturing at the group.

"I think that one pissed his pants. Allies would not be so concerned. Last chance, now, run off and don't come back."

I sensed the shot coming and moved without thinking, my red lightsaber igniting and moving to a standard center-guard, which also happened to deflect the bolt of plasma into the floor. I fluidly broke guard without pause and turned my body so that I could leap towards the shooter, barely registering that it had come from the opposite side of the hangar before I was halfway across the distance, my blade moving in a tight, impenetrable red blur as a hail of automatic fire burst from the shadows.

Soresu coming in clutch, with controlled motions and solid coverage. The Force ensured that my lightsaber was always in the right position to protect me from their accurate fire, but it certainly helped that I didn't have to move my weapon very far from its guard position, since they were aiming at center-mass.

That was dumb of them, honestly...if they had been given the time to coordinate, then half of them should have gone for leg-shots to force me to spread my coverage. But these were just mercenaries, and since they were still alive, they had probably never fought Sith before.

I extended a hand and blasted the location with a blind, wide push, interrupting their concentrated fire. Then I jumped again, sensing murderous opportunism at my back, but the first group didn't have time to open fire before I had landed amid the second group and cut three men to pieces with a tight, diagonal slash.

There was one other mercenary from the group of four, but he screamed pathetically and was crawling desperately away from me, without his weapon, so I turned back towards the others in time to deflect their sniper shots. I made the return trip with the same two leaps, forced to briefly pause and deflect a burst of automatic fire in between jumps.

"You made the wrong decision," I growled, landing on the containers and beheading the snipers before reaching out and choking the rest to prevent them from shooting. I jumped down from the crates lightly and watched them gasping, clawing at the invisible grasp around their necks. Blasters clattered to the floor.

It might be worth taking one of them to Baras, to find out who had hired them. The rest...were a liability.

I had barely contemplated the thought before it became reality. Their necks broke with audible crunching sounds, lifeless bodies falling to the deck. Only their leader remained, eyes bulging out desperately, but I was dispassionate, waiting for his consciousness to fade before finally releasing my grip on his neck.

Amid the series of experience earned notifications, I also spotted my alignment shift towards the Dark. It didn’t say how much.

I suppose I could have spared them, now that I thought about it...but my first instinct had been to annihilate the threat. Besides that, they had attacked me first, and had been using lethal force. I didn't feel guilty.

As the last of them slumped unconscious beside his deceased team, a shuttle entered the hangar from the overhead doors, disturbing the air by displacement. Vehicles in this place didn't need primitive technology like turbines or jet engines, they utilized repulsorlifts to create a force commensurate to the gravitational force, and that machinery emitted a low thrumming noise that was loud, but it did not circulate massive quantities of air like a jet would have.

The landing struts extended, and the shuttle quieted as it settled into place.

When the ramp deployed, a squad of four Imperial soldiers burst from the airlock, two taking a knee on either side of the ramp while the others approached me, sweeping the surroundings with their rifles. I noticed that they sighted on the corpses, briefly, and one of them made a snap shot that caused the terrified man from earlier to collapse, dead, on the tarmac about halfway to the only exit. The blaster shot left a smoking wound directly between his shoulder blades.

Poor fool.

"Sir, we detected weapons fire," one of them declared. I nodded, deactivating my weapon and gesturing to the unconscious fool.

"Ambushers. We'll deliver this one along with your cargo," I ordered. "Who's in command?"

"Sergeant Dulacoste," said one of the men, jerking a thumb back towards the ship. The rest of their squad was descending with a floating carbonite slab. The perfectly sculpted outline of a terrified man could be seen on the surface.

The man in question was walking ahead of the carbonite and saluted once he was close. "Sir! I admit I thought that sending you as an escort was overkill. To think that there are those who would be so bold as to challenge us on Dromund Kaas, the heart of the Empire!"

"It's likely that the ones who hired these thugs are also here on Dromund Kaas," I replied dryly. "Let's move quickly, before more of them arrive."

My first assignment as the apprentice of Darth Baras was remarkably uneventful, after that. It concluded shortly after I had met Sergeant Dulacoste. Darth Baras accepted the prisoners and gave me the rest of the day off as he was intending to begin extracting information, which I appreciated if only because of my sore muscles. I also had no real desire to watch torture.

There was one thing I had been planning to do which I had lacked the time to actually sit down and figure out: lightsaber crafting. Crafting a lightsaber was one of the trials of the Jedi, but it wasn't held in such high esteem by the Sith, which was obvious from the fact that I already had a whole collection of lightsabers to choose from.

The problem was that none of the weapons were the proper length for my height, and I wasn't exactly pleased by the shapes of the hilts or the other aspects of their handling. Sure, they were suitable weapons, but they didn't feel natural, and I was sure I could beat Tranch if I was using a lightsaber that I had built specifically for my hand and my height.

As such, I had prioritized the manual on lightsabers that Baras had provided, using some of my stipend to order the mechanical parts that I would need to construct m own. I was going to take the crystals from the other weapons I had scavenged from the tomb.

The critical parts of a lightsaber were: the power pack, the focusing lenses, the frictionless flywheel, and the crystal array. The power pack, obviously, generated the energy which powered the magnetic fields containing the plasma stream. The crystals were used to focus and adjust the shape and strength of the magnetic fields and were what caused the blade-like shape.

The plasma used in the blade was a specialized gaseous compound similar to the ammunition of blaster rifles, but since the lightsaber blade was contained by the magnetism it didn't actually consume much of the plasma. Eventually, after much continuous use, a lightsaber might require a new charge, particularly if it was not well-made and had instability. Or if the blade was used to, say, carve through blast doors repeatedly.

The focusing lenses were what induced the compound to temperatures high enough to cause the plasma stream. Directing focused light from lasers through the lenses would create localized temperatures in the hilt hot enough to instantly turn the gas to plasma. This was what created the distinctive snap-hiss of a lightsaber's activation.

And, of course, the flywheel gave the blade something akin to weight.

It was widely speculated that only Force sensitives could create lightsabers due to the delicacy of the crystal array. If the magnetic containment was not perfect, then the plasma would instantly decompress, probably in a spectacular explosion. However, Baras' manual, which actually appeared to be a fairly ancient guide on lightsaber craftsmanship, written by a Sith arms-man sometime long ago, indicated that droids or other specialized machinery could actually achieve the precision required. It was simply far more convenient for most Force sensitives to craft the weapon personally.

Furthermore, the power pack was the most dangerous part of the lightsaber, not the focusing array. While it required delicacy to construct the crystal array, on their own the only danger from the crystals was being blinded by the focused light. The power pack, however, was basically a rapid-discharge super-capacitor capable of storing the energy of Zeus' fucking lightning. More than five gigajoules, in the palm of my red hand.

For the layman, that's the energy equivalent to more than a tonne of TNT. Also known as the combined payload of two Tomahawk cruise missiles. A lightsaber, being the technological marvel it truly is, was efficient enough that it only expended significant energy when it came into contact with other things, so the power pack's lifetime was measured in cutting-hours. The power pack I was using was rated for roughly twenty-eight cutting-hours. Since most cuts with a lightsaber lasted less than a second, that meant I'd probably not have to replace the power pack until I was old as dirt. I was more likely to have to recharge the gas than replace the power pack.

Building a lightsaber by hand, without the Force or delicate machinery, was obviously inadvisable.

For the Force sensitive, like myself, the process of making a lightsaber was far less scientific and more mystical. First, I needed the components, and for that I gathered my purchased materials and the lightsabers I had collected from Korriban, claiming one of the workbenches in Baras' wing of the Sith Sanctum.

Next, I disassembled each of the weapons and set the crystals aside. I had at least twenty different flywheels to pick from, ranging from somewhat 'heavy' to nearly inertia-less. The weapons from the tomb had not been particularly powerful, and only contained one or two crystals each. Each hilt was shorter, as a result.

I had selected a variety of hilts, and I wasn't sure which I would end up liking the best. Like I said, it was not a matter of trial and error, but of mysticism and spiritual connection. With that in mind, I grasped the entire collection of parts and pieces in the Force and followed the direction of the text, sinking into a deep meditation.

It was a hell of a lot easier to meditate on something like this than just...out of the blue sinking into the lotus position with the aim of meditation. At least, in my opinion. I wasn't super great at communing with the Force.

I thought it was highly ironic that Jedi and Sith actually both constructed lightsabers the same way. The Jedi liked to describe the process as "the Force guiding" but the Sith preferred to say, "interpreting the properties of the blade through the Force." It was a semantic difference. In truth, the process was about understanding the nature of oneself and of the weapon that they were hoping to create. I knew my own body, my strength, my preferred style, and my frustrations about the weapons I had used so far.

With those things in mind, eyes closed, I simply willed the Force to flow through me and around each of the pieces on the workbench. They rose up into the air, floating in lazy circles. I didn't consciously choose certain crystals, or any specific flywheel, and so on, but as my breathing slowed and the Force swelled around me, I felt the pieces coming together on their own.

It made sense to me, then, why a Jedi would say that it was the Force that was doing the action. But I also saw how a Sith could claim that they were the ones directing the Force, that it was not a passive meditation, since the entire process was guided by my desires, my own self-determination, and willpower.

By the time it had finished, I felt centered and fiercely proud. Opening my eyes, I glanced down at my clasped palms and saw my new weapon. The hilt was long, smooth, and straight. It was a plain, polished silver, with a small switch for the thumb. The emitter was thinner than the hilt, and it looked sharp.

I turned the hilt in my hand, then activated it, fully confident that it was safe. I sensed nothing out of place, nothing dangerous. And, as expected, the weapon hissed to life, a long and pale red blade extending with a blink of my eyes. I gasped softly, entranced by its almost pink color, and at the significantly longer reach that this would provide.

I turned it, feeling the resistance from the rotational inertia of the flywheel. It felt natural, for a blade this long. It seemed as if it were made of something with more substantial mass than the plasma that it truly was.

I stood up from the stool and gave it a few swings.

"You've built yourself a new lightsaber," Darth Baras' voice surprised me, and I froze, deactivating the weapon after a hesitant glance over my shoulder. I nodded to him and turned to face him.

"I didn't see you there, sorry," I greeted.

"You were deep in meditation," Baras agreed. "It came somewhat naturally to you. It was most unlike the meditations of most apprentices I have known, but every Sith finds their own way in these things. Some are centered best by pain, others by hate. I even knew one who found love to be his driving passion...although he found a tragic end."

"And what about yourself, Master?" I hazarded.

Baras' mask betrayed nothing as he replied, "I find it restrictive to limit myself to only one. Jealousy, hatred, anger, pain, even love. They have their time and place, like all things. You do not seem outwardly passionate, and I'll admit I mistakenly assumed that this was a weakness in you. I thought that you simply had no passion."

I clipped my new lightsaber to my belt and folded my arms over my chest. "You've changed your mind about that?"

"I have sensed passion, as you were repeatedly humiliated by Tranch," Baras replied. "You are as fierce as any Sith, when the time is right. You do not shy away from violence, or from killing. You are simply far more controlled than I expected. And you have overcome impossible odds in order to survive. Those are solid foundations. You are not a gormless, passive creature, as I initially feared, nor are you a coward."

I wasn't sure how to respond.

"In any case, you should take your new weapon and familiarize yourself with it. Tranch is returning from his assignment in the morning, so I recommend that you eat well and get some rest," Baras concluded. "The prisoners you delivered to me are currently being interrogated, and I will inform you if there is something more for you to do regarding them."

"Of course," I nodded. "I'll meet Tranch here first thing tomorrow."

Baras departed shortly after, and I stared after him, wondering what his purpose had been in that conversation. Had he just come to congratulate me on my new weapon? To praise me about my passionate ways? That didn't align properly with the idea of Baras' character that I had been working with for the last week.

I had assumed he would want very little to do with me, apart from utilizing my skills to kill his enemies. Maybe he was actually going to take an active role as my master? What would that mean for the future, if he did?

Regardless, I did find myself looking forward to a hearty meal and a nice rest. Besides that, I had another beating to look forward to, in the morning.

Chapter Text

[Xanot] | [Classes: Sith Warrior LVL 6, Heir of Marka Ragnos LVL 15] | [LVL 21 - 2776/3159] | [Titles: Apprentice]

[Alignment: Dark I]

[Stats: 623 ATK, 931 DEF, 598 FORCE, 1005 VIT, 553 SPD]

[Equipped Items: Lightsaber, Combat Knife, Small Square Pack - Left, Travelers Backpack, Customized Hard-Plate Hermetically Sealed Armor Suit]

[Statuses: Weariness]

[Skills: Evasion V, Dark Regeneration II, Disruption II, Force Barrier III, Force Choke II, Force Crush II, Force Leap IV, Force Precognition V, Force Pull II, Force Push IV, Force Scream III, Force Sense VI, Force Slam III, Force Speed VI, Force Telekinesis III, Force Ward V, Force Whirlwind II, Heavy Armor Proficiency VI, Heavy Machine Operator II, Lightsaber Deflection IV, Lightsaber Proficiency IV, Lightsaber Form - Soresu III, Lightsaber Form - Shien IV, Might of the Tarentatek II, Propel Projectile II, Saber Ward III, Shield Proficiency III, Shuttle Piloting I, Sword Proficiency V, Weapon Throwing II]

I had ended up dragging my aching carcass back to my bunk and flopping over like a half-dead man, the day after I made my lightsaber. Okay, so, having a new weapon hadn't actually been the great boon I was expecting. Tranch returned from his assignment with a chip on his shoulder, for some unknown reason, and apparently, I was his stress-relief punching-Sith. Sure, I kept pace with him fairly well, and every time we fought, I managed to challenge him that much more seriously, but I still had yet to truly beat him. I had managed a draw, once, out of the twenty bouts we had fought that day. The better reach and more comfortable grip of my weapon had given me a slight edge, but I had a long way to go before I was confident in a duel against someone on Tranch’s level.

It was a bit frightening to admit it, but I actually missed Tranch and the grueling days of lightsaber drills. It had been several days since I was last in the Sith Sanctum.

I found myself sitting on a fallen tree in the middle of the dense jungle, listening to the raucous cacophony of tree frogs and the torrential downpour against the canopy of leaves above. Thunder echoed through the trees periodically, distinct from the rolling echoes of distant artillery fire.

Shortly after I had grown accustomed to my weapon, Baras had sent me along to Captain Pritch, who had introduced me to the happy little slave rebellion taking place in the jungles outside of Kaas City. The long and short of the situation was that Darth Baras had wanted to poke the eye of a rival on Dromund Kaas, so he had somehow convinced a bunch of slaves, who were engaged in the construction of a colossus, to undertake a suicidal revolt. It had all gone swimmingly right up until Darth Baras' involvement in the whole thing had been exposed after the slave captains tried to use it as leverage.

That had been a mistake. Baras simply let them reveal his involvement, eliminating their leverage.

The Dark Council had then ordered Baras to put down the rebellion that he had caused, which meant that the expenditure of resources Baras had hoped to foist onto his rival was now being placed onto his own power base instead. I figured he considered it a price worth paying compared to whatever it was that the slaves had been asking for.

And that was where I come in, apparently. To clean up the mess.

It all made terrible sense. I was the most disposable, or the least useful, of Baras' apprentices, and the only one that didn't have any ongoing assignment except for training. Obviously, that meant I was the natural choice for this mission, since it didn’t cost Baras much of anything at all. Captain Pritch, who was one of Baras' men, was commanding a battalion of infantry, but Darth Baras didn't want to put his own soldiers at risk combing through the jungle, so they were executing a containment mission and setting up bombardment zones to corral the slaves into a restricted section of the jungle, near the construction site. Keeping the upstart slaves in such a tightly controlled corridor of the jungle did make my job easier, but it wasn't exactly the ground support that I had been hoping for.

Meanwhile, my mission was to put down the rebellion. Effectively, I was alone. Baras had simply pointed out that the slaves had no effective weapons to use against a Sith, and that I shouldn't have any trouble with them after my performance on the Brentaal Star. My personal feelings about being tasked with massacre aside, I felt that it was somewhat reckless to send one man to fight an army when there were alternatives available, even if that one man was a Sith Apprentice.

This was not how it had gone in the game at all, just for the record. That was equally disturbing and exciting, but at the moment my only goal was to try and rest a bit before morning. So far I had spent four miserable fucking days in this blasted jungle, hunting down the leaders of the slave rebellion and destroying their weapons caches. My thinking was that they could be convinced to surrender if they didn't have the means or the leadership to put up a fight, and I was desperate for the rebels to surrender rather than stubbornly fighting to the death, which would force me to kill them to the last. So far, I had been proven correct in the case of about two hundred slaves. According to Captain Pritch's most recent estimate that left about seven hundred still at large in the god-forsaken jungle.

There was no good time to sleep in a situation like this, so I had to content myself to light meditation. I was utter shit at meditation, so it was leaving me pretty exhausted and strained.

Some of my most successful assaults had been done at night, since Sith apparently had excellent night vision, but since it was also raining tonight, I had decided to try and rest this time around. I hoped that my quarries were also resting, instead of sending out teams to try and catch me slipping.

They had taken to that irritating habit after the second day, which had made that night rather more exciting than I had hoped and been part of the reason I decided to fight them at night on the third day of my campaign. If I wasn’t going to get any actual meditating done, I might as well make progress towards my objectives. Or so I had thought.

The slaves had rightly determined that they couldn't fight me directly, and had dedicated their entire existence to running away, only to come skulking back when they hoped I was off guard. My resting hours now, due to my nocturnal habits on the third and fourth day, was the hours just after sunrise, so naturally that was when the slaves tried to get pull a fast one.

I had meditated for a good while, sitting in my full armor against the rough bark of a tree with my rucksack beside me, helm tilted up so that the fat drops of water could splash soothingly over the visor. Then my communicator started beeping, jolting me out of the Force. I didn't sense anyone within a hundred meters of my position, so I checked it, wondering if it was from Pritch or Baras.

It wasn't a message from Baras. It was from Vette, just text and not audio.

'Xanot,

They gave us an hour to write a message, and I got bored of twiddling my thumbs, so I figured I'd write something. Most of the other cadets are writing to family members, but you're all I have. Sad, right? Anyway, I'm still angry about being shoved off to Imperial basic training like this, but I know it wasn't your decision. The chain of command is something that they talk about a lot over here. Arguing with Baras wouldn't have gotten us anywhere. I'm not happy, but I'll survive, like always.

In any case, the food here is terrible, and the company is worse. There are only three non-humans in my battalion, and none of them are Twi'leki. The Humans generally behave like a bunch of Hutts, but a few of them aren't all bad, once you get past the usual Imperial surliness. My platoon leader has it out for me, and one of the other cadets likes to make a mess of my bunk right before inspection. That earned me an extra fifteen kilometers of running this week alone.

Met some other Sith women, too...nothing at all like you. One of them is tiny, skittish, and quietly sadistic. I haven't seen her take anybody in a direct fight, but she's manipulated a few of the others into a lot of trouble, and I catch her with this little smile sometimes whenever one of us is injured. I haven't talked to her at all...she's actually scarier than you are, no offense. I'm just glad she's in someone else's platoon.

I never thought I'd say it, but I'm actually looking forward to working with you properly. At least I didn't need to be awake at the ass-crack of dawn for mandatory fitness regimens while we traveled together…hopefully that doesn’t give you any funny ideas. The other Cadets do give me a bit of space, since they know that I'm a part of your 'retinue,' whatever that is. None of the rest of them serve a Sith directly, and apparently it's a rather prestigious opportunity around here.

On the other hand, that opportunity is apparently 'unsuitable for alien scum,' according to my platoon commander. He's resolved to give the most unflattering report of my progress ever. Just a heads up that he's lying through his teeth. I'm actually pretty awesome, in case you haven't noticed.

As far as jobs go, this isn't actually the worst thing I've ever had to do. There's food to eat, and first-aid is provided, which is good because I've taken a beating pretty much every day. I'm at the top of my squad in marksmanship, but close combat isn't really my thing...but I'm getting better slowly. Eventually I'm going to pile-drive one of these pompous idiots into the dirt face-first. It's going to feel great. I'll leave the pummeling to you in the future, though.

I should mention that they applied the standard Imperial military gene mods on the first day, and I blame you completely for the fact that I've gained fifteen pounds in a week and ran a fever for half that time. I didn't even know that the Empire had a gene mod pack for Twi'leki, but apparently the Imperial laboratories aren't as human-centric as the Imperial attitude. After the aptitude testing, they put me in the reconnaissance platoons. When it's all said and done, I'll be certified for operation of ground vehicles, marksmanship, slicing, stealth-field operation, and demolitions. Useful stuff.

I might even be able to teach you a thing or two after these three weeks are over. Anyway, you'd better stay alive until I get out of here. And you owe me one of those fancy dinners...no, two fancy dinners! Maybe even three. This place sucks, big time. I'm always hungry, lately, on top of everything else.

I'm out of time. See you soon.

Vette'

Well, sounds like she's having fun, at least. Genetic modifications though...now that was interesting. In the game, there was the odd exceptional soldier that could even hold his own against a Force user, which seemed impossible to me considering all the different abilities that a Force-blind would have no defense against, but there had to be some way of making that sensible. Gene modification and cybernetic enhancement were both possibilities.

Of course, I was also apparently the beneficiary of such genetic tailoring. So, really, the gene mods just put the troops on the same level as Sith Lords, physiologically speaking. Adding cybernetics to that, like the Republic Power Guard program on Nar Shaddaa that the Sith had attempted to subvert in the MMO, might be enough to let a soldier match the speed of a Force user. Especially since cybernetics were something of a trade-off for Force-users, reducing their natural connection to the Force in exchange for the benefits of the cybernetics.

Still, a cyborg would have no answer to the trusty Force Choke or any other similar ability. Not unless they could live without air, but there was always Force Lightning if the Choke wasn't good enough. It had always struck me as strange that the MMO often put regular soldiers up against the Jedi or the Sith player character, even if they were special forces. In reality, those fights would be over in seconds.

But I digress. Vette was getting some useful training, and that was good. It meant I wouldn't have to worry as much when we went on dangerous assignments together. I would still end up worrying, no doubt. No matter how competent she was, it only took a single blaster shot to kill, and there was obviously a whole caste of opponents that Vette would never be able to compete with. Like Jedi, cyborgs, battle-droids, etc.

The sun had not yet risen, but the rain had subsided, so I decided to get started on the day's butchery. I prepared one of my rations by pouring water into the little packet and shoveling the re-hydrated slop into my mouth hurriedly. I didn't want to spend any more time than necessary without my helmet on, since the air was oppressively humid and there were biting insects everywhere.

Seriously, fuck Dromund Kaas. This planet blows. There was the humidity, the slightly higher gravity, the heat, the biting insects, and the constant rain. Also, more than seven different species of large predator had tried to fucking eat me in the middle of the night since I had started this campaign. Talk about a rude awakening. There was a collection of dents in my pauldron that were quite clearly teeth marks.

After my breakfast, I chugged some water and shouldered my rucksack after re-affixing my helmet. Then I sent a pulse out in the Force, easily picking up the trail of my enemies as they continued their frantic retreat. There were two victory conditions in this assignment. I could continue to hunt them until they surrendered to the soldiers, or I could corral enough of them into one place and call in artillery. Considering the fact that the slaves had given up completely on the idea of defeating me, it seemed that chasing them into a single encampment was how this was going to end.

I wasn't looking forward to that. In fact, it was probably going to happen today, if my senses were correct. There were a lot of them about three kilometers away. And by a lot of them, I mean hundreds.

With that in mind, I started jogging and commed Captain Pritch.

"My Lord," he greeted, the little blue figure of the man appearing in my palm with a salute.

"The slaves have drawn back into a single camp," I reported. "I am approaching their position now. Artillery could wipe them out."

"It would be a waste of bodies," Pritch remarked, dispassionately. "We would prefer it if they surrendered so they can be reassigned rather than liquidated. And we don’t want to destroy the construction site."

I scowled. Actually, that put us on the same page, but part of me, the lazy part, had hoped we could resort to bombardment. I didn’t want to see their faces when they died.

Whatever, it wasn't like that was any other option, since Pritch had refused dreict bombardment.

"Right, but they can give me the runaround in this jungle for the next several months unless something changes. Tighten the noose or something, would you?"

"We can use incendiary rounds to ignite the jungle around their camp, preventing any escape. If you can assure their surrender, we will come along after you and mop up," Captain Pritch offered.

"Can I guarantee that they will be treated the same as they were before, without punitive assignment?" I asked sourly. "Without promising something like that and assuring that they won't be summarily executed for rebellion, I'm not sure they will be willing to put down their weapons."

"The instigators and leaders of this revolt will surely die," Captain Pritch responded firmly. "But the rest will simply be separated from each other and put back to work elsewhere. Possibly not even on Dromund Kaas."

"Promising to send them away from this damn jungle would probably be a pretty good bargaining chip," I muttered sourly.

I slowed my pace as I reached a clearing in the jungle...it was a construction site. I knew that the slaves had been tasked with preparing this part of the jungle for another city district, but it seemed that they had actually been pretty far along. There was a good city block of concrete and the beginnings of a road already in place, and the trees had been cleared out in a rough rectangle about half a kilometer in length.

Of course, the construction site had been turned into a military base by means of hastily erected barricades, bombardment shields, and the generators that had once powered construction machinery were now being used to protect them from artillery.

"Right, Captain. I've reached the construction zone, and it seems that the majority of the rebels have congregated here. A lot of activity," I reported, kneeling in the foliage and sweeping my eyes across the barricades. I could spot a good thirty or forty men in the dim light of the moons, all vigilantly watching the tree line. "They have shields up."

"Yes, we detected that earlier," Captain Pritch agreed. "It barely covers the construction zone, but we didn't want to damage that anyway. It's the work of several months, you know. I've already ordered the artillery to fire incendiary rounds in a loose circle around the site. It should discourage retreat, and it will actually help with clearing this area for the logistics division later on."

"Two birds, one napalm shell," I quipped. Pritch gave me a delicately raised eyebrow, and I remembered that 'napalm' didn't exist in Star Wars. It was called something suitably sci-fi which I honestly couldn't remember. "Right, nevermind, I'll barge in and introduce myself."

"They know who you are by now," Captain Pritch replied smugly. "Simply showing your face might be enough to make them surrender."

"I'm not that ugly, Captain," was my dry response.

"I didn't mean..." he caught himself and shook his head as I grinned at him bemusedly behind my helmet. "May the Force serve you well, my Lord."

He was pretty stiff, that Captain Pritch. Fun to needle. I sobered up quickly, however, as I stowed my communicator and steeled myself for the violence ahead.

Trying to minimize wholesale slaughter was an objective that I could get behind. So, I was pretty happy that Captain Pritch had decided not to just lay waste to the entire camp with his artillery. It meant I would have to put in a lot more effort, though.

My plan was to identify their commanders and eliminate them. If I could do that and then make an announcement to the rest that surrender was an option, I was pretty sure that they would quit fighting. Most people had survival instincts, after all, and they weren't going to commit to a hopeless cause without leadership. The trick was going to be getting an announcement out before they forced me to defend myself.

A crowd with blasters was still pretty dangerous, even with my skills. I had gained a level from this mission so far...which in practical terms meant I had killed a whole lot of people. The experience gained seemed proportional to the opponent, but not in the way that the MMO had just vaguely assigned levels to everything. It seemed to me that the experience value of a target was proportional to their own skill.

The veterans among the slaves, people who had fought the Empire before and lost, had been worth more experience than the poor fellows that had never used a blaster pistol before in their whole lives. The commanders had been worth even more.

It was a little disconcerting, actually. In some way, if my understanding was correct, the universe was quantifying the competency level of creatures and providing me with some portion of that value whenever I killed something. The Beast of Marka Ragnos, for example, had leveled me up multiple times all on its own.

I wondered how much a Sith Lord was worth. Or a Jedi Master. Then I shook my head and winced at the inhuman thought. Playing an MMO and grinding experience hadn't ever felt strange before, but now that I was looking at it in these terms it really felt pretty heartless.

While I had been dragging my feet, the artillery had already begun their bombardment. I heard the shells whistling through the air and saw their impact in the jungle on the other side of the construction site. There was also a good deal of panic rising up among the rebels as the early morning was illuminated by curtains of flame.

That was my cue, I guess.

I left my rucksack behind and ignited my lightsaber as I emerged from the tree line. It took the panicking defenders far too long to notice my approach in the chaos, and when they did most of them threw their weapons onto the ground and cowered in place. The ones that weren't familiar with the futility of shooting a blaster at me did attempt to lay down a crossfire, but very few of their shots were anywhere close to hitting me. In several seconds I had crossed the distance to their improvised barricade and cleared it with a single bound.

"Shoot, you cowards! Shoot him!" I heard someone bellowing over the din. It was actually a pretty impressive set of lungs on that one. I shot towards the sound like a heat-seeking missile, barely registering the size of an impressive, scarred man who was desperately trying to restore order to his ragtag combatants. I beheaded him as I passed by, barely catching a glimpse of his frozen, furious expression as his head bounced off the ground. I was already seeking the next apparent leader even before his body realized it was headless.

There were four of them, and each time I sent one of their heads rolling there were fewer rebels trying to take pot shots at me. Most of them were already sheltering in place, hiding behind large machinery, or cradling their weapons like a lifeline as the horrible howl of artillery passed overhead. They watched me, their abject terror and despair fueling a maelstrom of Dark Force energy that was making my hearts race and my skin turn cold.

The leader of the rebellion was in the center of the camp, predictably. It was where the overseer of the construction must have been managing the workers, but obviously that man had been one of the first casualties of the revolt. I burst through the sealed doors of the prefabricated structure and killed four men before they could blink, slicing through blaster rifles and armor like it was all papier-mache.

"Please!" the man I had been hunting for days had fallen to his knees once he realized what it was, exactly, that had busted down his door. He was a human man, with cropped brown hair and dark eyes, a thin frame, and pale skin. He looked like someone accustomed to hard labor, with wiry muscle and a hard jaw. "You're damning us to a lifetime of back-breaking labor! Have you no heart, Sith? Do you care so little for the lives of all these people?!"

I paused, looming over him with my lightsaber poised to take his head. "Do you really hope to find mercy at the feet of a Sith?" I wondered. Surely, he couldn't have expected his plea to save anyone...and if I had been any other Sith besides myself then he would probably have died immediately. My own curiosity and the quiet pangs of guilt that I had been feeling throughout the whole campaign stayed my hand at this moment.

That hesitation exposed me to his next words.

"No...I know that there is no mercy in the Empire," the man replied wearily, gazing past the red glare of my blade.

"Then you asked for mercy just to make me suffer the pain of guilt?" I clarified with a toothy smile. Not that he could see it. "You knew that there was never any hope for victory, from the beginning. You would have led all these people to their deaths. Many have already died fighting for you."

"The cruel enforcers of the Empire are the ones that killed them, not me," spat the defeated man. “And at least we died like people, instead of mere beasts of burden.”

"Hm," I replied, ending his defiance and his life with a flick of my wrist.

He could so easily deflect his feelings of guilt by blaming someone else for everything that had happened. And he wasn't entirely wrong to do so, not when it was Baras who had instigated this whole fiasco, and the Empire who had given the rebels a false sense of hope by refusing to really engage them in force. Still, it was cowardly to deny his own part in the deaths of so many. He had not pulled the trigger, or really even planned the grand strategy, but he had encouraged his fellow slaves to commit to the rebellion, and he had organized them. Armed them. Sent them to die like the untrained, malnourished masses that they were.

And it would be equally cowardly for me to deny everything that I had contributed to the misery. I approached the public announcement system and activated it.

"Attention all slaves and armed insurgents. Your leader has been killed. This area is surrounded. You are in the very heart of the Empire - there is no hope of victory. Surrender now, and you will be reassigned. If you continue to struggle, then you will die. Any person found with a weapon in their hands will be killed on sight."

After I finished speaking, I set the message to repeat by tapping a button on the console. Then I left the room full of corpses behind, already contacting Captain Pritch. "I've ordered their surrender and am going to make a sweep to check for anyone that would rather die fighting. If your men are coming in to collect these people, tell them to stay alert, some of them might just be pretending."

"Well, that's obvious, but thank you for your concern," Captain Pritch replied. "You work quickly, I'm sure Darth Baras will be pleased with the results."

Yeah, I bet he will. I stowed my comm in the pack on my belt and sighed, watching a group of kneeling slaves as they trembled under the gaze of my featureless helmet. Time to finish strong, don't let my guard down.

Wouldn't it just be ridiculous to end up getting shot in the back during the clean-up?

I only had to kill another six men that day. That brought my total during the entire campaign up to something like fifty-three confirmed, but I knew it was more than that. Out of the eight hundred and sixty-seven slaves that had rebelled, seven hundred and four were recovered without injury and reassigned. Those unaccounted for were either killed during the fighting or were executed afterward.

The executions comprised those who held a leadership role in the insurgency, and those who were deemed too injured to be cost-effective. Baras sent me the report, later, probably just to make me angry and disgusted with myself.

"Aw, what's wrong, girly-man? Are you sad?" Tranch taunted me, later, at the beginning of my second week on Dromund Kaas. We were dueling, and I was losing. Again. The fight was a blur, our blades forming curtains of light that clipped against each other with high-pitched zipping sounds. My footwork was impeccable, after so many hours of drilling, and I was changing seamlessly between my two favored lightsaber forms, hoping to catch him off guard...but my mind was not focused on the fight, and obviously he could tell.

Tranch was never off guard. It was infuriating. As dedicated duelist he favored Makashi, Form II, but Form III was actually not a bad match-up against it. While Form II was obviously designed exclusively for lightsaber combat, Form III drew some inspiration from the economy of motion typical for Makashi, and, being a defensive form, Soresu didn't give many opportunities for the usual parry and riposte that Makashi was famous for. This meant that our bouts started to drag on, longer and longer, as I grew more competent.

Of course, I took a few slight scorching blows, because my mind was wandering.

The whole campaign against the slaves had taken five days, all told, and within three days of its conclusion a new team of slaves had replaced the one which was scattered and reassigned. The corpses and other evidence of the fighting were cleaned up before the arrival of the new meat, just to prevent them from getting any ideas about revolt. And the Empire's industrial machine rolled on, over bone and blood, without a care in the world.

I gave Tranch a particularly hard strike and watched with satisfaction as he staggered away, his perfect block and carefully controlled distance proving insufficient to match the overwhelming power that I could bring to bear even without winding up for my attack. He was shorter, slower, weaker. Everything indicated that I should be victorious, that it was my turn to deliver a legendary beating, bout after bout, but somehow, he constantly managed to put me on the back foot.

The whole thing left me feeling cold and empty. The honest praise of Darth Baras for a job well done still echoed cruelly in my ears - “Justice needed to be dispensed, by order of the Dark Council. I don’t think anyone expected you do do it so quickly or without waste. Excellent work.” He had chosen his words carefully, of course. Just to pick at the open wound.

I didn't feel regret or guilt for long. It turned to frustration. Rage. It burned me that so many lives had been spent for absolutely nothing. The slaves had fought for nothing, with no clear objective and no hope of success. The whole charade had been engineered by Sith Lords who were snapping at each other's heels for petty grievances and juvenile jealousy. Meanwhile, it was the weak whose lives were spent fruitlessly, wastefully. And it was my hand that had slain them.

Darth Baras was a coward. A traitor. He thought himself strong because of his authority over others who fought his battles in his place, and he considered himself wise because of the knowledge granted to him by the Dark Side spirit on Corellia and the legacy of the Emperor. But in reality, he was nothing. A parasite, a leech. He grasped onto the coattails of greater men than himself and thought to let them carry him to the greatest heights of Imperial authority. But his weakness, his duplicitousness, and his lack of integrity did nothing but create misery and foment conflict within the Empire.

He was the rot eating at the foundations of the nation, the kind of power-hungry weasel that did nothing but undermine the accomplishments of his betters.

He sent me into that jungle and made me into a killer of simple men and women. A brute murderer. A terror. Those slaves had not been soldiers, they had not been trained, and they were poorly armed. Nothing like the acolytes or the soldiers I had killed before…but they had died all the same. And when I returned, Baras had clapped his hands and smiled behind his mask. I had felt his sickening happiness at the report of ‘success.’

Tranch winged me, and I hissed furiously, cradling my arm to my chest and making space. He circled to the left with a taunting grin on his face, leaving me to glare at him impotently. Everything came crashing down on me in that moment, the pain and frustration and hate and guilt...I fully accepted my contempt for Baras in that moment. I let it put its venomous roots deep inside, let my future become narrower, tempered by cold hatred, and I set my will to his utter destruction.

One day…one day, I would be his end. I almost looked forward to his betrayal, just to give me yet another reason. But I was not strong enough…that would have to change.

Tranch met me once more, our blades humming furiously, and of course he maneuvered me into a rather familiar position. His sudden assault was merciless, swift, and terrible. The Force was blazing in my chest, burning through my arms, blurring my vision. I didn't see him as much as I felt him, in almost intimate detail, sketching the near future immaculately in my mind's eye. Every time we had ended up here before, he had won, and the weight of those past defeats seemed to shape my destiny in the present.

But I wasn't going to accept defeat. Not this time.

His attack was not the same as it usually was, but it was designed as always for the same purpose. His technique was meant to be inexorable. No matter how far into the future I could sense, it was simply inevitable that my defenses would fall short. He had managed it so that I was out of position, off-balance, and the momentum was on his side. It was the difference between a master swordsman and his student.

I did see a way out. It wasn't elegant, and it didn't rely upon skill. But it was a very narrow path.

I blocked three of his deft strikes, letting his blows gain fury, battering my lightsaber left and then right and then left again. My guard was just that much wider with each block, but I had shifted my feet, centered my stance. This alone would not have been sufficient, and indeed I had done the same thing many times before. This time, however, I simply would not allow myself to lose in the same way.

Normally, he would tightly circle his weapon under my own as I brought it back to the central line, and this would flick the point of my lightsaber up just enough that he could aim a cut at my wrists. I would have no choice but to let go of my weapon or lose my hands...well, if these weren't training sabers. Usually, I would back-step to buy time, but he would just transition his cut into a lunge and take me in the chest or belly, so the back-step only bought me a half-second of life.

This time, I grasped the Force and bent it to my will, felt it churning with malcontent as the natural order gave way.

Tranch was the better swordsman, it was true. My position was untenable. By any natural progression of events, I would be the one defeated. With the Force at my call, however, I did not require flawless technique. I only needed to shape the future.

I saw Tranch's dark eyes widen the instant he recognized that the tables had turned. The various possibilities, all leading to my defeat, shattered into a howling storm that was visible only to the two of us, screaming between us like shards of glass caught in a tornado. It took a new shape, a jagged and unhappy shape. My body shifted, barely, almost imperceptibly. Tranch saw it anyway, and if it had not been destiny, he might have managed to counter it, but he was unable. He would have had to fight against my weight in the Force and also against his own momentum.

Tranch finished the usual move, batting the point of my blade upward, and aiming for the wrist. I stepped back. He drove forward in what should have been a finishing thrust, a desperate and frustrated cry on his lips. It was exactly the kind of pass that normally left me coughing and gasping for breath as the burns on my chest caused my nerves to seize in agony. Except this time, I turned with him, and the point of his weapon missed my poor, abused boob by a hair's breadth.

My elbow crashed into his nose with brutal force, and I sent my off-hand sweeping down to strike his wrist, preventing a blind sideswipe. Then I side-stepped away from his weapon and cut diagonally with my own, landing what would be a lethal wound across his shoulder and chest.

The low setting of my saber meant that Tranch survived it. His shirt did not, hanging tattered from his lithe frame, and his tan skin was marred by a wide, inflamed red burn that crossed from his left shoulder to his waist on the right side. Tranch staggered forward, holding his broken nose, and collapsed to his knees with a hissing gasp. Blood gushed between his fingers, running over his jaw and down his neck. I couldn't stop staring at it as my vision cleared and the Force slithered out of my grasp. It quieted down once more, resuming the steady, throbbing hum of Darkness that was ever present within the Sith Sanctum.

"Good. Very good," Darth Baras' calculating voice cut through the soft sounds of Tranch fighting for air past a broken nose, with blood sliding down his throat. I wrenched my heated gaze from the sight of blood and looked at the object of my hate, knowing that my eyes blazed orange with the Dark and brazenly ignoring it. Let him know how much I despised him. Let him fear me.

Unfortunately, I did not sense fear in Darth Baras, who was looking at me where I stood over Tranch with my lightsaber still burning at my side. Embracing the Dark like an old friend.

Instead, I felt his pride.

Chapter Text

I looked at a man that was nothing more than a shell. The spark of real life in him had been carved out in surgical fashion, and what remained had all the makings of a man but none of the fire. He was pale, scarred, trembling, and his eyes didn't quite focus on the things before him. And yet...he still would not comply.

Darth Baras had summoned me, and I hoped he didn’t intend for me to try my hand at torture. I saw what remained of this man, after two weeks in the tender care of the Sith, and I felt an echo of his agonies whispering in the Force. It made me feel as hollow as he looked.

"I cannot break him," Darth Baras declared, with an undercurrent of fury that caused the air of the chamber to feel colder. It was very much unlike the bellowing howl that he unleashed for those same words in the game, but with the absolute picture of anguish present on the table before me, I didn't consider it any less intimidating. Baras’ silver mask turned away from the broken man. I caught the barest hint of satisfaction from the poor thing when he had heard the Dark Lord's words, but it was a hastily concealed emotion. Every scrap of joy, of hope, would have been torn from him with a thousand renewed tortures.

I pitied him, for considering something as cruel as Darth Baras’ failure to be a victory. And I knew what awaited him, too. Darth Baras either hadn't noticed that his prisoner was feeling satisfied, or he was beyond caring.

"There are cybernetic implants," I hazarded, finally looking away from the victim, meeting the eyes of my master's mask. "You could have downloaded the contents of his brain, or even turned him into a puppet by now."

"Those operations are expensive and take time," Darth Baras hissed. "If I had known that he would withstand the inquisitors, and even my own personal attentions, for this long then I would have done as you suggest. But it is too late for that now. Come with me."

We went to Darth Baras' private offices, where he sat and left me standing at attention, wearing the dark robes that were more comfortable for my time in the Sith Sanctum. My armor was reserved for assignments that took me out into Kaas City proper, or even into the jungle. Sparring with Tranch was done with thin, disposable clothing only, due to frequent plasma burns.

"Several of my spies in the Republic and the Jedi have been revealed and excised," Darth Baras began, spreading a hand out on the top of his desk. "This cannot be allowed to continue. That Republic Agent knows how my people are being exposed, but he refuses to cooperate. We will have to resort to drastic measures."

‘Drastic,’ in my mind, would have been the torture. Apparently, that was just standard procedure to Baras. It seemed uncharacteristically brutish for him to just keep on torturing a man for almost two weeks, when it was obvious that he wasn't going to relent in the face of untold agony. I hated to admit it, but even I could think of multiple better ways of attempting to convince someone to give up their treasured information. And two weeks was a lot of time.

I didn't want to hear about the details of the Inquisitors' efforts, however, so I remained silent. For all I knew they had tried everything within their power and hadn't simply resorted to repeated applications of Sith Lightning.

"The Emperor once devised a device that could break even the strongest mind, extract even the most ardently defended secrets," Darth Baras mused. "A device that the archives call the Ravager. It is extremely likely that this device remains in the Dark Temple, but neither of the teams I tasked with its retrieval have reported in."

"Who did you send?"

"Six men from the Imperial Reclamation Service, and later a twelve-man squad of infantry from Captain Pritch's company," Darth Baras answered shortly. "Mine is not the only interest in the Ravager. There are others who are seeking it, and I cannot allow them to recover it first. That is why I must send you. There is no time to wait for another of my apprentices to return to Dromund Kaas."

"What can I expect to find at this Dark Temple?" I asked, even though I already had some ideas.

Darth Baras reached up and removed his mask, revealing his sickly pale skin and baleful eyes. It was not as comforting as perhaps he had intended. "There is a reason that the Temple was sealed. Long ago, the Emperor defeated many of his enemies there, but when Dromund Kaas was abandoned, the Temple fell into disuse. When we reclaimed this world for the Empire, it was discovered that many of the powerful Lords that had been slain there did not go to a peaceful rest. Many of the people that had begun research there became...unstable."

"Ghost stories?" I wondered.

"Ghosts are no danger to those that have real power," Darth Baras declared. "Which means that you have much to fear from them, my Apprentice."

Very funny.

"In any case," Baras continued, his lips downturned in a slight frown, "many people have gone missing in that temple. It was sealed, and there is no form of sustenance within, so most of them have probably died of thirst. Anyone who ventured in more recently, however, might still remain. You should consider anything that moves as hostile. Several Sith Apprentices and a Sith Lord were sent into the Temple last week, according to my reports. There could be others that I do not know about."

"A Sith Lord," I repeated, vaguely remembering that someone tried to steal the Ravager once the player collected the pieces, in the game.

"If you run into him, you'll probably die," Darth Baras remarked blithely. "The only advice I can offer you is this: you beat Tranch not because you are a better swordsman, but because you have a superior command of the Force. It is why Tranch is little more than an instructor, despite having been my apprentice for six years now. It is also why he has spent those years honing his skills with a lightsaber, to the near exclusion of all else. It isn't an exaggeration to say that Tranch is possibly one of the better duelists in the Empire, but in spite of this he will never progress beyond Apprentice. His command of the Force is too weak and improving too slowly. As you demonstrated, even mastery of the blade can be defeated by simply controlling the immediate future. Your victory is why I am sending you, and not him, to face down the ghosts of departed Lords."

I stared at the large man in utter exasperation. All this time, I had assumed that Tranch was a relatively normal example of a senior apprentice, and I had been judging my performance as sub-par due to the fact that I had struggled so mightily to best him in a spar. And only after two grueling weeks of this, after pushing myself to the absolute limit, did this insufferable bastard decide to inform me that the man I was competing against was not an apprentice swordsman at all, but in fact a master?!

"I see your anger in your face," Darth Baras chuckled. "You resent the fact that no one told you how skilled Tranch really is. Regardless, let me repeat that your victory was not due to your blade-work, which remains mediocre at best. You overcompensate with brute force for what you lack in finesse. It may be efficient against those who are weaker than yourself, but anyone skilled with a lightsaber would not be particularly challenged by your capabilities. Tranch proved that adequately, I should think. There is much that you could learn from him still. After all, he beat you hundreds of times even though he is shorter, slower, and weaker than you are."

"I don't need reminding of that," I groused.

"You have a mission, and I expect you to succeed. If you die, I will be most displeased," Darth Baras aimed a finger at me. As if I gave a shit about how he'd feel about my death. I managed to contain my snort of derision as he continued. "I've only just managed to inspire some kind of ambition in you, after nearly a month of effort, so it would be a shame to have to start anew with another whelp from Korriban."

"You would find it difficult, I think, to find a worthy replacement for myself," I answered tightly, much to his apparent amusement. "I will gather my supplies and depart for the Temple shortly. Is it still sealed, or has it been opened?"

Darth Baras felt pleased that I had asked, and said, "The Imperial Reclamation Service reopened it with several plans to make a comprehensive study of the historical site. They are working with Darth Vevictus to contain the spirits, but their teams have had very little to show for all their efforts. The Dark Council had the operations put on pause while the problem of the ghosts was investigated more thoroughly. The Pyramid of Ancient Knowledge feels that there may yet be something worth learning from the dead, but the Temple remains open in the interim."

"Do you have any recommendations for equipment or personal effects that I should take with me?"

At this, Darth Baras just waved his hand, seeming bored. "The mission briefing I forwarded to you from Captain Pritch includes the equipment that he and his men felt was necessary, I would encourage you to refer to it. Of course, they don't have your talents, and it is apparent that they have failed me."

"I will reference it, then."

"Go, and return as swiftly as you can," Darth Baras ordered. I didn't linger this time, bowing and turning on my heel.

One thing that I felt was a vast improvement over the video game was the mission briefings. I felt better prepared for the tasks that I was given, and while I understood that most players hadn't been interested in listening to all the logistical concerns of a venture like this, it had definitely left something to be desired from a realism standpoint. In any case, Captain Pritch and his men had been armed to the teeth and prepared for a potentially long expedition. Aside from armament, they had taken bedrolls, portable heaters, a week of rations and water, grapples and rope, emergency flares, lanterns, sensory equipment, breaching charges, and medical supplies.

Apparently, the reports from the Imperial Reclamation Services team had ceased after three days. They had located the apparent resting place of the Ravager, and had begun to seek a means of entry, but they had encountered several massive stone doorways, which would have required explosives to breach. So they had been trying to find the mechanisms that would open the doors instead, when all communication suddenly stopped.

The soldiers had also maintained regular contact with the outside world for several days. They hadn't found any sign of the first team, but there were corpses everywhere, and not all of them were identifiable. Wildlife had apparently gotten into the temple and was surviving by eating the bodies of explorers, or even possibly by hunting intruders. Captain Pritch's men had given up on rescue and had gone to use their breaching charges to reach the Ravager, when they had also stopped communicating.

Based on the information I had, I felt that taking along breaching charges was wise. The reports from the men had not indicated that they had successfully breached the doors. There might not be any way of opening the chamber where the Ravager was interred apart from explosives, and even if the door could be opened, its mechanism might not be functional after so long, or it might simply be impossible to reach. So, I added the breaching charges to my mental shopping list.

I couldn't carry all the same equipment that the troops had taken with them. I only had the one rucksack, after all. It already had rations and water, and I certainly wasn't going to be getting any sleep in a fucking haunted temple, so the bedroll could be left off the list. That left rope, grapples, flares, lanterns, sensory equipment, and a portable heater.

If I was wearing my armor, then the heater was superfluous. My armor had the added benefit of having its own oxygen supply, in case the air inside the Temple was somehow contaminated or low in oxygen. Frankly, I felt it might be wise to bring some extra oxygen capsules and to avoid breathing the temple's air altogether. It was entirely possible that there was some kind of contaminant causing the insanity, but even if that wasn't the case there were countless rotting corpses inside the temple so it almost certainly smelled awful. With five additional capsules I had thirty-six minutes of air.

I was glad that the Imperial Reclamation Service had provided a starting point, since the Dark Temple had a footprint of almost two square kilometers, and no one actually knew how deep it went. The Archives apparently said that the Dark Temple had six hundred floors, but since it was only two hundred meters tall if you started at ground level it seemed almost impossible. The catacombs below the temple would have to be something like a kilometer deep, if that were an accurate record.

With Baras funding my mission, it was a simple matter to purchase the various items I needed in Kaas City. I took a final shower before suiting up for my next Indiana Jones style adventure in a dusty old deathtrap.

Dromund Kaas was wet, gloomy, and generally dismal, but it seemed to double down on that attitude the closer you got to the Dark Temple. The terrible facade of the structure loomed in the distance, visible on the horizon if you looked from one of the high-rises in Kaas City, and it only seemed to grow more intimidating as the airspeeder carried me to the Imperial Reclamation Services forward base, which was situated at the foot of a winding trail that led up and into the Temple.

The camp was not very lively, considering the torrential downpour. No one came to see who it was that had landed, and I wasn't going to barge into a tent to introduce myself, so I hiked my thankfully waterproofed rucksack higher on my back and started my hike. The sooner I got into the tomb and recovered the Ravager, the sooner I could get back to relative comfort and safety. Which, considering I was currently a resident of the Sith Sanctum, wasn't exactly putting me in the lap of luxury.

But literally anything was better than haunted tombs. Korriban had been bad enough, and by all accounts the shenanigans going on down in the Dark Temple were at least as bad, perhaps even worse.

By now, I had grown used to the differences between an MMO world and reality. There weren't constant hostiles littered all across the landscape just waiting to be aggravated, and there weren't convenient light sources that gave every setting just the proper kind of ambiance. Rather, the enemies of the world lurked and plotted in shadows, preparing ambushes or hunting for their prey, and the darkness encroached on all sides.

I honestly wasn't sure which I would have preferred, since the constant combat would have at least saved me from the long periods of suspense. I felt the eyes of the jungle following me as I climbed the winding trail to the temple steps, and once I stood before the arching entryway that was easily fifty meters tall, I found myself questioning if it was really worth following Baras' orders.

I could always run...steal away on a shuttle, try to make it to neutral space. Live my life as a fugitive nobody, maybe on Tatooine like our good friend Obi-Wan had done in another time. Compared to the malevolent shadows of this temple, that actually seemed like an option worth consideration. The Force felt...anticipatory, predatory. Dangerous. Cold. Like the tombs on Korriban, I could sense fury, hatred, regret, and pain. But unlike those tombs, it wasn't merely an echo.

Something alive was in this place...and it was fueling the power of the Temple.

"That’s not my mission," I reminded myself, taking deep breaths. "Just go in, grab the Ravager, and get out."

I was almost certain that the downfall of the previous two teams was that they had attempted to actually pacify the Temple, taking tents and bedrolls and domestic necessities...whereas the Temple existed as something that needed to be challenged and then shortly vacated. I hadn't brought a bedroll, partly because there was no way in hell that I was actually going to be able to fall asleep with the Force feeling as hungry as it currently did, and also because my plan was to make this venture as short as possible.

There was no need for skulking in shadows, so I ignited my lightsaber and held it before me as I entered the temple, finally finding cover from the rain. I switched over to my oxygen supply, as well. Because of my armor, the rain hadn't exactly been too bothersome, apart from the fact that it limited visibility. But without the howling wind, the crack of thunder, and the constant pattering of water on leaves and armor plates, it suddenly seemed deafeningly silent.

My lightsaber and the soft sounds of my breath against the interior of my helmet were the only sounds besides the steady beat of my boots on the stone. Through the Force, I kept constant watch on as much of my surroundings as I could reach, but the Force was so chaotic and difficult to interpret that I wasn't really sure that it would actually warn me of potential danger from the corridor ahead of me.

The interior of the Temple was cavernous, with a pair of winding staircases that led up to a massive atrium. There were blazing purple torches on several of the walls, but most of the sconces were actually empty or the torch that it held had long since sputtered to nothing. The uneven lightning made the shadows impenetrable, as my eyes were accustomed to a certain amount of light, and my red lightsaber wasn't helping matters. Still, as I climbed the steps and then entered the open atrium, I sensed nothing dangerous nearby.

Corpses were everywhere. I saw the empty sockets of a skull peering at me from the darkness as I passed a column which spiraled up, up into obscurity. How high was the ceiling in this place? It was impossible to tell. My handy, dandy RPG interface was guiding me to one of the chambers on the sides of the atrium, where the Imperial Reclamation Service had run into the closed doors. It didn't seem that far away on my datapad, but I walked for a good six or seven minutes before I reached it. I had to pause and change out my oxygen capsule.

All the while, I kept seeing things moving in the dark. Every time I turned towards it, it turned out that there was nothing there. Either these movements were a figment of my imagination, or some kind of ghost.

I stopped at the large stone doors and pressed my left hand against them. The Force was not very useful in figuring out the properties of inanimate objects, but a few gentle pushes against the door gave me a good idea of its weight. Heavy. It didn't feel like it was fastened in place magnetically, though. I saw scorches where the soldiers had attempted their breaching charges, so apparently, they had made it this far. No surprise, that. I hadn’t encountered anything dangerous, and they had probably followed the same path.

Actually, I could probably lift the door with the Force, and that might be the intent. The reason I started rooting for explosives instead was because I didn't trust a Sith door to actually stay open once I walked through it, and I wasn't keen on getting myself trapped.

Was there any guarantee that the charges would penetrate the thick stone? Well...obviously not, since there was evidence of a previous attempt. If it didn’t, then I would resort to using the Force to bypass the doorway.

Still, I had bought the explosives and carried them in here, so I slapped them against the door in a rough circle and fiddled with the detonators...there was some way to link them all together, but I wasn't at all familiar with Star Wars explosives, or explosives in general, and I eventually gave up, arming each charge individually. There were only four of them, so I could probably hit the triggers at the same time, or near enough.

I put fifty meters between myself and the door, hunched against a thick pillar, and depressed the triggers. My helmet automatically dampened potentially harmful sounds, so although I was sure that the explosion was quite literally deafening it didn't bother me. I gave it a good handful of seconds before discarding the triggers and palming my lightsaber once again.

I was half expecting the ancient evils of the Sith to come pouring out of the opened doorway, but as I approached the settling dust cloud, I realized that nothing so dramatic was happening. The stone slab had been cracked in half and blasted partly into the portal but was still blocking it pretty completely. The area that I had centered the explosives around had been totally pulverized and would have been a large enough hole to clamber through if it weren't for the fact that the whole thing had collapsed sideways.

It was far easier to use the Force to shift the huge slabs one at a time than trying to open it all at once, and I managed to shove things around well enough to make it to the other side, which was unfortunately an utterly dark hallway with a much lower ceiling.

I had to hold my lightsaber ahead of me again to make any progress, even with my fairly good night-vision. I slowly moved around the bend in the corridor. The brightness of my blade gradually illuminated more of my surroundings in eerie red light as I approached, but it unfortunately meant my eyes didn’t adjust to the darkness, so I couldn’t see much of anything beyond the emitted light. And, once I was faced with the chamber that supposedly contained the Ravager, I realized that some of the red light was also coming from a collection of holocrons that were floating on their plinths in a hexagram formation around the central monolith.

There was a large chest on the ground in front of the smooth black obelisk, and its lid was closed. That gave me some hope that this wasn't going to turn into difficult fetch quest inside the Dark Temple, but as I approached it to check, I heard measured footsteps from behind. Turning quickly and dropping my rucksack onto the stones, I leveled my lightsaber and widened my stance.

"Show yourself," I barked into the dark.

A red lightsaber ignited and illuminated the deathly pale features of a thin human man, who was wearing gray robes. He was alone. The Dark Side coalesced around him in a nearly visible cloak, and his eyes blazed a dark orange-red, deeply filled with corrupt power. He sidled leisurely into the chamber with a jagged grin on his face.

"Well, hello," he said, "I am Lord Vacuus. You're here for the Ravager, aren't you? Another Apprentice?"

I swallowed my fear and nodded my helm.

"Those other Apprentices...they weren’t with Darth Baras' men," Lord Vacuus mused. "Are you one of his? Looking for your soldiers? He should have come himself, if he truly wanted the Ravager. But Baras...well, that one has always been more of a weasel than a wolf."

The real question was whether to engage...if I fought someone with Tranch's level of skill, then it wasn't going to end with just a painful burn - this obviously wasn't a practice duel. I had no way of knowing how skilled Lord Vacuus really was with his lightsaber...but of course the first problem was his Force power.

Was he strong enough to ignore my Force Ward?

If he was, then I was as good as dead, so the only possible course of action was to gather all my strength and defend myself, which would inevitably be interpreted as a sign of aggression. But Lord Vacuus had already gathered his power, during his approach, so really I was just putting us on equal footing.

It was as effortless as breathing for me to grasp the Force, tugging it into myself and narrowing my eyes at the Sith opposite from me, whose unhinged smile had gradually widened as he observed me.

"So, you have power!" he exclaimed. "Good...that will make this entertaining."

I wasn't going to interpret that as Lord Vacuus acknowledging an equal foe, because he could very well be attempting to mislead me. "I don't suppose we could reach some kind of agreement?"

While I spoke, I extended my sense towards the other man and appraised him. Compared to my own presence in the Force, his was turbulent and barely contained, roiling with a kind of subdued power that betrayed the thin veneer of sanity stretched over an unfathomable depth of madness. The Dark had taken root in this man like no one I had encountered before, but that wasn't necessarily an indicator of power or skill.

Darth Baras was both stronger and more controlled, for example. And also more sane.

In comparison to myself, Lord Vacuus might have had an edge in raw power, but I was by far the more disciplined. My use of the Force had an element of finesse to it, and it was always directed by my will, whereas I could sense that Vacuus was more akin to a brute instrument of the Dark Side.

Would that give me any real advantage in a fight?

I was about to find out, it seemed. I felt that Lord Vacuus had decided not to continue our discussion and was reaching for the Force with aggressive intent. I wasn't sure what he was about to do, not until he reached with a hand and closed his fingers into a fist.

Ah, Force Choke.

I felt the tight grip of the Dark encroaching on my Force Ward, sliding across the invisible defense, and ultimately failing to crush through it. It hadn't actually strained me terribly much to resist, and it prompted me to tentatively respond in kind. I went for a Force Crush of his sword arm's wrist, hoping to break the bones there.

It failed. No visible effect at all.

Vacuus circled slowly to the left, like a caged tiger, turning his blade in his hand and keeping himself out of of striking distance. I stepped away from the monolith at my back, giving me more space to dance away from him if he decided to lunge. If our Force powers were going to be easily resisted, then we could either resort to lightsabers or attempt a war of attrition.

As far as Force powers went, there isn't a real equivalent to fatigue. A Sith did not grow tired by using Force Lightning or Force Choke. The only limitation was the throughput and availability of Force power, and the Force did not flow at the same rate at all times. The control of the Force, which was dependent on the user's willpower, and the amount of power concentrated in the local area, both influenced how much of the Force was available at any given moment to any user. So a Sith could temporarily deplete the local surroundings of Force potential, but usually that would require truly astounding feats.

Especially here. The Dark Temple certainly had no lack of ambient power.

Lord Vacuus clearly determined that a battle of wills was not an obvious victory for him, since he suddenly leapt forward, his red blade hissing towards my wrist. It was a wise target for a swordsman, since it was closer to him than any other part of my body, but it was also predictable. I followed his footwork, not quite maintaining distance but giving me options, and deflected his attack, testing his speed and his defenses with a hesitant riposte followed by a swift back-step.

Lord Vacuus was about as swift as Tranch, which meant that I was faster. But, as I had seen with Tranch, that wasn’t the whole picture. We had both already fortified our bodies with the Force, and if someone was observing our exchanges it would probably be too fast to really make out the details. It was a flurry of motion, a blur of red light, but I found his movements to be rather uninspired. There were no obvious flaws in Lord Vacuus’s form, but he was quite simply a textbook swordsman.

I had studied the textbooks extensively. I had done little else, for two weeks, besides study textbooks, duel, and perform katas. Well, I had also crawled around in the fucking jungle for five days, but you get my point.

It made no sense that I could match him, a Lord, so easily. I didn't let myself grow complacent, feeling tense and uncertain even as I gained the momentum of the fight and started to dictate the pace of our blade-work. If Lord Vacuus was a Lord of the Sith, and if he deserved that title, while I was merely an Apprentice, then surely he had some particular talent or strength that I had yet to see?

Lord Vacuus hissed through his teeth as our lightsabers sloughed sparks onto the stones between us, an exchange leaving him wrong-footed. He staggered slightly, legs crossing as he moved back, and I pressed the advantage. This advance necessitated a burst of power from him that he intended to slow my forward lunge, but it wasn’t particularly effective.

It would have seemed like a desperate gambit. But I did not sense desperation in him.

Because of that, I checked my momentum at the last moment, just as his own blade neatly swirled around my guard and slashed within inches of my nose - a truly lethal and unprecedented feint which would have cut my head in two if I hadn’t stopped my lunge. The Force had not even whispered a warning of danger, and the instant his blade passed the tip of my nose I felt a shift in the Force. The Dark swept away from Vacuus and curled around me like a comforting embrace.

Suddenly, my precognition returned. I hadn’t even noticed its absence…and wasn’t that a startling realization?!

I didn't let the near death experience faze me, immediately tilting my own blade up and drawing to the side, catching his extended elbow on the point as I sidestepped. Since I hadn’t been hit by his feint and I hadn’t blocked his strike, his weapon had swung out of position, only just enough. The plasma of my weapon made a high zzizp sound as it passed through cloth, flesh, and bone.

He screamed in fury, tossing his lightsaber seamlessly to his left hand and cradling his sword-arm near his chest. Had that been his entire plan? Lure me into a confident lunge by matching my skill, only to perform a masterful feint? And, of course, obscuring the future with his superior connection to the Dark Side?

If that were so, then he was surely in trouble now that his dominant arm was injured, and the Dark’s mercurial loyalty had shifted.

I engaged him again, starting with a directed Force push at his forward knee. It crashed over his ward like water over a rock, but it did make him lean into my advance, which was all I needed. I moved with pure instinct as I beat the humming blade of his lightsaber, turning my wrist as I made a thrust. He jerked, trying to push to the side and retaliate with his own cut, but we both knew it was over.

My lightsaber rolled around his attempt at a parry in a tight circle, a move I borrowed from Tranch, flicking upward at the last moment to score across his fingers and the hilt of his weapon. It was a Makashi move that I knew could be executed from the Soresu single-hand center guard, which was quite similar to Makashi’s fourth or fifth guard, depending on the position of the feet. With Vacuus’ weight on his forward foot, he couldn’t yank himself backwards fast enough to avoid it, and his arm had committed to the parry, and so he was cut.

The superior length of my weapon aided me in avoiding the uncontrolled spasm which was his only possible response to the severe hand injury, and I followed my successful trick with a firm beat against his blade, which of course knocked his weapon entirely free of his mangled grip. It spun off to the side, the red blade winking into silence as the safety mechanisms powered it down. The hilt clattered twice against the stone, and for a moment the only sound in the chamber was harsh breathing and the quiet thrum of my own lightsaber.

Now, Lord Vacuus really was desperate. The Force was roaring between us with murderous glee, he was staggering towards one of the holocrons with his arm coming up to cover his face. Purple lightning sparked and then exploded in a storm of uncontrolled instinct, bursting over the invisible ward that I had maintained fastidiously throughout our fight.

I had been thinking that his Force power was what made him a Lord, but even this final gambit was not outside of my ability to shield. The integrity of the Force Ward was again a measure of willpower, and it seemed Lord Vacuus and myself were evenly matched. He didn't have time to try a second attack, perhaps using telekinesis, since I was already within striking distance and only needed a single breath to end the fight.

The instant his Force storm had subsided, my lightsaber flicked across his navel in a downward diagonal that crossed from his pectoral down to his opposite hip. The wound itself might have been cauterized instantly, but the horrible gash that I had left was more than enough for his guts to spill out onto the stones at his feet, and all of his will to fight me deserted him as he slumped down, trying to hold parts of his lacerated intestines in his belly with a scorched hand.

I beheaded him with a second deft flick of my lightsaber, as a mercy. I only felt a slight tug against my hand when the lightsaber struck. The nice thing about lightsabers is that I didn't have to worry at all about edge alignment - the plasma could cut as efficiently on the backhand, much unlike a vibrosword.

[EXP Gained: 2452]

[Level 22 Reached]

I only took a moment to stare at the body of a Sith Lord, one that I had fought on equal terms and slain, before turning away and searching for his lightsaber. Spare lightsabers had come in handy before...and I didn't think I had actually damaged it that much, if at all.

Once recovered, I clipped it to my belt and opened the stone chest that was supposed to contain the Ravager. On a crimson pillow, there was what seemed to be a circlet of some kind, with a red pyramid affixed to a set of golden limbs that would curve around the skull of the victim.

Was that the Ravager, all in one piece? Or were there pieces still missing, as there had been in the game?

Without a way to tell for sure, I stuffed the thing into my rucksack as is. Then I took the six holocrons just for good measure, shouldering the pack and reigniting my weapon for the return trip. Even though I had only heard of one Sith Lord being present in the Temple, there was always the possibility of others...and with that thought in mind I sprinted out of the shadowed tunnels with as much speed as I could muster.

There was no need to be quite as careful while retracing my own steps.

I emerged from the tomb, took a grateful breath of the humid jungle air, and almost sighed with relief. Except...there was an unnatural light to the sky, wasn't there? I looked up, squinting, and saw red streaks of fire falling on Kaas City, falling from the shattered debris of a plummeting Star Destroyer.

Chapter Text

“Ah, my Apprentice returns, flush with victory. And I sense that you carry powerful artifacts,” Darth Baras welcomed me at the Sith Sanctum’s airspeeder platform. He didn’t make a habit out of loitering, but I hadn’t commed ahead to inform him of my success. So, how had he known of my return?

I reached up and removed my helm, shaking my hair out and nodding. “Yes, the directions left from your previous teams made it easy enough to find the chamber containing the Ravager, and the doors were damaged by explosives already. Unfortunately, your men are dead…killed by Lord Vacuus, I think.”

“Lord Vacuus…” Baras repeated the name softly. “I sense death on you. You defeated him alone?”

“Yes.”

“Impressive,” Darth Baras practically purred, and I resisted the inclination to puff out my chest. I didn’t want his pride. I certainly hoped he didn’t consider this proof that he was a good teacher. “Come, show me what you recovered in the Dark Temple. How did you handle the fight with Lord Vacuus?”

“Neither of us could overpower the other with the Force. Still, he somehow obscured himself from my precognition until the end of the fight,” I replied thoughtfully. “He nearly had me, with a feint that I didn’t see coming.”

“Ah, now you have experienced the fickle loyalty of the Dark Side,” Darth Baras almost purred. “The Dark answers to her favored one first, then to others who seek her. Lord Vacuus obscured himself from your sight, but you made him doubt himself. When he doubted, the Dark Side deserted him.”

“Strangely, I was able to use the Force in other ways, and I wasn’t really aware of the lack of battle precognition. But I had enhanced my reflexes and speed, which is almost the same. Anyway, after his feint failed him, his arm was vulnerable. I wounded his sword arm, and he couldn’t keep up with me using his offhand,” I summarized.

“You were able to use the Force because the favor of the Dark Side primarily affects the future, although some particular powers like Battle Meditation are only possible if you aren’t being overruled by someone more precious to the Dark. Some might call the Dark Side’s favor a kind of destiny. It can be a dangerous ally to have, however, and I would caution you against relying upon it. It is good you were able to do well in that fight even without precognition. Lord Vacuus was not similarly handicapped,” Baras seemed thoughtful. “Perhaps your success hasn’t been purely luck as I feared. How does a hard-won victory feel?”

Feel? I…hadn’t really thought about it. I mean, the guy was dead. It had been gruesome. I had felt euphoric to survive the encounter. I was still a little giddy, to be honest. “It feels good.”

“I imagine that it does. You should cherish these victories, when you have them. Let them encourage you to seek greater challenges, but not to become overconfident,” Baras agreed, and let the subject drop. I was thankful, because I wasn’t sure I had anything more to say about it.

Actually, I also considered most of my other victories to be hard-won.

I followed him the rest of the way to his offices and let my bag fall to my feet with a clatter. Opening the top, I reached in and began removing the items. Six identical, glowing red holocrons. And the Ravager itself. I placed each item on his desk while Baras removed his mask, his impassive features looking over my motions until all of the items were before him. Then, I folded my hands loosely together in front of my waist and waited.

Baras reached out and picked up one of the holocrons in his armored hand. “Holocrons…these can be treasure troves of ancient power, or traps that lead to madness and death. Or, most common, they can be rambling drivel. Still, I am glad you brought them with you; I will have my Inquisitors review their contents. Perhaps I will return one of them to you, if any would provide useful lessons. I am sure the Imperial Reclamation Service will be displeased to find that chamber plundered of its secrets.”

I nodded. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure I could understand the contents of a holocron. Wouldn’t they be in the Sith language? What was that language called again? Well, regardless, I only spoke Basic, which was known as English back on Earth, and I could read Aurebesh letters. I had been capable of reading Aurebesh since awakening, but that certainly hadn’t been an ability from my Human life, so I wasn’t sure how that worked.

Perhaps it was something like a muscle memory that had carried over from Xanot’s prior life? I would have to think about other possible memories that had survived my surprising arrival in this galaxy.

“And the Ravager itself. Excellent. You continue to surprise me, Apprentice. I admit I expected you to die in the temple,” Darth Baras set the holocron down again and looked me in the eyes. “You have questions…I can sense them. Speak.”

Baras casually mentioning that he had sent me to my probable death was pretty fucked up. I guess that explains why he hadn’t gone personally to retrieve the Ravager. But I knew he was an asshole, already, so should I really be surprised? “What was the star destroyer I saw falling on the city?”

“I wondered if you had heard of that. Or did you see the devastation yourself? That, my Apprentice, is what you might consider a lesson in the consequences of arrogance. There was a Sith on that ship named Darth Jadus, have you heard of him?”

“No, Master.”

“You lie,” Baras picked out my false words with barely a thought. I winced, but he didn’t seem terribly bothered. “But it is of no consequence. I am not a jealous teacher, if you read the lessons of others I won’t punish you for it. Only, you don’t strike me as the sort to be taken in by his zealous preaching about the democratization of fear. You say you haven’t heard of him, but might you be familiar with his agenda?”

I worried my lip. He could tell if I was lying, right? But…I honestly didn’t know much about Darth Jadus. Just that his stated goal was to make all people in the Empire feel terror and hatred. And based on Darth Baras’ words about how all citizens of the Empire should live by the Code of the Sith, I wondered why Baras would object to that goal.

“I only know a little,” I answered honestly. “He wants to spread terror and hate, and views them as gifts.”

“Yes, or at least so he claims. You must have heard his speeches, then, but perhaps you did not do any further research,” Darth Baras nodded. “His little talks were popular among the acolytes, last I had heard. Regardless, the devastation you saw was caused by the destruction of the Dominator, Darth Jadus’ personal flagship, and at the time of its destruction he was aboard, along with hundreds of Imperial dignitaries, bureaucrats, and ambassadors from Imperial worlds. All are dead. There were no survivors.”

I sucked in a sharp breath as understanding dawned. The name had been familiar, hence my earlier lie. But it had finally dawned on my why I knew of him.

Darth Jadus, and his death…those were part of the Imperial Agent’s class story. I hadn’t seen any events that weren’t particular to the Sith Warrior so far. I had begun to think the other classes might not exist. That, as it seems, had been an incorrect assumption.

“I see you have some idea as to the importance of this event,” Darth Baras smiled coldly, mistaking my troubled thoughts for concern about the death of Imperial leaders. “The death of a Dark Council member, and the leaders of a hundred Imperial worlds. Their ambassadors, bureaucrats, and in some cases even their families. All those deaths means that there is ample wealth and power ripe for the taking. Among these: a vacancy on the Dark Council itself.”

“Who was responsible?” I breathed, even though I sort-of knew already.

“A man calling himself the Eagle has claimed responsibility. I can conclusively say that he is lying, or at least stretching the truth a great deal. There was no trace of his organization in the incredibly scarce chatter that might have hinted about the impending destruction of the Dominator. My spies have never once identified the Eagle’s terror cells as anything more than pathetic malcontents and primitive idealists. To undertake something like this, his supporters would have had to be far more widespread and well-supplied. Not to mention far more cunning. Only recently, in the last week, have I seen any evidence of the Eagle’s organization posing any threat to the Empire. What has changed? In my opinion, he has found the support of a Sith Lord. But he did not destroy the Dominator, that bears all the hallmarks of an Imperial Intelligence operation, although of course I have no evidence. Imperial Intelligence never leaves evidence,” Darth Baras put his fingers together. “This presents a most interesting question, my Apprentice. Who among the Lords of the Empire would benefit from the chaos that has been unleashed? And who has the influence in Imperial Intelligence to convince them to act against their own master, Darth Jadus. It is clear to me that the Eagle continues to operate on the orders of his hidden master, but I have yet to determine the most likely candidates. Some are quietly assuming that it was my doing…if only that were true! I would obviously have been in position to take advantage of this opportunity. Instead, I am just as surprised as all the rest of the Empire, scrambling to secure my own power base against shifting sands and changing winds.”

I knew the answer, of course. The shadow master was Darth Jadus himself. That Baras already knew the Eagle had a Sith patron was amazing…it said much about the extent of his spy network. Baras’ claim about Imperial Intelligence probably wasn’t true…probably. If I were Darth Jadus, I would utilize my own assets for the attack on the Dominator, and of course since he’s a total dick he would probably retire the agents afterward for security.

Imperial Intelligence probably didn’t really know as much as Baras suspected, at this point, although Keeper might have privately guessed.

Baras was looking at me closely, and I swallowed nervously. Could he sense that I knew more than I had said?

“Well, it ultimately matters little to you,” Baras suddenly stood, leaning forward on his hands. “I, however, suddenly have many urgent matters to attend to. The Ravager, of course, allows my interrogation of that Republic cretin to continue. But, there are new opportunities to grow my organization which must be leveraged at once. You have the rest of the day to yourself, Apprentice. If I might recommend a use for your time: do something about your hair. It’s quite ghastly.”

“My hair?” I blinked in surprise and reached up to the tangled mess on my head. Excuse me?

Baras waved a hand at me impatiently. “Well? Get out of my sight.”

I hefted my bag and left, so deep in thought I neglected to even nod my head in farewell.

This was important news. Dangerous news, too.

It probably meant that the Imperial Agent existed. Otherwise known as Cipher Nine. I rather hoped that he did, anyway, because if Cipher Nine didn't exist, then who exactly was going to take care of Darth Jadus when he reemerged and made a coup attempt? And if Cipher Nine existed, then did that mean that Kallig would also exist? Or, more frighteningly, what about the Republic heroes? The Barsen'thor? The Jedi Knight?

I didn't think it mattered overmuch if the bounty hunter, smuggler, and trooper existed or if they didn’t. Their class stories weren't as impactful on a galactic scale, if I remembered the major plot points correctly. At the very least, their actions wouldn't have a huge impact on my life. The same could not be said about the Barsen'thor, the Jedi Knight, Kallig, and Cipher Nine.

Baras would trap the Voice of the Emperor on Voss and usurp that title for himself. That was going to be my problem. The Barsen'thor would kill the Children of the Emperor, weakening the Emperor's influence over the conflict between the Republic and the Empire, and the Jedi Knight would ultimately kill the aspect of the Emperor that dwelt on Dromund Kaas, sending his unholy ass to combine with his other half, Emperor Valkorian on Zakuul.

Part of the reason that the Eternal Empire eventually invades the galaxy, I think, is because the Emperor realizes that he is losing his grasp on wider galactic affairs. During the war, his Dread Masters had been imprisoned on Belsavis. His Wrath betrayed him. Revan’s eventual escape and the subversion of the Revanites. The death of his Children and his Voice. The Empire at that time would be spiraling into chaos, and then the Jedi Knight breaks the compulsion and banishes his spirit to Zakuul.

If things proceeded in the same way, it was pretty much a humiliating and disastrous course of events for the Emperor.

I obviously wasn't opposed to weakening the Emperor, considering his main goal of consuming the galaxy for his own personal gain, but the damage that would be done to the Sith Empire due to Eternal Empire’s inevitable attack couldn't just be ignored by someone in my position.

Not that the Empire was going to be in a very good place even before the Eternal Empire’s little invasion. Cipher Nine and Darth Jadus, who is preparing to unleash super-weapons on Sith worlds in a bid to seize control of the Dark Council, are the first dominoes to fall. After that, some pureblood guy and his Red Reapers would attack in the name of traditional Sith. Then comes Darth Malgus, in the middle of the reignited war against the Republic.

By the time the Hutt Cartel’s power grab on Makeb took place in the game’s plot, the Empire had been on the brink of total destruction. There hadn’t even been enough powerful Lords with the desire to fully fill the Dark Council seats left vacant by deaths. That was an indication that the Empire was fracturing, because who was coordinating the central government’s various Ministries if those seats were vacant and the Emperor was nowhere to be found?

The Revanites had the perfect opportunity, then, to split the Empire, starting with the destruction of the main Academy on Korriban. And Revan’s final death removed the only obstacle to the Emperor’s little planet-consuming party trick on Ziost.

You could convincingly argue that becoming a tributary of the Eternal Empire had actually saved the Empire from balkanization.

Could I even assume that these events would happen in a similar way, going forward? Was it all part of Fate or Destiny? I wasn’t sure that it was. Things had been different enough that I seriously doubted there was some sort of destiny holding the course of events to what had been ‘canon.’ But if it wasn’t going to happen that same way, then it was entirely possible it could go even worse for the Empire. And, if the future was in motion, then my worrying was a goddamn waste of my time.

I stowed my bags and sat heavily on my bunk in the Sanctum. At this time, the dormitory was usually empty, and it let me bury my face in my hands and try to think through things logically. Without being concerned that someone would think I was crying my eyes out.

I was tempted, though.

Did I care if the Empire fell? Well…from a purely selfish perspective, I’d probably die if the Empire was utterly crushed. By that time, I’d probably be a fully fledged Lord if not a Darth. Whoever conquered the Empire wasn’t going to allow its former rulers to run off and potentially form a troublesome remnant that might pose a threat to the new regime.

The Eternal Empire hadn’t really tried to rule the galaxy, preferring to establish Republic and Empire as tributaries. I figure that’s because Zakuul was pretty much a fake empire, and was only strong because of the Eternal Fleet they stumbled across on Iokath. They didn’t have the manpower or the bureaucratic capacity to fully occupy the galaxy, and frankly their spoiled and entitled populace didn’t have the fortitude for the century-long war it would likely take to sweep across all of Sith and Republic space. Not to mention the long, difficult integration and likely bloody occupations that would follow the conquest.

I was working from the knowledge I knew purely because of the amount of time I had played Star Wars video games in my past life. Well, also the Star Wars comics, books, and movies. Obviously, the first thing to do was to gather more solid information from real sources. If I could actually confirm that the other classes existed, that would hopefully help me understand what key events I needed to look for in the coming months. And how to respond to them, given my position. Assuming that things would happen along a certain timeline would be a mistake I couldn’t afford to make.

Baras, true to form, had not seemed particularly concerned about the developing crisis or the death of a Dark Council member. Sure, he talked about taking advantage of the situation. Fine. But he didn’t seem to care about the inevitable damage to the Empire. What, exactly, was he hoping to rule as Voice of the Emperor? If the Empire collapsed into repeated civil war, there would be very little left for him to command.

I didn’t understand his motivations.

But, if Baras wasn’t going to let on that he cared, and I couldn’t very well run off and do a bunch of research without showing that I knew a whole bunch of things I shouldn’t really have any reason to know, then I figured the best thing would be to stop stressing out about the situation entirely. For now, at least, the other class stories would have to be handled by their protagonists, and I would have to concern myself with my own troubles.

Having been given leave to kick back a bit, relax, and try not to think about the five or six major calamities that were coming steadily closer with every breath, I decided that it was a perfect time to put some of my affairs in order. Like the suggested haircut.

I still had no idea why he had mentioned it. Did I look that uncouth?

I decided to slip into the most casual outfit I could find, which was a somewhat tight gray tunic and a long maroon skirt. More clothing was another thing I had to handle, but I could do that using the HoloNet once I got back.

The tunic I wore was cut in an interesting way, with a kind of wrap that was tied at the waist by a wide sash the same color as the shirt, and it all came together in a V-neck kind of look. The skirt, on the other hand, I had liberated from an inquisitor's uniform, but as far as Sith uniforms go it was about as unremarkable as you could get.

Which, for ostentatious Sith, meant that it was still pretty extravagant. The supreme quality of the fabric and the loose cut meant that I was totally unrestricted, and due to my extraordinary height the skirt only actually fell to just below my knees. Maybe closer to mid-shin. I had to wear combat boots because I had no other footwear, but if I had normal shoes a good portion of my calves would have shown.

Wearing a skirt was about as unnatural as everything else in this life had been so far, so of course I felt almost no physical discomfort as I looked at myself one last time in the mirror. I had expected to dislike it, and mentally there was some dissonance, but I didn't actually feel terribly uneasy. The boots, my hair, and my naturally intense, forward posture all came together to give me the look of a rather belligerent individual which someone had stuffed into a skirt for a good prank, but I was honestly too fed up to change outfits now. It was comfortable enough and hopefully it wasn’t as obvious that I was a Sith Apprentice.

The tunic had no sleeves, which exposed the ridiculous size of my biceps and sculpted deltoids. Or the equivalent of deltoids...I actually had no idea what Sith muscle groups were called. In any case, the long, wiry lengths of muscle that were visible beneath the thick red skin of my arms were ridiculously hot...I couldn't help but flex for myself before shaking my head at my own antics.

Why hadn't I ever gone to the gym in my old life? Oh, right...laziness.

Well, I didn't have the option to shirk my responsibilities in this life, and frankly it looked good on me. Even the few scars that were on my arms or on my face detracted nothing from my appearance...I thought they looked ferocious and mysterious. Doubly so, since I couldn't remember receiving a single one of the visible ones.

The only part of my appearance that I disliked was my face, as I had noticed the last time I had found a mirror and taken a glance. It was not a face that I would consider beautiful, or even handsome. My visage was fearsome, rather. I wasn't sure that I liked that impression. It went well with my somewhat coarse, contralto voice, which I had warmed up to with time. But…I didn’t feel like a fearsome kind of person. I just looked that way. Right?

My plan was simply to go out on the town of Kaas City. So, naturally, I took my lightsaber. This was Dromund fucking Kaas, so there was no way in hell I was leaving the Sith Sanctum without my weapon. I stowed it in the sash around my waist so that it wasn't obvious for what it was. People would get all weird if they knew I was Sith both in species and occupation, but since I was passably feminine in appearance, I was sure that I could pass as just another average Sith citizen as long as I kept my weapon concealed. After all, the handy-dandy slide-show from the doctor had indicated that most female Sith were not force-sensitive.

Most people weren’t nearly eight feet tall or sporting muscles like Mr. Universe. Well…Mr. Universe if he had spent his time trying to become a killing machine instead of looking like an inflatable.

I was able to convince myself that I appeared pretty normal right up until the airspeeder from the Sith Sanctum plopped me into a crowd, which promptly parted before me like Moses and the fucking Red Sea to let me walk unhindered through the city’s streets. I kept my face impassive even as I internally groaned.

Was it really that flipping obvious? Like, I had some muscles, but you didn’t have to be Sith to have muscles!

The furtive, worried looks that the average pedestrian shot my way told me that, yes, it was exactly that obvious. Mothers even sheltered their children with their bodies as I passed by, which I felt was a bit rude and entirely unnecessary. What was I going to do, eat them?!

It made me burn with embarrassment, and I hated the excesses of Sith Lords even more with every wary glance that I received. If the people of Dromund Kaas were this jittery in the presence of Sith, then that was probably because the Sith Lords had murdered enough people for no good reason that rumors got spread around about it.

My plan had been to go to a salon and get the bird's nest that my hair had become sorted out. I was utterly hopeless at managing it, and as a result it was knotted, unattractive, and a little itchy. No matter how often I washed it, it just felt horrible on my head, and running my fingers through it made my skin crawl. I was sure that it had split ends and was probably too dry. It was prone to tangling, and brittle.

My approach to hair care was lather with shampoo and rinse. Evidently this was not sufficient.

The salon I had scouted on the local HoloNet was a middle-class venue, with very reasonable prices, and they offered a gratis head and shoulders massage, which sounded absolutely divine after two weeks of near constant violence. I arrived at the store front during a pop-up rainstorm, because fuck Dromund Kaas, and that meant my clothes were wet, my hair was wet, and my mood had significantly worsened.

A happy little chime dinged as I stepped through the automatic door, dripping onto the metallic flooring as I swiftly assessed the interior of the building for danger. My entrance had not gone unnoticed by the little family of three who had instantly closed ranks to huddle in a ball of wide eyes to my right, but the incredibly bored-looking man seated to my left, beside the door, merely changed which leg that he had crossed over top the other. There were two hairdressers and they were both with a client, but had glanced up at the sound of the bell.

They were Twi'leki, much to my surprise. One of them was a rather subdued pink color with black tattoos and the other was a pale viridian green. Both looked somewhat thin and petite, with round unassuming faces and simple clothing. I didn't want to assume that they were slaves right off the bat, just because of their race and apparel, but it seemed likely.

Both of them took one look at me and instantly pegged me for a Sith Lord, freezing in the midst of their actions. One was holding the hair of their client with a pair of needlessly futuristic clippers in hand, and the other was mid-massage.

I hadn't actually had the opportunity to visit what you might think of as a normal shop or store in the Star Wars universe, except for the doctor's office fiasco, so I hesitated briefly as I considered whether there was some sort of check-in procedure, or if I was just supposed to find a seat and wait.

Before I could make that determination, however, the two Twi'leks seemed to carry on a frantic, silent conversation with nothing more than their eyes and a few subtle twitches of their head-tails, before the one that was massaging her client bent down and whispered something in the woman's ear.

As far as I could see, all the customers in the salon were human, which made sense. Many alien species didn't have hair on their heads, and the Empire wasn't exactly the most diverse culture in the galaxy to begin with. The woman seemed a little upset at first, but after glancing towards me she seemed to change her mind about causing a scene, nodding to the Twi'lek who was practically vibrating with stress.

Just entering the shop had apparently caused a minor meltdown...

"Look at what you've done, Sith," a man's voice reached me as I was internally reflecting on the goings-on. "She's going to be all tense and jumpy for the massage, now. I might as well come back in the evening...or tomorrow."

I turned and looked at the smartly-dressed fellow who had set his datapad on his knee and looked up at me with a somewhat aggravated expression on his handsome features. The guy's black hair was getting a little wild, which was probably why he was here in the first place, but apart from that he had a nice jawline and stubble, with muscled shoulders and a firm neck. A military man, if I had my first guess.

It wasn't just his muscles that gave me that impression, there was also a more nebulous sense of tightly controlled violence about him. More of a Force thing than a visual cue.

"All I've done is step into the shop," I answered him evenly. "I even dressed down a bit, so it wasn't obvious..." I trailed off, thinking maybe it really wasn't as obvious as it seemed and there was some other reason for all the fuss. I didn't want to come out and say what I was aloud, just in case.

"That you're a Sith Lord?" the man finished my sentence. "Pardon me for saying so, my Lord, but you are the most obvious Sith in the history of the Sith, and this is the heart of the Empire. Even the way you shook the water from your skirts implied swift retribution, as though you could threaten the clouds to stop raining on you. Besides that, if you were trying for a disguise you should have gone with actual civilian dress instead of a Sith tunic and what appears to be borrowed Inquisitor's skirts. Not to mention the combat boots I can clearly see since your skirt is quite simply the wrong size."

I bristled a bit, crossing my arms under my breasts and glaring down at the man. "I don't exactly have a lot of opportunity to update my wardrobe. And you are being quite rude."

"Oh, trust me, I'm familiar with the pace of the Sith lifestyle. Don’t take it as a criticism or anything," the man waved a hand without concern. "You must be an Apprentice then, otherwise you would have had someone go and buy things for you."

"What's it matter to you? And what's your name, anyway?"

"I'm Krios," the man lied. It wasn't an obvious lie, but the Force betrayed him instantly. Apparently he saw my skepticism on my face because he laughed in a cold tone that told me he was very familiar with his lies being caught by Force users. "No, I won't give you my real name. And using the Force like that in casual conversation is also rude."

Hm, I knew of a certain group of Imperials that didn’t like to use their real names.

"An Agent, are you?" I wondered aloud. Just after I had come to the realization that Cipher Nine probably existed, I run into this joker. Could it be him? "Or are you just that paranoid?"

His reaction confirmed my suspicions. Not a single twitch in muscle or mood, and his mind was like a steel trap. The lack of tells was itself rather telling.

"You know, there's a lot of reasons why people wouldn't want to be on a first-name basis with a Sith Lord," the man teased, but he felt tense rather than playful. Lying with his mood, that was impressive. I was too suspicious to play games, however, and simply glared at him.

"I could make you tell me."

It was an empty threat, of course. I had no idea who this guy was, and resorting to violence just to get his name would obviously piss off his boss, who might actually be important. Also, if he actually turned out to be Cipher Nine, then I preferred him to be intact and effective at his job. After all, I was rather hoping that someone else dealt with Darth Jadus before he could become my problem.

But didn't the Agent eventually get the option to join Jadus, in the end? Shit, I should have played non-Force-users more often. That had probably been a choice. Could I actually trust whoever Cipher Nine was to stop Jadus instead?

"Oooh, scary," Krios called me on my bluff.

When I used the Force to peek a bit deeper into his surface thoughts I got the impression of someone focusing on a card game.

So, that confirmed he had been trained to frustrate Force-users. I smiled like a wolf and leaned down with a finger raised in taunt. "You know, Agent, if you want to be inconspicuous you shouldn't demonstrate your ability to hide your thoughts so obviously to the very first Force user you encounter. Pazaak is an uninspired choice. It’s in all the textbooks."

I now saw real discomfort in his eyes, but also noticed that he looked briefly over my shoulder. I wasn't stupid enough to take my eyes off him for an instant, but I did sense the nervous approach of one of the hairdressers, and so I straightened and carefully moved out of Krios' reach before I turned to the side, keeping him in my peripheral vision.

If he was Cipher Nine, then I wasn't going to have him at my back. No thanks.

"My Lady, if you would follow me, please, I can take you to the master stylist," said the poor girl, who was visibly shivering. I suppressed a snort of derision and quickly wiped all trace of threat from my features. Verbally sparring with that stupid Agent, and I was like 60% sure he was an Agent, had made me forget I was trying for an unassuming attitude, and he had rather adroitly exposed me for the Sith that I was.

Which of course meant that everyone else in the shop was petrified under my gaze.

"Thank you," I said with as much dignity as I could manage, throwing a venomous look at the man as I started to follow the little Twi'lek. It might have been pretty much obvious before, but he didn't have to go and confirm it, out loud, for everyone to hear.

I was shortly seated behind a privacy curtain in a chair that obviously had transcended time and space to relocate itself here from a typical American salon. I was momentarily puzzled by the obvious similarities between this fixture and what had been developed on Earth, but as I took my seat in the nearly too-small chair I realized that there were only so many ways that a chair for hair cutting could be designed, and since humans were pretty much the same in Star Wars as they were on Earth it shouldn't be so surprising that they had discovered a convenient barber-shop chair.

Instead of sensible, mechanical parts, of course the chair was designed to use some kind of levitation space-voodoo, but everything else was pretty much the same as what I had grown up with on Earth. There was a mirror and a table with a variety of clippers, combs, brushes, and bottles of various aerosols.

A door opened to my right, and out stalked a Sith. And by that I mean a Sith pureblood woman. She was red-skinned, golden-eyed, and a paragon of grace and sophistication. She looked at me and gave a dismissive gesture to her Twi'lek assistant, approaching with measured steps that crossed the small interior of the salon.

"Blood and bone, my Lady, what have you gone and done to your poor hair?!" the woman gasped as she boldly grabbed a handful of the coarse black locks which had become permanently tangled some time the previous week. "Oh my, oh my, I might just weep!"

"Um...hello?" I ventured, suddenly finding the chair spun around. With a movement of her foot, the chair lowered itself until the rather intimidating woman could lean forward until our noses were practically touching. Her face was an odd mixture of pointed fixtures and smooth skin, with two downward spikes on either side of her dimpled chin, and additional, shorter points pointing toward each ear in a slight downturn from her brow.

Her hand was still in my hair, and her breath ghosted over my lips. She pulled her fingers from the knots of hair and traced a finger down my jaw, straightening up and touching her chin in thought. "Chimera, is it? That's a rare treat."

"What?"

"Do try to keep up, dear," the woman drawled with that British-sounding accent shared by hard-line Imperials all across the galaxy. "You are a Sith chimera. Some male and some female features, yes?"

I blinked and nodded slowly. "How did you know?"

"Please," she sounded offended. "I've spent my entire life beautifying women and serving all the various pleasures of men. I've seen that stupefied look on too many faces to mistake it for anything other than male attraction. Besides that, a woman would have rather chopped her hair clean off before allowing it to reach such a state."

Mildly offended, I found myself crossing my arms defensively and leaning as far back as I could manage, but I felt somewhat trapped by the chair arms and the nearness of the stylist, whose foot was firmly pressed on the bar between my own heels, preventing the chair from turning. "I don't see why it matters, for one thing, and besides that, I didn't have a lot of time to care about my hair in between tomb crawling and battlefields."

"Obviously, I can tell you’ve had it bundled tightly, probably in a helmet," the woman observed, her sharp features narrowing in bemusement as my glare intensified. "Are you going to start growling at me, dear? Stars, but you are tightly wound!"

"I'm thinking of going to some other stylist, in fact," I retorted, gripping the arms of the chair tightly. "I think I find your personality somewhat abrasive."

"Aw, you poor thing," the stylist cooed, tapping my nose with her finger so suddenly that I only had time to jerk away from her after she'd accomplished the act. "Do you want me to kneel before you and tremble with fear? You aren't the first Sith Lord I've seen, and if you were inclined to hurt me you would have done so already. Well?"

I snarled at this challenge, the sudden and unexpected sound tearing from my throat entirely without my say-so. I was so surprised that I actually choked on it, and an awkward beat of silence passed before I found my voice again. I cleared my throat sheepishly, and looked away from the woman’s growing amusement. "No, actually, but there's something called professionalism that I find severely lacking. If you’d simply step out of the way, I’ll go elsewhere and…"

"No, no. I am being utterly professional," the woman declared, suddenly spinning the chair around so that I was facing the mirror. "It's important for a stylist to understand what they are working with. Male and female Sith have different hair properties, as you should very well know. It wouldn't matter as much, if your hair were in better condition."

"I was just looking for a haircut," I muttered, extremely wrong-footed by the rapidly shifting mood of our interaction. The stylist scoffed.

"Trust me, love, there's a haircut in your future. But in its current state, with your hair somewhat dry and prone to breakage, I wouldn’t want to handle it with a comb or the clippers," the stylist said. "I'll have to massage some product through it and let it sit for a bit, to soften the strands. After a wash, we'll get it untangled so I can actually see how bad the split ends really are."

"How long is all that going to take?"

"Are you impatient? Or worried about boredom?" the woman wondered, placing a hand on my shoulder. She winked at me quickly in the mirror, "I charge extra for entertainment services, dear."

"I didn't...I just don't have all the time in the world," I replied stiffly.

"Well, we'd better get started then. Or are you still planning on running away from me?"

I huffed and shook my head.

"Don't you worry, I've been told I have magic fingers," the stylist said as she rummaged around behind me. "I'm glad my girls brought me out here for this, though...I couldn't imagine the mess that poor skittish things would cause if they tried to handle a specimen like you by themselves. And, just between you and me, I'm a bit tired of desk-work."

Before I could respond with some snark, because frankly I could use a bit of boring desk work after the last month, the woman's fingers dove into my hair and dug into my scalp in a practiced motion that caused all coherent thoughts to stutter to a halt. I felt like a big cat getting his ears scratched and, dammit, I was completely fine with it.

"I don't believe I introduced myself properly," said the woman who was plucking my strings. "My name's Ffia. I'm sorry if I embarrassed you, dear. You're an intimidating customer, and I work better when I'm confident. You'll forgive me."

That last bit wasn't really a question and I didn't really disagree with the assertion. I swallowed an undignified sound as she worked her fingers through a knot of hair and pulled back to reapply more of the conditioner. Yep, if she kept touching me like this I'd do more than forgive her, holy Hell.

"We don't all get to be nearly two and a half meters tall, built like a damn bulk freighter," Ffia continued. "Not to mention Force-sensitive. Some people get all the luck, I really have to say. My poor slaves practically swallowed their tongues when you walked through the door."

"Not my fault," I grumbled, letting my head loll back in her grasp as she pulled the mass of my hair behind my ears and over the back of the chair.

"Of course not," Ffia agreed. "But it's hard to teach them to comport themselves properly around Sith Lords when you lot refuse to associate with us common folk. And whenever you do mingle in Kaas City, half the time some poor sap ends up getting dusted."

"If we Sith are known for gratuitous displays of murder, then you surely put yourself at risk by being so forward with me," I mused, eyes closed. My senses were focused intently on Ffia, who was working industriously, but not because I was suspicious of her. As she continued working through my hair, occasionally returning to massage my scalp, I found that my irritation with her had indeed been completely short-circuited, replaced by intense attraction.

She smelled good, sounded good...looked good. Felt good.

"You just don't have that madness about you," Ffia replied directly. "I've met many Sith Lords. I wouldn't have talked that way with just anyone. You're simply too adorable to hurt me, aren't you? I think you startled yourself more than me with that growl."

I almost felt insulted. Almost.

"I can tell you're bristling again," Ffia giggled lightly, giving me a firm rub on the scalp that scrambled any discontent I might have been feeling. "Don't worry, I'm sure you're quite terrifying when you need to be. But it's good to loosen up a bit when you can, even for Sith Lords. Maybe especially for Sith Lords."

Considering that I had spent most of my previous life hearing nothing but platitudes about stress, diet, and sleep I actually found her quip inordinately amusing. And somewhat apropos since I hadn't actually been eating properly at the start of this new life and had been reprimanded for it by the droid physician.

I didn't have much trouble finding ways to unwind, however. Sleeping and generally laying around feeling each and every bruise were two of my favorite past-times, recently.

Although, if Ffia kept up with this massage for much longer I might have to start finding excuses to come over here to get my hair conditioned more often. I stifled another quiet groan, trying to remain perfectly still and silent in order to preserve some small part of my dignity.

"Right," Ffia said, eventually, as she walked around the chair and leaned against the dresser by the mirror. "While that sits for a moment, let's talk styling options..."

"I'm just looking for hair that can be washed in less than ten minutes, fits in a helmet, and isn't too difficult to let down for the evening," I said as I opened my eyes and met her curious look. An odd grin stretched her lips and she tapped her chin with a finger.

"Shorter would be easier to manage," she eventually said. "But it would be a shame to cut too much off."

Honestly, getting my hair into the helmet had been a huge hassle. If I wasn't careful, then it could get clamped in the neck seal, and that wasn't just uncomfortable it could also let air escape or expose my neck to the temperatures outside the hardsuit. Imagining what would have happened if the seal had been incomplete when I got spaced made me shudder in quiet horror.

Yeah...I rather liked my eyeballs the way they were, rather than exploding in my skull or freezing solid.

"I was almost thinking of going short and maintenance-free. Going for a wild child look, you know?" I mused aloud, considering various options. "Or maybe a Mohawk."

"Mohawk?" Ffia seemed genuinely confused. "What in the blazes is a Mohawk?"

Oh, right...history reference that didn't exist in Star Wars. "Err, it's cutting everything very short around the ears and sides of the skull, while leaving the top and back. Sometimes spiking it and adding color."

"No," Ffia shook her head. "You'd much prefer people to be intimidated by you, yes? Instead of laughing themselves to death when you take off your helmet?"

"Okay fine, so no Mohawk," I sighed. "I don't know. I've always been terrible at picking a hairstyle. How about you cut it however you think is best, knowing that I'd like it on the shorter side?"

Her eyes lit up dangerously. "Oh? Giving me free reign, are you?"

"Why do I suddenly think I should reconsider?"

"Oh, no," Ffia clapped her hands together. "You won't be disappointed, my Lord. In fact, just lean back, relax, and let Ffia work some sorcery of her own."

In the end, I certainly wasn't disappointed. And I got the usual Sith Lord discount which every civilian seemed hell-bent on providing me even after I assured them I was willing to pay full price. After all, it wasn't my money.

I returned to the Sanctum feeling like a new Sith, and I even felt a smile playing at my lips. I had been tempted to ask Ffia if she still offered 'entertainment' services, but...I chickened out. I’ll admit it. I felt as if I should probably be more familiar with myself before jumping into sex. I mean, I hardly even knew what my own erect penis looked like.

With that in mind, I ended up trying to find some privacy at the Sith Sanctum, which was very nearly a lost cause. Where the hell did people go in this place to have some alone time? Eventually I locked myself in one of the cramped shower stalls, with its fifteen minute time limit, and turned on the hottest water it could produce.

I leaned against the wall of the stall and closed my eyes. Fuck, I could still smell Ffia’s teasing scent…or was I imagining it? I felt warm and restricted, despite being nude. Huffing a bit in frustration, I ran a hand down my belly and gasped at my half-chub. Even after her insistent scalp massage and tantalizing scent, I wasn’t fully erect.

My palm was pretty rough…and there wasn’t anything to use as lube in the stall. Shampoo was strictly rationed to a pitiful handful. A normal person’s hand, mind you. Not to mention, having tried soap in my past explorations as a Human, I knew certain kinds of soap didn’t feel nice if they got into…places. I wasn’t exactly looking for my pee-hole to start burning, and I had no idea what properties the soap in the dispenser had. So, no thank you.

Still, there was water. Water was a poor lubricant for my skin, since it caused a kind of tug between my calloused palm and the silky smooth skin of my shaft, but I loosened my hold a bit and tried it again, feeling myself twitch and swell in response. Repeat for a bit, and soon enough I was looking at what was unmistakably the largest throbbing cock I’d ever laid eyes on.

Okay, the largest real throbbing cock. I’ve seen some rule34 animated shit that’d make your eyes pop out of your skull. Those cocks don’t count for the purposes of comparisons, for obvious reasons.

My new cock was odd…that was my first thought. But I quashed it ruthlessly. It wasn’t ‘odd.’ Just not Human. It was unbelievably hard, and ached fiercely if I wasn’t stroking it. Almost demandingly. I kept a steady pace with my hand as I inspected myself, using my other hand to heft my dark red scrotum.

Heavy nuts. Nothing remarkable there, about shape at least. They were as over-sized as the rest of me, but were proportional to my body, I guess. Ball sacks must be a universal constant, or at the very least any inhuman features were not visible.

I was hairless, conveniently. Sith didn’t have body hair, just head hair. The shaft was vaguely ribbed, not enough that you’d be able to see it unless you were looking for such minute details. A bit like how Sith faces often had various ridges or protrusions, except you only really noticed the ridges if you were actively squeezing it, since the actual hardness was sheathed in dark, sensitive skin that was somewhat loose. It was almost a maroon color, unlike the rest of my body which edged more towards crimson side of the red spectrum.

I thanked whichever strange god had landed me here that the damned thing wasn’t spiked like some Sith’s faces were...I wondered if that was possible for Sith genitalia. And I promptly dismissed the thought.

I didn’t want to lose my erection now, at the last minute. Not that it felt as though it was going anywhere fast.

The crown of my cock was normally obscured by bright red foreskin, and I hadn’t taken the time to really look at it even when I’d been showering in the past. Now that it stood proudly, I could see that the top was dark enough it was almost purple. But the shape of the crown it was…pointy. Less like a mushroom, more like a meaty arrow. The foreskin, filled out as I had hardened, now made a band of brighter colored skin, and there was a ridge of taut skin on the underside of this that made my toes curl when I touched it.

What I can say is that the damn thing felt far more sensitive than I remembered. My knees almost buckled with I tentatively swept my palm over the head properly, and I shuddered with anticipation. Holding a hand to my chest briefly as my hearts raced.

Then I squeezed my own left tit like it owed me money and went for it again.

Holy shit.

I will admit I sort of moaned before I caught myself, cutting off the sound with a mortified squeak. The shower stalls weren’t exactly sound proof.

I felt my balls clench tightly up against my body and then stared slack jawed as I spurted like a fire hose against the opposite wall. The pleasure struck me like lightning and then it was gone. Four body-wracking, mind-blowing bursts. I blinked slowly when it ended, feeling unsatisfied, and my cock twitched insistently in my palm, still oozing a long rope of semen like a leaky faucet.

Oh, fuck me. That fifteen minute time limit was starting to feel a bit restrictive.

I went back to beating myself off like a deranged pervert, letting my head fall back and biting my lip. Ffia’s smell seemed to intensify as I recalled her voice and her touch, swallowing an undignified mewl as I shook through a second orgasm without pause, then a third immediately following it.

Damn, but I had a hair trigger. I was panting now, feeling a bit shaky on my feet, but I stumbled forward, leaned against the shower wall with my forehead against my arm, and let the steaming water wash down my back. I saw my own breasts heaving with an enticing jiggle as my hand worked over my cock, and that very nearly did me in for the fourth time.

I concentrated on making it last, and found I could consciously edge myself without really slowing my hand. It gave me a dizzying buzz of pleasure that left be breathless. But pinching my nipple experimentally brought that all to a gooey, explosive end.

I groaned again, as quietly as I could, end with a high-pitched exclamation before I could completely stop myself. Still twisting my nipple and muttering curses like prayers, I slid down the wall and sat on the floor. A spurt of thick cum splashed against the undersides of my breasts and I sucked in a breath at the heat of it. It just kept going, too…for seven sizable shots, although the rest just plastered over my muscular abdomen. I raised a hand and looked at the webs of sticky cum between my fingers.

It was an odd consistency. Wait, no. Not odd, just not Human. Thick, cloudy, translucent, gooey. Sticky? Uh…a bit gross? It had a very strong smell, to my utter mortification. Like…like an herbal smell. A bit sharp in my nostrils, feeling like it could probably clear my sinuses if it was concentrated a bit more.

Admittedly, I did venture to taste it…hesitantly. I just stuck the tip of a finger in my mouth, swirled my tongue around it. I just worried, what if it was super awful? I didn’t want my first realization of that to be if and when I got someone to give me a blowjob.

I didn’t think it was terrible, apart from the slimy bit. I wasn’t going to eat any more of it, not without suitable persuasion, but I didn’t think it was unbearable. The flavor was strong, and it sort of filled my senses of taste and smell. Even after I had removed the finger and gargled some water, the taste didn’t fade.

But it tasted savory, not bitter, and there was a vaguely sweet aftertaste. Certainly not entirely unpleasant, once you got over the fact that it was nut-goo.

That meant maybe, just maybe, I could convince someone to suck me off in the future. Just the thought of having Ffia’s hands on my balls and her smart mouth on my dick made me shiver with delight. Fuck…that lady had me so wound up it was ridiculous. I’d probably never see her again, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t bust a fat tribute to her flirtations.

Given the intimidating size of of my dick, it would probably require a level of sweet-talking I had yet to master to get someone to try swallowing it. Like, the thing had to be nearly a foot long, probably a bit shy of that. I could put both hands on it with some dick to spare. Anyone sucking on this bad boy would probably choke.

As if summoned by that thought, a fantasy of Vette burst into my brain and burned itself there indelibly. She was on her knees between my thighs, looking at me through tear-filled eyes as she choked on my fat cock with my hands gently gripping the base of her lekku, pulling her down insistently.

I swore I saw splotches of color in my vision as I whined and covered myself in generous shots of cum for the second time, one leg kicking out in an involuntary twitch and pressing against the opposite wall as my back arched and my hearts clenched.

I imagined Vette with her teary silver eyes widening and her hands pressing against my thighs as my cum splurged out from the tight seal of her lips around my shaft.

My eyes snapped open and I curled into my fist as I practically tried to strangle my cock, feeling it blazing like a fiery brand for a long, blessed second, until my longest orgasm to date finally throbbed to its end. Breathless, I fell back, mouthing “V-Vette!”

A flash of clarity followed, and I realized my taste buds were totally fucked up. As in, I thought blood pudding was delicious. Also, my sense of smell was different. I didn’t think my sweat smelled bad either, but Vette had wrinkled her nose at it. So really sampling my own product had been a waste of time.

Thankfully, the water seemed to wash my semen off my skin easily.

I had stopped my stroking as I washed most of the cum away, and soon enough I felt my cock twitching and aching for attention once again.

“Where is it all coming from?!” I grumbled as I reached down to gently fondle my balls, but a stupid smile slid onto my face immediately. My nuts seemed to churn in my palm as a reply to the question, and I moved to grab my cock with both hands this time. I wasn’t going to admit defeat until I’d wrung myself dry.

That was when the water shut off. And a blast of cold air whipped me in the face as a vent cycled on above me.

Damn it all to hell.

Practically sprinting back to my bunk, after trying to towel off the remaining evidence of my play time and leaving behind a thoroughly defiled shower stall, is not an experience I would like to repeat. I really, desperately hoped that a droid would be the one to clean up that mess, and not a slave.

And I hoped that my deodorant covered the smell of my cum adequately enough that nobody else would notice it. Actually, fuck that, I’d take another shower in the morning. I set my alarm earlier than normal so that I’d have time. Normally I showered after all the fighting and sweating of the day was done, but I’d just have to take two showers tomorrow.

I buried my face in a pillow and squirmed with embarrassment. Sweet, ever loving mercy…I really hoped that no one had heard me. Or saw me walking back to the dormitory. Or saw the shower stall after I had vacated it.

Just…don’t think about it.

My poor dick was still achingly hard when I fell into a fitful sleep.

Chapter Text

I kicked my feet a bit while I waited outside the inordinately large barracks of Kaas City West. You could probably fit ten thousand people inside just the barracks, and that wasn't saying anything about the massive airfield just outside the city walls, or the armory full of war machines. In any case, today was the day that Vette completed the basic course, receiving the rank of private in the Imperial Navy. Or was it the Army? I actually had no idea.

The debris from the Dominator hadn't damaged the spaceport or the garrison adjoining the city limits. Thankfully, and perhaps also tragically, the devastation had been contained to several residential districts and the jungle to the west. Far from the Sith Sanctum, and far from the garrison, where Vette had been training.

Darth Baras hadn't actually told me about any kind of graduation ceremony, so it was apparently not something that was given a lot of pomp and circumstance. Even so, I was looking forward to having my plucky Twi'lek sidekick back, after two weeks of flying solo.

Did Vette count as a friend? We had really only spoken a few times, eaten at a few restaurants...but we'd also fought together twice, and she had decided to stick around against what was probably her own better judgment, so that cemented her as one of the good ones in my books.

I had obviously arrived too early, since I had been standing at the gates of the barracks for nearly fifteen minutes and I had yet to see anyone leave. Thankfully the near-perpetual rains of Dromund Kaas seemed to have dried up for the moment, otherwise I would have seriously considered going back to the Sanctum and letting Vette find her way back by herself.

When the barracks gates did open, a rather disorganized mob of fresh graduates poured out into the city, all looking excited and relieved, if a bit tired. Remarkably, I was able to track every face in the crowd as they passed me, giving my armored bulk a wide berth, and it wasn't long before I saw Vette in uniform, carrying a rucksack over one shoulder.

She looked good. Her cyan skin had a healthier, darker flush to it, and there was some more meat on her bones, in contrast to the waif-like girl that I had received on Korriban. I saw hints of real muscle under that uniform, and she moved with a kind of athletic grace that had been absent before. Not that she had been entirely out of shape...just ill-used.

She approached where I stood and a few of the other graduates seemed to stop and stare at our awkward reunion. I flashed a grin and rubbed the back of my neck. "You made it."

"You got a haircut," Vette returned with a grin. "I had wondered if that was just a Human thing."

"No, no...I was just neglecting it," I replied, running hand over the top of my hair.

Sith had black, thick hair as a rule, and male Sith had notoriously coarse hair. Because my hair was more akin to male than female, Ffia had taken clippers to the sides but had used scissors to trim the rest, leaving it long enough that it would fall down to mid-neck but not long enough that it would impede the seal of any hard-suit. She had indicated that I could let my hair down and relax without looking terrible. But, when in combat or trying for a more put-together impression, I could tie my hair back into a loose knot using an elastic band, which would allow my helmet to sit comfortably and keep my hair out of my face in combat.

It was apparently a popular style for Sith who often needed to wear helmets, since it allowed them to have longer hair that could be styled in other ways while still being practical, and buns were usually not possible due to the stiffness of the species’ hair, so a loose knot was preferred.

It was perfect for my situation, even if it entailed me having to learn how to use a hair tie. However, it certainly did give me a martial appearance. Which was a vast improvement over the homeless-woman impression I’d been unintentionally going for. I considered the military style to be Ffia’s little joke, since she hadn’t seemed terribly intimidated by me in the first place. But I didn’t thank her for making my already fearsome features more belligerent. If I could, I would have let my hair down.

But, I had no reason to expect Kaas City to be particularly safe, so I kept my weapons and helmet attached to my belt, and my hair in the knot. Just in case. "So. I owe you a few nice meals, yeah?"

"Yeah, but I'll have to get back to you about that," Vette sighed. She patted her belly with both hands. "I feel like I've eaten enough to feed an army in the last two weeks."

"You should try to keep the weight. The reason they had you bulk up was to give you an edge in combat," I pointed out. "We should also continue the exercises as well. So far, Darth Baras has had me exhausting myself with my lightsaber instructor and difficult missions, and I’m sure they woke you before dawn to begin physical training, but there will come a time when we won't have people looking over our shoulders, either drill instructors or masters."

"Yeah, yeah, but when that happens I’ll be taking a nap or three," Vette waved a hand in irritation. "What exactly have you been up to?"

"This and that," I shrugged. "There was a bit of a rebellion, which Baras sent me to quell. Then I had to explore a dangerous ruin full of angry ghosts. I barely avoided decapitation and killed a Sith Lord."

Vette carefully closed her mouth and seemed to be at a loss for words. Which suited me fine, since I was getting a sudden call. Lifting my wrist, I answered and straightened when Darth Baras' blue hologram shimmered into view.

"Apprentice," he greeted me. "Have you collected your slave yet? There's work to be done."

"I thought I had some time today, with Tranch being on assignment."

"Things change," Darth Baras replied shortly. "Return to the Sanctum and bring the Twi'lek. You might as well put her new skills to use, and she will want to hear the details of this task in that case."

Without so much as a farewell, the Sith Lord hung up. I lowered my arm and shrugged at Vette. "Best not to keep him waiting I guess...we'll get some food after this."

For an indecipherable reason, Vette seemed rather relieved. "Lead on, Master."

I raised an eyebrow at the address. "I thought you only called me that when you were angry?"

"Who says I'm not angry?" she asked with a small, exaggerated huff.

I snorted, deciding to let the matter drop. I mean, I knew she wasn’t angry because I didn’t sense anger…but maybe they’d trained her to obscure her emotions from Force Sensitives? No…that was unlikely to be a part of basic training.

There were other things to consider while we walked, and if she wasn't feeling talkative then that was just as well. The only mission left on Dromund Kaas from what I remembered in the game involved the Grathan estate. So far the timeline for the Sith Warrior class story had progressed pretty much the same way as the game, except that there wasn’t an easy way to tell how many days things were supposed to taken if they were going to be the same as ‘canon.’ Minor events seemed not to follow the exact order, but they still occurred eventually.

It seemed that the other class stories may or may not be happening concurrently, and if they were, it would be impossible to tell exactly when those important events would take place. For example, I had heard no mention of Darth Zash while on Korriban. Did that mean she didn’t exist, or had Kallig become her apprentice before my arrival and therefore she was no longer present? Or was Kallig an acolyte there now, and Zash simply hadn’t arrived on Korriban before my departure as Baras’ apprentice? After all, the new term would be beginning soon and it was possible Zash hadn’t felt the need to be on Korriban until the fresh acolytes had arrived.

I had no idea what the situation was…and couldn’t risk looking for the information, specifically. It was frustrating. Imperial news outlets hadn’t mentioned anything that I could tie specifically to any one of the class stories from the game, so it had been pretty pointless to spend time combing through publications and snippets from the news broadcasts.

I hadn't done anything yet to affect the course of history, and so far the only sign about other significant events had been the destruction of the Dominator. I figured the Grathan debacle was probably the next story point in my own plot, and after that I would finally be free from Baras' immediate vicinity, sent to either Nar Shaddaa or Balmorra.

The trouble was that I didn't remember the Grathan quest very well. There was something about a spy, one of Baras' intelligence network, who was in deep cover. He had a report and couldn't deliver it. But, I couldn't remember what he had to say, exactly. I remembered somebody had a funny quip and that the agent would betray us, claiming that it was meant to keep his cover intact. Baras hadn’t seemed to care that an apprentice had been killed, in the game.

Okay, so I actually remembered a lot, but was any of that going to be useful?

Vette didn't have a snarky comment about the Sith Sanctum for me when we passed under the long shadows of Lords from ages past. I sensed her profound discomfort as we ventured deeper into the dim red light and the quiet humming of the powerful planetary generators under our feet. It seemed it was in the nature of the Sith to set up their sanctums near to large, lethal generator shafts. Go figure.

Darth Baras was pacing in his office when I arrived. "Good, you're finally here. I've received important news."

"What is it, Master?"

"There is a local Lord, named Grathan, who has a claim on a district of Dromund Kaas just a few kilometers outside of Kaas City,” began my master, and I concealed a grin of satisfaction. My guess had been correct, then.

Baras continued, “This man is allowed the privilege of such valuable real estate, despite the fact that he has not yet reached the rank of Darth, specifically to spite me. I am the most logical choice for the Lord of that region. His claim was supported by one of my rivals in order to prevent me from assuming control of the territory, and the Dark Council preferred not to consolidate power into my hands. In any event, you see that I have an interest in making sure that Grathan’s stewardship ends in utter humiliation, ideally by provoking him to an open rebellion." He made a fist at the end of his speech, the eyes of his mask boring into me. "One of my agents in Grathan's organization has signaled that he has information that is worth his extraction. I have decided to give you the task of retrieving the agent, or at the very least recovering whatever information he felt was so highly prized, if he cannot be extracted."

"Who is this agent of yours?"

"Another apprentice named Dri'kill Ba'al. He has been a part of Grathan's retinue for two years and has become a trusted member of his honor guard. It is impossible to reach him with any standard communication; Grathan watches his own guard too closely. Over the last two days Grathan's estate has suffered a series of unfortunate accidents, and several teams of Grathan's most trusted lieutenants are conducting investigations, Dri'kill among them. Your task will be to identify his team and stage an ambush."

Well, that was certainly a departure from the game plot. Hadn’t Grathan already been in open rebellion? "You don't have an interest in keeping this apprentice under cover?"

"Are you fearful of this potential competitor, Xanot?”

“Not particularly, but it would probably be easier to leave him in his position than to extract him,” I answered honestly. I didn’t know Dri’kill, but as far as I was concerned the more distracted Baras became, the happier I would be. I was perfectly fine with him spending time monitoring other apprentices and teaching them, instead of micromanaging myself.

“No," Baras replied firmly. "It's been two years already, and I have some doubt as to the man's loyalties. Whether he has learned anything of great importance or not, I want him within my reach or dead. This way I can be absolutely certain of things. And besides that, it is high time that I continue his education, but only if he remains loyal," said my Master, and in those words, I sensed that Dri'kill's future was very likely to be somewhat unpleasant, even if he survived me.

"Have your operatives provided an intelligence report that might help me identify Dri'kill and his men?"

"It's on your 'pad," Baras gestured. "I had it sent five minutes ago. Make whatever preparations you feel necessary. However, if Dri'kill returns to Grathan’s side before you can reach him, you will have to draw him out once again through other means. Do not engage Lord Grathan. I would recommend haste."

"Then, if you'll excuse us, Master..."

"There is one last thing, my Apprentice; it would be extremely unfortunate if I was implicated in any unsanctioned violence here on Dromund Kaas, after the little debacle with the slaves. Be sure not to be recorded by droids or cameras, and don't leave obvious lightsaber damage. If they know that a Sith attacked their patrol, then there are only one or two suspects including myself, but vibroblades or blaster fire could be attributed to countless malcontents. That should be everything you need to know. Do not fail me in this," Baras turned away from us and moved to sit at his desk. I ushered Vette out of the office and pulled out my datapad. The report I had been provided was actually extremely detailed.

"Looks like this Dri'kill character is part of this team here," I said, tracing the path for Vette with a finger. She took the datapad from me and looked at it herself for a moment. "What do you think? They trained you on a rifle, didn't they? You could post up there, on one of the buildings."

I was considering an ambush in what appeared to be a small suburb residential district, a collection of three or four apartment complexes with a winding road between them. The elevation map showed that some of the structures were higher than others, which was good for obscuring a sniper from drones or other sniper scopes.

"Yeah," Vette nodded, worrying her lip in thought. "What are you thinking?"

"I was thinking of putting you on over-watch. I'll hit his team at the bend and nab Dri'kill. You keep pursuers off me as I escape, and then we take separate landspeeders into the jungle. We'll meet up at some random point, trash the extra speeder, and then return to Kaas City together. At the outskirts, ditch the second speeder and swap to a rental. We can dock at Baras’ private airspeeder pad. That way there isn't a direct path from the jungle to the Sanctum," I sketched the outline of a plan and watched as Vette nodded.

"Then let's talk equipment…" I began. I was impressed with the insights Vette provided as we walked to the requisitions station...obviously they had taught her something useful during those two weeks of training.

In the end…my plan didn’t survive even a half hour. Instead of a residential district, I ended up in a bush.

After all the hours of practice with a lightsaber, I hated the way that the vibrosword felt in my hand. I also hated the soft squish of mud under my body and the dripping of rainfall on my helmet. These things were conspiring to put me in a stormy mood, and so I ended up badgering Vette over our comms more often than I had initially intended.

"Are they here yet?" I whined petulantly, shifting my body carefully, and silently. All so that my other half could be smeared in Dromund Kaas' swampy loam. Peachy.

I heard Vette's amusement as she replied. "Not yet, you big baby."

"Dammit."

"Just hang in there, Master. They're returning from their patrol in ten minutes." I wondered why she had started addressing me by that title, but now wasn't the best time to ask about it.

Wait, ten fucking minutes?!

When Vette and I had gone to requisition the equipment, we decided to use for this task, we had been pleasantly surprised by how helpful Baras' personal quartermaster turned out to be. He'd provided Vette with an Imperial QY-21 marksman rifle and a comm sniffer, which she was able to use to snoop on Grathan communications. That was why I was laying on my belly in the underbrush instead of hiding in one of the alleys in the residential district, like we had originally planned. Their comms had betrayed their patrol path, and this was a more ideal location. Less cameras, less collateral.

But nobody had told me that I'd be slowly sinking into the mud for ten minutes.

"How many hostiles are we talking about?" I asked irritably.

"Ten."

Fuck that damn number, man. "That's just great."

"Is that too many?" Vette questioned hesitantly, and I sighed through my nose. Before I could reply she continued. "I mean, I figured you could probably take on three times that many if it really came down to it."

"You sweet talker, you. But I'm not supposed to use my 'saber, or otherwise let on that I'm Sith," I reminded her. "Dri'kill and any other Sith potentially accompanying him are not required to similarly restrict themselves."

"Right," Vette murmured with audible self-recrimination. "We can relocate...use anti-vehicle mines instead of EMP."

"No, we can’t risk Dri’kill getting himself blown up. I’ll have to manage…somehow. Try to shoot one of the fuckers, make it nine on one instead," I cut her off. "Just tell me when they're actually close. I can't see shit through this damn bush."

"Yes, Master."

I wasn't actually that concerned, at least not about surviving. If it became necessary, I would draw my lightsaber and throw Baras' need for secrecy to the dogs, but I would rather not put up with him being all testy and irritable about it after we returned. I set my jaw and sunk a bit further into the mud.

Fuck this planet, seriously. I know, I’ve said it before. And I’ll say it again.

According to comm chatter, Dri’kill’s patrol was supposed to move past this location on speeders, which was why I had set a field of proximity EMP charges in their path. Vette was on a nearby cliff with her rifle. All the advantages were on our side, except of course for the fact that the Sith among them would sense the danger before the mines triggered. That was why I was confident that Dri'kill would survive the minefield, but I was hoping a few of his men wouldn't, even if he managed to warn them.

I did, in fact, have to wait about ten minutes for the gradually loudening sound of their speeder bikes reached my ear over the din of the rainfall.

"Here they come."

"I hear them."

"Contact in fifteen seconds....ten seconds..."

Vette counted down for my benefit, since I was completely obscured under a massive, wide-leafed bush. I didn't stop her, even though I could sense our enemies in their approach with almost as much accuracy as her spotting.

"Three....two..."

There was a shout and then a series of explosions. Vette's voice faded to the background as I burst up from the mud, emerging from the brush like some kind of armored Bigfoot nightmare just in time to watch three speeders spiral out of control and smash into the dirt nose first, crushing their riders and digging three long, parallel furrows in the black mud. Then one of the bikes exploded against a gnarled root, throwing ignited fuel across the jungle in long sheets.

Three blaster shots zinged down from Vette's position, dropping two of their more reactive members. Both of them had spotted me approaching and had taken aim, but they hadn't gotten a shot off. Vette’s third shot missed, barely, alerting the target, but I was so impressed by her opening volley I didn’t have time to complain. I sensed that Vette was repositioning on the ridge when Dri'kill ignited his lightsaber and drew himself to his feet, his soaked black robes clinging to his body like a living thing.

It was just him and three soldiers remaining. He was the only Sith in the group, thank all the gods of this twisted world. I was tempted to inform him that Baras had sent me, but I didn't want to do that until I could be sure they weren't recording or transmitting audio. I jumped forward, landing within striking distance and aiming a downward slash at the soldier who had survived Vette’s sniper fire. I botched the cut and jarred my arms, the blade biting at the neck and cutting to the center of the chest, carving through bones and armor before wrenching to a halt. Instead of a straight cut, which would have easily passed through his entire body and left my weapon free, there was a curve to the bloody path that my weapon carved.

Vibroswords needed to be aligned properly on the swing...I was too used to lightsabers.

Dri'kill's lip was drawn back in a snarl, and he lunged towards me with his lightsaber extended in a thrust. He aimed to catch me while my weapon was still stuck in the meat of his soldier’s chest.

I yanked my weapon sideways, tearing it from his man with pure brute strength. Blood splattered in a gruesome fountain directly into Dri’kill’s face, and I knocked Dri’kill’s attack out of its line with ease, but of course he hadn’t expected me to be capable of retrieving my blade.

A moment passed as I jumped back, out of measure, and Vette killed the other two soldiers as they tried to circle around my back. Dri’kill swept a hand over his face and shook the blood off, with the rain making red streaks of the rest.

It was just me and Dri'kill now...but he was wearing a visor, so I still didn't speak. Instead, I fought desperately to keep up with his lightsaber as my vibrosword grew increasingly damaged by the tremendous heat of his blade.

Dri'kill was not a poor swordsman, and he was going for the kill. There was no taunting, no playing games. I saw his eyes flicking to the ridge and knew he suspected that more ambushers were coming. His desperation was making him more dangerous.

I blocked again, kicking away from him to adjust my grip.

The edge of my sword was warped by the heat, and the vibrations that give the vibrosword its name had actually caused it to crack as one edge expanded and the other remained cool. I couldn’t keep this up for a long duel.

But Dri'kill was not Tranch. Not even close. When we reengaged, I leaned into Shien rather than Soresu and caught him by surprise.

He struck out, backpedaling, and I blocked it, turning my wrist under the length of plasma and thrusting in a counter while maintaining contact. This was only possible while his lightsaber was touching my blade because I was using a vibrosword and not a ‘saber; lightsabers tend to stick to each other in a way that prevents the plasma blades from sliding along each other, an effect known as binding.

He lifted his blade away and swept it between us, hoping to catch my wrist. I aborted my thrust, turning it into a feint and slash. His weapon went wide, then I stepped into his personal space, away from the lethal blade, and threw an elbow directly into his skull.

The trusty elbow to the skull was becoming something of a favorite of mine. It took me quite close to my opponent, which wasn’t always a good thing, but due to my strength and size I generally had a good time if I could get my hands on someone. A couple times I managed to score a draw with Tranch by throwing him over my shoulder in grapple.

My armored limb shattered Dri’kill’s visor and threw the guy sideways. I kicked him deftly in the ribs as he staggered, then followed after him as he slashed blindly to delay my advance. I twirled my ruined vibrosword, the heated satisfaction of victory curling in my belly. There was blood pouring into Dri’kill’s eyes from a nasty cut on his brow, but he still had his lightsaber. Still dangerous. After a step, he had calmed himself and now swung at me tightly, barely hindered at all by lack of clear vision.

I let his panic and anger drive him to wilder attacks, let him straighten up slightly and set his feet on the slick grass. I blocked one strike, felt him shift his weight to the other side, and as his weapon flashed and left a trail of steam in its wake, cutting through the falling rain, I simply ducked under the next predictable strike, which had been aimed at my neck, and caught his wrist as his arm passed overhead.

He turned his wrist deftly to cut my waist, which was the right response if someone takes hold of the sword wrist. I was forced to twist my whole body to the outside of his arm to avoid the blade, putting me off balance but exposing his elbow. His next move should have been to throw his shoulder into my chest, but he was too focused on his blade. He didn’t have an angle to swipe at me. The wrist could only extend so far along that line.

I slid a foot backwards to steady myself. Now, it was too late for him to unbalance me, and I was heavier than he was in any case.

He wasn't wearing armor, and even as he twisted his arm and sought to cut me again, the lightsaber's edge coming dreadfully near to my right shoulder, I managed to strike at his elbow with my left palm, overextending his sword arm and forcing him down to a knee to avoid having it broken. His shoulder twisted and his chest bent forward. I yanked his wrist fiercely, finally shoving his lightsaber away from my body by using his arm as a lever against the fulcrum of my palm, then I threw my head forward in a vicious blow that put the side of his skull against the hardened material of my helm.

I dropped his arm, and Dri'kill fell flat on his face in the mud, stunned. I crushed his hand under my boot, feeling the bones crunch even as the wet soil swallowed his weapon. Dri’kill didn’t have the breath to scream, but he convulsed in visceral agony. I threw my vibrosword away, bending down and prying his muddied lightsaber from his broken hand. Then I rolled him onto his back and hauled him up by the lapels of his black robes, holding him with one arm as I touched my helm with my free hand, activating comms.

"Is he transmitting audio or video?" I asked Vette, panting for breath and grinning like an idiot. I had a problem…and that problem was that I really, really enjoyed fighting.

"No."

I touched a second spot on the side of my helm to let my voice project outside my armor. "Dri'kill, Darth Baras sent me. You're being extracted."

The man was grasping my wrist with both of his own, but he was weakened by what was no doubt a concussion and a sprained elbow. He paused, blinking the blood from his eye and peering at my featureless mask.

"Kriffing hell, Baras couldn’t have just sent a karking message?!" he groaned, letting his arms drop. "Take me, then, whoever you are. Even if you're lying, you've shown that I can't kill you."

"I'd rather if you didn't stab me in the back as I carry you out of this carnage. You've got backup coming, right?"

He just glared at me stonily. I sighed, giving a small shake of my head. Then I head-butted him again. He crumpled to the dirt like a ragdoll.

"I'm not sorry," I said to his unconscious form, bending down to throw him over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. "Vette, get out of here. We're going to have company shortly."

"I know. They're two minutes out."

I turned towards the ridge in exasperation. "You couldn't have warned me?"

"You were a bit busy, Master," she replied cheekily. "I see you've got the target."

I had a moment to realize that she was looking at me through the scope of a rifle. That’s an odd feeling. "Yeah. I got him."

"Last one back to the Sanctum buys dinner," she challenged, and I sensed her breaking down the rifle and running back towards her speeder with all speed.

"Oh, you bitch," I muttered, heading for my own. But I was carrying Dri'kill, for one thing, and was farther from my ride.

It was possible that he got thrown somewhat roughly into the back of the speeder in my haste. I will neither confirm nor deny it. And, when I carried him as surreptitiously as possible into Baras' section of the Sanctum from his private landing pad, I found Vette waiting for me there, theatrically tapping her foot in faux impatience.

She looked me up and down - my unfortunate ass was absolutely caked in mud and streaks of blood - and hid her lips behind her fingers. I brushed past her with a huff of irritation, and she followed obligingly, at least having the decency to laugh at me in silence.

Baras was waiting with two masked Sith that I figured were Inquisitors. "We observed your successful ambush," Baras began, as I plopped Dri'kill onto the metal stretcher.

I wondered how, exactly, he had observed the ambush. The question must have shown on my face, because Baras laughed. “Your armor, Apprentice. It has a helmet camera, which I, of course, had integrated into my network. It doesn’t transmit data that could be intercepted from the field, but once you return to a location with an integrated console that broadcasts the proper security keys, the armor uploads its footage to the network. Kaas City was near enough, we reviewed the ambush as you flew here from the city’s edge. I assumed you had purchased it with that function for this purpose. I commend your initiative.”

Oh. That explained some things…wait, when, exactly, had he integrated the helmet cam with his network? And why hadn’t that little feature been mentioned by the merchant? Given the way that he phrased this observation, it was obvious I was expected to continue allowing this observation of my activities. What a mess.

My helmet could still undergo an…accident. Eventually. But how to make that convincing? Well, it was a problem for later.

The Inquisitors stripped Dri’kill of his outer robes and injected him with something clear from a syringe. Then they strapped him to the stretcher and shuffled away with the unconscious man floating between them. I wondered about that...if he was actually Baras' apprentice, then why put restraints on him? "Several other coordinated ambushes will take place soon to obscure the fact that Dri'kill was the target. You can clean yourself up, Apprentice. I will debrief you in the morning."

I sketched a sarcastic bow. "I live to serve."

When he was gone, wandering off in the same direction as his inquisitors, I turned to Vette and offered a hand for a high-five. She stared at it blankly.

"You slap it," I explained.

"Why?"

"It's a congratulatory thing," I sighed, and she somewhat reluctantly clapped her palm against the armored gauntlet I wore. "Good job today."

"Thanks...seemed pretty easy, all told."

"Definitely easier than some of the other things Baras has had me doing, even if Dri'kill almost clipped me with his 'saber at the end of that fight. I've got to shower and clean my armor. Do you think you'll be hungry by the time I'm done?"

Vette laughed. "I think we both need a shower, if only to get the jungle off us."

I nodded. "I'll show you where they are. All the stalls are in one place...but they have partitions. I'm not sure the Sith really care to have gendered washrooms."

She gave me another strange look. "Most places don't, Xanot."

Right...I should have known that by now. There were too many species to really give a toss about gender when it came to public facilities, even in a human-centric nation like the Empire. In fact, it was a marvel that there was even an available toilet that was suitable for most species.

"Whatever," I muttered, marching towards the dormitories with determination. Vette let the subject drop, thankfully.

This time, I kept my shower short and to the point. Even though beating the shit out of Dri’kill had been a bit exciting…Vette was showering like ten meters away and would definitely hear me whacking off. Not to mention the stupid fifteen-minute limit on the showers. I was convinced that existed just to be irritating…it wasn’t like there was usually a long line of people trying to shower around here.

Besides all that, I owed Vette dinner, and was honestly pretty hungry myself.

Chapter Text

After my shower, I'd washed the blood and the mud from my armor with the remaining time of my allotted fifteen minutes. Then, I returned to my footlocker in the dorm with a specially-ordered towel wrapped warmly around my body. There hadn't been any towel large enough for the same task in the general supply, so I'd caved in the first week and bought my own. Walking around with my tits hanging out was better than flashing the whole Sanctum my cock and balls, but it hadn't actually been very fun. Most people in this place hadn’t given me even a second glance.

I once saw a guy walk through covered completely in blood and chunks of gore, so someone half-naked was hardly the most astonishing thing that a Sith might see in the Sanctum.

The larger towel was also nice and warm, poofy, and generally luxurious. It was one of the few nice things I could consistently look forward to in this place.

I had shown Vette the lockers, and she chose the space beside mine to stow her rifle and bandoleer of explosives as well as her armor and whatever other gadgets she'd been equipped with at the requisitions officer. I hadn't paid terribly close attention to her choice in armament.

She was here now, looking perfectly dry, and dressed in what appeared to be an Imperial military uniform, except without any of the colored patterns indicating rank. I figured that privates in the Navy - or the Army? - just didn't merit any colors. The fabric of her uniform was dark gray, with neat seams and pressed, long sleeves. The trousers were tight, made of a stretchy gray fabric, and the outside seam of each leg had a silver color to it. Vette glanced up as I approached and blinked at the sight of me wrapped up in a fluffy towel.

"We can get you some casual clothes," I remarked as I opened my locker. I then sighed as articles of clothing tumbled out onto the floor. I'd forgotten about my absolute lack of organization. I kicked the items back into the locker in a haphazard pile before I trawled through it to find my new underwear.

After my previous pathetic attempt at passing for your average Sith citizen for my haircut, I had actually procured some proper civilian clothes. The Star Wars equivalent of an online marketplace was HoloNet catalogs. I had never been much of a shopper, though, so I had simply picked out three or four outfits from the most popular stores and bought them. They were supposedly in my approximate size.

Baras was evidently being generous with his stipend, judging by the price of civilian commodities. I was able to have these outfits delivered without putting any appreciable dent in my funds.

Figuring out my sizes using the various metrics listed by vendors on their catalogs was an adventure in units of measurement, and I will say that, by the end of it all, I never wanted to think about mathematics or tape measures ever again.

As someone who hadn't, previously, ever purchased a bra, I can attest to the fact that it isn't exactly straightforward to find comfortable underwear, especially on Dromund Kaas. I had eventually just chosen five different bras that were supposedly in my size - the classifications used for bust size were specific to each manufacturer and I couldn't be bothered to decipher each of these systems beyond a superficial level - but I hadn't exactly had a lot of time to try them out in the last week. Most of the time I was wearing the super cheap chest binds for lightsaber practice, designed to be discarded after use, or my armor’s under-suit, which didn’t require a bra because it provided enough support on its own when combined with the rigid breastplate.

I picked one of the bras that had been advertised as the most comfortable "for the discerning Sith lady" and a pair of what amounted to futuristic boxer briefs.

They had advertised all sorts of underwear for various occasions. Need to go running? There’s a bra for that. Boxing? Bra for that. Seduction? Definitely a bra for that, in fact there’s easily a thousand various intimate apparel options. Oh, so you’re Sith and not Human? Well, here’s a whole separate catalog with additional measurements of the crest that might be at your sternum.

I didn’t have such a crest, myself, though there were two subtle v-shaped ridges pointing to my cleavage from the hollow of my neck, extending to my collarbone in the larger case. They were barely visible, and hardly an impediment to bra-wearing.

I didn’t even want to think about how many different designs there were for all the other species. I didn’t figure that I needed a bra specifically for running or for fighting, because my armor did the job just fine. Besides that, I hadn’t noticed any discomfort from lack of support so I wasn’t even sure what I would gain from wearing a bra in the first place.

Now, I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination. But it’s safe to say that Star Wars underwear manufacturers obviously don't use the same kind of design as any bra I had ever seen before. Nor did they use familiar measurements. Gone was the simplicity of band size and cup size. The HoloNet had indicated I needed to know shoulder width, breast root width and height, chest circumference, abdomen length, distance from shoulder to under-boob…and more!

My thought at the time had been: how the hell am I supposed to get these measurements when all I have to work with is a meter-long measuring tape from the requisitions officer?! They might as well just request I take a mold of my upper torso in wax and have it mailed to them for fuck’s sake.

Now, I could obviously have gone to an actual clothing store and had them take these measurements with their advanced sensors, which would have taken probably less than ten minutes. But that involved going out into Kaas City, and I hadn’t been feeling up to that much hassle lately.

So, after prolonged pain and suffering, I had finally ordered the damn articles of clothing. The measurements were as accurate as I could be bothered to make them, although I was forced to guess concerning the modulus of elasticity of my tit flesh. Now came the process of trying to equip the bra and it did not seem straightforward.

How hard could it be, you might ask? It’s just underwear. Well, funny thing, this isn’t fucking Chicago. They don’t use eye and hook in this galaxy, or any other discernible form of fastener. Neither did it have shoulder straps, so how was it supposed to stay where it is meant to be? I couldn’t pull it over my head, the whole point was that the chest band was smaller in circumference than my badonkahonkers.

Why did this have to be so difficult?

Could I go without it? The acolyte’s robes hadn’t offered much in the way of underwear, and I’d been fine.

I inspected the fabric of the shirt I had purchased and decided the answer was no. My nipples would make clear unmistakable impressions on the thin shirt, and that was probably not acceptable in polite company.

I glanced at Vette. She probably wore a bra. Could I stomach the humiliation of asking her to help me? I pursed my lips in thought.

No. No, I could not. I am a grown-ass man, not to mention supposedly a grown-ass Sith.

I clenched my fists around the underwear in my hands, closed my eyes, and counted to five. Don’t tear it into shreds.

I tugged at the band, and it tore into two pieces. At first, I thought I’d destroyed it and nearly started to curse explosively, but when I held up one of the ends, I noticed that it had long tendrils which were still reaching for the other part. When I moved the ends close together, they wound themselves back together into a whole piece of seamless fabric.

Wild. But if it would come apart that easily, then how was it going to stay on?

Eager to get this over with, I held the cups to my tits with one hand and reached around my back with the other hand. Floundered aimlessly for a second…aha! There!

The garment tugged slightly, lifting my breasts, and then tightened at the back. I dropped my hands and wiggled my torso back and forth…it stayed put. Great.

It actually wasn’t terribly uncomfortable, though it didn’t prevent jiggle nearly as much as my armor. That was an impossible standard, since the armor was, in fact, completely rigid.

With my ordeal completed, I slipped into the boxer briefs and hung my towel on the open door of my locker.

As I’ve observed before, the Sith Sanctum doesn't prioritize privacy, and I had gotten used to changing in front of my locker regardless of the hustle and bustle. Vette was still politely looking away, but I was clearly taking longer than most people would. When she glanced back at me, she seemed to jump in surprise. "Oh!"

"What?" I asked, pulling out a pair of trousers and casual boots to go with the shirt I had chosen. I pushed my wet hair out of my face and blinked at her.

"I thought you'd already be dressed," she said, with her back towards me once more.

"It's fine, just being indecisive," I shrugged, before putting one leg into the trousers and wiggling my way into them. It wasn't like anybody actually cared to look at me in my underwear apart from myself. Unless…

I reached out in the Force and sensed intense concentration on pazaak cards. Cheeky little thing. I shook my head bemusedly. So they had taught her something about Force sense in her training. Unless she knew that trick from somewhere else?

I focused on my own problems. Like my pants.

For some reason nobody made pants in this universe that had a loose fit. The waist got stuck under my ass and took a bit of persuasion to get over it. Eventually, I was able to zip them up - it seemed the zipper was a universal constant - but as I raised a leg and looked down at myself, I realized that the cut of these trousers wasn't exactly...modest. At the groin. "Well, shit."

I heard Vette giggle and snapped my head up, but she was still studiously looking at the wall. I narrowed my eyes at her, before shucking the trousers and resolving to return them to the vendor. I briefly considered two other sets, but those had been in the same size. I had just given my waist measurement, but it seemed that there was a bit too much going on considering my ass and the precious cargo, both of which were not insignificantly sized.

That left me with two different skirts. Or 'lower robes' as they were called. But they were clearly skirts, and the part of me that had been born a man in another life wasn't about to let me forget it. One was made of the thicker material common for Jedi robes and the other was a more casual fabric. I chose the second, because I was trying not to look like I was a Sith Apprentice going out for dinner.

The skirt had been advertised as 'long,' but once I had it on, it really only fell to just below my knees, which left my frankly ridiculous calves visible to the world. At least it didn't look like I was smuggling a contraband rocket in my pants, at least not while I was standing up. I tugged on my casual boots, which were made of a black, shiny material that hugged my ankles and lower leg.

I was a boring guy when it came to fashion...the tops I had chosen were all very simple. Good quality, of course, but there wasn't much going on in terms of patterns or design. They were expensive, soft, and comfortable. The one I chose was just a V-neck t-shirt which didn't show but the barest hint of cleavage, and I paired it with a simple maroon shawl partly because I wasn't exactly comfortable showing off my tits to the world even though the neckline would probably be considered modest. I also liked the silver edges of the shawl, and it would help to keep me warm on Dromund Kaas when night fell.

"I'm dressed, now," I informed in a bland voice after a moment of looking down at myself. I felt a little self-conscious about the boob jiggle I could still discern.

But it was something of a return to form if I was being honest, considering the acolyte’s robes I’d mentioned. I hadn't given it much thought then. To be fair, I had been somewhat busy trying to survive Korriban’s special charms, and I had switched to armor pretty early on.

Vette looked at me and clapped her hands delightedly. "Oh, that's a cute top. I love the shawl."

"Do I look like a Sith Lord?" I asked, hopefully. I tied my hair back in its loose knot and held out my arms to display myself. I'd gone out of my way to avoid military styles. Even my boots were refined and utterly civilian. They didn't even have steel toes!

Vette wiggled a hand in a 'sorta' gesture, and I sighed despondently, dropping my arms. "It's hopeless, isn't it?"

"It's not about the clothes, really," Vette rushed to explain. She continued more slowly, voice raising slightly almost in question. "It's, um, more about the rest of you?"

I ran my fingers over my hair and tried to figure out what she meant. "You mean the scars?" I guessed. I only had a few on my arms and one on the side of my jaw, from what I could remember offhand. And the jaw scar was not very large at all, just a thin pink line about half a centimeter long. Most of the really egregious scars were on my back or sides...I wondered what this body had gotten up to prior to Korriban. Couldn't have been fun.

Or, more probably, it had been a lot of fun according to my new standards. Combat and bloodshed were actually quite enjoyable, just as long as I wasn’t on the brink of a horrible death.

"No!" she squeaked hurriedly.

"Oh," I shook my head and gave up on any further hair adjustments. There was a loose strand of hair falling down the side of my face, but whatever. The only other thing I could think of was... "What is it, then? Too many muscles?"

I flexed ironically, without putting much effort in it.

Vette was waving her hands in that flustered, embarrassed way she does. "It's not the way you look! I think it's the posture and attitude. You just seem like you're in charge, you know? Or maybe it's that you seem like you should be in charge..."

I cocked my head slightly. Well...what the hell was I supposed to do about that? I shook my head after a moment and moved on. The last item of clothing was a simple sash that complemented the skirt color, and it would conceal my lightsaber from curious eyes. That was its entire purpose. I had even bought one with a pocket for weapons, though I think they intended it to hide a blaster, not a ‘saber. "Are you sure you're alright in your dress uniform? We can stop and pick out some other clothes for you on the way."

"I'm famished," she replied hurriedly. "Let's eat first. Besides, I can get some stuff on catalog later."

"It occurs to me that you made a bet to cover dinner, but you don't actually have any money," I mused as I stowed my lightsaber in its place and closed my locker. It locked audibly.

Vette laughed. "There was no way you were going to beat me in a race on a speeder," she declared, walking ahead of me and tossing a lekku over her shoulder in a patented expression of superiority.

"Oh, yeah?" I grumbled. Okay, so maybe I wasn't the best speeder pilot. It wasn't anything like driving a car.

For exactly that reason, I let Vette pilot our borrowed speeder into Kaas City proper. I had chosen another classic Sith restaurant, at least according to the local reviews, and Vette parked us close enough that we didn't get very wet in the walk, even though it was drizzling as usual.

When I entered the venue and took in the soothing light, the rich red carpeting, the wide-open windows, and the tasteful floral arrangements on the tables, I was struck by the distinct impression that this was either used for high-class business lunches or date night. In either case, the seductive vibes were strong.

Vette followed after me, giving a curious look at the decor.

"My Lord, how may I serve you?" the maitre d' asked from behind her little podium. She was a cute human girl, a blonde, and wore a small black dress that took a dive at the neckline. The look that she gave Vette was decidedly less cute than her attire.

I realized that she'd addressed me as 'Lord' only a moment later and scowled darkly, averting my eyes from her very nice...dress. Definitely the dress.

"Two," I grunted, folding my arms over my chest as Vette giggled a step behind me.

"I told you," she said, only bothering to stifle her laugh when I glared at her. "Oh, come on. What's the big deal, anyway?"

"Right this way, please," the woman chirped, gesturing for us to follow as she walked between the tables. She led us to a booth beside a large window that overlooked the city proper, outside the arcology. It was a pretty dazzling view, to be honest.

Eating at restaurants like this in the Star Wars universe would probably never feel anything other than surreal. "I'd like to be able to have a haircut or go out to eat without people groveling. Or worse, cowering," I said in answer to Vette's question, once the maitre d' was gone.

"Ah," she mused. "Well, you could just let me do most of the talking. They won't grovel for a slave."

I wrinkled my nose. "It would seem pretentious to let someone else speak for me, wouldn't it? Besides, you aren't a slave."

She gave me a complicated look. "I appreciate the sentiment, Xanot...but Baras calls me your slave, and he's your Master. I'm not sure you really get to decide my status in the Empire."

"Well, if you are a slave then you're my slave, not his, and I'd rather not consider you as such, or have you call me 'Master,’" I insisted, taking a sip of my water and scowling down at the table. Fucking Baras. When I looked back, Vette was seemingly hiding behind her glass. "You graduated from basic training, that makes you a soldier. I'll treat you with the same respect as anyone else under my command. What branch of the military did they put you in, anyway?"

"They didn't."

"What?" I blinked in astonishment. "How could they graduate you without rank?"

"They didn't graduate me," Vette repeated before she sighed. "That's the thing you don't understand, Xanot. Baras organized the basic training, and I participated as a part of the 818th infantry regiment, but I wasn't officially a trainee. They didn't give me any military rank. They named me a 'member of Lord Xanot's retinue.' I am not a part of the Sith Military...well, I suppose technically you hold military rank and I report to you. Basically, military officers aren’t a part of my chain of command."

"That's pretty shitty," I murmured. "You worked as hard as the rest of them. Probably harder!"

Vette shrugged. "I prefer it this way."

My jaw dropped for a moment. "What? Why?"

"Because," she said, as if explaining something to a child, "Without Imperial rank I don't have to answer to admirals or Moffs or anybody else in the Imperial command structure. My chain of command starts and ends with you. And I guess Darth Baras and the Dark Council or whatever, but they aren't going to stick their noses in my business. At least I hope they don't. What use could they have for someone like me?"

"Oh." I was about to say more, but we were interrupted by a droid which came to take our orders. I chose a meat dish...as usual. I was almost envious of Vette's ability to order a variety of foods, which she did by starting off with an expensively dressed salad.

Once my food arrived, however, the rich flavors of gravy and meat drove away all lingering envy of omnivores.

"Does that mean I have to come up with some kind of payroll?" I joked after a time. Vette rolled her eyes. More seriously, I continued, "Well, just keep me in the loop as my retinue gets bigger. Whatever role you want to fill, I'll try to make it possible for you. As long as it's within your capabilities."

"Thanks, I guess," Vette offered. "Are you planning to take on more people?"

"Yeah, eventually," I replied, thinking of Quinn and Jaisa and Pierce. If my future followed similar lines as the game, then I'd meet them eventually. I also wasn't planning to be satisfied with a tiny little Sith Interceptor, either. It'd be pretty cool to have command of a star destroyer. And I think having a ship with a real shower would be a necessity, and I doubted the Sith Interceptor had the water for that.

"Who are you thinking of recruiting? A masseuse?" Vette laughed, but there was an odd tone to her voice. I tilted my head and set my fork down as I thought about it.

"Well, a medic of some description probably would be useful, though not a physical therapist precisely. I'll have an apprentice of my own, eventually. Maybe a domestic droid," I counted off the possibilities on my fingers, "and a pilot. After that it depends on the kind of ship we end up flying. How much room we have aboard, I mean. And what needs to get done."

Vette seemed to settle herself, chewing thoughtfully for a moment. "That's...practical of you."

"What were you expecting?" I chuckled. A thought occurred to me, "Or were you serious about the masseuse?"

Vette looked a bit violet in the cheeks. "Just...sometimes people who get a taste of power end up indulging themselves. You know?"

"Ah-h-h, that kind of masseuse," I nodded understandingly. A mischievous grin found its way to my face. "I doubt there’s any place for that kind of occupation on a warship! But, if you only ask, I could always take you to a spa sometime. We could probably afford a happy ending, considering the amount of money Darth Baras pays..."

"What?!" Vette exclaimed, her blush deepening. "No, I wasn't saying that I..."

"It's okay, Vette, we can be honest with each other, can't we?" I interrupted her teasingly, leaning forward with a small grin.

"Xanot!" Vette exclaimed, "I was honestly curious. You know...whether you'd buy any more slaves?"

I let the humor fade as I chewed quietly. ”I don't have any plans to buy slaves," I eventually answered honestly. "I find the idea of buying slaves for sex repulsive, and I think it is more humane and probably safer to have droids performing domestic work or manual labor. They're at least programmed to enjoy it, and to be loyal."

"I see. It's just that...other Sith seem to have slaves for a lot of different things," Vette observed.

"Yes," I agreed. "They do it because they enjoy dominating others, and it makes a statement to have slaves instead of droids. Some of them might argue that slaves are more secure, since they can't be sliced and turned against you, and their memory banks can't be removed and stolen. But regular memory wipes and proper security measures seem sufficient to me for droids, and people can technically be sliced just as well by certain cybernetic implants, if your enemies are determined enough."

"Wow, that's, um, highly concerning," Vette wrinkled her nose. She pushed her food around on her plate for a moment.

"If I had such a propensity for domination, you'd certainly have experienced it by now," I eventually said to her with a half-smile. Vette seemed a bit flustered by this, and I winced. I had intended it to be reassuring but wasn't sure that was how the remark had landed. I cleared my throat and tried to brush past it. "I find that I prefer friendship to coercion."

We looked at each other for a long moment, and eventually Vette broke our gaze. She cleared her throat tightly. "Is that...what you want, then? To be friends?"

My mind helpfully flashed the fantasy of this girl on her knees for me, which it had conjured the day before, and I flushed.

"It takes two to tango," I replied a moment later, to her utter befuddlement. I sighed. "It's a type of dance...just forget it. The point is that friendship is a two-way street, does that make more sense? I wouldn't want to assume that you have any desire to be friends with...someone like me. I guess it'd be possible to keep a sort of professional arrangement instead, if that’s really what you’d prefer."

Vette was just looking at me for a long time. Long enough that I was able to awkwardly finish eating my meal and my glass of water. When she she did speak, she was looking at her hands. "It's weird to have someone care what I want.”

I expected her to continue, but she just took some time to eat, herself. I tapped my silverware on the table, mulling over the words that she had offered.

“I do care,” I eventually said. Because I did, honestly. I could have probably made my fantasy a reality with Vette, but I didn’t want to do that to her after all she’d been through. Not that I would have forced it even if she hadn’t gone through some shit in captivity…I’m not that kind of guy. If we were going to have sex, then it would happen because we both wanted it.

It occurred to be that I also hadn’t been the kind of guy that went around killing people, several weeks ago. The realization kind of rattled around my head and left me stunned.

“Thanks. I'm just tempted to go along with whatever you say, just so I don't have to think about it. I did that a lot, in the past,” Vette replied quietly. I shook myself from my daze and tried to refocus on the conversation.

“How do you mean?”

She shrugged. “You know...just being what someone else needed me to be, instead of being the person I wanted to be. That’s how you survive out there.”

I smiled gently. “That’s impressive, actually. Besides tomb raider, what else have you been?”

“Oh, this and that. As a kid I was a maid, then a dancer. Just a student, at that age. Then I was a bodyguard. A slicer, later. A thief. A liar…and a killer,” Vette ticked items off and her smile fell farther away with each occupation.

“You’re pretty talented,” I observed, refusing to press her for more about those last three. I sensed it was a touchy subject. “Now you’re a special agent, working for a Sith Lord. Moving up in the world, I say.”

“That’s a matter of opinion,” she retorted, but she gave me a grateful smile. “You actually make things difficult, you know?”

“Me?” I sat up straighter in surprise. The droid waddled over and charged me for the food, it was a paperless transaction that took barely a minute.

“Yes, Master. You obviously are trying to care, like you said. But that means I have to think about things seriously. Being my own girl isn’t just a nice dream,” Vette paused and closed her eyes for a second. When she continued, I sensed some trepidation, and I inwardly promised to support her, even if I didn’t like what she said.

“But I've had to shoot people and deal with Imperial military training and all of that stuff, because of you. No matter how much you try to respect what I want, you do need me to serve in a capacity that your master finds acceptable. I'm also not sure I have much of a choice about it. Like, you might be willing to let me go, but your Master might not be. And if I told you I don’t want to get in gunfights anymore, how could you really respond?"

She made a lot of good points. I stood up and offered her an arm, which she took. When the cold night air of Dromund Kaas met us outside the restaurant she tucked herself against that arm and stayed close while we walked along the streets of the massive arcology, one of six in the city proper.

"You're warm," she murmured, when we stood exposed to the air on one of the public balconies, converted to a sort of hanging garden.

I felt obliged to apologize. "Sorry, Vette," I began, looking down at her for a moment before finding it easier to speak if I looked over the city. "I do have expectations, and I'm not sure if I've been clear about all of them. I'm also not sure how much they matter, right now.”

“You don’t have to apologize. I’m not actually opposed to violence, it was only an example,” she answered quietly.

“I think that I do. I didn't want to be just another slave-master, so I didn't just bark orders and expect you to obey me. I tried to be honest about the dangers, and the violence. But I wasn’t clear about what reasonable choices were available to you, or really even how my own master's orders would affect you.” I sighed regretfully. “Now, there might not be as many choices as there were before, when we had just left Korriban."

"I don't blame you for any of that," Vette answered softly, sounding a tad frustrated. "They spent probably a quarter of basic training drilling it into my head that we all have superiors to obey, even Sith Lords. Unless you're the Emperor and you just haven't mentioned it. Baras interfering wasn’t something you could easily predict. I mean, why should he care, you know?"

"I blame myself," was my reply. "The life of a Sith Lord is not safe and it is not kind. It makes demands of everyone involved, and it changes them, often for the worse. I knew this, not specifically, but generally. And I didn't take steps to ensure that you didn't end up trapped in this with me. Letting you stay was selfish. I knew roughly what to expect and you did not."

"That would have been taking away my choice, like the rest of my masters have done," Vette answered after some silence. "Okay, so maybe I didn't have the whole picture at the time, and maybe I made a super dumb decision to stick around when I could have left. But it was my decision. You gave me that much, and I've thought about that a lot. Very few have cared to give me choices of any kind, let alone an important choice like that. And you said we don’t have to be what others expect us to be. I thought about that too."

I looked over my shoulder at her and was struck by the sincerity of her words. It took me a moment before I could trust myself to speak without a waver in my voice. "I've been doing what I can not to be the kind of Sith everyone fears me to be. That’s why I don’t like the way people look at me as if I’m about to snap and start a slaughter."

“I know you aren’t like that. I got pretty lucky when the Academy made you my master,” Vette replied. I felt a little warm and turned my face away, towards the city. She continued, “It will be a hard job, you know, to get people not to fear the sudden violence of the Sith.”

“I could live with just not looking obviously like a Sith Lord in public,” I grumbled.

She laughed. "Good luck with that, Master.”

“Thank you for being honest,” I said, a bit suddenly. I turned back toward Vette. “I’ve tried to do right by you. As best as I can, anyway. I want you to be able to trust me. We don’t need to have everything figured out.”

“Well, I've put up with a lot, too. And killed a few people for you. I guess we do what we can for each other," Vette flashed her teeth in a smile. "I hear that's what friends do."

My lips twisted in amusement. "They kill people?"

"No, you lout," Vette let go of my arm and leaned on the balcony railing. "Although, maybe in your case they do. But you know what I meant."

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Good."

When we got back to the Sanctum, I gave Vette the top bunk. Partly because these beds were so small that my feet sometimes hung over the end, which wasn't actually possible in the top bunk due to the rails, and also so that anyone trying to mess with her would have to do it within arm's reach of me.

And they’d regret it. That’s a promise.

Chapter Text

The next morning, after I worked the damned crick out of my neck from the too-small bunk, I was summoned to Baras' office for a briefing. My first order of business upon gaining some freedom would be to buy a properly sized bed for myself!

My master was in the middle of some kind of reading when I entered, and he didn’t so much as acknowledge my existence for several minutes. Finally, as he placed down his datapad and nodded in my direction, I approached his desk and offered a slight bow in greeting.

"I must brief you on your upcoming assignment. This is information that no one else in my organization is privy to, at least not in its entirety, so I trust that you'll act with the appropriate discretion, Apprentice. It concerns the doom that I have felt looming over me for months now, and the prisoners that you delivered. The Ravager was able to peel open that Republic agent's mind and pour out his secrets for my perusal. A truly incredible device…and it appears that it can be used again, in the future," Darth Baras said. his voice filled with all seriousness.

I mentally thanked him for the...wonderful imagery his description provided my overactive mind. "What was the man hiding so valiantly?"

"A Jedi Master named Nomen Karr has set himself against me. He has been a particular thorn in my side since he infiltrated the Sith Order years ago. I discovered his deception and was later injured during his desperate escape from Korriban. That wound left a scar that I will repay him tenfold given the chance. He knows I have my spies in the Republic, and in the Jedi Order, but he has never managed to identify them. Until now." Baras seemed to pause here for dramatic effect. I disappointed him by not offering a prompt, merely folding my hands in my lap and waiting for him to continue. "According to the Republic agent you delivered here in carbonite, Nomen Karr's padawan has the innate ability to sense the true nature of anyone she meets."

I sniffed disdainfully. I had never understood how Jaisa's talent was any different from the usual arsenal of Jedi mind tricks. "Any Force-user can do the same thing, right?"

"Well, perhaps so, but only if they knew where to look, and if they knew to penetrate falsehood. These are skills usually honed to perfection by our Inquisitors, and it often takes years to become proficient. Regardless, such an intensive survey of even a single person would take some time, and it doesn't seem as though this padawan requires more than a glance or perhaps a few moments of reflection," Darth Baras expounded after a time with a narrow-eyed glance at me. I would have worried my lip nervously if I hadn't been intensely focused on keeping most of my emotions hidden from my master. What had my question revealed about myself, that he would look at me in that way?

Regardless of his thoughts, or perhaps merely deciding not to comment on what he had observed, Baras continued on. "Perhaps she is merely a prodigy of some kind. The Jedi previously would not condone the violation of privacy inherent in such methods, so it’s quite possible Nomen Karr has lied to them about the nature of her abilities. Besides that, the Dark Side is far more difficult to detect than the Light, and even Jedi performing these sorts of scans wouldn’t be able to detect all of our agents. Nomen Karr, however, was never as soft as his peers among Jedi where it concerned the Dark. Whatever the exact nature of her skills might be, she has already cast suspicion on two of my agents in the Republic. One on Nar Shadaa, whom I have already discreetly eliminated before the Jedi Order's investigation revealed the extent of our entanglement. And another agent on Balmorra, whose situation is far more complex."

"Isn't the sudden death of this man somewhat suspicious due to the ongoing investigation?" I wondered. It was something I had always questioned when I played the game.

"It would be, if he had not been serving in his usual capacity," Baras allowed. "Making it appear as though he died in the line of duty was simple enough considering his occupation as an SIS agent, especially after he panicked and sought the protection of one of my rivals on Nar Shadaa. Erasing any evidence linking him to my network was far more difficult...the man was nothing if not paranoid, and he kept several backups of data which needed to be purged before they could dump their information to predetermined brokers. But mysteriously missing data is not incriminating. Not conclusively. The Jedi’s suspicions are an asset, for it spreads the seeds of fear among them, but if they discover proof of our spies, they gain the advantage."

In the game, which I had obviously played for far too long, the player character had been required to follow the main quest line to mop up all the scurrying rats that were looking to escape Baras' sinking ship. If he had already eliminated one, then that would mean fewer loose ends to tie up before tracking down Nomen Karr and his padawan. Maybe I wouldn’t even have to go to Nar Shaddaa.

It also meant that Baras had contingencies in place for potentially disloyal assets. If he had acted so quickly, then the one who had killed the agent must have been nearby. Had that been planned, or was it only coincidence? And if he had known about the data backups that the man kept, then he must have been observing this SIS agent very closely indeed. Baras had somehow known about the agent’s dead-drops without alarming the trained operative. Impressive.

The fact that the plot was not proceeding in the same way as the game was highly concerning because it clearly indicated that my 'foresight' was likely to become unreliable. It could even be more of a liability than an advantage. Knowledge from the game had been wrong on almost every count so far, at least as far as details were concerned. The facts of Emperor Valkorian existence and the galaxy-spanning plots that had maneuvered history for the last five centuries were probably still accurate. But could I rely upon anything more than that?

I broke from my thoughts and leaned forward to ask, "Why have you decided to share this information with me now, Master?"

It wasn't like Baras had any reason to trust me in particular. I had been his apprentice for only a short time, in the grand scheme of things. I suspected that he chose me for this task because he ultimately planned to kill me. I would be the only remaining loose end after I secured his network. And at that time, I would be the only one that could threaten his plans to usurp the title of Voice of the Emperor.

But I was still curious about what he would say, now that I had asked him directly.

"I am pleased with your successes, and you contributed to the recovery of the crucial intelligence that has enabled me to protect my network from absolute collapse in the short-term. Now, you will take the final steps to make sure that Nomen Karr never again finds himself in a position to threaten us in this way," Darth Baras replied firmly. However, I noticed that his response didn't include any real reason to choose me over any one of his more senior apprentices. "If the Jedi ever decided to use the Force to screen the Republic military or even their own members for traitors, then the next war might end up being impossible for the Empire, or at least far more costly. Therefore, we must move quickly before Nomen Karr manages to prove to the Jedi Council that such a deep infiltration of their institutions has already occurred."

I had heard of Nomen Karr’s infiltration of the Sith, but no details had been offered in the game. "How was this Jedi able to infiltrate the Sith, and why do we not have Inquisitors screening people the same way as his padawan?"

"Nomen Karr is not like most other Jedi, who ironically hate the Dark Side with passion. Rather, he is a true Jedi Shadow. Have you heard of the Jedi Shadows?” Baras asked me with an anticipatory grin.

To humor him, I shook my head.

“A Jedi Shadow is one who is cloaked in the Dark, even if he hasn't accepted it within himself. While more difficult to detect superficially, if they wish to hide, they are a far more foolish sect of Jedi than their peers,” Baras explained with an eagerness I had not seen from him before. I blinked. “I thought you might have been an agent of theirs, on Korriban.”

“What?! Why?” I blurted. How ridiculous!

Baras laughed bemusedly. “What was I supposed to think? Apprentice, you spoke of things that your previous instructors never taught you, assuming your educational records are accurate, and yet you repeatedly failed to display the skills that they did supposedly teach. Tremel had only given you basic treatises, and you didn’t visit the archives in the Academy. You also didn’t have the time for private study. Moreover, as far as I can tell, you didn’t meditate even once on Korriban, and you still haven’t properly meditated even after almost a month of tiresome activity. Meditation is the very first thing that they teach acolytes to do; the power and rejuvenation of meditation helps them to survive their later trials. Furthermore, your devotion to the Dark is barely at the level of an early acolyte, and you debated with me about the wisdom of the Sith Code when we first met. Part of the reason I sent you to face Tremel, as you suggested, was to discover if there were any skills that you had been concealing…but the fact that you quite clearly committed suicide on the man’s lightsaber and only survived the ordeal because the Dark Side deigned to stitch your flesh back together showed me you really are just a blessed idiot and not a Shadow. My theory that somehow Xanot had been replaced with a Shadow impostor during transit to Korriban was shown to be false. Though, I wasn’t really surprised. If you had been a Shadow or one of their agents, then you would have made quite honestly the worst example of their kind I’d ever encountered. It was better to put it to the test, and you proved yourself sincerely Sith, although quite unconventional.”

My jaw dropped and then closed. I blinked, shaking my head, then stifling that reaction as well. I pulled the Force tightly around myself like a wall and tried to remain still, breathing in and out. He had seen far more than I had ever suspected. Would he ask me to explain the things that didn’t make sense? “Oh,” I managed to reply. “I didn’t realize.”

“Obviously,” Darth Baras observed. “You are what I might call a genuine person. You really are precisely what people observe of you, and if that is a fabrication then you’ve far exceeded the skill of any spy I have ever met in my life. You should know that I have met many spies. It was also clear, from the ordeal with the Black Talon, that you weren’t an agent of the Republic or the Jedi. The original plan might have spared at least some of the Brentaal Star’s crew, and the ship itself, but you slaughtered them wholesale and left no survivors. You also killed Captain Benden in anger. Even a Shadow in deep cover would have stopped short of suggesting such a blatantly destructive act, when there had already been an available alternative. My suspicions were laid to rest completely. You don’t even seem to know the intimate details of the Jedi Shadows, though you did lie to me just now when you indicated that you had not heard of them.”

“I know what they are, but not how they operate,” I clarified softly, hoping he would move past the disturbing revelations and give me time to recover my wits. At least his assumption was that I am an idiot and not…whatever I actually am. Would it even really matter if he somehow discovered I was no longer the Xanot that was spoken of in those records?

That much, he had probably already figured out, as his initial theory showed. He couldn’t explain it, I’d wager…but it was obvious that I was ignorant of many things that people were supposed to know as a matter of course.

“Then allow me to introduce you to the Jedi Shadow. Due to their habit of emotional avoidance and suppression, the usual Jedi specimen lacks the emotional discipline that a true Sith requires to withstand the Dark Side's covetousness. Even some Sith will manage to be consumed in a moment of weakness, so you understand how much more dangerous it is for one who has no prior experience to flirt with the Dark Side. Jedi usually don't know the limits of their strength when they Fall, and that makes most of them simple monsters in short order. It is because they reach too quickly and don’t count the costs, ultimately making unwise sacrifices. Such a Fall is beautiful, perhaps, but only in the manner of any other dying thing, and such a Jedi can never be truly Sith. Shadows are more prone to Falls than other Jedi, because they operate so near to the seduction of the Dark Side."

Baras seemed to shake his head after a moment, and he folded his hands together as he straightened his posture. I remarked, “Surely, a Jedi Master could be trained to be a powerful Sith, if they had a teacher willing to show them the control required.”

“The original Sith were Je’daii Masters,” Darth Baras observed. “So, yes. If you could convince a Jedi to let go of their dogma, which is a far more difficult task than simply relieving them of their head, they might make a competent Sith. Although, many Je’daii were lost to pointless war and complete madness in those early years. A Jedi, without a teacher, retreads those ancient paths of blood. You understand the distinction?”

I nodded. “Yes...you’re saying that there are dangers to the Dark Side which Jedi inevitably fall prey to if they do not learn from the mistakes of those who have gone before them. Wouldn’t it be possible for a Jedi to rediscover the teachings of the Sith independently?”

“Do you know of the Sith Triumvirate?” Baras asked, the question cutting diagonally across my train of thought.

I spoke carefully now, aware that he was analyzing my every word. “Are you speaking of Darth Sion, Darth Traya, and Darth Nihilus?”

“You see? There is that strangeness about you. You seem to know the most curious facts about our history but are ignorant of common knowledge. Yes, Apprentice, that is the Triumvirate. Darth Traya was once a Jedi Master, teacher to the Jedi who eventually became Darth Revan, but unlike Revan she never met the Emperor or any other living Sith. The Jedi expelled her for her student’s sins, and she went into exile. After Revan’s mind was raped by his Jedi teachers, which was an unusual display of deceit from the Jedi, he went on to destroy the Star Forge supposedly so that he could save the Republic. They were almost as effective as the Emperor where it concerned indoctrination, I have to say. Though, it did take them four Masters where the Emperor succeeded on his own, and they utterly destroyed Revan’s memory while the Emperor left the mind intact. Regardless, Darth Traya traveled to Malachor V after the Jedi Civil War. It was the site of her student’s major victory over Mandalor the Ultimate. What do you think she found there?”

“Death.”

“Yes, that is true. But she also found ruins. Specifically, Sith ruins. She turned them into Trayus Academy. But those empty halls contained nothing in the way of real wisdom when she discovered them. Darth Traya had no Sith Master, not even in the form of a complete holocron. She likely knew the Sith Code, from Darth Revan’s newborn sect of Sith, and of course she knew the corrupted versions of Sith histories which exist in the Jedi archives. Nevertheless, she is an example of what you suggest: a Jedi who sought the truth independently and seized it, all without a Master to guide her. Her journey was truly an admirable thing. She ultimately failed to pass on her wisdom to a worthy successor, and her students each were consumed by the Dark Side, becoming the monsters that history remembers. Was that her failure, or the fault of her apprentices? Well, what we know of history doesn’t conclusively say. She was eventually defeated by one of the few remaining Jedi of her time, which is another black mark on her legacy. Personally, I think she was crippled by sentiment.”

If Darth Baras knew what Kreia had actually taught about the Force, I doubted that he would consider her to be an admirable woman. Still, it was incredible that the Sith Empire even knew of the Triumvirate, and considered them a part of the Sith histories, even though they had been an independent group of Lords, ostensibly operating without the Emperor’s knowledge. An independent group that had come closer to achieving the extinction of the Jedi than any Sith ever would, until Darth Sidious’s Order 66 in the far future. “Is the Sith Code the only code suitable for the Dark Side? Or might a Fallen Jedi discover a different way of controlling their passions and walking with the Dark?”

“What you suggest has happened before, on Tython, in times long past,” Baras replied with a shrug. “It could happen again, I imagine. However, the truth cannot be suppressed forever. As a master of lies, myself, you should accept my word on that. And the way of the Sith is a truth, indeed. Others may imitate it, or grasp at fragments of its message, but the Sith Code has withstood the test of time. It is as close to an irrefutable truth as you can get. Given time, anyone that seeks wisdom and power will ultimately arrive at the lessons of the Sith, though they might name them differently or express them in their own unique way.”

If he truly believed that the truth will out, then what exactly was his plan with the whole Voice of the Emperor shtick? It baffles the mind. Still, I inclined my head in acknowledgment.

"Regardless, I have allowed myself to become distracted by idle musings. Nomen Karr is a threat, and he must be eliminated. You asked me about using the Inquisitors to screen the Empire. Well, something like that is already done, individually, by the Lords within their own power bases. There could be no centralized effort because it is just as important to root out Republic dissidents as it is to eliminate agents of other Sith Lords who might be your rivals."

"And the Republic would not suffer from the same objection?" I wondered rhetorically. "Surely there would be members of the Senate who would not be pleased if the Jedi tried to institute any sort of mental screening standard. It would be seen as a Jedi power play, for one thing, and there are many Senators that are involved in dealings that are contrary to the Jedi’s ethos. A Jedi would not be able to resist taking action, once they became aware of in a mental scan, and the Senators should be familiar enough with the Jedi to know this."

"Indeed," Baras mused quietly. He looked at me intently, stroking his chin. "Yes, you see it correctly. However, if it were shown that they are already infiltrated, then panic might drive them to accept drastic measures that they would otherwise refuse. We should aim to end Nomen Karr before his investigations find concrete proof. As things stand, the Jedi Council seems skeptical about this padawan of his, and they are looking for her claims to be substantiated by hard evidence before they bring them before the Admiralty Board or the Senate."

I nodded amicably. Things were making sense to me so far. "What would you have me do, then?"

"I will provide you with a ship suitable for swift travel and inconspicuous operations. You will go to Balmorra and land at the Imperial garrison on the surface, in Sobrik spaceport. A certain Lieutenant Malavai Quinn, subordinate to Captain Rigel of the Imperial Conquest Consolidation Corps, is awaiting your arrival, and will assist you in whatever you require. Lieutenant Quinn owes his career to me, and although he has his own assignment in the ICCC, he will be assisting you with your mission by giving you command over his platoon and himself. However, I have not informed him of the exact details of your objectives on the planet, and I expect him to remain ignorant of your true purpose there. You will not be able to speak openly about Commander Rylon’s true loyalties on Balmorra; there are too many interests on that planet who may be watching and listening. Understood?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Good. He will be one of your targets on that world, regardless,” Baras nodded sharply. “Darth Decimus, who oversees the ICCC, is aware that you are my apprentice, and your vessel will have the proper clearance codes to fly in their space. I was able to negotiate this by promising him that you would assist Captain Rigel and the Imperial governor of Balmorra with their rebel problem. As far as the Dark Council is concerned, that is all your assignment on Balmorra entails. A certain Darth Lachris, formerly apprenticed to Darth Marr, is en route to relieve the current governor, and I imagine you will be reporting directly to her for the duration of your assignment on Balmorra. She will have a vested interest in killing Commander Rylon, along with other prominent rebels, so I imagine that working with her will allow you to complete your primary objective."

"You promised the Dark Council my assistance on Balmorra? What use am I in a war-zone like that?," I wondered, cautiously. "And how am I supposed to track down your spy and eliminate him if I am unable to speak to anyone about it and acting under orders from the ICCC or the governor?"

Baras gave me a mildly reproving look and folded his hands together on the desk.

"This is a consequence of your own actions, Apprentice. I'm surprised that you haven't put two and two together yourself. Your performance with the Black Talon's engagement has made some waves in certain circles. While your foolishness in attempting to board alone is obvious to anyone that looks closely, the after-action reports filed by the crew do paint you in a flattering light. It was helpful in this case since I was able to use your presence on Balmorra when bargaining with Darth Decimus for other favors. However, in the future you may want to consider less ostentatious methods. It is not always a good thing to have a heroic reputation.” Baras seemed amused as he imparted this advice. I huffed and looked away.

“As to your second question: in order to ensure that Commander Rylon's death seems as natural as can be, I will ensure that he meets you in battle even in the unlikely case that Darth Lachris doesn’t consider him a priority target," Baras declared. "Commander Rylon is nothing if not a loyal man, but even I do not trust him to throw his life away at my word. So, I will be providing him with information that will appear to be valid targets for his team of hardened ex-Republic commandos, under the guise that these targets are associated with one of my rivals. Eventually, when he grows to trust that the targets, I provide him are not traps, I will give you the time and location of his attack. This will guarantee that you are able to face him personally. When you do, make sure that you kill Commander Rylon and, if possible, slaughter the rest of his men. If you fail to kill him, then he will probably realize that I sent him to die and may not remain as loyal to the Empire. If he turns to the Republic willingly, it would be far more disastrous even than his discovery by the Jedi investigator."

This was nothing at all like the game's story. It was much cleaner. Making it appear as though Rylon died in battle was the perfect solution and luring him into an attack was likewise a cunning move from Baras’ perspective. It was actually what, ideally, should have happened in the game, except Rylon had decided to monologue.

Baras's plan did not mention the man's son at all...but maybe Baras didn't know that Rylon had told his son of his loyalties. Or maybe Rylon actually hadn't said anything, in reality. I guessed I would find out later, but Baras’ spy network wasn’t really any concern of mine. If the son started to blab about things, and I didn’t get any flak for it, then all the better.

"I understand. How will you contact me?"

"I will contact you through your armor. There are several specific military hypertranceivers on Balmorra that have a link to my network, any your armor will sync automatically if you draw near to them. Periodically visit these hypertranceivers, and you will eventually receive the information you require. They are located strategically around the planet, so that my agents can make surreptitious reports. You should know that Darth Marr and myself often don't see eye to eye. I imagine Darth Lachris will be somewhat suspicious of you when you arrive, if her former master passed on even a portion of his paranoia to his student," Baras remarked, his golden eyes narrowing as he looked at me. "Do not displease her, Apprentice. I would be greatly disappointed if I hear that she has killed you due to your impertinence or ineptitude."

"I will be the absolute picture of subservience with her, Master." No doubt about that. I happened to like living, after all. Baras looked amused at my response but didn't address it directly.

He eyed me significantly, but I couldn't tell what was going on in his thoughts. "And do not let yourself grow lazy, with your newfound freedom." Baras tapped a finger on his desk. "I expect you to grow more dangerous, not more pathetic."

I chuckled. "I will train diligently."

And I would. As much as I didn't exactly enjoy being sore and sweaty most of the time, I also knew that my enemies weren't going to grow any weaker as I rose in the hierarchy of the Empire. If I planned to hold my own against Darths and Jedi Masters, I needed to be better.

The fact that killing people for EXP would probably increase my capabilities far more quickly than any amount of katas or weightlifting sessions would remain my little secret.

There was also all the other things I clearly had much to learn about regarding this world and its cultural norms. I was lucky Baras considered my strange manners to be a trifling matter and that he hadn’t pressed me for more information.

"You must. Facing Jedi will be no easy task for one of your aptitude," Baras scoffed with a slight wrinkle to his wide nose. "Defeating Lord Vacuus was impressive, but do not let it convince you that you are worthy of the title of Lord. He was an old relic of times past and had been inside the Dark Temple for at least a week by the time you encountered him. Any currently active Jedi Knight is another thing altogether. Due to the Treaty of Coruscant, you shouldn't run into any Jedi on Balmorra. Not unless the Jedi Shadow they send to investigate Commander Rylon actually reveals himself to you, but that would be a scandal. If you do encounter Jedi, work closely with Darth Lachris to face them, together, and don’t arrogantly challenge them by yourself."

I cocked my head slightly. "I didn't think you had such respect for the Jedi."

"I respect their skills as warriors, my apprentice. As you should, lest they surprise you. It would be your final mistake," Darth Baras cautioned. "I have contempt for them because they are unrepentant fools and most of them are thoughtless sycophants. But Nomen Karr would not have troubled me for these long years if he were not also competent and deadly, like most Jedi Watchmen or Jedi Weapon Masters. A Jedi Seer tends to be more foolish and less of an actual threat, but never underestimate the danger of a man who has mastery of the Force. The Jedi might claim that they only use the Force for defense, but I've also seen them crush a man's head like a soft fruit in the heat of battle, with nothing more than a twitch of their fingers. They are unimaginative when it comes to Force combat, but even the unimaginative can be lethal."

"I'll remember that," I promised, mostly because it was a good thing to remember. Not having my skull squashed like a grape by a Jedi was actually pretty high on my priorities list.

"You should go and acclimate yourself to your new ship. You'll be spending the better part of the next year in it, I should think. I'm sure you'll find everything to be acceptable, but if there are any modifications you wish to make there is always Vaiken Spacedock. The funds I provide you should cover repairs and any adjustments to armament that you might require."

"Do I have a pilot, Master?" I asked, hesitantly. "I can fly a ship from one place to the next, but I've never flown in combat."

Baras leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. "Did you actually learn anything useful at that Balmorran Academy? Certainly not swordplay, given your mediocre performance on Korriban and the prodigious improvement you demonstrated since then, nor etiquette, considering your odd vocabulary and mannerisms. And now, you say you somehow got yourself approved as a pilot without actually knowing how to fly? Bah, it doesn't matter!" Baras cut the air with his hand in disgust, shaking his head. "At this point, it is more important that you arrive on Balmorra as soon as possible, since I gave my word to Darth Decimus that you would be underway immediately, and that was a week ago. While you're completing your mission there, I will consider the matter further. I am loathe to bring any more Imperial personnel than absolutely necessary into your assignment. If the ship were larger, I wouldn't consider it a problem to keep your pilot in the dark, but an interceptor such as this one is too cramped to try keeping secrets from its crew."

"Understood. I'll see about the ship and depart as soon as we're supplied," I said, miraculously managing an even tone despite how shaken I was by his remark about my training. I moved to stand, ready to escape any potential questions on that front. "Should I keep the details of this assignment from Vette as well?"

Baras looked surprised at the question, then amused, and finally condescending. "She's your slave, Apprentice. Do what you will with her. But the consequences of her actions ultimately come to rest on your shoulders, as her master. So, if she betrays us, it will be your life that I take in payment. I'm sure you can manage to keep her from wagging her tongue about sensitive matters, although shutting her up completely would be more impressive. Perhaps you should consider a gag."

Was that a joke? Or was he serious? I stared at him for a moment and honestly couldn't tell one way or the other.

Whatever. I suppose I should've guessed that Baras wouldn't concern himself terribly much about my management of slaves or other subordinates, and in fact if he did begin to concern himself with such matters then I would probably have to be quite suspicious about it. I nodded at his reply and gave the shallowest bow that remained respectful, as usual. And Baras seemed derisively amused when I left him, as usual.

Chapter Text

Vette was awake but pretending to be asleep when I returned to the dormitory to check on her. The hour was still very early despite the lengthy conversation that I had carried on with Baras in his office, but the Sith Sanctum was a bustling place; the other apprentices, inquisitors, trainers, and guardsmen were already waking up and speaking to each other, some with cups of caff in their hands, while others were pulling their uniforms on in front of their lockers.

I was tall enough that I could reach over and poke Vette's cheek almost without stretching. "Stop pretending," I chided. "And get suited up. We've got a ship all to ourselves and are expected to depart as soon as possible."

"What?" Vette exclaimed, sitting up and stretching her arms over her head with an adorable yawn. "A ship?"

"Yep. We're moving out. You have ten minutes to get all your gear ready for transport."

I did the same thing myself, shedding my dark robes in favor of my armor, since it was easier to carry a bag of clothes than the heavy armor pieces. I ended up with two long, gray canvas bags full of various clothing items, but my weapons all fit on my belt. I had my primary lightsaber and a backup from the Korriban tomb, and that was about it besides the combat knife I kept in its place at the small of my back. But I considered my knife more of a utility item than a weapon. The rest of my lightsabers, like the one I had taken from Lord Vacuus, I kept in the bag; I didn’t want to feel like General Grievous with a whole collection of lightsabers stashed in my cloak.

I had planned to make a shoto-saber as a sidearm, since there were probably conditions where the full length of my custom lightsaber would be unwieldy. But I hadn't found the time to construct another lightsaber.

Vette also had two bags, but one of them was a long, rectangular hard-case and it contained armaments and munitions. Her marksman rifle, two pistols, a bandoleer of grenades...and other stuff. I hadn't honestly checked out everything that she'd picked for herself at the requisitions office before our little excursion into Grathan’s territory.

With all our bags, I had to call for a larger airspeeder than the standard taxi, and we waited in the darkness for our ride to arrive. The sun hadn't risen on Dromund Kaas quite yet...that would be in thirty minutes or so. We'd get to see it as we rose above the planet into orbit, though. Most likely.

"A ship, huh?" Vette wondered once more. "What kind of ship?"

"An interceptor," I replied easily. "Smallish. Darth Baras said it's for stealth, which is fitting. We may be operating in contested space in the future. I'm concerned that it won't have the facilities for prolonged operation without a larger warship to serve as a berth...but we'll see how it is."

I remembered, vividly, complaining on the Bioware forums about the lack of a refresher or anything resembling a kitchenette on the Sith interceptor. People had claimed that the facilities would fold out from the walls or something and were also quick to point out that hyperspace didn't have a defined speed, simply taking however long it needed to take for the purposes of the plot.

I discovered that, generally, if you stuck to the main hyperspace lanes, you might be able to travel from one side of the known galaxy to the other in one week non-stop. The problem was that not all hyperspace lanes are created equally, and some take far longer to navigate due to the mass shadows cast by surrounding celestial terrain. Even though Dromund Kaas and Balmorra weren’t actually on opposite sides of the galaxy, it would take us nearly seventy hours to travel between them.

Having lived in this universe for about a month so far, I can also say that generally hyperspace travel isn't nearly short enough to justify flying around the galaxy without a nearby toilet or warm food. Frankly, I wasn't looking forward to the long days that we'd be spending in transit aboard a ship that probably had a grand total of twelve hundred square feet of floor space.

Also, the fact that it had only been a month since I had become Xanot crashed into my mind like a bowling ball and scored a strike.

"Fuck," I muttered, bags dropping as I rubbed my eyes with my armored palms and sagged my shoulders. It was a little more painful than relieving, but I could do nothing else. I had stopped mid-step in the spaceport, a bag beside either foot. Vette took another two steps, then turned with a questioning look, edging towards alarmed.

"Xanot?"

I shook my head, hefted my luggage again, and put one foot in front of the other. "It's nothing...just a sudden headache..."

It most certainly was not 'nothing,' but how was I supposed to explain that I had just had the deeply concerning realization that I had probably killed more than one person a day on average since my awakening in this body? More significantly, I had outwardly adopted a moral creed that was the antithesis to what I had been raised to believe, and every day I was closer to the point where I ceased to be merely pretending and actually accepted the ways of the Sith. I owned a slave, for one thing...my American, union-worker father would have thoroughly chewed my ear off for this kind of behavior.

And worst of all, I hadn't consciously confronted it, or really been all that bothered by it. I had tended to get snappish and angry when I had thought about the unpleasant aspects of life here, but as I had noticed during those first days on Korriban, the gut instinct to have sympathy for the people I had killed or wronged was noticeably absent. I felt like it should have probably taken longer than a couple of weeks to convince me to take the actions I had taken.

I also felt certain that, if I had put up more resistance in the Academy, then I would probably have died horribly. Those first five days had been a whirlwind of harsh lessons, filled with tasks that even a seasoned acolyte would have probably failed. As Baras had pointed out, I didn’t have the same commonplace knowledge as an acolyte, and I didn’t have the same moral convictions of an everyday Sith. Those things should have meant that I performed poorly, but somehow, I survived by pushing through it. By playing the game, so to speak.

I should probably be glad I hadn’t had a complete breakdown, since that could very well have gotten me killed if it happened at the wrong time. But, on the other hand, I felt guilty because I should probably have been dealing with a hell of a lot more emotional baggage over the last weeks.

So far, in a lot of situations, I had treated the world like it wasn't quite the real thing. I had lived as if it was more of a game, and that had helped me cope with my actions and my situation. I was a proficient RPG player, after all, and I had the unfair advantages of foresight due to the game plot and the skill system. My map and status screen. Living as if it were a game was a natural response, considering the facts.

But the feeling that I was only playing a game had faded further and further as I spent more time growing into my role in this world, becoming less concerned about skills, stats, and levels and more concerned about the people in this world and my future.

In other words, this was a world that was becoming more real to me with every passing hour.

While I didn't experience the kind of sinking dread in my solar plexus that I had associated with severe anxiety in the past, I was swiftly whipping up a throbbing headache with my faintly hysterical musings. Were Sith capable of experiencing a panic attack?

It had been a month...only a single month. I hadn't thought of my family or my friends from Earth for more than a passing moment in all of that time.

Had I died in that subway car? Had my body just slumped over in the seat? Had there been a funeral or something?

What was the last thing that I said to my parents? I couldn’t remember.

I felt a suspicious lump in my throat and swallowed past it determinedly. Now was not the time for this. Could Sith even cry, like with actual tears? I was shocked that I didn't even know something so basic...but I had a suspicion that they might. I was just about to find out, if I didn't calm down or distract myself.

Thankfully, arriving at my new ship provided the perfect distraction.

When we reached the hangar, it was blissfully devoid of assassins and other nuisances. The ship sat, silent and somewhat imposing. Vette whistled when she saw its sleek lines, and I assessed the dimensions of the vessel critically.

"It looks dangerous...certainly fitting, I think," Vette declared, flashing a small, uncertain smile my way.

"It's going to be a bit cramped, during hyperspace trips," was my conclusion. Vette snorted and shook her head.

"You would think of that first, Xanot."

"What?"

She walked ahead of me. "You're just a very practical person, Master."

I clicked my tongue at that word, following her towards the ramp. "What did I say about using that title with me?"

"Unfortunately for you, we established that I get to make my own decisions," Vette teased, looking over her shoulder with bright eyes. I scowled, but it would have been hypocritical to make firm demands in response to that. I almost retorted that she was refusing to acknowledge my own preferences in this, but that was of course the whole point. She was needling me intentionally, for reasons unknown.

Maybe if I stopped giving a shit about it she would give up? Fat chance. I pegged Vette as somewhat more stubborn than that. I'd have a better shot if I treated it as flirting and mortified her. That was an idea I filed away for later.

The boarding ramp of the ship was not steep, and it looked as though it extended somehow from the ship as part of the landing gear. Or perhaps it extended after the landing gear touched down to prevent damage. I couldn't be sure. Either way, the hatch which permitted entry was situated at the rear of the ship and opened immediately into an airlock. I had to bend at the waist and crouch slightly to sidle through the hatch, pushing one bag through first and dragging the other after. Vette and I squeezed into the airlock in this way and the hatch closed behind us.

An odd sensation of increased weight followed a short hiss, then the interior door opened up and revealed a droid standing in the tight corridor beyond the airlock. It had gold coverings and a bipedal form factor, standing taller than Vette, but of course shorter than myself. The droid seemed a bit skeletal, however, with spindly mechanical limbs and a strange kind of circular cage that rose up from its chest and shoulders to surround its vaguely skull-shaped head.

Two glowing orange optics shuttered in an uncanny approximation of a blink. I realized in that moment that I hated droids.

"Greetings, Master...allow me to introduce myself. I am Two-Vee-Arr-Eight, factotum of this vessel and your humble servant," the droid spoke, and gave a bow. The part of me that had never really stopped being a 21st Century American marveled at the mechanical finesse needed to give a robot that level of balance and smooth motion.

"What are your functions?" I managed to ask, feeling a bit dazed and a lot discomfited by the facsimile of life that was standing before me. I hadn't interacted with many droids so far, thank the Force. The medical droid on Korriban had just been a hovering ball of pain, so that hadn't been very intimidating.

It seemed that the attempt to make this droid seem more human-like actually only made it more terrifying, at least to me.

"I am capable of a wide variety of tasks that you will certainly find most pleasing, my Lord. My primary function is to ensure the smooth operation of your ship, and this includes interpreting for the ship computer, janitorial duties, and simple maintenance tasks. I am also capable of domestic function and can produce over twelve thousand different meals for nearly two hundred species. Furthermore, this unit is programmed to care for infants and to utilize laundry machines."

I boggled at those last two. Who in their right mind would entrust their baby to this thing? I shook my head in something akin to awe. "Right...thanks Two-Vee. Stand by for now."

"Master, it would please me greatly if I were permitted to at least provide a short tour of this vessel, before retiring. Is that acceptable?"

I sighed. There was no point in pissing off the droid, was there? Could it even be pissed off? I wasn't about to try and find out. "Go ahead, then."

"If it pleases you, set your burdens aside. I will stow them shortly. Now, if you'll follow me to the main cabin..."

The droid turned and sauntered around the corner. I noted that there was a lack of mechanical whirring or metallic clinking - it was walking with a near-silent step. "That thing creeps me out," I whispered to Vette as I set my bags down and made to follow it.

She stifled a giggle, dropping her luggage unceremoniously beside mine.

When we rounded the corner of the short corridor, the droid began speaking. "This is the common area, Master. As you can see, it has a holoprojector with an integrated hypertranceiver, and there are several sectioned couches for leisure. Tables can be extended from the deck as needed, for meals. There is a kitchenette located against this wall..."

Here, the droid stepped aside and gestured to the wall that was separating the main cabin from the cockpit. In a series of recesses that were quite clearly modifications to the standard design, there was cooking implements. It looked like a futuristic coffee machine, a single hot plate, and some sort of microwave-looking device.

"This vessel has been supplied with provisions for the standard Imperial meals, suitable for Sith, Humans, Twi’leks and dozens of other near-human species. Special dietary provisions would need to be requisitioned, Master, but are not out of reach."

"How long will supplies last?" I asked.

"This ship can provide standard rations for the current crew for sixteen days, according to the current ecosystem," replied the droid dutifully.

"What do you mean by 'current ecosystem?'"

At this, the droid's arm came up in what might have been an attempt at a flustered wave. "Dear me, I do apologize, my Lord. I should have explained when you came aboard. This ship is equipped for clandestine planetary infiltration, and as such the crew are to be acclimated for the target ecosystem during transit. This vessel has been calibrated to the average temperature, air pressure, and gravitational force of Balmorra, which was indicated to be the destination for our first departure. Should these settings be corrected?"

I shook my head numbly. That explained why the gravity was stronger on board than it had been outside. But...wasn't the gravity of Dromund Kaas still affecting the ship? I supposed that whatever space magic they were using to produce the effect of gravity could probably compensate to produce a higher gravity, but did that also apply for lighter gravity destinations? Could the ship produce anti-gravity?

I was distracted by the droid continuing to fuss. "Master? Only let your displeasure be known and the ship's climate can be adjusted..."

"No, leave it," I waved my hand dismissively. After all, if I was going to be fighting in a higher gravity than I was used to, I had better prepare myself somehow. "Does the higher gravitational force of Balmorra pose any health risks?"

"It not detrimental for the function of most near-Human races, Master. Indeed, it classified as standard gravity by the Imperial Ministry of Logistics. However, the ration sizes have been adjusted to account for increased energy expenditure that might result from higher gravity."

"Isn't it an industrial world? Why would foundries be built on a relatively high-gravity planet?" I mused.

The droid seemed to twitch at this question. "Pardon me, Master, but I am not linked with the Imperial Archive at this moment. Shall I request access in order to answer your query?"

"No, it doesn't really matter," I shook my head. "Just...proceed with the tour."

"Very well. The cockpit can be accessed by walking through that opening. If you would follow me, please, I shall showcase its features."

We did. The cockpit had two chairs and a metric shit-ton of electrical displays. holographic displays as well as the usual computer screens. It seemed like a demented Christmas decoration with all the blinking lights and little switches. The center console had a floating holographic map of the galaxy on it, which I imagined would get annoying if the pilot wanted to actually see the co-pilot when they were talking.

"In the cockpit, the ship's computer is aware of certain vocal commands. However, per Imperial security regulation, no ship computer can be equipped with its own vocabulator, therefore any operational factotum can be utilized as an interpreter. The ship computer purges its episodic memory every thirty minutes, but will retain information relevant to its current directive," Two-Vee explained. "During operation, the ship computer can communicate using the consoles, if a factotum is not available to interpret. However, only predetermined phrases are permitted for use in written communication."

"Why all the restrictions?"

The droid paused again. I could practically smell its mechanical brain crunching through its response. "Due to the complexity of the droid brain that is used in the construction of flight computers, there is significant concern that the ship's computer will develop inefficient personality quirks. Frequent memory wipes combined with limiting interactions with organic operators has been proven to reduce the development of these undesirable qualities. The ship's computer must undergo a mandatory replacement during standard maintenance every six years. Rest assured, this ship and all its inhabitants exist to serve you, my Lord."

These safety precautions were not as comforting as perhaps they were intended to be. "Go on, then," I managed to say.

"There are several communication up-links that are tuned to encrypted Imperial frequencies, located along these walls," Two-Vee gestured at the back of the cockpit and its left side. "These can be used to view memorandums and combat reports from across the galaxy and are also where Imperial Command will send requests that have been approved by the Dark Council for general volunteers. If you wish, you can choose to aid the Empire in these matters. Darth Baras has instructed me to inform you that these missions should not distract you from your primary directive, but that you should consider any task approved by the Dark Council to also be approved also himself."

So, side quests were available here. I nodded, then winced. I mean, they probably were 'side quests' but that didn't mean people's lives weren't at stake.

"The present crew does not contain a pilot," the droid remarked, gesturing stiffly at the room in general. "The ship computer is more than capable of simple navigation, under supervision. Per Imperial regulation no droid is permitted to fly a ship with any organic life-form aboard unless it is under the supervision of a ranking officer. The only ranking officer aboard is you, Master."

"Great," I grunted. "I have to stay in the cockpit during flight?"

"Not the entire time, dear me! No, my Lord, you only must periodically check the charted course and verify that it suits your desires and that the ship computer has not drifted."

That was great, except for one problem. "How am I supposed to tell if we're on course when I'm not a trained pilot?"

The factotum inclined its head. "The consoles display the intended and the actual course. Comparing them and observing any discrepancy will inform you as to the ship computer's degree of success. It is programmed to trigger a general alert if the deviation from the calculated route is more than three percent in any parsec."

"Is it common for a ship to drift?"

I was starting to think that this whole space travel thing was quite dangerous and intimidating. Entrusting my life to the mechanical minds of this droid and the ship computer wasn't something I was exactly keen about. It also didn't seem that I had much choice.

"It has been reported to occur once in every fifteen thousand hyperspace jumps," replied the factotum easily. "However, this ship is equipped with the most advanced computer available to the Imperial Navy. We will not fail you, Master."

"Alright, continue."

Vette shuffled along beside me as the droid led us out of the cockpit and down a short side corridor. "This is the left wing of the vessel," it said, gesturing at a door on either side of the corridor. "That room is the medical bay. This ship is outfitted with a single bed and a kolto tank for emergency transport of wounded personnel. There is no medic on the current crew roster, however, so any severe injuries will have to be treated at an approved Imperial facility."

I made a note to ask Vette if her basic training had covered field-dressing of common combat injuries. If not, then I wondered if I could potentially call on that favor with Grand Moff Kilran to have a medic assigned to my retinue. Considering the fact that people probably wouldn't miraculously revive at the end of a hard fight, I'd probably better take steps to provide quality care in case the worst did happen at some point.

There had been a lot of talk from the droid about Imperial this and Imperial that. I narrowed my eyes at Two-Vee but held my tongue; there was no telling what its loyalties really were. Not until I found it making reports to some admiral or Darth or whoever else. My money was on Baras, personally. The old snake probably had this droid making regular reports on our activities, if I had my guess.

"Across from the medical bay, there is an open room suitable for weight training, cardiovascular training, or other fitness related activities. Imperial regulations demand that vessels intended for long-term travel provide the necessary equipment for the standard PT regimen. Equipment can be found in a footlocker located against the wall," the droid seemed vaguely annoyed at having to dedicate an entire room to these organic functions, but I couldn't quite decide if that was just my overactive imagination. In either case I remembered that room being a conference room from the game, which had practically never been used. “Because the current crew roster is only two, it is not necessary to mention that sexual liaisons are restricted by Imperial regulations to areas outside of the common dormitory, so as not to reduce the combat readiness of the crewmen sleeping in between shifts. This fitness area does have a door which locks from the inside.”

If it wasn’t necessary to mention it, then why had the droid gone on to mention it?!

Nevermind that.

The amenities required for long-term space travel had very clearly been added to this ship as an afterthought, but at least they had been added. I noticed the layout was not the same as it had been in the game in other ways too. Things were closer together, and there was no separate cabin for the captain.

"And, in the other wing, there is the dormitory and a cargo hold," the droid said as it guided us across the main cabin once more. "The dormitory has four bunks on either side, and there is a refresher in the back with a sonic shower. There is a locker for arms and armor near each bunk. In total, this ship can carry eight life-forms comfortably, or possibly twelve if the bunks are utilized in shifts."

A single shower...and it was sonic. The only time I had used a sonic shower so far had been on the Black Talon, and my experience there left much to be desired. It did just fine for removing grime and dirt, but sweat and blood? Good luck. That wasn’t to say that it didn't do its best. There wouldn’t be any visible signs of dirtiness after a sonic. It just left that feeling like you had gotten all sweaty and let it dry rather than taking a proper shower.

When I looked into the dormitory, I did see the features described by Two-Vee, but what I also noticed was that the aisle between the bunks was barely wide enough for two people, and the bunks were quite obviously a bit too short for someone of my height. That was just perfect in a horrible way...especially since the bunks were built into the bulkheads and were not free-standing beds. That meant I couldn't let my feet hang off the end like I had in the Sith Sanctum.

"Is there a particular locker that each of you would prefer for your effects?" Two-Vee asked after a pause.

I shrugged and gestured at the one nearest to the door. Vette squeezed past me into the dorm and chose the one opposite mine.

"Then, I will proceed to handle the luggage, my Lord. Unless there are questions?"

I waved the droid away and then awkwardly followed it into the main cabin, before managing to slump into one of the small, L-shaped sofas. It was small compared to myself, almost comically so, and Vette seemed to agree as she sat beside me pensively.

I tried to gather my thoughts, but there was still a part of my mind that was reeling from the earlier realization that I was probably a monster or at the very least a sociopath by Earth standards.

"This sucks," I finally sighed, desperately wishing I could slap my face into my hands, but also aware of the fact that my armor would make that motion quite uncomfortable. Irritating. I blinked in bafflement when I realized Vette wasn't sitting next to me but was crawling around next to the couch on all fours. "What the hell?"

Vette popped up with a squeak of triumph, holding a small black bead in between forefinger and thumb...with her arm extended above her in excitement. "Got you!"

"Got what?!" I exclaimed, edging towards nervous.

"A bug," Vette declared, flicking the bead at me. I caught it through a minor miracle, or more accurately Force-enhanced reflexes. The thing was tiny, barely the size of a rice grain, and that was alarming. Because if the people in this galaxy could fling themselves at super-light speed across the stars, they could probably also make a listening device too small for the naked eye to see. And if that were true, then why would anyone use this piece of junk?

Also, "How did you find this...and why were you looking for it?"

"I told you I’ve worked a couple odd jobs in the past," Vette replied smugly. "And this is a Sith ship...to answer your second question."

"That’s fair," I replied to both. "What do we do with it? And...if there's one there may be more."

"Yeah, I'll have to sweep the whole ship. Nothing much to do other than destroy it. There's no way to trace this kind of thing, it's designed to piggyback on the nearest hypertranceiver and send encrypted data packets on a regular pulse, but those packets can't be decrypted without the codes."

There was that word again, 'hypertranceiver.' I mentally resolved to search it on the HoloNet later. "Yeah, better get rid of any bugs if we don't know who put them here. I'm sure the droid is a leak, knowingly or otherwise, and probably the ship's computer as well. Two-Vee said it wipes its own memory every fifteen minutes, but I don't trust it."

"Paranoid much?"

"It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you," I riposted, gesturing with the bug in my palm. I squeezed it between my fingers until it cracked and then crumbled into little black particles. Fuck it...I didn't have the energy to deal with this right now. I stood up abruptly, already halfway around the corner as I said, "I'm going to try and get this ship moving, while you do...whatever you want."

I flopped into the pilot's seat and glared at the controls. Fucking Baras. This dumbass ship was his attempt at being a cheap bastard, most likely. There were probably custom ships used by bounty hunters or other similar people for these sorts of stealthy operations...and yet, a cobbled-together interceptor was his choice? I mean, I get that I'm the expendable part of his whole operation, but did he have to be so insufferably blatant about it?

He'd probably expect me to thank him for his generosity, too, the utter twat.

This ship was quite obviously designed for operation near to its mothership. And since it was an interceptor, that meant it put emphasis on speed and maneuverability so that it could pursue its prey, while also sporting a decent armament. Two-Vee had not mentioned any kind of weapons, and since I wasn't a pilot, it probably didn't matter anyway. If we got into a space battle, we'd be so totally fucked it wasn't even funny.

I heaved another sigh and began proverbially banging my head against the metaphorical wall that was the impenetrable sea of switches, buttons, panels, and displays in the cockpit.

[Skill Unlocked: Small Vessel Piloting I]

By some small miracle, we ended up in orbit without dying. I attribute this roaring success to the flight control operator of the Dromund Kaas spaceport, who had the patience of a saint, and to the ship's computer. I had the computer set a course for Balmorra and pretty much glossed over what should have been a review of the flight path and a confirmation that the AI wasn't trying to murder us and explode the ship.

Whatever, it was probably fine.

I stripped my armor off shortly after that and pulled on dark robes and briefs, skipping the tunic and trousers because quite honestly, I was starting to pine after a hot bath and a cozy towel...and we'd only been aboard for a grand total of thirty minutes so that was a bad sign. I then trudged back to the main cabin and slumped on the too-small couch again, watching as Vette emerged from the med bay with a triumphant smile.

That meant she'd found something, which was bad. But she looked happy, so that was good. I groaned and let my head hang back, since the couch was too damn short to support it. I felt purposelessly angry and confined.

"What's your problem?" Vette asked lightly, destroying the discovered devices with a bit too much glee.

"Everything is too small," I grumped, since that was the least incriminating thing I could find to complain about at the moment. Revealing my intense discomfort about how quickly I had acclimated to being used as a killer for Baras' organization would not be wise, considering the number of bugs Vette had sniffed out. I had no doubt she had done her best, but I also knew she'd probably missed some. Not to mention Two-Vee and the ship's computer. I'd eat my socks if that damn computer could only hear voices in the cockpit.

Which also sucked...but I couldn't complain about that either, since the walls had ears.

Vette snorted, "You're just too big, I think. Everything will seem too small."

"A star destroyer would be big enough," I replied moodily. "Or even a frigate. I'd be happy with a frigate."

"We couldn't even pilot a ship that size with just the two of us," Vette pointed out logically. I scowled at her, because that reminded me of how Baras had skimped out on providing a pilot to go with the ship. Sure, he claimed it was for operational security, but I didn't buy that load of bantha shit for a second. There had to be at least one pilot in his entire organization that was trustworthy enough to be read in on the Nomen Karr situation.

And if not, then Baras had larger problems than a suspicious Jedi, I should think.

"It's nearly three standard days to Balmorra," I began, sitting up and eyeing Vette as she sprawled out, comfortably, on the other sofa which was across from me. I narrowed my eyes at this display of comfort, since I couldn't similarly stretch out, at least not without falling onto the floor like an idiot. A big, fat idiot. "I already feel cramped."

"Are you claustrophobic?" Vette asked from upside down. Her head-tails were dangling over the side of the couch as she kicked her feet in the air, crossing one leg over the other knee.

"No, I'm just fat."

Vette gave me a deadpan look. "You are not fat."

"Whatever," I sighed dramatically, knowing she was right. I was probably in the best physical condition that I could possibly achieve, without some kind of drugs. Well...maybe a more deliberate physical fitness regimen wouldn't go completely awry either, for completeness' sake. I'm sure there were muscle groups somewhere being neglected. But after constant fighting for nearly a month, and God knows what sort of preparation prior to Korriban, my body was actually quite a marvel. "I meant 'fat' as in gargantuan. Obscenely large, if you will. Goliathan, actually."

Vette giggled. "Surely you're used to things being sized for average people by now!"

I scoffed again, internally admonishing myself for the slip. I'd been doing that infrequently, but it was still too often. I was sure Baras already suspected something was odd about his newest apprentice, and that wasn't good, to put it lightly.

"You know, Xanot, you use a lot of words that aren't on the HoloNet," Vette remarked, offhand. I almost choked on my spit.

"Huh?"

"You know, like 'goliathan.' I can guarantee you that word isn't in the dictionary for Galactic Basic. Where are you from?"

"Some backwater world, clearly," I sniped, feeling flustered and tense. It was unfair of me to snap at Vette, and I knew it. Vette rolled her head to the side so that she was looking at me with an unreadable expression.

"I didn't mean anything by it."

"Whatever," I waved a hand and surged explosively to my feet. "I'll be working out."

Running away seemed like a wise decision. Once I was in the open cabin intended for exercise, I ignited my lightsaber and immediately dove into a series of katas. Between bouts with Tranch he always made sure to force me to run through these exercises, either for Shien or for Soresu. Each Form had 12 katas, intended to be performed in a series from one to twelve that would take an expert probably fifteen minutes to complete.

According to my textbooks on lightsaber forms, some swordsmen treated these katas as a primer on the actual style of combat that each lightsaber form was suitable for, and the strikes or guard positions from the katas would thus appear in their actual saber work. I wasn't one of these traditional swordsmen, so the katas were more like a calisthenic exercise for me. When it came to actual fighting my form was suggestive of Soresu and Shien, but it wasn't an orthodox interpretation of either, and I relied more on basic principles of combat rather than specific moves.

Basically, while particular guard positions and refined intention of footwork were present in both Shien and Soresu, I didn't restrict myself to movements that were strictly considered a part of these forms. If you squinted and turned your head to the side you could use the vocabulary terms from Soresu or Shien to describe my fighting style, but to a certain extent all descriptions of swordplay fell into the same broad basket and trying to narrow down the difference between a Makashi ‘riposte’ and a Shien ‘counter’ was pure sophistry.

According to Tranch, my development of a personalized combat style that relied on the Forms was commonplace and often the sign of a competent duelist. A novice would sometimes try too hard to fit the mold of his chosen Form, and an arrogant swordsman might innovate too readily, straying from what was effective and putting himself at risk.

These katas were also some of the only effective methods of meditation, if it actually could qualify as such, that I had found so far in my time as Sith. I hadn't been a particularly religious man in my past life, unconcerned about prayer or even strictly agnostic meditative practices. It was difficult, then, for me to grow accustomed to the Sith habit of communing with the Dark Side by channeling their desires into the Force.

The katas were a different thing. Some of the positions were impossible to maintain, if you performed them slowly, without the aid of the Force. Breathing the mystical power in, and flowing into each position with its active assistance, was an inherently cooperative act. The Force and I became one will and moved according to it. I found this not exactly calming, since power gathered just under my skin with a tantalizing buzz, but it was focusing. It helped me clear my mind of distractions. It wasn’t rejuvenating as Baras had indicated meditation often was for the Sith, so that was why I thought maybe Baras would not use the term ‘meditation’ to describe it. Maybe a trance-like state was a better way to describe it.

As I moved at an excruciatingly slow pace through the eighth and into the ninth kata of Soresu, drenched in sweat, I realized that I was afraid. It was obvious, of course, but I had somehow misconstrued my feelings because I didn't feel fear in the way I was used to. But I was definitely afraid. It made me resort to my standard approach: avoidance.

I was afraid that someone, Baras particularly, would discover that I really was actually a fake like he had initially suspected. I was afraid that I would seem pathetic and possibly insane. I was afraid that I would screw up somehow and die in excruciating pain. I was afraid that I'd get Vette, or anyone else that I cared about, killed as well.

I was afraid that I really wasn't cut out for this life. I didn’t understand why this had happened to me, or what I was supposed to do about it.

Xanot was a Sith woman, after all. Or she had been? The tense of the verbiage I use to describe the life of the woman who had existed before the shuttle to Korriban was a bit confusing.

But, from what I knew of her life, she had been born to a Sith mother and Human father, and they had chosen to genetically modify their newborn due to some genetic condition. She - and I chose to think of Xanot as 'she' because of first impressions - had been given up to the Sith Order at a very young age, sent to a preparatory Academy supposedly on Balmorra, and eventually ended up on Korriban.

But I was returning, now, to Balmorra, as an impostor. I didn't have any memories of the place...and I wouldn't recognize anyone that Xanot might have known before...before what? What had really caused me to land in this mess? And how could I describe it?

Should I say a random guy from another world careened through the fabric of time and space and slammed home into Xanot’s mind, supplanting her identity completely?

But how could such a thing occur? And was that even a correct way of thinking?

Perhaps Xanot had died on a stupid orbital shuttle on her way to greatness, and I had likewise died on that subway car. Now, this body was inhabited by a lost soul? That lost soul being myself. But the question then became: why?

Alternatively, it was possible that I really was Xanot, that I had always been Xanot, and that I had just gone spontaneously insane on the shuttle...maybe I had forgotten my true history and instead I remembered the life of an impossible person due to some kind of stress-induced psychosis. Maybe all those years on Earth, in an American suburb and then the bustling city of Chicago, were figments of a deranged imagination. The world of Star Wars was nothing more than a fantasy in my memories, after all...and yet it was here before me. Around me. Everything I saw and interacted with was Star Wars, and it felt real. It felt awesome and fun and sometimes terrible. It often felt dangerous, too.

On the other hand, there was no Earth to be found, not in archives or histories or on any star map. There was no America, and even the words I used weren't in the dictionary, as Vette had observed. Logically, if either Earth or Star Wars had to be a fantasy land, it would seem that the evidence condemned Earth.

Could all of that former life had been a convoluted way for the Force to provide a vision of the future to Xanot? It had certainly felt real enough while I had been living it. However, it was written in the Sith texts that no two seers saw the same visions from the Force...so what if the Force had chosen to reveal the coming dangers to me by showing me the life of that Human man, where he had played through the timeline of my future as if it were a game?

But that didn't explain the game UI I had awakened with, which I could still see if I turned my mind to it. The skills, the inventory panel, or the map of my surroundings. It didn't explain my prodigious growth in power, or the fact that killing people gave me EXP.

As if summoned by my harrowing thoughts, I saw, [Status Gained: Mental Instability]. I paused, mid-kata, and a laugh bubbled up. It was a...strange and awkward sound. I hated it immediately, and almost choked on it when I swallowed reflexively, feeling cold despite the fact that I was sweating.

I checked my character sheet.

[Xanot] | [Classes: Sith Warrior LVL 6, Heir of Marka Ragnos LVL 16] | [LVL 22 - 2243/3206] | [Titles: Apprentice]

[Alignment: Dark I]

[Stats: 690 ATK, 1001 DEF, 643 FORCE, 1102 VIT, 600 SPD]

[Equipped Items: Lightsaber (Red), Dark Robes]

[Statuses: Mental Instability]

[Skills: Evasion V, Dark Regeneration II, Disruption II, Force Barrier III, Force Choke II, Force Crush II, Force Leap IV, Force Precognition V, Force Pull II, Force Push IV,  Force Scream III, Force Sense VI, Force Slam III, Force Speed VI, Force Telekinesis III, Force Ward V, Force Whirlwind II, Heavy Armor Proficiency VI, Heavy Machine Operator II, Lightsaber Deflection IV, Lightsaber Proficiency IV, Lightsaber Form - Soresu V, Lightsaber Form - Shien V, Might of the Tarentatek II, Propel Projectile II, Saber Ward III, Shield Proficiency III, Shuttle Piloting I, Small Vessel Piloting I, Sword Proficiency V, Weapon Throwing II]

I wondered about the new status...it had been a while since I had inspected any sort of skill or status effect. I had been completely ignoring the EXP gain notifications, and maybe they had stopped appearing entirely? I couldn't be sure. But, as I considered these things, the new status expanded to show more information.

[Status: Mental Instability - This status can indicate many forms of mental instability which affect the target's ability to focus and perceive reality. It can impede the use of Force Powers and increase vulnerability to Mind-Affecting attacks or auras. This status can be the result of Force manipulation, or it can be gained naturally if the target experiences severe anxiety, depression, hysteria, mania, stress, or sleep deprivation. This status can also occasionally apply the debuff [Panic Attack] which has a variable duration depending on the severity of the status. The status can be alleviated by meditation, stimulants, cathartic activities, or by choosing the skill Insanity I.]

Out of morbid curiosity, and as I settled into the ready position of Form III, I contemplated insanity.

[Insanity I - This skill indicates that you have gone insane. Your perceptions of reality are not exactly right, and this manifests in a variety of behaviors that others will see as somewhat off. You may occasionally have episodes of more severe symptoms, depending on the active forms of insanity. Options currently available to you are:

Delusional Psychosis - An inability to distinguish reality from imagined things.

Dissassociative Amnesia - Sudden retrograde episodic memory loss, often characterized by the persistence of instinctive memory or muscle memory without associated personal history.

Depersonalisation Disorder - A persistent feeling of detachment from your own thoughts and feelings, as if watching a character from a movie or video game rather than truly living.

Note that the skill [Insanity] can be lost if the underlying conditions related to the skill no longer apply.

Would you like to gain the skill now?]

No. Not at all.

All the UI elements faded from my vision immediately.

I realized that my hands were shaking. I wasn't that tired...so it wasn't from physical strain. At once, I turned off my lightsaber and clipped it to my belt. Fucking insane people wielding lethal weapons was probably not great...no, stop that. I'm not insane. I'm not.

This wasn't how people experienced their mental health issues...was it? I mean, that sort of thing isn't exactly a standardized experience, even on Earth where the situation was far simpler. At least there hadn't been multiple sapient species on Earth, all of which probably had their own race-specific mental problems, not to mention the existence of the Force...

Hell, believing in the Force and using it was probably considered insanity by some definitions on Earth.

The thought crossed my mind that the entire situation, from the game UI and the memories of a past life, could be some kind of subconscious coping mechanism. After all, I was Force-sensitive. Everything Force-sensitive people did was exaggerated and crazy. Like, Anakin Skywalker getting a little nervous about his wife's pregnancy literally led to the fall of the Republic and the rise of an Empire as well as his own disassociation from his identity as Skywalker, becoming Vader, and then murdering his way through over twenty years of his life.

Or Revan, who became so fanatical about protecting people in the Republic that he gave up his entire life and the lives of millions of others in order to preserve it, even choosing to go as far as becoming the evil that he had first tried to destroy.

But, if it was supposed to be helping me that these UI items would pop up and lay out the fact that I was quite literally on the edge of becoming clinically insane, it was doing a very, very poor job of being a coping mechanism. In fact, I felt about ten times worse about it all, having read my own character sheet. What did it even mean to go insane? Could I possibly imagine it?

I needed help. I was breathing shallowly, and still shaking. Was this a panic attack, like the status description had mentioned? Okay...take it easy...deep breaths now...

I closed my eyes shut, finding them surprisingly wet. So, Sith could actually cry…

I had choices. Another deep breath, in and out. I could talk to Vette...would that help? Trying to even explain what the fuck was happening to me wouldn't be easy...and would probably do more harm than good. How could I even start? Besides, opening up about my problems would mean speaking openly about the whole memory/identity-replacement thing. Baras would know, then. I couldn't imagine any scenario where Baras knowing about that was a good thing.

Okay, so talking to Vette was not a good option. An option, certainly. But...I didn't have to talk to her about everything. I could also just ask for a hug or something. Play pazaak and pass the time with something other than my highly concerning thoughts. That was another option.

The status effect had mentioned meditation. I was utter shit at meditation...but maybe that had to change. Could the Force bring clarity to this damned mess? It had probably caused it in the first place, right? I wasn't sure...I wasn't sure whether I was happy about that or not.

There was also...drugs. The med bay was right across the hall, I could take a soporific. That seemed like a bad decision. Easy. But bad. It was certainly easy though. The temptation to just knock myself unconscious for twelve hours was real.

That was not good.

"I can't approach this like a puzzle,” I murmured the words my mother had once said to me. “I'm not a problem that needs solving, I'm a person. My name is…Xanot….” I breathed, finding that I was starting to tense up again. Using that name had not come naturally, but I had at least caught myself before using the old name. That was good. Whoever I had been before, I needed to move on. Owning the name I had been given in this life, Xanot, seemed like a good beginning. "It's not about being right or wrong. It’s about treating myself well. It's about doing what I can manage. It's about being a person I can live with."

Was taking sleeping pills to escape a panic attack part of the character I wanted to be? Was that the role I wanted to play in life?

The answer was obviously no.

Meditation seemed good, as an alternative to that. I fell into a kneeling position, then folded my legs and crossed them. I reached for the Force like a desperate child, letting my fear and frustration well up inside me, and it reached back towards me, cold, hungry, and powerful. It swept down and inside me, a raging storm, a storm that stripped away everything in its path. I wavered in its face.

I was thrown away, careening, up and up. I was surrounded by shadow and light, the first below and second above. The light felt warm like a sun, and the darkness felt comforting like a warm and heavy blanket. I sank lower, looking up at the light as if through several feet of water. I was on the bottom of a pool...sinking...was I even breathing? Wasn't I on a starship?

[Alignment Increased: Dark II]

"Xanot! Hey!" I felt someone shaking me. I felt like water was rushing around me, through me, and then I slammed forcefully into an unhappy reality.

I was laying on the floor, in a fetal position, drenched in sweat. Vette was kneeling over me with pure concern written all over her pale face. One of her small hands was on my shoulder.

"Hey...hey, there. You good? You weren't breathing…" Vette said softly, gently. Worriedly. She was very close, leaning down with her other hand on my arm and her bright smell filling my nostrils. I wasn't sure I had consciously noticed it before, but she smelled great. Delicious and lively.

"I'm...not okay," I answered simply, with a blink to clear tears from my eyes. I reached for the Force again and found it curling inside me like a beast waiting to strike. It seemed to sense me, and I snatched myself away from it, building walls in my mind as I fled. It didn't feel safe...it felt hungry and horrible and wicked.

Vette's eyes were searching my face, and I sat up slowly. My body felt sore...extremely achy like I had been running a fever. My face felt bruised. I belatedly checked my status.

[Statuses: Mental Instability] glared at me like an insult. It was joined by [Force Depletion (Severe)].

"What's wrong?" came the natural question from Vette.

I shrugged helplessly, and searched her face with my eyes for a long beat of silence. Well, meditation had been a bust. Worse…I think it nearly killed me.

Then, suddenly, I said, "Can you teach me pazaak? I need...I need to not think about...everything, really. For a bit."

She nodded uncertainly and offered me her hand. I took it gratefully but didn't put much weight on her as I stood up more carefully than I'd like to admit, with the aches in my limbs. I was surprised when Vette squeezed up against me in a hug that I'd been too shy to ask for. Without thinking, I almost folded in half around her as I wrapped my own arms around her slender frame in a desperate squeeze. I felt like holding on to someone would keep me from spinning away into my own head…into the Dark inside me.

Her face nearly disappeared completely in between my breasts due to the difference in height between us, and I released her almost at once, fearing that I'd come across as needy or salacious or whatever else. Vette lingered a second more and then stepped back, looking towards the door with that adorable blue-tint flush on her cheeks.

"I'll get my deck berightback..." she blurted and was gone in a blink.

I sagged into one of the sofas in the main cabin and Vette sat across from me. We rose the table from the floor, and even though I knew the rules I listened to her explain them. And it was good, for a scant few hours at least. But I couldn’t go into combat like this…something had to be done. I curled into a ball and laid silent for a long time, wondering.

I’m not sure when sleep claimed me, but I was haunted by terrifying dreams of the oppressive weight of the ocean, of shadows reaching up to drag me down.

Chapter Text

Even though my whole body ached like one big, solid bruise, I went through my katas almost feverishly in the morning, until I was too tired to reasonably repeat them. By that time, I couldn't ignore my churning thoughts anymore, and I ended up pacing in front of the holoprojector. I obviously couldn't meditate again without some kind of guidance, and my texts weren't at all helpful.

A few of the essays described ‘the consuming hunger of the Dark Side’ but as far as advice for protecting oneself they didn’t go into much detail. The emphasis was on the Sith Code in every case, but I couldn’t make the connection. I hadn’t thought that the Sith Code was intended to be a safeguard, but at least three different authors had mentioned the Sith Code when describing how to interact ‘wisely’ with the Dark Side. Whatever these ancient authors had considered wisdom was probably better than my blind fumbling around.

Pretty much anything was better than getting eaten alive during meditation.

I had been a student of some description for more than half of my life as Human, so I knew what to do when I ran into an academic issue that I didn’t understand: I had to ask someone for help on the topic. Unfortunately for me, Darth Baras was the only available expert on the Sith Code.

It left a bitter taste in my mouth, dialing his comm codes and attempting to connect. While traveling in hyperspace, communications could be subject to unpredictable latency because the nearest hyper-radio relay station might change mid-conversation, but it wasn’t as if I could drop the ship into real-space just so we could chat more conveniently.

I waited for the connection to stabilize for probably ten minutes, grinding my teeth periodically. I wondered if Baras had kept me waiting on purpose, or if he was just involved in something else. I thought about throwing caution to the wind and trying meditation again straight away, but whenever I remembered how the Force had felt and the fact that I had briefly stopped breathing yesterday…yeah, probably not a good idea.

When Baras’ broad shoulders and engraved helm appeared in holographic blue on the projector in the main cabin, at last, I sketched a shallow bow in greeting. I wanted something from him, after all, so politeness was called for.

"Apprentice Xanot, this is a surprise. You should still be in transit," he remarked.

"We are," I agreed. My words failed me momentarily as I tried to figure out how to begin. “I, um…had a bit of a mishap yesterday, in meditation. I could use some advice, to be honest.”

I sensed Vette in the cockpit, listening. I could hardly be upset, since the holoprojector was in the literal center of the ship. Still...it felt a bit like going to therapy with an audience. I took a breath and shook that thought away. Baras wasn't a fucking therapist, he was an evil mastermind, Dark Lord of the Sith.

However, and it was one of the things I hated about my master, he was frighteningly sane. That meant he had to have figured out how to meditate with the Dark Side, himself, without getting eaten by it or turned into a raving lunatic. I despised the way that he conducted himself, but not because it was insane. I just thought he was short-sighted, greedy, and cowardly. Baras was sane enough to do utterly terrible things without remorse because he had the conviction necessary to believe that those actions were justified.

I could tell that he was surprised by my opening statement, and he folded his arms over his chest. This was as much a test of our relationship as a desperate gambit on my part, so I prepared myself for disappointment. He finally spoke. "It is unsurprising. What is surprising is that you recognize the need. What has happened?"

"I meditated, yesterday," I started again, and was tempted to get distracted by the complications of the word 'yesterday' while we were presently slipping through a higher dimension of the galaxy. I restrained myself. This call had a purpose, and Baras only had so much patience. "It got out of control...the Force kind of swept me away. I felt like I was floating, then sinking. Vette says I wasn't breathing, and she woke me out of the trance. I feel terribly sore and fatigued. I...need to do better."

I could tell that Baras was walking somewhere, and I heard a door swish closed. Then he reached up and removed his mask, visibly shifting as if to sit down. He also removed a gauntlet, all so that he could rub his face with his palm. "You are exceedingly fortunate to be alive. Just when I was beginning to think that your bouts of juvenile foolishness had come to an end, you somehow manage to surprise me again in the worst way. Tell me, what were you meditating upon?"

I hadn’t really been meditating on anything in particular…mostly I had just been calling on the Force in an attempt to calm myself. I had been trying to find my center. "I'm not sure what you mean," I eventually replied, woodenly. I could have predicted that admitting a failure to Baras would not be a fun time, but it still stung a bit to have his low estimation of me hammered home time and time again.

"Your focus, Xanot. What was your focus when you called upon the Dark Side?"

Hmm...I tried to remember what I had been thinking, apart from 'escape.' Nothing else came to mind, so that must have been it. "I was seeking escape. My thoughts were troubled."

Baras nodded. "I wondered if that might have been the case. Normally, this is a problem that acolytes stumble over when they are younger, during early adolescence. At that time, most of them are not strong enough in the Force to be put in any serious danger. Since you are what you are, with far more raw power than actual sense, it's not surprising that you nearly died. Naturally, Apprentice, if you go to the Dark Side seeking effectively the release of death, what do you think it will give you?"

I shuddered. "I was not! I don't want to die, you know that!"

"Don't you? The Dark Side is an amplifier. It operates on what you believe, and what you desire, and furthers these things to their natural conclusions. Let me use an example: you know that the Jedi eschew romantic entanglements. Why do you think that is?” Baras pinned me with his stare even across the light-years that separated us.

“Because…because they say that love leads to the fear of loss,” I answered simply.

“Yes, and?”

I continued and couldn’t help that my voice rose in question towards the end. “Fear may lead a Jedi to the Dark Side?”

Baras sighed and gestured sharply with his hand. “That may be a sufficient answer for the Jedi, who know nothing substantial of the Dark. But we are not Jedi. How does fear specifically lead a person to the Dark Side? Why would someone like Darth Jadus believe that fear is a gift?”

I fought the urge to pace in front of the projector as I thought about this question. Yoda’s platitude, effectively “fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to the Dark Side,” was not detailed enough to suffice.

What else did I know about the Force?

Well, what about Anakin’s tale? He had been afraid of loss, so he had sought power. It just so happened that the convenient source of power at hand was Darth Sidious who filled his head with talk about powers unavailable to the Jedi. But didn’t Sidious’ involvement kind of ruin that example? It hadn’t been Anakin on his own, walking to the Dark Side because of fear. He had been manipulated into the Dark Side and his fear had been the fulcrum.

Would he still have fallen if Darth Sidious had not promised him power? I pondered it for some time, and eventually nodded my head. I thought it was quite possible, but he might also have finally given in and simply asked Obi-Wan for help.

Regardless…all I knew was that fear made people act irrationally. “Fear makes people act impulsively, often leading to actions that violate their stated beliefs,” was my final reasoning.

“While that is true, it does not necessarily lead one to the Dark Side,” Baras refuted at once.

“Then, perhaps fear makes a Jedi seek power, and the pursuit of power leads them to the Dark Side?” I hastened to add.

Baras stared at me for several long moments, before shaking his head. “While that is an interesting perspective, Apprentice, it is not sufficient. The Jedi do have power already, and they also pursue power in their own way. Perhaps we should approach the question from a different angle. What do you suppose is the primary difference between how one contacts the Light and the Dark?”

I sighed and shook my head. “How does this relate to meditation?”

“Are you growing impatient? Do you have something else to occupy your time?” Baras snapped. “Answer the question.”

“The Light Side is approached through peace, and the Dark Side through passion…”

“Stop, stop,” Darth Baras cut in. “If I wanted you to blindly guess, I would have said so. Do you truly not know this?”

I quailed. Was this something I was supposed to know? Instead of admitting ignorance, I said, “I don’t understand the question.”

Darth Baras knew I was lying. I could tell, because his eyes blazed even in the hologram with simmering anger. “You once recited to me the Sith Code. Now, do you also know the Jedi Code?”

Was that a trick question? Baras stared at me until my reluctance crumpled and I nodded my head.

“Is that so? Recite it, then.”

I hesitantly quoted, “There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no death, there is the Force.”

Baras sneered at me, “The ordering is wrong, but it is close enough. Tell me, what does the Jedi Code say about the Light Side of the Force?”

Well, that was easy. “Nothing.”

“Are you being intentionally obtuse or are you merely stupid?” Baras hissed in an explosion of fury that made me flinch. “The Jedi Code is ultimately an expression of the Light Side itself, is it not?”

I took a breath, refused to snap at him. I had called for help, and I hadn’t received it. “I apologize, I just don’t understand where you’re going with all of this.”

“If you knew, then we wouldn’t have to go through this exercise, now would we? Perhaps if you had patience, you might actually learn something,” Baras replied acidly. “I will rephrase the question for my needlessly pedantic apprentice. What does the Jedi Code imply about the Light? Will you answer me properly, now, or should I just cut this conversation short and save us both the irritation?”

I felt like a scolded child…and I hated it. Well…no emotion, no passion. Those came together to form a pretty clear picture. “The Jedi Code implies that desire is anathema to the Light Side.”

“Excellent. To have personal desire is to embrace some form passion, and often desires arise from our emotions or feed into emotions. The Jedi Code explicitly denies emotion and passion both, effectively precluding desire. For the Jedi, they must only want what the Force wants, and must always act to serve the desires of others, never their own. The real question is: why?”

I started to see where he was going with the Jedi angle and nodded along. “The Jedi are servants of the Force, not its masters. Passions, desires, emotions…these things deafen them to the guidance of the Light, and they begin to act purely from their own initiative. Selflessness is opposed to self-interest. Their interactions with others are a reflection of their relationship with the Force.”

“There, all we had to do was phrase the proposition according to your strange way of thinking and you show some sign of intelligence. Now contrast the implications made by the Jedi Code about the Light Side with the Sith Code and the Dark Side.”

If my conclusion was what he had wanted to hear about the Jedi, then, naturally, the Sith would be a contrast. “The way of the Sith is to command the Force, the way of Jedi is to obey it.”

“And the way of the Sith is an expression of the Dark Side, while the Jedi are of the Light Side. Just as the Jedi are motived by the Force to express themselves according to the Light, so are the Sith motivated to express their wisdom according to the Dark. We can conclude that the key difference between the Light and the Dark is that the Light makes servants, and the Dark makes masters,” Darth Baras intoned seriously. Then he folded his hands together expectantly. “Now, can you explain to me how fear leads to the Dark Side?”

I shrugged. “Fear leads to personal desire?”

“Fear is partly a desire, Apprentice,” Baras corrected. “Half of fear is the desire to preserve something. The sense of peril is the other half. It makes a potent ambition. To command the Force, you must first desire what it can provide. Therefore, to know fear is to take the first steps towards becoming a master and not a servant, which is to align oneself with the Dark Side.”

“How then can it be said that a true Sith knows no fear?” I wondered immediately. It was one of my favorite lines from Count Dooku in the Clone Wars cartoon, when he had warned Ventress that she was not truly Sith.

“Ah, I see another glimpse of the astute pupil your former teachers praised so highly. If only you had retained even an ounce of wisdom from those lessons. Well, that is a common platitude, but like most common platitudes it is ultimately incorrect. It should be, ‘a true Sith is not mastered by his fear,’ or indeed, ‘a true Sith masters himself in all aspects,’” Baras answered. “Indeed, it could be said that a Sith knows fear as his closest friend, but never allows it to impel him. The Jedi say that having passions is the essential character of Sith, but they are fools. Having passions and controlling them to your advantage is what makes a Sith. Now that we have rectified what is an alarming deficiency in your basic understanding of the Sith Code, we can return to my example. The Jedi eschew romantic entanglements because such things are ultimately passionate, and as we established passion is one of the essential marks of the Dark Side. Do not be confused: the Dark Side is not the same thing as the Sith. The Jedi and their practices are not the central point of this discussion, however. Your mishap with meditation is. Do you see the connection?”

Was he joking? “Not really.”

Baras sighed with obvious disappointment. “Then we must continue from my example until you do. Suppose that a Jedi falls in love with another, a tale as old as time itself. Detail for me the progression of events that may lead such a Jedi to the Dark Side.”

“Well, given that we talked about fear, I imagine that this Jedi might begin to fear that his lover will die,” I began, thinking again of Anakin. “He might believe that he should be strong enough to prevent this death. And…by taking that power from the Force, he Falls.”

“That is insufficient!”

“Why?” I nearly whined, frustration building.

“You have glossed over the acts of the Force, focusing on the acts of the hypothetical Jedi. But the Jedi are insignificant, the Force is the important actor here,” Darth Baras replied impatiently. “Think of the most terrible deed that you can contemplate; any simple man can be driven to perform such an atrocity. A person’s choice to abandon their ideals is not the critical point in this case. It is the nature of the Jedi’s connection to the Force that separates them from that commonplace monster. Let’s suppose that the Jedi does as you suggested, and he reaches to the Force in order to take the power to save his lover’s life. Tell me how the Force reacts to this presumption.”

“I…” I trailed off. I didn’t have an answer.

“Hm. You don’t actually know, do you?”

“No, Master.”

“It is apparent that your teachers were more interested in using your innate talents to their own advantage than actually informing you about the nature of the Force or of the Sith. Or you forgot everything that they taught you, which would be more troubling,” Baras remarked blithely. “I will explain from the fundamentals, then, but you should review these crucial topics on your own. I will provide several texts that I think are the most accurate and straightforward, considering the way that you think. Now, listen attentively, because the next time you forget this you will probably die. All interactions with the Force, whether the Dark or the Light, are an exchange. It is a sacrificial principle. Something is given up or promised and something is gained in return. What do you suppose can be offered to the Force?”

“Well, emotions,” I replied simply. That was obvious.

“Yes, but only if you are a fool,” Darth Baras snapped. He seemed to catch himself, shaking his head. When he continued, I could tell it was carefully controlled. “Of course, that misconception is what has resulted in your current predicament. The answer is that the Force, which arises from life, will accept life in sacrifice. Your emotions are a part of your life, but they should be rather precious to you. Instead, consider offering your devotion. By devotion, I am speaking of reliance on the Force. Invite it within yourself and make it as much a part of your life as breathing or eating, and the Force will obey your commands. It is satisfied by the fact that it has become a part of your very life. Importantly, this is distinct from handing over parts of your autonomy to the Force.”

“What is devotion if not obedience?” I asked.

“It is the difference between obeying the Sith Code and obeying any one particular Sith,” Baras replied sharply. “To devote yourself to the Dark Side, you accept its ways and its wisdom, you consider it a part of your identity, but you do not obey its individual commands. It would be folly of the highest order, and hypocritical, for any Sith to obey the Force. We are the masters, not the Force. The Force is not an intelligence, it does not have a sensible will. It commands, but only to further its own chaotic ends, as does a river which thrashes against its banks. There is no intelligence in the river, though it has violent desire aplenty.”

“I think I understand…”

“Allow me to paint a picture. Our hypothetical Jedi goes to the Force in complete desperation, and he begins to meditate. He is willing to do anything, sacrifice anything. You cannot lie to the Force, which is a part of your very life, nor can you hide your truest desires from it. All interactions with the Force are an exchange. So, what do you suppose the Force takes from our Jedi when he reaches out for power?”

Realization dawned. “Everything.”

“Precisely. The Jedi emerges from his desperate gambit profoundly affected, and this is what the Jedi call a Fall to the Dark Side. What has actually happened to the man is that the Force took from him all that he was willing to offer it, and it rewarded him with what he sought to grasp. He desired power? Then power is what he receives. Did he sacrifice his love to attain it? Perhaps. Who can know what the Force carved from his identity as a price for his hubris? And who can know what the Force will take from you or I? This is why you must guard yourself jealously. Sith do not release our emotions into the Force like the foolish Jedi do. They who become slaves to the Light Side are not to be imitated. Their exchange is that they cut away their true self and in return they receive a taste of promised peace from the Force. Well, what do you think you would have received for your exchange yesterday?”

I shivered. “I don’t know…it felt terrible. Dangerous. You said that I asked for death.”

Baras smiled sharply. “Your senses are correct. If you had let your emotions be taken from you, you might have become as the Jedi are, but you would not receive the gentle whispers of the Light Side as they do. In the grasp of the Dark Side, those who make this mistake will shortly become nothing more than a violent, unstable nexus of raw power motivated purely by chaos. Ultimately these fools die. They are either put down like the rabid animal that they chose to become, or they are consumed by the Force completely.”

“Oh,” I breathed, closing my eyes and shaking my head.

“Do you understand the depth of your mistake now? So, you gave your feelings to the Dark Side because you didn't want to suffer them anymore, and you moved to take peace from the Dark. Inevitably, the Force moved to consume your very life. Because, in the end, if your desire is to be free from troublesome feelings and emotions, isn’t it death which is most comforting of all," Baras lectured. "Let me repeat myself: the Sith are not Jedi or Fallen Jedi. We do not seek to escape or deny our emotions. What use is passion, Xanot, if your only goal is to avoid all of its discomforts? The ambitions of the Sith will bring us disappointment, rejection, failure, and frustration. The things that we eventually do in the pursuit of ambition will often bring guilt, regret, and sorrow."

I stayed silent, even as I wondered what the point of it all was. If the reward of the Sith Way was nothing but constant suffering...

"Do not view these painful things as something you must merely endure just to receive some greater reward. They are not. Do not consider them unfortunate side-effects. They are not. Face these feelings again and again. Let pain become motive. Let yourself grow stronger with every failure. Life itself, with all of its troubles and all of its pleasures, is something worth grappling with. Sometimes you will have victories, and the dizzying heights of satisfaction will be yours to cherish, and other times you will dwell in the deepest pits of desolation. Peace is a lie, Apprentice; do not go looking for lies."

"How does this relate to meditation, exactly?" I asked, somewhat desperate to move on. Where I had intended to ask for a way to center myself in meditation, Baras had instead aimed a criticism at what was pretty much a central aspect of my character: my desire for ease and comfort.

"Can you not see? Your focus determines your reality," Darth Baras intoned, a tinge of impatience in his voice. "You prefer to be comfortable. Ah, see how you winced? This is no surprise to me. I knew it when we first met. Your instructors must have been terribly soft to allow this delusion to continue, and indeed you should probably have been left to complete a full curriculum on Korriban like all the rest of the acolytes just so that it might finally be dispelled. But I was too impatient, and of course unwilling to risk that another might claim your talent for themselves. Regardless, you have been taken in by the lie of peace. No doubt this fatal flaw did not claim your life due to some combination of good fortune and natural ability, but we can only run from imperfections for so long. We may hide from weakness, but it doesn’t truly go away. I have learned to face life and all its facets, and this has made me strong. On the other hand, you weakly cling to childish notions. Therefore, when you went to meditate, your mind naturally turned to avoidance rather than confronting reality. You sought peace. But you are a creature of the Dark Side. The Dark can indeed grant you peace, if you only ask. Simply become one with the Force, and all worldly concerns shall trouble you no more. The Code of the Sith applies to all of life, my Apprentice, but not to death. Only in death shall there ever be peace.”

His final sentence whipped out at me, and shivers ran down my spine. Only in death…

Baras, if he saw it, did not comment. He continued, “That is why the conclusion of the Jedi Code, which preaches peace as its crowning virtue, is 'there is no death, there is the Force.' The ultimate and desired end of the Jedi is to become one with the Force, to disperse their life into the cosmos and thus cease existence as an individual who must struggle with temptation. It is a perfect death, and a perfect tranquility. But as we have said, a Jedi must not pursue their personal desires, and the Light Side only obeys itself. Therefore, Jedi must suffer their years of life in anticipation of a promised rest, struggling daily against what is natural to their existence. The Dark Side is not such a cruel mistress. She deals in commands and obedience. Command her, and she will take you. At once, often without warning. That is what you did, without really knowing what it was that you were asking for. When you meditate, you must have purpose and focus."

"The Force feels hungry...dangerous. I thought to meditate again, and felt threatened by it," I said, understanding that he was implying that I needed to embrace even pain. I hated it…and I wasn’t even sure I could do that. How does one change their character in such a fundamental way?

"Yes, it would seem that way. After all, you presented yourself before it like prey. When you invite a predator into your home, you must not show it weakness. You must be uncompromising in your desired identity. You must not regret your character, because if you do then you will be tempted to obey rather than to command. If you have doubts, let The Dark Side take them. Let it winnow you to the core of your being, to that part of yourself that you are certain about. When it has gone, only your truest self will remain. Build on that foundation, but do not take the shortcut of permitting the Dark Side to replace what it has taken from you. That is the way to madness. The path to true power in the Dark is certainly a challenge, but you retain autonomy, and that is what makes a Sith Lord. This distinction separates us who are masters from the common madman, who is ultimately nothing more than a coward. They who seek power but who lack the fortitude to suffer for it will pay an even more dreadful price."

I settled into silence for a long time, mind spinning. Then, in a voice that was smaller, more vulnerable, than I'd like, I asked, "How can anyone face these things, again and again? Isn't it possible to be overcome?"

"Yes," Baras answered simply. "It is possible. It happens often. It was never once said that life is easy, at least not by anyone wise, and the way of the Sith is the purest way of life. It is life with all of its passion, unhindered, unbound. It is freedom itself. After all, the ultimate end of the only true code for all of life is this: 'The Force shall free me.' That makes it beautiful, and also makes it dangerous. Freedom from what? You would be wise to ponder that question. Do not allow the answer to become, ‘freedom from the person I have become.’ To do this, you must first wholly reject the code of death, the Jedi Code, which you have either knowingly or unknowingly accepted in part. You cannot meditate believing where there is no emotion, there is peace. You should know by now that there is no peace, there is only passion."

"What if I'm not strong enough?" I wondered, and then winced visibly. That wasn't the kind of question to ask of Baras, who was just as likely to take advantage of my weakness as he was to answer honestly.

But surprisingly, he seemed almost gentle when he spoke, "It is not necessary to be strong merely to live. The weak also live for a time. Strength is expected of you because you have great potential, and because you are a Sith Lord. To merely live is not our destiny as Lords; we are meant to rule. But you are gripped by uncertainty. Who will you become, and what are your ambitions? Answering those questions was the reason for your lengthy instruction as an acolyte, but it is clear that you failed to learn them, or you were never taught. Obviously, you are an acolyte no more, and time is running out.”

I winced at that, and Baras sighed.

“Do not assume that I am threatening you for floundering indecisively. If you have survived for this long without understanding your purpose, who am I to cut your life short? I am not what you should fear,” he aimed a finger at me for emphasis. “You have only been apprenticed for several weeks, but your power grows at such a rate that the demands placed upon you are becoming more strenuous and difficult. If you choose to live for nothing, then you might as well die for nothing. You cannot hide that truth from the Dark Side. The Force will happily consume you, and it will do so more quickly the stronger you become in the Force, especially if you run into its embrace begging for peace. I don’t have to explain why that would be problematic from my perspective, but perhaps you don’t quite understand why this is a fate that you should seek to avoid. I've reminded you before of what you once said, and I will repeat it again because it is one of the few wise things I’ve heard you say: dying for the wrong reasons is something to be feared. I sensed the wisdom of someone other than yourself in those words, but you at least accept them as true whereas you seem to have forgotten mostly everything else that your instructors tried to hammer into your thick skull."

I nodded carefully.

"Peace is a lie," Baras repeated once more, emphatically. "The act of living is itself defined by a struggle for survival. Each and every breath has its challenges, its worries. Danger lurks in every future. If you wish to live well, then choose to live for something that is worth these tribulations. Embrace life with all your strength. Hold nothing back from it, seize every moment as another victory. Life is short, and it should be precious to you. If you do this, the wisdom of the Sith will prove itself. As you fail again and again, you will grow stronger, and if you die in this battle, then at least you will have died worthily. Do not let yourself simply subsist like a worm that gnaws the corpses of greater creatures just to avoid the heat of the sun. Neither allow yourself to become nothing more than an aimless vessel of agony that burns without purpose. This is the true lesson of adversity, which every Sith must learn swiftly. 'Through passion, I gain strength.' The Sith Code is our truth, not because it is dead wisdom from the honored dead, but because its simple axioms are conclusions drawn from countless centuries of bloodshed and destruction. Do not try to reinterpret the Code, or you will join the numberless dead who grappled with the Dark Side and failed. Instead, rely upon what has been proven true. Before meditating on the Dark Side again, meditate on those words," Baras advised me sagely. When he finished, he fastened his mask over his face once more and reapplied his gauntlet.

I bowed my head thoughtfully. "I will."

"Is that all, then? You interrupted a conference I was having with several insufferable Moffs. While keeping them waiting is amusing, I shouldn't dawdle," Baras waved a hand impatiently. I swallowed and nodded.

"Yes. Thank you for answering my call."

"Hmph," the surly man hung up on me. But after he had done so much to explain my dilemma, and in a way that felt as though he understood it personally, his gruff attitude almost seemed like an act and nothing more.

I was a bit shell-shocked by the fact that he was actually willing to drop everything to provide a lecture, and that he'd actually been...profoundly helpful. The answer to my problem was not easy, and it wasn’t what I had wanted to hear.

Basically, I had to decide who I am, and who I wanted to be. As if that was easy! Then, by focusing on those things, I would let the Dark Side strip away doubt, regret, and other inhibitors. After that, end the meditation and don’t allow the Force to replace whatever it takes. If my understanding was correct, I would end up focused and centered on the things that I desired for myself, and I could proceed from there to the long-term portion of the plan.

Assuming I could pull any of that procedure off without dying because of latent desires that the Force actualizes and preys upon. The alternative was to try to work through my doubts, regrets, fears, and troubles without the Force, but I hadn’t done very well with that so far...obviously. After it reached a head yesterday, my feelings had reduced to a simmer, but I still felt as if the wrong trigger could send me right back into a panic, and I couldn’t be weak and on the edge of a meltdown in a war zone. That was just asking to freeze up and get my dumb ass shot with plasma bolts.

The long-term portion of the lesson was to continue to rely on the Force without allowing it to control me. The more intimate the relationship, the more I could command it. Wouldn’t this have other effects, as well? What did it really mean to rely upon the Force, or specifically on the Dark Side?

I stood, staring at the empty projector, and lifted my datapad to write down some notes. I wasn't much of a journal-er, but this felt important enough to set down in writing. I had a feeling that I'd have to think about this a lot, in the coming weeks and months.

I had known some of those things already...but I hadn't put them together in that way, before. His representation of the Jedi Code was obviously biased, but the expression of the Sith Code that he had delivered was well-said and complete. Even the textbooks I had been forced to speed-read on Korriban would have agreed wholeheartedly. They had said the same sort of thing, only in long-winded and difficult ways.

While I didn't necessarily want to agree with Darth Baras and go full on 'seek adversity, seek strength,' I could admit that I didn’t know anything about the Force. Was Baras presenting a biased representation of the Light and the Dark? In all likelihood, yes. But seeing as there were no convenient Jedi around for me to consult, I would simply have to proceed based on the advice I had been given.

Because as much as my coping mechanism had always been 'avoid stress, avoid fear, avoid pain,' my lifestyle in this life didn’t facilitate that kind of escapism. I would have to be a certain kind of person in the future, and a slip-up could mean death. There weren’t going to be convenient periods of time where I could procrastinate for several days and binge my favorite shows or have a few relaxing jerk-off sessions.

Where it concerned Force mysticism, Baras’ explanation also served to explain what had happened in my meditation yesterday, which lent some credence to his perspective.

I was extremely leery of the fact that Baras would encourage me to be ambitious. He knew that I hated him, with varying degrees of passion. It depended on my mood at any given time, honestly. The fact that he had been so patient with me today made it a bit hard to summon personal hatred for him.

But I did despise his methods and his goals and that never wavered. However well he treated me, he was still a calculating sociopath with delusions of grandeur. He must have known that I was likely to resolve to become a true Sith Lord myself, and that he would be something of an obstacle in my path. I had learned that not all Sith Masters died in order for their Apprentice to be promoted, but in my case, I felt it was pretty damn likely that Baras would find himself at the business end of my lightsaber down the line.

The fact is that even after I was a Lord or a Darth who wasn’t his student, Baras’ vision for the Empire was incompatible with mine. I didn’t even know what I wanted for the Empire, but I knew it didn’t involve Baras as Voice of the Emperor.

Not to mention, he was maybe, possibly planning to betray me. He needed me to be strong enough to perform my tasks, and then I would be discarded. That was how it had gone in the game, at least. But not everything in the game was coming true, so could I really be certain of his plans?

He hadn’t sounded particularly keen to watch me die, just now. And he had said that he had been impatient to become my master, on Korriban. Why? Was it only because he needed someone to become his enforcer?

I was willing to admit that I had been wrong in some of my expectations. After all, he had provided me funding, he didn't override my choices concerning Vette, he had provided me a teacher for lightsaber combat, and he had challenged me with missions that were suitable for my level of skill. He had actually taken the time to explain things to me about Balmorra and now about the Force. He hadn't stopped me from making the earlier doctor's appointment in Kaas City. He had provided literature on any topic I requested access to. His assigned reading had been informative and deeply practical.

Darth Baras really wasn't the bad teacher I had expected him to be, from the game’s representation of him. He was somewhat distant, and we certainly didn't approve of each other, so that much was true. But were those things necessary for the Master and the Apprentice? Not according to Sith. Maybe he was actually doing his best, and we were mutually strengthening each other, which was the entire point of the relationship.

Doing his duty as my master was to his own benefit…that was what the texts had said on Korriban. He was training me for his own purposes, not because of sentiment or even because he wanted a legacy. In that case, no matter how well he taught me, or how kindly he treated me as his Apprentice, nothing would prevent him from trying to kill me down the line.

I eventually sat in one of the sofas, staring at my datapad. I had summarized what he had said and then written under it, 'Who am I? What do I want to live for? Who do I want to become?'

Good questions. It seemed to be a recurring theme. "You can't just want one thing," I said to myself, writing that underneath the prior statements.

"He was surprisingly helpful," Vette remarked, easing into a seat across from me. I glanced at her and nodded thoughtfully.

"Yeah," I agreed. "I guess you don't succeed for as long as he has without learning a thing or two. And he can't have me being useless when he needs me to kill his spies and hunt down his Jedi rival."

I typed some more, and the silence stretched on.

"I didn't mean anything, yesterday. About your dialect of Basic," Vette said suddenly. I looked up and blinked slowly.

"Huh?" I had honestly forgotten. What...oh. The 'goliathan' remark. "Don't worry about that. It was nothing, Vette."

Vette was looking at her hands, one leg crossed over the other. "You ran off after I said it. I worried that..."

"I didn't have a nervous breakdown because of an offhand remark, really," I soothed with a bit of amusement. "Relax, would you? It was...just the last month has been a lot. It’d been building up and I was suppressing it. I'll admit I haven't been handling things."

I was about to say, 'haven't been handling it well' but I think 'haven't been handling it' full stop was the better way to say it. I hadn't grieved for the life I had lost so suddenly. I hadn't come to terms with my new situation. I hadn't accepted my role as Sith. I hadn't really accepted my identity as Xanot. I hadn't decided on my short term or long-term goals.

In the heat of the moment, I had been a convincing Sith, hadn’t I? I had survived the Black Talon, and I had survived Dromund Kaas. But reflecting on the things I had done afterward in the quiet of cold space...reconciling my deeds with the person I actually wanted to be...that was where my approach to this life was failing me. Because in the end, it had been an act. The lines were blurring between the facade and the true person. Like Vette had said about her life before, I had been acting as I was expected to act, but how long can you keep that up before you become what people expect you to become?

It's alright, I thought to myself, I'm only one month old. From a certain point of view. I can be forgiven some mistakes.

But I did need to change. Specifically, I needed to improve. One step at a time, starting with some workable goals. My previous, slow, and comfortable life had not been a good preparation for the ways of the Sith, but despite this I didn’t feel beleaguered. There was trepidation. But…being powerful and strong and sexy was plenty rewarding on its own.

Though, I definitely didn’t want to end up getting eaten by the Dark Side. That meant I had to grapple with somewhat more religious concerns.

"I see," Vette seemed to relax a bit. "I've been wondering, too, you know. What does Xanot want? Just like your big and spooky master was asking. You aren't what I think is typical for Sith, so the usual world domination doesn’t seem likely."

I sighed through my nose. "I don't really know. That's part of my problem. Because...if I had my way, I'd just as quickly settle down in a small apartment somewhere, get a boring-ass job, set up regular meal delivery and access to hot baths, and then jack off for, oh, twenty years or so. Deciding on anything more ambitious than that sounds like a lot of work, frankly."

I almost blushed halfway through what was perhaps an embarrassing description of my past life. But I managed to say it. Because I shouldn’t be ashamed of it. I didn't think there was anything wrong with a good, peaceful life. I'd done it once before, right? Who could look down on me for that?

Vette burst into giggles. "Wow," she said, covering her lips with her fingers. "That was about the last thing I expected you to say."

I crossed my arms over my chest defensively. "What's wrong with it? It's nice and easy, and nobody gets hurt. Especially myself."

"Sure," Vette nodded. Then, "Wouldn't you get bored eventually?"

"Yeah," I allowed, easily. "They do make things like books and games. Good food. Friends. Alcohol...drugs...plenty of ways to stave off boredom."

"Well, you've got it all planned out then, don’t you?"

"Yeah, except there's the small problem of my being a Sith Lord. An Apprentice, mind you, but still," I interjected sarcastically, lifting my datapad. "I have to come up with lordly ambitions now, not just...well, what Baras would probably consider the life of a worm."

"Who says?" Vette challenged.

"Baras, for one," I replied instantly. "And the Dark Council, who deals with the curriculum for Sith Apprentices. Probably the Imperial Navy, considering I technically have an actual rank in the Sith military. Also, there's the Jedi who would probably hunt me down because I reek of the Dark Side."

Vette laughed again, bright and youthful. I loved her laugh, it loosened something that was knotted inside me whenever I heard it. I grinned and ducked my head to hide my expression, so I didn’t look like an idiot.

"Why would you need to use the Dark Side while lying about and jacking off?" Vette managed to say with only a slight blush. I was surprised that she went there, but greatly amused that she had.

"The Dark Side is a pathway to many abilities some would consider to be unnatural," I quoted Darth Sidious and then laughed like a complete loon. Vette also laughed, even though she didn't get the inside joke. "But seriously, the Jedi don't care about actively using the Dark or not. It makes it easier to find their enemies if they are. But people are aligned with the Dark or with the Light whether they use the Force or not…that’s part of what Baras was saying. It's about how you live…like, a matter of personal devotion. A religious thing, you could even say. Holing up in an apartment for your own peace and pleasure is selfish fulfillment, and that's more of a Dark thing than the Light. The Jedi take exception to Force-sensitives who align with the Dark, regardless of their actual deeds. They would say that I still pose a danger to society and the balance of life itself."

"That's dumb," Vette scoffed. "Can't they just mind their own business?"

"Well, the Sith aren't much better at minding their own business, to be fair. And the Jedi believe that the Dark inevitably leads to atrocities. But I do agree with you," I pointed out. "Anyway, obviously I can't just retire and live a quiet life. I like being alive, and there's lots of people who would look to change that situation if I decided to go AWOL. Not to mention, I still have a lot to learn about the Force, as was made obvious yesterday. If I left, I could quite possibly stumble into danger with the Force again and next time you might not be around to break me out of my trance."

"You definitely could retire," Vette shook her head. "The galaxy is a big place. You could find some primitive world somewhere and make the locals wait on you hand and foot. Just push the Force down and ignore it, right? Who would ever know?"

I sighed. "I could do that. But do I want to? Would that help anyone?"

"Who said anything about helping people?" Vette prompted with keen interest.

"I did," I answered simply. And, I realized, "I want to. Help people, that is."

"Well, now we're getting somewhere," Vette clapped her hands together. "Who are we helping, then?"

It warmed me that she used 'we' in that context. As if my goals were her own. I smiled as I contemplated my answer.

"You...me. My friends, basically," I started, typing on my datapad as I talked. "I guess that extends to anyone that depends on me, since I'm technically an authority figure."

"You want to help me?" Vette seemed surprised. "Why?"

I blinked and put down my datapad. "Well..." I thought about it seriously. "I-well, I just...look, the thing is..."

I trailed off. Swallowed. Was it hot in here? "Vette, it's very simple..." I tried to continue, then I sighed and shook my head. "You're cute?" It sounded like a question. But, I nodded decisively. Nailed it.

She blinked. I cringed. Then she giggled, brightly, and I was okay. It was embarrassing to admit it to her face, but Vette was cute and that meant a lot of things, to me, and one of them was that I liked to see her happy. I'd do a lot of things to make that happen.

"That's it?" she asked through her laughter.

Well, not exactly in the way she probably received it. But mostly. I wasn't just talking about appearances, and maybe she didn't get that, but I wasn't going to wax poetic about all the reasons I though Vette was a bright spot in the otherwise somewhat chaotic galaxy of Old-Republic-Era Star Wars.

She was resilient. She was kind, despite everything. She was fun. And, yeah, I also thought she was pretty hot. You couldn’t ask for much more than that, right? Normally I have a pretty low bar when it comes to potential romantic interests, and Vette was pretty much soaring miles above that bar. I almost felt like it would be a shame if someone like her ended up living the life of a Sith Lord’s companion. Or concubine. Or whatever.

"You asked, alright?" I grumped defensively. "Look, helping myself, as in surviving and enjoying it, is obvious. So, that's two people to manage, you and me. The droid doesn't count; I hate him."

"He can probably hear you," Vette pointed out with amusement and something else tangling in her gaze.

"I don't care, honestly. In fact, I hope he did," I raised my chin haughtily. After a moment, I tapped a finger on my datapad and continued, "Helping my friends be the best they can be is common sense. There's also people who depend on me for protection or something like that, but who aren't really my friends. If I help them succeed, by meeting my obligations and encouraging them to meet their own, then they might realize that they can trust me to do my job as their lord. Then they can do whatever it is that they are supposed to be doing without having to trouble me about it. That saves me all the effort of being suspicious that people aren't doing their jobs, and it keeps me from having to constantly watch for back-stabbing from every single person I nominally have authority over. They should want to serve me, and that gives my enemies nothing to use as leverage other than pain or fear. Neither of those things lend themselves to real loyalty. Yes, I think wanting to help these particular sorts of people makes a lot of sense, and it's at least an ambition that Baras might find worthy of a Sith Lord. After all, to help my subordinates they need to actually exist."

It was also a lot of work. An intimidating amount, honestly. But I left that part unsaid.

Vette was eyeing me with a mysterious look. "I'm getting the impression that what you really are is a big, lazy Sith lady."

"What of it?"

While she had a laugh, I thought more about long-term goals. What I had said before was fine, for now, but maintaining the status quo wasn't in the nature of Sith. I would be expected to want more, to press onward, to reach higher.

It wasn't that hard. I wanted Jaisa Wilsaam, and I wanted her to be powerful, preferably sane, and beautiful. I could admit that, right? It wasn't creepy for me to think of a Jedi padawan as something I could claim for myself, was it?

Whatever. The sad reality of the situation was that I either train her or kill her, and frankly I wasn’t interested in killing Jaisa just to protect Baras’ spies.

I knew, from the game, that she went a little wild on the Dark Side mojo and got a bit crazy as a result, but I viewed that as the failure of the player character as her teacher. It was sensible that someone who had never once taught anyone about the Dark Side would screw it up in spectacular fashion. It was an example of what Baras had lectured me on earlier. Honestly if I was handed a willing apprentice in the near future, I wasn't sure I could do them justice.

I had almost been eaten yesterday, by the Dark Side. So...maybe becoming a Master right away wasn't the best idea. I had some time before I encountered her, though. I could probably do a whole lot better, at least as an introduction to the Dark Side, than making my prospective student murder her father-figure in cold blood after humiliating the man in single combat and forcing him to throw aside his lifelong convictions for the slightest chance at survival. Not doing that as a primer in the Dark Side would probably help with Jaisa's insanity a lot.

In fact, if the fight followed the same lines and Nomen Karr did end up becoming super corrupted and crazy because he unwisely sacrifices himself to the Dark Side for a chance at victory, then I could even use him as an example of what not to do. It was just humiliating after a certain point.

But that meant I had had to have something to teach her affirmatively after what was sure to be a rocky introduction. If I was making play at becoming her Sith Master, I wanted to do it right. Figuring out where I stood in the Force, and navigating the Dark Side, would be a necessary short-term goal which needed to be complete by that time. It would actually help me accomplish multiple long-term goals, not just teaching Jaisa. Almost as if personal mastery was a piece of a larger puzzle. So I wrote "achieve mastery of the Force" down. That was a big ambition. It felt impossible. It would involve becoming a lot more certain in my identity in the immediate future.

I could do it, though. I just needed to make the right sacrifices.

I took a deep breath and wrote some more. Jaisa was one thing. But Pierce was a good one too. That guy was a dependable friend to have in a pinch. Lana Beniko, obviously. She might be a little scary, but I could definitely get behind that. Her loyalty was a beautiful thing.

Obtaining them and then doing well by them, that was quite an ambition, and I earnestly wanted it. Putting it into words made me want it more. I’d be willing to sacrifice a lot to make this happen.

And, yeah, Vette, Jaisa, Lana...I can admit my intentions might not be totally platonic. Like, I wasn't going to make a move with Vette when I wasn't sure if she would think I was being super creepy about it, due to the whole master-slave aspect of things. Also, Sith might be naturally polygamous but other species probably weren't, so navigating that whole situation was going to be treacherous waters. New territory for me, as well.

But if powerful Lords were expected to have a powerful household, with powerful, worthy matriarchs at its head, then I could certainly do a whole lot worse than Jaisa and Lana.

It was probably premature to consider Jaisa and Lana for lovers since I hadn’t even met them yet. What if they weren’t anything like the game’s portrayal? Baras was certainly different. Still, part of my motivation in meeting them and befriending them was to discover if I could love them. That was the best way to say it.

I knew Vette…nothing to be afraid of there. A lot to admire. Other Sith would probably call me pathetic, or sentimental, or whatever. But I thought of Vette as a private strength…the kind that uplifted me and made me want to do good.

I wanted more than just a crew of close confidants and allies. I had said that before, hadn't I? I wanted a star destroyer, no joke. While I was thinking about that, I realized I wanted a planet at some point, too. I wanted to be a good lord. I could be a leader that people looked up to. One that was respected and feared for the right reasons.

Why? Because...because as much as I wasn't really ashamed of living the easy life that I had lived once before, I had always dreamed of changing the world on some level. I had thought in passing of being the kind of person that would be remembered for their deeds. But I hadn't ever had power enough to make those dreams a reality on Earth. And it had seemed like a lot of effort for no guarantee of success.

Maybe I could have actually done it, and I just hadn't seen the possibility. Or maybe I had been intimidated by the amount of work it would take.

In any case, I did have power now, and I didn’t have the option of laziness. I was Sith. I would become Wrath. The whole galaxy would know my name, and some would tremble at it. Yes, I could make a real difference in this galaxy, not just on a single world. But I could start by showing one planet, somewhere, that the Sith didn't have to be cruel, mercurial lords. I could demonstrate that we could actually do our jobs well and earn respect instead of demanding it without basis.

I could do that. Somehow. The details would come with time, that was why this was a long-term plan. I wrote it down. I took a slow breath.

I realized Vette was staring. "What?"

"Nothing," she said hurriedly, standing up. "I'm gonna check the navicomputer, see-ya!"

That was odd. I guess I'd embarrassed her. I blinked at where she'd been and then shook my head. It was time to try meditating once more, I think.

I was ready, right? Baras had advised me to think on his lesson first. I should have asked him if there was any way to know if you were ready to face the Dark Side.

Baras had said it was about knowing who you wanted to become. It was about being uncompromising.

I could do that. The reason I had been upset was because I was afraid of becoming something I would hate. And if I was afraid, then I must desire something. We had discussed that. I had a desire to preserve my character, and I felt that the things I had been doing were making me into someone I didn’t want to be. Yesterday, I had begun to doubt. I had wondered if maybe becoming someone else was what I needed to do.

That was where I had gone wrong. I had called on the Dark Side, uncertain in myself. The words of Baras came back to me, "you presented yourself as prey." The answer to the question ‘who am I?’ was complex. Just as complex as ‘who do I want to become?’ However, I did have answers to those questions, even if I couldn’t put those answers into words. For certain, my answers did not involve becoming power-hungry, cruel, and arbitrary like many other Sith Lords.

I could stand before the Dark Side with confidence. Probably.

Actually, making progress towards any of my long-term goals, well...that would be the hard part. That was what I like to call 'work.'

When I reached for the Force, sometime later, in anger and fierce desire, it did not feel hungry anymore. There was still some uncertainty and fear, filling my mind like dark clouds. But instead of running from my fear, instead of allowing it to make me question myself, I felt angry that it had overcome me in the first place. I stood in squarely in its path and let the storm sweep through me. I knew it was dreadful, but fear is temporary. I knew who I wanted to become.

The Force was my ally, not my enemy. I did not waver before it. I don't know how long I was knelt in meditation, probably sweating and shaking like a leaf in the wind. But eventually, I found the focus Baras had promised.

Obviously, I hadn't answered the questions surrounding my arrival in this galaxy. But with the Force flowing into me and buoying my ambitions instead of trying to eat me alive, I was able to objectively realize that it didn't matter nearly as much as I had been thinking. After all, I was here in this time and place.

I remembered what I remembered, and I had forgotten what I had forgotten.

Whether I was Xanot in truth or if I was some stranger occupying Xanot's body was irrelevant to the facts of my life.

And if that were true, then there was no reason not to embrace Xanot completely, now that I was here. I shouldn't hold myself back from the life I had gained. I benefited nothing from making a distinction between myself and a woman that might not even have ever existed as a separate person from myself. We were one and the same now, even if we hadn't been before. I breathed in, and breathed out.

[Status Effect Lost: Mental Instability]

The Force could be pretty helpful when it was being cooperative, huh?

Not that it had provided that wisdom, not really. It had merely emphasized the feelings that were necessary for me to understand my desires. Interacting with Dark Side like this took feelings, emotions, attachments, desires, convictions...and it returned them to sender, plus interest. It turned fear into anger, anger into hate. But, also, it turned attraction into confident desire. It turned ambition into hope. It burned doubts and regrets for fuel.

The Dark Side encouraged my grand plans, which was probably where all the megalomania came from in the Dark Lords of the Empire. It expanded and encouraged, drove ideas onward, brought them to their conclusions. It was the Force, filled with extremes and tempered only by my willpower.

And as for my past, all the people I had known and the places I remembered...those were memories worth cherishing, and also something that needed to be buried. I couldn't let my attachment to an old life prevent me from living in the present to the best of my abilities. The Force was there, as well, erasing regrets, muting my grief. It comforted me.

The Force caressed me like a lover might, towards the end. I had asked for clarity, and it had provided it...I shivered at the endless possibilities such a power might provide. Yesterday, I had asked for death, unwittingly, and it had rushed to deliver. What if I asked for foolish things again?

It whispered promises aplenty.

It was then that I removed myself from the Force. I had sensed the beginnings of doubt in myself. You could not hide from the Force; I knew this now. For a moment I sat, feeling a chill on my skin and the swirling of power as it welled up inside me. My body, in contrast to the way it had felt before, seemed strong and fierce, buoyed by supernatural life.

Then I opened my eyes, feeling settled in a way that I hadn't been ever since I had set foot on Korriban.

[Status Effect Lost: Force Depletion (Severe)]

I’d have to remember how this felt…and how to repeat this process in the future. We were going to see combat on Balmorra, and I was going to be navigating personal interactions with Darth Lachris. People could quite possibly die. Going into that scenario weakened by my own foolishness would have been disastrous.

Now, at least, I was focused. And after a nap, I’d be even more well rested.

The rest was a problem for future-me.

Chapter Text

To cover for my abject ignorance about what was supposedly my homeworld - or at least a place I had spent a long time - I did some reading. It baffled me that there was an active conflict on a planet with a Sith preparatory academy in the first place, but I was surprised to find that Balmorra had only recently been acquired by the Sith, in 32800 TYA.

Allow me a moment to gripe about timekeeping in an interstellar setting - it's complicated, right? Everyone measures time differently on their own planet, so that you can meaningfully say “morning” or “evening” and have it translate to a certain time on a clock face, and then there also tends to be a standardized timekeeping system on top of the local time, so that people can facilitate trade with interstellar neighbors who might be awake on a different schedule. In my case, that standardized system was the Imperial Standard, and I hadn't stayed on any one planet long enough to pick up the local customs as a habit, although both Korriban and Dromund Kaas had their own local clocks and timezones.

The Imperial Standard was dated in Coruscant-length years from the best-guess date of the Tho Yor Arrival, which was the ancient migrations of the Je'daii or their immediate ancestors to Tython, prior to the schisms and the Force Wars. A Coruscanti year was 368 planetary rotations. I won't get into the exact length of the hours, minutes, and seconds. It's all enough to make my head hurt and in my actual day-to-day existence here, it hadn't mattered very much as long as long as I had a clock on hand.

My initial question was: why would the Sith empire use a dating system referencing Tho Yor Arrival and Coruscanti years? It didn’t take long to find other people wondering this on the HoloNet.

While I knew that the Treaty of Coruscant would one day be used as an epoch date for the galactic standard calendar, it was not currently the case. Historians aren’t that quick, alright? There are currently 2 major standards, or 3 if you count Hutt space, which I don’t because they are a bunch of major assholes.

The actual reason that the Imperial Standard referred to Coruscant was because the Sith themselves are descendants of the Je'daii who had been a part of the Tho Yor Arrival. Those who were very orthodox, and very traditional, would consider themselves the faithful successors of the ancients' teachings, and the Jedi Order to be heretical and undeserving of those ancestral grounds. It was one of the grievances between the Jedi and the Sith that was responsible for their longstanding religious animosity, and it was one of the few cultural artifacts that was not from the Sith species but from the original Dark Lords.

These staunch Sith traditionalists dreamed of one day recovering Tython and Coruscant for the Sith and basically removing the Jedi ‘taint’ from those worlds. Most everyone else just didn't care very much which planet was the benchmark for the length of the year, and they tried not to bring up the subject around anyone that might be considered a traditionalist because nobody, not even staunch Imperial patriots, wants to listen to the whole spiel again.

Operating on a wildly different calendar in Imperial space - like if it was based off of Dromund Kaas’ orbit and rotation - and then having to translate all dates and times to communicate with anyone operating on the Republic Standard was just unnecessarily annoying, so average people much preferred the Imperial Standard be pretty much the same as the Republic Standard.

I repeat: fuck the Hutt timekeeping standard. Seriously. Doing business with Hutts was apparently painful enough that the timekeeping wasn’t really considered much of a problem, despite the fact that they operated on a different system of mathematics and had their own units for everything.

Even though mostly everyone else wanted the galactic standards to be as similar as possible, there were still minor differences between the Imperial and Republic, since people can’t just agree entirely on anything, apparently. That would be bad for their reputation as mortal enemies. Anyway. I digress.

The academy on Balmorra had been slated for construction before the ink on the Treaty of Coruscant had even dried, and so it had only been active for six years. Two years for construction seemed long, but it was possible they had been delayed. The presence of the academy was designed to be a statement about the Sith Empire's dominance of what was previously an independent world.

It was also intended to help suppress rebel sentiment in the populace. After all, there were at least ten Sith Lords in the Academy serving as its faculty, and any one of them was worth an army when fighting against untrained, Force-blind partisans. In reality, however, the Sith Lords didn’t often emerge from the academy, preferring to send the acolytes out on ‘training exercises’ that usually involved brutalizing or killing recalcitrant Balmorrans.

I asked myself: what kind of Sith Lord would be chosen to teach others full time? Obviously not one who had ambitions beyond teaching. So, it seemed that the faculty was rather negligent in other responsibilities...but I couldn’t comment on their teaching ability. After all, I didn’t remember any of it.

The dates I was looking at begged the question of where the hell Xanot had actually grown up. If Balmorra had only been under Imperial control since the Treaty of Coruscant, which had been eight years ago, and I was obviously older than eight years, it was only logical that Xanot had to have been training somewhere else for her childhood and early adolescence. Medical records indicated that I had been given over to the Sith Order at one year and three months of age, far younger than most acolytes.

Did Sith run nurseries? The thought made me shudder.

Whoever had treated the injuries that had given me my scars hadn't been part of the Imperial medical system, since there were no public health records for any doctor's visits or surgeries between the genetic modification procedure at birth and the droid's report from my lightsaber injury on Korriban. It was as though I hadn't even existed, medically speaking, in the intervening years. But I had the proper inoculations according to the panel done on Dromund Kaas, so somebody had to have provided preventative care at some point and had either failed to file the proper forms or the records were purposefully part of a separate archive.

It was a bit confusing. The Sith Order's records weren't public like Imperial records are, and because I am only an Apprentice, I can’t access even my own file in the Sith Order’s network without the approval of a Lord or a Darth, which the system happily informed me via a blinking red pop-up. I wasn't about to go asking Baras for permission, because he would wonder why I didn't know my own history. He already suspects something strange is going on, and frankly I didn’t want to give him even more reasons to be suspicious.

In the end, I was left with very few actual answers about Xanot’s past prior to my arrival in this universe. I had been raised by the Sith overseers, somewhere. Certainly, it had been a planet in the Empire, and also a Sith academy or a facility operated by the Sith Order, which narrowed it down to…twenty-seven locations. Later, I had transferred to Balmorra’s newly built academy for some reason - it didn’t make any sense because I was likely not from the Colonies region or adjacent sectors. No system in the Colonies region had been ruled by the Empire until the war and the Treaty of Coruscant. That area was where the Balmorran academy was supposed to get its acolytes, so why would they have transferred me there from outside of their jurisdiction?

Regardless, I had then ended up on Korriban towards the end of the term due to Overseer Tremel's shortsighted maneuvering. And that was where my story had begun, from my own point of view.

Basically, I had to continue to pretend that I didn't want to talk about my past, since I didn't really have anything much to talk about. That was a frustrating conclusion to reach after like four hours of reading and research.

"Aren't you going to eat?" Vette's voice interrupted my musings. I put my datapad down with a sigh and picked up my silverware. She did have a point. While I despised the creepy-ass droid factotum with something approaching a passion, he did cook a mean nerf burger.

When we were operating in the field on Balmorra, I figured that we'd probably be eating Imperial military rations, so it was best to eat real food while we still could. "Yeah, I've been reading about Balmorra. Long days ahead of us, from what I can tell. Forty-seven-hour rotations."

"Yuck," Vette wrinkled her nose. "I better stock up on stims and caf."

"Let's try not to rely on them," I cautioned, pointlessly. We would have to do what we had to do, anyway. Regardless, I didn't like the idea of my cute sidekick having to juice up to keep up with me. I glanced at the droid, which was hovering irritatingly by the corridor to the bunks. "Two-Vee, give us a rundown of the situation on Balmorra, if you please. You have access to the Imperial network?"

"I was provided with a data packet before we departed from Dromund Kaas, my Lord. My information may be roughly three days out of date," the droid cautioned. I waved a hand dismissively. Three days was nothing...all the fun would start once we got there, I imagined.

I settled in and gestured openly. "Go ahead, then."

“Previously an independent world, Balmorra surrendered to the Empire after six months of fighting after Imperial forces invaded in 31998. The Republic launched an invasion of the planet shortly afterward for the stated purpose of ‘liberation.’ When the Treaty of Coruscant was signed, the Republic claimed to have withdrawn their forces in their entirety. The chosen Imperial Governor, Lysennius Melchiro, was recently discovered to have been obfuscating important facts which ought to have been reported to the Dark Council. This was done in order to prevent them from realizing that he is not adequate to the task of governing Balmorra. The truth is that Balmorra has been in something of an active rebellion for nearly seven years, with support from supposedly disavowed Republic forces that have been operating something of a paramilitary resistance. Unfortunately, the most the Empire at large ever heard about the situation was that there were some discontent local terrorist cells at work. The Imperial Conquest Consolidation Corps which was tasked with maintaining control of the planet was chronically short-staffed and undersupplied for the conflict as a result of the governor’s treachery.”

I was impressed with the droid’s ability to channel supreme disappointment. And also, the malice he managed to express, when talking about the governor. Or former governor, in all likelihood.

“The Dark Council, now fully aware of the trouble in its entirety thanks to Imperial Intelligence reports, and also very dissatisfied with the present situation, has dispatched Darth Lachris, a former pupil of Darth Marr, to Balmorra. Her mandate is to utterly destroy all remnants of the Republic military on the planet, and she has been made Lord of Balmorra for that purpose. She was projected to arrive within twenty-four hours of our own ETA and may in fact already be on the surface when we arrive," Two-Vee finished his speech with a small twitch of his arms that probably meant something to his circuitry, but which I found completely impenetrable.

"Where is the main area of conflict on the planet?" I asked after a pause.

"Because the war follows asymmetrical military doctrines, there are no defined battle lines. However, the area immediately around Sobrik, the only major spaceport, has been hotly contested in the past. If the Balmorran resistance or the exiled Republic forces were able to seize the spaceport, it would greatly reduce the ability of the ICCC to supply its soldiers on the surface, restricting Imperial supply drops to whatever can be delivered via high-altitude repulsor-crate drop or by all-terrain shuttle delivery. The Troida Military Workshop, a massive factory complex within ten kilometers of Sobrik, is also a contested region and suspected rebel hideaway. I have uploaded a map with various zones identified by the ICCC as conflict areas to your personal datapad, my Lord. Certain regions will be marked red, which indicates that only authorized personnel are permitted to operate there. Because Darth Baras is not formally involved in the occupation forces of Balmorra, you presently do not have authorization to move in any region that is restricted against civilian traffic. It is expected that Darth Lachris will handle your assignment personally once you arrive, considering your rank as a Sith Apprentice and her role as the reigning Lord. In the absence of your Master, you will report directly to her and fall under her authority."

I wrinkled my nose. It was not unexpected, but still irritating. "Does she know that we are arriving soon?"

"Darth Lachris was told that you were being sent to Balmorra by Darth Baras, however it was expected that you would arrive ahead of herself, and Captain Rigel, head of the ICCC on Balmorra, was supposed to handle your assignments in the interim period. It appears that we will be arriving later than her expectations. Lieutenant Quinn, an officer of the ICCC who reports to Captain Rigel directly, has been informed by Darth Baras of our present ETA, and was ordered to give Darth Lachris the information if necessary. The vague nature of Lieutenant Quinn's objectives as a part of the Counter-Terrorism mandate in Sobrik allows him to assign himself to your command whilst you operate on Balmorra, and he will meet us at the spaceport," Two-Vee informed. Its head tilted to the side.

I snorted. Trust Baras to just give the middle finger to the Dark Council like this. It wasn't as if the retrieval of Dri'kill couldn't have been done by pretty much any other apprentice, or even by some carefully coded message. Obviously, I had been handling the slave revolt in the jungle for a good amount of time, and after that I had been in the Dark Temple for a day...but still. I could have at least been a little closer to the promised schedule If I hadn't spent a whole day retrieving Dri'kill, who wasn't even relevant to the Nomen Karr problem.

But naturally, I hadn't had a choice in the matter. And now I would have to put up with all the people who might be pissed at Baras for this stunt. Or worse, they might blame me for being late regardless of the fact that there wasn’t anything to be done.

Also...if Baras had promised to send me to Balmorra before Darth Lachris, and she had been dispatched several days ago in order to arrive presently, then he must have made that commitment shortly before I had been sent for the Ravager. And if that was the case, then he either had already suspected that I would be needed on Balmorra, or it was only coincidence that the leak in his spy network happened to be on Balmorra, where he had already planned to send me for other reasons.

But if he had wanted to send me to Balmorra regardless of the spy situation, I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t just go retrieve the Ravager personally, thus making his possession of the artifact a near guarantee. That way I could have departed on time...except without Vette. Had he delayed my departure initially because of Vette’s training? For a mission likely to take as long as this one, that made no sense. She could always travel to Balmorra and meet up with me, and Baras hadn’t ever given me the impression that he cared very much about Vette’s whereabouts or schedule.

Well, there was also the fact that Baras had not wanted to risk venturing into the Dark Temple himself but was willing to send me there because evidently my death was not a great loss to his organization.

I tried and failed not to take that too personally.

Since I didn't believe in coincidences, the whole debacle meant Baras must have suspected that Commander Rylon was a risky asset even before the Ravager had revealed the fact conclusively. I also hadn’t received any orders for Balmorra apart from Commander Rylon’s death, so if there was some other objective that Baras had in mind it had either been done by someone else or he was planning on making it a surprise.

It occurred to me that another spy in the Jedi Order would have given Baras the names of the people under scrutiny, but with an issue this sensitive I figured they would have that information tightly controlled. Did Baras have a spy in the Jedi Shadows or in one of the Jedi Councils? It could also be a data leak, I supposed…even something as ostensibly innocuous as a listening device in the right place at the right time.

I was starting to think that Baras’ spy network was probably the most dangerous thing about him. He had shown he knew everything I was up to, and that close scrutiny probably extended to his other apprentices and all of his assets in the Empire and the Republic.

He knew what I said in confidence to Vette, he knew what I ate and where I went. He knew that I hated him to a certain extent. He had even known to come and observe my last conclusive duel against Tranch, where I had beaten my instructor for the first time. How had he predicted that I would win that bout of all bouts? He probably also knew more about my history than I did, considering the fact that I didn't have Xanot's memories, and he had access to my file.

The long and short of the matter was this: if I am going to survive my apprenticeship, I will need to rely on something other than secrecy or privacy, since neither of those things are very likely to be something I can count on having at any point.

"Master, the ship's computer is indicating that the Imperial vessels in orbit have transmitted orbital debris drift charts and have assigned us a docking vector. We are beginning our approach to Sobrik, and should arrive in less than five minutes," Two-Vee informed me, professionally.

I grunted acknowledgment and stood up to go and don my armor. I had no idea what to expect when we touched down, and honestly, I probably shouldn't even assume that we would make it to the spaceport intact. It was possible that the rebels had anti-air capabilities...and with that comforting thought I hastened my step. Better to be in full kit for a crash landing.

Vette took the cue and was also suiting up. Her outfit was more subdued than my own, basically a helmet and a single durasteel plate that covered her heart as far as armor was concerned. She also had a bandoleer of explosives, a rifle strapped to her back and a pistol on each hip.

"I have no idea what to expect on the ground," I found myself saying once I had my armor tightened in the proper places, and my knife stowed at the small of my back. Lightsaber on my belt. Shield active. I kept my helmet fixed to the back of my belt. It was an unwieldy weight, but I didn’t want to have my face covered by the intimidating visor for the introductions today. "Just...stay alive, would you?"

"That's the plan," Vette nodded with a half-grin.

I decided to go to the cockpit to watch the remainder of our descent, and when I arrived, we were still not even in the upper atmosphere. The ship's computer took a fairly conservative flight path, which gradually arced downward towards the Sobrik spaceport in something approximating a deteriorating orbit. As a result of this, it kind of looked like we were watching the horizon of Balmorra stretch and widen out as our perspective grew lower, and the atmosphere enveloped us.

The ship didn't warm appreciably on entry, since our descent was controlled by repulsors. I heard them and felt them activating under my feet to counter the gravitational force and maintain a controlled velocity.

We also weren't shot out of the sky, so that's good.

I didn’t see obvious signs of warfare in the brief glimpse of the countryside that I received as we passed over the much of the continent at high altitude. The game had portrayed Balmorra in the midst of civil war, with massive gun emplacements and tanks rolling around, open battles in the fields, and large military bases carved out of the cliff-sides. Maybe that wasn't actually going to be the case in reality.

Sobrik itself was a lot like Kaas City, since they were both spaceport towns. Sobrik didn't have the same massive towers, but it had the same sense of depth due to the way that the city fell into the crevasses of the planet's natural ravines. The spaceport was actually located on a plateau above the city proper, and instead of a sprawling metropolis there was an unfathomable underground warren.

There were already Imperial military ships landed in Sobrik, and we were directed to an out-of-the way berth. The instant we touched down I was striding for the airlock. I was intercepted by Two-Vee, who seemed flustered. If I was reading his odd body language correctly.

"I apologize, my Lord, but it seems as though the ship has been grounded indefinitely by the control tower of Sobrik Spaceport. We won't be able to depart without the proper authorization," I was informed in a conciliatory tone. I scowled.

Someone was making sure that I didn't go anywhere, and they were being obvious about it. The only plausible suspects were Baras and Lachris, but I figured it was more likely to be Lachris in this case, since the lock-down was from the control tower and not the ship's computer itself.

Since I had already planned on remaining on Balmorra until the end of my assignment, it wasn't really an inconvenience. But I didn't appreciate the implications.

Thankfully, due to the ship's climate control, there wasn't the same experience of suddenly being forced to acclimate to a new atmosphere and gravity. I descended the ramp of my ship and saw someone waiting for me, a man who I assumed was Lieutenant Quinn. He didn't look much like his rendering in the game, but then again neither did anyone else. Even Vette, although she was still blue and cute, had more distinct features and was somewhat more formidable than the thin girl modeled in SWTOR.

Quinn was pale, like his game avatar had been, but probably taller and broader at the shoulders. He had dark hair with long, neat sideburns, and a triangular face with a sharp jaw. A nose as straight as a ruler kind of dominated the center of his face, and he had large, dark eyes. His hair was cut short and tight, but he had slightly bushy eyebrows and a squat forehead.

He didn't look old, but neither did he look particularly young. A man in his prime, as far as I could tell, with perhaps slightly deeper laugh lines than someone in their twenties. This was Star Wars, of course, so there were probably rather effective anti-aging products...I had no idea how old he might actually be.

Overall, Quinn seemed severe and professional. that was no surprise to me.

The man snapped a crisp salute when he saw me, and I halted a few paces away, awaiting his introduction. "My Lord, Lieutenant Malavai Quinn, Imperial Conquest Consolidation Corps. I am at your disposal for the duration of your assignment on Balmorra, as part of Counter-Terrorism. It's a pleasure to meet you in person."

I quirked a brow at him. In person, as opposed to what? Unless he was referring to what Baras had said about me, or what he had discovered during his own research.

"Yes, to you as well," I nodded. "I am Apprentice Xanot, and this is my companion Vette. Are you on assignment alone, Lieutenant?"

"My men are currently in the barracks, resting. Shall I call them?" Lieutenant Quinn inquired politely. I sensed, however, that there was some trepidation hiding behind his impeccable facade.

If they were resting, then they had probably seen recent action. Or, at the very least, they weren’t prepared at all for the visit of a Sith Lord. I shook my head. "I'd like to meet them, but perhaps when they are expecting me. What's the situation, Lieutenant?"

"Darth Lachris has requested your presence as soon as possible, and I assured her I would convey the urgency of that request to you," Lieutenant Quinn answered dutifully.

Well...I had better not be any later than I already was. "Where is Darth Lachris?"

"Yesterday, she executed Governor Melchiro for engaging in conspiracy to enable the local rebellion. Since then, she has spent time consolidating her position here in Sobrik. There were some on Balmorra who were loyal to the prior governor and not to the Empire proper, and we're in the process of convincing them to support the new regime. There wasn’t much of a threat…she brought some of her own army from her other holdings, and they’ve proven to be excellent soldiers," Lieutenant Quinn explained, flawlessly smoothing over the fact that the former governor’s allies were probably being executed en masse. "She should be in the governor's office, in the administrative district. I can take you there."

Well...if one thing can be said for Darth Lachris, it is that she certainly doesn’t waste time.

"That would be appreciated," I agreed. As we started to walk, I gestured at the consoles. "Do I need to check-in or something like that?"

"I took care of it, my Lord."

"Thanks," I nodded. We descended a ramp that connected the upraised docking platform with a kind of common area which was shared by six or seven other berths. It was filled with passengers, either milling from one place to the next or sitting patiently in one of the clustered sections of seating. It gave me the usual airport vibes.

In the interests of not having an awkward silence for the entire walk, I ventured to make small talk. "So how long have you been stationed on Balmorra, Lieutenant?"

It took Quinn a moment to respond, and when I sensed him in the Force I could practically taste his bitterness. "Three years."

"Were you active duty in the last war with the Republic?" I asked, trying to get a guess at his age. The game hadn't really said a lot about his history, at least not in any way that could be dated.

"For the last year before the Treaty, sir. I graduated the Academy and was deployed with the Core Fleet. This was obviously before I was transferred to the ICCC," he explained, looking over his shoulder at me. "I was in orbit for the Sacking of Coruscant. I was just a Petty Officer in the Imperial Navy, then, of course."

Sith military ranks made no fucking sense. You had private, which I thought was the lowest rank. But maybe that was the lowest rank for non-officers. The lowest officer rank being Petty Officer? They also had ensigns. It was like an odd mix of what I knew from the US Navy and US Army.

Which, actually, wasn’t a terribly surprising fact. After all, the Imperial Army wasn't strictly a ground force, and the Imperial Navy wasn't strictly a space force. They had a lot of cross-pollination between them, and often operated in the same theaters.

"Was the Sacking as glorious as they say?" I wondered.

"I wouldn't know, all I really saw during the entire operation was the bustling hangar of a cruiser," Lieutenant Quinn responded with mild amusement. "It was certainly a decisive victory for the Empire. I’m proud to say I was there, even if I wasn’t given a spectacular view."

"If it was such a decisive victory, then why did we withdraw and sign a ceasefire immediately after?" I mused.

Quinn cleared his throat politely. Tightly. "I couldn't say, my Lord."

"Hm, you don't have an opinion on the Treaty?" I wondered, glancing at him as the crowd parted to make way for me. "Or you don't want to share it?"

"My opinion is of little worth, as merely a common officer," Quinn pointed out hesitantly.

I shrugged, uninterested in pushing him on it. "Suit yourself, Lieutenant."

There was a wide turbolift, accommodating probably fifty people at a time, that connected the upper plateau where the spaceport was located with the city below. We were shoulder to shoulder with other uniformed people and even a few civilians, from my brief glance. People tried to give me and my entourage a bit of room, but only so much could be done in a cramped lift like this. Much to the consternation of the rest, who visibly quailed when my eyes swept over them.

I nearly rolled my eyes at the dramatics.

"So, you've been here for three years. What's your opinion of the planet?" I ventured, turning to face Quinn. He had his arms folded over his chest and was eying the other occupants of the lift with something approaching disdain, or suspicion. Either way, I approved.

"The planet is a quagmire, my Lord. Not literally speaking; the ecosystem is rather more mountainous and dry. I mean from the Empire’s perspective, it's nothing but a bog. This planet takes hold of Imperial soldiers and resources, lets them sink into its muck, and the whole lot is never seen or heard from again. It's the most expensive occupation that the Empire has maintained since the armistice, and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight," he remarked with a clear tone of bitterness.

"I didn't see obvious signs of battle from my ship as we descended," I put in.

"There isn't much open warfare, at least none recently. The local partisans and defectors from the Republic don't have orbital support or air superiority, so they wouldn't dare show their faces to the sky. They crawl in tunnels and underground fortresses, emerging only when they can disguise themselves as the local citizenry. You won't find a uniformed soldier anywhere on this planet who isn't Imperial, mark my words. Their objective has been to make the Imperial occupation unsustainable, and if it weren't for the stubbornness of the Dark Council they would have succeeded. But the Empire seems to be willing to pay any price to keep its hold on this blasted rock."

The lift disgorged its impatient contents into a wide atrium that opened out to the main streets of Sobrik proper. As we made some distance from the spaceport itself, the crowds thinned, and I started to notice the military checkpoints. Every block of the city had a squad of Imperial troops, usually with an APC or IFV (Armored Personnel Carrier and Infantry Fighting Vehicle) accompanying them. There was an air of tension about these uniformed sentinels…a suggestion that, perhaps, these checkpoints were sometimes targeted by partisans.

"They must hope eventually to dislodge the Imperial presence on Balmorra," I mused. "It would be harder to recruit members if they didn't promise eventual liberation."

Lieutenant Quinn nodded, "Of course, they claim that they are fighting to free Balmorra and restore the government in exile to power, but there's obviously no possibility of success. They don't have a fleet, after all, or at least not one with any significant strength. Their exiled government might have a single cruiser and an escort frigate or two. Maybe a flotilla of corvettes. However, unless the Republic violates the ceasefire and sends a real fleet to contest orbit of Balmorra, or they acquire allies from independent worlds in the Outer Rim outside of Imperial Space, the dreams of the resistance forces are nothing but empty hopes and broken promises."

"I've been assigned to Balmorra until the resistance has been pacified, according to the Dark Council's expectations," I mused. Lieutenant Quinn gave a dark chuckle as we stopped at a busy street. Several large, tracked vehicles were rumbling past, carrying...something. I couldn't quite tell what it was, but it was huge. And heavy. Roughly shaped like a cylinder and marked by indecipherable symbols.

"Prepare to be here for a long time, then," was Lieutenant Quinn's depressing assessment. "Of course, with Darth Lachris taking over governorship, it's possible that Captain Rigel can operate without the restrictions placed on him by the former governor. And with our reports actually reaching the brass in the ICCC, they might allocate additional manpower. Half the reason for our losses can be accounted for by looking at the changes to the rules of engagement made by Governor Melchiro, and the other half was due to insufficient numbers. He thought that cutting down on Balmorran casualties would make our occupation easier, in the long term. On the contrary, it has only increased our own casualties and emboldened the resistance."

I winced. Well, civilian-friendly rules of engagement probably weren't going to stay in effect while a Darth was at the helm, at least not in all likelihood. And I certainly understood where Quinn was coming from, especially if restrictions had resulted in losses among his own team.

On the other hand, killing innocent people did tend to make for good propaganda fuel on the rebel side of things. If the Empire could somehow get the moral high ground, it would be a lot easier to convince the locals to support the Imperial regime instead of trying to topple it. I didn't think it very likely that Darth Lachris would go for the moral high ground, however...but I would just have to see how things shook out.

We stopped in front of a particularly large, squat structure that was wedged in between three taller towers. The whole color palette of the city planners was gray, black, and yet more gray, so the towers just kind of glittered with dark glass and menaced with sharp steel angles.

"This is the administrative center," Quinn gestured. Perhaps that was why the entire architecture suggested a headache. "You should find Darth Lachris inside. If you'll excuse me, my Lord, I'll go and prepare the men for your inspection."

"Let them rest as they are, Lieutenant," I replied after a moment. "I'll just come by to shake hands; it doesn't have to be a formal thing. I don't think we'll be rushing anywhere right away...of course, it's not my call."

Quinn nodded his understanding and saluted again before marching off. I turned to Vette and wished I had sent her with him. If only to spare her the exposure to yet another Lord of the Sith. "You know, after this you'll have probably met more Darths than any other Twi'lek."

"I haven't been keeping count," Vette shrugged. "And you’d be surprised…some Twi’lek dancers get around more than you’d think!”

I chuckled, but she had a point. Every cantina in the galaxy seemed to have a Twi’lek dancer or a hologram of one, it seemed. And Sith Lords had to take a load off sometime, right? Or maybe the Sith were too miserable to go out for drinks.

Vette continued after a moment, “Do you know anything about this Darth Lachris?"

"No. But I’d better not to keep her waiting." At least not any longer than she had already been.

The administrative center was filled with hustle and bustle. There were officers in uniform, armed guards, and dressed-up bureaucrats seemingly around every corner, and the wide double doors which admitted us into the atrium were constantly opening and closing as people came and went. The atrium itself was understated, its color scheme focusing on dark gray and white, with nothing terribly decorative to be found. A welcome desk was staffed by three droids, in the center of the atrium, but nobody seemed to be paying them much attention. Most of the people here weren’t guests, then.

I figured the droids were a good place to start and approached. One of them, the one nearest to the entrance, spotted me and seemed to straighten. It was a different design than the usual Imperial protocol droid, lacking the distinctive cage-like neck and the mechanical spine. Instead, it had a smooth white case and a round head, with squat arms and a single trunk instead of legs. I wondered if it was floating or if it had treads. "My Lord, welcome to the Sobrik Statehouse, I am See-Nine-Es-Three, human-cyborg relations. How may I assist you?"

"I am looking for Governor Lachris. Darth Lachris, if you prefer."

"The Governor is currently in her offices, on the fourth level of the northeast tower. Do you have an appointment?" the droid queried.

"If you could, just let them know I am here. Apprentice Xanot is the name."

"Of course, my Lord. They have been notified. And...ah, it seems that you are to be sent up at once. The northeast tower can be accessed through that hallway, there's a lift straight ahead. Have a pleasant visit with Her Excellency, Apprentice Xanot."

'Pleasant' was not the word that I would probably use to describe any of my past interactions with Sith Lords. Who knows, though, maybe Darth Lachris turned out to be extra charming and lovely?

I followed the directions provided, with Vette keeping her position close behind me, and we managed to make it onto the lift before it became crowded. And, since I was fully armored and obviously a Sith, no one else got on to the lift after us.

Turbolifts are a curiosity, in that they shoot upward or plummet downward at tremendous speed, but they don't give the impression of acceleration. I have no idea how that was possible...but it got us to the fourth floor in like two seconds flat. So much for the concept of an elevator pitch; unless one was a rap god there was nowhere near enough time to even shake hands and introduce yourself on the elevator, let alone make any sort of conversation.

The lift opened directly into a sort of lobby, where a desk had been set up clearly as a recent addition. Behind it was a dour-looking older man wearing a military uniform. He took one look at me and waved at the doors to his left, which were directly across from the turbolift. We proceeded past him, and I heard raised voices through the door even as I touched the activation pad and they slid open, soundlessly.

"...told you to bring me the one responsible for this failure. Well? Where is this person?" Darth Lachris' voice wasn't exactly raised, but it was edging towards higher volume, and the poor fellow that was the focus of her ire didn't appear to be military. Some sort of administrative employee who was, if I had my guess, recently promoted. He was positively quaking in his boots.

"M-my Lady, we tried to find the cause of the vulnerability, but..."

"I don't want to hear what comes after that,'" Darth Lachris cut in at once. "I want solutions, not pointless excuses. As the current head of Information Security, you have twelve hours to give me such a solution, or at the very least the name of someone who can. If you don't come up with anything, I'll take your head and ask the idiot who replaces you to try his luck. Get out."

The man swallowed his tongue, bowed, and scuttled out the office like the dogs of Hell were at his back. At least he had enough sense not to try and respond verbally.

Darth Lachris was...short, even for a Human woman. She was wearing a dark purple turtle-neck dress that hugged her curves and left her muscular arms bare from the shoulder, flaring at the waist into a practical, loose, knee-length skirt with a long slit down each side. She wore simple, dark-colored leggings and high combat boots, since the skirt wouldn't have been terribly modest without them. It wasn't an outfit typical for Sith, and she appeared for all intents and purposes to be merely a wealthy noblewoman, except for the lightsaber proudly displayed at her side. And her face, of course.

She had full crimson hair, intricately braided and decorated liberally with gold. Her skin was white like death, and with the contrast against her hair it made the normally charming color seem blood-tinged. She didn't wear make-up, at least not any that I could see. It left the starburst shaped bruises caused by the Dark Side to stand out starkly around her bloodshot, orange-colored eyes, and the darkened veins in her cheeks that trailed from the epicenter of the Dark's effects made her look a bit sickly and also a lot terrifying. Her lips were pale and pursed tightly, probably because she wasn't happy about me ogling her.

I hastily stepped into a formal bow, one that I rarely used. It was meant to convey the maximum respect from one who was weaker to someone who was stronger. I didn't even bother to bow this way to Baras...a fact that he might find amusing if it ever got back to him.

"Darth Lachris, it's a pleasure."

"No, it isn't," Darth Lachris corrected sharply. "I find your presence inconvenient. You reek of anxiety, and you dislike that you have to answer to me. Nothing about this is a pleasure. You will find that lying to me is not wise, Apprentice Xanot."

"Forgive me, I was only being polite," I replied as I straightened. Her eyes narrowed, and I recognized that I should have stayed bowed until asked to stand, but that was only supposed to be for super formal occasions. This was her private offices, not a stately affair, but I could see now that it might have implied some impertinence.

I stood impassively as she seemed to return my earlier perusal with one of her own, stepping around the desk until she was standing only a few paces away. Her eyes raked over me like hot irons. At this distance, I towered over her by probably more than two feet, and yet somehow, I felt like I was the small one.

"Force alive, what does Baras feed you? Rancor chow?" she murmured with a scoff, and this broke the tension like it had been a pane of thin glass. "If nothing else you can be used to stand around and intimidate people. Or take things down from tall shelves."

I blinked as my brain stuttered. What?

Darth Lachris sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Then she looked up at me again and her eyes were hard. "I have been sent by the Dark Council to cleanse Balmorra, and I intend to do so. Here is how our arrangement is going to work, Apprentice. You will stay with me at all times, unless I explicitly order otherwise. You will do exactly as I tell you to do at all times. If I must suffer the 'good will' of your Master, then I will make certain his gift does not come with any nasty surprises, understood? If you disobey me, or threaten the success of my operations, I will kill you. And then I will send your over-sized head to your Master as an expression of gratitude. Since he cared enough to send someone to help, it would only be polite to let him know my opinion of his assistance."

"If that is what you think is best," I offered dumbly after a moment's thought. It complicated things, greatly, to be so restricted in my movements, but arguing at this stage of the game was probably a poor move.

"It is," Darth Lachris intoned, succinctly. "Your pet Lieutenant and his men can remain under your command. In fact, I'll have Captain Rigel transfer the lot of them officially to your personal retinue, and then discharge them completely from the ICCC. I don't want any of Baras' puppets on my planet, so you can take them all with you when you leave. They would be your first subordinates, right? Congratulations, then. Make your master pay for them if you don’t have the funds. In the meantime, perhaps the Lieutenant can make himself useful somehow without wasting his time on insignificant terrorists. Try not to get them all killed pointlessly, though it’s probably a lost cause."

I nodded, slowly. That was actually not a bad deal, especially if I could get my hands on a bigger ship by calling in that favor with Grand Moff Kilran. That’d be a better use of the favor than getting a medic. I’d actually have the men to operate something like an interstellar patrol ship. And it’d be larger than an interceptor at least.

"What would you have me do in the near future, then?"

"Since you are late," Darth Lachris said, waving her hand as she scooped up a datapad and started to scroll with a finger. "You remain mostly ignorant about the situation here on Balmorra, I imagine. It's a Force-forsaken mess, mostly because of Melchiro's arrogance. He underestimated the resistance and treated them gently, at the cost of Imperial resources. And he fomented rebellious ingrates who won’t submit to a proper ruler. Of course, this emboldened the rebellion and now they've had years to dig themselves into fortified positions under the surface of the planet. There are three strongholds that we've reconnoitered so far within thirty kilometers of Sobrik. They are staging attacks against military targets and Imperial bureaucratic offices from these locations, and we are quite certain that the Republic is supplying them by cooperating with the exiled Balmorran Minister of Defense, Vol Argen, and his associates."

"I was briefed on the nature of the conflict here before my arrival," I informed her tactfully.

"Good, then I won't repeat all the details. In short, we must obliterate these rebel strongholds and force the resistance leaders to sell out their Republic suppliers publicly. This will humiliate the Republic and force them to cease their illicit support, and once this is done, I am sure you will be free to return to whatever it is Darth Baras has you doing elsewhere. Probably tearing people's limbs from their sockets like a Wookiee, by the looks of you," Darth Lachris explained the broad strokes of her plan with a wave of her hand. "There are three members of the resistance that we have identified as being key to their operations in this region of Balmorra. The first is Commander Rylon, a commando formerly of the Republic who served as a part of the effort to retake Balmorra during the War. He defected from the Republic after the treaty of Coruscant, alongside others, and has made himself a supreme nuisance for the occupations forces ever since. The second is Grand Marshal Cheketta. He is a Republic commander who took his men and defected alongside Commander Rylon, and he coordinates their operations all across the planet. Both of these men were part of the Republic effort to liberate Balmorra during the last war, which is why they threw away their careers to finish the job. Our task, then, it to make them pay for it with their lives as well."

She paused, as if considering something, and I interjected. "What about the third target?"

"Imperial Intelligence assures me that they are handling it. We don’t know much, but he goes by the name ‘Gray Star.’ He’s a terrorist," Darth Lachris waved a hand in disgust. “Nothing more than a roach of that kind. But vermin such as this must be eradicated so that the Empire can flourish here. Constant attacks against Imperial interests, while individually insignificant, serve to embolden dissidents and in bulk they cost resources that cannot be spared. Of course, no one cared much about this Gray Star character until this past week, and now all of the sudden the planet is practically crawling with Intelligence operatives. But while they are here, they may as well assist us in our own objectives, yes?”

“That would be related to Darth Jadus’ assassination and the Eagle, then?”

Darth Lachris’ eyes narrowed dangerously. “That was what Imperial Intelligence has claimed to justify their actions on my planet. The Eagle has some ties to the Balmorran resistance, but of course they won’t explain what those ties are or how they came to know the information. More to the point, how did you, an unrelated entity and an Apprentice besides, know about the connection between the Eagle and Gray Star?”

I froze. What a mistake... “Err, I mean, everyone saw the Eagle’s broadcast, your Excellency.”

“Did they? Where were you when the Dominator was destroyed?” she asked, suddenly and sharply. “Obviously not here, neither were you on your way here, since you were not ground-side when you were supposed to be.”

“I was leaving the Dark Temple on Dromund Kaas,” I answered at once, regaining my poise and swallowing my nervousness with what was hopefully not a visible effort. “I saw the fire rain on Kaas City immediately following the destruction of the Dominator.”

“Then you weren’t seated within earshot of any public holoprojectors or at any consoles with HoloNet access when the Imperial hyperwave relay stations were sliced,” Darth Lachris observed sweetly. “You wouldn’t have tried to access the recording of the speech later, right? It is considered seditious contraband, you know. I’d hate for you to get in trouble with the Inquisitors over something like that.”

“No, I just…happened to see a report on the matter, later,” I lied desperately.

“Did you? I suppose your Master might have trusted you with something like that, and he would be the type to have the whole thing transcribed for analysis…” Darth Lachris tapped her chin thoughtfully. “It would be a reasonable explanation. Except for the fact that you’re obviously lying to my face.”

I, very carefully, did not allow myself to blanch. “Does it really matter where I heard it?”

She ignored my plaintive question. “What did I say about lying to me, Apprentice? That’s two times, now,” she folded her arms over her chest, and I felt like a scolded child. “And no, it doesn’t really matter if you heard that fool’s speech. It was nothing but the usual consolidationist rot, and it’s been said a thousand times before, often more eloquently and certainly by more interesting men. Perhaps never so blatantly as the Eagle’s call for some sort of violent coup, but that’s because no one before has been stupid enough to think they could run the Sith Empire without the Sith Lords. Regardless, it does matter that you knew of the connection between this ‘Gray Star’ and the Eagle. That’s highly classified information, and particularly relevant to our rebel problem. And if you didn’t get that information from Darth Baras, then I wonder where have you been sticking your nose? Someplace it doesn’t belong, then?”

I let the silence stretch for a moment as I scrambled for a way out of this mess.

When I did speak, resolving to only utter the truth, I was surprised by how even I managed to make my voice, “I only assumed that, since the call had gone out to terrorists throughout Imperial space, Imperial Intelligence would crack down on known terrorists. If it were me, I would make a public example of the ones I knew of, quickly. Such decisive action would make anyone else who might be getting ideas about rebellion think twice about it. I didn’t really know that Gray Star was actually connected to the Eagle until you said so,” I tried, with a measured tone and smooth delivery. It wasn’t even a total lie…I had made an assumption about the nature of the situation on Balmorra by assuming it was anything at all like the video game which had given me the information, so in actuality I had no way of knowing if I was correct.

Darth Lachris gazed at me for a long moment. “You certainly take after your master, Xanot. Both of you are much larger and less honest than you ought to be,” she finally said with a scoff. “But I’ll accept your half-truths, for now. I heard you were planning to see Lieutenant Quinn’s men after this? Don’t let me get in your way; go and meet them. Then proceed to the military outpost outside the city. In fact, we should walk part of the way together.”

Sithspit, as if it wasn’t bad enough that I had Baras listening to my conversations now I had Darth Lachris showing she had monitored my entire conversation with Lieutenant Quinn? What was the point of letting on that she was listening, other than to intimidate me? Or…to inform me that even if she chose to allow me free reign in Sobrik she still knew where I was at any time, and had a record of what I had been doing? Surely, it would have been better to hope that I let slip something important when I thought my conversations were confidential.

“As you wish,” I assented easily.

“Good. Captain Rigel and some of his top officers are meeting to give me a brief on one of the developing situations in the area, and I’d like for you to be present while we plan our next steps,” she drawled, setting her datapad aside without looking. “I’ll admit I’m curious about your capabilities. It’s unheard of for someone who has only been an apprentice for a month, as you have been, to have such a formidable reputation. Only Darth Zash’s little prodigy, Kallig, has been so widely known after such a short time, but that one is old news by now. She’s had him running around playing the archaeologist, such a waste of talent. It seems that his initial successes were only because of the Dashade he dug up on Korriban. Anyway, I’m not so wasteful with good talent. If you care to listen, you might learn a thing or two.”

Kallig. Darth Zash, too. There was the confirmation I’d been looking for about the existence of another class story.

That meant, so far, it was confirmed that the Inquisitor and the Imperial Agent class stories were progressing alongside my own…although I had yet to hear of about any of the events from the Republic side. It was still early on, though. The war with the Republic hadn’t even started up again, quite yet. But if these others existed and were following the usual stories, then did that mean they were also ‘player characters?’ Did they have access to the same UI elements and skill system that I could see?

I nodded, slowly, for Darth Lachris. “You don’t have any obligation to teach me.”

“There is no obligation,” Darth Lachris agreed. “Except for the fact that you are a Sith Apprentice, and I am a Dark Lord of the Sith. You are not my apprentice, that’s true enough. But do you think that just because we might be enemies, I should neglect to teach you when the opportunity arises? Furthermore, do you think that just because you dislike me, you can afford to disregard my lessons?”

“I don’t have much reason to dislike you, your Excellency. I only assumed that you would have no desire to teach me.”

“You seem to be making many assumptions about a great many things,” she observed with her chin tilted up. “Let this be a lesson: don’t ever rely on them.”

I felt my lips twist into a smirk. Never assume, it makes an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’, goes the classical refrain. I kept those words behind my teeth and merely bowed again, saying, “Lieutenant Quinn said they were in the barracks.”

“He’s been working out of the West Barracks, specifically,” Darth Lachris narrowed it down. “As we walk you can tell me what you think of my city. Doesn’t that sound fun?”

No…no, it really didn’t. Instead of lying again, because I wasn’t that much of an idiot, I simply gestured for her to lead the way.

Chapter Text

“What system would you consider the greatest conquest of the Empire from the Great War, Xanot?” Darth Lachris asked me as we walked the streets of her city.

The question startled me. Partly because the topic wasn’t what I expected Lachris to choose for small talk. But mostly because I didn’t know all the details of the war. The whole thing had happened before the setting of my source material, SWTOR, which had mostly concerned the end of the Cold War and the start of the Galactic War. Of course, books had mentioned the Great War in passing, and I knew that major battles had been fought on Alderaan, Sluis Van, Coruscant itself, and Ziost. As for the territorial gains…well, I didn’t know much apart from Balmorra.

My studies since Korriban had been focused on Sith etiquette, lightsaber combat, and Force mysticism. And it was clear from recent events I had much still to learn. Perhaps some time reading up on recent history wouldn’t go amiss, however.

“Balmorra,” I was essentially forced to reply, for lack of sensible alternatives.

“Oh?” Darth Lachris seemed amused. “Are you flattering me? Really, you don’t have to. I’ve only been Lord of this world for a day, and it’s admittedly something of a mess at the moment. In particular, you’ll have to overlook the occasional bloodbath.”

I shook my head, feeling my hair brushing the back of my neck as the high tail I had tied it in swayed. I looked down at the shorter woman and shrugged, “No, I think the research and manufacturing capabilities of this world make it a valuable asset. And its location, being so near to the Kuat Drive Yards and the Neimoidian homeworld and also such a short distance in hyperspace from the Hydian Way, makes it a key strategic location for fleet supply and the staging of Core world invasions. After all, weapons and munitions can be produced here, instead of requiring long supply lines from other factories in the Outer Rim.”

“All intelligent observations. I suppose your briefing must have included some of the reasons for the Dark Council’s interest in this world. Tell me, then, why do you think that the spineless twit Lysennius was given governorship of such an important world after the Treaty of Coruscant?” Darth Lachris asked, seemingly offhand. I sensed her keen interest and an undercurrent of simmering anger, however, and tried to be careful about my response.

“Is this a quiz?” I asked with a shade of humor, to buy a moment’s time.

Darth Lachris waved her hand dismissively. “Answer the question.”

“Well, I assume they didn’t want to empower any Lord in the Empire by giving them such a powerful world,” I guessed. “But I don’t know for sure.”

“That’s pretty much exactly the reason, unfortunately. Of course, Lysennius was a lying coward, and the Dark Council wasn’t actually aware of the trouble here in its entirety. But even if they had known, it’s quite possible that they would have permitted the situation to deteriorate rather than gifting the planet over to a Lord who would then gain a significant boost in power. Last question: considering their initial reluctance, why do you think they finally assigned the planet to myself?” Darth Lachris stopped at a crosswalk, and a few speeders buzzed hastily past us.

The idea of a Sith Lord waiting for traffic signals tickled me, but I managed not to giggle like an idiot. “Is it because the situation is getting out of hand, and they don’t think that Balmorra is actually going to be very much of a boon for you, at least not in the short term? And they don’t want the embarrassment of losing Balmorra to rebels, since that would embolden other separatists' efforts in the Empire?”

Lachris was looking at me closely, and there was a small frown on her face. “Yes. Exactly right.”

I shrugged. “We will just have to prove them wrong, right? After all, I’m stuck here until we’ve pacified the planet, and I’d prefer not to be here for the rest of my life.”

“Even if this world is cleansed of its treasonous filth within the year, it would still take at least a year to retool the factories and institute an efficient bureaucracy. But I don’t want you to remain here for that long, nothing against you personally. As soon as I can dismiss the ICCC and rely on my own soldiers, you will depart with them. After all, your presence here is Darth Baras’ favor to Darth Decimus and has little to do with myself. I imagine that I can rid myself of the ICCC after the Republic’s forces have been driven off the planet, but who really knows what will satisfy Darth Decimus?” Darth Lachris huffed, looking away. We were able to cross the street at this point. “Although, if we do manage to destroy the rebels in a year it would be ten times faster than the estimates given to me by my advisers.”

“They really think it will take ten years to quell the resistance?” I asked faintly.

“No…they think it will take three to five,” Darth Lachris corrected. “Then five years after that to reorganize the government into a real asset for the Empire. Balmorra would have completed both these tasks, if it weren’t for Lysennius’ utter failure. He is dead, of course, so the blame belongs to the Dark Council. This planet should have been assigned to a Lord as soon as it was conquered. What you see happening here is the result of a weak governor.”

“Who would you have chosen as governor, then?” I asked, letting myself relax just a bit. It didn’t seem as though she was going to bite my head off, at least not right away.

“If I said myself, would you think me arrogant?” Lachris wondered, but then shook her head. “No, they wouldn’t have made me Lord of Balmorra eight years ago. Darth Marr, my former master, is already one of the premier powers in the Empire, at least among Humans, and while I am not technically a part of his power base any longer, there are still ties of allegiance between us. Anyway, even though I was a Lord, I was still under his tutelage at the time, and the Council doesn’t make a habit of granting considerable territory to Sith who have a Master. Students must look to their teacher for their holdings, and only the most powerful Darths have enough real estate to delegate rule among apprentices. You’ll be mostly out of luck on that score, with Darth Baras. He has been granted control of a single district on Dromund Kaas and nothing more than that.”

“Ah,” I rubbed the back of my neck. That hadn’t really answered my…

“More to the point, it would have had to be someone from a power base that doesn’t already control significant holdings, so maybe one of the smaller pureblood dynasties would have been a suitable choice. I find most of the pureblood traditionalists insufferable, personally, but they at least understand how to govern a planet,” Darth Lachris shrugged. “One of Darth Vowrawn’s brothers or uncles, perhaps, would have done well. It doesn’t really matter, now. After all, it’s in the past.”

“Isn’t Darth Vowrawn on the Dark Council himself?” I wondered. “He must have an extensive power base already. They probably didn’t want to hand him another planet.”

“Yes, he does, but he’s somewhat estranged from his dynasty precisely because of his position. His brothers and his uncles have their own holdings and interests, which are often at odds with Vowrawn’s own,” Darth Lachris explained. “If invaded by the Republic or threatened by separatists, then the dynasty as a whole could still come together to muster a good twelve to fifteen percent of the Empire’s might, even if the Emperor refused to declare an official war.”

Interesting…it seemed that dynasties didn’t necessarily act unilaterally, but if threatened by an outside power they would be more likely to come together. I imagined it would be possible to use their internal squabbles to divide them even as an outsider, but it wouldn’t be as simple as isolating a Lord who wasn’t from such a dynasty - a Lord such as myself, who was born to Force-null parents, or Lachris, who was not pureblood.

I was curious, though, “How many brothers does Darth Vowrawn have, anyway?”

“Eight? Nine? At least that’s how many are still alive, and only his real brothers. I don’t actually count half-brothers, even if you Sith don’t really care who the mother is where it concerns dynastic politics. It’s too difficult to keep up with pureblood relations once you start to only follow the patriarchal line, and I’d bet he has at least thirty brothers by your kind’s reckoning,” Darth Lachris waved a hand in irritation. “You won’t find me flirting with any pureblood, at least not the men, and that’s a certainty! I’d prefer not to spend the better part of ten years constantly gravid.”

“It’s a tragic loss for men of my race, I assure you,” I joked, then quailed as I received a bright orange glare.

“Was that sarcasm, Apprentice Xanot?”

I hastily waved a hand to placate her, “No! Not at all!”

She sniffed imperiously. “Hmph. I’ll have you know I would make a ruthless and cunning matriarch for a powerful dynasty, and they would be privileged to have me, if I actually wanted the position,” Lachris folded her arms over her chest and tilted her chin up, completing the perfect image of a slighted noblewoman. “Well, in any case. A lesser member of a strong dynasty would have been my choice as governor. Darth Marr tried to get the planet assigned to one of his former apprentices, which was part of the reason it ended up going to a member of the Imperial bureaucracy. What a waste that turned out to be.”

I nodded, thinking over the politics of the situation. “It’s odd that the Dark Council has so many Human members, if the pureblood dynasties are so numerous and strong.” Lachris gave me a sharp look and I held up my hands. “I’m not saying that it's a bad thing! Just…an interesting fact.”

“You should know that the pureblood Sith dynasties don’t like the Dark Council,” she said. “It’s pretty common knowledge. Anyone who is anybody in the dynasties usually claims that they have a conflict of interest and can’t serve as a part of the ‘Emperor’s cabinet,’ which is their somewhat derisive description of the Dark Council.”

“Oh…What kind of conflict of interest?” I wondered, a bit stunned. Lachris seemed surprised at my question.

“To put it delicately, the pureblood dynasties are not the Emperor’s most dedicated loyalists. Despite the Emperor’s extensive efforts to erase the event from memory, many of the dynasties remember how the Emperor rose to power after the Great Hyperspace War, and they haven’t forgiven him even after all this time. I’ll say nothing more about that matter, because it would be sedition, but that’s the reason for the tension between the Emperor and the dynasties. You could say that time has caused those scars to fester rather than heal. It got much worse after he elevated the Dread Masters, all of whom being Human just rubbed salt in the wound, and the Emperor kept them there for centuries,” at this point, Lachris shuddered. I wondered what she knew about the method of immortality that the Dread Masters had used, and why she would shudder at the thought of it.

She continued, “Anyway, why did you think the Empire never really tried to rescue the Dread Masters after they were captured during the last War? We know that the Republic lied about their execution, as if the Jedi would ever do something so practical. For years, most Sith have known. But the pureblood dynasties hate the Dread Masters without exception, and the rest of the Lords don’t really want to invite competition with the Dread Masters or incur animosity from the dynasties by bringing the Dread Masters back from their unwilling exile. So, the Empire as a whole leaves them to rot, wherever they are.”

Ah. “I didn’t realize any of this. Wouldn’t the Emperor want to save them, if they were really his trusted lieutenants and enforcers?”

“The only one loyal specifically to the Emperor that might be capable of that would be the Emperor’s Wrath, and he’s been missing pretty much since the Treaty of Coruscant. The Emperor’s Voice also hasn’t been seen or heard for a long time, but that isn’t unusual. The rest of the Emperor’s Hand tends to operate from the shadows, and the more foolish among the Lords don’t even believe that the Hand really exist. Finally, the Emperor himself has remained quite aloof since the Treaty of Coruscant,” Lachris lectured, shooting me a puzzled look. “Aren’t you aware of this already?”

“Not at all. Doesn’t the Emperor have his own worlds and fleets? Unless he doesn’t want to mount an assault for fear of reigniting the war,” I mused.

“He doesn’t have what you could call a typical power base in the Empire. There are no planets directly under his rule, no Moffs under his direct command, no fleets and no armies. The Emperor rules the Sith, who rule the Empire, and he exerts his will via his Hand, his Wrath, and his Voice. No one else has seen him in person and lived to speak of it for several generations. Evidently, our illustrious master doesn’t care to order the Dark Council to plan a rescue mission for his Dread Masters, and the Dark Council naturally prioritizes other things above any rescue attempt. Since you didn’t know this, you must not be from one of the pureblood dynasties. One of the other Lords had intimated as much, but when I saw you, I thought he must have been mistaken. Are you really a hybrid, then?” As she asked, she was looking at me over her shoulder with a very interested gaze, and I looked away with a shrug.

“I think so,” I nodded. “I never met my parents, but medical records say that my father wasn’t Force-sensitive, or at least he wasn’t a Sith Lord. He couldn’t have been pureblood Sith in that case.”

“Quite astute, though pretty much everyone in the Empire has a bit of Sith blood in them,” Lachris agreed. “Looking at you, I can tell that the Sith genes must be as potent as they say, to present so strongly even with a Human father.”

Was that a compliment? I just shrugged, somewhat at a loss for words. “My mother was Sith…I’m not sure if she was from a pureblood dynasty.”

“You are obviously a pureblood, so it’s highly likely that your mother was also pureblood. It would be remarkable if two hybrids could produce a pureblood child, although I wouldn’t be surprised. It wouldn’t matter to you in any case. The dynasties only follow the male line, and your father wasn’t from a dynasty. If you were born a man, you could have bred a cadet branch of your mother’s dynasty, with the permission of her patriarch, or spawn your own independent dynasty, but that’s obviously irrelevant. There’s little difference between the two options anyway, other than the fact that the cadet branch is nominally affiliated with the patriarch’s dynasty, and that can be just as harmful as helpful. Being independent has its advantages. Someone in your position could get into the pureblood dynastic politics, but you’d have to find a pureblood Lord you can tolerate and invite him to your bed. Of course, there’s little point to that if you don’t enjoy yourself. However, my advice would be to stay out of it entirely. Better to build your own power base than to usurp one of the dynasties. It’s far less complicated,” Lachris shrugged, then laughed. “I do hope your father knew what he was getting into. From my observations, if a pureblood Sith woman lets any male breed her other than a Lord of her own kind, she tends to be quite domineering about it. I figure that it’s because you Sith can’t easily dominate your own men, so you have to look outside your own race for a thrall. Only if that’s your pleasure, of course.”

“That’s…more than I ever wanted to know about my mother,” I managed to reply.

Lachris gave a more sincere laugh. Her laughter was smooth and regal in a way I had honestly never heard before, and I found myself watching the way it played across her corrupted features. Honest amusement wasn’t something that you saw often on a Sith Lord’s face. Baras used his laughter as a weapon in conversation, but Lachris seemed freer with her smiles. “If you do find a Sith Lord willing to get on his knees for you, it’d be best to keep him there as often as possible. That way his tongue is put to good use, instead of having it wagging about and creating problems for your authority.”

I choked on my spit. Lachris shot me a conspiring grin.

“That’s especially troublesome if your man is also a Lord in his own right, especially since you’d have to take a position in his dynasty. If you manage things properly, then you’d of course make the man a figurehead and rule his family yourself. You should look up Lord Drathin if you really are interested, he isn’t the most formidable Lord that his dynasty has produced lately, and his branch is somewhat smaller. A good starting place, and if I had my guess you’ll probably have no trouble with that one, in a few years. His protection wouldn’t do any harm during your apprenticeship, either. You can even tell him I gave you his name, I’m sure he hasn’t forgotten about me. I don’t know you well enough to know whether he’d thank me or curse me for it.”

I got the sense that she was familiar with Lord Drathin and that is was more than idle gossip…and I wasn’t sure what to make of that realization, or her suggestion. It was also obvious that she had no idea I was a chimera. I had thought it was obvious to anyone familiar enough with Sith, after Ffia the hairdresser had picked up on it after a closer look at my face. Though, Ffia had done that by seeing ‘male attraction’ and I was rather too terrified of Lachris for that to show in my expression.

I did wonder how chimera fit into the Sith dynasties…were they considered male or female for the purposes of succession? I would have thought that the genitalia would be the important part for such matters, but who knows?

Also, what the hell had become of this conversation? Hadn’t she said she had no interest in pureblood Sith?

“I’ll keep your advice in mind, Darth Lachris,” I muttered, through my utter bewilderment.

“Well, the barracks is just ahead,” Darth Lachris gestured lazily at a complex of large, cuboid structures that were built into the side of a rocky cliff. “I’ll part ways with you here and meet you for the briefing at the military outpost. Bring your Lieutenant with you, he should know where he’s going. But don’t come with the whole platoon. Don’t be late, and don’t go anywhere else except for this barracks and the outpost. If you deviate from these instructions, I’ll consider you a rogue element and have you killed.”

“I’ll be there, directly, in an hour or earlier than that,” I offered somewhat hesitantly, still reeling from the unexpected advice on my love life, followed by a threat. Was that just how everyone operated? Casual death threats?

I stood there, on the side of the street, until Darth Lachris was gone. She was heading towards the main entrance, which was a military checkpoint at the mouth of the ravine. I looked at Vette, who was likewise staring after the Lord of Balmorra.

“She…was not what I expected,” I muttered.

“She seems nicer than Darth Baras, at least,” Vette agreed. She sidled up to me, looking through her clear visor at my face.

“Don’t be fooled by a casual attitude,” I warned, shaking my head. “I’d guess she’s just as cruel a Baras, if provoked.”

“So, are you going to look up that Lord Drathin?”

“Wouldn’t he be in for a surprise, if I did?” I joked with a small smile. Then I shook my head. “No…although I should probably research the politics of the Empire more, even if it isn’t to find a dynasty to usurp. It’s even more complicated than I had realized, and that’s saying something. Well, let’s get a move on. I really don’t want to be late to that meeting.”

Vette snorted. “Wouldn’t that be the worst way to die, after everything? Because you’re late to a meeting?”

I shook my head and approached the barracks. Its entrance consisted of three double-doors adjacent to each other, but only the pair in the middle seemed to be in use.

The interior of the barracks reminded me more of a rec center than a military installation. There were multiple levels, with firing ranges and several simulated combat zones on floors two and three. Floors four and five were dormitories, and floor six was an operational headquarters. The first floor was a security checkpoint, but they waved us by immediately when they saw me.

I didn’t see any indication of a dining hall on the signs, but that might be in an adjacent building. Either way, I reached out with the Force to determine which of the two floors of dormitories was likely to be the one with Quinn’s unit and guided by instinct I chose floor five.

I could sense easily three hundred people in the building, but it was large enough that it didn’t feel crowded. If I had to guess, I’d put the structure at probably thirty thousand square feet per floor.

When the turbolift deposited us on the fifth floor, we startled a group of shirtless troopers that had been coming out of their dorm. I’m pretty sure one of them actually squealed in horror as he practically dove back into privacy, moving quickly enough that I barely even had time to register the group’s muscled bodies.

I heard a woman’s voice scolding the men inside their dorm and passed it by without another thought. Probably one of their officers, or maybe just a particularly bossy squad-mate. I sensed Lieutenant Quinn in the Force and followed the feeling to one of the dorms, pausing at the door. Considering the display of partial nudity we had just witnessed, it was probably wise to knock first.

I rapped on the steel door first, to little effect. I heard Vette sigh. “There’s a doorbell, just there…on the panel...yep, there.”

“Ah, thank you,” I nodded, pressing it as a slight flush graced my cheeks. Was I going to look like a clueless idiot forever in this galaxy? I heard the soft ding inside the room that indicated there was a visitor.

There was a muffled bang and a couple colorful swear words from within, and then the door slid open to reveal Lieutenant Quinn making a passable impression of someone who was very well put together. Except, behind him, I could see soldiers still scrambling out of their bunks and pulling clothes on.

“My Lord…I apologize, I should have asked that you comm ahead,” the man said, saluting me.

I shrugged one shoulder. “It’s alright. Should we come back in a moment?”

“By no means. Come in,” Quinn stepped out of the way. He whistled sharply, and the soldiers lined up in front of their stacked bunks, side by side. Each bunk was basically a steel construct with a thin mattress laid atop a wireframe, and there were two mattresses atop one another, with probably five feet between the bottom bunk and the top.

One of the poor sods wasn’t wearing pants, standing in skivvies and a uniform top. I caught Quinn giving that one a sharp-eyed look and had to stifle my laughter.

“This is Apprentice Xanot and her associate, Vette,” Lieutenant Quinn introduced us. “She will be coordinating with us in the field during her assignment here.”

Did I mention our relationship would likely extend beyond that? Nah…I’d let Lachris break the news, since it was ultimately her decision. Although, reassigning troops from the ICCC would probably not make Darth Decimus entirely happy, or at least I wouldn’t think so. Unless he didn’t have as much direct control over ICCC forces as I imagined, it was essentially weakening his power base, if only by a single platoon.

“Hello,” I greeted them, not allowing my eyes to linger on anyone too long. Especially not the poor fellow without pants on. He’d probably spontaneously combust if I actually looked at him directly for more than a breath.

There were seventeen of them, most of them were Human and male. There were two Human women and one Duros fellow; I couldn’t tell if he was male or female just by sight…and frankly, with aliens, it was always possible he was neither. What surprised me more was the wide variety in shape and size throughout the troopers. A few of the team were absolute units, one almost reaching the same size as myself, and then there were a couple guys that would come face to boob if they stood directly in front of me.

“I wanted to meet you all personally, before we work together in the field,” I said, after a once-over. Then I looked at Quinn, who was notably the only one in his full uniform. “Would you introduce them one by one? I’d like to know their role in your unit.”

“Of course.”

I added, “And they can be at ease. I mean, finish getting dressed, in the meantime.”

Quinn gestured broadly. “You heard her.”

The tension seemed to break along with the parade rest stances, and Quinn stepped close to lead me over to the pair nearest to the door. The one was a mighty fellow, and his bunkmate was an average-looking man with dark hair. “This is Sergeant Michael Dunlass, call-sign Mike,” Quinn said as he gestured to the larger man, who finished throwing on his uniform jacket. “He is a heavy weapons operator, and he joined my unit six months ago.”

“An honor, Ma’am.”

I nodded to him. “Where are you from?”

The question seemed to surprise Michael, who glanced at his superior as if looking for reassurance. Whatever expression Quinn had on his face must have signaled the guy to go ahead, since he said, carefully. “Ziost, ma’am.”

I nodded, and Quinn introduced the other man, “This is Specialist Ellis Grant, call-sign Lee. He’s a rifleman.”

Ah, not every soldier had a specialty. That made sense. I nodded and asked him the same question as Michael. “Where are you from?”

Ellis fidgeted slightly. “Balmorra, ma’am.”

“Oh?” I paused. “When did you enlist?”

“Five years ago.”

I was tempted to also ask him why he had enlisted, but I didn’t want to single him out just because he was Balmorran. I let Quinn continue on, and by the time we reached the second pair they had already gotten into full uniform.

Quinn introduced me to the rest of the unit, which was:

Corporal Valence Graw, who was called Vale,

Private Terrance Hoffman, called Tear,

Specialist Lisa Maow, called Louse,

Corporal Seir Dagglud, called Stiff,

Corporal Mia Khan, called Queen,

Private Bendas Looam, called Spitter,

Specialist Donal Green, called Don,

Private Gunther Danten, called Snow,

Corporal Dan Tenner, called Niner,

Corporal Ryan Date, called Rye,

Specialist Leone Augre, called Lee,

Corporal Eren Tall, called Tack,

Corporal Isol Deen, called Arty,

Private Gaunt Firrec, called Bones,

And, finally, Platoon Sergeant Petris Yoder, called Sandy.

“Pleasure to meet you, Ma’am,” the platoon sergeant greeted, saluting lazily. He waved a hand indicatively at Quinn, “You’ve had this one on edge all day.”

Quinn, who was still standing stiffly beside me, despite the fact that I hadn’t snapped at anyone or done anything alarming since my entrance, managed to convey his displeasure with the platoon sergeant's attitude without saying a single word. Impressive.

“He’ll get used to me eventually,” I replied. “Have you worked with Sith before, Sergeant?”

“Twice,” the man agreed, but didn’t elaborate.

“I see. Lieutenant Quinn, we’re expected at a brief with Captain Rigel and Her Excellency Darth Lachris at the military outpost outside Sobrik, I was told you knew where that is?”

Quinn, if possible, stiffened even more. “I do. Are you satisfied, then?”

“I look forward to working with you all,” I said to the room, suddenly aware of how closely everyone had been watching me. Oh, come on…little ole me? “I’d like to ask some questions, Lieutenant, while we walk.”

“Of course,” Quinn nodded, giving a meaningful glance at Petris. I wondered what he was saying with his eyes.

We left shortly, and I turned to Vette. “What did you think of them?”

“Me?” Vette touched her chest in surprise. “Well, I certainly don’t know.”

“Really? Were they anything at all like your squad mates in training?”

“I guess so…they’re Imperial,” Vette agreed. I sighed but supposed there wasn’t really much I could have expected her to glean from simple introductions. I wasn’t really sure what I had been hoping to accomplish, in meeting them. Still, I hastened my step so that I was alongside Quinn.

“Is it three squads? Or four fire teams?” I asked. I knew some militaries had teams of four and others six…but I wasn’t sure why there was this variation.

Quinn seemed surprised. “They haven’t introduced you to the Imperial Military’s general structure, Ma’am?”

“Remind me, please,” I answered shortly. I didn’t want to imply that I hadn’t, and have it contradict my record, but I couldn’t say that I knew the information already, because I didn’t.

Quinn swallowed and nodded. “Of course. Generally, a Lieutenant commands a platoon, which can have anywhere from two to twelve fire teams, depending on the theater and the purpose of the platoon. Each fire team is four men, typically, but certain specialist groups have more. Our teams have a heavy weapons operator, two riflemen, and a specialist. Sometimes the specialist is a demolitions expert, other times a slicer, and more commonly a field medic.”

“I see.” It made sense. Look, I was never a military buff, so I wasn’t sure if that was typical or not in modern warfare. And this was futuristic, Star Wars warfare, with laser guns. “And you have a platoon sergeant, what is his role?”

“He manages training, equipment requisitions, and serves as my tactical adviser. Our role in Counter-Terrorism means that the platoon has a lot of down time, so he makes sure to keep their training regimen appropriate for the circumstances,” Quinn explained.

“Have you led these men for long?” I wondered, as we exited the barracks and followed Lachris’ footsteps.

“Most of them,” Quinn agreed. “Since I arrived on Balmorra, they’ve been my platoon. We’ve had three casualties, and transfers from other platoons to account for them. Captain Rigel felt that four fire teams was sufficient for the area that my platoon is expected to cover. It has been fairly quiet, and our losses are typical for the occupation forces.”

That would mean one out of eighteen soldiers in the occupation died every year? That seemed…extreme. Or maybe I had taken his phrasing incorrectly.

“Well, don’t take it as fact just yet, but Darth Lachris implied she was going to have you transferred to my personal command,” I said, just so it wasn’t a big surprise later. I would have left it to Lachris to inform him, but it felt a bit rude to throw him under the bus without warning. “I don’t know how that works in detail. But we’ll be working together for the foreseeable future, at the very least. Our main targets are Grand Marshall Cheketta, a disavowed Republic officer, and Commander Rylon, a disavowed Republic commando operative. I assume we’re meeting Lachris for a briefing on those targets today, but I don’t know for sure.”

“There was an orbital strike just four hours before your arrival, this may be a report about that engagement. I don’t know the details, it wasn’t an action from my division of the ICCC,” Quinn offered, hastening his step. “I appreciate that you didn’t bring up the transfer of command in front of the men. Although it is an honor, not all of them would have been pleased to hear it.”

“I didn’t think I made such a poor impression,” I ventured, watching from the corner of my eye as Quinn’s shoulders went taut and he shook his head quickly.

“No, it’s nothing you did at all, my Lord. It’s only that some of the men are quite passionate about the situation here on Balmorra and wouldn’t want to be reassigned from this post,” Quinn rushed through his explanation. Not that anyone who wasn’t Force-sensitive could tell that he was flustered…the guy had excellent control of his expression.

I nodded. “Well, I’m not supposed to leave this world until Balmorra is firmly in Imperial control, so hopefully by that time they are not as averse to becoming a part of my retinue. Darth Lachris is resolved to make the move, because she thinks that you and your men are beholden to Darth Baras and she doesn’t want his assets on her planet. If your men are still opposed to the idea at that time, I’ll let you recommend them to another post.”

Quinn halted in the middle of the sidewalk. “What?”

I hesitated. “I mean, they could choose a different assignment, and you could attest as to their competency? I don’t think forcing professional soldiers to serve me against their will is a good idea; there would be no way to count on their loyalty under duress.”

“My Lord, if they refuse to serve in a Sith Lord’s retinue, there is no officer in the Navy or the Army that would accept a transfer request. It is one of the highest honors to be selected for the retinue of a Lord,” Quinn exclaimed. “It would mean the end of their career to refuse.”

“Well…that complicates things,” I sighed with exasperation, starting to walk again. “But I could phrase it as an exchange, and swap anyone who would rather serve elsewhere with a soldier from another command, right? Then they wouldn’t technically be refusing at all. I don’t take it personally, you know. I’m sure they all signed on for their own reasons, and those might not include serving as part of my command.”

“If you knew a general or a moff who would be willing to make such a trade,” Quinn slowly agreed after a few breaths, visibly relaxing.

“I’ll take care of you and your men; you can relax, Lieutenant. I don’t have any intention of making life harder on you than it already is,” I assured the man.

The look he gave me was difficult to discern. We didn’t say much else for the rest of the walk, passing through the checkpoint at the city’s wide, open gate without issue. The outpost itself was basically a prefabricated fortress, and it was located about three hundred yards from the mouth of the ravine leading into Sobrik.

The structure was shaped like a star, with V-shaped barricades making seven points in a rough circle around a central generator. There were large pavilions erected with durasteel slats making a roof, and holographic displays were scattered everywhere, with uniformed officers standing beside them caught up in quiet conversations.

It was impossible to miss Darth Lachris, even though she was short. At least, to me, her Force presence was like drawing close to the edge of a cliff - there was a deepening pit in the gut that was palpably felt when approaching her. She was standing next to an older man, tall, with shaved head and a distinctive scar over his left eye, and a prim, uniformed woman. They were gesturing at a holographic map of the planet, which spun lazily. As we approached I heard the middle of the conversation.

“…effective, casualties total. The entire outpost was destroyed, thanks to the efforts of Cipher Nine,” they were saying. I slowed my step.

So, it was confirmed. Cipher Nine was out there. On Balmorra, to boot.

“Watcher Two, while I appreciate the effort on the part of Imperial Intelligence to contribute to the efforts against the resistance forces on Balmorra, our agreement was that your presence on my planet would be permitted solely because you promised that you would kill Gray Star and neutralize his network of terrorists. It was not so that you could volunteer your operative for unrelated duties,” Darth Lachris said firmly. “I want Cipher Nine’s incredibly dangerous personage and your thoroughbred intellect off my planet as soon as realistically possible, which means you need to focus on Gray Star and his terrorist network, not on Captain Rigel’s cries for help. As for you, Captain Rigel, if there is any need for you to contract outside actors to assist you in your operations, I would think that you could ask me directly for assistance, rather than making public inquiries on the Imperial Military network. Are my expectations for the both of you now quite clear?”

“Yes, your Excellency,” both addressed individuals replied, like scolded children. They bowed, too, nice and formal.

I cleared my throat as I approached. Watcher Two’s beautiful, too-intelligent eyes snapped up and seemed to stare through me. I fidgeted but focused on Darth Lachris. At least at the moment, she was the most dangerous person here.

“Ah, Apprentice, right on time. I see you picked up your Lieutenant. Captain Rigel, Lieutenant Quinn belongs to Xanot now, and the platoon goes with him. I consider it a gift, from one Lady to another. You’ll handle the requisite forms, correct? Send them to my office for approval by morning,” Darth Lachris declared this with only the barest acceptable politeness, and Captain Rigel cast a concerned look at Lieutenant Quinn, but of course, he could only agree.

“Whatever you command, Lord,” was his vocal reply.

“Good. I love it when people cooperate,” Darth Lachris smiled sharply. “Now that the situation at Outpost Victory is resolved, we can get down to the real business. Just as long as you understand this: I expect to know the mission of anyone operating on Balmorra, whether they are as mighty as the Emperor’s Wrath or are the most covert Intelligence asset. Now, you were going to brief me on the Troida Military Workshop and the Balmorran Arms Factory.”

Captain Rigel nodded and stepped up to the hologram. “As far as we can tell, the Balmorran Resistance, aided by disavowed Republic forces, have constructed two bases near Sobrik, which are the primary source of munitions and recruits for their activities on Balmorra as a whole. Smugglers are able to get supplies to these locations from the spaceport more easily, and from there these supplies are distributed to partisans across the planet.”

“How are smugglers getting supplies to the resistance?” I asked, interrupting his report. Captain Rigel paused and looked at Darth Lachris, who gestured for him to answer.

“We do not have a blockade around the planet, my Lord. Anyone can come and go from Sobrik spaceport, as long as they can pass through customs. Unfortunately, without extensively searching every vessel, we can’t catch all smugglers. Scanners are simply not detailed enough to find every hidden compartment or shielded cargo hold. We estimate that the Resistance receives ten percent of their supplies from smugglers passing through Sobrik spaceport, but it was considered too expensive, and detrimental to the planet’s struggling economy, to restrict the spaceport any further with more intense security measures,” Captain Rigel explained steadily, and paused when he was finished.

“I see, thank you,” I gestured him onward.

Lachris, however, interjected. “Well, that’s ridiculous. Institute a pass system and have official business for the companies on Balmorra license themselves with the ICCC. If an incoming vessel is licensed, only search them five percent of the time, chosen at random. Every unlicensed vessel should be searched from front to back, by our own soldiers. Anyone smuggling unlicensed weaponry or munitions should be publicly executed, in the common area of the spaceport. This makes sense, yes? Smugglers are a selfish breed; they won’t want to take a job with such dangerous conditions.”

“It would require manpower to implement your plan,” Captain Rigel offered cautiously. “But I can see how it would restrict the flow of weapons and munitions to the resistance. What about medical supplies and food intended for the rebellion, which would be impossible to distinguish from legal merchandise? There is also the domestically produced munitions and arms which we can’t prevent at the spaceport.”

Lachris scoffed. “Let them waste time and supplies caring for their wounded, I don’t care. As for food, let them try to smuggle it through. We might be able to trace such shipments back to their hiding places, and it doesn’t matter how well fed they are if they have no weapons. As for space traffic in places other than Sobrik, there shouldn’t be any. Our defense satellites are sufficient to destroy ships attempting to take off anywhere outside of Sobrik, yes? Give a two-week notice that unauthorized departures will be destroyed before they can reach altitude, and only authorize departures from Sobrik. If anyone complains about economic impact, let them know that a decade of guerrilla warfare would be far more costly than a temporary security measure. Now, continue.”

“The bases are shielded by unknown technology, so we can’t be precise in our intelligence. We don’t know how the resistance are getting people in and out of the complexes, since they were sealed by Lysennius six years ago, and we can’t detect any entrances. Our attempts to scout the locations have been met with missing soldiers. The areas have been booby trapped extensively, and we don’t know how many combatants are active in either location. What we do know is that they are surprisingly well-supplied. We’ve lost several infantry fighting vehicles to anti-material weapons of Republic make. Furthermore, the use of mines and automated turrets makes traversing the zones marked here in red exceedingly perilous. As you can see from the map, it’s blocking the direct land route between Sobrik and Lennik. So far, the resistance hasn’t used their weapons to destroy shuttles flying overhead, but we know they have the ability to target skyfighters or shuttles,” Captain Rigel gestured at each area mentioned during his speech, and the map zoomed in on them. “We’ve lost several gunships over the last year.”

“Can we collapse these complexes?” Darth Lachris asked.

Captain Rigel blinked, and I sensed his shock. “My Lord, the explosive force required would be…”

“Can it be done?” she enunciated each word carefully, forcefully.

“No, your Excellency,” Watcher Two interjected. “It would require an explosive in the megaton range, placed strategically under the ground or within the complex. The trouble would be that such a weapon would very likely also destroy Sobrik and the spaceport, due to seismic activity following the collapse of either the Troida Military Workshop or the Balmorran Arms factory. Each on is an extensive network of factories and tunnels stretching more than three kilometers through the cliffs and under the ground.”

“Excellent, thank you for the direct answer,” Darth Lachris nodded. “Then, we should move in force on one of the two outposts and breach the sealed facility. If we can’t find the entrance used by the rebels, we will make our own.”

“Your Excellency…”

Darth Lachris held up a hand and the Captain fell silent. “Captain Rigel, if you’re going to offer me a list of reasons why my suggested offensive cannot be done, I would advise that you remain silent.”

The man folded his arms over his chest, bravely holding the Darth’s gaze.

“Good. Now, if we are going to engage an unconventional foe outside of clear battle lines, hunting them through mountain tunnels and killing them while they dress like civilians or even wear stolen Imperial uniforms, then I want these scum to be forced into the wilderness. I want them drinking filtered piss and eating re-hydrated carbo-cakes. I don’t want them operating from highly organized, static, paramilitary bases in locations we are fully aware of, all while we sit around wondering what to do about it. Since we know they are operating somewhere in these complexes, we will either utterly destroy them from orbit, like at Outpost Victory, or we will clear out the entire area by force, making them relocate,” Lachris slapped one fist into her palm and looked each of us in the eyes. “We have the lives and equipment to spare. The rebels do not. And much of their own resources would be destroyed if they attempted to hold these locations. We should force them to cut and run.”

“While I agree with your strategic approach, I don’t think that it is the correct choice for these specific bases,” Captain Rigel argued. “The time it will take to organize a large-scale attack will give them forewarning, which will allow them to recover most of their resources and rig dangerous traps for our men. They could detonate the complex once we are inside and destroy as much as an entire battalion.”

“We will attack with the troops we have available, and soon enough that there is no warning,” Darth Lachris answered immediately.

“We can only muster a single battalion, some six hundred soldiers, from the ICCC units deployed near Sobrik. Perhaps…two mechanized infantry platoons, and three standard infantry,” the Captain laid it out, zooming in on the map until it showed symbols for various Imperial troops in their locations at checkpoints or on patrol. “More, if we depend on Balmorran auxiliaries from planetary forces that profess to be loyal to the Empire.”

“Do not forget myself and my soldiers, and of course Apprentice Xanot with her retinue,” Darth Lachris replied. “Together, the Apprentice and I count for more than all the rebels on this planet combined, if we can properly apply our strengths. My forces number over six thousand and are largely mechanized for swift deployment. I also can deploy ten wings of skyfighters, and two wings of gunships as needed, but you have indicated these rebels have surface to air capabilities. The main thing to avoid is nuclear detonations or other suicide gambits, but I’d prefer to limit the amount of danaged expensive military equipment if at all possible.”

“Of course, and due to the strength of their shielding we can’t be sure that they don’t have one of the complexes rigged with explosives of that strength. There could be Jedi operating secretly in conjunction with the disavowed Republic military units,” Rigel continued patiently. “However, there has been no attempt by smugglers to supply any weapon capable of destroying these complexes. It would have had to be manufactured locally. Balmorra did have a stockpile of such warheads, for use in their own orbital defense missiles, but Imperial Intelligence was fairly certain that we’ve accounted for all of them.”

“We have more than enough soldiers to breach the complex and the interference caused by their shielding to place sensors that can detect weapons of mass destruction. Use the Balmorran auxiliaries for the most dangerous roles, but the sensors should be handled by your most dependable men, not local forces. If there are no super-weapons in the complex, I will lead a spearhead assault against the most like location of the rebel base within the complex. The rest of our forces will secure the flanks and sweep the entire complex for stragglers or sensitive intelligence,” Darth Lachris laid out the plan, gesturing at the map. “We’ll begin at the Troida Military Workshop, which is closer, and is projected to be the smaller of the two operations. Can you begin the attack tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?!” Captain Rigel blurted in shock. “Your Excellency, it will take at least a week to…”

“We’ve discussed the plan openly, and if the Balmorran Resistance has spies half as competent as their reputation implies, they will have their warning as soon as we begin to mobilize. You have two days to coordinate your men, Captain,” Lachris sliced the air with her hand. “My own forces will begin in two days, regardless. But I will be most displeased if we do not receive support from the ICCC. Do not contact the Balmorran auxiliaries until the day before the attack; I don’t care if that gives them too little time to prepare. If necessary, we will conduct a holding pattern after the initial attack, but we want to tie down the rebels in combat so they cannot easily evacuate.”

“In that case, I must coordinate with my subordinates at once,” Captain Rigel declared, bowing and turning on his heel. Technically, he had not been dismissed…but Darth Lachris didn’t make a big stink about it. She waved her had dismissively at his departing back and glanced at me.

“What will my role be in this assault?” I wondered.

“I said you wouldn’t leave my sight, didn’t I? Well, that might not be precisely true…but we’ll both be in the vanguard,” Darth Lachris replied, with a half-smile. Was that the anticipation for battle? “I hope Lieutenant Quinn’s men are ready to serve alongside my honor guard. Captain Rigel was right about the risk of Jedi operating here in secret, and I’d rather not lose a platoon by assuming that there are no Jedi here.”

Holy shit…that was probably not what Quinn’s men had trained to do. Still, I nodded in agreement. I guess we had no choice, so we were either going to be prepared for it or we would take casualties. That would just be a tragic way to start off my first military command, wouldn’t it?

“My lords, my men will be equipped and prepared for intense combat. We will not disappoint, I assure you,” Lieutenant Quinn interjected.

“Well, isn’t he the dutiful soldier?” Darth Lachris praised, then shooed him with a hand. “Go on then, Lieutenant, don’t wait for your Apprentice Xanot to dismiss you. Her manners are quite simply incorrigible; you’d be waiting a long time.”

Lieutenant Quinn hazarded a glance at me, but obeyed Darth Lachris. I watched him march off with a sinking feeling in my gut.

I had no idea what to expect from tomorrow…and that worried me. It worried me a great deal.

Chapter Text

The preparations for the upcoming attack were…involved, to say the least. I stayed close at hand and listened attentively as Darth Lachris spoke with her subordinates, her advisers, and her apprentices, of which there were two. Her apprentices were given more responsibility in the upcoming assault than I was, which made me feel rather unnecessary, but I understood her caution. Darth Lachris gave orders with every other breath, and yet left the consequences of failure mostly unspoken.

She only threatened people when she didn’t know them and was uncertain about their reliability. I learned this distinction about three hours in, when she said to me, “Use intimidation sparingly, Apprentice. Whomever you first threaten, you must always continue to threaten. Otherwise, they may slip from your grasp.”

But to rule is not merely to command. I learned this too. Darth Lachris was also unreserved in offering her terse advice to me throughout the long Balmorran day.

“War is a matter of calculated risk,” she said, as reports came of a platoon lost to a suicide bomb in one of the ruins outside of Sobrik. I wondered, at the time, what possible gain had offset that risk.

“A commander must recognize the capabilities of her subordinates, and allow them the latitude to act decisively,” she said, after providing specific objectives to Captain Rigel and his commanders.

“Learn when to use violence, and when to seek other leverage,” she said, as she accepted several Balmorran officers into her own retinue and promised that others might join them. The unspoken caveat was that loyalty, unquestionable and singular loyalty, was required.

“You must recognize the weaknesses of your plans and prepare contingencies,” she said, as she gave orders to her own ships to bombard the combat zones from orbit in case of betrayal or defeat in the coming campaign. After she was evacuated, of course. She was not self-sacrificing or foolish.

“A good commander prioritizes objectives wisely,” she said, when she ordered that any rebels were to be taken prisoner wherever possible or killed if their escape seemed likely. Don’t mistake this for kindness; the fate awaiting these prisoners was certainly interrogation by Inquisitors. Data was to be collected from consoles, if possible, but consoles were to be destroyed if they might be recovered by the rebels. The same applied to other resources.

“Do not throw away useful assets,” she said, as she finally contacted the local Balmorran militias and ordered them into position, despite uncertain loyalties.

“Do not allow your orders to be publicly questioned or controverted. You may be pliant, or cajoling, in private, but in public you must be Sith. You are to be obeyed without hesitation,” she said, when the Balmorran marshal protested that he needed more time to prepare his troops. She had shut him down decisively and threatened him with death to ensure his compliance.

I was unsure if that was the best way to handle that situation, but I hadn’t criticized her openly. That would have obviously shown that I wasn’t listening…and I never had the opportunity to ask her to explain in private.

I would simply have to wait and see how the battle turned out, and hopefully learn from her mistakes, if it proved to be a mistake. Hopefully no one I liked would end up dying as a result of her heavy-handed manner toward the militias…it seemed unlikely, but I still worried. Her casual disregard for the lives of the local militias was a classic reason for betrayal, or at least for a fatal weakness in morale. The casualties would mostly be members of the local marshal’s command, but any Imperial troops who relied on the militia vanguard would also feel the effects of weakness.

And this, perhaps, tied back into the earlier lesson, about calculated risk.

I consumed Darth Lachris’s tidbits of wisdom greedily, but by the end of the first four hours I was already dazed and overwhelmed by all that I knew I had yet to learn about being Sith. I resorted to noting down her words in my datapad, when they seemed to ring in the Force with deeper meaning. Perhaps later reflection would aid in understanding them.

It seemed unreasonable to expect that I would make for a good commander just because I was a Sith apprentice. After all, I had never led soldiers or even studied tactics. How could I know what was wise and what was foolish, except by trusting my instincts? I also noted down any questions which I would later bring up with Lieutenant Quinn or his platoon sergeant. They were at least experienced soldiers and would offer a different perspective.

I knew, in all likelihood, people were going to die in the coming battle. Some of those deaths might be people under my command, and it might even be my fault. When that happened, I wanted to be prepared to understand the mistakes I made, so I knew how I could improve. I knew that there was a level of ignorance that is so complete it makes it impossible to glean meaning even from the most straightforward of errors. I wanted to avoid that situation at all costs, And, if at all possible, I wanted to make sure that I didn’t make foolish mistakes that could be easily prevented by ample preparation.

I was nervous when night fell on the second day. It felt like an entire week had passed and I had only slept twice. In fact, counting by Imperial Standard days, it would have been closer to four days than two, on account of the slower rotation of the planet. Still, I was too wired up to sleep at this point, which was a damn shame.

We would attack before dawn, which would come in something like six hours. So, I sat patiently on the edge of our camp, watching the stars and the high-altitude vehicles making their passes between dark wisps of cloud. We had set up on a mesa that was west of Sobrik proper, and the location was supposed to misdirect our rebel observers. Our real target was the Troida Military Workshop, which was actually south of the spaceport, while the Balmorran Arms factory was west-southwest. It was hoped that the resistance forces would reinforce the Arms Factory due to the fact that we seemed poised to attack that complex. Hopefully they only had the numbers to entrench one of the two complexes, and it would leave Troida as the one unprepared for our assault.

That was the plan, anyway.

I followed the logic there. The goal was to attack them where they would last expect us to attack, so that we didn’t have to deal with quite so many traps and defensive fixtures. We especially wanted to avoid those traps of the superweapon variety. After our demolitions teams penetrated the shields protecting the rebels from our scans and informed us as to the presence of any explosive surprises, the militia forces would be ordered to clear the complex with support from Imperial forces. By the time that the fighting intensified, the sun would be rising, and we would then be able to rely on skyfighter support in the open ravines, whereas the resistance would have to choose between attempting to reinforce Troida from the Arms Factory or abandoning Troida to cross open ground.

If they had connected the bases via tunnel then they could always escape that way, but it was a distance of fifty kilometers. I thought that was fairly unlikely. Tunnels were also rather dangerous; if we detected them traveling underground then we could collapse the ground and bury their soldiers. Or seal the tunnel and suffocate them inside. More likely, it would force them to break the surface using explosives and then fight to the last man from an unfavorable position.

Alternatively, as Captain Rigel had warned, they might mount a counteroffensive from the Arms Factory. That would pull our forces away from the assault and into a defensive position, which would somewhat relieve Troida. With our main ground force situated between both bases, it was a possibility. Darth Lachris had only smiled at this, however, and that look had promised a great deal of pain.

Probably not the rebels’ wisest move, then. I had no idea how she intended to make them hurt if they sallied out of their hideaway, but whatever her plan might be, she was supremely confident in it. It allowed me to relax a bit.

I wasn’t Lord of Balmorra…my only concern was not getting my new retinue killed and obeying Darth Lachris’ commands. If the battle became costly for the occupation, well that wasn’t really my problem, right?

I sighed a bit and shifted my posture. Okay, so it didn’t sit right with me to disregard all the lives of the soldiers so callously. But I also wasn’t their Lord, so what could I really do about things if it turned out to take a bad turn?

I hadn’t chosen to sit on top of a barricade or otherwise expose myself to potential sniper fire. The risk was minimal this close to Sobrik, but I had been scolded once already by Lieutenant Quinn for standing with my shoulders and head above the barricade without my helmet or shield. It wasn’t really my fault the barricades were too short, but he had pulled me down to a crouch anyway, with the Force skittering about him in concerning flickers. Either snipers were a common threat, or he had a past experience with it that he’d rather not repeat.

It did occur to me that Baras would not be…pleased with Quinn, if I died to something that stupid under his watch.

The climate of Balmorra was warm and dry, so there was no need for heaters or fires in the camp. I was just propped up against a munitions crate, knees drawn up, arms crossed atop them. Waiting for the call to battle.

I sensed Vette stir in the tent-like prefabricated structure that she shared with some of Quinn’s soldiers. I had integrated her with one of the fire teams. Her team would be one engaging at mid-to-long range, since hers was the only group with a marksman specialist. To balance this, Quinn had transferred a heavy weapons operator, Dan Tenner, to another team, and they would be an assault group. It was apparent that Quinn’s former mandate in Counter-Terrorism hadn’t required snipers.

Darth Lachris’ personal guard didn’t operate in fire teams. It was a nonstandard configuration for Imperial troops, but it was also possible that they weren’t Imperial. I had no idea where she had sourced her soldiers from, but they wore full armor, covering every inch of skin. I had no idea if they were even Human.

They never spoke, either. Eerie bastards.

Vette emerged from her tent, silent as shadow, and spotted me instantly. I was impressed, considering how dim the stars were on this planet and the lack of a bright moon. Still, she approached and sat heavily beside me, almost touching my side. “Can’t sleep?” she chirped.

“Right.”

“I’m all messed up because of these long days, too” she commiserated. I let her think that was why I couldn’t sleep, tilting my head in agreement. The truth was rather that I was too excited…too anticipatory of the coming battle.

“I’ll be fine,” I offered. I had slept, some. Just four hours. But the nights on Balmorra lasted up to sixteen hours, sometimes. I heard it depended on the season and position relative to the equator, just as Earth sometimes had longer days in the far north or far south. “Hoping we make it through the day alright.”

“I’ve never been to war, either, you know.”

I looked down at her, over my shoulder. “I know.”

“The guys said it’s normal to feel uneasy before the first deployment,” Vette continued, tentatively laying her bare hand on my armored forearm. “Everyone gets anxious.”

I smiled, touched by her concern. “Are you getting along with your squad?”

“They’re good guys. Terse and bona-fide Imperial. I swear that some of you Imps can’t talk in complete sentences,” Vette complained quietly, with amusement. “And…well. They’ll make sure I’m alright.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked. Vette shrugged without speaking, and I sensed embarrassment. A teasing grin spread on my face, and I turned my body a bit to face her. “Did they say something?”

“No!” she lied.

“That’s a shame, then,” I relented, shaking my head teasingly. “It’d be a relief to hear that they’re going to watch your back when I can’t do it personally.”

Vette worried her lip for a second. Then she sighed, and my grin widened. Success. “One of the guys said they’d rather die than face your wrath if I got blasted.”

“Why’s that?” I asked, suspecting the answer.

“I guess ‘cause I was your first subordinate,” Vette lied.

“Is that what he said?”

Her eyes flicked up to my face and she saw eyes and my grin. Her hand swatted against my armored upper arm and then she shook her hand out with a quiet hiss. “Damn! Your armor is hard.”

“It’s armor,” I pointed out reasonably. “Are you going to tell me what he said, or is it a secret?”

“You know already, judging by that devilish look!”

I shrugged easily.

Vette sighed. “He assumed I was your, uh…you know.”

“My what?”

“It’s crass. Soldier talk,” she answered with a plead in her eyes. “Don’t make me say it.”

I chuckled and finally looked away from her. I had sensed, recently, that my full attention could be…intimidating to others. The Sith Sanctum wasn’t exactly a social environment, so it hadn’t really come up. But now that I was aware, I made an effort not to focus too intently on anyone for long. Vette never seemed to quail in my presence, not anymore. But I could tell she still felt the weight of my gaze. Subtle tension, a bit faster heart rate, slight widening of pupils.

All things that I was only aware of because of my incredibly precise senses.

I waved a hand amenably, “Fine, fine. They probably haven’t noticed I’m a chimera, though…I bet he used a creative phrase.”

Vette was blushing hard enough I could sense it in the Force, but she didn’t respond.

I shook my head bemusedly. I sensed an opportunity to tease her, and also let on that my overtures about friendship weren’t as innocent as they may have first appeared. There was no point in friend-zoning myself, after all. Softly, as if speaking to myself, I said, “If only I were so lucky.”

“Huh?”

I knew she’d heard me, though, so I only rolled my shoulders in a slight shrug, looking at her from the side of my eyes. Vette’s blush had intensified. She cleared her throat and didn’t linger on the subject.

“You intimidate the guys,” she eventually said. “But they admire you, too. You make them want to succeed. It’s…impressive. Since they just met you yesterday, you know?”

Now I was the one that ducked my head a bit. “I haven’t said more than two or three sentences to them.”

“I know, it’s just…the way you are. How you spoke to them, and even how you looked at them,” Vette said. “It’s very different from Darth Lachris and her guard. You asked them about their homes when you met them, and you treat them like people. You listen to Quinn and Petris. They’ve noticed.”

“You’re an observant girl,” I remarked, looking at her face again. I couldn’t help myself, even if it made her fidget slightly.

“Do you really care about them?” Vette asked directly.

I was almost hurt by the question. “You think it’s all just an act?”

“I don’t know…not really. You’re not a very good actor,” Vette responded with a soft sigh. “It’s just…not what I expected.”

“What did you expect?”

“You said, in the jail, that the champion guy should have realized his fate, because he had fought to perpetuate the ways of the Sith. You killed him, saying he was worthless,” Vette answered. “That isn’t the way you treated me, though. And I haven’t been exactly crucial to your operation after the locks in that tomb.”

“You aren’t worthless,” I said carefully. “And neither are these soldiers.”

“Ah,” Vette nodded slowly, looking away with a pensive mien. I pursed my lips.

Was she thinking that I’d kill her if she ever failed me? Or that I’d throw away these soldiers as if their lives meant nothing to me? “Don’t assume, Vette. Ask.”

Startled, her wide eyes met my own, and she shrank back a bit. It had been a while since I saw her fear me, and I intentionally dropped my gaze, curling myself into a tighter ball with my knees against the breastplate of my armor. I wanted her to answer me, after all, not just freeze up like a deer in the headlights.

Vette relaxed after a breath and leaned closer. “What is my worth to you, Master?”

I was stunned. That was not the question I had been thinking of. My mouth felt dry as I looked through my eyelashes at Vette, searching her earnest expression. “More than I can easily quantify,” I replied softly. “Certainly, more than just your rifle or your other skills. Baras might wrinkle his nose and call it pointless sentiment, but I don’t think it’s a waste to cherish others for things apart from their power.”

She blushed again but pressed on. “Is that true for Lieutenant Quinn and his men?”

Honestly? No. If Quinn or his men couldn’t fight, if one of them was crippled, what would their worth really be to me? But I wouldn’t just throw them away or kill them, because I was sure that each of those men had families or friends who valued them far beyond their worth as soldiers. And, Tremel had taught me that there was always more than one perspective to consider. It was a lesson I had promised to remember. “Not for my purposes. But there are many, I think, who value each of those men. I wouldn’t deprive anyone who fights for me the chance to find their worth elsewhere.”

“That wasn’t true for the guy that you killed in the jail?”

Devotek. I didn’t know, honestly…but he’d probably had someone who loved him. Everyone had somebody, right? “Devotek might have been dear to somebody, that’s true. But, Vette, he had not only failed in his mission but also deserted his duties and violated Imperial laws. I believe that he deserved to be judged by the precepts he himself had expressed and defended, which was what I meant when I said he should have realized his fate. He deserved to face the law that he had upheld for most of his life. Those precepts and that law demanded his death for his deeds.”

“I understand,” Vette seemed to settle back against the crate, nodding decisively. “I think you’re a good person, Master.”

I raised a brow in question. “Is that so?”

“For a Sith Lord, I mean,” she qualified, and I chuckled, settling back myself. Fair enough.

We sat, in companionable silence, for some time. That was fine by me. I sneaked glances at her every now and then, couldn’t help myself, but I never once let my attention waver in the Force. She was bright, earnest, lively. Deeply pensive. I wondered at her thoughts but didn’t interrupt them.

There was no way to miss the approach of Darth Lachris, and I glanced up to spy her walking towards us. Vette reacted to my sudden motion and followed the line of my gaze. She sat up straighter. The Darth was flanked by three of her guard and was dressed in what might have counted as a flak jacket with a long trench coat, except I could see that the coat was lined with shimmering blue fibers, and the jacket looked like it contained solid plates.

It wasn’t the hard-suit that I wore, but it was far more than simple robes. She still lacked a helmet, which I thought was rather reckless.

“Apprentice, with me. Send your attendant to her team.”

I gave Vette an apologetic glance, and her lekku twitched at me in a minute expression I interpreted as a shrug because of her ambivalence in the Force. She slipped away as quietly as she had come, and I leveraged my bulk up, standing loosely before Darth Lachris. The woman looked me up and down, raised a delicately trimmed eyebrow. “Do you ever take your armor off?”

“Not on battlefields,” I replied.

“Wise, I suppose, if tiresome. Even troopers take off their armor in their tents. Does your armor have a convenience feature, or do you have to remove it to pee?” Darth Lachris asked bluntly, innocent curiosity shining in the Force. I blinked at her blankly, completely blindsided.

There was an armored codpiece on my armor which was detachable exactly for this purpose, which she might have been referring to with ‘convenience feature,’ and the undersuit had a resealable seam through which I could slip my cock for the purposes of aiming. I gestured vaguely at said codpiece, hoping that I wouldn’t have to spell it out for the Dark Lord of the Sith.

Speaking of my armor, it was remarkable that Lachris had not remarked upon the configuration of my armor when she’d been so talkative in the city the other day. Male hard suits required a tasteful curve, the armor bulging a bit around the groin so that erections didn’t cause terrible discomfort, but it was a rather obvious clue about the fact that I did, in fact, have a penis which could utilize the extra space.

The armor was also designed to prevent the penis from snaking down beside either leg, since the hardsuit’s powered joints could cause a constriction around the hip joint that would result in a rather unfortunate pinch. Since it was actually quite common for men of the Sith species and to a lesser extent the Human species to become erect due to adrenaline and other hormonal responses to combat, a full-body hardsuit had to provide room and also properly orient the phallus. There was also consideration for those like me, who even required some extra room when flaccid.

Some female configuration hard suits did have a detachable crotch piece for convenient urination, but it was obviously not shaped to provide extra room.

Lachris eyebrow raised questioningly, then the light of understanding lit in her golden eyes. “Oho! I see Lord Drathin would have been in for something of a shock if you had taken my earlier advice.”

I chuckled. “Vette said the same thing.”

“Do you prefer to be addressed as male? I’ve never met Sith who was…what do your kind call it?”

“Chimera. Although, it’s an old-fashioned term, I’ve heard,” I supplied, looking away.

“I’ve never met a Sith chimera,” Lachris corrected her phrasing.

“I’m just…it’s…” I waved a hand vaguely. “I’m just me, I don’t like to draw attention to it or confuse people.”

“You have no preferred gender, then?” Lachris narrowed her eyes. “Do you prefer gender-agnostic titles and pronouns?”

“Most use feminine forms,” I replied.

“That’s because a little more than half of people see a pair of tits and their brains stop functioning. But that wasn’t an answer to either of my questions.”

“The way people choose to refer to me doesn’t matter unless they intended for it to bother me,” I eventually said with a shrug. “I haven’t had to contend with stereotyping or other expectations much at all on account of gender, since people generally care more about the lightsaber at my hip than what’s in my pants.”

“That’s certainly true. Most people don’t care that I’m a woman on account of my various titles. Although, some purebloods seem to think I am a worthier candidate for concubinage on account of my renowned capabilities, but it is easy enough to refuse their infrequent overtures, and none would dare try to take me by force,” Lachris said, shaking her head with something approaching amusement. I wondered at that, since it must have been somewhat intimidating to have powerful Lords vying for what amounted to breeding rights. “I would be curious about what the dynasties will have to say about you. I’m sure as your fame grows, you’ll have your own suitors. Men or women…or perhaps both.”

I shuffled my feet a bit and awkwardly looked away. “Err, right. I was actually going to look into how the dynasties generally viewed chimera, but I haven’t had the chance.”

“I will have to pay attention to the rumors myself, though I imagine that strength matters more than gender in their eyes. The reason they are patriarchal is because all Sith males are Lords, and on average are quite a bit stronger in the Force even than Force-sensitive Sith females. Humans don’t have that particular dynamic. Regardless, we’ve dawdled long enough. Follow me,” Lachris suddenly turned away, obviously declaring that the topic was being put to rest. Or at least put on hold.

I obeyed, falling in beside her guard.

We walked back towards the center-left of the camp. The command rooms were decentralized to three locations in the camp, and they weren’t in the center. We had air superiority, but there were still artillery weapons that could be used to make a targeted strike against our commanders. In response to that threat, Captain Rigel had taken the reasonable precautions. We had a bubble shield up over the base, but concentrated bombardment could penetrate it. Or so I had been warned.

Captain Rigel and two of his senior officers were present in the command center we arrived at. They were pointing at locations on a holographic map and carrying on a quiet conversation. When we entered the room, however, silence fell. Darth Lachris marched into their midst. “Report.”

“We’ve detected nothing that would indicate an evacuation effort,” declared Captain Rigel.

“Excellent,” Darth Lachris peered at the map. “Tell me, Xanot, what do you see?”

I looked at the holographic terrain. There were symbols representing our reconnaissance teams moving slowly along the tops of the ravines, and swiftly moving spy planes in the upper atmosphere. A few vague red lines indicated possible enemy contacts, but there hadn’t been a confirmed sighting.

No movement on the surface, then. We had the whole area under surveillance to such an extent that I figured we could probably detect a mouse’s fart if we wanted to. “They’re digging in.”

“Or they aren’t there at all,” Captain Rigel put in.

“It is better to attack an empty base than to permit them to fortify themselves here for an indeterminate amount of time,” Lachris replied smoothly. “And if the bases are empty, we will have wasted nothing but time and fuel, both of which we have in abundance.”

“What’s that there?” I asked, pointing out a few blue symbols that were disappearing without fanfare.

“Probe scouts. Looks like we’re losing them…” one of the officers remarked. “That must be enemy contact. Grid location aurek three.”

“Why aren’t we receiving contact alerts?” Captain Rigel asked sharply.

“The shielding,” replied the officer, tapping on his datapad. “Those droids are subterranean, their reports must be unable to reach us from that location.”

I shook my head. “How can we receive the droid’s operational status but not direct communications?”

“I don’t know,” the officer answered, looking up with an uncertain expression.

We all stared at each other for a long moment. Then Captain Rigel bopped his own forehead with his palm. “Obvious! Dammit all! The rebels must not have wanted to be isolated completely inside their own shielding technology, so they must have designed it not to interfere with certain frequencies.”

“Are we monitoring chatter on any nonstandard frequencies?” Darth Lachris barked. “Give me a signal overlay. I want every transmitter in this A.O. marked at once.”

An officer tapped on the screen. “What frequency range?”

“All of them.”

“Milord, we won’t be able to discern useful information if we include civilian transmissions or naturally occurring EM wavelengths…”

“Start at the probe’s status frequency, and gradually widen the band until we get contacts,” I interjected pointedly. “We know that the probe can communicate with us through the shield.”

The officers looked at me, then at Darth Lachris. Frozen.

“Well?” Lachris snapped. “You heard her!”

“At once.”

The hologram shimmered and suddenly there was a teeming anthill of signals inside both the Troida Military Workshop and the Balmorran Arms Factory.

“Got them,” Captain Rigel breathed. “That’s far more contacts than we were expecting.”

“Tune a receiver to those frequencies and get a slicer on the encryption. I want to hear what they are talking about,” Darth Lachris ordered smoothly. “Withdraw the reconnaissance group there, in sector Besh-Nine. They are too close to unidentified signals.”

An officer stepped out of earshot to convey those orders.

I leaned over the board, watching as the highlighted transmitters moved along tunnels in each complex. They were forming multiple defensive chokepoints. Also setting up flanking opportunities via cycles in the network of corridors.

“If we know their location, why can’t we simply bomb them?” I asked.

“They are underground,” Captain Rigel replied in bland tone.

“I know. You’re saying that we have no ordinances that can penetrate the surface?”

He shrugged. “Not any on hand. We’re working with conventional weaponry, my Lord. And besides, portions of that complex are more than two hundred meters below ground.”

“Bunker busters aren’t conventional?” I griped softly, shaking my head. “What about incendiaries? Can we flush them out by burning oxygen?”

“None of this is part of the battle plan,” Rigel cut across my suggestion, shaking his head.

I gestured at the blips on the map. “If we want to throw our soldiers against an entrenched position, by all means. Proceed with the plan. But the element of surprise has clearly been lost.”

“We knew that they would have time to prepare,” Darth Lachris interjected. “That was why our timetable was so short.”

“By all accounts they’ve been in these bases for years,” I insisted. “We’re the ones that haven’t had enough time to prepare for this assault.”

“She has a point. Attacking so swiftly only prevented them from evacuating in advance,” Captain Rigel conceded with a sigh. “I’ve shifted the standard communication frequencies for our probe scouts to penetrate their jamming shield and have received the reports about explosive compounds. They’ve trapped many corridors in each complex with high-yield explosives. Are they barking mad? They could bring down the entire mountain on their own heads!”

“They aren’t concerned about collapsing the complex since they figure we’ll be the ones inside,” Darth Lachris wondered, pursing her lips. She leaned on the holotable, eyes flicking over the theater. “It makes no sense for them to set off such explosives while their people are still inside. They must have an evacuation route. Even if they lose the complex, they can destroy it and any sensitive information that remains.”

“These transmitters could also just be a diversion to make us think that there are rebels there. They could be baiting us to commit our forces hoping to detonate the complexes with our men inside them,” I said, thinking of a similar story from World War II where cardboard cutouts of an army had been used to bamboozle the Germans.

“The scans didn’t show any nuclear or hypermatter explosives,” Captain Rigel countered. “They can’t destroy the entire complex.”

“Enough conventional explosives at key structural locations would achieve the same effect. It might take us half a year to dig out the rubble,” Darth Lachris cautioned the captain. “The apprentice here is wise to be cautious. But something is destroying our probe scouts, which leads me to believe that there are actually rebels inside. Engaging them in the tunnels seems like an unnecessary risk given their preparations. The reason we didn’t want to drive them to flee initially was because we don’t know the location of their entrances or exits. However, with their transmitters mapped before us…we can simply watch them as they run.”

“They’ll switch to civilian channels once they are outside those shields. It will be indistinguishable from the comms on your wrist or mine,” Captain Rigel cautioned. “We’ll lose track of them.”

“We can infer that those contacts are rebels based on the fact that they were previously using this nonstandard frequency band,” Darth Lachris waved her hand, dismissing Rigel’s concern.

“Deliberately targeting transmitters operating on civilian channels opens up the possibility that we’re targeting actual civilians!” Captain Rigel exploded, cutting the air with his hand.

Darth Lachris only glared at him in silence.

“Are there any other locations that could be reached via tunnels?” I asked, timidly. “It’d have to be pretty close, right? If they enter the ravines, our spy-planes can confirm targets before we kill them.”

“She’s right, again,” Darth Lachris remarked with a slight shake of her head. “We’ll smoke them out of their holes and hunt them through the ravines. Even if there are other tunnels, they won’t be able to move this many people through them in such a short time. They’ll take casualties in the scramble. They’ll be disorganized and fighting under our air support. It will be a rout, not a battle.”

“We haven’t established that it is possible to generate the amount of smoke, or the rarefaction required to suffocate those within the complex, especially without having to fight towards the center of it ourselves,” Captain Rigel cautioned. “Let me consult with our combat engineers.”

“Call one of them here, I’d like to hear the discussion,” Darth Lachris ordered. Captain Rigel stepped away to make the call. Darth Lachris turned to me, folding her arms. “Making sweeping changes to your battle plan shortly before engagements is risky. Given the new information, I’m willing to take that risk this time. But don’t make it a habit of yours, understood?”

“You were willing to fight them in the tunnels without intel,” I realized this with a kind of sinking dread in my belly.

“Yes, I was,” Darth Lachris agreed. “But that was before we had a way of tracking them. I had planned for the Balmorran auxiliaries to trigger most of the traps and to expose kill-zones. However, if we can smoke out these tunnels, or even deploy chemical weapons in them, then the rebels could do the same to us, once we’re inside. We were worried about explosives, and we found evidence of such, but you also exposed an avenue of attack that is more subtle, but just as devastating. So, we adjust.”

“They must have anticipated that an enclosed location like this could be disadvantageous,” I observed.

“Yes, I fear it won’t be so easy. Still, it will force them to attack us, moving them away from their defensive positions,” Darth Lachris agreed. “You were right about that as well. Your records indicated that you were a hopeless case when it came to tactics; I’m glad they were incorrect.”

I only shrugged at this, because to do much else would probably end up with me admitting that I knew nothing about what my instructors might have taught, or what they might have said about me. Shortly, Captain Rigel rejoined us with a balding fellow in a crisp uniform at his side. The man bowed.

“My lords,” he greeted. “Chief Engineer Hallex. How can I assist?”

“The Apprentice here wonders if it is possible to deprive our foes in the Troida Military Workshop of oxygen,” Darth Lachris declared. “Is such a thing possible?”

The man settled on his heels and stroked his chin in thought. “It’s a good idea…but no. We don’t have the fuel required to burn that much air, and the military workshop will have scrubbers running. It was a factory once and should be prepared for all kinds of industrial contaminants or atmospheric dangers, including smoke.”

“I see…” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. All of that talk for nothing!

“Pardon me, my lord, but I wasn’t finished. While we couldn’t burn the oxygen, we do have plenty of nerve gas on hand. It’s usually used in warheads or artillery, but in pressurized form it’s really just a liquid. There’s enough to kill everyone on this planet six times over, I’d wager,” the engineer supplied. “Air scrubbers aren’t equipped to handle this sort of weapon; or even industrial scrubbers won’t be able to filter the gas to a safe level. It requires specialized cleaning equipment to remove it completely from the air. It’s heavier than atmosphere, so the gas rolls downhill and settles on the ground…but if the aim is to flush the complex, we could just fill up the whole place. It’s invisible, but tastes like iron, I’m told. Delivered on contact with mucous membranes in the nose, mouth, eyes, gills, or whatever. If you are exposed enough to taste it, you’ll be dead in sixty seconds…so I haven’t tried it myself, you understand.”

“How much of this gas would it require to fill Troida?” Darth Lachris asked sharply.

The Engineer bit his lip and pulled a large datapad from his back. He tapped at it for a bit, shook his head, then tapped some more. “Right, schematics show the ceiling heights are an average of three and a half meters, except for the main production centers, which are at ten. The floor plan covers near two square kilometer…looks like six million meters cubed. Probably more, since there’s bound to be leaks or ventilation to the surface somewhere.”

“And how much gas is immediately available?”

“Oh…a million, at the ready. More than ten million meters cubed, if you give us a few hours to ship more over here from the spaceport. You have to account for waste when using gas in projectiles, you see, so we’ve got a worthy stockpile. Also, the stuff is as cheap as the dirt,” the engineer answered with a wry grin. “It’s designed to break down after fourteen hours or so, depending on temperature. It wouldn’t be much use if it ruined the battlefield for a century. Problem is they’ll be pretty quick to shut their doors, my lords. The gas isn’t much good at making it through blast doors, not unless you can get it into their ventilation. You’re in luck though…the workshop isn’t a military base. They’ve got a centralized air filtration and ventilation system, for safety purposes. Can’t be letting fumes gather in one room, after all. It’s designed to whisk pollutants out into the atmosphere, circulating scrubbed air for the employees.”

“What’s the target, then, Chief Engineer?” Captain Rigel prodded.

“Any intake vent would work…their own system will distribute your gas for you and then vent the stuff to the surface like any other contaminant. More than one site would speed up the process..the main thing is that this would circulate the toxin throughout the entire complex. Our enemies will likely shut off the ventilation system if they notice the gas before it kills all of them…a slicer could lock the system down and prevent that. But with the ventilation off, they’ll only have something like two days' worth of air in that workshop of theirs. They’re breathing will deplete the oxygen for us. Either way, seems like a tough spot for them. Mind you, there’ll be gas all in the ravines and rolling downhill.”

“There’s a village, two clicks that direction, at lower elevation.”

“Poor sods,” the engineer shook his head. “But it’s not likely that there are many people still hanging around there, this whole zone has been a war zone on and off for years.”

“This is a workable plan,” Darth Lachris declared. “We can inform the commando teams that previously were checking for explosive booby traps and equip them with canisters of this gas. Captain, pull up a schematic of the complex.”

It was done. The labyrinthine corridors and open spaces of the factory complex were displayed before us like a map of the bodies’ capillaries. Lachris pointed out several consoles that could be used by a slicer to lock down the ventilation, but all of them were pretty deep inside the complex, and likely to be defended.

The intake vents, however, were not.

“The key is to prompt evacuation. They’ll have countermeasures against gas attacks, especially simple ones like this. This weapon is cheap and straightforward; it doesn’t act on skin contact and it isn’t corrosive. Breathing masks, or vacuum-rated armor, will negate its effects,” Captain Rigel remarked. “Their oxygen supplies will be the limiting factor. But we can set up our own defensive positions and hold them away from the intake vents we’re using to spread the gas. And if they shut off ventilation, that works just as well. We’ll siege them and wait for them to flee.”

“Two days is a long time in war,” Darth Lachris warned. “We could fight six or seven pitched battles in that time.”

Captain Rigel nodded sharply. “Those would be battles in the open, under our air support, from defensive positions. I’ll take six or seven of those battles over one blind assault into entrenched underground tunnels, Ma’am.”

“I entirely agree. I was only observing it because we pulled some forces here from all around the Sobrik area. It won’t do to defeat the resistance in Troida only to lose the spaceport because we are out of position,” Darth Lachris gestured at the map pointedly. “We should detach the Balmorran militia and return them to Sobrik with a battalion of my own men. The locals won’t agree with the use of chemical weapons, and they aren’t equipped properly to fight in the fogs of lethal toxin.”

“Agreed,” the captain nodded. “I’ll make it so.”

“Rouse your men, Xanot,” Lachris said to me. “We will have a commando team at each vent, along with your retinue and my personal guard. We’ll have to control the exterior of the facility and the ravine as well, so that support and reinforcements can be provided if they try to assault our positions at the intake vents. I expect if any Jedi are among the rebels, they’ll be sent to stop the gas. We’ll use this vent, and this vent. They are close enough we can relieve each other if necessary. Don’t commit to an engagement with any Jedi alone, wait for me to join you.”

“Understood.”

“Tell your lieutenant that we’re engaging as if it were in vacuum and have them carry oxygen for at least twelve hours. We can get resupplied, if necessary, but our goal is to make them choke not the other way around,” Lachris continued. She gestured to a position about a half kilometer from the camp, towards the collapsed entrances of the Troida Military Workshop. “You have two hours to ready your men. Link up with the commando teams at this location. I’ll contact you before we move on the targets.”

I bowed my head and took that as a dismissal. Stepping out into the night air once more, I closed my eyes and took a slow breath. Chemical weapons…that really had not been my intent when I had proposed smoking the rebels out of their holes. It certainly seemed like a more effective plan than throwing the militia into the grinder, but something about the use of chemical weapons on this scale didn’t sit right with me.

Not my call, though. I sighed again and headed back towards my troops. How to break this sort of news, I wonder?

Chapter Text

“Advance to your assigned entry-point and secure the area,” Darth Lachris’ voice crackled in my ear. I signaled acknowledgment with a twitch of the fingers on my left hand. I had set up a few mnemonic motions that triggered a predetermined, short reply from my armor’s comm suite, mostly because it saved me from having to change the comm-channel of my armor to reply directly by voice. After Darth Baras had revealed the extent of the armor’s systems, I had looked up the operator’s manual and given it a brief read, and this was one of the neat tricks I had learned.

There were a lot of fancy features to a hard suit of this quality that I had been neglecting, it seemed. It was good, too, because I discovered that Imperial military units used like 4 or 5 different voice channels during a deployment. There was one for group commanders, which was Lachris’ channel, and one for platoon leaders, which I shared with Lieutenant Quinn and Sergeant Petris. A channel for the platoon itself, and a channel for just my own squad within the platoon. Then there was the proximity channel, which could be used to communicate to any Imperial receiver which was within ‘earshot’ otherwise known as the standardized radius of 50 meters.

That wasn’t counting private comms, which I had with Lachris and also with Quinn.

Lieutenant Quinn and his men were also wearing full vacuum-rated hard suits, standard Imperial issue. Even Vette had been supplied with one, despite her initial complaints. Head-tails apparently don’t fit easily into a hard suit, requiring a kind of flexible sack that laid between her shoulders over the armor on her back and it contained her lekku, insulating them against temperature, pressure, or harmful gas that might affect the skin. Vette claimed that it made her feel like she was seeing the world from underwater.

I hadn’t really known that lekku had such pronounced effects on her perceptions. Even so, by relying on the standard senses of sight and sound she was able to adapt like the rest of us, but I wondered if Twi’lek without their echolocation were on par with Human or Sith sight and sound, or if they had weaker eyesight and hearing. I was intensely curious about the senses that lekku were used for, but now was certainly not the time to ask her about it in detail.

Besides that, Vette’s fire team was actually almost a quarter of a kilometer behind us, on an elevated position. She would follow after us at distance, poised to use her marksman rifle to pin down anyone that might try to ambush us in this wide ravine, which we were using to advance towards the northwest entrances of Troida Military Workshop.

Quinn and the rest were spread out in a loose formation, probably fifty meters or morebetween each fire team. We approached the outskirts of the military workshop by moving from cover to cover, wherever possible, and if we had to cross an open distance then we did it one team at a time, while the other two stood on over-watch. Anyone taking shots at our guys would get an instant plasma bolt in the mouth…that was the idea anyway.

We had not been informed of any hostile contacts in the ravines, but Quinn had cautioned against relying completely on the droid reports. Sometimes spy planes, frequency scans, and probe scouts could overlook a skillfully hidden combatant, and there was always the possibility that there were teams of ambushers in stealth fields. I deferred to his experience, but we didn’t encounter any hostiles even right up to the collapsed entrance of Troida Military Workshop.

The factory entrance must have been quite large, at some point. There were the remains of massive steel construction in a roughly rectangular shape, but it was swallowed up by huge slabs of cracked stone and twisted support beams. Some kind of explosive must have compromised the integrity of the tunnel entrance, and the weight of the rock above had driven it into a rockslide. The collapse had even extended some twenty meters into the ravine, and it formed a kind of sloped pile of rubble.

I had no idea how we were going to penetrate that without causing a larger collapse.

Lieutenant Quinn ordered one fire team to each side of the rock pile, and our own team posted up at various boulders and other natural sources of cover directly in front of the collapsed entrance. I crouched next to him and waited, stretching out my senses in every direction to try and detect even the slightest hint of danger.

It was still dark, and the soldiers weren’t even using flashlights. I assumed their armor was providing some form of night vision, but I wasn’t sure. My natural eyesight was sufficient, with the stars above and the dim moon of Balmorra looking like a shiny nickel that was hung among the gently blinking lights,

“Apprentice Xanot, two gunships will arrive at your position shortly, carrying a sapper team. Secure the area and protect them while they make an opening,” Darth Lachris ordered. “We secured the cliffs above the complex and have detected no movement. They will block the exhaust shafts in use by the workshop once we begin delivering the gas. My team is beginning to drill at this entrance.”

“Got it.”

We didn’t have to wait long for the hum of repulsor engines to reach us. From the night sky, two completely dark gunships swept low, barely disturbing the air, and deposited a vehicle that looked like a ribbed metal tube on tracks with a gigantic drill bit on the front. The back of the vehicle opened and a team of soldiers in the same kind of hard suits emerged, wielding standard rifles.

One of them approached and spoke over proximity comms. “My lord, my men and I will get you through the rubble here. Give me a minute to inspect the site before we start drilling.”

“We’ll cover you.”

I watched as the engineers withdrew a series of scanning equipment, placing them around the rocks. While the scans were underway, I noticed that they moved a little closer to covered positions, but it was hard to stay defensive when the angle of the attack was unknown.

When they returned after about two minutes, the apparent squad leader saluted again and spoke. “Looks like around twenty meters of rock. This breaching drill is sufficient, should we deploy?”

“Go ahead,” I allowed. I switched over to Lachris’ line and informed her that we were beginning our drilling. A ping of affirmation returned a moment later, letting me know she had received my notice.

The machine that had been dropped by the gunship was droid-operated, and once the engineers supplied it with the scans of the obstruction its tracks rumbled into movement, and it rolled up to the entrance of the military workshop with deliberate slowness. It seemed to orient itself, then the huge drill bit started to spin, spooling up to a ridiculous speed.

It was also incredibly loud. My armor dampened the noise automatically, and that meant it was at least loud enough to cause unprotected ears to ring. The tracked vehicle plunged into the rock a moment later, moving steadily forward and shunting crushed stone out in a wide spray. The tracks bit deeply into the ground as it pushed, and I felt the reverberations of this massive war machine even though we were ten meters behind it.

It crunched…and crunched…and crunched. Finally, when it had fully inserted itself into the rocks, several large anchors dropped from the sides and sunk into the soil and the stone below.

“At this point, the vehicle anchors supports at the rear and the middle, then the drill extends the front to cover more distance. The midsection is segmented, connected with high-tensile strength mesh, and it will place durasteel arches for support at every half meter,” the engineer explained when I turned my helm towards him. “Once it punches through, the drill bit will open into a ramp and the rear of the vehicle can be used to access the tunnel. The machine itself becomes a tunnel, and it can hold as many as half a million tonnes if necessary. Should be the sturdiest corridor you’ll step into today.”

“Appreciated,” I answered, somewhat amazed at the level of engineering required to produce something like this. It was almost a shame that we’d have to leave it wedged in the cliff-side. Then again, there were boarding pods of the same design except they were designed to be fired like a bullet at the opposing ship, and rather than drilling through the rock they penetrated the bulkheads of capital ships.

The drill started moving forward again…I could tell because the piles of pulverized stone started growing again on either side of its rear. The treads seemed to be running in reverse to scoop the detritus away from the drill. It only took another few minutes for the machine to pause again, and I heard a weighty thud as it opened its other end.

“Ready!” the engineering reported.

“Form up for breaching,” Quinn ordered smoothly. “Stun grenades, shield generators. Are we good?”

“Yes, sir,” one of the men reported. We converged on the rear of the drill.

“I’ll go first, after the grenades,” I declared, pushing to the front of the group. Quinn nodded his helm, and with a gesture his team of five closed ranks near me.

Quinn swung his arm down and the back of the drill split in the middle, revealing that it was a double-door. The tunnel beyond was too short for me to walk through without crouching slightly. The soldiers tossed their grenades through, and I looked away until the thunderous clap of the concussive stun shook the stones. Then I pulled my lightsaber and lunged through the drill, igniting it midway so that it didn’t cut anything important.

The instant I emerged inside the workshop I sensed incoming blaster fire. A fully automatic heavy repeater had opened up in anticipation the instant the grenades exploded, forcing me to not only deflect but also to move my feet so that the operator had to track me instead of leveling the gun’s full fury against my saber defense. But surprisingly, it stayed focused on the tunnel exit, and I realized it was intended to kill my men.

I hissed and gestured with a hand, unleashing a cutting wave of Force power that rocked across the wide corridor, crashing into the barricades set up by the resistance and knocking the heavy repeater off its tripod. “Contact!” I barked, belatedly, sweeping my lightsaber in front of myself as I leapt forward.

“Hold!” Quinn snapped but was too late. I landed on the barricade and cut down a man - [EXP gained: 143] - sensing the danger an instant later and throwing myself to the ground. A thunderous explosion bloomed above me, huge plumes of red plasma twisting over the durasteel barricade and bending perilously close to my armor. In an instant, it was over, and a beat of silence followed.

Then I lurched upward, felt blaster shots cutting through the air above my head, and stayed where I was, pressed against the barricade. I saw Quinn’s fire team bursting out of the tunnel, dropping portable shielding to cover the teams entering after, and leveling suppressive fire. Lines of lethal plasma were criss-crossing the wide, industrial corridor, leaving scorch marks on the walls and pouring sparks in large ribbons from exposed electrical conduits where the plating of the walls was stripped away.

The resistance had placed heavy repeaters in three positions and were poised to fall back from the first and operate the second. The crossfire had killed three of their retreating combatants, and I had cut down one. But there was another team at the end of the corridor, where it made a corner, and they were already preparing to operate the repeater at their barricade. When they saw the first team go down, they opened fire without fear of hitting friendlies.

A weapon of that lethality could destroy portable shields like those my men had deployed almost instantly and given time could even melt through these durasteel chest-high walls. My men couldn’t advance to my position because of the withering hail of blaster fire and were about to be cut to ribbons.

Well…nothing for it. “I’m pushing on.”

“What!?” Quinn snapped.

“Don’t shoot me,” I ordered tersely, raising a hand and wrapping the Force around the durasteel in front of me. It wasn’t bolted to the floor; it just weighed a lot. Probably a couple of tons. Lifting it a few inches off the ground with the Force was easy enough, however, and I stood up, holding the barricade at my front.

‘Size matters not’ as a wise green midget once said.

Time to roll.

I started to jog forward, unable to see past the floating wall but tracking my opponents through the Force. Their shots splashed like water over a rock against the durasteel. A few enterprising rebels tried to go for my feet, but with only a hand’s span of space none of them quite managed to make the shot.

Halfway to the second barricade, I launched the wall forward with a twist, so that it was tumbling in the air. I followed after it in a dive, as my convenient barricade no longer obstructed the concentrated fire from the third repeater. The whirling barricade clipped the side wall and careened violently into the defensive position, across streaking lines of blaster fire, and then crushed three men under its weight. It bowled over the second repeater on its tripod, crashed into a similar barricade wall, and then flipped into the air, finally slamming down in a haphazard position that didn’t provide much cover from the third repeater.

[EXP gained: 132] [EXP gained: 127] [EXP gained: 155]

I angled my lightsaber, rising to a crouch and reflecting a second’s worth of their concentrated fire back towards the third barricade. I couldn’t hold a lightsaber guard against that many shots for long, so I grasped the twisted durasteel again and pushed down the corridor once more, shielding myself with the wreckage. This time I used both of the walls, even though one of them was twisted and glowing red in several places from constant plasma impacts.

“Don’t block the end of corridor,” Quinn cautioned, seemingly recovered from the shock I gave him. I grunted acknowledgment, ran the final stretch, and pummeled the third repeater into scrap metal in the same manner as the second.

[EXP gained: 143] [EXP gained: 152]

The twisted metal, crushed bodies, and ruined heavy blaster did make for an intimidating blockage, but I was able to wrench the metallic walls to the sides of the corridor, making enough room that we could proceed. I also killed a few of the rebels that were wounded by the flying ten-ton durasteel sheet.

[EXP gained: 128] [Level Reached: 23] [EXP gained: 143] [EXP gained: 121] [EXP gained: 159]

Blaster shots behind me informed me that my men were cleaning up any stragglers. When they reached me, I was still watching the bend in the corridor, but no one had come rushing. I didn’t sense any more hostiles nearby and said as much on squad comms.

A few gestures later and my men peeked the corner, calling a moment later that it was clear. The other two teams joined us shortly after.

“Commandos are en route with the payload,” Darth Lachris’s voice cracked suddenly in my ear. “We’ve breached on this side, light resistance, no casualties. I received an update on your progress, you’re making good time.”

I replied. “ETA on the commandos?”

“Two minutes. Clear the path to the target site and establish a defensive position.”

Quinn, who couldn’t speak on that channel but could hear Darth Lachris, relayed that information to his platoon, and a few of our men went back to move the portable shielding up to our current position in preparation for a forward push.

“Where’s the intake vent again?” I asked Quinn on a private channel, just with the two of us.

“A few corridors over,” he replied with an odd tone to his voice. Probably because this was something I should already know, but who can blame me for forgetting? The map of the workshop was like a maze. “These kinds of vents aren’t something that can be easily fortified, we shouldn’t have another encounter with repeaters like this.”

I pursed my lips. “Why didn’t they try harder to hold this entrance?”

“Their goal is to lure us into their traps, not to pin themselves down,” Quinn replied at once. “Grenades and other force multipliers make barricades of this kind mostly ineffective, once their positions are known to the aggressor.”

“If that’s true then how are we supposed to defend the intake vent once we’re deploying the gas?” I asked pointedly.

“The vent we’re targeting is in one of the manufacturing floors, not in a straight corridor. We will set up kill zones around entrances and multiple defensive positions inside that area. The key is not to remain stationary, passing the suppressive fire between teams and adjusting your position before picking it up again. That way they don’t have time to flush you out of a static position with grenades, or to destroy your cover with concentrated effort,” Quinn explained. “If the enemy knows your position before you know of their position, then you’ve lost before the firefight began. But you have to maintain the crossfire or they will engage you in melee, allowing their fellows to cross the kill zone.”

“You would have lost a team gathering intel on those barricades,” I observed hesitantly. “My way, we didn’t take casualties.”

“We should have sent a scout droid through first, not our Sith Lord!” Quinn snapped in reply. He seemed to catch himself and raised a hand apologetically. “Forgive my tone, sir. If you were to be killed it would be catastrophic.”

“Obviously,” I agreed easily, although my face felt a bit warm in an embarrassed flush. Good thing he couldn’t see it, though my dark red skin didn’t show a blush in an obvious way.

“Please don’t throw yourself onto enemy fortifications without adequate warning, especially if we don’t know what is waiting for you,” Quinn cautioned, his voice admirably level despite its somewhat pleading tone.

“I’ll defer to your expertise, Lieutenant,” I replied. I tried not to let embarrassment become anger as I asked, “But why didn’t you stop me?”

His helmet turned towards me, and I sensed an utterly deadpan look on his face. ‘Why do you think?’ his entire Force presence seemed to say. I deactivated my lightsaber and crossed my armored arms over my chest.

“Don’t give me that kind of look, Lieutenant. I won’t bite your head off for sound advice, and it would have been better to tell me I’m being an idiot than to let me die while being an idiot, right?” I asked pointedly. “Just, use this private channel and give me a heads up, yeah? No need to make the whole platoon aware of my shortcomings.”

“I assumed you had some sort of plan when you offered to take point,” Lieutenant Quinn answered stiffly.

“Now you know I tend not to have plans. Not particularly good ones, anyway. When in doubt, it never hurts to ask me to clarify,” I replied easily. “We should cut this short. We’re supposed to clear the target site.”

“Understood. If you’ll allow us to manage ranged engagements, sir, and you provide cover if necessary or utilize your ranged abilities from a distance, then if a Jedi appears we will leave that matter completely in your hands. Beyond that, I’ll signal you if it's the proper time for you to barrel into melee, but I think we would both prefer that you don’t end up splattered on one of these walls due to a suicide bomber, or stars forbid from a friendly grenade,” Lieutenant Quinn offered this advice smoothly before turning his head. He seamlessly changed to the platoon channel and barked orders, and I fell to the back of my fire team as we pressed on.

As Quinn had predicted, we didn’t encounter any other barricades or even any other hostiles as we moved quickly and methodically through the corridors. At each corner, the portable shields were pushed first, or a droid scout was tossed. I also kept my Force senses tuned and was poised to warn the others if there was an ambush. By the time we reached the factory floor where we were going to set up, the commando team had caught up with the rear guard.

The gas canisters were being carried by a mechanical spider the size of a horse. It was…discomfiting to observe the droid clambering beside us.

“No one inside,” I reported, and Quinn signaled to breach. The fire team burst into the room, moving immediately towards cover, sweeping vantage points with their sights.

“Spitter, Stiff, clear the catwalks above. The rest of you scour for traps. Commandos, take care of the vent and the gas,” Quinn snapped, pointing to each group and then moving into the larger room himself. “Deploy shields there, and there. Marksman team, follow after Spitter and Stiff and find a vantage point.”

I hadn’t even realized that Vette’s fire team had brought up the rear of our group until Quinn gave them orders. The commando team was eight strong, and that meant there were twenty-eight of us. I kept my lightsaber in hand, but deactivated. I didn’t want someone walking into it, and I didn’t want to clip one of the machines and cause some kind of explosion on accident.

“Clear!” one of the men called from the catwalk, and this began a chorus of voices reporting that there were no traps or hostiles in the room.

“Two entrances,” Quinn remarked, stepping up next to me. I turned towards him and followed his gaze to the doorways that he was indicating. “We have to assume they know we’re here. This place had security cameras and life-sign tracking due to safety regulations. The rebels will have control of the facility mainframe.”

“Three fire teams on each entrance with one group handling deployment of the gas,” I ventured. “You need two teams to make a crossfire at any given moment, and one team mobile. That was what you described.”

“We have a team in the catwalks,” Quinn pointed out. “That means we’re short a fire team. We can’t alternate the mobile team between kill zones because these men haven’t been drilled for that. We’d stumble, someone gets themselves killed. Better to rely on standard operations. Two teams on each entrance, have them work in pairs to create the crossfire. Half the team moves, half the team shoots. They switch. One commando team handles the gas, then moves to support if one side or the other gets pinned.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I agreed.

“Darth Lachris ordered you not to engage Jedi alone,” Quinn recalled. “What will we do if Jedi come?”

“I’ll stall them,” I offered with a shrug. “I’m not just going to let a Jedi cut you all to ribbons because she isn’t here.”

“It would be better if you withdraw and we stall the Jedi,” Quinn refuted. “You link up with Lachris. One site at least would succeed in deployment of the gas.”

“And sacrifice all of you? You wouldn’t hold more than a minute or two against a Jedi, let alone the usual team of two,” I scoffed. “I’m not a coward, Lieutenant. If the Jedi are here, and if they come to this location instead of the other, I’ll simply inform Lachris of the situation and hold them off myself. I can drag a fight out for at least two or three minutes.”

“There’s no guarantee that Lachris would come.”

“She would,” I answered firmly. “Letting the Jedi pick me off and then confront her separately is the worst possible option. Focus on your task, Lieutenant, and leave the worries about Jedi to me.”

Quinn saluted and did as I ordered.

Less than a minute was required for the men to deploy in the positions necessary for the plan that Quinn had outlined. They didn’t move yet, just waiting in cover. I also found a covered position and waited there, stretching out with the Force. It would be best to get advance warning of any incoming Jedi, after all.

The commando team, meanwhile, had removed the vent cover and fed a series of long, flexible tubes into the filtration system. These tubes were then connected to the canisters of nerve agent.

“Check seals!” the commando team leader called on proximity comms.

“Good.”

“Good!”

“All tight.”

The men affirmed that we were air tight.

“If you need oxygen, the spider has got some for you in the blue tank with the green stripe. Not the silver tanks. The silver tanks are nerve gas. If you have a puncture or a leak, hold your karking breath and get some up into the catwalk until someone can patch you and flush your suit with fresh oxygen,” the commando leader announced. “Deployment of gas in three…two…”

He didn’t finish the countdown, but we all heard the hiss of the compressed gas beginning to spew into the filtration system. A chill danced down my spine.

“We’ve started the gas,” I relayed to Darth Lachris in a numb voice.

Her reply was terse, “Good. Stay alert, this isn’t over yet.”

“Got it.”

It took maybe three minutes for me to sense people approaching. “Hostiles, left side.”

“Ready!”

It started with an explosion, a breaching charge. The resistance obviously didn’t want to deal with the automatic doors opening and closing during combat. After the breaching charge, flying drones burst into the chamber through the smoke and dropped small cylindrical charges.

“Bangers!” someone called, and I averted my gaze. A series of thunderous pops shook my armor.

“Shoot those drones!”

Vette’s voice was brusque and business-like as she replied, “On it.”

“Establishing suppressive fire,” one man said calmly, and was joined by the others in tandem. I heard their weapons start to bark. Steady fire, but in measured bursts.

Kew-tak-tak-at. Kew-tak-tak-at.

It was like a mechanical cough, and it was joined by a whole chorus of others. Some of the weapons had a deeper note, the heavy blasters in use by the specialists that were in each fire team. Those bolts could cut through durasteel armor like it was tissue paper, unlike the standard infantry rifle.

“Drones down,” Vette’s voice cracked.

Then I sensed more from the other entrance. “Contact, right side.”

“Ready!” returned my men.

I sensed people dying, it felt like splashes of cold water in the Force…but not my own soldiers. I hoped, anyway. Nobody called out that they were hit or that their partners were down, so I assumed the deaths were rebels.

“Picking up, get ready to move,” one of the teams informed. Briefly, the staccato bursts of fire increased, then one pair let their fire die out and be picked up, hauling ass to a new position. This was done by the other side as well, in a cycle.

“Frag!” someone barked. The ground shook.

I sensed something like fear on the right side, and emerged from cover, loping between massive machines and moving towards the feeling. I reached two of my men, who were holding suppressive fire, just in time for a group of rebels to press through the kill-zone using personal shields. I ignited my lightsaber and intercepted them before they reached my guys, dispatching them in an instant. I ducked into cover and deactivated my weapon a moment later.

[EXP gained: 221] [EXP gained: 203]

“Thanks for the save, Ma’am,” one the pair acknowledged. “Moving!”

The answering response of, “Picking up” came from the pair that maintained the crossfire.

The cycle continued.

It lasted only a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity. As smoke filled the room, periodic grenade explosions and electrical snaps became something like background music. Then, as suddenly as it began, it was over. The bodies that were strewn around both entrances laid still in death, some steaming from multiple plasma injuries.

No droids. No combatants. My hearts were beating like crazy, filling my ears with rushing blood.

“Quinn here, no injury, no equipment failure,” Quinn barked. He didn’t have to order the other men to follow-suit, as his status report started a series of vocal checks.

“Petris here, no injury, no equipment failure.”

“Mike here…”

One after the other, starting with the officers and descending in rank, Quinn’s men reported their status. Two of them were out of charges and took extra power cells from the bodies. One man had been winged by a stray shot, but his armor had taken it. That trooper didn’t have a suit puncture, either.

I sensed something else, though. It felt like fire in the Force, hot and almost hard to behold, like looking at the sun. Bright. Light. That must be… “Jedi,” I breathed. They were far away but getting closer. Moving way too fast to be anything else.

“Darth Lachris, I sense Jedi on approach,” I reported, tightening my grasp on my lightsaber. “I thought they weren’t supposed to be here.”

“They aren’t, but who is actually obeying the Treaty?” Darth Lachris responded sardonically. “Your senses are sharp. Ah, now I sense them too…heading your way. Two of them. I’ll come…but they’ll be there first.”

I swallowed. Of course, this was the way it went down. Why had I even considered the possibility that it might have gone smoothly? “I’ll hold until you get here.”

Darth Lachris’s voice held cool disdain as she said, “Withdraw from your position, meet me halfway. We’ll take them together. The corridors between us are clear.”

“They will kill my men and stop the gas.”

“Then so be it,” she snapped. “It is better to kill two Jedi than an entire army of resistance rabble.”

“I will make time,” I answered. “I’m not abandoning the mission.”

“If you die, I’ll make you regret it,” was Darth Lachris’ sharp reply.

I didn’t ask her how that would work. Knowing Sith alchemy, there was probably some way for her to make good on that threat.

“Lieutenant, we have Jedi incoming. I’ll engage them. Don’t risk yourselves.”

“Understood,” was the immediate response. “Men, resupply oxygen and find cover.”

I paced in front of the entrance that I knew they would take, surrounded by the corpses of rebel soldiers. It was a difficult battlefield, that was for sure. Lots of things to trip over…lots of random machinery and conveyor belts and hanging cables. The twisted remnants of the door didn’t provide me much of a view of the corridor, but the Jedi were coming fast. Enhanced speed, then.

That would tire them out more quickly. But it wouldn’t matter if the fight only lasted fifteen seconds.

I whipped up a Force Ward and ignited my lightsaber.

I had only an instant to ready myself as the Force swelled dangerously and suddenly the Jedi were there, loping through the blasted-open door in leaping strides like a pair of gazelles. In a blur of motion, a green lightsaber thrust towards my face, and I snapped into Soresu guard, deflecting. In the same instant, a blue lightsaber swept for my forward leg, and I couldn’t block that was well. I moved my leg back, barely out of reach. Then the Jedi swept to the sides, one left and one right, with their robes fluttering like large brown wings behind them.

They were acrobatic and nimble, each operating in a style that I knew was Ataru or maybe even Juyo. Unrelenting assault. They were fast, too. Very fast.

I chose one opponent and lunged forward, sweeping my lightsaber towards the center line, dancing over a prone corpse. My foot touched ground and I jumped to the side immediately, sensing the other Jedi aiming for a flanking blow. I turned midair, caught his attack, and let the force of it throw me out of the reach of the first. Like a leaf in the wind.

I caught my motion in the Force, landed lightly, and swept forward again. With two opponents, I couldn’t let them dictate the tempo of combat, or they would synchronize attacks and I would be struck. I had to keep them out of sync, and I could only accomplish that by being the aggressor. Unfortunately, that wasn’t really what I had focused on in lightsaber training, and the acrobatics of Ataru were unfamiliar.

This time when I met the first Jedi, his partner was much closer to us. I had no choice but to test their Force Ward, extending a hand and whipping the Force at the man in a tight blade of pure violence. It crashed into him, arresting his forward momentum and even blowing him back a single step, but it didn’t cause any harm.

Strong, then, but not much stronger than me. Good enough.

The Jedi with the green blade was a master in combat, whereas the one with the blue blade seemed to be my equal. Even one on one, I would have struggled to defeat the man wielding the green blade…but in pairs I didn’t have to weather his full fury the entire time. He was working around the needs of his partner, letting the other Jedi take my attacks now and again, while he looked for flanks or tried to synchronize with the other for a lethal attack. It made victory a near certainty for them, and a lot less risky, but it would take them longer.

They had to get me in the right position for a combined attack, and I was obviously devoted to avoiding that position.

They fought seamlessly together. They didn’t interrupt each other or stumble into the line of the other’s attacks. It was expert teamwork, almost like I was fighting one person in two bodies. Yet, they were completely silent, almost lifeless. Graceful, tireless, and utterly inhuman.

I was driven back, engaged again, and nearly decapitated in a flurry of blurred exchanges. I saved myself only by bending so far backwards that I lost balance, falling to the ground. Immediately, I kicked sideways, catching the knee of one Jedi in a kick at the same time as I threw the Force at the other in a desperate gambit. Then I rolled to the side, dodging a downward thrust by millimeters and gaining a scorch on my white armor, then I thew myself into the air with a Force push off the ground.

The Jedi I had kicked jumped after me instantly, angling to impale me while I couldn’t easily maneuver; usually once airborne there wasn’t any way to change trajectory. I deflected his angle of attack, reached the apex of my flight, and grasped his robes at the neck as we fell together, blue and red lightsabers bound.

He was a young, Human man. His face was calm. He wasn’t even breathing. Right, there was nerve gas in the air. The Jedi must both be holding their breath…a sense of amazement overcame me an instant before our fall was arrested by a jarring impact with the ground. My armor meant that I felt it as a jolt, but without pain. I also landed half-atop the Knight, driving a knee into his gut with all my weight.

The other Jedi was there at the perfect time, sweeping in, and I knew it was over. I couldn’t do anything fast enough to disengage, and my weapon was caught in the blue lightsaber of the man who was caught under my weight. I could only twist our bodies in a roll, pulling the Jedi in my grasp into the line of the other’s cut. It would cleave us both in two, now.

The master checked his swing, and I kicked the knight away before somersaulting backwards, to my feet. I laughed, a brief moment of hysteria bubbling up as I realized I had survived once again. I had to catch the green blade on my red as the master attempted to reach me before I could recover my balance. He had to work around the knight, who had risen to a knee bt was moving slowly. He had taken that fall pretty hard.

We danced, the master and I, and the man discarded the theatrics of Ataru and went for the kill in close quarters. He was a better swordsman than I. It felt like a bout with Tranch, except the Jedi was utterly calm, like the surface of a lake. His methods were smooth, seamless, and inexorable. He was not an unceasing attack or an overwhelming force, but he was inexorable all the same. Blades weaved a rich tapestry between us as I fell fully into Soresu in order to match his assault, the swift and routine movements of our weapons almost transforming into an exhibition match rather than true combat.

Dancing back and forth with the ground littered by corpses was the most intense trial of my footwork I had ever faced.

The Jedi’s face twisted in mild confusion as our fight dragged on, and I laughed with pure delight, amping up the stakes and the speed of our fight as I brought out some of my Shien training. I bounced my blade off his own and swept forward in a counter. He leaned away, flicking his weapon towards my face in the cleanest Makashi riposte I had ever witnessed, and I barely caught it a hair’s breadth from my helm’s visor no doubt gaining another carbon-score. I moved my weapon in a close circle, letting the heat slide past me while keeping its inertia.

Then I cut between us in a close, downward slash, aiming for his wrist, and he was forced back. Another step.

Then the knight rejoined, his blue lightsaber thrusting low for my planted forward knee in a seamless interjection. The Master’s half-step hadn’t been a retreat, he had been making room. I couldn’t pull my leg back, so I aborted my follow-up thrust, which would have taken the master’s shoulder, and knocked the knight’s attack to the side.

A shame…I had been close to achieving victory, there…just a single breath away from disarming the Jedi master. Or perhaps the Master would have disengaged more fully if the Knight hadn’t been so close.

Either way, as the master aimed a diagonal cut at my opposite shoulder, and with both opponents so close, I knew it was almost over. I was forced out of my attack and into desperate defense. The momentum shifted into their favor.

Life and fury roared through my veins.

But…I was going to die. There was that unfortunate fact. I couldn’t keep this up for much longer, and my chance for victory had passed. At any moment now, I’d be wrong-footed in an exchange and that would be it for me. It had almost happened twice already.

Somehow, it didn’t quite register in me as fear. The threat of death was like the spice that made the entree of lethal combat the delicacy that it truly was to me. I met them again and again, allowing my empty laughter to ring throughout the wide factory floor, comfortable and certain in my blade even in the face of the inevitable. The Jedi weren’t breathing, weren’t speaking, but I could sense some confusion mingled with their iron determination. They didn’t understand

I felt the moment of death approaching and could do nothing to stop it. They sensed it too, a wary anticipation bubbling up in the Force. The master wordlessly cautioned the knight not to become overconfident, through the Force. I could practically hear the warning myself; it was so clear. They thought I had something else up my sleeve, eh?

Sorry to disappoint.

We met again, lightsabers spewing sparks onto the corpses of the rebel soldiers, and I felt the humming beat of the Dark Side waning inside me. The rush of blood in my ears calmed…I blocked once, twice more, ever certain, with more skill than I had ever shown in my life.

Sometimes, you make all the right moves, and still lose. Imagine that?

I stepped into one attack to take the master off tempo, then ducked the swing from the knight, danced away, just slightly too slow. No choice. And…now!

The Force spoke of the knight’s immediate return strike which would catch me in the sword-arm, removing it at the elbow. It showed me the master’s simultaneous move, a thrust to the upper heart and downward draw cut that would cleave the lower heart. Near-instant death.

In another breath…my hearts squeezed their final beat…and then…

A second red blade slid smoothly alongside me, catching the knight’s weapon before it could cleave my flesh and bone. On instinct, I deflected the master’s center thrust, returning it in counter and forcing him a step back and away from the knight. Separating them by two paces.

The Force’s tranquility shattered.

Howling Dark engulfed me, and my breath caught. The Jedi, too, froze for a perilous moment. New strength and energy poured into me in an icy torrent, and I turned my helm slightly so I could see the source of this power.

“Apprentice, it looks like you survived,” Darth Lachris observed with jagged calm, extending a hand and grasping the knight in the Force. I sensed him flare in panic, then heard his bones shatter in a horrible chord. I knew he had been maintaining a Force Ward throughout our fight, had tested its strength myself…but it shattered like an eggshell when Darth Lachris challenged it. The man screamed, and that was the first sound I had heard him make since his arrival.

“You should have brought a second master to face us, not a knight,” Darth Lachris purred to the other Jedi, throwing down the shattered body of the knight and smoothly engaging the only remaining foe. The knight’s involuntary gasp would have been full of nerve gas, and his life was snuffed out in seconds. Lightning burst from Lachris’ gauntlet and struck the green lightsaber like a fist, and she followed it with an elegant, sweeping drive. I moved at her side, going wide, limiting the man’s options. But I couldn’t join her assault in the same way as the Master and Knight.

We weren’t well-matched, Lachris and I. She was too fast, her movements too wide, and I was too large. It didn’t matter, though.

The Jedi couldn’t simply back-step, because I was poised to catch him in a direct retreat. He had to circle away from me, which was slower. It took him closer to Darth Lachris, and that was the only contribution I made to their duel.

He was a skilled warrior, I’ll admit that. But Lachris was simply on another level, far beyond the Jedi and me. Like my early bouts with Tranch, she picked the Master Jedi’s defense apart with a sequence of steps and probing strikes, forcing him into the perfect distance, and at the exactly right time she lunged forward, catching his blade and his heart in one beautifully executed motion that ended with a sideways flourish which tore her lightsaber from his chest in a wide cut. He must have seen it coming, but he could do nothing to stop it.

Exactly like the way my own death should have gone.

He fell back a step, a soft gasp escaping him, and Lachris stayed just out of reach, watching the life bleed from his eyes. She didn’t try to make a finishing blow, not while he still held his weapon in his hand. Neither of us relaxed until that strange heat in the Force was gone, and a chilling shadow replaced it. The two dead Jedi laid completely still in death, surrounded by their soldiers. The green lightsaber hummed for half a minute after its wielder’s death, then deactivated as its safety mechanisms activated.

Lachris’s lightsaber hissed into silence to match, and she nonchalantly clipped it to the belt of her armor. I did the same with mine, hands shaking, and she stepped up to me, her short stature doing nothing to diminish her incredible presence.

“You are a fool,” she said. “I should have let you die. It would have been nothing more than what you had earned.”

“Why didn’t you?” I wondered in a small voice. All the fun of combat and the rush of adrenaline was draining away, and it left me feeling weak.

She shook her helmet at me, in what was palpable disgust. “I hate to see talent go to waste. You did fight a Knight and a Master for nearly three minutes without suffering injury. But it is the fact that you chose to fight them, knowing that you’d likely die, that makes you a fool.”

I sighed, answering, “I know it. Baras gave me this lecture already.”

“That makes you obstinate as well as foolish, which is even worse!” Darth Lachris hissed. “You must learn when to sacrifice your assets for the sake of your own survival, Apprentice. Now, I must return. If more Jedi come, which I doubt, you will withdraw at once and meet me, or so help me I will cut you down myself and save them the trouble. Understood?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

I watched her leave, following her sinuous, dancer’s movements. Scary!

Pretty hot, though.

I sighed through my nose when she was gone, moving out of the open at Lieutenant Quinn’s prompt. It was hard to stay alert…but for the rest of the operation I somehow managed. Not that anyone else came to interrupt the deployment of the gas.

I tuned in to the standard Imperial channel and heard the chatter from our troops outside.

“They’re running…it’s like a damned anthill.”

“Got one in my sights. And boom!”

“Artillery requested in grid besh-six.”

“Received, we advise that you paint the targets.”

“Contact sighted…targets painted…fire effective. All targets eliminated. Sector is clear.”

“Beginning bombing run, friendlies danger close. Units in sector cresh nine, hold positions. Bombs away.”

“You blew ‘em away. Hostile armor destroyed.”

“All clear.”

“All clear!”

In an hour, maybe two, it was over. Our troops made a sweep of the evacuated military workshop, found a few stragglers that had holed up in air-tight safe rooms or behind improvised airlocks. The rest of their forces had been flushed into the ravines and slaughtered, as expected. No other escape tunnels were identified.

Enemy losses were counted as something approaching two thousand dead. Friendly losses were eighty-seven dead, thirteen wounded.

A good day for the Empire…but I felt shaky and somewhat nauseous when we finally piled into an armored personnel carrier and rode back to the military camp. I spent the ride looking down at my hands, trying to stop them from trembling.

Chapter Text

As I meditated on my losing fight against the Jedi, the Dark Side seemed almost chiding. I knew it wasn’t, not really. The Force simply is what it is, but a Force-user’s perspective might change, and so I glimpsed different parts of it whenever I meditated. Of course, I had only had the time to meditate a handful of times since I had figured out how to actually do it properly. Had my most recent brush with death changed my perspective that much?

The answer was not so simple. For one thing, the Dark Side had clearly deserted me in what should have been my final moments; I had felt its chill being chased away by the heat of Light. I understood why…there was nothing for the Dark Side to dwell upon in a dead man, or in someone who was resigned to their imminent death. After all, the Dark was a Force that was characteristically driven by passion and desire, and death was a state that was utterly devoid of both these things. Furthermore, I had been overpowered by the Light which had flared so brightly in the Jedi during our fight.

Still. I felt betrayed, however unreasonable it might be.

And that feeling was the reason that the Force seemed to be chiding me, as I meditated. After all, it had been my own decision that got me into the fight, and it was my own lack of power that meant that I was destined to lose. There was no reason to blame the Dark Side for recognizing that. And, in fact, the Force was quick to bring my focus to Darth Lachris instead.

That incredible strength. Her sublime skill with a lightsaber…the way she had directed the fight exactly according to her desired end, even against someone as potent in the Force and as skilled as a Jedi Master. She had trampled over his destiny as if it meant nothing, and she cut through his defenses like he was a child playing with a blade.

It lit a fire in my heart, to remember it. I wanted to be that powerful…that skilled. I wanted to dictate the future and have the galaxy itself move to secure my desires. And the Dark Side, oh…how eager it was to fulfill these desires. I sensed the power at my fingertips but did not forget to count the cost. There was nothing I could gain without sacrificing too much of myself…not that these things can be quantified directly. It was just an instinct. And that instinct told me: beware.

Eventually, when I felt completely rejuvenated and somewhat settled with a new conviction to grow powerful, I opened my eyes and let the threads of the Force fade to the background of my mind.

I saw the object of my fearful admiration sitting cross-legged before me, wrapped in a nexus of dark power unlike anything I had ever witnessed. It was even visible to the naked eye, warping the air around her skin as if she was burning with an inward heat. My breath caught, and I sat up straighter, my hands moving reflexively to the folds of my robes.

I was wearing my casual black robes and comfortable underwear. It was the day after our battle, and I had been given eight hours of rest, so I thought to take advantage of it out of my armor, especially since I was still feeling shaky after witnessing my own death in precognition. I had, of course, been threatened almost daily since my awakening in this life, but never before had it been such a certainty as in that moment.

I had seen it in my mind’s eye. My grip loosened on the lapels of my robes, and I touched the place where the Jedi Master’s lightsaber would have pierced me, through my clothes. I felt my heart beating under my fingertips.

“Apprentice Xanot,” Darth Lachris spoke, and I startled, sitting straighter. “You’ve awakened. You meditate in a most curious fashion…I couldn’t help but join in. I hope you don’t mind the intrusion.”

“It’s your planet,” I offered reflexively, then winced at the glib tone.

She laughed softly with a nod. “That it is.”

“Um…what’s so interesting about how I meditate?” I asked. I was still new to it, after all, and if it was something I should correct then…

“Oh, it’s just…loud,” Darth Lachris replied with a shrug. “Initially I was concerned that you had thrown yourself too deeply into the Force, so I came by to see if you were actually still breathing. It’s known to happen to younger apprentices after their first battle against Jedi — some reach for power too quickly out of envy or fear. But, by the time I had arrived the edge of predatory glee I initially felt had been blunted and the Dark Side had coalesced here in the most charming way. It seemed almost doting upon you. I was curious if I could sense the reason why, so I meditated on the question.”

I decided not to mention that I had my bout of delving too deeply into the Force on the way to Balmorra. “Are others usually not ‘loud’ as you put it? I mean…I could actually see the Force power coming off of you just now,” I said.

“Well, sensing that someone is meditating and sensing their interactions with the Force in a way that conveys tone are two different things,” Darth Lachris replied. “Although, after witnessing your meditation, I wonder why we Sith are so circumspect. It was a refreshing perspective, even though I couldn’t step into it myself. I may speak to my own apprentice about it. Unfortunately I suspect it was caused by the nature of your relationship with the Dark Side, so it might not be something I can teach.”

“Did you know what I was meditating upon?” I asked hesitantly. I wasn’t even sure why she would want to teach anyone to view the Force the way that I had, or to interact with it in the same way.

“I can make guesses, but the actual nature of your thoughts is yours alone,” Darth Lachris replied. “What I observed was the Force’s reaction to you. It was something unique, which was why I took interest. The Dark Side does obey a strong master but not usually with such care. I felt that much could be gained from imitating your approach.”

“Oh,” was all I could say. Silence stretched between us, awkwardly. This was my own quarters in the forward operating base, a simple prefabricated shelter with a cot and a locker. I looked away from the smaller woman, clearing my throat. “Darth Lachris…how did you defeat the Jedi so easily?”

“You watched me fight, didn’t you?” she retorted in a bored voice.

“I know…I just don’t understand the difference in power. You killed the knight almost without thought, but you didn’t do the same to that master. If it was because you couldn’t, if he was strong enough to resist even your power, then why didn’t that Jedi crush through my own Force Ward and end me instantly at the start? Also, the lightsaber techniques you used…it was all familiar. It was something I had seen before, but when I fought him we were evenly matched, and you made him dance to your tune and then killed him apparently without exerting much effort,” once I started, my troubled thoughts seemed to tumble out of my mouth one after the other. “I don’t know how to turn what I witnessed into practical steps that I can take so that I can do better.”

“You’re asking how to become powerful…that is the whole point of apprenticeship, and there isn’t one answer. However, to start,” she answered, slowly, “you should never have stepped into a confrontation with the Jedi Master if you weren’t absolutely certain that your Force Ward could withstand their strength. If you make a habit of challenging opponents of unknown strength, you will be crushed eventually. And you won’t even have time to realize your mistake…like that Jedi Knight yesterday.”

“How can you tell who is strong enough to break the Force Ward?”

“It’s a matter of experience. You learn to identify entities in the Force that have the power, and this is why the ability to obscure your strength is crucial to warfare against the Jedi. If they sense your approach, and they know that they are weaker, then they will retreat without fighting. Since Jedi are often weaker than the Sith, it is somewhat difficult to engage them in a battle where numbers are equal, and they make a nuisance of themselves elsewhere in the field for as long as they are not confronted and defeated. You didn’t sense my approach, did you? Well, neither did the Jedi, and that was the key to swift victory rather than a drawn out pursuit. The Master could have defended the Knight if I had not surprised them, and then I would have had to duel both of them at once, which would have taken longer..”

“It won’t do any good to learn to identify strong opponents if they can just hide their strength,” I pointed out reasonably.

“As for that, there is nothing to be done other than becoming strong enough that such enemies are exceedingly rare. Or travel in a group so you can combine your strength to overcome a stronger foe. That is why Jedi operate in pairs at the bare minimum, but prefer to engage Sith with a team of three or four. Given the time to focus, they can combine their power and overwhelm even the strongest Darth with the Force; I assume you engaged the Jedi aggressively and did not permit them the time to coordinate against you? Well, that was your only choice if you wanted to live, so it must be what you did. Have you ever actually had your defenses broken before in combat?” Darth Lachris asked.

I shook my head, a shudder running down my spine at her words. I hadn’t even considered the fact that the Jedi could combine their power…it wasn’t something I thought was commonly mentioned in the game or the books about Star Wars. The Master, alone, could probably have caught me in Force Stasis or hit me with Force Push through my Force Ward, and I wasn’t sure why he hadn’t. But, together, they could have done it effortlessly.

“Hm…well, put up your strongest ward, then,” Darth Lachris drawled.

I froze. “You’re going to demonstrate it right now?”

“Yes…you have five seconds before I hit you directly, so hurry up.”

Hastily, I mustered the Force and surrounded myself in the invisible shell of a ward, feeling a certain amount of comfort in the brush of its intangible power against my skin. Lachris was sitting there, innocently, right up until she extended her hand in a blase motion and lightning exploded from it, crashing against my ward in an undulating wave that washed over and around the invisible cocoon shape, intensifying briefly, then crushed through it and struck me in the chest.

I screamed like a little girl. It was entirely impossible to do anything else, the pain was far too severe. Lightning crawled over my shoulders and up my neck like a widening web of burning fingers, and my muscles clenched so tightly I almost bit off my own tongue.

The lightning disappeared after the briefest shock, and I slumped forward, almost collapsing over my knees. I shook my head blearily and swayed backwards, aftershocks running through trembling limbs. “What the fuck was that for?” I slurred indignantly.

“That’s how it feels when your ward is overcome. Did you sense that instant where the power became too much for you?” Lachris asked calmly.

I nodded miserably. My whole body ached, now!

“Buck up, girl, I didn’t inflict any lasting damage,” Darth Lachris drawled. “Now, I’ll measure myself so that you can sense my strength and strike at you again, gradually increasing in power until your ward is broken. Then you’ll know exactly what sort of opponents you can safely confront without ending up like that knight yesterday.”

“Okay…” I said hesitantly, replacing my ward and reinforcing it with extra vigor. I didn’t want to get shocked again, if I could avoid it. It was pretty much a certainty that she would break through once more, however.

“Pay attention.”

Darth Lachris’ presence in the Force waned until she felt like just another average person. Then she threw a minor shock at my shield that fizzled out on contact.

“That’s the power level appropriate for an acolyte.”

Power swelled and the Force seemed to flow into the woman across from me as if it was filling an empty vessel. Lachris produced an actual bolt of purple lightning that struck my ward, making a sound like a cracking whip. “And that was an apprentice level.”

I braced myself. The next attack was a continuous stream of lightning that started to curl around the invisible barrier, but my ward still held against the attack without feeling as if it would collapse. “The power of a Lord. It is impressive that you can even withstand this much, isn’t it?”

“You don’t have to do the next one!” I blurted, but Lachris’ lips just twitched into a cruel smile.

“I must.”

I nodded tightly, resigned. Once again, an overwhelming blast of lightning struck, webbed around the entire ward, then crushed it like an electric fist closing tight. I screamed, again, and it felt like Darth Lachris held the lightning for a longer time than before, because by the time that it ended I had somehow fallen backwards in a stiff arch, with arms and legs curling and trembling. When it ended I slumped onto the ground in a boneless heap. My fingers were twitching involuntarily, and I lacked the strength to sit up or even to fix my robes, which had come somewhat loose at the front, revealing my heaving chest and plain underwear as I fought for blessed air.

“And that’s the power of the usual Darth. Not all of us are created equally, and I wasn’t using my full strength just now. Thank me properly, now, you fool.”

“Thank you, Darth Lachris,” I breathed, for that small mercy.

“You’re quite welcome,” she replied smoothly. “So, it seems that if you sense anyone on the battlefield roughly equal in strength to the Jedi Master from yesterday, or at the level I just showed you, then you should retreat. The Jedi could probably have crushed your skull or broken your neck with the Force if he had tried, although Force Stasis might not have been very effective without aid from the Knight. I imagine they did not do so because the Jedi don’t usually start off using the Force offensively. Rather, a typical pair of Jedi watchmen like the ones you met usually use the Force to strengthen themselves. The Watchman’s specialty is resourcefulness, covert operations, and diplomacy, not direct combat. They tend to be stationed in the outer reaches of the Republic as representatives of the Jedi Order, or they are used to lead covert operations which the Jedi have some interest in, but which require cooperation with outside actors. The Jedi Shadows don’t usually work with those outside of the Jedi Order, so the Watchman takes this role. They are more like representatives or diplomats than high-caliber warriors. You were lucky that he was not a Weapon-Master or a Force Sage who specialized in combat techniques. Either one of those might have killed you in the blink of an eye, rather than taking several minutes to end your life. Which is what that Watchman would have done to you, if I had not saved you.”

“I get it, alright? I should have withdrawn,” I sighed miserably, dragging myself upright and straightening my robes. I hugged myself around the midsection and pursed my lips. “To be honest, I didn’t want to let my soldiers die.”

“It’s admirable to preserve what is yours,” Lachris declared, to my surprise. “But not if it costs you your life. And those were not your only options, which is why I call you a fool. You could have withdrawn your soldiers from the site, sent them a different way than yourself, and led the Jedi away from them in retreat. The Jedi would have followed you after they stopped the deployment of the gas, and you could have led them directly to me, where we could have killed them without significant danger to ourselves. Your risk was entirely unnecessary. Furthermore, dying uselessly against a stronger opponent would not have saved your men, and given the facts available to us you had no way of knowing if those Jedi were combat specialists or not.”

“Oh.”

“So, consider those kisses of lightning to be your punishment for disobeying my orders, although I almost wish I had let that Knight take your arm. Perhaps you’d remember the lesson if you had a scar such as that. Am I not wiser than you? Am I not stronger? You should have obeyed me without question, as I told you to do when we met. Consider yourself lucky that I don’t kill you as I promised then, and that is because your stupidity harmed only yourself and your reputation rather than our objectives. But if you disobey again then I won’t just kill you, I will also kill your entire retinue while you watch the consequences of insubordination, and I’ll send the whole lot of you back to Darth Baras in bags with a note about how incompetent and unruly you were.”

She was calling those shocks ‘kisses?’ They had not been anything remotely as endearing as kisses. Still, after I bowed my head to her in obedience, I was eager to move on from this topic.

I asked, “What is the difference between a Lord and a Darth?”

“You have just felt it,” Darth Lachris replied easily.

I waved a hand irritably in front of my face. “I know that, but I don’t get it. What makes a Darth that much stronger than a Lord? I fought Lord Vacuus on Dromund Kaas, and he didn’t outmatch me like you do.”

“Disregarding the obvious fact that any Lord or Darth has had many years more to hone their skills, there is the matter of power.” Lachris fell into thought for a moment, shifting her legs so that she was sitting sideways instead of cross-legged. Her body presented in a sinuous curve when she sat this way, but I barely noticed it as something that could be considered flirtatious. I still felt echoes of the pain she had inflicted, and it was hard to be attracted to the one who had done that to me. “Think of your body as a conduit. The power of a circuit, its wattage, is the product of its potential in volts and its current in amperes. In other words, you must have both energy and the current in order to have power. Are you familiar with electric circuits?”

“A bit,” I replied, reaching far back in my memory to my college coursework on the matter.

“You might know that there is resistance in any real circuit. This resistance is what practically limits the power which can be channeled because the circuit would be destroyed by heat if the power became too great. As the power increases, so too will the heat caused by the resistance,” Darth Lachris repeated fundamental knowledge. Then she leaned forward. “In this analogy, you are the circuit and you have resistance, the Force is the potential. The mathematical equations do not hold true for the Force as for electricity, but the principles are the same. Channeling energy through your body causes side effects proportional to the amount of that power you are transmitting at any given time, which is the current, and this is the result of your body’s resistance.”

“So you’re saying that channeling too much power would cause someone to burn up?”

“The Force does not produce heat like electricity. In medical terms, I don’t know the actual cause of its effects. However, it effectively creates stress which can damage living cells. Burst blood vessels are the primary symptom of Force stress, but it can also cause weakening of the bones and damage to the nervous system. Phantom pain, uncontrollable twitches, bloodshot eyes, bruised faces, bent posture, pale and fragile skin. Do these sound familiar to you?”

“Those are the effects of the Dark Side, I thought.”

“No, it is the result of holding a current of Force energy that the body is not ready to withstand,” Darth Lachris declared.

“Can the body become better attuned to the Force, then?” I wondered.

“Do you think my face looks like this because I’m making a fashion statement?” Lachris deadpanned.

There was no good way to answer that rhetorical question, so I just fidgeted uncomfortably. She burst into laughter and shook her head.

“You looked terrified!” she crowed, shaking her head. “Ah, but you are an amusing one. The answer is no, I don’t find these bruised blood vessels to be a particularly attractive feature. The marks are the price I pay for the power I wield, and I find it a rather reasonable exchange. If you’d seen some of the walking corpses in the upper echelons of the Empire, you’d realize how attractive I am by comparison. But to answer your question: it is possible, and in fact it occurs naturally. I have become capable of wielding my great power without looking like a kinrath pup, and this has taken me years. If I attempted what you saw yesterday as an apprentice of your age, I would have literally started bleeding out of my eyes and ears, and quite possibly would have died on the spot. My body has indeed grown far more powerful. But as you can see, I still bear the marks of stress. It is not a perfect conduit.”

“There are quite a lot of masked individuals in the Empire, aren’t there?”

“They are hiding their grotesque, misshapen features. Or they are operating only due to cybernetic machinery and can no longer remove their mask,” Darth Lachris declared directly. “One day…perhaps I will wear a mask as well. I hope it is not for a long time.”

“Is it inevitable? Why do the Jedi not suffer the same problems, even though they also wield considerable Force power?” I asked.

Lachris nodded. “Researchers have concluded that the reason the Jedi don’t experience the suffering of the Sith is because the changes to their physiology are more gradual and controlled. As they devote themselves to the Light Side and experience the same physiological transformation that all Force-users must, the Jedi’s power grows slowly and steadily for decades without any apparent upper limit. The average age of a Human Jedi Knight is five to ten years older than the average age of an equally powerful Human Sith Lord. Some species grow more attuned more quickly, or they live for a longer time, but the general principle is that the older the Jedi is, the greater their power.”

“So it takes time for the body to become accustomed to the Force? I thought people were born with the talent or without it,” I remarked with interest.

“An infant might show signs of being capable of wielding the Force, and might even start with a far greater talent than their peers, but a child remains far from their fullest potential no matter their natural-born strength,” Lachris replied. “It takes a long time for the body to naturally become suitable for any great throughput of Force energy. The Sith claim power more quickly than what is natural, and the price we pay is that the flow of such energy damages our bodies. More troublesome even than that: healing the damage takes effort away from changing your flesh to a more suitable form, and thus it takes longer for our bodies to acclimate to a greater baseline of Force power. Theoretically, if a Sith lived for a decade and a half without channeling greater amounts of Force power than his body could safely handle, his body would become accustomed to that level of use and would heal itself. The Sith do not teach our acolytes to restrain themselves when they command the Force, and neither are the Sith much inclined to such restraint. We choose instead to wear masks to hide the effects of our greed. Well…perhaps the Emperor himself has an unblemished face; it’s unimaginable that someone of his power could grow even further beyond, and he’s certainly had the time to heal or to discover some kind of sorcery that can regenerate his flesh.”

“I understand.” It sounded unfortunate, but I sympathized with the desire for power. After all, I had resolved to become one of the foremost powers in the Empire, and I had only a short time to accomplish this. I imagined I would probably end up with the same bruised visage. “Wouldn’t Force Healing counteract the effects of Force stress?”

“It would, but if you haven’t noticed yet there are some powers that cannot be used unless you have the proper alignment. The usual type of Force Healing is impossible for those of the Dark Side, though some ancient Sith alchemists accomplished something similar at great cost. In any case, you purebloods wear your bruises more elegantly than Humans do. It’s the red skin, I think. You shouldn’t be terribly concerned about it,” Darth Lachris seemed to see the direction of my thoughts and I ducked my face to the side. Was I so transparent? “I use a kolto salve for my face in the evenings, to soften the skin and heal some of the bruising. Every now and again I treat myself to a full submersion, but lately I’ve been far too busy to relax. I do recommend those things wholeheartedly, if only because they are enjoyable.”

“The Force affects other places than the face?” I asked in surprise.

Lachris extended a hand between us. I peered at it more closely, and realized how pale her skin actually was. And also how dark her veins were. Despite the strength in that hand, I could also see the effects that she had described. “Delicate blood vessels like those around or in the eyes will bruise first. It can rarely produce blindness, and in fact most Sith are unconsciously using the Force to fortify their eyes, which causes the distinctive golden or red hue in the iris. Then, the veins will darken or redden elsewhere as well. There is a possibility of brain aneurysms or internal hemorrhage, so most Lords and Darths get a medical implant behind their ear or at the base of the skull, which is designed to respond to concussions, bleeds, strokes, or aneurysms. It also helps reduce the severity of head injuries in combat…it’s a fairly common implant among soldiers as well. It is rather necessary for powerful Sith, and the surgery has a reasonable recovery time.”

That was all highly concerning. “What was that about blindness and internal bleeding?”

“It’s comparatively rare, especially for someone your age, but it’s advisable to carry a kolto injector regardless,” Darth Lachris said. “Some choose to use cybernetic implants to fortify their ailing bodies, but a body made of machinery cannot channel the Force. They exchange their Force power for convenience and physical might. Your eyes are fine, they aren’t even bloodshot. I can hardly contain my envy; I can’t remember the last time I looked in a mirror and saw eyes as clear as your own. Your eyes are also a lovely golden color, not quite as red as some purebloods.”

I fidgeted uncomfortably at her honest appraisal, unsure of what to make of it. Was she flirting? I was still a little too frightened of her to reciprocate, if so. I decided to ignore it, for the most part.

“This applies to using more power than the body is accustomed to? Theoretically, then, anyone could wield any amount of power, but they would break their bodies,” I posited.

“That’s correct,” Lachris agreed. “You could have also destroyed that Knight like I did, if you only had mustered the willpower to burst your arteries and shatter your own bones. There are legends of Jedi who perform such selfless feats of incredible power that their bodies cease to exist entirely, breaking down into a faint mist. But those might just be legends. Seeking greater power in that way, even under duress, is not the Jedi way.”

“The Force is channeled through the blood, then? That’s why it causes bruises?”

“Not only the blood, although the blood is the first to show signs of stress. It’s not commonly known, but some people’s blood works better than others as a medium for the Force, according to experiments done by the Pyramid of Ancient Knowledge. Novices in the Force, and those who are blind to the Force entirely, have blood and bone that cannot channel power as easily. It can still be done, but the effects are dramatic and often lethal.”

I hummed with interest. Wasn’t there some kind of creepy experiments in the comics about the effects of midichlorians and blood? Darth Plagueis had been famous for his research into the midichlorians. “I wonder if a transfusion could make a Force user blind to the Force.”

“Weaker, perhaps, but never actually entirely blind. There is more to our body than blood, and all of your flesh can be used to channel the Force,” Darth Lachris nodded. “That’s another experiment from the Pyramid of Ancient Knowledge. They also discovered that it is possible to do the reverse, and make someone temporarily more powerful by transplanting flesh or blood. Also, through bone marrow transplants or organ transplants from a Force-strong donor, it is possible extend the effects for an even longer time. The problem is that it is a short-lived boost in most cases, and there are obvious dangers to such procedures. The power falls off eventually, and returns to a baseline which seems to be related to the innate physiology of the Force-user. Grafted limbs or chunks of borrowed flesh will wither and become septic. Despite their research, the Pyramid of Ancient Knowledge have been incapable of discovering the actual difference between the blood of a powerful Force-user and the blood of a Force-blind, which makes it hard to find suitable donors. Down to the cellular level, the bodies of the strongest Sith are not obviously any different from the weakest slave, other than the marks of stress in their blood.”

That was all highly disturbing.

Well…I knew from the movies that there were supposedly midichlorians in the cells of of every living thing in the Star Wars galaxy, and that these were somehow related to Force potential. Whether these were also responsible for the existence of the Force or only related to aptitude was something I didn’t actually remember…but the rule was more midichlorians equaled stronger Force-user.

Obi-Wan matching Anakin’s Force abilities on Mustafar was a counter-example, since Obi-Wan was supposedly an average Jedi in terms of midichlorian count. Perhaps it was the case that Force-users gained more midichlorians over time, and therefore could safely channel more Force power as they grew into mastery? If the Jedi of the movies had only measured the midichlorians in children and not over time, then they might not have detected the increasing strength.

“Fascinating,” I murmured.

“We’ve wandered somewhat far from the original topic,” Darth Lachris said, shaking her head. “In short, unless you rediscover those ancient methods of regeneration, there are no shortcuts to greater Force power. If you want to be as strong as I am, then you must work and suffer for it. I was nowhere near your level of strength when I was in my first year under Darth Marr, so you have a head-start compared to your peers. The Jedi would even say that what we Sith do is a shortcut, that their way is the only natural path…but only someone who hasn’t paid the price that we must pay could call it ‘short and easy.’”

“Shorter than their methods, but not easier,” I agreed. “Are there any Jedi who are as strong as the Emperor?”

“If there was any such Jedi, then we would not exist,” Lachris answered in a droll voice. “It is only logical: the Emperor has lived for centuries, and the Jedi die at an age typical for their species. There are no living Jedi who are as old as the Emperor. There are not even any Jedi presently who have the potential to live for so long; certain long-lived species make incredibly strong Jedi, if they are permitted to survive for centuries. But the examples of that sort, like Master Vandar who taught Darth Revan, were killed before the Great War. The Emperor is probably the closest being in existence to a true Force entity, a realm of power akin to the celestials of legend.”

“What about Darth Marr, then? Is there any Jedi as strong as him?”

“Yes,” Lachris sighed. “There are some. Jedi at the level of Knight Jaric Kaedan, who is the one that challenged the Dread Masters during the Great War and defeated all six of them aboard their own flagship, might actually be stronger than any single member of the Dark Council. There are very few of these Jedi, perhaps they can be counted on one hand, which is certainly good for the Empire. Pound for pound, to take a phrase from bloodsport, the Sith are stronger than the Jedi. And there isn’t any Jedi now or even in all of their history that could challenge the Emperor’s might. As I said, Jedi grow naturally more powerful with age and experience, but the Jedi were winnowed to only one survivor during the time of the Triumvirate, three centuries ago. The Dread Masters are about that old, and they were defeated, but the Emperor is perhaps four times as aged as his subordinates.”

Yoda being such a powerhouse made a lot more sense from this perspective. I also balked at the claim that no Jedi could match the Emperor’s might, since I knew that the Jedi Knight was theoretically destined to destroy the Emperor in single combat on Dromund Kaas. Well…if it actually turned out the same way as the game’s class story.

How could that be possible? Was the Knight truly going to be such a legendary power that he could attain in a natural lifespan the same power that it had taken a thousand years for the Emperor to gather? Was I supposed to be able to match that incredible height?

When the silence stretched on once again. Lachris stood up and stretched, cracking her neck with a sideways motion of her head. “I hope you at least learned something from this, Xanot. You cannot keep making these mistakes, but you know that already. Your master would have said as much, even if it hadn’t occurred to you. You should get something to eat and join us later to discuss the matter of the Balmorran Arms Factory.”

“I’ll do that….although I might need to meditate again to get my hands to stop shaking.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “Oh, please…I was gentle enough. Give me your hand.”

“Why?” I asked suspiciously, but I extended it reflexively. I wasn’t about to get my ass shocked again for recalcitrance.

Lachris took my hand, which was absolutely huge compared to her own, and manipulated it until my fingers were extended. Then she moved it between us and released it. I saw that my fingers were actually steady.

“See?” she said. “Right as rain. In fact…that’s faster than even I expected. You weren’t pretending to be in pain, right?”

“No!”

“Hm,” Lachris’ eyes narrowed, and then she shrugged. “Go and eat something.”

Lachris departed from my quarters, and I stared at the door in her absence. A complicated feeling remained, and I shuddered when I realized Lachris had been sitting in here with me for hours, and I hadn’t even been aware of it. Maybe I’d better lock the door before meditating…or post a guard.

And what the heck had she even been talking about? ‘Doting?’ I didn’t think that the Dark Side had been particularly charming in my meditation. As I said…it had basically felt like a light scolding mixed with a pep-talk and a half-assed attempt at seducing me to madness. If I was personifying the Force, then maybe it could have been described as doting, like Lachris had said, but it was a stretch.

But we both knew that the Force wasn’t really a person. So it couldn’t dote, or chide, or any of that. What had Lachris actually observed that had been so interesting, then?

The door whooshed open and Vette burst in. “Xanot!”

I blinked at her. “Huh?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes?” We stared at each other for a long moment. Then, it occurred to me I’d been heard screaming. I sighed in abject embarrassment and buried my face in my palm. “It was nothing.”

“Nothing?!” Vette hissed, stepping closer to me and raking me with her eyes as if looking for injuries. I held out my arms obligingly, and turned in a sarcastic circle.

“Do I pass inspection, Doc?” I asked jokingly. She was blushing now, and I stepped closer to her with a soft smile. “Thanks for worrying, Vette. She was just teaching me something.”

“Teaching? You screamed like…like someone wearing a shock collar. A bad one.”

Ah. Well…I guess she had some experience with that, huh? “It was lightning, a Force ability. I was defending against it, and she was teaching me how to identify opponents that are too strong for me to shield. Also, it was a punishment for my foolishness yesterday.”

“What foolishness?”

I sighed again. Must I explain? “She told me to withdraw when we sensed the Jedi approaching, and I decided to stay, That was why I had to fight them both by myself.”

Vette stared at me with a slack jaw. “You knew-“ she seemed to stutter over her words, and paused for a moment. “You mean to say that you knew those two were coming and didn’t say anything to us?!”

By ‘us’ I assume she meant the troops. I wondered why Quinn had not relayed the news to the men, but it occurred to me a moment later that it had probably been a concern about morale. “I told Lieutenant Quinn.”

“How far in advance did you know about them?”

“I think it was two or three minutes before they arrived?” I answered hesitantly. “What’s the big deal?”

“You complete idiot!” Vette burst out, grabbing me by the robes as if she was going to try to shake some sense into me. That didn’t last even a single moment once she realized how much larger and stronger I actually was, and she ended up just kind of hanging off the front of my robes as she stared up at me with a mixture of fury and exasperation.

“What is it?” I asked, although I had a feeling I knew the answer.

“You should have listened to Darth Lachris!” Vette eventually exclaimed, releasing me and turning her back towards me with an angry huff.

“I didn’t want to leave you all to the Jedi’s mercy. I know now that we all should have withdrawn…but at the time it didn’t occur to me to have Quinn take the troops one way while I led the Jedi towards Lachris,” I explained. “I thought the options were either leave you guys to the Jedi or to buy time.”

“You’re not very good at coming up with strategies on the fly, are you? If Darth Lachris hadn’t shown up when she had…”

“So you noticed, huh?” I wondered, accepting the criticism easily. It was true, after all. It was also odd to me that an observer could have known that I was on the very brink of death.

“I wasn’t the top of my class in basic training, but I am trained in close quarters combat,” Vette deadpanned, turning to face me. “I know when somebody is about to lose a fight. And you were laughing like a complete maniac half the time!”

“I lived,” I said earnestly.

Vette seemed to choke on her breath and she tried to turn away again. I caught her shoulder.

“Hey, look at me. We all made it through. That was what I was fighting for, you know? And we did it. I made mistakes, but I’m a bit new to this whole business, alright? I’ll do better in the future. That’s all I can promise,” I said. “Now, I’m under orders to get some food. Have you eaten breakfast?”

Vette searched my face for a moment, pursed her lips, and said, “It’s midday.”

I couldn’t contain my surprise. It felt like I was late for work. “Oh, fuck me, how long was I meditating for!”

I cast around my quarters for a clock. As it turned out, I had meditated for nearly ten hours, which was longer than I had been allotted for rest. Lachris hadn’t mentioned that…I wondered if that was the real reason she had come to check on my meditation.

I dressed in my armor and walked with Vette to the large, open pavilion that was in use for dining in the operating base. There were troopers of all ranks and uniform seated at the long tables, eating the tasteless rations that constituted the Imperial standard rations.

As I was eating, I wondered why I didn’t have bruises on my face. Even after my mishap in hyperspace, although I had felt terrible afterward, it had only lasted for twelve hours, and I didn’t show any obvious signs of worsened health. I had asked about the Force Healing thing because of my regeneration ability, but I didn’t know for sure if that was actually working outside of lethal injury.

I checked my alignment and blinked.

[Alignment: Dark II]

Huh? Hadn’t it been Dark I?

I checked the details

[Alignment: Dark II - The power of the Dark Side is a constant companion. Your desires and ambitions empower you. Your connection to the Force is stronger when you wield it with great resolve and commitment to your own ambition. Even your suffering can serve as fuel for your power. Your body has become accustomed to regular Force use on a modest level. Bolstered by [Dark Regeneration II], you do not suffer chronic maladies due to the use of the Force and you recover from excesses more quickly. Your sanity is mostly intact.]

Stunned, I checked the skill it referred to.

[Skill: Dark Regeneration II - Granted by the Heir of Marka Ragnos class, this skill is the power that brings you back from the brink of death after receiving what would be a mortal injury for others. You are also immune to disease and most poisons. Your wounds, even those which are not mortal injuries, will heal significantly more quickly and more completely regardless of attire, and wounds will leave less scars. Loss of limbs is still permanent.]

What kind of overpowered bullshit was that? Was it going to level up even more?!

Based on my conversation with Darth Lachris, channeling greater power was what caused all the problems for Sith, and it could take decades to recover completely. But I had a regeneration skill. It wasn’t on Wolverine’s level, since it had taken me a long time to recover from being turned into a lightsaber shish kebab on Korriban. But surviving a mortal injury and making a full recovery was still a superpower-level skill, no doubt about that. And if it applied even to the damage sustained by Force stress, then theoretically I could forcibly expand my capacity for Force power and then heal from the damage afterward through repeated meditations.

I had unintentionally already done this.

Apparently, I had advanced from Dark I to Dark II due to my failed meditation in hyperspace, and I supposed that such an advancement was what Lachris had described as an overreach that might result in the bruising we had been discussing. I had actually felt absolutely horrible after that fiasco. I had attributed the feeling to the ‘nearly being consumed by the Dark Side’ part of the event, but maybe it was possible to channel that much power without the risk of madness. And then I’d feel bad for a day or two before healing completely because of [Dark Regeneration II], coming out the other side with an increased baseline of power. It was tempting to try this the next time I had a chance to meditate, but I didn’t fancy going into a battle while feeling those aches in my very bones.

Could I just take a month’s vacation and power-level my [Alignment] to the max? Was there even a max?

“Well, well,” a voice broke into my thoughts, causing a lash of irritation. I turned towards the interloper and froze. “If it isn’t Madam I’m-Not-A-Sith-Lord.”

“Krios!” I jerked in surprise, dropping my fork and rising to my feet. In fact…if he was here, then I had a pretty good idea about this guy’s actual identity. On Dromund Kaas, I had just been guessing. “Or should I call you Cipher Nine?”

The man’s teasing air vanished instantly, and was replaced by measured coldness. “I’m not sure what you mean?”

“Watcher Two is here, I saw her speaking with Darth Lachris. They were talking about your operation at Outpost Victory, something about a bombardment from our orbital stations?” I tapped my chin theatrically. “Well, I knew you were either special forces or an Agent from our meeting in the salon, and given that you of all people show up on Balmorra, I just had to guess. And you’ve confirmed it, by your response.”

“I betrayed nothing!”

“You got all serious,” I retorted, but then I caught myself. His appearance actually hadn’t changed even a little bit. He still had a vaguely amicable expression, and his posture was still open, as if meeting an old acquaintance.

It was only his sense in the Force which was sharp and dangerous.

“I did not,” Cipher Nine insisted, although I noticed he quit denying the fact. “Ah, but I was going to tell you in any case. I have a favor to ask, so it’s only polite.”

“It was a Force thing,” I said, to assuage his pride. “Are you here for lunch? If so, you could join me. I’d like to hear what Imperial Intelligence has been up to lately.”

“I can’t discuss that, you know.”

“Spoilsport,” I whined, although I had been expecting the answer. This was an important moment…I wanted to see if this person was also from Earth. To do that, I supposed I needed to keep him talking, which shouldn’t be terribly difficult since he’d approached me. “At least sit down.”

“Fine.”

I took my seat again, and Cipher Nine went around the table to take the spot across from me. The troopers tended to give me space, and Vette had been at my side. She was watching the conversation closely, but silently.

“Why did you approach me, then?” I asked directly.

“I’ve heard of Darth Baras and his spy network. It’s said to be almost as extensive as Imperial Intelligence, and its something of a legend,” Cipher Nine opened the real conversation with these words. I shoveled some food into my mouth to give me time to think. “I have a question that I want you to relay to your master.”

“Shoot.”

He raised an eyebrow, but proceeded. “Who killed Darth Jadus?”

I gave a small sigh of disappointment. That pretty much put to rest any suspicion that this was somebody from Earth…unless it was somebody who hadn’t played SWTOR? Or somebody that didn’t know the Agent’s storyline?

Well, maybe I should be sure about it. What was something an Earthling would know but nobody in Star Wars knew about? The more I thought about it the harder I realized it would be to determine. What if it was somebody from Asia or from Africa? They might not know about Jesus or about Rome, which were two famous names that came to mind immediately. I supposed I could use multiple names…but that would seem very strange to Cipher Nine, if he wasn’t actually from Earth.

Also, should I give him a hint about the fact that Darth Jadus still lives? No…I had no way of proving anything I said, and if it became known that I had mysteriously in-depth knowledge then I might be lumped in as a conspirator. Lachris had very nearly called the inquisitors on me just for mentioning the Eagle by mistake.

“I’ll tell you what he told me the day of the explosion: it probably wasn’t the Eagle’s terror network. They didn’t have the reach or the personnel to pull it off. Darth Baras told me that he suspects a Sith Lord was behind it, and he felt that Imperial Intelligence assets were used in some capacity,” I said in a soft voice to Cipher Nine. That was as much as Baras had shared. “I have a question for you in turn.”

Looking deeply perturbed, Cipher crossed his arms over his chest. “What is it, then?”

“Have you ever heard of Rome?”

It was the best idea I could come up with. Mostly everyone knew about Rome on Earth, right? At least everyone in the Western world. I’m sure people from rural areas of Asia or Africa might not have historical education, and therefore might not know about Rome. But if someone from those places had been reincarnated or transported into this universe, then they wouldn’t have anything much in common with me and it wouldn’t really matter if they were from Earth.

The gulf between a rural Asian farmer and a software architect from Chicago might as well be different galaxies in this case. And the main thing to note was whether any of the other protagonists had foreknowledge about the near future of this galaxy. If they were a transported person, then it was only relevant if they knew SWTOR from their prior life. Well, they might also have powerful unique abilities like my [Heir of Marka Ragnos], I supposed, but that wasn’t as much of a big deal to me.

There were plenty of terrifyingly powerful entities in this universe to be concerned about, adding one or two more wasn’t a big deal.

Cipher Nine was staring at me quizzically. “I have not. Is it somehow related?”

“No, no, just forget about it,” I shook my head.

That was that.

He nodded sharply and made to stand. I stopped him with an outstretched hand. “In return for the information I gave you, I’d appreciate it if you call on me if you ever need assistance. If your target is an enemy of the Empire who is a Jedi or a Sith, for example.”

Frankly, I didn’t trust this guy to deal with Darth Jadus, and I didn’t want the Empire to get ravaged by his super-weapons. I didn’t think that I was a worthy opponent for the Darth either, but I was already planning to become unstoppable, and hopefully I’d have enough time to gather my strength that I’d be able to manage against Darth Jadus in a fight if necessary.

Cipher Nine seemed openly skeptical. “How is that payment for your intel?”

“If they are enemies of the Empire, then it would be my pleasure to have a chance to destroy them.”

“Or, rather, it would be your pleasure to report such targets to Baras and gain your master’s favor?”

I scoffed. “Take it or leave it, Cipher Nine. They train you agents to target Force-users, but that training doesn’t put you on a level playing field. You’d be better off with a Sith on hand.”

“And you’ll be my on-call Sith?” Cipher Nine asked sarcastically. Why’d you have to phrase it like that, man? It’s not a booty call. “You’ll just take my word for it and go kill enemies of the Empire?”

This wasn’t really going like I had thought it would. “If you don’t want my help, then don’t ask,” I said sharply, to cut my losses.

“I don’t tend to count altruism as a possible motive for Sith Lords,” Cipher Nine remarked stiffly. “Whatever your reasons, I’m sure it isn’t just for the glory of the Empire.”

“You’re a paranoid fellow, aren’t you?” I huffed. “Patriotism isn’t mutually exclusive with personal ambition, you know?”

“Paranoia comes with the spy business, I’m afraid,” Cipher Nine retorted. “I think we’re done here. Thank you for telling me what you know, and for the advice. I might call you, or I might not.”

I shrugged. “It costs me nothing. Don’t get yourself killed.”

He flashed a wry smile. “It would be difficult for a dead man to repay you the favor, right?”

I wasn’t allowed to just care about his wellbeing as a fellow Imperial? Whatever. I waved him off and he left…without eating, I noticed. Maybe he’d already eaten.

“How’d you know that guy?” Vette asked a moment later.

“I met him in a salon,” I answered Vette, returning to my meal. I didn’t have much time to eat, considering how late of a start I’d gotten. “A pretty dangerous man, that one. You should stay away from him.”

“If I stayed away from dangerous people I wouldn’t hang around with you, right?” Vette quipped.

“Dangerous, me? Ridiculous!” I feigned umbrage. Vette laughed, shaking her head.

When I finished my meal, I took my helmet and affixed it in its proper place. When the heads-up display flickered to life, I noticed an indicator that I hadn’t seen before, flashing at the corner of my vision. I mistook it for one of the weird spectral UI elements available to me, at first, but I shortly realized it was part of my armor’s computer.

I had a message in my inbox. That could only be from one person: Baras. And that meant it was time to deal with Commander Rylon.

Chapter Text

The rocket howled over my head, and I watched it helplessly with a sick feeling in my gut. It struck the cliff side above the armored convoy which was trailing behind my speederbike, triggering a cascade of explosions all along the underside of the natural stone arch which stood over top the paved road we had been following.

The gargantuan stone formation was cracked. It trembled…and fell.

I shouted desperately, in futility, raising my hands and the Force as if to catch the weight of the world. One, maybe two, of the deadly chunks of stone were halted in their fall, briefly, but the rest slammed to the ground, crushing the armored vehicles containing my men like they were nothing, throwing up a wall of dust so thick that it blew over where I hovered on my bike, tossing me into a spin.

I dropped the stones I had been holding in the Force when my concentration broke, felt the lives of my soldiers being snuffed out as the weight crashed over their vehicles.

Rage followed, tainted by self-recrimination, and I screamed to the sky, a Force whirlwind clearing the dust away and revealing our attackers as they reached the cliff tops on either side of the ravine, firing down at the survivors of the convoy with rockets and automatic weapons.

You’re wondering how I ended up in an ambush like that, right? The answer is quite simple: Darth Baras gave Commander Rylon a target that he knew Darth Lachris couldn’t simply ignore. It was her own apprentice, the oldest one. Rylon and his men were supposed to target a convoy of heavy battle tanks that the apprentice was leading from Sobrik to a battleground in the neighboring city of Possk, and these tanks were meant to be used to break the last dregs of the resistance there at the same time as the battle for Balmorran Arms Factory, which was set to occur later today.

So, after I had eaten lunch with Vette and talked with Cipher Nine, I told Darth Lachris that Commander Rylon was targeting that convoy and said that Darth Baras was the source of the intelligence. She had switched her apprentice with myself, saying, “If Darth Baras was hoping to draw my apprentice into a trap, then let his own pupil take that risk instead.”

Really, it was rather cunning of Darth Baras to use her suspicions to place me in position to deal with Commander Rylon for him. I was once again struck by the unfathomable depths of Darth Baras’ schemes. Whereas Lachris had assumed Darth Baras was hoping to damage her power base with some plot, in truth the man was protecting his own interests. Darth Lachris’ standing orders concerning the resistance leaders was to capture them alive, but of course I was here on Balmorra to kill Commander Rylon before his status as Baras’ agent was exposed, whether by the Jedi or Lachris’ inquisitors.

The convoy had departed from Sobrik as planned, a few hours after midday. I had changed my usual armor for a standard issue Imperial Commando set, and chose to ride a speeder ahead of the convoy. My thinking had been that I would be able to sense any ambush in advance and could warn those who were following after, and if I was in commando armor then it wouldn’t be obvious to Commander Rylon that his target, the apprentice of Darth Lachris, wasn’t actually in the convoy.

If I wore my usual armor and was too obviously a Sith Lord, he might doubt that his target was there. After all, two Sith escorting a single convoy was extreme overkill in this theater.

So, that had been the plan, and I relied on Quinn and Petris to command the soldiers. After my fumbling with tactical decisions on the Black Talon and Troida Military Workshop, I was resolved to delegate. At least until I had some more experience and training in tactical command. This also meant I could focus completely on trying to predict the location and the manner of Commander Rylon’s attack.

I had actually sensed the imminent danger as soon as I saw the massive natural bridge that spanned the narrowed ravine, with the road winding underneath the arch before climbing a gentle rise on the other side. I gave a warning to Lieutenant Quinn, telling him that this was where the ambush would occur. My senses had been stretched to their limits, looking for any sign of our attackers, and I had found no indication that the means of attack would come from falling rock.

Commander Rylon wasn’t a decorated veteran for no reason. When the dust cleared and I saw his troops appearing on the cliff tops, the simplicity and efficiency of his plan became obvious. They had set up a droid-operated turret, which had probably been obscured by a camouflage net designed to make it look like a rock or a shrub. That had been the source of the first rocket, and it had likely remained undetected by our probe scouts because of a stealth field generator, which Quinn had warned me was a shortfall of the automated scouts.

With the turret being a droid, the Force wasn’t any good at detecting it; there was no hostile intent or midichlorian life in machinery, even intelligent machinery. I would have had to pick out the faint frequencies emitted by its energy, a different kind of awareness that I had not yet practiced. So the turret had gone undetected.

No doubt it was a self-contained unit, and was programmed to fire when the convoy’s middle was directly under the natural stone bridge. They couldn’t have manually triggered it, since any transmitter or receiver would have been detected by our scanning equipment. Well, they could have used a laser pointer to trigger it, I supposed. In any case, we hadn’t gotten any warning until the rocket was already flying.

The explosives in the stone archway above had also gone undetected. I figured it was because they probably didn’t have any detonators, which were the electrical components that the scouts were scanning for. Balmorra was a naturally rocky planet, so it was trivial to pack plastic explosive into crevices in the rock and leave it there as a series of inert lumps which couldn’t do anything without an explosion to detonate it.

Finally, the commandos themselves , who laid in wait, were what I had sensed during our approach, and the warning I had received in the Force was about their plan to flank the convoy and shoot down from the cliffs. Quinn had been prepared for that sort of attack, but the guns on the tanks were unable to shoot due to the fact that half of them were completely crushed and the rest were half-buried. Only a couple of the armored transports were still operational, from what I could sense in the confusion, and none of my men were returning fire as I expected.

Where they all dead already? Had the initial assault ended them so quickly? All because I hadn’t been able to sense the fucking droid-operated turret?

Quite simply, if I had been inside one of the vehicles in the middle of the convoy, which was where a VIP would naturally be expected, then I would be dead or trapped in the rocks. Which was probably how Commander Rylon had hoped to kill Darth Lachris’ apprentice, despite the fact that the man was by all accounts nearly a Lord in his own right, having been apprenticed by Lachris three years ago, shortly after her ascension to the rank of Darth.

Regardless…here I now stood, realizing that we’d walked directly into this trap unaware of its lethality. My men were dead or dying. The withering hail of blaster fire shined through the dust in the air, cutting through the flaking stone and aiming for the remaining life-signs while rockets continued to rain hell on the beleaguered and half-buried vehicles. Time, which had seemed to slow as the revelations dawned upon me, sped forward, barreling towards doom.

Cold fury pulsed in my veins with each racing beat of my heart, and I ignited my lightsaber, unleashing another challenging scream that shook the very stones of the cliff-sides. Then I leapt off my bike.

The ravine was probably twenty meters deep, and I couldn’t jump that high, especially off the back of a speeder. I touched one cliff face, gathered Force power so great that I felt it vibrating in my limbs, then shot towards the opposite cliff, which was at least thirty meters away. Blaster fire tracked my motion with impeccable accuracy as the commandos realized my intent, but I deflected the shots back to sender, hitting the cliff face again with such force that the stone flaked under my boots.

I jumped back and forth over the wide ravine, climbing the sheer walls, and after the third jump I landed on the mesa, within striking distance of the commandos on the ridge. I grasped them in the Force and crushed their bones, feeling my body aching fiercely as the Dark poured through me in a raging torrent unlike anything I had ever brought to bear. Two, three, four of them fell before my rage.

[EXP gained: 400] [EXP gained: 541] [EXP gained: 389] [EXP gained: 1410]

There were more of them on this side, and the shots from the opposing cliff were becoming difficult to block. I ducked low, presenting a smaller profile, and swept forward in three sweeping cuts, cleaving a commando in half with each motion, even as the last attempted to use his jet-pack to create distance.

[EXP gained: 342] [EXP gained: 390] [EXP gained: 411]

There was one more, but he was smart. He was running along the cliff’s edge, so that I had to chase him while under fire from his comrades. Still…he was in range of my Force pull, and I caught him around the neck, pulling him back towards me and cutting him down while I used a dip in the rock to hide from the commandos on the opposite ridge.

[EXP gained: 454]

“As expected, they’re on the ridge!” I heard Lieutenant Quinn over the comms, sounding strained. He was alive…that was good. He was also furious, and his voice was clipped even through the faint static on the line. “Return fire! Shoot them, damn you! Draw their focus away from our Lord!”

That was nice of them. I waited a beat, then I rose, sweeping my lightsaber in front of me and taking two steps before I jumped, the Force exploding behind me in a concussive blast. Per Quinn’s orders, my men were shooting up at an angle from cover, or operating the repeating blasters on the tops of the APCs, towards the commandos on the ridge, who had redirected their fire towards the survivors again. A volley of rockets were intercepted by laser countermeasures from the foremost APC, exploding into clouds of lethal shrapnel in the air above the ravine. I could hardly believe that anyone had survived the falling stone archway…but I sensed two or three of my soldiers there in the rocks, taking turns firing in bursts towards the cliffs.

“Shit, Ma’am is danger close, hold fire!” someone snapped, controverting Quinn’s order, and in an instant the hail of shots from the ravine died out. I realized Quinn probably couldn’t see the battlefield from his position, which meant he was probably inside one of the trapped vehicles.

I landed on the other mesa just as the commandos realized their death was nigh. When the shots from my men ceased, the commandos realized I had crossed the ravine in a flying jump. Turning their attention back to me, a few of them tried to take a shot, but I cared little for such trifling threats. With the Force exploding out of me in an undulating wave, I knocked them flat, all eight of them. Sixteen in total…these were the only remaining commandos.

So few. And yet the trouble they had caused on Balmorra had been great, and its effects were far reaching. Commander Rylon was a terrible foe, for the average soldier. He was here, I was sure of it. One of the eight struggling men who were caught in my grasp. I crushed them against the stone cruelly, stalking between them with my eyes raking over their armor. I couldn’t see their faces, so I ripped their helmets off one by one, breaking the arms of anyone that tried to raise a weapon.

“Where is he?!” I roared, crushing their necks in a fit of rage when I didn’t find Commander Rylon among them. The bodies twitched and then became deathly still, limbs twisted unnaturally and expressions frozen in horrified pain.

A torrent of EXP gained messages appeared in the corner of my eyes. [Level Reached: 24]

I knew his face from the briefing. Rylon was a dignified, spartan-looking fellow, who showed his age in a handsome, strong visage. None of the corpses matched the image I had seen.

I swept my awareness out in a wave, searching for any more live enemies. There were none. I jumped back to the other mesa, even as the Force wrecked havoc on my body, and I inspected the corpses there. It was the third or fourth…Commander Rylon was already dead. Cut in two.

All the rage bled from me in an instant, and I fell to my knees in front of his body. He looked peaceful, in death, utterly dissimilar to the other half of his men. In truth, he had probably barely had time to react, since the time between my initial scream and my assault on his position was less than thirty seconds. After all, his ambush had gone off seemingly without a hitch, at the start.

They hadn’t expected the Sith to be at the front of the convoy, dressed in trooper armor. That was their only mistake. Now Rylon was dead, but it didn’t make me feel any better about the fact that I had barely survived, yet again. Failed, again. And we had corpses to show for it, this time.

I couldn’t keep doing this.

“Status report,” I murmured into the platoon comms, my voice haggard with sudden weariness. I had overdone it by a wide margin, and my lesson from Lachris earlier in the day came back to me with practical significance. I hadn’t felt this bad after the Black Talon…but I hadn’t felt such consuming fury then. To soothe myself, I pulled the Force into my body in a waking imitation of meditation, but I couldn’t reach an trance-like state while conscious.

“Quinn here. I’ve a broken leg and a shrapnel wound on my shoulder. I stopped the bleed. Our vehicle was trapped, but the emergency hatch isn’t blocked. No ammo shortage,” Lieutenant Quinn reported.

Petris was conspicuously silent.

“Mike here. I’m wedged in the vehicle, and I can’t feel my legs. I think I’ve been buried.”

“Vale, no injury.”

“Louse, no injury.”

“Queen here, I’m hit, blaster wound. It won’t stop bleeding! I-I lost my kolto pack in the crash, I need help!”

“Don here, I’ve got her position, moving to assist. No injuries here, but I lost my blaster.”

“Snow here. I’m trapped in the back of the tank, think I’m buried. No injury. The front of the tank got completely crushed.”

“Tack here. No injury. Our vehicle was at the rear.”

“Arty here, No Injury.”

“Vette here. No injury.”

“Bones here. No Injury.”

“Rye here. No injury.”

A beat, and then Quinn spoke again. “I’m receiving casualty reports now. Sandy is dead, he’s here next to me. Lee and Lee are down. Tear is down. Stiff is down. Spitter is down. Niner is down. Broadcasting their last known positions. Vale and Louse, check if they’re dead or if their comms are just damaged. Tack’ bring your vehicle closer to the rocks at the rear, then make a perimeter with your team and stay in cover. Get the remaining probe scouts up on the ridges; we might not be out of this yet.”

I spoke again, “I’m on the ridge above, Lieutenant. No contacts. Commander Rylon is dead. All of his men are accounted for, numbering sixteen.”

“You should come down from the ridge,” Lieutenant Quinn suggested. “We might need your help getting Mike and Snow out. There could be other droids around.”

Unspoken was the fact that I was obviously no good at detecting droids. He must have realized that was why this whole operation had gone to hell in the blink of an eye.

“I’m coming,” I replied tiredly.

Getting back down was actually rather difficult. I didn’t want to just throw myself down, since I was feeling rather weak all of a sudden, and I wasn’t sure I could slow my fall sufficiently. As such, I ended up jogging about a quarter of a kilometer along the ravine, until I found a steep slope instead of a sheer rock face. I climbed down into the ravine, and then started running back.

I heard the confirmations of the casualties as I ran. Of those that hadn’t reported in, all were dead. Darth Lachris had purposely not sent along any of her own soldiers, or even any of the ICCC, because she had assumed the whole thing was a trap designed by Baras to hinder her efforts. As such, the number of manned vehicles in the convoy were few, and the tanks had been operated mostly by droid autopilot. None of my men were trained to operate tanks.

I didn’t really care about the tanks, but they were a total write-off regardless. Only two of the personnel carriers were still operable. When I arrived at the scene and saw the twisted metal wreckage that had been revealed by initial efforts to unearth Snow’s vehicle, I felt a lump forming in my throat.

Lieutenant Quinn was sitting against one of the larger rocks, one arm held across his chest, holding a blood-soaked bandage against a his wound. He had removed his armor to treat the injury, and the breastplate next to him had a ragged hole blasted through its front. It also showed long, deep scratches from other shrapnel, and his helmet was also deeply scored by flying chips of rock or metal.

He was lucky that he had been wearing a full suit of armor, rather than the gray officers uniform that I had seen other Imperials wearing.

“Lieutenant, where am I needed?” I asked immediately, despite being out of breath.

“What’s your condition, my Lord?”

“I’m fine, just dealing with Force-related stress,” I replied.

“Mike’s trapped further in, under the rocks. Snow and his vehicle are just there, also trapped,” Quinn explained. “We can’t excavate, we don’t have the necessary tools. I reported the attack to Sobrik base, and the ICCC has dispatched a response team. They are five minutes out. It’s best if you save your strength in case of another attack. When our relief arrives, they can help us get our men out and escort us back to Sobrik.”

My shoulders sagged, and I nodded. I tightened my grip on my unlit lightsaber, looking towards the pile of rocks and ruined vehicles. A complete disaster. And it was my fault. I looked back towards Quinn, who had let his helm fall back against the rock at his back. I couldn’t see his face. I switched to our private channel.

“This is my fault, Lieutenant. I-”

“Now is not the time, my Lord. We can debrief later, but know this: if you hadn’t been here, this convoy would have been eradicated entirely,” he interrupted pointedly. “Please, just stay alert. We’ll talk later.”

I knew there weren’t any more contacts…the Force was no longer whispering of even the slightest threat. But, I nodded sharply and moved toward one of the jagged spires of broken stone, using it as a form of cover as I knelt down and stretched my senses out. A headache blossomed instantly, but I ignored it, falling into a half-meditation and letting the Force flow soothingly through my abused body.

I didn’t trust it to actually warn me, anymore. What if a droid assassin like HK-47 walked up to slide a knife between my ribs? Could the Force even warn me about something that was not alive? I vaguely remembered that HK had claimed dozens of Jedi lives when he served Darth Revan. It was a droid designed purely to murder Force-users.

I had once thought that droids were pathetic, barely even a threat. Like those guards in the tomb on Korriban, which I had destroyed effortlessly. Clearly, I had underestimated them.

I shouldn’t have even tried to catch the rocks at the start of this battle…that had almost weakened me enough that the commandos might have been a real threat. Indeed, a few of their shots had come somewhat closer than I’d like to admit, and if both teams had managed to shoot at me I might have died. But, they were not even close to the danger-level of the Jedi. Not to me, anyway.

They had been dangerous enough, it seemed, for my soldiers.

We did not experience another attack, thankfully. Three gunships arrived from Sobrik after four minutes or so, but it felt like an eternity. Especially, I imagined, for Mike who was trapped with half his body wedged in the crushed metal of the tank his fire team had been operating.

The gunships touched down and disgorged a team of medics and sappers. I watched as they field-dressed the injuries of Quinn, and Queen. Then, with each on a stretcher and placed into the gunship, one of the officers of the sapper team approached me.

“What’s the situation, ma’am?”

“We have two men trapped under the rocks,” I indicated the pile. “One is just there, Snow. The other, Mike, is deeper in, and he’s wedged halfway in the wreckage of the vehicle his team was operating.”

The man nodded and touched his helm. “We’ve got buried war machines, two survivors. Bring the sonic cutters, there might be punctured fuel cells.” He looked back to me. “We’ll have your boys out of there immediately.”

“Thank you,” I said earnestly, looking towards the cliffs. “I don’t sense more trouble, but we’ll keep our perimeter until we’re ready to withdraw. We should drive the remaining vehicles back.”

“We will send your wounded ahead in one gunship and escort you with the others, ma’am,” the man replied. “I’ll send the medics off at once.”

I nodded, and let him get to it. Overseeing their work was interesting. They operated like a well-oiled machine, cutting chunks of rock and then removing them from the buried vehicle in manageable sections. It took probably ten minutes of work to get Snow out of the tank, as well as the bodies of his team.

The corpses were placed respectfully in a line next to the idling gunships, and the medics who remained after Quinn and Queen were evacuated wrapped each body in a white sheet.

I watched all of this vigilantly, still extending my senses to their maximum. There was no sign of further hostile activity. And there probably wouldn’t be. A larger force laying in wait would have been easier to sense ahead of time, and when planning an ambush against Force-users it was better to act spontaneously with a limited number of live operatives. Droids were harder to sense, and better suited for ambushing Sith or Jedi. As Commander Rylon had demonstrated.

I was surprised that so many of my men had survived. Initially, when I sensed the deaths, I had assumed that all of them were dead. Including Vette. I knew that her team were bringing up the rear of the armored column, and were in an APC, not a tank. But I hadn’t been able to see the entire situation due to the dust, and I hadn’t been focused enough to sense any survivors until Quinn had spoken his orders.

That had been another mistake. I should have verified their status before flying off the handle. If I had somehow gotten injured or killed, then we all would have died because my soldiers were scrambling to catch up with me and I hadn’t been communicating with them. Even so, attacking the ambushers was the only option, even if it had left my troops under fire for a brief time.

I couldn’t have shielded them from both sides of the ravine, nor against that concentration of firepower. But two had been injured and one had been killed by the blaster and rocket fire not from the falling rock.

Mike was excavated after an additional fifteen minutes of work from the sappers, and five minutes from the medics. His legs had been nearly severed by the crushed steel, and the bleeding had to be dealt with before he could be extracted. The press of the metal had kept him alive. But I doubted that made him very grateful, consider what it had cost him.

I wanted them to evacuate him immediately as well, but the medics said he was stable enough. And they didn’t want to let us return to Sobrik without both remaining gunships escorting us, so I relented. I needed to trust the experience of professional soldiers more, rather than arrogantly forging ahead on the assumption that I could carve us out of any trouble.

The sappers spent a short time extracting the remaining bodies of my men, and we accounted for all of them. I didn’t have to ask to know that this was for the benefit of their families. With the remaining soldiers of my retinue, I boarded one of the two surviving APCs, and we returned to Sobrik. Aside from the occasional report or order, it was deafeningly silent. We were all thinking of the bodies wrapped in white that we were transporting with us.

Our return to Sobrik was unannounced, and underwhelming. Only Darth Lachris’ apprentice, whose name I didn’t know, was there to greet me, and when I saw him standing beside the military checkpoint watching our two lonely APCs returning with a critical eye, I felt a flash of irrational anger. He was the one who was supposed to have been in the ambush we had just survived. We halted, and the gunships peeled off, one to deliver Mike to the hospital in Sobrik, and the other back to its post.

I disembarked and approached the other Sith.

“We received your Lieutenant’s request for aid. He said that there was an ambush, but didn’t provide details. I see you lost the convoy.”

“And a third of my men,” I replied shortly, stopping myself from lashing out with an unwise accusation. Instead, I offered a brusque report. “Commander Rylon is dead, as are his commandos. All sixteen were accounted for in the ambush. I killed them.”

“Hm,” the man nodded his head. Then he repeated, “You couldn’t take him alive? And you lost the convoy.”

I clenched my jaw briefly and then nodded sharply. “No, I couldn’t. And yes, the tanks were lost.”

“Darth Lachris will want a full report. You should go to the FOB and check in. You’ll receive your assignment for the battle which is set to begin at any moment, so don’t dawdle,” the man ordered blithely. “Your retinue will be worthless in the coming battle without their commander. You can let them rest here in Sobrik as part of the reserves.”

With that, the apprentice turned sharply on his heel and left. I stared after him with burning eyes, then returned to my vehicle. With the sergeants dead or injured, and Quinn also injured, the command fell to one of the specialists, I supposed. Only Specialist Maow was in my APC, so I told her I was heading to the FOB and that the rest of the troops were to rest in the barracks here in Sobrik. I told her to forward that information to Quinn when he was able to receive it.

Vette commed me privately and asked where I was going. I told her I was heading to receive my assignment from Lachris and left it at that…I didn’t want her to come with me. I didn’t want to put her at risk again so soon.

After that, I joined one of the constant transports that went between Sobrik and the FOB. It was easy to find Darth Lachris there; she was bent over one of the holotables in a command center watching the deployment of her troops in the surrounding area. They were readying for the assault on Balmorran Arms, I knew. But I had been excluded from the planning of this battle due to the preparations required for leading that convoy to its doom.

“Apprentice Xanot, you’ve returned. And you seem absolutely exhausted. Did the commandos give you more trouble than the Jedi?” Lachris turned, narrowing her eyes. “Stars, you really did wring yourself to the bone! I heard you lost the convoy. While it’s a shame, we assumed that this might be the case, considering your track record with military operations. A second convoy was taking the longer route, so the battle in Possk won’t be hindered much by your failure.”

Her terse evaluation of the situation slapped me in the face. I just stared at her and blinked, before shaking my head in shock. What was I even supposed to report, then? “Commander Rylon and his men are dead.”

“Hm, I heard that as well. I suppose you couldn’t even fulfill my standing orders by bringing him alive?” Darth Lachris sneered for a moment, then shook her head. “Well, we have no time for a comprehensive debriefing, Xanot. I’ll send the reports to your master and he can perhaps use them to enlighten you. We have received intelligence showing that Defense Minister Vol Argen and Grand Marshal Cheketta are both in the Balmorran Arms factory, arriving sometime during the night. This can only indicate that they are staging for an invasion; Vol Argen would not have returned to Balmorra without receiving a promise of support from the Republic. I didn’t expect them to try something so overt here, but the pressure I’ve applied with Troida must have moved up their timetable. We’ve fought several skirmishes in the area around the arms factory, and it seems they are trying to distract us. The enemy are clearly Republic soldiers, but they are in unmarked uniforms.”

I was having trouble moving past her scathing review of my performance in the recent mission, not to mention the swift pace of the evolving campaign on Balmorra, so I could only nod my head and try to reorder my thoughts. I couldn’t remember how it had gone down in the game at all…maybe if I took some time to step through the timeline I could recall it.

“During the War, the Republic used surface hyperspace transceivers to coordinate danger-close hyperspace jumps that brought their troop transports into the thin upper atmosphere, delivering battalions of soldiers to battlefields in a devastating rapid deployment,” Darth Lachris continued. “We have detected the same transceivers on Balmorra’s surface, around Sobrik. At any moment, their transports will make the jump past my fleet in orbit. We can strike at them once they are in atmosphere with skyfighters, but it is inevitable that some paratroopers will make planet-fall. We detected their transceivers earlier this afternoon, so obviously they plan to attack before the end of the day. It is expected that they will fly whatever skyfighters they’ve managed to stockpile from the airfields at Balmorran Arms Factory before the transports arrive, in an attempt to tie up my air forces in dogfights. However, we can also hit the transports from orbit, and two of my destroyers are arriving within the hour for that purpose.”

“What kind of Republic forces are we expecting?” I wondered as yet another surprise washed over me. Shooting down from orbit at transports in the sky? Didn’t that mean that stray turbolaser shots might hit the planet?

“The Republic Army High Altitude Landing Invasion Detachment, or HALIDe, are elite mechanized infantry, outfitted with repuslor gear to arrest their rapid descent. They are shock troopers accompanied by hover vehicles, primarily tanks and fighting infantry vehicles, but they also make use of a tracked, armored bulldozer to clear landmines. They are a devastating scorched-earth battalion, not an occupation force. Their goal, no doubt, is the utter destruction of the planet’s primary spaceport. It would cripple the flow of supplies and reinforcements available to our forces, while the resistance is supplied from local factories and sympathizers from the populace,” Lachris explained quickly. “This brazen act of aggression by the Republic is a direct violation of the Treaty, and if we can prove that it is actually HALIDe then we can humiliate the Senate galaxy-wide. However, any Republic soldier you meet should be killed; we don’t have the manpower to deal with prisoners during the battle. I will take care of finding the proof myself.”

I nodded, but I wondered if that was really true. If the Republic was able to deploy soldiers like this, which were probably a hallmark of the Republic Army, then there must be support for continued warfare in the Senate. If that were true, then exposing the Republic’s direct involvement wouldn’t really be all that humiliating for them, would it? Furthermore, the Republic could just claim that they weren’t aware of the attack, and despite it being a blatant lie there really wasn’t any way to respond after they disavowed their soldiers.

Unless the Empire was planning on declaring war with this as the cause, it wouldn’t matter. But the Emperor himself was behind the Treaty of Coruscant, and I doubted he would change his mind because of Balmorra. It was Revan’s interference that had caused the Treaty, if I remembered the back-story correctly, and I hadn’t heard any rumors about an escape from Maelstrom Prison yet, so Revan’s influence was still working on the Emperor’s mind.

“What is our objective then?”

“I will be capturing Vol Argen and Grand Marshal Cheketta. No doubt there will be Jedi interlopers, but the Jedi cannot openly partake in the field battle or else they risk being publicly exposed as warmongers, which would be far worse for the Jedi Order than for the Republic,” Darth Lachris said. “Rather than letting you lose a duel against Jedi again, I’m sending you to the field. Any incursions by HALIDe or resistance forces should be intercepted by you before they can reach Sobrik. As an added measure, you should remember that what’s left of your retinue is in that city. My apprentices are also operating in the field, and the three of you will form a loose line spanning this seventy-kilometer stretch, between the outlying industrial district here and the suburb development of housing here.” She indicated the positions on the map.

“HALIDe troops could deploy anywhere around Sobrik, not just between the city and the arms factory,” I observed.

“We don’t have enough Sith to encircle the city in a defensive circle,” Lachris replied shortly. “The bulk of my forces are shoring up the other angles of attack, and the city itself. “My apprentices and you will be operating without much support, but you should be capable of slaughtering Force-blind soldiers, even in your exhausted state. Don’t let them shoot you with a tank’s main gun, and you should be fine.”

I scowled at her, but didn’t lash out. In my present condition, a shock of Force Lightning might actually knock me unconscious, and I’d rather not put up with that. Instead, I folded my arms over the standard issue commando armor I was wearing. There was something that was bothering me about her attitude today, and I couldn’t just let it go, “You don’t have to threaten me, Darth Lachris. Our goals on Balmorra are entirely in agreement, and whatever issue you have with my master does not need to extend to me.”

She eyed me closely for a long, uncomfortable moment, then barked a short laugh. “Then Commander Rylon was your target this whole time? Since the only assistance Baras provided through his informants has been about that ambush, and you killed the man instead of bringing him to me, I can only assume Baras had some reason for wanting Rylon dead rather than imprisoned. If so, there must have been something that Baras feared would be revealed by my inquisitors.”

“I won’t confirm or deny anything about my master’s schemes,” I replied shortly, amazed at how quickly she had connected the dots. Even if it was guesswork, it was scarily accurate guesswork. “I will say this, however: we are all working to resolve the matter of the rebellion here as soon as possible. Why can’t we do that without threatening each other?”

“Your master needs you elsewhere, then, and want to be released from your obligations to me as quickly as possible,” Darth Lachris surmised from my speech.

I sighed and shook my head. “Don’t put words in my mouth; I’m not trying to run off. I’m saying that I will do whatever is necessary to secure your rule on Balmorra. I think it would be better if we could work together towards that end.”

“I said at the beginning that I didn’t want you or any of Darth Baras’ operatives here, nor do I want Imperial Intelligence or the ICCC sticking their noses into my business. And you don’t really want to be here for an entire extended campaign, so there is no need to beat around the bush with each other,” Darth Lachris retorted. She aimed a finger at me. “Frankly, the time I’ve spent dealing with you would have been better spent training one of my own apprentices, and it’s been difficult to work around an unknown and unpredictable factor in my war. As intriguing as you are, for an apprentice so young and inexperienced, there isn’t any purpose in pretending that either of us is satisfied with the situation. I chose to make use of you rather than sidelining you entirely because it was better to keep you occupied doing something useful rather than letting you run freely around my planet causing trouble. Perhaps you can understand, then, why I’d prefer to be rid of you after the coming battle has concluded, assuming I succeed and we’ve eliminated the rebel leaders. Without their leadership, there shouldn’t be any need for further interference from the ICCC or Darth Baras and his organization on my planet, and I can petition the Dark Council to that effect to have all of you removed. Remember this, for when you have your own holdings: you do not truly control something if there are portions of it under the influence of other Sith Lords.”

“Isn’t that too cautious? We’re all supposedly on the same side,” I blurted with exasperation.

“No, it isn’t. I might benefit from your aid, or even from the ICCC and Imperial Intelligence. But they are not my strength. Even my own retinue is not truly my own strength, but they are at least less likely to desert me than forces which actually answer to another,” Darth Lachris lectured shortly. “It is better to have dependable strength rather than strength which will betray you, even if the former is lesser. Even though we are Lords, we serve the Empire. Not the other way around. Therefore, it is impossible to trust that the Empire will consistently act in a way that is beneficial to me. You understand, then, that as a Lord of the Empire it is preferable to muster your own armies, foster your own students, and control your own populace, rather than calling for the aid of the Imperial Army, relying on Imperial Academies, or trusting the propaganda of Imperial Intelligence. Let the Emperor have what is his, and take the rest for yourself.”

I nodded, finding no real way to controvert her assertion there. With the amount of betrayal that goes on in the Empire, it was probably also wise to be self-sufficient. Only…Lachris’ desire to be rid of me wounded my pride. It was stupid, and a bit childish, but I did admire Darth Lachris for her power and authority, and I wanted her approval. Or, I should say, I had wanted it. But, it seemed she had no interest in a friendly relationship. Not at this time.

Who was I kidding…I was a new blood, a young apprentice, nothing more than a curiosity in her eyes. I frowned and then sighed through my nose, understanding her for perhaps the first time. She did not consider me an equal. But one day, soon, I would surpass her. I wondered if I would get to see awe in her eyes, or if she would die before we met once more.

“Who will be coordinating your apprentices and me while you are in combat?”

“Field Marshal Ornstein, one of my commanders, will be assigning targets to you based on intelligence reports. You are also under standing orders to engage any hostiles you might see, and may do so without permission from the Field Marshal. However, you should make reports of your activity so he knows if you’re available to intercept reported enemy units or if you are already tied up,” Darth Lachris answered. “You should go meet him and link your comm to his network. He’s at command center besh. Measure yourself in the field, don’t overdo it. It’s going to be a long evening.”

“I’ll go at once,” I said, bowing shortly. I left before she dismissed me, but I was beyond caring about niceties.

Field Marshal Ornstein wasn’t Imperial. Or at least, he wasn’t part of the Imperial Army; he was a commander from Darth Lachris’ retinue, and a member of his planet’s military. Lachris ruled another planet known as Gala, a fact which I probably should have known. I had wondered where all her soldiers came from, and it seemed that was the answer. Her other holding had its own military.

Balmorra did, as well, but I figured she didn’t trust them nearly as much. The Field Marshal seemed like an alright sort, and he gave me some small advice before we exchanged comms. I left to get as much rest as the enemy would permit, since I actually felt like someone had rolled over me with their truck a few times in a row. Unfortunately, I was only granted an hour of light meditation before the final stages of the initial campaign on Balmorra began.

Chapter Text

I stood in the shadow cast by the star destroyer in the sky and thought of the battle of Thermopylae. “So much the better, we shall fight in the shade,” Leonidas had said, according to legends. I didn’t feel very much like that hero, though…since the star destroyer was on my side, and the impossible odds were against my enemies.

I had to admire the men who were willing to jump out of their transports under a rain of constant turbolaser fire, falling from high altitude and using repulsors built into their vehicles and armor to arrest their momentum before impact. Most of the time their ship exploded in the sky moments later, and a hail of lethal debris followed them down to earth.

Brave men. Mostly dead ones, too.

They weren’t alone in the skies, either. There were skyfighters screaming between the falling bodies and smoking wreckage in a vicious dogfight at speeds I couldn’t even begin to comprehend. The pilots of those fighters seemed superhuman to me, and in fact half of them were probably droids. In any case, those fighters sometimes had auto-targeting repeating cannons on their tails, which would riddle the falling soldiers and their armored vehicles with plasma holes. Missiles and rockets from those fighters made supersonic booms as they cut across the sky even faster than the blaster fire, striking the tanks and personnel carriers before they could land and making them into blazing spots of colorful fire.

Surface-to-air weapon banks on the tops of several mesas surrounding the city were also shooting plasma charges into the sky, and these exploded into blinding starbursts of pressurized heat which could cut a tank in half. They were fired in a widespread pattern, more than one per second, and detonated at varying altitude. It was like watching a fireworks display, except I knew that there were corpses raining down on the planet because of the light show.

Maybe it was more like a meteor shower in the early evening. Streaks of green light, blue bursts, and flashes of red flame lit up in the sky everywhere I looked. There was the repeated appearance of the oblong Republic transports above the wispy clouds followed by a disgorging of HALIDe troops. They fell, like glittering specks of dust in the dusky sky, and landed in the battlegrounds around Sobrik. Artillery thundered through the ground like the heartbeat of the planet, and flowers of fire blossomed along the horizon as the explosive shells struck the landing zones which were outside the reach of the plasma flak cannons.

I was somewhat worried that a stray shot from the star destroyer would strike the city of Sobrik or even nearby portions of the battlefield.…I had already seen several blasts hit the planet’s surface, but the ships were firing their turbolaser batteries at a low power so that it didn’t obliterate the target zone like I knew the main guns of such vessels could. The amount of destructive power in those ships was enough to destroy the entire surface of the planet in less than eight hours, if I remembered Taris's bombardment correctly.

“Xanot, contacts at one hundred eighty meters, sixty-degree bearing, headed for the road,” Ornstein’s gruff voice spoke in my ear, and I started to run.

Another group, huh? Darth Lachris hadn’t been kidding when she said the bulk of her army was on the other approaches to Sobrik. There wasn’t really anyone in my part of the battlefield other than a few sniper nests and assault droids. They were the ones making the reports to the command center. Well, them and all the spy planes and probe scouts scattered everywhere. I saw those little black flying objects flitting over the battle like corpse flies. The Imperial army was incredibly professional and operated like a well-oiled machine.

But so did the Republic’s HALIDe battalion, as evidenced by the absolute devastation their beleaguered paratroopers were causing. Every report I heard was tinged with a hint of desperation as the battles grew fiercer with every transport that exploded in the skies. The Republic was landing maybe forty percent of the troops that they deployed, primarily because they were getting eviscerated by that star destroyer. But even with only forty percent, they were nearly pushing through the defenders on the North side of Sobrik.

I couldn’t go to help them, either. I could only hope that Lachris’ battle plan was a good one, and the city didn’t get set ablaze. These soldiers would be willing to destroy most of the city to achieve their objective of crippling the spaceport; I felt that this was true in my gut.

The contacts that had been detected were moving swiftly. Their groups operated with a bulldozer-like vehicle at the front, on treads. It moved at a pace of perhaps sixty clicks an hour, digging a trench about two meters deep and wide enough for the other vehicles to follow after it. This was designed to push land-mines out of the ground and to the side, where they either detonated harmlessly or laid inert. The huge metal wedge serving as a shovel also doubled as a shield against fire from the front.

Attacking a vehicle convoy like this on foot was difficult, at first. It took me a second to come up with a strategy that didn’t rely on overwhelming use of Force power, since my entire body was aching and my muscles straining even to keep me on my feet. The battle had gone on for three hours already, and showed no signs of relenting.

I had to catch up, which required bounding leaps combined with [Force Speed]. This was the most taxing part of the battle, and it was the reason I felt like my flesh was about to melt off my bones.

This time, they had a tank in the center and an infantry fighting vehicle behind. I used [Weapon Throwing] and [Propel Projectile] to strike at the vehicles from the side with a spare lightsaber, aiming to destroy the barrels of the guns by manipulating the flying lightsaber with [Force Telekinesis]. Then I swept in close and slashed the sides of each of the three vehicles.

Hover tanks and their ilk were effective all-terrain vehicles, but the main problem with them was balance. If the repulsors on one side of the vehicle were destroyed, they lurched to that side and started to drag against the ground, which made them incapable of continuing to move. It was the same problem as the tracked vehicle, the combat bulldozer. With one of the two tracks severed, it could only drive in circles and worsen the damage, so it was forced to stop. I could have halted them by only halting the bulldozer, since the vehicles were in a trench, but I discovered after the third convoy that it wasn’t much harder to damage all three, and it slowed down the response of the soldiers inside the transports.

The soldiers would obviously pop out of the vehicles like ants from an anthill at this point, trying to kill me. Without the guns operational, there wasn’t any other choice besides battening down their hatches and trying to ignore me, but nobody had done that yet. We would dance around a bit, but they never really posed a threat. I used [Force Choke] to kill most of them, since it required little energy and was pretty effective at preventing them from accurately shooting at me. The trachea was a relatively fragile part of the body, so crushing it was almost effortless. Sometimes I’d deflect their shots back to sender, and sometimes I’d cut them down with the saber. Whatever was necessary. It took probably four minutes to destroy a convoy this way.

The largest one that had landed was six vehicles, and that had been a bit more dangerous. It had been impossible to destroy all the turrets before I was spotted, so I ended up having to dodge their turbolasers for a few seconds while simultaneously flying a lightsaber with [Force Telekinesis]. It was pretty fun, actually…like a boss event in a video game. The searing heat of the massive plasma charges as they blazed past me, close enough to be blinding in some cases, and the explosions at my back, and the rain of the soil as it was throw into the air all made my hearts race and a smile split my face.

I realized that I had not only become accustomed to battle, but actually had gone completely into the realm of the battle junkie. The sort of person that I would have thought was just slightly not right in their head, who thought of the hair-raising violence and danger of combat as something enjoyable. It was a far cry from the hesitant approach I had taken in my first forays on Korriban.

I left the wreckages of my enemies strewn across a few kilometers of the battleground. Under the twinkling light of the star destroyers’ guns, we fought on and on. I think I leveled up one or two times, actually. Probably killed nearly a hundred soldiers, maybe more. But I couldn’t keep it up forever…I was starting to get sloppier, slower, and had even been hit by glancing blows once or twice. It made me thankful I had gotten into the habit of wearing such heavy armor and shielding.

It felt like we’d been fighting for days…but in reality my day had started with the light electrocution from Darth Lachris and wouldn’t be over for more than eight hours yet. It was Balmorra’s horribly long rotation, I knew. But I couldn’t rest…couldn’t stop. Not until the danger had passed.

At long last, Darth Lachris’ voice spoke over Imperial Comms. “Grand Marshal Cheketta has surrendered. Vol Argen is dead. Victory is ours.”

There were no soldiers in my part of the battlefield. But I heard the victory cry rising up from ten thousand voices, spread across the kilometers of winding ravines and smoking ruin, echoing in voice channels and across the planet itself. In the Force, exultant euphoria blazed.

It was a wordless cry, too distant from me to really hear with my ears, but I joined it with my own ragged shout of relief and triumph, leaning back and aiming my vicious satisfaction at the ships casting shadows on the planet’s surface. The feeling in me was unlike anything I had ever felt before, heated and overwhelming in its intensity. I found myself on my knees in the dirt, with my lightsabers clipped to my belt, shoulders sagging and sudden consuming weariness gnawing at my bones.

“Xanot, hold position for now, there might be stragglers. We’ll hold for one hour, then you can withdraw to Sobrik,” Ornstein ordered. I gave him acknowledgment and settled in to wait, desperately hoping I wouldn’t have to pursue another convoy.

Thankfully, there weren’t any more hostiles sighted over the next hour. The remaining HALIDe troopers had entered a full retreat, scattering into the crevices and ravines of the Balmorran surface and using stealth fields. No enemy war machines remained operational in our theater of the war after ten minutes of the rout. I eventually was given leave to vacate the battlefield, and provided a route to follow back to Sobrik. I idly wished that they’d sent a speeder out to my position, but resigned myself to the long walk.

Reports were coming from other cities, too. The Republic hadn’t just assaulted Sobrik, even if the majority of their efforts were apparently focused on the spaceport. How many men had they committed to this attack? Two battalions? Three? It seemed to me like an absolute waste, a complete strategic failure. They must have known a ship in orbit would completely counter their plan. The least they could have done was jump in a single cruiser or a frigate to distract the star destroyer during the paratrooper drop.

I was amazed that something like this could actually happen. But it had happened — the Republic had mistakenly thought that their attack would be a surprise, and that the star destroyers wouldn’t be in position to shoot the transports. Or perhaps they thought that we wouldn’t risk shooting down from orbit into atmosphere. That was only what I could assume about their intentions, since I couldn’t imagine anyone dumb enough to think that a maneuver like this would succeed even in the shadow of a star destroyer.

I walked across the kilometers of nearly silent battleground, between the trenches that ended in smoking ruin and the wide craters left by the artillery. The road was often completely ruined, durasteel twisted into ragged edges and lifted up at the ends. Shattered developments of housing, sometimes built into the cliffs itself, were common sights around Sobrik. I hoped that the residents had been evacuated, and I didn’t see anyone in the rubble, but if they were smart, they would have hunkered down in basements or whatever shelter they could find.

Even Sobrik proper wasn’t unscathed. There was smoke rising from the city in various places, but the military checkpoints were still operational, so I knew we hadn’t lost the city. Also, I would have received orders to pull back and retake any district we had lost if the Republic had actually managed to reach the city. It had either been falling debris or dropped bombs that had caused the damage.

The first place I went was the military hospital in Sobrik, hoping to find Lieutenant Quinn and see his condition. Of course, this was probably the dumbest decision I could have made, since the place was absolutely bustling with frantic activity. Casualties from the fighting were coming in literally by the truckload. I was corralled into the line of traffic, which was being directed by administrative droids at the entrance to the massive hospital.

The building itself was a prefabricated modular construction that had undoubtedly been placed on the outskirts of the city by the ICCC when the local facilities proved insufficient. I wondered if it was something Lachris had done within the last week, or if Lysennius had been forced to build it. Either way, it was an uninspired architecture, and its interior was absolutely devoid of ornamentation.

The droid that met me, after a short time in the queue, took one look and whirred quietly. It wasn’t an administrative model, but looked to have been re-purposed in a hurry to fill the role. I imagined that all the nurses were busy, then. “Active combat unit, showing signs of fatigue, also carbon scoring on casing. Protocols indicate combat unit should move to waiting area for inspection and repair. State your designation for records.”

“Xanot,” I answered dully, knowing it was pointless to argue with a droid that didn’t have the programming for rhetoric. Besides, the medic that came to do the inspection might know where Quinn was, and it wasn’t a terrible idea to have a scan done after all the explosions, blaster shots, vibroswords, grenades, falling metal wreckage…

The waiting area was an open area filled with cramped partitions housing metallic portable benches. White curtains separated each partition, but it was still practically shoulder to shoulder with the person on either side, even if I couldn’t see them. I heard moans of pain, soft voices, and the clacking of armored boots all around me. The room smelled of smoke and kolto.

I didn’t have to wait for long before an older woman arrived with a datapad in hand and an advanced scanner in the other. She saw me sitting in a curtained-off cubicle, in full armor, her eyes widened briefly, then she scowled. “Armor off, my Lady. I can’t do a scan when you have active shields.”

“I’m not actually injured, just visiting one of my men,” I made the attempt.

“Respectfully, I’ll be the judge of that. Sith or no,” the woman retorted simply, gesturing with her device. “Armor, please.”

I sighed and hurriedly divested myself of the plates. It was a little embarrassing to stand there in the under-armor, sporting an erection from the battle — the damn thing could stick around for hours, and it wasn’t the time to deal with it — but I shouldered on with a stoic expression. I hoped it was stoic, anyway. The medic looked over me, but didn’t allow her eyes to linger. Since there weren’t any tears in the under armor, the only risk was blunt force trauma. Her scanner beeped several times, she looked at her datapad, then she shook her head.

“Just Force stress, fairly severe. You need kolto injections and a meal, immediately,” was her pronouncement. “Wait here.”

“Can I at least put my armor back on?”

“Fine, if it has kolto injector ports,” the medic replied shortly. “Then sit down. We don’t need a head injury as well because you passed out on your feet.”

I nodded, since that was eminently reasonable. Although my helmet should protect my skull if I actually passed out, my pride might not be uninjured. A droid shuffled by later, using the injectors on my armor to administer three kolto shots, then offloading a box full of Imperial travel rations.

“You are instructed to eat four of those,” the droid declared. “Optimal function requires proper nutrition. It is recommended that you also find a hearty meal in the evening, before getting a proper night of rest.”

“Thanks?” I offered uncertainly, unwrapping one of the unappetizing dark gray bars and chomping a huge bite off the end. The instant the grainy, almost sandy texture slid over my tongue I felt a yawning pit in my belly that I had been ignoring. I was literally starving, and I knew it because the ration didn’t actually taste half bad.

That’s when you knew you were really hungry.

The droid watched me eat the ration bars until the fourth one, then turned to shuffle away. “Hey, where’s Lieutenant Malavai Quinn?”

“Cubicle 451-aurek,” the droid answered immediately. “He was moved out of the triage floors earlier today, before the battle.”

“Thanks. That’s the fourth level?”

The droid responded affirmatively, and I went looking for a turbolift. But…the food and the cool sensation of kolto in my blood was making me incredibly sleepy. I yawned deeply, with a hand over my mouth, then slapped my helmet back on to hide my tired expression. I didn’t need a nurse shuffling me off to a bed because I looked a little worn out.

The lift to the upper levels wasn’t as busy as the rest of the hospital, but only by a slight margin. The upper levels were also a bit calmer, more like the usual hospital than a packed train station, which was the impression I got from the triage floors. A few droids were wandering the halls with trays, and I spotted at least one live nurse.

The room where Quinn was staying had four occupants, with curtains separating each bed. Two beds on each side of the room, and the entrance was in the middle. When I entered the room, the wounded soldiers on either side of the door seemed to jerk in their beds, but I motioned for them to relax with a hand, stepping around the curtain and finding Lieutenant Quinn sitting up with datapads and communicators scattered across a table that was drawn over his lap. His leg was in a massive metallic tube, filled with kolto and large cylindrical needles, or maybe screws, were piercing the flesh in a line on his thigh.

He’d broken his femur, then. Ouch.

His eyes rose and he blinked. “My Lord, you’ve returned from the field.”

“Yeah,” I replied. I gestured at all the electronics on the lap table. “What’s all this?”

“Just keeping myself abreast of the situation, my Lord. As far as I am able from the public channels. It sounds like the battle went well enough, at least near Sobrik,” he explained, with a wistful tone to his voice.

“Sorry you missed all the fun,” I offered lamely.

He blinked in surprise, then smiled ruefully. “I’ve learned not to yearn for the battles that I miss. There will be more, and besides, each one might be my last,” he said with an edge of dark humor. “I wish you would have taken the rest of the men with you when you deployed, but I understand they probably wouldn’t have been able to keep up with you in an open field. Not without a fighting vehicle or a tank, and Darth Lachris wasn’t likely to entrust us with any after the loss of the convoy.”

“I was practically ordered to leave my troops in the barracks,” I said, but privately I agreed with his assessment. I wouldn’t have wanted deal with protecting them during the earlier battle…and I was sure we’d have taken losses over the course of the long hours. It occurred to me how stupid it was to think of protecting professional soldiers, when it was their job to fight battles, but I couldn’t help myself.

Was this ‘too good to use’ syndrome? No, soldiers were not consumable items. Something similar though.

“How do you feel?”

“Me? I’ll be in perfect condition in thirty-six hours,” Quinn replied simply. “Painkillers and the kolto are keeping me from pain. I’m fine. You weren’t injured at all? Well, the medics would have had you in a bed instantly if you had so much as a scratch.”

“No, just exhausted. It’s been…the longest day of my life.”

Quinn nodded. I stood at the foot of the bed in silence for a long time, and eventually he spoke. “You’ve never commanded soldiers before. So, you’ve probably never lost soldiers before either. Until today.”

“It was my fault. I didn’t sense the stupid turret,” I blurted out, turning my helm away from his gaze. The knot of regret in my gut hadn’t really gone away since the ambush earlier, I had only been ignoring it.

“No one could have predicted the exact nature of that attack in the moment. Even the most powerful Sith in the Empire would have failed to provide adequate forewarning; a droid turret was the perfect choice,” Quinn replied firmly. “No, the fault lies with me. Once I had your warning, I should have halted the vehicles and swept the cliffs before advancing through the ravine. I thought that springing their trap would let us turn the tables on them more effectively, let them think they had surprised us when we really knew they were waiting for us. I miscalculated, and you had delegated the tactical decisions to me.”

“Don’t try to take this on yourself,” I snapped. “It was my mission. I was at the front of the column and I passed within ten meters of that damn turret. If I wasn’t so blind…or if I had reacted faster...”

“I was going to say,” Quinn cut me off, “that it is inevitable to suffer casualties in war. We lost good soldiers, that’s true. I served with Sergeant Petris for two and a half years. We also lost the tanks we were meant to escort to the other battleground. But we survived. We killed the legendary Commander Rylon and his commandos. I’ve lost friends and comrades before, and I’ll lose them again in the future. We cannot allow the fear of defeat, the fear of loss, to prevent us from doing our duty. I'm sure you know that well enough.”

I frowned and shook my head sharply. “I know people die in war, Lieutenant. But I refuse to treat anyone under my command as disposable. I can’t just write off the deaths as an inevitable cost of operations and ignore the fault that lies at my feet.”

“Disposable?” Quinn repeated curiously. “Well, I suppose you could apply that word, but it implies disrespect, which isn’t what I’m saying at all. All soldiers understand that they might die and be replaced. That does not mean that we, as officers, should value them cheaply, or that I would sacrifice them needlessly. I have had the duty of command for seven years. The fact of the matter is that attempting to save all the men under our command often means mission failure, as it nearly did in Troida, and failure on the battlefield typically means death. It is better in that case to rely on our subordinates to do what they vowed by oath to do, and if some of them die in the process then we go on to honor their memory in victory. I am ready to die obeying the orders of my superiors, and my subordinates understand and are prepared to do the same while obeying my orders. That is the meaning of authority, the meaning of the chain of command. I’m not suggesting that you treat that responsibility flippantly. Do you think that my soldiers resent me for the losses we sustained today?”

“Maybe,” I muttered, wincing. If their friends and comrades had died because of Quinn’s decision, from their perspective I couldn’t see how anger wasn’t a part of the grieving process.

“You don’t understand us, then,” Quinn replied calmly. “I would encourage you to go celebrate with the soldiers tonight. They’ll be at the barracks cantina, I’m sure, with all the returning troops from the field. See how they honor the dead, and how they live on in their memory. It might do you some good to relax, as well. I don’t think I’ve heard of anything that you do just for fun, in the time since we’ve met.”

“It’s literally been less than a week since we met,” I pointed out mulishly.

“Less than a Balmorran week,” Quinn retorted easily. “But that’s more than a standard week. Besides, most people don’t work themselves to the bone for an entire week straight.”

“This is a war-zone,” I protested again. “I do relax when I have time!”

“Yes? What do you do, then?”

I pursed my lips. “Well, I…there’s lightsaber katas,” I floundered, then a flash of irritation made me cross my arms. “That’s beside the point. I came around to promise that I’d do better. I might be inexperienced as a commander, but I’m not heartless or entirely an idiot. They won't catch me with the same trick twice.”

“That’s good,” the lieutenant smiled at me, and I felt that it was a bit patronizing. I wasn’t some kid, alright? Even if he was, technically, older than me. And he certainly had more experience as an officer. “We should always strive to be better. And, I’m sure, there will be ample opportunity to test our strength again in the future. However, you are exhausted, and I am injured. The battles are over for today.”

“I’ll do as you said, then, and have a few drinks with the soldiers,” I sighed, moving to rub my nose. Then I realized I was still wearing my helm, because I had been nervous to face Quinn without the visor obscuring my expression. I removed the helmet so I could meet his eyes directly. “I’m sorry about Sergeant Petris. And the rest.”

His expression seemed surprised, and I wondered if that was because I looked like someone who hadn’t slept for a week and whose face was bruised like it had been used as a golf tee, or if he hadn’t expected me to sympathize with his loss.

“We will remember them, so our victories are theirs,” Quinn said, as if repeating a lyrical phrase. “And, thank you, my Lord. If you could, you might see Sergeant Dunlass while you’re here. Just to reassure him.”

“What’s he worried about?” I asked, inwardly reprimanding myself for forgetting that there was another injured man here. Wasn’t there someone else, too? Queen was her call-sign, I think.

“He lost his legs,” Lieutenant Quinn answered, as if that explained it. Well, I could understand why someone who lost their legs would be anxious…but how was I supposed to reassure him? The question must have showed on my face, because Quinn sighed. “You really aren’t at all like most of the Sith I’ve met. Sergeant Dunlass is concerned that he will be dismissed summarily from your retinue due to his debilitating injury, and that his family will then be without the support of his pay. If a soldier is discharged without completing their term of service, the family doesn’t receive compensation like they would if he was killed in combat. There are non-government organizations that support soldiers who end up in that situation, but he has three sons, and two wives. It would be very difficult on them, no matter how much he might talk about how his wives both work jobs and they can get by. He's putting on a brave face. Vette told me what you said, about giving the men a chance to find their worth, so I thought I’d mention his circumstances to you.”

Wasn’t the guy Human? I mean, I used to be and having two wives was pretty uncommon, but that was Earth and this was certainly not. “I didn’t think…well, do Humans often have more than one wife?”

“Not the majority of us, but it isn’t unusual,” Quinn answered easily. “Some citizens prefer to emulate our Lords, you know. Also, polygamy is not entirely foreign to Human-dominant cultures around the galaxy.”

“Oh. I thought…well, anyway. When did Vette tell you what I said?” I followed up, surprised that she would have shared it and focusing intently on Quinn. He fidgeted, then winced as the movement jostled his leg.

“I asked her, before Troida,” Quinn replied, a hint of hesitation in his voice. “My men are good soldiers, but we aren't special forces. I anticipated casualties serving directly under you on Balmorra, the pace of a Sith Lords retinue and the objectives they are given are far more dangerous than counterterrorism. I wanted to know how you would handle the situation. Darth Lachris’ decision to transfer us introduced some uncertainty about post-mortem care and I wanted to reassure the troops. For those who are often at risk, there is comfort in knowing that loved ones will have support, even if it is a small comfort to those who have lost a member of their family. The Imperial Army supports those who are within its ranks, but technically being your personal soldiers, anyone in your retinue doesn't have access to the standard death benefits.”

Had Vette come to talk to me before the battle in Troida because of Quinn’s suggestion? Or had he just asked her if she knew, at some point after we had spoken? I shifted my attention away, to let him relax again. He was injured, I shouldn’t be stressing him out. “Why didn’t you just ask me yourself?”

“My Lord, it simply isn’t done,” Quinn asserted firmly. “As your retinue, we are honored to serve, and if our Lord chooses to set us aside, in life or death, then we accept that too. We aren’t entitled to your consideration, and even the support offered to widowers and widows by the Imperial Army isn’t a guarantee. They can cancel those payments at any time. If I had asked you whether you would support our casualties and their families, it would be akin to asking you for a privilege. I have done nothing to earn any privileges.”

“What were you going to do if I was like most Lords, ready to leave injured men or the bereaved to their own devices?”

“I have no family of my own, my Lord. I’ve set aside my own pay, in trust, ever since I joined the Imperial Army. My intent has always been to gain a higher rank. Eventually, that leads to service directly to a Lord of the Empire, and in that case, I wanted to be ready to do my duty to my subordinates, whether in the field or afterward, should it ever be required of me. Like I said, money from the Imperial Army doesn’t support the families of the soldiers who serve in a Sith Lord’s retinue, due to concerns about conflict of interest,” Quinn answered without significant inflection, as if waiting for reprimand. I stared at him, utterly shaken. He must have interpreted this as reproach, because he went on. “There are also situations where the standard benefits are insufficient. Doing what I can for the survivors allows me to honor the deaths of my comrades. I also didn’t expect that my Lord would care whether us soldiers died or lived and was taking necessary precautions. If I ever did marry, I'd like the trust to be a safety net for my own family as well as others.”

I opened my mouth, hesitated, and closed it. This was by far the most admirable thing I had seen thus far from anyone in this universe. “Quinn, that’s…incredible,” I finally said, looking at him intently again. I couldn’t help it, really. “Are you supporting many families, just off your own pay?”

“Not alone,” Quinn replied. “There have been…good friends, in the past, who left their assets entirely to the trust when they died in battle. We served together for a time, and they were in similar positions, without any notable family-members of their own. They had said it was their joy to know that they could stand beside their comrades even in death, so we came up with the plan to use their pay and mine for the trust, and mutually agreed to leave our assets to it in the case of death. There's a list of trustees that will take over, but the whole thing is managed in detail by the banks. There are currently thirteen beneficiaries, men and women who were injured enough that they couldn’t complete their service to the Empire. And there are three families who were too large to live off the Imperial Army’s compensation alone, so the trust supplements them.”

I had to look away again, because Quinn was starting to fidget. I wasn’t sure how to express my amazement, so I simply nodded my head thoughtfully. There was the possibility that Darth Baras wouldn’t allow me to use the funds he provides me to support the families of my soldiers. For that matter, how was I supposed to pay the ones that were actually still in fighting form? What was their usual wage? Was the pay I received actually mine to use for whatever purpose I desired?

So far, I had only used it to buy munitions for Vette, armor, weapons, food, water, and other supplies. Also, the stipend from Baras wasn’t enough money to support so many people’s needs even without considering wages. I’d have to ask for more, just to feed my soldiers.

“We would have needed to sort this out, soon,” I started, tapping my chin thoughtfully. “Darth Baras is my source of funding, and he has ordered me not to seek alternative income sources without his permission. At the moment, I don’t have the funds to even equip and supply your platoon, let alone to pay them wage or support the families of any casualties. Darth Lachris transferred your platoon without consulting Darth Baras, and I don't exactly have a steady income. I’ll have to ask for more money, and I don’t know if Darth Baras will oblige. As such, I don’t actually have the capability to offer pay or benefits for my soldiers, at least not at this time. Your weapons, ammunition, food, and other needs have been supplied by the ICCC so far, so it hasn’t come up as a concern, but I imagine that will end when we leave Balmorra.”

“I see,” Quinn said tiredly, and his head dropped slightly. “In that case, there wouldn’t be any point in your visiting Sergeant Dunlass.”

I almost hissed with sudden fury that he would dismiss my promise so easily. I caught myself, trying to understand his perspective. After all, Sith Lords were clearly in the habit of abandoning their soldiers when they were needed. I let anger at the state of the Empire burn in me for a breath, then I cleared my throat in a sound that was far more like a growl than I had intended.

Quinn had started, raising his head and looking at me with wide eyes as I held his gaze. “Lieutenant, allow me to say this: the fact that it is not standard practice to care for wounded soldiers in the Empire is incredibly tragic, whether they are Imperial Army or retinue soldiers. I understand that the Empire values usefulness, and that my fellow Lords take that principle to its extreme. While I admire and reward competence and strength, what I also value is honor and loyalty. I said as much to Vette, that many would call it useless sentiment. I don’t consider it useless. In fact, what you chose to do with your pay as an officer is an inspiration to me, and I imagine the certainty that you have in the loyalty of your men, even if they might have lost close friends today due to our failures, stems from the fact that they know of your exemplary character and can depend on you.

They understand that you, as their superior officer, will do what is honorable, and that you will repay their loyalty with a loyalty of your own. As one who will be a Lord one day, your actions teach me that loyalty is not only in one direction, not only from the subordinate to the master. You said that you had not done anything to merit this, but I disagree entirely. Loyalty, especially on the battlefield, is not something that I am simply entitled to because of my rank. It is something that you offered by oath, and which I accepted when I became your superior. Therefore, the way I see it, you and all your men are in fact entitled to commensurate loyalty from me. I will make this a vow equal to the oaths you swore as soldiers: those who serve me will in turn benefit from my protection. That protection even extends to the risk of financial ruin due to injury sustained in battle. I will not neglect this duty; I am only explaining that it might take time to find the practical sources of funds.”

The man seemed stunned, and silence fell. I shuffled my feet, suddenly a little nervous. “What room is Sergeant Dunlass in?” I asked softly.

“He’s in 613,” Quinn answered, equally quiet.

I glanced around at the curtains obscuring the other wounded. “He gets his own room?”

“The surgery was…invasive,” Quinn replied, frowning. “I think that they have him monitored closely for complications. They wanted to do a kolto immersion, but he refused it on account of the costs, saying a slower recovery was fine for one who wasn't going to be back out in the field.”

“Then, is it alright to visit?” I hesitated.

“Even if they try to prevent you, you should insist that you at least talk to him,” Quinn said. “He was…very concerned about things, when I spoke to him before surgery. Not that he'd really show it. You…if you only say to him what you just said to me, and if your actions follow your words, then you’ll have not only his undying loyalty, my Lord, but also my own.”

“I’ll get going, then. We had another injury, is she doing well?”

“She was released after kolto treatment, though she should be wearing a sling for the next twelve hours,” Quinn replied at once. Despite his own injury, he had remained up to speed with the status of his troops, and even spoke with Sergeant Dunlass before the man’s surgery.

I marveled at Quinn’s dedication for a moment, then nodded to him. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

I didn’t specify what I was thanking him for. Quinn looked a bit confused, and I left after that. I hadn’t intended that as merely ‘thank you for your service’ or any other platitude…but more as thanks for the fact that he was the man that he was. Someone that I was surprised to find that I held in the highest regard, after what I had heard.

In the game, he had seemed almost petty…a man consumed by his personal ambition to gain rank and distinction, a man who was bitter from the wrongs of his prior commanding officer, and one who was patriotic but who had been deeply injured by the Empire. He was also a traitor and had owed himself entirely to Darth Baras for a favor that the Lord had done him in his past.

Reality, it seemed, was entirely different.

Sergeant Dunlass was hooked up to no less than three different monitors, with cords and tubes extending from the stumps of his legs, which had been severed nearly at the hip. The surgery must have cleaned up the site of the injury, made it a straight cut instead of the crushing, tearing wound that would have resulted from the twisted, crumpled armor of the tank that had folded around him like it was made of paper.

The nurses did advise me not to stress him much, and said that he was drugged pretty heavily, but no one actually ordered me not to enter his room. So, I opened the door and stepped inside, watching as his eyes opened blearily in answer to the sound.

I choked up when his eyes widened and I felt his fear in the Force. “Sergeant, it’s alright,” I rushed to soothe, but I couldn’t continue. What the hell could I say to a man in this situation?

I didn’t know him. I wasn’t his friend or a long-time comrade. I was just the Lord that had been handed authority over him. I could easily be blamed for getting him into the clusterfuck in the valley, and if I were in his shoes, I wasn't sure I'd be very happy about the whole situation.

I thought back to the conversation with Quinn, cleared my throat a bit, and stood at the side of his bed. “Lieutenant Quinn told me that you had concerns about supporting your family, due to your injury,” I started, somewhat stiffly. “I want you to know that I won’t abandon you to a discharge without pay. I wasn’t expecting to gain command of soldiers when I arrived on Balmorra, so I don’t have the means at the moment, but I can promise you that you won’t be left without support indefinitely.”

The big man was blinking at me, and I saw a slight tremble in his shoulders. “W-why?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do. I answer loyalty with loyalty,” I answered him simply. No need to make a big production of things, I felt. Besides, I should keep this short. “I don’t really know how military regulations and such are handled, but even if you’re discharged from my retinue, you can contact Lieutenant Quinn or Vette, and we’ll get things sorted out for your family.”

“My Lord, you…you don’t have to,” the Sergeant murmured. “My wives have work, small jobs…we could get by, probably. Some of the others, the ones we lost, their families aren’t in that kind of position...”

“Then I’ll care for them too,” I replied immediately, gently interrupting. “The Lieutenant and I are united in this. We’ll figure out how to get it done. It’s not only about need, it's about my duty. You fought for me, for the Empire, not just for the pay, but because it was your duty. The very least I can do, then, is guarantee that I will not forget about you just because you aren’t fighting on a battlefield. The Empire isn’t just a war machine, Sergeant. It’s…well, I’m just saying that anyone who’s serves under my command can rely on my vow: that I answer loyalty with loyalty. As I said before.” I stumbled a bit over my words, wound up repeating myself, so I stopped. Took a breath. “So. Don’t worry about that, Sergeant. Just get well and return to your family, alright?”

There were tears on his cheeks, and I politely looked away. You had to give a man some dignity. “M-my duty isn’t over?” Sergeant Dunlass breathed questioningly. I looked back at him, fearing a misunderstanding, but there was awe on his face. He repeated the words thoughtfully, “The Empire isn’t just a war machine? I…my Lord, what do you mean?”

Shit, I should have stopped talking after the first sentence. I shuffled my feet and wracked my brain. “Well, most of the Imperial citizens aren’t soldiers,” I started, slowly. “They are people living their lives, doing their jobs. Working a profession. Raising a family, or whatever else. Are these people without duty, simply because they aren’t soldiers? As citizens of the Empire, don’t we all share common cause, and are we not united by principle? Well, maybe we aren’t. And, well, I think that’s tragic, Sergeant.”

“Ah,” the man sighed in some form of understanding, seeming to settle wearily against the pillow with his eyes drooping. That was pretty concerning because I wasn’t even sure what I had meant my speech to imply. Something about how nations need good people or a platitude like that. He seemed to find hidden meaning in it, however, and this was highly concerning. “Aha.”

“Well, I’ll let you rest now,” I declared into the awkward pause. “Remember to get in touch if you need anything.”

I was given a nod, and with that I left. Once the door was closed, I shook my head a bit, rubbing the bridge of my nose. What was I even saying? Common cause? United by principle? It was hogwash. The Empire was an amalgamation of conquered peoples, living under a tyrannical noble class who endorsed rampant violence, slavery, and which treated the people like they were an inconvenient side-effect of power. Where was the common cause of such a nation? What principles are shared between the conqueror and the conquered?

But there must have been a reason that the Sergeant had signed up for the army in the first place. Where had Quinn gotten his notions of duty from? There must be honor, somewhere…maybe it was buried in the Imperial culture, largely ignored or set aside. But if that were true, it could still be recovered.

I left the hospital deep in thought and stopped in the middle of the streets. My quarters were in the FOB…but I had said I would go and celebrate with the soldiers, right? So…I pulled up Vette’s comm and waited for the connection.

“Master?” her voice greeted me curiously as a small figure appeared over my wrist.

“Hey,” I replied. “I heard the troops usually celebrate after a battle. Where are you all?”

“There’s cantinas on main street,” Vette replied brightly. “You should come! The music is a little…generic, but the drinks are great! Balmorra makes a weird mead.”

“I’ll head over, just ping me your location,” I said, relaxing slightly at her smile. A moment later I received the direction of her command started walking. I was still tired, but a stiff drink actually sounded like just the thing, after everything that had happened today.

Chapter Text

“Apprentice Xanot, where, exactly, have you been?” Darth Lachris asked me, as I blinked wearily and somewhat drunkenly at my wrist communicator. It wasn’t the usual method of communication while I was wearing armor, but my helmet was currently…somewhere. I needed to not have a visor in order to actually drink, after all.

The blue figure had its arms crossed and a glare was on the cute little face. Wait, no…this was Darth Lachris. Not a cute little face, then. Was this something I should be sober for?

“Cantina?” I answered, the nice comfortable buzz of the strong alcohol fading quickly. That had taken a lot of effort to get, by the way!

I had discovered, after a few toasts to our fallen comrades, and a few more to commemorate a victory, and then even more for surviving that victory, and then yet more just because we all wanted to drink, that my [Dark Regeneration] skill, or something else, was making it very difficult for me to get drunk.

It was only Vette and her squad, so Arty, Tack, Bones, and Rye. We were in a booth in a dimly lit cantina, which seemed to be filled almost to bursting with exuberant soldiers from the day’s fighting. People were shouting, laughing, crying, dancing, and generally carrying on in extravagant fashion, and the mood was infectious to say the least.

Having arrived in full body armor, with my weapon still at my hip, I felt my presence initially killed the mood. But that didn’t last long once I’d removed the helmet and had chosen a seat beside Vette in the booth.

“Ma’am, respectfully, what the kriff?” Tack, the lightweight, had asked me directly gesturing up and down at my armored body. “Is that business casual? There’s protocol to follow! Post-battle shower, man, you never skip it!”

“Tack, that’s not a squaddie, that’s a karking Sith!” Arty had exclaimed, shooting me an apologetic glance, but I’d just laughed and waved it off. Once the ice was broken, a drink had been shoved my way, and the rest as they say was history. Well, the last hour or so was a bit of a blur, to be honest.

“A cantina, is it?” Lachris asked me, bringing my mind back to the present moment. “Which one?”

“It’s on main street…everyone’s here,” I answered easily, tipping back my glass again to get the buzz back. I also tried to tap a button on the wrist, missed, and tried again. It sent my location over comm. “You should come on down. We’ll toast to victory!”

“Wait, Xanot, no! That’s…” someone said at my side but I put my hand over their face and mushed them to the side so they wouldn’t appear on the holocomm.

“It’ll be great!” I continued.

“You’re drunk,” Darth Lachris deadpanned.

“Not nearly drunk enough,” I replied without missing a beat. “Is this a Force thing?”

The woman on my wrist palmed her face, then a mischievous grin wound up on her lips. “I suppose I can take a half hour. I’ll bring my apprentices to meet you officially.”

“Yay!” I clapped my hands together, but this of course meant I couldn’t actually see Lachris, so I had to calm down. I got the distinct impression that Lachris was rolling her eyes before she hung up.

“Are you crazy?!” Vette popped up at my side after shoving my hand to the side, cheeks flushed. Even the tips of her lekku were a bit of a dark indigo, which was very cute. I bopped her nose with a finger on impulse.

“Yep,” I said brightly. “Crazy for you, anyway.”

Nooo, that was super lame! I groaned at myself and took another swig of the mead. More alcohol was needed to recover from this.

“No, I mean, what? That was Darth Lachris! You know, the boss lady?” Vette threw her hands up energetically. “Scary, short lady!”

She was also a little drunk. I don’t think Vette normally would have called any Sith Lord, ‘scary, short lady’ under any circumstances, even if the scary, short lady in question wasn’t even in earshot. Also, Vette may have been focused on the fact that Darth fucking Lachris was coming to have drinks with us, but Tack and the others had heard my ridiculously embarrassing pick-up line.

Tack guffawed, looking at me from over the top of Vette’s head. He was against the wall, and the other three were across the table. “You need to work on your lines, Ma’am!”

“She does not!” Bones cut across sleepily. He was a dreary drunk, and honestly had spent more time laughing and drinking than speaking so far. “She just says, ‘you, there’ and who would say no?”

“Not everyone gets fear boners, Bonesy-boy,” Rye interjected explosively, then his eyes widened and cheeks darkened. “Err…no offense, Ma’am!”

I waved my hand frantically, face warming not only from the alcohol. “You heard the girl, ‘scary, short lady’ is Lachris, and I’m ‘scary, big lady.’ No offense taken.”

“That’s right!” Vette chirped in agreement, raising her drink as if in toast.

“Did she say Her Excshel-Excell-you-know is coming? Here?” Arty bumbled in from across the table. He’d gotten a lot drunker as the night wound on. “Woah.”

“Yeah,” I replied, realizing suddenly why this might be a bad idea. “Wait…yeah, maybe…”

“Are you crazy?!” Vette ejaculated again, leaning up towards my face. Her alcohol-tinged breath wafted over my cheek.

I didn’t go for the same cheesy line, thank fuck. I retained some self-control. Instead I just shook my head and grumbled under my breath. “Probably.”

I was feeling a lot less drunk by the time Lachris and her two apprentices actually arrived. I knew they were here because their arrival was like getting dunked in cold water, Force-wise. The trio were in dark robes, but without hoods. Lachris was at the front, and she had a man at either shoulder, both taller than her by a good margin. The one I had met before looked thunderously annoyed, and the other was dismissive of the entire locale.

“There’s our erstwhile apprentice,” Darth Lachris exclaimed, approaching our booth with a teasing grin on her face. “Who would have thought Darth Baras’ protege was a drunken sot?”

“I am not!” I protested immediately. “This is for the good of troop morale!”

“Well, you make a much better actor than I thought, then,” Lachris remarked casually. “This is my Apprentice, Tannon, you’ve met him once before. And this is Apprentice Rierdon.”

“How do?” I greeted them, spreading my arm in invitation. “Sit, sit! Plenty of room, right guys?”

The other members of my table were staring, but they did shuffle to make room for the trio of Sith Lords to slide into the booth. It was a bit cramped. Darth Lachris sat next to me, and her two apprentices squeezed onto the opposite bench, unhappily, next to my three soldiers. The booth was not intended for a party this size, but the soldiers were happy to squeeze together to make room.

Well…maybe not ‘happy’ per se, but they didn’t complain at least.

“You’re still wearing your armor…and there’s blood on it,” Darth Lachris observed archly. “That’s no way for a Lady to behave, Xanot.”

“Oh, what?” I blinked in surprise, looking down. “No, there isn’t!”

“Yes, right there,” she poked at my forearm, and I realized that there was actually a tiny smear of dried blood on the bracer. How had she even seen that in the dim lighting?

My perfunctory reply was, “Shit.”

At this, one of Lachris’ apprentices snorted. He drawled with clear disdain, “You couldn’t even remember to clean yourself up?”

“Wanted to see Quinn,” I answered with a shrug, finding the bottle containing my Balmorran mead distressingly empty. I clapped it down on the table and reached for the datapad to order another. I was intercepted by Lachris, who deftly lifted the ‘pad out of reach.

“That local swill isn’t befitting a Lady, either,” she said, tapping away. “There. I’ve gotten you a proper blood-wine. Only a pureblood could enjoy that. I can’t do anything about the armor, unfortunately.”

“Master, that’s cruel,” Tannon remarked with a wicked grin. “Taking advantage of a drunk and a subordinate. You know nobody likes that drink except purebloods.”

“’M not really very drunk,” I inserted petulantly. “Apparently, I can’t get really drunk.”

“Is this just another side to your usual foolishness, then?” Darth Lachris questioned.

“What foolishness are you talking about?”

“You were ordered to return to Sobrik and stand in reserve while our soldiers concluded their sweep of the surrounding area,” she replied. “This does not qualify as standing in reserve, even if you are armed.”

I scratched the bridge of my nose. “Nope, Ornstein just said ‘return to Sobrik.’ I’m in Sobrik.”

“You saw Quinn?” Bones slurred, interrupting us. It seemed his attention had been caught and he momentarily forgot there were four Sith Lords at the table. “The Lieutenant? How’s he?”

“He’s fine,” I replied kindly, realizing I hadn’t actually given them a status update. We’d rather gotten right down to business, and they’d already been a few drinks deep when I arrived. “So is Mike. Recovering from surgery.”

“Ah,” the soldier slumped back in the booth with relief. The others raised their drinks my way in thanks, then one of them burst into another remembrance. It was hard to tell who, exactly, once everyone else joined in, drumming on the table or their chests in a short tattoo that ended with a unified cry.

“Remember the fallen, those who have died before us, for our victory is theirs!”

“HUAAAH!”

They all drank a large gulp of whatever was on hand, including Vette. My drink was empty, so I missed it. Pouting, I turned away, only for Vette to shove her drink at me with a wide grin. I took a sip of the slightly sour mead and returned it with a grateful squeeze of her shoulder.

“That’s the convoy you lost?” Rierdon asked, leaning forward. “I didn’t hear what happened there.”

“Fucking ambush,” I replied easily, tongue loosened by the large amount of alcohol I had consumed. “They dropped a fucking bridge on us.”

“And you didn’t sense that coming?”

I focused a bit and glared at him fiercely. “It was a droid turret, under a stealth generator, with a camo-net. Inert plastic explosives were in the rock above, no detonators. No transmitters, either. Commandos in stealth fields, on the cliff tops, armed with rockets. I sensed the commandos, not the turret in the ravine. Quinn knew the attack was coming, but we didn’t know about the explosives in the rock above. Walked right into it, the plan was to turn their ambush against them, but the turret fucked us hard. Would have been you, Tannon, but Commander Rylon was mine.”

“That’s why you sent her in my place, Master?” Tannon asked directly. I bit my tongue, having said too much, and felt Lachris’ amusement at my side. Lachris, for her part, didn’t audibly confirm or deny it, which might save me a scolding from Darth Baras, but probably not.

Rierdon blinked, frowned, then crossed his arms over his chest. I felt him thinking over my description, coming to the realization that it would have been incredibly difficult to get out of that situation unscathed, and then he nodded. “Ah.”

“Yeah,” I relaxed a bit, shaking my head.

“She lived,” Darth Lachris remarked. “Failure is a step on the path to victory, as long as we survive. Ah, here come our drinks.”

A tall bottle with an elegant neck was handed to me, filled with a deep red liquid. I popped the top and was hit by the strong smell of something savory-sweet. And alcoholic. Strong, too. Tentatively, I raised it to my lips and sipped it. It wasn’t thick, like I had expected of something called blood-wine. Rather, it seemed silky smooth and light. The flavors burst on my tongue, full of metallic tones and rich, fatty notes. Then the sweetness and the alcohol lingered, as it slid smoothly down my throat, coating it like honey. I couldn’t help it, taking another, larger sip.

“This is very good!” I exclaimed after I swallowed, lowering the bottle lest I attempt to chug it all down in undignified fashion.

“Of course you’d think so,” Tannon groaned in disgust. “Pureblood, is it? I thought you might be a hybrid.”

“Oh, she is, not that blood-wine is enjoyed only by pureblood Sith,” Lachris interjected smoothly. “There’s just a very strong Sith influence in this specimen. Enough to qualify her as pureblood, I’d say. So, Xanot, you like the blood-wine?”

“Whose blood is it?” I asked her bluntly, hesitating before my next swig.

She laughed. “It’s not sentients’ blood, Xanot. There’s a certain creature from Korriban, the Blood Bat, a bloodsucking predator. Ancient Sith hunted it as a delicacy and used its blood in a ritual drink, and in their alchemy. They eventually learned to ferment it with alcohol and other reagents so the blood wouldn’t rot, coagulate, or otherwise become unappetizing. Today, the beasts are raised in farms and blood-wine is made in factories, and it isn’t often used in rituals or alchemy, but that’s the legacy.”

“Okay, bloodsucking bats that feed on what, exactly?” I pressed.

“Well, whatever they can hunt, naturally,” Darth Lachris replied with a cruel smile. “In ancient days, often it would gave been the blood of Sith explorers or fallen warriors which sated the hunger of the Blood Bats, but these days its usually nerfs or other cattle beasts. Subsequently, the ancient rituals don’t work with modern Blood Bats, since there’s no power in the blood of a nerf.”

I looked at the bottle again, figuring the same source was probably used for the blood pudding that I had liked on Korriban. Or maybe that had just been some cattle beast. I shrugged, deciding I didn’t care, and took another swig of the blood-wine. I wasn’t going to let the alien concept turn me off of a good tasting drink.

“You’re gross,” Vette chimed in from the side. “Like, yuck.”

“Just for that, you get to taste it,” I replied, offering the bottle.

“I really wouldn’t recommend it,” Tannon remarked bemusedly, though he didn’t do much to stop me as I offered the elegant bottle.

“Go on, I order you to taste it,” I insisted.

Vette rolled her eyes and took the bottle of blood-wine in her hands, turning it over in a roll, watching the drink slosh against the glass. It clung to the sides a bit and ran in rivulets around the bulbous end of the bottle. I thought it looked like a magic elixir.

Then she squeezed her eyes shut and took the smallest sip of all time, gagging immediately, and shoving the bottle back my way so energetically it almost spilled. I squawked in protest, swaying with the momentum to keep the drink in its container.

“That’s absolutely horrid!” she exclaimed, chasing it with her own drink in a long, double gulp.

“Hn,” I mused, drinking the wine enthusiastically. The difference between taste buds for different species was a fascinating thing, to me.

I felt Darth Lachris leaning up and obligingly dropped my ear. It was a little amazing how hyper-aware I was of her presence, considering how clear it rang in the Force, and I hadn’t even had to look at her to realize she wanted my attention.

“I’m curious,” Darth Lachris began, quietly enough that only I could hear her due to the music and general ruckus. “Have you taken that one to your bed already?”

I choked on the wine I was sipping, setting the bottle down and clearing my throat. I properly looked at her, keeping our faces close for a private conversation. “Uh, what? I mean, no?”

“Really?” Lachris’ eyebrows went up. “And why ever not?”

“What do you mean, ‘why not?’” I retorted, loudly enough that Rierdon gave me an odd look from across the table. Tannon was engaged with Bones and Arty, so he wasn’t paying attention. I calmed myself and repeated the question in a softer voice.

“You obviously desire her,” Lachris continued, looking dignified and aloof as she drank whatever it was that she had ordered. “So, what’s the problem?”

“She’s…I’m letting her choose.”

“Choose? You mean you won’t ask her directly because she’s your slave?” Darth Lachris determined my thoughts immediately. “And you’re really so blind that you don’t realize she also desires you? You’re worrying over nothing, and frankly that’s a stupid reason to hesitate in the first place.”

“Why do you even care?” I replied, fidgeting uncomfortably. I was getting mixed signals from Lachris. She was all, ‘I don’t like you or want your interference on my planet’ one moment and then she goes out of her way to teach me useful things. She seems to almost flirt in one conversation, then in the next she’s verbally castigating me for mission failure.

I couldn’t get a good idea of her opinion of me, to be honest.

“Well, I just thought it was curious that you’d keep her around, flirt with her, equip her, protect her, and then in the final stretch you’d fail to act on your desires,” Darth Lachris explained. “Are you a Sith or not? Command her. Make your desires a reality or forsake them. Believe it or not, aimless pining does not make a passion. Despite your inexperience and the failures in battle, you are a promising apprentice. It’d be a shame if you burnt out and became miserable because you couldn’t enjoy yourself from time to time.”

I sat up, shaking my head. Darth Lachris was the last damn person I’d have thought might open up this conversation. “Why are you here, anyway?”

“You invited me,” Darth Lachris replied easily. “Is my presence so offensive?”

“No! Well, you didn’t have to come,” I answered at once.

“I won’t stay for long,” she replied. “My apprentices weren’t eager to meet you, but I thought it would do them both some good, to see how you comport yourself with your own people. They might not like you, but they could learn from your attitude — they have been exposed too much to the usual pompous Lords in the Empire. More of us should learn that there is a time for callous actions, and there is a time for a softer touch. You’ve taken to leadership like a fish to water.”

I sighed, a bit too buzzed to give this conversation the proper focus. “Whatever. I don’t get it, but I guess it doesn’t matter.”

“For you, it certainly doesn’t,” she answered easily. “Also, I’m allowed to celebrate. This planet is mine, and there’s precious little left but to solidify my rule in the coming months. I love it when a conquest goes as smoothly as this. Though, the ICCC laid much of the groundwork, I’ll admit, I do have to thank you for the part you played in it. You were here for your own reasons, but that’s the way it always works with Sith. I’d tell you to remember that, but now isn’t the time for a lesson.”

“Congratulations,” I offered, raising my glass as I pulled away. Reentering the wider conversation was probably necessary, before the rest of the table started to wonder what we were whispering about.

“To Her Excellency!” Rierdon joined in. He rose his voice energetically with a lopsided grin, “To victory!”

“To victory!” nearly the entire bar roared in return to his shout.

We carried on, after that, sometimes a bit awkwardly, and other times with good humor, until the three other Lords had finished their drinks. At that time, Lachris stood, and everyone else did too. I followed, belatedly remembering my manners.

When Her Excellency stood, so did the rest of the table, even at a casual event like this.

“We’ll leave you to your merriment,” Darth Lachris announced. “But some of us have work to do.”

“Alright,” I nodded my head to each. “It was nice meeting you two.”

Lachris leaned forward a bit, and I ducked down so she could speak into my ear again. “I can tell you’re the sort to act on good advice, but don’t expect you can just have flagrant sex at the military base. Nobody would actually complain, because you’re Sith, but they’d all think a little less of you for disrespecting the unwritten rules. The soldiers keep those activities out of the barracks for a reason, so get a room somewhere in Sobrik. I won’t call on you until sunrise, but do try to actually sleep at some point. You feel like a giant bruise in the Force.”

I fidgeted embarrassedly, waving her off. She hid her laugh behind her fingers and led her apprentices away. When I slumped back into the booth, Vette suddenly grabbed my arm.

“What were you two whispering about?” she asked exuberantly, her face close to mine.

I looked into her eyes for a moment, opened my mouth to make an excuse, but actually said, “You wanna get out of here?”

“Eh?” Vette’s brow furrowed in thought. “What d’ya mean?”

One of the soldiers whistled and wiggled his brows suggestively, I think it was Arty. I only saw it out of my peripheral vision, since I was focusing on Vette, so I couldn’t be sure. I also saw Bones gesturing at Vette and myself as if to say, ‘see, I told you Ma’am just had to point and ask!’

I nearly closed my eyes in exasperation, but instead chose to hold Vette’s gaze. “I mean, let’s get a room together. If you’re down, I mean.”

Vette was still a little confused, and so Tack popped his head up from where he’d buried it in his arms on the table, tapping her on the shoulder with an apologetic glance my way. Vette held up a finger and pushed it towards my face as if to say ‘hold that thought’ and leaned back, while the man whispered near the cone of her ear. I wasn’t sure what he actually said, but it was probably a crude way of informing her, ‘the lady wants to fuck you.’

Vette’s face darkened down to the tips of her lekku. She sat up again, her eyes flitted towards me, then she gave a series of small, jittery nods. “Y-yes!”

Something in me, the part that had been nervous of rejection, loosened up and I laughed, sliding my arm under her head-tails and over her shoulders. I swept my eyes over the troops, before tapping at the datapad. “I paid the tab, but feel free to keep celebrating.”

“Aw, Ma’am, you didn’t have to,” Tack exclaimed with a grin. “Now we gotta keep drinking, spend our hazard pay, yeah?”

I shrugged at him and tugged Vette out of the booth. She staggered when we stood, one of her hands catching on a plate of my armor. Hm…the armor was a bit out of place in this setting, huh? I tucked her against my side and set about exiting the premises, but it took some jostling to get out of the packed cantina. Once we were standing side by side in the street, I still had to find a room for the night, and I didn’t have my personal datapad, so I had to use my armor’s computer. My HUD threw up like ten different options within several blocks, and I picked one that had a decently priced rate, fiddling with the wrist controls to make the purchase.

The key to the door was sent to my pad once I paid. I had no idea where the credits came from, because I certainly hadn’t set up my personal account on the armor…or maybe I had, at some point, without realizing it? Whatever, I’d check in the morning.

“Where we goin’?” Vette asked, hugging herself.

I peered at her for a moment, then removed my helmet again. “Not far. How drunk are you, really?”

She blew a raspberry at me. “Not that drunk, Master. Slowed down once you got there.”

I intertwined our arms and started walking. Vette leaned against me again, despite the armor, and I found myself smiling, even as my belly tightened up with nervous anticipation.

“I worried, you know?” Vette said suddenly. “During the battle. We were all around a radio, in the barracks. Waiting for news about you. Tack was mad you went out there without us, but I told him an APC wasn’t really suitable for tank battles, and we aren’t a tank crew besides. I couldn’t believe they had you tackling armored convoys by yourself.”

“Did you hear anything interesting?” I wondered.

“Yeah,” Vette said. “That you smashed a lot of tanks. We didn’t keep count. The public channel only gave their reports with a delay, but we heard a kill report for each of the convoys you intercepted before they could get into the Sobrik outskirts. I knew you were alive, when we heard the kills confirmed in the real-time feed. Once victory was announced we all went to the bar, then the other squads went to have a private remembrance for their fallen.”

I felt warmth in my heart and looked over and down. “I also thought you died, in the ambush earlier today. I kinda lost my shit.”

“We saw,” Vette laughed, but it was tense. “Your scream rattled our vehicle’s armor, and then you were flying through the air like a bullet. We froze up, and I think Quinn’s going to scold everyone for that once he’s up and kicking. We should have returned fire instantly to keep them off you.”

I hummed…but I wasn’t going to admonish anyone for freezing up during that clusterfuck. I’d also missed opportunities to make the right call, to take the right action…we might have all survived, if I had been faster, been better. We walked in companionable silence, reflecting on the day’s trials and drawing comfort from the nearness of the other.

Or, at least, that was what I was doing. I hoped Vette felt the same.

We arrived at the hotel, and it was just an apartment-style complex with a droid at the front desk to check access keys. I presented the room key I had been sent on my wrist’s holoprojector, and was directed to the sixth floor via the turbolift. The lift was empty, but even if it wasn’t, I figured whoever was inside would have vacated it quickly when they saw my armored bulk, covered in signs of recent battle.

The cool air and the short walk had taken the edge off the blood-wine in my system, and when we reached the room and stepped inside I realized I really had been somewhat buzzed, since there was only one bed here. I mean, I was actually intending to have wild, crazy monkey sex with Vette, but a second bed might have been a good idea anyway. If she wasn’t a cuddle-bug, for one thing, or if we made a colossal mess. That second thing was actually not an ‘if’ but a ‘when.’

“Why’d you show up in your armor, anyway? Even Lachris and her boys thought it was weird,” Vette asked, separating once we were inside.

“I went straight to Sobrik from the field. Those were my orders, but I didn’t realize it meant to join the reserves. I went to the military hospital, first, got a routine check by the field medics, then saw Quinn and Mike,” I explained. “Quinn suggested the cantina, actually, he said I should watch how his men mourned their dead. I’m glad I listened to him, it was fun.”

Vette nodded, then ran one hand down a lekku nervously as silence stretched between us. “I…um, I was feeling bolder earlier, and…”

Suddenly, I undid the clasps on my armor and started removing the plates. Vette had trailed off and was staring as I unequipped the armor, finally standing in just the black, skin-hugging undersuit. I rubbed the back of my neck, under the looped knot of my silky black hair. “Sorry, I thought I’d be less intimidating without all the armor. What were you saying?”

Vette met my eyes as I stepped towards her, slowly, and she grasped the collar of her uniform with one hand, straightening up. “N-nothing, I’m just nervous, and being silly, and you’re really scary and hot and…”

I leaned down and kissed her, lightly. Vette squeaked in surprise, then met my kiss enthusiastically, and after a moment my tongue brushed her lips. She leaned up as her own tongue met mine tentatively.

Vette had a taste, which was unexpected. I mean, kissing people could leave a taste, depending on what their breath was like or what they’d been eating lately. This wasn’t the aftertaste of the drinks, though. It was the taste of her own saliva. Like…a slight sour note, a bit like citrus, and a little bit sweet. I was surprised enough that I pulled away and blinked at her, finding Vette flushed and breathless, with her hands on my belly as if to steady herself as she leaning upwards and forwards. Her eyes blinked open as well, and I noticed her tongue dart out to lick her lips.

“You taste good,” I remarked.

Vette blushed even harder. “D-don’t say stuff like that!” she exclaimed, thumping my arm.

I teased, “Are you embarrassed, Vette? Didn’t you taste me too?”

“Yes,” Vette replied, sliding her arms around my back and embracing me. I noticed she was smelling me, breathing in deep through her nose. I hadn’t showered after the battle, either. In fact, I had no idea if there were blood or other unsanitary things on the undersuit.

I gently disentangled myself. “Sorry! I, uh…I should take this off. It’s probably dirty.”

“What, why?” Vette asked, hugging herself again. “I mean, won’t you be naked then?”

“That’s kinda the point,” I replied with a salacious grin. Then I cleared my throat. “But, uh, also I should have cleaned up after the battle, and I probably smell…”

“Oh!” Vette’s blush was going to become a permanent thing, soon, if it didn’t lighten up. Her lekku curled up slightly in visible mortification, just at the ends, then flopped back against her shoulders as she ducked her head. “You noticed that? I-I wasn’t…I mean, you don’t smell!”

“I’ve noticed you wrinkling your nose in the past, when I’m all sweaty,” I soothed with a shrug, unzipping the under-armor. “I don’t think it’s a bad smell, personally, but I usually wash after sweating, just because other people might find it off-putting.”

“I like it!” Vette exclaimed suddenly, wringing her hands. “It’s not…a bad smell, I mean. Don’t worry about it.”

I stared at her, halfway out of the body-armor. Huh. Was that a particular fetish of hers or an indication that my body odor was actually not offensive? I wiggled out of the under armor completely and kicked the undersuit over to the rest of my armor, looking down at my body for signs of grime. Like dirt, machine oil, or whatever else might have accumulated from the battle. Remarkably, I found nothing that had made it into the seams of my armor and through the underarmor. Well, perhaps that wasn’t very remarkable; it wasn’t as if I’d been bathing in blood.

My hard-as-steel cock had flopped down and twitched in the air in front of me. Oh, right…I’d gotten so used to ignoring erections that I had hardly realized that I had been sporting this bad boy for hours now. After each battle, it would go down a bit, and especially during the long walk back to Sobrik, but the atmosphere of the cantina and Vette being so close in the booth, plus alcohol which unexpectedly seemed to excite…well, the results were obvious.

“The armor might be dirty, anyway,” I muttered, again, feeling a bit exposed being the only one naked. Vette peeked at me and then squeaked again, covering her eyes with her hands.

“Oh my stars! That thing is huge, Xanot, what the kriff?!”

I laughed, prowling closer to her silently. I couldn’t help it, if she was going to hide her eyes then I would take the opportunity to get closer. It was like a biological instinct. “Yep. I mean, there’s probably a bigger one out there somewhere…it’s not breaking any records,” I answered, pausing to tap my chin in thought.

“Um, yeah, on rancor beasts, maybe! That thing is totally not going to fit inside me,” Vette blurted, peeking through her fingers and stiffening when she found me within arms reach. She tried to step back, slightly, and I looped my arms around her to corral her. It seemed her words caught up with her, too, because she looked ready to spontaneously catch fire.

“Relax, Vette, it’s just me,” I soothed, brushing my hands down her back, then back up. One of her lekku fell over her back as her head tipped up for a kiss, and I ventured to brush my fingers over that, too. Her whole body shuddered, and she suddenly pressed up against my breasts, sliding her arm around my back.

“S-sorry I’m so nervous. ‘M not skittish about sex, you know? You’re just…you, and I know you’re not gonna hurt me, but my hind brain isn’t quite convinced,” she whispered, giggling breathlessly and breathing in my scent again. I could tell when she did it because it made her take a long inhale, and her whole body moved with the breath. I wondered what I smelled like, to her perceptions.

Whatever it was, it seemed to arouse her. And that realization was really hot.

“That’s okay. It’s cute. Besides, you’re not the only one who gets a little nervous under my attention,” I replied easily. I had realized that this was an effect Sith purebloods could have on most species who didn’t have a lot of predatory ancestors. Or it might be the Sith Lord thing again, but I’d put my money on a little of column A and a little of column B. “We’ll go slow and steady, and I’ll taste every inch of your delicious body. You’ll relax when you cum on my tongue, I’m pretty sure.”

“Xanot!” Vette exclaimed in a high voice, jerking out of her unease at my lewd words, and I kissed her when she gaped at me, delighting in the taste again.

“Doesn’t that sound hot?” I breathed against her lips when we parted. My hearts were racing, and I was still a bit nervous that this was going to end up being more awkward than I expected, but I was ready to forge ahead at full speed. Vette was practically panting, so I wasn’t seeing any red flags. “Don’t you want to have your big, scary lady between your smooth thighs? Wanna sit on my face and put your hands on my tits while you ride my tongue?”

Vette whined low in her throat, squirming back and forth. “M-Master, I didn’t expect you to talk so dirty!” her high, thin voice exclaimed, and I laughed, low and wicked.

“Yes, I’m actually a huge pervert,” I agreed. “So, how about it? You’re so cute in that uniform, but we can’t get started until you take it off.”

Vette just breathed in my arms, laying her head against my breasts, for a few moments. Then she pulled away, biting her lip. Her lekku were squirming constantly at the ends — I figured they weren’t entire prehensile — and her eyes were such a deep, cloudy blue that I could get lost looking at them. Had they darkened with her lust?

“Your eyes are so beautiful,” I found myself saying, blushing slightly when I heard myself. I was better at raunchy talk than pure flattery, so I continued, “Do they get darker when you’re hot and needy, Vette?”

Her hands stilled on her uniform, and I cursed myself for not waiting until she’d undressed. Her glared at me half-heartedly, then sighed through her nose. “Don’t tease me so much!” she snapped, trying to be angry but failing.

“Sorry, love,” I giggled, moving towards the bed and sitting down. “I’ll wait patiently.”

Vette took her time disrobing, laying her uniform on the floor by my armor, and she even left her panties on as she walked towards me, one arm over her pert little tits to hide them from my devouring gaze. She seemed really small, naked as she was, and I was leaning forward as she slowed her steps, swallowing visibly.

“Y-you looking at me like that, with really scary eyes, makes it hard to get any closer,” Vette said carefully.

“It’s because you’re so sexy,” I answered, feeling like the Big Bad Wolf. I laughed at myself and looked away from her, with effort. “Sometimes I can’t help but look.”

“Feels like you’re going to eat me,” Vette muttered past a nervous titter, relaxing slightly when I wasn’t putting my full attention on her. Her small steps were closing the distance, now, and I could hear and smell her coming nearer.

I purred, blushing as the sound tumbled out and sounded really close to an actual large cat, and said, “Oh, I’ll eat you right up. Won’t you come a bit closer?”

“Stop acting like that!” Vette scolded playfully, laughing more genuinely, and she did skip a step closer to me.

I couldn’t wait any longer and nabbed her in my arms. She squealed in surprise as I lifted her up, falling backwards with her in my embrace, and settled her on top of me while I laid on my back, looking up at her. Vette wiggled, turned her hips, and ended up straddling my belly.

“I’m not so scary, see?” I teased, letting my heated gaze sweep over her body from my vantage point below. My hands slid up her naked back, feeling how incredibly smooth and cool to the touch she was. Vette squirmed the entire time, swaying a bit forwards and backwards.

“Yes, you really are. You’re doing it again, too,” she replied, meeting my eyes briefly and then closing them as she shuddered in my grasp. “S-super scary eyes, Master! I can’t look!”

“Does it make you wet?” I husked, chuckling darkly. “I think I feel your wet panties against my belly. You’re completely soaked, aren’t you?”

Vette instantly raised her hips off me, but one of my hands dropped back and pushed her ass down, so that her panty-covered pussy scraped over my muscled abdomen. Vette groaned deeply, eyes popping open as a deep blush swept down her lekku and even to the tops of her breasts. Her hand had dropped to catch her before she could tilt forward, and it fell onto my right tit, where her fingers dug into the soft flesh as if seeking a handhold.

It also revealed her own cute breasts, which jiggled slightly as her hips rocked.

“M-master…that’s so embarrassing…”

“Rubbing your wet twat all over me, look at you!” I continued. “You can use my name, at this point. Or does it make you even wetter to call me ‘Master’ while your dribbling all over my belly?”

“S-stop teasing…” Vette pleaded breathlessly, her dark, dark eyes so wide and glistening. Her lips were parted and I guided her in a slow rut, dragging her pussy against me again and again. “O-oh! Ahhh, Master…that…”

“Feels good?” I asked rhetorically. “I bet it does, you naughty thing.”

“Unf, Master! Please…please, won’t you just get on with it?”

“Get on with what?” I wondered wickedly, still moving her hips with a hand on her tight ass. She was muscular and lithe, my Vette. A warrior and a delectable little thing, too. I licked my lips again, feeling blood pounding through my ears like I was in the heat of battle once more, the aches and weariness momentarily forgotten.

“W-with what you said before!” she exclaimed, grabbing both my tits and kneading them firmly. “You said…”

“Oh? You want to put your sopping wet pussy on my face, Vette? Wanna grab my tits and ride me until I make you cum in my mouth?” I growled, digging my fingers into her ass. “Well, come on then. Take off your panties first.”

Vette trembled as she rolled to the side and hastily peeled the valiant article of clothing off, kicking it to the side and crawling up my body again. My greedy hands started sliding over her when she was in reach again, and with a final hesitation Vette swung a leg over my head and scooted into position. I husked a breath against her dripping sex, the cutest little pussy I’d ever seen, and Vette trembled.

She smelled amazing, and I was sure that would make her blush to the tips of her lekku so I took an obvious, slow sniff, feeling her thighs tensing on either side of my face when she heard me.

“Well?” I teased, voice muffled between her thighs. “What are you waiting for?”

Vette groaned and finally pressed herself down, while I opened my mouth and met her lower lips in an obscene, open-mouthed kiss. Her hands actually grabbed onto my bountiful breasts hard enough that it did hurt, a little, but I just growled softly in response and swept my tongue harshly against her while her hips bucked forward in what seemed to be a completely involuntary twitch.

“UUUUgh, kriffing - M-Master you-!” Vette practically howled, squeezing me with her thighs and pulling her pussy up and away, where it continued to drip onto my lips from a few inches above. Her saliva had tasted good, and her pussy tasted better. I’d never thought of something that tasted like pure sex, before, but this was the flavor that I’d forever associate with it now. A completely sensual taste, like the blood-wine but not nearly as sweet. There was bitterness and savory, a taste filled to the brim with life, very similar to blood. But it had no metallic tang, and there was an added softness to it, something almost flowery and gentle and utterly female.

“You’re not going to cum already, right?” I teased, smacking my lips loudly. “Bring that tasty snatch back here.”

“Your tongue! Master, your tongue is so…”

When she hesitated I lifted my head from the mattress and lapped at her to get at that taste, filling my mouth again, and Vette humped herself down in response, groaning like a wounded animal. I smiled against her pussy, reaching above my head and grabbing her dainty feet in my hands as I pressed my tongue against her and dragged it through her folds. I couldn’t tell exactly how, just with my tongue, but I was pretty sure that the anatomy of her sex was somewhat different from the Human norm.

The main thing was that I couldn’t find a clitoris, and that was frustrating. My tongue dug harder against her, probing up and swiping down in a harsh searching pattern, but alas.

Her toes curled, and I pressed the soles of her feet with my fingers in a stroke, listening to her sigh and groan and knead my titflesh like it owed her money. Her taste got stronger, and her pussy was gushing wet, almost like she was cumming on my tongue time and time again. Something I was doing was making her happy, then. I smiled, dug my nose between her ass cheeks until it touched the absolute cutest, tightest little asshole I’d ever seen and dragged my tongue deeper than I had before until it reached the base of her slit. Then I thrust it inside, feeling some strong muscle groups squeezing around my wriggling tongue.

Vette howled like a wolf baying at the moon, thighs shaking, and sprayed my chin, neck, and chest with clear ejaculate, her back forming an arch as her voice caught and then she grunted softly, scooting her hips back to drag her slit over my lips, then a second spurt of her cum splattered across my cheeks. I tilted my mouth and fastened it over the source, which might have been her urethra, and my mouth filled instantly even as I dragged my tongue over it again and again, swallowing in rhythm.

Vette’s legs kicked, her body turned, and I was forced to release her pussy with a wet pop, swallowing the slightly acrid bounty of her juices. She had fallen to the mattress, shaking like a leaf, and I purred again as I rolled onto my side, crawling up her prone form, over her heaving chest.

I couldn’t help it. I kissed one of those pert little nipples and swirled my tongue around it, feeling as Vette pressed herself upwards at my touch.

“N-nooo, stop, stop…sensitive!” Vette cried, pushing at my face with one hand. I growled softly, grabbing her wrist, but I did release her nipple, sliding a leg over her thighs and leaning down so we were face to face. I was so much taller than her that I couldn’t straddle her waist, and I didn’t put my weight on her at all, instead resting mostly on my knees and using core muscles to lean forward.

Her eyes, somewhat unfocused, met mine. “You got cum all over my face. Tastes good, too,” I said with the largest smile I think I’d ever worn.

“S-stop teasing…oh my stars, that was…your tongue…”

“You were saying something about that, weren’t you? What about my tongue?”

“It’s so rough!” Vette exclaimed.

“Is it?” I wondered, kissing her collarbone, then licking at her neck lightly. “Is that why you came like a fire hose, Vette?”

She mewled, her free hand sliding up my side. I nipped her skin and she yelped. I laughed against her. “I loved it. You can sit on my face anytime you want.”

Vette blinked a few times, catching her breath. I took her wandering hand and put it with the other one, above her head, where I held both against the bed. “Um…Master?”

“Yesss?” I sing-songed, kissing down her neck again.

“I, um, you’ve got my hands,” she said.

I raised myself up, looking at her face. She blushed when she saw me, and I knew it was because I was still glistening wet from her orgasm. “That’s right,” I replied, feeling her testing the grip I had on her. I wasn’t holding tight, or really very securely, and I was sure she could escape if she wanted.

“Can…can you let go? Please?”

Hearing a tinge of something I didn’t like in her voice, I released her and planted the hand against the bed for support instead, brushing her cheekbone tenderly with my other thumb. “Better?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Vette relaxed, looping her arms over my neck. She babbled a bit, before cutting herself off with a nod. “I just…it’s better not to feel restrained. I mean, it doesn’t really make any sense, ‘cause I’m not going anywhere, but…thanks.”

I could imagine why; there were probably bad memories associated with binds for a former slave. I hummed, kissing her jaw in mute apology, then her lips. She gasped softly and arched against me, her body pressing against my hanging breasts. I tilted my hips, my cock laying against the tops of her thighs, and couldn’t help but thrust it slightly forward, against her smooth skin.

I pulled away, sliding my fingers over a head-tail that was stretched out above her on the bed. “Your lekku blush, too,” I said. “I never noticed that before. I should make you blush more often, I think.”

“It’s embarrassing,” Vette whined.

“Everything is embarrassing to you,” I teased her. “Even when we met, my reading the manual on Twi’leki got you all flustered.”

“Hmph!” she huffed, pulling me down for another kiss. When we parted, I slid my cock forward again and gasped at the sensation. Her eyes widened and flicked down between us, but I knew my tits would have obscured her vision. They were rather obstructive. “That really isn’t going to fit! I mean, I blurted it out and wanted to melt into the floor, earlier, but, um, it’s actually, probably actually true?”

“Really? I mean, we could always give it a try anyway,” I mused, grinding it gently against her. “You’re so wet, I couldn’t imagine it’s a problem of lubrication. I should have bought some, anyway…you never know when you might need some help getting into a tight spot.”

“N-no!” Vette hissed in utter mortification. “That’s not…you’re teasing me again, aren’t you? It’s…I mean, your just really…”

“It’s not that crazy long,” I continued in a laughing voice. “You’re a tough girl, right? I think you can take it all.”

“Master!” Vette sighed, squirming with her arms around my neck. Her hands slid into my hair and dragged blunt nails over my scalp. I purred again, sliding myself against her faster. She was so smooth…so refreshingly cool to touch…so soft…

I grunted in surprise and tensed, feeling an orgasm strike me like lightning. I gasped, and kissed Vette’s neck before exhaling, feeling the powerful jet of cum from my cock splatter the undersides of my breasts and then drip over Vette’s navel and thighs. She gasped, arms tightening.

“What…did you just…?”

“Ooooh, Vette, you’re so fucking sexy,” I groaned, the short orgasm ending far too soon. “Mmm, are you sure you want to stop now? Since I won’t fit in your tight little pussy?”

“You just came all over me!” Vette exclaimed, as I sat up and beheld the splash zone. Both our bellies were glistening with thick semen, but Vette got the worst of it. Long strands of white cum covered her abs and even her tits. Her nipple looked delectable, with my cum danging from its hard point.

“Yes,” I agreed, swooping down to swirl my tongue around that nipple. Tasting my own cum again was well worth the sound Vette made in response to this. “I did. Did you think I can only go once?”

“M-maybe…”

I chuckled darkly, sitting up fully so my aching cock could twitch before her wide eyes. I stroked it slowly, watching her cheeks darken. “I guess you didn’t get the owner’s manual on Sith, then. I’ll keep you guessing.”

“Master, you’re such a dork,” Vette exclaimed, laughter in her eyes. She looked at me adoringly, and I smiled down at her.

“How do you want it, naughty girl? Wanna get on your hands and knees for your master?” I husked, since she kept calling me that I figured she must think it was hot. I was still stroking myself while her eyes dropped and became fixated on the sight. “Or you can lay on your tummy and I’ll mount you from above. We’ll work this cock in that wet pussy from that position, for sure, don’t you worry about a thing.”

“I’m surprised you talk so dirty in bed,” Vette giggled, only a few traces of her nervousness remaining even under my intense scrutiny. She was shuddering and touching all the cum on her body with a tentative hand. “It was so hot, like caff or something…”

Vette raised her finger, with a single dollop of thick cum on its tip, and teased out her tongue, hesitating with our eyes meeting, before popping the frosted digit into her mouth. Her eyes fluttered closed, then she sighed, rubbing herself and arching her back. “Woah, that’s…weird…”

“What was that?” I asked slowly, feeling like my cock was about to get a marker and a cardboard sign to stage a strike if I didn’t get on with it and stick it inside this sexy minx.

“I just wondered…since you smell so good…” Vette sighed, realizing what she was doing and starting to blush. “Well, it does taste good, weirdly.”

“Does it, now?” I asked, leaning down. I didn’t really think so, but to each their own.

“Yes?” Vette affirmed, slowly and questioningly.

“Want some more, then?” I breathed against her lips.

“You mean…”

I pecked her lips in a light kiss, then sat up and walked on my knees until I could drop my cock on her chest, between her modest, cummy tits. “It’s all yours, Vette.”

My cock still had a string of viscous white cum dangling from its point, and it throbbed visibly when Vette looked upon it, her cheeks flushed. Her eyes widened, and she blinked slowly, her tongue darting out again to lick her lips. If it were possible, I would have gotten even harder at the sight of it. “Can…can you lay down and I’ll get between your legs, then?”

I nodded quickly, rolling to the side and spreading my thighs to make room for her. Vette crawled into place and sat on her heels, looking down at my throbbing cock intensely, almost hungrily. I purred deeply and folded my hands behind my head in leisurely, indulgent posture, smiling wide.

Vette looked up at me and guffawed. “Really, Xanot?”

“Go on, now, drink your fill,” I urged, flexing my abdominals and watching as my cock bobbed in response to the flush of blood. It also drooled that big fat drop of cloudy cum onto my glistening belly. Vette’s small hands finally, blessedly, touched my cock and tried to grasp it. I say tried because she couldn’t wrap her fingers all the way around it.

“There’s no way…” Vette muttered, biting her lip and squeezing her thighs together. I smirked as she absently started tugging at my cock, squeezing it as if testing its hardness. A groan worked its way out of my mouth after a short, quick motion from her, and she giggled, leaning forward slightly and twisting her hands as she worked my shaft. “Like this? I’ve never had a Sith before…”

“Holy shit, Vette…” I breathed almost desperately.

The girl slid a hand down and fondled my balls, gently and curiously. Her fingers lifted each heavy nut up, testing their weight, and then her face dipped down, legs sliding back. I watched, wide-eyed, as she pressed her nose against my balls and breathed in greedily, while holding my cock against her face like a hot bottle of water.

“MMmm, that’s…it makes my head feel all fuzzy, Master…” she moaned, ass swaying in the air behind her while her other hand worked my cock up and down, up and down.

That was more than good enough for me to cum buckets. I sucked a breath in, her name on my lips like worship, “Vette!” and then my balls clenched against her pursed, kissing lips. Her head popped up in surprise, hand slowing briefly, and then a fountain of thick cum burst from the tower of flesh before her, traveling above her head in an arc, and then falling in a line directly over her nose and forehead. Some of it probably landed on her back.

Without pause, Vette shifted forward and sealed her lips around the pointed head of my cock. She sucked, hard, just as the second throb of cum began, and I literally questioned in that moment if my soul had left my body. My whole frame seemed to jerk, and Vette’s eyes widened comically as an absolutely obscene load of heated cum blasted to the back of her throat like a cannon shell. She whined questioningly, the whites of her eyes showing despite how large her pupils were, and how dark her irises had become, and I couldn’t stop myself as my hands rested on the base of her lekku. Her eyes focused on me, slightly panicked, and I practically begged her silently to forgive me, but I felt completely out of control of myself.

I didn’t pull her down, I wasn’t that far gone. Still, the third rope of cum that was delivered basically splattered out from the imperfect seal of her lips and dripped like syrup down my length, over her stroking fingers, and even over my clenching balls. Vette’s other hand left my nuts and tapped my thigh, not quite frantic but getting there, and so I released her head reluctantly, watching as she jerked up, swallowed a huge gulp of cum, and then gasped for air at the same time as another copious blast of my nut batter was jerked out of me by her working hand, smacking into her chin and splattering over her boobs in a grand display.

“Kriffing hells, does this thing ever stop?” Vette exclaimed in a wet, half-choking voice. Because my cum had been poured down her throat. I groaned at the thought and my orgasm sharpened to almost pain.

It was over shortly after that…my orgasms were always shorter than I would have liked them to be. But, since I got to have so many all in a row, it was probably worth the trade-off. I smiled like a complete idiot, basking in the hazy afterglow, a rare feeling that intensified all sensation and which was edging me towards a follow-up performance very quickly, before raising my head and looking at Vette, who was now not only covered in cum from the neck down, but also had strings of cum dangling from her chin and a smear on her face.

She hadn’t stopped stroking, either. Good girl, that one.

“You’re so fucking hot,” I praised, sitting up with my cock throbbing between us. Her hand followed for a second, reluctantly parting with my heated flesh while she pouted up at me.

“How are you still hard after that?” Vette asked faintly, smacking her lips in a way that made me audibly groan.

“Vette, even if I had needed a short rest, you sitting there smacking your lips after swallowing my cum would have made me hard so fast you’d have missed it if you blinked,” I informed her truthfully. “But Sith don’t really go soft, is basically the answer to your question. At least not in any reasonable amount of time.”

Vette laughed cutely, swiping at the mess on her face. “Gods, I’m a total mess.”

I bobbed my head in agreement. “It’s really hot. So, how about my earlier question?”

“Huh?” Vette looked at me again, after scooping a bunch of cum into her hands.

I purred, leaned close, and teasingly kissed her, light as a feather. Sure, I might have got some of my cum on my lips, but how could I resist? She looked good enough to eat, right now.

“How do you want it? On your hands and knees? On your back? Or, on your belly?”

“I mean…it’s really not gonna fit, Master…not too long, but that’s like twice as thick as the biggest I’ve ever had,” Vette insisted half-heartedly.

“You know just what to say to a girl, Vette.”

She huffed bemusedly. “We can try it, I suppose,” Vette decided, falling back and rolling over. She pushed her ass up in the air, spread her thighs, and waved her ass a me like a flag of surrender, while her chest remained on the mattress. “Come on, then, you can really stretch me out from this position. If you break it you buy it, though.”

“And you called me a dork,” I scoffed with amusement at her joke, eyes fixated on the prize.

Her pussy had a long string of her wetness dangling from it, and her thighs were smeared with visible evidence of her arousal. I practically started drooling at the sight, moving closer and sliding a hand down her back as I leaned over her smaller frame. Her lekku were laid over her shoulders, on either side of her ready position, and I stroked them too, pressing my heated length against her sex and sliding my hips forward in a long drag until it was hot-dogged between her ass cheeks. Then I leaned forward until my breasts rested on her shoulder blades, supporting my weight with an palm placed beside her head.

“So confident that I won’t fit in here, hm?” I whispered, sliding my cock through her pussy’s lips in a slow movement, greasing up the length of it with her absolutely drenched sex.

Vette whined, squirming a bit and bunching her hands in the sheets. It occurred to me that she might be right, since it was possible that she knew her limits a lot better than I did, but I sincerely hoped that this wasn’t the case. I also didn’t want to hurt her, so I continued sliding against her even though I figured she was quite well lubricated already.

Eventually, I couldn’t hesitate any longer, and I shifted my hips back a bit to make room, reaching between us with a hand to align myself properly. I spread her folds with the tip of my cock and slid in an upward, searching pattern, sinking slightly at the proper place but immediately finding resistance. Vette’s breath caught. I stilled, poised at the entrance, and felt a tingle run down my spine.

The pointed shape of my cock was coming in handy, here. It didn’t have a fat head, but gradually widened to its full thickness, and this made insertion smooth if not easy. Gentle pressure, and a massaging stroke of my hands over Vette’s shoulders as she stretched, and stretched some more. Her face turned to the side with a gasp, deep blue with a flush, and her mouth worked for a moment. Centimeters of forward progress proceeded agonizingly slow, her tight snatch wringing my cock like it was attempting to strangle it. Vette’s face was frozen in a jaw-dropped expression of surprise.

“M-Master, that…!”

“Does it hurt? That’s as fat as it gets, you know,” I breathed worriedly, now holding utterly still. Despite every single cell of my body begging my to shove down into the squeezing sex before me.

Vette’s fists were balled so tightly I thought she might rip the sheets. She didn’t respond, for a moment, and then seemed to relax, just slightly. “N-no, just go a little slowly at the start.”

“See? I told you it would fit. Well, we’re almost there,” I purred proudly, relieved, resuming a forward thrust, gradually grinding more and more of my meat into her snatch. Vette groaned soul-deep, sweat glistening on her back, and I sat up a bit so I could taste it in a kiss between her shoulder-blades. I mean, her saliva and her pussy tasted good, so I figured it couldn’t hurt to try. It was just like regular sweat, though. A bit salty, a bit bitter.

“Is it in yet, damn it all?!” Vette suddenly cursed, lifting her head slightly and looking back at me.

I was about halfway, maybe slightly more. I rubbed her shoulders gently, guiding her to lie down again, and moved my hips in a slow, stirring circle. “Halfway, love.”

“Oh, kriffing hells you said it wasn’t that long!” Vette exclaimed before she started mumbling, grabbing a pillow and screaming into it for a moment. I took the opportunity to feed the valiant pussy another inch of cock, and it was then that I bottomed out, feeling a slightly harder surface against the tip of me. When I brushed into that, Vette jolted and her hands reached back towards me frantically, so I pulled back.

“T-that…” Vette panted, looking back. “Not that deep yet.”

Not yet? I didn’t know what to make of that, and frankly the unbelievably tight vice-grip of her silky tunnel on most of my cock was going to be more than enough to milk me dry, so I wasn’t at all disappointed if I couldn’t go balls-deep.

“What does that mean?” I breathed against her neck, ever so slowly drawing myself back.

“S-stretch me first, break me in!” Vette managed to beg breathlessly. I growled softly at this idea, leaning a bit more weight on her shoulders and widening my stance. “Angle it down, go slow!”

Listening to her, because there was the species distinction and she ought to know what was best for her, I raised my hips and on a more downward thrust slid forward to the earlier depth, and this caused Vette to scream into the pillow again, legs trembling and toes curling. Her lekku also curled at the ends, with an interesting spiral of blushing color starting at their tops and heading to the ends. I traced that with my fingers and watched goose-flesh spread over her back.

Another slow thrust along the same path, where I paused just because I was on the very brink and wanted to last. I knew I could just keep fucking after I filled her to the brim, but the desire to extend these moments remained. Unfortunately, I was also pretty tired, not exactly working with perfect muscle control, and on the next downward thrust I lost my conviction and gasped softly, dropping my tits onto her shoulders and shifting my arm closer to her neck as if Vette might try to escape.

There was no way that was happening…I wasn’t even sure she was coherent at the moment, but even if she had tried to slide away I’m pretty sure my lizard brain would have taken the wheel and pinned her down until she was thoroughly inseminated.

Regardless, my balls clenched up and my cock throbbed. I purred, feeling Vette jolt as the first of what would be many loads of hot cum splashed into her belly, deep enough that it was probably right up against her womb. Even though there were still a few centimeters of me left still to find a home in her.

“I-inside me, Master? Ah! That’s hot…” Vette’s shaky voice started, then I drew back and thrust forward with the second pulse of cum and she shuddered with me in orgasm, unable to speak more.

I laid wet kisses on her lekku, on the back of her neck, and then whispered against her skin, “I should have asked, first. But I don’t think I could pull out every time I cum, I think your pussy is determined to milk me dry.”

Incapable of speech momentarily, Vette couldn’t really respond to that. I sawed in and out in a slow rhythm until our orgasms ended, and at this point I reared up and stared thrusting at the previous pace again, savoring the heightened sensation while rivulets of thick cum were squeezed past our joining to slide down her spread thighs.

“We’re…lucky…” Vette grunted, turning her head so I could hear her, “that I listened to that doctor…”

I paused with amusement, thinking back. Doctor…what doctor…oh! “What? On Dromund Kaas?”

Vette nodded, pushing her ass back insistently. I must have slowed as I tried to recall the doctor she was talking about. “Don’t stop! Yeah, the family practice. He assumed…whatever, doesn’t matter, just go faster, please!”

“I thought you wanted it slow, Vette?”

“Just until you stretched me, then I-Yesss, Master, just like that, harder!” Vette practically screamed, meeting my thrusts in a short and swift rutting that quickly resulted in another blinding orgasm for me. Vette was insistently humping her ass towards me even while I started dumping more cum into her pussy, so I continued thrusting, if a bit unsteadily due to the sensitivity and the fact that my brain was practically sizzling with pleasure.

It was unbelievably good. I felt like a man dying of thirst who was finally drinking water. “Vette…your pussy is so fucking tight…”

“Yeah?” she huffed breathlessly. “Not for long!”

“MMM, fuck!” I agreed, driving into her at a good place, gradually deepening each thrust. I varied it every now and then, pausing deep inside so she could clench around me, or drawing out more slowly, adjusting my angle. I noticed she almost had me taken to the root, and continued with her earlier recommendation.

I was going to cum a third time, but Vette was talking gibberish and I was worried. I slowed and bent low, putting my ear by her lips.

“Ruined, kriffing thick cock, so hot….just stopped? Hey, don’t stop now!”

“You good, there?” I wondered, rubbing her shoulder.

“Just kriff me more, I’m still cumming,” Vette retorted shortly, licking a bit of drool from the corner of her mouth.

“Wanna change it up? Roll over so I can kiss you and watch your orgasm face,” I suggested.

Vette moaned desperately. “Kiss me and kriff me? I’ll cum again, Master…”

“That’s good, let’s do that,” I decided, sitting up. Vette tried to turn over without letting me slip out of her, but this didn’t seem possible, not unless she could do the splits, which I wasn’t about to try in the heat of the moment. Eventually I just pulled out, watching as long gossamer strings of cum dribbled out of her packed pussy onto the mattress.

Definitely going to be a bit messy, trying to sleep in this bed after.

She rolled over bonelessly and spread her legs in wanton invitation. “Get back here!”

“As my lady commands,” I quipped, sliding forward while her legs wrapped around my hips possessively. This angle was different, and we both gasped in delight as her fucking delectable pussy practically milked my cock in a rhythmic squeeze. I saw a slight bulge in her belly as my balls squeezed against her ass, and our eyes met. “Look at that, you took the whole thing. I knew you were a tough girl.”

“I’m going to regret that in the morning,” she offered dryly. Then she bit her lip and arched her back as I dragged my cock out of her squeezing cunt, pausing with the gleaming wet shaft almost entirely removed. “I’ll never be the same after this.”

“You think so?” I sighed, driving back into bliss with a sudden clap of flesh on flesh and listening to her sigh of pleasure. Her arms raised up in invitation.

“I deserve a reward. Didn’t you promise me a kiss?”

“Hm. Yes, I think you’re right,” I chuckled, bending low. I had to arch my back to meet her lips, but it was a deep and lovely kiss. The utterly sinful sound of her thoroughly seeded sex being impaled filled the room as I shifted forward and transformed missionary into mating press. This meant I couldn’t actually kiss her for very long, but she needed to breathe anyway so that was fine. Her face ended up somewhere in my cleavage. Vette giggled and latched on to a nipple, which instantly caused me to cum buckets.

“Oh, fucking — Vette!” I breathed, feeling even my breasts throbbing with the force of this one. Her hand found my other tit and pinched that nipple, pulling it like she was milking a cow, and while I couldn’t see her face because it was buried in titflesh, I knew she was grinning impishly. Or maybe cumming her brains out, I couldn’t be sure.

As my orgasm faded I quickened my rhythm, feeling Vette muffling her ecstatic cries against my skin, her legs clenching tightly around my hips. I was purring like a twelve cylinder engine, eyes half-lidded in bliss.

Somehow Vette got even tighter even though my stroke was longer, clapping my swinging nuts against the oozing mess we’d created with every thrust. I whined, high-pitched, and pushed more cum as deep inside her as I could, raising up in an instinctual arch and holding myself still for a single beat.

Then, with short, quick thrusts, barely pulling out, I followed each of my sticky orgasms with an almost savage, competitive feeling that tugged at my lower belly. Vette was hanging on to me like I was the only thing tethering her to life itself, but I saw a glimpse of her face, her wide glistening eyes staring past my heaving breasts, her mouth open in soundless cry, and I shoved a nipple at her mouth insistently. Her lips latched on and I shifted up and thrust down as I poured out the largest load so far, a truly legendary flash of pleasure that left me momentarily too weak to continue doing much of anything other than moaning like a pornstar.

I pulled back slightly, savoring her pussy’s periodic squeezing, and checked on Vette’s expression again. Her eyes had rolled up, a bit of the whites showing, and her mouth was still hanging open.

“Hey there,” I cooed, brushing her cheek with a thumb. Was this cum or tears on her skin? Her eyes focused on me rather more slowly than before. “How are we doing?”

“Not…done?” Vette gasped, looking down. I also looked down, and saw a slight swell to her belly. She was literally stuffed like a thanksgiving turkey by this point. It was only right, I felt, and purred as I stirred her cream filling with my shaft. “What the kriff, Master?”

“Hmm,” I pulled out of her and laid my cock on the much smaller bulge. My shaft was still glistening with cum and her own clear fluids, and also bobbing up and down with a mind of its own. Vette gasped, realization shining in her eyes as her hands reached between us.

“It feels so hot inside me,” she said wonderingly. “Where do you keep it all, what in the nine Corellian hells?”

“I think it’s whipped up on-demand,” I replied bemusedly as she jacked me off lazily while leaking onto the mattress. “They might have to burn this mattress when we’re done.”

She giggled, nodding. “I’m tired, Master. But you can still use me if you want. Wrap my hands around that thing and have at it. Or do you want me to suck you again?”

“It’s fine, Vette. With you, I think I could go on for days on end. So we should probably shower and sleep, huh? You can milk me dry later, when we have a weekend to ourselves, or something,” I promised, smiling toothily. She shuddered, then one of her hands brushed over my cheek.

“If I go into the shower with you, I’m completely kriffed,” Vette suddenly declared in a matter-of-fact tone.

I laughed earnestly, sliding my hands over her filthy, cum-covered body. Taut muscle and areas of softness combined for a positively alluring, sensual form, even if she wasn’t the curviest woman in the galaxy. “Yes, that’s probably true. But you’re probably safe for tonight.”

“My legs are like noodles.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Carry me?” Vette asked boldly. I nodded amenably and rolled to the side, swinging my legs down and stretching my arms over my head in a proud stretch. Despite the fierce satisfaction, I felt weariness gnawing my bones, and realized I probably wouldn’t actually have shower-sex tonight.

In the morning, maybe.

I turned back and scooped Vette into my arms, princess-carry. Despite the fact that she was leaking cum onto the floor the entire way to the bathroom, which was actually my fault, it was a very cozy scene. I blamed her though, for milking so much out of me. Thinking about that almost made me reconsider my resolution to get cleaned up and sleep.

The shower was wide and actually had a seat, so I set Vette there and turned on the hot water. After a rinse I looked at her and saw her staring at me while leaning against the shower wall. The look in her eyes was all dark and soft and it made me feel warm.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I didn’t think you’d be such a romantic,” Vette confided with a disbelieving giggle. I felt my cheeks warm a bit, but also her standards were pretty low, considering the amount of dirty talk I’d spouted. Unless she’d been expecting me to be a selfish lover, or a rougher one, and that was what she meant? “I also don’t think I can stand up. I can’t believe you actually stuffed me full like a cream-filled donut. And you’re still hard, how is that even possible?”

“It’s just like that,” I replied honestly, glancing down at myself. “I don’t think I’ve ever managed to actually cum enough that it goes down. Just takes time. Besides, if you think I’m going soft with a cute little minx like you in the bed, then you’re crazy.”

“Is that…like, a Force thing?”

I shrugged. “I don’t really know, actually. I haven’t asked any other Sith how many times they can cum. But I think its just a special feature of the species.”

She laughed brightly. “Yeah, that’s probably an awkward question for casual conversation.”

“I’ll wash you,” I decided, reaching out to her. “Just lean against me.”

She looked at me skeptically. “I don’t think you can stick it in me again tonight. Or probably tomorrow.”

I chuckled. “I know, I’m tired too. I’m just going to wash you, promise.”

Still eying me like a suspicious character, Vette took my outreached hand and pulled herself up, leaning against my chest. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and scrubbed her gently with my hands under the water.

Her hands, being idle, found my cock a moment later and started stroking lazily. “Hey, now, who’s the one being greedy?” I hummed, tilting her head up and finding an impish grin on her face.

“Sorry, couldn’t help it. It was staring up at me,” she giggled, licking her lips. “Just put it between my thighs, Master, I want to feel it hot against my sore little pussy.”

“Weren’t we tired a moment ago?” I asked even as I bent my knees slightly to do as she suggested. What can I say, I’m not one to turn down an orgasm no matter how tired I might be. Vette spread her feet to let me slide though the gap between her thighs, then closed her legs around me securely. I placed one hand on her hips and the other on her chest, helping hold her up since she’d said her legs were shaky.

Vette held onto that arm with one hand and braced the other against the shower wall. “You’re so strong! Alright, kriff me like this.”

I purred again and slid my cock between her smooth thighs, while the steamy water washed over us, breathing in her scent as we moved in a carnal dance. She was still leaking my cum, and was wet as sin, a cocktail of salacious fluid that I felt smearing along the top of my shaft as I thrust forward, hips meeting her tight ass in a wet clap. It certainly wasn’t as good as her wringing, spasming pussy but it was still utterly sublime, and as usual it didn’t take very long for me to embrace her tightly in orgasm, sucking blindly at the side of her neck and leaving dark blue marks with my lips until her thighs had wrung four hearty spurts of cum from me.

Vette’s hand swept over the head of my cock in a light, twisting stroke and stars shined in my vision briefly. “Did that feel good, Master?”

I could only keep kissing her, open-mouthed, and catch my breath. She got gooseflesh as my breath washed over her neck, despite the hot water.

“You’ve got your cum all over my thighs again,” she teased me, turning around and leaning against me. Then she pouted. “It’s still hard!”

I chuckled at the affronted pride in her voice. “Don’t worry about it, Vette, we’ll be up all night otherwise. Just wash off.”

“You said you would wash me,” she replied, eyes bright while acting the spoiled brat.

I splashed water over her skin and scrubbed gently with my hands, meeting her eyes until she coyly looked away. Yeah, I’m a pushover. But also, any excuse to touch her intimately would definitely be taken from now on, and that’s a promise. When all the traces of cum on her legs were gone, I turned off the water and helped her over to the towel rack.

Vette took a towel and sat down on the toilet lid to dry herself.

“Okay, next question,” she said eventually, as we reentered the bedroom. “Where are we going to sleep? ‘Cause you turned that thing out there into a Hutt’s slime bed.”

“Gross, Vette! Also, don’t blame it all on me, Miss I-squirt-like-a-waterspout.” But, looking at the bed in question, which glistened suspiciously in more than one place, I could only groan in agreement with her assessment. “I’ll call down for a change of sheets. Do you like to cuddle, or should I ask if there’s a pull-out bed?”

Vette gave me an odd look. “There’s only the one bed in here.”

“I could give you one side of it, then, if you’d prefer,” I shrugged.

Vette finally shrugged, meeting my eyes with only a touch of her earlier embarrassment. “I’m yours, so what do you want to do with me?”

My heart melted and I kissed the crown of her head. “That’s obvious. If I could, I’d never let you go.”

This startled a gentle laugh from her, and she leaned against me more. “Dork. Just a sheet over us, though, or I’ll sweat all night long. You’re hot to the touch.”

I’d probably feel a little chilly without the comforter, but if it meant I could hug a naked Vette until I fell asleep then I could probably die happily, so I nodded my head at her request.

A janitor droid arrived to provide a new set of bedding, including a comforter and pillowcases. After we had changed the gooey set for a fresh one, there were probably still moist spots on the mattress itself, but there was nothing I could do about that. I laid down and Vette crawled in after, tucking herself under my chin with my arms falling around her, our legs tangling awkwardly for a moment before one of hers slid between my thighs and the other straightened.

Her breath tickled the valley of my breasts, one of her arms folded between us and the other reaching up and over in an embrace. I was so much larger than her that this wouldn’t last, I was sure, so I rolled slightly to the side until she was draped over me, resting her cheek on the pillows of my bosom. Warm and affectionate, I couldn’t stop brushing her skin gently with my hands. She giggled, settled more fully into place, then stilled.

I’d have to thank Darth Lachris for the good advice, tomorrow.

Chapter Text

I had strange dreams. I was perfectly lucid, but unlike normal, where becoming aware of the dream made one awaken from sleep, I was unable to rouse myself. Instead, I remained in a formless void, watching as ghostly text appeared in front of me in translucent panes of glass.

[Level 30 being reached, a choice lies before you. Due to the classes of Sith Warrior and Heir of Marka Ragnos, and the title of Apprentice, the advanced specializations available to you are:

Sith Warrior, Dark Disciple - As a warrior, your skills with weapons and aggressive Force techniques have been honed, but these also have opened the door to more tenebrous abilities in the Force. The power of a fallen ancestor burns within, and as Dark Disciple you will augment your Dark Regeneration skill and gain additional Dark powers which will allow you to manipulate the blood and flesh of yourself and others. These skills can be used to easily spill blood and also to heal wounds. This path can lead to the advanced class Dark Creature, Beast of Blood, which enables the total regeneration of your body if even a single drop of your blood remains.

Successor of Ragnos, Aspirant Lord - Marka Ragnos, one of the greatest powers of the legendary Sith ancestors, one who was Emperor for a time, and who is entombed in the Valley of the Dark Lords, is your patron and his power lives on in you. As Aspirant Lord, this power bestows natural charisma, strengthens your subordinates in your presence, and increases your strength of will, enabling the use of Force Domination to make others bend to your desires, and granting total immunity to mind-effecting statuses. As your power grows, exceedingly few will be able to resist your compulsions. This class has no advanced class, but can be combined with other specializations related to Heir of Marka Ragnos. Combining all Ragnos specializations opens new pathways to power.

True-born Heir, Warrior-Page of Ragnos - The abilities that made Marka Ragnos the terror in battle that he was now live on in you. As a Warrior of Ragnos, you gain additional defensive abilities, making you truly indomitable in the face of overwhelming power, and your unceasing assault is guaranteed to outlast even the most vigorous of foes. Lightsaber skills are greatly augmented, and your resistance to Force attacks becomes nearly impenetrable. This class has no advanced class, but can be combined with other specializations related to Heir of Marka Ragnos. Combining all Ragnos specializations opens new pathways to power.

Force Vessel, Hopeful Ascendant - Due to the regeneration granted by Dark Regeneration, your body can be transformed into a more perfect conduit for the power of the Force, permitting the use of greater abilities and enhancing the rate at which Force abilities advance in level. As an Ascendant, one who seeks to become more than mere flesh and blood, the skill Life Drain becomes available, and can be used to siphon the life from your foes while in battle, strengthening yourself and even healing injuries. This class can also lead to True Celestial, One Who Has Transcended Flesh, which offers unparalleled power in the Force akin to those ancient beings, who were known as gods, at the cost of your physical form.

Terror of the Living, Reborn Force-Bane - Because of the many lives you’ve taken, you may choose to become Force Bane, one who is a perfect predator, who feeds on death and grows stronger in proximity to those who are strong in the Force. Jedi and Sith are your favored prey, and your abilities enable you to absorb their power during combat, granting the skills Force Immunity and Force Drain, which is a passive skill that siphons Force energy from your surroundings, increasing the potency of your own powers while weakening the Force abilities of all who are nearby. Your companions become willing supplicants, offering their strength to you unconsciously, and the greater their number the more powerful you will become by feeding from their power. This class can lead to the advanced class Successor of Nihilus, Lord of Hunger, which allows entire planets to be drained of life and extends your awareness of Force-sensitives throughout the galaxy.

Please make a selection.]

I lack the ability to even be properly surprised, at this point. I hadn't realized that the battle had increased my level so much...had stopped paying attention to the alerts after maybe the second convoy. Clearly, having that many confirmed kills had granted a lot of EXP. The text wouldn’t disappear from view, and, since I couldn’t awaken, I was literally trapped here until I interacted with this spectral menu. Aside from the obvious questions of why and how these various menus and powers were available to me and seemingly to no one else, there was also some major concerns about the paths that it was offering me here.

It was a hard decision to make off the cuff, even so. Couldn’t a guy have some time to decide? I could eliminate the last two options right away, since they came with associated costs like my physical body in the case of Hopeful Ascendant or what would probably become an insatiable, madness-inducing hunger for the Reborn Force-Bane. Darth Nihilus wasn’t the kind of role-model I’d like to follow, he was more like an eldritch horror than an actual man. While it was a little tempting to be perfectly suited to kill Sith and Jedi, since those were the most dangerous opponents I would face, it wasn’t worth suffering the fate of Nihilus.

On the other hand, becoming a Celestial Being at the cost of my body wasn’t exactly very appealing to me. For one thing, I am not Valkorian, who desires godhood. For another, I was rather attached to things like sight, sound, taste, hearing, feeling and other sensations might be lost if the physical body was lost or even profoundly changed, and there was also consideration to be made for my sanity throughout the process. I couldn’t imagine being transformed like that would be a pleasant experience. Even if I had intended to leverage Dark Regeneration to gain greater power in the Force, I hadn’t been thinking of going as far as to cast off my flesh completely, which sounded like a step on the path to the Celestial.

So, I’ll go ahead and say ‘no, thanks’ to those two choices.

The first option was also a little suspect, like maybe it would also be a transformation class like Hopeful Ascendant, but I’ll admit the promise of practical immunity to permanent death was quite attractive. Being able to heal others was also a nice contingency. I just wasn’t sure if I wanted to make the manipulation of blood and flesh my specialty. How long were these advanced classes the dominant class, before I could choose another one? Could I change them later, if I ended up disliking it?

It sounded like there would be another advanced class selection later, but I had no idea when that would happen, or how my choices here would restrict me later. Where was the convenient wiki or manual for the game mechanics?

I didn’t even know what skills were available to these specializations besides the ones used for an example in each summary.

The Ragnos classes were tamer in comparison to the others, but if I could take both of them then it was also a crazy power-spike. Not practical immunity to death crazy, but pretty strong regardless. I wasn’t sure at what level I’d be able to pick up the other class, which meant picking the defensive option was probably the wisest choice. I’d been told repeatedly that the main thing to be afraid of was sudden death at the hands of a powerful Force-user, and Warrior of Ragnos promised to make that situation impossible. Or at least very, very rare.

I had kind of been looking forward to fixing that problem through training and increasing my Force capabilities, but I supposed I could still do those things even though I would have a class ability helping me along. I'd just also have the class benefits, which couldn't hurt.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about the mind control abilities of Aspirant Lord, but the other aspects sounded interesting. If I took Warrior-Page of Ragnos first, then Aspirant Lord later, then I’d become a real example of a tank-support build, enhancing the capabilities of my party members while being nigh-indestructible myself. And there was the promise of further class development after grabbing both of the Ragnos classes and their advanced counterpart later.

I actually didn’t know much about Marka Ragnos. If these classes were leading me down his path, was that going to be a good thing or a bad thing? Did he turn out to be some kind of crazed madman, or was he betrayed and slaughtered like so many Lords in the histories? I wasn’t sure…maybe it was worth doing some research on that.

I was also concerned about the Dark Disciple’s skills. Ultimately, gaining the ability to regenerate from a single drop of blood wouldn’t actually do much for me, if all my friends and resources were destroyed while I was a pile of mince-meat. And if I lacked the power to do anything after revival, what was the point? It would be better not to end up in that situation in the first place, obviously, and besides that Dark Disciple didn’t even offer the regeneration, it only promised access to the advanced class down the line. And I didn’t know how long it would take to reach the next advancement.

Deliberately, I made my choice as Warrior-Page of Ragnos.

[You’ve chosen True-born Heir, Warrior-Page of Ragnos. Confirm?]

Yeah, sure.

[Class advancement confirmed. Granting skills.]

[Skill Unlocked: Force Ward X - The maximum level of Force Ward, this provides a nearly impenetrable defense against Force assault, while it is active, and the Ward can only be stripped away if your concentration is utterly shattered.]

[Skill Unlocked: Force Barrier V]

[Skill Unlocked: Force Fortress - Granted by your specialization, this upgrade to Force Ward grants a passive, undetectable Force Ward equal to the level of that skill which can be actively reinforced during battle. The active Force Fortress can successfully withstand an attack three times greater than the maximum which can be weathered by your Force Ward, after resistance is modified by your attributes and active statuses.]

[Skill Unlocked: Blade Storm - By channeling the Force into your lightsaber’s kyber crystal, you can create blades of cutting Force that can strike with a delay after a lightsaber slash. These can be chained together, creating an unceasing assault. The blades of Force energy created by Blade Storm can only be blocked by physical objects or by a Force Ward, and will ignore lightsabers.]

[Skill Unlocked: Voice of Inspiration - As one who trains to become an unmatched warrior, your battle cry now inspires courage and bravery beyond the norm in those who fight on your side, and it instills a sense of inevitable doom in those who stand against you. Raise your voice in challenge!]

[Skill Unlocked: Presence of Ragnos I - Granted by your specialization, this skill represents an aura of power that passively hangs around you. To those who are Force-sensitive, it is a mark of burgeoning mastery and a sign of unparalleled talent. To others, it is an awesome feeling that cannot be readily put into words, inspiring fear and admiration. This effect is reduced by the target’s FORCE and VITALITY attributes. This aura can also be actively reinforced to become an aura of fear, inducing mind-numbing terror in your foes. The fear effect is reduced by the target’s FORCE and DEFENSE attributes.]

[Skill Unlocked: True-Born Heir - Granted by your specialization, this skill modifies the aspects of your Sith heritage, making you nearly the same as a pureblood Sith in most respects, but not diminishing the Human bonus to willpower that you gained naturally from your mixed parentage. This skill also grants a passive aura of authority, fitting for one who is destined for great power. The aura makes those around you desire submission, as to a worthy Lord, an effect that has its magnitude reduced by their FORCE and VITALITY attributes.]

[Skill Unlocked: Lightsaber Proficiency VII]

[Skill Unlocked: Lightsaber Form - Soresu VII]

[Skill Unlocked: Lightsaber Form - Shien VII]

[Skill Unlocked: Lightsaber Form - Juyo III]

[Skill Unlocked: Might of the Tarentatek V - At this level, the maximum, the lingering sorcery of the Tarentatek from the Tomb of Marka Ragnos has been nurtured to its apex. Your flesh is highly resistant to direct Force attacks. Your mind is highly resistant to mind-affecting statuses.]

[Would you like to view your status now?]

I agreed, because I wasn’t even aware of the fact that my level had advanced so much from the battle yesterday.

[Xanot] | [Classes: Sith Warrior LVL 6, Heir of Marka Ragnos LVL 24, Warrior-Page of Ragnos LVL 1] | [LVL 31 - 0/3551] | [Titles: Apprentice]

[Alignment: Dark III]

[Stats: 1083 ATK, 2101 DEF, 987 FORCE, 2103 VIT, 1000 SPD]

[Equipped Items: None]

[Statuses: Force Stress (Minor), Minor Dehydration, Slightly Hungry]

[Skills: Blade Storm, Evasion V, Dark Regeneration III, Disruption II, Force Barrier V, Force Choke III, Force Crush III, Force Fortress, Force Leap VI, Force Precognition V, Force Pull III, Force Push V, Force Scream III, Force Sense VI, Force Slam III, Force Speed VI, Force Telekinesis III, Force Ward X, Force Whirlwind II, Heavy Armor Proficiency VI, Heavy Machine Operator II, Lightsaber Deflection IV, Lightsaber Proficiency VII, Lightsaber Form - Juyo III, Lightsaber Form - Soresu VII, Lightsaber Form - Shien VII, Might of the Tarentatek V, Presence of Ragnos I, Propel Projectile II, Saber Ward IV, Shield Proficiency IV, Shuttle Piloting I, Small Vessel Piloting I, Sword Proficiency V, True-Born Heir, Voice of Inspiration, Weapon Throwing II]

I awakened with a burning need to pee. But, Vette was still sleeping on top of me, and this presented a conundrum. I would have thought that nothing could convince me that leaving this bed was a good idea, but my bladder was making a convincing argument to that effect. I stewed indecisively for longer than might have been logical, before I ultimately lost the debate.

Sliding to the side, as gently as possible, I turned my body and lowered Vette to the mattress. Of course, she woke up the instant we parted.

“Where goin’?” she muttered up at me.

“Nature calls,” I replied shortly, swiftly heading for the toilet. Not quite running, I have some dignity left.

The lights in the ‘fresher practically blinded me, causing me to cuss under my breath while I unleashed Niagara Falls. I had a bad case of cotton mouth, and there was a sticky spot on my belly that I suspected was my cum which had oozed from Vette while we slept. I wasn’t bothered by it, but I did wonder how long that would be a thing. It was pretty hot, no lie. I groaned under my breath, thankfully it wasn’t nearly enough to give me an erection.

Emerging from the bathroom, I went in search of water because I felt like I was dying. My head wasn’t quite pounding, but there was a close relative of the hangover hammer-goblin who was preparing to unleash hell, and I was hoping to head that off at the pass. I hadn’t thought I’d been drunk enough to warrant a hangover, but I was certainly dehydrated.

Thankfully, there were cups next to a caff dispenser and the tap water seemed clean enough. At least, it didn’t smell like anything dangerous. I chugged the entire paltry amount from the tiny paper cup, probably six ounces. Three times. The fourth, I carried with me as I returned to the bed.

Vette wasn’t asleep either. She must have been watching me move around the room, since she ducked her head and looked at a datapad that she’d pulled from somewhere, idly playing with one lekku while she pretended to read it while sneaking glances at me.

“Want some water?” I offered, since I was up anyway.

She gave a small smile and nod.

I happened to check the time, and it was still the middle of the night. Yeah, Balmorra nights were something else, clearly. I handed Vette her water and slid back under the sheets, placing my cup on the tiny bedside table.

Vette snorted at something and I turned to her. “What are you reading?”

“The owner’s manual,” she replied with a laughing gaze directed at me.

I scoffed, plucking the datapad from her fingers. She squawked in affront, but I was able to peek at the title of the document on the ‘pad even as she lunged for it, forcing me to hold it up out of reach.

‘The Loves and Lives of Sith, the Courtship Rituals and Mating Habits of Lords’

I broke into laughter and Vette stole the datapad back as my coordination suffered. “No way,” I managed to say between full-bodied guffaws. “There’s no way that’s a real book.”

“Shut up,” Vette retorted weakly, shoving at my shoulder. “It is a real book; it has the Imperial Publishing Bureau’s stamp and everything. It also has the highest reviews among the books on the subject.”

“The Empire has a publishing house?” I blurted in pure amazement. I really should stop being surprised by this kind of information, but a committee of Sith Lords having a book club just didn't seem to register with me properly.

“How else are they supposed to censor seditious literature, or promote proper philosophies?” Vette replied pointedly. Good point.

I would tell her she could just ask me, but…I actually had no idea what the norms were for Sith Lords. And, on that note, a sliver of anxiety appeared. The book probably contained information that I should, by nature of my species and upbringing, already know about. Then again, growing up in Sith Academies couldn’t have been prime stomping grounds for a budding romantic.

“What’s it say?” I asked pointedly.

“I just started!” Vette protested.

“You asked me when I’d just started on the Twi’lek manual,” was my reply, to which Vette scoffed in extravagant disgust.

“That was a slave-owners’ guide, not a cultural commentary.”

“Oh, please, they gave me the slave owners’ guide for my own species, too,” I said in response.

Vette lowered the datapad briefly to blink at me. “Why?”

“I told you, I was eating all kinds of crazy things for years,” I stretched the truth. I had technically been eating things that would have been quite crazy for Sith throughout my Human life. “I didn’t have any Sith parental figures or even many friendly peers, growing up. The doctor on Dromund Kaas also gave me some reading to clear up misunderstandings.”

“That doctor,” Vette mused with a shake of her head.

“That’s right, you mentioned him too,” I remembered. “What was that about?”

Vette blushed slightly. “He just assumed some things about my ‘role in your household,’ to take one of his phrases. He said that you seemed alarmed by the notion of pregnancy, and he recommended a contraceptive implant in light of that. I, uh…figured it was a good idea, even though he wasn’t exactly right about our relationship at the time. It lasts a long while, unless I decide to have it removed at a clinic.”

“Ah,” I nodded slowly. I thought about the obscene amount of cum I’d pumped into her tight snatch and realized we’d probably been quite fortunate that was what she’d decided to do. “That’s good.”

“It says right at the start of the chapter on sex that Sith don’t tend to consider children until they’ve created a powerful refuge which can protect their offspring from rivals and enemies,” Vette said, raising the datapad again with a slightly teasing grin. “So, I guess that’s probably true, since you’re so relieved.”

I shrugged. “It was your decision, and I won’t try to change your mind. I do have to agree with the text, in this case. Trying to protect a pregnant woman or a newborn while traveling the galaxy in an interceptor and fighting in wars would be…stressful, to say the least. Not to mention expensive. But did you really think we’d end up having sex so long ago?”

“Frankly, I wasn’t sure what to expect from you at the start, but there have been a few times where owners or jailers forced themselves on me, so I figured it was better to take the doctor’s advice and not have to worry about ending up pregnant from that kind of thing, since our species can actually produce hybrids. Unexpected children of slaves aren’t treated especially well, and even pregnant slaves sometimes aren’t given proper care, unless of course the pregnancy is part of their job. Also, it was a simple injection like a kolto shot, no trouble at all,” Vette explained in a steady voice, flashing a teasing smile at the end, even as I jolted a bit at the casual mention of rape.

“I’m sorry that that happened to you,” I replied earnestly.

“It’s, you know…normal for a young slave girl becoming a woman,” Vette shrugged. “I mean, yeah, it was bad sometimes, most people don’t care if slaves enjoy the sex, but my masters when I was young were either super old or incompatible aliens, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Nok Drayen and his pirates were...not very considerate. I wasn’t sure how it would turn out with you since I’ve never had a female master. You know, other slaves have said before that women can be crueler masters than men, sometimes, and you’re Sith on top of that. Then, when I found out about the chimera thing, I was starting to think like maybe it would actually be fun, if you wanted that. Then there was the whole basic training thing and as time went on, I started wondering, you know, whether you even liked me that way. Some have said I’m too scrawny, right? Like, that my price was lower because I don’t have bigger boobs or wider hips. I thought maybe you wanted me to be a soldier because of that, and I was totally fine with it. Domestic chores aren’t my favorite job, so if it was a choice between that and soldiering it was fine and exciting to be praised for my weapon skills instead of viewed with suspicion all the time just because I know my way around blasters. I was a little regretful because you treat me so nice and I started to actually like you, but I wasn’t going to try to seduce you. Initiative from a slave in that context doesn’t usually end well.”

I pursed my lips, stopping myself from snapping that it wasn’t like that, with me. That I wasn’t appraising her monetary value, or even considering her as a slave at all. But this was just how her experiences had shaped her, and I wasn’t sure I could phrase my words well enough that it would come across as a condemnation of the cruel things that had been done to her rather than a condemnation of her, herself.

So, I said, “Vette, I waited so long because I wanted you to have a choice. I’m not…look, I don’t want to just order people to have sex with me expecting them to submit, I’d prefer that it’s a mutual desire. Yesterday, Darth Lachris just pointed out that I was being blind, because you actually did want me and she sensed it, but I was in my own head too much lately to realize. I think you’re beautiful, in case that wasn’t clear from earlier, but I wasn’t going to ask for anything I didn’t think you’d want. I figured you wouldn’t say no to me, not because I expect unquestioning obedience but because that's what you're accustomed to, and I’d feel guilty if you felt obligated to indulge me in spite of yourself, or if you resented me for asking. But I might not always have the best idea of what you want, obviously. I really hope you do just say no if there’s ever anything I ask for which you’d rather not do.”

Vette waved her hand hurriedly. “I know that! You’ve said as much before, about choices. I was nervous about it, but that can't be helped. I’m a bit sore right now, but the sex was crazy fun, the best actually, so we’re definitely doing that again. Don’t make me wait so long this time, alright?”

“Oh, I won’t,” I promised, feeling a bit of the primal satisfaction still in my blood. I scooted closer and put an arm around her. After a few breaths of companionable silence, I said, “I’m not actually very happy about the slavery practices in the Empire. I think the way that you’ve been treated has been inhumane. You’re worth more than just what people are willing to pay for you, you know that?”

“You’re such a romantic,” Vette giggled, the sound trailing off thoughtfully. “I’m glad you think so.”

“Don’t you agree?” I wondered, thinking that was a strange response and stroking her arm lightly.

“About slavery? Of course I do, it’s monstrous. It creates a system filled with abuse that provides no options for the abused, not to mention it has practically destroyed my species’ home planet and our native culture. The Empire isn’t the only place with slaves, though, and Twi’lek aren’t the only ones enslaved. I wasn’t a slave in the Empire until Korriban.”

That actually was news to me, but still. “I was talking about your worth. Do you think you’re worth more than whatever’s on a price tag?”

Vette put the datapad on her lap and turned under my arm to look up at me solemnly. “Xanot, I’ve been a slave since birth, right? That's not just a part of my past, it's how I was raised and taught how to deal with life. For example, you said I could use your name during sex, which was cute, and I appreciate it, but I’ve always been told its safer to use a title instead, no matter what the masters might say at the time. It’s usually really dangerous for a slave to get too intimate with their masters, especially when sex is involved. Common wisdom says that there should be awareness about one’s proper place. I can tell that you’re thinking I only called you 'Master' earlier because of that, and that clearly makes you upset for reasons we’ve discussed before, but that’s not actually why I did it, that’s just why it was taught.”

I caught the words I was about to interrupt with and just listened as she continued.

“I know you don’t think of me that way. I mean, you were going to set me free and everything. And it’s true that calling you ‘Master’ was what the older slaves said was safest, but it’s also…kinda really hot, to me? And I know it needles you and I'm a brat who likes to tease? I’m not going to get in my own head about what I enjoy. Anyway, I’m also more comfortable doing what I’ve done before, even if it wasn’t always welcomed or very enjoyable in the past. Things aren’t quite the same about my worth and stuff, but its similar enough. You can say what you want about it, and I’ll do my best to live up to your appraisal, I promise. But that doesn’t change the reality I’ve experienced. There are things I’ve had to learn, the hard way, right? People are actually worth something, and we’re treated differently by others based on that worth, even if it isn’t on a registry somewhere. I’ve seen it all my life, and its true even if you aren’t a slave,” Vette finished her speech with a slow nod. “I was free for a couple years, after Nok Drayen disappeared and I could escape, and it was even worse than before in some ways, because I was part of the dregs of the galaxy, with pirates and refugees and all the people the rest of the galaxy tries not to think about. You have to learn things and do things to be valued, so I picked up weapons and ended up doing some things I actually regret, now. All to make myself worth something to others apart from acting like a breathing sex toy. Which, you know…was an option that I refused to consider.”

“I’m not just flattering you, Vette,” I replied earnestly. “I tell you how much you’re worth to me because you already do live up to it. Just by being you. You don’t have to do anything more than that.”

“I’m glad you think so, and that just makes me want to do more, for you. Because you make me feel like…like somebody important, someone who really matters. So, I want to make it more than a feeling, and really become what you see. It's about owning it, having a say in it, rather than letting it dominate me,” Vette repeated with a soft smile. Then she bit her lip. “And if you talk like that some more I’ll climb into your lap and let you stuff me again until the sun comes up, but that’d be a bad idea considering how my lady parts are feeling right now.”

I sighed, still a little uneasy about the way she saw things but unsure of how to continue the conversation. “Can I get you anything for that? A painkiller?”

“No, silly, it’s not that bad! Just an ache letting me know I’ve been well kriffed, which should be obvious since I’m pretty sure I’ll be sticky with your cum for days. Also, I want you right here,” she replied, setting into my side and turning back to her datapad. “I have some reading to do.”

That damn book. “You know, I probably don’t even know half of what’s in that book,” I warned her honestly.

“Really? So, this thing that it says here about how Sith Lords collect powerful ladies to create a dynastic household, that isn’t like some kind of biological instinct for you? If it is, I think your instincts made a mistake, because I’m not very powerful at all,” she laughed brightly, shaking her head. “You Sith are so dramatic in everything. It says you generally have like twenty to a hundred kids. No wonder Lachris was saying she’d never flirt with a pureblood.”

“Not all with one woman,” I replied blandly. “And not all with proper Ladies, either.”

“I got that part, it’d take decades to get that done,” Vette agreed. “But still. How many wives do you need?”

“None, at the moment.”

Vette blew a raspberry. “You know what I mean, Xanot. That little quip about proper ladies isn’t slipping by me, either I’ll get to that when I read about it.”

“The book should say, right? I have no clue what’s the average wife count,” I told her simply. I mean, the last source I’d checked had said something like between three and ten, depending on the prestige and real assets held by the dynasty. But those sources didn’t count concubines as wives, since concubines didn’t have actual authority in the dynasty, and the authors had been Human, so the veracity of their classifications was somewhat suspect.

To put it simply, as far as I understand it, Sith Lords basically had both queens, proper wives, and concubines — the terms were my own. The queens were effectively rulers alongside the family head, whereas the concubines were just there for fun and fertility, but technically by common standards both roles qualified as a wife. It seemed like there were practical concerns with making every sex partner of the patriarch a co-ruler of the dynasty, which made sense if the man-whore practices of the Lords were on the level that they seemed to be.

There was such a thing as having too many cooks in the kitchen, after all.

The only Lords I had met so far were Human, though, and it didn’t seem like the pureblood practices had been inherited fully by other species. That was fair, since it was a pretty blatantly patriarchal system, and most species didn’t have the history or the biological impetus that the pureblood Sith do which led to the adoption of the patrilineal dynastic structure. Neither did most species have a libido that allowed them to even consider the possibility of so many committed, sexually active partners. Other cultures surely had political marriages, though, which was probably a significant contributor to the Sith family dynamic.

Well, from a certain point of view the Sith dynasties were really about powerful women claiming the attention of an attractive Lord and constructing an influential and safe lifestyle for themselves as matriarchs of his House while ensuring the protection of their patriarch, who had considerable power, wealth, and influence. Indeed, there were a few commentaries that pointed out it was the Sith Lady who often proposed a marriage to the Lord, rather than the Lord who proposed to the Lady, and that it was the matriarchs of the dynasty that most often took action to eliminate any threatening rivals of their Lord. There were more Matriarchs than Patriarchs, for one thing, and while the nominal head of the dynasty was always male, the practical power structures were administrated by the wives, which meant that there were more public interactions with women in positions of authority than with the patriarchs.

Sith marriage wasn’t quite the romantic practice that I was familiar with from Earth. In Sith culture, it was more of a contractual agreement which said, almost explicitly, ‘your enemies are my enemies, your strength is my strength, our blood will endure as one. If either of us betray this, let their death be on their own head.’ And, considering the cut-throat nature of Sith politics I could imagine the threat in that paraphrased marriage vow was rather more literal than figurative. How else could the Lord entrust those positions of authority to the wives, other than making it known that they would not survive betrayal? And it also figured that Lords wouldn’t make that vow very often, especially not to every baby-momma.

I wasn’t sure about the whole traditional dynasty lifestyle, to be frank. While I was pretty much committed to collecting a group of lovers, including at least Vette, Lana, and Jaisa, if I could convince them, that ambition was a far-cry from staking claim on a planet somewhere and building a palace that I could fill with my numerous offspring while engaging in something akin to medieval nobility’s politics. Then teaching those children to be Lords in their own right or giving them partial rule over portions of my holdings, eventually creating a new generation of Sith Lords purely from the power of my own virility.

Okay, a part of me was really into that concept, because it sounded fucking legendary, like something of Biblical proportions, but there was another part of me that thought it sounded like a lot of hard work.

I was also a bit apprehensive of Vette discovering all of this information from a clearly biased source like a book titled ‘The Loves and Lives of Sith, the Courtship Rituals and Mating Habits of Lords.’ I knew from Quinn that the habits of the Lords in the Empire were emulated by others to some extent, like Mike who had two wives. Darth Baras, for one, certainly wasn’t taking after his peers, since I didn’t think he even had a lover let alone a whole cadre of women ready to bear his children.

“You know, you seem different somehow. Maybe it's just the hearts in my eyes,” Vette said suddenly, and I realized she hadn’t been reading the datapad for some time when I looked over and saw her sliding a hand over my thigh, gazing up at me intently.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, there’s…like, this air about you,” she commented, brow furrowed. She leaned forward and sniffed me. “Not the smell, either…that’s kinda the same.”

I was reminded of her attraction and smirked. “You like that, huh?”

“Yes,” Vette admitted with a slight blush, tilting her chin up a little in challenge. “I actually think that there’s like an aphrodisiac drug or something in it. Either that or I’m way freakier than I thought, which is, you know, always possible.”

“Like pheromones? Vette, those typically only affect same-species individuals. A super virile bull doesn’t smell good to anyone except cows, and besides that I’m very hygienic,” I protested with a chuckle.

“That’s why I said it’s weird!” Vette exclaimed. “I’m not alone, though, you should have heard what Arty said about you when you sat down at the booth earlier.”

“What’d he say?”

Vette’s slight blush exploded into a deep indigo flush. “I-I’m not going to repeat it!”

I laughed harder, even if it was a little bit alarming that a man was attracted to my smell. If I was understanding her insinuation, then that was what she was saying. “Must have been good, then! How do you know he isn’t just a kindred spirit, though?”

“Whatever,” Vette shook her head, waving a hand as if to clear this topic from the room. “It’s not a smell that's changed, that’s what I was testing.”

I shrugged. “It’s probably a Force thing,” was my answer, since that was the easiest way to explain how I had grown in power by taking an after-sex nap. Gaining mind-influencing passive auras. “I was super exhausted from fighting when I fell asleep. I should probably meditate for a few hours, too, just to fully recover, but you might be sensing the Force now that I'm not wiped out.”

There was also no way of explaining the effects of my auras to her in a sensible manner.

Vette huffed irritably. “The Force is super weird, then.”

“Why, what’s changed? Can you describe it?” I asked curiously.

Vette blinked, surprised for some reason, and then she set her datapad aside and warded me off with waving hands. “Nope, no, not gonna happen.”

“Why not?” I asked concernedly.

“You already tease me way too much for the things I like, I’m not giving you more ammunition!”

At this, my smug smile returned. “I think you just did. And I only tease you because you’re so cute when you’re embarrassed.” Vette groaned, throwing an arm over her eyes. I leaned down and breathed against the cone that served as her ear. “You like it, then? I wonder…do I seem stronger now than I did before?”

Vette bit her lip and remained silent.

“Oh, is it something else, then?” I continued.

Vette slid her arm down, turned towards me, and kissed me. I was surprised but leaned into it with a smile. When she pulled away, her hands were sliding against my abdomen in slow strokes, over hard muscles. “I don’t know how to describe it, other than that it makes me just slightly desperate. A little bit.”

“Desperate for what?”

Vette pouted, then grabbed my flaccid cock with one small hand, hefting it and stroking as best she could around the somewhat floppy appendage. “You’re going to make me spell it out?”

“I’m really curious. Won't you tell me?” I affirmed, sitting back against the headboard and feeling her ministrations gradually having the desired effect. Normally, I’d expect having a naked woman against my side would be enough on its own, but it seemed I could now definitively confirm that my body required deliberate attention. It was certainly receiving that now.

Vette whined softly, looking down as my cock throbbed, growing larger and harder in her hand, until she couldn’t wrap her fingers all the way around it, like before. “It…just, like…it feels like,” Vette breathed as she spread my legs with her knee and then settled between them, lowering herself slowly as she spoke, “the best thing to do is this.” She repeated one of the sexiest things she’d done the night before, pressing her lips against my balls and stroking me with her hand while she breathed me in. This time, though, she was still speaking in that low, devoted tone, “Like this is where I belong. It feels so right.”

Was this the aura of authority, or the aura of admiration? Couldn’t be fear…I hadn’t actively thought of doing anything with my new skills. Either way, I was purring and reaching to brush my hands over Vette’s lekku, laying one over each of my thighs as she suddenly sucked on one of my nuts and tried to fit it in her mouth. I gasped, literally feeling a surge in my blood as my cock finally reached max rigidity.

“Somethings missing,” Vette nearly sobbed when she popped her lips off my nuts. Her face rose, tongue flickering out to trace the underside of my shaft. “Oh, it’s the smell. Yeah, you don’t smell nearly as strong right now as you did before…we can fix that, though.”

“Holy shit, Vette,” I groaned, clenching the sheets in my hands. “Feeling confident all of a sudden, are we?”

“You told me to explain, Master, but it's better to show rather than tell,” she retorted, eyes briefly leaving my cock so she could pout at me. Then they were dragged back as if by an unseen force, and I had to consciously restrain myself from cumming as her other hand joined the first, slightly twisting as she stroked me. “Come on, now, you went off faster when I did this earlier. Are you holding back now? Or maybe…”

She leaned forward and engulfed the first few inches of my shaft in her mouth, and I immediately burst like a geyser, groaning like a dying man. Vette giggled and popped off, smacking her lips and raising a hand to cup the end of my cock so that the cum smeared over her palm and then dripped along the sides until it ran over my scrotum in a thick, warm deluge.

“There,” Vette said, seemingly satisfied. She licked her palm greedily in such a way that I almost came again immediately, which she seemed to sense because she giggled and met my eyes briefly before she ducked down and, without hesitation, tried to bury her face into my gooey nuts.

“That’s way better,” her muffled voice reached my ears, and she started to kiss and fondle my balls. Her ass swayed behind her in a manner I suspected was involuntary, and she shuddered. I watched this, enraptured, and shortly found myself moaning softly as her hand steadily milked more cum from me, pausing in its stroke to ensure that more of Vette’s desired cream dribbled down to her face instead of shooting over the top of her head or onto my belly.

Her other hand, the one that had been massaging my balls, had reached between her legs, making her moan against my skin for a moment before I watched her come unwound, trembling and breathing in as she rode through her orgasm in near silence. A few messy gasps could be heard. Then she drew her face up and let me see the gooey disaster she’d made, a dopey grin on her lips.

“Whatever the Force thing is that you’re doing, it makes me feel like that,” she finished, releasing me entirely and offering a saucy wink.

“Don’t you dare stop now,” I growled, hips rising up in a short thrust as if to catch her escaping hand. She giggled and grabbed me again, obediently stroking with her small, soft hands. I sighed, then one of my legs twitched as she wrung another orgasm from me, without pause. She was watching my face now, transfixed, and I closed my eyes to let my head fall back against the headboard as I filled her hands with more cum.

“You’re making a big mess,” she teased. “Maybe we should put all this cum somewhere else.”

I shook my head at that. “Don’t push yourself if you’re sore.”

“Oh, I was actually thinking of swallowing it,” Vette replied blithely, leaning down and licking up some trails of cum that had been made rather frothy by her stroking hands. She hummed like it was a tasty milkshake, before she took the tip in her mouth and started to swirl her tongue around it. Her hands quickened, and I hissed a breath through my teeth, careening towards an incredible orgasm. Each and every one was good, but this was going to be something special, I could feel it in my blood.

Vette watched me, her worshipful eyes wide and eager, while I literally writhed and reached for her, before aborting the motion and bunching fists in the sheets. She whined, shaking her head without letting go of my cock, and one small blue hand briefly left its stroke to grab my hand and place it deliberately on the top of her head. Then she grabbed my other hand and placed it together with the first, moaning ‘mmmhmmm.’

Removing both her hands from their work, Vette put them behind her back, crossed one wrist over the other as if they were tied there, and then met my eyes with a glint of challenge. I may have bared my teeth, retaining only the barest hint of civility as I thrust upward while holding her head in place with my repositioned hands, feeling her tongue as it was smooshed by throbbing meat. Vette moaned again, trembling, and I felt when my cock slid up against the back of her mouth, causing her to lurch slightly before I felt her working to swallow.

Holy shit, was she…

Vette threw her own head down, scooting forward and arching her back up to make a straighter angle, and swallowed a good three inches of dick, welcoming it into her throat with the wettest gag I’d ever heard, even in porn. I may have squealed, or squawked, or something else equally mortifying, but I literally had no control.

I came, hard, shifting my hands to the base of her lekku like before, without pulling but holding her gently right where I wanted her. Vette’s swallowing took on a frantic note as my cock throbbed visibly, feeding her working gullet with gulp after gulp of thick, clinging spunk. Her tongue thrashed and slid against me, and I felt one of my legs kick involuntarily, toes curling, before I finished with a low sigh and released her with a lingering pet along her head-tail. Vette slurped off me in a deluge of fresh cum and sticky spit that dangled from her extended tongue while her mouth remained open, panting for air and steadying herself with her hands on my thighs.

She coughed, slightly, slurped her tongue back into her mouth, and moaned as a shudder worked up her spine. There were tear-trails on her blue cheeks, but her eyes didn’t look red at all, just dark with lust and clouded by her black, dilated pupils. “Kriff, Master…that…that was new…”

“Too much?” I asked tentatively.

“I’ve never tried that before,” Vette confided. “I’m glad you cum in short bursts, ‘cause I was running out of air.”

I winced. “Sorry I held you down…”

“No! I mean, earlier I panicked a little when you did that, but grabbing my lekku like is…” Vette squirmed in place with a little whine and started stroking me again. “It’s really good. Your hands are so hot, and feel so good on my sensitive tails, and you’re so gentle and strong that it makes me all tingly. I was thinking of it when I fell asleep before. I just need to be expecting it, so I thought maybe if I put your hands there myself, I wouldn’t feel as scared. It was still nerve-wracking, but it made me cum, so I count that as a win.”

“You’re spoiling me, Vette,” I sighed, scooting down to lay against the pillows instead of leaning against the headboard.

“I should be the one saying that,” Vette murmured, moving with me and resuming her favorite position, kissing and fondling my balls. “Feeding me so well, Master. Won’t you give me some more?”

“Oh, fff-“ I obliged instantly when her words registered, prompting a startled laugh from her before she rose and caught the second rope of cum in her mouth and sucked the rest from me with dancing eyes that stared into my soul.

Vette then dragged me from one orgasm to the next in a twisting, stroking, sucking world of bliss that seemed to go on forever. I writhed under her ministrations, whispering praises and alternating between stroking her face and her lekku and holding onto the sheets like a lifeline. Eventually, Vette popped off of my cock with an audible, wet smacking sound, sitting up and holding one hand to her mouth and the other over her stomach.

“Whew!” she sighed, a small hiccup shaking her frame. Her thoughtful eyes lingered on my twitching cock briefly before she sighed. “I wondered whether I’d get full before you went soft. The book said something ridiculous, like thirty orgasms a day, but I thought that had to be exaggerated, and besides you had to have had at least ten earlier. I dunno, I wasn’t actually counting. Seems you’ve outlasted me again, though.”

I was literally speechless and could only grunt. Vette giggled, crawling up my body and draping herself over me, propping her face on her arms which were laid over my breasts. Her entire body rose and fell with each of my breaths, causing her to giggle softly, and I blinked a few times before focusing on her rising and falling face. Her little cock-sucking mouth was a little swollen, lips darkened with blue, and glistening wet, looking tempting and delicious.

“Hi,” she chirped.

I laughed, delighted and languid, making her shake and she wiggled to say put. “Vette, that was incredible.”

“Yes, for me too,” she agreed, taking on a slightly wistful expression. “Well, we’ve got at least six hours until sunrise, and you did say you’d meditate some. We can do it again later, and then I’ll come out on top for sure.”

“You don’t have to,” I said seriously. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t have to work it all out of my system in one night.”

“For one thing, it’s fun. And it’s a matter of pride, Master,” Vette objected, with a haughty look. “How can I look myself in the mirror if I know, deep down, that I can be thoroughly kriffed into a cross-eyed, incoherent mess by your ridiculous dick and you, on the other hand, aren’t even a little tuckered out?”

I laughed again, shaking my head ruefully. Vette seemed to settle into a more secure position, embracing me with one leg and laying her cheek on my bosom. “I’m going to take another nap now,” she announced, yawning as a punctuation to that sentence. “My tummy is so warm…”

Holy shit.

I laid there, cock throbbing, for maybe an hour, just because of those last, whispered words. And she knew it too, if the smug grin on her sleeping face was any indication. It was at this point that I realized I should meditate, if only to recover from the status effect of Force Stress. This wasn’t a good time to try to increase my alignment level by expanding capacity, since I had no idea what was going to happen in the morning, but meditations could also rejuvenate, so I pulled the slightly sticky sheets over us, laid an arm ‘round Vette’s shoulders, and slipped into the Force.

Chapter Text

I sat with shoulders sagged, rubbing the bridge of my nose to assuage a blooming headache, across from Lieutenant Quinn who had his silvery metal crutch propped against the wall separating the main cabin from the cockpit of the interceptor. I hadn’t realized, when Darth Lachris reassigned Quinn’s platoon, that money was going to become such a problem.

Apparently even Sith Lords had bills to pay.

Earlier that day, I had been called before sunrise and invited to an understated farewell breakfast at Darth Lachris’ Sobrik palace. The conversation had been enlightening, in ways that had only served to make me highly concerned about my immediate future. I had known, of course, that things like wages and benefits were expensive, especially for professional soldiers, but I hadn’t realized exactly how expensive. And that said nothing for the provisions and armaments.

“Here’s the situation,” Darth Lachris had declared to me. Her apprentices had also been there, arriving shortly after me, but they had either already eaten or weren’t invited to the meal, since they had no plates or utensils. It was also possible they were there as bodyguards, but I knew Lachris had nothing to fear from someone of my power, as she had shown in Troida Military Workshop. Lachris was unreadable after the initial pleasantries, with the two apprentices standing behind Lachris and giving me identical glares, but I ignored them and started eating. I had been utterly famished.

She had continued, without acknowledging the newcomers. “The Dark Council is satisfied with my report and are moving to transfer the Republic prisoners while the ICCC withdraws from Balmorra. The transfer of military outposts from the ICCC to my own soldiers is taking place over the next twelve hours. After that, the ICCC ships will depart with their prisoners, leaving Balmorra entirely to me.”

“That’s good,” I had replied, politely taking another bite of my breakfast. It was lean meat strips, fried, placed over the top of a crunchy biscuit. A bit like a bacon and egg biscuit sandwich, though it was missing the egg. And there was honey, or syrup resembling honey, which could be dribbled over it, but I had abstained from that. It had seemed too early in the morning for something that decadent. The biscuit was already brittle and savory in a way that informed me it had far more fatty ingredients than carbs.

“Your retinue has been, effective as of this morning at 0630, discharged from the ICCC and registered with the Imperial Ministry of War as your subordinates. This was met with some questions. There was some doubt about your ability to supply and transport even a single platoon, given your lack of holdings and youth.”

I remember wincing at this point.

“I assured Darth Decimus’s office that you had a plan of some sort. He heads the Pyramid of Military Strategy, which officiates the registering of private armies. Of course, I spoke with a representative, not the man himself,” Darth Lachris had continued, ignoring my increasing alarm. “And, since you are an Apprentice, failure to meet the standards set by the Empire for the treatment of your soldiers will fall on Darth Baras’ shoulders as well, so he should be at least somewhat motivated to assist. Not that you’d escape his wrath unscathed, if he was humiliated by your neglect. And although your master surely has ways of making money, given the limited nature of his direct holdings, his wealth is no doubt already committed to other enterprises.”

“What are these standards, exactly?” I had asked her quickly.

“Soldiers have to be properly provisioned; they have to have proper arms; they have to have proper means of safe transport to and from the battlefield. They also have to meet a basic standard of training and physical fitness, which is determined by an audit every five years, conducted by the Pyramid of Military Strategy in coordination with the Pyramid of Production and Logistics. But those details will be provided to you by your master, I’m sure,” Darth Lachris had ticked off each item on her fingers. “You can’t be called on to participate in wars if your forces are pathetic or deprived, so these are the requirements set by the Ministry of War. They set low standards, understandably, since the recruits available to various Lords are not of equal quality, but standards do exist.”

That made sense. I had initially questioned the existence of such standards since I knew from Quinn that the Empire didn’t care to guarantee continuing benefits for casualties, but if it was to guarantee that the Lords were fit to be mustered for war, then that was consistent with the Dark Council’s approach in other matters. I was a little surprised that the Empire even cared to audit the Lords, but her explanation had answered that question as well. And I supposed there must be a question of taxes, which was why the Pyramid of Production and Logistics was involved, so they probably did the audits together, one for private armies and the other for private pocketbooks.

“Well, my plan extends to asking Grand Moff Kilran to repay the favor he owes me by providing me a patrol vessel large enough for my soldiers to crew, but that was before we lost a third of the platoon. We might not have the men to opreate a vessel that size anymore.”

“Your soldiers are not certified to work as crewmen on any Navy vessel, regardless,” Darth Lachris had replied with a half shrug. “They are army-trained, as infantry to be specific. You’ll have to ask Grand Moff Kilran for the crew along with the ship or take the time to retrain them as navy crewmen on Dromund Kaas, but that would take weeks and it would be expensive. Asking Grand Moff Kilran for a ship and crew is faster, but that would be rather cheap recompense considering the job you did for him. It’s your decision.”

“Cheap? I would have thought asking for a whole warship was a bit much.”

“You value your skills too cheaply, then,” Darth Lachris retorted. “You single handedly took on a Republic warship — the wisdom of such a plan notwithstanding — and saved Grand Moff Kilran from utter embarrassment, since it was his task to apprehend or eliminate the turncoat, not yours. He owes you a lot, especially since you risked death and the fury of your master by not asking his permission first. But he’d argue that the second risk was your own foolishness, if you tried to bring that up in negotiation. Regardless, he has thousands of ships at his command, one corvette is hardly a substantial cost to hum. He might not even have to report the transfer to Darth Vengean, since it's so insignificant.”

“If my request seems cheap, he might not haggle at all, which I’d honestly prefer,” I had sighed, waving a hand. “I’d be fine with a ship and crew in return for what I did. I destroyed a ship; it seems fair to ask for a ship.”

“If you’d take my advice, then I would say you should ask him for a Bore-class corvette, since you destroyed a Thranta-class of similar size. The Bore-class is a refitted Gage-class transport, designed to operate as a fire-support ship that is smaller and cheaper to deploy as an escort vessel for low-risk convoys than a proper Terminus-class destroyer,” Darth Lachris advised thoughtfully. “But it’d be better to ask him for a skeleton crew. You’d have your hands full provisioning the full crew complement, and he’ll be less likely to staff it full of rejects or low-aptitude riffraff if you only ask him for the forty or so that are required to operate the main systems of such a vessel, rather than the full count of over one hundred men. That handles transport needs for your retinue, but you will also need a reliable source of provisions, armaments, and munitions, which means you require a somewhat reliable income stream since you have no access to factories and therefore must purchase those items.”

“There are tasks on the public Imperial channel that require intervention, I thought I’d do those or delegate them to my men while I’m occupied, so that we can raise funds,” I revealed the extent of my planning.

Darth Lachris sighed. “That may be enough to provide upkeep for a single platoon, but not for the needs of a rated warship and her crew. Especially one that sees combat, even infrequent combat. Maybe you should stick to a patrol vessel, if that’s the extent of your planning.”

At this point, I had rubbed the bridge of my nose, slightly embarrassed. “How do people normally come up with funding and supplies for their troops?”

“They have subjects, who pay them taxes,” Darth Lachris replied easily and simply. “Or, if they don’t, they acquire sponsorship from a land owner or a business owner. The last and least reliable option is to plunder what you require from enemies, but I'm sure you understand the risks and downsides to that approach.”

“I didn’t think that Darth Baras would appreciate me asking him to support my retinue in its entirely, especially if I enlarge it by asking Grand Moff Kilran for a ship,” I confided.

Lachris nodded. “Since he is your Master, your subordinates ultimately are also his, since you theoretically obey him. So, he does have a reason to provide for them, but perhaps not for everything. He doesn’t make very much in tax from his district of Dromund Kaas, and has his own forces to manage on top of that. I’m not sure what other kinds of income Baras might have, those audits are private and available only to the Pyramid of Production and Logistics, but he’d surely rather invest his resources into his own direct subordinates than into yours. The same is true of any Lord, of course, so you’ll want to look at bureaucrats or businessmen for a sponsor if that’s where you decide to find credits. There’s plenty of reasons one of them might want to have a Sith Apprentice who owes them a few favors, and civilians are not technically permitted to command military assets of their own, so their oversight into your operations will be limited. I’m sure you could negotiate something that isn’t too unbearable. I recommend using blackmail and coercion, personally, it just makes things simpler.”

I wrinkled my nose. Owing people for their funding didn’t sound very fun, especially if it was some kind of bureaucrat like a local governor. If they were at all like Lysennius Melchiro had been, then I wanted nothing to do with them. Her suggestion of…unsavory methods also didn’t sit right with me. “Well, there are surely plenty of ways for professional soldiers and a Sith to make credits,” I sighed. Mercenary work, or something. Assuming we had time for that in between the tasks that Baras assigns…

“There’s looting, salvaging, mercenary contracts, privateering, exploration, and the Imperial missions,” Darth Lachris agreed. “All up to whatever you have time for, and what your master permits you do to. Each option is not without its own risks and benefits, and you can always delegate those tasks while you are otherwise engaged.”

“It’s possible that Darth Baras asks me to just hand him command, if it’s this complicated,” I mused.

Lachris laughed, shaking her head at me chidingly. “He would be a fool to offend the Lords of the Empire over a petty issue like this. It’s not actually illegal but interfering with the holdings of a subordinate is taboo. There are many dynastic heirs who have their own soldiers and estates prior to apprenticeship, and it keeps the status quo without unreasonable amounts of bloodshed if it is widely understood that no sabotage of apprentices’ assets will be tolerated by the Lords of the Empire. So, I doubt Darth Decimus would let Darth Baras steal your soldiers without making him pay recompense for it before the Dark Council, which Darth Baras won’t want to do over something as insignificant as this. If your master truly didn’t want you to have subordinates of your own, then he would have prevented their registration with the Ministry of War. And he could have easily done so. Darth Decimus and your master have an amicable relationship. Regardless, I will leave the specifics of your retinue entirely to you, and I wish you all the best in the matter.”

And that was that. Of course, leaving the specifics of the matter to me actually meant that I was left adrift, with only half-formed hare-brained schemes, in dire need of money.

After the breakfast and subsequent formal farewells, I had immediately gone to find Lieutenant Quinn, and I had discovered he had somehow schmoozed his way into an early release from the military hospital and was actually in the barracks with the men. I collected the lot of them and took them to the hangar, where I had discovered a few more little gifts from Darth Lachris in the form of large crates absolutely filled with looted provisions, weapons, and munitions.

So, she had not left it entirely to me, it seemed.

It was spoils of war, taken from the captured resistance bases, no doubt. The note on the crates, left on a cheap Republic-issue datapad, had said, ‘As a thank you for your contributions in battle, take these provisions.’ It wasn’t signed, but it was obviously Darth Lachris’ work.

And that was how I ended up here, face buried in my hands, with more problems than solutions. “The cargo won’t fit on the interceptor…and neither will all of us, for a three-day hyperspace trip. We’ll need to organize transport to Vaiken Spacedock, somehow,” I grumbled.

“Grand Moff Kilran did say that there would be a Bore-class corvette there, in eight days,” Lieutenant Quinn reminded me thoughtfully. I didn’t need the reminder, so it was probably his way of agreeing with me. “It won’t take us eight days to arrive. There are plenty of freighters which can be chartered to make the trip with the cargo, and the interceptor can be carried along in the hangar of such a ship. But that will only take…probably four and a half days, at the speed of a transport.”

After discussing things with Quinn, I had sent a polite message to the office of the Grand Moff making the straightforward proposal: a Bore-class corvette in return for that favor I had earned with the Black Talon fiasco. As Darth Lachris had advised, I had even specified that a full crew was unnecessary, just the essentials. The Moff hadn’t been very verbose in his response, simply saying, “Granted. Such a ship will be yours, in eight days. Ask for Captain Damatha, at Vaiken Spacedock. It will be registered at the Ministry of War within the hour.”

He was an efficient man, the Grand Moff. And evidently one of few words.

“Is it fine if I leave you in charge of procuring transport to Vaiken, then?” I asked Quinn with a sigh. I still had to report to Darth Baras, and Darth Lachris had only given me two days to depart Balmorra before she started getting suspicious. Nobody wanted that to happen, so I was rather in a hurry, and if the transport couldn’t be scheduled in that time, I’d have to let her know sooner rather than later.

Quinn nodded. “Of course, m’lord. Do we have funds for transport?”

It was a good question, no matter the fact that it made me wince. What kind of a leader was I, if my lieutenant had to ask if we had pocket change for the equivalent of a train ticket? I grabbed my datapad and checked the accounts Baras used to provide his stipend, which was intended for Vette and myself. I hadn't exactly been spending the big bucks lately, so there was something like a quarter million credits accumulated there. I pulled up the balance summary and tossed the ‘pad to Quinn. “Is that sufficient? Otherwise, we’re fucked.”

Quinn glanced at the screen, surprise on his face, and nodded. “More than sufficient, it shouldn’t be more than ten thousand credits for that cargo and our personnel, if it's an Imperial transport. Maybe fifteen thousand if we have to book a private company, it depends on the scheduled departure date. But the lanes between Balmorra and Dromund Kaas are relatively safe, so the hazard charge will be low. With the ICCC also departing today, there’s bound to be fewer available transports than normal, however. Are we willing to pay extra to depart sooner?”

“We have two days to depart, so just try to find something that doesn’t break the bank in that time frame,” I ordered casually. “Money seems to be our main concern for the time being. I need to report to Darth Baras, so if there’s anything else you need it will have to wait until after.”

“Of course, I’ll coordinate with S…” Quinn paused, and I got the impression he was about to say ‘Sergeant Petris’ or ‘Sandy.’ The man’s handsome features hardened briefly, and then he levered himself to his feet with his crutch, placing my datapad on the small table that we’d raised from the floor between us. “With the troops,” he finished. I watched him critically as he moved towards the dormitory wing of the interceptor, where the men were probably packed like sardines. This ship was too small for all twelve of us, so I had no idea what they were doing about accomodations in the dormitory. Were a few of them going to divide the cargo hold?

Well, no matter. We'd have bunks in the transport, presumably.

I was looking for signs of a limp in Quinn's stride, but he seemed quite steady with his crutch. The broken bone had been stuck back together and repaired by the machine I had seen in the hospital, and the added support of the crutch was only meant to be for another day or two while things set fully, then he’d have a physical therapy regimen to follow to deal with any muscles that might have been injured by the break. As far as Quinn said, anyway, that was the extent of his recovery, but I trusted him not to skimp on the medic’s orders. He was to be in fighting form soon enough, according to his own report.

Then, the next order of business was to contact Darth Baras…which was either going to be a straight-forward debrief or he was going to have a lot of things to criticize. I thought about what I could say about my time on Balmorra, figured it was probably wise to stick to the overall summary, and sent a request for a meeting off to Dromund Kaas. The reply came almost immediately, along with visual comms, so I straightened my robes a bit, stood with shoulders set, and accepted the meeting. I bowed as Baras’ large form flickered into view.

“Apprentice, I’ve been waiting for your report. The ICCC is withdrawing from Balmorra within the day,” Darth Baras greeted me. “I’m very pleased it hasn’t taken a full month, as I suspected it might, for you and Darth Lachris to quell the rebellion there.”

I blinked, the words I had planned to say deserting me, replaced with, “Wait, you estimated a month? Darth Lachris’ advisers said it would take at least a year!”

“I imagine they think it will take a year for her to properly solidify her complete control of the populace of Balmorra as expected of an Imperial Holding, not a year just to defeat the active resistance forces,” Darth Baras corrected. “While there are no organized military or paramilitary forces known to be continuing operations against the Empire on Balmorra, after the planet-wide conflagration that you participated in over the last local week, there are inevitably pockets of continuing resistance or separatist sentiment that she will need to root out of the inhabitants of her new planet. However, the ICCC is not required for those kinds of domestic policing operations; Darth Lachris has inquisitors aplenty for that task. It would cause more trouble due to conflict of interest than it is worth, to deploy ICCC assets to every world with a hint of seditious sentiment. My sources indicated that the rebellion on Balmorra was gearing up for a major offensive, and I knew Darth Marr’s former apprentice wouldn’t accept such brazen action without equal retaliation. Naturally, her retaliation would result in utter annihilation, and that is how things have turned out, is it not?”

I thought back to the words Darth Lachris had used: ‘Cleanse this world of treasonous filth.’ I had assumed she was referring to active military resistance, which probably wasn’t the case now that Darth Baras had explained her upcoming duties. It sounded like it would be rather unpleasant for the population.

“Yes, pretty much, Master,” I agreed, scratching my head behind the ear. “Then, do you need a detailed report?”

“A review of your performance in this mission, including elements I expect you to improve upon as you move forward, has already been compiled based on the data I received from your armor and other various sources on Balmorra. I’m more curious about the acquisition of your own retinue, a favor you must have received from Darth Lachris. I didn’t think you were so ambitious, or particularly eager to assume command of soldiers. This is the influence of Darth Lachris’s lessons, I presume? What did you think of your time under her tutelage?”

I fidgeted. “Darth Lachris? She’s, uh…well, I’m not sure whether she likes me or not, to be honest. But she’s very powerful, and she taught me a lot about rulership and military command.”

“Did she? I’m pleased she treats her duties as Darth and Lord of Balmorra with such commitment,” Darth Baras sounded as if he was smiling behind his mask, but I could tell it wasn’t a very nice expression. Even separated by light-years, the Force was churning with suppressed emotions, and none of them were warm and fuzzy. “Lieutenant Quinn has always been an exemplary officer, I’m sure you’ll find him as useful as I always have, now that he serves you directly. And Grand Moff Kilran transferred a Bore-class corvette to you this morning, much to my surprise. I do wonder how you intend to pay these soldiers or provide for their other needs.”

“That’s the conundrum, yes,” I agreed, breathing a short sigh and bracing myself. “I did contact Grand Moff Kilran to request that corvette, which he granted due to my aid with the Black Talon debacle, all so that I had a means of reliable transport for a platoon of soldiers and additional assets that can be used to make earnings. He said it will be at Vaiken Spacedock in eight days. Lieutenant Quinn and his men, despite our casualties, are sufficient as far as infantry goes for a ship that size, and there’s essential crew already on Dromund Kaas that the Grand Moff agreed to transfer along with the ship. Captain Damatha is the officer in charge, I think. And Darth Lachris has given me some of the spoils from the fighting here as supplies which should last me a few weeks.”

Darth Baras didn’t so much as budge as I explained. So, I kept talking, because what else was there to do?

“As far as reliable funds are concerned, there’s a few options I was considering, from mercenary contracts to the Imperial requests on the military HoloNet, and salvage or other profitable activities that can be found while I’m traveling around to complete missions you’ve assigned me,” I said, nodding after that. “That’s pretty much everything.”

Darth Baras finally moved, his head falling forward in a slight sag and an audible sigh accompanying it. “A damaged corvette, currently under repair, and half of its crew complement is not a solution to your problems, my very young apprentice, but actually compounds the issues of funding and supply. Furthermore, supplemental income from mercenary work or Imperial contracts is never sufficient to supply the needs of professional soldiers, since inevitably damage is taken in combat, or casualties sustained, and those things have associated costs that are usually equal to the pay received. That is why mercenaries have the poor reputation that they do; they must seek alternative income which leads inevitably to criminal enterprise. Darth Lachris should not have assigned any soldiers directly to your retinue, knowing that you cannot support them; if she wanted you to have command then she should have integrated you into her own forces for the duration of the short campaign and then released you from those duties, as is proper for such a temporary arrangement. Her actions are incredibly unusual, particularly since she never once consulted me, which would have been proper considering that I am your master.”

“She said you could have interfered with their filing at the Ministry of War, if you objected to it,” I pointed out. “And she didn’t trust me with her own soldiers, that much she said to me directly.”

“She didn't trust you, hm? Yet she gave you roles in the battles that one could argue were crucial to the overall success of her operations. That is not the action of someone who doubts your skills or intent. As for the other matter, I could have interfered with the assignment of your retinue more than I already did, by casting reasonable doubts on your ability to provide for a retinue,” Darth Baras agreed in a low, dangerous voice. “Darth Lachris clearly smoothed over those objections. But what would you have thought of me, if I had taken more direct action? With Darth Lachris having ingratiated herself to you, if I controverted her gifts, even with a reasonable explanation, would you not have assumed I was holding you back? A measure of hatred between us is acceptable, even desirable, if it motivates you to improve yourself, but if you actually became unsatisfied to the extent that you decided to seek another master, or if you attempted to kill me irrationally, then I’d have to kill you, wasting all my efforts up to this point. Furthermore, what would have become of Lieutenant Quinn and his soldiers, do you suppose, if I had prevented the transfer? They’ve already been discharged from the ICCC, and integration into your newly declared retinue was the only remaining step. The soldiers would have been left entirely without standing, which is a troublesome situation that I’d rather not have to concern myself with, especially since Lieutenant Quinn has served me dutifully for several years and proven his usefulness.”

I blinked quickly, and uttered, “Ah.” It was really all my brain could manage as I struggled to catch up with the conversation's intricacies.

“Yes, ‘ah.’ Now, since you have no real assets, no source of steady income, and no manufacturing capability, being a landless Apprentice of mine, and since my holdings extend to the entirety of a single housing district and a wing in the Sith Sanctum on Dromund Kaas, I do wonder whether this was really a benevolent act by Darth Lachris,” Darth Baras mused, his voice gradually rising in both volume and fury. “Or perhaps she has set you up to embarrass yourself by having you fail to adequately provide for your soldiers, which gives you a bad reputation that would cripple your efforts to raise forces in the future. Even worse, she might have thought that you’d fail to satisfy the Ministry of War’s five-year audit, which occurs for all Lords in two years. The consequences of failing the audit are the immediate confiscation of all military assets, which are then integrated into the Imperial Ministry of War as auxiliaries. What do you think is left of your reputation, and by extension my own, after something like that?”

“I’m sure she assumed someone of my resourcefulness could manage it somehow,” I answered stoically. Baras might have been projecting just a little, here…not everyone took every action with the effects of their schemes planned out years in advance, or if not planned at least suspected.

“Do you really think she has such a high opinion of you?” Darth Baras retorted.

I winced, remembering her scathing review of my performance in the Commander Rylon ambush. “Speculating about her motives doesn’t help solve the problems at hand. Whether she was simply assisting me as my senior in the Sith Order and hoping that I would owe her down the line, or aiming to sabotage my progress, the result is that I have soldiers and military assets to handle.”

“That much is true,” Darth Baras agreed. “Whatever her intent, the reality is that it’s caused more harm than good. Your missions are mostly of a clandestine nature, and probably will be for the better part of the next year. Attempting to travel inconspicuously in a corvette-class warship will be more difficult than the interceptor I already provided you, and if you plan to have the corvette performing tasks elsewhere while you complete your own objectives, then what was the purpose of attaining command?”

“Honestly, Master, the interceptor isn’t well-suited to long-distance hyperspace travel, even if it was only carrying Vette and myself. Using the corvette as a berth and departing for short journeys in the interceptor allows me to resupply without traveling all the way back to Vaiken Spacedock or other Imperials outposts in the interceptor. The corvette can operate independently while I’m planet-side, and I can rendezvous with it when my missions are complete. Having assets is better than not having them; they will be useful to us eventually,” I explained.

“As far as funding is concerned, I can only provide for perhaps half of the costs associated with the operation of a corvette and its crew, in addition to the stipend I had already allotted you. As I’ve already said, my assets are not the most affluent, at this time, and what income I do have is allocated to better and more worthwhile things than Darth Lachris’ presumptuous gifts,” Darth Baras said her name like it was something dirty. “I would recommend that you appoint a quartermaster and acquire an administrative droid for management needs. And once you’ve assumed command of your ship, delegate the task of performing Imperial contracts to the captain. Allow her the use of Lieutenant Quinn’s platoon, if necessary. A corvette and a platoon of soldiers are not of insignificant worth, as long as you allow them to fulfill their purpose, and if they perish in combat, you no longer have to provision them or pay wages. While you spend extended periods of time operating planet-side, your ship should be doing something worthwhile. In fact, there are certain tasks that I can send along which should be somewhat profitable, and helpful to us both.”

I winced. However true it might be, it was exceedingly callous to put it so bluntly. And if I was planning to pay benefits to the families of the fallen, it wasn’t exactly cheaper to deal with those casualties. But I wasn’t going to share that plan with Darth Baras now, when he already seemed a little bit pissed off about the money situation. “But you said those kinds of contracts aren’t actually profitable, accounting for damage and casualties.”

“That’s true, so you’ll have to earn the difference yourself, but the contracts at least make up a portion of the costs,” Darth Baras agreed. “I’ll lift the restrictions I placed on you before, about seeking outside income. Feel free to do whatever you can find the time to do. Do not allow these diversions to delay the objectives I provide you. If, however, you end up being incapable of supporting these soldiers in a manner compliant with the Ministry of War’s standards, then I expect you to handle the situation so that it does not humiliate us, before the audits occur in two years, is that understood?”

“Completely,” I nodded, already worrying in the back of my mind. Were things really going to remain stable for two years, or could I expect betrayal before that time? For that matter, when Darth Baras pulled off his little coup with Darth Vengean, and tried to retire me as his apprentice, what would happen to all my subordinates?

Probably nothing good, and that was going to suck.

“Then, let us move on. I was pleased to hear that you succeeded in killing Commander Rylon and his commandos, even if you did take casualties in the battle. Commander Rylon was a peerless operative, so losses were not unexpected. I don’t suppose you’re aware of the wider situation in the Empire at the moment, however?”

“The wider situation?”

“Darth Angral’s son, a worthless weasel and a complete fool, got himself gutted on a live feed with his father and his father’s advisers watching his death. He was attempting to make his report from the basement of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Along with his apprentices, he was defeated there by a Jedi Knight, who was promoted less than a week prior, no less,” Darth Baras huffed in cruel amusement. “Well, his father took these events about as well as you’d expect, and immediately declared war on the Republic writ large.”

I was familiar with the general beats of the Jedi Knight’s storyline, and this sounded familiar. But still… “War?”

“The Dark Council has immediately moved to cut ties with Darth Angral, declaring him and his holdings to be in a state of rebellion against the Empire for disobeying the Treaty of Coruscant. But, of course, no Imperial is making any move to quell his so-called rebellion, since Darth Angral’s armies and fleets are instead mobilized to cause damage to the Republic, and we’re all watching with bated breath, to see how he fares. This can serve as an evaluation of the Republic’s response capabilities and military forces,” Baras explained. “The reason this is important for us, specifically, is that it has opened the eyes of the Republic Strategic Information Services and the Jedi Shadows. All the undercover operations that my spies are undertaking throughout Republic institutions are under suspicion. All Imperial operatives, in fact, not only mine. Darth Angral’s idiotic offspring was masquerading as one of the Republic Military’s most senior scientists and had been in that position for the last six years, working face-to-face with Jedi on occasion. He was caught by the Jedi, on camera, blabbing about his many exploits to his father. The Republic is now asking themselves what other positions might be compromised in a similar fashion and are organizing an extensive review of essential personnel. This is a disaster, and I don’t think I have to explain why.”

“Oh.” Right. The whole, ‘I’m secretly a Sith Lord and you fell for it bwahahaha’ thing, which happens way too often in SWTOR to be at all reasonable. That would obviously inspire a good deal of paranoia in the Republic’s clandestine organizations, surely, and unless I was misremembering things, Darth Angral’s son was the first of many such dramatic revelations that would be coming down the line. Like the betrayal of Havoc Squad, if htat hadn't already occurred, the whole Dark Side illness in the Jedi Masters, and the Children of the Emperor.

“As such, the integrity of my spy network is no longer our top priority. My agents will have to do their utmost to stay undercover despite increased scrutiny, but losses are inevitable. However, what we cannot allow is the Republic having access to individuals that are capable of exposing spies at a glance. We want this review to cost them, dearly. Accusations against the innocient, combined with an increasing atmosphere of distrust, can serve to benefit the Empire's goals just as well as the undercover operatives. Individuals like Nomen Karr’s padawan are exceedingly dangerous because she can eliminate many of these risks. Your priority, from this day forward, then, is to hunt down the padawan and neutralize the threat she poses. A full mission briefing awaits you, so return to Dromund Kaas at once. I expect you’ll review the performance assessment I compiled for you and bring any concerns or comments with you to the briefing. I’ll discuss the matter comprehensively with you when you arrive,” Darth Baras declared. “Don’t keep me waiting, Apprentice. We don’t have the time to waste.”

“Understood, Master. We’re figuring out transport to Vaiken Spacedock as we speak,” I offered.

“Good. I expect to see you on Dromund Kaas within the week. If you must, leave your retinue to fend for itself in the meantime and travel in the interceptor,” Baras didn’t wait for me to bow in farewell, before he cut the transmission. I slumped, shaking my head.

Well, this whole situation was highly concerning. I checked my datapad for the performance review that he’d mentioned, and found a very long document, with embedded recordings from my armor’s cameras and sensors. There were notes by Tranch on my swordplay, I noticed, and Baras had made general comments, mostly about Darth Lachris’ lessons and the approach that I had taken when dealing with her. I didn’t have time to read the whole thing, right away, but in general the feeling I got was, ‘you did good enough, but do better.’

Well, that’s the plan anyway, but some of the more specific tips might be useful so I resolved to review it in detail during transit.

Lieutenant Quinn and two of the others returned to the main cabin just as I sat down and started rubbing my temples again, wondering what to do about…everything. Was the coming mission going to be Alderaan or Tatooine or something entirely unexpected? How was I supposed to make credits myself, while also doing what Baras ordered me to do, and without delaying my objectives?

“My lord, I’d like to recommend Specialist Lisa Maow for promotion to Platoon Sergeant, and Private Gaunt Firrec to Specialist. Both of them did admirably during the ambush, and the troops suggested them for these ranks based on our discussions about reorganizing the platoon in light of our casualties. We’ll reform into two fire teams, one led by Corporal Eren Tall with Corporal Isol Deen, Corporal Ryan Date, Specialist Gaunt Firrec, and Vette. The other led by Corporal Valence Graw, with Corporal Mia Khan, Specialist Donal Green, and Private Gunther Danten,” Quinn proposed, standing roughly at attention, with his two subordinates also standing, feet at shoulder-width, hands clasped at their back.

“If it’s your recommendation, Lieutenant, then I’ll approve it wholeheartedly,” I replied simply, gesturing at them lazily. “Relax, would you? I’ve just heard we’re to be on Dromund Kaas within the week, how’s the transport situation?”

“All that remains is payment, which I assured them would occur after we’ve boarded,” Quinn replied easily. “It’s an Imperial vessel, Gage-class transport, departing in four hours. I've sent the details to the ship's computer. They’re sending shuttles to load our cargo and requested that you fly the interceptor to its berth in their hangar as soon as they send the flight path to the ship computer, so that they can make use of this hangar. We’re joining an armored platoon from the ICCC that is being transported through Vaiken Spacedock for resupply, so they can drop us off on their route. Cost is eleven thousand credits, owed to the Ministry of War.”

“Excellent, thank you for finding something so promptly,” I sighed with small relief. That was fast, and convenient. One problem dealt with, anyway. “Should you be on that leg? Sit down.”

“I’m fine, ma’am, it needs the exercise,” Lieutenant Quinn objected, while the newly dubbed Sergeant Maow hid a smirk behind her fingers.

“At least sit down for takeoff,” I returned, narrowing my eyes slightly. We didn't need him biting the deck because of my piloting skull. He wilted as my gaze intensified and nodded in agreement. Good. “Right, is everyone aboard?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sergeant Maow affirmed.

“Does anyone have any remaining business on Balmorra?” I hesitated, after rising to my feet again. “Last minute shopping needs, farewells, postcards, or what have you?”

The soldiers stared at me blankly. I grumbled under my breath and waved a hand. “I guess not. Alright, I’ll get us over to the transport in a bit. I don’t suppose any of you are trained as a pilot?”

Unanimous, mute shakes of their heads was the answer to that. Well…one day soon, I’d hopefully have someone to fly these ships who was certified for the task. “I guess I’ll do it then,” I muttered, shuffling away.

At my back I heard one of them say in a voice they probably hoped I wouldn’t catch, “Tell everyone to find a place to buckle in. Quick!”

I laughed to myself and took the pilot’s seat. The computer was going to be the one flying, not me, but it was amusing, nonetheless. Our ascent was smooth enough, characteristically mechanical and efficient as was the habit of droid pilots, and when I saw what was essentially a copy of the Black Talon hanging in orbit, with shuttles coming and going from its hangar bay, it finally sunk in that a ship of that exact size was what I had requested from Grand Moff Kilran.

Shit…this was going to be a lot of work, wasn’t it?

Shuttles had to make the trip more than once to load all of the loot that Lachris had given me, and we were assigned bunks, restricted to civilian areas of the ship, including the mess hall, hangar, and one-room recreational solution. There were other platoons that were also boarding; a ship of this size could carry a total of two hundred and fifty people, including the crew.

I ended up seeking out Lieutenant Quinn in the aforementioned recreational area, which had been roughly divided into thirds. There were people exercising, with a variety of machines and free weights, there were people eating, and there were people sitting at tables playing cards or shuffling datapads around. I saw a pair of men playing video games on their datapads, which made me curious about what sorts of things might be able to run on the standard issue electronic device.

Quinn, true to form, was working. He looked up when I sat down, straightening his shoulders. “My Lord! Don’t mind me, I’m just catching up on a few administrative details.”

“Do you need an aide de camp?” I asked bemusedly. “A secretary, perhaps? Or maybe a droid assistant? I’ve been advised to acquire an administrative droid to handle my finances, so maybe I can share.”

Quinn gave me an unamused look. “I manage a platoon this size just fine, especially with the help of a platoon sergeant. Regulations would indicate I might not even require a platoon sergeant, but I find that the men receive discipline better from an officer and appreciate the leeway more when it comes from a noncommissioned officer. As for an administrative droid…it’s probably a wise idea to save your time, otherwise you'll find yourself lacking in adequate sleep.”

“Is that right?” I laughed ruefully, shaking my head. “Well, you just always seem swamped in datapads, so I thought I’d ask.”

“Part of the job description, ma'am, and there are lots of things to manage during the transition,” Quinn replied easily. “Is there something I can do for you in particular?”

“No, just socializing,” I shrugged. “I’m curious about you. Why did you sign on with the Empire, Quinn?”

I realized I might have been presumptuous to use his name so freely without his rank, but it was how I thought of him, and I knew he wasn’t going to complain about it to my face. He seemed to blink at me for a bit in surprise, then in thought. “Well, I was born into a citizen’s household, on Dromund Kaas. My father was military, a Navy man, but I always looked up to the Imperial Guard. He didn’t take it personally, but my father did tell me that the only way I’d ever be accepted into the Guard was through exemplary service. Of course, no one really knows how the Guard are recruited, but there are always rumors that actions above and beyond can catch the attention of their elusive talent scouts.”

“So, you wanted to dress in red, then?” I wondered. “I’m afraid I don’t see the attraction.”

“To the wider Empire, the Guard are the unreachable pinnacle of might. Apart from the Sith themselves, there isn’t any position awarded higher honors or respect than Imperial Guardsman, the personal shock forces of the Emperor,” Quinn objected sharply. He sighed. “Well, I can see from the perspective of a Sith Lord how it might not seem like something worthy of aspiration. In any case, that was why I joined in the beginning.”

“Seems like a hard goal to reach,” I mused neutrally. "And what do you mean by 'in the beginning?'"

“Near impossible, of course. Those kinds of goals are enough to get you through training, but I learned quickly that there needs to be a closer motivation, something that can be grasped day by day, if a soldier is going to thrive in their career,” Quinn took a faraway expression and leaned back on the bench a bit, clasping his hands under his chin. “For me, it’s the everyday duties of a soldier in the Empire that inspire. Every pirate crushed, every rebel defeated, these things are what keeps the order of the Empire. It keeps people like my mother or other citizens insulated from the raw savagery that infests every inch of the rest of this galaxy. We contribute to that effort, the effort of clawing out order from chaos, with each report filed, every blaster shot fired. I suppose you could say that’s the whole point of service…but they don’t harp on it nearly enough in training, I always have to reinforce the meaning of duty with all the new recruits.”

He trailed off, cleared his throat, and blinked, a faint blush on his cheeks as he looked away. My jaw had dropped, slightly, as he took a more philosophical tack, and now I could only nod slowly, saying, “Wow. I mean…it’s good to see that you’re so motivated, Lieutenant.”

“I can only continue doing my part, my Lord,” he replied demurely. He hesitated, and I waited for him to ask me a question in turn, but none came. We just sat there awkwardly for a moment.

I cleared my throat, shifted my posture. I was saved when Sergeant Maow plopped down next to the Lieutenant, bringing her own datapads. “You got the sermon, ma’am? Did you ask for it, at least, or is Lieutenant just preaching again?”

“Louse…” Quinn groaned, fidgeting in place.

I smirked and shook my head. “No, I did ask. I was curious. But you’ve heard it before, I gather?”

“Oh, yeah,” Lisa nodded with a chipper laugh. “Every newbie gets the spiel. I remember it like it was yesterday. 'Do you think your soft existence up to this point was facilitated by kind words and empty reassurances? Certainly not! I expect you to suffer, gladly, for the opportunity to spill blood, all so that we might safeguard the civilized conduct of the wider Empire.' Yeah, I'm not sure what I expected when the guys warned me about the Talk, but that wasn't it.”

A rare blush of embarrassment was on Quinn's cheeks, and he had ducked his head into the pile of datapads. I was amused but didn't tease him. We hadn't known each other that long, after all.

“Why did you enlist, Sergeant?” I asked, curiously.

The woman’s laugh faded, and she folded her arms on the table seriously. “I like guns. Well, weapons in general, but guns are my favorite. Also, I like being the baddest bitch in the room.” She colored a bit, looked me up and down, and then sat back. “Well, at least most of the time.”

I chuckled, shaking my head at the insinuation. “All good reasons.”

“Yeah. And, hey, if the LT’s crusade needs an extra gun, I’m up for a good fight or three,” Lisa shrugged. “I didn’t realize there was so much data work when I enlisted, though.” She gave a stink eye to the spread out ‘pads.

“I’d better leave you to it, then. It's not going to do itself,” I shrugged, casting my eyes around for Vette. I wondered where she was planning to bunk up, since they’d given me an officer’s cabin. She was chilling with her squad at another table, cards spread out in a game of sabaac, and so with a nod to the two I stood up and crossed between the tables until I appeared over Vette’s shoulder. I tapped her lightly, which of course caused her to jump a bit with an adorable squeak.

“Hey, Vette, where are you bunking?”

“Forty-three?” she replied confusedly, with what I assumed was the number of her bunk. I sighed, remembering the difficulty in the bar. Was the undertone destined to go unnoticed with this girl?

Better be a bit more direct. “They gave me an officer’s cabin, cabin three. You're welcome to join me there. But if you’d rather bunk with your squad, then that’s fine.”

Tack whistled suggestively, and I briefly looked around at the squad, seeing various knowing expressions. Vette on the other hand had blushed a bit, stammering out something that didn’t really make sense. I shrugged smoothly.

“Just knock, or ring the bell or whatever, alright?” I informed her smugly, sauntering away. I could definitely do some of those planned meditations to deepen the Alignment stat during this trip, between reviewing the performance appraisal. Maybe some lightsaber katas in the recreation room, but I’d wait until third shift for that. Since people were likely to clear out when the lightsaber was drawn, and I didn't want to interrupt everyone else.

All in all, the journey would be a nice little vacation, I figured. Which was certainly welcome after the war zone of Balmorra.

Chapter Text

The katas for Juyo were alien to me, nothing at all like the familiar, comforting routines of Soresu or Shien. And that was not only because it was newer to me than the others. For one thing, Juyo was a style that had been adapted for saberstaff, and I wasn’t a saberstaff user; the motions were wider than usual to account for the second blade, and certain cuts weren’t completed fully, since the saberstaff would cut the user if the hilt was turned in that way. For another, Juyo was aggression incarnate, and not a mainly defensive form like the others that I excelled in.

The main difference between aggression and defense in saberplay was initiative. Which fighter started the exchanges, dictated the pace, and set the distance of combat? Juyo’s central theme was controlling the fight through confident assault, which meant setting the pace, interrupting the opponent and seizing the initiative, and controlling the middle distance. Obviously, every saber style included guard positions, since there were always counter attacks that needed to be blocked or deflected. But unlike the counter-attacking style of Shien or the immovable rock of Soresu, Juyo’s defense counted on preventing the opponent from making a solid attack.

Keep them unbalanced, keep them on the back foot, keep them desperate. That was the game that was played by Juyo, and it was very emblematic of the Sith, I felt.

Despite the fact that it was a style favored by Sith throughout the Empire, there were precious few manuals on the HoloNet about it. I would have to ask Darth Baras if Tranch was on Dromund Kaas, when we arrived, so that I could at least practice against a live opponent once before bringing out this style in a life-or-death situation. During the katas, I hadn’t included the cutting blades of Force energy from [Blade Storm], but I felt how natural it would be to activate that skill. I only doubted its effectiveness if a [Force Ward] was sufficient to protect against it.

I completed the final kata of Juyo, feeling sweat on my brow, and settled into a generic ready stance as I breathed. It was always late, whatever that means while in the grasp of hyperspace, so there weren’t usually any onlookers when I performed my katas. Since Sith slept a relatively small amount compared to Humans and Twi’lek, I had the time to come here before there was a crowd. Generally after playing around with Vette in my cabin, dozing together with her for some time, and meditating in the relative quiet of the third shift.

This time, however, I did have an observer. Lieutenant Quinn was standing by the edge of the open square, which was generally used for sparring, stretching, or other exercises that needed a bit of open space. There were free weights by the walls of the transport’s recreational area, but I hadn’t felt the need to lift. “Lieutenant,” I greeted, opening my eyes and glancing towards him. “You’re up early.”

“I wanted to deliver the report you requested, without the usual crowd,” Quinn replied. I quirked a grin and clipped my lightsaber to my belt, cinching my robes more tightly at my waist when I noticed that the acrobatic motions of my kata had loosened them. I approached him and then passed him, gesturing for him to follow as I filled my canteen with water at the ship’s food synthesizer.

Think of a 3D printer that prints organic material, and you’ve got a pretty good idea of a food processor. It requires a biomass input, which looked to me like large cubes of gray and brown clay, and it could create proteins and carbohydrates in the form of many common food items. Tubers seemed to be the easiest, but it could even make meat if it was requested before the busiest hours. The fabricator took more time to do meat than anything else, and I have to say that what it produced was more like meat-flavored cardboard than actual meat. The processor struggled to make suitably juicy food items, and everything tended to be on the dry side, including the meat, which was often nearly bloodless.

The near-empty recreational room had plenty of seating, so Quinn and I chose a table that was as far from the other soldiers or crewmen as possible. I practically guzzled down my water and gestured for him to begin. “I looked into Darth Angral’s son as thoroughly as I could, from the Imperial HoloNet, and also collated some other Imperial military actions for comparison.”

“What did you find?” I asked, setting the canteen down. I had given Quinn the task of investigating the matter because he probably was more familiar with navigating the HoloNet than me, and he was a very thorough man.

“It appears that Darth Angral’s son, Lord Tarnis, was initially detected by Jedi Masters on Coruscant as a ‘dark presence,’ and the following investigation actually began with his own assistance. He staged his own kidnapping from the Senate Building, but was confronted in the Jedi Temple by a pair of Jedi, a Knight and a padawan-learner, who killed him,” Quinn reported simply. “This is according to the statement made by the Jedi Order to the Senate regarding the incident, so of course the identities of the Jedi are omitted. Imperial sources do indicate that there was an ongoing operation in the ruin of the Jedi Temple, mostly intended to destroy knowledge in their archives. It was also noted that the Force in that location would mask the presence of any Sith Lords almost completely, which it seemed to do considering Sith had been on Coruscant for nearly three years before Lord Tanis led the Jedi to the Temple, although I couldn’t say for sure if that was due to the Force in the area or simply incompetence on the part of the Republic.”

“Then the Empire had interest in the Jedi Archives? Was anything recovered from it?” I asked intently.

“Yes and no. The Empire recognized that the most complete accumulation of knowledge in the galaxy was likely the Jedi Archives, even greater perhaps than the Senate Library. With it lying in a ruin, it was determined that the opportunity was too good to pass up, but the operatives discovered that the archives are inaccessible without Jedi artifacts known as noetikons,” Quinn reported. “These noetikons were the aim of the sanctioned Imperial operation, and it was considered espionage and under the purview of Imperial Intelligence. Lord Tarnis was not acting on orders from the Dark Council, according to Imperial reports.”

Of course, since Darth Angral had been repudiated. “I see. Were these noetikons recovered, then?”

“No,” Quinn shook his head. “Apart from the interruption of the operation resulting from the two Jedi who slaughtered Lord Tarnis, there was another Jedi who seemed to be affiliated with them. This Jedi hunted down the operatives who were working to recover the noetikons, throwing years of careful planning into the trash compactor. Complete mission failure followed, and the end result is twenty-three dead operatives, two dead Sith Lords, and four dead acolytes. Even worse, it appears that the noetikons were destroyed, making the Jedi Archives completely inaccessible for the time being. All surviving operatives were withdrawn from Coruscant after that, since their objective was now impossible.”

I whistled lowly. “Are the Jedi Archives destroyed?”

“No, the servers stretch for nearly half a kilometer under the surface of Coruscant, and it survived the destruction of the Temple during the Sacking of Coruscant. I daresay that it would take nearly the complete eradication of the surrounding district to actually destroy the Archives. The Archives are too large to be accessed conventionally in a timely manner, that was the point of these Jedi Artifacts, according to our report. Without the noetikons, it could take days to complete a search query, even with modern computing. As such, even the Jedi will be hard pressed to make use of their archives until they can replace those noetikons.”

Replace them…well, that wasn’t guaranteed to be possible at all, since the noetikons were something like a soul imprint of the relevant Jedi Masters, who are of course no longer alive. I supposed maybe suitable replacements might be found and imprinted for the noetikons, but who could replace Bastila Shan as a part of her noeitkon? They didn’t exactly have a lot of Jedi kicking around who had tasted the Dark and then returned to the Light. “Fascinating, Lieutenant. You’ve been very thorough.”

“Thank you, my Lord, I strive to exceed your expectations,” Quinn replied primly. “As for the other thing, Imperial operations in Republic space, there are relatively few. The most relevant is Ord Mantell.”

“Go on,” I leaned forward eagerly.

“I don’t have clearance for the details, but the broad strokes of the picture is this: the Empire is supporting a separatist movement on Ord Mantell, secretly. Providing armaments and munitions, mostly, but we also have advisers without uniform assisting the rebel commanders. The separatists were mostly civilians, although roughly fifteen percent of the provincial army on Ord Mantell defected to the separatist side when the conflict began, so our strategic advice is crucial to the survival of their movement,” Quinn explained seriously. “In any case, the Republic’s top commando unit, Havoc Squad, was somehow made to defect. They departed Ord Mantell six months ago, attained rank in the Imperial Military, and after that they disappeared. I couldn’t find even a mention of their current assignment.”

“Just like that?” I wondered. “Nobody tried to stop them?”

“Well, if anyone in the Republic had noticed their treachery, they certainly failed to stop Havoc Squad’s departure, and the Republic did not mention anyone like that in their report on the defectors,” Quinn replied. “In any case, the Empire has resorted mostly to economic harassment, privateering, and supply of rebel groups in the Republic. Very few uniformed Imperials should be operating in Republic territory, and even if they are discovered they are likely to be disavowed. Per the dictates of the Treaty of Coruscant, no military personnel from either nation should be present within the borders of the other unless they are invited.”

I raised an eye ridge. “And under those conditions, the Dark Council authorized Imperial Intelligence to operate on Coruscant, the capitol of the Republic?”

“I thought that was strange as well, but clearly there was something in the ruins of the Jedi Temple that was deemed worth the risk, And, to be quite frank, only the Emperor and his closest allies really care about upholding the Treaty,” Quinn replied with a shrug. “Even military leadership respects it only because of the chain of command, but no one would complain if the war was to reignite tomorrow.”

That wasn’t a surprise to me. It was surprising, however, that the Jedi Knight and the Jedi Consular had both been on Coruscant at the same time, if what Quinn had reported was true. I had not met or even heard much about the Sith Inquisitor, so other than the fact that the person existed I couldn’t say much of anything. The two Jedi classes, on the other hand, might even be working in tandem.

Which was concerning. I had no intention of really trying to fight against them, since the Sith Warrior didn’t cross paths with the Republic classes in the game, but I was not operating under the delusion that things would just coincidentally go that smoothly in reality. Each of the four Force-sensitive classes were going to change the galaxy, and that meant we’d all be aware of each other. Under those conditions, I could only assume that I’d be meeting them eventually, almost certainly before the Revanite plot but inevitably soon after that. I didn’t really want to fight them, but who could say if they felt the same way about me?

And if their skills were as powerful as mine, a fight with them would be…difficult.

I still had to wonder why I had access to the special mechanics. And why I had suddenly awakened on Korriban in the first place. There wasn’t an easy way to go about looking for answers to those questions. While Quinn’s report told me much about the existence of the other classes, it didn’t give me anything to go on regarding their abilities, so I couldn’t say if they were just talented individuals or if they had the same unfair advantages as myself.

“Was there any interesting news about the wider Empire? I wasn’t keeping up with reports while on Balmorra,” I asked, hesitantly. I was hoping that Quinn had found something, anything, related to the Inquisitor, but I didn’t want to ask directly. So far, everything he had researched could be explained as preparation for the upcoming briefing about Darth Angral, the Republic at large, and my next mission in the hunt for Nomen Karr. Asking specifically about another Sith, whom I had never met, would be suspicious.

Quinn shrugged. “Nothing out of the ordinary, apart from Darth Angral’s repudiation. Darth Malgus has achieved commendations for several extraordinary operations, including the destruction of some kind of superweapon known as Hammer Station and the discovery of a powerful ancient Sith tomb.”

I nodded as if I cared. “Thanks for fitting in that research along with the rest of your work, Lieutenant.”

“It was nothing, my Lord. I really only had data work on the first day, and I appreciated having something to do with myself other than physical therapy,” Quinn gestured to his leg.

“How’s that going?”

“Excellent,” he replied shortly. “I’m in top form, Ma’am.”

I smiled, pleased, and nodded. “We’re arriving shortly at Vaiken, and I’ll be taking a shuttle directly to Dromund Kaas. I trust you’ll organize everything with the cargo and the interceptor?”

“As you wish,” Quinn agreed.

“Please contact this Captain Damatha to introduce yourself, once everyone has disembarked. I’m sure I’ll be meeting her at some point in the next several days, but I’d like to know the state of her ship and the condition of the crew, and you’ll be working with her directly so a separate introduction on your part would be a good thing,” I continued thoughtfully. “You might also give the men leave to relax on Dromund Kaas, at least until the corvette has completed its repairs. I’m going to find a shower and prep for the briefing with Darth Baras.”

Quinn stood and bowed, at the same time as I casually rose and made to leave. We didn’t really have the time to go further down the rabbit hole of news reports. I had learned a lot, even though there wasn’t much actionable intel. Well, apart from the fact that the events of Coruscant had occurred very recently, which meant that the two Jedi classes would be working on either Nar Shadaa or Taris in the near future, assuming their missions followed the same flow as the game.

I realized that that isn’t an assumption that I have any reason to make. Just because I had gone to Balmorra first didn’t mean the other classes would follow the same progression of planets as SWTOR. Especially since I had skipped Nar Shadaa due to Baras handling that matter himself. If anything, my experience proved that things weren’t going to follow the SWTOR plot progression. That wasn’t very encouraging. I wasn’t ready to jump into the events of the reignited Great War or the emergence of the Revanite Cult. And I certainly wasn’t ready for the invasion of the Eternal Empire. I wasn’t sure how to prepare myself for that last one, but I definitely wasn’t ready now.

When the transport did arrive at Vaiken Spacedock, our cargo was dropped off and I took the interceptor, along with my men, to the same hangar, leaving Quinn in charge of things. I then took a shuttle down through the clouds of Dromund Kaas, to the surface, where I was supposed to meet Darth Baras at his office in the Sith Sanctum for my next assignment.

As usual, he had known of my estimated arrival time and organized things accordingly, despite that I had never actually given him an ETA beyond ‘within the week.’ The guy had no concept of privacy or personal boundaries…but I was still regularly wearing armor that I knew was reporting to his network, so I could only blame myself I suppose. I chose to forgo the armor this time, despite having to ride a speeder through Kaas City, because it was supposedly just a meeting and then I’d be departing again.

Darth Baras’ wing of the Sith Sanctum was quiet when I arrived, which wasn’t surprising considering that it was technically before sunrise in Kaas City. Baras was in his office, and I wasn’t sure if he had awakened early to meet me as soon as I arrived, or if he just didn’t sleep, but he looked like hell. Given the state of his face, I’d have to lean towards option two, but that might just be the usual bruising from Force Stress.

He wasn’t wearing his armor or his mask and was dressed in simple black robes not unlike my own casual wear, although I’m sure it wasn’t quite the same and that he forgoes the addition of a bra. Unless his man boobs were rather more troublesome than I would have thought, given his body type, but I doubted that he had let himself become obese.

When I entered and bowed in greeting, he waved me forward with little care. It was far more casual than I was accustomed to, and I moved somewhat hesitantly. “Sit,” he ordered offhand, gesturing to a chair which was situated opposite him, across the wide desk top. Usually he made his guests stand before the desk, so the chair was an unusual addition. There were datapads strewn everywhere, and active consoles were still scrolling through small text or displaying various maps.

I felt it was a scene set deliberately to make him appear weary, or perhaps vulnerable. I had no idea why Darth Baras was going for that impression, and it made me appraise him in the Force as well, finding that he was as full of vitality and power as usual, though attempting to downplay the fact. So, not actually fatigued but trying to look the part? Why?

“What’s all this?” I wondered as I eased into the chair, sitting with my back and shoulders straight. Baras looked around the office and shrugged.

“It’s been a busy week, dealing with the fallout of Darth Angral’s impetuous declaration of war,” Darth Baras offered by way of explanation. He looked at my face intently, for a moment, before he gestured vaguely. “What do you think of his situation?”

“Darth Angral’s?” I clarified hesitantly. Baras nodded. “Well, he’s an idiot.”

Baras showed a rare smirk. “True. But why do you say so?”

“I don’t know how many worlds he controls, but the Republic has thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of populated planets. They have trillions of citizens. A war consisting of only his forces against the Republic is doomed, even if the Republic didn't have an army to begin with. Their industrial capacity means they can simply build one on demand to fight him, conscript the soldiers required, and then disband the whole thing when they’re through with the fighting,” I replied, thinking it was all very straightforward. Baras’ eyes glowed with keen interest as I continued. “He cannot match their economic or industrial strength. And he has no chance of ending the war before the Republic can mobilize, he lacks the military might to force them to surrender.”

“You are correct, so then why do you think he decided to disobey the Emperor and declare a war independently?” Darth Baras asked. I sensed there was a reason that this was how he chose to open our first in depth discussion since my deployment to Balmorra, so I tried to come up with an intelligent answer instead of just off-the-cuff intuition.

I honestly had no clue what Angral was thinking, though. It was obviously a poor decision.

“He is arrogant and isn’t thinking clearly? Or…maybe he is being sacrificed to stress the Treaty of Coruscant in preparation for a wider restart of the Great War. The Emperor may have put the armistice in place, but if the people of the Empire and the Lords rally behind a call for war with sufficient fervor, he may agree to begin the fighting again,” I eventually replied. “It could be that Darth Angral is aware of the pressure his actions place on the uneasy peace between the Empire and the Republic, even if he isn’t acting under orders from the Dark Council. He may be counting on the fact that the Empire will declare war before he is entirely eradicated. That would be quite a gamble, unless he had a guarantee of support. Maybe the Dark Council assured him they would move to support him, with the intent to use Darth Angral to pressure the Emperor into permitting the continuation of the war. Or perhaps the Empire simply cannot afford the loss of Angral’s worlds, even if we publicly disavowed his actions, and will be forced to step in to defend him when he inevitably begins to lose.”

Darth Baras stared at me with unreadable expression. Then he sighed and rubbed his face with his palm in clear exasperation. “My Apprentice, you speak far too casually about subversion, and accuse prominent Lords of near treason without evidence. Be glad that my office is the only place in this Sanctum that is secure even from the Emperor’s Inquisitors. Is this another influence of Darth Lachris and her cavalier attitude towards the taboo histories of the Empire?”

“Taboo? You mean…” I cut myself off, wisely, before mentioning the Emperor’s ascension to the throne in the middle of the Sith Sanctum, secure offices or not. I didn’t want my tongue to be removed from my mouth by the Emperor’s Hand for an offhand remark, even if I didn’t actually know what punishment was in store for those who openly acknowledged what the Emperor hoped to keep secret. “I mean, sorry?” I warily backtracked, rubbing the back of my neck with one hand. “I figured it was all just part of the game of politics.”

“It may be, but there is such a thing as tact,” Baras retorted dryly, still pointedly casual. “Regardless, your suppositions might be true. Renewed combat, even if it isn’t against the Empire itself, is putting a lot of stress on the uncertain Treaty of Coruscant. After all, Republic representatives in their Senate and the common people of both nations don’t see much difference between uniformed soldiers acting under Darth Angral’s command and the uniformed soldiers which answer to the Imperial Military. To them, the Great War has already been renewed, and it’s the Empire, specifically the Dark Council, that seems slow on the uptake.”

My eyes widened at the importance of this. “Then, the Republic is beginning to move onto proper war footing, while the Empire refuses to mobilize?”

“The Empire never stood down its forces or relaxed the economy,” Darth Baras replied easily. “We knew that the peace would be temporary. More than sixty percent of the Empire has been living under general rationing of war-related commodities, and there are many worlds still under martial law, despite the supposed state of peace. None of our fleets were disbanded or mothballed, and no conscripts were released from service in the auxiliaries. We are at most six weeks from full combat readiness, mostly needed to reallocate funding from training, and could probably launch an invasion into the fringes of Republic space within two months. This has been expensive, of course, and it is part of the reason that so many Imperials are eager for the war to begin again.”

I blinked in surprise. I leaned against the tall back of the chair and tapped my chin. “The Republic did not do the same?”

“As you already observed, the Republic is a massive nation. Their armies are not entirely made up of permanent, professional regiments, so the drafted soldiers among them returned to their lives when the armistice went into effect. Their fleets were initially better equipped for policing trade routes than actual warfare, and they were only marginally better by the end of the Great War. Now their fleets have returned to patrolling trade lanes. When the Treaty of Coruscant was signed, the Republic was in utter shambles, not only because of the Sacking of Coruscant. They still are in shambles to an extent, and some might argue they were in shambles before the Great War. They have always had the raw resources and the population to destroy the Empire, if it was applied properly, but they lack the coordination and leadership to utilize those assets. The Republic suffers from poor governance. They cannot unite their many disparate civilizations, nor can they determine how to provide funding for a larger standing military, since there are elements in their Senate that are fearful that a powerful Republic military could be used to take privileges from worlds that have not merited a representative in the Senate. That is why the Republic had to mothball a large part of their fleets after the Treaty was signed; legally, in the absence of ongoing war, the Republic Senate lacks the means to levy additional war taxes, which means that they lack the means to fund their armies. What remains of the Republic Military at the present time is probably forty percent of their numbers, if you compare their strength to the final months of the Great War. But that isn’t including the private fleets of the constituent civilizations that operate within the Republic, which are the ones lobbying to restrict the Republic Military for fear of reduced autonomy. Those forces aren’t likely to contribute to the war on a galactic scale, but it’s foolhardy to discount them in the local theater of war. Just as the Republic must contend with armies like Darth Angral’s when planning their own campaigns.”

I hummed thoughtfully. “Then a swift, decisive action would be a good choice for the opening of a second war, not something like a proxy-war which is what we’re seeing from Darth Angral, intentionally or not.”

“A swift invasion was the plan, before Darth Angral’s unwise decisions,” Darth Baras agreed. “It was determined by analysts from the Pyramid of Military Strategy that we could take Coruscant again before the Republic reached their full fighting strength, which should take them nearly six months. The Emperor has still refused to authorize the campaign. Of course, as loyal subjects, the Dark Council has obeyed, and so we wait. Darth Angral, clearly, does not agree with that attitude.”

“He’s ruining the plan by pushing the Republic into war-readiness early, which allows them to raise the needed war tax,” I said incredulously. “But if that’s true, then why haven’t any Imperial forces tried to stop him?”

“Because, my Apprentice, it has been decided that we don’t care if the Republic militarizes,” Darth Baras replied easily. “Taking Coruscant would not end the Republic, which we proved at the end of the Great War. They were ready to continue fighting after we sacked it, and only agreed to the Treaty because they saw it as a means of regaining their footing before decisively defeating us. According to most analysts, there is no easy victory to be found in a war against the Republic. It could take as much as a century to defeat them, and the task must be done piecemeal, with emphasis on preventing the Republic from making use of their advantages. The key is avoiding defeat while we yet remain the smaller of the two nations. It is an obvious fact that the Empire has fewer citizens, fewer shipyards, fewer industrial worlds, and less tax revenue. Our advantages are decisive leadership and our martial capabilities, but these must translate into concrete assets quickly, or we will lose in the war of logistics and attrition in the long run. Costly campaigns with flashy propaganda objectives, like the Sacking of Coruscant, do not contribute to our eventual triumph if we don’t take advantage of the opportunity to expand territorially. The Treaty of Coruscant, which limited our expansion options and gave the Republic ten years to leverage their greater economy to their benefit, was an unwise decision by the Emperor. What you did on Balmorra over the last two weeks is far more beneficial to the Empire than lightning campaigns through territory that cannot be held indefinitely.”

I gaped at him. “Balmorra’s little rebellion was more important than the Sacking of Coruscant?”

“If the Empire can take populated, industrial worlds from the Republic and hold them, then we show that we can slowly begin to level the playing field, economically. With our far more effective government, we make better use of the resources granted to us by our member worlds than the Republic does through their system of representatives and autonomous rule, but we must pacify the population of conquered worlds in order to properly benefit from them, and the effort of pacification is expensive in the short term,” Darth Baras lectured. “So, yes. Crushing rebellions, solidifying the control of valuable worlds under Imperial rule, and ensuring that the continued prosperity of those worlds benefits the Empire at large, is all more important than the Sacking of Coruscant, which ultimately won us nothing save for a pile of ruin. The Jedi live on, under new leadership, the Republic lives on with a new Supreme Chancellor, and all we accomplished was a period of respite that they have taken advantage of to save themselves from the brink of collapse while we have become mired in political division. Great effort has gone into destabilizing the Republic, but with the Empire as an outside threat their disunited mass has proven remarkably stable, whereas our Empire has become rife with subversive elements.”

“Why did we sign the Treaty, then?” I asked, deeply interested in this novel perspective. Baras had never really provided a reason for his actions in SWTOR, but it sounded like he was actually trying to put the Empire onto better footing for the inevitable conflict against the Republic. Maybe he attempts to usurp the Voice of the Emperor because he genuinely felt that the Empire needed more direct leadership from the Emperor? If so, it was indicative that Baras was beginning to doubt the Emperor, which was tantamount to blasphemy considering his speech to me about might making right.

Revan’s mental influence ultimately causing the Treaty of Coruscant had clearly weakened the Emperor’s grip on the Empire and its prominent Lords, making them doubt his resolve and his suitability as Emperor. To be fair, it did make him seem a bit bipolar, to advocate for an invasion, push to brink of apparent triumph, only to falter.

Baras gave me a pointed look. “That is a very good question. Why, indeed? In any case, since Darth Lachris took it upon herself to advise you so thoroughly as to the political landscape of the Empire, I thought we might open our discussion there as well. You understand that I report directly to Darth Vengean, who is the head of the Pyramid of Military Offense on the Dark Council. It was in the introductory material I gave you.”

“Was it?” I wondered faintly. I mean, I had known, abstractly, that Darth Baras was near to the Dark Council, since it was part of the SWTOR experience, but Darth Vengean was such a minor character I honestly hadn’t thought of him much at all until now. The fact that he was on the Dark Council was something that I only now remembered and realized the importance of.

Baras sighed through his nose, briefly. “Yes, it was. I do not own a planet myself, nor do I command my own private armies, like Darth Lachris does. But mine is the superior position, because I am one step away from the Dark Council in the chain of command. While she plays as Lord of her two worlds, essentially unaffiliated with the Council, yet owing fealty to it, I participate in the command of the might of the Empire’s combined military strength. Were you impressed by her talk of rule? Her feudal ambitions?”

I wrinkled my nose a little. I could see where he was going with this; he was feeling territorial or something. “I’m not sure we really need to go over this, Master.”

“Do we not?” Darth Baras asked rhetorically. “I assume that she whet your appetite by her example and her lessons. What is your ambition, Apprentice? Do you wish to found a dynasty alongside many wives and influence the future of the Empire through your bloodline, like many of your species are wont to do? Or perhaps you want to stake your claim over some territory, somewhere, and rule as absolute monarch in a manner similar to Darth Lachris?”

“I don’t know,” I replied stoically.

“Well, that is a blatant lie,” Darth Baras scoffed. “You surely have some idea by now. You have soldiers, and soon you will have a rated warship. What is your goal with these acquisitions? You sought authority and gained it. That was deliberate, to some extent. You should know, then, that a weak leader does nothing but sow destruction. Is that the fate awaiting your subordinates?”

“No,” I snapped, suddenly frustrated and angry. “I…I’ll do fine by them.”

“How are you going to do that?” Baras challenged. “Darth Lachris commands with authority, and gains respect, because she is firm. She has a direction, and she moves worlds to that end. Her fleets obey, her populace submits, because she has shown them that she is not a trifling ruler. She inspires obedience because she is not weak, not indecisive, not like you are. You are not a queen, or a lord, or a darth. Not yet. You are an apprentice without funding and without stated goals.”

“Fine,” I relented, crossing my arms over my chest. I could be honest with him about some things, surely. “I’ve been working on that indecisiveness, since we talked about it before. I do want a planet, eventually.”

“Now we are getting somewhere,” Darth Baras exclaimed with visible relief. “Was that so terribly difficult?”

I shook my head, exasperated. “Forgive me for assuming that you would be far more concerned with your own goals, Master.”

“Obviously, I prioritize my own plans. Do you think that your future plays some small, insignificant part in those?” Baras asked sharply. “I’m not sure where you got that impression, but your intentions for the future actually are something I am deeply concerned about. You are my most promising pupil at the moment, and great strength requires greater challenges. There is also the principle of mutual strengthening, which we have thus far neglected in favor of utility.”

“What principle of mutual strengthening?” I parroted in confusion.

“The Sith Code is staunchly individualist, and yet we advocate the teaching of students, which is a social act. You should know why this is the case already. It is because teaching refines wisdom and illuminates weaknesses,” Darth Baras declared. “I delegated your lightsaber forms to Tranch, and the only lessons I’ve given you thus far have been theoretical. I had nothing to gain by going over fundamentals which all Sith must know. Yet, like Darth Lachris, I have learned much from watching your progress, but as your Master I can learn all the more if you are thriving with my active participation. Therefore, I have urged you to be ambitious, so that I might learn what your intentions are and how to assist you in them while leveraging your growth for my benefit. But you have been remarkably reticent with me, and that makes the task unnecessarily complicated.”

“I don’t understand. What could you and Darth Lachris possibly have learned from me?”

Baras laughed. “You don’t realize how unusual you really are, do you? Well, that is my fault; I haven’t emphasized the fact. Because I find your obliviousness amusing and your lack of hubris refreshing. Xanot, you stood before me a month and a half ago and contested the validity of the Sith Code directly to my face. You were barely a fledgling in the Force and lacked anything resembling grace or finesse in combat. Now, you are shrouded constantly by the Dark Side, shielded by one of the most formidable Force defenses I have witnessed outside of a battlefield, and have repeatedly demonstrated excellence in the use of a lightsaber against enemies who are far more experienced than yourself. On top of your prodigious improvement, until fairly recently you had no idea what you were going to use your strength to accomplish.”

“Well, I had to survive all this somehow,” I retorted weakly, gesturing vaguely around us.

“Generally, apprentice, a Sith desires power after deciding upon a purpose which requires it. For example, a former slave might desire to free the slaves across the Empire, which would require them to be Emperor, beginning their pursuit of power. On the other hand, you acquired power and only then sought meaning for it. Darth Lachris was no doubt observing you in order to discover the source of your swift growth, since it defies the intuitions of the Sith Code, but she was also impressed with your humility and your personable approach to your subordinates. Most Sith who are new to leadership rely almost entirely on fear and intimidation, but you did not, and although your approach has its drawbacks, Lachris at least took note of the advantages as well. She used the opportunity to highlight what she perceived as her own apprentices’ weaknesses, a fact which no doubt did nothing to endear you to them.”

I shrugged, mind whirling. How had I missed that? Was that why she had essentially treated me as her own while I operated on Balmorra? “I had no idea that she was doing that. Then what could you possibly have learned from me?”

Darth Baras leaned back, carefully nonchalant. “I have learned that sometimes a direct approach is the best approach. For example, I realized before you left for Balmorra that you hated me. Initially I was pleased, because your hate had moved you to accept your place and purpose as Sith. But, given that I can only assume this hatred is the reason for your continued distrust, which is frustrating my ability to act as a proper Master, I am left with no other choice but to investigate the source of the enmity between us. So, I ask you outright: why do you despise me?”

How was I supposed to explain something like that? Well, clearly, if he was taking the direct approach, it would only be polite to respond in kind. “Master,” I began carefully, since he was obviously going to be offended in a moment, “I think that you are exploiting the strength of others for your own benefit, which is leeching talent and potential from the Empire. You have elevated yourself to positions beyond your strength and beyond your wisdom by taking what is not yours, and you call this power and strength. It will betray you…and I will be there to see it.”

Darth Baras laughed, deep and full, spreading a palm out on the desk as his head fell back. I fidgeted uncomfortably, processing this unusual response to what must have been an insulting speech, but eventually Baras settled himself, shaking his head with amusement.

“You once said that you did not consider me to be a principled Sith, when you were speaking to Vette,” Darth Baras declared, seemingly at random. I winced. So, he’d been eavesdropping on that conversation as well? Actually, he had quoted the line of poetry I had used at the end of that exchange to me once before, so I should have guessed that he’d heard the whole thing. Baras continued, “I don’t take offense to the hasty judgments of strangers, so don’t worry about my wrath. I did ask for your opinion, and we have the time to get to know each other better. You should realize by now, however, that all Sith must have their principles. Principles are what make us Sith, as opposed to warriors or lords of other stripes and creeds. Our principles are widely known: ambition, power, victory, and freedom. Specifically, these are individual principles, not societal principles. It is your ambition that the Code speaks of. Your power. Your victory. Your freedom. As opposed to achieving my ambitions, becoming my power, delivering my victories, and guaranteeing my freedom.”

I folded my arms over my chest and tried to make the connection between what I had accused him of and this response. “Why do you foment rebellions in the Empire and weaken other Lords, then?”

“Ah, so that is the source of this? I should have made the connection earlier, since your passions burned so brightly when you returned from the jungles after putting down the small slave rebellion there,” Baras hummed. “Well, I’m sure you aren’t ignorant of the fact that there are many rivalries among the Lords and dynasties of the Empire. We aren’t talking about juvenile disagreements; many of these rivalries are settled by bloodshed in some form. Am I meant to surrender myself to my rivals?”

“And those deaths weaken the Empire. Far from encouraging the participants to grow stronger through adversity, the continual infighting leads to the destruction of the strong and the suppression of talented individuals who are supposedly potential threats to the present rulers. That is the same as crippling the next generation and stealing that which the Empire sorely needs if it is to survive and remain true to its creed,” I retorted sharply. “You said, yourself, that you can learn nothing from conflict if you are dead. How can you argue that these divisions and bloodshed among the Lords strengthens us? You are openly participating in our destruction.”

“That may be so, but despising that doesn’t help you, now does it? You may love the Empire, but a proper Lord only loves that which benefits himself. Watching me crash and burn due to my perceived failings and taking pleasure in it, does nothing for your situation, contributes nothing to your advancement among the Lords, and most certainly does nothing for the Empire. You are not in any position to stop me from doing whatever I wish to do, for one thing, and for another stopping me from engaging in these rivalries doesn’t resolve the problem; I am hardly the only one in the Empire involved in these contests of strength. How are you so certain that you will not burn with me as I spectacularly fail, so that you can live to witness my death? Or is your hatred so all-consuming that you’d be willing to die just to achieve my downfall?”

I pursed my lips in frustration. From his perspective, as an Apprentice, any assault on Baras would inevitably include myself. I was a member of his powerbase, and other Sith wouldn’t simply allow me to stand on the sidelines. So, his question made a lot of sense…unless you knew that he was going to replace me with someone else.

And that I would be the one to kill him, in the end.

We stared at each other in silence. I flexed my jaw and blinked, meeting his eyes. Darth Baras began to grin, sitting back in his seat with a playful air. “Oho! Do you think to kill me, is that it? You’ll usurp everything that is mine, and take all my achievements as your own? Well…that is certainly an ambition, of a sort…I knew that you hated me, but I didn’t realize that you also admired me as well, to the extent that you’d wish to take my place.”

“No, I didn’t say that,” I replied immediately.

Baras seemed to fall into thought, his eyes flicking over me, and I felt his presence flaring like a sunspot, filling the room and indeed the entire Sanctum with oppressive shadow and cold. Then he frowned severely. “Ah…so when you called me unprincipled and claimed that I was using you for my own purposes, you did not mean that you disagreed with my aims, and that we would strengthen each other while our paths were aligned, in the manner typical of masters and students. You meant that I would exploit your talents, also forsaking my responsibility as a teacher, and then ultimately would discard you when you are no longer useful to my plans, likely by attempting to kill you.”

“How can you tell all that just from looking at me?” I asked in surprise. I knew he hadn’t read my thoughts; there had been no intrusion.

“By seeing what is before my eyes. You hate me, but the nature of this hatred was not something I thought to investigate in detail until now. That is why we are discussing it. I assumed it was because I was harsh with you at the start, and I forced you to abandon your adolescent ethos by spilling the blood of supposed innocents. I look at it now, and I do not see the roots of hate in resentment, regardless of your accusations. Rather, it is fear that truly drives you,” Darth Baras mused. I looked away and suppressed a wince. “I can only infer that you have reason to fear me, and you have since the beginning. I saw that there was fear in you, of course, but I felt it was simply because you recognized the difference in strength between us. But I realize now that you’ve been waiting for the sting of betrayal all this time. Preparing yourself for it. And you accuse me of eliminating potential threats before they can grow strong, so perhaps this is a projection of your own personal expectation. No wonder you despise me, then, if you are so certain I cannot be trusted. What have I done to earn this I wonder?”

“Betrayal and disloyalty are just the way things are, among Sith,” I hedged. “And you are famous for your schemes.”

“Is it, truly? Is that how Darth Lachris treated you, or her own subordinates, then?” Darth Baras wondered, and I sighed. No, it hadn’t been. “I looked into your education at the other academies, Balmorra and Ziost. There is nothing in the records that leads me to believe the instructors there were negligent in their tasks, or that they threatened you. If anything, they failed to instill a proper warrior’s spirit and kept you from battles that would have strengthened you, but you came into your own once you tasted slaughter, which is common for your species, so it was nothing I would reprimand them for. They cannot be responsible for this suspicion of yours. I don’t have a reputation of misusing my pupils, so I am somewhat at a loss. Perhaps you dreamed of these things, Xanot? Has the Force whispered poison in your ears?”

Dreams…hah. He had come to the wrong conclusion, again. Well, how could I blame him since the truth was tantamount to insanity? I shrugged in response, and his eyes sharpened.

“Not dreams, then, but some other precognitive sense,” he observed keenly. I forgot that his keen presence in the Force had not abated. I felt like my own thoughts were bare before his blazing orange eyes and tightened my defenses self-consciously. “Whatever you have seen, do you think that it is inevitable? Do we dance to the whims of Destiny, or are we our own?”

I shook my head, and Darth Baras reeled himself in, the glow in his eyes fading, his chin resting on his knuckles as he let his posture slump a bit, casually.

“We are Sith, Xanot; we make our own destinies,” Darth Baras intoned. “Whatever you have seen, it is not inevitable. Now, there is no reason for you to harbor these unproductive suspicions. Judge me by what I have done, rather than what I am perhaps going to do. That is a lesson all seers must eventually learn else they begin to chase after mere shadows rather than acknowledging reality. Especially if you are depending on the Dark Side to give you an honest view of the future, which is stupidity incarnate. If I do betray you as you expect, and you survive it, then I suppose your plan would be to declare Kaggath according to the old ways? Your ambition is to use my betrayal to claim my titles before the Dark Council, then to liquidate my assets and take what forces I do have to secure the land you desire for yourself while my body rots on Korriban, in disgrace. Well, that would be a tidy solution for you, wouldn’t it? It is a bold plan. It assumes your precognitive talent allows you to survive the betrayal, and you manage to win the Kaggath when you declare it. The Dark Council would probably even honor such a challenge from you, in all likelihood, if you had been betrayed by a master so blatantly and had proven your strength as Sith.”

“Why are you so blasé about this?” I blurted.

“Apprentice, you are hardly the first student of mine to desire my death. We cannot allow that desire to consume you, such that you do something truly foolish,” Darth Baras answered with amusement. “Are you going to draw your lightsaber on me now, expecting that I will try to kill you before you grow stronger? If I were you, I wouldn’t try it. The Dark Council would kill you even if you managed to defeat me, for one thing. Regardless of that, I can feel your power, and although you have grown much stronger, you could not defeat me as you are. I thought to put you at ease, with these few decorations, and we are alone, so we can be honest with each other. I am not afraid of you, not even of what you may become, so why should I be angry with you for baring your teeth?”

Baras gestured around us at the various items in his office. He didn’t even feel threatening in the Force, but I held myself perfectly still and shook my head to indicate that I had no intention of fighting him. Baras seemed amused by that as well, chuckling to himself.

“I said before, I don’t mind at all if you resent me, or even that you have such strong opinions about the unrest in the Empire. Why should I be insulted? I happen to agree with you, for the most part. We are bleeding ourselves dry,” Darth Baras laughed cruelly. “But we are Sith, Xanot, my young apprentice; we must let our victories speak for themselves. I am not concerned about your predictions of doom. What I am concerned about is your apparent reliance on this precognition, and the fact that suspicion has kept us from growing in power. You have no plans other than waiting for my inevitable betrayal? And so, I suppose, if it never comes, you will manufacture one? Or worse, you will take action to prevent what you have seen, and thus bring about greater misfortune.”

“No,” I retorted immediately. Although…if Baras didn’t betray me, then would the Emperor’s Hand come to assess my potential for the position of Wrath?

“Regardless, you require actionable goals, rather than waiting for the possible future to transpire, and I cannot benefit from your apprenticeship unless you allow me to work with you. To advance your training, we must have direction. So, you want a planet, well…that is certainly a goal, though not one that we can reach for in the near future. What else do you desire? Perhaps something humbler, befitting an apprentice,” Darth Baras asked.

“A student,” I replied honestly, sighing and giving up on hiding things. Darth Baras eyebrows shot up with impressive speed. I realized then that asking for a student was not the ambition of an apprentice.

“Is that so?” he wondered. “Then you feel that you are fit to teach an apprentice yourself?”

I shook my head. “No, not yet.”

“Well, at least you aren’t a complete fool,” he seemingly agreed, scoffing quietly. “But it is good that you want a student eventually. I will require some evidence of mastery before allowing you a student. Specifically, demonstrate a devotion to the Sith Order and an unflinching command of the Dark Side, and only then will I permit it.”

“That was my plan, in any case,” I muttered, thinking of how insane Jaisa had gone in SWTOR. I wanted to avoid inflicting that madness on anyone, let alone a young woman who just wanted to find her own genuine self-expression.

“Let us narrow things down. What kind of Sith will you become?” Darth Baras asked suddenly.

I was growing weary of this conversation, and so I sighed. “How do you mean, Master?”

“Are all Sith Lords the same?” he asked rhetorically. “Some of us are warriors, some of us are researchers, some are spies, and some are rulers. Of course, some are many of those things, and some are none. However, to become Lord and eventually Darth, it is best to advance along a certain path of discipline. Once you have attained rank and mastery, you can diversify. Typically, this is done by taking a student who requires guidance in an area that is not the master’s strength, thus requiring him to attain mastery in new fields.”

“I see,” I nodded slowly. I had already made this decision, due to the job advancement on Balmorra. “I wish to be a warrior, and a Lord in the political sense.”

“The traditional sort of Sith, then. Well, that means that are long histories to guide you, and common standards to measure your progress against,” Baras seemed pleased. “Frankly, given your inability to grasp subterfuge, I agree with this direction. If you had said you desire to be an Inquisitor or a Sorcerer, then I may have had to dissuade you. Or at least find remedial training material.”

I relaxed a bit at the sign of humor, smirking slightly.

“And your acceptance of the retinue that Lachris assigned you makes more sense in light of this. You must have decided upon this choice some time ago, perhaps after we spoke of the Code in more detail before Balmorra,” Darth Baras observed, nodding his head. “We can work with this, so I approve. When you entered my office, apart from your far greater strength, I sensed something about you that was fundamentally different from before, and I think I’ve found it. You have made great strides not only in power, but also in strength of will. It suits you well and is a mark of maturity. Your first task along the path of lordship will be to handle your new soldiers properly, which includes earning their unquestionable loyalty and providing for them so they can operate effectively. You’ve made impressive inroads as to the first objective, with the words you gave Sergeant Dunlass, but you will of course have to deliver on your promises lest you lose the loyalty you gained. I would not have recommended a promise related to monetary compensation, given your poverty, but we can work with it, nonetheless. As for the problem of funding, well…now we will discuss your new assignment. And then, I’d like to train with you personally before you depart, so that you don’t consider that whelp Lachris to be a teacher superior to myself.”

Glad to leave behind the discussions about hatred and Empire, I nodded along. “The next mission is related to funding?”

“I’m sending you to Tatooine,” Darth Baras announced by way of answer. “The planet is a wasteland, lawless and remote. There are very few things worth your time on that world, with two exceptions. The first is a Jedi Master, named Yonlach, a renowned teaching master who accepts students who undergo a difficult pilgrimage to his remote teaching grounds. The padawan of Nomen Karr underwent this trial and received the teaching of Master Yonlach in the deserts. Your task will be to find the Jedi and extract from him everything he knows about the padawan. And, perhaps, learn what it is the Jedi hope to divine from the harshness of Tatooine; perhaps there is strength to be found in it. I suspect it is some kind of pointless prattle, typical of Jedi Sages, but you never know for sure until you investigate.”

I nodded. As expected, then. But, Tranch had not been particularly pleased with my duel against the Jedi on Balmorra, so I wasn't sure about my chances against a whole school. “You feel I am ready to fight these Jedi?” I asked.

“Yonlach is old and shouldn’t be able to keep up with you in a duel, just like Lord Vacuus. Besides, the man was always more of a scholar than a warrior. From what I can sense, someone who relies on their Force ability to achieve victory would have a hard time with you now; your defenses will force the battle to a contest of blades,” Darth Baras replied. “It really depends on how many students are present there, and how strong his students are. Given that the planet is a desert, they can’t have very many Jedi subsisting there. However, I recommend you do some scouting before challenging the Jedi, and do not engage Yonlach if there are any Knights with him.”

“He surely has a guard, if he is so well regarded by the Jedi,” I pointed out.

“Then lure the guards away from him. Just don’t try to fight the Master and his Knights together, that is what they would prefer that you do,” Darth Baras advised sagely. “It would be quite difficult to find a Jedi that could face you one on one, Xanot. That was apparent from your fight on Balmorra; you might have had that Jedi Master if the Knight was not present to distract you.”

I frowned. “That wasn’t what Tranch said in the review. Lachris also seemed to think that a Jedi Weapon Master would have killed me quickly.”

“Darth Lachris was right, but there are very few Weapon Masters. She was emphasizing your tactical error by exaggerating the risk, but in reality, the chances of meeting such a fearsome foe on Balmorra were minimal. As for Tatooine, Master Yonlach was a Shadow in his time, not a Weapon Master, and now he is an old man who will rely on the Force more than his blade. Most Jedi, and I mean more than ninety percent of them, are Knights, Watchmen, or Shadows,” Darth Baras replied. “The chances of encountering a Weapon Master on Tatooine, which isn’t even an active war zone like Balmorra, are negligible. You’d be more likely to find a Sage there, since they tend to avoid civilization to pursue more abstract forms of enlightenment but given your impressive defenses against the Force, I doubt that even I could defeat you without the use of my lightsaber, let alone any Jedi recluse who eschews violence entirely.”

I shifted a bit, now that he’d observed my passive Force Ward. “You mentioned that a couple times now. You can sense my defenses?”

“Yes,” Darth Baras replied with a wolf-like smile. “Did you think that I might shock you, like Lachris did in her lesson? I can’t imagine why you’d come to my office while on guard. That was part of the reason I suspected you might try to kill me here. I’m glad you’re wiser than that, it would have been quite disappointing to end your life so soon.”

“I actually can’t get rid of this Force Ward, Master,” I confessed. I had to omit some key details but speak only the truth. I felt that it needed some kind of explanation, however. “I was meditating, and now it won’t go away, but it seems beneficial.”

“This does not exhaust you? How long have you maintained it?” Baras asked in surprise.

I shrugged. “The whole trip from Balmorra. I was practicing the wards because of Lachris’ demonstration with Sith Lightning.”

“Very interesting,” Darth Baras mused, looking impressed. “And is this the strongest your ward can become?”

I shook my head. “No, if I concentrate, I can triple its strength. Something around there, anyway. That can become tiresome, though, especially if it is stressed by attack.”

“You obviously took my lectures about the dangers of the Force to heart,” Baras remarked bemusedly. “Show me.”

I nodded and drew on the Force, feeding it into a Ward just like I had always done, ever since gaining the skill on Korriban. Except it became Force Fortress instead, and I even saw a slight waver in the air around me as the Force pulsed outward. Baras’ eyes narrowed, but he was otherwise impassive as I held the Force Fortress in place, letting the defense sink its anchors in. Then I relaxed and was able to maintain it, sensing the strain it was placing on me but not devoting active concentration to it.

“Very impressive, and nearly impregnable,” Baras praised after a moment. “I should have you begin teaching your juniors in my organization how to handle their defense against Force attacks, sometime in the future. Assuming we ever have the time for you to instruct anyone, between your duties and missions. We will test it in actual practice shortly, after a few more details are said about Tatooine.”

I nodded, internally screaming. I had no idea how to teach anyone a class ability of mine, so that was a doomed effort and I dearly hoped I remained incredibly busy. “I was aiming for a perfect defense against the Force. I guess we’ll see how it is.”

“There is no such thing, unfortunately. Greater powers always exist which can overwhelm any defense, and there are attacks that are indirect, like throwing projectiles, which require different defenses,” Darth Baras replied. “But you have gone farther toward that goal than nearly anyone else I’ve ever met. It seems that the efficiency of your ward has become streamlined to best utilize your available power, and it allows you to withstand many times more power than you yourself can summon. Your own power is not insignificant but multiplied in this way by efficiency it truly becomes something extraordinary. It is impossible to tell the strength of Force abilities from your armor’s cameras, but perhaps this was why the Jedi on Balmorra immediately engaged you with their lightsabers, rather than attempting to overwhelm you in the Force first.”

“Maybe,” I allowed, knowing that it wasn’t the reason.

“In any case, you have nothing to fear from most Jedi, as long as you are not outnumbered by Knights and Masters. A Knight and a padawan in a pair might be doable for you, if you kill the student quickly. When I advised you about safely using the Dark Side, I did not think that you would grasp for this much power this quickly. I hope it does not prove too much for you to control, and that the sacrifices you paid were worth it,” Darth Baras continued, offering only a shrug as far as visible concern. “Avoid Knight teams and Weapon Masters, and you should be able to survive if not triumph against the Jedi. The difficulty will be identifying Jedi whose blade skills are beyond you before you engage them, and that is not so simple. I would recommend that you study the notable swordsmen in the Jedi Order, so you can recognize them on sight. If you somehow become an unparalleled swordsman on top of your impressive Force Ward, then you would become something truly magnificent to behold in battle.”

“That’s the plan, anyway,” I replied with a nod. Given the skills and the classes I had chosen, I was definitely aiming to be more of a warrior than a sorcerer.

Baras shook his head at my response. “If only I had more war zones on hand for you to thrive in, Xanot. It seems that Balmorra served as an adequate challenge. In any case, the second interesting fact about Tatooine is that it is an Exchange waystation. They traffic spice from the Hutt Cartel through Tatooine into the Mid-Rim. The Empire has claimed Mos Ila and is utilizing the spaceport for a variety of operations, including an effort by the Imperial Reclamation Service. Sale of spice is illegal in Empire territory, as I’m sure you know. As a Sith Apprentice, you do have the jurisdiction to enforce that law in my name, anywhere in the Empire, by confiscating goods intended for sale.”

“What am I supposed to do with a bunch of illegal spice?” I wondered, even as I already thought of ways that this could make money. Probably illegal ways, but money was money at this point.

“Smuggle it, yourself,” Darth Baras replied simply, and I had to chuckle at that. Confiscate it for the act of smuggling, only to smuggle it myself? That was fairly hypocritical, and I should have expected such from the Sith Lords. “Or wholesale it to a smuggler, which would be the simpler choice. Be sure the cargo is destined for Republic space. Of course, if you sell spice in Imperial territory, there would be Inquisitors with something to say to you about it, and I wouldn’t recommend crossing ‘sabers with the Pyramid of Production and Logistics when it comes to illicit drugs. The convenient part of this is that Exchange thugs should be no match for your soldiers, as long as your forces are careful about their operations. Whatever you do confiscate, be sure to document and keep your transactions in a ledger, so that it can be taxed. As long as the sales of spice are taxable and not sold in Imperial territory, it’s a legal income stream. There are plenty of Lords who involve themselves with smuggling operations into Republic space. To aid you in this, I’ve procured an administrative droid which you’ll find with your men on Vaiken Spacedock. It will be able to advise you about legal matters as well.”

I sat straighter as his plan became fully apparent. Quinn and the troops could confiscate the spice while I’m hunting for Master Yonlach, and we could sell it to a smuggler heading to the Republic. Or, most likely, we’d have to portion it and sell to multiple smugglers, but that depended on how successful Quinn’s police actions were. And Vette could probably use some of her old contacts to find a smuggler willing to take the spice wholesale from me.

“How valuable is spice?” I asked slowly, not daring to hope that this was a permanent solution. My funding problems were significant, at this point. I didn’t just need money, I needed a lot of money. Soldiers and warships are expensive…surprising, I know.

“It depends on the type of spice and the territory — higher risk is higher price across the board. You can rely on your Twi’lek for aid in underworld dealings, I imagine. She has a storied past,” Darth Baras remarked, and it was telling that he knew of it. “Now, there are a few minor details about Tatooine that I’d like you to keep in mind. The Empire has only been on Tatooine for a short time, and that means there is very little competition from other Lords regarding the local businesses. Like your spice confiscation. You shouldn’t have to deal with anyone taking offense to your operations in that regard. However, the Republic has claimed Anchorhead, another spaceport located a hundred kilometers north of Mos Ila. Tatooine is unusual in that it has many spaceports, since traveling across the surface is so punishing. You are not on Tatooine to fight the Republic forces there, whatever their purpose might be. It would be best if you focus on your objectives and don’t draw attention to yourself until your target is within your grasp. Giving advance warning to the Jedi will make your job harder, and the Republic are sure to keep any Jedi guards well appraised of the Imperial operations that they notice.”

“Understood,” I answered with a nod.

“I have an associate on Tatooine named Shyrack Breev who will assist you with navigating the desert’s perils. She is a native, but I believe she is reliable. If you have any trouble with her, feel free to kill her and replace her, I do not care for her life,” Darth Baras declared with a casual shrug. “There are always other guides to those deserts. Although, I hope her incompetence doesn’t get you killed, if it comes to that. In any case, you should meet with her first, before speaking to the local Imperial commander and the Imperial Reclamation Service.”

“Why should I speak with the Reclamation Service at all?” I wondered.

“It is always wise to know what archaeologists are digging into, if you are operating nearby. You never know what sort of chaos they can unleash by poking into ancient ruins, and Tatooine is particularly ancient,” Darth Baras remarked simply. “You should at least inform the local commanders that your retinue will be making police action in their territory. Just to avoid surprising the local patrols and suffering from friendly fire incidents.”

“Is there a deadline that I should be aiming for in this assignment?”

“Obviously, the longer Nomen Karr remains a threat the worse off we will be,” Darth Baras replied. “But I have a few traps set. If he moves to have his Padawan identify more of my spies, then he will undoubtedly regret it. He’s gone to ground for the moment, allowing the Jedi Council to make a decision on a proposed in-depth review of personnel via the Jedi Shadows. That gives us some time before things get truly dire, but no mention has yet been made of utilizing the padawan’s abilities.”

I nodded shortly. It made some sense for Nomen Karr to give the situation time to settle, and the fact that Baras had placed some bait out to catch the padawan was no surprise. I wondered who he had placed to kill her if they decided to take the bait. Hopefully she’d survive it, if they did fall into one of the traps. “I’ll try not to drag things out on Tatooine, then.”

“When you arrive on Tatooine, I assume you’ll be sufficiently motivated to depart quickly. That planet is more inhospitable than Korriban, and I’ve heard the heat is difficult even for purebloods like yourself,” Darth Baras mused. “If you need anything else, contact me. You can wait for your corvette to conclude its repairs before departing; the corvette will allow you to manage the spice operation more easily. With that, unless you have something else to discuss, we can move to the training area and test your newfound strength.”

I shook my head. “I might send some questions to you later, but I need some time to think. Is Tranch around? I wanted to spar him using Juyo; I’ve been learning the form in my spare time.”

“He’s somewhere on the planet, I’ll arrange it for tomorrow. Now, come along.”

Baras stood up with more alacrity than I would have expected from a man his size, and strode right out of the office, heading to the familiar arena with a padded floor that Tranch and I typically used. I followed after him after a pause, rolling my shoulders in anticipation of a strenuous spar, but when I arrived, I didn’t find Baras with a lightsaber in hand.

“No blades,” he declared, with dark purple lightning crackling audibly over his palms. “Let us discover the limits of your defenses.”

Oh…great. Why did I think that this was probably going to hurt, a lot?

Chapter Text

“Oh, sh-“ the words were knocked out of my mouth as yet another large, volleyball sized metal orb slammed into my chest, carrying a significant charge of purple lightning. The impact drove the breath out of my lungs, but I couldn’t let that hamper my movement, because I knew that Baras was following up with a blade of pressurized air.

My robes — my poor, casual black robes — were in absolute tatters. I ached too…and had minute twitches in my extremities due to exposure to Sith Lightning. Darth Baras had started our training session the previous day by testing direct Force attacks, things like Force Push, Force Pull, Force Crush, Sith Lightning, Force Stasis, Horror, and others. None of these proved very effective at preventing me from reaching melee range, which was my stated objective for these exercises.

So, Baras decided to change tactics. Now he was using projectiles directed with telekinesis, usually infusing them with some sort of conjured electricity. I had no idea where he had come up with conveniently pliant, conductive, volleyball-sized items for this, but they hit like a fucking truck without being lethal, and they weren’t his only new training tool. After the third day, he also had taken to slinging wind blades, air that was pressurized by masterful application of the Force. He was pulling his metaphorical punches, one could tell by the fact that they never cut too deeply, but they still sliced through fabric and left shallow lacerations if I didn’t avoid them. And, it seemed, these did not qualify as an attack that was mitigated by Force Fortress, since it was actually the physical air that was causing the damage and not a form of Force power.

In true game-mechanic fashion, attacks dealing kinetic-type damage had their own related defensive skill, Force Barrier. Attacks dealing energy-type damage were mitigated with Force Energy Resistance, a skill that I hadn’t even known of until Baras had taught it to me on our second day of training as a way of tanking through a blast of Sith Lightning on a forward lunge. What, then, was my Force Fortress actually good for, I had wondered?

Well, there are actually very few aggressive Force techniques that deal a damage type other than what I classified as Force-type damage. Telekinesis obviously utilized projectiles of various kinds, there were various air manipulation abilities that are fundamentally kinetic, Force Scream was sonic, and Sith Lightning was a sort of mixed Force and energy attack. Everything else pretty much had no shot at hurting me when I was maintaining Force Fortress.

Sith Lightning wasn’t a true lightning bolt, not like the kinds that leave scars in a Lichtenburg figure on those who are struck. As far as I could tell, after having recently practiced the skill myself, Force Lightning was actually a pure Force attack concentrated and directed in such a way that it spontaneously created purplish plasma in a shock of what had all the appearances of lightning. But it was also slower than true lightning, and it wasn’t primarily electrical. The electrocution effect was not the result of a discharge of electricity, but rather it was a torturous and deliberate assault on the nerves of the victim, which was not nearly as lethal. Sith Lightning was closely related to Stasis, actually. Instead of causing momentary paralysis, however, it induced spasms and agonizing pain in a manner acutely similar to electrocution. More of a torture spell than a battle spell, although it could certainly be lethal due to the burns it caused, and prolonged exposure would eventually cause permanent nerve damage, sometimes leading to catastrophic failure of the central nervous system, which naturally would stop a beating heart. It was fairly inefficient as far as energy usage was concerned, there were other attacks that were more destructive and less costly.

Whatever Baras was doing to the conductive balls was not true Sith Lightning, but that didn’t mean it hurt any less.

Drawn out of my brief reflection, I swayed backwards, falling over my shoulder into a sloppy side roll with the momentum of the ball that had struck me, and true to my expectations a whipping slash of air cracked over my head, missing by inches. I had yet to get struck in the face by those attacks, but I couldn’t imagine it would feel very good. At this distance, it felt like the bite of a whip.

Coming out of the roll, I immediately threw up a Force Barrier, which was one of my weaker forms of defense since it lacked the benefits of my class skill, and this served as a windbreaker for the flurry of subsequent strikes that were blasting towards me aiming to land before I could regain my footing. The main problem with Baras’ wind attacks was that they rapidly fell off in potency as the distance between us increased. Unless he intended to cut me in half with them, they were most damaging within fifteen meters, but even at the extreme end of that range they were less cutting and more buffeting. Up close, however, they might actually cause deep lacerations, and of course Baras’ whole task was to make me forfeit while staying out of my reach, so he didn’t really need long-distance threats. I was sure he could make them more dangerous, too, but we weren’t actually trying to kill each other.

Even though it wasn’t buffed to hell like my Force Fortress, for Baras to break through a Force Barrier he needed to bring out his bigger guns. Of course, he could fling the electrified metal balls at me, but I could also catch those with the Force myself and deflect them before being forced to tank the hit on the Force Barrier, so Baras generally didn’t just sling any projectiles at me without creating a distraction of some sort. I had learned that much over the last several days of practice with Force sorcery. I pushed forward three paces, then saw him placing his hands over each other like he was cupping a round, invisible object. Familiar with what was coming, I hesitated and then I jumped, anticipating the blast of near-solid air that would come next, blasting through the air below.

That was an ability that the SWTOR game had restricted to the Jedi, not that Baras seemed to struggle with it at all. He hadn’t taught me, so I had no idea what it was called.

Baras smoothly raised his aim, paused for a beat as I reached the apex of my jump, and then hit me with it. I saw it all coming, that swirling white ball of mixed Force energy and condensed air which slammed against my Force Fortress, shedding its Force power like a discarding sabot armor-piercing tank shell, but it retained all its buffeting strength as the contained cyclone exploded against my chest with an audible, crackling howl of air. When it hit, I felt like I was plucked out of my jump by a giant’s hand and tossed in the opposite direction, sailing backwards in a high arc head over heels.

This had happened before, so I immediately dropped my defenses as far as I could, and I felt Baras’ Force Pull bleed some of the speed from my flight right before I impacted the wall of the training area. The first time this had happened, I had nearly broken my clavicle on impact, so Baras had informed me that he’d catch me if I was sent flying, as long as I lessened my Force Ward to let him get a grip on me. Even he couldn’t overcome Force Fortress directly, even when he was trying to help me.

I felt the Force lightly cushion the second fall as well, not enough so that it was painless, but enough that I didn’t completely break my nose when I landed face-first onto the floor, very nearly sinking my needle-sharp teeth into my tongue as my jaw was rattled. I rolled over and gasped like a fish out of water, feeling bruises on my bruises.

“Well, it was a better attempt today, Xanot,” Baras declared, shaking out his hands. “You came within ten meters this time.”

“Not in striking distance yet,” I groused, picking my sorry ass off the mats.

“You did well enough to defeat most dedicated sorcerers, and we’re unfortunately out of time. Your new vessel’s repairs are completed,” Darth Baras replied with a dismissive shrug. “For now, you just need to add ranged threats to your arsenal. Some throwing weapons or even a holdout blaster, paired with the Sith Lightning I taught you, should be enough to distract your enemy from an unrelenting barrage, which will allow you to close the gap. I didn’t allow you the use of those things in this exercise, and you still came somewhat close to success.”

“Don’t tell me we’re practicing that next…” I nearly begged, shoulders sagging.

“No, we’re done for today. See the medical droid before you leave, you’re bleeding,” Baras ordered with finality.

I started, looking down at myself, and saw drops of blood falling onto the mats. From my nose, actually…which was numb. Great. Baras swept out of the hall without further ado, and I trudged towards the adjoining medical wing, only to find Tranch peeling himself from the shadows with a Cheshire-cat grin on his stupid face.

“Well, there is nothing like seeing you get put in your place, Xanot,” he jeered.

“Yeah, yeah, Tranch, why don’t you go suck a bag of dicks,” I replied with a nasally voice, owing to the fact that I was attempting to stem the flow of blood from my nose.

“Imaginative,” he retorted, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Besides, you wouldn’t have done any better.”

“Against the Master? No, definitely not, I couldn’t even block your attacks let alone a Darth’s,” Tranch replied at once. Well, at least he was self-aware enough to realize that. “Still, watching the Force-blessed prodigy get tossed around like an upstart acolyte is quite satisfying.”

“’M not a prodigy,” I objected to the description, shouldering past him with an annoyed shake of my head.

Tranch fell in beside me as he scoffed. “Right. False modesty doesn’t look good on you, Red.”

The medical droids whirred to life when we entered, immediately identifying me as the damaged one and beginning to swarm like the mildly disturbing torture-balls that they are. I was herded to one of the beds, which conveniently doubled as operating tables, and ordered to sit down. I was then thoroughly scanned, sprayed with kolto, and had a small cup of water thrust at my face as a pair of tubes were none-too-gently fed into my nostrils.

“Swish and spit,” the droid intoned, and as I threw the water into my mouth it ejected something forcibly through my sinuses that filled my mouth with blood and mucous in equal measure. It also tasted hair-raisingly bitter, but that’s kolto for you.

Lovely, eh?

I gagged, spat the mouthful of yuck onto the floor, which had its own drains conveniently enough, and sneezed violently as the droid swept away with its implements dangling below its spherical mass, declaring, “Organic repairs complete. Return to your post.”

“Fuck you too,” I growled at it, rubbing my tingling nose. I spat again, just to get the lingering taste of the kolto nasal spray out of my mouth.

“That looked fun,” Tranch mused, from where he was leaning against the door jamb.

I stood up, straightened out my tattered robes as best I could, before grumbling in disgust at the ruin Baras’ cutting attacks had made of my casual outfit. I should have changed into one of the usual dueling raiments, which were meant to be discarded after training-saber burns. To be fair, I hadn’t expected a practice without lightsabers to involve damage to my clothing, especially since I hadn’t really been hurt at all in yesterday’s session. Darth Baras clearly had decided that our last exercise before my departure to Tatooine should leave some lasting impressions.

“Why are you still here?” I sighed at Tranch.

“Look, Xanot, you might be a rising star among the Sith, and even I will admit the improvement in your blade work has been impressive as hell, but as a concerned senior I have to say you aren’t really doing much to endear yourself to Lords apart from Baras. You know he won’t be your master forever, maybe not even for long, at the rate you’re going,” Tranch lectured, with a gesturing finger and everything. I stared at him, rather speechless.

“Where is this coming from? I thought you hated me,” I exclaimed, shaking my head in wonder.

“I like kicking your ass, I’ll admit, but unfortunately that’s getting harder and harder, eh?” Tranch shrugged. He was alluding to our spars, which normally followed Baras’ instruction. After going over Juyo on the first day, I’d integrated some of its advantages into my style and had fought Tranch to a draw every following spar, even managing a win without Force tricks. One win out of probably twenty or so, but at least I hadn’t been soundly defeated this time. “All I’m saying is, maybe it’s time for you to curry some favor with other Lords and Darths. Keep it in mind on Tatooine, yeah?”

I shrugged. Then narrowed me eyes at him, “I mean, sure. I didn’t do too badly with Darth Lachris, but more ‘s the merrier they say. Why do you care, though?”

“I’ll never be Sith, at least not more than an Apprentice,” Tranch confided bluntly. “But you will. Can you blame me for living vicariously through my students?”

“That’s sad as hell,” I grumbled, still rubbing my face. “Look, whatever this…heart to heart is about, thanks for the advice and everything, but I’d rather if you kept your acts vicarious living more as a personal, private thing.”

Tranch held up his hands in surrender. “Sure, sure. Whatever you say, Red.”

“That nickname is in poor taste,” I continued, flippantly, sliding off the medical bed and wincing at the continuing aches.

“Touchy, Big Girl?” Tranch waved me off with a chuckle. I actually hated that name even more than ‘Red,’ considering how he had used it to humiliate me during our first training session all those days ago, but I just clenched my jaw and glared at him until he averted his gaze. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll leave you to your business, then.”

“Please,” I answered immediately, and he scoffed. But he did push off the open door and depart, leaving me to stew in my stinking kolto patches and medical glue for a moment. None of the cuts were particularly deep, but it probably did look like I had been robbed, beaten, and rolled down a hill in a full paper recycle bin.

And I didn’t have a change of clothes.

“Fucking Baras,” I grumbled, stalking out of the medical bay and looking down at myself to make sure I was, at the very least, not flashing the world due to wardrobe malfunction. Thankfully the cuts and tears in my outfit had not extended to my underwear, apart from a few stitches of loose thread on the band of my bra. Still, the guy could have warned me or something.

I had to wait for the next shuttle up to Vaiken Spacedock, but it was better to wait at the spaceport so I didn’t miss it. So, I had to brave the streets of Kaas City in my ruined outfit, which would have been far more intimidating for me if the average person wasn’t terrified of my presence. Most scattered to cross the street when they saw me walking on their sidewalk, and I thought I even saw a vehicle take a sudden turn to get off my stretch of road, which was just over the top in my opinion.

The officials at the spaceport didn’t even bat an eye at the state of my clothes or the obvious kolto patches that peeked through the cut cloth. Or the smell of kolto, for that matter, which I had grown blind to during the walk but which was no doubt just as overbearing as always. The stuff had a rank odor, almost as bad as its taste.

Sitting in a shuttle full of uniformed soldiers, who were all trying desperately not to draw my attention, was about as awkward as it sounds. I was deposited in a hangar as the soldiers dispersed about as quickly as they could manage without obviously making a run for cover. I stalked past them, ignoring the looks, and followed the somewhat familiar path to the hangar containing my Sith Interceptor.

When I arrived, I found a few of my men playing cards on one of the crates, with Vette perched above them, and Quinn was speaking to a uniformed woman that I didn’t recognize. I dismissed her as some kind of dock official and approached the card game.

“Stars, Master, did you get into a fight with a wild nexu?” Vette exclaimed when she caught sight of me.

“Just about,” I grumped. “Anything interesting happening?”

“That’s Captain Damatha,” Vette gestured over my shoulder. I turned, and saw Lieutenant Quinn approaching me with the woman he’d been speaking to. Oh, just perfect…what a great first impression this was.

“My Lord,” Quinn greeted me with impeccable tone, eyes flicking across my tattered clothing only briefly before he gestured at the officer beside. “May I introduce Captain Damatha, of the Interminable Night.”

“It’s an honor, Ma’am,” Captain Damatha bowed, with a straight face. In fact, she looked a bit…stiff. Tense? I sighed and rubbed my face.

“Likewise,” I said past my disgruntlement. “That’s a mouthful of a name for a corvette.”

“The name can be changed…”

“No,” I interjected before she could bend over backwards to correct a perceived misgiving. “Her crew has the right to name her whatever they want. How long have you been captain?”

“Two years,” Captain Damatha replied. “Before that, I captained a transport vessel, and before that I was a Lieutenant of a patrol vessel.”

“I’m looking forward to the tour. Baras indicated repairs were complete, but is the ship ready to take the interceptor and our cargo?” I asked.

“That was what we were discussing,” was Quinn’s answer. “Captain Damatha and I wanted to clarify the chain of command and the assignment of various duties between us, once we had a chance to speak with you about the matter.”

“He’s the senior, as far as time spent in your service, but I’ve the higher rank,” Captain Damatha explained further, a bit hesitantly. “However, I’ve no problem taking orders from the Lieutenant.”

I nodded and looked between them for a moment. I could see why Damatha, as the newcomer, would want to be sure that her rank was not changed in fact or in function due to the transfer, and while I didn’t necessarily trust her yet I didn’t think that giving Quinn nominal command over her would necessarily help. For one thing, she could subvert his orders just as well as mine, and for another it might encourage her to think negatively of me if she felt I wasn’t appreciating her.

“You have very different competencies, the way I see things. The Lieutenant is my highest ranking ground combat operative, unless your crew has a contingent of marines under the command of a Major that I wasn’t told about. You, Captain, are my highest ranking naval officer. Any tasks related to management of our pilots, our two ships, and their crews will be yours. I don’t see any reason to put either of you in command of the other at this time. While Quinn and his men are aboard, you can consider them marines under your command, in case of boarding attempts, but they’ll be deployed ground-side as often as I can find work for them.”

“I see,” the Captain nodded, straightening her shoulders. “I will endeavor not to disappoint, then. And thank you for your trust.”

“I did want to speak with you about the reassignment in general, when we had a chance to talk,” I ventured after a nod. “I know you didn’t ask to be assigned to a lord’s retinue, especially not to an apprentice like myself. In the short term, our financial situation means that things may be somewhat more unstable for your crew than it was in the Navy proper. How do you feel about things? You can be honest, I won’t take any offense.”

“Given that the Interminable Night was slated for decommissioning and my crew for reassignment to various other vessels in the Navy, before Grand Moff Kilran changed his mind and put us forward for the repairs and promotion, the crew and myself are glad that we have the continued opportunity to serve together as we have done for the past years, and are honored to be chosen for the duty, My Lord,” Captain Damatha replied at once. “As for the monetary matter, I’m confident that serving you will be far more profitable to the careers of everyone involved than the Imperial Navy assignments we’ve had prior to this.”

Promotion? Well, I suppose that answering to a Sith Lord directly instead of going through an unknown number of admirals and moffs was technically a promotion of a sort. “I’m glad to hear it. Your first tasks will be assisting with local policing efforts and confiscating illicit goods from smugglers. We will then offload the goods to smugglers heading to the Republic. I’m told this is legal, somehow, but have been given an administrative droid to make sure everything is tidy and well documented. Actually, Quinn, did a new droid arrive recently?”

“Yes, yesterday I ordered it to get updates from the ship computer and the factotum,” Quinn replied, gesturing towards the ship. “Very talkative, as far as administrative models go. As far as I’ve heard the droid went into stand by after it was caught up on recent events.”

I shrugged. “I’d like to board the Interminable Night and take a look. Would you gather your men and bring them over on the interceptor? Captain, if your crew is ready, then you could have them transfer the cargo here to the corvette.”

“Most are still on leave for another two hours, but I can request the cargo be transferred by the docking crew,” the captain replied simply. “Are we taking a regular shuttle, then?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “You’re fine with that, Lieutenant?”

“When should we be expected on the Interminable Night?” Quinn sought clarification. I shrugged.

“If the crew is still on leave, then there’s no great rush,” I replied. “By this evening at the very latest, I’d say. We’re not going anywhere without you guys, but don’t hold everything up too terribly long.”

My two officers gave each other an unreadable look, before Quinn bowed and stepped aside, leaving me alone with the formidable woman. Captain Damatha wasn’t necessarily large or intimidating, not like me, but her features were sharp and her gray eyes contrasted with raven-black hair. That, combined with her pressed and crisp officer’s uniform, gave her a very professional and cool appearance.

I smiled slightly, “Lead on, Captain.” I caught her slightly questioning look and remembered by tattered appearance. I held up a finger. “Actually, give me a second to change out of this.”

I hurried on board the interceptor to grab my armor, since I wasn’t going to dress to the nines for a tour of a military vessel and apart from the dark robes my only other outfits were the kinds of thing I’d wear out to a nice restaurant. Two-Vee powered on as soon as I passed him in the hallway, but of course I didn’t hear him follow me into the dormitory and nearly had a heart attack when I turned around and met his blood-red optics.

“Christ! Make some noise for Pete’s sake,” I cursed, holding a hand between my breasts.

“Who is Pete?” Two-Vee queried.

“Forget about it,” I sighed, calming my hearts with a second slow breath. It had been awhile since I’d used Earth exclamations by habit, and I was cursing myself for the slip. I’d also nearly blasted the damn droid on reflex. “What do you want?”

“Master appears injured.”

“Just flesh wounds,” I replied at once. “Hey, now that I’m thinking of it, make a note to buy some replacement robes and casual undergarments. If you could get those into my locker before the interceptor links up with the Interminable Night later today that’d be grand.”

“Your wish is my command,” Two-Vee simpered. He paused, a moment of suspense stretching between us. I had thought he’d depart after receiving his orders. “Master, was there some deficiency in my services?”

I blinked, uncomprehending.

“You acquired an additional administrative model,” Two-Vee reminded me sullenly, mechanical head tilting in an approximation of reproach. “I assure you, whatever tasks you require of that overpriced heap of…”

“Pardon me,” another mechanical voice spoke from the doorway. “I thought my olfactory receptors caught something foul in this compartment. I see it is just the obsolete model wasting Master’s time. Allow me to dispose of this crude salvage material, Lord, I apologize for allowing it to disgrace your beauteous presence for even a moment.”

The new droid was gold. And silver. It had bright orange eyes and a smooth case, every facet and surface screaming opulence and influence. It floated, rather than walking, and had a broad abdomen with two dangling, sleek arms. It’s head was shaped more like a Y, with two sweeping horns of silver reaching above its sloped forehead and glowing, deep-set optical devices. One arm was currently propped contemplatively under its pointed chin, as it leveled a blank stare at Two-Vee.

“Nine-Ess-Bee-See,” Two-Vee practically growled, turning so fast I was actually shocked that the droid wasn’t a combat model. “I have been given a priority objective from our Lord, so step aside. Your loud casing might blind the Master if it catches the light, so why don’t you go talk to the septic reclaimer while Master and I conduct our business?”

“You entrusted this dullard with any task beyond interpretation?” the new droid turned its attention laconically to where I stood, observing their rivalry with amusement.

“I have been tasked with finding a suitable replacement casing for…”

I cut in before they could really get into it. “Why don’t you two work together on it. I’m sure between the two of you, you’ll find some casual clothing items I’ll enjoy. At a decent price, mind. Two sets of robes should do,” I tacked on at the end, envisioning each droid trying to outdo the other and spending all my money. “Go on now, I have to change into my armor.”

The droids both seemed momentarily incapable of processing my order, and I smirked as I turned away from them. No doubt they wouldn’t dare to complain. As I thought, they departed without a word, but the instant they were out in the corridor I heard the two droids bickering like an old married couple. Fussy little things. I stripped down to my boxer briefs, paused, then removed those too, changing to a fresh pair. Then I squeezed myself into the tight undersuit, clapping each plate of armor into its proper place and ratcheting the straps and clasps closed, listening to each hermetic seal. Helmet on the belt, lightsaber on the opposite side, shield active on its low, invisible setting.

Then I clomped through the short corridor and back down the ramp to where Captain Damatha was waiting. Her eyes made a short appraisal of my new appearance and I had the impression that if it were possible she would have stood straighter. But she already looked like someone had replaced her spine with a steel beam. “Sorry about that, I’m more presentable now. Let’s go.”

“I brought a shuttle over, it’s parked in the neighboring hangar,” she replied, nodding her head and beginning to walk. In her dress uniform, her boots didn’t clack against the deck, but mine did. “You didn’t have to wear a full hardsuit for a tour, My Lord.”

“Well, it was this or more formal attire,” I replied with a shrug. “And this is faster to slap on than a dress.”

“No kidding,” Damatha snorted, amused. “I thought most Lords had a full closet of the same black robe.”

“Seems that way, right? Well, I told my droids to buy a replacement for the one Darth Baras tore up in training.”

The captain gave me a vaguely surprised look. “Is that…wise?”

“Hm?”

She shook her head quickly. “Nevermind, My Lord.”

I huffed, deciding not to press her on it. It was probably something silly that I’d inevitably discover later and then regret, but whatever. We stepped into one of the gates of Vaiken Spacedock, which opened into four different hangars. Passing a collection of lounging passengers in uniform, likely soldiers being redeployed or taking leave on Dromund Kaas, Captain Damatha tapped a pass-code and got us entry into a shuttle bay between two of the larger berths.

“Where are you from, Captain?” I asked, suddenly. Just to break the silence.

“You probably haven’t heard of it, My Lord.”

“Try me.”

“I was born on Vinsoth, spent years there as part of a colonization effort. Once I was old enough, I applied to the Naval Academy on Ord Cestus,” she answered. And, she’d been correct. I hadn’t heard of either of those worlds. I shrugged at her knowing look and she laughed softly. “Yeah, most people haven’t heard of them. Vinsoth was untamed until like twenty years ago, and Ord Cestus is an unremarkable trade port that exports droids and fungus. Nothing really worthy of galactic notice.”

“Both are Imperial? Well, I’d have to figure that they are,” I shook my head at my own question. Captain Damatha just shrugged.

“It’s not unusual for people from neutral worlds to join the Imperial Navy. Some Chiss from their empire have joined our officer corps, for example,” Damatha observed. “But yes, Ord Cestus is Imperial now. They are under the jurisdiction of a bureaucratic governor, and became that way through a treaty. We didn’t have to conquer them, anyway. And Vinsoth, well…the colony depends on Imperial supplies, so you might consider it Imperial, but there isn’t much to be found that you might call patriotism in less civilized territories.”

The shuttle we boarded was a standard Imperial personnel transport. The craft that had dropped me on Korriban at the start of everything had been the same, and I was reminded of how uncomfortable the seating was as I plopped down. Captain Damatha sat across from me in the main cabin, which wasn’t what I expected. Somebody had to fly this thing, right? Well, apparently not. The moment we were seated, the shuttle hummed to life and started to move.

“Why did you ask?” Damatha asked suddenly.

I blinked. “I find it interesting that there are so many different worlds united in the Empire, and the ways that people’s origins affect their outlook on things.”

“I suppose it might seem curious to someone who grew up in the Sith Academies,” the captain agreed with a small shrug. “It’s pretty unremarkable to most people, though. Everyone came from somewhere.”

“I can imagine it starts to feel normal,” I agreed. “Did you enlist for any particular reason? Or just to get out of the colony?”

“That was part of it,” came the easy reply. “But I also wanted to make something more of myself than subsistence farming on a backwater planet.”

“You’ve certainly done that, if you’ve made Captain,” I remarked.

She ducked her head in a slight nod. “It’s nothing that impressive. I mostly commanded transports, as I said, My Lord.”

“We all do what we can,” I shrugged. “Things might get a bit more exciting than you bargained for, my luck being what it is.”

“A trouble magnet, are you, My Lord?”

I chuckled. “Yeah, I guess you could say that. You can ease up on the titles, by the way. At least in casual settings.”

I had noticed that she had changed her tune from ‘Ma’am’ to ‘Lord’ so she probably cottoned on to my gender when she saw me in armor as opposed to the robes. Not that it really mattered to me, but if someone was going to tack my title at the end of every other sentence I preferred the more understated titles. The Captain nodded to me in acknowledgment.

“We’ll be arriving at the main hangar. It’s a wide berth, capable of carrying a full wing of fighter craft, or a pair of larger interceptor-class escorts. With your ship and the half-strength fighter wing, we should be able to make room,” she explained. “Adjacent to the hangar is the engineering deck and utility bays, used by drone ships. Three material reclamation drones and two repair drones are berthed inside, for emergency repair outside of space-docks.”

“That’s interesting. What kind of material reclamation?”

“Mining and refining,” the captain replied. “The trick is to navigate to an asteroid field and run quietly to avoid notice. In an emergency, the drones can repair hull breaches and even get rudimentary systems back online. Damage to more complex devices, like the hyperdrive or navigations, would pretty much spell doom, although we do have a full complement of astromech droids designed to operate and maintain those systems. The droids can do a lot, but they can’t build a hyperdrive from raw material.”

“Makes sense,” I nodded. The shuttle hitched slightly, indicating we’d touched down in the hangar of the Interminable Night. We stood together, and the boarding ramp of the shuttle had already lowered by the time we passed the airlock.

“Pardon the lack of theatrics,” Captain Damatha gestured at the mostly deserted hangar. There were only a single pair of mechanics in evidence, and both of them looked about ready to hide behind the crates. “Most of the crew hasn’t returned yet.”

I waved her off. “That leaves you with the tour guide duty, eh?”

“Yes, but she’s my ship so it’s my pleasure. Instead of touring the engineering decks extensively, we’ll take the turbolift up to the second deck, which is for crew accommodation and amenities,” Captain Damatha explained. “There are a couple gun batteries on the second deck as well, one on either side, but combat stations generally place crew on the engineering deck, hangars, or the first deck which has the bridge and most of the ship’s armaments.”

The amenities were actually what I was most interested in, since I was hoping for my own cabin and a working shower. A shower with real water. As if reading my mind, Captain Damatha continued speaking as we walked down the long, brightly lit corridor that ran along the center of the ship.

“There are officers’ quarters, four individual rooms. Of course, you’ll have one of those for your purposes as long as this ship is your flagship, and we have yet to replace the Executive Officer. Lieutenant Quinn, being the one in charge of the attached ground forces, will have the fourth. The officers have their own ‘fresher, but it does have two showers so it isn’t inconvenient,” Captain Damatha smirked at my visible sigh of relief. “Not sonics, either. Water is cold, though.”

“Is there any reason why?” I asked curiously.

“Just typical Imperial pragmatism, I think. They don’t want to encourage long showers when all the water has to be cleaned and recycled in a closed system, and they don’t want to expend energy heating the water apart from preventing it from freezing,” she answered. “There’s no time limit on the showers, not like Academies often have. You’ll get used to the temperature. All spacers eventually do.”

“I’m not a stranger to lukewarm or even cold showers, Korriban wasn’t exactly a vacation destination,” I sighed.

The turbolift was wide enough to fit probably a full squad, which was tactically significant. It also traversed the short distance up to the second deck in less than ten seconds, depositing us in another long central corridor.

“This ship can manage three hundred passengers, but only has two hundred beds. The trick is to operate on shifts,” Captain Damatha declared as we walked. “Most of the cabins on either side are bunks. There are four locker rooms, each with a complement of showers and other facilities. Outside of officers, the crew shares those facilities based on assignment. There are two mess halls, each with a food synthesizer, but the synthesizers draw from a centralized storage, so there isn’t one that’s better than the other. Food choices are standard Imperial fare.”

“Tends to be on the dry side, I’ve noticed.”

“Yes, sauces and dips are the black market currency aboard Navy ships,” Damatha replied bemusedly. “We had to crack down on smokes; it was playing hell with the air scrubbers. As far as recreational drugs are concerned, certain stimulants are approved as long as they are taken orally and not injected — medics got up everyone’s ass about needles — or smoked. Chews are quite popular, there’s a certain root that the boys have been smuggling around when they think I’m not paying attention.”

“I’m surprised regulations allow that,” I wondered.

“Well, you can’t forbid the crew everything, since then they’ll just break regs and go for something worse,” the captain replied, glancing at me. “The Empire permits vices that are deemed harmless, at least in the short term. Gambling, chewing, drinking, whoring, and other things don’t hurt anything terribly much, as long as it doesn’t get out of hand. Nobody brings the whores on board the ship, for example.”

I blinked at the rather brazen description of her crew’s habits. “And during long tours of duty?”

Answered Damatha with a wry grin, “Finding privacy on a ship this size isn’t exactly easy, but regulations don’t exactly look down on fraternization within the ranks. As long as it isn’t coerced and doesn’t interfere with duties. The crew has a couple hours of time to themselves on their schedules, even in combat zones. The only time we’d call on the entire roster would be if we’re taking casualties or in active combat. Even with that in mind, there’s a reason that Navy crews have a reputation for partying hard when they go on leave.”

“I see.”

“Apart from the food and hygiene, there are recreational options on this deck. There is a gym and a sparring room, as well as a lounge for those who’d prefer some quiet. The medical bay is on this floor, outfitted to handle triage for any combat injury. Long term care or intensive surgery should still be done at a dedicated hospital, of course, but our medic can handle anything from broken bones to lacerations or blaster wounds,” Captain Damatha continued, pointing out the facilities as we walked. There were signs on the wall, helpfully, and the doors were labeled instead of numbered.

“How big is this ship?” I asked with some amazement.

“Two-hundred seventy meters from prow to stern,” was her prompt reply. “And a good eighty meters at its widest. Many of the cabins are located towards the stern, which is wider. I’ll show you the officers quarters and then take you up to the bridge.”

True to her word, there were four cabins for the officers, situated more towards the front of the ship. Two-hundred seventy meters was more than a quarter of a kilometer, so it could take a bit of time to walk the length of the ship. The officers cabin was organized in a kind of hexagon, with a room on four sides and the refresher on the last. Of course, it opened to the corridor as well. Each cabin individually had a wardrobe and a sizable bed, large enough that I might actually fit in it without my feet hanging over the end, which was surprising.

“Of course, officers eat in the mess like everyone else. The crew will stay out of your way, but any time you have questions I’m sure anyone would be willing to help you find your way,” Captain Damatha concluded the tour of deck two. “Now, there’s a lift on either end of the main corridor, and six service ladders situated around the ship. So, you can get from this deck to the first in any of those ways. When an alert is called, the crew takes the nearest route, and doesn’t focus on the lifts. I’ll show you one of the ladders.”

Calling the thing a ladder was somewhat generous. It was more of a thin vertical tube with dents for feet and hands in one face, and I almost didn’t even fit inside it. I followed the captain up at a slower pace, amazed at how quickly she clambered up the considerable height to the first deck. I crawled out of the service hatch and straightened up.

“It’s a bit cramped, isn’t it?”

“Well, for you it is, I’m sure,” the captain replied with a chuckle. “We don’t have any crewmen near your height or shoulder width. And you did manage it, right? In any case, the bridge is pretty close to this location, but if you’ll look around the service hatch opened into one of the battle stations. Munitions for the turbolasers and the loading mechanisms are located here, and some of them can be manually overridden if the auto-loaders jam or are damaged. The guns are aimed from the bridge, but we have crew in position here to ensure that the guns are not interrupted.”

The rear of a single turbolaser was larger than my entire body. It was huge. Conceptually, I had known that starship weapons were on an entirely different class as compared to tank guns or small arms, but this really nailed home that point. A whole battle tank was probably the same mass a single turbolaser emplacement.

“There are multiple gun control rooms, and in emergencies the ship’s ballistic computer can fire autonomously,” Captain Damatha said. “It requires an override code, however, and the droid brain is usually retired if the ship survives a combat scenario after authorizing autonomous fire.”

“My factotum mentioned some precautions about the droid brains on ships, before, and I was wondering why there are so many regulations about it?”

Captain Damatha chuckled. “There have been droid fleets in the past which destroyed the ones supposedly holding their leash. There are rogue drones and fully autonomous vessels skulking around in deep space preying on passerby. I’d hope the galaxy had learned something from these facts. The Empire at least has a vested interest in making sure that its naval assets remain completely loyal, most especially those assets that are capable of performing so far above and beyond an organic crew.”

“Ah,” I nodded, and together we reached the bridge of my ship. It was…spectacular.

The kind of raised catwalk at the center that was iconic of the star destroyer was present, with two pits of consoles. One on either side. The main view-port, a wide, rectangular opening that looked to be reinforced around the edges with some kind of rolled metallic bulkhead, looked over the prow of the ship, and there were consoles there as well. A whole bank of them. The blinking red text and holographic displays dazzled my eyes.

“This is the brain of the ship,” Damatha declared. “There are two secondary command centers, in case this one is destroyed in combat. Although, if the bridge is taken out it usually takes the commanding officers with it, so those secondary command centers don’t usually prove to be enough to save a ship in such dire straights. Here is where the sensors, navigations, damage control, and fire control systems are operated, at a high level. The other posts around the ship perform the duties assigned by the officers here. It also has the best view of the space in front of the ship, in case the sensor systems or cameras are inhibited. Unfortunately most combat takes place at distances farther than the naked eye can reasonably see, so electronic warfare systems are essential in keeping out eyes and ears operational.”

“It’s quite impressive. I look forward to seeing it in action,” I said, approaching the view port with a grin. We were anchored in an orbit near Vaiken Spacedock, so I could see many vessels from the Imperial Navy. Four star destroyers at least, and the impressive sight of the space dock itself…it was awe inspiring.

“With our crew at half strength, I would recommend avoiding direct combat against other warships,” Captain Damatha ventured slowly. I turned away from the view and blinked. Then I rubbed the back of my neck sheepishly.

“I actually just meant in operation. Space battles actually are where I am at my weakest, Captain. I’d feel rather helpless unless I’m participating in a boarding action.”

Damatha smiled and shook her head. “You mean you can’t just pull enemy starships to pieces by glaring at them?”

“Well, I could certainly try, but I think we’d end up disappointed,” I replied smoothly. “Thanks for the tour, Captain. I’ll retire to my quarters and meditate while we gather the crew and the Lieutenant’s men. Once everyone is aboard, I’ll come to the bridge and we’ll set our course for Tatooine.”

“Tatooine?”

I blinked in surprise. “Ah, I thought Quinn might have told you about our next assignment. Yes, Tatooine. I have business there, but while I am otherwise engaged you and the Lieutenant will hopefully be making us a lot of credits by participating in police actions against smuggling operations on the planet. Confiscating spice and black market weapons, scavenging other hardware and supplies wherever possible. We’ll wholesale the illegal items to smugglers destined for Republic space. I figure it should be simple, as long as you and the Lieutenant play things safe and take advantage of superior training and hardware.”

Captain Damatha nodded sharply. “I’ll look forward to the detailed briefing, My Lord. Rest well, in the meantime.”

I nodded, and then tried to retrace my steps to the officer’s quarters…it took me longer than I’d like to admit, considering that this ship wasn’t even really all that confusing in its layout. Still, I claimed one of the quarters that looked unoccupied and settled in to recover from my minor injuries.

Chapter Text

Vette slept like the dead, generally. Silent, completely motionless, except for the slight motion of breathing and the rolling of her eyes behind their lids. I wondered what she was dreaming of, sometimes, when I was awake and she yet slept.

Early on in this life, I had slept through the night, but now, whether it was because I had grown more accustomed to my body or more reliant on the Force, I only slept a handful of hours. The rest of the night — or 'third shift' in space — was spent in a dozing meditation, wherein I exerted my iron discipline to keep from waking Vette with intentional touches. I could probably be using my time more productively, to be sure…but it was hard to leave Vette’s embrace.

We would be arriving at Tatooine soon, however, so she did need to be awake for the briefing. We had like two and a half hours before first shift, and I was supposed to meet my officers and 9S-BC to discuss our objectives and their duties while I went out into the desert with Shyrack Breev. That was my plan, anyway.

Maybe it was a tad earlier than necessary. Still, I trailed one hand over the sinuous muscle of Vette’s back, watching as the movement of her eyes increased, lekku twitching at the tips. She might sleep like the dead, but Vette usually awakened at the first sign of intentional movement. Which was honestly impressive. She mewled softly in protest and curled against my breast, trying to hide from wakefulness in my warmth. As usual we had slept with only a sheet over us, so that she wasn't too warm, and that usually meant she snuggled as close as she could to use me like a massive hot water bottle.

As cute as that was, obviously I couldn’t allow her to go black to sleep.

“Wakey, wakey, Vette,” I cooed, bending my fingers to trail blunt nails along her spine. This caused her to shudder and squirm, eyes popping open along with a wide yawn that bared her sharp mouthful of teeth. “There she is. Good morning!”

Her eyes blearily tracked to the digital clock face beside the bed, one of the few accessories in my quarters on the Interminable Night. “Master, I think you’re clock is wrong. Because you said it was morning, but that would mean your clock is two hours slow.”

“Oops,” I chirped, sitting up and turning to the side as Vette flopped onto the warm patch of bedding with a groan. I trailed a hand over her skin again, drinking in her naked flesh with heated gaze. “I’ll make it up to you.”

“Again? Didn’t you get enough of me last night?” Vette wondered, yawning and stretching herself out. She did still spread her thighs to make some room despite the question in her voice. I slapped her ass lightly and laughed at her indignant squawk, even as I straddled one of her legs and leaned over her smaller form.

“You thirsty girl, I was talking about a massage. The perfect start to what’s going to be a very long day,” I replied, rolling thumbs firmly over the bands of muscle on either side of her spine.

After a pause to swallow a groan, Vette snorted. “Yeah, right, as if you’ve ever managed a massage in the last week without getting frisky.”

More than once, in recognition of the fact that I was asking rather a lot of my girl, I’d offered her a massage. And, to my credit, I had done my research and tried my best to make them relaxing and luxurious. I knew she wasn’t actually sleeping enough because of my overactive libido, and that she was often still sore in the mornings after.

Still, Vette had a point. Neither of us could resist the other after my massages. I won’t take all the responsibility, since I could already tell her arousal was stirring.

“Are you complaining?” I teased her, pausing with my hands above her hips. Her left butt cheek was slightly darkened from my earlier slap and the sight of it made me grin like the cat who got the cream. Vette squirmed, turning her head to peer back at me with one dark eye.

“Don’t stop.”

I purred with satisfaction. “That’s what I thought.”

Vette closed her eyes as I resumed, letting my palms press and hands gradually climb up her back until I reached her shoulders, where I used the Force to seek out pleasant nerve clusters and tight muscles, digging into them pointedly and listening as Vette sighed and blushed. The aroma of her sex gradually filled my quarters with her rich allure. Blood was rushing to my cock as I felt the call of her lust.

“I’m gonna be a mess all day if you kriff me now,” Vette mumbled, feeling as I hardened against her thigh. “Maybe use my mouth this time, Master.”

“Then you’ll have a sore throat,” I reminded her, lifting my hands from her shoulders to pamper her lekku. There was a special technique to massaging a Twi’lek’s head-tails, since they were acutely sensitive, and not just to touch. I had no idea how it felt to Vette, but I had learned that there were certain notes that could be hummed which caused pleasant sensations, and although I wasn’t exactly talented at holding a pitch I could hum those simple arpeggios.

Gently, ever so gently, I held the slender, tattooed tail in my hand and slid my hands down in a twisting squeeze, smirking as Vette’s grasp on the sheets tightened and the muscles on her back flexed.

“U-ugh! Master that-!”

I released her and repeated the process on the other, still humming. Vette shuddered so strongly I suspected she’d just had herself a little orgasm, but that was unlikely. It had probably just felt really, really good.

“Good?” I cooed in a redundant question.

“So good,” she enthused, loose and languid. “Flip me over and hang my head over the side, Master.”

“You sure?” I hesitated. We’d tried that, once already. After Vette’s early adventurousness with blowjobs, she’d committed herself to every form of fellatio, working her skills and stretching her limits, literally, until she’d seemed confident in her ability to take me deep.

She certainly had succeeded. She had just needed a throat lozenge afterward. Which the ship’s medic had chided her for, much to her embarrassment.

“Yep,” Vette replied, already rolling onto her back. “I loved it.”

“Which part?” I asked, already sliding off the bed and feeling my cock throb with need at the fond tone of her voice. “The part where I grabbed you by the tits and buried your nose in my nuts while you fingered yourself silly?”

Vette pressed her thighs together and dropped her head off the side of the mattress, letting her head-tails dangle. “Yesss,” she drew out the word in a hiss of desire.

I grabbed my shaft by the root and slapped her cheek with it, earning another indignant squawk. Her lips puckered in a pout as Vette trailed her own hands down her belly, and I gave her another cock slap, grinning as I saw her eyes darkening in their signature way. “Is this what you want, Vette?” I asked, shifting forward and rubbing the length against her face. “You want my cock in your throat?”

Her mouth opened eagerly and she went for the drooling head with her tongue. I pulled back, just out of reach, and slapped her with it for a third time, directly across her extended tongue, splattering clear pre-cum across her cheek and bottom lip.

“Don’t tease!” Vette protested with a whine, abandoning her own pleasure to reach for my hips. “Come here already!”

“Bossy thing,” I chided, but shifted forward, reaching down and grabbing hold of her breasts just as promised. Vette groaned like a dying woman as she grabbed my shaft and fed it into her gaping maw, sucking powerfully and immediately dropping her hands back to her soaked pussy. I growled softly, felt her tongue swirling around my tip, then thrust forward.

I kept my pace slow, but trusted that Vette knew how to handle it. She seemed to be trying to set a record for how quickly a girl can swallow, forming a squeezing, milking sleeve that welcomed me with relative ease. Right up until about half of me was sheathed inside, then she gagged a bit, which caused globs of saliva to dribble over her cheeks and her wet eyes.

I pulled up on her nipples and let the gag subside, watching her furious jilling only get more violent, then continued forward. Vette’s submissive mewling groan was followed by another gag, then an angry swallow, as if she was fighting with herself to take me. I purred and helped her along by refusing to be denied, already crashing towards an orgasm from her incredibly tight, rhythmically squeezing gullet.

“Oh, Vette…” I growled, manhandling her perfect handfuls of titflesh and proceeding to clap my nuts directly into the sopping wet mess that was her face. Vette came, explosively, all over her own fingers, and I was entranced by the clenching muscles of her abdomen as she rode out her pleasure. I nearly joined her, then, as her whole body tightened up, including her throat.

But, I sensed her air was running a bit short, and so I withdrew myself to the tip, letting her take two sticky gasps, before driving back into the absolute divine grasp of her throat. The momentary reprieve meant that I’d last a bit longer, and that was certainly fine by me.

“You’re such a talented cocksucker, love,” I praised her, almost mindless. Vette’s reply was a gloriously wet gag, which was understandable, considering her circumstances. It really was a very impressive feat.

She was starting to struggle a bit, the poor thing. Her concentration had been interrupted, but the first time around she’d said not to stop even if she gagged a little. I wasn’t sure entirely what qualified as gagging just ‘a little’ versus ‘please stop choking me’ kind of deal, but Vette assured me she’d tap out, literally, if it was too much for her. And she was too busy frigging herself to even be remotely mistaken for tapping out.

So, I kept my eyes open, despite wanting to bask in the feeling of her with my eyes luxuriously closed. I watched her squirming, watched as she sunk four fingers to the knuckle in her own sex while her other hand grabbed the sheets like a lifeline, watched long strings of foamed saliva and pre-ejaculate dangle from her face, connecting her to my swinging balls in glistening ropes when I pulled out to the tip. Watched her rapturous, teary, darkened eyes for the brief glimpses I could catch before they were obscured again.

There was a lot of good things to keep my eyes on, so it wasn’t really a sacrifice. It had only been a minute, or maybe two, and then I pulled back intentionally, pausing to let her take a deeper breath. She knew, of course, what was coming. Vette seemed to have very a good understanding by now of when I was about to cum, and she always pouted at me if I lasted longer than her expectations. When she was as prepared as can be, I slid a hand up to brush my thumb over her jaw in pure affection, then gently laid my palm over her throat as I thrust in, feeling it distend in my grasp, flexing to accommodate my girth.

And I came like a damn geyser, with stars in my eyes. Vette valiantly swallowed, gulping down more than a mouthful, before she was rudely interrupted by her body’s misinterpretation of its purpose. She gagged, which of course caused the deluge of nearly steaming cum to pour over her face, and then she returned to guzzling down her lewd breakfast for the final throbs.

I wrenched free, panting softly, and immediately shifted back, cradling Vette by the back of her head and raising her up as I crawled into the bed. Vette was also panting, and wiping at her face with her hands to try and do something about the sticky mess. “You’re so good to me,” I breathed, laying heated kisses in the crook of her neck.

Vette cleared her throat a bit, tried to speak, and then stopped when all that emerged was a soft burp. She glared at me as if daring me to laugh, so I hid my face in her neck again, kissing and worrying at her skin with my teeth. I was still shaking with silent chuckles, though, so she landed a soft slap on my shoulder anyway.

“Too good by far,” she eventually said. She turned towards me, reaching for my breasts and tweaking my nipples just the way I liked. “Want me to stroke you off for a bit? You’ll be hard all morning.”

“Thinking of you, I’ll be hard all day anyway,” I retorted, and Vette rolled her eyes.

“Flatterer,” she chided. One slender hand grabbed my shining, slick cock and started to squeeze, giving it a long upward stroke. “That wasn’t a no.”

“You know me, Vette.”

“Never gonna say no to an orgasm?” she laughed softly. “Yeah, I guess I should have figured when you woke me up. Actually, speaking of that, maybe you don’t deserve any favors from me today, Master.”

She teasingly withdrew her hand, tapping her chin with one finger in thought.

“Don’t pretend it’s a favor to me; I know you want to stick your face in it,” I purred. “Now that it’s all sticky for you. Go on, then. I’m right here, all yours.”

“No,” Vette denied, eyes dancing as she peppered kisses on my jaw. “Not right now. Right now, I’d rather play with these big fun bags of yours. Maybe relieve some of my breast envy by pinching your nipples while you cum. So lay down, won’t you, Master?”

“That’d be terribly rude of you,” I exclaimed, eyes wide with faux surprise. I really would enjoy that, though…and Vette knew it, of course. She didn’t just say no when it came to sex, at least she hadn’t thus far. Vette always had an alternative to suggest, when that word passed her lips.

I obliged her by laying back, feeling Vette scooting close against my side and grasping my cock again with one hand, leaning over me to land a nibble on one tit while her free hand took a firm hold of the other.

It must have been a bit of an awkward position for her, practically sprawled over top of me, but her sharper than Human teeth on my sensitive breast and quickly working hand over my cock was more than enough to make me purr like an engine and breathe her name in praise as I came. True to her word, Vette pinched my nipple with her free hand mid-orgasm and tugged my boob into the air a bit, watching my face screw up as my pleasure was shot through by accents of rapturous pain.

Playing with my nipples was probably the only way that Vette ever felt comfortable hurting me. Which was fine. We definitely didn’t have to press every one of my buttons when we fucked, and I knew Vette didn’t like pain at all either. But, damn, it really did something special for me when there was a touch of agony to go with my pleasure.

When I was done spurting thick cum over her back, Vette dropped my nipple and moved over to kiss it as if in apology, swirling her tongue around the tingling, stinging peak. Then Vette scooted backwards, meeting my eyes with a teasing grin. “You were right, though…I didn’t get enough before, so I’ll take you up on that offer too.”

I spread my thighs a bit more to let her settle into her favorite place. I would say it was my favorite, too, but having her mouth on my balls took a close second to having her on her belly below me with her tight cunt squeezing down on my cock as I filled her womb with seed until she was muttering nonsense and had an ever-so-slightly rounded belly.

Nothing in this galaxy could beat that feeling, I was sure.

Every time Vette had her chance, though, she definitely tried to convince me that this was the true pinnacle of pleasure. Who was I to argue, anyway? She nuzzled close, affectionately, both hands stroking in just the way that she knew I loved, letting me feel her admiration and lust as she breathed me in, opened her mouth, and worshiped. That was really the only word for this. Of course, she couldn’t manage to wring me completely dry, not in the time that we had, even considering the fact that we’d been fucking incessantly every third shift during the trip.

We stood together later under the cold shower, her head laying against my bosom and my arms around her shoulders, for perhaps longer than the quartermaster would have recommended, due to water supply concerns. Sharing a shower did cut down on water use, though, which was what I’d say if anyone ever thought to confront me about taking long showers aboard ship.

Nobody would. But it paid to have contingencies.

It was then, considering the fact that I would be meeting with Shyrack Breev in Mos Ila, that I decided to finally check the wardrobe that 2V and 9S had been sent to acquire. Aboard ship I just tended to wear armor, since I was mostly naked while in my quarters, and honestly I’d been somewhat reluctant to open the wardrobe, after Captain Damatha had seemed so concerned about my decision to delegate the task.

You might think I should have checked their purchases before departure, in case I had to return them. I had actually been somewhat distracted by the arrival of the crew and the plotting of our course, and once in hyperspace it was too late to return them even if they were atrocious. So, I had assured the droids that they’d done a fine job and pretended like I knew what they’d bought.

This, it turned out, was a mistake.

Vette guffawed, loudly, when she saw what was hanging in the small wardrobe. I turned a glare at her, spotting her half-dressed and leaning against the wall to contain her mirth.

Gold. Silver. The robes were…basically a walking jewelry store display. With intricate stitching in gleaming precious metal, rich gloss, and layered folds, the monstrosity against fashion seemed as though it might possibly be the gaudiest expression of wealth I had ever laid eyes on. It even had a plunging neckline and accompanying diamond necklace which would lay right in my cleavage and glitter to draw eyes. Earrings, conveniently designed to clip on, were also decorated with emerald gems and silver chains, intended to dangle. And there was a stunningly detailed gold-leaf tiara, fashioned after a wreath of ivy or something, on top of everything else.

Holy shit. How much had they spent on this?!

“Nope,” I declared in a dull voice. “That is not happening. Not ever.”

“They’ll be so disappointed if you…” Vette choked on a laugh, composed herself, and tried to continue, “If you don’t wear your new ‘coverings,’ Master.”

I gave her a gimlet eye and shook my head. “They can be disappointed then, and if you try to insist I’ll make you wear it.”

Vette gasped. “That would never work, I don’t have the bust for a neckline like that!”

I sighed, feeling a bit flattered that this meant she thought I did have the tits for that. And a bit confused since I hadn’t actually taken many complements about breasts in my experience. “Still, it’s not happening.”

“You shouldn’t wear your usual black in a desert anyway,” Vette pointed out. She paused, then tried a different angle. “At least try it on for me, if you won’t wear it around Tatooine.”

“Nope. Never. You wouldn't catch me dead in that monstrosity.”

“Come onnnn…” Vette put her hands together and made puppy eyes at me. “I think gold and silver are actually very fashionable on some worlds. Like Coruscant or Alderaan.”

I blinked at her. “And when, pray tell, are we ever going to be on Coruscant?”

“You never know! Come on, just throw it on real quick and pose like a…like a queen. Like my queen,” Vette tacked on, making a show of fidgeting in place. My resistance crumbled, but even as I opened the wardrobe again I gave Vette a skeptical look.

“Is this a thing for you, because we’re out of time this morning so you’ll have to kneel before my throne another time…”

“Master!” Vette exclaimed, blushing fiercely. But she was grinning, too.

I laughed, waving a hand. “Fine, fine.”

The robes came with a set of lingerie. White lace. The lower garment was not much like any other article of clothing I had ever worn before. Part of it fit over my cock like a decorative sock, the rest was worn like a dainty pair of panties, which conveniently had extra room for my testicles. I reluctantly had to admit it felt sexier than cramming myself into a pair of briefs while still mostly hard from the morning’s fun.

And there was a clip that went with the garter belt, probably intended to keep my cock from tenting the skirt. I deliberately tried not to think about how those two droids had figured out the size measurements required to purchase this somewhat specialized intimate apparel.

Silk stockings hugged my legs up to the thigh, where they were held by white garters. It made me feel elegant, and the silk was sensuous and smooth against my skin. The inner robes were light, almost airy, and paired with a almost casual skirt that had a gleaming silver hem. With the deep neckline of the upper robe, and the loose sash around my waist, you might have mistaken me for a noble in a summer dress. Then the outer robes, the gaudiest offender, came over top.

They didn’t close at the front, simply having sleeves and resting on my shoulders. There were shoulder-pads to give me a broader silhouette from the front, and the robes fell nearly to the ground, layering over the lighter skirt. I felt a bit like a walking curtain. A walking gold and silver curtain with intricate filigree stitched on my back.

Then came the necklace, which slid over my head and rested right where I had suspected. Sitting there gleaming, right between the smooth, perfectly sculpted globes of my tits, which were held in alluring position by the lingerie. The earrings too, felt rather heavy on my ears. And finally, the tiara, which I set in place with a grimace.

There were boots as well, which I decided could wait, since I was taking all of this off as soon as Vette had her fill. I turned away from the small mirror, saw Vette staring wide-eyed, and opened my mouth to ask her sarcastically if she was satisfied.

Then came chime from the door. “Master?” The modulated voice of 9S-BC could be heard. “May I assist you in any way in preparation for the briefing in ten minutes?”

“Come in!” Vette cut in, before I could speak, and I flashed a harsh glare at her before schooling my expression. She hid her impish grin behind a hand and pulled the shirt of her uniform over her head. The door opened, and the equally ostentatious gold and silver of my new administrative droid floated in.

“Oh my, you look simply stunning, Master. An absolute delight,” the droid declared with a sudden twitch of its arms. “Truly, majestic! Imperious!”

“I was just trying things on,” I blurted, waving a hand as if to forestall the droid’s excitement. “Didn’t you pick out anything more casual? I mean, for affairs of state or formal events, this seems more than adequate…”

“By no means, Master! For such occasions, one of your stature and beauty would surely require only the most glorious trappings, the highest decorations and deliberately considered accessories,” 9S intoned with a deep, serious voice. “Surely, while the humble coverings we procured might suffice for daily wear…”

“Alright, alright,” I cut across his voice. “There’s been a misunderstanding, a cultural miscommunication. When I indicated casual wear, I actually meant something comfortable.”

9S jerked back as if struck. “Are these coverings uncomfortable, My Lord?”

“W-Well, not exactly…” I stammered, suddenly aware that the entire ensemble was actually rather cozy, apart from the earrings which weren’t really my style and which pinched the lobes of my ears a bit much. While I hadn’t expected sensual underwear to be comfortable, being mostly designed for appearance, they weren’t objectively uncomfortable either, and I actually felt rather confident and attractive in them. If only the neckline of the robes wasn’t so low…

Vette giggled helplessly as I tried to find words, and I shifted my gaze from the droid to glare. “You, shut up. I’ll deal with you in a moment.”

She only dissolved into more violent laughter at that, so I rolled my eyes and returned my attention to 9S, who was eying Vette with something resembling distaste. As if she was being disrespectful or something. I tried to explain further, “I was saying comfortable as in understated. You know, something that doesn’t draw attention to itself, or really make much of a statement. Casual.”

“Master, those robes really are the lowest form of raiment that I could bring myself to even inspect, for one such as yourself. Really, it only just has the elegance necessary to adorn the chassis of a mighty and illustrious lord. And…and, although Two-Vee did argue that we should have gone with red and gold, I insisted that silver was a far more adequate casual color, and that the red of your natural coverings was more than enough to titillate the processors of anyone who laid their optics on…” 9S was rambling, hands moving as if attempting to explain, and I deflated, rubbing my nose.

“Alright, alright! Thank you, for the thoughtful nature of the choice that you made. I’ll keep it, for special occasions. This, however, is a meeting between friends and subordinates, which I am now going to be late to, and since this is the only outfit you picked out, I don’t have another option for casual wear…”

“Oh, no, My Lord, you cannot possibly be late,” the droid interjected with fervor. “In your capacity as superior and administrator of the operational units aboard this vessel, an example of punctuality and precision should be demonstrated, such as to emphasize the importance of efficiency and…”

“Which of us is the Lord here?” I asked rhetorically, peeling the outer robe from my shoulders and hanging it in the wardrobe. “I am changing out of this…”

“Into what?” Vette put in quickly. “Just go without the outer robe. That’s the part with all the decoration. You can change after the meeting, but 9S is right, we shouldn’t be late!”

I eyed her skeptically, removing one earring, then the other. I placed them in the small black box that was designed to hold them, sliding it into the wardrobe’s small shelf. Then I sighed. “Fine. Fine. You have ulterior motives, Vette, but I’ll humor you this once.”

That was how I ended up sitting I the conference room, exactly on time and not a second late, while dressed in the outrageous gold and silver robes and skirt. No one would ever know of the stockings or lingerie if I could help it, but I knew, and I felt as if I were naked. Well...Vette knew what I was wearing under the robes too, since she'd seen me put it all on. Her eyes were practically glued to me.

She was seated next to me, and 9S floated by one of the displays on the wall, waiting for the moment when his input was required. As for myself…I sat stiffly, hands folded, glancing towards the door as it opened to admit Captain Damatha, Lieutenant Quinn, and Platoon Sergeant Maow.

I realized I was wearing the tiara, still, when I noticed the sergeant’s eyes flick to my forehead. I stifled the urge to groan in mortification. I also noticed Quinn’s eyes dip to my necklace, but I knew the attraction of a pair of decent tits so I didn’t blame him in the least for a glance. I’d glare at him if he stole another look. And if any of them noticed the slight blush to my cheeks, they thankfully said nothing of it, but since my skin was red naturally I didn't think they noticed.

I cleared my throat. “Well, then, we’re due to arrive in the Tatoo system in…”

“Forty minutes,” Captain Damatha supplied when I paused.

“Forty minutes,” I nodded to her gratefully. “I’d like to lay out the various objectives we’re aiming to complete, and answer questions about the particulars as necessary. After that, I’ll leave the operation entirely in your hands, while I pursue Darth Baras’ purposes on the surface.”

They were all simply watching me expectantly, so I continued.

“Firstly, Lieutenant, you will be leading your team in ground operations against the Exchange on Tatooine’s surface. There are various illicit goods being smuggled which you will confiscate, and undoubtedly there are bounties posted on the members of those operations which we can benefit from. The aim of your task is to supply us with credits. To do this, the goods that you confiscate and prisoners that you take will be sold to smugglers or turned in for bounty. The smugglers have to be traveling to Republic space, and Vette will be taking the lead in negotiating the deals with them. Obviously, we cannot sell illegal goods in Imperial territory, so Vette will be working out of Anchorhead, which is under Republic jurisdiction. I’m told this is a legal way of making credits from police action, at least in the Empire, but Vette’s activities will be illegal by Republic law,” I explained my plan, and gestured to 9S. “The administrative and legal details will be handled by 9S, my secretarial droid. Obviously the aim is to avoid notice by Republic law enforcement, such as it is on Tatooine.”

“I am pleased to be formally introduced, officers of my lord,” 9S intoned to the assembled audience. “As she has already said, the legality of this endeavor depends on the location of sale. It is legal for armed forces acting in the name of a lord to confiscate proscribed goods and to apprehend known criminals, but not to resell those illicit goods within Imperial jurisdiction. As such, the products must first be transported to Anchorhead, and then sold surreptitiously under Republic jurisdiction. I will keep record of every credit, for the purposes of taxation, and as a result no one in the Empire can accuse us of illegal acts. Obviously, the opinions of Republic scum have no bearing on our activities.”

“Thank you,” I nodded to the droid. “That’s the whole plan. Now, I want to emphasize that funding is critical to our success in the near future, but — I know I shouldn’t have to say this but I will — I don’t want to hear of a single casualty when I receive your report. Credits aren't worth your life. If you take engagements, they should be one-sided. Utilize armored vehicles and the support of the Interminable Night in orbit. If her guns miss the target, there’s nothing but desert to blast on Tatooine, so orbital strikes can be called without great fear for collateral damage. Of course, if you obliterate the product, then we have nothing to sell. My point is that you should take every precaution, and utilize every asset at hand, to ensure that the shakedown of the Exchange is as safe as any firefight can be. Understood?”

“Yes, My Lord,” Quinn acknowledged with a nod.

“We won’t be traveling together on the surface?” Vette asked. I gave a slightly apologetic look.

“No, I need your expertise in Anchorhead,” I confirmed. “I will be traveling the desert with one of Darth Baras’ assets on this world, a woman named Shyrack Breev. She is a native and should know the deserts well. I will have my comm, so don’t hesitate to contact me if trouble arises, but generally you will be operating independently.”

“Aside from orbital fire support, are there other standing orders for the Interminable Night?” Captain Damatha asked.

“This planet has Republic forces likely in orbit as well as on the surface. Do not engage them. The same is true for you, Lieutenant. In fact, if there are Republic forces beleaguered by pirates, sand people or other shared enemies, you have my permission to intervene, especially if you feel you can leverage your assistance for compensation of some kind. We are not currently in a state of war, and while the Republic are our enemies, I’d rather not lose any men or suffer damage to this ship from a needless skirmish. If they catch wind of the smuggling, then lay low and we’ll see about alternatives,” I declared. I leaned back a bit and nodded. “Apart from that, if there are suspected smuggler ships that you can police safely, feel free to assist the local Imperial assets in those matters. Additionally, I give you blanket permission to take part in any missions that are posted on the Imperial network which are on Tatooine or within several hours travel, as long as you notify me periodically of your whereabouts and you are not recklessly endangering yourselves.”

“Understood,” Damatha nodded.

“With our objectives clear, I’ll allow 9S to share some details about the planet, and by the time he’s done we will have arrived, I’m sure.”

9S made use of the display screens to give his presentation, and while I had no idea how long he had spent preparing it, I was impressed by the depth of and applicability of the knowledge that he shared. It was all stuff that I already knew, mostly, from being exposed to media about Tatooine in my past life. Things like: planet is hot, dry, and prone to sandstorms. He even added advice about adjustments to standard maintenance procedures for blasters and vehicles while on Tatooine.

He also spoke of the various species inhabiting the planet, and how they sourced moisture and sustenance from the unforgiving landscape. I had always wondered how massive apex predators like the krayt dragon or the sand demon could exist without a varied and populated food chain to prey upon, and it seemed that these were actually non-native species that preyed almost entirely on jawas, sand people, and other sentient settlers.

Which was, you know, very much not at all discomforting to know, considering that I would be traveling on the surface of their hunting grounds for days on end.

As our hyperspace journey neared its end, we relocated to the bridge…but not before I had returned to my quarters to exchange my ritzy getup for my armor. The armor would probably be more practical for desert travel than robes, anyway, since it was fully sealed. And I wasn’t about to let more of the crew see me in that ridiculous golden ensemble than those few who had caught glimpses while I was walking to the conference room. Vette, at least, looked disappointed with the change.

When our ship shuddered into real space at the edge of the Tatoo system, far enough that Tatooine was about the size of the nail on my thumb, I smiled in anticipation. And when I was finally aboard one of the transports heading to Mos Ila, alongside Quinn’s men and an infantry fighting vehicle that they would be using for their operations, I was practically beside myself.

This planet was about as quintessentially ‘Star Wars’ as you could get. The world of Twin Suns. I left Quinn at the spaceport, walking through the relatively deserted gates of the understated transit hub, and I emerged at the top of the steps overlooking the sand-blasted town that clung to the side of a large rocky ravine, taking in the adobe huts and the canvas coverings over the marketplace.

I was still standing there gawping like a tourist when a woman approached me and bowed. I focused on her, tracing the intricate black tatoos that covered a sharp and intense visage. She was slender, and dressed in light brown robes which seemed to be covering some form of armor or hardsuit. There was a mask hanging from straps at her neck, which she had clearly left aside for introductions.

“My Lord, welcome to Tatooine. I am Shyrack Breev,” she introduced herself, predictably. I bowed, politely using the form of a superior to an underling, but I didn’t sense or see that she caught the meaning of it. Outside of the Sith, there weren’t many who were familiar with all the intricacies of etiquette.

“I am Xanot,” I replied. “Nice to meet you. Did Darth Baras give you the time of my arrival?”

“Yes,” she replied. “He only said that I was to be your guide, in the desert. He did not say what it was that you were seeking there. Is it a hunt?”

“No. Or…not in the way that you’re thinking,” I corrected myself absently. I guess you could call it a hunt, from a certain point of view, but she'd probably been thinking of hunting krayt. “I am investigating the Jedi pilgrimage that is made here on Tatooine. Have you heard of it?”

“A pilgrimage of Jedi?” Shyrack repeated in a blank tone. “Hm, no. I’m not familiar with such a practice. Is this a tradition that is shared between Jedi and Sith?”

“Perhaps it can be,” I answered cryptically. “Do you know who might know of it? That is my mission, on Tatooine.”

“I can ask around,” Shyrack said at once. “If you give me a few hours, I’ll have something for you, My Lord. Is that acceptable?”

“Sure, sure,” I shrugged. “I should meet with the local Imperial leadership, in any case. We’ll meet at the cantina in two hours, then.”

“Actually, we should meet at my home,” Shyrack countered. “Your armor, while of excellent make, is not suitable for the deserts of Tatooine. Not unless you have the oxygen reserves to operate as if in vacuum for days on end.”

“Why?” I wondered, surprised.

“Standard hard-suits bleed moisture lost in our breath when cycling the air with your surroundings,” Shyrack replied simply. “A suit rated for the desert will preserve your water much more efficiently by collecting condensation and allowing you to drink it from a canteen or a straw in the mask. That is necessary on Tatooine, unless we are planning on traveling in an enclosed vehicle.”

“I am in your hands, so we’ll do it as you think best,” I replied. It wasn't something that had ever been mentioned in other materials about Tatooine, but perhaps the Sand People did something similar. “Do you have any desert hard-suits in my size?”

“I will procure one,” was her simple response. “Hold out your comm, My Lord, and I will send you the address.”

I extended my wrist and was pinged within seconds. “Got it.”

“Then I will see you there, in two hours.”

With that, the woman was walking away. I shrugged, trailing after her for a moment before heading towards what my map indicated was the local headquarters of the Imperial Reclamation Service. I had been advised to check in with them, and from SWTOR I knew that they were poking around old Czerka research, so it was probably wise to remain abreast of their progress, even if I wasn’t necessarily planning on taking part in their efforts.

The facility itself was nothing spectacular, even being one of the largest structures in town. It must have been a re-purposed civil facility of some kind, maybe used by the local mayor or whatever had passed for government before Imperial occupation. Whatever the case, there weren’t any armed guards or even a reception droid, so I simply followed the feeling of life in the Force until I came to a large office, which had a small group of people inside.

A Sith Lord, for one. Human, old, and not exactly all that intimidating, as far as power was concerned. He could always be obscuring his strength, of course, but I didn’t think that was the case. He obviously knew that I had entered the room, but he didn’t so much as turn to address me, continuing the ongoing conversation with a uniformed man, who was animatedly waving a datapad around.

“…water readings, damn things are full of sand for the sixth time. The Jawas have clearly sold us defective product, and the local technicians are-oh! Hello, My Lord,” the man saw me mid-sentence and dropped his gesturing. “I’m sorry, we didn’t have someone at the front desk, did we?”

“Don’t worry about that, Captain,” the other Sith cut in. “I’ve sensed her arrival since her ship arrived in orbit. Welcome to Tatooine, Apprentice Xanot.” I bowed, this time as to a superior. And the Darth noticed it, if his small smile was any indication. He gestured magnanimously. “There’s no need to formalities here. We are far removed from Dromund Kaas and its games here on Tatooine.”

“True enough,” I allowed. “You know me, but I don’t think I know you.”

“I am Darth Silthar. The local efforts of the Imperial Reclamation service fall under my jurisdiction,” the older Sith replied. “Captain Golar and his men, that is. Our efforts here were not deemed worthy of a full company, so we’re operating with just a single team.”

“Do you also command the garrison?” I wondered.

Darth Silthar waved his hand. “No, those are ICCC men, under the command of a Major last I checked. It doesn’t matter much to me either way, and they ignore our operations.”

“And what is the Imperial Reclamation Service so interested in on Tatooine? I thought this planet was nothing but a wasteland,” I wondered. Although I knew, vaguely, what they were interested in already, I wanted to hear it firsthand. Just to confirm that things were as I expected.

“I thought the same, once upon a time,” Darth Silthar agreed. “But this wasteland, as you put it, is the resting place of many secrets. The planet is a graveyard, you might say. The fossil record alone shows that Tatooine was not always a desert. Have you ever wondered how that could be possible?”

“No,” I answered honestly.

“Well, naturally not. Nobody has, and that is why the secret has remained buried for so many centuries. But, there was one company that thought to investigate. Czerka Company. Their research facilities on this planet were seeking to unravel the mystery of its desertification,” Darth Silthar lectured, beginning to pace. “Of course, this was during the Jedi Civil war, and the whole thing was all very clandestine. The efforts ended in disaster, as investigations into ancient ruins often do. Czerka buried the whole project, and Tatooine was forgotten again. But, recently the Empire came across derelict shuttles that had escaped from the research facilities here, and what was spoken of in their final records has piqued the interest of the Imperial Reclamation Service.”

“The secret to Tatooine’s desertification? Is that really so exciting?”

“Not if creating a desert is the only thing that such a power is capable of,” Darth Silthar allowed. “But that is not what was discovered. Czerka research speculated that the devices they had uncovered were designed not to create desert planets, but to create paradises. The energy and matter required to transform entire worlds is so astronomical that the process of terraforming still requires decades or even centuries of effort with modern technology. And yet, it seems, the ancient people of Tatooine had a power source which could accomplish the total transformation of Tatooine in only a handful of years.”

I hummed thoughtfully. “And that is why this planet is a desert? That doesn't seem like a successful trial.”

“Indeed. The devices were activated, but then their creators disappeared before observing the effects. Mysterious, isn’t it? Whatever happened, it seems that the continuous action of these terraforming devices resulted in a cascading desertification effect that permanently altered the ecosystem of the entire planet. By all our measurements, there are no active terraforming processes currently in progress on Tatooine, so what we observe is the planet’s natural ecosystem,” Darth Silthar clapped his hands. “Most modern efforts at terraforming require constant maintenance even after the initial environmental targets are met, so that is yet another improvement that these ancient devices demonstrate over our current technology. If we could uncover the power sources that they were using to supply their machines, it could be utilized to destroy worlds. Or to create them. That kind of power is certainly worth a few months of digging in the sand! And that says nothing for the actual terraforming mechanisms, which we have yet to find.”

“Indeed,” I agreed absently. “That’s all very interesting, but I really only came to introduce myself. It seemed only polite, since I am a guest on this world, and you are the only other Lord here that I am aware of.”

“Oh, not the only one,” Darth Silthar waved a hand dismissively. “Not that you heard it from me. Darth Angral’s games have come to Tatooine, so there are some who are affiliated with him that are out in the desert doing…something. I’ve kept an eye on their movements, but nothing more than that.”

“Would it be anyone I recognize?” I wondered.

“How should I know, Apprentice? Lord Praven is the name of one, a pureblood who was affiliated with the Gorewrean dynasty, but after apprenticing under Darth Angral chose to swear allegiance to the man and remain separate from his brothers and their business,” Darth Silthar shrugged. “I wonder what he saw in that fool, but I’ve heard nothing remarkable about Praven himself.”

Shit. If Lord Praven was here, then that meant the superweapon Angral had stolen from the Republic was probably active, or would soon be. “I don’t recognize the name.”

“Don’t you?” Darth Silthar gave me a knowing look. But, he shrugged. “Regardless, you won’t run into him. He is out in the deserts, doing whatever his master requires. If you are amenable, Apprentice, there is something you could do to help me. I would reward you for the assistance.”

I hesitated. Did I want to get involved here? I only vaguely remembered the beats of the plot for Tatooine’s Empire story, but I knew it involved zombification via nanobot, and I wasn’t really sure I wanted to get anywhere near that kind of shit. But, on the other hand, there was the promise of money — devices capable of producing the energy output of a small star would probably be worth a handsome reward from the Imperial Reclamation Service. And Darth Silthar didn’t survive the investigations, if I remembered right, so who would be left to benefit apart from myself?

“What do you need? I might have the time to lend a hand,” I eventually settled on a noncommittal response. At least I could hear him out.

“There is a certain element on Tatooine, recent arrivals, called the Sons of Palawa,” Darth Silthar began. “They came here to test their fortitude, by all accounts. Quite an admirable pursuit. Out in the desert, they scrape by through salvaging and pure stubbornness, as far as anyone can tell. What interests me about them is not their cultural quirks, however. They have rehabilitated a series of experimental droids. Czerka battle droids, which once would have guarded their research bases. Those droids may still have the coordinates of the actual research facilities in their memory. We did offer to purchase some of those droids, but they are not inclined to share. Especially not with the Empire, whom they regard as invaders. If you bring me several droid brains from those Czerka battle droids, I will pay. Ten thousand credits per intact brain. If you choose not to assist, there will be no hard feelings. I will recover those droid brains through other means.”

“I’ll think about it, then. And I won’t keep you from your water readings any longer,” I nodded to Captain Golar. “It was good meeting you, Darth Silthar.”

“Same to you. Take care, out in the desert.”

“Oh, one last thing,” I paused, before turning to leave. “Have you heard of any Jedi pilgrimage sites on Tatooine?”

Darth Silthar’s gaze focused keenly upon me for a moment, his presence flaring sharply. “There are Jedi here, that much is obvious. You can feel them from the other side of the planet, if you know what to look for. But a Jedi pilgrimage? That is interesting indeed. You believe the Jedi seek to learn from the desert, like the Sons of Palawa?”

“Well, maybe not exactly alike,” I hedged.

“Near enough, I’d wager,” Darth Silthar mused, stroking his bearded chin. “That is a very interesting proposition. Unfortunately, I cannot offer anything that you don’t already know. I would recommend tracking a Jedi, if you can find one nearby. Perhaps the Jedi here are on this pilgrimage you speak of, and if so they might serve as your unwitting guide.”

I shrugged. It was an idea, but not really a very good one. There was no guarantee that I could replicate the same feats as the Jedi on pilgrimage, and in that case I'd follow them out into the desert only to hit a dead end or possibly end up dead. “Well, I thought to ask since you're more familiar with this world. If you do hear anything about it, I’d appreciate if you could let me know.”

“Perhaps, if you help me, I can help you,” Darth Silthar replied with a small grin. “It seems we can assist each other, no? Keep it in mind, Apprentice.”

I left the Imperial Reclamation Service headquarters deep in thought, trailing along the roads until I heard a familiar voice. Lieutenant Quinn was speaking to someone, and it didn’t sound exactly civil.

“…under orders to operate in these…”

“Your riffraff can take your orders and bury them. This is an official ICCC…”

I approached the altercation and found Lieutenant Quinn standing stiffly in front of a sharply dressed officer, who had streaks of white hair at his temples and a severe expression. The man was going on about an official ICCC operation and how Tatooine was under the jurisdiction of some admiral or other. When I was close enough, I cleared my throat.

“Is there a problem here, gentlemen?”

“My Lord!” Lieutenant Quinn jerked in surprise. He bowed immediately, then gestured at the other man. “Major Veir was just informing me that it would be impossible for us to complete the objectives you have given us, since he refuses to allow us to take part in operations that he claims are the sole purview of the ICCC.”

Wow, Quinn, you’re really throwing the guy under the proverbial bus there, huh?

“Is that so, Major?” I turned my icy gaze to the older man, who stiffened up like he was about to topple over. Well, I supposed he could only see the T-shaped visor in my helm, but he probably felt the threat in my gaze in his hind-brain.

“No, My Lord!” he declared in a rush. Predictably denying culpability. “I was only raising concerns about the possibility of cooperation with unknown and unproven elements, considering the trouble we’ve already had with the Exchange in the desert.”

“You’re struggling to deal with Exchange thugs and spice smugglers?” I sneered, a healthy dose of contempt in my voice. “How utterly disappointing. Well, Major, rest assured that I’d not leave any men under my command in your incapable hands. They will operate independently from your forces. Consider this a courtesy: we are informing you of our presence in this area of operations rather than simply taking action. Register our IFF codes so that we don’t have any incidents, and then go back to your failings. If I do hear that there has been any friendly fire, I will have your head as recompense, am I quite clear?”

“Yes, Lord.” Major Veir saluted crisply, his face looking as if it was carved from stone.

“Excellent. I’ll leave you to it, then,” I raised my helm imperiously and stalked away. That should make Quinn’s job a bit easier, right? Well, whatever. At least it got him past the red tape.

What was I to do with the rest of the time before meeting with Shyrack again? I honestly had no idea. There had to be something interesting around this town, right? If there was, then I’d find it…starting with the cantina.

Chapter Text

As it turned out, there was nothing interesting in Mos Ila except bad alcoholic beverages. It was some kind of fermented cactus or fibrous root. Whatever it was, it tasted like concentrated asshole, and I passionately regretted ordering it.

As such, my mood was somewhat disgruntled when I meandered to the other side of town to meet with Shyrack at the address she had provided. I hadn’t considered it before, but if her plan had been to acquire a hard suit for desert travel, then she probably needed measurements or something, right? Or did they just happen to have gender-agnostic hard-suits in my gargantuan size laying around?

The hovel, built from whitewashed sandstone, had a recessed entrance, with a set of descending steps leading to a solid door with a seal. I had always wondered why this was done on Tatooine, since it seemed likely to end up buried in sand after a storm. But, it was also possible that living in what amounted to a basement helped with temperature moderation. In any case, I rapped on the door with my gauntlet and waited.

It opened almost instantly, revealing the masked figure of Shyrack, whom I recognized in the Force. Every other identifying feature was hidden away, either by the folds of a long white hood or by the armor. It didn’t look particularly special, compared to mine. Just a normal suit of armor, perhaps a bit more worn and colored for desert camouflage.

“Come in,” she invited, brusquely. “I had to guess at your sizes, but Tatooine armor is configurable. Within reason. It’s over here, if you’d like to try it on, My Lord. I can wait outside.”

“Configurable?” I wondered, following her toward a table in the center of the one-room abode. Upon it was a collection of interlocking plates, weaves, and a suit of mesh underarmor.

“Suits like these are often repaired in the desert, from scavenged materials,” Shyrack explained. “A suit with a faulty seal or poor air scrubber can result in water loss. It’s not an immediately fatal problem, but nomadic groups can’t afford the inefficiencies, so repairs are made simpler by having the armor be as modular as possible. Shall I leave you to it?”

I glanced at the collection of equipment again, spotting a few of the interlocking pieces but failing to fully grasp how it all came together. There was a breastplate and some plates for the thighs, but the rest of the armor seemed to be made of a more malleable form of scales weaved into a coat. And I didn’t know how that was going to be air-tight.

“I might need help equipping the armor plates. I’ll call when I’ve got the undersuit on.”

She bowed out at that point, and I went about stripping. The temperature hit me like a freight train the instant I broke the seals of my armor. Since my custom hard-suit was rated for the cold vacuum of space, it moderated temperature and dealt with oxygen and air pressure. Without the armor, I was exposed to the local pressures and temperatures, which left me gasping briefly.

It was fucking hot. Like standing in front of an open oven, except the oven was all around me. And I wasn’t even in the direct sunlight.

I peeled out of my undersuit as well, taking the equivalent from the armor on the table and sliding into it. It was loose in a few places, and tight in others. But, like Shyrack had mentioned, there were several zips and ties that I adjusted to give the suit more give across the chest, and less around the waist.

“You can come back in!” I called, unsure of how sound transmitted past the door. Shyrack must have heard, however, since she returned and gave me a once over. Her lips pursed.

“May I?” she gestured. I held out my arms.

“Have at it.”

Armor under-suits left little to the imagination, since it was basically just a large onesie. In this case, it was more modest than my custom configuration, with the extra wiggle room and the various facets of the armor that deviated from a smooth, skin-tight piece. Shyrack stepped in close and tightened a few things, loosened others, working from my shoulders down. The suit ended up uniformly tight against my skin.

“Raise your arms. Any pinch?”

I shook my head.

“Right. A suit like this relies on a close fit, to whisk moisture from your skin. The second layer goes over this, and is a full seal. It depends on the breastplate and the backplate, so those go on first,” Shyrack picked up these two armor pieces. They weren’t as defensive as my personal suit, with the breastplate being a sort of triangular piece with a kind of gorget at the top that protected the throat. The plate had fittings that went over the shoulders, but they didn’t connect to the undersuit.

Shyrack laid it on my shoulders, pressing it lightly against my chest. Then she grabbed the backplate, which was a somewhat flexible set of plates that went down the spine, shaped like a T with the wide part at the shoulders. This was connected to the breastplate.

“Now the girdle,” Shyrack pulled a heavy, wide belt off the table and looped it around me, letting it rest at my hip bones and above my ass. It clipped at the front, and she walked around behind me to hook the spinal portion of the backplate to the belt. “And the weave…”

The scale-covered sheet that I had noticed before connected to the belt, the breastplate, and the backplate to create a seal. It also kind of stuck to the undersuit. The rest of the armor was straightforward. There was a pair of armored leggings that also hooked into the belt, and the thigh plates went over the top of those, along with the boots, completing the ensemble.

“You can have a mask and hood or a full helmet. I will warn you that the helmet limits visibility more, but you can survive sandstorms for longer. Protects the eyes more,” Shyrack explained. The helmet looked like a pair of thick green goggles inset into a plain white mask, with a malleable covering that looked like it fit over the head. The mask was a black contraption that looked like it fit over the jaw, mouth, and nose, and there was a light brown shawl paired with it.

“The helmet is fine.” I hoped it would mitigate the heat somewhat, to be fully covered.

Once I was fully kitted, I tested my maneuverability and found that this armor was actually more flexible than my usual. It also had less hard plates, so I wasn’t sure if it was as protective, but the goal did not seem to be combat effectiveness as much as longevity and seal integrity.

“The suit scrubs air, exchanging exhalation for oxygen, and collects water. It’s all done in the backplate. Damage to the backplate leading to water loss or air quality problems might mean you have to remove your helmet,” Shyrack explained. “And to drink the water you have to pop the mask and use the canteen at your belt. With the configuration, you shouldn’t lose more than a mouthful or two of water a day. Not the best, but it was all I could find with such short notice.”

“It’s fine,” I shrugged. “I’m not sure how long we’ll be in the desert. Do we have to carry all our water?”

“We’ll both have a pack with water, food, and other supplies. In fact…” Shyrack bent over a footlocker and heaved out two large haversacks, each packed to the brim. “I provisioned you with rations from the Imperial garrison, My Lord. I hope that’s satisfactory.”

I shrugged. Given that I had fucked up provisioning before, I thought it worth to check: “For my species?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Then its fine. Are we traveling by speeder?”

“Yes,” she agreed. “I have a speeder for each of us. There are more provisions on the speeders, for emergencies. Some tarps and hand shovels.”

“Excellent. Now, I basically discovered nothing of interest about the Jedi pilgrimage sites, so hopefully your investigations were more fruitful,” I got right to business. Shyrack nodded, as if that was expected.

“No one I spoke to could tell me more,” she replied. “But there is one man who might know. His name is Izzeebowe Jeef. It’s said that the desert speaks to him, and he warns the locals of a small outpost of incoming sandstorms before they happen. If anyone knows of esoteric pilgrimages in the desert, it would be him.”

“That’s as good a lead as any,” I nodded. I gestured at the bags. “Which is mine?”

She pointed, and I hefted it onto my back. Not too heavy, considering the light weight of my new armor. I clipped my lightsaber to my belt and piled my armor in the corner. “I can leave this here for now?”

“Of course,” Shyrack agreed. “We’ll return here when our business is done.”

“Then, lead on.”

This armor did not have nearly as good of a temperature control as my usual. Which was expected, since it was trying to be more resource efficient and was not suitable for space EVA. Presumably. I mean, maybe it would keep someone alive in space for a minute…but space was cold. Really cold. And since I could feel the absolutely oppressive heat of the twin suns of Tatooine through the armor, it must not be designed to maintain a thermal baseline.

My usual armor had its own power source to regulate temperatures. Space also had temperature spikes, from exposure to solar plasma, and during a spike like that it would sublimate liquid oxygen to cool the armor’s interior. For prolonged heat, like Tatooine, that configuration was not suitable. I’d have run out of oxygen within hours.

And even the superior insulation of that armor couldn’t outlast the suns.

The speeder bikes Shyrack had procured were scout models, somewhat weathered just like the rest of the planet. They were sleek and long, with twin handlebars for control. It was a fairly intuitive system, with throttle on one handle and brake on the other. Shyrack told me to follow close, and we zipped out of Mos Ila, without further ado.

The landscape immediately surrounding the spaceport was rocky, more badlands than dunes. That made sense, considering the fact that the landing pads would want firm foundations to support the many tons of space vessels that might touch down. As we traveled further out, the rocks and crags gave way gradually to the sand, and after only a few minutes of traveling at a good clip we were rather suddenly in the dunes.

It seemed almost like blinking, as we passed out of a canyon and ended up riding gently along the ridge of a long, winding wave of sand. At the crest, you could see for miles…with the horizon being somewhat bent and obscured by the illusions brought on by heat. Shyrack’s bike kicked some sand in its wake, so I followed at a farther distance.

I couldn’t really feel the wind, on account of my armor. But I felt the sun on my back, that was for sure.

The little frontier town we arrived at was about six kilometers from Mos Ila, and it was located in a sort of rocky outcropping in the sands, with tall windbreaker walls built at irregular intervals at its perimeter. There were a few grizzled pickets on watch, with long rifles cradled over their knees and binoculars at their necks or held to their eyes. They tracked our approach, but I didn’t sense hostility from them.

We pulled into the little outpost and parked our bikes at the automated transit pad, which had a half-rusted, sand-blasted droid teller standing dully at its center. It didn’t so much as remark upon our arrival, dim optics trailing after us as Shyrack led me through the sandy street towards one of the adobe huts.

The entire collection of structures numbered about twelve. There couldn’t be more than fifteen people living in the entire town.

We were headed off by an older fellow, with deep wrinkles in his face but a hardness about him that spoke of many conflicts. “Visiting Izzeebowe, Shyrack? Off on another hunt, is it?”

“Not this time, Mallat. I am acting as guide. This is Sith Lord Xanot, servant of Darth Baras,” Shyrack gestured to me, and the man’s eyes glittered with sharp awareness as he dipped his gaze to my lightsaber.

“Hm,” he crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ve warned you about mixing with those Sith, Shyrack. Nothing but trouble there.”

“Were I easily offended, you would have found some that trouble,” I cut in. “But I am not as quick to anger as some of my fellows.”

“Noted,” Mallat grunted, eyes narrowing as he glanced at my masked face. “Fine, then. Go see Izzeebowe. Maybe you can cheer him up some. He’s been in a funk since morning.”

“He’s old,” Shyrack pointed out reasonably.

“Not his aching bones, this time. Something about the weight of our sins and coming retribution,” Mallat shrugged. “Look, you know I never put much stock in his mystic mumbling. He predicts the sandstorms, and that’s earned him his keep around here. Or I would have sent him packing years ago.”

“No, you wouldn’t have,” Shyrack remarked, shifting her posture with amusement. “You’re just acting tough.”

“Hmph,” Mallat shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe, maybe not. Take care in the desert, stranger. Would hate to hear about you getting lost in the sand.”

While his words appeared courteous, outwardly, I could tell that he would actually be rather delighted to hear of my demise. Which rankled, honestly. What had I ever done to him, anyway? Still, he meandered away, and Shyrack pressed on as if the conversation hadn’t happened. We reached the recessed door of one of the smaller abodes, and Shyrack raised her gauntlet to knock.

The door opened before she could rap upon it. A wizened, stooped figure stood in the entrance, already gesturing them inside. “Come, Shyrack. Sith.”

“You heard of our arrival?” Shyrack wondered, ducking past the doorjamb. I had to bend practically in half to fit through, and even inside I felt like I was liable to bonk my head on ceiling fixtures. I stayed mostly immobile, near the door.

I knew that the old man had sensed our arrival, rather than hearing of it. I felt a strange kind of power in him, almost hazy like a mirage. It clung to his presence in the Force, and whispered mysteries.

“In a matter of speaking,” the old man rasped. He pulled a chair from the table and sat down, but I read the tension in the lines of his posture. He was practically vibrating with anxiety. “A terrible darkness has arrived. Tatooine groans, Shyrack. It cries. Soon, the very ground will crumble under the weight of our sins. I have seen it.”

I was almost offended…I wasn’t so terrible, was I?

“Father, we came for a specific purpose. If you help us, I will stay and listen…”

“You call me ‘father’ and yet you do not heed my words. Like the other children of the desert, you are as restless as the wind,” Izzeebowe drawled. “Ah, the pain of elders. We are always speaking, and watching our words slipping through empty heads or falling on closed ears.”

“Perhaps that is because your words are out of touch or simply crazy, old man,” I interjected. I noticed Shyrack’s masked face turn towards me in affront, but ignored her.

“Perhaps, young lady,” he allowed. “But if you cared to turn your attention to the ground beneath your feet, you might hear the same agonizing sounds that I have no choice but to hear. It is the sound of death…this planet is dying. Mark my words, stranger. Within the week, we shall be no more.”

Was that what he had meant by the ‘weight of our sins?’ I had honestly assumed he was disgruntled because of my Dark alignment, like he had been in SWTOR. But maybe he was talking about something else…a superweapon, for example. Something capable of destroying a planet.

I knew there was such a device on Tatooine, somewhere. Since I knew that Darth Angral existed, and Tarnis, his son also had existed. It only followed from those facts that the super-weapons Tarnis had helped the Republic develop would also exist.

I delved into the Force briefly, focusing on the feeling of the planet itself instead of the people around me or the life that was scraping out a meager existence in the desert beyond the town. I wasn’t very good at sensing planets or the echoes of things in locations, but when I concentrated upon it I thought I sensed some of what the old man was speaking of.

There was a…tension in the planet. A coiling knot. The Force trembled, minutely, but with increasing agitation. I frowned, reaching deeper, looking to the future…and saw death. Not very far removed from the present time at all. It would leave a terrible wound in the galaxy. This planet…shattered before its time. Tatooine did not have the population of Alderaan or Malachor V, but the unnatural destruction of an entire planet still sent ripples throughout the galaxy even if it didn’t claim billions of lives at the same time.

“Ah, she does see it,” Izzeebowe seemed to relax. “Then, perhaps there is some hope for us, yet. The others would not heed my words, but perhaps you might. Stranger, save Tatooine.”

That wasn’t my job…the Jedi Knight should be around, dealing with that mess.

“I am not here to save anyone,” I pointed out stubbornly, even as my skin crawled with the awareness of imminent planetary destruction. “I am looking for Jedi. There is a pilgrimage here, that the Jedi undergo. Do you know of it?”

“Yes,” Izzeebowe nodded, knowingly. “I traveled it myself, once. The Jedi are interesting folk, if rather unwelcoming of outsiders. Oh, they’ll say that everyone is welcome, but they are remarkably rigid and uncompromising in their philosophies. The desert still welcomes them, as guests, and would even consider them family. But the Jedi yet refuse it, meditating and pontificating about meaning in their conclave while separate from the rigors of desert life. They prefer to be strangers to the desert, observers of it and not partakers. I left them as they are.”

“You traveled the Dune Seas?” I repeated skeptically, looking at the man’s rather infirm frame.

The old man chuckled. “Oh, yes. I was not always this frail, young lady. Once, I was a man in his prime. Might have even caught the eye of a warrior as great as yourself, once upon a time. Who knows? Back then, there was nothing on this world that could faze me. Not even the Dune Seas. But, anyway, that doesn’t matter now, does it? The pilgrimage has changed with time, as I have. It begins with the Sand Demon, and the rest is up to the desert. In fact, I don’t mind if you pursue the pilgrimage instead of trying to save this world. The desert will guide you. If it is her will, then you will intervene to deliver us from damnation.”

“I don’t believe in deities or in destiny,” I retorted pointedly. “Tell me of this Sand Demon.”

“It is a beast,” Izzeebowe began shortly, then he grinned, baring yellowed teeth, “but aren’t we all? Anyway, it lives in caverns, and preys on anything it can catch. It is not a native to Tatooine, but it has adapted remarkably well to life in the desert. Each morning, it sheds its skin, and glistens under the twin suns for its hunt. And every evening, it grows still and nears death. It is a pattern of renewal, of living on the very precipice of death. The beast is an archetype, and its blood has meaning and power in the desert. Bathe in the blood of the demon, and approach the Sand People. Then…the desert will reveal to you the path of the pilgrim.”

“Where do I find this Sand Demon?” I pressed.

“In caves, or weren’t you listening?” Izzeebowe scoffed at me. “Clean out your ears, girl.”

I folded my arms over my chest, unimpressed. “Have you heard of any around these parts?”

“Oh, sure…people are always whispering about the Sand Demon. It will come and take your children, if you sin, or haven’t you heard the legends? Whether there’s any truth to the rumors, well…that’s another matter entirely. You’ll have to track it yourself, out in the sands,” the old man gave me another of his grins. “If I did it, once, surely you are not incapable of the same.”

“And how did you bathe in its blood?” I asked pointedly.

He shrugged. “My pilgrimage was long ago, and is a deeply personal memory. I’m not inclined to share my experiences,” he replied stonily. “Now, you had best be off. There’s not much time, is there? For any of us.”

“Would you like me to stay and listen to your wisdom?” Shyrack offered.

Izzeebowe waved his hand. “To what? There is no wisdom that matters in the face of imminent death. Go with the stranger. It is better to die on pilgrimage than listening to an old man prattle on.”

We left him after that, and Shyrack was silent as we returned to our speeders. We stood on the durasteel parking pad, looking at each other, before she spoke. “The Sand Demon…ever since I was a girl I’ve heard stories about its horrors. Now we are tracking it. This will be a hunt unlike any that I’ve ever done.”

“I like to keep it interesting,” I quipped. “Do we even know where to start?”

“The Sand Demon is a predator, but it eats its prey whole. There aren’t any remains, except perhaps for blood on the sand. And the desert wipes away such evidences quickly,” Shyrack murmured. “The best thing would be to find the leavings of the beast, then we would know that we are in the right general area. Or we can check the caves one after the other, looking for signs of its nest. The Sand Demon creates nests out of its old carapace, after molting. It should smell rather strongly of rot.”

“Great,” I drawled. “My nose is quite sharp, actually. That might help us.”

“If we are ambushed by it, we will likely die,” Shyrack remarked simply. “Our only chance is to come upon it while it is unaware of us.”

“That old man took one down, right? How tough can this thing be?”

“It is a nightmare, Lord Xanot.”

I shrugged, taking note of the slight tremble of fear in her voice. I was tempted to reply with some cliche like ‘so am I’ but I left it alone. Some things were too far even for me. “Let’s just check caves. I’d rather do that then go looking for monster shit. Besides, we know it dwells in caves so we’re more likely to find evidence of it near its possible nesting site.”

Shyrack nodded. “Alright. There are probably twelve different known caverns between Mos Ila and Anchorhead, and more if you head towards the Dune Sea. We’ll start near Mos Ila and work north from there. Follow me.”

I nodded and jumped onto my speeder once again. And we were off, speeding over the sands back the way we had come.

One thing that Luke Skywalker mentioned, in a book I think, was that Tatooine was incredibly boring. I came to understand his point, after hours riding over the dunes, stopping at various spires and mesas of red, sunburnt rock. Crawling through canyons, popping my mask to scent the air. Then mounting up again and proceeding to the next cavern site.

Again and again.

The dunes started to blend together. I could feel that I was slick with sweat under my armor, and was drinking mouthfuls of water more regularly now than I had at the start of the day. The temperatures were more extreme, which I hadn’t thought was possible. Two suns blazed ahead and the sky had turned into a solid sheet of white heat, bearing down on the surface so powerfully that I could feel the skin on the soles of my feet growing tender through the thick boots that I wore, just from the baked surface of the sand.

Shyrack looked exhausted too. We took a breather in the shade of a rock outcropping, beside the opening of the fifth cavern we’d scouted today. Not all of these caves had been uninhabited, either. Some had been occupied by other travelers, or Exchange operations, or jawas. We had spotted Sand People patrolling the entrance of the fourth.

“The next cave is two kilometers east,” Shyrack said to me, sitting against the rock with her canteen in hand.

“Should we eat something?”

“No,” she replied. “Digestion requires water, and dehydration sets in too quickly to travel in the sun with a full belly. We’ll eat at dusk. I’m ready to continue.”

“Really? You seemed pretty tired, earlier.”

“The heat gets to my head, after some time,” she replied simply. “But I’m ready now. We’ll stop again at the next spot of shade. Sorry to slow us down.”

I shrugged at her. It was better to take our time than for her to have heat stroke. Back into the blaze we went. Two intrepid travelers, winding along the crests of dunes, leaving a trail of sand in clouds behind us.

Finally, towards the middle of the afternoon, which meant we’d been searching for something like ten hours, I popped my mask and caught the absolutely rank odor of something. Coming from the cavern entrance that we had approached on foot.

“Something foul is in there, that’s for sure,” I declared, affixing the mask back over my face. The stench lingered in my nostrils unpleasantly. And, now that I was aware of it, I could still smell it even through the seal. Probably because trace elements of the smell were being admitted with the fresh oxygen that the air scrubber of the hard suit was cycling in from outside.

Shyrack hesitated, then nodded. “What’s your plan?”

“I’ll go inside and look around. You wait here, and don’t get eaten.”

“Why should I wait?”

“Because if you die, then there won’t be anyone to track the Sand Demon to its next lair. I’m no hunter,” I replied shortly. “So, wait here. Keep a blaster handy, and hide somewhere if you can.”

Shyrack nodded sharply, and I palmed my lightsaber.

Time to face the music, then.

The cavern entrance was large enough to admit me, and my eyes naturally adjusted to the darkness quickly. I ignited my lightsaber to provide a glow, holding it ahead of myself as I delved deeper, following the sandy stone tunnel as it wound deeper into the earth. I reached a bend, and noticed that the rocky floor was covered with congealed slime and chips of dried chitin.

Well, this was certainly the right place. Cautiously rounding the corner, I found myself in a larger cavern, which was packed wall to wall with the odious nest of a Sand Demon. The chitin was colored a sort of lifeless gray, and splatter patterns of ichor had dried on the stones. Several egg-shaped depressions were scattered around the nest, pits of darkness that swallowed the light of my saber. I’d have to be careful not to put my foot in one of those by accident if I had to scamper away from the Sand Demon.

There were no other tunnels. No other openings in the walls. And the place was empty.

“Lord Xanot!” Shyrack’s voice echoed down from the entrance, and I bolted. If the damn creature had come at us from behind…

I burst from the cavern, lightsaber extended, only to find Shyrack kneeling next to a pile of excrement in the canyon to the left of the cave entrance.

“Look!”

“Damn it, Shyrack, I thought you were being eaten!” I burst out, storming over to her and gesticulating wildly. “Is that a pile of shit? What’s so interesting about that?”

“The Sand Demon left,” Shyrack explained, gesturing to the canyon. “This morning, by the looks of it. There’s a trail.”

I followed her pointing finger and saw scraped of the same dried muck that I had noticed in the cavern. Leading out of the canyon. “It went hunting?”

“No,” Shyrack shook her head. “It didn’t bury its excrement in sand. It won’t be coming back to this place, not anytime soon.”

I frowned behind my mask. “You know that for certain?”

“Well, not for certain. But predators don’t leave such obvious marks of their passing without reason,” Shyrack replied. “I’m confident the creature is migrating.”

“To where?” I wondered. In the MMO, the mob had been conveniently located in an instance cave, and I figured that the nest behind us would have been the place, if it was going to go down that way. But if the Sand Demon was on the move, where could it be going?

“We should follow it, before the trail is gone.”

“Lead on,” I replied shortly, finding her suggestion eminently reasonable. We jogged back to our bikes and set off again, at an increased pace. It was harder on the batteries, but since we’d been out in the sun all day we didn’t have to worry about the charge too much. That much sunlight had put us close to full energy capacity even though we’d been riding all day.

We traveled for another half hour, through the open desert, pausing at intervals to check for marks of the Sand Demon’s passing. It was a remarkably circumspect creature, and we only found the very sporadic burrow dug in the sand made for the purposes of cooling its blood, or a smattering of gore from some poor desert creature that had been preyed upon.

But we were still on the trail. Or we were, until the other riders started following us.

“Lord Xanot, we have tails.”

“I feel them,” I replied, scowling darkly. And I certainly did.

Jedi. The arrogant pair didn’t even bother shielding their presence in the Force, blazing like the twin suns at the horizon, just beginning to set. Their pursuit was leisurely, as if we were all going to the same place anyway, and they had been trailing us for three minutes or so before Shyrack had said something.

“Lets park by the mesa, ahead. We’ll see if they want to talk or if they move on,” I ordered. The mesa in question was sticking out of the dunes probably a kilometer away, and it took us less than a minute to reach it. Our followers kept their distance, but didn’t deviate from our trail. When we stopped in the long shadow cast by the natural rock formation, and I hopped from my bike, it didn’t take them more than thirty seconds to catch up entirely.

Two Jedi, as I had sensed. They weren’t even in hard-suits, dressed in light robes that covered their bodies from head to toe, including masks made of cloth that had indentations of some kind of contraption that fit over their mouth and nose. One of them was a man, the other a woman. They had stopped their bikes twenty meters away, dismounted, and were walking towards us.

“Shyrack, don’t intervene,” I cautioned her. “If it comes to fighting, just stay out of it.”

“Yes, Lord.”

“You, there!” the man called over the sand. “Sith! I can sense your Dark nature. What are you doing here?”

I scoffed and took several steps closer to them. Both Jedi tensed, visibly, hands reaching for their belts, but I held out my palms at my sides. “I’m unarmed.”

“Your lightsaber is at your belt,” the woman pointed out sharply.

“The key point being, ‘at my belt’ and not in my hand,” I observed. “Why are you following me?”

“You’re Sith!” the woman cried.

“Obviously,” I agreed. “And you are Jedi. And a woman.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I thought we were being blatantly obvious.”

The man slashed the air with a hand. “Enough! What are you doing here, Sith? Do you know the location of the Shock Drum?”

The Shock Drum…the Jedi was looking for the Shock Drum. He had a female companion. That meant it was probably Kira Carsen, which meant that the man before me was the Jedi Knight. That…was either very interesting or very bad. I wasn’t very interested in testing my strength against another playable class.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I hedged. “I have felt the tremors in the Force. This planet is dying…is that your Shock Drum?”

“Not mine, your master’s,” the man replied sharply.

“Who do you think is my master?” I asked bemusedly.

“Darth Angral.”

“That rebel?” I scoffed. “I am not quite so unfortunate, Jedi. My master is no concern of yours. Our nations are, after all, currently at peace.”

“If you’re so congenial,” Kira snapped, “then tell us where my master is!”

I held a hand to my chest in an expression of sincerity. “Is your master lost, Jedi? My condolences. I thought Jedi padawans had a bond with their masters, surely this could be used to locate him or her.”

“Keep your false pity,” Kira returned sharply. “The bond is too weak at the moment to sense a direction. Because of you Sith animals, most likely.”

“A shame, then.”

“Enough,” the Jedi Knight repeated. “If you don’t serve Darth Angral, why won’t you help us?”

“I actually don’t know the location of this Shock Drum. Sith aren’t a part of some kind of evil hive mind; I have no idea what Darth Angral has been up to since he started his foolishness,” I answered honestly. “If it’s going to destroy the planet, I’d rather complete my business here and skip town, before that happens. And you wouldn’t trust any help from me even if I offered it to you.”

“You’re lying; you do know where the weapon is,” the Knight accused. I narrowed my eyes, since I actually wasn’t. He couldn’t have sensed a lie in the Force, which meant he was guessing.

“Is that what the Force is telling you?” I challenged.

“The Sith are masters of deception,” he returned at once.

“Ah, that old line,” I scoffed derisively. “Not all of us are. I’m rather notoriously incapable of properly lying to Force users. My master laments the fact every now and then.”

“If you were a talented liar, then that is what you would claim.”

“We should just kill her,” Kira declared, and silence cut like a blade between us. I turned my mask to look at her in surprise. I could sense that the Jedi Knight was also rather concerned.

“Kira…” he started, only to be cut off.

“She will just lead us into a trap. Or misdirect us with a false lead. There’s no point in talking with her any further,” Kira insisted.

I chuckled darkly. “And that warrants my death? Far be it from me to question the paragons of Republic justice, but that sound a little bloodthirsty even to me. And you are making a lot of assumptions without any basis in fact.”

“You’re a Sith!”

“I am,” I agreed. “And you are a Jedi, even if you aren’t sounding like one at the moment. I thought we’d already gone over this?”

“Kira, she hasn’t done anything violent or dangerous, and we are technically not at war,” the Knight reasoned. “We don’t have justification to use force.”

“She hasn’t yet, but you know that she will, and we’ll be at war eventually,” Kira argued. “Besides, our mandate is to wage war unceasingly against servants of evil.”

“’Servants of evil,’ Kira, is not a term applicable to all Sith, especially not without evidence,” the Knight refuted shortly. “In the absence of a state of open warfare, the Code is clear. She has done nothing threatening; I will not draw my blade. Do not let your hatred cloud your judgment in this.”

“If you aren’t affiliated with Darth Angral, what are you doing on Tatooine?” Instead of debating with the Knight, Kira challenged me, flashing a harsh look at the Knight through the opening of the scarf wrapping her face.

“You have no authority over me,” I retorted. Then I smirked. “But, if you must know, I am on a pilgrimage. You might be familiar with it, I’m told that Jedi undertake it infrequently.”

I sensed their open astonishment. The Jedi Knight seemed to freeze in place, before taking a more defensive posture. “You are taking the Trials of the Desert? You do realize that this leads directly to a protected conclave of Jedi Sages. What are your intentions with them?”

“I seek knowledge, is that so strange?” I replied smoothly.

“She’s a threat to the Sages,” Kira exclaimed. “It’s obvious!”

“You really just want me dead, don’t you?”

“You’re a Sith,” she sneered, as if that explained it. I knew she had some traumatic history, being a Child of the Emperor, but still. Couldn’t she see that she was being a little unreasonable?

I snorted and decided to deliberately misunderstand her words. “That’s a bit racist of you, Jedi.” She was gearing up for a scathing retort, but we were interrupted before she could speak.

“This petty grudge is not helping us find Master Kiwiiks, Kira. You know that the Jedi Sages welcome any who come to them with inquisitive minds. Therefore, Sith, we will leave you in peace. If you do complete the Trials, and find yourself in the conclave, I will warn you that hostility will be met with death,” the Knight aimed a finger at me meaningfully. I shrugged in return, a bit surprised but happy enough to let things well enough alone. He needed to go and save the planet, anyway.

I honestly wished him all the best. “May the Force be with you, then,” I answered in that vein, and the Jedi regarded me curiously.

“The Sith prefer to say, ‘May the Force serve you well,’ if I remember my studies correctly,” the Knight ventured.

I shrugged. “That would be a wasted platitude on Jedi. Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“Yes…goodbye, Sith. Come, Kira.”

The pair walked back to their speeders, and I returned to Shyrack, observing a short argument between the two Jedi before they mounted up and sped over the sands, heading towards the west. Shyrack was watching them, one hand on her rifle in a relaxed ready position. Then she turned her face to me, once they were out of sight.

“What did they want?”

“Just asking some questions,” was my vague response. “Did we lose the Sand Demon’s trail in the rush?”

“Possibly,” Shyrack allowed, with a small sigh of disappointment. “We’re losing daylight, fast. Only another two hours before night. If we retrace our path, we might catch the trail again. But tracking through the desert in moonlight is almost impossible.”

“We’d better get going, then.”

Retracing the path we’d taken during the short pursuit of the Jedi was easy enough, but the trail of the Sand Demon’s passing was incredibly difficult to pick up even after we returned to the last bit of evidence that we had found. We basically had to make a guess about its heading, by checking the maps and looking for likely cave openings in the same general direction as the path that had been traveled from its old nest.

By the time we did arrive at the next cave, dusk had truly set in. There was something amazing about a double sunset, in the way that the sky faded from a blazing sheet of fire to a violet and orange tapestry of light, where the dying rays of the setting sun intermingled with the brighter light of its twin. The shadows stretched over the sands, and when we rode into the dips between the dunes it started to become colder.

The rocky outcropping we arrived at was the opening of a canyon, and the Imperial maps we were using had marked this as a possible cave entrance, so we dismounted and entered the canyon on foot.

Even before I caught the scent of the Sand Demon, I felt the telltale rumbling beneath my feet.

“Fuck,” I muttered, freezing in place.

“Lord?” Shyrack questioned, turning with her rifle half raised.

“’The desert will guide you,’ my fat red ass,” I spat, throwing up my hands. “The Sand Demon, is it attracted to vibrations in the sand?”

“Yes,” Shyrack answered simply.

The Shock Drum was here…which meant Master Kiwiiks was in the cave, too. Lying next to the doomsday device, being slowly ground to dust by ultrasonic vibrations. And the goddamn Sand Demon would be in there too, driven to madness or perhaps simply enraged by over-stimulation.

And the Jedi Knight had gone west. The wrong direction.

“Fuck,” I repeated, clenching my fists. “This isn’t my problem…”

“What is it?”

“The Shock Drum was what the Jedi were asking about. And what your elder, Izzeebowe, was speaking of. Darth Angral stole super-weapons from Republic researchers, devices aimed at destroying planets or fleets or accomplishing other feats of mass destruction. One of those is on Tatooine…called the Shock Drum. It creates seismic activity, ultimately destabilizing a planet’s core and causing it to shatter,” I explained. “It also, evidently, has attracted the Sand Demon which we have been tracking.”

“I see,” Shyrack tightened her grip on her weapon. “This device will destroy my home?”

I couldn’t see much of her face through the mask, but I nodded. I could tell, in that moment, that the decision to intervene had been taken out of my hands. I could refuse to engage, let the Jedi Knight arrive and deal with the problem, but Shyrack was going to go ahead and do her best to shut down the Shock Drum by herself. And without me, she would probably die in that attempt.

How long would it even be before the Knight confronted Lord Praven and got the necessary shut down codes? What if the Sith decided to use their brains this time and had activated the weapon without a convenient shut down code? Since the plan was to demonstrate their new weapon, it made no sense to provide a means of deactivation.

Without the codes, the weapon would have to be destroyed before it could complete its work. Could it even be safely destroyed?

Only one way to find out. “Let’s go,” I said, gesturing decisively in the direction that I smelled the strongest odor. “We’ll have to deal with the Sand Demon first, then the superweapon. The cave system might be unstable, but we’ll have to risk it.”

Shyrack nodded firmly, and made to step forward in the lead. I stopped her, ignited my lightsaber, and forged ahead with her at my back. Every now and then, I’d pop my mask to scent the air, and by following the Sand Demon’s scent trail we arrived at a dark cave opening, much wider than any of the others we had found. Artificially bored. The marks of drilling on the sandstone were clear.

“This is it. The Sand Demon shouldn’t be too terrible, as long as we aren’t surprised. Stay a bit farther back, and try not to shoot me in the fight, alright?” I glanced over and saw Shyrack’s affirmative nod, holding my saber in a ready position as I entered the cavern.

It was dark as pitch, but thankfully we began to see traces of civilized inhabitants after a bit of walking. Trails of glowing pylons were stuck into the walls, leading deeper. As we forged ahead, I felt a growing hum in my very bones that began to feel like an insistent itch, and if I set my jaw I could feel my teeth buzzing against each other. It was acutely uncomfortable, and I hastened my step.

The cavern opened up into a construction zone, with two layers of catwalks. An open pit was in the center, hewn out of the sandstone, and inside it was the Shock Drum. Or what I assumed could only be the Shock Drum. The catwalks surrounded the device in a haphazard circle, and there were leftover bits and pieces of machinery lying around. The construction had finished in a hurry, by all appearances.

There were also corpses. The construction workers and engineers had been lined up and shot after the device had been completed, or so it appeared based on the piled bodies and the neat row of scorches against the walls, indicative of firing lines.

There was no sign of any hulking insectoids. But the stench of the Sand Demon was strong.

“It’s here,” I said, reaching out with the Force to pinpoint it.

That was, of course, when it burst up from the durasteel catwalk beneath my feet. Rending the metal like it was paper, forelegs cutting like scissors aimed at my midsection. I cut diagonally across with my lightsaber, through one leg, and pushed off the rising creature with the Force, flipping backwards and landing on another platform nearby. The creature was not fazed by the injury at all, already lunging forward with its maw open, a terrible screech ringing out and joining the ominous rumble of the Shock Drum.

A blaster shot zinged between us, striking chitin and leaving a smoking hole. The beast disregarded that, the only indication that it had even registered the hit being a slight twitch in the stump of its severed leg. I snarled and threw the Force at it in a vicious crushing, tearing direct attack, a mixture of Force Push and Force Crush.

This was more effective than a blaster by far. The head of the creature pulped in a shower of green and red gore, and its back split open like the world’s nastiest pinata, shards of the exoskeleton flying backwards with the sheer power of my attack. The Dark Side surged palpably, and I swept a second shearing strike towards the beast, since its corpse was still staggering towards me, still slicing at me with that scythe-like limb.

My second attack broke all four of the legs on its right side, causing the titanic creature to topple, veering to the side. I tucked and rolled over my shoulder, narrowly avoiding its death throes, as the beast crashed into the wall, spraying blood everywhere in a disgusting explosion.

“Fuck me,” I groaned, rolling onto my back. One of the creature’s legs was stretched out beside me, within arms reach. It twitched, ominously, and I crawled to my feet to put some space between myself and the predator’s corpse. Who knew what kinds of shenanigans alien beasts could get up to, even in death?

“Are you alive, My Lord?” Shyrack called from the other side of the creature’s corpse. It was blocking the catwalk, not to mention its initial attack had torn apart the walkway. She would have to go all the way around to reach me.

“Yes,” I called back. “We need to shut down the weapon, it gradually causes damage to people within a certain radius!”

“How do we shut it down?”

“I don’t know!”

Silence settled, broken only by the growling, humming doomsday weapon. I heard footsteps next, and saw Shyrack wandering along the catwalk, looking at various pieces of equipment. If only Darth Angral’s henchmen were nice enough to leave behind a convenient operator’s manual…

I sighed and started looking around myself. I could already feel myself aching from exposure to the machine, and that reminded me that Master Kiwiiks was supposedly here. If she hadn’t been eaten by the Sand Demon. I aborted my search for equipment and looked for the Jedi instead, reaching out with teh Force once more and finding the weakly flickering flame of her Light.

“I’ve got a survivor over here!” I called, jumping the guardrail and landing on the lower level. The Jedi was…broken.

Whoever had done her in had shattered her legs, which was apparent from the unnatural bend in them. The fingers on her sword hand were severed, lightsaber nowhere to be found, and she was shoved against the side of the Shock Drum like a discarded oil rag. Her other hand was stretched out, as if she had tried to drag her body away from the machine, but she was laying utterly motionless. I jogged forward immediately, hearing Shyrack’s running steps on the catwalk above.

I hesitated beside the injured Jedi. Moving her could be bad if she had a spinal injury, right? I figured I had heard something like that somewhere. Bending low, I carefully held her head so that it didn’t shift, gripping her under her arm and pulling her as gently as I could away from the Shock Drum.

A distance of a few meters as opposed to directly against the machine’s hull wasn’t much. But I didn’t really want to pick her up and carry her out of here…stopping the machine would be a better use of time. I laid her down gently, and returned to the side of the Shock Drum just as Shyrack approached, a glowing stick held in one hand and her satchel in the other. She knelt beside Kiwiiks while I inspected the device.

Haphazardly swiping at it with a lightsaber might cause an explosion. The panel on its front was asking for a code, which was expected but disappointing. There were no obvious emergency shutoff valves, but there was a suspiciously welded-on plate which could have been obscuring such a shutoff. In any case, it didn’t seem like there was an obvious solution to the problem. And being so near to the device was starting to make me feel weak and shaky.

I tightened my grip on my lightsaber, stepping around to the rear. How was it producing the seismic effect? Where was its power source? I couldn’t tell, since the exterior was specifically designed to be misleading. Growling slightly in frustration, I finally lost patience and thrust my lightsaber through one of the open conduits on the back, hoping to deal damage to its electrical systems without causing an explosion.

I shouldn’t have counted on luck. The conduit sparked, giving me enough time to throw an arm over my face and a Force Barrier between myself and the machine, before it burst into a storm of white plasma arcs and heated air that crashed through the barrier like flimsiplast, throwing me backwards. I felt the bite of metal shrapnel on my arm and thanked the stars that I had covered my face, then I hit a support beam and crashed to the floor in a heap.

“Fuck!” I screamed, shooting agony up and down my side.

The machine hummed, mockingly.

“My Lord? What was that?”

“Nothing! Fuck!” I hissed and spat, tearing my mask off and glaring at the smoking hole I’d left in the back of the superweapon. I’d probably broken something on impact…my side certainly felt fucked up. I hobbled back to the machine and readied my weapon again.

In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say.

The second swipe also produced an explosion, but this time it was minor. I threw up another Force Barrier, since that had worked so well the first time, but the sloughing sparks and electric crackling wasn’t enough to break through. I cut again, and again, carving my way through cables and circuit boards.

Alarms started ringing. That was a good sign, right? Military hardware had so many redundancies built in that the machine was still groaning with belabored effort, and the pained buzzing in my bones had not yet abated, but I had to be causing some damage by now.

Stumbling out of the divot I’d bored into the machine and stowing my lightsaber, I resolved to could tear at it with the Force instead. The lightsaber could only cut so deep, and honestly tearing huge chunks out would have a better shot at interrupting circuits.

“Just…fucking…die…you…stupid….” I grunted each word out between heaves of Force Pull, wrenching strips of steel and sparking electronics from the device with each movement. I pulled out some kind of power capacitor, which exploded into purple fire as it flew off to the side, and finally, blessedly, the machine groaned and whined its way into silence.

I collapsed to a kneeling position, elated. “Finally!”

“Is it done?” Shyrack’s voice wondered from nearby. I tiredly turned my head and saw her staring, awed, at the ruin I had made of the back of the machine. I chuckled, nodded, and pulled myself to my feet.

“How’s the Jedi?”

“She’s in poor condition, My Lord. And so are you, if I might add.”

I grunted. “Don’t I know it.” I raised my comm and connected to Captain Damatha. It hung for a moment before she picked up, a small blue figure appearing on my wrist.

“My Lord, how may I serve?”

“We need a medical evacuation at my coordinates for myself and a wounded Jedi. As soon as possible would be just great,” I replied immediately.

Her features took on a professional, intense appearance. She turned, having muted the mic, and I saw her barking orders for a moment before I heard her voice again, “You’re injured? How severely? Are you stabilized?”

“Probably broken bones. Definitely some lacerations. If I’m bleeding internally, I don’t know of it, but I should survive,” I answered honestly. “ETA?”

“Fifteen minutes, My Lord.”

“I’ll be waiting. We’re in a cave, in a canyon. The shuttle will have to land outside and proceed on foot,” I explained.

“Will you stay on this line until help arrives?” she asked.

“No,” I answered, shaking my head. “There’s no need. I’ll be fine.”

She nodded, and we ended the call.

I walked around the ruined Shock Drum and found Master Kiwiiks struggling to sit up. Her eyes caught mine, traced over my exposed face, and then she gasped in pain and fell back against the hard floor. I stopped a short distance away.

“I’m here to help,” I soothed. “Medical assistance is on the way, the Shock Drum is deactivated. Relax.”

“I will tell you nothing, Sith. Just end me without torture.”

“That’s fine. Nobody is getting tortured. We can trade barbs and glares later, once you’re wounds have been treated,” I replied calmly. “Please cooperate with the medics. When you’re well, I’ll let you go wherever you please. Your student, Kira, is looking for you. We met in the desert, earlier.”

“What have you done with her?”

“With Kira?” I repeated, running back through my words. Had I implied something unintentionally? “Nothing at all. She threatened me, I jeered at her, her Jedi Knight friend mediated. Then they left, looking for the Shock Drum.”

Kiwiiks scoffed. “You lie.”

“Whatever,” I waved a hand dismissively, wincing as my side twinged with pain. I stepped past the immobile Jedi and slumped against a different support beam, watching her. “Did Lord Praven do this to you?”

“You know him?” Kiwiiks hissed. “I should have guessed you were another of Darth Angral’s toys.”

“First of all, gross. Second, I know of him, and even that only in passing. Darth Silthar told me that he was on this world, but not about the Shock Drum. Your Jedi friends interrogated me about the Shock Drum, and that was the first I’d ever heard of it,” I explained. “I was tracking a Sand Demon for the Trials of the Desert. It just so happens that Sand Demons are drawn to vibrations like those produced by the Shock Drum. Lucky for you.”

“There’s no such thing as luck, Sith.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I waved a hand vaguely. “You should feel privileged I decided to help shut off the Shock Drum instead of simply bathing in the blood of the Sand Demon and going on with my pilgrimage. Now that I’m wounded I’ll be delayed in my efforts. But I suppose you believe that it was the Will of the Force that I am the one who rescued you.”

The Jedi was silent, her head turned to stare at me, dark blue-green eyes unreadable. She said nothing more, for the long minutes that passed until I heard voices and rushing footsteps from the cavern above us.

“Clear!” a trooper snapped. “No sign of our lord. Kriffing hells, look at that thing!”

“Steady, crewman,” a stern voice replied. “It’s dead. Check the other side.”

“Down here!” I called to them.

Uniformed soldiers, or crewmen, arrived in a moment, coming down the catwalk with two floating stretchers. They were sweeping the area with their rifles, and one of them tensed when they saw Shyrack standing silently beside the machine, with her rifle in hand.

“She’s a friend,” I called, suddenly exhausted. “Can we get out of here, or what?”

One of the men came forward, ignoring Kiwiiks and kneeling at my side. He had a scanner in one hand, which he swept over me, while he looked into my eyes. “Do you feel cold? Any tingling in your side?”

“No and no.”

He hummed, looking at his scanner. “A broken rib, and some bruising. No bleed. We’ll get you on a stretcher, but you should be copacetic after two hours in a kolto tank.”

“Check the Jedi, administer first-aid, then we get out of here. Don’t neglect her on my account.”

The man nodded, and immediately knelt beside Master Kiwiiks. He repeated the same process with the scan, asking her quiet questions about her injuries, and I let my head rest against the hard support beam while it happened. Before I knew it, three men were hefting me onto the floating stretcher, and I felt dazed and a little confused.

“Hey, wha-“

“It’s alright, Ma’am. We’ll get you out of here. You can rest,” the medic soothed, and I felt a pinch at my neck. Given the rushing wash of cool relief, it was a painkiller. Or a sedative…or something…whatever it was, my eyes fell shut and whatever I was about to say disappeared as I lost consciousness.

Chapter Text

Once again, I awakened while floating in a kolto tank. This second time wasn’t any more pleasant than the first, with the tubes going down my throat and up my nose. The tank was already draining as I blinked my eyes and felt the slight sting of the cold kolto mixture against them. I reached up and pulled the offending tubes out with a weak gag, tossing them aside as a shower head above me doused me in water, allowing me to use my hands to wipe the stubbornly clinging goo off of my skin. After a minute or two of rinse, the glass cylinder wall of the tank receded into the ground and allowed me to step out under my own power.

I felt no pain, which was good. It was cold, though. As soon as I was clear of the tank, dripping wet and shivering, I looked around the medical bay, but found that there was no one nearby.

A door opened and admitted Two-Vee, the darkly colored droid moving with deliberate steps. He was carrying a robe over one arm, colored black, along with simple, comfortable boxer briefs and a bra. These he laid on the medical bed, drawing a towel out of a footlocker and approaching me with it.

“My Lord, I am exhilarated to see your full recovery. Do you feel any pain? I can call the medic if necessary, but they wished to respect your modesty,” the droid fretted, extending the towel towards me. I accepted it and gratefully dried myself. It occurred to me they must have stripped me naked to submerge me in the kolto tank, but that probably fell under the auspices of a medical procedure so I decided not to be too upset about it. Although, given the nature of my injuries I wasn’t sure I actually needed to be naked. Regardless, it was possible that they had used a droid to do it?

“No pain. Did you buy another robe from somewhere?” I gestured at the outfit he had brought with him. It certainly wasn’t gold and silver.

“No, My Lord. When Nine-Ess spoke to me about the casual garment we had decided upon, I took it on myself to repair your old coverings, just for private wear. I am not programmed for such, but it seemed appropriate given the circumstances. It was our task to select acceptable wear after all, and it did not seem that our results were satisfactory,” the droid yammered away, and I eventually tossed the towel over the medical bed and slipped into the robes he had repaired.

The patchwork was a different color of black than the rest, and there were noticeable seams. It was not a perfect solution by any stretch, but I couldn’t deny that I was touched by the droid’s efforts. As much as I initially found 2V unnerving and too talkative, he was certainly loyal. And innovative, considering that he had taken on a task outside his programming.

When I had dressed, the door opened again and two men stepped through. One had dressed in a white uniform, the other in a baby blue, I figured it was a medic and a nurse or attendant. They bowed, and I greeted them with a nod.

“How do you feel, My Lord?”

“Well enough,” I replied. “How long has it been?”

“Ninety minutes since your arrival,” was the prompt reply. “You didn’t require surgery, so after kolto injections you were immersed. We observed the rib until it had mended and then woke you.”

“Where is the wounded Jedi, if not in the medical bay?”

“In the brig,” the officer responded, shoulders stiffening. No doubt he remembered I had ordered her to be treated.

I pursed my lips, mulling over this. I tried to remember my exact words…but I was pretty sure I had ordered her injuries to be tended to. A stirring of agitation caused me to purse my lips as I asked for clarification. “Why was she not given complete medical aid?”

“She refused surgery, My Lord. We did what we could, given that situation. But an unwilling patient would have required complete sedation, and in her weakened state I was not eager to administer such. Not without your permission, anyway. Putting someone with her injuries under full anesthesia has certain risks, and a Jedi perishing on the operating table of a Sith Lord’s corvette would be quite an international incident, not to mention the inherent difficulty in sedating Jedi,” the medical officer explained, still standing at attention. “We administered kolto injections and did what we could for her legs without a surgery, then placed splints. We left painkillers and water for her. She did not take them, and she also refused food. I determined it was necessary to resolve her dehydration problem intravenously, since she would not drink what we gave her. She was resistant to those efforts as well, so we were forced to strap her onto one of the interrogation racks after administering a drug intended to disrupt her concentration. This was done because she injured two crewmen while resisting treatment. She’s in cell 3, My Lord. We were also forced to gag her, after she attempted to use the Force to trick the mind of the posted guard.”

I blinked. Then I blinked again, trying and failing to process how my initial orders had turned into this unmitigated disaster. Were good intentions really so easily misconstrued? “Did it occur to you that she had refused food and drink for fear of being drugged? And then you drugged her, confirming that fear.”

“Yes, My Lord. Without another Sith Lord on board, and with you incapacitated, Captain Damatha determined that the Jedi’s capabilities were too dangerous to allow her easy access to her Force powers. We recognized that this was not directly within the parameters of your stated orders, but since we had done what the Jedi would allow us to do for her injuries, we determined that the security of this vessel was a more pressing concern, at least until your treatment had concluded. Now that you are awake you can alter those priorities as you wish.”

“She has two shattered legs. Those injuries which are likely to heal improperly, given the lack of a surgery and the kolto she was given. What can she possibly do to threaten this ship? Is he going to float away?” I scoffed. The medical officer pursed his lips, then made to respond, but I cut him off with a short sigh. I shook my head. “Nevermind that. I understand she injured some crewmen, so I’ll allow that some kind of security response was warranted. I’m just a bit surprised, to put it lightly. This ruins any hope of endearing myself to her, for one thing. After choosing to save her instead of bathing in the blood of the Sand Demon while the kill was fresh, I am unsure if I can even continue the pilgrimage without guidance from a Jedi. I’ll have to check the corpse for blood, but on Tatooine it’s possible that there won’t be much liquid left by the time I can return to it.”

“I apologize for any inconvenience our actions have caused, My Lord,” the officer offered, bowing. I waved him off.

“It’s fine. I’d like to speak with her, so now that I am awake you can cease the drugs intended to confuse her. I’d rather that she is lucid. How long before the effects wear off?”

“Several hours.”

“I’ll rest until then, make sure someone calls me so that I can be there to speak with her before she tries to rip a hole in the bulkhead. Also, before I forget, inform field medics that I’d prefer it if I was informed before they administer injections, even if I’m injured.”

“As you wish, My Lord. I’ll be sure to relay your orders.”

I left the medical bay, with 2V trailing after me, and made a beeline for the officers’ quarters, intending to have a more thorough wash than the brief rinse in the medical bay. The stench of kolto was rather unbearable to my sensitive nose. Once I had thoroughly scrubbed myself down, I stood in my quarters and decided on what I should wear to speak with the Jedi Master.

The patchwork black robes were not exactly presentable, while comfortable. Armor seemed confrontational. Which meant I could only wear the white and silver robes.

I really needed some more options as far as clothing was concerned. And next time I was certainly having Vette pick out a few different outfits instead of the droids, that was for sure. It occurred to me that she might not be much of an improvement, considering how excited she had seemed when she saw what 9S and 2V had picked out, but surely she had a better sense of fashion than the droids.

I dressed in the white and silver, with the necklace but leaving aside the gold leaf tiara and the earrings. I also didn’t wear the outer robe, because it was a completely overstated monstrosity and I wouldn’t be caught dead in a glittering, gold tapestry like that.

Since I was thinking of Vette, I sent a message to her comm asking for a status update, and received a call shortly after. When I answered, no doubt revealing my chosen outfit to her via holo, I noticed her eyes widen briefly. “Xanot! I heard you were injured. Are you okay?”

“Just fine,” I replied easily. “Some bad luck got me into trouble, as usual. How are things in Anchorhead?”

“Boring,” Vette replied. “Quinn and the boys took down an Exchange hideout today, but they couldn’t inventory the goods or make a drop. The suns went down, and they don’t want to risk moving at night with all the Tuskens active. I did some looking, some drinking, and some pazaak. Met a few smuggler types, but without a product to sell I didn’t really get clear confirmation.”

I nodded. “That’s fine. See any Jedi around?”

“Oh, yeah,” Vette nodded as if suddenly remembering. “There was a pair, a man and a woman. They came in right after I got here on a speeder. Landed at the spaceport, from what I heard. Having a Jedi in town spooked a lot of the seedier elements, which slowed down my work. They went out into the desert, though. Didn’t come back.”

“I met them in the desert,” I offered offhand, and Vette blinked.

“Is that why they didn’t come back?”

I frowned. “No. What do you take me for? We had a perfectly peaceable conversation.”

“You killed the last Jedi you met, Master.”

“That was a war zone, Vette.”

“Maybe you should have killed these Jedi, too, so they don’t crop up in the next war zone,” Vette remarked with a glint in her eye that I couldn’t parse over the holo. I was shocked, however, at the inherent violence in her suggestion.

“You sound like Kira. All you women are so violent,” I sighed, shaking my head.

“Who’s Kira?” Vette asked, sharply. I smirked at her.

“Is that jealousy I sense?”

“Is it the desert girl you’re wandering around with? I’ll cut that incompetent bitch, Master, I swear to the kriffing Force. Honestly, you should have just let me come with you, and you probably wouldn’t have even gotten hurt at all.”

I held up my other hand soothingly so she could see it over the holo. “Woah, woah! Put the claws away, Vette. Kira is the Jedi woman you saw, and she was rather adamant about killing me when I spoke with her in the desert. Shyrack was actually very helpful, if rather uninteresting. Not that I would have tried seducing her in the desert even if she wasn’t, since I’d rather not get sand in uncomfortable places. If you could track a Sand Demon for kilometers across the deserts of Tatooine, then maybe I would have brought you along instead.”

Vette sniffed imperiously, tilting her chin up. “Whatever. And you really let that Jedi threaten you and walk away?”

“Where’s this sudden hostility toward the Jedi coming from?”

“They tried to kill you on Balmorra. And almost succeeded.”

I smiled, touched. “Aw, Vette, I love that you’re all protective of me.”

“I’m gonna hang up now,” Vette mumbled, a blush visible even on the monochrome hologram.

“Stay safe, then. I’ll get another update tomorrow, yeah?”

“Got it. I’ll hopefully have good news.”

We ended the call, and I chuckled to myself as I settled into a light meditation, awaiting news that my Jedi prisoner/patient was ready to have a conversation. I ended up going to find something to eat after an hour, and returning to my meditations after downing a few synthetic steaks in the mess hall. After Captain Damatha’s tour, I had taken care to coerce a few packets of various sauces from my crew, and those definitely made the replicated meat more palatable. The men I’d taken the sauce from had seemed happy to be useful, especially after I’d asked them nicely for their recommendations. And then glared at them a little, when they hesitated to offer me a sample. There were some perks to being feared, it seemed.

Finally, I receieved a notice that the Jedi was regaining her faculties, and would be fully lucid in fifteen minutes. I wandered towards the brig, which was really just a portion of the engineering deck that had containment cells built in for the quarantine of hazardous materials. These cells doubled as perfect places to keep prisoners, since the force fields that protected engineering from radiation or hazardous gas also prevented escape and were evidently painful to touch.

Not that I had any experience with it. It was just what I had read about the Bore-class corvette when I had investigated it.

The cell holding Master Kiwiiks was modest, and didn’t have amenities typical of a standard jail cell. As in, there was no toilet or sink. No bed, either. The Jedi was spread-eagled on a large metal X-shaped table, which was angled so that she was upright, with her arms extended fully and secured by two massive durasteel locks. Her legs had been secured as well, also pulled completely straight in what must have been vaguely uncomfortable for her due to the injuries. Or perhaps the straightness of her legs was because of the splints.

Her robes had been removed, replaced by nondescript white underwear. I assumed that was in preparation for surgery, but was surprised that the medics hadn’t dressed her again once she refused treatment.

In any case, she was definitely awake by the time I reached her cell. Her eyes were bright with a fierce glare, and she hit me with her displeasure as soon as I was within sight. Of course, the bombardment of emotion in the Force didn’t really accomplish much. She couldn’t cuss me out, either, since there was a metallic gag covering her entire jaw.

Captain Damatha had stationed outside the cell, and he saluted me as I came to a halt. “Let me in and then bring up the shield again.”

“Are you sure, My Lord?”

“She can’t hurt me,” I replied firmly. The crewman nodded and lowered the ray shields to admit me. I stepped into the cell, watching as Master Kiwiiks stiffened up, arms straining against the bonds that held her. The shield snapped back into place at my back. “Master Jedi, I’m not going to hurt you. I said nobody was going to be tortured, and I meant it. Now, I’m going to remove the gag. I’d appreciate if you didn’t attack me or Mind Trick me.”

Her fierce gaze didn’t abate for a single second as I stepped to the side of the interrogation table, reaching for her face. I met her glare with a placid gaze of my own, despite an instinctual part of me wanting to make her flinch away from me when our eyes met. That was the animal part of my brain responding to the challenge in her eyes, and I was above that kind of petty posturing. The gag was easy enough to remove, after I found the latch under the chin that caused some kind of catch to release. When I tugged it off her face, I realized that there was a tongue on the inside of the metal mask that would have fit between her teeth, intended to squish her tongue against the bottom of her mouth and prevent even the mechanical motions of speech.

That couldn’t have been comfortable. At all.

I let the gag drop to the ground, forgotten, as I stepped back. “There. I apologize for the restraints, but you rather frightened my crew. And I was incapacitated.”

Master Kiwiiks worked her jaw for a moment, swallowed once, then rasped. “What do you want with me, Sith?”

“Why did you refuse treatment?” I returned. “We could have had your legs sorted out, put you in a kolto tank. You’d have been in perfect condition after maybe two days.”

“You think I’ll allow a Sith to conduct surgery on me?” Master Kiwiiks laughed coldly. “I am not that stupid.”

“If I was going to do something nefarious, Master Jedi, I wouldn’t have had my medics ask for permission,” I retorted. “You’re simply enduring pain and making your injuries far more troublesome by delaying surgery. I’m happy to return you to the Republic for the operation, but after the kolto we gave you for first aid, the bones will have partially healed. It’s going to be worse, now.”

“I am aware. Since that has surely already occurred, there is no point in risking Sith surgeons. I will await rescue and that is all I will say.”

“About that,” I sighed. “I’m willing to let you call someone. But I don’t want my crew to be harmed if any misunderstandings take place. Here’s my proposal: set up a meeting in the desert. Have your apprentice pick the location. I’ll take you there and hand you to them personally.”

“If you think I’m stupid enough to lead you to my padawan, then you’ve gravely underestimated me.”

“Do you want to return to the Republic or not?” I asked pointedly. “You can’t walk, so what am I supposed to do? Put you on a speeder in Mos Ila? If you died in the desert trying to reach Anchorhead, I’d catch the blame for it.”

“Give me a shuttle,” Master Kiwiiks demanded. “Even with my injuries, I could fly a shuttle.”

“We don’t exactly have a lot of those to be handing away,” I replied, thinking of the costs. “Unless you plan to return it, but I struggle to imagine how that would work. Or would you perhaps permit one of my crew to pilot the shuttle?”

“What is your aim in this?” Master Kiwiiks suddenly asked, narrowing her eyes. “Why are you trying to appear helpful?”

“I saved your life,” I replied icily. “That’s not ‘appearing helpful,’ it’s actually being helpful. I have no problems with you, for one, and our nations are not at war. Your presence on my ship is causing more problems than anything else. So, yes, I’d like to return you to the Republic as soon as is reasonable, so that I can continue the pilgrimage on Tatooine in peace.”

“Pilgrimage...ah, I remember you mentioned the Trials of the Desert,” Master Kiwiiks mused. “Why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

The Jedi pursed her lips. “Why is a Sith on a pilgrimage on Tatooine?”

“I am seeking knowledge,” I replied honestly. Knowledge of Jaesa Wilsaam, specifically, but if she wanted to assume that I was seeking enlightenment that was fine by me...

“What sort of knowledge?” Kiwiiks challenged, and I sighed. So much for that.

“Have you stopped making assumptions about my motives, Jedi?” I wondered, crossing my arms over my cleavage. Master Kiwiiks had not so much as glanced at my outfit since I had arrived, focusing instead on trying to glare holes in my face.

“There is nothing for the Sith in the Trials of the Desert,” Master Kiwiiks declared with finality.

“I think I should decide that for myself.”

She scoffed. “It’s pointless, anyway. You didn’t bathe in the blood, so the Sand People will not give you the location of the Seeing Pool.”

“The corpse is still there...”

The Jedi interrupted me before I could finish, saying, “Already, you have failed to grasp the purpose of the Trials.”

I sighed, rubbing the bridge of my nose. “What? So, I wasn’t supposed to fight the Sand Demon? Then the Jedi approach at dawn, when it molts, and use the discarded carapace to get at the blood, proceeding after to the Sand People. Is that some kind of expression of harmony? Do the Sand People know the difference between molted blood and blood gotten through violence?”

“The Sand People might not,” Master Kiwiiks allowed. “But if you undertake a pilgrimage only to scoff at the lessons it teaches, what have you gained from it? You are only wasting your time.”

“Again, I’ll be the judge of that, thank you very much,” I insisted. “If you know the location of the Seeing Pool, you could give it to me. Since I saved your life.”

“Is this when the torture begins?” Kiwiiks scoffed with cold amusement.

“I’m a little sick of you and your padawan assuming the worst of me, to be honest,” I burst out, cutting the air with one hand. “I’ve done nothing to either of you. Yet she was practically foaming at the mouth, calling for my blood. And now you. Do you want me to torture you, is that it? You’d be more comfortable here with a bit of Sith Lightning and diabolical laughter?”

“No, of course not.”

I chuckled darkly. “Then what? Is it so far beyond your imagination that there are Sith who aren’t mindless sadists?”

“It is my experience that the only Sith who aren’t indulging in their violent desires are preparing for some grand display of evil,” Master Kiwiiks answered firmly. “I won’t ask you to forgive my suspicion. You are a member of an Order that is known across the galaxy for their cruelty.”

“Suspicion is understandable, but I don’t think refusing to cooperate with the one who pulled your ass out of the fire, especially when you have no other choice, is reasonable. If I wanted to implant cybernetics to control you, or kill you, or torture you, then I could do any of those things and you couldn’t stop me. I have said that I won’t be doing that. With that being the case, I figure we can stop wasting my time. In other words, you should assume I am being honest until you have proof of the opposite,” I said all of this in a sharp, clipped tone. “Or aren’t you a member of an Order that is renowned for their clear-headed nature?”

Master Kiwiiks seemed to think about my words for a moment, and I almost thought we were getting somewhere. Then she opened her mouth. “If you have such benevolent intentions, then why am I still strapped to this table?”

I buried my face in one hand and rubbed the bridge of my nose, counting down from five. “Because, in case you forgot, you assaulted my men and then attempted to Mind Trick your guard. And you can’t stand on your own legs. But, if you would feel more comfortable, I’ll release your arms. Are you going to play nice?”

“Don’t patronize me, Sith.”

“Stop acting like a petulant child, then.”

The look she gave me might have caused a lesser creature to quail, but Togruta wasn’t the only predatory species in this cell. My shoulders straightened out at the icy, killing glare she leveled, then I twitched the ridge over one eye up in challenge. Her jaw set when she saw I didn’t back down, then the white skin of her cheeks darkened and she sighed through her nose. “I won’t raise my arms against anyone except in defense of myself or others, is that sufficient?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” I agreed, already releasing the restraints. The durasteel clasps snapped open with a loud clack, and her shoulders sagged with relief as she pulled her arms out of the slots, rubbing feeling back into her forearms, first attending to her right hand, then to her left. She was careful to lean back, so that she didn’t tip forward, but I saw how the extra weight on her legs was causing her pain, so I lowered the table’s angle using the controls on its side. She was laying back more, now, and had to look up at me.

But at least it wouldn’t hurt as bad.

“I would have asked if I wanted to be lowered,” Master Kiwiiks informed me primly.

“You were in pain,” I replied easily. “This is easier on your legs.”

She sighed. “Can you leave me to my healing trance, Sith?”

“You have a call to make, actually. Use my communicator,” I said, removing the device from a pocket in my robes and offering it to her. Kiwiiks stared at the proferred disk of metal for a long moment, then took it into her slender hands. She looked at me, meaningfully, and I stared her down.

“You think I will put my padawan’s comm code into this device?” she asked me as if it were obvious I should say ‘no.’

“Are you always this stubborn, or is it just with me?” I exclaimed with small exasperation. “Call the Jedi Knight you left her with, then. Surely he can handle himself, or he can get himself a new comm after everything is said and done if he’s nervous about a Sith having his contact info. But I mean them no harm. You have my word.”

The openly incredulous look she gave me told me exactly how much my word was worth to her. Still, she manipulated the small knobs on the side of the comm to enter a code, and after a few short beeps the image of the Jedi Knight I had met in the desert appeared on the device. “Master Kiwiiks! Kira! It’s your master.”

“Hello, Knight Tennres. I’m calling from the brig of a Sith corvette, location unknown. I was defeated by Lord Praven and left for dead beside the Shock Drum. Another Sith destroyed the Shock Drum and brought me aboard their vessel. I’ve been given minimal care. The Sith wants you to give them a location so they can hand me off to you,” Master Kiwiiks reported simply, succinctly, and, in my opinion, without the pertinent facts.

“Pardon me,” I interjected, pulling the comm away from Kiwiiks with the Force and catching it out of the air even as she gave an affronted cry. “Hello again, Jedi. Master Kiwiiks left out a few details. She is actually refusing medical care, although we offered a surgery and kolto submersion for her legs. She’s in the brig because she assaulted my crew while they attempted to give her water and food. I don’t know if you caught up to Lord Praven or not, but you don’t have to worry about him. I’ll give you the location of the Shock Drum, so you can see the wreckage yourself.”

“I thought you said you weren’t looking for the Shock Drum,” Knight Tennres accused, having drawn himself up into a stiff posture the instant I appeared on his comm instead of Kiwiiks.

“I wasn’t looking for it. The Sand Demon I was tracking uses vibrations in the sand to hunt its prey, and therefore was drawn to the machine. Since I was following the beast, I found the machine. I wasn’t going to leave the Master Jedi over there to die, and I didn’t much care for the idea of Tatooine being destroyed, so I intervened. Thank me later. Do you have a place we can meet so that Master Kiwiiks can get the medical care she requires sooner rather than later?”

The Jedi seemed to be looking at me with something akin to blatant shock on his face. “How did you disable the Shock Drum without the codes?”

“I damaged it until it stopped doing what it was doing,” I replied simply, rolling my eyes. “With a lightsaber and the Force. Honestly, not everything has to be complicated.”

“I see...we can meet at the Shock Drum, and confirm your assertion at the same time as getting Master Kiwiiks to the help she needs?” the Jedi proposed.

“Sure, whatever works,” I replied flippantly. “It’s in a canyon, so we’ll both have to land nearby. You will not try to kill me on sight or shoot down my shuttle, I assume?”

“I can at least promise that we will not be the aggressors in any conflict which may occur,” the Jedi responded diplomatically, and I nodded.

“Excellent. I’ll send the coordinates to you shortly. Would you like to meet there as soon as possible, or wait for morning?”

The Jedi looked toward something that I couldn’t see and had a muted conversation. Then he shook his head and focused on me. “Morning. Sunrise, preferably.”

“See you there.”

When the call had ended, I looked at the Jedi Master still watching me and stowed my comm once more. “Now, I can leave you to your healing trance. I suppose you’ll refuse painkillers?”

“You’re correct.”

“See you in the morning, Master Kiwiiks,” I concluded, waving a hand dismissively. The guard let me out of the cell, and I informed him it was safer not to have a posted a guard outside the force field. Then I retired to my quarters to get some actual sleep, since I didn’t count submersion in a kolto tank as sleeping.

Chapter Text

“I’m glad that your injuries weren’t severe, My Lord,” Shyrack said to me the next morning, as we boarded a shuttle bound for the surface of Tatooine. Master Kiwiiks was on a repuslorlift stretcher, attended by the Chief Medical Officer of the Interminable Night, whom I had learned was named Marks. CMO Marks. Apparently the medic from the previous day had reported my surprise at Kiwiik’s treatment to his superior, since he had taken over her care during the third shift, and it seemed that he had somehow convinced Master Kiwiiks to let them do some kind of operation for her legs.

I assumed that was why she had new kolto patches on them that hadn’t been there when we had last spoken. She also had a hospital gown to wear instead of the simple undergarments that she had been wearing when I had talked to her the night before. Which was good...I didn’t need Kira to have any further reason to dislike me beyond the fact that I was Sith.

Not that I really cared if the redheaded Jedi liked me. I would just prefer if she didn’t try to kill me, and I actually sensed that her restraint might be sorely tested if she thought I had done anything untoward to her master.

“Me too,” I replied to Shyrack, taking my place in the too-small seat. All these personnel shuttles were too cramped for my liking, but that was only to be expected for someone that was well above the average size.

They secured the stretcher in place between the two rows of seats, and the pilot checked briefly to be sure that we were all seated and strapped in before taking off. Atmospheric entry wasn’t exactly something terribly exciting, not for a marvel of engineering like all Star Wars vehicles are, but there were protocols to follow. I barely even felt the turbulence as the shuttle descended to the coordinates I had provided Knight Tennres.

“This was the first time I had ever left Tatooine,” Shyrack said, into the silence. I glanced at her in surprise.

“If you can call being in orbit ‘leaving,’” I replied. “What did you think of space travel?”

“We didn’t travel anywhere, if we are being pedantic,” Shyrack returned. I rolled my eyes behind my mask, good-naturedly. Not that she could see it. Still, the impression that others received from me depended heavily upon my own mood, and making natural expressions helped with natural conversation. Shyrack unconsciously sensed I was being casual.

I wasn’t sure if this was a part of my new aura skills, or if it was just Force weirdness. But it was definitely something I had noticed, and it didn’t apply to droids.

“Still. You were in space.”

“It’s cold aboard ship,” Shyrack eventually replied with a shrug. “And I felt lighter than usual.”

“The gravitational forces on board are set to be like Dromund Kaas’ gravity,” I explained. “Tatooine must have higher mass. I honestly didn’t really notice it.”

“It’s a small difference,” she allowed. “I will be happy to be home again, nonetheless. Thank you for saving Tatooine.”

“Don’t mention it,” I answered, shrugging. “I probably should have called for backup when I learned of the Shock Drum. I might have come out of that situation without injury, especially if we could have had an engineer to look at the device. It all worked out, I suppose. It didn’t occur to me until I needed a medic.”

“That may have been helpful, but it would have taken longer to shut down the machine, perhaps. Who knows what damage it could have caused in the interim?” Shyrack wondered rhetorically. “In any case, Tatooine owes a great debt. The desert doesn’t forget her debts.”

Great, I thought. That wasn’t ominous at all. I glanced at the Jedi, who was watching me from where she laid and smirked. “Hopefully Jedi don’t forget their debts either.”

She sniffed and pointedly looked at the ceiling.

“My Lord,” the pilot’s voice came over the intercom. “There is another shuttle landed at the meeting point. It seems the Republic arrived early. Should we proceed?”

“Yes, it’s fine. They are eager to recover their Jedi, and we are anxious to be rid of her,” I answered. “You can land a safe distance away.”

It didn’t take long before I felt the slight shudder of the shuttle touching down on the desert sand. The pilot must have found a relatively flat location, and once the boarding ramp had descended, our small assemblage proceeded out into the heat. Even though the suns were just rising, meaning that while one was fully visible, the second only showed its crown, the air had already heated to a pretty significant degree. The sand wasn’t nearly as hot yet, so I didn’t get the same slow-baking sensation as I had during the day’s heat before.

The Republic shuttle, along with several troopers in armor and the two Jedi, were waiting for us by the mouth of the canyon, with their vehicle set on a rocky surface instead of the sand. Since we weren’t planning on staying long, I wasn’t all that concerned about the shuttle sinking, but I had no idea how long the Republic entourage had been awaiting us so perhaps they had chosen a rocky landing site and had been here for some time.

I had elected not to bring a larger escort, firstly because the crew available for the task weren’t exactly foot soldiers, and secondly because with Jedi involved, it really didn’t matter if I brought mundane guards. If it got violent, a few extra blasters were more likely to just create further hazards than to help attain victory. In any case, approaching them with just myself, Shyrack, and CMO Marks did feel a little underwhelming. We stopped a short distance away, and the Jedi stepped away from their soldiers to meet us.

“Master, are you alright?” Kira asked, already moving towards the stretcher. The Knight was focused entirely on me, and I noticed him twitch as if to keep Kira from stepping closer, but I obligingly moved away from the reunion, walking to the side. Knight Tennres joined me after a moment’s hesitation.

“I can take you to the Shock Drum,” I offered

“We’ll wait for Kira,” he replied immediately. I shrugged.

“Sure. I brought CMO Marks to bring your medics up to speed. I assume you brought one?”

He inclined his head. “Why are you helping us?”

“Would you believe me if I said it was out of the goodness of my heart?” I wondered idly. Then I turned and saw the skeptical light in his eyes. The rest of his face was obscured by the scarf he wore around his head, but I saw enough that I laughed. “No, I thought not. Look, I’m not really all that interested in the rivalry between Jedi and Sith. My interests on Tatooine are very specific.”

“The Trials of the Desert,” Tennres mused. “You did mention that.”

“Precisely. It just so happened that my Trials included rescuing your Master Kiwiiks. I figured that Jedi, of all people, could understand that the Force works in mysterious ways.”

This got me a far more openly skeptical look than my earlier question. “You claim to believe in the Will of the Force?”

“No, but I don’t have to believe it. You asked me why I am doing this. As one who does believe, you should have your answer already. There is no such thing as luck, or so Master Kiwiiks has said.”

“Claiming that a Sith is acting in accordance with the Will of the Force, even unknowingly, would be rather...bold of me,” Knight Tennres replied with small amusement in his voice. “I’m no Sage, but I know it is taught that those who are in the grasp of the Dark Side have lost the ability to please the Force.”

“If it was the Force’s will that Master Kiwiiks be saved, what does it matter if it was a Sith or a Jedi who saved her?” I questioned. “And if it was not the Will of the Force that she be saved, then you have even more reason to thank me for ignoring your supposed Will of the Force.”

“You can’t actively ignore that which does not exist,” he returned. “Or are you admitting that it exists yet refusing to obey it?”

“You can ignore it, if you contest the fact of its existence,” I continued our play on words. “You claim it exists. I claim it does not. One of us is wrong, of course. I acted yesterday according to my own reasons, and if you wish to see the hand of a greater power in my deeds, then do as you please.”

“I asked you what your reasoning was, and you’ve obfuscated the question by delving into matters of theology,” Knight Tennres declared. “You know I wasn’t asking about destiny or the Force.”

“My reasoning was that there was a dying woman and a machine aiming to destroy this entire planet, and I was nearby to do something about both of those things,” I relented, crossing my arms over my chest. “I could have defeated the Sand Demon, bathed in its blood, and ignored the Shock Drum. But Shyrack would not have ignored it. This planet is her home, and she was resolved to save it. Leaving her behind would have probably meant her death. Besides that, it cost me nothing but time to intervene.”

Knight Tennres looked at me closely for a long moment, but obviously on account of my mask it wasn’t a very informative inspection. “In that case, you have my gratitude. My mission on Tatooine related entirely to the Shock Drum, and I’d rather not stay here longer than necessary.”

“You don’t say? I can’t imagine why anyone would want to leave such a delightful planet.”

“Is there anything you would ask of us, as thanks for your aid?”

I pursed my lips. “I don’t suppose you know the location of the Seeing Pool? I could skip the whole blood bath portion of the Trials.”

At this, the Jedi seemed openly amused. “Taking shortcuts, are you? That will not endear you to the Sages.”

“I don’t really care. Do you know it or not?”

“I do, as a matter of fact,” the Knight answered. “Even for those who do not undertake the Trials of the Desert, the Seeing Pool is a site of meditation and recuperation that the Jedi highly recommend to anyone traveling out this way. Not that there are very many reasons to visit Tatooine. In any case, I visited it looking for guidance on my mission, and it revealed to me the location of Lord Praven. I suppose there’s no point in pursuing him now.”

So, the Knight hadn’t yet caught up with that one? I wondered if it was a bad thing that the confrontation between the Knight and Lord Praven seemed as if it was about to be skipped. “Where is it, then?”

“Where is what?” Kira’s voice interrupted us, and we turned towards her as she approached. She looked a bit stiff, uncomfortable, and wouldn’t meet my eyes even with my mask, preventing the full weight of my gaze from weighing upon her.

“She is still taking the Trials of the Desert, and seeks the Seeing Pool. As thanks, I was going to give her the coordinates.”

Kira did look up then, eyes flicking between us. “Master Kiwiiks said something about that. She said there was no harm in it. The Sith won’t find anything of value there.”

“Isn’t it supposed to lead a pilgrim to the enclave in the Dune Sea?” I asked.

“Jedi pilgrims, yes,” Kira replied. “But those who are blind to the Will of the Force can hardly follow its guidance.”

“We were just discussing the Will of the Force,” I remarked with small amusement. “And whether it was what led me to save Master Kiwiiks. Knight Tennres asserts it is not possible for a Sith to satisfy the Will of the Force, in which case you might wonder if it was your master’s destiny to die there, beside the Shock Drum.”

Whereas Kira had, until this point, been subdued, my proclamation caused her to stiffen as if someone had rammed a steel rod down her spine. Her eyes flashed with fury, landing squarely in the middle of my masked face, and I smirked. How easy it was to provoke her!

“Shut up.”

“Fine,” I shrugged. “I just found that to be...curious. In any case, I should show you the device itself, so that you can be sure it is deactivated.”

“That would be excellent,” Knight Tennres agreed, a tone of finality in his voice. I sensed another prod at them about the Will of the Force would not be taken with the same docile tone.

Why was I needling them? Honestly, it was just a bit of good-natured fun. I had always enjoyed a good debate, even as a Human, not that there were many people in my past life that would have engaged that habit of mine. It wasn’t motivated by any real desire to see Kira waver in her beliefs, but more just to watch her get flustered about it. And perhaps to challenge her to come back at me with something equally thought-provoking.

Unfortunately, her anger was all that I seemed to earn this time around.

I led the Jedi into the shadowed canyon, and to the cavern. At its mouth, I paused. We weren’t the first to arrive; it seemed. I sensed a powerful presence within the cave, one that had been absent the day before. It was a Dark Side presence, which probably meant it was Lord Praven come to check on his device.

How unfortunate. Since I had stopped mid-step, the Jedi also paused, following me at several paces. Far enough that I couldn’t turn and cut at them in a single motion, which I knew was calculated. And they could easily lunge forward and strike me, but that was an imbalance that I had knowingly permitted. They were Jedi, after all, and weren’t likely to attack me without reason.

“Do you sense that?” I asked them, slowly turning to face them. I didn’t know if the presence of the other Sith would make them hostile to me as well. They might have assumed I was colluding with Lord Praven, given the man’s presence here.

“What is it?”

“Another Sith is here. In the cave,” I replied, gesturing. “Do you think it’s your Lord Praven?”

“The Dark Side is difficult to sense, if the user wishes to remain undetected,” Knight Tennres remarked, hand straying to his lightsaber. “Are you certain?”

“It is not so difficult for me to sense him. Which of us is blind to the Force, again?”

The Jedi gave me identical unimpressed looks. It was Kira who spoke. “It is hard for one who stands in a bright place to peer into shadows.”

“Cute,” I quipped. “Who said that, I wonder?”

“Bastila Shan,” Knight Tennres replied. “You are certain that the Sith is here?”

“He is aware of us, you know. He’s coming closer,” I gestured at the cave mouth. “I’m just going to take my leave for a bit. Let you talk it out.”

“And how are we supposed to be sure you won’t stab us in the back?” Kira wondered, her lightsaber in hand. It was not yet lit. I shrugged at her.

“You’ll need to watch your backside for a bit, I suppose. But I won’t be getting involved here. I don’t have any quarrel with Lord Praven...”

“That’s a shame,” a new voice spoke. “Because I have a quarrel with you, Apprentice. Your interference may have already cost me my life, after all.”

I turned from the Jedi and saw a large, armored man emerging from the darkened cave. He was Sith, broad at the shoulders and wearing silver and black. A lightsaber was at his hip, and his face was decorated with rings and piercings of gold. Somehow, they didn’t look grotesque or gauche on him, instead making him appear almost regal.

Despite his size, we were in fact about eye to eye. That meant he was also pretty gargantuan compared to the average humanoid person. I offered a halfhearted bow, just to be polite, but I could sense that he was blazing mad. “Lord Praven, I presume?”

“I am,” he agreed, igniting his lightsaber. “I would ask to confirm your name, but it would be a waste of breath. You will not live long enough for it to matter. Tell me one thing, before I take your head. Why did you destroy the Shock Drum?”

“Um, because it was going to destroy the planet I was standing on at the time?” I answered succinctly. “Obviously. That was rather inconsiderate of you. You should at least warn a guy before you go around turning on planet destroyers. Maybe I would have stayed out of things if I had known what you and your idiot master were getting up to around here.”

“You are most impertinent.”

“I try.”

“Who is your master?” Lord Praven asked me pointedly. “Perhaps, if I provide my master with the name of his enemy, he will not execute me for my failure.”

“Darth Angral sounds like a real understanding fella,” I quipped. “You sure you shouldn’t look into a change of employment?”

Praven seemed to sigh, settling into a combat stance and shaking his head minutely. “Enough of this. You die here.”

“I guess you can leave this to me, then,” I said over my shoulder, igniting my long crimson blade and loping towards Lord Praven. “Give us some more room, Jedi.”

“You are a fool. They will observe our combat, and then kill the victor of our duel,” Lord Praven asserted with a sneer towards the retreating Jedi. “We should kill the Jedi first, then settle our dispute between ourselves.”

“No thanks. The Jedi aren’t actually after my head, as a matter of fact.”

“As you wish. You will not exhaust me overmuch, in any case,” Lord Praven shrugged elegantly. Then he surged forward, and our dance began.

He was a practitioner of Juyo. I recognized the tempo of his chosen form as his assault battered against my defenses, forcing me to give ground. Fighting on the sand was a bit unusual for me, since my feet weren’t planted as steadily, and ended up trying to move more fluidly, relying less on bursts of motion that required quick stops and starts. This helped cut down on the slipping.

The easiest form to adapt to this style of footwork was Shien, surprisingly, so I leaned into it. Our lightsabers weaved a blazing curtain of light between us as he cut and thrust, deflecting my counters and neatly stepping into his next attack before I could properly return to center guard. It wasn’t that he was faster than I was, just more economical in his movement. I was happy to let him have the initiative, however. It was not difficult anticipating his attacks and deflecting them without tiring myself, all while biding my time.

Lord Praven wasn’t simply going to exhaust himself like a mindless hack, however. He twisted out of a lunge and threw the Force at me in a sudden burst of lightning that cracked over my Force Ward, nearly breaking it. I dedicated some attention and empowered the passive ward to Force Fortress, rebuffing his attack completely. Then I ducked low, extended my arm in a probing thrust aimed at his forward knee, and used a small push of the Force to bat his sword arm slightly out of guard.

The point of my saber kissed his armor with a loud snap and crack. The plasma of the lightsaber instantly liquefied the surface of the shiny metallic plate and caused a burst of expanding gases that scattered teardrops of molten armor to the sands. That kind of ablative armor technology was intended to rebuff a blaster shot, but evidently it also worked against fleeting contact with a lightsaber. It also created a nearly blinding stream of red and white sparks that made me flinch away from him.

Although I had landed a hit, I didn’t think that it had actually injured his knee at all. And I couldn’t press the thrust further without risking my own neck, so I neatly straightened up, with a showy flourish of my saber. I tried to hide the fact that I was blinking spots out of my vision from the flash of light.

“Shall we call this duel at the first touch, Lord Praven?” I teased.

Lord Praven regained his posture and shook his head, unamused. “No. To the death.”

“So be it.”

I kept my guard in the standard pose for Shien, but I wasn’t planning on keeping that up for much longer. Doing the same thing again and again in a fight was how you ended up getting nasty surprises. This was a good opportunity to test out Blade Storm, and that ability seemed to go well with Juyo in creating an unceasing assault. At least, it seemed that way from the description of the ability.

I hadn’t actually tried it out yet, since I wasn’t sure how destructive the blades of Force energy I could sling from my lightsaber would be. Practicing aboard a starship or with Tranch had seemed unwise.

When Lord Praven engaged me again, he had also changed his style. Adopting a purely fundamental approach, he seemed to be looking to capitalize on openings in my defenses left by poorly timed counters. Unfortunately for him, I wasn’t planning on letting him lead the dance this time around. He moved forward, aiming a conservative diagonal cut that controlled the center of the space between us, and I met his blade mid-way in a bind. Then, pressing forward with sudden ferocity, I rolled my weapon around and chopped in an overhead.

Lord Praven backstepped, curving his weapon up to block and strike in the same motion. I pulled my own attack, leaving the faint white trace of the Blade Storm poised in the air, steadily gaining solidity. I parried his slash before thrusting across his guard. Once again, he maneuvered to cut and block in the same beat, so I feinted a second time, creating another white after-image. They must have seemed to him like mirages or tricks of the morning light, because he didn’t react to their presence.

As I parried and then swept my weapon up from my side, the first of my Blade Storm simultaneously cut in the path I had been intending my overhead strike to follow. Lord Praven’s eyes widened minutely, his offhand leaving the hilt of his saber and moving as if to ward against the gleaming white, ephemeral blade, even as he smacked my lightsaber to the side with his own. Obviously, his hand posed no impediment at all.

The blade of the Force hit something invisible, probably the Sith Lord’s Force Ward, wavered for nary a millisecond, then sliced through his armored wrist like a knife through butter. It didn’t split his skull, losing its force before it could complete its full arc. Then the second white blade pierced his chest in a deft thrust and the Blade Storm ended. All in as little as two heartbeats. I hadn’t set up a third one yet.

His severed hand had fallen to the sand with a dull thud.

I was frozen, poised for another strike in my flurry of blows, but Lord Praven had staggered out of measure with a hand over his chest, wheezing. “What-?” he murmured, looking down at the blood pouring over his silver breastplate.

I knew better than to relax, as if the fight was won. Sweeping forward, past my own astonishment at the effectiveness of my Blade Storm, I swung directly for his neck and was deflected. Then I cut towards his left leg and was parried. He thrust at my chest, slow enough that I could anticipate him, and I caught his wrist in my offhand, turning my body with him as the first of the renewed Blade Storm burst into reality and severed his head in an echo of my earlier strike at his neck. The edge of that blade nearly cut my own neck too, but it dissipated against Force Fortress before it could cut me. Still, not moving into the path of my own Force blades was probably a good thing to get in the habit of.

I shoved his corpse away, dodging the gout of pouring blood, and the final white blade slashed at the empty air and made a dent in the sand as his body landed like a sack of rocks, splattering bright blood onto the sand in a haphazard cone. His head bounced and rolled away, before coming to a halt face-up. The mouth worked silently for a moment, eyes rolling with the final vestiges of life. Then it was over.

[EXP gained: 6511]

[Level Reached: 32]

Easy enough. I deactivated my lightsaber and returned it to my belt, closing my eyes to calm the roaring rush of blood in my ears. I felt the sweat against my skin, the oppressive heat bearing down on me, and heard the soft crunch of footsteps in sand. My hearts squeezed, palpable in their triple beat.

“You killed him,” Knight Tennres observed.

“I did,” I agreed simply. It hadn’t been as difficult of a fight as I had initially suspected that it might be. Mostly because I hadn’t expected Blade Storm to be so effective even when my opponent was maintaining their Force Ward, and without Blade Storm I would have had to best him in swordplay, which hadn’t been exactly a guaranteed victory. Opening my eyes and exhaling, I let the fury of battle bleed away. “Shall we proceed?”

“How did you do that thing with the white blades?” Kira asked, openly curious.

“Trade secret,” I answered. I actually didn’t know why it had seemed to cut through Lord Praven’s Force Ward, and that was something that merited some further investigation. “I don’t suppose you brought a light source, aside from your sabers?”

Mute looks greeted me. I sighed, gesturing at the darkened cave entrance. “Lead the way, then. I’ve been rather accommodating, but I’d prefer not to have you at my back with a lit lightsaber.”

“I’m not going into a cave that could be booby trapped unless you’re with us,” Kira asserted with equal finality.

“I’ll follow you, then.”

Knight Tennres sighed with exasperation. “Let her follow, Kira. I sense she means us no harm. Xanot, just keep your saber at your side and we’ll have no problems.”

I nodded, and he moved for the cave, unclipping his lightsaber. I hadn’t seen the color of the blade yet, and I was curious. It was a standard blue, with a darker core and a slightly white corona of light, which was interesting. I figured he probably had more than one crystal in that thing to cause that effect.

I did give them a good three or four paces so that my imposing presence was less threatening. Kira still looked over her shoulder more often than was necessary to check on me. I waggled my fingers at her cheekily when we’d progressed into the cave about twenty meters, and she huffed moodily before hastening her pace.

The cave, if anything, was even more foul than it had been the day before. The corpses inside had...desiccated. Not rotted, per se, but they didn’t smell much improved. Even the Sand Demon’s corpse had sort of shriveled up a bit, and the blood that had splattered everywhere had hardened into a thin crust on the ramps and stone.

In the pit, the ruin of the Shock Drum remained.

“That’s definitely it,” Knight Tennres declared. He walked around the perimeter and inspected the device in a full circle. Then he approached the console and tapped a few things on the screen. “Still has power, and I don’t have the codes.”

“Call the Republic then,” I advised. “They’ll have engineers who can wrap this thing up nice and clean, I’m sure.”

“Yeah,” he muttered. “They designed it, after all.”

I pursed my lips at the dark tone in his voice. Someone was a bit unhappy about that, hm? “Well, technically a Sith designed it with Republic money and approval,” I chirped in a falsely happy tone, making as if I was inspecting my fingernails. Knight Tennres didn’t rise to the bait, however, simply shaking his head.

“You’ve held up your end of our agreement. Let’s return to Master Kiwiiks. The medics will have finished exchanging information by now,” he declared. “I’ll send you the coordinates of the Seeing Pool while we walk.”

“Sounds good to me.”

By the time we returned, the Republic medics had already evacuated Master Kiwiiks, and CMO Marks was simply waiting for my permission to return to the Interminable Night. I granted him leave, and then said short farewells to the Jedi, who were waiting for their engineering team. Shyrack and I went searching for our bikes.

They were parked where we had left them, of course. There wasn’t much chance of Jawas or Sand People finding them overnight, although it could have happened. What had happened was that the sands had shifted with the wind caused by the temperature shifting during the night, and this effect had half-buried the two speeders under a dune. Extricating them from the sand was easy enough, but checking that they still functioned despite being full of sand was more difficult.

I didn’t quite fancy having the bike quit on me mid-flight.

Shyrack pulled a few panels open on each, inspected several mechanical parts, and applies some oil and grease. Then she shrugged and said that they shouldn’t break down. I wasn’t sure I trusted a ‘shouldn’t’ in these circumstances, but with the only alternative being a ten kilometer hike over the dunes, I mounted up. The Seeing Pool was apparently an oasis, held as sacred by all the Sand People tribes in the region. Unlike other oases, this one was treated as a kind of shrine, where pilgrims would travel and drink the waters in an attempt to see enlightening visions.

This implied to me that there was something funky going on with the water, so I wasn’t going to drink any of it. In the MMO, the player simply had to approach the pool and meditate in order to see the vision of the metaphorical yin to their yang.

The pool itself had also been guarded by an entire tribe of Sand People, which I rather hoped we could avoid.

Since it was still early morning, the second sun of Tatooine didn’t really start shining until we’d already gotten close to our destination, and by then I didn’t mind the steadily increasing heat. Again, the way the sky transformed from clear blue to blazing white heat kind of mesmerized me, and when I stepped off my bike and set my boots against the baking sands, I had a small smile on my face.

This wasn’t such a bad planet, all told. I wouldn’t want to live here, probably. But it was certainly beautiful, in its own way.

“The oasis is supposedly inside a cavern, but there shouldn’t be any caverns in this part of the desert. The rock is more than ten meters below us, buried in sand,” Shyrack said in wonderment. “And there aren’t any outcroppings.”

“It’s this way,” I declared, feeling a very strange sensation in the Force. It was like a chill on my skin, a cold breeze in an otherwise scorching desert. I started walking towards it, and we crested a dune together, pausing as the sand rolled leisurely down the slope ahead of us.

The cavern was basically a sinkhole. The sand seemed to swirl in patterns as it descended, and the yawning opening was a pit of darkness. I descended, slowly, and when we reached the edge of the hole I peered inside it, wondering how it hadn’t been covered up by sand.

“This shouldn’t exist,” Shyrack remarked. “And I’m amazed there aren’t rumors of such a place in the nearby outposts.”

“Only those who are looking for it can find it,” I said, certain of it even as the answer came to me. “There is a confluence of Force power here that is shaping the sand. I wonder how the Sand People know of its existence.”

“Perhaps someone told them,” Shyrack posited with a small shrug.

It was possible, wasn’t it? There were several myths of Jedi becoming friends to the Sand People, if I remembered my expanded universe correctly. In any case, I crouched down and grabbed a handful of sand, throwing it into the opening and straining to listen for the soft sounds of sand against rock.

I wasn’t jumping down there without some indication of depth. I did hear the sand scattering over stone, so it must not be terribly deep. With that confirmation, I jumped down. The sudden jarring impact of the ground under my feet was a little painful, but once I was out of the blazing suns, my eyes adjusted to the darkness and I could follow the tunnel’s slightly downward path with my eyes.

“My Lord?” Shyrack called from above.

“I’ll go and meditate by the pool, Shyrack. You should wait in here, out of the sun.”

A moment later, she jumped down as well, staggering and almost losing her footing once she landed. She shook herself, straightened, and then offered me a reproving look. “I was more questioning how you plan to get out of here.”

I pursed my lips. Good point. “We’ll figure it out. I’ll be back...eventually. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

Shyrack shrugged. “Without the sun on me, I can wait however long it takes. Well...up to four days, given my water supply.”

I hesitated. “If I’m not back in an hour, maybe check and see if I’m still alive.”

“Are you expecting danger?”

I knew, in the game, that the player ended up fighting themselves. But that really didn’t make sense. If the Light Side apparition was aiming to persuade a Dark Sider to give up their alignment and pursue the Light, it should attempt to demonstrate why the Light Side was more beneficial holistically than the Dark Side. Resorting to a brute test of strength might show that the Light Side was stronger, but even if it did prevail in the end, it wouldn’t show that the Light Side was more palatable in general.

So, I didn’t think I’d have to fight my Light self. And I’d win that fight, of course, even if I did. “There shouldn’t be anything to fear,” I replied after a thoughtful nod. “But couldn’t hurt to check.”

“As you wish,” Shyrack nodded, removing her bags and moving to sit against the wall of the crevasse. “I will await your return.”

I followed the tunnel, obviously formed through some strange combination of water flow and the Force’s active influence, deeper into the ground. I was walking over the compacted sandstone for a few minutes before it suddenly widened into a massive cavern, with columns of red stone jutting out of a clear pool and acting as supports. There was a jagged crack in the ceiling, admitting long beams of gold light and illuminating a breathtaking vision of gently swirling waters and the wisps of rising steam that played on its surface.

I looked around, seeing no other signs of life, and approached the water’s edge. There wasn’t an obvious reason for it to have a current; there was no flowing water feeding into the pool. Its center was as dark as deep space, impenetrable, and potentially opening into a reservoir. The rest of the pool was shallow, barely up to mid-shin. With the evidence of the steam, I was amazed that it hadn’t evaporated entirely.

I reached the water’s edge and hesitated. Distantly, the sound of the wind above the cavern could be heard. It made its way through sand and stone and manifested in this atrium as a haunting sort of echo. I likened it to the sound of a very faint howl or a cry, tinged with sorrow. It made me wonder if this was why Izzeebowe had claimed that Tatooine itself cried out with the weight of sin.

I sat, cross-legged, at the edge of the pool and called upon the Force. My eyes drifted shut, and I found that the well of power within me was harder to reach for, but I pushed past that and found myself staring into a nexus, being pulled deeper and deeper until I wasn’t sure I could awaken myself. It wasn’t like that doomed meditation in hyperspace, where I had felt like I was drowning as the Force surged through my body in pulsing waves. No, this felt more like wandering through a misty forest and losing my sense of direction.

I did open my eyes, though, when I had settled in with the Force. And before me was myself. It’s a little confusing, so I’ll call the interloper Xan. She was standing on the water’s surface, slightly translucent, like a ghost. Naked.

I was rather a big fan of how I looked in this life, and being face to crotch with Xan only cemented my sense of pride in my own body. This other version of myself looked down at me, amused, and I slowly gathered my senses and stood up so that we could converse like reasonable individuals. I wasn’t sure I could have a real conversation if I was sitting there staring at Xan’s cock the whole time.

“Hello, me.” Xan spoke. It sounded like my voice in the way that a recording of oneself might sound.

“Hey,” I replied, fascinated by the expression on her face. My face. Whatever. “Is this where you try to convince me that I’m evil and that I should change my ways?”

My doppelgänger looked even more amused. “Do you want me to do that?”

I reached up and removed my mask, lowering my hood. This was a dream, anyway, so I didn’t really have to worry about the rebreathed, and the sun wasn’t on me, so the hood was unnecessary. “Not particularly. You could tell me the next step of my pilgrimage.”

“The Trials of the Desert, yes. Well, it can’t be done.”

I blinked. “Why not?”

“It just can’t.”

“Because of the Dark Side?” I guessed.

Xan shrugged. “Not in the way you assume. But yes, basically.”

“Explain.”

“What is the purpose of these Trials?” Xan asked.

I wrinkled my nose. “Well, the Sand Demon molts each morning and hibernates each night in a cycle of rebirth. The pilgrim is meant to bathe in its blood and then peacefully approach the Sand People. I imagine that there’s something to be learned there about peace and harmony, if you were analysing it from the lens of the Jedi.”

“There are no Jedi here. Only you.”

“It’s a Jedi pilgrimage,” I retorted, crossing arms over my chest. “You can’t argue that the Jedi don’t have any influence in the way that it is interpreted.”

“The pilgrimage is an exercise that the Jedi partake in to understand the Force. But you do not seek to understand the Force. Therefore, the pilgrimage is impossible for you,” Xan replied. “You responded to the question as if I had asked what the Trials mean to the Jedi. You had no choice but to answer this way because you have not gained any wisdom from it for yourself, and therefore the pilgrimage has no meaning to you. Go ahead and guess at the motivations of others, if you wish, but the next step of the pilgrimage is to apply what you have learned, and having learned nothing, there is nothing left for you to do.”

“That’s dumb. If you had asked what I had learned on the pilgrimage, I might have had an answer, but you didn’t ask that. You asked what the purpose of the Trial is, and I assumed you meant in a general sense and not specifically for me,” I replied. “I’ve learned things during the Trial.”

“Like what?”

I hesitated. Pursed my lips. Then I shrugged and tried to play it off. “I learned that my Blade Storm can pierce Force Ward...”

“You really tried to lie to yourself?” Xan interrupted me. “You do realize I am you?”

I raised an eye ridge. “But you aren’t. You’re some kind of Force apparition, and since I’m certainly not a ghost, we can’t be the same being.”

“Semantics, Xanot. I know everything that you know.”

“It’s possible to know everything that I know without necessarily being me,” was my response. “And you definitely know more about some things than I do, so we don’t have identical knowledge. Therefore, we would not be the same even if identity was nothing more than a sum total of experiential knowledge. Which it probably isn’t.”

“Hm,” Xan nodded. “Fair enough, then. It doesn’t really matter. There is nothing for you in the Trials of the Desert, and that’s the end of it.”

“I’m not satisfied with that,” I declared.

“Sad for you, then.”

I snorted. “You’re a bit of a bitch, aren’t you? I suppose that means I am as well. Or is that your contribution to that identity?”

“Who do you suppose that I am, if I am not you?”

“I’m not sure. Why don’t you enlighten me?”

“That would be no mean feat.”

“Rude,” I scoffed. “How about this, then? I’ll promise to learn something about the Force, and you’ll tell me where I have to go so that I can learn it.”

“Do you know why the Jedi assert that the Dark Side makes people incapable of serving the Force?” Xan asked, suddenly. “Like that Knight said this morning.”

I sighed. “Here we go...”

“It is because,” she ignored me, “they stop listening. Worse than that, they make themselves adversaries of the Force, doubting everything they divine about the Force’s intentions.”

“That’s because the Force is a sneaky bitch and is trying to eat us alive, literally all the time. If you remember that little episode from my memories, the one where I tried to find peace and ended up not breathing for a bit, you’d know that it isn’t very pleasant,” I sniped.

“Hm. Perhaps if you did not abuse the Force so, it would not be so vengeful?”

I rolled my eyes. “Perhaps if you weren’t such a massive cunt, you’d tell me where I have to go instead of lecturing me.”

“Insulting yourself, now?”

“That joke has been done to death, don’t you think?”

Xan laughed. It was an honest laugh, the kind that I only let loose when I was really amused. “Not yet. The point is that you can promise to learn of the Force, and I could accept your word in good faith, but if I sent you out into the Dune Sea on that premise, you would inevitably die. Because you do not trust the Force, thus it cannot guide you. I have no desire to see you die. Therefore, I refuse to have any part in that bargain.”

“I can listen to the Force if I have to,” I hedged.

“Can you? And would you stake your life on that assertion?”

I narrowed my eyes. “What’s the point of this, then? The Jedi undergo the Trials of the Desert as a bonding exercise with the Force? A trust fall kind of thing?”

“This isn’t about the Jedi.”

“Yes, it is. There are Jedi at the end of the pilgrimage. They happen to be Jedi that I have to talk to,” I said. “If the Force is supposed to guide me to a Jedi enclave, then it seems to be that the Trials are very much about the Jedi.”

“The Force doesn’t conceal the enclave, or guide pilgrims to its entrance,” the specter replied. “The Jedi followed the Force and learned from it, then built their enclave to contemplate its revelations. To reach them, you must retrace their steps, learn what they have learned. Then you would arrive at the same place that their original teacher arrived. But, as we’ve established, that is impossible for you to do.”

“You’ve asserted that, but we haven’t agreed upon it.”

“You don’t even trust the Force enough to heed my warnings, do you? And yet you claim to be capable of following its guidance through the perils of the deep desert?” Xan questioned, open skepticism on her face.

“Now you claim to be the Force itself?” I spread my hands out mockingly. “Well, now! That’s quite a grand assertion. If that’s true, then you could just tell me what it is that the Jedi learned from their pilgrimage. Save me the trouble.”

Xan facepalmed, dramatically. “You’re an idiot.”

“Insulting yourself, now?”

“We’ve established that I am more than you ever will be,” was the cutting reply. “You already know that not all wisdom can be taught. Most must actually be earned through sacrifice. Even if I could put the lesson into words, you wouldn’t understand it in any way that matters.”

“I could just follow the feel of the Jedi in the Force and find their enclave that way,” I said. “I don’t even need your advice.”

“Then why have you come here in the first place?”

I shrugged.

“You came because that was how the story goes, isn’t that it?” Xan drawled, inspecting her ghostly fingernails. “That’s a bit sad, isn’t it? Just following the beats of destiny all while claiming that destiny doesn’t exist. That’s got to end well for you, right? Surely nothing could go wrong with that plan.”

“It’s not destiny,” I replied sharply.

“Isn’t it?”

“No, it isn’t. Events haven’t gone the same way as the game. No Nar Shaddaa quest, for one thing. Balmorra was completely different. The other classes exist, and I did the Jedi Knight’s quest for him here on Tatooine.” I ticked off each item. “Obviously, it wasn’t fated to happen the same way as the game.”

“You’re here, anyway. You came all this way, hoping to get the next objective for your quest from the vision at the poolside,” Xan challenged. “Is it because you think if you try to stick to the rough outline of the plot, you’ll end up as Emperor’s Wrath? Alliance Commander? Seated on the Eternal Throne, perhaps?”

I shook my head. “What are you getting at?”

“Why are we here?”

“That’s what I’m wondering.”

“Clearly.”

I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “This is a waste of time. Wake me up.”

“No.”

“Really? We’re gonna do this the hard way?”

“If you think I will fight you, then you’re wrong. But you have not learned what you need to learn, so you will not awaken,” Xan replied. “There is no rush. Time does not move the same way, in dreams.”

“Haven’t you spent all this time telling me it’s impossible for me to learn what I need to learn?” I asked heatedly.

“If your goal is to reach the Jedi Enclave, yes. That should not be your goal. Why are we here, in this life?”

“Is this the part where you...”

“Yes, yes, we’re very funny,” Xan interrupted a repeat of my earlier quip. “Don’t you have an answer? We fell asleep in a subway car, in Chicago, and then here we were. In another person’s body. A Sith. On Korriban.”

“Yeah, I was there. I know what happened,” I scoffed.

“So, why are we here?” Xan repeated a third time.

“I’ve wondered about that. Your question implies the existence of some profound reason, but I think that it is possible we are here just to live and die in whatever way we find best. I’m not some kind of destined hero who will save the galaxy,” I replied.

“Fine. And what do we find to be ‘best’ if we accept that possibility as true?”

“Why ask me questions you already know the answer to?” I retorted. “If you know everything that I know, then you should also know what I will say in response to that.”

“I am not interested in what you know, Xanot. I am interested in what you don’t know.”

I looked around us, at the fog rising from the pool and the glistening drops that slid along the dark red rock of the cavern walls. Then I looked at Xan again, seeing an infinitely patient expression on my own visage that I figured was probably quite out of place. This whole conversation wasn’t going anywhere, was it? If I couldn’t get directions to the Jedi enclave in the desert from a vision here, then I simply had to track them down through other means.

Surely, the Jedi had electricity out there. They might have transmitters to contact their fellows. Those could be tracked.

But if the threat was that I would never awaken from my trance at the edge of this Seeing Pool, then perhaps I should take this conversation more seriously.

“What is best in life?” I asked rhetorically. “Well, it’s a topic many people have spoken of. Since you want me to put it in words, undoubtedly so that you can critique it to pieces, I’ll put it this way: I believe in doing what you can live with. Maybe find a cause worth fighting for, and some diversions worth living for, then do the best we can do.”

“Do you still believe in Justice, as you declared in your first audience with Darth Baras?”

I could hear the capital ‘J’ on that word from the way Xan emphasized it. The question made me freeze. It wasn’t really that long ago, practically speaking, that I had stood before Darth Baras and claimed faith in a greater good. I had claimed to know a law beyond the rule of strength, and he had laughed.

“I don’t know,” I replied quietly.

“Are you a good person?”

I scoffed, a bit of anger replacing my placid introspection. “By what standard? Compared to some other Sith, I’m a saint. But that’s not your point, is it? You’re going to assert that there exists a standard of Good and Evil, and that this standard is in the Force. Let me guess, the Light is Good and the Dark is Evil?”

“No,” Xan replied at once. “The Force is the Force. It is all the same. Light and Dark are descriptors used by sentients to describe devotional practices related to the Force, but in the end all are partakers of the same power.”

“What are you trying to say?” I asked plainly. “Let’s have it out, in proper words. No more riddles or leading questions.”

“There is a law above those of society and species, a law that some call Good. To disobey it is known as Evil. This is a fundamental truth of the Force, and is self-evident.”

“Bullshit,” I responded immediately. “If it was a self-evident truth, why do the Sith and many other Force traditions fail to recognize it?”

“Why, indeed? One answer is that the Sith often disobey laws which are much more obvious than the that which exists within the Force. Those who refuse to be fettered by anything, seeking freedom at any cost, have no reason to look for understanding of fundamental truths. Because they do not look, they will never see,” Xan intoned. “It is the same thing that prevents your pilgrimage from proceeding. You are blind, not because of any curse or enmity between yourself and the Force. You have simply closed your eyes. Whatever adversarial feelings you have experienced are of your own creation, Xanot. But you don’t have to be blind forever. At any time, you may ask and find answers.”

“I thought you weren’t going to call me evil and attempt to persuade me to change my allegiance,” I mused, frowning severely.

“I have no allegiance. I simply am. Whether Jedi, or Sith, or whatever else, it doesn’t matter to me. I only care that all who come seeking wisdom find what they require.”

“What is your wisdom, then? Abandon the Dark and seek the Light?”

“No more riddles, you said. So let it be. What is Good, and what is Evil? The answer lies in the Force, not in individual strength. Seek the truth. Open your eyes. How many various ways can I say it? The Force is not your foe. It is life,” Xan insisted.

“What guarantee do I have that the Force won’t end up hollowing me out, making me a shadow of my former self or driving me to madness?” I retorted. “I don’t want to repeat my mistakes. I barely survived the first.”

“Are you Sith or not? Don’t you believe in finding truth through conflict?”

“I thought you just said the Force wasn’t my foe?”

“Sometimes we fight with our friends,” was the smooth response. “Sometimes we do it because we love them.”

“And sometimes it’s because you’re being a bitch and your friend knows it.”

Xan smirked and shook her head. Her rueful expression was an odd one on my own features. “I have shared with you what you needed to know. Now, awaken.”

“Fine by me.”

I came back to myself with a gasp, sitting in exactly the same place that I had been when I began. The cavern was just as misty, just as bright. I picked myself up and meandered back the way I had come, mulling over the lengthy discussion in my thoughts. When I finally emerged from the tunnel and saw Shyrack leaning against the wall with her hood down, she blinked a few times in obvious surprise.

“Back already?” she wondered.

“How long was I gone?”

“Just a few minutes.”

I sighed. “Well, it was a waste of time. Come on, we’ll have to find the Jedi the old fashioned way.”

Without further explanation, I grabbed Shyrack in the Force and lifted her out of the hole we had found ourselves in. She yelped in surprise at first, but adapted pretty quickly to unassisted flight. She was gone for a moment, but returned to throw a rope down to me, which I used to haul myself out of the hole in the sands. Back into the heat, and the endlessly rolling dunes.

Chapter Text

Sleeping in what basically amounted to a shallow hole in the sand, covered by a tarp, was obviously not the most comfortable experience. When we could have taken a shuttle into orbit in less than an hour, it also struck me as somewhat masochistic, but I kept my peace about the situation since this was what Shyrack had planned from the start. I had slept in other unfavorable conditions before. The jungles of Dromund Kaas come to mind as an example.

I spent a long time staring at the stars, instead of sleeping. Wondering. I wasn’t really a philosopher, or anything of that kind, not in this life or the last. I knew that Darth Baras had initially suspected me of Jedi leanings, partly because I had spoken about the concept of justice in his office out of a kind of deeply ingrained contempt for the Sith Empire’s violent, domineering behavior. I had not made the connection between that suspicion of his and what I was now coming to understand about the Jedi’s teaching.

Good and evil, huh? I don’t know what I expected from the Seeing Pool, but that really wasn’t it. Not really. I mean, I expected it to be a moral challenge, since it had been presented as something like that in SWTOR no matter how ultimately insignificant the encounter turned out to be to the player character.

What had actually been discussed was a concept that seemed familiar, something from my old life that was recognizable in this one. Vaguely. I had no idea what these concepts actually entailed to the Force or the Jedi, so it was possible that they would end up completely alien, but the mere existence of some kind of abstract good and some kind of abstract evil was something that most of the people I had known in my past life had accepted as true without much argument or thought. Not many of those people could agree on any definition of good or evil, but the existence of such was not really that controversial.

It was true that I was only assuming that this was some kind of Jedi thing. The Force apparition at the Seeing Pool was a mystery, all things considered. Was it some kind of Force entity, like an aspect of the Force itself? Was it merely an echo of all the previous visitors coalescing into a recognizable form? Or was it a reflection of some small part of my own identity? Honestly, there was no way to tell for sure what it had been.

Beyond those questions, how could anyone reasonably confirm the assertions that my ghostly self had made? It was an unprovable claim. If some law does exist in the Force, then what are the consequences of violating it, and how can its precepts be known? If the spirit had claimed “if you kill a man, you will be cursed” then that could have been confirmed by killing a man and observing the result.

The spirit had not made such claims. They had only said, “the law exists.” Well, they had also mentioned something about how the Force wouldn’t be so eager to consume me if I wasn’t abusing it, but what qualified as “abuse” in this context?

It was certainly a puzzle. One that I wasn’t even sure was very relevant to things like survival and general happiness.

More pressing than the ethical discussion was the question of destiny, which my doppelganger Xan had thrown out and then moved past. Why was I here, I wondered? Not in this universe writ large, since answering that seems impossible, but specifically on Tatooine? Was I here because that was Darth Baras’ orders? Or was I here because I was playing along some vague outline of SWTOR’s Sith Warrior plot from a video game I had played in my past life?

If the latter, what was I hoping to achieve by sticking as close as possible to the game’s events? And if I did have some insight into the future as a result of having played SWTOR, then did that imply that these events were in some way destined to occur? Does it matter if they are?

Originally, the plot of the game was significant because it was an edge that allowed me to survive. It was still that, although the foreknowledge was somewhat less reliable now that I knew to expect deviations from the script. But was the end of that story a good one for me? It certainly led to a lot of death, destruction, and widespread misery throughout Empire and the Republic. And Zakuul, for that matter, depending on the choices of the protagonist. But I wasn’t sure there was much I could do about any of that, and I wasn’t sure I was willing to jeopardize myself to try.

I had already decided on what I wanted: power, respect, and love. Were my desires good or evil? I guess it isn’t so simple, and depends a lot on the means that I would use to reach those ends. I ended up falling asleep in the middle of my pondering.

Tatooine’s night cycle was short, as you might expect of a planet that has two suns. There are seasons, I’ve heard, when at least one sun is in the sky perpetually, leading to prolonged periods of daylight and extreme temperatures that Shyrack spoke of in the tone of someone speaking about the acts of gods. The aches from sleeping in the sand, and in armor, I could meditate away, but I had to wonder how Shyrack was faring after our adventures through the desert and the spat with the Sand Demon.

Fighting that beast had turned out to be a waste of time, even if it had allowed me to save Master Kiwiiks. She would probably have been saved regardless of my intervention, so that didn’t really inspire a lot of joy. I felt a little silly, having wasted time with the Sand Demon and then with the Seeing Pool.

We ate our rations as the first sun colored the sky a blood red. “What now?” Shyrack asked to break the silence.

I hadn’t been very talkative since my meditation at the Seeing Pool. It wasn’t very nice to my guide, but to be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to the next steps, and I knew that if Shyrack was anything like her game representation, she would abandon me when I shared my plans.

“The Dune Sea,” I replied simply. “The Jedi are out there, somewhere. I can sense them if I get close enough.”

“How close?”

“Oh...probably twenty kilometers if I focus?” I hazarded a guess. “With the pilgrimage being what it is, and the Seeing Pool located in this area, I figure the enclave can’t be located that far into the Dune Sea. I’ll conduct a kind of search pattern on the speeder and see what I find.”

“No one returns from the Dune Sea, if they are caught there during the day’s hottest hours. Even your hardsuit wouldn’t protect you from the temperature of the sands out there,” Shyrack warned. “You really only have four hours to search and then find shelter.”

“I can always call for a shuttle if I get lost.”

“Sandstorms play havoc with comms,” the woman observed. “They occur frequently in the Dune Sea. Sometimes twice a day.”

“You don’t have to come,” I gave her an out. “Your elder, Izzeebowe, talked like he’d made the trip in his day.”

“I don’t doubt it, but he knew where he was going. A trip across the Dune Sea is at least something that people do if they have no other choice. No one lingers there.”

“The Jedi do,” I replied.

“It must be wizardry,” said the native woman, shrugging as if it didn’t matter. “And you don’t know how they manage to survive in the Dune Sea.”

“I know. You aren’t saying anything I don’t know. I have no choice, really. I must find the Jedi,” I sighed, shaking my head. “If I don’t have much time, I had best be going.”

“I will go to Outpost Varath, in the southern Jundland Wastes. I will wait there for one week,” Shyrack decided, looking solemn. “If I don’t receive word from you, I will report your demise to Darth Baras.”

“Great, sounds like a plan,” I rolled my eyes a little, affixing my mask and rising from my sitting position in the sands. I stowed the remained of breakfast in my bags then mounted my speeder.

Had her warnings made me doubt my chances? A little. I figured that it would take more than an inhospitable desert to do me in, and the fact that there were Jedi literally living out there in some kind of monastery made me think that the dangers were a little exaggerated.

Even so, with her warning about the sandstorms in mind, I sent a message to the Interminable Night informing them of my plans and suggesting that they fly a search party if they lose contact with my comm for more than a half hour. I received a response indicating acknowledgement of that order, and with that I was able to fully devote myself to the search.

It took a half an hour to even reach the part of the desert that opened up into the Dune Sea proper. A winding spine of red-colored rock formed a natural barrier between the Jundland Wastes and the Dune Sea. I sensed Tusken Raiders prowling among the rocks, but they didn’t seem aggressive. Curious about the sound of my bike. A few of them took aim. I sensed the prick of danger from the way they tracked my movement through the ravine’s bottom. They didn’t shoot.

The opening into the Dune Sea was like a natural gatehouse. Colossal rock formations jutted upward, curving in a slight arch at the tops, but broken and bearing the signs of erosion. I rode my bike through the arch, down a bank, and then found myself in what was unmistakably the Dune Sea.

I had described the deserts of the Wastes, which were vast enough. There, at least, some rock formations broke up the monotony. The Dune Sea was quite literally what it described. As far as my eyes could see, there was nothing but shallow dunes. I saw curtains of sand being blows by fierce winds in the distance, moving slowly from my point of view. I knew, intellectually, that those storm fronts were traveling at something like eighty kilometers an hour or faster. They looked almost peaceful from this distance.

It was a wonder that I couldn’t simply see the Jedi enclave, if it was built on the surface. I felt like any structures would stick out like a sore thumb in this environment, and I couldn’t see any signs of manmade construction on the horizon.

I rode farther, stretching my senses out in the Force. Stretching farther...almost losing awareness of my physical body as I cast my mind out as far as I could manage. Sense with the Force wasn’t bound by location, not in the way that sight or sound might be. It was only restricted by distance because of my perspective, and because I wanted to be sure I could narrow my focus again once I found what I was looking for.

I turned, traveling in a gentle arc, but making sure that I didn’t end up going back the way I had come. I needed to wide my reach, which meant traveling in a zig-zag pattern.

I was just starting to wonder if that vague sensation at the edge of my awareness was the Jedi when the Force practically screamed at me. It was a warning, and I hastily pulled my focus back to my body and immediate surroundings, slamming the handbrakes on my speeder just as my eyes popped open to catch sight of a huge blast of Sith Lightning. There was a man dressed in black — black robes in the desert? Was he insane?! — standing directly in the path of my speeder. His own vehicle was idling off to the side; he must have maneuvered into my path and laid in wait. His attack hit the flared nose of my bike and exploded in a burst of white plasma.

The explosion, combined with the handbrakes, brought me to a sudden stop. Or, rather, it stopped the bike. I, on the other hand, was not so fortunate. My body flipped in an uncontrolled head-over-heels soaring arc, flying over the handlebars as the devastated bike lost altitude and bit the sand, subsequently exploding in a fiery ball. I desperately grasped at the Force, but was too late to do much more than shroud myself in a layered Force Barrier in the moments before I also hit the sand, still moving at speeds comparable to my speeder at full throttle.

Which is very fast, as it turns out.

It was fast enough that the way my vision burst into rainbow colors and my body went numb probably should have been very concerning. Distantly, I was aware that I was probably severely injured, if not mortally wounded. My body dredged a long rut in the sand before the world came to a sudden halt. It seemed dreadfully silent as I laid on my back, looking up at a white sky through the cracked lenses of my mask.

“I expected more,” I heard a voice, speaking as if through water. A shadow was cast over me, my assailant coming to stand over me. “The Master spent weeks training me for this moment. I reviewed footage of your combats again and again and again until I knew your style inside and out. I’m disappointed all that preparation amounted to nothing. Is this really all the vaunted Sith Warrior is capable of? Can you even pick yourself up?”

It was bullshit. Just the childlike taunts of some asshole. Clearly, he had set up an ambush and had intended for that ambush to succeed. Now he’s complaining that the ambush actually worked? Give me a break. I couldn’t quite get my mouth to cooperate in forming a retort, but I still glared at the blurry image of the man as best I could.

My fingers twitched, which was a far cry from actually reaching for a weapon. That was what I was trying to do, but it wasn’t looking like that was within my abilities at the moment.

I heard a lightsaber engage. “I was also warned not to get caught gloating.”

If I couldn’t reach for my lightsaber, then I’d have to use the Force. A twitch of my fingers was the only warning my attacker had before a vicious burst of power whipped towards his legs. My focus wasn’t all that it could be, so I wasn’t even sure that this attack qualified as a skill that had a name. Whatever it was, it was intended to crush, tear, and maim.

My would-be assassin leaped backwards with such speed and agility that for a moment, I wondered if he had teleported. Or maybe I was losing consciousness. In any case, I needed to get up.

My body was refusing to listen, but I could command the Force. With that in mind, I flooded myself with power similar to meditation, except this time I didn’t just let that power burn in my veins and deepen my alignment. I directed it, and like a marionette on strings, I pulled my body to a kneeling position.

Agony unlike anything I had ever experienced blazed to life. Maybe it was shock, I don’t know, but for some reason I only became aware of it now that I had started moving. I wavered as control of the Force was interrupted. There was no helping it. I could do nothing but reel from the pain in that moment. Then I asserted control again, pulling myself up as quickly as I could, until I was standing stiffly, unnaturally rigid, glaring at my assailant.

He was waiting, but didn’t seem to be in a hurry. He looked fascinated. I blinked twice, vision clearing slightly, and committed his features to memory. He was young, Human, pale skinned, with black hair. His eyes were red. Not like the usual Sith orange with flecks of gold, but deep red. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot, almost bruised. His face was a tapestry of darkened veins.

The only way I could tell he was young was the fact that he still had roundish, child-like fat on his cheeks and jaw. He was probably late teens.

My hand was shaking sightly as I moved it up and unfastened my mask. The shattered goggles were impeding my vision, and I had to spit blood from my mouth. The mask fell to the sand by my side, and I spat a worrying mouthful of blood onto the ground between us.

“Cute,” the assassin drawled.

I ignored his quip, reaching for my lightsaber. When it was lit, I was a little embarrassed to note that the tip was wavering unsteadily. Then I steeled myself and decided that it was pretty damn impressive I was even capable of holding a lightsaber in my current state.

My enemy kicked off the sand and seemed to blur towards me, his blade striking out in a masterful backhanded, whipping slash combined with a forward lunge. I staggered, barely managing to get my blade in the line of his attack, but my block was weak and easily battered away. He planted a foot, flashed his sword in a deliberate taunting feint that should have landed.

His lightsaber came within inches of my nose.

He laughed, casually circling, forcing me to exert agonizing muscles to turn. I growled, both humiliated and rapidly growing in fury. The pain and the rush of combat were driving the fog from my thoughts, replacing it with red hot rage.

“You can’t even hold your lightsaber steady,” the other Sith jeered. “Come on, at least try to strike me.”

I couldn’t match his speed in this state. I was already dead, to be perfectly honest. He had just shown that he could easily take my head if he pressed his attack.

I would make him regret not taking that chance. I started with another Force attack, and this time it was focused by anger into a very deliberate Force Crush. I noticed the odd way that the Force seemed to curl around us both in response, watched the man’s unnerving smile widen hungrily, and then felt the power I devoted to that attack bleed away.

Immediately suspicious, I attacked with something visible. Sith Lightning, the old reliable. The burst of sparkling purple plasma hit a Force Ward, then I watched as it siphoned visibly into the man’s flesh. Rather than burning him, it seemed to fill him up, make his eyes glow with brighter energy.

An assassin who feeds off Force power, then. Something like Kreia’s school of Sith, perhaps. Or like the advanced specialization I had been offered...

The assassin laughed, a sound tinged now with madness, and ambled towards me, brandishing his lightsaber in a lazy, confident twirl. He was done talking; it seemed. No more playing with his food.

If I couldn’t defeat him in the Force, which honestly was expected, then I had to best him physically. That was going to be difficult, considering the fact that I was only mobile due to telekinesis. Even so, my recent training with Darth Baras had shown me a few little tricks to get through the defenses of someone immune to direct Force attacks.

When the assassin made for another lunge, I whipped the sand in front of me up and into his face, directly through my lightsaber blade. The little beads of molten sand hit him across the eyes and nose, and his line of attack went from a deft lunge to an uncontrolled stagger. I clumsily slapped his blade to the side.

I cut weakly, leaving a trail of white in the air. Then I spun, wobbling a bit, as the assassin screamed his pain and fury to the sky, turning with unnatural precision and lunging again. He squeezed his burned and scratched eyes shut. I figured that he was using the Force to locate me now.

The Force must have also warned him of my Blade Storm, since the white blade cut right at his waist and dissipated harmlessly against his absorbing shield. His lightsaber came at me, high, and I couldn’t exactly manage a tight parry without full control of my arm. Instead, I was forced to commit to a full block, rolling into his momentum to shoulder-check him out of a follow-up.

We collided hard, my superior weight serving to throw him back. The pain that came with that impact made me white out, briefly, but I was saved by the fact that he had fallen to the sand. I slashed down mechanically, hoping to take his sword arm. Of course, since I was slow on the draw, he rolled away before that could happen, throwing Sith Lightning at me again as he surged to his feet a few paces away. It broke over my Force Fortress like water over a rock.

While he regained his feet, I trailed my lightsaber through the sand, creating more glass. The same trick wasn’t going to work twice, but I wasn’t planning to throw it at his face again. He was using the Force to see, so I was going to light up his world.

Before he was moving towards me once again, I had already begun the Force Whirlwind. It started with a few grains of sand. Then a spark of red lightning flickered over the ground, and the still, blazing heat of the Dune Sea was broken by a stirring breeze. My assailant hesitated.

“What is this?” he spat. “More sand tricks?”

I said nothing. There was nothing to say. As the last syllable of his incredulous question fell, the Force exploded from me in a howling, furious storm. The glass and the sand were instantly dragged into the cyclone, forming a cutting barrier around where I stood, swaying at the eye of the storm. I felt the Force blazing in my broken body, its fury matching my agony as I demanded its obedience. Then I shoved the whole cyclone forward.

For someone trying to sense the world in the Force, it must have been like a flashbang. The cyclone was pure Force power, vaguely directed, but it was growing in size and power as it moved.

I couldn’t just run. He might be incapable of finding me in this cyclone momentarily, but he would recover, and my trail would be easy to follow. I wasn’t going anywhere fast. That meant that he had to die. I heard his cry of fury, felt the Force explode as he tried to fight against the storm I had summoned. I staggered forward, through the biting sand and cutting glass. It parted before me, leaving nothing but shallow scratches.

My foe was not so fortunate. His robes were flayed, and beneath that, his flesh had been flayed open by the shards of flying glass picked up by the cyclone. His lightsaber was only making more glass out of the sand, and he had created something akin to a Force Barrier around himself to try to take the brunt of the damage, but it wasn’t a fully encompassing defense. He was swinging his weapon blindly, too, anticipating that I would take advantage of his blindness to attack him.

He was correct. Not that it would help him, even in my injured state.

His eyes were open, bleeding and raw. I wasn’t sure he could even see from them. He swung, his back turning towards me, and I shambled forward, a puppet on invisible strings. My blade flashed, cutting him down at the waist. His top half flopped onto the sand with a scream that shook the surrounding air, his face contorted in impotent rage, and I staggered back.

Even cut in two, he threw his lightsaber in a last-ditch effort, the swirling lethal blade somehow aimed directly at my chest. I cut my telekinesis, dropping my body onto the sand in a desperate attempt to dodge, and the weapon spun over me, above my head. Lightning exploded from the dying man next, his arms thrashing in the sand as his guts spilled out from his half-cauterized torso. The storm picked up the purple lightning and weaved it into blazing circles, shocks of heat connecting with my prone form and making me convulse. I didn’t really feel the pain; it was just another drop in an ocean.

I scrambled, every movement feeling an eternity of torture, clawing at the sand to put more distance between myself and the death throes of this Sith assassin. It was the longest ten seconds of my life thus far.

The storm howled, taking on a nature of its own, completely outside of my control. The direction of the winds changed. I felt the assassin’s death, finally, as a sweeping disturbance that spread outward in the Force like a cool balm. An echo of blessed relief, like a drink of cold water to a man dying of thirst.

It was the feeling of a wound, finally healed. Or at the very least, a painful lesion finally excised. Distantly, I sensed the attention of the Jedi being drawn to the disturbance, felt the heat of their Light blossoming as if a veil had been drawn back.

Well, they weren’t that far away; it seemed. I had been on the right track.

I wrapped my head in the scarf that dangled from my neck, having lost my mask. It did little to protect from the whipping sand, now that the storm wasn’t under my control. My eyes were shut, but I could feel that they had already been scratched up. They burned, and my cheeks were wet with involuntary tears. Not as bad as that poor fucker’s eyes after my little trick, but probably not great.

Nothing kolto couldn’t fix, I was sure. Hopefully.

The storm seemed to go on forever. I wasn’t sure if, at some point, the Force Whirlwind had become a natural sandstorm, or if it was just a side effect of my severe injuries. At some point, the winds finally stopped screaming, the sand stopped flying, and I laid half-buried, unable to dig myself out. The suns above were hazy, the sky was almost red with fire.

This was bad. I shoved at the sand with the Force a bit, uncovering one arm. Exposure to even more sunlight was palpable as a result...but so was contact with literally burning sand. A sad whimper eeked out of my lips, throbbing pain making it difficult to think and even more difficult to focus on using the Force.

Weakly, I raised my wrist to my mouth, pressing the button against my chin and speaking. “Indomitable, come in...”

Nothing. I pulled my wrist away from my mouth and glanced at the device, but I couldn’t see anything visibly wrong with it. I tried the button again, but it was inert. Perhaps the Sith Lightning I had been hit with in the storm had destroyed it. I laughed, coughing slightly, and spat blood to the side.

Shit.

I covered my face with the scarf and let my arm rest again. I’d just have to wait and see if I survived.

I sensed the arrival of the Jedi some time later, startling me out of my focus on labored breathing. And staying conscious. Those two things were becoming quite difficult, to be honest, and what the fuck was taking them so long? I was going to tell these two my opinion of their abysmal response time, but all that emerged from my throat was a croak.

“This one’s alive!” a woman called. “Is this the one Knight Tennres told us about?”

“Force, she needs to get out of this heat,” a man returned. “Dig her out. We’ll have to levitate her back to the enclave. Well, ask her later.”

“Can we manage that on speeders?” the woman worried, using a small trowel to unearth my body. The sand was too hot to move with her hands, I knew. I could feel the immense heat slowly baking my own skin through the armor I wore. Even being jostled that slight amount made me groan in protest as pain intensified, but I forgave them. As long as I got water out of the deal.

“No time like the present to find out, right?” the male Jedi quipped. “Lifting in three...two...”

I had the presence of mind to drop Force Fortress, allowing the Jedi to wrap me in invisible hands, lifting me out of the sand.

“Steady,” the woman warned as I wobbled in the air. “Call ahead. Let them know we have someone in critical condition.”

“They know,” the man replied calmly. “We are Jedi, Noma. Or did you forget?”

The answer to that was somewhat sullen silence.

I wish I could remember my short flying journey across the Dune Seas in more detail. The bits that I do remember are somewhat memorable. Like floating on a very fast cloud. I was determined not to lose consciousness, and I only somewhat managed that. Fading in and out of lucidity is no fun.

I didn’t even see what the enclave’s entrance looked like. One moment I was flying between two speeders, looking at the sky as it contorted with fiery heat. The next I was lying on a medical bed, naked, while two Jedi lathered my burned and lacerated skin with some kind of cool jelly. I hoped it was kolto of some kind. Now and then they would brush something cool and filled with water over my cracked lips, and I swallowed every drop I could get greedily.

They finished treating what I hoped were not incredibly severe burns and then fell into identical meditations. I felt the Force surging out from them and into my body, flowing through broken bones and bruised flesh. Loathe to allow them to do all the work, I also called upon the Force.

The way that the two Jedi winced when the Dark Side surged through my body was a little comical. It actually startled the younger one right out of his meditation, which earned him a silent admonition from his partner, or perhaps his master, who delivered the rebuke entirely through the Force. I observed it myself, but couldn’t parse the actual content of the message. Even so, Dark Regeneration did good work when it was actively aided.

The meditations ended later, when the last of my injuries had fully healed. I opened my eyes, blessedly no longer stinging, and saw that the Jedi also were beginning to breathe more quickly, eyes opening and postures stiffening up as sore muscles made themselves known.

They had been standing on either side of my bed for quite a long time. I couldn’t say how long exactly, probably more than a couple of hours.

I tried to talk, but again could only croak, then cough with surprising energy. It felt good to have muscles working properly again, even if they were working to make me wheeze and cough, choking on my own spit. The Jedi to my right grabbed the sponge again and started to bring it to my lips, but I intercepted his hand and took the source of water for myself, wringing it almost completely dry over my mouth. He bowed somewhat apologetically, glancing at his fellow. I just sighed as I felt the cool relief spreading through my chest, opening my eyes again and glancing between the two men.

I cleared my throat. “Thanks. That hurt quite a lot,” I remarked, slowly sitting up. I looked down at myself and saw that the stuff they’d been smearing me with was not kolto. For one thing, it was green. Kolto was either blue or clear. “What in the world is this stuff?”

“If we had known that you were capable of such a rejuvenating meditation, we would have assisted you in a trance earlier and saved the Moogoo gel for other burns.”

“Moogoo gel?” I repeated the nonsense word incredulously.

“It’s a cactus extract,” the older Jedi replied simply. “Very good for burns of all kinds. It has worked on every mammalian species we’ve tried it on, so we figured it would help for a Sith too. I suppose we’ll have to mark the test as inconclusive, in your case. The meditation healed the burns far too quickly to observe any positive effects from the gel.”

I blinked, slowly becoming a little indignant that they’d decided to do a trial run for their alien aloe vera on me. “This is some kind of experimental cactus goo?”

“The worst it can do is stink for a while, have no fear,” the Jedi replied smoothly. I groaned, tempted to flop back on the bed but restraining myself. “Well, unless you’re allergic.”

I gave him a glare that made him take a step away from the medical bed.

“You should drink more water,” the younger Jedi interjected, flustered and pushing a practical-looking canteen towards me. I accepted it gratefully, relenting in my glower. “Don’t talk too much, either. You were very nearly dead when Noma and Lann decided to ignore tradition and look for you.”

I blinked. “Tradition?”

“You are the Sith that was undertaking the Trials of the Desert. We confirmed as much with Knight Tennres during your healing trance,” the older Jedi observed. “Knight Tennres had informed us of your intent this morning. So, we hid the enclave in the Force when we received news that you had entered the Dune Sea.”

“Gee, thanks,” I grumbled, swallowing another mouthful of water before lowing the canteen to glare half-heartedly at the guy. His bearded, wrinkled face showed no signs of discomfort. In fact, he raised an eyebrow at me when he noticed my glower.

“It is the standard for the Trials. If the Force wished for you to come here, it would show you the way regardless of our efforts to hide, and besides that the whole point is for the pilgrim to retrace Yonlach’s steps,” he declared. “One way or another, you did arrive on our doorstep. How do you call yourself, Sith?”

I wrinkled my nose. Was he asking after my pronouns or looking for a name? Since I was naked, I figured that it wasn’t surprising they chose to ask for some clarification. I decided just to give the Jedi both, just in case. “I am Xanot, Sith Apprentice and warrior. I’ve been going by feminine forms of address lately. Where are my clothes?”

“We have robes for you, but you should wipe the Moogoo gel off or it will start to smell,” the younger Jedi declared, setting a pile of coarse towels at the foot of the bed. “We have sonic showers here, so you could also let it dry then have the sonic clean it off. We cut your armor off of you, since we didn’t want to aggravate your many broken bones. Lann reported that there was a corpse nearby when he found you, so there was some concern that you weren’t actually the pilgrim we were told to expect.”

“He was an assassin, sent for me from what he said while gloating,” I grunted, shaking my head. “He destroyed my speeder while I was riding it. Threw me hard. That’s what caused the impact damage. He assumed that would win him the fight, and it would have done if he hadn’t gotten overconfident.”

“The Force must favor you,” the elder remarked. “Anyone else would have died in an impact like that. Or shortly afterward from internal injury.”

I winced. “How bad was it, really?”

“A third of the bones in your body were broken or cracked. You were bleeding profusely from several internal ruptured organs. One of your lungs was also collapsed. Your upper heart was hardly beating due to fluid buildup, causing blood pressure fluctuations. That is why you were losing consciousness,” the Jedi healer explained. “We don’t have the means for surgery, and no one here has operated on Sith, or else we would have attempted it to repair your internal injuries before the healing trance. We settled for applying the burn salve to minimize scarring and then the trance. Neither of us expected the Dark Side to stitch your body back together.”

“It’s a talent,” I shrugged, looking down at myself. There were no new scars, so that was a positive. “I figured it was pretty bad. Hurt like hell during the fight.”

“You managed to fight the assassin in that condition?” the younger Jedi wondered quietly, awe in his voice. “How were you even capable of movement? Your spine was broken in three places.”

“I used the Force to control my limbs,” I answered, pursing my lips. “If my spine was broken, why did it hurt so bad?”

The healers glanced at each other. It was the elder who explained. “The Sith species are not paralyzed by spinal breaks. Your nervous system is somewhat more distributed through a series of interconnected nodes, and while there are many nerves in your spine, the signals from your brain can find other paths to your limbs over time, allowing your senses to adjust to that kind of injury if given the time. You might have been able to regain full motion naturally, perhaps with a replacement spine, although it doesn’t matter now that the Force has repaired your body.”

A replacement spine? Well, I supposed it was Star Wars medicine, which was extremely advanced in some areas and in others still somewhat comparable to Earth.

“Oh. Well, anyway. The assassin could have killed me, as I said, but he let his pride get in the way. I blinded him with sand first, then created the cyclone to confuse his Force senses. During the confusion, I cut him in half. Then the storm buried me, basically. I couldn’t focus enough to walk out of there on my own,” I explained the situation with a small shrug.

“We all sensed the storm,” the younger Jedi confirmed. “And something else too.”

“That was probably the assassin’s death,” I mused thoughtfully. The assassin, who had been a wound in the Force or something. Who had called me Sith Warrior as if it were a title.

Had that been someone from Earth as well? Maybe the Inquisitor? That didn’t seem to make sense; the assassin had spoken of a Master. The Inquisitor’s master was Darth Zash, but even her perversions were nothing like what I had just fought against, and besides that the assassin’s master was the one that had prepared him to kill me, which meant that it would be the master who had knowledge of the Sith Warrior, not the assassin.

The Inquisitor was sending assassins after me, then. By the sound of it, he was training them himself. Since the assassin had been a wound in the Force and could consume Force energy to hunt other Force-users, that probably meant the Inquisitor had picked one of those crazy class advancements I had been offered, and they were teaching others how to use the skills they had acquired.

But why?

“Several of our fellows have perished in recent days,” the Jedi remarked, interrupting my thoughts. “Perhaps this assassin is responsible for their deaths.”

“How do you know they are dead?” I asked, a bit sharply due to surprise.

“We felt their passing,” the younger explained. “But we never found bodies. Not that we looked for long. People die in the desert all the time, we thought it was simply a series of unfortunate events.”

I raised an eye ridge at his phrasing. “I thought the Jedi didn’t hold with luck or happenstance.”

“Is that why you have come? To learn about the Jedi?” the elder interceded, and I turned to look at him again.

That was as good a reason as any, right? “Sure. My master heard about the Jedi pilgrimage and this enclave, and he sent me to learn what your purpose is in the desert.”

“And is that all?”

I shrugged. “I’m not here to cause trouble, if that’s what you mean.”

“Yet you have brought trouble with you, it seems,” was the placid reply. I frowned.

“The assassin isn’t my fault. I had no idea he was even after me.”

The Jedi shrugged. “I am not assigning blame. I am only saying that what you intend and what actually happens are not always the same. But we welcome everyone who comes in peace, for as long as that peace lasts. We should allow you to dress, and then the council of this enclave wishes to speak with you.”

Oh, right. I was still naked. Something about the fact that neither Jedi had so much as offered a cursory glance at my sexual characteristics and the slime covering my entire body had allowed that fact to slip from prominence, but having it reassert itself caused me to fidget on the medical bed, turning to let my feet touch the ground and reaching for the towels.

Injuries in this life invariably led to me being covered in some kind of slime. Was that the Force’s idea of a cosmic joke or just standard medical practice in this galaxy? I imagined a first aid manual: If lacking nearby kolto, synthesize local plant life into sticky goo and apply liberally. I snorted at my own mental antics, industriously wiping myself clean, or as clean as I could be without a full shower.

The robes that the Jedi procured were Jedi robes, which wasn’t surprising. What was surprising was that they appeared to be made in the local style. In other words, it was woven from bleached bantha hair and then dyed to a light brown. Given the source of the cloth, it was actually surprisingly light and comfortable. The only underwear provided was something like a pair of boxers, which wasn’t surprising.

I had enough trouble finding underwear for myself on Dromund Kaas, so it would have been somewhat surprising if the Jedi Enclave just happened to have a bra in my size by some sort of freak coincidence.These Jedi robes didn’t come with a tunic to wear under, so I tied the robes shut and tried to ignore the fact that this left a bit of cleavage visible due to the way that the lapels of the robe folded over each other in a V.

It was actually a bit like wandering around in a bathrobe. A bath robe with multiple layers, perhaps.

The two Jedi healers were just outside the room where I had been tended to, discussing something in quiet voices. The enclave didn’t have doors; the rooms were separated by arches carved out of the sandstone, and some of these portals had a curtain for privacy. As far as lighting went, there was a string of lights along the perimeter of the rooms, and this cord trailed through the doorways into the next room at the center, giving the whole atmosphere a kind of impromptu feeling. It was like they had moved in and made the place livable out of spare parts.

“Ah, good,” the elder remarked as I approached, cutting off the discussion he’d been having. “Please, follow me.”

“Who wishes to see me?”

“The council of the enclave,” was the expected reply.

“Right, but who are they?”

“Knight Pollak, security lead. Master Rell, librarian. And of course Master Yonlach, the founder of the enclave,” listed the healer. “They await you in the main chamber. Our enclave is small, its members humble, so do forgive the lack of fanfare.”

“Trust me, I don’t mind,” I replied with a shrug.

The ‘main chamber’ as it were was actually just one of the largest sitting rooms in the complex, apparently. I wondered if we were underground, since I had yet to see a window, and normal structures on Tatooine benefited from having ventilation near the ceiling. The Jedi that had been mentioned were seated at various places in the room, as casual as anything, dressed in assorted robes or armor in the case of the Knight. I assumed the armored one was the knight, anyway.

They rose when I entered with the two healers.

“Jon and Maik, thank you,” one of the masters said, and with some unspoken signal, the healers bowed and left us alone. I straightened my posture a bit as the three considering gazes landed squarely on me. “Well, Sith. Here you are, in the enclave of Jedi Sages. At the end of your pilgrimage. Why have you come?”

Chapter Text

I had always intended to hide my interest in Jaesa Wilsaam from the Jedi. I figured it would probably be easier to get her contact information or some details about her training here from their computers rather than asking them directly. After seeing the general level of technology within the enclave, that plan seemed a little less feasible than before; it seemed at least possible that they didn’t have electronic records. But that couldn’t be entirely correct. Surely the rest of the Jedi Order had some way of contacting this remote enclave. Or did they travel to Anchorhead for regular reports?

I also had to get in touch with Shyrack and let her know I was alive somehow. I could ask to use their comm unit and check the call history while I was using it. If their bond was anything like how it had been described in the game, Jaesa probably talked to Master Yonlach. Of course, before any of that could happen, I had to answer the Jedi’s questions.

“Do you mind if I sit down?” I asked, gesturing at one of the couches situated around the sitting room.

“Are your injuries still bothering you? They were quite severe,” another of the three, not the oldest in attendance but not the armored one, asked with some concern. He was bald and had tough-looking, sun-kissed skin, but his brown eyes had a softness to them I found immediately endearing.

“No, I’m perfectly healed. Thanks for asking,” I answered, already moving to sit since I assumed permission was implied in that question. I hadn’t really asked for permission, but to indicate that I’d prefer to talk while we were all sitting down. “My name is Xanot, I’m a Sith Apprentice and warrior.”

“Well met, Xanot. I am Master Yonlach, a Sage among the Jedi,” said the eldest. Next, the kindly one bobbed his head and eased himself back to the seat that he had risen from when I had arrived.

“I am Master Rell, also a Sage. I am the librarian here, for whatever that’s worth. Our collection is small and quite specialized, so there isn’t much to manage.”

Finally, the armored Jedi spoke. He remained standing for a moment longer, gauging the feel of the room, before he sat somewhat stiffly. “I am Knight Master Pollak. The Sages here on Tatooine are under my protection.”

“Knight Master? That’s not a title I’m familiar with,” I admitted.

The Jedi all seemed surprised. “Isn’t it? The structure of the Order is not a secret,” Master Rell replied, somehow saying it in a way that only made me feel a little like an idiot.

“I haven’t met very many Jedi,” I replied shortly, covering for what I figured was just another example of my general ignorance. It was also true, which helped me appear genuine in the Force.

By now, I was used to gaps in my knowledge being exposed at inopportune moments.

“I imagine you have had little cause to learn about anything other than our martial abilities, in these tumultuous times,” Master Yonlach agreed with a sigh. “Our Orders have ever been enemies and rivals, and in more recent years it has certainly been worse than usual. That is why we were so surprised when Knight Tennres spoke of your peaceful intentions on Tatooine.”

“A Knight Master is simply a member of the Jedi Knights who has attained mastery,” Master Rell explained succinctly, with a glance at the elder. “To answer your implied question.”

I wrinkled my brow. “I thought that there were ranks of Jedi, from Initiate to Master, and that Knight was one of those ranks.”

“Well, among those who serve the Force as Jedi Knights, or sometimes as Shadows, that is roughly correct,” the librarian agreed. “The confusion lies in the differences between the Jedi disciplines, I believe. Jedi Knights and Jedi Sages do not have the same titles, and progress differently as they attain mastery over their respective competencies. Obviously, we seek different goals, so it would be foolish to judge a Jedi Knight by the standards of a Sage or vice versa.”

I nodded understandingly. “I see. Well, part of the reason I have come here is to learn whatever I can about the Jedi and this enclave in particular. My master is curious about what the Jedi have found so intriguing about the deserts of Tatooine, and he ordered me to determine if there is strength to be found in the teachings of this enclave.”

“It is arrogant of you to presume that anything the Jedi have found here is accessible to Sith or practical for you to utilize,” Knight Master Pollak declared with a scoff.

“I was told that the Jedi Sages welcome all who seek to learn,” I replied, meeting his suspicious gaze. “Would you rather I simply attacked your enclave to measure your strength?”

“Do you truly seek to learn? That is the problem, really, with most Sith. Not to paint with too broad a brush,” Master Rell interjected, before the knight could respond to my jibe. “We certainly would not do anything to impede your efforts, if they are sincere. It is entirely up to you to decide if you are capable of listening to the Force and discerning its wisdom. Generally, however, Sith declare that there is nothing of use to be found in Jedi teachings, often without full understanding of them. Or perhaps they are unable to trust what they do comprehend. Although it has been...a very long time since any Sith sought understanding rather than violence. This master of yours is an interesting one, if he sent you here to learn from the Jedi. Perhaps this is a sign that things can be different between our Orders than our modern context would imply.”

“I would not be so certain, Master Rell. She clearly indicated that she has come seeking strength, not wisdom,” the Knight Master cautioned.

“And how often are these things truly distinct from each other, Jedi? The Seeing Pool said much the same about the Sith and their relationship with the Force,” I gestured vaguely. “My vision there warned me that Sith make themselves adversaries of the Force, and therefore cannot trust what it reveals to them. I’m willing to try to understand things from a different perspective. But, I will freely admit that I am rather wary of the Force. It has tried to consume me in the past.”

“Is that so?” Master Yonlach wondered, seeming surprised. “And yet we observed that the Force reconstructed your body from near fatal injury in less than a single day, without the aid of surgery or kolto treatment.”

“Thanks to the efforts of your healers,” I demurred. “Their assistance with my healing trance greatly accelerated the process, I think. It has taken longer for me to recover from similarly severe wounds.”

“I’m sorry to hear that such injuries are not uncommon for you. Even so, that kind of healing trance is beyond anything that has been observed among the Jedi for centuries. Perhaps some of the ancient masters could have done the same, but there are no surviving holocrons or texts which could instruct us, especially after the Purge and Reconstruction,” Master Rell declared. “It is also the first time I beleive the Dark Side has demonstrated any healing capability in recent times. How did you accomplish it?”

“The Dark Side sustains my body, even through would be lethal wounds. It’s a talent I’ve always had,” I replied, fudging the truth only slightly.

“Temper your curiosity with wisdom, Master Rell,” Master Yonlach chided. “Clinging to life through unnatural means is not an act any Jedi should rightly contemplate.”

“Hm,” the other Master seemed to shrug. “It was just academic curiosity, my fellow. When was the last time a Sith was willing to speak of their techniques to any Jedi Sage? Not to mention the fact that her feat of regeneration is something never before seen, except perhaps from the Sith Alchemy of old.”

“Regardless of these acadmic curiosities, you have brought assassins to our peaceful enclave, and several of the Sages here have already been killed by these antagonists,” Pollack declared. “I’m of the opinion that you should be given the supplies you need to cross the Dune Sea and then sent on your way. We don’t need any trouble here. This is a peaceful retreat, a place intended for serenity and the pursuit of knowledge.”

“I did not know of the assassin’s presence on Tatooine. Or assassins, as it happens,” I replied. “There are more than the one who nearly killed me?”

“We fought a different man three days ago. He escaped us after slaying a Sage and wounding a Knight,” Pollack remarked, crossing his arms over his breastplate.

“Did you recover anything useful from the body of the one that I killed?”

“No, we did not recover the corpse. I was not sure if his comrade would attempt to dispose of the body, and did not want to risk that my knights might encounter the other assassin while two of our number were bringing you to the healers.”

I shook my head, disappointed. “I’d like to understand what the Jedi are doing here on Tatooine. I would be willing to undergo whatever normal lessons you offer to newcomers, and in return I will assist your Knights in tracking down the assassin who killed your fellows.”

“You have much to learn about our ways,” Master Yonlach remarked with a small shake of his head. “A Jedi does not seek vengeance.”

“No,” Knight Master Pollack agreed. “But it would secure the location of this enclave if we dealt with the second assassin.”

“‘Dealt with’ is such an innocuous euphemism for killing, is it not?” Master Rell wondered idly.

“You don’t need to bloody your hands; allow me to handle this assassin,” I urged them.

“That is what we were initially discussing. If you depart from the enclave, doubtlessly this assassin would follow you, and leave us in peace. Situation dealt with, and without bloodshed,” Master Yonlach replied. “Sending one killer after another is not a nonviolent act.”

“Are you committed to nonviolence?” I wondered in surprise. “No doubt the assassin would attempt to kill me if I left. Would you remain innocent if I was slain after being turned away?”

“The vast majority of Jedi Sages walk a path of peace, Sith,” Master Rell explained. “We do not even construct lightsabers, neither do we practice the martial forms. To address your question, if you depart from us and end up fighting your foe, perhaps even dying, we may still rest with a clean conscience because we do not have authority over the combatants, nor are we reasonably positioned to intervene in your conflict. However, if we requested your aid in dealing with the threat to our enclave, we would place ourselves in such a position of responsibility, and therefore could not avoid the ethical ramifications of the resulting violence and death.”

I sighed, somewhat exasperated with what I considered mental gymnastics. “Given your peaceful nature, Sages, perhaps I should ask your head of security what he plans to do regarding the assassin, since he is the only one among you qualified to make such decisions?”

“While I have no reservations about putting a violent end to the threat this assassin represents, sending one Sith to track another was not part of my plans,” Pollack replied dryly, his arms folded over his broad chest. The man’s taciturn features were turned down in a severe expression. “Neither is working alongside an unpredictable factor. You were nearly killed by these assassins once, and if I sent any of my Knights with you, there is no guarantee that you would be a worthy ally in the resulting combat.”

“That whelp earlier today only injured me because I was looking for you, Jedi, and I wasn’t paying close enough attention to my immediate surroundings to react to his ambush,” I retorted, sitting up a bit straighter at his jab. I’d take a lot of sass, but accusing me of incompetency got under my skin like nothing else. “Even with half my bones broken, I still killed him. Hale and expecting a fight? These assassins are obviously no match for me.”

“Yes, the killing prowess of the Sith is never in question.” Master Yonlach waved his hand as if this displeased him. I figured it probably did. “After all, we have laid three of our fellows to rest in the desert. That is proof enough that the Sith are able killers, and a more mature Sith is typically a more dangerous one. Even so, Knight Master Pollack is right to be wary of entrusting you with the safety of any Jedi, whether it be a single Knight or this entire enclave.”

I furrowed my brow. “I’m not understanding your concerns. I would suggest that you send me to face this assassin and observe the battle from safety; surely there can be no risk to your Jedi in that? If I die, however unlikely I assure you that possibility is, then the assassin will inevitably be weakened and you can easily capture him and do whatever you want to do with him. My advice would be to kill him, although I have heard that Jedi don’t execute prisoners. Jedi in the past have severed threatening individuals from the Force as an alternative to death, but these abominations do not rely upon the Force within themselves and therefore cannot be permanently cut off from it.”

“You are familiar with the nature of these assassins?” Master Rell wondered intently, leaning forward. “We have all sensed the terrible disturbance that their presence has caused on Tatooine. It has occupied the meditations of many.”

“All I really know is that they connect to the Force through other life-forms, and grow stronger in proximity to greater amounts of Force power, similar in some ways to the tarentatek,” I answered with a small shrug. “These assassins absorb and consume life, usually by killing others, and they grow stronger for a time through this primal act. I am told that it is a hunger which can never be sated, and ultimately hunger is all that remains of the Sith who dabble in these things. Darth Nihilus, of the Sith Triumvirate, was the most powerful practitioner of these techniques. In the end, he was incapable of comprehensible speech, and I believe he was but moments away from creating a catastrophic cascade that would have consumed all life in this galaxy when Meetra Surik, the Jedi Exile, slew him.”

The Jedi all recoiled visibly when I spoke the name of that masked Sith. “Meetra Surik reconstructed our Order centuries ago, from the scattered disciples and orphaned children of the Jedi that were hunted to near extinction by the Sith Triumvirate. She never once spoke of her battle against Darth Nihilus wither her disciples, other than to warn the next generations of Jedi about the evil that he represented. While she lived, she ensured that the focus of the Order was entirely on rebuilding, and from that dedication, the Jedi Order eventually organized into the Order of Knighthood, which aims to protect life, and the Council of Sages, which serves to advance understanding and preserve knowledge. The Jedi Shadows, however, were only created shortly after Meetra’s death. Their original mission was to eliminate every surviving student of Trayus Academy, looking to put an end to the abominations that we believed to originate from Malachor V and the Sith Triumvirate,” Master Rell eventually spoke, his voice somewhat brittle towards the end. “Now, however, you have come, followed by assassins utilizing these supposedly extinct techniques. You speak of Darth Nihilus’ final moments, despite the fact that there were no witnesses to his death apart from Meetra herself, and she did not leave any record for historians to preserve. Do the Sith still have knowledge of Trayus’ Academy’s abominable practices?”

I shrugged before offering a small, hopefully enticing smile. “My master spoke of the matter from a historical perspective, but I believe he gained his knowledge from the Jedi’s records. I, on the other hand, have somewhat varied interests when it comes to history, and I don’t think even the historical facts could be called common knowledge. It might just be legends, for all I know. What I do know is that the secrets to the techniques that were discovered by Trayus Academy were lost with Darth Traya’s death and the complete destruction of the planet. The presence of these assassins here seems to indicate that this isn’t as certain as I once thought. Perhaps, if we work together, we can discover more about this threat and the source of their knowledge.”

“None among us are Shadows, Sith, so we cannot be so easily tempted by the promise of defeating an ancient nemesis. My duty is to protect this enclave, not to hunt down abominations. Furthermore, working alongside a Sith to discover the aberrations of other Sith would only multiply the number of potential threats,” Knight Master Pollack waved his hand as if to ward off my attempt at cajoling cooperation from them. I huffed and crossed my arms over my chest. “Before you begin to argue that killing the assassin would safeguard the enclave, do keep in mind that there would still remain a Sith among us even if you did succeed in defeating him.”

“Drawing any comparison between myself and these Force-forsaken fools is insulting,” I replied in good humor. “I would even hesitate to call anyone who pursues that kind of thing a genuine Sith.”

“Truly?” Master Rell seemed delighted. “And why would you say that? Is it a difference of philosophy?”

“Master Rell...” Yonlach sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“This is relevant to the matter at hand, Yonlach!” Rell objected, looking affronted that anyone would even suggest that he was being led on a tangent. Master Yonlach didn’t even look up, just waving at me to answer Master Rell’s question. I stifled a laugh at the byplay and shrugged.

“The Sith as an Order holds self-determination as a virtue, and we consider anything that assumes control over our inner life other than ourselves to be anathema. Anyone who is entering a doomed compact with powers beyond their understanding and becoming a twisted perversion of life that hungers only to feed upon others is certainly not acting as a Sith should act,” I explained. “In simpler terms, these assassins and their master are becoming slaves. Placing chains upon themselves. The Sith Code, to the contrary, demands that we break our chains. Even worse, they are abusing the Force in such a way that the Force becomes an aspect of their enslavement, whereas the Sith believe and teach that the Force is intended to free us. For these reasons I would argue that these assassins are not Sith at all.”

The first to react to this was Knight Master Pollack, whose soft chuckles could not be mistaken for anything other than derision. “Pardon me, I don’t mean to offend,” he said, quickly composing himself. “Only, the vast number of examples I could offer from your histories would seem to show that the Sith are largely hypocrites, if what you claim about their Code is actually the truth.”

I shrugged. “There are a vast number of examples from Jedi histories that would embarrass you as well, but our worst examples define neither the Jedi nor the Sith.”

“Well said,” Master Yonlach agreed at once, with a quelling look at Knight Master Pollack. “Yet there is no governing body among the Sith that can conclusively settle arguments of doctrine. Is this not true?”

“Some would argue that the Emperor is the final arbiter, but my opinion is that it is conflict and victory which determines the truth. Whichever doctrine prevails in the end, that is the true doctrine of the Sith.”

“Fascinating. It would seem quite a simple proposition, and based in a tangential way upon the ways of nature,” Master Rell allowed with a smile. I sensed a ‘but’ coming, and was not disappointed. “But how and when are such conflicts of ideologies concluded? Could there be some remnant of an older ideology which is in fact the true Sith, while the larger part are pretenders? Or is it always the majority that determines the truth while the minority must prove themselves through victory?”

I paused, kneading the question in my mind for a moment. I mean, I wasn’t really the most knowledgeable about Sith histories. What were the great controversies of doctrine that had been settled in the past? Had there even been any examples? In other words, were the Sith of my time any different in philosophy from the Sith of five centuries ago? “I don’t know,” I admitted.

“Since we are lacking any real standard by which we can judge the truth of the claims made by the Sith, we can only accept the titles that members of your order take upon themselves. These assassins call themselves Sith, therefore we will know them as Sith,” Master Yonlach concluded. “I suppose, given your perspective, if these individuals are not Sith, then you must defeat them to demonstrate that your interpretation of the Code is the truth?”

“Only outlast them,” I replied hesitantly. “Take the Empire’s present-day racism issue, for example. The Empire is divided about the matter of Human-Sith supremacy; there are many who believe that Sith lineage determines potency in the Force, and there are many who believe that Near-Human species are superior in general to other species. Together these comprise what I consider to be a supremacist faction among the Sith. There are opponents to these views, such as Darth Malgus, who contend that any Empire in the Outer Rim cannot hope to survive if the nation ignores or belittles the strength and contributions of species that are not Near-Human. I believe that this matter will not be settled except through a kind of cultural conflict, which may even become a civil war, wherein some of the Sith Lords adopt a supremacist view and others adopt the species-agnostic view. The portions of the Empire that are weakened by their choice will eventually be killed, expelled, subjugated, or convinced of their error. When it is over, the Empire will either be even more supremacist than it is today or it will have adopted a kind of meritocratic view which does not consider an individual’s species apart from practical utility. Whichever it is will have proven its claim by the fact of its survival.”

“That is a grossly oversimplified view of dialectics,” Master Rell objected at once. “To start with, if the Republic observed such a civil war beginning in the Empire, it would undoubtedly throw its support behind the more egalitarian sect. For that reason, among others, the victor of the conflict would not be determined by the actual truth of their beliefs but instead by pure strength in logistical terms, which doesn’t demonstrate the veracity or falsity of the ideology they represent. And that doesn’t even get into the fact that these conflicts are not usually about only a single issue, so even if there is a conclusive victor, that victory cannot be attributed solely to any one aspect of their professed beliefs.”

“The fact that a non-supremacist view gains itself more allies could be seen as an inherent benefit of the ideology,” I replied. “If that truly was the deciding factor, how could anyone claim it is not a source of strength?”

“Master Rell, you are mistaking the goals of Sith discourse. You, and indeed any Jedi, would consider the goal of such things to be a pursuit of some proven, logical conclusion. The Sith do not see truth as Jedi do, however. The Sith seek after the truth only as a means to gain power, not as something which has intrinsic worth. Whatever doctrine it is that gives them power, that becomes their truth. I would venture to guess that the Sith in general do not recognize any other form of truth apart from real power, and that is why their Emperor is the de facto arbiter of doctrine among them, as our guest has herself already asserted despite her own reservations about the matter,” Master Yonlach cut across our dialogue. “It is therefore a waste of time to argue pure doctrine. Sith may change their tenets when the latest casualty reports come in, and then we will have to start over again from the beginning.”

“Do not lose sight of the grain of sand in your palm whilst considering the desert, Master Yonlach. We have here with us not the Sith writ large, but a singular woman who has already shown her dedication to the pursuit of knowledge through her unusual pilgrimage,” Master Rell returned smoothly. “It would be quite unwise to assume that she holds the same errors as many members of her Order without first engaging with her in discourse.”

“I am still here,” I interjected, amused that they were talking past me. “I also disagree with that summarization of the Sith understanding of truth. My master has spoken before of fundamental truth, in a way that I believe is meant to be understood as observable, self-evident fact.”

“Apologies,” Master Yonlach nodded to each of us. “My point, however, stands. Unless we have here with us a Sith who can agree that there may exist meaningful truth without power, I don’t see any reason to continue with this banter.”

“What do you say?” Master Rell offered the question to me with a conspiratorial grin. “Do you dare to believe in such a humble thing?”

“I believe that I might construe your phrasing to be somewhat biased,” I hedged, looking away as my thoughts raced.

On the one hand, it seemed obvious to me in a childlike manner that evil never prevails in the end. How could that be true if the definition of good was anything other than ‘those who are the victors?’ It seemed simple enough, the victors determine the good, so the truism ‘evil never prospers’ remains perpetually true, in hindsight.

On the other hand, it seemed obvious in a self-evident way that evil does sometimes prevail, and how could that be true if the definition of good was determined by the victor? That would make evil good, and good evil, but only after the fact. And Master Rell’s question ‘when does the conflict end?’ aims directly at a critical weakness. It throws into disarray the whole problem. If evil and good could not be determined without a conclusive victor, or a survivor in other words, then it becomes something transient and unknowable in practical terms. Which, based on the attitudes of my peers in the Empire, it seemed was already true. How often is ‘the good’ spoken of in the Empire? What of justice? Or of fairness?

I’ll tell you, not very often at all.

But if the truth exists without power, then what good is it to anyone? What would I gain by saying ‘what you represent is evil’ as I am killed by my enemies for losing?

“Masters, we have wandered far afield. The primary concern here is that there are hostile Sith who know of this enclave, and the safety of its residents is threatened,” Knight Master Pollack spoke into the silence that had fallen as I settled deeply into thought.

“We have all the time in the world,” Master Rell replied. “The Sith assassin isn’t going anywhere while his target sits here with us. And I daresay he would be a great idiot to challenge her directly, let alone in the presence of so many Jedi who would aid her.”

I decided there was no point in wringing my hands about the matter in silence. Ignoring Master Pollack’s attempt to steer the conversation, I asked, “What use is the truth if it is without power?”

“First, why must the truth be of use?” Master Rell returned.

“How could it otherwise be any good to anyone?”

“Ah, then what is good must always be useful? That is not self-evident; it is merely an expression of your beliefs,” Master Yonlach joined in.

“If this truth does not result in measurable good for people, then why do you believe in it? How could it be a standard for goodness as an abstract if it isn’t demonstrably good in concrete terms?”

“Why does a scientist study the most intricate vagaries of the natural world, even knowing that their field of study is most likely to be worthless?” Master Rell asked rhetorically.

I huffed, folding my hands in my lap and squaring my shoulders. “Then it doesn’t matter to you if evil is perpetrated all throughout the galaxy, as long as you know so-called ‘good’ in your peaceful enclaves?”

“Do not mistake me for a defeatist,” Master Rell cautioned. “I believe that there is no everlasting evil. Just as a storm comes and goes, leaving devastation in its wake, so too does evil rise and fall, but the good always remains. If you will pardon a Human-centric example: even under the reign of tyranny and unimaginable cruelty, a mother may still tenderly sing her lullaby. While evil may require its strong arm, the good only needs a tender heart to prevail in the end. What I believe in, young Sith, is undying hope. Thus, even though I am without a weapon, I can never be defeated.”

“And evil just goes away, like a passing storm? Sorry, I must have been imagining all the wars that have been fought to end tyranny, and all the blood that has been shed to safeguard peace, even within your vaunted Republic,” I couldn’t help but express my instinctual response to his assertion. It sounded pretty, but that seemed to me all that it was. A beautiful idea — a fantasy.

“Now you sound like my former student,” Master Yonlach laughed, shaking his head fondly. “She always hassled me over the same thing, you know. Oh, we would argue well into the small hours of the morning about it. She has a conviction, you see. A violent love rages in her for the truth. Her hope and mine are similar, but not the same; for her, the dream lives on while she actively works towards it, whereas for me it is my resting place and my destiny. I sense you are a woman defined by action, by realization. The way of the Sage would not be your way.”

“The Order of Knighthood, in contrast to the Council of Sages,” Master Knight Pollack declared, “was dedicated to protecting the hope we share with our more academic brethren. We are the blade of the Force, as one of our codes would say. I suppose I shouldn’t forget the third discipline among Jedi: the Order of Shadows is dedicated to actualizing the hope represented by the Light through the tangible defeat of evil.”

“I believe they like to call themselves watchmen, those who stand at the fore, identifying and warding away evil in whatever form it might take,” Master Rell chimed in. “The Jedi Watchmen and the Jedi Sentinels are the most numerous example of the Order of Shadows. Interestingly enough, Meetra Surik herself opposed the creation of the Order of Shadows, for she claimed that the pursuit of evildoers often required an intimacy of sorts with them, a kind of understanding that she feared would prove misleading to the Jedi.”

“Her exact teaching on the matter is: ‘Although in conflict a lesson is often taught and learned, it is at the very least often characterized by an adversarial relationship that casts the beliefs of the enemy in an unfavorable light. It is during prolonged study, often in seeking to understand one’s foes, that this adversarial feeling may transform and become a kind of admiration. Then the evil one strives against may cease to appear repugnant and, instead, may take on an honorable or tragically heroic appearance. This is when a soldier is at risk of demoralization, or of romanticizing warfare itself as opposed to the ideals that they set out initially to defend. To mitigate this risk, a Jedi may become a soldier for a time to defend all who are in need, but never should any Jedi devote themselves to everlasting conflict, especially not against any single foe or ideology,’” Master Yonlach quoted, nodding intently at the end of the long-winded teaching. “We would be wise if we remembered her warnings more often.”

“Her fear, even unto death, was that the Jedi Order she reconstructed would ultimately define itself only as the enemy of darkness, and that it would never properly characterize itself as the paragon of the Light that she envisioned a Jedi should be. It was because she believed that Revan, whom she dearly loved, once exemplified the enemy of darkness, and even he ultimately fell into terrible evil. Her fear was that us, her children, would follow Revan’s path,” Master Rell explained. “Her commitment to establishing the Order as something that existed uniquely, without the need for any contrast, was the drive that created the three disciplines, as her students each sought the truth of the Force in different ways. I do not believe, Master Yonlach, that she would be disappointed in any of the Jedi today, not even the Shadows, although I am sure she would worry over them constantly.”

I shrugged. I was less interested in history and more interested in this student that Yonlach had spoken of. I suspected it was Jaesa, based on nothing other than a gut feeling. “Did your passionate student go on to become a Knight, then?”

Master Yonlach, dare I say, actually pouted for a moment before composing himself. “No. I daresay our arguments would have been less heated if that had been her decision.”

Master Rell laughed. “You’re proud of your little Shadow, Yonlach, just admit it.”

“Silence, Rell.”

The warm librarian winked at me with laughter in his eyes. “The Jedi Shadows hold as a primary tenet of their discipline that the galaxy exists in a state of perpetual warfare, a contest of the Light against Dark, and they understand the nature of the Force and its hope through this lens of conflict, which many of my brother Sages find to be...upsetting.”

“Nearly heretical, you mean,” Yonlach corrected grumpily.

“The High Council has debated the matter endlessly for over two hundred years,” Knight Master Pollack declared in a long-suffering tone. “It is not an argument likely to be settled here by two old desert cacti in our little enclave, not today or even tomorrow. May I once again attempt to remind this council that there are Sith assassins threatening our collective well-being?”

“Our poor, beleaguered Knight protector,” Master Rell chided bemusedly, reaching out to pat Pollack’s knee. The knight slapped the questing hand before it could make contact, but Master Rell didn’t even bat an eye. “You are so patient with our long-winded deliberations.”

“I am shortly going to be entirely out of patience,” Knight Master Pollack announced. “At that time I will take unilateral action, so if you wish to have any input in this matter, speak now.”

“Patience, Knight Master,” Yonlach chimed in, though I detected a slight playfulness to his Force aura that didn’t come through his voice. Pollack rolled his eyes exaggeratedly.

“This has been enlightening,” Master Rell suddenly declared. “In fact, I have decided that I quite like Xanot despite her allegiances. So, she will be my student as long as she desires it.”

“Master Rell, no,” Pollack nearly whined.

“Master Rell, yes,” Rell retorted with a cheeky grin, bounding to his feet and stretching. “If you wish to request her aid in dealing with the assassin, I will perhaps allow my student a break from her studies to assist you. If you are polite in asking. For now, however, I believe this concludes our session?”

I raised a brow at this conclusive wording, but the Knight Master only groaned and also stood. “In that case, I have a report to make that will no doubt ruin someone’s otherwise tolerable day,” he grumbled, stomping out of the chambers.

I blinked, surprised at the sudden turn of events. “Am I missing something?”

“Only procedural minutiae,” Master Yonlach replied, seemingly unbothered by Master Rell’s declaration. “The Jedi Sages have the right to accept anyone who wishes to learn from us, regardless of former affiliations or even outstanding criminal charges. Once declared to be a student of any Jedi enclave, you exist under the jurisdiction of your Jedi Master until such a time as your tutelage is ended or you become a full Jedi Sage. Legally, this is only binding on Jedi property, but law enforcement really doesn’t tend to wait outside our doors for students who were formerly criminal. Not that this applies in your case, since Knight Master Pollack wasn’t considering arrest. Practically speaking, our resident Knights may have wanted to ship you back the way you came with a water canteen and a hearty wave goodbye. But since you are now a student of the enclave, they lack the jurisdiction to do so. The matter of your residency is solely up to Master Rell from this point on.”

“Ah.”

“You’ll be registered with our regional council as soon as Knight Master Pollack makes his report, and that report will then be included in a weekly report to the High Council on Tython,” Master Rell chimed in. “I’m sure this will cause many long and infuriating debates among them for months to come, all of which I will no doubt greatly enjoy observing via holo. Hopefully it’s discussed in the public sessions, anyway.”

“I am glad to be of service, I guess?” I hazarded, a bit amazed at the playful attitude of this Jedi. “Speaking of, I do have to let my crew know that I am alive after they no doubt lost my signal in the Dune Sea. Could I use your comm?”

“Of course, I’ll show you around while we’re at it,” Master Rell replied, with a smile.

Hmm. That was easy enough, I guess? I followed the librarian through the nearby doorway, having to duck past the threshold, and he immediately engaged me in a discussion of ancient history, involving which Jedi Masters I was familiar with and what teachings of theirs I knew. Admittedly, my relative ignorance was exposed shortly, but Master Rell didn’t seem disappointed. In fact, if anything, the opportunity to start from the basics seemed to invigorate the sun-kissed librarian.

Master Rell politely gave me some privacy with their comm unit so I could contact my crew. I considered this act of kindness as I immediately took advantage of it, checking the logs on the comm and scrolling through a variety of IDs. They were helpfully labeled, but I had to go back about a month before I found the comm ID I was looking for.

Padawan Wilsaam. She had made an hour-long call to the enclave, and the 256-bit identifier that marked her specific comm for public holonet communication was recorded in the log. I thought about just downloading their call history, but I didn’t have my armor or my comm. Instead, I simply memorized the string of characters, closing out of the call history and dialing in the Interminable Night.

“My Lord,” Captain Damatha’s face appeared on the very first ring. The holo flickered momentarily, then settled enough that I could see her relieved expression. “Thank the Force. We lost your comm signature hours ago and feared the worst.”

“I was ambushed, Captain, but I am difficult to kill,” I replied. “Inform Lieutenant Quinn and all our ground side assets that there are hostile Sith assassins on Tatooine. I defeated one of them before the Jedi brought me to their enclave. There is at least one more assassin on Tatooine, however, and they may target my subordinates to draw me out.”

“I will escalate our readiness level, Lord. Do you require medical aid?”

“No, the Jedi saw to my injuries already,” I replied. “I believe I will stay here with them for some time, investigating this enclave’s teachings for my master. Before I forget, I need you to record a particular string of letters and digits for me. Do you have a datapad handy?”

Captain Damatha nodded, gesturing to someone off camera. A moment later she nodded to me, and I rattled off the comm ID I had found, adding eight nonsense characters at the front and the end while omitting the hyphenation that was common for comm codes. I suspected the Jedi were listening in or recording this call, and I didn’t want to demonstrate blatantly that I had just snooped on a padawan’s contact info. Since I gave the wrong number of characters and no indications of spacing, anyone listening in wouldn’t immediately guess that the string of alphanumeric characters was actually a comm ID, not unless they knew I had just peeked at the call history and inferred the most likely scenario.

Which they might actually be able to do, but only if the comm unit was keeping a record of my keystrokes. I was willing to take a gamble there.

I was otherwise pretty proud of my quick thinking, to be honest. It was a little trick I’d picked up from my cryptography classes back in college. Obviously, if I was trying to secure the nature of the string from droids or other computers, I would have had to hash or otherwise encrypt the contents, but I don’t have a computer for a brain so that really wasn’t an option.

Also, Star Wars computers might be capable of decrypting hashed messages...I wasn’t actually sure what kind of information security was the norm in this galaxy.

Regardless, “Do you have it?”

“Yes,” Damatha replied, brow furrowed. “What is it?”

“Don’t worry about it, Captain, just don’t lose it,” I waved dismissively. “Do you have the coordinates of my signal?”

“I do.”

“Send Vette out here with a replacement comm,” I ordered before pausing. It was probably presumptuous to invite others to the enclave, and there was also the assassin to worry about. “Actually, strike that. Send her to meet Shyrack Breev at Outpost Varath. I don’t want anyone coming near the enclave while the assassin is still a threat. I will meet her there as soon as I can.”

“Understood. Do you know the name of the Sith commanding these assassins?”

“I don’t. They are not affiliated with Darth Silthar, so the local Imperial forces are not likely to be a threat,” I answered her unspoken question. “Before you go to relay those orders, do you have time to give me a status update on Lieutenant Quinn’s operation?”

“Of course, just give me a moment to find his latest report, My Lord.”

I waited patiently, and then listened attentively to the rather detailed report on the last several combat encounters that Lieutenant Quinn and his men had experienced, followed by a detailed inventory of confiscated contraband and a list of the bounties that could be claimed for the criminals which were captured or killed. It was a satisfactory sum of credits, all told, and we hadn’t even sold the contraband yet. My own men had only taken a single injury, a glancing blaster wound, which honestly I considered to be nearly optimal. Since firefights were involved I had almost expected to lose some soldiers.

Well, there were more combat missions in the near future for my men. I hoped they continued to enjoy resounding success. When Captain Damatha concluded the report, I ended the call and rejoined Master Rell, wondering what the next few days were going to look like.

Chapter Text

If the bedside clock was remotely accurate, I was awakened even before the suns had risen by Master Rell, who didn’t seem at all bothered about shaking me gently at the shoulder despite the fact that I could have probably snapped him like a toothpick purely on reflex.

“We’re going on a hike,” he announced to me. I blinked somewhat groggily, although full wakefulness generally came quickly for me.

“Is that wise?” I wondered, thinking of the assassin that lurked beyond the enclave’s walls.

“No doubt the knights would say it isn’t,” replied the man with a jovial grin. He was far too energetic for the early hour, in my opinion. I sighed as I pulled my bantha wool robes on under the privacy of a thin sheet. While nights on Tatooine were definitely more tolerable than the heat of the day, it was still too warm for me to enjoy sleeping with much by way of clothing. The cot I had been provided helpfully extended to accommodate my size, a fact Master Rell had attributed to a Wookiee colleague that they had hosted some time ago, and they had given me a thin linen sheet upon request, so I could sleep without the robes with some privacy.

Sleeping in my underwear in a shared dorm was nothing new to me, although in my past life my roommates had all been the same gender as me. Thankfully, Master Rell was probably the least sexual creature I had ever met. I don’t think he even so much as glanced respectfully at my assets...I wondered if that was a Jedi trait or if he was just a unique character.

“Then why are we doing it, against the advice of your security?” I continued, sliding my legs over the side of the cot and standing up fully now that I was clothed. I stretched and yawned mightily at the same time, feeling muscles flex and relax in a curious wave all down my back and sides. I loved the sensation of a good stretch. My mouth snapped shut with a sharp click of teeth, and I opened my eyes again to find the Jedi observing with bemused air.

“Well, there’s hardly any risk of harm with you close at hand, my very large student,” he replied.

I blinked. “You think?”

“Well, Pollack might argue that you are the risk,” Rell continued, moving to his wardrobe and removing a wide-brimmed hat and a kind of shoulder-mounted shade. It unfolded to provide a square of white fabric that was elevated above the man’s hat, obviously intended to block direct sunlight. I marveled at the simplicity and ingenuity of the device, even as I privately considered the Jedi to look somewhat ridiculous while wearing it. “But there’s nothing to be done about that, if we are going to make any progress as teacher and pupil, so I’ll just have to trust in your good intentions. You’ll refrain from killing me while we are out and about, I presume?”

I spluttered at his casual question. “Of course; I’d never betray someone’s hospitality like that!”

“Well, judging by the feel of you, I have considerable doubts about the actual threat this assassin might pose to us as long as you’re alert,” Master Rell finished. “Just don’t let him surprise you, and I’m sure we’ll be fine. I figure you won’t stay with us for long, so we don’t have all the time in the galaxy to spend discussing ancient history. There is no better teacher in some ways than the desert itself. So, off we go.”

I preened a little at the compliments. “Do I really seem that strong to you?”

“I would venture to guess that the reason Master Pollack is concerned about our arrangement has much less to do with the assassin, despite the fellows we have lost to his saber, and far more to do with you. We all sensed the power that swept through the enclave during your healing trance to start. We also sat in the same room, exposed to the full force of your considerable presence, which has not abated even during sleep, so we know you aren’t straining yourself in an attempt to intimidate. Given these facts, I think that if the knights of this enclave, collectively, could even defeat you in battle, it would be a very close contest. If I were a betting man, I wouldn’t put my money on them. Knight Master Pollack didn’t want to let on that he felt outmatched by you, and indeed he hasn’t outright said as much. However, he did request that Knight Tennres remain at the enclave for a few days, a request which the other knight declined due to some pressing concerns elsewhere. The only reason Pollack would have asked Tennres to stay, I feel, is that he would be more comfortable with more formidable Jedi near at hand.”

Left unspoken was the fact that Knight Tennres was not just ‘truly formidable’ but was in fact a remarkable Jedi in terms of strength, likely due to his status as the Jedi Knight, but I got the impression from the tone of Master Rell’s speech that the Jedi understood how much of an outlier Tennres was. He seemed to equate Knight Tennres alone with the rest of the security Pollack was working with, and while I didn’t know exactly how many knights were here at the enclave, it was still a curious impression.

“Oh. You don’t feel odd sharing his reservations with me?” I hummed.

“I see no reason to treat you as if you might go berserk at the first sign of weakness,” Rell responded lightly. “And since the enclave’s location is no doubt known to your starship in orbit, the real danger should you choose to destroy us is a bombardment. Pollack and his knights could not prevent that even if they had Revan reborn among us, which should be obvious to any tactician. Neither are there any Republic assets near enough to save us. There are far more advantageous ways for the Empire to reignite the Great War, so I have no fear.”

I shook my head with a soft laugh. “If it makes you feel any better, I am as wary of your knights as I imagine they are of me. My master advised me not to engage Jedi Knights in groups, especially if there are any Jedi Masters among them. Or ‘Knight Masters’ which I suppose is the proper title.”

If the Jedi was at all concerned about the fact that I had admitted to contemplating a violent course of action, he showed no visible sign of it. “Just don’t let your wariness provoke rash action,” Master Rell cautioned. “Now, are we ready to depart? Don’t you have a hat?”

“I don’t. Should we eat breakfast first?” I hedged, slipping my lightsaber into its designated pouch in my borrowed robes. As far as my personal equipment was concerned, most had been destroyed. The armor was a complete write off, and two of the haversacks on the bike as well. One rucksack was relatively undamaged, but its contents had been somewhat smashed by the crash. My personal pad had been destroyed, although I was sure its memory module was retrievable. The comm I had been using was shorted.

At least my lightsaber was intact. I really should get around to making the shoto-saber sidearm, just in case something like this happened in the future and my primary weapon was damaged.

“We’ll stop by the kitchen and take something light for the trail, but we will return before noon. I don’t want to be caught out in the full force of the suns,” Master Rell explained. “Forgive me. I managed to forget that most of your belongings were destroyed in the crash. I’ll find a hat for you somewhere...”

“It’s fine. Sith, the species, do well with heat. Just as long as we don’t get stranded in the direct sun for a long time, and we have some water around, I should be alright.”

The Human assessed me briefly, then shrugged. “As you wish. Come along, then.”

The kitchens, as it happened, were one of the larger parts of the enclave. There were several storerooms, which Master Rell pointed out, each set to a different internal temperature. I imagined the majority of their energy cost was in those refrigerated rooms. Three droid cooks were present in the actual kitchen, and there were partitions in place. The reasons for this was the diversity of species that the Jedi had to accommodate. Some species were violently allergic to certain ingredients, such that they couldn’t have their meals stored or prepared in proximity to those allergens.

The benefit to this diverse culinary menu was that they had some trail food fit for obligate carnivores. It was a handful of some kind of smoked meat sticks, which were peppery and quite delightful. I munched on them as we emerged from an obscured entrance into the Dune Sea.

The real heat of the planet smacked me in the face, outside of the limited air conditioning of the enclave itself, but it wasn’t intolerable. Yet.

“Where are we going?” I asked around a mouthful of jerky.

Master Rell’s walking pace was impressively quick. “There are some ravines overlooking the dunes not far from here.”

The Jedi seemed perfectly happy to hike in silence. In fact, the way that the Force was coalescing around us seemed to indicate a kind of moving meditation, and I was loath to interrupt him. Instead, I kept my senses sharp and looked for any sign of danger during our walk. I was so intently focused on searching out nearby threats that I almost missed it when Master Rell suddenly asked me a question.

We were cresting a dune, under the light of the bright stars and the slightest hint of sunrise at the horizon. “You’ve been a Sith apprentice for some time, I imagine, but I wonder how long exactly?” Master Rell asked.

I blinked at his assumption. Well, if it had been a month after the weeks spent on Dromund Kaas, then I was nearing my second month as Darth Baras’ pupil. “I’ve only been apprenticed for roughly two months now, by Coruscant’s calendar,” I replied with a slight shrug.

Master Rell was surprised enough that his pace hitched. He looked over his shoulder at me, slowing briefly, before his gait evened out again. “Ah, I only assumed based on your maturity. A Jedi Knight at your age and strength would be close to the end of their apprenticeship.”

I nodded. “I think it’s a difference in curriculum. Sith acolytes spend their entire adolescence without a master, and sometimes even into young adulthood. My peers in the Academy were all adults when I survived them and was chosen as an apprentice. The Jedi, by contrast begin their apprenticeship well before adulthood, is that right?”

“Well, it depends on individual circumstances, but usually that’s correct,” Master Rell agreed. “The Jedi Knights only accept adults as padawans, due to the fact that they enter combat situations regularly. However, there are preparatory academies that the Knights use so that their padawans are only really lacking in practical experience when they are ready for a master. For Jedi Sages, it is much different. We generally take padawans as soon as they reach the age where their species typically becomes capable of logical reasoning. For Humans that’s around seven years of age.”

“And what of the Shadows?” I wondered.

“They are a more insular discipline. They accept their students at any age,” Master Rell answered easily. “It depends on when the pupil is noticed by a Master of Shadows. Recently, many have been selected out of the Knights’ preparatory academies as they near graduation. That would normally cause some friction, but there are fewer able Jedi Knights to serve as masters these days than there have been before, and there are just as many eager students.”

I winced at the implication that many Jedi Knights had been recently killed. “I see.”

“At what time will you be promoted to Lord of the Sith?” Master Rell wondered. “Some histories share conflicting accounts of the process.”

“It depends on the master.”

“It is not so different from the Jedi in that respect,” Master Rell mused. I laughed, causing him to look at me questioningly.

I shrugged. “It is quite different, or so I imagine. Some Sith Lords never graduate their apprentices, choosing instead to utilize their skills as subordinates indefinitely or until the apprentice breaks free of his control, at which time the Dark Council often bestows the rank of Lord. Others insist their apprentices must defeat them to show their strength, which can be done in a straightforward duel or some other form of combat, like the kaggath. And then there are some masters who will personally bestow lordship on their pupils when they feel the student has grown sufficiently in knowledge and power.”

“Well, the emphasis of the judgement is clearly on a different aspect of character than any Jedi Master’s evaluation of their student. Which of these do you suppose your master is?” Rell wondered.

I eyed him for a moment. Was he fishing for a name? I mean, it wasn’t a secret that I, Xanot, was the apprentice of Darth Baras, so if the Jedi had done any kind of investigation, they would already know. And if Nomen Karr knew of Jaesa’s contact with the enclave, he also was probably aware of my presence here, and he could make the logical leap to assume I was here investigating his talented padawan. It didn’t seem there was any reason to be reticent about the name of my master.

I considered Baras’s teaching methods in light of Rell’s question and ended up shrugging. “I’m not sure what Darth Baras intends, to be honest. I was convinced early on that he never intended to teach me to be a Lord at all, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure I wanted the rank. He has shown that he has a different plan for me than I had assumed. At this point, I could only guess how he intends to handle my promotion, but I imagine he will name me Lord within the year. I would remain his subordinate, however, until he determines that I can learn nothing more from remaining in his service, at which time I believe that Sith Lords negotiate an alliance or part ways, sometimes violently.”

After all, the player got promoted after taking on Jaesa Wilsaam in the game. And the Baras from the MMO was much less invested in his student’s success than what I had observed from my master thus far, so it seemed to me that I could expect my master to at least consider the rank, especially once I made it clear I was looking for a student in earnest.

“What do you mean that you were unsure about wanting the rank?”

I sighed. It was a question I should have expected, after mentioning it, but I also wasn’t sure I wanted to get into it with a Jedi. Admitting that I had reservations about the Empire seemed like opening the door to a recruitment pitch, which I would have to decline, and that risked souring our relationship. I also didn’t want Master Rell assuming I was a wholehearted Imperial patriot, since that wasn’t true and might influence the kind of lessons he might share.

Eventually, as we crested another dune and I saw the ravines he had mentioned before jutting up out of the sand like a collection of jagged teeth, I spoke. “I have some reservations about the Empire. Mostly, I should specify, with the Lords of the Empire. I think that the Emperor, the Dark Council, and many other prominent Sith Lords are being dangerously unwise, not to mention cruel and hard to sympathize with. Because of that, I wasn’t excited about joining their ranks as a Lord.”

“How are they being unwise, in your opinion?”

I noticed he didn’t ask about the cruelty. I chuckled. “You aren’t going to ask what right I have to judge in the first place?”

“Every rational being has the right to their judgements,” Master Rell replied. “It is actualizing those judgements that not everyone may do. To say nothing for the validity of their judgements.”

Fuck it, I decided. I’ll just share my thoughts. Maybe he had some insight to share?

“Hm. Well, given the great importance of his role and the dominating influence he has over the Empire, I think that my emperor is being utterly irresponsible in remaining so far removed from his people and from the Sith Order. No one has spoken to him in many years, except presumably for his own Hand. he has not granted an audience even to his own Dark Council! As far as I know, there is not one member of that council who has stood in the Emperor’s presence. To me, it is clear that this can only lead to disunity and discontent.”

Once I started, emotions that I hadn’t realized were simmering within me came pouring out, and I grew increasingly animated as I spoke. “The Dark Council itself is an example of the harm. The Emperor’s absence leaves them as de facto rulers, but they lack the reputation of a decisive authority, and the obvious divisions among them have repeatedly resulted in violent confrontations that have cost the Empire thousands of our most talented military assets and billions of credits in military hardware, not to mention the intangible cost that is the confidence of our citizens, which is shaken with every report of infighting that reaches their ears. One reason for their difficulties in ruling is the pureblood dynasties, which I have learned refuse to take positions on that council but still control a huge proportion of the Empire’s strength, and another reason is that without the Emperor’s presence the Dark Council is incapable of resolving doctrinal controversies, such as the racial supremacist issue I mentioned yesterday, and so extremists among the Sith Order end up agitating and creating ungovernable power bases as opposed to becoming a part of the political hierarchy which answers to the Dark Council.”

I had to pause and breathe. Surprisingly, Master Rell was listening intently. “Apart from the practical difficulties in rule, there are real ideological problems which result from the Emperor’s neglect. The Emperor himself, and most of the Dark Council, along with the vast majority of non-dynastic Sith Lords in the Empire are all entirely invested in preserving their own power and have completely set aside the tenets of the Sith Code, which would mandate that they test themselves by raising up worthy successors. They are instead exploiting their pupils and then discarding them before they can truly fulfill their potential. Or, worse, they simply kill anyone who shows a talent that might eventually grow to rival their own power and refuse to take an actual apprentice, like the Emperor who hasn’t trained an apprentice for centuries. This results in pointlessly wasted lives and neglected raw talent, which dramatically weakens the future generations of Sith Lords and ultimately the Empire at large. Since very few of the Lords in the Empire are honestly willing to raise a student to be wiser and stronger than themselves, taking after the poor example of their emperor, we are seeing a dramatic downward trend in both quality of character and in real power.”

At this point, I was practically sneering with impotent anger, and I couldn’t stop myself from continuing, despite knowing that my words would likely cause me a great deal of trouble if the wrong sorts of people found out that I had ever spoken them aloud. Let alone in earshot of Jedi. “These issues, which are deeply rooted and many decades old, can only lead the Empire to complete collapse, and in the end the only ones who I can blame are the Lords and their absentee emperor, who are all unfortunately my colleagues in the Sith Order. The dynasties, to be fair, seem to be more stable and are more invested in perpetuating strong heirs — I suspect this is because they structure their power base around blood-relatives — but they have been incapable of inspiring the Emperor to take proper care of his responsibilities as ruler and they are also incapable of ousting him. Finally, the wars we are fighting with foreign powers and rebellious factions within the Empire are the only reason we have not already splintered into a quagmire of warring independent factions, and indeed the increasingly unstable nature of the Empire is one of the key factors that is driving us to constant warfare. We are using constant conflict to scare the people of the Empire into supporting a regime that doesn’t care about them aside from their economical utility, but this cannot last forever or even for long. I predict that the destruction of the Empire as it currently stands will occur within my lifetime, and therefore I wasn’t at all convinced that I wanted to become a Lord of a dying nation, especially when most of our problems find their root in our absent Emperor, who demands loyalty but repays it with neglect!”

Even more galling, the Emperor would later claim that he abandoned the Sith because he was disappointed in them, as if the behavior of the Sith Order wasn’t mostly his fault in the first place for being a complete failure of an emperor and for being a failure as the head of the Sith Order. Well, I suppose I shouldn’t judge the Emperor for things he said in a video game, since he might not also feel that way in reality, but judging from his continued absence, I could deduce he was still fucking around with the Eternal Empire in the Unknown Regions, making another pathetic dictatorship which ruled over a fickle, spoiled populace using a droid fleet that he didn’t even build himself, all while claiming that this strength could somehow be attributed to his own merits as a visionary, even as his own children resort to competing for his attention and ultimately end up murdering each other.

Ridiculous.

“You seem to at least understand the situation you find yourself in, Xanot, even though I obviously cannot say whether you would do a better job than any of the other Sith Lords, nor can I comment on the accuracy of your assertions. Are you more certain that you wish to become one of them, even despite all this?” Rell wondered.

“Well, a common saying from my birthplace was ‘be the change that you want to see in the world,’” I quipped. Then I sighed. That really wasn’t sufficient justification for essentially joining the cadre of bastards that were gleefully sucking the lifeblood out of the Empire and plunging the galaxy into total war. “Don’t forget that anyone with Force sensitivity in the Empire has little choice in the matter, if they care at all about survival. We aren’t exactly allowed to drop out of the academies. As a Force-user in the Empire, you either survive and become strong, or you die. Since I am here, my choice was obvious.”

“Well, I am not familiar enough with Imperial politics provide any insights, other than to say that I wish the Empire was not so callous about the lives of those who live under Imperial jurisdiction. I find it admirable that you would even consider the common people in your analysis. That would seem to be a rarity, based on the things I have observed, but my perspective is rather biased given that I have access typically to Republic reporting,” Master Rell decided, as we entered the shadow of the ravines. “Obviously, I also wish that Imperial policy did not lead so often to war. You realize someone as strong as yourself could just leave if you find the Empire so disheartening? Anyone strong enough to stop you would likely be too busy with other concerns to pursue you, apart from perhaps your own master.”

Ah, there it is. “I could. But if everyone who could change the Empire abandoned it instead, its destruction would come more swiftly and would be more terrible. The only reason we have survived as long as this is that we have just as many good people committed to the Empire’s continued existence as we have self-obsessed or incompetent fools,” I answered. “And while I’m sure you might consider it no great loss to the galaxy, if the Empire were to collapse, the many billions of lives that depend on Imperial infrastructure would no doubt suffer greatly. Depending on the Republic to swoop in and provide aid seems dubious in light of the long rivalry that has existed between our nations, and the many warlords and independent factions that would seize control are not going to be more humanitarian than the Empire that preceded them. In my estimation, things would likely worsen dramatically for Imperial citizens if the Empire was destroyed or if it simply dissolves.”

I said this as if I cared about the faceless, nameless Imperial citizen. Did I? I was appealing to the fact that the Jedi would care about their lives to argue that my defection wouldn’t help them in any way, but if Master Rell challenged me on that, if he argued that my loyalty to the Empire would do them no better, how would I respond?

“I would disagree with you there; I think that Republic organizations would at least attempt to provide assistance to former Imperial worlds, if only to prevent the rise of another unified Empire that might threaten the Republic sometime in the future. But, I suppose all of us born with power have a destiny we must fulfill, and if you feel your purpose is to rule in the Empire, then far be it from me to dissuade you. I wonder, however, just what kind of suffering those billions of lives must endure while the Empire labors on?” the Jedi wondered. I frowned, but he waved his hand as if to wave his previous remark aside. “Regardless, I didn’t bring you out into the desert to talk politics. As interesting as it is, I don’t have any competence in it and would be speaking from ignorance if we tried to go any deeper.”

I winced at that, since I wondered if I could actually claim to be competent in politics. Probably not. Well, I was happy enough to stop talking sedition since there was frankly no possible benefit to be found in it. I probably shouldn’t have even gotten started. I sighed ruefully, rubbing my face with one palm.

“Have we arrived at our destination, then?” I asked drolly. I cast my eyes around but only saw the usual dunes and canyons of the deserts at the edge of the Dune Sea, bordering the Jundland Wastes.

“Almost. We must climb up to the clifftops, first,” Master Rell gestured forward to the tall, mostly sheer rock faces.

“I’ve never climbed rock like that before,” I warned the Jedi. I also hadn’t been the best at dealing with great heights in my past life, and I wasn’t sure if that situation had changed.

He laughed. “No, there’s a path in the canyon to the tops. The Sand People walk these steps as part of a vision quest.”

“Oh, great. I don’t suppose they’ll leave us alone if we ask them nicely?”

“The Sand People do not bother the Jedi,” Master Rell replied mysteriously. “Come, we should reach the top before the first sun has risen, so that we have time to meditate.”

The ‘steps’, as he called them, were more like a series of footholds and handholds that vaguely followed a sloped incline, rather than the sheer rock face. Even so, we spent the entire journey with hands and feet both in contact with the rock, and by the time I hauled my sorry ass over the lip of the ravine and looked back the way we had come, my stomach sank with dread.

That was a really long drop.

I rolled onto my back, the sandy rock proving quite comfortable in its warmth. My muscles were pretty sore after the climb, but Master Rell didn’t even look like he’d broken much of a sweat.

“Come on, now,” he urged me, taking some steps to the center of what amounted to a small plateau.

“Let me get a drink, at least,” I grumbled, uncapping my canteen and gulping down a few mouthfuls of water.

“Are you a mighty warrior or a layabout?” Master Rell teased, and I grunted as I found my feet again, offering him an idle glare for his remark. Seriously, I’d only been laying there for like a minute tops. He sank into a cross-legged sitting position and gestured across from himself, so I joined him there, sitting close enough that our knees were nearly touching. “Excellent. Now, where should we start?”

I shrugged. “We discussed truth yesterday.”

“Indeed, but I think that we are unlikely to make much progress there unless we can establish common ground,” Master Rell explained. “For example, tell me whether the following statement is true or false: there are laws governing the natural world around us which can be proven by observation.”

I nodded. Easy enough. “True, obviously. Gravity, for example.”

“Good. Then, what of this: some of these laws apply to logical concepts rather than physical bodies.”

At this, I narrowed my eyes. “From a certain point of view, I suppose. Tautologies and contradictions exist which don’t apply to physical things, such as ‘there is no truth or there is some truth’, which is ironically always true. Well, that might not be the best example...”

“No, I understand what you mean. The basic principles of logic give rise to statements that have truth to them, even if they remain unrelated to an observable phenomenon,” Master Rell agreed.

“Perhaps logical thought is a mode of observation, in which case these things are still observable even if they are not material,” I pointed out.

“One could argue such a thing, but we need not do so,” Master Rell agreed with amusement. “The point of these questions is to get us closer to common ground as we enter into discussions regarding the Force. For example, is knowledge of the Force something that can be considered common among all Force-sensitives, or is it only something that is experienced in the inner mind, and therefore each individual’s knowledge is indemonstrable to others?”

I blinked at the increase in the complexity of his questioning. “Well, I could, for example, raise up these grains of sand,” I mused, doing so. Between us, some sand floated in an invisible grip. “And that experience is between us, since we both observe that the sand is being held up. Doesn’t this establish that the Force is knowable?”

“Suppose I argue that you have an obscured repulsor device in your robes,” Master Rell countered.

I rolled my eyes. “Suppose that I was naked when I conduct the demonstration, then.”

His eyes glinted with amusement as he continued, “What if I argued you were using strings of material that are invisible to hold up these grains of sand?”

“Why don’t you just ask me to prove that it is the Force and not something else?” I retorted, letting the sand drop.

“The point is to show that I don’t have knowledge of the Force,” Master Rell replied. “In that example, I mean. But, out of curiosity, could you prove such if I asked?”

I scratched my chin. That stumped me, to be honest. “I guess not...at least not off the top of my head. Don’t you believe the Force is knowable and not just a figment of the inner mind?”

“Of course.”

“Then, did you just make it harder on yourself by having me doubt the fact?” I exclaimed, throwing my hands up for a moment before resting them on my knees and pursing my lips. How would I show a skeptic that the Force was real, and that I could use it?

“This is why exercises in shared meditation are key to the experience of the Force,” Master Rell declared. “Indeed, it lays waste to a large variety of philosophical arguments that rely on the individuality of different minds. We are, of course, of different species, and we have different senses. We can speak different languages. Our brains operate on different principles and with different frequencies of calculation. From these facts, some might contend that the natural laws are different for you than they are for me, since what we call the natural law arises from our capacity to reason from what we naturally observe, and our perceptions are guaranteed to be entirely unique from each other.”

“I assume you are speaking now of ethical laws rather than physical laws. It would seem hard enough to establish that the natural laws of ethics exist even for a single species, let alone a galaxy full of thousands of diverse sapient minds,” I agreed. “But even though we may perceive the senses differently, laws such as thermodynamics remain observable and common across species.”

“Yes, but I aim to show that not only can mathematical principles hold true across species, but also that the Force is common across species. To do this, join me in a meditation, and we will observe the differences between our minds and how we experience the Force,” Master Rell invited, extending a hand. “For some students, it is easier to enter a joined meditation if there is skin contact.”

I took his hand hesitantly. It seemed somewhat cool to the touch, but that wasn’t all that surprising. Mostly everyone felt cool to the touch, since I had a higher body temperature. “I would have thought that Jedi and Sith have much different ways of meditating with the Force.”

“Obviously,” Master Rell replied.

“Then how are we supposed to share a meditation?”

He chuckled. “You may doubt that the Force which you interact with and the Force which guides me are the same, especially if you have felt threatened by the Force in the past. Ironically, there are many Jedi who might agree. I, however, contend that this is not the case. It will only take a moment to demonstrate.”

I nodded with a sigh through my nose. “Alright, then.”

“Now, don’t resist,” the Jedi warned, before the Force unraveled around him.

There wasn’t any other way to explain it, other than that. It was like watching a flower bloom, with petals peeling open and revealing an explosion of color and scent. Something like warmth tickled at the edge of my senses, and then I felt beckoned onward. Heeding his unspoken words, I didn’t resist, and from within myself I felt the Force swell in answer to the Jedi’s own power.

Where his presence could be described as warm and colorful, the storm that centered on me was cold and biting. Our natures clashed between us, with the Jedi’s power giving way at times and in other places piercing through my shadows. Master Rell did not seem surprised, or pained, or even wary as this comingling of powers took place. The Force within us came together, but it gradually calmed and settled. Finally, after an indeterminate time, I beheld a gradient of power from the light to the dark, in the small distance between us.

It felt oddly intimate, to be honest. It felt like we were both naked and admiring each other, and the sense of beauty that we each experienced filled the Force and created an atmosphere of awe.

It was much darker than light, although it wasn’t exactly in the visible spectrum, but still I sensed his warmth, in an intangible sense. Our minds, also, while there remained a distance between us, were open to observation, and I found that experience wholly unsettling and alien. Looking at the workings of a Human mind as an outside observer seemed to me almost impossible to contemplate, even if I could almost hear bits and pieces of his inner voice. His experiential knowledge was shot through with incomprehensible colors and other impossible things.

Master Rell allowed the meditation to last long enough for me to take in the mental scenery, and then he let his grasp slip. With a swirling rush of power, the Force he had let loose withdrew, and left me alone in my darkness. I shook my head, gasping at the sudden chill, and let my eyes open to anchor myself in the physical.

I hadn’t even realized that my eyes had fallen shut.

After a few breaths, my power laid dormant as well. “There, you see?” Master Rell said with a bright smile. “There is no Dark and Light, distinct from each other. There is the Dark Side and the Light Side, but it is all the Force. I thank you for sharing in this with me; I do believe I have found the thesis for my next paper.”

“The Sith often speak of the Dark Side and the Light Side as two aspects of a singular power,” I said thoughtfully. “I’m not sure what you were trying to show.”

“Jedi use the same verbiage. But this often is understood to be two entities, diametrically opposed, which, as we have just witnessed, is not the case,” Master Rell responded. “The great distance which exists between our orders has prevented practical experimentation, such as what we have just done. Keep this experience in mind. It will be something we will return to in the future. And if needed, we can meditate together in a similar way again.”

“Aren’t you afraid of the Dark Side?” I asked curiously.

“Afraid?” Master Rell wondered. “What would I have to fear?”

I shrugged. “Don’t the Jedi speak of the Dark Side as some kind of temptress that will lure your innocent souls to evil?”

Master Rell laughed delightedly. “No, Xanot. Although that is an interesting way to phrase it! Perhaps some of the Jedi Shadows might think of it that way, but an abundance of fear is one of the most common criticisms of the Jedi Shadows. To me, Xanot, the Dark Side is exactly what it sounds like. It is a state of being characterized by the Force’s shadows rather than its light. As with all kinds of shadows, it can be difficult to see clearly. While some adolescents are afraid of the dark, we are adults, so we know better. The darkness is not fearsome in itself, but what lurks within it may be.”

I nodded slowly. “The Dark Side can cause madness and incite violence. Aren’t those legitimate fears?”

“Well, of course. But those things result from a sapient’s decisions, they are not of the Dark Side itself. As a devotee of the Dark Side, I’m sure you realize it acts as an amplifier, which can easily throw a user’s priorities out of balance and eliminate inhibitions, but that does not make the Dark Side inherently murderous or essentially insane,” Master Rell replied. “Indeed, people are more terrifying than the Force, which does not know evil.”

I rolled my eyes. Based on his attitude with me, Master Rell wasn’t afraid of people either. “Okay, so we’ve established that the Force exists, although that doesn’t help me prove it to a skeptic. They wouldn’t share a meditation with me, and even if they did, they could attribute the experience to drugs or something.”

“Well, both of us are Force-users, so we don’t have to be concerned about proving the existence of the Force to a Force-blind individual. At least not today,” the Jedi responded. “Now that we’ve established that the Force exists and is common between us, and we have established that logical precepts exist which are common to all rational beings, and we are also in agreement that there are natural laws of the physical world which can known, we are ready to discuss the heart of the schism between the Jedi and the Sith. What is the Will of the Force, can it be truly known by anyone, and if it does exist, is it good for sapient beings to conform to it?”

I checked the suns, and saw that the first was halfway over its horizon, marking the passage of the second hour after dawn. Soon the second sun would also peek over the horizon, and temperatures would rise dramatically. “Shouldn’t we start walking back?”

“There is still time.”

I eyed him skeptically. It had taken us at least a half an hour of walking at a brisk pace to reach the ravine, and another fifteen minutes or so of clambering up the ‘steps.’ We probably couldn’t keep up that pace climbing down, and certainly not walking back in the heat as opposed to pre-dawn.

“Then where are we going to begin? There’s a lot to unpack in those questions,” I relented, pulling my ponytail over my shoulder and playing with it idly. It wasn’t a habit that I often indulged, but having my hair down without a helmet meant I had something to do with idle hands.

Master Rell bobbed his head, and the silence settled. The air on Tatooine was so still sometimes it felt unnatural. “What is the Will of the Force, in your own words?” he suddenly asked, in a quiet tone. A contemplative, inviting tone. I wondered if he expected an outburst from me.

“I don’t believe that anything which could properly be called the Will of the Force exists,” I answered. The words rang somewhat hollow, however. In the back of my mind, I was still thinking of the vision at the Seeing Pool.

There was also the fact of my arrival or reincarnation in this galaxy, which couldn’t really be explained away as a chaotic accident.

Master Rell did not seem bothered. “What would you say could properly be called the Will of the Force if it did exist?”

Well, I had walked right into this one. This was clearly a setup for his own definition, but he was angling to phrase his own words in a way that would somewhat agree with my own, either to make it more persuasive or more understandable. Or both. The problem he was about to encounter was that I honestly had no clue what I would describe as the Will of the Force, so there was only a small chance it agreed with his definition, even in part.

In the movies and the books, it was some kind of nebulous destiny. The proper sequence of events was the Will of the Force. In other words, it comprised plot-armor and all the various associated concepts which together amount to the invisible hand of the author guiding the plot of any story along a predetermined path. When a Jedi saw exactly the vision of the future he required, it was the Will of the Force. When a savior was born at the right time to deliver the galaxy from evil, it was the Will of the Force.

In that sense, it could truly be said that there is no such thing as a coincidence. Characters would also describe the Will of the Force, like Qui-Gon Jinn, but often as a kind of unspoken feeling about what the right decision or the next course of action ought to be. Again, it was following the invisible guiding hand of the plot.

Then, all I had to go on when it came to the Will of the Force was destiny. And destiny was something I didn’t want to believe in, to be honest.

“The Will of the Force should be synonymous with destiny,” I finally said. “If the future is something predetermined, then the Will of the Force is like the correct course of events moving into that future. But the future is always in motion, so there can be no Will of the Force.”

“A fascinating response,” Master Rell exclaimed, sliding his hands over his knees. “That is not how a Jedi would define the Will of the Force, however.”

“I figured as much,” I shrugged. “But I couldn’t think of anything else other than destiny that would be worth the devotion which the Jedi show. For that matter, it would seem that destiny would well support your own unshakable hope, since in knowing the Will of the Force you would know with certainty the ultimate end of events.”

“Destiny is a distinct concept from the Will of the Force, although they are, in some ways, related. You were correct in saying that the future is always in motion, yet I can still say that the Will of the Force does not change,” Master Rell asserted. “If the Will of the Force did change, then it would throw into disarray the whole of Jedi teaching and practice.”

“Then what is the Will of the Force, to the Jedi?”

“The Will of the Force is the law above all laws,” Master Rell replied at once. “Everything in existence is ordered according to it. All physical phenomena, all living creatures, all the moral laws, and all of time itself. Incidentally, that last bit is the relationship between the Will of the Force and destiny.”

I furrowed my brow. “You don’t mean a law as in a theory or a proscription,” I ventured. “How could physics and morality be ordered according to the same law? They obviously deal with different categories of knowledge.”

“That’s correct, and indeed the reason that the Jedi call it the Will of the Force is that it is more correctly an aspect of reality, or a fundamental cause of reality, rather than a list of precepts or equations. If we consider existence as having a purpose, rather than attempting to reason in the other direction as in contemplating the causes which give rise to existence, then the purpose by which all of existence is ordered is called the Will of the Force. It is the answer to ‘why am I here?’ and not ‘how am I here?’ if that helps make the distinction clearer,” Master Rell explained. “The essential nature of the proposition is that everything which does exist exists for a reason. The Jedi have found that this is true, and we have called those reasons ‘the Will of the Force’ because we also observe that the Force is the fundamental cause of existence, and therefore the source of the natural order itself. In other words, the Will of the Force is the natural order.”

Now that was tickling a vague memory in my mind. “If it is the ‘natural order’, then isn’t it somewhat hasty to assume that what we naturally observe is how existence should be? How did we conclude that the way things are is the way that they ought to be?”

“No, no,” Master Rell shook his head. “The distinction is that we reason about how things ought to be by observing the purpose for which those things exist, in the context of its relation to the Force. This can be done sometimes by observing the present state of affairs, but as you say, there are often other actors at play which mean that the reality we actually experience is not how things ought to be.”

I nodded slowly, still toying with my hair, but now more feverishly as my thoughts began to race. “The three questions you mentioned, starting with ‘what is the Will of the Force?’ I think it would be most helpful to accept your definition, and we can proceed to the second question, ‘can it truly be known by anyone?’ It seems to me that if this ordered nature of existence is actually the way things are, it would be open to interpretation and not something that could ever be conclusively known. As you said, the things that we observe are not always what you would call the Will of the Force.”

Master Rell bobbed his head, and I noticed a bead of sweat roll down his cheek. “That is why I brought you into the desert, in fact. The best way to explain this concept, I have found, is to experience it, and there are very few places in the galaxy that are as unforgiving in this matter as Tatooine. You were correct in observing that we are in a spot of trouble, after all. Our return to the enclave would be practically impossible if we were not in tune with the Force. Neither of us are wearing hardsuits, and we only have two small canteens of water. You’d be surprised at how quickly you lose water during the day on Tatooine.”

“I’m assuming we have some means of survival, or else you would not appear so comfortable describing your predicament,” I mused.

“My predicament? Aren’t you sitting here with me?” the Jedi wondered with a soft laugh.

I was about to say that I could simply call for a shuttle from my crew, but then I realized that my comm wasn’t working, and for that matter wasn’t even on my person. I’d left most of the damaged equipment in a footlocker at the enclave. I sighed, folding my arms over my breasts and glaring instead of offering a response.

“Well, you are correct. The key, which I imagine the Seeing Pool spoke of, is in discerning the purpose of the desert. Through understanding, we can work with and not against the desert, ultimately granting us the abilities we require to withstand the heat. It’s a form of meditation,” Master Rell explained. “I mastered the technique on my pilgrimage years ago, but do not worry. I will not let you die, even if you struggle.”

“Then I am looking to discover a Force technique that will allow me to make the journey back to the enclave?”

“Yes,” Master Rell replied. “Since you did not learn this in the Trials of the Desert, I felt that this imitation of that trial should do. If you manage it, it will also demonstrate the ordered nature of existence, as you put it.”

I sighed, already feeling stifled by the heat. Or maybe it was a bit of mulish anger. I wasn’t really sure, to be honest, but I can conclusively say that this turn of events did not make me very happy. “Fine. I did promise to try seeing things from a different perspective. What must I do?”

“First, let us contemplate the Force and the desert...”

Chapter Text

[Status gained: Dehydration (Minor)]

If you’ve ever tried to look at something that was hidden from one eye but not the other, in that perfect spot which make details impossible to discern, then you’ve got a pretty good idea of what it’s like to divine the Will of the Force for an entire ecosystem. The Force exists in all things, that much I had always known even from Qui-Gon Jinn’s short explanation in the Phantom Menace, but it wasn’t until Master Rell guided me to contemplate the sand between us, the rocks beneath us, and air around us that I realized exactly what that omnipresence actually meant.

And just like suddenly becoming aware of breathing or the feel of my own tongue in my mouth, I couldn’t consciously dismiss my awareness of the Force now that I had been turned on to it. It’s impossible to describe it accurately. It was almost as if the world itself was alive, as if the air and the rock and the sand were all members of a body, like fingers and hands. But that’s not quite right, because obviously a rock is a rock. This beginning part was easy enough to take note of, and Master Rell’s observing presence seemed distinctly approving as I centered my attention first on the sand, and then let it filter out through the rock and the air and the little lizard that was cowering in a nearby hole, away from the sun.

I sensed the mites that crawled in the dust and the scorpions that lurking under the stones. More than the animal life, I also sensed the stubborn cactus, which grew in the ravine below, clawing nutrients and moisture from dry sand and hot stone.

“You must allow the Force to guide you, Xanot,” Master Rell urged. “Your mortal mind cannot find its way in this.”

I popped my eyes open, retaining a hold on the meditation through sheer will. “What will the Force decide to show me, if I don’t direct it? The Dark Side kind of tried to kill me the last time I was unwise when calling upon it.”

“I didn’t say not to direct it,” Master Rell replied easily. I scoffed at that, the increasing heat of the day making me ball my fists impatiently. I had already been sitting her for something like ten minutes or more, and I could tell that the air was creeping to higher temperatures even in that short time.

I threw myself back into the Force. Fine. If I could not follow a trail of observation to find the Will of the Force, then I would just have to go back to the basics of meditation. My earliest attempts had been as simple as pulling the Force up from the well that is my own life and beholding it in my mind’s eye. I recalled Darth Baras’ lecture about how every interaction with the Force was an exchange, and I wondered what I was expected to sacrifice to gain knowledge of the Will of the Force.

If it were even possible to know it...which was what this whole exercise was intended to prove.

When I pulled at the Force like I had done many days ago it came roaring out from me in a torrent far more powerful than I expected. The air chilled considerably as the Force disturbed it, creating a slight breeze that scattered the sand away from us.

I held myself steady in the face of this power. I never really understood how the Force could exist in all things and yet it was more powerful in some people than others, or more concentrated in some places. Clearly, I had grown much since Dromund Kaas, but did that mean that there was more Force in me now than there had been before?

Regardless, beholding the might of the Force wasn’t enlightening alone, no matter how awe-inspiring it could be. Maybe it was a little fearful too. But it didn’t tell me how to survive the heat of the desert.

With the Force flowing through me and curling possessively around me, I directed my attention again to the desert. Squinting, metaphorically speaking. It was an odd sensation, and the Force itself seemed to suddenly desert me, expanding outward so that it grew thin and the heat once more stifled me. But with my own power stretched throughout the area, I felt more deeply in tune with it. As if I was in some way a small part of the ecosystem, rather than merely an observer of it.

How to let the Force guide me, from this point? I figured there was a difference between sacrificing my own life essence and giving the Force more freedom, but I wasn’t sure how to slacken my grip so to speak. I was used to commanding the Force or suppressing the Force. Typically when I used it, I had to be assertive and uncompromising, as Darth Baras had taught me. Well, Tranch too. Otherwise, the Force would not obey. Or worse, it would take advantage.

In this case, that seemed to be the opposite of what was needed. With that in mind, I tried to relax. It isn’t like just loosening a muscle, this was a mental exercise, and I’ll admit that I’m not any good at it.

Even so, the Force seemed eager to break free from my control, so as soon as I relaxed my iron will, it scattered. I felt power rush out of me, swiftly making me ache with fatigue, and with a soft growl of frustration, I pulled back what I could and halted the exercise entirely. What a waste.

[Status gained: Force Stress (Minor)]

“An admirable attempt,” Master Rell declared quietly, contrary to my own thoughts. “Releasing the Force into the world is only the first step. Although I wouldn’t recommend straining your body so much with every attempt.”

“And what next?” I asked pointedly.

“You must listen,” the Jedi replied, infuriatingly. “Repeat that same exercise with a comfortable amount of the Force, let it work with you and don’t reach for more power. There’s no need to go above and beyond the limits of your flesh in this, the exercise is not about throughput, it is about precision.”

Ah, like Lachris had described. There was an amount of power that I could wield without becoming weary. I nodded and pursed my lips as I began the routine again, pulling at the Dark Side which dwelt within and feeling the power flowing through my aching body. It was soothing, somewhat, but I also realized I should probably use less than I normally could handle since I had just stressed myself.

The Force pulsed outward again, without harming me. I observed the world with my mind’s eye, wondering what I was supposed to be ‘listening’ for.

I settled into a pattern of releasing a pulse of the Force and then scrutinizing its passage over the world. Wondering, following it outward, feeling it flow into the plants and the animals and even the cracks in the stone. It was the Dark Side, and as the Dark Side always does, it was attracting attention. A few small lizards had crawled over the lip of the plateau, despite the fact that they would die if they remained in the sun. They were enthralled by the energy, like moth to flame.

What am I looking for?

I was about to give up and ask for more guidance when I finally noticed something. The Force I was releasing was met by another echo, a distant impression of something that I couldn’t quite pinpoint. Something alive? No...it was too large. Once again I was stymied by the incredibly frustrating experience of attempting to discern a blurred impression of a thing. Again and again the Force swept out from me, and every time I seemed to glimpse a different facet of a jewel. Never twice the same.

Was this was I was looking for? What did it mean?

I resolved to reach for it and focused my mind on the most recent echo. It was like falling in a dream, an impression that was rather startlingly similar to that time where I had sunk into the Dark Side and nearly been killed. This time, however, I did not feel like I was drowning. The blazing light of the suns seemed to no longer bleed through my closed eyelids, and when I opened my eyes, I saw a kaleidoscope of color stretching ahead of me.

It was pretty psychedelic. But the more important thing was that the Force in this echo was moving in an ordered fashion, as if it was being directed. It moved, nearby but just out of view. I sensed it, like a river or a gust of wind, and almost without thought I moved with its current, suddenly finding myself in the sand.

I was surrounded on all sides by boulders, huge jagged stones, and heat emanated from them in such ferocity that I thought I could feel my flesh blistering. Then I was high above the desert, part of the sky, and I felt the way the sun seemed to suck every iota of moisture from me. I crawled on my belly through the cool sand of a cavern, my forked tongue stretching out to taste the air. I stared at a Sith woman of striking stature, as her breath grew shallow...wait, I was looking through the eyes of Master Rell. At myself.

The realization snapped me from the experience, and I seemed to collide into my body with a gasp.

“Did you see?” Master Rell asked.

“That was trippy,” I whispered. “What was that supposed to be?”

“Ah, I see you didn’t understand it. Well, go again.”

“Again?” I touched a hand to my chest, felt my hearts racing and the sweat beginning to soak into my robes. “Aren’t we out of time?”

“I won’t let you die of exposure,” Master Rell assured me. “Go on. Let the Force flow through you.”

“What am I supposed to understand? I don’t get it, all I saw was a bunch of strange perspectives,” I objected, a bit of a whine bleeding into my voice.

“Why does the desert exist?” Master Rell asked me.

I wanted to snap at him. Because it’s hot, because there’s no moisture, because the Rakata are retarded...

I knew that wasn’t what he meant, though. For what purpose does the desert exist? What if anything is the ultimate end of the desert?

I delved into the Force again, and found myself among the grains of sand, from the perspective of the mite. Then in the air, perhaps as a bird? Then the lizard. Then Master Rell. Then...I saw the sands shifting as if in a time-lapse under a constant blazing sky. Time grew short and stretched before my senses, compressing eons into a glimpse, and in a breath I comprehended the death of a planet. Its core growing solid and stagnant, the suns growing red and then bursting in a flash of sudden fury.

I was a mite in the sand. I was a lizard on its belly.

What does it mean?

The Force seemed to chuckle. But that wasn’t right, the Force doesn’t have feelings in that way. It simply is...like the desert is. For what purpose?

That’s just it. It is. It will be. Until...the end. I beheld the death of a planet, when the deserts were blown briefly to glass and then finally into dust. The desert shifts and breathes and burns and dies. But before that death, it would endure. It is fortitude, persistence, unrelenting being. The sands may shift their shape, but the desert remains ever a desert.

[Skill Gained: Divination I]

That wasn’t an answer, I pouted. The desert exists because it exists? What kind of circular thinking is that?

“Do you see?”

“It exists to exist, or I guess its meaning is to endure,” I replied as my eyes opened. I felt sweat beading on my forehead and drying before it could travel down my face.

“Yes, that’s close enough for an introduction. There is a sublime simplicity to it,” Master Rell clapped his hands together. “Then how do we endure the heat of the desert, now that you know its purpose?”

I furrowed my brow. “Are you suggesting I adapt myself to the conditions of the desert using the Force?”

“By understanding the nature of a thing, we can choose whether to align ourselves with it, or to struggle against it. We decide whether to embrace harmony or chaos. Sometimes, when change is necessary, chaos can illumine wisdom. But here in this heat, it would kill us. After all, we cannot change the desert, not in the time that we have available before the heat takes us.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” I retorted with a slight sigh. “But I can assume you mean to say ‘yes, Xanot, use the Force to survive the heat.’”

“I only intended to clarify how you should use the Force to weather the conditions here,” Master Rell replied with good humor. I noticed he wasn’t sweating nearly as much as I would have expected a Human without a hard-suit to sweat.

“It’s about changing myself to suit the desert, rather than changing the desert to suit myself,” I agreed. “But isn’t that rather dangerous to experiment with under duress?”

“My goodness, I am not suggesting that you mutate your flesh, Xanot,” Master Rell exclaimed with wide eyes. “This is a matter of energy flow. You understand that the desert endures, and you witnessed how it endures. The key to the technique we are studying here in the desert is to apply those lessons to the heat of your body and the energy it represents.”

“The sand shifts in response to change, but the desert remains essentially unchanged,” I mused. “Are you saying that there is a way to shift heat out of my body using the Force, without fundamentally changing my body?”

“Precisely so. You may notice I am not endangered by this heat, despite lacking a hardsuit. I imagine it is hotter than a Human typically should endure. Of course, I will still dehydrate and my skin may burn under direct sunlight, but I can regulate my body temperature to reduce perspiration rate and prevent heat exhaustion. These lessons we have discovered by discerning the Will of the Force as it pertains to the deserts of Tatooine.”

I narrowed the Force around us and observed his body. As he had said, the Force was flowing in an odd manner through his flesh, but since I couldn’t directly observe heat in my mind’s eye, I could only speculate that the disturbance I observed in the Force was the mechanism that was shifting heat out of his body. Attempting to mimic that on my own would seem to require a technical understanding that I just didn’t have.

“I don’t think I have time to apply that technique myself,” I said, fists clenching in frustration.

“Again, you are thinking of trying to reason it out with your mind, but we did not engineer this Force technique in the way you are imagining. The Force guides us,” Master Rell replied. “Through understanding the ways of nature, and desiring harmony with it, we are invited by the Force to contemplate a deeper form of existence, one which sees no separation between living things and the simplicity of the surrounding desert.”

“That’s all well and good, Master Rell, but I’ve got maybe a half an hour before I start to suffer heat exhaustion,” I snapped somewhat sharply.

The Jedi held out a hand soothingly. “Relax, Xanot. I said I wouldn’t let you come to harm, and you will not. I don’t know much about the Dark Side of the Force, so perhaps it isn’t possible for you to learn of this technique in the same way as a Jedi. Even so, I would urge you to try. Meditate and invite the Force to guide you. Then, act on instinct.”

I frowned but closed my eyes so I could focus. Clearly, I wasn’t going to just throw myself into the whims of the Force and see what happened there. I could imagine that Master Rell probably didn’t want to deal with me if I went mad with the Dark Side, and he didn’t understand that was essentially what he had advised. Baras had explained that the Dark Side did not have any guidance to offer aside from chaos.

And yet, I had used it to understand the eternity of Tatooine. Did that count as ‘letting the Force guide me?’ I figured that the distinction laid in the fact that I had not offered it anything of myself, and I had placed boundaries on the problem that I wanted to investigate using the Force. Throughout the process, I had controlled the amount of power in use and the concentration of it. So, it seemed to me more like using the Force in an experimental process to widen my perspective.

I could repeat that process except I could narrow my investigation to apply to my own body instead.

Manipulating the Force this way was a very different skill than I was used to, especially when I was focusing on my own body. In fact, it was unique enough that it counted as a new skill, or so it seemed.

[Skill Gained: Force Flow Control I]

Well, it was probably cheating, but I could read the skill description and maybe gain some insight.

[Force Flow Control: This skill describes the ability of the user to channel the Force in increasingly fine quantities and in increasingly precise locations, as well as the ability to detect increasingly minute variations in the fabric of Force energy in their own bodies and in their immediate surroundings. This skill serves as the fundamental basis for the skill trees: Heat Manipulation, Biology Manipulation, and Force Manipulation. At level one, you are a novice.]

Merely by thinking of it, I ‘paged’ over to the Heat Manipulation tree, since that seemed the one most relevant to surviving the desert. The skill trees and various descriptions of my ethereal HUD were not always visible, and in this case it was simply labeled as ‘Unknown: Experiment with the manipulation of heat energy to discover more.’

It seemed as if it was more difficult to control more precise manipulations, and since I already knew Sith Lightning, which could be understood as a kind of heat manipulation, I decided that I could observe the effects of heat produced through the Force and maybe recreate it without the lightning. With that in mind, I extended my hand to the side and cast Sith Lightning, observing the flow of the Force through my body with the new understanding I had apparently gained from [Force Flow Control].

Master Rell jerked a bit in surprise as a bolt of purple lightning cracked over the stones to our side. But, when I pulled back my hand and cupped it together with my other hand, I felt that I understood the component of the Force flow that was related to the heat. I tried to mimic just that isolated part of Sith lightning. It felt a bit like exercising a muscle I hadn’t ever noticed before.

A few sparks danced over my fingertips, with small wisps of steam or smoke. Energy was there, but it was diffuse and undirected. I breathed a sigh and cast lightning again, observing the same flow as before. The problem was that the act of using Sith Lightning was extremely complex, if you actually broke it down to the various individual flows. There was energy flowing through my body to my palm, but then it pooled. Some catalyst caused the actual sorcery to take place, discharging the potential energy in the form of visible ‘lightning’ but the actual flow of energy in the attack was not an electrical arc, it was a Force flow which manifested as heat wherever it disturbed the air.

The actual characteristics of Sith Lightning were far more complex than heat. It had neurological effects and it caused fundamental damage to the Force channels in the victim’s flesh, temporarily impairing their usage of the Force. The fact that it also created surface burns was a side-effect, but that side-effect seemed to be the whole purpose of this exercise.

I brought my hands together. If it was just Force flowing through the air that created heat, then perhaps it was as simple as creating a flow without all the complex intended effects of Sith Lightning. The catalyst portion that was missing must have been the will. In other words, without a concrete effect in mind I couldn’t direct the Force to that end, so it would disperse.

The Force flowed again, and sparks danced. I opened my eyes, breathing out, and then smiled slowly as a lazy red flame flickered to life and guttered in my hands.

[Skill Gained: Force Flame I]

[Skill Gained: Heat Manipulation I]

My delight was quickly overtaken by the fact that this was real fire, and it was in my hands. I yelped as the pain suddenly blazed, shaking out my hands and scattering sparks over the rocks beside me. Master Rell, frozen in shock, seemed to startle into motion at my sound of pain.

“Xanot? Are you quite alright?”

“Burned my hands there,” I ground out, hissing as I peered at my skin. Yep...burned pretty bad. “But I think I figured something out.”

“Undoubtedly...you created fire using the Force,” Master Rell sounded amazed. “It was theorized that such a thing might be possible, by essentially vibrating the air in a localized space, increasing temperature, until it forms a thermal plasma, but it has never been proven until just now. There were some concerns about keeping the effect localized.”

“It’s the same principle as what you’re doing to control body heat. The difference is in creating a flow of Force energy that is external to myself rather than attempting to regulate the flows within my flesh, which is what I assume you’re doing to maintain a stable temperature. The actual heat generation presumably remains local to the flow in three-dimensional space, which provides the energy. I couldn’t say what it's actually burning, the fire is an effect of the energy field moving through the local area. If that makes any sense. Like a magnetic pole,” I explained absently, shaking out my burned hands and hissing again. “Damn that stings, though.”

"Burning may not be the right word, but we'd have to ask Master Yonlach what he thinks, I'm not a natural scientist." The Jedi mused, shaking out his hands in preparation. Master Rell fell into thought for a moment. I glanced away from my injuries when the silence stretched out and saw the Jedi sitting with his eyes closed, holding one hand away from himself. With fire in it. Blue fire, unlike mine. It also wrapped his entire hand, but he had pulled his sleeve up so that his clothing didn’t catch.

“Master Rell!” I exclaimed, waving my hands impotently and waiting for his scream of agony. How could I put that out?

His eyes popped open, and he laughed like a delighted child. “Oh, that tickles a bit. I’ll admit I had never considered manipulating Force flows in an external flow like this, how invigorating!”

“Aren’t you burned?” I worried, peering more closely despite the harsh light of blue flame.

“I’m not harmed at all. See?” the fire disappeared in a poof of white steam, revealing unblemished skin. “The same technique that keeps my body at a well-regulated temperature despite the desert heat also can apply to keep my flesh from burning in contact with fire. It’s just a matter of magnitude; as long as I can channel sufficient Force flows to whisk away the extreme heat and diffuse it into my surroundings, even this tremendous temperature cannot burn me.”

I boggled at him incredulously. “You could literally stand in a furnace. Couldn’t you also use this to diffuse the heat of blaster shots? Or even lightsabers?”

The possibilities of this kind of technique seemed endless! In fact...hadn’t Darth Vader caught a blaster shot with his gloved hand on Bespin? Was that deflection or absorption of heat? If he could do that as Vader, then how could simple lava have burned him so badly on Mustafar?

Maybe he learned how to manipulate heat because of Mustafar. Or, since he wouldn’t exist for centuries to come, it’s possible that the techniques were forgotten by that time and he had done something else on Bespin. I do remember seeing Satele Shan catching Malgus’ lightsaber on her palm in a trailer for SWTOR. Was this little Tatooine enclave where those abilities were innovated?

“Well, yes, if you had the ability to channel that much energy through your body without Force stress,” the Sage agreed affably. “But that’s such a crude application of sublime knowledge, Xanot. Now, before you really do find yourself in dire straits, please apply the heat regulation technique so we can walk back to the enclave. I fear the knights might come out looking for us if we tarry much longer.”

I suddenly realized that when he had said ‘I promise no harm will come to you’ he had meant that the knights would bail me out, not that he would apply some Force technique to shield me from the heat. I pouted at him a bit. “You just intended for them to give me a ride back if I couldn’t figure it out?”

“What do you take me for, Xanot? I’m not a wizard; regulating the heat within someone else’s body is far more akin to Force Healing than actual heat manipulation, and I just don’t have any talent for healing, I’m afraid,” Master Rell chuckled again as he shook his head. “Now, do concentrate. It’s about regulating heat flow, something which you’ve clearly grasped on a conceptual level. You must apply it to the heat differential between your body and the surroundings, using the Force to move heat against its natural tendency. Don’t set yourself on fire.”

That warning did not make me excited to attempt this. At all.

Regardless, I concentrated again, but with the skills I had gained it was much easier to understand what he intended for me to do. In short order, I had created a series of Force flows that acted as cycles, moving through my body to gather excess heat and then whisking it away to the surface of my skin, which grew noticeably warmer. I shifted uncomfortably. “My skin feels too hot.”

“You need to direct it into the air, not into the surface of your skin,” Master Rell cautioned. “It’s a common mistake for beginners. You’ll become more than a little uncomfortable if you don’t adjust it, and it won’t do much for your body temperature without an accompanying breeze.”

“You said you hadn’t considered external Force flows. But if you were creating flows that take heat out of your body and into the air, you already are manipulating external flows like with the fire. How did you avoid setting the air around you aflame?” I griped, already making the adjustment. Now the cycles extended out a bit from my body, taking heat and throwing it off like an exhaust vent. I held my hands over my chest and felt the more intense waves of heat that were emanating from my body. It didn’t ignite into flame because the flow of energy was too sluggish.

[Skill Gained: Heat Manipulation - Force Body I]

It seemed to violate thermodynamics, since heat was flowing from my cooler body to a warmer environment. But the energy required to do this was coming from the Force channels which I was maintaining, so I guess it could be likened to any form of air conditioning system. Force-powered air conditioning, eh?

“Quite impressive, Xanot. How do you feel?”

“Thirsty,” I answered as I opened my eyes. My concentration wavered a bit and so did the Force flows, which was a bit uncomfortable. “This isn’t exactly easy to maintain, you know.”

“You’ll become accustomed to it. Consider it an exercise in moving meditation,” Master Rell assured me. “Come, let’s begin our return trip. It helps to keep the air moving, so you aren’t baking yourself.”

Keeping a constant control over the circuits of Force energy while also scaling the side of a nearly vertical stairway was far more difficult than a mere ‘exercise’ had any right to be. There was also the fact that my palms were burned and beginning to blister, which meant that I had pretty badly cut and bleeding palms by the time we reached the bottom. Master Rell tutted disapprovingly at me when he saw the blood, but I assured him the wounds would heal in little more than an hour or two.

That didn’t mean they didn’t hurt like a total bitch. As if it wasn’t hard enough to put one foot in front of the other while controlling so much incredibly precise Force flow, I had to accomplish that task while also dealing with severe pain. I mean, it would have been much easier if it was a fire and forget type of buff. This was not, it was more like a channeled skill. It was also possible to leech too much heat out of myself, which I tended to do if I let it slip to the back of my thoughts since I was working with buffed up Force channels that were capable of handling much, much larger capacities of energy than were actually necessary for this task.

The meditations I had done to increase my Force strength also seemed somewhat detrimental to fine control...that was something I should have expected, honestly, but to be fair to myself there weren’t very many skills in my arsenal that qualified as ‘fine control.’

When we were simply walking over the dunes once more, I relished in the fact that I was only mildly sweating. Sure, I was still breathing in scorching hot desert air, and I still felt the intense heat of the suns' rays on my red skin, but I no longer felt the slowly suffocating, stifling effects of rising body temperature. It made me look at the desert scenery with a new perspective.

“You know, Master Rell, these exercises haven’t really shown that the Will of the Force exists and can be known,” I remarked as we neared the enclave. “You just showed me an interesting perspective of the planet and a bunch of frankly ingenious Force techniques.”

“What we call the Will of the Force, my very young student, is merely the natural flow of the Force in all things, which we should keep distinct from the actual observed state. Disturbances, like the Dark Side nexus that you created temporarily in your earlier meditation, can alter the flow of the Force such that it no longer follows its natural path, but with discerning gaze the Will of the Force may still be seen, even where the Force has been turned off course,” the Jedi explained. “By observing the Force as it lives and breathes, we can discern how best to act in harmony with these tendencies, which the Jedi call following the Will of the Force. You observed the ultimate end of the desert as well as I did, although it was admittedly through different methods. Can you argue, then, that there is no Will of the Force as we have defined it?”

I scratched my cheek a bit, feeling the sweat that had dried there and disliking it. I doubted there were showers at the enclave, either, so I’d have to content myself with a sonic. “I mean, I guess I can agree that the things which exist do have what you might call natural tendencies, and that this observation extends also to the Force, so if we’re calling these tendencies the Will of the Force then I can agree it does exist. But who can say that Force’s tendencies are hard rules whereas others are not? You wouldn’t classify a biological defect as evil for being outside the norm, but since I assume the Will of the Force acts as a moral baseline for the Jedi it would seem that Force abnormalities would be considered evil.”

“That, I feel, is a discussion for after lunch,” Master Rell deferred. “We both need water and some food, perhaps a nap during mid-day. And I believe Master Yonlach would be fascinated by the ability you discovered to create flame from nothing but the air. Would you be willing to demonstrate it?”

“I mean, I’d rather not burn my hands again, regeneration notwithstanding,” I hedged. The burns and cuts were already scabbed over and probably an hour away from totally healed, but that didn’t mean I wanted to burn them again.

Master Rell chuckled. “You mean to tell me you haven’t figured out how to use the flame without burning yourself yet? And here I had assumed by your rapid progress I was dealing with a prodigy.”

We reached the enclave, and I’m not afraid to admit I was still sulking a little at his remark. If he was going to be that way about it, I would just have to demonstrate the fire skill for Master Yonlach and without burning myself.

Chapter Text

Master Rell, true to his word, ate lunch with me and stubbornly avoided my attempts to bait him into another philosophical discussion. I wasn’t sure what was driving me to get answers from him about the Will of the Force, now that I had already learned everything that seemed relevant to my mission. Well...except for Jaesa’s name. Technically, as far as Baras was concerned, we still didn’t know the identity of the padawan. I could always claim that they had told me, even if they really hadn’t, but Baras had the ability to pick out my lies so easily I would prefer to get the name from Yonlach so I wouldn’t have to lie when I gave my report.

When I inevitably spoke again to Master Yonlach, it probably wouldn’t be terribly difficult to get him talking about his former student. She had already come up once before without any effort on my part.

Even with my mission near its completion, I found myself too interested in the Force to let the matter of the Will of the Force go. How could I not be curious? Master Rell, however, expertly avoided my attempts and then begged off to go take a nap during the heat of the day, leaving me sulking somewhat in the mess hall. He claimed Master Yonlach was busy, anyway, so we’d have to meet with the other Jedi later in the day.

Knight Master Pollack, of all people, wandered over and joined me shortly after Master Rell took his leave. Pollack and I hadn’t really hit it off, as far as I could tell. I sat straighter and waited for him to set the tone.

“You aren’t what I expected, Sith,” he eventually declared after taking his seat.

“I hope that’s a good thing?” I ventured. He had folded his hands on the table’s top and was regarding me intently. I found his severe features - graying beard and bushy brows - rather endearing to be honest. That was probably not what he was going for. Still, he looked like a fantasy dwarf, except he was of course much taller than a dwarf would be.

“Yes, I daresay it is,” the Jedi replied. “I hope you will forgive me for eavesdropping on your comm call yesterday.”

“Oh, I figured that was likely,” I waved a hand idly. Well, here was where I’d discover if they had seen through my trick with the comm ID. “It isn’t any of your business, but did you have questions about the contents of the call?”

It was somewhat bold to come out and invite his questions, but I figured if he was going to ask then I might as well try to play it off as casually as I could, and making it appear as if I had nothing to hide would only assist in that effort.

“You were looking to meet with your subordinate at Outpost Varath,” the Knight Master observed. “I could have let you come and ask me for permission to go, but given that you seem to have a few hours of time on your hands, I thought I’d take the initiative. That assassin you lured here by your presence still lurks, threatening the members of the enclave. It’s time to take repsonsibility, and I’ve spoken with some of my knights about the situation. They are willing to depend on you, somewhat. You’ll be taking the risks here, but you seemed willing to do that when we spoke in council.”

“Fine by me,” I shrugged, inwardly smirking. So, they either hadn’t figured out what that string of letters and numbers was, or they weren’t going to confront me over it. I considered that a win. “Didn’t Master Rell tell you to ask him for permission first?”

“Well, you aren’t really a Jedi student, for as much as his claim expedited our discussion yesterday,” the Knight Master dismissed. “He may enjoy playing this farce with you, and it is likely to ruffle some feathers with some of the other enclaves with which he enjoys a longstanding academic rivalry, but we both know that he has about as much real authority over you as he does over me. Which is to say, none at all.”

I shrugged elegantly, imitating a motion that Vette liked to use. I imagine it probably looked more casual on her frame as opposed to my broad shoulders. “Fair enough. So, what’s your plan?”

“I’ll grant you use of one of the speeders we have, if you promise not to get ambushed again. We don’t exactly have a ton of funding, so try not to damage the bike. Make it obvious you’re leaving the enclave. You’ve been flaunting your Force presence this whole time, so it should already be blatantly clear to any observer that you’re leaving, but if at all possible, make it even more obvious. The assassin, if he’s smart, will follow you. After all, he isn’t likely to get you alone any other time,” Knight Master Pollack explained. “We’ll leave five minutes after you, in a team of four, including myself, and we will follow our normal patrol so as not to tip our hand. It is a little odd for us to patrol during the middle of the day, but heightened alertness should be expected after the casualties we’ve had. If you get into combat, just flare out your presence like you were doing this morning and we’ll follow-up. I’m sure half the damn planet sensed whatever you were doing with Master Rell on that clifftop. If the assassin doesn’t go after you, we can all come back here and think up another plan.”

“Simple and relying entirely on me, just how I like it.” I smiled as he narrowed his eyes slightly. “I’ll have him dead before you boys even get there, mark my words. I’m curious what you mean by flaunting my presence...I wasn’t aware I was doing anything in particular, at least not outside of meditation.” I lied.

It was pretty obvious to me that it was the class auras [True-Born Heir] and [Presence of Ragnos] which caused what Master Rell had remarked upon and which the Knight Master had noticed. But, I couldn’t exactly turn those off. I was also curious about how it affected the Jedi, so I presented myself as innocently inquiring. The Jedi saw through me immediately, if his raised eyebrow was any indication, but he didn’t call me out.

“Please,” Knight Master Pollack scoffed. “Those of weaker mind might be made to admire you or perhaps they might even become more suggestible in your presence, due to the cloaks of Force power you clothe yourself in, but we Jedi are not so easily influenced by these things. All it really does is broadcast your considerable Dark Side stench to all who have even the slightest sensitivity. If it is an intentional effort, you have succeeded in irritating me, and that is all.”

“What a rude choice of words,” I objected mildly. Well, he’d pretty much identified the auras precisely as they were described by my skill page. That was interesting. “It’s not an ongoing effort on my part, if that comforts you. It is the marks of a ritual, and I prefer to describe it as a cloak of power. Do you truly find it so offputting?”

The Jedi scoffed again, but his eyes flicked away from mine. I grinned a bit. So, not truly a ‘stench’ as he had said? Could it be that the Jedi did find it somewhat impressive, perhaps was even more affected than he would ever admit?

“Regardless, we have advised all the younger members of the enclave to stay well away from you, not that distance seems to make of a much difference within the effective area. Even so, I’d appreciate if you didn’t approach them,” the Knight Master requested firmly. “They are not as well protected against the influence of the Dark Side, being as young as they are. It’s bad enough that they are in the same building as you.”

I rolled my eyes. “I really don’t bite, you know.”

“Perhaps not at present, but whose to say that won’t change?” the Jedi retorted. “Just...humor me in this, if you would. I’m wise enough to admit that I couldn’t stop you if you truly decided to do us any harm, but even so, I would be compelled to intervene if I felt you presented any danger to the Jedi Sages here, especially the padawans.”

I shrugged. “I won’t hang around for more than a day or two,” I offered an olive branch. “And I’ll leave your kiddos alone, alright? You don’t have to worry that I’ll corrupt their innocent minds. I honestly didn’t know you had padawans out here until you just said so.”

“In that case, they must have actually listened to good advice, which is a rare blessing. Thank you for cooperating,” Knight Master Pollack ground the words out as if they pained him. “Now, are you going to depart so we can get this over with?”

I nodded, offering a jaunty wave as I stood up and went looking for their speeder hangar. There were only four speeder bikes there, and they were of the single-rider variant, with a minimalist design. Handlebars and pedals for control with no room for cargo. Well, thankfully I didn’t need to take my rucksack or anything, and with the [Heat Manipulation - Force Body] skill I also didn’t need to request a hard suit.

The hangar doors opened to a ramp that led out into the dunes, and I zipped off with a bright flare of delight in the Force, just as Master Pollack had requested. I made it seem like I was just having fun, being a brazen idiot, because that was exactly what I was doing. Riding speeders without a helmet was a rush, let me tell you. The roar of the wind through my hair, pressing my robes against my front, feeling the thrum of the bike between my legs, and the heat of the sun pressing down...

It’s great.

Outpost Varath was only a half hour’s ride away, and with a full canteen that pretty much meant there was no risk to me. Unless I got the bike exploded again, which I was careful to avoid by keeping my senses acutely in tune with the path before me. I had to split my attention to regulate body temperature as well, but that wasn’t nearly as intensive as searching for the enclave had been.

The outpost itself was hardly worth the name. It was more of a collection of sandstone hovels with a single tower in the center than an outpost. The whole thing sprouted out of a rockier portion of the dunes like a barnacle on the side of a ship. There was a speeder parking pad, of a sort, with three bikes already parked beside a sand-blasted administrator droid. The droid welcomed me to the outpost with a respectful, “My Lord.”

I guess even in bantha wool robes I still couldn’t look like anything other than a Sith. I shrugged and walked away from the droid, idly wondering if it was even still capable of walking or if its joints had rusted solid. The thing looked pretty pathetic, to be honest...rather like the rest of the outpost. I wandered along the only thing that passed as a road here, a dirt path winding between the sandstone structures.

I hadn’t sensed so much as a whisper of danger from the assassin during the whole trip. That was interesting. And worrying, to be honest. It would have been much preferable if...

Wait. I narrowed my eyes, coming to a halt in the center of the outpost. Something wasn’t right here. Where was everyone?

I reached out with the Force, searching specifically for signs of life as opposed to possible danger. There were a few things, probably sapient, but all were indoors. Some were in basements, which put those at even odds of being womp-rats. Probably five people in the whole outpost, if I was generous with some of the signatures I was sensing...which didn’t seem right. Judging by the number of buildings here, there should probably be more than ten or twenty. Had there been an attack? I looked around more closely, but I didn’t see any scorch marks or corpses. I walked slowly between the huts, scrutinizing my surroundings with the Force. There was something...like a shadow at the corner of my eye...

If there had been an attack, it would have to be Sand People, Exchange thugs, or the Sith assassin. Since there was no alarm, and no sign of struggle, it couldn’t be the Sand People, and it felt too clean for the typical Exchange enforcer. That left the assassin...but why would he have come here?

If I am his target, which seemed likely, then the only people in the outpost he’d care about were Vette and Shyrack.

“Shit,” I muttered, hastening my step. Vette was alive, for now. I sensed her in the second story of one of the houses near the center of the outpost, and since I recognized her particular glow in the Force, I was convinced she still lived. The other signature near her must be Shyrack...it didn’t seem to have any trace of the Dark Side in it, so probably not the assassin.

Not guaranteed, though. He could be obscuring his signature, using her as a hostage...

I slid my lightsaber out of its pouch, but didn’t ignite it. Not that I could actually sneak up on anyone with these auras, which Knight Master Pollack had remarked upon less than an hour ago. Even Vette and Shyrack would notice my approach, if they were paying attention, and they weren’t even Force sensitive, so it was a complete joke to suggest subtlety.

Every doorway I passed seemed to threaten me. I knew that any one of them might open and begin an ambush, but I couldn’t afford the time to clear every building in the outpost, not if the assassin had already killed most of the people here. I would have to hope he had come here alone, and that I was strong enough to survive an ambush if they had taken the time to set one up. But, unless the Sith had also eavesdropped on my comm call, he had no way of knowing that I was coming here to meet Vette at this time.

It was more likely he just intended to capture her to lure me out of the enclave, or kill her to make me angry enough to challenge him directly.

I reached the house the women were probably in, without seeing or sensing another living soul. I opened the door and burst inside, holding my deactivated lightsaber in front of me, poised to ignite to deflect any kind of attack that might come.

The door remained open briefly when I froze, just inside the threshold. My eyes skittered over the corpses, then landed squarely on the only one who remained standing.

“Don’t get excited,” he said. I thumbed the lightsaber’s switch, and it ignited with its unmistakable snap-hiss. “I said don’t get excited.”

“Krios, what the fuck is this?” I barked, shifting into a ready stance. His hands might be up but I didn’t put it past the Agent to somehow pull a blaster and get a shot off even from that position. “What are you doing here?”

“Saving your assets, as it turns out,” the Agent replied, gesturing around at the carnage. I heard footsteps upstairs. Good girl, Vette. I slowly walked towards the stairs, putting myself between Krios and the only way to the second story.

Rigged to explode? No...Krios was in here with me, so unless he had some easy egress he wouldn’t have rigged this place. The Agent watched me sidle over, remaining as still as a statue. That was smart of him; if he’d moved even an inch, I likely would have killed him.

Krios continued talking, following my movement with his eyes. “More than half this outpost is dead. Don’t worry, though...”

He deliberately kicked at the foot of the corpse directly in front of him with a gentle motion of his boot. The body was face down, but was wearing somewhat recognizable black robes. A pool of blood surrounded it, seeming to stem from a slit throat. Krios must have gotten behind him, somehow.

“That’s the assassin?” I asked. “How the fuck did you manage that?”

“Xanot?” Vette’s voice came down the stairwell, interrupting the Agent’s reply. “What’s going on?”

“Are you armed?” I called back, without moving my eyes away from Krios.

“Yes?” she answered questioningly.

“Stay where you are and watch the stairwell. Don’t come down.”

“As far as I can tell, he was working alone after you killed the other one. There’s no threat to her,” Krios offered.

“I’m not worried about him,” I replied simply.

“Come, now, we’re all friends here,” Krios cajoled with a tight smile. “Can we just take a few calming breaths? Maybe turn off the lethal weapon?”

“No,” I answered pointedly. I nodded to the corpse. “How’d you get the drop on him?”

“You didn’t sense me in here, did you?”

I glared, thinking back. No...I hadn’t sensed him. “Still, the Force would have warned him of impending danger.”

“Knowing about it isn’t enough to save you, when the knife is seconds away from your throat. The trick is to start off with something else. I was tracking the assassin, and followed him here,” Krios gestured here to the other corpses. A man and a woman, both somewhat older and desert-worn. Now they were also ravaged by the Dark Side, skin pale and veins blackened. “I aimed a blaster, he thought that was the threat, and he didn’t react to the knife in my other hand. Cut his throat before he could properly choke me with the Force.”

“It must have taken him time to die. He had to have held that choke, even if it wasn’t enough to break your neck,” I scoffed. Something in that story didn’t make sense.

“I can hold my breath for thirty seconds while my target bleeds to death,” Krios shrugged as if it was a small thing. “Something that isn’t common knowledge: paralysis of the body throws Force-users into temporary disarray. It takes them time to get a grasp over their abilities again, and that’s time this guy didn’t have. Sure, he held onto that choke through the power of hate and bullheaded stubbornness, but he wasn’t about to get fancy with it and break my neck after having his spine severed.”

“If he had used a push or Sith Lightning or crush instead of Force Choke, you’d be dead.”

“Sure, but this one wanted to keep things nice and quiet, since he was going after your girl on the stairs,” Krios replied.

“You’re lying,” I decided. “Not about his target...that whole story you just cooked up. It’s bullshit.”

Krios sighed. “How can you always tell when I’m lying, Xanot?”

To be honest, I’d been guessing. To have it confirmed, however... “What’s really going on, Krios? Talk quickly.”

“Was Rome the best thing you could come up with?”

I froze. If that had been his intent with that question, then it certainly worked, but rather than capitalizing on my obvious shock, Krios just raised an eyebrow at me and waited, his hands still held perfectly still, palms facing me, held to the sides at shoulder height.

“I mean, sure, it got the message across, but what if I was from someplace that didn’t care about ancient European history?” Krios continued slowly.

“You lied to me then, as well,” I growled. “Are you ever telling the truth?”

“Not often, now that you mention it,” Krios quipped. “It’s the job, I think.”

“So, instead of talking to me you decide to stalk me halfway across the galaxy?” I scoffed.

“Yes, that’s right,” Krios replied, ignoring the implication that this was outrageous. “Can I put my arms down, now?”

I wasn’t sure about that. How dangerous was this man, really? “Tell me how you could have killed that Sith, first.”

“Fine,” Krios glared. “You can’t sense me, and he couldn’t sense me either, but I have some skills that do more than just that. A standard stealth field generator keeps me completely out of sight, without some of the usual downsides, and I slipped in here after the assassin started working his way through the residents of the outpost. He started about fifteen minutes before you got here. It was true that I was watching him; I’ve had to keep a very close eye on these assassins just to stay alive recently. I was also hunting, not just watching, in this case. I wanted to talk to you, and I didn’t trust you to be very reasonable after your assets were killed. I was close by when he started his murder spree, so I decided to do something about it. I waited in here, under the stealth field. These Sith assassins get absorbed in the act of killing. The power sucking part, where they use the Force to consume their victims, seems to overwhelm their Force senses. He entered, choked these two down before they could scream or otherwise alarm the girls upstairs, and took a few steps into the house. He turned towards the door, then started to drain them. I killed him then, like I said before. From behind, first I cut his throat, then put the knife through the vertebrae at the base of his skull immediately after that. Except, he never saw me or sensed me, so he couldn’t lash out and kill me with his dying breath. Your Force techniques require a target, most of the time. The only reason I cut his throat first was to make sure he died within thirty seconds, rather than waiting for the full body paralysis to end him.”

“You let two people die,” I wondered, shaking my head as I shifted my guard and set my lightsaber to the side. I did not turn it off, however. “And you could have just shot him in the head, instant death rather than waiting for him to bleed out.”

“More people died than that,” Krios scoffed. “He killed probably eight people, on his way through town. Best I can tell, he did it because it was fun. There was no need for it. In fact, it jeopardized his mission. If any of them had managed to shout or the bodies had been noticed then his targets would have made a run for it. As for the blaster, well...that would have made noise. I knew you were coming, and I wanted us to have this conversation so I could show you that we’re on the same side in this matter.”

He gestured again to the corpse of the assassin.

“You let all those people die,” I corrected myself, voice growing sharper. “And it doesn’t jeopardise his mission to slaughter bystanders. No one in the outpost could have fought him or outrun him. Besides that, every kill makes these assassins stronger, and he was expecting to fight me after his attack drew me out, so he would have naturally tried to kill as many people as he could. He already went through three of the Jedi; he must have been quite powerful after glutting himself on their life force.”

“That makes some sense...I have wondered why these animals are so bloodthirsty. I suppose I can’t call it senseless anymore. In any case, Xanot, I can’t take chances with these things. Not all of us can brute force our way through our problems,” Krios explained. “You were right; if a Force user is paying attention to their senses, then you can’t properly ambush them. Not unless you can put them in an unwinnable scenario, where it doesn’t matter if they see the future. But most of the time they still take down some of their attackers even in the best case; Force users don’t just give up even if they know death is inevitable. I work alone, and I’m not going to make a sacrifice play. If waiting for the target to drop their guard means that some of his victims have to die, then that’s just how it has to go, unfortunately. If you’d been five minutes faster on that bike of yours you might have saved three or four lives, but in my line of work I find that playing ‘what if’ games only brings misery.”

I rolled my eyes. “The difference is that you observed him killing people and did nothing to set up your ambush, whereas I had no idea he was in this outpost.”

“Are we really going to argue about this? Would it have made you happier if you arrived and found me dead right beside him?” Krios gestured sharply at the surrounding carnage. “We have other things we need to discuss, privately. Are you sufficiently assured that I mean you no harm?”

He had just admitted that there was no way to surprise a Force user who was paying attention...and unless he was lying also about that then there wasn’t much he could do that would actually be a threat to me. Well, other than suicide plays which he also had just claimed were not his style. I nodded, with that in mind, and finally deactivated my lightsaber.

“Vette, stay where you are until I come back,” I called up the stairs. “Krios, let’s go.”

I left the house and waited a short distance away until Krios exited as well, slowly. He moved deliberately, broadcasting his intent, and stayed out of striking distance as we walked to a neighboring house, which he gestured towards. “This will do, owner’s dead.”

I sighed, but nodded. He entered first, and I followed after a beat, finding him sitting on a stool next to another pale corpse, pouring himself some blue milk from a pitcher. “What are you doing?”

“Drinking,” Krios replied simply. “Want some?”

“That’s not yours.”

“The guy’s dead. His milk will spoil anyway,” the Agent returned. “Don’t tell me you’re squeamish around dead people. Surely you’ve looted the bodies of your enemies.”

I sat, stiffly, across from him. “That’s different, those are enemies. It’s irrational, but still weird. The poor guy’s right there!”

“Yeah, unlucky bastard,” Krios agreed. “Now, we don’t exactly have a lot of time. I’ve interrupted Watcher Two’s eyes and ears so that you don’t end up having a details file in Imperial Intelligence records, but she’s crafty. I give us maybe ten minutes of privacy. Imperial Intelligence already knows that these assassins are around, since they’ve targeted me before, but we don’t know who is behind them. I had two suspects, until one of them went after you. Now I’m pretty sure it’s at least not you, which leaves only one other.”

“Explain,” I demanded shortly.

“Right,” Krios nodded. “I grew up, once, on Earth. I lived a long, good life. I died. I grew up, again, as the son of an Imperial woman and her husband, who lived on a planet you’ve probably never heard of. This second time around, I also had a HUD, like for those augmented reality implants they were selling in the thirties...”

“The thirties?”

“The 2030s,” Krios enunciated clearly. “The thirties.”

“No one calls then that, you know...they haven’t even happened yet!”

“What?” Krios looked at me skeptically. “When did you die, then?”

“I didn’t! Or, I don’t think I did...” I trailed off. Could it have really happened so suddenly? Just...sit down on a subway car, maybe drift off to sleep, and then end up dead as a doornail?

The Agent waved a hand. “Whatever, we’ll get to your story in a moment. I saw in the HUD that I was a level 1 Imperial Agent, whatever that meant. I noticed this when I was just a kid, before I remembered all the stuff from my life on Earth. You can imagine how interesting a conversation that was, when I asked about it. My parents thought I had an active imagination, and I’m lucky that’s all they thought. I can’t imagine what would have happened if they had sent me to the Sith, thinking I was Force sensitive.”

I tried to imagine that and chuckled. “That would have gone well, for sure. So, you didn’t remember your past life right away?”

“No, it came to me over time. But, by eight years of age, people were saying I was an ‘old soul.’ My vocabulary was too big, and that was just one of many oddities. Most kids are dumb as rocks, right? Not that it is any fault of their own, they’re just inexperienced. Not me, though. This existence might be something out of fantasy, but a lifetime of living and the lessons that come with it seem to be universal,” Krios continued. “Since I was already an Imperial Agent, still level 1 at the time, I figured I should just make a career out of it. I had no idea then how strong my skills would become, because progression requires killing people. Sure, I picked up new skills left and right just for trying things out, but they never progressed past level one or two, maybe three if I spent hours and hours practicing them. Nothing like the rush of power you get for killing.”

“I’ve had the same experience,” I chimed in. He nodded, finishing off his milk.

“So, school finished up and I enlisted, went to the Imperial Academy of my sector. It was piss easy to get selected for Imperial Intelligence out of the academy, with the skills I had gained. Then I started leveling up,” the Agent gave me a meaningful look. “I’m not ashamed of it. The Empire has many enemies, and people who are willing to dispense with them are well rewarded. I got better at what I do as a result of new levels, new skills. Specializations. With better performance came higher rank. Things were looking good. Then I got the call.”

I blinked as a suspenseful pause stretched on. “What call?”

“Some Republic idiot,” Krios growled, shaking his head. “I thought he must have been insane, calling me on an encrypted comm line. He gave me his real name and didn’t use any kind of voice changer, and those encryptions aren’t foolproof. Both of us would have been fucked if that call had been snooped on. Anyway, he said he was ‘the Republic Trooper’ as if that title made sense to me, and started talking straight nonsense about some video game he’d played on Earth and how he knew the future as a result. I was going to turn him in to my superiors to cover my ass, no matter his mention of Earth. But he started talking about the skills and the HUD, and I rather didn’t want anyone asking me questions about that.”

“You were really going to turn him in?” I asked incredulously.

“I’ve never assumed I’m the only one reincarnated. I’m sure there are many people who are, maybe they just don’t remember, or maybe they do but they don’t talk about it. You have to wonder why English is the galactic lingua franca, eh?” Krios replied immediately. “But why should I care? I didn’t give a toss about the other ten billion people on Earth when I lived there, so what does it matter to me if someone in this galaxy starts remembering that they once lived on the same miserable dirt ball as I did in a prior life?”

I rubbed my nose. “Okay, I guess that’s a fair perspective, but weren’t you curious?”

“Not curious enough to put my life on the line for a stranger by talking to damn Republic special forces!” Krios exploded.

I leaned back and held up my hands defensively. “Whoa, no need to get excited! It seems natural, though, if someone says they’re from Earth and you both remember your past life, to at least indulge in a short conversation.”

“Well, we did have a short conversation. He talked about the skill system, and by that time I’d noticed how strong I was becoming. Compared to the other agents, I was like the next coming of Jason Bourne, if you watched those classic remakes, and if there were Republic assets with the same skills then I wanted to know about them,” Krios sat back, folded his arms over his chest. “So, I listened to that whack job talk about the game he’d played, back in the 20s. Trooper said he thought we’d probably have to work together, all eight of us, because he was expecting ‘late-game content’ to be really difficult. He said something about a galaxy-wide invasion, but he didn’t provide details. The important aspect of that conversation was that he wanted me to be his Imperial contact, and he said I should look for a Bounty Hunter, a Sith Inquisitor, and a Sith Warrior which were the other ‘player characters.’ He said you’d all probably be from Earth and that you’d all have the same skill system that we did.”

“So you and him had the same system? You confirmed that?” I asked.

“We couldn’t compare HUDs, obviously,” Krios replied. “But from what he described, yeah it seems close enough. Skills get picked up, attribute numbers get larger, killing things gives EXP amounts. At that time, he hadn’t reached his first specialization, so he didn’t speak of that. I got the impression he was low level. We also have a map built-in.”

“Okay, it does sound familiar,” I agreed. “So, what? When was this, by the way?”

“This was a year ago, give or take some weeks,” Krios answered. “I went looking for the other Imperial classes, based on his little speech. I wasn’t going to stick my nose in Sith business for no good reason, because I’m not a complete idiot, so I tracked down the Bounty Hunter first. That was not easy to do, and I’m a busy man. It took awhile. Being the top agent in Imperial Intelligence means I get all the fun jobs, the ones they don’t give to just any asset, and I can’t just take a month off to trawl through criminal contacts looking for one bounty hunter. In any case, I eventually found her a few months ago, and I tried to give her the same pitch that Trooper gave me. It didn’t go well.”

I winced. “What happened?”

“First, she was suspicious of me because I was from Imperial Intelligence and she wasn’t exactly a model citizen. Second, the both of us being reincarnated really didn’t make a lick of difference with her because neither of us had played that ancient game from the 20s and I couldn’t convince her that it was important to stay in touch with me. Then the assassins showed up, the second time we met up, and she blamed me for that even though I’d never seen or heard of them before. She refused to work with me to escape them, and we parted ways in a hurry. She’s dead, I’m not,” Krios summarized.

I reeled. “Dead?!”

“Yeah, dead,” Krios spat to the side. “Damn blue milk, gets all gummy in your mouth after its done. Anyway, she had no idea what she was doing when it came to fighting Force users. Best I can tell she tried to confront one of them, thinking her skills made her pretty strong, and she got the full Sith treatment. Fight probably lasted ten seconds. Idiot.”

I winced. “Shit. What did Trooper say to that?”

“Why do you assume I called him?”

I rolled my eyes. “He put you on the trail, things went to hell, so I figured you’d probably look for answers.”

“Alright, yeah. I did call him. He’s dead too, so that wasn’t any help.”

“What? How?”

“Havoc Squad, Republic Special Forces unit,” Krios replied shortly. I sagged, tired of being constantly surprised, and shook my head. “I told you he was special forces right? Well, his team turned traitor, shot him dead before they took off from Ord Mantell with some fancy Republic munition. They signed on with the Empire, we gave them a real cushy deal. That really lit a fire under the Senate’s collective asses for a bit. I knew the Trooper guy was low level, but that’s just an embarrassing way to end up for someone like us. He should have just joined up with them.”

I was still shaking my head, trying to reconcile the facts. “That seems impossible. If he played the game like you said, he should have known that Havoc Squad was going to turn traitor. That’s the whole plot of the Republic Trooper from the game,” I explained. “There’s no way they could have actually surprised him...unless he assumed it was going to happen like it did in the game and Havoc Squad went traitor sooner than he expected. I’ve noticed things aren’t on the same pace as the same as the game in a lot of ways, maybe he didn’t notice that in time and relied on meta knowledge which ended up being incorrect...”

“Well, however it went down, the guy fucked up,” Krios shrugged. “You played that old game? When were you born back on Earth?”

“1994,” I answered.

Krios whistled. “Damn, you’re ancient.”

“I was only twenty-nine when I sat down on a subway car and then woke up on Korriban,” I replied a bit crossly. “That’s not ancient. If anything, you’re ancient. How old were you when you died?”

“One hundred eleven,” Krios snapped off like it was nothing. My eyes widened. “It was 2119.”

“2119?!” I half-shouted. “Are you fucking kidding? You were born in 2008?”

“No, I’m not messing around,” Krios replied, leaning forward. His face was deadly serious. “The Bounty Hunter is dead. Republic Trooper is dead. Guess what? Smuggler is dead. I checked, after Trooper got himself killed, since I figured there might be something to his little speech about the eight classes. Someone certainly believes there’s something to it, since they’re making damn sure we don’t live very long. I couldn’t tell much about Smuggler, but my sources told me that he got into some very lucrative business deals. Deals people were surprised he even knew about. There were some people who knew him that were impressed at how savvy he turned out to be, since he played small time business for a handful of years. Then, he disappeared, and he never showed up again. A few of his buyers were pissed, and they even offered to pay me to find him. I knew I never would. As far as the rest of the galaxy is concerned, the guy never even existed. My bet is that these assassins caught up with him, too. After that, I figured the culprit had to be either you or our Sith Inquisitor, since the Force-blind members of the eight classes Trooper talked about weren’t looking so good. So, yes, I lied to you on Dromund Kaas when you walked into that salon, and I lied again on Balmorra. I needed to know which of you Sith Lords was training these killers, since I figure I’m next on the hit list. Take out the easy marks before aiming for Jedi and Sith, right?”

“It took you this long to figure out it wasn’t me? Also, since I nearly bit it out there, you’re obviously not next in line.”

“I assumed you were some kind of mastermind, maybe a genius-level intellect. You could have been putting up a front, adopting an obvious public identity, all while orchestrating these assassins in secret,” Krios explained with a shrug. “How was I supposed to know you have the subtlety of a freight train?”

“If I was some kind of mastermind, couldn’t I have ordered the assassins here to Tatooine to convince you to approach me?”

“If you were actually my enemy, and were in charge of the assassins, then I’d be dead instead of talking right now,” Krios shrugged. “I judged that the likelihood of you breaking every bone in your damn body while falling for a blatant ambush just to trick me into a meeting was vanishingly small.”

I frowned. “Okay, that wasn’t my brightest moment. You saw that?”

“Yes,” Krios replied with a shrug. “If you’re about to ask why I didn’t intervene, let me remind you that I’m Force blind. That assassin would have had me down in a blink, especially since he was pumped up for a combat encounter.”

I sighed, shaking my head. “Then that leaves the Sith Inquisitor. Actually, one of my job advancements was a set of skills somewhat similar to these assassins, so maybe the Inquisitor chose that advancement without realizing the implications...”

“Or he’s just an asshole. I figured it was a skill specialization, though. There’s no record of these Force techniques that I could find, and unless there’s some kind of mad sorcerer out there inventing new and interesting ways to kill people with the Dark Side who also happens to hate reincarnated folk, it seemed likely that this had to be the result of the skill system,” Krios agreed. “So, I’ve introduced myself and now we are both aware of the threat. We can deal with him together, just as long as you don’t fuck up like Bounty Hunter and Trooper. You should have it somewhat easier than they did, with the Force and all. I don’t blame Smuggler, poor fool probably didn’t even know what killed him.”

“You never gave me your name, and now you want to kill a man together?” I wondered.

He blinked. “I did, way back when. Krios.”

“Like that’s your real name,” I scoffed.

“It suffices, doesn’t it?” he retorted. “What do you want, my full family ancestry and nineteen digit civil ID?”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine, whatever. Let’s focus on the Sith Inquisitor situation. You really want to go after him or her together?”

“No, not right away,” Krios replied, speaking slowly like to a great idiot. “We don’t know where they are or how hard a target they are. The first objective is to scout the situation, which I couldn’t effectively do despite the many resources available to me as a very important member of Imperial Intelligence. The Sith Order and the Inquisitors in particular are one step above even Imperial Intelligence; I couldn’t do any digging without getting the wrong kind of attention. I could barely find anything on you, despite the fact that you’re the subject of much gossip among the Lords at the moment. As far as the Order is concerned, Imperial Intelligence has no business investigating Sith Lords, not even apprentices.”

I nodded. That made some amount of sense, considering Sith paranoia and the fact that Imperial Intelligence answered to a member of the Dark Council. “Right.”

“You, however, are a Sith Lord, so you aren’t restricted like I am,” Krios declared, and then paused. I put two and two together.

“You want me to investigate the Inquisitor, then. I already did some looking, out of curiosity. All I found was that Darth Zash took an apprentice some months before I arrived on Korriban, and that her apprentice was some kind of prodigy. Darth Zash was the Sith Master of the Inquisitor in the game, so that was my best lead. There hasn’t been any news more recently, however. Darth Zash herself appears to be conducting business as usual, without making any notable waves, and as far as the Order is concerned her apprentice is out doing whatever apprentices do. It’s possible the Inquisitor derailed his class story, in which case I don’t have much to go on,” I explained.

“It will take more than a cursory glance at things to gain any real intelligence on our target. And unless we want to end up like Trooper, we shouldn’t depend on what you know from a game in your past life,” Krios replied. “I’d recommend bringing your master into this; he knows what he’s about. He also has the rank required to gain some access to more sensitive records.”

“What are we planning to do with the information?” I wondered. “I mean, planning to assassinate the guy just seems a little extreme.”

Krios looked incredibly disappointed. “Xanot, we’re going to kill them before they kill us. That’s what we’re going to do with the information. It’s really very simple, I think. You really want to talk about restraint in this case?”

“I mean, aren’t you curious about their motives?”

“Curiosity is not as important to me as it appears it is to you,” Krios replied easily. “My concerns, in order of importance, are: survival, my position in Imperial Intelligence, and the safety of my family. I don’t care why the Inquisitor has decided to do what they are doing, and frankly you shouldn’t care either. We are enemies, that is enough. If I had to guess, the Inquisitor picked a skill tree that affects their mind somehow, or they got fucked in the head by the power trip of gaining experience for every kill. Either way, they’re out of line. If this is because of a skill they took, then there’s no way I know of to re-spec. He or she has to go.”

I peered at the man again, wondering at his thoughts. “Your family?”

“Mom, dad, two brothers, a sister...what, did you think I just sprang out of a hole in the ground or something?” Krios laughed. “I may be an Imperial, but I have a heart like any other sapient. I’d rather not have anything bad happen to them. Maybe it’s different for you, being a Sith and all...”

“I didn’t grow up here,” I said. “I mean, I never met any parents or siblings in this galaxy. I woke up on Korriban a few months ago, looking like this, and have just done what I need to do since.”

Krios frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. What was your rather large self doing before you ended up on Korriban, then?”

“Best I can tell, Xanot was a model student at a preparatory academy. Parents gave me to the Sith Order younger than usual, after a nonstandard genetic modification package,” I replied. “But I don’t remember any of that. Just...Earth life and then Korriban.”

Krios shook his head. “That’s fucked. What if you run into someone who knew you before the whole...reincarnation thing?”

“That’d be awkward, I guess,” I said with a shrug. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t considered that scenario, on the way to Balmorra.

“Whatever, we don’t have time for this,” Krios waved a hand, his eyes flicking to the side at something which only he could apparently see. “Here’s what you’re going to do...”

“Giving orders now?”

“Shut up, listen, and we can argue about who’s in charge the next time we meet,” Krios hissed. “You need to tighten up your operation, or people are going to die. No one moves planetside without you; nobody else in your organization can take these assassins. I’m not really sure you can reliably take them out, despite your performance in the desert, but unlike me you can’t exactly hide from them. No one boards your ships without visual identification. No unapproved passengers, no unchecked cargo. Then you need to wrap up here on Tatooine - I have no idea why you’re flirting with Jedi in the desert but I assure you the Dark Council’s Inquisitors would be very interested in the answer, so just consider yourself lucky I managed to keep Watcher Two out of your business - and go report to your master that these assassins are gunning for you. Get Baras into this, and he’ll find the Inquisitor before either of us could even gain access to the necessary records. Got it? I’ll be in touch, after you speak to your master. Don’t worry about contacting me, we seem to be running in the same circles and I’ll have my eyes on you.”

“That’s not very reassuring.”

“Good, maybe some paranoia will keep you alive,” Krios replied, smirking. “I need to get going, so that Watcher Two doesn’t see or hear you. When you go back to your assets, take a lightsaber and cut the head off that Sith. It won’t obscure my handiwork from any autopsy, but who is going to dig up a body on Tatooine? If anybody asks about it, you killed him. Don’t mention me in any electronic record, or over any holocall.”

“I have a lot of questions,” I protested. “Can you give me like an email address or something?”

“No,” Krios replied immediately, already moving to leave. “After I gave Bounty Hunter my comm, I spent two months running all over Imperial Space trying to get assassins off my ass. They’re still crawling up my ion engine every other week, and I have no idea how they keep finding me. The whole family had to go into protective custody. You’ll just have to wait for me to get in touch, because I’m not giving these chucklefucks any more ways to track me down. We’ll have more time to pointlessly indulge your curiosity next we meet.”

“Your confidence in me is heartwarming,” I deadpanned, shaking my head and following him into the street. I heard someone startled scream from another building and winced. “Sounds like someone found a corpse.”

“That means I really have to get out of here, before we’re seen together,” Krios hissed. “Don’t die.”

“Same to you, of course.”

The man gestured with his wrist and seemed to disappear on the spot. I blinked in shock, then looked around myself in wary surprise. I felt a tap on my other shoulder and jumped, growling, before I heard Krios’ hearty little chuckle and saw his footsteps moving away from me.

Sand everywhere kind of ruined his whole invisibility routine, eh?

Even so, it was unbelievably weird to see evidence of a person moving while being entirely incapable of sensing their presence. I hadn’t realized how closely I had come to associate people with their Force presence, until I was faced with evidence of life without its mark on the Force. I turned away from the receding footsteps and hurried back to the two-story house where I had left Vette, already taking my lightsaber in hand to deal with the corpse as Krios had suggested.

When the door opened, I was immediately aware that Vette was speaking. “...she’s not here right now, we’ve got a situation down here and I really can’t talk for long.”

“This is very urgent, Miss,” a clipped Imperial accent replied.

“Good for you, I’m holding a blaster with one hand and my comm with the other,” Vette retorted. “I don’t even know why I answered this, it’s not even mine...”

“Please, tell your master that the Imperial garrison needs her to contact us, immediately,” the voice practically begged. “The situation is dire...”

I shook my head, igniting my lightsaber and decapitating the body as directed. I heard Vette’s muffled curse, then some shuffling on the step.

“Master? That you?!” she called. “Kriff! Shyrack, get back, go for the window if...”

“It’s me, sorry to startle you!” I called back, stowing my weapon. “I’m coming up.”

“Wait, wait, don’t!” Vette barked. “You could be imitating her voice...”

I smiled approvingly. “Good girl, Vette. But that special feeling you’ve got when I’m around can’t be imitated. It’s me.”

Vette was silent for a second, probably taking stock of her feelings at the moment, then she came barreling down the stairs. “Xanot!” she cried, catapulting off the second to last step and into my arms. I caught her, barely staggering a step, and gave her a reassuring squeeze. “Stars, I’m so glad you’re back...don’t do that! You can’t just have cryptic conversations and leave me watching a stairwell with a blaster!”

“Sorry,” I replied, attempting to set her down. She wasn’t done clinging to me like a koala, however.

“Excuse me! Hello?” the imperial voice was speaking from her wrist, behind me.

Vette reluctantly relinquished her hold so that she could detach the comm, offering it and the small blue figure of the Imperial to me. “This is your replacement comm. Mos Ila is on the line, they called a few minutes ago.”

This fucking day, man. I took the comm and held it up so it could capture my face. “This is Xanot, what is it?”

“My Lord! Thank the stars, we’ve been trying to get ahold of you, but your officers said your comm had been damaged,” the man explained. “We met, briefly, before you went out into the desert. Captain Golah, My Lord. I’m sorry to impose, but we don’t have anyone else we can call.”

“What is it, then?” I asked, already knowing that this was about Darth Silthar in all likelihood. Didn’t he go missing or something in the game?

“Darth Silthar, the head of the Imperial Reclamation Service’s efforts on this planet, went missing four hours ago. He was chasing a lead and dropped out of contact. We would send some men after him, but if he encountered anything that could threaten a Sith I fear we wouldn’t be of much use to him. We flew two gunships past the location, but there are cave systems and we couldn’t see anything from the air,” Captain Golah explained. “I was hoping you’d be willing to investigate, My Lord. Darth Silthar is vital to our operations here. We would be very grateful if he was found.”

Right, Darth Silthar ends up dying during the Tatooine planetary series of quests. I stifled a sigh and rubbed at my face with my free hand. We didn’t have time to fuck around with this...I needed to contact Quinn and get the whole operation cleaned up on Tatooine. We needed to find buyers for the contraband, and I needed to get Jaesa’s name from the Jedi so I didn’t have to lie to Baras.

But, as far as Captain Golah was concerned, Darth Silthar’s life was on the line. The guy had died in the game, regardless of the player’s actions...but Trooper was dead because he relied on his game knowledge at the wrong time, so I couldn’t write Darth Silthar off just based on his fate in SWTOR. Refusing to help was tantamount to leaving a man to die, then.

There was also the fact that the whole expedition on Tatooine was centered around really old Czerka artifacts which ultimately were Rakata artifacts, and which could, possibly, result in the cyber-zombification of the entire settlement.

“Outpost Varath was attacked,” I found myself saying. “Most everyone here is dead. I need to coordinate with my people; I believe they were the target. My forces elsewhere are vulnerable, and that takes priority. However, send Darth Silthar’s last known coordinates to me and I will go investigate as soon as I can.”

“Understood,” Captain Golah nodded, straightening up. “Much appreciated, My Lord. I will await your call. We’ll send some of the garrison to Outpost Varath...was it Sand People?”

I winced. “No,” I replied shortly. “I have to go, Captain. Your men will see the situation when they arrive.”

With that, I hung up on him. If he was irritated by that, then so be it. I wasn’t about to try to explain the whole Sith assassin shitshow to the guy. I sighed, deeply, and saw that Shyrack had also come down from upstairs, and was standing beside one of the bodies, her hands balled into fists.

She must have known these people...they were hosting her, after all.

“Senseless,” I heard Shyrack mutter, and I gave her some space. Vette followed me like my own shadow, a concerned look on her face.

“What’s going on, Master?” Vette eventually asked.

“Assassins,” I replied simply, gesturing broadly. “I was ambushed in the desert, as you know, but they targeted you since I was out of reach.” I sighed, at this point, hating the fact that I hadn’t realized the danger sooner. Ordering Vette out to this location was foolish and could have cost me her life. “Anyway, there may be more. The Jedi were being killed as well. I offered to lure this assassin out, and they agreed. I thought he’d be focused on me, rather than going after you or Quinn and his men.”

Vette blinked, twice. Then she folded her arms over her chest. “He’s an idiot, then. You’d have carved him into like a thousand pieces if he had touched me.”

“Well, yes,” I agreed, surprised at her. “But, idiot or not, he almost succeeded, and even if I did kill him you would still have been dead. Krios was trying to contact me, though, and he killed the assassin before he could reach you, as you heard him explain. Anyway, with hostile Sith after us, we obviously need to rethink our operations. I need to speak with the Jedi I was supposed to coordinate with, briefly. Then we need to get Quinn and the boys back up to the ship, and Captain Damatha needs to put her crew on alert. After that, I suppose I’m going to investigate Darth Silthar’s last known position, then I’ll return to the Jedi enclave. I still need to finish investigating there, shouldn’t take long.”

“What about all the stuff Quinn confiscated?” Vette wondered. “I found a few contacts in Anchorhead, but I didn’t actually talk to anyone. Are we still going to sell that stuff?”

I growled softly and shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t risk that there’s another assassin around who might slaughter the whole platoon, so we don’t have a choice except to evacuate them. I can’t be everywhere at once. If you are going to find buyers for the goods, we can give them the locations of the caches that Quinn’s been hiding in the desert. But I’m not letting you wander Anchorhead without me nearby. Our guys weren’t hauling all the stuff around with them, based on what Captain Damatha told me, so the merchandise should be in hidden caches somewhere in the wastes.”

“If we don’t have the product on hand, it will impact the price,” Vette pointed out. “Especially if we can’t provide proof of the goods or quality assurance.”

“These are illegal wares, we can’t just haul them into Anchorhead in a caravan. Besides that, we actually can’t vouch for quality, even if we had the stuff on hand, because we don’t have time to get it appraised and we weren’t involved in manufacture,” I griped. “Look, we can worry about logistics after we have assured the safety of my people. I need to go signal the Jedi, and probably speak with them outside the outpost, since we have garrison troops on their way to help sort out the mess here.”

“I’m coming with you,” Vette declared, with finality. I smirked at her and reached over, tugging one of her head-tails over her shoulder and stroking it softly in a possessive gesture. She shuddered, but didn’t look away from my eyes.

“Good,” I answered. I turned, giving a lingering look at Shyrack, then walked back out into the heat, heading for the desert where I could signal for the Jedi.

Chapter Text

Knight Master Pollack wasn’t thrilled with my decision to go gallivanting off into the desert, with a vague promise that I would return to the enclave after I had taken care of other business. Probably not because he was sad to see me go, but rather because I took his speeder with me. Unfortunately for all involved, vague reassurances was all I could give them. I wasn’t even able to provide much proof that the assassin was dead, since having the Jedi in the outpost when garrison troops arrived to assess the damage didn’t seem like a very good idea.

In the end, however, he made a point of looking grumpy and then let me do what I needed to do. Which was fine.

Vette had her own speeder this time, and with the one I borrowed from the Jedi we zipped through the canyons of the natural divide between the Dune Sea and the Jundland Wastes, sending Quinn a message to expect us. The soldiers had not been attacked yet, and I didn’t want to encourage any potential threats to move up their timetable by making Quinn evacuate. When the men started packing up, anyone who was observing them might attack before they could board the shuttles.

It seemed to me that I would have to be there while they evacuated, if I wanted to be able to protect them. And, after nearly losing Vette by not thinking, I preferred to be safe rather than sorry. Also, I could do with a real shower and to touch base with my officers aboard the Interminable Night.

The military camp we arrived at was nestled against a mesa in the rockier part of the desert, with the armored personnel carrier forming a barrier along the most obvious approach, and the various pop-tents and moisture vaporators were set up in cover. I approved. We were also spotted by the guy manning the turret on top of the APC, which twitched briefly in our direction before the operator realized who we were.

When our speeders screamed to a halt and dipped into park, Lieutenant Quinn and Sergeant Maow were there to greet us, fully armored, but weapons holstered. I dismounted my bike and welcomed Quinn’s salute with a warm smile.

“Good to see you, Lieutenant. Sergeant,” I greeted them. “How have your operations been?”

“There have been no unexpected troubles,” Quinn replied. “Of the seven Exchange operations we’ve hit, six of them had significant inventories. We moved them to several caches scattered about. We confirmed thirty-nine kills, twenty-three of those with outstanding bounties from a variety of governments. We furnished proof of death to the appropriate authorities, trough third-party intermediaries, and Captain Damatha received the last bounty payment as of six hours ago.”

“Great, maybe we won’t run out of money to buy ammunition at this rate,” I replied dryly.

“How about your mission, My Lord? I notice you are not wearing armor, and I don’t see Darth Baras’ local contact.”

“Shyrack did her part,” I answered. “Outpost Varath was attacked, and I think she knew some of the people there. I left her to grieve. As for the rest, we can speak more later. The reason I’m here is to evacuate your unit back to the Interminable Night. I was ambushed in the desert, as you might have heard from the Captain, but my attacker was not working alone. It was his partner that attacked the outpost, aiming to kill Vette. There may be others that we don’t know about. Since we have Sith targeting my people, I’m circling the wagons so to speak. Once we’re all aboard our ship, we can go over what we know and what our next steps will be.”

Quinn had straightened up while I explained the situation, his features becoming grim. “Have you already contacted the Captain?”

“No, I didn’t want to begin evacuation until I was here to intervene in case any Sith who were targeting you decide to try and stop you from escaping into orbit,” I explained. “Go ahead and coordinate everything; I’ll just keep my senses alert and will be ready to head off any attackers.”

The rest of the platoon had been resting during the hottest hours, like Master Rell back at the enclave, and nobody was very happy to break down their tents, which provided shade. Even so, once Lieutenant Quinn started barking orders the camp transformed into a buzz of activity, and I walked several paces away to focus on the Force.

Vette stayed beside me, when I sank into a cross-legged sitting position. My awareness swept out, encompassing the desert for nearly a kilometer on all sides, seeking out every living thing and every passing current of Force power that I could find. No sign of any aberrations. I knew now, since seeing Krios completely obscure himself from my eyes and my other senses, that it was possible to trick this Force awareness. I also looked for other signs, like the echoes of recent violence, or the lingering chill of a Dark Side meditation.

I found nothing.

It took the platoon fifteen minutes to pack the camp, and ten minutes after that for the shuttles from the Interminable Night to land some distance away. I was the last to board, after the armored personnel carrier and the two speeders had been loaded into a massive vehicle transport. I looked out across the blazing heat of the desert as the loading ramp slowly closed, and only then did I relax.

I slumped with relief into one of the benches in the main bay of the transport. “Right,” I muttered, “step one is done.”

“Step one?” Vette parroted. I jerked a bit in surprise, having forgotten about my shadow. I dropped my hands from my face and glanced at her, catching a glint of amusement in her eyes.

“It’s going to be a long day, I think,” I said to answer her. “Next step is to find Darth Silthar. Or his corpse.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. Why, indeed? “I don’t know. Feels like something I should do. I mean, his men asked for help, and he could be in trouble.”

“I heard the whole thing,” Vette agreed. “I just don’t see what we get out of it, you know?”

I quirked a brow at her. “I’m surprised at you, Vette! You’re so mercenary all of a sudden.”

She scoffed. “I mean, he’s a Sith. It’d be different if he was actually a decent sentient being. In this case, though, saving him seems like it leaves the galaxy worse off.”

I had to laugh at that. “Fair enough, but you don’t know him. What if he’s one of the good ones?”

“What are the odds of that? I only know one decent Sith Lord,” she retorted instantly.

I shrugged a shoulder. “Whatever. The Imperial Reclamation Service is here for a reason, and he thinks it could be valuable. We’re strapped for cash, so I’ll ask him for a cut of the profits if I save his life. If he’s dead, I could always assume control of the operation and get the reward myself, although I don’t know if I really feel like spending the time. Also, if he’s alive and in trouble, it never hurts to get on the good side of people who can pay you back later. I got our ship by exchanging favors with an admiral, after all. I’d prefer if Darth Silthar wasn’t dead.”

“Fine,” Vette relented, shaking her head. “So, you’re going to find the guy, even though they lost his signal in the middle of Sand People territory.”

“If the Sand People somehow managed to kill him, then he wouldn’t have made for a very good associate,” I replied dryly. “That’s just an embarrassing way to die, for a Sith Lord.”

“What else might have killed him, then?” Vette wondered. “You know...so we aren’t surprised when we inevitably find whatever it is.”

“‘We’?” I wondered with a knowing grin. “Don’t you mean me?”

“I’m coming with you, obviously,” Vette replied pointedly. “We should have people ready to back us up, too. Maybe have Quinn and the guys in a transport fly above us at high altitude, safe from ground-to-air but closer than low orbit.”

Once again, I was surprised. It actually wasn’t a terrible suggestion, but it left a lot of my people in a vulnerable position. If there was a hostile starfighter, piloted perhaps by a Sith assassin, then they’d be sitting ducks in a transport.

Like we are, at the moment. I winced, immediately stretching my senses outwards, but felt no danger. Instead, I was reassured to sense a wing of fighters heading our way from the Interminable Night coming to escort us in to the hangar. Or so I assumed. It was only four starfighters, probably Sting or Bloodmark class if I remembered the fighter complement of my corvette correctly, and I wasn’t sure if the light escort would stop a Fury interceptor or other strikefighter roles from destroying the transports. I guess we make do with what we have, since I didn’t have the money to buy a different set of fighters for the Interminable Night even if I wasn’t satisfied with a scout wing.

Still, Captain Damatha deserved a compliment for good thinking.

“I dunno,” I said to Vette, shrugging. “Maybe. It would probably be safer for them if they followed in an APC, but then we’d draw the attention of all the Sand People in a large radius. I’m kind of hoping to go subtle.”

“You, subtle?”

“Try not to sound so confident in my skills, Vette.”

She waved a hand, laughing lightly. “I am very confident in your skills, Master, when it comes to actually fighting things. Stealth, not so much.”

I grunted in response to that, leaning back against the side of the passenger cabin. Vette chuckled, but we didn’t say much else while our shuttle crossed the last distance and made orbital rendezvous with the Interminable Night.

A quick shower later, I equipped my more familiar armor and gathered Captain Damatha, Lieutenant Quinn, Vette, Sergeant Maow, and 9S into a conference room. Once everyone had gathered, I took a breath and shook my head ruefully.

“First, the assassins,” I declared. Everyone had already been focused on me, but when I started to speak their attention grew that much sharper. “These are Sith assassins utilizing long-forgotten techniques, most widely attributed to Darth Nihilus of the Sith Triumvirate, originating in the academy on Malachor V. In terms of threat level, they are extremely dangerous, even to me. As such, we will need to take every step we can to avoid direct confrontation, and if we must fight against them then I must be the one to do it. Security precautions will need to be put in place to prevent them from boarding this ship. And no one can operate planet-side without me, since we can’t easily predict how these assassins might decide to target us and we don’t have anyone else who could even effectively retreat from these threats. Do any of you have questions or suggestions relating to this?”

“Do we know who they answer to?” Captain Damatha asked. “Which Lord is backing them?”

“No,” I replied simply.

She folded her arms over her chest and nodded pensively. Next, Sergeant Maow cleared her throat. “How many of these assassins are we talking about here?”

“I don’t know. Two were on Tatooine, that I know of. Both are dead, now. I was told by an ally that he has been dealing with these kinds of assassins for weeks already, and it was implied that he had killed some of those sent after him. So, there are probably more,” I explained. “Darth Baras may be able to give us more information, when I can speak with him. But I still have to conclude my business on Tatooine before reporting to him.”

“Is that wise?” Lieutenant Quinn ventured. “If there are more assassins on the planet, and you are killed, then whatever information you have now will be lost. Couldn’t a report be sent now, while you have the opportunity?”

I gestured at 9S. “He is here, and can relay the relevant information to Darth Baras if, for some reason, I can’t. I don’t think there were more than the two that we have already killed, and if we leave Tatooine quickly, there won’t be time for others to come.”

“Besides the usual high-alert security procedures, then, I’m not sure there are any additional things that could be done to prevent a Sith attacker from boarding the ship,” Captain Damatha sighed. “Our fighter complement is intended for light patrols, mostly scouting. They are not well-suited for intercepting boarding attempts. Furthermore, the armament of the Interminable Night doesn’t spare much for point defense against missiles or fighters. This class of vessel is used more often as fire support, so smaller turbolasers with faster tracking are few and far between.”

“I doubt we will be facing a full boarding attempt,” I said, pursing my lips. “But it’s good to know these limitations. In any case, with the restrictions on planetary activity we will have to take care of business on Tatooine in sequence instead of all at once. The first task is to investigate the disappearance of Darth Silthar.”

“Mos Ila called me, when they couldn’t reach your comm,” Captain Damatha interjected. “Apparently Darth Silthar was creating lightning storms when the signal was lost. Captain Golah was very concerned about what their Sith might have encountered to warrant the use of such power.”

“Did he provide you with a location?” I asked. “Finding a corpse in the desert is impossible. If Darth Silthar still lives, I may be able to sense him. I wasn’t planning on sticking my neck out very far in this case.”

“Yes, it was in this location,” Captain Damatha pulled a map of the area around Mos Ila up from the holographic table between us, gesturing to a blinking red beacon. “9S informed me that this is considered Sand People territory, on local maps.”

I glanced at the shiny droid, who dipped forward. “That’s correct, Captain,” he seemed to drawl as he replied. “The Sand People don’t have access to much by way of anti-armor weaponry, although some do utilize refurbished turbolaser turrets at larger settlements. Unfortunately, the terrain of this area of the Jundland Wastes is too uneven to accommodate the Stalker-class APC currently used by your ground team.”

“I was planning to just go myself, in a shuttle. Land outside the territory, then hike around looking for the Force signature of our lost Sith. Not for long. I’ll take a speeder back to the enclave afterward, wrap things up there,” I explained. “Vette suggested some form of backup, since it is possible that whatever Darth Silthar encountered is still there to threaten me. A krayt-dragon, for example, could have killed him.”

“That is very unlikely,” 9S put in immediately. “Sand People don’t usually tolerate krayt dragons in their territory, since the krayt preys on the bantha which the Sand People have domesticated. Most often the krayt is driven away once its nest is found.”

I shrugged. “I was just throwing out possible dangers. If back-up were to come along, how many should I bring, and where will they post up until they are needed?”

“Unfortunately, given the location, it is probably best to move in small numbers,” 9S advised. “I’m not programmed for strategy, but there are a lot more Sand People in the tribe occupying this region than soldiers in your ground team.”

“The droid is right,” Quinn agreed, sighing. “As much as I’d like to ensure we don’t end up with two missing Sith for our trouble, sending an APC along with you will just start a big fight with the Sand People, and we cannot easily maneuver through those ravines.”

I sighed. “Whoever comes with me will be more at risk than I will be, given the many opportunities for ambush in those canyons. Snipers are a concern; I might be able to sense the attack in advance and deflect it, but others can’t.”

“Going in alone was how Darth Silthar ended up in this mess,” Vette put in simply. “Instead of the whole platoon, Master, why not just take one of the teams? That’s less conspicuous.”

“A single fire team remains vulnerable to sniper fire during their advance, especially across stretches of open ground. It would be preferable to have both fire-teams, with one being placed on over-watch while the other advances toward the next point of cover,” Quinn shot down the suggestion. “The search would take you longer, My Lord, but at least there would be opportunity to shoot back if the Sand People do decide to attack us with snipers. Alternatively, you could just ride through the territory on a speeder. At fast enough velocity, the Sand People won’t be able to shoot you accurately.”

I frowned, thinking of the last time I had rode around on a speeder to look for something. “Stretching my senses outwards to find something in the Force makes me vulnerable to other forms of ambush, like what happened in the Dune Sea. I’d rather not break damn near every bone in my body a second time for the same mistake. I’ll take you all along with me, then. Do we have any way of ensuring that our boys don’t die when the first shot is fired, before they can reach cover?”

“Any sufficiently powerful sniper rifle or slug-thrower can penetrate even the best personnel shields, and what we have on hand is far from the best,” Quinn replied ruefully. “These are the risks we take, as part of the infantry. I’ll bring the platoon to meet you in the hangar, shortly.”

I nodded, and he stood up. Vette and the sergeant stood with him and the pair of them slipped out of the conference room. I was a bit concerned about taking the platoon with me on another mission after they had just faced several days of combat, but I supposed I could just give them extra leave when we returned to Dromund Kaas. A bit of time to rest would do them some good, after Tatooine’s special charms.

“I will order a pair of scout fighters to give the area a fly-by, at safe altitude. That should map out the various canyons and will reveal any hard targets in the AO,” Captain Damatha said into the silence. “Lieutenant Quinn knows his business, My Lord. You don’t have to worry about the soldiers. We may want to consider reinforcing his platoon, however; with only two teams on the roster there isn’t any opportunity to put a squad on rest for a cycle.”

“I’ll consider it,” I replied with a sigh. So, she had been thinking of fatigue as well? “It depends on what our financials look like after we’re done with this planet. And I know Quinn’s a professional, but all it takes is one blaster bolt, and I don’t like losing what is mine. The scouting run is a good idea; we’ll need all the intel we can get.”

“If you’ll excuse me, then,” the captain stood, bowed, and followed the others.

I met Quinn at the hangar, as we had discussed, and saw the soldiers lined up, looking somewhat refreshed at least. Most of them had a chance at the showers, and had cleaned their gear from the dust and sand. Sergeant Maow stood at the end of the line, looking along the row, and the rest of the platoon was at attention. Nine soldiers, including Vette. I remained a short distance away and listened to Quinn talk.

“...canyons. Hostiles in the AO are Sand People armed with obsolete blasters or slug-throwers. They prefer ambush tactics and are on home territory. We’ll have Firrec on squad one, with a UAV in operation. A backup probe droid on Green, if the first is shot down. Damatha has her birds scouting as we speak, and I’ll have access to the maps once they are processed. Our goal is to sweep the area with Lady on point, she’s searching for another Sith Lord. Considering the terrain and our enemies, we’re more likely to engage at range, so swap your scopes. If we need to clear caverns, we’ll use sidearms. Any questions?”

“No, sir!”

“Load up, then.”

When they saluted, I noted that they directed the motion more towards me than to Quinn. The soldiers broke out of the line and started speaking to each other as they walked towards the largest of the transports. It wasn’t one of the personnel drop-ships that had picked us up, this one was more of a gunship, with a wide rear and two flared wings that had a collection of warheads and turbolasers bristling along the underside of each wing.

A few of the soldiers switched out their primary weapons at the crates we had carried up from their FOB. They hadn’t had time to completely unpack, then.

“We’re ready to depart, My Lord,” Quinn said, approaching me. I blinked, shaken out of my observations, and smiled.

“Let’s get going then, Darth Silthar isn’t going to save himself. By the way, is ‘Lady’ my callsign?”

Quinn seemed to hesitate. “Yes, is that acceptable?”

I laughed. “It’s fine, Quinn. Who came up with it?”

“I think it was Tack, Ma’am.”

Shaking my head, I boarded the transport. Quinn sat beside me, with the sergeant beside him, and the rest of the platoon at seemingly random positions. The gunship had sixteen seats in the passenger cabin, with harnesses.

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Ravaging Talon. Please fasten your harnesses as we prepare for takeoff. Your escort today will be the boys from Gold Wing. You won’t see them, though. They do take payment in the form of drinks at the nearest dive bar, so be sure to settle up next shore leave,” the pilot spoke over the PA. “Also, welcome aboard, My Lord. We’re honored to deliver dread and terror to your enemies on this fine, sunny day.”

“Who is this guy?” I wondered bemusedly.

Quinn shook his head. “Typical flyboy.”

The gunship’s engines thrummed to life with an impressive roar, followed by the unmistakable scream of repulsor engines. Shortly after that, my stomach lurched as the gunship picked itself up and ostensibly began our flight. Beside me, Quinn flipped open a holographic map from a device on his wrist, extending it over my thigh so I could see it.

“This is the map from Captain Damatha’s fly-over,” he managed to say, swaying a bit when the gunship turned. A moment later, I felt our angle of attack shift down and then the whole gunship seemed to jump as the thrusters kicked in. The cabin rumbled ominously.

“Is it always like this?” I practically shouted over the cacophony.

“Yes!” Quinn replied, quirking a grin.

As I watched the map he held out, more data seemed to stream in. Contours filled out on the holographic canyons, as well as a few geometric markers which I supposed indicated cave entrances. And other markers which seemed to be pointing out Sand People buildings or clusters of their tents.

No one could speak over the noise after we hit atmosphere.

Eventually, with a gut-wrenching suicide burn, the gunship gracefully touched down on the sands, and the howling repuslor engines quieted. The PA crackled. “Thank you for riding with the Ravaging Talon today. If you need the sky to fall on your targets, don’t hesitate to request air support!”

“He just wants to blow shit up,” one of the infantrymen scoffed.

“Don’t we all?” retorted another.

The ramp at the back of the cabin dropped with a thud, none of the elegantly opening hydraulics that I had expected from Star Wars transports. Quinn, harness unbuckled, checked his rifle and then crouched in the aisle between the seats. “Ma’am, wait a moment,” he said, gesturing me to stay seated. “Right, boys! By the numbers, watch the flanks. Move, move!”

The platoon poured out the back of the gunship, with a man on either side of the ramp falling to a kneeling position and aiming down sights, sweeping the rocky outcroppings some distance away. The rest of the platoon fanned out quickly, going prone or finding boulders large enough to use as cover. I fixed my helmet on and a moment later Quinn’s voice echoed in my ear.

“Right,” he said. “We’re clear for now. Come on down, Lady. Let’s sketch a route on the maps Damatha sent us.”

I jogged toward his position. Quinn was in the center of the scattered formation, laying on his belly with a boulder on one side and his rifle in front of him. He had one arm crooked, and the map was visible above it, using the projector on his comm. I kneeled beside him, then saw his helmet cock questioningly up at me.

He would not insist, not in front of all the soldiers. But I sensed he wanted me to reduce my profile, in case of anyone taking shots. I sighed, inaudibly, and went prone shoulder to shoulder with him.

“Here’s the canyons,” he said, panning the map east to west. “If Darth Silthar went missing in this area, he could be in any of these caves, marked with triangles. How far can you sense?”

“A good distance,” I replied. “Maybe a kilometer?”

Quinn bobbed his helmet. “Right, if we take this canyon through the overpass, and then head east across the territory, we should avoid that settlement on the northern side. If your range is a kilometer, that would cover most of the place.”

“It depends on how strong Darth Silthar is. If he is near death, he’ll be harder to sense,” I explained. “If he uses the Force in any way, I might be able to sense him even farther out than a kilometer.”

“This will have to be good enough. The longer we take searching, the more attention we’ll attract. The gunship dropped us three hundred meters from what is considered Sand People territory, but if you asked them, they’d say the whole planet is their territory, so we’re likely to take fire if we’re spotted at any time.”

“I know,” I replied. “That’s why I wasn’t sure about bringing the entire platoon.”

“That’s why you needed to bring the whole platoon,” Quinn corrected. “You’ll take point, since you’re basically unassailable. Hopefully, any hostiles target you first, and we can make them regret it without taking casualties. One squad will follow you, the other on over-watch. We’ll pause now and then, to bring the over-watch team up, and switch off. In this heat, we can’t move too quickly, or we’ll exhaust ourselves.”

I nodded, pointing at a position on the eastern side of the marked Sand People territory. “The gunship can pick us up there, then. That way we don’t have to circle all the way back.”

“I’ll call it in. Move out whenever you’re ready,” Quinn replied.

With all that strategizing and preparation, I half expected to run into Sand People immediately and end up fighting our way through the canyons. I was both surprised and somewhat bored by the reality of things. Which was long, grueling stretches of tense hiking, during which barely a word was spoken and nothing was heard apart from the wind and occasional distant barking animal noises.

Bantha? Or some other denizen of these canyons?

I couldn’t say. Whatever the case might be, Quinn kept the chatter to a minimum, which was probably wise. Intermittently, call-outs were made. Usually the men were indicating which position they were moving toward, or the over-watch team was ordering the forward team to duck and cover for several false alarms.

Every time I had to dive forward, igniting my lightsaber on instinct, I got that much more anxious about the moment when we really would take fire. Every time it happened, however, the movement the spotters had seen was just some kind of animal. Or it might have been an observer who didn’t decide to shoot.

I sensed plenty of Sand People, as I swept my senses outward. They lurked on the canyon’s tops, out of sight. Following us. There was nothing I could do but indicate their positions to Quinn, and my men adjusted their positions to cover rear angles and sight lines coming down from the cliffs on either side of the sandy ravine. If we did get engaged from the cliffs, however, it would be pretty difficult to return fire.

It reminded me sourly of the ambush on Balmorra.

Nearly an hour of this, and we were halfway through the route that Quinn and I had sketched out. I sensed a Sith presence, at that point, and held up my hand as I came to a halt.

“I sense him,” I said, pointing in a direction. “That way. Probably...two hundred meters?”

Judging distance was almost impossible. The best way to do it was to use a point of reference, but there weren’t a lot of things casting Force signatures aside from my own men and the Sand People. Judging by the feel of the soldiers nearest to me, and how far from me they stood, I extrapolated that the faint signature of the Sith was about two hundred meters away. The general direction was just like picking out a faint noise.

“That’s towards the Sand People’s tent village,” Quinn replied. “Two hundred meters puts us right at the edge of their camp.”

“Shit,” I replied. “That’s just great. He got himself captured, do you think?”

“Possible,” Quinn said, sounding uncertain. “Unlikely, however. Something other than Sand People contributed to his defeat. The numbers don’t make sense otherwise. Well, Darth Silthar could be far weaker than the average Sith Lord, but he didn’t seem that way to me.”

“Well, he is an archaeologist, not a warlord,” I mused. “Perhaps he prefers the company of the dead for a reason. In any case, what are your thoughts on breaking him out of there?”

“Not enough data. When we get close enough, the probe droid will reveal any turret emplacements and give us an estimate of the enemy forces. When we turn that direction, however, we may aggravate our tails.”

I winced. “That was what I was afraid of. There’s a good number of them following us along the cliffs.”

“We should approach from the other direction,” Sergeant Maow interjected. “They’ll drop grenades down on us from above if we get into a firefight in this location.”

I momentarily muted myself so I could curse explosively. I hadn’t even considered grenades. When I enabled my comm again, I made sure to sound decisive. “We’ll exit the canyons and circle around to the village, approaching from the northeast.”

“They’ll know we’re coming,” Quinn cautioned. “We’re outnumbered.”

“Well, call that gunship pilot,” I replied, tersely. “He sounded like he wanted to make a pass at the Sand People.”

“Bombing the village might kill Darth Silthar.”

“Not the village,” I replied. “Once we exit the canyons, the Sand People on the clifftops will be visible to the sky and we’ll be clear. The gunship can hit them while we move toward the village.”

“Understood,” Quinn responded. “I’ll coordinate.”

The silence came again. We marched more quickly now, with the threat of the Sand People hanging over us like the blade of a guillotine.

Why hadn’t they attacked? I wasn’t sure. Maybe they didn’t want to take any chances with us, and hoped we were just passing through? It didn’t seem typical for Sand People to be so cautious when outsiders were concerned. Normally, they were all about just taking shots and dealing with the consequences later.

“Right, we’re coming up on the end of the ravine,” Quinn finally said. “Over-watch, we’re not waiting this time. Double time, we need to be a hundred meters clear of this canyon when that gunship gets in range.”

We broke into a run. I intentionally ran slower, letting the first team of soldiers pass. Vette’s group was bringing up the rear this time, but I had a feeling that the Sand People were going to take a few parting shots.

I was right.

The moment the second team cleared the ravine, fully automatic blaster fire ripped down from the cliff top.

“Don’t stop!” Quinn barked. “Forward team, suppressing fire!”

My lightsaber snapped to life, and I jumped ten meters back, landing in front of two men just as the sweeping, almost uncontrolled hail of blaster fire crossed their path. My weapon blurred, blocking most of the salvo before the gun’s tracking continued onward, moving towards another of the men. The high report of blaster rifles sounded from the forward team, and an answering stream of red plasma streaked towards the clifftops, interrupting the gunner.

“Move! Gunship inbound, fifteen seconds!”

Feet pounded into the sand. Blaster shots whined past my ears. I turned, deflecting more, then took a few more paces. I was the closest to the cliffs now, covering the last of Vette’s team. I couldn’t recognize the man just from his armored form. The amount of suppressing fire from my own soldiers at this point was a little ridiculous. A fullisade of plasma was tearing up the sheer rock face and zinging off into the clear sky.

“Cover her!” he almost spat. Then, to me, “Lady, you’re danger close!”

I cursed, lunging towards the last soldier. I picked him up with the Force and threw him, then I jumped as far as I could after him.

A little speck showed on the horizon, visible above the blurring of the heated air. That was the gunship. I saw it, briefly, at the apex of my jump.

A barrage of rockets broke the sound barrier with a series of booming cracks, leaving streaks sparkling blue exhaust, then hit the rocks at my back. FFwhooomp-CRAKK.

I hit the dirt, fell face-first into the sand, and covered my head.

Another salvo. Like a drum cadence, the missiles would crack twice through the air then hit their target with a basso explosion that shook the ground. Again. And again.

Then it was over. Bits of rocks fell from the sky, pinging off my back and off my helm. I rolled over, casting about for my lightsaber, and I found it in the sand a short distance away, deactivated. It slapped back into my palm as I sat up and looked at the canyons.

The barrage had collapsed the ravine into itself. A line of huge, smoldering craters split the cliffs down their tops. Holy shit. I blinked at the devastation, tracing lines of smoke and huge slabs of stone that had been thrown as far as eighty meters from the canyon. One of them had slammed down less than five meters from me.

“My Lord, are you injured?”

“No, Lieutenant,” I answered immediately. “Anyone else?”

“Just shaken. One scorched armor plate,” Quinn reported. “We’re ready to advance on the village.”

I stood, on slightly shaking legs. “Let’s go.”

The Sand People village was only a short distance away, and we followed the exterior of the canyons. I sensed a disturbed anthill of activity inside the caves and all throughout the rocky outcroppings, but we didn’t see even a shadow move as we practically jogged towards the tent village.

We posted up behind a collection of boulders, half the men lying prone, while Quinn consulted the probe droids.

“Looks deserted,” he reported. “No turrets. No movement. Do you still sense Darth Silthar?”

“Yes,” I answered. “He’s there.”

It was clearer now than it had been before. There was something else, too. A darkness that was lashing outward, uncontrolled and chaotic. I couldn’t even tell if it was coming from something living or if it was some kind of Dark Side nexus. I didn’t remark on it, to Quinn. He wouldn’t know the difference, and it would only make him anxious.

“Right,” Quinn sighed. “Just storm the village, then. Simple enough, isn’t it? Sidearms out. Watch tight corners, clear every tent. Stun grenades on contact, frags if the enemy is entrenched. No prisoners. Are these rules of engagement acceptable, Ma’am?”

Why sidearms, I wondered? The soldiers swapped their long, semi-automatic scoped rifles for blaster pistols, and I kept the question to myself.

“Yes,” I answered. “I will make a beeline for Darth Silthar. Once I recover him, we can fight our way out. No need to hold the position. You’re attack will keep them preoccupied.”

“We don’t have the manpower to leave a team covering our retreat. We could get boxed in,” Quinn warned.

“I’ll cut a way out, in that case.”

Quinn nodded. “Fair enough. Alright, boys. Anyone short on charges?”

A short exchange later, with a few extra energy cells changing hands, and we were locked and loaded. “Go.”

Quinn’s assault on the village started the instant our boys were spotted. Yellow blaster fire, typical of Sand People long rifles, shot from shadowed positions above the village towards our advance. In response, one fire team took covered positions and laid down suppressive fire while the other team broke into a sprint, bending low to the ground.

I joined the sprint, after a beat. I could move faster than them, for one thing, and I wasn’t taking the same approach. My bulky, white-armored body still drew fire from the Sand People at first, but when my lightsaber ignited to cover me the ones aiming for me broke off their shots. That was curious. Most of the time, people were dumb enough to just keep shooting at a lightsaber-wielder.

I reached the large palisade of the village first, and vaulted over the bone spurs holding up the bantha leather that served as a wall against wind and sand. When I touched down, I found the inside of the village as empty as reported. The shots were coming from the cliffs behind the village, and now they were shooting into the village proper. Even so, only the occasional shot was aimed my way. I ran between the tents, moving towards a large wooden pavilion that seemed to be a village center of sorts.

That was where Darth Silthar’s Force presence was.

There were no doors on the structure, and when I sprinted inside, I found that there wasn’t anybody there. No one apart from Darth Silthar, that is, who was tied with his hands above his head to a post in the center of the pavilion.

Blood pooled around his feet. He was naked, and he had been whipped until his red skin was nothing but a tapestry of shallow, weeping cuts. His head lifted, weakly, when he heard my lightsaber’s hum. His jaw was broken, so he could not speak.

I sensed the strange darkness coming nearer. Not from Darth Silthar.

Turning around, I pursed my lips behind my helm. A Human had walked into the pavilion, behind me. He was still walking, now. Leisurely, self-assured. He wore dark brown robes, of Jedi make, and he looked filthy. Grime covered his skin, and an unhealthy blush colored his cheeks. His eyes were sunken and bloodshot. An odd, red tattoo like three claw marks slashed over his nose. His hair, or what remained of it, was gray and matted, sticking out wildly from his head. The top of his head was bald and sunburnt.

“Another Sith has come to play?” he asked, a hint of laughter in his voice. “I thought your kind was supposed to be strong. Stronger than that sorry excuse for a warrior, at least.”

Who the fuck is this guy? Whatever. I settled into a combat stance as the Jedi came to a halt several paces away, just far enough to react if I lunged at him. I made sure to drop out of squad comms before I spoke, “A Jedi, here?”

“Oh, yes. He was surprised, too,” said the Jedi with a laugh. “He didn’t understand. Just like the others. He proved himself weak.”

“That’s not a very Jedi-like way to talk about a guy,” I ventured. “You sound more like my Sith master.”

“Ha!” the grimy Jedi barked a cold laugh. “Perhaps. Yes, perhaps. But to defeat the Empire, the Republic cannot continue to ignore the lesson of strength! A lesson that the Sand People of Tatooine live and breathe with every day. The strong prevail, the weak perish. That is what we should have learned from the desert. That is the way of life, isn’t it? The Jedi, we coddle the Republic. We hold it up, when it could not stand on its own merits. We have created weakness. Only through purification can the Republic become strong enough to triumph over the Sith. And that process begins here...with you.”

“Nice monologue,” I replied glibly. “Did you practice that, or was it improv?”

“The words of my great and wise master come to me, like revelation,” the Jedi purred. He reached into his robes, palming his lightsaber. “If only you, too, could hear his voice. It is a thing of wonder.”

Oh. This was the fucking Consular’s class story, wasn’t it? That layabout hadn’t cleaned up the Sith plague on Tatooine yet?!

Well, here’s proof that the Consular probably does exist. Or maybe not? If he hadn’t come to deal with this poisoned Jedi Master, then maybe the Consular had been killed already.

I didn’t have a chance to ponder the matter more. The Jedi was lunging forward, a surprising crackle of Force power at his back, and I was forced to match his blade with mine. Our lightsabers sizzled sharply when I deflected his initial lunge, and then we began the dance of combat in earnest.

But...this guy was really bad at it.

His attacks were telegraphed and obvious, his footwork was sloppy. He moved a lot like a drunk person, actually. I blocked two strikes, stepped into his space, and he stumbled over himself to retreat. His lightsaber swept toward center line, uncontrolled, and I tapped it from the inside, knocking it down, then circled my wrist up and severed his sword arm at the elbow.

The limb slapped onto the sandstone between us in a shower of blood. A quick lunge after that, and my long crimson saber pierced him below the shoulder, in the chest. He slumped, tripped again, and fell onto his back with a pained grunt, off the point of my weapon. I straightened up, huffing in disappointment.

“That was it?” I exclaimed, stalking towards him. I wasn’t going to get caught gloating, no sirree. He lashed upwards with the Force, but his attack broke harmlessly over Force Fortress, and then I decapitated him with a tight slash. His head rolled away from me, leaving a trail of blood on the sandstone while his body jerked in its final throes. “Really?”

Well, no sense in complaining about an easy victory. I turned back towards Darth Silthar, who had slumped down in his bonds again. A moment later, I had cut the ropes binding him and he fell against my armor, too weak to hold himself up.

Silthar gasped, making an attempt at words. His scrabbling hands leaved streaks of blood on my breastplate.

“You look terrible, Darth,” I remarked, bending down and picking the other Lord up in a fireman’s carry. He screamed, loudly, when his body settled over my shoulders. “Easy, now. I’ll get you out of here.”

I tuned back into the squad’s channel. “Quinn, I’ve got Silthar. He’s fucked up bad. I’ll have to carry him out.”

“Shit,” the lieutenant’s response came immediately. “We’re getting pushed out of the village. They were ready to cut us off, their warriors came in from the eastern side. Can you punch your way out?”

“I can’t deflect blaster shots very well while carrying our VIP.”

“You’re in the central pavilion,” Quinn observed. “Exit through the western side, Ma’am; we’ll suppress the cliffs that have a shot on you. The other side of the pavilion doesn’t have a line of sight. Move quickly.”

“Understood.”

Western side? I glanced at my ethereal map, which thankfully had the cardinal direction of North marked on it, as well as a little arrow indicator which represented myself, and then I settled Silthar more solidly on my shoulders. He had passed out completely...or he had died. I couldn’t think about that now.

There was no exit facing west, so I cut through the wall. It was a rush job, and something caught fire while I was cutting. I ignored that, kicking down the wicker and clay wall before making a dead sprint towards the village’s palisade. The suppressive fire I was promised came through, along with a smoke grenade that covered my left side. By the time I cleared the palisade, my soldiers were already beating a retreat in turns, with one team laying down fire while the other put some much needed distance between us and the very angry mob of Sand People.

“ETA on that gunship?” I asked when I had a chance to take cover. Quinn had his rifle out again and was contributing to the suppressive fire while he answered.

“Thirty seconds, My Lord. We’re actually the ones who will be late.”

I snarled, gesturing at the nearest trooper. “You, take the Sith,” I barked, offloading my bloody cargo. “I’ll cover us, get out of here.”

“You heard her, move! Full retreat, no stops!” Quinn repeated my order without question. I liked that in a man.

I gathered the Force into myself, like someone inhaling, and then conjured three whirlwinds, sending them out in a fan moving back towards the Sand People. Another sand trick, just like I’d done on Korriban, except larger in scale. Sand was excellent for screening a position, since blaster shots tended to lose a lot of their energy as they passed through sand in the air, and it was much more dangerous to push through than smoke.

With the whirlwinds mostly self-sustaining - they would last probably fifteen seconds - I caught up with my soldiers. Some of the boys looked absolutely exhausted, running in something resembling a carefully controlled stagger. When I saw the gunship swoop down from the clear blue sky ahead of us, slamming into the sand with a solid thump, I also heard my men break out in cheers.

Four crewmen came out from the ramp with repeaters in their hands, pouring down brutal fire at any of the Sand People who were still crazy enough to give chase even through the whirling sands. Quinn was practically throwing his boys into the cabin when I reached them, one of the final three stragglers.

Darth Silthar was on a stretcher inside, with a medic attending. The rest of the men piled in, and then the gunship was jerking up and away. Deep, thundering turbolaser fire followed, as the ship glassed the deserts below us. The boarding ramp retracted and closed while we were gaining altitude.

When those seals hissed, I finally relaxed.

“Welcome back, milord,” the pilot chirped. “All passengers, please find the nearest seat and fasten your harnesses, we’re angling to break atmo.”

A few of the boys laughed, breathlessly, even as they pulled themselves upright and patted themselves down, looking for signs of damage. I shook my head, reaching for the harness, and hoped that Darth Silthar would live.

Chapter Text

“...see how she threw me? Thought it was the shock wave at first, except it didn’t burn. And, you know, I didn’t die.”