Path of Ruin [Star Wars SI]

[Rictus]

Chapter 52


The screams had cut out completely as soon as the Leviathan had departed, though it had left me with a mild headache. However, it was nothing I couldn't work through. As such, I could actually do some work now.

It took a sacrifice of time and power, but I was able to make a crude bowl from a football-sized rock to drain some blood into. After eating some rations to regain the sugars lost from bloodletting and switching on a glowrod, I got to work painting a more stable array onto the cave to conceal my presence. It was long and tedious work, so I allowed my mind to focus on planning for the coming days.

Killing a Leviathan was simple in theory, but much, much more difficult in practice.

According to the beastiaries I'd found in the academy archives and my own pre-existing knowledge, Leviathans had hides thick enough to shrug off nearly everything short of concentrated turbolaser fire. Had I the resources, that would be my preferred method.

Specifically, looking down on the planet from high orbit as the main guns of my dreadnought turned the monster into a crater and never getting within physical eyesight of it.

Pity I didn't have that.

Lightsabers could get around their armored skin like they did nearly everything else in the galaxy, but that also involved getting into melee range of a Leviathan, which presented its own problems, most notably being that they were still skyscraper-sized monsters that could breathe fire. A single lightsaber strike would not be enough to kill one, even if I had a lightsaber in hand.

Which I didn't have either.

Of course, that didn't take into account that getting into melee with them was a trap to begin with. Leviathans developed blister traps across their bodies as they aged that detonated when struck, draining the life force of anyone stupid enough to get that close and hit them.

And that was just the physical aspects of the creatures.

Leviathans weren't anti-Jedi army killers for their physical abilities alone. If that were the case, this would be so much simpler. No, they also interefered with the ability to call upon the Force. Usually, this was manifested through creating disruptive screams inside the mind or by inducing crippling headaches. There were also some footnotes in the bestiaries that said there were unproven claims that a Leviathan could also trigger obsessive behavior. I'd experienced the screams and headaches first-hand and could attest that those at least were true.

Despite all that, the fact remained that they could be and had been fought. Jedi kill teams had hunted most of the existing Leviathans to near extinction during and after the Hundred Year Darkness, with Corbos as the only place in the known galaxy where they could be found.

Unfortunately, documentation on precisely how they accomplished that on foot was not available in the academy's archives.

Aside from turbolasers, the Sith beastiaries had all agreed that Force Lightning was also effective against them, though they had been vague on how much would be needed to actually kill one. I decided to edge on the safe side and say a lot. Possibly more than I could generate on my own.

All of which meant squat if I couldn't concentrate enough to generate the lightning in the first place. I needed a defense against their mental interference first. I had three days to figure one out, figure out how to kill a Leviathan, and carry out said plan.

It didn't seem like nearly enough.

As I finished the last sigil, the spell took effect and the "ink" burned into the ground and walls. Carefully, I released my hold on my power, slowly allowing it to flow freely again. When no screams followed, I let out a sigh of relief.

The ward worked, which gave me a safe space to work with. Well, as safe as I could be on this desolate world. At the very least, my basic necessities had been taken care of. I had a week's worth of food and water provided by my handlers and the cave provided shelter from the elements.

For a task that I had three days to complete, it seemed at first glance that my handlers were being generous. But in truth, they were not.

It was a threat. They had provided the supplies to keep me fueled long enough to accomplish the task and a little more than I actually needed.

It gave the false hope that I had more time than I actually did. If I did not complete my task when three days was up, that hope would turn to despair. Once the shuttle left, it would be all I had. Day by day, my supplies would dwindle bit by bit, no matter how much I rationed it.

Even with the Force bolstering me and the wards keeping me safe from the Leviathans, I would only last six days after my supplies ran out before dehydration set in. Probably less, given Corbos' climate.

Corbos was a dead world in a way that not even Korriban could match. The Leviathans aside, living things simply did not survive here for long, no matter how they tried to adapt. Anything that set foot on its surface and did not leave soon after…died, whether to the inhabitants or to the planet itself.

There had been dozens of attempts to recolonize Corbos in the centuries since that last battle. All of them had failed and not just because of the Leviathans. The Hundred Year Darkness had left its scars, in more ways than one.

Thunder rumbled ominously in the skies above, threatening to lash out.

I tossed the now-empty bowl over my shoulder. It was made from good, sturdy rock, so I wasn't worried about it breaking. I heard it land on the floor behind me with a thunk before clattering to a stop.

I walked to the cave's entrance just in time to see the rain begin to patter against the stones outside. Within a minute, the first few unsteady drops quickly morphed into a torrential downpour thick enough that it obscured everything more than ten feet away from me. If the cave hadn't been a bit elevated, I might have been worried about flooding.

Cold winds swept past me, sending a few errant drops to splash against my boots. Even through my armor's insulated bodysuit, I could still feel a bit of chill, indicating just how cold it actually was. I pulled my heavy outer robe just a little bit tighter to try and ward it off.

…I really had found myself in a place even more miserable than Korriban, hadn't I? At least there had been life on that murderous desert hellhole. And warmth.

Here, there was just…nothing.

Only me.

I shook my head and turned back, only to pause as I spied a glint of something on the ground, revealed by the light of the glowrod. I approached carefully and knelt, prodding at it with my left hand.

What I had thought was stone was simply hardened mud, which had been cracked by the bowl when it landed. Chips of dirt were easily brushed aside with my fingers.

I tilted my head to one side as I uncovered my prize and the dull gleam of durasteel greeted me, completely untouched by rust.

A smile slowly started working its way onto my face, but I kept myself from getting too excited. Instead, I placed my palm on the exposed metal and pushed my awareness into the floor beneath me.

Information flowed into my mind as I delved deeper, past the durasteel plating. I followed the dull sparks of long-dead circuitry that snaked into the darkness far, far below. The sheer enormity of it was too much for my mind to fully process, so I was forced to partition it, push out "junk" information. Once I had done that, I could finally grasp exactly what I had unwittingly uncovered.

This wasn't a cave. And these weren't mountains.

===================================================

My boots made contact with a solid surface with a heavy thud as I landed in a crouch. The sound reverberated through the dead space, growing softer and softer with each repetition as it traveled farther away. Beneath my feet, the metal grating of the walkway I had landed on groaned from the impact but showed no sign of giving way. As I moved to stand, I raised my lit glowrod overhead to light my way.

The room I now found myself in was cavernous, the darkness stretching out beyond my light. A few other catwalks were visible, though several were only hanging by one or two cables.

Aside from that, it was surprisingly intact for a three-thousand-year-old wreck. From my scans, it seemed the cruiser had crashed nose-first, crushing the bridge and the forward positions under the weight of the rest of the vessel. The "cave" I had found had actually been an exterior access hatch for the engineering section, blown open by the crash and caked over by centuries of mud.

I closed my eyes for a moment, reorienting myself based on the mental map that had been etched into my brain. It was a crude thing, but sufficient for basic navigation. With a few more leaps, I was at "ground" level.

There were no bodies, but that didn't really surprise me. With as intact as engineering was, the surviving crew was probably able to evacuate and possibly take some of their fallen with them.

Through broken walls, I could see the outlines of dusty consoles. Stepping over the debris, I walked into what I assumed was the control room. Placing a hand on one of the consoles, I pushed tendrils of the Force into the circuitry to see if I could at least get some lights back on.

Navigating the maze of machinery, my will snaked up and into the main power core, though I quickly departed. The ship's main core had a hole the size of a school bus in it, likely the reason the it had gone down in the first place. That wasn't getting fixed anytime soon.

However, ships of this size should have a secondary core or possibly even a tertiary core, to handle things like emergency subsystems at least. Namely lights and life support.

My mind zipped along the network of cables until…ah ha! There it was!

The secondary core wasn't damaged, just offline. All it took to trigger its warm-up cycle was a flick of mental effort. As I pulled myself back to the physical, the smaller core hummed to life, sending power through corroded circuitry. Overhead, cracked yellow lights flickered on, banishing the gloomy darkness.

But just as I was about to feel satisfied with myself, the universe decided I was getting too smug.

Suddenly, some piece of machinery sparked. A blaring horn sounded off as the lights abruptly switched from faded yellow to a bloody red. As that noise stopped, it was replaced by another.

From somewhere deep in the crashed ship, the shriek of something inhuman echoed back.

 

[Rictus]

Chapter 53


As the sound of the cry faded, I gave serious consideration to simply leaving. Just turn around and go find another cave to avoid having any part of that bullshit.

However, I couldn't. If I was going to survive the Leviathan, I needed whatever I could find in this wreck. Not to mention, I was on a time crunch. I simply didn't have the time to find and go spelunking in any other wrecks. For all I knew, they too had a monster infestation. Might as well deal with the one I was already in.

Clipping my glowrod to my belt, I waited, listening for any sign that whatever creature was here with me was coming closer. I was greeted by only silence, but I couldn't shake the feeling that it was nevertheless nearby.

I couldn't get a good grasp on its exact location with my Force senses. Its presence was almost as slippery as oil. But I could feel its hunger radiating outwards.

It hadn't eaten for a very, very long time and I was on the menu.

However, it stayed back, its hunger tempered by caution. It was watching and getting my measure before striking. An ambush predator then.

Because of that, I had time to prepare and I was damn well going to use it.

Pushing my will into the computer again, I ordered it to run a diagnostic while I kept an eye out in case the monster decided to change tactics. The emergency lighting was obviously on, but there were also a number of other subsystems that should have reactivated as well. As it returned a report, I took note of the contents before I started shutting down unnecessary systems to conserve power for as long as possible.

There was no telling how long the ancient power core would last. It had literally been millennia since it had last seen maintenance, so the fact that it was still functioning at all in this condition was already a miracle. Overstressing it could potentially cause it to go critical.

The life support systems were the first to go. The ship had enough holes in it that it was no longer vacuum-sealed and air had seeped in over the centuries, so there was no need to waste energy on it. Even if there were some rooms that were less than habitable, my helmet's air supply and filters would last me long enough to get out of them. If not, holding my breath was always an option. That done, I moved on.

The cruiser was large enough that it had an internal tram system to transport crew and goods from one end of the ship to the other. It was also the next subsystem to be deactivated. I sincerely doubted there was enough of the tram line left intact after the crash to be worth keeping it powered.

One by one, I continued to manually deactivate system after system until only the lights and automatic doors remained active. I'd played survival horror games before.

Lesson one: Keep the fucking lights on.

Lesson two: Don't get locked in with the monster.

Now it was probably inevitable that a lot of the doors were broken and I'd have to open them manually anyways, but the less that I had to do that with, the better.

With that out of the way, the next step was arming myself. Unless I wanted to tear the ship apart piece by piece, that meant finding an armory.

Though most of the data on the ship's computers was corrupted and inaccessible due to age, I was able to find a mostly intact map. Comparing it to the one I had made in my head with my powers, I was able to get a good read on how big the ship was supposed to be…and how much damage there was.

From the schematics, the cruiser was supposed to be around seven hundred meters, only a hundred meters smaller than a Harrower-class Dreadnought and placing it on the lower end of heavy cruiser classification. Twenty armories were scattered across its bulk, though most of them were concentrated around the crew quarters, barracks, and hangar.

Unfortunately, all three sections were inaccessible. Half of the ship had been turned into scrap when it hit the ground, leaving it in its current state. Both the crew quarters and the barracks had been in the front half and now simply no longer existed. The hangar and its immediate surroundings, placed on the lower decks, seemed to have been completely crushed when the ship settled after impact.

However, it seemed there were still two armories near engineering. Well, relatively nearby. They were both five levels up from my current position, but on different sides of the ship. I'd decide which one to go to when I got to that level.

When I pulled back, it felt like nearly an hour had passed, but a glance at my helmet's chronometer showed that it had only been a minute or two. Good.

Light clicking sounds emerging from the depths told me that the monster would soon lose patience. I tilted my head and considered the sound, trying to get a read on what the creature was. An insectoid of some kind?

I shook my head to dismiss the thoughts before they could go far. No more time to dawdle. I'd find out soon enough anyways.

My boots echoed quietly on the deck plating as I walked out of the control room and headed for the nearest exit.

====================================================

The closest turbolifts were a few corridors away from the engineering section. As I walked through the dead halls, I could hear the clicks persist, which was soon joined by a quick series of scurrying taps.

I didn't bother to look around. It was pretty obvious that the creature was following me, likely cutting off my escape as I moved further into the ship and deeper into its lair.

Listening didn't reveal much else about the creature. As the halls I found myself in were built wide and tall to accommodate the movement of heavy industrial equipment, I couldn't use it as a measure to figure out how large the monster actually was until I saw it. Still, it was somewhat comforting to know that it couldn't be much bigger than a cargo truck if it expected to fit through here, much less fight.

Soon, the turbolifts came into sight. The heavy durasteel doors were jammed open, revealing the empty shaft beyond. No lights illuminated the inside of the turbolift shaft, leaving it as a dark pit.

When I examined them a bit more closely, I found that the edges of the doors were bent, as though they had been shoved aside by something very strong. I lightly touched my hand to the curve to compare my grip to whatever had done it. Not a match. Whatever was responsible, it wasn't humanoid.

I craned my neck to look up, the glowrod on my belt dimly illuminating the dark shaft enough for me to see the outline of the door for the next floor. Like ones I was standing by, those had been forced open as well.

As I went to pull my hand away, there was some unexpected resistance as it stuck to the door. With a stronger tug, I managed to completely free my limb without too much difficulty. Turning my hand over, I couldn't see anything on it or on the door. But testing my fingers revealed they were now covered with some sticky substance, invisible to the naked eye.

I frowned and engaged my Force Sight. Under my now colorless sight, I could see that something was sticking to my hand, dangling off in thin strands. More such strands coated the doorway.

Looking up into the turbolift shaft, I discovered it to be completely covered with the same substance, almost to the point of blocking sight. After a moment of observation, I realized what it was: webbing.

I pondered my next course of action. I needed to get up to the armories, five floors above me. There were maintenance tunnels that would lead me there, but it would take more time and possibly leave me trapped in a small space.

No, I needed to go through here. Which meant clearing a path. If this webbing was anything like normal webbing…

I summoned a small charge of lightning into the palm of my hand and watched as the strands burned away by the heat generated that accompanied the summoned electricity. A smile tugged at the edges of my lips. Good.

I called up another charge and directed it at the doorway. As the lightning crackled from my fingertips, the strands ignited and burned as quickly as dry straw. In an instant, the turbolift shaft lit up in a bright flash before going dark again and strands of scorched webbing went tumbling into the darkness below.

Something clattered before falling past me. All I saw was several blurs of white before they were out of sight and I heard more clattering and some uncomfortable-sounding snapping noises. From the sound, it seemed that I had stumbled upon some of the ship's former crew, now just bones.

Ignoring the grisly discovery, I looked back up as I debated the best way to get up to the desired floor. Climbing was out. Whatever this creature was, it was an arachnid of some kind. It would be much better suited at climbing a vertical surface than me, so I'd want my hands free at least to fight it off.

I closed my eyes and concentrated.

Force Flight was an option, though not my first. For some reason, using telekinesis on yourself was more difficult than using it on other things, requiring more control and power to maintain than usual applications. No, I had a better idea.

Metal groaned as a bulkhead tore itself off the wall and placed itself before me. I stepped onto it without hesitation and my impromptu elevator started rising in the air.

Levitating something while you're standing on it was much easier than Force Flight. I managed to get to three floors up without incident before the creature made its move.

The screech was deafeningly loud, even when dulled by my helmet. Peering over the edge of my platform, I got my first look at the monster.

Eight black, bulbous eyes stared unblinkingly at me as eight long legs dragged its huge body through the doorway and into the shaft before it started effortlessly scaling the walls. Its enormous frame, easily fifteen feet tall and long, was covered in glossy black chitin, segmented at the joints to allow for easy movement. Two pairs of large stinger-fangs surrounded its mouth, from which I could see drool drip down as it salivated at the sight of its next meal.

It was closing the distance at an uncomfortably fast rate. I had to do something before it was on me.

Lightning crackled between my fingers just before I hurled it at the monster, only to watch it nimbly hop out of the way even before I had finished the movement. Beneath me, the platform wobbled unsteadily at my momentary lapse, reminding me that I needed to concentrate on maintaining that or else fall.

Fuck.

This was a really bad place to fight a spider creature, especially for me. I wasn't a particularly acrobatic fighter, preferring to fight on solid ground. I needed to get out of the shaft before it caught up.

It was a quick decision as to how I accomplished that.

Pushing the Force into my legs, I crouched down and jumped, launching myself high into the air while simultaneously kicking the bulkhead towards the arachnid. Like before, it dodged out of the way, though the size of the metal plate caused it to momentarily pause its pursuit.

Grabbing onto the lip of the doorway to the fifth floor, I heaved myself up and out of the turbolift shaft. I didn't stay still for long, rolling out of the way just as the monster spider burst through the doorway, its fangs snapping at me.

I snapped off another burst of lightning at it, only to see it curl up into a ball and tumble out the way. Again, it reacted faster than I could aim, as though it was predicting my movements.

As it uncurled, its fangs and thorax twitched just before something splattered against my helmet's visor. Surprised, I stumbled back, instinctively swiping at it only to get my hand stuck to it. Luckily, I realized what it was and quickly released a jolt of lightning to clear it.

But as I did that, the creature had crossed the distance and slammed into me, knocking me from my feet and pinning me to the ground. Its fangs tried to bite at my chest, but was stopped by my armor, scraping off the metal with a horrendous screech.

Without any other weapon and not enough time to concentrate, I punched at its face with my right hand to try and hit something important before it could figure out where my squishy bits were while trying to hold off the fangs with my left.

My first few strikes were clumsy and merely sparked off its hard shell, but the fourth hit home. The spikes on my knuckle-plate sank into one of its giant eyes, causing dark-green ichor to squirt out and splatter on me and the floor.

The spider creature immediately stopped trying to claw at my armor and let out a disturbing squeal as it scrambled back, its many legs lashing out blindly. One of them caught me in the side, launching my body through the air to slam against the wall.

Though my vision swam from the impact, I wasn't hurt and I immediately lashed out with a Force Wave. Distracted and without anywhere to dodge, it hit the monster head on, propelling it down the hallway where it landed with an almighty crash.

It was back on its feet in a split second, barely hurt by the impact. But instead of charging me, it only regarded me for a moment before skittering off back into the darkness.

Shaking the last of the disorientation from my head and standing up, I watched the dark tunnel it had disappeared into. It had been hungry before. Now it was angry and in pain on top of that.

It would be back.

 

[Rictus]

Chapter 54


My fingers instinctively curled into "claws" in anticipation of throwing a blast of Force Lightning as I waited to see if the monster would strike again. As the seconds ticked by, the only sound I could make out was that of the ichor on my knuckle-spikes dripping down onto the deck plating.

But no attack came. I slowly eased my guard but didn't drop it entirely. While I couldn't see or hear the creature, I could still sense it was nearby.

I'd hurt it and losing an eye was not a minor thing, even if you had eight. In all likelihood, I had bought myself some time while it nursed the injury in some hidden crack of the ship.

But that was all I had done. Though it was now down an eye, I hadn't managed to hurt it anymore. It was still hungry and now it was angry on top of that. Another attack was all but inevitable, only this time it would be more cautious in its approach…or more ferocious. And just because it wasn't sapient, that didn't mean it couldn't plan.

But now I had more time. Fortunately, I had made it to my intended deck, so I didn't have to try my luck with the turbolift shaft again. The armories should be nearby. One was on the port side of the ship, while the other was on starboard. The spider monster had fled down towards the starboard side, so it was pretty easy to decide which way to go.

As I started walking, I began to feel the spider's presence lessen, likely from distance. Made sense that it wouldn't immediately chase me when it was actively bleeding. However, that also meant I'd have a harder time keeping a figurative eye on its movements. The farther away it was, the less clear its presence was…and it was already murky and difficult to sense to begin with.

My footsteps echoed in the dark ship as I turned my attention inwards. Off the top of my head, I couldn't quite remember if I knew what this creature was. The Sith were nothing if not prolific when it came to coming up with new warbeasts and the bestiaries I'd read easily contained hundreds of entries. Many of them were obscure, one-off creations that only saw use in one or two conflicts before being killed off or lost but were considered noteworthy enough by a particular author to be included. Obviously, there wasn't as much detail about them as, say, Tu'kata or K'lor'slugs, and most of those barely warranted a single page.

To the misfortune of every arachnophobe in the galaxy, there were actually a lot of giant spiders scattered across the stars. The Energy Spiders of Kessel were among the more famous due to their role in the production of Spice, but there were also the Knobby White Spiders of Dagobah and the Ginntho spiders of Utapau. And those were just the ones I knew about.

The creature had obviously been altered with Alchemy. I could feel it when it had gotten close, a lingering sense of wrongness that clung to it. All Sithspawn possessed it on some level as a sign of just how unnatural their existences were, though it was stronger in creatures freshly made with Alchemy and weakened as they bred. Tu'kata and K'lor'slugs notably lacked this trait as their explosive breeding rates rapidly created generation after generation and distanced them from their more unnatural ancestors.

The fact that I could still sense it on the spider meant that it wasn't too far from the first generation that had been changed. But was it something I had read about before?

Unfortunately, I had paid more attention to the entries on the more common or more powerful monsters on account of my likelihood of encountering them. However…

Beneath my helmet, I idly chewed on my lip as the mental gears started turning.

The Sith never revisited Corbos to my knowledge, so any creatures made after the Hundred Year Darkness were unlikely at best to be present on this planet. That eliminated a lot from the running, narrowing it down considerably.

It obviously wasn't a Leviathan. Too small and it didn't match the description of a larval Leviathan. The impressive creatures were Sorzus Syn's pride and joys, but they weren't her only creations. And the road to creating them had taken a lot of trial and error on her part as she took bits and pieces from her earlier creations to incorporate into her masterpiece monsters.

Three were recorded, though only as small footnotes in the section on Leviathans and only because Syn had specifically mentioned them in the chronicle she had written. Shamblers. Howlers. Pit Horrors…

If the Leviathans were any indication, Sorzus Syn had been very straight-forward with her naming schemes and stuck to describing their main traits. So since the spider didn't shamble and it screeched instead of howled, it was possible that I was dealing with a Pit Horror.

However, I had no idea what exactly a Pit Horror could do. The only thing written about them…was literally just their name. All I had to work with was what I had seen.

It could spin webs like a normal spider, if on a much larger scale, but the silk it produced was only visible under Force Sight. Set up in the right place, that stuff could and probably did catch whole squads before they realized it was there.

The Force Wave I'd thrown at it hadn't been all that gentle, so I could probably assume it could tank a good bit of damage thanks to its exoskeleton and its natural toughness. The only real "soft" spots I'd found so far were its eyes, though the joints might be another weakness.

It was big, strong, and much faster than a creature that size had any right to be. And since it was here, it was either descended from Pit Horrors that had survived the war…or it could hibernate like the Leviathans could.

As much as I didn't want to think it, I'd put my money on the latter. Syn did use traits from her previous creations when she made Leviathans, after all.

I suppose there wasn't much point continuing that line of thought until I had some weapons.

Soon, I found myself stopping before where the armory was supposed to be...only to find the doorway had been stretched and scrunched up into a…well, the only way to really describe it would be that it looked like a puckered anus.

I quickly throttled that juvenile thought and tried to focus.

This had been done deliberately and in a way that was physically impossible to pull off without industrial power tools. Something had happened here, as the walls around it were torn by claws and stained with old carbon scoring. Above, even the lights had been shot out.

Well, it appeared there was only one way inside really.

The ruined doorway shrieked like the damned when I pulled it outwards with the Force. I'd honestly thought about simply blasting it inwards, but then I remembered there were likely volatile explosives inside that might get set off by the concussive force.

Once I'd made just enough room to slip through, I stepped inside. Almost immediately, my helmet registered a number of dangerous bateria in the air and automatically activated the filters. Even with that, the air I breathed in still had a smell I was quickly becoming familiar with thanks to Korriban.

The armory wasn't large as it wasn't meant to service much more than the engineering crew. Weaponry was scattered across the floor. Old blasters, slugthrowers, grenades, and even some vibroblades were here, along with what I assumed to be some other kind of explosives.

But that wasn't what drew my eye at first.

A long trail of black led from the doorway to the far side of the room, where a form was slumped against the wall.

I quietly navigated the room, stepping around the fallen weaponry, and knelt in front of the corpse.

Dark skin was pulled taut over bone, appearing more like paper than flesh. Lids were closed over dried out eyeballs beneath and lips pulled back from white teeth, their owner appearing pained even in death. Tattered black-stained cloth covered the spot where a leg should be, tied off haphazardly above the knee.

Enough features remained intact that I could tell they had been a human or Near-human woman. The nearly sealed room had mummified her almost as well as the arid climate of Korriban would have. Even her black hair had survived. In life, I would guess it used to be around her shoulders. But as her skin had dried and drawn back, it had "grown" to well passed that and became as dry and brittle as straw.

Part of her hair was made into a braid, looped behind the shriveled remains of her right ear.

"I wonder which side you fought on," I wondered aloud, my voice given an electronic edge by the helmet's speakers.

The Hundred Year Darkness hadn't been a conflict between Jedi and Sith, but between two sects of Jedi. This Padawan could easily have belonged to either side. Though at this point, I don't think it really mattered.

Then, the realization that my voice was the first heard inside of this room for nearly three thousand years made me pause for a moment as I processed it.

I shrugged the feeling off soon after and looked down.

Her hands, now long and skeletal, held on desperately to a dull silver cylinder, as though she had hoped it would save her. The black cable attached to one end looped down to a square pack on her tattered belt.

The dead woman's finger bones snapped as I pried the hilt from her hands, her death-grip weakened by millennia. It took equally little effort to retrieve the power pack from her belt.

After being on Korriban for a year, I had very little compunctions against stealing from the dead, save for when they could fight back.

Of course, I actually did pause to see if she was about to get up and try to punish me for my thievery.

She didn't. Because not every corpse in existence needed to have a ghost attached to it. Or be reanimated by foul magics.

Turning my attention to the device, I scanned it with the Force, checking that all the mechanisms and wires still worked. Thankfully, the only thing wrong with it was that the power pack had degraded over the centuries. But that was a problem that could be easily fixed by cannibalizing the power pack from my glowrod.

When I finished with that, I started policing the other items in the armory.

I decided not to bother with the blasters, as their power packs would be just as dead, instead focusing my attention on the slugthrowers. They were low-tech compared to their counterparts, but they were more durable and I was more familiar with their care. Thankfully, the same stale air that had preserved the corpse had also kept most of them from degrading. I soon found a rifle and a pistol that didn't need more than a good cleaning, which was easily taken care of with a maintenance kit stashed nearby.

After finding holsters and straps, ammo, and a few other useful goodies, I walked back out into the corridor. A press of a button heralded a sound near and dear to every Star Wars fan's heart.

*Pssshhew*

As the hallway was dyed blue, I grinned, baring my teeth beneath my helmet.

"My turn."

 

[Aabcehmu]

I was a little worried when I saw 45 alerts, but thanks for keeping the SV thread updated, Rictus!

 

[Immortal Lurker]

I was a little worried when I saw 45 alerts, but thanks for keeping the SV thread updated, Rictus!

Click to shrink...

I had assumed that every single quest I was following had reached a Bad End at the same time, and the following salt mines had gotten a dozen people banned.

I was pleasently surprised that I just had 50-100k new words to read.

 

[MadGreenSon]

It's a good story and I'm enjoying it. At the same time I feel bad because it's like watching a friend snowboarding down the Slippery Slope and doing a sick flip-jump across the Moral Event Horizon.

 

[bool1989]

I had assumed that every single quest I was following had reached a Bad End at the same time, and the following salt mines had gotten a dozen people banned.

I was pleasently surprised that I just had 50-100k new words to read.

Click to shrink...

I asked him to update his story here, cause my service provider was blocking SB again.

Shitty Service Provider...

 

[Rictus]

Chapter 55


Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

My footsteps echoed as I stalked down the corridor, my senses stretching out as I attempted to locate the creature.

Nevertheless, I had a grin on my face. It felt good to be the hunter again.

With weapons in hand, I had a sense of confidence that I'd been missing since I landed. Any trace of apprehension left over from my encounter with the Leviathan was gone, replaced by giddiness.

The lightsaber hummed as it moved along with my hand, a constant reminder that, yes, it was real and functional. The fact that it worked at all after three millennia without any problems worse than a dead power pack raised my personal opinion of Jedi tech several notches. But I had more things on my mind than the quite frankly ridiculous durability of Force tech.

Now, if I was an injured giant spider, where would I hide?

I suppose the first thing that would come to mind would be that I'd want to find a nice, dark hole in the ground where I could bind up my wounds. Where I could plan how to wreck bloody vengeance on the bastard that took my eye.

And once the bleeding stopped, I'd go hunting.

Of course, I could be overestimating its mental capabilities. Being enhanced with Sith Alchemy did not necessarily make a creature more intelligent. However, it had proven that it had the ability to set traps and to pick its battles. It was far from mindless, but it wasn't exactly a genius.

I could feel the spider's oily presence getting stronger as I walked. As before, I couldn't tell its exact location, only that it was getting closer. But was I getting closer to it? Or was it getting closer to me?

I knew it wasn't completely silent. Twice so far it had given away its presence by screeching. It was likely some form of intimidation tactic that was meant to work against prey that was already frightened. Half…or mostly…maddened by literal centuries of hunger, it might not be capable of realizing that I wasn't scared.

Leviathans were a hell of a lot scarier than this thing. I hadn't been scared when I walked in and I wasn't scared now. At the end of the day, the Pit Horror was just a giant spider with a few tricks.

I just needed to find the fucker first.

So deep, dark hole…that could fit a spider the size of a semi comfortably. About half of its size was from its legs, which I didn't doubt it could fold up to squeeze into a smaller space. But even with that, it wasn't going to fit in a supply closet.

I had to keep in mind that this was still a spider, no matter how monstrous it was. It needed someplace to build a web, its shelter. That couldn't be in a small space.

Another turbolift shaft was a possibility, but that didn't feel like the right answer. While the Pit Horror had set up webs in one, it had too many entrances and exits to be considered "safe." At best, it had just been a place to stash food and a means to get from level to level, maybe even catch the odd bit of prey.

I paused and placed my hand against the wall, drawing on the Force to refresh my mental map of the ship.

That left a short list potential places, from which I immediately crossed off Engineering. That part of the ship had been completely devoid of webbing for some reason, perhaps because it had been too close to the surface back when it had made its lair and thus liable to get it eaten by a Leviathan.

After that, only two places remained: the mess hall and the cargo hold.

Given its choice of lair, it obviously preferred the dark. With the secondary power core re-engaged and the emergency lights on, there was an easy way to check for that.

The groaning of metal echoed as a section of bulkhead peeled back like the top of a tin can, exposing the aging wiring beneath. Shifting the lightsaber to my left hand, I carefully wrapped my right around a bundle of them. With a bit of mental effort, I forced my will into the chaotic network of wiring and followed the hum of power along its many paths.

There were countless dead ends from where the wiring had decayed from time or been physically disconnected by battle damage, so it was practically a maze. Thankfully, it was one easily navigated as all I had to do was follow the flow.

Eventually, I made my way through. After that, it only took a moment to check each place.

The mess hall's lights were still functioning perfectly. The cargo hold, on the other hand, was pitch black, the lighting fixtures smashed and the wires left sparking as the re-energized system futilely tried to power them.

"Found you."

Now I just needed to get down there. The rear cargo hold, or what was left of it, was seven levels down, near the bottom of the ship.

Letting go of the wiring and stepping away from the wall, I double checked my mental map before flipping the lightsaber around in my grip and plunging it nearly to the hilt into the floor beneath my feet, quickly carving a circle around myself. Gravity took hold almost immediately, dropping me down to the next deck.

==========================================================

After my little bit of dungeon bypass, I casually stepped off a short stack of seven near-perfectly circular deck plates, their edges still glowing from the lightsaber's cut.

As expected, the entire deck was pitch black, the overhead lights and wall lamps having all been smashed to pieces, littering the floor with transparisteel. The only illumination that leaked down here was from the hole I had just cut in the ceiling.

Thanks to my Force Sight and the lightsaber in my hand, that wasn't a great obstacle and based on my mental map, the cargo hold was only a few corridors away.

Angry chittering greeted me as I started walking. My entrance hadn't exactly been quiet or subtle, so it knew I was here. That was fine.

There wasn't much it could do to stop me.

The door to the cargo hold had been ripped away long ago and the dust on the floor recently disturbed. I stopped on the threshold and observed the battlefield.

The cargo hold, like many of the lower decks, had been crushed under the combined weight of the upper decks when the ship had made its last landing, though it had only been partially destroyed. The far end of the large room bowed sharply down halfway in, covering the doorways that would have been there.

The entirety of the remaining space had been filled with densely packed webbing, forming rough tunnels of blue-white that spiraled into what was no doubt a very complicated nest.

Too bad I wasn't going in there.

Just to check to make sure I wasn't about to do something extremely stupid, I tapped on some nearby strands of webbing with the hilt of the lightsaber, ready to zap it with some lightning if it got stuck. It didn't stick.

The angry chittering was louder now, but the Pit Horror stayed where it was, ensconced in its nest. The monster was an ambush predator and likely felt uncomfortable and uncertain of what to do when the prey followed it back to its lair. For all its cunning, it was still an animal, relying on instincts over true intelligence.

I was about to give those instincts a great big poke in the eye.

Grabbing the strands that I knew weren't sticky, I drew heavily on the Force and unleashed. Blue-violet light flashed as the bundle of silk in my hand started to glow, carrying the immense electrical charge I was generating down the lines to all the strands it was connected to. The small amounts of dust clinging to the surface of the webbing burst into momentary flames before vanishing with tiny puffs of smoke.

Though I couldn't feel it through the bodysuit, my helmet helpfully supplied me with the rapidly increasing temperature as heat that accompanied the lightning radiated off the webbing, banishing the lingering cold that permeated the room. Almost as one, the structure began to contract on itself, turning what had once been safety into a cage.

"Dodge this," I grinned savagely beneath my helmet as the Pit Horror's chittering was replaced by screeching, the electricity jumped from the webbing and into its body.

The mass of webbing in the center of the room bulged and distended as the spider creature thrashed about and threw itself at the walls of its own nest in an attempt to escape. Sizzling and crackling echoed from the next as its exoskeleton was seared by the heat of the webbing, the screeching growing louder every second.

It was just an animal and didn't understand what was happening. Whatever anger and hunger it had felt before, whatever cunning it possessed, it was all swiftly replaced with blind panic in the face of excruciating pain.

But in the end, blind panic saved it…from its own lair, that is. The smoking form of the Pit Horror came crashing through of one of the "walls" of the nest, two more eyes seared into useless shriveled orbs, likely from burning strands falling on them.

As the tractor trailer-sized creature leaped towards me, seeking to end the source of the pain, I cut the flow of power and ducked into a roll. The lightsaber flashed up as it passed.

The screeches got louder as the now six-limbed monster awkwardly crashed to the ground in the hallway behind me. Two of its immense legs, now separated from its body, clattered against the walls and floor before coming to a stop, the smoking stumps still glowing.

While the creature wasn't finished yet, I couldn't help but think that perhaps I'd vastly overestimated what I'd need to kill it. Though it managed to stagger up onto its remaining legs, it was obviously off-balance now that it was missing the two front legs on its left side.

Its fangs and thorax twitched. Now knowing what that meant, I was already moving before the glob of webbing could hit me, leaving it to sail through the spot I used to occupy. Pumping the Force into my legs, I crossed the distance between us and swept the lightsaber up in a two-handed slash just as it was about to leap back, severing two more legs.

Without the weight of its front legs to weigh it down, its heavy thorax caused it to pitch backwards, the stumps waving wildly as it landed on its back.

Jumping onto the enormous creature's belly, I quickly jabbed the lightsaber's tip up and into its brain, the searing plasma flash-frying its gray matter.

The flailing limbs and fangs stilled before falling limp.

As I drex the lightsaber out of its head and extinguished the blade, I felt a strange sense of…disappointment.

This was a monster created by Sorzus Syn, the ur-alchemist and sorceress of the Sith herself. And it felt too easy. But then, I suppose this was a "prototype" creature, from when she was still experimenting. Not every prototype was a super prototype and for every major discovery, there had to be a thousand and one failures or comparatively minor successes.

It seemed the Pit Horror was just one of those minor successes.

That said…

I spared a glance towards the shriveled, still-glowing remains of the Pit Horror's lair before shifting a speculative eye back to the smoking carcass beneath my feet. Tapping its hard chitin with my boot, I hummed in thought before my grin widened.

I had an idea.

"I'm going to need some power tools…"

 

[bool1989]

"I'm going to need some power tools…"

Click to shrink...

i'm sure that's a referance to something, but i'm not sure what.

 

[Rictus]

Interlude: Feeding the Beast


His training blades hummed as they cut through the air in a poor imitation of the weapons they were pretending to be.

They were ill-suited for actual combat. The fake blades were hilt-heavy and had no edge to cut with, making them awkward and unwieldy. When he'd first started training with them, he'd hit himself more often than the droids and his forearms had burned as he tried to teach them to get used to the unfamiliar grip and weight.

They certainly weren't like any of the knives, clubs, and pipes he'd used before coming to the academy, but he supposed they worked for training to use actual lightsabers. At least these wouldn't remove limbs with a casual touch if they slipped.

Caleb double-checked the weapons to make sure there weren't any defects. An acolyte who had taken offense to a comment on his lineage had sabotaged the blades he liked to use once and nearly got him killed by a training droid two years ago.

In return, Caleb had broken his arms and legs before pummeling him into a coma. The last he'd heard, the entitled little twat hadn't woken up yet.

Since then, he'd gotten into the habit of inspecting his weapons before each use, something he likely should have been doing to begin with. But then, he'd never had to bother before then as most of what he'd used had been tossed away without a second thought.

The Sith warrior cracked his neck before activating a training droid.

"Select training regimen." It demanded.

"Lord. Form: randomize." He replied.

"Acknowledged. Assume opening stance."

Caleb was already doing just that as it spoke, shifting his right foot back and bringing his right arm above his head, holding one of his blades parallel to the ground. The left bent, positioning his off-hand weapon across his chest.

He didn't wait for the droid to get ready before he darted forward, crossing the gap with a single, powerful leap. The overhead blade thrust forward towards the droid's head, only to be shifted aside with a deft Makashi mid-parry.

Caleb's second blade smacked it away to open his opponent up for another strike from the right. Instead of trying to reposition its weapon, the droid ducked under the returning slash and lashed out with a spin kick at his legs, which he easily hopped over. The droid had switched to Ataru.

While in the air, the acolyte's left foot blurred forward, landing a solid strike against the droid's head and sending it tumbling back. At the same time, he used it as a springboard to backflip in the opposite direction. As soon as his feet touched the ground, he was already moving and pressing the attack.

The droid was just as fast, recovering in the same amount of time as it took him to cross the distance to meet his Juyo double strike with a strong Djem So cross-body block. The imitation lightsabers crackled when the magnetic fields around the "blades" made contact with his opponent's vibroblade and held.

The servos in the droid's arms whined as it quickly turned the hard defense into an attack, pushing his weapons aside while simultaneously trying to cut into his chest with the edge of its blade.

Rather than resist, Caleb followed the momentum, spinning in place and ducking as the droid had earlier. But instead of striking with a kick, he tumbled to its right and brought his main blade to block the automaton's retaliatory swing while his second blade slashed up into its unprotected flank.

It leaped back, though it had taken a light "score" to its side. While it wouldn't have been a debilitating strike on a living opponent, it had been just beneath the armpit of its main "sword-arm," which would inflict "difficulties" on its ability to swing its weapon.

That issue immediately became relevant when its defense was a hair too slow to block Caleb's follow-up strike, which "decapitated" the training droid. On its "death," it deactivated and went limp.

The acolyte cautiously backed away, not taking his eyes off the machine until he got to the control panel. He'd been spooked once before and had been lucky to get away with only a short stay in the medical ward.

His muscles only relaxed when the droid stood up straight and marched back to its charging rack.

A frustrated grunt from the other side of the chamber made him turn his head just in time to hear the sound quickly turn into a scream of victory as Calista brought her training saber across the droid's waist in a textbook sai tok maneauvre, though one performed with an unusual reverse grip.

In that moment, he felt immensely proud. The victory had been as much his as it was hers.

The willowy Twi'lek woman was ill-suited for most of the classical lightsaber forms. She didn't have the stamina for Ataru or Juyo, the strength for Djem So, or the manual dexterity for Makashi, nor did she have the raw talent to compensate for any of these shortcomings.

The Shien variant of Form V and Niman had been possibilities, but they were poorly suited for the dueling-centric environment of the academy. While Shien had broader applications, she needed to survive the academy first. Once that was done, Calista could retool her style as she saw fit.

In the end, he decided to drill her on Soresu, the most defensive of the forms. While it was mostly geared for blaster deflection, it was a valid option for lightsaber combat. It wasn't a style that he personally favored, but he couldn't deny its usefulness. With her low stamina, the low-intensity style would allow her to conserve as much energy as possible.

However, defense could only go so far. In the end, he incorporated elements from Shii-Cho and Shien to incorporate offensive options, particularly against multiple opponents.

Calista had never been a warrior and it showed. Her attacks were hesitant, lacking power and focus. For all the rage that flowed through her, her follow-through would occasionally falter at the last moment.

What she did possess was a fluid grace that allowed her to flow from one move to the next once the steps had been drilled into her muscle memory. Though she had never been entirely open about her past before the academy, he suspected that she had been a dancer.

Progress had been slow and difficult. Sometimes, it almost seemed like her own mind refused to learn the sets. It had taken some prodding on his end for her to put more than token effort into it, but her victory against the training droid showed that it was getting through nevertheless, even with her doubts pulling her back.

The green-skinned Twi'lek gulped in air as she stared at the unmoving droid, as though she was trying to process that she had actually won. Slowly, the lines on her forehead smoothed and the corners of her mouth quirked up. Only a little bit, but it was something.

There was a fire in her belly now. Now, rage was no longer alone in her heart.

"Victory suits you well," Caleb complimented sincerely, though his eyes were focused on something else.

As he spoke, his gaze followed a bead of sweat as it swept down from her forehead. It traced a path down the right side of her face, skirting the edge of her cheekbone before sliding along the delicate line of her jaw.

It dangled precariously for a moment before slowly creeping down her thin neck before disappearing into the folds of her robes. Robes which he noticed were now clinging to her shapely form in a very, very appealing way.

A lot of other acolytes would sneer at where his imagination was going simply due to the subject, but he'd told those same people to go jump in a Sarlacc.

Literally. It got him more fights.

It took Caleb some time to realize that he had been staring at her heaving chest for nearly half a minute. At that realization, he did a mental shrug and spent ten more seconds enjoying the sight. When he finally deigned to raise his eyes, he found that Calista had arched an eyebrow.

"…You know what I'm thinking," Caleb said blithely, not even trying to make an excuse.

He was blunt about what he liked. And what he liked was apparently stubborn, angry Twi'lek women.

Still out of breath, the Twi'lek just rolled her eyes instead of sending a sharp barb his way like she usually did. She was probably in too much of a good mood anyways.

Her half-smile and good mood were quickly replaced by a frown as her head snapped to the door, her lekku whipping around at the sudden movement. To his regret, Caleb's own attention shifted as well, though he brightened up almost immediately.

'Ah!' He thought to himself, 'Here comes the other reason why I love keeping her around!'

Even through the closed door, he could sense the ill-intentions and hostility leaking through.

If there was ever an advantage of taking an alien lover over a human lover, it was that it pissed the snobby traditionalist Sith off something fierce. And pissed off Sith were more likely to start some trouble with little provocation.

Already, he could hear his heart beginning to race from anticipation. Out of the corner of the acolyte's eye, he could see Calista adopt a resigned expression. She knew what was coming.

The door to the training hall open with a hiss to let in a quartet of male acolytes. Three were humans, while the fourth was a Sith Pureblood. Each carried a live blade in their hands.

Caleb didn't know most of them, but he did know one of the humans, if only because he'd given the man a pair of black eyes and a broken jaw a month ago.

Huh. The man was now sporting cybernetics along his jawline and eyebrow. Caleb didn't think he'd hit him that hard. It was difficult to tell sometimes.

It seemed Glassjaw was the ringleader of this little gathering, though not the actual leader.

While he wasn't the brightest star in the galaxy, he wasn't dumb enough to assume a Pureblood would lower themselves to being led by anyone but another Pureblood. To prove his point, the red-skinned Sith hung to the back of the group, clearly bored and wanting to be somewhere else. Two of the humans had glanced back at him when they walked in.

He would keep an eye on him, but it was possible the Pureblood wouldn't step in unless things went wrong. Or Caleb insulted his lineage.

The acolyte considered it before deciding to refrain for once. It was rare for someone to seek him out for another beating. Who knew, perhaps Glassjaw had gotten better.

"So, did you manage to find all the teeth I knocked out?" Caleb asked casually, as if three of the four men didn't have the express intention of maiming him, "Or did you come looking to lose a few more?"

Glassjaw bristled at the comment. The Pureblood raised an eyeridge, the edges of his mouth quirking up in amusement. Point to the idea of him not wanting to be there. Or just not liking Glassjaw all that much, which was an understandable position.

"And what was your name again? I keep wanting to call you Glassjaw because of…" Caleb trailed off and gestured to his jawline.

"Rathari!" Glassjaw barked as his face went red with fury, "My name is Rathari! I'll make you remember it, low-born trash!"

"Please do!" Caleb laughed, twirling the fake blades in his hands, "Let's see if you can make it stick this time!"

Just as the acolytes were about to tear into each other, the door, which had closed behind them, exploded inwards. An enormous wave of power washed over the room and it was only thanks to some quick Force barriers that most of the acolytes managed to stay in place. Calista and two of the humans were knocked from their feet and sent skittering across the floor.

Before anyone could do so much as turn around, something tore through Caleb's defenses and threw him back against the wall with bone-crunching force, pinning him in place. Unprepared for the pain, his eyes slammed shut and he let out a cry of agony.

Cracking open his eyelids, he found the other acolytes in similar states. Only a moment later, he realized something else.

The main training hall had gone silent.

Something massive walked through the doorway, casting an equally large shadow into the room. Caleb didn't recognize the alien as it stepped into the light. It was easily two and a half meters tall and covered in brown, black, and gray fur, over which it only wore a bandolieer.

He was so distracted by its size that he almost missed the fact that it was carrying an Imperial trooper under one arm and a blade in the other. Despite holding them all in place, the creature otherwise ignored them entirely. Setting the soldier down, it immediately headed for…Calista?

A shaggy hand wrapped around the Twi'lek's neck, bodily picking her up and slamming her against the wall. The beast roared unintelligibly.

The soldier stood up, pausing briefly to dust himself off. A light whine from the man's legs indicated that they were likely prosthetics.

"I don't actually know what he said, but I think he's asking where he can find his associate. I believe you know him as Aldrex?"

 

[Simon Buchan]

"Training" / "Vacation" two of the acolytes say at once. They look at each other, nod, then back again "A training vacation!"

 

[Lone Courier 6]

Welp, i just binge read all of this, I'm liking what i see, looking forward to more.

 

[Rictus]

Interlude: Return to the City of Vice

Four months earlier…

Qiv Brellan breathed a quiet sigh of relief as the ship rumbled beneath him as it took off and departed Vaiken Station. After five months, he could finally add "ex-Sith Acolyte" to his short list of accolades and titles, though he'd still be watching over his shoulder for a long time to come.

If there was one good thing about the Sith academy, it was the assumption that if someone disappeared, it was probably because someone else killed them. And the people in charge usually didn't bother looking too hard for dead men.

After that Sith Lord nearly caught him out on Korriban, things had more or less gone more smoothly until the ship arrived at Vaiken. He'd gotten out of the crate as planned and had made to find another ship. Except none of the Imperial transports were heading for Nar Shaddaa.

That had prompted a scramble to find alternate transport, all the while avoiding Imperial personnel. Fortunately, no one was on the look out for escaped fugitives, so he had an easier time with the latter than he would have on Korriban. While he restricted his use of the Force for most of it, the Nautolan did have to Mind Trick his way past a few guards, but it was worth it in the end.

Eventually, he was forced to make his way to the section of the station assigned to the various mercenaries that occasionally answered the Empire's job offers. From there, he had been able to move around a little more easily as non-humans that weren't slaves were more common, if still looked down upon.

After that, he took his time and waited, quietly collecting a small stash of credits with both traditional pickpocketing methods and a few Force tricks. He'd need the cash once he hit Nar Shaddaa. Qiv would have nabbed a blaster if he could, but most of the mercenaries only carried heavy weapons.

While he did this, he had soon narrowed in on a pair of bounty hunters that he recognized from Nal Hutta, a male and female pair of humans whose names he couldn't quite remember. While they wouldn't remember him, he'd seen them a lot around the Hutt's garage bragging about some job or another. They also had an old KDY D5-Mantis Patrol Craft, which they'd "acquired" from a target during a job gone really, really well.

Qiv remembered that because they had really liked to brag about it. So unless their luck had taken a serious downturn since he'd last seen them, they would still have it.

As luck would have it, they did.

The hangar set aside for mercenaries was a lot less heavily guarded than the military ones, so it was easy to get access to it. Getting onto the ship itself was equally simple.

It was hard to lock out someone that could talk to the ship's computer with a touch and order it to open up. After that, it was just a matter of time until the bounty hunters came back.

When they ensconced themselves in the cockpit, he eased himself out of the supply closet he'd hidden himself in, grateful they hadn't done a check of the ship before liftoff.

From the exterior, the D-5 Mantis appeared to be a large ship, but the interior was mostly open space, with a door to a refresher, supply closet/cargo hold, and a small medbay. The cockpit was up a short flight of stairs and nestled inside a small hallway filled to the gills with sensor equipment.

As the ship jumped to hyperspace, he heard one of the bounty hunters, the woman, get up and say, "I'll be back. Gotta hit the 'fresher."

Qiv's eyes darted around for a place to hide, but nothing immediately popped out. Instead, he quietly positioned himself under the small "balcony" that held up the navigation console, back flat against the wall. Soon, he heard armored boots thumping against the deck plating as one of the hunters exited the small cockpit.

A few dozen thoughts raced through Qiv's mind as he planned out what he would do at lightning speed. He'd had nearly an hour to think about how he was going to handle this, though not the particulars. Now that it was actually happening, the pieces snapped into place before the bounty hunter reached the first step.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The hunter's armored boots and greaves, painted a mottled gray and green, came into view, their owner humming a tune under her breath.

Qiv wasn't armed, but he raised his right hand as though he were holding a pistol.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Now, he could see her belt, where a pair of blaster pistols hung in plain view.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Qiv waited until her head was in view. While she was wearing most of her armor, her helmet was missing. Good, that would make things easier.

They were only a few meters apart and she was just turning to face him.

One of her pistols shook for a split-second before flying across the distance and slapping into his palm, finger now in the trigger guard and pressing on the trigger itself.

Qiv was far from the best gunslinger in the galaxy, but even he wouldn't have difficulty with a target at this range, especially with some "assistance."

A red bolt of super-heated plasma lanced across the hold before boring a hole into the hunter's exposed head. Bits of skull, burning hair, and roasted meat exploded outwards as the blood and fluids inside vaporized in an instant, splattering the nearby wall with what was left.

"Jade?!" The other hunter bellowed, followed by the sound of him hurridly unlatching his restraints, "The hell's going on back there?!"

Oh right, that was her name. Qiv hadn't bothered to remember it before. He supposed it didn't matter anyways and quickly discarded the thought.

Black eyes flicked up to the balcony above and did a few quick mental calculations before coming to the conclusion that the angle wouldn't be good for another easy shot. A different method then.

Concentrating for a moment, the Nautolan stepped out and turned around in time to face the other hunter, free hand extended. Before the latter could process what had happened, finger-like impressions appeared on his neck. The human's eyes bulged and his hands clawed desperately at his throat, dropping the blaster he had drawn.

Qiv was glad there wasn't a third hunter. It was taking most of his concentration just to maintain the grip. Moving stuff with his mind was harder than it looked.

'Just another reason to be terrified of Aldrex.' He reminded himself, 'This is frakking easy for him.'

Eventually, the hunter stopped struggling, his eyes lolling back into his head as he fell unconscious. Qiv let him go with a gasp of breath, allowing the body to hit the floor with a loud clatter of armor. Without hesitation, he quickly ran up the stairs, knelt down, and snapped the hunter's neck manually. No point keeping him alive, after all.

Once that was done, he stripped the bodies of anything usable before shoving them in the medbay and sealing the room. At the very least, it'd keep the smell of rotting bodies from reaching the rest of the ship. He'd see about dumping the bodies as soon as he could, but that would have to wait until after the ship exited hyperspace.

Afterwards, he made his way up to the cockpit. To his delight, he found that the pair had been heading for Hutt Space anyways, though the course they had plotted was to Saleucami. That wasn't a problem and it would be easy to adjust the course at the first stop to head for Nar Shaddaa instead.

=======================================================================================

Nearly half a day and several long jumps later, the D-5 Mantis, which Qiv had since dubbed the Jailbird, exited hyperspace in orbit of the Smuggler's Moon. Instead of immediately descending to the planet, he switched on the comms and dialed a contact number.

In a moment, another male Nautolan answered. Like Qiv, he was tall and lanky, with a similarly thin face. He had green skin as opposed to Qiv's blue, but it was difficult to see given the blue tint of the projector.

"The hell? How did someone ge-" He stopped mid-question and gaped, "…Shavit. Cuz, that you? I heard you got bagged months ago!"

"You heard right, Rowe," Qiv answered vaguely, leaning back into the pilot's seat. He wasn't about to go into the full story over an unsecured comm. If there was one thing the Sith Academy had taught, it was paranoia, "Managed to wriggle out though. How's business?"

"Eh, same as usual. No more trouble than normal," Rowe shrugged, still obviously shocked, "Lotta drunks day in and day out. All the while, I get an eyeful of Karagga's huge shiny aurodium ass all day."

"Hutts are all ass," Qiv finished the old joke. He was actually thinking of making that into some kind of code phrase now, "Any idea if any of my stuff is still around?"

His cousin shook his head, causing his head tendrils to roll over his shoulders, "Nah, everything got sold off a couple days after you got ghosted. Sorry about your bike, by the way."

"Damn it," Qiv cursed out loud, honestly hurt.

That swoop bike had cost more credits than he'd like to admit. He'd been thinking of racing it for some extra money before he'd been grabbed. Hearing it was gone pissed him off.

Just one more thing to be mad about. Speaking of…

Taking the controls in hand again, Qiv pushed the Jailbird into Nar Shaddaa's atmosphere, "Hey cuz, you still living at the same place? 'Cause we've got a lot to talk about. I'll hit planetside and meet you in…half an hour."

 

[Rictus]

Chapter 56

Sparks lit up the corridor as the circular saw cut through steel-like chitin with some difficulty. With the engineering section being relatively intact compared to the rest of the ship, their tools were also mostly intact, if in need of new batteries. Thankfully, power packs in Star Wars were universal, so all I had to do was unplug my lightsaber and plug in the saw.

While that meant cutting off my only light source, that wasn't exactly an insurmountable obstacle for me. Force Sight was proving to be worth its weight in gold.

From there, I started cutting through the Pit Horror's tough shell to get at the organs beneath. While it was durable, it wasn't any stronger than my armor and lacked any ability to shrug off a lightsaber. As such, it had quickly lost my interest and soon became little more than something in my way to my real prize.

When I had been hunting it, the creature had been hard to pinpoint in the Force. Unfortunately, it seemed that was a power it could invoke rather than something inherent to its physiology, similar to the Leviathan's psychic screams, so it vanished when the Pit Horror was killed.

Pity. That would have been useful for more than just killing the Leviathan. However, it wasn't a great loss as I could replicate it on my own. It would have merely been convenient.

Still, there were at least a few things that held my interest.

The chitin finally gave way with a crack that was only a little bit louder than the saw. Once that happened, I continued cutting in a straight line, splitting the armor around its thorax down the middle. Setting the saw aside, I slipped my fingers inside the cut, grasped the edges, and pulled.

With Force-assisted strength, the weakened shell snapped open with a long sickening crack, dripping more ichor onto the floor and exposing the soft flesh beneath. Quickly wiping my gloved hands on a towel, I picked up some surgical tools I'd raided from the medbay and got to work cutting away the unneeded bits.

I wasn't interested in its digestive system or respiratory organs, so most of its innards were ignored and left to rot. The particular one I was looking for wasn't hard to find. After all, the only thing I had to do was follow the fluid tube from its spinnerets.

Carefully, I cut away the connective tissues holding the Pit Horror's six pairs of spinnerets and the tube to its body. I slowly traced the tube's path into its mutilated thorax until I found my prize.

The silk organ was…not small. As I hefted the fleshy pink object, I realized that it was about the size of a dinner plate and weighed about ten pounds.

It wasn't huge, per say, but this was something I was considering incorporating into my armor. That meant I'd have to deal with the bulk and weight in addition to whatever else I was carrying.

I telekinetically unlatched the clasps and seals keeping my armor in place before floating the cuirass and the vambraces away from my body and laying it on the floor nearby.
Eyeing the scarred armor, I quickly noticed there was only one piece that could feasibly accommodate the large organ and not end up in the way.

The backplate was scooted a bit closer with a short burst of the Force before I placed the silk organ directly against the black metal. Holding it in place with one hand, I dipped a finger in the ichor that was now puddling on the ground and started drawing the arcane symbols needed for the ritual. It would take the place of my own blood as the sacrifice.

Blood was blood, and the ritual didn't care where it came from.

With as many times as I'd upgraded my armor by this point, I had the words for the complicated incantation memorized and as such easily muttered them under my breath as I wrote.

Power seeped out of my body bit by bit with every syllable, slowly being leeched into the armor to fuel the fusion. As before, it eagerly accepted my offering, like a hound taking a treat from its master.

Through my Force Sight, I could make out the process as it occurred. The organ sank into the metal slowly before stopping three quarters of the way, leaving a small piece and the tube still exposed to the air. Then, Force-enhanced durasteel began crawling up what was left…No, that wasn't what was happening.

The exposed portion of flesh was being transmuted into metal. Fascinating.

I blinked and quickly realized my mind was starting to wander. I'd navel-gaze later when I wasn't at risk of something going horribly wrong due to a lapse of concentration.

When the organ had been completely converted, the process continued as it snaked up the tubing towards the spinnerets. It took less time than before to complete, likely because of difference in the amount of matter to be converted.

Unlike the Terentatek claws, the tube was not drawn back up into the armor, leaving it to dangle from the backplate.

I hummed in thought as I looked at the other pieces. With a thought, my left vambrace slapped into my open hand while the other reeled in the tubing. Where before it had been…squishy, it was now more like a steel cable than flesh.

Combined, the six pairs of spinnerets were only about the size of my hand and were absolutely tiny compared to the massive creature it came from. If it was anything like a normal spider, each pair of spinnerets were dedicated to turning the silk fluid into a specific type of webbing.

I pressed the spinnerets onto the top of the vambrace, near the center of where my forearm would go. With a bit more power, the material fused together, though it was neither seamless nor complete. The vambrace was noticeably bulkier now and a few pounds heavier. The tips of the spinnerets wrapped around the armor and twitched occasionally. Through the tubing, it was now connected to the backplate. The loose tubing was a potential weakpoint, but it was one I could work around or even weaponize.

I carefully donned the armor, looking for any other changes before slipping my outer robe back on over top of it. Obviously, the curiass was now a little back-heavy, like I was wearing a bookbag. Like the vambraces had, it too now pulsed like there was a heartbeat beneath the metal.

For several minutes, I mimed going through combat maneuvres to see if the extra weight would throw me off balance. Thankfully, it didn't or at least not enough that I couldn't compensate for.

The next test would be the webbing.

Now, contrary to what Spider-man would have people believe, spiders didn't launch webbing. In fact, there wasn't even a biological mechanism to force webbing out of their bodies. Instead, they relied on gravity and the weight of their own bodies to pull it from the spinnerets.

I mentally ordered it to begin producing non-stick webbing. As the thought passed through my mind, the "claws" of the spinnerets clacked lightly against the vambrace as they worked to weave the fluid into a solid.

Soon, I could see the tip of a strand of silk ready to go, so the organ was definitely still functioning. Using the Force to pull on it, a thin strand of webbing shot out of the left spinneret pair towards the wall, the "claws" blurring as they prepared more.

The end easily stuck to the ancient durasteel and held fast when I grabbed the webbing and tugged.

Just to make sure it worked, I tried the other kind of webbing, then attempted to make the invisible webbing. Like the Terentatek claws, they responded to mental commands, only this time, the results were visible.

Or invisible, as was the case.

I grinned. This was definitely worth the extra weight.

That said, while the normal threads were produced without issue, it seemed that the invisible threads had to be imbued with Force energy as they were spun. So basically it was a neat trick, but I probably shouldn't use it in large amounts unless I had time to recover afterwards. Still, trapping a hallway or doorway shouldn't tire me too much.

A few more trials showed that I was able to vary the thickness of the strands, making them stronger at the cost of greater visibility and production time. Maybe once I got off this rock, I could have a pneumatic mechanism made. But for now, I could make do by "launching" it with the Force.

A plan was starting to form in my head for how to deal with the Leviathan. However, I didn't have all the pieces yet, the largest and most concerning of which was a method with which to protect myself against the creature's mental attacks. Unfortunately, mental defenses hadn't been as intuitive for me as my other powers and what little I had cobbled together had been broken into on multiple occasions if Darth Scar-Face was any indication.

Regardless, I needed to figure it out if I had any hope of getting off this planet alive.

Wiping off the last of the ichor on the now-filthy towel, I gathered my weapons and assorted gear. I didn't bother gathering the various tools I'd scavenged from the ship. It wasn't like I was able to carry them all anyways or have much of a use for them after this.

=====================================================

It took nearly half an hour of navigating crushed corridors and empty turbolift shafts to work my way out of the bowels of the ship and return to my cave. Pulling the helmet off my head, I was greeted with my first breath of fresh-ish air in hours.

Outside, the storm that had started before I descended was raging even stronger now and now heavy rain was pounding against the side of the not-mountain. Though the wind blew into the cave, the entrance was sloped down, meaning it wouldn't flood.

Ignoring the howling gale and how it tugged incessantly at my outer robe, I checked on the wards and made sure they were still functioning as they should. I was confident in my work, but it never hurt to double-check. Still, the lack of a migraine was a good a sign as any that the Leviathan nearby hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary.

Satisfied that my hideaway was still hidden, I settled down in the center of the cave, my legs crossed under me. I tried to suppress a yawn, but it escaped uncaring of my complaints.

The panic of being hunted by Leviathans, the millions of screams in my head, running…no…sprinting at vehicular speeds for what had to have been dozens of miles, the near miss…and then having to go scrambling around the ship and fighting the Pit Horror.

I'd come down from most of it, but it was still physically exhausting and it all hit at once as the last of the adrenaline wore off. My legs hurt in a way that indicated they'd violently protest any attempt to stand up again, a notion that much of the rest of my body seemed to also be considering.

That was fine. I didn't plan on moving from this spot for a while.

Drawing on the Force, I eased it into my aching muscles to soothe my discomfort and revitalize my body, if only to keep it from distracting me from what I planned to do. I was tired, but I needed to keep working, at least for a little while yet.

That done, I settled into meditation. The roar of wind, thunder, and rain dimmed to a whisper as I dove into my own mind, but nevertheless remained at the edges of my perception.

I was not weak-willed, but neither dams, nor canals, nor walls had kept my enemies out of my mind. Ragnos had brushed all attempts aside with contemptuous ease and brute strength. Darth Scar-Face had slipped around them as though they hadn't been there. The Leviathans had simply flowed over them through sheer number of attacks.

I needed something that couldn't be broken. I needed something that couldn't be avoided. I needed something that wouldn't buckle under weight of numbers.

I was sitting on Corbos. The battlefield of the Hundred Year Darkness, where Leviathans had been deployed by the hundreds alongside their dark masters…and the Jedi had met the assault head on and had won.

How? How did they build up shields strong enough to keep them out? Some inner peace bullshit?

My first thought was some kind of communal meditation, but it couldn't have been Battle Meditation. That hadn't been invented until Odan Urr's time. Maybe a precurser to it?

Unbidden, the last phrase of the Code of Ruin came to mind.

'There is nothing. Only me.'

I found it ironically appropriate in my current situation. I was the only person on this world. Alone.

It was also a goal I could strive for. To be the only thing in my own mind. No masters, no intruders. My mind was my domain, my fortress.

It had been breached too often. I wouldn't let it happen again.

I would not be broken again. I would not be tricked again.

And I would be damned if I lost my mind, my life to some…feral animal! A relic from a bygone era! The forgotten scraps of a dead woman!

Walls, dams, and canals had not worked. I grasped at the rage and indignation burning in my gut, stoked by my past failures. It would be the fire with which I forged a new construct and my will the hammer.

This one would not break. This one would not be subverted. This one would not be overwhelmed.

It would simply…be.

Deep in my own mind, I set to work. The first would not be perfect, of course. It never was. Neither would the second, nor even the third.

There would be countless failures, each scrapped and recycled into the next attempt. A thousand failures for a single success.

I knew I would not succeed today. Perhaps not even tomorrow.

But here and now as I worked, I knew with certainty that I would succeed before my time was up. I would be ready before the third day ended.

 

[Rictus]

Interlude: Watching and Waiting

Everything hurt as Tyrene limped along. It was all she could do to keep it from showing on her face.

Though her bruised and broken left arm was her most visible injury, it was far from the only one. Her armor had protected her from the brunt of the damage when Graush had thrown her into the wall, but it left her entire torso as one giant bruise in the general shape of her now-broken cuirass.

With how hard she had been thrown, she had been fortunate to get away with only a few broken ribs on her lower left side, a minor concussion, a torn lip, and a host of bruises running down her left leg.

At the very least, she had managed to get off lighter than her Master or Ortan. The former was still recovering from the surgery to have a new eye implanted while the latter had yet to regain consciousness.

Sith were taught to use pain as fuel for the Dark Side. In combat, that worked well to prolong one's ability to fight as greater pain turned into greater power. Out of combat, it was significantly less pleasant to deal with.

It was because of that that she found herself wandering the camp after the sun fell instead of resting in her tent. Though painkillers had been pumped into her system by the medic, there was still a persistent dull ache that prevented her from doing more than lightly dozing.

Tyrene paused, trying to think of the last time she had been this injured. Nearly a year, if she remembered correctly.

It had been her first training session with Darth Scriver. Fresh from the academy, she had been so full of pride and bluster…and then her Master had shown her how weak she was in comparison.

It had taken nearly a month of bacta treatments to regain full use of her limbs and stabilize her ruptured organs.

In the end, perhaps that had been a good thing. The person she had been then would not have survived the mountain…and she definitely would not have listened to the advice of an ex-slave, much less acknowledge that he knew better than she.

The Sith Apprentice grimaced as she turned that thought over in her head. Because of that, she owed a debt that had nearly forced her to attempt to lie to her Master. Knowing her own ability, or rather lack there of, to lie convincingly, it would not have ended well and could possibly have resulted in her death.

…Perhaps that pride was not nearly as beaten into submission as she had assumed. Merely transformed.

Tyrene knew her Master played politics as a consequence of his rank. Though he did not sit on the Dark Council, Darth Scriver still had rivals seeking both the secrets he jealously guarded and for his position in the Pyramid of Ancient
Knowledge. As his apprentice, such individuals were her rivals as well, as some might consider her a weak link in his power base.

But her bloodline was that of warriors and duelists, not scholars or sorcerers. Men and women who simply fought, whether it be for a Lord, for a cause, or just for the sake of fighting. It had never been their place to scheme in the shadows.

And like her ancestors, deception did not suit her…or rather, she had no talent for it, either in seeing it or in utilizing it herself. She preferred things to be blunt and to the point. So when she had met an overly-curious shadow, she had been caught off-guard and had paid for it.

Now she found herself trying to piece together this conspiracy she was flung into head-first while keeping her Master and fellow apprentice in the dark. And all of it revolved around that scarred ex-slave.

As she passed a group of off-duty soldiers, she noticed one of them had his hand on his hip, within easy reach of his blaster pistol. His gaze wasn't directly on her, but she could sense that he was watching her from the corner of his eye.

Tyrene pretended not to notice. Slipping around the corner, she peered back a few moments later. The soldier's hand was now settled in his lap.

This was the second time Aldrex had appeared from nowhere to involve himself in her Master's plans. Not only had he been well-hidden this time, he had a network of support in the form of at least one other acolyte and an entire platoon of soldiers. All of which were willing to cover for him.

If it hadn't been for his distinctive weapon, she likely would never have spotted him. And if his offhand claim to have killed a Sith Lord before was to be believed…

A cold evening breeze played across her bare arms. Though she was only dressed in a thin sleeveless tunic and pants, she barely noticed it. She had been stationed on Hoth before. Compared to that, Korriban was nothing.

Tyrene wasn't scared of Aldrex, per say…rather, she was wary of his motives. He was far more dangerous than a mere acolyte. If he was one, of which she was not entirely convinced.

She paused…and blinked as a thought struck her.

This had been her second meeting with him. The first had been beneath the mountain, far away from the other apprentices. And far away from Darth Scriver's view. Had he been looking for her? To probe her mind to see if she could be subverted against her Master?

After a moment of reflection about the time leading up to the battle in the tomb and afterwards, she came to a realization. He had succeeded, at least in part. While she wasn't about to attempt to murder her Master on the ex-slave's word, she had acted against Darth Scriver's orders…because she had been convinced that she owed Aldrex a favor.

Hadn't she just been contemplating how her Master's enemies might try to get to him through her?

Tyrene now had mixed feelings on the matter. Part of her wanted to be impressed at how he so deftly manipulated her that she hadn't noticed until now. The rest wanted to be infuriated at being manipulated.

The Sith Apprentice stopped and stared into the night sky as she replayed every moment she had spent in the ex-slave's company. To her chagrin, she couldn't remember ever sensing as though he had lied or attempted to twist the truth in any of their conversations. In fact, he had been remarkably forthright and honest, if irreverent.

Aldrex had pushed at her insecurities as one of Scriver's apprentices, causing her to question her Master's motives rather than those of the man that had been in front of her.

Grudging respect and rage warred in Tyrene's mind as she contemplated her next course of action. However, rather than pick one or the other, she soon decided that she needed more information. And there was exactly one person in the vicinity who might have it.

================================


Though she was no assassin, Tyrene did know how to go unseen when she wished. She quietly crept between tents as she made her way to the medic's quarters, taking advantage of both the darkness and the red hue of the sand beneath her feet.

To her surprise, she found Lieutenant Maklan was neither sleeping nor was he alone. Though the tent flaps were closed, she could sense the presence of five other soldiers, two women and three men, all gathered near the center of the tent. Two more stood outside on guard.

The apprentice weighed her options. She could wait until Maklan was alone again to speak with him…but this late-night meeting, likely between the officers of the platoon, had her curious. As the only conscious Sith in camp, she was ostenably in charge and she hadn't been informed of it. It was possible that they were discussing something they didn't want their superiors to know about.

It was an easy decision.

With the sound of the sentries occasionally firing at the tu'kata packs that had continued to rush the camp, any noise she might have made was covered up as she moved to position herself at the rear of the tent.

For a few moments, she listened. Only…she didn't hear anyone speaking. She didn't hear the buzz of a scrambling field and she could hear the sound of armored bodies shifting as the occupants moved.

Tyrene quickly realized why.

'They're speaking through their helmet comms.' She thought, both impressed by effectiveness of the simple method and frustrated that she had been foiled so easily.

The Force gave a warning just before the whine of several blasters powering up reached her ears.

"Come on out. You pinged on our motion sensors a minute ago." Maklan's voice, given an electronic edge by his helmet's voice filter, called out.

The young Sith considered it fortunate that her red skin hid the flush of embarrassment that came from that statement, despite the fact that no one could see it. She had not spent much time around soldiers before and hadn't considered what equipment they typically carried beyond their armor and blasters. She was now kicking herself for her ignorance of something so simple.

Any other day, Tyrene wouldn't have considered six men -no, eight men, she corrected herself as she remembered the two out front- armed with blasters as much of a threat. However, that was when she was at full strength.
Right now, she was down an arm, not entirely steady on her feet, and swimming in painkillers. Killing them with the Force was always an option…

But then, this might be a way to get what she wanted. She knew that the lieutenant at least had seen her speaking with Aldrex before, so it was possible that the soldiers would see her as an ally of their master and would be more cooperative.

Using her good arm, she slowly drew back the tent flap and stepped inside. As she expected, the six soldiers held blasters pointed in her general direction. As her face was brought into the light, they faltered for a moment, but held steady.

Behind their helmets, Tyrene could feel their eyes dart towards the one in the middle. That must be Maklan, then.

He didn't move, but something passed between him and the others as they all lowered their weapons. Maklan himself pulled his helmet off and set it on the table, though the others did not follow suit.

Smart. She wasn't trusted, so they would keep their faces hidden. It wouldn't help, however. She now had a sense of who they were and could pick them out of a crowd.

"So, milord. How can we be of service tonight?"

Tyrene allowed her gaze to pan over the others before she answered, "Something has happened to our…ally."

It wasn't a question so much as a statement.

She could feel it in the Force through the soldiers. They were…not worried…but concerned. And what could concern them enough to meet in secret other than something happening to their master?

Maklan, despite his face showing, was ironically the most difficult to read. The man was almost like a wall mentally. But the others had no such defenses and were practically broadcasting it.

The edges of the soldier's lips turned down slightly. Tyrene's moved in the opposite direction.

Finally, a sigh left his lips, "Yeah."

He tapped a few buttons on the table before him, activating the projector in the center. As it hummed to life, it projected another soldier. He, and it was a man, was dressed in slightly different armor. Possibly another platoon?
Interesting.

"She's clear." Maklan grunted.

Notably, the soldier on the other end of the call didn't remove his helmet. She was cleared…but not that much.

'My, these soldiers are cagey…' She observed mentally, not allowing it to show on her face, "So, is someone going to tell me what happened?"

"Aldrex has gone missing." The helmeted soldier reported shortly.

Tyrene raised an eye-ridge, "How long?"

"Yesterday afternoon. I didn't hear about it until his…alien friend came to my office and dragged me out. I've had some men looking into it since then."

Maklan picked up the report from there, "They found traces of a gas weapon deployed in his quarters. The door was blown off from the inside, so he didn't go without a fight."

"He isn't dead, is he?" She asked. It would be vastly disappointing to find out he'd been killed so soon.

The soldier shook his head, "No. It was an anesthetic gas. Whoever it was was trying to take him alive."

The man in the holocomm paused and reached for something out of sight. He examined it for a moment before speaking, "I can confirm that. One of my men just handed me a security recording of a special forces soldier carrying him onto a shuttle."

Tyrene kept her face very, very still as she processed that statement. While Aldrex had been attacked on academy grounds, the attacker had apparently just…walked out with his target. That implied that it had been sanctioned.

"Where is Aldrex's alien friend?" She asked after a moment.

"Right now?" The helmeted soldier inquired himself before shrugging, "I'm not sure. After he came to get me, he tore his way through the training hall to interrogate some acolytes. When they didn't have anything, he didn't have much time to do more than hide. I haven't been able to find him, but he does have his comm with him if we need to get in touch."

The other soldiers in the tent shuffled awkwardly as the conversation paused. One of them, a woman, piped up, "So what's the plan now, sir?"

Maklan leaned on the table and glanced around the room, "…We'll give it a week. He could just be on a trial. But if he doesn't come back after that, we might have to start considering other options."

As his eyes settled onto her, Tyrene could feel the gaze of the others follow.

 

[Rictus]

Chapter 57

The first day passed without further incident, giving way to night. The storm continued to rage without a sign of stopping anytime soon.

With all that had happened, it was easy to forget that it had only been a few days since my encounter with Graush. I had yet to heal completely from that thrashing, much less what I had experienced on Corbos so far.

I didn't sleep…not that I would have been able to anyways. Instead, I placed myself into a meditative trance to focus myself as I worked to mitigate the worst of the damage.

Now, Sith didn't make much use of what was referred to as a "healing trance," though they understood the concept. From what writings I've found in the archives, most Sith found it too peaceful to implement it with any kind of success. The ones that did manage it somehow found that their connection to the Dark Side weakened their attempts and produced substandard results, to the point where it simply wasn't worth the effort they had to put in.

Many of those same writers described their passive feel of the Dark Side as either an inherent restlessness that drove them to act or a constant, hyper-charged awareness of their surroundings. Because of that, they said that it did not do well with periods of rest. If they weren't moving, they were either asleep or dead. For that reason, insomnia was a relatively common affliction among Darksiders, which was likely a cause for at least some of the mental instability inherent in many Sith and Dark Jedi.

The fact that XoXaan still managed to accrue a reputation as a healer despite that spoke volumes of how freakishly skilled she was. Her only known student, Darth Krayt, was able to auto-resurrect, potentially infinitly, without all the drawbacks that Darth Sion faced. It was a pity she was so picky about who she'd teach or I would have put in the time to look for her tomb months ago.

For people who weren't XoXaan, they had to figure out work-arounds. Jedi Healing was focused around subtly directing the flow of the Force to accelerate the body's natural healing ability, like slowly shifting the banks of a river. "Sith Healing," on the other hand, was much more of a…brute force method and had considerably more steps involved.

Contrary to the expectations of many, the archives actually held a great deal of information on these methods, most of which were some form of Alchemy or Sorcery. The former generally focused around creating temporary, or not-so-temporary, mutations to forcibly accelerate the body's healing or to outright cause the subject to regenerate. The latter was sheer applied bullshit, something about warping time around the wounds or something.

That book had made my head hurt just by looking at it. Gaarurra told me later that I had also lost two hours worth of memories, so I was fairly certain there had been a trap on the tome that I very narrowly avoided getting the full brunt of.

All I really got out of that research day was that the possibility of giving myself super-cancer was the safer option compared to whatever the hell the various Sorcery methods would have done if I managed to screw them up. Also that whoever handled that book last was an ass.

I'd never really experienced the restlessness those writers had described and didn't have trouble sitting and meditating. The Dark was aggressive, of that, there was no doubt at all. But it was also patient.

I certainly felt anger, constantly simmering in the back of my mind, but it was content to stay there until I needed it. Even before I ended up here and started training to become a Sith, I had never lost control of my temper, no matter how mad I got.

The Dark was patient and it was simply…there. Waiting for me to need it, to call for it. It didn't need to tempt me with promises of power. It knew that I would need it, that I would use it. I had made my choice nearly two years ago.
In the darkness of the cortosis mines, I had made my choice. I would use it, but on my terms and mine alone.

I reached for the Force and got to work repairing my body. My injuries were extensive and, for some of them, debilitating if left untreated.

I had torn the hamstrings and the Achilles Tendons in both legs and both of my limbs were sporting ugly splotches of red under the skin from where blood vessels had burst. The likely cause was probably my hours long Force-imbued run earlier in the day, compounded by the Pit Horror chasing me across the ship. The only reason I had been able to run, much less walk, after that was solely because of adrenaline and the Force. Now that the former had run its course and I had finally relaxed, I couldn't even stand or straighten my legs.

Left alone, it would take at least a month to recover from.

This was the biggest obstacle between me and survival. If I couldn't stand, I couldn't fight. If I couldn't fight, I couldn't escape Corbos. If I couldn't escape Corbos, I couldn't survive.

Those injuries would be the first to go.

The first step would be to reattach the muscles to their anchoring point. Using Crucitorn on myself to dull the pain, I grasped a torn hamstring with my power and I forced it to move against gravity's pull.

A shiver went down my spine as my brain registered a slithering sensation below my skin as the muscle moved. I shoved it aside to prevent it from distracting me. The next part would be delicate.

In my mind's eye, I mentally projected my awareness into my own skin. Grasping the blood slowly leaking out of the burst vessels in my right leg, a spark of power and will converted the red blood cells into stem cells. It wasn't nearly as complex as it sounded. Red blood cells, along with bone marrow and fat, were the one of the sources of stem cells in an adult human body and played an important role in the healing process. I simply accelerated their production.

After I had converted enough, I guided them into the space between the torn muscle and the bone before forcing them to transform yet again. This time, the cells reformed into the building blocks of the connective tissue that held muscle to bone.

In truth, all I was doing was using Alchemy to mimic what the Jedi did with their own method…only much, much faster. However, it came with some downsides. Namely that I needed complete and utter focus on the entire process or the stem cells could mutate into cancerous cells, bone, or something else.

It wasn't as efficient as other methods I'd read about, but it was arguably the safest. Or rather, the one with the least risks. While it was insufficient to deal with extreme injuries like amputation, it worked for smaller stuff like accelerating the healing of internal injuries.

When that was done, the swelling and pain in my right thigh started to recede as I directed more blood down my leg to be converted and repair my Achilles tendon. The unused excess was absorbed back into my bloodstream after I fixed the tiny blood vessels.

I released the mediation and Crucitorn and let out a breath as the pain from my combined injuries flooded back in. Slowly, I straightened out my right leg to test the repairs. Though it was a little stiff as the new tissue stretched, the pain was minimal. I could work with it. After a quick check to make sure I hadn't grown a mutant eye on the back of my knee, I got repeated the process on the other leg.

The rest of my injuries were not as serious and were more easily healed. I had the remnants of a concussion and a goose egg on my head, a few bruised ribs on both sides, and bruises up and down my left arm.

As I pulled blood away and filled in the microfractures in my bruised ribs, a thought occurred.

Why simply heal the injuries when I could also enhance my body to ensure it wouldn't happen again?

It couldn't be anything extreme, per say, as more serious modifications would require significant preparation and exotic materials, not to mention extensive testing on subjects that weren't me. But there were a few minor enhancements I could try with power alone…

I stopped my healing session for a few minutes and levitated an MRE from my pack to my waiting hand. As I cracked it open and ate, I started to seriously consider the idea. It wasn't like this was the first time it had popped into my head. On the day I started learning Sith Alchemy, it had been present. I had hesitated then because of my inexperience.

But I wasn't inexperienced anymore, was I? I had been at the academy for nearly nine months. It hadn't all been blood, death, ghosts, and horror. More often than not, I had simply spent many a quiet day reading some tome in the archives or experimenting in my lair with samples taken from wild beasts.

I wasn't arrogant enough to think I was a master of the craft, but neither was I ignorantly fumbling at power I didn't understand. I think it was time to risk it.

Through the Force and my Alchemy training, I understood my own body on a level that was hard to describe with words. I knew its weaknesses and where it could be improved.

I looked down at my left arm and flexed my fingers. The spider spinnarets clacked lightly in response. Ignoring it, my eyes trailed up my arm, focusing on the joints.

My body, minus my left arm, likely weighed somewhere around a hundred and sixty pounds. If I tried to use my newest addition to maneuvere in mid-air in full armor, there was a decent chance of my shoulder being wrenched out of place by the sudden change in direction.

If I wanted to make full use of my new toy, that needed to be compensated for.

Grasping the ligaments holding the ball of my shoulder in its socket, I slowly poured power in, strengthening them until they were like little steel cables. I rotated my shoulder at varying speeds to check the flexibility and was pleased to find that I still had full mobility. Theoretically, it should make dislocating my shoulder much more difficult.

However, that left me lopsided, so I worked on the other shoulder as well. Then I moved on to the other ligaments and tendons in my arms, followed by my hips and knees. By the time I was done, I would be capable of swinging around like Spider Man.

Next stop, the cardiovascular system.

Physical combat was limited by how much oxygen the body could carry to the muscles. The longer you fought, the more energy you burned. The more you exerted yourself, the more your heart beat to keep up and circulate blood.
But as the heart beat faster and blood rushed, the oxygenation process became proportionally less efficient as the lungs had less time to imbue red blood cells with oxygen to feed the muscles. As the muscles got progressively less and less oxygen, less lactic acid was broken down before it could do damage. Lactic acid build-up led to muscle soreness, what was usually referred to as exhaustion.

I breathed in and held it for a moment, watching through the Force as my lungs imbued the blood running through my veins and arteries with fresh oxygen. I observed where the oxygen was absorbed. As I breathed out, I saw how much was wasted.

So I improved it, increasing my lung capacity and the efficiency with which they absorbed oxygen. Then I sped up their ability to oxygenate blood.

With my next breath, I felt a brief rush of energy, almost like a sugar high as the hyper-oxygenated blood hit my muscles. But at the same time, I felt my heart begin to slow. Not enough to be dangerous, but enough that it was noticeable.

I frowned as I considered what to do with it before settling on simply overriding the change. There was a pain in my chest as it stuttered before returning to its normal pace. As it did, the energy rush resumed.

I thought about toying with my nervous system to give me faster reflexes, but I decided against it. I was confident in my powers, but not enough to want to risk completely screwing up my brain's ability to move my body.

Cracking open my eyes, I looked out the cave mouth to find that beams of dim light had broken through the dense cloud cover. The rain had stopped for the moment, but the ugly dark clouds overhead told me that the storm wasn't yet finished.

Hours had passed since I started fixing myself, and now, it was the second day of my task.

I had quite the challenge to prepare myself for. I had seen the Leviathan in its full glory before I ventured into the ship and I doubted it had gotten any smaller.

Flexing the fingers of my left hand, I glanced down at the spinnarets again. I had the beginnings of a plan. However, the plan wouldn't work if I didn't have the means to protect my mind. Which mean spending what time I could spare perfecting my defense.

But first, I needed to get out of this damn cave and start setting up the groundwork. This would take time. I just hoped I had enough…and that it would be enough to do the job.

After all, it would happen tomorrow. Whether I was ready or not.

 

[Rictus]

Chapter 58

I opened my eyes as my chrono chimed. The third day had come. It was time, whether I was ready or not.

Despite the magnitude of the task before me, my heart did not race. In fact, it was slower than what should be healthy for an adult human male. After the initial rush of energy, it had taken me nearly half of yesterday to remember that having too much oxygen pumping into my body was a bad thing and that the concept of oxygen poisoning existed.

I grudgingly reset my heartbeat to something slower. But I risked lowering my blood pressure too far if I allowed it to go too slow, which would cause the opposite issues. Nausea, blurred vision, general weakness. All things I didn't need, especially right now.

I didn't want to admit, even to myself, that I had made a potentially lethal mistake, if a long term one. Worse, I had wasted precious time in both enacting said mistake and fixing it.

Augmenting myself was much different from augmenting my armor. I couldn't just throw things at the wall and see what stuck. It was much more…intricate. Aumenting an individual piece of armor wasn't going to affect the rest of the suit. Augmenting a bone in my body could cause bone deficiencies to spread to the rest of my skeleton if I wasn't careful or affect blood production or kill my body's ability to heal naturally.

With that, I swore to myself that all future auto-augmentations will be performed in lab conditions with proper equipment and a fully stocked library of medical texts, not in a dusty cave with only my intuition to guide me. As it was, I was going to pay a visit to the medical ward when I returned to make sure I didn't screw myself up even more than I thought.

At least I made use of the temporary burst of energy constructively. My preparations were as complete as I could make them.

I slowly sat up and pushed myself to my feet, carefully working out the kinks from my muscles from sleeping on the cold, hard dirt. There had likely been intact beds inside the ship, but there was an eerie feeling that clung to the vessel and wouldn't leave me alone. Made it too uncomfortable to sleep. Likely because it was effectively a mass grave.

Awake was another matter entirely.

The cold chilled me even through the bodysuit of my armor as I dropped down into the engineering bay. What little remained of my supplies was packed up in the bag on my back. I had indulged a bit in the food yesterday to get back the calories I'd burned augmenting my body and from the work I'd done after that.

With only a reflexive look around, I made my way to the main control console.

The trap was set. Now all it needed was the bait.

My main issue was waking up the nearest Leviathan and bring it to my position without drawing in the rest immediately.

Thankfully, I had a solution right under my feet.

I placed my right hand on the console and concentrated. My power surged through the aged circuits as I gave it a single order.

Reactivate.

Lights flickered on across the bay as equipment, which had been rusted into place for thousands of years, groaned and slowly started moving. The aged secondary power core gave out a whine. I doubted it would be able to support what I wanted it to do for long, but that was fine.

The system sluggishly went through check after check. I was forced on occasion to override a failure to make it to continue.

Finally, the ship began to rumble beneath my feet as the millennia-old sublight engines roared to life, not unlike the monsters that stalked the surface. In the distance, I could hear groaning as the weakened superstructure slowly began to be crushed under the weight of the rest of the ship as it tried to push itself further and further into the earth.

Soon, a loud rumble drowned it out as the mountain that had built up around the crashed vessel finally cracked apart and began to collapse. Loose dirt poured into the engineering bay from the hull breach far above my head.

All in all, it made enough noise to wake the dead.

Or a Leviathan.

After a few more moments to make sure the sound carried, I killed the engines. I was going to need the power for something else.

==========================================

The conditions were perfect for the fight. Dark clouds loomed overhead as the storm was raging in full force, preventing even a single beam of sunlight from touching the ground. Fat, black droplets of rain fell from the sky, soaking the dead earth with toxic water, and howling winds whipped at my outer robe, threatening to knock me off the ship.

I was seated on top of one of the cruiser's heavy turrets holding my Force Presence tightly when I felt it.

It was easy to tell when the Leviathan was getting close. Long before it came into sight, I could feel the screams seeking out my mind. Small tendrils of awareness grasped at whatever they could find, intent on tearing it apart.

Mental constructs formed by will were the basis of mental defenses. Before, I had used walls to block everything out. When that failed, I had switched to canals, to trap those seeking a way into my mind and limit what they saw. I cast them aside when they failed.

A thousand failures for a single success.

In their place, a perfect sphere. There were no entrances, nor exits. No way over, no way under, and no way around. No edges to grasp and tear at.

A simple, solid object.

But the sphere was just that: an empty construct. A distraction to keep it away from my mind. While it scratched uselessly at the orb, my will was scattered in the void around it, each of the countless far off stars a memory, a thought, or an emotion.

I didn't doubt that it had the spirits of hundreds, if not thousands, of Jedi trapped inside of it, possibly dozens of them Jedi Masters. Any one of them might have been able to maneuver around my defenses or at least try to think of another way. But few animals had the capacity for abstract thought, or at least not in the way that humans understood it. As its will scratched and skittered relentlessly off the sphere, it seemed that the Leviathan was not one of those animals. It was like a library run by an illiterate librarian. All the knowledge in the galaxy…and it was completely incapable of using any of it.

Incapable of realizing that I was the void.

There is nothing. Only me.

In a way, it made sense. Sorzus Syn had crafted them to be weapons of war. Intelligent enough to react to danger and kill, but not enough to think beyond that and be a threat to her. And like a truly opportunistic bookworm, Syn had made them into mobile repositories of information.

There was a subtle genius there that I could appreciate. No need to take or interrogate potentially troublesome prisoners when you could just pull the information you need from the willing mind of their killer after the battle. Pity that adult Leviathans were utterly hostile to anything that wasn't their handler.

I could still hear the screams…but they had no hold on me.

Soon, I saw the distant fog part as it drew closer, a vague black shape against the gray and brown landscape. Each step it made was a miniature earthquake. Every breath exhaled from its massive lungs was a hurricane. Four, bright red orbs stood out from the gloom as it stared ahead at the source of the noise that had awoken it from slumber.
Lightning cracked. In that moment, I could see it in its full glory.

Despite the light, its dark purple skin still nearly blended in with the background. Massive fangs poked out of the gumlines of its mouth, which itself had a pair of long tentacles extending from the corners. Beneath its head, two pairs of small arms were held at the ready, each tipped by huge pincers.

From atop the cruiser's half-buried hull, I was standing nearly at eye level with the monster. My best estimate was that it was approximately four hundred feet tall from the bottom of its feet to the top of its head.

I probably should have been at least a little more concerned about fighting something the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza. But I had a plan.

The roar it let out signaled that it had, in fact, spotted me atop the ship, likely in the same instance that I had seen it. The ground shook as it charged forward, covering ground much more quickly than a creature its size should be capable of. Suffice it to say, Leviathans also broke several laws of physics, most notably being the Square-Cube Law.

But I did not leap to my feet. Not yet.

I released my hold on my Force Presence, directing my will to the runes I had placed yesterday.

The number three featured heavily in folklore around the world, taking the form of triads, repeating names in threes, etc. Simply put, it was a number of Power. It may not specifically be the case with the Sith, but belief went a long way with the Force and Sith Magic.

Across the valley, eight arrays of three carvings of Jen'dzwolut had been etched into the stone in an equidistant circle. The ninth had been carved in the center of it all.
But the ritual needed a sacrifice. For one of this scale, it would take more blood than I had in my body. Fortunately, there was an alternative, one I had planned around.
Corbos was a dead world, but the Force was still here, just in a different form. Torn from the earth, it traveled the skies in dark clouds, dropping tainted rain and corrupted lightning.

As each droplet touched the ground, the miniscule amount of power inside of each was drawn into the arrays. Individually, they were nothing. But thousands of droplets descended every second, providing all the power it needed.

The ritual activated in an instant, sealing off this corner of the planet from the rest and effectively rendering it invisible to the senses. Until it was broken, it would be just me and the Leviathan.

But it hadn't even noticed. It continued barreling towards me, its legs crushing any obstacles in its way. Still I did not stand.

Instead, I raised my left hand. Clutched in my fingers was a length of spider silk. Drawing as much power as I dared, I unleashed it as Sith Lightning into the strand.
The effect was instantaneous. All across the valley, great tentacles of blue-white webbing sprang up as the wet strands suddenly contracted from the heat and electricity running through them, seeking the nearest and largest source of static electricity.

I had been a busy little bee yesterday, after all.

The result was that the hundreds of "tentacles" wrapped themselves around the charging Leviathan. Despite their appearance, normal spider webbing had nearly the tensile strength as steel. Sith Alchemy-enhanced spider webbing?

The Leviathan's legs were tangled up in the sticky web, causing the titan to crash to the ground. The impact nearly jarred me from my spot.

I didn't stop. I place my hand down on the turret beneath me and pushed my will into it.

The weapon of war was ancient. Its gears and parts were rusted and corroded and the focusing lenses were cracked. Mud was packed into the cracks between the plating.
But the cruiser's tibanna gas tanks weren't empty and its secondary power core was online.

Under my direction, it moved, the gears rotating the turret groaning in protest with every inch. Unseen hands operated the controls, angling its double gun barrels down towards the trapped Leviathan.

Deep in the superstructure, I could hear the mechanisms whine as the shot was charged. The cannons roared as they discharged their shots, sending two massive red bolts downrange.

But the Leviathan was just entangled in the webbing, not completely held in place. The creature tried to lurch to one side, snapping many of the webs binding it, but only partially succeeding as one of the bolts missed completely, sailing off behind it before detonating and destroying a hill.

The other, however, slammed into the monster's shoulder. The force of the resulting explosion tore one of its massive arms from its body and burned the immediate area around it.

It roared, this time in pain and anger rather than hunger. One great heave snapped the remaining webs keeping it down and its head started to rise. Its chest expanded as it took in a titanic breath.

Then, a colossal cone of flames erupted from its open maw, heading straight for me.

 

[bool1989]

Then, a colossal cone of flames erupted from its open maw, heading straight for me.

Click to shrink...

I'm sure you will survive.

 

[silentorphan]

The formatting seems to be a bit screwed up in the second half of the chapter.

 

[Rictus]

Chapter 59

I could have tried to deflect it with a telekinetic barrier. But in the split second between my brain registering the action and deciding what to do, I had judged the expenditure of energy necessary to accomplish that task to be more than I could afford to use this early into the battle.

As the first sparks ignited in the Leviathan's mouth, the muscles in my legs tensed just before I threw myself to the side, the sudden explosive movement launching me completely off the turret and into the air. A wave of heat washed across my back, letting me know that I had just barely avoided getting barbecued.

I landed feet-first on the sloped hull of the cruiser, but my boots didn't find any purchase on the rain-slicked metal, leaving me to slide down the incline. Without pausing, I unslung the rifle from my back, clicked the safety off, and twisted my torso to face the creature.

As I did, I saw what had become of the turret I had just abandoned. Inside of the corona of flames, I could see the outline of the twin barrels drooping as they melted in the heat, followed by the main body. Before long, the turret housing would be little more than a huge puddle of molten metal.

I tore my attention away from it before it could distract me and lined up a shot, creating a telekinetic barrier against my back to brace myself. The semi-automatic rifle fired again and again, one shot after another until I emptied the thirty-round magazine.

The high winds and my precarious position were hardly ideal for precision shooting. Thankfully, my targets were the size of minivans and glowing bright red, so there was at least a chance of hitting them. Despite that, all but one of my shots were off target. But that one, last shot was all I wanted.

With the final crack, the Leviathan's head jerked back as one of its lower eyes reflexively shut, cutting off the stream of fire in favor of a roar of surprise before it could sweep it down after me. I doubted I did any damage, though.

I didn't have time to reload before I was forced to turn my attention back to my slide as I was getting closer and closer to the end of the line. Ahead, a gaping hole lay before me, on the other side of which was another turret.
If the ship had been equipped with gunpowder cannons, I might have been worried that the hole meant the magazine had been detonated. Thankfully, that wasn't a concern here.

Slinging the spent rifle back over my shoulder in case I needed it again, I crouched for a moment before throwing myself into a power leap. My forward momentum carried me over the gap and another leap from a hastily conjured telekinetic platform landed me on top of the turbolaser turret.

Power flowed into the weapon more quickly this time. Practice was making it easier, I assumed. Unfortunately, this one was more damaged than the first. One of the barrels was out of commission and I didn't have the time to fix it.

The turret housing clanged and screeched as it swung into position, the energy building deep inside the plating, humming louder and louder as it drew in more power. As soon as it was in position and aimed, the gun let out a roar as it discharged its glowing payload.

This time, the turbolaser bolt caught the Leviathan in the gut, shattering violet scales and sending shards flying. But despite the roar of pain it let out, all it had to show for it was a large ring of burned, blackened skin fifty feet wide. The flash-cooked flesh cracked and oozed orange blood as it staggered back slightly, the ground shaking with each step.

I grimaced. It would figure the center of mass would be more heavily armored. I'd gotten lucky with the arm and hit a spot where the armored skin was weakest.

But the shot had still managed to knock the monster off balance, if only for a moment. Instead of waiting for the weapon to cycle through again, I forced the machinery to dump whatever power it could into it, bypassing numerous safety overrides to do it. I didn't care if it overheated as I doubted I was going to get another shot off after this one.

The "reload" delay was just long enough for the creature to get its footing back and lunge forward. The turbolaser fired again, but I hadn't had a chance to re-aim and compensate for the movement.

The Leviathan was an animal, but even animals could learn. It had figured out that the turrets meant pain and that it wanted it to stop. It lurched to its right, enough that the shot only carved a chunk out of its left side and kept going rather than hit it head on.

The ship shook and rocked as the monster's massive bulk collided hard with the side of the vessel, nearly knocking me from my feet. One of its left pincer arms scythed across the hull, tearing up armor plating as it sought both me and the now-overheated gun. Though my helmet dampened the sound, the shriek as its claw ripped through bulkheads was still ear-splitting.

As the pincer approached, I took a running start and leaped forward, sailing over the limb as it swept underneath of me and crashed through the turret house. Extending my left arm to the side, I willed the spinnerets to begin their work.

In a split second, it was ready. A strand of webbing shot out from my vambrace at subsonic speeds, propelled by telekinesis, and latched onto the Leviathan's left side just under its rib cage. Wrapping my hand around it, I channeled lightning down the length. Immediately, the webbing contracted, abruptly arresting my momentum and pulling me along for the ride.

The Leviathan roared again in pain as the electricity traveled down the line and into its rain-slicked body, but that was just a side benefit for the moment.

Two hundred pounds of body weight and forty pounds of armor objected to the sudden change in direction, putting heavy strain on my left shoulder. But thanks to my new enhancements, it took it on with only a little bit of pain rather than my shoulder being ripped from its socket. Nothing I couldn't endure, but I put down web-swinging as something I shouldn't do often in the future, or at least not in full armor.

Hundreds of strands of webbing were still stuck to its hide from the initial trap, dangling off its body limply as the rain poured down. As I swung down under its belly, I generated a charge of Lightning in my empty hand and aimed for the loose webbing around its legs.

The creature thrashed and screamed as electricity flowed into its body from dozens of points of entry, easily passing through its thick hide and pouring into its huge muscles, causing them to spasm and clench uncontrollably.

Like a falling building, it slowly careened to one side as its left leg refused to hold its weight. But as it fell, I got a reminder of just how fast the creatures were despite their size. It twisted around and whipped its skyscraper-sized tail up to meet me as I reached the end of my arc. My world exploded into stars and pain as my body was flattened against the solid, heavily-muscled appendage for a brief moment before being launched backwards towards one of the mountains.

A quick, haphazard bubble of raw force was the only thing that saved me from dying right then and there. Instead of turning into a red smear on the mountainside, my body and the bubble around it cratered the rock on impact and burrowed a hole at least fifteen feet deep.

As my barrier burst on impact, I was left with spinning vision, a lack of breath, and a fuck-ton of pain. Despite the disorientation, I was still able to take stock of myself. Though my torso had taken the brunt of the hit and my ribs creaked with each breath, the impact had been distributed over my body rather than concentrated on a single point. Nothing was broken or ruptured so far as I could tell, but I felt like a giant bruise. Still, that didn't help make everything stop hurting.

In the end, the best I could do was numb it with Crucitorn, force myself to stand, and crawl out. Just as I reach the lip of the hole, lightning flashed, forcing me to shut my eyes. The boom of thunder was deafening, even with my helmet dampening the sound.

Something wrapped around me, pinning my arms to my side and crushing the breath from my lungs. I opened my eyes to find myself bound in one of the Leviathan's tentacles. It must have recovered and crossed the distance while I was digging my way out.

As the lightning struck again, it lifted me from the ground and I got a good look at the fanged maw waiting to devour me, whole or otherwise. Strands of saliva leaked from its mouth as it beheld its first meal in millennia.

But before it could carry me far a blue light flashed and the creature screamed in pain, its tentacle severed by my lightsaber, dangling by its cord and moved through the Force. As it and I fell, a brief Force push loosened the now-dead flesh from around me and a pull summoned my weapon to my hand.

Before I could fall far, I shot a strand of webbing and pulled myself onto the titan's face, aiming for between its four eyes. It tried to swat at me with its other tentacle, but it flinched away as I burned the tentacle tip with my lightsaber.

I extinguished the blade and clipped it back onto my harness. I was going to need a free hand for what I was about to do.

Placing my palm against its slick skin, I drew in as much of my power as I could manage and unleashed it as lightning. Violet light spared beneath my hand as bolt after bolt was pumped into its body. Scales dried, cracked, and withered before finally peeling away to reveal the softer skin beneath, which itself was blackening under the assault. Its hide, wet from the rain, carried the charge across its body.

The Leviathan screamed and thrashed as lightning sparked and flashed beneath its skin, shaking its head from side to side in an attempt to dislodge me and the pain I was bringing. But I held fast to the webbing and anchored myself by digging my fingers and boots into its flesh.

Its screams took on a higher pitch as the two eyes closed to me exploded outwards, the fluids inside of them flash-boiling from the heat.

It was soon drowned out as lightning flashed. Both my own and that of Corbos.

I don't know how long I clung to it or how much power I used. Time seemed to stretch out until I was finally thrown from my perch when the great beast toppled to the ground, its limbs twitching nervelessly as electricity danced along them. My body was sent bouncing and rolling uncontrollably along the cold muddy landscape, each impact blowing the breath out of me. I came to a stop when I slammed back-first against a boulder.

I gasped in deep breaths for a few seconds, simply marveling in the fact that I could. Despite the fighting, despite the power I had been throwing around, my heart was not racing. My limbs did not ache from exertion, but from repeated impacts and injury.

And I was not uninjured, though I did not feel the pain thanks to Crucitorn.

My left arm was twisted in an unnatural direction at the elbow, likely broken during my tumble. Smoke rose from my right hand, now bared to the elements as the lightning's heat had melted through the body-suit's glove. My palm had been scorched black and small burning holes had been bored into my fingers by the lightning.

But a monstrous groan drew my attention back to the Leviathan. Though its flesh was blackened and smoking, it still managed to struggle to stand. Orange blood flowed from its chest, but it still breathed easily. With every second, it was regaining its strength.

It was weakened by injury, but not out of the fight.

I staggered to my feet, using my injured right hand to push myself up. I had hurt it and hurt it bad. But I needed more power to put it down permanently.

Lightning flashed again far away and I found my gaze drawn to the sky above. Ragate's words and a memory came to mind unbidden. If a half-trained acolyte like Sedriss QL could do it, so could I.

I could feel the volatile power roiling in those dark clouds, gathering to strike out at anything that crossed its path. I closed my eyes and reached out for that power, seizing it with a mental hand and slaving it to my will.

In that moment, the rain stopped falling. Everything, even the monster itself, stopped moving. I think it knew its end was coming.

The Leviathan let out one last roar of defiance just before a massive bolt of lightning struck the beast like the fury of an angry god. Even though my closed eyelids, the light was blinding.

At the back of my mind, I felt the spell of concealment shatter, unable to handle the raw power descending from the sky. I felt the screams, which had been hammering at my mind since the battle started, die out one by one until only silence remained.

Opening my eyes, I looked up to see the Leviathan still standing. Its two remaining eyes were dull and lifeless, eyelids drooping slightly as muscles relaxed. Its claws, pincers, and fangs had all melted from the heat, though whether it was from my barrage or from the last bolt, I couldn't tell.

But it stood only for a moment. It started to careen to one side, the wind pushing against its burned flank. Despite how quickly it had moved before, it seemed to take forever for it to finally collapse.

When it did, the earth shook and a wave of mud and water was thrown in all directions. I struggled to keep my balance as the ground beneath me trembled.

I was already moving as soon as it settled, heading straight for where I had stashed my comm unit. With the spell of concealment broken following that lightshow, I needed off this planet now.

=====================================================

I practically dove back inside of the cruiser in my frantic rush to find the comm unit.

Once there, I set it up as quickly as I could and tried to activate it…only for the power generator to spark and die.

I stared at it incomprehensibly for more seconds than I dared to count before I thought to use the Force to diagnose what had happened. And then I immediately mentally kicked myself.

The comm unit and the power generator had been shorted out by the bolt of lightning I had called down. Only now did I realize that my helmet was also deactivated as well as the ship's power core. The only reason I could still breathe right now was because I hadn't activated the vacuum seals.

"Damn it!" I cursed aloud, kicking the fried comm unit. It didn't fix the problem, but it did make me feel better.

I left the device where it was and slung what remained of my supplies onto my back. I also ditched the rifle since I couldn't shoot it one-handed. Quickly making my way back outside, I had to decide what to do now.

Remaining here wasn't an option. Every Leviathan on Corbos would have felt what I did. Already, I could feel the beginnings of the others waking up on the edge of my senses.

I paused my fretting and worrying over the immediate future as I felt something.

The Leviathan was still alive.

My head turned to look at the hulk of burned flesh. It was barely perceptible, but it was there. Its chest rose and fell, just a little bit each time. Not sufficient to pull in enough oxygen to maintain life, but enough to cling to it for just a few more minutes.

I approached the head, half-buried in the mud. It didn't move, didn't react to my presence. It was still alive, but not aware. I thought about finishing it off, but a thought occurred. It was a shot in the dark, but I really didn't have any other options.

Placing my hand against the burned skin, I forced my will into the remnants of its mind. Had it been aware and not at death's door, I suspect it would have had enough strength to push me out with contemptuous ease. But its conscious mind was gone and with it any semblance of a defense.

A hundred thousand minds appeared to my senses. They were all that remained of the people it had devoured over the millennia. Shards of memory and emotion only dimly aware of what had occurred to them.

The collective was too large for me to grasp as a whole. I had to push through thousands of years of junk memory to get even a hint of what I was looking for. After what seemed like an eternity, I was finally able to locate a particular soul that had what I needed.

It wasn't one of the Jedi that had perished during the One Hundred Year Darkness, but a simple colonist, one of the hundreds that had come to Corbos in the centuries since the last great battle.

He had been born on Commenor three years after the end of the Great Sith War and lived there for most of his life. A single father of two daughters, he had taken a dangerous job to provide for them, which he obviously hadn't survived. That job?

Working at a mining colony established on Corbos by Czerka Corporation. The former settlement was close, just on the other side of the mountains.

Withdrawing from the creature's shattered mind, I gave it one last look over before I shot lightning down its brain stem, finally killing it. As it died, the Force itself seemed to release a great sigh of relief.

I had a destination in mind…and a possible way off this hellhole.

 

[EVA-Saiyajin]

Talk about an EPIC fight. It was like something out of The Force Unleashed and God of War combined.

 

[Simon Buchan]

Is the colonist's knowledge "try turning it off and on again"?
Who knows, maybe that's lost knowledge of the ancients by this time.

 

[Rictus]

Chapter 60

When I ran this time, my legs and lungs were better prepared for the long trek. A distance that would have taken me at least several days to overcome at regular walking speed was covered in the span of a few hours.

Being able to run at vehicular highway speeds was definitely a perk of being Force Sensitive. It wasn't all one long dash, however. Force Speed was extremely energy intensive for even short bursts. If I hadn't enhanced my legs and lungs, maintaining that speed would have caused more damage than it had the first time I tried that. As it was, I still had to stop several times to rest and refresh my muscles with the Force.

Even with the Force bolstering me, I was pushing my body to its limits. Five days with only a minimal amount of sleep. Two battles against powerful individuals. Near constant physical activity during my conscious hours.

It was all wearing one me. My eyes felt like someone had dumped a bag of sand in them. All of my muscles ached. I wanted to curl up into a ball in some dark cave and finally stop.

But I couldn't. Stopping here would mean dying, either from the Leviathans or from slow starvation. I had a ship to catch.

Eventually, the mining colony came into sight, right where the memories said it was. Thanks to being built in a small valley, it had been protected from the worst of the storms and prevented it from being buried beneath the mud like the cruiser had been. Even after three hundred years, I could still see the Czerka yellow painted onto everything.

The complex wasn't large, just a few prefabricated buildings: several bunk houses to house the miners, some supply sheds, a mess hall, and a hangar. The settlers had barely had time to start digging the beginning of the mine before the Leviathans were upon them.

The monsters had torn into the place. The bunk houses had huge gouges torn into them by enormous claws and all that was left of one of the supply sheds was a single wall.

But the hangar was intact. None of the settlers had a chance to run for it.

My legs were trembling from the exertion, but I refused to stop.

I could hear the psychic screams of the Leviathans, echoing back to me.

I couldn't afford to allow my tired mind to wander.

I hadn't been able to both hide my presence and run at full speed, meaning I needed to do what I came here to do before all of them showed up. I had tried, but I discovered that my spell of concealment burned out more quickly the faster I moved. Running at full Force-boosted speed, it only lasted a few seconds.

The knowledge of what was behind me and how little time I had left erased any hesitation from my mind just before I threw myself off the top of the valley wall. Mud was sent flying in all directions as I hit the ground again, my fall cushioned by the Force.

My legs, aching from the run, screamed in pain as they bent, but I pushed it all behind yet another wall of Crucitorn and forced myself to stand and trudge forward through the mud. Intellectually, I knew that just blotting out the pain was a horrible idea, but I couldn't stop now. Not when I was so close.

Soon, the hangar doors loomed before me. I didn't bother looking for the keypad, instead reaching out with the force. The metal doors, rusted in place, groaned as invisible hands struggled to pry them apart. With what seemed like agonizing slowness, they moved, displacing the mud that had built up around the base of the building. Once they were fully open, I let go.

The shuttle was there. As I ran a hand along the hull of the small vessel and allowed my power to seep into it, the only damage I found was a heavy coating of dust, gathered over the centuries. It was untouched. Unharmed.
A tired, victorious smile creased my face as I reached the entrance ramp. It asked for access codes.

I didn't need access codes.

With a mental order, the ramp started descending. I didn't wait for it to lower all the way before I darted into the ship.

It wasn't large, intended for transporting personnel or small amounts of cargo offplanet to another ship waiting in orbit. My brief scan showed that it didn't have a hyperdrive and it had shit for a fuel capacity. But the engines were still in working shape and it was still space worthy. That was enough for me.

As I ran through the small cargo/passenger compartment and threw myself into the pilot's seat, lights across the shuttle flickered to life as its systems started their warm-up procedures.

Despite expectations, flying a ship was not the same as piloting a speeder. Speeders, at least the low flying versions I'd gotten used to on Korriban, shared some resemblance to driving a car and had a similar set up, with a steering wheel and pedals in the right places.

A ship was more like stepping into what looked like the unholy combination of a cargo plane and a space shuttle, with an appropriate number of lights, dials, and buttons flashing at you.

I was not a pilot. The most I knew was that pulling back on the yoke was up and pushing forward was down. Fuck if I knew what all those other buttons and knobs did. Given this was a Czerka shuttle, I wouldn't be surprised if one of them was a self-destruct or an emergency ejection seat.

There was neither the time to learn nor a need to, at least for the moment. The Force could compensate for a lack of knowledge, allowing me to directly tell the ship how I wanted it to fly without knowing what any of the controls were.

Taking in a deep breath, I stretched my awareness out into the ship, latching onto every bit and piece and binding them to my will.

Instantly, I felt the rumble beneath my feet as the engines started, lifting the small craft off the ground. The landing gear retracted as it shot forward out of the hangar and up into the dark sky, the acceleration pressing me back into my seat.

Peering out the side viewport, I could see the obscured forms of dozens of Leviathans plodding towards the colony, to where I had just been. Blazing red eyes paused on their sojourn to follow my path into the air.

As the ship ascended, the psychic screams that had been pounding away at my psyche for hours lessened bit by bit until I hit the cloud cover, where it disappeared entirely. When viewport cleared up to show the starry void of space, I released the breath I had been holding the whole time into a shaky chuckle.

I had survived. I had killed a Leviathan by myself and survived.

A light on the dash started blinking. I had to analyze it with my power to realize that it was supposed to indicate an incoming communication.

One of my burned fingers gingerly pressed the button to allow it through. Major Selvin's cheery Cockney-accented voice drifted through as a white shuttle flew into view.

"Cut it a little close there, didn't you? Only had two hours left."

I wanted to cuss at him, but right now, I was too tired. I just wanted it to be over.

"My comm got destroyed on Corbos, so I had to find an alternative. Unfortunately, my ship doesn't have a hyperdrive, so I'll need to cross over to yours."

I had a sneaking suspicion that the comm unit would have failed anyways due to some other issue.

There was a pause before Selvin's voice took on a sheepish tone. It was hard to tell if it was faked or not, "See, there's an issue with your plan there."

If this was the "sudden yet inevitable betrayal," there was going to be hell to pay from someone. I have no idea how one became a Force Ghost, but I'd make my best effort to figure it out if only so I could make Selvin's life hell.

"I don't have a hyperdrive either."

My brain screeched to a halt. After it rebooted, I ventured a guess, "You don't have a hyperdrive because…you broke it?"

"Arse," He immediately shot back, "I don't have a hyperdrive because this shuttle never had one installed to begin with."

That would mean…

"Wait…have you been…?" I started to ask, only to get interrupted.

"Been what? Floating around this pit for three days waiting for your sorry arse to call?" There wasn't a holoimage, but I could picture the man rolling his eyes, "Yeah, I have. Real riveting stuff. You do whatever the Boss wanted you to?"

"Yes." I answered simply.

"Right. Well, I'll send out the signal now. Our ride should be here in five minutes." The soldier reported before awkwardly letting the conversation drop.

I let the silence persist as I pieced the scenario together in my head. When it was complete, I had to grudgingly admit that the whole thing was a pretty effective way of getting a Sith of unknown loyalties to do what you wanted.

If I'd tried to take over the shuttle I'd woken up on, the best that would have happened would have been that I had a ship that couldn't leave the system. I'd have been stuck until I ran out of air, fuel, or water, which would force me to either strand myself on one of the planets in the system or die.

If I completed the task and got off planet, then I was someone too strong or clever to allow to run away. If I failed, then the potential problem had been taken care of.

If I found a hyperspace capable vessel on Corbos, then there was someone on site to alert a nearby ship. While I didn't actually know how to operate a navicomputer, I might have been able to do it with the Force, but that might take time. And in that time, the ship would have had the opportunity to arrive and turn me into solar dust. Alternatively, Selvin would have done it himself with whatever he had on his shuttle.

And the only cost? The possible loss of a single shuttle and a single soldier.

Despite being the "victim" of it, I could appreciate the ruthless pragmatism.

Eventually, an alarm somewhere in my shuttle sounded off. It was a proximity alert.

Something was coming out of hyperspace.

One second, there was nothing. The next, there was something as I found myself suddenly staring down the guns of a Harrower-class Dreadnought.

The communications alert flashed again. When I pressed the button, a different voice spoke, though in a much more formal tone than Selvin used.

"Executioner to Czerka shuttle, automated docking procedures have been initiated. Shut down your engines and prepare to be boarded."

I complied. After the engines were deactivated, I began drifting towards the gray behemoth and whatever awaited me inside.

When the shuttle landed, I was waiting at the ramp and started down as it opened. A squad of twelve soldiers stood silently in two rows at the bottom, heavy rifles in their hands. Major Selvin was nowhere to be seen, though that was
probably for the best.

As I walked between them, the first pair I passed fell in behind me while the rest moved to form a circle. The last two stepped ahead, guiding the formation.

Next to their gleaming, perfect armor, I felt a little under-dressed in my battered, mud-splattered gear.

Of course, I could have easily killed them all…but I had no reason. I was tired...and more curious about meeting the puppetmaster than I was with escaping. For the moment, at least.

None of them said a word as they marched. That was fine with me. I had nothing to say to them either, instead taking the time to observe my surroundings. Like everything with the Imperial military, everything was orderly to the point of being almost machine-like in its precision.

Though most of the ship's occupants were mundane military, I did see the dark robes or armor of a Sith now and again. As we passed, their eyes would briefly glance in our direction before returning to their duties.

After a ride on the ship's internal transit system and a trip up an elevator, we finally reached our destination. As the doors swished open, a cold chill settled on me as I saw the occupant, seated in a large red chair behind a gray desk.

The familiar scarred face smiled back at me, his elbows propped up and his hands clasped together. As I walked through the door, he waved a hand, dismissing the soldiers. After they had left and the door closed behind me, he spoke, his voice a deep rumble. It was the same voice as the one on the comm.

"Welcome, acolyte." He gestured to one of the chairs before him, "Please. Have a seat. We have matters to discuss."

A/N: For a reference as to how the Scarred Sith sounds, this is pretty close.

 

[Rictus]

Chapter 61


As my sluggish brain finally processed what I was seeing, I very nearly reached for my lightsaber.

Or rather, I tried to, only to find that my right arm had chosen this moment to stop working. Both of my arms, one broken and the other fried to a crisp, hung loosely at my sides. The only thing I had to show for the effort was a few twitches from my burned fingers.

Well this was awkward. My legs still worked, but I didn't think highly of my chances trying to kick a Sith to death.

If the Sith Lord was insulted or angry, he didn't show it. If anything, he seemed amused that my kneejerk reaction to seeing him was to go for a weapon.

Unable to fight, I decided to use my only available weapon. My words.

"Darth Mindfuck, I presume."

A slip of the tongue due to exhaustion caused me to say a portion of what I really thought about him.

"How crude." "Darth Mindfuck" said slowly, raising a hairless brow, "From your records and my observations, you are typically more polite in your speech. However, I will attribute it to exhaustion and allow it to pass in favor of more…pertinent matters. Provided it does not happen again. Now please." He gestured to the chair again, "Sit."

I nodded wordlessly, my face forced into a calm neutral as I seated myself.

He didn't say anything more as he looked me in the eyes, red eyes unblinking.

I immediately focused on my mental defenses just as a sharp pain lanced through my head. Suddenly, I was seeing the door behind me, upside down. I grimaced at both the pain and the disorientation but kept myself from flinching, though I didn't need to bother as my helmet hid my expression anyways.

"An…interesting defense." He commented lightly after a moment as he allowed my perceptions to return to normal and went on to examine the rest of it, "Your memories, perceptions, and emotions are so scattered around your mindscape that it is difficult to affect more than a handful before you notice that something is wrong."

Through the mental connection, I could feel that he was…Well, he wasn't impressed, per se. It was more like he was examining a moderately interesting bug, poking and prodding to see what made it tick to satisfy his curiosity.

As I expected, he had completely bypassed the distraction construct and headed straight for the "stars." In between the moments of death-defying stunts, I'd given some thought to what I'd do if I ever met this Sith again, but I didn't think I'd need to put them into practice this soon.

"Ah, I see its functions now. You created it as a double-layered defense against the Leviathan's psychic screams. If they could not find your perceptions, they could not induce pain and disrupt your concentration. While they scratched at the empty construct, your actual mind was safe from their rather crude abilities."

I had a few choice words to describe his own methods, but I bit my tongue. Given the smirk that stretched the scars around his mouth, he knew my thoughts on the matter regardless.

"It is a passable defense. I daresay that it would protect you against most casual attempts to subvert your mind." He finally admitted, though it sounded less like a compliment and more like placating gesture. That feeling was reinforced by what he said afterwards, "But only that. A master of the mental arts would tear it to pieces once they understood what they were up against."

"It would still leave a split-second to act."

"Hmm?" The Sith hummed questioningly.

"While those masters are busy analyzing my mental constructs, that's a moment they're not devoting all their energy to defending themselves." I elaborated, "And splitting their attention between their offense and their defense."

He leaned back, his amused smile widening as the chair creaked lightly beneath his weight, "Predictable and flawed reasoning. Sith and Jedi train most of their lives to resist mental intrusions, to the point that such defenses are nearly an instinct. Even with their attention divided, the defenses of a Master would easily overwhelm you."

"It is predictable," I agreed, a smile of my own gracing my lips, "The master has already established themselves that they have complete control. That the only reason they devoted any energy to defense at all is out of ingrained habit."
The Sith's expression turned into a challenging smirk, "Do go on. I believe I wish to hear the rest of it."

"There is a certain arrogance that comes with mastery. Not intentionally, of course." I continued speaking, "That whisper in the back of their minds that tells them that only another master could truly compete on their level. That the foe before them is nothing and that they have all the time in the world to toy with their prey."

As I emphasized the word "whisper", his expression didn't change, but I could feel that there was a mental pause through the connection. Absolutely nothing else leaked through to me.

"That is an interesting theory." He said simply, his tone dipping slightly, "Is it one you wish to test, then?"

"Right this moment? After five days of fighting with minimal rest and multiple injuries?" I asked rhetorically, "Not particularly. My lord."

It was then I saw it: An unconscious twitch at the left corner of his mouth. It was a movement so small that I very nearly missed it.

That's right, you son of a bitch. I just bluffed you to your face and you believed me, if only for a moment.

And I did it without telling a single lie. If I had trained in the mental arts, that would be how I would operate against a superior opponent. Trick them into thinking they had won and then sucker punch them when they thought I had nothing to use against them.

I held no illusions that if he wanted me dead this very instant, he could do it without even standing up. The only things keeping me conscious were spite, Force enhancement to hold myself together, and multiple layers of Crucitorn holding back the no doubt excruciating pain of my many injuries.

An unexpected sound filled the silent air. It started low and at the back of his throat, muffed by his closed mouth.

He had started laughing.

"If I did not have an inkling earlier, I do now." His smile stretched his scars further, creating a nauseating sight, "This is why you will survive where the others will not."

I stayed quiet as his allowed his mirth to spill forth.

"You and your fellows were nothing to me. The wretches that Iren sought to make into Sith." He admitted freely and scoffed, "The gall of it. Aliens, slaves, and Jedi as Sith? Had we stooped so low as to resort to that?"

I registered the Jedi comment for later. It seemed I would need to do an unauthorized search of Iren's files when I got back to get a more complete picture.

"You had already passed your First Trial by the time I became aware of your existences, so I was unable to simply block your acceptance into the academy." He continued without pause, "I had intended to arrange it so that all of you would perish in the Trials. The plan had barely begun before something changed."

"And that was…?" I asked, not being rude but also not really caring about propriety at the moment.

"Why, you, of course." The Sith replied simply, "The first of my intended victims."

Why was I not surprised?

"Castor's revolt? That was your doing?" I guessed.

"Not entirely." He corrected, "It was going to occur regardless of my interference. I merely forced it to come to the fore early, before he was truly prepared and had become an actual threat. Still, it should have been a task far beyond an acolyte with a mere few weeks of self-training and alchemical tutelage. When you failed, a team of Assassins would have been sent to kill him."

"And then I survived." I muttered.

"And then you survived." He agreed with a nod, "And not only that, you smashed the army he had been building in the tombs. You crushed Castor. Tore him limb from limb."

I grimaced at the reminder of the other acolyte's bloody death, "How do you know about…?"

"Your probe droids contained a record of the battle and you had not encrypted them at that time. It was a simple matter to retrieve the data while they were unattended."

"Unattended" meaning that I might have been in the room at the time and he simply wiped my memory of the encounter.

"And then only a few weeks afterwards…you murdered a Sith Lord."

I almost wanted to correct him, but at this point…he knew. There wasn't any use in denying it.

"Lord Renning was far from the strongest Sith Lord, but he had earned that title nevertheless. That did not stop you." He paused, "And then, my curiosity was piqued. I began to wonder how far you could be pushed…and how far that would force you to reach to survive. I decided to leave the rest to Iren's trials and focus on yours."

"Seeing as I'm still here, I passed whatever tests you threw at me."

"That you did," The Sith Lord agreed, "In doing so, you demonstrated a rather remarkable talent for finding methods to kill beings that should be well beyond your station. Because of that, I have deemed you, and you alone, to be worth salvaging from that…pool of inequity that Iren has gathered at his Master's command. You may have once been a slave, but you are neither an alien nor tainted by Jedi teachings." He tilted his head to the left slightly, examining me a bit more, "…No, I don't believe even those chains truly held you, no matter what the scars on your face say."

I should be angry at this man for all the apparent assassination attempts, the days of paranoia-fueled panic. But in the world of the Sith, that was normal. Right now, I couldn't even muster the slightest bit of rage, whether from acceptance or from exhaustion.

"So what now? Am I your apprentice?"

It felt so simple, saying that. In another time period in Star Wars, when there were only two Sith, that phrase would have meant so much more. But here, it would just mean I became yet another cog in the Imperial war machine.

The Scarred Sith slowly shook his head, "No…not quite yet."

"Not yet?" I asked incredulously, "I just killed a Leviathan for you!"

"Yes," He replied simply, "That act demonstrated your power, whether it be your strength in the Force or your cunning. I know now that you have the potential to be a particularly potent weapon, if handled correctly. What remains to be seen is if you can be wielded and follow my orders."

I slumped in my chair and allowed my arms to dangle, "So what now?"

"Now, you will be returned to Korriban for one last trial. Not only is participation in the fourth trial required by tradition, there are loose ends to tie up in the academy. I will not suffer aliens and Jedi among the ranks of the Sith." The older man clasped his hands before him on the desk, "Your task is thus: You are to kill the other acolytes of your group." Red eyes met my yellow ones, "All of them."

Including Gaarurra.

"And I will require proof of their deaths. Their hearts will do."

I nodded numbly, "Yes…my lord."

His smile widened, showing impossibly white teeth that contrasted sharply with his ashen skin, "Excellent. Now, it will take a few hours to return to Korriban. I suggest you take advantage of the medbay's bacta tanks before we arrive. It would not do to see the "conquering hero" return battered and broken, now would it? It would give the wrong impression."

As I mechanically stood up and walked to the door, his voice followed me.

"You will require all your strength to defeat two Jedi, after all."

I was nearly to the medbay when I realized that I had never asked for his name.

 

[Silver719]

"Darth Mindfuck, I presume."

Click to shrink...

The fact you're still alive has me convinced he's planning on killing you when you're done.