"Master Rancisis's fleet will attack the Separatists the moment they're occupied with landing troops," Obi-Wan Kenobi said, pointing at the holographic depiction of the battle. "They won't be able to conduct a full landing and defend themselves against our ships at the same time. Knights Secura and Tsui Choi—you will lead the first fighter element. My Padawan and I—the second. Both squadrons will shoot down the droid landing craft without getting drawn into the fight in orbit. All other Jedi will defend Kamino on the surface."
"Does that make sense?" the blue-skinned Jedi Master Tsui Choi asked skeptically. "Won't the shields protect the city from bombardment?"
Before Kenobi could answer his fellow Jedi, another Jedi spoke.
"Tipoca City and the other cities are vulnerable to attack from the surface," a knight in dark gray armor said in a tired voice.
Obi-Wan thought with reproach that of everyone present, he was probably the one who knew the least about the last Jedi to arrive to help defend Kamino. Yoda had sent him at the very last moment, casually mentioning that the Jedi had returned from a long journey that ended with the Order regaining a valuable find. Kenobi didn't recognize his face. Still, he was traveling in the company of Aayla Secura. During the flight to Kamino, Kenobi had noticed that the two of them seemed to be friends.
Meanwhile, the knight went on.
"There will be a gap between the arrival of Master Rancisis's fleet and the start of the droid landing. It's enough time for the Seps to drop a decent number of droids on us. The machines will pass under the energy shields with ease and turn the surface into a bloodbath," he pointed to several spots on the surface of the Kaminoan cities. "If we had heavy guns, we could place them on these platforms and seriously bloody the Confederates right at the start…"
"Master Yoda appointed Obi-Wan to command this mission," Anakin said, as usual not holding back. "That means he knows best what to do…"
With a smirk, the knight jabbed a finger at the hologram.
"Remind Master Yoda of that when the Separatists destroy the interceptors' hyperspace rings and we can't even pursue them…"
"Knight Dougan," the hologram of Oppo Rancisis flickered several times, as if the Thisspiasian had personally felt the Lan Nikto's irritation. Kenobi mentally rolled his eyes. Of course. Rik Dougan. The knight who had used an unknown dark-side technique on Geonosis, after which he underwent a long rehabilitation. Rumor had it that on the eve of his assignment to a sector army, he ran from the Temple, claiming visions from the Force. Whispers of his betrayal spread through the Temple—just like the whispers about Quinlan Vos, whose hologram hovered beside Rancisis's volumetric figure.
So Dougan's return to the Temple—along with a trophy, the holocron of the ancient Jedi Ulic Qel-Droma—quieted the rumors. It was from that holocron that information had been drawn that could help destroy the Dark Reaper. True, by the time the holocron was delivered, the Sith weapon had already been defeated by him and Anakin. Still, the Council appreciated the Jedi's contribution to the Order's cause and simply ignored the fact that he'd left without authorization. Although Obi-Wan had heard rumors that it wasn't that simple, and that Dougan had actually been acting on Yoda's orders. But those were just rumors that circulated among the Padawans. Need to listen to Anakin less, Obi-Wan decided. For some reason, Anakin disliked Dougan. Dougan, for his part, reined in the overbold Padawan with cold indifference.
"Our fleet is strong enough to keep the Separatists from slipping away," Rancisis assured them. "So I suggest you pay more attention to the ground operation."
The knight nodded silently to the Master and hurried back to his seat, where Obi-Wan caught sight of him receiving a light elbow to the ribs from a Twi'lek woman.
"Perhaps if you weren't wearing such expensive armor," Anakin threw after the knight, "you would focus on the task assigned to you."
A smirk appeared on Dougan's face.
"The armor isn't for looks, Padawan," the knight emphasized the last word. "Thanks to it, my limbs will stay attached if Count Dooku happens to cross my path."
In that same moment, the briefing room in Tipoca City nearly filled with the sound of igniting lightsabers. Obi-Wan saw Anakin clench the hilt of his lightsaber until his metal fingers creaked.
The Kaminoan representative at the briefing—Taun We—looked from one Jedi to the other. It seemed something terrible was about to happen…
"Exhale, Skywalker," Dougan said unexpectedly as he rose to his feet and headed for the exit. "The guests have arrived."
A second later, an alarm signal spread through the city's corridors.
"The Separatists are in orbit," Taun We noted, pointing at the red images of the enemy ships.
"Now we'll have some fun," Anakin said with a grim smile as he left the room with the other Jedi.
A couple of seconds later, only Obi-Wan, Taun We, and Rancisis's hologram remained in the briefing room. The Thisspiasian shook his head sympathetically and cut the transmission.
Obi-Wan felt the Force whisper to him that the consequences of today's quarrel would echo loudly in the future.
***
Throughout the war, the planet Kamino would be of strategic importance to the Republic. This was where, like hot pastries out of an oven, the Kaminoans churned out Republic clone soldiers—the backbone of the Republic's army. Like Rothana, where Acclamators and the Republic's ground hardware were built in massive numbers, Kamino was the Republic's Achilles' heel. Capturing or destroying the cloning centers on Kamino would inevitably lead to the Republic's collapse.
Because the ranks of the CIS army consisted mainly of droids—factories the Confederates could produce by the millions per hour—the Republic's enemies held an enormous advantage. And the planned strike at Kamino was meant to put a definitive end to the Republic's prospects in the war.
That might have happened, if the Confederacy hadn't been a toy in Darth Sidious's plans. He had no need for a CIS victory. A sudden defeat of the Republic would not allow the Sith to achieve their ancient goal—the extermination of the Jedi. Palpatine conceived the Clone Wars so as to stretch the Jedi thin across the galaxy, to blind them with their faith in the clones' obedience. The Sith was simply waiting for the moment when the blow would cause maximum damage to his ancient enemy. And considering that in the first two months of the war nearly a hundred Jedi had died—from Masters to Padawans—his plan was proving quite effective.
Because the battle was meant to end in a Republic victory, the Sith ensured that Quinlan Vos learned of the coming Separatist armada—Vos being a Jedi who, within the CIS, played the role of either a double or a triple agent. It was from him that Jedi Knight Aayla Secura had very recently received information about the impending attack and passed it on to the Council. The Council got thoroughly worked up and pulled in all clones available and a good dozen Jedi back to their homeworld: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Aayla Secura, Oppo Rancisis, Tsui Choi, and many others. Among them was me.
Of course, I understood I was headed into a meat grinder where droids and clones would tirelessly and mercilessly slaughter one another.
But, to be honest, I didn't think my first assignment would be Kamino. I got there aboard a hitchhiking Acclamator transporting yet another reinforcement batch to the planet.
The starship was a typical representative of its class: seven hundred-something meters long, two hundred tall. A class 0.6 hyperdrive. Twelve quad turbolasers. Twenty-four laser cannons. Four proton-torpedo launchers. Seven hundred crew. Sixteen thousand clones as cargo. Nothing my ships couldn't handle.
Striding across Tipoca City's metal walkways, I slowly, unhurriedly—just as Kira had taught me—filled my body with the Force. I let it flow through my veins, saturating my muscles with energy, relieving tension, preparing them for battle.
My earlier fears about being unfit as a Jedi were behind me. Although my training under the Emperor had only begun, absorbing Kun's spirit had allowed me to make a qualitative leap in my development.
Niman, which the body's previous owner had only used in a stunted way, began to reveal its full potential to me as I gradually mastered the knowledge of the prior Dougan. Hearing that after Geonosis many Jedi had begun retraining from Niman to other forms, I could only smile.
The diplomatic form. Sure.
No one knew how long ago, the prototype of the sixth form had been created by the royal machetero of the Kashi-Mer dynasty and named after the local pantheon of gods. And, it must be said, the "diplomatic" style appealed so much to the authors of the First Jedi Schism—the Legions of Lettow—that they adopted it. Having overwhelmed their former brethren with sheer numbers, the Jedi took Niman and made it the so-called sixth form. After the invention of the lightsaber, it was on Niman's base that the Sith and Jedi of old explored the possibility of using a second blade. However, only a few of them managed to use that style as their primary one, rather than as "a second sword supporting the first." Millennia of evolution turned Niman into a one-blade fighting stereotype, and Jar'Kai into its dual-wielding counterpart. Though Jar'Kai is also its own style, with roots no less deep than Niman's ancestor.
I got distracted.
The point was, after Ruusan most Jedi warriors—those who could prove with deeds, not words, that Niman wasn't a toy for the dim—died. Those who remained either didn't know Niman as well, or studied from whatever holocrons were left. And learning from a primer without an experienced teacher is a pretty thankless task.
That's why this unfortunate Niman suffers—because nobody understands it.
Except Exar Kun. He had studied Niman inside and out, both with one blade and with two. That's why absorbing his spirit gave me an undeniable advantage over all my opponents in fencing.
And in general, over a month of roaming the Outer Rim and Wild Space, I'd become fairly seasoned in both lightsaber work and the use of the Force.
Daily sparring with Malgus and Kira, diving into the subtleties of combat use of both sides of the Force… Rituals and practices…
It must be said, it all began from the moment I chopped apart the former Jedi frozen in carbonite in the trophy vault.
Jaesa Willsaam, the owner of a rare gift for sensing a being's true nature. Valkorion explained that once the girl had been useful to a Sith who held the title of the Emperor's Wrath, but after his betrayal the Emperor's servants tracked him down and destroyed most of the traitor's companions. Jaesa, cornered by the Nathema zealots, surrendered, appeared before Valkorion, and was placed in carbonite.
There, on the station, after sending Kira and Malgus out of the vault, I pointed at the fallen Jedi woman's remains.
"How many of them are in your stashes? Why did it have to be necessary to freeze Kira? Malgus?"
"There are exactly as many of them," the Emperor snapped, "as are needed to kick the ground out from under my enemies' feet. You don't realize it now, but later—after you live a few centuries—you will understand that admiring the distorted face of the one who ruined your plans is not a mental disorder."
"But you didn't have this vault," I narrowed my eyes, "before the Voice was killed in the Dark Temple."
"I didn't," the Emperor confirmed. "But when Arcann and Thexan brought me Malgus frozen in carbonite, I couldn't deny myself the pleasure of assembling the full collection."
"The full one?" I clarified. "You kidnapped and froze everyone who went against your will?"
"Oh no," Valkorion smiled. "Those I destroyed. But those who helped them ruin my plans—like how Kira enabled the Hero of Tython—I brought here. She was brought here after my death, so I hadn't finished conditioning her yet," the Sith admitted. Looking at me, he said, "Because you like her defiant nature, don't you, apprentice?"
I preferred to keep silent then. And there wasn't much to say.
The Emperor gestured for me to follow. We walked along the carbonite slabs until the Emperor stopped in front of one of them.
"Nadia Grell," he explained, naming the figure sleeping humbly in a long-lived slumber. "A Sarkai who helped a Jedi disrupt my plan to destroy the Jedi Order and shatter the Republic. After the Eternal Empire's invasion, Thexan personally finished the Barsen'thor on Tython. He watched as, one by one, my people killed his allies—his companions. And when the famed Jedi Consular teetered on the edge of madness, Thexan sent him into the Force. Nadia and her small child were brought to Zakuul," a smirk played on the Emperor's lips. "I drained every drop of life from the child while Nadia—cut off from the Force—slowly sank into stasis."
"Mandalorian Shae Vizla," the Emperor indicated a red-haired girl in Mandalorian armor frozen motionless in metal. "'Mandalore the Avenger.' I noticed her generalship after she and her warriors helped the Hero of Tython capture the droid—the key to the entire Eternal Fleet network. This one didn't even need persuading," Valkorion said solemnly. "She saw the Republic mercilessly destroy defiant worlds. The Alliance she helped create fell. The Hero was unable to protect his allies… She agreed to join me for the chance to watch the Jedi Temple burn again, and Sith fighters dominate the skies over Coruscant…"
"Togruta Ashara Zavros," Valkorion pointed to the next slab. "Companion of Darth Nox…"
"But he's on the Dark Council," I remembered. "Your loyal ally…"
"His loyalty lasted exactly as long as he himself remained in power," the Emperor cut in. "Only he and the Hero of Tython earned my respect. Only them could I see at my side. But the scion of Kallig turned out to be far less farsighted than the Jedi."
"You killed him?" I asked.
Valkorion shook his head. Disappointment ruled the Emperor's face.
"He escaped," Vitiate said as if spitting the word. "Like a hunted beast, he hid from my servants, but they managed to track him down. The Eternal Fleet's invasion of Korriban became his end. He took Arcann's arm and damaged his face. But in the end, Thexan and Darth Atroxa killed him and most of his companions."
"Atroxa?" I was surprised. "The Lethan who commanded the Sith forces on Korriban. Arcann killed her."
Valkorion indicated with his eyes the neighboring slab, where the infamous red-skinned Twi'lek woman was frozen.
"Few sentients made the right choice—to join me willingly," he commented. "Atroxa was one of them. Much to Arcann's displeasure—he dreamed of spilling her blood. Well, he tempered his anger by slaughtering Nox's people."
"Didn't Arcann ask you why you were freezing all of them?" I asked in surprise.
"Of course he did," Valkorion nodded toward the next slab, beckoning me. "Where do you think he got the idea to freeze the Hero of Tython instead of killing him?"
By the last carbonite slab containing a frozen being, Valkorion fell silent for a moment, as if admiring the Twi'lek woman's face frozen in time.
"Who is she?" I asked.
"Vette," he explained. "Companion of the Sith who became my Wrath. The embodiment of my will, the executor of my desires."
"And the one who betrayed you," I stated more than asked.
"I promised to kill him last of all my enemies," Valkorion said. "And I kept that promise. I found and personally killed each of his companions before his eyes. Only the Twi'lek managed to escape and hide long enough to join the Hero of Tython. And when he stopped needing her, I thawed my Wrath again. I let him watch as Malgus tortured the girl, over and over, forcing her to suffer. He flayed her skin, cut muscle, and crushed bone. And when she was ready to die—we sent her into bacta. And repeated the torture again. Only when he lost his mind from despair and helplessness, and her will became dependent on my desires, did I allow him to die." The Sith fell silent, sinking into memory.
In my mind, a whirlpool of questions began to spin.
"She cut off his head with his own blade," the Sith answered the unasked question. "Without hesitation, without ceremony, without tears or regret. As befits the Emperor's Hand."
"So that means," the thought struck me, "they were the ones who created all the groundwork I'm meant to realize? You secured their support and used them in those moments of history when they were needed, thawing them at convenient times?"
"Correct," Valkorion confirmed. He indicated the slabs that were empty. "Not all of them survived. Many were killed, or sacrificed themselves for our common cause. Like the agent who carried the virus aboard the Katana dreadnought. I lost most of my agents during the New Sith Wars. But I did manage to acquire one valuable servant."
"I take it," I pointed at the carbonite slabs, "he isn't here? And never was."
Valkorion looked at me approvingly.
"How did you guess?" Interest practically dripped from his voice.
"The callsign 'Hart' seemed vaguely familiar," I explained. "When I looked through your Hands' reports, almost all of their code names stopped appearing after Ruusan. But then 'Hart' appeared. For a thousand years he worked for you. It seemed strange—hardly any species lives that long."
Valkorion smiled faintly at my reasoning.
"And then I remembered," I continued, "that Darth Bane's apprentice, Zannah, wanted to make a Jedi her own apprentice, but he escaped her, taking with him a holocron containing a ritual for transferring one's mind from body to body. And after that, nobody ever heard of that Jedi again."
"Praiseworthy," Valkorion said. "You're right. That is Set Harth. One of the Children of the Emperor who were embedded among the Jedi. Unlike many others, he was never exposed. He became one of the first Nathema zealots and carried out my will for many thousands of years. After Bane wiped out the Sith, I sent Set to his apprentice to evaluate whether she could become my successor. But Darth Zannah proved just as shortsighted as her master. Set deprived her of the holocron so she could not extend her life. In gratitude for his service, I allowed him to transfer his consciousness from an immortal body into a new one."
"You made him immortal?" I was surprised.
Only Scourge had been initiated by the Emperor into the secrets of immortality. Now—Set as well?
"But what about his training in the Order during the New Sith era?"
"And who said he trained with the Jedi after he joined me?" Valkorion smirked. "No—his foot last entered beneath the Temple's vaults more than three thousand years ago. And now he's occupied with resolving the issue of building our fleet…"
I fell silent. It was starting to feel as if I was the extra in this epic. Vast resources, servants, a fleet… What had stopped Valkorion from conquering the galaxy himself?
"You're troubled by something," the ghost noted.
"Yes," I nodded. Pointing at the carbonite slabs occupied by sentients, I asked, "What are we going to do with them?"
"Whatever you please," the Emperor shrugged. "They have fulfilled my will. Now you are the leader. They are your servants. Just speak one well-known phrase to you, and they will kneel before you and carry out your will."
"Tempting," I admitted.
Spotting the main control console, I headed for it and entered the command for a general thaw. With hissing and steam, the slabs began to heat…
"Most of them are Force-sensitive Jedi or Sith," I noted. "Good soldiers, engineers, and pilots would be useful too—we have many ships, and nobody to crew them."
"Ordinary sentients don't matter," Vitiate snapped. "History is written only by adepts of the Force. All others are expendable. Only a handful out of trillions of non-sensitives can be truly useful."
The ancient Sith spoke the truth of this galaxy. Force-sensitives ruled here. Everyone else was just dust beneath their feet.
"How long ago did Set thaw Kira and Malgus?" I asked Valkorion. The Emperor tore his gaze from the sight of sentients collapsing out of carbonite traps.
"Immediately after we departed Yavin 4," he admitted.
"Why?" I asked.
"For the same reason you are thawing these servants," he said. "You need advisors, warlords, executors, spies…"
"By pure coincidence, most of the Hands who survived happen to be women in the prime of life?" I asked with a smirk. "Especially Kira and Vette…"
Valkorion answered with a meaningful silence.
"The flesh is weak, my apprentice," he said after a minute. "You may hold their minds, but if you do not claim their hearts, you will face a fate far worse than Darth Nox's. Remember that when any one of them spends the night with you."
With those words, the ghost vanished, not letting me respond.
For about ten minutes I watched as five women—each beautiful in her own way, and no less dangerous—came to their senses after long carbonite suspension. They rose from their knees, shaking carbonite granules from their clothes and armor.
They asked no questions. With the unhurried efficiency of professionals, they retrieved their weapons and gear from containers built into the slabs' bases. Looking over their heads, I was surprised to see that Kira and Malgus had joined our small gathering. The Sith and the Jedi woman had changed clothes, donning the canonical Sith and Jedi armor I recognized from the game.
Blaster bolts clicked, and lightsabers buzzed to life. There were no familiar reds, blues, or greens to my eye. Sun-colored blades ignited and vanished as soon as their owners checked their weapons.
"Looks like," the red-haired Mandalorian jabbed a blaster at me, "you'd better start talking, boy, before I spank you and send you home to your mommy."
From Malgus came booming, gurgling laughter.
The vocoder turned it into a grinding rasp, making Kira—standing closest—grimace.
I tossed the lightsaber hilt in my hand. I doubted I'd need this room again. None of them knew who I was, or why they should serve me. Fine. A little sparring would be appropriate if I meant to win their hearts.
The rage inside me instantly poured the boiling lava of the dark side through my veins. Letting my blade spring from the hilt, I pointed it toward the Mandalorian.
"Go on, then," I laughed, tracing a figure-eight in front of my face. "When we're done, I'll have a personal assignment for you."
The red-haired beauty smirked as she yanked her helmet down. The jets of her pack flared behind her, and the Mandalore the Avenger lifted into the air.
***
Despite the fact that the Jedi fighters and Oppo Rancisis's fleet were methodically destroying the Separatist ships, there was no real progress in routing the enemy.
I refused the offered Delta-7 and remained on the surface. Like Shaak Ti. Like the downed Obi-Wan. Like Skywalker, who had followed him.
The droids pressed forward without any tactics. With no field commanders, they clumsily buried Kamino under millions of chunks of wreckage that had once held value as droids designated B1 and B2.
Meanwhile, the Republic forces fell back. The CIS managed to seize all cargo platforms, the security perimeter, and even the central armory, which held millions of units of weapons and ammunition. In a couple of hours of incompetent command, the Republic forces had blown nearly half the facility.
"Shay, Vette," after tossing a squad of droids off the bridge connecting two platforms, I called my… companions on the encrypted channel. "Where are you?"
The Mandalorian and the Twi'lek arrived on Kamino at the same time as I did—except they were delivered by a cloaked Sith Fury piloted by a Lethan. Clamped to an Acclamator's hull, Millennium Falcon-style, my Hands lay low aboard an invisible ship near one of the cloning labs.
"Almost done," Vette replied. "The system is so convoluted I barely sorted out the security protocols…"
"Less talking, Twi'lek," the redhead snapped. "These droids just keep coming. A little more and I won't be able to hold them—they'll break through inside."
"My lord," the Lethan's voice sounded in my ear. "Permit me to join them. One Mandalorian won't hold back the advancing forces…"
"Denied," I said, using the Force to amplify my leap as I cleared another platform, plunging straight into the thick of the fighting. "I'm practically there already."
The droids had effectively surrounded a small group of clones. Kids—five years old, no more. They'd been cut off from the barracks farther down the ramp. The idea, obviously, was for the "children" to return to the barracks under the protection of older clones in gleaming white armor and remain under guard—but as usual, everything went wrong.
Right in front of the barracks, they ran into a droid detachment that had gotten there first. The tinheads oriented instantly and began hosing the clones down with blasterfire. And to make things worse, a B1 squad appeared behind them too. Fortunately, there was plenty of cover on the ramp—numerous human-height crates and containers marked with Rothana Heavy Engineering logos. The clones crouched behind them, weakly returning fire at the advancing enemy.
It so happened that I'd shifted my previous fight from the mid-level ramps to the sloped roof of the Kaminoans' dish-shaped structures. And when I saw droids pressing toward the "dish" where Vette and Vizla were digging through the Kaminoans' dirty laundry, I sprinted to meet them. I hadn't expected the delay of half a hundred children's heads protected by a dozen clones.
"General, sir," one of the soldiers dashed toward me. With the Force, I shoved him back. A good dozen blaster bolts stitched through the spot where the clone's body had appeared.
"Stay in cover!" I barked, launching myself toward the detachment of droids—thinned down, to the clones' credit—that stood between the clones and the barracks.
The calculation was simple. Trading fire with at least some cover in the barracks behind you was better than fighting on two fronts.
There were about ten droids in front of me. Slow, dim-witted droids. Easy.
I slid feet-first under the first pair in the center of the formation, sweeping them across the torso with my blade. Gliding all the way to the barracks doors, I ended up behind the droids. The clones were still separated from them by the same few crates, greedily soaking up shots like the forerunners of Imperial stormtroopers.
With a Force shove, I flung one droid off the ramp, drifting left by inertia toward the wall. Dropping out of the clones' sightline, I deflected blaster bolts with the saber in my right hand and released lightning with my left into four B1s ahead of me, instantly shorting their circuits. In the next moment, Force-lifted droids were already flying into their still-active brothers. A couple went off the ramp along with those struck by lightning.
Four opponents left.
Closing the distance with a leap, I appeared behind them and slashed the nearest on a diagonal. Without waiting for the pieces to hit the deck, I drove my boot into another's head. I reflected a shot back into the shooting droid, then swept the battlefield with my eyes and—without overthinking it—crumpled the last one with the Force and hurled it beyond the complex.
Stepping out from behind the crates, I waved the clones toward me.
"Move!"
The soldiers, rushing toward me one by one in short dashes while covering the younglings withdrawing under Separatist fire, redeployed into the barracks. Half the armed clone troopers stayed outside to keep the droids from storming the building.
"Thank you very much, General," one of the clones—olive rank markings on helmet and pauldrons—approached me. "If it weren't for you, we'd have been in trouble."
"It's fine, Sergeant," I said, clapping him on the shoulder as I looked over the small Fett copies. "Kids," I addressed them. "You all right?"
"Yes, sir," the boys—some clutching captured droid carbines, others holding rifles picked off bodies—didn't look scared.
"We were made for this, sir," a clone explained. "We do not know fear."
"Shame," I rolled my shoulder, where a scorched blaster mark marred my armor plate. "Fear helps you stay in cover and not stick your head out when there's a fight."
"Apologies, sir," another clone appeared at my side, this one without markings. "Since the battle began we haven't seen any Jedi, haven't received orders."
No time to answer. Explosions thundered on the ramp—grenades.
I shot outside and saw the splintered remnants of the droids from the squad that had been chasing my clones being finished off by three clones in armor different from the so-called Phase I worn in the first part of the Clone Wars by the Kamino-bred copies of Jango Fett.
ARCs! it hit me. Elite Republic commandos—clones created and trained specifically for "delicate" operations. Sabotage, insurrection, reconnaissance… They could handle anything. Especially the ones classified as Null. A half-dozen unhinged, independent clones who recognized no authority and could only be commanded by their trainer—a Mandalorian of Clan Skirata. But as far as I remembered, the Nulls hadn't taken part in the defense of Kamino.
So these were Alphas. A hundred commandos created after the Nulls. Unlike their predecessors, with the Alphas the Kaminoans decided not to experiment or add genetic enhancements. The result was a hundred near-unchanged clones of Jango Fett, trained by the Mandalorian himself, who had remained in stasis right up until the attack on Kamino.
"And who the hell is this?" one of the commandos muttered, jabbing his carbine at me.
"Hey, you—who are you? Drop your weapon," the second of the trio immediately dropped to one knee and aimed his blaster rifle when he saw me step toward them. "Or I'll fill you—"
"Lower your weapons," Shaak Ti commanded in a clear but strong voice as she approached. Looking at me, smiling at the sight of the clone younglings peeking out from the doorway, she dipped her head in a ceremonial nod.
"Knight Dougan," she greeted me.
"Master Ti," I returned the greeting. "What brings you here?"
"We're moving to the lab that holds the third generation of clones," the Master answered. "The direct route has collapsed—the bridge was blown by the Separatists—so we're taking the long way."
"Ossik!" one of the commandos—the one who'd stayed quiet on first contact—kicked the brother who'd knelt and barked, "Shabuir!" as he slapped the first one on the back of the helmet. "Jetii," he added, quieter now, jerking his chin in my direction.
"Please forgive the clones for their hotheadedness, Jedi Knight," a lanky Kaminoan said. Strangely, I hadn't noticed him at first. Lama Su, the planet's Prime Minister, in person. Together with Shaak Ti, he stepped behind the improvised barricade, leaving the ARCs at their backs on the other side of the crates. "The Alphas have only just awakened and have not yet—"
"Everyone in cover!" I snapped, igniting my saber on the move. With the Force I yanked all three clones toward me and tossed them over the obstacles, then surged forward up the ramp, straight toward a pair of droidekas rolling out from around the corner.
I didn't make it in time. The destroyer droids stopped instantly and unfolded into combat mode. As if in slow motion, I watched their shield generators charge, watched their rapid-fire blasters train on me…
The first droideka, thank the Force, I managed to slice as I slipped past it by millimeters. One limb fell away; it toppled onto its side, and its shield flickered out. Twisting mid-jump, I used the Force to sweep the damaged opponent off the ramp and landed on my feet.
My golden blade caught the first burst of scarlet bolts from the second droideka.
The first volley went into the deck, the second into the air, the third back into the droideka. The ricochet shot the ceiling and vanished. Then three ion grenades dropped at the droideka's feet, and the explosions tore the Separatist droid apart.
"Done!" Vette squealed cheerfully in my ear. "I've got the data!"
Covering my mouth with my hand as if wiping blood from a bitten lip, I snapped into the mic.
"Get out with the data to base. The Jedi are one passage away from the lab!"
"Drag your blue ass outside!" Shay roared back immediately. "I'm out of charges!"
"Stop yelling at me!" the blue-skinned Twi'lek protested, offended. "I'm moving as fast as I can."
"I can leave you alone with the droids!" the Mandalorian shouted back.
The channel crackled with interference and blasterfire.
"I'm at the extraction point," Darth Atroxa cut in. "Vette got out. Shay's pinned down by droids."
"Help them!" I swore, seeing three commandos and Master Ti hurry toward me.
"As you command," the red-skinned woman replied. In the very next second I felt the platform take several tremendously powerful hits from the Fury's heavy guns. The deck pitched; I dropped to one knee, using the Force to keep my balance. Good thing my saber shut off, or I would've cut something important off.
One of the clones went down flat on his back. Two others stayed up. The Master grabbed the nearest protruding piece of the complex wall and stayed on her feet.
"Was that an explosion?" Lama Su asked in his guttural voice, peering from behind a crate.
"Sounds like it," one of the commandos muttered.
"Shay and Vette are aboard," the Sith Lady reported. "We have the data. Departing for Odessen."
"Understood," I whispered, more for form's sake than anything. I pictured the Sith ship—cloaked by an invisibility field—tearing away from the far side of the complex and shooting upward. A moment later I felt Atroxa's aura, muted by Sith sorcery but familiar to me, fade away. The Fury jumped to hyperspace. The Kamino mission was over.
***
As comfortable as the Emperor's station was, it had been built to preserve secrets, not to organize a galaxy-scale rebellion.
The nebula that hampered hyperspace jumps would become a burden if evacuation ever became necessary.
So, after chopping the carbonite-freezing bay's equipment to bits, I and seven of my followers—quite satisfied with the beginning of our relationship, having shaken off the rust (in their case) and put Kun's vaunted fencing into practice (in mine)—gathered in the mess to discuss strategy for the near future over cups of instant caf and vile-tasting ration bars.
Sitting at the head of the table, I looked over my Hands. That was what I decided to call them. Hands. Special assistants—scouts, spies, saboteurs, warlords… Allies whose loyalty rested both on a desire for vengeance and on Sith sorcery that bound them to me.
At the table, there was obvious clustering by interest.
Kira and Nadia sat in the corner farthest from me, whispering to each other quietly.
Malgus, the Togruta, and the Lethan sat in a tight group to my right. Vette sat opposite them. And the Mandalorian demonstratively chose the seat across from me, repeatedly shooting me looks full of rage.
Of course, one man against seven trained Sith, Jedi, a Mandalorian, and a Twi'lek who could simply shoot straight—I wouldn't have lasted. Even if I had absorbed a dozen spirits. But I had honestly beaten Shay in a long, exhausting fight. Or rather—we'd separated in a draw. I deprived her of her flamethrower and jetpack; she knocked my lightsaber away. Basically, a stalemate would have remained a stalemate, if not for the Force. With it, I plowed the Mandalorian across almost all the carbonite slabs—which turned out to be quite fragile in practice. For dessert, after browning her with a couple of lightning bursts, I assigned her head cook duty for the next event. In my view, there's nothing more humiliating and disgusting for a warrior than having to cook.
Especially since she's a terrible cook.
"Even the caf is shit," Vette grimaced, demonstratively pouring the brown sludge into the waste. "After all those years you could've at least learned how to brew caf," she aimed the complaint at the Mandalorian. The redhead, rubbing a fat bruise over half her face (my fault—I didn't notice her helmet came off right before the last slab), swore dirty in her language.
"And how am I supposed to talk to her?" the Ryloth girl appealed to me.
"You could just close your mouth and stop pissing everyone off," Darth Atroxa suggested in a dark, calm voice. Her face held not a hint of emotion as she consumed tasteless rations like a droid and washed them down with equally disgusting caf. "The Master didn't wake us for nothing."
A short nod thanked the Lethan for emphasizing my silence.
"If you're done snapping at each other, I'll start," I leaned forward slightly. "My name is Rik Dougan. I am the apprentice and heir of Emperor Vitiate. And… a Jedi Knight."
"Jedi," the Jedi faction stared at me in bewilderment. Vette's huge eyes widened too. The Mandalorian rolled hers. Malgus snorted contemptuously. The Togruta and Darth Atroxa prudently kept silent. "But why?"
With a sigh, I briefly recounted the plan.
"We have to stop the production of clones," Kira declared. From everyone's looks, only Vette and Nadia supported her. Which made sense—the rest had fought on the Sith side.
"Otherwise the Order will be exterminated," Nadia backed her. "That cannot be allowed."
"And it won't be," I promised. "Both Sith and Jedi must cast aside their age-old contradictions and become something new. The Jedi must end," I said. And added, "As must the Sith."
"Once, we were one order studying the Force. Now, thousands of conflicts later, both Sith and Jedi have degenerated, rotted in their dogmas. And this conflict will continue for generations," I looked around the table. "History preserves many examples of adepts who used both sides of the Force and lived without fearing their emotions. We must achieve the same. If anyone has another opinion," I looked around again, "feel free to go back into carbonite."
No one volunteered.
"Good," I concluded. "Then to the practical."
We needed a full base. The Emperor's station was hidden reliably from prying eyes, but the nebula still created difficulties for hyperspace use. And solid ground under your feet was nicer than metal plates.
We had options. The Defender's nav computer could help. Planets tied to the galaxy's history had now been forgotten, their routes lost—or, as with Kamino, deliberately concealed. An ideal time and opportunity to establish a base.
I believed a world filled with the Force would be suitable. But the more we studied such worlds from the Defender's nav database, the more I doubted I'd find a suitable one.
And after a journey to Dromund Kaas, I made a decision.
In keeping with our slogan of balance, I insisted that our headquarters be placed where the Force was in balance. Dromund Kaas, Yavin 4, Lehon, Korriban, and Ziost—saturated with the dark side—as well as Telos IV and Ossus—saturated with the light—didn't suit us. Even though they had material infrastructure we could use easily. Because then that would give an advantage to whichever side of the Force dominated the planet.
So we had to look for a planet where the Force was in balance.
Tython, which came to mind immediately, had to be rejected—it was saturated with the dark side. The dark-siders couldn't help but enjoy that. The Jedi homeworld steeped in darkness. While Malgus threw out barbed remarks like, "Should've visited you here the way you did on Coruscant," Darth Atroxa and the Togruta Ashara filled me in: during the Second Galactic War, Tython suffered a major catastrophe that killed most living creatures and the world's biosphere. That was why Tython had become polluted by an excess of the dark side.
The slight dark-side tilt wasn't strongly noticeable, but it created an aura of a tainted world. And although Kira, Nadia, and Ashara argued for the ancestral homeworld of the Jedi, I had to deny them. The Jedi had left Tython, apparently moving on to Coruscant, where they rebuilt their Temple after Malgus's invasion.
Zakuul, which Vette wouldn't shut up about, greeted our reconnaissance group—Shay, Vette, and Atroxa—only with colossal devastation and harsh radiation levels. Even though one could salvage something interesting from the ruins of the fallen empire, nobody wanted to get irradiated.
The former capital of the Eternal Empire was destroyed. An unknown enemy had erased the traces of its former greatness down to the foundations. Watching the wrecked world on the station holoterminal, I couldn't even speak. It felt as if someone had turned personal revenge into genocide.
We saw a similar picture on Dromund Kaas. The Sith Empire's capital lay in ruins. And although dark-side adepts could still be felt on the planet, Valkorion rejected my proposal to contact them with furious irritation. Malgus's offhand suggestion to wipe them out also went unanswered. Maybe later…
All of us—me and my seven followers—stood on the corvette's bridge, watching the planet's total destruction. Though traces of Sith architecture remained in places, the dark-side-soaked world overgrown with impenetrable jungles and crawling with savage predators reminded me of Yavin 4. An ancient Sith world subjected to a devastating Jedi invasion…
"Looks like the Republic put a final period on Emperor Vitiate's legacy," Kira said. And though she wasn't smiling, her voice held a hard, grim triumph.
The seeming obedience she'd radiated since our first meeting evaporated. A spark of vindication flickered in her eyes. Valkorion—who had only joined our company during the search on Dromund Kaas—looked at the former infiltrator with icy indifference and dissolved into nothing without a word.
"You're not as hopeless as you look, Jedi girl," Malgus gurgled through his vocabulizer. "You'd make a good Sith," he noted. The Sith's irises glittered gold. "One day you'll need a teacher…"
Kira looked up at Malgus with irony. In her posture, her expression, her voice—there was challenge. Not just the challenge of an inexperienced Jedi to a hardened Sith, but the challenge of someone who understood exactly what his offer meant, from experience.
Kira's biography contained a chapter set in the Sith Empire. The girl was born among the Jedi's enemies, became one of the Children of the Emperor—his personal infiltrators. She fled to the Republic and became a Jedi. However strong Malgus was, if those two ever fought to the death, the bet would be on Carsen.
"Remind me," she said with a friendly, thin voice edged with venom, speaking to the Sith warlord, "where is your New Empire, Sith?"
Mentally, I slapped myself across the face.
Darth Malgus's eyes flared with a dangerous light. A lightsaber hilt appeared in his hand. Kira answered in kind, easily spinning her lightsaber pike in front of her. A heavy silence settled over the bridge. Two of my party members were preparing to kill each other.
"Enough," I said, nudging them apart slightly with the Force. "As if I need you tearing each other apart."
"That didn't stop you from fighting the mercenary," Nadia said quietly, calmly. In the corner of my eye I saw her take up a position just behind Carsen's left, unobtrusive but purposeful—so as not to hinder her lightsaber.
Both women kept their hands on their lightsaber pike grips with practiced composure. I'd seen Kira in action at least in the game and knew she was a serious opponent. Of Grell, I had only a superficial understanding. But for some reason it seemed that even outnumbered, the two Jedi women could seriously thin out their opponents from the other faction.
"I said—enough," I repeated as sharply as I could. "Once we find a base site, the first thing you'll do is set up a sparring space. But on my ship—no duels."
With grim faces, the servants—Jedi, Sith, Mandalorian, and smuggler—hurried off the bridge.
Only Darth Atroxa remained, carefully pretending the quarrel didn't interest her.
"What are your orders, my lord?" she asked.
"Set a course for Odessen," I ordered. "Let's hope at least things are fine there. Unlike in our little collective," I grimaced.
Seated at the ship's control panel on the left side of the central protruding console, the Lethan merely smirked. I sat opposite the galaxy hologram, leaning back wearily in my chair.
It's hard to manage even a small group of individuals who only obey you conditionally.
Over the time spent in the cramped world of the ship, I began to understand that I was not, by any means, an authority to them. Valkorion—that was their true master. Neither my victory over the Mandalorian, as I'd expected, nor the journey had brought us closer to one another. And now I had merely allowed them to be disappointed in me again.
Should've sent them scouting on separate ships, I thought. The station had three Sith Furies ready for use. Equipped with stealth systems like the Ghost squadron, those ships could have been used to search for a base more efficiently. I had even attempted it, sending Shay, Vette, and Atroxa to Zakuul while I checked Tython with the rest. But when we returned from our expeditions, something possessed me to investigate Dromund Kaas as a full group.
Tired. Too tired. Maybe Valkorion had been wrong about me, and I couldn't handle even seven—never mind a whole galaxy, like he wanted. I needed rest and a fresh look at the situation.
The crew needed rest too. A berthing compartment built for four couldn't accommodate everyone who wanted in.
Malgus settled in the cargo hold. He didn't really ask permission—he simply set up a sleeping space there.
Vette moved into the engineering compartment, where she spent her time with the astromech R3, serving as the ship's technical specialist.
Shay Vizla flat-out claimed the medbay. When I objected that the single cot should belong to a potential patient, the Mandalorian snorted contemptuously and said she hadn't yet encountered wounds that couldn't be treated while lying in the bacta tank installed back on the Emperor's station.
So it was amusing to realize that in the berthing compartment on the other side of the wall, the Force had reached balance—two Sith, two Jedi. No matter how the Togruta styled herself as a gray Jedi, her worldview still matched her former teacher.
"I'm going to my cabin," I said, realizing that even on a ship this small, the crew needed to know where their leader was. "How long to the jump?"
The red-skinned Twi'lek checked the instruments.
"Eight hours, my lord."
"Enough time to get real rest," I noted. Leaving the bridge in the Sith Lady's care, I trudged to my cabin.
Locking the door behind me, I shrugged off the Jedi cloak that had begun to annoy me. Scorch marks from my clash with Shay. A couple of blaster burns. Fit only for the trash. None of the companions had even said I was walking around in rags. Fantastic. Probably laughing behind my back too…
I was strongly tempted to sink into pettiness and seize their minds using Valkorion's conditioning. One phrase, and almost all of them would become devoted servants. Watching my mouth, striving to carry out every order as perfectly as possible…
And every time I drove those thoughts away.
If I couldn't earn the respect of seven—make them carry out my will because they consciously submitted to my influence and orders—then I was nothing, not a ruler. You can't subjugate every sentient in the galaxy with your will.
The cabin door panel beeped. At that moment I was wrestling with the clasp of my chestplate. Over the course of wandering the backwaters of the galaxy, the Jedi armor had grown pretty old. But again and again I dressed in it like a second skin.
The greaves and vambraces were already on the anatomical rack. All that remained was to drop the chestplate and backplate, then the undersuit, and I could slip under the blanket and forget myself in sleep… And now someone else had to show up.
In that moment I regretted that the ship didn't have a visual intercom. That way, without opening the door, you could talk and send away an uninvited intruder in peace. Now I had to open it. The moment the door slid aside, I saw Darth Atroxa standing opposite me.
"What do you nee—?"
"Do you want help, my lord?" There was a playful spark in the Lethan's eyes, and her long, slender fingers instantly found and unfastened the stubborn clasp on my armor. The chestplate and backplate dropped to the deck with a clang.
Her voice unsettled me. Previously submissive, it now carried flirtation, teasing. For some reason my mind painted the picture of a predator driving exhausted prey into a corner. And of course, the hunter wasn't me.
I took a step back so the heavy chestplate wouldn't crush my toes—and bumped my legs into the edge of the bed.
Thoughts spun in my head, and for some reason words stuck in my throat.
The Sith Lady stepped toward me. Behind her the door closed, breaking the silence in the cabin with a lock's click. Now, in the captain's quarters, there were only me, an insanely sexy red-skinned Lethan, and a bed that could easily fit not two, not three people.
With a touch of theatricality—but with the sensuality of her species—the Twi'lek shrugged off her Sith cloak and hood, her chest armor, leaving only tight trousers hugging her slender, graceful legs, and a broad top that left on display a gorgeous flat stomach with the relief of moderately toned muscles, her navel adorned with jewelry set with a small gemstone. I felt my male nature suddenly realize that in front of me stood not just a mortally dangerous Sith Lady, but a beautiful, sexy woman.
My mind calculated that dark-side charm was being aimed at me, and that it was the cause of the surge and riot of my hormones. Lazily, I absorbed her spell. I'd been in this universe for over a month. I was surrounded by quite cute, sexy women. What was wrong with one of them wanting to be more than just a subordinate? In the end, even in my own universe, bosses slept with subordinates. And I was, after all, the future ruler of my own Empire.
Atroxa bared a row of slightly pointed white teeth and ran her tongue across them. Like a snake ready to strike at its prey.
"We have eight hours, my lord, to ease your tension," she said, placing both hands invitingly on her belt, where the hilt of a lightsaber hung.
Why not, in the end? That's a kind of rest too, I thought, laying a hand on her belt. In the same moment it fell to the floor. The lightsaber hilt clinked softly.
The slender fingers of her graceful hand slowly—stoking my interest—slid the Twi'lek's tight trousers down to the floor, and she stepped out of them with a careless motion of her sexy legs. The Sith Lady knelt obediently before me.
I ran my fingertips along her lekku, idly recalling that besides part of a Twi'lek's brain, they also contain erogenous zones. Letting small portions of the Force flow through my fingers, I entirely unconsciously stimulated her nerve endings as well.
The Sith woman rolled her eyes in ecstasy and opened her mouth, which I sealed with a kiss. Her slender red fingers found the fasteners of my undersuit and began to strip me of excess clothing in a hurry.