Oricon: Aftermath

Mechalich · September 13, 2016

This story pretty much follows its title, it covers what happened on Oricon, and in the Oricon system, following the end of the Dread War plotline. So spoilers for that, obviously. This story does not follow any of the PC class characters, seeing as they presumably left Oricon after Dread Palace, but is instead focused on NPCs present on the planet.

Rated Teen for descriptions of violence.

Oricon:Aftermath

Table of Contents

Prologue

He felt the masters die. One by one, in rapid succession. A matter of a few minutes from the first to the last. Each a swift, brutal bite taken from him; a piece ripped out of the soul, to leave only a gaping emptiness behind. By the time it was done he was naught but a shell, a flapping construction of flesh and armor wrapped around a void. The masters had been there, had suffused his core and made him strong. They had been his lodestone, the purpose around which he was built.

Now they were gone.

Something bubbled up from the depths of that cavernous hole within, a thing he had considered forgotten, buried behind the watchman, the being he’d become in order to better serve the masters. He almost did not recognize it, distracted by the overwhelming loss and the ongoing battle against the white-clad Republic invaders.

It was his name.

Viskene Joressal, that was the identity he had possessed, once, back when he was merely a Sith, a misguided fool. He had lost it upon becoming a vessel for the glory that was the Dread Masters. The agents of fear needed no names. It had returned to him now, and he wondered why.

Only the greatest servants of the masters had retained their names, preserved their identities; the commanders of the host. They were all dead now, having fallen to the fools who opposed the will of the masters, defeated by the numbers and fanaticism of the blind republic and misguided empire.

Viskene plunged his lightsaber through the armor of a republic soldier as he bounded down the walls of the palace. Turning, he blocked a short flurry of blaster bolts before slipping to step through the shadows and slash another soldier across the back, leaving the ruined body falling to the warm stones below.

Glancing around both with armor-filter concealed eyes and the enhanced sensitivity of the force, he discovered something strange.

The fighting was coming to an end. All about him the Dread Host was crumbling. They yet matched the republic invaders, despite the superior numbers of the unseeing horde from the Core, but the battle was done. He could feel the despair infecting all the others, even here on the walls of the palace, among the most loyal. Warriors of the host dropped blasters and lightsabers, raising their arms and letting the bolts and grenades of the enemy claim them. Other charged madly into storms of fire, or threw their bodies into Jedi attacks. Some stopped entirely, laying down their arms and falling prone, doing nothing when the enemy wrapped them in bonds. Only a handful still fought.

We will all die, Viskene realized, the power of the revelation dropped him to his knees. At the same moment a grenade passed over him, through the space his head had just occupied to explode well behind. He saw the future then. The republic horde would surmount the walls of the Fortress and the hidden Palace even as the imperial special forces cut off all avenues of retreat. The few remaining defenders could not hope to hold them back, and the masters were gone, there would be no deliverance. Those who did not die would be taken, captured to be remade into slaves of the empire or mind-slaves of the Jedi, those not simply executed for the actions these fools would label crimes.

All servants of the Dread Masters would be eliminated, and the memory of the masters, the true memory – not the lies and superstition of the enemies who could not understand the great working – would be lost.

That must not be.

I recall my name, Viskene decided. That makes me a commander of the Dread Host. Perhaps the only commander. I must act. The host was not destroyed. Much was lost, no doubt more would be in the final throes of this miserable battle, but there would be pockets that remained. He knew of outposts scattered across Oricon, hidden deployments, secret caches know only to the palace guardians.

They would rally.

Stepping through the darkness, Viskene cut down one soldier, and then another, carving a brutal path through the shadows, one sweeping slice at a time. His path ran not along the defensive works, but outward, ever outward, beyond the hidden warp-walls of the Dread Palace, over the great stone barriers of the Dread Fortress, and onto the lava-broken landscape of Oricon. He charged through the lines of battle, leaving them, and defeat, behind.

As he retreated, he saw he was not alone. Other members of the Dread Host, a pitiful fraction, but still extant, were also withdrawing. They abandoned the fortress and the strongpoints surrounding it between the walls and the encampments of the enemy. No point in defending them now, they fled into the wilds of Oricon.

Though he moved with them, Viskene was not giving up. The masters had given back his name. He would command, he would yet serve. The host would regain purpose.

Honor to the masters!

8 8 8

In the depths of the Dread Palace, monument to fear and suffering carved out by the sheer will of the Dread Masters, Biarae Sostroin battled the imperial strike team. She gathered the dark side and channeled all the might of her contempt, fear, and wrath into the face of the foe, these so-called elites who dared the sanctum of the masters. Lightning leapt from her fingertips to crash against armor and scatter down weapon barrels. Arcs touched and slashed across flesh in places, but not enough, never enough.

It was not a prolonged engagement. Though she and her comrades were champions of the Dread Host, the most chosen servants of the masters, these foes were skilled beyond any she had ever faced, and a match for the masters themselves. Their titles, what she had initially thought to be no more than gaudy labels tied to exaggerated smugglers’ yarns, proved most well-earned.

As she watched one of her comrades cut in half by the bold, indomitable lightsaber blows of the Emperor’s Wrath, Biarae came to recognize that they were not intended to win, or indeed to seriously damage the foe. These warriors, the honor guard of the palace, were nothing but a sacrifice to buy the masters time that they might hatch some plan to hold back these champions of the empire she had scorned so much.

The Emperor’s Wrath turned their lightsaber upon her, and there was no time for thought, only the desperate channeling of the force in an effort to survive one second, then another, and another.

She called on the power of the force to tear at the innards of her enemy. She blasted every ounce of lightning she could muster, seeking to burn armor clean away. She even tried to wrap howling coils of the force about her foe in hopes of a moment’s respite. All to no avail. The enemy was too strong, possessed of impenetrable guard, and all her attacks amounted to nothing more than sparks dancing across simmering plate.

Strikes cut into her own armor, piercing deep. A burning wound cleaved her side, ripping amongst entrails and organs, leaving her coughing and wretched, unable to properly breathe. Only the immolating churn of the lightsaber, sealing the wound even as it crafted it, saved her from bleeding out in seconds. Her guard faltered in the follow-through to this blow, and a poison dart from a stealthy enemy pierced her elbow, sapping the strength from her limbs. She sidestepped the next attack desperately, only to be bathed in the explosive blast from a streaking rocket.

Stumbling, she went to one knee, knowing her end had come.

The Wrath raised a hand, palm out, and a massive concussion of power slammed into her, from head to toe, every part of the body picked up and hurled by impossible, stone-breaking repulsion. She was taken and thrown, propelled by that invisible wave, to strike hard against the walls. Her body slumped down, feet striking uneven, bones cracking, everything a white blanket of agony and devastation.

Blackness covered all.

A terrible sensation restored awareness. Something was being pulled away, drawn out of her and down into a spiraling abyss. Great energy and potency siphoned out, and with it the essential current of fear, the central truth that had powered her and made her the terrible interrogator. Though her thoughts were clouded and buried deep beneath a choking weight of pain, it was impossible to ignore the meaning, to mistake this event as anything but what is was.

The Dread Masters were no more. The power that had been granted to her as one of their servants, the presence and the glimpse into the sovereignty of true fear, washed away on the tide of their departure.

Feeling this, Biarae came to the startling discovery that she lived.

With difficulty she forced open one eye. Her head would not bend, neck muscles refused to obey, but shifting the bruised orb back and forth was enough. She was lying seated against the wall of the Dread Palace, body damaged and broken, but not ended. A second frame, the larger heavyset form of one of the hulking Palace Guardians, lay atop her, obscuring her body. The hallway was filled with death, all her fellows shattered by the onslaught of the strike team.

Tentatively she probed with the force. There was nothing among the echoes there, only death. The enemy had come, they had slain, and she, by some random chance, had survived, life’s fires sufficiently banked that no one had thought to finish her in the rush onward.

By this unforeseen probability alone, she had lasted beyond the death of the masters. It was almost inconceivable.

I will not live much longer. The next thought followed in the despair of the moment. With the masters dead, the shrouded walls of the palace would fall, the modified Rakatan technology used to restrict entry to portals alone would fail, and the enemy soldiers would flood within. She would be executed, if not immediately than after rounds of torture.

Many long nightmares had she spent within the depths of the Palace dungeons, awakening those who had been deemed insufficient to serve to the truth of fear, to the revelation of the masters. Recalling them now, she felt a great wash of bitterness tainting each and every one. The masters were not divine. They held no unequalled truth. The path to fear was defeated, revealed as no more than one path among many. Stronger than most perhaps, but in the end, not strong enough.

At the same time, the memories brought up inescapable recognition. Biarae knew the capabilities of the dark side to trap the imprisoned within their private hell. The torments were all that could be imagined and more.

I will not be taken!

She would not suffer the rack, the electrodes. No hands would claw apart her flesh piece by piece, with the terminal delicacy of maximal suffering. She would not allow it.

Yet neither would she die. The universe had spared her. Its cosmic whims had delivered her alive from the pummeling of the Wrath, even as the Masters had fallen. Her lips twitched slightly, moving towards the all-but-forgotten form of a smile. Having survived, she would not abandon life so easily.

Reaching down with the tendrils of her will, Biarae gathered the hideous pain filling every muscle and power and forged from them a net of hooks and barbs. Casting forth she grappled with the immensity of the dark side, capturing great gouts of power. Working swiftly, compelled by the immediacy of need and the fury of loss, she gathered that power and sent it racing through her limbs, shearing away damage, slashing apart necrotic tissue, smashing bones back into place, forcing damaged cells to grow and divide and replace the lost, scourging invading bacteria and viruses from her limbs. She cast up the revivification and made herself whole once again.

Then she blasted out a mighty pulse of electric force and threw the guardian’s body off her frame.

With effort, and wincing at continuing pain, for the powers she had unleashed were far from completed in their work, Biarae stood. Moving as fast as she dared, feeling the stress against the terrible wound in her side and the scarcely knitted bones in her legs, she scampered away down the hall, seeking the throne of Bestia, and the secret exit portal she had used for members of her legion. She could use it to escape and find succor elsewhere on Oricon.

As she entered at a stumbling run, the former interrogator considered her next move. The masters were dead, their fortress fallen, and whatever members of the host survived were surely scattered. Much what they had made was doubtless lost forever, trapped within the skulls of the masters themselves, and now dragged into the deepest reaches of the dark side. Yet more remained. The dungeons had yielded up many secrets, overheard when pried out from the mounts of traitors and the unworthy.

There would be no return to the Empire, and defection to the Republic was an equally absurd prospect, but there were other paths, other places. The masters had been six, and had brought the Empire and Republic together to the brink of destruction. With even a fraction of their power, she could claim whatever she desired. Perhaps even the head of the Emperor’s Wrath.

Smiling beneath her mask, Biarae ran for the portal, wondering what the universe, in its whims, might chose to leave behind.

Chapter Notes

While I dislike creating original characters for use in SWTOR, given the vast slate available, I saw no way around doing so for this story. The reality is that none of the named NPCs on Oricon is presumed to survive the Dread War episodes, leaving the cupboard rather bare on that front. So Biarae and Viskene are newly manufactured. Even so, they are derived directly from in game content. Both are members of trash mob groups encountered during the Dread Palace operation. Biarae is a Palace Interrogator, and Viskene a Palace Watchman.

The Emperor’s Wrath makes a brief appearance in this prologue, in what will probably be the only appearance of one of the class characters in this tale. I have chosen to have the operations group that eliminated the masters be imperial because the principle characters are all imperials, but I will consider both endings of that operation as having happened, since they do not contradict each other.

Edited November 2, 2016 by Mechalich

MishaCantu · September 13, 2016

I think this will be a very interesting story. I really enjoyed the premise of Viskene's determination to continue the work of his previous masters, but what I found most compelling was Biarae's revelation that God's are not always omnipotent, that they can die and she has her own choices to make now.

Your descriptions of places, emotions and even battle are very balanced and detailed but not overdone. I will look forward to reading more.

wangxiuming · September 13, 2016

I agree with Misha; this prologue sets up the characters and their history really well. The writing style is quite fluid and engaging and hooks the reader to want to see more.

While I dislike creating original characters for use in SWTOR, given the vast slate available, I saw no way around doing so for this story. The reality is that none of the named NPCs on Oricon is presumed to survive the Dread War episodes, leaving the cupboard rather bare on that front. So Biarae and Viskene are newly manufactured.

I really like that you're using original characters actually, especially since they are compelling and interesting characters to follow. I may be biased though, as my own story is almost entirely comprised of original characters. I find it's easier to create unique storylines with them. I guess we have opposite preferences heh.

Lunafox · September 13, 2016

Very nice! I really enjoy your style and the flow of your writing. I'm curious to see what will happen next!

MayhemofChaonus · September 14, 2016

Very, very interesting...You have helped inspire me. I had originally planned to factor the Dread Masters and the Dread Host into my own FF, but you have now given me some new, raw ideas to work with. I promise not to steal anything directly from your story (how boring would that be huh?) but your portrayal of the Dread Guard has given me a thousand little ideas on how to improve my own portrayal of that group in the future... Edited September 14, 2016 by MayhemofChaonus

Mechalich · September 14, 2016

Thanks for all the support. I'm glad everyone liked the Dread Host characters. Unfortunately it will be a bit before they show up again.

Chapter 1

Halsia Banso approached the communication tent as ordered. It had been repurposed as a secondary meeting room now that off-world communications had been reduced below the emergency level. She also knew they were still using the encampment rather than the fortress despite it being three days since the victory because the droids were having all kinds of trouble hooking up any normal systems to the insane infrastructure of the Dread Masters.

Estimates for when operations would be shifted over had been extended repeatedly, and Halsia no longer had any confidence in them. She didn’t really mind. Too many Sith, and who knows how many pieces of soldier fodder, had been lost taking that poisonous, madness-infused hulk. Lord Hargrev was welcome to it as far as she cared.

It proved to be a fairly small meeting, much as expected. Three days since desperate victory and they were already moving the extraction into the final stages. Darth Marr’s men had been pulling out Dread Executioners as fast as they could get the shuttles to land, dispatching the weary and in many cases just restored to sanity soldiers to new hot zones all over the galaxy.

The process had provided an excellent picture into the true state of the war effort, if a decidedly unwelcome one. For her part, Halsia expected she’d be dispatched again soon herself. Not that she was eager. She seen plenty of futile stands here on Oricon, and they’d only been spared through the arrival of the Empire’s best, and a not inconsiderable assist from Republic scum. Joining another one under Darth Marr for the sake of imperial pride was…unappetizing.

She was the second to arrive. The tent was already occupied by the hulking frame of Traxalis Deagua; a bulky creature sheathed in armor and hiding at least some, no one seemed to know just how many, cybernetic replacements under that machinery. He never took helmet or armor off in public, staring at the world through red eyes. The warrior was a brute, the type of Sith who looked down the blade of a lightsaber at the universe. It was a crude approach, but Halsia counted him more competent than most at it. He had acquitted himself well enough in the defense of the camp and the final assault of the fortress.

Traxalis stared her down with red eyes as she walked in, and turned away only to examine the next arrival. Halsia felt his approach, and avoided turning. She knew this one, clad in light white armor and possessing blue skin. He was impossible to miss in the Force, for he possessed two unique qualities. There was no one else on Oricon whose presence betrayed the telltale feel of Imperial Intelligence masking training, and there were no other Chiss either. Aliens were unreliable. Some fought well, some were worthless. Training made a difference, and certainly the republic soldiers managed well enough despite their childish inefficiency. Yet she did not trust the Chiss, the whole species was up to something, too close to Imperial Intelligence and keeping too many secrets from the rest of the Empire. Seibahn Vabakson might always be professional, but the combination of Chiss and Intelligence was doubly dubious.

Seibahn was precisely on time, typical of his profession. He was followed only a few steps behind by Maiya Vix. The dark-haired officer was immediately recognizable to all present, both from the burn scars on her face to her position as Lord Hargrev’s adjutant. At the moment she was the second most powerful person on the planet, and far more available than the Sith Lord struggling to tame the ghosts of the fortress.

Deeply professional, utterly dedicated to duty, and properly aware of the military’s place as subordinate to the Sith, Maiya had Halsia’s respect. An ideal staff officer, and now proven under fire. She wasted on Hargrev, and a poor match for the man’s relaxed approach. Perhaps she would be open to a transfer, assuming Halsia could somehow acquire a lord’s title of her own.

The four waited, with Maiya impatiently tapping at her datapad, for the fifth arrival. Dae’o Soset, typical of fringe mercenaries, was late. He walked with an arrogant saunter all the same, and glared at everyone from behind his black veil as if this was a waste of his time. It was only just barely justified in recognition of his abilities. They’d fought together in the fortress assault, and there was no ignoring his capability in battle. It might be worth trying to seduce him, assuming they were both stuck on this molten moon for much longer.

‘Now that we’re all present,’ Maiya began irritably. ‘This meeting can begin.’ She spoke swiftly, relaying information as if every announcement was time-critical. An unsurprising adaptation, given how true that had been until very recently. ‘As you all know, the strategic situation here on Oricon has been changing rapidly in the past few days. Without the Dread Masters to control and lead them, the majority of the Dread Host has been captured, destroyed, or has suicided on its own. At present we estimate that roughly ninety percent of all forces have been neutralized. The remaining units have mostly scattered and lack coordination and heavy ordinance.’

This was good news, and a sign that the incessant mop-up sorties of the past few days ought to be at an end. Halsia was glad of it. The remnant host was mostly useless, but those still willing to fight had shown a growing dangerous tendency towards cornered desperation as the skirmishes continued. It would be highly embarrassing to suffer an injury in these desultory engagements.

‘Unfortunately,’ the aide continued without celebration. ‘This has resulted in the Dread Host being largely written off as a threat and the various Dread Executioners units disbanded and repurposed to other combat theaters, mostly on the front lines with the Republic. This action, combined with the total withdrawal of Republic forces from Oricon.’ The white suits had pulled out with impressive speed. Their logistics corps was skilled, and conducted mass operations with a coordination that the Empire, shamefully, couldn’t match. ‘Has left the remaining garrison outnumbered.’

Halsia’s eye widened. Her attention, which had been wandering somewhat aimlessly, was suddenly focused. This was very bad. The Dread Host was not an ordinary force. Lack of coordination or not, the Dread Masters had chosen some of the best soldiers and most bloodthirsty Sith in the Empire to forge into their legions. The exhausted and worn down survivors who’d defeated them could be in serious trouble if they somehow organized.

Maiya body tensed at this statement, proof that she was equally aware of the attendant difficulties. ‘As a result of this drawdown in forces Lord Hargrev has redeployed the remaining imperial forces to garrison this campsite and the Dread Fortress, with the intent of occupying the fortress permanently as soon as it can be readied for ongoing operations.’ She paused very briefly, scanning across the four specialists gathered before her. ‘Otherwise we are suspending active pursuit of the dread host until restoration of automated defenses renders the fortress properly secure. The exception will be a small group of elite operatives dispatched to strike at priority targets on their own, without support.’

And there it is, Halsia noted. Her feelings were mixed. Hunting down scattered fanatics was a thankless task. There was no glory to be earned and plenty of danger besides. At best she might manage to scrounge up some unreported credits from whatever leavings the survivors possessed. Then again, Oricon was a remote system. The Republic was unlikely to invade. If the war went worse, escape into the Outer Rim would be easy. Besides, whatever had happened in his struggle against the madness-inducing sorcery of the Dread Masters, it seemed to have made Lord Hargrev into a rather forgiving master. To not fear being killed on a whim might prove a pleasant change.

She glanced at the others. Traxalis’ masked face was inscrutable, and he read out as nothing more than a blot of aggression in the force, as always. Seibahn was little better, the Chiss’ face was perfectly composed, and trying to read the emotions of the intelligence-trained was a waste of effort. The bounty hunter, by contrast, was openly upset.

‘I didn’t sign on to stay out here in the back end of nowhere after the battle was won,’ Dae’o complained, deep voice filled with guttural inflexion. ‘Hunting nameless dread pups don’t pay well and it don’t rank well neither. I’m leaving.’

I doubt it, Halsia thought, somewhat amused.

‘There are no berths on hyperdrive-equipped vessels available to you, Dae’o Soset,’ Maiya was brusque, professional. She did not even bother to look up from her datapad. ‘Also, it appears you have failed to meet the decontamination requirements mandated for clearance to leave the Oricon system in any case. Attempting to leave without proper medical clearance will result in a death mark placed against you in all Imperial and Republic systems.’

Dae’o responded with a stream of expletives in Mandalorian. It was a crude language that Halsia had never slummed to learn, but she had to admit it made for exquisite cursing. ‘Fine,’ he eventually relented. ‘But don’t think this is the end of it.’

‘Where do we strike?’ this interjection came from Traxalis. The warrior seemed unwilling to have his bloodthirst delayed any longer than absolutely necessary.

Maiya responded by projecting an image from her datapad. An image of the star system, one Halsia recognized from a half-remembered briefing before the madness of the landing as the one they presently occupied, emerged. ‘For the moment the threat here on Oricon is contained. The Dread Host forces are scattered and this campsite and the Dread Fortress are secure positions that are easily defended.’

True enough, Halsia smirked. Except that they were just successfully attacked.

‘As a result, we intend to dispatch you to strike at other points in the Oricon system where the Dread Masters established outposts. These facilities are generally very small, but they are so far largely unscathed by the fighting and it is possible that some may possess assets unknown to us that represent a serious threat. We need you to scout them out, determine the scope of the threat, and neutralize anything that cannot be recovered.’ Maiya tweaked her display, zooming in on the inner system. ‘We’re going to split you up by zones, according to your various areas of expertise,’ she explained. ‘Dae’o Soset, you’re assigned to clear Enreosal, the first planet.’

Halsia didn’t remember this planet from the brief, but the holoimage contained a basic readout. A fiery hellhole, she recognized. It was not simply a highly volcanic world like Oricon, but a planet on fire from sky to stones. It was also massive, no doubt with punishing gravity to match. She supposed the bounty hunter’s armor could compensate for both things and considered him welcome to it.

‘Just great,’ the bounty hunter grunted.

Ignoring this comment, the officer continued. ‘Traxalis Deagua, you are assigned to clear the remaining moons of Bodrern.’ This name was much more recognizable, since it was the gas giant they were presently orbiting. Like most of its kind it had dozens of moons, from large to puny.

‘They shall be destroyed,’ the voice was synthetic, emerging from somewhere among a tangle of machinery. As Sith went, however, Halsia did not find it especially intimidating.

‘Agent Vabakson,’ Maiya addressed the Chiss next. ‘You are to clear the moons of Nesperia.’ Her display illuminated a dark bluish gas giant with a pair of pale rings.

‘Acknowledged,’ the inscrutable intelligence officer added nothing. Chiss were well suited to cold ops, if nothing else.

‘And Halsia Banso, you are assigned to all targets on sub-planetary non-satellite bodies throughout the system,’ Maiya concluded.

‘Lovely.’ She would have liked most anything better. Running around on freezing cold, airless balls of rock and ice was not her idea of a fun time. ‘How are we supposed to get there?’ None of them had ships of their own, though it was less embarrassing because anyone who’d arrived on this planet with a ship was now the proud owner of a pile of free-floating debris thanks to the Dread Masters.

Clicking repeatedly on her datapad, Maiya addressed the group again. ‘We’ve managed to repair some of the smaller shuttles captured during the assault. They aren’t capable of lightspeed but they should suffice to get you around the system. We’ve repurposed a number of surviving Dread Host probe droids that can be utilized for communications and support. At the moment those are the only assets available to this assignment. However, if you encounter a hardened target that is beyond your personal capabilities we will attempt to assemble a strike team.’

No one bothered to ask about the possibility of reinforcement or rescue. They’d all served in the Empire long enough.

‘Here are your shuttle assignments,’ Maiya transferred the directions. ‘You have until tomorrow to transfer personal items and conclude any remaining business here on Oricon. Your droids have access to our current tactical framework. You may choose your own targets, but I require a briefing once you’ve determined your initial mission. Otherwise, dismissed.’

No one saluted. They simply dispersed, each in their own direction. Halsia considered trying to talk to Maiya, but realized she had nothing to say to the officer. In truth she had nothing much to say to anyone in the camp. The battles of the Dread War had not been much for team building, the fear and madness suffusing every breath had sent them all retreating within, barriers high. The few Sith she’d fought with in battle defending the camp had all been dispatched elsewhere in any case.

The only real comrade remaining she cared to talk to was Quartermaster Ma’tti, because keeping on the good side of the man holding the supplies was essential in war, even for Sith. He was also a fellow Ziost-born, and kept up on the gossip from there. She liked knowing what was going on back home, in some sense at least.

She found the quartermaster in the fortress courtyard, supervising a large group of droids in the effort to strip down the remains of other droids. ‘Halsia,’ Ma’tti turned as she approached. ‘To what do I owe the attention of my favorite Sith?’

‘Don’t flatter,’ she quipped, but jovially. He might even have meant it, possibly. It depended on how much he wanted to get under her armor versus how careful he was to suck up to Hargrev. Some men were blinded by hormones.

‘Okay, okay, you got me,’ he threw up his hands. ‘But you’re still ahead of Darth Marr, who couldn’t be bothered to get me off this miserable slag heap of a moon.’

‘You should be grateful,’ she teased. ‘He may well have spared you a miserable death in an artillery barrage. Against that, what’s a little lava and a few ghosts? Besides,’ she added, thinking on her present circumstances. ‘Not all off-world postings are upgrades.’

‘Too many ghosts,’ he quipped, but softly. They both knew his real loss was the inside track to riches made through the side deals all quartermasters conducted behind the back of the military. Ma’tti had the best scheme of all too, selling to the Sith. His loses were no doubt extensive. Not that Halsia mourned it at all. She was already considering how much of a discount she could get from her suddenly desperate supplier.

Brightening, the quartermaster turned back to her. ‘Well, favorite or not, what can I do for you today? These droids can manage without me for a few minutes.’

‘Nothing specific,’ Halsia replied, levelly. There really wasn’t, regrettably. ‘I’m being shipped out,’ she told him. ‘Dread Master Vix,’ it was a terrible joke, but it had sprung up as soon as the battle was won and showed no signs of dissipating. It would probably last until someone slipped up and said it to the staff officer’s face. Well, among the soldiers anyway. Sith tended to find jokes that someone had been shot over to be the best kind. ‘Has tasked me to bounce around this system’s frozen iceballs hunting for Dread Host survivors.’

‘Ugh, sounds miserable,’ Ma’tti commiserated. ‘I suppose that means you get one of our friendly shuttles then.’

‘Apparently,’ the Sith grumbled. She’d seen those ships after the assault. They hadn’t been impressive. Comfort for their troops was not something the Dread Masters even considered. ‘Any advice?’

‘Don’t trust the shields,’ he shrugged. ‘Darth Marr’s troops took all the good generator coils. We’re left with refurbished old ones and some half-burned out salvage. Most of the other parts are a little better, but I wouldn’t trust any of ‘em to go past spec.’

‘Glorious,’ Halsia did her best to sound amused. She tried to avoid thinking about dying in a fiery engine failure. An ignominious death was not to be contemplated. ‘What about the droids?’

‘Those are actually better,’ the quartermaster offered, sounding a bit upbeat. ‘There were a lot of quality droids in use here, and not all were destroyed. They weren’t that difficult to have memory wiped and provided with new operations packages from the probes the fleet was using to find the Dread Masters. The one trick is the personality matrix. Probe droids aren’t really the most talkative bunch, so expect them to be rather bland. Hardware’s good though.’

‘I suspect I can manage.’ Things could have been better, but she knew to make due. Frustration simply served as fuel for the dark side. ‘I appreciate the heads up on the ships.’ One day she’d have a ship worthy of her. When that day came, Halsia fully intended to blast countless lesser wrecks into dust. ‘Try to have something nice for me when I get back. I’ll be very cross otherwise. You wouldn’t like that.’

‘I’ll see what I can scrounge up,’ he answered. It was a game, partially.

After packing up her meager supply of personnel effects, she barely managed to fill a single duffle and owned no artifacts worthy of the name, Halsia went to find her shuttle. She wondered if the force would be able to free her from this particular slog. It seemed unlikely.

Chapter Notes

So, I have picked possibly the most obscure source of a named character to be my protagonist – an NPC who’s no longer in the game at all. Halsia Banso, along with Traxalis Deagua, Dae’o Soset, and Seibahn Vabakson were the basic gear vendors on Oricon until they were replaced in Patch 4.0. I have chosen to interpret this particular change as a storytelling prompt. Notably these characters are among the only named Imperial NPCs found on Oricon at all.

Maiya Vix appeared in the Oricon storyline cutscenes alongside Lord Hargrev. As Lord Hargrev was given custody of the Dread Fortress following completion of the Dread Palace operation, that leaves him in charge of the whole planet. Both characters will appear in this story at points.

Halsia’s internal commentary regarding the state of the war at this point reflects the very recent Makeb conflict, of which she is not aware. Isotope-5 had not yet been used to retrofit the imperial fleet and allow the empire to retrench, so the situation was very bad.

MishaCantu · September 15, 2016

Being the clean up crew is never an easy thing. I love your character building of the four and since they were originally just regular NPC's there are no preconceptions. This is refreshing.

Looking forward to more.

Mechalich · September 17, 2016

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

‘That is a lot of frozen iceballs,’ Halsia noted, staring at the orbital projection the probe droid had called up.

‘Outer system planetoids are the most abundant objects in hydrostatic equilibrium found in star systems that have undergone standard developmental processes,’ Copier responded. The Sith had inflicted the named on the droid, unwilling to refer to him as DCP-R 04. She was fairly certain he found it demeaning, which pleased her. ‘Orbital dynamics dictate that the inner system will clear of small bodies with far greater efficiency than more distant orbits, especially in the presence of a gas giant.’

‘Enough,’ she cut him off. Even in a few short hours with the unit, she learned why probe droids were not normally programmed with vocabulators. They just did not stop talking. She supposed it was a side effect of their programming. When you built something to be fascinated by every new thing it saw and experienced, of course it would want to tell everyone else about it.

Mercifully, Copier obeyed orders and shut up when told. That was doing better than most humans in Halsia’s experience. ‘How many iceballs are we actually looking at?’

‘According to the survey of the Oricon system, there are four thousand, six hundred, and twenty-eight objects in hydrostatic equilibrium located beyond the orbit of Nesperia. The number of smaller objects increases logarithmically, but the surveying operation did not chart objects below fifty kilometers in long-axis diameter. It is possible that the Dread Masters charted the system to a greater degree of resolution during their occupation, but if so those records have not been recovered.’ The droid’s deadpan summary made his use of technical terminology almost impossibly boring. It occurred to Halsia that she might use him as a sleep aid.

‘So there’s more than four thousand iceballs they could be hiding out on?’ That was a miserable discovery. She’d had no idea the outer system would be so cluttered.

‘Technically, yes, only those objects that have attained hydrostatic equilibrium qualify as round and therefore fit the colloquialism ‘iceballs.’ However, smaller objects are much more numerous. The number of bodies capable of hosting an installation is vast, potentially in the millions.’

Halsia stared at the droid. ‘Millions?’ she murmured. It was absurd. ‘So what you’re saying is that we’ll never find them just by looking.’

‘The probabilities of success in a search mission are very low, yes,’ Copier agreed. He did not sound upset about it.

‘Glorious.’ The Dread Masters had been completely insane, but they’d still been Sith. Being of that persuasion herself, Halsia understood the thought process. The organization of installations would inevitably be a data maze, designed to hide some assets from certain other assets for all kinds of reasons, ranging from double-blind testing practices to pure unadulterated paranoia. There were no doubt some assets kept completely off records, hidden behind a screen of memory-wiped droids and cremated bodies, and the cool isolated reaches of the outer system were exactly where you’d hide them. She was being set up for failure, and it made her seethe.

Regardless of the futility of the task it had been ordered, via proxy, by a Sith Lord. There was no choice to obey. Perhaps it won’t matter anyway, she considered, sneering. Those isolated little bolt holes can’t possibly be self-sustaining. Eventually they’ll reveal themselves by screaming for help. Otherwise they’ll just die in the darkness, a nicely self-correcting problem.

To Copier she asked. ‘Maiya provided you with a list of targets. Let’s start there.’

The probe’s projection shifted accordingly, illuminating a series of points in the star system model. There were quite a few. ‘The best data sources are transmission access logs recovered from the Dread Fortress. Based on these forty-four locations have been tracked. Unfortunately these targets are largely without any further data beyond locations, as the actual transmissions were erased during the assault on the Fortress.’

‘What do we actually have?’ Halsia held up a datapad to demand the information.

The resulting table, no doubt compiled by some other droid working data retrieval on the hulk of the fortress, proved of little enlightenment. Someone had pointed a sensor at each location and that was about it. Though hardly a sensors technician, she had some understanding of the results due to experience coordinating Sith assault units. One line in particular jumped out as very odd, it did not match any one of the pre-determined categories. ‘Explain the scrambling effect at number twenty-one,’ she demanded of the probe.

‘There are a number of possibilities…’ Copier began, and it was clear he was going to launch into an exhaustive list.

‘Stop,’ Halsia commanded. ‘Speculate and give me your two highest probability choices.’ She smirked slightly. It was taking some work, but she was finding ways to manage the droid. That they involved distributing harsh interruptions was slightly irritating, but also deeply satisfying. In time, she resolved, he would learn to anticipate. Or be scrapped.

‘Intermittent absorption is the primary result. The most likely causes are either the deployment of large quantities of armor plate, or a telescope,’ the floating droid twitched slightly, as if discomforted at this off-the-cuff analysis, but answered.

Armor plate made some sense, though placing such a large series of bunkers so far out was highly irregular. ‘Why a telescope?’ The Sith demanded. It made no sense to her.

‘The low thermal environment and lack of atmosphere provide advantages towards using a small, low-temperature planetoid, and the perspective of the outer system is free of inner system debris, which increases accuracy and-‘

‘Fine,’ Halsia interjected. ‘So it’s a good place to put a telescope, but why would the Dread Masters bother to build such a thing?’

‘Unknown,’ Copier replied. At the glare from his master he quickly powered past a brief silence. ‘But the Oricon system is well-positioned for an astronomical observatory. It is located near the edge of the galactic disc, beyond almost all settled systems, and is also elevated significantly above the disk, reducing interference from surrounding stars. A facility of this size would potentially have the ability to observe extremely distant, dim objects in the far reaches of the universe.’

To see into the heart of the void. It was obvious. ‘Never mind,’ Halsia told the droid. ‘Of course they had such a thing.’ All uncertainty vanished. She was sure it wasn’t armor, or anything but a telescope now. ‘Tell me, would it be likely for such a facility to have data on other targets within the system?’

‘A telescope would doubtless be provided with the best survey data available, likely in multiple storage methods,’ Copier hedged.

And as a science facility it ought to be lightly defended, the Sith recognized. Though confident in her power, Halsia had faced the Dread Host in battle. Only a fool would claim they were anything other than formidable. She saw no reason to take unnecessary risks. ‘Acceptable,’ she told the probe droid. ‘Now go through the checklist to get this scrap heap in the air.’ Having a droid pilot rather than a living subordinate, even some mewling alien slave, was embarrassing, but at least she wasn’t forced to pilot herself. ‘I’m going to update our Dread Mistress.’

Copier wisely avoided any comments regarding the nickname.

8 8 8

The voyage to the distant planetoid was boring. This was not a problem. Copier kept busy in the cockpit, tracking their approach to target. The droid ran endless statistical analysis on the existing target data, and spent the rest of its processing resources using the shuttle’s sensors to track new frozen rocks floating about in their long, sedate orbits of centuries. He found this work deeply satisfying, secondary only to actually floating across such worlds in person.

With the droid content to float in his tiny space at the front of the vessel, Halsia claimed the rest of the ship. Though the tiny cabin was cramped, the cargo hold was quite spacious, if spare, after having been stripped of all Dread Host gear. It actually made for a sufficiently sized meditation and practice space. She had made a point beforehand of filling the corners with bags of ground volcanic sand. It helped to absorb the lightning in a confined space.

Not that she spent all her time in meditation. There were Sith who were that dedicated, but it seemed to her that if you intended to live that way you might as well be a Jedi. So while she certainly spent time channeling her anger to hurl streams of lightning at the walls and go through lightsaber combat forms, she also lounged back on thick cushions and watched extensive holodramas. She had a weakness for romances smuggled in from the Republic. The Core Worlds were glamorous in a way nothing in the Empire would ever be. Such a pity she’d not been old enough to campaign on Alderaan in the last war.

She also worked on crystal cutting, using cheap volcanic crystals, mostly hauyne and peridot, taken from the flows of Oricon. This required both conventional tools and manipulation through the force. It was a precision skill taking practice and focus. Though she liked to consider herself quite accomplished, in private she admitted her abilities were only modest, and the lightsaber crystals she had made were suitable only for apprentices and young Sith. Her own weapon bore a crystal she’d acquired from a dead Jedi Master on campaign. These practice crystals were not directed towards any so militant purpose, but she’d earned a decent pile of extra credits over the years selling them as jewelry.

With these various distractions is was easy enough to pass the time. That was helpful, for there was a fair amount of time to pass. Though the shuttle’s sublight engine was powerful, the distances of the Outer System were vast. Copier relayed the separation between the various frozen planetoids in light-hours, a unit so unimaginably vast that it represented just over one billion klicks.

Their destination was almost six light hours from Oricon, on the other side of the primary star. It took three days to get there. As the distance increased the star behind shrank and dimmed, until it was a pale, wan thing barely brighter than giant stars much further distant. It became difficult to orient towards the inner system with the naked eye.

This led Halsia to a strange discovery. She found that, with a moment’s focus, she could use the force to unerringly determine the direction of the primary. Something about the pulsating fusion furnace and its deep gravity well drew her in and brought the system into sharp relief. Though she considered this new skill naught but a trifle, she wondered if it would work when they returned to Oricon and much greater proximity.

Eventually, they approached within a few hours and the Sith joined the probe droid in the cockpit. All was dim and dark, and even at this distance it was impossible to see the planetoid. It would not be visible until they braked on their final approach mere minutes before entering orbit. Copier produced a digital simulation instead.

The planetoid, named OPNO-02322 by the survey team that had discovered her, was a dark, deep red shade. It was rounded and marked by many cuts and scrapes, but had relatively few craters. The surface was mostly rough and pebbly, but in some places extraordinarily smooth.

‘A fairly large planetoid,’ Copier summarized. ‘It’s just over one thousand kilometers in diameter. Unusually for an outer system body is has a rather high proportion of rock in its core, and the surface ices are unusually stable, with primarily water ice composition save in the outermost crust. As a result construction is easier and the sublimated volatiles needed to form a transient atmosphere are almost completely absent. It makes sense to place the telescope here than on another, more typical, planetoid.’

These details mattered little to the Sith. She rotated the image with a wave of her hand. ‘So the outpost is here, at the center of this large, elevated plateau.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Seems awfully exposed.’

‘Locating the telescope at high altitude prevents interference from any dust and other particulates that may be circulating,’ Copier answered. ‘A telescope facility by its very nature involves a number of large, highly exposed pieces of sensitive equipment, especially on this scale.’

‘Sounds expensive.’

‘It is.’ The droid noted. ‘There are a number of rare components that require regular replacement and maintenance needs are constant.’

The image seemed to waver before Halsia’s vision. She contemplated her approach to the next step. ‘They know we’re coming, obviously.’ The shuttle was hardly stealthy, and there was nothing in the vastness of this outer void to conceal them regardless. ‘But they’ve said nothing.’ She was mildly surprised by the silence. One would imagine any remaining loyalist wouldn’t have missed the opportunity for a good denunciation. Perhaps the loss of the masters had been more damaging than she’d thought.

‘Transmit a generic demand for surrender in Lord Hargrev’s name,’ she decided after a moment. There was no reason to use her own name, not yet. Borrowing power from the system’s sole remaining authority of any importance at all served better. ‘Notify me if they bother to respond.’

‘Understood,’ Copier quickly transferred the process through the ship’s computer. ‘How should we make our final approach?’

‘That is a question,’ Halsia noted, staring at the limited diagram of the potential facility. Information was in short supply. By the time they’d be in position to get a truly good look the defenders would be in a position to fire back. There would be defenses, it went without saying, the Dread Masters had been insane, but they’d still been more or less Sith.

The temptation to go in guns blazing existed. Heavily armored and reasonably well armed, the shuttle was up to making an attack. Despite this, Halsia did not seriously consider it. For one, while Copier was up to flying the ship under ordinary circumstances, she doubted the droid was properly programmed for combat, and her own combat piloting skills were regrettably under developed. For another, she’d rather not damage the facility overmuch, and a simulation of firing laser cannons at a backdrop of methane and nitrogen ice had revealed catastrophic potential.

‘We’ll make a single close reconnaissance pass upon orbital insertion and then loop around the planet and find a secure place to land nearby,’ she decided after a lengthy silence. ‘I’ll fly the ship for that portion. You’ll concentrate on imaging that plateau. I want to find the nearest secure landing point we can.’ Anything to minimize the distance traversing this frozen wasteland.

‘And if the enemy counterattacks?’ the droid’s voice might be deadpan, but it seemed he was endowed with a sense of self-preservation after all.

‘Then we’ll celebrate,’ she smiled. If they abandoned fixed defenses she was sure whatever this pitiful observatory could muster in the way of troops would be mere chaff before the shuttle’s guns. ‘But I doubt they’re that stupid, or that motivated,’ she noted sourly. It remained unclear if anyone was even alive down on the iceball. ‘Now move aside from my seat and start calculating final approach vectors.’

Chapter Notes

Copier is functionally a Probe Droid Companion. Probe droids of the same model type are found as NPC enemies on Oricon so it seemed a reasonable choice to go with. By the same token the shuttle she is using represents the imperial shuttle model found in the Dread Fortress courtyard that PCs destroy with grenades. Those were hyperdrive capable in the Oricon plotline, but I've chosen to have the empire not repair that system deliberately (and also because it is presumably the most expensive part of the ship).

Information regarding the outer system planetoids assumes Oricon is a fairly typical star system and is intended to be generally scientifically accurate, though much information on such small, distant bodies is poorly known (and I'm not a professional astrophysicist by any means). Regarding distance I've had to make some judgment calls, because it really isn't clear how fast sublight travel speeds allow a ship to go. For storytelling purposes I'm assuming that a ship can get to pretty much any point in the star system in under a week, even if the distance is hundreds of AU.

MishaCantu · September 17, 2016

A bit more of a slant toward "hard science fiction" than I am accustomed to on these forums but well formulated and written nonetheless. I did find the bit about using Copier as a sleep aid amusing as well as the little insight into Halsia's penchant for Romance Vids and gem cutting.

I am quite interested in knowing what her final approach is going to be. Waiting for the next.

Edited September 17, 2016 by MishaCantu

MayhemofChaonus · September 17, 2016

This story is capturing my attention moreso than I thought it would. I like where this is going...

Mechalich · September 18, 2016

With regard to 'hard science fiction' elements in this story, it's not actually all that hard but I do intend to make widely varying planetary traits a fairly significant story element and one that ties back into the experiences major characters have through the Force. I also just want to take the opportunity to show off planetary variation in the swtor setting in a way the game really can't (because of inherent limitations of the engine) because I think that's a fun thing to do. So microgravity and extreme cold in the outer system, and there's going to be high gravity and extreme heat in the inner system and hopefully some truly bizarre conditions around the gas giants when I get to them. I just appeals to me to explore those environments but I also feels it ties back to the Dread Masters, which this whole story orbits in a sense, because there's a them of just how extreme they were in everything they were doing.

Mechalich · September 19, 2016

Chapter 3

Halsia emerged onto the ice into bright darkness. This strange world was illuminated by nothing but starlight, and yet those pale beams reflected off the icy surfaces with startling clarity. Where the reddish glaze of tholins coated the ground there was impenetrable blackness, but the shimmering clear surfaces where the ice had rained down and solidified gleamed. It was as nothing she’d ever experienced. Starlight left the refracted ghosts of shadows dancing across the red as the world turned about on its axis from star to star.

The inconstancy was bizarre and mesmerizing.

It was the cold that brought her back to focus. Everything surrendered before it. It was not a cold of suffering and crackling ice; this deep freeze went further. Palpable stillness afflicted the totality of the little world, everything trapped in place by absence of energy, by the impossible distance from the fusion fires that powered this system. The shiny icy layer beneath her feet was not even a millimeter thick, yet it represented the accumulation of thousands of years.

The Sith wore armor with an advanced climate control system, designed to accommodate extreme heat and cold. A protective hood and breath mask had been added to manage the lack of atmosphere, but otherwise she was clad no differently than she had been on Oricon. Despite the promises of highly priced manufacturing companies, the capability of those synthetic weaves and composite plates was woefully insufficient. Already the chill was seeping through atom-thick gaps to apply its draining caress to the flesh beneath.

Resolving silently to extract a series of high-priced upgrades from the manufacturer in response to this miserable failure, Halsia took the twinges of pain and channeled them, grasping darkness and weaving the plasmatic fires along the edge of her skin. Warmth suffused her armor and tiny seals of crackling rage manifested a barrier to keep out the cold. Thus insulated, she forced back the frigid embrace. In the echoing light, she nodded softly, acknowledging the ferocity of this planetoid. No illusions remained, this place, for all its shear crystalline beauty, was filled with extraordinary danger.

She liked it.

A deadpan mechanical voice broke the silence. ‘Careful of the microgravity,’ Copier cautioned. ‘It’s less than a twentieth of standard.’ The probe droid extended a long, blaster-topped arm towards the cargo bay. ‘Your speeder is capable of reaching ballistic velocities on this world.’

Halsia turned to the gunmetal gray triangular shape. Tentatively she took a sample step.

It became a jump that launched her in a slow arc higher than the dorsal wings of the shuttle. Airborne for many heartbeats, she landed hard, scattering a flurry of razor sharp ice shards across her armored boots as she smashed through the methane ice. They fell slowly, lingering in the air for long seconds, flickering in the starlight, silent in the absence of atmosphere.

‘Illuminating,’ she noted. Now she understood why Maiya had chosen her for this particular portion of the system. She had trained and engaged in microgravity combat during the assault on the shipyards of Corellia. This world was effectively without gravity, and though she found it irritating, it was something she could handle.

Scramble-walking in a series low arc-hops, she grappled onto the sturdy Aratech speeder. A few keystrokes adjusted the engine to compensate for the low gravity, allowing her to hug the ground and still move rapidly. ‘Any movement on scans yet?’ she queried Copier.

‘No stirring from the facility,’ the probe droid answered. ‘Regrettably the temperature gradient is sufficiently extreme to prevent observation of isolated heat sources within the interior.’

This was annoying, but not unexpected. ‘We will assume they’ll defend the main network hub,’ Halsia determined, sticking with the brief plan she’d been able to compose during the descent. ‘If they don’t defend that, then we take it, override the climate controls, and freeze them out.’ With the initial approach unchallenged, she no longer had any idea what to expect from the defenders, whatever there might be, but the cold here would surely finish almost anything.

Getting the speeder under her, she gestured for Copier to hop on behind. The probe droid could move about on his own, of course, but separation seemed unwise.

Once the spindly machine had clamped into place at the back rather like some sort of bizarre chrome spider, Halsia hit the acceleration.

The journey that followed was beautiful, extraordinary, and frightening all at once. This world was not as other, larger planets. Its terrain was shaped by different forces. There were no tides here, for there were only tiny asteroid fleck moons, and though the distant star slowly transformed the icy surface to reddish tholins of molecular slurry, it brought only the faintest memory of heat and light, conducting its process across eons. Instead this world was shaped by impacts, by slow sublimation and settling, and by the crackling tearing warming and cooling cycle of its millennium long orbit.

More than what there was, it was what was not that made this a place of fascination. With only the barest wisp of atmosphere and a long-dead geology, this was a world without erosion. What change came passed through the slow coating of deposition or startlingly shifts of incredible potency. Sheer and stark rose the resulting towers of ice, blinding pinnacles that speared and shifted, leading to a landscape of needles and razor ridges, crystalline but darkened, coated in patchwork layers paint thin in their austere majesty. Formed of weak substance, these organic and nitrogenous ices lacked strength and cracks and snaps bore witness to a world that moved only in shocks. Eternal stillness impinged by the marks of unpredictable blows.

Though it appeared smooth from above, and was in places, here on the plateau the geology was ragged and fearsome. A bed of ridged nails, lancing their way back and forth across the landscape, leaving no ground but that was bitterly sloped. Copier had labored to find a secure landing site, and now they must traverse several kilometers of this fell crystalline field of ice ancient in years but unable to support a footfall without cracking and pitting.

Adjusted to microgravity the repulsorlift engine cared not at all. It caromed swiftly across the expanse, accelerating to maximum speed in an instant, whipping among the irregular towers and pillars as Halsia drew on the force to enhance her reflexes and kept low, slashing across the maddening contours in a slalom approach designed to confuse any defensive emplacements. Vibrations from the engine beat counterpoint upwards through her frame, challenging and failing before the all-consuming silence of this place.

Well now, this isn’t so bad, Halsia mused, smiling deep beneath her pressure-reinforced cowl. Charging across a frigid blackened icescape on a mission to search and destroy. It felt of primal dark, stirring a connection to something deep within, some black energy that crackled cold. The presence of the Dread Host on these remote planetoids grew less inexplicable by the minute.

There was no time for further contemplation, much as she might have wished to linger and listen to that silent song. Aratech engines chewed over ground at speed, and the target became visible in moments.

It was a vast complex, a series of structures sprawled across several square kilometers, propped up on platforms blasted from the ice with precision lasers and placed atop insulated structural foam and duracrete foundations. More than a single telescope it comprised a series of lenses in a vast array, all imaging an immense portion of the sky – for on this little orb curvature allowed the horizon to extend lower – in endless spectra across many fields. There were hundreds of little domes each containing a lens or transceiver, all manufactured by droids and operating in series.

In the center was a grand dome, close to one hundred meters in height, containing the vast main unit telescope. Rotation mounted and shock insulated, it was a gleaming mirror of metal and transparisteel, swiveling on its tracks to grasp even the faintest of lights struggling against the vast blackness of the void. A huge lens many meters in width sat beneath the central window, delicate plates pointed skyward through the gap.

Though its immensity was awesome, the rest of the structure was crass and disappointing. Everything within the array, including the small barracks building and the network hub that were the main targets, was of prefabricated manufacture and clearly inhuman assembly. The facility had been designed, produced, and constructed entirely by droids, within limited outside involvement. Industrial and soulless, the result was a thing without any flair or flourish, everything purposeful with all extraneous material pared away. Blocky and sharp at the edges and crude in its lines, the structure’s aesthetic banality offended Halsia in some deep, unfathomable way. It seemed an insult to the purpose of the structure, and to the capabilities of the Dread Masters, that they had made something so blatantly industrial.

Approaching from the south, where the sub-domes were of greatest density and provided the most cover, the speederbike wove a convoluted path among the telescopes, seeking the enemy and waiting for defenders to open fire. The network hub building, still distant, was a square structure of two stories, windowless and gray, remarkable only for the spiky cluster of antennae protruding from each corner. Slowing, they made a final approach.

It would be Copier who broke the silence. ‘I am detecting active droid signatures surrounding the building.’ He noted, sounding completely unperturbed. ‘They appear to be astromech models.’

‘Excellent,’ Halsia focused, and she could see them. The stubby, high-cone cylinder models of imperial astromechs, repurposed by the Dread Host. She turned the speeder, approaching at an oblique. There were defenses. The foe had plowed up a low trench of ice in front of the droids as a barrier. The machines, roughly a dozen in all, crouched in clusters behind it, guarding the hub’s main entrance.

The humans defenders do not stand with them, the Sith smiled at this cowardice, it made everything so much easier. Rather than wait for the little machines to open fire with their ion blasters, Halsia dismounted, sliding smoothly off the speeder into a fighting crouch. ‘Copier, stay behind me and provide support.’ The droid was outfitted with a combat medic package, but its capabilities were untested.

Halsia slid from behind one dome to the next, and at her approach the astromechs launched their first erratic barrage. The droids had terrible aim. Blasts slammed into transparisteel domes, duracrete foundations, and the ice layer of the planetoid. The latter sent the Sith’s eyes wide.

Ion blasts striking transparisteel dissipated harmlessly when they drew down into the durable foundation layer. Those that struck the ice behaved differently.

Electrical charges that struck the ice did not pierce or burn, as normal. They scattered, splashing wide in a pool of crackling power that spread out for a long instant before crisping away into cracks and crevices and slumping downward. A pulse-splash grenade impact of charge, causing no environmental damage, from a simple ion blast. One landed close to her, and Halsia felt the pulsating charge creep up her boots and across her armor, though it failed to pierce the shielding sub-layers.

What in the Empire? She questioned silently, furious at this unanticipated result. Not waiting for an answer, she launched a counter of her own.

Reaching down into the vast pool of furious power that was the dark side, the Sith charted her rage through an ancient, well-choreographed dance of wrath and fury, pulling forth currents of power, sending them out into the air to a point in the distance. That energy poured out across her arms, set wide, and dumped itself into the space, cascading through the quantum fabric of the universe, infecting it with instability, and setting the fabric of reality to pulse and roil.

Electrons screamed and squealed in agony at this distortion, and then reacted as they must. The tortured particles discharged the burning surplus of energy in a storm of massive bolts of purple-blue ionized radiation, descending towards the ground, to a mass capable of absorbing them. Heedless they were of the quartet of trembling droids in their path.

The force storm cascaded downward, tearing and ripping. Components were smeared and overheated, holed and overloaded, and the droids, despite their hardened chassis, were shredded. Bursts of smoking and seared electronic debris spewed outwards and burrowed tiny holes in the ice layer.

When the bolts of force-charged plasma struck the ground the process of the ion blasters repeated. Great arcs of energy ripped sidewinder across the ice, leaving streaks of greenish steam as methanogens sublimated with impossible speed, it spread out to encompass two more of the droids, and rather than slumping downward toward the core of the planetoid, it raced up through their treads and into delicate internal circuits.

They burst apart in explosive showers of sparks, leaving only burned out hulks behind.

‘Resplendent,’ Halsia beamed, basking in the power of this side effect. Unable to storm again immediately, the paths of anger flooded and obscured beneath the energy fluctuations, she rolled to one side to avoid counterstrikes and grasped a different power in the force. A deep coil of power, hungry and ever-seeking, built in her hand, a ball of whip-bound destruction, tightening under the demands of her will. With a rapid lance-thrust of her arms she launched the assault at the nearest remaining droid.

Lightning burst across its shell, carving and coring. Then it jumped outward to the next, and another, and then a fourth, engulfing the frail machines within the pall of the dark side, ripping and shredding. When it was done, all had stopped moving.

The remaining two still functional astromechs rolled away in panic, struggling to scatter. Halsia would have none of it. Calmly and carefully she channeled a stream of lightning at the first and then the second, burning through paint, plating, and processor until each stopped in turn.

Heart hammering inside her chest, she exulted in the destruction, though these had been meager opponents. ‘Copier,’ she demanded atop the peak of her emotions. ‘Explain the lightning.’

‘The extremely low temperature and pressure causes the outer ice layers to take on uncommon forms. This combines with the extremely low energy environment to vastly increase conductivity.’ The droid answered. Nothing in her voice displayed much concern. ‘In fact, it is likely only the impurity of the mix of ices that prevents this environment from being naturally superconducting.’

‘Something to keep in mind then,’ she noted. It would have to be shelved for later, as now she had a building to secure. ‘Can you detect anyone inside?’

‘Thermal imaging indicates the presence of sources matching a human respiration profile,’ Copier noted, his voice actually displayed a hint of irritation. ‘However I cannot acquire a resolved image through the insulation surrounding the external frame. Number and position remain unknown.'

The barracks building was not large, and even if the entire crew was here, Halsia doubted the Dread Masters had detailed more than ten unfortunates to watch over their telescope. Most would be technicians, soldiers culled from the support units. With no more than basic weapons and limited armor they were not much more to fear than the droids. Hopefully they would concentrate against her, she’d love to end this with a single storming blast.

Regrettably, they had chosen to keep the door, which in this environment was a thermally tight airlock, sealed shut. ‘How much damage would it do to equipment inside to rapidly decompress this building?’ She asked Copier while watching carefully for any sign of movement.

‘Variable,’ the reply was swift. ‘But that would induce very rapid temperature change. There are a number of likely pieces of equipment that would suffer serious damage unless the seal could be restored within a matter of minutes.’

‘Troublesome,’ The Sith could cut a hole with her lightsaber, of course, it would be easy, but actually going through the main entrance was asking to be riddled with blaster bolts. Leaving a giant hole in a random wall, unfortunately, defied any definition of easily patched. ‘Can you slice the door control?’

‘Unlikely,’ Copier paused, rotating in mid-air. ‘That is not part of my programming. However, the environmental controls should have an override to vent the facility in case of thermal buildup that threatens to destabilize the platform base, as such an event could trigger a catastrophic thermal sublimation discharge.’

It took a moment to process what that meant. ‘You mean the ground could blow up.’ Halsia teased out.

‘Correct.’ The droid turned his single eye upon her. ‘I would strongly advise against dropping your lightsaber in any crevices.’

This drew a smile from the Sith. ‘I have a better idea.’ She activate the brilliant white blade with a snap-hiss and locked it on. Then, with a force-boosted toss, slammed it deep into the duracrete base of the hub beneath the entrance. The pale gray polymer conglomerate took on a light orange shade, one that radiated outward with each second.

Halsia waited, lightning at her fingertips, wondering whether the technicians would let her in or if they would choose to learn just how high a building could fly in microgravity.

Seconds passed, the orange glow spread, little spikes of movement beneath the building began to cause trembling.

The door shot open, blasting free normal, room temperature atmosphere into the frigid near vacuum. Where this air touched the substrate below it froze immediately, coating everything in a layer of water ice and solid nitrogen, pure and clean and colorless.

Halsia pressed forward, moving with a careful but swift sliding motion and pouring force lightning, sight unseen, into the open space. It smashed along the back wall unimpeded, blowing apart a console but otherwise doing no damage. ‘Fix the door droid!’ She screamed the command to Copier as she retrieved her lightsaber and advanced within.

A half-second later the first blaster bolt streaked past, too high, above her skull. Turning, Halsia caught sight of the first technician. Clad in black and red ribbed armor with a full mask helmet resembling a cut down version of a flight suit helm, he carried a blaster pistol and a cheap vibroblade. He dropped the former to draw the latter after missing, but his hands got no further than the hilt before the Sith caught him with a blast of lightning, leaving him to twitch and spasm in agony until key organs were burned through and the lifeless body fell to the floor.

Feeling a presence, Halsia turned to see a pair of technicians advancing from behind, blades high.

Countering, she ducked low, taking the attacks on her white beam of energy. As she blocked she invoked the ravaging power of the dark side to afflict the first foe with terrible consumption wounds, devastation that would progress and cripple and kill unless he could throw back the foul power. The other sparred through a series of quick counters with her before he made an obvious mistake, cutting too low at her knees. She hopped over the strike and with a quick jab plunged the point of her saber through his skull. On the way down she slashed across and finished the other.

Smirking as she stepped over the bodies, the Sith plunged into the next room, lightning at her fingertips. Uncoordinated fools, she silently laughed as she blasted chain lightning through four who crouched behind a sensor display table before they could even move to attack her. A force storm bottlenecked a hallway and caught the trio that tried to come to their aid. Then she was close enough to move from one corner to the next and eliminate the remainder who scrambled in every direction with dark side afflictions and careful lightsaber blows.

An embarrassment to the Dread Host, she considered grimly when the final technician was shot to death by Copier as he attempted to flee outside, no weapon to hand. The body caused a cloud of sublimated gases to emerge when it fell to the ice, steaming as it equilibrated to a frozen state.

‘Strange,’ Copier mused over the comlink. ‘I expected there to be some particular sensation accompanying killing a sentient being for the first time, but there was nothing. It was remarkably…routine.’

Halsia looked at the droid oddly. She had felt many sensations when taking life, but never the absence of sensation. ‘Well,’ she suggested, struggling to fill the awkward moment. ‘That’s probably good. It’s not likely to be the last time.’ From there she turned back to the controls. The door was sealed, but it was taking some time to add atmosphere back in. That was generally good, the lack of gases meant the cold did limited damage to the gear.

‘I want you to get whatever internal sensors we have online and routed to an active console,’ she commanded. There was a nagging sensation rippling across the edge of her awareness. The force trembled. Natural stillness should be the feature of this place, but it had yet to return. She questioned whether all had been eliminated. Some cowardly technician might yet be hidden in the barracks. ‘We need to sweep this place before we engage in any data retrieval.’

Jacking in, the droid spun around slightly. 'Security systems are on-line and have not been purged,' he announced. This was not surprising in light of the disorganized and piecemeal defense, but it brought a smile to Halsia's face. There had to be something useful in the rows of computers. 'Cycling through the sensors now. No alarms...no movement...systems registering within accepted levels...wait, I have a thermal ping in the telescope array.'

The Sith's head twisted around, looking for the nearest console. 'Display that.'

An image materialized, rounded in black and red. At the moment Halsia stared down, it turned up. On a black field the image of a red skull-face raised upwards to meet the camera.

A droplet of fire fell into the hollow at the Sith's core as she stared down upon one of the Dread Host's elite sitting upon a perfectly reflective mirror.

An orange lightsaber blade burst into the dark day.

Chapter Notes

Microgravity, yeah, that's a thing. The power to dunk a basket ball one hundred and fifty feet in the air and so on. The general assumption is that any physical structures will have artificial gravity internally in the same way ships do, but out in the open weird things happen on little planetoids like this. In regards to microgravity I've referenced the Corellia campaign – in which the empire attacked the orbital shipyards offscreen.

I have given Halsia a speed-bike for convenience and have chosen to have it be an Aratech Dagger purely out of my personal like of the Aratech models in-game.

Regarding enemies and powers: the units that appear here, astromechs and technicians, are Dread Host mob units found on Oricon. This will be a general practice going forward, as I'm going to try and use existing things in new ways rather than invent new ones when there is already such a vast set of reference material. This is somewhat tricky regarding Halsia herself, since she was a merchant NPC and has no listed combat abilities. I do not want her to be equivalent of a Sith Sorcerer PC, simply because she's not operating on the same level as those heroic characters. Instead her abilities are represented by those of an elite NPC for now. Specifically, she functions as a Released Sith Lord from Section X in terms of what powers she possesses.

Halsia's white lightsaber blade is part of game canon, since it's built into her character model, though I find its a fitting color choice for certain things I want her to do.

Mechalich · September 22, 2016

Chapter 4

She could feel the acolyte, a hateful presence at the edge of her cranium. It was a unique presence, something she'd never felt before. Not madness, that had grown terribly familiar on Oricon. Something different, a frightful absence of sensation combined with terrible focus. Is that a person? She questioned in silence, staring through the screen. Such purity of direction she'd only encountered before in alchemical monsters, devoted to a task beyond the capability of natural survival. A human could not possibly live with a mind like that.

Looking deeper, she saw the black and red armor in detail. A modification of fairly standard sorcerer equipment not fundamentally different than her own barring some minor flourishes. There was no sign of any augmented insulation or specialized underweave heat matrix.

Without the force, maybe three or four hours. Quick calculations ran through her head as to how long she'd survive. A second glance, and she amended them. The acolyte had been sitting down, in meditative pose, whole legs and hips in contact with the surface of a mirror that had to be even colder than the ambient environment. More like thirty minutes, she revised.

Somehow, insight from some deep place within the coils of the dark side, she knew that this acolyte, this subordinate function of the Dread Host, had not moved from that spot since the death of its masters.

But it was moving now.

Halsia felt fear, borrowing deep. She took it, letting it wash over her, wrapping the ropes of trepidation around every muscle and nerve, letting it cloak her in passion, drawing her deep into the freeing wrath of darkness within. 'Copier,' she questioned, voice soft but charged. 'Is that mirror structurally capable of sustaining combat maneuvering?'

The droid squeaked, he sounded offended. 'Yes but the damage incurred from such action would surely disable-'

'Irrelevant,' she cut him off. Whatever value the telescope possessed lay in its databanks. She was in no position to actually keep using the instrument, and neither was Lord Hargrev. Nor would it matter if they did not survive the next few minutes. She looked through the image and something caught her eye. The observation dome was open, the telescope ready for use, staring outward at the sky full of distant stars.

She turned to the droid, mentally walking through the beginnings of an idea. 'In this gravity what's your flight ceiling?'

The answer was quite satisfactory.

Under normal circumstances getting onto the telescope's mirror would require crawling through a maintenance hatch designed for an astromech droid and unlocking a hinged panel on the outer rim of the assembly. It would be an extremely undignified approach, not to mention that at any point the person above could freely thrust a lightsaber downwards and end the whole business. Such an ignominious end was unacceptable to any Sith, above and beyond ending at all.

Thankfully, microgravity was not normal circumstances. The dome's rotating circular opening formed a bottom lip roughly seventy meters above the surface of the ice. That was an impressive height, equal to the top of a twenty-story structure. Looking upwards Halsia remained impressed at the construction, and noted the ease of building large and quickly when the structure pulled down against itself almost not at all.

Seventy meters. An impossibility at other times. Here, with the assistance of the force, a math problem.

She gathered power in her lower limbs, thrust downward to boost her lift, and jumped.

Microgravity training proved true. Halsia timed the arc correctly so she passed over the edge with a gap just over her own height. Plummeting downward she struck the mirror shortly thereafter, but it was light, easily cushioned beneath a pillow of darkness, bearing none of the potency of normal gravity. Her knees flexed and she stood ready upon the bright mirror, liquid smooth and perfectly monochrome.

Lightning had crackled at the edge of her fingertips during the descent, anticipating an attack at every moment. The skull mask stared upwards, following the motion, but the acolyte waited, taking no actions. Frozen in place, the orange lightsaber waited, impossibly patient. Its color spread outwards, reflecting off the walls, the ceiling above, suffusing the air, but it failed to touch the starlight captured on the mirror below.

Halsia briefly considered transmitting something in the clear, just to see if she'd get a response from this silent thing.

A moment's idle musing and she decided against it. She'd rather not delve that hollowness further. Instead, she hungered to fill it up with lightning. Her hand dropped down to the lightsaber at her belt.

In silence the pale white blade shone clear, its color transmitted no reflections.

Eyes covered by red filters the acolyte remained silent in frequency and force, and without warning or gesture launched into deadly assault.

The glove that thrust forward was red on the back, but in the moment the gray on the palm was obvious. Billowing forth from the movement was a blast of power completely invisible, smashing through with a power heedless of the absence of air, propelled by raw bleakness and the force.

Caught off-guard by the sudden attack, Halsia attempted to sidestep. Not in time, the blast clipped her on the left side, lifting her heels from the metal surface and slamming her backwards, off-balance and spinning. Still close to the edge of the mirror panels, she was lifted and struck a supporting column across her back.

Her vision blurred briefly from the disorientation, but it barely hurt at all. In silence, Halsia smiled. Gravity triumphs, she recognized in glee.

Both arms raised, the acolyte aimed at the Sith's form and fired darts from launchers concealed within iron-shaded bracers.

Grappling for focus Halsia knocked one aside with her pale glowing blade, sending it clattering across the shimmering surface, forgotten into silence. Against the second her timing failed and the needle slipped beneath the seeking plasma. With a ***** it struck, slicing a narrow point just through the armor weave on her right side.

From the moment of impact it burned like fire. The little dart pouring out brutally potent corrosive toxins not even the force could easily purge in a pulse-charge-pulse pattern of nanomolecular beats beneath the skin; unhindered by having the needle sliced away in less than a second.

Holding hands wide, the acolyte gathered power, burning liquid veins rippling around the hilt of his orange saber.

Halsia's anger flared. I refuse! She screamed into the emptiness of her helmet. Kicking her legs back she pushed off hard, propelled through the void half a meter above the mirror, grasping at her own burst of power as she streaked.

Whatever echo of a mind drove this former dread host servant guessed wrong. Having thought her too far, the acolyte was caught completely exposed when Halsia blasted ring of electromagnetic dark side energy outward on all sides. The overload slammed him full in the chest, driving him from his feet and sending him bounce-rolling across the mirror.

Accompanied only by silence, the tumble was eerie to observe.

Past any point of fascination, Halsia gave into the fury pulsing through her with every burning breath. She did not make the mistake of thinking the fall would cause harm as it would under standard gravity. Instead, she struck hard, ripping lightning free from the crucible of her hatred and pouring the violet and black barbs into her foe for as long her strength and breath lasted.

Red armor burned and smoked. The acolyte's mask was a smoldering ruin, venting foul melted plastoid that flash-froze to leave the visage pock-marked and diseased. Movement tore holes in burn-seared flesh beneath, leaving leaking blood to burst out in frozen crystal clouds hanging hazily in the near-vacuum.

None of this stopped the remnant of the man, the Sith. Walking steadily, ignoring any and all pain, the acolyte advanced, lightsaber high. Burning flames raced down the orange blade, wrapping a promise of incandescent agony that no armor would impede into any strike. One foot came down, toe to heel, slowly, muscles flexing tight beneath robes.

Turn, spin, slide, came the charge.

Halsia did not move to meet it. Instead, she stood in place.

'Copier. Now!' she commanded.

The probe unit obeyed. 'With regret.' High above, positioned with the precision only a droid could manage in such a moment, the probe droid pointed his blaster and fired. Not one shot, but many, a rapid stream of attacks sufficient to overload the weapon in less than a second. Red bolts manufacturing the briefest of energetic rains.

They did not strike the acolyte, or even target the lightsaber-wielding foe. Ruby-red power slammed into the finely positioned mirror plates. Most of that potent energy penetrated, carving brutal holes that dealt the immense damage to the backdrop, pitting the mirror with craters, but in the moment of contact that mirror, designed to direct radiation of all kinds back to a collector, took some of that energy and sent it back upwards.

The acolyte's charge met a stream of ruby lances coming from below.

Not powerful enough to do much damage, or in fact even penetrate battle armor, the ricochets could do little on their own, but it did not matter. Reflexes took over, the iron-hard training drilled into any Sith, and in this creature all that remained. The orange lightsaber shifted downward, coming down lower to deflect, guard below the knees.

Left foot forward, right one step, arm up, extend to thrust, all the way, and then...push left.

White blade cut, pinched, and then passed through, taking the head off a centimeter above the final collar band of armor.

Burned and frozen at once, there was no blood as the body fell.

Taking a deep breath, Halsia stared at the body. Twinges of fear set her wondering, and she made sure it would not rise again. With the creatures of the Dread Masters it paid to be certain. Only then did she allow the joy and satisfaction to fill her. Glorious victory taken.

'It seems your stratagem was a success,' Copier, floating down from above, noted dryly. 'Though by my assessment you were already winning. Was it truly necessary?'

'Only a fool takes chances in battle, droid,' Whatever combat programming he'd been equipped with clearly lacked an appropriate hold over his priorities. Halsia prodded the acolyte's body for a moment. Carefully reaching hands around the lightsaber, she clipped this prize to her belt. Though no masterpiece of craft, all such weapons contained valuable crystals. That done, she reached down and without further words tossed the remains out of the telescope, marveling at the ease of handling, to land somewhere in the ice beyond.

Approaching closely, Copier raised one of his spindly arms. A dart fired from a launcher. Unlike the painful infusion earlier, this device pulsed in deliberate counterpoint, dumping soothing kolto and all its healing potency into her tissues. Halsia smirked. Hardly necessary, she mused. With the battle won she could call on the force to repair her injuries, but it suited her to be magnanimous and allow Copier his efforts.

'Such a curious encounter,' the Sith played back the fight, and all the impressions it had carried through the many subtle currents of the force, now cooling from the feverish rush of combat, through her mind's eye. 'Not like fighting a person at all.' She could tell Copier noted this, for the probe's frame reoriented to watch her body language. 'It resembled battling a combat droid instead, of the lower class.' She clarified, and not out of any desire to mollify her associate. 'The techniques were there, the weaponry, even the power, but it was not alive, not aware, merely animated.' This conclusion skittered around her tongue, leaving a sour, incomplete taste in her mouth.

'A distinction of dubious value,' Copier objected. It was obvious the droid found this to be superstition. 'There were no measurable points of variance.'

'Oblivious,' shaking her head, Halsia said nothing more. She had no intention of discussing the finer points of the force with a droid. She was uncertain, who, if anyone, was worth enlightening regarding this encounter.

Shrugging off the unanswered momentarily, they returned to practical matters. Kolto aside, pain remained, and a session to flush her system beckoned. 'We're done with fighting for now,' she commanded. 'Work to be done.' Her eyes focused on Copier. 'You're going to go back to the ship and land it on the supply pad,' There was one on the north side of the facility, now undefended. 'And then you'll conduct a data dump and start searching for useful information.'

The probe droid did not say anything, but waited, as if to request an update on his master's activities.

Feeling amused and lacking any other audience, she told him. 'I'm going to find out if the barracks has anything that qualifies as a shower, and then I'm taking a nap.' Halsia smiled. 'Now get going.'

Chapter Notes

Halsia’s opponent is a Dread Guard Acolyte. This foe possesses the powers common to that elite NPC. Perhaps curiously, this includes nominally agent abilities like Toxic Dart in addition to Sith powers. I have chosen to preserve this combination rather than reorganize the abilities, and intend to do the same with other Dread Guard NPC types going forward.

Mechalich · October 1, 2016

Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Halsia stood atop the telescope mirror, staring out into the depths of space. Frigid cold surrounded her, a chill almost impossible to fathom. It was night now, insofar as that had meaning with the primary so distant, but the star-field was dark, in spite of the nigh-perfect clarity there were few points of light visible now. Vision took the gaze out into a place beyond the galactic edge, so that many of those bright dots scattered across the rim of the void were not stars at all, but galaxies of their own.

The temperature registered at thirty-eight kelvin, a shocking number that was draining armor power cells at an obscene rate. Even with this the cold could not be halted, only pushed back to the edge of skin, kept briefly at bay. A skin-clasping bubble of force energy supplemented this, but even then heat radiated out through even tenuous contact with a grain of dust. Vacuum insulated, but as she stood still the Sith felt the low settling of microscopic grains of ice settling down from the upper atmosphere, a rain of needle *****s totally lacking in mass, the only triggering sensation their vampirism of her body's warmth.

It was a maddening feeling, utterly foreign to her experience, to any lived experience, a set of conditions the human body as not designed to acknowledge, to survive. Thousands of credits worth of advanced armoring equipment and the unfathomable power of the dark side together barely held it back. Minute by minute, without the mask of adrenalin to obscure the process, she could feel her reserves draining away, experience the gradual reduction in core temperature. Blood flow slowed, heartbeats weakened, skin went numb and nerves shut down one cell layer at a time.

Slow, steady, precise, a predictable rate of decay graphed on the atomic scale; Halsia was feeling her own death in slow motion.

It was fascinating.

It was horrifying.

Patience held off frustration long enough for her hands to go dead, and then the bitterness crossed the transition line to anger and the fear shunted into the hateful fury of denial as she shouted back at the cold. Not today! She railed into the silence. Lightning poured across her body, a tidal storm washing across the conductive surface of the mirrors, reflecting across the walls of the dome to turn the universe purple. Plasmatic dark power burned across countless ice molecules, sending forth a showering sparkling torrent that lit the air to fire. Ice crystals settling into a stultifying constriction around the machinery of billions of cells melted away and nerves came alight once again.

It hurt. It hurt so much. Fire everywhere, the body burning up from within, energy unleashed in every cell with nowhere to go, nothing to radiate in, burning, turning, searing proteins. No lightning, not the furious lethal attacks of death duels, not the torturous embrace of her academy overseers, not even the terrible wrath of her master when she was cast aside for a more promising apprentice, none had come close to matching this.

No angry fire had ever burned in the fashion of this inexorable unyielding cold.

Gasping, Halsia fell to her knees. She let the lightning go as she fought and struggled against agony that had every last muscle spasming, that had lit her bones on cold fire. Struggling to breathe, to hold her focus, she channeled rage outwards, sweeping that same impulse that had powered lightning into new forms, letting free a circle of power atop the mirror. The healing power of the dark side, the power to tear cells into growth and deny the limits nature placed upon tissue, to make living machinery slave beneath the lash of her will, revived her from the brink.

As that dark suppuration burbled through her body Halsia felt one final sensation. The star, far away, invisible, hidden by the planetoid, remained. No heat, no light, no radiation cast upon her now, but she felt it all the same, and knew its position. Any reason for this strange orientation, this stellar compass of the force, was unknown to her.

Eyes flashed downwards, staring out beyond the walls of this instrument to the ice beyond, to the place where she'd thrown the body. It's still there, she realized with a start. I didn't command Copier to move it. A sudden, erratic thought struck the edge of her mind, only to penetrate deep. There's no life here, and the world is geologically dead. The only functioning processes were temperature cracking and the slow baking of ultraviolet radiation that refluxed the organic tholins out of methane ice.

'Copier,' she signaled the droid suddenly. Needing the knowledge the machine's memory banks contained. 'How long will this planetoid last?'

Whether or not Copier's mind even cared to question the nature of this transmission or what had led to the question, the droid did nothing more than provide an answer. 'There is no easy way to estimate that function,' he replied. 'At this distance this object will surely survive the conversion of the primary star into a red giant, however it is probable that the orbital disruption caused by that event will lead to a period of collisions as orbits in this portion of the planetary system gradually transition into new alignments and resonances. The most likely near-term case for destruction is during that period. I estimate a roughly forty percent chance that this planetoid undergoes a catastrophic or deformational collision between eight point five and nine point two billion years from now. Beyond that point there is too much randomness to predict-'

'Enough,' There was no need to hear anything more. Nine billion years, encased in ice for such an eternity. How long then, she dared to consider. Would the fury of the force that had possessed that shell have lasted? She did not dare to answer.

With a deep sigh Halsia heaved her body to her feet and made the short journey to the networking hub. She did not walk, but instead reveled in the microgravity, taking great parabolic bounds that carried her many meters in the air, bounding above the domes of the little subsidiary telescopes. The austere beauty of the ice reflected back across the distance and through the pale darkness at the crest of each arch, though jagged and red-stained landscapes, shaped by distant forces unseen.

She almost regretted shuffling inside the structure, with its insulation, heating, and artificial gravity. Only the blissful warmth was impossible to ignore. Soaking in it was purest luxury.

Even after such a short time in this place she failed to so much as notice that the ambient internal temperature was only a few degrees above freezing to minimize thermal loading.

Pushing this aside swiftly, she focused instead on business. The boxy, hard-edged form of Copier with its blinking indicators brought her back to war footing swiftly. 'So, what are the preliminary results?'

'I have made a number of discoveries,' there was the slightest hint of satisfaction in the droid's tone, perhaps even a minute twinge of pride. 'Most are astronomical in nature and no doubt of no interest to you, but there is considerable material pertaining to our current objective.'

Halsia settled into a technician's chair, pulling her legs halfway into a meditative posture. She expected Copier would go on at some length. 'So, summarize.'

'Firstly, the documentation clearly indicates that while this particular project was jointly commissioned by the Dread Masters as a group, it was overseen primarily by Calphayus.' The droid's arms spun slowly in place. 'Though I have not been able to attach any specific significance to that fact.'

At this the Sith nodded in agreement. She'd read the after-action report regarding the assault on the Dread Fortress and Dread Palace. How they fought, how they used their vast powers; there had been clear differences, but why those existed or what they signified was hidden beyond the usual shroud of secrecy and classification. Halsia doubted anyone, other than the perhaps the Emperor, if he was even still alive, truly knew.

'Secondly, while the main telescope seems to have been probing deep into the secrets of the universe, the large array of smaller units conducted a thorough survey of this system, including extensive imaging and spectroscopy of millions of objects.' Continuing, Copier editorialized slightly. 'This internal survey effort was among the earliest projects recorded in the databanks, so I believe it was used to find sites for installations here in the outer system and probably among other asteroid regions.'

'That had better mean we can trace where they are now,' Halsia interjected.

'I have confirmed the initial listing of targets and acquired additional location data increasing the total number of installations to sixty-three,' Copier continued.

'Regrettable.' Having the number go up was not promising. Going down the list one by one would take months, perhaps years.

Copier spun about again. With the flick of a mechanical arm he projected a map of the star system on the central console. Several dozen dots lit up around the outer edge. 'However, a secondary series of thermal scans conducted by the array indicate that forty of them lacked a primary reactor signature.' The majority of the dots went dark again.

'No active reactor means no people,' Halsia caught the droid's path. 'Or any industry. What's the point then?'

'Probably geological surveying,' Copier explained. 'Even my advanced scanners cannot penetrate especially far into planetary crust, and ices are actually more resistant than due to...' The droid apparently caught Halsia's look and sped ahead slightly. 'Factors. In any case, producing a platform and bringing specialized equipment, transceivers, and other gear would be workable. They apparently never bothered to collect what was left behind.'

Not that there would be any urgency, Halsia now understood that perfectly. 'Forty planetoids is a lot to bother to survey on the ground level,' she noted. With how far spread apart everything was in the outer system it represented a major undertaking. 'What were they looking for?'

'Unknown,' the droid sounded legitimately disappointing at this, and the dangling arms curled inward. 'However, it follows that whatever the objective was, none of these sights were positive, or they would have needed to bring in further equipment for excavation.'

'We can safely ignore those then,' the Sith decided. Even so, it still left too many. 'Any other patterns?'

Shifting and spinning the projection illuminated another, smaller, grouping of planetoids. These were labeled in dark red. 'Information on these locations is very limited and there is no direct imaging, but all are located in areas of high tholin concentration, with the layers being unusually deep.'

'Why would anyone put a bunch on installations on top of the red gunk?' Halsia had seen enough of it now and she was not impressed. It was just frozen reddish goop, not even alive. When Copier hesitated she pressed the droid with a sneer. 'Speculate.'

'The reflected particulate image from one of the locations suggest extensive out-gassing due to the excavation of a subsurface network.' Copier hedged. The droid shifted back and forth, fighting against having to interpret results rather than simply report them. 'This structural layout is consistent with low-temperature mining operations.' Spinning about in the air, the droid immediately sought to insulate against these words. 'However, when examining the profiles of the planetoids I can see no resources present to justify resource extraction. Mining in these cold temperatures and with such extensive ice overburden is not cost effective compared with inner system asteroid mining.'

The droid could not think like a Sith, could not understand the principles at work. Cost-effective? Halsia almost burst out laughing. If the Dread Masters had found something they wanted out here, it did not matter how many credits they spent, how many droids they shattered or bodies they broke, they would have it. But the object of their desire proved elusive. Copier was right in some sense. There were no rare ores or metals out here that could not be found elsewhere in the system. Crystals? She'd not been on Ilum, thank the empire, but that was a frozen iceball. Could these be similar?

'What about resonant crystal formations? Does the geology match those requirements?'

'No,' Copier's answer was immediate, possessed of the ironclad assurance of the droids. 'The presence of a thick tholin layer precludes active geology. Even if the planets were capable of the conditions to produce crystalline features of value, they would be located elsewhere.'

Tholins, Halsia thought. A strange, simple word for a phenomenon she did not properly understand. Somehow, at this absurd distance from the star, where light carried an inherent sense of falsehood and was all but devoid of heat, steady exposure turned ice to red amorphousness over the beating of millenia. Her limited grasp of the sciences failed her, but the droid remained. 'What exactly are tholins?'

'The term refers to a wide range of heteropolymer molecules,' the explanation came easily. 'Formed by ultraviolet irradiation. They are organic in form, and resembling many essential molecules used in the formation of living cells.'

'Primitive organic compounds,' Halsia breathed. The realization unfolded there, spliced against memories of deadly combat against terrible eye-bending monstrosities. 'They are mines,' she declared. 'They were mining the tholins themselves for use in alchemy.'

'Oh,' Copier sounded disturbed. 'It is theoretically possible to utilize such molecules in developmental biochemistry but the scientific evidence is-'

'Immaterial,' the Sith cut him off. 'Don't try to comprehend the power of the dark side droid. It'll be better for your health that way.' She stared at the image, counting swiftly. 'Fifteen mines. No doubt they're defended.' Soldiers, re-purposed extraction droids, industrial laser batteries, Sith overseers, all would be found garrisoning such locations. 'But it's conventional, low risk. Not our priority.' A quick bit of arithmetic brought up the final stage. 'So, that leaves seven.'

'Yes,' Copier changed the display again. 'They are widely scattered.'

'Will take them in turn,' Halsia decided. The path seemed clear now. 'Prepare an optimal course.' She could safely leave the navigation to the droid. 'I'm going to call our Dread Mistress.'

8 8 8

'My first operation was a success,' Halsia told the sternly focused adjutant over the holocom. 'I've reclaimed this telescope and neutralized the defenders. I have also been able to use this facility to locate a number of Dread Host installations that were not detected in the initial transmission survey.'

Maiya Vix stared down at her datapad on the other side of the image, pulling in sections of the data transmission that was accompanying this call. 'Forty abandoned survey sites, fifteen active mining operations, one telescope, and seven unknowns.' Though she put up a strong, steady face, the exhaustion was evident in Maiya's carriage. It was actually disappointing to Halsia that she added to them. Ruining such a capable officer through burnout would be a shame.

'That is mixed news at best.' Maiya continued. 'What is your assessment of the danger posed by the mining facilities?'

'Limited,' Halsia answered honestly. 'The overall numbers could be annoying if they were able to gather together, but if this place was any indication I don't think there is much chance of that. The technical staff is leaderless and useless without the Sith, and...' She fumbled for the right word, but failed, blazing ahead instead to put a decent face on it. 'Something happened to those enslaved to the Dread Host when the Masters died.' The recollection of emptiness within that body on the mirrors sent a shudder through her frame. 'There's not much left of them.'

'Yes,' Maiya nodded. 'We've had reports of erratic behavior from surviving members of the Dread Host. Even those who've surrendered are behaving...oddly.' She glanced at her datapad again. 'I agree with your recommendation to ignore the survey locations. Your recommendation regarding the mining sites?'

Halsia paused to consider. There was risk here. Maiya would surely pass on her choice to Lord Hargrev, who, being very busy, would likely accept it. If she was wrong it would be her head. 'They're mining tholins, components to their mad alchemy, otherwise valueless. Going down into the mines would cost us lots of troops, we should blast them from orbit instead.'

'I will place that on the list of tasks for a cruiser as soon as the fleet sees fit to release one to Lord Hargev,' Maiya noted, betraying the first hint of emotion. Halsia suspected that list was growing rather lengthy. 'Otherwise you have clearance to proceed to the remaining unknowns. Continue to report following each objective.'

Halsia nodded. She otherwise remained silent, as Maiya was not a Sith there was no reason to act subordinate.

'One final question,' the adjutant put her datapad behind her back for the first time. 'Regarding this telescope. Does it remain operational?'

Disarmed by the unexpected question, for who would have imagined the diligent staff officer had any interest in astronomy. Halsia did not bother to calculate, but simply answered openly. 'There was some damage to the primarily mirror frame due to combat, but it should be repairable without too much work,' She had no idea if those mirrors were hard to make. 'The secondary array remains undamaged. The only real problem is that all the technical staff and most of the maintenance droids are gone.'

'Well then,' Maiya offered an expression that approached the earliest beginnings of a smile. Though a tiny shift in expression it was remarkable for penetrating her otherwise perfectly military mask at all. 'Prior to your departure take whatever possible steps are available to render the facility stable long term. It will be some time before we can replace the technical team.'

There was no real reason to agree. Halsia owed Maiya nothing; this was not related to her military duties. To refuse would be appropriate, the reassertion of proper dominance beckoned. It would do for this woman to suffer for the presumption of tasking a sith to carry out a pet project.

She remembered standing on that mirror and staring outward in the frightful cold and the cutting words froze on her lips. Too much unseen, the words spun about in emptiness. The Dread Masters were staring out into the abyss. That acolyte saw something. She was sure of it.

Halsia was not ready to cast aside the possibility of finding it once again. 'I'll have Copier take all necessary measures.'

Chapter Notes

Tholins are an actual thing found on planetoids like this. For anyone who's seen the New Horizons photos of Pluto, they're all the red. I felt that complex molecular building blocks would be an ideal thing for Sith alchemy, therefore, the Dread Masters were mining them.

I'm curious as to what people think of Halsia to this point. The story's going to move away from her for a while, so it seems a useful moment to ask.

Lunafox · October 2, 2016

Halsia seems to be very determined and powerful and I appreciate the realism you try to inject into the stories, so that the planets feel more authentic and detailed than they do in the game. I did enjoy this line in particular:

The healing power of the dark side, the power to tear cells into growth and deny the limits nature placed upon tissue, to make living machinery slave beneath the lash of her will, revived her from the brink.

I look forward to see where it will go.

MishaCantu · October 2, 2016

I am in awe of your ability to describe the surroundings, formations, technology in such a realistic and precise manner. It reminds me a bit of Greg Bear. Your battle scenes are quite well done also, as well as the sense of the force and how it can be used.

As for Halsia, I see her as extremely observant, cunning, and powerful but also curious, which is a nice mix.

I look forward to more of your story.

wangxiuming · October 3, 2016

The writing here really is quite good. The language flows wonderfully. Agreed with Misha, your powers of description are impressive.

Halsia (love the name, by the way) is portrayed quite well. The little thoughts interspersing the action/descriptive sequences bring her to life. Would be curious to see more of what drives her as a character. Looking forward to more!

Mechalich · October 9, 2016

Chapter 6

‘I am going to kill the imperial wretch,’ Dae’o Soset muttered under his breath as he put his shuttle on final approach to the world of Enreosal. ‘I’m going to do it slowly, and there’s going to be magma involved.’ Looking out the viewport again he amended this. ‘A lot of magma.’ He figured one of Oricon’s numerous lava pools would do the job.

He was prevented from furthering his speculation as to the precise manner of Maiya Vix’s murder by the demands of re-entry. It was a tricky process at the best of times, and handling it solo was cutting the margin of error down to nothing. The droid had offered to help, but there was no power in the universe capable of convincing the bounty hunter that machine had not been set upon him as a spy and assassin. He’d locked the thing in a cargo hold storage locker the minute they’d cleared Oricon and had no intention of letting it out until a suitably convenient excuse to destroy it came up.

On the plus side, the planet looming ahead promised copious opportunities.

Dae’o had fought on Oricon and needed no evidence that the Dread Masters had been certifiably insane – beyond insane even, crazy in that oh-so-special way that only force-freaks came down with. It was one thing for a man to snap and take a vibroblade to his best bud or favorite bedmate, happened all the time, the galaxy was a stressful place. It was entirely another to snap and decide that the righteous course of action was reducing quadrillions of people to gibbering terror-zombies. There’d been a time a few years back when he’d hung around a bunch of Mando fanatics who believed the only good force-fiend was a dead force-fiend. After the Dread War, he’d started to agree. Problem was, they tended to pay so very well.

In the event that the bounty hunter had needed to prove to someone – like some poor sod just coming out of carbonite after a few decades maybe – that the Dread Masters were completely off the spice backend, their construction on Enreosal would have summed it up all by itself.

The droid had helpfully uploaded a planetary profile into the ship’s computer system prior to been stored. It was a burning red picture of fiery madness.

Oricon had been a volcanic world, a moon ripped and smashed by the power of its vast gas giant master so that its furious core bled and leaked onto the surface, leaving veins of lava and canyons of ash puckering it like infection. Enreosal was also covered in magma, but not due to any geologic injury. It was simply that hot.

Massive, three times the size of a standard planet, its burning surface clocked in at close to one thousand K. It did not have a water cycle, it had a lava cycle. Rivers of liquefied stone flowed and pooled, continually above the melting point of their components, never to solidify again. The sky was a plate thick layer of ash, smog, and volatile components threatening to wrap around any intruder and induce instant combustion. The star that powered all this fury was terrifically close, a massive orb that blotted out nearly everything.

For all that, the Dread Host was here, and it was the task of Dae’o Soset to find out why, and to end them.

Slowly, descending at an almost flat angle, the shuttle made the first of many passes through the atmosphere. He had to take it slow, blasting through the thick slurry put immense strain on the shields, so they went around and around again in order to gradually equilibrate hull temperatures and avoid eating explosive death courtesy of their own engine exhaust. It took hours.

That much time was necessary for ground scans anyway. The thick atmosphere was filled with metals in their gaseous state, blocking decent sensor scans until those layers had been cleared. Only then could the facilities this molten world housed be properly located.

There was nothing on the blasted surface basins, realm of lava rain and glowing seas. Instead, the Dread Masters had claimed Enreosal’s great mountains, vast volcanic cones one and all, rising many kilometers above the terrible surface below, formed of strong minerals capable of enduring the terrible heat and remaining solid. At these extreme altitudes it rained ash and stones, not lava, and structures could endure.

Scans detected several, and Dae’o chose the closest, eager to minimize his time in this poisoned burning sky.

He approached the great caldera, very much active and presently belching out huge clouds of superheated material some fifteen kilometers above the surface level, using instruments alone. Visible light largely failed to penetrate through these clouds. The darkness held a bizarre reddish tinge despite this, the fading echo of fluorescence from lava far below. Dae’o thought it felt like flying through a sea of blood.

The actual facility was of bizarre appearance. A single hulking gate barred passage into a series of tunnels cut deeper into the mountainside. Outside there was an extensive series of pits, over a dozen in all, each at least twenty meters across and of varying depth cut into the slope. These pits were lines with some sort of shiny ceramic. Scans pegged it as a derivative component of walker armor plating. They were topped by a crane structure on an edge-braced tripod that apparently contained cameras and some other equipment.

What is this? Hell’s holding cells? Dae’o wondered, more amused than curious. Regardless the pits were empty. The bounty hunter ignored them, seeking an entrance to the facility instead. He flew the shuttle in to an established landing pad, coated with ceramic but also stained and marked by the rain of ash. It was otherwise unoccupied and he planted the ship there.

He made certain to orient the vessel so it pointed at the massive locked gate. One thumb rested on the firing trigger. There were no external defenses visible, but he could not believe this place was without some sort of deterrent. They were probably inside instead, since nothing not specially made or actively shielded would survive for long.

Using the ship’s sensors, he ran a detailed scan alongside the surface of the mountain, checking for concealed turrets. After a minute, a pair were revealed, both pointed upwards. Strangely, they had not fired during his approach, despite having easily had position. ‘Maybe nobody’s home,’ the bounty hunter grumbled. Not that he considered it likely. The most likely outcome was ambush.

He wasn’t much for ambush.

Plating designed to consistently resist extremely heat was, unsurprisingly, highly resistant to blasterfire. It took a rather sustained burst to core a hole through the center of the door. Thankfully, once that happened, the atmosphere took care of the rest, with a massive blast of superheated air pouring through the gap. The pressure differential caused a secondary explosion that knocked the plated hatch askew.

The bounty hunter waited. He would let the heat send any survivors scrambling for hazard gear and disrupt their order. After a few minutes he sent a broad-spectrum surrender demand, just to see what would happen.

Only silence replied.

Grimacing, Dae’o knew it was time to head inside himself. He wasn’t looking forward to it.

The ship was already starting to warm up, thermal systems forced to let internal temperatures increase in order to compensate for the massive heat load. Not a good sign, but not a surprising one. Imperial maintenance wasn't reliable. The scamming Sith pushed people too hard, and they used slaves.

The bounty hunter's personal gear was all custom made, produced by specialty shops he trusted. He double-checked it all himself. Scarred hands lacked the master craftsman's touch, but they could still feel the tender crispness of tight seams and precision welds. He'd wasn't able to use standard gear in this atmosphere. A full-face helmet was needed instead of the usual wrap-and-veil. He'd doubled-up the thermal underlayers as well, and swapped out the jetpack – useless at this pressure – for a heavy-duty droplet heat exchanger.

Though he knew the process by heart, it still took almost a full minute to buckle and fasten all seals. His every thought during the process, as muscle memory guided fingers without sight, was how much he'd wished that blasted adjutant had sent the one of the Sith here. Well no, he checked himself. Just the cyborg brute. The other one was too pretty to burn up. Not that he'd actually sleep with her or anything; he'd sooner take a lava bath.

'You are so dead Vix, so very, very dead.' Dae'o Soset hit a button and cycled the airlock.

The wall of superheated air slammed into him with palpable force. Powerful volcanic storms sent the atmosphere to roiling, and with pressure even at this altitude running close to six times a standard atmosphere it struck harder than the average punch to the face. The bounty hunter braced, trusted his plating, and took the first step forward, trying to ignore the sweat already starting to lubricate the inner layers of his suit.

On foot up, and then down, hard. The next the same, and continuous. Every motion laboring beneath the unseen weight of a heavy pack. Gravity plays no favorites and accepts no bribes. Bigger planet, more gravity. The internal helmet heads-up display registered one-point seven standard. He upgraded from heavy pack to heavy crate, gritted his teeth and pressed ahead.

Pistols in both hands he jolted into a shuffling, half-stepping jog, keeping low to the ground, raising his knees minimally, insulating them against the enhanced stress. He paused at the shattered door, sliding alongside it, but careful not to touch the overheated composite. A single quick glance, and then pulling back, pistols out.

All clear; he checked again, confirming. Still nothing. A shattered airlock, blaster bolt damage on the inside. The internal temperature was rapidly rising to match the stone-melting outdoors, but there was no evidence of further activity. Helmet monitors covered other spectra, but caught no communications, encrypted or otherwise. No audio alarms either, just emergency lightning, green here to contrast with the all-pervasive redness.

The normal lights were out, leaving the bounty hunter to make his way forward using false-color thermal contouring from his helmet lamps as a guide. Weapons in hand he strode through the wreckage.

It was a place of ghosts.

There had been a facility, one of reasonable size. Everything was tunnels, the same as you might find on any asteroid mining base, only with extra insulation and heavy heat exchange machinery clumping along beneath every floor plate. It was compact, austere in the soul-crushing cold gray aesthetic the Dread Masters had appropriated from the imperial military. Hot bunk quarters, minimal personal space, no posters or art, a simplistic galley capable of churning out highly nutritious but tasteless foods. Somewhat unexpectedly he found no secondary set of much more elegant gear for the personal use of officers and Sith. It seemed the indoctrination of the masters had been sufficient to eliminate that particular stratification.

Though there were no people the base appeared otherwise functional. Consoles powered on from standby at a touch, tools and uniforms lay in place, ready for use. Bunks were maintained, blasters were holstered on deployment racks. All the proper elements provided, but no people.

'No signs of conflict, no evidence of panic,' Dae'o grunted as he kept his pistols pointed. 'Spooky.'

The non-domestic areas were worse. They were some kind of laboratory. Several rooms filled with equipment to mix and process all kinds of chemicals; a powerful suite of computers referencing it all. This too was abandoned, with chemical mixes left sitting in vials and canisters atop various specialized tangles of tubes and wires he could not possibly have described. Though the heat had clearly ruined much of this material, there was no other source of degradation.

Across from the laboratories were a suite of compact tunnel pockets. Storage rooms, the design was immediately recognizable. The contents were not. There was all the usual maintenance gear: spare parts; electronics testers; patch kits, power cells; other ordinary gear. The bulk of the material was not these simple substances, but drum after drum of chemical reagents. They bore complex labels in many colors that referenced terms dozens of characters in length that he could not even puzzle out how to pronounce, never mind identify. Most of it was unused.

Still no people.

Past the storage section Dae'o came to a fork. One path led downward, deeper within the volcano, to areas as stable as might be found on this melted world. Electronic noise from that region indicated it held the central facility reactor and other heavy equipment. There was also a modest, but measurable, radiation flux pulsing upwards from that direction. Containment problems, he guessed. Well, saving that for last. The decision was easy. He took the other fork, a thin ramp spiraling upwards.

He knew what waited there. This was a Sith facility, so there was bound to be a meditation room just for the Sith, no matter how impractical it was to create.

Twelve heavy, knee-grinding meters upwards, for if there was artificial gravity here it wasn't active, and the bounty hunter came to a second secure door. This one was merely human sized. It was solid piece of durasteel alloy plating, thick. A quick tap suggested it was also reinforced, something had been piled on the other side.

He yanked out a basic security spike from his belt, thinking to burn out the lock, but when his fingers curled around the rotation hatch the bar turned at a touch.

Eyes widened, and he felt a strange chill of fear slide down the back of his neck. This whole place was wrong, and he was sure the answer was on the other side.

'Well then,' he sneered. 'I suppose I'll have to knock, won't I.'

Ten seconds later the door blasted inwards as Dae'o's blaster shots detonated the explosive probe he'd placed over the bolts. The thump and fall motion of the heavy portal crushed beneath it a chair, table, and small pile of pillows that had all been braced on the other side.

The room within was dark, square, and spare. A box with padded floor tiles and nothing more. Everything it had contained lay smashed now, buried beneath the barrier. There were no lights, even the emergency lighting was dead; diodes surgically shattered beneath their transparisteel casings.

Only at the far end, in the darkest corner of it all, furthest from the outside, was there a single occupant.

As the sound of the door crashing in, ear-splittingly loud in the heavy air of this world, he turned and rose from a curled up ball staring at the wall.

This figure was tall and broad-shouldered. A powerful trained physique cloaked in loose, rippling robes. These were adorned with symbolic imagery and extended to gloves terminating in sharp claws. His face was covered in a black skull mask, jawless, letting the chin barbels marking the face of a Sith pureblood hang free. It was a black mask ringed by a crest of black feathers and highlighted in red. The skin beneath that mask was painted black, all traces of red obscured.

'They're here!' this strange being screamed as he turned, lightsaber in hand. His body twitched and shifted, footsteps askew, moving without any of the sinuous grace Dae'o expected from Sith. 'They've come at last. I knew it! No food, all the food gone. Hungry, too hungry. Tried so hard. Gave them everything, all of it, had to give it to them!'

'Well,' Dae'o grunted. 'Now I've seen everything.' Within he was anything but comforted. The scene was deeply disturbing. Mad Sith were not, in the experience of anyone who'd been to Oricon, ever welcome. His pistols were pointed directly at the blackened figure. 'You there! Pay attention before I fill you full of holes.'

The Sith shook, and then turned, orange eyes focusing on the intruder for the first time. 'Wait...' his voice trickled into a hiss. 'You're not them. Someone else.' He stepped back suddenly, shivering again. 'Did they send you?'

'Who in the name of the empire are “they?” There's nobody here you crazy saber-brain,' Dae'o kept himself at a safe distance as the Sith shifted back and forth, making sure the door was at his back.

'You didn't see?' the Sith shook his head. 'They weren't outside?' His eyes flashed back and forth. ‘Of course not, too big for their chambers, too powerful. Never contained, never held down. No, had to feed them, keep them happy, docile, yes. Feed them. We made them, have to be responsible, keep them healthy. Can't let them go hungry.'

Pieces clicked into place, matching up with the bounty hunter's memory. Creatures charging over lava, chasing and feasting on anything they could find in the ruined lands outside the Dread Fortress. The laboratory, the tanks of chemicals, the deep pits outside. 'Breeding facility,' he spat. 'You're a monster maker.' His hands tightened on the grip of his pistols.

'Monster?' The Sith shook his head. 'No, no, they're gentle. Gentle, pleasant, lovely children, so long as they stay fed. Had to feed them, but no more food came, everything dark.' He thrashed back and forth, body twitching, limbs contorted. 'Had to use the others, one by one, took them and set them out. Worked for a while, but then ran out. Not enough, and nobody comes, nobody...' His head slowly turned around, and orange eyes stared directly through the portals of the helmet, piercing to the core.

The Sith's blackened face broke open to a wide white smile. 'I'll feed them you!'

Dae'o fired both pistols.

One bolt snapped back off the red blade of a lightsaber to slam into a wall. The second buried itself in shoulder armor, but there was enough twitching to indicate penetration.

The Sith charged. One hand shot out and Dae'o felt a wave of pain burst into being across every pore. Constricting tendrils of power wrenching his body away from its proper state.

Biting down hard, the bounty hunter gritted his teeth and returned fire, stepping back as he moved. With practiced timing he subvocalized a command. 'Deploy flame, point kresh three!' A tiny sphere snapped out from his backpack and burst into spinning expansion in the center of the room. The probe spat plasma blasts in all directions.

With a hiss of fury the Sith spun and dashed left. Dae'o squared up and fired, but not bolts, switching to secondary triggers his pistols spat pellets of sticky liquid wax from their underbarrels. Though the spinning ruby blade carved away some, the Sith could not prevent the strike.

Mad with rage, the foe countered instead. Black-clawed hands reached outward and bent to grab.

Invisible chains wrapped about Dae'o's limbs and he was torn from his feet, grasped and pulled, betrayed by his body as the force pulled him down towards the point of the burning blade his enemy carried. He activated a shielding charge in desperate hope of warding off the killing strike.

But the blow never came. Lightsaber cleaved through empty air, with Dae'o yet two meters distant.

Gravity, the bounty hunter belatedly realized. There was no time for more. He aimed and fired, blasts scoring across armor and striking liquid explosive, triggering the devastating potential hiding within.

The Sith was thrown backwards, and Dae'o gave him no time. 'Deploy shock, target one!' Another silver sphere flew outwards, this one gliding on a tiny repulsorlift engine to spin around the Sith in slow circles, sending in shocking ion pulses as fast as its capacitors could cycle.

Raising his head the black-skinned warrior stood up, shook to clear the pain and with fury burning in his eyes threw back his head to scream.

The wail of power struck gut punch deep, throwing tissues against armor, denting plating beneath the howling wrath of this invisible attack. Bruises blossomed everywhere across stomach and ribs. Dae'o felt his stance buckle and fell to his knees, but he never stopped. The bounty hunter kept his weapons trained on his foe. Pain was shunted aside, buried somewhere else, to be addressed later. He let the tunnel-collapse focus of battle take him and the totality of his effort faced forward.

The Sith's lightsaber was wide.

Fingers pressed down on triggers, grasping, holding, and maintaining a death grip. Barrels spat a stream of continuous high-power ruby bolts, undirected, filling a field around the Sith, spread-fire, impossible to block. Most slammed into the wall, the floor, the ceiling, but with scores of impacts many fell on armor plate, and some found their way to vulnerable points.

The Sith twitched and thrashed. Despite the obvious damage, smoking holes rippling through his blackened robes, the madman rose up and called his lightsaber to hand. With fast steps he lunged forward, cutting low.

Dae'o stepped back before the blow, but the cutting edge was fast and clipped the boundary of his left leg. Shield-reinforced durasteel buckled and blossomed with a fire-hot surface gouge, but held.

'Deploy flame, point aurek zero!' The little plasma probe burst on point, directly into the tiny distance between the pair.

A blast of superheated violet flames splashed across the ******* death mask of the Sith.

The dread guard stumbled backward, clutching blinded eyes.

Dae'o poured blaster bolts into him until the chest piece was nothing but holes. He stopped only when the coils of power vanished, the force affliction vanishing with the death of the enemy.

When it was finished the bounty hunter stepped over to the body and ripped off the mask, revealing the ruined painted face of the Sith beneath. Using a utility vibroblade he reached down and carefully clipped off a piece of the mask. Then he lopped it through a narrow chain adorning his belt. One less Sith psycho in the galaxy, he smiled bitterly, feeling the burning pain now.

There was nothing for it but to endure. He was stuck with the inflicted damage. There would be no removing armor to use medpack treatments here. Instead he took the slow staggering walk back down to the ship. He'd never hated a planet more.

When the bounty hunter emerged through the shattered hull doors he discovered the landing platform had visitors.

They were three in number, with four legs, two claws, and a gaping maw each. Worm-like in form they scuttled about as if deformed crabs, bodies rippling with molten engines of life of a measure foreign to humans and their kin. They moved in naked skin despite the terrible heat, apparently at ease with the conditons.

Carefully Dae'o watched as they maneuvered around the pits, wondering if they'd noticed him. He knew these monsters, and was thankful that they were merely the human sized larval forms, and not the full-fledged adults. So that's what they were breeding, he realized with little comfort. Geo beasts.

After a few minutes of circling the ship the creatures moved off, scratching their way across the edge of the volcano, sc****** in crevices and cracks for whatever their animal minds sought out. Probably food, the bounty hunter shivered. The remaining pieces of the puzzle solved themselves with disturbing clarity.

He ran for the ship and hurriedly lifted off.

Chapter Notes

Enreosal is a pyrothalassic super-Earth planet. It is very hot; enough to make Venus look frigid by comparison. I have chosen to allow for massive volcanic mountains to form so as to allow a slightly lower temperature alpine environment. I don’t know if that’s accurate, but I felt like featuring a fiery planet of this type.

Dae’o’s opponent is a Dread Guard Beast Lord, as found on Oricon. Dae’o’s personal capabilities are based on the template of the Dread Guard Commander from Section X (though he’s a mercenary version, not a commando base).

Geo Beasts and Geo Beast Larvae are found on Oricon and in Dread Seed areas on Hoth. Since they seem to be fine with the molten environment of Oricon, I have chosen to have them find Enreosal habitable.

Mechalich · October 24, 2016

Chapter Seven

Maiya Vix stared up at the scratchy holoimage, the quality unacceptably low considering the proximity of the two terminals, in disbelief. ‘You’re saying he turned on his comrades and fed them to the geo beasts?’ It was enough to break through her finely-tuned ironclad mask of absolute professionalism.

Recovering quickly, she cleared her throat and followed up. ‘Was this merely a claim or do you have actual evidence?’

‘Sent the probe droid out and had it scan the breeding pits,’ the perpetually grumpy scowl of Dae’o Soset stared back. Only his eyes moved, the rest of his face was hidden behind veil and cowl. ‘Said it found ash debris matching the chemical profile of a human body.’ The bounty hunter shrugged. ‘They were definitely breeding the damned things, it was all over the computer records.’

‘But Geo Beasts survive by consuming chemosynthetic microorganisms living within rock layers,’ Maiya objected. She was quite sure of this, having spent hours learning the specifications of every organism found in the employ or proximity of the Dread Masters. ‘Carbon-based life is useless to them.’

‘Eh,’ this revelation did not seem to bother the bounty hunter much. ‘The Sith was crazy,’ he said this with a startlingly prosaic frankness. It was almost blasphemy. To never admit aloud that their Sith masters might have a loose relationship with sanity was one of the empire’s more important taboos. Was it possible the Dread Masters had shattered that? She would have to consider the strategic implications with care.

‘I think he lost whatever control he had after we blew up his bosses,’ Dae’o continued. ‘Whatever those masters had them all plugged into, when it went down they didn’t drag all their parts back out.’

‘That does fit with reports from other theaters,’ Maiya admitted, though she offered no details. The bounty hunter need not know what other operatives had discovered.

‘Great,’ Dae’o visibly leaned forward at this announcement. ‘So can I get off this miserable hell-rock already? There’s nothing here and these crazies aren’t going anywhere. Just leave them to kill each other.’

Maiya kept herself stone-faced. She had absolutely no intention of letting the bounty hunter go, not today and not ever. He’d been on Oricon for the whole campaign, and had seen entirely too much. Eventually he’d either be placed permanently into Lord Hargev’s guard or have to be eliminated. She strongly suspected it would be the latter, the man had too many problems with oversight. Until that day came, however, he was a valuable asset, and it was Maiya’s job to ensure that he remained so for as long as possible. ‘Your orders have not changed,’ she refused to dignify his request further. ‘Your sensor reports log eleven active locations so far, and you’ve yet to scan the entire planet.’ He’d not held back that data, thankfully. ‘Until everything is accounted for, the planet remains a potential threat point.’

The bounty hunter’s seemingly perpetual glower deepened beneath the mask hiding his mouth. ‘Come on Vix,’ he continually refused to acknowledge her position properly. Maiya seethed at this but would not waste time correcting him. ‘These people have lost it, and they’ve got no ships. You can’t store a ship on this planet for more than a few days before you fry the drives. I’m not even asking to leave the system,’ Maiya quelled the urge to raise an eyebrow. This was a significant concession, and one truly unforeseen. Apparently operating on the planet was more difficult than simulations projected. She made a mental note to press the technicians for a revised profile. ‘Just let me work somewhere that doesn’t threaten to melt my armor off at the first seal failure. There’s got to be more dread guards on the moons up by you than down here. I’d be more useful there.’

There was a certain strategic sense to this argument. Privately Maiya acknowledged it, though she had no intention of agreeing. Dae’o was an irritant; one who’d failed to show her the respect due her rank. If you did not use your staff position to enact suitable bureaucratic revenge, then what kind of imperial officer were you? Beyond this, her gut told her the bounty hunter was wrong. ‘I need an estimate as to the number of Geo Beasts on the planet.’ It was a reasonable order. Despite its tendency to boil almost anything else, Enreosal was ideal habitat for the hulking stone-eating monsters. If the Dread Host really had been breeding the creatures, it could have an impact on the threat profile. ‘Your droid should be able to formulate a survey proposal to handle that task. I will take your request under advisement pending completion of that assessment.’

‘You’re kidding,’ Dae’o protested, voice rising to the edge of screams. ‘You want me to fly around in this dinged-up shuttle with faulty shields trying to track lava monsters? I’ve got plenty of better things to-‘

‘No, you have your orders,’ Maiya interrupted, never raising her voice. Such objections were so tedious. ‘Now then, this briefing is at an end.’ Without further words she cut the connection off, silencing the terminal. Wisely the bounty hunter made no attempt to call back.

Turning about, she marched briskly down the hall from the holoterminal to her office, a modest chamber of prefabricated material bonded to the outer section of the fortress. They were still facing very real difficulties threading secure lines through the gatehouse interchange. The inner sections of the fortress remained cut off from proper signals of all kinds. Apparently the masters hadn’t needed them. Lord Hargrev had a theory regarding telepathic links, but it was no help to the current residents.

Instead, she was left close to the troops.

Maiya sank into her chair with a barely repressed sigh. She tried not to focus on how good it felt to simply sit down. To pause, to take a break. She couldn’t allow those, couldn’t stop. There was too much work.

Hooking her ever-present datapad to the main console she patched back into the network and began composing a brief report on the bounty hunter’s efforts so far. It was hardly promising. Her operatives were reporting successes, so far, but none of them had uncovered any real threats or any real assets either, which was of course the other half of their expeditionary purpose. A week of operations and so far the only thing to turn up even moderately valuable was the telescope the sorcerer Halsia had secured on a distant planetoid. A member of Darth Acina’s staff had expressed some interest in sending a technical team to reactivate it, but only at some unspecified time in the future.

She needed something to draw in outside interest, some secret of the dread masters that would aid the war effort. Those materials recovered from Oricon so far had proven of limited value. Her master, hunting out ghosts and secrets within the palace, reported that the methods of the masters were incomprehensible and raving. Experiments to recreate them had universally failed.

No outside interest meant no troops, no material, just an endless horizon of tense garrison duty until the remaining Dread Host forces truly did manage to kill themselves. With more, slightly less tense, garrison duty to follow until Lord Hargrev either pensioned Maiya out or had her killed. The only upside was that whatever change had come over her master as a result of engaging in a battle of wits with the Dread Masters meant the latter course had become much less likely.

Adapting to her lord’s new approach had been easy enough, but it had by no means reduced her workload. Properly securing the fortress would do that, as it was consuming a ridiculous chunk of their available resources to turn the structure from a monument to the capabilities of force mad overlords into a viable military base. Until then, however, the demands kept coming.

Hours passed as the adjutant slogged her way through reports, scheduling, assignment logs, material requests, and the countless other managerial tasks that were necessary to conduct this sort of operation. As the day wore on she wished once again for a large pool of subordinates. Hargrev’s staff had never been large, and after the losses on campaign she was its only fully-trained member. Even the droids available to her were not properly specialized protocol units, but an eclectic mix of whatever non-combat machines had been left behind.

In the end, after finishing a brief and only half-warmed dinner at her desk, it was time for her end-of-day meeting with her master.

Lord Hargrev had established his quarters in a similar situation to his aide’s. Where she was frozen out of the command chambers of the fortress so he was for the palace. Unwilling to try and claim any of the private chambers of the six Dread Masters, or to dare their throne room, he’d put together his own chamber in the anteroom, making use of the guardrooms once occupied by the most favored servants. The rest of the facility was held under seal and guarded by extremely powerful but nearly mindless droid sentries. Hargrev allowed no one but himself access to those mysterious inner halls.

Maiya was grateful for this prohibition. She’d been all the way within once, when commanding the final security sweep following victory. Even while standing at her master’s side, with complete confidence in his ability to shield her spirit, there had been something terribly eerie seeping from those distorted sanctums and haunting thrones. It was not an experience she was eager to repeat.

Hargrev sat at a table eating his, considerably more sumptuous, dinner. ‘Ah, Maiya,’ he looked up at her approach, but did not stand. She braced and saluted at proper distance when he acknowledged her.

This earned her a chuckle in response. ‘Do try to relax a bit Maiya, it’s just the two of us.’ Apparently the two astromech droids detailed as servers did not count, but then of course this was true.

She did not find the private setting or the nominally endearing tone all that comforting. There were things an officer in her position was expected to allow if demanded by a Sith, and though Hargrev had not done so since landing, those liberties had been taken previously. She hoped it was evidence of the change in him that there had been no follow through. If it was actually the scars – acquired during the dash to escape pods when their ships were torn apart coming to this moon – she had no idea what to do.

In response she said only. ‘Of course sir.’

A second chuckle followed the first. ‘Alright, alright, I see there’s no helping it,’ Hargrev drained a glass of something red and alcoholic. ‘Give me the day’s news. Hopefully no worse than yesterdays.’

‘You’ll have to judge for yourself my lord,’ Maiya noted, before launching into a rapid-fire summary of ongoing operations. She detailed the continued struggle to tame the Dread Fortress first, and the small ground campaign to eliminate remaining Dread Host holdouts on Oricon second. The former was a nightmare, while the latter was making steady, if depressingly slow, progress. Only after this did she move to off-world concerns.

‘We have our first report from Enreosal my lord, and with it the first real picture of activities there,’ she told him.

‘Oh?’ This caught Hargev’s attention. ‘And what were they doing there? Isn’t that planet too hot for much of anything?’

‘It appears they were breeding Geo Beasts.’

‘Really?’ Hargrev blinked repeatedly, and spent a moment staring off into the middle distance, seeking something his aide could never see. She’d learned to simply wait patiently during such moments. ‘And they succeeded?’ the Sith Lord asked at last.

‘There are Geo Beasts on the planet at least,’ Dae’o’s report had been firm on that much, with actual holorecordings. ‘I’ve assigned our asset there to survey the population.’

‘That seems appropriate,’ Hargrev agreed. ‘Tell me Maiya, do you think these beasts a threat?’

‘Potentially sir,’ she hedged. Her own feelings on the matter were troublingly uncertain. Estimates without confidence were the mark of poor effort. ‘If there are significant numbers they could be, provided that the survivors can command them and if they can acquire transport.’

Hargrev acknowledged this through his next inquiry. ‘Could we interdict the planet?’

‘Not without losing control of orbital space above Oricon my lord.’ Having to give this answer infuriated Maiya. They needed more ships. ‘At present all surviving vessels are needed to conduct patrols keeping scavengers off the surface.’ The fall of the Dread Masters had sent the fringe into a frenzy trying to claim their legacy and lore. Too much effort and ship time was being spent keeping their grubby paws at arm’s length.

‘We will have to make do then,’ the Sith Lord sighed. A pause, and then he spoke again. ‘Of course, it is also possible that this discovery represents a potential asset.’

Maiya did not follow this logic. ‘My lord?’ she prompted delicately.

‘The members of the Dread Host were able to control many powerful creatures. If I can unlock the mechanism, then we could transform those slavering hulks from problem to solution, would we not?’ Hargrev’s thin frame vibrated with renewed energy. ‘I shall have to focus my efforts towards searching out that information.’

A number of Dread Host beast commanders survived, having been posted well outside the fortress during the battle. Maiya knew this, and as was proper, changed plans to meet her master’s desire without need for questions. ‘I shall dictate our elimination forces to attempt to capture a surviving beast lord of the Dread Host alive, if possible.’

One more task to shoulder on behalf of the Sith.

Chapter Notes

Regarding the physical layout of the Dread Fortress, I have expanded upon the divide represented by the Gatehouse Puzzle/Gatemaster Draxus boss fight in the operation. In addition to a physical divide it represents a divide in information technology and the force, with the plebeians on the outside and the Dread Masters and their chosen on the inside. Since the imperial forces cannot replicate the Dread Masters’ mind control-based command apparatus, they have to conduct extensive renovations.

To clarify Maiya Vix’s position, she is a staff officer, not a line officer, and her primary responsibilities are administrative. Her role is quite similar to that played by Captain Malavai Quinn. I’ve given her the title of adjutant rather than a more traditional rank because the Dread Executioners represent a specialized unit and because she serves a Sith Lord directly which seems to place her outside the traditional hierarchy – if you try to give her orders during the game quest line she claims ‘my oath is to Lord Hargrev.’

MayhemofChaonus · October 30, 2016

I'm enjoying this saga very much. As a writer of more...expansive, wide-view fiction such as is seen in say, the Darth Plagueis novel or the Bane Trilogy, it is nice to simply see a saga of the gritty, boots-on-the-ground struggle of the everyday soldiers, Sith, and Imperial "assets".

By the way, may I say that your particular writing style smacks of professional writing. If this was in a book form I wouldn't even question it's validity as a published work, it is that skillfully written and meticulously researched. You have an incredible skill and talent I am jealous of.

Edited October 30, 2016 by MayhemofChaonus

Mechalich · October 30, 2016

I'm enjoying this saga very much. As a writer of more...expansive, wide-view fiction such as is seen in say, the Darth Plagueis novel or the Bane Trilogy, it is nice to simply see a saga of the gritty, boots-on-the-ground struggle of the everyday soldiers, Sith, and Imperial "assets".

One of the things I like about Star Wars is how variable the scale can be - I've written fanfiction for it that operates at a very broad scale as well. SWTOR though, for all its epic overall plotline, mostly functions mechanically in the form of various special forces operatives engaging in missions at the tactical level (for the Trooper, literally), so I built the action of this story to emulate the game structure.

The scope of this particular tale will expand somewhat as it progresses, but I hope to maintain the 'epic tactical action' aspect throughout.

Mechalich · November 2, 2016

Chapter 8

'Commencing final approach on Kasulkis now, commander,' the convert pilot announced. The phrasing was standard military, boring, but there was a slight undercurrent of fear to every syllable and every moment of the body as the man sat stiffly upright in the pilot's chair. 'We should make landfall in approximately ten minutes.'

'Good,' Viskene stood behind the nervous man, looming carefully. The watchman stared out through the viewport, examining the moon ahead. 'Second moon of Bodrern,' he whispered, filled with anticipation.

Truthfully, it was not much to see, and he had never much cared for the visual variation from one world to the next. At least, he did not think he had. It was difficult to recall anything that had happened so long ago, before he had given his devotion to the masters, before his liberation from the shackles of Imperial doctrine and Sith dogma. Regardless, this grayish pebble with the slight violet tinge would never make much impression on the senses.

Waterless and rounded, it was a dead place wracked by sandstorms formed through the slowness of its three week day. Radiation lashed it, the pulsing exudation of the yellow-orange parent world looming across the sky. Lacking the protective ash coating that blessed Oricon, this second of seven major moons had been ground down hard.

'The Tunnel Pavilion is located in the central desert wastes,' Viskene instructed. 'Make directly for it.'

Not by coincidence seven moons. Viskene knew this to be true. The very nature of this system had been matched by the force to the masters. Oricon had been the set of the Dread Council, the incredible combination of power that had made six into one, but the individual hands of that council had not been idle, and each had carved a stronghold onto one of the remaining moons. There they had explored new and divergent pathways, seeking to prove their worth before making them part of the council's greater whole.

What warriors have you left behind? Viskene awaited to learn. Master Styrak.

The whisper-thin upper atmosphere meant the descent was barely noticeable. The convert’s shaking hands held the vessel steady, in spite of instabilities in the engines. Viskene's brow narrowed with each thump and creek. You will not fail me vessel, he scowled into the black. My duty demands it.

Republic markings had once adorned the side of the ship, but a bath in cooling lava had erased the surface finish. One of the twin engine pods had been shorn off completely. The dorsal and fore gun turrets were gone, filled with plugs of cooled black stone mixed with duracrete mash. Most of the sensors had been completely overloaded and jury-rigged into functionality using scavenged circuitry. The rear cargo door was melted shut, leaving only the emergency airlock access for entry. The power resources were so depleted that it was impossible to run the main engines and the shields at once. It was a wreck, a vessel cobbled together from the remnants of a dozen or more shattered republic shards, and suitable only for scrap.

But it flew, and that was all that Viskene required.

'Commander,' the convert spoke up timidly as their altitude descended over a vast empty desert, not even an impact crater for a thousand kilometers in every direction. 'A sensor ping is registering on this vessel. Anti-aircraft is surely targeting us now.'

'I will transmit the code clearance,' Viskene acknowledged the warning and turned to a nearby console. The masters had needed no such contrivances to command obedience, but such methods had been utilized to allow orders passage through the network of servants. The codes to unseal this compound had been lodged in his memory, one of the privileges of his watchman status.

Two other codes we recovered, he knew, he'd demanded those escapees of the palace yield them up to his command. Only one had required pressure. The masters shall have to provide the rest.

As their motion shifted to drop down onto repsulors and relaxed the burden on the main engines, the pilot noted the response. 'Sensor ping deactivated, we are no longer being targeted.' The man's head turned, helmeted eyes scanning across his half-functional command board. 'No communication hails, on any frequency.' The fear in his voice increased. 'Commander, I'm not detecting any traffic at all.'

Saying nothing in reply, Viskene reached out in the force, projecting his senses through the darkness, searching for the red-black pinpoints of knotted emotion that marked out his fellow servitors, or the varied spinning color signs of mercenaries, prisoners, and slaves.

The echoes came back empty, only the steady rain of sand waited there. 'Scan for life signs,' he demanded. Force senses could be obscured, confused, he knew this, for he was himself skilled in this area, but there should be no other life in this wasteland to trick the ship's mechanisms.

'Nothing commander,' the convert winced. 'The board's blank.'

Silent, Viskene seethed. This ought to be the most populous of all the bases. He had seen the reports, had stood behind Master Styrak as he communicated with this place. There were mercenaries here, warriors captured from a thousand armies, turned towards gladiatorial combats and bent down before the master's indomitable will into service to the Host. Now there was...nothing.

'Land the ship,' he ordered. He would have answers.

They descended between the worn and crumbly stone surface, ground beneath the endless lash of sand. Black lines crisscrossed the expanse here at the center of this barren desert. Carved by the immense power and cruel precision of orbital turbolaser bombardment, they had cut this fortress free from the emptiness that surrounded it. Air was pumped in, held down within those spare tunnels by dint of its weight, and rooms had been made within the maze of pathways, all leading to the grand battleground that was the central pavilion.

With difficult and loud sc****** the scavenged corvette managed to come to rest on its side on the eastern landing platform. It shook slightly upon settling, internal lights blinking, but eventually quieted to a modest grinding hum. Both occupants knew that was the best they could expect.

'Follow,' the watchman ordered his pilot. He expected little of the convert in the case of combat, but the man might be useful to carry something should the need arise.

Too cowed to object, the convert merely took his rifle from the wall rack and nodded.

They scrambled out through the airlock, and into the dry heat of Kasulkis.

The dead were waiting for them.

All about the landing pad they lay, bodies in terrible shape. This world was hot and dry, and even within the relative shelter of the tunnels it baked worse than any desert. Radiation and wind had done more. Bodies were shrunken, skin and flesh dried, baked, and worn, with great gaps between tissues the gear that had once clung to them. Natural mummification well underway.

Viskene prodded the nearest body with his foot. A Twi'lek warrior in heavy armor, skin since drained of all color. His chest plate was caved in, and the rib cage shattered. 'Grenade hit,' the assessment was simple. He felt only disappointment. 'Come,' he ordered. 'I'm going to the center.'

The signs of battle were everywhere as they marched through the encampment. At least one hundred captured warriors, mostly aliens, half that many soldiers of the Dread Host; all the occupants were dead. Blasters, grenades, vibroblades, and other, unusual, weapons had been unleashed in close quarters combat. At one interchange they found the dead occupying each of the four directions, with signs that all had been firing at all others. 'Multiple factions,' the watchman realized. The breakdown slowly took shape.

At least four factions, possibly as many as six, had emerged here. It had been prolonged, with the battle lines drawn in silence after the first death of Syrak on Darvannis. After the council fell it had exploded. Makeshift barricades and artillery emplacements clogged the tunnels. Shattered forms left to the wind.

'Someone...' the convert offered hesitantly when they stepped into the mass grave that the central pavilion had become. At least seventy dead, many blown apart beyond all recognition, lying under the boiling rasp of this moon in the orange nighttime glow of Bodrern. 'Someone had to win, didn't they?'

It was an impudent remark, but not wrong, and Viskene determined to save the punishment for later. 'Yes,' he agreed. Where are the victors?

They found them in the central holoterminal. This group was primarily Dread Guard, their black and red armor obvious. Good. This served a measure of equilibrium to Viskene. A single commander, marked by carved golden mask in imitation of the masters' own, lay slumped over the table.

Examination of this body revealed much. This man too, had been chosen for experimentation by his lord. His body was modified, skin replaced with shed kell dragon scales. A great honor. Yet in spite of this, the body was cut deep in three places, marks made by blows of incredible power.

Slashes carved by lightsaber.

Twenty-one of Styrak's chosen had survived their infighting to face this new opponent. All had been felled in close combat. Tracing the motion of the battle it became clear that their commander had fallen first. This realization drew a twisted expression across Viskene's face. You fought a duel, lost, and your men died without your leadership. How insipid.

'Commander, what happened?' the convert's terror was delightful.

'It seems the Sith have a hound of their own,' he stared upward. It was not truly a surprise, no matter how much it set his anger to broil.

His memory cast back to Oricon. I did much there, he knew, but not enough. Viskene had taken the survivors of the Dread Host and welded them together into a cohesive battalion. His troops were better and more devoted than his foes, it was a certainty. The empire had no heart left to fight on the ashen lands of the Dread Masters. But they are too well organized. Silently, staring down at the body of this commander who had answered with pride rather than numbers and cost him a vital platoon, Viskene was struck with bitter regret.

When they advance, they do so with care and avoid ambush. When pushed, they fall back to strongpoints supported by heavy guns. When about to break, they are reinforced. The masters had derided Hargrev as a fool and a parasite, a weakling trying to emulate truths he could not possibly comprehend. No doubt it was so, from the perspective of the masters, but to Viskene, his tactical prowess was an insurmountable obstacle.

So he had come, seeking strength, but found only death.

I shall not give up, Viskene vowed. 'Come,' he told the convert, stopping only to grab the lightsaber dropped by the guard commander. With a simple, almost casual motion, he smashed it to fragments against the floor. ‘We are moving to the next moon.’

As the ship lifted off through the howling rasp of violent sand, the watchman stared at the wreckage Sytrak’s experiment. What it had become left him melancholy. That a stronghold built in the vision of one of the masters should be reduced to petty squabbling, failed by its defenders, and crushed beneath the Sith was intolerable. His mind recalled Oricon, knew the grandeur of the Dread Fortress, more than the sum of lesser strongholds just as the Dread Masters had been more than six mighty sorcerers gathered together. He could not stand to see it remain in enemy hands.

Not some trinket for blasphemers to claim as a trophy, he resolved. I will take it back.

The power of the dark side resonated within him at this thought, and the mask upon his face crackled with energy. There was a rightness there, he recognized. As before, when he had turned and fled certain death in the Dread Fortress, he felt the hand of the masters upon him. The purpose behind his elevation to commander’s rank, he was come closer to it than before.

A revelation, but it did not change his path. To retake the seat of the masters he must defeat the wretched army of Hargrev, and for that he needed arms. The Sith had hunted out Styrak’s remnants first, but there would be no more stolen marches. I will find you, hound, Viskene swore. And I will sacrifice you to the masters.

Chapter Notes

Viskene is flying one of the spar-mounted twin engine Republic shuttles. At least one is shown crashed on Oricon in game, so it seemed a viable sort of ship for him to salvage. His pilot is a Dread Host Convert, a weak enemy type seen on Oricon.

The large-scale radiation flux due to the magnetosphere of a gas giant is a real astronomical phenomenon. In our own Solar System Jupiter produces just such an impact. The effect will lessen the greater the distance from the gas giant.

Oricon: Aftermath

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