Darth Bane: Path of Destruction

Chapter 21

Lord Hoth, Jedi Master and acting general of the Republic forces on Ruusan, sat huddled on a stump outside his tent and stared up at the dark clouds hovering above the camp. He scowled at the brooding sky as if he could banish the coming storm with the fierceness of his expression.

"Is something troubling you, Lord Hoth?"

The voice of Master Pernicar, his longtime friend and right hand during this never-ending campaign, snapped his attention back to where it belonged.

"What isn't troubling me, Pernicar?" he asked with a heavy sigh. "We're low on food and medpacs. Our injured outnumber our hale. The scouts report that reinforcements are on their way to assist Kaan and his Sith." He slapped his hand down on one knee. "All we have coming to our aid are youths and children."

"Children who are strong in the Force," Pernicar reminded him. "If we don't recruit them to our side, the Sith will claim them for theirs."

"Blast it, Pernicar, they're just children! I need Jedi. Fully trained. All we can spare. But there are still members of our own order who refuse to help us."

"Perhaps it's how you ask them," a new voice said from behind him.

Hoth rubbed his temples but didn't turn to face the speaker. Lord Valenthyne Farfalla had been one of the first Jedi Masters to join the Army of Light on Ruusan. He had fought in nearly every confrontation, and the Sith had come to know him well: Farfalla was hard to miss even in the chaos of battle.

He had long, flowing curls of golden hair that hung down past his shoulders. The breastplate of his armor was also gold, buffed and polished until it gleamed before every battle. It was trimmed with bright red sleeves and adorned with rubies that matched the color of his eyes and contrasted with his pale skin.

Lord Hoth found him insufferable. Farfalla was a loyal servant of the light, but he was also a vain and prancing fool who spent more time selecting his wardrobe before each battle than he did planning strategy. Farfalla was the last person he wanted to deal with now.

"If you showed more tact, Lord Hoth," Farfalla continued, gliding into view, "you might have rallied more Jedi to your cause."

"I shouldn't have to persuade them!" Hoth roared, leaping to his feet and waving his arms in exasperation. Farfalla hopped nimbly out of the way. "We're fighting the Sith! The dark side must be destroyed! We could do it if more Jedi were here!"

"There are some who don't see it that way," Pernicar said calmly. He had become used to Hoth's outbursts during their time on Ruusan, and had learned to ignore them, for the most part.

"There are other Republic worlds besides this one that are under attack," Farfalla chimed in. "Many Jedi are aiding the Republic troops in other sectors, helping them against the Sith fleets."

Hoth spat on the ground and was pleased to see Farfalla's look of horrified disgust. "Those fleets might fly the banner of the Sith, but they're made up of ordinary beings. The Republic has the numbers to beat them back. They don't need the help of the Jedi to do it. All the real Sith, the Dark Lords, are here now. If we defeat the Brotherhood of Darkness, the Sith rebellion will collapse. Don't they understand that?"

There was a long silence as the other two exchanged uneasy looks. It was Pernicar who finally found the courage to answer.

"Some of the Jedi believe we shouldn't be here. They feel the only thing keeping the Brotherhood together is their hatred of the Army of Light. They claim if we disband and surrender Ruusan, then the Sith will quickly turn against each other, and the Brotherhood will tear itself apart."

Hoth shook his head in disbelief. "Don't they see what a great opportunity we have here? We can wipe out the followers of the dark side once and for all!"

"Some might argue that is not the purpose of our order," Farfalla suggested gently. "The Jedi are defenders of the Republic. They feel the Army of Light is prolonging the rebellion by strengthening the Sith resolve. They say you are actually causing harm to the Republic you were sworn to defend."

"Is that what you think?" Hoth snarled.

"Lord Farfalla has been with us since the beginning," Pernicar reminded him. "He is only telling you what others are saying, those Jedi who have not come to Ruusan."

"The Sith are getting reinforcements from Korriban," Hoth grumbled. "We barely have enough numbers to hold them off as it is. I'll just have to make them understand!"

"We would probably have more success if someone else approached them," Farfalla said. "There are some who believe this has become a personal vendetta for you. They do not see Ruusan as the ultimate struggle between the light and the dark, but rather as a feud between you and Lord Kaan."

Hoth sat back down wearily. "Then we are doomed. Without reinforcements we will be overwhelmed."

Farfalla crouched down beside him, laying a perfectly manicured, heavily perfumed hand on Hoth's brawny shoulder. It took every ounce of the general's Jedi discipline not to shrug him off.

"Send me, my lord," Farfalla said earnestly. "I have been here since the beginning; I believe in this cause as strongly as you."

"Why should they listen to you any more than me?"

Farfalla gave a high, twittering laugh that set Hoth's teeth on edge. "My lord, for all your skill in battle and all your strength in the Force, you are somewhat lacking in the delicate art of diplomacy. You are a brilliant general, and your taciturn nature serves you well when giving orders to your troops. Unfortunately, it can set those who are not under your command on edge."

"You are too blunt, my lord," Pernicar clarified.

"That's what I just said," Farfalla insisted with just a hint of annoyance. Then he continued, "On the other hand, people find me witty and charming. I can be quite persuasive when necessary. Give me leave to recruit others to our cause, and I will return with a hundred, no, three hundred! Jedi ready to join the Army of Light."

Hoth dropped his head into his hands again. His temples were throbbing: Farfalla always seemed to have that effect on him.

"Go," he muttered without looking up. "If you're so certain you can bring me reinforcements, then bring them."

Farfalla gave an extravagant bow, then turned with a flourish and left, his golden locks streaming out behind him in the rising wind of the coming storm.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Pernicar spoke again. "Is that wise, my lord? Our numbers are already thin. How long do you think we can survive without him?"

The rain began to fall in great, heavy drops, and an idea sprang into Hoth's mind. "The Sith can't defeat us if we don't stand and fight," he said. "We won't give them a chance. The wet season is here; the rains will make it impossible for their trackers to find us. We'll hide in the forest, harrying them with quick attacks and ambushes before we vanish back into the trees."

"That strategy won't work once the dry season comes," Pernicar warned.

"If Farfalla hasn't brought me my reinforcements by then, it won't matter," Hoth replied.

The five Interlopers, small, midrange multitroop transport ships used by the Sith, swept in low over Ruusan's horizon. Each vessel carried a crew of ten, comprised entirely of former students and Masters from Korriban's Academy.

In the lead ship Githany worked the controls with the calm precision of a highly trained pilot. She'd actually learned to fly on a Republic vessel, but the basics were the same.

The Interlopers were lighter and quicker than the Bivouac transports preferred by the Republic. The Interlopers had less armor plating, sacrificing the safety of the occupants inside in exchange for greater range and maneuverability. As if to prove the point, she banked her vessel down and hard to port, bringing it so close to the planet's surface that the leaves on the trees of Ruusan's great forest trembled in the wake of the ion drive.

The other vessels followed her lead, never breaking formation. Linked to Githany through the Force, the other pilots reacted in perfect unison to her every move. If she made a mistake, the entire convoy would go down. But Githany didn't make mistakes.

"It might be safer to climb higher above the tree line," Lord Qordis observed from his seat at Githany's side in the cockpit.

"I don't want the Jedi picking anything up on their scanners," she explained, her attention focused on keeping the ship from smashing into the ocean of wood mere meters below the hull. "The Brotherhood hasn't secured this region. If a squad of seekers locks on to us, these transports aren't equipped with enough firepower to hold them off."

Far in the distance half a dozen small fighters came into view, their trajectory bringing them on a direct line to intercept the Interlopers' path. Qordis swore, and Githany braced herself to begin evasive maneuvers.

A second later she recognized the distinctive outline of the Sith Buzzards and breathed a sigh of relief. "Our escort's here," she said.

They'd be at the Sith base camp in a few minutes, and with the Buzzards there to pick off any incoming Jedi fighters there was no need to fly so dangerously close to the treetops anymore. She could have eased back on the stick to bring the ship up to a safer altitude.

Instead she held her course. She enjoyed the thrill of being one tiny miscue from an instantaneous and fiery end. From his rigid posture in the copilot's chair, it was clear Qordis didn't share her opinion.

Once they cleared the forest she throttled back their speed, then brought the ship down gracefully in the landing field at the edge of Lord Kaan's encampment.

A small collection of Sith Masters, Kaan standing at their head, waited to greet the reinforcements as they disembarked. They might have been only fifty in number, but each one of them was a Sith Lord: more powerful than an entire division of soldiers.

As she made her way down the ship's exit ramp, Githany was quick to understand why their presence had been so urgently requested. Beyond the assemblage of Dark Lords the rest of the camp spread out to the limits of her vision, and all she could see was a picture of grim despair. Ragged, ramshackle tents arranged in tight rings of five housed the bulk of the army: cloth domiciles stained and torn by wind and rain. Scattered among them were repulsorcraft, heavy turrets, and other instruments of war. The equipment was caked with dried mud and spots of rust, as if efforts to keep it properly maintained had been abandoned.

The troops were spread out in small pockets, huddled around cook fires built in the circles of tents. Their uniforms were covered in dust and grime; many wore dirty bandages over wounds they had given up all hope of keeping clean or sterile. Their faces were all scarred by the bitter taste of far too many defeats at the hands of their enemy, and it was the hopelessness of their expressions that made the greatest impression.

Lord Qordis seemed similarly taken aback at the dismal scene, and he grimaced as Lord Kaan approached.

Kaan appeared thin, his face drawn and etched with lines of worry. His hair was bedraggled and unkempt. A day's worth of stubble shadowed his chin, making him look old and weary. He seemed physically smaller than Githany remembered him. Diminished. Less commanding. The spark she had found so compelling when she'd first met him was no longer there. His eyes had once burned with the fire of a man absolutely confident of his imminent success. Now they burned with something else. Desperation. Madness, perhaps. She couldn't help but wonder if Bane had been right.

"Welcome, Lord Qordis: " Kaan said, grasping the newcomer's arm in greeting. He released his grip and turned to address the rest of them. "Welcome, all of you, to Ruusan."

"I didn't expect to see your army in such sorry shape:' Qordis mumbled.

A look that might have been anger flickered across Kaan's features. Then it was gone, replaced by the beaming confidence Githany remembered. He threw his shoulders back and stood a little straighter.

"You can't judge the victor of a war without seeing the condition of both sides:' he said crisply. "The Jedi are in far worse shape. My intelligence reports that their casualties are far greater than ours. Their supplies are running low; their numbers are dwindling. We have medpacs, food, and greater numbers. And they do not have fresh reinforcements."

He lifted his voice so that it carried throughout the camp, his words booming across the tented landscape. "Now that you are here, the Brotherhood of Darkness is at last whole!"

The troops in camp paused and looked up at him. A few rose expectantly to their feet. There was fire in that single bold statement; it rekindled hope from the damp ashes of their fatigue and despair.

"The full power of the Sith Lords is now united here on Ruusan," he continued, projecting his words to even the most distant of his followers. Reaching out to them with the undeniable power of the Force, he fed them, rejuvenated them, and filled their hollow spirits. "We are strong. Stronger than the Jedi. We are the champions of the dark side, and we will crush Lord Hoth and his servants of light!"

A great shout roared up from his troops. Those who were seated leapt to their feet. Those who were standing thrust their fists up in the air. The echo of their cheers shook the camp like a groundquake.

Githany felt it as surely as the rest of the troops. It was more than just the words. It was the way he said them. All her doubts and fears simply vanished, crushed by the weight of that single brief speech. It was as if she had been compelled to obey by a power greater than herself.

They made their way through the camp, reveling in the newfound optimism of the troops as Lord Kaan led them to the great tent where he convened his war sessions. A thickset Twi'lek fell into step beside Lord Qordis just ahead of Githany. Swept up in the moment, it took her several seconds to remember him: Lord Kopecz.

"Where's Bane?" he asked Qordis, his voice so low that only Qordis and Githany likely heard him.

"Bane is gone," Qordis replied.

Kopecz grunted. "What happened? Did you kill him?" He made little attempt to hide his contempt.

"He still lives. But he has turned his back on the Brotherhood of Darkness."

"We need him," Kopecz insisted. "He's too strong for you to just let him go."

"It was his choice, not mine!" Qordis snapped.

They continued in without speaking. Kopecz at last broke the silence, sighing as he asked, "Do you at least know where he went?"

"No," Qordis said. "Nobody knows."

Bane dropped the Valcyn out of hyperspace on the farthest edge of the remote system, then kicked in the ion drives and continued slowly toward the only habitable planet: a small world locked in orbit around a pale yellow star.

The planet's official name was Lehon, the same as the solar system, but it was more commonly referred to as the Unknown World. Nearly three thousand years before, in this insignificant system located beyond the farthest edges of explored space, Darth Revan and Darth Malak had discovered the Rakata: an ancient species of Force-users that had ruled the galaxy long before the birth of the Republic.

They had also discovered the Star Forge, an incredible orbiting space station and factory… and a monument to the power of the dark side. A great battle had been fought here between the Republic, led by the redeemed Jedi Master Revan, and Darth Malak's Sith. Malak had fallen, the Sith were routed, and the Star Forge had been destroyed, though at great cost to the Republic.

Even now the remnants of that titanic battle remained. Ships from both fleets had been engulfed in the cataclysmic explosion that had destroyed the Star Forge. Anything caught up in the shock waves of the detonation, including the massive factory itself, had been warped and shredded by the concussive force, then fused together by the heat of the blast into unrecognizable chunks of molten metal.

Much of the wreckage had coalesced into a wide band that encircled the small planet of Lehon like the rings common to many of the gas giants across the galaxy. The rest of the debris was scattered throughout the system, orbiting the sun like a vast asteroid field that made navigation difficult, if not impossible.

Bane switched the controls to manual and took over. Using the Force, he maneuvered his ship carefully through the treacherous obstacle course. It took nearly an hour to reach his destination, and by the time he finally passed beyond the ring and into the relative safety of the Unknown World's atmosphere, he was sweating from the intense concentration.

There was no other ship traffic to contend with, of course. Nobody hailed him as he dropped from the sky toward the planet's surface, looking for a place to land.

The Rakata had been a dying species on the verge of extinction when Revan and Malak discovered them. Virtually all evidence of their existence beyond their tiny homeworld had been wiped out; they had been purged from galactic memory. Nothing had significantly changed after the Battle of the Star Forge to alter that fact.

Republic officials had been aware of them, of course, but their existence had never been officially recognized beyond the classified reports of the conflict. It was believed that the general population wouldn't have reacted well to the sudden reemergence of an ancient species that had once enslaved most of the known galaxy. The few surviving Rakata had declined to leave their ancestral home, and their numbers had been insufficient to maintain a viable gene pool. Within a few more generations the long, slow extinction of their species was finally complete.

Keeping secret the existence of the Rakata had proven to be a surprisingly simple task. The system had never attracted much attention after the battle. Although there was a vast amount of starship material left over from the destruction of the Star Forge, no attempts were made to salvage any of it. Rather than desecrating the floating graves of its soldiers, the Republic chose to honor the memory of its dead by designating Lehon a protected historical site. That made it technically illegal for any ship to enter the system without official authorization.

Nobody ever bothered to seek such permission. The system had no inherent value or resources, other than the protected starship debris. It was located well beyond any of the established hyperspace lanes and trade routes, so far out that not even smugglers bothered with it. A small notation of its location was added to the official Republic records, and it began to show up as an insignificant speck on the fringes of some of the more detailed star charts. Beyond that, it might as well have not even existed.

Bane understood that it wasn't quite as simple as that. The Unknown World was a place strong in the Force. It may even have been the birthplace of the first servants of the dark side: the Rakata leaders who drove their people to conquer and enslave hundreds of worlds ten thousand years before the rest of the galaxy even discovered hyperdrive technology. That power had been concentrated and focused in the Star Forge, and would have been released with its destruction.

The Jedi understood this, and they feared what evil might breed in such a place. The Republic officials had acted on their instruction, isolating the entire system, effectively quarantining it from the rest of the galaxy. In the ensuing centuries the Jedi had worked to keep its secrets hidden. The story of Revan and Malak lived on, as did rumors and speculation regarding the Rakata, but the true nature of the Unknown World was buried beneath a shroud of secrets and lies of omission.

In the Academy archives Bane had come across bits and pieces that hinted at the truth. At first he hadn't even realized the implications of what he was seeing. A small mention of the world here. An allusion to it there. Understanding had come slowly as he'd unraveled the mysteries of the dark side. As his knowledge grew, he had come closer and closer to assembling the entire puzzle. He'd thought to complete it in the Valley of the Dark Lords but had failed. Now he had come here to claim the final piece.

Below him the world was a patchwork of small tropical islands separated by bright blue ocean. He used the Valcyn's sensors to identify the largest landmass, then swooped in looking for a place to touch down. The island was almost completely covered by thick, lush jungle, and there were no clearings large enough for his ship. Finally, he pulled the throttle back and began a slow descent, landing the Valcyn on the crystal sand beach on the island's edge.

As soon as Bane's feet touched the Unknown World's surface he felt it: a deep thrumming, similar to what he'd first felt on Korriban but much, much stronger. Even the air felt different: heavy with ancient history and secrets long forgotten.

Standing with his back to the ocean, staring into the virtually impenetrable wall of forest that covered the island's interior, he sensed something else, as well: a presence; a life-force of immense size and strength. It was moving toward him. Quickly.

A few seconds later he could hear it crashing through the undergrowth. It must have been drawn by the ship's landing on the beach, an enormous hunter looking for fresh prey.

The rancor burst forth from the trees and began loping across the sand, bellowing its terrible cry. Bane held his ground, watching it come, marveling at the speed with which the massive beast moved. When it had closed the distance between them to less than fifty meters, he calmly held up a hand and reached out with the Force to touch the mind of the charging monster.

At his unspoken command it stumbled to a halt and stood in place, panting. Careful to keep the creature's predatory instincts firmly in check, Bane approached the rancor. It remained still, as docile as a tauntaun being inspected by its rider.

From its size Bane could see it was a full-grown male, though the bright coloration of its hide and the small number of scars suggested that it must have only recently come to adulthood. He laid his palm on one of its massive legs, feeling the trembling muscles beneath the skin as he probed deeper into its animal brain.

He found no awareness, concept, or understanding of the Masters who had once tamed such beasts for use as guardians and mounts. He wasn't surprised: the Rakata had vanished many centuries before this rancor had been born. But Bane was looking for something else.

A collage of images and sensations assailed him. Countless hunts through the forest, most ending in successful slaughter. The rending of sinew and bone. Feasting on the quarry's still-warm flesh. The search for a mate. Battling with another rancor for dominance. And then, finally, he found what he was searching for.

Buried deep in the creature's memories was the image of a great four-sided stone pyramid hidden deep within the jungle's heart. The rancor had seen it only once, back when it was still a youngling in the care of the herd mothers. Yet the structure had left an indelible mark on the brutish mind.

The rancor was an animal, the top of the Unknown World's food chain. It knew no fear, yet it let out a low moan as Bane dredged up the memory of that Temple. The beast shuddered, knowing what was expected of it, but it was powerless to flee; the Force compelled it to obey.

It crouched low to the ground, and Bane leapt up onto its back. It rose carefully to its feet, its rider perched on its great, hunched shoulders. At Bane's command the rancor lumbered off, leaving the beach behind and heading back into the forest, carrying him toward the ancient Rakatan Temple.

Chapter 22

It took nearly an hour before Bane reached his destination. The vegetation around him was teeming with life, but as he was carried along through the jungle he saw nothing larger than insects or small birds. Most creatures scattered before the rancor's advance, vanishing long before Bane ever cane close enough to catch even a glimpse of them. Yet though they scampered away, the rancor's keen sense of smell often picked up their trail, and more than once Bane had to rein in the beast's hunting instincts to keep it on course.

As difficult as it was to keep the beast from racing off in pursuit of its next meal, it became even more difficult to drive it forward as they neared the temple. Every few steps it would try to veer to the side or suddenly shy away from its course. Once it even tried to rear up and dislodge him from its shoulders.

Bane couldn't see more than a few meters ahead through the thick vegetation, but he knew they were close now. He could sense the power of the Temple, calling to him from behind the impenetrable curtain of tangled vines and twisted branches. Clamping down with the dark side, he crushed the last of the mighty rancor's will to resist and urged it forward.

Suddenly they broke through into a clearing, a circle nearly one hundred meters across. In the very center stood the Rakatan Temple. The structure rose nearly twenty meters to the sky, a monument of carved rock and stone. The only entrance was a broad archway at the peak of an enormous staircase carved into an outside wall of the Temple itself. Its surface was pristine: stark and pure, unsullied by clinging moss or climbing ivy. The grounds surrounding it were barren but for a carpet of short, soft grass. It was as if the jungle feared to creep forward and reclaim the tainted stone.

Bane leapt down from his mount, all his attention focused on the structure towering before him. Freed from his power, the rancor turned and fled back into the undergrowth. The terrible crashing cacophony of its escape was overlaid with its tortured howls, but Bane noticed neither sound. He had no more use for the rancor; he had found what he was searching for.

He took a trembling step forward before stopping short. He shook his head to clear it. The dark side was strong here, so strong it made him feel light-headed. That meant this was a place of danger; he couldn't afford to be wandering around in a stupor.

According to the accounts he'd read in the archives, the Temple had once been protected by a powerful energy shield, one that required an entire Rakatan tribe, of which each individual had been a powerful Force-user, to bring it down. He didn't sense any such barrier, but only a fool would proceed without caution.

As he had done in the tombs on Korriban, he began to probe the area around him with the Force. He felt the echoes of the safeguards that had once protected the Temple, but they were so weak as to be almost nonexistent. He wasn't surprised. The shields around the Temple had been fueled by the power of the orbiting Star Forge. With its destruction, the shields had failed, along with all the other defenses that had made the Unknown World a graveyard of ships.

Wondering what else had been lost in the Star Forge's violent end, he crossed the surrounding courtyard and mounted the Temple steps. The staircase was steep but wide, and the stone was neither worn nor cracked despite its age. It ended at a small landing leading to the stone archway of the entrance, three-quarters of the way up. He paused at the threshold, then passed through. He had a brief sensation of what it must have felt like for those who came before him: the anticipation, the thrill of discovery. Once inside, however, it only took a few minutes of exploration for his excitement to fade.

Like Korriban, the Temple had been stripped of anything of value. He searched for hours, beginning with the top floor where he had first come in and proceeding deeper and deeper until he reached the bottom level, combing every centimeter of the empty halls and deserted rooms. Yet even though his search was proving futile, he didn't despair. The crypts in the Valley of the Dark Lords had felt drained, used up and sucked dry. The Unknown World felt different. There was still power here.

There had to be something here for him to find. He was certain of it. He refused to accept another failure.

It was in the lowest level of the Temple, far below the planet's surface, that his obsessive quest finally ended. When he first stumbled into the room his attention was immediately drawn by the remains of a massive computer, but it was clearly beyond any hope of repair. And then he noticed something on the stone wall behind the computer.

The surface was etched with a number of arcane symbols: the language of the Rakata, perhaps. They meant nothing to him, and he would have dismissed them without a second glance. Except that one of them was glowing.

He almost hadn't noticed it at first. It was subtle: a faint violet hue tracing the edges of one of the unusual shapes. It was almost perfectly level with his eye.

As he stared at it, the glow grew stronger. He stepped forward and reached out tentatively with his hand. The light winked out, startling him into taking a step back. He reached out again, but this time, instead of using his hand, he reached out with the Force.

The stone character flared to life.

Struggling to contain his eagerness, he again extended his hand and pressed hard against the glowing symbol. There was the sound of turning gears, and the grinding of stone on stone. The seams of a small square, less than half a meter on each side, took shape in the wall as a section of stone pushed out.

Bane stepped back as the chunk toppled down from the wall and shattered on the ground at his feet, revealing a small cubbyhole behind it. With no hesitation, he thrust his arm into the darkness to seize whatever was inside.

His fingers wrapped around something cold and heavy. He drew it out and stared in wonder at the artifact in his hand. Slightly larger than his fist, it had the shape of a four-sided pyramid, a tiny replica of the Temple in which he stood. Bane instantly recognized his prize for what it was: a Sith Holocron, a repository of forbidden knowledge just waiting to be unlocked.

The art of constructing Holocrons had been lost for countless millennia, but from his studies Bane knew something of the basic theory behind their design. The information they contained was stored within an interwoven, self-encrypted digital matrix. A Holocron's protection systems couldn't be circumvented or broken; the information couldn't be sliced or copied. There was only one way to access the knowledge captured within.

Each Holocron was imprinted with the personality of one or more Masters to serve as guardians. When accessed by one capable of understanding its secrets, the Holocron would project tiny, crude hologrammic images of the various guardians. Through interaction with the student, the programmed simulacra would teach and instruct in much the same way as would a flesh-and-blood mentor.

However, all accounts of Sith Holocrons had made mention of the ancient symbols adorning the four-sided pyramid. The Holocron he held in his hand was almost completely blank. Could this possibly predate even the Holocrons of the ancient Sith? Was this a relic of the Rakata themselves? Would the guardians of the Holocron be the imprinted personalities of alien Masters from a time even before the birth of the Republic? And if so, would they be willing to teach him their secrets? Would they even respond to him?

Moving carefully, he set the Holocron gently on the floor, then sat down before it. He crossed his legs and began the deep, slow breathing of a meditative trance. Gathering and focusing his energy, Bane projected a wave of dark Force power out to engulf the small relic on the floor. The Holocron began to sparkle and shimmer in response.

He held his breath in anticipation, unsure what would come next. A small beam of light projected out from the top, the particles scattered and diffused. They began to shift and spin, coalescing into a cloaked figure, its features completely hidden by the hood of its heavy robe.

Then a voice spoke, crisp and clear. "I am Darth Revan, Dark Lord of the Sith."

The empty halls of the Temple above trembled with the reverberations of Bane's triumphant, booming laughter.

To Bane it seemed the teachings contained within the single Holocron surpassed those of the Academy's entire archives. Revan had discovered many of the rituals of the ancient Sith, and as the Holocron's avatar explained their nature and purpose, Bane could barely wrap his mind around their awesome potential. Some of the rituals were so terrible, so dangerous to attempt, even for a true Sith Master, that he doubted he would ever dare to use them. Yet he dutifully copied them down on sheaves of flimsi, preserving them so he could study them in greater depth later.

And there was far more than just the ancient practices of dark side sorcerers stored inside the Holocron. In only a few short weeks he'd learned more about the true nature of the dark side than he had in all his time on Korriban. Revan had been a true Sith Lord, unlike the simpering Masters who bowed to Kaan and his Brotherhood. And soon all his knowledge, his understanding of the dark side, would belong to Bane.

Githany woke with a start, kicking the covers off her cot and onto the dirt floor of the tent. She was sweating and flushed, but it wasn't from the heat. Ruusan had entered its rainy season, and though the days were warm and humid, at night the temperature dropped enough that the sentries on duty could see the misty clouds of their own breath.

She'd been dreaming of Bane. No, not dreaming. The details were too sharp and clear to call it a dream; the experience too vivid and real. It was a vision. There was a link between the two of them, a bond established through their time together studying the Force. A connection between mentor and student was not unheard of, although Githany was no longer sure who had really been the Master and who the apprentice in their relationship.

Her vision had been one of stark clarity: Bane was going to come to Ruusan. But he wasn't coming to join the Brotherhood. He was coming to destroy it.

She shivered, the perspiration cooling her skin in the chill night air. She rolled out of bed and pulled her heavy cloak on over her thin bedclothes. She had to speak to Kaan about this. It couldn't wait until morning.

The night was dark: the moon and stars were blocked out by the brooding storm clouds that had filled the sky ever since she and the others from Korriban had arrived. A light mist fell from the sky, a slight improvement from the steady drizzle that had been falling when she'd crawled wearily into bed.

A handful of other Sith were wandering the camp. A few mumbled unintelligible greetings as they passed, but most kept their heads down and their feet plodding steadily through the mud. The ardor Kaan had inspired when the reinforcements had arrived had been dulled by the seemingly endless stream of gray, wet days. It would be several more weeks before the rains abated and gave way to the sweltering heat of Ruusan's long summer. Until then Kaan's followers would continue to suffer from the damp and cold.

Githany paid no attention. Focused on her mission, she slowed only when she reached the entrance to the great tent that Kaan had made his personal quarters. There was a light burning inside; Lord Kaan was awake.

She entered tentatively. What she had to say was for his ears only. Fortunately, she found him alone. But she stopped in the entry, staring in morbid fascination at the apparition before her. In the dim glow of the lantern that served as the tent's only source of illumination, Kaan looked like a man gone mad.

He was pacing quickly up and down the length of the tent, his steps uneven and erratic. He was hunched over nearly double, muttering to himself and shaking his head. His left hand constantly strayed up to tug on a strand of his hair, then quickly jerked down as if it had been caught in some forbidden act.

She could hardly believe that this crazed being was the man she had chosen to follow. Was it possible Bane had been right all along? She was on the verge of slipping back out into the sodden night when Kaan turned and finally noticed her.

For a brief moment his eyes showed wild panic: they burned with the fear and desperation of a caged animal. Then suddenly he snapped to his full height, standing straight and tall. The look of terror left his eyes, replaced by one of cold anger.

"Githany," he said, his welcome as cold as his icy expression. "I was not expecting visitors."

Now it was she who felt fear. Lord Kaan radiated power: he could crush her as easily as she crushed the small beetles that sometimes scuttled across the floor of her tent. The memory of the craven, broken man was gone, blasted from her mind by the overwhelming aura of Kaan's authority.

"Forgive me, Lord Kaan," she said with a slight bow of her head. "I need to speak with you."

His anger seemed to soften, though he still maintained his undeniably commanding presence. "Of course, Githany. I always have time for you."

The words were more than cordial formality; there was something deeper beneath them. Githany was an attractive woman; she was used to being the object of innuendo and men's barely hidden desire. Usually it evoked little more than revulsion, but in Kaan's case it brought a warm flush to her cheeks. He was the founder of the Brotherhood of Darkness, a man of vision and destiny. How could she not be flattered by his attentions?

"I've had a premonition," she explained. "I saw. I saw Darth Bane. He was coming to Ruusan to destroy us."

"Qordis has made me well aware of Bane's views," he said, nodding. "This is not unexpected."

"He doesn't see the glory of our cause," Githany said, apologizing for Bane. "He's never met you in person. His only understanding of the Brotherhood comes through Qordis and the other Masters, the ones who turned their backs on him."

Kaan gave her a puzzled stare. "You came to warn me that Bane is planning to destroy us. Now it seems you are trying to justify his actions."

"The Force shows us what may be, not necessarily what will be," she reminded him. "lf we can convince Bane to join us, he could be a valuable ally against the Jedi."

"I see," Kaan said. "You feel that if we bring him into the fold of the Brotherhood, then your premonition will not come true." There was a long pause, and then he asked, "Are you certain your personal feelings for him are not clouding your judgment in this matter?"

Embarrassed, Githany couldn't meet his eyes. "I'm not the only one who feels this way," she mumbled, staring down at the ground. "Many of the others from Korriban are troubled by his absence, as well. They've felt his strength. They wonder why one so strong in the dark side would reject the Brotherhood."

She raised her head when Kaan placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "You might be right, Githany. But I cannot act on your suggestion. Nobody even knows where Bane is."

"I do. There is a. a bond between us. I can tell you where Bane has gone."

Kaan reached out to take her chin in his cupped palm. He tilted her head back ever so slightly. "Then I will send someone to him," he promised. "You did the right thing by coming to me, Githany," he added, gently releasing her and giving her a reassuring smile.

Githany, beaming with pride, smiled back.

She left a few minutes later, after explaining where Bane had gone and why. Kaan watched her go, her words troubling him though he was careful not to let it show. He had allayed her fears and he was confident she would remain loyal to the Brotherhood despite her obvious attraction to Bane. Githany imagined herself the object of every man's desire, but Kaan could see a similar desire burning brightly within her: she hungered for power and glory. And he was all too willing to feed her pride and ambition with his flirting, praise, and promises.

Still, he wasn't sure what to make of her vision. Though he was strong in the Force, his talents lay elsewhere. He could change the course of a war with his battle meditation. He could inspire loyalty in the other Lords through subtle manipulations of their emotions. But he had never experienced a premonition like the one that had brought her to his tent in the middle of the dark night.

His first inclination was to dismiss it as baseless worry brought on by low morale. The reinforcements from Korriban had brought expectations of a quick end to Ruusan's long war. But General Hoth was too clever to let his Army of Light be crushed by the superior Sith might. He had switched tactics, conducting a war of hit-and-run skirmishes, stalling for time as he tried to marshal more support for his own forces.

Now the Sith were growing impatient and restless. The glorious victory Kaan had promised them weeks earlier had not materialized. Instead they trudged through mud and never-ending rain, trying to defeat an enemy that wouldn't even stand and fight. Githany's visit hadn't surprised him. The only real surprise was that more of the Dark Lords hadn't come to voice their dissatisfaction.

But that only made Githany's warnings more dangerous. Bane had rejected the Brotherhood in a very public spectacle; all the recruits from Korriban claimed to have seen it in person. The story had spread through the camp like a plague. At first they had scoffed at his arrogance and stubbornness; he had chosen to walk alone, and he would not share in the triumph of the Brotherhood. In the absence of that triumph, however, some of the recruits had begun to wonder if Bane was right.

Lord Kaan had his spies among the Dark Lords. The whispers had reached his ears. The Lords were not ready to act on their doubts, but their resolve was weakening, along with their allegiance. He had forged a coalition of enemies and bitter rivals. Though the Brotherhood of Darkness appeared strong as durasteel, one firm voice of dissent could fracture it into a thousand fragile pieces.

He grabbed the lantern from his tent and headed out into the night's drizzle, his long stride propelling him quickly through the camp. He would deal with Bane, just as he had promised Githany. If the recalcitrant young man could not be convinced to join them, he would have to be eliminated.

Within a few minutes Kaan had reached his destination. He paused at the door, remembering his anger at Githany's unexpected entrance into his own tent. Not wishing to antagonize the man he had come to see, he called out, "Kas'im?"

"Come in," a voice answered a second later, and he heard the unmistakable shuush of a lightsaber powering down.

He entered to find the Twi'lek Blademaster clad only in breeches, sweating and breathing hard.

"I see you're up," he noted.

"It's not easy to sleep on the eve of battle. Even a battle that never seems to come."

Kas'im was a warrior; Kaan knew he chafed at their inactivity. Drills and exercises could not quench his desire for actual combat. At the Academy on Korriban the Blademaster had performed his duty without complaint. But here on Ruusan the promise of battle was too near, too insistent. The scent of blood was always in the air, mingling with the sweat of fear and anticipation. Here Kas'im could be satisfied only once he stood face-to-face with an enemy. Soon his frustration would boil over into rebellion, and Kaan could ill afford to lose the loyalty of the greatest swordsman of his camp. Fortunately, he had a way to deal with both his problems, Bane and Kas'im, in one fell swoop.

"I have a mission for you. A mission of great importance."

"I live to serve, Lord Kaan." Kas'im's answer was calm, but his head-tails twitched with anticipation.

"I must send you far from Ruusan. To the ends of the galaxy. You have to go to Lehon."

"The Unknown World?" the Blademaster asked, puzzled. "There is nothing there but the graveyard of our order's greatest defeat."

"Bane is there," Kaan explained. "You must go to him as my envoy. Explain that he must join the rest of the Sith here on Ruusan. Tell him that those who do not stand with the Brotherhood stand against it."

Kas'im shook his head. "I doubt it will make a difference. Once his mind is set he can be… stubborn."

"The dark side cannot be united in the Brotherhood if he stands alone," Kaan explained. As he spoke, he reached out with the Force, pushing ever so gently at the Twi'lek's wounded sense of pride. "I know he rejected you and the other Masters on Korriban. But you must make this offer once more."

"And when he refuses?" Kas'im's words were quick and sharp. Inwardly, Kaan smiled at the Blademaster's growing anger even as he pushed just a little more.

"Then you must kill him."

Chapter 23

"Those who use the dark side are also bound to serve it. To understand this is to understand the underlying philosophy of the Sith."

Bane sat motionless, eyes riveted on the avatar of a Dark Lord three thousand years dead and gone. Revan's projected image winked out of existence, then slowly flickered back into view. The Holocron was failing. Dying. The material used to construct it, the crystal that channeled the energy of the Force to give the artifact life, was flawed. The more Bane used it, the less stable it became. Yet he couldn't set it aside, even for a single day. He had become obsessed with tapping all the knowledge trapped within, and he spent hours on end drinking in Revan's words with the same single-minded determination he had used when mining cortosis back on Apatros.

"The dark side offers power for power's sake. You must crave it. Covet it. You must seek power above all else, with no reservation or hesitation."

These words rang especially true for Bane, as if the preprogrammed personality of his virtual Master sensed it was nearing its end and had tailored its last lessons especially for him.

"The Force will change you. It will transform you. Some fear this change. The teachings of the Jedi are focused on fighting and controlling this transformation. That is why those who serve the light are limited in what they can accomplish.

"True power can come only to those who embrace the transformation. There can be no compromise. Mercy, compassion, loyalty: all these things will prevent you from claiming what is rightfully yours. Those who follow the dark side must cast aside these conceits. Those who do not, those who try to walk the path of moderation, will fail, dragged down by their own weakness."

The words almost perfectly described Bane as he had been during his time at the Academy. Despite this, he felt no shame or regret. That Bane no longer existed. Just as he had cast aside the miner from Apatros when he had taken his Sith name, so had he cast aside the stumbling, uncertain apprentice when he had claimed the Darth title for himself. When he'd rejected Qordis and the Brotherhood, he had begun the transformation Revan spoke of, and with the Holocron's help he was at last on the verge of completing it.

"Those who accept the power of the dark side must also accept the challenge of holding on to it," Revan continued. "By its very nature, the dark side invites rivalry and strife. This is the greatest strength of the Sith: it culls the weak from our order. Yet this rivalry can also be our greatest weakness. The strong must be careful lest they be overwhelmed by the ambitions of those beneath them working in concert. Any Master who instructs more than one apprentice in the ways of the dark side is a fool. In time the apprentices will unite their strength and overthrow the Master. It is inevitable. Axiomatic. That is why each Master must have only one student."

Bane didn't respond, but his lip instinctively curled up in disgust as he remembered his instruction at the Academy. Qordis and the others had passed the apprentices around from class to class, as if they were children in school instead of heirs to the legacy of the Sith. Was it any wonder he had struggled to reach his full potential in such a flawed system?

"This is also the reason there can be only one Dark Lord. The Sith must be ruled by a single leader: the very embodiment of the strength and power of the dark side. If the leader grows weak, another must rise to seize the mantle. The strong rule; the weak are meant to serve. This is the way it must be."

The image flickered and jumped, and then the tiny replica of Darth Revan bowed its head, drawing its hood up to hide its features once more. "My time here is ended. Take what I have taught you and use it well."

And then Revan was gone. The glow emanating from the Holocron faded away to nothing. Bane retrieved the small crystal pyramid from the floor, but it was cold and lifeless in his hands. He felt no trace of the Force inside it.

The artifact was of no more use to him. As Revan had taught him, it must therefore be discarded. He let it drop to the floor. Then, very slowly and deliberately, he crushed it with the power of the Force until only dust remained.

The Sith Buzzard broke into Lehon's atmosphere and plummeted down through the clear blue sky. At the controls Kas'im made slight alterations to keep his vessel on its course, a direct line for the homing beacon of the Valcyn.

He'd half expected Bane to have disabled the beacon, or at least changed its frequency. But despite being aware of it, the beacon was standard on virtually all craft, he had left it alone. Almost as if he wasn't afraid of anyone coming after him. As if he welcomed it.

Within a few minutes Kas'im got a visual on his target. The ship that had once, briefly, belonged to Qordis before Bane had taken it for his own was resting on a beach of white sand, the azure waters of the Unknown World's vast oceans on one side and the impenetrable jungle on the other. Scans showed no signs of life in the immediate vicinity, but Kas'im was wary as he brought his own craft in to touch down beside it.

He powered down the Buzzard and climbed out of the hatch. He felt the energy of the world, and the unmistakable presence of Darth Bane, seemingly emanating from the jungle's dark heart. Leaping to the ground, he landed with a dull thud on the soft-packed sand, his feet sinking in ever so slightly. A cursory examination of the Valcyn confirmed what he'd already suspected: his prey wasn't here.

Any tracks Bane might have left in the sand had been washed away by the tides or carried away on the breeze. Yet he knew where he was going. Before him, the jungle loomed lush and vibrant, thick and forbidding: an almost impenetrable wall of vegetation, except for a wide swath carved through it.

Someone or something of massive size and strength had torn that path through the trees and undergrowth. Already the jungle was trying to reclaim it. Moss grew thick across the ground, and a vast network of creeping vines wound their way over the surface. But it was clear enough for the Twi'lek to follow.

Hidden eyes were watching him from the jungle: even without the Force he would have felt their gaze studying him, evaluating him, following his every move in an effort to determine if this newcomer to the ecosystem was hunter or prey. To help clarify his role, he drew out his great double lightsaber and ignited the twin blades, then began to jog slowly down the path.

As he ran, he probed the surrounding foliage with the Force. Most of the creatures he sensed posed little threat. Still, he was wary. Something had blazed the trail he was following. Something big.

Almost ten kilometers in, he'd been jogging for nearly an hour, the Blademaster finally encountered his first rancor. The trail took a sharp turn to the east, and as he wound around the corner the creature burst from the surrounding trees, snarling and howling.

Kas'im wasn't surprised in the least by the ambush. He'd sensed the rancor's presence from several hundred meters away, just as it had surely caught his scent and stalked him from some great distance. He met the creature's charge with calm, ruthless efficiency.

Ducking under the first swiping claw, he carved a deep gash along the beast's left foreleg. When it reared back to bellow in pain, he sliced another deep groove in its soft underbelly. The rancor didn't fall right away; it was far too massive to be felled by a pair of wounds from a lightsaber. Instead the pain drove it into a berserk rage. It flailed about with its teeth and talons, spinning, snapping, and slashing at everything around it.

Kas'im twisted and dodged, leaping over one attack, then dropping to the ground to roll beneath another. He moved so fast he would have been nothing but a blur had the rancor not been blinded by rage. And with each evasion he struck another blow, whittling away at the mountain of sinew and flesh like a master sculptor working a lump of lommite.

The rancor floundered, lumbering and stumbling as if it were performing some drunken spacer's dance. In contrast, Kas'im was quick and precise. With each passing second his opponent slowed, its strength ebbing away. At last, with a forlorn groan, the beast toppled forward and lay motionless.

Leaving the beast where it had collapsed, Kas'im pressed on with a newfound urgency to his pace. The battle, short and simple as it had proved, was the first time he'd been tested in a true life-or-death struggle since he'd agreed to help Qordis train the students at the Academy. He was pleased to see that his skills had not been diminished by the long layoff.

Kas'im had a feeling he was going to need those skills again before the day was through.

Bane was sitting cross-legged on the stone floor of the central chamber on the Rakatan Temple's uppermost floor. He was meditating on Revan's words as he had often done between the Holocron's lessons. Now that the artifact was gone, it was even more important to contemplate what he had learned about the nature of the dark side. and the path it would lead him down.

By its very nature, the dark side invites rivalry and strife. This is the greatest strength of the Sith: it culls the weak from our order.

The constant battling of the Sith since the beginning of recorded history served a necessary purpose: it kept the power of the dark side concentrated in a few powerful individuals. The Brotherhood had changed all that. There were now a hundred or more Dark Lords following Kaan, but most were weak and inferior. The Sith numbers were greater than they had ever been, yet they were still losing the war against the Jedi.

The power of the dark side cannot be dispersed among the masses. It must be concentrated in the few who are worthy of the honor.

The strength of numbers was a trap. one that had snared all the great Sith Lords who had come before. Naga Sadow, Exar Kun, Darth Revan: each had been powerful. Each had drawn disciples in, teaching them the ways of the dark side. Each had assembled an army of followers and unleashed them against the Jedi. Yet in each and every case the servants of light had prevailed.

The Jedi would always remain united in their cause. The Sith would always be brought low by infighting and betrayals. The very traits that drove them to individual greatness and glory, the unrelenting ambition, the insatiable hunger for power, would ultimately doom them as a whole. This was the inescapable paradox of the Sith.

Kaan had tried to solve the problem by making everyone equal in the Brotherhood. But his solution was flawed. It showed no understanding of the real problem. No understanding of the true nature of the dark side. The Sith must be ruled by a single leader: the very embodiment of the strength and power of the dark side.

If all are equal, then none is strong. Yet whoever rose from the swollen and bloated ranks of the Sith to claim the mantle of Dark Lord would never be able to hold it. In time the apprentices will unite their strength and overthrow the Master. It is inevitable. Together the weak would overwhelm the strong in a gross perversion of the natural order.

But there was another solution. A way to break the endless cycle dragging the Sith down. Bane understood that now. At first he had thought the answer might be to replace the order of the Sith with a single, all-powerful Dark Lord. No other Masters. No apprentices. Just one vessel to contain all the knowledge and power of the dark side. But he had quickly dismissed the idea.

Eventually even a Dark Lord would wither and die; all the knowledge of the Sith would be lost. If the leader grows weak, another must rise to seize the mantle. One alone would never work. But if the Sith numbered exactly two.

Minions and servants could be drawn in to the service of the dark side by the temptation of power. They could be given small tastes of what it offered, as an owner might share morsels from the table with his faithful curs. In the end, however, there could be only one true Sith Master. And to serve this Master, there could be only one true apprentice.

Two there should be; no more, no less. One to embody the power, the other to crave it. The Rule of Two.

This was the knowledge that would lead the dark side into a new age. A revelation that would bring an end to the infighting that had defined the order for a thousand generations. The Sith would be reborn, the new ways would be swept away, and Bane would be the one to do it.

But first he would have to destroy the Brotherhood. Kaan, Qordis, all who had studied with him on Korriban, all the Masters on Ruusan, had to be purged until he alone remained.

Darth Bane, Lord of the Sith. The title was his by right; there was no other strong enough in the dark side to challenge him. The only question that remained was who was worthy of being his apprentice. And how he would eliminate the others.

"Bane!" Kas'im's voice cut off his thoughts midstream. "I come with an invitation from Lord Kaan."

Bane leapt to his feet, whipping out his lightsaber, enraged at being disturbed on the cusp of enlightenment. He glared at Kas'im, as angry at himself for being too engrossed in his own thoughts to sense the Twi'lek's presence as he was at the interruption.

"How did you find me?" he asked, casting out with his mind to see who else might have invaded the Rakatan Temple and its inner sanctum. He felt a mixture of relief and disappointment when he realized Kas'im was alone. He had been hoping for one more… but she must have chosen not to come.

"Lord Kaan told me you had come to this world. Once I entered the atmosphere, I simply followed the Valcyn's beacon," the Blademaster replied. "How Lord Kaan knew you would be here I couldn't say."

Bane suspected Githany must have told him, but he didn't bother telling that to the Twi'lek. Instead he asked, "Did Kaan send you to kill me?"

Kas'im gave a slight nod. "If you will not join the Brotherhood, I will leave your corpse on this barren and forgotten world."

"Barren?" Bane echoed, incredulous. "How can you say that? The dark side is strong here. Far stronger than it ever was on Korriban. This is where we will find the power to destroy the Jedi, not in Kaan's Brotherhood!"

"Korriban was once a place of great power, too," his former instructor countered. "Over the centuries thousands of Sith have explored its secrets, and none of them discovered any great strategy to defeat our enemy." The Twi'lek ignited his double-bladed lightsaber before continuing. "It is time to end this foolish quest, Bane. The old ways have failed. The Jedi defeated those who followed them: Exar Kun, Darth Revan. they all lost! We have to find a new philosophy if we want to defeat them."

For a brief moment Bane felt the faint flicker of excitement. Kas'im's words echoed his own thoughts. Was it possible the Blademaster was the apprentice he sought?

Kas'im's next words brought Bane's hopes crashing down. "Kaan understands this. That is why he created the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood is the future of the dark side."

Bane shook his head. The Blademaster was as blind as all the others. For that he had to die. "Kaan is wrong. I will never follow him. I will never join the Brotherhood."

Kas'im sighed. "Then your life ends here." And be leapt in, his weapon moving with far more speed than he had ever shown during their practice sessions.

Parrying the first sequence Bane realized his former Master had always been holding something in reserve. just as Bane himself had done in the early stages of his battle against Sirak. Only now was he seeing Kas'im's true ability, and he was barely able to defend himself. Barely, but still able.

His opponent grunted in surprise when Bane warded him off, then stepped back to regroup. He'd come in hard and fast, expecting to end their battle quickly. Now he had to reevaluate his strategy.

"You're better than you were when we last fought," he said, clearly impressed and making no attempt to hide it.

"So are you," Bane responded.

Kas'im lunged in again, and the room was filled with the hiss and hum of lightsabers striking each other half a dozen times in the space of two heartbeats. Bane would have been carved to ribbons had he tried to react to each move individually. Instead he simply called upon the Force, letting it flow through him and guide his hand. He gave himself over to the dark side completely, without reservation. His weapon became an extension of the Force, and he responded to the Twilek's unstoppable attack with an impenetrable defense.

Then he went on the attack. In the past he had always been afraid to surrender his will to the raw emotions that fueled the dark side. Now he had no such limitations; for the first time he was calling on his full potential.

He drove Kas'im back with furious slashes, forcing his old mentor into a backpedaling retreat across the floor of the chamber. Kas'im flipped back and out through the door into the hall beyond, but Bane was relentless in his pursuit, leaping forward and coming within a centimeter of landing a crippling blow to the Twilek's leg.

His strike was turned aside at the last second, but he quickly followed it up with another series of powerful thrusts and stabs. The Blademaster continued to give ground, pushed inexorably back by the raging storm of Bane's onslaught. Each time he tried to change tactics or switch forms, Bane anticipated, reacted, and seized the advantage.

The outcome was inevitable. Bane was simply too strong in the Force. Only some unexpected maneuver could save Kas'im, but they had fought too many times in the past for him to surprise Bane now. Over the course of his training Bane had seen every possible sequence, series, move, and trick with the double-bladed lightsaber, and he knew how to counter and nullify them all.

The Blademaster became desperate. Leaping, spinning, ducking, rolling: he was wild and reckless in his retreat, seeking now only to escape with his life. But he didn't know the Temple like Bane did. Bane kept the routes to the outside cut off, slowly herding his opponent into a dead-end hallway.

Recognizing what was happening, Kas'im blew open the heavy door of a side room with the Force and dived inside. Bane knew there was no other exit, and he paused at the threshold of the room to savor his victory.

The Twi'lek stood in the center of the empty chamber, panting heavily, stooped ever so slightly, his head bowed. He looked up when Bane stepped through the doorway. But when his gaze met Bane's, there was no hint of defeat in his eyes.

"You should have finished me when you had the chance," he said. There was less than five meters between them, but it was just enough space for Kas'im to give the hilt of his lightsaber a quick twist. The long handle separated in the middle, and suddenly he was armed not with one double-bladed lightsaber, but with a pair of single blades, one in each hand.

Bane hesitated. Few of the students at the Academy had even attempted to use two sabers at once. The Blademaster had always discouraged them from this variation of the fourth form, saying it was inherently flawed. Now, as he saw the cruel and cunning expression on his enemy's face, Bane understood the real truth.

The battle was rejoined, but now it was Bane who was in full retreat. Without proper training, even his enormous command of the Force was unable to anticipate the unfamiliar sequences of the two-handed fighting style. His mind was flooded with a million options of what his opponent might attempt, and he had no experience to draw on to eliminate any of them. Overwhelmed, he staggered back, floundering with the desperation of a drowning man.

Within the first few passes Bane knew he couldn't win. Kas'im had trained his entire life for this moment. After years of study, he'd mastered all seven forms of the lightsaber. Then he'd honed his skill for decades, perfecting every move and sequence until he had become the perfect weapon and the greatest living swordsman in the galaxy. Maybe the greatest swordsman ever. Bane was no match for him.

The Blademaster was unrelenting in his pressure. He seemed to wield six blades rather than two: he attacked with a peculiar rhythm designed to keep his foe off balance, coming in with one blade high and the other low at the same time, striking from opposite sides at odd and opposing angles. Bane had no option but to fall back… and back… and back. He was fighting now with a single purpose: somehow escaping with his life. One hope gave him the strength to persevere in the face of overwhelming odds; one advantage the Blademaster had lacked during his own retreat. He knew the layout of the Temple, and he was able to work himself slowly toward the exit.

Battling through the halls and corridors, the combatants rounded a corner to bring them in sight of the Rakatan Temple's only entrance: the wide archway and the small landing beyond, with the wide staircase leading back down to the ground nearly twenty meters below. In the instant it took Kas'im to recognize where they were and realize that his opponent might still escape, Bane thrust out with the Force. He knocked the Twi'lek off balance for a brief second, then backflipped out through the archway and onto the landing. He dropped into a crouch, still facing his opponent. But in his haste Bane had leapt too far; he was balanced precariously on the precipice of the uppermost stair, the steps falling sharply away behind him.

Kas'im responded by using the Force to knock Bane backward, sending him tumbling down the great stone staircase, away from the Blademaster. The fall would have broken his neck, or at least fractured an arm or a leg, if Bane hadn't cocooned himself in the Force. Even so he reached the bottom bruised, battered, and momentarily stunned.

On the landing high above Kas'im stood beneath the massive arch of the Temple entrance, staring down at him.

"I will follow you wherever you run," he said. "Wherever you go I will eventually find you and kill you. Don't live your life in fear, Bane. Better to end it now."

"I agree," Bane replied, hurling out the wave of Force energy he had been gathering during the Blademaster's speech.

There was nothing subtle about Bane's attack: the massive shock wave shook the very foundations of the great Rakatan Temple. The concussive blast had enough power to shatter every bone in Kas'im's body and pulverize his flesh into a mass of pulpy liquid. But at the last possible instant he threw up a shield to protect himself from the attack.

Unfortunately, he couldn't shield the Temple around him. The walls exploded into great chunks of rubble. The archway collapsed in a shower of stone, burying Kas'im beneath tons of rock and mortar. A second later the rest of the roof caved in, drowning out the Twi'lek's dying screams with a deafening rumble.

Bane watched the spectacle of the Temple's implosion from the safety of the ground at the foot of the stairs. Billowing clouds of dust rolled out from the wreckage and down the stairs toward him. Exhausted by the long lightsaber battle and drained by the sudden unleashing of the Force, he simply lay there until he was covered in a layer of fine white powder.

Eventually he struggled wearily to his feet. Reaching out with the Force, he sought some sign that Kas'im might still be alive beneath the mountain of stone. He felt nothing. Kas'im, his mentor, the only instructor at the Academy who had ever actually helped him, was dead.

Darth Bane, Dark Lord of the Sith, turned his back and walked away.

Chapter 24

There was neither time nor reason to mourn Kas'im's death. For all his use in the past, he had become simply an obstacle in Bane's path. An obstacle that was now gone. Yet his arrival on Lehon had prompted Bane to action. For too long he had separated himself from the events of the galaxy, seeking wisdom, understanding, and power. With the Temple's destruction there was no reason for him to remain on the Unknown World. And so he began the long trek through the jungle on foot, following the same path Kas'im had taken only hours before.

He could have used the Force to summon another rancor to speed him along, but he wanted time to think about what had happened… and how he would deal with the Brotherhood.

Kaan had perverted the entire Sith order, transforming it into a sickly assemblage of mewling sycophants. He had tricked them all into believing they could achieve victory over the Jedi through martial might, but Bane knew better. The Jedi were many, and they gained strength when united against a common foe: that was the nature of the light side. The key to defeating them wasn't fleets or armies. Secrecy and deception were the weapons to bring them down. Victory could only come through subtlety and cunning.

Subtlety was something Kaan lacked. If he had been smart, he would have sent Kas'im to Lehon in the guise of a disgruntled follower. The Blademaster could have arrived with a tale of how he had turned his back on the Brotherhood. Bane would have accepted him as an ally. He would have been suspicious, of course, but over time his vigilance would have waned. Sooner or later he would have let his guard down, and Kas'im could have killed him. Assassination was quick, clean, and effective.

Instead, Kas'im had come and issued an open challenge, following the rules of some foolish code of honor. There was no honor in his end; there was no such thing as a noble death. Honor was a lie, a chain that wrapped itself around those foolish enough to accept it and dragged them down to defeat. Through victory my chains are broken.

Bane followed the rancor's trail through the trees without incident; the denizens of the jungle steered well clear of him. He caught a brief glimpse of a pack of six-legged felines scavenging the corpse of a rancor along the path, but they scattered at his approach. They waited a long time after he was gone before slinking back to continue their meal.

By the time he arrived at the beach he had devised his plan. Kas'im's ship was sitting on the sand beside his own, and he quickly stripped it of supplies, including the message drones. He lugged them over to his own vessel, then made a quick inspection of the Valcyn. Finding all systems in working order, he boarded. Before liftoff, he programmed a course into the message drone using coordinates he had downloaded from Kas'im's ship. A few minutes later, the Valcyn launched from the Unknown World's surface, climbing higher and higher until it broke through the atmosphere into the black void of space. Bane punched in the hyperspace coordinates of his destination, then discharged the message drone.

The drone would reach Ruusan within a few days, offering Kaan a truce and delivering a gift, a gift he suspected Kaan would be too foolish and vain to recognize for what it really was.

The Brotherhood would never defeat the Jedi. And as long as they existed, the Sith would be tainted, befouled like a well poisoned at the source. Bane had to destroy them. All of them. To do that, he'd have to use the weapons Kaan had been too proud or too blind to use against him: deception and betrayal. The weapons of the dark side.

"I don't like splitting our squads like this," Pernicar whispered, following closely at Lord Hoth's heel. The general looked back along the ragtag line of soldiers trudging through the forest. Less than a score in total, half starved, most wounded and ill equipped, they looked more like refugees than warriors in the Army of Light. They were carrying supplies from the drop point back to the camp, as were two other caravans taking different routes.

"It's too dangerous to travel in one large group," Hoth insisted. "We need these supplies. Splitting us into three caravans gives us a better chance that at least some of them will make it back to camp."

Hoth glanced back along the path they had come, wary of signs of pursuit. The rains had stopped nearly a week earlier, but the ground was still soft. The passing of his troops left deep impressions in the loamy ground.

"Even a blind Gamorrean could track us now," he grumbled. Silently he wished for a return of the concealing rains he had so often cursed these past few months while sitting huddled and shivering beneath inadequate shelters fashioned from leaves and fallen branches.

Yet he knew it wasn't trackers they had to worry about. He cast out with the Force, trying to sense hidden enemies lying in wait in the trees ahead. Nothing. Of course if there were any Sith, they would he projecting false images to conceal themselves for their-

"Ambush!" one of the points screamed, and then the Sith were upon them. They came from everywhere: warriors wielding lightsabers, soldiers armed with blasters and vibroblades. The clash of durasteel and the hiss of crossing energy blades mingled with the screams of the living and the dying: screams of rage and triumph; of agony and despair.

A volley of blasterfire ripped through his lines, taking down those Padawans too inexperienced to deflect the shots. A second volley tore through the melee. The bolts ricocheted wildly as Sith and Jedi alike batted them aside, doing little real harm but adding to the chaos. Lord Hoth stood in the thickest of the fighting, hewing down foes foolish enough to come in range of his fierce weapon. His nostrils were filled with the greasy-sweet stench of charred flesh, and a wall of bodies was mounting around him. And still they kept coming, swarming over him like carrion beetles on a fresh kill, seeking to drag him down by sheer numbers.

Pernicar vanished beneath the sea of enemies, and Hoth redoubled his efforts to reach his fallen friend. He was unstoppable in his fury, like the devastating storms of the Maw itself. When he reached him, Pernicar was already dead. Just as the rest of them soon would be.

An explosion on the edge of the battle briefly drew his attention skyward. One eager minion of the Sith lunged forward, seeking glory beyond her wildest expectations by trying to kill the mighty general while he was distracted. Hoth never even turned his gaze, but merely cast out with the Force, imprisoning her in a stasis field. She stood helpless, frozen in place until struck down by the careless follow-through from a vibroblade wielded by one of her own side.

Her death barely even registered in Hoth's conscious thoughts. He was focused on the four swoopbikes barreling down on the battle, their heavy guns pounding into the enemy lines. The Sith ambush scattered, unable or unwilling to stand against heavy air support. It took all of Hoth's Jedi training not to chase after them and hack them down from behind as they fled into the safety of the trees.

A moment later the swoops landed to cheers from the dozen or so Jedi still standing. Lord Valenthyne Farfalla, looking as fastidiously proper as ever, dismounted and bowed low before his general.

"I heard you were bringing supplies, my lord," he said, rising with all the affected elegance of a Coruscant Senator. "We thought we'd come give you an escort."

"There are two other caravans," Hoth snapped. "Instead of standing here gloating, you should be heading out to help them."

Farfalla pursed his lips in displeasure, a peevish, pouty expression. "We have other swoops escorting them already." He hesitated, as if considering whether to say anything more. Hoth shot him an angry look that all but screamed at him to remain silent.

Despite this, or maybe because of it, he added, "I thought you'd be more welcoming to my reinforcements."

"You've been gone for months!" Hoth snarled. "While you've been out playing diplomat, we've been stuck here in a war."

"I did as I promised," Farfalla responded coldly. "I've brought three hundred Jedi reinforcements. They'll be in your camp as soon as we have enough fighters to break our transports through the Sith planetary blockade."

"Little comfort to those who gave their lives waiting for you to arrive," Hoth shot back.

Farfalla glanced at the corpses scattered on the ground. Seeing Pernicar among them, his expression fell. He crouched down beside the body and whispered a few short words, then touched the fallen soldier once in the center of his brow before standing up once more.

"Pernicar was my friend, too," he said, his tone softer now. "His death pains me as much as it does you, General."

"I doubt that," Hoth muttered angrily. "You weren't even here to see it."

"Do not let your grief consume you," Farfalla warned, the ice back in his voice. "That path leads to the dark side."

"Don't you dare speak to me of the dark side!" Hoth shouted, jabbing an angry finger in Farfalla's face. "I'm the one who's been here battling Kaan's Brotherhood! I know its ways better than anyone! I've seen the pain and suffering it brings. And I know what it will take to defeat it. I need soldiers. Supplies. I need Jedi willing to fight the enemy with the same hatred they feel for us." He let his finger drop and turned away. "What I don't need is some prancing dandy lecturing me on the dangers of the dark side."

"Pernicar's death is not your fault," Farfalla said, coming forward to place a comforting hand on Hoth's shoulder. "Let go of your guilt. There is no emotion. There is peace."

Hoth wheeled around and slapped his hand away. "Get away from me! Take your blasted reinforcements and run back to Coruscant like the mincing cowards you are! We don't need your kind here!"

Now it was Farfalla who turned away, stomping angrily back to his swoopbike while the rest of the group watched in silent shock and horror. He threw one long leg over the seat and fired up the engines.

"Maybe the other Jedi were right about you!" he said, shouting to be heard over the roar of his swoop. "This war has consumed you. Driven you to madness. Madness that will lead you to the dark side!"

Hoth didn't bother to watch as Farfalla and the other swoops sped off into the distance. Instead he crouched down beside the body of his oldest friend and wept at his brutal, senseless end.

When Githany finally arrived, Kaan had to keep himself from snapping at her. She had already seen him with his guard down: uncertain, unsure. He had to be careful when dealing with her now, lest he lose her allegiance. And he needed her more than ever.

Instead he spoke in a casual tone that held only a hint of icy disapproval beneath its surface. "I sent for you nearly three hours ago."

She flashed him a fierce, savage smile. "There was a sortie going out against one of the Jedi supply caravans. I decided to go with them."

"I haven't heard the reports yet. What was the result?"

"It was glorious, Lord Kaan!" She laughed. "Three more Masters, six Jedi Knights, a handful of Padawans… all dead!"

Kaan nodded his approval. The tide of battle was ever changing on Ruusan, and with the end of the rainy season the pendulum had swung back in favor of the Sith. Of course he knew it was more than a change of weather that had restored the morale of his troops and brought them a string of resounding victories.

The Army of Light was fractured. Their numbers on Ruusan were dwindling. Valenthyne Farfalla was orbiting the world with reinforcements, but Kaan's spies reported a rift between Hoth and Lord Farfalla that kept the newcomers from joining the fray. Without Master Pernicar to blunt their sharp animosity, the two Jedi Masters' mutual antipathy was crippling the Jedi war effort.

The irony of the situation was not lost on Kaan. For a change it was the Jedi who were split by infighting and rivalries, while the Brotherhood of Darkness remained united and strong. Part of him found the strange reversal troubling. In the long nights when he couldn't sleep, he'd often walk the floor of his tent wrestling with the seeming paradox.

Had the armies on Ruusan crossed a line where light and darkness meet? Had the endless conflict between the Army of Light and the Brotherhood of Darkness drawn them both into a void where the ideologies became hopelessly intertwined? Were they all now Force-users of the Twilight, caught between the two sides and belonging to neither?

However, the arrival of the morning sun would inevitably banish such thoughts with news of yet another Sith victory in the field. And only a fool questioned his methods when he was winning. Which was why he wasn't sure what to make of the message he had recently received from Darth Bane.

"Kas'im is dead," he told Githany, getting directly to the matter at hand.

"Dead?" Her shocked reaction affirmed Kaan's decision not to share this news with the rest of the Brotherhood. He had been careful to keep the purpose of the Blademaster's departure secret until he knew the outcome of the confrontation. "Was it the Jedi?" she asked.

"No," He admitted, choosing his words carefully. "I sent him to parlay with Lord Bane. Kas'im thought he could convince him to join us. Instead, Bane killed him."

Githany's eyes narrowed. "I warned you about him."

Kaan nodded. "You know him better than any of us. You understand him. That is why I need you now. Bane sent me a message."

He reached over and flicked on the message drone sitting on the table. A tiny hologram of the heavily muscled Dark Lord materialized before them. Even though the details of his expression were difficult to make out at that size, it was clear he was troubled.

"Kas'im is dead. I. I killed him. But I've been thinking about what he said before… before he died."

Githany gave Kaan a curious look. He shrugged and tilted his head toward the hologram as it continued to speak.

"I came here searching for something. I'm… I'm not even sure what it was. But I didn't find it. Just like I didn't find it in the Valley of the Dark Lords on Korriban. And now Kas'im is dead and I. I don't know what to do…"

The projection bowed its head: lost, confused, and alone. Kaan could clearly see the scorn in Githany's expression as she watched the spectacle before her. At last the figure seemed to compose itself, and it looked up once more.

"I don't want Kas'im's death to be in vain," Bane said emphatically. "I should have listened to him in the first place. I. I want to join the Brotherhood."

Kaan reached out and flicked the drone off again. "Well?" he asked Githany. "Is he serious? Or is this just a trap?"

She chewed at her lower lip. "I think he's sincere," she finally said. "For all his power, Bane is still weak. He can't surrender himself fully to the dark side. He still feels guilt when he uses the Force to kill."

"Qordis mentioned something similar," Kaan said. "He told me Bane had a chance to kill a bitter rival in the dueling ring at the Academy, but he pulled back at the last moment."

Githany nodded. "Sirak. He just couldn't bring himself to do it. And Kas'im was his mentor. If Bane was forced to kill him, it would have been even harder for him to deal with it."

"So I should send an emissary to meet with him?"

She shook her head. "Bane is more trouble than he's worth. He's vulnerable now, but as his confidence returns he'll become as headstrong as ever. He'll bring dissension to the ranks. Besides," she added, "we don't need him anymore. We're winning."

"So how do you propose we deal with him? Assassins?"

She laughed. "If he could handle Kas'im, then I doubt anyone else will stand a chance against him. Anyone but me."

"You?"

Githany smiled. "Bane likes me. I wouldn't say he trusts me, exactly… but he wants to trust me. Let me go to him."

"And what will you do when you find him?"

"Tell him I miss him. Explain that we've considered his offer, and we want him to join the Brotherhood. Then, when his guard is down, I'll kill him."

Kaan raised his eyebrows. "You make it sound so simple."

"Unlike Kas'im, I know how to handle him," she assured him. "Betrayal is a far more effective weapon than the lightsaber."

She left the tent a few moments later, taking the message drone and the coordinates Bane had sent along for the meeting. Kaan had every confidence she'd get the job done. And he saw no reason to share with her the small package that had arrived in the message drone's storage compartment.

Bane had sent it to Lord Kaan as a peace offering; a way to atone for Kas'im's death. It wasn't much to look at: text written on several sheets of flimsi, the writing cramped and hurried as if it had been recorded while listening to someone else speak. Yet within its pages it contained a detailed description of one of the most fearsome creations of the ancient Sith: the thought bomb.

An ancient ritual that required the combined will of many powerful Sith Lords, the thought bomb unleashed the pure destructive energy of the dark side. There were risks involved, of course. That much power was highly volatile, making it difficult to control even for those who had the strength to summon it. It was possible the blast could annihilate the entire Brotherhood along with Hoth's Army of Light. The vacuum at the center of the blast could suck in the disembodied spirits of Sith and Jedi alike, trapping them side by side for all eternity in an unbreakable state of equilibrium at the heart of a frozen sphere of pure energy.

Kaan doubted he'd actually have need of such a weapon to finish off the Jedi here on Ruusan. After all, he was winning the war. Still, as he began his pacing for another long and sleepless night, he couldn't help studying the ritual of the thought bomb over and over again.

Chapter 25

From a distance, Ambria looked beautiful. An orange world with striking violet rings, it was easily the largest habitable planet in the Stenness system. Yet anyone landing on the world would quickly realize that the beauty faded soon after entering the atmosphere.

Many centuries earlier, the failed rituals of a powerful Sith sorceress had inadvertently unleashed a cataclysmic wave of dark side energy across the surface of the world. The sorceress had been destroyed, along with almost all other life on Ambria. What survived was little more than barren rock, and even now plots of fertile ground were few and far between. There were no real cities on Ambria; only a few hardy settlers dwelled on its surface, scattered so far apart they might as well have been living on the planet alone.

The Jedi had once tried to cleanse Ambria of its foul taint, but the power of the dark side had permanently scarred the world. Unable to purify it, they succeeded only in concentrating and confining the dark side in a single source: Lake Natth. The homesteaders brave enough to endure Ambria's desolate environs gave the lake and its poisoned waters a wide, wide berth. Of course Bane had made his camp right on its shores.

Ambria was located on the fringes of the Expansion Region, only a quick hyperspace jump away from Ruusan itself. The evidence of several small battles that had been fought here between Republic and Sith troops during the most recent campaign was everywhere. Fallen weapons and armor littered the stark landscape; burned-out vehicles and damaged swoops were visible from kilometers away on the hard, cold plains. Apart from a few of the local settlers scavenging for parts, nobody had bothered to clean up the remains.

The ringed planet was an insignificant world: too few resources and too few people for the Republic fleets that now controlled the sector to worry about. Bane had heard that a healer of some skill, a man named Caleb, had come to the world once the fighting had ended. An idealistic fool determined to mend the wounds of war; a man not even worthy of Bane's contempt. By now, even that man might have forsaken this world once he'd seen how little salvageable remained here. For all intents and purposes, the world was forgotten.

It was the perfect place to meet Kaan's envoy. A Sith fleet would be quickly detected by the Republic vessels patrolling the region, but a small ship and a skillful pilot could sneak in without any trouble. Bane had no intention of setting up a meeting someplace where Kaan could send an armada to wipe him out.

He waited patiently in his camp for Kaan's emissary to arrive. Occasionally he glanced up at the sky or looked out across the horizon, but he wasn't worried about anyone sneaking up on him. He'd see a ship coming in to land from several kilometers away. And if they came to him in a ground vehicle, like the land crawler sitting on the edge of his camp, he'd hear the grinding of its engines or feel the unmistakable vibrations of its heavy treads as they churned their way over the uneven terrain.

Instead all he heard was the gentle lapping of Lake Natth's dark waters against the shore not five meters from where he sat. And all the while, his mind wrestled with the only question he still had no answer for.

Two there should be; no more, no less. One to embody the power, the other to crave it. Once he had rid the galaxy of the Brotherhood of Darkness, where would he find a worthy apprentice?

The whine of a Buzzard's engines pulled him away from his thoughts. He rose to his feet as the ship dropped from the sky and circled his camp once before touching down a short distance away. When the landing ramp lowered and he saw who came down, he couldn't help but smile.

"Githany," he said, rising to greet her once she had crossed the distance between them. "I was hoping Lord Kaan would send you."

"He didn't send me," she replied. "I asked to come."

Bane's heart began to beat a little quicker. He was glad to see her; her presence awakened a hunger inside him he had almost forgotten existed. Yet he was troubled, too. If anyone could see through his ruse, it was her.

"Did you see the message?" he asked, studying her carefully to gauge her reaction.

"I thought you were over this, Bane. Self-pity and regret are for the weak."

Relieved, he bowed his head to continue his charade. "You're right," he mumbled.

She stepped in closer to him. "You can't fool me, Bane," she whispered, and his muscles tensed in anticipation of what she would do next. "I think you're here for something else."

He held his ground as she leaned in slowly, poised to react at the first hint of threat or danger. He let his guard down only when she brushed her lips softly against his.

Instinctively his hands came up and seized her shoulders, pulling her in closer, pressing her lips and body hard up against his own as he drank her in. She wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders and neck, returning his insistence with her own urgency.

Her heat enveloped them. The kiss seemed to last for all eternity; her scent wrapped around their entwined flesh until he felt he was drowning in it. When she at last broke away he could see the fierce eagerness in her eyes and still taste the sweet fire of her lips. He could taste something else, too.

Poison!

Bedazzled by her kiss, it took him a second to realize what had happened. Whether Githany believed him or not hadn't mattered. She'd asked Kaan to let her come here so she could kill him. For a brief second he was worried. until he recognized the faint tricopper taste of rock worrt venom.

He laughed, gasping slightly for air. "Magnificent," he breathed. Secrecy. Guile. Betrayal. Githany may have been corrupted by the Brotherhood's influence, but she still understood what made the dark side strong. Was it possible she could be his one true apprentice, despite her allegiance to the Brotherhood?

She smiled coyly at his compliment. "Through passion we gain strength."

Bane could feel the poison working its way through his system. The effects were subtle. Had his growing strength in the dark side not made his senses hyperaware, he probably wouldn't even have noticed its presence for several hours. Yet once again, Githany had underestimated him.

Rock worrt venom was powerful enough to kill a bantha, but there were far more rare, and lethal, toxins she could have chosen. The dark side flowed through him, thick as the blood in his veins. He was Darth Bane now, a true Dark Lord. He had nothing to fear from her poison.

The fact that she had thought he wouldn't detect it on her lips, the fact that she thought it would even harm him, meant that she must have believed his performance. She suspected he had fallen away from the dark side again; she thought he was weak. He was glad: it made her decision to side with Kaan more forgivable. Maybe there was still hope for her after all. But he had to be sure.

"I'm sorry for abandoning you," he said softly. "I was blinded by dreams of past glory. Naga Sadow, Exar Kun, Darth Revan. I lusted after the power of the great Dark Lords of the past."

"We all crave power," she replied. "That is the nature of the dark side. But there is power in the Brotherhood. Kaan is on the verge of succeeding where all those before him have failed. We are winning on Ruusan, Bane."

Bane shook his head, disappointed. How could she still be so blind? "Kaan may be winning on Ruusan, but his followers are losing everywhere else. His great Sith army has crumbled without its leaders. The Republic has driven them back and reclaimed most of the worlds we conquered. In a few more months the rebellion will be crushed."

"None of that matters if we can wipe out the Jedi," she explained eagerly, her eyes blazing. "The war has taken a heavy toll on the Republic. Once the Jedi are gone, we can easily rally our troops and turn the tide of war. All we have to do is wipe them out, and the ultimate victory will be ours! All we have to do is win on Ruusan!"

"There are other Jedi besides those on Ruusan," he replied.

"A few, but they are scattered in ones and twos across the galaxy. If the Army of Light is destroyed, we can hunt them down at our leisure."

"Do you really believe Kaan will win? He has claimed imminent victory before, then failed to deliver on his promise."

"For one who claims to want to join the Brotherhood," she noted with some suspicion, "you don't seem particularly devoted to the cause."

Bane's arm shot out and grabbed her by the waist, pulling her in close for another savage kiss. She gasped in surprise, then closed her eyes and gave in to the physical pleasure of the moment. This time it was she who finally pulled back with a faint sigh.

"You were right when you said I came back for something else," he said, still holding her close. The treacherous poison on her lips tasted just as sweet the second time.

"The Brotherhood cannot fail," she promised. "The Jedi are on the run, cowering and hiding in the forests."

He let her go and stepped away, turning his back to her. He desperately wanted to believe she was capable of becoming his apprentice once he'd destroyed Kaan and the Brotherhood. But he still wasn't sure. If she truly believed in what the Brotherhood stood for, then there was no hope.

"I just can't accept what Lord Kaan preaches," he confessed. "He says we are all equals, but if all are equal, then none can be strong."

She stepped up behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders, applying gentle pressure until he turned to face her once again. Her expression was one of amusement.

"Do not believe everything Kaan says," she warned, and he could hear the naked ambition in her voice. One to embody the power, the other to crave it. "Once the Jedi are destroyed, many of his followers will discover that some of us are more equal than others."

He swept Githany up in his mighty arms with a joyful roar, spinning her around and around as he gave her another long, hard kiss. This was what he wanted to hear!

"I can't wait to see the look on his face when you tell him about this meeting," he replied, still pretending he was unaware of the poison raging unchecked through his blood.

"Neither can I," she replied, her voice giving nothing away. "Neither can I."

As the surface of Ambria fell away beneath her and the glorious rings came into view, Githany couldn't help but feel a twinge of regret. The passion she'd awakened in Bane had given him a sudden, surprising strength; she'd felt it in each of his kisses. But it was clear Bane was interested in her, not in joining the Brotherhood of Darkness.

She punched in the coordinates for the jump back to Ruusan and leaned back in her seat. Her head was spinning from the poison that had coated her lips. Not the rock wont venom; that was only there to lull Bane into a false sense of security. But the synox she had mixed in with it, the colorless, odorless, tasteless toxin favored by the infamous assassins of the GenoHaradan, was having an effect despite the antidote she had taken. She had no doubt Bane would soon be feeling much, much worse than she did. A single kiss would have been enough to kill him, and he had received a triple dose.

She was going to miss Bane, she realized. But he was a threat to everything Lord Kaan was working for. She had to side with one or the other, so naturally she had chosen the one with an entire army of Sith at his command.

It was, after all, the nature of the dark side.

Bane watched the Buzzard until it disappeared in the sky before turning his attention to gathering up his camp. He would have to act carefully now. Githany would tell Kaan she'd tried to poison him. When he showed up at the camp still alive things could become. difficult.

He could simply stay away and let events run their course. The Jedi on Ruusan would rally, turning the tide of the battle once again. It was a given; Bane was counting on it. Desperate, Kaan would then turn to the gift Bane had sent him. He would unleash the thought bomb, unaware of its true nature. And then every Force-user on Ruusan, Sith and Jedi alike, would be destroyed.

This was the most likely scenario. But Bane had come too far to leave the end of the Brotherhood of Darkness to chance. When Kaan's army faltered this time, there were those in his camp, like Githany, who might turn against him. They could flee Ruusan, scattering before the Jedi. And then Bane would have to deal with each of his rivals separately before he could become the unchallenged leader of the Sith.

Better to be on hand, guiding the events to the outcome he desired. That, however, meant he'd have to come up with a plausible story to explain his desire to join the Brotherhood even after a failed assassination.

He thought about it for nearly an hour, considering and discarding a number of ideas. In the end there was only one reason any of them would believe that he had come back. He had to make them all think he wanted to overthrow Kaan and become the new leader of the Brotherhood.

Bane smiled at the subtle beauty of the plan. Kaan would be suspicious, of course. But all his effort and attention would be focused on holding on to his position. He wouldn't realize his rival's true purpose: to exterminate the Brotherhood completely; to destroy every last Sith on Ruusan.

"Ungh!" Bane let out a grunt and doubled over as a vicious pain ripped through his stomach. He tried to straighten up, but his body was suddenly racked with a prolonged coughing fit. He raised his hand to cover his mouth, and when he let it fall it was covered in frothy red flecks of blood.

Impossible, he thought, even as another stabbing pain through his guts dropped him to his knees. Revan had shown him how to use the Force to ward off poison and disease. No simple toxin should be able to affect anyone strong enough in the dark side to be a Lord of the Sith.

Another coughing fit paralyzed him until it passed. He reached up to wipe the sweat rolling down his face and felt something warm and sticky on his cheek. A thin trickle of crimson tears was leaking from the corner of his eye.

He rose shakily to his feet, turning his focus inward. The poison was still there. It had spread throughout his entire body, polluting and corrupting his system and damaging his vital organs. He was hemorrhaging internally, bleeding from his eyes and nose.

Githany! He would have laughed if he hadn't been in such unbearable agony. He had been so confident, so arrogant. So convinced she was underestimating him. Instead he had underestimated her. A mistake he vowed never to make again… if he survived.

He had read enough about synox to recognize the symptoms. If he had detected it immediately, he would have been able to cleanse it from his system, just as he had done with the rock worrt venom that had concealed its presence. But synox was the subtlest of poisons; the insidious toxin had sapped his strength as it had spread unnoticed throughout his body.

Summoning all his resources, he tried to purge the poison from his body, burning it away with the cold fire of the dark side. The poison was too strong… or rather, he was too weak. The damage was already done. The synox had crippled him, leaving his power a mere shadow of what it had been only hours earlier.

He could dull its effects, slow its progress, and temporarily hold the most lethal symptoms at bay. But he couldn't cure himself. Not now, weakened as he was.

There was power in Lake Natth, but it was power he couldn't draw on. The ancient Jedi had been careful to lock the dark side safely away within its depths. The black, stagnant waters were the only evidence of the power that lay forever trapped beneath its surface.

Desperate to find some other way to survive, he staggered over to the land crawler on the edge of his camp. Ignoring the protests of his suddenly weary limbs, he clambered in behind the wheel and began to drive. He needed a healer. If the one called Caleb was still on this world, Bane had to find him. It was his only chance.

He headed for the nearest battleground, a barren plain several kilometers away where the remains of those who had fought and died still lay strewn about the ground. The rough rumble of the land crawler's treads jarred him with each turn, and he gritted his teeth against the agonizing pain. As he drove, his world became a waking nightmare of darkness and shadow, all tinged with red. He was barely even conscious of where he was going, letting the Force guide him even as he tried to use it to keep his body from succumbing to the effects of Githany's poison.

The fear of death wrapped itself around him, smothering his thoughts. His will began to falter; it would be so easy to just surrender now and let it all end. Just let it all slip away and be at peace.

Snarling, he shook his head, dragging his thoughts back from the brink by repeating the first line of the Sith mantra over and over: Peace is a lie. He reached back into his training as a soldier, taking his fear and transforming it into anger to give him strength.

I am Darth Bane, Dark Lord of the Sith. I will survive. At any cost.

Far ahead, at the very limits of his rapidly fading vision, he saw another vehicle moving slowly across the other side of the battlefield. Settlers. Scavengers, picking through the remains.

He pointed the nose of his land crawler at them, groaning with the effort required to simply turn the wheel. Reaching out with the Force, he tried to touch the spirits of those who had fallen at this site. Only a few months earlier, scores of beings had died here. He tried to drink in what remained of their tortured ends, hoping the agony of their final moments would bolster his own flagging power. But it wasn't enough; their suffering was too distant, the echo of their screams too faint.

Glancing up, he noticed that his vehicle had begun to veer off course, listing hard to one side as his grip on the wheel weakened. His arms were numb and tingling; they had become almost completely unresponsive. He could feel his heart laboring with every beat.

The front tread struck a large rock and the land crawler suddenly turned over, dumping Bane out onto hard dirt and jagged stone. He tried to look up again to locate the people he had seen in the distance, but the effort to raise his head was too much. Exhausted, his world went black.

The heavy whump-whump-whump of a land crawler's treads stirred him back to consciousness. The other vehicle was here. He doubted they would even see him: his body had fallen behind his tipped-over crawler and they had approached from the other side. Even if they did, there was nothing they could do to save him now. Yet there was something he could do to save himself.

The engines cut out and he heard the sound of voices: children's voices. Three young boys scampered down from the back of the land crawler and began to hunt eagerly through the wreckage.

"Mikki!" came the voice of their father, calling after one of his sons. "Don't go too far."

"Look!" one of the boys shouted. "Look what I found!"

The weak must serve the strong. That is the way of the dark side.

"Wow! Is it real? Can I touch it?"

"Let me see, Mikki! Let me see!"

"Settle down, boys," the father said wearily. "Let's take a look."

Bane listened to the crunching of his boots across the small stones as he approached. I am strong. They are weak. They are nothing.

"It's a lightsaber, Father. But there's something weird about the handle. See? It's got a strange hook in it."

He felt the sudden fear that gripped the father's chest like a vise.

Survive. At any cost.

"Throw it away, Mikki! Now!"

Too late.

The lightsaber sprang to life in the boy's hand, spinning in the air and striking him dead on the spot. The father screamed; his brothers tried to run. The blade leapt after the eldest, cutting him down from behind.

Bane, drawing strength from the horror of their deaths, rose to his feet, coming into view like an apparition disgorged from the bowels of the planet.

"Nooo!" the father howled, desperately clutching his youngest son to his chest. "Spare this one, my lord!" he begged, tears streaming down his face. "He's the youngest. The last one I have."

Those weak enough to beg for mercy do not deserve it.

Still too weak to even raise his arms Bane reached out once more with the Force, bringing the lightsaber up to hover over his helpless victims. He waited, letting their horror mount, then plunged the burning blade into the young boy's heart.

The father clutched the corpse to his breast, his tortured laments echoing across the empty battlefield. "Why? Why did you have to kill them?"

Bane feasted on his anguish, gorging himself, feeling the dark side growing stronger in him. The symptoms of the poison receded enough so that he could raise his arm without the muscles trembling. The lightsaber sprang to his hand.

The father cowered before him. "Why did you make me watch? Why did you?"

One quick swipe of the lightsaber cut him off, sending the father to the same tragic fate as his sons.

Chapter 26

Lord Hoth tossed and turned, unable to sleep. The creaking of his cot joined the whining buzz of the bloodsucking insect swarms that followed his army wherever they made camp. The noise was compounded by the whirring hum of small-winged night birds swooping in to feast on the insects that feasted on his soldiers. The result was a shrill, maddening cacophony that hovered on the edges of hearing.

But it wasn't the noises that were keeping him awake, or the unrelenting heat that left him with a constant sheen of sweat on his brow, even at night. It wasn't the military strategies and battle plans constantly running through his mind. It wasn't any one of these things, but rather the sum of all of them together, and the fact that there seemed to be no end in sight to this blasted, cursed war. Minor annoyances that had been tolerable during the first months on Ruusan had been magnified by frustration and futility into unbearable torments.

With an angry growl he cast aside the thin blanket he slept under, tossing it into the far corner of his tent. He swung his legs over the side and sat up on the edge of the cot, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his head clasped between his hands.

For two standard years he had waged his campaign against the Brotherhood of Darkness here on Ruusan. In the beginning many Jedi had rallied to his side. And many Jedi had died, too many. Under Lord Hoth's command they had sacrificed themselves, offering up their own lives for the sake of a greater cause. Yet now, after six major battles, not to mention countless skirmishes, raids, minor clashes, and indecisive engagements, nothing had been decided. The blood of thousands stained his hands, yet he was no closer to his goal.

Frustration was beginning to give way to despair. Morale was the lowest it had ever been. Many of the soldiers grumbled that Farfalla was right: the general had let Ruusan become his mad obsession and was leading them to their doom.

Hoth no longer even had the strength to argue with them. Sometimes he felt as if he had forgotten the reasons he had come here in the first place. Once there may have been virtue in this war, but such nobility had long since been stripped away. Now he fought for revenge in the name of those Jedi who had fallen. He fought out of hatred of the dark side and what it stood for. He fought out of pride and a refusal to admit defeat. But most of all, he fought simply because he no longer knew anything else.

Yet if he gave up now, would it make any difference? If he ordered his troops to retreat, to evacuate the planet in Farfalla's ships, would anything change? If he stepped aside and left the burden of battling the Sith, here on Ruusan or elsewhere in the galaxy, to another, would he finally find peace? Or would he simply be betraying all those who had believed in him?

To disband the Army of Light now, while the Brotherhood of Darkness still existed, dishonored the memory of all those who had perished in the conflict. To press on meant many more would surely die, and he himself might be lost to the light forever.

He lay back down and closed his eyes again. But sleep would not come. "When all the options are wrong," he muttered to himself in the darkness, what does it matter which one I choose?"

"When the way before you is not clear," an ethereal voice answered, "let your actions be guided by the wisdom of the Force."

Hoth snapped his head up to peer through the darkness of the tent. A figure was just barely visible in the shadows, standing on the other side.

"Pernicar!" he exclaimed, then suddenly asked, "Is this real? Or am I actually sound asleep in my cot, and all this nothing but a dream?"

"A dream is only another kind of reality," Pernicar said with an amused shake of his head. He crossed the tent slowly, moving closer. As he approached, Hoth realized he could actually see through him.

The apparition settled itself on the cot. The springs didn't creak; it was as if he had no weight or substance at all.

This had to be a dream, Hoth realized. But he didn't want to wake. Instead he clung desperately to the chance to see his old friend again, even if it was just an illusion conjured up by his own mind. "I've missed you," he said. "Your counsel, your wisdom. I need them now more than ever."

"You were not so eager to listen to me when I was alive," the Pernicar of his dream replied, striking at the most secret guilt and regrets buried deep in Hoth's subconscious. "There was much you could have learned from me."

A funny thought struck the general. "Was I your Padawan all this time, Master Pernicar? So young and foolish that I didn't even know you were trying to instruct me in the ways of the Force?"

Pernicar laughed lightly. "No, General. Neither one of us is young, though we both have had more than our share of foolish moments."

Hoth nodded somberly. For a moment he said nothing, just enjoying Pernicar's presence once again, even if he was only here in spirit. Then, knowing there must be some purpose to this elaborate charade his subconscious had created for him, he asked, "Why have you come?"

"The Army of Light is an instrument of good and justice," Pernicar told him. "You fear you may have lost your way, but look to the Force and you will know what you must do to find it again."

"You make it sound so simple," Hoth said with a slight shake of his head. "Have I really fallen so far that I cannot even remember the most basic teachings of our order?"

"There is no shame in falling," Pernicar said, standing up. "There is only shame if you refuse to rise once again."

Hoth sighed heavily. "I know what I must do, but I lack the tools to do it. My troops are on the verge of collapse: exhausted and outnumbered. And the other Jedi no longer believe in our cause."

"Farfalla still does," Pernicar noted. "Though you had your differences, he was always loyal."

"I think I've driven Farfalla away for good," Hoth admitted. "He wants nothing more to do with the Army of Light."

"Then why are his ships still in orbit?" Pernicar countered. "You drove him away with your anger, and he fears you may have fallen to the dark side. Show him this is not so and he will follow you again."

Pernicar took a step back. Hoth could sense himself beginning the slow climb to consciousness again. He could have fought against it. He could have struggled to stay in the dream world. But there was work to be done.

"Good-bye, old friend," he whispered. Slowly, his eyes opened, revealing the waking world and the empty darkness of his tent. "Good-bye."

Sleep did not return to him that night. Instead he thought long and hard about what Pernicar had said to him in his dream. Pernicar had always been the one he'd turned to in times of confusion and trouble. It made sense that his mind would conjure up the image of his dearest friend to set him on the proper path again.

He knew what he had to do. He would swallow his pride and ask Farfalla's forgiveness. They had to set aside their personal differences for the sake of the Jedi.

First thing in the morning he emerged from his tent, determined to send an envoy to Farfalla. But to his surprise he found that one of Farfalla's people had come to speak with him.

"I wondered if I had made this trip in vain," the messenger admitted once Lord Hoth had welcomed her into his tent. "I was afraid you would refuse to even see me."

"Had you come a day earlier you probably would have been right," he confessed. "Last night I had a… revelation that changed things."

"I guess we're lucky I came today, then," she replied with a cordial tilt of her head.

"Yes, lucky," he muttered, though part of him believed the timing of the dream had nothing to do with luck at all. Truly, the Force was a powerful and mysterious ally.

Bane could still feel the poison in his system as he drove the land crawler across Ambria's vast and empty plains. The rumble of the engine couldn't quite drown out the rattle and clank of the junk piled in the back. The clatter kept him from pushing the memories of the vehicle's previous owners completely from his mind, but he felt no remorse over their deaths.

He'd left their bodies lying where they'd fallen, in the midst of the battlefield where they'd gathered their prizes. Their deaths had given him the strength to press on, but already the surge of power he had felt was fading. He had the strength to keep the synox at bay for a few more hours, but he needed to find a permanent cure.

He needed to find Caleb. If he could reach the healer, there was still hope. But the man's dwelling was still many kilometers away.

It was only a matter of time until his body succumbed to the paralysis and his mind was swallowed by the fevered madness brought on by the toxin. For now, though, his anger allowed him to keep his thoughts clear.

He wasn't angry at Githany. She had only acted as a servant of the dark side should. His rage was directed inward, toward his own weakness and misplaced arrogance. He should have anticipated the true depth of her cunning.

Instead he had let her poison him. And if he died now, his great revelation, the Rule of Two, the salvation of the Sith, would end with him.

Caleb felt the land crawler's approach long before he saw or heard it. It was like a storm on the wind, a black sky rushing in to cover the sun. When the vehicle rolled to a stop before his hut he was already sitting outside waiting for it.

The man who climbed out was large and muscular, a sharp contrast with Caleb's own thin and wiry frame. He wore dark clothing, and a hook-handled lightsaber dangled from his belt. His skin was gray as ash, and his features were twisted into an expression of cruelty and contempt. Even were he not sensitive to the ways of the Force, it wouldn't have been hard for Caleb to recognize him as a servant of the dark side. What he might not have sensed was how powerful this grim visitor truly was.

But Caleb had dealt with powerful men and women before. Jedi and Sith alike had come to him in the past, and he had turned them all away. He was a servant of the common people, those who could not help themselves. He wanted no part of the war between light and darkness.

The man began walking toward him, moving stiffly. The foul stench of poison wafted out from the dying Sith's pores, smothering the scent of the boiling soup hanging over Caleb's fire. Jabbing a stick into the coals to stir up more heat, Caleb now understood his visitor's unnatural complexion. The effects of synox were unmistakable. He figured the doomed man had at most a day before he died.

He didn't speak until the man stood directly above him, looming like the specter of death itself.

"There is venom in your body," Caleb said placidly. "You have come for the cure," he continued. "I will not give it to you."

The man didn't speak. Not surprising, given his state. The poison would have left his tongue cracked and swollen, his mouth parched and blistered. But he didn't need words to convey his message as his hand dropped to the hilt of his lightsaber.

"I am not afraid to die," Caleb said, with no change in his voice. "You may torture me if you want," he added. "Pain means nothing to me."

To prove his point, he plunged his hand into the bubbling cauldron. The scent of seared flesh mingled with the smells of soup and poison. His expression never changed, even as he withdrew his hand and held it up to show the scalded flesh.

He saw doubt and confusion in the newcomer's eyes, a look he had witnessed many times before. In the past his stoicism had served him well, usually thwarting the plans of those Sith or Jedi who had sought him out for one reason or another. They couldn't understand him, and that was how he wanted it.

He cared nothing for their war or what either side valued. In fact, there was only one thing he cared about in all the galaxy. And this performance was his only hope of protecting it from the monster standing above him.

The implacable man before him puzzled Bane. His only hope for survival had just been denied him, and he wasn't sure what he could do about it. He could sense the power in this man, but it wasn't the power of either the dark side or the light. It wasn't even the power of the Force in any normal sense of the word. He drew his strength from ground and stone; mountain and forest; the land and the sky. Despite this difference, Bane could sense that the man's power was formidable in its own way. Bane found its strangeness disturbing, unsettling. Was it possible he was actually going to lose this battle of wills? Was it possible this simple man, a man with only the faintest flicker of the Force inside him, was actually able to defy a Dark Lord of the Sith?

Had the healer's mind been weak Bane could have simply compelled him to do his bidding, but his will was as unyielding as the black iron of the pot he had plunged his hand into. He had demonstrated that pain and threat of death would be ineffective tools in convincing him to change his mind, as well. Even now Bane could sense his mind building up walls to block out the pain; burying it so deep it almost seemed to disappear. And there was something else he was burying as well. Something he was desperately trying to keep Bane from uncovering.

Bane's eyes narrowed as he recognized what it was. He was trying to hide the presence of another, shielding whoever it was from the Dark Lord's hazy, fevered perceptions. He turned his attention to the healer's small, ramshackle hut. The man made no move to stop him. In fact, he had no reaction at all.

The door was blocked by nothing but a long curtain that flowed gently in the breeze. Bane stepped forward and flipped it aside to reveal a small, ramshackle room. A young girl, her eyes wide with terror, huddled silently against the far wall.

A grim smile of relief touched the corners of Bane's lips as he realized the truth. Caleb had a weakness after all; he cared about something. All his strength of will was useless because of this one failing. And Bane was not above exploiting it to get what he needed.

With a single mental command he swept the terrified girl up into the air, carrying her out to suspend her upside down above the healer's boiling pot.

Caleb leapt to his feet, showing real emotion for the first time. He reached out to her, then pulled his hand back, his eyes flicking between his daughter and the man who literally held her life in his grasp. "Daddy," she whimpered, "help me."

The man's head dropped in defeat. "All right," he said. "You win. You will have your cure."

The healing ritual lasted all through the night and into the next day. Caleb drew on all manner of herbs and roots: some cooked in the boiling waters of his pot; others ground up into paste; still others placed directly on Bane's swollen tongue. Throughout the entire process Bane was wary, ready to unleash his vengeance against the healer's child should the man try to betray him.

But as the hours went by he slowly felt the synox leaching from his body, drawn out by the medicines. By evening of the next day all traces of the poison were gone.

Bane returned to his camp and packed up. A few hours later he was ready to lift off and leave Ambria behind.

After the completion of the healing ritual he had briefly considered slaying both father and daughter for the crime of seeing him in his moment of weakness. But those were the thoughts of a man blinded by his own arrogance. His recent encounter with Githany had shown him the dangers of that path.

Neither Caleb nor his daughter presented any threat to him or his goals. And Caleb had a skill he might one day need again. For all its power, the dark side was weak in the healing arts.

So he had let them live. There was no purpose or advantage in their deaths. Killing without reason or gain was a petty pleasure of sadistic fools.

And Bane was determined, as he punched the coordinates for Ruusan into the nav computer, to cleanse the dark side of fools.

Chapter 27

When the Valcyn arrived at Ruusan, Bane was surprised to find both Sith and Jedi fleets in the system. The Sith had formed a blockade around the planet, obviously trying to prevent the Jedi from bringing reinforcements to their fellows on the surface.

Yet to Bane's eye it appeared that the Jedi were making no effort to run the blockade. Their ships seemed content to wait, lurking just beyond the range of enemy fire. And the Sith couldn't attack without breaking formation and exposing their lines. The result was a tense stalemate, with neither side willing to make the first move.

Despite the blockade, Bane was able to land his ship on Ruusan without drawing the attention of either fleet. The Jedi weren't concerned with ships going to the planet, and the Sith were patrolling in patterns designed to guard against large-scale incursions. The blockade was meant to stop troop transports, supply ships, and their escorts; it was all but useless against a single scout vessel or fighter.

His sensors picked up the Sith encampment soon after he breached the atmosphere, and he brought the Valcyn in on the far side of the world. The blockade patrols hadn't spotted him, and he'd disabled the ship's beacon before leaving Lehon. Nobody knew he was here. He planned to keep it that way for a while longer.

He set the ship down in the cover of a small range of foothills several kilometers from the encampment. He would draw less attention approaching on foot, and he wanted to keep the Valcyn's location secret in case he needed it to make a quick escape. He disembarked and began the long hike to meet up with Kaan and his fellow Sith.

The feel of this planet was far different from any of the others he had been on. This was a tired world, weary and spent with the endless wars being waged across its surface. There was a malaise in the air, like some infectious disease of mind and spirit. The Force was strong on Ruusan inevitable given the vast numbers of Sith and Jedi there. Yet he sensed it was in turmoil, a maelstrom of confusion and conflict. Neither the dark nor light held sway. Instead they collided and fused, becoming an obscene, indecisive gray.

Far to the east he could see the edges of Ruusan's great forests. He could sense the Jedi hiding deep within them, though they used the light side to mask their exact location. The Sith encampment was to the west, several kilometers away from the forest's borders. Between them stretched a vast panorama of gently rolling hills and plains: the site of all the major battles that had been fought on Ruusan so far. The constant fighting had been punctuated by six full-scale engagements, battles where each side had brought its full strength to bear in an effort to wipe out the enemy, or at least drive them from the world. Three times Hoth and the Army of Light had seized the upper hand; the other three had gone to Kaan and his Brotherhood. Yet none of the victories had been decisive enough to bring an end to the war.

From the pungent smell of death Bane suspected some smaller confrontation had been recently fought over this territory, as well. His suspicions were confirmed when he crested a rise and came across a scene of slaughter. It was hard to tell who had won: bodies clad in the garb of each side were everywhere, intermingled as if the combatants had remained locked together in hatred long after they had all been slain. Most of the dead were likely to be followers of the Jedi or minions of the Sith, rather than actual Jedi Knights or members of the Brotherhood, though he noticed dark Sith robes on a handful of the bodies.

Hovering above the killing field were the bouncers, a unique species native to Ruusan. There were at least half a dozen, spherical in shape and of various sizes, with most being between one and two meters across. Their round bodies were covered with thick green fur, as were the finlike appendages protruding from their sides and the long ribbonlike tails that streamed out behind them. They had no visible facial features other than dark, lidless eyes.

Reports indicated they were sentient, yet to Bane they looked like animals scavenging the remains of the battle. As he approached he realized they were communicating, though they possessed no mouths. Somehow they were projecting mental images of succor and comfort, as if they sought to heal the wounds of the scarred land beneath them.

They scattered at Bane's approach, whisking themselves away like a bizarre school of fish capable of swimming through the skies. As he drew nearer, he realized they had been congregating over one of the fallen. The human man was not quite dead, though the gaping wound in his gut gave stark evidence that he wouldn't live to see the night.

He wore the robes of the Sith, and the shattered remains of a lightsaber's hilt lay near his outstretched hand. Bane recognized him as one of the lesser students from the Academy on Korriban: so weak in the dark side, it wasn't even worth the bother of learning his name. Yet he knew Bane.

With a groan the man rolled onto his back and hauled himself up to a sitting position, leaning his head and shoulders against a nearby stone. His eyes, glazed and dilated, cleared momentarily and came into focus. "Lord Bane…," he gasped. "Kaan told us… you were dead."

There was no point in replying, so Bane said nothing.

"You missed the fight…," the man mumbled, the words hard to hear through the choking bubbles of blood welling up in his throat. A coughing fit cut off what he was going to say next. He was too weak to even bring up his hand to cover his mouth as he spewed red spots over Bane's dark boots.

"The battle was glorious," he finally croaked out. "It's an honor to.. fall in such a splendid battle."

Bane laughed loudly, the only appropriate response to such ridiculous stupidity. "Glory means nothing for the dead," he said, though it wasn't clear if the man could even hear him in his fevered state.

He turned to go, then paused when he felt a feeble tug on his heel. "Help me, Lord Bane."

Lifting his boot free of the clutching hand, Bane answered, "My name is Darth Bane." There was a sickening crunch as his boot slammed down, grinding the man's skull into the rocks propping him up. His body convulsed once then lay still.

The purging of the Sith had begun.

Lord Kaan lay on his back on the small cot in his tent, eyes closed, gently massaging his temples. The strain of keeping his followers united in a common cause was taking a heavy toll, and his head constantly pulsed with a dull and relentless ache.

Despite their success in recent battles with the Jedi on Ruusan, the mood in the Sith camp was tense. They had been on Ruusan too long, far too long, and reports kept filtering in of Republic victories in distant systems. Even with his ability to manipulate and influence the minds of the other Dark Lords, it was becoming more and more difficult to keep the Brotherhood focused on their battle against the Army of Light.

He knew there was one sure way to end the war, and end it quickly. The thought bomb. He had spent many nights wondering if he dared to use it. If they lured the Jedi in and unleashed the thought bomb, its blast would completely obliterate their enemies. But would the combined will of the Brotherhood be strong enough to survive such power? Or would they get swept up in the backlash of the explosion?

Time and again he had dismissed it as too dangerous, a weapon so terrible that even he, a Dark Lord of the Sith, was afraid to use it. Yet each time he considered it for a few moments longer before backing away from the abyss.

A sound outside the tent caused him to open his eyes and sit up sharply. A second later Githany, now seen by many as his right hand, poked her head in. "They're ready for you, Lord Kaan."

He nodded and rose to his feet, taking a second to calm and compose himself. If he showed any weakness, the others might turn against him. He couldn't let that happen. Not now, when they were so close to ultimate victory. That was why he had summoned the other Dark Lords: one final gathering to strengthen their resolve and assure their continued loyalty.

Githany led the way through the camp, and he followed her to the large tent where the other Sith Lords were waiting for him. He entered with conviction and purpose, projecting an aura of confidence and authority.

As was customary whenever he entered a room, those in the assemblage rose to their feet as a sign of respect. There was one, however, who remained seated, arms folded across his thick chest.

"Are you too heavy to rise, Lord Kopecz?" Githany asked pointedly.

"I thought we were all equals in the Brotherhood," the Twi'lek snarled back, speaking more to Kaan than to her.

Kaan knew he had to tread carefully. This was not the first time Kopecz had been the voice of dissent, and many of the others took their cues from him. Unfortunately, he was also one of the most difficult to influence and control.

"Equals. Quite right, Lord Kopecz," he said with a weary smile. "Remain seated. All of you. We have no need of these pointless formalities."

The rest of the group did as he bade and found their seats once more, though it was clear everyone still felt the tension between the two of them. He let a wave of soothing reassurance ripple out across the room as he crossed over to the strategy table.

"The war against the Jedi is almost won," he declared. "They are on the verge of collapse. They have retreated into the forests, but they are running out of places to hide."

Kopecz snorted derisively. "We've heard that refrain one too many times."

It took tremendous effort to maintain his composure, but somehow Lord Kaan managed to reply in a calm, even voice. "Anyone who has doubts about our strategy here on Ruusan is free to speak," he offered. "As has already been pointed out in this meeting, we are all equals in the Brotherhood of Darkness."

"It's not just Ruusan I'm worried about," Kopecz replied, accepting the bait and rising to his feet. "We've lost ground everywhere else in the galaxy. We had the Republic reeling. But instead of finishing them off, we let them regroup!"

"Most of our early victories came before the Jedi joined their cause," Kaan reminded him. "The point of attacking the Republic in the first place was to draw the Jedi out. We wanted to force them into a battle of our choosing: this battle, here on Ruusan.

"Now we are on the verge of wiping them out. And with the Jedi gone, we can easily reclaim the worlds that have slipped back under the Republic's control, and many more besides."

Though Kopecz was silent, there were murmurs of agreement from the other Sith Lords. Kaan pressed his point even farther.

"Once we wipe out the enemy here on Ruusan our armies will sweep across the galaxy virtually unopposed. Conquering territory in every sector, we will encircle Coruscant and the other Core Worlds like a noose, drawing ever tighter until we choke the very life out of the Republic!"

There was a roar of approval from the crowd. When Kopecz spoke again, even he seemed to have lost some of his hostility.

"But victory here is not assured. We may have Hoth's army surrounded and pinned down, but there's a Jedi fleet with hundreds of reinforcements lurking on the edges of this system."

"Their reinforcements are on the edge of the system," Kaan admitted with a nod, not bothering to deny what every single one of them knew to be fact. "Just as they have been for the past week. And that's exactly where they will stay: far away from the surface where they are needed.

"The bulk of our fleet is in orbit around Ruusan itself, and the Jedi lack the numbers or the firepower to break through our blockade. If they can't unite their numbers with those here on the surface, Hoth and his followers will fall. And once we have finished them off we can mop up the tattered remnants of the Order at our leisure."

Kopecz, mollified, sat down with one final comment. "Then let's finish Hoth off quickly and get off this blasted rock."

"That's exactly the point of this strategy conference," Kaan said with a smile, knowing he had once again averted a potential schism in the Brotherhood. "We may have lost a few skirmishes here and there, but we are about to win the war!"

Githany stepped up and handed him a holomap with the latest data from their reconnaissance drones. He gave her a nod of thanks and unfurled it on the table, then bent down for a closer look.

"Our spies indicate Hoth's main camp is located here," he said, jabbing a finger at a heavily wooded section of the map. "If we can flush them out of the forest we might be able to?"

He stopped short as a dark shadow fell across the map. "What now?" he demanded, pounding his fist on the table and snapping his head up to find the cause of this latest interruption.

An enormous mountain of a man stood in the doorway, blocking the light streaming in from outside. He was tall and completely bald, with a heavy brow and hard, unforgiving features. He wore the black armor and robes of the Sith, and a hook-handled lightsaber hung at his side. Though he had never met the man before, Lord Kaan had heard enough about him to know exactly who he was.

"Darth Bane!" he exclaimed. He cast a quick glance in Githany's direction, wondering if she had betrayed him. From the expression on her face, it was obvious she was just as surprised as he was to see their visitor alive and well.

"We. we thought you were dead," he began uncertainly. "How did?"

"I'm tired," Bane interrupted. "Do you mind if I sit?"

"Of course," Kaan quickly agreed. "Anything for a Brother."

The big man sneered as he settled into one of the nearby chairs. "Thank you, Brother."

There was something in his tone that put Kaan's guard up. What was he doing here? Did he know that Githany had tried to poison him? Did he know Kaan had sent her?

"Please continue with your strategy," Bane urged with a casual wave of his hand.

Kaan's hackles rose. It was as if he was being given permission to continue; as if Bane was the one in charge. Gritting his teeth, he looked down at the map again and resumed where he had left off. "As I was saying, the Jedi are hiding in the forests. We can flush them out if we split our numbers. If we deploy our fliers, we can flank their southern lines?"

"Bah!" Bane spat out, slapping his open palm down hard on the table. "Deploying fliers and flanking armies," he mocked, rising to his feet and thrusting an accusing finger at Kaan. "You're thinking like a dirt general, not a Sith Lord!"

A heavy silence had fallen across the room; even Kaan was left speechless. He could feel all eyes on him, watching intently to see what would happen next. Bane stepped in close, his face just centimeters from Kaan's own.

"How did you ever find the guts to poison me?" he asked in a low, menacing whisper.

"I… that wasn't me!" Kaan stammered as Bane turned his back on him.

"Don't apologize for using cunning and trickery," the big man admonished, moving over to the strategy table. "I admire you for it. We are Sith: the servants of the dark side," he continued, bending down to study the troop positions and tactical layouts spread out before him. "Now look at this map and think like a Sith. Don't just fight in the forest… destroy the forest!"

It was Githany who finally broke the ensuing silence, asking the question on everyone's mind. "And just how do you propose we do that?"

Bane turned back to them with an evil grin. "I can show you."

Night had fallen, but in the lights of the blazing campfires Bane could see the others scurrying to and fro, making the preparations as he had instructed. When he sensed Githany approaching from behind him, he turned. She was holding a bowl of steaming soup and wore a cautious, uncertain expression.

"It will be another hour before they are ready to begin this ritual of yours," she said by way of greeting. When he didn't reply she added, "You look tired. I brought you something to restore your strength."

He took the bowl from her but didn't raise it to his lips. He had discovered the ritual she spoke of while studying Revan's Holocron: a way to unite the minds and spirits of the Sith through a single vessel so their strength could be unleashed upon the physical world. In many ways the process was similar to the one used to fashion a thought bomb from the Force, though this was less powerful than the ritual he had sent as a peace offering to Kaan, and far less dangerous.

He realized Githany was still studying him closely, so he tilted his head toward the soup. "Come to poison me again?" he asked. There was just a hint of playful teasing in his voice.

"You knew all along, didn't you?" she said.

He shook his head. "Not until I tasted the poison on your lips."

She raised a single eyebrow and gave him a coy smile. "But you came back for a second helping. And a third."

"Poison should not harm a Dark Lord," he told her. Then he admitted, "Yet it almost killed me." He paused, but she didn't say anything. "There are too many Sith Lords in the Brotherhood," he went on. "Too many who are weak in the dark side. Kaan doesn't understand this."

"Kaan's afraid you've come back to take over the Brotherhood!' After a moment she added, "I think he's right."

Not take over, he thought, but obliterate. He didn't bother to correct her, though; it wasn't the time yet. He still needed further proof that she was the right one to become his apprentice. Two there should be; no more, no less. One to embody the power, the other to crave it. It was a choice he wasn't about to rush into.

"I can show you the true power of the dark side, Githany. Power beyond what any of these others can even imagine," he said.

"Teach me," she breathed. "I want to learn. You can show me everything. after you've taken Kaan's place as leader of the Brotherhood!"

He couldn't help but wonder if she was still trying to manipulate him. Did she want to play him and Kaan against each other? Or was she looking for him to usurp Kaan as proof of his newfound strength?

No, he admitted. She still doesn't understand that the entire Sith order must be torn apart and rebuilt from scratch. Maybe she won't ever understand.

"Tell me something," he said. "Was it your idea to poison me? Or Kaan's?"

With a slight laugh, she ducked beneath his arm holding the bowl of soup and came up close against his chest, looking right up into his eyes. "It was my idea," she confessed, "but I was careful to make sure Kaan thought it was his."

There might be hope for her yet, Bane thought.

"I know I made a mistake before," she continued, moving away from him. "I should have gone with you when you left Korriban. I didn't realize what you were after; I didn't understand the secrets you were seeking. But I understand them now. You are the true leader of the Sith, Bane. I'll follow you from now on. And so will the rest of the Brotherhood, after we use your ritual to destroy the Jedi."

"Yes," he agreed, keeping his voice carefully neutral and taking a sip of the steaming soup. "After we've destroyed the Jedi."

Bane knew they couldn't really destroy the Jedi. Not here on Ruusan. Not like this. Somehow the Jedi would survive. No ordinary war could completely eliminate the servants of the light. Only the tools of the dark side, cunning, secrecy, treachery, betrayal, could do that.

The same tools he would use to wipe out the entire Brotherhood of Darkness… beginning with the ritual tonight.

Chapter 28

Kaan, Githany, and the rest of the Dark Lords had gathered atop a barren plateau overlooking the vast forests where Hoth and his army were hiding. They had come on their fliers: short-range, single-person, airborne vehicles front-mounted with heavy blaster guns. The fliers were parked at the edge of the plateau, fifty meters away from where the Sith sat in a loose circle. The ritual had begun.

They were communing with the Force, all of them slipping into a meditative trance as one. Their minds drifted deeper and deeper into the well of power contained within each individual, drawing on their strength and combining it through a single conduit. Bane stood in the center of the circle, urging them on.

"Touch the dark side. The dark side is one. Indivisible."

The night sky filled with dark clouds and a fierce wind swirled across the plateau, tearing at the cloaks and capes of the Sith. The air shook with the thunder and crackle of a mounting electrical storm. Bolts of blue-white lightning arced through the air, and the temperature suddenly dropped.

"Give yourself over to the dark side. Let it surround you. Engulf you. Devour you."

The Brotherhood slipped deeper into the collective trance, barely even aware of the storm now raging about their physical selves. Bane stood at the eye of the storm, drawing the bolts of lightning into himself, feeding on them. He felt his strength surge as he channeled and focused the dark side from the others.

This is how it should be! All the power of the Brotherhood in one body! The only way to unleash the full potential of the dark side!

"Do you feel invincible? Invulnerable? Immortal?"

He had to shout to be heard above the howling wind and thunder. A web of lightning spiraled out from his body, connecting him to each of the other Sith. He shivered then suddenly went stiff, arms spread out at his sides. Slowly, his rigid body began to rise into the air.

"Can you feel it?" he screamed, feeling as if the raw power of the Force roaring through him might rip his very flesh asunder. "Are you ready to kill a world?"

There was very little in the galaxy that could scare a man like General Hoth. Yet as he sat looking over the latest situational reports from his scouts he felt the first glimmers of real fear gnawing away at the base of his skull.

The rift between himself and Farfalla had been mended, but now there was no way to get the reinforcements down to Ruusan's surface. Small messenger ships with a crew of one or two had been able to slip past the Sith blockade undetected, though on occasion even these vessels had been spotted and destroyed. Anything larger would never make it.

But his fear was more than the result of his frustration at having help so near yet so impossibly far away. There was something sinister in the air. Something evil.

Suddenly an image leapt unbidden to his mind: a premonition of death and destruction. He sprang to his feet and ran from his tent. Even though it was the middle of the night, he was only mildly surprised to see that most of the rest of the camp was up and about. They had felt it, too. Something coming for them. Coming fast.

They were looking to him for leadership, waiting for him to take command. He did so with a single, shouted order.

"Run!"

The storm rolled down from the plateau and rumbled across the forest. Hundreds of forks of searing lightning shot down from the sky, and the forest erupted. Trees burst into flames, the blaze racing through the branches and spreading out in all directions. The underbrush smoldered, smoked, and ignited; and a wall of fire swept across the planet's surface.

The inferno consumed everything in its path.

Heat and fire. There was nothing else in Bane's world. It was as if he had become the storm itself: he could see the world before him, swallowed up in red and orange and reduced in seconds to ash and embers by the unchained fury of the dark side.

It was glorious. And then suddenly it was gone.

There was a jarring thump as his body dropped from where it had been hovering five meters above the ground. For several seconds he was completely disoriented, unable to figure out what happened. Then he understood: the connection had been broken.

He rose to his feet slowly, uncertain of his balance. All around him were the forms of the Sith, no longer kneeling in meditation but collapsed or rolling on the ground, their minds reeling from the sudden end to the joining ritual. One by one they also regained their composure and stood, most looking as confused as Bane had been only seconds before.

Then he noticed Lord Kaan standing off to the side, over by the fliers.

"What happened?" Bane demanded angrily. "Why did you stop?"

"Your plan worked," Kaan replied curtly. "The forest is destroyed, the Jedi have fled to open ground. They are exposed, vulnerable. Now we go to finish them off."

Kaan had broken the connection, and somehow he had managed to drag the others out along with him, as if he had some hold over their minds. Perhaps he does, Bane thought. Further proof that they all had to be destroyed if the Sith were to be cleansed.

As the others regained their senses, Kaan was shouting out orders and battle plans. "The fire flushed the Jedi out into the open. We can mow them down from the sky. Hurry!"

They jumped at his command, rushing to their waiting vehicles and taking to the sky with battle cries and shouts of triumph.

"Come on, Bane," Githany said, rushing past him. "Let's join them!"

He grabbed her arm, pulling her up short. "Kaan is still trying to win this war through blasters and armies," he said. "That is not the way of the dark side."

"It's more fun this way," she said, the excitement obvious in her voice. She shook free of his grasp.

As he watched her run to join the others he realized that she had been corrupted by the teachings of Qordis and the Academy on Korriban. Despite her promise to follow Bane, she couldn't see beyond the Brotherhood and its limitations. She was tainted, unfit to be his apprentice. She would have to die with all the others.

There was the faintest hint of regret as he made the decision, but the regret was hollow: the echo of a feeling, the last vestiges of an emotion. He snuffed it out quickly, knowing it could only make him weak.

"You frighten us, Bane," a voice said from behind. He turned to see Kopecz studying him carefully.

"When we were focusing the Force through you, it felt as if you had your teeth on our throats," the Twi'lek continued. "As if you were trying to suck us dry."

"The power of the dark side is strongest if it is concentrated in one vessel," Bane replied. "Not spread out among many. I did it for the sake of the dark side."

Kopecz shook his head and climbed onto his flier. "Well, we know you weren't doing it for us."

Bane watched him soar off. Then he climbed onto his own flier, but instead of following Kaan to the battle he set a course back to the Sith camp. The first phase of his plan to destroy the Brotherhood was complete.

When he arrived back at the camp twenty minutes later, he wasn't surprised to find it completely deserted. All the Dark Lords had been on the plateau for the ritual, and they had all flown off in Kaan's wake to face the suddenly vulnerable Jedi. The soldiers, servants, and followers who made up the bulk of the Sith army had originally been left behind at the camp, but they had since received commed orders from Kaan and the others to join them at the battlefield.

Bane brought his flier in for a landing in the heart of the camp, right beside Lord Kaan's tent. He killed the engine and was surprised to hear the distant whine of another flier approaching. He looked up, curious. When it swooped in low, he recognized the rider.

The vehicle was bearing down on him in a direct line. Bane let his hand drop to his lightsaber, ready to unclip it at a moment's notice. The Force welled up within him, prepared to throw up a protective shield if the flier's front-mounted blasters should open fire.

But the flier didn't attack. Instead it swooped a few meters over his head, banked sharply, then came in for a landing beside his own.

"You have no need of your weapon," Qordis said as he dismounted. "I've come with an offer."

Realizing there was no immediate threat, Bane let his hand drop back to his side. "An offer? What could you possibly have to offer me?"

"My allegiance," Qordis said, dropping to one knee.

Bane stared down at him, his expression a mixture of horror, amusement, and contempt. "Why would you give your allegiance to me?" he asked. "And why should I even want it?"

Qordis rose slowly to his feet, a cunning smile on his lips. "I am not blind, Lord Bane. I see you speaking with Githany. I see how you are undermining Kaan. I know the real reason you have come to Ruusan."

Perplexed, Bane wondered if it was possible that Qordis, the founder of the Academy on Korriban, the most ardent proponent of all that was wrong with the Sith, had finally seen the truth.

"What exactly are you proposing?" he asked through clenched teeth.

"I know what happened to Kas'im. He sided with Kaan against you. He paid for that decision with his life. I am not so foolish. I know you're here to take over the Brotherhood," he declared. "I believe you will succeed. And I want to help you."

"You want to help me take over the Brotherhood?" Bane laughed; Qordis was as blind and misguided as the rest of them. "Replace one leader with another, and you and the rest of the Brotherhood continue on as before? That's your brilliant plan?"

"I can prove quite useful to you, Lord Bane Qordis insisted. "Many of the Brotherhood are former students of my Academy. They still look to me for wisdom and guidance."

"And therein lies the problem." Bane lashed out with the dark side, seizing Qordis in an immobilizing, crushing grip. His opponent tried to protect himself, throwing up a field to deflect the incoming assault, but Bane's attack tore through the pitiful defense, wiping it away as if it hadn't even been there.

There was a strangled cry of pain from Qordis as the Force tightened around him and lifted him up from the ground.

"Your wisdom has destroyed our order," Bane explained casually, watching as Qordis struggled helplessly above him. "You have polluted the minds of your followers; you and Kaan have led them down the path of ruin."

"I… I don't understand," Qordis gasped, barely able to speak as the breath was squeezed inexorably from his lungs.

"That has always been the problem," Bane replied. "The Brotherhood must be purged. The Sith must be destroyed and rebuilt. You, Kaan, and all the others must be wiped from the face of the galaxy. That is why I have returned."

Dawning horror spread across Qordis's long, drawn features. "Please he groaned, "not… like this. Release me. Let me… draw my lightsaber. Let us fight… like Sith."

Bane tilted his head to the side. "Surely you know I could kill you just as easily with my lightsaber as I could with the Force."

"I… know." Qordis's skin was turning red, and his body was trembling as the pressure mounted. Each word he spoke took tremendous effort, yet somehow the dying man found the strength to make his final plea. "More… honor… in… death… by… combat."

Bane gave an indifferent shrug. "Honor is for the living. Dead is dead."

A final push with his mind tightened the invisible vise. Qordis let out a final scream, but with no air in his lungs it came out only as a rattling gasp that was lost beneath the snapping and crackling of his bones.

Had Bane still been capable of such emotions he might actually have pitied the man. As it was, he simply let the corpse fall to the ground then wandered into Kaan's tent and the communications equipment inside. It was time to enact the second phase of his plan.

On the deck of Nightfall, great flagship of the Sith fleet, acting commander Admiral Adrianna Nyras responded to the hailing frequency coming from the private comlink on her wrist.

"This is Admiral Nyras," she said into it. "I await your orders, Lord Kaan."

"Lord Kaan is not here," an unfamiliar voice replied. "This is Lord Bane."

She hesitated for only a second before answering. Kaan rarely let anyone else use his personal transceiver, but on occasion it did happen. And with the security encryption on the equipment, it was virtually impossible for anyone else to tap into the frequency. The message had to be coming from the Sith camp, which meant she really was speaking to one of the Dark Lords.

"Forgive me, Lord Bane," she apologized. "What are your orders?"

"Status report."

"Unchanged," she replied, her voice sharp with military precision and efficiency. "The blockade is intact. The Jedi fleet still hovers just beyond our range."

"Engage."

"Pardon?" she asked, so surprised that she momentarily forgot whom she was speaking to.

"You heard me, Admiral," the voice on the other end snapped. "Engage the Jedi fleet."

The order made no sense. The last time Kaan had spoken to her, he had ordered her to hold their position at all costs. As long as they maintained location in orbit, their blockade was virtually impenetrable. If they broke formation and attacked the Jedi fleet, however, they wouldn't be able to stop drop ships from landing reinforcements on the surface.

Still, she had been given strange orders before during her service with the Sith. There were rumors that Kaan had some mystic power, some way to influence the outcome of a battle through the power of the Force that could make traditional strategies fall by the wayside. And if a Dark Lord was giving her a direct order, using the personal communications equipment in Lord Kaan's tent, she wasn't about to run the risk of refusing to obey.

"As you command, Lord Bane," she answered. "We will engage the Jedi."

The fire drove General Hoth and his army from the sheltering confines of the forest. Leaving most of their supplies and equipment behind, his troops ran through the trees, a mad scramble to escape the searing heat and flames. Those who stumbled or fell were instantly swallowed up by the conflagration. Somehow most managed to stay ahead of the deadly fires, eventually bursting out of the woods and into the rocky plains where so many battles had already been fought.

The Sith were there waiting for them.

The first wave of Hoth's followers to emerge from the forest were mowed down by blasterfire. Those just behind were able to draw their lightsabers and deflect many of the deadly bolts as they raced out onto the plains, only to be swallowed up by the throngs of Sith soldiers rushing forward to engage them.

Though outnumbered, the Jedi more than held their own. They drove the Sith ranks back, breaking their lines and throwing them into chaos and disarray. But Hoth knew that the real trap had yet to be sprung.

Hewing down any foe foolish enough to come in range of his light-saber, the general could sense these were not the true Sith. The Dark Lords were not among them: these were the faceless hordes, nothing more than a distraction.

Where are they? What is Kaan up to?

The answer came an instant later when a battalion of fliers swooped in over the horizon, unleashing a deadly barrage across the battlefield. Guided by the power of the dark side, the heavy guns were deadly in their accuracy, decimating Hoth's troops and turning the tide of the battle back in favor of the Sith.

Hoth had faced impossible odds before and triumphed. Yet he knew this battle was fated to be his last.

But I will make a last stand worthy of story and song, he thought defiantly, even though there won't be anybody left to sing it.

The world dissolved into the numbing fog of war. Screams and the sounds of battle became a dull, indistinguishable roar. The spray of dirt and stone from the blaster bolts exploding into the ground showered down on him from above, mingling with the sweat and blood of both friend and foe. He swung each blow as if it might be his last, knowing that sooner or later one of the fliers would lock in on him and swoop down to finish him off.

Lord Kaan's flier carved a path back and forth above the milling soldiers on the battlefield below, soaring over the chaos like a grim bird of prey. From his vantage point it was clear the battle was theirs. Yet even though they were ill equipped, outnumbered, and badly outgunned, the Jedi fought bravely to the bitter end. There was no hint of retreat, no breaking of their ranks. He couldn't help but admire such courage and such devotion to a cause even in the face of certain death. If his own troops had been so steadfast in their loyalty and purpose, he would have won this war long ago. It wasn't that they lacked discipline: the Sith armies were just as well trained as those of the Jedi or the Republic. They simply lacked conviction.

Too often their morale had been held together only by the sheer force of Kaan's will, his battle meditation strengthening their resolve whenever the situation seemed grim or desperate. But his battle meditation could only do so much. Against an entire army of Jedi on guard against the Force powers of the Sith, it could do little more than instill a vague sense of unease. A small advantage, but one easily overcome. Here on the surface of this wretched world, the Brotherhood of Darkness and its minions had been forced to fight on their own merits, without his intervention. And far too many times they had come up short.

There had been occasions when he'd questioned the ability of his followers to succeed on their own. There were instances when he wondered if the Sith troops had become so reliant on the enormous advantage of his battle meditation that they had forgotten how to fight effectively without it. But now, at last, the ultimate victory had been achieved. The Jedi were making a last, desperate stand, one glorious to behold, yet the outcome was inevitable. There was just one thing left for Lord Kaan to do before the fighting ended.

He continued to weave back and forth, firing sporadically at the enemy below as he searched for his real prey. Then at last he saw him: General Hoth, standing in the very center of the fray, surrounded by a bulwark of valiant allies and a relentless sea of Sith foes that broke against them again and again and again.

Locking his flier's guns on his target he swooped in, intent on taking his rival's life in a spectacular strafing run. But a mere second before he fired, a massive explosion rocked his flier, causing it to veer to the left. His shots carved a deep furrow in the ground several meters to the left of the general, leaving him miraculously unharmed.

Hoth continued fighting as if he hadn't even noticed, but Kaan banked his vehicle around sharply to see what had happened. Before he completed the turn, another explosion shook the sky beside him, and he saw one of the other fliers careen out of control and crash into the ground.

He looked up, realizing they were under attack from above. A pair of massive gunships were descending on the battle, their batteries blasting the Sith fliers from the sky one by one. On the underside of each ship, the colors of Jedi Master Valenthyne Farfalla were clearly visible.

Impossible! Kaan cursed silently. There is no way they could have broken through the blockade! Not with ships like this! Yet somehow they had.

Another series of blasts took out three more of the small fliers, and Kaan realized it was his army that was now suddenly overmatched. The fliers were quicker and more maneuverable than the Jedi gunships, but their blasters wouldn't even make a dent in the larger vessels' heavily armored hulls.

For a brief second he thought he might be able to rally the other Dark Lords. If they concentrated their attacks, they might be able to bring the gunships down, though their own losses would be heavy. But he dismissed that idea as quickly as it had come.

He wasn't the only one who had noticed the arrival of the Jedi reinforcements. Faced with overwhelming odds, the Dark Lords under his command had reacted in the only manner they understood: self-preservation through flight. Already most of the other fliers had broken off their strafing runs and were executing evasive maneuvers, intent only on escaping the battlefield alive. And with their Lords and Masters fleeing the engagement, the hordes of Sith soldiers on the ground would be quick to follow. Imminent victory was about to become disastrous defeat.

Swearing vile oaths against both the Jedi and his own people, Lord Kaan knew there was only one option left. Weaving and darting to avoid a pair of bolts intended to blow him from the sky, he joined the retreat.

Chapter 29

General Hoth couldn't help but offer the ragged hint of a smile despite the dead and wounded that lay scattered across the battlefield. The Sith had sprung their trap, and somehow the Army of Light had survived.

He recognized Farfalla's colors on the gunships that were now circling the field, keeping the Sith stragglers pinned down under whatever cover they could find until the troops on the ground could surround them and demand their surrender. Most were quick to comply. Everyone knew the Jedi preferred taking prisoners over killing their enemies, just as everyone knew the Jedi treated their prisoners humanely. The same could not be said for the Sith, of course.

A small convoy of personal fliers was emerging from the gunships, flying down to join the survivors on the ground. The general recognized Farfalla aboard the lead flier, even as Farfalla caught sight of him and came in to land.

The younger Jedi stepped off his flier, not speaking but extending his hand by way of cautious greeting. He was dressed in clothes as bright and outlandish as ever, but for some reason it didn't bother Hoth as it once had. Hoth stepped over to him and clasped him in a firm embrace, causing Farfalla to laugh in surprise. Hoth only released him from the fierce hug when Farfalla began to cough and sputter.

"Greetings, Lord Hoth," Farfalla said once he was released, making a deep bow and a flourish. Standing up, he gazed out across the battlefield, and his expression became more serious. "My only regret is we couldn't get here sooner."

"It's a miracle you're here at all, Farfalla," Hoth replied. "I'm afraid to even ask how you managed to run the blockade, in case this all turns out to be nothing more than the fevered dream of a doomed and dying man."

"Rest assured, General, I am quite real. As to how we arrived, that is easy enough to explain: the Sith broke the ranks of their blockade to engage our fleet. With our capital ships drawing the focus of their cruisers and Dreadnaughts, we were able to send several gunships down to your aid."

"What about the rest of our fleet?" Hoth asked in concern. "The Sith had nearly double the numbers of your ships."

"They held their own long enough for us to get through the blockade, then disengaged and retreated with surprisingly few casualties."

"Good." The general nodded. Then he frowned. "But I still don't understand why they would engage your fleet at all. It makes no sense!"

"I can only assume that they received orders to do so from someone here on the surface."

"Kaan was on the verge of wiping us out," Hoth insisted. "The last thing he would do is give the order to engage."

Both Jedi were silent for a moment, pondering the implications of what had happened. Finally Farfalla asked, "Is it possible we have an unknown ally among the Brotherhood of Darkness?"

Hoth shook his head. "I doubt it. More likely the Sith are finally beginning to turn on each other. It was inevitable."

Master Farfalla nodded his agreement. "It is the way of the dark side, after all."

Kaan was fuming as his flier touched down back at the Sith camp. How could everything have gone so terribly wrong in such a short time? They had been on the cusp of victory, and now suddenly they were on the knife's edge of defeat.

He stormed across the camp toward his tent, ignoring the questioning looks of Githany and the others. They wanted an explanation, but he didn't have one to give. Not yet. Not until he got a status report from Admiral Nyras. How did Farfalla break through the kriffing blockade?

His anger was so great that he didn't notice Qordis's flier parked near his tent, or the droplets of blood scattered on the ground nearby. If he had, he might have searched the area and found the body stashed in the nearby undergrowth. But all of Kaan's focus was concentrated on reaching his tent and the communications equipment inside.

He found Bane there waiting for him, standing still as stone.

"Back so soon, Kaan?" he asked. "What happened to your glorious battle?"

"Reinforcements," Kaan snarled. "Somehow Farfalla found a way to break through our blockade."

"I told your fleet to engage the Jedi," Bane said, his words as casual as if he had been discussing the weather.

Kaan's jaw dropped. He had suspected treachery, but he wasn't prepared for the traitor to openly admit it! "But… why?"

"I wanted all the Jedi here on Ruusan at the same time," Bane replied.

"You blasted fool!" Kaan shouted, waving his arms madly as if they were gripped by uncontrollable spasms. "Victory was ours! We had Hoth beaten!"

"That is your goal, not mine. I'm after a prize far greater than the death of General Hoth. He is but one man."

Kaan barked out a harsh laugh. "We all know what prize you seek, Darth Bane. You're here to take over the Brotherhood."

Bane shrugged indifferently, as if it didn't matter one way or the other to him.

He seemed so calm, so certain of what he was doing. It was all Kaan could do to keep himself from leaping at the larger man's throat. Didn't he understand what he had done? Couldn't he see that he had doomed them all?

Kaan slumped wearily into a chair. "If you lead them against the Jedi, you lead them to their slaughter."

Now it was Bane who laughed, a low, sinister chuckle. "How quickly you've fallen into despair, Kaan. It seemed only hours ago you were certain of victory!'

"That was before Farfalla and his reinforcements arrived," Kaan shot back. "Back when we had the advantages of numbers and air superiority. All that is gone, thanks to you. We can't possibly defeat them now."

"I can," Bane vowed.

Kaan sat up straighter in his chair. Again, there was that unwavering confidence. Bane knew something he didn't. Some trick. "Another ritual like the last one?" he guessed.

"I know many rituals. Many secrets. And I have the strength to use them."

Dread gripped Kaan. "The thought bomb," he breathed.

"Your leadership has failed!" Bane declared. "Now I will take the Brotherhood down the path to victory."

"And what of me?" Kaan asked, already knowing the answer.

"You can swear your loyalty to me with all the others," Bane told him, "or you can die here in this tent."

Lord Kaan knew he was no match for Bane, either physically or through the power of the Force. Yet he wasn't about to surrender so easily. Not while he still had cunning, guile, and his unique talents of persuasion on his side.

"Do you really believe the others will follow you?" he asked, pushing out with the Force to plant the first seeds of doubt in his rival's mind. "They are still wary of you after your last ritual."

A flicker of uncertainty passed across Bane's hard features. Kaan increased the pressure of his invisible compulsions and continued to speak. "The Brotherhood is about equality, not servitude. Asking the others to bow down before you will only drive them away, or turn them against you."

He rose from his chair as Bane nervously stroked his chin, weighing the arguments. "How do you think the others will react when I tell them how you orchestrated the arrival of the Jedi reinforcements?"

Bane's dark eyes flashed angrily, and his hand dropped to the hilt of his lightsaber.

"Killing me won't keep your secret," Kaan warned him. "The others know you weren't at the battle when Farfalla's ships arrived. More than a few of them probably already suspect you of betraying them."

Kaan pushed even harder with the Force, trying to twist and warp Bane's very thoughts. "You may be the strongest among us, but you can't defeat us all. Not by yourself, Bane."

The big man staggered and clutched at his head. He stumbled over to the chair and collapsed in it, the wood groaning under his massive frame. He hunched forward, hands pressing hard on his temples.

"You're right," he said through tightly clenched teeth. "You're right."

"There's still hope, though," Kaan said, stepping over and placing a reassuring hand on Bane's broad shoulder. "Follow me and I will keep the others from turning against you. Join us in the Brotherhood!"

Bane nodded slowly, then turned his head to stare up at Kaan with a desperate, hopeless expression in his eyes. "What about the Jedi? What about their gunships?"

Kaan stood, slowly releasing his mental hold over the other man. "We can nullify their air superiority by retreating into the caves," he said. "I know General Hoth; he will follow us. And there we will unleash the thought bomb against them."

Bane leapt to his feet eagerly. Kaan was pleased to see that his powers of Force persuasion were as strong as ever. Even Bane was not immune to his manipulations. "I will do as you say, Lord Kaan!" he exclaimed. "Together we will destroy the Jedi!"

"Peace, Bane," Kaan urged, extending tendrils of soothing calm. He had nullified the threat to his position that Bane represented, but he knew the effect was only temporary. In time Bane's hostility would return, as would his dreams of usurping the mantle of leadership. Kaan needed to find a more permanent solution.

"Unfortunately," he said, "there are still… complications."

"Complications?"

"I can convince the rest of the Brotherhood to forgive your treasonous acts, but only after the Jedi are destroyed. Until then, you will have to remain hidden from the others."

The confused and hurt expression on Bane's face was pitiful, but Kaan was used to eliciting such naked emotion in those he manipulated.

"I will lead the Brotherhood to the caves," he explained. "I am strong enough to join their minds and unleash the power of the thought bomb without your help. You stay here in the tent until nightfall, then sneak out of the camp. Stay safely out of view until the deed is done."

"And once the Jedi are destroyed you will return for me?"

"Yes," Kaan promised, his voice solemn. "Once the Jedi are gone, I will return for you with the full strength of the Brotherhood!' That much, at least, was truth. He would leave nothing to chance; he wouldn't underestimate his opponent anymore. Bane had already survived one assassination attempt. This time he would unleash the full numbers of his followers against his foe.

"I will do as you command, Lord Kaan," Bane replied, dropping to one knee and bowing his head. Kaan turned and marched out into the camp, heading for his own tent where the pages containing the ritual of the thought bomb were hidden away.

Bane stayed in the position of supplication until the Dark Lord was well out of sight, then stood up and brushed the dirt from his knees with a grim scowl. He had felt Kaan's efforts to dominate his mind, but they had had no more effect than a rusted knife scraping against the hide plates of a Halurian ice-boar. Yet he had seized on the opportunity and delivered a performance worthy of the greatest dramatist on Alderaan.

Kaan was convinced the thought bomb was the key to Sith victory, and he was about to ensnare the rest of the Brotherhood in his web of madness. The second phase of Bane's plan was set in motion. By nightfall the next day it would all be over.

On the perimeters of the Jedi camp, patrols circled endlessly throughout the night, ever vigilant and watchful. It wasn't just attacks from the Sith they stood guard against, but also the invasions of the floating, fur-covered bouncers.

The previously peaceful and docile native creatures of Ruusan had been driven mad by the cataclysm that had swept through the forest. Before, they had been a familiar and welcome sight: gathering in groups over the sick and wounded to project images of comfort and healing. Now they emerged from the night's gloom in terrible packs, inflicting twisted nightmares that brought suffering, terror, and panic to all in the vicinity.

There was nothing the patrols could do but shoot the tormented creatures on sight, before they spread their madness among the Jedi. A grim task, but necessary, as so many other things here on Ruusan had been.

Fortunately, the patrols had managed to keep the bouncers at bay, and the mood within the confines of the Jedi camp itself was one of cautious optimism. After the hopeless despair of the past months their subdued enthusiasm almost felt like jubilant revelry to General Hoth.

They were no longer the hunted, cowering in the depths of the forest, surviving only as long as they remained hidden. The Jedi had gained the upper hand: their new camp had been set up on the open plains along the edges of the very battlefield where the war had turned. And now it was the Sith who had gone into hiding.

The general, though still exhausted by the desperate escape from the flames and the fighting that followed, refused to sleep. There were too many details to see to, too many things that needed his attention.

In addition to organizing the patrols to protect against the bouncers, he also had to oversee the distribution of fresh supplies. Farfalla's ships had delivered desperately needed food, medpacs, and fresh power cells for blasters and personal shields. With most of their other stores lost to the unnatural wildfire that had devastated the forests, the general wanted to make sure all his troops were properly reequipped and tended to before he granted himself the luxury of rest.

He wove his way through dozens of dying campfires and scores of snoring bodies. They were still short on tents for the troops, but those without were more than content to spend the warm nights splayed out on the ground sleeping beneath the open sky.

"General!" a voice called out, surprisingly loud in the otherwise still night. Hoth turned to see Farfalla running toward him, sure-footed despite the darkness as he leapt nimbly over the slumbering soldiers in his way.

Pausing to let him catch up, Hoth returned his now customary, yet still extravagant, bow with a courteous nod. "Do you have news, Master Farfalla?"

The younger man nodded excitedly. "Our scouts have spotted the Sith on the move. Kaan is leading them east, toward the foothills."

"Probably heading into the caves and tunnel systems," Hoth guessed. "Trying to take away our advantage in the air."

Farfalla smiled. "Fortunately, we've already done some reconnaissance on the area. We know most of the major access points to and from the surface. Once they go into the tunnels we can surround the exits. They'll be trapped!"

"Hmmm…" Hoth stroked his heavy beard. "It isn't like Kaan to make such an obvious tactical mistake," he muttered. "He's up to something."

"I could instruct some of the scouts to follow them into the tunnels and keep an eye on them," Farfalla suggested.

"No," Hoth said firmly after only a moment's consideration. "Kaan will be watching for spies. I won't deliver any of our people into his hands for interrogation."

"Maybe we could starve them out," Farfalla offered. "Force them to surrender without any more bloodshed."

"That would be the best solution," the general admitted. "Unfortunately, I don't think we can afford that kind of time." He gave a deep sigh and a weary shake of his head. "I don't know why Kaan's heading into the caves… I just know we have to do something to stop him." Resolve hardened his face. "Sound the reveille and assemble the troops. We'll go in after him."

"Not to question your orders, General," Farfalla began, as tactfully as he could, "but is it possible Kaan is luring you into a trap?"

"I'm almost certain of it," Hoth conceded. "But it's a trap he's going to spring sooner or later anyway. I'd rather not give him time to prepare. If we're lucky we can catch him before he's ready."

"As you command, General," Farfalla said with another of his grandiose bows. Then he added, "You, however, should get some sleep. You look as pale and drawn as one of the Sith yourself."

"I can't sleep now, my friend," Hoth answered, placing a heavy hand on Farfalla's delicate shoulder. "I was here at the start of this war. I was the one who led the Army of Light here to Ruusan to face Kaan's Brotherhood of Darkness. I must see this out to the end."

"But how much longer can you go without sleep, General?"

"Long enough. I get the feeling this will all be over by tomorrow's end, one way or another."

Chapter 30

The caves were cool and damp, but they were far from dark. The rock walls and ceiling were laced with crystals that caught the dim light from the glow rods, reflecting and refracting their illumination throughout the cavern. Small pools shimmered on the floor, and enormous stalagmites jutted up toward the roof. An inverted forest of stalactites hung down, water dripping steadily from their tips to splash and ripple the pools far below. In some places the protrusions on the floor and ceiling had actually fused, joined by centuries of sediment deposits from the endless trickles of moisture. The enormous columns were magnificent: massive, yet at the same time delicate and fragile.

Kaan had no time to marvel at the natural beauty of their surroundings. He knew the Jedi scouts had marked their exodus to this underground refuge. And he knew General Hoth wouldn't wait long before coming after him.

The cavern, though large, was crowded with the rest of the Brotherhood. Every surviving Sith Lord, with the notable exception of Darth Bane, was gathered with him here to make their final stand. The rest of his army was guarding the main entrances to the subterranean tunnels, with orders to hold off the inevitable Jedi attack for as long as possible.

Eventually those outside would be overwhelmed, but Kaan was confident their numbers would delay Hoth long enough for the ritual of the thought bomb to be completed.

"Gather 'round," he called out to the others. "It is time."

Githany knew there was something very wrong with Lord Kaan. She had suspected something was amiss when they had fled the arriving Jedi reinforcements. When they landed back at camp, Kaan had disappeared into the communications tent, then reappeared moments later and gone into his own tent without speaking a word. But when he emerged from his tent, the irresistible force of his charisma was back in place. He came to them then not as a defeated leader seeking to make amends but as a conquering hero, defiant and unbowed. He stood proud, the picture of might and glory.

He spoke to them, his voice strong and his words bold, radiating authority. He spoke of leading them in a joining of their minds, a ritual that would far surpass the one Bane had led them in only hours earlier. He told them of a terrible weapon they would unleash against their foes. He rekindled their faith and hope by revealing the existence of the thought bomb.

He had promised them victory, as he had done so many times before. And, as they had always done in the past, the Brotherhood had followed him once again. Followed him here to this cave, though Githany wasn't sure if it was more accurate to say they had been led, or lured.

She had followed him along with everyone else, compelled by the passion of his words and the sheer magnitude of his personality and presence. All thoughts that he might be unstable or unfit to lead them had been forgotten in the heady pilgrimage through the night to the shelter of this cave. Once they reached their destination, though, the exhilarating rush had faded away, replaced by a stark and undeniable clarity. And she had finally seen the truth revealed in the illumination of the glow rods reflected in the crystals of the cavern walls.

Kaan's appearance and garb weren't unusual, apart from the dust, grime, and blood of the recent battle. But now Githany could see a crazed look in his eyes; they were wide and wild and shone with a fierce intensity, sparkling as brightly as the crystal shards all around them. Those eyes brought back memories of the night she had surprised Kaan in his tent. The night she had seen her vision of Bane's return.

He had looked disheveled and frantic, lost and confused. For a brief moment she had glimpsed him as he truly was: a false prophet, unable to see past his own delusions. And then the flickering vision had disappeared, forgotten until this instant.

Now, however, the memory came flooding back, and Githany knew she was following a madman. The arrival of the Jedi reinforcements and the shocking defeat had caused something inside him to snap. Kaan was leading them to their doom, and none of the others could sense it.

She didn't dare to speak out against him. Not here in this cave, surrounded by his once again fanatically loyal followers. She wanted to sneak away, slip quietly off into the darkness beyond the radiance of the glow rods, and escape this horrible fate. But she was caught up by the crush of bodies that surged forward at Kaan's command.

"Gather in. Closer. Form a circle; a ring of power."

She felt his hand grab her tightly by the wrist and pull her in so that her body pressed up against his. Even in the chill of the cave, his touch was freezing. "Stand beside me, Githany," he whispered. "We will share in this moment of exaltation."

Loudly he shouted, "Join your hands as we must join our minds."

The fingers of his right hand wrapped around her left, seizing it in a grip cold as ice and unyielding as durasteel. One of the other Sith Lords took her other hand, and she knew all hope of escape was gone.

Beside her, Kaan began to chant.

Githany was not the only one who sensed something wrong with Lord Kaan. Like all the others, Lord Kopecz had been swept up in the excitement of the thought bomb. He had cheered with all the rest when Kaan described how it would obliterate the Jedi and imprison their spirits. And he had eagerly joined in the throng that had followed him to the cave.

Now, however, his zeal had faded. He was thinking rationally again, and he realized the plan was utter insanity. They were at ground zero of the thought bomb's detonation. Any weapon powerful enough to destroy the Jedi would destroy them, too.

Kaan had promised them that the strength of their combined will would allow them to survive the blast, but now Kopecz had his doubts. The promise stank of wishful thinking birthed from a desperate mind that refused to admit defeat. If Kaan had had this thought bomb all along, why hadn't he used it before?

The only logical answer was that he was afraid of the consequences. And though Kaan, in his madness, may have let go of that fear, Kopecz was still sane enough to cling to his.

The rest of the Sith pressed forward in response to Kaan's command, but Kopecz fought against the momentum of the crowd and moved in the opposite direction. None of the others seemed to notice.

A wall of bodies surrounded Kaan, blocking much of the light from the glow rods. In the shadows the Twi'lek moved carefully toward the cavern's main exit, surprisingly silent for such a large being. He didn't turn or look back as he entered the tunnel to the surface, and picked up his pace only once he heard the Brotherhood begin a slow, rhythmic chant.

Escape was impossible, of course. By now the Jedi would already have the entire tunnel complex surrounded. Soon they would engage the Sith troops out on the surface, trying to break through their barricade to come after Kaan and end the last great battle of Ruusan. Kopecz didn't know if they would make it in time. Part of him actually hoped they would.

In the end, though, he wanted to make sure it didn't matter to him. He'd join the defenders on the surface in one last stand against the Jedi. Death was inevitable; he was willing to accept that fact. But he also knew he'd rather die from a lightsaber or a blaster shot than be caught by the thought bomb's detonation.

The chant was simple, and after repeating it only once Kaan was joined by the rest of the Brotherhood. They recited the unfamiliar catechism in a steady, constant rhythm. Their voices bounced off the cavern walls, the ancient words mixing and mingling in counterpoint as they echoed throughout the cave.

Githany could feel the power beginning to gather in the center of the ring, like a fierce whirlpool spinning faster and faster. She felt the pull on her conscious thoughts as they were dragged down, her awareness, her mind, and even her identity swallowed up in the vortex. The cool dampness of the cave faded, as did the reverberation of their voices. She could no longer smell the mildew and fungus growing in the hidden corners, or feel the pressure of the hands that gripped her own. Finally, the shimmering of the reflective crystals and the pale light from the glow rods melted away.

We are one. The voice was Kaan's, yet it was hers, as well. We are the dark side. The dark side is us.

Though she could no longer hear the sound of their chanting she could sense it, even as her mind slipped deeper and deeper into the center. Realizing she would soon lose both the ability and the desire to free herself from Kaan's ritual, she tried to fight against what was happening to her.

It was like swimming against the relentless undertow of an ocean's heart. She felt the words of their recurring mantra taking physical shape. They wrapped around their collective will, trapping it, shaping it, and binding it into a rapidly coalescing form.

Feel the power of the dark side. Surrender to it. Surrender to the unified whole. Let us become one.

From deep within herself Githany summoned her last reserves of resistance. Somehow they were enough, and she was able to wrench her mind free from the unholy conclave.

She staggered back with a gasp, her sense crashing over her like floodwaters bursting through a retaining wall. Sight, sound, smell, and touch returned all at once, overwhelming her frantic mind. The light from the glow rods had grown faint and dim, as if it, too, was being swallowed by the ritual. The chant continued, so loud now it actually hurt her ears. The temperature had dropped so sharply that she was able to see her breath, and tiny crystals of frost had begun to form on the stalactites and along the edges of the tiny puddles and pools.

Suddenly she realized that neither Kaan nor anyone else had a grip on her hands. They were all standing in the ring, arms raised toward its center, oblivious to the world around them. At first it looked as if they were grasping at nothing, but as her eyes adjusted to the gloom she caught sight of a strange distortion in the air.

Githany couldn't bear to look at it for more than a moment. There was something terrible and unnatural about the wavering fabric of reality, and she turned away in horror.

Bane was right, she realized. Kaan has brought us to ruin!

There was a faint tug on her mind. A gentle pull that was quickly growing stronger, threatening to draw her in with the others. She stumbled away from the profane ceremony and its doomed celebrants, squinting to see her way along the uneven footing.

Bane tried to warn me, but I wouldn't listen. Her thoughts were a chaotic jumble of regret, desperation, and fear. Even as one part of her brain chastised her for her mistake, another was forcing her to back away from the abomination being birthed by the Brotherhood.

Her retreat brought her to one of the cavern walls and she followed along it, looking for a way out. The compulsion of the ritual was growing stronger. She could feel it calling to her, inviting her to join the others and share their fate.

She had no plan, no sense of where she was going. She simply had to escape, flee, get out. Get away from here before she was sucked in once again. A small space opened in the stone: a narrow tunnel entrance just wide enough for her to sneak through. She squeezed her body into the crevice, the jagged stone slicing through cloth and skin.

The pain was nothing to her. The physical world was slipping away again. Desperately, Githany managed to throw herself forward, crashing to the ground, then crawled frantically on her hands and knees down the tunnel.

Away. She had to get away. Away from the ritual. Away from Kaan. Away from the thought bomb before it was too late.

The Sith soldiers guarding the entrance to the subterranean tunnels were strong in number but weak in spirit. They offered only token resistance to Farfalla and the rest of the Jedi advance units who came against them. The last battle of Ruusan quickly transformed into a mass surrender, with the enemy throwing down their weapons and begging for their lives.

Farfalla walked among his troops, surveying the scene. General Hoth was close behind with the bulk of the army. He'd be surprised to find the war already over when he arrived.

"How goes it?" Farfalla asked one of the unit commanders.

"The Sith troops have us outnumbered three to one," the commander answered gruffly. "And they're all trying to surrender at the same time. This is going to take awhile."

Farfalla gave him a hearty laugh and slapped him on the shoulder. "Well said," he agreed. "Sometimes I think people only follow the Sith because they know we will take them alive if they lose."

"Don't you dare take me alive, Farfalla," a voice gurgled. Turning his head sharply, he saw a heavyset Twi'lek lying wounded on the ground.

The injured Twi'lek struggled to his feet, and Farfalla was surprised to see that he wore the robes of a Sith Lord. His face was so covered in blood and gore, most of it his own, that it took the Jedi a moment to recognize him.

"Kopecz," he said at last, remembering him from days long gone, back when Kopecz had been a Jedi. "You are hurt," Farfalla continued, extending his hand in an offer of friendship. "Lay down your weapons and we can help you."

The Twi'lek's meaty hand lashed out to slap him away. "I chose my side long ago," he spat. "Promise me death, Jedi, and I will give you a warning. I will tell you Kaan's plan."

One look at the Dark Lord's wounds told Farfalla his enemy didn't have long to live in any case. "What do you know?"

Kopecz coughed, choking on the blood welling up in his throat. "Promise me, first," he wheezed.

"I will grant you death, if that is what you truly seek. I swear it."

The Twi'lek laughed, pink froth bubbling up on his lips. "Good. Death is an old friend. What Kaan has planned is far worse." And he told Farfalla about the thought bomb, his words sending a chill down the Jedi Master's spine. When Kopecz had finished he bowed his head and took a deep breath to gather his strength, then activated his lightsaber.

"You promised me death," he said. "I wish to fall in combat. If you hold back at all, you will be the one who dies here today. Do you understand?"

Master Farfalla nodded grimly, igniting his own weapon.

Lord Kopecz fought valiantly despite his wounds, though he was no match for a fresh and uninjured Jedi Master. In the end, Farfalla fulfilled his promise.

Chapter 31

The scene that greeted General Hoth as his army came upon the battlefield was as unexpected as it was welcome. He had braced himself for a vision of grim and bloody slaughter, fierce combat with neither side giving nor asking quarter. He had imagined the corpses of the dead would be strewn about, trampled beneath the feet of those still fighting desperately to hang on to their lives. He had come expecting to see a war.

Instead he was witness to something so unbelievable his initial reaction was one of suspicion. Was it a trick? A trap? His fears were quickly allayed when he recognized the familiar and smiling faces of other Jedi all around him.

As he surveyed the aftermath of the last battle of Ruusan, his own face broke into a smile. There were only a handful of dead, and from their dress it was clear that few of them had served in the Army of Light. Most of the enemy had been taken prisoner: they were sitting calmly on the ground in large groups, surrounded by armed Jedi. Yet even though the Jedi were keeping close watch on their captured foes, they were laughing and joking with one another.

He reached out with the Force, and he felt wave after wave of relief and joy washing out from Farfalla's troops. The soldiers under his command were quick to feel it, too. Seeing the obvious victory, they broke ranks and ran cheering and laughing down to join their fellows in celebration. Hoth resisted the urge to shout out a command to regroup and simply let them go.

The endless war was over!

But as he walked through the milling throngs, accepting the salutes and congratulations of his followers, he realized something was wrong. The battlefield was full of placid, unarmed Sith… but he saw not a single Dark Lord among their numbers.

The sight of Master Farfalla running at full speed toward him from the far side of the field did little to soothe his unease.

"General," Farfalla said, sliding to a stop and gasping for breath. He snapped off a quick salute. The lack of his typical over-the-top bow further fueled Hoth's mounting concern.

"I must have taken longer to assemble my forces than I thought," the general joked, hoping his disquiet was simply misplaced paranoia. "It seems you've already won the war."

Farfalla shook his head. "The war isn't over. Not yet. Kaan and the Brotherhood, the true Sith, have taken refuge in the caves. They're going to unleash some kind of Sith weapon. Something called a thought bomb."

A thought bomb? Hoth had heard mention of such a weapon long ago, studying at the feet of his Master back at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. According to legendary accounts, the ancient Sith had the ability to forge the dark side into a concentrated sphere of power and then unleash its energy in a single, devastating blast. All those sensitive to the Force, Sith and Jedi alike, would be consumed by the explosion, their spirits trapped in the great vacuum created at the epicenter of the detonation.

"Is Kaan mad?" he said aloud, though the very question was answer enough.

"We have to evacuate, General," Farfalla insisted. "Get everyone away as fast as possible."

"No," Hoth answered. "That won't work. If we retreat, Kaan and the Brotherhood will escape. It won't take them long to rally support and begin this war all over again."

"But what about the thought bomb?" Valenthyne demanded.

"If Kaan has such a weapon," the general explained grimly, "then he will use it. If not here, then somewhere else. Maybe in the Core Worlds. Maybe on Coruscant itself. I can't allow that.

"Kaan wants to witness my death. I have to go into the cave to face him. I have to force him to detonate the bomb here on Ruusan. It's the only way to truly end this."

Farfalla dropped to one knee. "Then I will go by your side, General. As will all who follow me."

Reaching out with his strong, weathered hands, General Hoth took Farfalla by the shoulders and hauled him to his feet. "No, my friend," he said with a sigh, "you cannot walk this journey with me."

When the other started to protest he held up a hand for silence and continued. "When Kaan unleashes his weapon, all within that cave will die. The Sith will be wiped out, but I won't let that happen to our entire order. The galaxy will have need of Jedi to rebuild once this war is over. You and the other Masters must live so that you may guide them and defend the Republic as we have done since its foundation."

There was no real argument against the wisdom of his words, and after a moment's deliberation Master Farfalla dropped his head in mute acceptance. When he looked up again there were tears in his eyes.

"Surely you're not going in alone?" he protested.

"I wish I could," Hoth replied. "But if I do the Dark Lords will simply take me down with their lightsabers. That would solve nothing. Kaan has to see that his only choice is to surrender or.." He left the thought unspoken.

"You'll need enough Jedi to convince the Brotherhood that a physical battle would be hopeless. At least a hundred. Any less and he won't detonate the thought bomb."

Hoth nodded. "Nobody will be ordered to go in with me. Ask for volunteers. And make sure they understand none of us will ever be coming out."

Despite the danger, virtually every single member of the Army of Light volunteered for the mission. General Hoth realized that he shouldn't have been surprised. After all, these were Jedi, willing to sacrifice everything, even their lives, for the greater good. In the end he did what he knew he would have to do all along: he himself chose who would accompany him to certain death.

He selected exactly ninety-nine others to go with him. The decision was agonizingly difficult. If he took less, the Sith might be able to fight their way out of the cave and escape, only to detonate their thought bomb somewhere else. But the more he took, the more Jedi lives he might be needlessly throwing away.

Choosing who would go with him was even more difficult. Those Jedi who had served at his side the longest, the ones who had joined the Army of Light at the very beginning of the campaign, were those he knew best. He knew how much they had already given in this war, and these were the ones he least wanted to lead to their doom. Yet these were the ones with the most right to stand by his side when the end finally came, and when all was said and done that was how he made his selection. Those with the most seniority would go with him; the others would fall back with Lord Farfalla.

The hundred Jedi, the ninety-nine chosen plus Hoth himself, stood anxiously at the entrance of the tunnels. The sky above was growing dark as night fell and ominous storm clouds rolled in. Still, the general did not give the command to advance. He wanted to give Farfalla and the others enough time to get clear. If it had been possible, he would have ordered all those not going into the cave to leave Ruusan. But there wasn't time. They would simply have to get as far away as possible, then hope they were beyond the range of Kaan's thought bomb.

As the first drops of rain began to fall, he realized he could wait no longer, and he gave the command to advance. They marched in an orderly fashion into the tunnel, down into the caverns far beneath the planet's surface.

The first thing Hoth noticed as they descended was how cold the tunnel quickly became, as if all the heat had been sucked away. The next thing he felt was the tension in the air. It actually pulsed with vast, unimaginable power just barely held in check; the power of the dark side. He didn't allow himself to think about what would happen when that power was released.

They advanced slowly, wary of traps or an ambush. They found none. In fact, they saw no sign of the Sith at all until they reached the large central cavern at the heart of the tunnel system.

General Hoth led the way, a glow rod in one hand and his drawn lightsaber in the other. As he stepped into the cavern, his glow rod suddenly flickered and went very dim. Even the illumination from his lightsaber seemed to die, becoming the thinnest sliver of incandescence.

As his eyes grew accustomed to the heavy shadows he was able to pick out the shapes of the Sith Lords, standing in a circle on the far side of the cave. They faced inward, their hands raised to its center. They stood without moving, their mouths hanging open, their features slack, their eyes blank. Cautiously, he approached the still forms, wondering if they were alive, dead, or trapped in some nightmare state in between.

Drawing closer he could make out a single figure standing in the center of the circle: Lord Kaan. He hadn't seen him at first; the middle of the ring was darker than the rest of the cave. There seemed to be a black cloud hovering above him, tendrils of inky darkness extending down to wrap and twist around him in a sinister embrace.

One look at the leader of the Brotherhood and any hope the general had of convincing Lord Kaan to listen to reason died. The Sith Lord's face was pale and taut; his features were stretched as if his skin had become too tight for his skull. A thin layer of ice coated his hair and lashes. His expression was one of cruel arrogance, and his left eye trembled and twitched uncontrollably. He stared straight ahead with a frozen intensity, unblinking and unmoving as Hoth and his Jedi slowly filled the cavern.

Only after all the Jedi were inside did he speak. "Welcome, Lord Hoth." His voice was tight and strained.

"Are you trying to scare me, Kaan?" Hoth asked, stepping forward. "I do not fear death," he continued. "I do not mind dying. I would not mind all the Jedi dying if it meant the end of the Sith."

Kaan turned his head quickly from one side to the other, his eyes darting back and forth across the cave as if he were counting the Jedi who stood before him. His lip curled into a sneer, and he raised his hands up.

The general made his move, lunging forward to try to end Kaan's life before he could unleash his ultimate weapon. He wasn't quick enough. The Dark Lord clapped his hands together sharply, and the thought bomb exploded.

In an instant every living soul in the cave was snuffed out of existence. Clothing, flesh, and bone were vaporized. The stalactites, the stalagmites, even the massive stone columns were reduced to clouds of dust. The rumbling echo of the blast rolled down every tunnel, crevice, and fissure leading out of the cavern as the destructive wave of energy began to spread.

Githany was trapped in the labyrinth of subterranean passages. In fleeing Kaan's ritual she had lost her bearings, and now she wandered aimlessly down kilometer after kilometer of natural tunnels as she searched in vain for an exit to the surface.

In the dim light of her glow rod she saw a small opening on her left and followed it for many meters before it came to a dead end. Shouting out a curse, she turned and made her way back again.

She was furious. Furious at Kaan for bringing the Brotherhood to the brink of destruction. Furious at herself for following him there. And furious at Bane. There was no doubt in her mind that he had somehow orchestrated all this. He had manipulated Kaan and the rest of the Brotherhood, driving them toward their own destruction. Yet that betrayal wasn't what enraged her. Bane had abandoned her. He'd cast her aside with the others, leaving her to die while he went off to rebuild the Sith.

Ahead of her the tunnel branched in two directions. She paused, drawing on the Force to heighten her senses in the hope she might find some hint as to which path to take. At first there was nothing. Then she caught the faintest whisper of a breeze coming from the tunnel on the left. The air smelled fresh and clean: it led to the surface!

As she raced up the passage, her frustration and rage fell away. She was going to survive! The uneven ground began to slope sharply upward, and she could see a hint of natural light far in the distance. She redoubled her efforts, and her thoughts turned to how she would exact her revenge.

She would have to be subtle and cunning. She had underestimated Bane too many times in the past. This time she would be patient, not striking until she was certain the moment was right.

The first step was to find him and offer to be his apprentice. There was no doubt in her mind he would accept. He needed someone to serve him; it was the way of the dark side. She would learn at his feet, subjugating herself to his will. It might take years, maybe decades, but in time he would teach her everything he knew. Only then, after all his secrets were hers, would she turn on him. She would become the Master and take an apprentice of her own.

Escape was less than fifty meters away when Githany felt the first effects of the thought bomb. It began with a trembling in the ground. Her initial instinct was fear of a groundquake or cave-in that would bury her beneath tons of dirt and stones within sight of the surface. But when she felt the power of the dark side rushing up the passage toward her, she realized she was about to suffer a far more horrible fate. Those at the epicenter of the blast had been vaporized. Caught on the fringes of the thought bomb's radius, Githany was not so lucky. The wave of pure dark side energy swept over her an instant later. It tore through her like some terrible wind, sucking the essence of life from her body and ripping her spirit from its corporeal shell. Her flesh withered and shrank, her beautiful features mummified before she even had time to scream. And then, as quickly as it had come, the wave had passed. For one frozen moment her lifeless husk stood in perfect balance, before it toppled and struck the ground, disintegrating into ash.

On the surface many kilometers away, Farfalla and the other Jedi felt the ground shake, and they knew their general was no more. A moment later their minds erupted with the tortured screams of the Jedi and Sith caught up in the blast, their life-force ripped away and sucked into the vacuum at the heart of the blast.

Many of the Jedi wept in anguish, understanding how great the sacrifice of their fallen comrades had been. The spirits of the dead were bound for all eternity, forever frozen in stasis.

Master Valenthyne Farfalla, now the leader of what remained of the Army of Light, felt the sorrow as deeply as any of them. But this was not the time for grief. With General Hoth's passing, the burden of command was his to bear, and there were things that still needed to be done.

"Captain Haduran, assemble a team," he ordered. "We're going to search the area in and around the tunnels for survivors." He knew no living creature could have withstood the power of the thought bomb, but it was possible a few of the Sith might have fled before the detonation. After all that had been sacrificed, he had no intention of letting any of the Brotherhood escape.

The captain gave him a quick salute and turned to go. Just before he left Farfalla added, "And have your troops keep an eye out for the bouncers. The last Sith ritual drove them to madness. Who knows what this one did to them."

"And if we spot them, sir?"

"Shoot to kill."

Many kilometers in the opposite direction, Darth Bane also felt the reverberations of the blast. He sensed the wave of dark side energy pass over him, strong enough to leave him shivering even at this distance. Once it was gone he reached out with the Force to seek out any who might have escaped. As he expected, he felt nothing. They were all gone: Kaan, Kopecz, Githany… all of them.

The Brotherhood of Darkness had been purged. As far as the Jedi knew, the Sith were now extinct. Bane intended to keep it that way.

He was the only Dark Lord of the Sith, the last of his kind. The burden of rebuilding the order would fall to him. But this time he would do it right. Instead of many there would be only two: one Master and one apprentice. One to embody the power, and one to crave it.

To survive, the Sith had to vanish, becoming creatures of myth, legend, and nightmares. Hidden from the eyes of the Jedi, they could seek out the lost secrets of the dark side until its full power was theirs to command. Only then, once victory over their enemies was certain, would they tear aside the veil of shadows and reveal themselves.

The path ahead would be long and difficult. It might take years or decades before they could strike at the light once more. Perhaps even centuries. But Bane was patient; he understood what was to come and what must be done. Though he himself might not live to see the triumph of the dark side, those who followed him would carry on his legacy. Someday in the distant future, the Republic would fall and the Jedi would perish, and the entire galaxy would bow down to a Dark Lord of the Sith. It was inevitable; it was the way of the dark side.

Satisfied that his work on Ruusan was done, he began the long hike to where he had hidden his ship. He knew the remaining Jedi would come looking for survivors, but by the time they arrived he would be long gone.

Still, one thing troubled him. In order for all this to come to pass he had to find a suitable apprentice. One strong in the Force, but not yet tainted by the teachings of the Jedi. Somewhere he needed to find a child worthy of becoming heir to all the power of the dark side.

EPILOGUE

Rain stirred in her sleep, yet didn't wake. Someone was calling to her, but she didn't want to answer. In her dreams she could imagine she was still back home with her cousins, enjoying a simple but happy life. If she woke, she knew she'd have to face the truth: that life was gone forever.

Wake, Rain.

It had vanished the moment that the Jedi, Master Torr, his name had been, had recruited them to join the Army of Light. She hadn't even really wanted to join. But Bug and Tomcat, her cousins, were both going. They were her only family, and she didn't want to be left behind. She was young, only ten, but she was strong in the Force. And so Master Torr had let her come, too.

He had told them he was taking them to Ruusan, where they would become Jedi. Only that never happened. Their shuttle had been attacked as soon as they entered the atmosphere. What occurred next was just a blur, but she remembered an explosion and screams. One wing of the ship had sheared away and suddenly she was falling. The smoking wreckage of the shuttle became a speck in the sky above her as it spiraled off out of control and she fell down, down, down until

Rain, wake!

Laa! Laa had saved her, and it was Laa who was calling to her now. Slowly she opened her eyes and sat up, still groggy.

Rain slept long. Now Rain must wake.

"I'm up, Laa," she said to the bouncer hovering above her. Laa had saved her from that fall, catching her as she plummeted from hundreds of meters above Ruusan's surface.

Bad dreams, Rain.

"No," she replied. "Not bad dreams, Laa. I dreamed I was back home." Laa never actually spoke to her; she only heard the words inside her head. They communicated through the power of the Force, Laa had once explained to her. But whenever Rain answered, she always voiced the words aloud.

Bad dreams coming.

Rain frowned, trying to figure out exactly what Laa was trying to tell her. Sometimes when the bouncers talked about dreams they actually meant something else. Sometimes it was as if the bouncers had visions of the future. She remembered what Laa had said just before the entire forest had exploded in flames: Bad dreams, Rain. Death dreams.

The fires had killed most of the other bouncers. The survivors had all gone mad. All except Laa. Somehow Rain had saved her. She'd used the Force, shielding them both from the burning death and destruction, though she wasn't quite sure how she'd done it. It had just sort of.. happened. Now she and Laa had nobody left but each other.

Bad dreams coming, the bouncer repeated.

A few hours earlier she had felt something strange: the ground rumbling beneath her feet as if something had exploded far, far away. Was this what Laa was talking about? Was this the bad dream? Or was her friend trying to warn her about something that hadn't happened yet?

"I don't understand," she said, looking around at the bushes surrounding the clearing where she had lain down to sleep. She didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Not yet, anyway.

Good-bye, Rain.

There was an aching sorrow in Laa's words that stabbed through Rain's heart like a knife, but she still didn't know what the bouncer was talking about.

Before she could ask, there was a sound from the bushes. She spun around to see two men come crashing into the clearing. She could tell right away they were Jedi: they wore the same brown robes as Master Torr, and she saw lightsabers dangling from their belts. Each one also carried a large blaster rifle.

"Bouncer!" one shouted. "Look out!"

They reacted so quickly their motions were nothing but a blur as they opened fire. By the time the scream left Rain's lips, her friend was already dead.

She was still screaming when the first Jedi ran up to her. "Are you okay, little one?" he asked, reaching down.

Instinctively, she lashed out at him. She didn't know how she did it; it wasn't even a conscious thought. She only knew he had shot her friend. He had killed Laa!

"What's the mat?" His voice was cut short as she snapped his neck with the Force. The eyes of his companion went wide in horror, but before he could do anything else she had broken his neck, too.

Only then did Rain stop screaming. Instead she began to cry, great heaving sobs that racked her body as she crawled over to press herself against the soft green fur of Laa's still-warm body where it had fallen to the ground.

Bane found her there: a young human child weeping over the remains of one of Ruusan's native bouncers. The corpses of two young Jedi lay nearby, their heads twisted at obscene angles to their bodies. It took him only an instant to piece together what must have happened.

The girl looked up at him as he approached, her eyes puffy and red. He guessed she was nine, maybe ten at the most. He could feel the power of the Force burning in her, fueled by grief and rage and hatred. Even if he hadn't sensed it, the broken Jedi at her feet gave mute testament to her abilities.

He didn't speak, but stood silently. The girl's sobbing stopped. She sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Then she rose to her feet and took a tentative step toward him.

"Who are you?" he demanded, his voice deep and threatening.

She didn't retreat or flee, though her reply was hesitant. "My name is Rain… I mean Zannah. My cousins used to call me Rain, but they're dead now. Zannah's my real name."

Bane nodded, understanding completely. Rain: a nickname, a name of childhood and innocence. An innocence now lost.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked.

She nodded and took another step forward. "You're a Sith."

"You're not afraid of me?"

"No," she insisted with a shake of her head, though Bane knew she wasn't being completely honest. He could feel her fear, but it was buried beneath far stronger emotions: grief, anger, hatred, and the desire for revenge.

"I have killed many people," Bane warned her. "Men, women… even children."

She shuddered but held her ground. "I'm a killer, too."

Bane glanced over at the Jedi corpses, then turned his focus back to the little girl standing defiantly before him. Was she the one? Had the Force led him along this route back to his ship? Had it brought him here at this exact moment simply so he could find his apprentice?

He asked the final, most important question. "Do you know the ways of the Force? Do you understand the true nature of the dark side?"

"No," Rain admitted, never dropping her gaze from his own. "But you can teach me. I'm young. I will learn."