He was unable to speak, his mind still swirling with all that had happened: his ascension to the rank of Jedi Knight; his posting to Valorum’s guard; the tragic news of Irtanna and her crew.
“You will forever look back on this day as one of great joy, but also one of great sorrow,” Farfalla told him, offering one final piece of advice. “It will help you to remember that, in life, the two are often closely linked.”
“I will remember, Master,” Johun vowed, realizing that for the first time he was offering his word not as a Padawan, but as a true Jedi Knight.
Darovit moved with a slow but steady pace across the cracked soil of the sunbaked field. His left hand clutched a walking stick while the stump where his right had been was wrapped in heavy bandages. A hovering bouncer matched his pace on either side; their round bodies bobbed along like a pair of furry green balloons tethered to his shoulders. They had wide, soulful eyes but no visible nose or mouth. Their long, flat tails streamed out behind them like ribbons fluttering on the breeze.
The bouncers had first come to him in the cave, where he had lain for days in a near-catatonic state. Huddled and clutching at his maimed limb, he had given up all hope. When they found him, he had wanted nothing more than to die.
The compassionate, telepathic creatures had circled above him, speaking directly to his mind, offering words of comfort and assurance. They had soothed his troubled spirit, and though they could not heal his wounds they were able to ease his physical pain.
They had guided him safely out of the underground tunnels and back up to the bright sun and fresh air of the surface. They had led him to a grove where he found cool water to slake his thirst and sweet berries to sate his ravenous hunger. They’d even shown him where to find an abandoned cache of medical supplies, so he could properly clean and dress his amputated stump to stave off infection.
For several days the young man had stayed hidden at the bouncers’ grove, gathering his strength and recovering from his terrible wound. He was too afraid of being recognized as one of the Sith to seek out others of his own species, too ashamed by his actions and his mutilated limb to face others of his own kind. But more powerful than either his fear or his shame was his rage—Rain had taken his hand! His own cousin had betrayed and maimed him! Thoughts of vengeance and retribution consumed him; images of hunting her down and destroying her filled his restless dreams.
Yet as his body began to heal, his anger began to fade. Desperate to cling to his hatred, he had replayed the encounter with Rain over and over in his mind … only to have the truth suddenly dawn on him. Rain had been trying to save him!
Surrounded by the gentle bouncers and their calming presence, Darovit was finally able to understand what she had done. The Sith at his cousin’s side would have killed him without a second thought. By crippling him, Rain had spared his life; a final act of mercy before she fell under the sway of her new dark side Master.
And with understanding came acceptance, Darovit’s hand was gone. Rain was gone. His dreams of joining the Jedi—or the Sith—were gone. All he had left were the bouncers.
Darovit was grateful for their kindness, but he couldn’t understand why they had helped him. Perhaps it was because everyone else was gone: The Sith were destroyed, their minions had fled the world or been taken away as prisoners of war. The Jedi and Republic soldiers serving in the Army of Light were all gone. Two nights earlier he’d seen the telltale flicker of ships making the jump to hyperspace in the starry sky as their fleet had left orbit. Even those who lived on Ruusan had gone back to their farms and villages, abandoning the site of the great battle between the darkness and the light. For several days now he had seen no living creature other than the bouncers who had saved him.
He understood that they had given him a second chance at life. He could put his past behind him and start again. But to what purpose? To what end? The bouncers spoke often of the future, as if they had some ability to see glimpses of what was to come. Like most oracles, however, they used words that were couched in vague riddles and generalities, words that offered him no clue to his own fate.
Darovit sad, one of the creatures projected into his mind, a statement more than a question.
“I just don’t know what I should do now,” he answered out loud. While the bouncers could project their thoughts and empathically sense broad emotion in others, they weren’t able to read minds. It was necessary to actually speak to carry on a conversation with them.
“What kind of future is there for me?” he continued, giving voice to the problem he had been struggling with internally. “I failed as a Jedi. I failed as a Sith. What could I hope to become now?”
Man?
The answer actually made him stop short. “A man?” he repeated.
Not a Sith, not a Jedi. Not a mercenary, not a soldier. Not anything but a simple, ordinary man. He nodded and resumed his march across the empty, open field, feeling as if a great weight had been lifted from him.
“Just a man. Why not?”
10
Ten Years Later
The Outer Rim world of Serenno was one of the wealthiest planets in the Republic. It was also a breeding ground for anti-Republic sentiment and radical separatist movements, often secretly funded by the vast wealth of various Serenno noble families eager to free themselves from the political yoke of the Galactic Senate.
Yet despite the dangerous revolutionary undercurrents of its culture, or perhaps because of them, the great outdoor market of the planetary capital of Carannia had become renowned as a hub of interstellar mercantilism. Shoppers of two dozen different species mingled freely beneath the tents and awnings of a thousand vendor stalls. From dawn to dusk the cries of merchants hawking goods imported from every corner of the galaxy mingled with the shouted bids of haggling customers. Even the affluent and privileged braved the masses of the crowded plaza, willingly reducing themselves to part of the unruly mob pushing and shoving its way through the stalls in search of rare or valuable treasures that could be found nowhere else.
Zannah stood motionless in a secluded corner of the market square, trying to avoid notice. It wasn’t easy for her to blend in with a crowd; although she was of average height, she was a strikingly attractive young woman. It was necessary for her to take precautions when she didn’t wish to draw the appreciative stares of males, or the envious glances of other females. In this particular instance she had donned a loose black cloak that covered her from head to toe, obscuring her lean, athletic figure. The hood was pulled up to conceal her flowing mane of long, curly blond hair, and the shadows it cast across her features hid her bright, fierce eyes.
She had also wrapped herself in a faint aura of insignificance, an illusion of the dark side that allowed her to hide in plain sight when she ventured out in public. It wouldn’t shield her from the eyes of anyone looking for her, but as long as she didn’t draw attention to herself she would remain unnoticed and unremembered by the vast majority of weak-minded common folk.
Even with these precautions, she would occasionally notice someone giving her a second glance. There was something about her, a hard edge to the way she moved and even the way she stood, that set her apart from others. Yet it was far easier for her to remain inconspicuous than it was for her Master. Over the past decade, the orbalisks that had attached themselves to Bane’s torso had spread until they covered virtually his entire body. Only his feet, hands, and face remained free of the infestation, and only because he took extreme precautions: He wore special gloves and boots at all times, and when he slept he donned a special helmet that resembled a cage, meant to keep the parasites from growing over his face.
Cloaks and thick layers of clothing couldn’t fully hide what he had become. Anyone who happened to catch a glimpse of the shiny carapaces beneath his garments would definitely remember. As a result, Bane rarely left their camp on Ambria. He relied on his apprentice to be his eyes and ears to the outside world. He counted on her to act as an agent of his will, to coordinate an
d oversee the intricate plans he orchestrated from behind the scenes.
That was why she was here now, waiting for a young Twi’lek she knew as Kelad’den. It was unlikely that was his actual name, however. After all, he didn’t know her real name … despite the fact that they were lovers.
Kel was a political revolutionary—a self-styled freedom fighter battling tyranny as a high-ranking member of a small extremist group determined to bring down the Republic. It had taken Zannah several months to win his trust, but he had finally succumbed. Last night, as they had lain intertwined in the rough sheets of the small bed in Zannah’s rented apartment, the Twi’lek had promised to meet her at midday in the plaza to bring her to one of his organization’s clandestine meetings.
From the height of the sun in the afternoon sky it was obvious Kelad’dan was late. Still, Zannah continued to wait. She had learned the value of patience early on in her studies …
“Secrecy. Cunning. Patience. These are the weapons of the Sith,” her Master told her.
They had left Onderon eight days before, abandoning the Star-Wake and acquiring another vessel from a Neimoidian merchant to bring them to Ambria. It was here on this remote world that Bane would begin her training.
“Act in haste and you give the advantage to your enemy,” Bane explained. “Sometimes the proper, and more difficult, course is not to act. Even the greatest warrior often fails to wait until the moment is right before striking out. That is a mistake we cannot afford to make.”
She nodded, absorbing his words and committing them to memory. But words were only part of her training. Her Master also gave her a task—a test that would prove she had truly learned her lesson.
In one of the caves near the shore of Lake Natth, a few kilometers from their camp, lived a small family of neeks: small, reptilian herbivores native to Ambria. Only a meter in height, they stood upright on their hind legs, using their tails for balance and support. Their forelimbs were short and underdeveloped, good only for digging up shallow roots or carrying small nuts back to their nests. They had long necks and tiny heads with small, toothless jaws that resembled beaks.
The first day she and Darth Bane had arrived on the world, Zannah had noticed them scurrying and darting about on the hot sands of the beach. As the first part of her training, Bane had tasked her with bringing one of the neeks to him, alive and unfettered.
The mission proved to be much harder than she first imagined. A common food source for the large carnivores that often prowled the shores of Lake Natth, neeks were skittish by nature. They would flee at the sight of her, scampering off to disappear into the small cracks and crevices in the rocks surrounding the caves where they made their home.
She couldn’t simply set a trap for one; Bane’s instructions required her to bring him one that came of its own free will. At first Zannah had tried luring them back to the camp by leaving a trail of food, but the creatures were mistrustful and spurned her offerings. Next, she tried dominating one’s mind as she had seen Bane do with the drexl. But at Lake Natth an ancient Jedi had once bound the dark side power of his enemies. That same power had emanated from the depths of the poisonous waters over the centuries, mutating the neeks and making them immune to her clumsy efforts to control them with the Force.
In the end she realized she would have to tame one, training it to grow accustomed to her presence. So early each morning she made her way down to the entrance of the cave, where she would sit cross-legged and practice the meditation exercises Bane was teaching her.
She would stay motionless for hours, then calmly get up and return to the camp in the late afternoon, only to repeat the process the next morning. For the first three days she was completely alone, but on the fourth day the neeks began to show themselves. Cautious at first, they would dart out into view and scamper past her, well beyond her reach. By the middle of the second week they began to grow used to her presence, and would sit and stare at her, only a few meters away. Occasionally one would bark out a squeaking yip in her direction, or emit a low, tremulous chirping from the back of its throat. By the third week one particularly curious youngling, not even as tall as Zannah’s knee, came close enough to her that she was able to reach out and touch it.
After that she started bringing food to her vigil, letting a small morsel sit in the open palm of an upturned hand at her side. The same bold little neek would approach her with trepidation each time, balancing its fear against the alluring scent of the nuts wafting up from the young girl’s hand. She would coo to it softly, and eventually it would gather its courage enough to rush in and snatch the morsel away before scurrying off to the safety of its cave, peeping with excitement.
Zannah started positioning herself farther from the cave for her meditations. Each day the neek would come looking for her, ranging beyond the familiar borders of its territory in its quest to find her. Bit by bit she drew it closer and closer to the camp until one day, when she got up to leave, the neek began to follow her.
She made a point of taking soft, slow steps so as not to startle it. Moving with small strides so she wouldn’t lose her balance, she gingerly shifted her weight from one foot to the other as she led the tiny creature all the way back to her Master.
It was near nightfall when she arrived, her pace turning the relatively short distance from the lake back to the camp into a four-hour journey. There were several tents in the camp; in addition to the ones she and Bane slept in, there was one for storing food, another for clothing and equipment, and still others for weapons and fuel for their starship and land half-track. The tents were arranged in a three-quarter circle, facing inward toward the cooking fire.
Bane was sitting by the blaze waiting for her, stirring at a bubbling pot of bland-smelling stew. He had taken off his shirt in the summer night’s heat. In the flickering glow of the flames, his apprentice could see that the orbalisks were beginning to spread. The one on the back of his shoulder had traced its way across his bicep to the elbow of his heavily muscled arm, while the organism on his chest now extended halfway down his abdominal muscles and partway up his throat. Several narrow, dark bands of softer-looking flesh bisected each shell vertically, and the girl realized that in addition to growing, the creatures were about to split apart and multiply.
Suppressing a shudder, Zannah called out softly to him. “I have completed my first lesson, Master.”
Bane glanced down at the small neek trailing into the camp behind her, visible proof that his apprentice had fulfilled the task he had given her. Zannah followed his gaze, turning toward the tiny creature. It looked up at her and chirped expectantly. She bent down to pet it, and Bane reached out with the Force and snapped its long, thin neck.
“You have done well,” he muttered as she stared in horror at the tiny body twitching at her feet. “Now toss it in the stew.”
Zannah took a moment to steel herself, pushing away the grief that threatened to well up inside her. When Bane had first given her this task, she realized, he must have known she would develop a fondness for the little neek. If she had been wiser she would have foreseen this, and viewed the creature simply as a tool—something to be used then tossed aside—rather than allowing herself to become emotionally attached. The pain she felt now over its death was a warning—a reminder that her only allegiance was to her Master.
She picked up the body and carried it over to the bubbling pot. Tossing it in, she looked Bane square in the eye.
“I see you decided to teach me two lessons today, Master.”
His only response was a grim smile.…
“Rainah,” she heard a voice shouting above the din of the market, using the false name she adopted for all her missions. After a moment she was able to pick Kelad’den out of the crowd, motioning her to come over and join him on the far side of the square.
Twi’lek complexions came in a wide variety of colors, but Kel was of the extremely rare red-skinned Lethan race. Like most Lethans, he was undeniably gorgeous. He was tall and broad-shoulde
red, with a hard, flat stomach and perfectly proportioned limbs. He wore tight black pants and a loose-fitting tan tunic that hung open at the front to expose the lean muscles of his chest and abdomen. He had sensuous, perfectly symmetrical features: soft, full lips and dark, smoldering eyes that seemed to draw you in if you stared at them too long. His firm, shapely lekku coiled around his neck and shoulders, winding their way suggestively down the front of his open tunic and exposed chest.
“Rainah!” he cried out a second time, causing more than a few people to stop and look at him curiously. Zannah cursed under her breath, and moved quickly through the crowd to his side.
“Keep your voice down,” she hissed when she got close. “Everybody’s staring at us!”
“Let them stare,” he said defiantly, though he did lower his voice to match hers. “They’re commoners. Their opinion means nothing to me.”
Kel was a child of position and privilege. In addition to being of Lethan stock, he came from a family that ranked among the nobility of the Twi’lek warrior caste. His entire life he had been told by all those around him how special he was; it was only natural he would grow up believing others to be beneath him.
At times Zannah admired his haughty arrogance. It was a sign of power: He knew he was a superior specimen, and he wasn’t afraid to show it. But it was also his great weakness. She had discovered early on that Kel was easily manipulated through flattery or challenges to his pride and ego, and she wasn’t afraid to exploit that knowledge in the pursuit of her mission.
“You’re late,” she told him. “I don’t like to be kept waiting.”
“I shouldn’t even be doing this,” he snapped back at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, pressing herself close and wrapping her arms around his neck and shoulders. “I was beginning to think you were with another lover,” she purred. “If I ever find you with another female, I will cut her heart out.”