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  The pale, glowing orb floating in the center of the chamber was nearly four meters tall. It pulsed with raw power; it made the flesh on Bane’s neck crawl and the hair on his arms stand on end. Dark veins of shadow swirled on the shimmering metallic surface in slow, hypnotic rhythms. There was something grotesquely compelling about it, something fascinating yet repulsive at the same time.

  Beside him Zannah gasped, drawing a sharp breath in wonder then releasing it in a slow hiss of fear. He glanced down at her, but she didn’t return his gaze—her wide eyes were transfixed by the remnants of the thought bomb. Turning his attention back to the orb, Bane stepped forward into the chamber. Zannah took a single step to follow him, then held back.

  Approaching the globe, he reached out with his bare hand and pressed it firmly against the surface. It seared his palm with cold fire, but he was oblivious to the pain, enthralled by the object’s mesmerizing call. Beneath his touch the dark swirling shadows within coalesced into a single mass. The thoughts of those trapped inside rushed up to meet him: faint whispers in the dark recesses of his mind, the words unintelligible but full of hate and despair.

  Instinctively Bane’s consciousness recoiled. He resisted, fighting the urge to pull his hand back. Instead he thrust his awareness forward, penetrating the surface of the orb to plunge into the unfathomable depths of its black heart. The hateful whispers erupted into shrieks of torment. But these were not the screams of sentient beings: they were bestial howls of primal, mindless fury. The identities of those the thought bomb had consumed—Lord Kaan, General Hoth, all their Sith and Jedi followers—had been destroyed, ripped apart by the thought bomb’s explosion. Only torn bits remained, broken pieces of what once had been spirits, no longer capable of conscious thought, wailing in the shared suffering of their eternal madness.

  They swarmed over Bane’s consciousness, cleaving to his still-whole identity like parasites attaching themselves to a fresh host. The keening spirits enveloped him, clutching and clawing at his sanity as they tried to drag him down with them into their dark abyss.

  Bane tore free with contemptuous ease, shredding the already frail and tattered spirits as he cast them aside, and let his mind drift back to the surface. An instant later he was free, leaving behind the prison from which the others would never escape.

  He let his hand drop from the oblong sphere as he took a step back, satisfied at what he had learned. There were no ghosts haunting him; Kaan was no more. Not in any real sense. The figure he had seen at the Sith camp had been nothing but a delusion conjured up by his own wounded psyche.

  “Are they trapped in there?” Zannah asked. She was staring at Bane with an expression of both awe and terror.

  “Trapped. Dead. It makes no difference,” he answered with a shrug. “Kaan and the Brotherhood are gone. They got what they deserved.”

  “Were they weak?”

  Bane didn’t answer right away. Kaan had been many things—ambitious, charismatic, stubborn, and in the end a fool—but he had never been weak.

  “Kaan was a traitor,” he said at last. “He led the Brotherhood away from the teachings of the ancient Sith. He turned his back on the very essence of the dark side.”

  Zannah didn’t reply, but she looked up at him expectantly. The role of mentor was a new one for Bane; he was a man of action, not words. He wasn’t used to taking the time to share his wisdom with another desperate to learn it. But he was smart enough to understand that the lessons would have far more meaning if his apprentice could figure out some of the answers for herself.

  “Why did you choose to become my apprentice?” he asked, challenging her. “Why did you choose the way of the dark side?”

  “Power,” she replied quickly.

  “Power is only a means to an end,” Bane admonished her. “It is not an end in itself. What do you need power for?”

  The girl furrowed her brow. Her Master already recognized this expression as a sign she was struggling to come up with an answer.

  “Through power I gain victory,” she said when she finally spoke, reciting the final lines of the Sith Code she had learned only a few hours earlier. From her tone it was clear she was trying to work through her limited understanding of the dark side to arrive at the answer Bane wanted.

  “Through victory my chains are broken …,” she continued, slowly searching for an answer just beyond her reach. A second later she exclaimed, “Freedom! The dark side sets us free!”

  Bane nodded his approval. “The Jedi shackle themselves in chains of obedience: obedience to the Jedi Council; obedience to their Masters; obedience to the Republic. Those who follow the light side even believe they must submit themselves to the Force. They are merely instruments of its will, slaves to a greater good.

  “Those who follow the dark side see the truth of their enslavement. We recognize the chains that bind us and hold us back. We believe in the power of the individual to break these chains. That is the path to greatness. Only if we are free can we reach our full potential.

  “The belief that an individual must not bow down before anyone or anything is the dark side’s greatest strength,” Bane continued. “But it is also our ultimate weakness. The struggle to rise above those around you is often violent, and in the past the Sith were constantly at one anothers’ throats.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing?” Zannah interjected. “The strong will survive and the weak will die.”

  “Weak does not mean stupid,” Bane countered. “There were those with less power, but more cunning. Several apprentices would band together to take down a powerful Master, hoping to elevate their own position among the Sith. Then they would turn on one another, making and breaking alliances until only one remained—a new Master, but one weaker than the original. This survivor would then be taken down in turn by another band of lesser Sith, further weakening our Order.

  “Kaan recognized this. But his solution was far worse than the problem. Kaan declared all the followers of the dark side—all the members of the Sith Order—as equals in the Brotherhood of Darkness. In doing so, he betrayed us all.”

  “Betrayed you?”

  “Equality is a lie,” Bane told her. “A myth to appease the masses. Simply look around and you will see the lie for what it is! There are those with power, those with the strength and will to lead. And there are those meant to follow—those incapable of anything but servitude and a meager, worthless existence.

  “Equality is a perversion of the natural order!” he continued, his voice rising as he shared the fundamental truth that lay at the core of his beliefs. “It binds the strong to the weak. They become anchors that drag the exceptional down to mediocrity. Individuals destined and deserving of greatness have it denied them. They suffer for the sake of keeping them even with their inferiors.

  “Equality is a chain, like obedience. Like fear or uncertainty or self-doubt. The dark side will break these chains. But Kaan could not see this. He did not grasp the true power of the dark side. The Brotherhood of Darkness was nothing but a twisted reflection of the Jedi Order, a dark parody of the very thing we stood against. Under Kaan the Sith had become an abomination.”

  “And that’s why you killed him,” Zannah said, thinking the lesson had come to an end.

  “That is why I manipulated Kaan into killing himself,” Bane corrected. “Remember: power alone is not enough. Patience. Cunning. Secrecy. These are the tools we will use to bring down the Jedi. The Sith are only two now—one Master and one apprentice. There will be no others.”

  Zannah nodded, though something still seemed to be troubling her. “What happens if I fail?” she asked, glancing toward the thought bomb. “Will you destroy me, too?”

  Bane’s answer was cut off by a shout coming from one of the nearby passages.

  “Rain! Rain, you’re alive!”

  A boy sprinted out of the shadows, no more than a year or two older than Zannah. He had dark hair and wore the black armor of the Sith. A lightsaber hilt was clutched tightly in his
right hand. Despite these warrior’s trappings, it was immediately obvious to Bane that this child posed no threat. The Force was barely alive in him. The power that burned so brightly inside Zannah was nothing but a dying ember of gray ash in this one.

  “Tomcat!” Zannah shouted, her face lighting up with joy. She took a step forward, extending her arms as if she wanted to hug him. Then, as if suddenly remembering the presence of her Sith Master, she pulled up short and clutched her hands to her chest.

  Oblivious, the boy kept coming. He didn’t register her sudden change in mood; he hadn’t even noticed the two-meter-tall figure looming in the shadows behind her. There was something pathetic about him, a desperate loneliness in his voice and his eyes that turned Bane’s stomach.

  “I’m so glad, Rain,” the boy gasped as he skidded to a stop in front of Zannah, reaching forward to hug her. “So glad you’re—”

  She stepped back and shook her head, causing his words to catch in his throat. The happiness in his face vanished, replaced by a look of hurt bewilderment.

  “I … I am not Rain,” Bane’s apprentice said, rejecting her childhood nickname and all it symbolized. “I am Zannah.”

  “Zannah?” A look of confusion crept across the boy’s face. “Your real name? But why?”

  Fumbling for answers, he finally tore his gaze away from the young girl and noticed Bane standing motionless in the background. His bewilderment became comprehension, and quickly turned into righteous rage.

  “You!” he shouted, pointing an accusing finger at Bane. Then, as if suddenly remembering the weapon in his hand, he ignited his lightsaber. “You stay away from her!” he screamed. “I will fight you!”

  The boy knew he was overmatched. He knew he had no chance to win a battle against a Dark Lord of the Sith. Yet he chose to stay and fight anyway—the actions of a complete and utter fool.

  Darth Bane regarded his doomed adversary with contemptuous indifference. This boy was nothing to him—an inconsequential speck he would wipe away. If the boy wanted the vain and empty glory of a so-called courageous death, Bane would grant it.

  He dropped his hand casually to his lightsaber, but before he could ignite his weapon, Zannah reacted. Just as she had done when she had broken the necks of the unfortunate Jedi who had accidentally killed her friend, the girl unleashed a wave of unstoppable dark side energy. She acted on pure instinct, drawing on her natural affinity for the Force with no forethought, preparation, or even training.

  It happened so quickly Bane never even had a chance to put up his guard … but the attack wasn’t directed at him. The right hand of the boy she had called Tomcat—her cousin and childhood friend—disintegrated. With a mere thought she obliterated everything below his wrist: flesh, bone and tendon vanished in a bloody explosion, leaving only a ragged stump.

  With nothing left to grip it, the hilt of his lightsaber clattered to the floor, the blade extinguished. Howling in pain, the boy fell to his knees, clutching his mutilated limb to his chest. Small spurts of blood pumped out of the wound and splattered onto the cavern floor.

  The Master glared down at his apprentice. “Why?” he demanded.

  “Because there would be no use or purpose in his death,” she answered, echoing his own explanation for letting two of the mercenaries survive.

  Bane was smart enough to recognize what was happening. Zannah was trying to save her cousin’s life. He knew that the emotions driving her—sentimentality, mercy, compassion—were weaknesses from which she must learn to free herself. But he didn’t expect his apprentice to learn the ways of the dark side in a single day.

  He looked down at the injured boy crumpled on the ground. The blood spurting from his stump had slowed; the blast that had taken his hand had also partially cauterized the wound. The flow was further stanched by dust and grime from the cavern floor as he rolled back and forth at Zannah’s feet. Tears poured from his eyes and mucus ran from his nose to clog his mouth and throat, turning his cries into thick, blubbery whimpers. She regarded him with a cold and calculating eye, feigning disinterest.

  The risks from letting this wretched creature live were small, Bane decided. Like the mercenaries, no one would believe his tales of surviving an encounter with a Sith Master. It was obvious that Zannah wanted the boy alive. But she hadn’t begged or bargained for his life. Instead she had taken charge of the situation, unleashing the dark side and then defending her actions with Bane’s own teachings. She had shown not only her power, but also her intelligence and cunning. It was important to reward such behavior—to encourage her when she displayed the gifts and talents that would allow her to one day take the mantle of Dark Lord from her Master’s shoulders. More important than ending the life of one miserable, insignificant boy.

  “Leave him,” Bane said, turning on his heel. “He is nothing to us.”

  Zannah quickly fell into step beside him as they made their way from the chamber and began the long, slow climb through the tunnels back to Ruusan’s surface. Bane noted with satisfaction that even though Tomcat’s pitiful sobs echoed after them, his apprentice never once glanced back.

  5

  Prepare for reentry turbulence,” Irtanna warned them from the pilot’s seat of their shuttle. With a crew of only five, she had no need to use the shipboard intercom. She simply spoke loud enough for everyone aboard to hear.

  Although the Envoy-class shuttle carried only a handful of passengers, she was capable of comfortably transporting four times that many. The ship had been absorbed into the Jedi fleet sometime during the last few weeks of the Ruusan campaign, donated by an anonymous benefactor from Coruscant who had been charmed by Farfalla’s urgent plea for resources to support the war effort. Christened the Star-Wake, she was a product of Tallaan Shipyards, a basic transport vessel capable of both suborbital flight and interstellar travel, thanks to her Class Twelve hyperdrive.

  The fact that she had been pressed into service was proof of just how desperate the Army of Light had become. Envoy-class shuttles were known for being practical and affordable, making them a favorite choice of independent merchants and wealthy recreational travelers. Their most distinguishing feature was an easy-to-use navigation and autopilot system, allowing users to plot and engage hyperdrive routes to hundreds of known worlds across the Republic with a simple push of a button. Unfortunately they lacked heavy shielding or any significant armament, and were neither particularly fast nor maneuverable.

  Johun would have preferred something in a more military vein; he doubted the autonav would be any use should a Sith Buzzard suddenly appear on the horizon. Logically, he knew this was highly unlikely. Every Buzzard in Kaan’s fleet had been accounted for: either shot down, captured by the Army of Light, or seen fleeing the system at the tail end of the final battle. But scores of danger-filled flights through enemy-controlled airspace in the months before their ultimate victory had trained his mind to be on constant alert when approaching the planet’s surface. From the way Irtanna was white-knuckling the shuttle’s steering column, he knew he wasn’t alone in his irrational fears.

  There was the faintest bump as they passed from the cold vacuum of space into the upper layers of Ruusan’s atmosphere and began their descent. Irtanna worked the controls with a confident hand, making subtle adjustments to their course as Johun studied the scanners skimming the ground below them, looking for signs of life. Four other craft were visible on the ship’s monitors. Like the Star-Wake, each was crewed by a four- to six-person rescue team sent by Farfalla to help clean up the aftermath of the war.

  “We’ve got movement on the ground,” Johun called out as unidentified blips popped up on his screen. “Transmitting coordinates.”

  “Give me details,” Irtanna ordered, banking the shuttle around in a wide arc that brought them in line with the people on the ground.

  “Two walkers on foot,” Johun informed her. “Can’t tell if they’re friendly from up here.”

  “Taking us down,” Irtanna replied.

  Lo
cating and helping injured survivors was the team’s first priority; providing reconnaissance reports to Fleet Command came second, and accepting the willing surrender of enemy troops was a distant third.

  The shuttle nose dipped, and the acceleration pushed Johun back into his seat as they dived in to get a closer look at the figures. Irtanna took them in low and fast, a military maneuver that pushed the civilian vessel to her limits.

  “I’ve got a visual,” Johun reported as a pair of tiny, indistinct shapes on the ground became visible through the shuttle’s cockpit viewpoint.

  Bordon lifted himself up out of his seat and leaned forward over the back of Johun’s chair to get a view as the shuttle plunged toward the rapidly growing figures. As it drew closer the details came into focus: a man and a woman, each wearing light armor and running hard.

  The roar of the rapidly descending shuttle’s engines caused the two on the ground to stop running and turn back to look up at them. An instant later they threw themselves face-first to the dirt as the shuttle swooped in less than ten meters from the ground and buzzed them.

  Cursing under her breath as she struggled with the clumsy controls, Irtanna veered around sharply and brought them in to land less than fifty meters away from their quarry. Through the window Johun saw the pair slowly climb back to their feet as the pilot cut the engines. The woman said something to the man, who nodded in agreement. Then they raised their hands and began marching slowly toward the vessel.

  They were dressed like members of Kaan’s Brotherhood. But Johun didn’t feel the presence of the dark side about them.

  “Minions of the Sith,” he said. “Mercenaries, probably.”

  “Could be a trap,” Bordon warned. “Kriffing mercenaries have no honor.”

  “I don’t think so,” Johun replied. If there was any danger here, he would have felt some kind of disturbance in the Force. “I think they just want to surrender.”