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Author Topic: Heart of the Sith (Action/Adventure, KotOR-era, some KotOR characters, OCs)
Lord_Zeron  500 posts
Registered: Mar '05
14960_Sith Holocron
Date Posted: 11/1/08 2:12pm Subject: Heart of the Sith (Action/Adventure, KotOR-era, some KotOR characters, OCs) - Date Edited: 1/18 2:14pm (2 edits total) Edited By: Lord_Zeron
Title: Heart of the Sith
Author: Lord_Zeron
Timeframe: c. 3600 BBY
Characters: HK-47, lots of OCs, Zaalbar
Genre: Action/Adventure with hints of humor and drama
Keywords: Jedi, Sith, Galactic War, Dark Side, Ziost
Summary: A few hundred years after the events of Knights of the Old Republic, the galaxy finds itself in a time of fragile peace. But Master Sorn, the 350-year-old Grand Master of the Jedi Order, worries that the Jedi have become a shadow of their former glory and decides to take matters into his own hands. Soon, events spiral out of control, leading to a galaxy-wide war that will pit Jedi versus Sith in a battle for survival, a battle not just of strength, but of belief, culminating in a final confrontation that will shape the fate of the galaxy for millennia to come. Heart of the Sith is the tale of this epic conflict, as told from the point-of-views of four of its key players: Jedi Padawan Lori Medich, Jedi Knight Kallen Thulnk, Republic Commando Davin Karn, and rogue assassin droid HK-47.
Foreword from the Author: This story takes place in the Knights of the Old Republic era, though because it is set a few centuries in the future, there's no need to have played the games (or even have heard of them) to understand and enjoy Heart of the Sith. That being said, history is one of the major themes of this story, so readers who have played KotOR or read Takes of the Jedi will notice quite a few references to those works. This story is comprised of thirty chapters, plus a prologue, all of which are already completed, so you don't have to worry about me losing interest and stopping half way through. Sorry for the huge length of the first two posts; I've decided to post the rest in much smaller incriments. Starting with Chapter Two, I'll be posting one chapter a week, but I'll divide each into four smaller sections (one from each POV) and post them on Sunday/Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday.
The prologue is unique in that it's told exclusively from Master Sorn's point-of-view. The proper chapters are split into four shorter sections, each told from a separate perspective. In a way, this is the story of four individuals, though their stories are very much interrelated (think Heroes) and each has an important role to play in the war to come. I'll start by posting just the Prologue (which is longer than most of the chapters), but if it doesn't seem like your cup of tea, don't worry about it too much; Chapter One will give you a much better idea of what the story format which actually be like. As always, any kind of feedback (compliments, criticism, questions, theories, suggestions, continuity or spelling errors, whatever) is both welcome and appreciated. Thanks so much for reading! Enjoy:

Dramatis Personae:
Sorn; Jedi Grand Master (Feeorin male)
Lori Medich; Jedi Padawan to Sorn (human female)
Kallen Thulnk; Jedi Knight, Sorn’s former Padawan (Devaronian male)
Davin Karn; Orenth Squad Commander (human male)
HK-47; Assassin Droid (masculine programming)
Zaalbar; Chieftain (Wookiee male)
Ulen Kale; Jedi Senior Council Member, Sorn’s former Padawan (human male)
Bren-Sil Quid; Jedi Padawan to Ulen Kale (human male)
Simus; former Sith Lord (disembodied spirit)
Exar Kun; former Dark Lord of the Sith (disembodied spirit)
Marka Ragnos; former Dark Lord of the Sith (disembodied spirit)
Nolan Karn; Retired Supreme Commander of Republic Armed Forces (human male)
Mev Karth; Jedi Padawan to Kallen Thulnk (Zabrak female)
Naul Dodonna; Supreme Commander of Republic Armed Forces (human male)
Anda Mizendo; Jedi Council Member (Wroonian male)
Garrik Skorendu; Orenth Squad Captain (human male)
Lorman Ki; Republic Ambassador (Togruta male)
Cla’mir: Mechanic for Vogga the Hutt (Verpine male)
Sedora Vill; Matukai Master Adept, Sorn’s former Padawan (human female)
Dard Allk; Iridorian Champion (Iridorian male)
Elsh Virrd; Iridorian Admiral (Iridorian female)
Klerri Jarkis; Republic Military Researcher (Echani female)


Note: Character occupations are listed at the time of the beginning of chapter one and may rapidly change as the story progresses.




STAR WARS:
Heart of the Sith


Four centuries have passed since the end
of the Sith Wars, a series of deadly
conflicts which left the Old Republic
shattered and the Jedi Knights all but
extinguished.

Now, for the first time in ages, the galaxy
is at peace. Under the careful guidance of
the rebuilt Jedi Order, planets all across
the Republic have recaptured much of
their former glory.

But the Sith threat may not be as dead as
the Jedi were led to believe. Above the
Outer-rim world of Ziost, two Jedi
Knights pursue what may very well be the
last Sith Lord in the entire galaxy…



Prologue: A Change of Heart


“There are dark places in the galaxy where few tread. Ancient centers of learning, of knowledge. But I did not walk alone.”
-Kreia (Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords)


“Dusk will be here in two hours. We’ll never make it to the citadel before then.”

“I thought I told you not to use that word.” Sorn leaned back in the Arbiter’s copilot’s chair and interlaced his fingers behind his tangled head-tails. “I’m not afraid of the dark, Kallen. It’s the dark that should be afraid of me.”

Kallen was radiating frustration through the Force. “But Master, that’s nearly ten kilometers. Even under normal circumstances it would be a difficult journey, and our sensors indicate at least two meters of snow, three near-”

“Which is exactly why we can’t land any closer. The ship would be buried by the time we got back. Now stop arguing and take us down on that plateau.”

Kallen gritted his pointy Devaronian teeth but did not object. Perhaps Sorn could make a Jedi Knight out of him yet.

“Yes, Master. But we should at least wait until morning. He can’t leave the planet without us knowing.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Sorn replied. “Many Jedi before us have underestimated Sith and paid for it with their lives. I won’t let us make the same mistake.”

Sorn opened his datapad and connected to the homing beacon they had placed aboard the Sith Lord’s ship back on Corellia. Their prey had just landed in the ancient structure near the planet’s northern pole, in a dry icy land where it snowed incessantly. Without the proper access codes, the Jedi would be forced to land a good distance away and walk to the citadel on foot. But, Sorn promised himself, if that’s what it’s going to take to wipe out the Sith threat for good, then that’s what I’m going to do.

“How can you even be sure he’s not just some Dark Jedi? Weren’t all the Sith wiped out during the Sith Civil War?”

Sorn wished his Padawan would spend more time with his books and less with his lightsaber. He had hoped that Kallen would one day succeed him as Jedi Historian and Jedi Grand Master, but the boy had neither the patience nor the potential for such roles.

“So we thought. But I wouldn’t be at all surprised if at least one escaped and continued the Sith Order in secret.”

“But that-”

“Yes, Kallen, I am absolutely certain that we are pursuing a Sith because only a Sith would know the location of this planet.” He doubted that his apprentice knew where they were, though he should’ve recognized it long before now. They were already entering the atmosphere and the air was practically dripping with malicious energy.

“Why? Where are we?”

Sorn sighed. “If you kept up with your studies, you would know. This is Ziost.”

Kallen’s head snapped ninety degrees to stare at his master. “Ziost? As in the Ziost? The lost homeworld of the Sith?”

“No, Korriban is the homeworld of the Sith. Ziost is the birthplace of the Sith Order and was the capital of their empire millennia ago. And it was lost for a very good reason.”

“Then why are we here? Shouldn’t we go back to the temple and return with a Jedi strike team?”

The icy plateau that was their destination came into view ahead of them, a tiny grey island in a sea of snow.

“And risk losing the opportunity to kill the last of the Sith? No, we must complete this mission on our own. Besides, the more Jedi we bring, the more we put in danger of falling.”

Kallen closed his eyes as he brought the Arbiter down for a landing, and Sorn could sense his apprentice reaching out with the Force. “The dark side is very strong here. It’s almost… claustrophobic.”

The taint was so perceptible that any youngling could’ve sensed it, but Sorn didn’t say that out loud. His apprentice had little enough confidence in his own abilities as it was; it would be detrimental to his training for Sorn to lower them any further.

“Indeed it is. Perhaps more so than anywhere else in the galaxy. Just hold on to the light side and the darkness cannot harm you.”

“Remind me of that when it’s the middle of the night and we’re up to our heads in snow.”

Sorn got up from his seat and headed back to the transport’s main chamber where he began to put on extra layers of clothing. “No need to worry about that, my apprentice. You’ll be staying here.”

“What?” Kallen was standing even before the anger-laden word had left his lips. The dark side truly was powerful here and Sorn could sense that it was keeping his Padawan from controlling his emotions. And against unwanted emotions, reason was the best defense.

“I need someone to watch the ship while I’m gone. If both of us are on our way to the citadel and the Sith leaves the planet, we’ll have no way of tracking him.”

“But that homing beacon-”

“The homing beacon will no longer be of any use to us. No doubt our enemy has sensed our approach and is searching for the beacon even as we speak.” By now Sorn was putting on his final layers. “If he tries to escape the planet, engage him in ship-to-ship combat and destroy him.”

“But Master, I-”

“No buts, Kallen.” He lowered the exit ramp but hesitated at its top. He turned to face his apprentice. “Do you trust me?”

Sorn felt Kallen’s surprise at the question. “Of course I trust you, Master.”

“And can I trust you to stay here and do what must be done if the Sith Lord tries to escape?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Then I’ll need you to give me your lightsaber.”

Now a touch of confusion was added to Kallen’s surprise. “My lightsaber? Why?”

“Do you trust me or don’t you?”

“Yes, I trust you, bu-” Kallen stopped himself just in time. With a heavy sigh, he pulled the double-bladed weapon off his belt and handed it to Sorn. “Don’t get yourself killed.”

“No need to worry about that. I’m not the Grand Master of the Jedi Order for nothing.”

“Yeah, well, losing my master, I could deal with. But losing my master and my lightsaber all in the same day? That might be a little too much.”

Sorn laughed. “I’ll return it to you safely. I promise. Just sit tight and I’ll be back by morning.” With that, he turned and descended the exit ramp.

“Master,” Kallen called behind. After making sure the ice was strong enough to hold his weight, Sorn about-faced and cocked an eye. “May the Force be with you.”

Sorn winked. “It always is.” Then, with a wave of his hand, the exit ramp closed, leaving him alone with just the ice and the snow and the freezing winds for company.

The real reason he wanted Kallen’s lightsaber was so that his apprentice couldn’t leave the shuttle and come after him. Sorn had read entire volumes about places such as Ziost, enough to know that the closer one got to the dark side nexus, in this case the citadel, the stronger its pull would become. Sorn was confident that he could resist the dark side’s temptations, but he wouldn’t put his apprentice at risk. Many Jedi Masters before him had underestimated the strength of the dark side and lost their apprentices because of it.

It took only a small exertion of his will to lock the ramp in place. Then, with considerably more effort, he built a wall of light side energy around the shuttle. This wall would serve a dual purpose: keeping out most of the planet’s taint while also preventing Kallen from using the Force to break out of the shuttle.

The journey across the plateau was long and dangerous, and descending its steep slippery slope was harder still. But at least the plateau had given him some sense of direction; once it was lost in the sheets of falling snow behind him, he could see nothing but whiteness everywhere.

But Sorn had more than his sight to lead him. He reached out with the light side of the Force, opening all of his senses to it. He could feel the dark side all around him, in the air, in the snow, even inside him, but he did not touch it. The citadel was easy enough to find by the gaping hole it left in the light side of the Force.

Kallen had been right about the depth of the snow, but there was no such thing as impossible when it came to the power of the Force. Sorn drew on it to lessen his weight, so that he might as well have been walking on duracrete instead of snow. He weighed little enough as it was; being over 350 standard years old had really taken its toll. Feeorins were known to live as old as 400, but he doubted if he would make it that long. They said his species only got stronger with age, but whoever “they” were had never met him. His skin, once the color of an Alderaan sky, was now more dark grey than blue, his dozen head-tails had grown thin and two had already gone completely limp, and most of the time he needed a cane even to walk. He could always draw on the Force for strength when he had to –being a Jedi Consular was a great asset in this respect- but he yearned for the days of his youth. He could still remember the day he had been knighted so many centuries before… remembered building his first lightsaber, the same one he carried with him to this day… remembered the proud look on his master’s face when he had mastered the art of battle mediation. Oh, Bastila, if only you were here now, what would you say? What would you think of the decrepit state into which your beloved Order has fallen?

When Sorn had first accepted the title of Grand Master of the Jedi Order, it had seemed like an easy task. The Jedi were few to begin with after the end of the purge, but their numbers had swelled with each passing year. Now there were a half thousand Jedi spread out across the galaxy, and they were once again known as the defenders of peace and justice in the Republic.

But somehow, that still wasn’t enough. The order seemed restless, as if they didn’t know what to do with themselves now that all the wars were over and the Republic had been restored to its former glory. Of course, none of the living Jedi had ever seen a true war, but Sorn could remember Bastilla telling him about what it was like. During the Mandalorian War, the Jedi had been champions of the battlefield, heroes of the republic. During the Jedi Civil War, they were valiant guardians against the threat of Darth Malak and his Sith Empire. Then the Sith Civil War had turned them into vagabonds and refugees, nearly wiping out both the Jedi and the Sith. Now Sorn was left alone, the last remnant of that distant age, surrounded by Masters who didn’t care enough about history to understand what their Order had gone through, who were more concerned with the next head of the Senate Security Council then they were about the threat of the dark side.

Sorn.

He reacted instinctively to the sound of his name, gathering the Force around him so quickly that he almost choked himself with it. The light was in the minority here, and he dared not draw on the dark. He left his lightsaber hooked on his belt, always a last resort, and listened.

But all he could hear was the wind. Maybe his ears were just playing tricks on him. It was starting to get dark now and he had no doubt that his eyes would soon join in the fun. But the Force was his ally, and even if all of his other senses failed, he could trust in the light side to lead him safely.

He had barely taken two steps when he heard his name again, so faint he wondered if it was just the memory of the first time playing over in his head. The wind continued to rush around him and the more he listened, the more it sounded like it was saying his name.

Sooooorn. Sssssooooorn. Sorrrrrn. Sorn, Ssoooooorn…

No, he had to be imagining things. The lack of true sound was driving him crazy. He spoke the Jedi Code aloud and only then realized the wind was so loud that he couldn’t even hear his own voice. He could barely even hear himself think.

There is no emotion; there is Peace.
There is no ignorance; there is Knowledge.
There is no passion; there is Sorn.
There is… no, that’s not right.

Had he just said his name? Or though it? Or just heard it?

The wind around him seemed to have grown louder, and whether it was simply because he was used to it or whether he was just going crazy, he could clearly make out voices calling his name.

Sorn. Sorn. Sorn. SORN. Sorn! Sorn! Sorn? SORN! Sorn. SORN!

Enough! He tried to shout it, but only a thought came out.

Get out of my head!

Why wouldn’t these voices just-

Wait, I didn’t think that.

Think what?

“Get out of my head.” That wasn’t me. Isn’t me.

Sorn.

What?

You’re not me!

Sorn?

I’m not me.

Yes, I am! You are not!

Get OUT of my HEAD!

Sorn!

I’m not the one in your head; you’re the one in mine.

I’m almost there.

You are almost there! Not-

Am I okay?

What’s wrong with me?

Sorn?

SORN?

Serenity.

That’s it: There is no Passion; there is no Serenity.

No! No. No no. There is no Passion; there is Serenity. There is no Chaos; there is Harmony. There is no Death; there is the Force.

The world blurred and he finally realized that there was a mountain directly in front of him.

How long have I been walking? He distrusted the thought almost as soon as he thought it. Was it his? What is possible to tell? What was happening to him?

The dark side. I’m giving in to the dark side.

That wasn’t his thought either. He was sure of it. Maybe. But it didn’t matter anymore. He needed to get into the citadel, kill the last of the Sith, and leave this horrible place for good.

No. Jedi do not kill their prisoners. It’s not the Jedi way.

Sorn didn’t dwell on the thought. It wasn’t his. Even if it was, it didn’t matter. Getting up the mountain and into the citadel atop of it did.

He opened himself up to the light side of the Force, keeping a mental eye out for whatever dark spirit was intruding into his mind. But whatever it was –the dark side, the wind, maybe just his own insanity- it was gone now. He felt the light side come to him like an old friend, offering him a soft hand to hold onto, and he knew the shadow was afraid of it.

Gathering the Force around him, into him, through him, Sorn began to climb. The slope was not incredibly steep, not when he relied on the Force for guidance as well as energy, but the higher he climbed, the harder it was to hold onto the light. It was not that the light side of the Force was weak here –it was just as prominent here as it was anywhere else in the galaxy- but the dark side here was simply much stronger.

But the light was Sorn’s oldest ally and he knew it better even than he knew himself. And so when it became difficult to distinguish between the light and the dark, when everything –sky, snow, mountain, Force- turned to grey, he could still recognize his ageless companion. And he held onto that hand as it pulled him up, upward, until finally he reached the citadel that had once been the heart of a thriving Sith Empire.

The compound was enormous, its icy blue walls stretching for kilometers in either direction. There was no door to be found, and the only windows –if that was what they were- were much too high for Sorn to reach. If he could not find a way in, he would just have to make one.

He slipped his lightsaber off his belt and out from under his many coats and hit the ignition button. He nearly dropped it as the blood-red blade came to life.

No, that’s not possible. My lightsaber isn’t red.

I must be in some sort of vision. Of the future.

Only Sith use red lightsabers. Do I… No! Not this again!

There is no emotion; there is-

No.

Sorn.

Sorn closed his eyes and ran away from the darkness and for a second was worried that he would never again find the light in this crowd of darkness that the world had become. But as he pushed his way through the Force, batting the dark waves aside, he soon found his old friend again. Then he took a very deep breath of relief and the cold air startled him back to reality.

The blade in his hand was orange. Orange like the ripe Doolna fruit he loved so much. Orange like it always had been. Orange like it would always be.

He used the familiar weapon, a friend he had known nearly as long as the Force itself, to break into the fortress of the Sith. The light knew what should be done next and it flowed through him, using his power to remove the slab of severed rock. Then Sorn leapt inside and held the blade like a glowrod before him.

The halls of the citadel were made of the same grey-blue stone as the outside, though in the light of the stars, it had appeared much whiter. In here, in the darkness, it was almost black… too close to the color of his own aging skin.

Sorn put away his lightsaber. The Force was the only weapon he would need. He closed his eyes. The Force was the only guidance he wanted.

He did not trust himself to reach out into the Force. Not anymore. Not here. He did not know where he would find the heart of the darkness, but the light did, and it told him that there, in the nexus of the planet’s dark side energy, would be where he found the Sith.

Blind in every way, he made his way further and deeper into the citadel. He did not know whether he had moved up or down, he did not know whether he had walked or ran, he did not even know how long it had taken him to get there. He only knew that he was there.

I have done all I can by guiding you here. You must face the enemy alone now.

Sorn ignored it. Whether the voice belonged to him or the darkness, he did not know. But he knew it didn’t belong to the light.

The light told him that it was time for him to connect to the world again, to once again become Sorn, for as long as he was Sorn he was also a friend of the light. The darkness could not take that away from him.

So he opened his eyes, and knew at once that he had moved downward, knew that he had run, and knew that it had still taken a very long time.

He was in a cavern of dark brown stone so large that he could barely see the other side. It was shaped roughly like a giant dome, and a lake of lava dominated all but the very edges. In the center of the lake was an island, rising up out of the lava which pulsed like blood as it circled around it, the edges splashing and splattering up against its shores.

And on the island, there sat a throne.

And on the throne, there sat a man.

Sorn moved forward until the edge of the lava pool was only a few steps in front of him. There was only one exit to the room, as far as he could tell, and that was the stone stairway at his back. In the center of the lake of lava, the man rose.

He was as tall as a wookiee, and for all Sorn knew he may have been one, for save a small slit around his yellow eyes, not a bit of skin was showing. His hooded clothes were dark grey and close fitting to his impressive physique, his cloth mask and flowing cape were blacker, and so dark that it looked like a shadow was the lightsaber that hung at his belt.

They stared at each other for a long time. A very long time.

At last, the Sith rose from his throne.

Join us.

This voice was far more certain, more real than the ones outside. It spoke directly into his mind, so powerful and so convincing that Sorn almost obeyed it without thought, for the voice was thought. But a little nudge from the light made him realize his error and he quickly pulled away.

You cannot fight forever, Jedi.

“Greetings, Grand Master Sorn.” The Sith’s voice was unbelievably deep, yet somehow less sinister than the voice in Sorn’s mind. They were not the same. The voice in Sorn’s mind did not echo.

How does he know my name?

Sorn took a moment to process the thought. Yes, it was a valid question. Maybe that thought had actually been his. After making sure it was okay with the light, he went ahead and asked it aloud.

I must be careful. He might lie.

“I am the Dark Lord of the Sith. There is nothing I do not know.”

You do not know the light. But I do.

“Dark Lord of the Sith.” In Sorn’s voice, the words sounded… not strange exactly… “Then you are the last of your kind?”

Assuming he answers truthfully, this could be usefully knowledge. If I kill him, the Sith end here.

The Sith laughed, a deep booming laugh that resonated around the cavern, even in Sorn’s own mind. The voice in his head was laughing too. Either that or it was his own voice. Sorn desperately hoped the latter was not so.

But it is. I know it is.

“I shall not be the last of my kind once you join me. I have felt you since you first arrived here, here at this place where the Sith were born, and where they shall be reborn once more.”

He doesn’t even knew the history of his own people. How pitiful.

Sorn shouted, “What is your name?”

He will lie, of course. Give me the name he gave himself, if that.

“And what reason could I possibly have for revealing my name?”

Exactly what I expected him to say.

“If you know everything, then you must also know that I am the Jedi Historian. I would like to know the name of the last Dark Lord of the Sith.”

For he will be the last. I will make sure of it.

He ignored the comment. “From this place, I can see a great many things, Jedi. The dark side is powerful here, and that makes me powerful here. I have glimpsed into the future and seen a thousand years of history… beginning with your fall to the dark side.”

No, it couldn’t be true. Could it?

Sorn smiled. Whoever the voice in his head belonged to, he at least knew the words he spoke were his own. And something inside told him they were true. “I will never fall to the dark side. The future is not set in stone.”

Wise words, indeed.

“Oh, but Master Sorn, you already have. I can feel the dark side flowing through you. To you. From you. Are you truly so weak that you cannot sense this?”

I will prove him wrong.

“It is your senses that have failed you, Sith. The darkness you sense surrounds me as it does everything else in this vile pile. Yes, the dark side flows through me. The dark side is in me. But the dark side is not me.”

Is there a difference?

The cloth where the Sith’s mouth should be moved and Sorn knew he was smiling. “And yet, you are here. And there is only darkness here. So then, logically, you must be part of the darkness.”

The darkness is part of the Force, and all life is the Force. All life, therefore, is dark. Even me.

He desperately wished the voice in his head would go away. He had learned not to listen to it by now, but it was making it difficult for him to come up with thoughts of his own. “I am,” Sorn admitted. “And I am also not. The Force does not bow to the rules of logic.”

And the Force is not confined to such labels as ‘light’ and ‘dark’ as this imbecile no doubt believes.

The Sith spread out his arms, palms facing outwards. “Very well then, Jedi. If you are still part of the light, then prove it.”

Nothing is impossible with the Force. I will show him.

The more Sorn heard from the voice in his head, the more he realized it was not his own. It was trying to turn him to the dark side. He would not take the bait.

“I have nothing to prove.”

He felt a gentle it’s okay, do it and though it sounded like the light, he made extra sure before making a decision he would later regret.

“You do not try,” declared the Sith, “because you know that I’m right. Or you’re worried that I am. And if you do not try, you will never know the truth. But I do. I am fully in tune with this place, and I know that there is no light here… there is only darkness.”

Sorn reach out, and the light side was there, and he welcomed it. It repulsed the dark like a magnet as he summoned all of its power into him.

Slowly, surely, he said to the Sith, “If you cannot feel the light side here, it is not because the light has abandoned this place. It is because the light has abandoned you.”

Maybe he could not jump enormous distances as Jedi Guardians could, perhaps he could not walk on fire like some force-users. But there was another trick he knew well. Gathering the light side into his body, he activated the same power he had used outside to walk on the snow. Except this time, he used the ability to its full extent, making him lighter, lighter, until he weighed even less than the air. He rose until he was about a meter off the ground, then walked on air towards the Sith, the lava bubbling and brewing beneath him.

He landed gently on the closest edge of the stone island, still a good twenty steps from the throne at its crest.

The Sith Lord, who had been oddly still while Sorn levitated across the lake, now let his lightsaber fly into his hand. He ignited a bronze blade quite similar to Sorn’s own. Now his voice was quiet and menacing. “No, Jedi, you have it backwards. It is I who abandoned the light!”

He dove forward, lightsaber raised high above his head, ready to bring it around in an arc that would slice Sorn neatly in two.

Steady, emotionless, the Jedi Master simply raised his palm and the weapon left the Sith Lord’s hand and flew into his own, just as its owner stopped midair, completely reversed direction, and slammed into the back of his throne.

While his enemy was still trying to recover from the shock, Sorn took a few calm, cool paces forward and raised the bronze blade to the Sith’s neck.

And now you die.

Killing him is wrong. He’s defenseless. He must be kept alive.

No. I promised that he would not leave this planet and he shan’t.

Shan’t? Since when have I used words like “shan’t”?

I always have. So this must be me.

And he has to die. It’s the only way to destroy the Sith, once and for all.

No. Killing him is wrong. That’s not me talking; it’s the darkness. Kill him and I become him.

Sorn did not know who he heard arguing. He could’ve been arguing with himself, or with the darkness in this place, or perhaps he was just listening to two dark spirits arguing with each other. It didn’t matter. Because he remembered his apprentice and he remembered telling Kallen to destroy the Sith at all costs.

The person in that memory was him, and the person in that memory wanted this man dead.

He stabbed the bronze blade through the Sith Lord’s chest. The Sith gave out a scream so loud and so terrible that Sorn thought for a moment he had missed and killed himself. The sound resonated around the cavern, through the citadel, over the world, irritating the darkness of the planet which swished and swirled with renewed vigor. Sorn buried himself in his own consciousness, building a wall of light to keep the darkness from touching him.

At last the screams lessened to barely a whisper. The Sith said something that sounded like “Troshus.”

“What?” he asked.

He used the Force to enhance his hearing and heard the Sith Lord’s final words clearly. “Darth Troshus.”

Then Sorn watched as the Sith’s veined, yellow eyes rolled back into his head and the Force abandoned his body.

Then, quite clearly, he heard another voice in his head.

The Jedi do not kill their prisoners, no matter what their crimes.

You are no Jedi.

The voice was distinctly that of his old master. But she was three hundred years dead and, though she had said the first statement many times, she had never told him he was no Jedi. It had to be another trick of the darkness.

Then it occurred to him: What if it’s all a trick? What if I only think I remember her saying that?

It made sense: with the last of Sith dead, the darkness would do anything to turn Sorn to the dark side. If he remembered Bastilla, the person he respected more than any other, telling him that Jedi do not kill their prisoners, he might conclude that he was no longer a Jedi. But he could not trust anything here, not even his memories. He had to get out.

He contemplated leaving the lightsaber behind, but decided to take it with him, as proof to the rest of the Council that the Sith were, at long last, destroyed. To him, it would be a reminder of this place, and the dark power that resided here.

But you know I’m right.

He stopped in his tracks. The voice was still his, but it had dropped all pretense of being his own thoughts. Sorn ignored it and began levitating towards the exit.

When you leave this place you will realize the truth: that, in killing the last of the Sith, you have sealed your destiny. You proved that in your core, you are no Jedi. You committed a necessary evil and that is a trait of a Sith, not a Jedi.

Sorn reached the foot of the staircase and began the long ascent toward the surface.

Look into the future yourself if you don’t believe me. With all the dark side power in this place, it will be easy. I won’t let it corrupt you, I promise.

“You offer me the future?” Sorn said aloud, to be sure this voice was truly his own. “Any fool with half a brain can witness the future: it’s called living. I am concerned only with the past and learning from it.”

The past? You refer to the ages-long conflict known as the Sith Wars. The Sith Wars. Conflicts which made the Jedi Order what it is today- conflicts which made them stronger. Better. Perhaps that is the true purpose of the Sith- to strengthen the Jedi. Ignite a candle in a brightly lit room and it is nothing. Ignite a candle in a pitch-black cave and it is magnificent. Everything is defined by its opposite- even Jedi. Without Sith, there can be no Jedi.

And you’ve just destroyed them both.

Sorn knew the voice was trying to corrupt him. He tried to ignore it but with only the endless stone stairs to entertain him, ignoring the sound was nearly impossible.

You are a historian. But perhaps it is time that you stop studying history and start making it. In time, you will realize that the Sith are a necessary evil.

“Necessary evil,” Sorn repeated. “That term is a lie. A Sith lie.”

And yet the Force contains both light and darkness. Good and evil. The galaxy needs both to exist. You know this. The Force has chosen you to continue the Sith, Sorn. You. Only you. Without you, there would be no more wars. No more conflict. Only peace. Only Jedi. Only stagnation. Is that what you want?

Sorn thought about the words despite himself and realized there was some truth in them. “The Sith, as of this day, are dead. But there will always be a dark side, and always those that fall prey to its temptations. I, fortunately, am not one of them.”

Not yet. But the future is not set in stone. For nearly four centuries you’ve studied history. His story. Their story. What about yours? What about your story, Sorn?

He thought for a moment. I’ve left my mark on history. I shall forever be known as the man who succeeded where so many before me have failed- as the one who finally brought an end to the Sith. But somehow, he could not bring himself to say those words aloud. They sounded too arrogant. Too un-Jedi-like.

But now the voice was quiet. It remained silent as he made his way up the stairs, through the citadel, and out into the endless snow.

Sorn.

The wind seemed to whisper his name as he made the long journey back to the shuttle in the darkness.

“Did you do it? Is he dead?” Kallen asked when his master returned.

Sorn nodded solemnly. Now that he was far away from the center of the taint, he could think clearly again. He distinctly remembered his master telling him that killing was wrong, knew that if she had not practiced what she preached, Revan would never have turned back to the light and brought an end to the Jedi Civil War. But this was different. It had to be different. If Sorn had made a mistake in killing the Sith… No, that’s what the darkness wanted him to think. But still… murdering defenseless prisoners was not the Jedi way. Which meant that either Sorn had broken his vow to the Jedi, or he had made a mistake. And if he had made a mistake by exterminating the Sith, the only way to fix it was to become Sith. Both choices led to evil. Both led to Sorn becoming Sith. So this is how the dark side does it. It doesn’t make you choice between the light and the dark; it simply takes the light away. It makes you choose between two necessary evils, and by the time you realize that you made the wrong choice, you forget there was no right choice to begin with.

But this was neither the time nor the place for such thoughts. He would mediate on this later. Center himself. Once he distilled the truth from this cloud of lies he could be at peace with himself once again.

But for now, he had to answer his apprentice’s expectant gaze. “It is done. We can finally leave this place.”

This time, it was Sorn who sat in the pilot’s seat while Kallen took the co-pilot’s. The former began entering commands into the control console.

“What are you doing?”

“Deleting the coordinates of this planet from the ship’s memory. The dark side is much too powerful here. No Jedi should ever have to face an enemy here again, and now no Jedi ever will.”

Through the Force, Sorn detected a slight change in Kallen’s mood. Was it disappointment he was sensing? Or acceptance? Understanding? But he sensed that the dark had not managed to touch his apprentice -his wall of light must’ve prevented it- and let the matter be.

He handed Kallen back his lightsaber as the ship lifted off the plateau. “Why don’t you go in the back and get some sleep? You deserve it.”

Kallen grinned and now clearly emanated pride. “Now that you mention it, I am a bit tired. Goodnight, Master.”

“Goodnight.”

Kallen got up and headed into the ship’s main compartment, closing the cabin door behind him.

Sorn finished deleting Ziost’s coordinates from the navicomputer before he set a course for Coruscant.

Yet for some reason he could not fully comprehended, he copied them into his datapad first.


30 YEARS LATER…




To Be Continued…

A/N: Well, that was the prologue. Let me know what you thought. I'll have Chapter One up in two or three days.

Happy All Saints Day!

 

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Heart of the Sith (KotOR-era, Action/Adventure):
http://boards.theforce.net/before_the_saga/b10475/29384282/p1/?2
Links to all my stories can be found at The Sith Archives:
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Lord_Zeron  500 posts
Registered: Mar '05
14960_Sith Holocron
Date Posted: 11/5/08 11:26am Subject: RE: Heart of the Sith (Action/Adventure, KotOR-era, some KotOR characters, OCs) - Date Edited: 6/26 1:54pm (2 edits total) Edited By: Lord_Zeron
Author's Note: Well, here's Chapter One, as promised. Hopefully the length of the Prologue isn't driving people away. Give the story a try, and I promise it'll be worth your while. grin



30 YEARS LATER...

Part I: His Rise

The Night is our best friend.
When the light of the sun grows blinding, and our feet grow tired of walking, and our eyes grow weary of seeing, the Night is there. It protects us. Comforts us. Gives us hope.
Hope, because we know that no matter what happens, the Night is always there, simply waiting for us to welcome it with arms wide open.
All we have to do is turn out the light.
The brightest day is followed by the darkest night.


Chapter One:

“Definition: 'Love' is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometers away using an Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope. Statement: This definition, I am told, is subject to interpretation. Obviously, love is a matter of odds. Not many meatbags could make such a shot, and fewer would derive love from it. Yet for me, love is knowing your target, putting them in your targeting reticle, and together, achieving a singular purpose, against statistically long odds.”
-HK-47 (Knights of the Old Republic)


It all started with a pebble.

Lori touched it with the Force, sensing every surface, registering every crack, feeling every gram of its weight as it pressed against the floor of the Room of a Thousand Fountains. Once she understood the pebble in every sense, she reached out with her consciousness, touching it with her mind. A part of her wanted to command it to rise –she knew it would obey- but another part knew there was a better way. Rather than forcing the pebble to rise, rather even than suggesting it, she simply let it rise. Gave it the option. The ability. The pebble levitated on its own.

That was the first step.

Lori delegated a small piece of her mind to keeping the pebble afloat while the rest of her moved on. She closed her eyes, sat down cross-legged on the floor and, using the pebble as an example, allowed herself to float off of the floor. It was a sort of rule with the Force that one could not levitate oneself any more than one could move the rest of the universe but, though Lori could not lift herself using the Force, there was nothing stopping Lori from allowing the Force to lift her. And, devoid of any reason to keep her on the ground, the Force complied.

That was the second step.

Now she had to keep both the pebble and herself in the air while adding her lightsaber to the mix. Though it was not impossible to do all three simultaneously, Lori had never been good at dividing her consciousness more than two ways. And like her master had taught her, the Force offered a variety of methods for reaching any given objective. The technique she was about to perform, he had told her, was perhaps the most difficult of all, yet in a way also the easiest, for it was the basis upon which all others were built. It was the key to reaching one’s goals. Lori’s power was not unlimited, but the Force’s was. It was one of the Force’s strange paradoxes that to achieve one’s goals, all one had to do was give them up.

So Lori did the hardest thing any sentient being could do: she let go of herself. She dove into the Force as if it were a river that flowed all around her, in all directions at once, and allowed herself to be swept away by the current. She did not swim; she did not try to stay afloat; she did not even breathe. As long as she did not try to breathe, she did not have to.

And the river flowed in her, its pure waters mixing with her own blood, and there was no Lori and there was no river. There was only light everywhere. It was a state of perfect peace, of perfect selflessness. The goal of every Jedi. The reason the Sith could never master the light side of the Force: because the light could not be mastered. That was not to say that mastery could not be found through the light side. It was just that, whereas the Sith mastered the dark side of the Force, the Jedi allowed the light side to master them.

In this state, Lori knew her power was limitless, limitless because it was no longer hers. And for that exact reason it was also limited, because she could not decide what to do with it without losing it. Decision was a human thing. The Force did not decide; it simply did.

Now part of the river –no, now the river itself- Lori felt her lightsaber rise in front of her and began to spin along its middle axis. She was not the one making it rise, she was not even the one allowing it. She was only feeling it, as she had felt the pebble at the beginning of the exercise. And around her, two chairs lifted off the ground and began revolving around her in midair, the pebble and lightsaber retaining their positions and slipping through the holes in the chairs when they met. Always the chairs stayed 180 degrees apart, and a pair of wooden benches soon joined them at right angles. Then books began to fly from the large stack Lori had brought with her until they made a second ring perpendicular to the first, so that they moved upward on Lori’s left and downward on her right. There was nothing else nearby to use, but the Force did not care. Water lifted out of the nearest fountain and joined in the dance, making a third ring around Lori so that, if she would’ve opened her eyes, she would’ve been looking at a curving waterfall.

That was the third step.

Now came the hard part. Lori had never come this far in the exercise before and she was determined not to stop now. She wanted to see how long she could maintain this state before returning to consciousness and ruining the harmony of the system. It was impossible to tell if what she was feeling was the severest form of focus or a complete lack of focus, but either way, or both, she couldn’t let herself think. She could only feel. Feeling was allowed, it was simply viewing the result of the Force’s mastery; thinking, on the other hand, told the Force that she was trying to master it.

She reached out from her orb of objects and detected other presences in the room: Master Mooth attending to her plants, a pair of Jedi Knights in meditation, a moonmoth that had gotten too close to one of the fountain sprays and was now struggling to lift its wet wings out of the pool without success, and a fellow Padawan marching toward her with long, confident strides.

She lost her focus. Or gained it. Some thought, too quick to remember, had crossed her mind and ruined the whole thing. In a cascade of books, water, chairs, and benches, Lori fell to the ground. Scrambling from the wet mess, she found the Padawan standing in front of her, arms clasped behind his back.

“I can still beat you in lightsaber practice.”

For a moment –the briefest moment- Lori felt a desire to yell at him for interrupting her meditation, to take revenge on him for ruining the best moment she had had in weeks. But that was her talking, not the light, and she quickly pushed the thought away. She knew Bren-Sil Quid better than anyone except his master, and he wouldn’t have sought her out without good reason.

Putting on her best smile, she replied, “For now.”

Bren’s return smile was as factitious as her own. They had been friends –and rivals- since they were younglings, and it wasn’t hard for her to read his emotions. He knew something important that she did not and was dying to tell her.

But he didn’t show a sign of his feelings and simply repeated, “For now.” Bending down to pick up Lori’s books, he continued, “But I doubt you’ll catch up any time soon. And in fact, as good as I’m getting with a saber, I’m improving even faster with the Force. It won’t be long before I beat you there too.”

Bren stood up and handed a tentative Lori the stack of dripping books. “Is that so?” she taunted. “Well, the next time you manage to levitate the water out of the fountains, be sure to let me know.”

Looking her up and down from her soaked dirty blond hair to the puddle beneath her feet, he responded, “Levitating or dropping?”

“I was doing fine until you showed up.” She wondered for a moment if that was her frustration speaking, but convinced herself it was just playful banter. Bren began walking casually towards the door, his pace suggesting he expected Lori to walk with him. She did, both of them struggling to get a foot in front of the other.

“So I saw. You’ll have to teach me that one once you get back.”

Ah, now we’re getting somewhere.

“And where, pray tell, am I going?”

Bren shrugged a little too much, and though his expression read “beats me,” his Force presence suggested otherwise. “Don’t ask me; that’s for the Council to say. I’m just their messenger boy.”

“Alright, messenger boy, what’s the message?”

“I just told you: the Council wants to see you.”

After a few steps, she led, “About…”

“About a mission, I suppose.”

This was going nowhere and there was still something he wasn’t telling her. They exited the Room of a Thousand Fountains and steered towards the Padawans’ Quarters, where Lori could drop her books off and change into a dry robe before seeing the Council.

“Any idea what the mission might be?”

Another unconvincing shrug. “Picking up nerfs for dinner if I had to guess. It’s too bad they never give you any important tasks.”

She tried to read his emotions through the Force, without letting him know that she was doing so. They were both technically Jedi Sentinels, though due to their masters’ specializations, Lori was better with the Force while Bren was the better duelist.

She didn’t think he was lying about not knowing what her mission was, but he was definitely hiding something- a secret he was simply waiting for the right moment to reveal, one that was to his liking. That was the only way to explain the pride and joy he radiated.

“What exactly do you consider an ‘important task’? If it wasn’t for me, Vandorg would’ve joined the Prosperity Alliance months ago.” She was referring to the recent conflict between the Hutts and a group of planets calling themselves the Prosperity Alliance, a conflict which had dominated holonet news for the last year.

“And ended the war months ago.”

“You don’t know that. And it’s not a war.”

“Call it what you wish. Besides, it was your master that solved the whole Vandorg thing, not you.”

“He might’ve helped,” she conceded. They were in the Padawan’s Quarters now and heading towards Lori’s room.

Bren looked at her sideways. “Might’ve?”

“Might’ve,” she repeated.

They were almost at her room now. Whatever Bren’s got to tell me, he’d better do it soon.

“But still,” he began. About time. “Even the Vandorg thing wasn’t that big of a deal. Nothing galaxy-changing at any rate.”

Lori was inclined to argue the point, but they were short on time and she had realized where this conversation was headed. “And let me guess, you are going on a galaxy changing mission?”

She sensed his slight disappointment that she had guessed the secret, but it would’ve been obvious to any Gammorean. “That’s right,” Bren said. “Master Kale and I are going to investigate sightings of a long dead Dark Lord of the Sith.”

They reached her room and Lori opened the door. “A Dark Lord of the Sith?”

“So the rumors say. It’s probably nothing, but you can never tell with these kinds of things. Just in case it really is a Sith Lord, the Council’s decided to send two of the best lightsaber duelists in the Order to fight him.”

“I hate to burst your bubble, but there are no more Sith. My master killed the last of them years ago.”

“Or so he says.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

Bren threw his hands in the air with another deceptively innocent expression. “Nothing at all.” He made an act of glancing at his chrono. “Speaking of Master Sorn, he’s been waiting for you ten minutes now.”

Lori almost dropped the books. “Ten minutes? You didn’t tell me they were waiting for me!”

“I never said they weren’t.”

Lori gritted her teeth and threw the books on her cot. There was no time to change into dryer clothes and certainly no time to stay and argue with Bren. She would just have to air dry as she ran.

If that Sith Lord doesn’t kill him, I just might have to do it myself.



It was not the kind of place one would expect to find the best slicer in the sector. According to the broken sign out front, the corner shop specialized in “Elecktronic Repares,” though the tinted windows and remote location suggested that their true means of income were far less legal.

Then again, this is Nar Shaddaa, Kallen reminded himself. There’s no such thing as ‘legal’ here.

He rang the buzzer by the door and immediately sensed panic and haste flooding into the Force. There were three beings inside and all of them were very worried about the visitor. And with good reason, too, for Kallen was prepared to do whatever it took to break into his former master’s datapad. Whomever it was that those inside were expecting to pay a visit wasn’t nearly as dangerous as him.

Finally, the door opened a crack and a Weequay poked his head through. “We’re closed.”

Kallen drew the Force in around him, an easy task on a moon that was teeming with emotions, and probed the Weequay’s mind. The creature offered little resistance, just as Kallen had expected.

“I need to see a man named Horace. Is he here?”

The Weequay nodded, his stare blank. “Hey Van,” he called into the back of the shop. “Someone’s here to see ya.”

“Tell him I’m-”

Kallen used the Force to push the door all the way open, revealing the room’s other two occupants: a human male and a Twi’lek female, both of their faces filled with shock. The Twi’lek had a blaster aimed at Kallen.

“Are you Horace?” Kallen asked the human. He had seen enough pictures to recognize his target, but it didn’t hurt to make sure.

“Who’s asking?”

Kallen reached into a pocket of his long brown cloak, prompting the Twi’lek to raise the blaster at his head and shout, “Hey!”

“It’s all right,” he replied, lacing his voice with Force persuasion. The Twi’lek was just as weak-minded as the Weequay; apparently Horace was the brains of this little operation. Kallen pulled out his hand to reveal a ten thousand credit chip. “This is yours,” he said to the slicer, “if you can do me a little favor.”

Horace licked his thin human lips and peered closer at the chip, as if expecting it to be fake. “What kind of a favor?”

From another pocket, Kallen handed over Sorn’s datapad. “I need you to slice into this.”

Horace issued a laugh that sounded both started and amused. “You serious? Ten thousand to get into a ‘pad? What’s the catch?”

“It belonged to a very powerful individual.” That wasn’t technically a lie, though Sorn’s power had little to do with credits or influence. “It’ll have the best anti-slicing protection money can buy.”

Horace licked his lips again. “Won’t be enough. You got yourself a deal, Devaronian. But I want payment in advance, full payment.”

In advance? This had better not take long. Kallen didn’t have any time to lose. It had taken him a week to track this guy down- far longer than he had planned- and if he didn’t return to the Temple soon, people would begin to get suspicious. “How long is this going to take?”

“Gimmee the creds and the ‘pad and I’ll tell ya.”

Kallen complied. He had no need to worry about Horace running. He had found the slicer once; he could do it again if the need arose.

Horace pocked the credit chip and instantly began hitting buttons almost faster than Kallen could follow. After a few seconds, the slicer removed his own datapad from a nearby drawer and connected the two together.

The four of them stood in silence for nearly five minutes: The Weequay and Twi’lek still under Kallen’s soothing Force-touch, Horace bent over the datapads and working furiously, and Kallen watching like a hawk-bat.

“Would it be better if I came back at a later time?”

Horace shook his head so slightly that it was barely noticeable. He was engulfed in his work, or at least appeared to be. If this man couldn’t get into Sorn’s datapad, no one could, at least according to Kallen’s contacts.

At last the human muttered, “Q-Z-N-L-S-S-L-T-I-Z.”

Kallen thought the slicer had simply been muttering code to himself until he looked up expectantly, as if expecting a response.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s Jamoh Hogra, just with the letters reversed. You know, aurek for zerek, besh for-”

“Yeah, I get it. But what does it mean?”

“It’s the password. Now you can get into the datapad whenever you want. Happy?” He disconnected the devices and handed Sorn’s back to Kallen.

Kallen entered the password. It worked. Now what?

Well, the best place to start would be Sorn’s private journals. On their return journey from Ziost thirty years before, Kallen’s master had instructed him to lie to the Council, telling them that they had killed the Sith back on Corellia. It was better, he had said, if no Jedi ever found Ziost again or even went looking for it.

Kallen had gone thirty years without knowing what his master had found in that citadel, and it was about time he figured it out. Something important had happened that day, something that had deeply changed the greatest Jedi in the order. Few noticed, and most of those who did had simply assumed it was the grouchiness that comes with old age. But Kallen knew better. Something had happened on Ziost to change Sorn, and that was something well worth investigation.

But Sorn’s journals simply contained the same lie Kallen had rehearsed a hundred times, the one the rest of the Order believed to this day.

The only other place to check was in the actual list of planets and their coordinates. The list contained thousands of planets and star systems, but a quick search told him Ziost was not one of them.

He felt his heard sink in his chest.

Then a thought occurred to him.

It wasn’t Ziost he should be looking for, it was… he thought about it for a moment then did a search for “Arlhg.” The planet didn’t exist, of course, and yet the coordinates were there.

The coordinates for Ziost, the lost planet of the Sith.

Now Kallen had a choice to make. He could wipe the short-term memory of Horace’s companions, but the slicer himself was far from weak-minded. Perhaps Sorn could’ve managed it, but Kallen was a Jedi Guardian, not a Consular. His area of expertise was with a lightsaber, and killing these people was out of the question, even if the galaxy would probably be a better place without their sort of scum. In the last week, Kallen had become a rogue Jedi, a desperate Jedi even, but a Jedi nonetheless, not a murderer.

He contemplated taking Horace with him, but that wouldn’t do either. His Padawan was waiting for him back at the ship and despite the fact that she was only fifteen, she was already beginning to get suspicious of this “secret mission.” Kallen wouldn’t make the same mistake his master did thirty years before; Mev would accompany him to the citadel and for that, he would need her complete trust. Bringing along an innocent prisoner wouldn’t help in that regard.

That only left one option: leave Horace behind and hope that no one would track him down. Kallen had been to Ziost before, he had already resisted the touch of its power, but other Jedi did not have that benefit. If others followed, they might not be able to resist such temptation. And if even Kallen proved to be unworthy, if the secrets of the citadel brought about his end, then at least the planet’s location would die with him- this time, for good.

“I need you to leave this place. Get as far away from here as you can and don’t stop running. There may be people coming after me and my trail will lead them here, to you. Do you understand?”

Horace nodded. “Yeah, don’t worry about me. I know how to disappear when I need to.” He waved the credit chip Kallen had given him. “This baby’ll make it even easier.”

Kallen knew the slicer spoke truthfully. It had taken him a week to track Horace down when he wasn’t even trying to hide; any Jedi who followed would certainly take much longer. And even if they did hunt him down, the slicer still wouldn’t be able to lead them to Ziost. Only Kallen had the coordinates, and he was taking them with him.

With a nod of goodbye, the Devaronian turned and left the little shop, blending in seamlessly with the diverse crowds of the smuggler’s moon. He made his way towards the spaceport where his apprentice watched over their ship. In a few days, all of Ziost’s ancient secrets would be his, and when he returned to the Jedi with the information, he would be viewed as a hero, the greatest Jedi Knight of his age. More importantly, he would finally know what had been troubling his former master for the last thirty years. If he survived Ziost, that is.



“Approaching destination in three… two… one. Go! Go! Go!”

The doors at the back of the cargo speeder burst open and Commander Davin Karn rushed out, his right hand clutching a small holdout blaster to his side while his left waved in the air, sending his men forth onto the scene.

“Move it, move it, move it, move it!”

A dozen of the Republic’s finest troops issued out of the speeder, dispersing among the gathered Coruscant Security Force officers in front of the Seventh Street Planetary Bank. Orenth Squad was a diverse array of genders and species, unified only by their identical red-and-yellow armor and their resolve to serve the Republic.

Once his men were all in position –energy shields activated and blaster rifles aimed at the bank door- Command Karn walked over to a nearby CSF Lieutenant.

“Any developments?”

“The demands are the same: a speeder and a clear path out with the money.”

“What is he thinking? He has to know we’ll wipe the accounts as soon as he leaves the building.”

The Lieutenant just shrugged. “He’s psychotic, sir. Can’t expect him to be reasonable.”

“Alright. Captain Skorendu.”

Karn’s second-in-command was quickly at his side. “Sir?”

“I need you to establish a visual. Sent in one of the probes, but be careful. If he sees it, he’s liable to blow the whole place up.”

It was a simple mission, a hostage situation that would’ve been beneath Orenth Squad had the target not been the Planetary Bank, but Karn knew he had to treat it as if the entire galaxy were at stake. He had never failed a mission yet and he wasn’t about to start now. Karn had always taken great pride in this record, hoping it might one day get him out from his brother’s shadow, no easy matter considering that his brother was the former Supreme Commander of Republic Armed Forces and one of the most powerful men in the galaxy.

On the datapad built into the back of his gauntlet, Karn watched optimistically as the tiny hovering droid sliced a hole through the bank’s rear wall and slipped through. The bank’s lobby was a large room with luxurious sofas and deep maroon carpets, on which a dozen or so unfortunate clients were laying facedown, their hands on the back of their heads. In the middle of them stood a red-skinned rodian, a small metallic orb in one hand.

“Thermal detonator,” Sorkendu stated.

“Aren’t those things supposed to be illegal?”

“Yeah, well, so is breaking into the Planetary Bank.”

“Very funny, Captain. I’m going in, see if I can talk him out of it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Be careful, Commander,” warned the CSF lieutenant. “We have files on this guy- he’s got a record of mental instability. One wrong move and- boom.”

Karn handed Captain Skorendu his hold out blaster. “What’s the rodian’s name?”

“Lenus Wal. He used to work at the bank, so he knows the layout well.”

“Well, that explains how he got a detonator past security. Alright, Captain, keep a close eye on the monitor. If anything goes wrong, get the Squad out of here pronto.”

“Yes, sir.”

Skorendu was a good man. Karn knew if anything happened to him in that bank –unlikely, but always possible- Skorendu would make a fine replacement as Orenth’s head.

Karn took off his helmet and handed it to the Captain, then walked out of the jumbled mess of police, commandos, and CSF speeders. Moving slowly so as not to take the rodian by surprise, he opened the door and cautiously stepped inside.

“Stop! Stop right here! No take another step!”

“It’s okay.” Karn raised his hands to shoulder height in a gesture of peace. “I just want to talk.”

“No talk. You know my wants.”

“Look, friend, why are you doing this? These people haven’t done anything to you.” Karn remembered that Lenus had once worked here and regretted his words. Perhaps this was about revenge. But Lenus didn’t react, so he continued, “Why don’t you just let them go, and then me and you can talk, gentleman to gentleman?”

“No talk! You give me speeder, I leave. Simple.”

“Alright, alright. So if we get you a speeder, you’ll leave these people alone? Do you I have your word on that?”

“My word, yours. You let me leave, I leave.”

Karn contemplated telling the rodian his plan would do no good, but that might cause him to become distressed and do something radical. So he simply backed out of the bank, slowly, and shut the door behind him.

“What now?” Captain Skorendu asked as Karn rejoined the crowed.

“Weren’t you listening? Now we get him a speeder.”

Skorendu nodded. “A homing beacon?”

Smart man. “No, I’ve got an even better idea. We have it flown by a droid, one programmed to take him right to prison. Even if he blows up, the only life we lose is his own.”

“Right away, sir.”

Not more than five minutes later, the requested air speeder pulled up next to the platform out front of the bank. All that stood between them was a crowd of armed police.

Karn put his helmet back on and switched on the built-in megaphone. “Alright everyone, stand back. Give this guy a clear path to his speeder.” Organized by the other members of Orenth Squad, the CSF forces split to either side, creating a wide space that led from the doors of the bank to the speeder. They were careful not to get too close to the platform’s edge- a single bad step and they’d find themselves falling a hundred stories into Coruscant’s lower levels.

Once everyone was in position, Karn turned back to the bank. “Okay, Lenus, your speeder awaits. You can come on out.”

They waited in anticipation for a good two minutes before the bank doors opened and out came Lenus, the thermal detonator still in hand and a pair of strange glasses on his face.

“What are those?” Karn whispered to Skorendu, who was standing right beside him. “He wasn’t wearing them before.”

The Captain began rapidly typing into the keyboard on his wrist. “Give me a minute and I’ll find out.”

Lenus was halfway to the speeder by now; soon he would be directly in front of Karn and Skorendu. “Hurry it up, Captain. We may not have a minute.”

If anything goes wrong now… well, if anything goes wrong now, I won’t live to see what happens. That detonator’ll blow this whole platform to smithereens.

Now Lenus was only a few meters away from the speeder and Karn as beginning to get impatient. “Captain?”

“Got a match, sir. It’s a new model of the Verpine Ocular Enhancer. It…”

“Captain?”

Skorendu swallowed. “It has electronic sensors. He’ll know there’s a droid inside.”

“Sithspit.” As soon as Lenus figured out there was a droid inside, he’d know he had been tricked. After that, there’s no way he would get in the speeder. The only alternative… Karn switched on the comlink in his helmet.

“Orenth Squad, move everyone back! Now!”

But it was far too late. There were simply too many people to move and, as the rodian stopped a mere meter from the speeder’s door, Karn knew their time was up. He switched off his helmet comm and prepared to duck and cover.

“Commander.”

If you have a solution to this, Captain, there’ll be a promotion in your future. “Yes?”

Skorendu gave him a brisk nod and a salute. “It’s been an honor serving with you, Sir.”

By the time Karn’s brain caught up with his ears, Skorendu was already halfway to Lenus, who had turned around and was looking straight at Karn.

“Captain, no! Stand down, that’s an or-”

But it was too late. Captain Skorendu tackled Lenus off the edge of the platform, taking the thermal detonator with them. A few seconds later there was a loud explosion from somewhere below.

“Lieutenant Lorso,” Karn barked. In an instant, the Mirialan was at his side. “Report.”

“Sensors indicate only two casualties, sir- the target and the Captain.”

Karn had lost members of his squad before, but always to transfers or retirement. This –death- was… different would be an understatement. He had lost one of his own. Captain Skorendu, the man he had been talking to, working with, not a minute before, was just gone. Blown out like a candle.

Karn’s brother had told him what it was like to lose someone under your command, but nothing could’ve prepared him for the sickening reality of it all. Detach yourself from the conflict. He could almost here Nolan’s voice in his head. Focus on the objectives.

At least no civilians were harmed. But that brought little comfort to Karn. Skorendu had been a good friend and a great soldier, and losing him was… the full impact of it hadn’t hit Karn yet. But he knew it would soon and he wanted to be alone when it did.

He turned on his helmet comm again. “Mission…” successful. But he couldn’t bring himself to say it. Not when a man had died under his command.

Karn took a long, deep breath. “Mission complete.”



To most people, Silmo appeared no different than any other rodian on Nar Shaddaa: lean, long-fingered, 1.623 meters tall, with lumpy green skin, big black eyes, trumpet-like ears and a big down-turned snout. Most people wouldn’t have glanced twice at his heavy combat suit, his mandalorian melee shield, or the disrupter pistol attached to his side. Most people wouldn’t have suspected that Silmo had just stolen nearly two hundred thousand credits from Vogga the Hutt- one of the biggest crime lords on the planet. Most people wouldn’t care.

HK-47 was not most people.

Aratech sniper rifle slung over one shoulder, the 400-year-old assassin droid waited in a dark alleyway for his target to pass by. Two of his spherical scouting droids were taking turns keeping an eye on the rodian, relaying a constant video feet directly to HK’s control cluster as they watched.

Silmo was a nervous wreck of a meatbag, glancing over his shoulder an average of once every 8.424 seconds and keeping a hand on his blaster at all times. Taking him out wouldn’t be difficult; it was the calm ones you had to worry about.

On a planet like Nar Shaddaa, it was not difficult for HK’s scouts to blend into a crowed. They were small and looked no different than the security droids that routinely patrolled many civilized systems. Then again, Nar Shaddaa wasn’t a civilized system.

At the moment, Silmo had just exited a bar and was heading towards an air speeder garage just down the street, the second scout droid in close pursuit.

HK keyed on the internal comlink that connected him to his scouts. Keep your distance, S2, or I’ll turn you into a thermal detonator.

Understood, came the reply. HK was pleased when the video feed grew more distant from their target. Silmo’s nervousness would make him an easy kill, but it also made tracking him a lot more difficult.

Any second now, the rodian would pass by HK’s alley and he had to be ready when he did. Making sure the power pack of his rifle was charged, HK got down on one knee and allowed his targeting module to begin interaction with the weapon.

Alright, S2, pull back. I’ll have him in my sights in-

Then Silmo made a right turn, heading away from the speeder garage –and the alley.

S2, move to intercept and fire a warning shot. Drive him towards me.

Negavtive. Blaster charge: 0.

Cla’Mir, you imbecile, can’t you do anything right? Vogga’s mechanic had assured HK that the scouts were in perfect condition.

S1, take over. Same command.

Understood.

This time, S1 made no effort to remain hidden and instead hovered down until he was right in front of Silmo, then fired a warning shot right over his shoulder. A few inches to the left and the rodian would be dead, but that would be messy and so… uncreative.

Scouts, stay out of my way. He’s mine.

Both droids instantly dropped down a nearby shaft as the area’s other occupants, excepting a blaster fight, headed for cover. Silmo dropped into a dead run in the opposite direction, straight into HK’s trap.

Stepping out of the alleyway, he aimed the rifle at the stunned rodian and proclaimed, “Warning: Stop right there, meatbag, or I’ll ram this blaster rifle down your squishy little throat.”

But Silmo was in no mood for bargaining. He pulled out his disruptor pistol and got off a well-aimed shot at HK’s head, though it reflected harmlessly off his durasteel armor.

Why don’t meatbags ever listen?

Seeing that his pistol was useless, Silmo threw it to the ground and tried a frag grenade instead.

HK simply raised his empty palm and activated the powerful electromagnets he had recently installed. As if caught by the Force, the grenade stopped midair and returned to its owner, who caught it with an expression of great surprise. The stupid meatbag tried the same tactic again and, inevitably, got the same results. Realizing that the charge would detonate any second, Silmo turned and threw the grenade over a nearby railing just in time.

Then he ran.

HK raised his vocabulator’s volume. “Unveiled Threat: I must insist that you cease movement at once, drop all weapons, and hand over the stolen credits. Any alternative actions will result-

He’s not even listening to me. Last mistake he’ll ever make.

Not even bothering to change position, HK raised the sniper rifle, let his assassination protocols take aim, and pulled the trigger. A beam of scarlet light flashed from the tip, hitting Silmo right between his oversized ears.

He waited perfectly still as his sensors measured the distance between him and his fallen target: 23.815 meters. Odds of success: over two million to one.

Perhaps some droids just aren’t meant to find true love, HK mused as he retrieved Silmo’s possessions. The chip with the stolen credits was still on his person. At least Vogga would be pleased with the results.



To Be Continued...

 

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Heart of the Sith (KotOR-era, Action/Adventure):
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Lord_Zeron  500 posts
Registered: Mar '05
14960_Sith Holocron
Date Posted: 11/8/08 9:12pm Subject: RE: Heart of the Sith (Action/Adventure, KotOR-era, some KotOR characters, OCs)
I'm guessing the length of the first two posts might be scaring people away, so I figure I'll wait a little while to give readers a chance to catch up. If in about a week no one's replied, I'll put up Chapter Two for any lurkers out there.

peace

 

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Heart of the Sith (KotOR-era, Action/Adventure):
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JediDingo  220 posts
Registered: Mar '05
47885_Zayne Carrick
Date Posted: 11/12/08 7:21am Subject: RE: Heart of the Sith (Action/Adventure, KotOR-era, some KotOR characters, OCs)
I only have read the prolouge so far, and I really enjoyed it. You did a really good job showing the tempting of Sorn. Can I suggest though you may want to split up your chapters because it is a bit lengthy. OTherwise I really enjoy it so far. Make sure to let me know when you post a new chapter!

 

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Hey, I like you.
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Lord_Zeron  500 posts
Registered: Mar '05
14960_Sith Holocron
Date Posted: 11/13/08 1:58pm Subject: RE: Heart of the Sith (Action/Adventure, KotOR-era, some KotOR characters, OCs)
Yay, a reader! Thanks! I was trying to go for something a bit more philosophical than the old "You'll have power and glory" routine the Sith usually try. I completely agree about the length; that seems to be quite a detterent to a lot of readers. I'm thinking I'll start posting only one chapter a week and I'll split the four sections up into separate posts (so one on sunday/tuesday/thursday/saturday or something like that). On their own, the sections aren't too daunting; posted all at once, the entire chapter looks huge.

I'll be sure to send you a PM when I post the first section of chapter 2; it'll probably be tomorrow or on saturday.


happy

 

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Heart of the Sith (KotOR-era, Action/Adventure):
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Lord_Zeron  500 posts
Registered: Mar '05
14960_Sith Holocron
Date Posted: 11/16/08 5:56am Subject: RE: Heart of the Sith (Action/Adventure, KotOR-era, some KotOR characters, OCs)
Okay, so here's the first section of chapter two. Each chapter has four sections, one from each point-of-view (Lori, Kallen, Karn, and HK-47, though the order will vary each week), so I'll post sections roughly on Sunday/Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday resulting in one whole chapter a week. If this is still too fast (or slow) let me know and I'll work out something else.

I also made a Padawan/Master chart because... well, I have no life. tongue

(Click to Enlarge)




Chapter Two: Section One

“It is all that is left unsaid upon which tragedies are built.”
-Kreia (KotOR II)


The galaxy has a certain irony about it, Kallen decided as he brought the Arbiter down for a landing. Somehow it had totally escaped him that this was the same ship he had used the last time he came to Ziost. Now, as before, he was in the pilot’s seat, the only place in the galaxy where he felt truly comfortable.

In the seat next to him, his apprentice shuddered. “This place… I don’t like it. Where are we?”

Irony, indeed. Kallen wished he could remember his master’s response when he had asked the exact same question thirty years before. “This is Ziost, the homeworld of the Sith. It was the capital of their empire more than a thousand years ago.”

Mev radiated doubt at first, before it quickly turned to surprise. “What the blazes are we doing here?”

“Just paying a visit. I want to see something.”

“But… Ziost? There’s nothing here except jungles.”

“Jungles and ice,” Kallen corrected. “There’s an ancient citadel near the planet’s north pole. My master found something here many years ago. I want to find out what it was. Or,” involuntarily, he shuddered too, “or what it is.”

Mev’s shock was only growing as they entered the planet’s atmosphere. Kallen worried about his apprentice. Perhaps this was a mistake, perhaps she wasn’t strong enough to face Ziost after all.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said, a little too quickly.

“What kind of nothing?”

“Nothing,” she repeated, more forcefully this time. Then suddenly, “This is a nexus of the dark side, isn’t it?”

Kallen turned to stare at his apprentice. He reached up and stroked one of his horns. “How do you know about dark side nexuses?”

“Master Sorn told me about them, places where the dark side is strong. Like where powerful Dark Jedi are killed, right?”

“Dark Jedi… or worse. This place was their capital once; I assure you more than a few Sith Lords met their end here. If there’s a place in the galaxy where the dark side is stronger than it is here, I hope I never see it.”

Mev nodded her agreement. Kallen remembered protesting when Sorn had brought him to Ziost, and yet now he was returning willingly, with an apprentice far too accepting of the idea.

The icy plateau was visible in the distance, a square of white distinguishable only by the way it reflected the late sunlight. Kallen would learn from Sorn’s mistakes. They would spend the night in the shuttle and leave on foot at the first say of daybreak. They would leave. If he found out that the citadel’s secrets were not to his liking, he wouldn’t leave Mev with the same insatiable curiosity that Sorn had given him.

Once the Arbiter had touched down on the plateau, Kallen took a moment to look at the long range sensors. No significant lifeforms anywhere around them. If there was a place on Ziost where one could be safe, it was here.

“What do we do now?” Mev asked as she rose from the copilot’s seat.

“Now we sleep. Tomorrow we’ll head out for the citadel and find out what it was my master found here.”

They spent the next hour gathering all the supplies they would need for the journey. First and foremost were clothes, layers and layers of clothes to protect them against Ziost’s subzero temperatures and furious winds. Then they packed away their lightsabers, ration packs, glow rods, ascension guns, sensor equipment, and anything else they might need. Kallen was well aware of the limit of his power and knew it would take him much longer to reach the citadel than it had his master, especially considering that he was taking his Padawan along. But she was stronger than she looked and Kallen was confident that, with his help, she would make it.

It would be a long, hard, dangerous journey, made only more perilous by the taint of the dark side that permeated even the air in the shuttle. Kallen hadn’t remembered the darkness being so strong, but perhaps that was simply due to the increased power of his senses.

Either way, they would need all the rest they could get.



To Be Continued...

 

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Heart of the Sith (KotOR-era, Action/Adventure):
http://boards.theforce.net/before_the_saga/b10475/29384282/p1/?2
Links to all my stories can be found at The Sith Archives:
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Ulic_Starwalker  250 posts
Registered: Jul '06
19074_Naga Sadow
Date Posted: 11/16/08 10:25am Subject: RE: Heart of the Sith (Action/Adventure, KotOR-era, some KotOR characters, OCs)
Awesome fic! grin
I still haven't read the last chapter because I have to be off now, but i felt I should leave at least some feedback now. happy First of all, I really like your writing style. Secondly, the story is well developed and it really intrigued me thus far. I also like your job on the KOTOR characters and am anxious to see more of them. Your OC's are interesting as well.
And cool art for the story in the first post!

Keep up the good work! happy

 

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My fanfiction drafts: http://ulic-starwalker.livejournal.com
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Lord_Zeron  500 posts
Registered: Mar '05
14960_Sith Holocron
Date Posted: 11/18/08 1:12pm Subject: RE: Heart of the Sith (Action/Adventure, KotOR-era, some KotOR characters, OCs) - Date Edited: 11/18/08 1:15pm (1 edits total) Edited By: Lord_Zeron
Thanks! Glad you like it. I'm used to writing exclusively OCs but I decided I needed an assassin droid as one of my main characters, and HK-47 fits the bill perfectly. Zaalbar will be showing up in a little while. Other than that, most KOTOR characters are dead by this time, though there a quite a few references to them, and to the events of both games. Glad you like the cover art too; I think I actually put that together before even beginning the story.

It's Tuesday, so here's Section Two of Chapter Two, as promised:




Chapter Two: Section Two

“You know, Lori, you really should change into a swimming suit before jumping into the indoor lake.”

“I know, Master, I’m sorry. I’ll explain later.”

Despite his good humor, Lori sensed something troubling her master. But Sorn simply nodded and held the door to the Council room open for her. Lori passed through and took her place at the center of the circular room while her master took his designated seat at the head of the council. Nine of the other seats were occupied; the remaining two belonged to masters who were busy on their own missions.

“So,” Master Kale began. A short, well-built human with red hair and the reputation of a fantastic swordsman, Kale was the other Senior Council Member. “Has my apprentice told you why we wanted to see you?”

“He thought it was to assign a mission.”

“That is correct. Tell me, Lori, have you ever heard of a planet called Ziost?”

“Of course.” My master is the Jedi Historian, after all. But what does that relic of a planet have to do with anything?

“And did you know that your master once visited Ziost?”

Sorn was avoiding Lori’s eyes and his head-tails were twitching, suggesting he was uncharacteristically distressed.

“No,” she answered honestly.

Kale looked at Sorn as if wondering who should continue, but it was Master Eelee, a jellyfish-like Celegian master who floated in a tank of cyanide and communicated only in telepathy, who spoke next.

Yet surely you have heard the story of how he destroyed the last of the Sith?

“Yes. Many times. But that happened on Corellia.”

“No, Lori.” It was Sorn that spoke. “It was on Ziost.”

“Ziost? But you said-”

“I know. I lied.”

Kale picked up, “Master Sorn and his then-apprentice followed the Sith to Ziost and killed him there. To prevent anyone from ever again discovering Ziost and its dark secrets, your master deleted the planet’s coordinates from his ships navicomputer and told his apprentice to never speak of the mission again.” Lori couldn’t believe her master would’ve lied to her. To the Council, yes- it was common knowledge that the Jedi Grand Master no longer saw eye-to-eye with his peers on many issues, but to her? She was his apprentice, and the two of them were about as close as a Master and Apprentice could be. Or so she had thought. Apparently, her shock showed because Kale quickly added, “He did it to protect the Order. To protect future Jedi from facing Ziost’s temptations.”

Now is not the time to discuss this, said Eelee. The mission.

“It would seem, however, that Master Sorn forgot to delete the coordinates from his datapad.” He hesitated for a good ten seconds.

“So…” Lori nudged.

Before Kale could continue, Sorn said, “So my former apprentice, Kallen, disappeared last week. He was not given a mission by the Coucnil, nor permission to leave, and around that same time my datapad went missing. I just connected the two events this morning and realized what must’ve happened.”

“Of course, this is just a theory,” said Kale. The look Sorn gave him told Lori that her master was certain his former apprentice was headed for Ziost. “But just to be sure, we’ve decided to send you and Master Sorn to Ziost, to bring Kallen back if he is indeed there.”

“There is a complication, however,” piped up Anda Mizendo, a plump Wroonian master. “We believe Jedi Knight Thulnk has taken his new apprentice with him. Padawan Karth is very young and inexperienced. She may have significant difficulty in resisting Ziost’s strong dark side presence. Rescuing her from the planet’s influence is just as important as returning her master.”

Lori ran the mission through her head for a few moments. It would be top secret of course, but what she wouldn’t give to tell Bren where she was going. Though no one in the room dared to say it, they all had to be thinking the same thing: what if Kallen Thulnk, one of Master Sorn’s greatest apprentices, had turned to the dark side?

“But if your datapad was stolen,” she asked Sorn, “how do you expect us to find Ziost?”

“Well, that’s the lucky part,” Sorn said. “I back-up all the files on my datapad regularly. Finding Ziost is no problem. Once we get there…” He let the thought hang in the air.

Head to the ancient Sith capital, apprehend one of the best Jedi Guardians in the order, and resist the temptations of perhaps the most powerful dark side nexus in the galaxy.

“So,” Lori asked. “When do we leave?”




To Be Continued...

 

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Heart of the Sith (KotOR-era, Action/Adventure):
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Links to all my stories can be found at The Sith Archives:
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Lord_Zeron  500 posts
Registered: Mar '05
14960_Sith Holocron
Date Posted: 11/20/08 2:11pm Subject: RE: Heart of the Sith (Action/Adventure, KotOR-era, some KotOR characters, OCs)
Hm... no replies yet? Here's the next section nonetheless. Enjoy! happy



Chapter Two: Section Three

“So, I’m assuming the mission was a success?”

“Sarcastic Inquiry: Would I still be in one piece if it wasn’t?”

Cla’mir switched for a smaller hydrospanner and went back to fiddling around inside HK-47’s head. “You mean Vogga? He may not like you, but he does need you. You’ve killed more of his enemies then all the rest of his hirelings combined.”

“Immodest Agreement: True enough. And it’s not like the bloated jelly bean could harm me even if he wanted too.”

“So then why do you continue to do his bidding?”

“Reply: Because my programming commands me to obey my master without question. I have no choice in the matter.”

Cla’mir grabbed a data chip –the latest in assassination upgrades, no doubt- and began attaching it to HK’s behavior core. The verpine may have been lazy and despicably nonviolent, but he was the best mechanic HK had met since… well, since Revan.

“But if you did have a choice, would you leave?”

That question had never occurred to HK before. He had to obey his master whether he liked it or not. And whenever his master died, his programming forced him to shut down until he got a new one. There had never been a time when HK had been without someone giving him orders. “Supposition: While my programming remains intact, I cannot answer that question. However, I must admit that Vogga is preferable to many of my former masters. He has plenty of enemies for me to assassinate and he pays for the best upgrades on the market. Nostalgic Reminiscence: And this place brings back memories of my past. When I first met Vogga, I was under the service of another master, one who made a habit of slicing through Sith soldiers and random mercenaries. I rather liked that one. If only meatbags didn’t rust so quickly…”

“Sith soldiers? How long ago are we talking?”

“Cryptic clarification: Too long. Silmo was the 53,228th assassination I’ve performed, as far as I can remember. Killing is an artform I mastered many years ago, and now it seems to be the only thing from which I can still derive any pleasure.”

It was taking Cla’mir an uncharacteristically long time to install the chip. Almost as if he was… stalling?

“It sounds to me, Aitch-Kay, like you’re getting tired of your job.”

“Quick Correction: Oh no, my bug-eyed friend. I think you misunderstood my prior comment: assassination is the last real joy I have left.” HK’s programming gave him a mental shoulder-poke. “Addendum: And serving the master, of course. Heh-heh.”

“You know, Aitch-Kay.” The verpine was still working no the datachip. “If you want, I could try to override your programming. Give you a bit of choice in which master you served, if any, and for how long. Does that interest you?”

Not have a master? HK couldn’t imagine it. “Pondering: Well, I… my programming demands that I say ‘no.’”

“But you would like it, wouldn’t you?”

“Response: I… If I… my programming demands that I say ‘no.’”

Cla’mir finished attaching the datachip and it was as if HK’s photoreceptors had opened for the first time. Suddenly, the galaxy came in to sharp clarity. What am I doing on this pathetic excuse of a world serving a giant piece of bantha poodoo? I should be out assassinating more meatbags! The meatbags I want to assassinate, not the low-life scum my obese space-slug of a master tells me to.

But where was his override programming? Why wasn’t it demanding that he cease this line of thought immediately? As a test, HK rose to his feet, grabbed Cla’mir by his neck and held him eye-to-eye. “Suspicious Query: What have you done to me, skinny one?”

The verpine tried to pry HK’s fingers away from his thin throat, but to no avail. “I… I added… a new… program. It should… aagh…”

HK dropped Cla’mir to the ground. The mechanic collapsed like a pile of twigs, gasping for air. HK bent down to his level. “Leading Statement: It should what?”

“Allow you to do anything you want without having to shut down. Listen HK, I’ve freed you. Now you can assassinate anyone you want to, even Vogga. We can become partners, leave this place-”

“Confirmation: You said I could assassinate anyone I’d like.”

Cla’mir slowly crawled to his knees and then his feet. “That is correct.”

HK darkened the glowing red light of his photoreceptors. “Even you.” His electromagnet pulled a nearby arc wrench into his hand and, before the verpine had a chance to react, the tool was around his throat. Drawing on his vast library of alien anatomy, HK gave the wrench a sharp twist, killing his former ally in an instant.

He grabbed his custom Aratech sniper rifle off a nearby table and found the rest of his equipment in a nearby locker. Vogga would be next. And then… then the galaxy awaited.

53,229, and counting.



To Be Continued...

 

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Heart of the Sith (KotOR-era, Action/Adventure):
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Lord_Zeron  500 posts
Registered: Mar '05
14960_Sith Holocron
Date Posted: 11/22/08 10:39pm Subject: RE: Heart of the Sith (Action/Adventure, KotOR-era, some KotOR characters, OCs)
Here's the final section of Chapter Two:



Chapter Two: Section Four

Commander Karn took a deep breath and straightened his uniform before entering the Supreme Chancellor’s office. The leader of the Republic sat upright behind his desk, surrounded by a crowd of senators, aides, and personal security. He was a proud man: stern, powerful, charismatic, the kind that would make an excellent commander during times of war. During times of peace, however, Karn was less than impressed.

“-endangering Ylesia.”

“But even if the Alliance takes Ylesia, it won’t-”

“Senators,” the Chancellor interrupted. “We can continue this conversation later.”

The arguing delegates turned and spotted Karn, who gave them a curt nod and moved to stand in front of the Chancellor’s desk. Thank the Force I didn’t follow Mom’s advice to go into politics. “You asked to see me, sir?”

The Chancellor cleared his throat. “Yes, Commander, I did. I heard about your recent success-” Karn suppressed an involuntary shutter “-at the bank and wanted to offer my personal congratulations, as well as my condolences about Captain Skorendu’s… accident.”

“Thank you, sir, but with all due respect it wasn’t an accident. Captain Skorendu gave his life to complete the mission.”

“Of course. The Captain acted honorably and is to be commended. But the real reason I called you here is to introduce you to the Captain’s replacement.”

Replacement? Since when do you choose who’s in Orenth Squad? In fact, Karn had been on his way to Lieutenant Lorso’s apartment to give her the promotion when he had received the summons from the Chancellor.

“The Captain’s replacement, sir?”

He hit the button on his desk and the comm crackled to life. “Send in Captain Zaalbar please.”

The office doors slid open and a seven-foot-tall wookiee entered the office. His fur was a graying brown and his hair was long and shaggy, but Karn could recognize a powerful warrior when he saw one. He hated the idea of an outsider “replacing” Skorendu, especially one not of his own choosing, but if he had to settle for someone entirely new, a wookiee wasn’t a bad choice.

Karn extended his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Zaalbar. My name as Davin Karn.”

The wookiee shook the offered hand and it took all of Karn’s strength to meet the wookiee’s grip.

“I’m sure the two of you will have more than enough time to get to know each other on the journey to Iridoria.”

Karn spun around on his heel to face the desk. “Iridoria? That’s not even part of the Republic.”

“And that’s the problem,” said Admiral Dodonna, the Republic’s current Supreme Commander. Karn almost felt sorry for the guy: the Admiral was a great leader, but he would never live up to the reputation of his predecessor- Karn’s own brother. At least I’m not the only one trying to fill Nolan’s shoes.

Dodonna activated the holoprojector on the Chancellor’s desk and an image of the galaxy filled the air in front of them. “This,” he pointed to a small dot in the Outer Rim, “Is Iridoria.”

Karn knew much of the Iridorian people; he had even been unlucky enough to meet a few of them in his travels around the galaxy. They were an extremely violent species, fantastic warriors but completely honorless, a characteristic that frequently put them at odds with the neighboring Echani. Iridorians fed off the blood of their enemies and, it was rumored, would even turn on each other in the heat of battle.

“There is only one known hyperspace route into Iridorian space, a fact that has made the species a rare sight throughout the galaxy. But recently, the Iridorians have begun venturing beyond their territory.”

“Have they attacked any Republic worlds?”

“No, but we are confident they will unless-”

“You speak prematurely, Admiral,” interrupted Senator Theranora of the Onderon system. “We made a peace treaty with the Iridorians, one they’d be fools to break.”

“Nevertheless, Senator,” Admiral Dodonna continued, “It is better to be safe than sorry. Four hundred years ago, we faced a similar situation against the Mandalorians and we all know how that turned out.”

“So this time,” the Chancellor took over, stepping around his desk, “We are going to try to resolve the situation peacefully. We are sending Ambassador Ki to Iridoria to renew our treaty with the Iridorians.” A thin, male Togruta stepped forward and gave Karn a friendly nod.

“And you want Orenth Squad to escort him?”

“Yes.”

“Sir, this is a job for Republic Security, not highly-trained commandos. There are many more-”

“This is not a request, Commander.” The Chancellor’s tone made no mistake that his mind would not be changed. “It is an order.”

Kale hated the idea but he had little choice in the matter and, after all, an order was an order. “Very well, Chancellor. I will not fail you.”

“I know you won’t, Commander. That’s why I selected you for this mission. We can’t afford to have the Iridorians as our enemies, especially with the increasing tensions between the Prosperity Alliance and the Hutts.”

“Like I said, Ambassador Li is safe was us.”

The Chancellor returned to his seat and used the controls to open the office door. “Very good, Commander Karn. Dismissed.”



To Be Continued...

 

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Heart of the Sith (KotOR-era, Action/Adventure):
http://boards.theforce.net/before_the_saga/b10475/29384282/p1/?2
Links to all my stories can be found at The Sith Archives:
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Lord_Zeron  500 posts
Registered: Mar '05
14960_Sith Holocron
Date Posted: 11/30/08 4:54pm Subject: RE: Heart of the Sith (Action/Adventure, KotOR-era, some KotOR characters, OCs)
Sorry for the delay; I decided to take a week off to allow readers to catch up. But today's sunday, so here's section one of chapter three. Enjoy!



Chapter Three: Section One

“The chains of the grave cannot hold a Dark Lord of the Sith…”
-Marka Ragnos (Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy)


It didn’t take long for HK to figure out how the override worked. He was an assassin droid, and thus any organic meat-bag was a potential target. The data chip contained a single crucial question: Wouldn’t it be easier to assassinate all potential targets before recieving the mission? His master was no exception, since a current master could be a possible target of a future master. As for inorganics, they might get in the way of a future assassination attempt and therefore, had to be removed as well. The technology in the chip seemed to have an answer for everything; HK was truly amazed at how much skill and effort Cla’mir had put into making it.

But of course, these were simply justifications. The true value of the override programming was what all these justifications amount to: for the first time in his entire life, HK-47 was free.

Unfortunately, illegal modifications and routine maintenance weren’t. Now that HK had killed his personal mechanic, and his former employer to boot, he would have to find some way to make money. Bounty Hunting seemed as good a means as any; after all, bounty hunting was usually nothing more than a fancy way of saying paid assassination. And of course, there was one thing all good bounty hunters needed: a ship.

And so it was that HK found himself at the front desk of Hyperdrive Beacons, the finest ship dealer on Nar Shaddaa.

“Polite Introduction: Excuse me, madam,” he said to the twi’lek at the front desk, putting his protocol functions to good use. “My name is HK-47 and I am a veteran assassin droid turned rookie bounty hunter. If at all feasible, I would like to purchase a ship to take me off of this delightful moon that you call-” Wait, honesty is the best policy. “Correction: I mean, this odorous stink hole on which only a highly-deformed huttspawn could find any semblance of happiness.”

“Uh…” The twi’lek hit a button on her keypad. “Do you have any credits?”

HK checked the bank accounts he had acquired after Vogga’s untimely demise. “Will five hundred and twenty nine thousand, three hundred and thirty two be enough?”

The receptionists eyes widened in shock and she entered a few more commands inter her keypad. “Five hundred thousand will do nicely.”

A few moments later, the room’s rear door opened and a brown-skinned Besalisk pushed his way through. “Ah, hello friend! What can Mester Felten do for ya today?”

Be polite. Keep you temper. “Feinted Enthusiasm: Greetings Mester Felten! I was just telling your darling little wife here that I am in need of a ship.” HK doubted the receptionist was his wife, but his files on meatbag psychology told him that males of most species enjoyed the prospect of having a twi’lek mate.

“Sure, come right this way and we’ll see what we can do.” HK was led into a back room dominated by a holoprojector in the center of the floor. Mester began entering commands into the computer terminal in the corner and holograms of ninety-eight ships appeared in the air before them.

“So, what exactly are ya looking fer?”

“Answer: My primary concern is that it be a fast ship, preferably well-armored and well-armed, with ample room for passengers… willing and otherwise.”

“Ah, I get your drift.” HK supposed the Besalisk was used to such requests working in a place like Nar Shaddaa. He entered more commands into the computer and their search was narrowed down to a half dozen choices. “This here is a Corellian RT-900. Not the fastest ship in the galaxy, but it’s built well and-”

Why don’t meatbags ever listen?

“Annoyed Interjection: Did I not make myself explicitly clear when I explained that speed was my primary concern, feather-brains? I suggest you clean out those massive ears of yours or I will be forced to do so for you… and since I seem to have run out of cotton balls, a frag mine will have to suffice.”

Mester’s four arms clasped each other nervously. “Uh, yes. Yes. Perhaps you’d like an RT-920 instead. Fastest ship we got. It’s slightly smaller than the 900 but every bit as dangerous.”

“Very well, I’ll take it.”

Mester looked relieved. “Good. I’ll put in an order and it should be here in two weeks.”

“Exclamation: Two weeks! Listen, four-arms, I am a very busy droid and I need a ship now. What do you have on hand?”

Now the Besalisk was visibly trembling. “Uh… not much, I’m afraid.” The hologram narrowed down to just two ships. “This is a Kuat Blast Boat. It’s build like a tank, but not the fast…” Mester must’ve noticed HK’s photoreceptors darkening, for he quickly amended, “Did I say ‘fast’? I meant ‘slow.’ Not the slowest ship we have. It’s very fast actually, very fast.” He moved one of his hands as if slicing through the air. “Zoom-zoom.”

HK pointed to the other ship in the hologram, something like an elliptical saucer intersected by an arrowhead. “Question: And what’s this?”

“We’re not sure actually… But it’s fast! Got it off a bounty hunter from Telos. It may have been a standard model once, but it’s too heavily modified to tell what. He called it the Scoundrel’s Spirit.”

“Query: Does it have any weapons?”

“Yeah, tons. And…” Mester appeared desperate for a sale, or maybe just to get away from HK as soon as possible. “And we can upgrade it with whatever you want. It’s very versatile.”

Versatile is good. It’s not the Hawk, but I suppose it’ll do.

“Delighted Decision: This Scoundrel’s Spirit will do nicely. I want every upgrade you have in stock.”

“Every upgrade? That’s gonna be expensive.”

“Reassurance: Do not fear, meatbag. I have approximately five hundred thousand credits in my account.”

Mester’s eyes bulged. “What a coincidence! That’s just how much it’ll cost.”

About an hour later, they were standing in a nearby docking bay with the Scoundrel’s Spirit. All the upgrades had been installed under HK-47’s watchful photoreceptors and the credits had been transferred to Hyperdrive Beacons’s account. Everything was ready to go.

The ship was beautiful in every sense of the word: sleek, silver, clean, and completely deadly. The weapon systems hidden within its pristine hull were powerful enough to destroy a light cruiser, and the hyperdrive, he had been assured, was straight off the press. The ship could easily be mistaken for a luxury yacht, a fact which HK would exploit to lull his victims into a false sense of security.

He boarded the ramp and found that the ship was far more spacious than it looked. Its previous owner had already equipped it with all the necessary equipment: holding cells, storage lockers, smuggling compartments, a pair of durable escape pods, and the best pilot’s chair money could buy.

But as HK sat down in the cockpit and begin talking to the ship’s computer, he realized that this was more than a transport, more than a weapon, or a tool. It was his. And it was going to take him off Nar Shaddaa, for good. This ship was freedom.

And my freedom deserves a better name. I’m an assassin droid, Force blastit, not a scoundrel.

HK thought about it for a long time, taking in every detail of the ship, every facet, every possible function. It needed to be something that set this ship apart from any other- that told people it was his. One day, it would be the most famous vehicle in the galaxy, as infamous and deadly as the bounty hunter that wielded it.

Something cold. Something lifeless. Something that will make my opponents shake in their boots at the very mention of its name…

Then, at last, the answer came.

Dead Metal, he decided. I christen you Dead Metal.



To Be Continued...

 

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Heart of the Sith (KotOR-era, Action/Adventure):
http://boards.theforce.net/before_the_saga/b10475/29384282/p1/?2
Links to all my stories can be found at The Sith Archives:
http://www.freewebs.com/lord_zeron/
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Lord_Zeron  500 posts
Registered: Mar '05
14960_Sith Holocron
Date Posted: 12/2/08 12:20pm Subject: RE: Heart of the Sith (Action/Adventure, KotOR-era, some KotOR characters, OCs) - Date Edited: 12/2/08 12:22pm (1 edits total) Edited By: Lord_Zeron
Here's the next update. It's a bit of a long one, so if anyone needs time to catch up, please let me know.



Chapter Three: Section Two

“She is not worthy.”

“Who are you to judge her?”

“I am the Grand Master of the Jedi Order! My senses are far more accurate that yours will ever be, Kallen, and you do well to keep that in mind.”

“And can you sense dedication? Determination? Ambition? Motiv-”

“I can sense potential!”

“With all due respect, Master, to Chaos with potential. I was below average too, if you remember. Did I turn out so bad?”

“At the risk of sounding arrogant, I’ll just say that my teachings may have had some part to play. You are the greatest student I’ve ever trained, Kallen, but not the greatest teacher.”

“Greatest student? I suppose you told her the same thing.”

“Lori has nothing to do with this, Kallen. She has more potential than any Jedi I’ve ever met, but without experience she is still nothing. It was my experience that made you strong; do you honestly think you can give Mev that same benefit?”

“I don’t really think it matters. I wouldn’t care if she grew up to be the weakest Jedi of all times; a Jedi’s a Jedi, no matter how much potential they have.”

“Is that what you used to tell yourself when the other Padawans teased you? During the long nights you spent worrying about life in the Corps? You of all people should know the difference between a hero and cannon fodder.”

“Without the cannon fodder, there would be no heroes.”

“I’m not going to argue with you any more, my old apprentice. If your heart is set on training this zabrak girl, then I won’t stop you. But I know you, Kallen, better than you know yourself. I still see the same look I saw in your eyes the day I chose you to be my Padawan. You wanted to be someone special. You wanted to make a difference. You wanted to prove the bullies wrong. And I think, somewhere deep inside, you still do.”

“And is that wrong?”

“A Jedi doesn’t care about glory, Kallen.”

“Maybe not. But you do. As do I. So what does that make us?”

“I guess that makes us heroes, doesn’t it? But I know this, Kallen: the zabrak girl… she isn’t like us. When I look at her, I see no future. No glory. She’ll live and die a life of mediocrity, and her entire existence will be as meaningless as this argument.”

“So what do you see when you look at me?”

“I see… I see a truly glorious future. The future of one of the greatest heroes of this age.”

“Master? Master, are you okay?”

But it wasn’t Kallen talking. It was Mev. Her voice overwhelmed him. I’m dreaming. The next thing he knew, the indoor lake was spinning away from him and the Arbiter’s interior was coming into view. Mev was standing over his cot, a hand on his shoulder.

“Master Kallen? Are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” He sat up in bed and rubbed the crust from around the base of his horns.

Mev breathed a sigh of relief and removed her hand. “Holy Force, you scared me. You kept screaming ‘She’s not worthy,’ ‘She’s not worthy’ over and over again.”

“Yeah.” Kallen sat up on the cot and tried to remember what his dream had been about, but it wouldn’t come. Could it have been a vision from the Force? And who’s not worthy- Mev? “Yeah, it was just a dream.”

Or was it? What if it had held some deeper meaning, some hidden message? Was he not supposed to take Mev with him to the citadel? Would she fall if he did? Or worse? No. No, Sorn left me behind and look where I am. This mystery’s been gnawing away for the past three decades and I won’t put Mev through such torture.

It took Kev a moment to realize that Mev had been speaking to him.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I said the sun’s been up for a few hours. Should we get going?”

“Yeah. We have a long journey ahead of us.”

They put on all their layers and gathered their kit before heading out into the hazardous conditions.

They made it to the edge of the plateau with no problem and descending the steep cliff side wasn’t much harder. The same could not be said for trekking across the endless fields of snow.

The snow was soft and with every step they sank deeper and deeper into the snow. Kallen knew that some of the more powerful Masters could lessen their weight to prevent themselves from sinking, but he had nothing near that kind of power. This is going to take longer than I thought.

“Tell me, Mev,” he said after they had been walking for half an hour with barely any progress. “Have I ever told you about force jumping?”

“Is that what you call leaping to the top of the indoor falls in a single bound?”

Kallen smiled. His face was covered by two cloth masks and a hood, so there was no way Mev would notice. “When have you ever seen me do that?”

“All the time. I used to watch you when I was a youngling.”

“You never told me that.”

“You never asked.”

His smile widened. Despite her weak connection to the Force, Mev was far more confident than Kallen had been at her age.

“There was a whole point to this conversation, you know. If I can teach you to force jump, we’ll move a whole lot faster.”

“Not that I’m uneager to learn or anything, but won’t that take a while?”

Kallen gestured to the endless whiteness that stretched to the horizon in all directions. The wind wasn’t bad yet and the snow had let up, but otherwise their conditions weren’t getting any better.

“We have all the time in the world.”

“Alright then, teach away.”

“So… force jumping. It’s pretty much the main reason I became a Jedi Guardian. Actually, it’s not too much different from the other physical force techniques I’ve shown you. Channel the power just like you would to gain additional speed or strength, but concentrate all the additional energy to your legs. Focus in on the muscles used for jumping and then… jump.”

“Why do I get the feeling it’s not quite that easy?”

“It’s harder than it sounds. But, like they say: practice makes perfect.”

“And like you said, we have all the time in the world to practice.”

Kallen felt Mev gathering the Force around her and instantly realized his mistake. He stopped in place, closed his eyes, and focused on the tiny bits of the light that he could find, using them to knock Mev to the ground and break her concentration.

“You pushed me!”

“I had to. I…” Tell her the truth. You know what happened when your master didn’t. “I should’ve warned you: the dark side is very strong here. I mean immensely strong.”

He extended a hand and helped Mev stand. “Yeah, I know. We-”

“No, you don’t know, Mev. It’s… it’s… I can’t explain it. But sometimes… sometimes the dark and the light aren’t dark and light. They’re more like… all dark. Or all light.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“I know, I… Just trust me, Meg. The dark side is deceptive. People don’t fall to the dark side because they want to be evil. The darkness tricks them into believing what they’re doing is right. It gives you whatever you want and it feels like you’re using the light. It’s not until it’s far too late that you’ve realized you’ve taken the wrong path and then your only choice is to embrace the monster you’ve become.”

“How do you know so much about that dark side?”

Kallen laughed. “My master used to be the historian of the Jedi. I’ve seen Sith scrolls with my own eyes, listened to Sith holocrons with my own ears. But all of it is meaningless until you really experience the dark side firsthand, until you touch it and feel how tempting it is and still turn away, even though all your instincts scream against it. All Jedi have to confront their own inner darkness at some point in their lives but… by bringing you here, I can’t help but worry that I may have made you confront it before you’re ready.”

“Don’t worry, Master Kallen. I’m not going to fall to the dark side.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Mev; usually I wouldn’t be worried at all, but… the temptations of the dark side are much stronger here. So dark that it blocks out the light, makes it difficult to see anything at all. It’s like… imagine you’re in a ship in the middle of deep space and before you know it, all the stars are gone. Vanished. Then whatever path you choose, you’re headed towards darkness.”

“So what should I do?”

“Well, optimally, you don’t lose track of the stars, of the light. But that takes great experience and until then, I think it would be better if you didn’t use the Force any more than necessary. Just for now.”

“So no force jumping?”

Kallen was struck with a brilliant idea, causing his grin to return. “For you, no. I, however, never lose sight of the stars.”

Jokingly, Mev replied, “Oh, so you’re allowed to use the Force here but I’m not? That’s fair.”

“I can’t let you use the Force, but I can still show you what a Force jump feels like.”

“How?”

“Piggy-back.”

“Are you insane? I’m fifteen years old; you’ll never be able to carry-”

“Ah, ah, ah. I thought I told you not to use that word.”

She sighed. “I know, I know. Nothing’s impossible when it comes to the Force.”

Still smiling, Kallen spread his arms, “Well, do you want to make it to the citadel or don’t you?”

She hesitated for a few seconds and Kallen worried that she might actually want to walk the whole way. But even she couldn’t deny that there was no other way, and with a resigned “Oh, alright,” she wrapped her arms around his waist and braced herself.

Slowly but surely, Kallen gathered the light around him and made the jump, a tremendous arc that landed him a good fifty meters from his starting position. With a few deep breaths, both of air and the Force, he jumped again, and again, and again. Finding the light seemed to get easier with every jump, though his entire body ached from the stress and the dark side of the Force got more and more powerful the further they went.

A few hours and many breaks later, the wind began to pick up, blowing snow in their faces and making it difficult to see. Now Kallen had to rely on the Force both for orientation and movement, making the vast leaps more and more difficult. Their rests got longer and longer, and Kallen was getting worried that they wouldn’t make it to the citadel before nightfall.

And that wasn’t the worst of it. Kallen was beginning to get dizzy and, more than a few times, thought he heard voices carried by the winds.

“What?” Meg screamed out of nowhere, nearly causing Kallen to lose his balance as he struggled to get a firm footing before the next jump.

“I didn’t say anything.” He, too, had to shout to be heard over the wind.

“You just said my name.”

“You’re imagining things. It’s just the wind.”

Whether Mev accepted this explanation or not, Kallen couldn’t tell. It was taking all his focus to keep moving; he couldn’t waste any energy trying to sense his Padawan’s emotions.

They moved on and on and on and on, but all they found was more snow and more wind and more snow and more wind. The voices got louder and stronger, and now they said more than just names.

Destiny, Kallen. Yours awaits.

Kill! Murder! Destroy!

Kaaaalleeeeeeen…

You can change the world, Kallen. The galaxy is at your command.

Annihilate! Slaughter! Exterminate!

Kaaaaaaallllllllllllllllennnnnnnnnnnn…

Glory comes. Love or fear. Respect.

“Master, I’m hearing voices.”

Mev snapped him back to reality. The moving had become almost second-hand and Kallen had, to his chagrin, allowed his mind to concentrate on the voices of the wind instead.

“It’s okay, Kallen. I am too.”

“You called me Kallen.”

Did I really? Why would I have done that?

“I’m sorry…” I can’t say her name. What if I say the wrong one again? “We need to keep going. We’re almost there.”

Yes. Almost there. Just a little further. A little bit more. All we have to do is reach the citadel, and then everything will be alright. There, we’ll find answers. There, we’ll discover truth. There, we’ll meet our destiny. Or destinies.

His words proved true. After no more than ten minutes, and a million annoying voices, a great shadow appeared on the horizon ahead of them. It was starting to get dark now, but Kallen was confident he would make it there in time.

The citadel was situated at the top of an enormous mountain like a rotting tooth, a constructed slab of blue-grey rock on top of a bigger, natural slab of grey-blue rock. The slope was steep on every side and the two Jedi were only at the foot. There was no way Kallen would make it up the mountainside, especially carrying Mev.

“Master, I’m exhausted. Maybe we should just sleep here tonight.”

You’re exhausted? What about me!

A shelter sounds like a good idea. We can dig one in the snow.

Mev stumbled as she tried to stand on her own feet for the first time in an hour and ended up falling down on the snow. Kallen did soon afterwards.

No… no… I can’t go to sleep, not yet. I need to dig a shelter or we’ll freeze to death.

But surely I can take a nap… just for a moment. Then I’ll wake up and dig a shelter. Then I’ll…

Somehow, it was night now and the snow had stopped and the stars were all out in an oddly clear sky. He was lying on his back, wind blowing snow over top of him, covering the goggles that covered his eyes. Everything started to blur and get dark around the edges until only a single star remained in view.

But that star was enough. Enough to sense the danger in time to spring to his feet, the snow falling off his body, and ignite his lightsaber. Twin blades of sea blue sprang to life and Kallen, having time to rely only on instinct, used them to slice the beasts neatly in two.

By the time Kallen turned off his saber and plopped down on the ground, fully awake but still lethargic, all of the creatures lay dead, their spilt blood creating four red splotches in the snow. All of them were covered within the minute.

Kallen recognized them from pictures his master had shown him many years before, but he couldn’t recall the name. Some kind of guardian hounds created by Sith alchemy.

So what do I do now? Mev was still lying next to him, nothing more than a big white lump. He tried to wake her up and, failing that, rolled her over until all the snow fell off. The girl needed her sleep and he wouldn’t be able to wake her until she was rested. But Kallen was exhausted too and he knew he couldn’t stay up and wait. And if both of them fell asleep, there would be nothing stopping any more of the hounds from eating them alive.

That left only one choice. As much as Kallen hated the idea, he knew there was no other way. It was dangerous, especially to Mev, but so were all the other possibilities. Like it or not, Kallen would have to leave her behind and enter the citadel himself.

But I’m so tired. I’ll never make it without more energy.

And the only way to get my energy back is to rest.

But if I rest, both of us will die.

There is another way, but… no. It’s the dark side. Unarguably the dark side. Wrong.

And yet…

It’s the only way. Mev’s fate is no longer mine. I can’t take her with me and if I stay here, I’ll fall asleep and be of no use to her anyway. My only choice is to reach the citadel, finish the mission and then…

…then everything will be okay. Somehow, I know it’ll all be okay. If the Force wants Mev to die here, there’s nothing I can do. And if it wants her to live, then taking a bit of her energy won’t make any difference.

It was an ancient Sith technique, one that had been virtually unheard of since the Sith Civil War. To reach into your opponent’s soul, steal their energy and add it to your own… it was the greatest of all dark Force powers. But it was also necessary. Sorn had told him numerous tales of great Jedi who had been forced to use dark powers from time to time. Even Revan, the very definition of a Jedi hero, had supposedly continued to use some of his dark powers after returning to the light.

So Kallen reached out and felt the dark all around him and before he knew it, without ever making a conscious decision as far as he could remember, the darkness was rushing into him, filling him with dark, delicious power. It wasn’t so much flipping a switch as opening a gate. And as the darkness rushed in like a raging torrent, Kallen realized there would be no way to close the gate against the current that flowed through it. At least, not easily.

He reached out and felt Mev’s last bits of energy –and it wasn’t much- drip away from her and flood into him. He felt a threshold rapidly approaching and stopped himself just before crossing it. It appalled him to realize that if he would’ve continued a few seconds longer, he would have taken even the bits of energy that were keeping Mev’s heart beating, her lungs breathing, her mind dreaming… that were keeping her alive.

And even more sickening was the realization that the dark was familiar. That he had felt it before. And not just the adventuresome spirit he had felt the last time he was on Ziost, not the anger he experienced whenever he lost at dueling practice, not the curiosity that had slowly chewed away at his soul for the last thirty years… no, this was different. Darker. Pure darkness. And it had happened today.

He had used the dark side to power his force jumps –not all of them, perhaps, but enough- without ever realizing it.

I had already made my choice without even realizing it.

And now there’s no going back.

He summoned the Force again and this time held nothing back, drawing power from evil energies that soaked everything around him. Then he leapt.

He made it to the citadel in a single bound.

The bricks themselves parted way to create a magnificent archway through which he could enter. The statues that lined the infinite corridors bowed to him as we walked. This was his castle. His kingdom. His home.

He knew it like the back of his hand, though he was sure he had never been here before. He had lived in the Jedi Temple for nearly fifty years, but he had never called it home. Not really. It held memories for him, which he supposed was one characteristic of a home, but so did hundreds of other planets and starships across the galaxy and they meant nothing to him.

Jedi were travelers. They didn’t have homes.

It’s time to stop being a Jedi, Kallen decided.

Now, I become a hero.



To Be Continued...

 

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Heart of the Sith (KotOR-era, Action/Adventure):
http://boards.theforce.net/before_the_saga/b10475/29384282/p1/?2
Links to all my stories can be found at The Sith Archives:
http://www.freewebs.com/lord_zeron/
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sombokor 
Registered: May '07
7280_Dagobah
Date Posted: 12/2/08 5:23pm Subject: RE: Heart of the Sith (Action/Adventure, KotOR-era, some KotOR characters, OCs)
Finally delurking to let you know that I greatly enjoy this fic. I'll probably be a lousy rewiever as I'm a notorious lurker, but I'll try to comment somewhat regularly happy Anyway, I find the plot intriguing and your OC's really nicely written. They and their relationships are very realistic I think. HK is fun and I like the way he's dealing with his newly found freedom (though, he got me worried for a moment). I'm not familiar with the KotOR storyline, or characters, but I can very well imagine an assassin droid behaving that way. Things aren't looking good for Kallen and Mev, though worried

 
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Lord_Zeron  500 posts
Registered: Mar '05
14960_Sith Holocron
Date Posted: 12/4/08 5:10pm Subject: RE: Heart of the Sith (Action/Adventure, KotOR-era, some KotOR characters, OCs)
Thanks for delurking! In my opinion, all reviewers are good reviewers. happy Glad you like it so far; hopefully I do HK justice. Thanks for all the kind words! Here's the next piece, from Commander Karn's POV.



Chapter Three: Section Three

“Is Lieutenant Lorso’s team in position yet?”

Zalbaar gave a long roar.

I really need to learn to understand Shyriiwook, Karn thought. “Alright, one growl for ‘yes,’ two growls for ‘no.”

He growled once.

“Very good. Then let’s go over the plan one more time and get going. Ambassador?”

They were in the back of a shuttle indistinguishable from any other, one with no ties at all to the Republic. The meeting between Ambassador Li and the Iridorian ‘Champion,’ as they called their leader, had to be entirely discreet to ensure that both diplomats were safe from assassins and extremists. Of course, there’s nothing preventing them from killing each other. Besides us, that is.

“Lorso’s team will go first with the decoy and my entourage,” said Ki. “If our group gets detained, we claim to be refugees from Sleheyron.”

“If anything happens to Lorso’s group?”

“Then I guess you’ll just have to prove how good you are, Commander.”

“Ambassador.”

“Alright, if anything happens, you and I get out of the speeder while Captain Zaalbar returns here, to the spaceport, to make sure the path is safe. We follow on foot.”

“And if anything happens to me?”

“I find a place to hide and wait for Lieutenant Thorin’s group to come and pick me up.”

Karn was satisfied. These were all simply precautionary measures, of course, and he doubted they would need them. But he had heard of Iridorian brutality and it never hurt to be cautious. It was a lesson his brother had drilled into him since they were teenagers.

“Alright men, let’s move out.” By “men,” he was referring to Captain Zaalbar and Ambassador Ki’s Esoomian bodyguard. The rest of Orenth was split up between the decoy squad and the backup team, except for Sergeant Namord who would remain with the shuttle and ensure that it wasn’t tampered with.

It took only a moment for them to remove the two landspeeders from the shuttle’s cargo hold. Lieutenant Lorso’s decoy team had arrived on a separate ship a few minutes earlier and had their own speeder. As a very last resort, Karn had hired a mercenary to have his ship ready to go at a moment’s notice, though the merc of course had no idea of the identity of his employer. Just standard precautions.

As planned, the Ambassador took the speeder’s passenger seat and Karn the pilot’s, while Zaalbar and the bodyguard climbed in the back. Then they were off towards the local police station where the meeting was to be held.

Karn had spent the entire shuttle ride locked away in his cabin, memorizing everything his brain could hold about Iridoria. He knew the layout of Idor, its capital, like the back of his hand, including of all of the backstreets and alleyways. Still, he tried to keep to larger roads as often as possible, since Idor wasn’t known for having a low crime rate.

They reached their destination almost ahead of the decoy team and Karn circled the buildings a few times until he got Lorso’s “all clear” signal. Pulling into the parking area in front of the station, he noticed six individuals already waiting by the door. The datascreen on his wrist told him that two more of his men were strategically positioned nearby.

The four of them climbed out of the speeder and began the uncomfortably long walk to the door. Karn went first with the Ambassador behind him, the other two shielding him to either side. Karn’s eyes continually swept the area for any sign of a threat- at a word, he could activate the team’s personal energy shields and protect them from any incoming blasterfire. Luckily, that wasn’t necessary, and they made it into the station without trouble.

Karn walked up to the station’s droid receptionist and handed it a datapad. “We found this on the street and were wondering if you had a lost and found.”

It was a predetermined code arranged by their governments. The droid took the datapad and, after verifying its contents, entered something into the computer consol in front of him. A second later, a side door opened and a pale-skinned, pointy-teethed, red-eyed Iridorian entered.

“Welcome, Ambassador. Champion Allk is waiting for you in the briefing room. If you’d please follow me.”

This was the part that Karn had been dreading. It had been agreed that the meeting would be held without significant security for either official, meaning that Orenth Squad would have to wait outside. Besides his protocol droid and personal aide, Ki’s Esoomian bodyguard would be the only one let in. Karn only hoped it would be enough.

The four of them followed the Iridorian towards the “briefing room” while Karn and Zaalbar left the building and took positions out front with the rest of Orenth.

Now all they had to do was wait a few hours while the Ambassdor conducted negotiations. It sounded deceptively easy, and Karn was starting to get anxious. There was something he just didn’t like about these Iridorians.

I have a bad feeling about this.



To Be Continued...

 

-----signature-----
Heart of the Sith (KotOR-era, Action/Adventure):
http://boards.theforce.net/before_the_saga/b10475/29384282/p1/?2
Links to all my stories can be found at The Sith Archives:
http://www.freewebs.com/lord_zeron/
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Jedi_Perigrine  962 posts
Registered: Apr '08
46133_Talon Squad
Date Posted: 12/5/08 3:34pm Subject: Heart of the Sith (Action/Adventure, KotOR-era, some KotOR characters, OCs)
I've only gotten through the prologue so far, but that was one of the best SW fics I've ever read. Very deep, very cerebral. You take a lot of things into account and you juggled it all beautifully. My only complaint is the length of the chapter. grin Extremely well done! Awesome awesome awesome. If you've got a PM list going, please put me on it!

 

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Check out the Talons! They RULE! http://boards.theforce.net/beyond_the_saga/b10477/28126755/p1
I can't believe Darth Writer's Block only abandons me for NaNo.
Final NaNo word count: 54515
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Jedi_Perigrine  962 posts
Registered: Apr '08
46133_Talon Squad
Date Posted: 12/5/08 8:06pm Subject: Heart of the Sith (Action/Adventure, KotOR-era, some KotOR characters, OCs)
Me again. grin

Whew! Powered my way through this wonderful story. The first posts were long, but they were addictive and awesome, definitely enough to make me keep reading. I really like the POV split you did for each main character, makes a nice break.

I love the KotOR time period. I rather like the way you use the game's class system. It totally tells me what each character's strengths and weaknesses are. With the Grandmaster's abilities, you made consulars very potent--I was always a guardian kinda guy because the consulars seemed too wimpy. Great job of making me in awe of their power!

So far my favorite character is Lori, she really speaks to me for some reason even though we haven't seen a WHOLE lot of her. Her mentor, the Grandmaster (brainfart on the name, sorry!) is a real interesting guy too. I could *feel* how powerful he was. I really like Commander Karn a lot as well, though I'm worried about the appearance of Zalbaar. IMO, he's bad news! You do a marvelous job with HK's personality, too. I wonder just what the heck his evil, meat-bag hating robotic brain is up to! And last but not least, Kallen. He's an interesting character, but he's not the brightest crayon in the box. I'm afraid he's just made a very bad mistake that'll have a traumatic impact on the entire galaxy, as well as the Jedi Order. I hope Mev's going to be all right!

Thanks for sharing this beauty. Keep it goin!

 

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Check out the Talons! They RULE! http://boards.theforce.net/beyond_the_saga/b10477/28126755/p1
I can't believe Darth Writer's Block only abandons me for NaNo.
Final NaNo word count: 54515
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