Firepower
May 12, 2006
Page 3
Pedrin put the alloy back on the desk, and lifted his forefinger to press down his already smooth mustache. "A remarkable piece of work," he said. His eyes gleamed with reflected computer light as he looked up at Ketrian. "Remarkable."
Not since her university days had Ketrian heard such open praise. "Thank you, Major," she said. She could feel herself blushing and knew her face must match her hair-color. "Finding the exact formula to increase the heat absorption ten-fold like that was ... "
"No doubt," he interrupted, getting to his feet. His stormtrooper guard moved to open the door behind the women. "As of now these findings are classified top secret. You understand?" They nodded. "Top secret," he repeated, his hard eyes settling on Alikka. "Not a word to anyone outside this complex. There are severe penalties for loose talk. I would not want to have to remind you of those penalties a second time, Supervisor."
Alikka's gray eyes flashed defiance. "And just who do you think would be interested? You've already imprisoned ... "
"You'll want to relay those diagnostics to your superiors immediately, I suppose?" Ketrian changed the subject.
Pedrin nodded, his eyes still on Alikka.
"Then we'll leave you to it. It's all there, ready for downloading. Alikka and I have a dinner appointment in town." She took her friend's arm.
"The Lantern Inn again?" Pedrin asked.
Ketrian sighed irritably. "Yes. Must you have your men follow us wherever we go?"
"It is for your own protection," he said, "never forget that."
* * *
Ketrian's small apartment adjoined the refinery complex, as did all the living quarters. She found that convenient, but Alikka complained it was like living in a prison. There was only one gate in the surrounding, high duracrete walls, always heavily guarded. Up on the walkways the troopers' white armor was burnished by the setting sun.
Ketrian opened her front door and left Alikka in the living room. She had bought a new dress and was eager to change out of her coveralls. Moments later, straightening the vee neckline and adjusting her unpinned hair, she left the bathroom. "Well?" she asked. "Do you think your mystery spacer merchant will like it?"
Alikka replaced the coralline sculpture she had been admiring. She'd told Ketrian the merchant carried new stock, and arranged this meeting. "Oh, yes. Very much." She smiled then turned back to the shelves lining the living room. "Are you sure you can find room for any more?"
Ketrian laughed as she picked up her coat. "There's always room for more."
"Maybe if you moved all those awful swords arid knives from the other wall?"
Ketrian moved to it, considering. She reached out to touch one of the smaller swords, a fencing foil. The first time she'd seen Stevan Makintay he'd been giving a demonstration with that sword. He moved with all the sure grace of a feline.
Watching the softening of Ket's expression, Alikka wondered if she were doing the right thing, deceiving Ket. But Ali had to do her best to aid the Rebellion.
"No," Ketrian said, "too many memories." She'd bet Mak never spared her a thought. His only true love was the stars. He'd certainly been eager to abandon her for them. "Come on," she pulled on her coat, "we'll be late."
They stepped outside and into their waiting speeder, annoyed as always to see another speeder a short distance behind. Pedrin's watchers.
When they arrived at the Lantern Inn, Ketrian was further annoyed to find Grathal, a familiar antiques dealer, waiting for them. He explained that the interstellar merchant didn't like to display his wares in public -- especially with Imperial officials nearby. Customs excise could ruin him. Grathal showed them a back exit through the storage cellar.
"I don't know about this," Ketrian said nervously as they stepped out into the damp night air.
"Oh, come on," Alikka urged. "Where's your spirit of adventure? He's a smuggler. How romantic."
"Well," Ketrian decided as Grathal guided them to his speeder, "it will be good to get away from Pedrin's clowns for a while. They're probably just coming in the front door now."
Grathal drove them deeper into the more squalid sectors by the river and finally stopped in a gloomy alleyway by a dilapidated warehouse. Grathal opened the speeder door, letting in the foggy air.
"People disappear in these parts," Ketrian said sourly, "then their bodies wash up in the harbor."
"Oh, don't be so melodramatic." Alikka pushed her out. "Aren't you the one who's so good with knives?"
"Yes. But I don't wear them with a dress."
Grathal guided them to the warehouse's side door and they stepped inside. The room was low-ceilinged, closed in by cracked rust-metal walls, and smelled of damp and fish. In the center stood a rickety table over which hung a single glow rod. About the table stood two men and a youth in various ill-matched drab clothing. On the table stood some datacards, a holo-projector, and datapads.
Here's part three of Evil Never Dies: The Sith Dynasties:
The New Sith
Sentients have often debated what has been the bloodiest, most wasteful war in galactic history. Jedi historians often recall the Jedi Civil War, while retired Old Republic rear-admirals name the Clone Wars. But whether it is referred to as "The War of the Fittest," "The Betrayal," or "The Curse of Qalydon," the Sith invariably cite the New Sith Wars.
The Old Sith Wars neutralized the Sith as an overt threat. But pressured by criticism of Jedi zeal exhibited in the aftermath of the Great Hyperspace War, the clean up job wasn't nearly as thorough this time around as it should have been. Political concerns were already beginning to take precedence over justice within the Republic, and instead of hunting down the remaining members of Exar Kun's Brotherhood of the Sith, the Republic chancellor urged the Jedi to finally destroy the Mecrosa Order, which had terrorized the influential Tapani sector for decades. The results were mixed. While the Tapani dark siders were eradicated, Sith survivors of the Great Sith War spread their evil into several distinct traditions, which would eventually wreak galactic-scale havoc as they brought themselves to the brink of extinction in non-stop combat.
It began when one Jedi abandoned the Knighthood 1,000 years before the last Battle of Rusaan. Known by the name Phanius and believed to be an Umbaran, the pale-skinned man was a charismatic and gifted Jedi Master who exhibited hints of a disturbingly relativistic, some said solipsistic, morality. He became one of "The Lost" when he abandoned the Jedi Order to pursue "alternative" knowledge. Unknown to the order, he infiltrated and united the various surviving Sith clans, intensifying his self-centered views. Phanius, convinced he'd obliterated the mental barriers that had kept him from understanding that his will superceded all things (or, in fact, was everything), took the name Darth Ruin. A number of Jedi joined his Sith cause, and war with the Jedi brotherhood inevitably followed. It wasn't long before the Sith turned the war upon themselves. After countless numbers of Ruin's minions died for seemingly little else than his sheer whim, the Sith acolytes soon came to realize that they meant nothing -- quite literally -- within the scheme of their Dark Lord's abstract philosophy. They conspired and destroyed Darth Ruin, ushering in a millennium-long period of betrayal and darkness.
Chaos largely reigned for the next 250 years until a powerful Sith leader emerged. Known only as the Dark Underlord, his presence was clouded with rumor and Sith folklore. Some said he was called from the realm of Chaos by an inexperienced Sith acolyte who was never heard from again. Others even speculated that the Dark Underlord was the spirit of the Lettow general Xendor himself. The only thing that was certain was that he was a bloody marauder of the first quarter of the New Sith Wars. Consolidating a large Sith group known as the Black Knights on the planetoid Malrev 4, the Dark Underlord was one of the few Sith powerful enough to actively take the battle to the Jedi during this era, hacking through battlefields with his twin Sith swords. However, the Jedi Master Murrtaggh cut a deal with Mandalorian mercenaries, who staged a diversionary attack on the Dark Underlord's forces. While the Dark Underlord's Zeltron commander faced the Mandalorian intruders, Master Murrtaggh stole into his enemy's territory and assassinated the Sith Lord, martyring himself to the dark side in the process.
The last quarter of this bloody, backstabbing period saw the rise of the Dark Lord Belia Darzu, the major historical intermediary between Darth Rivan and the last Sith of this era, Lord Kaan and his Brotherhood of Darkness. A changeling and master of monster creation, Darzu was infamous for assimilating her conquered enemies into her own army, the Metanecrons, though the conversions were anything but voluntary. Using the Sith power known as mechu-deru, she created the frontline of her force: hulking part-creature, part-machine technobeasts infested with nanogene droids. In combat, the tiny droids could infect their enemy, rewriting the unfortunate being's genetic code until she became a undead technobeast herself. Another sizable portion of Darzu's army was made up of her dead opponents, spurned to life by Sith incantations. Darzu's apoptotic army was ultimately sabotaged by Mecrosa poisoners, ending her evil. Centuries later, the Emperor's Hands Roganda Ismaren and Blackhole would use Sith scrolls preserving Darzu's secrets for their own sinister purposes.
Eventually the prominence of the Darth lineage was reestablished. The narcissistic Dark Lord Kaan ruled the Brotherhood of Darkness with an iron fist in the final days of the New Sith Wars. He commanded his Sith followers to create a Thought Bomb that wiped out both their forces and the Jedi enemies. This left the Dark Lord called Darth Bane the last Sith standing. With his apprentice Darth Zannah, Bane reshaped the Sith Order with two rules: henceforward, the Sith would only be two in number and until such time as they revenged themselves on the Jedi, they would maintain their existence a secret.