Lost Tribe of the Sith Text

P R E C I P I C E

Chapter One
5,000 years BBY
“Lohjoy! Give me something!” Scrambling to his feet
in the darkness, Commander Korsin craned his neck to
find the hologram. “Thrusters, attitude control—I’ll take
parking jets!”
A starship is a weapon, but it’s the crew that makes
it deadly. An old spacer’s line: trite, but weighty enough
to lend a little authority. Korsin had used it himself on
occasion. But not today. His ship was being deadly all
on its own—and his crew was just along for the ride.
“We’ve got nothing, Commander!” The serpenthaired
engineer flickered before him, off-kilter and out
of focus. Korsin knew things belowdecks must be bad
if his upright, uptight Ho’Din genius was off-balance.
“Reactors are down! And we’ve got structural failures
in the hull, both aft and—”
Lohjoy shrieked in agony, her tendrils bursting into a
mane of fire that sent her reeling out of view. Korsin
barely suppressed a startled laugh. In calmer times—
half a standard hour ago—he’d joked that Ho’Din were
half tree. But that was hardly appropriate when the
whole engineering deck was going up. The hull had
ruptured. Again.
2 John Jackson Miller
The hologram expired—and all around the stocky
commander, warning lights danced, winked, and went
out. Korsin plopped down again, clutching at the armrests.
Well, the chair still works. “Anything? Anybody?”
Silence—and the remote grinding of metal.
“Just give me something to shoot at.” It was Gloyd,
Korsin’s gunnery officer, teeth shining in the shadows.
The half smirk was a memento from a Jedi lightsaber
swipe years earlier that just missed taking the Houk’s
head off. In response, Gloyd had cultivated the only wit
aboard as acidic as the commander’s own—but the
gunner wasn’t finding much funny today. Korsin read it
in the brute’s tiny eyes: One close call is all.
Korsin didn’t bother to look at the other side of the
bridge. Icy glares there could be taken as a given. Even
now, when Omen was crippled and plummeting out of
control.
“Anybody?”
Even now. Korsin’s bushy eyebrows flared into a black
V. What was wrong with them? The adage was right. A
ship needed a crew united in purpose—only the purpose
of being Sith was the exaltation of self. Every ensign an
emperor. Every rival’s misstep, an opportunity. Well,
here’s an opportunity, he thought. Solve this, someone,
and you can flat-out have the blasted comfy chair.
Sith power games. They didn’t mean much now—not
against the insistent gravity below. Korsin looked up
again at the forward viewport. The vast azure orb visible
earlier was gone, replaced by light, gas, and grit
raining upward. The latter two, he knew, came from
the guts of his own ship, losing the fight against the
alien atmosphere. Whatever it was, the planet had
Omen now. A jolt, and more screams. This wouldn’t
last long.
“Remember,” he yelled, looking at them for the first
time since it had started. “You wanted to be here!”

And they had—most of them, anyway. Omen had
been the ship to get when the Sith mining flotilla gathered
at Primus Goluud. The Massassi shock troops in
the hold didn’t care where they went—who knew what
the Massassi even thought half the time, presuming
they did at all. But many sentients who had a choice in
the matter picked Omen.
Saes, captain of the Harbinger, was a fallen Jedi: an
unknown quantity. You couldn’t trust someone the Jedi
couldn’t trust, and they would trust just about anyone.
Yaru Korsin, the crewmembers knew. A Sith captain
owning a smile was rare enough, and always suspect.
But Korsin had been at it for twenty standard years,
long enough for those who’d served under him to
spread the word. A Korsin ship was an easy ride.
Just not today. Fully loaded with Lignan crystals,
Harbinger and Omen had readied to leave Phaegon III
for the front when a Jedi starfighter tested the mining
fleet’s defenses. While the crescent-shaped Blades tangled
with the intruder, Korsin’s crew made preparations
to jump to hyperspace. Protecting the cargo was
paramount—and if they managed to make their delivery
before the Jedi turncoat made his, well, that was
just a bonus. The Blade pilots could hitch back on
Harbinger.
Only something had gone wrong. A shock to the
Harbinger, and then another. Sensor readings of the sister
ship went nonsensical—and Harbinger yawed dangerously
toward Omen. Before the collision warning
could sound, Korsin’s navigator reflexively engaged the
hyperdrive. It had been in the nick of time . . .
. . . or maybe not. Not the way Omen was giving up
its vitals now. They did hit us, Korsin knew. The
telemetry might have told them, had they had any. The
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ship had been knocked off-course by an astronomical
hair—but it was enough.
Commander Korsin had never felt an encounter with
a gravity well in hyperspace, and neither had any of his
crew. Stories required survivors. But it felt as though
space itself had yawned open near the passing Omen,
kneading at the ship’s alloyed superstructure like putty.
It lasted but a fraction of a second, if time even existed
there. The escape was worse than the contact. A sickly
snap, and shielding failed. Bulkheads gave. And then,
the armory.
The armory had exploded. That was easy enough to
know from the gaping hole in the underside of the ship.
That it had exploded in hyperspace was a matter of
inference: they were still alive. Grenades, bombs, and
all the other pleasantries his secondary cargo, the
Massassi, were taking to Kirrek would have gone up in
a theatrical flourish, taking the ship with it. But instead
the armory had simply vanished—along with an
impressive chunk of Omen’s quarterdeck. The physics
in hyperspace were unpredictable by definition; instead
of exploding outward, the breached deck simply left the
ship in a seismic tug. Korsin could imagine the erupting
munitions dropping out of hyperspace light-years behind
the Omen, wherever it was. That would mean a
bad day for someone!
Oh, wait. It’s already my turn.
Omen had shuddered into realspace, decelerating
madly—and taking dead aim at a blister of blue hanging
before a vibrant star. Was that the source of the
mass shadow that had interrupted their trip? Who
cared? It was about to end it. Captured, Omen had
skipped and bounced across the crystal ocean of air
until the descent began in earnest. It had claimed his
engineer—probably all his engineers—but the command
deck still held. Tapani craftsmanship, Korsin
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marveled. They were falling, but for the moment they
were still alive.
“Why isn’t he dead?” Half mesmerized by the streamers
of fire erupting outside—at least the Omen was
belly-down for this bounce—Korsin only vaguely grew
aware of harsh words to his left. “You shouldn’t have
made the jump!” stabbed the young voice. “Why isn’t
he dead?”
Commander Korsin straightened and gave his half
brother an incredulous stare. “I know you’re not talking
to me.”
Devore Korsin jabbed a gloved finger past the commander
to a frail man, still jabbing futilely at his control
panel and looking very alone. “That navigator of
yours! Why isn’t he dead?”
“Maybe he’s on the wrong deck?”
“Yaru!”
It wasn’t a joke, of course. Boyle Marcom had been
guiding Sith ships through the weirdness of hyperspace
since the middle of Marka Ragnos’s rule. Boyle hadn’t
been at his best in years, but Yaru Korsin knew a former
helmsman of his father’s was always worth having.
Not today, though. Whatever had happened back there,
it would rightfully be laid at the navigator’s feet.
But assigning blame in the middle of a firestorm?
That was Devore all over.
“We’ll do this later,” the elder Korsin said from the
command chair. “If there is a later.” Anger flashed in
Devore’s eyes. Yaru couldn’t remember ever seeing anything
else there. The pale and lanky Devore little resembled
his own ruddy, squat frame—also the shape of
their father. But those eyes, and that look? Those could
have been a direct transplant.
Their father. He’d never had a day like this. The old
spacer had never lost a ship for the Sith Lords. Learning
at his side, the teenage Yaru had staked out his own
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future—until the day he became less enamored of his
father’s footsteps. The day when Devore arrived. Half
Yaru’s age, son to a mother from another port on
another planet—and embraced by the old admiral
without a second thought. Rather than find out how
many more children his father had out there to vie for
stations on the bridge, Cadet Korsin appealed to the
Sith Lords for another assignment. That had not been a
mistake. In five years, he made captain. In ten, he won
command of the newly christened Omen over a captain
many years his senior.

His father hadn’t liked that. He’d never lost a ship for
the Sith Lords. But he’d lost one to his son.
But now losing the Omen was looking like a family
tradition. The whole bridge crew—even the outsider
Devore—exhaled audibly when rivulets of moisture
replaced the flames outside the viewport. Omen had
found the stratosphere without incinerating, and now
the ship was in a lazy saucer spin through clouds heavy
with rain. Korsin’s eyes narrowed. Water?
Is there even a ground?
The terrifying thought rippled through the minds of
the seven on the bridge at once, as they watched the
transparisteel viewport bulge and warp: Gas giant! It
took a long time to crash from orbit, presuming you
survived reentry. How much longer, if there was no surface?
Korsin fumbled aimlessly for the controls set in
his armrest. Omen would crack and rupture, smothered
under a mountain of vapors. They shared the
thought—and almost in response, the straining portal
darkened. “All of you,” he said, “heads down! And
grab something . . . now!”
This time, they did as told. He knew: Tie it to selfpreservation,
and a Sith would do anything. Even this
bunch. Korsin clawed at the chair, his eyes fixed on the
forward viewport and the shadow swiftly falling across it.
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: Precipice 7
A wet mass slapped against the hull. Its spindly form
tumbled across the transparisteel, lingering an instant
before disappearing. The commander blinked twice. It
was there and gone, but it wasn’t part of his ship.
It had wings.
Startled, Korsin sprang from his seat and lurched
toward the viewport. This time, the mistake was certifiably
his. Already stressed before the midair collision,
the transparisteel gave way, shards weeping from
the ship like shining tears. A hush of departing air
slammed Korsin to the deck plating. Old Marcom
tumbled to one side, having lost hold of his station.
Sirens sounded—how were they still working?—but
the tumult soon subsided. Without thinking, Korsin
breathed.
“Air! It’s air!”
Devore regained his footing first, bracing against the
wind. Their first luck. The viewport had mostly blown
out, not in—and while the cabin had lost pressure, a
drippy, salty wind was slowly replacing it. Unaided,
Commander Korsin fought his way back to his station.
Thanks for the hand, brother.
“Just a reprieve,” Gloyd said. They still couldn’t see
what was below. Korsin had done a suicide plunge
before, but that had been in a bomber—when he’d
known where the ground was. That there was a
ground.
Once-restrained doubts flooded Korsin’s mind—and
Devore responded. “Enough,” the crystal hunter
barked, struggling against the swaying deck to reach
his sibling’s command chair. “Let me at those controls!”
“They’re as dead for you as they are for me!”
“We’ll see about that!” Devore reached for the armrest,
only to be blocked by Korsin’s beefy wrist. The
commander’s teeth clenched. Don’t do this. Not now.
8 John Jackson Miller
A baby screamed. Korsin looked quizzically at Devore
for a moment before turning to see Seelah in the doorway,
clutching a small crimson-wrapped bundle. The
child wailed.
Darker-skinned than either of them, Seelah was an
operative on Devore’s mining team. Korsin knew her
simply as Devore’s female—that was the nicest way to
put it. He didn’t know which role came first. Now the
willowy figure looked haggard as she slumped against
the doorway. Her child, bound tightly in the manner of
their people, had worked a tiny arm free and was clawing
at her scattered auburn hair. She seemed not to
notice.
Surprise—was it annoyance?—crossed Devore’s face.
“I sent you to the lifepods!”
Korsin flinched. The lifepods were a nonstarter—
literally. They’d known that back in space when the
first one snagged on its stubborn docking claw and
exploded right in the ship’s hull. He didn’t know what
had happened to the rest, but the ship had taken such
damage to its spine that he figured the whole array was
a probable loss.
“The cargo hold,” she said, gasping as Devore
reached her and grasped her arms. “Near our quarters.”
Devore’s eyes darted past her, down the hallway.
“Devore, you can’t go to the lifepods—”
“Shut up, Yaru!”
“Stop it,” she said. “There’s land.” When Devore
stared at her blankly, she exhaled and looked urgently
toward the commander. “Land!”
Korsin made the connection. “The cargo hold!” The
crystals were in a hold safely forward from the damage—
in a place with viewports angled to see below. There was
something under all that blue, after all. Something that
gave them a chance.
“The port thruster will light,” she implored.
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: Precipice 9
“No, it won’t,” Korsin said. Not from any command
on the bridge, anyway. “We’re going to have to
do this by hand—so to speak.” He stepped past the
ailing Marcom to the starboard viewport, which
looked back upon the main bulge of the ship trailing
aft. There were four large torpedo tube covers on
either side of the ship, spherical lids that swiveled
above or below the horizontal plane depending on
where they were situated. They never opened those
covers in atmospheres, for fear of the drag they
would cause. That design flaw might save them.
“Gloyd, will they work?”
“They’ll cycle—once. But without power, we’re gonna
have to set off the firing pins to open them.”
Devore gawked. “We’re not going out there!” They
were still at terminal velocity. But Korsin was moving,
too, bustling past his brother to the port viewport.
“Everyone, to either side!”
Seelah and another crewman stepped to the right
pane. Devore, glaring, reluctantly joined her. Alone on
the left, Yaru Korsin placed his hand on the coldly
sweating portal. Outside, meters away, he found one
of the massive circular covers—and the small box
mounted to its side, no larger than a comlink. It was
smaller than he remembered from inspection. Where’s
the mechanism? There. He reached out through the
Force. Careful . . .
“Top torpedo door, both sides. Now!”
With a determined mental act, Korsin triggered the
firing pin. A large bolt released explosively, shooting
ahead—and the mammoth tube cover moved in
response, rotating on its single hinge. The ship, already
quaking, groaned loudly as the door reached its final
position, perched atop the plane of the Omen like a
makeshift aileron. Korsin looked expectantly behind
him, where Seelah’s expression assured him of a similar
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success on her side. For a moment, he wondered if it
had worked . . .
Thoom! With a wrenching jolt that leveled the bridge
crew, Omen tipped downward. It didn’t slow the ship
as much as Korsin had expected, but that wasn’t the
point. At least they could see where they were going
now, what was below. If these blasted clouds would
clear . . .
At once, he saw it. Land, indeed—but more water.
Much more. Jagged, rugged peaks rose from a greenish
surf, almost a skeleton of rock lit by the alien planet’s
setting sun, barely visible on the horizon. They were
rocketing quickly into night. There wouldn’t be much
time to make a decision . . .
. . . but Korsin already knew there was no choice to
be made. While more of the crew might survive a water
landing, they wouldn’t last long when their superiors
learned their precious cargo was at the bottom of an
alien ocean. Better they pick the crystals out from
among our burned corpses. Frowning, he ordered the
starboard-side crew to activate their lower torpedo
doors.
Again, a violent lurch, and Omen banked left, angling
toward an angry line of mountains. Rearward, a
lifepod shot away from the ship—and slammed straight
into the ridge. The searing plume was gone from the
bridge’s field of view in less than a second. Gloyd’s torpedo
crew would be envious, Korsin thought, shaking
his head and blowing out a big breath. Still people alive
back there. They’re still trying.
Omen cleared a snow-covered peak by less than a
hundred meters. Dark water opened up below. Another
course correction—and Omen was quickly running out
of torpedo tubes. Another lifepod launched, arcing
down and away. Only when the small craft neared the
surf did its pilot—if it had one—get the engine going.
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: Precipice 11
The rockets shot the pod straight down into the ocean
at full speed.
Squinting through sweat, Korsin looked back at his
crew. “Depth charge! Fine time for a mixed warfare
drill!” Even Gloyd didn’t laugh at that one. But it wasn’t
propriety, the commander saw as he turned. It was
what was ahead. More sharp mountains rising from the
waters—including a mountain meant for them. Korsin
reeled back to his chair. “Stations!”
Seelah wandered in a panic, nearly losing the wailing
Jariad as she staggered. She had no station, no
defensive position. She began to cross to Devore,
frozen at his terminal. There was no time. A hand
reached for her. Yaru yanked her close, pushing her
down behind the command chair into a protective
crouch.
The act cost him.
Omen slammed into a granite ridge at an angle, losing
the fight—and still more of itself. The impact threw
Commander Korsin forward against the bulkhead,
nearly impaling him on the remaining shards of the
smashed viewport. Gloyd and Marcom strained to
move toward him, but Omen was still on the move,
clipping another rocky rise and spiraling downward.
Something exploded, strewing flaming wreckage in the
ship’s grinding wake.
Agonizingly, Omen spun forward again, the torpedo
doors that had been their makeshift airbrakes snapping
like driftwood as it slid. Down a gravelly incline it skidded,
showering stones in all directions. Korsin, his forehead
bleeding, looked up and out to see—
—nothing. Omen continued to slide toward an abyss.
It had run out of mountain.
Stop. Stop!
“Stop!”
* * *

12 John Jackson Miller
Silence. Korsin coughed and opened his eyes.
They were still alive.
“No,” Seelah said, kneeling and clinging to Jariad.
“We’re already dead.”
Thanks to you, she did not say—but Korsin felt the
words streaming at him through the Force. He didn’t
need the help. Her eyes said plenty.
Chapter Two
Omen’s permanent crew came from the same human
stock as Korsin: the debris of a noble house, launched
skyward centuries before in the whirlwind that formed
the Tapani Empire. The Sith had found them, and
found them useful. They were skilled in commerce and
industry, all the things the Sith Lords needed most but
never had time for with their world-building and
world-destroying. His ancestors ran ships and factories,
and ran them well. And before long, mingling their
blood with that of the Dark Jedi, the Force was in his
people, too.
They were the future. They couldn’t acknowledge it,
but it was obvious. Many of the Sith Lords were still of
the crimson-hued species that had long formed the
nucleus of their following. But the numbers were turning—
and if Naga Sadow wanted to rule the galaxy,
they had to.
Naga Sadow. Tentacle-faced, Dark Lord and heir to
ancient powers. It was Naga Sadow who had dispatched
Omen and Harbinger in search of Lignan crystals;
Naga Sadow who needed the crystals on Kirrek, to
defeat the Republic and its Jedi.
Or was it the Jedi and their Republic? It didn’t matter.
Naga Sadow would kill Commander Korsin and his
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crew for losing their ship. Seelah was right about that
much.
Yet Sadow need not lose the war, depending on what
Korsin did now. He still had something. The crystals.
But the crystals were high above at the moment.
It had been a night of horrors, getting 355 people
down from the lofty plateau. Sixteen injured had died
along the way, and another five had tumbled into the
darkness from the narrow ledge that formed the only
apparent way up or down. No one doubted that evacuation
had been the right call, though. They couldn’t
stay up there, not with the fires still burning and the
ship precariously perched. The last to leave the ship,
Korsin had nearly soiled himself when one of the proton
torpedoes had disengaged from the naked tube,
tumbling over the precipice and into oblivion.
By sunrise, they’d found a clearing, halfway down the
mountain, dotted with wild grasses. Life was everywhere
in the galaxy, even here. It was the first good
sign. Above, Omen continued to burn. No need to
wonder where above them the ship was, Korsin
thought. Not while they could follow the smoke.
Now, walking back into the afternoon crowd—less
an encampment than a gathering—Korsin knew he
never need wonder where his people were, either. Not
while his nose worked. “Now I know why we kept the
Massassi on their own level,” he said to no one.
“Charming,” came a response from over his shoulder.
“I should say they are not very happy with you,
either.” Ravilan was a Red Sith, pureblooded as they
came. He was quartermaster and keeper of the
Massassi, the nasty lumbering bipeds that the Sith
prized as instruments of terror on the battlefield. At the
moment the Massassi didn’t seem so formidable.
Korsin followed Ravilan into the fiendish circle, made
even less pleasant by the stench of vomit. Florid monmill_
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: Precipice 15
sters two and three meters tall sprawled on the ground,
heaving and coughing.
“Maybe some kind of pulmonary edema,” Seelah
said, passing around purified-air canisters salvaged
from an emergency pack. Before connecting with
Devore and securing a place on his team, she’d been a
battlefield medic—though Korsin couldn’t tell from her
bedside manner, at least with Massassi. She barely
touched the wheezing giant. “We’re no longer at elevation,
so this should subside. Probably normal.”
To her left, another Massassi hacked mightily—and
mutely regarded the result: a handful of dripping scar
tissue. Korsin looked at the quartermaster and asked
drily, “Is that normal?”
“You know it’s not,” Ravilan snarled.
From across the clearing, Devore Korsin charged in,
shoving his son into Seelah’s hands before she was done
wiping them. He seized the brute’s massive wrist, looking
for himself. His eyes flared at his brother. “But
Massasi are tougher than anything!”

Anything they can punch, kick, or strangle,” Korsin
said. An alien planet, however, was an alien planet.
They hadn’t had time to do a bioscan. And all the
equipment was high above. Devore followed Seelah,
backing away from the sickly Massassi.
Eighty of the creatures had survived the crash. Korsin
learned that Ravilan’s assistants were burning a third of
those survivors, even then, over the hillside. Whatever
unseen thing it was on this planet that was killing the
Massassi, it was doing it quickly. Ravilan showed him
the stinking pyre.
“They’re not far enough away,” Korsin said.
“From whom?” Ravilan responded. “Is that depression
a permanent camp? Should we remove to a different
mountain?”
“Enough, Rav.”
16 John Jackson Miller
“No witty comeback? I’m surprised. You at least
plan that far ahead.”
Korsin had fenced with Ravilan on earlier missions,
but now wasn’t the time. “I said, enough. We’ve surveyed
below. You saw it. There’s nowhere to go.” There
were beaches at the bottom of the bluff, but they terminated
against the oily cliffs that began the next
mountain in the chain. And going farther along the
chain meant trips through tangles of razor-sharp brambles.
“We don’t need an expedition. We’re not staying.”
“I should hope not,” Ravilan said, his own nose turned
by the smell of the fires. “But your brother—I mean,
Captain Korsin’s other son—feels we shouldn’t wait to
return.”
Yaru Korsin stopped. “I have the transmitter codes.
It’s my call to make.” He looked up at the second, more
distant smoky plume far above. “When it’s safe.”
“Yes, by all means. When it’s safe.”
The commander hadn’t wanted Devore on the mission.
Years earlier, he had been relieved when his half
brother had abandoned a naval career, drifting into the
Sith’s mineralogical service. Power and riches were
more easily had there, searching for gems and Forceimbued
crystals. With their father’s sponsorship, Devore
had become a specialist in using plasma weapons and
scanning equipment. The recent conflict with the Jedi
found him in high demand—and assigned, with his
team, to Omen. Korsin wondered whom he’d played a
joke on to deserve that. He’d been told Devore officially
answered to him, but that would have been a first.
Not even Sith Lords were that powerful.
“You should have kept us in orbit!”
“We were never in orbit!”
Korsin recognized the voice of the navigator, Marcom,
coming from over the dusty rise. He already knew the
other one.
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: Precipice 17
The old man was trying to push his way out of the
crowd when Korsin topped the hill at a full run.
Devore’s miners weren’t letting Boyle go. “You don’t
know my job!” he yelled. “I did all that I could! Oh,
what’s the use talking to . . . ”
Just as Korsin reached the clearing, the crowd surged
forward, as if pulled down a drain. One sickeningly
familiar crackle followed another.
“No!”
Korsin saw the lightsaber first, rolling toward his feet
when he breached the crowd. His father’s old helmsman
lay ahead, gutted. Next to Seelah and Jariad stood
Devore, his lightsaber glowing crimson in the lengthening
shadows.
“The navigator attacked first,” Seelah said.
The commander gawked.
“What difference does it make?” Korsin charged
into the center, lifting the loose lightsaber into his
hand with the Force. Devore stood his ground, smiling
gently and keeping his lightsaber burning. His
dark eyes had a wild look, a familiar one. He was
shaking a little, but not from fear—not fear Yaru
Korsin could feel. The commander knew it was something
else, something more dangerous. He turned
Marcom’s unlit weapon tip-down and shook it.
“That was our navigator, Devore! What if the star
charts don’t work?”
“I can find our way back,” Devore said smartly.
“You’ll have to!” Korsin grew conscious of the mix
around him. Gold-uniformed miners in the circle, yes,
but bridge crew, too. A red-faced Sith—not Ravilan,
but one of his cronies. He was undeterred. “This is not
going to do any good, any of you. We wait here until
it’s safe to return to the ship. That’s all.”
Seelah straightened, emboldened by the supporters
around. “When will it be safe? In days? Weeks?” Her
18 John Jackson Miller
child wailed. “How long must we last—until it’s safe
enough for you?”
Korsin stared at her and breathed deeply. He threw
Marcom’s lightsaber to the ground. “Tell Ravilan there’s
one more for the pyre.” As a begrudging crowd gave him
room to exit, he said, “We go when I say. That ship blows
up, or tips into the ocean, and we really will have problems.
We go when I say.”
The world spun. As Korsin stepped backward, Gloyd
stepped forward, keeping a wary yellow eye on the
grumbling masses. He’d missed the fun.
“Commander.”
They looked past each other, watching Sith in all
directions. “Not really happy here, Gloyd.”
“Then you’ll want to hear this,” the hulking Houk
rasped. “As I see it, we’ve got three choices. We get
these people off this rock in whatever will fly. Or we
look for cover and hide until they all kill one another.”
“What’s the third choice?”
Gloyd’s painted face crinkled. “There isn’t one. But I
figured it’d cheer you up if you thought there was.”
“I hate you.”
“Great. You’ll make someone a fine Sith someday.”
Korsin had known Gloyd since his first command. The
Houk was the kind of bridge officer every Sith captain
wanted: more interested in his own job than in taking
someone else’s. Gloyd was smart to spare himself the
trouble. Or maybe he just loved blowing things up too
much to want to leave the tactical station.
Of course, with that station left roughly a kilometer
up the mountain, Korsin had no idea how useful his old
ally would be. But Gloyd still had fifty kilos on most of
the crew. No one would move against them while they
stood together.
No one would move alone, anyway.
Korsin looked back across the clearing at the mob.
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: Precipice 19
Ravilan was there now, huddled with Devore and Seelah
and a couple of junior officers. Devore spotted his brother
watching and averted his gaze; Seelah simply stared
back at the commander, unabashed. Korsin spat an epithet.
“Gloyd, we’re dying here. I don’t understand them!”
“Yeah, you do,” Gloyd said. “You know what we
say: You and me, we’re about the job. Other Sith are
about what’s next.” The Houk plucked a scaly root
from the ground and sniffed it. “Trouble is, this whole
place is about what’s next. You’re trying to keep ’em
together—when you’ve really got to show ’em there’s
something after this rock. There’s no time to win people
over. You pick a path. Anybody won’t walk it . . . ”
“Push ’em off?” Korsin grinned. It really wasn’t his
style. Gloyd returned the smile and sank his teeth into
the root. Wincing comically, the gunnery chief excused
himself. They wouldn’t be living off the land—not this
land, anyway.
Looking back at the teeming crowd, Korsin found his
eyes drifting up toward the dwindling tendril of smoke
drifting from the heights above.
Above. Gloyd was right. It was the only way.
Chapter Three
The Massassi had died on the mountain. Korsin had
left at dawn with three bearers: the healthiest of the
Massassi, each passing around the remaining air canister.
It hadn’t lasted, and neither had they. Whatever it
was on this planet that didn’t like Massassi existed up
above as well as below.
It was just as well, Korsin thought, leaving the bloodcolored
corpses where they fell. He couldn’t run Massassi.
They were pliant and obedient warriors, but they
answered to force, not words. A good Sith captain
needed to use both, but Korsin leaned more on the latter.
It had made for a good career.
Not down the mountain, though. Things were
going to get worse. They already had. It had been
cold in the night—chillier than he had expected from
what seemed like an oceanic climate. Some of the
heavily injured had failed from exposure or from lack
of medical care.
Later, some kind of animal—Gloyd described it to
him as a six-legged mammal, half mouth—vaulted
from a burrow and tore into one of the injured. It took
five exhausted sentries to slay the beast. One of
Devore’s mining specialists cast a chunk of the creature’s
body into the campfire and sampled a piece. She
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: Precipice 21
vomited blood and died within heartbeats. He was glad
he hadn’t been awake for that.

Whatever relief there was in knowing there was life
on the planet ended right there. Omen’s crew didn’t
number enough to sort out what was safe and what
wasn’t. They had to go home, regardless of the state of
things with the ship.
Korsin looked up into the morning sky, now streaked
more by cirrus clouds than smoke. He hadn’t told the
others about the thing that had struck the viewport
during the descent. What had he seen? Another predator,
probably. There was no point in bringing it up.
Everyone was scared enough, and fear led to anger. The
Sith understood this—they made use of it—but uncontrolled,
it wasn’t doing them any good. The sun hadn’t
even set before lightsabers came out again in a dispute
over a foodpak. One less Red Sith. Not twenty standard
hours since the crash and things were starting to
get basic. Tribal.
Time had run out.
Omen had come to rest in a small indentation down
a short ways on the other side of a crest. Sky and ocean
spread out ahead. The ship had stopped on the incline
just in time, and there wasn’t a flat plane left on the
vehicle. The sight of his ship, shattered on the alien
rocks, moved Korsin only a little. He had known opponents—
mainly captains in the Republic—who were
sentimental about their commands. It wasn’t the Sith
way. Omen was a tool like any other, a blaster or
lightsaber, to be used and discarded. And while the
ship’s resilience had saved his life, it had betrayed him
first. Not a thing to be forgiven.
Still, it had a purpose. Flying again was out of the
question, but the sight of the metal tower just above the
bridge gave him hope. The receiver would find the
Republic’s hyperspace beacons in an instant, telling
22 John Jackson Miller
Korsin his location. And the ship’s transmitter would
tell the Sith where to find Omen—and, more important,
the Lignan. Maybe not in time for the engagement
at Kirrek, but Sadow would want it nonetheless.
Walking carefully over loose stones to the airlock,
Korsin tried not to think of the other possibility. If the
Battle of Kirrek was lost because Omen was lost, he
would die.
But he would die having completed his mission.
A vial lay empty in Devore’s open, quaking palm.
Devore had somehow gotten to Omen first—and was
sitting in the commander’s chair. Well, slouching was
more like it. “I see your cabin’s intact,” Korsin said. He
remembered Seelah returning to the living quarters for
little Jariad. In a fire, you go for the thing you love.
“I didn’t go there first,” Devore said, limply letting
the vial drop to the deck beside the command chair.
There was another container there, particles of glistening
spice still beside it. He’s been here awhile, Korsin
guessed. He had a sneaking suspicion spice was why
Devore had gone into mining in the first place; it had
certainly shortened his naval career. “I didn’t go there—
I mean, it wasn’t first,” Devore said, pointing vaguely
to the ceiling. “I went to look at the transmitter array.”
“Structure looked sound.”
“From outside, maybe.” Slouched in the command
chair, Devore watched blankly as his brother clambered
over fallen beams to reach the ladder. Above the ceiling
panels, Korsin saw what Devore must have seen: a
melted mass of electronics, fried when a seam opened
in the hull during the descent. The external transmitter
stood, all right—but as a monument to its former purpose,
nothing more.
Climbing down, Korsin made his way to the comm
control panel and pressed the button several times.
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: Precipice 23
Nothing. He sighed. The story was the same everywhere
on the bridge. He switched the transmitter on one last
time and stepped back over the debris. Omen was dead.
But Sith had survived death before, and the guts of Omen
still held enough spare parts to allow a transplant. His
eyes darted to the hallway. Surely, in the workshop—
“Gone, with the armory!” The explosion had vented
most of the stores into space. Devore buried his face in
his hands, finished.
Korsin wasn’t. “The landing bay. The Blades.” The
fighters had been in flight when Omen made its sudden
departure, but something in the landing bay might be
serviceable.
“Forget it, Yaru. The deck was crushed when we hit.
I couldn’t even get in there.”
“Then we will cut the ship down deck by deck and
fabricate the parts we need!”
“With what? Our lightsabers?” Devore rose, steadying
himself against the armrest. “We’re done!” His cough
became a laugh. The Lignan crystals offered the Sith
power—just not the kind to operate a distress beacon,
a receiver, or even the celestial atlas. “We are here,
Yaru. We are here and we are out of action. Out of the
war. Out of everything. We are out of it!”
“You’re out of it.”
Korsin climbed into a hallway and began rummaging
through cabinets, looking for something that would
help those below. Unfortunately, Omen had been outfitted
for a deep-space mission. Sith provisioners were
sparing. No portable generators at all. Another compartment.
Clothes. That would help tonight, but they
wouldn’t be staying.
“We have to stay,” Devore said, as if he had read
Korsin’s thought.
“What?”
“We have to stay,” Devore repeated. Standing alone,
24 John Jackson Miller
a tombstone in the shadows of the hallway, he spoke
with a voice that quaked. “It’s been two days. You
don’t understand. It’s been two days.”
Korsin didn’t stop his search, passing in front of his
brother to another door, jammed by the damage.
“It’s been two days, Yaru. Naga Sadow will think we
ran away. To take the Lignan crystals for ourselves!”
“He’ll blame Saes,” Korsin said, remembering. Naga
Sadow hadn’t fully trusted the fallen Jedi who captained
the Harbinger. He’d asked Korsin to keep an eye
on Saes, to report back. When he did—if he did—
Korsin fully intended to explain how the Harbinger had
lost control, how the Harbinger had struck the Omen.
With any luck, Sadow had Harbinger already—
Korsin released the door handle. He hadn’t seen what
happened to Harbinger after the collision, but it was a
safe bet that Sadow would have the crippled Harbinger
already. And Saes, sitting there with only half the shipment
of Lignan crystals and unable to deliver, would be
bargaining for his life, saying anything about the Omen.
He would sing harmonies the Khil would be proud of.
Korsin looked down the hallway. “Back at Primus
Goluud. On the station. You met with Sadow, didn’t
you?”

Devore shuffled. “To discuss the Lignan operation.”
“You weren’t discussing something else? Like who
should command this mission?”
Devore glared at him with bloodshot eyes. That look
again.
“You were discussing who should command this mission,”
Korsin pressed, surprised at his own calm. “What
did you say when he said no?”
The commander’s blood froze. He knew how things
always went with Devore—how things must have gone.
Sadow had rejected his half brother, and Devore had said
something. What? Not enough to offend Sadow—no,
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: Precipice 25
Devore was still here in the wreck, drawing labored
breaths. But Sadow would have reason to suspect
Devore’s loyalty, would have cause to wonder whether
his crystals were safe. The one thing Yaru Korsin had was
his reputation for playing it straight—but now at a minimum,
Sadow would know that Korsin was not the
absolute master of his own vessel. And if he wasn’t . . .
Devore’s hand shook—and his lightsaber flew into it.
The weapon that had killed Boyle Marcom ignited in
his hand.
“What did I tell you?” Korsin yelled, approaching
him anyway. “No games on my ship!”
Shaken, Devore darted back toward the bridge. Korsin
followed. “The only way we come out of this is if we’re
completely clean, Devore! Sadow can’t think we did this
on purpose!” He reached the doorway. “No games on
my ship!”
Korsin walked into a hurricane. Devore stood atop
the command chair, calling forth all the debris of the
bridge like a deity on a mountaintop. Korsin rolled,
fragments of transparisteel raking his face and ripping
into his uniform. Reaching Gloyd’s station, he mounted
his own defense, cocooning himself in the Force
against the onslaught. Devore was as strong as any in
his family—and now he was riding chemicals Korsin
didn’t understand.
A beam slammed against the bulkhead—and Omen
shivered. A second strike, and the bridge tipped forward,
knocking Devore off his perch. Korsin didn’t let
him get up again. The moment Devore’s head appeared
behind the chair, Korsin Force-flung him out through
the ruined viewport. He had to get this outside, before
everything was lost.
Korsin bolted uphill through the hallway to the airlock,
huffing as he did. Fighting a spice-crazed assailant
on a teetering deathtrap? I must be the crazy one! The
26 John Jackson Miller
step down from the portal was now a leap. His boot
sank into a soft patch as he hit, wrenching his ankle and
sending him tumbling down the scree-covered slope.
Biting his lip, he tried to clamber back from the brink
toward Omen’s crushed nose. A shadow was falling on
him. He lit his lightsaber—
Suddenly he saw it—or it saw him. Another winged
creature, high over the near ridge, circling and watching.
Watching him. Korsin blinked sand from his eyes
as the creature soared away. It was the same as the one
from the descent—almost. The difference was . . .
Thoom! Korsin felt himself lifted into the air and
before he could register what was happening, he
slammed into the wreck of Omen. Devore marched
into view, pebbles rolling before him as if propelled by
a magnet. Trapped against the crumpled frame, Korsin
struggled to stand. His father’s familiar look was gone
from Devore’s face, replaced by a bleak nothingness.
“It’s over, Yaru” Devore said, raising his lightsaber
high. “We should have done this before. It’s been
decided. I’m Commander Korsin.”
It’s been decided? The thought flashed through Yaru
Korsin’s mind even as the lightsaber flashed past his ear.
It sparked against the Omen’s battered armor. The commander
raised his weapon to parry the next stroke—and
the next, and the next. Devore hammered away. No
style, just fury. Korsin found nowhere to go, except
along the side of the ship, sliding backward toward the
port-side torpedo tubes. Three of the doors had been
opened in the descent. The fourth—
Korsin spotted the control box, just like the one he’d
remotely manipulated in the descent. He flexed toward it
through the Force, and ducked. The firing pin activated,
bulleting forward and catching Devore in the lightsaber
shoulder. The torpedo door tried to cycle open, but
pinned against the ground it only dug into the strata,
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: Precipice 27
sending a stream of rocks flooding beneath the ship.
Omen lurched forward again, with Devore sliding in
front of it toward the edge and the ocean below.
It took a minute for Korsin to get loose from the
handhold he’d found on the ship, and another for the
dust to clear. Finding Omen surprisingly still, he gingerly
stepped away on the crushed slate. Omen’s bow
had impaled itself on a razor rise on the promontory,
just meters from the edge

Ahead of it, partially buried in rubble, lay his brother.
His golden uniform shredded, his shoulder bloodied,
Devore writhed on the precipice. He tried to kneel, shrugging
off the surrounding rocks, only to collapse again.
Devore still gripped his lightsaber. How he could still
be holding on to it with the whole world falling down,
Korsin didn’t know. The commander fastened his own
lightsaber to his belt.
“Yaru?” Devore said. It was a whimper now. “Yaru—I
can’t see.” His face was tear-stained, but intact. Then his
lightsaber rolled free, plummeting out of sight over the
cliff’s edge and revealing the oily pink stain on his hand.
Red Rage. That was what had been in the vials, Korsin
thought. That was what had given Devore his manic
power, and that was what was stealing from him now.
The shoulder wound wasn’t bad, Korsin saw, lifting
his brother to his feet. Devore was young; with Seelah
tending to him, he might even survive out here, presuming
he could live without the spice. But . . . what
then? What could be said that wasn’t already said?
It’s been decided.
A helpful hold became a tighter grip—and Yaru
Korsin turned his brother to face the setting sun over
the ocean. “I will complete my mission,” he said, looking
over the side to the ocean yawning far below. “And
I will protect my crew.”
He let go.
Chapter Four
It was nearly night when Korsin appeared on the twicetrodden
trail, pulling a makeshift sledge crafted from a
mess table. With thermal blankets and the remaining
foodpaks heaped upon it, Korsin had needed the help of
the Force a few times to get it down the mountain.
Straps from pouches cut into his shoulders and neck,
leaving ugly welts. The single campfire had become
several. He was glad to see them.
Ravilan appeared glad to see him, too, after an initial
surprised reaction. “The beacon! Is it working?”
“I pushed the button myself,” Korsin announced.
“And?”
“And we wait.”
Ravilan’s eyes narrowed in the smoky haze. “You know
where we are? You spoke to someone?” Korsin’s attention
had already turned to unloading the packs to anxious
crewmembers. Ravilan lowered his voice. “Where . . . are
your Massassi?”
Korsin didn’t look up. “All dead. You don’t think I
wanted to do this myself, do you?”
The quartermaster’s crimson face paled a little. “No, of
course not—Commander.” He looked back at the summit,
fading in the surrounding darkness. “Perhaps others
of us could have a look at the transmitter. We might—”
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: Precipice 29
“Ravilan, if you want to go back up there, you’re
welcome to. But I’d bring a team with some heavy
equipment, because if we don’t get some supports
under that ship, the next person who boards could take
it on its last flight.” Korsin set down the last pack and
stretched his neck. “Where are your Massassi?”
Ravilan stared. “All dead.”
Korsin stepped free, at last, from the cabling he’d
used to drag the sledge. The bonfire blazed invitingly.
So why was he so cold?
“Seelah.”
“Where’s Devore?”
He looked at her coldly. Seelah stood, her tarnished
gold uniform flickering in the firelight. “Where is
Devore?” he repeated.
“He went up—” She stopped herself. No one was
supposed to leave camp. And now, the look in Yaru
Korsin’s eyes.
She squeezed Jariad, who woke crying.
The pep talk began as many of Korsin’s did—with a
summation of Things Everyone Already Knows. But
this speech was different, because there were so many
things nobody knew, himself included. The assurance
that Naga Sadow still valued their cargo rang true for
all, and while they were clearly a long way from anywhere,
few could imagine the Sith Lord’s desire exceeding
his reach. Even if they were less sanguine about
what Sadow felt about them, Korsin knew his crew
would accept that someone, somewhere, was looking
for them.
They just didn’t need to know how long that might
take. It was too soon for that. Sadow, he would figure
out later. This place couldn’t be about what was next.
It had to be about now.
By the speech’s end, Korsin found himself growing
30 John Jackson Miller
unusually philosophical: “It was our destiny to land on
this rock—and we are bound to our destiny. For a time,
it looks like, we’re also bound to this rock,” he said.
“So be it. We’re Sith. Let’s make it ours.”
He looked toward a satellite campfire and spotted
Gloyd and the remains of his gunnery crew bristling
against the breeze. He waved them to the main bonfire.
It would be another hard night, Korsin knew, and the
supplies he’d brought would soon run out.
But he knew something else. Something he’d seen,
that no one else had.
The winged beast had carried a rider.
The Force was with them.
Gripping her son, Seelah watched the circle break.
Nodding, human Sith set to their tasks, stepping around
Ravilan, the master without Massassi. He stood aloof,
commiserating with the Red Sith and the few other surviving
aliens. Energized and triumphant, Yaru Korsin
conferred with Gloyd—keeping his confidences, as he
always had, to the huge alien. Too strong to be defeated,
too stupid to betray him—and dumb to the Force.
The perfect ally.
Turning away from the Houk, Korsin saw Seelah. A
new land to be broken to his will, and no one to stand
in his way. He smiled.
Seelah returned his gaze coldly. Thinking of Devore,
thinking of little Jariad, she made a quick decision.
Summoning all her anger, all her hatred, all her will . . .
. . . Seelah smiled back.
Devore had underestimated Yaru Korsin. Whatever
came, Seelah thought, she would not. She would bide
her time.
Time, they had.

the game

I just don't get how we go from "the sith didn't use lightsabers" and "lightsabers required power packs" to "the sith actually had lightsabers which shouldn't have been operational for another 400 years.

Well, they all had them. In fact, we better allow them their sabers anyway, because if we don't, the Lost tribe STILL shouldn't have lightsabers when Luke encounters them.

What is your source that they didn't have them?

Originally posted by truejedi
Well, they all had them. In fact, we better allow them their sabers anyway, because if we don't, the Lost tribe STILL shouldn't have lightsabers when Luke encounters them.

What is your source that they didn't have them?

Every source I have regarding the EU and regarding the ancient sith and Jedi during the Hyperspace war, states that lightsabers had powerpacks up until 4800-4600 BBY and that the ancient sith didn't use lightsabers, especially during the GHW and the first sith to use a lightsaber was Nadd.

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
first sith to use a lightsaber was Nadd.

quote

Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
Every source I have regarding the EU and regarding the ancient sith and Jedi during the Hyperspace war, states that lightsabers had powerpacks up until 4800-4600 BBY and that the ancient sith didn't use lightsabers, especially during the GHW and the first sith to use a lightsaber was Nadd.

Heres the Databank quote :
" Early lightsabers did not have self-contained power cells, and were instead connected by a conducting cable to a belt-worn power pack."
There not it all makes sense...not really.