Note: This story is understandable without any knowledge of the characters and events of Star Wars: The Old Republic. However, be advised that it does contain major spoilers for the Sith Warrior and Jedi Consular class stories, and the Shadow of Revan and Knights of the Fallen Empire expansion stories. That said, it was written before the release of Knights of the Eternal Throne, so there's no worry there.
This story is complete.
Relic Interference
Prologue
21 years after the Treaty of Coruscant (2,632 years before the Ruusan Reformation; 3,596 years before the Great ReSynchronization; 3,632 years before the Battle of Yavin)
Odessen - Secret Headquarters of the Alliance to Oppose the Eternal Empire of Zakuul
In the large, underground War Room of the Alliance, halfway up the stairs from the tunnels, Jedi Master Saery Dusklight - Commander of said Alliance - diverted her path at the beckons of her closest advisor. Lana Beniko was a Sith, but certainly the calmest and most rational Saery had ever met, and there were times that she forgot that the blonde-haired woman drew her strength from the Dark Side of the Force.
"I have something that might interest you," Lana said, looking down at her datapad even as she turned to face the Commander. "But you also may not like it much."
"An intriguing start to a conversation," Saery said. She'd been on her way to the cantina to relax after a series of tiresome meetings with her division chiefs, but with a lede like that, relaxation could wait. "What is it?"
"After your duel with Arcann and Senya's… departure…" Lana said delicately, "I thought it might be useful to focus on searching for additional allies who would be strong in that particular sense. That is, allies who would not be hampered by the Knights of Zakuul, who could at the very least stand against Vaylin for a time."
"Powerful Jedi, you mean," Saery said, tamping down on the flash of anger that came from being reminded of Senya's abandonment of the Alliance. "I agree, we need as many of those as we can get. I assume you found one, then?"
"I found a powerful Sith," Lana corrected. "You've met her before. What do you recall of the woman known as the Emperor's Wrath?"
Saery crossed her arms and frowned in recollection. "Young. Human. She was on Yavin, and helped in the fight against Revan. I don't believe I heard any news of her after that." She looked at Lana. "Now that I think of it, why would the Emperor's Wrath help us against Valkorion's children?"
"You may as well ask why Darth Marr attempted to kill Valkorion himself," Lana replied evenly. "Do not forget, we Sith have no love for our former Emperor."
"Yes, but she's the Emperor's Wrath," Saery insisted. "Doesn't her loyalty flow directly to him? I believe that's how it was explained to me on Yavin, anyway."
"On Yavin, where the goal of all assembled was to prevent the Emperor's resurrection?" Lana shook her head lightly. "It may interest you know that in the aftermath of those events, Darth Marr decreed that she should be known instead as the Empire's Wrath. Given that, and everything else I know about her, she's as likely to join with Vaylin as I am."
"All right." Saery held up her hands in conciliatory surrender. "I suppose the Wrath would be a powerful ally - and weapon. So, where is she?"
"An excellent question," Lana said, and tapped on her datapad. The holo display in the middle of the War Room shifted to a star map showing a slice of the galaxy Saery didn't recognize off-hand. "As you recall, the Wrath was present on Yavin, but by the time Vitiate had established a hold on Ziost, she had disappeared. For a long time I simply assumed she was dead."
"Then we got a whole dump of fascinating intelligence." It was Theron Shan's voice, as he approached from the far side of the War Room. Theron, an agent of the Republic's Strategic Information Service - or former agent, technically - was Saery's other top advisor. Despite coming from opposing sides of the Galactic War, Lana and Theron made for an imposing team against a common enemy, and Saery trusted them both implicitly.
And yet, not enough to admit the source of the intelligence Theron mentioned, even though she knew immediately who it must have been from. There was just no way to explain that Satele Shan, Grand Master of the Jedi Order and Theron's own mother, was traveling the galaxy beside the lingering Force ghost of Darth Marr, the now-dead commander of the Sith Empire's entire military. There was no way to explain that the pair had been on Odessen not too long ago, and had likely provided the intelligence Theron mentioned as a parting gift when they left the planet.
Saery's hand fell to her waist, and gently brushed the hilt of her new double-bladed lightsaber, which she had constructed under their supervision and instruction.
"It took some time to analyze the information," Lana said, picking the explanation back up after Theron's interruption. "Especially with all the… distractions. But I am reasonably confident that I know where the Wrath has been for the past several years, since Yavin."
"If you're about to tell me she's on Zakuul, I swear I will scream," Saery warned.
Lana paused. "No, but that has been something of a pattern, hasn't it?" She tapped her datapad again, and one dot in the star map began to pulse in red. "She is here - the Aloraga system in the Outer Rim."
"And she's been there since Yavin," Saery said, watching for Lana's nod in confirmation. "The Emperor's - Empire's - Wrath, potentially their single strongest warrior… hidden away in the Outer Rim for six years." She turned her head, as if explanations would be visible in the holo from a different angle. "What has she been doing?"
"Apparently," Lana said, "she's been waiting."
"The intelligence we so helpfully received states that she will return 'when the time is right,'" Theron explained. "I don't know what contingencies Marr was planning for when he sent her away, but if you ask me, it's long past time for her to rejoin the fight."
"I agree," Saery said shortly. She looked at her two advisors. "Put together everything you have on this Wrath, and I'll read it before I head to Aloraga. For now, I think I need a nap."
"Vette."
The blue Twi'lek looked up in surprise from the pazaak table. "Oh, hey, Commander. What's up?"
"I'd like to talk to you for a moment, if you don't mind."
"Yeah, just let me - I'm about to beat Gault." Vette turned back to the table and considered her cards.
"Keep dreaming, sweetheart," Gault said. The Devaronian con-man was leaning back in his chair, watching Vette with an expression of pure confidence, or perhaps it was a complete bluff - with Gault, it was always hard to tell.
Soon, Vette played her card, and without a second's hesitation Gault followed up with his. The table beeped in recognition of a win, and Gault grinned cheekily as he scooped up his winnings.
"What? That's not fair!" Vette exclaimed. "If you had a Double, why didn't you play it when-"
Saery cleared her throat.
"-Ah, right, sorry. Next time, Red Man, you'd better believe it." Making a vaguely threatening gesture at the laughing Devaronian, Vette fell in step with Saery as they moved to a quieter corner of the cantina. "What can I do for you, Commander?"
"I have a few questions about your past, if you don't mind." Saery gestured for Vette to sit, then took the chair opposite.
"Like, what, my time with Nok Drayen? If you're after his infamous treasure, then you're too late. It was found years ago." Curiously, Vette looked almost happy about this, but Saery put it out of mind.
"Not quite that far back," she said. "What can you tell me about the Emperor's Wrath?"
At this, Vette's face grew almost wistful. "I haven't seen her in years," she admitted. "Since before the whole business with Zakuul, even."
"Did she tell you where she was going?" Saery leaned forward slightly. She'd been rather surprised to learn that she had a former associate of her target here within her own base, and was hoping the Twi'lek could shed some light on some of the rather large gaps in Lana's report.
Vette shook her head slightly. "She said she had something she had to do alone. Said it might take a while - she released us from her service, told us we didn't have to wait around. I wanted to go with her, but she refused."
"I see," Saery said. She wasn't disappointed - she already knew where the Sith was, after all. "Can you tell me about her as a person?"
"Oh, uh…" Vette's lekku twitched a bit as she thought. "I guess I'd say… if I had to serve a Sith, Shyre is the Sith I would choose. I actually liked her, you know?"
"Shyre?" Saery repeated.
"Darth Shyre to you, I suppose," Vette said casually.
Saery then processed the rest of Vette's statement. "Was she not… Dark?"
"Oh, no, she was very Dark!" Vette exclaimed. "She was the Emperor's Wrath! If you crossed her, or if the Emperor pointed her at you, your lifespan could be measured in seconds." She snapped her fingers to emphasize. "But she also protected her crew, and she was never cruel for the sake of cruelty. She was Sith, but she wasn't evil."
"That's as good a character reference as I could hope, I expect," Saery said. "If she were here now, do you think she would join the Alliance?"
Vette drummed her fingers on the table as she considered. "On Belsavis," she said, "Shyre had to work with a Jedi to track down a prisoner she'd been ordered to kill. When the fight was over, Shyre and the Jedi just stood there, eyeing each other. And then the Jedi said that they could fight to the death, or, they could stretch their truce long enough to allow each other to leave." Vette shrugged. "Most Sith would have just killed him. But Shyre agreed he had been useful, and they went their separate ways."
"Meaning she can be reasoned with," Saery said.
"Meaning she respected strength and common purpose," Vette said. "If she agreed to work with someone, they didn't have to worry about her stabbing them in the back - unless they tried to stab hers first."
"Thank you, Vette," Saery said, standing from the table. "You've been a great help." That more or less clinched it. If Lana's analysis hadn't been convincing enough, she was sure now that the former Emperor's Wrath - Shyre - would only be an asset to the Alliance.
Now all she had to do was go to Aloraga and hope the Wrath was still alive.
Aloraga
Saery mentally reviewed Lana's report as she piloted her shuttle's final approach to the only habitable planet in the Aloraga system. The Sith who would eventually become the Emperor's Wrath - whose name, according to Vette, was Shyre - got her start at the Sith academy on Korriban. She was noticed by and apprenticed to one Darth Baras, one of the leading negotiators of the Treaty of Coruscant that ended - or, more accurately, paused - the war. Under his command, Shyre proceeded to 'forcibly end' the animosity between Baras and a Jedi Master named Nomen Karr, even turning Karr's Padawan to the Dark Side in the process.
For this victory, Shyre was promoted out of apprenticeship and given the title of Sith Lord, though she was not yet even twenty standard years old. It was apparent to all who were watching that the young Sith was a force to be reckoned with, and would only grow more powerful in time.
After a period of being pointed at various Republic military targets, Shyre suddenly dropped off the grid and was assumed dead until she dramatically re-emerged on Corellia, claiming the moniker of Emperor's Wrath and standing firm against her former master's bid for power. In the end, Shyre killed Baras herself, and the Dark Council recognized her legitimacy and granted her the rank of Darth.
As she then operated with the full authority of and autonomy from the Dark Council, there were few recorded details of her travels over the next few years. Still, one way or another, she was part of Darth Marr's task force on Yavin, and was one of the few in the group who stood toe-to-toe with Revan himself and defeated him for good.
By all accounts, she was one of the strongest fighters the Sith had, with rumors that she had never lost a fight - considering what tended to happen to Sith who lost fights, Saery was fully willing to believe this. It was an open question, however, what the years spent in isolation had done to Shyre's combat prowess. In the worst case, the Sith had completely forgotten how to wield a lightsaber, and would need time to train back up to standard.
Well, no, that wasn't the worst case. The worst case was that Shyre had gone mad from isolation and would attack anyone who tried to talk to her. That was why Saery was flying in alone. She was the only one who stood a chance of defending herself against someone as powerful as the Wrath.
She touched the shuttle down, then turned it off and locked the console. She didn't want the planet's only resident stealing her only way home. Lana would come for her eventually if she took too long to get back to Odessen, but it would be embarrassing as anything to need that kind of rescue.
She knew she was in the right area because the data that identified Aloraga also specified a particular cave. She was on a small plateau, about half a kilometer of rocky mountain terrain away. If Shyre was near the front of the cave and paying attention, Saery had already been noticed.
However, the walk to the cave passed easily and quietly. It was obvious in the Force; the dull sensation of Dark Side energy was leaking out to the mountainside, beckoning her forward with morbid fascination and anticipation. At the mouth of the cave, she tried to peer in, but the interior was completely dark, and even her hand-lamp seemed dimmer than it should.
"Hello?" Saery called in, feeling an odd compulsion to be polite, or whatever passed for polite in this circumstance. "Darth Shyre?"
Her voice had no echo at all. Unhooking her lightsaber from her belt, she kept the hilt in her right hand and the hand-lamp in her left as she cautiously crept into the dark cave. The cave extended back and down in a straight decline for longer than she expected, before curving suddenly to the right and flaring out into a grand chamber.
Something seemed oddly stale about the air in the chamber, or maybe that was just how things were in caves. Saery had little experience being this far underground. She slowly worked her way around the edge of the chamber, keeping an eye out for anything that might indicate the presence of another soul. What if Shyre had already left Aloraga years ago? What if she had never come, and the whole thing was a ruse? But no - there was certainly something of the Dark Side deeper in the cave, and if it wasn't the presence of the Empire's Wrath, then it was still something worth investigating.
All she found was a new passageway, through little more than a crack in the wall, at the rear of the chamber. Taking a deep breath, she squeezed her way through, and found herself in a room so oppressively dark that she feared, for just a heartbeat, that she had gone blind. After that first spark of panic, however, she realized that her hand-lamp had merely gone out. Troublesome, but hardly catastrophic.
She closed her eyes and trusted in the Force, then continued forward. The source of the local Dark Side energy was just a few meters forward, she could sense, but she couldn't quite determine if it was the person she sought.
The air was like molasses here; every step took more effort than the last. She found herself short of breath, as if she'd run halfway across the planet without a rest. Something was fogging her mind - she couldn't tell how long she'd been in the cave - a minute? A day? The Dark Side source was drawing closer, but slowly, so slowly, like two landmasses drifting together to cause cataclysmic groundquakes.
She teetered on the brink of something, but she couldn't tell what. She couldn't remember her life before the cave. Had she even existed before the cave? Was this inexorable march towards the darkness all she had ever known, all she would ever know?
Then her outstretched fingers touched a shoulder, and everything stopped.