An Empire Reborn
"Korriban shall be as it always was: a graveyard for the darkest of the Sith Lords, still whispering within their tombs. It shall always be a source of evil, spawning threats throughout the millenia. It, like Malachor, brushes the edges of the empire that waits in the dark. And like Malachor, the Sith have forgotten it – for a time. They will remember."
Darth Traya
Malgus stood on the hangar deck of the orbital security station. Throughout the hangar, crates and fuel canisters had been overturned, and the wreckage of Republic fighters littered the floor. Small tongues of flame licked up puddles of spilled fuel. At the feet of the Sith warrior lay a body, its black robe barely concealing the ugly wound where Malgus had delivered the death blow.
Five minutes ago, Malgus was an apprentice, second in command in the invasion of the planet below. Now, as the final spark of life fled Lord Vindican's body, Malgus was sole commander of the attacking forces. And, with the battle all but won, he looked out on his conquest.
The red planet Korriban. Ancient birthplace of the Sith. For a thousand years the planet had been abandoned. The ancient Sith Empire had fallen at the end of the Great Hyperspace War, and the survivors had been exiled from the seat of their power, separated from the burial site of their most venerated dark lords. Defeated and broken, the last traces of the once-mighty Sith Empire had disappeared into the mystery of the Unknown Regions.
But – after a thousand years in exile – the Sith had returned.
The dark shadow of a new Empire had fallen across the Galactic Republic. A millennium of relative peace had been shattered as an entire fleet of Harrower-class dreadnoughts had entered the Aparo Sector of the Tingel Arm. Located in the Outer Rim of the galaxy, far removed from the strength of the Core Worlds, the Aparo Sector and then the entire Tingel Arm had fallen rapidly before the Sith onslaught.
The Republic had quickly diverted troops and ships from the nearby sectors to reestablish their dominance in the area, but they had vastly underestimated the attackers. Their reinforcements were unable to retake the Tingel Arm, while their absence in the Horuset System left Korriban open for invasion. The Republic troops on the space station in orbit around the planet had all been slaughtered, along with the Jedi Master Kao Cen Darach. But Vindican's incompetence had allowed Darach's padawan to escape aboard a smuggler's ship. She would carry the news back to the Republic.
Malgus refused to tolerate such incompetence, even from his superiors. If the Sith were to win this new war, they would have to strike at full strike, without hesitation. There could be no survivors.
Raising his hand, Malgus reached out through the Force to the body of his former master. Lifting it gently, he extended his arm. The body slowly drifted away from him. With a final, sudden push, Lord Vindican slipped through the energy shield that separated the hangar from the void of space. The empty yellow eyes of the Sith glared back at Malgus, condemning him for his betrayal of the one who had taught him the ways of the Dark Side, the one who had shown him his true potential.
Malgus turned away from his unseeing gaze as he sensed the approach of another follower of the Dark Side. Moments later, the red glow of a lightsaber emerged from the corridor beyond the hangar, and with it came Bishaati Vortu, a Sith warrior of the formidable Annoo Dat Prime species.
He had led the team charged with capturing one of the station's other hangars. Now that the battle was over, he had apparently decided to search the remainder of the station for any stray survivors. The four eyes of the reptilian warrior studied Malgus as Bishaati approached, and the thin tongue darted out from between his pointed teeth, tasting the air around him. The red double-bladed saber in his hand shut off as his eyes finally came to rest on the black-robed figured floating outside the hangar.
Malgus pointed to the dead form of a Zabrak Jedi on the floor some yards away.
The Annoo Dat Prime nodded as he stepped forward to stand beside Malgus. His guarded expression made it difficult to judge whether he had bought into Malgus' lie or not. But even if he suspected Vindican's apprentice, he said nothing, choosing instead to silently pay his respects to the fallen Sith lord. After all, his own master had been slain under similarly dubious conditions just a few weeks earlier, at the start of the Tingel Arm Campaign.
As Malgus returned his gaze to Korriban, he thought of what the future would hold for the newly-reborn Sith Empire. He finally met Vindican's dead gaze, remembering the last words spoken by the Sith lord before his death.
"This… is only… the beginning."
Looking over at his fellow Sith warrior, Malgus knew Vindican was right. The war would drag on for years. Young warriors – like the two who stood here now – would face many battles and trials. But they would face many triumphs as well. And, in what he hoped was a moment of true foresight, Malgus knew they would both earn the title of Darth before the horrible, magnificent conflict came to an end.
It was the will of the Force. The Republic would fall, and a new Sith Empire – unrivalled throughout history – would rise up to take its place in the galaxy. Malgus could see the path ahead as clearly as he could see the lifeless corpse above Korriban.
There was no force in the universe that could stand against the true power of the Dark Side.