Misery
After the briefing at the mass graves, the dark lord had returned to the warehouse with Katha Niar and Lord Cytharat. Khem Val trailed behind them all, keeping a careful eye on those two, as he remained ever ready to protect his master from potential assassins. Meanwhile, the ground trembled with small and ever diminishing, but very frequent, aftershocks.
Ever since arriving on world, through The Force, Nox could feel the utterly depressed and guilt laden aura radiating from the troops and civilian personnel. Now that he knew what was behind their demoralized state, Nox wanted to inspect the troops and the civilian personal taking part in the mission to see what could be done to salvage the situation.
It was a disaster! The troops' morale, and that of the specialized personnel assigned to Darth Nox, had plummeted, hitting rock bottom. It didn't seem to him that it would be possible to reverse their state of mass depression, but he would try.
"If what Lord Cytharat had said about the scientists and of their claim that they can save the planet is true," Darth Nox speculated, "then this is our last and only hope to save the empire."
However, the dark lord believed that if the troops' and operatives' spirits were utterly crushed, then even knowing that there might still be a way to avert utter defeat would not be enough to make them operate effectively.
"These miserable worms can't learn the truth of our situation," he told himself, "We have already failed our primary mission to capture the Isotope Five, and the claims the scientists have made might just be a story they've concocted just to save their necks."
Nox called for all of the troops and operatives to assemble in the warehouse so that he could address them. The warehouse was not large enough, however, for the entire battalion and all of the civilians to assemble. In the end, only the officers and the very senior non-commissioned officers, the Black Ops team leaders, and the managers overseeing the civilian operatives had assembled in the warehouse for his address.
Surveying the leaders assembled before him, Nox shook his head in disgust.
"If the officers are this demoralized, then the common troops must be a real mess," he thought.
He cursed under his breath at the mess Darth Marr had handed him.
"Blast him! That Marr!"
Then he proceeded to explain the situation, using misdirection and misinformation to conceal from them how close to utter defeat the empire was.
"As you all probably already know, the Galactic Republic mounted a sustained and highly effective series of operations to cripple our fuel mining capabilities, destroying our stockpiles, and pressuring our third party suppliers to cease selling fuel to us. As a result, our navy is nearly stranded and almost without fuel, forced to halt offensive operations and forced into hiding."
Nox cursed under his breath again. Judging from their reactions, it was apparent that they didn't know and that he had just let the nexu out of the bag. He had no choice but to go on.
"The Imperial Navy's fuel is almost all gone. It is entirely possible that the Empire might actually lose this war because of our failure to defend such a vital resource." As an afterthought, Nox added, as though thinking out loud, "I will find out who is responsible for this humiliating failure, and be sure that they all pay dearly."
Returning to the matter at hand, he said, "But I've come to this world to steal a special material which is now in the Hutts' possession."
He did not tell them that the material was already gone as Katha had explained to him in her briefing at the mass graves just a short while ago.
"It is a special material which we shall convert into fuel for the navy. When this is done, our navy shall return to full service. The disaster shall be averted, and we shall go on to victory as it should be.
"However, I find that I'm pitted in a race against time to capture this material. The frequent and monstrous ground-quakes are threatening to impede our mission and is prompting the Hutts to prepare to move the material off world. I don't know what time I've left."
Katha and Cytharat wordlessly exchanged brief glances. This is nothing like what they told the dark lord. Two of the four Black Ops team leaders also exchanged quizzical glances with one another. They were quite certain that they had reported, to Lord Cytharat, that the Hutts had converted nearly the entire stockpile to fuel their mass production super heavy war droids.
The Black Ops team leaders remained silent, however, as Darth Nox continued his remarks. It seemed the dark lord's displeasure suddenly grew as he moved on to the next topic.
"Now it's come to my attention that there are several mass graves, not far from here, which is the result of a massacre which you all carried out a few weeks ago. These mass graves are now threatening to reveal our presence to our enemies! If the enemy has any brains, they would have programmed orbital observation probes to report unusual activities, such as the construction of mass graves just outside of an empty village.
"But, no… It isn't enough that our presence may be discovered because of these graves. Now I've come to learn that everyone here is morbidly depressed over the massacre and can't keep their minds on their damned jobs! This, despite the dire straits the Empire is in! What else has gone wrong on this mission?! What haven't I been told?!"
Nox swept his eyes across the ranks of officers and civilian operatives. Not expecting, and not wanting, an answer.
Some of the officers and operatives arrayed before the dark lord at parade rest, had been watching Katha Niar and Lord Cytharat, standing behind him to his left, fidgeting. Clearly, the two were greatly discomforted by the dark lord's remarks and his increasing anger. Any intelligent being could tell that the dark lord's speech could very easily end with their execution. What the officers did not understand was that Katha's and Cytharat's seeming discomfort was not from any fear of execution, but because the two could not understand why the dark lord was lying to the officers assembled in the warehouse.
Except for the parts about the mass graves and the very low morale, what the dark lord had said was not what they had told him. Katha was shocked that Darth Nox had mentioned the lack of fuel for the navy, and the fact that the Empire was near defeat. This was actually a rather large revelation to the Imperials assembled before the dark lord.
Until the dark lord had spoken of it, just a moment before, only Katha, Cytharat, Nox, a few members of the Black Ops teams, and Major Ordensk – who was most recently briefed, knew of the Isotope Five and of the Imperial Navy's desperate need for fuel. The rest of what he said was well known to the personnel assembled in the warehouse. After all, they'd been living it the last few weeks.
No matter what the dark lord had been saying, however, everyone there could plainly see that Darth Nox was most definitely displeased. His exasperation was plainly evident, and his anger was plainly building. No one there dared to be the one to tell him what else had gone wrong, including the fact that some of the details he said were quite wrong.
From the perspective of the two Black Ops team leaders, who were aware of the actual situation, someone had clearly lied to Darth Nox. This perception lent credence to rumors circulating among the officers and civilian personnel assigned to the dark lord that he had a tendency to order the executions of anyone who brought him bad news.
Those rumors were baseless, completely unfounded. The dark lord had never executed anyone for bringing him bad news. There were a few instances, however, when he had summarily executed those who had failed him in some way, but it was never for delivering bad news.
The Imperial Army officers were already burdened with terrible guilt for the mass murder of the villagers, but now they'd been saddled with the knowledge that their crimes could also negatively affect the mission, which meant losing the war. In their minds, there was only one individual to blame for that.
Over the past few weeks, the troops of the 31st/77th had been grumbling amongst themselves, blaming the woman they'd dubbed Death's Mistress for the slaughter they were forced to perpetrate. They blamed her for the terrible nightmares which were starting to afflict an ever growing number of their fellow soldiers as a result of her ineptitude.
Major Trent Ordensk kept a professional demeanor at all times when dealing with her but, deep inside, he utterly detested her. Morale had fallen so low that he worried the troops might start to desert, or worse, to mutiny.
He blamed Katha Niar for all of it. The mass killings, the damage done to their mission, the near uselessness of his troops, all of it was her fault he told himself. Deep down inside, however, he bore some of the responsibility, bitterly questioning his own fitness to command his troops.
"If only I had stood my ground and told her, 'No! We're not moving!' Why did I give in to her?! I knew something could go wrong!"
Now, based on the dark lord's speech, he had to wrestle with the fact that Katha and Cytharat had plainly lied to the dark lord. Even if the dark lord punished those who delivered him bad news, he deserved to know the truth of the situation. The fate of the Sith Empire depended on the dark lord knowing the truth, Ordensk believed.
"But how am I going to face Darth Nox to tell him what is really going on and survive an execution order?"
Five weeks ago, he and Commander Grett Randin had painstakingly selected their landing sight. After the ships had unloaded his reinforced battalion and left the planet, he executed the operation which he had planned and coordinated with his subordinate company commanders. They carefully, quietly, moved their troops, equipment, and supplies through the thick temperate hilly forest, arriving a week later to a site he felt was as close to the village as was possible without being discovered by the locals.
The site he had chosen was three days forced march from the nearest population center and was situated in heavily forested and difficult mountainous terrain. It was far enough away to avoid most nature hikers, campers, and hunters, but close enough to allow him to send long range scouting patrols to the outskirts of the nearest village, which was situated in a narrow, thinly forested valley.
This village lay within the valley, in between his secret base in the mountains and his objective, a series of Hutt owned deep core mining complexes, which were between four to seven day's forced march beyond the opposite end of the valley in the lowlands. This meant that after three days forced march, any long range patrol would need to carefully and stealthily march, for an additional one to three days, in the thinly wooded landscape, making their way around the village in the narrow valley before finally reaching their objectives in the prairie below.
It wasn't ideal, but at the other end of the valley, past the mining complexes were open farmlands and, not far beyond the farmlands, a medium sized city and its surrounding suburbs. Five days after he had established the camp, the special operations team he was expecting had arrived. Then everything he had carefully set up began to unravel.
Against his strongest protestations the civilian administrator who'd taken command from him, had ordered the camp moved to within a day's march from the village. She felt the encampment was ridiculously situated in the savage wilds, which was also too far away from their objectives to be practical.
Sitting at his field desk in his tent, Trent Ordensk's face remained an impassive mask as he listened to one of his subordinate officers report his worst fears become realized. A young female lieutenant had been standing at parade rest, in front of his field desk, while giving her report.
"… We successfully captured the three youths the moment they came upon our encampment, sir. Thankfully, they didn't put up a fight. They were out here hunting small game and were only armed with low powered hunting blasters."
"Very well Lieutenant Rand. Make sure they do not get away. Also, pass the word to the company commanders to strike camp. We're moving back to our original camp site."
"Are we taking the youths with us, Sir?"
"We have no other choice. We can release them when our mission is completed," but to himself, the major thought, "That is if we can survive our suicide mission."
Trent Ordensk was convinced that as soon as the local military forces learned of their presence, on world, that his battalion would be quickly outnumbered, outmatched, and wiped out. Their only hope for survival was to complete their mission in secrecy, and win an opportunity to have his unit extracted after the mission.
Stomping her boot, Lieutenant Rand snapped out her reply, "Yessir!"
The young lieutenant turned smartly about to march out of the tent as the major rose from behind his desk. Trent stepped out of his tent and walked briskly to the tent next to his.
"Administrator Niar? It's Major Ordensk. We need to talk," he said, firmly.
"Come in, Major."
Katha Niar could tell by his abrupt tone, at her tent flap, that the major was going to whine about something. As he entered her tent, she stole herself, readying herself to put him in his place. She couldn't read his face, however.
"As long as his mouth stays shut, he would make an excellent sabacc player," she thought.
The major snapped to attention in front of her desk, then relaxing his stance, announced, "I'm ordering the operation back to our original camp site. We haven't even finished setting up camp, here, and already we've been discovered by three youths. We've taken them captive."
Katha Niar bolted to her feet ready to object, but Trent held up his hand, forestalling her protests.
"Those youths will be missed!" he shouted. Then lowering his hand, he added in a professional tone, "It won't be very long before their parents and the authorities will come searching for them. We have no other choice; we must move."
"This failure is yours, Major!" Katha snapped angrily, instantly regretting her words.
"That is correct, Administrator Niar!" Trent said, instantly incensed, but he battled to restrain himself, fighting to maintain his composure, adding, "Had I stood firm and resisted your order, I wouldn't have failed my mission to maintain the secrecy of our presence on this world."
Katha sank back into her chair, recognizing that ultimately she would be the one held responsible for any failures to their mission.
"Very well, Major." Katha spoke in a subdued tone. "Move the camp back."
"Yessir!"
Two hours later, the camp was taken down. Everything was packed and the battalion was ready to march. They would march for two days, the same number of days it took them to get to their current location. Major Ordensk was moments from giving the order to move out when a messenger ran up to him to report.
"Major Ordensk, sir! Private Hemmet reporting, sir!"
"Report, Private Hemmet."
"Sir, one of the prisoners has escaped. Lieutenant Rand sent Sergeant Sato's squad to go after him. That is all, Sir!"
"Very well, Private. Message received. You're dismissed."
"Sir!"
The Imperial soldier stomped his boot, turned about and marched a few steps before taking off at a run to return to his unit. Meanwhile, Trent walked briskly, making his way to Lieutenant Rand's platoon. It took him some time to make his way about half way back along the long column of restless soldiers in their dark grey uniforms and the mechanically motionless war droids in their woodland camouflage paint scheme, all waiting for the order to begin marching. Major Trent Ordensk's calm, unflappable exterior belied the panic stampeding within his mind as he made his way to Lieutenant Rand's platoon.
Upon seeing her battalion commander approach, Lieutenant Rand snapped to attention.
Relaxing her stance, she reported, "I'm deeply sorry, Sir. Somehow he got out of his restraining collar, which I think had malfunctioned. Private Patross was making an entry in his personal journal and was not properly watching the prisoners. He was therefore unaware that the prisoner had gotten free from his restraining collar until the prisoner made a break for it. Sergeant Sato took his squad and ran after him."
The young officer became visibly uncomfortable as she reported the worst.
"Sergeant Sato's men had to kill him to stop him from reporting our presence to the local authorities, Sir."
"What?! Why?! What happened, exactly?!" Reining in his shocked surprise and regaining his composure, he added calmly, "Start from the beginning, Lieutenant."
"The youth made it to his parked speeder bike and managed to dial up the local authorities, but was shot before he could speak. The troops destroyed the holo-transceiver with blaster fire to stay out of view of the authorities while ending the transmission. Sergeant Sato requested reinforcements to set up an ambush. He expects, and I agree, that a large contingent of local constabulary forces will respond. I sent a war droid to reinforce his squad, Sir."
"Very well Lieutenant Rand."
Major Ordensk paused to think a moment before issuing new orders.
"Stay here with your platoon. Be ready to reinforce Sergeant Sato's ambush if needed. Clean up the ambush site after it's done. Hide the bodies and the wreckage in the woods well away from the road. Leave no telltales behind. Then give me the after action report together with Sergeant Sato after you've caught up with the battalion."
"Yes, Sir!" She stomped her boot on the forest floor, snapping to attention, then turned smartly about to issue orders to her platoon.
As he marched briskly back to the head of the column, he thought bitterly, "This is getting worse by the minute! I should not have listened to that stupid woman!" An angry sneer marred his no longer calm exterior as he asked himself, "Who is stupider of the two, the administrator who gave the stupid order, or the officer who stupidly followed it!"
Five hours later, flanked on either side by the wild forest, four marked speeders slowed to a crawl as they approached the three speeder bikes parked on the side of the dirt road. The black and white units finally came to a stop twenty meters from the parked bikes. The doors of the police units opened and eight armed uniformed constables exited the patrol units. They cautiously approached the young man's shot up speeder and spotted his scorched corps, partially obscured by the wild vegetation, lying beside his bike.
As the eight law enforcement officials cautiously approached the last few meters to the dead youth's body, a big noisy ruckus of snapping branches and tearing bushes, in the woods further down the road, caught their attention. A huge six legged droid in a woodland camouflage paint scheme tore out of the brush and trees and onto the dirt road from the same side of the road the bikes were parked. The three meter high war droid turned its twin blaster cannons towards the lawmen and began firing on the lawmen's four police units parked several meters behind them, destroying their vehicles one after the other.
The lawmen each activated their personal shield generators, and then began firing their blaster pistols at the Imperial war droid. Immediately thereafter, the squad of Imperial soldiers opened up from the side of the road opposite of the parked speeder bikes. Police issued blaster pistols and shield generators were no match for the powerful Imperial military blaster rifles. In mere seconds, their shield generators very quickly depleted, and the lawmen soon fell to the merciless storm of blaster bolts.
Major Trent Ordensk was filled with fury, but he worked hard to restrain himself, to not say anything unnecessary, as he completed his report to the mission commander, Katha Niar.
"Currently, my troops are dragging the bodies and the destroyed vehicles off of the road and into the bush. With a village as small as the one the young men and the constables had come from, I'm guessing that those eight were their entire constabulary force. I have no doubt that the youths and the lawmen will be missed. I fear the villagers will call for aid from the neighboring villages. It will not be very long before the bodies and the destroyed vehicles will be found, and then they'll call for help from the city, bringing in advanced tactical resources and much larger numbers."
Katha Niar had been sitting on a fallen tree trunk with her elbows on her knees, her face buried in the palms of her hands, and her head slowly shaking side to side. Lord Cytharat stood silently behind her, his face an impenetrable mask that refused to give away what he thought of the situation.
Major Ordensk added, "We shouldn't have moved so close to the village, but going deeper into the forest now will be pointless. In a few hours, there will likely be a large search effort made for them unless we can stop the villagers from calling for help."
Katha Niar gulped back her fear, thinking, "We haven't even started the mission, and already, we are about to be discovered!" In great self reproach she admitted to herself, "And it is my fault… I should have listened to him."
Major Ordensk gave his recommendations.
"We can quickly, quietly surround the village, set up jamming emitters to cut off all of their communications. Then we can capture the villagers and keep them imprisoned until…."
Katha Niar felt revulsion even as she forced the words out of her mouth, barely audible, interrupting the major.
"Excuse me, ma'am?" Major Ordensk asked; he hadn't heard what she'd said. Her face was still buried in the palms of her hands when she spoke again.
"Destroy the village," then clarifying what she'd meant, she added, "Kill everyone in the village. No survivors. Do it before they sense the missing constables and the youths."
For the first time, the Sith lord exposed some of what he thought, when he nodded his approval of the order. Ordensk was stunned, however, and protested his orders.
"We don't need to slaughter all of those people! We can keep them captive, isolated until..."
Lord Cytharat spoke for the first time.
"Your suggestion is unrealistic, Major. You're lines will be stretched too thinly, and surely some of the villagers will escape captivity, and they will report our presence here."
"But, my lord, to slaughter so many just to stay in hiding..."
"If we fail our mission here," Lord Cytharat explained, "then we shall bear witness to the destruction of the Sith Empire."
"My lord, we're skulking about just to take a closer look at a stinking Hutt mine! What in damnation is so important about a mine that...?"
"Major!" Katha Niar cut Trent Ordensk off again. Finally looking him in the eye, she explained, "The Imperial Navy is nearly out of fuel. More than two thirds of the fleet has already been pulled out of service and put into hiding to conserve fuel. We are here to steal the material the Hutts have mined in order to fuel our fleets."
Trent Ordensk descended into a deep state of shocked disbelief on hearing what Katha Niar had just told him.
Turning to look at Lord Cytharat, Ordensk asked, "Is the Empire so desperate to keep the fleets operating that we must resort to stealing fuel?"
Neither Katha nor Cytharat answered his rhetorical question. Into the short silence, Ordensk gave his professional opinion.
"Then we have lost the war. We're just prolonging our final defeat by stealing what little fuel has been mined from these mining complexes….."
"This material is not the normal fuel our fleets depend on," Lord Cytharat said, explaining, "If our ships' reactors are modified to run on this material, then the fleets would not need to be refueled for the life of each ship, and there is enough here to fuel the entire navy."
After listening to everything that was at stake, Trent Ordensk realized he was left with no other alternatives. The very survival of the Sith Empire depended on their ability to succeed with this mission. To be discovered by the local authorities would certainly make it impossible for them to do what was needed and would betray the Empire's purpose for being on this world to their enemies. Their enemies would then make a powerful effort to deny the Empire access to the new fuel needed to operate its fleets.
"And the prisoners?" he asked.
His stomach turned, knowing what the answer was going to be.
Her voice was husky, "Them, too." Katha gulped back the bile in her throat, averting her eyes from the Major's, as she confirmed, "No witnesses."
The major betrayed the anxiety he felt when he removed his dark grey officer's cap and combed his fingers through his hair before replacing his cap.
"That might buy us a few days at worst, or a few weeks at best. After that, their silence will start to raise questions from the other villages in the region."
Katha, her eyes cast to the ground before her feet, nodded acknowledgment of the major's assessment.
There was nothing else to discuss. He stomped his boot and snapped out his reply, "Yes, Sir!"
Major Ordensk turned about and marched away to carry out his grim task.
The operation lasted ten hours. The Black Ops teams stealthily deployed eight Local Area Field Transmission Cancellers around the village in an octagonal pattern. No communications signals would be able to be sent nor received once the communications frequency jammers were activated.
Once the 31st/77th had established their perimeter around the village, the jammers were activated and the war droids moved swiftly into town, rushing down the streets, destroying any occupied vehicles, and taking out any targets of opportunity – pedestrians.
The people, in a panic, ran into any building they could flee into to hide from the war droids' insanely accurate, extremely fast, and horrifically murderous blaster cannon fire. Many hundreds of people tried calling the constabulary, but there was no holo-communications service. Hundreds more attempted to call friends or family in town or at the neighboring villages, suburbs, and the city, but their calls could not get through. Others looked to the local news broadcasts for information, but none of the stations seemed to be transmitting. A complete communications blackout had been achieved.
Right behind the war droids, the troops swept into the village going house to house, building to building, rounding up the villagers. There was a large amount of confusion amongst the villagers. Many of them mistook the Imperials for the Regulator mercenary army working for the Hutts on Makeb.
"Hutt tail kissing scum! Hutt tail kissing scum! Hutt tail kissing scum!" some of the more brazen villagers had taken to shouting in a chant at the misidentified Imperial soldiers.
The people were all taken to the village center, and held in a hasty field prison established in a park in the center of town.
Any villagers that managed to escape, or evade capture, were shot dead by war droids patrolling the streets or by Imperial troops set on the perimeter around the village. When it was assured that all of the surviving villagers had been gathered, they were marched three hundred at a time to the edge of town, where captured work droids had been used to dig mass graves. The villagers were massacred at the graves, after which the work droids were tasked to neatly arrange the dead in the deep trenches, in order to maximize the capacity of each trench.
Throughout the night and into the early morning hours, Major Ordensk unmercifully worked his troops hard. He drove them like expendable slaves, not permitting his men and women to pause, even to rest for a short time.
Major Ordensk tasked his men and women to commandeer commercial transport speeders to recover the bodies of their victims from the streets, from within destroyed speeders, from the outskirts of town, and from within several buildings and homes, where some of the people had resisted the soldiers with their civilian grade blaster pistols. The bodies were then transported to the mass graves.
He ordered his troops to hide the wreckage of speeders, removing them from the streets and from the sides of buildings where some of them had crashed. He ordered the wreckage stuffed into garages and crammed into parking structures to get them out of sight from orbital and aerial observation.
His troops were exhausted, but he kept them working, driving them as he established the new camp site at the edge of town in the woods. That afternoon, as his company commanders reported to him the progress of the work done to hide their horrific crimes of the previous day, he reflected, for the first time in his distinguished seven year career, that he thoroughly hated being an Imperial Army officer.
The troops of the 31st / 77th had set their encampment hidden in the woods outside of town beyond the warehouse complex and the mass graves further out. Katha Niar had been using the largest warehouse at the complex as her headquarters. The troops had been living in their tents at the outskirts of the village for almost three weeks.
Each morning, those with duties at the warehouse complex walked past the mass graves to get to the structures to do their work. At the end of each day they walked back, past the mass graves, to return to their tents in the encampment. Over the past few weeks, the mass graves were starting to blend into the background in the minds of some of the officers. They were starting to forget, to push the memories of what had transpired out of their consciousness.
However, not even an hour had gone past after Darth Nox's arrival on world, that things began to go from worst to catastrophic. The chaos of three weeks ago had come crashing back to the minds of the Imperial officers and operatives assembled for the dark lord's inspection, forcing them to relive – in the worst possible way – the horrific crimes they'd committed only a few weeks before.
After his short and private briefing from Administrator Katha Niar and Lord Cytharat, the dark lord had returned to the warehouse, and after making a short speech in which he loudly complained about everything that had gone wrong, the first order he gave the military officers and specialized civilian personnel was to take up residence in the now vacated homes of the slain. Additionally, he ordered them to set up operations in the various shops and offices in the small town's tiny commercial district.
Major Ordensk took in a deep breath, and quietly sighed out his deep frustration.
"What was I thinking? Why did I expect things would improve when the dark lord took over after his arrival?"
He knew that the personal effects of the mass execution victims, their clothing, toys, family holographic portraits, etc, would haunt the men and women now working for the dark lord. However, the madness didn't end there. The dark lord then ordered all of the personnel assigned to the mission to dress in the clothing found in the homes of their victims. Many of the officers and non commissioned officers gasped and let out short groans of surprise and shock at their orders, as did the civilians listening to the dark lord.
Major Ordensk wondered how he was going to enforce such orders without completely destroying what little unit cohesion remained. He could barely bring himself to even imagine himself putting on the clothing of those whose slaughter he had orchestrated, let alone order it of his troops. He was grateful that the warehouse was only large enough to permit the assembly of his officers and senior noncommissioned officers. That gave him a chance to figure out how to break the orders to his troops.
Meanwhile, through The Force, Nox could very clearly feel their suddenly increased despair, guilt, and misery. Though it irritated him greatly that he had to clean up the huge mess created by these 'very best people' provided to him by his rival, Darth Marr, Darth Nox found it necessary to address the officers and civilian personnel about the massacre.
"Darth Marr gave very explicit orders to keep out of sight. Yet, you were discovered. It was your failure for allowing it to happen.
"Normally, such failures would be dealt with by compromises and adjustments to mission parameters and goals or, in a few cases, with mission abandonment. However, these are not at all normal circumstances. In our case, being discovered and mission failure would mean the end of the Sith Empire.
"Therefore, it would not do to let the failure of your discovery be compounded by allowing your presence be reported to the local officials. Allowing the local officials to know of our presence here, is the same as telling the Galactic Republic that we are here.
"To keep in compliance with Darth Marr's directive and to ensure mission success, you took very harsh and necessary measures to keep your presence concealed. You massacred and buried the local townsfolk. The very survival of the Empire required this terrible act, and you did what was necessary.
"The Empire's continued existence, or its assured destruction, rests entirely on the success or failure of our mission here. It really is as simple as that. Darth Marr and I are betting everything on our success, here on this world.
"Failure here will mean the end of the Sith Empire. There really was no other choice for you to make. What you did, here, had to be done."
Nox knew he was repeating himself, but he felt the seriousness of the situation could not be understated. He swept his eyes across the light infantry officers, Black Ops team leaders, and specialized civilian operatives assigned to support his mission on Makeb. The Force allowed him to feel their abject guilt and self loathing. The Force also revealed to him, to his great surprise, that some of them did not believe him.
"They think I'm lying!"
Nox didn't realize that a few of the officers believed he'd been misinformed because of the incorrect information he gave earlier.
"Do they not understand what is at stake here?!"
Nox worried greatly that, in their current state of mind, they would end up failing him and failing his mission – if there was still a chance to save the empire. He knew, however, that attempting to minimize their crimes would only cause their morale to plunge even lower – if such a thing was even possible.
"I must keep them focused," Nox thought, "I must keep them from wallowing in their guilt or they will remain useless to me!"
He pleaded with them.
"We can win!" he declared, with such passion.
"We can win, but we must be willing to do whatever is necessary to obtain victory, even if it means killing everyone in the village!"
Through The Force, Nox could feel their indecisiveness, as they mulled over his words. He was becoming desperate, knowing he could not succeed without their help.
Nox pointedly told them, "Whether the Sith Empire continues to thrive in victory, or whether it dies in the ashes of defeat. Whether the Sith Empire succeeds against our hated enemy, the Galactic Republic, or whether we are brought to ruins by our greatest enemy, it will all be entirely decided here, by you."
Nox was not encouraged by the reactions of the officers and operatives to his speech. If anything, The Force revealed that their morale had become worse.
"However, we are still left with a very serious problem. A village without people in it is also suspicious and can attract the attention of the Hutts, their minions and, eventually, the Galactic Republic. You must occupy these homes and wear the locals' clothing to hide the massacre – at least until we've accomplished our mission. Success or failure here will save or end the Empire."
Katha Niar spoke out of turn, interrupting Nox's talk.
"Dark Lord, what do we do about incoming holo-calls from relatives of the deceased, or their visitors?"
The dark lord spun about to face her, angrily jabbing a finger in her direction. Katha grasped her throat with both hands. She found herself unable to take air into her lungs, nor to let air out. She hung suspended in the air, her feet kicking about, futilely searching for the warehouse floor.
Lord Cytharat was startled buy the sudden and unexpected attack. He quickly stepped away from Katha, not wishing to antagonize the dark lord.
"You should have thought of that before you gave the order!" Nox snarled, rankled by her interruption.
Mentally kicking himself, he lowered his arm and, after gently returning her to the resicrete floor, he turned to face the officers and operatives again. Katha dropped to her knees, coughing as she fought to bring air passed her reopened epiglottis.
Nox worried that his display of anger had damaged what little spirit they had left. Instead, he was surprised to feel their sudden and very intense surge of fury and hatred aimed at Administrator Katha Niar. The feelings he felt coming from them was an intense desire to see her dead.
"Don't answer the calls," he said, answering her question in a civil tone, "and don't place any calls on their holo-transmitters, either. That would be another way to announce our presence here." Turning to look Katha in the eye, as she tearfully rose to her feet, he callously added, "Dig another mass grave. Dump the bodies of any visitors that come to town into it until we've accomplished our mission and leave this world."
Making that dig at her turned out to be a mistake, however. The Force revealed that he had undone almost all of the progress – what little of it that was made – towards recovering their spirits. The officers and operatives did not want to kill anymore civilians.
Darth Nox felt their self loathing grow, and felt their already weakened resolve further erode. His anger grew as he returned his gaze to the personnel assembled in the warehouse.
"Orbital observation must not detect a town without people in it!" he said sternly, unyieldingly adding, "Before the end of this day, you shall all be quartered in these houses and running operations from these commercial buildings, and you shall all be wearing the local civilian attire! Is that clear?!"
The light infantry officers and the Black Ops team members all reflexively shouted, "Yes, Sir!"
The officers' shouted reply was in contrast to the civilian operatives, whose voices were drowned out by the soldiers, as they answered in subdued tones, "Yes, Dark Lord."
15