Chapter 21

THRONE ROOM, DARK ENCLAVE; KORRIBAN

The turbolift doors hissed open to admit Zak to a silent, dark throne room. Truth be told, he wasn't actually expecting anyone to be here at all. However, after escaping from his cell when a guard had allowed himself to fall for Zak's ploy of needing to use the refresher, his thoughts had turned to the locked safe he'd heard of locked away in the throne room.

Alitha had mentioned it once or twice before escaping with Jacen and Talesa, and it was supposed to be where Darth Nemuritor kept all of his most valuable trophies. Zak was no fool, so he assumed that what the Sith would consider a trophy was most likely to be the lightsabers of whatever Jedi had been destroyed by either of the Sith, or their Dark Disciples.

Zak was now determined to escape this wretched place and fly to the Republic to alert them to something he was positive was truth. So, felt the seemingly irresistible urge to retrieve those lightsabers so that the Jedi of this world would be able to have some closure.

Ever-watchful of the permeating darkness of the unfamiliar chamber, Zak approached what he saw was a flight of wide steps leading to a pair of marble thrones. He was acutely aware of the echo of each step he took; it didn't seem to matter one iota how stealthy he was. It was as if the floor had been designed to echo any footsteps upon it, so that the Sith would know of anyone trying to ambush them in the dark. In fact, when Zak thought on it some more, he was positive that was the exact reason behind it.

He couldn't shake the feeling of eyes watching him, though he could sense no one in the chamber, He found this odd, but not unheard of. He knew that it was possible that Nemuritor and Devess were seated in their thrones and hiding their presences in the Force.

He reached out with all his senses, touching every corner of the massive throne room with his mind in search of anyone that could have been hiding. He was sure that he wasn't alone, he just wished that he could sense whoever it was that was with him. All of the normal systems Zak could sense were offline at the moment, with the Sith being otherwise entertained elsewhere in the citadel.

Well, all of them except one, it seemed. For some reason Zak couldn't yet fathom, Darth Nemuritor kept a hologram unit in the throne room. He had no idea what possible use it could have. He brushed over it with his mind, but found nothing and began his ascent of the steps.

He was halfway up the steps before he heard the sound of movement; angel-light footsteps and the distinct whisper of shimmersilk brushing against the floor. It approached from behind, and on instinct, he whirled around to face the aggressor. His fists were up, ready to fly if it proved to be one of the maroon-clad elite guard that appeared to follow the two Sith around almost everywhere they went.

Only it wasn't.

Zak stared into a pair of hauntingly blue eyes, eyes he remembered well from his childhood and had thought he would never see again; eyes he would always know. He gasped, shocked, and stumbled backwards, almost tripping on the step behind him.

"I have been most curious to see you, Zak," the woman said, smiling slightly.

But Zak wasn't fooled for long. It took him a moment, but finally he realised that it wasn't a woman at all, but a projection from the holographic unit he'd sensed. He couldn't sense her there, and yet she had been there. That explained why he'd felt like he wasn't alone.

When the hologram saw the realisation on his face, she smiled at him. It almost melted his heart. "Ironic, isn't it?" she said softly, taking a step to match the one he'd taken a moment ago.

Zak relaxed only a little, but he knew better than to let his guard down entirely. He couldn't be sure at all that this hologram wouldn't be as loyal to the Sith as everyone and everything else in the True Sith appeared to be.

"What is?" he asked, clearing the lump from his throat after a failed attempt.

The hologram's smile remained in place as she took another step toward him. Respectfully, Zak backed away twice as many steps, the better to keep a safe distance.

"You have no reason to fear me," Milessa Arranda said before she flickered and disappeared. A second later, she flickered back to life right next to him, smiling warmly with her hair held back and styled differently to what he had seen a second ago. "I am harmless; without substance."

As if to prove her point, she reached out to stroke his cheek softly. Instead of feeling the contact, however, Zak felt the faint buzz and discomfort of the hologram's photons passing through his face. It wasn't too unpleasant, however.

"What's ironic?" Zak repeated.

"You look so much like my boy," the hologram said sadly. Zak frowned.

Holograms were essentially computer programs with photon-created images. Who in their right mind would program a hologram that could become distracted? And why on Alderaan would Darth Nemuritor made a hologram of his long-dead mother. It made absolutely no sense.

"Aside from the markings," the woman continued. She reached out again and the tips of her fingers brushed against his left cheek. He fought the shiver it caused him. "You look so much better without that garbage."

"You haven't answered my question," he reminded the hologram.

"Oh, yes, quite right," she said suddenly. Her hand dropped back to her side and she looked away, seemingly ashamed. The hologram flickered again and the image changed to one that was more recently familiar—Tash, at the age she would have been in this world had she lived.

Nemuritor had seen some sort of sick pleasure in telling Zak about the fate of his sister. Zak hated him even more because of it.

"I think it's ironic that my Zak keeps me around, considering that I most certainly serve as a constant reminder of the most painful losses in his life," holo-Tash said plainly.

"Do you have a name?" Zak asked her. For some reason, he expected she wouldn't.

"I go by many names. Tash, Milessa, Kalf, Mammon, Deevee, Brakiss." She ticked them off on fingers as she listed them. "Mostly, Jaina just calls me 'Thing'. I prefer this form, however, as it serves as the most traumatic experience in Zak's life—the loss of the last of his family. Therefore, you may call me Tash."

"You enjoy tormenting him so?" Zak had to ask. She nodded, smiling weakly.

"It was the purpose of my creation. I don't know if you are aware, but the Sith believe in a form of self sacrifice, and feed off pain and other dark emotions to fuel their power. Constructing my matrices for the purpose of tormenting him as I do is another way to increase his power. He feeds of the sorrow I bring out in him."

"So I guess that answers why he keeps you in here."

The hologram shrugged and turned to walk past him up the rest of the steps. After a few seconds watching her ascent, Zak followed. When they reached the thrones at the top, the hologram spun in front of what Zak had to guess was Darth Devess's seat and planted herself in it gracefully. "Don't tell them," holo-Tash started, "but I really do like to sit in this thing when Jaina is not around to dismantle me for it."

Zak smirked. It did look comfortable—agreeably so, as a matter of fact—but he would rather suffer the slow digestion of a Sarlacc than to try it out to be sure. It was a symbol of what his other self and Jaina's other self had become. A small part within Zak feared that if he sat down in either seat, even for a moment, it would give ground to the lingering darkness within him and bring him that one small step closer to becoming the man he had seen in this world.

"I suspect that, at times, he also likes to hear my counsel," the hologram said with the air of mocking to her tone.

"Really?" Zak challenged. "I rather got the impression that the only opinions the Emperor likes to hear are his own or those of his wife."

"That's a matter of small debate," holo-Tash said, smirking. She sunk lower into the padding of the chair, though Zak recognised that it was only an illusion. "You know, I've never ever left this chamber."

"I could take you with me," Zak offered on impulse. When the hologram looked sidelong at him, wistfully, he half regretted it. It would only slow him down to spend that much time downloading her program to a portable drive to take with him. Already, he was wasting precious time that could have been spent launching away from this forsaken dust ball of a planet and making a beeline for the nearest hyperspace lane for the Core.

"A thoughtful offer," holo-Tash replied. "I wish to remain."

"Why?"

"As I said, Zak values my advice."

Zak didn't entirely buy the excuse. "What advice could you possibly give him? If he programmed you himself, there's nothing you could tell him that he wouldn't have already considered himself."

"Which is part of my purpose," the hologram said quickly. "Sometimes, all he needs is the reaffirming that some of his ideas are sound."

Zak frowned.

If you are planning to escape," the hologram started, breaking Zak from thoughts of arguing her last statement, "why did you waste the time you have by coming here first?"

"I want to get into the Sith's trophy safe," Zak said. He was sure that—regardless of the hologram's intended purpose—she wouldn't sell him out to Darth Nemuritor or Darth Devess. "I wanted to retrieve my lightsaber, and those of my friends. They were confiscated when we were brought here."

"Oh, well why didn't you say so?" Holo-Tash jumped out of the marble throne at once. "Follow me!" she said cheerfully.

She led him across the throne level to a dark alcove several meters to the left of the ornate chairs. When she stopped, Zak looked around himself to see if he could spot the safe. When he found he could not, he opened his mouth to demand an explanation. The hologram gave him one before he could.

"Three paces in front of you, under the deck plate. My brother keeps all throne room systems offline in his absence. I befriended a maintenance worker that was assigned to repair my unit once and he installed a back door that allows me to reactivate myself after Zak and Jaina shut everything down. But I skipped the point: with everything else shut down, I can't open the safe for you."

"That's OK," Zak said with a challenging grin. "I think I can manage."

He reached out with his left hand, his palm down and fingers splayed slightly. Additionally, he called upon what Force powers he could reach that weren't tainted by the dark side. Within moments, a two-by-two section of solid durasteel floor plating tore loose from the perfectly-concealed hinges that held it in place. The screeching of steel against steel was horrendous, but Zak was able to manage.

He casually tossed the durasteel sheet to the side, not caring where it landed. Then he reached out with his right hand, turning his palms up and hooking his fingers until they all pointed to the high ceiling of the throne room. A large durasteel object, only slightly smaller than the two-by-two was raised. Gears ground loudly in complaint, and then a half-dozen locking mechanisms clicked into place.

It required a lot of concentration, and by the time Zak had pried the thick safe door loose, he found himself both psychically and physically exhausted from the effort.

He collapsed to his knees, bracing himself against the frame of the safe and breathing heavily as he tried to will some strength back into his shaking legs.

"He … doesn't fool around … does he?" Zak huffed, looking over his shoulder at holo-Tash, who was eyeing him with obvious awe and fascination.

"No one should be able to do that!" she said in hushed tones. "Not even Jaina can pull that thing free!"

"I would say … that most things … your brother does … I … I can likely undo," Zak said generally. By this, he also meant Jaina.

Though neither of the Sith would discuss what it was that had led this sinister version of Jaina Solo to the dark side of the Force, Zak had gathered on his own that she had done so out of devotion to her Zak Arranda. He reasoned that some things were cross-universal constants. And so he'd made it his top priority to try and fix that. He didn't need to specify his meaning to holo-Tash, though. It was of no real concern to her. He might have mentioned it if there was a remote possibility of saving her brother in the process, however.

"Well; after seeing that, I won't ever doubt that claim." She approached and came down to her photonic knees by his side. "Are you all right?"

"Whatever protection he had on that thing was strong," Zak said, grateful that he had the breath for it. He pulled himself unsteadily to his feet and pressed his forehead against the cool durasteel of the safe frame while. All the while, he gulped down more and more air, and waited for his strength to build some more. "It knocked the wind right out of me."

Placed as he was, he could see the contents of the safe, and was not disappointed to learn that he had been right about its contents. There were dozens of lightsabers inside across seven shelves. He wanted to take them all, but there was simply too many of them for him to carry all at once.

"I'll be right back," holo-Tash said after gazing inside herself. She vanished, and Zak waited, and took the time of her absence to examine the lightsabers he could identify.

His own lightsaber was at the front on the middle shelf. It stretched out longer than most of the others and was still in prime condition. He guessed that Darth Devess having worn it during their first encounter was merely a goading tactic. Since it hadn't worked, they had opted to lock the weapon away instead. He scooped it up and slipped the clip into the appropriate slot on his belt before turning his gaze on two lightsabers he recognised quite well.

Jacen Solo's lightsaber was side-by-side with Talesa Valara's lightsaber. In fact, her lightsaber was flanked on the other side by an almost identical copy. The only difference Zak noticed was that the pommel was a little more rounded than the one from his friend's lightsaber, and that the status led was green rather than blue. Zak tucked both Talesas' lightsabers under his belt strap on the left of his hip, and Jacen's under the right. Then he turned to the others.

He saw Anakin Solo's weapon side-by-side with Mara Skywalker's on the shelf above the one his had been on. Both looked like they had not just been sitting there for years, untouched. Rather, they looked as if they had been taken out occasionally and polished. A lightsaber identical to that of Darth Pravus was on the bottom shelf, a little scuffed in places but more or less in good condition. Zak left it where it was as he took Mara's and Ben's in the same hand and began to scan the rest.

The hologram did not return … at least not as Tash. Mammon Hoole was standing beside Zak when the hologram flickered back to life. As per the way Zak remembered his uncle, he was stony faced and expressionless as he looked down at him. His beard was still in perfect trim and he still wore that ridiculous thing on his head.

Zak didn't smile. Seeing his uncle brought on too many bad memories. "There's an emergency pack by the secondary exit," the hologram of the shape shifter said. "I will show you on your way out. Once emptied, there should be enough room for as many as you wish to take with you."

By now, Zak had identified and picked out fourteen different lightsabers. Other than Mara and Ben's lightsabers, he'd also grabbed Raynar Thul's, Tenel Ka Djo's, and Matilda Perisca's. It made him sad to see just how many of his friends and peers from home had been brutalised, slain, in this strange place.

Pocketing as many lightsabers as he could, and slipping the rest into his belt, Zak pulled away from the safe to what he felt was adequate distance. Then, he drew his hands together in front of him and sent a powerful wave of the Force straight into the confines of the safe. All of the remaining lightsabers shattered when the wave hit them, and the door slammed shut loudly.

"You had better get out of here, young Zak," holo-Hoole said to him, looking from him to the safe, as if silently impressed by the display of power. "I have no exact estimate for when my Zak is due to return."

"This secondary exit …" Zak started, nodding to affirm that he understood. "Does it have a direct line to the shuttle deck—to any shuttle deck?"

"This way," the hologram said as it led him down the steps and veered off to the eastern side of the chamber after reaching the bottom.

Zak followed the hologram to an especially darkened part of the room, where he was pointed to a seemingly random patch of wall.

"A security holo covers the evidence that this is actually a turbolift," holo-Hoole said matter-of-factly. "It has only two destinations: this chamber, and the Sith's private landing deck ten floors up. It should come out somewhere near one of his personal shuttles. There is almost always guaranteed to be four or five shuttles in the rack at all times."

"Thank you," Zak said. He reached out with the Force for the control mechanism, found it, and then activated it.

The hologram covering the door flashed away and the door hissed open to reveal a starkly-lit, spotlessly clean lift capsule. He reached out next to the door where holo-Hoole indicated and stripped an emergency pack from a hook by the door, then upturned it and tipped its contents onto the floor. Then he loaded in all the lightsabers he'd retrieved, except for his own, in case he found himself needing it.

Just as he reached out for the controls to input his destination, a feminine hand shot out and "touched" his wrist. He looked up to see that holo-Tash was back. "Yes?" he inquired.

"Thank you," she said warmly, smiling once more. Zak couldn't help but return the smile, genuinely. His own sister's smiles were infectious, he'd found, and was surprised that this world's bastardisation of him had thought to include that in the hologram's personality. "Though he programmed me with all the memories he assumed I had of what he was like when he was younger, I myself have never actually seen it. Thank you for showing me the kind of person he once was."

"The kind of person he could still be, if the fates are on my side and I play my cards right over the next few days," Zak said. Holo-Tash's eyes shot open in disbelief. "I cannot promise you anything, though."

"Of course not," she said excitedly. "But do you really think that it's possible?"

"I'm still alive, aren't I?"

"Yes," holo-Tash said slowly. "What is your point beyond that?"

Zak smirked. "When was the last time your brother ever spared the life of a Jedi out of curiosity or on a whim?" he asked the hologram. There was no answer, and Zak accepted that as an affirmation that he was right. He punched in his destination and the lift doors sealed shut, separating from the strange facsimile of Tash.