Epilogue

Eleven years later

Jason stood on the bridge of the capital ship Glorious Fire. He always liked the name. It seemed right to him to remember the little machine that had sacrificed everything for their sake.

Helen had named it, about three years ago just after their wedding. It was one of the last ships still in service. The others were either decommissioned or destroyed in the last few engagements about a month ago.

It was odd. The Covenant just stopped sending forces. They had some wins and so did the Republic, but they never severely crippled the Covenant into hiding. Something else caused the Covenant's relative disappearance. It was possible that it was the other humans, the ones fighting in the unknown regions.

These other humans were apart of a government that called themselves the UNSC. The Republic found worlds in the unknown regions that had obviously been ambushed by the Covenant, but also found the remnants of primitive ships that used the same form of travel as the Covenant. These destroyed ships told them little about the humans, but enough to distinguish them as allies. They had never come into contact with any of them, giving them the impression of ghosts.

With the disappearance of the Covenant, Jason assumed it was caused by the UNSC. But he knew that it could have been the cause of something else entirely. Something he believed destroyed eleven years ago. The Flood. It still survived within other Forerunner installations across the galaxy, sleeping and waiting for the time to return to the galaxy.

They had never found any other installations other than the Destroyer one. It scared him to think of what would happen should the Sith ever got control of one of them. But if they couldn't find more installations in eleven years, he doubted the Sith could. Especially with the Republic searching for them.

A week ago, the Sith fled. Leaving behind their warships for exile. They would be back. How long that would be could only be guessed at. There was about two thousand of them after all, including Darth Trepid.

Currently, they were heading to the Alderan system. Helen and Jason had been there on several occasions, and they both decided it would be a wonderful place to settle down. Jason had already given the council his lightsaber and had officially left the order, but the council felt they owed him and his wife and gave them free transport to Alderan.

"It's going to be weird, wont it?"

Jason turned to see Helen and Keelu striding toward him. "No doubt" he said to his old master, "It'll be different, not being in the order."

"You're still ok about this?" Helen asked.

Jason smiled and reached for her hand, "Definitely. Being with you is too important."

"If that is your decision" said Keelu, "then I'm happy for you Jason"

"Commander Kiel" called out the navigation officer "we will be dropping out of hyperspace in several minutes"

Jason was about to respond when his vision blurred. At first he though there was something wrong with him, but then he felt a familiar presence. He couldn't be sure, but if felt like his sister was nearby. He stretched out with the force and instead of finding his sister, he saw something. He saw himself, maybe a little older, looking out on a field of grain, an enormous mountain stretching up in the background.

He didn't know what he was looking at until he spotted some movement in the grass. His older self saw the movement in an instant, his eyes tracking it as it moved forward. Jason had no clue what was coming and he could see his older self brushing his hand against his side, feeling for a lightsaber that was no longer there.

His older self let out a sigh of relief when two children, twin boys by the look of them, came running out of the field, their faces flushed from a game of tag. He bent down and scooped the two of them up in his arms, the three of them laughing. One of the children pointed over his shoulder and they turned to see a smiling Helen with a baby girl cradled in her arms.

The vision ended as suddenly as it began, and he was back on the bridge staring into the worried faces of Keelu and Helen.

"You saw a vision" Keelu stated, "What did you see?"

Jason smiled "Something wonderful."

Lord Trepid powered up his light cruiser and launched out of the Star Destroyer's hangar bay. Using the rear view monitor he could see the rest of the ship's occupants were also doing the same.

The war against the Covenant had officially not to long ago. The Republic was victorious, but at the expense of several dozen worlds and almost twelve billion lives.

Trepid knew the Republic would come for them at the war's end and remained one step ahead of them. The Sith armada had taken a pretty rough beating during the war, dwindling its forces to just two ships. They abandoned the one smaller ship, the Crimson Star, for the larger one called Death's Hand which they also abandoning at this point.

To avoid attention, the dark council agreed for all remaining Sith to flee and hide and rebuild their numbers. The Republic had come out of the war crippled and weak, but they still had the ability to end the Sith if they had the chance.

Around him, thousands of other small cruisers of large fighters left the star destroyer. There was about a thousand of them, carrying less than two thousand Sith. It would be a long time before the Sith rose to confront the Republic again, but when it would, the Sith would have a weapon the Republic would never be able to match.

As he programmed the nav computer for a short jump to the banking planet of Mygeeto, Trepid pulled out his data pad and slid a small chip into the empty data slot. The schematics of the long dead Destroyer Installation flashed to life. It had been ages since the monitor gave him the schematics, and he hoped technicians could eventually replicate it.

He needed to give it a new name though. The Destroyer was a name given by the Forerunners, not the Sith. He thought briefly about the last two surviving Star Destroyers, now abandoned by their masters. The Crimson Star and Death's Hand.

It came to him gradually, and he made a suitable name.

The Death Star.

He typed the name into the data pad, making it the new title. He also remembered the monitor, and how its eye bore an old forerunner symbol. He quickly sketched a small circle with six lines extending to meet a hexagon. The original symbol had lines meeting another circle, but he decided to change it from a Forerunner design to a Sith one. The new sign of the future Sith.

With a satisfied grin Trepid returned the data pad to his belt and waited for the ship to drop out of hyperspace.

He didn't need to wait long. Hyperspace soon disappeared in exchange with the black, starry vacuum of real space. Hanging in front of him like a blue, grey jewel was the world of Maygeeto.

Trepid piloted his ship down onto one of the more exclusive landing pads. The Sith wrapped his cloak around him and made his way out into the cold air of the planet.

He entered the main building and navigated it's corridors, making his way to the oldest bank on the planet. When he stepped through the glass doors, a musty smell filled his nose, telling him he was probably in the right place.

Trepid approached the reception desk slowly, his hood almost completely covering his red eyes. A female Rodian perked up behind the desk as he neared

"Hello sir" said the Rodian, "how may I help you?"

"I require access to my vault" Trepid said flatly.

"Alright, and what is your name sir?"

"Sienar, Carnell Sienar." Trepid hadn't used his real name since before he became a Sith.

The Rodian checked the computer's records before getting up and exiting the desk.

"Please follow me" she said, beckoning to a long hallway. Trepid did so and together, the two of them traversed down the length of corridor to the near end.

The Rodian stopped by a large door with a hand scanner. Trepid placed a grey hand on the scanner and waited for it to open the vault. The scanner chimed and a green light flashed on.

Trepid stood back and watched as his family's vault opened before his eyes. When the door was wide enough he stepped inside and found an empty pedestal at the vault's center. He reached into his cloak and retrieved the data pad with the Death Star schematics.

He gingerly placed the data pad on the pedestal and left the vault, not even taking notice to the family treasures around him. Trepid smiled as he walked back to his ship. By committing this final act, he had sealed the galaxy's future.

Not many people knew, but Trepid had a brother, one who never knew of Trepid's turn to the dark side. The man Trepid once knew was married, and even had children. He never understood the vision he had seen until he discovered this information.

The force had once shown him his descendent, Raith Sienar, would deliver the Death Star schematics to the future Sith. His relative was clearly on his brother's side and had no true ties to the Sith. Either way the man would find the schematics in the vault and hand the Sith a weapon of unmatched power.

He had fulfilled his destiny, now he had to do his part to keep the Sith alive. And to do that, he needed to find an apprentice.