Vette looked into the mirror, the imperial uniform was now her usual garb, but somehow it still made her feel… strange. In her mind she still was the same woman as before she became Badesh's slave, and she grew only slowly accustomed to the fact that she had become an imperial soldier and had already completed her first planetary conquest. She glanced at her new rank insignia. Grand Moff Kilran had invited them to celebrate the imperial victory on Corellia and had promoted her to Ensign. She washed her hands and stepped out of the loo. She returned to the party which was held in a large hall on the imperial fleet station. She scanned the room and found Badesh, he was talking to a tall bald Sith. Quinn came to her and handed Vette a glass of champagne.
"That's Darth Malgus," he explained, "I suspect Lord Badesh now has the necessary support to challenge Darth Baras."
"A duel to the death, huh?"
"Yes, I've read that it usually takes place in the chambers of the Dark Council on Korriban."
In this moment Badesh and Malgus approached them. Malgus was white as a sheet and breathed heavily through a respirator, his eyes shone in a deep red. "My Lord," they said unison and bowed before the Darth.
"Ah, Ensign Ce'na, good to meet you. Your example enabled me to further my campaign for aliens in the imperial armed forces."
Vette said with a firm voice: "Thank you, my Lord. I'm honoured."
Badesh turned towards Quinn. "Captain, prepare the Fury for take-off. Darth Malgus informed me about an emergency mission – I will brief you on our way to Kaon."
"Right away, my Lord." Quinn bowed and left.
Vette stayed behind and felt awkward between the two towering Sith. She nipped on her champagne and almost spilled her drink when Malgus addressed her again. "Ensign, get us two glasses of champagne, I want to make a toast before Lord Badesh has to leave."
"My Lord," she rushed to the servo-droid and took the drinks before returning to the Sith.
"To the Empire, Lord Badesh! And to a better future!" called Malgus and clinked his glass to Badesh's, ignoring Vette. The Darth reached to his respirator and removed it to drink. Vette only caught a glimpse of his jaw but it was clear that his face was really messed up, there was almost no flesh in the lower region of his face, and frankly Vette had seen corpses who looked healthier as Malgus.
"Ah, my Twi'lek gave me the same look after she saw my face."
"My Lord, I apologize…"
"No need, Ensign. My scars are both commendations as well as souvenirs from my many battles." He took another gulp, and sealed his mask again. "Enjoy he carnal pleasures as long as possible, Lord Badesh. There comes a time when a Sith won't be able to find a decent fuck anymore, at least not a willingly one." The Darth slammed his glass on a near servo droid and left without another word.
"What a creepy guy," whispered Vette. Badesh remained silent and just left, Vette followed him to the Fury. She was worried about Badesh, he had achieved so much and still he wasn't exactly happy or whatever the Sith equivalent was. And she suspected that Malgus commentary had brazed Badesh in a deeper way than he let on.
xxxxx
"Darth Malgus has informed me that Darth Nox is currently on a mission to investigate the city-planet Kaon. But he hasn't reported in for the last three days and we're to make contact with him," Badesh told his crew as soon as the Fury had made the hyperspace jump. Quinn's eyebrow rose and Badesh answered the question before the Captain even posed it. "I need Darth Nox' personal support to challenge Baras, and I want to duel this son of a hutt as soon as possible."
Upon arrival in the Kaon system they were hailed by an imperial destroyer circling the planet's orbit. After a brief conversation with the commanding officer it became clear that shortly after Nox had reached the planet's surface to accept it surrender to imperial might all communication went down. "According to the planetary comchatter there has been an outbreak of the rakghoul-virus," explained Commander Byzal.
"I always thought this plague was confined to Taris," remarked Badesh.
Byzal nodded. "It is, and frankly, the speed in which the populace had been infected and turned into mindless beats suggests Bio-Terrorism. Whoever did this wanted to make sure that the Empire wouldn't lay its hands on Kaon. Either that or this is a rather complex assassination attempt on Darth Nox' life."
"It does not matter, Commander, I need to find Darth Nox, please send me his last known coordinates – we are going down."
"Of course, my Lord. I will send a shuttle with necessary equipment, our studies on Taris have enabled us to develop a rather strong vaccine with a 95% success-rate. I recommend further to wear full body armour. I've already deployed several search parties and will inform you about any findings."
An hour later their shuttle touched down in the government district. Vette and Quinn stepped out, both wearing a black armour like the imperial infantry. Quinn also wore a helmet, but Vette's lekkus had made it impossible for her to wear it too. Badesh sat on the ground and started to meditate while his companion scanned the perimeter. Shredded bodys lay across the place, it seemed as if most of the people had become the rakghoul's prey instead of becoming them. Badesh stood up. "Strange, I feel nothing of the usual dread-aura surrounding Darth Nox. Yet I don't believe that he would die because of a few animals." His voice sounded distorted, Vette found it quite unnerving to see him in full Sith armour. Besides his usual heavy plated battle-robes he also wore a skull-like helmet. Quinn displayed a city map on his holocommunicator. "Darth Nox' shuttle is docked at the spaceport, more than 50 kilometres away from here, my Lord."
"So he would look for another opportunity to escape the planet," interjected Vette.
"Precisely. Not far from here is a hospital, I could imagine that he would try to reach one of the shuttles there."
"Captain, can we take our shuttle there?" asked Badesh.
"Negative, it is too large to land on the roof and it's probable that the streets are too narrow to land directly in front of the hospital."
"All right, I take point," said the Sith, "and stay together."
The advanced further into the city, the towering buildings allowed almost no light in the streets. Suddenly Vette heard a roar and a small pack of rakghouls jumped out of a widow just above them. "Five incoming!" she yelled and started shooting, two went instantly down, Badesh took care of another two while Quinn shot the last one. Vette looked at the… things and couldn't believe that these greyskinned, feral beings had been sentient humanoids a short while ago. They proceeded with caution and after an hour of walking they heard screams and as they reached a crossing they saw how a pack of ten rakghouls surrounded a taxi wreck and tried to scratch their way into the vehicle. The screams indicated that there were at least four people inside. "We have to help them!" said Vette and drew her blasters.
"No," said Quinn, "we have to complete our mission."
In this very moment one of the rakghoul spotted them and hissed. Badesh ignited his lightsaber and jumped right at it. Before Vette or Quinn had the chance to shoot any of the rakghouls the Sith had already slewn them all. The Twi'lek was amazed, Badesh was stronger and faster than ever, Baras wouldn't stand a chance.
Vette ran to the taxi and called out: "Hello? Are you alright?"
"What happened? Are they gone?" asked a female voice.
"The rakghouls are dead, you can come out," answered Vette, she couldn't see anybody in the wreck, probably they had hid behind the seats. The doors were almost ripped out, it would have been a matter of seconds before the animals had reached their prey.
"Vette, stand back, they could turn into rakghouls!" said the Captain with a stern voice.
The Twi'lek stepped back, she hadn't thought of that. Slowly five people climbed out of the taxi. An elderly human male, a middle-aged human woman and three aliens: A nautolan girl and a mirialan girl and the last was a male zabrak, they seemed no older than 13 years old. "Thank you, Master Jedi!" said the human male and bowed before Badesh.
"Do I look like a Jedi to you, old man?" said Badesh angrily and iginited his red lightsaber once more.
The Captain interjected: "You will address Lord Badesh with 'my Lord'."
Vette looked at Quinn incredulously. "Really? Even in this situation you insist on formalities?" Quinn didn't deign to answer.
The survivors were taken aback. "You… My apologies, my Lord," continued the man, "we didn't realise… thank you, my Lord!" Badesh turned his weapon off and simply started to walk away.
"Can… can we come with you, my Lord?" The Sith faced the little group again, to Vette's surprise she saw that the nautolan girl had asked the question. Her voice betrayed her fear, in every other circumstance no sane person would approach a Sith. "Please…"
"I don't care if you follow us," said Badesh curtly and with that he and Quinn continued their way to the hospital. Vette nodded towards the survivors and followed her comrades. After a few kilometres Vette registered how Quinn fell back until he had reached the survivors who followed them with a little distance. She had been upset because he suggested that they should leave these people to die, but she was appeased as she saw how the Captain inoculated them with the vaccine.
xxxxx
A short time after that they stood before the hospital. Badesh meditated again, but before he could tell his companion his findings a rather large pack of rakghouls stormed out of the building. The survivors screamed with fear, and ran toward the imperials. Vette ushered them in the middle of their small group. "Stay down!" she shouted and used her blasters to fight off the attackers. At first they keep formation, but as the battle waged on Badesh gave in into his bloodlust and lunged into the rakghouls, in a unbelievable speed he tore through the animals. Despite his frenzy the Sith kept the overview and threw his lightsaber a couple of times to safe his companions. After the last rakghoul was down Badesh followed his own ritual and mutilated the bodies until they were but a pile of flesh. Vette felt how the three children clung to her, no doubt this scared the living starlight's out of them. The adults also remained near her.
Badesh returned to them, now seemingly calm. "I felt a strong force-presence nearby, I would guess its Darth Nox although the dread-force is absent." He looked around. "Captain, show me the city map, I'm quite sure that Darth Nox isn't in the hospital but farther away. What kind of buildings are nearby?"
Quinn displayed the map. "Strange, there are mainly office buildings, a few bars and an unusually large orphanage."
"Hm, the location of the orphanage suggests that Darth Nox is most likely there. Strange…"
Vette felt a light tugging and as she turned around the zabrak boy spoke for the first time. "It's our orphanage. Almost every alien child on this world lives in one of those, slaves aren't allowed to keep their children." Vette had heard that certain societies had their slaves separated from their children, but she had never actually been on a world where this was practised.
"Interesting," said Quinn, "it was strange for a Dark Council-member to oversee the capitulation of a small world as this. But I recall that there were rumours about Darth Nox… that he was a slave before becoming Sith."
"You suspect that Nox's looking for his siblings or something like that?" asked Vette. "Sorry, but this guy is really into the darkness, I don't think he has enough emotions to…"
"It does not matter!" interjected Badesh rather harshly. "We have to find him that is all that matters."
"I will contact the imperial forces about our new destination, my Lord," said Quinn as smooth as ever. Then they headed for the orphanage.