Suspicion Everywhere
The turbolift doors slid open and as the Sith lord, shrouded in black, exited the turbolift, the officers and bureaucrats waiting to enter, quickly stepped aside, rushing to get out of the petite Sith lord's way as she made her way through the maze of corridors and offices on her way to Darth Nox's office.
Darth Virulous was in a foul mood. Three days after the Duros security consultant completed repairs to her security system, she had been summoned to appear before Darth Nox.
"I can't believe myself!" she thought furiously, "How did I allow myself to seek the services of an assassination service provider?! They could hold that over my head to blackmail me!"
She turned a corner in the corridor.
"I had no idea that such services were offered by ordinary security consultancies! What is this galaxy coming to?!"
Three days ago, as promised, Fridder Badded had returned the following morning and repaired her security system, completely swapping out programmable control chips, replacing the old memory chips, and installing a more robust, upgraded version of the security software which would be managed by the control chips. He then installed a security backend monitoring system which would protect the main home security system from the kinds of sophisticated slicing attacks which had compromised her security system before the upgrades.
Finally, he changed her username and alphanumeric passphrase, presenting her with a written copy of those for her to memorize.
"I have changed the username and passphrase, which should make your system harder to slice. At your earliest convenience, change your username and passphrase again, so that only you will know what those are. Use the username and passphrase I've created, as examples of how you should create your new username and passphrase, my lord."
Virulous wordlessly took the flimsiplast, with the handwritten username and passphrase, and after giving it a cursory glance, slipped it into a compartment of her conceal carry utility belt.
"I am deeply pleased to have served your security needs for your home," Fridder said, also presenting her with the invoice. Then advising her, "An asset elimination consultant will make contact with you to discuss your other security needs." He bowed deeply, then said, "If there is nothing further you require of me, then I ask your consent to take my leave."
"Go," Virulous said, curtly.
The Duros security consultant was never so glad to leave a completed job behind him, especially since this was a job that could have resulted in his death.
"The hire up the hierarchy the Sith lords are," he observed, "the more paranoid and the more prone to violence they are. I am lucky she did not think to eliminate me as a witness."
As Fridder entered his utility speeder, with all of his equipment and parts, he received a text message on his transceiver. It was from his employer.
"Shan Lunn account, paid in full."
"At least, I won't have to send reminders to pay, or send collection agents to collect from her," he thought with some relief, and then with some amazement, "With all of their power, it astonishes me that practically all of the Sith pay their bills!"
Fridder didn't understand that Sith lords paid their bills because they didn't want to be perceived as being poor. It was a sign of weakness if a Sith lord was found to be deep in debt. As a result, Sith lords had among the best credit scores in the galaxy.
The sliding doors hissed open for Virulous, and as she stepped into the reception office outside of Nox's office, Khem Val confronted her.
"Ha! You are smarter than you seem! You have found my gifts!"
Virulous whirled on him and let the Dashade have a piece of her mind.
"Why are you spying on me, Khem Val?!" she shouted with honest outrage, "I will tell Darth Nox of your intrusions and demand that he discipline you!"
"Why go to my master, tiny Sith? Does the tiny Sith fear to discipline me, herself?"
"If I did it myself, I would end up killing you, Beast!" Virulous growled from her clenched jaw.
She pointed a rigid finger at the Dashade's face which towered high overhead.
"Do NOT say another word, Monster!" she shouted at the behemoth. Lowering her voice, and barely returning a patently false calm to her facade, she added, "I will destroy you where you stand."
Khem Val did not challenge her threats, not because he feared her, but because he knew that if he provoked her and ended up killing her, his master, Darth Nox, would become deeply displeased with him. His master had grown attached to this tiny Sith lord.
Khem Val merely crossed his huge arms across his gargantuan chest, and turning his head away from her, "Harrumphed!" dismissively at her, adding petulantly, "I could eat you in one bite."
The Dashade said no more, and Virulous, lowering her pointing finger to her side, quietly turned to go to Nox's office door. She pulled her hood back and removed her armored capped mask, taking the last steps to her master's door. However, the door did not slide open, forcing her to halt centimeters from it.
"2V-R8, open this damned door," she ground out in a low voice.
There was a very perceptible delay before the droid's mechanically cheery voice finally emanated from a speaker at the unoccupied receptionist's desk some meters away at the side of the reception office.
"The dark lord will receive you, Darth Virulous, please enter."
Virulous was at the verge of losing her composure, but she had been repeating to herself, over and over, "Do not lose my temper. Mind my thoughts. Do not lose my temper. Mind my thoughts."
Virulous marched to the center of Nox's brilliant yellow and sharp black ten thousand meter square rug – a prize of war, and knelt before Darth Nox's desk, near the edge of the rug, 40 meters away.
"Thank you, Dark Lord, for receiving me," she said loudly enough to be heard from that distance, "I have come before you, as summoned," Virulous said, calmly.
"You are agitated," Nox observed, "Tell me what is troubling you."
Virulous became greatly alarmed.
"Has he seen my thoughts?!"
Virulous was sure that she had properly shielded her mind to conceal her feelings and thoughts of anger against her master.
"But how?!"
Virulous tried covering for her failure to conceal her feelings by deflecting.
"Master, Khem Val has been spying on me! I want him to stop! He's planted spytech in my flat!"
Terrible dread struck her, when she realized that if Khem Val knew where she lived, so did Darth Nox.
"He's known, all of this time, that I live in that dump!"
Nox cupped his chin as though thinking deeply on the matter.
"I have tasked Khem to see to my personal security. Even if I do not suspect my closest followers of treachery, it is his duty to suspect everyone."
Virulous was shocked that Nox did not refute her accusations, instead conceding that it was true!
"But, Dark Lord, he broke into my home and violated my sanctity!" she protested.
Nox's features showed that he was thinking the matter over, even as he nodded acknowledgment of her complaints. After a time, her master finally spoke.
"I'll speak to Khem to find other ways which do not intrude on your private home life."
Virulous was amazed. Her master was being so accommodating and reasonable towards her. It was as though he were a completely different man.
"My lord, I am grateful. Thank you."
Virulous was confused. She was beginning to doubt herself.
"Does he really intend to kill me? Why is he treating me with such respect?"
Virulous studied Nox's face for any indication that he was deceiving her.
"My lord, how did you know I was upset?" she finally dared to ask.
"Well, lord Virulous… It was plastered all over your face. You seemed very angry," Nox said plainly.
Virulous blinked, realizing how paranoid and unsettled she had become. She shook her head, disappointed at herself, and realizing that she was allowing fear to drive her towards making a terrible mistake.
"I thought that you had somehow read my thoughts, Dark Lord," she confessed, letting a small chuckle escape her lips, "How silly of me."
"You have learned to conceal your thoughts from me very well," Nox said, matter-of-factly.
Virulous realized that Nox had just confessed that he had been reading her thoughts in the past. He didn't even try to deny or hide it!
"The technique is of no use against you, my apprentice," Nox said, then elaborating, "You constantly guard your feelings from me, so that I can never tell what is really on your mind. This is a good thing. It means you are ever on your guard, never leaving anything to chance."
Virulous merely stared, continuing to mask her feelings from her master, though her mind was roiling with the knowledge that indeed her master knew how to read minds.
"Will you teach me this, Master?" she asked quietly.
Nox leaned back in his seat behind his desk, his gaze bore into her. His facade showed that he was disappointed. It wasn't a mean or cruel look. It was simple disappointment.
After a while, her master shrugged his shoulders, as though he was resigned to accept a less than favorable reality.
"Do you remember when I taught you how to detect others around you, even through walls and over long distances?"
She remembered that day on Makeb well.
"Yes, my lord," Virulous affirmed, "You also taught me to manipulate others, to induce them to do my bidding."
"Yes," Nox confirmed, "You learned to understand and direct their emotional states of being."
"Yes, my lord."
"Why not use that skill to simply read the emotional states of those individuals. How they react to certain information?"
He could see that his apprentice was not understanding what he was saying.
"Remember also," he said, in a firmer tone, "my admonition that you use your imagination to come up with new ways to use The Force."
Virulous could see that Nox's patience was starting to be tested. He spoke with a hint of exasperation.
"While sensing the emotional state of the individual you are interrogating, or simply speaking to, the emotions they exhibit can reveal their thoughts to you through the context of the topic of the moment."
"My lord, you are telling me that based on the emotional responses to certain topics, you can gain an insight into how they feel about that topic."
"That's right. Then you ask follow on questions based on how they respond, verbally, as well as emotionally. The greater their emotional response, the closer to the truth you are on that issue.
"It's not fair that I expected you to know this right off," Nox confessed. "After all, I honed this skill and technique over many years interrogating prisoners as an Inquisitor."
Nox had just taught Virulous one of his secrets for knowing what people were thinking around him, and why it was nearly impossible to lie to him. She also realized that he had revealed that because she was successful in masking her feelings from him, he could never tell whether she were telling the truth or lying to him.
"If he wants me dead, why would he reveal such a weakness to me?" she asked herself.
"Are you rested, Lord Virulous?" her master asked, bringing her out of her line of speculative thoughts.
"Are you ready to exert a great effort with The Force?"
Virulous remembered the conversation she had with her master, nearly a month before.
"You will teach me the Force Walking ritual, Dark Lord?" she asked, bracing herself to fight for her life.
"It is time!" Virulous concluded, thinking, "He is ready to sacrifice me for one of his rituals!"
The story of Nox subduing Force Ghosts to consume them and take their power and knowledge for himself, was the lie he'd used to try to lure her into interacting with the Rakata mind trap. In those days, Darth Nox was seeking a sacrifice so that her master could free the mind of Darth Zash.
Her master had wanted to sacrifice Virulous, but it was Juuldis Vannithana Resh who was sacrificed to the device. In essence, Darth Nox gifted the unfortunate Jedi's, still living body to the mind of Darth Zash. Darth Zash's consciousness had been freed from the Rakatan mind prison, and Juuldis' mind was now imprisoned within the device.
Virulous wondered what dark ritual her master was about to perform to destroy her.
"What will result from the ritual?" she wondered, "I suppose that I don't want to find out."
Virulous carefully readied herself, gathering the power of The Force, readying herself to fight for her life.
She flinched when Darth Nox waved his hand, thinking it was an attack. However, her master's droid responded instead, walking briskly from the side of Nox's expansive and opulent office, making its way behind Nox's desk to retrieve a device. The droid then briskly walked to where Virulous knelt. The ship droid presented the device to her.
She carefully looked at it. Deciding that it was a holocron and, hopefully, not a bomb, she extended her hand and accepted the device. She then turned her gaze towards her master. Darth Nox pointed at a small desk with a chair set behind it at the side of the office.
"Rise, Darth Virulous. Sit at that desk and study the writings contained within the holocron."
Virulous obeyed. Making her way to the small portable desk at the side of the office.
"You must memorize the ritual. You cannot get it wrong. If you make an error, you'll only have a split second to salvage the ritual, but more than likely, you will not realize that you had erred. The Force Ghost will take over your body and cast you out instead."
Virulous sat at the desk and began to depress the button to activate the holocron. In a split second, she realized, too late, that Darth Nox was far enough away that he could take cover behind his desk and avoid injury from the bomb. Her heart skipped, then jumped into hyperspace as she pressed the button before she could stop herself.
Nothing happened, except that a text document opened and displayed in a lifelike holographic representation of a book. She looked at her master. He was already absorbed with some other work. Reading documents and typing something into his computer. He behaved as though nothing were amiss.
The book described, in detail, a method of taking over the disembodied soul and consciousness of a long dead Force user. It went into detail the concepts and reasoning behind the concepts. The more she read, the more she began to believe that this was an actual ritual.
She saw the danger that her master had warned her about. If she didn't quickly overpower the Force Ghost and arrest its will, then she would, herself, be quickly overpowered.
The Force Ghost could dissolve her existence and her body would simply collapse with her death. It was entirely possible that her body could lapse into a vegetative state without a mind or soul to pilot it.
"If that happened," Virulous thought, "it would be possible for Darth Nox to simply take my vegetative body, and present it to Juuldis, to free her from the mind trap."
Virulous tried the ritual in a dry run, as it were. She could feel how her soul, her consciousness had begun to draw powerfully at The Force as though trying to create a vacuum. Instinctively, she could sense how if she had targeted a Force Ghost, it would have been drawn into her own conscious being.
It was the first indication for her that this was a legitimate Dark Force ritual and not a trap set by her master. However, Virulous had months of paranoia to overcome. She still suspected a trap.
She turned her face towards her master's massive desk and found that he was watching her intently. Virulous realized that Nox felt, through The Force, her practice run.
"You must exert much more power than that to succeed, Lord Virulous. This is why I had you rest. This technique requires that you put everything, and I do mean everything, into subduing the Force Ghost. You only get one shot at it. You succeed, or you cease to exist."
Virulous nodded her understanding, and prepared herself to perform the dry run again, this time with much greater effort.
"That is not enough," Nox told her, explaining, "You will be in a battle for life and death with a Force Ghost who has learned to maintain his existence for millennia, and has ruled over the Massassi all of this time. This long dead Sith lord is not weak, Lord Virulous. He is knowledgeable of many Dark Force rituals, and if you succeed, you will gain that knowledge as well as his power."
However, Virulous was greatly taxed by the enormous effort she put into the ritual. Before she could begin again, Nox stopped her.
"Go take a break, Lord Virulous. Return in half an hour ready to do it again. When you return, you must be ready to hold nothing back."
"Yes, Master," she answered, greatly exhausted.
She deactivated the holocron, rose from the small desk and walked out of Nox's office. Just before the doors slid shut behind her, Virulous turned, on a whim, to look back at her master. He had already returned his attention to his work.
Khem Val was seated on the corner of the otherwise unoccupied receptionist's desk. He was too big to fit in any of the chairs in the reception office because they had armrests. His huge arms were crossed over his massive chest, as he quietly watched his master's apprentice walk out of the office.
He couldn't put his finger on it, but something about the tiny Sith lord had changed. She was a lot more assertive with him, but he could chalk that up to familiarity. Obviously she's figured out that he wouldn't eat her without their master's permission, but her body language around their master had also changed.
"It is not fear of his power, but it is fear. Why would she be fearful of him? Surely she should have sensed that our master has need of her and has placed her closer to him than the rest of us."
The Dashade became troubled by this. He decided he would surveil her and, depending on what he found, he would consult with his master's spy chief.
Virulous had walked past the security check point, where all personnel presented their credentials to the soldiers posted as sentries. The post was reinforced by two low ranking Sith lords who had recently been assigned to the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge, and whose turn it was to pull guard duty.
The two Sith had been leaning against the wall, exchanging small talk, and casually watching the personnel present their credentials to the soldiers as they entered or exited.
One bumped the other with his elbow and nodded in her direction. Virulous had passed through without showing her badge. The two Sith approached her, positioning themselves to block her path.
Virulous was lost in her thoughts as she briskly made her way to the bank of turbolifts, but had come to an abrupt halt when the presence of the two Sith entered her consciousness. Slightly startled, she looked up at the tall men.
"What do you want?" she demanded, imperiously.
"Did you know," one of the young Sith lords said to her, "there is a directive from Darth Nox, himself, commanding all persons coming and going through this check point to present their credentials on entering or exiting?"
Virulous looked at the two young men as though they had the word stupid stenciled on their foreheads.
"Don't you know who I am?" she asked, incredulous.
"I know you're not Darth Nox, Half Size," the other young Sith lord, replied, "So show your credentials to the troops at the…"
The poor young Sith lord never got to finish his statement, and his young friend didn't escape Virulous' wrath either. The two young men collapsed to the black polished metal plate floor in heaps.
"Think very carefully about how you address a darth, in the future," she told the two motionless bodies before storming off to the turbolifts.
The soldiers at the post remained quiet, and made no move to intervene. They were well aware of who she was. Sadly, no one seemed to have briefed the poor young Sith lords about who Darth Nox's apprentice was.
The corporal in charge of the post waited until the turbolift doors shut before taking action. He started by issuing orders
"Rickard, Felban, move their bodies to the side, over there," he said, pointing to where over there was.
Then using the audio only communications device, he called the sergeant of the guard to report the incident.
"Sergeant Howe, speaking. How may I help you, sir, ma'am, or lord?"
"Sergeant Howe, this is Corporal Tibbers. We've had a major incident at the check point. The two Sith assigned here have just been killed by Darth Virulous."
The corporal was met with a brief silence after his report. After the delay, the sergeant of the guard gave out a long sigh of exasperation before finally responding.
"I'll be there with the lieutenant. Get the video set up so that we can review it when we get there."
"Yes, Sergeant," the corporal replied.
As he disconnected the call, he finally noticed that one of his men, Private Danta Rickard, was standing nearby, waiting to speak to him.
"What is it, Private?" he asked, brusquely.
He was angry that he'd have to write the report, and worried that he'd have to be the witness in the formal investigation that was to follow.
"Corporal, the two Sith are alive," the soldier reported, fascinated, "They just can't move."
"What?! Why didn't you say something sooner?!" Corporal Tibbers shouted.
He immediately dialed the frequency for the emergency medical response (EMR) unit for his sector.
"Stars! Are all privates as dumb as you?!" Corporal Tibbers demanded rhetorically.
"Yes, Corporal Tibbers, and the higher in rank they get, the dumber they get, too," Private Rickard replied, deadpan.
Corporal Tibbers couldn't counter the private's snappy comeback, because the emergency medical response Sergeant had finally answered the call.
"Sergeant Gert, Imperial Army Emergency Medical Services, please report your emergency."
"I've got two Sith lords injured from an attack. I need them evacuated for emergency medical treatment."
"What kind of weapon was used in the attack?" the EMR sergeant asked.
"I didn't see Darth Virulous use a weapon. They just kind of fell down. I thought they were dead, but they're just paralyzed somehow," Corporal Tibbers reported, a bit mystified.
"Oh, her. Very well, we'll be there in a bit," the sergeant said disconnecting the call.
Corporal Tibbers walked to the bodies of the two Sith lords, and looked at their faces. Their eyes locked on to him as soon as he entered their field of vision. The tracks of drying tears stained their faces.
"Lord Merrek, Lord Jandoo, I have called for an emergency medical rescue unit. They should arrive momentarily."
One Sith shifted his eyes to gaze at the ceiling and the other simply closed his.
Ten minutes later, the emergency medical rescue unit arrived. A Sith lord came with them to observe. Also, at that moment, Sergeant Gert arrived on scene with an Imperial Reclamation Service army officer. The two soldiers walked to and stood beside the Sith lord who'd come to observe.
"Good day, my lord," the officer said, to the Sith observer.
"Darth Virulous, again?" the Sith asked the officer, chuckling.
"Yes, my lord," the officer replied, flatly.
He didn't want to give away what he thought of Darth Virulous' ruthlessness. The Sith could laugh about it amongst themselves, but if a commoner like him cracked a joke, it could mean his death.
Virulous had enjoyed a light salad of fresh fruits with a small bottle of lightly carbonated water. She felt refreshed as she made her way back to Darth Nox's office to resume her training. She thought carefully, about the ritual the dark lord was teaching her.
"There is no doubt that the technique the dark lord is teaching me is real. I feel as though I am pulling at a great mass, and trying to force it into my core being, but it truly requires a tremendous amount of power from the Dark Side of The Force, power like I've never used before.
"Yet, I don't see how it will imprison an outside entity into my own mind. I don't see how it will allow me to incorporate that entity into my own being."
Virulous was certain that her master was underestimating her intelligence. All doubt had left her. She resigned herself to the fact that Nox was going to betray her, that Nox was laying his trap of deceit. She knew that she had to keep him convinced that she was fooled by his trickery if she was to have the slightest chance of striking him down. She would have only one chance, one shot at him.
"The question is, how am I going to do it?"
The turbolift doors opened and she stepped out into the lobby. Several meters away, where she was headed, was a gaggle of soldiers and a Sith lord. They were in the process of moving her two young victims onto gurney droids. The Sith observer saw her first.
"My lord, Darth Virulous, it would honor me greatly, if you would teach me the technique you used on these young fools."
Having heard the other Sith lord greet her by name, her victims finally understood their error.
"They haven't freed themselves, yet?" she asked, mildly surprised that their minds were still separated from their bodies.
As she approached her two young victims, the Imperial soldiers all stepped out of her way. Standing over the two hapless young men, she shook her head disapprovingly.
"You are both pathetically weak. I cannot believe that you haven't figured out how to free yourselves!"
Suddenly, the two young Sith got out of their gurneys and got onto their hands and knees, begging forgiveness and thanking her profusely for freeing them.
"Please, spare us, Darth Virulous!" one of the two, finally had the sense to plead.
"Next time, I will not spare you," she told them, adding, "I hope you imbeciles at least know who Darth Nox is. If it was him you approached with that attitude, you would have been made into dinner for his Dashade monster."
Virulous turned to make her way to the check point. Again, she did not show her credentials as she passed through. Just past the check point, however, she stopped and turned to look back at the Sith observer.
"Go to the library," she said, looking him in the eye, "Seek the writings of Arus. In her writings she mentions the technique. Follow the clues that will lead to an artifact stored in the archives."
That was all she would tell him. The Sith lord, however, thanked her profusely as she turned away to resume her steps.
It would be several months of hunting and researching before he would finally locate the ancient stone carvings with Arus' master's teachings, and the secret to that technique. Virulous could have easily spent the five minutes it would have taken to simply tell him how it was done, but somehow she really didn't want to share her secrets.
She laughed quietly at herself as she made her way to Nox's office.
"This must be how the dark lord feels about sharing when I ask him to teach me one of his techniques."
Actually, many of the dark Force rituals Virulous had mastered were from the writings of Arus and from her master, Rehgga, Lord of The Sith.
Upon reporting to her master, he gave her a new training regimen to follow.
"Darth Virulous, for the next week, you shall spend as much time as you possibly can, concentrating the power of the Dark Side. You must do this while guarding your mind from corruption. Each day you must be able to concentrate greater power for a longer period of time. Your goal is to improve your stamina and to increase your capacity to quickly call on great volumes of Dark Side power – without scrambling your mind.
"When you return to me, in a week, I hope to see that you have also mastered the ability to control even greater power in the Dark Side of The Force. If I don't believe you have achieved the level of power needed to carry out the ritual successfully, then I will not allow you to perform the ritual."
Virulous was flummoxed on hearing this.
"Wait, my lord. Did you just say that if I'm not strong enough you won't allow me to perform the ritual? Why not?"
Nox thought it was a stupid question, and answered it as such.
"Well, if you want to go kill yourself, then be my guest. Go, unprepared, and try to perform the ritual whenever you'd like. Now go," he commanded, turning his back to her as he returned to his massive desk.
Virulous rose to her feet, turned about and proceeded to leave his office.
"If he wanted to kill me using this ritual, why would he stop me, if he thought I wasn't ready?"
Her mind was caught in a whirlwind of doubt and confusion.
Virulous was exhausted, having exerted maximum effort during her demonstration. Darth Nox had called her in before the week was done to see if she had progressed. Darth Nox nodded his approval, but was not yet satisfied. He sent her away to continue her training.
She now had the ability to draw much greater power from the Dark Side! However, her master promised her that after performing the ritual she would gain even greater power, yet. However, Virulous still didn't believe there was such a ritual.
"The dark lord is a master of deceit and subterfuge," which was true, "I must not let my guard down."
Yet, she could not deny that her power had grown nearly exponentially from these exercises.
She was in her disguise, wearing civilian attire, this time in a hooded jacket to conceal her face. She had been standing in line, waiting her turn for the taxi kiosk droid. It was finally her turn, and she approached the droid. As she neared the machine, it greeted her in a most curious fashion.
The droid spoke in a very low tone so that others would not hear.
"Greetings, Darth Virulous. If you require the disposal of a rival, please take a taxi to The Happy Brewer's Pub. An agent will meet you there."
Virulous went through a range of emotions, from utter rage at the droid for potentially exposing her identity, to utter fear, mingled with gut-wrenching dread.
"How did they know they could find me here?!"
Her phone had been tapped; Andronikos scrambled it and then threw it out. Her condominium had been bugged; Khem Val had cleaned out the bugs, but then planted his own.
"And now this! How did they know that I would be here?!" she demanded of herself.
"Who instructed you to deliver this message to me!" she demanded of the taxi kiosk droid.
The droid, however, did not answer. It was in the process of rebooting. There was nothing she could do, but wait. Virulous was at the end of her patience, but she waited for the droid to restart.
"I seem to have suffered a malfunction, and was forced to restart. I am deeply sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you, honored traveler."
Before Virulous could repeat her question to the droid, another traveler had lost his patience and opened his big mouth.
"What's the hold up, short stuff? Don't you know where you want to go?!"
Virulous lost it. She whirled about, both hands extended and let loose a terrible barrage of Force Lightning that instantly killed the loud mouthed lout, and ten others who'd been standing in line behind him. Eight others were badly burned and collapsed to the metal plated deck, writhing in agony. The lightly injured and everybody else, ran for their lives screaming in terror and shouting in alarm.
"They are witnesses," she worried to herself.
Virulous looked up at the late afternoon sky, shaking both fists at the orange tinted afternoon star of planet Dromund, mentally kicking herself for her complete loss of control. She watched the travelers, all running towards the huge entrance of the cavernous lobby of The Citadel.
"It's too late," she realized, "I won't be able to reach them in time."
Virulous turned to the droid.
"Who instructed you to deliver that message to me?" she asked, much more calmly than she felt.
"I'm sorry traveler. My memory has recently been wiped," the droid responded, and then asking, "What is your destination, traveler?"
"I want to go to The Happy Brewer's Pub," Virulous replied, resigned to go through with the meeting.
"The fair will be forty six credits. Will you pay now, or…"
Virulous presented her credit card for payment. The droid passed its card reader over it.
Please board the taxi at loading zone twelve, honored traveler," the droid instructed, cheerfully.
Virulous walked briskly towards the indicated loading zone. As her taxi gently ascended and entered the local traffic pattern, Virulous could see Imperial troops, and emergency medical response units closing in on the carnage she'd left in her wake. She shook her head disgustedly at herself.
"What is wrong with me?!" she asked herself, truly perplexed, "I never used to be so short tempered!"
About fifty minutes later, Virulous debarked from her taxi and took three steps towards the entrance of The Happy Brewer's Pub, but then she noticed a hovering probe droid slowly making its way to intercept her. She put her hand deep into her jacket's right pocket and grasped her lightsaber.
The droid came to a stop a few paces in front of her, allowing her to choose to stop in her tracks or to advance a few more paces to close with the droid. She decided it was probably an intermediary contact and approached the droid. She was right.
The droid buzzed, chirped and bleeped its message to her. She looked at her holo-transceiver, in her left hand, and read the text translation.
"Honored potential client, please follow me."
"Lead on, droid," Virulous commanded.
The levitating droid began to drift at a pace that ensured Virulous would move at a brisk pace. The droid led her away from the pub and down the wide open walkway, past many commercial establishments at the base of the towering edifice. It crossed the street, with speeder traffic zipping twenty stories and thirty stories overhead. She passed many pedestrians walking past her, or whom she had overtaken with her brisk pace.
Halfway down the width of the towering structure across the street from where she started, the droid ducked into a service entrance for delivery speeder vans. It was a huge, brightly lit place. Several delivery speeders were already docked at various docking bays, unloading their cargoes.
At one of many empty loading docks, was a medium grade military security droid. The levitating probe droid led the petite Sith lord to it. The security droid introduced itself.
"I am an Imperial military medium grade combat droid that has been removed from Imperial military service and reprogrammed for other work, potential client. Please report me to the local authorities as stolen property. I cannot give you my designated identifier. My reprogramming prohibits me from self-identifying."
Virulous merely shrugged.
"And?" she asked.
"My illicit programming has reassigned my central functions. I am now acting as the intermediary between the thieves, and yourself. I am relaying their remote communications to you, and relaying your replies to them. Please confirm that you wish to avail yourself of their services and enter into a contract with the thieves," the droid stated.
"I've changed my mind," Virulous said, flatly, "I no longer want their services. I've decided that it would be best if I did it myself. I would appear weak by my rivals if I relied on such services."
Curiosity struck her, however, and so she decided to ask what was on her mind.
"Do assassins actually work for Protus Security Consultants Group?"
"The thieves state that Protus Security Consultants Group, are acting as a referring agent in this case. The thieves are outside, independent contractors," the droid relayed, adding, "Further discussion is unnecessary and not advised, since you do not wish to proceed with their services."
Virulous shrugged her shoulders, then turned to walk away. As she made her way to the exit of the service bay, a chirp sounded from her datapad. She pulled it out from her left jacket pocket and found that a nominal fee had been charged to her account for canceled services.
"Fifteen thousand credits, is not nominal!" she thought, outraged.
Suddenly, a terrible sensation overcame her. A terrible dread and sense of danger. She used The Force to leap a great distance to her right, taking cover between massive trash compactors, where she drew and activated her lightsaber.
Alarmed, she looked all around the cavernous service bay. She found that the two droids used to contact her had been destroyed. They had self-destructed and were not only on fire, but were melting into the metal plate decking of the gargantuan building. The chemicals used to destroy them were intensely hot.
After a moment, she deactivated her lightsaber. Then the first of the many building security droids began to appear on scene with fire suppression canisters. She realized that their human handlers wouldn't be far behind and decided to quickly leave the scene. She didn't want to be seen by the droids' handlers, even though she realized that her meeting with the droids was probably recorded on security video.
"The hood of my jacket is covering my head and face," she thought, trying to be positive about her situation, "but I'm so damned short! It might still be possible to identify me!"
Virulous ducked out of the cavernous service bay, walking briskly to The Happy Brewer pub, hoping to catch a taxi droid as quickly as possible.
"Kaas City has tens of millions of inhabitants, many of them just as small as I am," she told herself aloud, trying to ease her own fears.
"But only one famous Sith lord is known to be as small as you," she reminded herself, cursing the fact that she had ignited her lightsaber.
Virulous had no doubt that the event was likely caught on security video.
17