The TIE Advanced Prototype descends into the violent dust storm below. The pilot's visability is poor but she can still vaguely make out the the dark silhouette of her protegé's TIE slowly disappearing beneath the fine dust. This is a place that quickly buries its crimes, she thinks as her fighter touches down and sinks into the soft ground of the planet's surface. Qiron was dead, of that much she was certain, but she couldn't allow his death to go unpunished.
It wasn't that she had any particular attachment to the man that met his end on this remote chunk of rock. No. They were tools, weapons, each one of them. A tool is replaced when it is lost but the Empire would not allow it be known amongst the Galaxy that its tools could be taken without consequence. It took considerable time and effort on her part to sharpen this particular tool into something useful, and for that loss she allowed herself a moment to let the rage build inside her.
Anger, rage, sadness; these were very useful tools in their own right. As she indulges in the feeling that burns within her she feels it connecting her to the Living Force. She would tap back into this later but for now she would need cold rationality and clear thinking.
What you are not told about the Dark Side of The Force is that emotion is its fuel but it is a finite resource like everything else in the Galaxy. She had her share of loss and heartache in her life, but as time distances you from the experiences themselves, your connection weakens. Apathy is the most dangerous thing for a user of the Dark Side.
She pushes against the top hatch of the fighter and the force created by the sandy gale makes it difficult until its edge catches the wind and swings open like popping the top on a bottle of Ardees. She climbs out, pelted by the dust and sand that undoubtedly was making its way into her cockpit. It wouldn't be great for the instruments inside but she'd have it checked when she returned to Coruscant. The hydraulics struggle to close the hatch as she drops to the soft ground below.
"What a beautiful little planet this is," she snickers, "I know where I'm going to on my next vacation."
She sees the landing lights of a Lamda-class shuttle barely piercing the haze and walks over to greet it. Her feet sink up to her ankles and she walks. The shuttle's landing gear sinks into the ground and she is thankful for the momentary shelter from the wind the shuttle provides. The ramp descends and a squad of black plastoid armored death troopers rush out.
"Take your time boys," she calls out, "They're gone already. Spread out and see what you can find."
"Yes, Inquisitor," the squad leader responds in the encrypted speech of the death troopers, "You heard her. Spread out."
The black armored troopers disappear into the haze and she sighs, "You too, my pets," and several ID9 Seeker Droids kept in a compartment on her back launch and they too disappear into the haze.
Seventh Sister had been to plenty of desolate worlds in her time with the Inquisitorius since she was finally released from The Fortress on Nur, but in all her time she'd never encountered a place like this. She'd never even heard of a world this dead, a place where even the most fortuitous of microbes would soon die. She'd seen worlds that were only molten rock but, one could assume, they are in flux and would one day host life.
This rock is dead, and it will remain dead until the end of time. When one of the Empire's remote outposts had received the distress signal they had almost ignored it. The Empire had better things to do than run out to every spacer with engine trouble, an empty fuel cell, or as in this case, a spice overdose.
It wasn't until the droid revealed that the ship was a black SoroSuub 3000, that the call was passed along. One matching this description evaded an Imperial cruiser with a suspected force sensitive on board. Those that were sensitive to the force, the so called Children of the Force, were the domain of the Inquisitorius. They would track them down, turn them if they could, or dispose of them if they could not.
Seventh Sister was enroute to inspect an abandoned Republic Medical Station at the time the call came in, and so she passed the call to Qiron. They hadn't heard anything from him since. Qiron was dead, of that much she was certain, the big question was how. How did he die?
"Inquisitor," the death trooper's voice cracks over her comlink, "I've found… something."
Seventh Sister walks over across the soft sand as the death trooper slowly comes into view. He is standing over a dark heap of something on the ground, something resembling a small tarpaulin. As it comes into view, it takes her mind a moment to register it.
"Oh," She remarks to herself, "Horribly. That's how he died."
Seventh Sister sees the deflated face of her young protegé staring up at her with hollow eyes. His skin had been torn off as a single piece, a ragged opening, like a hastily cut seam ran the length of his left side, from head to toe.
"What could do something like this," she asks no one.
She didn't mean 'how' in the sense of 'how could anyone be so cruel,' she was well acquainted with cruelty. She knew the horrors that sentients could visit upon each other. She knew the cruelty that she could visit upon another. This was particularly brutal. No. She meant how physically. It appeared to be pulled off all at once. Her mind struggles to conceive of a technology that could do such a thing, and comes up with nothing.
"There's something else over here," another death trooper says over the comlink.
Seventh Sister, walks over to the trooper expecting to find the rest of Qiron. She was surprised to see it was only more of him.
"Something deboned him like a fish," She remarks with surprise when she sees the frozen, sand-encrusted, pile of meat and organs.
She struggles to understand the flaying, it would not have been easy to accomplish, but not impossible she supposed. This was something else entirely. This was a use of Dark Side ability that defied reason.
"How does a whore and a farm girl pull this off," she asks rhetorically.
Qiron was well trained. Powerful. Not as powerful as her of course, but powerful enough to easily track and apprehend these women; even one who was force sensitive with no training to speak of. What terror are they actually having me track?
"Inquisitor, what should we do with… him," the death trooper asks.
"Leave him. Keep looking," she replies coolly.
There were no elaborate funerals for their kind. When a tool is no longer of any use it is discarded. Seventh Sister knows that when her time comes the same will be done to her. Her corpse will remain where it falls; a temporary monument to her failure.
It was strange that the two women went here, of all the places in the galaxy. How did they even find it? Before he left, Qiron told her he thought it could only be the First Temple. Ridiculous! Based on what? It being a desolate rock on the outer fringe of the galaxy. There's millions of those. Seventh Sister thought he was delusional, but now she wasn't so sure.
She takes one last mental snapshot of Qiron's fate, to help her tap into the Dark Side later and turns to head back to her TIE. The droids and the grunts could scour this sandball but she didn't need to.
"Keep looking, trooper!"
"Yes, Inquisitor," the death trooper replies, leaving the grisly heap and rushing out into the storm.
As she begins to walk she nearly trips over it, a small black point protruding from the ground. She has a suspicion of what it could be, but couldn't afford the troopers or anyone else to know if she was correct.
The Grand Inquisitor was dead with no heir apparent. After her and Fifth Brother's failure to capture the apprentice Ezra Bridger and his compatriots, her prospects of becoming the new leader of the Inquisitorius had taken a serious hit.
They would train the Inquisitors just enough to be able to gang up on the Jedi that survived Order 66 or to abduct Force sensitive children, but that was it. Enough skill to be killed in single combat with a real Jedi, but that is all.
The Emperor and Lord Vader jealously guard their secrets of the force because of their archaic Rule of Two. The Inquisitors could learn the dark side of the force, but only so far as to be useful, to be a tool, not so far as to be a threat. She would never be trained as a Lord of the Sith.
Seventh Sister drops to her knees and excitedly digs. A Sith holocron could give her the ability to deal with those rebels from Lothal, once and for all. To rise to the level of Grand Inquisitor, and then, who knows? The Emperor is an old man. He can't live forever. Vader would need an apprentice when he becomes Emperor. Maybe, even an Empress.
She frees the ancient device from the sand and brushes it off to get a better look. She anxiously looks around her. To say it would be very bad for her if she was caught hiding a Sith artifact was a vast understatement, but what choice did she have? Chase Jedi until she finds the one that kills her? No.
"Widen the search," she yells into the comlink.
The troopers respond, as do the ID9s. She holds the object in her hands and opens her facemask. The air is freezing but she is too excited to care. She focuses all of her concentration on opening it, everything she has, it opens and...
Nothing.
The holocron is dead. Whatever ancient knowledge that was once held within is gone forever. She closes it back up and tosses back onto the sand in disappointment. She closes her facemask again.
"I found something too," Seventh Sister says dejectedly into her comlink, "Bag it up. Sending you coordinates now.
Her dreams of power are dashed immediately and completely and she walks back to the TIE Advanced.
She settles into the seat, removes her helmet, and exhales in frustration. She brushes the hair from her face and tucks the single braid she's worn since she was a child behind her ear. She was meant to cut the braid when she successfully completed the Jedi trials, but that will never happen. She should just cut it off anyway, but after all these years, she hasn't. It was a painful reminder of who she once was.
The com panel in her TIE blinks and she pushes the receiving button. The holographic image of Fifth Brother appears. His stern countenance, grey skin, and lantern jaw line flicker into view.
"Qiron didn't fail completely, Sister. He got a tracker on board their ship. We've picked it up on our sensors. I'm sending you the coordinates now. I'll you meet you there."
The hologram disappears and she closes her eyes and sits quietly alone for a moment. She sighs and puts on her helmet once more. She holds down the transmit function.
"Brother, I will leave shortly. Inform Lord Vader the situation here is a bit more interesting than we initially believed. Don't fret about the details. I will tell him myself."