Chapter 1: The New Menace
How long have I been
ceaselessly drifting like a Bontuu leaf on a calm ocean. It's become very hard
to mark the passage of time out here in this cold and empty desolation. Here I
remain, in a state neither fully conscious nor unconscious, yet though all this
I remain aware. There is a certain numbing monotony to it all that would
fragment the minds of most creatures. Is there an end to all this?
I wish I could think
that this turn of events came as a big surprise.
My apprentice, the
ever evasive Darth Sidious, or Palpatine, as he is known in some circles: I
knew he would one day take it on himself to have me removed, but I didn't think
it would be this soon. He has not learned enough, is not subtle, or patient, or
graceful enough. There are just too many secrets I have that he has not yet
learned. He will be the ruination of the whole order. Centuries of secrecy, of
slowly building, will be brought down around him. He is far too sloppy and
careless. He couldn't even do a good job of making sure I was dead, never mind
those who will be of a more direct threat to him.
My lament in all this
is that, while our order will be in ruins, yet will I live to be witness of it,
and completely powerless to intervene. All those methodical years of planning,
watching, and waiting. And for what? That pompous ass is going to destroy it
all and there's nothing I can do about it.
I have been trapped
for a long time, a very long time. In spite of not being able to measure time,
I do know some things. Every once in a while I feel things that affect the
nature of the galaxy. At one point I felt the fire of the Jedi become reduced
to nothing more than a spark in a box of tinder, and the silent scream of
millions of voices crying out in terror, and being suddenly silenced. There
were other things, too, other devastations, a large catastrophic war and the
word "clones" being closely associated with it.
There was but one
moment in all this endless drifting that brought me no small sense of
satisfaction. My aged and necrotic apprentice being lifted up over the head of
a black man in a metallic mask and being thrust down a bottomless metal shaft,
like a ruthless god in an old legend being dethroned. I knew then that the
large black man was his apprentice, and my heart screamed in triumph. All my
endless days of drifting were made complete by what I felt then. A lot of time
has passed since then. Now it seems like it was a long time ago, in a galaxy
far, far away.
……………………………………..
Captain
Tobin Brogan had never seen that much success in his life, as such things go.
As a small-time trader and sometime smuggler, he managed to make enough to live
on, and to support his family of four children, whom he left in private schools
on Coronet. He had a wife once, who had been the mother of all his children,
but like so many in these rough and turbulent times, he had lost her in this
endless civil war. There was the New Republic, but it was far too new and
unstable. Several of his colleagues had placed bets on how long this galactic
republic would survive. He himself had two hundred credits on that bet.
There
were rumors of a new imperial warlord, unlike anything previous. This one was
from the Unknown Regions, and he didn't think like the other imperials, this
one was very intelligent. He knew what his enemies had planned well ahead of
time. He must have had ears right in all the inner councils of the senate.
Tobin
lay comfortably on his bunk in his new bulk cruiser, the Nessie's Revenge,
awaiting his arrival at his destination. If this job payed off, he was
retiring. Nothing bothered him more than having to be away from his children so
often and for so long, but what could he do? They needed to be looked after,
and one of the only gainful means of employment was in shipping. It allowed him
to be his own boss and to run his own schedule, which was not an easy one.
The
alarm on the navicomputer went off, signalling that the ship was drooping out
of hyperspace. He promptly got up and went to the bridge, and once he saw out
his viewport, his heart skipped a beat. He was expecting the blackness of
space, occasionally broken by pinpricks of star light, instead, his entire view
was blocked by an Imperial Interdictor cruiser. This was really turning out to
be a bad day. His ship had a lot of good maneuvering capability, which would
prevent them from getting an easy lock on them with the tractor beam.
He
banked a hard turn to starboard, which brought him within grazing distance of
the interdictor's hull, but it had to be done. To go straight would have meant
colliding with the hull altogether. Flashes of light tore past him as he
continued his turn, which finally reversed him 180 degrees from his oncoming
vector. These imperials were not playing around, whatever the case. They were
hiding there waiting for someone else, in all probability, and he ended up
getting caught in their web by mistake. Either way, they wouldn't want him
leaving to tell away their secret.
Tobin
had to be careful with his maneuvering and he knew it. One mistake with his
flying and he'd have his ship locked in a tractor beam. Then it would all be
over for him. His children would have no guardian, and they'd end up on the
streets, just like he was. That knowledge made him work that much harder with
his controls, until he finally cleared the interdiction field, after which his
ship disappeared faster than a snowflake in a hot spring.
A
few moments later, he came out of hyperspace, at one of his randomly calculated
jump points he'd pre-loaded into his navicomputer for just such occasions. He
expected to see nothing, but as he was about to set a new course, he caught a
brief flash of light reflecting from a distant surface.
"Nessie,
get me a scan on that object 19 degrees port and 17 degrees lateral." Tobin
said.
After
a moment of silence, his onboard computer spoke, "The object is a late-era old
republic bacta chamber. There appears to be a living human male inside, in a
cryogenic state. Sir, what interest is there in some old derelic bacta chamber
that's been outdated since before the old republic fell?"
"Bacta
has been a very expensive and valuable commodity since Director Isard's
departure of Coruscant. The chamber may be obsolete, but the bacta inside is
probably still valuable. Lock onto it with our tractor beam and tow it into the
cargo bay."
"Yes,
sir."
It
took mere moments for the onboard computer to carry out Tobin's request. He
soon went into the cargo bay to inspect his find. Nessie was right, though, the
bacta tank was very obsolete. Unlike ones he was used to seeing, which were
cylindrical in shape, this one was larger and more like a cylindrical hexagon
in shape. A heavy frost build-up had accumulated since bringing it on the ship
and it was no longer possible to see what was inside. A quiet calm prevailed
through the cargo bay, and the silence was deafening all by itself. This was
broken abruptly with the sound of a crack in the normally transparent wall of
the tank. Tobin looked at it curiously, and was rewarded for his inquisitiveness
by that same identical sound, and the sight of another crack, crossing the
first one. There was silence for a few more moments, and then the storm. The
bacta tank walls all collapsed under the intense pressure of hundreds of
individual cracks running in all directions, followed immediately by what
looked like an explosion from within the frozen bacta.
In the center was a
human male, who looked no older than thirty years, save the appearance of his
white hair, which hung to his shoulders and a beard that came down to his
chest. His fingernails were long to the point of being grotesque, about six
inches each. His toenails had somehow managed to claw their way out of his
knee-high boots. Whoever this guy was, he'd been in there for a long time. He
wore, what he thought were jedi robes and a long hooded cloak, all a deep, dark
gray color that would not be mistaken for black, but at the same time, not
unlike black in tone or intensity.
The man spoke, "You
have freed me from the abyss of nothingness, and for that you will be well
rewarded. What is your name?
Tobin noticed right
away how soft and quiet the man's voice was, but at the same time, not in any
way lacking in projection or clarity. Tobin answered, "Tobin Brogan. And you
would be…?"
The man's intense
eyes locked on him. His eyes had a feral quality all of their own. Whoever this
guy was, he wasn't to be messed with, nevertheless, he did answer, "I am Darth
Set.
Darth Set. That name
meant very little to him. Oh, wait. Vader had taken the prefix name of Darth as
well. Rumor held that in the old language, ealdrish, "darth" was the word for
"dark", as in Dark Lord of the… Oh hell, what had Momma Brogan's little boy
gotten into now.
Darth Set spoke
again, "I can see that this means something to you."
It was a statement,
not a question.
Tobin answered
quietly, but audibly, "You're a sith."
Set did not answer,
rather, he smiled and tilted his head back in a look of pride.
"What are you going to do with me?"
Tobin asked.
"What
is really on your mind is 'Am I going to kill you?'. I don't know what exposure
to the sith you've had at the hands of my successors, but let me assure you,
you will live and you will live well. I only ever kill out of necessity."
There
was a long awkward silence. Set decided to break it, "I've been away from the
countless worlds for a long time and I will need to catch up on all the things
I'm behind in. I need a good pilot and I can give you a lot of wealth in
exchange for your services, I need you shuttle me to a few locations and
finally to Coruscant. After that, you are free to leave. In exchange for all
this I will pay you one hundred thousand. Will be agreeable?"
One
hundred thousand. Tobin would be able to be with his kids a lot more in the
future. Too much to just walk away from, "All right, you've got yourself a
pilot. Where's our first stop?"
"Yavin
4."