Disclaimer: I don't own rights to Star Wars, nor do I intend to profit from this work of fiction.
Chapter 1:
Darth Blivion
The interdictor cruiser Horizon, floated soundlessly through hyperspace and in an empty spherically-shaped room a hooded figure in simple Jedi robes sat motionless on the cold tran-parasteel floor, his legs crossed. They survived, perhaps the Jedi have a second life after all. Such compassion I still have for them. Is it wise to carry such feelings for them? Perhaps not, but... - they weight so heavily on my conscience - it is natural in my position to want to be parted from them in spirit. Nevertheles such feelings shouldn't be avoided, denying them would be denying a part of myself, and such things can be a weakness of their own.
"A title… to represent what you will be, once you have overcome," Kreia's words echoed in his head. I conquered the past, the present, and the fear of what is in the future…
"I ordain you…" He had stared at Kreia with bemusement and a bit of anger.
"Ordain! By what right do you ordain me?" Kreia, he remembered, had not flinched at the venom in his tone. With her atrophied eyes she had looked at him as if she was looking beyond him, into memories she hadn't considered for a long time.
"I ordain you by the right of being a former Lord of the Sith; by the authority of the Sith master I once was and, by the knowledge I posses of their legacy."
Harlan had stared at the old lady before him; after scrutinizing her for a time he had felt emanating from her only sincerity, so he bent before her on one knee. Kreia passed her only hand over his head before resting it on Harlan's right shoulder.
"I ordain you Darth Blivion, Lord of the Sith." He rose to his feet and breathed deeply.
"I will take this name, but only to draw myself closer to my enemies, to use what they know against them." Kreia had grinned at him briefly, "You are learning the importance of titles, and how they can be an effective shroud against those you choose to remain hidden from. No student I've taught before you ever used this lesson."
And so it is my apprentices, that you will not find your master, for the Jedi Exile known as Harlan Keito is no more.
"We've just got out of hyperspace, my Lord," the room's comm. speaker sounded. Lord Blivion, from his sitting position telekinetically touched the comm. button next to the speaker.
"I'm on my way."
Darth Blivion walked up to the bridge through the med bay, where one of the ship's crew was checking on the ships log. On approach, the med officer stiffened and saluted his superior. He reached the bridge, to find his pilot standing legs abreast behind the pilot seats looking out at Telos' orbital station,
The pilot was one of eleven former Republic officers that he had inherited along with the ship. When he had taken the ship and found them inside, they had told him with all the confidence they could muster that it was profitable for him to utilize there skills and expertise rather than kill them. They had told him that they had served Sion and Nihilus' understudies and were used to the cruelties associated with serving Sith Lords.
Blivion had rolled his eyes and merely told them: "If you don't work hard when asked to; follow instructions when given, and decide to give me that pathetic loyalty you so willingly showed to the Republic after the Mandalorian wars, then know that I will not waste any time with cruelties as your other masters did, I will simply break you."
"Essien," Lord Blivion called. The pilot turned around and approached him.
"Have they detected us?"
"No my Lord, as long as we stay a safe distance outside the range of their sensors, we should remain undetected," the pilot answered.
"Good, instruct your colleague in the docking bay to make ready the shuttle."
"I'll do that right away, my Lord."
Blivion looked at the orbital station for a moment before turning to the Essien's co-pilot.
"Take the ship on a tangent, further west from the orbital station."
The co-pilot did as he was instructed. Blivion satisfied with the progress at the bridge walked off to the maintenance room, to look for his droids.
In the maintenance room he found the ship's tech specialist working on weapon modifications for the HK unit's rifle. The G0-T0 droid, now in the remotes body hovered over HK 47.
"I trust everything has been readied."
The tech stopped fumbling with the rifle and handed it over to the HK droid. "Yes my Lord Blivion, everything is as you asked, the HK's paint job is finished," Blivion had obviously noticed the HK unit's new metallic silver appearance, "and the shuttle has been fitted with the cloaking device placements we received from the remote droid."
"Well done. G0-T0, 47 lets go."
Lord Blivion fitted himself in the pilot's sit and did a quick study of the shuttle's controls. The T3 unit had been in the shuttle when he arrived, busying itself by running basic diagnostics on the ship's systems. The Horizon's docking hatch was opened and Blivion piloted the shuttle into space.
The descent to the Telosian surface was smooth and without any problems. They landed gently over an expansive field of grass, where cannoks were roaming a short distance away. Blivion asked the T3 unit for a reading of the atmosphere and was given feedback that it was safe.
"Alright, we've landed in roughly the same area we crash landed last time we were here; the abandoned base should be a few clicks from our current position."
"Query: Forgive me for being presumptuous Master. But if what you've deduced is correct, then how safe from detection will the operations you want to carry at the base be." Blivion smiled at the HK droid, and then looked at G0-T0.
"I'm sure you've already calculated your role in all of this G0-T0. That's the reason for G0-T0' presence in our party, he'll aid the carrier ships with his cloaking technology." HK 47 was about to speak when Blivion raised his hand to stop him.
"Whatever queries you have, save them for later. Now what we'll do is split into two groups, T3 and HK you'll scout along a north western route from our current position, while G0-T0 and I will go north. With T3's sensors you should be able to end up near the abandoned military base."
The shuttles exit rump was opened to reveal a green lush savanna, with a clear blue sky overhead. Blivion drew the fresh cool air to his lungs, before bounding of on a jog with G0T0 close behind, T3 and 47 moving to their left. They had been moving for quite a while when they spotted a sentry droid hovering some 500 meters from there position, using his binoculars Blivion spotted two men; one a red skinned male Twilek, the other a fair skinned human.
"Alright, there's a Czerka base not far from here, I'm guessing the two are salvagers in the employ of Czerka. The sentry droid should provide little problems for a droid puppeteer."
He turned to face G0-T0. "And your small size in this case should give you ample cover to get rid of the droid carefully and quietly."
"Is that the only advantage of my inadequate size: camouflage?" G0-T0 asked, with a slight hint of derision in his voice.
Blivion didn't react to G0-T0's disgruntlement, this time but merely smiled at the once independent droid.
"One of the many," he said, "but being inconspicuous increases your effectiveness, it doesn't reduce it. Now, busy yourself with eliminating the lookout." G0-T0 focused his sensory device on Lord Blivion for a moment, before turning to begin the task stalk the sentry. "I'll do better than eliminate it Master, I'll make it an ally."
It had been easy enough to sneak up on the droid, neutralize its motor functions with an ion blast, and then recalibrate its command protocols. But G0T0 knew better than to turn the sentry droid on its former masters, as they were likely (even as salvagers), to retaliate and probably destroy the droid before it had chance to land an incapacitating blaster shot. So G0T0 went back to his Sith master to receive instructions on how they'll proceed from here.
"You did that as quietly as I expected, you would not have been able execute that operation as silently without the advantage - in this case – of being small," Blivion commented.
"I understand the reasoning behind my re…sizing, but I'm not convinced it affected my effectiveness as a highly sophisticated piece of machinery," G0T0 responded at length.
"Your reservations are not my concern droid," he returned to his surveillance, "The two are more than salvagers, they're geologists."
Blivion was monitoring them again with his binoculars. "I'll go around on their flank and ambush them from behind; your job will be to get the sentry droid to distract them at the vital moment while I make my move." With that, Blivion moved quickly as he crouched his way through the tall grass.
Maras was looking at the data pad of the mineral readings from the G 4 droid, when he heard it make its familiar whistling which meant it had detected something. The slim, human geologist noticed the droids head rise from its soil inspections to look straight ahead. It was the sentry droid approaching them, probably on its usual patrol run. The sentry droid, strangely enough, came right up to hover next Maras. He asked the droid if it had anything interesting to report, but it merely hovered there without making a sound.
Maras turned to look at his red skinned Twilek assistant, "Filk what do you think is wrong with the sentry droid?"
Filk had been busy marking the spots on the ground they had already inspected, he afforded a short glance at the sentry droid in his squatting position before turning back to do his recordings, "Use your data pad and do a diagnostic."
Maris wasn't ready for what came next, the sentry droid moved away from him when he tried to access its controls, before attacking him with its two blasters set on stun. He was still conscious enough to get his own field survival gun out of his belt holster, when a concussive blow landed on the back of his head, blanketing his consciousness with black. The Twilek had been given the same treatment by Blivion, he was lying face down and unconscious a few steps behind where Maras himself had been laid out.
"I think I'll just about fit into his uniform," Blivion said, even as he wore the geologist's Czerka outfit, "a bit small but it'll do. Now, we've wasted enough time, let's head to the base."
Outside the military complex was a whole task force of mercenaries, all well equipped with body armor and powerful blaster rifles. And in an energy cell next to a computer console, Blivion spotted what looked like two droids in containment. The silver coloured amalgam of battle droid and protocol schematics that was HK 47, and the tin shaped astromech unit T3 M4.
"This should be interesting," Blivion said after surveying the situation. "Unfortunately this situation unlike the previous one we encountered, will require that I use more of my…..skills."
Blivion had counted eight sentient; two at the entrance of the encampment, two behind that group, one next to a tent near the console area one at the console itself and two more standing in front of the magnetically sealed doors of the under ground complex. Blivion leaped across the gap in the rocky wall that surrounded the abandoned garrison. He moved with the super human speed afforded to him by the force and then leaped down off the rugged rocky bulwark, to land some meters behind the pair of mercenaries second closest to the entrance.
A crippling force grip caught both mercenaries sending their broken bodies sinking to the ground without a sound. Their colleagues standing at the entrance of the abandoned site didn't appear to have noticed Blivion. The Sith Lord made a sweeping hand gesture and the entrance guards got hurled bodily onto the rock faces in opposite directions. Their deaths were instantaneous, the power of the telekinetic energy causing their bones to shatter on impact with the unyielding stone.
Blivion strode casually towards the computer console, where the droids were kept captive in force cages. The Merc standing next to the tent collapsed to the ground as if he had been caught between two colliding Bontha's. The armed man guarding the droids leveled his blaster rifle at the lone human in Czerka uniform walking towards him. Jurndi wasn't known for being the sharpest tool in the box, but he knew the human had done something to make his friend Sirsho faint or die.
"Don't move man, what did you do to Sirsho?"
The question had been unnecessary, Jurdi found himself; being lifted of the ground, by what felt like an invisible giant hand, his weapon dropping out of his grasp, and then as suddenly as he had been lifted in the air, the invisible hand spiked him head-first into the hard concrete floor.
His team mates outside the underground base entrance weren't any luckier, with weapons trained on their enemy, they pressed their triggers at the instant Jurndi began levitating in response to the strange intruder's hand signal, but their weapons didn't fire. They looked down at their rifles, surprised to see the barrels of their blasters were knurled and twisted. They didn't have time to do anything else though, as they were made to ram into each other with such momentum; it was as if they were pulverized by a rancor's clapping hands.
Blivion surveyed the mayhem he had wrought before keying the energy release for the droid's prison.
"Statement: I have seen a lot of impressive feats of strength by Jedi, but none quite like this, Master. This was beyond little Jedi mind tricks; this was a power of a level only a select few force sensitive meat bags could hope to match."
Blivion looked at the droid as if he wanted to admonish him.
"Clarification: I'm merely trying to express my relief at having fallen into your service, Master. It is an honor to be serving you" Blivion shook his head slightly, before fiddling with the console: a short time later the heavy magnetic doors to the base slid open. He walked down the mini rump of the console platform towards the doors, before turning to his mechanical servants, "Come my droids, we have an army to build."