Chapter Nine
Dantius had managed to land battalions of the Silver Hands onto Dathomir with Ashlynn to lead them, deciding that he would use the mercenaries first. Aside from Dathomir having what seemed like the larger portion of forces, Dantius figured that draining his mercenary pool first would leave the Sith at an unexpected disadvantage when they didn't see them. By now, he knew that they would most likely have learned about the mercenaries and would anticipate Dantius hiring more mercenaries as opposed to facing their mortal enemy. Knowing this, they would be surprised when they saw the banner of the Republic and at best, might provide the kind of token resistance that would ensure the Empire's days didn't end on a whimper. He also had yet to request reinforcements from the Chancellor and would have preferred to keep it that way until he reached Nogatan.
Realizing that Inoy and Ashlynn would be more than capable of a successful expedition when the former's aquatic force landed, Dantius decided to comm them with a change of plan. "Ashlynn, if you and Inoy have Dathomir covered, Jace and I will be taking Republic forces to Balmorra. Meet us at Nogatan when you're done here and I'll keep Jace on standby to ring up the reinforcements from there standby, ten parsecs from Nogatan's planetary system," Dantius said.
"Hold on, Danny boy. I'm rejoining you: Colonel Silver is insistent that he lead his forces here on the ground and Inoy's assured me he's got everything covered here. Why doesn't Jace stay here to coordinate the space attack here then they can regroup at Nogatan with the reinforcements?" Ashlynn offered. Before Jace spoke, Dantius countered in the manner more typical of Jedi Knights.
"To her credit, your battles with the Sith began in space on a station above Korriban. How about leading one of the last space battles in the history of this Sith Empire instead of being the grunt? Don't worry, you'll be there when they're destroyed for good at Nogatan," Dantius assured him. Jace nodded and requested a shuttle back to his personal cruiser from which he'd departed to have a private conference with the three Jedi in his company before the invasion of Dathomir. In return, Ashlynn disembarked from the shuttle and joined Dantius in the hyperspace jump to Balmorra with all the Republic's fleet except for those troops that Inoy had taken with him and the extraction craft necessary to get them to Nogatan afterwards, including Jace's ship.
As soon as they arrived at Balmorra, however, they were met with even less resistance then anticipated. A minor scuffle with no casualties marked a prompt surrender of Dathomir to the Jedi which Dantius was not expecting. "If Crassus is almost ready to begin the ceremony that could explain why Balmorra was surrendered so quickly. I think I'll wait on calling reinforcements until I see the full scope of what I'm up against on Nogatan. Meantime Ashlynn, send a holo transmission to Inoy and Jace, tell them to join us at Nogatan as soon as they've destroyed resistance on Dathomir," Dantius said.
Ashlynn nodded and did as her former lover bade, returning with news that Inoy's underwater forces were about to engage the Dathomir temple. More, the Silver Hands had begun their engagement on the temple's front about half a standard day ahead of schedule. Dantius smiled and nodded, knowing that any little advantage helped and thus gave the go-ahead for Inoy's aquatic force to launch their own attack on the temple's vulnerable flank. Meanwhile, he and Ashlynn put a Republic beacon on Balmorra, making sure that the Chancellor could confirm that Balmorra was safely in Republic fold and would be sending a separate fleet to protect it. Though both the politician and the Jedi knew that an incursion to reclaim Balmorra or Dathomir was unlikely, it didn't hurt to secure them in the off chance others might wish to seize the opportunities the Sith never allowed them to exploit.
"There's a great swelling of pulsing Dark Side energy the closer we get to Nogatan. Either the planet has a strong signature of the Dark Side and Crassus has merely added to it with his power and priceless Sith artifacts or he has begun the ritual already. How far off are we from the planet?" Dantius asked Ashlynn.
"We're coming up on the planet within the hour. I had the deceleration process start three hours ago and we should be coming to the end of the jump in forty-five standard minutes. We'll arrive at the planet's surface about ten minutes or so after," Ashlynn replied. At first, Knight Thorin was somewhat reluctant to concede to her former consort in this fashion but she could see his excitement and knew from having made love to him before that there was no dissuading him. Not when he had told her before about how his grandfather just wouldn't kriffing die, no matter how many times he was defeated by his enemies.
"Good, I want to get in the action and this forever once we get off the jump. I'm calling the reinforcements, with or without major resistance. Better to make sure they're wiped away from the face of the galaxy and that grandpa fails than give him even the slightest bit of hope," Dantius ordered. Ashlynn relayed the orders to the fleet and had the frequency for reinforcements on standby in case he decided he would go ahead and call them, regardless of army size.
And it was fortunate he had come to the decision because the resistance they met was four and a half times the size of the standard fleet size and was made of largely elite ships that seemed to hold the populace of Nogatan hostage for the purpose of the ceremony. Dantius was even willing to bet there there was a ground force of messengers and enforcers, warning the people not to try and escape. And of course, these would be relocated once their task was done on the planet to a place Crassus would want them to go unless they couldn't break through the space battle. But that wasn't all, in fact even the deal with Balmorra had not quite been completed yet, due to the news that Inoy would soon relay when he had arrived there within mere hours of finalizing the Sith's defeat on Dathomir. Searching among those abandoned, he found a girl trained as a Sith Sorceress beside an older, comatose man who was much to haggard in appearance to be her lover. It was when Inoy recognized him as Hyperion and reported it that Dantius had become confused.
How had Hyperion gotten himself comatose and who was the girl that had been by his side when he was recovered? Did she know of Hyperion's original mission to help the Republic bring down the Sith Empire forever? Or would she be hearing it for the first time when Inoy briefed her on it, considering she surrendered without a fight? These questions were all answered when Inoy revealed that the girl had named herself Morgause Brilliante, the niece of Morgana who had been known to the Sith as Darth Minshuto before her death at Hyperion's hands. Suddenly, Dantius began to put the pieces into place, understanding exactly who this woman was and what had likely happened.
Morgana never had children, despite having a voracious sexual appetite in her youth, likely as a result of accepting her inability to conceive. Hyperion, on the other hand, had raped a perfectly quaint and socially quiet sister of Morgana's and Dantius' former lover by the name of Patricia. The unholy union had produced a daughter that Patricia had proceeded to abandon when she threw herself to her death from the top of one of Taris' highest towers. After she committed suicide, her parents were killed whilst on the way to pick up the infant from daycare that they could barely afford, an accident the police suspected was staged by someone with a motive. Custody of the child had fallen to Morgana and no one had heard from the baby since, not even her name at the time of her birth.
So the spawn of Hyperion's loins has finally revealed herself and she's in cahoots with her father? Why? There's no way Morgana would've raised her that way with her vendetta against Hyperion and there's no way the child would have resisted her words, being dependent on her for many years! Dantius thought to himself angrily. He finally had a chance to meet his niece and she had also been a Sith though likely not armed with the same mission as Hyperion at the start of her tenure. So many questions and so little time to get them answered at the moment which encouraged Dantius to have Hyperion relocated to the medical bay and the girl relocated to a holding room if she was willing to cooperate and give her father some rest.
And on further thinking of it, Dantius wasn't surprised that the child's name would be Morgause, least of all in the hands of Morgana in her infancy. "Begin the attack, start with a wedge formation of missiles from the cruisers then follow up with two standard defensive lines. We're going to break through them and get down to my grandfather if it's the last thing we do in our entire lives. And somebody get on waking up my brother so he can join us in stopping the Sith forever," Dantius declared. Then he called on reinforcements to join from the northeast flank of the battle so that they could hope to take the fleet by surprise.
He also wanted to see what intel he could recover out of Hyperion about Crassus' plan and why he had been thrown into a coma. More, he wanted to meet his long lost niece at long last, curious to see how powerful she was with the Force. To his credit, if she were sufficiently gifted, it would appear that Hyperion had a knack for finding gifted children to raise whether by producing them from his seed or adopting them of his own accord. The discoveries he had made with Menelaus before the incursion with the Sith had begun would certainly have indicated as much to Hyperion himself and they indicated themselves that way to Dantius now.