-3-

When she cleared the customs station, Zannah took one look around at her immediate surroundings and made an instant decision: Apatros was disgusting, and she cared not a bit for it.

Never before had the newly anointed Sith Lord had cause to visit the dull planet. Bane had never expressly forbidden her from doing so, but he had made it clear that such a trip was naught but a waste of time; there was nothing and no one of worth on Apatros that they could use to further their goals.

The mines that had once sold cortosis ore to the Republic during the war still operated at what was considered on this world as peak efficiency, but with the war long over, there was no longer any high demand for the planet's one redeeming quality; the Republic had turned to more reputable and reliable sources for further shipments of the ore.

And yet, something about the place didn't quite sit right with her.

There was something in the air that tingled against Darth Zannah's skin; something dark, something thrilling.

She could sense that whatever it was she sensed that had left that taint had happened long ago, before Bane's induction into the Kaan's Brotherhood. And yet its presence was still strong enough to attract those that knew to feel for it. If it had a smell, Zannah would have said it smelled like death.

Not just death; murder.

She resisted the urge to use her abilities to call up dark phantoms that only she would see to replay for her whatever events had resulted in such a dark presence. Instead, she merely let herself enjoy the sensations as she passed through the streets at a casual pace. She gave off the appearance of taking in everything and nothing in the same moment, hoping that it would only attract those daring enough to speak with her.

She didn't need to ask for directions to her intended destination—the towering complex was well within sight in the middle of what passed on this world as a city. The great, big, squat tower in amongst the dull, colourless buildings of the city was the only thing that presented any semblance of colour. Though windblasts and sandstorms had leeched away most of the building's intended glamour, enough colour remained in the building's exterior to make it easily distinguishable as a corporate building.

A guard standing by the front door to the building touched fingers to his earpiece and muttered something, his eyes locked in her direction. The blaster he held loosely at his side was enough of a deterrent to the average worker or native of the dusty world, but it would do no good as a threat to her.

He made to block her advance when she was within steps of the front door, holding is blaster up and pointed at her chest. "What business have you, woman?" he demanded, rather rudely, Zannah thought.

Smiling as politely as any predator eyeing its prey, Zannah used the Force to summon up dark images in the security guard's mind, forcing him to see her as whatever it was he was most afraid of.

Instinctively, the guard backed away a step, the rifle clutched tighter to his chest. His mouth was hanging open, words trying and failing to come forth to express his fear.

"Step aside, insect," she said casually as she walked by him. The guard, visibly shaking, said or did nothing to stop her.

She half expected the interior of the building to be cooler, so she was only half disappointed that it wasn't. But, then, she figured that the Outer Rim Oreworks Company wouldn't necessarily go spending its credits on something like personal comforts for its workforce if it didn't absolutely have to.

She ignored the Twi'lek woman sitting behind the reception desk that tried to grab her attention, and continued across the lobby straight to the nearest lift tube.

"Excuse me!" the Twi'lek called out to her.

Zannah half-twisted her hand in the woman's direction, reaching out with the dark side of the Force. She heard the satisfying snap of bone breaking, the heavy thud of a heavy mass hitting the floor, and smiled. The girl wouldn't bother her now. The door to the lift tube opened at her approach, and she stepped onto the plate inside and waited for the door to close once more.

It didn't, at first.

Frowning, she reached out and pressed the interior control to close the doors herself. They didn't respond.

"Insects," she muttered to herself.

She looked around the inside of the lift tube carefully, enhancing her sight with the Force. She spotted two cameras, in opposite corners of the lift car looking down toward the centre. It was an ingenious security measure to have two like that, eliminating the possibility for blind spots within the lift car in order to deter criminal intrusions into the upper levels.

It wouldn't be enough. She reached out with the dark side and crushed the camera behind her into dust, all the while looking up and directly into the lens of the one in front.

"I advise you not to delay me any further," she said clearly, so that whatever security was watching the feed right now—as she knew there would be, since the car had been shut down remotely—would hear her through the feed. "Or I'll have to cause unnecessary damage to the building. By the time I'm done, there won't be anything or anyone left standing."

If they'd been watching her in the lobby, they'd know that it was no idle threat. They would know that she was willing, and able, to kill with a thought. The question remained: would they test her?

While the commoners of the galaxy didn't understand the Force, nor how those who commanded it were able to do so, many of them, stupidly, believed themselves somehow superior to those Force users. Many a time did she and Bane come across people that thought they could outwit or entrap them, knowing of their abilities, because they thought themselves more intelligent or cunning.

There were none more cunning than the Sith. The thought made her smile, until she remembered that she could be facing such misguided folk right that moment.

When the lift started moving suddenly, she decided that the security forces weren't as stupid as she'd first suspected. She took the time to let her hood drop so that her watchers could more clearly see who they were, possibly, going up against. She hoped that just the sight of her would deter further resistance. But she was prepared in case it only spurred on that resistance.

The lift continued to speed to the top floor of the building, where she wanted to go. When it stopped, barely a minute had passed.

She stepped out of the lift casually, flicking her long blonde locks over her shoulder and looking around at her immediate surroundings for any sign of an ambush.

The only person about was indeed armed, but he was alone, and he did not hold the blaster rifle up, aimed in her direction. "This way, ma'am," the guard said, eyeing her up and down just once without expression.

Zannah frowned. Either she wasn't impressive, or he was a master at hiding it. In either case, she followed three steps behind the guard as he led her down a stretching corridor to the opaque plexiglass doors at the other end, keeping him well within sight in case he was planning something incredibly stupid.

When the guard reached the doors, he pressed a button on the intercom set into the wall to his right. "Visitor for you, sir," he said, his voice guttural, not at all matching what she'd expected just from the look of him.

This was a man who had been through the war, she reasoned. He looked old enough; at least fifty. And yet, she had always thought that ORO employees were for life.

There was a moment where nothing was said. The guard stood still with his back to the previously used intercom, his rifle held tightly across his chest as he stared ahead, with the occasional glance her way.

For her part, Zannah stood silently and patiently, waiting to be granted access. She decided if she was denied, she was just going to have to kill the guard and walk right on in anyway. She was betting that the person on the other side of the doors knew that and that he or she would take the easy way into the meeting.

She was right. The doors swung inward which a whisper. The guard nodded toward the door, and Zannah took that as her cue to enter.

She strode confidently across the room, listening for the closing of the doors behind her. The guard remained outside, waiting to escort her back to the lift tube when she was dismissed.

Zannah smiled. Maybe she would kill him just on that alone. She needed no escort to go anywhere, let alone one from someone like him.

"What," a voice came from over to Zannah's left, "business, may I ask, does a Jedi have on a backward little world like Apatros?"

The Sith Lord's teeth ground together in silent fury. Jedi indeed! But she paid the misinterpretation no outward mind. The Sith were supposed to be extinct, as far as anyone outside of the New Order was concerned. In fact, if it meant that people would assume she was a Jedi, or Dark Jedi like Set Harth had been, then perhaps she and her new apprentice need not even attempt to disguise their abilities too much.

Sure, she knew that they could not just go terrorising the galaxy, pretending to be Jedi or Dark Jedi, lest she draw the attention of her enemies on Coruscant—enemies Bane had decreed would one day be destroyed by the Sith. But, if ordinary people were already so easy in forgetting the Sith had ever existed, perhaps that served her purpose well enough.

After all, from what she had learned from Set Harth before the coward had fled, the Jedi Order had not particularly bothered with him, despite the fact that they knew him to be a Dark Jedi, because he was not causing any harm on a large scale.

Zannah appraised the owner of the voice when she spotted him standing in the middle of a small lounging area.

He was tall, with a bald, spotted head and prominent veins on the backs of his hands. His blue eyes seemed to bore into her. He was straight backed and wiry. He was an elderly man, but powerful for someone so untalented in the ways of the Force. His aura radiated respect. He had such a commanding presence that Zannah had to check the sudden urge to drop to a knee before him and ask him to command her.

Nonsense! How could someone such as he even hope to command a Dark Lord such as her? It was absolute lunacy!

"My business is my own, I'll thank you to know," she said coldly. She resented that someone like this could bring out such subservient urges in her. It had to be some kind of trick. She forced as much of that disdain into her expression as she glared at him. "I'll be the one asking questions."

"As you wish," the man said, bowing his head and gesturing to one of the seats near where he stood. "Please, won't you at least sit?"

She approached him carefully, picked what she judged to be the most comfortable of the available lounging chairs, and slid gracefully into it. It was indeed soft, and she sank into it with a suppressed moan expressive of that comfort. The old man looked down at her with a placating smile before he took one of the less comfortable seats opposite a small cortosis-woven table.

"Everyone takes that seat," he said.

That comment alone sparked warning within the Sith's mind. Instantly, she was on guard. Her senses went out to feel the chair thoroughly, searching for traps. She was chagrined to find none—he had caused her to panic over nothing.

Bishwag.

"I wouldn't have seated myself here if the chair was rigged," she said, feigning foreknowledge she hadn't in fact had.

"Of course," the elderly man simpered. She didn't like his attitude, but she knew that were her portrayal of being a Jedi to be successful, she would need to allow him his arrogance. The Jedi, it seemed, did not have the continued support of the masses that they'd had during the war.

Perhaps without the common threat of the Sith to force them into bed together, the Republic and the Jedi were no longer on the same good standing they had enjoyed through the war.

The thought brought a smile to her lips.

"How may I help you, Master Jedi?" the man asked. Again, being addressed thusly annoyed her, but she bore it like any Sith of her standing would.

"I'm after some information," she declared, flicking back a lock of curly blonde hair that was out of place.

"Information doesn't come cheap," the old man bantered. "Especially on a planet like Apatros, where it could be lost so many ways before ever finding its way to a viable source."

"I need not tell you that if you attempt to keep the information I need from you, I will be forced to take it by force. I assume you've already seen what kind of power I possess."

"Yes." He frowned then and leaned forward a little. "That was unnecessarily cruel of you. Not only have you wasted a highly efficient worker, but you've put me in the position of having to invent the cause of her demise so that her family will be appeased. Needless to say, they have now inherited her debt to the company. You are very inconsiderate to such matters."

"I am indifferent to such matters," Zannah said with an absent flick of her hand. "Now; if she had kept her mouth shut and not tried to impede me, she'd still be working. Don't get me wrong—I'm not denying my part in her death. I'm just pointing out that it could have been avoided if she'd taken more care."

"So you Jedi are all about spreading the blame around, then," the man pointed out. He nodded, as if understanding the concept, or, indeed, the necessity. "I can sympathise with that. What information do you require?"

"Information on a man," Zannah started. She dipped her hand into the inside pocket of her robe and brought out a sheet of flimsiplast, which she handed over.

The elderly man thumbed the corner of the flimsy and instantly the sheet was filled with scrolling information, pages upon pages of it. Debts, work orders, work efficiencies, demerits and merits, sanctions, suspensions, and eventually a posthumous dismissal. The picture in the upper right corner which remained there throughout the entire length of the report was of someone she had known her whole life.

His scowling expression and brought shoulders clad in a miner's work shirt. His square jaw and his dark eyes and his bald head.

Bane. Or Dessel as he had gone by before becoming Sith.

"A former employee?" the man enquired, a little surprised by the look of him. Zannah forced down the smug smile at having disarmed the man.

"He worked here about thirty or so years ago," Zannah recited from the records. "Was raised here, actually, by his father, who was a miner before him. He took up his father's debt when he died. A debt that, for all practical purposes, has been accruing interest and compounding over these past thirty years."

"He disappeared without a trace about that long ago," the man said with a frown. "I was working as a low level administrator back then."

He touched a finger to his lips and mumbled something Zannah could barely hear. It sounded as though he was verbally running his own thoughts past his mind to confirm or deny any of his suspicions.

"If memory serves; there was an incident with some Republic officers the night he was last seen. He got into an argument with a couple of them over a sabacc table at the local cantina. A couple of young Republic officers were later found dead not far from the cantina, and this man—Dessel—was never seen again."

"I know this," Zannah replied. "I have … had an association with the man after those events. He went on to fight in the war."

She deliberately left it vague as to who he had fought for. If she mentioned that he had fought for the Sith, she'd need to kill him at some point to prevent him from drawing the Republic's attention toward her.

He might just make the connection that if she knew him, it was probably through the Brotherhood of Darkness, or the Sith Corps.

Zannah was well aware that the Republic was still tracking down whoever they could find and drag to trial any officers that had served under the Sith. So admitting that she had met him through the Sith might as well have been a beacon for the Jedi to rain down on Apatros to apprehend her.

No, she thought, better to leave it ambiguous.

"Then you know him to be a cold killer," the elderly man said, dragging her back to the conversation. "Many miners that knew him even believed him responsible for his father's death."

"I thought his father died of a heart attack," Zannah suggested innocently.

"Well, yes," the man said, somewhat confused. "Which was why a murder investigation was never called for. There were no signs that Dessel had even laid a hand on Hurst, let alone murdered him. No signs of struggle, suffocation, injury of any kind. It was a simple heart attack. But everyone knew that they harboured a secret—or not so secret in Hurst's case—hatred of one another. And so Hurst's friends and colleagues continued in on the abuse that their friend had always heaped on his son, and all the while justifying it as revenge for the murder of a man they knew well.

"But I've heard stories … of the Jedi," he man added, looking around as if he expected someone to be eavesdropping. "They say that the Jedi can do things with their minds; do things that would look like a miracle to us common folk."

"This is true," Zannah confirmed.

"Well I often thought that maybe that's how he did it—if he did it at all. Tell me, Master Jedi …" He paused for effect and leaned back into his seat again. "If you were to use your mind to stop my heart right now, would it appear in an examination as though I'd suffered a perfectly natural heart attack?"

Such an appealing idea, Zannah thought to herself wickedly. She could barely contain the smile it brought to her lips. The man was a little disarming, but she could discover no reason for that. He could feel that he did not have command of the Force, even unconsciously. He had not been trained, he had no ability. And yet he put her on edge.

Was it just his ruthless personality, honed from years of dealing with unruly, excuse-bleating miners? Possibly. In fact, it was very possible. Borderline-criminal companies like Outer Rim Oreworks required administrative staff that weren't likely to be timid. To gain such a position with a company like ORO, one would probably have to demonstrate their iron will, their ability to cut through dross to get at the heart of something, and to put people in their place whenever they got it into their heads to challenge the status quo.

After all, a company like ORO practically used slave labour. Its miners were paid a minimum, and most of those credits went straight into their debt accounts, paying off what they owed the company for living spaces, sustenance, luxuries such as gambling and drinking. Disputes between the workers and the administrators was expected to happen occasionally—if not frequently.

Zannah reached out with her mind, pushed beneath the suit and flesh of the old man and felt his heart. It pumped evenly, neither faster or slower than it should. The arteries that fed it blood and to which it fed blood were clear of blockages. It was in all respects a healthy heart. That in itself was an oddity. A man of this many years should have had a heart that was showing the signs of wear, of coming to the end of its cycle. There wasn't even scarring to show that it was a new heart, implanted after his natural one had failed him in some way.

"No," she told him when she withdrew to her own mind again. "A heart that healthy suffering from a sudden attack would be noticed as suspicious."

"Well, I thank you for the compliment, I guess," he said with a smile. He touched a hand to his suit where his heart beat steadily beneath it. "It's amazing that you can do that. I didn't even feel a thing."

The typical ignorance of the common folk on how the Force worked never failed to annoy Zannah. It wasn't just the fact that a few people didn't have any clue on the how, it was that so many across the galaxy could say the same, when Jedi and Sith had been around for thousands of years. Surely, at least a basic understanding would have circulated in all that time.

So while it was beneficial, it could sometimes be quite irritating.

"What kind of information are you after, Master Jedi?"