Epilogue
Outside, the battle raged on.
Lord Lethe had felt Siphon's death through the Force, experienced the unrelenting deluge of turbulence ripple outward from the place of Siphon's fall, a beacon and gravestone that could not be ignored even had Lethe wanted to do so.
She wasn't entirely sure why she needed to be sure of her death. After experiencing Orthas' power firsthand, Lethe had no doubt about his ability to emerge the victor in this Kaggath. Returning to the site of his victory would surely mean risking detection … and being forced to submit to whatever cruel terms Orthas would effect as spoils of his conquest. She had abandoned her fight with the pureblood Sith precisely because she no longer saw possibility for victory. Why did she risk her escape now?
Something compelled Lethe to verify her instincts, however, a gut feeling that brimmed of exhilarating opportunity.
She entered the ritual chamber, wreathed in Sith sorcery to hide in the Force. She half-expected to find Orthas standing over her master's corpse; instead ... she found Orthas' body, unmoving. Dead for a while now. A second corpse lay a few meters away, one whose face sparked a twinge of recognition, but which Lethe could not quite place.
Siphon was nowhere to be seen.
A terrible battle had taken place here, of that there was no doubt. Shattered fountatins spilled water across the floor. The scarlet banners that draped around the central dais had all been sliced apart, leaving the chamber an appearance of being strangely naked. More than that, Lethe could sense the immense power that had been unleashed here; echoes in the Force that crawled beneath her skin.
She shuddered involuntarily.
The glint of light against shiny metal caught her eye, golden in its radiance. Siphon's mask, bearing a single thin crack. Lethe would have recognized it anywhere.
She took a moment to consider the situation. Orthas was dead, clearly slain. Siphon … was gone, the only sign that she had been here was the singular golden mask that now laid upon the floor. The Force told her that Siphon was dead as well; the fact that she had not declared her victory only confirmed it. Siphon was not one to hide displays of her power, after all. The Kaggath that still raged onwards outside was proof enough that Lethe's master had abandoned the field.
Lethe knew what she had to do.
She summoned the golden mask through the Force to her hand. With bated breath, she placed it over her face; it fit perfectly.
"I am Darth Siphon."
Through the modulator in the mask, her voice sounded exactly like her master's.
As Lethe prepared to depart the ritual chamber, she beckoned Orthas' corpse to follow her through the Force. It trailed behind her obediently, following her every step so that she could present it to the battlefield and declare her victory.
It would be a gamble, to be sure. Lethe considered briefly what to do should the real Siphon reappear … but without her mask, who would recognize her? There was also no guarantee that Orthas' followers would submit to her proclamation, but Lethe judged it to be worth the risk.
In one fell swoop, she could subsume the entirety of both Siphon and Orthas' power structures and make them her own. Today was the dawn of a new Siphon.
A new Lord of the Sith.
Hidden behind the golden mask, Lethe could not help but break into a wide, ambitious smile.
Tosin woke with a start.
His surroundings were unfamiliar, but he suspected he was in the medbay of a fury-class starship. He could sense of vastness of open space nearby even before he glanced out the viewport beside him to see a captivating image of Ziost in its magnificent entirety, framed by an ocean of stars.
Hallie stumbled in, limping a bit herself. "Finally. I was beginning to think you were in a coma."
"What … what happened?" Rend asked, as he gingerly tested his sore muscles.
"Actually, can we take a moment to just go 'whhhaaaaat?' about that whole situation Siphon had arranged? Sisters, pretending to be the same person? That … I mean, I guess it explains some things, but … can you imagine living like that? It's just creepy."
"Hallie."
"Hmm? Oh. You kinda collapsed as we reached the southern exit. I managed to call in a favor from an old friend who got us out of there and access to a ship. We almost got shot down by Orthas' forces, but they suddenly stopped firing mid-flight ... yeah, I'm not complaining."
"What about the Kaggath? Is it over?" asked Rend.
"I don't know, and frankly, I don't really care. Not after everything that's happened. Siphon's just as twisted as Orthas. Probably more. He was at least up front about being a bastard. She, on the other hand … had some serious trust issues."
Tosin couldn't help but smirk at that. "Right. You're right. Forget them. We don't owe anything to Siphon if she's even - if one them's even - still alive, and Orthas is dead. He won't be coming after us. We have zero stake in that fight."
He gazed out the viewport once more taking in the sight of Ziost and everything it symbolized to him. For the first time in a long time, he felt at peace. Peace. It was like an old family friend returned after a long trip away, awkward at first, but soon enrapt in commiserations and nostalgia. After all these years training under Siphon's lies, to finally be at peace again, felt incredible.
The Empire. The Sith. Tosin was done with all of it. He didn't know how the Emperor ever expected his Empire to last; he didn't care whether the Dark Council would be able to lead it in the Emperor's absence. He felt certain now; the Sith Empire would fall. If it wasn't to the Republic, then it would be to the Hutts. If not them, then someone else. It was only a matter of time.
Kaggaths between Darths were perhaps not altogether common, but the conflict between the innumerable Sith Lords within the Empire's hierarchy in many ways mirrored the war between Siphon and Empire was a body at war with itself. The Sith were a cancer devouring each other in a pursuit of personal power that would - sooner or later - tear the whole apart and leave only the bones for spoils.
There was no future with the Empire or as Sith. Tosin saw that now.
He turned back to Hallie. "Where are we headed?"
"I don't know about you, but I think we're overdue for a very, very long vacation. What do you think? Care to join me? I've always wanted to explore wild space ..."
He grinned. "Count me in."
Doctor Elias Magaro slammed his fists into the data console before him. Frustration and anger overtook his emotions on a daily basis now. Weeks of work continued to yield fruitless results.
He was sick of failure.
Magaro glanced up to the kolto tank before him and looked at the red-skinned twi'lek that now found himself in suspended animation within.
It was just the same as last time. Except last time, he had a wealth of donors to fund his research and pay a large support staff. This time, he was on his own, barely making do, forced to make ends meet by moonlighting as a cosmetic surgeon and freelance medical examiner. A glorified coroner and surgeon all rolled into one.
It was his own fault. He had been the laughingstock of the scientific community for over a decade now. His attempts to achieve humanoid cloning and replicate Force sensitivity had managed only to spawn a singular viable clone who had none of the original's connection to the Force. It did not help that he had a penchant for overselling his projects based on their potential rather than their feasibility.
He lost everything when the subject vanished, stealing all the failed clones along the way. With nothing to present to his peers, Magaro had been forced to swallow his own grandstanding in front of the entire Imperial scientific community.
His own bluster was a character flaw the Doctor had long since learned to correct.
Of course, he found out later that the original body had been severed from the Force before even being presented to him, information that would have been vital to establishing a proper baseline in the research. His methodology had been completely flawed, and all because she had decided to withhold that tidbit of knowledge.
In retrospect, he suspected the Sith had planned it to turn out that way from the very beginning. Now, his livelihood was tied to hers; no other patrons would come with grants or funding for his research, not after the spectacular failure he had proven himself to be. If he wanted anything, to make any progress in his life's work, she stood now the only one he could turn to for resources.
"Doctor, Darth S-siphon is here to see y-you ..."
Speak of the devil…
"I'll be right out, Tava."
He washed his gnarled hands and slicked back a swath of greasy grey hair before making his way into the miniature closet he was forced to call his reception area. "I told you over the holocom my lord, the subject may not be a viable can-"
He paused.
Darth Siphon stood before him, disheveled and sweaty. He had never seen her in that state ever before, not in the fifteen years since their initial meeting. In her arms, she held a small-looking woman, middle-aged with auburn hair. Her lack of breath and the cauterized hole in her chest made evident that she was dead.
"What is this?" he asked with trepidation. He glanced to Tava'so; his young togruta secretary looked like she was about to faint.
"Save her," said Siphon.
Magoro glanced with skepticism from the corpse to the golden mask. "My lord … she is dead. There is nothing we can do at this point, nothing anyone can-"
His throat seized as what felt like an iron gauntlet wrapped around his neck and began to crush it. He shook his head with furious desperation, eyes bulging as they pleaded with the Darth for mercy, spittle flying from his mouth even as words could no longer.
Then, suddenly, it was over. He fell to his knees as Tava wept quietly under her desk.
"Whatever it takes, doctor. You will bring her back."
Magoro nodded now, wanting only to exclaim with brilliant concordance whatever the Darth wished him to say. How he could achieve the impossible - that would be a dilemma for another time. For now, self-preservation won the day.
Gasping for breath, he could barely manage more than a whimper.
"... it will be done."