Chapter 27: Den of Snakes IV

In a small and cramped series of rooms, where the climate control was spotty at best and the roofs were too low(a telltale sign that this had not been purpose builts as residence units) in the Undercity of Imperial Center, a group of scomp-rats gathered.

They wiped the muck and scum of the outside world off themselves, shedding fake clothing as they did so. And then this group of scomp-rats, content that the tricks of their trade had proven their worth once again, gathered around a cheap illuminator lamp and debriefed each other on the day's work. All of this, I sensed, manipulating the force to let me hear their footsteps, allowing us to lie in wait for the perfect moment to strike.

They imagined themselves safe.

What a mistake on their part.

I signaled the troopers standing behind me and they stacked up alongside the wall we had gradually moved into. On the other side was the sweet juicy center of the fruit we had been sent to pluck. We just needed to crack open the shell first.

"I'm going in." I said to the Ninth Sister. She and her team were on the other side of this squished compound. She didn't bother replying but I heard the channel clicking off, so I assumed she heard it.

Snap-hiss! I ignited one blade of my lightsaber and stepped to the wall. I stabbed through the wall twice diagonally, creating a glowing X of melted metal. Then I drew back my free hand, gathered the force and pushed.

The wall flew inwards, scattering under my telekinetic power in a spray of jagged shards. A handful of the Intelligence goons were cut down from that alone, superheated metal and sharp edges lacerating their flesh and sending them sprawling onto the floor with nary a sound. Those who were wounded were far more vocal.

Then the opposing wall exploded in a similar manner and the cries of pain grew louder. I blew away some of the shards that came close to me. I wonder if it was purposeful. The tickle of warning drove me into the breach, red blade bared in an offensive stance. The agents who still had their bearing tried to bring blasters and vibroblades up to bear, but I quickly closed the distance and removed their ability to operate said tools of resistance, permanently.

Ahead of me I heard a woman's voice snarl in anger and the noise of a lightsaber. While I deknee'd a woman with a vibromace, a man with a crushed chest flew overhead to slam into the recaf machine. I looked around only to see that anyone who had escaped our blades wrath had been stunned down by the accompanying troopers.

Well that was quick, I realized. This was the fourth hideout myself and the Ninth Sister had turned over this rotation and the level of resistance hadn't grown.

I felt the Ninth Sister approach and notice that her blade was still active

"Disappointing." She scoffed.

"Are you still surprised?" I chided her. The flash of irritation she couldn't entirely shield amused me. Visibly her shrug didn't suggest a hint of her actual emotions.

"I'd hoped these ones had managed to catch wind of our earlier raids. This was fun the first time, now its just formulaic." We stepped out of the way to observe the troopers slap quick and dirty bacta patches on the wounded. From there the plainclothes Directorate agents got the Inquisitorius prisoner transport and medical special: carbonite encasement. Their expressions were very funny.

A quaint mixture of pain, bewilderment and outrage. I chuckled aloud at a particularly indignant officer's protestations.

"The Grand Inquisitor did not send us here for challenging fights, he sent us here to get them." I pointed out.

"Bah, you would say that." Finally she de-ignited her lightsaber. I followed suit.

I shrugged. "I aim to be on the good side of the power that is. Why should I be bothered by how that's viewed by others?"

My quick actions to side with the Grand Inquisitor hadn't gone unnoticed or unremarked upon. There hadn't been any assassination attempts nor jumps in the middle of the night -I chalked that up to the lack of allies my brother had besides his own debts owed to the dead Named- but I could feel in my bones that I'd be facing challenges for the dueling pit sooner rather than later.

I wondered if the Ninth Sister would be the first to make the challenge.

"It's distasteful for you to be so blatant about your allegiance." She scornfully told me. "At least the others make the effort to appear as their own masters."

"But not you?" I questioned.

"You're a fool if you expect an answer to that." Was her reply.

"Fair." I shrugged again, the ping of my commlink informing us that we had new orders. "But I'd say you are the bigger fool if you think that personal pride is something that matters on this planet."

Our initial raids were only a small part of a vast counterattack that Yiaso launched against Isard's positions on Imperial Center. We weren't the only inquisitors who had been dispatched to show the red blades during the raids either. Soon buildings were burning across both hemispheres, hover cars exploded when filled with pro-Isard Imperial Intelligence and ISB agents, a seemingly random assortment of minor bureaucrats and government functionaries vanished off the street.

Coincidentally, the dungeons of the Inquisitorius became full to bursting nearly overnight and I was suddenly a busy man along with my cohorts who had also talent for the torturous arts. If Isard ever made a public mention of it to the Ruling Council, I never found out.

But our orders to remain on Imperial Center continued. Isard didn't take retaliation lightly, and once or twice a week, us Numbered would take the field to destroy, capture and kill another Directorate aligned position on the planet as our masters fought their newly declared shadow war in earnest. Three months passed in this manner. We took some licks of our own, though I judged Isard to come off worse overall.

For the curious, the recaf supplier did experience two more attempted bombings which they survived and continued to do a lucrative business with us. They now employed a rather sizable trandoshan mercenary company that I would bet heavily was partially paid by the Grand Inquisitor.

Yes, I had managed to obtain a cup from that supplier after bribing a menial and I too would kill a lot of people if my supply of that quality came under threat.

In my free time I followed the business of those inept nerfs, the so-called Ruling Council and its bumbling leader, Sate Pestage. As I expected, they followed their original course from my memories. Key worlds, that they happened to have controlling stakes in or were just too valuable to leave unattended, were turned into Imperial Fortress Worlds.

Yes, that was their official name in the records and yes, it apparently did create a new tax bracket for those worlds. Now I wouldn't personally mind the fortress worlds if it wasn't the only preventative move the Ruling Council made to shore up the power projection of the Empire.

Except it was.

And as it turned out, according to intelligence reports I lifted using my access codes, that did nothing to improve internal stability across the Empire.

The Navy was pissed that huge portions of its vessels were being stripped, the Army was pissed that they were dealing with longer transit times between postings as the Navy had to accommodate new protocols that came with the Fortress Worlds. The only ones perfectly happy with the Fortress World system were the planets who were made into said fortress worlds and the various megacorps who got the swath of new orders for orbital defense platforms and state of the art planetary shields.

Megacorps that just so happened to have majority stocks being held by various members of the Ruling Council.

I wasn't hating on them for that move, I felt that it was rather inspired in building and supporting each council member's power base. I had done the same with my fleet.

I hated the fact that was the singular move they were able to uniformly make in the nearly one year they had been in power. Other than this one thing, they remained in complete and utter deadlock and debate. Pestage could not get any agenda off the table no matter how hard he tried it seemed.

Now I knew this was due to interference from hostile parties against Pestage, namely Isard. But I was sure that my boss and others like the two of them were acting against Pestage as well. Truly a doomed man from the start.

While I played no part in the greater schemes and small treasons of the Imperial Ruling Council, nor did I have any say what Yiaso's overall goal was, I did continue to command my fleet and manage it from afar.

Two months into my stay on Imperial Center, the fleet's ground components had broken the defensive lines of the Teradoc loyalists on Hakassi. General Bezenti had been pleased to stretch his legs on a proper campaign, as his after action reports had termed the gruelly six week siege his ground pounders had engaged in. Ojom had been brought back into the fold without incident and at Lettow the base had expanded to be the permanent installation of my fleet's Army component.

Masal continued to keep our little corner of the galaxy in good order. The small foundries on Ottabesk had been reawakened to pump out new Gozanti light cruisers to patrol the hyperlanes and keep our charts up to date. The Lancet unfortunately had to be handed over to the wider Navy to be hauled away to a shipyard for repairs and a new crew. I wasn't expecting to be seeing it back in my command again. The Navy were penny pinchers about Star Destroyers like that.

Perfunctory pushes had been made into the squabbling mass of ex-Teradoc officers to the south of our position but as I was unable to command in person, I had given Masal orders to hold what we already had.

Commander Atten continued to be my most loyal servant. My stormtroopers had even acquired their own contingent of new recruits. Some fifty odd men who met Brix Atten's strict requirements to become an imperial stormtrooper. Atten also sent me reports on the loyalty of ranking officers in my fleet, who he had under watch through the escort squads assigned to them.

Despite the incredible distance, I remained very well informed about the pocket of space my forces were tied up in. I even knew about the absolutely massive COMPNOR force on Ottabesk. That entire planet was full of them. I assumed Ottabesk had even been given to COMPNOR as their own colony during the expansion wave into the Deep Core. Luckily, COMPNOR seemed to be too busy with an ongoing purge of the "disloyal" and traitors to bother my fleet. Though I was sure the local ISB branch would try something eventually. White jacketed bugs were too neurotic and control oriented to not try barge in where they didn't belong.

You know an organization is bad when even the group of dark siders who named themselves the Inquisitorius considers you nuts.

True believers to Palpatine's New Order to the core though and I found that true believers in the New Order were a dying breed here on Imperial Center.

The third matter that took up my months on Imperial Center, besides raiding and managing the fleet, was training. Here, I admit, I fell back into my old habits. Not due to any personal choice or preference but through necessity.

The thought of my fellow Inquisitors being allowed to see the katas I had learned in Soresu, to be allowed to take what I had won through blood through no effort of their own!

It rubbed me the wrong way.

So I was back to drilling in out of the way corners and at odd hours of the day, my senses pushed to their maximum to sense anyone approaching so I could stop what I was doing. Knowledge was precious and not meant to be shared freely after all. Mostly I found myself sticking to basic conditioning and weight training, the raiding served to keep my lightsaber skills sharp.

One day the familiar monotony was broken by a summons. The Grand Inquisitor wanted to speak with me.

"Ahh, Ninth Brother. What a timely arrival." The Grand Inquisitor said by way of greeting when I entered his office. Ja'ce Yiaso was sitting behind a fine desk made of some black stone with gold filigree and he sat on a hoverchair that I assumed to be made of equally fine materials. The room was bare otherwise besides the lights that provided illumination and the windows on the walls that showed the Imperial City skyline.

I didn't bother to think about the reasons for this interior design, though I was certain there was one.

"How may I be of service, Grand Inquisitor?" I bowed. The Zabrak was garbed in tailored patterned robes, blood red on maroon. I couldn't see his lightsaber. Holstered up one of his sleeves perhaps?

"I have yet to decide." Yiaso told me. "Among my servants, you have proven to be among the best in your tier. Only the Ninth and Seventh Sister and Sixth Brother have provided service of similar quality. So it is a question that deserves careful consideration before answering."

I nodded at the Grand Inquisitor's words. I'd much prefer to be making those decisions for myself but reality hadn't yet conformed to my desires. It also didn't sound like he was referring to another raid.

"You put on a very interesting performance in the dueling pits last week, isn't that correct?" He asked me.

"That would depend on what you would consider interesting, my lord." I replied. "I did fight a bout in the pits but I wouldn't consider it to have been a note worthy encounter."

"A fine response indeed, however…" Yiaso stared at me, locking eyes with me through my helmet's visor. "However it is not often that a duel ends with broken bones instead of lightsaber burns. This is doubly true for duels where one party didn't have their lightsaber and the other party consisted of two members."

So he had found out about that then. I had wondered if a Named would make an appearance following that fight. It had never been considered that the Grand Inquisitor would be that Named.

He must have felt my surprise. "Yes I know about that and much more that happens in my tower. The recordings served as adequate entertainment that week."

"Since it would be beneath you to care about some broken bones, why am I here?" I brazenly asked, forgoing the difference I'd been speaking with before.

Zabraki eyes narrowed at me and for a brief heartbeat I could feel a crushing force squeezing at my throat. Then the immense pressure was gone as quickly as it came, only causing me to cough.

"Let us not forget our manners, even when discussing such weighty matters." He chided me with a paternal voice. Alien bastard.

"My apologies, my lord. It won't happen again." I said to him, resisting the urge to check my neck with my hands.

"Indeed, now I was also hoping to discover where you learned such an ancient form of Teras Kasi. It's certainly none of the styles that I have ever seen." His sulfur yellow eyes bored into mine, which were also sulfur yellow if that wasn't obvious. I propped up my mental shields and then proceeded to do the stupidest thing I've done in a long time: I told the truth.

"A ghost taught me." I informed the most dangerous man on the entire planet.

"A ghost taught you?"

"Yes my lord. A ghost."

He stared at me a while longer before chuckling and then he smiled at me. He had an uncomfortable smile, what with the pointed teeth of his race. Very predatory.

"I believe you, Ninth Brother." He leaned back in his hoverchair and tapped away at the buttons on the right armrest. "Not many others on your level or those above you would, but I know far more than them."

Was that it?

I didn't say anything but he must have been able to tell that I was curious at his words from my body language.

"Ghosts are far more common in the galaxy than the standard volumes like to suggest. The majority possess nothing of value but there are always rare gems to find if one sorts through enough chaff." He reached into one of his voluminous sleeves and pulled out a small oval shaped thing that he began to fiddle with.

"Not many of your kind would have had the patience or intellect to find such an entity and obtain such useful knowledge from it." His eyes had a calculating light in them now. "And then there is your exemplary service on Prakith and your work in suppressing the warlords in the Deep Core. You are proving to be above your brethren, Ninth Brother. A rare gem for your kind, who lacked any Jedi heritage or the more open instruction that adepts were given in the early years of our organization."

"I admire the spirit you have expressed and the service you have provided me is the type of talent that demands further cultivation. So back to your original question: How may you be of service to me?"

Well that wasn't a loaded question, not that my answer wasn't going to be anymore loaded in return. I licked my lips before speaking.

"I may be of best use to you, my lord, by returning to my fleet and advancing your agenda through the effective use of it as a political tool." I told him. "I have cultivated a cohesive and effective unit out of those ships, and I can say with confidence that their ultimate loyalty lies with me. As I serve you that means this fleet serves the Inquisitorius."

I paused briefly to further marshal my thoughts, thinking back to the numerous reports I had managed to get my digitals fingers on these past three months.

"I have spread the Inquisitorius' influence among the military in some small way this year, allowing me to further cultivate this will provide fertile ground for you to create your own following in the army and navy. This will make it so that you will have a versatile tool to threaten your opposition with and another implicit threat in negotiations that you didn't have before me and won't have without me in command of that fleet."

Keep me around and in charge of my fleet and you too can have the power to glass a planet's surface. Surely that had to be appealing to any man, Grand Inquisitor or not?

"Hmm." Yiaso leaned back in his fancy hoverchair and steepled his fingers together, that strange oval thing held between two fingers. "What would your plan be when you assumed command again? All the warlords that you have the firepower to confront are either dead by your hand or have fortified their position to the point where you can't get to them."

"That phase has ended, my lord." I nodded slavishly at his "wise words" of wisdom. A drunk at the spaceport could have told me that if he'd read a general summary of the situation. "So now is the perfect time to switch to resource acquisition. The fleet will require more ships and I know the place to commandeer vessels into my command."

"Where?"

"The Black Sword Command, my lord. I've studied the reports coming from that region for months now and they are dealing with a serious defection issue. Ships not reporting to their postings after leaving docks, patrols dropping off the radar for no apparent reason. Their roster of active ships has several ghost ships that haven't been physically sighted since just after Endor."

"I believe that sooner rather than later the Ruling Council will realize that Black Sword Command is collapsing and will then fold the remaining ships into their own interests. We should do it first and get the best ships and crews."

I saw that my words resonated with the Grand Inquisitor and that he liked what he heard.

"Did that command not have a Super Star Destroyer assigned to it?" He asked in a neutral tone but I could see and faintly feel his growing greed. He'd taken the bait.

"Yes my lord. The Intimidator, the flagship of the Black Fleet. The most recent reports I've acquired say that its severely undermanned for its class but that will only aid us in requisitioning the ship." I replied.

"Yes, yes. Simply propagate the orders of dissolution that they know are coming sooner rather than later on our end and those fools on the Ruling Council will be too busy with each other to even know that its happened." He looked back up at me from the navel gazing he had been indulging in. "You have proven your competence yet again, Ninth Brother, and I have always been of the school of thought that says competence should be rewarded."

He gestured me forward and I walked forward to stand before his desk.

"You have my leave to depart Imperial Center and return to your fleet, Ninth Brother. Go forth and make me an armada. But first.." His right hand suddenly curled into a claw shape and an immense force suddenly slammed into me, pinning me in place!

"There is the matter of ensuring your continued loyalty." His face was as motionless as stone but a deaf man wouldn't have missed the malice in his voice now. "The removal of those tumors in my side named Jerec and Tremayne was long overdue. But now the body is whole and I believe that it would only hurt the entire body to cut off more red meat now."

I had to fight down the rage that Yiaso's action had caused to bubble up from inside me. If I fought against him, I would be in for a world of pain. I managed it through long experience with shouldering indignities but just barely. I was out of practice, blast it!

Yiaso continued. "So I devised this solution to my problem. I'm sure you'll appreciate my mercy in time."

Then he jerked my left arm towards him, palm facing up. Quick as a dagger, the hand holding that oval thing he had produced from his sleeve earlier darted forward and dropped the thing onto my arm. I just had time to see a set of runes light up with a reddish orange glow before an intense wave of burning pain raced up my arm.

Hot, hot, hot! I wanted so badly to tear whatever the damned this was off but I remained pinned in place. I shut my eyes and gritted my teeth and rode the pain out.

When it was over, I luckily hadn't cracked a tooth or three but I had the mother of all migraines. Oh and the feeling of hot metal being dripped on my arm, can't forget that. I forced my eyes open and ignored the reflexive tears flowing down my face from the pain.

Whatever it was looked like a river stone that had a rune matrix carved into it. And it was embedded in my arm, just before the wrist. Can't forget that.

"Painful, yes?" The Grand Inquisitor asked. Bastard actually wanted an answer.

"Yes." I grunted out, still pinned in place.

"Good. That means it's working." Yaiso smoothly sat back down into his hoverchair. "Consider that a charitable reminder of who you serve and my power."

"That's all it does?" I asked through the still strong pain. Seemed like a lot of work to a reminder. Lighting would have made the point just as well.

"Oh no. Consider it my version of those tracking chips you put on a pet. Can't have it wandering off who knows where. Suffice to say, continue to obey me as before and all will be well in your world. Decide to disobey me, and I will know and I will be able to take action against it no matter the distance between us."

The pinning force disappears and I stumbled before managing to stand up straight again.

"Understand?"

"Yes, Grand Inquisitor." I bowed because I knew that was what the alien bastard wanted.

"Good, now I believe you have a departure to plan." His hands reached back into his sleeves and withdrew a datastick. He pushed it toward me and I caught it with my good hand.

"Do use that to improve your Soresu, you seem to have a talent for it."

Then I was clearly dismissed and I walked out of his office. In the elevator antechamber, I looked down at the still glowing runes on the part of the stone that was exposed to the air. I flexed my hand and while there was pain from the wound, the locomotion of my left hand wasn't hindered in the slightest.

"Someone is going to die for this." I told myself, still looking down at the stone.

And I knew who that was going to be, the Zabraki bast-!

The fucking stone heated back up at that thought before cooling back down. I glared at it in disbelief.

So that's how we're playing the game then?

Fine, time to play for keeps.