Author's Apologia - UPDATED: Originally this was entitled The Death You Know. Sorry for any confusion.
I spent roughly two years writing myself into corners with this one, trashing what I'd written and starting over from scratch. It's done now, and the remaining chapters will be up soon enough. I'm still not entirely happy with this one, but it's completed enough to release, and I hope it will still be enjoyable. Just beware, boys and girls: sometimes the muse is a cold, hard schutta.
- MPK (February 24, 2024 - Memorial of Saint Sergius)
"But Revan understood one thing: the real battle was going to be fought between the Jedi on both sides. That was the only battle that mattered. Whoever had the most, the strongest Jedi, was going to win the civil war."
—Atton Rand
One had to admit that Obeth Station was a logistical and technological marvel. Though designed to serve as a single cog in a vast war machine, it was nevertheless a cog of considerable value. At first glance it appeared to be tethered to its mother world of Landor by an enormous bundle of shifting silver lights; this was the endless stream of shuttlecraft and transports, carrying Landor's sole export—Clouzon-36 gas, refined into high-grade starship fuel—to the station's insatiable ventral hangar bays. For kilometers above, bulbous central modules housed sorting and conveyor systems, as well as the massive framework of docking and loading arms which could accommodate dozens of capital-class ships at once. Supposedly, it could refuel a flotilla of Centurion battlecruisers in less than four standard hours.
Obeth Station was decades old, and at different times it had served all the major powers of the recent wars. In a way, it seemed that as far as the station and the planet were concerned, the true enemy was not Mandalorians, Sith, or the Republic, but idleness.
Standing behind the pilot and copilot's stations, Krennel watched the facility grow and grow in the cockpit viewport as the stolen shuttle drew near, carrying him and his team into the heart of their enemy. Surrounded as it was by a phalanx of Republic Hammerhead cruisers, corvettes, and picket ships, Obeth Station looked impregnable, and internal security promised to be formidable.
So lately it was ours, he thought. So soon it will be no one's.
The sounds of the shuttle's cabin were the same as any other moments before battle: the hums and beeps of the ship's machinery, coughs and murmuring conversation between the men strapped into g-couches, and the clicks and rustles as they fiddled with weapons or gear. Bevel Zanatsu personally found the ambience relaxing, even nostalgic.
A dozen troopers occupied the back rows, their crimson gammaplast armor marking them as commandos. Their helmets were in their laps; all were Human. Sitting at the front among five other black-garbed Sith Adepts, Bevel was one of the silent ones, mentally reviewing the mission plan. It was a good one, the kind he was familiar with from his work with the Nembus Battalion mercenaries on the Rim, both before and during his initial dealings with the Sith. The Battalion had always preferred using minimal numbers and resources to achieve the greatest possible effect, and thus reap the greatest possible rewards—with the catch, of course, that personal risk was maximized.
That the risk assumed by Bevel himself would be greater than anyone else's was no accident. Lady Hoctu's instructions to Krennel had been clear on that.
Beside him was yet another Human named Pyren Siln, a new addition to the team. To be more precise, he was the replacement for another Adept, whose leg had been shot off by a Republic war droid on Galltine.
"I don't think she'll ever tell why she disappeared when she did," Pyren was saying to the one-eyed Abyssin sitting across from them. "Surely not publicly, or to anyone who would feel like explaining it to us. If there's one thing she's all about, it's keeping her secrets."
Naturally, they were talking about Revan. Everyone was. The greatest Dark Lord in living memory, come back from the dead—for all intents and purposes—seated on the throne of a heretofore hidden Sith Empire, soon to return with a new armada to finish the Republic for good. And, surely, to reward her remaining servants who had faithfully waited for her, when they hadn't been busy killing one another.
The Abyssin leaned forward as far as his crash webbing would allow, his single eye oscillating between Pyren and Bevel even though the latter had not spoken to him. In a low, conspiratorial tone he said, "I was told that she went insane. That she killed Lord Malak, but his vengeful spirit remained attached to her mind and tormented her to the point of madness."
"Whoever told you that is an idiot," said Bevel.
The conversation was cut short when the cockpit door slid open and a guttural avalanche of a voice announced, "They accepted the code clearance. We dock in five minutes. We are right on schedule."
"Helmets! Final check, people!" barked the leader of the commandos.
Krennel more or less blocked the doorway where he stood, looking from one man to the next as if determined to stare all of them down individually—and he had more than enough presence to do so. The saurian Chistori had muscle enough to break a limb with ease, and teeth and jaws enough to bite one off if he were so inclined. The hard-edged durasteel hand of his artificial left arm was left uncovered; likewise the implant that replaced his right eye, whose red glow was undoubtedly chosen to intimidate. Apparently both were owed to wounds inflicted by a Jedi Knight, but Bevel had never heard the full story.
"Timing is absolutely critical," Krennel rumbled. "There will be no mistakes."
His gaze pointedly fell on Bevel last of all, and Bevel matched it. His assignment to this team, deprived of all opportunity for personal initiative, forced to endure the Chistori's unrelenting scrutiny and murderous demand for perfection, was a punishment; Lady Hoctu had made that clear. Having shouldered it for some months, however, he found that there was no room in himself for humiliation.
The shuttle's airlock ground its way open, revealing a small party of attendants and guards, who had expected to be receiving visitors from the Republic Corps of Engineers. As soon as they realized they were staring down the barrels of four light repeating blasters, the commandos cut them down with a short burst of fire.
Having made this decidedly straightforward entrance, the infiltrators poured through the antechamber and into the access corridor beyond. Bloodshine lightsabers sizzled to life, their combined hums piercing the air. Sith and commandos alike peeled off from the main group as they went, breaching doors on either side and unleashing mayhem on whatever lay beyond. Fire and shrapnel coughed from doorways as commandos tossed frag and plasma grenades inside. Bulkheads muffled panicked screams and reports of laser and lightsaber.
Staying with the main group, Bevel checked his wrist chrono, then reached back to adjust his equipment pack, which was laden with a Czerka-manufactured high-yield detonite charge. He would have preferred thorium, which would have weighed less. Through doorways and windows, he glimpsed burned and dismembered men falling among crates, machinery, and consoles. Many were not even guards, only workers, but they were not spared. As Krennel had put it in the briefing, Terror and chaos are our weapons.
Klaxons began to ring. No one laughed when Pyren quipped, "They know we're here now!" from the back of the group.
Following the station schematics precisely, Krennel led them around several bends and out into a wide concourse. To the right, a huge transparisteel viewport drew the eye to the restless fleet surrounding the station. Squads of Republic troopers were filing out of a turbolift to the left.
Chaos indeed, thought Bevel before the room erupted. Commandos took what cover they could while the Sith scattered, their blades weaving through the air and deflecting bolts in every direction. Grenades sailed back and forth, occasionally caught and returned by telekinesis. The air thickened with smoke and ozone, but most of all with the dark side's glee, echoing from mind to mind among the Sith Adepts.
Nonetheless Bevel hung back, blocking lasers with as much precision as he could, careful to protect the bomb he wore on his back; should it take a hit by some fluke, he wouldn't exist long enough to lament it. Up ahead, Krennel danced through the chaos, twirling his twin-bladed saberstaff about him and cutting troopers to pieces.
No sooner did that skirmish end than another began as more doors opened, admitting not only additional troopers, but also battle droids: a well-established Czerka design that moved about on one leg and two vaguely hooked arms, sporting a pair of heavy blasters. The faint blue glows of deflector shields suffused them as well, promising that they wouldn't go down as easy as their organic comrades.
Still, things were going according to plan. Obeth Station hosted thousands of troopers and droids; a single shuttle's worth of Sith Adepts and commandos could never threaten the entire facility on their own. Yet by the time the station's inhabitants realized what the Sith could accomplish, it would be too late for them.
A voice belonging to one of the shuttle pilots came over the team's comlinks. "My lord, we've finished slicing the security net for this level. The cameras are offline."
Krennel's voice roared over the din of combat. "Bevel! With me!"
Amongst other things, Lady Hoctu had said on Thule, my former apprentice will teach you obedience.
The Force guided Bevel through the ebb and flow of the violence to rendezvous with his handler. Not waiting up for him, Krennel bulled his way out of the concourse and into the maze of the wider station, cutting down everything in his path. After several turns he was advancing on one of the Czerka droids, which had planted itself in the center of a junction. Hunkering down to reduce its profile, the machine flung a stream of high-energy bolts down the corridor—not one of which made it past Krennel. His blades smeared into a vortex of bloody light that returned every shot back to the droid, collapsing its shield as he came within reach. Rising to its full height, it slung one of its hooked arms at Krennel's head, only to have it caught in the grip of a durasteel hand. For a moment the machine's servomotors squealed as it warred with Krennel's strength before he sliced it in two down the middle.
The sparking wreckage met the floor in a crash that went echoing down the hall. As Bevel caught up to the scene, Krennel turned his head and fixed him with the cold red gleam of his prosthetic eye. "Go! I will not wait long for you."
Bevel wasted no breath on an answer. Leaving the Chistori to keep the junction clear, he went on deeper into the station, zigzagging through control rooms and monitoring stations. A few unlucky guards bumbled into his path and he cut them down. Aside from them, however, the area had been evacuated.
The final chamber was cramped, had a low ceiling, and hosted over a dozen waist-high power stations, where R-series utility droids chattered as they recharged. Spying a row of locked maintenance hatches in the far wall, he hastened to them and sliced one open.
Standing in the gap he had made, he cautiously poked his head through and paused to let his eyes adjust; the darkness on the other side was nearly solid. It belonged not to the massive turbolift system which conveyed fuel canisters to the upper levels, but one of the maintenance areas which ran between the lift shafts. Five meters across an unfathomable abyss, the opposite wall was studded with thousands upon thousands of tunnels providing access to the inner machinery which kept Obeth Station running. Blinking indicator lights formed tenuous constellations, while the luma-beams of patrolling repulsorlift repair droids streaked about like rogue comets.
For a brief moment Bevel peered about, half-mesmerized, imagining himself somewhere on Nar Shaddaa or Coruscant, suspended so deep in the gap between two ancient cloudcutters as to hide the sun.
Then he recollected himself, drew on the Force, and leapt into the dark.
Hundreds of levels above in Obeth Station's control center, Administrator Keido Foss tugged at the collar of his uniform. Before him, an imagecaster projected a live holofeed from one of the assault droids as it waded into the mayhem in Concourse WV-9. The image was crystal-clear and totally free from interference, but with all the billows of smoke and the splashes of light from particle beams, shield discharges, and explosions, the transmission may as well have been coming from the opposite end of the galaxy, for all the clarity it brought to the situation.
Out of nowhere a black-sleeved arm and the arc of a lightsaber flashed into view, and the feed was lost.
From the administrator's comlink came the voice of the station's security chief. "Whoever sliced into our security, they're locked out now, but we can't get the cameras back online. However, the turbolifts are disabled, and the force fields and blast doors are raised on all adjoining decks and sublevels, except for the eighth checkpoint. I have five more squads there now."
"Tell them to hold there and keep sending in the droids," Administrator Foss told him. "Don't send more of your men into that slaughter."
"Acknowledged."
Foss had not yet pocketed his comlink when a subordinate addressed him. "Sir, transmission from the Surestrike."
The imagecaster powered back on, displaying a uniformed Bothan with a full beard and pointed ears folded back against his skull. "Administrator, report."
"The intruders are contained on Level 49, Commodore," Foss explained, tucking his hands behind his back. "Our droids are sure to overwhelm them eventually."
Commodore Orden did not look impressed. "But what are they up to?"
"Beyond indiscriminate destruction, it's hard to say. They remotely disabled the security cameras, so we've had to rely on..." The Bothan's scowl only deepened, and Foss was tempted to throw up his hands. "I couldn't say, Commodore. From where they are at, there's no way they could sabotage any critical systems. Stabilizers, the refuel lines, life support..."
"What about your deflectors?"
"There is a kilometer's worth of station between the shield projectors and Level 4. Offhand, I'm more worried about our freighters. We have six that have just disengaged from space dock—"
The commodore raised a hand as if trying to be reassuring. "I'm aware of that. They've been ordered to stay put. Cruisers are in place to screen them from enemy fire."
Administrator Foss's eyes strayed to the tactical map some meters away. Obeth Station hung in the center, encircled by Republic cruisers, corvettes, and frigates. Pointing inward from the map's corners like the arrowheads of a targeting reticule were the triangular silhouettes of four Remnant Interdictor-class cruisers, which had emerged from hyperspace only a standard minute before. Their turbolasers had a longer range than the Surestrike and its fleet, but despite the fact the enemy could hit Obeth Station if they wished, the space between them remained dark.
"What's going on out there, Commodore? Is this only a raid?"
"That's a possibility." The Bothan brought a hand to his beard. "Or there could be a much larger force coming right behind those cruisers. I've ordered fighters and bombers to scramble. As for these intruders of yours—whether they've come for sabotage or merely to distract us, I suggest you not be satisfied with merely containing them."
Ten meters deep into the cubed gridwork of maintenance tunnels—each one only large enough to crawl through—Bevel panted as he struggled to extract the detonite charge from his pack, plant it in the alcove between two blocks of hydraulic control circuits, and key in the arming sequence by the light of a glowrod. Around him, the beeps, hums, and whirs of Obeth Station's machinery combined into a formless ambience, a vibration that seemed to be seeping into his flesh and bones. He was somewhere in the guts of a titanic beast, hearing its blood circulate.
Powerful though it was, a single detonite charge could only threaten Obeth Station if it were to be placed on a critical component such as the main reactor, or perhaps among the fuel canisters being conveyed to the docking arms. As things stood, this one would sever a few choice energy conduits, knocking out a number of systems in this segment of the station until power could be rerouted. The disruption would last no more than a standard minute.
Bevel could appreciate the artistic precision of such a plan beforehand and in hindsight—but not at that particular moment.
"Bevel, the cruisers are here!" bellowed Krennel over the comlink. "Complete your task at once!"
"Package in place," Bevel hissed. "I'm on my way back."
There was no reply. Abandoning the empty backpack, he came about and retraced his steps through the tunnels. Muscles burned and sweat stung his eyes, but he had been well-trained, and the pain and fatigue goaded him on, rather than slowing him down.
He came to the edge of the chasm and paused, perched in the tunnel's mouth like a Kowakian monkey-lizard. No moments of reverie took hold of him this time; as soon as he spied the hatch he had cut open some meters below, he dove—startling a repair droid that was puzzling over the scene—and landed roughly back inside the droid bay. Wincing against the brightness, he took his lightsaber hilt in hand and made for the door.
In the junction, Krennel was nowhere to be seen. Instead there were four security droids, crouched down with guns leveled at Bevel as if his Chistori handler had warned them of his approach. His lightsaber snapped to life as they opened fire, its lone red beam drawing a grid of shielding plasma. But his bladework was a shadow of Krennel's, and the bolts he caught went wild, tearing into the walls and ceiling in eruptions of fire. Only a handful went back at the droids to scatter across their shields, and just as many streaked past Bevel's guard to graze his robes and flesh.
But Bevel waded into the torrent even as it threatened to consume him. Before his eyes a dark red glow enveloped the corridor, and battle-rage ran through him like flame through an ignited Peragian fuel line. He had been betrayed, tricked, and had bumbled right into this ambush without looking ahead, without using caution...
The will to survive gave way to a will to destroy. It leaped out of Bevel and conjured a wave of Force that swept in from the side, slamming all four droids into the wall, where they collapsed in a heap. Overloaded by contact with one another, their deflector shields sparked and fizzled out. Before they could disentangle themselves, Bevel was there, bringing his lightsaber down on them like a club, slicing two of them to pieces. In his off hand he held his blaster pistol, emptying its power cell into the other two.
Pulverized circuitry, vaporized hydraulic fluid, and melted metal scalded his nostrils. Remembering where he was, and possessed of a vague sense of violation, Bevel stumbled away from the scrap pile. Calling as deeply on the Force as he could, he resumed his escape with single-minded speed, leaving the tracking sensors of yet more droids whirring in confusion. Aside from the bodies of three commandos, he came across no sign of his teammates' presence. Bursts of laser fire chased him through the final corridors, nicking his legs and peppering him with chunks of wall or ceiling.
At last the airlock antechamber came into view. Through it, Krennel could be seen marching toward the cockpit of their getaway craft. Rage as opaque as midnight storm clouds on Thule seized Bevel and carried him stumbling and bleeding after his tormenter. Only inside the shuttle's cabin did he come back to himself and thumb off his lightsaber. Even so, the weapon was snatched out of his hand as two other Sith—one of them the Abyssin—grabbed him by the shoulders and roughly threw him into a g-couch.
Dazed, Bevel barely reacted as the Abyssin dropped his lightsaber into his lap. Krennel turned to regard him and loosed a bellowing laugh that competed with the noise of the shuttle's airlock slamming shut. "Impressive work, Bevel—most impressive! Perhaps our ancestors were vain to grasp for the secret of immortality. You seem to have unlocked it yourself!"
Settling into a g-couch of his own, he produced the trigger for the detonite charge. "Pilot!" he called. "Prepare to signal the cruisers!"
Administrator Foss's jaw clenched as he stared at the tactical map, tracking a green dot as it sped away from the diagram of Obeth Station. "Track that shuttle and relay its course to the commodore. Maybe his fighters can catch up with it."
"Acknowledged... Report from the Surestrike. They'll be in firing range of the Interdictors in one standard minute."
The administrator nodded and shifted on his feet. With no Remnant reinforcements forthcoming, Commodore Orden had sent three Hammerheads to intercept each of the Interdictors. That still left eight to cover the station, plus the frigates. That things seemed to be on the upswing did nothing for Foss's unease. Just a standard hour ago, Level 49 had been filled with decent, honorable men and women, loyally serving the Republic. Now it was filled with corpses and wreckage.
But even with those deaths weighing on him, his thoughts oscillated restlessly between the Sith saboteurs, now on the run, apparently chased off; and the four Interdictors, soon to be outgunned. The question that he couldn't do away with was, Which was trying to distract us from which?
One of his officers broke in on his thoughts. "Sir, we have a damage report from Maintenance Outcorridor 79-Osk—damage to local power grid..." Her voice strained. "Deflector shields on Module Three are down."
Administrator Foss spun away from the tac-map, his hand back on his collar. "Reroute power through the auxiliary conduits."
"Already on it, sir. Shields will be back online in—"
"The Interdictors!" somebody shouted. "They're firing!"
Outside, a pair of Republic Aurek starfighters peeled off of their patrol vector around Obeth Station to pursue a rogue shuttlecraft as it shot into deep space like a concussion missile. But their new target became the least of their concerns when the void ahead was broken by four simultaneous pulses of scarlet light. In less than a standard second, the pulses lengthened into the staggered beams of turbolaser barrages. Nearly skimming the shields of the Republic capital ships sent to intercept their origins, the blasts converged on the bulbous third module of Obeth Station, cracking the hull like an egg.
Subspace radio channels erupted with emergency orders or expressions of panic as internal explosions rippled up and down the length of the station, overloading generators and igniting fuel canisters. Severed docking arms went tumbling into space like lost batons. Finally Obeth Station ignited in earnest. Spiraling shuttles and tugs vanished like blister gnats in an inferno, while listing bulk freighters were melted into scrap. Farther ahead, their sister ships were pounded with debris and crisped by flames. Some of the latter streaked into hyperspace, choosing the danger of a hasty emergency jump over weathering the conflagration behind them.
Coming into range at last, the intercepting Hammerhead cruisers vengefully opened fire on the four Interdictors. Already swiveling away from the scene of devastation, the latter vessels shouldered the assault with their aft shields until their hyperdrives carried them away.
It was several moments before anyone thought to hail the two Aurek pilots. But by that time, the rogue shuttle, too, was nowhere to be found.