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Stars bound in shadows

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Prologue: Sith aren't supposed to improve things...

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Part 3

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Slavna Zemq
Perun's Homeworld
Milky Way Galaxy

Lyda of the Tok'Ra bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood. She kept chanting Perun's name and did her best to keep a wide grin on her face. Lyda had to keep selling the lie that she was a good little harmless minion. The reason she was here in the first place was as a safe assignment until her compatriots could insert her into the entourage of a dangerous Goa'uld, who had to be watched. To reach such a position, she needed a naquadah-proof backstory. Without one, the odds of ending up in a torture chamber increased significantly.

In contrast to most of their kind, Perun's brand of evil and oppression was small-scale. He was simply inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, no matter how vile that sorry excuse for a warrior was.

No one could have predicted how things could suddenly take turn for the worse. Lyda didn't know where Perun found himself a Hok'tar host, though she was certain that was no mere consequence. There were two realistic options the Tok'Ra agent could see. One, this was a reward. That was a highly unlikely event, considering that Perun had been a sack of useless incompetence at best and that state of affairs had persisted for centuries if not millennia now. Second, and much, more likely, someone was using the dim-witted Goa'uld as a test subject.

The lighting produced by the new host was impressive. If it was an innate biological ability, then host and Goa'uld alike would never be disarmed – a good precaution against assassinations even at the best of times.

That by itself was bad enough, making any future assassination attempts against Goa'uld with such hosts that much more difficult. It was the boost of energy, or even worse, creativity that gripped Perun upon taking control and melding with the host. If Lyda didn't know better, she would bet that she now served a very different Goa'uld. Was this Perun of old, the man who could somewhat credibly claim to be master of war?

If that was the case, the Tok'Ra had to stop this new development before it could reshape the galaxy for the worse. To do that, Lyda had to figure out where this host came from, and who was behind this infernal scheme!

On the bright side, whatever now possessed Perun, he took care of the old creep of a High Priest. While a little consolation, Lyda was going to take all the good news she could get. A few fewer girls being raped tonight would surely be a boon, no matter how inconsequential compared to all the suffering happening all over the galaxy?

Lyda's host, Zena agreed, kind of. For once, the middle-aged woman got struck silent by the unexpected events. She even believed that Perun now might be a real god of thunder, the poor simple-minded thing. The Tok'Ra sighed in relief at being dismissed, ignored Zena's fretting, and quickly headed for her quarters. She wasn't going to risk being discovered during a lock-down. Instead, she had to calm down her host and come up with a plan of action before it was too late.

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Sensing the awe, fear, and utter blind devotion of my subjects, was a heady feeling. If I wasn't careful, I was going to go on the deep end in a way that wasn't funny.

In this particular case, those emotions came from a few of my subjects, aiding me in taking a bath. My attempts to get rid of all that damned oil by brushing it away with now ruined silk toga failed miserably. My… subjects, let's go with subjects instead of indoctrinated slaves, apparently knew what to do. I really shouldn't be complaining about getting a massage and a show from four sanctity-clad palace servants, all beautiful, young, and of the female persuasion. The bath, slash, massage, was relaxing, and educational. Whatever those oils were, getting rid of them required either technological means or rubbing them off with a soft sand-like reagent that was great at absorbing them, without abrading my skin. It went without saying what Perun preferred. Why he wanted his future hosts coated that way in the first place, I couldn't even begin to figure out, even if I had the madman's memories.

Now, don't get me wrong, if I was a randy teenager, this would be a dream come true. Instead, I was stuck both enjoying myself tremendously, and keeping myself from fully trampling what little morals I had left in the first place. I keenly recalled the brief period I was a slave, along with the memories of years of slavery before my reincarnation as a Force Adept and a Sith to be.

It was bad enough that I condoned slavery under the Sith Empire, because doing so was simply convenient, and not suicidal as going against the system without enough power would have been. Was I a hypocrite? The Dark Side ensured it, and even without it, I thought I was self-aware enough to admit it to myself if no one else.

The last time around, I did nothing against slavery unless it was convenient, or not too dangerous to yours truly. This time around? I knew what the right thing was. Yet the temptation, the sheer power of owning someone and holding their life in your hands? That was a drug to a Sith. Combine that with all the Goa'uld memories struck in my head? That first night it was all I could do not to drag one of the girls in my lap, push her wet clothes away and take advantage of her.

The only thing that kept me from doing so, was finding refugees in cold fury. All my achievements were wiped clean. A lifetime of struggles, gone. I was back at square one, or close enough to it, in a different, but no less dangerous galaxy. Friends, acquaintances, my wife? They were all gone, lost to me.

It was during that first night, in Perun's bath of all places, surrounded by servants, who in reality were little more than common slaves, that I got an epiphany. Without a goal, without something to keep me focused, I was going to succumb to Perun's memories and my Sith nature. If, or when that happened, the galaxy was going to burn.

And if that was the case, I might just set it on fire anyway, and burn out the rot that was the Goa'uld Empire with its abominable ways. It wasn't like I could do a much worse job than those things, right?

I groaned in pleasure as thin skilled fingers deftly massaged my back.

Fuck it, I needed to find a therapist before I went either full Sith or Goa'uld. That was how finding a way to raid Earth rose on my priority list.

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A night of restless sleep followed, plagued by all kinds of odd dreams, or perhaps even visions. There was a war coming, though I wasn't sure if it was because Ra was about to get himself killed out of sheer arrogance, or one my overlords might push me into anyway.

For the record, I slept alone, to the disappointment of several concubines. The Stockholm Syndrome was reigning in strong in my palace, yay.

On a related topic, I still struggled in figuring out what kind of overlord I wanted to be. Besides better than the Goa'uld - that was a low bar to clear. Perhaps the lowest one in this whole galaxy.

It's funny you know? I was a monster, and I was at peace with that realization. I've burned worlds, destroyed whole civilizations fighting for a cause that was never mine. Because it was convenient because it was the safer option for me. And because few places felt more at home than a bloody battlefield. Say what you wish, but the bastards on Korriban who trained me knew what they were doing. After them, Baras and Zash merely completed the work and helped me damn myself.

The thing about being a monster? We could have standards, thank you very much.

I sat on my bed with my eyes closed, letting my mind slip over the surface of the Force. There were millions of people in this world, and they were my people. They would be the foundation of my future empire and my strength. I needed them to be loyal to me, no matter, if they believed that I was their god or that whole snake sham, fell apart. That meant I had to have standards, even if there was no one else to hold me up to them, because if I let myself slide down the slippery slope of indulgence? I wasn't sure I would be strong enough to climb back up.

It was a matter of pride in myself as a Sith, as a monster, a commander, and an accomplished killer.

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Part 4

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Slavna Zemq
Perun's Homeworld
Milky Way Galaxy

After a light breakfast, commissioning someone to make a decent window's knock-off rose there on my priority list. There was much more to be desired as far as user-friendliness went when Goa'uld computers and software were concerned. Depending on the timing, I might have to intervene on Earth, invest in tech industries for convenience sake, if nothing else. Then I would prove myself a real evil bastard by unleashing bootleg Windows on the unsuspecting galaxy. I was serious by the way – a proper tablet would have made my life much easier considering how much design work I had in front of me.

Perhaps raiding the labs of the few dedicated researchers doing odd, and quite useless things for me, might be in order? I shook my head in frustration and shoved that thought for later. I would spend most of the afternoon interviewing my chief minions, subverting or eliminating spies. When that was done, I would be helping myself to any useful equipment confiscated from subversive elements.

For the time being, I had to content myself with a stone tablet that had delusions of grandeur. Technology-wise, the damn thing was among the most powerful computers of similar size I've ever worked with. It was just that, the software options available were primitive compared to what I was accustomed to.

First things first – simple improvements that would act as the foundation of future development. Security of yours truly was on top of that list, which meant better training and equipment, first for my Thunder Guard, and then the regular Jaffa.

The staff everyone used as a primary armament were little more than ceremonial weapons meant to awe primitives with huge explosions. The firepower was nothing to scoff at. The fire rate, and accuracy for that matter, left a lot to be desired.

Point one on the equipment list was to get my hands on staff, open it up, then redesign it into a simple rifle. Step two would be marksmanship training. For step three, I had to find the time to write up a manual on small unit tactics. Step four - minor upgrades to weapons and armor with a large impact. Like rails to add additional equipment to the rifles, webbing to carry grenades, and useful devices like sensors and jammers.

Once those were ready, I would have a useful core of standard riflemen to build upon. Next, time and resources permitting, I would begin introducing specialized fire teams. A rapid-fire machine gun equivalent, a heavy weapons team using staff cannons, a support weapons team using simple mortars utilizing already available grenades.

When I had those in place as a standard across my Jaffa armies, it would be time to introduce further upgrades both for the infantry and a future armored arm of my ground forces. In that regard, I intended to keep things simple – a universal chassis to evolve from a simple troop carrier to a future AFV, tank, and anti-air platform.

I needed industry for that, so the general idea went on the to-do list on a separate stone tablet. The same was true about upgrading my small navy. Once again I needed industry and a functional R&D department, even though I jolted down a few simple upgrades that would be nice to have.

The industry was where I would either make it big, or everything would fall in flames around my ears. To sustain a modern industry, I needed an educated, self-sustaining population. That meant an uplift, which if mishandled would at best force me to flee. An educational program. A sanitation program. Hospitals. Those were among the fundamental building blocks of industry. Keeping people in love with their benevolent overlord, so even if they figure out I was no god, they would follow me anyway. That meant I needed a good propaganda machine, not just run-of-the-mill priests prone to abuse my people.

Clean up the rest of my clergy…

And all that was just the tip of the iceberg…

I put down the tablets, after making sure they were both shut down, and encrypted. The projects I had in mind weren't something I could achieve by myself. My first order of business had to be cleaning up house, and vetting down useful personnel. Realistically, the only way to significantly increase the speed of my plans would be to find allies, who could provide know-how, resources, and personnel.

Every advanced civilization in the galaxy knew not to trust my kind, for a good reason too. Further, contacting those at this time would risk early exposure. In the future, I would want to have intelligence agents embedded among them, feeding me all kinds of sweet and useful data. For that to be a concern, I would need a functional intelligence agency with properly trained agents – which was yet another thing I added to my to-do list.

Realistically, I had two options. The first one was particularly dangerous – engineer an alliance with the Tok'Ra by proving that was more similar to them than the Goa'uld at large. That would be easier said than done, and even at the best of time, they might decide that I am too dangerous to leave unchecked.

The other option was to bide my time, make sure Ra dies on Abydoss, and enter an alliance with Earth. Because, if Ra would be heading there this year, I simply didn't see myself finding enough time to build up before wars engulf the galaxy.

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For regular humans, there isn't such a thing as real multi-tasking. It's rapid task-switching at best, and it usually comes around as increased stress and efficiency as a consequence. For a Force Adept? Multi-tasking was the difference between life and death. It was our bread and butter, made possible only because of the Force, and most useful when using the Force in multiple ways to augment ourselves during combat.

However, once honed, such skills aided in more mundane tasks. For example, I spent my first-afternoon ruling as Perun, between interviewing my closest staff in a quest to rid myself of incompetents, rooting out spies, and hopefully finding a gem or two in the rough. As if that wasn't enough, I had a disassembled staff weapon on my desk, I was working on. To top it all, I also did my best to figure out an infantry training manual, writing down ideas on a separate stone tablet.

There was a method to my madness. First, at best I didn't have enough time to spare, so cutting corners when I could simply be the price of doing work. Second, seeing me tinker, took aback everyone I interviewed, making them easier to read.

The Force helped, as I gleefully used it to cheat, read emotions and body language. If I noticed anything suspicious, I was ready to use more direct means to find out the truth.

So far, I figured out that my majordomo equivalent was a semi-retired agent of Kali, enjoying his twilight years at a reasonably safe, out-of-the-way post. He also made sure Perun's direct overlord would know if the former Goa'uld would get aspirations above his station.

Now, my majordomo was stuck in a cell, awaiting further attention. I intended to turn him soon and increase the odds of keeping Kali in the dark.

My treasurer turned out to be a corrupt bastard, something Perun suspected but didn't care about – that was a perk of the job you see… Needless to say, the treasurer was in a cell as well, answering pointed questions about how much he stole from me, and how my people could recover those assets. Once they got it done, I would be making a public example of that thief.

The fun thing about that mess, was his expression – his face was a picture of denial and disbelief, while my Jaffa dragged him out. I shook my head at the spectacle and turned my attention back to the staff weapon.

Its length wasn't entirely for show. It helped charge gas drawn from the atmosphere, increasing the striking power of the plasma bolt. Incidentally, the length did not correlate with the speed of the shot. That feature was governed by the four emitters at the firing end of the staff. They projected a magnetic containment field keeping the shot together. It was that device, which determined the range of the weapon as well. As soon as the magnetic field broke down, the plasma rapidly lost coherence and striking power before becoming useless for anything but starting fires.

In practical terms, for a minimal decrease in firepower, I could get a comfortable ergonomic design. Perhaps even slapping two modified staff weapons into a brace, making them fire in succession to increase the fire rate and effective striking power?

At any rate, I expected to have a prototype by tomorrow morning, then it would be up to my armorers to refine and build it.

A Jaffa led my next target for interrogation. That one was a Goa'uld inhabiting a young, raven-haired woman. She was a relatively new addition to Perun's court, and one of the few scientists he had working for him. That fool had her wasting her time designing a better king of close quarter weapons – knives, swords, and the like for use against uprisings or fun. The defining feature he wanted was to make death caused by such weapons both fast and as painful as possible. At least he wasn't quite as far gone as to want to cause pain to be a defining feature at the expense of killing power, though I wasn't ready to bet on how long that state of affairs might have persisted.

Perun's memories were a keen reminder of why one should never go full Sith or Goa'uld. It was never pretty.

"Lady Lyda," I focused my attention to the newcomer, who nervously curtsied. Outwardly, all she showed was the proper amount of deference and awe.

However, her emotions were very interesting and didn't match her mask at all.