Star Wars: Slave Of Darkness

After a visit to the medical ward and a confrontation with an irate doctor, I was back out in the hot sun of Korriban with bacta-laced bandages over my eyes and orders not to remove them for two days.

At any other time, the look of bewildered panic on the speeder attendant's face when he registered my blindness as I hopped behind the controls and sped off would have left a grin on my face and laughing my ass off for an hour.

But today, after everything that had happened, it was only a spot of dull amusement that quickly faded.

I allowed my hands to work on auto-pilot, turning my thoughts to the future.

I was now free of the academy, no longer an acolyte, but an Apprentice, which was a chain of a different sort. I was still a grunt in terms of the Sith hierarchy, but not quite at the level of something you scraped off the bottom of your boot. 

There was some status associated with the position, especially being the apprentice of a Dark Council member, but not so much that I could do whatever the hell I wanted without consequence.

I had to be careful of whose toes I stepped on from now on. And that meant…ugh…playing politics.

Still, I had my soldiers now and more freedom to act. Now I just needed to get them off-planet.

I could have tried to requisition a troop transport, but I had doubts that it would have gone all that well. 

I suspected that I had burned most of my good will with the local command structure by seizing two full platoons of soldiers from the garrison without prior warning. I didn't think they'd do or say anything about it to my face, but it was a risk I wasn't willing to take.

Fortunately, I already had a solution on hand.

In the distance, the marker stone was still where I had left it on top of a massive sand dune, if a little bit more weathered than I remembered. Shutting off the speeder, I dismounted and settled into a light meditation.

The beat of Korriban's blackened heart grew louder in my ears as I started to draw in power. The harsh wind whipped at my robes, stinging at my exposed skin with tiny grains of sand.

Almost every muscle in my body ached, accompanied by a soul-crushing exhaustion. With each breath, my barely-healed ribs seemed to creak and blood pounded painfully through my veins. They were reminders that I had been fighting non-stop for nearly a week straight with very little rest in between.

As the Force flowed into me, it all disappeared. Gone was the pain and the weariness. Gone was the gloom of the vestige of Darth Rictus' presence that had clung to me for the past hour. Gone was the cold of the tombs.

In their place was a crackling warmth just below the surface. It was almost like lightning, still trapped inside of a storm cloud.

With the warmth came life. With each breath, came power.

But as much as I craved that feeling, I didn't dare hold onto it for long. The Force was not a toy to be played with, especially not when one was drawing on its darker side.

Taking in one last deep breath, I let it out in one great blast.

The wind roared across the empty wastes, tearing into the dune before me. The sand was blown away in a massive wave, leaving the prize hidden beneath unscathed, if still dusty.

For a long few minutes, I just sat on the ground, gulping in air. The weakness from before came back all at once, an equal but opposite reaction to what I had just done.

As I caught my breath, I took the time to examine the smuggler's…my ship. It was a large, ugly thing, but hopefully it would be enough to transport dozens of soldiers across the system. I didn't recognize the model, but it was sitting somewhere at the half-way point between a freighter and a corvette.

That hole in Korriban's defense screen? Thing must have been fucking massive. The ship looked like it was somewhere in the ballpark of two hundred feet long from the tip of the bow to the three massive engines on the back.

I remembered that it had a dull red-and-cream color scheme, but that might have changed after months buried under sand.

Now, its hull looked grimy and worn to my Force Sight, with…something else seeming to cling to it. I didn't know if that was actually there or if I was seeing something strange because of Force shenanigans.

Once a bit of strength had returned, I stood up and entered my ship.

When I'd first claimed it, I hadn't done much exploring beyond the cockpit and the gangplank before neutralizing the former owner and leaving. Now, I wish that I had.

Tendrils of the Force leaked out from somewhere deeper in the ship. I hadn't seen them before, either because I wasn't looking or because I couldn't see them at the time.

Alternatively, they were a recent development after prolonged exposure to Korriban.

"Great fear permeates this vessel, Sorcerer."

Out of habit, I physically glanced over my shoulder to see the crimson-eyed void that I'd summoned to be my personal assassin. The Smoke Demon's form looked identical under Force Sight as it did to my physical eyes.

The creature had been quiet for several days ever since I'd sent it on that errand to fetch Olia. I'd half-expected my ears to be filled with complaints of how I hadn't been feeding it enough. Despite that, it had never really left my presence, lingering unseen in my shadow at all hours of the day.

During the ambush in the tomb, it had always been at my back. It was there when I turned Garsh into a Korriban Zombie. It was there when Gaarurra breathed his last.

Watching. Waiting. For what, I didn't quite know. It obeyed my orders, but I knew very little about it. It didn't have a face or a presence to read. I simply knew when it was around.

The only things I'd learned about the creature were that it didn't have my best interests in mind and it wasn't my friend.

The Smoke Demon's "face" may have been incapable of emotion, but there was a sense of…giddiness to its monotone "voice."

I didn't dignify its comment with a reply and focused on my current task. With my Force Sight, it wasn't difficult to track down the source of the disturbance on the ship. The feelings grew in strength the closer I got to the cargo hold.

The hold showed the remnants of many occupants. Scuffed plating and spilled food mostly. The looters had been crammed in here for however many days it had taken to get to Korriban.

But that wasn't the source. That was found elsewhere.

The sight of a pile of chains and shock-collars greeted me, crammed into a closet to get them out of the way like an unwanted broom or dirty laundry.

Tired as I was, it didn't take more than a second to figure out that this had been a slaver ship. I felt my lip curl up in disgust.

The stench of fear clung to the slaver gear, imprinted on them by God knows how many would-be slaves, some of them possibly Force Sensitive, then amplified by Korriban and several nearby Dark Side nexuses. If they had been left alone for too much longer, I didn't know what they would have become.

Well, that was my running theory anyways. It could have ended up being something benign, but I doubted it. When the Dark Side was involved, always assume the worst possible outcome.

The Smoke Demon was standing just behind me, staring at the chains. For an assassin, it wasn't subtle when it wanted something.

Fine by me. I didn't want anything to do with them.

I turned around fully and walked past it, "Do what you want with them. Just don't leave a mess."

I didn't stick around to watch. However, I couldn't help but notice that the tendrils immediately started retreating, accompanied by several unnerving noises.

At least the grimy feeling was gone now.

For the next hour, I busied myself with ensuring that everything was in working order on the ship, one piece at a time. I didn't want my first flight in this rust heap to be my last.

Aside from the appalling condition of the crew quarters, the ship was fine, though I did have to blow some sand out of the engines.

With all that done, I settled into the cockpit and started the ship's reactor. As I waited for the warm-up to finish, I switched on my ship's commlink.

...

The flight back to the academy was thankfully uneventful, though strangely, I wasn't even challenged by Imperial flight control.

Cormun and Maklan were both waiting for me as the ramp lowered, with their troopers assembled behind them. Between the two platoons, there looked to be around fifty or sixty soldiers. The Second Platoon had been rotated out from their duty station at Graush's tomb and ferried back to the academy.

Cormun saluted sharply as I descended, with his counterpart following suit soon after. As expected, both men's gazes locked onto my bandaged eyes.

"Temporary injuries." I explained tersely. I didn't really want to say more on the matter, "Is this everyone?"

Maklan cleared his throat, "The ones that are mobile, milord. There are more that are still recovering from injuries or waiting for the next shipment of cyberlimbs."

Right. There had been a bunch injured by Tu'kata during the massed assault.

"Fifth Platoon is all accounted for, milord," Cormun reported.

I grunted, doing a quick sweep of the crowd. Maklan's sand-caked troopers stood out starkly against Cormun's group, making it easier to figure out who was part of which. A platoon was normally somewhere in the ballpark of fifty men, but it seemed that both were at half-strength. I was probably fortunate to get that much, what with the attrition rate.

"We'll arrange transport for the wounded later, then." I sighed. I had spent a good bit of capital just getting them. I wasn't going to leave any behind if I could help it, "For now, we'll make do with what we have."

Turning my attention to the assembled soldiers, I could feel the dozens of eyes on me.

"Gentlemen…and ladies." I amended, spotting several women in the crowd, "Some of you know of me or have fought beside me before. But most of you don't."

A few of the heads bobbed, showing the ones that had met me before. All of them were from Maklan's group.

"My name is Tesser, now apprenticed to Darth Rictus of the Dark Council."

A wave of emotions swept through the crowd. Nervousness, mostly. Beside me, Maklan's shoulders tensed, though from what I didn't know thanks to his mental shields.

"You are members of the Korriban Regiment…and I know exactly what that means. You are the Empire's criminals, the outcasts and unwanted of the Emperor's carefully ordered society." 

I tried not to put too much sarcasm in that last bit, knowing exactly what the Emperor thought of his Empire.

"The ones they couldn't or wouldn't find a use for elsewhere. So you were sentenced here, to serve as cannon fodder for whatever monsters lurk beneath the sands. They judged your lives to be worth less than whatever crumb of knowledge or power could be pried from these old tombs, each looted a hundred times over."

Nervousness was replaced by anger, each reminded of the reason they were here in the first place. Good. Anger was useful, so long as it wasn't directed at me.

"But whatever you were before, you survived anyways in circumstances that would have killed ordinary men and women. Call it determination, call it skill, or just dumb luck. Whichever it is, you have it."

Over the ever-present desert winds, I could hear the whine of machinery as several mechanical fists clenched out of sight. Most of the assembled soldiers, especially in Maklan's lot, were cyborgs of some fashion. 

Cyber-limbs and crude mechanical eyes were the more obvious tells, but there were more subtle ones as well hidden beneath clothing. I could feel the small sparks of electricity that powered them humming beneath their skin.

But none of the soldiers were without scars.

"Today, things will change. You are no longer conscripts of the Korriban Regiment, but rather soldiers under my personal command."

No one was quite certain what to make of that declaration. A few sparks of tentative hope sprung up, but the majority were wary.

"Do not mistake me. Your sentences were not ended, merely commuted. I don't have that kind of influence…yet." I made sure to emphasize that last word, implying that, with their help, I might one day have that kind of pull.

I made one last sweep of the crowd.

"But for now, we are all leaving Korriban. Gather what belongings you were allowed and meet back here in an hour. Dismissed."

...

"So we're really leaving." Maklan stated as the soldiers started filtering back to their respective barracks.

I wasn't sure if he was shocked or merely confirming. Now that I thought about it, I never asked how long he'd been here.

Not knowing if he was seriously asking, I merely nodded.

He let out a sigh and looked out into the empty desert, "Might not be a good thing, at least in my case. Especially with who your Master is."

"Why's that?"

Maklan barked a humorless laugh, "I'm the one that got his idiot son killed."

I stared at him for a long few seconds before asking, "How in the hell are you still alive?"

"Not sure why myself." The medic admitted with a nonchalant shrug, "Maybe he just wanted me to suffer."

Without further explanation, the older man departed to claim what gear he had. Cormun and I watched him go without a word between us.

After a few more moments of silence, the corners of my mouth started twitching up, "Captain?"

Cormun twitched, startled out of his own trance, "Yes, milord?"

"A few things." I held up a finger, "First, I need the paperwork to file a promotion. Maklan's getting bumped up to captain." A second finger joined the first, "Second: A pilot."

To his credit, the man didn't hesitate, "I will have the paperwork transferred to your datapad at first opportunity, milord. And I believe several of my men were reputable pilots before their incarceration."

I could pilot the ship myself just fine and had done so, but that was just for planetary travel. I didn't really want to poke around a hyperdrive with the Force until I understood what the hell I was doing. Those things were reverse engineered from Rakata Force Tech. 

I really didn't want to know what would happen if I screwed up.

Also, I was exhausted and wanted some sleep while I could get it.

...

As the soldiers started returning, they were followed by someone. The sun gleamed off Overseer Iren's bald head as he stepped out onto the platform, a small bundle cradled under his arm.

"Overseer." I nodded in greeting, "I'm surprised that you came to see me off."

One of the Pureblood's eye-ridges rose, "Truly? One of my charges has garnered the attention of a member of the Dark Council and you believe that I would simply ignore you upon your departure?"

"Hardly." I replied, surprising myself a bit at how much easier it was to speak with him now, "But I would have thought other matters would keep you busy."

His mouth stretched into a thin smile, "True, I do have other matters to attend to. The next batch of acolytes arrives tomorrow and preparations for the First Trial must be completed before then." He sighed, "Nevertheless, my deviation here will not take long. I only stopped to pass this along."

The Overseer held out the bundle to me.

"What is it?" I asked, metaphorically eyeing the package. The Force was swirling in odd patterns around it.

"Several of the artifacts that you retrieved in your own First Trial," Iren explained, "They were being examined and catalogued here at the academy. I was able to claim these, as well as a number of pieces for my own collection. 

They were judged to be of minor worth, but I believe they may prove to be of use in your future endeavors."

I gingerly accepted the package, being careful not to jostle it. I wasn't going to open it until I had access to a very strongly-warded laboratory.

"Bribing me already, Overseer?" I was only half-joking as I tucked it under one arm, "I haven't even been an apprentice for a day."

"Of course," His smile widened a hair, "It is never too early to form connections. Especially in matters of mutual interest."

Now what those mutual interests were was yet another question to add to the pile. A mystery for another day, I would assume.

"Now, I will not keep you any longer. Your Master awaits. Farewell, Aldrex."

"It's Tesser now." I corrected him before stepping back and turning to walk up the entry ramp of my ship.

For the first time, there was a hint of amusement and pride in his voice.

"May the Force serve you well, Tesser."

I turned back for a moment, but Iren was already walking back into the academy.

When the last of my soldiers had returned to the ship and it had been refueled, we wasted no time in lifting off, blasting into the sky as fast as the lumbering craft would allow.

Soon, the viewports were filled with blue and white, leaving Korriban behind.

============================

A/N: This is the last chapter of this "book" (Good God this actually has been a damn novel). After this, there will be two or three epilogue chapters from other POVs.

Then we are going to start "book 2"

====================

The first book of this fanfic has been completed on Patreon, you can look it up in the collection alongside the second book. You can visit Patreon if you want to read in Advance.

 [email protected]/Rage_moon