[Short Stories] - [Gamer]

Like a thrown dagger seeking its target, the Valcyn stabbed through hyperspace, a lone survivor racing away from the site of the battlefield massacre.

All of the Sith Lords were dead after their last stand on Ruusan… all except one. The insidious “thought bomb” set off in a glorious suicidal gesture by Sith Lord Kaan had also obliterated all of the Jedi Knights under Lord Hoth’s command. Every Force-user on Ruusan had been annihilated, warriors both light and dark. But there were other Jedi Knights abroad in the Republic - - and now the Brotherhood of Darkness was extinct. Except for Darth Bane.

“You are a coward,” said a hollow spectral voice beside him, loud and hot in the closeness of the sleek ship’s cockpit. “You have failed me and Lord Kaan and all your Sith brothers.”

His knuckles white as he gripped the controls of the Valcyn, Darth Bane curled back his lips, showing clenched teeth. His eyes were wide and hunted as he navigated through the convolutions of hyperspace, fleeing toward what he hoped would be a refuge… and a new beginning.

Beside him, occupying no space inside the blade-shaped spacecraft, sat the avatar of Sith Lord Qordis, a man wrapped in shadows. He crackled with black dark side energy - - the evil residue of a dead man.

Qordis turned his long ghoulish face toward Bane. His eyes were embers of fire wreathed within inky hollows. The specter pointed an accusing talon-like finger at Darth Bane. Reflections of his remembered obsidian-encrusted rings glittered in the cabin light.

“No, Master Qordis,” Bane said, a large man hunched in the cockpit. “I am not craven. I have done only what was required. Someone had to escape, so that the flames of dark lore would not be extinguished completely.” His head was shaved smooth, his scalp blotched with discolorations. Bane’s jaw was firm and square, his eyes as large as lanterns. His body was muscular enough to intimidate any foe, but the accusing spirit of his Sith Master made even the burly Sith Lord’s resolve turn to cold water.

“You abandoned us, Darth Bane.”

“No, I intended only to protect the legacy of the Sith! I must carry on the work of Darkness, or else all of our existence, the entire Brotherhood, will be forgotten.” Trying to concentrate on his ship despite the looming presence beside him, Bane studied the coordinates. He worked the Valcyn’s controls, and the ship plunged out of hyperspace, as if a surreal vacuum had broken around it. The slim spacecraft dropped into star-studded blackness, circling downward with its own momentum, augmented by powerful thrusters.

Darth Bane descended into the harsh, bright light of the Onderon sun. In this solar system, only one planet was habitable - - Onderon itself - - and it held a grouping of four erratic moons, including the beast moon of Dxun.

There, perhaps, he could redeem himself and mitigate this disaster.

Bane pressed his cold lips together, muttering quietly as he wrestled with his guilt. He had told Lord Kaan the folly of his “thought bomb” plan, had disagreed with the tactics of such complete and destructive surrender. On the blasted and corpse-strewn battlefields of Ruusan, he had argued against the mass suicide of the Sith Brotherhood, even if it meant dealing such a blow to the Jedi Knights. A poor bargain, he had insisted, raising a gloved fist inside the war pavilions where the angry and wounded Dark Lords thought only of revenge against his comrades.

But, as they had done for so long, the Sith followers were more interested in their private squabbles, trying to step on each other’s shoulders merely to gain status for themselves. Didn’t they see what they were doing to their glorious dark dreams? Darth Bane had watched it happen. Even while the Brotherhood of Darkness faced total defeat at Ruusan, still they were more interested in personal glory than in uniting against the common enemy.

They had been vanquished for their folly. Bane was glad to be away from fools with too much power…

“Excuses and self-justification,” said the ghostly avatar of the dead Lord Qordis, who had been annihilated on Ruusan, like all the others. “You were always a disappointment as a student, Bane. My other trainees followed orders, but you questioned too much. You refused to do what was necessary, and you never bothered to finish your training.” Qordis seemed to grow larger, until the Valcyn’s cockpit could no longer contain the angry spirit. “Now how will you complete your mission?”

“I always do what is necessary, for my survival and for the benefit of the Sith,” Bane muttered. “But none of you would listen to me.” The Valcyn plowed through interplanetary space, cutting its way toward Dxun, where Bane hoped to find a new future for the Sith. “Now you are all dead, and at last I have a chance to recreate the Sith in the proper way.”