فصل 01

THE UNDERWORLD

Forty-seven standard years before the harrowing reign of Emperor Palpatine, Baldemnic was nothing more than an embryonic world in the Outer Rims Auril sector, populated by reptilian sentients who expressed as little tolerance for outsiders as they did for one another. Decades later the planet would have a part to play in galactic events, its own wink of historical notoriety, but in those formative years that presaged the Republics ineluctable slide into decadence and turmoil, Baldemnic was of interest only to xenobiologists and cartographers. It might even have escaped the notice of Darth Plagueis, for whom remote worlds held a special allure, had his Master, Tenebrous, not discovered something special about the planet.

Darth Bane would appreciate our efforts, the Sith Master was telling his apprentice as they stood side by side in the crystalline cave that had drawn them across the stars.

A Bith, Tenebrous was as tall as Plagueis and nearly as cadaverously thin. To human eyes, his bilious complexion might have made him appear as haggard as the pallid Muun, but in fact both beings were in robust health. Though they conversed in Basic, each was fluent in the others native language.

Darth Banes early years, Plagueis said through his transpirator mask.

Carrying on the ancestral business, as it were.

Behind the faceplate of his own mask, Tenebrouss puckered lips twitched in disapproval. The breathing device looked absurdly small on his outsized cleft head, and the convexity of the mask made the flat disks of his lidless eyes look like close-set holes in his pinched face.

Banes seminal years, he corrected.

Plagueis weathered the gentle rebuke. He had been apprenticed to Tenebrous for as many years as the average human might live, and still Tenebrous never failed to find fault when he could.

What more appropriate way for us to close the circle than by mimicking the Sitharis seminal efforts, Tenebrous continued. We weave ourselves into the warp and weft of the tapestry he created.

Plagueis kept his thoughts to himself. The aptly named Darth Bane, who had redefined the Sith by limiting their number and operating from concealment, had mined cortosis as a youth on Apatros long before embracing the tenets of the dark side. In the thousand years since his death, Bane had become deified the powers attributed to him, legendary. And indeed what more appropriate place for his disciples to complete the circle, Plagueis told himself, than in profound obscurity, deep within an escarpment that walled an azure expanse of Baldemnics Northern Sea.

The two Sith were outfitted in environment suits that protected them from scorching heat and noxious atmosphere. The cave was cross-hatched by scores of enormous crystals that resembled glowing lances thrust every which way into a trick chest by a stage magician. A recent seismic event had tipped the landmass, emptying the labyrinthine cave system of mineral-rich waters, but the magma chamber that had kept the waters simmering for millions of years still heated the humid air to temperatures in excess of what even Tenebrous and Plagueis could endure unaided. Close at hand sat a stubby treddroid tasked with monitoring the progress of a mining probe that was sampling a rich vein of cortosis ore at the bottom of a deep shaft. A fabled ore, some called it—owing to its scarcity, but even more for its intrinsic ability to diminish the effectiveness of the Jedi lightsaber. For that reason, the Jedi Order had gone to great lengths to restrict mining and refinement of the ore. If not the bane of the Orders existence, cortosis was a kind of irritant, a challenge to their weapons reputation for fearsome invincibility.

It was to Tenebrouss credit that the Sith had learned of Baldemnics rich lodes before the Jedi, who by means of an agreement with the Republic Senate had first claim to all discoveries, as they had with Adegan crystals and Forcesensitive younglings of all species. But Tenebrous and the generations of Sith Masters who had preceded him were privy to covert data gleaned by vast networks of informants the Senate and the Jedi knew nothing about, including mining survey teams and weapons manufacturers.

Based on the data I am receiving, the treddroid intoned, eighty-two percent of the ore is capable of being purified into weapons-grade cortosis shield. Plagueis looked at Tenebrous, who returned a nod of satisfaction. The percentage is consistent with what I was told to expect.

By whom, Master?

Of no consequence, Tenebrous said.

Strewn about the superheated tunnel were broken borer bits, expended gasifiers, and clogged filtration masks, all abandoned by the exploratory team that had sunk the shaft several standard months earlier. From the shafts broad mouth issued the repeated reports of the probe droids hydraulic jacks. Music to Tenebrouss auditory organs, Plagueis was certain.

Can you not share your plans for this discovery?

In due time, Darth Plagueis. Tenebrous turned away from him to address the treddroid. Instruct the probe to evaluate the properties of the secondary lode. Plagueis studied the screen affixed to the droids flat head. It displayed a map of the probes movements and a graphic analysis of its penetrating scans, which reached clear to the upper limits of the magma chamber.

The probe is running an analysis, the treddroid updated.

With the reciprocating sounds of the probes hydraulic jacks echoing in the crystal cave, Tenebrous began to circle the shaft, only to come to a sudden halt when the drilling ceased.

Why has it stopped? he asked before Plagueis could.

The droids reply was immediate. The Em-Two unit informs me that it has discovered a pocket of gas directly beneath the new borehole. The droid paused, then added Im sorry to report, sirs, that the gas is a highly combustible variant of lethane. The Em-Two unit predicts that the heat generated by its hydraulic jacks will ignite an explosion of significant magnitude. Suspicion crept into Tenebrouss voice. The original report made no mention of lethane.

The droid pivoted to face him. I know nothing of that, sir. But the Em-Two unit is quite insistent. Whats more, my own programming corroborates the fact that it is not unusual to find pockets of lethane in close proximity to cortosis ore.

Query the probe about excavating around the lethane pocket, Plagueis said.

The Em-Two unit recommends employing that very strategy, sir. Shall I order it to proceed?

Plagueis looked at Tenebrous, who nodded.

Task the probe to proceed, Plagueis said. When the hammering recommenced, he fixed his gaze on the display screen to monitor the probes progress. Tell the probe to stop, he said after only a moment had elapsed.

Why are you interfering? Tenebrous said, storming forward.

Plagueis gestured to the display. The map indicates a more massive concentration of lethane in the area where its drilling. Youre correct, sir, the droid said in what amounted to dismay. I will order the unit to halt all activity.

And yet the hammering continued.

Droid, Plagueis snapped, did the probe acknowledge your order? No, sir. The Em-Two is not responding.

Tenebrous stiffened, narrowly avoiding slamming his head into one of the caves massive crystals. Is it still within range?

Yes, sir.

Then run a communications diagnostic.

I have, sir, and all systems are nominal. The units inability to respond— It fell briefly silent and began again. The units refusal to respond appears to be deliberate.

Deactivate it, Tenebrous said. At once.

The hammering slowed and eventually ceased, but not for long.

The Em-Two unit has overridden my command.

Impossible, Tenebrous said.

Clearly not, sir. In fact, it is highly probable that the unit is executing a deepseated subroutine that escaped earlier notice. Plagueis glanced at Tenebrous. Who procured the probe? This isnt the time for questions. The probe is about to breach the pocket. Hastening to the rim of the circular shaft, the two Sith removed their gloves and aimed their long-fingered unprotected hands into the inky darkness.

Instantly tangles of blue electrical energy discharged from their fingertips, raining into the borehole. Strobing and clawing for the bottom, the vigorous bolts coruscated into the lateral corridor the probe had excavated. Crackling sounds spewed from the opening long after the Sith had harnessed their powers.

Then the repetitive strikes of the jackhammer began once more.

Its the ore, Tenebrous said. Theres too much resistance here. Plagueis knew what needed to be done. Ill go down, he said, and was on the verge of leaping into the shaft when Tenebrous restrained him.

This can wait. Were returning to the grotto.

Plagueis hesitated, then nodded. As you say, Master.

Tenebrous swung to the droid. Continue your attempts to deactivate the unit. I will, sir. To do that, however, I will need to remain here. What of it? Tenebrous said, cocking his head to one side.

Should I fail in my efforts, the ensuing explosion will surely result in my destruction.

Plagueis understood. Youve been useful, droid.

Thank you, sir.

Tenebrous scowled. You waste your breath.

Nearly knocked over by the swiftness of Tenebrouss departure, Plagueis had to call deeply on the Force merely to keep up. Retracing the inclined path they had taken from the grotto in which their starship waited, they fairly flew up the crystal-studded tunnel they had picked their way through earlier. Plagueis grasped that a powerful explosion was perhaps imminent, but was mystified by his Masters almost mad dash for the surface. In the past Tenebrous had rarely evinced signs of discomfort, let alone fear so what danger had he sensed that propelled him with such abandon? And when, in the past, had they fled danger of any sort? Safeguarded by the powers of the dark side, the Sith could hardly fear death when they were allied to it. Plagueis stretched out with his feelings in an attempt to identify the source of Tenebrouss dread, but the Force was silent.

Ten meters ahead of him, the Bith had ducked under a scabrous outcropping.

Haste, however, brought him upright too quickly and his left shoulder glanced off the rough rock, leaving a portion of his suit shredded.

Master, allow me to lead, Plagueis said when he reached Tenebrous. He was only slightly more agile than the Bith, but he had better night vision and a keener sense of direction, over and above what the Force imparted.

His pride wounded more than his shoulder, Tenebrous waved off the offer.

Be mindful of your place. Regaining his balance and composure, he streaked off. But at a fork in the tunnel, he took the wrong turn.

This way, Master, Plagueis called from the other corridor, but he stopped to surrender the lead.

Closer to the surface the tunnels opened into caverns the size of cathedrals, smoothed and hollowed by rainwater that still surged in certain seasons of Baldemnics long year. In pools of standing water darted various species of blind fish. Overhead, hawk-bats took panicked flight from their roosting places in the stippled ceiling. Natural light in the far distance prompted the two Sith to race for the grotto but, even so, they were a moment late.

The gas explosion caught up with them just as they were entering the lightfilled cavity at the top of the escarpment. From deep in the tunnel resounded a squealing electronic wail, and at the same time, almost as if the cave system were gasping for breath, a searing wind tore down from a perforation in the grottos arched ceiling through which the ship had entered. A muffled but ground-heaving detonation followed then a roiling fireball that was the labyrinths scorching exhalation. Whirling to the tunnel they had just exited and managing somehow to remain on his feet, Tenebrous conjured a Force shield with his waving arms that met the fireball and contained it, thousands of flaming hawk-bats spiraling within the tumult like windblown embers.

A few meters away Plagueis, hurled face-first to the ground by the intensity of the vaporizing blast, lifted his head in time to see the underside of the domed ceiling begin to shed enormous slabs of rock. Directly below the plummeting slabs sat their starship.

Master! he said, scrambling to his feet with arms lifted in an attempt to hold the rocks in midair.

His own arms still raised in a Force-summoning posture, Tenebrous swung around to bolster Plagueiss intent. Behind him, the fireballs final flames surged from the mouth of the tunnel to lick his back and drive him deeper into the grotto.

The cave continued to spasm underfoot, sending shock waves through the crazed ceiling. Cracks spread like a web from the oculus, triggering collapses throughout the grotto. Plagueis heard a rending sound overhead and watched a fissure zigzag its way across the ceiling, sloughing layer after layer of stone as it followed the grottos curved wall.

Now, though, it was Tenebrous who was positioned beneath the fall.

And in that instant Plagueis perceived the danger Tenebrous had foreseen earlier his death.

His death at Plagueiss hands.

While Tenebrous was preoccupied holding aloft the slabs that threatened to crush the ship, Plagueis quickly reoriented himself, aiming his raised hands at the plummeting slabs above his Master and, with a downward motion of both arms, brought them down so quickly and with so much momentum that Tenebrous was buried almost before he understood what had hit him.

Stone dust eddying around him, Plagueis stood rooted in place as slabs interred the starship, as well. But he gave it no thought. His success in bringing the ceiling down on Tenebrous was proof enough that the Bith had grown sluggish and expendable. Otherwise, he would have divined the true source of the danger he had sensed, and Plagueis would be the one pressed to the floor of the grotto, head cracked open like an egg and chest cavity pierced by the pointed end of a fallen stalactite.

His race to Tenebrouss side was informed as much by excitement as charade.

Master, he said, genuflecting and removing his and Tenebrouss respirators.

His hands pawed at the stones, removing some of the crushing weight. But Tenebrouss single lung was pierced, and blood gurgled in his throat. Ragged tears in the sleeves of the envirosuit revealed esoteric body markings and tattoos.

Stop, apprentice, Tenebrous strained to say. Youre going to need all your strength.

I can bring help. Theres time—

Im dying, Darth Plagueis. Theres time only for that. Plagueis held the Biths pained gaze. I did all that I could, Master. Tenebrous interrupted him once more. To be strong in the Force is one thing.

But to believe oneself to be all-powerful is to invite catastrophe. Remember, that even in the ethereal realm we inhabit, the unforeseen can occur. A stuttering cough silenced him for a moment. Better this way, perhaps, than to perish at your hand.

As Darth Bane would have wished, Plagueis thought. Who supplied the mining probe, Master?

Subtext, Tenebrous said in a weak voice. Subtext Mining. Plagueis nodded. I will avenge you.

Tenebrous canted his huge head ever so slightly. Will you? Of course.

If the Bith was convinced, he kept it to himself, and said instead You are fated to bring the Sith imperative to fruition, Plagueis. It falls to you to bring the Jedi Order to its knees and to save the rest of the galaxys sentients from themselves.

At long last, Plagueis told himself, the mantle is conferred.

But I need to warn you …, Tenebrous started to say and fell abruptly silent.

Plagueis could sense the Biths highly evolved mind replaying recent events, calculating odds, reaching conclusions.

Warn me about what, Master?

Tenebrouss black eyes shone with yellow light and his free hand clutched at the ring collar of Plagueiss enviro-suit. You!

Plagueis pried the Biths thin hand from the fabric and grinned faintly. Yes, Master, your death comes at my bidding. You said yourself that perpetuation with purpose is the way to victory, and so it is. Go to your grave knowing that you are last of the old order, the vaunted Rule of Two, and that the new order begins now and will for a thousand years remain in my control. Tenebrous coughed spittle and blood. Then for the last time, I call you apprentice. And I applaud your skillful use of surprise and misdirection. Perhaps I was wrong to think you had no stomach for it.

The dark side guided me, Tenebrous. You sensed it, but your lack of faith in me clouded your thoughts.

The Biths head bobbed in agreement. Even before we came to Baldemnic. And yet we came.

Because we were fated to. Tenebrous paused, then spoke with renewed urgency But wait! The ship—

Crushed, as you are.

Tenebrouss anger stabbed at Plagueis. Youve risked everything to undo me!

The entire future of the Sith! My instincts about you prove correct, after all! Plagueis leaned away from him, nonchalant, but in fact filled with an icy fury.

Ill find a way home, Tenebrous, as will you. And with a chopping motion of his left hand, he broke the Biths neck.

Tenebrous was paralyzed and unconscious but not yet dead. Plagueis had no interest in saving him—even if it were possible—but he was interested in observing the behavior of the Biths midi-chlorians as life ebbed. The Jedi thought of the cellular organelles as symbionts, but to Plagueis midi-chlorians were interlopers, running interference for the Force and standing in the way of a beings ability to contact the Force directly. Through years of experimentation and directed meditation, Plagueis had honed an ability to perceive the actions of midi-chlorians, though not yet the ability to manipulate them.

Manipulate them, say, to prolong Tenebrouss life.

Looking at the Bith through the Force, he perceived that the midichlorians were already beginning to die out, as were the neurons that made up Tenebrouss lofty brain and the muscle cells that powered his once-able heart. A common misconception held that midi-chlorians were Force-carrying particles, when in fact they functioned more as translators, interlocutors of the will of the Force.

Plagueis considered his long-standing fascination with the organelles to be as natural as had been Tenebrouss fixation on shaping the future. Where Bith intelligence was grounded in mathematics and computation, Muun intelligence was driven by a will to profit. As a Muun, Plagueis viewed his allegiance to the Force as an investment that could, with proper effort, be maximized to yield great returns. True, too, to Muun psychology and tradition, he had through the decades hoarded his successes, and never once taken Tenebrous into his confidence.

The Biths moribund midi-chlorians were winking out, like lights slowly deprived of a power source, and yet Plagueis could still perceive Tenebrous in the Force. One day he would succeed in imposing his will on the midi-chlorians to keep them aggregate. But such speculations were for another time. Just now Tenebrous and all he had been in life were beyond Plagueiss reach.

He wondered if the Jedi were subsumed in similar fashion. Even in life, did midi-chlorians behave in a Jedi as they did in a devotee of the dark side? Were the organelles invigorated by different impulses, prompted into action by different desires? He had encountered many Jedi during his long life, but he had never made an attempt to study one in the same way he appraised Tenebrous now, out of concern for revealing the power of his alliance with the dark side.

That, too, might have to change.

Tenebrous died while Plagueis observed.

In Banes age a Sith might have had to guard against an attempt at essence transfer by the deceased—a leap into the consciousness of the Sith who survived —but those times were long past and of no relevance not since the teachings had been sabotaged, the technique lost. The last Sith possessed of the knowledge had been inexplicably drawn to the light side and killed, taking the secret process with him …