Undoubtedly, returning to the Temple on time was out of the question now. The time allotted before the next check-in with the healers had flown by like cosmic dust in hyperspace.
I had lain unconscious too long in the Temple on Yavin. The allotted time had hopelessly expired, so I needed to come up with a plausible excuse.
Masking my coordinates, I contacted the Temple via the holotransmitter my faithful astromech had repaired.
After informing the Jedi in charge of communications that I was compelled to embark on a journey, because the Force so commanded me, I was about to terminate the channel when the operator unexpectedly said that Master Yoda himself wished to speak with me.
"He knows!" — the thought washed over me like heat. While the operator switched channels, I tried to clear my mind of stray thoughts.
"Calm yourself," the Emperor commanded me, a pale shadow wandering beyond the holotransmitter's field of view. "I am shielding you in the Force reliably; he will never track you."
I had no time to answer. Before me appeared the short figure of the Grand Master of the Order.
"Knight Dougan," Yoda bowed slightly.
"Master Yoda," I returned the Jedi's greeting. "You wished to speak with me?"
A slight smirk tugged at the corners of the Master's lips.
"Heard I have, that the Force leads you on an unknown path," the Jedi narrowed his eyes slightly. "The Jedi Order intend to leave, do you?"
"My destiny is tied to the Order and the Republic," I objected. "But Geonosis changed me. I can no longer remain as I was. The Force suggests a path, and I intend to follow it."
"Many into the Darkness such seeking has led," Yoda noted. "The Dark Side clouds the mind."
"There will be no fall into Darkness, Master," I promised. "I will remain faithful to the path I have chosen and return to Coruscant. As soon as I find myself."
Yoda sighed.
"Detain you I dare not," Yoda closed his eyes for a moment. "May the Force be with you."
"And with you, Master," I bid farewell. The projector shut off. I ran a hand over my face, as if tearing off a mask.
"We must hurry," Valkorion remarked. "Matters do not wait."
The ghost strode toward the corvette's bridge.
"War requires many resources," I noted, catching up to the Sith. "I don't even have enough credits for the shabbiest cruiser."
"I was not speaking of your credits," the Emperor remarked. Near the navigation computer, he addressed R3.
"Calculate the jump to these coordinates."
The Sith recited a sequence of stellar coordinates, which the droid immediately entered into the computer. After a couple of minutes, it reported that the coordinates had been adjusted according to the algorithm. I gave the signal, and the corvette jumped into hyperspace.
"Sector Albarrio?" I confirmed, looking at the arrival point on the holographic map of the galaxy. "That's just a stone's throw from the Muun homeworld. We're flying to the bankers? Seeking allies?"
Valkorion bared his teeth in a predatory grin and burst into loud laughter, so that even the droid felt uneasy.
"In this galaxy, there can be no allies other than the Force. Everyone else is either servants or followers. But no, we are not going to the Muuns," the last word Vitiate spat out as if it were poison.
The droid chirped a binary trill.
"The Maelstrom Nebula?" I repeated. "But that's where..."
"For three hundred years I held captive perhaps the most powerful and dangerous of the Jedi," the Emperor said, confirming my guess. "Among dozens of my other most dangerous enemies, Revan stood out with his unyielding spirit and faith in a righteous cause... If you had seen with what pathos the two heroes of the Mandalorian Wars entered my throne room... A moment — and they were already on their knees before me, eager to serve me."
"He managed to hold back your advance against the Republic for three hundred years," I recalled.
"And I managed to cultivate loyalty in him," the Emperor smiled. "Or do you think he decided to resurrect me of his own free will? Oh no, my young apprentice. The fear of oblivion, the fear of death — that is the only thing that can frighten me. Of course, it is no surprise that I would use even my enemies to preserve my own life."
And at that, frankly, my jaw dropped. No, when I went through the expansion, I had slightly grimaced at the storyline explaining that, allegedly, at the "Foundry," Revan had cast aside his light side, and Dark Revan decided to resurrect and destroy the Emperor because he believed only he himself was capable of doing so...
Now the picture had cleared. When Revan and his companions, after defeating Malak, went to Dromund Kaas to kill Vitiate, he captured the Jedi, locked him in stasis. For three hundred years, Revan had been planting the idea in the Emperor's mind to postpone the invasion of the Republic. The Emperor, according to history, had merely extracted knowledge about the Republic and the Jedi from the Jedi's mind.
Now the one formerly called Tenebrous had told the story from another angle. And so convincingly that his version of events seemed far more plausible.
"What awaits us at the Maelstrom?" I asked, referring to the station turned prison.
"My personal treasure vault," Valkorion answered simply. Seeing my bewilderment, the Sith continued: "After Revan's release, the garrison and prisoners were evacuated. By my order, the station was moved to another location in the nebula. Foreseeing my Voice's murder by the Jedi, I had the most valuable Sith relics removed from my residence and hidden there."
"In three thousand years, someone would have found it," I noted doubtfully. "Hyperspace doesn't work in the nebula, so traders have to cross it at sublight speed. And there are plenty of pirates there..."
The next instant, I was flying across the entire main deck, covering the distance from the bridge to the holoterminal in seconds. Smacking my head painfully against the once-soft couch, I burst into a flash of rage, tearing Valkorion's bonds from my body.
"Perhaps the lesson on Yavin-4 was not enough," the Emperor said threateningly. "Your next doubt will end in an open airlock."
"I... understand, Master," I wheezed, filling my lungs with air again.
"The station is protected," the Sith said. "Its preservation is the concern of several legions of my servants," he smirked.
"That's... magnificent, my Lord," I admitted. "But what exactly do we need from the station?"
"Everything," the Sith shrugged simply. "Besides, your new servants await you there."
* * *
The Maelstrom was a green stellar nebula. It consisted of charged particles of cosmic dust, creating an energy field that defied science.
Because of this field, the readings on ships' navigation computers became distorted, leading to dire consequences.
The nebula lay on the border of two sectors — Albarrio and Relgim. The latter, incidentally, lent its name to the trade route that passed right through this nebula. Traders had to drop out of hyperspace and cross the region of charged particles at sublight speed.
This inevitably attracted those looking to profit at others' expense. Pirates had become a scourge for local trade, and not surprisingly, they had plenty to scavenge. Though not too much. The Relgim Run could not boast as lively a trade as its hyperspace counterparts. But, as the saying goes, it was enough for the pirates' "bread and butter."
It took us several hours to cross the nebula to our destination, hours that passed incredibly boringly, in complete silence.
I swapped my battered Sith warrior armor for its Jedi variant. To my astonishment, the latter turned out even better than the Imperial armor. It had a built-in protective field generator, a built-in datapad in the gauntlet, a portable holoprojector, several cartridges for injecting kolto — long since turned to jelly — and even a tactical headset. How interesting.
The helmet that came with the armor I left in the storage room. After all, in exchange for increased head protection, the helmet severely restricted visual perception.
"We have arrived," Valkorion announced when the computer finally reported reaching the end of the route.
I stared at the uniform green haze outside the window. I had no desire to be ejected into an airlock, so I resolved to ask the Emperor fewer questions in the future.
"Defense weapons are already locked onto us," Valkorion explained. Addressing R3, he commanded: "Switch the transmitter to work on this frequency," and dictated a combination of numbers.
The droid blinked an indicator at me and began configuring the communication system. A second later, it reported completion.
"'Kneel before the Dragon of Zakuul!'" Valkorion said, looking at me. "Say that over the air, and the camouflage will be lifted."
Smirking (mentally) at the "Dragon of Zakuul," I repeated the password into the microphone.
For the first moment, nothing happened.
Nor the second. I reached forward with the Force but could not detect any living creatures around us.
"Master, there is no life around us," I noted. "Perhaps Your servants guarding this place have died?"
Valkorion looked at me with slight disdain.
"They were never alive," Valkorion said, without any emotion.
And at that same moment, I saw something.
On the other side of the corvette's viewport, in the green haze, several gray-black dots appeared, spaced apart from each other, rapidly increasing in size.
"Holy shit," I uttered a second later.
Like a fire curtain, the camouflage peeled away, revealing before me the massive hull of the station. A giant disc with four superstructures and a long spire below. A station so familiar from missions in the Republic and Imperial fleets. The one where the Hero of Tython had been imprisoned, later saved by Lord Scourge. The one where Malgus, after declaring himself Emperor, was killed...
But that was not what filled me with awe.
Ten enormous — a kilometer long — Sith Empire star dreadnoughts of the Harrower class. Triangular giants with a split "nose" and flattened superstructure, prototypes of Palpatine's Imperial Star Destroyers, the foundations of Vitiate's Sith Empire's military power.
"This is the 'Emperor's Ghost' squadron," the Sith explained. "Remnants of the Fifth Fleet. Once commanded by Grand Moff Raikus Kilran, but after the failure with Revan, I was... disappointed. The remnants of his fleet underwent modernization and became the guardians of my treasure vault."
"You executed him?" I clarified.
"He got what he deserved," Vitiate answered vaguely. "Guide the ship to the dock, and let us begin."
* * *
Moving through the station's gloomy, cold, hollowly metallic corridors, I constantly used the Force to keep from freezing.
The station's computer had only just fully activated the life support systems, but it would be a long time before the thousand-year-old chill of space dissipated.
Leaving the ship in the hangar, the Emperor's ghost and I followed the interior compartments toward the station's center.
"How did You manage to create a camouflage for an entire fleet?" I asked.
"The Silencer," the Emperor replied. Seeing that I didn't understand, he condescendingly explained:
"Back when I was Sith Emperor, my subjects built a station that drained energy from stars. Using that station, the Sith could build ships equipped with superweapons in just a couple of years, as opposed to the usual decades. The 'Silencer' produced five magnificent examples of superweapons, whose use turned any enemy to dust. The 'Hand' could destroy ships in hyperspace. The 'Peacemaker' destroyed entire armadas with a single shot. The 'Emperor's Ghost' became an invisible ship. The 'Spear of Power' moved at super-fast speeds. The 'Immortal' had experimental armor that no known weapon could penetrate. And they were all ineptly lost," I sensed contempt in the Emperor's voice. "The Republic destroyed the 'Silencer' and the 'Immortal' being repaired on it, one after the other. Saboteurs destroyed the 'Hand' and the 'Spear'. My servants managed to unload the blueprints of most of the weapons produced there from the station. Admittedly, when the Eternal Fleet encountered the Harrowers, equipped with 'Peacemakers,' in Wild Space, the Eternal had a hard time," the Emperor seemed to smile. "It was doubly pleasant to eject the crew into the airlocks, knowing they had served under Kilran's command."
Reaching the elevator, I called the cabin, which, at the Emperor's direction, sent us to the upper level.
"'Skywalkers' captured ten dreadnoughts, but only one with a 'Peacemaker' on board," Valkorion continued. "I foresaw my fall, so I hid them here, in the nebula. Fortunately, by that point, the prototypes of the 'Emperor's Ghost' cloaking field, refined by Malgus's engineers, were already hiding my treasure vault. My servants refitted the squadron, incorporating into it the developments from Darth Mekhis of the 'Silencer' and the secrets of the Eternal Fleet known to me."
"And what came of it?" I inquired.
"Every ship of the 'Ghost' squadron is equipped with a cloaking field and is invisible both to the eye and to sensors," the Emperor began to explain. "The flagship is armed with the 'Peacemaker'. All ships have a class 0.5 hyperdrive and modifications from 'Taerab Starship Manufacturing' for fuel efficiency."
The elevator stopped, reaching the required level. With a soft hiss, the doors opened.
"Our goal is in the center of this level," the Emperor explained.
Leaving the elevator, we leisurely walked along a wide semicircular corridor. On the left, the wall had a huge viewport through which the hulls of the destroyers were visible.
It brought back memories of how my game character, back in the day, alongside Kira Carsen, had carved through hordes of Sith acolytes, heading for the Emperor's throne room. The place where the Emperor's Voice had enslaved the strike team and bent the Jedi to his service.
I voiced my thoughts aloud.
The Emperor was silent. Then he asked:
"Why didn't you get rid of her, after learning of her true nature?"
The Emperor was hinting at Kira Carsen's past. According to the plot, the Hero of Tython discovers that Kira comes from a Sith family, and as a child she was an Emperor's Child — a specially trained infiltrator over whom the Emperor could take control. During the battle for Tython, this nearly backfired on the Hero.
"She is an excellent companion," I noted. "Good with a lightsaber, and capable in the Force."
"And that is all?" the Emperor said doubtfully.
"Of all the other companions, she was the only girl," I remarked. "And she was extremely cute in appearance... was."
Valkorion grinned.
"The flesh is weak," he noted with obvious subtext. "And feelings cloud the mind. I learned that on Zakuul, after I abandoned the use of Voices."
"Why was it necessary to use Voices?" I asked a question that had long bothered me.
"Even with my power, I cannot be in two places at once," the Sith replied. "Although the Sith Empire disappointed me, I could not leave them without my oversight. Otherwise, they would have started a massacre in the galaxy. But I also could not abandon the Eternal Empire I was building. Therefore, I had to use Voices."
"But they couldn't withstand Your power," I noted. "Wouldn't it have been simpler to create your own clones? And inhabit them?"
Valkorion looked at me with interest.
"A wise thought," he acknowledged. "But creating a body suitable to contain all of my power, even with Sith alchemy, is no easy task. In essence, the Voices killed by the Hero of Tython were clones. And, unfortunately," the Sith continued, "my former Wrath, Lord Scourge, made considerable effort to destroy my cloning laboratory."
"He knew its location?" I was surprised. No, I understood that based on the novel Revan, Scourge had become close to the Emperor, but to trust him that much...
As if reading my thoughts, Vitiate continued.
"After the second capture of Revan, in which Scourge helped me, I rewarded him with immortality," the Sith said. "Experimental technology. Lots of rage, sorcery, and Sith alchemy."
"If I recall, You succeeded," I remembered.
"On the third try — yes," Vitiate remarked coldly. "The technology was unrefined."
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
"You cloned Scourge?"
"Precisely," the ghost nodded. "I could not bank on success immediately, so when the first body died, I created a second. But that too began to die over time. And then I realized that a cloned body created with Sith alchemy must be fed by the Dark Side. So the third Scourge lived in constant rage." A vile, repulsive smile of a self-satisfied maniac appeared on the ghost's face. "It was amusing... Watching him use the Dark Side for three hundred years just to sustain his life. The more often he turned to the Dark Side, the more his body decayed. Each time he had to plunge into his rage so deeply that by the time the Eternal Empire invaded, he had fallen into madness, dousing the world he had chosen to inhabit with his fury."
"What happened to him afterward?" I asked.
"Arcann," the corners of the Sith's lips crept upward. "My son could never overcome his envy. Learning where Scourge was, he found him. I admit, it was interesting to watch two of my creations, blinded by the Dark Side, striving to kill each other. Simply because I had given them life... Yes, it was truly amusing..."
"And which of them won?" I asked.
"Both died," Vitiate said with a bored expression. "Scourge fed on his opponent's emotions, and Arcann, on the Dark Side, could draw power virtually without end. In the end, they burned themselves out with the Dark Side's energy."
"And You don't feel sorry for Your own child?" I asked, for form's sake. I already knew the answer.
"I have learned to sacrifice everything for my goals," Valkorion cut off.
I needed to change the subject urgently, because the silence had become so sepulchral you'd think a funeral party was about to arrive.
After the next turn, a wide staircase leading to massive doors opened before us. Using a Force Burst, I was at the top in an instant. The ghost kept up.
"You managed to hide the ships from sensors and eyes," I returned to the talk about the squadron. "But won't the Jedi be able to detect life on board the ships?"
Touching the control panel, I allowed the ancient mechanisms to rouse from their thousand-year sleep and dissolve the passage to the throne room before me.
"Who said the crew of the dreadnoughts is alive?" the Emperor threw out contemptuously.
* * *
The station's architect had designed the throne room in a circular shape, placing wide ramps with railings around its perimeter. The walls were hung with control panels and terminals built into them.
Breathtaking voids descended from the ramps into the station's bowels.
The center of the hall was occupied by a wide, elongated platform. At the far end from the entrance stood a massive, matte-black object that instilled superstitious dread while simultaneously beckoning...
"The Eternal Throne," Valkorion commented. "More precisely, its copy, significantly improved, created to command the ships of the 'Ghost' squadron. And, of course, to rule your new Empire."
Along both edges of the platform, in three rows, shouldering blaster rifles, stood an honor guard of "Skywalkers" the droids that formed the backbone of the Eternal Empire of Zakuul's army. But what were they doing here?
"I don't understand," I admitted. "The Eternal Throne controlled the Eternal Fleet..."
"The Eternal Throne controlled the droids," Valkorion interrupted me. "Which controlled the Eternal Fleet. I controlled them via a relay on Zakuul. And I decided it wouldn't hurt to create an independent fleet for myself," the ghost pointed at the throne. "Take it."
Approaching the throne, I finally realized it wasn't the device I had seen in trailers. This throne did not sit on the floor but seemed to hang from a massive backrest fixed in a cylindrical apparatus above. Around the front of the throne, but on the floor, at an angle sufficient to read the information while seated, were terminals.
Drawing close, I lightly jumped up to the throne, suspended a couple of meters above the platform, and sat down. The monitors of the terminals at my feet lit up, and somewhere beyond the throne room, I heard a barely perceptible rustle of the station's mechanisms awakening from sleep.
At that same instant, the "Skywalkers" executed a right turn and stared at me. Something clicked in my head, and looking into the lifeless eyes of the robots staring at me as I sat on the throne, I remembered why this device seemed familiar!
"This isn't the 'Maelstrom' prison," I said to the Emperor. "This is the station where You tortured the Hero of Tython and the Jedi strike team."
The Emperor laughed with satisfaction. He laughed for several minutes before falling silent.
"It took you an hour to recognize the deception," Valkorion said with evident pleasure, approaching me. "Malgus spent much more time on the decoy but never recognized the trap."
"What are You talking about?" I placed my hand on my lightsaber hilt completely instinctively. You never know what to expect from Valkorion.
The Emperor looked at me with an approving gaze.
"I destroyed the 'Maelstrom' with all its insignificant garrison," he said coldly. "And moved my station here. Malgus, for all his talents, never figured out the trap. He reverently accepted the pseudo-station from the hands of my loyal guards, placed his secrets there, including the Rakata technology he had obtained from the 'Foundry'. And when the Dark Council came for him, while they fought, my guards removed from the station all the technical secrets Malgus had intended to use to build an Empire. And they brought all of it here," Valkorion indicated the control panels on the armrests. "On this station, I gathered the most significant secrets of my era. Each one individually could bring systems to their knees; all together — they will bring the entire accessible galaxy into the fold of your Empire."
"You created an entire station just to deceive and finish off Malgus?" I was stunned. "But You could have simply crushed him with the Eternal Fleet..."
"Zakuul was not yet ready for war," the Emperor clarified. "And besides, who said Malgus is dead?"
"But the Dark Council sent a strike force after him that blew up the station," I recalled. "And Malgus died."
Valkorion smiled contentedly.
"Restore the camouflage of the station and the fleet, check the station's operation. Pay special attention to the numbered accounts and warehouses," the ghost laughed softly. "After that, I await you in my personal trophy room."
The ghost vanished. As usual, without explanation of where or why. Not that it mattered. I had learned my lesson. Valkorion, though warmer after Yavin-4, still remained my teacher and master. He didn't need unnecessary questions, and I wasn't sure I wanted to hear the answers.
Obedient to my mentor's will, I settled more comfortably on the throne and placed my hands on the armrests covered with buttons and controls.
A short command, and a beam of light shot from the center of the platform, transforming into a holographic schematic of the station with annotations. Glancing over the hologram, I met the hollow eye sockets burning into me with artificial sensors from beneath snow-white armor.
The silent honor guard never took their eyes off me. A bit unnerving, I had to admit.
"Leave me alone," I ordered. "Stay outside the door," I added after a moment's thought.
As one, the droids turned in unison and filed out. As soon as the doors closed behind them, I activated the comlink.
"R3," I contacted the astromech. The droid beeped cheerfully in response. "Lock onto my signal and roll over to me. I won't manage without you."
* * *
The astromech rolled in about twenty minutes later.
In that time, I managed to learn a little more about what I'd inherited.
Just as Vitiate had said, there were no funding problems whatsoever.
The Republic Credit, or Datary, was a currency so ancient that it was no wonder Valkorion had managed to stockpile several hoards. By forcing the Republic to pay tribute after the First Galactic War, the Emperor had funneled enormous sums out of the Empire's economy. Part of it went to developing Zakuul, another part to the Emperor's personal accounts. It was from these accounts that secret laboratories and other projects were funded.
And once Zakuul had the Empire and the Republic by the throat, credits simply flowed like a river. After Valkorion's overthrow, Arcann and Vaylin had sought to exact tribute from conquered planets in materials and jewels. According to the reports of the "Nathema Zealots," even from that form of taxation they managed to carve off substantial chunks, which they then sent to the treasuries.
On this station, the Emperor kept only money. All the jewels, precious minerals, metals, and works of art he ordered his uncomplaining servants to hide on a planet where even life itself had been perverted.
Nathema. The Emperor's secret research center and his greatest treasury. It was there that billions of credits and thousands of tons of precious items had vanished without a trace. A research center had been built there, where the Emperor had broken Vaylin's mind. And there he kept his most dangerous secrets.
The toad inside me was already mentally setting a course for Nathema. But with an iron hand of will, I strangled that greed in its very cradle.
This station alone held hundreds of accounts in various untraceable assets within its electronic banks. I mentally applauded Valkorion.
No, he hadn't squirreled away credits like an owl in anonymous accounts at unknown banks. He had invested part of the money — and a considerable part was still floating around on hundreds of bearer credit chips in the vault — into buying shares.
Rendili StarDrive, Kuat Drive Yards and its subsidiary Rothana Heavy Engineering, Corellian Engineering Corporation... and a dozen smaller companies. Valkorion's agents had bought tenths of a percent of shares in these companies. No, no — they didn't join the boards of directors. They didn't seek ways to influence the companies. Valkorion's agents simply acquired shares and took a percentage of each company's profits. Shareholders too minor to attract any attention during a power reshuffle. But over four thousand years...
I systematically unfroze the accounts in each company, using the anonymous login feature...
A couple of minutes later, I was feeling suffocated.
If corporate laws and regulations allowed withdrawing the proceeds from passive income, I could easily buy myself a couple of sectors. With all their populations. And still have change left over.
When Valkorion's agents acquired shares, it was always less than one percent — such shareholders had no voting rights, couldn't dictate policy to company management. They only received income from owning company shares. And the profit, according to the volume of shares held, was divided proportionally and transferred to so-called "impersonal client accounts." The client could, at any time, from anywhere, in absolute confidence, collect their profits. Very convenient.
But after Ruusan, when military contract revenues dropped, Kuat, and then the rest, imposed a series of restrictions on "impersonal accounts." For various reasons, the companies banned the full withdrawal of funds from the accounts. Moreover, they reserved the right to use money from accounts that had been unused for a long time — like Valkorion's accounts, for instance.
Then some fuss started in the Senate, and the corporations were practically forced to give clients incentives for using funds from "impersonal accounts."
That was how Valkorion came to own 0.40% of Rothana Heavy Engineering. Because the Kuat Drive Yards expedition and the development of that world were financed precisely by the funds from his "impersonal account" at Kuat Drive Yards.
And that opened up enormous possibilities.
Without the ability to withdraw funds from the companies' circulation, one could still — completely anonymously — place orders with those companies.
Smiling contentedly, I moved on to surveying the fleet I'd inherited, while my plan took shape in the back of my mind.
Under my command were a dozen Harrowers. Every single one faster than any ship the Republic or the CIS possessed. Cloaking was a huge asset for ships to move into position undetected. However, as it turned out, the ships had no device to coordinate each other's actions with the field activated. Simply put — the ships couldn't see each other, and colliding with one another while the cloaking field was active was all too easy. All these years, the ships had been saved from collision only by a massive network of sensors scattered around the station. The ships and the station, cross-referencing coordinates from the sensors, maintained distance from one another. The option of "quietly fly in, bomb, and fly out" didn't work. Furthermore, the cloak lost its effectiveness when firing from under it.
I immediately recalled Palpatine's cloaking technology, which Thrawn had used to conquer planets. Before an invasion, he'd send cloaked warships into orbit, and when the planetary shield was activated, those ships remained inside the protected area. Then, with his main force, he'd bombard the planet. The shields held against the bombardment, of course, but with the help of a Force adept, Thrawn synchronized the shots hitting the shield with the shots from the cloaked ships. The latter fired without breaking their cloak. And the planet's population got the impression that the Imperial had learned to penetrate planetary shields.
The flagship dreadnought, which I had christened the Retvizan after a battleship of the Russian Empire, carried the superweapon Vitiate had mentioned. The Silencer — a massive laser cannon, the Death Star on a budget. It might not destroy a planet, but an entire squadron of ships? Easily.
Another significant modification to the ships was their full automation. Valkorion's scientists, taking the Slave Circuit program used by the Eternal Fleet as a base, had installed a similar one on the Harrowers. And now the entire squadron obeyed either commands from the station's throne or its equivalent aboard the flagship dreadnought.
No crew. The commander's will was executed by automatics, which the "master" controlled. On board was only a contingent of "Skywalkers" who served as crew in critical moments. The Skywalkers' main task was planetary landing, boarding, and counter-boarding. No possible human errors, disobedience, or anything else. Only flawless adherence to the programmed directives.
Well, that was... clever.
With interest, I opened the file concerning notes on the Slave Circuit program. Interestingly, the file was marked as linked to Rendili StarDrive.
As I delved into its study, I felt conquering the galaxy was getting easier and easier.
The Katana Fleet. Created by Rendili StarDrive for the Republic, as the backbone of the revitalized Republic Fleet, two hundred ships had been equipped with the Slave Circuit system, which one of Valkorion's servants had graciously provided to the local engineers. Intrigued by the novelty, the Rendilians suspected nothing, and all two hundred vessels received a Trojan horse from Valkorion.
It was his servants who infected the crew with a hive virus that drove the people on board mad with insanity. Under that pretext, the entire fleet departed for "random coordinates." Led by the flagship Katana, with one of the Emperor's servants in the captain's chair, the fleet covered all possible tracks and arrived at the rendezvous point.
The coordinates of which, naturally, were at the end of the agent's report. And the name of that agent — "Hart" appeared in many reports over the last thousand years...
Something familiar stirred in the recesses of my memory, something connected to the first Sith, but no matter how hard I tried to recall, I couldn't.
So I continued surveying the wealth I'd inherited.
The station's archives held numerous blueprints of combat equipment from the Sith Empire, the Eternal Empire of Zakuul, and even the old Republic. Dreadnoughts and cruisers, battleships and corvettes, walkers and artillery installations. No wonder the Empire had torn the Republic apart — the Imperials knew everything about their enemy, down to the alloys in Republic Commando armor.
In a separate section, I found records about the Force, about abilities, rituals, and techniques, only a small fraction of which were familiar to me.
In another section, I came across descriptions of all known hyperspace routes.
In a third — information about crystals and lightsabers...
As often happens with me, disparate details coalesced into a single picture on the fringes of my consciousness and settled into my perception.
"R3," I addressed the astromech. "Can we connect to the HoloNet from here?"
The droid beeped affirmatively.
"Excellent," I smiled. "Search the network for information about the Jedi Order selling old military equipment..."
* * *
Two hours later, having lightened my cash reserves by 300 million credits, I bought from the Order — through my personal account manager at Rendili StarDrive — 27 Hammerhead-class cruisers, 32 Thranta-class corvettes, and just over three hundred Aurek-class strikefighters.
"Rendili StarDrive is delighted that its clients remain true to the choice of their ancestors," babbled my personal account manager — a Mirialan girl. "The ferry crews are already en route to Coruscant to transport the ships to Rendili."
"Excellent," I said over the voice link. "Now I'd like you to record my specifications for the ships' modernization..."
The girl gave a dazzling smile, causing the tattoos on her face to climb toward her eyes. No matter how hard she tried to act casual and relaxed, I could tell she was composed and somewhat excited. After all, it wasn't every day that one of the most ancient clients — or rather, I had introduced myself as a client's descendant — got in touch.
The decision to buy the ships from the Order came to me as soon as I realized I had enough funds. To my regret, almost twenty large vessels had drifted off toward the Outer Rim.
Still, the ones that remained were more than enough to form two or three strike fleets.
Rendili StarDrive took on the offered order with great enthusiasm. Just for the ferry crews alone, they charged me over ten million. Another ten million for the modernization project development. New power and propulsion systems, weapons, electronics, shields, control and navigation systems...
The Rendilians asked for a week to prepare a detailed project for refitting the Hammerheads and Thrantas. In that time, their engineers would also inspect my ships and draw up cost estimates. That approach suited me, considering that the funds for the modernization were coming from my "impersonal account" on Rendili.
Unlike the Harrowers and the Katana Fleet, I didn't plan to equip the former Order starships with the Slave Circuit. These ships were destined to become a fighting force I planned to use in the war against the CIS. Like the Republic Fleet, these ships would be crewed by clones. For now, honestly, I had only a vague idea how the Order and the Senate would allow me to keep forces strong enough to give the sizable CIS fleet a bloody nose, but that was a secondary concern.
After all, I could always hire an army of mercenaries and replace the clones with them.
Half-listening to the manager, only catching that after installing such-and-such systems, my ships would be faster, stronger, more powerful, I authorized the use of another three hundred million from my account in the company.
With that, the first stage of outfitting my Empire's fleet was complete.
Leaving R3 in the throne room, I took up the Emperor's offer and headed for the trophy vault.
Along the way, I could only wonder what kind of trophies the Emperor kept on the station.
It was clear they couldn't be some animal parts from the Emperor's Friday hunt with the Dark Council between sauna sessions and kebabs with whores.
Valkorion had long since lost his humanity, sacrificing it for the sake of the Force and the galaxy. Palpatine, for his part, had still kept lovers and didn't turn down a "poke with the pig." During his time on Zakuul, Valkorion had managed to twice get productive sex out of the captain of his guard, which gave him Arcann, Thexan, and Vaylin. But I hadn't heard that, as Vitiate, the Sith had been interested in women.
That's why I was stunned when I saw, as the doors to the trophy hall slid open, a female figure kneeling before the Emperor's ghost on one knee. Dozens of meters separated me from them — the ghost and the girl were in the center of a spacious room lined with two rows of gray-silver slabs of carbonite-frozen creatures.
Around the perimeter of the rectangular vault were a dozen massive installations, which I easily identified as stasis pods. From one just like it, my game character and his strike team had extracted Revan on the Maelstrom station. One of the pods was empty. Obviously, it had held the one now kneeling before the Emperor.
Dressed in a blue-gray dress that hugged a slender waist and somewhat broad shoulders, the girl had shoulder-length dark red hair with a coppery sheen, pulled into an awkward ponytail at the back of her head. She was facing away from me, apparently gazing at the Emperor.
"And here comes the Jedi," came a voice from behind the nearest carbonite slab — Darth Malgus emerged, with the characteristic hiss of a respirator feeding air to a damaged throat, moving almost silently despite his size, wrapped in a black hooded cloak, his eyes burning with the rage of the Dark Side, the color of molten gold.
In that same instant, my lightsaber leaped into my hand. The crimson and yellow blades ignited simultaneously.
"I have waited a thousand years, hoping to taste the sweetness of killing a Jedi," Malgus rumbled, gripping the hilt of his massive saber in both hands.
"You'll wait a little longer," I replied simply.
I caught the lightning the Sith hurled with his right hand on my promptly ignited blade. Discharges of electricity danced along the energy arc. With a light twist of my wrist, I sent the lightning into the grounded floor.
Distracted by dealing with the lightning, I barely got my blade up in time. Otherwise, Malgus's shattering blow would have cut me in half. As they say, from shoulder to...
Holding my blade in both hands, I could barely withstand Malgus's monstrous strength. The Sith, seeing how hard I was struggling against him, enthusiastically planted his heavy boot in my chest.
The energy field and the dampening of my fabric armor softened the blow, but I still flew back toward the entrance, desperately gasping for the air knocked out of my lungs.
Meanwhile, like a death machine, Malgus pressed his attack. His face, crisscrossed with a network of dark veins, his eyes burning with molten gold, glared at me with hatred. And Malgus, as the embodiment of that hatred, moved toward me, fast and dangerous as a voncstr.
With every step, he rained down a hail of devastating blows, forcing me into a purely defensive stance. No chance to go on the offensive. And honestly, I wasn't even thinking about attacking. I just needed to withstand his onslaught, figure out his attack pattern.
And, strangely enough, I was doing pretty well.
The fight wasn't like the clumsy swordsmanship I'd demonstrated on Yavin 4. It wasn't nearly that bad.
My combinations and sequences of blade techniques had become smoother, more precise, more elegant. My Niman was successfully countering Malgus's Shien — something I never would have expected at the start of our battle. His sweeping, fast, yet monstrously powerful blows were being parried by me with enviable regularity.
Apparently, absorbing Exar Kun's spirit was having an effect. Which was gratifying. So my week lying half-dead in the Great Audience Chamber hadn't been for nothing.
Still, after about five minutes of fighting, I began to realize I was simply getting physically tired. We circled around the vault like deadly dancers, raining blows on each other, using dizzying acrobatics to avoid meeting each other's blades.
Malgus, like a terminator, brought the full fury of the Dark Side down on me. As if in some kind of trance, he inexorably wore me down, evidently switching from a quick-kill tactic to a methodical siege. I had to admit, from his perspective, it was the right strategy.
There was no way I could compete physically with a two-meter giant whose very ears were made of muscle and trained for killing.
Continuously moving around the vault during the battle, I didn't even notice how I'd crossed it and ended up in the far section.
And although Niman — with the expanded knowledge of which the late Kun had graciously provided me — easily parried the attacks of the ancient Sith warrior, the weak link in this fight was still me.
Switching from pure swordsmanship to a blade fight supplemented with Force techniques, I tore one of the carbonite slabs from its pedestal and hurled it at the Sith. But Malgus didn't even blink; he cut the slab in two and, with the Force, hurled the pieces away from himself.
"Enough!" the Emperor's ghost boomed through the vault.
Malgus, like a faucet that had been turned off, instantly lost all the deadly Force aura surrounding him and clipped his deactivated saber to his belt.
"As you wish, Master," the giant bowed briefly to Vitiate, who stood a couple of meters from us.
The Emperor gave me an appraising look. Still holding my ignited lightsaber, I was struggling to catch my breath after the fight with Malgus.
"I see Exar Kun's knowledge has served you well," he remarked. "Few can boast of lasting more than a few minutes in battle with Lord Malgus. You managed to surprise me."
"Pleasant to hear," I said, my voice still breaking from lack of oxygen. Seeing that no one was going to attack me again, I shut off the saber and returned it to my belt.
"Perhaps someone could explain what's going on?" I inquired.
Valkorion, with a smirk, gestured for me to follow him.
* * *
"The station's self-destruction didn't kill him?" I asked, walking to the right of the ghost, nodding at the silent statue of the Sith warrior following us.
"After falling into the shaft, Malgus was found by my guards," the Emperor explained, striding toward the central part of the vault. "They froze him in carbonite and brought him to me on Zakuul. I thawed him out and put him in stasis, and kept him there until Darth Acina started her war with the Republic after the Eternal Fleet's destruction."
I glanced briefly at Malgus. The giant didn't even twitch in my direction.
"My servants arranged for him to fall into Acina's hands, and she decided to free her former lover and use him against the Republic," Vitiate continued. "She didn't know that over all those years, I had broken Malgus's will and made him my servant." The Emperor met my eyes. "And now he will serve you."
"Me?" I stopped in surprise.
Valkorion paused his stride unhurriedly, clasped his hands behind his back, and spoke.
"You have proven your usefulness in our endeavor, my apprentice," he declared. "My expectations were met, and even exceeded. You are to build your own Empire," he reminded me. "And that is impossible without an experienced and ruthless general. And as it happens, no one compares to Malgus. He will lead your armies to victory and become a faithful companion in the cause of creating a new Empire."
"I am grateful for this honor," I bowed to Valkorion, resuming my walk. "But what guarantee is there that he won't betray me — or you?"
"He simply can't," Valkorion noted with a chuckle. "His will is broken, crushed, and subjugated to me. And since you are my apprentice, my will in this world, he will obey you."
"I humbly accept your gift, Master," I bowed my head again.
"That's not all," Valkorion remarked.
The three of us returned to the central part of the vault. Now I could see it was circular, with a pedestal inside holding medical equipment and an operating table. Next to it, facing away from us, stood a female figure.
"You exceeded my expectations in your fight against Kun," Vitiate said suddenly. "I thought you would only significantly weaken the ghost, and I, with your help, would reclaim my power. But you surprised even me," Valkorion's voice brimmed with pride. "And without much trouble, you killed a potential rival and obstacle to my plans." The Emperor made a gesture, and the girl on the platform turned toward us, revealing a painfully familiar face.
"You know who she is," the Emperor stated the obvious. "She knows she belongs to you now. So," he concluded, "in this journey as well, she will keep you company."
"Kira," he addressed the red-haired Jedi girl from the past. "My child, allow me to introduce Rick Dougan, my apprentice. From now on, you answer to him. His wish is your law; his will is an extension of my will."
"As you command, Emperor," the girl knelt on one knee before us. Extending her arms, she offered me her lightsaber pike. "My blade is yours, my lord. What are your orders?"