Now the day of reckoning was here. Nyriss had come for him early, waking him with a subtle whisper in his ear.
“It’s time.”
He’d dressed quickly, then followed her out to the spaceport, where a private shuttle was waiting for them. Unlike the rest of her fleet, this one bore neither her colors nor her crest. This journey would be conducted in utter secrecy.
The shuttle was clearly built for speed; there was no armor to speak of, and at first glance it was easy to miss the single blaster turret mounted under the cockpit. Scourge was no expert on starship weaponry, but he guessed it would only be effective at close range.
The interior was more functional than luxurious, with room to seat six. On this trip, he and Nyriss would be the only passengers.
She settled into the pilot’s chair, her fingers moving rapidly over the controls with a dexterity that belied their gnarled, wrinkled appearance. Neither of them spoke as the shuttle took to the sky, climbing rapidly through the clouds and lightning until it broke free of the atmosphere.
Nyriss made a few more adjustments and punched in their route, and the ship jumped into hyperspace, leaving Dromund Kaas—and Nyriss’s loyal followers—behind.
“Nothing I tell you can prepare you for what you will see on Nathema,” Nyriss warned him. “But I will tell you the history of the Emperor and his homeworld.”
“How can I know you’re telling the truth?”
She shrugged. “Believe it or not as you see fit. If nothing else, it will help pass the time.”
She settled herself more comfortably, and as she spoke, her voice took on the singsong tone of children’s storyteller. “The Emperor’s name was Tenebrae,” she began. “They say he was born with eyes as black as the void of empty space, and that he never cried, even as an infant. No animal would come near him, and when he began to talk, his voice carried a weight and power that should not come from a child.
“At the age of six he began to manifest signs of the Force, marking him as one of the ruling elite. But his parents were simple farmers, and the Force was not strong in them. Suspicious about the boy’s power, his father confronted his mother, who admitted to having an affair with the Sith Lord who ruled over them.
“The father flew into a rage, attacking the boy’s mother. Tenebrae stopped him, feeding on his father’s anger and hate to call upon the dark side. He snapped his father’s neck with a mere thought, killing him instantly. His mother died more slowly. Tenebrae made her suffer for months as punishment for betraying the family, torturing her with the Force as he honed his powers.
“Now orphaned by his own hand, he made the others in his village bow down to him. Those who refused, he tortured and killed through the Force.
“Over the next few years his reputation and influence spread to nearby villages, and he amassed legions of both fanatical and terrified followers. He killed thousands during his rise to power. Many died just to feed his insatiable appetite for suffering, tortured for days in public executions so he could savor their agonizing ends.”
“This sounds more like a legend than a history,” Scourge remarked.
“I cannot guarantee the truth of this story,” Nyriss admitted. “Those who witnessed the events no longer live to verify them. But if you had ever met the Emperor in person, you would not be so hesitant to accept the tale as fact.”
“What about Nathema’s ruler? The boy’s father? You claimed he was a Sith Lord. Surely he didn’t sit back doing nothing while a child conquered his people village by village?”
“Tenebrae’s father was named Lord Dramath. He heard rumors, but they came from a remote and insignificant territory. He had long forgotten the simple commoner who had borne him a son, and he considered the plight of a few small villages beneath his notice. Had Dramath acted more swiftly, the Emperor might have been stopped. But it took almost four years before he decided to go see Tenebrae for himself.
“Lord Dramath intended to judge the child’s power to determine if he was worthy of serving the Sith Lord, or if he should simply be executed. But Tenebrae had no intention of serving—or of dying. When they met face-to-face, Tenebrae proved the stronger. Only ten years old, he stripped his father of his power and his mind. Lord Dramath spent his last moments weeping in terror, gazing up into the black eyes of his son.
“It took Tenebrae three more years to gain control of the rest of Nathema. Dramath’s firstborn son fled rather than face his formidable half brother, but other powerful Sith sought to seize the empty throne. All fell before the dark prodigy, and with each victory he grew more powerful and more ruthless.
“At thirteen he presented himself to Marka Ragnos, the Lord of all Sith and the ruler of the Sith Council. Impressed by the teenager’s ambition and power, Marka Ragnos granted him the title of Lord Vitiate. His position as ruler of Nathema officially recognized, Lord Vitiate returned to his home to conduct his research into the depths of the dark side’s power.
“He stayed there for a hundred years. When Marka Ragnos fell, Lord Vitiate did not join in the mad rush to claim his position. He was not part of the Great Hyperspace War against the Republic. When Naga Sadow and Ludo Kressh fought for leadership of the Sith, he took no side. But in the aftermath of the war—after our defeat at the hands of the Republic and our flight to escape the massacre of our people by the Jedi—he emerged from his solitude to call a great council of all the Sith Lords who remained. He invited them to his palace on Nathema, built on the site of his childhood home, the place where he had killed his adopted father and tortured his mother to death. He invited them to participate in a ritual to unlock the full potential of the dark side; he promised they would unleash power beyond anything they had ever witnessed or imagined.”
“Didn’t they suspect a trap?”
“Perhaps.” Nyriss shrugged. “Some refused to answer his call. But many more came. After all, what could one man do against a hundred Sith Lords? Remember, he was not the Emperor back then. He was merely Lord Vitiate, ruler of a single planet of no particular importance. He hadn’t fought in any battles of note or achieved any great victories or conquests beyond his homeworld. He had the reputation of a scholar, not a warrior.
“And the Sith Lords were driven by fear. Many thought the Jedi would soon wipe them all out. They were desperate for anything they could use as a weapon against the servants of the light side. Lord Vitiate played upon these fears, convincing those who answered his call to set aside their suspicions of him and of one another to join in a single glorious cause.
“Once they arrived on Nathema, they quickly fell under Lord Vitiate’s control. He dominated their minds, crushed their resistance. He turned them into slaves to his will, forcing them to participate in the most complex ritual of Sith sorcery ever attempted. Calling on the dark side, Lord Vitiate devoured them. He fed on their power, absorbing it into himself, utterly obliterating all traces of his victims.
“But the ritual was not confined to the doomed Sith Lords. They were but the eye of the storm; the center of a vortex that spread across the entire planet. Every man, woman, and child on Nathema died that day. Every beast, bird, and fish; all the insects and plants; every living being touched by the Force was consumed. When the ritual ended, Nathema was no longer a world. It was a husk sucked dry. Lord Vitiate sacrificed millions, stealing their life force to make himself immortal. Their deaths also made him stronger than any Sith who had come before, and he ceased to be known as Lord Vitiate. On that day, the Emperor was truly born.”
Scourge wondered if Nyriss expected him to be horrified by the tale. If so, she was about to be disappointed.
“The Emperor seized what was his by right,” he said. “The strong take from the weak. That is our way. Doing it on a scale of millions doesn’t change anything—it just proves he deserves to be our Emperor.”
“So I used to think,” Nyriss said, smiling ghoulishly. “And then I saw Nathema for myself.”
She didn’t say anything else for the remainder o
f the trip, leaving Scourge to wonder in silence why she was so confident he would come around to her side.
He felt the first hints of what was waiting for him when the shuttle dropped out of hyperspace. Through the windows of the cockpit he saw a gray-and-brown planet looming large before them. Gazing at it, he felt something strange and unsettling. Something unnatural.
It took him several moments to realize what was wrong, and even when he did, he didn’t fully grasp the implications. He wasn’t feeling the Force.
The sensation was completely alien. The Force was omnipresent. It radiated stronger in certain places and at certain times, and the balance of the dark side and the light constantly shifted. But it was always there in some way, shape, or form.
Now, however, he felt nothing. He had become so accustomed to the presence of the Force in the background that its complete absence was almost overwhelming, leaving him unable to speak.
“Prepare yourself,” Nyriss said. “We’re going down to the surface.”
The absence grew steadily more pronounced as the shuttle approached and then landed on Nathema.
“Come with me,” Nyriss commanded, rising up from her seat.
Still mute, Scourge followed her down the shuttle’s boarding ramp and out onto the world itself.
They had touched down at a spaceport in a city. Or what used to be a city. The spaceport was surrounded by the buildings, speeder pads, and streets one would expect to see in a planet’s major metropolitan center. But it was eerily quiet; the incessant murmur of the crowds and the constant hum of traffic whizzing past on busy streets were missing.
There wasn’t even any wind, and the air tasted stale in Scourge’s mouth. The temperature was neither cold nor hot, but he felt himself starting to shiver.
“You feel the chill of the Void,” Nyriss told him. “The Force is energy; it gives heat to our emotions and our minds. But here it has been stripped away.”
She led him along the deserted streets as Scourge stared in fascinated horror, trying to grasp the magnitude of what he was witnessing. The buildings seemed to be almost fully intact; there was none of the damage and destruction normally associated with millions of simultaneous deaths. However, there were other signs of what had happened here.
Mangled speeders and shuttles were strewn about, the remains of vehicles in motion that had crashed to a halt when their pilots were taken by the ritual. And everywhere Scourge looked there were small piles of clothes: jackets, slacks, and boots that had survived what their owners had not. Normally these remains would have been picked over by scavengers, but on Nathema even the vermin and insects were extinct.
“Where are the droids?” Scourge asked.
He was shocked at the sound of his own voice. It was flat and dull, as if even sound waves had been distorted by the ritual.
“The ritual overloaded their circuits,” Nyriss explained, her voice as hollow and washed out as his. “The damage was irreparable; even their memory cores were completely wiped out.”
Scourge glanced upward and noticed something else unusual. The sun shining down on them from above—a star that had appeared bright orange as they’d approached the planet—was now a pale shade of brown. In fact, everything around them was either brown or gray, as if the colors had been leached out.
Scourge was well acquainted with death. He had no trouble understanding massacres and mass slaughter. Death and destruction unleashed powerful emotions like fear, suffering, and hatred; they fueled the power of the dark side. But what had happened on Nathema was different, and it disturbed him in a deep and profound way.
The Emperor had consumed everything. Life, sound, color, even the Force—nothing remained. This wasn’t about conquest or domination or destroying an enemy—all concepts Scourge embraced.
Everything on Nathema had simply been snuffed out, extinguished so completely that it ceased to have any meaning or purpose. It was a vacuum of existence; a blight on the natural order.
“I’ve seen enough,” he declared.
Nyriss nodded, and they turned and made their way back to the ship.
Scourge finally understood why Nyriss and the others wanted to take the Emperor down. Destroying your enemies—even destroying a planet—was understandable. But this wasn’t simple destruction. It was annihilation; obliteration. The very fabric of the Force had been shredded. Anyone capable of turning an entire planet into a nihilistic abomination had to be completely mad. After seeing the horrors of Nathema, he truly believed the Emperor might declare another war against the Republic, exposing them to the Jedi and leading to the eventual extinction of their species.
By the time they reached the shuttle, Scourge’s stomach was churning. He had lived his whole life attuned to the Force; having it stripped away had left him physically ill. The shuttle shook as they took to the air, and he fought against the urge to vomit.
As they broke the atmosphere of the cursed world, some semblance of normalcy returned. Scourge felt the Force rushing in to fill the emptiness inside him; he felt its power invigorating him and restoring his strength. At the same time, he also felt something else: the presence of someone strong in the Force—someone who was neither Nyriss nor him.
Nyriss suddenly began punching away at the shuttle’s controls, scanning the system for another vessel, and Scourge knew she felt it, too.
“There,” she said, pointing at the readout. “A ship just dropped out of hyperspace in this system.”
“Could the Emperor have sent someone to follow us?” Scourge asked.
“I don’t think so,” she replied, staring at the screens. “Its signature doesn’t match any design I’ve ever seen before.”
From her voice it was clear she was as puzzled as he was. If the ship hadn’t followed them here, the odds against it showing up at the same time they were here were astronomical. But Scourge understood the ways of the Force too well to believe in coincidence. There had to be some connection between them and the unexpected visitor.
“Looks like a small freighter of some kind,” Nyriss muttered. “I don’t think they’ve seen us.”
Scourge realized they had two options. The first was to make a quick jump to hyperspace in an effort to escape before being noticed.
Nyriss decided to take the second option. Reaching out a finger, she activated the shuttle’s ion cannon, locked onto the unidentified vessel, and fired.
THE INSTANT THE EBON HAWK dropped out of hyperspace near Nathema, Revan was overwhelmed by a barrage of mental images. Everything came crashing in on him, the memories he was so desperate to regain fusing with a trauma he had tried so hard to repress. Caught between the two, he cried out and clutched his head in his hands.
For several seconds he didn’t move, his conscious will battling with his runaway subconscious. One by one, he was able to take the recollections, process them, and store them away, slowly regaining control.
He knew with absolute certainty that he had been to this world before. He remembered its deserted city and its lifeless surface. He remembered searching the empty buildings with Malak, looking for archives, records, and astrogation charts that would guide them on the next step of the journey. But most of all, he remembered the horror of a dead planet entirely stripped of the Force.
T3 was at his side, beeping with concern. Revan blinked away the last of his fugue state and glanced down at the Hawk’s sensors to see what had the little droid so upset.
The sensors had picked up another vessel in the system. It was difficult to draw on the Force so close to the ravaged world, and he struggled to get some sense of the passengers on the other ship. By the time his groggy mind registered the threat they posed, it was too late.
The ion blast hit the Hawk full-bore, shorting out its circuits and engines and leaving them at the mercy of the gravitational field from the planet below.
Revan scrambled to steer the ship as it was pulled down into Nathema’s atmosphere, wondering at the chances of surviving a second crash landing in a ro
w. The ion blast had damaged the flight controls and stabilizers, and the ship veered wildly as it plummeted toward the surface. He had no idea if the other vessel was following him; his sensors had been knocked out along with everything else. But he knew if he didn’t get the engines and repulsors back online, the Ebon Hawk would be smashed to pieces by the fall.
“Tee-Three!” he shouted, but the astromech had already sprung into action.
T3 had connected himself to the cockpit’s main control panel with a twenty-centimeter-long slicing tool. Lights on the cockpit dashboard began to flicker and flash as T3 rerouted power from damaged circuits. Through the cockpit window, Revan could see the distant outline of a city far below, the skyscrapers seeming to growing rapidly as the Hawk rushed toward them at terminal velocity.
Inside the control panel something crackled and popped. Smoke poured into the cockpit. T3 squealed in alarm, but his warning was drowned out by the sound of the Hawk’s engines roaring back to life.
Revan pulled back hard on the stick, and the nose of the Hawk grudgingly angled upward, emergency repulsors screaming.
“Brace for impact!” he shouted an instant before they slammed into the edge of one of the massive skyscrapers, sending a shower of permacrete and plasteel tumbling to the empty street below.
The Hawk ricocheted off the building and began to spin wildly. Then it slammed into the ground at an awkward angle, skipping along the street like a stone cast across water before finally coming to rest.
CHAPTER 16
SCOURGE HAD NO DESIRE to return to Nathema, but he didn’t raise any objection when Nyriss redirected their shuttle back toward the planet’s surface in pursuit of the damaged freighter. They had to find out who was on that vessel, why they were here, and if they were still alive.
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