“If they got Gelba, they can get anyone,” another man protested. “I think we should lay low for a while. Let things simmer down.”
“I agree,” a woman chimed in. “I know Gelba was your friend, Draado. But you’re talking madness!”
Set could see light from the entrance to the cavern spilling around a bend in the tunnel just up ahead. Quano crept around the corner silently and crouched behind a rock that gave him a clear view of their quarry. He might have been a coward, Set noted as he moved up to join him, but he had a natural talent for sneaking and spying.
From their vantage point he could clearly see the cave. It was dotted with dozens of large stalagmites protruding up like ugly brown spires from the floor. Stalactites hung from the ceiling, looking ominously like the teeth of some ancient stone monster waiting to chomp down on the people below.
He counted an even dozen miners gathered in a loose semicircle near the center of the chamber. All of them were armed, just like the four guards he had dispatched at the tunnel’s entrance not ten minutes earlier. A few of the miners were sitting on short, flat-topped rock formations. Others paced nervously back and forth. One leaned against a nearby stalagmite. Two men and a woman appeared to be engaged in a heated argument. Four others were standing guard on the edges of the group, blaster rifles drawn while they nervously scanned the cavern’s entrance, as if trying to pierce the shadows in anticipation of an attack.
Whoever killed Medd and your friends made you paranoid.
“With Gelba gone, I call the shots,” a bearded man was saying to one of the women. “And I say Gelba’s death calls for blood!”
“Draado,” Quano whispered, speaking so softly Set had to lean in to hear it. “Him one who dig up stuff you want.”
Looking closer, Set noticed an amulet draped around Draado’s neck, and he caught the glint of a ring on his finger—the only jewelry he had seen on any of the miners since he’d set foot on this destitute world.
“You want to start a war that will get us all killed,” one of the men objected.
“At least we’ll take a few of the nobles with us!” Draado snapped back.
Draado was standing less than ten meters from where Set was hiding, close enough that he could sense the power emanating from the talismans. The amulet seemed to call out to him; the ring beckoned with its dark heat.
“What happened to you, Draado?” the woman asked. “You always used to be the one who said we could get what we want without violence and bloodshed.”
“I’ve changed. Now I see the truth.” Draado pounded his chest for emphasis as he spoke, his fist striking the amulet.
“The nobles won’t respect us until they learn to fear us,” he insisted, turning to look at everyone scattered about the cavern. “We need to make them scared for their very lives. We need to strike terror into their hearts!”
Clearly Draado was under the influence of the talismans; they were corrupting his mind and his thoughts. The power of the dark side had taken hold of him.
No wonder Quano said he wouldn’t want to sell them.
The Dark Jedi considered his options. Bargaining with the miners was out of the question; Draado would never willingly give up his newfound treasures. Given the tension in the room and the itchy trigger fingers on the guards, it was pretty clear that any attempt to negotiate would probably end up in a firefight no matter what he did.
He drew out his twin pistols and took a deep breath, bracing for the confrontation. He needed the target practice anyway.
Leaping from his hiding place, he charged into the cavern with guns blazing. He dropped all four of the rifle-carrying guards before anyone had a chance to react. With the Force guiding his hand, he easily picked them off with four clean shots as he sprinted toward the cover of a large stalagmite on the far side of the cavern.
He skidded in behind it just as the miners began to return fire. They peppered his hiding place, sending up fine clouds of dust as the bolts disintegrated small chips from the stone. Poking his head out, Set fired twice more, reducing the number of opponents to six before ducking back behind the safety of the stalagmite.
The sound of enemy blasterfire reverberated off the walls of the cavern. Set smiled, enjoying the glorious clamor of battle. Halfway done already. This might be easier than I thought.
Behind him, he sensed Quano making a break for freedom back up the tunnel. Set could have taken him out with a single shot in the back, but he decided to let him go. He always preferred to leave someone behind to tell the tale of his exploits, anyway.
A sharp crack suddenly echoed across the cavern. Glancing up, Set saw one of the large stalactites from the ceiling plunging down to impale him. He rolled out of the way at the last instant, the deadly rock spear exploding into fragments as it hit the unyielding cavern floor. He ducked his head as the shower of jagged stone shards washed over him, scoring the exposed skin of his neck and bare arms with hundreds of superficial, stinging cuts.
Blasterfire opened up again, but Set was already on his feet. Darting and weaving erratically, he managed to sidestep the shots as he made a mad dash for cover behind another of the prominent rock formations.
Momentarily safe, he took a second to catch his breath, glancing up to make sure another potentially deadly stalactite wasn’t poised above him. He had no doubt who had fired the shots that had dislodged the last one. He’d gotten sloppy, underestimating Draado and the talismans.
It wasn’t necessary to be trained in the ways of the Force to benefit from its power. It heightened the senses, made an individual quicker to react and anticipate. What some saw as expertise with a weapon or luck in battle was often really a manifestation of the Force. Even if he wasn’t aware of it, Draado was drawing on the power of the dark side. And that made him dangerous.
Putting his pistols away, Set unclipped his lightsaber. Playtime’s over.
Leaning out from behind his rock, igniting his lightsaber, he hurled it with a sidearm throw, sending it spinning horizontally on a wide, looping trajectory. It circled the room once, easily slicing through stalactites and miners before returning to Set’s waiting grasp.
It had taken Set years to fully master the devastating power of the lightsaber throw, but the attack was virtually unstoppable. Five of his remaining opponents had been caught in the lethal arc it traced around the room. Only Draado had been quick enough to duck out of the way, saved by the power of the talismans he wore. But even with these artifacts, he was no match for a former Jedi Knight.
Set simply stood up and reached out with his free hand in Draado’s direction, his fingers forming into a claw. The miner dropped his blaster, his hands flying up to his throat as he gasped for breath.
Set crossed the room, increasing the pressure on his helpless victim’s windpipe. Draado collapsed to his knees, his face turning purple. The Dark Jedi stood above him, watching coldly as his life was slowly choked away.
When the miner’s struggles finally stopped, Set bent down and stripped him of both the amulet and the ring. He resisted the temptation to put them on right away. From his apprenticeship under Master Obba he had learned that it was wise to study the artifacts of the dark side carefully before using them—their power often came with a cost.
He had what he came for, and he was eager to get off this civilization-forsaken world and back to the luxury of his home on Nal Hutta. Besides, the longer he stayed on Doan, the greater the chance he would run into another Jedi sent to investigate Medd’s death. If he left now all they’d find would be the sniveling bartender he’d left behind, and he wouldn’t be able to tell them anything they couldn’t figure out for themselves.
So long, Quano. You better hope we never meet again.
As he made his way back up the long, winding tunnel toward the surface—the amulet and the ring firmly in his possession—he couldn’t help but wonder if the Rodian would ever appreciate just how lucky he was.
7
In Zannah’s opinion, of all the worlds she ha
d been to—including the war-torn fields of Ruusan, the lifeless deserts of Ambria, the desolate gray plains of Tython—Doan was by far the least hospitable.
The entire surface of the planet had been gashed open in the endless quest for new minerals. Flora and fauna were nonexistent; everywhere she looked she saw nothing but dirt and rock. It was an ugly, ravaged world: by all rights it should have been devoid of all life. And yet the mining camps teemed with desperate beings scratching and clawing to carve out a meager existence for themselves.
Watching them, she couldn’t help but compare them with her Master, whom she knew had grown up on a place like Doan: Apatros, a world rich in nothing but cortosis mines, owned by Outer Rim Oreworks, a corporation notorious for treating its indentured employees like slaves. But where Bane’s brutal childhood and savage upbringing in the mines of Apatros had taught him to fight to survive, had helped forge his indomitable spirit, the miserable curs she had encountered on Doan were weak, deserving nothing better than servitude. Bane had ambition. Bane had strength. He had managed to rise above his surroundings. Through sheer force of will, he had cast off the shackles of his childhood and forged a new destiny for himself. He had risen from nothing to become the Dark Lord of the Sith.
It was time for Zannah to do the same. She would not allow herself to be like these pathetic wretches: weak, afraid, and enslaved.
Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken.
There was still the problem of finding her own apprentice, of course. But for now, she needed to focus on why she was here. Her investigations had revealed that she wasn’t the only one interested in the dead Jedi. A man with long, silver hair—some called him a mercenary, others a bounty hunter—had been here not two days earlier, asking the same questions she was. Since then, she had been following his tracks: talking to the people he spoke to, and charming, bribing, or threatening them into giving her the same information they had given him.
She now suspected she knew why Medd Tandar had come here in the first place. It was common knowledge among the miners that a small cache of jewelry had been uncovered during a dig, and that the Jedi had come to Doan in the hope of acquiring the find. Zannah could only think of one reason why a Jedi would be interested in a few trinkets discovered in a long-forgotten tomb on an insignificant Outer Rim world—her Master wasn’t alone in his obsessive efforts to locate ancient Sith artifacts scattered across the galaxy.
At first she had assumed the man who had been asking about Medd before her had been another Jedi sent to complete the original mission. However, it quickly became clear from the reports of his use of terror and torture to extract information that he was not a Jedi or even someone working for the Jedi Order. The trail of these reports had ended at a dilapidated cantina in one of the seemingly infinite mining camps. But she found the establishment closed, and Quano, the Rodian proprietor, nowhere to be found. With no more eyewitnesses, Zannah decided to have a look around herself, hoping for further clues.
Night had fallen, casting everything in near blackness. She tried the door and discovered that someone had smashed the lock. Not surprising, given the poverty she had seen. Pushing her way in, she picked up the faint odor of decaying flesh. She cracked a glow stick from her belt, filling the room with its pale green light. She was just able to make out two bodies on the floor.
Crouching by the first one, she made a quick examination. Doan’s dry, dusty heat—combined with the general lack of airflow through the cantina—had partially mummified the corpse, slowing the decomposition process. The cause of death was obvious: a blaster bolt to the chest. His own blaster was still clutched in his hand.
It was obvious he wasn’t Quano; the body was plainly human. And he didn’t fit the descriptions she had been given of the man she was following. Based on his clothes and large muscles, he was probably one of the miners. She found the second body the same: a dead miner, shot in the chest.
Continuing her examination of the scene, she noticed that the shelf behind the bar was empty—but clear circles in the dust showed that until very recently, dozens of bottles had stood there. Whoever had broken in must have stolen all the alcohol … and left the two bodies where they lay on the floor.
A thorough search of the room turned up no trace of either the Rodian or the silver-haired man.
At the sound of someone fumbling at the door, Zannah covered her glow stick with her cloak and crouched low to the ground, a perfect statue hidden—she hoped—by the darkness.
The door creaked open and a shadowy figure slowly picked its way through the tables toward the bar in the back. Zannah waited to make sure the intruder was alone, then stood up and cast her cloak aside, bathing the room in the light of her glow stick.
A Rodian stood frozen, staring at her with wide, fearful eyes.
“Quano, I presume?”
“Who you?” he asked, his barely passable Basic made even harder to understand by the panic in his voice. Then he noticed the empty shelf behind the bar, and his face scrunched up in sullen anger. “You steal all Quano’s booze.”
“I didn’t steal anything. I just came here to ask you some questions,” she assured him.
The Rodian’s shoulders slumped. Sighing, he sat down cross-legged on the ground, his head hanging despondently.
“More questions. You Jedi, too? Like other one?” He spoke with a tone of utter hopelessness, as if he realized he was doomed and had given up any hope of escaping his fate.
“A Jedi? You mean Medd Tandar? The Cerean?”
“No. The other one. Human. Long, white hair.”
“I’m looking for him,” Zannah admitted. “But what makes you think he was a Jedi?”
“Him got lightsaber. Use it to give Quano this.”
The Rodian turned his head and pointed to his cheek. Moving slowly so as not to startle the obviously distraught fellow, Zannah approached until she was able to make out his scar. In the dim light of the glow stick she couldn’t be sure, but the burn did appear to be consistent with that made by a lightsaber’s blade.
She knew how to read people. The Rodian was like an abused pup, cowering as he waited for the next blow. Show him a little compassion, however, and he would react as if she had saved his life.
“He tortured you. You poor thing,” she cooed, feigning sympathy even as her mind churned on the identity of the mysterious white-haired man.
A Jedi would never harm someone without just cause. Whoever had done this wasn’t one of the Order, but he did have a lightsaber. And he was skilled enough to wound Quano without accidentally slicing off half his head. She had heard tales of Dark Jedi—Jedi Knights who had fallen away from the teachings of their Masters to embrace the power of the dark side. Was it possible the man she sought was one of these?
More important, did Bane already know this? Her Master often kept secrets from her, and she had learned to always assume he knew more than he said. But if he knew there was a Dark Jedi on Doan, why had he sent Zannah to investigate? Was it some type of final test? Was she supposed to prove herself by finding and killing this potential rival? Or was Bane testing the white-haired man? If he proved strong enough to defeat Zannah, would he become her Master’s new apprentice?
“Him wanted information,” Quano whimpered.
“I’m sorry, Quano,” she said, speaking softly as she gently placed a hand on his shoulder, “but I need information, too. I need to know what you told him.”
As she did so, she reached out with a gentle push of the Force, nudging the bartender’s will ever so slightly so he would be more inclined to tell her what she wanted.
“Him you friend?”
“No,” Zannah assured him, using words to reinforce her subtle mind manipulation. “He’s not my friend.”
Maybe Bane was trying to force her hand, she thought; pushing her to act. Was he providing her with a suitable apprentice in the hope it would compel her to challenge him for leadership of the Sith?
“You want kill him?
” Quano asked, his voice rising excitedly.
“That is a possibility,” she answered, giving him a warm smile. That, or make him my apprentice … assuming he doesn’t kill me. “But I’ve got to find him first.”
“Him no here no more. Him go two days ago. Leave Doan.”
“He came here looking for something, didn’t he?”
Quano nodded. “Stuff miner dig up. Him take it. Kill miners. That when Quano escape.”
“And you’ve been hiding ever since,” Zannah guessed. “So why did you come back to the cantina?”
The Rodian hesitated, his bug eyes darting nervously between Zannah’s face and the small wrist-mounted blaster peeking out from beneath the sleeve of her cloak.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Quano,” she promised. “I’m not like him.” He enjoys hurting people. I only hurt people if I see some way to profit from their suffering. “I don’t think he’s coming back.” Not if he’s got the talismans. “But I need to know something else, Quano. When that man left Doan, where did he go?”
She saw the Rodian flinch before answering. “Quano not know. For trueness.”
“I believe you,” she said, reaching out to gently pat his hand. “But I bet you know people who could help me find out, don’t you?”
The bartender shifted uncomfortably, but another gentle push with the Force overcame his reluctance. “Quano has friend at spaceport. Him maybe find out.”
“Can we go see him?”
“You want go now?”
Zannah smiled again, knowing it would help sustain the rapport she had established. “You can grab your credits from the safe first, if you want.”
It was a two-kilometer walk from Quano’s cantina to the nearest ground-shuttle station, a fifteen-minute wait for the shuttle to arrive, and then a forty-minute ride before they reached the spaceport. By the time they arrived it was well past midnight, and the Doan spaceport—never busy even during peak hours—was empty except for a few individuals assigned to work the graveyard shift.
Dynasty of Evil Page 9