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June KMT - PRT Solaris Darthinian
The
soft glow of the rising sun went unnoticed as it was outshined by the lights of
Coronet, a city that never seemed to sleep.
A mechanical glow settled over the city, giving a harshly metallic look
to the small apartment the two of us had taken residence in. Yet, peering
beneath the façade of peace, one was forced to realize that the purity of the
scene did not run true, and that the dark side had a powerful grip on the
citizens that had so long ago settled in this city. The name of Corellia
had always been famous, and that fame had not lessened because two heroes of
the Rebellion hailed from the planet.
The two of us had traveled many weeks in hyperspace before our arrival,
and had spent most of that time either meditating or honing our martial skills
in endless duels.
Serin Jansj had volunteered to venture
with me to this filthy planet, a disgusting body in interstellar space. There were no dockyards, no landing
platforms, and no customs offices to observe our arrival, and I brought our
borrowed assault shuttle to a gentle landing on top of an abandoned
warehouse. While traveling officially
may have been safer, Serin and I had no desire to
have our presence known. We had traveled
together on many voyages, wandering the farthest reaches of space in pursuit of
dark knowledge, arcane information that often made those who knew its secrets
targets to those who didn’t.
But
we were not like so many others that served the dark side of the Force. So many Dark Jedi
sought their own ends, fueling unwise ambition with misunderstood
emotions. Many were out for a revenge of
some nature or another, and others wished to hurt those who had raised neither
weapon nor voice against them. Yet both Serin and myself sought something greater from the Force,
asking not how it could advance our goals, but how we could further its
will. We both carried an air of wounded
nobility in those days, exiles from our respective cultures. Perhaps that is why we were such good friends, we were the same person in so many different ways.
And
so, as we had done many times before, we left the safety of Brotherhood’s
realm. Though many Jedi wandering the
halls of Eos failed to see it, the Force ran through every corner of the galaxy,
and its will extended just as far. And
so we wandered amid the stars, seeking to fulfill the will of the Force, and in
doing so, fulfill our own destinies.
Corellia was only the latest stop in our never-ending
journeys. It was the refuge of the one
we sought, for he possessed the knowledge we desired.
The
history of the dark side is filled with wondrous lords of dark and terrible
power. One could listen to the tales of
those Dark Lords for a lifetime without hearing about more than a fraction of them. Yet one Sith Lord
in perhaps more reputable than many of his cohorts,
and his name was Tulak Horde. Horde was a Dark Lord of the Sith during the Sith Empire’s Golden age, and was famous for his skill with
a lightsaber.
Many forms have been created, and many techniques mastered in the
wielding of those blades of light, yet it is said that no warrior ever born in
the galaxy could ever hope to match Lord Horde when it came to lightsabers. His
skill was vastly greater than any other, before or since, that had raised a
sword. Rumors among the ancient Sith say that Tulak
left his legacy for the posterity of the Sith. Lord Horde created a holocron
before his death, describing in great detail the intricacies of his techniques,
and providing a path to a greater mastery of the lightsaber
than any other could ever hope to possess.
It
was this holocron for which Serin
and I sought. We had begun our chase in
the most logical place: the burial tomb of the Dark Lord himself. Over many months, we had painstakingly
tracked rumors of the holocron’s movement. It had survived nearly five millennia, and
had fallen into the possession of a wealthy merchant on Corellia. Somehow, it had surprised neither of us that
a thing of such power and antiquity would inevitably arrive in that place of
vermin and filth.
While
that part of the tale needs not be told in fullness, it would suffice to say
that we traveled the length of Coronet many times over, and that the capital
city of Corellia had become quite well-known to us before our dealings were
concluded. With an uncanny success and
the greatest luck imaginable, we eventually met the half-drunk Kuati merchant who had come to hold this thing of greatest
magnitude. While polite conversation and
a respectable fraction of the Brotherhood’s treasury would have probably
procured the holocron for us, Serin
and I were truly Dark Jedi, and saw no need to bargain with a vagabond. Needless to say, we took quite the unorthodox
approach with our client, befitting our status as loyal Krath
acolytes.
The
arrogant, pompous merchant was named Sylet K’dahare, and hailed from the wealthy planet of Kuat. He seemed to
have a flair for collecting rare and ancient artifacts whose original purposes
were beyond him. The man had the
educated air of mild nobility, and flaunted his success like a flashy
cloak. We had come under cover of
negotiating for the holocron, and it was under this
guise that we gained entrance at all.
While K’dahare’s personal security was
impressive, neither Serin nor I thought it potent
enough to threaten our safety, Dark Jedi that we were. The man’s office was nothing short of
marvelous, contemporary furnishings in every corner, and a metallic scheme to
the room that mirrored that of Corellia itself.
Seating
ourselves on a recliner across from the aging man, we began talking as he
poured drinks for all three of us.
Downing our own drinks, I asked for refills. The drinks were strongly alcoholic, and it
was our shared intention to get our merchant ‘friend’ drunk enough that he
would either hand us the object of our desires, or be too confounded to provide
resistance if we decided to take the holocron by
force. We talked for little over, always
with a full glass in our hands. While we
negated the alcohol’s affects with the Force, the Kuati merchant had no such ability, and he was soon
teetering on the edge of deliria. Seeing
our chance for the holocron, Serin
strolled over to the safe that had been revealed to contain the holocron, and used the Force to slide open the lock. K’dahare was
obviously unprepared to deal with wielders of the almighty Force. Seeing that Serin
had met with success, I discreetly signaled a remote to ignite our ship, using
a homing beacon on my belt to guide the ship to within a jump’s distance of the
office. K’dahare
remained in a stupor as we walked to the window and awaited the arrival of our
ship. As if cold water had been thrown
on Sylet, he seemed to awaken from his state of
drunkenness, whether by some inherent capability in his physiology, or by some
cruel twist of fate.
I
had already broken the window and jumped aboard the remotely piloted shuttle
while Serin secured the holocron
and prepared to finish off the merchant.
Serin had been facing me,
his back turned to the Kuati, and so could not see
what I saw. The merchantman had summoned
several highly illegal battledroids tohis office, and the five that stood in the far doorway
were about to open fire on Serin, helpless as he
was. With dawning realization, Serin flew to the window, stepped to the sill, and
paused. The wind outside the office was
howling, and the ship was bucking in the gusts.
The droids released a barrage of lasers at my dearest friend as he
prepared to jump.
“GET
IN!!!!” I yelled at his motionless
figure as the ship tossed only feet from him.
He jumped out the window, the ship drawing close enough…almost close
enough now. He reached his hand out to
mine, and our fingertips brushed briefly before he fell away from me. The last thing I remember from that day was
instinctively catching a holocron that had been
thrown up from below…the gift of a dying man…
(Note:
This story was written without the consent of Serin
Jansj, and is in no way supposed to provide a death
for his character. It is merely a
fiction I thought up, and is not necessarily part of his character’s canon.)
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