When my flotilla arrived in the Corellia system, it was to much surprise and many shat trousers. It wasn't the biggest fleet anyone had ever seen, granted, but it was still a big fleet, and most definitely the biggest fleet in the system.

So many ships, so big, and with so many crew? This fleet should've been making waves as it prepared to arrive in Corellia, waves that every two-bit power player's information network would've picked up on.

And yet, here it was, out of the black, and nobody knew whose ships these were.

Yet.

"Attention everyone," I said calmly as I pressed the button to begin broadcasting throughout the system. "This is Sith Lord Khar'cair of the Sith Empire, and admiral of this fleet. I am here to announce and enforce a decisive end to this proxy war for Corellia, effective immediately. There is to be a ceasefire; any ship that opens fire for any reason will be dealt with by me. Furthermore! Representatives from the Republic Military, the Imperial Military, the Jedi Order, the Sith Order, and the Corellian government are invited to the Star Destroyer Undaunted to discuss further terms." I paused for a moment, my visage turning stern. "Nothing I have said is negotiable. Lay down your weapons. Now."

I ended the broadcast, and found myself being hailed from eight different sources. The first one I answered was from a Republic ship.

"Hold on one moment," I said. "I will open the channel with the other Republic-aligned caller, if that is acceptable?"

"Ah, so now you care about permission," the Republic Admiral said. "You slimy Sith are... are... oh, hells, it's you. You're that Sith from Taris!"

"Hello again, Admiral," I said. "I'm aware that claiming Corellia for the Empire is a non-starter, this time around; we tried that, and the people went into open revolt immediately. Opening the channel to... Corellian Jedi Master Jax Halcyon."

Another hologram popped up on my console, and standing there was the oddest-looking Jedi I'd ever seen. I mean, sure, the Jedi didn't really have uniforms as such, but they might as well, considering how tightly they always adhered to the Order's aesthetics. This, however? This was a man in a military-looking outfit, the only sign that he was a Jedi being that he had a lightsaber on his hip, rather than a blaster.

"Another Sith, huh?" Jax said, making a show of looking me over. "We aren't scared of you."

"Save your posturing, I'm here to fuck over the rest of these Imperials," I said dryly. "Besides, even from the perspective of heartless calculus, Corellia isn't worth taking. The people and their infrastructure are what's valuable, and they've made it clear they'd rather blow themselves up than be taken by the Empire." Jax nodded, carefully. "You can keep your planet. I don't want it. Now, I can personally guarantee your safety, as well as provide transport for yourself and an honor guard to my ship. Will you come to the table?"

Jax and the Admiral considered my request carefully, glancing at each other, then tentatively nodded.

"You've earned some measure of trust," the Admiral said. "In that I trust you to screw over the other Sith for your own benefit, with our own health and safety a nominal and distant fifth priority."

"Beats getting shot at," Jax said.

"That's the spirit," I said.

----------------------------------------

In war, things were usually simple, but even the simplest things were very hard.

Getting the Republic, the Jedi, the Corellians, and the Corellian Jedi- who were apparently a separate group to the Jedi proper- to agree to attend an armistice negotiation was straightforward. They wanted to end the fighting, and rebuild their destroyed homes. It did still take a week of back-and-forth one-on-ones to square all that away- there were a lot of simple considerations that nonetheless took time and effort to address- but ultimately, these people did want to talk.

The Sith, meanwhile, did not want to talk. They wanted to yell at me, and browbeat me, and demand to know who the fuck I thought I was, that I could deny them their senseless slaughter of civilians for the sake of taking a planet they'd destroy everything valuable on in the process of taking it.

On the plus side, when Darth Vengean attempted to choke me over the phone like Thanaton had once done to Zash, he discovered the hard way that I was stronger than him in the Force, and I put him in the infirmary with shattered wrists, a broken jaw, and half a heart attack, all without having to get up from my chair. He'd probably die soon; he was not a popular Dark Councilor, and I noted with a grim satisfaction that his closest supporter was one Darth Baras, Karasuba's master, and noted mastermind who employed an assassin to remove people inconvenient to his own personal power.

On the other hand, Darth Vowrawn was himself too powerful for me to successfully choke over the phone, and he abused this privilege by filling my voicemail with recordings of him reading the most excruciatingly awful poetry in a wide array of deeply obnoxious voices, presumably in the hopes he could annoy me into going away, or simply ending the ceasefire.

I stayed strong. For now.

However, it wasn't long after I put Vengean in the medbay that the situation deteriorated further, with the arrival of another flotilla. It was... honestly, it wasn't that big. A pair of Harrower-class dreadnoughts- a ship not unlike the Undaunted, except only eight hundred meters long instead of three thousand- plus a complement of smaller ships wasn't nothing, but with so many Dark Councilors personally invested in conquering Corellia, it made up maybe like a quarter of the Imperial forces in the system, if you didn't count myself.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

What was worse than the arrival of the ships was the arrival of their erstwhile admiral, one Darth Thanaton.

"Hello, everyone," Thanaton all but crooned as he broadcast a hail through the system. "I am Darth Thanaton, of the Sith Empire. It would seem that my wayward apprentice has gone and stuck her nose into important business she doesn't belong near. Not to worry; this is the last straw. Apprentice Khar'cair! Your trick with the Sithspawn was clever, but it will not be nearly enough! I challenge you to Kaggath- an ancient Sith duel, of power-base against power-base, winner-take-all, including the loser's life." He smiled smugly. "And would you look at that? Corellia will furnish such a fine field of honor, will it not?"

"Cease your posturing and leave, old man," I said dryly, broadcasting back. "Take your 'kaggath' and shove it up your ugly ass; I have the firepower to destroy your entire flotilla in a heartbeat if you try to start something you don't have the stones to finish."

"Ah, so crude," Thanaton said, shaking his head indulgently. "She gets that from her old Master, I swear. Well! Go on then, Apprentice! I grant you the honor of the first blow!"

Which, naturally, would mean that I had violated the ceasefire.

Now, this was something that reasonable adults would understand as an acceptable measure to prevent the loss of human life. However, the only military around here with reasonable adults in charge was the Republic military, and the Sith would take literally any goddamn excuse they could to devolve into backbiting atrocity, even when there wasn't anything to gain. That tended to happen when you fueled your psychic powers with anger and thought self-control was for Mormons.

However, being stupid and unreasonable didn't mean I couldn't still manipulate them.

"I'm seeing your power base right now," I said. "Mine is bigger. But if you're so hell-bent on fighting me?" I shrugged, then pulled Jedi Master Jax Halcyon into the channel. "Master Jax, please point us to a spot on Corellia where Thanaton and I can duel. I think it's just about time we finally settled this."

"...The ruins of the Crystal Gardens, in Coronet City," Jax said. "Tomorrow, at local noon."

"Oh?" Thanaton asked. "And here I thought you were going to simply run away again, little Rose."

"Think what you want," I said. "Now get off this channel." I hung up, and sighed, standing up.

Once more, the fate of this Jump hinged on me swordfighting a middle-aged man with delusions of grandeur, who nonetheless did have actual psychic powers and skill with a blade to back up his bluster.

Except, this time?

I was going to have to actually kill him.

----------------------------------------

I arrived at the ruins of the Crystal Gardens five minutes before the appointed time, to find Jedi Master Jax Halcyon already there, using the Force to clear a wide circular arena in the rubble, one boulder at a time.

"Allow me," I said, stepping out of my landspeeder.

"Hey, a Sith who wants to clean up their own mess," Jax said, setting a boulder down. "Be my guest."

I closed my eyes, reaching out physically with my arms, and mentally with the Force. I was one with the Force; the Force was with me. The Force commands these stones to move.

I opened my eyes to behold my handiwork, as rubble shifted and cleared, some of it even melding into the bedrock rather than simply floating off to the edge of the arena. The floor was smooth and even stone, now, and the border traced out a ring ten meters in radius, as perfect and precise as if master stonemasons had done it...

...without mortar, or chisels, and working entirely by stacking assorted rocks on top of each other.

Which, y'know. Drystone masonry was a thing! And by the standards of their craft, I was impressed with myself.

"Bra-vo," Darth Thanaton said, clapping slowly as he stepped over the shallow wall, into the ring. "A Force Adept who can move rocks. Truly, do your enemies quake in their boots."

"Hello, Thanaton," I said. "Master Jax, please keep any spectators back. I'm not sure what minimum safe distance is for Sith Lightning at our level, but you don't want to find out the hard way."

"I'll see what I can do," Jax said, backing out of the arena. "Try not to break any more of my city, if you don't mind?"

"I'll see what I can do," I parroted back, before drawing my lightsaber, flicking it to life.

"I see you've gotten a new lightsaber," Thanaton said, drawing his own. "I wonder if you've gotten any new skills?"

"Come over here and find out," I said, sliding into the most basic, fundamental ready stance there was in the canon of lightsaber forms. "Ready when you are."

I could feel his vampiric strength sapping me, and I could quantify it, too. The way it worked was bleeding most of the enemy's strength away to nothingness, spent simply to sustain the field, with only a small portion of it being spent to empower Thanaton himself. With my degrees of strength, it could just about manage to take away eighty nine percent of my strength, with nine of those percents becoming Thanaton's, and the rest powering the field to keep draining me, so my strength wouldn't reassert itself.

Our blades clashed in a rapid flurry, ten impacts in two seconds, before we both disengaged, circling each other warily.

Eleven times peak human strength for me. Ten times peak human strength for him. Oddly enough... last time, he'd actually been stronger than me, with more of the strength he stole going towards himself.

"You have improved with your lightsaber," Thanaton marveled. "Alas, you are not the only one capable of improvement."

Ah. I begun to feel what he was talking about. The field grew stronger, and bit by bit, more of my strength began to leave me, and enter him.

"There are rituals, you know," Thanaton continued. "Rituals that allow a Sith to permanently consume the power of their defeated foe. They're of varying quality, of course, but..." He grinned. "Being in my position has its benefits; in addition to wiping out a heretical upstart, I anticipate consuming your ghost and absorbing the full extent of your power."

"The longer we talk, the weaker I get," I noted.

"Indeed!" Thanaton noted. "My word, perhaps you're right about this whole 'negotiation' thing. I think we should give it a try."

"Alright, here's my offer," I said, raising my blade, parallel to the ground, my arm cocked back like a coiled snake. "Kill yourself now, and I won't make it painful for you."

"Hrm," Thanaton said. "No, I don't think I can agree to those terms. I suppose now we have to kill each other like civilized people."

I bent a knee, preparing to bolt forward. "Works for me."