"So yeah, that's a fucking nightmare," I said. "Can't help but feel like maybe we should've let Barry keep doing what he was doing."
"Look, in my defense," Karasuba said, her arms folded over her chest, "it's not like I knew that Vitiate was the Sith version of Galactus the World-Eater."
I'd caught Karasuba at an inopportune time- apparently there was a new spa in my Hoth town (which I really needed to name at some point), and she'd had to hurry out of the sauna and into a towel before my call went to voicemail. Still, this was important business, and... well. She herself wouldn't claim to have been doing anything important.
"I'm a little sad that Jedi stopped him from eating all the life on Voss," Karasuba continued. "That's where I had to go to get the Emperor out of his stupid ghost trap. I was only there for three days, but after that long, even I wanted everything on the planet dead."
"Yes, and then Vitiate would've gotten stronger from having eaten a whole planet's life force," I explained patiently. "We can always go and turn Voss into glass later. It's more important that Vitiate continue investing the energy to set up these rituals and then fail, before Lucas stabs him and drains him even further. I bet that, if Lucas can keep doing that, then it'll weaken Vitiate so much, he eventually won't be able to resurrect himself."
"Let's hope so," Karasuba said. "Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but I can't help but feel like Vitiate's got a backup plan for this kinda thing. Why couldn't he?"
"Fair, yeah," I said, nodding. "Hopefully, I can piece together some better understanding of how Vitiate's immortality works... if only I could find that fucking vacation house of his..."
"I'm sorry, did you just say vacation house?" Karasuba asked.
"He apparently had a residence on Yavin 4, according to the journal of some Sith from, like, five hundred years ago who had dinner with him one time," I said. "He came out here to do experimental rituals, supposedly. I don't suppose you know anything about that?"
"Sorry, I'm the Emperor's Wrath, not the Emperor's Keychain," Karasuba said dryly. "I have no idea where the fuck he is, or where he keeps his stuff. I've talked to him once, on Voss, and that boiled down to him asking me to kill him."
"Yeah, that's fair," I said, shrugging. "Anyhow, I don't really have anything more. You got anything you want to talk about?"
"Can you pick up a bottle of Kewpie mayo on the way home? We're out."
I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, sure, I'll stop by the grocery store in my spaceship."
"Thanks, honey." She hung up, and I rolled my eyes.
"Alright," I said, standing up. "Let's... see about expediting the search for the Emperor's estate."
---
"Darth Thanaton," Darth Marr said. He'd called me personally, rather than call a full meeting of the Dark Council; apparently he'd learned by now that big meetings made me cranky. "There are reports of heavy Republic presence in the Yavin system, where you are. Do you know what is going on?"
"The Jedi are thumping their chests and rattling their sabers," I said dryly. "Nothing to worry yourself about, Marr. They're demanding to know what I'm doing here, and I'm telling them the truth: simple archaeology, nothing more. And they are demanding that I prove it, so now I get to patiently tolerate a thousand Jedi tracking mud all over my dig sites, leaving Light Side stains on everything." I sighed. "This is annoying, but not worth starting another war over. I'll deal with it; this will stay my problem, not yours."
Darth Marr grunted in approval. "See that it stays that way, Thanaton. We do not need another Corellia."
"How is the Corellian Autonomous Zone doing?" I asked.
"Already a client state of the Republic again," Marr said. "The people of Corellia have traded their voice in the Republic's government for self-governance over the pettiest of things. They still are obliged to follow Republic law anyway, in most cases, but at least now they can call it parmesan even when it wasn't made on Parma V."
I blinked.
"Egads that's stupid," I said, covering for the moment of 'hey that's a real place in Italy, what's it doing here?' that my brain underwent. "Well. I won't take up any more of your time, Marr."
He hung up without another word, and I sighed.
"So," Jedi Master Satele Shan asked. "Did he buy it?"
"Honestly, I'm not sure I even had to lie to him," I said, shrugging. "I could've told him I tricked the Jedi into helping me with my archaeology project, and he probably would've been happy with it."
"But," Satele continued.
"But, yes, it doesn't pay to take risks," I said, nodding. "Marr doesn't want another war. That does not mean he likes the Republic or the Jedi, or approves of cooperating with them. I can't be sure he'd approve of me tricking Jedi into helping me with anything that doesn't end in dead Jedi."
"Well, then, we're in luck," Satele said.
"Hey, it is not my fault they went inside that goddamn tomb," I said. "I specifically told them to stay out of there until the droids scouted it out."
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"Mhm."
---
We found Vitiate's residence, finally. It was an absolute nexus of dark energies, and yet, I understood perfectly why we hadn't found it- it was pulling in Force energy, not radiating it out. It had shown up on our figurative radars as simply a somewhat Force-depleted area, and we hadn't thought enough of it to investigate until I'd stumbled on the villa myself, in quite possibly the stupidest way possible.
"Aren't you glad I had that globe fabricated?" Zash said as we took constant pictures of everything, cataloging every last tchotchke and trinket in its original location, before we started moving anything.
"I'm more glad that Master Shan likes games of dexterity," I said, turning to regard the Jedi studiously doing her best to pretend I hadn't found our hidden target by throwing a fucking dart at the globe.
The Force moves in mysterious ways.
"Anyhow," I continued, slowly creeping up the stairs. "Be careful following me up here, these stairs are trapped as all hell. One wrong move, and you'll have a lightsaw trimming your short hairs."
"Evocative," the Jedi said. "Can we hurry it up? This place's aura is making me sick."
"It's not exactly a bed of Rose's for us, either," Zash said.
"Oh fuck you," I said.
"What?" Satele asked.
"Oh, nothing," Zash said, smiling beatifically from ear to ear.
----------------------------------------
"Darth Thanaton, Master Shan," Lucas said. "It's time. I've stopped the Emperor's ritual on Corellia, and he awaits us on Dromund Kaas in his throne room."
"Excellent news," I said. "I've gone through the Emperor's research notes; that residence of his is a place of great dark power, to which he'll return in death if he's ever drained too thoroughly." I grinned. "You'll be delighted to know that he couldn't figure out how to make more than one, and that it has such a delightfully simple weakness."
"I'd be more delighted to know how I'm getting to Dromund Kaas," Lucas said. "I don't expect it to be easy to smuggle me onto the planet."
"Oh, it will be," I said, grinning further. "Gather any allies you need and go to Hoth, Lucas. My people will rendezvous with you there, and get you anywhere you need to go."
"How many of them have business in the Emperor's throne room?" Lucas asked.
"A personal friend of mine does," I said. "But you won't need an escort into the throne room, just to the temple itself. Sith Sorcerers keep their facilities conspicuously unguarded and unstaffed to demonstrate their power in the dark arts, and Vitiate is the one who started that fashion. Nobody will accost you on the way to him."
Lucas nodded. "Thank you, Darth Thanaton. I hope we can continue working together."
"For a better tomorrow," I said, nodding soberly.
"For a better tomorrow," he agreed, before hanging up.
"I should go with him," Satele said. "I've spent long enough on that darkness-riddled moon."
"You remember where the Emperor's villa was, right?" I asked.
"Of course," Satele said. "I have it marked on my map."
"Tell someone on your way out," I said. "Tell them precisely where the Emperor's villa is. And then tell them that I didn't want them snooping around in there."
She blinked a few times, and then grinned, simultaneously shaking her head.
"I want to say that wouldn't work on the Jedi, but..." Satele shrugged. "It would. It absolutely would."
"Oh, and tell them to stay very hydrated, and also plant a rumor about an airborn poison powder that ancient Sith often left in their carpets, that can be neutralized by sufficient moisture."
"Absolutely disgusting. I'll try my best."
----------------------------------------
This time, it was finally my turn to call the Dark Council to order.
"I have good news and bad news," I said, having returned to Korriban from Yavin in a fairly public huff. "The good news is that I've found a former residence of the Emperor, where he often retreated to do research before launching his war against the Republic. I found all sorts of absolutely fascinating artifacts and texts, just begging to be cataloged and analyzed."
"This would be on Yavin 4, correct?" Darth Marr asked. "The planet you have been investigating as of late?"
"The one and the same," I said.
"The one where the Jedi attempted to intimidate you into..." Vowrawn pursed his lips, fighting back a giggle. "...letting them help with your studies?"
"Precisely," I said. "And therein lies the bad news, Councilors. I am not the only one who found the Emperor's villa."
"Oh no," Darth Mortis groaned.
"Approximately one entire thousand Jedi made it their highest ambition to track mud through the whole thing, tearing off the wallpaper, overturning furniture, searching in vain for the 'secret Sith superweapon' that I surely must have been searching for as well," I said. "Naturally, as they failed to find it, they began tearing the building apart, until the whole thing collapsed." I sighed deeply. "My scouts attempted to salvage what they could; they reported signs that, for whatever goddamn reason, the Jedi also took it upon themselves to piss on everything, like womp rats marking their territory."
"The Emperor is going to kill you when he hears about this," Vowrawn said gleefully.
"Unfortunately," Karasuba began, entering the room, "the Emperor is dead."
"Oh, other thing I should bring up," I added, as everyone soaked that in. "That villa on Yavin? Well, he had set it up so he would resurrect there, in the event of his untimely murder. But then a thousand Lightsiders tracked mud and piss all over everything, so that ritual was probably fouled beyond repair."
The Dark Council absorbed this, carefully. I could easily plot their collective train of thought.
One: Clearly, I had deduced the Emperor's weakness, and arranged for both his assassination and the sabotage of his emergency measures by plausibly-deniable proxy.
Two: Plausibly-deniable assassination is how Sith demonstrate superiority over each other, and it is a time-honored way to assume your former superior's now-vacated position.
Three: Everyone in this room had seen what I did to Thanaton, and didn't feel like witnessing a repeat performance, possibly from Thanaton's perspective.
"Oh, that was very well done indeed," Vowrawn said, breaking the silence and beginning to clap and giggle.
"Well then," Darth Mortis said. "I suppose that's how it'll be, then."
"What do you mean?" I asked, playing coy.
"The Empire needs an Emperor," Karasuba continued. "As the Wrath of the Emperor, I am uniquely qualified to nominate the next Emperor: Darth Thanaton, Second of Her Name. All bow before your new Emperor."
It was a sort of vote, really; bowing to me was voting yes, as well as signaling that you were willing to bend your neck in the face of overwhelming force.
"Ah, I see," I said, watching as all ten Councilors bowed to me in turn. "Well! In that case... I think we're due for some changes around here, don't you?"