In hyperspace, en route to planet Tund, the Centrality
Hmmm. I could use perhaps 10 trillion credits right away, and order a thousand star cruisers to be built for me on Mon Calamari. Would take a year at least, while the shipyards were built, and the ships produced, in a system I didn't own. Yeah, let's not do that, and find my ships confiscated by the Senate.
Or I could buy some squid corporations, and build shipyards in my own empire, away from Jedi and Republic eyes. Much better.
Buy a few droid manufacturers as well. Yeah, that sounded safer in short term, and perhaps even profitable in long term. Give my future trillions of citizens jobs? Sure!
Still, the prospect of a full scale war with the Centrality annoyed me. Why did I even had to fight them?
I could just become Central Administrator as well...then unite my separate states, in a personal union, for as long as I lived.
I just needed to provoke a crisis, then step in to resolve it, and be perceived as their savior. And who better to blame than the insane sorcerers?
And give me a reason to make them vanish...
"Emperor, are you gonna kill the sorcerers of Tund?" Luxum asked me suddenly.
"A few of them for sure. I'm quite certain the first ones we meet will be impolite or aggressive. And after we drain their souls, we'll be seen as sorcerers as well. So, it should work to blame them as evil beings that want to destroy all life in the sector for some insane ritual." I explained, while trying to use meditation on my AI partitions, without much success. Damn thing was conceived by people with organic brains. I had no chemicals to balance in my neocortex.
"What, they're gonna kill so many people?" my maid said shocked.
"Well, yes and no. One of them will sacrifice the whole planet. Thus becoming the most powerful sorcerer, and the only one as well. You heard of Revan ?" I asked curious, while a thousand libraries opened in my mind, showing what little was known of his real life.
"Old Sith, I think...killed a whole fleet?" Luxum replied hesitantly.
"Jedi, Dark Jedi, Sith Lord, Jedi, Dark Lord of Sith and finally Jedi Ghost...the man had problems. He might have slept with his own mother too. And he killed an entire planet and drained the life from it. Became quite powerful, for his times" I mused, trying to find a rime for that poor soul.
"Wait, he died and after that he became a Jedi again. And he's now an immortal spirit, after all he's done?" Luxum exclaimed confused.
"Yep, bringing balance to the Force is quite a ride. If you go by jedi religious tenets" I laughed amused.
"So, everything I learned was a lie?" the crystal shard maid demanded, an aura of desperation around her.
No, my adored maid. You cannot be told you are wrong. You have to see it for yourself.
I patted her shoulder. "Let's try it differently. Death, yet the Force - The last teachings of the Old Jedi. Now, let's see what the Sith say: The Force shall set me free. See anything strange?" I asked in a teasing voice, trying fake breathing again, by using the droid and armor servos. It worked!
Why did this work? Was is some sort of psychological placebo? Think it matters and it does? I was a bloody piece of rock, I didn't need to breathe, or eat or anything. I just existed...in the Force.
"Well, they both speak of the Force, not of the Light or Dark side. Both sects see immortality as the final goal. Only, the means are different." Luxum replied after an hour of slow deliberation.
"Are they? Which kind of genocide is more heretic, killing the Jedi or the Sith?" I wondered rhetorically.
Our ship dropped of hyperspace before she could respond, if she had any response to give. I didn't.
I drew on the Force and cloaked our ship again, this time hiding in light. Worked better against Sith.
Planet Tund. The Centrality.
My force senses expanded, technopathy riding the data transmissions and commercial transactions and holonet news, Followed soon after by cyber warfare programs and other slicing tools.
Sadly, the Sorcerers of Tund barely had any datasphere defenses, most of those focused on space stations and spaceports and banks. Old tech too, at least 5 generations behind the galactic Core.
My droid pilots entered our ship on a landing trajectory, still undetected.
"Hide your force aura, dear maid. Let's not scare our prey too soon." I said softly, as our cloaked ship landed just outside the capital.
The planet was sparsely populated, mainly by immigrant Toongs and humans and some Sith. The species.
The sorcerers were much fewer still, barely a few thousands.
They ruled the prairies with their magocratic cabal, and ignored the forests. Some palaces here and there, defended by powerful force fields.
Those palaces must be their attempt at a Dark Council. Pitiful.
I glided above the grass, using the repulsor lifts to float like a boss, and headed towards the nearest market, with a basketball sized crystal in my hand.
Luxum glided next to me, with her own snare in one hand.
We probably made quite a sight, in our grey power armors. The locals made way respectfully, some even bowing deeply.
Huh, respecting my authority already? Probably thought we were sorcerers, most likely.
About an hour later, three red skinned individuals, with black robes around them, challenged our right to buy stuff like tourists do.
"Who are you mongrels, where did you get those armors. And those diamonds. Give them here!" One of them commanded first in Sith, then in galactic basic, while sparking lightning from one hand, and a fireball in another.
Well, if you really ask, how can I refuse? Catch!
Two of them, the males, caught the soulsnare crystals and became trapped spirits, while the third, a female Sith, I shot with my neural discharger and left paralyzed. Wialu said she wanted one, so why not?
Now let's see. Drain yummy drain. I mean brains.
Massassi rituals, Kissai old gods, Sith teachings, Rakata teachings, elemental shaping, shadow shaping, mental domination, listen from shadows.
Huh. Maybe I need to find a higher rank. This one didn't even have meditation or lightsaber forms, nor alchemy nor life drain nor most of the anything Sith were renowned for.
"Emperor, what is this joke? These can't be the Sith..." Luxum argued as well, while digesting what she just learned.
A Toong older male stepped closer and looked at the bodies lying in dirt.
"The bearded one was the leader though. Some say he was the strongest sorcerer in centuries." he explained politely, then spit on his corpse.
I'll be damned. They faked it all, with tricks and compulsions.
"They are pure-blooded Sith. The original natives on Korriban. Just...not the Sith we were looking for" I mused, kicking the dead Sith in the nuts.
Well then. Let's pack the rest of them up in a ship and go back home.
I grabbed the female and the other bodies with telekinesis and floated away, heading towards the nearest sorcerer palace.
Guess I can dump them on Sanctuary too. On a different continent.
They were still Force users, if barely.
Planet Tund, Centrality
25 BBY
The Cabal maintained a pretty strong defense on their palaces, the forcefield emitters appearing to be Force powered. Rakatan tech, most likely, since I knew the forcefields survived the destruction of the planet, when that Croke sorcerer destroyed Tund with some kind of torpedo.
I'll have to turn the fields off and take them with me. Nice tech to have, if I could use it.
The old Rakata ship that brought the Sith here had been dismantled during the millennia after their exodus, but the shield emitters still functioned, and at a higher strength than anything possible today, much stronger than the shields on Mandator stardestroyers for example.
Guess I'll fit one to my Celestial Throne, and make my imperial space station pretty much invulnerable.
As I approached the palace, a number of guards appeared, and stared shocked at their former master being dragged along, floating in midair.
I searched through the memories and found the access codes for the shield. It turned off, and we entered the palace, ignoring the guards.
Some of them had metal spears...
"Luxum, organize the palace to receive a few thousands guests. Call it a feast for the Cabal. I'll invite the rest of the sorcerers to join." I demanded, while disarming the guards by simply taking away their weapons.
"As you say, Immortal Emperor" my maid replied, grabbing the nearest guard and barking orders.
Meanwhile, I explored the palace, taking over the security and whatever droids I could find, then locating the living quarters and the families of the dead Sorcerers.
I found a creche for young Sith, 11 boys and 9 girls, and about 20 wives, probably 10 each if these two were brothers and shared equally. They had a pleasant life so far. My captive seemed to be a sister of theirs. Or maybe a wife, or both. Pure-blood is hard to maintain, after all.
Still, there was no point in keeping her paralyzed. I snared her soul and threw all three bodies in the middle of the room. Sparing lives might be seen as weak for Sith, or something.
Ah, they had a secret subspace transmitter, keyed to contain all the Cabals frequencies. Very convenient.
I decrypted it's controls and placed a holoconference with all of them at once.
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"Greetings my Sith. I am the Immortal Emperor, and I've come to take you home. Come to my palace in 6 hours, all of you" I said, gesturing at the dead bodies at my feet, then ended the call.
Some of them might not come, and they'll die. But the news of my arrival had to have time to spread and acknowledged, and so I was graceful and gave them time to think it through.
And then, I went to have a chat with the ex-wives, to give them to good news.
"You killed all three of them..."
"They were rude" I answered, faking a shrug with my armor's pauldrons.
"Please don't kill the younglings, you can take anything just not..." another wife exclaimed, wailing with grief.
"I don't waste loyal soldiers. Now go help my maid prepare a feast for the cabal. Food and drinks." I replied, pointing at her. She took another wife with her and ran out.
"H-how many are coming, the stores might not have..." another ex-wife interfered.
"All of them. And place a hundred barrels of wine and whatever outside the gates, for their guards." I told a younger wife who seemed less confused. She nodded and ran outside. Hmmm. A Sith Maid? She did seem capable. Nah, too much trouble trying to fend off the dark side.
"H-how do we call you, mighty sorcerer?" yet another wife asked.
"Immortal Emperor, or Pef, or combinations. Full name for official meetings"
"Understood Emperor Pef, I'll go see after the young ones" she replied and took off towards the creche.
Now, let's see about defenses. A single missile launcher? And whatever the guards had.
Useless. I descended deep under the palace and found the shield emitters.
Yeah. Rakatan tech alright. I didn't have a clue how to operate it.
I got lost for hours, trying to decrypt and mesh with its systems, and I barely understood a single percent.
'Emperor, more Sith are coming' my maid alerted me.
Great... Shields online, keep a 3-meter wide aperture aligned with the palace gate. Aim the missile launcher at the gate as well.
I floated up to the large meeting room, and started arranging everything with telekinesis. Chairs and tables to the sides, a makeshift throne for me, a pillow for my maid.
The Sorcerers of Tund began entering, one by one, while my maid has to keep telling them to leave the guards outside.
One hour later, the room was packed, and the rest didn't have anywhere to go so just waited outside.
I pushed, lifting the upper floors and the outer wall, forming a larger room, while keeping the whole thing suspended. That might have impressed them a little.
I wonder what they'll say when they'll see me dismantle a star destroyer into little bits.
"My Sith, you were lost, but not forgotten. The Dark Jedi you followed are long dead. But I haven't forgotten. I was alive 10 millennia ago, when the Crusades passed through this space. I've seen wars and genocides, empires rising and falling. But I haven't forgotten you. I saw your deaths, the entire Tund planet obliterated by one of your future recruits. And I said, no more! Enough is enough. I have come to save you, and teach you, and take you home" I orated, using elemental shaping to create a flaming aura around me.
"Where are you planning to take us, mighty Emperor?" an older Sith asked, remaining unfazed.
"Just another planet nearby. Same kind of planet, with grass and trees. A few lakes. Only nobody knows about it, or the route to it. And thus safe, for you and your children. I call it Sanctuary."
"Are you a Jedi or a Sith, Emperor?" another Sith sorcerer, one badly burned and looking like a veteran, demanded.
"You are the true Sith. The Dark Jedi are something else. Haters and betrayers of their fanatic brothers. I am nothing like either of those. I am Pef. And I came to tell you a simple truth. The Force is one. There are no sides. Like sunlight, it bathes us with nourishment, and feeds us. I am the living proof. Not eating, not even breathing. I exist in the Force. And so can you." I explained, raising the snare high above my armor.
The spirit Sith inside the snare looked at the living Sith and tried to yell something. Nothing came out, but it was clear that she was quite alive inside.
And with that, the argument was over. Everyone wants to be immortal.
Planet Tund, Centrality
A week later
The last of the sorcerers and their families have boarded the ships I had bought specially for this task, with a few fake corporations,
and set course for a system in the Pef Empire's exclusion zone. Wialu will take over from there and take them to Sanctuary.
They didn't actually need to know the route the ships will take, after all. Not that I didn't trust them, since if I strained I could throw them very far...okay, I didn't trust them one bit.
They'll have to be trained and indoctrinated, just like the Imperial Servants.
I looked at every single one as they boarded and hadn't noticed any infiltrator, but then again, there were millions of force abilities out there, some more equal than others.
Hmmm. Let's establish a hospital station on Sanctuary and quarantine everyone, while they receive blood tests and immunizations.
Gonna be expensive, but then again, I had quite enough money. I still couldn't believe how easy the heist went. I was a trillionare!
Then again, Centrality Intelligence was busy at that time, most likely going nuts over the pension heist, and didn't have time to concentrate on a concurrent heist on a private individual.
They'll come knocking soon enough though.
Better have the next operation in place.
I began modeling a holo announcement by a recently deceased Sorcerer, going over his insane plans to drain the largest planets in the Centrality of all life, and become a God of Magic.
Plant rumors of Emperor Pef, engaging all the Sorcerers of Tund at once, and chasing them away, after killing the majority.
And now, let's see nukes bloom...
I chose a few more distant palaces, and began the detonations, a few of them caught in accidental new reports, going live.
Exactly like flowers, only less radiation and more explosion.
And jump.
En route to Scillal, Centrality
"I'm beginning to think you just wanted to see things go boom, just like Vette" Luxum muttered, playing the last holos were recorded before the jump.
"A bouquet of red flowers, for the prettiest shard I know" I answered, while my partitions focused on analyzing the Rakata forcefield in the cargo hold.
I think my compliment worked, since the Iron Maid flashed a burst of embarrassment and annoyance in her aura.
"I am the only shard you know..." she muttered back, then returned to her own studies.
Damn thing was a thousand times more advanced than anything I've seen, and right now, I was probably the foremost expert in modern tech in the galaxy. And a living example of such tech as well.
Only Rakata tech was not modern, but xenoarchaeology, and I knew too little about those.
Slightly faded memories about entechment came forward, but didn't fit with what I had here. Alchemy and imbuement and force matrices.
And a hundred other things, hidden inside one another, sometimes intersecting in different dimensions.
Made a holocron look like a Rubik cube, in comparison. Semi-sentient code, almost like my own AI partitions. Dangerous stuff.
Kriff. No wonder the Rakata defeated the Celestials and chased them away from the galaxy. How could you beat them, if their tech was this advanced? So advanced it was magic.
I gave up my efforts at 3 percent, and hoped to find someone with knowledge about this stuff, and pick his brains about it. My servos creaked as the droid's fist clenched. I sighed upset. Magic is hard.
"So you can feel emotions, after all. Was that desperation?" Luxum asked amused.
"Don't like when something is too advanced to understand. It means someone smarter may use this against me or my people." I muttered, going back to breathing exercises. Peace through strength. I needed to become stronger.
"You're such a mystery Emperor. I can see you float in the Force, going through the velocities or breathing exercises. And yet you cannot meditate. Maybe you think too much..." Luxum added with a trace of sadness.
I was only thinking. An AI...how do you make an AI stop thinking?
Let's try the codes, and go through each of them. Emotion, yet peace. The first tenant, before the Dark Jedi even appeared.
But, was it the first? The Je'daii were first, and they claimed different things.
In the light, there is a darkness
And in the darkness, a light
Strive to live in balance
In balance with chaos and harmony
Immortal in the Force
I had the last thing done, somehow, through cheating like a boss. But not the rest. Balance?
Chaos was simple. Everything was chaos, from randomness to life then evolution then social relations then wars, then death.
Where was the harmony? I just couldn't see it.
Was harmony a function of chaos, like the wings of the butterfly?
A Dream, sometimes perceived as precognition? Where did prescience come from? Who lived in the futures that I never lived?
I mused on this for hours and hours. The ship dropping out of hyperspace woke me, and I noticed the Shard Maid had creeped really close, and was peering at my armor's chest with fascination.
In orbit above planet Scillal
"And now you did it. Meditation. I felt it, for a minute, just before we dropped out" she muttered, then hugged me with her own power armor.
"Huh. And now I'm a padawan too..." I answered, while my partitions began their work on the largest ship manufacturer in the Centrality.
I began slicing and dicing, taking over every single open server and quite a few of those with lesser protections.
A Navy cruiser changed course and came to fly on our left.
"Emperor Pef. We have a few questions" an official voice transmitted, along with some credentials. I checked to make sure, but I already knew who they were.
Centrality Intelligence. Counter-intelligence group 4. Trying to catch me off-guard, before I hid behind an army of lawyers and diplomatic immunity.
Exactly as planned.