EPILOGUE
THE SPACE STATION KANG’TROPHI
ORBITING THE PLANET DUROS
TWO MONTHS LATER
The tapcaff was at the center of the rotunda, which was itself a series of floors arranged in concentric rings, with transparisteel turbolifts zipping up and down, carrying aliens from a dozen different worlds to and from their place of work, or off to shop, or lounge. Most of the people here were Duros, elegantly dressed, shaking hands with new business partners. And there were a lot of those. New business interests were cropping up across the galaxy; IGBC reps trying to stabilize the galactic Credit by making sure old deals held with planets under the Empire still stood; venture capitalist groups seeking to take advantage of the sudden vacuum the Empire had left behind when it dramatically pulled all of its main forces to the Unknown Regions; and even Hutt cartels hoping to exploit the confusion to expand their holdings.
But littered among them, Kevv noticed, were members of the New Republic Initiative and Outreach. As it turned out, Mon Mothma had been well prepared for this day, when the Empire was finally gone, and she had drafted Articles of Integration for all the now Empire-less worlds to come onboard with what they were calling the New Republic. The Rebel Alliance to Restore the Republic was no more, dissolved, dead, and now reincarnated into something new and innovative.
And it was Kevv’s job, as a decorated ace pilot of the Rebellion, to fly escort for the first representatives Mon Mothma was sending out to shake hands and mend old wounds. They were here to convince each world, one by one, that a Republic could work again, just as it had done for thousands of years before Sheev Palpatine destroyed the last one. And they would use Kevv’s Duros heritage to build bridges with the people of Duro once again.
But emotions still ran high. A few Imperials who hadn’t been able to escape in time had taken shelter on various worlds, creating camps of their own, or else staying on the run. But whereas the Rebels had once been the underdog and relied on secret Rebel-supporting worlds to give them supplies, safety, and to aid and abed them, the Imperials didn’t have that.
Most worlds were not sympathetic to the Imperials, and arrested them on sight, and turned them over to Admiral Ackbar’s forces, who were now sweeping through the galaxy, system by system, starting with the Outer Rim and slowly encroaching towards Coruscant, towards the heart of the galaxy. A final battle would probably take place there soon with the few Imps that were left behind, but everyone expected it to be short-lived, and expected the last of the Imperials would soon flee, surrender, or die.
As Kevv walked through the rotunda, weaving through the energetic crowds of his newly liberated homeworld, he could scarcely believe what he was feeling. Every morning that he woke up still felt like a dream. To awake in a galaxy without Imperial rule, without a stormtrooper squadron at every corner, without an Imperial blockade or customs ship to look over your cargo and take “their cut,” was still a little disorienting.
The Empire had been here his whole life, always a constant foot against his neck. And now…
Now I can breathe. We all can. And he never imagined it could feel this good.
Kevv was here on Kang’trophi with two members of the New Republic Initiative—Senator Ghall Antilles of Alderaan-that-was, and General Garm bel-Iblis. Both had been invited to speak with Duro’s leadership about petitioning to join the New Republic, on certain terms. Those terms, of course, would be tentative, merely ad hoc to keep commerce running smoothly and to prevent the Credit from plummeting now that the Imps’ infrastructure was effectively removed. These terms would be replaced with more specific Resolutions, once a proper convention on Coruscant was held. At that convention, all petitioning worlds would have a chance to debate what the New Republic’s constitution would consist of.
But just now, Kevv was not escorting Senator Antilles or General bel-Iblis. The two delegates were in their apartments, while he was taking a moment to search for someone. Someone he hadn’t gotten a chance to communicate with in two whole months. He wondered if they were even still here—
“Major Kevv?” said a prim and proper male droid voice.
Kevv spun quickly, hand going for his blaster, until he saw who it was. The red armor on R-3PO’s chest had never had such a sheen. The droid been concealed behind the pillar of a clothing stall, and now stepped forward. “Well, well,” Kevv said.
“I’m sorry,” Threepio said. “It is Major now, isn’t it? I noticed your new rank insignia.”
Kevv glanced down at the shiny insignia on his chest, which Commander Fera herself had pinned there. “That’s right. Big damn hero, that’s me.”
“We waited for you here, just as you said.”
“We?”
The droid gestured behind him, and Kevv turned. Looking through a busy market crowd, he saw nothing unusual. Then, looking up to the next floor, behind a banister, he could just make out the silhouette of a small astromech watching him. Kevv smiled. “You had him watching me from afar?”
“We didn’t want to be spotted together.”
“Why not?”
“In case you are being watched by Imperial spies. They’re still about, you know.”
“So I’ve heard. But why would you care if they see you and Arfour together with me?”
“Because we would like to help finish what we started,” said Threepio. “We want to have a purpose in the New Republic, and if that means being Imp-hunters, that suits us just fine. And it’ll help if they don’t know that he and I are a team.”
“So, is this why you stayed? To ask for a job? You know, you could’ve just come and found me.”
“We wouldn’t know where to start, honestly, Major,” the droid said, photoreceptors panning left and right, scanning the crowd. He’s still in spy mode. Stars above, Ageless really rubbed off on him. “There was so much chaos in those first few weeks after the Emperor’s demise, and so much celebration. Power went out here when the last Imperials to leave tried sabotaging every system, on every space station surrounding Duro. They didn’t want the residents of this world communicating with anyone via HoloNet.”
Kevv nodded. “Yeah, that was their last-ditch effort to keep the idea of total rebellion and anarchy from spreading. They didn’t want anyone knowing ‘the bad news’ about the Death Star’s destruction. They did that in dozens of other star systems, too. Ackbar’s working hard to get communications back up with lots of smaller worlds who don’t have the capital to fix their own HoloNet hyper-buoys.”
“I understand it’s a very big mess.”
“Yes,” Kevv sighed, “but we’re getting used to cleaning up the Empire’s mess.”
“Do you know where they all went?”
“Who? You mean the bulk of the Imperial Navy? Not exactly. But we’re pretty sure they withdrew into the Unknown Regions. We’re not sure what they’re planning by that maneuver, but the spies we’ve sent out there say there’s already been infighting between the Admirals.”
“Infighting, sir?”
“Yeah. They can’t seem to decide who should lead now, what with both Palpatine and Vader gone. There’s no Grand Moff that ever replaced Tarkin—Palpatine saw to that years ago, didn’t want any single moff having that much power again. A mistake on his part, in hindsight. In any case, the ‘Imperial Remnant’, as we’re calling them, are already eating each other live. Though there’s one admiral out there who’s apparently a cut above the rest, though he seems to be staying out of most of the squabbles.”
“What’s his name?”
“Don’t know. We don’t have a name yet. We’re still working on trying to get some spies out there, see what’s going on. They say this new admiral may be non-Human, but that doesn’t make any sense, because the Emperor never put any non-Humans in charge of anything. All stormtroopers were Humans, all commanders, too, all the way up to the sector moffs.” Kevv shrugged. “Who knows? Probably just rumors. Or Imperial counterintelligence spreading lies as part of a disinformation campaign. Wouldn’t be the first time.” He clapped the droid on the shoulder. “It’s good to see you, Threepio. I know you droids don’t often get a lot of praise for what you do, but I for one am grateful for your heroism.”
“Why…thank you, Major. I’m touched. I’m sure Arfour will be, too.”
“How’ve you and Arfour been doing?”
“Mostly fine, Major, thank you for asking. And how about you? And Mistress Namyr?”
“Commander Namyr now heads up some new intel department in the New Republic Intelligence Service, something to do with working on making sure the Hutts don’t take this opportunity to expand outside of Hutt Space and take portions of the Outer Rim for themselves. She’s still working for Fera, who is now the Deputy Director of Operations for Outer Rim Operations.”
“Many changes in the galaxy right now, sir.”
“Yes. Many changes. So don’t worry, there’s plenty of work for you and Arfour to do. We could really use you guys. You know, I did hear General bel-Iblis talking about creating a specialized Droid Unit, using any Type-2, -3, and -4 droids that haven’t had their minds wiped, especially those with counterparts. He’d like them to investigate what’s going on with the Imperial Remnant in the Unknown Regions.” Kevv shrugged. “You and Arfour have been together long enough to have counterpart shorthand, and you’ve proven yourselves above and beyond. I could put in a good word.”
“I would appreciate that, Major. And…I hate to ask it, but I’m afraid I just have to know. Our friend, who we left back on Ossus.” The droid lowered his voice, and was clearly refraining from using the name Ageless Void in case others were listening. “Am I to assume you truly never discovered his fate? Is it possible he’s still on Ossus?”
Kevv hesitated a moment, and perhaps the droid’s programming allowed it to detect lies. Protocol droids did have special programming for just that sort of thing. But Kevv decided to keep his promise to Ageless. The last time they’d spoken had been over comms, just after maneuvering their way together through that treacherous starpath away from Ossus. They had docked briefly. Ageless kept the red-headed female Human sedated, put binders on her, and moved aboard the Dathomirian Curse. He took command of his badly damaged ship, and allowed Kevv and Namyr to have the much safer Star Yacht. When they asked where he was going next, he gave no answer, and Kevv got the idea they wouldn’t see him for a long, long time, maybe ever.
Ageless had a large bacta patch over the stump of his wrist, and looked positively exhausted, yet at the same time resolute about something. He’d shaken hands with Namyr, who said, “I’m glad to have worked with you, even if you did it for your own reasons.”
“My reasons were as good as yours.”
“I guess it’s like you said, we all have our own rebellions. And rebellions take many different forms.”
Ageless nodded.
Kevv had stepped up and shaken his hand, as well. “I don’t think I ever figured you out, Ageless. Probably never will. You’re a strange one, my friend. But I’m glad we met you. I…I don’t know if I believe in the Force, but if there’s something out there that led me to you on that freezing wasteland on Hoth, I reckon I ought to be thankful. We couldn’t have done all this without you.”
“Me, neither. Stay sharp, stick jockey. I won’t be there to save your tail next time.”
Kevv smirked.
“One last thing. I need both of you to make me a promise.”
“Name it,” said Namyr.
“Don’t tell anyone I made it out of there.”
Kevv looked at Namyr, then back at the Zabrak. “But…Ageless, why?”
“Nobody knew who or what I was while the Empire lived, they basically erased me and my past when I entered service. Why should anyone have to know now? What purpose would it serve?”
“What about your family? Surely you have family somewhere. What about the future of the New Republic, or whatever they’re going to call it? What about the droids?”
“The New Republic was never where my destiny lay. That’s your dream, your success, not mine. I just happened to join you for a bit of the ride. As for the droids…when I need them, I’ll find them. Until then, make sure they’re kept safe. Make sure they go without a memory wipe. I may need them soon. Also…make sure they’re amply rewarded. They earned it. They’re as much heroes to the Rebellion as anybody else.”
Namyr sighed. “If that’s what you want, Ageless…”
“It is.”
Kevv shrugged. “I guess I can do that much for you. No one will know you’re alive. We’ll tell everyone in Rebel intelligence that you vanished on Ossus. It’s close enough to the truth, you very nearly did. And the man I met on Hoth, that Ageless Void…well, he seems to have died. The person standing in front of me is someone else. But what about the Human woman you have? What are you going to do with her?”
Ageless glanced back at the unconscious prisoner, lying on his deck. “She knows things. Things that perhaps no one else alive may know. I’m going to interrogate her, then…I don’t know. Probably give her a mind-wipe cocktail, leave her on some backwater world, hopefully she won’t remember the last few weeks of her life.”
“If she gives you any actionable intel,” said Namyr, “will you at least share it with us?”
“You mean with your New Republic?” Ageless shrugged. “I’ll share it with you two, not with the New Republic. And only if I have need of your services.”
Kevv smirked, and looked at Namyr. It was about the answer they’d expected. Perhaps they weren’t exactly friends. Professionals? Colleagues? Colleagues could sometimes be more powerfully joined than friends, he knew.
Then, Namyr had said, “Stay safe out there, Ageless Void. And watch your six.”
“Always.”
That had been the last they’d seen of him, they’d sailed away in the Star Yacht, watching through its cockpit as the badly damaged YT-2400 flew away from, made a course out-system, and then blasted into hyperspace.
“Major?” said Threepio presently. “Major, did you hear what I said? Did you find our friend on Ossus?”
“I don’t know where is, Threepio,” Kevv said honestly, leaving it at that, and hoping that it would be enough to evade the droid’s deception-detectors.
“A pity. He was reliable, even honorable at times. There were moments where he didn’t have to save Arfour or myself, and yet he did so. And he relied on us. He believed in us. In a strange way, his exemplar made us believe even more in what we were doing in fighting against the Empire. He was stalwart, lonesome but not lonely, and with a clear vision of the kind of person he wanted to be. A sort of warrior on a pilgrimage, like in the old poems.”
Kevv nodded. “Yes. I think I like that imagery, Threepio. A warrior on a pilgrimage.” For a moment he could almost see Ageless out there somewhere, moving unseen amongst the uncountable stars, amongst the billions and trillions of other sapient life-forms, occasionally living in caves for months or years at a time if he must, contemplating time or the stars or whatever, honing his skills whenever he could, seeking enlightenment. A lone monk with drive, hope, and ambition to elevate himself.
He decided he would keep that image of Ageless locked forever in his mind, whether he saw the fellow again or not. That’s how he would like to remember the Imperial killer who seemed to have destroyed the rigid sculpture the Empire had molded him into, burned his past, and discovered a soul, or some semblance of one, at any rate.
Kevv clapped R-3PO on the shoulder and said, “Come on, let’s get you to an oil bath or something, and I’ll sit with you and have a drink, and we can discuss you guys’ future with the New Republic. Although,” he chuckled, sort of amazed he was even about to say this, “I must warn you, compared to what you’ve been used to, the next few years are bound to be very boring.”
* * *
MUUNILINST
FAR BENEATH THE SURFACE
THREE YEARS LATER
Large metal doors screeched on old hinges as they were pried open. Two large droid arms came through, forcing the doors apart. Then, a locking mechanism fell into place—an enormous bar of durasteel, meant to keep out intruders, sliced off the NL-45 constructor droid’s limbs, sending out sparks. The doors were jammed, only partially open. Until a bright blue blade sliced the durasteel bar in half. A few more slices caused each end to fall to the ground in a smoking heap.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
The figured that entered the vault was hooded, his lower face covered by black cloth, a pair of vision-enhancing goggles over his eyes. His gray armored robes barely made a sound as he moved. The lightsaber switched off, and the figure stepped into the vault, slowly, cautiously. For a long time, there was nothing but silence, and the sound of sparks from the constructor droid’s limbs.
Suddenly, an assassin droid shot out from a wall on the right, a heavy blaster in each hand, and came directly at the hooded figured. “You are not the Account-holder! You are not permitted here without permission of the Account-holder! You will leave these premises immediately! You have five seconds to comply—”
“Override: alpha, stupendous, kyber, galvanize, galvanize, galvanize, systemic, perishable. Lock!”
The assassin droid lowered the two blasters, and its shoulders quickly sagged. “Emergency override recognized. Standing down.”
From the palm of his cybernetic left hand, Ageless Void summoned up a large, flickering, brilliant green flame, illuminating the vault around him. He was witness to a strange sight, an enormous, tomb-like room with metal walls laced with soundproofing materials. No cortosis, though. Likely, there wasn’t enough of that material to be found, and these vaults were originally designed by the InterGalactic Banking Clan, who likely hadn’t thought their customers would have need to hide their valuables from lightsaber-wielding enemies.
He stood there a moment, basking in the completion of a years-long campaign. It had taken him years to come this far. Years of planning. Years of
He walked forward, his gray robe lightly swishing in the silence. Ahead of him were stacks of crates that went to the ceiling, some made of wood, others made of durasteel. It all seemed neatly stored, along with rows upon rows of shelves, with books behind blaster-proof glass, and with what appeared to be temperature-controlled containers.
He looked over at the assassin droid. “You. What is your designation?”
“IG-66,” it replied promptly. “The master refers to me as the Curator.”
“The override I’ve given you grants me permission to act as proxy to your master, isn’t that correct?”
“Affirmative.”
“And your master is Darth Sidious,” Ageless said, recalling the name Yoda had given him.
“Yes,” said the Curator.
“What did Darth Sidious have you doing here?”
“As my cognomen suggests, I am to curate his collection, catalog the items, and protect them.”
“To what end?”
“So that the items here in this great vault are ready for him to return to, for him to continue his studies and seek further truths.”
Ageless nodded, and played the green light of his stoic flame about the crates. They went deep, far deeper than his light could currently reach. This place appeared to be immense. It was by far the most difficult of all the Legacy Accounts he’d had to find, for the IGBC had been paid dearly ages ago to keep this particular vault well hidden. As far as Ageless had been able to find out in his years of research, infiltration, slicing, and bribing, there were only two people in the IGBC, at any given time, who knew of any single Legacy Account’s existence or location, and only one of those two would know the true name of the Account-holder.
It had taken a long time to get here. A close call on Ord Mantell had nearly ended him, when three agents of the IGBC had come after him, seemingly certain that he was the one who had paid the slicer known as “Ghent” to slice into their mainframe. Ghent was a slicer who worked for Talon Karrde. Karrde, the newest and most powerful information broker in the galaxy, and a powerful new smuggler picking up some of Jabba’s old business contacts, had loaned Ghent’s services to Ageless, in exchange for his help in figuring out the mysteries of Myrkr, and why no Jedi had ever gone there, at least none that were recorded.
Ageless had sold his services to Karrde and then disappeared after he had what he wanted from Ghent.
And then there had been the stakeouts, watching security droids being swapped out from the Legacy Account vaults, their memories wiped daily so that even the droids didn’t know what they’d been guarding all day. He’d had to infiltrate the droid repair shop that did the mind-wiping, had to use the “mind trick” he’d learned from one of the study books he’d taken from Mara Jade’s Star Yacht years ago.
After mind-tricking the droid mechanic on Muunilinst to extract the droid’s memories of which vaults could be accessed from which subterranean turbolift, Ageless had gone about a process of elimination. He’d also taken one of the droid mechanic’s constructor bots to help him get through doors and traps, of which there had been many.
And now, here he stood, in the vault of the last Sith.
“Tell me, how old is all this stuff?”
“It varies,” the Curator said, his voice filled with all the gravitas of an expert historian. “The last item to be added to these vaults was uncovered on Gamorr, five years ago, seven months, one week, three days, and sixteen hours ago. That artifact Lord Sidious believed was once the crown worn Exar Kun, and carbon-dating suggests it is a little over four thousand years old. Not long before this crown was uncovered, Lord Sidious’s archaeological teams also unearthed a stone tablet engraved with Exar Kun’s Treatise on Saber Combat.”
“Who was Exar Kun?”
“A Jedi Knight, gifted in lightsaber combat, said to be the best that ever lived. He drifted to the path of the Dark Side, assumed the mantle of Dark Lord of the Sith, and waged war against both Jedi and the Republic during the Old Sith Wars.” The droid tilted its head. “But I am only permitted to know so much about these texts and artifacts, just enough to prioritize and catalog them. If you wish to know more, you will have to see Lord Sidious’s notes.”
Ageless turned to the Curator. “Notes?”
The Curator stood to one side, and gestured to a computer terminal that it had been blocking. “The sole repository of Lord Sidious’s inquiries, thoughts, experiments, research, and ruminations.”
With the flick of his hand, Ageless tossed the stoic flame into the air so that it followed him like a drone, a trick he’d worked on over the years. He stood over the computer terminal and it activated at his presence. The main screen asked for a password. Ageless looked at the Curator.
The droid said. “I’m afraid Lord Sidious never trusted me with his passwords. If he did not pass it on to you, I’m afraid you’ll have to retrieve it from him.”
“As it so happens, I have the password. I just wanted to test you.” Mara Jade had indeed told Ageless there might be a terminal still down here—during her drug-induced interrogation, she had confessed that she’d been taken by Palpatine, unconscious and blindfolded, to a vault he claimed to have never shown anyone, not even Vader. And while it was strange he’d trusted her to see it, he hadn’t been so foolish as to let her know its location. But she was privileged enough to see some of these artifacts, and entrusted with memorizing the password. When she asked the Emperor why, he’d supposedly told her, “I have recently received a disturbing vision, one that leads me to think I may have been a bit too shortsighted. I may someday have need of a new apprentice to help me correct that.”
For someone like Palpatine to admit shortsightedness, it must’ve taken a major “vision” to shake him.
Ageless now believed it to be the Faith-index. It had planted just the seed of doubt in Darth Sidious’s mind, making him worry that his great works might collapse if he didn’t secure their legacy.
Jade had given up the password, after much resistance, and he now hoped she had not been somehow able to lie in her cloudy state. Ageless punched in the code, and gave a sigh of relief when the screen immediately flashed to a menu. He began scrolling, half keeping his eye on the Curator. He found the Emperor’s journal, scrolled through it, performed word searches for names such as Vader and Plagueis and Skywalker. Thousands of entries came up, and the dates in some of these entries went back decades.
Ageless found the very first mention of Anakin Skywalker. It was when Palpatine had returned to Naboo after ascending to Chancellor. It was during the parade ceremony on Naboo, in the streets of Theed, where Palpatine had attended the Naboo and Gungan armies had successfully defeated the Trade Federation:
Did he do it? wrote Palpatine. Did Plagueis actually manage to do it? I’ve heard the Jedi saying this Skywalker boy is a Force nexus, a vergence. But how? How is this possible, without me foreseeing it? Is it possible my dead master somehow managed to succeed influencing the midi-chlorians to create this boy? Or some other? I am plagued by such thoughts. I understand Skywalker has been inducted into the Jedi Order, which I had understood Master Yoda was against. I will watch the boy’s career with great interest.
Ageless winced at that. Vergence? Plagueis creating Anakin Skywalker? What’s this?
He now did a search for the word vergence, and hundreds of entries came up, some of them with numbers just beside them.
“What are these numbers here?” he asked.
The Curator glanced at the screen. “Oh, those are catalog numbers.”
“In reference to?”
“Various artifacts or texts, from which Lord Sidious derived his conclusions.”
“All these artifacts are here? Nowhere else?”
“No, sir. Nowhere else. This is the sole repository, and none know of its location, save you, the Master, a single IGBC representative, and myself.”
He didn’t mention Jade. Did Palpatine wipe her from the droid’s memory for some reason? “How many different items—artifacts or whatever—are in this place?”
“There are exactly four hundred ninety-three thousand, six hundred and twenty-seven individual items with catalog numbers.”
Stars. That’s almost half a million different artifacts and texts. How in the blazes did he go through all of them, study them with any time to absorb it all? Then it hit him. He didn’t. His previous masters did, and they accumulated the knowledge to pass on to the next apprentice, leaving catalog numbers for reference for study. If a Sith Lord died before he could fully train up his apprentice, that apprentice could then start from the beginning, create the cycle of Sith all over again.
“What was the first artifact put here?” Ageless asked.
“Fragments from the Thought Bomb.”
“The what?”
“An event brought forth by an ancient Sith ritual, sometimes called the Ritual of Nathema. It could release such power as to annihilate not only the minds of entities, but also the spirits of Force-users. It was placed there by Darth Bane, alongside the holocron of Darth Revan, which taught Bane how to create the ritual.”
Ageless’s mind was racing to catch up. “Bane?”
“Yes.”
“Who is that?”
“Darth Bane: Human male. Homeworld: Apatros. Lived approximately one thousand years ago. He was also believed to be the Sith’ari, a being foretold in prophecy, who would lead and then destroy the Sith, reordering the survivors into a smaller, more powerful, and more lethal order. Darth Bane is the first of Lord Sidious’s lineage, and the creator of the Rule of Two.”
The hairs on Ageless’s arms stood on end. “The Rule of Two?”
“Yes. Two by two, they would exist, down through the centuries. Two Sith. One master, one apprentice. One to embody the power, and one to crave it.”
Gods below, Ether and I were right. That’s exactly how Palpatine’s conspiracy was played out. “What happened to him?”
“Killed by his apprentice, Darth Zannah, as he had planned.”
“As he planned?”
“Yes. The one who craves power must someday become strong enough to kill their predecessor, and then must raise up an apprentice to become even stronger than them, and so on, until they could become unbeatable in all manner of combat, strategy, and Force abilities. If you want more information, you’ll have to do more research, for that is the extent that I know of Darth Bane.”
Chills went up and down his spine. This was far deeper, and far more terrifying, than he’d ever imagined. A perverted game of survival of the fittest, monstrously honed, had been carried out across the galaxy for a thousand years?
They weren’t just biding their time, waiting for the right moment to strike back against the Jedi. Stars, they were improving one another by fighting and dying to one another’s blade, becoming more ferocious in lightsaber combat, while the Jedi only had friendly sparring matches against each other. The Sith were accruing new insights to the Force while the Jedi grew stagnant, unaccustomed to political games or subterfuge, unused to having their Force powers tested.
Ageless thought about what Ether had said concerning the tale of Darth Plagueis the Wise, and how he’d teased Anakin Skywalker with thoughts of everlasting life. “Do you have entries on Sidious’s latest works? What was he working on most recently?”
“Manipulation of midi-chlorians, and the prospect of reversing telomeric decay.”
Ageless tilted his head quizzically. “Anti-aging research?”
“Yes, in a sense. Though, he has been working on that for years, with what I believe had been to little or no avail.”
“What was preventing him from progressing?”
“It has always been unclear to me, I’m afraid, sir. Again, you would have to wade through his journals.”
Ageless chewed on that. Paced a few minutes, looking at the terminal, looking around at the stacks and stacks of crates, rows upon rows of stored knowledge that not even the Jedi had had access to. Because he was hoarding it all. They were all hoarding it. Two Sith at a time, hoarding all this, keeping it from the Jedi, while studying it in secret…
On a hunch, Ageless walked back over to the terminal and looked at the final entry Palpatine ever entered into his journal. What he found was a treatise of sorts, some kind of mental exercise that occasionally went into too much navel-gazing for Ageless’s taste, but then always returned with a dark undercurrent of the man’s paranoia over something. Mentions of “a break in the Force” and “what I’ve heard from the Dark Voice of late” and “it has long taunted me that He is not dead.”
Wait, who’s not dead?
Ageless scrolled down further, reading line by line. Then, he froze on a single entry, where Palpatine seemed to write bluntly about something Ageless knew a little something about: the Faith-index.
The index was delivered to me after all the corrections I suggested to the formula, and I have added my own calculations, as guided by the Dark Side, to extract greater meaning from it. What concerns me now is that the index seems to be alluding to a “rogue figure” that may appear, an agent of “indeterminate direction” that may tilt things away from Imperial favor—
A rogue figure, he thought. In mathematics, he knew, there was always this possibility: the entrance of an element that previously had no significance, but who significance now appears out of sync, enormous, and blindsides you. Ageless scrolled down further, reading intently.
—but the formula also suggests that this “rogue figure” is imprinted with powers from the past, drawing from fundamental misalignments from previous generations. The machine which produces the index’s final conclusions has confused words for this prediction, but I have meditated on them, and I sense a power I haven’t felt since…Him.
Could he indeed be alive? Did he manage to live, the way Darth Zannah believed that her master Darth Bane may have discovered a way to imprint his spirit onto hers, so that he might live forever through her? Are there not many ways to cheat death?
So, did my master also find a way to persevere, even after death? Is He still here, or out there somewhere, still lurking? Has this been his plan all along, to allow me to do the hard part of creating an Empire for him, crafting a throne for him to sit on?
I find it unlikely. And yet the thought still plagues me. Plagueis was obsessed with eternal life, and so he may very well have created Anakin Skywalker from nothing, with the intentions of transferring his consciousness into this Human. If so, I obviously terminated his research before he got the chance to conclude it.
But, mightn’t it also be true that he found some other clever way to live on, some way that I cannot see? My meditations have drawn my attention to these reports of a cult on a distant world in the Unknown Regions, a cult that is said to worship the spirit of a dead Sith, and whose leader can perform miracles. The Dark Voice taunts me, telling me I should investigate. Is any of this possible? Do I dare waste any energy on this, or is it only paranoia?
I must decide soon, for I cannot afford to have my attention divided between this endeavor and that of destroying the Rebellion. Daily, I strain to maintain my battle meditation exercises, to keep Imperial forces cohesive. I cannot have my mind or intentions divided like this—
Ageless stepped away from the terminal. Plagueis…made Skywalker? And Darth Bane maintained his existence after death, through his apprentice who killed him, by grafting his spirit onto hers?
Ageless started clicking around at other entries at random. He pulled up notes on combat styles, Sith rituals, how to pull or push distant objects using the Force, a treatise on someone named Darth Tenebrous, and the art of something called tutaminis, which was apparently a Dark Side ability for energy absorption and casting out “electrical power” from one’s own fingertips.
It’s all here. So much power and knowledge, here for the taking. For anyone with the patience to learn from it—
“Sir, are you all right?” the Curator cut in to his thoughts.
He nodded vacantly. Darth Plagueis…still alive somehow? Somewhere? And with a cult worshipping him in the Unknown Regions?
He did a quick word search for the Unknown Regions, and found the name of the planet Palpatine had written about, and its coordinates. Then he looked around at the rows upon rows of shelves. He walked over to one, peered through the glass at a stone tablet. “Tell me, Curator, in your catalogs, do you have this inventory divvied up into sections?”
“Sections, sir?”
“Do you separate them based on topics?”
“Yes, of course, sir. It would be very chaotic if I didn’t.”
“Do you have a section on immortality?”
“Prolonging biological processes—reversing organ decay—advanced healing to prevent traumatic death—clone organ replacement as a possible means to prolong life indefinitely—Catalog entry 9835.7, 47.99, and 112398.771 through 112467.335. Those should all fit your category parameters. The artifacts and texts associated with each of them are near the back, in Zone Blue, subdivided into sections which were the bulk of Darth Plagueis’s work.”
Ageless nodded. “Did you know them? The other Sith? Are you also an ‘artifact’ that they passed down?”
“Starting with Lord Plagueis’s master, Lord Tenebrous, yes. I would say I know this place better than my lords ever could. I suppose you could say this place is my home.”
Ageless flicked his artificial hand, creating another stoic flame and sending it off floating in front of him. “Then, by all means, lead the way.”
“Of course. But, sir, I must warn you, some of these texts are very ancient, even I cannot read them. I am a curator, not a researcher. I organize and protect and keep them clean. The ancient scripts would puzzle even the most advanced protocol droid, I’m afraid. You would need Lord Sidious himself to translate, as his masters translated to him. That, or you would need someone who was actually alive during that time,” the Curator said, rather sarcastically.
Ageless smiled. He reached into the pouch hanging from his side. “Funny you should say that,” he said. And at that moment, the holographic forms of two long-dead entities—a female Jedi, and a male Sith—materialized in front of them. For these last few years, Ageless had been learning from the mind-mapped entities inside the Dark Holocron. Indeed, their alchemy studies had helped him create elixirs that increased the power of his stoic flame, enhanced his senses, and expanded his mind to realms of the Force he’d never dreamt possible. “I brought along some friends who might’ve been there when some of these texts were written.”
“The Dark Holocron!” the Curator exclaimed, in a tone far more joyous than one would expect from an assassin droid. “That is, if I am not mistaken, what you hold in your hand! Lord Sidious has been searaching for it for ages, he will be delighted that you actually brought it to him.”
“I’m sure he will. But until he shows up, what’s say you, me, and my holographic friends here create a little research team?”
“How very exciting, sir. Oh, yes, how very, very exciting.”
“After you.” Ageless let the droid walk ahead. He looked at the two holograms—the recorded mind-prints of a dead Jedi and a dead Sith, two people who fell in love over their shared obsession with alchemy and its applications in the Force. He’d spent the last few years getting to know them, listening to their lectures while he parked the Dathomirian Curse in the emptiest parts of the space, training in the Force, in magick, in his ever-evolving combative forms.
Ageless had given Ether’s double-bladed lightsaber and Jade’s single-blade to TRD-5, and together, he and the training droid had begun developing a more honed combative system for fighting other lightsaber-users. He’d combined his ancestral Dathomiri power with Force powers derived from both the Light and the Dark Side…
And now he wished to go further with his studies. Indeed, he wished to go further than any others had before. Where he was bound, not the ancient Sith, not the Jedi, not even the Sith’ari had gone, nor those who followed Bane’s Rule of Two.
Not even Palpatine himself.
There was a power out there that exceeded all others’ comprehension, and now, more than ever, Ageless Void felt that he alone had the power, resources, opportunity, and dedication to cultivate that power, and achieve what others could only dream. The answer might lay in the Unknown Regions, or it could very well lay here in this vault, or in the Dark Voice, whoever or whatever it was. Or it might be that they each were a piece of a larger puzzle.
A Galactic Empire had risen and fallen all around him, and for most of his life he’d been a part of it. Now that it was in dust, and the assassin he’d once been was no more, all he had a mind for now was self-improvement. He would study what was here. He would take his time, using the Curator to guide him through history, he would bring in other droids to digitize as much of these items as he could, so that he could load digital forms of each text and artifact onto the Dathomirian Curse, so he could study them on the go.
And he would take this knowledge with him into the Unknown Regions, to see if a cult leader could really perform miracles.
TO BE CONTINUED...