The Force of Magic [Star Wars SI]

[lord trilobite]

Boroda Orka, I really appreciate you doing such a great job translating. A lot of translated stuff is borderline unreadable but with this you can't even tell.

 

[readsalot]

Let's make one last round and head back to the Academy. Force forbid someone's gone and put the Dead Man to rest again…

Click to shrink...

TBH he probably is dead….again, at this point I'm thinking he likes it….. eh Wizards gotta have some quirks I guess

 

[Boroda Orka]

"Oh-ho-ho-hooo!" the portly man sitting across from me chuckled happily. "Master Dziha! Anything you want! Honestly! Do whatever you please on this damned planet! Even if you start taking the 'local attractions' apart stone by stone"—the face of the head of the Commerce Guild branch on Korriban twisted into a grimace of disgust—"I swear, every last one of us will pretend we never noticed a thing. In fact, it's always been that way!"

"Thank you, esteemed Macron," I said with a nod, keeping an impassively dignified expression on my face. My welcoming smile upon landing on Korriban had triggered a minor firefight which, only thanks to sheer luck and the composure of this short, rather amusing-looking man, had failed to turn into a genuine bloodbath. "Naturally, I have no need for such extremes, but I do intend to visit the 'local attractions' in the near future. I've heard and read quite a lot about the tombs of the ancient Sith, so I'm extremely curious."

"Anything! You! Want!" the man declared with deliberate solemnity, drawing in a deep breath and exhaling with obvious pleasure, as though savoring the very "taste" of the air. "But I do want to warn you again that it's extremely dangerous out there. Of the ten expeditions we sent into the tombs, eight disappeared completely, one came back only partially, and everyone in the one that returned intact went insane."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said with a thoughtful nod, inwardly rubbing my hands together and narrowing my eyes in bliss.

The planet looked extremely promising. And news of losses that severe… It wasn't that I was exactly happy about them, but something like that practically guaranteed the tombs hadn't been picked clean and that there was still something interesting left inside!

"And now," Kronus Macron said with a conspiratorial wink, "how about a little banquet? I guarantee you'll enjoy it! The cooks have gone all out for our dear guests and saviors!"

"Saviors, are we?" I said, feigning embarrassment while snorting inwardly.

"Benefactors!" the man laughed. "And don't even argue! I'm thinking of naming my son after you!"

"Uh…" This time I really was a little embarrassed. "I don't think that's a good idea. The Jedi couldn't handle another Siith."

The head of the Korriban branch burst out laughing again, flashing a genuinely warm, white-toothed smile.

---

"Phew, Boss. The locals creep me out." Romri thoughtfully sipped caf from her mug. "And I honestly can't decide which version scares me more: when they're gloomy and hostile, or when they're freakishly friendly."

Instead of the single day we had planned to spend at the Commerce Guild headquarters on Korriban's surface, we ended up staying there for four. A profitable little side job came up, then there was a genuinely decent banquet, after which several members of the crew had to be treated for hangovers… Only today had we finally managed to break free, so to speak.

Right now, we were sitting in the Rung's common room. The ship had landed at a suitable spot not far from the Moraband necropolis. There were landing pads large enough for us right by the tombs, but we had decided not to take unnecessary risks. Only three of us would be going to the burial complex itself: me, Arvik, and Karr. The others would stay behind aboard the ship, safely protected from whatever nasty surprises might be lurking out there. Mlada had complained, of course, but at least one Mando had to remain on the Rung.

"First, make someone feel absolutely miserable, then put everything back the way it was. That's it—you're their best friend." Arvik drummed his fingers against the helmet sitting on the table in front of him. "Can't really blame them for either the welcome we got or the way they started treating us after Boss fixed their problem. The locals damn near had a collective breakdown when Korriban finally stopped pressing down on their minds."

"Yeah," Mlada said with a shudder. "Being outside the Rung is genuinely creepy. You don't notice it at first, but after a couple of hours you start feeling like something's watching you. Not in a friendly way, either—more like a threat. Even the air starts to feel… heavy, I guess. Like it tastes wrong."

"An extremely high concentration of negatively aspected mana," I said. I'd explained this already, but the "atmosphere of Korriban" was a popular topic among the crew right now. "So high that people in poor health waste away and can even die, while sentients with low mental resilience and weak willpower go insane. Paranoia, obsessive thoughts, sociopathy… And those who already weren't entirely right in the head can go completely off the rails."

"Boss-sa, you mean that case where the security guy chopped up a couple dozen Guild workers?" the Gungan asked.

"That one. Macron mentioned the guy wasn't exactly a psychopath, but he'd been through a nasty mess on the Smuggler's Moon. Sending him here 'to rest' was a pretty reckless decision. Bureaucrats are bureaucrats everywhere. Still, I think the Commerce Guild will be a lot more careful about mistakes like that from now on. And they'll probably be more than happy to sign contracts with a couple of our malefics and necromancers. While we're at it, we might even scout out some land for an Academy branch—and perhaps buy it outright while Macron is still running things here."

"You didn't even charge them!" the Togruta burst out. Apparently, the mention of contracts and buying land had struck a nerve somewhere deep in her soul—the nerve labeled lost profit.

"You really shouldn't be so greedy, my little aurodium girl," I told her with an affectionate smile, while Mlada giggled merrily. "I've already wrung free deliveries of filled negative-energy reservoirs out of the Guild, and on top of that I got complete carte blanche to do whatever I want around the tombs. A man has to have some conscience."

"Conscience is something you listen to, not something you have," Karr guffawed, though he quickly deflated under Arvik's reproachful stare.

"Jokes that are tens of thousands of years old," Mlada sighed. "Brother, your sense of humor isn't just ancient. It's mummified."

"Force ghost of Sense of Humor, though," the Gungan agreed with a solemn nod. "Karr found it in ancient tomb of bit-bit shitty joker."

"For decades, our Mando studied the ancient wisdom of millennia-old recycled jokes, until his dead Teacher finally decided he was Ready!" Romri picked up the story.

"And so the ancient Evil broke loose upon the Galaxy," I joined in, unable to resist.

"And only the Great Mlada Vast stands between her brother and the Republic being plunged into the nightmare depths of shitty humor," our warrior declared smugly, lifting her chin.

"Oh, fuck all of you," the target of our attack said with feigned offense, making a moderately obscene gesture at everyone in the common room. "Nobody loves me except Talli!" The guy winked at the faintly smiling Dathomiri.

"In the Nightsister clan, witches are taught to ignore stale jokes." V'arna's faint smile turned into a mocking grin as she figuratively stabbed the Mandalorian in the back. The guy had been strutting around her like a peacock for days now, but the witch seemed completely uninterested in him. "By the way, Teacher, what did you do to block the Dark Side's influence on the Guild personnel?"

"An absorption barrier. The simplest kind of ritual-artifact complex, built on mana-conversion principles and powered by this world's natural background energy." I broke into a blissful smile. Sometimes it was nice to simply switch my brain off and work on something primitive. "Twenty ritual circles, each five meters across, absorb negative mana around the perimeter of the Guild complex and fill simple—and therefore rather bulky—quartz reservoirs. Then the inner conversion circle takes over, purifying the output from the reservoirs and sending already-neutral mana into basic artifacts built beneath the ritual-circle platforms. Those, in turn, generate a spherical barrier over the entire Commerce Guild complex, repelling negative energy and filling the space inside with neutral mana. That's it."

"Simple," Romri snorted indignantly. "Don't believe Boss, Talli. There's nothing simple about it. I've been making amulets and charms for sale for years, and I still couldn't make sense of whatever our Chief Sorcerer cooked up there."

"That's because you neglected rituals, my little aurodium girl," I said with a cheerful wink at the Togruta, who pulled a displeased face. "I told you a dozen times that was a mistake. All magic began with rituals. They are a divine gift bestowed by the First Mentor herself—the point where it all started."

"Might as well be speaking Ancient Huttese," Mlada muttered.

"Can't understand a thing, though," Koit agreed.

"Will you teach me?" the witch asked, fidgeting as she put on an utterly pitiful expression and fixed me with an adoring stare. Oh, she was laying it on thick. Really laying it on. Still, pleasant enough. I was extremely fond of her hunger for knowledge. Sometimes the witch reminded me of a dog in a butcher's shop: she wanted to devour everything in sight and was deeply distressed by the fact that both her stomach and her mouth had limited capacity.

"I will," I agreed, winking at the girl as she smiled in satisfaction. "Once you've mastered the basics, we'll move on to the simplest rituals."

"A moment of silence for our little witch's brain." Romri raised her mug of caf with a mournful expression. "I tapped out while calculating the 'most basic' dependency patterns for the positions of celestial bodies."

"You're just not interested," I said, shaking my head. "You learned how to crank out amulets and charms, the credits started rolling in, and now you don't care about anything except those and piloting."

"Not anything. Far from it," Mlada giggled mysteriously, earning a raised fist from Romri. "All right, all right, I'm shutting up…"

"Did I miss something?" I asked, looking from the Togruta to the Mandalorian in surprise.

"Don't mind her, Boss." Romri waved a hand dismissively. The usual reddish-orange tone of her face had deepened slightly. "She's just talking nonsense…"

For some reason, Talli let out a long sigh, looking at the Togruta with something almost like sympathy.

---

"Tum-tum-tum, tum-tudum-tum-tudum…" Lately, humming the solemn, ominous tune I'd so often heard from Ir'rina had become something of a habit.

And now, as I stood there wondering whether to activate the spell and unlock the secret door or leave the tomb first, I couldn't help myself.

"Nah. Who knows what might crawl out of there?" I made up my mind and trudged toward the exit, ignoring the ancient gifted one's insistent, indignant muttering. Like I was going to let some dark ghost that looked like a solidified humanoid fart tell me what to do.

"Do you even know…" The undead seemed to have started in on the same rant for the twentieth time already.

"Do you even know who you're dealing with, huh?" I cut the ridiculous thing off. "Seriously! All I ever hear from you are the same tired threats and boring promises. Maybe your creator really was a powerful gifted, but she clearly half-assed it when she made you!"

"I am my own creator!!!" the ghost shrieked.

I just spat to the side in irritation.

Noisy undead, but an unusual one. It could use the Force, too. Not on the same level as a living gifted, but it might have been enough to deal with some Padawan. Mostly, though, this flying bedsheet kept trying to scare the hell out of me with psychic pressure and Jedi mind tricks. Intelligent undead were traditionally good at laying on the horror, while suggestion was, so to speak, a "native" ability of the gifted in this universe. But I'd eaten more than one ghoul in my time, and I was hardly a novice either in necromancy or in defending myself against mind-probers—people I wouldn't say I hated, exactly, but whose company I certainly never enjoyed.

"Oh, don't bullshit me." I waved a hand dismissively while catching the chunk of stone flying at my head with an aura tendril. "You're just an ordinary projection of a Life Shadow. There isn't a soul in you at all. You fly around, howl, frighten people, tempt them. I'd bet good money that somewhere deep inside your cozy little 'home' there's something like a phylactery containing a crude imprint of the personality that projects you outward. Primitive, but effective."

"I'll kill youuuuu!!!" the monstrosity howled, but I was already ignoring it.

An exceptionally persistent creature. I couldn't even discorporate it properly. Or rather, I couldn't make it stay discorporated. After being dispersed, this fart of a dark cloud—sometimes looking more like a torn rag—needed only a couple dozen seconds to come back.

Much easier to just ignore it.

At first, I tried to be polite, strike up a conversation, introduce myself like civilized sentients. But apparently this projection really had been slapped together with zero effort. First, as I said, it simply tried to crush me with Dark Side pressure, fear, and suggestion. Then it started hurling objects with telekinesis, zapped me once with something like lightning, and when none of that had any effect, it moved on to swearing at me, telling me to fuck off, and spouting nonsense about how I was supposedly "unsuitable."

How am I unsuitable? I'm the perfect candidate to be entrusted with every last secret!

The ghost let out yet another furious, offended hiss when I chuckled in anticipation. This tomb, like several others, radiated more than just Korriban's general Darkness; it had its own distinct "personal" emanations.

And what did that mean?

It meant there was something here.

At the very least, the undead interested me. I knew how to create similar guardian phantoms myself, but I was just as curious about the principles behind creating this sort of sentry within a Force-based tradition.

I hoped these weren't those legendary ghosts of the Ancient Sith. Otherwise, I was going to be seriously disappointed.

Although… I'd already gotten plenty of pleasant things out of visiting this planet. Good relations with the local boss, for one, and regular shipments of filled reservoirs to Jabiim. Even with the conversion cycles, Korriban's background was simply too saturated with Darkness and Death; the quartz would wear out quickly. So instead of supplying ordinary consumables, I'd decided to make the storage crystals themselves the consumables.

Once a year, the locals would simply replace the crystals with fresh ones. I'd already unloaded the first two batches from the Rung's cargo hold, and twenty spent crystals—one from each ritual circle—would be shipped back to the JMG. We'd give them the next batch of new ones free of charge, then drain the negative energy from the used crystals into a proper high-quality reservoir.

There was no such thing as too much Darkness and Death, at least not on Jabiim. We had no necropolises, no cursed places, and I considered that a blessing. Ordinary cemeteries wouldn't produce this kind of "output" even in a hundred years.

So, basically, I'd arranged to export the Dark Side of the Force from Korriban.

Heh.

If only I could find something genuinely tasty in the tombs. A Sith holocron, for example… yeah…

Probably not in this particular burial site, though. The swearing phantom hovering nearby hardly lived up to the reputation of the "terrifying and nightmarish" ghosts of the Ancient Sith.

"On the other hand…" I actually stopped for a second just before leaving the tomb. "Maybe this sort of thing simply isn't scary to me, but would be plenty dangerous to the Jedi! After all, I'm carrying protections that not every fortress back on the Turtle could afford…"

"Listen, Xo-Kusan," I said, turning toward the "dirty rag" hanging in the air nearby, which had gone quiet when I started speaking. "What level of gifted could you actually pose a serious threat to, roughly speaking? If we measure it in Jedi terms. Padawan? Knight? Master?"

The Shadow froze. In every sense of the word. In midair, and otherwise. Just hung there in silence.

No matter. I'm a patient man. I could wait for the dead "brains" of a Life Shadow to catch up.

For about five seconds, we stared at each other. Then it started screaming at me again.

Hmm… maybe there really was a soul in there after all? Inside that same phylactery, perhaps? Because a mere projection shouldn't be capable of flying into a rage like this.

The screaming was so furious that I couldn't even make out individual words—the infernal overtones in the ghost's voice didn't help either. On top of that, I had the distinct impression that, given another moment, the phantom would start spraying ectoplasm like spittle from sheer fury.

"What a temper…" I shook my head disapprovingly, raising a force dome to protect myself from a hail of rocks. "Oh! Now that's something new…"

A Force construct of some incomprehensible design tried to close over me, but got stuck against the shield dome.

To my surprise… the damn thing started eating through the shield!

And quite vigorously, too.

Well, well…

I added a couple of conversion blocks to the weave, which had already begun losing stability, and changed the mana in the dome from neutral to light.

"Well, that's no fun at all," I said, almost offended, when the apparently vampiric structure burned away and the ghost, howling as if in pain, darted off into the depths of the tomb. Probably swallowed a mouthful of light mana and gave itself indigestion.

Still, the structure of that peculiar spell had been several times more complex than the Force Pushes demonstrated to me by our chimerologist trainees, Rig Nema and Stass Allie. I'd even say it looked more like magic than Jedi techniques. The only problem was, I hadn't understood the underlying principle at all.

"Could that be… actual Sith sorcery? Or alchemy? Well, the spell itself is nothing special, of course, but I'd really like to understand the principle behind it. Better not destroy this undead thing after all. I should swipe it instead… might come in handy."

---

Original Russian story

You can find more chapters on my Patreon.

The translation of new chapters will also be published here—but with a bit of a delay.

 

[readsalot]

I should swipe it instead… might come in handy."

Click to shrink...

Sith Force Ghost gets kidnapped XD
Hmm reminds me of a 40k/Star Wars crossover a chaos space marine Sorcerer escaped to Star Wars, then proceeds to trap Sith ghosts into their bones to get them to teach him their secrets.
I can see Siith doing the same XD
I can't wait to see the Jedis reaction to him dealing in "Evil Sith Teachings" and getting dark side infused rocks

 

[Vyraco]

Who needs treasure?! A real academic takes the guardian-beasts for vivisection and dismantled traps for later analysis! If you can get a ghost to extract knowledge from that's even better!

 

[FTR2017]

I have the nagging suspicion that Siith would get along splendidly with The Chaotic Good Barbarian going by how he reacted to the 'sheet-tier' ghost haunting that particular tomb.

Will he turn said ghost into a book from which he can read what it knows at his leisure? Perhaps bind it to a roomba with a speaker?

 

[Boroda Orka]

"Master?" Windu looked at the head of the Order with concern when he suddenly froze in the middle of their conversation.

"Something has happened," the little Jedi said uneasily. "Changes in the future, I sense."

"Changes… for the better?" Master Rancisis asked cautiously.

"Unknown to me, that is. But the fates of billions already living and yet unborn have changed their course," the green-skinned Jedi said, thoughtfully chewing his lip. "Some will never be born at all. Some will die, while others will not pass into the Force when they were meant to. What is coming… it will be… not as it was supposed to be. The shadow of the Dark Side still conceals the future, but these changes… too vast even for it, they are. And… and now there is something else there. Or someone else. To the Corps of Balance, I must go. Speak with the Stargazers."

The two Masters watched the head of the Order trot briskly away down the Temple corridor, his cane tapping against the floor tiles.

"Lately, I've been hearing far too often that something has changed," the Korun sighed.

"But that doesn't necessarily mean it's bad." The Thisspiasian shrugged, flicking his tail. "Quite the opposite, really. The changes I've been noticing have mostly been encouraging."

"Something new about your friend from Jabiim, Master?" Windu allowed himself a faint smile.

"No, no, unfortunately not." Rancisis shook his head. "Though I doubt anything will ever top that report about an army of Gungans riding rancors for sheer absurdity and entertainment value. I was thinking more about matters within the Order, albeit ones connected to Master Siith. For example, those amulets we've been buying from Jabiim…"

"At those not-so-modest 'friends' rates?" the dark-skinned Jedi snorted.

"Well, you have to admit, Master, everyone else gets even more outrageous prices. And I, for one, feel much better about the Jedi we send out on missions."

"There is that, though I still believe we shouldn't rely on artifacts. A Jedi should be capable of doing without them. I'm afraid some may grow overly complacent." Windu frowned. The use of protective amulets and charms purchased from the JMG had already come up before the Council, and the Korun had even managed to draw the others' attention to the problems that might arise in the future.

"Every coin has two sides," Oppo Rancisis sighed philosophically. "Risk teaches us caution, but I would still prefer it not to be excessive. The dead learn no lessons. Knight Fe Sun, Master Shaak Ti's former Padawan, survived her last mission thanks to a little trinket from that rainy world. Master Ti, by the way, is still upset that her teaching methods failed to prove themselves, and she too feels a certain gratitude toward Master Siith. According to her, if not for their meeting on Shili and the doubts her Padawan's questions about the sorcerer planted in her mind, even the Jabiim artifact might not have been enough to save the young Togruta.

"Besides, the sorcerers' wares aren't sold only to us. We've merely gained a temporary advantage. Sooner or later, the amulets will fall into the wrong hands, even if they don't get there directly from Jabiim. The charms are already turning up among criminals, and the Hutts, according to rumor, are actively buying up amulets even at obscenely inflated prices."

"Jabba outsmarted himself," Master Windu said, his smile widening this time.

"But he didn't get burned nearly as badly as our Greens," the Thisspiasian hissed with amusement. "The Hutts were merely shoved to the very back of the line. Corellia wasn't even allowed into it at all."

"Something Rendili, Kuat, and the others couldn't be happier about." The Korun nodded. "Though I still think Master Siith went a little too far with the Corellian shipbuilders. The greater share of the blame lies with the Green Jedi, after all."

"And you have no objections to their 'punishment'?" Master Rancisis raised his thick eyebrows. "To be perfectly honest, the 'offense' committed by our brothers from Corellia… hardly qualifies as an offense at all. In my view, the head of the JMG dug his heels in rather childishly. It feels… immature, I suppose."

"The Corellian Jedi." Windu let out a heavy sigh. "Their enclave has long displayed a certain degree of isolationism and disregard for the Council's decisions. So, in a sense, I'm even grateful to Dziha for giving them a sharp flick on their upturned noses."

"Hmm? Do I hear a touch of gloating in your words, Master?" Rancisis gave a surprised, hissing laugh.

"You're mistaken." The dark-skinned Jedi shook his head. "As far as I'm concerned, it was a lesson. If not for the arrogance and dismissiveness of some of our brothers from Corellia, none of this would have happened."

"But that arrogance did not come from the enclave's senior Jedi."

"Undoubtedly. But properly training one's Padawan is a teacher's responsibility. And if Padawans treat us with disregard, that isn't a very good sign for the Corellian enclave as a whole, you understand? Even before that incident, I'd noticed something of the sort more than once when speaking with the Greens, and I'd even discussed it with Master Yoda…" Windu didn't continue. Instead, he simply spread his hands as if to say, and this is where it led.

"Hmm… I still hope Master Siith changes his mind eventually."

"I'm certain he will," the Korun said with a faint smile. "As soon as he's fed his ego with enough apologies and wrung out compensation that satisfies him."

"Masters." Knight Kenobi's Padawan, passing by, respectfully inclined his head.

"Padawan Skywalker." Rancisis greeted him with a good-natured smile, while Windu gave a slight nod.

"Speaking of which, there goes another thing I'm pleased about," the Thisspiasian said, turning his attention back to the Korun once the boy had moved farther away.

"Knight Kenobi's Padawan?"

"That's the one, that's the one." Oppo Rancisis nodded in satisfaction. "Obi-Wan told me his Padawan has grown calmer. And there's something about him now… Let's put it this way: I can feel that the boy has come a little closer to the harmony with the Force—and with himself—that a Jedi needs. I don't think anyone would argue that the hem of our mutual acquaintance's robe is peeking out from behind all this."

"Yes, I won't argue with that." Windu shook his head thoughtfully, stroking his chin. "I opposed Knight Kenobi's decision, but Master Yoda was right: a teacher understands his student better. Skywalker really has become calmer since learning that his mother is safe. But I still believe Master Jinn's decision was a mistake. Chosen One or not… the boy was simply too old to be accepted into the Order."

"That's exactly why his upbringing should be different." The Thisspiasian waved one impressively clawed hand, inviting Windu to continue down the corridor. "Now I simply don't understand how we failed to arrive at such an obvious solution ourselves: buy the boy's mother out of slavery and give her a peaceful life on some quiet world… And even before that, think back, Master—not everyone who joined the Order was a child. You could find fully grown sentients among the Padawans as well."

"But we abandoned that practice…"

"Forgive me, Master Windu," Rancisis interrupted the Korun. "But let us not forget that a vast Shadow of the Dark Side now hangs over the future of both the Order and the galaxy, clouding the sight of even the strongest Jedi among us. Just imagine that Master Qui-Gon Jinn was right and the boy truly is the Force's Chosen One.

"Separatist sentiment across the galaxy is growing stronger. Even if the Sith are not behind it—which I doubt—I don't think the Dark Side will pass up the opportunity to exploit what is coming. And I very much doubt the Sith would have overlooked this child. That Zabrak proved there were dark gifted on Tatooine, and they could easily have taken notice of young Skywalker once Master Jinn showed an interest in him. Especially after the boy's feat on Naboo.

"Personally, I would rather none of our brothers or sisters ever have to face him in the future, trained by our enemies and armed with a red lightsaber."

---

"What a quarrelsome hag! No wonder she called herself Xo-Gnawn… or was it Xo-Kusan?" I muttered, mounting a proper defense against the guardian shadow.

By now, I was practically certain that this undead thing really was an artificially created incorporeal necroconstruct with a pseudo-personality, rather than the spirit of some ancient Sith. Its behavior gave it away: before I opened the hidden door, it had acted more or less harmlessly—relatively infrequent attacks, threats, attempts at psychological pressure.

Not that any of it had been entirely safe. It would definitely have killed any one of my students. At their current level, they simply didn't have the skill to stand against it.

As for gifted trained in the Force tradition, though, that was another question. With their tricks—precognition, telekinesis, acceleration, physical enhancement—I figured a well-trained Jedi Knight could probably handle her.

But!

Everything changed the moment I opened the door to the hidden cache, and now I seriously doubted anyone short of a Master could stand against Xo-Kusan. The undead thing, which until then had merely been angry and aggressive, completely lost what passed for its mind and turned into a howling engine of death, bombarding me with every Force technique it had and whatever physical objects it could get its hands on.

This time I actually had to work up a bit of a sweat, adjusting to the guardian's changed behavior. My spellcasting speed was nowhere near that of combat mages with their "narrow" pool of memorized spells, but I was very good at rapidly modifying and restructuring magical constructs that were already in place.

Good thing I sent the Mandos back to the ship, the thought flickered at the edge of my mind.

My vision was swimming with flashes of lightning, chunks of shattered wall, and all kinds of smaller debris whipping through the air. A dozen or so Force constructs had latched onto the multilayered shield—some vampiric in nature, while others, apparently, were trying to break through the defenses.

Good.

Excellent, even.

You couldn't really get much proper practice against Jedi on Jabiim, after all. I didn't want to reveal some of my own tricks, and they never went all-out either.

Though even if they had…

For all my fondness for Knights Nema and Allie, the two of them together still didn't amount to a truly serious opponent.

"Well… I think that's enough," I muttered once I'd gathered the information I needed and was already countering the guardian's entire arsenal without much effort.

I suspected the rag could have unleashed something more serious, something more powerful, but neither of us did. Probably for the same reason I hadn't: she didn't want to wreck her creator's tomb. She was a guardian, after all, not part of a demolition crew.

I found the phylactery.

The vessel-projector stood right there in the hidden chamber, and I was already about to start constructing a seal around the area…

"Indeed. It is time to stop."

The aggressive rag vanished an instant before a rather beautiful female voice, carrying only the faintest trace of otherworldly overtones, rang through the tomb. All the lingering "Force spells" dissipated with it.

"Not Jedi, not Sith, not Je'daii… unexpected. Come inside. I wish to speak with you."

"Hmm…"

I'll admit, I felt a little disappointed again. I was curious to see how the ghost would behave once it lost its connection to its vessel.

Oh well.

As far as I could tell, the woman who had just spoken to me was the creator of that scandalous little monstrosity, so if our introduction went well, there would still be a chance to test it all properly.

I stepped into a fairly spacious chamber done in the same style as the rest of the tomb: gloomy desolation.

Near the center of the hall stood a stone pedestal, and atop it rested the little pyramid I had glimpsed from the corridor and identified as the guardian's phylactery.

Quite a beautiful piece, I had to admit.

Blood-red, with gold inlays, covered in unidentified symbols and ornamental flourishes. It gave off a faint glow… if you could even call it that. The pyramid's dim radiance was more like the light of darkness, though it didn't stop me from seeing everything clearly.

A rather interesting effect. And, I had to admit, the contrast of crimson, gold, and darkness was impressive in its own way.

"Curious…" I drawled, studying the legendary holocron itself while inwardly rubbing my hands together in anticipation.

"Curious," the female voice echoed from a sharply defined, translucent figure that looked nothing at all like the gray rag from before.

"Pee-peeee!" the Quartermaster, poking out of my pocket, chirped with obvious disappointment as he looked around. My pet was clearly upset by the absence of piles of gold and precious gems.

"Because knowledge is the true treasure," I said with a smile, scratching the hamster under the chin before giving the incorporeal woman of a species I didn't recognize a polite bow. "My name is Siith'khara'Dziha. I'm glad to finally behold the mistress of the tomb, and I apologize for my persistence in seeking an audience, esteemed Xo-Kusan."

"Lady XoXaan," the mistress of the complex corrected me, her voice carrying mockery, a trace of irritation, and a generous helping of undisguised curiosity. "Who are you? You were not supposed to be here. In none of the futures the Dark Side showed me was there a man with a rodent so… persistent"—a slightly malicious smile cut across her white face, marked here and there with black patterns—"in securing an audience."

"My apologies, Lady. The tomb guardian's diction was somewhat… difficult to make out," I said with a polite, apologetic smile, earning nothing more than a raised eyebrow in response.

Interesting! That smile of mine had unsettled liches before.

"As for me, I'm a sorcerer, a researcher, and the head of the Mages' Guild. I've long been interested in, uh… the Dark Side, so when I finally got some long-awaited leave, I decided to visit Korriban. There are plenty of legends surrounding this world, so I was hoping to find something interesting here."

"Interested in the Dark Side?" A faint infernal chuckle carried a touch of disdain and a small measure of curiosity. "And what is it that draws you to it? Strength? A thirst for power? Freedom?"

"No, no. I already have all of that." I waved a hand dismissively, dispelling the faint, almost imperceptible pressure on my mind and watching my conversational partner raise an eyebrow once again. "Research interest. I'm curious about the principles by which the gifted—Jedi and Sith—interact with mana, or the Force, as you call it. I'd be interested in questioning the Je'daii you mentioned as well, but as far as I understand, they're even harder to find in the galaxy than living Sith."

"Je'daii," XoXaan corrected me. "I'd say they're impossible to find." A faint smirk touched her lips, though most of the disdain had vanished from it by now. "Those who followed the Balance… ceased to exist a very long time ago. Time proved that Balance was a dead end."

"Hmm…" I fell silent in thought.

Probably best not to point out that practitioners of the Dark Side had nearly vanished from the face of the galaxy as well.

"That is temporary." The woman's smile turned anticipatory. "The day is not so far off when the Baneites will demonstrate both the power of the Dark Side… and the failure of Bane's own teachings. And after that… well, that hardly concerns you, my uninvited… guest." This time her smile was awash with sarcasm, and it was my turn to raise an eyebrow. "No, I'm not reading your thoughts…"

"It's just written all over my face?" I finished for the translucent figure with a restrained smile.

"Correct, sorcerer. That hesitation of yours was rather eloquent." A short chuckle. "The cycles of endless war between Sith and Jedi follow one after another. These days, though, the scale of the conflict has dwindled considerably. Especially disappointing is this pathetic scurrying of two rats… Always two there are. A Master and an Apprentice."

Now my conversational partner's smirk twisted into a genuinely vicious sneer, her face showing open disgust.

"You don't agree with their teachings?"

"That much is obvious." The woman snorted, folding her arms beneath her breasts. "And I don't give a damn about their justifications. Master-apprentice, master-apprentice… Killing one another over and over again, they only lose strength and knowledge."

"But…" I glanced toward the holocron.

"Nonsense." The woman's cheek twitched. "With rare exceptions, a Sith will never teach an apprentice everything they know. Some knowledge and experience will inevitably be lost. Repositories of knowledge can be damaged, hidden away, or deliberately destroyed. Back when our Order was numerous, that wasn't critical. But over the last millennium…"

Well, someone had clearly been stewing in this for a few millennia. Or maybe the old fossil was simply starved for a living audience—she'd already forgotten all about that solemn this doesn't concern you from a moment ago.

Old people. The sky used to be bluer, the grass greener, and today's Sith couldn't hold a candle to the "real ones."

To be fair, this particular fossil had actually been there.

"Still," XoXaan went on, neatly confirming my thoughts, "the Jedi have sunk as low as they can go. For a thousand years they've failed to notice the Darkness right under their noses. They've grown weaker, gone soft, lost their authority… Pathetic. Those sanctimonious prigs were weaklings even in my time, and now they inspire nothing but contempt. Turns out all it took for them to start degenerating was to lose sight of the Sith."

"Ahem… maybe." I shrugged, trying not to provoke a negative reaction from my conversational partner. "I haven't been around here long, so my information is limited. Just the broad strokes: Jedi good, Sith bad, Jedi won, but somewhere out there the resistance is still scurrying around."

"Exactly—scurrying around. Excellent choice of words." The woman laughed, though a second later she frowned. "But I wouldn't call what the Jedi achieved a 'victory,' either. The war between Darkness and Light has raged for so long that the confrontation a thousand years ago could be called little more than a skirmish. I know. I am XoXaan. I was one of the first Sith Lords—one of those who left the Jedi Order to seek the truth through the Dark Side."

"Oooh…" I barely stopped myself from rubbing my hands together in anticipation. "Then I really got lucky!"

"I would…" She gave me an ironic look. "…not be so quick to celebrate, sorcerer. Incidentally, I'm curious about something as well. That is the only reason you're still alive, and why I have graciously deigned to give you my attention." The ghost's lips curled into a mocking smile. "Tell me, you who calls yourself Siith: why is your fate a blind spot? Why do your manipulations of the Force look so utterly alien? Satisfy the curiosity that has unexpectedly awakened in me after thousands of years, and perhaps I'll allow you to leave this place unharmed."

---

Original Russian story

You can find more chapters on my Patreon.

The translation of new chapters will also be published here—but with a bit of a delay.

 

[FTR2017]

Later on ... .

The Gungan: Why is bossa pulling a trinket and ghost with a leash?
Siith: They thought they could kill me, so to the vivisection department we go!
The Ghost Sith: I'm a ghost, I can't be vivisected!
Siith: That's quitter's talk! I knew some liches who loved turning wraiths into books to dissect their thoughts and learned to do the same!
The Ghost Sith:

 

[haylo]

The translation is still in progress, and new chapters will also be published here—but with a bit of a delay.
[/QUOTE]

Absolute monstrosities of bones

Click to shrink...

he doesn't seem to understand the implication of giving gods a whole new universe of people to convert and the rewards he could request? Which feels very very odd for his character

 

[WerewolfEros]

Later on ... .

The Gungan: Why is bossa pulling a trinket and ghost with a leash?
Siith: They thought they could kill me, so to the vivisection department we go!
The Ghost Sith: I'm a ghost, I can't be vivisected!
Siith: That's quitter's talk! I knew some liches who loved turning wraiths into books to dissect their thoughts and learned to do the same!
The Ghost Sith:

Click to shrink...

I would honestly not be surprised if Siith could actually do that.

 

[Boroda Orka]

"Nonsense. An artificially created organism is a homunculus."

"With all due respect, Xo, your claims reek of the clergy's narrow-mindedness from a light-year away! What I'm talking about specifically is absolutely not a homunculus."

"Lady XoXaan! And there isn't a drop of respect in your words, Red-Eyes!"

"There is! It's just… disguised!" the sorcerer shot back. "Come on, seriously! If it quacks like a duck, flies like a duck, and loves bread like a duck—it's a duck! I've had more than enough of this homunculus nonsense back home! I'm talking about an artificially created organism that is no different from one that was born naturally, not some crude lump of flesh cobbled together by hand!"

"I don't know what a duck is, but an artificially created body—whatever species it belongs to—is a homunculus." The ghost regarded the red-eyed man unyieldingly, arms folded beneath her breasts to make it clear she had no intention of conceding the argument.

"I'll show you." He snorted, rolled his eyes, walked over to the vat of "soup," as the sorcerer called the mass inside, and went still. Once again, the Force rolled off him, tinged with the scent of freshly spilled blood.

"And how long are you going to keep showing me this?" his conversational partner asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Give it about twenty minutes. The organism needs time to form," Siith'khara'Dziha replied, shooting the Force ghost an irritated look.

"And this organism"—the Force ghost tilted her head to one side, studying something in the vat—"will, as you put it, quack, fly, and love bread?"

"No." The sorcerer took a few steps toward the small table where his mug sat and took a sip of caf. "How is it supposed to do any of that if there's no soul in it? There's no pilot, understand?!"

"That's why it's called a homunculus!" XoXaan threw up her hands. "Why are you so dense?! It can't live on its own—period! You can imprint the simplest behavioral patterns into it, basic instincts, if you want! Make its heart beat, make it breathe! You could even make it walk, quack, fly, and eat bread if you put enough effort into it! But it still wouldn't be a living being capable of developing on its own!"

"This! Will! Be! A duck!!!" The red-eyed man planted his hands on his hips and glared irritably at the translucent figure. "A duck's body, one hundred percent indistinguishable from one that hatched from an egg and grew up naturally under ideal conditions! Put a soul into it, and you don't need any programming at all! It'll just live, quack, fly, and eat bread without me having to do anything else! It'll even be able to reproduce! It's just a grown body—I don't see why anyone should curl their lip at it like it's some inferior thing! You simply don't understand what I'm talking about! How about you just shut up and stop embarrassing yourself?"

Three pairs of worried eyes followed the conversation between the red-eyed sorcerer and the ghost of the ancient Sith Lady.

The Dathomiri witches had been hastily dragged out of their cells three days ago, cleaned up, given fresh clothes, and sent to the tomb. Now they brewed caf and herbal decoctions for the red-eyed man, carried out various minor errands… and were afraid.

Because they had been sent here on the principle of whoever wouldn't be missed.

That might have been insulting, perhaps even infuriating, but… the presence of the Sith Lady had left nothing in their souls but fear. The sense of incredible power emanating from her was simply too overwhelming. Besides, she clearly had no intention of tolerating unnecessary noise. A single "lesson" from the ghost had been more than enough. So had the bouts of irritation she occasionally took out on them.

Now all three stood silent, afraid even to whisper among themselves, watching two of the three most terrifying beings in the galaxy… bicker over some subject the witches didn't even understand.

The first of the three—though ranked firmly last—was Mother Talzin, whom the witches hated with a savage intensity matched only by their fear of her. She had literally given them away to the sorcerer, after which some creatures had been moved in with them and violated the minds of all five of them.

In second place stood the sorcerer himself. Strange, powerful, perfectly capable of speaking calmly with Mother Talzin—and the one who had freed their minds from the grip of her sorcery.

And now he was trading insults with… that.

The ghost of the ancient Sith Lady, XoXaan.

No, the girls had no idea who she was, but her mere presence was enough to make breathing difficult, their knees go weak, and their speech start to stumble whenever she turned her attention toward them.

And after Lady XoXaan, during their very first meeting, decided that one of the Dathomiri women had dared cast a disrespectful glance at the ancient dark gifted…

the witches awarded her a thoroughly well-deserved first place.

"It's a definition," the Lady insisted, watching as the sorcerer pulled some kind of bird out of the vat and laid it on a medical table. All this equipment set up in one of the tomb's chambers, right next to a Sith holocron, looked rather bizarre. "I don't understand why you're getting so worked up over this. Is it personal? There's a clone, there's a homunculus, and there's someone naturally born—say, a human. What exactly is your problem with that?"

"It's just a body without a soul," the sorcerer sighed. "Not a homunculus."

"Ugh…" The ghost wearily covered her face with her left hand and extended the right toward the sorcerer. Powerful, branching Force lightning burst from her fingers, but for all its strength, it tangled against the spherical shield that flared to life around the sorcerer and the table.

"Calmed down?" the red-eyed man asked mockingly once the lightning finally died away.

"Almost." The translucent woman bared her teeth in an angry grin and flicked a hand toward the three witches.

"Oh, come on…" the sorcerer sighed as one of the Dathomiri women's heads twisted around a full hundred and eighty degrees with a sickening crunch. "Aren't you tired of that yet?"

"That'll teach you to piss me off," XoXaan said with a satisfied squint, watching as the dead witch's head twisted back into place with an equally sickening crunch. "And honestly, this is rather convenient. Wouldn't you like to enter my service? I can't even remember how many useful sentients died because I happened to be irritated."

"So much for 'emotions should serve the gifted,'" Siith snorted as the dead woman opened her eyes, gasping rapidly and clutching at her throat with both hands. "Don't move your head around," the sorcerer told her. "The bones aren't back in place yet. Sit still for five minutes."

"How interesting." The Sith Lady leaned over the recently dead Dathomiri woman, making all three witches flinch in fear. "That's the eleventh time I've watched it happen, and I still can't grasp the underlying principle."

"You've been snapping their necks just for that?" Siith asked in surprise, frowning with obvious displeasure.

"Combining business with pleasure." The ghost shrugged, reappearing beside the medical table. "I get to blow off some steam and study an interesting phenomenon at the same time. So then, what do we have here?"

The Lady passed her right hand over the bird several times.

"Oh, could you do that again?" the sorcerer asked once the translucent woman finished whatever she was doing.

"I don't repeat myself for the deaf, and I don't demonstrate things twice for the blind. Force techniques are useless to you anyway," the Sith Lady snorted. "So. This is a homunculus."

"Oh, for fuck's sake," the sorcerer said, rolling his eyes in irritation. "Look."

The man pulled a small crystal from somewhere beneath his robes and placed it beside the motionless bird. A knife slipped free from the sheath at his belt and began carving some kind of pattern directly into the tabletop.

The ancient ghost watched the whole process with curiosity, though every so often she glanced at the crystal with unmistakable surprise.

"Right," the sorcerer said once the pattern was complete and the knife had slipped back into its sheath. "And now…"

The lines filled with a greenish glow. The crystal lit up and rose a couple of centimeters above the surface of the table.

A few seconds later, everything went dark.

"Aaaand?" XoXaan drawled.

Instead of answering, the sorcerer pointed a finger at the bird.

"Up!" Siith barked, and an arc of electricity leapt from his finger.

The bird convulsed, scrambled to its feet, and began beating its wings while looking around in a panic.

"Well? What do you think?"

"This…" XoXaan tilted her head, staring at the bird in surprise. "What in the world was that?"

"I put a soul into the body," the sorcerer said, narrowing his eyes in satisfaction. "I didn't have a duck's soul on hand, of course, so right now it's got that… what was it? Lizard, reptile… Trandoshan!!!"

"Put into it? Is that some form of possession?"

"No, no." The sorcerer smiled in satisfaction. "No possession involved. There's simply a complete soul in the duck's body now. Its cognitive functions will, of course, gradually degrade to a level appropriate for the bird's brain, but that'll only make it more natural. So our hunter is now doomed to live out the life of a little bird on the prey end of the food chain. Rather ironic, really…"

"So that crystal…" XoXaan glanced toward the spot where the little stone should have been lying, only to find a small pile of dust in its place.

"A soul prison," Siith said with a nod. "Single-use. Back home, several thousand years ago, inventing things like these was the first step toward creating a full-fledged phylactery. Something along the lines of your holocron. Though the Sith creation is built on a different method and, in some respects, is more sophisticated, as far as I can tell. But the underlying principle is the same."

"Wait… hold on…" The ghost was clearly thinking, shifting her gaze from the holocron to the little pile of dust left behind by the crystal.

And it would have been fine if she'd stopped there…

The ancient gifted turned a strangely intent stare on the three witches.

A heartbeat later, one of them was hanging in the air in front of the ghost, who seemed to have teleported straight to her.

"Again?!" the sorcerer threw up his hands. The two frozen witches clearly decided their "friend" was about to meet her end yet again, but…

The ghost seemed to be sucked into the eyes and mouth of the Dathomiri hanging in midair. After that horrifying display, the witch stopped levitating and landed awkwardly on her feet.

"Oh…" was all the red-eyed man managed to say as the witch began awkwardly stretching and testing out her body.

"A little cramped," the Dathomiri complained in two voices at once—her own and XoXaan's. The whole thing was disturbingly reminiscent of Mother Talzin possessing a medium Sister.

The eyes were especially unsettling: two pits opening into the abyss of space, with amber sparks like distant stars drifting in their depths.

XoXaan, wearing someone else's body, went through a few warm-up motions with her arms, rolled her neck from side to side, bent forward and straightened up again. Then, walking with a slight sway, she made her way to the only armchair beside the coffee table and dropped into it.

The Sith Lady, still inhabiting the Dathomiri witch's body, pulled the sorcerer's enormous mug closer and filled it with the steaming black liquid from the caf pot.

"All right, sorcerer. How did you do that?"

Siith once again displayed the horrifying grin he usually called a smile and, with a wave of his hand… grew an armchair out of the stone floor beside the table.

"A little hard," he complained as he settled into it across from the Lady. "And that brings us neatly back to the difference between a homunculus and a 'real organism.'"

For several seconds, the two most terrifying beings in the galaxy, at least in the opinion of the witches trembling with fear, stared into each other's eyes.

"So…" the Sith began slowly. "You mean that with a homunculus…"

"Exactly." The sorcerer nodded. "If the duck had been a homunculus, 'putting a soul into it' would've been more like possession. The soul would simply 'wear' the body like a suit, and knocking it out again would take next to no effort. More or less like what you did with this girl. By the way, she isn't going to burst, is she?"

"She'll last a few hours," Lady XoXaan replied thoughtfully. "Worst case, I'll heal your slave. Don't worry."

"She's not exactly a slave…"

"Oh, come on." The possessed witch waved a hand dismissively as she watched a chunk of stone "flow" in the sorcerer's hands, reshaping itself into another mug. "Prisoner, slave… guest. Call them whatever you like, the meaning's the same. They were given to you, you make use of them, and their lives are in your hands. More importantly, my friend…"

"Friend?" the sorcerer asked, raising an eyebrow in surprise.

"Brother," the Sith said with a cheerful smile. "Friend, brother, dear guest, esteemed colleague. Tell a girl what it takes to create one of those… not-homunculi? For me to create one myself. And perform that… soul transfer on my own?"

"Mmm… Is doing it yourself the important part? I mean both creating the body and transferring the soul."

"Of course. Don't misunderstand me, you're an interesting sentient. But trusting someone else to create a body for me, placing myself in someone else's hands… Mmm… no, sorry. You and I are a little too alike, and that alone is the clearest sign that I absolutely should not trust you with something like that." The possessed woman took a sip of caf and grimaced slightly. "How do you even drink this swill? You"—the Lady pointed at one of the witches—"brew me a decoction. From that jar."

"Can't argue with that. I wouldn't trust you in a situation like that either," the red-eyed man said with a thin smile, watching as they brewed XoXaan's drink. "But if you want to grow the body and perform the transfer yourself, you'll have to learn. I don't know how to reproduce anything like this through a Force-based tradition. For a sorcerer… you need a solid command of ritualism—that's for the transfer itself. Chimerology and necromancy are mandatory for growing a body that is NOT a homunculus. None of it is simple, and none of it is quick. You want to calculate everything yourself, don't you… my dear friend Xo?"

The possessed woman shot the sorcerer a vicious glare, her jaw working for several seconds before she finally exhaled and calmed down.

"All right… what do you want in exchange for that knowledge?"

"First, let's clarify something. Why do you want it?"

"Obviously, for no reason at all." The possessed woman snorted, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back in the chair.

The sorcerer merely raised an eyebrow with a quiet hum and continued staring at her expectantly.

"Don't believe me? Then you're not completely brainless."

"Thank you. Your acknowledgment that I possess a functioning mind is like honey poured over my soul," the red-eyed man said with a grin.

"Tch. You really piss me off sometimes." XoXaan grimaced. "You're sure you're not one of my old 'friends'? Karness Muur? That name mean anything to you? He was another nasty, quarrelsome old fossil. No? I'm not even sure whether to be relieved or disappointed…

"Fine, never mind. I want flesh again. Existing as a Force ghost is fascinating, of course. My neighbors are delightful and endlessly talkative, and life in the galaxy is like an entertaining holoshow starring nothing but idiots… In short, it's all so thrilling that 'sleeping' for a few thousand years at a time starts to seem like a perfectly reasonable alternative."

"Wanting flesh again is obvious enough," the sorcerer said with a calm nod, showing not the slightest trace of sympathy. "If I knew that was all you wanted—and that afterward you'd simply live quietly without causing… trouble across half the galaxy—I'd agree without a problem. You'd share your knowledge with me, I'd share mine with you, everyone walks away happy. But as far as I know, your lot has never been particularly good at peaceful, quiet lives, have you?"

"Pfff!" The witch snorted and burst out laughing. "Go on, then. Tell me the fairy tale about how deeply you care about the fate of the galaxy! We've known each other for three days, and I can already see how little you give a damn about all that nonsense! A handful of worlds, a few sentients you personally happen to like, a dozen or two business deals that matter to you. My dear friend, all of that can be arranged.

"The worlds you need, I'll place at your disposal. As for the sentients important to your peace of mind, I'll make sure not so much as a speck of dust touches them. Your business interests may suffer, of course, but I promise I'll offer you something more profitable in return. And naturally, XoXaan will provide whatever knowledge interests you. Sith, Jedi, anything you like.

"I'll become your shield against all the galaxy's troubles—your guarantee that you can work in peace and comfort. You don't care about power anyway, do you?"

"Mmm…" The sorcerer rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "That's… rather sudden. And remarkably straightforward."

"I see no point in dancing around the issue with someone who, in truth, barely gives a damn about anything except his beloved… magic. And as for sudden—I'm not proposing marriage." Another venomous smile. "So take as long as you like to think it over. Just not longer than a day.

"Keep one thing in mind: a Sith Lord grateful to a certain red-eyed sorcerer—even if she is only not yet the ruler of the galaxy—is a very, very profitable thing to have."

"And troublesome. I can already see the newborn resistance fighters swimming toward me in schools, all eager to screw me over…"

"And we won't tell anyone a thing. Like I said, everything can be arranged." The possessed woman took a sip of the fresh herbal decoction and narrowed her eyes in pleasure. "Now this is good. Not that black, stinking swill."

---

Original Russian story

You can find more chapters on my Patreon.

The translation of new chapters will also be published here—but with a bit of a delay.

 

[foo-jin]

Whelp, that escalated from "funny dark-side dementia ghost" to "galactic domination" rather swiftly.

 

[readsalot]

And we won't tell anyone a thing. Like I said, everything can be arranged." The possessed woman took a sip of the fresh herbal decoction and narrowed her eyes in pleasure. "Now this is good. Not that black, stinking swill."

Click to shrink...

Hmmm this is a bad idea….. but I'm loving the potential chaos!!!!!!

Also screw you lady, Coffee ️ is great

 

[cestus41]

I think that if palpatine or the Jedi got a hint that this might happen/ be happening the breaks would come off rapidly let alone if any other dark lords ghosts get an inkling of what is going on he would be swarmed by ghosts offering threats power and knowledge forbidden and forgotten to the galaxy at large

 

[FTR2017]

No wonder the three witches are scared shitless of Xo, bitch's just looking out for excuses to either snap necks or wear their bodies like dresses.

At least Siith's generous enough to reward you should you take his vivisection offer! And no, being put back together is not the reward as well, truly generous!

Whelp, that escalated from "funny dark-side dementia ghost" to "galactic domination" rather swiftly.

Click to shrink...

On the other hand, Palpy needs some actual competition to sharpen his dulled Banite Sith senses with!

I bet he'll be overjoyed that an Old School Sith got not only incarnated properly, but is now looking forward to conquering the galaxy once more!

 

[Jamesson Locke]

Whelp, that escalated from "funny dark-side dementia ghost" to "galactic domination" rather swiftly.

Click to shrink...

Really, it's like you've never seen a non banite sith before

 

[Boroda Orka]

Cramped, the ancient gifted thought yet again, taking a sip of fragrant decoction and setting aside a book from the ship's library. These Dathomiri skins couldn't endure the presence of her spirit inside them for long. But there were three of them, which gave XoXaan the ability to remain in the flesh almost around the clock.

Not that she made much use of it.

Cramped.

The clothes didn't fit, so to speak, and the little foolish witch whimpering in terror at the back of her consciousness… was irritating.

"How utterly useless you are," the Lady growled in frustration as she abandoned her temporary shell. "Put your sister on the bunk."

The two Dathomiri women kneeling in the corner of her cabin immediately jumped to their feet and dragged the unconscious body of the third over to the bed.

At first, what infuriated the Sith Lady most was that she couldn't simply knock those fools out of their own bodies and use the shells without the unnecessary passengers. Not that she lacked the power to do it, but the witches were someone else's property. Even that wouldn't have stopped XoXaan, if not for the identity of their owner. At first, that had been the only reason—an extremely irritating one.

But after only a couple of days, the Lady had found certain advantages as well—or rather, remembered what it had been like to be a living gifted. First and foremost, the witches could take care of themselves. Keep the bodies clean and fed. Second: servants were convenient. She didn't appreciate the sorcerer dumping his "rejects" on her, but in his place she would have done exactly the same. There was no making apprentices out of this trash, but given a couple of months, it might be possible to mold them into something halfway presentable that resembled proper servants. At the very least, the idiots were trainable.

Once the support staff had been given the right tasks, there would be no need to waste time on trivialities. And besides… they occasionally amused her. Their fear was so entertaining that, purely for fun, the Sith Lady would sometimes spend several minutes simply staring at the three witches with the heavy gaze of a Force ghost. And whenever she once again decided to sample some food or drink while occupying the body of one of the Nightsisters, XoXaan would make the other two tell her about their life in the Clan.

The Nightsister Clan was quite an amusing place. A couple of times, she hadn't even been able to hold back her laughter. Some savage parody of their Order, mixed with primitive witchcraft and rabid matriarchy. And Talzin, their so-called Mother, was quite the schemer herself. From the stories told by her former daughters, she seemed powerful enough, and their memories made it clear she was more than just some savage witch. Of course, comparing her to XoXaan would be ridiculous, but to the Sith alive today… mmm… She would have to find out exactly how things stood with them now. Bane would have ground that girl into dust as well, and the Muun Plagueis hadn't been bad either…

A pity she had stopped keeping an eye on events about fifty years ago, once again sinking into something resembling sleep inside the holocron. Boring… Watching the rats scurry about was only entertaining when something was actually happening; otherwise it was all backstage maneuvering, intrigues, and underhanded little schemes. No matter what her reason told her, deep down she despised those who now called themselves Sith. Sneaks. Not that XoXaan herself was above a good old-fashioned covert intrigue now and then—preferably one with another couple of intrigues nested inside it—but living like that all the time? Where was the Power? Where was the Strength? Where was the Freedom? Where were the Fear and Respect of everyone around them?

Only a handful of close servants, groveling before the Baneites who had deigned to reveal themselves. Small-time. Incredibly small-time! When she had been alive, the populations of planets… no! The populations of entire star systems had spoken her Name with terror and reverence! For a scrap of her knowledge, they had been willing to surrender everything they possessed, and for the honor of becoming her apprentices, they had fought to the death! Her words had been listened to with awe, and her commands had carried the weight of the will of Gods!

Gods…

If XoXaan had been inside one of the witches right now, those recent memories would probably have taken her breath away.

It had all started rather unusually. A pity she hadn't noticed the intrusion from the very beginning, but after the guardian was discorporated for the fifth time, XoXaan fully "awakened" and decided to find out what exactly was going on.

And what was going on turned out to be interesting.

And slightly embarrassing for her.

An unusual gifted, brazenly wandering through the Lady's domain, was effortlessly holding his own against the pseudo-sentient guardian.

But what made him interesting wasn't how easily the stranger held off something resembling a Force ghost, or even the fact that the Force emanating from the red-eyed man—who outwardly looked so much like her fellow members of the Order—felt somehow strange, unfamiliar.

The problem was that he… wasn't supposed to be here.

XoXaan hadn't been languishing in a tomb beneath the temple for no reason—she had been waiting. Waiting for someone who served the Light and came to understand that the Light Side was meaningless. Someone who decided that Light itself was a flaw in the galaxy. Someone who had known anger, hatred, and despair! A Jedi ready to open himself to the Darkness!

In the Darkness, she had seen much. The end—but not the final end—of her life. The war between her former Order and her current one. Victories and defeats. How both sides gathered their strength, how worlds burned in their struggle. She had seen the shadows of the greatest heroes and the most extraordinary villains. Thousands of years of the great war between Light and Darkness, a war that would never end. And she had also seen the place and time where her holocron had to be so that it would be found by the one who would once again carry her name across the entire galaxy!

While she waited for her Chosen One, the future Emperor, thousands of sentients would visit the magnificent temple beneath which her tomb was hidden. Gifted and ungifted alike. Each would have their own encounter.

Some would find nothing but dusty desolation, without so much as a spark of her power. Only the pressure of Korriban's Dark Side would hint that this place had once glowed with dark light. Getting involved with those "visitors" would be dangerous, so they would find exactly… nothing.

Some she would toy with personally—those no one would come looking for, but who might provide her with a little entertainment and brighten the millennia of waiting.

As for the majority—the talentless, the boring, the dreary, those who had nothing remotely interesting about them… For them, she had created the guardian. She could, of course, have simply ignored them, but while those who posed a threat to XoXaan's plan could still be tolerated, insects crawling through her domain, trampling ground that in her lifetime one had to earn the right to walk upon… insects needed to be crushed.

The guardian had taken the man in the black robe for exactly that kind of insect. Nothing could be sensed from him at all. No life, as from an organic being, no energy, as from a droid… and at first, not even the slightest trace of the Force. He could only be seen.

XoXaan was irritated. It was unpleasant to watch her own creation not merely fail, but embarrass her in the process—screeching hideously and doing utter nonsense. No, rationally she understood that the guardian simply couldn't decide how to respond to such an unconventional target, but that didn't make the spectacle any less irritating.

But alongside the irritation came something the ancient Dark gifted had almost forgotten over the many centuries spent inside the holocron: curiosity. The sentient she could not sense—most likely concealed by some Force technique—was freely using Force constructs completely unfamiliar to XoXaan. Something incomprehensible, strange… new! Something capable of effortlessly holding back the guardian's attacks. It intrigued her so much that the gifted decided to look into the red-eyed man's past and future.

That sort of thing did not always provide clear or precise information, especially when done spontaneously and without preparation, but it would at least allow her to learn, in broad strokes, what sort of "guest" had come to her.

The Lady was astonished to find herself unable to make out anything coherent at all! Blurred patches, incomprehensible shadows blacker than darkness itself, within which she could barely distinguish the lean, four-legged silhouettes of some unknown animals. A vague image of something vast as a world, yet resembling a shelled amphibian. Then an endless rain of black droplets, hiding everything around it. The fate of the man walking through the temple complex corridors, effortlessly defending himself against the guardian… it was as though something so immensely powerful had concealed it that even the gaze of an ancient gifted—one of those who had become the first Sith Lords—could not pierce the protection and could glimpse only pathetic scraps.

The situation was anything but straightforward. She found it difficult to predict what might happen next. Attack him herself? That was certainly an option: XoXaan was almost certain she would win. Unfortunately, there were several "buts." The first and most important was that if this sentient mattered, someone would come for him. They would search for him, and her refuge would be compromised. And she had a plan… Besides, that almost bothered her. The unfamiliar techniques, somewhat reminiscent of Sith sorcery, might hold unpleasant surprises, and XoXaan had never liked that sort of thing.

Second: those unfamiliar Force techniques. The Lady found them interesting, as well as whatever it was that prevented her from seeing the stranger's past and future.

And third: judging by what had happened at the very beginning of his "introduction" to the guardian, the man hadn't been opposed to talking. He had even been quite polite. And his smile was pleasant, almost disarming. It brought back memories of a couple of old "friends" she had killed while she was still alive.

Based on all of the above, XoXaan decided to begin with negotiations. She needed to learn more about her red-eyed guest first, and only then make any decisions.

That course of action—and everything that happened after she met Siith—had brought the Sith Lady nothing less than new prospects. Very exciting prospects, compelling enough for the gifted to abandon her long-term plan entirely. Why? Because the plan had ceased to be viable—and it was this very sentient who had made it so!

The problem was those very difficulties in reading his fate. The Force simply refused to provide anything coherent, and that same protection covered not only the sorcerer, as he called himself, but another witch from Dathomir as well—the one who had brought her three companions here. Unlike the red-eyed man she called Teacher, she was unquestionably a Dark gifted. Darkness rolled off her—nothing like XoXaan's, of course; the girl was far too small a fish for that—but it was still unmistakable. And the smile and look she had cast after her "friends" as they headed into the tomb spoke volumes: malicious delight, mockery, contempt. The fact that she could be sensed, however, solved nothing. Her past and future were hidden behind nothing but a murky haze and those same fleeting shadows of four-legged beasts.

What could that mean for the future? A lone individual wrapped in such protection could already introduce a factor of uncertainty, but this Siith was the head of some Guild and the director of an Academy where others like him were being trained. Which meant the predictions XoXaan had been relying on were already unreliable—perhaps even outright false!

A large number of such "shielded" sentients scattered across the galaxy practically guaranteed the collapse of her plans. There was no way to predict which one of them, or at what moment, might overturn the entire board simply by saying a few words that were never supposed to be spoken. The Sith Lady even found herself impressed by just how sweeping the changes to the future could become. Of course, she didn't particularly like any of this, but… she knew how to take the blows of fate. Though in this case, perhaps… fate-breakers would be more accurate? How much had these… mages already changed? And how much more was still going to happen differently from the way it was supposed to?

The funniest part was that, in the end, it even made her happy! First, there was now a real chance not merely to gain an apprentice who would carry out her will, but to obtain a body capable of bearing the "weight" of her spirit. With that, there would be no need to wait for the sentient best suited to her to finally "ripen" and find her. She would be able to gather apprentices herself—and restore the greatness of the Sith Order with her own hands!

And second, she very much wanted to see the faces of the Baneite rats if their "Great Plan" were destroyed and their hopes shattered sooner than fate had intended. She had even begun composing the speech she would deliver to the current Baneite Master. It began with the words: "And you, you wretch, dare call yourself a Lord?"

XoXaan smiled with satisfaction for a moment, feeling malicious delight and anticipation begin to simmer inside her.

But even that wasn't all. The Dark Lady was interested not only in obtaining a body, but also in the possibility of becoming the same kind of "blind spot" to the sight of every would-be prophet. Of course, she was powerful and could conceal herself on her own, but what kind of Sith would she be if she passed up an opportunity to make herself even stronger?

The sorcerer, as well as his Guild, also interested the Lady. People were a resource, and gifted were a valuable resource. Not to mention the knowledge they possessed—knowledge new to her and, once again, another opportunity to strengthen herself. Before the recent events, XoXaan had not yet decided what to do with the mages and their leader. There were too many possibilities, ranging from completely subjugating both him and the Guild to using them without their even realizing it.

There had been many options. Now, after getting to know him, there were far fewer.

To her surprise—and, in a way, even satisfaction—Siith harbored no negative feelings toward her Order, or toward the Jedi, for that matter. Talking with him had made it clear that the sorcerer, as he put it, "couldn't care less" who was out there deciding the fate of the galaxy. As long as he was comfortable and no one touched his loved ones, his home, or his wards. His wards, specifically—not his students. Toward the latter he was far more indifferent, merely grumbling, "If they graduated from the Academy, then their lives are no longer my problem."

His attitude became even clearer when the Lady learned that the sorcerer had come from far away. From a place where they had never even heard of the gifted Orders or their feud. They had their own "magical tradition," their own wars and conflicts. And so Siith… simply did not see the Dark Side as the absolute Evil the Jedi believed it to be. To him, the war between Light and Darkness, a conflict of unimaginable scale… was nothing more than "religious orders bickering with each other; most mages don't care about that sort of thing."

He agreed readily enough to share his knowledge, but on one condition: XoXaan had to swear an oath guaranteeing the safety of the sorcerer, his friends, loved ones, wards, and the rain-soaked world of Jabiim. She agreed easily enough. A Sith was master of his own word. Gave his word, took it back.

That casual attitude disappeared, however, after one of the temple rooms was quickly converted into a small library. Once again, the sorcerer demonstrated his interesting way of working with the Force, this time reshaping stone into bookshelves in the same manner he had grown himself a chair. It bore a distant resemblance to alchemy—but only a resemblance.

After the library was finished and filled with books, Siith dedicated it to his goddess. And at that moment, the faint, contemptuous smirk vanished from XoXaan's face. For the briefest instant, it was as though a gust of wind swept through her temple complex. Something unimaginably powerful turned its gaze upon the sorcerer, appraised the new "shrine of knowledge," found it satisfactory, and departed Korriban, leaving behind a tiny fragment of something incomprehensibly vast. And if the Sith Lady had not been watching the process herself, she most likely would not have noticed that fragment at all.

After that, XoXaan was no longer entirely certain that the sorcerer's stories about the patron goddess of mages, who was supposed to serve as the guarantor of their agreement, were quite such nonsense. Over the course of her long life, she had encountered many things that lay beyond even her own imagination.

What followed only strengthened the Lady's belief that the standard approach favored by some of her brothers and sisters—"extract everything useful, then dispose of them"—wasn't so much inapplicable as in need of a much more carefully worked-out plan.

She hadn't really planned to harm Siith in the first place simply because she was an Evil Ancient Sith. Despite Jedi propaganda, the Dark gifted had never been complete idiots. Well, not all of them, at least. Those with truly strong wills could restrain the base impulses of the monster living inside them. More than that—they had to. The beast itself would never achieve anything, and even if by some miracle it did, it wouldn't be able to enjoy the fruits of its labor for long. Emotions were supposed to serve the gifted, not the other way around.

In any case, she had no intention of turning back. Her previous plan certainly wasn't going to unfold the way she had intended, and continuing to sleep in a tomb while waiting for a miracle… frankly, she had no desire to do that. Now XoXaan had a chance to obtain a body, gain new knowledge, and, who knew, perhaps use both that knowledge and this new organization of gifted to ride the crest of the wave. The galaxy was heading toward a series of upheavals; it would be engulfed by chaos, and chaos always offered countless opportunities to the bold and the daring. XoXaan simply had no intention of letting such an opportunity slip away, and so she decided to take the risk. Perhaps the Dark Side had nudged her toward it. Perhaps it was her own curiosity, boredom, and thirst for knowledge and action…

Either way, she and the sorcerer swore their oaths, and the Lady once again felt a drop of attention from something incredible—this time directed at her personally. Something that effortlessly penetrated to the very essence of her being and left within her a fragment of "divine power," as Siith called it. It was incredible. It stirred her soul and sent thousands of thoughts and ideas racing through XoXaan's mind. The sorcerer no longer looked like some eccentric indifferent to the world around him; in her eyes, he had become a follower of mighty powers previously unknown to her. The Sith respected power, and passing up the chance to claim a piece of it for herself… was impossible!!!

What did he give his patroness in return? XoXaan remembered hundreds of cults, some of which had worshiped her personally. Sacrifices? Offerings and gifts? She could give more than this sorcerer, who desired nothing but knowledge! All she had to do was gain the power she deserved and show just how interested she was in… cooperation with this Hecate. And then… the oaths would cease to matter. She would simply rise to first place in Siith's patroness's eyes and begin reaping the greatest possible benefit for herself!

The "initiation as a mage" only convinced her further that she had made the right choice. That renewed sensation of a presence—carrying with it a sense of fondness, benevolent curiosity, and favor—made her feel the phantom beat of a nonexistent heart. Against the backdrop of the possibilities now opening before her, the fact that she had been cut off from the Abyss of Darkness was met with an almost philosophical calm. She had never truly feared falling in the first place—millennia of experience and a finely honed mastery over Darkness all but guaranteed that she would retain her sanity. Even so, being able to draw on her emotions without constantly worrying about losing her mind was a pleasant and useful bonus.

In any case, for the time being she considered herself to have come out ahead in the bargain. Of course, she would have to conceal her existence from the Jedi stationed on Jabiim…

Oh, Force, how their stupidity amazed her. Such a resource, and they had left it lying in some backwater. In their place, she would have moved both the Academy and the Guild to the capital world long ago, closer to herself. She would have wrung every possible advantage out of them. And there would not even be any need to bring the sorcerers to heel. It would be enough to create the right conditions, and these unusual gifted would gladly give it their all… Ah, what was there even to say? The forces of Light had once again demonstrated their narrow-mindedness by sending only two young Knights to study healing—the discipline the sorcerer called chimerology.

No, it was an interesting discipline, vaguely resembling a blend of Sith sorcery and alchemy, but with several impressive advantages of its own. Take the ability to grow bodies that were "not homunculi," or the phenomenally rapid healing—practically resurrection. Out of sheer curiosity, XoXaan had even snapped the witches' necks, each time watching in fascination as nerves, muscles, blood vessels, and bones knitted back together. Fascinating and intriguing. And if chimerology were combined with alchemy, sorcery, and her own creation—Dark Healing…

XoXaan even narrowed her eyes in delight for a moment, considering what might be done with such a combination of possibilities.

For something like that, she was willing to be patient. Even to be nice and restrained, and perhaps stop trying to roast that insolent sorcerer with Force lightning. At least when someone else was watching them.

---

"What next, Boss?" Arvik grumbled. "The witches are one thing," the Mandalorian added, casting a peaceable glance at Talli, who smiled calmly back at him, "but a Sith ghost is beyond good and evil."

"You're being overly dramatic," I said, sending a message to Alto. "Just another gifted. No more, no less."

"Mothers tell their children scary stories where…"

"The Sith come at night and eat babies? Pfft… You don't say?!" I chuckled, pulling my mug of caf closer. "If you ever end up in my homeland, you'll be surprised to learn how many scary stories there are about one red-eyed sorcerer in black. They even accused me of having sex with demons atop the corpses of innocent infants and righteous people tortured to death."

"I think this… XoXaan just caught the Boss's fancy." Mlada crossed one leg over the other with a provocative smile. "They curse each other out like they've been married for ten years."

"Uh…" That provocateur really knew how to throw me off balance. "No, of course I argued with my wife. We had our moments. But those were more the exception than the rule, and a family life consisting of one never-ending scandal is not something I want. It gets in the way of work, and the atmosphere in general is… mm… What are you all looking at?"

"You were married?" Karr asked in astonishment.

"Ah, yes." I shrugged. "I am human, after all, with all the usual wants and needs. So yes, I was."

"Me, I bit-bit didn't expect that, though." Koit scratched his ear in puzzlement. "I thought Boss-sa wasn't interested in women."

"What kind of hint is th— ahhh…" I clapped my hands. "Got it. No, that's not it. It's just that some of my body's functions are currently suppressed. I'm not interested in any kind of relationship, so certain instincts were simply getting in the way. I… switched them off, yes."

"Damn." Mlada glanced sideways at Romri.

"That's… I couldn't do that." Karr gave a shudder.

I merely shrugged indifferently, already preparing to leave. Chimerologists were far less precious about their bodies than ordinary sentients. Besides, shutting down hormonal surges doesn't stop you from falling in love—if anything, quite the opposite. You don't end up in situations where a cocktail of chemicals muddles your judgment.

"Uh, Boss," Romri stopped me. "When you and your wife argued, what did she call you?"

"Koldun ebuchiy*," I answered after a short pause, surprised by the question. "I don't know the exact translation, but Ir'rina said it meant something manly and brutal. I even liked it."

I smiled at the warm memories and, taking my mug of caf with me, left the common room. While I had the time, I needed to work on the portal project. The theoretical part seemed ready for practical testing. I would have to ask Alto which asteroid could host a laboratory. I really didn't want to conduct dangerous experiments on Jabiim…

** The common room, after Siith left **

"Did you all see that too?" Mlada looked utterly stunned, as did nearly everyone else in the room.

"Yeah." Arvik stared blankly at the bulkhead. "He was smiling."

"No-no." The Gungan shook his head. "He was smiling nicely, though! Even bit-bit not scary!"

"Yeah. Warm and kind," Karr backed Koit up.

"Holy shit! I need to pull the surveillance footage, now!" Romri sprang to her feet.

"What for?" the Mandalorian warrior asked in surprise.

"Do you have any idea HOW many credits we could sell that footage for?!" came Romri's voice from the corridor.

---

Author's Note:

Koldun ebuchiy* (колдун ебучий; pronounced roughly kal-DOON yeh-BOO-cheey) — literally, "fucking sorcerer." https://youtu.be/FQZGzEOBd_w?is=YhTMAjql4xlQNae9

---

Original Russian story

You can find more chapters on my Patreon.

The translation of new chapters will also be published here—but with a bit of a delay.

 

[Vyraco]

So, is Ascension possible? 'Cause if it is, XoXaan is totally going to munchkin herself into godhood, and then whine about all the restrictions on a minor goddess...

 

[FTR2017]

Lmao, Xo-Xaan made a friend for life!

 

[Boroda Orka]

"Forgive me, Master Dziha, but we cannot allow you to keep most of these… artifacts," Master Windu said, his face an unreadable mask as he looked over the room crammed with all manner of junk practically radiating Darkness. Beneath that outward calm, however, the Korun was close to losing his inner peace and starting to swear most unbecomingly. Hmm… under his breath.

Siith'khara'Dziha had, once again, set most of the Masters of the Jedi Order scrambling.

Vacation. Right. Where does a sentient usually go when they take a vacation? Resort planets. Coruscant. The Smuggler's Moon, for crying out loud! At the very least, Shili to visit the Togruta! Some even head into Hutt Space for the enormous range of entertainment on offer.

And where does the sorcerer from Jabiim go?

Dathomir and Korriban, of course.

What kind of stupid question is that?

And what does a normal sentient bring back from vacation? Souvenirs? Cute exotic animals? Traditional clothing from other cultures? Maybe a thoroughly drained bank account after an unfortunate encounter with betting and gambling?

Yeah. Not Siith.

He brought back to Jabiim a whole pack of dangerous creatures from Dathomir, five slaves sold to him by the Nightsisters, and half the Consular's cargo hold crammed with dark Sith artifacts from Korriban!!!

"Oh, come now, Master," the sorcerer said with a grin, spreading his hands. "That's exactly why I asked the Council to send someone over to inspect the loot— uh… souvenirs! I just didn't expect half the Order to turn up, with you and Master Kuro at the head of the procession!"

"You see…" The Korun allowed himself the faintest of smiles, with just a trace of irony in his eyes. "The Council has faith in your ability to bring back something… interesting from the worlds you visit."

"Sadly, we never did find a terentatek," Siith sighed. "My daughter's sulking at me now."

A red-eyed girl standing a couple of meters away, dressed like her father in a black hooded robe, let out a deep, almost heartrending sigh and pointedly ignored Siith.

"Believe me, Master Dziha, a terentatek is not something you would want to see on this planet. You would be hard-pressed to find creatures more dangerous or vicious anywhere in the galaxy. So…" The Master caught the child's deeply wounded look as tears began to gather in the corners of her eyes. "I would recommend giving your daughter something a little safer."

"A krayt dragon!" the girl cried happily, bouncing on her toes and instantly forgetting her grievances.

"For example, a fathier*," the Korun continued implacably; when it came to dealing with younglings, he was an old hand. "They may not be cheap, but they're highly intelligent, beautiful, and graceful. They're easy to tame, very affectionate, and wonderfully gentle with children. Give them spacious enclosures, let them out often to run and play, and surround them with care, and they'll make excellent companions for both the children and Karray. Besides, riding a fathier to fetch sweets is much more convenient than taking a rancor."

"Booooring…" the girl drawled sulkily, pointedly turning away. Windu's eye twitched ever so slightly.

"You know, Jabba was bragging recently that there's a sarlacc living on his territory," the sorcerer mused, and the girl immediately perked up. "I was already considering buying it, but after seeing the manners of a certain young lady… I'm beginning to have doubts…"

"O-ho-ho-ho," the girl covered her mouth with one hand as she turned back toward her father and the Jedi. "But now that I think about it, fathiers are sooo adorable! Only someone as clever as you, Master Windu, could have come up with such a wonderful idea! You're absolutely right—terentateks are terribly dangerous! Daddy! My very, very best Daddy! Isn't it wonderful that Master Windu himself came to visit us?"

Looking at the girl's sincere, slightly unsettling smile and those utterly, utterly honest red eyes, Windu wholeheartedly thanked the Force that this child wasn't gifted. Well, not gifted in the conventional sense. The Korun was absolutely certain that THIS child would have become the cause of a truly monumental headache—if not for the entire Council, then for him, Windu, personally!

He could practically see it happening: the girl befriending every troublesome youngling and Padawan she could find! Skywalker already spoke of the young sorceress with enthusiasm, and to Windu, that was an alarming sign. And then there was Ahsoka Tano, who regularly made the Jedi instructors roll their eyes. Add a couple dozen younglings running around as though something had bitten them on the backside! And the cherry on top would be Master Rancisis, who, for all his ostentatious disapproval of violations of the Order's rules, had been quite the troublemaker himself in his younger years! Master Yaddle occasionally shared "interesting stories, mmm."

"Can we get back to this incredible pile of dark artifacts already?" Kuro, who had come to Jabiim officially this time as part of a hastily assembled commission, was none too pleased that the conversation had somehow drifted to animals when right in front of her were heaps of unmistakably Sith… whatever all of this was.

"Of course!" The sorcerer gestured invitingly toward the collection in question. "Only, Master Kuro, Master Yoda promised I could keep anything you deem safe, so I'm counting on your objectivity."

"Of course," the Shadow replied coldly, her displeasure obvious, before nodding toward the collection to the three Jedi archaeologists. "Master Windu, I'll… supervise."

"Very well, Master." The Korun nodded. "Now, Master Siith, you wouldn't object if we examined the girls you brought back from Dathomir?"

"What objections could I possibly have? I've already examined them every which way myself," the Director of the Academy and head of the Jabiim Mages' Guild said with a "friendly" smile. "How could I deny my colleagues the pleasure?"

"There's nothing interesting about them," Karray informed the Korun sadly. "Just ordinary half-Zabrak, half-human girls. Of course, the proportions differ from one to another, but Dad and I didn't find anything out of the ordinary. By the way, Master Windu… does anything hurt?"

"No, young Karray," Windu replied, keeping his expression calm.

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Absolutely sure?"

"Y-yes."

"Oooh… Pleeease?"

The Jedi Council member looked into the young sorceress's eyes, opened his mouth to answer… then snapped it shut so sharply his teeth clicked. The man had almost agreed that, now that she mentioned it, something did seem to hurt.

"Your daughter, Master Dziha…" the Korun began, then hesitated.

"Adorable, isn't she?" Siith finished for Windu. "So skillfully taking advantage of her age and the general impression of being a sweet little child… I'm proud of you, sweetheart!"

"Thanks, Dad!" the girl beamed. "Can I—"

"No modifications to your body until you reach full biological maturity," the sorcerer said with absolute finality. "And tell Romri that if she shares any more 'girl secrets' with you, I'll saw off her montrals. And tie her lekku in a knot!"

"Dad, you're a tyrant!"

"That's what I stand for," Dziha Senior agreed proudly, letting Windu and his daughter go ahead of him through the entrance doors of one of the Academy buildings.

"Master Windu! Dad just admitted he's a tyrant! You need to arrest him immediately!" The girl thought for a couple of seconds while the Korun slowly raised his right eyebrow. "For a month or so! Yes, a month should be enough for me to get everyth— I mean, you need to investigate! What if he really is a tyrant? Question witnesses, talk to… uh… Master Yoda, the Supreme Chancellor…"

"Master Siith," the Master decided to ignore the child's attempt to turn in her own father for some rather dubious purpose. "Don't you think keeping ancient Sith equipment and artifacts here at your Academy is a bad idea? Perhaps they should be moved to a separate storage facility?"

"Quite the opposite—it's an excellent plan! I'll be staying here for the next month. Too much piled up while I was on vacation. That means I can keep an eye on them and, if necessary, reach the storage site in no time." The sorcerer gave the Jedi a serious look, then smiled and swept a hand around the Academy courtyard. "And really, what could possibly happen here?"

At that exact moment, an explosion thundered somewhere behind the bushes. Something on the level of a C-16, Windu thought as he activated his lightsaber. He sensed no danger, but…

"Well, look at that," the sorcerer said, catching a head that came flying out from behind the bushes. "Now there's a familiar face."

"THEY KILLED KENNY!!!" a girl's voice screamed from the site of the explosion.

"BASTARDS!!!" a second voice echoed the first, this one male.

"MY N'W SUIT!!!" a third male voice joined the chorus.

"What could possibly happen, you said?" The Korun raised both eyebrows at once, giving Siith a pointed look.

"It's fine. Dead Man getting killed is perfectly normal," the sorcerer waved it off, listening as the argument behind the bushes gathered steam. "Karray, sweetheart, cover your ears."

"Ahem…" Windu was even slightly embarrassed when he heard the first female voice suggest what certain "first-years" ought to do with a rancor named Pancake. The third speaker—the one with the speech impediment—was loudly informing everyone present that those "greenhorns" had gotten completely out of hand and that it was high time someone did something about them, because respectable artifact-makers didn't fucking need that kind of publicity.

"I'm serious," Siith'khara'Dziha sighed without a trace of a smile. "Dead Man dies with enviable regularity. If I were a follower of Fatum, I'd say it was simply his fate."

"I see…" the Master nodded, recalling that Knights Rig Nema and Stass Allie had mentioned something along those lines in their reports—after which Windu himself had been surprised, while the head of the Healing Corps had… expressed her opinion rather forcefully about "that abnormal sorcerer's abnormal chimerologists."

"Can I uncover my ears now?" Karray asked, dutifully standing there with both hands over them.

"Yes." The sorcerer nodded, taking the dead man's head by the hair with his left hand while gently patting his daughter on the crown with his right.

"I don't care." Meanwhile, the commotion behind the bushes had died down, leaving only one voice speaking—the first. "Whoever put Dead Man to rest gets to haul the corpse. Find some bags, collect all the big pieces, scrub the blood and guts off the paths. And find his head: without it, the Director will transplant your eyes onto your asses. Maybe even someone else's eyes."

"B'tter go to Karray," the third voice advised. "You'll get off with a cake instead of twenty m'nutes of lecturing."

"You were calling for their blood yourself a minute ago, and now you're helping them," the second voice said in surprise.

Listening to all this, the sorcerer merely shook his head. The head hanging from his left hand, that is. Then he tossed it over the bushes.

"Oh, there's the head!"

"Good s'ntients haven't died out in the galaxy yet."

"He looks so peaceful…"

"Peaceful? His tongue's hanging out and his eyes are bulging! Fluffy, are you even all right?"

"What would you know, Shipwright! Anyway, Penro, give the head to the first-years and let's go look at the Jeddies."

"We've got two of our own. Wh't's the point?"

"New ones! They say a handsome Korun flew in. A Master, Council member! Distinguished, bald man—just the way I like 'em!"

"F'rst it was a Mando, th'n Director Dziha, now a J'di M'ster… Shelly, you're one flighty woman!"

"What would you know, Muun, about the delicate feminine soul of a Devaronian woman! A Master means authority. Opportunities! Besides, they say his glowing stick isn't the standard kind—it's purple! My fur stands on end all over just thinking about how rare his kyber crystal must be! And imagine if he knows where to find another one?"

"Hm-m-m… He really does sound like a very pl'asant sentient! I wish you luck in f'nding true love!"

"Don't worry, Master Windu," the sorcerer said, pulling the Jedi out of a state bordering on shock. "As long as I'm with you, your virtue is safe. But I'd recommend deactivating the glowing stick. No need to attract attention."

"And those are…?" The Korun took Siith's advice without even bothering to correct him about the "stick," gesturing questioningly toward the voices.

"No, no, that wasn't the sound of a plan to conquer your heart being born. Sorry," Dziha snorted quietly and continued on his way—to Windu's relief, away from the cluster of students. "Students. In every age and every world, they're a special subspecies of sentient life. Though sometimes even calling them sentient is a stretch. Every now and then they pull something so outrageous that Alto just grabs his head."

The red-eyed sorcerer scratched his beard thoughtfully and, a couple of moments later, added:

"I think you understand what I mean, Master."

"More or less," the Korun agreed, thinking that the Temple younglings really weren't all that troublesome after all. And Padawans were their Masters' responsibility anyway, so he rarely had to intervene. Thank the Force that this kind of… "Sith nonsense" didn't happen on Coruscant. Master Yoda had been right, after all, when he decided not to open negotiations with the mages about relocating their Academy to the Republic's capital world.

"Dad, can I go now?" the young sorceress tugged at her father's sleeve. "There's supposed to be cake…"

"Yes, of course. Go on. You know where the spare bodies are. And no more jokes about 'mixing them up,' all right?"

"Three times wouldn't be funny anymore," the girl agreed, skipping off toward one of the Academy buildings.

Master Windu watched the child go with reluctant respect. If not for the reports from Knights Nema and Allie, he might have doubted that this little girl was actually capable of… literally reattaching a head to a separate body. He still remembered how thoroughly the Korun had been taken aback when he learned that the Guild had grown several bodies for Dead Man at once, specifically for "quick replacement."

"The girls are staying here," Siith said with a nod when they reached a small cottage, one of a couple dozen standing a short distance from the Academy. "We built these houses for the students' families. They sometimes fly in to visit their little monste— children, I mean. Yes…"

Windu allowed himself a thin smile at the sorcerer's "accidental" slip and followed him inside.

Inside, everything turned out to be… ordinary. Comfortable, even with a hint of luxury. Hardly surprising, considering HOW much tuition at this Academy cost. The Korun sensed no Dark Side presence. The Force was there, but it felt the same as everything else in the Academy—impersonal and austere. The same sensation came from the sorcerer's own "magic," and from the amulets and protective charms purchased on Jabiim.

The Jedi wasn't worried about an attack. First, Dziha had been under observation for years. Second, why would Siith even do such a thing? For all the sorcerer's eccentricity, he had proven himself a perfectly reasonable sentient. The Order's relations with the JMG weren't merely neutral—they were closer to friendly. Strange as it might sound, Windu considered Dziha… far too Sith-like on the outside to actually be a Sith. More than that, the sorcerer clearly enjoyed all the misunderstandings, even as he sighed and complained about constantly being mistaken for an enemy of the Jedi Order. And most importantly: his character.

Sith, with rare exceptions, sought power. One way or another, they pulled everything under their control. Dziha, on the other hand, reminded the Master of the head of the Corps of Balance… or Jocasta Nu, the "Mistress of the Archives." The former cared only for journeys through the Force during meditation; the latter was concerned, for the most part, with nothing but her Archives. Everything else… weighed on those worthy Jedi. Had they been given the chance to leave their posts behind and devote themselves solely to what they loved, they would have done exactly that, handing their Stargazers and archivists over to their successors.

The sorcerer seemed much the same. Given his way, he would have dumped both the JMG and the Academy on someone else, then either set off traveling the galaxy in search of new things to study—breaking the brains of everyone he met along the way—or holed himself up in some laboratory with his experiments.

Frankly, Alto Stratus had far more of a Sith-like personality than the head of the JMG did. Even Sheev Palpatine looked more like a Sith than Siith did, as ridiculous as that sounded.

"Heh." The Korun gave an almost soundless chuckle. Come to think of it, their eternal enemy really would have taken the position of head of the Republic with pleasure—just to revel in the power and savor the fact that he had the entire Jedi Order dancing to his tune.

"Master?"

"Forgive me. I got lost in thought," the Jedi said, coming back to himself after already giving the five girls a careful once-over.

Pale skin, white hair. That was roughly how Quinlan Vos had described Nightsisters by birth. These five had been less fortunate—their blood contained roughly as many midi-chlorians as an ordinary human. Siith had sent over the blood-test results he'd obtained shortly after leaving Dathomir. Their prospects within the Clan had been grim: slavery. The Dathomiri women greeted him with a range of emotions, from wariness to outright hostility, which was hardly surprising either, considering where the girls had come from.

The Master produced the necessary device from the folds of his robe and immediately began collecting samples. The Order needed to run its own tests. Trust, but verify. No one wanted a witch Clan suddenly appearing on Jabiim. Their minds would need to be examined as well—Mother Talzin was notoriously fond of all kinds of dirty tricks.

After all that, he could afford to spend a little time on himself. Master Kuro would be supervising the archaeologists with such diligence that the Korun would most likely have to "rescue" some of Siith's trophies just so the man had anything left at all. So Windu didn't really have much else to do.

He planned to head to Choal and see the capital. Visit one of the Libraries of Hecate, stop by the main square, take a walk through the capital's park. Windu had read that, at the government's request, the mages had created something incredible there.

To be perfectly honest, Master Windu liked Jabiim. A strong world, inhabited by people of character—people the Jedi had… failed. Yes, there weren't many of them by galactic standards, but still, when Jon Tolm and his Padawan, Aayla Secura, sent their findings to the Council… Or rather, no. When the Jedi pulled up every request that had ever come from this world, when they went through the reports… In short: it was shameful. And painful, too, because Jabiim was hardly alone! There were hundreds of worlds just like it, far removed from the Temple on Coruscant, worlds the Jedi simply lacked the time and resources to reach.

And thank the Force, this rain-soaked planet had been lucky enough for Siith to choose it as his home. Things were far better now than they had been a decade ago. The contrast was astonishing. There was even a small trickle of tourists now, coming to see the "homeworld of the mages" and curiosities found nowhere else. The "window into space," for example. Even Windu had been impressed by the sight as the eternal clouds slowly and solemnly closed behind the Jedi ship like the iris of some colossal airlock. It was genuinely beautiful—and mesmerizing.

And what about the "Return Home Assistance Program"? The Master himself had witnessed a small bounty hunter's ship being greeted by a civilian delegation holding a banner that read WELCOME HOME. He had seen the happiness on the faces of the family who had arrived aboard it, and seen that those who had come to meet them were genuinely glad to have their fellow citizens back.

That was… good, as far as the Jedi Master was concerned. The way it should be.

"All right." After checking the analyzer's readings, the Jedi nodded. The results were accurate. Only one of the girls might, at a stretch, have qualified for admission into the Order. And even then, the Stargazers would most likely have been as far as she could go. "Now I'm going to ask you a few questions. Relax and answer honestly."

---

Author's Note:

Fathiers, also known as space horses, are non-sentient quadrupedal animals that can be domesticated and used as mounts. They were taken from the new canon (because they're simply adorable creatures and the Author liked them—unlike Luke Skywalker trying to poke his nephew with a glowing stick while the poor guy was asleep. The Author generally believes that poking your nephews is a bad thing, 'kay?).

---

Original Russian story

You can find more chapters on my Patreon.

The translation of new chapters will also be published here—but with a bit of a delay.

 

[readsalot]

Frankly, Alto Stratus had far more of a Sith-like personality than the head of the JMG did. Even Sheev Palpatine looked more like a Sith than Siith did, as ridiculous as that sounded.

"Heh." The Korun gave an almost soundless chuckle. Come to think of it, their eternal enemy really would have taken the position of head of the Republic with pleasure—just to revel in the power and savor the fact that he had the entire Jedi Order dancing to his tune.

Click to shrink...

………
Damn you got it right Windu, how unfortunate you do not see the real truth as the truth.
Poor foolish Jedi tsk tsk tsk.
Anyways hopefully Siith gets to keep all or most of his Loot, and atleast the Ancient Sith Lady went undiscovered

 

[tob2103]

Urgh so sick of his subservience to the Jedi even if only for show. Great story.

 

[FTR2017]

I'mma be honest, if Siith doesn't 'deactivate' said 'dangerous' artefacts in front of the Jedi for flexing points, I'll be disappointed in him losing his loot to those boring do-gooders.

And lmao, Windu ... so close, yet so far away!

 

[Vyraco]

So, all the good stuff is either already analysed or somewhere else, and the Jedi get to search through what is essentially the Force-equivalent of radioactive waste material, right?

Got to admit, I don't like Fathiers. Always thought their faces are incredibly creepy...

 

[Boroda Orka]

"Why did it take you so long?" XoXaan looked irritated. As always, really, so the sorcerer clearly ignored the grumbling note beneath the infernal overtones of her voice.

"Miss me?" he asked with a sweet smile, looking at the ghost hovering beside the little holocron pyramid.

"I couldn't even eat," the ancient gifted replied acidly. "Oh, wait… I can't eat in the first place!"

"Look what missing a friend does to a Sith Lord." Siith brushed away a nonexistent tear of emotion, then turned serious. "But seriously, Xo, I don't understand what you're complaining about. Everything went about as expected. Master Kuro, despite that whole little performance of ours with the junk we hauled out of your neighbors' tombs…"

"Heh-heh-heh." For a moment, XoXaan dropped the majestic Lady act, allowing herself a few chuckles full of vengeful anticipation.

"Ahem. If you're done imagining the looks on your colleagues' faces…"

"Yes, yes, go on, sorcerer." The ancient gifted waved a hand regally, settling back into her usual expression of peevish irritation.

"Yes, my Lady! Thank you, my Lady!"

"Wasn't someone just begging me to be more serious?!" the Sith Lady grimaced, lazily raising her left hand and unleashing Force lightning. The technique crackled against the spherical shield that sprang up around the sorcerer, leaving him unharmed.

"That bored, were you?" Siith'khara'Dziha asked with a hint of sympathy.

"I browsed the HoloNet, watched a few shows now and then." The ghost shrugged. "Some of them were actually pretty decent. The only thing that ruins most of them is the Jedi who inevitably shows up right when things get difficult, saves the heroes, and then drags out some tedious monologue for a couple of episodes, complete with flashbacks and moralizing. It gets so dreary I found myself wanting to destroy a couple of holofilm studios."

"Oh, did you try that game I recommended?"

"Boring," the gifted summed it up curtly.

"What about the terraforming simulator? The one where you start as a lone droid on a planet with insanely hostile conditions…"

"Are you out of your mind? You might as well have recommended a factory-worker simulator! Sith Lords do not concern themselves with such trifles! We command Empires!"

"You and I clearly have very different ideas of how to kill time when we're bored," the red-eyed man said, shaking his head. "But all right, enough of that. Just as I expected, Master Kuro didn't completely buy the act. She didn't leave with the antiquities experts and Master Windu, but stayed on Jabiim for another week. Officially, to see how the healer Knights were getting on with chimerology. Unofficially… she went right back to playing hide-and-seek around every place on the planet she found suspicious and kept a very close eye on the girls from Dathomir. Nice work, by the way. Even the Master didn't notice you'd temporarily scrambled their brains."

"When the victim doesn't resist—and even cooperates—you can avoid a great many problems. As you've probably gathered, I've had some experience with that sort of thing before. Let's just say… a couple of my 'friends' were very surprised to learn that the apprentices who had betrayed me hadn't actually betrayed me at all."

"I don't like mind-crawlers."

"We're not a peggat; we don't have to please everyone. Your words, not mine." The ghost shrugged. "And yes, those little creatures of yours that you released into our slaves' bloodstream are absolutely vile. Compared to them, mental suggestion is child's play."

"Adorable little arterial worms," Siith disagreed. "Simple creatures, like most worms. And thanks to their nature, they're perfectly at home in the bloodstream. Modifying them to filter midi-chlorians out of the blood wasn't any trouble at all, either. The witches of Dathomir are missing out by using them only for executions. One day's work, and they turned into absolutely splendid symbiotes. Karray is delighted—she's already brought me four fascinating projects!"

"Thrilling," XoXaan said with absolutely no enthusiasm, her face utterly indifferent. "So, all the unwanted guests are gone?"

"Yes. Everything's quiet on our Jabiim. They even let me keep a couple dozen little gadgets that belonged to your colleagues."

"Throw them out. It's all junk," the woman said, curling her lip contemptuously. "I don't understand this reverence for 'ancient heritage.' Rakatan technology, fine—but Sith creations from thousands of years ago? Anything worthwhile was destroyed long ago, and whatever still exists isn't something anyone would leave hidden in the tombs of Korriban."

"What happened to 'things were better in the old days'?"

"That applies more to people," the gifted said, a venomous smile spreading across her face. "Tools, on the other hand, are superseded by better versions over time. Lightsabers themselves once replaced ordinary blades. Then they gained compact power cells in the hilt and got rid of that dreadful cable running to a battery pack on the wearer's back. Same with those 'artifacts' the Jedi left you. There wasn't a single thing among them that doesn't have a more advanced equivalent. The real problem is that there are hardly any proper Sith left in the galaxy…"

"Taking another swipe at the Baneites?"

"Well… in all fairness… what is that look on your face?!" the Sith Lady demanded, glaring at the sorcerer in annoyance.

"I was just admiring the word 'fairness' coming out of your mouth."

"Are you deliberately trying to piss me off?" XoXaan felt an overwhelming urge to put on one of her skins just so she could grind her teeth in anger. "There were some genuinely worthwhile sentients among those rats. No match for me, naturally—nor for hundreds of worthier members of my Order. I even knew a few Jedi who were stronger and smarter than Bane himself. Darth Bane. Pfft… They couldn't even preserve the proper pronunciation!"

"What do you mean?" The sorcerer immediately looked far more interested now that she had said something that actually intrigued him.

"The title Darth. Your contemporaries don't even know for certain what it means, or how it's properly pronounced. *Darr Tah! If I chose to take the title, I would be called Darr Tah XoXaan. Conqueror through Death! In Rakatan, darr means victory, a successful conquest, an achieved subjugation. Tah means death, killing, extermination. A victor who brings death. A conquering killer. Darth, on the other hand… well, it's just a nice-sounding prefix attached to a name, its meaning long since lost.*"

"Young people love that sort of thing," the sorcerer said, nodding with satisfaction as he took the holocron from its pedestal and placed it into the box standing nearby. "Come on, make yourself nice and transparent already. The housewarming won't wait."

"You are unbelievably annoying," came a whisper from the now-empty space right beside the red-eyed man's ear.

"That's not true." The sorcerer smirked. "Believe me, I've seen more than enough of all those villain masks. I used to put on that kind of show myself, once upon a time. I wouldn't exactly call you cute, of course, and your temperament is difficult, to put it mildly. Then there are the sadistic tendencies. The lust for power. The greed. That annoying voice…"

The man left the secret room, muttering something a couple of times in a guttural language unfamiliar to the gifted as he picked his way through piles of assorted cleaning tools. Probably swearing. Eventually, he emerged into the Academy corridor with his burden, accompanied by the Sith Lady hovering invisibly beside him. Next to the door of the room they had just left hung a sign that read: JANITORIAL SUPPLIES.

"I… am going to kill you, sorcerer… someday!" XoXaan couldn't sigh while incorporeal, but the urge to do so was overwhelming. Right after she strangled this impossible, insolent, shameless idiot!!!

"Do you have any idea how many people are already in line for my life? And I've only got one! There isn't enough of me to go around!" Another obnoxious chuckle was her only answer, and XoXaan found herself wondering how she might go about meeting those exceedingly pleasant sentients.

Though… perhaps she would have to kill them after all. First, the Sith Lady had already counted the sorcerer among her assets, and second, sharing was not in her nature. She would kill him herself when the time came.

Or… oh, let him live. He could stay on his Jabiim and keep pushing her Empire's magical progress forward.

The important thing was not to repeat the Jedi's mistakes: if that red-eyed son of a bitch ever needed to fly off to some planet full of ancient tombs, XoXaan would send observers with him. Perhaps even apprentices. The appearance of one of her old acquaintances would be extremely undesirable. At least for now. And in general, XoXaan had no desire whatsoever to let the awakening of ancient Sith become some kind of "fine tradition."

---

"Siith, listen." Alto took a deep breath and fixed the sorcerer with a hard look. "Don't you think an ancient Sith Lady is maybe a little too much?"

"A little?" Cordelia raised an eyebrow. "A little too much is one Dathomiri witch! Five witches and a damn Sith isn't just too much, it's… it's…"

"Cordelia, don't exaggerate." The red-eyed man sighed and shook his head. "So there's a Sith. So there are witches. What exactly is new about that in this galaxy? The Dathomiri already have something to do, and Xo's busy too—she's studying."

"And you're delighted, aren't you? So many opportunities to dissect them," the head of Jabiim Security grimaced.

"Already did! Several times! With weaves and the old-fashioned way!" the sorcerer said with a satisfied squint, taking a sip of caf from an enormous mug.

"Siith, why bother with the old-fashioned way?" Alto Stratus suddenly asked. "You said yourself that spells and rituals are easier. And Karray told me she doesn't do dissections anymore either."

"Oh, well…" The sorcerer looked almost embarrassed. "It's more of an old habit. The magical instruments I originally had at my disposal weren't accurate enough to be called satisfactory. Some things I found, some I bought, some I modified myself, but by the time I finally had spells and rituals that could give me better data… the habit had already stuck."

"To Sith with your vivisections!" Cordelia snapped, slamming her palms against the armrests of her chair. "We have an Ancient Sith on this planet, and you, sorcerer, lied to the Jedi!!! I don't even know which is worse! No, wait! I do!!! What's worse is that your witch out of the darkness of the past is obviously going to stir up another round of galactic turmoil sooner or later!!! What next? Do we let her open a branch of a Sith Academy here on Jabiim? Why not? We've already got a Lord, and five lunatics for her to take as apprentices! And then, a month from now, a year from now, when the Republic and the Temple finally find out, we'll have a Justiciar fleet dropping on our heads and a Jedi assault force charging in with glowing sticks at the ready?"

"Cordelia, why are you always getting so worked up?" Siith let out a heavy sigh. "Seriously. You don't need to believe everything you read on the HoloNet."

"So now you're going to try and sell me the idea that Sith are actually all sweetness and light?" The head of security's eye began to twitch.

"No. I'm saying you shouldn't assume they're idiots," the sorcerer said, shaking his head. "First, Xo is studying chimerology and ritualism right now. Neither is something you master overnight, and she's only just getting started. Second, she doesn't have the resources to stir up any trouble. Not yet, granted. She's already making plans and all that. But third, she won't touch Jabiim—we made a deal and sealed it with an oath before Hecate. Once she's finished her business here, she'll pack up her things and go be a Sith somewhere else. And fourth—the Sith are already stirring up trouble across the galaxy. I don't see anything wrong with a Dark gifted taking over that whole operation when she's bound to me by oaths of non-aggression toward me, the JMG, the Academy, and Jabiim as a whole."

"That's all just theory," the woman said, pursing her lips.

"Oh, come on." The sorcerer chopped one hand downward as though cleaving the air in two. "The entire Jedi Council keeps sighing about the Dark Side muddying the waters. Then, 'all of a sudden,' separatist sentiment starts blooming everywhere. For a thousand years, things stayed more or less within bounds, and now, suddenly, half the Republic has decided that 'something needs to change'? Please. All those profiteers howling from podiums about 'honest' government, corruption, the oppression of the Outer Rim worlds… They're the same people who spent all those years corrupting that government in the first place, enabling and cultivating the very corruption they're complaining about. And they profited off worlds like ours every chance they got. You really think all of that is a coincidence? I, for one, have my doubts!"

"The separatists are rallying around Count Dooku, and he's a Jedi," Alto pointed out.

"A former Jedi," Siith corrected Cordelia's cousin. "And why do Jedi leave the Order, most of the time? Because they become disillusioned! It doesn't happen all that often, but leaving the Order is a thing. Funny enough, far more often Jedi don't leave at all—they simply fall to Darkness. Some Knights and Masters specialize in hunting down, or outright eliminating, those half-baked Sith. And by the way, the fallen always end up declaring themselves Sith anyway. Well, the ones who can still talk, rather than just scream like lunatics and start carving up anyone who looks at them the wrong way with their glowing sticks."

"You think the Count of Serenno has fallen?"

"Maybe. Or maybe someone gave him a push. Or maybe he was always like that. The Count is far too normal for one of those deranged psychos Jedi turn into after falling. That's actually one of the reasons I don't believe every genuine member of the Order that opposed the Jedi was some bloodthirsty lunatic. A horde of idiots incapable of controlling their anger and rage simply couldn't have built an Empire. Yet they did so regularly. And sentients lived in those Empires—sometimes quite well, even. Yes, the regime was a totalitarian dictatorship, but let's not forget that one dictatorship can be very different from another. If the regime had been intolerable to the overwhelming majority, those Sith would simply have been buried under a mountain of bodies until they were destroyed—not fought for by people willingly joining their 'dark' legions."

The sorcerer crossed one leg over the other and looked intently first into Alto's eyes, then Cordelia's.

"They KNEW how to handle their own nature," Siith said. "Do you understand? XoXaan herself, despite being one of the first Sith Lords, knows how to keep herself under control. Believe me, I'm very good at driving people up the wall. I tried every way I could to piss her off. And what happened? She zaps me with lightning? That's it? Pfft. Snaps her servants' necks? Pfft number two. It's not even funny—she stopped doing that as soon as she'd grasped the part of the healing process she currently had access to. Dead Man dies for stupider reasons than that!!!"

"Siith," Cordelia said, looking at the sorcerer with pity, "not every story about the Sith can be a lie or propaganda."

"I'm not talking about all of them," the red-eyed man said, raising his voice slightly and gesturing with both hands. "Even from Xo's stories, there were plenty of Sith that their own people considered completely unhinged. I'm talking about her specifically! What is this Dark Lady famous for, huh? She invented Dark Healing! Do you understand? Not some uber-club or kill-everything technique, but a Dark Side equivalent of healing! Despite being no beauty and belonging to the 'bad guys,' she's perfectly rational, reasonably level-headed, and someone you can actually negotiate and do business with. Carefully, with proper safety precautions, but you can! And what do we know about the Sith who are stirring things up in the galaxy right now? Nothing! Alto, hand on heart, who would you rather have leading a rebellion against the Republic? A sentient who physically cannot harm our home—or unknown individuals?"

"To begin with, I don't understand why you assume she'll inevitably end up leading the rebellion," Alto replied, calmly taking a sip of caf.

"It's the Sith way. From what I know about them, from what my new apprentice is like, and from what Xo has shown me, the Ancient Lady simply won't be able to tolerate some 'Baneite rat' clawing its way to the top ahead of her. As for why I'm confident she'll win… age and experience. XoXaan is several times older than I am. She'll eat whoever currently stands at the head of the Two alive—just give her time. Alto, I swear, if not for the oath she gave me and the fact that Jabiim will be useful to whoever comes out on top, I wouldn't even be entertaining anything like this. As a last resort, I'd simply have fled that tomb and sicced the Jedi on her if she'd refused to give us guarantees of safety."

"If the Republic goes up in flames…" Alto said thoughtfully, then fell silent.

"And it will," the sorcerer said with a nod and a smile, reaching for his mug again. "You showed me your analysts' projections yourself."

"Then better that it burns without touching Jabiim," the leader of the rain-soaked world said with a grim smile. "It never came to our aid through all those centuries of need. I don't think we owe anything to the Republic—or to the galaxy at large."

"You'd have made an excellent sorcerer, Alto," the red-eyed man said with a smirk into his mug of caf. "Traditionally, we only got involved in things like that when we had a personal stake in them."

"I still don't like any of this," Cordelia said, looking darkly at the two men. "There's no guarantee that, once the unrest starts, an invasion fleet won't suddenly drop out of hyperspace over our world."

"No one's stopping Jabiim from simply wrapping itself in ion storms," Siith said with a shrug. "We'll lie and say we're having problems with the weather-control artifacts, blah-blah-blah. We'd just need to stock up on essentials… enough for ten years or so. They're not going to start bombarding us from orbit for that alone, right? They'll be pissed, sure, but Alto had the right idea: we can always say, 'what goes around comes around,' 'turnabout is fair play,' 'an eye for an eye,' 'you wrote us off, now we're returning the favor.' They'll grind their teeth, there'll be some bad blood left, but because of how unique we are, they're not going to come down too hard on us. And afterward, once we've pretended to see the error of our ways, we'll offer discounts and send gifts to whoever wins."

"Sometimes I find it hard to believe you're six hundred years old. Every now and then I look at you and you're just a boy," the head of Security said, covering her face with one hand. "But now I'm starting to doubt the Sith are actually any crazier than you are!"

"Ah-ha-ha-ha!" The red-eyed man burst out laughing, making the woman flinch in surprise. "You may not believe it, but back home I had a reputation roughly on par with your red-stick crowd. I won't lie, there was plenty of exaggeration involved, but some of the things I practiced were punishable by death on the spot in certain places."

"Raping everyone's brains?" the woman raised an eyebrow.

"Funny enough, I've never liked mind-crawlers, even though mental magic was legal almost everywhere. Governments found it useful. Never understood why they considered necromancy any worse. You can make zombies with the first, and you can make zombies with the second… Hecate, grant idiots just a little logic. Even a quarter of what I have would do…"

---

Author's Note:

*Darth: Darr Tah. There are several possible interpretations of the meaning behind the prefix—or title—Darth. This is one of them. Since XoXaan was practically one of the founders of the Sith Order, I decided it was reasonable to assume that she knew what it originally meant. Especially since she was among those who conquered the Sith species living on Korriban, a people who had previously had contact with the Rakatan Infinite Empire.

---

Original Russian story

You can find more chapters on my Patreon.

The translation of new chapters will also be published here—but with a bit of a delay.

 

[Morkail]

Really, it's like you've never seen a non banite sith before

Click to shrink...

Only a sith deals in absolutes.

That said a sith that can seeming endlessly reinbody them self's is kind of terrifying.

But what happens if they become a sorcerer and get "protection" from the dark side? Now that I want to see.

Nothing is more scary then a "sane" sith as shown by my all time favorite SW fan fic.

 

[FTR2017]

Is it weird that I am now expecting Xo to become the female version of Kenny as The Force does its best to return her to the grave she escaped from?

And Xo still thinks she can off Siith? Methinks she'll learn that Hecate's no joke either!

 

[0Whatever0]

"Sometimes I find it hard to believe you're six hundred years old. Every now and then I look at you and you're just a boy," the head of Security said, covering her face with one hand.

Click to shrink...

Wasn't there a part where Siith said he's lived atleast a thousand years?

 

[Boroda Orka]

Wasn't there a part where Siith said he's lived atleast a thousand years?

Click to shrink...

No. He is a little over 600 years old. This was mentioned at the beginning of the chapters during a conversation with Cordelia.

 

[Boroda Orka]

"Inta'si'rin'na," Senator Onaconda Farr said, bowing his head to the approaching planetary ruler.

"Senator Farr." The Grand Protector returned the respectful greeting, directing it toward his world's representative in the Galactic Senate.

"The small transport, the freighter, and the cruiser Rung are coming in to land," the senior controller informed the gathered dignitaries, glancing at his datapad.

Really, the announcement had been unnecessary. The Rodians gathered at the spaceport could see perfectly well as three large objects entered the planet's atmosphere, descending toward the landing pads.

"Is everything ready?" The Grand Protector's voice was calm, but the way his interlocked fingers fidgeted against his stomach betrayed the planetary ruler's impatience.

"Of course, Inta'si'rin'na," Senator Farr replied. He, too, could hardly boast of perfect composure, for today's visitors to Rodia were long-awaited and very welcome guests.

Welcome indeed. Granted, they were… not exactly the best thing that had happened to the senator personally, since their arrival was the result of a series of mistakes he had made in other matters. But to the Rodians' homeworld, the arriving Jabiimi were practically saviors. Rodia had been eagerly awaiting the goods they had brought aboard six cargo ships.

Food. Vast quantities of grain and vegetables from Jabiim. Some meant for consumption, and some modified to thrive in an extremely humid climate and intended for planting.

Of course, six cargo ships full of food were hardly enough reason for the highest-ranking officials of the planet to be present at the spaceport. The reasons why the Inta'si'rin'na himself had come to greet the arriving ships were somewhat different. Supplies were wonderful, especially considering that Rodia had recently lost a major shipment of food to a pirate raid…

A loss that had happened because of him. Onaconda Farr.

Normally, the Rodians purchased food on a regular basis and in relatively small quantities. But with tensions rising across the galaxy, Farr had proposed that the Grand Protector fill Rodia's storage facilities to capacity with provisions that could keep for a long time.

Unfortunately, that decision had required Rodia to abandon a long-term contract with an agricultural world it had worked with for the past two centuries.

And once again, the initiative had been Farr's.

The plan was to purchase not ordinary produce, but grain modified by the Jedi, high-calorie tubers from several plant species, and vegetables. All of these modified foodstuffs could be stored for years with practically no special conditions required.

It was… expensive, but both the senator and the Grand Protector believed such measures were necessary.

In the past, when the Great Hyperspace War had raged across the galaxy, many worlds had suffered not only from the fighting itself, but also because ordinary transport routes had been cut off. Battles between opposing fleets, pirates crawling out of every hole, minefields suddenly appearing along routes that had only recently been considered safe—all of these dangers claimed lives directly, but they also drove businesses into bankruptcy when raw materials stopped arriving, and caused famine on worlds that could not produce enough food to meet their own needs.

Rodia wanted to minimize the risks, because many doubted that the Jedi and the Senate would be able to resolve the crisis… without any serious upheaval. Farr sincerely hoped everything would end without bloodshed, but he believed they needed to prepare for the worst.

He had been the one to propose the plan for filling the planet's granaries, and he had been the one negotiating with a fairly distant agricultural world. A prosperous one, thanks to a stroke of good fortune in its past: a couple of centuries earlier, the Jedi Temple had selected the planet to become the breadbasket of the surrounding star systems. The Agricultural Corps had sent specialists there, and the Jedi had modified a number of local crops, bringing them close to ideal. Nutritional value, shelf life, vitamin and mineral content—everything was top-notch.

The only drawback was that those crops had been adapted specifically to that world's biosphere, and planting them anywhere else produced far poorer yields.

The profitable food trade had allowed the agricultural world to become an exceptionally prosperous place. Demand for its produce was high as well, however, so Rodia had been forced to pay a considerable premium to secure a large shipment without waiting its turn.

That was why Farr had suggested temporarily suspending the contract with their previous supplier.

Unfortunately, that had been a mistake.

The senator had arranged protection for the large convoy, but because of an unfortunate mishap, barely a quarter of the required Justiciar Fleet escort ships arrived.

That proved disastrous for the freighters carrying the provisions Rodia had purchased. The pirate raid cost the senator's homeworld not only the food shipment, but every Rodian cargo vessel involved in transporting it.

Citizens killed or carried off into slavery, food prices skyrocketing overnight, and a panic-stoking media that had somehow learned of the government plan's catastrophic failure almost at the same time as the Grand Protector.

It was just… Onaconda Farr had practically torn his own ears and crest off over the whole disaster.*

To make matters worse, when Rodia went back to its former supplier, they simply shrugged and informed them that all food available for export had already been sold to other buyers. And because Rodia had suspended the contract, the supplier had already signed agreements with other customers for the next two years.

Rodia was not the only world that could smell trouble coming, and the surrounding systems were preparing for a possible crisis as well.

It was yet another failure.

And once again, it was Farr's fault.

There was no famine yet, of course, but the outlook was bleak. Once private traders learned about Rodia's troubles—the loss of a large portion of the planet's merchant fleet and the beginnings of a shortage—they raised their prices to levels that were just shy of absurd.

And then there was the Senate…

Farr let out a heavy sigh as he remembered his speech asking for aid for his homeworld. As usual, it had dissolved into endless debate. In the end, Rodia's plea for help had been strongly supported by only five senators, among them the senator from Naboo and Bail Organa of Alderaan.

Once again, unfortunately, Onaconda Farr had serious doubts that the Senate would actually do anything in the next few months. Partly because the Republic's governing body was notoriously slow to act, and partly because there were simply too many problems now. Rodia's voice was only one among a great chorus of worlds calling for the attention of the Republic Senate.

"Ghests?" the Grand Protector called questioningly toward one of the Rodians—an elderly, though still vigorous, head of one of Rodia's most powerful clans, and one personally loyal to the Protector.

"Captured, Inta'si'rin'na," Naap Bomu repeated what he had already reported. His hunters ranked among the five best on the planet. And not just on Rodia. The Bomu clan's mercenaries were well known across the galaxy and were often hired by the Hutts themselves for a respectable fee. "We have plenty of experience keeping them for sale to Hutt traders, so there won't be any problems. I stake my clan's name on it: they'll be delivered for loading the moment you give the order."

"Excellent." Satisfaction was clearly audible in the voice of Rodia's ruler, who also served as commander-in-chief of the combined armed forces of the planet's clans.

The creatures included in the deal with Jabiim were known on the senator's homeworld as some of the most dangerous predators—and among the most hated by the locals. In ancient times, adult ghests reaching six meters in length had been a true terror to the Rodians, sometimes wiping out the populations of entire settlements.

Even now, encountering one of the beasts was a serious test of skill and equipment for even a well-armed, experienced hunter. Thank the Force their numbers had fallen sharply as more of the planet was settled and the creatures were hunted deliberately.

No one intended to exterminate Rodia's native fauna completely, of course. But thanks to the reduced numbers of these dangerous predators, life on the planet was becoming safer with every passing year.

And yes, trading dangerous flora and fauna—including ghests—offworld was one of the sources of income for the clans whose hunting teams captured the monsters living on Rodia. The clans, in turn, paid taxes into the planetary budget.

For the most part, such creatures were purchased by the Hutts and other enthusiasts of spectacles like gladiatorial combat, though not always. Many prosperous worlds, as well as wealthy individuals, could afford to maintain zoos, menageries, and botanical gardens displaying flora and fauna from different planets.

And now the monsters were part of the payment for a visit to Rodia by Siith'khara'Dziha's daughter.

Karray'darla'Dziha, a young human and the heir of a sorcerer whose name was currently on the lips of many sentients, had agreed to come to Rodia both as a guest and to help adapt plants and several animal species from Jabiim to the local climate. One of the reasons the young heiress had accepted the job was the promise of four adult ghests of both sexes.

She would also be accompanied by ten ritual mages from the JMG, like the ones Ryloth had hired—mages Onaconda Farr had heard Senator Orn Free Taa praise to the skies.

According to the corpulent Twi'lek, a team of five mages from the rainy world could turn newly sealed-off caverns of considerable size into mushroom farms with phenomenal speed. Their rituals required only that the storage crystals be replaced once a year, and those crystals could be recharged directly on Ryloth's sunlit side. The spells created ideal conditions for growing the planet's staple food crop, saving considerable expense on purchasing, installing, and maintaining technological systems designed to create the same kind of controlled ecosystem.

It was the news from Ryloth—news Farr had shared with his fellow Rodians in a report some time earlier—that prompted the Minister of Agriculture and Hunting to try contacting Sorcerer Siith directly, bypassing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

At first, he got nowhere. The head of the Academy of Magic and leader of the JMG refused to speak with Rodia's representative, citing how busy he was. But thanks to… a substantial bribe paid to one Romri Tano—the same woman from whom the elderly Rodian had once managed to buy a batch of protective amulets for his clan's hunters at an outrageously inflated price—the minister eventually secured a conversation with the sorcerer's daughter.

Perhaps it was worth dwelling for a moment on the man who headed the Ministry of Agriculture and Hunting—as well as on the ministry itself and, more broadly, the Rodian way of thinking.

Because the overwhelming majority of Rodia's landmass consisted of swamps and jungle, agriculture on the planet existed mostly in name only. Its few fields and rather expensive enclosed farms could feed little more than a modest-sized city.

Livestock farming was somewhat better, but with predators so abundant—even if most were nowhere near as voracious or dangerous as ghests—raising and grazing animals on Rodia was difficult and costly. In the end, livestock provided only a limited amount of meat, nowhere near enough to meet the needs of the entire planet.

That left hunting… but it went without saying that an industry like that could hardly feed a whole world.

And so the Ministry of Agriculture and Hunting contributed very little to actually feeding Rodia.

The minister himself was a former hunter who had left an arm and a leg in the swamps of his homeworld, replacing both with cybernetic prosthetics. Blunt to the point of rudeness, sharp-tongued, and hardly pleasant company, he held his post largely because of the influence of the clan he headed and the Grand Protector's personal regard for him. The ruler was a warrior to his very core and valued honesty, courage, and directness in those around him.

The old minister, Ot Maru, was also a father of many children and the proud grandfather of no fewer than thirteen grandchildren. He had raised his own children with almost dictatorial strictness, but with his grandchildren he was remarkably soft.

Among Rodians who still lived on their homeworld, society remained largely clan-based, and whoever bore the title of heir often wielded real authority. Less than the head of the clan, certainly, but still enough to matter.

An heir's words carried weight even with their own parent, if only because a wise clan leader would never simply dismiss what their successor had to say. Even if the youngster was talking nonsense, it was the duty of a good father and mentor to listen, understand where such foolish ideas had come from, and properly explain the mistake to the young claimant who would one day take his place.

That was probably what made the minister's conversation such a remarkable success.

Before him stood the hologram of a human child, a girl about the same age as one of his granddaughters. And at the same time, she was an heir—darla translated as exactly that—to the head of an organization whose acquaintance many people were now eager to make.

And not just the heads of major corporations, either, but the leaders of entire worlds.

So Ot Maru was not merely polite and respectful when speaking with the sorcerer's daughter; he also slipped into the same warmth he usually reserved for his beloved grandchildren.

Senator Farr, who had returned home after being summoned by the Grand Protector, later watched a recording of the conversation. It was… strange.

The opening pleasantries, after which the minister had intended to move on to his request for a conversation with Karray'darla'Dziha's father, quickly wandered far off course. First, the girl peppered the old hunter with questions about Rodia's wildlife. Then Ot Maru himself got carried away, launching into stories about his exploits across his homeworld.

All in all, about an hour into the old hunter's stories, young Karray was already insistently inviting herself over to visit "cool Grandpa Ot" so they could "go wandering through the swamps and jungles," while he tried to talk her out of it.

He was joined in that effort by a human woman whom the Dziha heiress called "Aunt Cordelia." As it later turned out, the woman was hardly just anyone: first, she was the head of Jabiim Security, and second, Alto Stratus—the ruler of the rainy world—was her cousin.

Five minutes into the argument, the girl's father suddenly appeared…

And, with astonishing casualness, sided with his daughter.

"Why not? Let her get out for a bit, relax, chase some wildlife around."

Honestly, Senator Farr himself had been left speechless, even though he already knew how that conversation had ended.

After that, the argument shifted to an extremely displeased Cordelia and a remarkably calm Siith'khara'Dziha—who, if he was worried about anyone at all, seemed to be worried about Rodia's predators.

"Let her take the Rung, Romri, ten Mandos with Arvik, the Gungan mercenaries under Koit… and Hit-Girl with her gang. We'll count the trip as field training for them. Mandatory. Unpaid. They're students—let them work! Karray's just bored sitting at home when there's a whole galaxy full of wildlife she hasn't tormented yet. Rodia does take tourists, right?" the sorcerer asked at the end, turning to Ot Maru.

The elderly minister did not let the opportunity slip away. He assured them that visitors were always welcome on Rodia, but also mentioned that the wild regions of his homeworld were extremely dangerous. Then, true to form, he bluntly laid out the matter that had prompted him to contact the Dziha heiress in the first place.

Siith was clearly not pleased by the change of subject, but the conversation nevertheless moved in the direction the minister wanted. His daughter joined in almost immediately as well, bubbling over with enthusiasm and ideas. Some of them sounded rather… surreal.

What was interesting was that the head of the JMG did not brush the girl off. With an almost distinctly Rodian seriousness, he listened to his daughter, either agreeing with her or explaining in detail why he thought some of her ideas were wrong.

In short, the minister ended up speaking with both Dzihas and the head of Jabiim Security for more than two hours.

Interestingly enough, Siith'khara'Dziha was also curious about the possibility of visiting Rodia himself, but Cordelia Stratus pointed out with obvious schadenfreude that he had only just returned from vacation and that the chief sorcerer of Jabiim had accumulated quite a backlog of work.

So after a while, the conversation focused solely on Karray'darla'Dziha's visit to the Rodian homeworld as both a tourist and a guest of Minister Ot Maru, alongside the agricultural and livestock-related matters they intended to address.

At one point, the girl stepped away to run to her workshop for some data on Jabiim's breed of swamp banthas. While she was gone, the elderly Minister Maru allowed himself a few remarks about the current situation on Rodia—and about the Republic, the Judicial Forces, and the Senate.

His language was so crude that, had Senator Farr said anything like this in public, his political career would have ended the moment the words left his mouth.

The sorcerer merely shrugged at the old man's profanity, while Cordelia Stratus even gave an approving grunt, after which she suggested arranging a conversation between her cousin and the Inta'si'rin'na—"if the Grand Protector has no objection to speaking with the leader of a world that no longer expects any help from the Republic."

The Grand Protector had no objections. Naturally, before making his decision, Rodia's ruler had looked into Alto Stratus. What he heard and read, he liked. Stratus was no empty-talking politician, but a warrior loved by his soldiers and practically worshipped by Jabiim's civilians. A former commander of the elite Nimbus special forces corps, he had taken power after one of the planet-wide epidemics that regularly struck his world. He had little affection for the Republic, though he respected the current Supreme Chancellor, who, unlike so many of his predecessors, had helped Jabiim during the latest epidemic by sending bacta and humanitarian aid. Stratus hated pirates and Trandoshans and their culture, supported the new order of gifted who called themselves mages, strengthened his homeworld's economy, and steadily expanded its defensive capabilities.

And the man was getting results. Jabiim, once plagued by constant pirate and slaver raids, now repelled ten attacks out of ten—and such attacks were becoming rarer and rarer—while claiming pirate ships as prizes and the criminals themselves…

The rainy world was rich in valuable resources, and the Grand Protector saw nothing objectionable in making would-be raiders help their intended victims prosper instead, even if their contribution was not exactly voluntary.

In short, everything the Rodian leader had learned about Alto Stratus painted the same picture: a man who was, above all, the Protector of his world. Whether standing on a battlefield with a sword in hand or sitting in a government office, he worked for the prosperity of his homeworld and the safety of its people. And that was something the man whose own title, Inta'si'rin'na, translated into Basic as "Grand Protector," could readily understand.

The Inta'si'rin'na was a warrior from a warrior clan of the warlike Rodian race. Some, Senator Farr among them, had turned away from the bloody legacy of their ancestors. Talented actors, musicians, merchants, politicians—among Onaconda's people were many sentients who had never once used a weapon in their lives.

But that did not apply to the Grand Protector.

Never had the ruler of the planet been a pacifist, and the senator… despite his own beliefs and his friendship with the Naboo royal family, considered the traditions of his people to be right.

The leader of their world genuinely loved Rodia. He always placed the well-being of the planet and its people first, and he despised those of his own kind who had betrayed their homeworld.

Even within his inner circle, he rejected any notion of kinship between Rodians who had abandoned the planet for good and those who remained—those who might travel the galaxy from time to time, but always came back.

In his youth, the Grand Protector had proved his valor in the gladiatorial arena. Afterward, he spent many years working as a bounty hunter, giving preference to contracts on former Rodians who had disgraced their homeworld.

"Cleaning up the galaxy," as the stern warrior who would later become the planet's ruler used to put it.

And he was absolutely delighted with Stratus when he learned how much effort, time, and money the man devoted to bringing abducted Jabiimi home. The people of Rodia might despise those of their kind who abandoned their homeworld for good, but they understood the difference between leaving of one's own free will and being taken by force. So in the eyes of the Inta'si'rin'na—and of most of Rodia's leadership—Alto Stratus's efforts amounted to a genuine act of devotion to his people.

So yes—the conversation took place, and it proved extremely productive.

Today's events were, in part, the result of those private negotiations between the two leaders over a secure hyperspace communications channel. Most of the cargo ships were still waiting in orbit, their holds packed with food sold on favorable terms and with payment spread out over time.

Because of its harsh weather and the difficulties ships faced when trying to land, Jabiim had long been accustomed to feeding its population largely on its own, and it maintained reserves as well.

Rodia had not been sold an enormous amount of food, but the volume was comparable to what the planet normally purchased. And as far as Onaconda Farr knew, Jabiim was willing to sell his world more in the future, temporarily increasing food production to meet the demand.

So both the arriving shipment and the prospect of future—possibly long-term—cooperation were expected to have a positive effect on food prices: lowering them on the local market for ordinary citizens and forcing down the prices charged by private traders who had decided to profit from the current crisis.

Along with the cargo ships came the ritualists and Sorcerer Siith's daughter, who were supposed to help Rodia develop both crops that could produce good yields on the planet and the biomes those plants would need.

And then there was the livestock. Two herds: swamp banthas from Jabiim and already modified Naboo shaaks. The agreement also included the delivery of several specimens of a unique breed of herding bantha—the R.K.B.S.B.U.-1.

Jabiim's second chimerologist, Karray'darla'Dziha, had promised "cool Grandpa Ot" that she would "prepare" all the animals for life on their new world once she arrived.

And in Senator Farr's opinion, the girl's visit might prove even more important than resolving the immediate threat of a food crisis.

It could bring Rodia one step closer to what Minister Ot Maru still regarded as little more than a dream: true food self-sufficiency.

The recently emerged mages had already made a name for themselves among those paying attention. Their innovative approach covered an astonishing range of fields—from personal protection and starship modernization to entire production chains built on completely new principles the galaxy had never seen before. On top of that, the JMG appeared to be on good terms with the Jedi Temple, so associating with them was unlikely to cause trouble. At least not from the Republic's own keepers of the peace. And some time earlier, the Supreme Chancellor himself had been seen at the opera in Siith'khara'Dziha's company, which had sparked a few quiet whispers in the corridors of the Senate.

In short, Rodia stood to gain a great deal if it could establish something close to friendly relations not only with Jabiim, but with the Mages' Guild as well. If nothing else, it might make it possible to obtain things vital to the planet with far less effort.

Yes, of course, the Republic was always loudly proclaiming mutual aid, equal rights, protection, and cooperation… But the senator knew perfectly well that reality did not quite match the declarations. Somehow, the systems of the Inner Rim always seemed to have rights that were a little more "equal," received that protection more often, and benefited rather more from all that cooperation.

Which meant that worlds like Rodia had to grab every opportunity with all available limbs.

"The transport for the Jabiimi troops has arrived," the aide quietly informed the commander-in-chief.

"Right on time," Rodia's leader said with a satisfied nod.

Senator Farr let out a silent sigh. The Nimbus company aboard one of the ships now coming in to land was the second reason the Grand Protector was present at the spaceport.

He and Alto Stratus had agreed on an exchange of experience between their worlds' special forces. Nimbus and the Blades of Rodia were due to meet soon in a series of war games. Naturally, neither leader had any desire to lose highly trained elite troops, so they had agreed on a series of bloodless friendly matches with varying victory and defeat conditions. And, while they were at it, the Inta'si'rin'na was eager to get a look at the unique repulsor boots used by Jabiim's elite soldiers, along with their sets of magical support and protective equipment.

His personal presence, meanwhile, was officially explained by Rodian tradition. During peaceful visits, armed sentients were required to obtain permission to pass from whoever protected the land. At the level of relations between clans, that meant the clan heads. When representatives of another world were involved, it meant the Grand Protector.

That was how, long ago, the Jedi had been granted permission to operate on Rodian soil. After meeting them in person, the Inta'si'rin'na who ruled the planet at the time formally allowed the keepers of the peace to travel through Rodia's jungles and swamps, and forbade the clans from hunting them anywhere on their homeworld.

Unofficially, though, the Grand Protector was simply curious. And for the most part, so were the other Rodians holding high-ranking positions and accompanying their leader. They wanted to see both Sorcerer Siith's daughter and the beginning of the unloading of Rodia's food supplies. And yes—they were just as eager to get a look at the warriors of another world. Rodians were hardly the most peaceful species; quite the opposite. Most of Senator Farr's people were fairly aggressive individuals who had no particular aversion to a good fight.

Did the senator consider it barbaric? Definitely. But after seeing enough of the galaxy beyond Rodia… he had come to regard his people's traditions as a necessary evil.

Sometimes… on Onaconda's homeworld, a single blaster bolt taking one life could save hundreds who might otherwise die in a clan feud. And every so often, the senator found himself thinking that the Republic might do well to adopt a few Rodian traditions of its own. The Judicial official responsible for the mishap with the escort assigned to Rodia's merchant ships, for example—Senator Farr would have gladly invited him into the arena, and for an occasion like that, he would have been quite willing to set aside his personal humanism for a while.

"And here are our guests," the Grand Protector said with satisfaction as the ramp of the sorcerer's personal cruiser lowered and a group of sentients appeared in the airlock doorway.

The procession was led by a human man in a military uniform, no longer young by the look of him, but still solidly built. Like the others, he moved with a light, slightly awkward gait, since Rodia's gravity was somewhat lower than Jabiim's. He was almost certainly the official representative. Which meant Stratus and his Ministry of Foreign Affairs were well aware that strength was respected on Rodia, and that the first among the Rodians was a warrior to the core—as were most of those around him. Two more official-looking Jabiimi accompanied the officer, both wearing less imposing uniforms and most likely serving as his aides.

Behind the soldiers from the rainy world came several more figures: a human girl with black eyes and red pupils—features unusual for her species—dressed in a long black-and-red robe with intricate embroidery on the left side of the chest. Karray'darla'Dziha. And the pattern, as far as the senator understood, marked her as belonging to the Dziha clan. Or perhaps the family line. Unfortunately, only now did Onaconda realize he had never looked into that particular detail.

The girl, who was looking around with obvious curiosity, was accompanied by two individuals who appeared to be bodyguards. One was a Mando in full armor, making it impossible to tell either their species or sex, while the other was a Gungan. Both were armed exclusively with melee weapons, just as Rodian tradition required for a first meeting with the Inta'si'rin'na.

As for the Mandalorian, the senator found it difficult to say much. He simply had little personal experience with representatives of that peculiar people, though Mandalorians were viewed quite favorably on Rodia—as worthy competitors in the mercenary trade.

But the Gungan…

Onaconda was acquainted with Representative Binks, and the difference here was impossible to miss. The Naboo who so often appeared in the Senate was, for the most part… exhausting and irritating. But the one now accompanying the young sorceress gave an entirely different impression. The senator might not have been a militarist, but he had still received the upbringing expected of a native-born Rodian, and he could clearly recognize the gait of a trained warrior beneath those broad, seemingly casual strides. The Gungan handled his spear with practiced ease, while his stalked eyes swept over the welcoming party without hostility, but with serious, careful attention. There was no sense that this long-eared humanoid visiting Rodia was about to trip over something, break something, cause chaos, or make a fool of himself. What Farr did recognize was a bodyguard at work.

"Welcome to Rodia," the Grand Protector said, stepping forward toward the military officer who had come to a halt before him.

---

"Boring…" Karray repeated yet again, only half-listening to the endless talking between one of Uncle Alto's officers and the Rodian. Inta'shit…somewhere-or-other. Though the girl had been told to call him the Grand Protector if the daughter of the head of the JMG and the top man on Rodia actually ended up speaking to each other.

"Bear with it, though," Koit said imperturbably for the… third time, she thought.

"How long can they keep yapping?!"

"As long as it takes, that's how long," the Gungan said, scratching one ear with his free hand. "Arvik there is waiting and not complaining. And being without his guns is hard on him, though."

"I've got my beskar'gam on, so I'm fine," the Mando disagreed.

"But a pair of blasters…"

"Is a pair of blasters," Arvik finished for Koit with a nod.

"And anyway, Karray-sa, think about how bit-bit miserable your father must be back on Jabiim right now. You'll feel better straight away, though."

"True enough," the girl sighed. "Daddy's probably going crazy over there…"

---

"This is unfair!!!" I exclaimed indignantly, leaning back in my chair.

There was a mountain of work to do. And none of the kind I actually liked, involving my own research, but… PAPERWORK!!!

And Dozdrogodul take it, actual paper wasn't even used here, with practically all documentation handled electronically…

"Report, report, report… Requisition, another requisition! Briefing… Denunciation! Memo, application…" I muttered as I scrolled through the messages on my datapad. "When did I manage to fall into a demonic plane?!"

"Master Dziha," Emthree said, drawing my attention. "A reminder: your class in Lecture Hall Three begins in ten minutes."

"What do you mean? Isn't that… what's his name? That red-haired guy? He teaches the basics of artifact-making."

"He has gone on leave. The notification should have reached you yesterday."

"Him too?!" I shouted, suddenly seized by a powerful urge to imitate Xo and zap someone with lightning.

"Master Dziha, what exactly are you planning to do with that blaster?" the military-modified protocol droid asked, a note of apprehension in his voice.

"Wave it around!" I explained decisively, wondering when exactly I'd managed to pull the weapon out of my desk drawer.

It's all stress!!! While normal people are relaxing, pursuing their own research, visiting brothels, sleeping—I'm busting my ass like a mountain goat! And the guys from the game are probably raiding the new boss from the latest update right now… How are they managing without the best tank-paladin of the god of light… Mneh… What was that schmuck called in the lore again? Ah, doesn't matter…

"Heh… Karray, Daddy's jealous…"

Who could've known that letting my daughter fly off to Rodia to unwind would trigger a whole wave of vacations, huh? Suti and Karrina, together with Shmi, Romri, and Alto—and by the way, is Alto even entitled to a vacation?—all took off for Shili, leaving literally EVERYTHING on me.

How much had the girls been carrying on their shoulders all this time?! I swear by Hecate's pantalo—mm… by my beard, I'm going to find them more hands to help. Because I've been running on potions for three days straight now, and I can't even look toward my personal laboratory—I simply don't have the time.

A third of the teaching staff had also suddenly decided to run off on vacation, so those of us who remained—including me—were carrying a much heavier workload. I'd have to cut the number of teachers allowed to go on leave at the same time down to a fifth. I hadn't quite thought that one through…

"Vacations are evil!" I declared firmly, pushing myself up from behind the desk.

"When they're someone else's," I added after a moment's thought, already halfway to the door leading into the corridor.

---

Author's Note:

*Rodians don't have hair on their heads, so when bad news hits, there's no hair on the old melon to tear out—they go for their ears and the crest of flexible bristles instead. A Rodian:

---

Original Russian story

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The translation of new chapters will also be published here—but with a bit of a delay.