Darth Nathemus
King of Firefist
Staff member
Administrator
Jedi King
Dark Council
Jedi Council
Immortalis
IC: King Taranos, Lady Danora, Lord Maldeus, Apollo, and others
Location: The Calliope, in orbit of Florrum
This little band had started as pirates nearly a decade before the True Sith War, but that very war forced them into hiding. Captains were mutinied, the new captains were murdered in their sleep, and the newer captains were shoved out of airlocks until, eventually, one man named Sro’vang took control. The mistakes of his predecessors were not repeated for once, and he launched these pirates to newfound heights of wealth and power. This became especially necessary in the new age of galactic travel, where pirating was an occupation that only barely made a profit now. Fuel and ship maintenance became luxuries that few could afford, and with fewer ships traveling frequently, the Sands had to find other means of remuneration. Before his death, Sro’vang pointed his people in the right direction. Spice dealing, cargo smuggling, gambling, and only a tiny dash of piracy were the beginnings of this new age for the Sands. Soon, with enough credits made, they worked their way into politics, supporting different sides of the same wars, manipulating people into and out of positions of power. Their income became self-sustaining, and their influence in this fractured galaxy began to grow. But they were not powerful enough to challenge the Final Sith Order.
Yet it appeared that was exactly what they had done.
A Sith cruiser had been refueling in the Florrum system before returning to the nearby Stygian Caldera. Reports were scarce, but the wreckage of this cruiser indicated heavy weapons fire. Turbolasers, with more minor scorch marks pointing to fighter vessels. No other large ships were reported in the system at the time of the cruiser’s disappearance. The Order’s only suspect was the Sanguine Sands and their station - the Calliope. Any attempts at directly messaging the current leader of the Sands—Niktus—were met with harsh, vague responses. They were the words of an arrogant, proud man that wouldn’t dare refuse the responsibility of successfully taking down a Sith warship, and believed that fact alone was enough reason to leave his gangsters be. But there were no other suspects, not this far into the Outer Rim, and certainly not with this cruiser’s destruction in Niktus’ front yard. Even if the Sanguine Sands were innocent of this crime, Niktus had made the fatal mistake of disrespecting the Final Sith Order. He and his gang were destined for slaughter.
But not if Darth Maldeus had anything to say about it.
As Apollo, he had worked alongside the Sands plenty of times before. He usually despised mobs like this; after all, he’d fought gangs like them centuries ago when he played vigilante on B’trilla. But Niktus had been a fair leader, not only to his people, but to most others. He didn’t allow the gang to exploit innocent people like others did. Any members of the Sands that went too far were often exiled and, worse yet, had bounties put on their heads. Apollo had made thousands hunting down Niktus’ lost causes, and in that time, had grown to know the man well. He would not have ordered an attack on a Sith cruiser unless he was attacked first. And even if the Calliope had been shot at, and if the Sands retaliated, Niktus would know that staying here would’ve been suicide. To top it off, the Calliope was free of any damage that could have been expected from an attacking Sith warship. If the cruiser had fired first, it was not at this station but at someone—or something—else.
Apollo arrived at the station as quickly as possible, opting to come on his personal freighter. His wristed-mounted lightsabers were concealed beneath his sleeves very well, but his rotary blasters hung from his hip plain as day. He was playing the role of the legendary freelancer, not the part of a Sith Lord. The two could never intersect or intertwine; they were parallel people, and that would be the most they would ever be. He refused to allow himself to become whole in such a vile way, to embrace the darkness and the evil that the Final Sith Order perpetrated. They were a means to an end; that is all they would ever be. Besides, Niktus would be much friendlier to the man he’d worked with a dozen times before than he would be with a masked stranger, especially one acting as an emissary of the nation that was threatening his very existence.
Apollo’s hair was messy and ragged, having been combed earlier that day but not since. His beard was growing thicker by the day, much to his chagrin. A razor was all that kept it in line. And his eyes were classically asymmetric, with his left an emerald green and his right an almost-unnatural amber. Even with his head low and his attempts at keeping a low profile as he entered the port, eyes studied his every movement. Whispers flowed like a mist along the air.
“He’s here for the boss,” said a Twi’lek dancer.
“What, Apollo taking contracts for the Sith now?” asked a Devaronian bouncer.
“I hope not.”
Apollo didn’t address the murmurings or the creation of false rumors. All he was concerned with now was clearing Niktus’ name; that damn stubborn fool was the only thing getting in the way. If only he’d known the trouble that had just entered the system, he might have left the Sanguine Sands to their fate. It would’ve been easier. But things went that way, did it?
Things always went that way. And if the intelligence was accurate, if the Sands had done this, they had barked up the wrong tree. For what had just entered the system, a pirate organization had no chance against. It looked like a pirate ship of old, but the Sands would immediately recognize it as the Forewind, the flagship of the savage Dark Lord called Lord Taranos, the man feared by those who called him the God of Lightning.
Taranos, the foremost living member of the Dragona Dynasty, was prepared for all-out battle. His left hand gripped tightly around Bys, Stormr was slung over his back, the hilts of his twin lightclubs hung from his belt, and a winged helmet adorned his head, partially obscuring his golden locks of hair. He looked over to his right at his general. The two had been together in fields of battle for well over a century, and while Narath could not wield the Force himself, his loyalty to the King, and by extension, the Sith Order he was part of, was unquestionable. General Narath was shorter yet girthier than Taranos, with tied-back red hair and a long beard. He wielded a heavy rifle as well as a battle axe.
"General Narath, inform the Sanguine Sands that to attack the Sith is to flirt with death, and that the God of Lightning takes no prisoners," Taranos spoke to his companion.
"Yes, my King," Narath immediately opened the Forewind's holocommunications array and sent out a message.
SANGUINE SANDS BASE CALLIOPE, YOUR DAY OF RECKONING IS HERE. THE GOD OF LIGHTNING SENDS HIS REGARDS.
Apollo approached the pair of guards that stood outside the penthouse that Niktus was known to operate out of. He knew the one on the left to be a quiet, old Wookiee named Yargha. The other on the right was brand new, some tattooed punk fresh out of his sophomore year. The human boy turned his nose up at Apollo, smirking. “Keep moving, hotshot. The boss doesn’t want to be disturbed right now.”
“I’m afraid I must insist….” Apollo’s eyes bore through the younger man’s, searching his mind for the information he desired, “... Jake. It’s an emergency. Besides, ol’ Yargha here can vouch for me.”
The old Wookiee grunted, “Raghwoooo.”
Apollo snapped his head back, offended. “What do you mean, ‘Now’s not a good time?’ Is Darla up there with him? Or is it Cinnamon this time?”
“Wraggh.”
“Well then, what’s the matter? Can’t be more important than him deciding to piss off the Sith.”
Jake chuckled, “That’s being handled, friend. Now, skedaddle. If you know Yargha, then you know he can rip you in half before you even draw those fancy blasters of yours.”
“A couple hundred years ago, maybe,” Apollo smirked at the Wookiee, who could only respond with a low growl. “Boys, stand aside.”
The younger thug stepped forward. “Or what?”
Apollo rolled his eyes before giving his response: a thrust of his head forward and a sickening crack of little Jake’s skull. The boy screamed as he leaned against the wall, clutching his bloodied, broken nose. He began to cry, “You son of a--”
Apollo raised a finger to silence him. “Mouth off to me again, and I’ll break something else. Yargha, if you’ll excuse me.”
But the Wookiee did not excuse him. He stepped in the way, between Apollo and the door. “Really?”
“Rargghoo waarh.”
“Fine, then.” Apollo’s hands slid to his hips. “Have it your way.”
The Forewind had an open-air environment, but as most sapients could not breathe in space, it had a containment field to keep the vacuum of space away from the ship's inhabitants. This, however, did not keep the inhabitants from affecting space if they were to use projectile weapons or attacks of the Force from the ship's main deck surface.
Taranos' heart and mind were one, focusing the power of Battlemind into every aspect of his being. He would prevail this day as he always did. His eyes glowed a golden yellow, and hundreds of arcing bolts creating a Force Storm of Lightning shot forth from Bys and his open right hand towards the Calliope. He hoped that in one swoop, he could temporarily overload their electrical grid to incite panic and allow the Tof King and his Sith forces to more easily board the station.
Before Apollo could begin smelling burnt Wookiee fur, a rumble shook the entire station to its core, nearly knocking the three of them off their feet. Lights flickered, and panicked screams began to fill the steel streets. Patrons rushed out of their clubs and casinos, staring past the transparent artificial atmosphere of the station and finding another Sith warship on the horizon. This one was much larger than the one that’d been lost before. Not only that, but this ship had a name. Apollo knew it all too well, as he did the man that was helming it.
“Kriffing Taranos…” he muttered. His timetable had been drastically shortened thanks to the so-called God of Lightning. The nice way of going about things wasn’t going to cut it anymore, not if he wanted even a fraction of the station’s inhabitants to survive.
With Yargha and the bloodied Jake distracted by the arriving horror of Taranos, Apollo drew the black-finished blaster and fired. Twice into the Wookiee, once into the boy. Their bodies fell to the ground in smoking heaps, leaving nothing between Apollo and Niktus but a dozen flights of stairs; he wouldn’t dare risk an elevator with Taranos mucking everything up. He began to dash up the stairs, the Force carrying him much faster than any mortal man could ever hope to run. He knew he was too late to save the Calliope, but the man in charge still had a chance.
The hour was at hand, and it was time for the enemy to perish. The Forewind was too big to land on any landing pad, so Taranos had the ship's Admiral line up parallel to a corridor where they could extend the docking ramp. With the ramp fully affixed to the station and the electrical grid going haywire, the Sands would be defenseless.
The Dark Lord was ready. The lightning subsided, and it was time to gather the boarding party. General Narath had been placed in command of the 19th Elite Corps of Sith Troopers, and a detachment of twelve men would accompany their General. But the party would be led by Lord Taranos and his firstborn daughter, Danora, a Sith Lord in her own right. "Danora, Narath, Troopers," the voice of Taranos sprang out. "Watch each other's backs when we get in. They may not be as powerful as us, but what crime syndicates lack in power, they make up for in utter craftiness. If you die, may you be honored with the warrior's feast when you pass on to the next realm."
When Lord Taranos finished his monologue, he led them down the docking ramp, and they finally arrived at the hull of the Calliope. In synchronization, the father's and daughter's right hands reached down towards their belts and raised their lightsabers aloft. Blue of Taranos' and red of Danora's blades sprang to life, and the two plunged them through the sealed door of the space station. They encircled their blades until they had an opening, and with a forceful push of Telekinesis, the severed portion of the door was flung against the opposite wall. Now the group could finally board the station. The fifteen filed through the door, ready to meet any threats that could be here head-on. It mattered not how many they were. There could be hundreds, but they were just common thugs, spacers, criminals, and pirates. A Crime Syndicate was nothing for the forces of the Dark Side.
"Sanguine Sands!" Lord Taranos called out. "Defend your station, and come out and fight us! I will grant you all a glorious warrior's death. Prepare!" Taranos' saber and hammer were at the ready, as were Danora's saber and sword, as were Narath and the 19th's blasters. Now all they needed was living opponents. The station was already lost.
But when they breached the main city walls of the Calliope, no opponents rushed to fight in a noble war. These were not warriors or soldiers in these neon-filled streets. There were beggars, working girls, drifters, and gamblers all watching in horror as the fearsome Dark Lord made his entrance. Some screamed and ran, others were frozen in terror. But none fought. These were not the Sanguine Sands. Where were the thugs, the gangsters, the pirates? No one raised a blaster against them, and no one challenged the might of the Final Sith Order. Where were they?
Apollo found the answer once he reached Niktus’ penthouse floor. A long hall led to the entrance, and more of the Sanguine Sands were in that corridor. Apollo did not recognize them. They wore the brand of the Sands—a demon hovering above an endless sea of dunes—but none were recognizable. All seemed cut from the same cloth as the late Jake down on the ground floor, though these were not just humans. Niktos, Quarrens, Rodians, and Twi’leks also populated the hall, and none seemed too pleased that Apollo had arrived.
Wait a second… one of them was familiar…
A woman stepped forward past the others, wearing that same mark of the Sands. But she was no Sanguine Sand; Apollo knew that all too well. Her name was Veera, and she was exiled from the Sands five years ago. Apollo had been too busy training for his Kaggath to take her contract, but he remembered seeing her face on the puck. He never would forget that scar that stretched from her forehead down to her chin, like someone had tried and failed to slice her head in half. If only they’d been successful.
“What’s going on here?” Apollo demanded. “Where’s Niktus?”
“We’re undergoing a change in management at the moment, Apollo,” Veera sneered. “You should’ve kept keeping your nose out of our business.”
“Look, girl, I’ve killed women worth ten of you a hundred times over. You’d be doing yourself a favor if you got the hell out of my way.”
She looked around, smirking. “I’m not alone. By my count, those outdated blasters of yours would need to be reloaded before you’d even drop half of us.”
She was right. Apollo counted thirteen of them in all, including her. In a tight space like this, taking the time to reload would put him at risk, especially now that…
The flesh on his chest began to itch beneath his shirt, reminding him of the curse that damn winged witch laid on him. He wasn’t an immortal gunslinger anymore. He was vulnerable. One false move and whoever he hadn’t already killed would pounce on him. This wasn’t a fight that Apollo was going to win.
But Maldeus would.
The streets of this orbital station were derelict. Downtrodden and oppressed people were everywhere. Unfortunately for them, the Sith were not liberators. Only the King of the Holy Jedi Order could save them now, and Lord Taranos was not that kind of King. Every single meaningless life here was complicit in the Sands' attack on the Sith, whether they knew it or not. Civilian or otherwise, these people were now corpses.
One human, a red-haired woman, caught Taranos' eye, and after hanging Bys on his belt, he reached out with Telekinesis and pulled her into his grip. Held aloft in the air, she was scared out of her wits. "Tell me where the Sands are if you wish to survive," he commanded her.
"Umm, I think they hang up in the pent. Please don't kill me, man!" the girl pleaded. It was no use. Her fate was sealed from the moment she was seen. As a small mercy, she wouldn't feel a thing.
The God of Lightning burnt her to ash in an instant. Nothing remained. If the Dark Lord had cared to look into the woman's mind, he would have seen her joyous memory of the previous evening when her girlfriend proposed to her. But now it was all for naught.
It wasn't much information, but it was information nonetheless. Taranos sent out a wave of telekinetic energy, blasting aside and striking down any other bystanders that stood between the Sith and their prey. As the group moved ever closer to their targets, any innocents not felled by the Force or by blade were simply mown down by the Troopers' blaster fire. The King and Princess thought nothing of it. Meaningless lives typically end in meaningless fashions.
Hapless slaughter seemed a theme today on the Calliope. Maldeus had reasoned that there was no threat in revealing himself to these thugs, no chance that word would spread. The Force allowed him to sense whether or not any nearby technology was recording or streaming data, and it appeared that the only camera in this hall had been destroyed by these gangsters already. And even if it was still functioning, the flickering power made such cameras damn near useless. The Sith Lord smiled.
Dead men told no tales.
He approached, his blasters low. Veera stepped back, allowing a Quarren twice her size to meet Maldeus first. The poor fool thought his strength would be enough. His tentacled face twitched with delight as he swooped forward, no doubt hoping to grab the smaller man by the arms and toss him into the wall. Two blasts found his chest first, shot from the hip. He dropped.
A Rodian began to draw his own blaster from his holster, but Maldeus shot first. The plasma seared through one of the thug’s bulging black eyes and directly into his brain. He died quickly. Another gangster raised his carbine and fired once, aiming for the Sith’s chest. But Maldeus wasn’t where he was the attosecond before, and he fired a fourth shot. This one hit the target in his throat. He fell to the floor, choking on his own blood.
Two charged him at the same time, each wielding electroclubs. A hit from one of those was known to make Rancors cry out in agony. So it was suitable for Maldeus that neither of them had a chance to finish their swings. Two more bodies collapsed to the ground with smoking holes in where their faces used to be.
“He’s slaughtering us!” a Twi’lek shouted, his hands shaking. Maldeus could sense it in the fool’s heart: fear. So much so that it was beginning to overwhelm his loyalty to Veera and their employer. Were Maldeus more concerned with the arts of telepathy, he would have considered trying to manipulate him into turning on his fellows. But he was too busy killing the Twi’lek’s friends to care.
“Shut up and fight!” Veera shouted back at the coward.
Three more idiots dropped to the ground in a heartbeat. All that was left were Veera, the craven Twi’lek, and a trio of Niktos that surrounded the human girl like a meat shield. Maldeus holstered his blasters, their charges spent. Veera grinned.
“What’d I tell ya? He’s dry. Kill ‘em!”
The Niktos dashed forward, vibroswords ready. They could not have expected that the legendary gunslinger Apollo had something so sinister under his sleeves - literally.
Lightsabers exploded from his wrists, crimson plasma bisecting the first two thugs in half. Veera gasped. The Twi’lek cried out in terror. And the final Nikto, well, he seemed to be a worthy, stoic warrior. Unfortunately for him, that didn’t matter much to Maldeus. The steadfast Nikto blocked the first saber swing with the brunt of his sword, but failed to defend himself from the second blade. It buried into his gut, then rose swiftly. Intestines spilled past the charred flesh, plopping onto the floor before the last brave warrior in the hall breathed his final breath.
Veera pushed her Twi’lek companion toward Maldeus, hoping to buy herself some time. But it took no time at all to sever the coward’s head from his shoulders, slicing his lekku in half in the same swing. The Force wrapped around her throat and slammed her headfirst into the ceiling. She fell to the ground, her vibroshiv skittering across the floor. Before she knew it, she was up again, hovering a foot off the ground. Blood was pouring from her scalp. Tears were running down her cheeks.
“What the hell are you?”
He said nothing.
Her head spun around with a sickening snap, her body facing in the direction of Maldeus, her lifeless eyes staring at the door she’d once been guarding. He let her corpse fall to the floor before sheathing his blades and reloading his blasters. If this was some kind of coup, he doubted a sycophant like Veera was in charge of it.
He stepped through the door, and he found the man that was.
Eventually, after weaving their way through the station streets, the forces of the Final Sith Order came to a formerly guarded door, but the corpses in front of the door reeked of being fresh kills. Both bodies wore the symbol of the Sanguine Sands. They'd found their prey, but who else was here? They would soon discover as Lord Taranos and Lady Danora started leading their band up the stairs to the penthouse floor. They would have answers, or they would have blood.
Blood was much preferred.
“Apollo…”
“Xallas.”
So that was it. The Sand Demons were an offshoot of the Sanguine Sands, a rebellious little faction that’d left decades ago because they thought Niktus wasn’t hard enough to lead them. Xallas was their new leader. Now he had old Niktus tied with binders and gagged with a rag in his office chair, and Xallas had been negotiating deals with a blaster in hand.
“Let me guess,” Apollo chuckled. “You attacked that cruiser and pinned it on the Sands. And now you’re using that as leverage to make yourself the head honcho around here. You must have promised a hefty paycheck to get Yargha on your side.”
“You must have been a detective at some point, huh?” Xallas laughed, waving his blaster around like it was a toy. “Well, good for you, freelancer. You’re right on the money. So, how many of my men did you kill, hmm? Ten? Twenty?”
“Enough to get you.” Apollo raised his blaster. Xallas aimed his at Niktus.
“Go ahead, freelancer. Blast me. See if I don’t put a hole in the old man’s head while you do.”
“You’re dead either way. The power outages are the Sith’s work. They’re here, and they’re killing everyone on the station.”
The color drained from Xallas’ face. “B-but they told me if I handed them Niktus, t-they’d let me run the Sands. That we’d be a vassal organization.”
“You braindead moron. The Sith probably knew you did it the whole time. They’re always looking for excuses to rid the galaxy of crime syndicates, and you gave them the excuse for this one on a silver platter.”
“No…”
“And now, thanks to you, the Demons and the Sands are all dead. You might as well have pulled the trigger yourself.”
“No!”
Xallas spun to fire his blaster at the freelancer, but never got the chance to pull the trigger. A flash of crimson light was the last thing he saw before he slumped to the floor.
Apollo had no time to stand on ceremony. His danger senses were flashing red. Taranos and his daughter were approaching. They were in the building, climbing the stairs, reaching this floor…
He acted quickly.
Apollo dashed behind the desk where Niktus sat, taking hold of the old man and bringing him to his feet. There was a thankful look in the old man’s eye, but then a confused one when he matched Apollo’s gaze. The freelancer wasn’t freeing him.
“You’ll forgive me later,” was the last thing Niktus heard in this room.
Maldeus waved his hand across the old man’s face, dimming his senses to such a degree that his vision was blinded and his ears deafened. Niktus’ muffled scream barely made it past his gag. And with the old man unable to see a thing or hear a word, Maldeus began to shift the Force to his will. Spawning from a small rift was his mask and cloak, which he threw on in a hurry. His persona of Darth Maldeus was complete, and his cover story was ready, as Lord Taranos made his way through the corpse-filled corridor outside.
As the forces of Lord Taranos continued through the corridors, they noticed more and more corpses. Someone got to the Sands before they did, and whoever did would have hell to pay. No one takes the glory of a kill from the Lord of Storms.
Danora crouched down and looked at each of the corpses; some had a slightly different logo from the rest. It must have been an offshoot or fringe group. Perhaps a rival gang had taken out the Sands. Or perhaps someone else was here. "Father," she said. "I sense a presence. A Force wielder is here. They are familiar, and we must find them."
"I feel it too. They are familiar; track them," Taranos said to her.
The Daughter of Lightning reached out with her senses and began to track the presence.
The trail was short and led into a room filled with nothing save a corpse, a prisoner, and a Dark Lord of the Sith. Taranos, Danora, Narath, and their company were now face to face with the elusive Darth Maldeus. He was a strange fellow; he kept to himself and concealed his identity from the rest of the Sith Order.
"Lord Maldeus," Lord Taranos addressed his contemporary. "What has happened here? Why have you come? The Empress has sent myself and my forces to quell this threat."
“Took it upon myself to capture this one,” he answered, tightening his squeeze on the old man and shaking him about, “the leader. We kill him here, and we’ll make a martyr out of him. Keep him alive and let the remnants know where he is, and we’ll have the right bait for our trap. Best way to be thorough.”
"Unfortunately, I agree with your assessment," Lord Taranos told Maldeus. "Though I'd much prefer to kill the leader of this infernal group where he stands, cut the head off the snake and two more take its place. It seems you are alone, and my ship is fully manned. I'll hold him in the brig while we return to Dromund Kaas, where he will be interrogated. You don't have an objection to this, do you?"
“I do not,” said Maldeus. Arguing over who takes the prisoner would only make him look suspicious. Pick and choose your battles. “Make sure he makes it to Dromund Kaas in one piece. I’ll handle the interrogation myself when he arrives.”
"So let it be done," Taranos told him. The prisoner would be taken back to Dromund Kaas aboard the Forewind. "General Narath, Troopers, take this man and let us return to the ship. Throw him in the brig and make sure the goats are down there too. We don't want him to get comfortable. Farewell, Lord Maldeus. You may have your share of interrogation when you return home." He and his party turned upon their heels and began their trek back to the ship.
Apollo watched as they took him away, staring in silence. A few of the troopers cast wary glances in his direction. Perhaps they were as distrusting of him as their lord was, or perhaps they were naturally on guard when they witnessed one man kill as many as he had. It didn’t matter. All that Apollo had on his mind were plans upon plans, the different ways he could free Niktus without being suspected of doing the deed, or even blamed and labeled as incompetent. It was a fine line he walked. But he had toed that line for hundreds of years, and would continue for thousands more.