He was standing in a field bathed in the reddish glow of a setting sun. The wind rustled through the long grass and brushed against his skin. He felt…content. Even happy. He sat down, bathing in the warmth of the sun. Other people were there. Some he vaguely recognised, others he did not. They all smiled at him as they too sat down in the long grass. Many took out containers of food and water and began to eat and drink. Children ran in between the groups of adults, laughing and playing games. This was peace. Calm. But then the light of the sun began to fade, and then the warm reddish glow was replaced by one of a sickly green. Where the setting sun once had been there now sat a lidless green eye, wreathed in ethereal flame. The people around him began to go mad. They leapt on each other and began to claw and bite at themselves, all whilst howling and screaming. The children leapt on their parents and ripped their throats out. Others grabbed anything near them and used it as a weapon, bashing peoples skulls in until nothing remained except bits of bloody pulp which stained the ground.
All the while, all he could do was stare at the eye, unable to move, even unable to breathe. He tried to open his mouth to scream but he could not. He tried to shut his eyes but invisible hands forced them open. And then, without warning, the world around him was engulfed in flames. Something laughed as the people around him fell and screamed in agony. Something inhuman, with a deep, rumbling voice that seemed to shake the very planet itself. He still could not move. He could only stare at the unblinking eye, which stared back blankly, as if he was beneath its contempt. Then, the still burning corpses of the now dead people around him began to rise in unison, and turned, one by one, to face him. He could only stare at the eye as they charged forwards and began to rip open his flesh and tear out his insides. He felt the pain could not move.
He could only stare at the eye, and the laughter grew more intense, until the rumbling it caused caused the very ground to break beneath him, and he fell into darkness.
“Master, we have arrived on-”
The protocol droid’s words were interrupted by Mavros jumping out of his bed and instinctively sending a blast of lightning at the thing that had awoken him, which was the unfortunate protocol droid. The droid fell back and smacked the wall, sparks flying out from exposed circuits as it began to spasm wildly. Its head spun around multiple times until it eventually grabbed ahold of it and fixed back to its forward facing position.
“W-w-w-was it something I s-s-s-said? Did I di-di-di-displease you, Master?” The droid asked as its electronic voice warbled wildly. Mavros did not respond right away. He had sat back down on his bed and was wiping the cold sweat from his forehead. His mouth was dry, and he felt like he had drunk at least five bottles of whisky the night before. His head felt like someone was charging a battering ram against the inside of his skull.
“Master?” The droid asked again, having stood back up and taken a few tentative steps towards him.
“You startled me, that was all. I told you not to disturb me.” Mavros snapped back. This was a lie, but the droid would not know about his nightmares.
“Oh dear, I am sorry, Master. Would you like a cup of herbal tea? My sensors are detecting an increased heart rate and-” the Droid began, but Mavros cut it off.
“No, I don’t want any bloody tea! What did you even come down here for?” Mavros asked, losing what little patience he had left.
“To inform you that we had reached Dantooine, Master.” The droid replied.
“Well why didn’t you tell me that before?” Mavros snapped back, quickly throwing on his tunic and storming up towards the cockpit.
“I did try…” The droid said as Mavros pushed past it. The Sith Master entered the cockpit of the Black Fury and sat in the pilot's chair, pulling back on the hyperdrive motivator control to exit lightspeed.
“How long have we been travelling?” Mavros asked the droid as it entered the cockpit and sat in the co-pilot chair.
“12 hours, 43 minutes and 17 seconds, Master.” It responded.
‘Dark Wind would have made this trip in 8…but of course damn Kain went and blew it up on Korriban when he got himself killed, didn’t he. Didn’t even have the courtesy to stay dead as well…he owes me a few hundred thousand credits.’
The Black Fury was Mavros’ second ship; one he had acquired following the True Sith War. Whilst the Dark Wind had been a retrofitted and highly modified Sienar systems Star Courier, the Black Fury was a retrofitted VT-49 Decimator, much more bulky and less manoeuvrable, but with a bit more firepower and living space. It had even come with a droid- a silver plated 3PO unit that always seemed to remain on the ship even if told to leave.
“Master, since you have been asleep we have received 5 more messages inquiring as to your whereabouts.” The 3PO unit reported, looking at Mavros with its unblinking glowing eyes, which Mavros always found unsettling.
“From Pyxis?” Mavros asked, even though he knew the answer.
“Yes, Master.” The Droid responded.
“Figures…” Mavros muttered as the swirling blue clouds of Hyperspace gave way to the starry backdrop of the Dantooine system. Ever since Nysis, and the revelation of Kain’s rebirth, Mavros had been wary. Sith civil wars were rarely good news for anyone, especially someone whose connection to the force had been weakened. As the situation grew worse over the following days, he had decided he needed time to think. And try to recover. And so it had brought him back to the planet where he had been raised and first touched the force, in the hopes that the same nexus of Dark Side energy he had encountered as a child could be of use to him once more. Dantooine being a remote system was a bonus. Rumours were swirling all around the new Sith capital that Hesper was considering drastic action against Kain. That she had seemed restless, and anxious.
The Empress of the Sith being worried about something was not a good thing for anyone under her rule.
“Shall I send that as your reply, Master?” The 3PO unit asked.
“What?” Mavros asked, confused.
“‘Figures’, Master. That was your response to my relaying of the messages of Pyxis.” The droid explained. Mavros groaned.
“No, send nothing back.” Mavros ordered, steering the ship towards his intended landing zone.
“But Master, that would be considered-”
“If you start going on about ‘poor etiquette and bad manners’ I’ll turn you into a garbage disposal.” Mavros snapped. The 3PO unit actually flinched, and then fell silent.
“Run landing protocol 4. We aren’t heading into a port.” Mavros ordered. The Decimator had been originally designed as a gunship requiring a crew of at least 4 people to properly function- a pilot, co-pilot who also operated the missile launcher, and two gunners to operate the top and bottom turrets. Mavros had re-routed all weapons to be able to be fired by the pilot alone, and programmed the flight computer to adjust the systems based on several pre-programmed protocols. All the droid had to do as ‘co-pilot’ was instruct the computer to run the intended program. Apart from that, the co-pilot’s controls were mostly redundant. The droid did as ordered, and a message flashed up on the console to confirm that the computer was making the necessary adjustments. Their landing zone was on the darkened side of the planet, and Mavros made sure to stay out of the range of the small orbital station that logged incoming ships' sensor range. He flew down through the atmosphere and then low to the ground to avoid any more sensors.
He did not wish his whereabouts to be known by anyone, even if his transponder registered his ship as the ‘Bakuran Amythest’, a small cargo freighter. He flew across the grassy plains until he found a secluded spot sheltered by several small hillocks. He set the ship down slowly and felt a small thud as it touched down. He quickly jumped out of his seat and went back down to the lower deck which housed his living quarters, fetching both his cloak and belt. He put both on and pulled his lightsaber hilt to his waiting hand before clipping onto the belt, pulling the cloak around his body so it was hidden from view. He then retrieved a speeder bike from the cargo bay and readied it for use, pulling it down the boarding ramp. Before he departed, he turned back towards the droid.
“If anyone except me tries to board, throw them a welcoming party.” He shouted back over the rumbling of the speeder bike’s engine.
The 3PO unit cocked its head in apparent confusion for a moment, and then it suddenly straightened up as if forced into display mode. Its glowing eyes changed from their usual silver to a dark red. When it spoke, the voice that came out was not the usual pleasant and sycophantic babble, but a harsh, unforgiving grunt.
“Any meatbags that trespass will be terminated with extreme prejudice, master.” It said, and then, the same thing that had happened before happened in reverse. The droid froze and then the red eyes went silver.
“Did I-did I say something, Master?” The 3PO unit asked, almost as if dazed.
“Yes, you said you would watch for any trespassers. That was all. I don’t know when I will be back.” Mavros replied, and then set off without another word. The ‘Hunter-Killer’ protocol had been a fortunate discovery. The droid’s previous owner had implanted a second, secret personality chip inside the droid’s memory core. It turned it from a placid protocol droid into an assassination and combat specialist at the request to throw someone a ‘party’. A ‘birthday’ party meant assassination, and a ‘welcoming’ party meant to kill anyone that tried to attack its current master or trespass on their property. The droid’s primary personality was unaware of the Hunter-Killer’s existence, and the Hunter Killer always made sure to clean up before returning control to its counterpart.
‘If only it could leave the damn ship…’
That was the frustrating thing. The droid would never leave the ship, even when ordered. Some previous programming modifications prevented it doing so, and Mavros did not trust any droid engineer to go poking around in the memory core, lest they discover the droid's party trick. And he did not have the time, patience nor skill to try to reprogram it himself. For now, he would just have to accept it as it came.
Dantooine’s sun had begun to rise over the plains by the time Mavros had made his way to where he intended to leave the speeder and continue on foot. He was not surprised to see that the burnt out homestead that had been his childhood home was completely abandoned, even after so many years. It seemed the locals had decided the place was cursed. Even when he had first returned here during a moment of doubt during his apprenticeship, it had remained untouched. Following that visit, where he had both killed his uncle and burned the place to the ground, no one had apparently dared to visit, or buy the land. It was overgrown and wild, and the smaller storehouses and silos that had made up the remainder of the homestead were beginning to rot away. The carefully tended garden and well maintained garage with its polished landspeeder, the pride of his mother and father respectively, had now been reclaimed by the planet.
‘Good. Let it all rot along with them.’
He placed the speeder inside the garage after clearing a space for it and took out a bag of supplies that he had packed inside the storage compartment, biting off a chunk of ration bar before taking a long sip out of a canteen. He had enough to last him a few days, and that was assuming he did not simply ‘invite’ himself to dine with the locals of the nearby village. He stood for a moment, replaying old memories in his head. Before, they filled him with regret. But he had been a young fool then, plagued with doubt. He was resolute in his stance now. He felt only satisfaction when he thought of his parents' deaths now. They would have held him back if they had been alive. Their deaths set him on the right path. He was sure of that now. He returned his supplies to the storage compartment and then set off on foot, leaving the abandoned homestead behind.
The sun was high in the sky by the time Mavros arrived before the ancient door that guarded the long forgotten remains of the Rakatan presence on Dantooine. Made out of a darkened stone, there were no signs of controls anywhere to open it, or signs that any such controls had ever existed at all. Mavros stretched and took a deep breath. He raised his right hand, still covered by the black glove he wore to hide a self-inflicted wound he had gained on Vaer’s ship just before the Nysis mission, and called on the force. It still felt somewhat faint, even as he put all his effort behind the attempt to move the imposing door. It took more strength out of him that he was comfortable with, but, eventually, the door slowly began to slide down, revealing a dark passage that led underground. Even now, Mavros could feel the powerful pull of the Dark Side energies that lingered here, causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up. Taking one, last, deep breath, he stepped over the threshold, out of the light of day and into complete and utter darkness. After he had taken just a few steps, the great door slammed shut without warning, depriving him of what little light he had. He felt around for his lightsaber and ignited it, bathing the passage in a crimson glow. The carved passage began to descend, and led into a large central chamber. Three doors led to other passages to the rear, left and right respectively, but they were all blocked by rubble, and were now inaccessible.
‘Great, what a waste of my time.’
He sighed, and sat down, deactivating his weapon. Here would need to do, he guessed. He was moving into a kneeling position when he caught a hint of movement from the corner of his eye, causing him to jump up in alarm and reignite his lightsaber. But nothing was there.
Just silence.
That was, until, the whispering started. It was soft, so soft that he almost dismissed it until he had deactivated his lightsaber again. But it was there. Many different voices, all whispering in words he couldn’t understand.
“Hello? Who’s there? Come out at once if you don’t want to die very, very, slowly.” He called out.
The whispering stopped. But then, just as he relaxed, something grabbed him from behind and pulled him hard to the ground, where his head bounced roughly off of the stone floor. The world began to spin wildly as he felt his consciousness slipping away.
And then everything went black.
When he awoke, he was in a completely different, yet familiar room. The training room onboard a star dreadnought that belonged to his disgraced former master, the long dead Darth Halcyon.
“What? How am I…” He stuttered out, still groggy from the surprise attack in the ruins.
“Come on, Apprentice. Get up, we’re going again.” An unpleasantly familiar voice spoke from behind him. Mavros spun around to see the ship's owner, Darth Halcyon, standing over him, with his signature look of unearned superiority on his face.
“Come on Cardun. Get up.” Halcyon repeated.
‘Why here…why him?’
Mavros slowly got back to his feet, not responding to what must have been some form of phantom, unless he was actually dying from whatever wound he had suffered and this was some final journey his brain was sending him on as he lay dying.
‘Neither option is particularly pleasant…’
“Whatever game this is, I don’t like it. Show me anyone but this fool.” Mavros shouted, completely ignoring ‘Halcyon’.
“Looks like I hit you harder than I thought, my Apprentice. That’s no way to talk to-” Halcyon began to respond, but Mavros cut him off.
“Save it, Vek. You were a terrible teacher in life, and whatever lesson you’re trying to teach me in death won’t accomplish anything either. I learned more hanging around in the academy cantina listening to other masters than I learned under you.” Mavros spat back.
Halcyon stood silent, for a moment, and then laughed. “Oh, but you did learn something from me, Apprentice. You learned how quickly someone can fall. And when I was arrested and executed, you denounced me, the only person in the Order who had ever considered you a friend.”
Mavros laughed in return. “I wasn’t strapping myself onto a sinking ship. You were finished, deservedly so. You were nothing but a malcontent who talked a good game but little else. You always thought so highly of yourself, but in the end, you fell from power faster than a Hutt that’s just seen a free buffet.”
“But I was your only friend, at one point. And ever since my death, the fact that I trained you has become a mark of shame. You hide it well, but you know the others in the order have always doubted you, always whispered behind your back. You wear your indifference like a shield, but I see the cracks. It bothers you, it always has. You don’t think you were ever worthy to be a Sith because I was your Master. And that doubt that you deny so well followed you into the war, didn’t it? It made you second guess yourself. Made you weak.” Halcyon replied with a knowing smile.
“Shut up. I became a Master on my own merits. I was worthy.” Mavros snapped back, trying to hide the fact the words had struck a nerve.
“So you say. But you shut yourself off from everyone around you. Deliberately hid yourself away, claiming to be working on experiments. Why?” Halcyon asked again, now slowly walking around the edges of the training ring.
“Because the one thing you did teach me was that getting too close to anyone was a weakness. I didn’t ‘hide away’. I chose to focus on myself.” Mavros responded, watching Halcyon’s movements.
“So you say. But look at you now, friendless and forgotten. A walking joke. A broken Sith. Passed over by others you consider beneath you. Two girls who were mere apprentices when you were a Master now hold rank over you. A man who didn’t even fight in the war that weakened you so led you on Nysis. You peaked. You’re done. Just accept that you were right. You aren’t worthy. You never have been.” Halcyon replied, laughing coldly.
“SHUT. UP!!!” Mavros roared, and then he attempted to send a blast of lightning right at Halcyon’s face. But all that emerged from his gloved hand was a feeble spark that flickered and died.
Halcyon laughed, and Mavros was thrown off of his feet and crashed through a door. He blacked out again, the cold laughter of his dead master echoing inside his head. When he woke up, he was in another familiar place.
A battlefield.
*The* battlefield.
“Sir, what are your orders?” The Sith Captain asked him. The undead horde was pressing against their defences. The stormtroopers were beginning to break. He remembered what was coming, and looked up to the sky.
Typhojem was coming. His hands began to shake uncontrollably. He turned to give his orders to the captain when he noticed the man had frozen. In fact, everything had frozen. Halcyon was casually inspecting the scene, and whistled.
“Wow. Looks like I missed some big battles…” He said nonchalantly, even as Mavros reached for his lightsaber. But now, Mavros’ own gloved hand was frozen. Halcyon waved a finger at him. “Nope, not yet. What did you do here?” He asked, again looking around.
“I fought. We were turning the tide, and then…and then...” Mavros couldn’t articulate what exactly had happened.
“You were lucky to escape. But you didn’t, not really. The body survived, but your mind, and your connection to the force? Not so lucky. But of course, you were easy prey. Someone already mentally compromised. Filled with fear and self doubt over your own position. Seeing Typhojem simply finished what, well, I started, didn’t it? You started doubting yourself after I turned traitor, and when you saw the face of death itself, all that doubt came pouring out and that shield you hid behind finally shattered. You were completely broken.” Halcyon replied, still smiling at Mavros with a look of self-satisfaction. “You finally accepted the truth. That you weren’t worthy. That you never will be.”
“GO. TO. HELL!!!” Mavros shouted, and was able to raise enough strength to break free of the invisible bonds and reach for his lightsaber. He ignited it and charged towards Halcyon, who did not move. As Mavros raised the blade to deliver a killing blow, however, a great, green lidless eye emerged from the sky above, glaring intensely at him and bathing the scene in an eerie green light. Terror took over his mind, and he froze, dropping his lightsaber.
“Poor Cardun…you can’t escape this. You run and hide from everything else, but not this.” Halcyon said, grabbing Mavros by his collar and tossing him into the air, which dissolved around him. He began to fall through nothingness, and he could hear chanting in the ancient sith tongue, which grew so loud that he could feel pain in his ears. He clasped his hands over them and then suddenly hit the ground again, and though it was solid, he still seemed to be trapped in an endless void.
He was alone. Completely and utterly alone.
“But I suppose this is how *you* like it, isn’t it?” A very familiar voice asked from behind him, and Mavros whipped round to see…himself. At least, his younger self. The age he had been when he had first fallen in here and been touched by the dark side. Mavros didn’t respond. “When I first came out of here, I imagined what my life could be like. It was going to be extraordinary, because *I* was extraordinary. I was going to do so many great things, I was going to forge a legacy for myself. But then you had to ruin it, didn’t you?” The teenager continued, glaring at his future self with utter contempt. “You decided you could do it all yourself. That you didn’t need anyone. And then when your old master turned traitor, you started to doubt everything. You wasted my future. And this is where it got us. This is your world, ‘Darth Mavros’. Empty. You have nothing. No allies, no power, you’re a joke. People just laugh at you behind your back.” Mavros’ younger self finished.
“But I still have time. I’m not done yet.” Mavros replied, almost pleading.
“Yeah right. You can barely use the force anymore. You can’t ever get over anything. It all gnaws away at you, and you just suppress it rather than confront it. I mean, look at you now. You’re letting a ghost of a waste of oxygen Sith and a memory of a dead god defeat you. It's sad.” The younger Mavros said, shaking his head. “Stop hiding everything away.”
Mavros paused, and looked at his injured hand, still covered with the glove. He had put this on to hide the injury he had caused himself from others, and so he could ignore it.
“Stop hiding. Alright. Fine.” He said, and then, he tore off the glove and looked at the hand. The injury had faded. It was barely visible.
“You were afraid to even check. Afraid of yourself.” The teenager said.
“It's mostly healed.” Mavros replied, chuckling.
“But it will never fully heal, and you know it. And you’ll do what you always do, you’ll put that glove on again and hide away, won’t you?” Halcyon had returned, and the great lidless eye now hovered behind him. A harsh, disembodied laugh made Mavros’ bones shiver.
“No.” Mavros replied, flatly.
“Don’t lie to me. I see through it. You can’t face the truth. You never could.” Halcyon laughed.
Mavros stood up, and tossed the glove into Halcyon’s face. The laughing stopped.
“I always wanted to be the one to kill you, Vek. Now, it looks like fate has given me a second chance.” Mavros said, smirking, before raising his uncovered hand, and unleashed a blast of force lightning that hit Halcyon square in the chest, who screamed in pain. The great eye behind him began to quiver.
“You’re a memory, that’s all you are. A memory of a failed Sith who was surpassed by his own apprentice.” He sent out another blast, even more powerful than the first. The eye and Halcyon seemed to merge into one being, and Mavros stopped just for a second. The green eyed Halcyon was curled up in a ball, whimpering.
“Oh and by the way, ‘Master’, Hassat-Durr is a pathetic power to focus all your energy into. But let me show you a real ‘lightning rod’.” Mavros said triumphantly, and then raised Halcyon up into the air before blasting him with a continuous stream of force lightning. The phantom screamed in agony and then exploded in a blast of blinding light, which caused Mavros to shield his eyes. When he opened them again, he was standing in the empty chamber of the ruins, the black glove at his feet. He looked at it for a moment, and then, wordlessly, he turned to leave, leaving the glove lying on the ground.
He felt better than he had done in ten years.
And the village nearby would allow him to see just how much power he had reclaimed.
‘Oh, when I’m done they’ll think this whole region is cursed…’
All the while, all he could do was stare at the eye, unable to move, even unable to breathe. He tried to open his mouth to scream but he could not. He tried to shut his eyes but invisible hands forced them open. And then, without warning, the world around him was engulfed in flames. Something laughed as the people around him fell and screamed in agony. Something inhuman, with a deep, rumbling voice that seemed to shake the very planet itself. He still could not move. He could only stare at the unblinking eye, which stared back blankly, as if he was beneath its contempt. Then, the still burning corpses of the now dead people around him began to rise in unison, and turned, one by one, to face him. He could only stare at the eye as they charged forwards and began to rip open his flesh and tear out his insides. He felt the pain could not move.
He could only stare at the eye, and the laughter grew more intense, until the rumbling it caused caused the very ground to break beneath him, and he fell into darkness.
“Master, we have arrived on-”
The protocol droid’s words were interrupted by Mavros jumping out of his bed and instinctively sending a blast of lightning at the thing that had awoken him, which was the unfortunate protocol droid. The droid fell back and smacked the wall, sparks flying out from exposed circuits as it began to spasm wildly. Its head spun around multiple times until it eventually grabbed ahold of it and fixed back to its forward facing position.
“W-w-w-was it something I s-s-s-said? Did I di-di-di-displease you, Master?” The droid asked as its electronic voice warbled wildly. Mavros did not respond right away. He had sat back down on his bed and was wiping the cold sweat from his forehead. His mouth was dry, and he felt like he had drunk at least five bottles of whisky the night before. His head felt like someone was charging a battering ram against the inside of his skull.
“Master?” The droid asked again, having stood back up and taken a few tentative steps towards him.
“You startled me, that was all. I told you not to disturb me.” Mavros snapped back. This was a lie, but the droid would not know about his nightmares.
“Oh dear, I am sorry, Master. Would you like a cup of herbal tea? My sensors are detecting an increased heart rate and-” the Droid began, but Mavros cut it off.
“No, I don’t want any bloody tea! What did you even come down here for?” Mavros asked, losing what little patience he had left.
“To inform you that we had reached Dantooine, Master.” The droid replied.
“Well why didn’t you tell me that before?” Mavros snapped back, quickly throwing on his tunic and storming up towards the cockpit.
“I did try…” The droid said as Mavros pushed past it. The Sith Master entered the cockpit of the Black Fury and sat in the pilot's chair, pulling back on the hyperdrive motivator control to exit lightspeed.
“How long have we been travelling?” Mavros asked the droid as it entered the cockpit and sat in the co-pilot chair.
“12 hours, 43 minutes and 17 seconds, Master.” It responded.
‘Dark Wind would have made this trip in 8…but of course damn Kain went and blew it up on Korriban when he got himself killed, didn’t he. Didn’t even have the courtesy to stay dead as well…he owes me a few hundred thousand credits.’
The Black Fury was Mavros’ second ship; one he had acquired following the True Sith War. Whilst the Dark Wind had been a retrofitted and highly modified Sienar systems Star Courier, the Black Fury was a retrofitted VT-49 Decimator, much more bulky and less manoeuvrable, but with a bit more firepower and living space. It had even come with a droid- a silver plated 3PO unit that always seemed to remain on the ship even if told to leave.
“Master, since you have been asleep we have received 5 more messages inquiring as to your whereabouts.” The 3PO unit reported, looking at Mavros with its unblinking glowing eyes, which Mavros always found unsettling.
“From Pyxis?” Mavros asked, even though he knew the answer.
“Yes, Master.” The Droid responded.
“Figures…” Mavros muttered as the swirling blue clouds of Hyperspace gave way to the starry backdrop of the Dantooine system. Ever since Nysis, and the revelation of Kain’s rebirth, Mavros had been wary. Sith civil wars were rarely good news for anyone, especially someone whose connection to the force had been weakened. As the situation grew worse over the following days, he had decided he needed time to think. And try to recover. And so it had brought him back to the planet where he had been raised and first touched the force, in the hopes that the same nexus of Dark Side energy he had encountered as a child could be of use to him once more. Dantooine being a remote system was a bonus. Rumours were swirling all around the new Sith capital that Hesper was considering drastic action against Kain. That she had seemed restless, and anxious.
The Empress of the Sith being worried about something was not a good thing for anyone under her rule.
“Shall I send that as your reply, Master?” The 3PO unit asked.
“What?” Mavros asked, confused.
“‘Figures’, Master. That was your response to my relaying of the messages of Pyxis.” The droid explained. Mavros groaned.
“No, send nothing back.” Mavros ordered, steering the ship towards his intended landing zone.
“But Master, that would be considered-”
“If you start going on about ‘poor etiquette and bad manners’ I’ll turn you into a garbage disposal.” Mavros snapped. The 3PO unit actually flinched, and then fell silent.
“Run landing protocol 4. We aren’t heading into a port.” Mavros ordered. The Decimator had been originally designed as a gunship requiring a crew of at least 4 people to properly function- a pilot, co-pilot who also operated the missile launcher, and two gunners to operate the top and bottom turrets. Mavros had re-routed all weapons to be able to be fired by the pilot alone, and programmed the flight computer to adjust the systems based on several pre-programmed protocols. All the droid had to do as ‘co-pilot’ was instruct the computer to run the intended program. Apart from that, the co-pilot’s controls were mostly redundant. The droid did as ordered, and a message flashed up on the console to confirm that the computer was making the necessary adjustments. Their landing zone was on the darkened side of the planet, and Mavros made sure to stay out of the range of the small orbital station that logged incoming ships' sensor range. He flew down through the atmosphere and then low to the ground to avoid any more sensors.
He did not wish his whereabouts to be known by anyone, even if his transponder registered his ship as the ‘Bakuran Amythest’, a small cargo freighter. He flew across the grassy plains until he found a secluded spot sheltered by several small hillocks. He set the ship down slowly and felt a small thud as it touched down. He quickly jumped out of his seat and went back down to the lower deck which housed his living quarters, fetching both his cloak and belt. He put both on and pulled his lightsaber hilt to his waiting hand before clipping onto the belt, pulling the cloak around his body so it was hidden from view. He then retrieved a speeder bike from the cargo bay and readied it for use, pulling it down the boarding ramp. Before he departed, he turned back towards the droid.
“If anyone except me tries to board, throw them a welcoming party.” He shouted back over the rumbling of the speeder bike’s engine.
The 3PO unit cocked its head in apparent confusion for a moment, and then it suddenly straightened up as if forced into display mode. Its glowing eyes changed from their usual silver to a dark red. When it spoke, the voice that came out was not the usual pleasant and sycophantic babble, but a harsh, unforgiving grunt.
“Any meatbags that trespass will be terminated with extreme prejudice, master.” It said, and then, the same thing that had happened before happened in reverse. The droid froze and then the red eyes went silver.
“Did I-did I say something, Master?” The 3PO unit asked, almost as if dazed.
“Yes, you said you would watch for any trespassers. That was all. I don’t know when I will be back.” Mavros replied, and then set off without another word. The ‘Hunter-Killer’ protocol had been a fortunate discovery. The droid’s previous owner had implanted a second, secret personality chip inside the droid’s memory core. It turned it from a placid protocol droid into an assassination and combat specialist at the request to throw someone a ‘party’. A ‘birthday’ party meant assassination, and a ‘welcoming’ party meant to kill anyone that tried to attack its current master or trespass on their property. The droid’s primary personality was unaware of the Hunter-Killer’s existence, and the Hunter Killer always made sure to clean up before returning control to its counterpart.
‘If only it could leave the damn ship…’
That was the frustrating thing. The droid would never leave the ship, even when ordered. Some previous programming modifications prevented it doing so, and Mavros did not trust any droid engineer to go poking around in the memory core, lest they discover the droid's party trick. And he did not have the time, patience nor skill to try to reprogram it himself. For now, he would just have to accept it as it came.
Dantooine’s sun had begun to rise over the plains by the time Mavros had made his way to where he intended to leave the speeder and continue on foot. He was not surprised to see that the burnt out homestead that had been his childhood home was completely abandoned, even after so many years. It seemed the locals had decided the place was cursed. Even when he had first returned here during a moment of doubt during his apprenticeship, it had remained untouched. Following that visit, where he had both killed his uncle and burned the place to the ground, no one had apparently dared to visit, or buy the land. It was overgrown and wild, and the smaller storehouses and silos that had made up the remainder of the homestead were beginning to rot away. The carefully tended garden and well maintained garage with its polished landspeeder, the pride of his mother and father respectively, had now been reclaimed by the planet.
‘Good. Let it all rot along with them.’
He placed the speeder inside the garage after clearing a space for it and took out a bag of supplies that he had packed inside the storage compartment, biting off a chunk of ration bar before taking a long sip out of a canteen. He had enough to last him a few days, and that was assuming he did not simply ‘invite’ himself to dine with the locals of the nearby village. He stood for a moment, replaying old memories in his head. Before, they filled him with regret. But he had been a young fool then, plagued with doubt. He was resolute in his stance now. He felt only satisfaction when he thought of his parents' deaths now. They would have held him back if they had been alive. Their deaths set him on the right path. He was sure of that now. He returned his supplies to the storage compartment and then set off on foot, leaving the abandoned homestead behind.
The sun was high in the sky by the time Mavros arrived before the ancient door that guarded the long forgotten remains of the Rakatan presence on Dantooine. Made out of a darkened stone, there were no signs of controls anywhere to open it, or signs that any such controls had ever existed at all. Mavros stretched and took a deep breath. He raised his right hand, still covered by the black glove he wore to hide a self-inflicted wound he had gained on Vaer’s ship just before the Nysis mission, and called on the force. It still felt somewhat faint, even as he put all his effort behind the attempt to move the imposing door. It took more strength out of him that he was comfortable with, but, eventually, the door slowly began to slide down, revealing a dark passage that led underground. Even now, Mavros could feel the powerful pull of the Dark Side energies that lingered here, causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up. Taking one, last, deep breath, he stepped over the threshold, out of the light of day and into complete and utter darkness. After he had taken just a few steps, the great door slammed shut without warning, depriving him of what little light he had. He felt around for his lightsaber and ignited it, bathing the passage in a crimson glow. The carved passage began to descend, and led into a large central chamber. Three doors led to other passages to the rear, left and right respectively, but they were all blocked by rubble, and were now inaccessible.
‘Great, what a waste of my time.’
He sighed, and sat down, deactivating his weapon. Here would need to do, he guessed. He was moving into a kneeling position when he caught a hint of movement from the corner of his eye, causing him to jump up in alarm and reignite his lightsaber. But nothing was there.
Just silence.
That was, until, the whispering started. It was soft, so soft that he almost dismissed it until he had deactivated his lightsaber again. But it was there. Many different voices, all whispering in words he couldn’t understand.
“Hello? Who’s there? Come out at once if you don’t want to die very, very, slowly.” He called out.
The whispering stopped. But then, just as he relaxed, something grabbed him from behind and pulled him hard to the ground, where his head bounced roughly off of the stone floor. The world began to spin wildly as he felt his consciousness slipping away.
And then everything went black.
When he awoke, he was in a completely different, yet familiar room. The training room onboard a star dreadnought that belonged to his disgraced former master, the long dead Darth Halcyon.
“What? How am I…” He stuttered out, still groggy from the surprise attack in the ruins.
“Come on, Apprentice. Get up, we’re going again.” An unpleasantly familiar voice spoke from behind him. Mavros spun around to see the ship's owner, Darth Halcyon, standing over him, with his signature look of unearned superiority on his face.
“Come on Cardun. Get up.” Halcyon repeated.
‘Why here…why him?’
Mavros slowly got back to his feet, not responding to what must have been some form of phantom, unless he was actually dying from whatever wound he had suffered and this was some final journey his brain was sending him on as he lay dying.
‘Neither option is particularly pleasant…’
“Whatever game this is, I don’t like it. Show me anyone but this fool.” Mavros shouted, completely ignoring ‘Halcyon’.
“Looks like I hit you harder than I thought, my Apprentice. That’s no way to talk to-” Halcyon began to respond, but Mavros cut him off.
“Save it, Vek. You were a terrible teacher in life, and whatever lesson you’re trying to teach me in death won’t accomplish anything either. I learned more hanging around in the academy cantina listening to other masters than I learned under you.” Mavros spat back.
Halcyon stood silent, for a moment, and then laughed. “Oh, but you did learn something from me, Apprentice. You learned how quickly someone can fall. And when I was arrested and executed, you denounced me, the only person in the Order who had ever considered you a friend.”
Mavros laughed in return. “I wasn’t strapping myself onto a sinking ship. You were finished, deservedly so. You were nothing but a malcontent who talked a good game but little else. You always thought so highly of yourself, but in the end, you fell from power faster than a Hutt that’s just seen a free buffet.”
“But I was your only friend, at one point. And ever since my death, the fact that I trained you has become a mark of shame. You hide it well, but you know the others in the order have always doubted you, always whispered behind your back. You wear your indifference like a shield, but I see the cracks. It bothers you, it always has. You don’t think you were ever worthy to be a Sith because I was your Master. And that doubt that you deny so well followed you into the war, didn’t it? It made you second guess yourself. Made you weak.” Halcyon replied with a knowing smile.
“Shut up. I became a Master on my own merits. I was worthy.” Mavros snapped back, trying to hide the fact the words had struck a nerve.
“So you say. But you shut yourself off from everyone around you. Deliberately hid yourself away, claiming to be working on experiments. Why?” Halcyon asked again, now slowly walking around the edges of the training ring.
“Because the one thing you did teach me was that getting too close to anyone was a weakness. I didn’t ‘hide away’. I chose to focus on myself.” Mavros responded, watching Halcyon’s movements.
“So you say. But look at you now, friendless and forgotten. A walking joke. A broken Sith. Passed over by others you consider beneath you. Two girls who were mere apprentices when you were a Master now hold rank over you. A man who didn’t even fight in the war that weakened you so led you on Nysis. You peaked. You’re done. Just accept that you were right. You aren’t worthy. You never have been.” Halcyon replied, laughing coldly.
“SHUT. UP!!!” Mavros roared, and then he attempted to send a blast of lightning right at Halcyon’s face. But all that emerged from his gloved hand was a feeble spark that flickered and died.
Halcyon laughed, and Mavros was thrown off of his feet and crashed through a door. He blacked out again, the cold laughter of his dead master echoing inside his head. When he woke up, he was in another familiar place.
A battlefield.
*The* battlefield.
“Sir, what are your orders?” The Sith Captain asked him. The undead horde was pressing against their defences. The stormtroopers were beginning to break. He remembered what was coming, and looked up to the sky.
Typhojem was coming. His hands began to shake uncontrollably. He turned to give his orders to the captain when he noticed the man had frozen. In fact, everything had frozen. Halcyon was casually inspecting the scene, and whistled.
“Wow. Looks like I missed some big battles…” He said nonchalantly, even as Mavros reached for his lightsaber. But now, Mavros’ own gloved hand was frozen. Halcyon waved a finger at him. “Nope, not yet. What did you do here?” He asked, again looking around.
“I fought. We were turning the tide, and then…and then...” Mavros couldn’t articulate what exactly had happened.
“You were lucky to escape. But you didn’t, not really. The body survived, but your mind, and your connection to the force? Not so lucky. But of course, you were easy prey. Someone already mentally compromised. Filled with fear and self doubt over your own position. Seeing Typhojem simply finished what, well, I started, didn’t it? You started doubting yourself after I turned traitor, and when you saw the face of death itself, all that doubt came pouring out and that shield you hid behind finally shattered. You were completely broken.” Halcyon replied, still smiling at Mavros with a look of self-satisfaction. “You finally accepted the truth. That you weren’t worthy. That you never will be.”
“GO. TO. HELL!!!” Mavros shouted, and was able to raise enough strength to break free of the invisible bonds and reach for his lightsaber. He ignited it and charged towards Halcyon, who did not move. As Mavros raised the blade to deliver a killing blow, however, a great, green lidless eye emerged from the sky above, glaring intensely at him and bathing the scene in an eerie green light. Terror took over his mind, and he froze, dropping his lightsaber.
“Poor Cardun…you can’t escape this. You run and hide from everything else, but not this.” Halcyon said, grabbing Mavros by his collar and tossing him into the air, which dissolved around him. He began to fall through nothingness, and he could hear chanting in the ancient sith tongue, which grew so loud that he could feel pain in his ears. He clasped his hands over them and then suddenly hit the ground again, and though it was solid, he still seemed to be trapped in an endless void.
He was alone. Completely and utterly alone.
“But I suppose this is how *you* like it, isn’t it?” A very familiar voice asked from behind him, and Mavros whipped round to see…himself. At least, his younger self. The age he had been when he had first fallen in here and been touched by the dark side. Mavros didn’t respond. “When I first came out of here, I imagined what my life could be like. It was going to be extraordinary, because *I* was extraordinary. I was going to do so many great things, I was going to forge a legacy for myself. But then you had to ruin it, didn’t you?” The teenager continued, glaring at his future self with utter contempt. “You decided you could do it all yourself. That you didn’t need anyone. And then when your old master turned traitor, you started to doubt everything. You wasted my future. And this is where it got us. This is your world, ‘Darth Mavros’. Empty. You have nothing. No allies, no power, you’re a joke. People just laugh at you behind your back.” Mavros’ younger self finished.
“But I still have time. I’m not done yet.” Mavros replied, almost pleading.
“Yeah right. You can barely use the force anymore. You can’t ever get over anything. It all gnaws away at you, and you just suppress it rather than confront it. I mean, look at you now. You’re letting a ghost of a waste of oxygen Sith and a memory of a dead god defeat you. It's sad.” The younger Mavros said, shaking his head. “Stop hiding everything away.”
Mavros paused, and looked at his injured hand, still covered with the glove. He had put this on to hide the injury he had caused himself from others, and so he could ignore it.
“Stop hiding. Alright. Fine.” He said, and then, he tore off the glove and looked at the hand. The injury had faded. It was barely visible.
“You were afraid to even check. Afraid of yourself.” The teenager said.
“It's mostly healed.” Mavros replied, chuckling.
“But it will never fully heal, and you know it. And you’ll do what you always do, you’ll put that glove on again and hide away, won’t you?” Halcyon had returned, and the great lidless eye now hovered behind him. A harsh, disembodied laugh made Mavros’ bones shiver.
“No.” Mavros replied, flatly.
“Don’t lie to me. I see through it. You can’t face the truth. You never could.” Halcyon laughed.
Mavros stood up, and tossed the glove into Halcyon’s face. The laughing stopped.
“I always wanted to be the one to kill you, Vek. Now, it looks like fate has given me a second chance.” Mavros said, smirking, before raising his uncovered hand, and unleashed a blast of force lightning that hit Halcyon square in the chest, who screamed in pain. The great eye behind him began to quiver.
“You’re a memory, that’s all you are. A memory of a failed Sith who was surpassed by his own apprentice.” He sent out another blast, even more powerful than the first. The eye and Halcyon seemed to merge into one being, and Mavros stopped just for a second. The green eyed Halcyon was curled up in a ball, whimpering.
“Oh and by the way, ‘Master’, Hassat-Durr is a pathetic power to focus all your energy into. But let me show you a real ‘lightning rod’.” Mavros said triumphantly, and then raised Halcyon up into the air before blasting him with a continuous stream of force lightning. The phantom screamed in agony and then exploded in a blast of blinding light, which caused Mavros to shield his eyes. When he opened them again, he was standing in the empty chamber of the ruins, the black glove at his feet. He looked at it for a moment, and then, wordlessly, he turned to leave, leaving the glove lying on the ground.
He felt better than he had done in ten years.
And the village nearby would allow him to see just how much power he had reclaimed.
‘Oh, when I’m done they’ll think this whole region is cursed…’