Chapter 118: Light in the Darkness

Chapter 118: Light in the Darkness

– Dromund System – 24.2 BBY –

“Oh, bleck, I need like all the showers. Also a milkshake. The Dark Side always tastes so foul! Oh! Do we have any more blue milk? Bantha milkshakes are super yummy!”

Everyone else in the briefing room looked on with a bit of disbelief as Zavra’s eyes, which had slowly turned red as she kept up the interaction with the Dark Side Nexus on Dromund Kaas, went back to their normal glowing gold. They shifted back far faster than they’d turned in the first place, though veins of red remained.

“Ew, ew, ew. Can one of you channel some Force Light? Seriously, it’s hard to get rid of this much gunk when the whole star system is kinda thick with it.”

Shaking himself, Izuku held up a hand and did just that, letting a blast of Force Light cascade over Zavra. Rather than cringing away from it the way Dark Siders typically did, Zavra practically basked in it, somehow giving off the exact aura of a cat sunbathing. Bemused, they all watched as her eyes rapidly lost even the remaining veins of red. They didn’t quite get all the way back to her normal baseline, remaining a bit darker and murkier than usual, but it was close by the time she sighed and relaxed.

“Oh, much better! Thanks, Master! It’ll take me a few days, once we’re away from the system, to purge the little bits left, but that already cleansed most of it!”

Despite knowing they had so much else they needed to cover at the moment, Aayla clearly couldn’t resist asking the obvious, voice more than a bit incredulous.

“Did you just…what…detox from the Dark Side?”

Zavra, far from being put out by the question, beamed and nodded like a proud puppy.

“Yeppers! I had to figure that out, so I didn’t always reek of the Dark Side when dealing with Jedi! Plus, after I did figure it out, I realized the Dark Side totally tastes awful. Like you’ve got ashes in your mouth and are covered in the not-fun-kinds of mud! Seriously, most people thought Sith liking spicy shit was normal. But the first time I purged the Dark Side out, I realized it was totally fucking my tastebuds! It’s a lot harder to cleanse if I generate the Dark Side myself, but if I’m just channeling ambient Dark Side energies from something like a Nexus, it’s pretty easy to purge. Totally worth the effort for the better tasting food, too!”

Izuku did not think that it was supposed to be that easy. From the utterly incredulous looks on Aayla and Shaak Ti’s faces, he was pretty sure they didn’t think so either. Deciding that plumbing the depths of what Zavra had just done was going to be migraine inducing, doubly so given her basic personality, he decided to put a pin in it for later and focus on more immediate concerns.

“Okay, absolutely need to get back to that later, but for now we have potentially time-critical information that we pulled out of both these ‘Prophets of the Darkside’ and their base computers. I’m fairly sure the one I interrogated, Murkuo Corbin, was the highest ranking of the group on site, so I’ll start with an overview. Then you can fill in anything else you got from the others, Zavra.”

Their personal Sith nodded happily and Izuku refocused. Thankfully, Izuku’s particular brand of telepathy was much more refined than either the Jedi or Sith had ever managed. Corbin’s sleeping mind hadn’t been able to resist him lifting anything and everything useful from it.

“Right. First, these ‘Prophets of the Darkside’ are connected to our Banite Sith, twice over in fact. One ancient connection and one quite recent. The recent connection, which was more of a takeover really, is where the modern base came from. The Banites put it in, rather than the original group. Said original group here on Dromund Kaas was founded by a Darth Millennial. Millennial was an early Banite. As in, within two steps down the lineage. He ended up rejecting Bane’s ideas and latched onto Skere Kaan’s Rule of the Strong, instead. He fucked off from the Banites and came here to found a Dark Side religion named the Dark Force.”

All three of the girls made interesting expressions at that, either at the name or the fact that cults were so often the result of someone falling to the Dark Side that it was nearly a stereotype. Izuku sympathized with the name thing, at least. ‘Dark Force’ was just about the most unoriginal name for a Dark Side cult Izuku could imagine. Not that ‘Prophets of the Dark Side’ was much better. Seriously, there were probably illiterate street gangs on Nar Shadda with better naming sense than that.

“Anyway, followers of the ‘Dark Force’ religion became known collectively as the Prophets of the Dark Side and remained here in seclusion for centuries. Their primary focus and expertise has mostly revolved around scrying the future, which is often how they found recruits, as well as how they silenced anyone that would discover them. They were helped in their efforts by living atop a Dark Side Nexus to enhance their own Force usage, as well as unbothered by the Veil since it’s a Dark Side construct that wouldn’t impair their own foresight in the least. It was only a few years ago, around the time of the Invasion of Naboo in fact, that they were rediscovered. We do finally have a name that I believe to be a current Darth, as a Darth Sidious discovered them here and managed to convince them he was some sort of destined champion of the Dark Side.”

Izuku paused to let that particular revelation set it. The discovery of a name, even one that was likely a hidden name rather than a public name, was more than they’d had to work with so far. So far as they knew, it was more than anyone else had just yet either. Unfortunately, despite that reveal, Izuku had to give bad news with the good.

“Regrettably, only the current leader of the Prophets has actually met with this Sidious in person, and he wasn’t here. Sidious killed the original leader of the group and appointed his own minion as their new head. A fallen Jedi named Kadann, who is often off planet serving their collective master.”

Shaak Ti jerked at the name of the Jedi, causing them all to look her way.

“Knight Kadann is on the list of Jedi who have left the order in the past decade. Someone was sent to track him and found nothing. He wasn’t considered a high priority as his record shows him to have been mostly an intellectual and philosopher, not a fighter. His only truly notable gift was…foresight.”

The rest of the group groaned, instantly making the connection between someone with a gift for foresight and a group that specialized in Dark Side prophecy. Of course he’d make a perfect recruit for them. Doubly so if he’d already fallen. Something which his unusual strength with foresight while still in the Jedi Order might be indicative of. The Order had been increasingly blinded by the Veil, but if he’d been drawing on the Dark Side to fuel his own foresight, it would have been far less impacted by the Veil. Once they all processed that, it was Aayla who spoke up before Izuku could continue.

“Kriff. This group might explain why everyone has had such a hard time tracking the Banites, even after discovering there were Sith out there to find at all. An entire group that specializes in visions of the future to help them force dead ends to every investigation.”

Izuku nodded at that, having already had the same thought.

“We likely only managed to sneak up on them to the degree we did due to a combination of my own unique connection to the Force, and us spending days leading up to entering the system under Force Cloak. That would have made getting any visions of us extremely difficult, even if it wasn’t why we were doing it. A side effect of us attempting to hide from more direct detection.”

All three women nodded thoughtfully at that, though it was Zavra who pointed out something else.

“It also might explain why Celeste seems to have found a lead where no one else did. She’s an Old School Shadow, and they practically live under Force Cloak. Though, I’ve only met her in passing so far, is that the case with her?”

Aayla and Izuku, the only two present who’d spent a lot of time with the woman, frowned and considered it. Slowly Aayla nodded.

“Very true. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her fully drop it, actually. If she’s around only other Jedi, she tones it down, sort of relaxing it a bit, but it’s never fully off, I don’t think?”

Izuku nodded his agreement.

“The only time I can remember it being completely off was right after she woke from stasis and was fighting with the Muur Talisman. For those few moments before you destroyed it. I think she even unconsciously brought it up while she was passed out afterward.”

Zavra hummed and interjected her own experience.

“That’s paranoid even by Shadow standards. But it’s also probably why she’s making progress. These Prophets would likely be totally blind to her actions, unless she did something which shifted the timeline in a major way. Even then, they might not be able to track what caused it if she’s near constantly been under a Force Cloak since she woke from stasis. She’s more or less an out-of-context issue for them, never having appeared in their timeline at all.”

Izuku sighed.

“Which, given that their leader is still out there, means we should all start trying to keep up a low level of Force Cloak as often as we can stand. As well as alert the Jedi Order that they might need to expand how frequently that trick is taught. Though that has its own issues…”

Shaak Ti, in particular, winced at that. One of the primary, albeit typically unstated, reasons Force Cloak wasn’t taught more often was because Jedi did periodically fall. While it wasn’t frequent, per se, it was a rare decade where someone didn’t fall. Even if that someone was often just a Padawan or Initiate failing a test. The fact that most of them couldn’t hide their Force presence, and the subsequent stain of the Dark Side on that presence, meant they were mostly caught early. Frequently, it was even early enough to manage rehabilitating the younger ones. Though such a fall as a Padawan or Initiate virtually always resulted in the individual being shunted into one of the service corps, barring extreme circumstances. Teaching Force Cloak more broadly risked more such individuals managing to last long enough to do serious damage instead.

“Getting back to what I discovered, I’m afraid there was no real hint to Darth Sidious’s identity. Other than that he was, in fact, referred to by male pronouns. Which doesn’t exactly narrow down our galaxy full of suspects much. The only other real clue is the heavy automation of the outpost, which is using a lot of Trade Federation sourced materials. I’m virtually certain that’s a useless trail, though. It’s too easy for other groups to bribe their way into getting Trade Federation hardware. Zavra, did your…victims…have anything else useful?”

The three of them that weren’t Zavra were visibly uncomfortable at the reminder, but Zavra didn’t seem bothered by them being a bit bothered. Instead, she simply nodded and launched into what she’d discovered.

“You covered most of it already, but there were a couple of useful bits I got! One of the ones I strip mined for useful data was formerly a member of some other Dark Side group called the Sorcerers of Rhand. Apparently, aside from this dude, none of them ever leave some place called the Nihil Retreat out in the Unknown Regions. So, not an immediate problem, but probably something to follow up on. The edgy fruitcakes are some sort of nihilists, believing in a ‘void that consumes all’ being stronger than even the Force.”

Shaak, Izuku and Aayla groaned at the news that there was yet another Dark Side group out there. Though at least this one was out in the Unknown Regions, which explained why it had been missed. Unlike Wildspace, which was merely a poorly mapped frontier, the Unknown Regions to the galactic west was bordered around and littered throughout by hyperspace anomalies. So many, in fact, that there were legitimate scientific theories that someone in the far distant past had outright created the web of anomalies, most commonly known as ‘The Tangle,’ intentionally.

It wasn’t impossible to get into the Unknown Regions. The Jedi world of Ilum was within its borders, and there were a few known powers like the Chiss Ascendency out there. It was extremely difficult, however, and any discovered hyperlanes tended to be unstable and prone to random collapse. Illum, for example, was secured not just by being unknown, but by virtually requiring a Force Sensitive navigator to calculate the jump to reach it. It wasn’t honestly all that surprising that there could or would be a Dark Cult or two out there, as it was the one part of the galaxy that had generally been left untouched by the efforts of the Jedi to cull such groups.

“Aside from that, most of the rest I got was incidental. Two of them were field agents, and there’s some intelligence about various assassinations and operations on behalf of the Banites to pass onto LIS to see if they can make anything of the pattern. That might be useful to roll up some of the Sith intelligence agents, but I doubt we’ll get too far up the chain before running into a few suicides or dead man’s switches to cut the attempt off.”

That got scowls and nods from all of them. That was exactly the sort of thing that both they and the Jedi had run into in attempting to backtrack the current Sith who were causing issues. Even if you found a genuine trail to follow, somehow, it always got lopped off before leading anywhere too important. Of course, now they knew that part of that culling of their leads might be because of these ‘Prophets.’ The rest was simply ruthless mundane counterintelligence measures, unfortunately. So eliminating this group was unlikely to entirely solve the issue.

When Zavra didn’t add anything more, Izuku sighed and took over again.

“Right. Well, record everything you can and we’ll see if anyone makes anything of it. I’ll do the same and we can pass on what we’ve found to the various hunting and investigation teams. The idiots here didn’t get a warning out, so we can post one of the Volitions and the interdictor here to try and grab any more of the prophets returning. Given their specialization, though, it’s likely they already know the base is lost. Aside from that, I think we’ve done all we can here. Except from possibly coming back later to remove the locals so they aren’t living on a Dark Side hellworld, at least.”

His last sardonic comment got snorts and nods. Though Shaak Ti spoke up with an additional suggestion a minute later.

“I think we need to not pass on what we know through the usual channels. Instead, I think this would be a good time to follow up on another idea. Specifically, making more direct contact with the Jedi Order. As I understand it, Grand Master Yoda is currently on Ossus. Passing this information directly to him would be a good way to both see it passed on securely, as well as set a good impression with the head of the Order for you, Izuku. We can also hand our captive over to him. The Jedi do have a prison for captured Dark Siders, even if I’ve never quite agreed with how the place is run.”

That statement got attention, and the lively debate on if it was a good suggestion or a terrible one would keep them busy until well after they exited the Dromund System…

… … …

– Coruscant – 24.2 BBY –

Dark Sidious seethed as he slammed the sparking head of a training droid out of his way, the head landing among a pile of its decimated fellows. His rage when he’d gotten the report, delivered from a safe distance by Supreme Prophet Kadann, that the man had felt most of the fellow Prophets dying, had nearly gotten the best of him. He’d only barely made it to the protective camouflage of the hidden Sith Temple before losing control and wrecking virtually every droid in the facility, including some that were important enough that they’d have to be swiftly replaced.

He hated that loss of control.

What separated true Sith from fools that merely fell to the Dark Side, at lease to Sidious’s mind, was control. Dark Jedi were typically defeated quickly precisely because they lacked it. Most Jedi, unused to handling the darker emotions in any manner but ‘giving them up to the Force,’ couldn’t handle the influx when they fell. They ended up as rampaging barbarians, little better than drug addicts seeking out stronger and stronger highs. Sith, on the other hand, could control the Dark Side without letting it control them. They bent the Force itself to do their bidding, instead of mindlessly flailing about with it like a primitive that had just discovered fire and thought themselves powerful.

It was his own anger at his rage, combined with the brutal self-control that let him play the part of the kindly Chancellor, that had allowed him to reign the rage in eventually. At least after draining some of it off via his rampage against the droids. The fact that he had ended the ‘training session’ panting also greatly annoyed him, as it meant he hadn’t been putting in enough hours to maintain the perfection he demanded of himself. Nor was, given the potential scale of the disaster, he likely to get the time to correct that flaw as soon as he’d like.

Making his way to his personal throne, he at last managed to shift the hot rage to cold, dispassionate anger well enough to finally assess the dangers to his plans. He already knew that he was still personally secure. If he hadn’t been sure of that, he’d have activated one of the numerous contingencies he had for his discovery. No, he kept Kadann close, either here on Coruscant or else on Wayland, specifically as insulation against discovery. The ‘Supreme Prophet’ was the only one of the Prophets of the Dark Side who had personally met with Sidious and, consequently, the only one who knew more than his chosen name.

“There is nothing that will lead them directly back to me on Dromund Kaas, at least. I was cautious, as always, and laid a dozen false trails. If they attempt to trace the equipment of the outpost there, it will lead only to the Separatists. At worst, they will suspect Dooku earlier than was intended. That would be irritating, but ultimately survivable.”

The reminder of his own preparations helped shift his anger from hot and demanding to cold and calculating.

“They may have gained my Sith name, if any of the fools talked. But that won’t get them far. The records of various missions might help them break up some of the secondary and tertiary intelligence networks, but those were always disposable.”

It would be annoying to replace them, particularly when there were so many other demands on his time already. But Kinman could be placed on that task. The man was more than capable of handling the bulk of the shift of assets. Sidious himself would merely need to order any assets that connected to the Prophets be liquidated and replaced, or else removed somewhere they weren’t so exposed if they were otherwise valuable. There would be a brief gap in coverage in some areas, perhaps a few months, and then the damage would be largely repaired with new assets.

“No, the greater annoyance is the loss of their use as researchers and extra sets of eyes to prune undesirable timelines. My own foresight is, of course, far superior to theirs. But their numbers were useful to culling chaotic elements. With fewer sets of eyes on the future, more unforeseen minor waves will be left to build. Unfortunate, irritating, but ultimately not crippling. The Sith did without their aid for centuries, after all.”

No, the far more concerning thing was that he hadn’t been warned. More accurately, the Dark Side had tried to tell him something was wrong, but had been so unspecific that he’d settled on it being the Dathomiri Witches and the new Force Academy the League had built. Despite an enemy he still hadn’t even identified managing to penetrate what should have been among his most secure facilities, the Dark Side hadn’t been able to directly show him the threat. That was…concerning. It was something that shouldn’t have been possible.

“The turbulence? It must be. The Force is still far more unsettled after the destruction of Beldorion and tearing of parts of the Veil. The Veil is regaining strength and the currents are settling, but the blasted Jedi have managed to keep it from doing so entirely by striking while the iron was hot. I must be more aware that Foresight will not pick up every distant threat accurately among the turbulence until the Veil reaches its previous strength again.”

As Sidious worked to repair the damage losing the Prophets might cause, he never even realized his error. He was simply too fundamentally arrogant to believe that someone could hide from him, attributing the event escaping his notice to other factors. Something which would give more than one of his enemies the chance to act in ways he would never see coming…

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

A/N 1: Zavra is increasingly fun to write :-p. Particularly her odd perspective on the Force. Such as the Dark Side making things taste awful ;-).

A/N 2: More importantly, they now have Palpy's Darth name, at least, and have removed a useful piece from his board.

A/N 3: Which is making Sidious increasingly pissed off...and vulnerable to mistakes.