Drew Karpyshyn - Darth Bane - Path of Destruction

Had the armies on Ruusan crossed a line where light and darkness meet? Had the endless conflict between the Army of Light and the Brotherhood of Darkness drawn them both into a void where the ideologies became hopelessly intertwined? Were they all now Force-users of the Twilight, caught between the two sides and belonging to neither?

However, the arrival of the morning sun would inevitably banish such thoughts with news of yet another Sith victory in the field. And only a fool questioned his methods when he was winning. Which was why he wasn't sure what to make of the message he had recently received from Darth Bane.

"Kas'im is dead," he told Githany, getting directly to the matter at hand.

"Dead?" Her shocked reaction affirmed Kaan's decision not to share this news with the rest of the Brotherhood. He had been careful to keep the purpose of the Blademaster's departure secret until he knew the outcome of the confrontation. "Was it the Jedi?" she asked.

"No," He admitted, choosing his words carefully. "I sent him to parlay with Lord Bane. Kas'im thought he could convince him to join us. Instead, Bane killed him."

Githany's eyes narrowed. "I warned you about him."

Kaan nodded. "You know him better than any of us. You understand him. That is why I need you now. Bane sent me a message."

He reached over and flicked on the message drone sitting on the table. A tiny hologram of the heavily muscled Dark Lord materialized before them. Even though the details of his expression were difficult to make out at that size, it was clear he was troubled.

"Kas'im is dead. I. I killed him. But I've been thinking about what he said before… before he died."

Githany gave Kaan a curious look. He shrugged and tilted his head toward the hologram as it continued to speak.

"I came here searching for something. I'm… I'm not even sure what it was. But I didn't find it. Just like I didn't find it in the Valley of the Dark Lords on Korriban. And now Kas'im is dead and I. I don't know what to do…"

The projection bowed its head: lost, confused, and alone. Kaan could clearly see the scorn in Githany's expression as she watched the spectacle before her. At last the figure seemed to compose itself, and it looked up once more.

"I don't want Kas'im's death to be in vain," Bane said emphatically. "I should have listened to him in the first place. I. I want to join the Brotherhood."

Kaan reached out and flicked the drone off again. "Well?" he asked Githany. "Is he serious? Or is this just a trap?"

She chewed at her lower lip. "I think he's sincere," she finally said. "For all his power, Bane is still weak. He can't surrender himself fully to the dark side. He still feels guilt when he uses the Force to kill."

"Qordis mentioned something similar," Kaan said. "He told me Bane had a chance to kill a bitter rival in the dueling ring at the Academy, but he pulled back at the last moment."

Githany nodded. "Sirak. He just couldn't bring himself to do it. And Kas'im was his mentor. If Bane was forced to kill him, it would have been even harder for him to deal with it."

"So I should send an emissary to meet with him?"

She shook her head. "Bane is more trouble than he's worth. He's vulnerable now, but as his confidence returns he'll become as headstrong as ever. He'll bring dissension to the ranks. Besides," she added, "we don't need him anymore. We're winning."

"So how do you propose we deal with him? Assassins?"

She laughed. "If he could handle Kas'im, then I doubt anyone else will stand a chance against him. Anyone but me."

"You?"

Githany smiled. "Bane likes me. I wouldn't say he trusts me, exactly… but he wants to trust me. Let me go to him."

"And what will you do when you find him?"

"Tell him I miss him. Explain that we've considered his offer, and we want him to join the Brotherhood. Then, when his guard is down, I'll kill him."

Kaan raised his eyebrows. "You make it sound so simple."

"Unlike Kas'im, I know how to handle him," she assured him. "Betrayal is a far more effective weapon than the lightsaber."

She left the tent a few moments later, taking the message drone and the coordinates Bane had sent along for the meeting. Kaan had every confidence she'd get the job done. And he saw no reason to share with her the small package that had arrived in the message drone's storage compartment.

Bane had sent it to Lord Kaan as a peace offering; a way to atone for Kas'im's death. It wasn't much to look at: text written on several sheets of flimsi, the writing cramped and hurried as if it had been recorded while listening to someone else speak. Yet within its pages it contained a detailed description of one of the most fearsome creations of the ancient Sith: the thought bomb.

An ancient ritual that required the combined will of many powerful Sith Lords, the thought bomb unleashed the pure destructive energy of the dark side. There were risks involved, of course. That much power was highly volatile, making it difficult to control even for those who had the strength to summon it. It was possible the blast could annihilate the entire Brotherhood along with Hoth's Army of Light. The vacuum at the center of the blast could suck in the disembodied spirits of Sith and Jedi alike, trapping them side by side for all eternity in an unbreakable state of equilibrium at the heart of a frozen sphere of pure energy.

Kaan doubted he'd actually have need of such a weapon to finish off the Jedi here on Ruusan. After all, he was winning the war. Still, as he began his pacing for another long and sleepless night, he couldn't help studying the ritual of the thought bomb over and over again.

From a distance, Ambria looked beautiful. An orange world with striking violet rings, it was easily the largest habitable planet in the Stenness system. Yet anyone landing on the world would quickly realize that the beauty faded soon after entering the atmosphere.

Many centuries earlier, the failed rituals of a powerful Sith sorceress had inadvertently unleashed a cataclysmic wave of dark side energy across the surface of the world. The sorceress had been destroyed, along with almost all other life on Ambria. What survived was little more than barren rock, and even now plots of fertile ground were few and far between. There were no real cities on Ambria; only a few hardy settlers dwelled on its surface, scattered so far apart they might as well have been living on the planet alone.

The Jedi had once tried to cleanse Ambria of its foul taint, but the power of the dark side had permanently scarred the world. Unable to purify it, they succeeded only in concentrating and confining the dark side in a single source: Lake Natth. The homesteaders brave enough to endure Ambria's desolate environs gave the lake and its poisoned waters a wide, wide berth. Of course Bane had made his camp right on its shores.

Ambria was located on the fringes of the Expansion Region, only a quick hyperspace jump away from Ruusan itself. The evidence of several small battles that had been fought here between Republic and Sith troops during the most recent campaign was everywhere. Fallen weapons and armor littered the stark landscape; burned-out vehicles and damaged swoops were visible from kilometers away on the hard, cold plains. Apart from a few of the local settlers scavenging for parts, nobody had bothered to clean up the remains.

The ringed planet was an insignificant world: too few resources and too few people for the Republic fleets that now controlled the sector to worry about. Bane had heard that a healer of some skill, a man named Caleb, had come to the world once the fighting had ended. An idealistic fool determined to mend the wounds of war; a man not even worthy of Bane's contempt. By now, even that man might have forsaken this world once he'd seen how little salvageable remained here. For all intents and purposes, the world was forgotten.