Drew Karpyshyn - Darth Bane - Path of Destruction

The front tread struck a large rock and the land crawler suddenly turned over, dumping Bane out onto hard dirt and jagged stone. He tried to look up again to locate the people he had seen in the distance, but the effort to raise his head was too much. Exhausted, his world went black.

The heavy whump-whump-whump of a land crawler's treads stirred him back to consciousness. The other vehicle was here. He doubted they would even see him: his body had fallen behind his tipped-over crawler and they had approached from the other side. Even if they did, there was nothing they could do to save him now. Yet there was something he could do to save himself.

The engines cut out and he heard the sound of voices: children's voices. Three young boys scampered down from the back of the land crawler and began to hunt eagerly through the wreckage.

"Mikki!" came the voice of their father, calling after one of his sons. "Don't go too far."

"Look!" one of the boys shouted. "Look what I found!"

The weak must serve the strong. That is the way of the dark side.

"Wow! Is it real? Can I touch it?"

"Let me see, Mikki! Let me see!"

"Settle down, boys," the father said wearily. "Let's take a look."

Bane listened to the crunching of his boots across the small stones as he approached. I am strong. They are weak. They are nothing.

"It's a lightsaber, Father. But there's something weird about the handle. See? It's got a strange hook in it."

He felt the sudden fear that gripped the father's chest like a vise.

Survive. At any cost.

"Throw it away, Mikki! Now!"

Too late.

The lightsaber sprang to life in the boy's hand, spinning in the air and striking him dead on the spot. The father screamed; his brothers tried to run. The blade leapt after the eldest, cutting him down from behind.

Bane, drawing strength from the horror of their deaths, rose to his feet, coming into view like an apparition disgorged from the bowels of the planet.

"Nooo!" the father howled, desperately clutching his youngest son to his chest. "Spare this one, my lord!" he begged, tears streaming down his face. "He's the youngest. The last one I have."

Those weak enough to beg for mercy do not deserve it.

Still too weak to even raise his arms Bane reached out once more with the Force, bringing the lightsaber up to hover over his helpless victims. He waited, letting their horror mount, then plunged the burning blade into the young boy's heart.

The father clutched the corpse to his breast, his tortured laments echoing across the empty battlefield. "Why? Why did you have to kill them?"

Bane feasted on his anguish, gorging himself, feeling the dark side growing stronger in him. The symptoms of the poison receded enough so that he could raise his arm without the muscles trembling. The lightsaber sprang to his hand.

The father cowered before him. "Why did you make me watch? Why did you?"

One quick swipe of the lightsaber cut him off, sending the father to the same tragic fate as his sons.

Lord Hoth tossed and turned, unable to sleep. The creaking of his cot joined the whining buzz of the bloodsucking insect swarms that followed his army wherever they made camp. The noise was compounded by the whirring hum of small-winged night birds swooping in to feast on the insects that feasted on his soldiers. The result was a shrill, maddening cacophony that hovered on the edges of hearing.

But it wasn't the noises that were keeping him awake, or the unrelenting heat that left him with a constant sheen of sweat on his brow, even at night. It wasn't the military strategies and battle plans constantly running through his mind. It wasn't any one of these things, but rather the sum of all of them together, and the fact that there seemed to be no end in sight to this blasted, cursed war. Minor annoyances that had been tolerable during the first months on Ruusan had been magnified by frustration and futility into unbearable torments.

With an angry growl he cast aside the thin blanket he slept under, tossing it into the far corner of his tent. He swung his legs over the side and sat up on the edge of the cot, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his head clasped between his hands.

For two standard years he had waged his campaign against the Brotherhood of Darkness here on Ruusan. In the beginning many Jedi had rallied to his side. And many Jedi had died, too many. Under Lord Hoth's command they had sacrificed themselves, offering up their own lives for the sake of a greater cause. Yet now, after six major battles, not to mention countless skirmishes, raids, minor clashes, and indecisive engagements, nothing had been decided. The blood of thousands stained his hands, yet he was no closer to his goal.

Frustration was beginning to give way to despair. Morale was the lowest it had ever been. Many of the soldiers grumbled that Farfalla was right: the general had let Ruusan become his mad obsession and was leading them to their doom.

Hoth no longer even had the strength to argue with them. Sometimes he felt as if he had forgotten the reasons he had come here in the first place. Once there may have been virtue in this war, but such nobility had long since been stripped away. Now he fought for revenge in the name of those Jedi who had fallen. He fought out of hatred of the dark side and what it stood for. He fought out of pride and a refusal to admit defeat. But most of all, he fought simply because he no longer knew anything else.

Yet if he gave up now, would it make any difference? If he ordered his troops to retreat, to evacuate the planet in Farfalla's ships, would anything change? If he stepped aside and left the burden of battling the Sith, here on Ruusan or elsewhere in the galaxy, to another, would he finally find peace? Or would he simply be betraying all those who had believed in him?

To disband the Army of Light now, while the Brotherhood of Darkness still existed, dishonored the memory of all those who had perished in the conflict. To press on meant many more would surely die, and he himself might be lost to the light forever.

He lay back down and closed his eyes again. But sleep would not come. "When all the options are wrong," he muttered to himself in the darkness, what does it matter which one I choose?"

"When the way before you is not clear," an ethereal voice answered, "let your actions be guided by the wisdom of the Force."

Hoth snapped his head up to peer through the darkness of the tent. A figure was just barely visible in the shadows, standing on the other side.

"Pernicar!" he exclaimed, then suddenly asked, "Is this real? Or am I actually sound asleep in my cot, and all this nothing but a dream?"

"A dream is only another kind of reality," Pernicar said with an amused shake of his head. He crossed the tent slowly, moving closer. As he approached, Hoth realized he could actually see through him.

The apparition settled itself on the cot. The springs didn't creak; it was as if he had no weight or substance at all.

This had to be a dream, Hoth realized. But he didn't want to wake. Instead he clung desperately to the chance to see his old friend again, even if it was just an illusion conjured up by his own mind. "I've missed you," he said. "Your counsel, your wisdom. I need them now more than ever."

"You were not so eager to listen to me when I was alive," the Pernicar of his dream replied, striking at the most secret guilt and regrets buried deep in Hoth's subconscious. "There was much you could have learned from me."

A funny thought struck the general. "Was I your Padawan all this time, Master Pernicar? So young and foolish that I didn't even know you were trying to instruct me in the ways of the Force?"

Pernicar laughed lightly. "No, General. Neither one of us is young, though we both have had more than our share of foolish moments."