Drew Karpyshyn - Darth Bane - Path of Destruction

"Give yourself over to the dark side. Let it surround you. Engulf you. Devour you."

The Brotherhood slipped deeper into the collective trance, barely even aware of the storm now raging about their physical selves. Bane stood at the eye of the storm, drawing the bolts of lightning into himself, feeding on them. He felt his strength surge as he channeled and focused the dark side from the others.

This is how it should be! All the power of the Brotherhood in one body! The only way to unleash the full potential of the dark side!

"Do you feel invincible? Invulnerable? Immortal?"

He had to shout to be heard above the howling wind and thunder. A web of lightning spiraled out from his body, connecting him to each of the other Sith. He shivered then suddenly went stiff, arms spread out at his sides. Slowly, his rigid body began to rise into the air.

"Can you feel it?" he screamed, feeling as if the raw power of the Force roaring through him might rip his very flesh asunder. "Are you ready to kill a world?"

There was very little in the galaxy that could scare a man like General Hoth. Yet as he sat looking over the latest situational reports from his scouts he felt the first glimmers of real fear gnawing away at the base of his skull.

The rift between himself and Farfalla had been mended, but now there was no way to get the reinforcements down to Ruusan's surface. Small messenger ships with a crew of one or two had been able to slip past the Sith blockade undetected, though on occasion even these vessels had been spotted and destroyed. Anything larger would never make it.

But his fear was more than the result of his frustration at having help so near yet so impossibly far away. There was something sinister in the air. Something evil.

Suddenly an image leapt unbidden to his mind: a premonition of death and destruction. He sprang to his feet and ran from his tent. Even though it was the middle of the night, he was only mildly surprised to see that most of the rest of the camp was up and about. They had felt it, too. Something coming for them. Coming fast.

They were looking to him for leadership, waiting for him to take command. He did so with a single, shouted order.

"Run!"

The storm rolled down from the plateau and rumbled across the forest. Hundreds of forks of searing lightning shot down from the sky, and the forest erupted. Trees burst into flames, the blaze racing through the branches and spreading out in all directions. The underbrush smoldered, smoked, and ignited; and a wall of fire swept across the planet's surface.

The inferno consumed everything in its path.

Heat and fire. There was nothing else in Bane's world. It was as if he had become the storm itself: he could see the world before him, swallowed up in red and orange and reduced in seconds to ash and embers by the unchained fury of the dark side.

It was glorious. And then suddenly it was gone.

There was a jarring thump as his body dropped from where it had been hovering five meters above the ground. For several seconds he was completely disoriented, unable to figure out what happened. Then he understood: the connection had been broken.

He rose to his feet slowly, uncertain of his balance. All around him were the forms of the Sith, no longer kneeling in meditation but collapsed or rolling on the ground, their minds reeling from the sudden end to the joining ritual. One by one they also regained their composure and stood, most looking as confused as Bane had been only seconds before.

Then he noticed Lord Kaan standing off to the side, over by the fliers.

"What happened?" Bane demanded angrily. "Why did you stop?"

"Your plan worked," Kaan replied curtly. "The forest is destroyed, the Jedi have fled to open ground. They are exposed, vulnerable. Now we go to finish them off."

Kaan had broken the connection, and somehow he had managed to drag the others out along with him, as if he had some hold over their minds. Perhaps he does, Bane thought. Further proof that they all had to be destroyed if the Sith were to be cleansed.

As the others regained their senses, Kaan was shouting out orders and battle plans. "The fire flushed the Jedi out into the open. We can mow them down from the sky. Hurry!"

They jumped at his command, rushing to their waiting vehicles and taking to the sky with battle cries and shouts of triumph.

"Come on, Bane," Githany said, rushing past him. "Let's join them!"

He grabbed her arm, pulling her up short. "Kaan is still trying to win this war through blasters and armies," he said. "That is not the way of the dark side."

"It's more fun this way," she said, the excitement obvious in her voice. She shook free of his grasp.

As he watched her run to join the others he realized that she had been corrupted by the teachings of Qordis and the Academy on Korriban. Despite her promise to follow Bane, she couldn't see beyond the Brotherhood and its limitations. She was tainted, unfit to be his apprentice. She would have to die with all the others.

There was the faintest hint of regret as he made the decision, but the regret was hollow: the echo of a feeling, the last vestiges of an emotion. He snuffed it out quickly, knowing it could only make him weak.

"You frighten us, Bane," a voice said from behind. He turned to see Kopecz studying him carefully.

"When we were focusing the Force through you, it felt as if you had your teeth on our throats," the Twi'lek continued. "As if you were trying to suck us dry."

"The power of the dark side is strongest if it is concentrated in one vessel," Bane replied. "Not spread out among many. I did it for the sake of the dark side."

Kopecz shook his head and climbed onto his flier. "Well, we know you weren't doing it for us."

Bane watched him soar off. Then he climbed onto his own flier, but instead of following Kaan to the battle he set a course back to the Sith camp. The first phase of his plan to destroy the Brotherhood was complete.

When he arrived back at the camp twenty minutes later, he wasn't surprised to find it completely deserted. All the Dark Lords had been on the plateau for the ritual, and they had all flown off in Kaan's wake to face the suddenly vulnerable Jedi. The soldiers, servants, and followers who made up the bulk of the Sith army had originally been left behind at the camp, but they had since received commed orders from Kaan and the others to join them at the battlefield.

Bane brought his flier in for a landing in the heart of the camp, right beside Lord Kaan's tent. He killed the engine and was surprised to hear the distant whine of another flier approaching. He looked up, curious. When it swooped in low, he recognized the rider.

The vehicle was bearing down on him in a direct line. Bane let his hand drop to his lightsaber, ready to unclip it at a moment's notice. The Force welled up within him, prepared to throw up a protective shield if the flier's front-mounted blasters should open fire.

But the flier didn't attack. Instead it swooped a few meters over his head, banked sharply, then came in for a landing beside his own.

"You have no need of your weapon," Qordis said as he dismounted. "I've come with an offer."

Realizing there was no immediate threat, Bane let his hand drop back to his side. "An offer? What could you possibly have to offer me?"

"My allegiance," Qordis said, dropping to one knee.

Bane stared down at him, his expression a mixture of horror, amusement, and contempt. "Why would you give your allegiance to me?" he asked. "And why should I even want it?"

Qordis rose slowly to his feet, a cunning smile on his lips. "I am not blind, Lord Bane. I see you speaking with Githany. I see how you are undermining Kaan. I know the real reason you have come to Ruusan."

Perplexed, Bane wondered if it was possible that Qordis, the founder of the Academy on Korriban, the most ardent proponent of all that was wrong with the Sith, had finally seen the truth.