Drew Karpyshyn - Darth Bane - Path of Destruction

Hoth nodded. "Nobody will be ordered to go in with me. Ask for volunteers. And make sure they understand none of us will ever be coming out."

Despite the danger, virtually every single member of the Army of Light volunteered for the mission. General Hoth realized that he shouldn't have been surprised. After all, these were Jedi, willing to sacrifice everything, even their lives, for the greater good. In the end he did what he knew he would have to do all along: he himself chose who would accompany him to certain death.

He selected exactly ninety-nine others to go with him. The decision was agonizingly difficult. If he took less, the Sith might be able to fight their way out of the cave and escape, only to detonate their thought bomb somewhere else. But the more he took, the more Jedi lives he might be needlessly throwing away.

Choosing who would go with him was even more difficult. Those Jedi who had served at his side the longest, the ones who had joined the Army of Light at the very beginning of the campaign, were those he knew best. He knew how much they had already given in this war, and these were the ones he least wanted to lead to their doom. Yet these were the ones with the most right to stand by his side when the end finally came, and when all was said and done that was how he made his selection. Those with the most seniority would go with him; the others would fall back with Lord Farfalla.

The hundred Jedi, the ninety-nine chosen plus Hoth himself, stood anxiously at the entrance of the tunnels. The sky above was growing dark as night fell and ominous storm clouds rolled in. Still, the general did not give the command to advance. He wanted to give Farfalla and the others enough time to get clear. If it had been possible, he would have ordered all those not going into the cave to leave Ruusan. But there wasn't time. They would simply have to get as far away as possible, then hope they were beyond the range of Kaan's thought bomb.

As the first drops of rain began to fall, he realized he could wait no longer, and he gave the command to advance. They marched in an orderly fashion into the tunnel, down into the caverns far beneath the planet's surface.

The first thing Hoth noticed as they descended was how cold the tunnel quickly became, as if all the heat had been sucked away. The next thing he felt was the tension in the air. It actually pulsed with vast, unimaginable power just barely held in check; the power of the dark side. He didn't allow himself to think about what would happen when that power was released.

They advanced slowly, wary of traps or an ambush. They found none. In fact, they saw no sign of the Sith at all until they reached the large central cavern at the heart of the tunnel system.

General Hoth led the way, a glow rod in one hand and his drawn lightsaber in the other. As he stepped into the cavern, his glow rod suddenly flickered and went very dim. Even the illumination from his lightsaber seemed to die, becoming the thinnest sliver of incandescence.

As his eyes grew accustomed to the heavy shadows he was able to pick out the shapes of the Sith Lords, standing in a circle on the far side of the cave. They faced inward, their hands raised to its center. They stood without moving, their mouths hanging open, their features slack, their eyes blank. Cautiously, he approached the still forms, wondering if they were alive, dead, or trapped in some nightmare state in between.

Drawing closer he could make out a single figure standing in the center of the circle: Lord Kaan. He hadn't seen him at first; the middle of the ring was darker than the rest of the cave. There seemed to be a black cloud hovering above him, tendrils of inky darkness extending down to wrap and twist around him in a sinister embrace.

One look at the leader of the Brotherhood and any hope the general had of convincing Lord Kaan to listen to reason died. The Sith Lord's face was pale and taut; his features were stretched as if his skin had become too tight for his skull. A thin layer of ice coated his hair and lashes. His expression was one of cruel arrogance, and his left eye trembled and twitched uncontrollably. He stared straight ahead with a frozen intensity, unblinking and unmoving as Hoth and his Jedi slowly filled the cavern.

Only after all the Jedi were inside did he speak. "Welcome, Lord Hoth." His voice was tight and strained.

"Are you trying to scare me, Kaan?" Hoth asked, stepping forward. "I do not fear death," he continued. "I do not mind dying. I would not mind all the Jedi dying if it meant the end of the Sith."

Kaan turned his head quickly from one side to the other, his eyes darting back and forth across the cave as if he were counting the Jedi who stood before him. His lip curled into a sneer, and he raised his hands up.

The general made his move, lunging forward to try to end Kaan's life before he could unleash his ultimate weapon. He wasn't quick enough. The Dark Lord clapped his hands together sharply, and the thought bomb exploded.

In an instant every living soul in the cave was snuffed out of existence. Clothing, flesh, and bone were vaporized. The stalactites, the stalagmites, even the massive stone columns were reduced to clouds of dust. The rumbling echo of the blast rolled down every tunnel, crevice, and fissure leading out of the cavern as the destructive wave of energy began to spread.

Githany was trapped in the labyrinth of subterranean passages. In fleeing Kaan's ritual she had lost her bearings, and now she wandered aimlessly down kilometer after kilometer of natural tunnels as she searched in vain for an exit to the surface.

In the dim light of her glow rod she saw a small opening on her left and followed it for many meters before it came to a dead end. Shouting out a curse, she turned and made her way back again.

She was furious. Furious at Kaan for bringing the Brotherhood to the brink of destruction. Furious at herself for following him there. And furious at Bane. There was no doubt in her mind that he had somehow orchestrated all this. He had manipulated Kaan and the rest of the Brotherhood, driving them toward their own destruction. Yet that betrayal wasn't what enraged her. Bane had abandoned her. He'd cast her aside with the others, leaving her to die while he went off to rebuild the Sith.

Ahead of her the tunnel branched in two directions. She paused, drawing on the Force to heighten her senses in the hope she might find some hint as to which path to take. At first there was nothing. Then she caught the faintest whisper of a breeze coming from the tunnel on the left. The air smelled fresh and clean: it led to the surface!

As she raced up the passage, her frustration and rage fell away. She was going to survive! The uneven ground began to slope sharply upward, and she could see a hint of natural light far in the distance. She redoubled her efforts, and her thoughts turned to how she would exact her revenge.

She would have to be subtle and cunning. She had underestimated Bane too many times in the past. This time she would be patient, not striking until she was certain the moment was right.

The first step was to find him and offer to be his apprentice. There was no doubt in her mind he would accept. He needed someone to serve him; it was the way of the dark side. She would learn at his feet, subjugating herself to his will. It might take years, maybe decades, but in time he would teach her everything he knew. Only then, after all his secrets were hers, would she turn on him. She would become the Master and take an apprentice of her own.

Escape was less than fifty meters away when Githany felt the first effects of the thought bomb. It began with a trembling in the ground. Her initial instinct was fear of a groundquake or cave-in that would bury her beneath tons of dirt and stones within sight of the surface. But when she felt the power of the dark side rushing up the passage toward her, she realized she was about to suffer a far more horrible fate. Those at the epicenter of the blast had been vaporized. Caught on the fringes of the thought bomb's radius, Githany was not so lucky. The wave of pure dark side energy swept over her an instant later. It tore through her like some terrible wind, sucking the essence of life from her body and ripping her spirit from its corporeal shell. Her flesh withered and shrank, her beautiful features mummified before she even had time to scream. And then, as quickly as it had come, the wave had passed. For one frozen moment her lifeless husk stood in perfect balance, before it toppled and struck the ground, disintegrating into ash.