Drew Karpyshyn - Darth Bane - Path of Destruction

In the last days of the Old Republic, the Sith, followers of the Force's dark side and ancient enemies of the Jedi order numbered only two: one Master and one apprentice. Yet it was not always so. A thousand years before the Republic's collapse and Emperor Palpatine's rise to power, the Sith were legion…

Lord Kaan, Sith Master and founder of the Brotherhood of Darkness, strode through the gore of the battlefield, a tall shadow in the night's gloom. Thousands of Republic troops and nearly a hundred Jedi had given their lives trying to defend this world against his army, and they had lost. He relished their suffering and despair; even now he could sense it rising up like the stench from the broken corpses scattered about the valley.

In the distance a storm was brewing. As each flash of lightning illuminated the sky, Korriban's great Sith temple was momentarily visible in the distance, a stark silhouette towering over the barren horizon.

A pair of figures waited in the center of the slaughter, one human and the other Twi'lek. He recognized them despite the darkness: Qordis and Kopecz, two of the more powerful Sith Lords. Once they had been bitter rivals, but now they served together in Kaan's Brotherhood. He approached them quickly, smiling.

Qordis, tall and so lean as to appear almost skeletal, smiled back. "This is a great victory, Lord Kaan. It has been far too long since the Sith have had an academy on Korriban."

"I sense you are eager to begin training the new apprentices here," Kaan replied. "I expect you will provide me with many more powerful and loyal Sith adepts and Masters in the coming years."

"Provide you?" Kopecz asked pointedly. "Don't you mean provide us? Are we not all part of the Brotherhood of Darkness?"

His question was met with an easy laugh. "Of course, Kopecz. A mere slip of the tongue?"

"Kopecz refuses to celebrate in our triumph," Qordis noted. "He has been like this all night."

Kaan clasped a hand on the hefty Twi'lek's shoulder. "This is a great victory for us," he said. "Korriban is more than just another world: it is a symbol. The birthplace of the Sith. This victory sends a message to the Republic and the Jedi. Now they will truly know and fear the Brotherhood."

Kopecz shrugged free of Kaan's hand and turned away with a flick of the tips of the long lekku wound around his neck. "Celebrate if you wish," he called over his shoulder as he walked away. "But the real war has only just begun."

Three years later.

Dessel was lost in the suffering of his job, barely even aware of his surroundings. His arms ached from the endless pounding of the hydraulic jack. Small bits of rock skipped off the cavern wall as he bored through, ricocheting off his protective goggles and stinging his exposed face and hands. Clouds of atomized dust filled the air, obscuring his vision, and the screeching whine of the jack filled the cavern, drowning out all other sounds as it burrowed centimeter by agonizing centimeter into the thick vein of cortosis woven into the rock before him.

Impervious to both heat and energy, cortosis was prized in the construction of armor and shielding by both commercial and military interests, especially with the galaxy at war. Highly resistant to blaster bolts, cortosis alloys supposedly could withstand even the blade of a lightsaber. Unfortunately, the very properties that made it so valuable also made it extremely difficult to mine. Plasma torches were virtually useless; it would take days to burn away even a small section of cortosis-laced rock. The only effective way to mine it was through the brute force of hydraulic jacks pounding relentlessly away at a vein, chipping the cortosis free bit by bit.

Cortosis was one of the hardest materials in the galaxy. The force of the pounding quickly wore down the head of a jack, blunting it until it became almost useless. The dust clogged the hydraulic pistons, making them jam. Mining cortosis was hard on the equipment. and even harder on the miners.

Des had been hammering away for nearly six standard hours. The jack weighed more than thirty kilos, and the strain of keeping it raised and pressed against the rock face was taking its toll. His arms were trembling from the exertion. His lungs were gasping for air and choking on the clouds of fine mineral dust thrown up from the jack's head. Even his teeth hurt: the rattling vibration felt as if it were shaking them loose from his gums.

But the miners on Apatros were paid based on how much cortosis they brought back. If he quit now, another miner would jump in and start working the vein, taking a share of the profits. Des didn't like to share.

The whine of the jack's motor took on a higher pitch, becoming a keening wail Des was all too familiar with. At twenty thousand rpm, the motor sucked in dust like a thirsty bantha sucking up water after a long desert crossing. The only way to combat it was by regular cleaning and servicing, and the Outer Rim Oreworks Company preferred to buy cheap equipment and replace it, rather than sinking credits into maintenance. Des knew exactly what was going to happen next, and a second later, it did. The motor blew.

The hydraulics seized with a horrible crunch, and a cloud of black smoke spit out the rear of the jack. Cursing ORO and its corporate policies, Des released his cramped finger from the trigger and tossed the spent piece of equipment to the floor.

"Move aside, kid," a voice said.

Gerd, one of the other miners, stepped up and tried to shoulder Des out of the way so he could work the vein with his own jack. Gerd had been working the mines for nearly twenty standard years, and it had turned his body into a mass of hard, knotted muscle. But Des had been working the mines for ten years himself, ever since he was a teenager, and he was just as solid as the older man and a little bigger. He didn't budge.

"I'm not done here," he said. "Jack died, that's all. Hand me yours and I'll keep at it for a while."

"You know the rules, kid. You stop working and someone else is allowed to move in."

Technically, Gerd was right. But nobody ever jumped another miner's claim over an equipment malfunction. Not unless he was trying to pick a fight.

Des took a quick look around. The chamber was empty except for the two of them, standing less than half a meter apart. Not a surprise; Des usually chose caverns far off the main tunnel network. It had to be more than mere coincidence that Gerd was here.

Des had known Gerd for as long as he could remember. The middle-aged man had been friends with Hurst, Des's father. Back when Des first started working the mines at thirteen, he had taken a lot of abuse from the bigger miners. His father had been the worst tormentor, but Gerd had been one of the main instigators, dishing out more than his fair share of teasing, insults, and the occasional cuff on the ear.

Their harassments had ended shortly after Des's father died of a massive heart attack. It wasn't because the miners felt sorry for the orphaned young man, though. By the time Hurst died, the tall, skinny teenager they loved to bully had become a mountain of muscle with heavy hands and a fierce temper. Mining was a tough job; it was the closest thing to hard labor outside a Republic prison colony. Whoever worked the mines on Apatros got big, and Des just happened to become the biggest of them all. Half a dozen black eyes, countless bloody noses, and one broken jaw in the space of a month was all it took for Hurst's old friends to decide they'd be happier if they left Des alone.

Yet it was almost as if they blamed him for Hurst's death, and every few months one of them tried again. Gerd had always been smart enough to keep his distance until now.