• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

He turned back and fixed his cold gaze on the girl still sitting on a hard, bare patch of dirt. She glared back up at him, furious at the way he had humiliated her.

“A Sith knows when to unleash the fury of the dark side,” he informed her, “and when to hold back. Patience can be a weapon if you know how to use it, and your anger can fuel the dark side if you learn how to control it.”

She was still fuming with rage, but he saw something else in her expression now: a guarded curiosity. Slowly she nodded as the meaning of his words became clear, and her expression softened. Bane could still feel the power of the dark side within her; her anger was still there, but she had hidden it below the surface. She was nursing it, feeding it for a time when she could unleash it.

She had just learned her first lesson in the ways of the Sith. And she was wary of him now—wary, but not afraid. Just as he wanted. The only thing he needed her to be afraid of was failure.

He turned away from her again and resumed his march, suppressing a shudder as a fresh phalanx of blades carved their way through his thoughts. Behind him he felt Zannah gather the Force once more. This time, however, the girl directed it inward, using it to refresh and rejuvenate her exhausted limbs.

She sprang up and scurried after him, moving almost effortlessly at a full run. He quickened his pace as his apprentice fell into step beside him, easily able to keep up now that she was propelled by the awesome power of the Force.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“The Sith camp,” he answered. “We need supplies for the journey.”

“Are the other Sith there?” she wondered. “The ones the Jedi were fighting?”

Bane realized he hadn’t yet told her what had happened to Kaan and the Brotherhood.

“There are no other Sith. There never will be, except for us. One Master and one apprentice; one to embody the power, the other to crave it.”

“What happened to the others?” she wanted to know.

“I killed them,” he replied.

Zannah seemed to think about this for a moment before shrugging indifferently. “Then they were weak,” she said with simple conviction. “And they deserved to die.”

Bane realized he had chosen his apprentice well.

2

The great warship of Lord Valenthyne Farfalla—leader of the Jedi Army of Light since the loss of General Hoth—maintained a slow orbit high above Ruusan’s surface. Fashioned so that her exterior resembled an ancient sailing barge, the vessel had an archaic elegance, a grandeur that some felt was a sign of vanity unbecoming in a Jedi.

Johun Othone, a young Padawan in the Army of Light, had once shared that opinion. Like many of Hoth’s followers, he had initially regarded Lord Valenthyne as nothing but a prancing fool concerned only with brightly colored shimmersilk shirts, the long flowing curls of his golden hair, and the other trappings of garish and gaudy fashion. Yet in battle after battle against the Brotherhood of Darkness, Farfalla and his followers had proved their worth. Slowly, almost grudgingly, Johun and the rest of Hoth’s troops had come to admire and even respect the man they once had scoffed at.

Now General Hoth was gone, destroyed along with the Sith in their final confrontation, and in his absence it was Lord Valenthyne who had taken up the banner of leadership. Following Hoth’s orders, Farfalla had organized the mass evacuation of Ruusan before the detonation of the thought bomb, saving thousands of Force-sensitive Jedi and Padawans from its devastating effects by loading them onto the ships of his orbiting fleet.

It was mere chance that Johun had ended up here on the Fairwind, Valenthyne’s flagship. The vessel was large enough to hold a crew of over three hundred comfortably, but crammed into the hold with nearly five hundred other evacuees, the young man was anything but comfortable. They were packed in so tightly, it was difficult to move; Jedi Masters, Jedi Knights, and Padawans were pressed shoulder-to-shoulder.

The other ships were just as full. In addition to