Star Wars_ Darth Bane 02_ Rule of Two - Drew Karpyshyn [130]
As her Master slipped once more into unconsciousness, Zannah realized he was right. The Jedi were coming, and if she didn’t act now it would be too late. She stood up and drew her lightsaber, knowing the hum of its blade would alert the two men outside. She didn’t care. By the time they realized what she was doing it would be too late.
24
The Light of Truth, one of the many Jedi cruisers that had been incorporated into the Republic fleet after the Ruusan Reformations, landed with a soft thump on Ambria’s desolate surface.
“Be ready for anything,” Master Tho’natu warned his team as they prepared to disembark.
Back before he achieved the rank of Master, the Twi’lek had served as a Jedi Knight in the Army of Light on Ruusan. He had been assigned to Farfalla’s ship, luckily in time to avoid the effects of the thought bomb, but not before he’d had ample opportunity on Ruusan to witness first-hand the kind of atrocities the Sith were capable of. He wasn’t about to take any chances here.
They’d been dispatched in response to a message drone that had arrived on Coruscant a few days before. The anonymous message inside had been cryptically short, and somewhat disquieting in its lack of detail. It contained only a set of landing coordinates and four brief lines of text.
A Sith Lord still lives. He killed five Jedi on Tython. He is now on Ambria, under the care of a healer named Caleb. He is badly injured and helpless.
Less than two weeks ago Master Farfalla and four companions had hastily taken off from Coruscant, leaving behind word they were heading to Tython in pursuit of a Dark Lord of the Sith. They hadn’t been heard from since. The message drone offered a grim explanation of their fate, and it drew an immediate response from the Jedi Council.
They’d quickly assembled a team of fourteen Jedi, six Masters and eight Jedi Knights, and sent them to Ambria under Tho’natu’s command to apprehend the man responsible for the massacre of Master Farfalla and his companions. The journey had been made with all possible haste, but now that they were here they intended to proceed with caution, wary of walking into a trap.
The landing coordinates had set them down a few hundred meters from a small wooden hut and a tiny campfire. A cruiser with the name LORANDA emblazoned on its side was parked nearby.
The landing bay doors opened, and Tho’natu and the others leapt to the ground, ready to draw their lightsabers at the first sign of trouble. The air around them trembled with a strange and unfamiliar sensation of power, though beneath was the unmistakable taint of the dark side.
“First and second units, go check out that ship,” he said. “Third unit explores the camp with me.”
Nine Jedi rushed off toward the Loranda, while Tho’natu and the others approached the camp. What they saw as they drew nearer filled them with revulsion: Someone had been literally chopped to pieces.
Eviscerated chunks of human anatomy littered the ground around the campfire. Arms had been hewn off at the shoulder, then sliced again at the elbows and wrist. The same had been done to the lower limbs, dismembered into feet, legs, and thighs. Even the torso had been carved into quarters. The clean, cauterized cuts left no doubt the butcher’s weapon of choice had been a lightsaber.
Only the head remained whole, placed like a trophy atop an upside-down cooking pot resting on the ground. A human male with long, black hair, he appeared to have been forty or fifty years of age. His features were twisted in a gruesome mask of pain and terror; Tho’natu wondered how many of the wounds had been inflicted while he was still alive.
“What kind of madness could make someone do this?” one of the others asked, but Master Tho’natu had no answer.
At a nod from their commander, the Jedi ignited their weapons. They crept toward the small shack, their commander in the lead. As a unit, they stopped when he heard a soft sound