Star Wars_ Darth Bane 02_ Rule of Two - Drew Karpyshyn [138]
Like most of his collection, it was a historical account of one of the ancient Sith. Most of the pages contained names, dates, and other information that had no practical use for Bane. However, there was a small section that made a brief reference to a man named Darth Andeddu. Andeddu, the account claimed, had lived for centuries, using the dark side of the Force to extend his life and maintain his body well beyond its natural span.
In the typical fashion of the Sith before Bane’s reformations, Andeddu’s reign came to a violent end when he was betrayed and overthrown by his own followers. Yet his Holocron, the repository of his greatest secrets—including the secret of near-eternal life—was never found.
That was all: less than two pages in total. In the brief passage there was no mention of where or when Andeddu had lived. No mention of what had become of his followers after he was overthrown. Yet the very lack of information was what made the piece so compelling.
Why were there so few details? Why had he not come across references to Darth Andeddu in all his previous years of study?
There was only one explanation that made any sense: The Jedi had managed to purge him from the galactic record. Over the centuries they had collected every datapad, holodisk, and written work that mentioned Darth Andeddu and spirited them away to the Jedi Archives, burying them forever in order to keep his secrets hidden.
But despite their efforts, this one reference in an old, forgotten, and otherwise insignificant manuscript had survived to make its way into Bane’s hands. For the past two months, ever since this tome had come into his possession, the Dark Lord had ended his nightly martial training with a visit to the library to ponder the mystery of Andeddu’s missing Holocron. Cross-referencing the manuscript before him with the vast wealth of knowledge scattered across a thousand other volumes in his collection, he had struggled to assemble the pieces of the puzzle, only to fail time and time again.
Yet he refused to give up his search. Everything he had worked for, everything he had built depended on it. He would discover the location of Andeddu’s Holocron. He would unlock the secret of eternal life to give him time to find and train another apprentice.
Without it, he would wither away and die. Zannah would claim the title of Dark Lord through default, making a mockery of the Rule of Two and leaving the fate of the Order in the hands of an unworthy Master.
If he failed to find Andeddu’s Holocron, the Sith were doomed.
THE OLD REPUBLIC
(5,000–33 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE)
Long—long—ago in a galaxy far, far away … some twenty-five thousand years before Luke Skywalker destroyed the first Death Star at the Battle of Yavin in Star Wars: A New Hope … a large number of star systems and species in the center of the galaxy came together to form the Galactic Republic, governed by a Chancellor and a Senate from the capital city-world of Coruscant. As the Republic expanded via the hyperspace lanes, it absorbed new member worlds from newly discovered star systems; it also expanded its military to deal with the hostile civilizations, slavers, pirates, and gangster-species such as the slug-like Hutts that were encountered in the outward exploration. But the most vital defenders of the Republic were the Jedi Knights. Originally a reclusive order dedicated to studying the mysteries of the life energy known as the Force, the Jedi became the Republic’s guardians, charged by the Senate with keeping the peace—with wise words if possible; with lightsabers if not.
But the Jedi weren’t the only Force-users in the galaxy. An ancient civil war had pitted those Jedi who used the Force selflessly against those who allowed themselves to be ruled by their ambitions—which the Jedi warned led to the dark side of the Force. Defeated in that long-ago war, the dark siders