Star Wars_ Darth Bane 02_ Rule of Two - Drew Karpyshyn [90]
“The Jedi and their war nearly destroyed Ruusan,” Darovit told her. “Countless thousands of men, women, and children died. The forests burned. And your species was hunted almost to extinction.”
Sith started war.
“The Sith couldn’t have had a war on their own. They needed someone to fight, and Hoth was more than willing to throw his Jedi followers against them,” Darovit argued, wondering how much the bouncers—and Yuun in particular—knew of his past. “Both sides were equally to blame.”
Darovit guilty.
It was a statement of fact, rather than a question. “Maybe,” the young man admitted, leaning on his walking stick. “But trouble seems to follow the Jedi wherever they go. And I’m not going to sit back and watch so they can destroy this world a second time.”
Apart from the construction droids the dig site was deserted; the organic crews only worked during the light of day. Crouching low and holding his walking stick parallel to the ground at his side, Darovit crept out from the cover of the trees.
Peace. Calm, Yuun projected after him, trying to soothe his anger. But she wasn’t bold enough to follow him out into the open, and he ignored her pleas until he had crossed beyond the range of her telepathic communication.
Darovit wasn’t strong in the Force; that was part of the reason he failed in his attempts to join both the Jedi and the Sith. But he did have a minor affinity for it, enough to allow him to creep through the dig site unseen and unnoticed by the semi-intelligent construction droids.
Construction droids were employed only for simple, basic tasks. The majority of the work on the monument would be done by a crew using heavy machinery and hoversleds. Moving quickly, Darovit made his way to the nearest sled, crouching down out of sight behind it.
He had come well prepared, stashing a large supply of powdered tass root and two handfuls of crushed petals from the flowers of the scintil vine in the pockets of his overcloak. Individually the two substances were harmless, yet when mixed together and dampened they had a startling interaction.
With his good hand he pried open the sled’s maintenance panel just below the control box and stuffed four scintil petals into the repulsor coils. Next, he sprinkled a pinch of powdered tass root over the petals. Then, as a final touch, he scooped up a handful of snow, letting it melt in his glove so it would drip down onto the mixture.
There was a soft hiss and a sharp alkaline smell as the elements combined to form a highly corrosive paste that began to eat its way through the repulsor coils. Darovit snapped the sled’s maintenance cover back in place; wispy tendrils of brown-green smoke wafted out from underneath it.
Darovit spent the next hour moving from sled to sled, pausing whenever a construction droid wandered past in its preprogrammed assignments, oblivious to the vandal in their midst. By the time he got back to where Yuun was still waiting for him, every single hoversled had been disabled.
Temporary solution. Will replace.
“Repulsor coils are expensive,” Darovit said. “And they’re always in high demand. This should set them back at least a week.”
Then what?
“I’ve got a few more tricks up my sleeve for our Jedi friends,” he assured the little bouncer. “This was only the beginning.”
Light soon. Home now?
Darovit glanced up and saw the faint glow of the first of Ruusan’s twin suns peeking over the horizon.
“Home,” he agreed.
Three weeks had passed since Zannah had presented her Master with the datacard that had almost cost the young apprentice her life. Bane had used that time to study the datacard’s contents carefully, analyzing every tiny scrap of information Hetton had assembled about Belia Darzu. He cross-referenced much of the data with his own sources, verifying everything