Star Wars_ Darth Bane 02_ Rule of Two - Drew Karpyshyn [98]
Bane didn’t know if the legend was true, but even if it was, it merely proved the superiority of the dark side and its inevitable conquest of the light. For though the followers of Ashla had supposedly defeated the followers of Boga, the dark side had prevailed in the end. Tython, revered by many as the birthplace of the Jedi Order itself, was now a bastion of dark side power, and the location of Belia Darzu’s hidden fortress.
Bane knew it was possible that other people still lived on Tython: descendants of the early Jedi who had survived for eons in the isolation of the Deep Core. But he had no interest in seeking them out, even if they existed. Armed with the information from Hetton’s datacard, he was heading straight for Belia’s stronghold.
Pushing forward on the yoke, he sent the Mystic plunging down into the atmosphere of the cloud-covered world. Breaking through the mist, he saw that the surface below was the color of ash; barren fields stretched endlessly beneath an unbroken mantle of gray and sunless sky.
He brought his ship in low, only a few hundred meters above the ground, as he raced toward the only feature visible on the horizon: a massive, two-towered citadel constructed entirely of black durasteel.
The building was square and measured 150 meters on each side. The exterior walls rose up thirty meters above the ground, and the only entrance appeared to be a massive, twenty-meter-wide gate on the face of the front wall. The towers stood on either side of the front wall, rising up another ten meters from the corners.
As he closed to within a few hundred meters, a barrage of ion cannon fire erupted from the towers. Bane pulled hard on the stick, banking the Mystic ninety degrees to starboard, narrowly avoiding the unexpected attack. Except for her technobeasts, Belia’s stronghold was supposed to be empty.
He circled and brought his ship in again, setting the targeting systems to lock on to the first of the two towers. The ion cannons roared again, and Bane barrel-rolled out of the line of fire as he opened up with the Mystic’s lasers, reducing one of the towers to a heap of molten slag as he flew by.
The Mystic’s sensors had detected no life-forms present during his pass, suggesting that the ion cannons were likely part of an automated defense system still active after almost three centuries. This theory was confirmed twenty seconds later when Bane used the exact same barrel-roll maneuver on his next attack run to eliminate the second tower; automated defenses were nothing if not predictable.
He circled the citadel twice more, making a sensor and visual scan to confirm that there were no other threats before bringing his ship down to land on the barren ground a short distance from the stronghold’s entrance.
Drawing his lightsaber, he leapt from the cockpit and moved carefully forward until he stood before the black gate. It loomed above him, a giant blast door without handles, hinges, or a visible control panel. Gathering his power, he placed his left palm against the surface. The gate exploded, rupturing inward with a sharp bang that reverberated down the long, dark hallway leading into the fortress.
Bane stepped forward, wary and watching for any trick or trap that might await him. He could feel the power of the dark side in this place, but he detected no immediate threats to his person, and he proceeded cautiously.
Using glow rods to light his way, he explored the stronghold room by room, stirring up dust that had lain undisturbed for centuries. It was primarily a military base, the majority of the space taken up with