Star Wars_ Darth Bane 02_ Rule of Two - Drew Karpyshyn [99]
As he moved deeper into the fortress, he began to come across Belia’s alchemy labs. Sealed beakers filled with strange-colored liquids rested atop long metal tables. Empty vats connected by coiled glass piping used to distill or separate mixtures lined the walls. In one room the hearts and brains of a dozen different species floated in specimen bottles, preserved forever in clear embalming fluid. Another lab contained notes and sketches tracking Belia’s efforts to transform living creatures into organic-droid hybrids.
Bane paused at these, glancing through them briefly before continuing on his way. He was unable to make sense of the cryptic scrawl; he needed to find Belia’s archives—and hopefully the Holocron where she had stored all her knowledge—if he was to comprehend her experiments.
Near the back of the building he came upon a narrow set of stairs leading down to the underground levels. One thing Hetton’s research had not provided was a map of the stronghold’s interior, but he could feel the power emanating from beneath him. There was little doubt that the source of the dark side energies hanging like smoke in the air of every room and hallway of the fortress was located at the bottom of the steps. It was here, Bane knew, that he would find Belia’s inner sanctum.
He crept down the stairs. At the bottom was another long, narrow hall, and at the end of this corridor was a small, archaic wooden door. A sliver of pale fluorescent light shone out from beneath. Unlike the floor above, Bane realized, generators were still providing power to the room beyond—another sign that it was of critical importance.
Bane approached the door, pausing at the threshold. He was unable to get any sense of what awaited him on the other side; his Force awareness was overwhelmed by a great concentration of dark side power. Taking a deep breath, he gently pushed open the door and stared in fascinated horror.
The chamber beyond was enormous, at least fifty meters long and easily twenty wide. Standing alone in the center was a pedestal, atop of which rested a small, familiar four-sided pyramid: the Holocron of Belia Darzu. Yet this was not what had grabbed Bane’s attention. The rest of the room had been completely overrun by an army of technobeasts.
They seemed to have come from all manner of species: a menagerie of humanoids and beasts from every corner of the galaxy that had fallen victim to Belia’s technovirus. Once a mutated combination of flesh and technology, most of the technobeasts’ living tissue had long since rotted and fallen away. What remained were desiccated strands of skin and sinew clinging to bone, supported and held together by rods, wires, and twisted scraps of metal.
The arms and hands of those creatures that had walked on two legs in life had been transformed into flat, jagged blades extending from their elbows. The larger creatures—like the technobeast bantha he saw across the room, or the rancor near the pedestal in the center—had become machines of war, with blaster cannons fused to their shoulders and their hides replaced with spiked, plated armor.
From Hetton’s research, Bane knew that the technovirus attacked the frontal lobes of the brain, reducing its victims to mindless automata incapable of higher thought functions—a grim fate for any sentient being. The creatures in the room were in an even worse state. Over the centuries what remained of their brains had been kept alive by the nanogenes of the technovirus, but the inevitable long-term degradation had impaired their motor skills and reduced them to shells of shambling, mummified metal.
Bane guessed that the army assembled in the chamber must once have roamed the halls and rooms of the stronghold, guarding it against attack and serving