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He ducked his head and darted under the nose of the black and red shuttle to the far side, knowing his best chance of survival would be to keep ten tons of metal between the two of them.

He couldn’t see her anymore, but by concentrating he was just barely able to sense her position. The effort made his head spin; it was like trying to see with mud in his eyes.

She was stalking him slowly, cautiously creeping around the tail end of the ship. And in that moment Set realized his opponent had no formal training in the ways of the Force. She was operating on instinct. She had never been taught the most basic skills—like how to sense the location of opponents even when they were out of sight.

Set turned and made a dash for one of the other vessels, reaching his new hiding place just before she emerged from behind the black shuttle’s thrusters. Crouching down to peer beneath the belly of the ship he was using for cover, he could see her turning her head from side to side, trying to figure out where he had gone.

“I love a good chase,” she called out, her lips curling into a feral smile. “That’s why the call me the Huntress.”

This isn’t going to end well.

Bane could still feel the lingering effects of the drugs in his system. He’d done what he could to burn them away with the fire of the dark side, but the Sith were not as adept as the Jedi at cleansing their systems of impurities. The last dregs of the chemicals would simply have to break down naturally over time.

Until then he would be at less than full strength. A fraction slower in thoughts and actions, less adept at wielding the power of the Force. And he was still without his lightsaber.

Despite all this, he was confident victory was only minutes away. The alarms were still ringing throughout the dungeon, but he knew there would be no guards rushing in to answer their call. The few mercenaries who had survived his attack were in full retreat, leaving Caleb’s daughter defenseless.

Sometimes vengeance needed to be cold and calculating. There were times when it was better to be careful, patient. But sometimes retribution could not be deferred. Sometimes action needed to be fueled by anger and hate; it needed to burn with the heat of animal emotion.

Peace is a lie; there is only passion. Through passion I gain strength. Through strength I gain power.

He could sense he was closing in on Serra’s location. His stride quickened as he marched purposefully down the empty corridors toward his revenge.

Through power I gain victory. Through victory my chains are broken.

He had been careless, weak. He had allowed himself to be captured. He had let himself become a victim. For that he had suffered. But now he was strong again. Now it was someone else’s turn to suffer.

“Des!” a voice from behind him shouted out over the alarms.

The mention of the name he had left behind twenty years ago caused the Sith Lord to stop dead in his tracks. He turned slowly, and found himself face-to-face with the dark-skinned woman who had aided his escape.

She was breathing hard, as if she had been running. Her pants were torn over the left knee; the edges of the rip were bloody. Her face was a mixture of conflicting emotions: fear, desperation, and hope.

“Do you remember me, Des? It’s Lucia.”

For a second Bane simply stared in confusion at the woman standing before him. Then he began to think back to his youth. To a time when he was not Darth Bane, Lord of the Sith, but rather Des, a simple miner from Apatros.

The memories were buried deep, but they were still there. The weekly beatings from Hurst, his father. Long, grueling shifts digging cortosis from the rock while choking on clouds of dust stirred up by his hydraulic jack. His escape from the misery of Apatros, and his assignment to the Gloom Walkers.

It was like trying to recall a dream upon waking. These were scenes from someone else’s life; they didn’t feel real to him. But as he cast his mind back, other memories began to surface: long nights sitting watch on Trandosha, forced marches through the forests of Kashyyyk.