• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Long have you dwelled here. But you are needed now.

Of course they were needed. They were Sith of the purest stock. Members of the Tribe could trace their origins back in an unbroken line for over two hundred generations. Doubtless they were truest to what it meant to be Sith than any others out there. Five millennia past, the Omen had crashed on Kesh, exiling the Tribe from their Sith brethren. But there had been no doubt in the minds of any Sith on that vessel that their brethren would succeed in the ultimate Sith goal. And there was no doubt now, that across the galaxy, the Sith ruled world upon world, as they did Kesh. That—

No.

The statement was flat and brooked no argument. Vestara was confused. No what?

The Sith have been hunted. Pushed back. Almost destroyed. Only a handful remain. I have seen them, the so-called One Sith, and found them wanting. Jedi are on many worlds. They do not rule, but their numbers are great and growing.

The shock in the Force from those assembled buffeted Vestara, and her stomach clenched. She tasted bile and had to fight the urge to vomit. Beside her, even Lady Rhea was stunned. Her hand on Vestara’s shoulder suddenly gripped painfully, the nails digging in even through the thick cloth layer of the black robe.

How could this be? Ship would not lie to them. They would have sensed it. Besides, it was designed to serve them. Its blunt statement had shattered five thousand years of complacency, of smug satisfaction. Everything they had believed, for all this time, was untrue.

She felt Lord Vol’s powerful presence in the Force. He, too, could not quite hide his shock, but his resolution to remain strong in the face even of this disastrous news was like a lifeline. Vestara—indeed, she suspected, everyone present—clung to it as such.

“We are Sith,” he said. His voice carried clearly; he was obviously using the Force to augment it. “Even if every other Sith on every other world has died … we are still here! Our traditions, our beliefs—they still endure. We have thrived on this world. And perhaps this is why we were here—so that in this time of need, we, the Tribe, can restore the Sith!”

Vestara listened raptly. The idea that they could simply leave Kesh and rejoin the rest of the Sith had been exciting enough when everyone believed that the galaxy was under their sway. To think now that they might be the greatest surviving number of their kind—to think that they might wrest control of the galaxy from the hated Jedi—it was almost too much to hold.

Ship assured them this was why he had searched his data banks and sought them out. He could teach them. He could teach all of them.

“Now is the moment of our destiny!” Vol lifted his fist and shook it defiantly. “And we will not shirk it. This Ship will serve us. It will teach us about this universe as it is now, not as we thought it was in our naïveté, shunted away to this unknown world. We will emerge from our rest and conquer. It is in our blood. It is in our bones. We are Sith, and we will not falter!”

The crowd was cheering now. Even so, Vestara could still sense their worry in the Force, a hint of cold fear: What if we fail?

But they would not fail. It was not an option. They had a task laid before them. They would plan, and learn, and mount an attack on the Jedi who had defeated their forefathers five thousand years past.

The Sith would rise, completely unexpected, and claim what was theirs.

After all, they were Sith, were they not?

GRAND EVENT CENTER, CORUSCANT

“WOW, THIS PLACE STINKS,” JAINA SAID WITHOUT PREAMBLE.

Han gave Leia a meaningful glance. “Hey, this was your mother’s idea.”

Leia sighed and forced herself not to cover her own nose as they passed the nerf corral.

The Coruscant Livestock Exchange and Exhibition had been under way for several days by the time arrangements had been made for the Solo family to attend. But as it lasted for a full month, they still had plenty of time. Many creatures had already gone home with their new owners, to