Dynasty of Evil (7 page)

Bane had seen proof of this firsthand. The Brotherhood of Darkness was destroyed not by the Jedi and their Army of Light, but by the carefully laid plans of a single man. Ancient scrolls and manuscripts could unlock the secrets of the dark side, but to bring down the Jedi and the Republic, Bane first had to know everything about his enemies. The network of agents and go-betweens he had assembled over the years were a key part of his plan, but they weren’t enough. Individuals were fallible; their reports were biased or incomplete.

Whenever possible, Bane preferred to rely on pure data plucked from the web of information that wove itself through every planet of the Republic. He needed to be aware of every detail of every plan put forth by the Senate and the Jedi Council. If he ever hoped to shape and manipulate galactic events to bring about the downfall of the Republic, he had to know what they were doing now and anticipate what they would do next.

The complexity of his machinations required constant attention. He had to react to unexpected changes as they happened, altering his long-term plans to keep them on course. More important, he needed to seize upon unexpected opportunities as they arose, using them to their fullest advantage. Like the situation on Doan.

Bane had never paid this small mining world on the Outer Rim much attention before. That had changed three days ago when he noticed an expense claim submitted to the Senate for approval by a representative acting on behalf of the Doan royal family.

It wasn’t unusual for Bane to be reviewing Senate
budget reports. By law, all financial documentation filed through official Republic channels was available for public viewing … for a price, of course. The cost was high, and typically all it resulted in was an onerous list of customs regulations, taxes levied in accordance with economic treaties, or funding appeals for various projects and special-interest groups. Occasionally, however, something of true significance would filter through the clutter. In this case, it was a line-item request for the reimbursement of costs incurred by the Doan royal family to transport the body of a Cerean Jedi named Medd Tandar back to Coruscant.

There were no further details; budget reports were rarely interested in the
why
. Bane, however, was very interested. What was a Jedi Knight doing on Doan? More important, how had he died?

Ever since first seeing the report, Bane had been mining his sources to try to find the answers. He had to tread carefully where the Jedi were concerned; for the Sith to survive they had to remain hidden in the shadows. But through a long chain of bureaucrats, household servants, and paid informants, he had assembled enough facts to realize the situation was worthy of more thorough investigation.

And so he had sent for Zannah.

Seated behind the desk at the center of the screens and holoprojectors, he could hear her coming down the hall, the hard heels of her boots clacking against the floor with each stride. Resting on the left side of the desk was a data disk containing all the information he had compiled on Medd Tandar and his visit to Doan. He reached out for it without thinking and froze. For a brief instant his hand hovered in the air, trembling involuntarily. Then he quickly snatched it back, hiding it beneath the edge of the desk just as Zannah entered the room.

“You sent for me, Lord Bane?”

She made no acknowledgment of the tremor, yet Bane
was certain it had not gone unnoticed. Was she playing him for a fool? Pretending not to see his weakness in the hope he would become careless and let his guard down? Or was she silently gloating while she bided her time, waiting for the dark side to simply rot his body away?

Zannah was only ten years younger than Bane, but if the dark side was extracting a similar physical toll on her it had yet to show itself. Unlike her Master, she had never been infested with the orbalisks. It would still be many decades before the corruption of the dark side caused her body to wither.

Her curly golden hair was still long and lustrous, her skin still smooth and perfect. Of average height, she had the figure of a gymnast: lean, lithe, and strong. She wore fitted black pants and a sleeveless red vest embroidered with silver, an outfit that was both stylish by current Ciutric standards and practical, in that it would not hinder movement.

The handle of her twin-bladed lightsaber hung from her hip; over the past few years she had never come into her Master’s presence without it. The hooked handle of Bane’s own weapon was clipped to the belt of his breeches … it would have been foolish to leave himself unarmed and vulnerable before the apprentice who had sworn to one day kill him.

I’m still waiting for that day
, Bane thought. Out loud he said, “I need you to make a trip to the Outer Rim. A planet called Doan, where a Jedi was murdered three standard days ago.”

“Anyone powerful enough to kill a Jedi is worthy of our attention,” Zannah admitted. “Do we know who is responsible?”

“That is what you need to find out.”

Zannah nodded, her eyes narrowing as she processed the information. “What was a Jedi doing on an insignificant planet in the Outer Rim?”

“That is something else you need to find out.”

“The Jedi will send one of their own to investigate,” she noted.

“Not right away,” Bane assured her. “The Doan royal family is calling in political favors to delay the investigation. They’ve sent a representative to meet with the Jedi Council on Coruscant instead.”

“The royal family must be rich; those kinds of favors don’t come cheap. Small world, but not widely known—yet with wealthy royals. Valuable resources? Mining?” she guessed.

Zannah had always been able to grasp bits of information and put them together into something meaningful. She would have been a worthy successor, if she had only possessed the ambition to seize the Sith throne.

“The planet’s been carved down nearly to the core. There are only a few habitable kilometers of land left on the surface; all food has to be shipped in. Most of the population live and work in the strip mines.”

“Sounds charming,” she muttered, before adding, “I’ll leave tonight.”

Bane nodded, dismissing her. Only after she was gone did he dare to place his still-quivering hand back on top of the desk.

The death of a Jedi was always of interest to him, but in truth he cared about finding Andeddu’s Holocron far more than he did about the outcome of Zannah’s mission.

Fortunately, the incident on Doan offered the perfect distraction. Investigating the Outer Rim world would keep his apprentice occupied while he braved the dangerous hyperspace routes into the Core to retrieve the Holocron. If things went as he hoped, he would be back long before she returned to give him her report, with Zannah none the wiser.

Confident in his plan, Bane focused all his concentration
on calming the tremor that still gripped his hand. But for all his power, for all his mental discipline, the muscles continued to twitch involuntarily. In frustration, he balled up his fist and slammed it once hard upon the surface of the desk, leaving a faint impression in the soft wood.

4

C
iutric IV’s twin moons shone brightly down on Zannah’s airspeeder as it zipped through the night sky. The evening’s rain clouds were just beginning to build; they were still no more than wispy veils that simply tore apart as her vehicle ripped through them. On the ground below, still a few kilometers ahead, she could see the lights of Daplona’s primary spaceport.

A light on the nav panel blinked a warning, indicating she was approaching the two-kilometer limit of restricted airspace that surrounded the port. Her hands moving with casual precision over the controls, she brought the speeder in for a landing at the section reserved for those wealthy enough to afford private hangars for their personal shuttles.

As the vehicle gently touched down on the pad located on the starport’s perimeter, three men scurried out to meet her. The first, a valet, tended to her speeder, whisking it away toward the secure lot where it would be parked until she returned. The second man, a porter, loaded her luggage onto a small hoversled then waited patiently as the third man approached.

“Good evening, Mistress Omek,” he greeted her.

From their first arrival on Ciutric, Zannah and Bane had worked hard to build up their identities as Allia and Sepp Omek. After nearly a decade, she was able to slip
into the role of the wealthy import–export trader without even thinking about it.

“Chet,” she said with a nod to the customs official as the young man handed her an official-looking form.

For the common masses, arrivals and departures at the Daplona spaceport were a long and arduous process. Because the world was built on commerce and trade, the government required copies of trip itineraries, verification of ship registration, and a host of forms and permits to be filled out before the port authority would clear a vessel, its contents, or its passengers. This frequently involved a thorough inspection of the ship’s interior by customs personnel, with the official explanation being increased planetary security. However, everyone knew inspections were actually meant to discourage merchants from trying to transport undeclared merchandise in the hope of avoiding interstellar taxes and tariffs.

Fortunately, Zannah didn’t have to worry about any of that. She simply signed the departure form and handed it back to Chet. One of the chief benefits of maintaining a private hangar at the port was the ability to come and go at will. In exchange for their substantial monthly hangar fees, the government kept its nose out of her and Bane’s business … a bargain at nearly any price as far as she was concerned.

“You’ll be taking your private shuttle, I assume.”

“That’s right,” she replied. “The
Victory
over in hangar thirteen.”

“I’ll alert the control tower.”

Chet gave a curt nod to the porter, who headed off with the hoversled in the direction of the hangar.

“Just a moment,” the customs official said softly to Zannah, causing her to hang back.

“Heard some news I thought you might be interested in,” he continued once the porter had disappeared around
the corner. “Argel Tenn touched down a few days ago to meet with your brother.”

Zannah had never met Argel, but she knew who he was and what he did. Over the past few years she had slowly been gathering information on all the members in Darth Bane’s network of contacts; they could prove useful to her once she took over the Sith. She didn’t know if Argel’s arrival was relevant or not: Bane was always looking to acquire rare Sith manuscripts, and it could just be a coincidence. Nevertheless, she filed the knowledge away in case it should ever prove handy.

“Thanks for the update,” she said, slipping Chet a fifty-credit chip before heading off toward her private hangar.

The porter was already there, waiting with her bags by the shuttle. Zannah punched in the security code, causing the boarding ramp to lower.

“Put everything in the back,” she instructed, smiling and handing the porter a ten-credit chip.

“Right away, mistress,” he replied, the tip disappearing instantly into a pocket somewhere on his uniform as he hustled to load her baggage.

Zannah kept the smile plastered on her face while he worked. She made a point of being friendly with everyone at the spaceport. She saw it as an investment in the future—the cultivation of a potential resource. The members of the Senate and other powerful individuals might shape galactic policy, but it was the bureaucrats, government officials, and various other low-level political functionaries who actually made things run … and they were so much easier to deal with than the political elite. A few kind words and a handful of small bribes, and Zannah could get anything she needed without attracting unwanted attention. Just as she had done with Chet.

This was one advantage she had over Bane. She knew she was attractive. Men in particular were drawn to her
because of her looks; they wanted to help her, to please her. Zannah wasn’t above encouraging them with a soft laugh or a subtle touch—it was a small price to pay to establish a relationship that might eventually prove useful. Her Master’s appearance, on the other hand, would never inspire anything but fear in those who didn’t know him.

Only once the porter was gone and she was alone in the cockpit of the vessel did she let the façade drop. Settling into the custom-molded seat, she punched in the navigation coordinates. Through the cockpit viewport she could see the
Triumph
, Bane’s personal shuttle, in the adjacent hangar.

Like her own, it was a Cygnus Spaceworks
Theta-
class T-1 vessel: the latest, and most expensive, personal interplanetary transport shuttle available on the open market. Everything about their life here on Ciutric—the mansion, their clothes, even their social calendar—was a part of their disguise. They surrounded themselves with luxury and material comforts; a far cry from the austere life they had lead during their years on Ambria.

There were times when Zannah missed the simplicity of those early days. Life on Ambria had been hard, but it had kept her strong. And she couldn’t help but wonder if the lavish lifestyle here on Ciutric had made her—and Bane—soft.

The
Victory
’s engines roared to life, and the shuttle rose up a few meters off the ground. Zannah piloted by instinct while her mind continued its train of thought.

Life was a constant struggle; the strong would survive and the weak would perish. That was the way of the universe, the natural order. It was the philosophy embraced by the Code of the Sith. But here on Ciutric it was easy to be lulled into a sense of peace.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken.

Zannah understood that chains were not always made of iron and durasteel; they could sometimes be woven of expensive shimmersilk. The easy life they enjoyed on Ciutric was a trap as dangerous as any the Jedi could ever set for them.