Finding a new body to inhabit was the most difficult part of the ritual. He needed someone physically strong enough to withstand the massive quantities of dark side energy he would call on over the coming years, but at the same time he needed someone mentally vulnerable enough for him to overpower their will. The best candidate would be an engineered clone body, an empty shell with no thoughts or identity of its own. But creating a suitable clone could take years, and Bane wasn’t convinced he had that much time left.
He would have to try to possess the body of a living victim … a very dangerous course of action. He would only have one chance: no matter the outcome, his own body would be destroyed in the process. And if his target possessed a will strong enough to resist his assault, the attempt would fail, banishing his spirit to the void for all eternity.
He brought the airspeeder in for a landing and climbed from the vehicle, pausing only to grab his travel pack—a simple duffel bag with the Holocron tucked safely away inside. With slow, heavy steps he approached the front door of the mansion.
Has to be someone young. Under thirty
.
He opened the door and stepped inside, letting it swing shut behind him.
Naïve and inexperienced. Maybe—
He froze. Someone else was in the mansion. He could feel the intruders everywhere: hiding around corners in the hallways, crouched on the stairs, ducking behind the furniture, perched on the balcony above.
All this flashed through Bane’s mind in less than a tenth of a second—just enough time for it to register before the sonic detonators on either side of him went off.
Their earsplitting shriek staggered Bane, causing him to stumble forward into the room and away from the door and possible escape. His hands instinctively flew up and clutched at his ears, his travel pack dropping to the floor. And then the enemy fell upon him.
They poured out like a swarm of insects, bursting into view from every side. Four soldiers armed with stun rifles sent a barrage of bolts raining down from the balcony; Bane—still reeling from the sonic detonators—barely had enough time to throw up a protective barrier to shield him from the assault.
As he did so, he felt something fighting him. Some power was trying to block his ability to call upon the Force to shield himself. It wasn’t strong enough to stop him, but it did hinder his efforts just enough so that a flicker of energy passed through the barrier.
His muscles seized as he was hit; his back arched and his arms and head were thrown back. Every nerve in Bane’s body lit up as if it were on fire. The pain lasted only an instant, but it was enough to knock him to the floor in a crumpled heap.
He didn’t stay down, however. He sprang back to his feet, simultaneously drawing his lightsaber with his right hand as he sent a blast of lightning out from the fingertips of his left. The violet bolts should have incinerated all four of his targets on the balcony, yet again the
strange power interfering with his ability to draw upon the Force hindered his efforts.
Three of the victims were electrocuted, dying before they even had a chance to scream. The fourth, however, managed to throw herself back from the balcony’s edge, evading the deadly attack.
Bane never got a chance to finish her off. A pair of soldiers emerged from a hallway on the left, and three more appeared from the hall on the right. They opened fire with tangle guns, sending out long streams of sticky, synthetic webbing.
The soldiers were smart; they coordinated their efforts. Two fired at his feet, looking to glue him to the floor. The others aimed for the chest and torso, looking to pin his arms to his sides with the viscous strings. But Bane wasn’t about to let himself become immobilized.
Leaping up, he grabbed on to the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, holding himself with his free hand. Swinging his legs to build momentum, he launched himself up over the railing and onto the balcony, giving him the advantage of higher ground.
He came down with a heavy thud, the inexplicable power that still impeded his connection to the Force robbing him of a graceful landing. The bodies of the three dead soldiers were scattered about him. To his right were the stairs leading back down to the foyer; straight ahead was a long hall leading to another wing of the mansion.
A female Iktotchi stood at the far end of the hall, a long, thin knife held in each hand. She grinned at Bane, and in that moment he knew who was interfering with his ability to use the Force.
She broke into a run, charging down the hall toward him. Bane dropped into a fighting crouch to meet her attack, knowing her knives were no match for his lightsaber. It was only then that he noticed the flash grenades lying by the dead bodies at his feet.
They exploded with a burst of intense light and chemical smoke that blinded Bane. Disoriented, he fell back against the balcony’s railing. An instant later he felt the sole of the Iktotchi’s boots strike him hard in the chest, sending him tumbling backward over the banister to the marble floor four meters below.
He hit the ground hard enough to knock the breath from his body, leaving him gasping for air. The impact jarred his lightsaber from his grip, sending it skittering across the floor. An instant later his prone form was enveloped by the webbing from the tangle guns, pinning him to the ground.
Blind and immobilized, Darth Bane’s fury saved him. Years of training allowed him to focus all his pain and rage in one single instant, drawing on it so he could unleash the full power of the dark side. Once again he felt the Iktotchi’s barrier opposing his efforts, but this time he tore through it like it wasn’t even there.
For a moment it was as if the world around him was frozen in place. Though his eyes were still suffering the effects of the flash grenade, the Force rushing through his body gave him an otherworldly awareness of his surroundings—the scene was burned into his brain in exquisite detail.
The soldiers were scattered about the foyer, scrambling to take up new positions in preparation for the next stage of the battle. They were well trained, but he could still sense their fear: they knew the fight was far from over. The Iktotchi had leapt over the railing in pursuit of him. She hung poised in the air above him, her twin blades held out to either side as she braced for landing. Bane could even see himself lying on the floor, buried beneath a thick, wet blanket of rapidly drying chemical adhesive.
The frozen tableau lasted only a fraction of an instant, but it told the Dark Lord everything he needed to know.
And then the instant was gone, and everything became a blur of motion again.
The Iktotchi landed just as Bane unleashed a wave of crackling electricity that burned away the webbing of the tangle guns. She dropped to one knee and tried to stab her knives into him as he lay on the floor, but through the Force Bane saw her coming. He managed to roll aside, escaping with only a long, deep cut along one of his forearms as he scrambled back to his feet.
In response to his call, his lightsaber flew up from the floor and into his waiting hand, but the Iktotchi was already retreating. Now that he was no longer helpless, she was eager to fall back and let others step in.
Several more flash grenades exploded around him, but Bane was unaffected; he was no longer relying on his physical sight to guide him. Fresh streams of webbing arced across the room toward him, but this time he incinerated them while they were still in the air. Half a dozen concussion grenades tossed in from every side clattered on the floor at his feet. As they exploded, Bane simply enveloped himself in the Force, creating a protective cocoon that absorbed the impact and left him standing completely unharmed.
Two men popped up from behind a nearby couch and fired at him from point-blank range with their stun guns. Bane slapped the incoming bolts away with his lightsaber, then thrust out a hand to send the couch slamming straight back into the wall, crushing the men who had been using it for cover.
Then he was on the move, bearing down on two of the soldiers carrying tangle guns. He sliced them both in half horizontally with a single blow from his lightsaber, carving a perfect line just above their belts. Another volley of stun bolts came too late to save them; Bane was already gone.
A single flip and he was back on the balcony again, face-to-face with the Iktotchi.
“You can’t escape,” he told her.
“I wasn’t trying to,” she hissed back at him, lunging forward with her knives.
She was quicker than Bane expected, coming in low and fast. He didn’t have time to simply chop her down; instead he had to spin out of the way.
He tried to take one of her arms with his lightsaber on a counterthrust as she slipped past, but the Iktotchi anticipated his move and managed to contort her body so that his blade caught nothing but air.
They had switched positions from their first engagement; she was now the one standing with her back to the balcony railing. Bane thrust out with the Force, the impact sending her hurtling backward over the railing as her kick had done to him less than a minute earlier.
Somehow the Iktotchi managed to turn in the air so that she landed on her feet. Because of this, she was able to spring to safety when Bane sent a blast of lightning hurtling down toward her. Instead of her charred corpse, it left only a smoking circle on the floor.
Soldiers were firing their stun guns at him again from the stairwell. Bane didn’t even bother to strike back at them; he simply dodged their attack by vaulting over the railing and dropping back down to the floor below. The soldiers were nothing to him; it was the Iktotchi he was interested in now. She was the only opponent who posed any real threat. Eliminate her and he could deal with the soldiers at his leisure.
He landed on the floor in a crouch, absorbing the impact. And then everything went black.
The Huntress couldn’t say how long it had been since she’d carved her senflax-coated blade through the flesh
of the Sith Lord’s forearm, but the neurotoxin had to take effect soon.
Jedder was dead, crushed against the wall by a piece of flying furniture. At least five other soldiers were already down, too. The Sith Lord was focusing his efforts on her.
The Iktotchi knew she couldn’t beat him. He was too strong. The tricks she had used against the Jedi had slowed him down at first, but now they had no effect at all. The senflax was her only hope of surviving.
She saw the Sith leaping down from the balcony, coming after her. He hit the floor, turned toward her, and collapsed. The big man lay on his side, eyes open and seeming to stare right at her. The pupils were bloodshot from the chemicals in the flash grenades.
The Huntress waited until he blinked. Then, seeing no other signs of movement, she held up her hand and shouted, “Cease fire! Cease fire!”
She thought briefly that his paralysis might be a trick, then discarded the notion. The Sith didn’t need subterfuge to win the battle; it was obvious he had them overmatched. The only explanation was that Serra’s drug had finally worked its magic. According to the instructions she had been given, they had four hours before they needed to administer the next dose.
With Jedder dead, the hired soldiers were staring at her, waiting for their next orders. The Huntress closed her eyes and reached out with her mind, seeking guidance. Someone else was coming: the blond woman from the camp on Ambria.
“You three go bring the airspeeders around to the front of the house,” the Huntress barked. “The rest of you gather up the bodies. Don’t leave anything behind that could link this to the princess.”
The survivors hustled to follow her commands.
She didn’t bother to tell them to hurry; they were already
moving as fast as they could, eager to get away from this place where so many of their comrades-in-arms had fallen.
On an impulse, she bent down and retrieved the now extinguished lightsaber from where it lay on the floor beside the fallen Sith. She turned the curved handle over, inspecting it carefully.
She ignited the weapon and was surprised by its weightlessness.
“What about this?” one of the soldiers asked, holding up the duffel bag the Sith had dropped in the first few seconds of the attack.
“Take it with us,” she said absently, not even bothering to look over. “Give it to the princess.”
Infatuated with her new toy, she made a few slow, experimental swings with the unfamiliar weapon before extinguishing it and secreting it away in one of the pockets inside her robe, just as she had done with the strange crystal pyramid from the library out back.
Five minutes later they had the prisoner and their casualties in the back of the speeders, and they were heading to the drop shuttle that would take them back to Doan.
15
A
s Zannah brought the
Victory
in to touch down in her designated hangar at the Ciutric IV starport, she felt a sudden sense of uneasiness.
“Something wrong?” Set asked from the passenger’s seat, picking up on her discomfort.
I’m about to challenge my Master in a battle to the death, and I’m still not sure if I made a mistake picking you as my apprentice
.
“It’s nothing.”
Set shrugged. He was sitting with his chair reclined, his legs stretched out, and his feet resting on the dash. If he was feeling any anxiety himself, it was well masked.
With the ship on the ground, Zannah cut the engines. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very wrong, but she had come too far to turn back now.
Is this a premonition of my own death? Will Bane end my life tonight?
“What now?” Set asked, sitting up and swinging his legs down to the floor.
When he had first accepted Zannah’s offer, she had sensed a clear reluctance in him. Over the course of the trip to Ciutric, however, he seemed to have warmed to the idea. Now he appeared almost eager … though Zannah was aware this could all be an act.
“When we arrive at the estate you need to wait outside,”
she said out loud. “My Master doesn’t like uninvited guests.”