Darth Bane Book I - Path of Destruction

I've recently picked up the first two Darth Bane books and am making my way through book 1 (Path of Destruction) and am enjoying it loads.

I don't know who else here has read them (I suspect one or two) but I thought it would be advantatious to share it with you.

What I recommend is that you go out and get the books as soon as you can as they add an element to the story of the Sith that helps understands them more and, as you might imagine Drew Karpyshyn is a great author (you may have seen him on some of the SWTOR development vids and know him from KOTOR...).

You can pick up the books in loads of places, here are the links for amazon...

Darth Bane - Path of Destruction (2007)

Dath Bane - Rule of Two (2008)

and

Darth Bane - Dynasty of Evil (2009)

That being said, for those that haven't read any of the books and am interested in them, I'll be spending the next few posts uploading the first 5 chapters of the book to whet your appetite somewhat, a kind of "demo" to the books which will hopefully encourage you to go out and grab them!

(Please note that this is not an infringement of copyright laws, all the chapters have been collected by me from various websites "previewing" one of the chapters, I have merely pieced them together for you guys. In other words, everything here is freely available on the web.)

Star Wars

Darth Bane

Book 1

Path of Destruction

by Drew Karpyshyn




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PROLOGUE

In the last days of the Old Republic, the Sith-followers of the Force's dark side and ancient enemies of the Jedi order-numbered only two: one Master and one apprentice. Yet it was not always so. A thousand years before the Republic's collapse and Emperor Palpatine's rise to power, the Sith were legion . . .

Lord Kaan, Sith Master and founder of the Brotherhood of Darkness, strode through the gore of the battlefield, a tall shadow in the night's gloom. Thousands of Republic troops and nearly a hundred Jedi had given their lives trying to defend this world against his army-and they had lost. He relished their suffering and despair; even now he could sense it rising up like the stench from the broken corpses scattered about the valley.

In the distance a storm was brewing. As each flash of lightning illuminated the sky, Korriban's great Sith temple was momentarily visible in the distance, a stark silhouette towering over the barren horizon.

A pair of figures waited in the center of the slaughter, one human and the other Twi'lek. He recognized them despite the darkness: Qordis and Kopecz, two of the more powerful Sith Lords. Once they had been bitter rivals, but now they served together in Kaan's Brotherhood. He approached them quickly, smiling.

Qordis, tall and so lean as to appear almost skeletal, smiled back. "This is a great victory, Lord Kaan. It has been far too long since the Sith have had an academy on Korriban."

"I sense you are eager to begin training the new apprentices here," Kaan replied. "I expect you will provide me with many more powerful-and loyal-Sith adepts and Masters in the coming years."

"Provide you?" Kopecz asked pointedly. "Don't you mean provide us? Are we not all part of the Brotherhood of Darkness?"

His question was met with an easy laugh. "Of course, Kopecz. A mere slip of the tongue?'

"Kopecz refuses to celebrate in our triumph," Qordis noted. "He has been like this all night."

Kaan clasped a hand on the hefty Twi'lek's shoulder. "This is a great victory for us," he said. "Korriban is more than just another world: it is a symbol. The birthplace of the Sith. This victory sends a message to the Republic and the Jedi. Now they will truly know and fear the Brotherhood."

Kopecz shrugged free of Kaan's hand and turned away with a flick of the tips of the long lekku wound around his neck. "Celebrate if you wish," he called over his shoulder as he walked away. "But the real war has only just begun."

PART ONE

Three Years Later

Chapter 1

Dessel was lost in the suffering of his job, barely even aware of his surroundings. His arms ached from the endless pounding of the hydraulic jack. Small bits of rock skipped off the cavern wall as he bored through, ricocheting off his protective goggles and stinging his exposed face and hands. Clouds of atomized dust filled the air, obscuring his vision, and the screeching whine of the jack filled the cavern, drowning out all other sounds as it burrowed centimeter by agonizing centimeter into the thick vein of cortosis woven into the rock before him.

Impervious to both heat and energy, cortosis was prized in the construction of armor and shielding by both commercial and military interests, especially with the galaxy at war. Highly resistant to blaster bolts, cortosis alloys supposedly could withstand even the blade of a lightsaber. Unfortunately, the very properties that made it so valuable also made it extremely difficult to mine. Plasma torches were virtually useless; it would take days to burn away even a small section of cortosis-laced rock. The only effective way to mine it was through the brute force of hydraulic jacks pounding relentlessly away at a vein, chipping the cortosis free bit by bit.

Cortosis was one of the hardest materials in the galaxy. The force of the pounding quickly wore down the head of a jack, blunting it until it became almost useless. The dust clogged the hydraulic pistons, making them jam. Mining cortosis was hard on the equipment . . . and even harder on the miners.

Des had been hammering away for nearly six standard hours. The jack weighed more than thirty kilos, and the strain of keeping it raised and pressed against the rock face was taking its toll. His arms were trembling from the exertion. His lungs were gasping for air and choking on the clouds of fine mineral dust thrown up from the jack's head. Even his teeth hurt: the rattling vibration felt as if it were shaking them loose from his gums.

But the miners on Apatros were paid based on how much cortosis they brought back. If he quit now, another miner would jump in and start working the vein, taking a share of the profits. Des didn't like to share.

The whine of the jack's motor took on a higher pitch, becoming a keening wail Des was all too familiar with. At twenty thousand rpm, the motor sucked in dust like a thirsty bantha sucking up water after a long desert crossing. The only way to combat it was by regular cleaning and servicing, and the Outer Rim Oreworks Company preferred to buy cheap equipment and replace it, rather than sinking credits into maintenance. Des knew exactly what was going to happen next-and a second later, it did. The motor blew.

The hydraulics seized with a horrible crunch, and a cloud of black smoke spit out the rear of the jack. Cursing ORO and its corporate policies, Des released his cramped finger from the trigger and tossed the spent piece of equipment to the floor.

"Move aside, kid," a voice said.

Gerd, one of the other miners, stepped up and tried to shoulder Des out of the way so he could work the vein with his own jack. Gerd had been working the mines for nearly twenty standard years, and it had turned his body into a mass of hard, knotted muscle. But Des had been working the mines for ten years himself, ever since he was a teenager, and he was just as solid as the older man-and a little bigger. He didn't budge.

"I'm not done here," he said. "Jack died, that's all. Hand me yours and I'll keep at it for a while."

"You know the rules, kid. You stop working and someone else is allowed to move in."

Technically, Gerd was right. But nobody ever jumped another miner's claim over an equipment malfunction. Not unless he was trying to pick a fight.

Des took a quick look around. The chamber was empty except for the two of them, standing less than half a meter apart. Not a surprise; Des usually chose caverns far off the main tunnel network. It had to be more than mere coincidence that Gerd was here.

Des had known Gerd for as long as he could remember. The middle-aged man had been friends with Hurst, Des's father. Back when Des first started working the mines at thirteen, he had taken a lot of abuse from the bigger miners. His father had been the worst tormentor, but Gerd had been one of the main instigators, dishing out more than his fair share of teasing, insults, and the occasional cuff on the ear.

Their harassments had ended shortly after Des's father died of a massive heart attack. It wasn't because the miners felt sorry for the orphaned young man, though. By the time Hurst died, the tall, skinny teenager they loved to bully had become a mountain of muscle with heavy hands and a fierce temper. Mining was a tough job; it was the closest thing to hard labor outside a Republic prison colony. Whoever worked the mines on Apatros got big-and Des just happened to become the biggest of them all. Half a dozen black eyes, countless bloody noses, and one broken jaw in the space of a month was all it took for Hurst's old friends to decide they'd be happier if they left Des alone.

Yet it was almost as if they blamed him for Hurst's death, and every few months one of them tried again. Gerd had always been smart enough to keep his distance-until now.

"I don't see any of your friends here with you, old man," Des said. "So back off my claim, and nobody gets hurt."

Gerd spat on the ground at Des's feet. "You don't even know what day it is, do you, boy? Kriffing disgrace is what you are!"

They were standing close enough to each other that Des could smell the sour Corellian whiskey on Gerd's breath. The man was drunk. Drunk enough to come looking for a fight, but still sober enough to hold his own.

"Five years ago today," Gerd said, shaking his head sadly. "Five years ago today your own father died, and you don't even remember!"

Des rarely even thought about his father anymore. He hadn't been sorry to see him go. His earliest memories were of his father smacking him. He didn't even remember the reason; Hurst rarely needed one.

"Can't say I miss Hurst the same way you do, Gerd."

"Hurst?" Gerd snorted. "He raised you by himself after your mama died, and you don't even have the respect to call him Dad? You ungrateful son-of-a-Kath-hound!"

Des glared down menacingly at Gerd, but the shorter man was too full of drink and self-righteous indignation to be intimidated.

"Should've expected this from a mudcrutch whelp like you:" Gerd continued. "Hurst always said you were no good. He knew there was something wrong with you ... Bane."

Des narrowed his eyes, but didn't rise to the bait. Hurst had called him by that name when he was drunk. Bane. He had blamed his son for his wife's death. Blamed him for being stuck on Apatros. He considered his only child to be the bane of his existence, a fact he'd tended to spit out at Des in his drunken rages.

Bane. It represented everything spiteful, petty, and mean about his father. It struck at the innermost fears of every child: fear of disappointment, fear of abandonment, fear of violence. As a kid, that name had hurt more than all the smacks from his father's heavy fists. But Des wasn't a kid anymore. Over time he'd learned to ignore it, along with all the rest of the hateful bile that spilled from his father's mouth.

"I don't have time for this," he muttered. "I've got work to do."

With one hand he grabbed the hydraulic jack from Gerd's grasp. He put the other hand on Gerd's shoulder and shoved him away. Stumbling back, the inebriated man caught his heel on a rock and fell roughly to the ground.

He stood up with a snarl, his hands balling into fists. "Guess your daddy's been gone too long, boy. You need someone to beat the sense back into you!"

Gerd was drunk, but he was no fool, Des realized. Des was bigger, stronger, younger ... but he'd spent the last six hours working a hydraulic jack. He was covered in grime and the sweat was dripping off his face. His shirt was drenched. Gerd's uniform, on the other hand, was still relatively clean: no dust, no sweat stains. He must have been planning this all day, taking it easy and sitting back while Des wore himself out.

But Des wasn't about to back down from a fight. Throwing Gerd's jack to the ground, he dropped into a crouch, feet wide and arms held out in front of him.

Gerd charged forward, swinging his right fist in a vicious uppercut. Des reached out and caught the punch with the open palm of his left hand, absorbing the force of the blow. His right hand snapped forward and grabbed the underside of Gerd's right wrist; as he pulled the older man forward, Des ducked down and turned, driving his shoulder into Gerd's chest. Using his opponent's own momentum against him, Des straightened up and yanked hard on Gerd's wrist, flipping him up and over so that he crashed to the ground on his back.

The fight should have ended right then; Des had a split second where he could have dropped his knee onto his opponent, driving the breath from his lungs and pinning him to the ground while he pounded Gerd with his fists. But it didn't happen. His back, exhausted from hours of hefting the thirty-kilo jack, spasmed.

The pain was agonizing; instinctively Des straightened up, clutching at the knotted lumbar muscles. It gave Gerd a chance to roll out of the way and get back to his feet.

Somehow Des managed to drop into his fighting crouch again. His back howled in protest, and he grimaced as red-hot daggers of pain shot through his body. Gerd saw the grimace and laughed.

"Cramping up there, boy? You should know better than to try and fight after a six-hour shift in the mines."

Gerd charged forward again. This time his hands weren't fists, but claws grasping and grabbing at anything they could find, trying to nullify the younger man's height and reach by getting in close. Des tried to scramble out of the way, but his legs were too stiff and sore to get him clear. One hand grabbed his shirt, the other got hold of his belt as Gerd pulled both of them to the ground.

They grappled together, wrestling on the hard, uneven stone of the cavern floor. Gerd had his face buried against Dessel's chest to protect it, keeping Des from landing a solid elbow or head-butt. He still had a grip on Des's belt, but now his other hand was free and punching blindly up to where he guessed Des's face would be. Des was forced to wrap his arms in and around Gerd's own, interlocking them so neither man could throw a punch.

With their limbs pinned, strategy and technique meant little. The fight had become a test of strength and endurance, with the two combatants slowly wearing each other down. Dessel tried to roll Gerd over onto his back, but his weary body betrayed him. His limbs were heavy and soft; he couldn't get the leverage he needed. Instead it was Gerd who was able to twist and turn, wrenching one of his hands free while still keeping his face pressed tight against Des's chest so it wouldn't be exposed.

Des wasn't so lucky ... his face was open and vulnerable. Gerd struck a blow with his free hand, but he didn't hit with a closed fist. Instead lie drove his thumb hard into Des's cheek, only a few centimeters from his real target. He struck again with the thumb, looking to gouge out one of his opponent's eyes and leave him blind and writhing in pain.

It took Des a second to realize what was happening; his tired mind had become as slow and clumsy as his body. He turned his face away just as the second blow landed, the thumb jamming painfully into the cartilage of his upper ear.

Dark rage exploded inside Des: a burst of fiery passion that burned away the exhaustion and fatigue. Suddenly his mind was clear, and his body felt strong and rejuvenated. He knew what he was going to do next. More importantly, he knew with absolute certainty what Gerd would do next, too.

He couldn't explain how he knew; sometimes he could just anticipate an opponent's next move. Instinct, some might have said. Des felt it was something more. It was too detailed-too specific-to be simple instinct. It was more like a vision, a brief glimpse into the future. And whenever it happened, Des always knew what to do, as if something was guiding and directing his actions.

When the next blow came, Des was more than ready for it. He could picture it perfectly in his mind. He knew exactly when it was coming and precisely where it would strike. This time he turned his head in the opposite direction, exposing his face to the incoming blow-and opening his mouth. He bit down hard, his timing perfect, and his teeth sank deep into the dirty flesh of Gerd's probing thumb.

Gerd screamed as Des clamped his jaw shut, severing the tendons and striking bone. He wondered if he could bite clean through and then-as if the very thought made it happen-he severed Gerd's thumb.

The screams became shrieks as Gerd released his grasp and rolled away, clasping his maimed hand with his whole one. Crimson blood welled up through the fingers trying to stanch the flow from his stump.

Standing up slowly, Des spat the thumb out onto the ground. The taste of blood was hot in his mouth. His body felt strong and reenergized, as if some great power surged through his veins. All the fight had been taken out of his opponent; Des could do anything he wanted to Gerd now.

The older man rolled back and forth on the floor, his hand clutched to his chest. He was moaning and sobbing, begging for mercy, pleading for help.

Des shook his head in disgust; Gerd had brought this on himself. It had started as a simple fistfight. The loser would have ended up with a black eye and some bruises, but nothing more. Then the older man had taken things to another level by trying to blind him, and he'd responded in kind. Des had learned long ago not to escalate a fight unless he was willing to pay the price of losing. Now Gerd had learned that lesson, too.

Des had a temper, but he wasn't the kind to keep beating on a helpless opponent. Without looking back at his defeated foe, he left the cavern and headed back up the tunnel to tell one of the foremen what had happened so someone could come tend to Gerd's injury.

He wasn't worried about the consequences. The medics could reattach Gerd's thumb, so at worst Des would be fined a day or two's wages. The corporation didn't really care what its employees did, as long as they kept coming back to mine the cortosis. Fights were common among the miners, and ORO almost always turned a blind eye, though this particular fight had been more vicious than most-savage and short, with a brutal end.

Just like life on Apatros.

Chapter 2

Sitting in the back of the land cruiser used to transport miners between Apatros's only colony and the mines, Des felt exhausted. All he wanted was to get back to his bunk in the barracks and sleep. The adrenaline had drained out of him, leaving him hyperaware of the stiffness and soreness of his body. He slumped down in his seat and gazed around the interior of the cruiser.

Normally, there would have been twenty other miners crammed into the speeder with him, but this one was empty except for him and the pilot. After the fight with Gerd, the foreman had suspended Des without pay, effective immediately, and had ordered the transport to take him back to the colony.

"This kind of thing is getting old, Des," the foreman had said with a frown. "We've got to make an example of you this time. You can't work the mines until Gerd is healed up and back on the job."

What he really meant was, You can't earn any credits until Gerd comes back. He'd still be charged room and board, of course. Every day that he sat around doing nothing would go onto his tab, adding to the debt he was working so desperately to pay off.

Des figured it would be four or five days until Gerd was able to handle a hydraulic jack again. The on-site medic had reattached the severed thumb using a vibroscalpel and synthflesh. A few days of kolto injections and some cheap meds to dull the pain, and Gerd would be back at it. Bacta therapy could have him back in a day; but bacta was expensive, and ORO wouldn't spring for it unless Gerd had miner's insurance ... which Des highly doubted.

Most miners never bothered with the company-sponsored insurance program. It was expensive, for one thing. What with room, board, and the fees covering the cost of transport to and from the mines, most thought they gave ORO more than enough of their hard-earned pay without adding insurance premiums onto the stack.

It wasn't just the cost, though. It was almost as if the men and women who worked the cortosis mines were in denial, refusing to admit the potential dangers and hazards they encountered every day. Getting insurance would force them to take a look at the cold, hard facts.

Few miners ever reached their golden years. The tunnels claimed many, burying bodies in cave-ins or incinerating them when somebody tapped into a pocket of explosive gases trapped in the rock. Even those who made it out of the mines tended not to survive long into their retirement. The mines took their toll. Sixty-year-old men were left with bodies that looked and felt like they were ninety, broken shells worn down by decades of hard physical labor and exposure to airborne contaminants that slipped through the substandard ORO filters.

When Des's father died-with no insurance, of course-all Des got out of it was the privilege of taking on his father's accumulated debt. Hurst had spent more time drinking and gambling than mining. To pay for his monthly room and board he'd often had to borrow credits from ORO at an interest rate that would be criminal anywhere but in the Outer Rim. The debt kept piling up, month to month and year to year, but Hurst didn't seem to care. He was a single parent with a son he resented, trapped in a brutal job he despised; he had given up any hope of escaping Apatros long before the heart attack claimed him.

The Hutt spawn probably would have been glad to know his son had gotten stuck with his bill.

The transport sped above the barren rocks of the small planet's flatlands with no sound but the endless drone of the engines. The featureless wastes flew by in a blur, until the view out the window was nothing but a curtain of shapeless gray. The effect was hypnotic: Des could feel his tired mind and body eager to drift into deep and dreamless sleep.

This was how they got you. Work you to exhaustion, dull your senses, numb your will into submission . . . until you accepted your lot and wasted your entire life in the grit and grime of the cortosis mines. All in the relentless service of the Outer Rim Oreworks Company. It was a surprisingly effective trap; it worked on men like Gerd and Hurst. But it wasn't going to work on Des.

Even with his father's crushing debt, Des knew he'd pay ORO off someday and leave this life behind. He was destined for something greater than this small, insignificant existence. He knew this with absolute certainty, and it was this knowledge that gave him the strength to carry on in the face of the relentless, sometimes hopeless grind. It gave him the strength to fight, even when part of him felt like giving up.

He was suspended, unable to work the mines, but there were other ways to earn credits. With a great effort he forced himself to stand up. The floor swayed under his feet as the speeder made constant adjustments to maintain its programmed cruising altitude of half a meter above ground level. He took a second to get used to the rolling rhythm of the transport, then half walked, half staggered up the aisle between the seats to the pilot at the front. He didn't recognize the man, but they all tended to look the same anyway: grim, unsmiling features, dull eyes, and always wearing an expression as if they were on the verge of a blinding headache.

"Hey" Des said, trying to sound nonchalant, "any ships come in to the spaceport today?"

There was no reason for the pilot to keep his attention fixed on the path ahead. The forty-minute trip between the mines and the colony was a straight line across an empty plain; some of the pilots even stole naps along the route. Yet this one refused to turn and look at Des as he answered.

"Cargo ship touched down a few hours ago," he said in a bored voice. "Military. Republic cargo ship."

Des smiled. "They staying for a while?"

The pilot didn't answer; he only snorted and shook his head at the stupidity of the question. Des nodded and stumbled back toward his seat at the rear of the transport. He knew the answer, too.

Cortosis was used in the hulls of everything from fighters to capital ships, as well as being woven into the body armor of the troops. And as the war against the Sith dragged on, the Republic's need for cortosis kept increasing. Every few weeks a Republic freighter would touch down on Apatros. The next day it would leave again, its cargo bays filled with the valuable mineral. Until then the crew-officers and enlisted soldiers alike-would have nothing to do but wait. From past experience, Des knew that whenever Republic soldiers had a few hours to kill they liked to play cards. And wherever people played cards, there was money to be made.

Lowering himself back onto his seat at the rear of the speeder, Des decided that maybe he wasn't quite ready to hit his bunk after all.

By the time the transport stopped on the edges of the colony, Des's body was tingling with anticipation. He hopped out and sauntered toward his barracks at a leisurely pace, fighting his own eagerness and the urge to run. Even now, he imagined, the Republic soldiers and their credits would be sitting at the gaming tables in the colony's only cantina.

Still, there was no point in rushing over there. It was late afternoon, the sun just beginning its descent beyond the horizon to the north. By now most of the miners from the night shift would be awake. Many of them would already be at the cantina, whiling away the time until they had to make the journey out to the mines to start their shift. For the next two hours Des knew he'd be lucky to find a place to sit down in the cantina, never mind finding an empty seat at a pazaak or sabacc table. Meanwhile, it would be another few hours before the men working the day shift climbed onto the waiting transports to head back to their homes; he'd get to the cantina long before any of them.

Back at his barracks, he stripped off his grime-stained coveralls and climbed into the deserted communal showers, scouring the sweat and fine rock dust from his body. Then he changed into some clean clothes and sauntered out into the street, making his way slowly toward the cantina on the far side of town.

The cantina didn't have a name; it didn't need one. Nobody ever had any trouble finding it. Apatros was a small world, barely more than a moon with an atmosphere and some indigenous plant life. There were precious few places to go: the mines, the colony, or the barren wastes in between. The mines were a massive complex encompassing the caves and tunnels dug by ORO, as well as the refining and processing branches of ORO's operations.

The spaceports were located there, too. Freighters left daily with shipments of cortosis bound for some wealthier world closer to Coruscant and the Galactic Core, and incoming vessels bringing equipment and supplies to keep the mines running arrived every other day. Employees who weren't strong enough to mine cortosis worked in the refining plants or the spaceport. The pay wasn't as good, but they tended to live longer.

But no matter where people worked, they all came home to the same place at the end of their shifts. The colony was nothing more than a ramshackle town of temporary barracks thrown together by ORO to house the few hundred workers expected to keep the mines running. Like the world itself, the colony was officially known as Apatros. To those who lived there, it was more commonly referred to as "the muck-huts." Every building was the same shade of dingy gray durasteel, the exterior weathered and worn. The insides of the buildings were virtually identical, temporary workers' barracks that had become all too permanent. Each structure housed four small private rooms meant for two people, but often holding three or more. Sometimes entire families shared one of those rooms, unless they could find the credits for the outrageous rents ORO charged for more space. Each room had bunks built into the walls and a single door that opened onto a narrow hall; a communal bathroom and shower were located at the end. The doors tended to squeak on ill-fitting hinges that were never tended to; the roofs were a patchwork of quick fixes to seal up the leaks that inevitably sprang whenever it rained. Broken windows were taped against the wind and cold, but never replaced. A thin layer of dust accumulated over everything, but few of the residents ever bothered to sweep out their domiciles.

The entire colony was less than a kilometer on each square side, making it possible to walk from any given building to any of the other identical structures in less than twenty standard minutes. Despite the unrelenting similarity of the architecture, navigating the colony was easy. The barracks had been placed in straight rows and columns, forming a grid of utilitarian streets between the uniformly spaced domiciles. The streets couldn't exactly be called clean, though they were hardly festering with garbage. ORO cleared trash and refuse just often enough to keep conditions sanitary, since an outbreak of diseases bred by filth would adversely affect the mine's production. However, the company didn't seem to mind the cluttered junk that inevitably accumulated throughout the town. Broken-down generators, rusted-out machinery, corroded scraps of metal, and discarded, worn-out tools crowded the narrow streets between the barracks.

There were only two structures in the colony that were in any way distinguished from the rest. One was the ORO market, the only store on-world. It had once been a barracks, but the bunks had been replaced with shelves, and the communal shower area was now a secure storage room. A small black-and-white sign had been fastened to the wall outside, listing the hours of operation. There were no displays to lure shoppers in, and no advertising. The market stocked only the most basic items, all at scandelous markups. Credit was gladly advanced against future wages at ORO's typically high interest rate, guaranteeing that buyers would spend even more hours in the mine working off their purchases.

The other dissimilar building was the cantina itself, a magnificent triumph of beauty and design when compared with the dismal homogeny of the rest of the colony. The cantina was built a few hundred meters beyond the edge of the town, set well apart from the gray grid of barracks. It stood only three stories high, but because every other structure was limited to a single floor it dominated the landscape. Not that it needed to be that tall. Inside the cantina everything was located on the ground floor; the upper stories were merely a facade constructed for show by Groshik, the Neimoidian owner and bartender. Above the first-floor ceiling, the second and third floors didn't really exist-there were only the rising walls and a dome made of tinted violet glass, illuminated from within. Matching violet lights covered the pale blue exterior walls. On almost any world the effect would have been ostentatious and tacky, but amid the gray of Apatros it was doubly so. Groshik often proclaimed that he had intentionally made his cantina as garish as possible, simply to offend the ORO powers-that-be. The sentiment made him popular with the miners, but Des doubted if ORO really cared one way or the other. Groshik could paint his cantina any color he wanted, as long as he gave the corporation its cut of the profits each week.

The twenty-standard-hour day of Apatros was split evenly between the two shifts of miners. Des and the rest of the early crew worked from 0800 to 1800; his counterparts worked from 1800 to 0800. Groshik, in an effort to maximize profits, opened each afternoon at 1300 and didn't close for ten straight hours. This allowed him to serve the night-crew workers before they started and catch the day crew when that shift was over. He'd close at 0300, clean for two hours, sleep for six, then get up at 1100 and start the process all over again. His routine was well known to all the miners; the Neimoidian was as regular as the rising and setting of Apatros's pale orange sun.

As Des crossed the distance between the edge of the colony proper and the cantina's welcoming door, he could already hear the sounds coming from inside: loud music, laughter, chatter, clinking glasses. It was almost 1600 now. The day shift had two hours to go before quitting time, but the cantina was still packed with night-shift workers looking to have a drink or something to eat before they boarded the shuttles that would take them to the mines.

Des didn't recognize any faces: the day and night crews rarely crossed paths. The patrons were mostly humans, with a few Twi'leks, Sullustans, and Cereans filling out the crowd. Des was surprised to notice a Rodian, too. Apparently the night crew were more tolerant of other species than the day shift. There were no waitresses, servers, or dancers; the only employee in the cantina was Groshik himself. Anyone who wanted a drink had to come up to the large bar built into the back wall and order it.

Des pushed his way through the crowd. Groshik saw him coming and momentarily dipped out of sight behind the bar, reappearing with a mug of Gizer ale just as Des reached the counter.

"You're here early today," Groshik said as he set the drink down with a heavy thud. His low, gravelly voice was difficult to hear above the din of the crowd. His words always had a guttural quality, as if he were speaking from the very back of his throat.

The Neimoidian liked him, though Des wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because he'd watched Des grow up from a young kid to a man; maybe he just felt sorry Des had been stuck with such a rankweed for a father. Whatever the reason, there was a standing arrangement between the two: Des never had to pay for a drink if it was poured without being asked for. Des gratefully accepted the gift and downed it in one long draft, then slammed the empty mug back down onto the table.

"Ran into a bit of trouble with Gerd," he replied, wiping his mouth. "I bit his thumb off, so they let me go home early."

Groshik tilted his head to one side and fixed his enormous red eyes on Des. The sour expression on his amphibian-like face didn't change, but his body shook ever so slightly. Des knew him well enough to realize the Neimoidian was laughing.

"Seems like a fair trade," Groshik croaked, refilling the mug.

Des didn't guzzle the second drink as he had the first. Groshik rarely gave him more than one on the house, and he didn't want to abuse the bartender's generosity.

He turned his attention to the crowd. The Republic visitors were easy to spot. Four humans-two men, two women-and a male Ithorian in crisp navy uniforms. It wasn't just their clothes that made them stand out, though. They all stood straight and tall, whereas most of the miners tended to hunch forward, as if carrying a great weight on their backs.

On one side of the main room, a smaller section was roped off from the rest of the cantina. It was the only part of the place Groshik had nothing to do with. The ORO Company allowed gambling on Apatros, but only if it was in charge of the tables. Officially this was to keep anyone from cheating, but everyone knew ORO's real concern was keeping the wagers in check. It didn't want one of its employees to win big and pay off all his or her debts in one lucky night. By keeping the maximum limits low, ORO made sure it was more profitable to work the mines than the tables.

In the gaming section were four more naval soldiers wearing the uniform of the Republic fleet, along with a dozen or so miners. A Twi'lek woman with the rank of petty officer on her lapel was playing pazaak. A young ensign was sitting at the sabacc table, talking loudly to everyone around him, though nobody seemed to be listening to him. Two more officers-both human, one male, one female-also sat at the sabacc table. The woman was a lieutenant; the man bore the insignia of a full commander. Des assumed they were the senior officers in charge of the mission to receive the cortosis shipment.

"I see you've noticed our recruiters," Groshik muttered.

The war against the Sith-officially nothing more than a series of protracted military engagements, even though the whole galaxy knew it was a war-required a steady stream of young and eager cadets for the front lines. And for some reason the Republic always expected the citizens on the Outer Rim worlds to jump at the chance to join them. Whenever a Republic military crew passed through Apatros, the officers tried to round up new recruits. They'd buy a round of drinks, then use it as an excuse to start up a conversation, usually about the glorious and heroic life of being a soldier. Sometimes they'd play up the brutality of the Sith. Other times they'd spin promises of a better life in the Republic military-all the while pretending to be friendly and sympathetic to the locals, hoping a few would join their cause.

Des suspected they received some kind of bonus for any new recruit they conned into signing up. Unfortunately for them, they weren't going to find too many takers on Apatros. The Republic wasn't too popular on the Rim; people here, including Des, knew the Core Worlds exploited small, remote planets like Apatros for their own gain. The Sith found a lot of anti-Republic sympathizers out here on the fringes of civilized space; that was one of the reasons their numbers kept growing as the war dragged on.

Despite their dissatisfaction with the Core Worlds, people still might have signed up with the recruiters if the Republic wasn't so concerned with following the absolute letter of the law. Anyone hoping to escape Apatros and the clutches of the mining corporation was in for a rude shock: debts to ORO still had to be paid, even by recruits protecting the galaxy against the rising Sith threat. If someone owed money to a legitimate corporation, the Republic fleet would garnish his or her wages until those debts were paid. Not too many miners were excited about the prospect of joining a war only to have the privilege of not getting paid.

Some of the miners resented the senior officers and their constant push to lure naive young men and women into joining their cause. It didn't bother Des, though. He'd listen to them prattle on all night, as long as they kept playing cards. He figured it was a small price to pay for getting his hands on their credits.

His eagerness must have shown, at least to Groshik. "Any chance you heard a Republic crew was stopping by and then picked a fight with Gerd just so you could get here early?"

Des shook his head. "No. Just a happy coincidence, is all. What angle are they working this time? Glory of the Republic?"

"Trying to warn us about the horrors of the Brotherhood of Darkness" was the carefully neutral reply. "Not going over too well."

The cantina owner kept his real opinions to himself when it came to matters of politics. His customers were free to talk about any subject they wanted, but no matter how heated their arguments became, he always refused to take sides.

"Bad for business," he had explained once. "Agree with someone and they'll be your friend for the rest of the night. Cross them and they might hate you for weeks." Neimoidians were known for their shrewd business sense, and Groshik was no exception.

A miner pushed his way up to the bar and demanded a drink. When Groshik went to fill the order, Des turned to study the gaming area. There weren't any free seats at the sabacc table, so for the time being he was forced into the role of spectator. For well over an hour he studied the plays and the wagers of the newcomers, paying particular attention to the senior officers. They tended to be better players than the enlisted troops, probably because they had more credits to lose.

The game on Apatros followed a modified version of the Bespin Standard rules. The basics of the game were simple: make a hand as close to twenty-three as possible without going over. Each round, a player had to either bet to stay in the hand, or fold. Any player who chose to stay in could draw a new card, discard a card, or place a card into the interference field to lock in its value. At the end of any round a player could come up, revealing his or her hand and forcing all other players to show their cards, as well. Best hand at the table won the hand pot. Any score over twenty-three, or below negative twenty-three, was a bomb-out that required the player to pay a penalty. And if a player had a hand that totaled exactly twenty-three-a pure sabacc-he or she won the sabacc pot as a bonus. But what with random shifts that could unexpectedly change the value of cards from round to round, and other players coming up early, a pure sabacc was a lot harder to achieve than it sounded.

Sabacc was more than a game of luck. It was about strategy and style, knowing when to bluff and when to back down, knowing how to adapt to the ever-changing cards. Some players were too cautious, never betting more than the minimum raise even when they had a good hand. Others were too aggressive, trying to bully the rest of the table with outrageous bets even when they had nothing. A player's natural tendencies showed through if you knew what to look for.

The ensign, for example, was clearly new to the game. He kept staying in with weak hands instead of folding his cards. He was a chaser, not satisfied with cards good enough to collect the hand pot. He was always looking for the perfect hand, hoping to win big and collect the sabacc pot that kept on growing until it was won. As a result, he kept getting caught with bomb-out hands and having to pay a penalty. It didn't seem to slow his betting, though. He was one of those players with more credits than sense, which suited Des just fine.

To be an expert sabacc player, you had to know how to control the table. It didn't take Des many hands to realize the Republic commander was doing just that. He knew how to bet big and make other players fold winning hands. He knew when to bet small to lure others into playing hands they should have folded. He didn't worry much about his own cards; he knew that the secret to sabacc was figuring out what everyone else was holding ... and then letting them think they knew what cards he was holding. It was only when all the hands were revealed and he was raking in the chips that his opponents would realize how wrong they'd been.

He was good, Des had to admit. Better than most of the Republic players who passed through. Despite his pleasant appearance, he was ruthless in scooping up pot after pot. But Des had a good feeling; sometimes he just knew he couldn't lose. He was going to win tonight . . . and win big.

There was a groan from one of the miners at the table. "Another round and that sabacc pot was mine!" he said, shaking his head. "You're lucky you came up when you did," he added, speaking to the commander.

Des knew it wasn't luck. The miner had been so excited, he was twitching in his seat. Anyone with half a brain could see he was working toward a powerful hand. The commander had seen it and made his move, cutting the hand short and chopping the other gambler's hopes off at the knees.

"That's it," the miner said, pushing away from the table. "I'm tapped out."

"Looks like now's your chance," Groshik whispered under his breath as he swept past to pour another drink. "Good luck."

I don't need luck tonight, Des thought. He crossed the floor of the cantina and stepped over the nanosilk rope into the ORO-controlled gaming room.

Chapter 3

Des approached the sabacc table and nodded to the Beta-4 CardShark dealing out the hands. ORO preferred automated droids to organic dealers: no salary to pay, and there was no chance a wily gambler could convince a droid to cheat.

"I'm in," he declared, taking the empty seat.

The ensign was sitting directly across from him. He let out a long, loud whistle. "Blast, you're a big boy," he shouted boisterously. "How tall are you-one ninety? One ninety-five?"

"Two meters even," Des replied without looking at him. He swiped his ORO account card through the reader built into the table and punched in his security code. The buy-in for the table was added to the total already owing on his ORO account, and the CardShark obediently pushed a stack of chips across the table toward him.

"Good luck, sir," it said.

The ensign continued to size Des up, taking another long drink from his mug. Then he brayed out a laugh. "Wow, they grow you fellas big out here on the Rim. You sure you ain't really a Wookiee somebody shaved for a joke?"

A few of the other players laughed, but quickly stopped when they saw Des clench his jaw. The man smelled of Corellian ale. Same as Gerd had when he'd picked a fight with Des just a few hours earlier. Des's muscles tightened, and he leaned forward in his chair. The smaller man let out a short, nervous breath.

"Come on now, son," the commander said to Des in a calming voice, stepping in to control the situation the same way he'd been controlling the table all game long. He had an air of quiet authority, a patriarch presiding over a family squabble at the dinner table. "It's just a joke. Can't you take a joke?"

Turning to face the only player at the table good enough to give him a real challenge, Des flashed a grin and let the tension slip from his coiled muscles. "Sure, I can take a joke. But I'd rather take your credits."

There was a brief pause, and then it was as if everyone had sighed in relief. The officer chuckled and returned the smile. "Fair enough. Let's play some cards."

Des started slow, playing conservatively and folding often. The limits on the table were low; the maximum value of any given hand was capped at one hundred credits. Between the five-credit ante and the two-credit "administration fee" ORO charged players each time they started a new round, the hand pots would barely cover the cost of sitting down at the table, even for a solid player. The trick was to win just enough hand pots to be able to stick around long enough for a chance at the sabacc pot that continued to build with each hand.

When he first started playing, one of the soldiers tried to make small talk. "I notice most of the human miners here shave their heads," he said, nodding out at the crowd. "Why is that?"

"We don't shave. Our hair falls out," Des replied. "Comes from working too many shifts in the mines."

"Working the mines? I don't get it."

"The filters don't remove all the impurities from the air. You work ten-hour shifts day in and day out, and the contaminants build up in your system," He spoke in a flat, neutral voice. There was no bitterness; for him and the rest of the miners it was just a fact of life. "It has side effects. We get sick a lot; our hair falls out. We're supposed to take a few days off now and again, but ever since ORO signed those Republic military contracts the mines never shut down. Basically, we're being slowly poisoned to make sure your cargo hold's full when you leave."

That was enough to kill any other attempts at conversation, and they continued the hands in relative silence. After half an hour Des was about even for the night, but he was just getting warmed up. He pushed in his ante and the ORO cut, as did the other seven players at the table. The dealer flipped two cards out to each of them, and another hand began. The first two players peeked at their cards and folded. The Republic ensign glanced at his cards and threw in enough chips to stay in the hand. Des wasn't surprised-he hardly ever folded his cards, even when he had nothing.

The ensign quickly pushed one of his cards into the interference field. Each turn, a player could move one of the electronic chip-cards into the interference field, locking in its value to protect it from changing if there was a shift at the end of the round.

Des shook his head. Locking in cards was a fool's play. You couldn't discard a locked-in card; Des usually preferred to keep all his options open. The ensign, however, was thinking in the short term, not planning ahead. That probably explained why he was down several hundred credits on the night.

Glancing at his own hand, Des chose to stay in. All the rest of the players dropped, leaving just the two of them.

The CardShark dealt out another round of cards. Des glanced down and saw he had drawn Endurance, a face card with a value of negative eight. He was sitting at a total of six, an incredibly weak hand.

The smart move was to fold; unless there was a shift, he was dead. But Des knew there was going to be a shift. He knew it as surely as he had known where and when Gerd's thumb was going to be when he bit down on it. These brief glimpses into the future didn't happen often, but when they did he knew enough to listen to them. He pushed in his credits. The ensign matched the bet.

The droid scooped the chips to the center of the table, and the marker in front of him began to pulse with rapidly changing colors. Blue meant no shift; all the cards would stay the same. Red meant a shift: an impulse would be sent out from the marker, and one electronic card from each player would randomly reset and change its value. The marker flickered back and forth between red and blue, gaining speed until it was pulsing so quickly the colors blurred into a single violet hue. Then the flashing began to slow down and it became possible to tell the individual colors apart again: blue, red, blue, red, blue ... It stopped on red.

"Blast!" the ensign swore. "It always shifts when I have a good hand!"

Des knew that wasn't true. The chances of shifting were fifty-fifty: completely random. There was no way to predict whether a shift was coming ... unless you had a gift like Des occasionally did.

The cards flickered as they reset, and Des scooped up his hand one more time. Endurance was gone, replaced by a seven. He was sitting at twenty-one. Not a sabacc, but a solid hand. Before the next round could begin, Des flipped his cards over, exposing his hand to the table. "Coming up on twenty-one," he said.

The ensign threw his cards to the table in disgust. "Blasted bomb-out."

Des collected the small stack of chips that were the hand pot, while the other man grudgingly paid his penalty into the sabacc pot. Des guessed it was closing in on five hundred credits by now.

One of the miners at the table stood up. "Come on, we got to go," he said. "Last speeder leaves in twenty minutes."

With grumbles and complaints, the other miners got up from their seats and trudged off to start their shift. The ensign watched them go, then turned curiously to Des.

"You ain't going with them, big fella? I thought you were complaining about never getting a day off earlier."

"I work the day shift," Des said shortly. "Those guys are the night shift."

"Where's the rest of your crew?" the lieutenant asked. Des clearly recognized her interest as an attempt to keep the ensign from saying something to further antagonize the big miner. "The crowd's become awfully thin." She waved her hand around at the cantina, now virtually empty except for the Republic naval soldiers. Seeing the open seats at the sabacc table, a few of them were wandering over to join their comrades in the game.

"They'll be along soon enough," Des said. "I just ended my shift a bit early today."

"Really?" Her tone implied that she knew of only one reason a miner's shift might end early.

"Lieutenant," one of the newly arrived soldiers said politely as they reached the table. "Commander," he added, addressing the other officer. "Mind if we join in, sir?"

The commander looked over at Des. "I don't want this young man to think the Republic is ganging up on him. If we take all the seats, where are his friends going to sit when they show up? He says they'll be along any minute."

"They're not here now," Des said. "And they're not my friends. You might as well sit down." He didn't add that most of the day-shift miners probably wouldn't play, anyway. When Des showed up at the table they tended to call it a night; he won too often for their liking.

The empty seats were quickly filled up.

"So how are the cards treating you, Ensign?" a young woman asked the man Des had bested in the last hand. She sat down beside him and placed a full mug of Corellian ale on the table in front of him.

"Not so good," he admitted, flashing a grin and exchanging his empty mug for the full one. "I might have to owe you for this drink. I can't seem to catch a break tonight." He nodded his head in Des's direction. "Watch out for this one. He's as good as the commander. Either that, or he cheats."

He smiled quickly to show it was just another of his mildly offensive jokes. Des ignored him; it wasn't the first time he'd been called a cheat. He was aware that his precognition gave him an advantage over the other players. Maybe it was an unfair advantage, but he didn't consider it cheating. It wasn't as if he knew what was going to happen on every hand; he couldn't control it. He was just smart enough to make the most of it when it happened.

The CardShark began passing out chips to the newcomers, wishing each of them a perfunctory "Good luck" as it did so.

"So it seems you don't really get on well with the other miners," the lieutenant said, keying on Des's earlier comments. "Have you ever thought about changing careers?"

Des groaned inwardly. By the time he had joined the table the officers had given up their recruiting spiel and stuck mostly to playing cards. Now he'd given her an opening to bring it up again.

"I'm not interested in becoming a soldier," he said, anteing up for the next hand.

"Don't be so hasty," she said, her voice slipping into a soothing, gentle patter. "Being a soldier for the Republic has its rewards. I suspect it's better than working the mines, at least."

"There's a whole galaxy out there, son," the commander added. "Worlds a lot more attractive than this one, if you don't mind me saying."

Don't I know it, Des thought. Out loud he said, "I don't plan to spend my whole life here. But when I do get off this rock, I don't want to spend my days dodging Sith blasters on the front lines."

"'We won't be fighting the Sith for much longer, son. We've got them on the run now." The commander spoke with such calm assurance, Des was half tempted to believe him.

"That's not how I hear it," Des said. "Rumor is the Brotherhood of Darkness has been winning more than its share of the battles. I heard it's got more than a dozen regions under its control now."

"That was before General Hoth," one of the other soldiers chimed in.

Des had heard of Hoth on the HoloNet; he was a bona-fide hero of the Republic. Victorious in half a dozen major confrontations, he was a brilliant strategist who knew how to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Not surprising, given his background.

"Hoth?" he asked innocently, glancing down at his cards. Garbage. He folded his hand. "Isn't he a Jedi?"

"He is," the commander replied, peeking at his own cards. He pushed in a small wager. "A Jedi Master, to be more accurate. And a fine soldier, too. You couldn't ask for a better man to lead the Republic war effort."

"The Sith are more than just soldiers, you know," the drunken ensign said earnestly, his voice even louder than before. "Some of them can use the Force, just like the Jedi! You can't beat them with blasters alone."

Des had heard plenty of wild tales of Jedi performing extraordinary feats through the mystical power of the Force, but he figured they were legends and myth. Or at least exaggerations. He knew there were powers that transcended the physical world: his own premonitions were evidence of that. But the stories of what the Jedi could do were just too impossible to believe. If the Force was really such a powerful weapon, why was this war taking so long?

"The idea of answering to a Jedi Master doesn't really appeal to met' he said. "I've heard some strange things about what they believe in: no passion, no emotion. Sounds like they want to turn us all into droids."

Another round of cards was dealt out to the remaining players.

"The Jedi are guided by wisdom," the commander explained. "They don't let things like desire or anger cloud their judgment."

"Anger has its uses," Des pointed out. "It's gotten me out of some nasty spots."

"I think the trick is not to get into those spots in the first place," the lieutenant countered in her gentle voice.

The hand ended a few turns later. The young woman who had bought the ensign his drink came up on twenty-not a great hand, but not a bad one, either. She looked over at the commander as he flipped up his cards, and smiled when he had only nineteen. Her smile faded when the drunken ensign showed his twenty-one. When he scooped up the pot, she cut his laugh short with a friendly elbow to his ribs.

Everyone anted and the dealer flicked out another pair of cards to each player.

"The Jedi are the defenders of the Republic," the lieutenant went on earnestly. "Their ways can seem strange to ordinary citizens, but they're on our side. All they want is peace."

"Really?" Des said, glancing at his cards and pushing in his chips. "I thought they wanted to wipe out the Sith."

"The Sith are an illegal organization," the lieutenant explained. She folded her cards after a moment of careful deliberation. "The Senate passed a bill outlawing them nearly three thousand years ago, shortly after Revan and Malak brought destruction to the entire galaxy."

"I always heard Revan saved the Republic," he said.

The commander jumped back into the conversation. "Revan's story is complicated," he said. "But the fact remains, the Sith and their teachings were banned by the Senate. Their very existence is a violation of Republic law-and with good reason. The Jedi understand the threat the Sith represent. That's why they've joined the fleet. For the good of the galaxy, the Sith must be wiped out once and for all."

The drunken ensign won the hand again, his second in a row. Sometimes it was better to be lucky than good.

"So the Republic says the Sith must be wiped out," Des said as he anted up for the next hand. "If the Sith were the ones in charge, I bet they'd say the same thing about the Jedi."

"You wouldn't say that if you knew what the Sith were really like," one of the other soldiers said. "I've fought against them: they're bloodthirsty killers!"

Des laughed. "Yeah, how dare they try to kill you in the middle of a war? Don't they know you're busy trying to kill them? How rude!"

"You bloody Kath-mutt!" the soldier snapped, rising up from his seat.

"Sit down, deckman!" the commander barked. The soldier did as he was told, but Des could feel the tension in the air. Everyone else at the table-with the possible exception of the two officers-was glaring at him.

Good. The last thing on their minds now was cards. Angry people didn't make good sabacc players.

The commander sensed things were bad, too. He did his best to defuse the situation.

"The Sith follow the teachings of the dark side, son," he said to Des. "If you saw the kinds of things they've done during this war . . . and not just to other soldiers. They don't care if innocent civilians suffer."

Only half listening, Des glanced at his cards and placed a wager.

"I'm not stupid, Commander," he said then. "Whether the Republic officially acknowledges it or not, you're at war with the Brotherhood of Darkness. And bad things happen during a war, on both sides. So don't try to convince me the Sith are monsters. They're people, just like you and me."

Of all the players at the table, only the commander folded his cards. Des knew that at least a few of the soldiers were playing bad hands simply for the chance to take him down.

The commander sighed. "You're right, to a point. The ordinary troopers-who serve in the army because they don't know what the Sith Masters and the Brotherhood of Darkness are really like-are just people. But you have to look at the ideals behind this war. You have to understand what each side really stands for."

"Enlighten me, Commander." Des put just a hint of condescension in his voice and casually tossed in some more chips, knowing it would rile up the table even more. He was glad to see that nobody folded; he was playing them like a Bith musician trilling out a tune on a sabriquet.

"The Jedi seek to preserve peace," the commander reiterated. "They serve the cause of justice. Whenever possible, they use their power to aid those in need. They seek to serve, not to rule. They believe that all beings, regardless of species or gender, are created equal. Surely you can understand that."

It was more a statement than a question, but Des answered anyway. "But all beings aren't really equal, are they? I mean, some are smarter, or stronger ... or better at cards."

He drew a small smile from the commander with the last comment, though everyone else at the table scowled.

"True enough, son. But isn't it the duty of the strong to help the weak?"

Des shrugged. He didn't believe much in equality. Working to make everybody equal didn't leave much chance for anyone to achieve greatness. "So what about the Brotherhood of Darkness?" he asked. "What do they believe in?"

"They follow the teachings of the dark side. The only thing they seek is power; they believe the natural order of the galaxy is for the weak to serve the strong."

"Sounds pretty good if you're one of the strong." Des flipped his cards up, then scooped up the pot, relishing the grumbling and curses muttered under the breath of the losers.

Des flashed a nasty grin around the table. "For the sake of the Republic, I hope you guys are better soldiers than you are sabacc players."

"You mudcrutch, rankweed coward!" the ensign shouted, jumping up and spilling his drink onto the floor. "If it wasn't for us, the Sith would be all over this pit of a world!"

Another miner would have taken a swing at Des, but the ensign-even more than slightly drunk-had enough military discipline to keep his fists at his sides. A stern glare from the commander made him sit down and mumble an apology. Des was impressed. And a little disappointed.

"We all know why the Republic cares about Apatros," he said, stacking his chips and trying to appear nonchalant. In fact, he was scanning the table to see if anyone else was getting ready to make a move on him.

"You use cortosis in the hulls of your ships, you use it in your weapons casings, you even use it in your body armor. Without us, you wouldn't stand a chance in this war. So don't pretend you're doing any favors here: you need us as much as we need you."

Nobody had anted yet; all eyes were drawn to the drama unfolding among the players. The CardShark hesitated, its limited programming uncertain how to handle the situation. Des knew Groshik was watching from the far side of the cantina, his hand near the stun blaster he kept stashed behind the bar. He doubted the Neimoidian would need it, though.

"True enough," the commander conceded, pushing his ante in. The others, including Des, followed suit. "But at least we pay you for the cortosis we use. The Sith would just take it from you."

"No," Des corrected, studying his cards, "you pay ORO for the cortosis. Those credits don't make it all the way down to a guy like me." He folded his hand but didn't stop talking. "See, that's the problem with the Republic. In the Core everything's great: people are healthy, wealthy, and happy. But out here on the Rim things aren't so easy.

"I've been working the mines almost as long as I can remember, in one way or another, and I still owe ORO enough credits to fill a freighter hull. But I don't see any Jedi coming to save me from that little bit of injustice."

Nobody had an answer for him this time, not even the commander. Des decided they'd talked enough politics; he wanted to focus on winning the two thousand credits that had built up in the sabacc pot. He went in for the kill.

"Don't try to sell me on your Jedi and your Republic, because that's exactly what it is: your Republic. You say the Sith only respect strength? Well, that's pretty much the way things are out here on the Rim, too. You look out for yourself, because nobody else will. That's why the Sith keep finding new recruits willing to join them out here. People with nothing feel like they've got nothing to lose. And if the Republic doesn't figure that out pretty soon, the Brotherhood of Darkness is going to win this war no matter how many Jedi you have leading your army."

"Maybe we should just stick to cards;" the lieutenant suggested after a long, uncomfortable silence.

"That works for me," Des said. "No hard feelings?"

"No hard feelings," the commander said, forcing a smile.

A few of the other soldiers murmured assent, but Des knew the hard feelings were still there. He'd done everything he could to make sure they ran deep.

Chapter 4

The hours ticked by. Other miners began to arrive, the day shift coming in to replace the night crew that had left. The CardShark kept dealing, and the players kept betting. Des's stack of chips was growing steadily larger, and the sabacc pot kept on growing: three thousand credits, four thousand, five . . . None of the players seemed to be having fun anymore; Des figured his scorching rant had burned off all the pleasure from the game.

Des didn't care. He didn't play sabacc for fun. It was a job, same as working the mines. A way to earn credits and pay off ORO so he could leave Apatros behind forever.

Two of the soldiers pushed away from the table, their credits cleaned out. Their seats were soon filled by miners from the day shift. The lure of the massive sabacc pot was enough to draw them in, despite their reluctance to go up against Des.

Another hour passed and the senior officers-the lieutenant and the commander-finally packed it in. They, too, were replaced by miners with visions of hitting one good hand and cashing in the unclaimed sabacc pot. The Republic soldiers who stuck around, like the ensign who had first challenged Des, must have had deep, deep pockets.

With the constant influx of new players and new money, Des was forced to change his strategy. He was up several hundred credits; he had enough of a cushion built up that he could afford to lose a few hands if he had to. Now his only concern was protecting the sabacc pot. If he didn't have a hand he thought he could win with, he'd come up in the first few turns. He wasn't going to give anyone else a chance to build up a hand of twenty-three. He stopped folding, even when he had weak cards. Sitting out a hand gave the other players too much of a chance to win.

Some lucky shifts and some poor choices by his opponents made sure his strategy worked, though not without a cost. His efforts to protect the sabacc pot began to eat into his profits. His stack of winnings shrank quickly, but it would all be worth it if he won the sabacc pot.

Through hand after agonizing hand players continued to come and go. One by one the soldiers gave up their seats, forced out when they ran out of chips and couldn't afford more. Of the original group, only Des and the ensign remained. The ensign's pile was growing. A few of the soldiers stayed to watch, rooting for their man to beat the miner with the big mouth.

Other spectators came and went. Some were just waiting for a player to drop so they could swoop in and take the seat. Others were drawn by the intensity of the table and the size of the pots. After another hour the sabacc pot hit ten thousand chips, the maximum limit. Any credits paid into the sabacc pot now were wasted: they went straight into the ORO accounts. But nobody complained. Not with the chance to win a small fortune on the table.

Des glanced up at the chrono on the wall. The cantina would be closing in less than an hour. When he'd first sat down at the table, he'd felt certain he was going to win big. For a while he had been ahead. But the last few hours had drained his chips. Working to protect the sabacc pot was crippling him: he'd gone through all his profits and had to re-buy-in twice. He'd fallen into the classic gambler's trap, becoming so obsessed with winning the big pot that he'd lost sight of how much he was losing. He'd let the game get personal.

His shirt was hot and sticky with sweat. His legs were numb from sitting so long, and his back was aching from hunching forward expectantly to study his cards.

He was down almost a thousand credits on the night, but none of the other players had been able to cash in on his misfortune. With the Sabacc pot capped all the antes and penalties went straight to ORO. He'd have to work a month of grueling shifts in the mines if he ever wanted to see any of those credits again. But it was too late to turn back now. His only consolation was that the Republic ensign was down at least twice as much as he was. Yet each time the man ran out of chips, he'd just reach into his pocket and pull out another stack of credits, as if he had unlimited funds. Or as if he just didn't care.

The CardShark fired out another hand. As he peeked at his cards, Des began to feel the first real hints of self-doubt. What if his feeling was wrong this time? What if this wasn't his night to win? He couldn't remember a moment in the past when his gift had betrayed him, but that didn't mean it couldn't happen.

He pushed his chips in with a weak hand, defying every instinct that told him to fold. He'd have to come up at the start of the next turn, no matter how weak his cards were. Any longer and someone else might steal the sabacc pot he was working so hard to collect.

The marker flickered and the cards shifted. Des didn't bother to look; he simply flipped over his cards and muttered, "Coming up."

When he saw his hand he felt like he'd been slapped. He was sitting at negative twenty-three exactly, a bomb-out. The penalty cleaned out his stack of chips.

"Whoa, big fella," the ensign mocked drunkenly, "you must be lumsoaked to come up on that. What the brix were you thinking?"

"Maybe he doesn't understand the difference between plus twenty-three and minus twenty-three," said one of the soldiers watching the match, grinning like a manka cat.

Des tried to ignore them as he paid the penalty. He felt empty. Hollow.

"You don't talk so much when you're losing, huh?" the ensign sneered.

Hate. Des didn't feel anything else at first. Pure, white-hot hatred consumed every thought, every motion, and every ounce of reason in his brain. Suddenly he didn't care about the pot, didn't care about how many credits he had already lost. All he wanted was to wipe the smug expression from the ensign's face. And there was only one way he could do it.

He shot a savage glare in the ensign's direction, but the man was too drunk to be intimidated. Without taking his eyes off his enemy, Des swiped his ORO account card into the reader and rang up another buy-in, ignoring the logical part of his mind that tried to talk him out of it.

The CardShark, its circuits and wires oblivious to what was really going on, pushed a stack of chips toward him and uttered its typically cheery, "Good luck."

Des opened with the Ace and two of sabers. He was at seventeen, a dangerous hand. Lots of potential to go too high on his next card and bomb out. He hesitated, knowing that the smart move was to fold.

"Having second thoughts?" the ensign chided.

Acting on an impulse he couldn't even explain, Des moved his two into the interference field, then pushed his chips into the pot. He was letting his emotions guide him, but he no longer cared. And when the next card came up as a three, he knew what he had to do. He shoved his three into the interference field beside the two that was already there. Then he bet the maximum wager and waited for the switch.

There were actually two ways to win the sabacc pot. One was to get a hand that totaled twenty-three exactly, a pure sabacc. But there was an even better hand: the idiot's array. In modified Bespin rules, if you had a hand of two and three in the same suit and drew the face card known as the Idiot, which had no value at all, you had an idiot's array ... 23 in the literal sense. It was the rarest hand possible, and it was worth more than even a pure sabacc.

Des was two-thirds of the way there. All he needed now was a switch to take his ten and replace it with the Idiot. Of course, that meant there had to be a switch. And even then he'd have to draw the Idiot off it ... and there were only two Idiots in the entire seventy-six-card deck. It was a ridiculously long shot.

The marker came up red; the cards shifted. Des didn't even have to look at his hand: he knew.

He stared right into the ensign's eyes. "Coming up."

The ensign looked down at his own hand to see what the switch had given him and began to laugh so hard he could barely show his hand. He had the two of flasks, the three of flasks ... and the Idiot!

There were gasps of surprise and murmurs of disbelief from the crowd. "How do you like that one, boys?" he cackled. "Idiot's array on the switch!"

He stood up, reaching out for the stack of chips on the small pedestal that sat in the center of the table representing the sabacc pot.

Des whipped his hand out and snagged the young man's wrist in a grip as cold and hard as durasteel, then flipped over his own cards. The entire cantina became silent as a tomb; the ensign's laughter died in his throat. A second later he pulled his hand free and sat back down, dumbfounded. From the far edge of the table somebody let out a long, low whistle of amazement. The rest of the crowd burst into noise.

"... never in my life ..."

"... can't believe ..."

". . statistically impossible ..."

"Two idiot's arrays in the same hand?"

The CardShark summarized the result in the purest analytical fashion. "We have two players with hands of equal value. The hand will be determined by a sudden demise."

The ensign didn't react with the same kind of calm. "You stupid mud-crutch!" he spat out, his voice strangled with rage. "Now nobody's going to get that sabacc pot!" His eyes bulged out wildly; a vein was pulsing on his forehead. One of his fellow soldiers had placed a hand on his shoulder, as if afraid his friend might leap across the table to try to choke the life out of the miner on the other side.

The ensign was right: neither of them would be collecting the sabacc pot on this hand. In a sudden demise each player was dealt one more card, and the value of the hands was recalculated. If you had the better hand, you'd win ... but you wouldn't get the sabacc pot unless you scored twenty-three exactly. That, however, seemed impossible: there were no more Idiots to deal out to preserve an idiot's array, and no single card had a value higher than the Ace's fifteen.

Not that Des cared. It was enough to have destroyed his opponent's will; to have crushed his hopes and robbed him of his victory. He could feel the ensign's hate, and he responded to it. It was like a living being . an entity he could draw strength from, fueling his own raging inferno. But Des didn't put his emotions out on display for the rest of the crowd to see. The hate burning in him was his own private store, a power raging inside him so fierce he felt it could crack the world if he let it escape.

The dealer flicked out two cards faceup for everyone to see. They were both nines. Before anyone even had time to react the droid had recalculated the hand, determined that the two players were still tied, and fired out another card to each of them. The ensign took an eight, but Des got another nine. Idiot, two, three, nine, nine ... twenty-three!

He reached out slowly and tapped his cards, whispering a single word to his opponent: "Sabacc."

The soldier went ballistic. He leapt up, grabbed the underside of the table with both hands, and gave a mighty heave. Only the weight of the table and the built-in stabilizers kept it from flipping over, though it rocked and slammed back into the ground with a deafening crash. All the drinks on it spilled over; ale and lum washed across the electronic cards, causing them to spark and short out.

"Sir, please don't touch the table," the CardShark implored in a pitiful voice.

"Shut up, you hunk of rusted scrap metal!" The ensign grabbed one of the overturned mugs from the table and hurled it at the droid. It connected with a ringing thud. The droid stumbled back and fell over.

The ensign thrust a finger at Des. "You cheated! Nobody gets sabacc on a sudden demise! Not unless he cheats!"

Des didn't say anything; he didn't even stand up. But his muscles were braced in case the soldier made a move.

The ensign turned back to the droid as it rose shakily to its feet. "You're in on it!" He threw another mug at it, connecting again and dropping the droid a second time. Two of the other soldiers tried to restrain him, but he shook free of their grip. He spun around, waving his arms at the crowd. "You're all in on it! Dirty, Sith-loving scum! You hate the Republic! You hate us. We know you do. We know!"

The miners pushed in closer, grumbling angrily. The ensign's insults weren't far off the mark; there were a lot of bad feelings toward the Republic on Apatros. And if he didn't watch his mouth, somebody was going to show him just how strong those feelings were.

"We give our lives to protect you, but you don't give a wobber! Any chance to humiliate us, you take it!"

His friends had grabbed him again, trying to wrestle him out the door. But there was no way they could get through the crowd now. From the looks on their faces, the soldiers were terrified. With good reason, Des thought. None of them was armed; their blasters were back on their ship. Now they were trapped in the center of a hostile crush of heavily muscled miners who'd been drinking all night. And their friend wouldn't shut up.

"You should get down on your knees and thank us each and every time we land on this ball of bantha sweat you call a planet! But you're too stupid to know how lucky you are to have us on your side! You're nothing but a bunch of filthy, illiterate-"

A lum bottle hurled anonymously from the crowd struck him hard in the side of his head, cutting his words short. He dropped to the floor, dragging his friends down with him. Des stood motionless as a mass of angry miners surged.

The sound of a blaster caused everyone to freeze. Groshik had climbed up onto the top of the bar, his stunner already charging up to fire again. But everybody knew the next shot wouldn't be aimed at the ceiling.

"We're closed," he croaked as loud as his raspy voice could manage. "Everybody get out of my cantina!"

The miners began to back off, and the soldiers stood up warily. The ensign swayed, the cut on his forehead bleeding into his eye.

"You three first," the Neimoidian said to the ensign and the soldiers who supported him. He waved the barrel of his weapon menacingly around the room. "Clear a path. Get them out of here."

Everyone but the soldiers remained frozen. This wasn't the first time Groshik had whipped out the stunner. The BlasTech CS-33 Firespray stun rifle was one of the finest nonlethal crowd-control devices on the market, capable of incapacitating multiple targets with a single shot. More than a few of the miners had felt the brutal force of its wide-beam blast rendering them unconscious. From personal experience Des could attest to the fact that it wasn't a pain anyone was likely to forget.

Once the Republic crew vanished into the night, the rest of the crowd began to move slowly toward the door. Des fell into step with the masses, but as he passed the bar Groshik pointed the blaster right at him.

"Not you. You stay put."

Des didn't move a millimeter until all the others were gone. He wasn't scared; he didn't think Groshik would really fire. Still, he saw no advantage in giving him a reason to.

Only after the last patron had left and closed the door did Groshik lower his arm. He clambered down awkwardly from the bar and set the rifle on the table, then turned to Des.

"I figured it was safer to keep you here with me for a bit," he explained. "Those soldiers were pretty mad. They might be waiting for you on the walk home."

Des smiled. "I didn't figure you were mad at me," he said.

Groshik snorted. "Oh, I'm mad at you. That's why you're going to help me clean up this mess."

Des sighed and shook his head in mock exasperation. "You saw what happened, Groshik. I was just an innocent bystander."

Groshik wasn't in any mood to hear it. "Just start picking up the chairs," he muttered.

With the help of the CardShark-at least it was good for something besides dealing, Des thought-they finished cleaning up in just over an hour. When they were done the droid waddled out on shaky legs, heading toward the maintenance facilities for repairs. Before it left, Des made sure his sabacc winnings had been credited to his account.

Now that it was just the two of them, Groshik motioned Des over to the bar, grabbed a couple of glasses, and took a bottle down from the shelf.

"Cortyg brandy," he said, pouring them each half a glass. "Direct from Kashyyyk. Not the hard stuff the Wookiees drink, though. Milder. Smoother. More tame."

Des took a sip and nearly choked as the fiery liquid burned its way down his throat. "This is tame? I'd hate to see what the Wookiees drink!"

Groshik shrugged. "What do you expect? They're Wookiees."

With his second sip, Des was more careful. He let it roll across his tongue, savoring the rich flavor. "This is good, Groshik. And expensive, I bet. What's the occasion?"

"You had quite a day. I thought you could use it."

Des drained his glass. Groshik filled him up halfway, then corked the bottle and set it back on the shelf.

"I'm worried about you," the Neimoidian rasped. "Worried about what happened in the fight with Gerd."

"He didn't give me much choice."

The Neimodian nodded. "I know, I know. Still . . . you bit off his thumb. And tonight you nearly started a riot in my bar."

"Hey, I just wanted to play cards," Des protested. "It's not my fault things got out of hand."

"Maybe, maybe not. I saw you tonight. You were goading that soldier, playing him like you play everyone who sits down against you. You push them, twist them, make them dance like puppets on a string. But this time you never let up. Even when you had the advantage, you kept pushing. You wanted him to go off like that."

"Are you saying I planned this whole thing?" Des laughed. "Come on, Groshik. It was the cards that set him off. You know I wasn't cheating-it's just not possible. How could I control what cards were dealt?"

"It was more than the cards, Des," Groshik said, his gravelly voice dropping so low that Des had to lean in close to hear. "You were angry, Des. More angry than I've ever seen you before. I could feel it from all the way across the room, like something in the air. We could all feel it.

"The crowd turned ugly in a hurry, Des. It was like they were feeding off your rage and your hate. You were projecting waves of emotion, a storm of anger and fury. Everyone else just kind of got swept up in it: the crowd, that soldier . . . everybody. Even me. It was all I could do to aim that first shot from my blaster at the ceiling. Every instinct in my body was telling me to fire it into the crowd. I wanted to take them all down and leave them writhing in pain."

Des couldn't believe his ears. "Listen to what you're saying, Groshik. It's crazy. You know I wouldn't do that. I couldn't do that. Nobody could."

Groshik reached up a long , thin hand and patted Des on the shoulder. "I know you'd never do it on purpose, Des. And I know how crazy it sounds. But there was something different about you tonight. You gave in to your emotions, and it unleashed something . . . strange. Something dangerous."

Groshik tossed his head back and drained the last of his cortyg, shuddering as it went down. "Just watch yourself, Des. Please. I've got a bad feeling."

"Be careful, Groshik," Des replied with another laugh. "Neimoidians aren't known for relying on their feelings. It's not good for business." Groshik studied him carefully for a moment, then nodded wearily. "True. Maybe I'm just tired. I should get some sleep. And so should you."

They shook hands, and Des left the cantina.

Chapter 5

The streets of Apatros were dark. ORO charged such high rates for power that everyone turned off all their lights when they went to bed, and tonight the moon was only the barest sliver in the sky. There wasn't even the cantina's glow to guide him: Groshik had shut off the lights on its walls and dome until he opened the next day. Des stayed in the middle of the street, trying to avoid barking his shins on the debris hidden in the darker shadows along the edges.

Yet somehow, despite the near-absolute darkness, he saw them coming.

It was a split second before it happened, a sense that danger was coming ... and where it was coming from. Three silhouettes leapt at him, two coming head-on and another attacking from behind. He ducked forward just in time, feeling the metal pipe that would have cracked his skull and knocked him cold swiping through the air a hairbreadth above him. He popped back up as it passed and lashed out with a fist, driving into the featureless head of the nearest figure. He was rewarded with the sick crunch of cartilage and bone.

He ducked again, this time to the side, and the pipe that would have brained him square between the eyes thumped down hard across his left shoulder. He staggered to the side, driven by the force of the blow. But in the darkness it took a moment for his opponents to locate him, and by then he had regained his balance.

Through the gloom he could just make out the vague outlines of his attackers. The one he'd punched was slowly standing up; the other two stood wary and ready. He didn't have to see their faces to know who they were: the ensign and the two soldiers who'd half carried the man from the cantina. Des could smell the reek of Corellian ale wafting up at him, confirming their identities. They must have waited outside the cantina and followed him until they thought they could get the jump on him. That was good: it meant they hadn't gone back to their ship to get their blasters.

They came at him again, rushing him all at once. They had the numbers and months of military hand-to-hand combat training on their side; Des had strength, size, and years of bare-knuckle brawling on his. But in the darkness, none of that really mattered.

Des met their charge head-on, and all four combatants tumbled to the ground. Punches and kicks landed without any thought given to target or strategy: the blind fighting the blind. Each blow he landed brought a satisfying grunt or groan from his opponents, but his enjoyment was limited by the pummeling his own body was enduring.

It didn't matter if his eyes were open or closed, he couldn't see a thing. He reacted on instinct; aches and pains were washed away in the darkness by the adrenaline pumping through his veins.

And then suddenly he saw something. Someone had drawn a vibroblade. It was still black as the heart of the mines during a cave-in, yet Des could see the blade clearly, as if it glowed with an inner fire. It stabbed toward him and he grabbed the wrist of the wielder, twisting it back and driving it toward the dark mass from which it had appeared. There was a sharp cry and then a choking gurgle, and suddenly the burning blade in his vision winked out, the threat extinguished.

The mass of bodies entwined with his quickly untangled, two of them scampering clear. The third was motionless. A second later he heard the click of a luma switching on, and he was momentarily blinded by its beam of light. Eyes squeezed shut, he heard a gasp.

"He's dead!" one of the soldiers exclaimed. "You killed him!"

Shading his eyes against the illumination, Des glanced down to see exactly what he'd expected: the ensign lying on his back, the vibroblade plunged deep into his chest.

The luma flicked off, and Des braced himself for another assault. Instead he heard the sounds of footsteps fleeing in the night, heading toward the docking pads.

Des looked down at the body, planning to grab the glowing blade and use its light to guide him through the darkness. But the blade wasn't glowing now. In fact, he realized, it had never really glowed at all. It couldn't have: vibroblades weren't energy weapons. Their blades were simple metal.

There were more pressing concerns than how he had seen the vibroblade in the darkness, however. As soon as they reached their ship, the soldiers would report to their commander, who would report the incident to the ORO authorities. ORO would turn the planet upside down looking for him. Des didn't like his chances. It would be the word of a miner-one with a history of brawls and violence, at that-against two Republic naval soldiers. No one would believe it had been an act of self-defense.

And had it been, really? He had seen the blade coming. Could he have disarmed his opponent without killing him? Des shook his head. He didn't have time for guilt or regrets. Not now. He had to find somewhere safe to hide out.

He couldn't go back to his barracks: that was the first place they'd look. He'd never reach the mines on foot before daybreak, and there was nowhere on the open wastes he could hide once the sun came up. There was only one option, one hope. Eventually they'd go looking for him there, too. But he had nowhere else to go.

Groshik must have still been awake, because he answered the door only seconds after Des began pounding on it. The Neimoidian took one look at the blood on the young man's hands and shirt and grabbed him by the sleeve.

"Get in here!" he croaked, yanking Des through the door and slamming it shut behind him. "Are you hurt?"

Des shook his head. "I don't think so. The blood isn't mine."

Taking a step back, the Neimoidian looked him up and down. "There's a lot of it. Too much. Smells human."

When Des didn't reply, Groshik ventured a guess. "Gerd's?"

Another shake of the head. "The ensign," Des said.

Groshik dropped his head and swore under his breath. "Who knows? Are the authorities after you?"

"Not yet. Soon." Then, as if trying to justify his actions, he added, "There were three of them, Groshik. Only one's dead."

His old friend nodded sympathetically. "I'm sure he had it coming. Just like Gerd. But that doesn't change the facts. A Republic soldier is dead ... and you're the one who's going to take the blame."

The cantina owner led Des over to the bar and brought down the bottle of cortyg brandy. Without saying a word, he poured them each a drink. This time he didn't stop at half glasses.

"I'm sorry I came here," Des said, desperate to break the uncomfortable silence. "I didn't mean to get you mixed up in this."

"Getting mixed up in things doesn't bother me," Groshik reassured him with a comforting pat on his arm. "I'm just trying to figure a way to get us out of this now. Let me think."

They downed their glasses. It was all Des could do to keep from panicking; with each passing second he expected a dozen men in ORO body armor to crash down the cantina's door. After what seemed like hours, but was probably only a minute or two, Groshik began to talk. He spoke softly, and Des wasn't sure if the Neimoidian was addressing him or merely talking out loud to help himself think.

"You can't stay here. ORO can't afford to lose their Republic contracts. They'll turn the whole colony upside down to find you. We have to get you offworld." He paused. "But by morning, your picture will be on every vidscreen in Republic space. Changing your looks won't help much. Even with a wig or facial prosthetics you tend to stand out in a crowd. So that means we have to get you out of Republic space. And that means , . ." Groshik trailed off.

Des waited expectantly.

"Those things you said tonight," Groshik ventured, "about the Sith and the Republic. Did you mean it? Did you really mean it?"

"I don't know. I guess so."

There was another long pause, as if the bartender was gathering himself. "How would you feel about joining the Sith?" he suddenly blurted out.

Des was caught completely off guard. "What?"

"I know . . . people. I can get you offworld. Tonight. But these people aren't looking for passengers: the Sith need soldiers. They're always recruiting, just like those Republic officers tonight."

Des shook his head. "I don't believe this. You work for the Sith? You always said never to take sides!"

"I don't work for the Sith," Groshik snapped. "I just know people who do. I know people who work for the Republic, too. But they're not going to be much help in this situation. So I need to know, Des. Is this something you want?"

"I don't have a lot of other options," Des mumbled in reply.

"Maybe, maybe not. If you stay here, the ORO authorities are sure to find you. This wasn't a cold-blooded murder. The judiciary probably won't let you get off by pleading self-defense, but they'll have to admit there were extenuating circumstances. You'll serve time on one of the penal colonies-five, maybe six years-and then you're a free man."

"Or I join the Sith."

Groshik nodded. "Or you join the Sith. But if I'm going to help you do this, I want to be sure you know what you're getting into."

Des thought about it, but not for long. "I've spent my entire life trying to get off this hunk of rock," he said slowly. "If I go to a prison world, I'm trading one barren, blasted planet for another. No different than staying right here.

"If I join the Sith, at least I'm out from under ORO's thumb. And you heard what that Republic commander said about them. The Sith respect strength. I think I'll be able to hold my own."

"I don't doubt that," Groshik conceded. "But don't dismiss everything else that commander said. He was right about the Brotherhood of Darkness. They can be ruthless and cruel. They bring out the worst in some people. I don't want you to fall into that trap."

"First you tell me to join the Sith," Des said, "now you're warning me against joining them. What's going on?"

The Neimoidian gave a long, gurgling sigh. "You're right, Des. The decision is made. Grim fate and ill fortune have conspired against you. It's not like sabacc; you can't fold a bad hand. In life you just play the cards you're dealt." He turned away, heading for the small stairs at the back of the cantina. "Come on. In a few hours, after they've searched the housing units in the colony, they'll start searching the starport for you. We have to hurry if we want to get you safely hidden away on one of the freight cruisers before then."

Des reached out across the bar and grabbed Groshik's shoulder. Groshik turned to face him, and Des clasped the Neimoidian's long, slender forearm.

"Thank you, old friend. I won't forget this."

"I know you won't, Des." Though the words were kind, there was an unmistakable sorrow in the gravelly voice.

Des released his grip, feeling awkward, ashamed, scared, grateful, and excited all at the same time. He felt like he needed to say something else, so he added, "I'll make this up to you somehow. The next time we meet-"

"Your life here is over, Des," Groshik said, cutting him off. "There won't be a next time. Not for us."

The Neimoidian shook his head. "I don't know what's ahead of you, but I get the feeling it isn't going to be easy. Don't count on others for help. In the end each of us is in this alone. The survivors are those who know how to look out for themselves."

With that he turned away, his feet shuffling briskly across the cantina's floor as he headed to the back exit. Des hesitated a moment, Groshik's words burning into his mind, then rushed off to follow.

Huddled in the hold of the ship, Des tried to get comfortable. He'd been crammed into the small smuggler's hatch for nearly an hour. It was a tight fit for a man of his size.

Twenty minutes earlier he had heard an ORO patrol come to inspect the ship. They had made a cursory search; not finding the fugitive they were seeking, they had left. A few seconds later the captain, a Rodian pilot, had rapped hard on the panel keeping Des hidden.

"You stay until engines go," he had called in passable galactic Basic. "We take off, you come out. Not before."

Des hadn't recognized him when he'd climbed aboard; he had looked like any other Rodian he'd ever seen. Just another independent freighter captain picking up a load of cortosis, hoping to sell it on some other world for enough profit to keep his ship flying another few months.

If ORO had offered a reward for Des's capture, the captain probably would have sold him out. That meant the ORO managers hadn't put a price on his head. They were more worried about paying out a bounty than letting a fugitive escape Republic justice. It wasn't important that they found him, as long as they could show the Republic they had tried. Groshik must have realized all this when he made the arrangements to smuggle Des aboard.

The high-pitched whine of the engines powering up caused Des to brace himself against the walls of his close quarters. A few seconds later the whine became a deafening roar, and the ship lurched beneath him. The repulsors fired, counterbalancing the vessel, and Des felt the press of the g's as the ship took to the sky.

He kicked at the panel once, knocking it free, and untangled himself from the hidey-hole. The captain and crew weren't around; they would all be at their stations for liftoff.

Des didn't know their destination. All he knew was that at the end of the trip a human woman was waiting to sign him up for the Sith army. As before, the thought filled him with a mix of emotions. Fear and excitement dominated all the others.

There was a slight jostling of the ship as it broke atmosphere and began to speed away from the tiny mining world. A few seconds later Des felt an unfamiliar but unmistakable surge as they jumped to hyperspace.

A sudden sense of liberation filled his spirit. He was free. For the first time in his life, he was beyond the grasping reach of ORO and its cortosis mines. Groshik had said that grim fate and ill fortune were conspiring against him, but Des wasn't so sure now. Things hadn't worked out quite the way he'd planned-he was a fugitive with the blood of a Republic soldier on his hands-but he had finally escaped Apatros.

Maybe the cards he'd been dealt weren't so bad, after all. In the end he'd gotten the one thing he wanted most. And when you came right down to it, wasn't that the only thing that really mattered?

Oh yes ! I read that book a year ago or so...

At the very first I was very afraid of reading that book (just alike first time I listened to a Manson CD) I was imaginating something horrible with PG18 rating. Torturing scenes and an almost nazi way of justifying evilness. Darth Bane... A story centered about Siths even about the greatest Sith of all times.

The book was far away from what I feared.

Thought he's a Sith, Bane is not... an evil guy. He's just plotting to rule the universe cause that's the way he decided for himself. Very interesting book since it does explain Bane in a very interesting way.

Another Soude Approved book.

Out of interest - assuming anyone is reading this ofc - How often would people like me to update it? I was going to put Chapter 2 up this evening but realized its only been 2 days.... would people prefer me to leave it a week between chapters so we have another Friday update? or would you prefer it more regularly (not forgetting that only the first 5 chapters of the 30-something chapter book are being uploaded)?

Wow - lots of response

Well Chapter 2 is up for anyone who wishes to read it.

I'll be reading it Lw!

I've read this, it was a great book. I think I bought the second one but never got round to reading it

Read the second one and though it's a great book, I liked the first one more. I don't think the second book actually brings anything new to the story of Darth Bane. First one is definately more interesting you'll see the transformation of that minner into a dreaded Sith Lord. That's (to me) 90% of the interest.

If I remember clearly there is a comic about Darth Bane too, most of the events of the comics and of the first book are conflictual and different tho.

I completely forgot to upload Chapter 3.

'tis up now.

Please remember that only 5 chapters will be uploaded - if you like it, go buy it

Chapter 4 uploaded.

Well there we go EPOCHians, the first 5 chapters of Path of Destruction.

I hope you've enjoyed reading it, and if you have GO BUY IT!

Links are in the O.P.

You're not a Star Wars fan if you don't have every single book anyway

I'm not a SW fan then

I can't afford 'em all!

To be honest neither do I have them all too. First good reasons many aren't translated yet or will not be, some are now hard to find because too old. But I've got quite a collection. I'm listing all my CDs now and I'll list up the DVDs and books later, by then I'll be able to tell you all I have.

But that collection I did start years ago.