Part 2 (1/2)
Eldon Ax licked her wounds all the way to Dromund Kaas.
The damage to her body was most easily treated. Many of the cuts and gashes she left to scar naturally, believing as her Master had taught her that a lesson quickly forgotten is a lesson poorly learned. The rest she treated with the help of the medkit built into her interceptor's c.o.c.kpit, avoiding painkillers and anesthetics completely. It wasn't pain that worried her. That was good for her, too.
The damage done to her confidence would take much longer to heal-not to mention her prospects of advancement. Darth Chratis would see to that. It didn't matter that her record on solo missions had been perfect up to this one. It didn't matter how highly she had been awarded by the Sith Academy. All that mattered was success.
The interceptor burst back into reals.p.a.ce and the Empire's grim-faced capital, Kaas City, hove into view.
”I will kill you, Dao Stryver, ” Eldon Ax swore, ”or die trying. ”
The debrief went as badly as she feared.
”Tell me about your mission, ” her Master instructed in clipped tones from his meditation chamber. Ax had been admitted into his presence before his morning rituals were complete, and she knew well how that annoyed him.
She bowed and did as she was instructed. Her Master doled out orders with an unbendable desire to test her willingness to obey. She knew better than to outright defy him, even when she was doing her best to keep her failure from him.
It was during her mission that the Mandalorian had found her. And it was this encounter she did her best to conceal from her Master, inasmuch as that was possible.
”Tell me more, ” said Darth Chratis, rising slowly out of his sarcophagus. In order to focus most effectively, he occupied at least one hour a day in a coffin-like sh.e.l.l that allowed no light or air, forcing him to rely solely on his own energies to survive. ”You have not sufficiently explained the reasons for your failure. ”
She couldn't read his mood. His face was a mess of deep wrinkles and fissures from which two bloodred eyes peered out at the world. His knife-thin lips were twisted in a perpetual sneer. Occasionally, a tongue so pale it was almost transparent appeared to taste the air.
”I will not lie to you, Master, ” she said, kneeling before him. ”While infiltrating an enemy cell, my ident.i.ty was revealed and I was forced to defend myself. ”
”Revealed?” The bloodless lips twitched. ”I do not sense the foul stink of the Jedi about you. ”
”No, Master. I was exposed by another-one whose people were once allies in our war against the Republic. ”
That was the gambit she had settled upon, to turn the blame for the incident back on the person who had caused it.
”So. ” Darth Chratis stepped free from the confines of his sarcophagus. The soles of his feet made a sound like dry leaves being crushed. ”A Mandalorian. ”
”Yes, Master. ”
”You fought him?”
”Yes, Master. ”
”And he defeated you. ”
This wasn't a question, but it demanded a response. ”That is true, Master. ”
”Yet you are still here. Why is this?”
Darth Chratis stood directly before her now. One withered claw reached down to touch her chin. His fingernails were like ancient crystals, cold and sharp against her skin. He smelled of death.
She looked up into his forbidding visage and saw nothing there but the implacable demand for the truth. ”He did not come to fight me, ” she said. ”This I believe, although it makes no sense. He asked for me by name. He knew what I am. He asked me questions to which I knew no answer. ”
”He interrogated you?” That prompted a frown. ”The Emperor will be displeased if you revealed any of his secrets. ”
”I would rather die a lingering death at your hands, Master. ” Her reply was utterly sincere. She had been a Sith in training all her life. The Empire was as much a part of her as her lightsaber. She would not betray it to a pack of prideful mercenaries who worked with the Empire when it suited them.
But how to convey the truth of this to her Master when it was here, on this critical point, that her story fell apart?
”He asked me nothing about the Empire, ” Ax told her Master, remembering the scene with grueling clarity. Her a.s.sailant had disarmed her and pinned her with a net resistant to all her efforts to escape. A dart had paralyzed her, leaving only the ability to speak. ”He did not torture me. I was wounded solely in self-defense. ”
She held out her arms to show Darth Chratis the injuries she had sustained.
He regarded them with no sign of approval.
”You are lying, ” he said with ready contempt. ”You expect me to believe that a Mandalorian hunted down a Sith apprentice, interrogated her, asked her nothing about the Empire, and then left her alive afterward?”
”Were I lying, Master, I would be sure to do so more plausibly. ”
”Then you have become unhinged. How else can I explain it?”
Ax lowered her head. There was nothing more she could say.
Darth Chratis paced across the angular narthex in which he conducted his audiences. Displayed on the walls around him were relics of his many victories, including bisected lightsaber hilts and shattered Jedi relics. Absent were the tributes to his many Sith enemies. Although Darth Chratis hadn't earned the fear and respect of his peers simply by outperforming them, he didn't boast about those he had forcibly removed from his path. His reputation was enough.
Only one in three apprentices serving under him survived their training. Eldon Ax wondered breathlessly whether the time had come for her to join those who had failed. Her life had been too short-just seventeen years!-but she wouldn't raise a hand to defend herself, if her Master chose to end it now. There would be no point. He could strike her down as easily as swatting a fly.
Darth Chratis stopped, turned to face her again.
”If this Mandalorian of yours didn't ask about the Emperor's plans, what did he ask you?”
At the time, the questions had puzzled her. They still puzzled her now.
”He was looking for a woman, ” she said. ”He mentioned a s.h.i.+p. The names meant nothing to me. ”
”What names, exactly?”
”Lema Xandret. The Cinzia”
Suddenly her Master was standing over her again. She gasped. He had made no sound at all. The cold, strong grip of the Force was back at her throat, pulling her irresistibly upright until she was standing on tiptoes.
”Say those names again, ” he hissed.
She couldn't wrench her gaze away from his. ”L-Lema Xandret. The Cinzia. Do you know what they mean, Master?”
He let her go and turned away. With two swift gestures, the ruin of his body was wrapped from head to feet in a long, winding cape, as black as his soul, and his right hand gripped a long, sharp-pointed staff.
”No more questions, ” he said. ”Come. ”
With long strides, he left the room.
Eldon Ax took a long, shuddering breath, and hurried in the wake of her Master.
The sorting and storing of Imperial data was a growth industry on Dromund Kaas, albeit one kept carefully hidden from view. Vast inverted skytowers drilled deep into the jungle's fertile soil, entombing centuries of multiply redundant records tended by tens of thousands of slaves. Extensive compounds spread out around the entrances, maintaining the highest possible security. To one of these compounds Darth Chratis led Eldon Ax.