Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance (4 page)

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 ship.
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.

He
offered not a word of explanation throughout the long shuttle flight
from Kaas City, and she endured his silence with something like
relief. At least he wasn't berating her. Her mission had become a
complete failure. She'd had to practically hack her way to the
spaceport and off the planet-but not before running a search through
landing records in recent days. There she found a reference to the
Mandalorian. He had the temerity to travel under what appeared to be
his real name: Dao Stryver.

Once
again she renewed the vow to see him humbled as she had been, no
matter how long it took. Perhaps death was too good for him. A quick
one, anyway.

Darth
Chratis commandeered a private data access chamber seventy floors
beneath the surface of the world, one equipped with a giant
holoprojector, and ordered that the two of them not be interrupted.
Ax trailed obediently behind him, increasingly mystified. Not once in
her years of training had he shown any interest in this aspect of
Imperial rule. Interstellar bookkeepers was his derogatory term for
those who preferred service in the data mines to a more direct
pursuit of power. She went to sit in the data requisitioner's place,
but he waved her aside.

"Stand
there, " he said, pointing at a position directly in front of
the screen and taking the seat himself.

With
brisk, angular movements, he began inputting the requests. This as
much as anything convinced her that events were taking a very strange
turn indeed.

Menus
and diagrams came and went in the giant screen. Ax found it difficult
to follow, but she sensed that her Master was leading her through the
vast and convoluted structure that was Imperial records to one
location in particular.

"This,
" he said, tapping the keyboard with finality, "is the
recruitment database. "

A
long list of names appeared in the screen, scrolling by too fast to
read.

"Every
person to enter the Sith Academy is listed here, " he went on.
"Their names, origins, bloodlines-and their fates, too, where
applicable. The Dark Council uses this data to arrange matches and to
anticipate the potential of offspring. The fortunes of numerous
families rest on the nature of this data. It is therefore protected.
Ax. It is very secure. "

She
indicated her understanding, thus far. "I'm in there, " she
said.

"Indeed
you are, and so am I. Watch what happens when I input Lema Xandret. "

A
new window appeared, showing a woman's face. Round-featured, blond,
keen eyes. It meant nothing to Ax. The space below the picture was
filled with words highlighted in urgent red. At the bottom of a long
list of entries were two bold lines:

Termination
ordered.

File
incomplete: target absconded.

Ax
frowned. "So... she was a traitor? A Republic spy?"

"Worse
than that. We keep fewer records on the Jedi than we do on people
like this. " Darth Chratis swiveled in the seat to face her.
"Tell me, my apprentice, what happens when a Sith is recruited.
"

"The
child is removed from its family and placed in the Academy. There its
life begins anew, in the service of the Emperor and the Dark
Council-as mine did. "

"Exactly.
It is a great honor for a family when a child is selected,
particularly if their bloodline has not been so honored before. Most
parents are pleased, as they should be. "

"And
those who are not are executed, " she said. "Was Lema
Xandret one of them?"

A
cadaverous smile briefly enlivened the withered landscape of Darth
Chratis's face. "Exactly. She was something unremarkable-a
droidmaker, I think. Yes, exactly that. From a long line of
unremarkable droidmakers, with no trace of Force sensitivity. She
produced a child with the potential to be Sith, and so the child had
to go. "

Ax's
Master didn't show amusement often. It disturbed her more than his
rage.

"The
file says 'target absconded, '" she said.

"First
she tried to hide the child-a late bloomer, who she feared would not
survive training on Korriban. When that failed and the child was
taken anyway, she ran with the rest of the child's family- uncles,
aunts, cousins, anyone at risk from reprisals-and has never been
heard of since. "

"Until
now. "

"From
the mouth of a Mandalorian, " Darth Chratis said, "to your
ears. "

"Why
me?" she said, sensing that her Master was studying her closely.
"Because my family attempted to hide me, too?"

"Perhaps.
"

"What
I was before I met you is unimportant, " she assured him. "I
am untroubled regarding my family's fate. "

"Indeed.
I trained you well. " Again that desiccated smile. "Perhaps
too well. " He leaned closer.

"Look
here, Ax. Into my eyes. "

She
did so, and the red horror of his gaze filled her.

"The
block is strong, " he said, and it was as though the words came
from inside her head. "It's standing between you and the truth.
I release it. I release you, Ax. You are free to know the truth about
your past. "

She
staggered back as though struck, but no physical force had touched
her. A silent detonation had gone off in her mind, a depth charge
deep below her conscious self. Something stirred there. Something
strange and unsuspected.

Ax
looked up at the picture in the holoprojector.

Lema
Xandret stared back at her with empty eyes.

"She
was your mother, Ax, " her Master said. "Does that answer
your question?"

Numbly,
Ax supposed it did. But at the same time it posed many more.

*
* *

Darth
Chratis used the chamber's holoprojector to conduct a secure audience
with the Minister of Intelligence. Ax had never met the minister
before, nor seen him in any kind of communication, but the immense
trust her Master showed by allowing her to remain in the room was
utterly lost on her. Her head still rang from the liberation from her
Master's conditioning. Not because of what it revealed, but because
of what little difference it made to her.

Her
family's lack of Force sensitivity had been the one thing of which
she was certain about her life before becoming a Sith. She had
assumed that her family had been killed, but that had never bothered
her. She had certainly never worried about it, and it wouldn't have
bothered her now but for one thing.

The
block was removed. Memories should have come flooding back about Lema
Xandret and her early life.

But
there was nothing. Block or no block, there was nothing left. Lema
Xandret remained a complete stranger.

With
half a mind, she attended to the conversation her Master was having
with the minister.

"That's
why the Mandalorian sought to interrogate the girl. She's a potential
lead. "

"A
lead to Xandret?"

"What
other conclusion can we come to? She must be alive-in the same
bolt-hole she fled down in order to evade execution, I presume. "

"What
would the Mandalorians want with her?"

"I
don't know, and the fact that we don't know makes it vital that we
find her first. "

"As
a matter of principle, Darth Chratis, or Imperial security?"

"The
two are often inseparable, Minister, I think you'll find. "

The
man on the screen looked uncomfortable. His was the highest rank any
mundane person could attain in the Empire's intelligence arm, yet to
a Sith Lord he was considered fundamentally inferior. Disinclined he
might be to acknowledge that a single missing droidmaker warranted
his attention, even one who tried to hide a Force-sensitive child
from the Sith, but to disobey was inconceivable.

Then
a thought struck him, and the conflicted look on his face eased.

"I
wonder, " he mused, tapping his chin with one long digit. "Just
yesterday, a report arrived from our informer in the Republic Senate.
The Hutts claim to have gotten their hands on something valuable, and
they think the Senate would like to bid for it. Against us. I
searched diplomatic dispatches and learned that we've received
exactly the same offer, but couched in the opposite terms, of course.
Ordinarily I would dismiss such an approach as unworthy of attention,
but the fact that it came from two widely different sources does lend
it some credence. And now this. "

"I
fail to see how the Hutts are connected. They are compulsive liars. "

"Undoubtedly.
But you see, Darth Chratis, this is where it gets interesting. The
ship from which the Hutts claim to have retrieved this mysterious,
ah, artifact, data, what have you-that ship is called the Cinzia. And
I note in the file you accessed that this is the girl's birth name. "

Darth
Chratis nodded. "There must be a connection. "

"That
the ship was named after Lema Xandret's daughter and a Mandalorian is
asking after both of them? I think so. "