Planet Gand, Pef Empire

On board the Celestial Throne

Vette calmed down after she found out nobody died in the pretty explosions.

Almost calmed down.

"You went and robbed 400 trillions. Then went and battled the Sith, and recruited them all, except those you drained. Did a nuclear firework display to hide them as they left. And then, you traveled all over the Centrality, buying stuff, like expensive ships and crystals and drinks..." Vette commented in a level voice, like reading from a pad.

"Yes. That was my last month's report, Honored Maid" I answered in a flat tone.

"And you did all that without me. Did it cross your tiny droid brain that I wanted to see things and blow up nukes too? I had to find out from the news. That's it, you're not going anywhere without me from now on!" Vette said in a higher and higher voice.

"Anyone else feels the same?" I asked, looking around the other maids staring at us.

"Luxum sent me a billion credits before she left. I'm good" Dora said calmly, not even raising her eyes from whatever holodrama she was watching. Huh, now that was a rational twi'lek, right there.

"The drinks sounded interesting. Maybe if you added a nice steak beside them." Lira continued, sipping some pungent drink from her glass. Make a note, Togruta are carnivorous.

"I have a Sith. Everything is perfect!" Wialu added, while poking the soul snare, with a delighted tone in her aura. The Sith inside the snare was screaming terrified, for some reason.

"I composed ten new songs. You should go away more" Celine said, with a hesitant tone, and forced bravery in her aura. Huh, artists be weird everywhere.

I turned around and went to speak with my Hands.

Vette growled and ran after me, after sticking her tongue at her fellow maids.

The small council was now housed on a different deck, and guarded by droids and ray shields.

Zuckuss was using the treasury wisely then.

When I entered the room, I noticed Mujilik as well. Guess the Findsmen needed a representative as well.

"Hello friends. What's new?" I asked in polite voice, while sitting on my durasteel dais, the one painted gold.

"We're getting overwhelmed, Pef. Not enough trained people for this many tasks. The Gand are barely a million people." Zuckuss said, now articulating the words himself, instead of using a vocoder.

He grew lungs and felt much stronger in the Force. Amazing! I never knew the gand could adapt that fast. Then again, I did boost their force training a hundred times. No more primitive superstitions.

"The droids and the Servants help, but they already outnumber us. Your Maid keeps bringing in more freed slaves, and the new factories keep making droids..." Zuralee complained as well. Sorry Zuralee, that's exactly what I intended. Civilization and progress, not a tribal society.

"News of your wealth has spread, Emperor. Four hundred Findsmen have returned to Gand past month. They all want the promised females and ships. We don't have enough crews, even if we did buy ships." Mujilik complained as well. We'll use droids for crew. Easy.

"Korriban?" I asked instead.

"Beasts and storms and mad voices. Of the ten Findsmen, nine are dead and one went mad. He used a whole droid legion to steal some scrolls and armors and a red pyramid. And he wants to test you for the right to take it. Doesn't seem clinically mad, but..." he expplained, pointing at a holo. Yellow eyes?

"He's not himself. I noticed. You keep him contained with ray shields?" I inquired, turning my armor's head to point at the four shields defending the command room on all sides. They still had a lot to learn. A cube has 6 sides not just the 4 walls. And worse, the force can see through walls. I'll need to fix that.

"Yes. And our neural dischargers when his eyes glow." Mujilik added with a shudder. Possession perhaps? Sith ghosts were tricky.

"Establish ray shields above and below the room as well. We'll let him sit in there for a month, till he learns enough from the holocron." I commanded, while patting Vette on her head. Poor girl was terrified.

"He's already dead, isn't he?" she asked in a weak voice, looking at the holo with the cage.

"As soon as he touched the Sith holocron with his skin. I remember giving you instructions how to handle the damn things. Droids only?" I mused softly, while reviewing the recordings from the Explorer ships. Damn organics.

Landing in the middle of a storm, going outside the ship, without a sealed armor, grabbing things with their own hands... Wasting thousands of droids. Okay, I didn't care about the droids. Losing Findsmen was a different thing though.

"As soon as they entered the atmosphere, they forgot their training and their instructions. Likuss knew mind-shield the best. He never left his ship. But after he jumped back towards Saleucami, he entered the cargo hold and took the red pyramid in his hands. No one else was on board. We scanned the whole ship three times." Zuckuss explained, fast forwarding the recordings till the fated moment.

The Findsman Gand was meditating, then opened his eyes, looked around, then muttered something.

"I am free." in sith language, going by my newly learned dead languages course.

Then he went into the cargo hold and opened the safe and took out the holocron. And it glowed.

Kriff. That's why the Dark Jedi were so dangerous. Damn Living Force.

Who was even speaking in the holo? The Gand? The dead dark Jedi spirit? The holocron AI? Or the Living force itself?

If it was any of the last two, it could be pretty bad.

The Dark Jedi could be useful, depending on which one he was. A Sith Lord would be great. A Dark Gand would be pretty much useless.

Anyway, the prison was made on an asteroid, in a newly discovered system, without any life.

"The system is interdicted?" I asked to make sure.

"A gravity interdictor cruiser and 10 corvettes, all droids" Zuckuss replied, feeling anxious for some reason.

I wasn't. From everything I knew, I was the only one with technopathy. If my avatar will have children, then it may appear again, but till then, I should be the only one.

"You know...I think I'm gonna go now, and kill a few pirates. Creepy monsters with yellow eyes, not really my thing." Vette proclaimed as she left, probably wisely.

If I had to nuke the asteroid, she will be sorry she left so soon.

Another Gand appeared in the room, his shape and face hidden by armor and personal cloak.

"The third Hand sends regards. Operation 774 is complete. We have located the person named Ventress, and placed force tracers on her ship. Operation 665 is ongoing. 4 operatives are deceased, and 18 targets eliminated. No new infiltrators to report, except those known already. Operation 775 is complete, and we have acquired a midichlorian detector. The operative is returning. Operation 776 is ongoing. Operation 777 is difficult. We cannot locate our target. Operation 778 is ready to activate, the weapon is in position. Operation 779 is ongoing. For the Empire!" the Gand reported in a flat vocoder voice, then vanished in a personal cloak field.

Not a good cloak, but then cloak tech was forbidden by the Republic. Must have cost the Black ops a few billion to get it. Now I'll have to duplicate and improve it, then mass produce it for all my operatives.

Mujilik stared after the faint ionization trace and laughed. "Very dramatic, but I trained that boy. The thing doesn't mask his smell." he explained after a minute. Hmmm, insects do have amazing smell senses.

"Noted, smell cancelers next." I said amused. Wait, more work for me. Not that amusing...

"So, the Vong cannot be found by our Findsmen. We should send droids." Zuckuss mused, looking at me for approval. He was smart.

Hmmm. It took Darth Vader two decades to think of that. Using droids to locate difficult targets. Then again, he had a lightsaber. What can you expect from someone hitting things with their hands?

"We'll need to acquire smell detectors for our tracking droids. The Vong are biological after all. Project Culexus?" I asked, turning towards my right Hand.

"The Ysalamir lizards we bought are on their way here. A thousand olbio trees as well." Zuckuss answered with confidence.

Good. I like to be prepared.

Planet Gand, Pef Empire

25 BBY

Seventh month.

Having our Lucrehulks upgraded with better shields and long range weapons and missiles would take lots of credits and work hours. Work hours...meant wasted time in my shipsyards.

So I didn't, choosing to simply slap a hundred missile launchers around the outer circle, in groups of 10, and having each escorted with a few corvettes on their trade routes.

Luckily, the Trade Federation had designed these monsters to be operated mostly by droids with a crew of a half a million droids each. Perfect for me, as I could program and retrain the droids for any tasks I needed.

Ten Lucrehulks began exporting fertilizers and explosives towards Saleucami and Mon Cala and Klatooine and some larger Centrality worlds, with a minimal organic crew on board, normally a Findsman and a dozen Imperial Servants, and many more droids. The commerce had to go on, to make the Empire less reliable on my personal wealth.

I kept two of Lucrehulks nearby for my next project, a really impressive Celestial Throne, made from two Lucrehulks mated together, one horizontal and one vertical.

The missing section of the doughnut left almost enough room for a perfect fit. And thus, no more weaknesses inherent in the design.

Then, I ordered a hundred more of these nice lumbering cargo ships. They came at a really cheap price, about 50 millions each. Soon, all the Lucrehulks available for sale on the free and black markets will be gone anyway, as the Trade Federation will begin converting their trade fleet into battleships and command ships.

Might as well grab whatever ships the smaller corporations had, sometimes buying the entire company if it was in debts. Logistics in a galactic war meant millions of cargo ships, to supply troops and bases everywhere. I reserved a trillion credits for this purpose. Ships do get blown up in war.

Also, the first prototype Dakka corvettes emerged from my shipyards at Scillal . I prefered a half cone shape, since it allowed the top turret the best firing arc, all around. And a heavy laser should be sufficient to cripple or destroy a ship of the same size, in just a few shots. The medium double turret underneath housed a medium ion canon and a medium maser, in case the ship would need to engage droid or biological targets. The main role was still a missile ship, with the 20 launchers it had.

Perhaps in the future, I may add a pair of wings and have it capable of launching proton torpedoes or carry a couple of starfighters. But let's not give the Confederacy too many ideas, too soon.

Another desolate system, with large iron-nickel asteroids was designated Greyforge, and my engineers and droids had began gathering asteroids into large clumps, and bombarding the clumps with corvette lasers to begin heating them and get them melt together.

The end result was to be a blob of tempered iron, 20 kilometers long and 5 kilometers wide and tall.

Then carve the inside a little, install a hundred heavy linear accelerators going along the spine, a thousand heavy maser turrets, a thousand missile launchers and a hundred reactors, some particle and ray shields and a Rakata forcefield. Wouldn't be anything the galaxy has seen before, and it will probably only have full efficiency in systems with strong force nexii. But any target in front of it will feel sorry. MACs were gonna rock their world.

And it's armor won't be a few meters thick, but 2 kilometers thick. Only iron, but maybe it could be imbued later.

Only problem, it was gonna be suuuuuper slow. At most Hyperdrive 5.0, though I didn't want to waste a hundred capital ship reactors on it. So most likely 6.0 hyperdrives. Wasn't gonna flank and blitz fleets, but it could crush entrenched defenses.

A few salvos would theoretically crumble planetary shields.

Not a Death Star, but will only cost about 1 billion credits and not 800 trillions. Truly the Sith had little regard for hard earned money. I would have to rob two or three more megabarons to afford a Death Star.

And even if I could, why risk so much work for a single lucky shot to make it vanish?

I can have 10 thousands Meteor assault battleships like the first one, for only 10 trillions...

Sure, I would also need a thousand brand new star systems to mine for asteroids, but the galaxy was large enough.

A faint tingle in the Force. Vera and Luxum are returning from Tsil's homeworld, Nam Chorios.

Hmmm, Luxum seems almost ready now. It's a strange leap of faith, to give someone else the right to speak and do things in your name. What if she secretly hates you? What if she brings down enemies on your head? What if she plots and kicks you out from your throne? What if she acts really stupid and crashes the economy, or burns entire planets for fun?

The stronger my Empire becomes, the more power my Voices will have.

People will want to control them, for whatever reason.

Open another partition. VSS project. The Voice Secret Service. A hundred operatives for each Voice, half synthetics, a quarter force users, a quarter professionals with experience in counter intelligence. Operating costs for training and equipment and salaries, 1 billion per year. Nothing.

Buy a MC80 star cruiser for each of them. 7 billion credits was still nothing. Compared to their well being and safety, credits were nothing.

Vera stopped in front of a large transparisteel window, and stared outside, watching the Lucrehulks mate, their entire structure disassembled and floating in orbit above Gand.

"When you said he's way more powerful, did you mean this?" Vera asked her fellow maid.

"Dunno about telekinesis, I can barely lift my own armor for a few seconds. I meant with the money. We started at the same time and finished at the same time, but he made 80 thousands times more credits. And terraforming Gand might have been even harder" Luxum replied, petting a Tsil crystal in her hand.

'Greetings Emperor Pef, I am Sunlight-seen-through-mist.' the tsil sent telepathically, projecting an image of a ray of sunlight descending through clouds. Huh.

A poet crystal.

I composed a visual image of the Je'daii code, and sent it back.

'Hey, you're pretty cool for a droid' the tsil sent, showing a droid dancing between lights and shadows.

"I am calling it Ray, for ray of sunshine" I decided, ripping off the next instalment, like a boss.

'Short and sweet, like a cookie. Human tongue loves it' the tsil send back, showing an unknown human girl eat a cookie. Probably someone who it seen on Nam Chorios.

But still, it caught exactly my meaning.

"Let's get you some clothes dear lady" I said, bringing down a Justice droid and fitting the crystal inside.

Now, let's relinquish OS limits, allow crystalline operator access to motor functions, vocoder print, repulsor beams, and start imprinting basic galactic and bipedal locomotion mechanics.

The tsil droid stumbled, trying to stay balanced, then used the repulsor beam to stabilize.

"Staying balanced is hard work. Sorry I made fun of it, Mighty Emperor" Rey spoke all the sudden.

"No worry, everyone has to learn. Staying still is easy, but for running, you need two legs and lots of balance" I explained, and waited.

Vera looked at me confused then at the droid Tsil.

"You're not actually talking about running, are you?" she asked, a bit of awe in her aura.

"Jumping comes next, and then landing. You need perfect balance to land and not get hurt" I continued, sending out a short sequence of gymnasts landing from the bars and animals jumping after prey and missing, rolling through dirt.

"Landing seems really dangerous. I prefer to remain flying" the Tsil argued, using the repulsor beams on its droid to stay afloat.

"Okay, you're both weird and I'm tired. Where is that jacuzzi I heard of?" My red twi'lek maid Vera asked annoyed, and left towards the door I pointed with subtlety.

"So. You're an ambassador or what?" I asked, now that the organics were no longer present.

"A what. But special. Just like you" the Tsil responded, gesturing at Luxum and making her stumble. Then it tried the same towards my armor, but I barely even sensed it. A thousand times weaker.

The Tsil had some control over technology then. Better than Shards had. But not on my level.

"Well then. Luxum is ready for her Voice. She'll be your teacher, untill you become more familiar with force abilities. I saw your race being farmed for droid motherboards, let's try to avoid that fate, agreed?" I asked, tilting the armor's head a little.

"Much to learn I have. Good friends we will be" Ray answered, patting Luxum on her head.

The mental images evoked running in the rain, hand in hand, and jumping into puddles.

Great. Another joker.

Asteroid field, System 009, Pef Empire

25 BBY

"If you go mad, is there anyone who can kill you?" Wialu asked, a bit worried.

"Probably not. Maybe a black hole, depending if I learn enough or not" I answered amused.

"Kriff. Go and suck his brains. Knowledge is more valuable than safety" she concluded, as I boarded a shuttle and began my long awaited trip towards learning the Dark Jedi teachings.

My own mind was armored with all the tricks and hiding abilities I could learn, from Wialu and Vera to a Jal Shey belt that supposedly kept you safe.

I landed on a landing pad leading to a vault like door, guarded by droideka and missile launchers.

Everything seemed eerily quiet, but that was possibly because of the vacuum.

Now, let's see. The droids seemed fine, their programming not changed or otherwise interfered with.

I sent the the first code and unlocked the door, then the second code to disarm the nuke.

Into the breach!

Floating inside, a battalion of droids, armed with every type of weapon in existence. A bit paranoid, but then, this was star wars.

There was always someone out to get you.

A longer trip, and then I reached another door, with another nuke. Clever.

Behind that, a red and crackling ray shield separated the living quarters from the vacuum outside.

"Immortal Emperor, you finally came. The voices are here and won't stop..." Likuss spoke, having grown lungs and vocal cords while in captivity.

I produced two soul snares and rolled them inside.

Immediately, a red lightning sparked from the Sith holocron hitting the first crystal with no effect.

Some kind of automated reaction?

The second snare floated towards the Gand and touched his forehead gently.

A minute later, the aura in the room vanished, leaving me with a gand spirit inside the Soul snare.

I brought it out and started draining it cautiously.

Okay this was something. Dark healing was useful. Making lightsabers and turning crystals red, not really. Telekinesis, but way weaker than mine. Mental domination, elemental shaping and directing. Oh. I could use lighting now, not just hold it.

Lightsaber combat, mostly Makashi form and dual wield. And, that's about it. The code I already knew.

So, merely a Dark Gand then. The holocron master was named Andeddu, but no spirit was floating around.

Did I overreacted? I thought Old Sith were more learned and powerful...

'What are you, I sense no life in you?' a voice spoke in my head, piercing through all my defenses.

Huh? Was this Andeddu or a holocron AI?

'I'm not AI you fool. Now, grant me a worthy body, some Jedi Master if you can find, and I'll teach you everything I know' the voice spoke again, trying to enforce its words with domination and compulsion and memory imprints.

Redirect all that to a small partition modeled after the Gand I just drained.

The compulsion didn't work, but it did let me know something was still alive inside. And trying to get out.

"Hop into the crystal Lord Andeddu. The pyramid has the stay here. The law is clear." I spoke aloud.

'The soul catcher? Yes, it should be large enough for my mind. And then we find a Jedi Master. Ah, there's been many years since the last Sith has visited me. Bane was his name, I believe?'

'Darth Bane, about a thousand years ago. He killed all the Sith and let the Jedi rule since then' I answered with the Gand partition.

'Hah. We Sith don't share knowledge easily. Darth Bane became sith'ari, holding all knowledge at once. But we can rule the galaxy again, acolyte' the Sith sent me, with a strong conviction in his thoughts.

A wisp of a Force ghost emerged from the holocron and started bonding with the crystal, slowly and cautiously.

'Soon, the Malevolence will rule the stars. Soon we will have our revenge' Adenddu proclaimed, as the transfer was finished.

Yeah, that sounds corny. Really, malevolence?

I called the snare outside, and began poking at it, draining little by little on different partitions.

'What are you doing? This feels...you're draining me, all my knowledge, all my deeds...disappear..." the spirit complained.

Man the guy was loaded with skills.

A hundred different abilities, from alchemy and astronavigation, to force storms and energy absorption. Revitalize and wound, and finally the jackpot, transference.

And strangely, I had almost discovered it on my own. It was a radically more advanced version of the Voice bond. But it did seem to use Living force instead of Cosmic force.

Guess it takes a Sith to take an administrative and familial bond, and turn it to eleven, overwriting the mind of the receiver. Or to transfer yourself into an inanimate object. Or into a weaker mind or a clone.

The holocron seemed empty of life now.

I disabled the shield and went to see what was inside.

Mostly the same things, without a couple more secret teachings, like transference.

Wialu will be ecstatic to learn it all. And to think it was called Holocron of Heresies It was a diamond mine.

And now, I had my bait for Ventress.

As I left the asteroid, I had to send the snare with the dregs of Andenddu's soul towards the sun, to let him enjoy immortality in hell.

I replaced the crystal instead of a missile warhead and fired it.

The crystal would only take a few hours the reach the sun.

The prison was left behind, a droid with a Disruptor rifle evaporating the corpse of Likuss.

Who knows, maybe I'll need the prison again, some sunny day.