31 BBY
Tan'ya watched Mace Windu and his thugs put a torch to months of hard work with the sinking feeling that this was all her fault. The Sith was dangerous, Tan'ya knew that, and she hadn't expected them to unfreeze him on the spot, but to wastefully murder him without even a question asked was almost unconscionable. But she should have known they were nothing but zealots, and the only thing that they could think to do when they encountered a rival sect was destroy it. Why did she let herself forget that for even a moment?
And her father still hadn't even glanced at his phone! She grit her teeth as she stared down at her own unread messages, before quickly dialing Colonel Seith.
"Your Highness." He answered.
Tan'ya quickly gave him her location. "Meet me here with a regiment of men, and bring the deck sweeper stunners, no blasters. And bring Jedi Master Sturn as well."
"Right away, Your Highness."
Hanging up, Tan'ya turned around to see the Jedi were already removing the datacrons. They were lifting them from the tent where they were being cataloged and floating them towards the Jedi ship. Not just the datacrons, but the computer terminals, the flora samples, and even the bones of the dead sith and the old tirra'taka! Months of hard work were going to be lost! Even if they weren't going to be destroyed, Tan'ya had no doubt that at best they would end up in storage somewhere, never to be seen again.
Before her brain had even caught up to her, she was running towards them. "Master Windu! Master Windu!"
He answered her without looking back, watching the items being removed with a tense stance, like he was ready to leap into action if he had to. "It's good that you called us when you did. Sith artifacts are extremely dangerous, and a master being unleashed would be a disaster for the whole Galaxy.
"Master Windu, I must speak with you."
Finally, the stern Jedi turned to regard her, his brows forming a straight line. "Youngling Tan'ya, I can sense that you're becoming agitated."
"Master Windu, those datacrons are all we have to show for months of hard work! This excavation was expensive and dangerous, and I have to insist that Serenno receives the rewards of its own labor."
"Youngling Tan'ya-"
"That's Lady Serenno, to you." She interrupted him, more than a hint of frustration in her voice. "As the heir apparent, I'm acting as head of state until my father returns."
He regarded her for a long moment. "I see. Lady Serenno, excavating Sith ruins is illegal."
"No, it's not. Excavating a known Sith ruin is illegal." Tan'ya corrected him. "Often no one knows what a ruin is until it's already been dug up."
Mace Windu's eyes narrowed. "Whatever loopholes your father uses, this site is clearly too dangerous for you to be here."
"We contacted you when the danger became obvious, and now that you've dealt with it, I thank you, but it's time for you to leave."
"Excuse me?"
"As the acting head of our government, I would like to thank you and your Jedi for the work you've done, but we can take care of things from here."
He stared at her, his discipline in the Force unable to conceal his obvious disapproval. "We have confirmed that this site is a known Sith ruin, and so any further excavation is illegal."
"The datacrons are already above ground. We shall of course comply with Republic regulations, and cease our excavations, but what we've already uncovered is ours to keep." Tan'ya was careful to keep her mind sealed, lest she accidentally let slip to Windu that they'd known it was a Sith ruin almost immediately.
"Lady Serenno, these regulations aren't in place without cause. Sith artifacts are dangerous." Mace Windu warned in a lecturing tone. "The ancient Sith are known to leave behind guardians or experiments, or worse, even Darkside ghosts that have possessed people. It is for the people of Serenno that we're taking the datacrons."
"All the datacrons can contain is data. They're not active in the Force, so there's no risk of Dark Side corruption."
"I understand your frustration, but this is not your decision to make. By the power invested in me by the Republic, we're taking these potentially dangerous artifacts into custody until their purpose can be determined. Once we're certain that they're safe, you can petition for their release." Then he turned his back on her, folding his arms. "Now I suggest you go back to your classes."
Tan'ya teeth were hurting from how much she was grinding them as she watched the damn thieves fly away. Of course they didn't all go. Windu himself had left, but several Jedi remained to keep the site secure, and make sure no one tried to take anything else away.
"This isn't over." She muttered to herself, rushing over to her own speeder. Rain was beginning to fall as she pulled herself into the seat, taking out her holocom. She hesitated, breathing out a few times to bring her temper back under control. Of course Master Yoda wouldn't be impressed by her being upset.
Then she dialed him.
He answered on the first ring, and was obviously relieved to see her. "Youngling Tan'ya, relieved I am to see you safe."
"Yes, Master Yoda. Mace Windu has… swiftly dealt with the threat, and for that the people of Serenno are very grateful. However, he's been a little overzealous, and confiscated all the data from the digsite."
"Good. Very good." Yoda nodded. "Master Windu is being wise. Knowledge of the Sith is dangerous."
Tan'ya struggled to keep her sense of helpless frustration under control. "Master Yoda, my people have dug out that dangerous ruin at serious financial cost and a great deal of effort. Surely we can at least keep a copy of the data."
With a sympathetic expression, Yoda shook his head once, slowly. "Understand I do, your people's great effort, but if the data were to spread, more Sith could be uncovered. The knowledge could be sold to treasure hunters, or worse. In the Galaxy, many dark forces are gathering now, and seeking advantage. Grateful for your people's work, I am. Share this knowledge, the Jedi cannot."
Tan'ya opened her mouth, but realized there was no point trying to argue with the old fool. With a disgusted sigh, she hung up and threw the holocom down beside her. After a moment to collect herself, she left the cover of her speeder and hurried through the jungle drizzle to the main tent where the excavated artifacts had been kept. Not anymore, even the camp's holo-terminals had been ransacked by the marauding jedi.
Sel Lur, the survey supervisor, was pacing around looking distressed. When Tan'ya came in he rushed over. "Lady Serenno, the Jedi! They've taken everything! Even the back ups."
"I know, Sel." Tan'ya agreed. "I can see that."
"But your highness, that includes the survey data. Without it, the Mandalorians and I might have to redo months of scouting. It will delay our mining project in this region for months, and we won't even have our archaeological efforts to show for it."
Tan'ya realized that she was going to have to write up a report for their investors. It was one thing to slow down a potential production site for the sake of another valuable discovery, but another thing to make backwards progress. It wasn't even appropriate for her to be the one writing it, this was something her Father should be overseeing, but he had been out of contact for days now.
"What didn't they take?" Tan'ya asked.
"Only the first lightsaber, which your father has confiscated, and the warbeast samples, which are being stored in a secure facility offsite."
Well, it was only a matter of time until the Jedi reviewed the data they'd confiscated and realized there were living samples of Force Sensitive warbeasts they hadn't ransacked, and a Sith lightsaber. They would be back the moment they knew.
Tan'ya took out her holocom, and sent orders to the secure facility to swap out the eggs. They would have to find another animal egg of a similar size, freeze it in carbonite, and replace the tirra'taka while keeping it off the logs. She set it at high priority, and included orders to erase the message once the task was complete, then make sure the personnel who knew about the change were not on site when the Jedi arrived. Hopefully that would be enough to throw the damned zealots off the scent of heresy.
With that done, Tan'ya instructed the Mandalorian survey team and Sel Lur to get back to work again, immediately. They might not have the original survey data, but they should be able to use their own memories to help accelerate the process this time. Finally, she sent notice to Colonel Gon Seith for him and his men to stand down. The Jedi had already done their damage, and the few that were still here remained only to make sure they hadn't missed anything.
Finally, Tan'ya went home to craft a carefully worded report for her investors in the banking clan. She completed it in under an hour, emphasizing that it was only one region for which the survey data was lost, and the rest of the sites should be able to begin their works on schedule. After it was sent, Tan'ya sat back in her chair, feeling frankly, miserable.
"Why did I trust them?" She asked herself, staring at the ceiling. How could she have let herself forget what they were?
After a while, there was a knock at the door. Tan'ya opened it to find Madalee.
"Can I play with Eggy?" She asked, holding a coloring book in one hand and some color sticks in the other.
Wordlessly, Tan'ya stepped past her, leaving the door open as she did. She paused only to brew a coffee for herself in the kitchen, before going for a walk through the Palace gardens to calm herself down.
She received only two notifications while she took her break. One saying that the Jedi had found and confiscated her dummy eggs, and another asking for her to prepare a room for them at the Palace that night. Her reply only contained a hundred credits and the address of a two star hotel in the city.
Feeling only slightly better, she returned to her room to find that Marnaidu's incubator had been drawn on by her younger sister, but at least the egg was dozing peacefully. Tan'ya had a shower, and dinner was just about to turn in for the night when her compad rang.
She blinked in shock, seeing Hego Damask's caller ID. Quickly, she pulled on a reasonably formal jacket, and tied up her hair, before changing the comm device's settings to only show her shoulders and up, before answering.
"Mister Damask." Tan'ya smiled at him as brightly as she could. "I wasn't expecting you to call."
He examined her image for a moment, drawing in from his breather, before responding, "I should have checked the time on Serenno before I called. My apologies."
Internally, Tan'ya winced. Evidently, her attempt to dress herself up at the last minute was quite unsuccessful. "No, I'm glad to hear from you at any time. Really, I just wasn't expecting a call from you, I assumed you'd have more serious concerns."
"More serious concerns than my investments being squandered?" He asked.
Tan'ya swallowed. "You read my report."
"I read every report concerning my finances." Hego replied. "Knowledge is power." He took a long puff on his breather. "Now explain to me this delay in detail, please."
"Mr Damask, I want to apologize-"
"Your apology is accepted, Lady Serenno." A slight smile tugged at the corner of his lips. "Now please. Explain."
And so Tan'ya told him the story. The survey team had discovered a buried Sith fortress from the Occupation, and work had been delayed until the ruin and its potentially valuable artifacts were recovered. She had overseen the digsite, painstakingly extracting what she could until discovering a Sith warrior preserved in carbonite in a panic room at the bottom of the facility. Then she made the biggest mistake of her new life so far.
"I can only apologize." She told him, lowering her head.
"..." He didn't reply for a long time, taking a couple of long breaths. "Perhaps now you begin to understand my distaste for the Jedi."
She agreed internally, but didn't raise her head.
"Do you know what your real mistake was?"
"Trusting the Jedi." Tan'ya answered.
"That was a mistake, but your biggest mistake has a deeper root." He took a puff. "You passed responsibility to someone else, rather than trusting your own judgment. In doing so, you gave the Jedi power over you, when you should have trusted yourself, and used your own power to solve an issue that you fully had under control. You didn't even need to kill the Sith, you simply could have buried him somewhere else. Then you would have had the datacrons, and my sacanium mine would be back on schedule."
Of course Tan'ya couldn't refute him. Not only was he above her in his station, but he was also obviously correct.
"This is, of course, a minor delay, the other mines will not be affected. It may be better for you to learn from a small mistake like this than a larger, more important one later." Hego continued. "Of course I won't be withdrawing my investments, but please ensure that the other sites continue apace."
"Of course, Mr Damask. Absolutely. There will be no further delays."
"Good." He replied. "In regards to those datacrons, it does seem a waste for them all to be destroyed."
Tan'ya blinked, shocked. "You think you could convince Master Yoda to release them?"
"No, but a friend in the Temple might be persuaded to make a copy for you."
Tan'ya felt no real objection to such blatant corruption, not when it let her get around a law this ridiculous.
"I- Uh, thank you." Tan'ya managed to say, stumbling over her words. "Yes, that would go a long way to salvaging the situation."
"Very good." Mr Damask paused for a second, before adding, "Tan'ya, though you are wise beyond your years, you are also still very young. Of course I expect great things from you in the future, but for now I would like it if you would come to me directly with issues like this."
"I'm sure your busy-"
"I am, but I will make time for you." He promised, taking a final drag on his breather, before adding, "Nurturing talent is a passion of mine. I see a remarkable potential in you, Tan'ya, one that I would hate to see squandered by self doubt due to a few minor mistakes that could be avoided with a few words of advice."
A flutter of excitement filled Tan'ya. To be taken under the wing of someone so important would be the greatest opportunity she'd have received in any of her lives. If Hego was so concerned about preventing the rise of Galactic anarchy, and she wanted to govern a peaceful and prosperous realm, then having him personally bankroll her and her father's endeavors could make for a mutually beneficial arrangement.
"Thank you." She said, "Really, I would like that very much."
"Good. I'll let you know about that data when I have it. Now have a good night."
"Thank you, Mr Damask. And I hope you have a fine day as well."
Hego was as good as his word, Tan'ya learned. The Jedi ship carrying the datacrons had only been docked at Coruscant for a few hours before a copy of the data was shared with her. Whoever Damask had paid inside the Temple worked fast, and had even managed to recover the excavation surveys.
Delightedly, Tan'ya typed up a report for her investors to let them know that everything was back on schedule, and the Sacanium mine in the region would not face any substantial delay. It was really a pleasure to be working for a professional like Hego again.
Her lessons continued, and Tan'ya began to sink her teeth into the data recovered from the Sith temple. It was… disturbing, though very interesting.
The man in the bunker proved to be a fellow by the name of Darth Chymus. The title Darth had been outlawed by Skere Kaan when he unified all Sith under his rule in the Dark Brotherhood, and rather than give up what he saw as his rightful glory, Chymus had hidden himself in his bunker beneath the fortress, waiting for what he saw as Kaan's inevitable fall.
It wasn't an entirely foolish prediction. For the last thousand years before Kaan's rise, every great Sith uniter had been torn down by betrayal, and there was no good reason for someone living during that time to assume the pattern would end anytime soon. Little did Chymus know that Kaan's fall would drag the entire Sith Empire to the grave with him. Having all his forces cornered on Ruusan, Kaan defiantly detonated a superweapon which claimed the lives of him and everyone fighting under his banner.
Chymus never had the chance to begin his glorious reconquest, his bunker and everyone in it being dragged underground when the great warbeasts he was experimenting on broke free of containment.
As a Sith, Chymus had felt that the true path to power was through Sith Alchemy, his ultimate goal being not just to craft great and terrifying weapons to crush his enemies, but to eventually transform himself into the ultimate being. More than that, he sought some method of injecting his own blood and midichlorians into other creatures to dominate them. It was all amusingly shortsighted and megalomaniacal, his few genuine scientific achievements wasted by his inability to focus on one area of research for very long.
Of great benefit to Tan'ya, and her goal of learning about what the original Sith culture was like, was Chymus' great interest in the original Sith species. Unfortunately, he didn't list his sources clearly, and he didn't include copies of them in his notes, but he did reference a number of other texts outlining the society of the ancient Sith from before first contact.
Chymus believed that the ancient Sith built every level of their society on ritual sacrifice. Alchemy functioned by extracting midichlorians through the blood of the victim, killing them in the process but infusing materials and even other living things with seemingly impossible properties, creating near-indestructible weapons and armor, and reforging ordinary animals and people into terrible tools of war.
According to him, the original sith lived in a cast based society, ruled over by an emperor called the Sith'ari, the most famous of whom was Marka Ragnos. The Lords, or Darths, would mix their own blood and flesh with a class of professional warriors, called massasi, who were modified for war and combat with harder skin, faster reflexes and the inability to feel fear.
He even claimed that during Marka Ragnos's rise to power, a decapitated rival named Simus had somehow clung to life as just a head using some long lost Darkside power.
To Tan'ya, these tales all seemed quite fanciful. She certainly didn't believe that a head without a body lived for so long after such an injury. At the very least it was an interesting read, and finally provided her with a somewhat plausible sounding explanation as to why the First Sith Empire went to war with the Republic.
They were a feudal society, with each member of the Council ruling their own large fiefdom, and delegating rule of individual planets to various servants and family members. As a result, during the transition from one Sith'ari to another, deep internal rifts played a more important role in their politics than concerns over foreign policy. Supposedly, Sith'ari Ragnos had left no clear successor, leading to a succession crisis that almost threatened to break into open civil war. When Republic explorers stumbled upon the empire, the two factions of the Council seized upon the issue, turning it into another political arena in their dispute.
There was some kind of Jedi or Republic raid to rescue these imprisoned explorers, which led to the pro-war faction seizing power under Naga Sadow. With his powerbase secure and expecting him to lead them to victory, Naga Sadow was able to rally the entirety of the Sith Empire behind him, and purge any remaining internal threats. Essentially, the Sith went to war due to a combination of believing they had been attacked first, not knowing how large their foe truly was, and internal political concerns.
It sounded plausible, if perhaps somewhat coincidental. If the explorers had arrived during the reign of Sith'ari Ragnos, or after Naga Sadow was better established in his office, perhaps the two civilisations could have found a way to exist apart from each other?
Or maybe there never was an explorer, and the war was always inevitable.
Whatever the truth was, Tan'ya finally had something to work with for Volume Four. It wasn't a lot, literally a third hand account from a proven megalomaniac referencing second hand accounts that probably no longer existed, but it at least tried to give a Sith's perspective on what happened.
More important and useful than the information on the First Sith Empire, was the knowledge Chymus notes contained regarding the Tirra'taka. Chymus referred to the unmodified dragons of Serenno by their native name, and his own creations as Kissa'ta. The word combined the sithic words for priest with beast, translating roughly to 'priest monster', or maybe 'predator cleric', in reference to the native people's worship of the creatures. At the time he was writing, the Tirra'taka were already on the verge of extinction, having been hunted relentlessly by the Sith since their arrival, and he considered himself quite fortunate to have discovered a mother with a full nest.
Compared to its unmodified relatives in the wild, Kissa'ta grew much faster. Instead of taking two decades to reach adulthood, the warbeast was sustained by the Dark Side, and would reach physical if not mental maturity in just two years. As a result the Kissa'ta were clumsier at first, and mentally unstable, prone to violent mood swings, but more easily controlled by the firm hand of a powerful Sith. Or maybe not, given that a pair of these 'easily controlled' beasts had destroyed Chymus' entire facility.
The native Tirra'taka mostly used the Force for communication with each other, with only a few ever observed to use a gust from their wings with a burst of Force power to stun prey. Kissa'ta had been changed to draw on the Force, and especially the Dark Side more deeply, allowing them to shoot arcs of lightning from their mouths, and making them grow much larger than their unmodified kin. The largest known Tirra'taka had grown to twenty meters from snout to tail, where the Kissa'ta her father rode was more than fifty meters in length.
Interestingly, Chymus made no mention at all of the Kissa'ta's ability to burrow or dig. It certainly didn't sound anything like a trait of the native born versions of the beast. Looking at the creature's large, winged form in the diagram, nothing about it suggested any kind of inclination towards burrowing. It appeared that particular trait was a learned habit, accomplished almost entirely with the Force, and probably what allowed the specimen to escape captivity and turn the table on its own creators.
In the end Tan'ya was left with a fast growing, fast learning, aggressive super predator with a strong pack instinct. One that even its creators had proven they didn't fully understand.
Tan'ya looked towards the incubator where Marnaidu Morma was growing, feeling a touch of worry. The small pink lips and eyes her sister had drawn on the glass casing couldn't disguise the danger potentially lurking inside. The last thing Tan'ya wanted to do was release a dangerous wild animal like that on an unsuspecting public. Not to mention the benefits of taming such a beast were mostly symbolic. It wasn't like she was expecting to actually ride the thing into battle.
With all the risks involved, maybe it really wasn't such a good idea to attempt to raise the beast, especially when they lacked any facilities for it.
Her musings were interrupted by the sudden feeling of Morma's mind brushing up against her own. It had sensed her anxiety, and was trying to figure out what the problem was.
Dismissing her own concerns, Tan'ya quickly fed the egg some comfort and surety, before looking back to her screen. She had already made her decision, and it would upset Madalee if the egg suddenly went away.
Aboard the bridge of his personal cruiser, Count Dooku had scarcely made it off Dathomir before his holocom chimed with almost forty messages. He stared at the device blankly for a moment, surprised at the amount, and wondering why so many had built up in such a short time. He had only been with Talzin for a day.
Only it had been more than a day. According to the Calendar, it had been almost a week. Some of the later messages from Athemeene were starting to get worried.
Had he really been so immersed in the Dark Side that he'd lost all track of time?
Even now, he felt a strong temptation to return to the planet's surface and resume his training and meditation.
He was going to have to be more careful about the Dark Side's mind altering effects in the future.
There were calls from his wife, from Tanya, Master Yoda and even Mace Windu had tried to contact him. Thankfully, he'd arranged for Ventress to keep an eye on his official business, so he wasn't overwhelmed with calls on that front.
Dooku was just in the middle of calling his wife to assure her that he was fine, when the device rang again.
This time the number was from the public phone at the New Temple. Reluctantly he answered it, and was surprised to see his son Kenth.
"Dad! Did Tanya really get a pet dragon?! Can I have one too?!"