Bright Shadow - Prologue

Book: ***Bright Shadow***

***Prologue***

 The Sith Emperor sat on the edge of a gargantuan cliffside, meditating on his eternal supply of hatred and fury. His skin was pale and smooth, besmeared by black tattoos scarring their way across his dry mouth. His eyes of yellow burned with a greater flame than any raging inferno could ever produce. His black, tattered robes swayed in wind so heavy it would knock over a normal person and send them plummeting down the side of the cliff to a painful demise. In front of him was his lightsaber, levitating off the edge of the great mountain. The man channelled his energy to keep his prized blade from falling down the vertical slopes and being lost forever. Whether through arrogance or genuine confidence in his concentration, he kept the metal hilt afloat in the air.

From his personal abode atop the cliff, Emperor Kalluux observed the sacred tomb world of Korriban, once again at the precipice of another attack from the endless armies of the Republic. The powerful Dark Lord looked out into the great expanse that laid before him: The Valley of the Dark Lords; undoubtedly the site of the next great battle. There were still thousands of warriors that had zealously pledged their allegiance to Kalluux and were willing to fight for him in the conflict that loomed over them; Imperial troopers, Sith Minions and Dark Lords; all nefariously positioned along the Valley, awaiting the next attack from the soldiers of the Old Republic.

Every member fighting under the Empire’s banner was protected by a Force-Shield generated from a ritual performed by the Dark Council. Without it, the ships of the Republic would bombard the Sith into flesh and ash. Though it was difficult to maintain, the ancient ritual had served the archaic Sith Empire well for the past few hundred years. The Republic had been relentlessly attacking their homeworld with seemingly endless fleets of star-destroyers. This has been the face of Korriban for almost a century. But Kalluux had an ingenious plan to defeat the Republic once and for all.

After the annihilation of the old Sith Dynasty, the first incarnation of the Sith Order had finally been defeated. Several holdouts and remnants were established across the galaxy in the wake of the war’s conclusion. Each one was led by an ambitious Sith Lord claiming to be the future of the Sith and desperately tried to entice surviving Imperials to join them.

After only a few short years, however, these fledgling Empires had already dissolved due to infighting and power struggles that shattered any hope for a new, united Empire. The untimely death of the Sith founder’s last descendant led to the creation of a massive power vacuum within the Sith. The power-hungry Dark Lords did not see the demise of the old dynasty as an opportunity to reform the Sith Order and finally defeat the Jedi, but rather than an opportunity to enrich their own power and expand their own influence. As a result, the Old Republic’s attack upon the Sith had been a pushover. All the Jedi had to do was wait and let the serpent of the Dark Side eat its own tail. The hunger of the Dark Side snake would never be satisfied.

Most holdouts and remnants quickly collapsed in on themselves, with only a few uniting and taking the fight to the Republic. But there were simply not enough dark warriors left to challenge the united power of the Republic and the once mighty Sith war machine was broken. It appeared to be the end for the Sith. The situation was hopeless. The Republic surely had victory within the palm of their hands.

The Republic knew full well the terror of the Sith and the suffering they inflicted on the galaxy during the last war, and so their leaders collectively decided to deny the evil of the Sith to rise once more. They feared a resurgence of the great darkness and, with the warriors of the Jedi Order at their side, they sent a massive invasion force to Korriban in secret to finally end the war.

The Republic populous, at this point in time, believed the war was over. That the Sith Order which had stood for almost a dozen millennia had been vanquished. They would have rather lived a lie, only wishing it was true that the last of the Sith had fallen at the hands of their brave soldiers. In reality, however, the generals in charge of the Republic Navy were simply holding the darkness on lockdown, never being able to fully quell the monstrosity that was the Sith, only ever keeping it caged like a rabid animal.

Seeing their ancestral homeland occupied by their ultimate nemeses sent a shiver down the spine of even the most composed Dark Lords. Fear, a tool usually renowned as one of the Sith’s greatest weapons, had become their crippling weakness as the Republic subsequently surrounded the planet behind an impenetrable blockade. They would then regularly bomb the planet, either from orbit or with starfighters. They did not care with which methods they used, no matter how brutal or morally questionable. Anything to prevent the rise of the Sith again.

Unbeknownst to the Republic, they had not only been bombing the sadistic, corrupt Sith Lords, but regular Imperials as well. Civilians, servants, even slaves who would have been loyal to the Republic before their subjugation. In their desperation to rid the galaxy of the Sith Order and their brutal ways, the Republic had inadvertently caused the deaths of thousands of innocent bystanders to the war. Families and children were almost always caught between the Republic cannons and their Sith targets. The Republic was committing a mass genocide against the people of Korriban and they had no idea.

Which is why so many surviving Imperials and Sith Lords flocked to the remnant that had occupied the sacred Valley of the Dark Lords in the northern hemisphere, the cradle of the Sith Order. Surrounded by the rich history and lore of the ancient Sith, the people who had joined with the new Sith Empire felt a wave of duty to protect their heritage from destruction.

The brainchild behind this new superpower was a man named Anaxun. The young self-proclaimed Emperor had devised an ingenious plan to preserve the power of the Sith. First, he established the Dark Council; twelve of the best Sith Lords that had come to his side. They would relay his demands to the people and enforce his new rules. Using this power, Anaxun then outlawed the power struggles and infighting that had crippled the Sith in recent centuries. Any Sith who attempted to kill a brother or sister in the Force was severely punished. Anaxun had reshaped what it meant to be a Sith. Heresy to some, but saving grace to others.

After the vengeful clutches of the Republic and Jedi had destroyed the last of the other remnants, they soon set their eyes upon Anaxun’s new Empire, the final trace of the Sith. If Anaxun’s Empire fell, it would mean the end of the Sith.

But survive they did.

Anaxun and his twelve Dark Council members had the knowledge of the old Sith passed down to them by their forefathers. Amongst the sacred knowledge they had been taught, a powerful ability had been rediscovered: The Force-Shield. The combined power of thirteen Dark Lords was more than enough to conjure this incredible feat of Force art. The spectacular use of the dark side created a field of impenetrable energy that the Republic could not fire through. Any attempt to breach the shield was simply absorbed by it, something that infuriated the Republic commanders. When planetary bombardment failed, the foolish Republic generals sent in their fighters to enter the force-field and bomb the Sith from within their protective cocoon. A fair idea in theory, but detrimentally disastrous in practice.

The fighters would enter the Force-Shield with their bombs primed and ready. But the Sith were more than prepared for them. Using the united power of the dark side from several Sith Lords at once, they were able to freeze the Republic fighters in place once they entered the shield. The unfortunate Republic pilots were helpless as the bombs they had primed went off in their own fighters. They were like flies trapped on a board of Alderaanian honey that was suddenly set aflame. All they could do was panic as their deaths inevitably came for them.

The arrogant and blood-mad Republic generals were furious at the defeat of their fighter squadrons. Their pride had betrayed them. They would not allow the Sith to survive after so many easy and quick victories, and so they threw everything they had at Anaxun and his Imperial remnant. The bloodbath that ensued was glorious for the Sith. Hundreds of fighters were downed by the Sith’s crippling Freeze Wall. Hundreds of pilots were needlessly killed by the rage of a few petty generals.

The Imperials would then salvage the metal parts of the downed Republic fighters and, through their superior technical mastery, created defensive cannons that shot down every ship that came near to the Valley. One Republic general became so arrogant, that he piloted his Star-Destroyer in closer to the valley to reattempt the planetary bombardment. In turn, he had his Star-destroyer shot down by the very cannons built from the Republic fighters. Seeing an entire Republic battleship crash into the red sands of Korriban was a massive morale boost for the Sith and their minions and only emboldened Anaxun and his warriors to fight harder for their survival. The Imperials then salvaged the parts of that destroyer and amassed even more powerful defences. The snake of the Dark Side may eat itself, but the destructive cycle of arrogance is far more dangerous.

By the time of Kalluux’s reign as Emperor, the Valley of the Dark Lords had become an impenetrable fortress, reachable only by ground assault. The Jedi, heavily critical of the Republic’s strategies, led the first charge against the Sith. But the overconfident Jedi masters were expecting to find a tired and worn out fighting force of a few meagre Sith. Even the greatest of Jedi could fall to arrogance when victory was just beyond their grasp. Unluckily for them, the Sith were finally united under a strong and wise leader. No infighting meant the Sith could focus all their hatred on the Jedi.

The first attack was a massacre of untold proportions. For every Sith that fell in battle, eight Jedi were killed. Even as the Jedi tried to alter their strategies over the years, they still fell in droves over and over against the most terrifying thing they had ever witnessed: a fully united Sith army.

The Sith couldn’t believe their luck. They went from squabbling amongst themselves in petty power grabs to reforming the Sith way into something out of the Jedi’s nightmares. This seemingly insignificant little holdout built in the birthplace of the Sith had survived oblivion and became a fortified manifestation of the dark side itself. Anaxun and his followers held out against the gruelling Republic siege for almost one hundred years. And under the rule of Emperor Kalluux, it would finally have its vengeance.

Kalluux was the son of the mighty Anaxun and the legacy of his father had been bestowed upon him. Upon his father’s death, it was now his responsibility to uphold the principles of Emperor in this glorious, new Empire. It had been near a century since the Republic began their unknowing genocide of the Sith people and they were not giving up any time soon. Despite their many successes and their victory in the last war, the Republic was becoming desperate and tired of the hundred-year long bombardment of Korriban. The blockade force was running out of soldiers and the Jedi refused to send any more knights to their aid. Now the Republic was left with only a handful of Jedi and a couple thousand soldiers. The senate could not commission more troops to the battle as they were trying to keep their illegal occupation under wraps. If the public knew about the heinous war crimes that had been committed by the Republic, there would be chaos in the Core Worlds; something that the Sith were counting on.

Some commanders wanted the long siege to end more than the Sith did. But the grand generals of the navy refused to be bested by one tiny holdout. They altered their strategies again and again. They had thought they would be able to starve out the Sith, force them to surrender out of hunger or die from it. But as it so often was, the Sith had another trick up their sleeves.

The Empire had secret underground tunnels and catacombs, once used as burial grounds for the most prestigious Lords of the Sith, that ran from the Valley all the way to farming villages that were fuelling the fortified Valley in secret. Although the planetary bombardments had virtually destroyed every city in on the planet, there were still many villages that were scattered across Korriban that had pledged their loyalty to the new Empire. Even if the Republic knew they existed, they would ultimately appear insignificant and were not worth the attention of the Republic commanders. This was excellent news to the Sith. If needed, the Sith could wait out the siege as long as the farms produced their food which already had sufficiently lasted them for many decades. All it would take was for one Republic general to snap. It was the ultimate stalemate between the two factions, with each waiting for the other to break under the pressure.

Very little grew on the sands of Korriban but what did grow in its red soils were the only thing keeping the Empire alive. There were hundreds of small farms growing several extremely important food stuffs for the Empire; black spices, Norinthian wheats, Korr-fruits, anything that could be grown on the scorched soils of the Sith world was harvested and sent to the Empire. This, of course, was all thanks to the genius of Anaxun. He truly had brought the Sith out of a crisis of power and set the groundworks for a new Sith golden age.

Still, despite the Sith’s miraculous survival, they were still under siege from a massive blockade. Although they had been able to secure their survival, there had still not yet been a real victory for them. Any victory they had managed was symbolic, often in-name-only. Kalluux was keen to be the Emperor who would break the siege of Korriban and return the Sith Order to a new equilibrium of power, greater than it had ever been before.

Behind Kalluux stood a servant, a short man similarly dressed in black, holding a communicator in his hand. He kneeled before the meditating Emperor and awaited his master’s notice. Kalluux stood from his meditation, now fuelled with the rage of a hundred Sith Lords. As he picked up the communicator, he looked back up to the red skies of Korriban to observe the fleet that was entering the atmosphere; it was bigger than any other invasion force he had ever seen; Multiple star destroyers accompanied by even more transport ships. Kalluux had enough war experience to know that those transports were filled with thousands of Republic troops and hundreds of Jedi Knights, who would begin to storm the Valley of the Dark Lords within the hour. Kalluux scoffed at the mere thought of the Jedi and placed the communicator to his ear. A static voice spoke eagerly into his ear, quick and to the point. Kalluux, not taking his eyes off the massive invasion force that was headed for his fortress valley, needed only to give the order;

“Send in the fleet”.

Next Chapter: ***Chapter 1 - Foundations of Vengeance***

Copyright Jacob Burbidge 2019