Fic: Secret Empire III

[valandhir]

And here we go for another part.

Disclaimer: This is a private work of fiction, not intended to infringe any copyrights. All rights to the characters and the concepts of Star Wars rest with their respective owners. I receive no money or other compensation.

 

Chapter three – What lies in shadow

 

The ship, it went by the name Emerald Eye, as Kir Kanos had learned by now, dropped out of Hyperspace. On the sensors Kir Kanos saw a lifeless system around a red twin sun. “Where are we here?”

 

“Undram system, readjusting course for Vjun,” Shareán replied concentrating on the instruments before him. “I don’t want to jump in-system the same moment with some meddlesome rebel patrol cruiser. I might be able to lie my way out of some such situations but with an old Imperial stronghold in vicinity even the most gullible Rebel commander is bound to be suspicious.”

 

Kir understood well enough, lying his way through more than one control himself he knew what was likely to make even the more gullible rebel commanders suspicious. “Does Bast Castle still exist?” he inquired while keeping a keen eye on the scanners, in case they’d gain company. “I thought it was looted by some rebels.”

 

“No. Skywalker came there, some time after the reborn Emperor died, as far as I know.” Shareán had plotted their next jump and moved the ship fast towards the ideal jump range. “But Skywalker did not loot, rather had a look around and left without bringing other rebels in. He might have well overlooked what we are searching. He came for other, more personal reasons and whatever he did there; we have to expect the security systems on full alert as a consequence.”

 

No doubt there, Kir was sure that any rebel presence no matter how inconspicuous would trigger the security systems of such a high-profile installation like Bast Castle. “Wouldn’t there be some kind of back entrance or hardware related code to override security?” He asked, remembering the special codes that had granted the Emperor’s chosen agents access to places all over the galaxy. “I cannot imagine any Imperial building without it.”

 

“True,” acknowledged Shareán the idea. “Good thinking. But the trouble here is... Vader was well up concerning technology. When he decided that he wanted to remove the backdoor code from the system then he might have really done it. If there is anyone I believe to be able to do so, it’s him.”

 

“But why?” Kanos replied puzzled. “Why should he remove one of the Emperor’s security systems from his castle?”

 

“Why would anyone do so?” Charyár mused ironically, while he started the jumping sequence, his eyes straight on the viewscreen, avoiding Kir’s gaze. But the meaning of his words was clear enough.

 

“No, you can’t think this.” Kir Kanos said, trying to hide his rising anger. He already knew that Shareán would sometimes have dangerously doubtful thoughts, but this was too much. „Vader was loyal to his Emperor. If anyone was then him.”

 

Shareán sighted. “I am sorry Kir Kanos. You were not in Endor, weren’t you? What a question! Had you been there you’d be dead. Vader turned on the Emperor given the choice between his own son and the Empire.” For several minutes he silently concentrated on guiding the ship into hyperspace. Then he looked up again. “Confronted with his son, Luke Skywalker, dying at the hands of the Emperor, Anakin Skywalker resurfaced in the shell of Lord Vader and… did what some deem was his destiny from the very beginning.”

 

Kir Kanos didn’t say a single word. Despite what he felt, despite the strange allusions to fate, Shareán had given him the final piece to the puzzle he had been working on, for years now. The question how the Emperor died in Endor. The rebels might have hailed Skywalker as the man who killed Palpatine but Kanos had seen the young man fight and knew that he’d never have made it past Lord Vader. And now, he finally knew what had transpired. So Luke Skywalker had been responsible not only for the death of the Emperor but also for the treason of the Emperor’s most trusted. It made Kir’s own duties all the more clear, once they had secured the Regnum-database and found out the truth about the Emperor’s Heir. One small flaw was there in Shareán’s narrative and he didn’t hesitate to adress it: “So you were there, in Endor? How did you survive?”

 

Shareán looked up, startled, wherever his mind had been, it was far away. “I was there, originally to supervise the installation of some new weapon-technology supposed to make the battle station far more efficient. I felt a massive surge of the force, rising from the heart of the station, followed by the typical ebb and flow of the force in a fight. As the Emperor had ordered anyone to stay away from the throne room, I utilised one of my talents – it’s called far-sight – to ‘see’ the events as they transpired. I saw those last minutes, and then felt the Emperor die just moments before the energy-core came apart. With two dozen others I was trapped in a fragment of the superstructure, when it was blown away. We drifted in space for some time, days I think, after the rebels departed for Bakura an Imperial battle cruiser jumped into the system intending to find out what had happened and rescued us among a few other survivors.”

 

For a long time both were silent, caught up in their own thoughts. Eventually Shareán took the conversation back to it’s starting point. “I learned later, that Vader’s loyalties had begun to shift, once he learned he had a son. So I guess he might have disabled Imperial security systems, like the back door codes, but I can’t say for sure.”

 

“But we can prepare.” Kir Kanos answered. “We take heavy explosives along. That should open some doors and the main gate if necessary. We’ll blow up the central multi tasking unit of the installation, I think it’ll do enough damage the security sensor grid to get us past.”

 

Shareán turned around, studying him for a silent moment. “Not a bad idea. You were a commando before they drafted you in?”

 

Kanos nodded. “A long time ago.” Sixty hours later the Emerald Eye completed the Hyperspace Jump to Vjun.

 

***

 

Heavy rain was rattling down on the Emerald Eye’s hull, accompanied by an eternal hissing and bustling when the acidic rain encountered the sturdy metal of the ship’s outer skin. The howling of the wind was loud enough to be heard inside the ship, and strong enough to be felt through a soft shaking from the inside too. A holographic map was slowly rotating within the ship’s central, detailing the surrounding mountains and installation as the sensors had picked them up during landing manouvers. “Nice place for a vacation.” Shareán stated dryly when reading the charts. “The rain contains enough acid to hurt our skin seriously, high wind speeds and if the air pressure readings are right the weather isn’t going to change for the better – ever. Lord Vader’s taste of home was rough.”

 

“Rough places breed strong people.” Kanos replied absorbing every shred of information the sensors could provide. “And by the way – Lord Vader might have chosen this place to free himself from visits of bureaucrats, moffs and other courtiers. You have never been here before?”

 

Shareán seemed to shudder. “I have, but under less than ideal circumstances. After the Kalimsivi-explosion I was brought here on board of one of the recovery ships. I was half blind then from the gas, and nearly half mad with pain, spend some weeks in the infirmary of the castle and was transported off-planet before I could register much about the place.”

 

Kir frowned, of course he knew about Kalimsivi, an important factory of weapons that had been blown up by a rebel group, venting the acidic residue of an experimental Tibannagas-mixture into the atmosphere of the planet. Tens of thousands of people had perished in the doomed city and more had been permanently damaged. The rescue efforts by the Imperial fleet had been heroic but had ultimately produced more damaged people. “Were you there when the bomb hit, or did you come with the ships?” he asked before he could stop himself. The need to verify the bits and pieces he knew about Shareán was still strong, because Kir felt all too clearly that something was off about his now-partner.

 

“Onboard the “Fist of steel”, Shareán explained slowly. “I was there, right on the bridge, when the distress calls came through: screams like we’d never heard them before. We had no idea what caused them, until we had landed there, and learned the hard way what happened when the gas reached the eyes.”

 

Kir didn’t ask anything more. The ship’s name was correct, one of the first wave to go into the doomed place, carrying out thousands of injured and dying people. What was more, Shareán’s words reminded him of a very specific detail, about the gas he had all but forgotten. It checked out with the odd eyecolour he had already recognised with his companion. The violet tinge of the irises along with the silvery specks marring the eyeballs, the damage the gas did to the eyes, if it could be healed, left this kind of a mark. He changed the subject. “I too, was here once. The Emperor came here for some reason and I was among the guardsmen on duty then. The entranceways to the castle are on the far side of that canyon. Half a dozen camouflaged outposts were along the ravine to protect it from an attack. They should be abandoned, but we can use them to hide and recover from the worst of the rain.” Kir had never missed his armor more than in that moment. The clothing Shareán could provide was made for a man not fully of Kir’s size and ill fitting at best. While the weapons cache of the ship had proved to be formidable, providing a new energypike, blaster, heavy weaponary and ammunitions, it held no armor of any kind. Shareán seemed to be untrained in the use of heavy protective gear, not that Kir commented on this aloud.

 

They ran through the stormy day. The rain, falling mercilessly and unceasingly from the ever dark clouds of Vjun, burned in their eyes and left pale marks on their skin. The outposts proved to be half-destroyed ruins, offering next to no shelter from the rough elements. Thus they sped up their dash for the Castle’s entrance, saving their strength for this one attempt. As the Castle became visible in front of the mountains between the rainy skies, it was nothing but another forbidding dark shape in the midst of the falling Vjun day. The long flight of stairs that led to the Castle was slippery from rain and acid, they had to be careful not to slide down again. As they reached the last flight of stairs Kir Kanos saw a small flash from the corner of his eye. He realised faster then Shareán what it was. He jumped forward, throwing him down on the ground. Both of them landed behind the rocky barriers that flanked the staircase. Red laserbeams shot over them and crashed into the rocks.

 

“Thanks.” Whispered Shareán registering what the danger was. A strong grip from Kir Kanos prevented him from rising prematurely. “Don’t move. They are triggered to movement. We need a plan before we move.” Kir explained in a hush. He wasn’t sure whether there might be weapons triggered by sound here too.

 

He felt something she shoved into his hand. “That’s the card with the override code, assuming Vader didn’t erase it.” Shareán replied in equally low tones. “You run to the terminal at the entrance, use the card to shut down the weapons or cut their power, while I take care of the canons.” Kanos nodded curtly. It wasn’t the best plan but it was the only one. He got ready for his sprint to the entrance terminal and Shareán left the cover behind the barrier.

 

The moment Shareán jumped up, the canons started firing again. Most of the laser where intercepted by his whirling red blades, some redirected at their point of origin damaging the cannons in the process, the others just hit the rocks around the canyon. What got through Shareán managed to dodge. Kir Kanos sprinted up the stairs using the cover Shareán was giving him. He did not know how long he could keep up this dance with the lasers and did not want to put it to test. The gate terminal was a robust model for outside use in hostile environments and in perfect working condition. He slid the datacard in and ducked hastily under a laser garb from a third canon that had just started firing. “Accesscode accepted.” He heard the mechanical voice as the canons stopped shooting and the great doors started opening. He came out up again and retook the card. Shareán came running up the stairs. “Lets get inside.”

 

The entrance hall was simply gigantic, even to them who knew the Imperial Palace the hall’s enormous reaches were breathtaking. It was high enough that they could not see the ceiling, huge columns rose from the hallground to vanish in the darkness above, supporting an unseen vaulted ceiling somwhere up there. He emptiness of the place added to the lost feeling, making them both uncomfortable with so much open space without cover. Only a broken statue was lying in the hall’s very centre, large chunks of black stone disrupting the ordered emptiness of the room. Left and right of the hall a flight of stairs led upwards to the upper halls of Bast Castle. Corridors were also to both sides on the same level. “Datacore and personal rooms were upstairs.” Kir Kanos pointed out after checking the hall for potential dangers.

 

Shareán nodded in assent. “Let’s get moving, there are strange echoes all over the place. Like presences, coming, going and fading. Small wonder people believe this place haunted.”

 

Bast Castle lay in complete silence, their presence the only disturbance to the grave-like silence of Lord Vader’s fortress; any step they took echoed through the empty hallways, fading away only to be heard again; ghostly echoes of people that were not there. Shareán and Kir Kanos hurried upward on the long flights of stairs at the left side of the castle. It wasn’t really the place that made them nervous; they both were used to such surroundings, and knew how to deal with the sinister atmosphere these places emanated. But something else was off, and made them wince at every new echo of their own steps that came back to haunt them. A little nagging voice inside them whispered that all this had been too easy - all too easy - that no one treated the grounds of Vader’s castle without encountering the traps the dead Sith Lord had left for him, that there were dangers hidden between these walls they’d not dare to brave. And while they walked gradually upwards, the feeling became stronger and more pressing. But as closely as Kir Kanos observed any place they passed and as intently as Shareán listened out into the force, they did not discover anything but emptiness. Large spaces devoid of life, filled with echoes of the past, voices of people long gone, still caught in the empty hallways. Eventually they reached the mid section of Bast Castle. “Here we are; the Datacore should be down this corridor.” Shareán said in whisper. Even his hushed voice caused echoes along the corridors, wandering off, perhaps reverberating at some higher level. Kanos just nodded. He did not want to add any noise to the blasted echoes of this castle. He pointed down the corridor and checked the other flight of stairs again. Keenly observing the shadowed flight of stairs he took his time to study the stairs for some moments. He had had the feeling that someone was up there, hiding out in the shadows, but then he could see nothing but an empty stairway on the other side of the huge central hall. Perhaps it was some other ghost was still haunting this place.

 

***

 

The man clad in dark grey fatigues did not move until the two figures had vanished into another one of Bast Castle’s corridors. He was glad his clothes helped him hide from the hawk like gaze of the former guardsman. He had the nagging feeling that he had been seen, if only briefly. He checked again that both of them had walked on, before he took up his comlink. “Leader, this is Kestrel speaking. I have located him. He really came to Bast Castle, identification is positive. But he’s not alone. He seems to have teamed up with former Royal Guardsman Kir Kanos.”

 

For a moment there was silence and crackling static in the com, then he heard the team leader’s voice speaking in the sharp, precise tones he was accustomed to. “I knew it. The rumours must have spread far wider than we anticipated. Secret Empire was sure to move on it and they would have sent him. He’s the best they probably have and one of the few, actually able to identify the right man. So there might be truly something to the story of Palpatine’s child. Kanos coming along makes the things a little bit more complicated. I believed he worked alone. Perhaps we have spread what Vader knew and what we know a little bit too far. It must sound reliable enough for the former guardsman to change his MO. Keep an eye on them but stay away from Shareán’s feeling range and out of the guardsman’s sight. I’ll move the team in.”

 

The watcher acknowledged his orders. Inwardly he smiled. He’d doubted Secret Empire would move on a rumour so impetuous like this one, but his leader had proven again, that he was able to predict their reactions precisely. Silently and cautiously he started following the two people through the dark castle.

 

***

 

Kir Kanos listened back into the corridor, they’d just left. For moments he thought he had heard the echo of a voice. A male voice, speaking in hushed tones. And as he had spoken no word since they had entered this level, it was pretty unlikely that he had heard his own voice, echoing back to him: there had be someone else in here. But as he listened on he heard nothing just their own steps in the floor. A door opened before them and they finally stood in the room that housed the access to the datacore. It was a large room with just one door, and a circular installation of computers and terminals. The ceiling was far lower than elsewhere in the Castle and without any departing corridors the room was blessedly echo-free. As the door had closed behind them he spoke for the first time since they’d come up so far. “There might be someone out there. I thought I heard a voice, back when we left the stairwell.”

 

Shareán nodded curtly. “I heard it too. And there was a faint echo of a presence too. Let’s hurry.”

 

“You get the data, I’ll guard the door.” Kanos replied, taking his post.

 

Shareán had walked over to the central terminal and begun his work without delay. Time seemed to move in slow motion when Kir Kanos studied of the door he was waiting to burst open and it seemed to rush when he looked back to Shareán working with Bast Castle’s mainframe. He had already copied enough data to fill a stack of datacards by now but if he had found the right one Kanos did not know. Another card, a mulitspace card slid out of the writer, another part of the Regnum-database probably. “Got it.” Shareán said, stashing the datacards in his backpack.

 

Kir was relieved Shareán had made such fast work of the job on the mainframe. It was often enough a tedious job to go through large assortments of files to find the right ones. From the blinking of the main display he judged that Shareán had ordered some data erased. “Let’s get out of here.” He had the feeling that their time was running short.

 

They had left the data core room and raced back to the hall of stairs, as a sudden movement caused them to stop. On the stairs and in any entrance to the hallways stood troops, Stormtroopers, their weapons aimed at them, ready to shoot.

 

“Did we not leave this party some days ago?” murmured Shareán while gripping his lightsaber, falling into a clear defence position.

 

“I would advise against this.” A voice from the upper stairs called out to them. “Be co- operative and we’ll keep this as civil as possible.”

 

Shareán moved his hand away from the lightsaber’s hilt. He could get it anyway, without standing obviously ready. “What do you want? The data we recovered is...”

 

“Not my concern.” The male voice interrupted him, sharply. “If someone wants to find this child of Palpatines he’s welcome. Knock yourselves out. I want the Secret Empire access codes Shareán, along with the starmap needed to get there. Give them to me and you and Kanos will leave here alive.”

 

“What do you prattle there?” Kanos jumped in, he had no idea what this guy was talking about but this seemed to be his standard fare these days when speaking with Imperials. A cold laughter erupted from upstairs as a man in Imperial uniform came round the stair’s corner and stopped behind the stormtroopers. “Keep your mouth shut, Guardsman,” he said coldly. “Speaking is not your job. Shareán, I know you have the codes of Secret Empire, being one of their best agents you must also have some parts of the maps needed to locate it. Give them to me, before I hand you over to some interrogation droid.”

 

“Even if I had them, what do you want with it? Why do you want to find them? They’re on the same side as you are.” Shareán said shifting his position slightly.

 

The officer shook his head. “No, they aren’t. The Empire doesn’t need some dreamers who want the past back. And it does not need an independent network that rejects formal hierarchy. I know you are one of them. You did much for them during the past three years. You must have the codes. Give them to me and you won’t be harmed.”

 

Shareán felt Kir Kanos hand, tipping his wrist in a sharp, precise rhythm. He knew the tap code, it was a secret way of communication, that had been developed from sign language. He concentrated on the message, the guardsman relayed by a series of short tips. Short-long-three fast-two slow-double fast-single long. It took him a moment, than he began translating it in his mind: ‘See the window over there – twenty meters down - a ledge – saw it –on the way up – fight our way there – then jump – ok?’

 

Shareán nodded. It was the answer for Kir Kanos but the officer thought it meant Shareán was giving in. “I knew you would be...” He did not speak anything more because Shareán and Kanos had moved to attack in unison. Their fighting style complimented each others quite well and they made cut their way throught the firing stormtroopers and attacking troops to the window within few minutes. The maon hall was a hell of lasers, refracting shorts, grenade explosions, and streams of troopers being pushed from the stairs, down in the hall. The path both fighters cut through enemy ranks was littered with bodies and rung from panicked screams. As they reached the high window reinforcements just raced into the grand hall. Shorts had shattered the window long before they could reach it anyway. On Shareán’s sign they both jumped through it and landed on the ledge, deep below. Kanos jumped the moment he landed to the side and avoided a laser shot aimed at him from above. Shareán got hit, and fell down. He came up to his feet again and they ran along the ledge and jumped down as soon as they saw another ledge below them. They knew they had bought only a short time until the grounds below would be swarming with troops. Thus they took the shortest route down, sometimes Shareán used his powers to allow Kir to jump down deeps the guardsman couldn’t have survived otherwise. When they reached the ground a little bit sideways from the main entrance but in seeing range of their ship, a heavy garb of fire rained down on them. The stormtroopers had made their way on one of the ledges and were firing at them. Half way to the ship Kanos saw Shareán stumble, hit by several shots. He raced back, to help him but Shareán made it back to his feet. He felt some of the shots blast by all too close. Together they ran and made the last meters to the ship. In the boarding ramp the first of a series of Merson-Ra Flechettes hit the ground around them. Shareán was nearly caught in the blast, deflecting it with his forcepowers. As soon as the ramp was up, Kir Kanos sped to the central and jumped into the pilot’s seat. The first stormtroopers were already swarming out of the main gates. He initiated an immediate takeoff and prepared the jump while still running out of Vjun’s outer atmosphere. When they reached space he could see no interdictor cruiser or other nasty surprise. He let the Emerald Eye race out of the planets gravity circle and as soon as he was clear of it they made the jump.

***

“Can you tend to your wound the same way you did to mine?” asked Kir Kanos as soon as he had handed the ship back to the autopilot and examined the contents of the med-pack before him. To his mind it lacked some vital supplies.

Shareán sat there, bend forward, elbows resting on his knees, obviously using a force-technique to tone down the pain. “No.” he said. “Healing others is completely different from healing oneself. It is like the mind trick you can’t play it on yourself I suppose. Just hand me some of the Kol-bandages and the burn salve and I should be fine.”

“You seem to run low on bacta.” Kir observed. He knew there was a good supply onboard, reserved for the tank, down below in the ship, but it was completely missing in the med-kit.

 

“No, I don’t use it – allergic.” Charyar explained while wrapping an odd-smelling bandage around his badly burned wrist. “But there are plenty of second options to bacta, anway.”

Kir Kanos was well aware of that, Ryll, Kolto and a dozen other substances provided similar effects but either were they less efficient than bacta or rather hard to come by. Bacta allergies were rare and most of them could be cured, the tiny percentage people who couldn’t had usually been treated with contaminated bacta and this had nearly never happened since the Clone-wars. The two instances during the Empire’s reign had been dealt with harshly, so Bacta-allergies due to bad Bacta had been virtually unknown. Albeit, Kir Kanos admitted, this could have easily changed in recent years. He wouldn’t trust the New Republic to keep up the strict controls on Bacta- shipments the Empire had implemented. He saw that Shareán was done, stowing away the unused burn-salve and leaned back more relaxed in his seat. “We need to talk,” Kir began slowly. “if you have the strength for it.”

A strange smile lit Shareán’s face for moments, before he hastily looked down on his hands. “You’re perhaps the most generous man I’ve ever met.” He said in very low tones.

“What?” Kir had expected anything, from outright denial to imminent attack but not such a strange reaction.

Shareán looked up again, his violet eyes held a strange expression that did not translate to his face, which was completely composed. “You ran into trouble because of a man, who has apparently missed to tell you some facts about his mission, and more important – his enemies; you save the day by quick thinking and sheer bravery on the escape out of a trap and when you come to the point to give him a harsh talking to; you would even let your companion the chance to recover his strength beforehand. It is rare that someone doesn’t use an advantage he gets, or flies into a righteous rage about anything that goes wrong.” Shareán shook his head. “I really have to apologise to you...”

Kir interrupted his words with a short gesture. “Don’t praise me too much; you’ve never seen me really angry. And don’t apologise. I have not asked exactly who you are and what you where. Anyone has his own secrets. Anyway, I always anticipated that you had to come from somewhere to be send to re-assemble the Regnum-database. But even I have never heard of this ‘Secret Empire’, and I have made a point of knowing loyalist organisations out there, provided that it isn’t a wild Bantha chase of course.” Kir didn’t really know why he did include this option at all; it practically invited Shareán to say that ‘Secret Empire’ was just a phantom their attackers were chasing after.

For moments Shareán sat completely still, like he was contemplating something invisible and far away. “They knew exactly what they were doing, Kir,” he eventually replied. “They know rightly that the Secret Empire exists and that I belong among it’s defenders. As far as I can judge I am the only person with access to Secret Empire, they could identify up till now, hence the assault.”

Kir Kanos leaned back in the pilot’s chair, digesting the information. So this group ‘Secret Empire’ existed, or whatever it might be and Shareán was the only face of them, the remnant ex-Imperials had to go on, small wonder that they had ambushed them. Kir wouldn’t have chosen such a blunt approach, but no one ever accused the traitorous remnant forces of having style. “So far, so clear,” he indicated his acceptance of the information. “but there was this talk of access codes and starmaps, and they were not talking of the Regnum-database weren’t they?”

Shareán nodded. “Luckily they have overlooked Regnum-database so far. It would be more than dangerous in their hands. Do you know what one could do with that kind of data?”

“One could bring down the rebellion.” Kanos observed. “Look at Carida. This Rebel-Jedi, Durron, acted swiftly and efficiently against the Imperial Warlords. Luckily for us that their politicians lost their guts...” He did not speak on, when he saw Shareán growing pale.

A pain that was not caused by Kanos’ words or the fresh wounds, marked his face, Shareán bit his lip and clenched his fists in an attempt to control the pain. “Please don’t speak on,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “You did not feel the pain when Alderaan was destroyed, and when Carida burned. I have heard their screams, the screams of all their people, when they died. I still do hear them at times… in the dark, screams and screams echoing through the night… I prayed for my death when it happened.” In a rash move Shareán rose, walking towards the viewport, leaning against the cold transparisteel, he stood unmoving, staring out into the darkness; turning his back towards Kanos, attempting to hide his struggle for a measure of countenance.

For a moment, he did not know how long, Kir Kanos sat unmoving, unsure how to react, unable to really react. In many years he had not encountered a person who did not hide the emotional wounds inflicted throughout life or was not able to do so. Mirith had buried her pain in determination and revenge, Ken had carried his scars in silence, others had never known real suffering. His own experiences could hardly apply here, he had never cared much about killing, nor had he ever been bothered by the shades of those whose life he had taken: And he was able to remember nearly any person he had killed, provided he had seen the face. Yet, he had never felt haunted by these memories; their faces never troubled his sleep. He was, after all, a warrior and death was his most loyal companion. There were a few beings he regretted to have killed. Sadeet, whom he had slain accidentally was a good example for these he and Lemmet Tauk, his friend who had died on the last deadly test on Yinchorr by Kanos’ hand. But he had learned to accept that they had died, that he had killed them, and regret as he might it, their shadows had never haunted him. The death of people far away, in strange solar systems, was hardly more than distant, vague information to him, without personal weight to make it relevant; or so he had thought. When he tried to imagine feeling a person die, not to see or witness it, but to feel how the life drained away, the flame snuffed out, he shuddered involuntarily. It must be like dying oneself and to feel millions of people die must be horrific. Again he asked himself if the gift of the force wasn’t a curse on those who got it. He had asked himself this before, when he saw how it had twisted Carnor Jax.

Shareán turned around and straightened his shoulders, his face composed again. “Let’s speak of other things, Kir,” he said while sitting down again. “You asked about the Secret Empire – it is an organisation, in fact older than the Empire itself. Early in the Clone-wars the battle of Kamino made clear how easily the cloning facilities could be endangered. Thus Chancellor Palpatine ordered another facility to be built in a remote, hard to navigate nebula. He entrusted it to an old mentor, who was above any suspicion. What began as a single installation grew as the demands of the war grew. A second cloning facility followed in a short time, along with more scientists, and as the republican shipyards were more and more clogged down with the ships damaged and rebuilding the losses, the Chancellor moved the resources for research and new vessels partly to the secret location. Other factories came soon after, and with it came personal, that was in need of basic supplies. The chancellor, anticipating the enemy, and perhaps the Jedi, to find the facilities if there were too many regular transports were going that way, the Keeper of the location, decided to bring everything needed into the hiding place. Among the refugees, fleeing from the horrors of the war, he found farmers and craftsfolk, merchants and service-personal to whom vanishing from the galaxy seemed a small price to pay for a safe and secure haven. By the time the war was over, the secret location spanned five star system inside the maze-like Nebula and resembled a small but prospering state. The Emperor saw the worth of the place, and charged his former mentor to take care of it in the future, throughout the next decade the place grew, expanding throughout the complete hideout nebula, building up a small Empire inside the Empire, a secret powersource to support the larger Empire in times of need. When the Empire eventually encountered civil insurgency on a massive scale, the Emperor moved more critical installations inside the hiding Nebula.”

Kanos had listened without interrupting to this point. The story corroborated with some whispered rumours that had been around among the guardsmen. It fit another detail, he remember from his times of duty, a small part of information, that could easily prove, whether Shareán was speaking the truth. ”if one of your messengers had to come to the palace to report to his Majesty, what was the sign, you gave the guards?” he inquired, studying Shareán sharply.

Something, that might have been a smile, flashed up in Shareáns eyes. Gracefully he raised his hand and a spark of light rose above it, expanding into a flare, rapidly becoming an intricate symbol of burning light. “A stranger I came, in the dead of night, and a stranger I will depart before dawn.” Shareán spoke the code phrase, like something he had done very often.

Kanos recognised the sign, albeit it often had been a metal plaque shaped like the symbol, and another code, but both, the burning sign and the phrase had just given away Shareán for a rather high-level member of what had then been an unknown organisation to Kir. There had been only one code of higher rank, one which he had never seen used. “It’s correct.” He announced his assessment. “but why has no one heard of you, since the Empire fell?”

Shareán sighed. “I already told you, that I was at Endor, Secret Empire had contributed some brand-new technology for the project. I was the one, to bring the report of the events back to Illascar – that’s our capital city – and I was present, when the special orders, left for exact that case, were opened. We were to hide, to break off the scarce contact we had with the rest of the Empire, and wait to be contacted by the Emperor reborn. So we did, we sealed off our borders, and concentrated on preparing for the day of the return. But it never came, it took long before we heard of the events in Byss and of the final death of the Emperor. Only afterwards we began to interact with the galaxy outside again, finding ourselves in a deadlock between the Rebellion and the Imperial warlords.”

And suddenly Kir understood why Shareán had offered him to assist with the search for the Emperor’s Heir: if there was a son of Palpatine, then Secret Empire had still a purpose and their long wait had not been in vain. He himself felt energized suddenly, if Secret Empire was all Shareán claimed, then they had a true chance to be a true asset once they began to fight for restoring the galactic throne. The Emperor himself had taken care to build a powerbase that could support such a war effort. “Perhaps the Emperor foresaw that Secret Empire would be needed for his son, and that’s why he never contacted you again.” Kir said with force, this had to be the answer. “All we have to do is to find the Heir of the Empire and the Regnum-database.” For a moment he feared Shareán might prove hesitant or otherwise reluctant, but the other man nodded in assent. “Let’s begin.”