SithLore

The valley was carved by the traffic of its own bones and veins, a wound in the land left to fester beneath the wan glow of twin moons. One hung red and shattered in the sky, its broken face fractured into drifting shards, each catching the faintest glint of the pale green moon that loomed behind it, fuller, heavier, dense with suggestion. The light they shed was unnatural, copper streaked with sickly jade, casting the valley in shades of rusted steel and muted emerald.

The compound lay low in this hollowed, certainly not hallowed place, crouched as though ashamed to be seen. It was black on black, a flat matte even when the light of day happened upon it. Barbed fences wove themselves like rusted spider silk along the perimeter, their posts leaning inward, spiked and crooked, as though unsure whether to keep the world out or the inhabitants within. The dirt roads leading in were pockmarked with heavy tread, ruts left by transports that hadn’t bothered to slow.

Repurposed mine shafts dotted the hills rising on either side of the valley, their mouths gaping open like wounds. Metal rails, half buried and eaten by rust, jutted out from the entrances like exposed ribs. Here and there, faint echoes of movement reverberated from within: the metallic clink of tools or the rumble of distant machinery, sounds softened by layers of earth but unmistakable, like the groan of a creature too weary to roar. The air hung thick and still, parched by the endless thirst of a dry season that never seemed to relent. It touched the skin like paper dragged across open palms, faintly abrasive, leaving the mouth tacky and raw with dust.
Above the compound, perched on a knoll of cracked rock, stood a solitary cabin. Its silhouette was skeletal, a thing left behind and forgotten, its siding warped and peeling from long years under indifferent suns. The shutters were drawn, and the roof sagged just slightly in the center, as though it had settled into a slouch against its own weary weight. From the right angle, it might have been mistaken for an shadowy husk, one of those structures that nature would reclaim in time.

But there was light, just the barest glow leaking from between the slats of the windows. The light was warm, honey hued, thick and viscous against the inky blackness that swallowed the cabin’s edges. It was the kind of light that betrayed life. Faint wisps of smoke curled from the slatted windows too sparse to be heat and too deliberate to be idle burn off. They hung in the air, twisting as though unsure where to go, before dispersing reluctantly into the sky.

The smoke carried a scent that the wind refused to hide: narcotic and rich, the unmistakable musk of something burned not for warmth but for escape. It was thick, cloying, leaving the throat tight and dry just from a whiff. Sweet and resinous at first, but underneath that sweetness lay a bitterness that scraped against the back of the sinuses like grit. It was the kind of smell that stuck to the walls and clung to clothes, that soaked into woodgrain and lingered long after the fires had burned out. Beneath the hill, the compound spread itself low and broad, a sprawl of haphazard structures assembled without care for symmetry or permanence. Barracks jostled against hangars, their exteriors scorched and dented, patched with sheets of metal that absorbed all light. Spotlights mounted on tall pylons pierced the darkness, their beams scanning methodically across the valley floor in sporadic abbreviated rotations. The lights sputtered occasionally before dipping back into their covert natural state.

Here and there, the ground was marked by shallow depressions, landing zones burned black and glassy from ships that had come and gone Scorched fuel stains traced lines toward the hangars, where half disassembled craft rested like broken insects, their wings folded and their innards exposed. Black cranes stood idle above them, their obsidian cables swaying gently, whispering against the wind.

The silence of the valley was deceptive. It wasn’t the silence of emptiness but the silence of professional discretion. Movement stirred in fits and starts, only as necessary. A figure stepped briefly into the light of a doorway, broad shouldered and bent slightly forward, carrying something heavy. Another shape shifted beyond a window, the faint glow of a torch flaring and then vanishing.

The moons watched it all, impassive and unblinking. Their light vanished against the structures, missing every scar worn into the compound’s metal skin. The shattered moon seemed closer than it had any right to be, its broken face looming large in the sky, its red glow spilling downward, blood diluted in water. Its pale green counterpart was softer, cloaked in swirls of faint vegetation, but its glow carried an unnatural coldness, seeping into the valley, frost through cracked glass.

Somewhere in the hills, something shifted, the suggestion of a freighter engine grinding lower atmosphere before settling in. The non echoes rolled down into the valley and vanished, swallowed whole by the stillness.

The lurching figure came again to the backlit door and extinguished the synthetic lantern beside him.

A deep inhale caused his deathstick to flare, bringing an elongated reprieve from shadow long swallowing his face. He peered into the horizon with the gaze that only accompanied the most honed of predators.

And that he was. Had to be. Overseeing this operation and the creatures which stirred in the kennels beneath him required nothing short of it.

He silently gesticulated to his cohorts sharing his dark cover, their own eyes already adjusted and ready to drink his commands.

Though the singe of ozone was offset by the dance of stim trails, the crew was alert and on the prowl. The lurching man's steady hand hovered over a manual control lever.

The black on black compound flatly held its breath, felt its slowed pulse.

Second hand droids were a dime a dozen in industrial compounds, usually bought in bulk, wiped, and reprogrammed for your general daily workload where the budget lacked for meat and bone manpower. Run them till they break down and never worry about repair. Just replace with a fresh batch of old bots and you have yourself a decent low cost, low investment operation. So naturally, a domestic model with some modifications out of dozens of offloaded junk droids would get nothing more than a quick dust off and a total memory bank wipe before a new protocol chip was inserted to get it ready for simple barracks attendance tasks.
B1-NDA Was the old name given to the droid, who for the past four months spent its time making cots, skullery work, cleaning toilets, and handling laundry, acting in accordance with its new chip even though its task and memory banks operated off hidden hardware behind a false interior backing.

The employee who installed it’s new chip didn’t realize he merely plugged it into decoy hardware. Nor did he the second droid of this nature to come through his shop. Why would he? They were different models from different manufacturers, held together by solder and grime, bought from different sellers just looking to cash in on their old unwanted, or scavenged droids. Nothing that would ever see the belly of the compound or deal in sensitive information anyways…that was until B1-NDA left its station to rendezvous with another droid housing a hidden operating system, allowing it to remove its true protocol chip and data cards.

Mechanical feet marched through the bicolored moon glow, seeking shelter from the eerie light in a dusty bay full of disassembled droids, powered down new arrivals, and into a slightly more organized attached office. The mechanics were asleep in the barracks, not returning to their shifts for some time, schedules memorized thanks to monitored data collection from B1-NDA.

“There’ll be a powered down veterinary droid on a stand to the back of the office…” Blink’s voice crackled over a transmission to the secret infiltrator droid, which confusedly searched the back of the office only for a second, raspier voice to correct, “Front of the office, Blink.”

“Man, close enough! At least I saw the vet droid going in for repairs. Do you know how hard it is to see into the future of a random mechanic on a planet I'm not even on?? Let’s see you get a vision, Lorcan. Let’s see you do it.” Arguing chattered out of the droid who merely followed orders input from the Shyyyo, mounted and hidden among the fractured red remnants of what was once a full fledged moon. After some confusion, it located the veterinary droid and wasted no time in dismantling its control panel. It worked into the earliest hours of the morning installing B1-NDA’s data card and protocol chip under the instruction of off world observers, hiding stolen old components in its own housing and at last, returning to its compound designated tasks like nothing happened.

When the veterinary droid powered on, its systems rebooting with brand new protocols and permissions, memory banks accessed, a feminine voice addressed the newly repaired vet bot operating under B1-NDA’s program.

“Well well well, Belinda. Looking smart in your new body. Do me a solid and hang out there until mechanics get back to work diagnosing whatever your current vessel was sent in for. Act under the guise of the old protocol and give them a dirty sensor error code. Once they clear you to return to your tasks, get us entry codes, care data on the puppies, veterinary records, a map of the interior, and confirm system spike administration with Lorcan. We need to have access to locked doors, security functions, and start up codes for a ship equipped with proper transportation for the dogs. Got all that?”

Belinda’s robotic transatlantic accent answered, “Sure thing, Sugar.”

Reana's outline moved without sound, each step a ghost’s impression on the hardpacked dirt between the buildings. The spotlights swept and cycled as before, yet none found her. The android’s frame bent and shifted to match every scrap of cover, joints turning with feline precision. Her skin caught no light, a pale matte under the fractured glow overhead. The cold gleam of her eyes appeared only in momentary transition when she shifted her iris shutters to process in spectrums no human could comprehend.

The first guard stood beside a pylon, the stub of a stim still glowing between two fingers. His shoulders sagged with the habit of long uneventful hours. She approached from behind, timing her steps with the slow rotation of the beam above, and placed a palm over his mouth. The other hand took his jaw and neck, twisting until the cartilage and vertebrae snapped in sequence. He folded in her arms, dead before his knees struck the dirt. She lowered him flat and straightened in a single motion, already reading the heat signatures of the next pair.

They were ahead, speaking in low voices by the side of a transport crawler. She slipped between stacks of cargo crates and approached at an angle. One turned slightly, catching something in the corner of his eye. She was already there. Her hand plunged into the hollow at the base of his skull, fingers puncturing skin and bone. The other guard reached for his rifle, finding her knee breaking his wrist before the weapon left its sling. She took his chin in her grip and drove the back of his head into the crawler’s metal siding. The impact left a deep dent and a smear that steamed in the cold air.

The compound shifted around her in small, unnoticed ways. Voices changed timbre, footsteps became slower, more deliberate. Somewhere, a gate whined against its hinges as it closed. She read the changes in temperature radiating from each doorway and alley, adjusting her path to keep the highest heat signatures in front of her. Her hilt hung quiet at her belt, its weight familiar, unnecessary.

A single figure stood outside the access to the official security block tower, rifle slung over one shoulder. His bulk filled the narrow gap between two walls, a sentry positioned to block any passage. She stepped into view, letting him see her peripheral shape. No sooner than his head began to turn, she was already on him, one palm striking his throat, the other hand driving the butt of his own rifle into his temple. He sagged forward, choking. She pressed his head to the wall and shoved until the sound inside his skull ended. Her limbs moved at inhuman angles, on conflicting axes and with leverage and psi that crushed bone as if it were made of soap bubbles.

By the time she crossed to the main barracks door, she had already reduced half the security detail to cooling heaps behind her. No one had made a sound beyond the quick exhale of dying lungs. The door was unlatched. Inside, the light was dim and green, casting long shadows across the bunks. A man lay in one, half dressed, weapon on the floor. She closed the space to his bed in two silent strides, fingers piercing beneath his ribs to crush the organ that kept him upright. His eyes never had time to focus on her face.

From here she cut across the barracks to the narrow hall that led upward to the knoll. Her pace never changed, her motions precise and unhurried. She passed a stairwell and stepped over another guard before his body had finished collapsing. The air grew sharper as she climbed, the smell of smoke seeping into her sensors.

The door at the top stood ajar, light pooling faintly through the gap. Inside, the big man from earlier sat at a table with one boot propped on a chair, one last drag from his deathstick glowing between his digits. The glass beside him caught the light in a thin amber band. His head lifted the fraction it took to register the shift in shadow as she entered.
He was fast for his size, dragging a blade from his belt in one clean pull. She was faster. Her hand caught his wrist and twisted the knife away. The other drove into his throat with enough force to shatter the bones behind it. His chair tipped, his weight slamming into the floorboards as his breath rattled and stopped. She withdrew her hand and let him settle into stillness.

For a moment the cabin was silent except for the faint crackle of the smoke outside. Then she heard it. A wet rasp, low and ragged, from the hall she had climbed only moments earlier. She moved to the doorway and saw the guard she had dropped at the base of the stairs. His throat was torn open, but he had dragged himself several feet, one arm hooked around the frame of an alarm console. His fingers slapped against the panel.

The compound’s air split with a rising mechanical howl. Red light strobed against the valley walls. Heavy doors slammed down over hangar bays, locking ships inside. The spotlights froze in place, beams hardening into steady white glare.
Reana turned from the doorway and crossed the room to the far window. The alarm’s vibration carried through the concrete and into her frame.

Somewhere below, the sound of boots striking the ground grew sharper and closer. She stepped through the window, falling three meters to the packed dirt, landing in complete silence. The valley had shifted. Every structure, every shadow, every air current was now a hunting ground filled with prey that had been warned.

She ran toward the dark between two hangars, the lights behind her locking onto the cabin she had just left. The howl of the alarm went on, climbing and flattening into a steady scream…


...


The bloodyhued floodlights caught a figure behind the throatless snitch. It stood perfectly still, the way an animal paused in the open when it knew nothing around it posed a threat. It was a being far more monstrous than the one who'd disfigured him.

Beskar gleamed along a sith sword's edge. Fett’s gaze was unreadable in the oversaturated light.
The sword came up, and the first swing cleaved into the concrete in front of the guard’s face. Dust rolled upward in choking swirls, settling in the wet glint of the man’s eyes. Relief flickered there, then drained as Fett’s boot pressed between his shoulder blades, pinning him to the ground.

The blade began to move. It was typically a bizarre artifact that warped physics, as if anchoring to points and snapping to keyframes. Yet in this instance, it moved in a robust, smooth trek. He dragged it, weight and edge together, cutting a path through stone and into flesh as if neither offered resistance. The sound was wrong, somewhere between grinding rock and splitting fruit. The line crept forward, bisecting the face just beneath the nostrils, parting the skull until the tip of the blade punched free at the base.

The man’s jaw opened and closed soundlessly, windpipe gone, his final breath escaping in a faint, wet hiss. Five meters away, his trachea lay like a coiled strip of gristle in the dirt, washing away in the floodlight glare. Fett lifted the Wayfinder sword clear, its edge carrying a dark sheen that caught the red light as if it absorbed it.