Lineage IX

Chapter 1

In a galaxy of ten thousand inhabitable systems, there were more roads than destinations, more interminable lightyears of traveling than brief moments of disembarking, and much, much more black and empty void than tiny, jewel-like oases of life. The distance between this place and the next – even in hyperspace- grew wider with each successive leg of the journey, the precious and impossible glimpse of the next tiny island of life in the great sea of emptiness successively more awe-inspiring, the ache in the pilgrim's heart a little more pronounced with every failure to find that which he was seeking.

Especially when he had been seeking for nearly a year – a year of fruitless wandering, of a seemingly futile quest for which he had sacrificed everything sacred and dear to his heart. It was, he felt, supremely impossible that the Living Force should demand such a weighty collateral on a loan of wisdom it was so loathe to make; supremely impossible that a solution to this endless frustration and labor should not present itself.

He was a man of faith, whatever others might say.

And so he kept seeking, long past the point at which another – or a more sane man – might have admitted failure and sunk into the stationary morass of despair.

This time his meandering path had brought him to the less than savory shores of Nal Hutta, the reeking and reprobate homeworld of the galaxy's largest and most entrenched crime syndicate families, the sprawling Hutt clans. Besides its vermiform overlords and their innumerable minions, the planet boasted as much swampland wilderness as Dagobah, and a population of rabble and hangers-on in the tens of thousands, a prosperous hive of scum and villainy to rival any other in existence. Situated outside Republic boundaries, Nal Hutta was the first and last refuge of desperados, refugees, and fugitives.

The solitary seeker descending the junk freighter's ramp would fit right in; he too was an exile. He tugged the hood of his worn traveling cloak over his head, despite the oppressive humidity, and waved a curious insect – ten centimeters at the smallest – away from his nose. The spaceport docking pad was a tangled mass of cracks and craters where ungainly landings had carved out a blasted scar in the duracrete pad. Gonk droids lumbered drunkenly over the treacherous footing, various mechanics and station overseers cursing them as they stumbled and dragged their way to the incoming ship's fuel cell access ports.

The tall man's stride covered the broken platform at a brisk clip, carrying him onto the pedestrian plaza beyond, where a motley crowd of traders and mercenaries lounged in the porches of eateries, suppliers' shops, and other more dubious places of business. A spiced medley of alluring aromas assaulted him as he wandered down the main street; if he were honest, he would admit to a gnawing hunger. But he shoved the uncomfortable awareness of his body's needs to the margins of awareness, reaching instead into the currents of the Living Force.

It was tremendously strong here, wild and untamed, as it would be in a rain forest or a pristine desert, a place where Nature grew untrammeled, in fierce bright jealousy of its rights, a barbarian king bent on further conquest without care for ethical scruples or social niceties. Here dog ate dog – or worm ate worm – and none disputed the Rule of Might, or at least the supremacy of old age and treachery.

Again, the newcomer would not feel incompetent to live and move among such beings, at least from a certain point of view. He sensed no immediate beacon light calling for his attention, and the scent of food, not all of it repulsive to a palette rendered less fastidious by decades of travel and the undeniable relish of real hunger, claimed his primary attention. He was famished.

In his weary state of mind, the thought sparked a wistful memory, the echo of a young voice complaining in prim and well-clipped tones. I'm famished, Master.

"When are you not?" he muttered, to himself, a hard knot forming in his throat.

A moment later, the memory dissipated in the light of the present moment; here, before him, stood a large and shabby gambling den – the sabaac tables stood waiting. With any luck – though there was truly no such thing – he would come away with both much needed information, and enough winnings to purchase a meal and a bed.

After all, the esoteric details of his past history did not exempt him from basic human needs.

In a Republic of many thousand systems, there was more democracy than freedom, more interminable petty arguments than rational minds, and much, much more darkness festering in the nooks and crannies of an ancient civilization than any of its modern denizens would care to admit. The distance between legal and moral – even in theory- grew wider with each successive compromise reached, the precious restoration of true justice amid the fog and confusion of corruption more miraculous, the ache in the peacekeeper's heart a little more pronounced with every failure to achieve the ideal to which he was wed.

Especially when he had been singularly focused on expunging the rot at the center of his world for nearly a year – a year of hard training, of a seemingly joyless duty for which he had sacrificed everything sacred and dear to his heart. It was, he felt, supremely impossible, that the Force should demand such a painful demonstration of commitment to a cause it was unwilling to promote; supremely impossible that a resolution to this endless labor and frustration not at long last be manifested.

He was a man of hope, whatever others might think.

And so he remained, in the bonds of a difficult oath, long past the point at which another – or a more jaded man – might have admitted futility and sunk into the triumphant nihilism of despair.

This time, the demands of that duty and obedience had led him straight into the stifling confines of a dank and dripping tunnel, a long wormhole wending its way into the heart of the limestone cliffs outside B'tmoth Xal, the capitol city on this remote backworld, this sickly moon of an unimpressive gas giant, circling a dying star. Astronomers calculated the planetoid's viability factor at minus two hundred standard years, meaning that the dwindling warmth of the bloated sun and the increased toxic radiation levels in the atmosphere had rendered this world legally uninhabitable two centuries ago.

The few remaining natives did not care what the Republic had to say on the matter, and refused all offers of relocation. They preferred to stay, cocooned in underground shelters, swathed in protective gear, eking out the remainder of their days under the glowering aegis of their dead solar deity, a people all but infertile and universally crippled by the devastating conditions they embraced as divine punishment for neglecting the proper rites of sustenance.

He had not come to dissuade them, though even now – despite his intellect's remonstrance that all such effort was futile and dangerous – a part of him wished to convince them of their folly, to extend again the offer of life they so steadfastly refused. When he and his master left this place, the B'tmothi would indeed be utterly marooned, for no ambassadorial party would be sent again.

This mission was itself purely sub rosa. They sought the last artifact of a defunct cult, one possibly buried in this ancient burial chamber and abandoned when its guardians fled the dying moon long ago. And the outcome of their quest would have no effect on the fate of the B'tmothi at all. They were the walking dead, the Forgotten.

"Your thoughts wander," came the inevitable reprimand. The tall silver haired man stalking down the ghastly tunnel a few paces ahead of him spoke without turning around, the sickly glow of his raised weapon casting lurid green shadows upon the gently dripping walls. In the glossed white mineral, strange forms appeared and took shape – the blurred outlines of figures… of faces.

"Yes, Master," he murmured, respectfully. "I will attend." There were faces in the walls, the eyes and noses and gaping mouths no accident of the imagination, no mere suggestion formed by erosion. Like statuettes of melting wax, the half-obscured relief carvings stared back at him as he passed down their long aisle, the memorial portraits gaping at his audacity.

Unbidden, another voice spoke deep in memory, admonishing him in gentler tones. Keep your focus on the present moment, where it belongs.

The peering visages in the walls bled further into a stinging moisture, and he wrenched his eyes away, focusing on the present moment.

Which abruptly became all-absorbing. A pace ahead, Jedi Master Yan Dooku came to a cautious halt, fingertips of his free hand trailing over the carven surface of a massive slab blocking their way, a heavy barrier across their path. Limestone deposits dripped forlornly into puddles at their feet, the two sabers reflected like shimmering phantoms in their milky depths.

"Ah," the Sentinel breathed. "Here we are."

In a milieu where everyone bar no one cheated, the advantage afforded by well-honed Force powers did not stand out with such clarity that it inspired suspicion; he came away with a hefty bag of winnings, it was true – but not more than some of the more scurrilous card sharks in the gambling den, and certainly less than what the villainous dealer had raked in for the benefit of the establishment.

In short, he left with a clean conscience. There were those that might argue it was immoral to steal from thieves, or to gain profit at the expense of other beings, particularly those unwittingly addicted to the false lures and promises of a casino. And these upright individuals were undoubtedly correct, from a certain point of view. One of the most vociferous proponents of this purist principle had, he recalled with a fond smile of recollection, once all but refused to set foot aboard a ship won by treachery from its owner in a game of sabaac. Had the young absolutist not been injured and half-delirious with fever – and therefore unable to resist being bodily dragged on board the getaway vessel - he might still be sulking upon the blasted heaths of Tu'axl Prime, waiting for an honorable means of escape to present itself.

Youth might afford to indulge in high ideals, but he… he was growing old. The unfulfilled quest lay heavy on his heart, shadowed his every thought, haunted his every dream. Disappointment, weariness, hollow yearning: these gnawed like the twisting hunger in his belly – which might be appetite raw and simple, or the after effects of the vile alcoholic beverages served in the gambling parlour. He must sup soon, in body and in spirit, or be worn down to a drifting shell, flotsam upon the Force's infinite currents.

He paused, and ran a hand over his face. What was he thinking? How one's mind wandered when the body was tired. He needed sleep, and sustenance. Ultimate enlightenment, or his humble share in it, would come in due time if at all. Food first.

The bar and eatery was called The Wormhole – he barely gave the noticeboard a second glance.

Which might have been a mistake.

"Get lost!" the reptilian hostess barked in his face when he presented himself in the lobby to request seating. "We don't serve your type here!"

Two Whiphid bouncers waited by the front entrance to enforce the refusal; in his famished, slightly inebriated, and more than slightly irritable mood, it was tempting to throw them bodily against the far wall and to inform the hostess that he would settle for civility, if not service - but experience and sheer exhaustion won the internal dispute. He shouldered past the security force, unimpressed and unhurried, and back into the humid evening air. The streets of Nal Hutta's spaceport town were sticky and warm as midday, but now thick with a swarm of blood-sucking gnats.

The sign outside the door said No Humans, he noted upon a more careful perusal.

Sighing he turned once in place, surveying the avenue's other offerings. He bypassed The Sinkhole, Grimy's Bog-N-Grog, and Skeeter Hut. The only remaining option within staggering distance being Biggins' Bed and Breakfast-Bipeds Only, he turned his steps toward its hospitable doors and a much-needed rest.

He had the ill effects of several probably toxic distilled liquors to burn out of his blood, and much to think about.

Yan Dooku stepped back a pace, the faint ghost of distaste flitting across his aquiline features. "It is triple magneto-barred from the interior," he said. "How crude."

His apprentice shrugged diffidently. "Simple answers for simple problems."

The senior Jedi lifted a silver brow, waving one elegant hand at the massive portal blocking their progress. "Carry on, then." He stepped back a pace.

The padawan's mouth quirked upward at one corner. He inhaled deeply, lifted a hand, and –

"Uuungh!" The Force blast parted the doors with a deafening crack and a thick cascade of dust and grit from the broken hinges.

Dooku brushed the offending white grime off his tunics. "Effective," he admitted. "…If unsophisticated."

They ducked beneath the sagging lintel and emerged into a wider chamber, a vast domed concavity within the mountain's heart. A foul stench assaulted their nostrils the moment they crossed the threshold. Coughing, holding sleeves against their noses and mouths, they crept forward onto the central dais, a broad platform littered with rubble and heaps of nameless, decaying organic matter.

The young Jedi cast his glance over the surrounding walls, the limestone relief carvings more sharply defined here, portraying the elongated mournful faces of B'Mothmi deities long consigned to oblivion here in the bowels of the earth. The fetid air wafted coolly from a series of black arches set at random intervals in the wall, sometimes punctuating the sculpted narrative panels in a most unlikely manner. He squinted, tracing the uneven outlines of these doorways in the sabers' dim illumination, nose wrinkling at the putrid scent filling the very Force with an ominous sense of hunger.

"We might have used the back door," he remarked dryly, still warily peering at the nearest of these odd tunnels.

Dooku was not to be distracted from his purpose, however. Atop the dais was a richly carved block of native Bothmite granite – a grooved altar for sordid rites. The Sentinel's hands sought among the inset alcoves on its sides and back, a long hiss of disappointment escaping his lips as he straightened. "The artifact was here not long ago – I can feel its signature," he muttered."…Someone has beaten us to the prize."

A second beam of blue light sizzled and spat its way into existence beside the Padawan's first blade. "Master," he barked, his role as sentry bidding him sound the alarm. "We have company."

The Force told them of the things' approach before sight or sound corroborated the threat. Back to back, sabers blazing in the close and foul air, they stood and faced the mindless guardians of this dark underworld, the monstrosities that oozed toward them out of the endless night's rank womb.