King of Sand & Suns (SW/WHF-lite) 1 (Patreon)

It was interesting how quickly things could change. Ten years ago, I was lying in a hospital bed, shitting and puking my guts out, with no prospects of getting any better or the chance to look forwards to anything but a short, miserable, painful life. Then, I don’t know how, I woke up in a sarcophagus, surrounded by strange figures in a combination of brown, tan, and green garments. I admit, I may have overreacted when I was awoken, but after a bit I managed to piece things together.

I’d been forced to go through an isekai adventure, by who or what I didn’t know, but I was on a desert planet called Tatooine, in what seemed to be a magitech combination of Goa’uld technology and Warhammer Tomb King necromancy, with a deluge of ‘magic’ downloaded into my brain. The men I’d killed when I was taken out of the stasis sarcophagus were soon reanimated, their souls captured and bound to their corpses. The interrogation that followed was quite enlightening.

The pyramid had apparently been buried under the sands, and only recently been uncovered. An organization called Czerka Corporation had spotted it from orbit, and sent in a team to investigate. Czerka, upon their team going dark, sent in more people. Who were killed, and their souls used to power the Force-tech constructs within the pyramid. I noticed a theme in the powers I’d been endowed with the more I explored them.

In any case, I didn’t stay in the pyramid, not for long. Something was driving me to go out, to conquer, to rule. It was an impulse, an urge, that I couldn’t resist, but then again I didn’t try particularly hard. By the end of the first year, the majority of the tribes of the species called Tusken Raiders had fallen under my sway. The second, I’d secured control over the city of Anchorage. From there, city after city was absorbed into my growing Kingdom.

The planetary division of the Hutt Cartel, and the closest thing the planet had to a ruling government before me, obviously tried to resist, but thugs and mercenaries aren’t known for their ability to stand firm in the face of being attacked by hordes of undead and swarms of scarabs that stripped the flesh from their bones. I left the moisture farmers basically alone, and made deals with the various jawa clans, so the Hutts and their hired muscle were my only real opposition.

Five years after I was removed from stasis, I stood before Jabba and Gardula, the Hutts that had treated Tatooine as their personal playground for well over a century. I had something special in mind for them. Their bodies were useless for anything more than compost or fertilizer for the few stubborn desert plants that clung to life in the occasional oasis, but Jabba’s attempt to feed me to a pet rancor was… how should I put it? Ah yes, cute.

All things considered, I’d say I was quite generous, letting Jabba spend the rest of eternity being the animating force of his pet’s corpse. Once the Hutts were dealt with, I turned my focus from military to domestic. Tatooine had been subject to the lazy ‘rule’ of the Hutts for far too long, and there would be growing pains as the people of Tatooine adjusted to life under my rule. One of the things that took up far too much of my time was in the training of nascent magic users that were discovered throughout the planet. The majority were from either the Tusken tribes and jawa clans, but a not insignificant number of them came from the former slave populations.

While training the deluge of pupils on top of ruling and stabilizing my rule took a great deal of time, it still wasn’t quite as mentally draining as waging war for control over an entire planet was. Which allowed me to focus on something that had been bothering me ever since I woke up in that stasis sarcophagus. I had no idea why, but something about this world seemed familiar, yet I couldn’t figure out why. I couldn’t recall anything about the planet or its inhabitants that I didn’t hear after waking up, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling I knew it.

That aside, there was another aspect of Kingship that I made sure to do: securing succession when my time to die inevitably came. Which is why during the two years after securing my rule I got married. I got married a lot. By the end of the second year, I had a dozen Royal Wives, and was in the process of determining the Queen. The same source of my knowledge of magic also influenced my marriages, most of them were with the daughters of tribal chieftains, clan heads, or other influential figures. The primary exception was a former slave, whose child was my star student in magic.

Despite being six at the time I wed Shmi, little Ani had proven to have nearly half as much raw power as I did. Shmi didn’t have any contacts, influence, wealth, or power. Politically there was no real reason for me to wed her, but her daughter’s rising sun was all the reason I needed. Happy students are studious students.

Political and practical marriages aside, the biggest problem that my growing kingdom had was a lack of wealth and resources. Tatooine had silica in abundance, and while the hardest unskilled manual labor jobs could be handled by the undead, there just wasn’t enough easily harvested resources to make a booming economy. Even five years after finishing off the Hutt Cartel’s influence on the planet, I was struggling to think of some way to stimulate the planetary economy. The best bet would be to organize trade with neighboring worlds, but none of my attempts to get said worlds interested in trade had worked, the best I’d managed being a swarm of visitors coming for the ‘pod races’ I organized.

But sometimes, the Winds of Fate offered a boon from the most unexpected places.

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“We’ll have to land somewhere and repair the ship,” Qui-Gon Jinn mused, looking over the readouts of the ship as they escaped from Naboo.

“There, Master,” his padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi said, pointing to a planet on a sensor. “Tatooine: it’s small, out of the way, poor, and the Trade Federation has no presence there.”

“How can you be sure?” Captain Panaka asked as Qui-Gon looked over Obi-Wan’s shoulder to read the report on Tatooine.

“It was controlled by the Hutts until a few years ago, when a local warlord threw them out,” the Jedi Master answered. “No organization has approached the planet since.”

“You can’t take Her Highness there, if the warlord discovers her,” Panaka began, only for Qui-Gon to cut him off.

“It would be no different than if we landed on a planet controlled by the Trade Federation, except the warlord is not looking for us. Which gives us an advantage,” he pointed out.

While all that he said was true, Qui-Gon had an uneasy feeling about the planet. Something about it felt… Dark, though in a different way than he’d experienced with his former padawan Xanatos. They would need to be extremely cautious while on Tatooine, even without the Dark presence, a great many rumors were spoken of the planet since the Hutts had been deposed.

As they landed on Tatooine, Qui-Gon couldn't shake off the feeling that they were being watched. He instructed Obi-Wan to stay with the ship while he went to find a local settlement and gather information. Jar Jar Binks and the droid R2-D2 joined him, along with one of the Queen's Handmaidens. Unfortunately, Qui-Gon’s plans to lay low and quietly gather the parts needed to repair the ship fell apart almost immediately.

Before they even reached the nearby settlement, several speeders approached, encircling the four while others broke off and continued towards the ship. Qui-Gon’s hand flew to where his lightsaber was under his cloak, the Force crying out as he took in the withered, desiccated forms of the soldiers within the speeders. He had never seen anything so twisted and wrong.

But to his surprise, they didn’t attack, instead one of the few that felt alive through the Force got out of the speeder and approached, weapon holstered. From the face coverings, they were one of the Tusken Raiders, a face which only added to Qui-Gon’s confusion. The Tusken didn’t speak as he approached, instead reaching into a pouch and pulling out a holo communicator. He held out the holocommunicator, gesturing with it towards Qui-Gon, who took it after a moment’s hesitation.

Almost as soon as he took it, it activated, a hologram of a figure in elaborate garb of a design that he’d never seen before appearing, before the figure spoke, “Visitors to Tatooine. You should have parked in the spaceport, but I can overlook that faux pass. You and your ship will be escorted to the Ziggurat, we will discuss the circumstances of your visit and paying fees owed there.”

Qui-Gon narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the hologram. He didn't trust this mysterious figure, nor did he like the idea of being forced into paying fees just for landing on the planet. But he also knew that he didn't have much of a choice at this point.

“Very well,” he said, handing the holocommunicator back to the Tusken. “Lead the way.”

The Tusken remounted his speeder and the others followed suit, Qui-Gon and the Handmaiden riding on the back of the Tusken's speeder while Jar Jar and R2-D2 took another. As they sped across the desert terrain, Qui-Gon couldn't help but feel a sense of unease. He had never encountered anything like these undead soldiers or this mysterious figure who had contacted them. It was as if they had stumbled into some sort of twisted, dark corner of the galaxy.

Finally, they arrived at the Ziggurat, a towering structure made of a black, marble-like material that seemed to absorb the light around it. The group was escorted inside by more undead soldiers, who led them down a dimly-lit hallway to a large, ornate chamber. There, sitting on a throne made of bones and skulls, was the figure from the hologram.

“Welcome, visitors,” the figure said, his voice smooth, rich, and surprisingly warm. “I am King Nehk-ta-nebi the Uniter, Lord of the Ziggurat, Last of the Tomb Kings of Nekhara, ruler of this planet. And you are trespassing on my territory.”

Qui-Gon bowed respectfully, “We apologize for any offense we caused. We did not mean to trespass, we were simply seeking to repair our ship and continue on our journey.”

Nehk-ta-nebi studied Qui-Gon for a moment, his dark eyes piercing and intense. Then he stood up from his throne and approached the Jedi.

“I sense a great power within you,” Nehk-ta-nebi said, his voice low and contemplative. “Similar, yet not one of the Winds I am familiar with. Fascinating…”

His choice of words was a mixed blessing, in Qui-Gon’s eyes, He wasn’t a secret Sith who had gone undiscovered, but he was instead apparently a practitioner of a previously isolated sect of Force users.

Nehk-ta-nebi clapped his hands together before turning back towards his throne, “There is a sandstorm approaching, you will be unable to depart until tomorrow at the earliest. As such, you and the others on your ship will speak with my underlings about what you require, and tonight during the evening meal, we will discuss the specifics of how you will pay for what you need.”

Qui-Gon nodded in understanding, not wanting to cause any trouble. He could feel the tension in the air, and he knew that he needed to tread carefully. He and the Handmaiden were led away to a smaller room, while Jar Jar and R2-D2 were taken to another area.

[hr][/hr]

Padme swallowed nervously as she was escorted to a private room, sitting across from King Nehk-ta-nebi. In the hours since she and the Jedi had been dismissed, while she had been outed as Queen she'd also managed to learn a great deal about the King.

Despite having begun his crusade against the Hutts ten years ago, he was only nineteen. Meaning that more than half his life had been dedicated to war. More than that, from what she'd been able to gather from the woman who had assisted her with preparing for dinner with the King, he had nearly two dozen wives. And she was having dinner with him, alone.

She didn't need to be a diplomat to see where it was going. He was going to demand that she sleep with him in exchange for the parts they needed. It was disgusting, and made her skin crawl, despite his comely appearance. But for her people, she'd stomach much worse.

She glanced up as he entered the room that had been set aside for the two of them, the young man sitting down across from her. He had a smile on his face like he wasn't planning on coercing her for sex, using her desperation against her. Men like him made her blood boil.

“Now then, before we start eating, shall we get the unpleasant matters out of the way?” he asked rhetorically, and Padme supposed it was a silver lining, she'd have less to throw up if they did it before eating. “I have been informed of your situation, Queen Amidala, and I am willing, not only to see you safely to Coruscant, but also provide military aid in overthrowing the invaders of your world. However, before I agree to do so, I will need something from you.”

There it was. Padme would admit to herself that, despite how much his 'military' disgusted her, it was a much better offer than she'd been expecting. Still, best to get it over with.

“Alright,” Padme said as she stood. Piece by piece, her elaborate dress came off. Soon, all that she had left were her panties, and as she reached for them with shaking hands, he spoke.

“What are you doing?!” he asked with a choked, almost strangled voice.