A Venomous Galaxy (Crossover) Chapter 2 (Patreon)

Chapter 2: An Omen that Makes the Sith Tremble

Dooku was currently en route to the unknown planet in a Separatist vessel. It's crew was a collection of battle droids, and it's course was being manned by a mechanical pilot too. That left the sentient personnel opportunities to see to their own duties. Asajj Ventress was in her personal chambers, engaging in her lightsaber training. Dooku on the other hand having had a lifetime of experience as a warrior and quite adept in the dark side despite only recently becoming a Sith apprentice, did not need to engage in such activities. Instead he was communicating with the shadow power behind the Clone Wars via holocom.

“We are almost there my master. We are manned by enough battle droids to survive any wildlife native on the ground. And Ventress and I are more than capable of foiling what traps the ancient Sith left for us. I also know the Republic forces have taken the base we left behind as a decoy. They will not be so bold or foolish as to abandon that position, not when it comes to winning the war. I promise the weapon will be delivered to you.”

Palpatine was not present as the supreme chancellor in his official chambers on Coruscant. Instead he was sitting within his personal estate on Naboo, dressed in his black robes as Darth Sidious. Contrary to the hustle and bustle of that industrialized world, his homeworld was resplendent with nature, crashing waterfalls and high mountains dotting the natural landscapes. So too was this area of privacy for him, it was right on the oceanfront and most people living here would want nothing more. The bright morning sun reflected beautifully on the clear water and the mansion was luxurious enough in an area reserved for only the highest and most princeling, that were anyone granted the honor to live here for the rest of their lives would be able to sit back and simply be content that they had made it. Yet this privileged son of nobility could never be satisfied, and more than his choice in Sith apparel that contrasted the brightness of this locale, it was the darkness of his soul that remained out of reach from the sun's radiance. So it was that his very presence cast a shadow on all the beauty surrounding him.

And Dooku's words warmed something even in the wicked thing within his breast that passed for his heart. Through his communicator, Sidious smiled at the count. Anyone else who was acquainted such with this Dark Lord of the Sith would not know what to feel to see him smirk at them in such a way. Dooku for all his transgressions and devotion to his new cause, was still unaware of what sort of man he called master these days. So he felt only pride at being recognized so.

“I am pleased to hear it Lord Tyranus. Your talents at strategem and warmaking are no small feat. Yet I do pray that your spirit remains strong in this endeavor.”

“Master?”

“The ancient Sith Lords are not like these Jedi or their clone army. They are nothing like your Dark Acolytes. Even though they are long dead, they will have left behind many obstacles in their temples and their bases of power. And this weapon itself may prove to be your greatest challenge. For all the uses we have for it, it may prove to be too heavy a tool to lift. Perhaps it was the thing that rendered my predecessors dead. If that turns out to be the case, then I need it broken. Do you take my meaning?”

If Sidious had seen his elderly apprentice as an equal and true Sith, he would not have said it as 'my' predecessors. Yet he had, and this long treacherous Jedi Master missed it. Dooku only nodded to his wicked master's question. “Yes, I do. It must be taken at all costs and it will be made to serve our cause in whatever way we see fit. We will be greater than the ancient Sith, and we will conquer the Jedi and the Republic.”

“Conquest. It is of paramount importance to our cause that we locate it as soon as possible. There are others who would take interest in these sorts of artifacts besides us.”

“The Jedi,” hissed Dooku.

“Yes,” Palpatine said, nodding as if he were speaking to a child. His line of Sith all taught the legend of Darth Revan, the Sith Lord so great and powerful that the Jedi of that old republic broke his mind and turned him into their greatest weapon against Darth Malak and his Star Forge. Ironic that it was Revan who also inspired Lord Bane to start his Rule of Two. “The Jedi and the Republic for all of their sentimental moralizing and stuffy traditions are just as fond of power as we are. If you cannot tame it, destroy it. Make it a whisper, a ghost of the past as much as these old Sith Lords are.”

“I will see to it that it is done.”

Palpatine nodded and Dooku shut off his end of the communicator.

It was not long before the helmsman of the vessel first spotted their location up close. It was a small dark green planet with two moons, one pale green and the other bloodred. Nobody would have needed to walk upon it's surface to know what they were dealing with. As it landed, they saw that almost every corner of the planet was covered by a thick canopy of green tree cover. They spent a good long while looking over the surface for a place to land. When they found an actual clearing, they didn't waste any time in setting down.

The spot of their descent was a dry plains area, surrounded by trees all over. This dirt path was a rarity in their current location, so bordered with trees and wet marshes all around. When Dooku and Ventress set out on foot, they were both hit with a stifling heat from the sun blazing in that cyan sky. Nothing unusual for these two darksiders, and not the most unpleasant thing, certainly not for the latter woman who after leaving her brief stint in the Jedi, was accustomed to harshness. Compared to the wartorn wastes of Rattatak, it was almost paradise.

Yet all around them were the sounds of wildlife. Some sounded harmless to them like birds and other simple beasts calling to each other, while others were clearly dangerous roaring and screeching. In all of it, the cries were distorted as if they were filtered through static. They could sense life all around them in the force and looked about in the trees. Yet while they did see shapes all around them and in the distance, they could not see any clear or identifiable features. Too far away. Yet they saw something that resembled eyes, that resembled teeth.

More importantly, it was the feeling of the force around them. These two dark siders couldn't be more different, but they had both developed a keen ability for sensing others. This planet was smothered in the dark side and it empowered them. But they also felt something else. It was not of the dark side and it was nothing resembling the peace of the Jedi. Still, it was undeniably dangerous.

Their caution didn't stop Dooku from making a quip. “Do be careful my dear Ventress. There could be all sorts of small venomous bugs that might spell our doom.”

“As your wish my master,” she said, making a mock bowing motion. “I will pray that a gentleman of your stature will not soil his fine garments through this swamp.”

He bristled a bit at that. He was still a count of Serenno and unlike her, no stranger to comfort. If anyone dared talk like that to him these days save Darth Sidious, he would have punished them severely. Yet Ventress was no feeble warrior in battle and his personal apprentice in the Sith. And the dark side presence of the planet had perhaps emboldened her. For that reason alone, he was feeling generous.

“I see that you are lacking in fear as always. I pray your fire will remain just as bright when we find our treasure.”

“And who pray tell will receive this weapon?” She looked at her pair of custom lightsabers, once the trademark weapon of Komari Vosa, whose head claimed by the mercenary Jango Fett was what honored him as the template of the clone army. Whatever this thing they were searching for would turn out to be, she was loathe to think that it could be worth more than her and these precisely crafted tools of destruction. For all of General Grievous' gloating at his mastery in the blade, she longed for the day she would put him in his place.

“It is a gift for our master.”

“Our master,” she said dryly. She knew of Sidious and had spoken to him so rarely that in her mind he might as well have not existed. So it was that just like everyone else in the Confederacy save Dooku, she was also unaware of his double life.

“Yes, our master,” Dooku said a bit more sternly as he stressed the word 'our.' “It was supposedly a treasure of an unknown Sith dynasty. Even after Xendor and his fellows first met the Sith people, this world was a place untouched by his influence. A great kingdom ruled here, throwing lavish parties and celebrations. They ruled for many centuries, and the nation was respected and feared by their contemporaries.

“But as all great nations rise, so do they fall. There were many other kingdoms present upon this world we are walking upon now now lost to the ages. I often wonder how many ancient ruins of stone had been swallowed by this dirt and these marshes. The one we are talking of was the greatest, and once commanded fear in so many nations which prevented any of them from ever wishing to fight with them. Yet they had grown tired of living in this kingdom's shadow and acquiescing to their demands. So they forged alliances and made plans to topple this kingdom to the ashes.

“They would not find it an easy fight. Even cornered by so many diseased rodents of nations, this kingdom was powerful. They fought back hard from the beginning, giving their enemies no quarter. This string of small states quickly regretted their course of action. But now that the war had started, there was no other choice. Just as this kingdom was great, so was it vicious. If their enemies surrendered, they would be broken to less than half of what they were while their foe would become so much stronger. Nor would they surrender to a state they saw as a tyranny.

“But pride was a terrible thing on all sides. The king and his family had become so sure of their victory that they openly went to the battles to witness the subjugation of their foes and for the pleasure of seeing the armies destroyed by his greatest warriors, as if they were watching wild animals fight it out. It was not an unusual thing for royalty to do so, yet he had become so bold as to venture to the front lines. So it was that his wife and children were suddenly killed in the fighting.

“Enraged, he no longer wished to simply conquer his foes. The king intended to erase them from history. Whatever was known of their lines up until then, the future would only see them as warning to anyone else that would dare to oppose his rule. So with his use of Sith magic, primitive to our eyes maybe but still working in methods still potent and certainly unknown even with what we know of the dark side, he created a great weapon. Strong enough to wipe them out forever.”

“I presume His Majesty's kingdom was the only one left standing. A true nobleman of strength. Not the ending he wanted, but it still made sure others knew he was the strongest.”

“The conflict ended after that. I say that, because those are the last remaining records we have of this planet. Even those that were found by the first Sith Lords that ventured upon this planet were in pieces.”

Ventress chuckled to herself. “Do we even know if this thing still exists? I didn't think our vital strategic position as you put it when we left, was worth abandoning for some fairy tale.”

“Your mouth and your swords have always worked well in tandem on the battlefield. But I thought that even someone like you would have a profound appreciation for the force. Can't you feel it? This nexus of power?”

“I have always felt this way,” she said. That was a true enough statement, surviving on the gladiatorial fields of Rattatak would harden anyone so much that the warlike teachings of the Sith and the corruptive power of the dark side would seem as natural as the rising and setting of the sun. But taking his words to heart, she let her mind sink deep into the dark side. As soon as she began her impromptu meditation with the force, so too was she snapped out of it just as fast, jolting visibly as if she had just woken from a nightmare.

“I...saw something...” she said. Her voice was jittery and her body was shaking. “I don't know what it was but...”

Dooku smiled at that reaction. “This weapon will serve us well.”

“Something so strong...how is it that the Sith explorers who came here never sought it's power? Certainly something like this could never have escaped the notice of the Jedi.”

“Yes, the Jedi are well aware of many Sith worlds. Ziost, Dromund Kaas, and of course Korriban. Not to mention Lehon and Zakuul, not home to Sith but havens of the dark side nonetheless. Yet even within our own records, this one is unnamed. Perhaps at one point this weapon was of use to both the Jedi and the Sith.”

“If they ever used it on each other, then without a doubt, their legacy would be gone forever.”

Dooku had regaled her with so many history lessons besides the most recent one. He would tell her of the old Jedi purges in the face of overwhelming odds and how the Sith had also struggled with internal in-fighting and in both their times of peace and open war, killed each other as they had killed their enemies. But even without knowing what this thing was, she could not begin to imagine how anything would survive it's rampage. Even now her blood ran cold.

“Or perhaps they needed it against a shared foe,” he said.

That snapped Ventress out of her fearful mood. “You can't be serious.”

“They have united once before. Darth Phobos was once such a terror to her own brethren and of course to the Jedi that they did band together to slay her. And perhaps I will one day tell you of the Sith Emperor.” He laughed heartily to himself. “He had many names. Tenebrae, Vitiate, Valkorion. And so too with each death he suffered and each new face he gained, so too did his enemies multiply until finally every being in the galaxy was united to kill him.”

Ventress barely heard him talking. She was still a bit perturbed by what she felt and the idea of anyone having their hands on that kind of power. “But if the Jedi and Sith ever held a common enemy that threatened their existence and they both had something like this in their hands...” Ventress regained her poise. “There is no way they wouldn't hesitate to use it on the other at the first opportunity after dealing with this supposed shared foe. And they would never keep this thing away on an uncharted planet with no name.”

“Yes. It is only a theory.”

It was not long before they found the location of the weapon they were seeking. The planet itself was mired in the dark side as well as another power entirely wherever they went. But they felt that unknown presence here stronger than ever. Nor was it's ceremonial significance as they came to a set of crude stairs eroded by the years at the base of a tall mountain. They knew they had arrived at their destination.

They ascended the pathway. The mountain dotted with wild and strange flowers resembling faces as they bloomed and of so many strange colors and yet uncategorized by the botanists of the modern galaxy and the tall trees and much more lush vegetation did nothing to stymie the terrible feeling of dread that crept closer in Dooku and Ventress' hearts with each additional step they took. Whatever admonition he once gave his apprentice on Sith lacking any fear was forgotten as he felt something barbarous and legion, as if for all his prowess in the force and being on an important mission for Sidious with all the power he too held within the galaxy, his party traversing these stairs was nothing more than a troupe of performers made to perform for the amusement of some terrible unseen audience of ghosts and demons watching them from the surrounding jungle. It was not long before they reached the end of the pathway to an opening inside the mountain.

The inside of this cave was a natural and wide stone chamber. There were strange trees with thick trunks inside, twisted and gnarled from their roots all the way to where their branches crashed against the stone ceiling of the cavern. None of them came near the two great holes on this rocky roof, allowing the sunlight to filter in. There were several nearby ponds so clean that their bottom could be seen even without the sunlight pouring through the water's surface and the soft grass was nowhere near as high as the jungle they had traversed through. There were also old huts made of wood long abandoned and straw nearby with clearly marked gravestones and burial cairns nearby. This scene of quiet and natural beauty under the sun's comforting rays would do nothing to betray what kind of violent planet this one was.

In the center was an ancient ziggurat. It was erected several stories high, enough to match any of the great heights of any modern feat of architecture where at the very top was the entrance. The surface itself was worn down with erosion, covered with the green stains of moss, yet it was not so ruined as to make trekking it's heights dangerous or to break down the sculptures adorning it. Within the serenity of this cave it looked like a temple for so many offerings of sacrifice and celebration.

But it was the art lining the edifice of the temple which was truly memorable. Dooku had already learned to recognize the Sith language when he saw it despite being no fluent speaker himself. Yet while these characters bore a passing resemblance, they were so stylized that at first glance they looked different, and no matter how he looked at them, there were others that he didn't recognize at all. Adorning the stories of the structure beside each set of steps were statues of strange figures unknown to their eyes, some being humanoid and upright, others being quadripedal and bestial, all in various positions of ceremony and war, and no matter what their shape, they were all lined with great gaping eyes and wide fiendish mouths lined with teeth and long tongues that might as well have been new appendages entirely much like the whiskers of the Anzati people who were far more than they appeared, striking even Dooku and Ventress with horror and admiration. No strange figures in the fog as they traversed the jungles, these Sith felt these things staring at them as if they were an alchemist's golems made animate. Idols of blight and calamity from an era and civilization long since gone to ruin.

“That...” Ventress said, pointing at one of the statues.

“You have seen it before?” Dooku said.

Her meditation when she let herself sink into the dark side was too brief to actually see anything concrete. “No but...it feels similar to what I saw in my vision...”

Curious, Dooku allowed himself to dip into the dark side. He only lasted a few seconds longer than she did. But when he opened his eyes, he was not shaking with fear. Instead he was wearing a terrible smile that seemed to know too much and laugh openly at whoever would have the misfortune of having it's attention, something that would not be uncommon on the face of Sidious, and certainly unusual for this gentleman of Serenno so long accustomed to the Jedi way and only now having become a Sith. It had such an impact on him that for a rare instant, his eyes were glowing yellow with the ferocity of the dark side before they faded back to their natural hue.

“Yes,” he said looking at the statues, their alien and atavistic design resonating with something new in his heart. “We are here.”