Chapter 29: Qiv Brellen

The academy archives had quickly proven itself to be my best friend and today was no exception. The archivist on duty, quite used to the presence of impatient acolytes at all hours of the day, only rolled her eyes as I stormed past and practically threw myself at the nearest open terminal.

Taking out my datapad, I plugged in an ear piece and dialed the connection to Maklan's terminal. The gray-haired soldier quickly picked up, though he was rubbing the sleep from his eyes. I glanced at the time. It wasn't late, but he must have been catching a wink before going back on duty.

"Milord?"

"Lieutenant, do you have access to the full blueprints for the academy?" I asked without returning the greeting.

"Just the basic map, I'm afraid," He shook his head, "Same as you've got." The soldier paused, "Does that mean you got a lead?"

"A cryptic, but fairly unsubtle one, yes," I replied, rapidly typing into the terminal, "Are you friends with anyone that does?"

Detailed blueprints of the academy building wouldn't be available to everybody that walked in. For instance, the one I had access to didn't include the locations of armories or private laboratories, among other things.

"Actually, we both are, milord," Maklan remarked, a smirk forming on our face.

I paused, "We are?"

"A certain Captain would be overjoyed to help, especially if he knew it was you asking the favor," The smirk had grown into a full grin, "I trust you recall Cormun? He'll be a bit put out if you don't."

Blinking, I slowly replied, "Yes…but as I recall, Cormun was a Sergeant, not Captain."

"That he was," Maklan nodded, "But when you get personally endorsed by a Sith Lord, you tend to get booted up the ranks real quick."

Spindrall.

"I'd appreciate it if you get in contact with him."

"Will do, milord," He saluted, "Cormun should be awake now anyways, though maybe a bit busy with his new job. Be just a minute."

The connection cut. I stopped my search for a moment and leaned back in the chair. The cursor on the screen in front of my blinked innocently as my thoughts turned elsewhere.

Yet more meddling on Spindrall's part. First Ajunta Pall's treatise. Then Ragate. And now, Cormun. Just what was it that he wanted?

My datapad lit up again before splitting into two screens. Maklan was in one, and Cormun the other. Compared to when I met him in Ajunta Pall's tomb, he was looking much healthier, what with no longer bleeding to death and all.

"Milord," Cormun half-bowed, "Maklan said that you needed access to a map."

"The full blueprint for the current academy," I clarified, "I need to make a comparison. I'm tracking a target and I think they're making use of the older parts of the structure."

My fingers flew across the holographic keyboard, pulling up map after map. The academy here wasn't the first of its kind. Three hundred years ago, Revan and Malak had established their empire's primary academy on this same spot.

The archives had the blueprints, mocked up from survey droid data and stolen Republic files.

"That shouldn't be a problem," Cormun replied, now typing away on his own terminal, "There. You should be receiving it now."

"Are you going to get into any trouble for that?" I asked.

"Not unless you're planning to invade a Dark Councilor's personal quarters, milord," He answered.

"Fair enough."

Opening up the new document, I laid the current plans over the ones for Revan's academy. Unfortunately, they were nearly identical. The base structure had survived the Republic reprisal after Malak's defeat relatively intact, so Vitiate's Empire merely restored and expanded upon what was left.

There were a few hallways that didn't match but notes on the map indicated that they had collapsed completely and were never dug out.

Additionally, both academies were entirely above-ground, with no sub-levels.

"Nothing, milord?" Maklan asked.

"Not yet," I muttered back.

I scratched at my chin as I thought about the possibilities. Ragate pointed me in this direction, so there had to be something I was missing.

"No sub-levels…" I murmured.

I ignored Maklan and Cormun's questions as I started typing again. The Ancient Sith had a "Space Egypt" motif, with their extremely elaborate funeral processes. Maybe a few other things were similar. As the search results were shown, I smiled.

I was right.

Like the Egyptians, the Ancient Sith, both before and after the Exiles' time, built mortuary temples for their kings and Dark Lords, places to honor and worship them after death. And there had been one built on the same spot the current building occupied, dedicated to Marka Ragnos.

It had been mostly destroyed during the genocide at the end of the Great Hyperspace War, but the foundations had survived, along with the lower levels of the temple, which at the time had been used for storage. These records had been preserved when the Sith fled Korriban, digitized, then forgotten by all but interested historians.

As I laid the newer plans over the rough sketches, I knew I had found it. My assassin had found an intact passage, giving them a hiding place few knew about. I just needed to find the entrance.

"Did you find something, milord?" Cormun inquired.

"Yes. Yes, I did. Your help was appreciated," I answered, my smile growing wider, "And now, I'm going hunting. I'll be in touch if there's something else."

I needed to nip this threat in the bud, before it became worse.

Just as I was about to get up, I stopped, "Oh. A bit late, but congratulations on the promotion, Captain."

...

After retrieving Gaarurra, we headed for the first possible access point. Though the storage room was just one of dozens scattered across the facility, it seemed…familiar.

"Wait," I muttered as a piece clicked into place, "This is where the Nautolan kept giving me the slip."

I thought he'd just been using a Force power to throw me off. But if he'd been ducking into a secret passage and covering up the hole…

Huh. Two birds with one stone, and all that. I'd actually been wondering if the guy was even still alive since I hadn't seen him for a few months.

Once we entered the storage room, it took us a good ten or twenty minutes of shuffling crates around until we found a collection of loose tiles on the floor. Upon removing them, it revealed the red sandstone-like rock that made up most of the ancient structures on Korriban along with a set of stairs leading further down. Thankfully, the passage was wide enough to accommodate both of us.

I flicked on my glow-light and drew my sword. In cramped conditions like these, my blaster was going to do more harm than good. Gaarurra did the same before woofing a question.

"Yeah," I nodded, "He's probably got traps or something down here, so keep an eye out."

He woofed again in what I assumed to be agreement.

We only made it a dozen or so feet into the passage before the first incident occurred. There was no warning. One moment, we were walking. The next, an immense weight hit me, forcing me to the ground. My sword clattered out of my grip.

It wasn't there for long. Gaarurra roared and lifted the thing off me. Rolling over, I quickly sat up to get a look.

The thing turned out to be a droid. A glowing red eye stared at us from a mushroom-shaped head, mounted on top of a cylindrical body. Its arms were spindly, made up of simple joints and straight pieces. Each of its hands ended in three fingers and a thumb, each tipped with a claw.

It was positively ancient. Its gray plating was rusted at the edges and the glass of its "eye" was cracked.

The Wookiee roared again and tore its head off. The central eye dimmed.

I looked up. The droid had likely been clinging to the ceiling in standby mode, waiting for intruders.

Whirring and clicking sounded off from the passage ahead, drawing my attention forward. In the darkness beyond the light of our glowrod, nearly two dozen glowing eyes stood out from the gloom, their silhouettes just barely visible.

My left hand went to my throat before I could stop it. Anger welled inside of me. I knew what I was going to do.

Stepping ahead of Gaarurra, I raised my hands, fingers splayed like claws. At my urging, my power surged, flowing out of my fingertips in a contained storm of lightning. The cracks of electricity lit up the dim hallway. Their metal bodies convulsed uncontrollably as the stream of lightning passed from droid to droid.

Tiny sparks arced off their shells, scorching the walls.

Masterminding a plan was satisfying as hell, but sometimes, you just needed to throw lightning at stuff.

After a minute, I cut off the power. The droids' smoking bodies fell to the ground in an almighty crash. After retrieving my sword from the ground, we pressed on, carefully picking our way through the now inert machinery.

Only two more droids barred our passage further in, but they were easily dispatched. I let Gaarurra take care of them that time. Literally the work of a few seconds, that.

Finally, we came to a well-lit room, where a blue-skinned Nautolan was leaning over a workbench, frantically working on something.

His head whipped up as we entered, sending his head tendrils flying everywhere, "Blast! Thought they'd hold you a bit longer…" He glanced back at whatever he was fiddling with, "Ah hell, here goes nothing."

There was a click as he flipped a switch. Lightning surged out of my hand, only to slam uselessly into a green barrier that sudden materialized around him.

Tentacles breathed out a sigh of relief and slumped to the floor, "Whooh! Honestly wasn't sure that was gonna work…"

I eyed the barrier, "Huh. Ray shield. You know that's only going to last a few minutes, right? Then we get back to the part where I barbecue you. Or Gaarurra tears your arms off."

The Wookiee cracked his knuckles, which made Bubble Boy gulp nervously.

"Yeah yeah, I know how screwed I am when this thing goes down," He rolled his eyes, "It's not a permanent solution."

"So out of curiosity, what's the permanent solution?" I asked.

I was tempted to just snap his neck from here. But Ragate's wording from earlier was bothering me. She said I'd find some answers, not my target.

"The permanent solution is that I'm gonna introduce myself and hope I can talk fast enough to convince you to let me live before the portable powerpack for my ray shield generator here runs outta juice," The octopus-man shot back, "Name's Qiv Brellen. I'd shake hands, but… well…"

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