They showed us temporary housing, then finally allowed us to attend to personal matters. I immediately left the Twi'lek twins behind and went to the local bank alone.
The entire coalition uses credits on the front lines; the Sith were no exception. I needed to convert the useless Sith gold.
I managed it in just two hours, and my savings were enough to obtain 4,541,033 credits. This sum wouldn't survive the week; everything would go toward bribing a Sith Lord, a set of gear for the Twi'leks, and purchasing additional equipment.
Bodyguards are an expensive luxury.
Immediately after the exchange, I had to cash out three million credits. High-density credit ingots; this handful of ingots should secure me a good duty station.
A mere sixty heavy plates contained the value of a cheap civilian transport ship. The small ingot contained precious metals and was certified by one of the Republic banks; any bank would exchange it for 50,000 credits.
The rest of the money remained in my electronic wallet.
To give a Sith Lord a gift, I needed to accomplish three things.
Find out the woman's name, figure out where she is, and give her no reason to kill me. I had already prepared a bag with some interesting items; this should demonstrate my qualifications in alchemy.
At a brisk pace, I headed toward the training grounds. The bank and temporary apartment were literally a few kilometers from the zone allocated to the soldiers.
In just two hours I passed the walls, and then arrived at an open space with a radius of twenty kilometers.
Small transport ships flew everywhere, and speeders transported gas and batteries. Tactical units practiced coordination and blaster firing.
Nearly ten kilometers were reserved for the mass training of black and gold soldiers.
Slightly further away lay specialized arenas for true Sith. The floor surface was smoothed stone; perhaps this entire place had once been a mountain range.
Dozens of fencers conducted lightsaber duels, while the less wealthy practiced with vibroblades. Blaster shots were heard everywhere, but some Massassi were still trying to use throwing weapons.
Ignoring the local chaos, I went straight to the Sith handing out equipment. This building combined the functions of a warehouse and a small administrative complex.
An old man sat with his datapad, paying me no mind. Sith and humans approached him, while slaves handed them their designated gear.
I had to stand in line, but he finally gave me his time.
I removed the metal badge from my clothes and handed it over for inspection. The Sith raised his yellow eyes; he clearly had no interest in doing his job.
Tapping his datapad, he realized which Lord I was assigned to. My badge was returned, and the inspector's assistant pointed to a piled-up heap of blaster rifles, armor pieces, and gas tanks.
"Kreso Nal, gray-purple alchemy specialist. You are issued SHA-1 armor, an AB-12 blaster rifle, a cortosis-weave vibrosword, and consumable supplies in any reasonable quantities."
I should return to him when I get permission to buy armor and weapons. The twins were pilots, but we would need to conduct punitive raids against the local population.
Terrorists can attack at the most inopportune moment.
"Send a slave to deliver all these items to the address on the datapad. For now, I wish to borrow a meditation chamber."
He pondered my words for a moment, then realized he had heard me correctly. At that moment, the man realized he was dealing with a Sith noble.
"Meditation chambers are reserved by Sith Lords. The personal approval of your supervisor is required."
The Sith pressed something on his datapad and showed me the screen. An invoice for twenty thousand credits was displayed, and the old man's eyes betrayed an experienced corrupt official.
All I had to do was turn on my datapad and make a generous gift.
"Let us see how we can solve your problem."
At that moment, the administrative worker glowed with joy and motivation to help. The old man furiously fiddled with his datapad, then showed me the screen.
"Lady SorSyn is currently renting our alchemical workshop. Shall I send your request to her datapad?"
Just as I calculated, this procedure would allow me to meet the Sith Lord earlier than the other Sith in my squad.
I did not expect her to be in this place as well. It was quite a pleasant stroke of luck; usually, only Erra gets lucky.
Today will be a good day!
"No need. May I visit the workshop personally?"
It's a massive place where dozens of alchemists gather. Unlike sorcerers, we share knowledge quite often.
"As a gray-purple alchemy specialist, you possess this privilege. Choose a place where you will work."
He turned his datapad screen toward me again, and the image displayed all available booking spots.
I pointed to one of the options.
"Give me the laboratory bench near Lady SorSyn."
The Sith nodded and reserved a workspace for me.
"All set, here is your pass. The rental period paid for by the Empire is 7 hours of active work. The service does not include materials, but you can purchase them from our warehouse."
I was afraid to imagine how much they cost. Since this bastard took my bribe, I should take advantage of the situation.
"May I purchase gray-purple specialist gear for my slaves?"
The old man wasn't even surprised by my desire to dress slaves according to army standards.
"There are no issues with standard gear, but you are requesting items in short supply. Are you planning to request an exam for your slaves?"
Good question; the official method would be better than outright theft of Empire property.
"Yes, but they need to undergo quick retraining courses. The aircraft of our Core Worlds do not match local quality. How much will it cost?"
He had to spend a few minutes looking for the necessary information, but eventually, he found the required official procedures.
"Pilot courses include interceptor, elite interceptor, enemy fighter, small transport ship, and basic information on local specifics. Military equipment rental, instructor time, and other expenses will cost you two hundred thousand credits. You will have to pay an insurance premium of three hundred thousand credits, but if the equipment is undamaged, we will refund the insurance. The exam will cost 100,000 per slave. The slave will gain the right to wear the color of military uniform corresponding to them, but you still pay all Empire expenses."
I hoped the insurance wouldn't go up in smoke and I would have 961,033 credits left! I readied my datapad, and the Sith began preparing the invoice.
"Can they start tomorrow? We are only here for a week. I will pay for two slaves."
Immediately, 1,200,000 credits were deducted from my account. The man had already prepared the electronic contracts and transferred them to my datapad.
"Training lasts only four days. They must be at the designated location tomorrow at noon."
We exchanged contact information, and not a single question of mine went unanswered. You could say this bastard earned every credit; I doubt I could have arranged everything without his help.
"Thank you for your help."
Following the map on my datapad, it took me about an hour to find the alchemists' workshop.
I walked a few hundred more meters and turned toward a remote structure. Approaching the door, I held up the datapad and used my pass.
Walking through corridors and past security, I finally reached a large room. Six alchemical laboratory benches divided the room into independent areas.
The high cost of equipment required alchemists to share scientific apparatuses, but the list of items was exceptionally broad.
The door closed behind me with a quiet hiss, cutting off the hum of the outside world. Immediately, a sharp, incomparable smell of reagents hit my nose.
This entire mixture resonated with the dark side, causing unpleasant tingling in the lungs.
Above each of the six benches hovered matte holographic screens, covered in ancient Sith runes and temperature control graphs.
On one of the workbenches sat a device for creating Force crystals, and nearby were automated cutting tools.
I immediately spotted the Sith Lord's workspace. An incomplete crystalline artifact was clamped in a massive cortosis grip. It was a crystal with a slightly strange cut, drowning in the dim violet glow of an alchemical solution, while leviathan blood bubbled nearby. SorSyn used a transparent bowl made of heat-resistant transparisteel.
The Lord was absent; it seemed she had left her work just a couple of minutes ago.
I stepped closer to the central distribution node. Rows of specialized instruments, rarely found in ordinary laboratories, stretched along the walls.
High-purity molecular separators for isolating organic components.
Magnetic force field inductors for containing unstable isotopes and concentrating dark side energy.
Cryogenic deep-freeze chambers for storing interesting biological samples, tissues, and blood of Force-sensitive beings.
At that moment, the holder lifted the artifact out of the liquid. The crystal began radiating the dark side of the Force, and Sith runes manifested on its facets.
Inside, circuits and arrays through which liquid Force flowed were visible. It was a highly concentrated synthetic stone; it contained a thousand times more Force than a lightsaber crystal.
"Force gathering? Force transmission? No, it's something in between, but the rune circuits have too much energy loss. At the center is a spirit core, but why..."
At that moment, an unfamiliar female voice spoke behind my back.
"Have you never seen mind prisons?"
Slowly turning around, I saw the Sith Lord watching me with interest.
"The esteemed immortal mage Raspir wrote about this, but his works are now lost."
She nodded, completely ignoring my existence, and headed for her workspace. SorSyn picked up the crystal, then rechecked the quality of the runes a few times.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
I waited for her to finish, but she gave me no chance to start a conversation.
"Your face is familiar to me. Are you one of the conscripts?"
"Kreso Nal. I came to give a gift to Lady SorSyn. I apologize for interrupting your experiment."
Without giving her time to answer, I took out a purse and placed it on the edge of her workbench.
She stopped for a moment, then placed the crystal on the table and focused all her attention on me.
"Interesting, but I do not mind your little trick. How are you at alchemy?"
I pulled a closed wooden Reversi game set from my bag, crafted from polished red crystal with a pronounced rune texture.
A neat gold lock was installed on the front panel. The top cover was decorated with an embedded game board: alternating squares made of faceted synthetic crystals, alternating red and blue.
To show off my cutting skills, I pixelated the Force stones. This created a beautiful play of light and an optical illusion.
"This is the second part of the gift. This board game utilizes blood alchemy, artificial spirits, the creation of potions that feed puppets, and specially bred genetic insects. As an alchemist, it will be easy for you to understand the level of my abilities."
SorSyn opened the box. Inside lay miniature Siluths. Half of them were blue, the others bright red. They served as game pieces, capable of changing color to red or blue depending on the situation.
She took the piece of paper inside the box and carefully read the rules. The long pause made me slightly nervous, but in the end, the Lord smiled.
The woman took the purse from the table and inspected the size of the bribe.
"This is the most useless, complex, beautiful, and unique thing I have ever seen. I like it. Did you invent the rules for this board game yourself?"
No, I just made Force-infused Reversi. This board game was very well-suited for describing the will of the Force: volatile by nature, always disrupting balance by shifting polarity.
"Of course. May I count on your assistance?"
SorSyn slipped a ring off her finger and tossed it into my hands.
"This is a symbol of my approval. Choose a safe position for yourself, but you will assist me in alchemical experiments."
I quickly examined the ring and realized how high the quality of this artifact was.
"Thank you, then I will..."
SorSyn used telekinesis and borrowed a chair from another workspace. She laid out the board game on the table and pointed to the seat opposite her chair.
"Playing helps to learn the new rules."
One would have to be an idiot to miss the hint.
"I am not opposed to playing with you, but which side of the Force will you choose?"
SorSyn thoroughly inspected a blue Siluth. She picked it up and infused it with the Force. It twitched and shrieked in fear, but its color became brighter and purer.
"Let's try the light side of the Force."
I was left to take the red Siluths. Following the rules, I placed four Siluths in the center.
My first move pushed pieces to the left side of the board. Finding itself between red Siluths, the blue one instantly changed its color, and the light side in its body was replaced by darkness.
SorSyn watched the process and smiled nostalgically. Her move showed an intent to take a corner; it was logical, but too open.
I attacked in another direction, but she defended. The pieces changed Force polarity, blue interweaving with red. At the very end, I took a flank line first. SorSyn counterattacked, but only expanded my conquests.
Line after line, she lost her pieces, and any capture attempts ended in the loss of even more Siluths.
The game took only ten minutes, but the score was 61 to three.
"Again."
SorSyn looked at the pieces and analyzed the rules. She realized where she had made mistakes.
We continued playing, and each time her results improved. In our tenth game, I lost, and the Lord gained a three-point advantage.
She felt her thoughts become sharper, feeling as though she had completed a long meditation.
"An interesting way to describe the cycle of Force changes. I liked this game very much. You are so young, but your mind is quite calm; that is a rarity for young Sith."
The game reminded her of the times when she was emotional. Those memories were her most valuable artifact.
"Maybe it is about hybridization? The consequences of alchemy make the population less inert to the dark side of the Force."
The assumption was well-founded, for flesh altered by alchemy is far too sensitive to the will of the Force. Brain neurons are also part of matter; the influence of the Force would be part of the undesirable consequences.
"It does indeed affect the mental state of Red Sith, but a strong will should nullify this consequence."
The Force is just a tool, and Sith are quite capable of blocking attempts to change their own flesh.
"Perhaps the genes of the Twelve Overlords had an influence unknown to me. I did not work with Sorzus Syn's original records."
Hearing the familiar name, the female Lord pondered. She wanted to express mockery, but remembered her conversation partner's age.
"You are mistaken, but you are too young right now."
SorSyn picked up a piece again and forced it to change its color. She weighed her options: was it worth saying what shouldn't be said?
"Where was I mistaken?"
The assumption made sense, but hybridization was done entirely differently. In holocrons, there are only theories about how Sorzus Syn operated.
"Twelve humans cannot change the genes of millions of Sith."
Those words made me lose any argument for an objection. Any alchemist came to these conclusions.
"From the perspective of alchemy, their genes should have dissolved into the Sith genes. Yet the holocrons say there were only twelve of them."
That number evoked a sense of déjà vu in SorSyn.
"You know alchemy, so why do you believe holocrons?"
I decided to voice a theory I had been pondering for quite some time.
"If we assume that millions of sentients needed to be altered, it means the source of new genes consisted of tens of thousands of individuals at a minimum! Then why write that there were twelve? It makes no sense."
At that moment, the dark side of the Force became colder. I felt as though an incredibly terrifying and ancient beast was looking at me.
SorSyn's playful gaze was replaced by nostalgia.
"Twelve ancient dreadnoughts crashed in the Sith Empire. There were far more than twelve Dark Jedi, and among them were not only humans. Each group of Dark Jedi was led by a Dark Lord. You are a pureblood Sith; if you apply hybridization methods to a representative of another species, your offspring will be a Red Sith."
These words were a true revelation to me. The information SorSyn was speaking was extremely valuable. I felt like an upstart boasting to an elder who knew the answers to any questions.
"So this Force technique combines any genes and creates viable offspring?"
SorSyn smiled, and I sensed pride radiating from her for a job well done.
"Thousands of Dark Jedi cannot provide the genetic material to create a completely universal hybridization technique, but you are thinking in the right direction."
The more she spoke, the more doubts arose in me. How did she know this?
Sorzus Syn had done something amazing and impossible.
"Are hybrid problems caused by excessively diverse genetic material?"
SorSyn looked at the ceiling and closed her eyes.
"Sorzus Syn could easily have made a human-Sith hybrid, but her great work was far more ambitious. Gathering genes from hundreds of sentient species, she was trying to create a perfect immortal body that would become a good conduit for the dark side of the Force."
So Red Sith were supposed to become humanoid leviathans? Now hybridization makes sense; it really is an interesting idea.
"Did the experiment fail? Modern hybridization methods do not cause negative consequences, but Red Sith are not particularly stronger than Kissai like me."
SorSyn shook her head; she had already said too much. The Lord was in an extremely good mood now, but she had no desire to reveal too many ancient secrets.
"Perhaps it failed, but you should not believe holocrons. The ancient Sith Empire was humiliated: they did not surrender to twelve worthy warriors; they were forcibly enslaved. The Sith stood no chance against the Dark Jedi army."
The Lord very openly changed the topic of conversation, but I could not afford to interrupt her. I could only pretend I hadn't noticed and ask questions on a new topic.
"Did twelve ships become the foundation for our technology?"
SorSyn recalled something unpleasant, then once again said more than necessary.
"Eleven ships. Remulus Dreypa took the only functional ship and fled. His followers left with him, and the remaining Lords divided the Sith population into eleven equal parts."
This information unsettled me even more than the previous bit. They are not trying to kill me, which means I can continue asking questions.
"Why does the hybrid form have a human shape?"
This time she spent a long time remembering something she had forgotten long ago.
"The practical benefit of a single template: tentacles, Twi'lek lekku, and other such things are useless, hindering objects in combat. Over thousands of years, large states created full-fledged heavy armor only for humans. If the Sith had attacked other states, they would have utilized military spoils."
The answer made me even more afraid to speak with this mysterious lady. Perhaps she found the previous answers to questions in holocrons, but how to explain the source of this?!
"Is Sorzus Syn related to your family?"
SorSyn stood up and packed away the board game box. She pointed to the workspace and paid me no more attention.
"Maybe, but our board game is over. Try to live until you become a Sith Lord."