Chapter 3 - TRAJAN

THE SITH LORD dredged his way through the blizzard, the torn and black robes wrapped around his body barely keeping the biting winds from turning his bones into ice.
All my teachings, he thought bitterly, all my meditations and training and vision hunting – only to die on this miserable snowball of a planet because I followed a vision.
Only that was not true. The vision he saw was real. The dark side of the force had rewarded his painful meditation with a glimpse of his destiny, and Darth Trajan had sought it out.
The sickening truth was that no matter how clear his mission had become, all his preparations, deceptions and murders were for nothing because of a simple little thing as an engine failure. The sublights of the Dreadnaught, a gift from the Archains, froze up at once upon entering Hoth’s frigid biosphere. The Archains, who were brilliant in designing menacing and groundbreaking warcraft and weaponry, anticipated the climate of Hoth and refurbished the Dreadnaught with thermonucleatic drives to avoid any freeze up. These kicked in, much to Trajan’s relief, who was already thinking the Archains have performed a treacherous sabotage to rid themselves of a sith lord. Unfortuately, a jet stream tossed the vulnerable Dreadnaught from its approach, forcing it into a deadly spin. The Sith was barely able to pull the ship from a straight dive into the snow, crashing headlong into a deep ravine, skimming the declination of the hillside and slamming tree after tree until it finally came to a rest near the bottom. Buried under ten feet of snow, the sith had fell into blackness. When he woke, his surroundings were so dark and so cold he thought he was lost inside space. A small window of his front pilot shield gave a peek of the outside. He saw light and the makings of a tree stump.
Delrious and frozen, he broke free of the cockpit and clawed madly to the surface of the deep snow and started to walk in the direction his senses told him.
Now Trajan stumbled through the biting winds, his eyes blinded by stinging snow, his mind conjuring images of those he had betrayed.
At last he fell, beaten, and cackled uncontrollably at the realization that the vision that had baited him here – a man dying in the snow – was indeed of his very own end.

Trajan opened his heavy eyes to see his own reflection within a half-mask. His vision was blurry and his head felt full of slush. He felt for his lightsaber but could not feel his limbs.
“just relaxe, my friend. How do you feel?”
Trajan felt anger to be put into such a position.
“Where am I? How did I get here?”
“Where do you think you are?”
That mask. Something about it.
“Did you drug me?”
“Not yet. You are experiencing frostblood. You nearly froze to death.”
Frozen. The memory hit him. I crashed on Hoth. I crawled on Hoth. He tried to think. I crashed on Hoth. His mind felt slow, numb.
“Drink this,” The mask offered a cup of steaming broth.
His throat parched, Trajan let the mask tilt the cup to his cracked lips, though the indignity of it angered him so much that he wanted to knock the mask’s head clean off.
“Die,” he croaked.
“Say again?”
“I died,” he corrected.
“Nearly,” said the mask. “Your ship crashed in a ravine. You’re very luck that Salty and I saw you.”
“Salty?”
“My taun-taun. Why don’t you rest a bit now. We’ll talk later.”
Trajan scowled internally, his mind warming with the heat of the drink. His arms were tingling as if being prodded by a thousand needles.
Curse this planet, he thought. He took in his surroundings.
The room was cavernous, the walls covered in dark brown canvas.
He is hiding something.
Trajan closed his eyes and reached out with his mind. His weapon was not with him. Did this mask take it from him while he was unconscious? Was it lost in the snow? Trajan could not remember if he took his saber with him when he left the shipwreck.
No matter, he thought. I will kill him and continue with my plan. Too tired to reach with the force, Trajan fell back into deep sleep.

Darth Trajan’s black robes were a sharp contrast to the blinding whiteness of Hoth as he stood watching Magnus do his ice fishing, imagining every possibility of killing Magnus. There were many ways to kill and Trajan did not want to repeat himself.
It was the third day and Magnus had not yet wanted to discuss anything, much less how Trajan had come to crash land just a parsec from where he stood. Magnus spent the time instead taking care of him. He had fed him, gave him shelter and hot drink.
With every situation a Sith found himself in, there was no fight or flight response. It was fight with the full and quick fury of the dark side, or fight with deliberation; slowly, methodically, plotting and deceiving a hole in the enemy from which to make a greater power or greater weakness. This situation called for the latter.
In the back of Trajans mind was the simple fact that Magnus had saved his life along with the simple desire to return the favor. This desire Trajan fought aggressively to suppress. He was a Sith after all, and had no true good will, only a sense of deception. The truth was that he had work to do and Magnus could play an important role.
The Archain army was just weeks away from its takeover on Hoth and Trajan had not yet met with king Atrus. And he had yet to find his apprentice, which was his true goal. War was a play, a wonderful backdrop, and the scenery of his ascension to power.
Trajan would gain an apprentice and two star systems as a bonus.
But little was happening here.
Trajan knelt in the snow and called upon the dark side for instruction. Closing his eyes, he focused on the outer. He felt ropes of force bound to every living thing. Some were taught, some loose, some frailed and barely holding on save but a few threads. Trajan felt a mass of them leading into red darkness, looping and forming knots. He sensed a bigness heading towards him. The Orchains.
He reached out. What is my destiny?
He saw a great hall with glass ceiling, great stone pillars. He saw the king. There were three boys and one girl at his side. They were surrounded by the Force.
“Trajan!”
Confused, Trajan jumped to his feet and called for his saber with an out reach of his right hand. Of course, nothing came.
Magnus was holding a large, thrashing fish from its mouth. ‘Look at this whopper!”
Sith or not, Trajan could not help but smile genuinely at such a catch.
From the west came a bray. Trajan’s head snapped to the sound, his killer instinct clicking. A pack of taun-taun were migrating north, three snips out.
Trajan ran after them, calling out the dark side to control the largest of the beasts.
Magnus was adamant about Trajan accompanying him for his daily fishing expeditions, saying the cold air would do him good, though Trajan suspected that Magnus did not trust to leave him alone.
So Magnus took his own mount, which he stupidly named Salty, while Trajan pushed on through the snow. Easy or no, Trajan felt belittled, and was on the look out to catch his own taun-taun.
Now that he saw a chance, he took it, commanding the mind of the pack leader to yield. Magnus watched unbelieving as Trajan ran to the larger of the animals and removed his cloak, throwing it around the neck of the beast and jumping on its back. Trajan kicked at the taun-taun and ran it back to Magnus.
He stopped in front of Magnus, who stared dumbly holding his fish. “Magnus, look at this whopper!”
Magnus laughed out loud, smacking his leg. “How the hell did you do that?”
Trajan shrugged, smiling proudly. “The Force.”
Magnus and Trajan looked at one another for a second before bursting out in fresh laughter, each holding their prize.

Trajan woke to the sound of a lightsaber igniting and opened his eyes to see a glowing blue blade held at his throat. The second thing he saw was his own unsurprised reflection in Magnus’ mask flashing away as it fell to the floor, revealing the telling scar of a lightsaber cut, long and smooth, in the shape of a crescent moon arcing from the left temple to the split of the lip. The flesh was burned black.
Trajan had seen this type of scar administered by Sith lords as a tattoo to demonstrate their faith to darkness. This one however, was administered by attack.
Magnus knelt down to Trajan. “You’d better get a good look at a man before you try to take his head off with your blade, sith!”
Now Trajan did feel a sting of recognition. This man was the Orchain general who interfered with his actions on Orchaia. And the lightsaber he held to his throat belonged to the jedi he killed.
Trajan realized he was close to death. His eyes locked on Magnus as he raised himself to a sitting position, thinking he could have easily killed Magnus ten times over in the same amount of time it took Magnus to speak to him.
“I am no longer Sith, just as you are no longer an Archain general.”
“Lying dog! You serve your master, old Darth Gruel, and were sent to kill me!”
“No.” Trajan rose from the couch. “I have killed my master, and am seeking asylum from the King of Hoth in return for the warning I’ve come to give him of the approaching Archain army. If I wanted to kill you, I would have done so.”
Magnus scowled. “When a sith talks, a sith lies. You tried to kill me when you killed the jedi. Now I take my revenge.”
“I acted on orders from my master. You and I are no different from one another. We served under a command whose motivations grew more clouded from our own diatribe. We made the same choices, Magnus. We took lives, we lied and plotted, deceieved and murdered for the greater glory of our masters. Can you tell me otherwise?”
Magnus lowered the blade. Trajan congratulated himself and sighed dramatically.
‘Our actions held a cost of many lives. But we have changed our course and the force has brought us together for a reason.”
What Trajan said next felt too sweet from his lips and he wanted to retch.
“We’ve come here to do battle with our enemies and save Hoth. We can fight together.”
Magnus stared at him for several seconds. “I hear you. How do I not know you’re using a jedi mind trick?”
Trajan said, “I can’t. I’ve already tried.”
Magnus looked at him incredulously, then burst out laughing, clapping Trajan on the shoulder, nearly knocking him down. “If I found you a month ago I would not have bothered to wake you before I killed you.”
“Same here.” Trajan nodded toward the lightsaber. “Do you know how to use that?”
Magnus looked at it. “How do you turn it off?”

“Magnus, you’re swinging too hard! You’re hacking!” Trajan called out, clearly enjoying watching Magnus try to use a lightsaber.
The two had not gone out for the morning ritual of catching fish, choosing instead a breakfast of roasted beast, a small snow rabbit that Trajan had willed close, breaking its neck with a thought.
“I could have really used you earlier,” Magnus had said, thinking of all the fishing he had done and his trials of catching a taun-taun. They agreed to make for Adia the next morning. Now, Magnus was taking lessons on lightsaber combat.
“I’ve studied sword fighting since you were in diapers!”
‘The lightsaber is not a steel blade. It is an elegant and dangerous weapon. A touch can kill. Swing it quick and swing it lightly. Let me show you.”
Magnus handed him the lightsaber. Trajan felt the jedi inside its hilt. He wanted to drop it. He held it tightly, crouched in a stance with the blade parallel to the ice, and then sprung, the blade swirling in a helix, he spun and slashed in the air, and made several attacks, the blue blade a blur of strobe light.
Trajan forced himself to stop before the dark side came forth to kill Magnus. He deactivated the blade, not even out of breath.
“Impressive,” Magnus said. “You were trained well.”

The Hoth army is stationed in Adia, with bases here and here and here.” Magnus pointed to a large hologram of a flat map of Hoth. “Terrak’s plan of attack will be to take out their defenses by a long range missile attack, then plunge into a full scale assault into Adia.”
Trajan nodded. “We need to have Hoths army engage the Archain battleships before they launch their initial strike. In fact, best immediately. The attack on Orba is already in progress.”
“Orba was always intended to be a warm-up. With zero military presence, the conquest will not take long. It is too late for Orba. But now Hoth has a secret weapon.”
“You and I?”
magnus nodded grimly. “As a former general of the Archain army, my council will be heard on wary ears. Yet I alone can give them all the strategies and weaknesses of the army. But the king and his council…
“May need a bit of persuasion?”
“Yes. For their own good.”
Trajan was dancing in his head. Magnus was planning everything Trajan was going to do anyway.

The storm was relentless. On the radar, it was a swirling mass of white, spinning lazily over their heads. Magnus shut the monitor off with a sigh. “If this storm doesn’t let up, we’re going to be here for a while.” He turned on the thermal furnace, bathing the command unit with a soft yellow glow. Outside, the storm howled. Magnus felt at peace, comforted by the shelter and its given warmth while outside was a hellish winter raging.
He brewed a batch of bean broth and handed a mug to Trajan, who sat staring at the glowing furnace core.
Magnus took a seat and they sat that way in silence, sipping their brew. Magnus tried to think of a way to begin a conversation.
Odd company, he thought. Trajan broke the silence.
“Do you want to hear a story, Magnus?”
Magnus smiled. “It is a night just right for stories. Is this myth?”
“No. It is the story of how I killed my master. It is one I am sure you would appreciate as we share the same dispassion for our former commanders.”
Magnus sat back, propped his feet on the map table.
Trajan took a minute to fashion a beginning, then said

To begin, you must understand that it is one the siths most highest ambitions to kill their master. It is the way of the Sith. When a sith takes an apprentice, he is essentially accepting the one who may one day kill him. They know this because they were once an apprentice as well before they killed theur master. It is a strange relationship yes, but treachery is at the heart of a sith along with ambition. So the apprentice kills his master, takes on a series of apprentices-
More than one?
Well yes. A master can go through several but never at the same time. You see, depending on the strengths of the apprentice, they may get killed in action, during training
Killed in training?
It is not child scouts, General. Also, if an apprentice challenges his master when he is not ready, the master will kill him.
Trajan took another drink.
Do you have any spirits to add to our broth?
Magnus grinned. I may.
Of course, a mobile command unit ready for war would have been well stocked to feed and drink a platoon. Magnus came back bearing two bottles of hard fruit and a metal box of cigars. He filled their glasses that were about a third full to the top with the hard fruit. They raised their glasses in salute and drank.
You see, Trajan continued, a Sith, though he has powerful desires of ambition in his heart, must learn patience. It is a lesson they has been passed since the old republic when the sith nearly killed themselves to extinction. Patience, slow methodic planning. A sith must build his strength in the force and know ehn the time is right to challenge his master.
How did you know you were ready?
Trajan took another drink, gasping at its potency. That’s straight from Hell – but it’s good! Darth Gruel had many ambitions. He allied with the Archains because he saw the benefits of an army within reach. But that power was a lot of work. That was what I was for. Most of my missions were fulfilling the needs of the Archain army, mostly assassinations, threats, negotiations. The Archain army would not be where it is today if not for my actions. I took out corporate heads, greased many wheels for Terratrons company to become THE military presence of Archaia.
Magnus sat dumbstruck.
Oh yes, but Gruel did not care for Terratrons own ambitions. All my work was for Gruel. So they he could have the greatest military force at his fingertips.
He paused for another drink. Magnus refilled both of their glasses.
You asked me how I knew I was ready? The truth is I did not know. But Gruel did. He knew I was ready before I knew and he took another apprentice in my absence to Arhaia. He hid his new apprentice well. I did not know of it until I returned form my final mission on Archaia.
Know this, Magnus. Terratron instructed me to kill the jedi and you. Upon my landing in Archaia, my only instruction was to kill the jedi. Terratron reached me and gave me the order to kill you both. I am sorry.
It was his first apology of the incident. Magnus accepted with a nod of his head.
Gruel took another apprentice to defend him. He knew I was ready and would challenge him, would kill him. His apprentice would kill me before I killed Gruel. If I proved unworthy, Gruel would have killed me, and he would still have an apprentice. Either way, I was to die and Gruel would live. That was his plan anyway. He chuckled and took another drink.
It failed.
Magnus was lighting his cigar, offered one to Trajan. “So the three of you fought?”
Trajan took the cigar, lit it, inhaled deeply. “For our lives. This is what happened.”

Trajan landed the dreadnaught on the hilltop clearing. He made his way down the mountainside to the dome shaped building that was Gruels home. In answer to the question of why this forest moon as a home base, Gruel grinned “I see great things converging here, my apprentice. A war to end all wars. This place will be a final battlefield.”
Trajan thought the old man has misread his prophesy. The planet was remote. But when Trajan meditated on it later, he too felt a great crashing disturbance, opposite tremors colliding into one that was so powerful he reluctantly quit the vision, his eyes bleeding rivers from the pain.
Pine needles crunched under his boots and small furry creatures fled as he made his way. He stopped suddenly, taken by a vision. The same dark mountain he had seen at the beginning of all his vision quests. Only this time the mountain was crumbling, revealing at last a sick red light bursting from behind it. He did not want to dwell on it, however, as was excited to tell his master the news; the jedi was killed and Terratron wanted his highest general assassinated.
Trajan entered the large hangar filled with shadow and sensed his master in the darkness. He felt waves of fury and rage emanating from his hunched frame. His robes were billowy, making his back appear to be arched like a cat. His eyes burned yellow.
“You have come to kill me,” his master said.
Immediately, Trajan leaped into the air and somersaulted, igniting his twin bladed staff, over his masters body and cut a decapitating blow at his masters head. Grinull easily ducked it and turned, jumping to his feet. He was old and weak, yet the dark side used him as a divining rod to serve its purpose. Trajan stood, trying not to think of what he was doing but only serving the flow of the dark side. His muscles were spasming in a sort of shocked excitement and fear. To attack his master, there was only on outcome, death for either one of them or both. He focused, calming his body, turning himself over and using his hate against his master.
“Come, my pupil. Your graduation is at hand.” He was hunched over in his cloak, his arms held out to his sides in a welcoming gesture, his body crackling with a red lightning that was building up, wrapping around his cloak like glowing maggots. “Come do your worst!” He raised his skeletal hands, his crooked fingers stabbing at his student. “Let me tell you…”
“You are not ready!” Dark lightning bolts flashed from his fingertips. Trajan held them at bay with all his might using his lightsabers blade. The weight of the lightning was heavy, pushing on him with the force of a black hole. He gritted his teeth and summoned the dark side with all his might, and up swung his blades, knocking his masters lightning to the side, blowing up a servant droid.
Cackles from his master echoed throughout the hall. “It would be wise to give in now, my apprentice,” Darth Gruell enticed in the oil slicked croak of a voice. “For I have forseen every errant strike you will make, every parry, every pitiful attempt to move me.” He smiled from the loose bag that was his wrinkled, scarred face. “You will fail. And you will die. Submit now and I will make your death…as quick as possible.” His smile grew bigger, an open mouthed, yellowed toothed, biggest joke of the universe smile. Yet his eyes were cold, red, full of purpose.
Trajan saw something else.
Fear.
Trajan attacked, his blades whirling as he jumped into the air.
Gruell called his own staff to his hands and met Trajan in the center, their blades locking and their noses almost touching. They stared at one another, teeth bared, pushing against the others blade. Trajan called a force push and knocked his master back, who flipped to avoid a deadly roundhouse twirl of lightning blades and counterattacked with a series of left and right raging strikes with the twin sabers. Trajan easily blocked these, flipped back and quickly pulled his masters staff from his clutches.
Now Trajan stood with a double bladed lightsaber staff in each hand. He had never fought with two staffs at once, but the dark side called him to do so. It would be terribly easy to dismember his own limbs or head using four blades, as Gruel was counting on.
Gruel met his pupil’s stance, smiling with gritted fangs.
“Young fool,” he hissed. “You should realize that a lightsaber is not the only weapon of a sith.”
Trajan sensed a pull in the force, like a fish pulling on a line, and ducked in time as a massive rock aimed at his head flew by. He flipped, careful of the four blades within his space, advancing on his master, who was throwing everything he could at his apprentice. Trajan spun all four blades around him, blocking every object forced his way. He lunged, catching his master in a trap of crossed sabers against the wall. Gruel only smiled.
Trajan smiled back. “Thank you, my-“
A ripple in the force.
A third Sith leapt from the shadows and attacked with his own double bladed staff. Trajan leapt straight into the air after knocking aside two smashing blows from this new comer, landing on a beam.
Gruel cackled. “Lord Trajan, meet Darth Plageus, my new apprentice. He has been a great asset in my force borne plans. Together, we will create powerful Sith lords in the wombs of unsuspecting women across the galaxy.”
Trajans mind raced. How could he not know of this secret apprentice? No wonder Gruel kept him busy with meeting every need of the Orchains. Why did he not kill me? Because he needed me, he answered himself. While Gruel and Plageus were creating life from the force, they needed me to obtain the will of an army and set the wheels in motion for a war.
Darth Plageus tall frame was draped by a red cloak, his tattooed face showing zero emotion as he spoke matter-of-factly. “Ancient sith law dictates that there can be only two sith. I challenge you to the death, Darth Trajan. Come and meet your destiny.”
Trajan read the lie coming from behind those black eyes. Gruel and Plageus wanted him dead. This was not a one on one duel.