Though the forces of Lord Silk, his bastardized Royal Guard, fought valiantly against the tide of invasion they could not hope to overcome. Death, destruction and finality stared them in the faces in the form of reinforcements born from within the sky upon armored mounts and prepared to do battle. All terrain scout transports, in numerous quantity, disembarked their landing craft and strode awkwardly onto the field. Amongst them moved men in white armor and additional tracked vehicles, none of which particularly impressed Lord Silk. The odds were ever against him and his own but he knew that his coffin had been sealed when, exposing itself as ungainly and unstoppable, an All Terrain Armored Transport lumbered into view.

His forces had not the artillery to deal with such a significant piece of equipment, they lacked the numbers required to swarm the metallic beast and bear it to its jointed knees. Their resolve, steeled in the glory of victory, was quickly stolen by the facts of reality. For all their enhanced abilities these men could not hope to win out the day.

And so they broke for cover. They retreated into their caves and alcoves, their tunnels and caverns, in an effort to minimalize the impending barrage. Driven to ground, pinned beneath the onslaught of a superior enemy element, Silk and his remaining soldiers readied themselves for the end…

“You have fought well,” spoke the near-cultist leader in somber, yet dulcet tones. “I had hoped to see you all set free of this infernal rock, set loose upon the galaxy as our Lord and Master Maim had intended. It seems that this may not become a reality. We have been rooted out by forces I believe represent the Empire which turned the Dark Lord exile.”

In the temple, a roughly rounded out cavern, the worn men of Silks regiment, those left alive, crowded round their leader and listened to his words like some final resolve. Their weapons spent, each man clutched only his melee standards.

“They will continue to bombard our position with their artillery but we are safe beneath the rock and soil of Yinchorr. They will have to come to us, to meet us in the tunnels and caverns we have called home for so many long years and we will use that necessity to extract a furious toll on these frauds…”

Lord Silk stood and moved amongst the crowd, occasionally pausing to regard one of his men before continuing on. He moved through them as one of them, one of their own, as resigned to his fate as the rest. Now they were equals in death, for it was not as master and commander that he spoke, but rather the strongest, eldest of a brotherhood determined to batter its enemy with its last breath.

“I have been proud to call you all brothers, to know you as siblings of a bond deeper then blood. You will all be rewarded in the next life, rewarded for your diligence, for your duty. And I will be glad to have known you in life, and death.”

With steel in his eyes, he said, “Give them hell.”

And sure enough, they did.

The unknown enemy could count on keeping Silks forces grounded, pinned, indefinitely. So long as their artillery supplies would hold out, they would have been able to keep them suppressed forever. But that had never been the intent of this mission. Silk and his men knew it. The enemy had drawn them out with an inferior force, they had gained the advantage by sacrificing their first wave; the enemy knew their numbers and fighting strength. Now they would come in for the final strike known full well that, even with significant losses, the ex-Guardsmen would perish this day.

Blood pooled and ran in rivers of crimson through the warren the Guard had called home. Defender and invader alike fell upon one another in combat almost too close for traditional weapons or tactics, but the invader pushed through with the advantage of numbers and strength on its side.

Until only a handful of men, Silk included, found themselves fighting back-to-back against the on rushing wave. They prepared themselves for death…

… and the enemy froze in formation.

From amongst their ranks emerged one defined above the others by rank insignia and said, “Lord Silk, there is no need for you to die this day. My commander would offer you a reprieve, to you and your surviving forces. Throw down your weapons, and I give you my word as a soldier of the Imperial Guard, you will not be harmed.”

What choice did he have?

With a smirk and iota of humor, he put, “Take me to your leader.”

The Intimidator had knifed itself into the Yinchorr system with a small flurry of escorts buzzing around it. The ship dwarfed the already imposing trio of Imperial IV Star Destroyers being an entirely new breed of super battleship. On her rode a very powerful man indeed, one who had been horrified to hear from the Emperor himself that a betrayer of the Empire was still alive. To hear that he was in custody shocked and amazed the Commandant of the Imperial Guard for he would have expected him to commit suicide or perish in battle.


Even more puzzling was why the commander of the force dispatched to eliminate the betrayer and his survivng minions had not completed his mission. The only answer was a hesitation for higher authority, and for that the commander would be castigated mightily. However, his redemption would come.


From the belly of the behemoth warship came a shuttle and a squadron of fighters around it. Moments later, the shuttle had disappeared inside the center of the orbiting Star Destroyers, disgorging its singular cargo.


" Bring him to me," was all Grand Admiral Desaria said as Captain Karellia sauntered up to him. The ship's commander saluted and gave a well-practised click of his heels. Into his commlink he did repeat the command adding the precise instructions neccessary. Moments passed in silence as the command took effect. Obedience in the Guard was not lacking and sure enough, he was escorted into the landing bay.


Grand Admiral Desaria cast a steely gaze across the durasteel decking, almost squinting against the landing lights and bright illumi-panels on the ceiling. The betrayer walked proudly despite the remains of what were once flowing ceremonial robes. Around him were over ffity Guardsmen, all in full combat armor; the ten men closest to him had sidearms in open-holsters while their gloved hands grasped long force pikes they and perhaps a dozen others in the whole vessel's compliment knew how to wield.


Dark Lord Dioan Silk.


The Grand Admiral sneered and thought of a much more fitting monocre.


Traitor


The Dark Lord was brought to within twenty feet of the Grand Admiral, the impressive escort fanning out in all directions. The heavily armed Guardsmen that had accompanied Baron Desaria from the Intimidator closed to their charge, while the Baron's personal bodyguard Malik disengaged the safety on his own blaster pistol.


" I am Grand Admiral Telan Desaria and I speak for His Majesty the Emperor. Why should I not kill you?"

The procession from planet to custody to the Admirals starship had not been, in the least, an experience which Dioan Silk enjoyed. Unlike those glorious parades of which he had oft played a part when proceeding Emperor Palpatine, or in escort of the Dark Lord Maim, this was not a moment of proud reflection or hopeful ambition but rather an exploitation of the man known to few as Lord Silk and seen by the rest as a bastard son of a dead empire loyal to a deposed tyrant; the traitorous Sovereign Protector, Imperial Guardsmen and soldier of the Empire. Those men who moved in escort with him, doubtless trained and poised to strike him down at a moments notice, regarded him not with the respect due a warrior of the Crimson nor even the simple dignity extended between warriors of differing banners, but rather with the cold animosity achieved by only the most stolid of fighting men. Though they did not berate him or impinge upon his physical state of being their emotional emanations were enough to set the force-sensitive Silk on edge. They stayed in perfect formation at all times and remained ever vigilant for any sign of aggression, a tribute to their training.

He was ignorant of the fates of the rest of his men though he assumed that those who had survived and chosen to throw down their arms rather then fight to the grim end would be given the same treatment he was being afforded now and, at the very least, would be taken as Prisoners of War and not traitors to the Empire. While his life had been spared he knew, only too well, that it was because someone in the rank structure had deigned it worthwhile to meet with Silk. If his fellows in arms had been taken without similar courtesy he had little doubt they would face summary execution. However, having trained so close with them for so long and having mentored them in the ways of the Dark Side he knew that, should his men begin to die anew, he would feel their deaths through the force and until that time, he could afford to bide his patience and see how this event played out. For now though he was too spent, too taxed from the battle and the loss of life on the part of those men he had lived in exile with for so long, to properly compose himself for an assault.

They had clapped him in irons though this act was largely symbolic as they knew, as did Silk, that he could shake such a bond at any given point. But they knew, again as Silk knew himself, that this was a war that could not be won on the current battleground and so he had submitted to their desires. Naturally he had been removed of his weapons though not stripped of his tattered ceremonial robes which implied that despite their apathy, none had a desire to berate the man… that or they still feared his prowess and did not wish to provoke him any further. Regardless of their own feelings, empathic though he could be, Silk respected these men for they, like himself, were soldiers under a grand Empire. That respect, however; would only take him… and them so far.

A bag was fitted over his head during the transport to the larger flagship, though he guessed this too was largely based on tradition. His senses, far heightened above normal by his strength in the force, allowed him to remain constantly aware of his surroundings. Rumbling through the deck plates he could feel the sensations of touch down and knew that he would be brought before whomever had ordered the attack and then chosen to spare his life.

He descended the ramp with pride in his footfalls. Prisoner he may be, but beaten he was not. Much as any warrior knows Silk knew that so long as he drew breath he would have some fight left in him. The robes, ripped and torn, flowed behind him and revealed the sections of solid armor plating that had once been hidden beneath. Scars both bladed and blaster marked his armor, a testament to his own experiences during the last long years and those scars were mirrored beneath, in his flesh.

The soldier in Silk looked upon his captor, an Imperial Admiral, with some degree of inherit inferiority but that was nothing compared to the emotions inspired within Silk when, looking upon him as everything else he had become, a deep sensation of pathetic pity welled up in his belly. He looked at the man and saw an empty shell hiding behind his ships, behind his men and behind his military stratagem.

And he thought, I could kill you where you stand before you bat a lash, before your men can react and before you even know what has happened. I could kill you. I should kill you…

But before Silk could vocalize his contempt had he any ambition to do so, it was the Admiral who spoke, who asked with the arrogant tone common to every single stinking Imperial Officer, “Why should I not kill you?”

Perhaps he had been a soldier once, but he had never been like Silk… a grunt, meat for the grinder. Silk graduated from those ranks at the cost of his own blood and sweat, he had distinguished himself from nothingness to become one of Palpatines Royal Guard. And with the collapse of the old mans Empire he had found new meaning, a new life, fighting and killing in the name of Dark Lord Maim. So, it was with some shocking clarity that the answer came to him and Silk said…

“My death... would be your own.”

The Force was something that Telan Desaria could never understand. Those who used it filled volumes in every library in the cosmos; names like Palpatine, Vader, Skywalker, Jade, Solo, Jiren, Maim were oft spoken. He had earend his position not through command of some guiding hand or magical sense but by harnessing the powers of his own mind. Duty and devotion had gotten him, after twenty-four years service, the rank of Grand Admiral, and he had no invisible network to thank or curse. His enemies and his friends were real.


No, Telan Desaria, the soldier, the aristocrat, the Guardsmen, did not understand the Force. But he knew its potency - and the ends to which it could corrupt. He looked across the decking to the once-proud follower of a half-mad fanatic and saw how warped his viasge had become. Whether the pull of the dark side or the harshness of Yinchorr's vast wastes had a hand in forming the twisted man before him, Desaria knew not. He did not fear the tall muscled man, and try as he might to respect him for enduring a climate more harsh than could be imagined, the simple reminder of his treason prevented any soldierly courtesy.


“My death... would be your own.”


The Grand Admiral sneered, all pretense of courtesy gone from his face. That the other man could reach out with that translucent hand of whatever he commanded and stop his hearts he knew all too well but he showed no sign of hesitation. No Guardsman ever backed down.


" You were sent here for your treason against the Empire, banished and left to die. But die you did not and that caused some alarm on Coruscant. Enough that the Emperor dispatched the Imperial Guard to terminate your existence once and for all. And now here you stand before me threatening me and everything I believe in. The Empire has always stood for Order. You bastardized that vision once and I will not let you do that again."

Silk decided, at this point, that he had endured exactly enough of this Empirical, haughty sense of justice.

He had not died on that rock nor was he exiled there by any Empire but simply forgotten and neglected by a government that no longer reigned. He had endured there and prevailed much as he would do now, he would not die for, in his estimation, he could not. He would live and in so doing leave a trail of bodies in his wake should anyone, such as this supposed Admiral, attempt to infringe on his now granted freedom. The Admiral had made one vital error in judgment, and Silk informed him thusly.

“I care not what you feel you can or cannot allow me to do, it has little bearing on what will happen. You have made a fatal mistake in extricating me from the rock upon which I was imprisoned. My fate is not to die here today at your hands or those of any other present.”

At this, in response to the growing threat that was Dioan Silk, the guards assigned to protect the Admiral and keep the dark soul in custody began to radiate trepidation. Clearly, and this surprised Silk none, these were not men who had faced an enemy trained in the use of the Force and his aura, or even the unspoken reputation of the Sith, was enough to set them further on edge. Indeed the Galaxy had become almost derelict of true force students and only a handful of real, physical examples still existed. The climate had shifted during his period of exile, obviously, and he intended to make full use of that.

His eyes were fixed on the Admiral and they did not stray.

“ I ask and demand only one thing of you and that is that you deliver me and my men, those who remain, into the hands of what today calls itself the Sith Order.”

Silk lifted his hands from the folds of his robes and the manacles tumbled away, hitting the deck with a dull clank before clattering away.

“You cannot kill me, it is not bound to happen this day. If it were to happen, I would have died already. You must see this.”

His voice had raised just loud enough that those within earshot could hear his words. Focusing on the dark side he poured a savage, but concentrated emphasis into his words and sent them dancing in the ears of those listening with the weight of certain doom.

Lord Silk had often said that there exist only two types of people within the Galaxy; those that are real and those that are not and only two men now in occupation of the starship could claim that divine right to existence. Silk looked upon Admiral Desaria and was looked upon in turn.

“Dismiss you men and free mine you have taken into custody and I assure no one will be harmed so long as you deliver me and my men to where we wish to go.”

Though intangible and invisible the fingers of the force, manipulated by the dark side, extended out and around Silk as he spoke infecting the minds of those present and stealing from them some of their resolve to fight. Fear lurks within the heart of all men, Silk had told his students on Yinchorr, and you will learn to feel that fear in your enemy and exploit it. Even the most hardened warrior can be stalled in his tracks by fear.

And like a fisherman landing that big fish Silk could feel his tendrils sink into the very being of those soldiers present though, and he noted this with some dismay, Admiral Desaira himself managed to avoid succumbing to his dark manipulations. But the anxiety of the others was palatable and ready to be exploited.

Silk spread his palms and shrugged, “Your duty has been served this day, my execution will not serve you or your Empire and will only amount to a single result; more death. I have no desire to see this come to pass."

"You are a soldier as I once was and you are a commander of men as I have become, I ask you to search yourself. If indeed you find merit in my execution then indeed you have little choice but to carry out that fatal sentence."

"See me and my men to the Sith and I assure you that neither I nor any under my command will be a threat to your Empire. I also offer you this... I offer to you the planet below; Yinchor, as tribute for our salvation from the exile imposed upon us by the enemy of your Emperor."