Chapter 1: The King Tide

The remote planet of Xarthax had long sat neglected in its quiet corner of the Outer Rim. The planet's seven moons exerted a powerful and complicated influence on a vast ocean and a volatile system of fractured surface plates. Extensive volcanism and earthquakes coupled with regular influxes of tidal waters created a landscape that was all but uninhabitable except at several tall, plateau-like mountain ranges that remained above the ocean's tidal influence. Due to the complex influence of the Xarthaxian moons, it was possible for the tides to vacillate hundreds of meters in a single day. It was equally possible for the tides to recede over a mile below the mean sea level, revealing a deep, convoluted network of volcanic spires, tunnels, and canyons. Once every 5.7 standard years, an alignment of the moons would create a king tide that would swell for a full month, reaching the base of a populated plateau upon which a small city stood supporting a forlorn Republic outpost. With this tide came a massive blanket of ocean-born fog, which saturated the highlands in a dense mist that nourished a fleeting, but spectacular blossoming. Such a phenomenon would be famous galaxy-wide were it not for the remote and inhospitable nature of the planet.

On the far side of Xarthax above the planet's vast ocean, a quartet of sleek, black, insect-like transport ships dropped into the atmosphere and descended into a deep sea of marine fog. The ships killed their running lights, relying on the ocean's elevated level to navigate halfway across the planet unseen and undetected. The ships maneuvered deftly and in unison around spires and pillars protruding from the ocean's surface. Turbulence rattled the shuttles as they raced across the ocean's surface, carving vortexes through the fog. The lead ship lifted away from the other three, turning left and vanishing into the fog while the remaining trio maintained their course.

Within the ship that assumed the center position in the formation following the lead ship's departure, JX-3846 ran through prescribed protocols for silencing fear and anxiety. In his heightened, pre-combat awareness, he could feel adrenaline coursing through his system, and he worked to focus his breath and attention so that the resulting urge to flee felt more controllable, even though he suspected that control was illusory. His exosuit contained self-administered calming drugs, but as a rule, the Order of Ren's commanders allowed self-administration only in cases of extreme panic. Breathing techniques and focus on silencing the mind were the meager tools left to him and the two dozen soldiers within the transport's dimly lit hold. He could hear his counterpart, AN-1720, across the shuttle shifting nervously, as well. The dim red light reflected off his black, matte-finish armor, casting an image that would have been foreboding had it not been for JX-3846's friendship with the other man and his awareness of the other's anxiety.

Both soldiers had run numerous operations like this, but it was a rare occasion when one of the Acronemses would accompany the mission. It spoke the importance of the operation, as the Acronemses only oversaw missions that held vital strategic importance. Those missions had occurred more frequently over the past year, leaving JX-3846 to wonder whether the Order of Ren was building toward something significant. Whatever the purpose of their mission, the cold, mindless malice and the dark, glittering shells and inscrutable expressions of the mysterious insectoid beings never failed to unsettle the troops. JX-3846 chanced a glance to the back of the transport's hold, and he saw the creature shielded in glossy black armor and its face hidden behind a breathing apparatus that provided the gases it needed for respiration. At two meters, the Acronemses towered over the humans and humanoids in the company, with sharp claws protruding from their shoulder sockets and a purple-black exoskeleton that reflected the red light of the ship's hold. His gaze lingered a microsecond too long, as the creature registered his interest and tilted its head toward him. JX-3846 looked away quickly, fearing further notice.

JX-3846 registered the ship's decreasing velocity when a stray phrase passed through his mind: cannon fodder. In private moments when they were sure they could not be overheard, both he and AN-1720 had concluded that their presence on these missions amounted to little more than a distraction to shield their strange, terrifying commanders from unwanted risk. The Order of Ren had commanded him to murder again, and a distant corner in his mind wondered why he never resisted the orders. As he ruminated, he felt a faint tingle along his spine, and the thought of resentment at the way his commanders used him dissipated, replaced by blankness and a suggestion: I am prepared to die for my lord.

The ships slowed to a stop before settling onto the surface. The ramp opened, and the soldiers left the shuttle, emerging upon a jagged, volcanic landscape riddled with spires and pinnacles obscured by the fog. Infrared settings on their night vision showed the location of their target – a facility crowned with an observation tower that contained some piece of information that the Order of Ren needed. Or so they were told; JX-3846 noted that they never received a full explanation for the missions they ran, even when it required murdering civilians and burning villages. JX-3846 watched as a quartet of shock troops assembled a rocket launcher, which they then oriented toward the structure, preparing to fire on the Acronemsis's order.

Soldiers from the three transports had hurried out of their holds and took position among several spires that would provide cover against return fire. They did not expect significant resistance, although everyone in the squadron had learned long ago that expectations rarely comported with reality. JX-3846 settled into his position, from which he would provide cover for the rocket launcher ten feet to his left. He inhaled deeply, breathing in filtered air devoid of the cool humidity from the surrounding mist. Each troop stood in perfect stillness, waiting for the order.

A staticky, robotic translator's voice erupted from the Acronemsis's communicator, saying, "Their communications and surveillance will be down in 5. . . 4. . ."

JX-3846 braced himself for the deafening roar of the rocket launcher. A flutter of resentment passed through his mind once again, followed by that vague tingling at the top of his spine.

3. . . 2. . . 1. . .

***

Nev Forens leaned idly against the rail of the observation deck, lazily stirring a warm beverage laced with a gentle stimulant as he settled in for another uneventful 8 hours of watch. His compatriot, Henson, had run through his shift in under a minute, with the only noteworthy observation being a flock of henotauri birds leaving their nests in advance of the approaching tide. Nev could not understand why they were bothering to hold a watch tonight, as the weather guidance indicated near-zero visibility in a soup of thick fog. But old rituals die hard on forlorn outposts, and he reckoned he would be just as bored in his quarters as he would be atop an observation tower on a cloudy night.

He bent over the edge of the railing, clutching his steaming beverage, and he wondered how to make the minutes spin by faster. As his mind began to wander through well-trodden corridors of boredom and idle daydreams, he noticed a red flare in the distance, muted by fog. He watched as the flare extinguished, then traced an arc of flame heading directly toward him.

Upon completing its arc, the rocket slammed into the tower, nearly cleaving the top from the base. The explosion swallowed Nev, killing him instantly. A black insectoid ship rose through the fog 100 meters to the left of where the tower had stood moments ago, then glided past the collapsing wreck of the tower. The ship hovered, and a figure, cloaked in black and wearing a metallic, skull-shaped mask laced through with glowing, intricately wound purple lines, dropped from the belly of the ship, and landed lightly on the deck behind the ruined tower. Veryx, disciple of Ren, had entered the fray, his mind and will set on a single purpose.

In one fluid motion, Veryx gestured with his hand, sending a burning piece of rubble into a security camera. Upon destroying the camera, he ignited a lightsaber, which glowed a brilliant crimson in the encroaching fog and swirling smoke from the burning observation tower. Veryx plunged his lightsaber into a control panel and then cut a hole. He placed a detonator into the hole, which began a five-minute countdown.

As Veryx stepped away from the freshly cut cavity, he carved a circle into the floor, creating an opening. After dropping into a deserted hallway choked with smoke that glowed from the flashing red warning lights, he stalked through the corridor, certain of his destination, lightsaber ignited. As he crossed into a hallway, a pair of technicians turned in surprise toward the menacing figure. Veryx pulled both technicians toward him through the Force before cutting them in two in one fluid motion. Once again through the Force, Veryx activated the door before him, which opened into a room serving as an antechamber to a massive data storage vault. A lone technician backed away from Veryx into a console with various readouts, warnings, and screens flashing in response to the assault.

Veryx watched the technician key in a code upon his entrance, and saw a camera swivel toward him. He stalked toward the technician through a thick haze of smoke, flashing lights, and blaring klaxons, and he cut the technician down with his blade. In the next swipe, the camera was cut down. He looked at the console and noted that the transmission had already been sent to an unknown recipient, and inwardly, he cursed the loose end in what had been an otherwise flawlessly executed operation thus far. Little time remained to track the message's transmission and recipient, and so he would have to address the ramifications in time.

With little time to spare, Veryx keyed entry into the storage vault, and following intuition granted by the dark side of the Force, made his way first to an archive containing data about a medical procedure that occurred at the conclusion of the Clone Wars on the planet Coruscant. He pulled the physical data copy and stashed it in his cloak. The second archive, which lay across the vault, contained a mission report from a foray into Jakku which was left obscured and hidden in the vault since its date of delivery. Veryx pocketed this archive as well before sweeping from the vault.

He encountered no resistance as he made his way out of the building. His shuttle hovered overhead, its loading ramp open. Veryx jumped 20 meters above, landing lightly on the ramp.

Below, the timer on the detonator continued to tick down. Twenty seconds remaining. . .

***

The three platoons had managed to fire off a dozen rockets following the initial assault on the observation tower by the time Veryx had obtained what he sought. At first, the Republic responded only with sporadic small arms fire, but gradually the response intensified with heavy repeater blasters training on the platoons' positions. JX-3846 worked alongside his squad to reload the rocket launcher as they carried out orders to focus on an emerging breach in the Republic facility's northern wall. A nearby explosion vaporized the neighboring platoon's rocket launcher. The dust and smoke washed over JX-3846 and his squad, all of whom had taken cover.

Through the din, JX-3846 heard frantic, urgent shouting, although the words were lost amidst screaming from somewhere nearby. Laser blasts flew overhead, sizzling through the mist before glancing off the armored hull of his transport ship. Through the adrenaline surge in his body, the sizzling and the screaming became hyperreal, as if amplified a thousand-fold. In his momentary distraction, his counterpart shouted at him, and he returned to the task of reloading the rocket launcher. The rocket locked into the firing chamber, and he took a step back, disoriented by the chaos.

As he stood back to clear the exhaust radius prior to the rocket's launch, an impulse screamed through every fiber in his being to move away, tearing through years of combat experience, training, and conditioning. In that moment, JX-3846 flung himself to the right, moments before a blast slammed into the rocket launcher he was standing next to seconds before. The rocket launcher exploded, tearing through his squadron.

A ringing in his ears muffled the enveloping chaos as he staggered to his feet. He saw AN-1720 twitching feebly next to the smoldering wreckage of the annihilated rocket launcher. Several other squad mates lay nearby, also motionless. JX-3846 rushed over and saw that a piece of his counterpart's helmet had been blown away, revealing the man's blue skin and one glowing red eye. As JX-3846 stared into the man's eye, the glow dulled before fading altogether, and JX-3846 knew that his counterpart was dead.

The ringing in his ears intensified. Then, a sudden searing pain exploded from the base of his skull, down his spine, and through every nerve in his body. He fell to the ground in agony as the pain intensified, burning through each nerve ending. Just as he thought he might go mad from the pain, it subsided, followed by a rapid succession of confused images: a starry night sky with fire streaking across the firmament; a village, burning; glittering insectoid beings hissing and clattering among terrified, blue-skinned beings; a hulking bestial humanoid with cruel features kneeling upon the neck of an old man; a terrified girl, screaming and pleading as she was pulled from a cellar; and a woman, blue-skinned and shaking, tears streaming down her eyes; a powerful feeling of helplessness and rage. Those images shifted to a man, hooded and blindfolded, tied to a post. As if observing the scene from outside himself, he watched as he raised a weapon. The man screamed for mercy. JX-3846 pulled the trigger and kept it pulled, and his rifle emptied volley after volley of laser fire into the prisoner's body.

And just as suddenly as the images appeared, they were gone. The battle continued to rage. Smoke and screaming filled his ears as he snapped back into his adrenaline-fueled senses. There were no soldiers around him, but several squadrons 50 meters away continued to fire back at the Republic facility. The same impulse that emanated from deep inside him seemed to issue a command. Although the command carried through without any language, the meaning was clear: run. Once again, the impulse cut through his military training, and JX-3846 left the battle.

He ran, tearing through the volcanic terrain, occasionally stumbling over the slick rock. Minutes after leaving his platoon, the Republic facility erupted in flames. A deafening explosion knocked him to the ground as a detonator ignited the facility's power core, triggering a chain-reaction that reduced the facility and everything within it to rubble. JX-3846 stumbled back to his feet and continued to run, shedding some of his armor as he went. The impulse within him, now quieter, told him that the armor would leave a trail, so he cut to the right of the logical destination and finished shedding his armor. Once he lost the last of his armor, he backtracked then followed a line through volcanic spires toward a small city occupying a plateau a kilometer to the north.

***

The Acronemsis watched as the Republic facility erupted in flames and knew that it was the cue to withdraw forces. She signaled to her commander, who relayed the message to fall back. The troops abandoned their fallen comrades, knowing that the rising tide would soon sweep away the bodies and the detritus. As the soldiers scuttled into the shuttles, the Acronemsis took a quick count of the bodies: 22. Her commander relayed back that 27 of the original 50 had returned. The Acronemsis noted the discrepancy, then crackled into a translator. The robotic translation intoned, "One is unaccounted for."

The Acronemsis knew that time was limited for their rapid retreat before attention was drawn. Already, the tide was lapping at her feet, and it would soon cover the battlefield entirely. Through an instinct deep within, she knew that the unaccounted soldier was not dead and was not within the shuttles. She thought back to a moment during the battle when she felt a sudden surge in the Force, and a feeling of foreboding flowed through her.

In that moment, she received a request for report from a distorted human voice: Veryx, her lord and master. "You delay. Report."

Through her translator, the Acronemsis reported to Veryx that one soldier was unaccounted for. "27 returned. 22 dead. One missing."

A long moment of silence followed, after which Veryx replied, "No loose ends. Track the deserter down and kill him. Drop his body at sea. Once you have completed this task, a shuttle will rendezvous at the island to the southwest."

The Acronemsis spoke her acknowledgement, and the transmission shut off. She signaled to the commander to take off immediately. After he entered his ship, the Acronemsis turned toward the city. With the tide rising all around her, she turned toward the one place left to run to.