CHAPTER XXXXV: SELF-DECEPTION

As Slayer was slowly moving towards the Inner Rim Markers following behind was a large GCN probe com carrier. Lord Rexor had dispatched the com carrier once the Slayer had reached the MidRim point and was following the colossal vessel’s movement from his starship EVO-ONE. The Whills had just 30 hours remaining to live and the Dark Lord was feeling jubilant; however, there had been no word from his strike force heading to the uncharted world where the traitors Dark Lord Kalore and Tirahn were believed to be hiding.

Lord Rexor found himself pacing the deck of his starship when he ordered K-LOK to find out what was happening beyond the Outer Rim. Interlinking with the MD-13, the forthcoming news was fragmentary: BLACK HEART UNDER MAX-VENTOR HAD SPOTTED DEFIANCE AND HYPER-JUMPED AHEAD OF THE STRIKE FORCE TO ENGAGE HER HOURS AGO WHILE MAX-ANGOR OF DARK FURY HAD ASSUMED CONTROL OF THE SITH STRIKE FORCE AND WAS SLOWLY APPROACHING THE UNCHARTED PLANET AT CO-ORDINATES  743.2541.0347.9. NO SIGN OR SIGNAL FROM BLACK HEART. NO SIGN OF DEFIANCE.

The Dark Master was fuming again. He ordered K-LOK to contact Dark Seer Diprava at the Black Mountain Temple and order her to perform a sight reading on the spot. She was to see if the traitors still lived and if everything was going as planned. K-LOK replied as usual: YES MASTER, IT WILL BE DONE.

However, Diprava knew the penalty for providing truthful information that went against the Sith so she had falsified her transcendar images by mentally projecting success when instead she could sense a horrible defeat looming ahead. The urge to flee Tirahnna was very great but the Dark Seers were under tight guard by armed Kyries at the Black Mountain Temple. Such measures had never before been taken until Tirahn had stolen the Sacred Black Stone from the Sacred Seer Slab.

Diprava knew she would have to lie to the Dark Master again and eventually her life would be terminated if she didn’t find a way to escape Tirahnna.

Meanwhile, back onboard Black Heart the critical thruster malfunction had knocked out a series of critical systems; among them, communications, weapons and sensor arrays, and the core reactor. Black Heart had lost track of Defiance long ago and the crews were getting nervous as the Sith officers ruthlessly demanded the impossible of each sector of the ship’s control teams. Since the MD-13 could not physically repair the damage done by the unknown star fighter’s missiles, systems specialists and repair crews struggled to get the systems back online. However, a simple re-routing had been programmed wrong and thus a series of systems had fallen. Black Heart was operating off emergency power back-up generators and life support for the large vessel was waning.

Max-Ventor was ranting and raving at the bridge crews in the pits and demanded that a solution be found or else executions would begin within the hour. Thruster Number One was badly damaged and should have been shut down permanently due to a catastrophic pressure build-up if the Rekurium core were to equally distribute full power to all four aligned thrusters.

Crew Chief Wrenx was tired of all the waiting and verbal intimidation by his Sith superiors so he manually re-set Thruster Number Two to bleed-off energy to the damaged Thruster Number One on the full power setting. Engineers would be ordered to secure a bleed pipe off Number Two and feed it into Number One. It was unlikely that Black Heart would need full power anyway. The mechanical repairs took one hour but after the Rekurium core was restarted all systems ran the green line and Black Heart came alive again.

Unknown to the MD-13 the crew chief’s bleed line was already slowly being  clogged by imbedded missile debris dislodging from Thruster Number One. The repair crews had failed to clear the Thruster. With the power grid at only twenty five percent  and no use of the bleed line the danger was not detected. By the time it would be detected it would be too late to save the ship.

On the new C-bridge of Black Heart, Max-Ventor was satisfied and immediately ordered  a calculation of drift, a complete re-plot of course for the Bura world, distance to target, and estimate of arrival time at 50 percent power. Also, the MD-13 was to use a hypercom transmission to try to reach Max-Angor of Dark Fury to co-ordinate their assault on the planet; if that failed, a probe hypercom carrier was to be launched at once.

After what seemed like an eternity of waiting, Lord Rexor received the excellent news from Diprava that all was going to plan- that the Sith traitors were hiding on a remote world and would soon be taken alive. Diprava also reported that great images of a supreme Sith victory were being seen by all the Dark Seers and that the Dark Master would soon rule the entire galaxy.

Back onboard Black Heart communications were restored with Dark Fury and Black Heart now resumed control of the Sith strike force. Estimated time until they coordinated their assault on TaBora, within the hour. Inside Dark Fury’s cavernous bay the fifty Black Ravens were fully charged and loaded with two Gravitons each. Lord Rexor had ordered that after Dark Lord Kalore and his whore Tirahn were captured alive that the Buras be sealed inside their subterranean world until such a time as the Sith could drill down into their inner sanctuary and gas them all to death.

The news was most glorious. Slayer was on its way unstoppable to Elysia. The Sith traitors were located and would soon be put to death. And the Dark Seers had projected a glorious victory for Tirahnna.

Both Lord Rexor and Max-Ventor reclined in their command chairs and stared into the heavens, intent on Sith victory.

In war, deception is the greatest weapon; to destroy one’s own life requires only self-deception…