**Shuttle Obsidian

Alsakan System

Dentination: Archais Corporate Banking District**

The Fist checked his equipment one last time before donning an unassuming overcoat. They were landing during the local winter season and temperatures, especially for extended assignments dealing with the elements, would be uncomfortable to say the least. The jacket looked new because it was. There was little need for such heavy insulation in the nearly ubiquitous twilight of the Anteian desert.

Beside him, a seasoned man did likewise. The old Imperial measured his weapons with a calculating glare steeped in years of pre-combat ritual. They said little, having already exhausted what conversation could be made during the first hours of the trip. The chartered shuttle left plenty of room for the two to spread out, clean equipment, check their inventories and don their kits in complete isolation from one another.

Fremoc assessed his co-operator on this mission. He was a long time soldier, having served years in the Imperial Legion as a Stormtrooper, then a Storm Commando, and finally as an Obelisk Centurion. The man’s service record to the Empire, then to the Hammer’s Fist Legion, and finally to Scholae Palatinae’s prodigious ground forces read like a novel. Despite it all, he still found time to visit his family on Judecca.

Angelo Palpatine Dante noticed the assassin eying him and returned the glance. Fremoc was a man many years his junior. He had never commanded more than a small group of men and had by all appearances worked alone for much of his career. His tall, lean build told Angelo much more of the boy’s history. He recognized the tell-tale signs of over-training, signs he’d seen in himself for many, many years prior as a Storm Commando. From all accounts, the Fist of the Brotherhood was as capable an assassin as the Grand Master could have appointed. This mission did not require an assassination however. Their weapons were merely precautions

.

“This is Captain Hillok. We’re making our final approach to Port Archais. We’ve been cleared to land in the public sector. We will be returning tomorrow afternoon per the contract arrangement. Thank you for choosing GalSat Charters for your flight.”

The Son of Palpatine holstered his blaster as he stood and felt the ship accelerate to the starboard slightly, “Friendly lot, aren’t they?”

“They came highly recommended to me by Lord Halcyon. They are his… preferred service?”

---

**0800hrs

Alsakan Planetary System

Archais Corporate Banking District

Top Floor, 1st Alliance Bank Tower**

Infiltration of the tower had been simple. Fremoc’s dark hair threatened to stand on end as he ran through a list of precautions he’d taken to get them here undetected. There was no way they had arrived here so quickly without assistance. Was it a trap? Was it an ambush? Dante opened a hardened suitcase near to the hole where the transparent durasteel window would normally have sat and removed the three pieces that would assemble the slugthrower rifle. He didn’t show any signs of concern or suspicion, a small comfort to the FIST.

“I’m going to double-check my traps. I don’t want to be interrupted while we’re here.”

Angelo watched the Prelate leave and shook his head in disapproval. There was a time and place for concern, especially when one’s life was in the balance, but he could sense the insecurity within the Dark Councilor. If age and experience had taught him one thing, it was that fate played as great a part as preparation in the success of a mission. One could check, double-check, and re-check the same piece of equipment for it to only fail when you needed it most. One’s greatest defense was vigilance. Vigilance required calm however. Mistakes were made when someone became emotionally excited.

Fremoc walked the hallway outside the unfurnished office they had set up camp within. This entire floor, and the ten below it, were under renovation and were unoccupied. Work crews had ceased their renovations due to a local Union strike, promising that they would not likely be bothered. In case someone did happen to find themselves nearby however, the chief-assassin had set various traps and quiet means of impediment to maim, confuse, and slow an intruder.

Normally he was composed and fearless, the consummate professional. Years of combat, training, and field work had hardened him. He just couldn’t shake this feeling though. It was as though the Dark Side was warning him. Or maybe he had become too comfortable in his office and was experiencing an especially bad case of the butterflies. Whatever it was, it was foreign to him. It was only natural however to be fearful in the presence of a worthy adversary.

He shook his head, clearing it of that last thought. Where had that come from? His prey was certainly dangerous, but nothing more than a courier from the dossiers the Grand Master had given him before assigning Angelo Dante as his backup and second. The man had proven his battle-worthiness once again in the pit of the newly refurbished Coliseum during the recent Independence Games. Fremoc had been hesitant at first to accept the appointment of the Centurion to his team for a simple recon mission to Alsakan, but bowed to the Grand Master’s insistence: Especially when that insistence had come at the tip of a sharp verbal threat.

---

**2350hrs

Alsakan Planetary System

Archais Corporate Banking District

Top Floor, 1st Alliance Bank Tower**

Their surveillance of the building across from the 1st Alliance Bank had been uneventful so far. The meeting they’d been sent to recon had yet to take place, though it was three local hours overdue. If nothing happened within a few more hours, they would be forced to pack up and leave to catch their shuttle. Their target was rumored to be an arms merchant, a man who had his fingers in nearly every organized smuggling operation this side of the slice. This man supposedly had links to the Brotherhood’s prime threat, Michael Halcyon.

The Grand Master did not wish to tip off his adversary how deep his intelligence sources really were, but needed up to date information on the movement of his resources, colleagues, and contacts. If this meeting didn’t happen tonight, as the dossier had described, then the mission was a scrub. Halcyon’s time table was speeding up and he didn’t have time to wait up on a single individual’s mishap.

Lying prone, Angelo cocked his neck back from the scope of the slugthrower and cracked the vertebrae between his shoulder blades by stretching. Age was taking its toll on him and his back muscles had become stiff from lying so still. He looked up at his partner. Fremoc’s eyes met his and without a word they came to an understanding. Pushing himself to his feet, Dante offered Fremoc the light blanket that had covered him from view and provided a small measure of warmth. Fremoc accepted the offer and took up a position behind the rifle.

The anxiety he’d felt earlier had subsided little during the day. Another cup of caf would have done wonders to sooth his stomach, which had reduced itself to twisting into knots in the last few hours. What he needed was to blow something up. He noted how the target’s building was supported by several large columns at the ground floor. Two or three well placed charges would bring the whole thing down in a spectacular show of fireworks and rubble.

“Pepoi… Did you feel that?”

The fist snapped back to attention, his hearing suddenly keen, “No, what did you sense?”

The snap-hiss of an igniting lightsaber blade told him. In a single fluid motion, he was on his feet reaching for the saber at his belt, activating it as it came up. Dante had done likewise. Fremoc’s emerald blade joined with Angelo’s amethyst to bath the room in a gentle glow. From the single door they heard the echo of a lone pair of boots hitting the uncarpeted floor beyond the walls of the room.

As the clacking grew nearer, the glow of a white light grew stronger until the tip of a single, silver blade was visible. The intruder stopped, letting the silence between him and the Dark Jedi dissipate among the thrum of their weapons. Angelo glanced at his partner, suddenly aware of the power behind that silver blade and understood the source of the assassin’s omnipotent dread. It had been planted there.

The intruder stepped forward and moved into the entrance of the room so that his shape was clearly visible, though his face was still hidden beneath a heavy cloak. He drew his lightsaber out to his side and whipped it up before his face, a mocking imitation of a duelist’s salute. The two Obelisk ignored the gesture and pounced simultaneously.

Their two blades came down at different heights and angles, yet their opponent still batted and deflected both as though he had another weapon. His cloak maintained the privacy of his identity as he turned the table on his attackers. The silver blade snapped through the air with a practiced ease of motion which Angelo deflected away from his body. Fremoc pressed his advantage with a powerful downward stroke which he found instantly parried with a horizontal guard.

The combatants disengaged before beginning their carefully choreographed ballet. Attack, parry, defend, block, thrust, pirouette. Glimpsing the future showed a saberist where the next strike would come from and allowed one, with enough agility, to bring their own weapon up to defend while preparing their next strike. It was akin to a game of Dejarik as the players planned three moves ahead.

Angelo seemed to be holding his own well enough but could be seen to be visibly weakening. His strikes came slower, and with less precision as the battle continued. Their opponent did not. Fremoc, seeking to find an end to the combat looked for a chance to decisively end the duel and saw his opening. The man in the cloak committed to a low guard as Dante swept to his knees. The Fist roared triumphantly as he gripped his hilt with both hands and drove the blade down vertically to cleave the assailant in two.

It happened in an instant. Emerald crashed into silver, and as the silver blade angled lower, so too did the momentum of the powerful attack. Before he could do a thing to change the course of his blade, Fremoc recognized a classic maneuver from his own training in the third form, Soresu. Angelo’s eyes grew wide as the glow of the emerald lightsaber blade filled his field of vision before biting deep into the tissue under his ear. In all likelihood, he was unconscious before the fast moving blade moved through the Primarch’s jaw, down the meat of his neck, and through his chest.

A single stroke was all it took to fell the Son of Palpatine.

Not missing a single beat, the intruder brought his blade to bear at Fremoc’s own neck once again. The assassin deflected the blow only to find he was flying backwards and out of the protective enclosure of the office. Wind rustled past his ears as he saw the man’s out-stretched palm willing the force to repel the surviving Obelisk. Fumbling for the grapple on his belt, Fremoc sensed the ground racing toward him at an ever increasing rate.

---

**Antei Planetary System

Great Hall

Throne Room**

Fremoc tugged at the hem of his black shirt, ensuring it was tight against his body before he tucked it in. He straightened his hair before taking a deep breath and entered the room housing the Iron Throne. He could feel the seething hatred, the ball of realized emotion. The Grand Master, Lord Ashen, was furious. It was a miracle the Royal Guardsmen at the entrance to the hall had not killed him on the spot. He wished it was because he had trained each one of them himself.

The throne sat at the far end of the hall and atop it perched the Dark Lord of the Sith. Even from this distance, he could see the man’s dark eyes. They seemed bottomless, as empty as the vacuum of space. Behind the throne stood two other Dark Councilors: the newly appointed VOICE and the Justicar.

Fremoc stopped as he came within five meters of the Grand Master and knelt, his eyes glued to the crimson carpet, “You summoned me, my Lord?”

The Grand Master said nothing for a moment and instead gestured to his vassals to leave. The Justicar, Kir Katarn, and the Voice of the Brotherhood, Vodo Biask, nodded respectfully before leaving the room through a dark portal behind them. The hall was deserted save for the Dark Lord and the disgraced assassin.

“You failed me”, the Grand Master’s voice rasped.

“Yes, my Lord. We encountered…”

Fremoc was unable to finish his sentence as he found his airway cut off by the invisible tendrils of the Dark Side. Muz Ashen stood to his feet, fury plainly visible across his face. With a violent gesture he sent the Fist sailing through the air. The Obelisk hit the ground and rolled until his forward momentum was killed by a stone pillar. Without laying a hand on him, the Lion of Tarthos lifted the assassin from the ground, up the pillar, till his feet hung limply. Fremoc grasped at his throat for air, seeking to peel away that which wasn’t there.

Muz approached the man with a deliberate malice in his eyes as he drew a single saber from his belt and ignited it. He pointed the tip at the heart of his chief-assassin and held it close enough that the fabric there began to peel and burn away. The flesh grew red and then blackened before sizzling and peeling away as though it were another layer of synth-cotton. He pressed the tipped of the blade closer, micrometer by micrometer until the frantic maiming of the Fist suggested he had one last thing to say.

Muz released his mental grip on Fremoc’s throat, “You had better have something damned good to say”.

Through sharp breaths the Prelate managed to whisper, “My Lord, Lord Ashen… I discovered something”.