Darth Zannah: The Art of Deception - Chapter 10

Star Wars
Darth Zannah
The Art of Deception

By JAM4077

Based on the Darth Bane Trilogy by Drew Karpyshyn

CHAPTER 10

Ciutric IV’s primary sun had barely risen from the horizon when the sleeping Zannah heard the familiar hum of a lightsaber coming from outside her window. At first, she thought Cognus had gone out early to practice her form with her new lightsaber. But she sensed Cognus’ presence inside the house. Curious, Zannah climbed out of her bed and looked out her window.

Raven stood barefoot in the grassy ground, swing his purple lightsaber blade around. At first, Zannah thought Raven was using the techniques of Soresu, but the way Raven moved his blade made her think twice. Zannah image a spray of laser bolts flying towards Raven and his moving purple blade. Each bolt hit the blade of his saber, avoiding the vital parts of his body. The arcs of the blade swings sent the bolts back to the person who fired the shots.

Zannah waited until Raven was done swinging his lightsaber before shouting, "Nice form."
Raven did a double-take, nearly stepping on his robe and falling to the ground. He looked up at the window that Zannah had her head sticking out. "Don't startle me like that."

"It would have been worse if I did it while you were swinging your blade," Zannah pointed out as she was laughing.

“True,” Raven admitted. “My master has a habit of doing that, even when I was a padawan.”

“You hungry, Jedi?”

"I'm fine now."

“Come on. I’ll wipe you up a nice breakfast. The Force can only sustain the body for so long before hungry gets out you.”

“That sounds like the voice of experience.”

“That’s another thing to add to the list of mysteries that is me. Now, get inside while I wipe you up something.”

Raven did add Zannah's comment to the list of mysteries he around her. He didn't bring it up as he watched Zannah wipe up a set of eggs, bacon, and pancakes for the two of them. Cognus joined the group, wearing her work clothes; while Raven and Zannah were still wearing their nightwears. The Iktotchi grabbed her plate and left the large kitchen area.

“Not very social, is she?” Raven commented.

“She takes her work very seriously,” Zannah said as she sat down with her plate.

“I see that,” Raven said. “How did you meet her?”

“Around the time my brother died. She was a bounty hunter who was chasing him down for a bounty.”

“Your brother must’ve had some enemies.”

“He made a few.”

"And you hired her to protect you from those enemies?"

“Not really. She chose to work for me, enemies or not.”

“Why? That seems weird.”

“Probably looking for a better sense of purpose. I never bother to ask.”

“Aren’t you afraid she might turn on you?”

“There is always that fear. But, I find it thrilling at times.”

“You are one strange woman, Senator.”

“Call me Allia.”

“It wouldn’t be proper if I called you that.”

“Then, call me Allia when we’re alone.”

“If you insist, then I’ll do as you requested.”

I’ll have this Jedi eating out of my hands at this rate, Zannah thought.

Cognus enters the room as Zannah and Raven began to stare into each other’s eyes. “Senator, you’ve got a call from Czerka.”

“Czerka?” Raven asked. “Now, I know what your friend here meant by dirty laundry.”

"It's not like that," Zannah said as she got up from her stool. "This is the official business of the Ciutric government."

She leaves the kitchen and enters the security room of the manor, locking the door behind her. She knelt, albeit reluctantly, as Shere Khan's holographic image appeared from the projector.

“What is thy bidding, Master?” Zannah said, burying her contempt very well.

“What is the progress in the Jedi’s investigation?” Khan asked.

“The Jedi Raven Lore has only contacted Jedi Master Ti’Ana about the state of my protection. Neither of them has talked about their investigation.”

Khan rubbed his chin. “Interesting. I suspect nothing less from Master Ti’Ana. I think it’s time I meet some of these Jedi, especially Raven Lore.”

“What do you mean?” inquired Zannah in genuine surprise.

“Czerka has brought the new battle droids to the planet,” Khan explained. “I would like to demonstrate their uses on the battlefield in front of remaining government officials on the planet. Naturally, their Jedi protectors will be there too.”

"You want to see how strong the enemy ranks are in case you need to strike."

“Correct,” answered Khan even though Zannah’s sentence wasn’t a question. “I will have the demonstration ready within the afternoon.”

“I will have the other senators join,” Zannah said, bowing her head.

“Good. May the Force serve you well, Zannah,” acknowledged Khan as his hologram flickered off.

Zannah remained as she was, trying to comprehend what had just happened. Why was Khan making such a bold move like this? Was he trying to intimidate the few Jedi that was on the planet with his new toys? That would be quite stupid of him to think that. Jedi wasn't easily intimidated. Her duel with the Jedi strike team on the Jedi homeworld of Tython was proof of that. Plus, no mere battle droid could overwhelm a Jedi.

Zannah got a bad feeling about this upcoming demonstration. It was as if the dark side was trying to warn her about the upcoming danger. But there was no stopping the currents of this event. All that Dark Lord of the Sith could do was ride the waves and make so that she and her apprentice came out of it alive.


Zannah, Cognus, and Raven arrived at a large grassy field just outside of the city of Daplona. A large tent of white canvas with the Czerka logo printed on the top was set up a couple of tall benches Khan's guest to arrive. Despite what happened to the Senate building a couple of days ago, many of Cuitric's remaining senators turned up with their Jedi protectors in tow. Zannah wondered if the presence of the Jedi put the senators under a false sense of security.

Zannah watched all the Jedi that attended, each one on alert for any sense of danger. Zannah and Cognus were also on the alert, keeping a low profile to hide their true allegiance. Zannah’s attention turned to a second large tent not far from the guest tent. Zannah figured that tent was the control base to send the signal to Czerka’s new battle droids.

Raven was more alert than anyone from what Zannah could sense through the Force. Raven didn’t like the idea of this demonstration. He felt there were way too many possibilities for something to go bad and kill Zannah. Zannah took his take on the situation to heart as she felt the same way, but she decided to go anyway.

“Senator Omak,” Zannah heard Khan’s voice called out. Zannah turned a found the Zeltron, escorted by the Twi’lek Sith Lord Mazar and the Zabrak Sith apprentice, Doz Brum, who was still glaring at Zannah. The two Sith of Khan’s order wore the uniforms of Czerka Arms.

"Shere Khan," Zannah called out. "I trust you are happy with the turnout."

“Quite. And I thank you for making it happen,” Khan said, taking Zannah’s hands into his. Zannah caught the intense anger that was boiling inside Doz Brum.

"I think that is enough hand-holding, Czerka," Zannah heard Raven say. Her Jedi protector stood behind her, his blue eyes glaring at the tattooed Zeltron.

“And you?” Khan asked, despite the fact he had a pretty good idea who the Jedi was.

“Raven Lore.”

“The Raven Lore? The famous padawan of Jedi Lord Hoth’s Army of Light and stood toe to toe with the best of the Brotherhood’s Sith Lords?” Khan asked with well-acted amazement.

“That was some time ago,” Raven said. “I’ve been advanced to the rank of Jedi Knight.”

“Well, I can’t begin to tell you what an honor it is to have a living legend for this demonstration,” Khan said.

“One that I don’t think that needs to be taken place.”

“Oh? Why is that? Is this one of those warnings from the Force?” Raven didn’t respond, sensing Khan’s sarcasm. “I can assure you, Jedi Lore, the senators are quite safe. Not thing will go wrong.”

“I hope you’re right, Khan,” Raven said. “If something does, you’ll answer to me.”
Raven escorts Zannah and Cognus to their seat, which was on the front bench. Soon, all the other senators and their Jedi protectors' seat. Khan and Mazar took their place in front of the crowd.

"Greetings, everyone. I am Czerka's representative Khan," Khan spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. "Firstly, I would like to thank you all for coming. I assume that coming here was a hard choice given what has happened in your world in the past few days. But I can assure you that your days of living in fear will be over. Mazar, if you would bring out the droids."

“Yes, sir,” Mazar responded. Pressing a few buttons on a wristband on his left forearm, Mazar called in the battle droids. For a moment or two, there was silence, but that ended with a rumble that got louder and louder. All eyes soon fell upon a large vessel that emerged from the woods not far the field and hovered over the grassy plains. The vessel was painted in green, which provided good camouflage in forest areas and forest worlds. The only give away for the vessel the yellow Czerka symbol on the side. Mounted in front of the vessel were two twin laser cannons.

The Czerka vessel stopped just about a couple of miles from the two tents. Large panels at the front of the vessel opened up, revealing a large container that held the new battle droids. Mazar pressed another button, causing the container to release a track that was filled with a dozen battle droids.

The humanoid-shaped droids stood 2 meters in height. On the droid's backs were backpacked that housed their TC-22 blaster rifles, which had good range and power, but their scopes lost their calibration from time to time. Zannah knew the rifle well as it was the same one that Darth Bane used when he was the Gloom Walker sergeant named Dessel. Also attached to the backpack was a long vibroblade sword. A long antenna stood on the top of droid's backs. The droid's body built was similar to the built of the famous HK-47 droids during the Era of Jedi Civil War and the conflicts that followed it. The heads were shaped to look like a human skull. The droids were painted black and gold, the colors of the Czerka Arms. The droid's forearms were flat and had twin laser blasters attached to them, giving the droids add firepower when the power cell of the TC-22 ran out.

Despite seeing a holographic image of the droids, Zannah found them quite opposing. If any droid were to battle on someone Force-sensitive, even a fully trained Jedi Knight or Jedi Master, these droids would be the ones to do it. The sight of them made Zannah want to take down Khan and his Brotherhood even more and take the droids for her own.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Czerka BD-101," Khan said. "These droids that you see before you can be fitted for all types of combat, ranging from full-scale battle to close-range combat to hand to hand combat. This is due to the droid's ability to switch out its limbs to fit the combat situation, which will be demonstrated later. But first, the BD-101s will demonstrate their capabilities with their original limbs. Mr. Mazar, if you would please."

Mazar presses a few more buttons, activating the battle droids. The eyes of the droids start glowing red, in the same shade as the blade of the Sith’s lightsaber. Emerging from woods was a set of Sith war droids from the time of the two Great Galactic Wars. The Sith war droids fire at the group of BD-101s. Pulling out their TC-22 blaster rifles, the BD-101s fired back at their attackers. Within a minute, they lay waste to half of the Sith war droids. More Sith war droids emerged from the woods, the blasters mounted on their arms fired wildly. A few laser bolts from the war droids hit the BD-101s, but it didn’t stop the battle droids’ advance, thanks to the heavy armor the BD-101s wore.

Once the TC-22 rifles ran out of shots in their power cells, the BD-101s switched to the laser blasters mounted on their forearms. From them, laser bolts came pouring in rapid succession, taking out the oncoming Sith war droids at a faster rate than the use of the TC-22s. Then, both groups of droids stopped their advancements and firing at each other.

“Mazar? What is going on?” Khan asked.

“I’m not sure,” responded Mazar, pressing buttons on his wristband like a madman. “It appears the droids aren’t obeying my command.”

The BD-101s turned their attention away from the Sith war droids and set their sights on the crowd behind them. They pointed their forearm blasters at the people in the tent and opened fire. In the blink of an eye, all the Jedi protectors drew their lightsabers and deflected the laser bolts coming towards the people in the tent. To a normal person, the movement of a Jedi would have seemed like a blur, except for Khan, Mazar, Doz Brum, Cognus, and Zannah.

Lightsaber blades of blues and greens spun and swung around, deflecting bolts or sending them back at the droids. The BD-101 droids advanced on the crowd, backed up by the Sith war droids. A couple of Jedi Knights break from the Jedi frontlines to get the crowd out of the tent and to safety.

Cognus and Zannah followed the crowd with Raven covering them. Once they got out of the tent, they found several senators and a couple of Jedi dead, blasted to living hell by BD-101 droids. Cognus turns her attention to Zannah, who gave her a nod. The Iktotchi smiles wickedly and pulls out her blaster pistols; both pistols were GSI-21D model.

Cognus ran towards the droids, dodging laser bolts as if she knew what path the bolts were going to take as they came out of the barrel. Cognus’ blaster had a dozen shots in their power cells, which she had no intention of wasting. Once she was close enough, she fired at the oncoming BD-101s. A shot from her pistol blasted through the droid’s armor and went through the droid’s body, coming out of the backpack.

Raven, while cutting down the droids with his lightsaber, was amazed by Cognus’ skill with a blaster. The way she dodged the bolts coming from the attacking droids looked as if she was dancing. Raven understood why Zannah had hired her.

Zannah watched Raven slice down the droids around him. He was calm and collective despite the fact that he was admiring Cognus' skills. She could tell instantly that he was Jedi that had been hardened by battle and war, a Jedi that lived up to his reputation. Zannah left the Raven and Cognus and ran for the control base. She came under fire from the BD-101 droids and the Sith war droids. She moved and dodged the bolts, allowing a small amount of the Force to guide her actions.

Zannah reached the other tent and discovered that all of the Czerka engineers were dead. The engineers were members of the Skakoan race, which depended on specialized protective suits to survive on worlds outside of their native planet of Skako. The masked of the suits of the engineers looked to have been ripped off, cutting off their supply of methane and killing them. Zannah went to the computer that sent the commands to the droids and tried to splice her way in to end the carnage, which would disappoint her apprentice very much. But she couldn't hack the system. Whoever was behind all this did a damn good job to make sure it couldn't be undone. But Zannah knew one way.

Zannah took the blaster from a holster from one of the dead engineers and fired at the computer and all the equipment that was needed to control the droids. In an instant, the sound of laser bolts being fired ended, which was soon followed by the hiss of deactivating lightsabers.

She made her way out of the tent, where the surviving Senator, Jedi, and Czerka representatives were gathering. All the BD-101 droids and Sith war droids remained still. Senators cheered at Zannah for her brave action in the chaos.

“Senator Omak, are you all right?” Raven asked once he and Cognus made their way through the crowd to join her.

“Yes,” Zannah said. “All the Skakoan engineers inside are dead.”

“What?” Khan said with genuine alarm. “How can that be?”

“Someone ripped off their masks. They died from suffocation,” Zannah said. “Whoever killed them, scrambled the computer so that no one could access it.”

Raven walks past Zannah and enters the tent. After a few moments, he emerged from the tent holding a mask from one of the dead Skakoans.

“It doesn’t look like some ripped this with their bare hands," Raven said, holding out the object for Khan to see. "Even with super-strength, there would've been a mark on it.”

“What could have done this?” Khan asked, taking the mask to examine it.

"My best guess, someone trained to use the Force," Raven said. "Do you have anyone Force-sensitive in your ranks.

“A few that I can think, but they’re on board my courser orbiting the planet” Khan, said. “I’ll personally launch an investigation in this madness. Whoever is responsible for this will pay.”

“I’m sure the Jedi will--.” Raven said before Khan cut him off with a sharp “no.”

"I'm sorry, Jedi Lore, but this is a Czerka matter," Khan said. "As a representative, I must deal with this matter myself."

“Of course,” Raven said.


Paul Moran sat at a corner booth at the far end of one of Ciutric IV's run-down pubs, drinking a tall glass of Corellian Ale. A woman clad in a dark robe, her face hidden by the shadows of her hood, walks into the pub and joins Moran, ordering a pint of ale from Iridonia. Once the drink was at the table, the woman took off the hood of her robe, revealing herself as Doz Brum.

“You made one hell of a mess at the demonstration today,” Moran said in a low voice, despite the fact no one else could overhear him given all the conversations and music going on.

“If it had gotten the job done, I wouldn’t have cared,” said Doz Brum, who was also speaking in a low voice.

"You must hate that Senator," Moran amused.

“I don’t trust her,” Doz Brum said.

“More like you don’t want her near Khan,” Moran said.

“I thought you stayed out of his other business,” Doz said.

“Oh, I do when he doesn’t need me involved,” Moran corrected. “You’re just bad at masking your true feelings. But I do share worry about Senator Omak.”

“What do you mean?”

"The night before he recruited her, Khan sensed the Senator kill all the Trandoshan assassins that Khan ordered me to send to kill the Senator's comrade and her husband. According to him, she channeled all the pain and suffering the deaths of the Trandoshans to him through the Force."

“That’s impossible,” Doz said, showing off her genuine shock. “No one Force-sensitive, who hasn’t been trained, can do that.”

“A Jedi spy?” Moran asked.

“No. No Jedi would do what you described,” Doz shook her head, “but a Sith Lord would.”

“Her? A Sith?”

“It’s possible. Khan always suspected that other Sith Lords could’ve survived the final Battle of Ruusan.”

“Like that one Sith Lord who rebelled the Brotherhood for a while. Bane if I remember right.”

“It’s possible, which would make her more dangerous given Bane’s rebellious nature.”

“What do we do? You can’t use the droids again. Khan has them locked up tight until he finds out who sabotage the demonstration.”

“You’ve got connections to a group of assassins, correct.” Moran nodded. “Do you know any assassins who have the skills needed to take down someone sensitive to the Force?

Moran pulled out his pipe and lit the tobacco inside. After taking a few puffs, Moran said, “Well, I know a couple of Mandalorians who could do the job. But if you want to make sure that the Senator dies, even if her Jedi protector intervenes, then I suggest you make a contract with the Maladians.”

“The Maladians? I’ve never heard of them.”

"The Maladians are highly trained assassins. They're so good at fighting that they can wound and kill a Jedi Knight. They are known for honoring their contracts and well prepared to commit suicide to prevent any information from falling into the wrong hands."

Doz smiled, showing off her sharp teeth. “Contact the Maladians. Tell them to expect a contract very soon.”