Savage-Time Chapter 21 (Patreon)

Savage Opress

Merrin was better than I thought she would be, while she lacked strength she more than made up for it in willpower, and the fact that she had some knowledge of the nightsisters’ magicks certainly helped her case. Her constant presence and the freedom she had with her mind would take me some time to get used to but soon enough she will be my very own shadow.

Gently I pressed my mind into hers, Merrin didn’t notice it as she looked over the ship and poked the droids, there was a distinct set of awe in her mind and surprisingly no resentment not even a bit of it, I would have thought that leaving your home planet to basically marry a stranger would have Merrin a little angry with me or at least angry at my mother but she didn’t care.

The deficiency in her mind’s defenses would be rectified later, I wasn’t planning on taking Merrin on any expeditions to old tombs and neither was I going to square her up against more experienced Jedi anytime soon. I would let her have this moment of tranquility before she realized that the life of a Sith was one of perpetual conflict even if that conflict was against oneself.

“We will meet a group of Mandalorians at the edge of the system, don’t speak unless I give you permission, they can be rather…sensitive to some comments,” that was an understatement if I ever heard one “and I would prefer to have them as allies”

My voice made her look at me, and she nodded once I was done, then, she went right back to bothering the poor droid that used to pilot the ship. Teenagers.

“Have you thought about what you will offer them?” Nox made himself known to me with a rather mild Force Push all things considered, even if it sent everything inside to the back of the ship.

“I will offer them what they want, the opportunity to be the saviors they see themselves as”

“Smart but predictable” Nox jerked my head with the Force to the side and almost made me hit one of the walls, I lost my temper for a second and let the full extent of my rage at his constant abuse manifest itself. Whisps of lighting danced in my hands and my shadow was moving rather menacingly almost as if it had gained substance.

“You’re not at the point I want but I can already see the effects, lightning answers your call, that’s supposedly the purest expression of the Dark Side. Oh! It looks like your shadow wants to play, how cute”

My anger only grew as I heard Nox talk. I was tired of his constant disrespect!

“You better give me one good reason to not throw you into the sun” I didn’t shout, there was no need for it, the Sith spirit could sense my emotions and the Force would convey my feelings better than any word could.

“Because you still need me.” Nox answered playfully while taking off the mask on his face while he let out his power, shadows danced on the wall and the Holocron glowed with an eerie pulsating red light “And if that wasn’t enough of a reason, how about the fact that if you try to send me out the airlock I will drag the ship with me into the heart of the star”

Darth Nox stared me in the eye waiting for me to do something, but before I could say anything more the sound of coughing grabbed my attention. Our display of power had left Merrin on the floor barely able to get some air into her lungs, her pale face was quickly turning even more white and the way she clawed at her throat reminded me that there was a reason that Sith didn’t openly display their power.

Part of me wanted to ignore her, to let her die as I settled my grievances with Nox, I squashed that part of me and then beat it to submission for good measure. I would never be just a rabid dog again, slowly my power receded and as I did Nox responded in kind the shadows went back to their original places.

Merrin gasped and took mouthfuls of breath in quick succession, I felt embarrassed to lose control of myself in front of who would be my main apprentice, so I approached her and delicately raised her to her feet.

Sith don’t apologize but if I was going to stand apart from them then I needed to control my pride “Forgive me, my master and I didn’t realize that our discussion was affecting you so much”

There was a pulse of horror in Merrin’s mind when she realized I was telling the truth, I felt her emotions circulate from horror to awe, and then to desire. Thankfully it was a desire for power and not some weird fetish of hers…at least I think so.

“T-that was- was supposed to be a discussion...?” Merrin tried to make a joke of it but her feelings were clear as glass.

“Your mate still has much to learn and has, even more, to be thankful for” Nox spoke cheerily again but there was an unmistakable edge in his words.

“Let’s forget about that and go back to what is important, what more do you think I should do with the Mandalorians?”

“You have to make them dependent on you of course!” the answer was immediate but it wasn’t something I didn’t know before.

“That’s easier said than done, Mandalorians make their stuff they don’t consume anything I could provide, except for food…” it dawned on me what Nox wanted me to do. I was aware that for a while now Mandalore and its league of neutral systems were having trouble with feeding their people and that they had been relying on black market goods.

Nox looked at me expectantly with a smile on his smug face.

“You…you’re really telling me to sabotage the food shipments of a thousand worlds?” it was one thing to kill a person, even back in my old life I thought that it would be great to die fighting but to kill someone through starvation, even with the haze of the Dark Side in my mind I felt horrified by such a thing.

“What would a Sith do in your situation?” that was his only response.

“I…very well even if I would like to I can’t ignore the wisdom of your words” the laugh Nox gave as I complimented him was something else, dark and almost self-deprecating in a way I didn’t understand.

The ping of my comm alerted me of the arrival of my Mandalorian friends.

“Time to go Merrin”

___________________________________________________________

The Mandalorians received me with a show of force a fully decked-out squadron in armor and carrying heavy weapons escorted me and my apprentice to the meeting room where Vizsla was waiting for me.

I would say that it was a little excessive, but it stroked my pride that they thought I would warrant such an amount of firepower while they were wearing beskar.

“He is waiting for you.” one of my escorts said as he punched a code into the door revealing a room with a holoprojector that showed the system we were currently in.

Merrin entered first and without much care as she looked around the place putting the Mandalorians inside on edge, I was amused at how easily these guys could go from relaxed to finger on the trigger and ready to fight.

“I was not expecting you to bring company” Vizsla spoke while removing his helmet, then he put his weapon on a table nearby and approached me.

“Since I was around, I thought, why not recruit a witch from Dathomir? there isn’t much else in the system anyway” my casual tone took him by surprise, but I wanted to make sure he noticed the difference between me and Dooku.

The reveal that Merrin was a witch unnerved some of the people in the room and amused others and I imagined that the fearsome reputation of the witches had just taken a hit courtesy of Merrin as she poked around the holomap while making strange sounds.

“We’re not here to discuss your preferences” Bo-Katan made her appearance as she removed her helmet while taking her place at Vizsla’s right. I wanted to protest what she just said but if I said Merrin wasn’t my…girl, by the Force that sounded strange, and then she went and said I was her mate things could get weird.

“We’re here to discuss a successful plan for your takeover of Mandalore, luckily for you, I already have one, and I’m sure you will approve”

“We’ll see” Bo-Katan held not even a trace of fear or caution in her mind, perhaps she believed that if things went wrong they could kill me with ease, or maybe she simply lacked caution.

“What do you have in mind?” Vizsla said as he looked at me in the eye, no doubt watching for some trace of deception in them.

“You wanted to be liberators, didn’t you? Recently I made contact with a Hutt who has promised me his friends would attack targets of my choosing i-“

“The Hutts! Those slugs are neutral this was a waste of-” I cut off Bo-Katan without the need of a gesture, instead of going with the true and tried route of putting ghostly hands on her neck I pushed a telekinetic ball inside her throat. Far more discreet than levitating the woman in the air and more importantly just as dangerous.

“Oh my! Did you choke on just words or has your brain decided that you’re too stupid to live” for all the casualness I was conducting myself with they had to be reminded that I was a Lord of the Sith and Satine’s sister had just volunteered herself for a demonstration.

Vizsla looked on perplexed at me all the while he looked for any sign of my involvement, his compatriots were less calm and more than one of them had me in the sights of their blasters.

“Fascinating, I had heard that you needed gestures to achieve such feats, it seems that even legends are wrong sometimes.” Vizsla pressed his hands on Bo-Katan’s throat and inspected it with his eyes but when he found nothing, he looked back at me “Release her, she is a great supporter of mine and one of my best warriors”

I let go of the telekinetic ball and as soon as I did Bo-Katan puked on the floor, her body’s natural reaction to a sudden blockage had her spewing chunks on the floor and I laughed as she glared at me, the anger she felt was like a refreshing drink and the shame the perfect dish to accompany it.

“As I was saying before, my Hutt friend will lend me his people and with how weak the new government is due to a lack of true warriors,” I smiled as I saw some of the Mandalorians stand straighter at that, ah! Pride truly was the doom of great men. “Having them seize the city in the name of some fake syndicate or gang won’t be difficult”

“Then we come as liberators, the indignities they would suffer at the hands of the outlaws will show that abandoning our heritage was wrong” Vizsla continued with excitement.

“Just so, and even more you will prove your competence by retrieving the stolen wealth and gather even more support by offering shipments of food courtesy of the CIS who would rather have you as allies or at least neutrals on good terms”

“It’s perfect! We can train the new recruits by going after the pirates”

“You would garner sympathy for your world and for the neutral league if you saved some of the worlds under the banner of the separatists from them too” I gave a sinister smile to Vizsla as I spoke the next part “in doing so you would guarantee their silence and my good friend would know that such accidents happen on the job”

“Nobody would know that the whole thing was scripted” the sheer greed that Vizsla exuded was palpable to my senses and even Merrin who had been playing around with the map stared at the man as he thought about the future.

“What about the people?” Bo-Katan intruded into the conversation again with those words.

“They would be safe of course even those taken would suffer little until you rescue them, I can’t guarantee that there will be no casualties as tragedies occur every day everywhere” my easy answer brought another delightful pulse of anger from the woman.

“As long as deaths are kept to a minimum then it’s worth it, we will honor their names as martyrs who died in order to ensure that our culture survives” I had to admit that there was some charisma in Vizsla, and his words mollified the feelings of Bo-Katan as well as some of the others.

“We have an accord then?” I said while stretching out my hand to the leader of Death Watch.

“We do” with that handshake a new power would rise to threaten Darth Sidious’s control of the galaxy and give me more time to catch up.

____________________________________________________________

We were back on my ship and I had to make a call so after stuffing merry in another part of the cabin so she didn’t impact my image I entered the ongoing meeting.

The figures of the separatist council greeted me with undisguised curiosity in their eyes and in the viceroy’s particular case with familiarity.

“Gentlemen it’s time for me to formally introduce myself, my name is Savage Opress, Dooku’s successor and your new leader”

There was an awkward silence that was soon broken by Wat Tambor “Why should we follow you? The war could be over right now and all of us have gained a not-inconsiderable profit from it, what can you offer us?”

The rest of the council was silent but it looked like they were in agreement on this “I know the death of San Hill has come at an inopportune moment for all of us and I understand your doubts but I have made some deals that will ensure even greater profits for you” the ‘as long as you continue to follow me’ was not said but all of them could hear it.

“What kind of deals?” Poggle the lesser asked the clicking noise of his language punctuated by the taps of his cane.

“As you know or as you should know this truce has in effect broken the previous deal that the Hutts negotiated with the Republic, I’ve taken advantage of this to ally myself with one who controls several pirate fleets”

“Pirates are useless for was if that is all you have to offer us then I will cut the connection right now” Shu Mai declared as he looked at me.

“You didn’t let me finish my friend” there was some edge to my words and the others realized that when I said I was Dooku’s successor I meant it as Sith do.

“Please continue my Lord” Nute Gunray was trying to gather favor with me and it was working.

“The pirates as an unaffiliated force will serve to attack the worlds of the CIS increasing the need for ships, supplies, droids, and money. The members of the separatist senate could hardly complain about the price of the security of their worlds and if those same pirates are sabotaging the Republic in an equal or even worse manner it would showcase the effectiveness of your products”

I took a breath before continuing “If that isn’t enough of an incentive I have a plan in motion to make sure that Mandalore and the league of independent systems become not only friendly to separatist interests but dependent on them. They are already suffering shortages of food and if the pirates go after the undefended worlds of the league after being rebuffed by the forces of the CIS then it’s not our fault but I’m sure many of you would help if you were given the right incentive”

The face of greed was the same whether in a human or an alien, the council could admit that it all sounded good but I knew that promises could be easily broken so I went for the final push.

“Grievous who reports to me also stole some rather fabulous designs in his missions to the Core, I would be happy to share them with you all right now and let you decide if you want to continue the war or not once I have Mandalore in my grasp, it’s a great deal isn’t it?”

They looked at each other and then nodded at me.

“You’ve made your point Lord Savage, once you have Mandalore and can give us a road into the League of neutral systems there will be no doubt about your place as our leader, until then the designs liberated from the Core Worlds will be enough to keep us listening” Rogwa Wodrata had come very far after leaving his post as a senator and it looked like he wanted to climb higher still “All in favor?”

A chorus of affirmative responses was the answer and with it, my immediate problems with ruling the CIS turned to smoke.