But this is MY HoMe

[Arcubis Kornelius]

Korriban

The shuttle cut through the black like a needle threading old wounds.
Arcubis stood at the viewport as Korriban rose into view, all rusted dunes and ancient spite. The planet did not welcome. It evaluated. Its storms circled like archivists, remembering every tyrant who had ever claimed permanence here.
Beside him, the High Priest of Azis remained silent until the descent began.

"The cradle stirs," the Priest said softly. "But cradles are not fortresses."

Arcubis did not turn. "Say what you mean."

"Zori ruled through gravity. Everything bent toward her. But gravity alone collapses when pressure builds." A pause. "Allies, Lord Arcubis. Even inevitability requires witnesses."
The name hung in the air.
Lord.

Arcubis's eye implant flickered, mapping old Sith enclaves across the surface. Cult remnants. Azis loyalists. Disillusioned zealots who had sworn to Zori Galea and now drifted like broken constellations without her visible presence.
He did not know she had been captured.
He only felt the silence.
And silence on Korriban is not peace. It is vacancy.​

 

[Arcubis Kornelius]

When they arrived, the gathering was already forming within the Valley of the Dark Lords. Robed figures stood between monoliths carved with forgotten tyrants. Torches burned low and violet. The air tasted of metal and expectation.

They had come for direction.

Arcubis stepped forward.

He did not raise his voice. He did not posture. He simply allowed the hum of his augmentations to be heard, the faint mechanical whisper beneath his skin like a second heartbeat.

"Azis has awakened," he began. "Not for worship. For convergence."

The cultists shifted. Hope and fear braided together.

"The corridor opens. The sacrifices move. Motion has begun."

A murmur spread.

The Priest moved subtly to Arcubis's side, his masked face angled toward the crowd. "But motion without alliance fractures. You have seen this before."

Zori's absence lingered like a missing star. No proclamation of death. No signal of command. Just a vacuum.

Arcubis felt it now.

Not grief.

Opportunity.

 

[Arcubis Kornelius]

"Zori centralized power," he said evenly. "She sharpened it into a spear."

He let his gaze sweep the assembly.

"I will forge a lattice."

Confusion flickered. Then curiosity.

"No more single point of collapse. The cult of Azis will operate in nodes. Autonomous. Interlinked. If one falls, the rest endure."

The Priest inclined his head slightly. Approval hidden in ritual stillness.

"And allies?" the Priest pressed.

Arcubis's implants pulsed, projecting possible alignments. Fringe warlords. Information brokers. Force sects who hated the Sith but feared what stirred in the Outer Spiral more.

"We will not demand loyalty," Arcubis said. "We will offer relevance."

The ground trembled faintly beneath the ancient tombs, as if the planet approved of the architecture of ambition.

 

[Arcubis Kornelius]

Privately, Arcubis calculated something else.

If Zori returned, she would find the cult changed. Distributed. Resilient. Less dependent on singular charisma.

If she did not return, the transition would already be complete.

Either way, Azis would not stall.

The Priest leaned close enough that only Arcubis could hear.

"She fell because she stood alone."

Arcubis's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

"No," he replied quietly. "She fell because she believed she could not."

Above them, lightning split the red sky like a cracked sigil.

Arcubis lifted his hand, and the cult knelt.

 

[Arcubis Kornelius]

The Velvet Approach
​

He arrived like a rumor dressed in silk.


His robes were midnight blue with subtle silver threading along the collar, tailored in the Nabooan court style rather than Sith severity. No mask. No hood. His face carried sharp resolve, and over his right eye rested a matte black patch, cleanly cut, unapologetic. Not concealment. Statement.


The High Priest remained on Korriban, stabilizing the lattice, tending the cult like a gardener pruning for future bloom. Arcubis needed something different now.


Allies.


Zori's silence was wrong.


Not strategic wrong. Existential wrong.


Zori Galea did not vanish. She repositioned. Or she was taken.


And if she was taken, whoever dared it was powerful enough to matter.


Theed shimmered beneath golden sunlight, all ivory towers and reflective canals. Naboo did not bristle like Korriban. It sang. Softly. Politely. Like a blade hidden inside a sonnet.


Arcubis moved through it without hurry. He had already sent discreet feelers into the underlayers of Naboo's society, where art dealers funded militias and shipping magnates trafficked in favors sharper than vibroknives.


The black market here wore perfume.


That was where he found her.


Senator Kassi McSaul.

 

[Arcubis Kornelius]

She stood on a marble terrace overlooking the river, her black hair resting at her shoulders, moving gently in the breeze. Her attire was regal but restrained, a structured gown of deep emerald accented with Nabooan filigree at the cuffs. Political elegance. Controlled power.

She turned before he spoke.

"Most men who inquire about mercenaries on Naboo lack your posture," she said evenly. "They usually look… desperate."

Arcubis offered the faintest curve of a smile. "Desperation is noisy. I prefer clarity."

Her gaze flicked to the eye patch. To the scar just visible beneath it. She did not flinch.

"I am told," she continued, "that you have been asking for soldiers who specialize in extraction."

"Recovery," Arcubis corrected. "Of something valuable."

"And what exactly does a well-dressed stranger from nowhere consider valuable?"

His visible eye held steady. Measured. Intelligent.

"A stabilizing force in a destabilized galaxy."

Kassi's skepticism sharpened. "That sounds suspiciously like tyranny."

"Only to those who confuse control with cruelty."