Darth Voyance
Dark Saint of the Sith
[EnRoute to Hallion in the Esstran Sector]
Hovering softly a foot over the grate plating floor of her personal starfighter, the Empyrean, Darth Voyance focused upon the floating meditation she had conjured about herself. Orbiting her body was the disparate pieces of her double sided lightsaber. The dual Mustafarian Lava Kyber Crystals loomed above her like binary suns. Glowing with a furious crimson amber light like churning lava fields of its lost home world.
Around them, looping around the Rutian Sith Lady in concentric gyroscopically rotating rings, were the various other components. The black metal shaft casing, the emitter rimmed by a single long spike, and the ignition button casings. Together they formed a guided dance, controlled by the Force as it siphoned through Darth Voyance to grip each individual piece.
Voyance herself sat in a floating perch, with her legs crossed and her hands clasped together and held just above her chest. Her fingers were entangled in odd groupings forming a complicated hand sign. It had been a technique of Dark Healing and Meditation taught to her by Ashin - during her stay at the hidden school she had constructed aboard the Pomojama Academy station she commanded.
The technique was complex and derived its power from more tempered emotions rather than raw fury and hate. It required a cold fire, chilled by discipline and the quiet terror of being totally succumbed to the ebbing and fickle auspices of the Dark Side. Slowly however, Voyance bled the Dark Side to her thoughts which were solely fixated on the pieces of her saber. One by one they linked, slotted, screwed, and clicked back into place.
The final metallic ring of the last component snapping into place was followed by the violent ignition of the saber’s power cells. The twin red beams spat out from their emitters and scattered flecks of burning plasma that burned the air as they evaporated from their own heat. The red bloom bathed Voyance in a bloody shade.
She slowly opened her eyes and lowered their golden Sith corrupted stare down to the saber. The saber levitated down to her outstretched black gloved palm. Gently, it landed and shut off. The devilish hum that rang out from the saber died, replaced by the ambient noise of her starfighter’s hyperspace engines and electronics. Voyance curled her fingers around the saber’s central shaft case and grinded her fingers together in a clenched fist. She was dissatisfied. Blinking slowly she tossed up her gaze to the hovering hologram of Ashin, her arms crossed and sporting cocked grey brow.
“The essence of your Way of the Monolith still eludes me...Empress,” said Darth Voyance.
“It’s elusive only because you’re so obtuse,”
Ashin Cardé Varanin
retorted. “You got too much fury and zeal in you. Clouds your more esoteric connections to the Dark Side.” Ashin shrugged and chuckled, “Your moniker as ‘Dark Saint’ is apt...Darth Voyance.”
Ashin Cardé Varanin
retorted. “You got too much fury and zeal in you. Clouds your more esoteric connections to the Dark Side.” Ashin shrugged and chuckled, “Your moniker as ‘Dark Saint’ is apt...Darth Voyance.”Voyance snarled at the once Sith Empress and summoned the Force to elevate her even further. Rising high enough to unfurl her legs, she bopped up and down in her vertical straight levitation before she descended slowly. Landing on the floor she strolled past the hologram of Ashin and laid down the saber at a central module mounted to the open space of the starfighter’s common space. The S1Q5 BB-unit that was projecting Ashin’s visage from its disc head wheeled its fat ball body to roll with Voyance. Ashin drifted by Voyance as the Twi’lek leaned on the rim panelling of the module, pensively eyeing her saber and then the holomap that hung over the module in mid-air.
“Is that why you are sending me on this relic hunt?” Darth Voyance said. Turning to face Ashin she continued, “To elucidate me on this matter of the esoteric and zeal?”
Ashin smiled, “Maybe yes. Maybe no. It’s up to you kid. But, the Sith Lady who is secretly housed on Hallion may help illustrate what I mean. Zeal in the Dark Side is one thing. But, to be possessed by it is certain doom. And you reek of zeal.”
“Who is this Sith Lady?” Voyance inquired, pressing, “When I was a student of the Empire I poured through the records of entombed Lords and Ladies and there was no record of a Hallion Tomb. How would you know of it when the Empire’s covetting archivists have not?”
“I didn’t,” Ashin said, her image flickering from the disturbances of hyperspace interference. “Her granddaughter told me.”
“Granddaughter?” Voyance parotted, “She knows?”
“Ashin Varanin...I had not expected to ever hear from you again,” said the granddaughter of the Hallion Sith Lady. “Unfortunately my mother did not leave me any of her work, nor that of my grandmother, Darth Hauntruss.”
Voyance’s eyes widened at the name, “Darth Hauntruss?” she whispered.
“What she has cursed me with is the coordinates to where she now rests after the complete destruction of Azathoth. I am patching them to you now. I am not sure if what is housed there will help you discover the secrets to your ambitions of resurrection. But, I gladly part with it…” the granddaughter’s face contorted with contempt, “That witch’s legacy tortured and killed my mother. I’d rather her be erased from the galaxy, but not even the afterlife can pacify her anger it seems...Well, do as you please. It’s yours now.”
The message ended and the hologram vibrated back to the feed of Ashin. Voyance looked at the former Sith Empress with confusion and startled curiosity. “Darth Hauntruss? Something remains of her?” Voyance asked.
Ashin nodded, “She has a nasty habit of refusing to die completely. That resting place in Hallion keeps some chunk of her left over, imprisoned.”
“Then the Empire controls it? And has kept it hidden?” Voyance said.
Ashin sighed and shook her head, “I don’t know. Sith are the worst sort of tomb robbers, they desecrate the dead to usurp their power to strengthen themselves. Just how it goes.”
A navigation alarm whistled a melodic warning, they had reached Halion space and would be emerging from hyperspace in ten minutes. Voyance grabbed her lightsaber and attached it to the back of her belt where a docking lock was mounted. She had dawn Sith Knight Armor to disguise her appearance. Even going so far as fashioning a custom Twi’lek helmet that encased her lekku in plate armor and bodyweave beneath. She placed on her helmet and drew the hood as she walked to the pilot’s quarters. Sitting down in the command chair and tapping commands into the touchscreen panel screens she assumed control of the starfighter from the navigation computer. The S1Q5 droid, Voyance called Wisp, rolled to her side, dragging Ashin’s image with it.
“One last thing, Voyance,” Ashin interjected, “Be careful with Hauntruss. She is a force of nature herself...and she bends to no one. Not even to the Force itself. That is why she has persisted for this long. If you need help, you have my beacon codes.”
[At Hallion]
Ashin disappeared just as the streaks of brilliant whirling blues and cerulean lightning were pulled away to reveal the burning bloated orb of Hallion. Hallion, like Mustafar, was a volcanic ashen wasteland and as the Empyrean broke through the atmosphere the visibility was smothered by volcanic ash raining like a blizzard. Duckin into the world Voyance had the starfighter’s jammers and cloaking devices activated for a silent descent.
Diving lower and lower, the starfighter broke beneath the stormy atmosphere to land in a deep ravine carved by a long gone lava river. Soft ash fell in snowy heaps that carpeted the ravine in a fine gray sea. The grooves of the dried up lava river ran through the ravine like a scar and the very soil itself was a dark charred filth. Inside the starfighter, Voyance marched down the disembarking plank with Wisp behind her. Stopping at the very last step, Voyance checked the atmospheric composition in her helmet’s HUD. The air was drenched in noxious fumes from volcanic activity and was tainted by the stench of sulfur and acidic vapors.
Wisp bleeped a binary code of concerns. Voyance took a step onto the soft bed of virgin ash and dismissed her droid’s worries, “Perhaps. We shall have to see what the concentration of Imperial Archival activity is.” Voyance pressed a button on her vambrace and summoned a Bloodfin model speeder from the holding bay of her starfighter. She turned to greet it by plucking up Wisp and docking him in the back storing unit before swinging a leg over the saddle to rest on the speeder. With a thunderous activation she revved the speeder’s repulsorlift engines and burst into a speeding rush down the ravine.
“I will see what your lesson is, Ashin,” said Voyance.
