Astronicus Era History

Template:Organization infobox This page contains the history of the Clan after the outbreak of the Vong War. For earlier history see Clan Naga Sadow/Origins.

"... As long as I draw breath, Naga Sadow lives. As long as I hold this sword, Naga Sadow's strength endures. As long as we remain ever vigilant, Clan Naga Sadow will never fall! Long live the Heirs to the Empire..."

―Astronicus Aurelius Sadow

Clan Naga Sadow is one of the six Great Clans of the Dark Brotherhood. It currently has two constituent Houses: Ludo Kressh and Marka Ragnos. The current Consul of Clan Naga Sadow is Manji Keibatsu Sadow, and the current Proconsul is Taigikori Aybara. House Marka Ragnos is currently led by Robert Daragon Sadow; House Ludo Kressh is currently led by Tsainetomo Keibatsu Sadow.

For a summary of the Clan see the Clan Naga Sadow Prospectus.

For details of the Clan's public front see the Dlarit Corporation.

The Yuuzhan Vong War (27 ABY–31 ABY)

For the story of the Clan prior to the outbreak of the Vong War please see the Clan Naga Sadow/Origins page.

Incursion

While news from the Core was sporadic at best with the HoloNet crippled, the word on Antei was that the Yuuzhan Vong were readying an attack on Coruscant itself. And, on the turn of the year, the new Grand Master, Lord Sarin, summoned the clans to Antei for a special exercise to test their ability to combat the Yuuzhan Vong if the war were to spread. Construction of the new Dlarit Navy had not quite finished, so the Clan was forced to send most of its system defence fleet to participate, but there was little other choice was it to learn how to combat the alien biotechnology of the Vong.

Elsewhere, Lord Zorrixor had escaped captivity and taken the name Darth Vexatus. Hearing of the efforts of the new Grand Master to combat the Vong, the rogue Sith Lord returned from exile to again discuss the matter with the Star Chamber. But the time for omens and prevention was over; just after Vexatus’s arrival, the Yuuzhan Vong sprung their trap, and the clans were forced to take cover in the Shroud. Muz Keibatsu, who Lord Sarin had taken as his Shadow Hand, signalled the joint clan fleets to fall back into the Shroud and defend the evacuation of Antei.

The Clan was split, many concerned for the safety of Orian, others outright unperturbed by the Council’s plight. Against the greater consensus to withdraw to safety, Vexatus and Trevarus Caerick convinced Lord Sadow to follow Keibatsu’s request and fall back to Antei. Keibatsu himself was captured while fighting to hold off the Vong long enough to allow the rest of the fleet to retreat. However, the Clan soon discovered the Yuuzhan Vong had already mined the Shroud, preventing hyperspace travel. After damaging its hyperdrive in a failed jump, the Clan was forced to hold off several Yuuzhan Vong attacks while its ships drifted idle as the hyperdrive was repaired. As repairs were performed, a force of deadly voxyn boarded the Clan’s ships, wreaking havoc. During the fighting, the Clan managed to destroy two Vong cruisers when Vexatus led the Clan as one in a meld to conjure a Force storm, but not before the loss of all but the Star Destroyer Covenant. By the time the Clan arrived at Antei, it had already lost half its ships, and the rest of the Brotherhood was caught in a desperate fight for survival, trying to hold off the endless waves from the Vong armada.

Subcommander Drathul Amnan.

As the Brotherhood teetered toward collapse, Caerick and Vexatus fled the battle to make their way to the surface of Antei, causing Lord Sadow to order the fleet to open fire on the deserters. On Antei, the two turncoats carried out a frantic evacuation of Kalekka Tower, their reason for tricking the Clan into coming to Antei in the first place. Elsewhere, Lord Sarin arrived with a division of the new Council fleet which was also still under construction, but enough firepower to hold the Vong off long enough to execute the Braata Option to signal the retreat. Below, Caerick performed the Grand Emanation, a ritual to channel the dark energies on Antei into the members of the Clan to revivify them long enough to make it out of the system. The fall of Antei ended with a rapid retreat along the escape vector Lord Sarin’s fleet had opened up through the Shroud. Sarin recovered Muz Keibatsu from the wreckage of the Vong command ship and the entire Brotherhood jumped to hyperspace, forced to abandon Antei to the clutches of the aliens. Of the chief Yuuzhan Vong who had been tasked with the annihilation of the Dlarit battlegroup, Subcommander Drathul Amnan was escalated to Commander. But Executor Eshin Shul had turned and fled for her failed voxyn plan, and Drathul was tasked with hunting down the now Shamed One if he was ever to earn the status of Warleader.

The Fall of Antei saw the greatest defeat in Brotherhood history and made the Civil War the previous year resemble a minor brushfire. In the face of overwhelming odds, many showed their true colours. Lord Sadow was furious at Trevarus Caerick, but the Clan also owed its survival to the sorcerer’s ritual. Xanos Zorrixor may technically have returned, but he was unrecognisable as Darth Vexatus, whose true motives remained unclear. Many others had lost loved ones in the battle; the Keibatsu family in particular suffered the loss of Sanjuro Sledge, son to Muz Ashen and Ashia Kagan; and Lord Sarin’s decree that Muz had become worthy of being called a Sith Lord seemed a hollow victory.

Crosscurrents

The defeat at the start of 27 ABY had set the tone for the whole of the following year. The Clan managed to limp home in a single battered Star Destroyer; its pride, its faith, and its trust wounded. People remained split over who to trust between Lord Sadow, or Caerick and Vexatus. Both groups drifted into the shadows on the slow voyage home, allowing Macron Goura and Shin’ichi Keibatsu to take the spotlight while the elders withdrew to their own business.

Anaxela Goura, Sith witch and leader of the True Brotherhood Remnant.

Following the defeat at Antei, the Clan was ill prepared for the fate awaiting them back home. The system had been invaded by a hidden faction of the True Brotherhood, which had survived the death of the cult’s leaders two years earlier. Led by Anaxela Goura, sister to Macron Goura, the cult had waited for a chance to strike. Believing the Brotherhood destroyed at Antei, Anaxela’s forces had invaded, searching for a lost relic of Urias Orian. Marakith Skyhook had been captured and Seng Karash taken hostage; while on Tarthos Kar Alabrek had been left in ruins by the True Brotherhood’s invasion forces, who sought to enter the Archives of Alabrek Castle. Its fleet in ruins, the Clan was forced to covertly insert its men into the system to assassinate the True Brotherhood commanders.

On Marakith Skyhook, Malisane de Ath was captured, learning Anaxela was actually being directed by the spirit of Severina, who was searching for the Clan’s hidden cloning facility to acquire a new clone body. While de Ath reached an agreement with the spirit in exchange for Severina leaving Anaxela to her fate, Caerick and Vexatus infiltrated the Skyhook via Seng Karash to confront Anaxela directly. Elsewhere, other members of the Clan quietly infiltrated various facilities to assemble a force to take back Alabrek Castle and the ruins of Kar Alabrek.

The end game came when Caerick and Vexatus engaged Anaxela on the bridge of the Skyhook, but she escaped to retreat and rejoin her forces orbiting Tarthos. Simultaneously, the Clan had sprung its raid on the occupying forces at Alabrek, routing the True Brotherhood armies. The Clan stormed Anaxela’s flagship, engaging Anaxela and her remaining followers in a final duel. During the battle, Obsidian station was destroyed by the True Brotherhood flagship. However, Anaxela had what she had come for, and fled to Kangaras to continue her quest for the lost scepter of Urias Orian. Secretly, as the battle was going on, de Ath had secured Severina a new body; and, true to her word, the former foe agreed to leave in peace, following the other witch to Kangaras to obtain the lost artifact for herself.

Hardships of war

From left to right: DSOG trooper, DSOG officer, DSF trooper, DSF officer.

With Orian back in the Clan’s hands, the Clan was left to reflect on what had befallen them at Antei. Little news filtered through the broken HoloNet, but one bulletin would not be contained: Coruscant itself had fallen to the Yuuzhan Vong and the New Republic had collapsed. With the aliens now spread throughout the entire Galaxy, and the new fleet on order from Kaldex Transport still a year away, the Clan had no choice but to hide itself away on Orian and hope for the best.

A number of policy changes were enacted, such as the abandonment of the DAC Trooper Project in favour of a more mass produced clone army to replace those who had been lost in the Fall of Antei and the assault on Kar Alabrek. As such, numbering only thirty four, late 27 ABY saw the first and last batch of elite DAC troopers birthed. The decision was also made that the chaos caused during the Battle of Antei by the sudden revelation to the men of the Dlarit Navy that their masters were in truth Dark Jedi could never be allowed to repeat itself. With the creation of a new clone army initiated, the Dlarit Security Force was drastically restructured, with the creation of a new Special Operations Group who would know the full nature of the Dlarit Corporation and be better prepared in the future. The regular Dlarit Security Force remained oblivious; the long term goal being to slowly replace the regular recruits with loyal clones as the years went on, though it would take decades.

Wartime rationing was imposed across the system due to the loss of countless supply lines to the Core. Isolated and relatively unknown, Orian also became a favoured destination for refugee ships. The majority of the refugees were put on the Sky City of San Korinar on Amphor, which rapidly descended into an overpopulated hive of scum and villainy. Eventually the city limits around Seng Karash were expanded to make room for the ever growing refugee numbers, and prefabricated shanty towns sprung up outside the city walls. A strong division emerged between those who were employees and valued by the Corporation; and the refugees who were simply left to fend for themselves, barred entrance from the main city districts. On Amphor, the polarisation reached violent levels as military governor Xanos Zorrixor – the still public face of Darth Vexatus – instituted martial law, bringing order to the Upper City, but civil unrest to the homeless denizens of the lower levels.

The new Special Ops Division.

The turn of 28 ABY finally saw the completion of the battle fleet that had been on order from the Corporate Sector for almost ten years. Several new ships had already finished construction during the previous few years, but by mid 28 ABY the final Star Destroyers had rolled off the lines. Early in the year also saw the birthing and flash-imprinting of the first batches of mass produced clones to begin replacing the regulars of the Security Force with the new Special Operations clone troopers.

Insidious motives

The dangers of Kangaras.

Macron Goura had spent much of the year following Antei’s loss training with Trevarus Caerick and Darth Vexatus. The Elders had located a deactivated Star Map on Sepros and determined the True Brotherhood had been searching for the key needed to activate it. They sought to seduce Goura with secrets ordinarily reserved for Elders, hoping to use the man to gain control over the Dlarit Navy to aid in their quest; but the process took its toll on Goura’s psyche, and his already unstable mind finally began to break early in 28 ABY under the strain of absorbing too much power too fast.

Events took a turn for the worse when the freighter Anaxela had escaped on was located in the jungles of Kangaras. A team was dispatched to investigate the whereabouts of the missing witch, but upon arriving at Kangaras they found the crashed ship abandoned. After sensing an anomaly in the Force, Caerick headed deeper into the jungle to investigate, but the anomaly disabled his ship – as seemed to have also been the case with Anaxela’s freighter – causing him to crash. The rest of the Clan moved to follow him on foot, but as they neared the center of the anomaly they discovered that not only was it draining all their electronic gear, but numbing their connection to the Force too. The strange anomaly took its toll on Goura, his mind finally succumbing to madness as he was broken off from the psychic walls he had built up to shield his mind from his growing insanity.

The battle droids found in Hafa Chun's tomb.

In the heart of the jungle the Clan discovered the hidden tomb of Hafalia Seprosin Chunasca, the self-styled Dark Lady of the Ekind who had helped destroy Urias Orian and fought in Okemi’s rebellion against the rule of their Jedi Lords. After surviving an attack by a host of ancient lightsaber wielding battle droids, they discovered an ancient scepter hidden deep within Hafa Chun’s tomb, which was generating the interference field over the jungle in order to hide its resting place from Force adepts. The temple collapsed when Caerick prised the scepter from its stand, but with the Force dampening field disabled the Clan was able to escape. Elsewhere, unknown to the Clan while they were trekking through the jungle, Severina's clone managed to steal one of the shuttles they had come on and escape the planet, this time leaving no sign behind of her intended destination.

The aftermath of the mission to Kangaras marked the beginning of a Dark Age of lies and betrayal when Trevarus Caerick had Macron Goura relieved of command by Darth Sarin on the grounds of the young alchemist’s mental breakdown, enabling the sorcerer to wrest control of the Dlarit Navy out from under the hands of the loyal pawns of Lord Sadow.

The Dark Age (28 ABY–29 ABY)

Revanche

With the Dlarit Corporation under their control, and the keystone – the scepter – they had long been searching for, Trevarus Caerick and Darth Vexatus put their ultimate plan into motion. Unconcerned by the growing unrest in Seng Karash and San Korinar, as soon as repair work for Kar Alabrek was finished all resources were redirected to Sepros to begin reconstruction of the Temple of the Void where the lost Star Map had been discovered. Lies were concocted about powerful artifacts to keep the rest of the Clan distracted, with teams dispatched throughout local space to Thule, Korriban, and elsewhere to keep people chasing ghosts as the two Elders continued their work in secret.

The Yuuzhan Vong fleet at Telos.

Caerick and Vexatus sought a nexus of dark side energies called the Heart of the Force which was located on Lehon, the lost capital of the Infinite Empire of the ancient Rakata. Once the Temple was rebuilt, they would unlock the secrets of the Star Map and obtain the coordinates. However, to do this they needed to do more than just obtain the location. They had been caged in the Orian Sector ever since the Battle of Antei, and before they could reach Lehon they would also need to clear a corridor through the Yuuzhan Vong Empire to the Unknown Regions. There were growing numbers of reports of the alien armada amassing in the nearby Telos system. The clock was ticking and the Temple was unlikely to be built before the Vong fleet was ready to push deeper into Sith Space. So, shortly after the final ships had run off the construction lines in the Corporate Sector, Caerick organised a pre-emptive strike on the worldship orbiting Telos IV. Though troubled by unfolding events, Lord Sarin dispatched his Shadow Hand, Muz Keibatsu, to oversee the operation, deeply interested in the attempt to push the Vong back from sectors surrounding Antei.

The Dlarit Navy was sent to divert the main Vong force while the Special Operations flagship, the Star Destroyer Final Way, exited hyperspace behind the worldship to deploy a small commando team to the surface to battle to the massive vessel’s core and slay the yammosk which coordinated the Vong’s forces throughout the nearby systems. The deceitful Elders recognised it was a suicide mission and did not intend for the Clansmen who infiltrated the worldship to return. However, during the insertion Vexatus’s own ship was shot down, causing Caerick to personally launch an unplanned recovery mission. Inside the worldship, the commando team – now aided by the two Elders – encountered the Shamed One Eshin Shul, who agreed to act as a guide. In the bowels of the worldship, Ylith Atema nearly came to blows with Vexatus but the Elder simply humiliated him in front of the rest of the Clan. However, Ylith strangely lost his connection to the Force, and believed the Sith Lord had stripped it from him. Eshin eventually led the team to the Well of the yammosk in the heart of the ship, but it was a trap and waiting for them was the now-Supreme Commander Drathul Amnan, now commander of his Domain’s worldship, with his elite and intensely escalated retinue of warriors. The two Elders agreed to hold the Vong leader off while the rest of the Clan headed inside the well and dealt with the yammosk, the creature being slain by the Atema brothers Tyren and Ylith.

The yammosk coordinating the Yuuzhan Vong fleets around Telos.

With the yammosk dead, the worldship began to enter its final death throes. Eshin Shul revealed her betrayal and poisoned Caerick, hauling him off to the prison area to strap him to an Embrace of Pain. As Vexatus went to rescue the sorcerer, the rest of the Clan withdrew to the evac transport. As the vessel began to collapse, Lord Keibatsu issued the retreat, ordering the Clan to leave the two Elders to their fate and pull out. However, as the Clan withdrew, Jedgar Paladin arrived in the system to recover Caerick and Vexatus from the crumbling worldship – it seemed the Star Chamber itself was still uncertain what to make of the two wayward Elders. They had placed the lives of their entire Clan in jeopardy. And yet, despite all their recklessness, they had now routed the Vong from Telos, thus helping clear the way for the eventual reclamation of Antei.

The final battle of the year came when Clan Arcona requested emergency aid in the Dajorra system. Located on the other side of the Perlemian Trade Route, just outside Hutt Space, Dajorra was on the very outskirts of the Yuuzhan Vong Empire but it appeared they had finally drawn the attention of the extragalactic invaders. The Dlarit Navy was rapidly deployed to assist with the evacuation of Estle City on Selen, and the defence of the system from the alien fleet. The chaos during the Fall of Antei still simmered under the surface, and neither Clan trusted the other fully. In the confusion, Darth Vexatus saw an opening to rid himself of one Clan already, and manipulated Macron Goura and a visiting Brotherhood envoy, Vallen'dere, to sabotage the city’s defence grid. As Ylith Atema led the joint evacuation from Estle City’s spaceport, Vexatus and his covert team snuck behind Vong lines to blow up the turbolasers that were holding back the main Vong deployment. With the defences down, the two Clans had no choice but to declare Estle lost and withdraw, leaving those who had not yet been evacuated to their fate. As commanding general, Atema took much of the blame for his failure to hold the city; nobody believing his accusations about Vexatus conveniently sneaking off with a small team of commandos to the defence towers.

With Dajorra lost to the Vong, Clan Arcona and the Dajorra Defence Force limped back with the Dlarit fleet to the Orian system where it was agreed they could take refuge until a plan could be formulated to reclaim their own homeworlds. The fall of Dajorra had served its purpose, however. As the Dlarit Navy and Clansmen had been distracted, Trevarus Caerick had overseen the final stages of the reconstruction of the Temple of the Void on Sepros. The plan was now but a matter of timing.

Betrayal

File:Worldshipbroken.jpg

The broken remnants of the worldship over Telos IV

The turn of 29 ABY saw the insidious plot Trevarus Caerick the Deceiver and Darth Vexatus the Betrayer had been hatching enter its final stages. With the aid of Jedgar Paladin, who believed their plan would either destroy them or earn the Brotherhood two new Grand Masters, they sacrificed the entire surviving Ekind population. The sacrifice imbued the Temple of the Void with the dark side, reactivating the ancient Star Map. With the location of Lehon finally in their hands, the Obsidian Cohort – Caerick’s private guard – stormed the Star Destroyer Harbinger, and headed to Telos, then on the Unknown Regions.

Projecting their spectres directly into the Grand Atrium of Sadow Palace during the annual Exodus celebrations, the two traitors announced their defection. They declared the Brotherhood would rot for its failure to foresee the Yuuzhan Vong threat, and worse: its failure to do what was necessary after the invasion had begun. In defence of their actions, they claimed they were simply doing what the Star Chamber should have done decades ago: embracing the true nature of the dark side. Lord Sadow was furious; his two closest Sons had betrayed him. History was repeating itself, the Overlord of Ludo Kressh betraying Naga Sadow like his namesake. Sadow issued immediate orders that all who had dealt with the traitors were to be arrested and detained indefinitely, seeing the likes of Vallen’dere and Krenth hauled off to the Cenota Facility. Lord Paladin realised he had been wrong for trusting Caerick’s word and now understood that they did not wish to ascend to Grand Mastery but to consume all life in the universe to become a god. The Clan assembled an urgent response force, rallying the entire Navy and Special Operations Group to pursue the traitors and follow their hyperspace vector. But, instead of arriving at Lehon, they discovered they had been duped – the pair had merely led them to Telos. However, Macron Goura – who bore a direct bond to the traitors – could sense them directly through the Mark they shared, and was able to guide the fleet after them.

An exogorth like the illusions the traitors conjured to delay the Dlarit fleet at Lehon.

Upon arriving at Lehon, the Clan found a ship graveyard – wreckage from the fateful climax of the Jedi Civil War nearly four thousand years earlier. On the other side of the wreckage, the Harbinger hung in orbit of the planet itself. But between it and the Dlarit fleet writhed a swarm of massive exogorths: giant space slugs large enough to devour entire starships. However, the exogorths were not actually real, but dark manifestations being generated by a series of sorcerous projectors installed onboard the Harbinger. An assault team was forced to insert onto the rogue Star Destroyer to take down the projectors to enable the rest of the fleet to engage the Harbinger directly. Onboard the stolen ship, Sakura Haruno broke free of Caerick’s mind control over the rest of the crew, but she was discovered and tortured by Vexatus before being thrown into the brig. However, she was able to free herself and made her way to the engineering bay to sabotage the ship’s systems. An assault team then managed to insert onto the Harbinger, including Macron Goura, Tsainetomo Keibatsu and Ashura Isradia. Sakura was injured, but once she regained consciousness hunted down the raiding team, and ended up saving Isradia’s life before they were saved by Goura and Keibatsu. Goura then engaged the commander of the Obsidian Cohort, Eosara, but the mercenary was able to escape to the surface of the planet.

Mount Kazinal

As the Clan fought their way through space to the surface, on the ground the two traitors had made their way to the volcanic mountain of Urati Kazinal, otherwise known as the Temple of Lost Souls. In Kazinal Core they at long last came across the fabled Heart of the Force that they had hunted for so many years. After destroying the great wyrm that guarded it, before they could reflect they were engaged by the elite Iron Fist brigade of the Disciples of Kressh. Yet, despite their years of experience, the veteran Obelisk warriors were slain to the last man. Then came the inevitable confrontation both men had known would come from the very beginning: the duel to determine who would rule as the new will of the Force itself. In the end, the answer would be neither: in their final act the two men destroyed their own prize, blowing up the Heart of the Force, and killing themselves the process.

The Heart of the Force

The Clan arrived just in time to watch the two traitors destroy themselves as the Heart exploded; the souls of the damned Rakata released in an explosive outburst that incinerated both men. But victory over Lords Caerick and Vexatus was short lived. In his final breaths, Trevarus Caerick used the power of the Rakatan ghosts to reenergise himself, being reborn into the Thunder Dragon Shan Long as a true ascendant. As Lord Sadow took up arms against the traitor in single combat, Lord Keibatsu and Macron Goura went in search of the body of Darth Vexatus. However, as with Caerick, Vexatus too had not yet submitted to death: but unlike Caerick he had not used the power of the Heart to heal himself. Instead, Vexatus had now consumed the souls of the Rakata, becoming less man than monster. As Lord Keibatsu held him off, Goura managed to stab his former master with a specially concocted variant of violator gas, based off the original Omega strained which had already been mixed with Alpha Red, but now also crossed with a virus that had decimated the population of Falleen decades earlier, which he had specifically designed to target Falleen – the alchemist had sought revenge on his one-time master ever since the incident on Kangaras. As the poison coursed through Vexatus’s veins, his final assassin made his move from the shadows: Ylith Atema. Vexatus, blind to the man who he himself had cut off from the Force, did not sense it when Atema dived at him, thrusting his weapon directly into the Sith Lord’s heart. However, instead of dying, the monster entered a final meltdown, threatening to bring the entire volcano down on top of them and consume the lives of the whole Clan. Lord Paladin signalled the retreat, sensing what the monster had become and recognising they had to leave if they were not to be consumed by the dark void. In the end, both Shan Long and the Clan left Vexatus to the fate he had unleashed upon himself. As the volcano erupted, Shan Long evaded capture by the Clan, fleeing with the surviving members of the Cohort onboard the Sanguinus.

As if the betrayal of the two Clan Elders had not been enough, the Clan limped home to Orian to discover Clan Arcona had taken control of the system and the Dajorra Defence Force now stood ready in orbit over the cities of Seng Karash, San Korinar and Kar Alabrek. Having been gone for several weeks, Mejas Doto had concluded the Dlarit fleet must have met its fate at the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong or the terrors of the Unknown Regions. As such, he had moved to seize control of the Orian system, never expecting the other Clan to return. But unfortunate for Clan Arcona, Lord Sadow was now in no mood to discuss terms. Still reeling from his sons’ recent betrayal, Sadow launched his fleet at the occupying forces as if in a suicidal feeding frenzy. Sensing Lord Sadow could not be reasoned with, Mejas Doto realised both Clans would be destroyed in Sadow’s rage if he did not end the fighting; and so the Shadow Lord called for a truce, agreeing that Arcona would hand Orian back over to the disciples of Sadow leave the system in peace.

Broken

The Clan was left fractured following the betrayals at the start of 29 ABY. Darth Vexatus may have been dead, but Shan Long had escaped and was still out there somewhere. Lord Sadow became paranoid for the survival of his bloodline and began secretly seeing Sakura Haruno in the hopes of fathering a new heir. The martial law he had instituted following the betrayal was upheld as he shut himself away in Sadow Palace, refusing to have audience with any by his loyal Sons – and even them he no longer felt entirely comfortable around. Fortunately, the destruction of the worldship at Telos the previous year had spared the Orian system from further threats, but refugee ships continued to pour in from the worlds along the nearby Hydian Way that had been ravished by the Yuuzhan Vong.

Unknown to the Clan at the time, a group of wayward Jedi had been among one of the refugee transports that arrived in the system seeking sanctuary. Like most refugees, they were sent to the Lower City of the Sky City on Amphor, San Korinar. With no money or additional transport, the Jedi were left stranded in the system – the dark shadow they felt increasingly pressing upon their minds. Among them was Aisha Qifaxa, the apprentice of a Jedi Knight who had been slain on Telos prior to the planet’s liberation following the destruction of the worldship stationed there.

Despite the woes of Orian in the Outer Rim, in the Core, the newly formed Galactic Alliance – which had replaced the fractured New Republic – had begun turning the tide against the Yuuzhan Vong, whose empire’s forces were now stretched thinly trying to hold onto both the Outer Rim and the Core Worlds. However, in the backwater reaches of Sith Space where the Sons of Sadow called home, news of the Galactic Alliance’s successes did not filter through with any frequency, much of the HoloNet communications grid still damaged.

The leviathan behind the outbreak at Lor Zatean.

Problems continued to mount against the Clan, the next major incident occurring when a number of unexplained deaths occurred at the beach resort of Lor Zatean on Aeotheran. When the Dlarit Police sent also turned up dead, the Clan dispatched a small team to investigate. It quickly became clear that the water supply had been poisoned by a particularly deadly xenomorph, which buried itself inside its victim’s body until it was ready to emerge, bursting forth from inside and killing the host in the process. These creatures quickly grew to humanoid size, infecting new victims. The infection was spreading so quickly the Clan did not think it could contain it. Prisoners were called in from the Cenota Facility to act as bait, eventually luring the Clan to a nearby dormant volcano where they discovered the source of the xenomorphs to be an ancient leviathan. Too strong to take out by conventional means, the Clan was forced to call in an orbital bombardment to kill the leviathan and sterilise Lor Zatean.

Toward the end of the year, Lord Sadow’s paranoia reached boiling point and he set things in motion to draw out any further traitors within his midst. Ashia Keibatsu and Ashura Isradia withdrew from Orian, claiming to be heading to a meeting with the Dark Council-in-exile. Those left behind in Orian began to sense a growing disturbance in the Force and Derev Niroth had a vision of the destruction of the Orian system. After sensors detected signals corresponding to the Imperial Remnant emanating from Inos, Niroth declared himself governor-general-in-interregnum. As acting governor-general, he assembled all military assets in orbit of Tarthos to prepare for an attack, leaving the other worlds in Orian defenceless. Rumours began to spread through the system that Lord Sadow had been arrested. With the betrayal earlier in the year still fresh in people’s minds, Faeril Munlear ordered her counterpart to stand down, fearing he was amassing forces for a Civil War.

As Niroth dispatched his forces to Inos to investigate the disturbance in the Force and the Remnant comm signals, Munlear urgently dispatched her own ships to uncover whatever he was after first. However, the entire distress beacon had been a deception, orchestrated by Lord Sadow to weed out those who were no longer loyal to him – but it had unwittingly backfired. As the two fleets engaged each other, forces from the Imperial Remnant arrived, responding to the distress signal. With the situation spiralling out of control, Lord Sadow emerged from his false detention and announced the truth of his deception. No longer marshalled against each other, the Clan regrouped to engage the enemy force. Just as the Imperial fleet threatened to overwhelm the Clan, Task Force 61 from the Navy of the Iron Throne emerged from hyperspace, following a premonition by Lord Keibatsu.

With the help of the Dark Council fleet, the Imperial forces were at last dispatched. However, Darth Sarin was furious at the setback the damage to the Clan’s forces might cause, not only with Niroth and Munlear for their haste to doubt each other, but also with Lord Sadow and Ashia Keibatsu for having orchestrated the operation in the first place. Far from having ended with Lehon, the Dark Age of distrust and betrayal seemed as strong as ever. The year ended much as it had begun, with Sadow’s attempt to weed out those he could not trust having completely backfired. Parts of Kar Alabrek stood in ruins; Alabrek Castle had been heavily damaged; and much of the Dlarit Navy needed repairs.

The winds of change

By the start of 30 ABY news finally began to filter through from the Core of the death of Shimrra Jamaane. With the Supreme Overlord’s death, the Yuuzhan Vong’s faith in their gods had been utterly destroyed. Most surrendered, and those refusing to accept defeat committed ritual suicide rather than face a life of shame. But in the Outer Rim some Vong remnants dug in and continued to pursue their holy crusade. Worlds such as Antei remained under occupation; and the Dlarit Navy remained plagued by frequent attacks as it tried to keep the spacelanes to and from Orian secure.

Curwen Sunei, the Dark Jedi hermit found living on the 42nd moon of Inos.

However, in spite of the continued threat to the Orian Sector, the collapse of the Yuuzhan Vong Empire had made the impossible possible, proving the aliens could be defeated in time. Now a year after Lehon, the Clan tried to move on from what had happened during the Battle of Inos, and the Dlarit forces began stockpiling resources to prepare for the coming operation to finally liberate Antei from the Vong. But the problems of the past few years were not eager to be forgotten. During a celebration held at the Dystopia nightclub in Seng Karash, senior members of the Clan narrowly survived an assassination attempt on Lord Sadow. Further unexplained bombings occurred across the system at San Korinar and Kar Alabrek. The wartime martial law continued to be upheld.

Trouble seemed to be drawn to Orian. Inmates at the Cenota Facility began suffering nightmares of a coming apocalypse. Worse: so did Robert Daragon. The police investigation into the bombing of Dystopia turned up nothing. The population began fearing an underground terrorist organisation, most likely originating from the seedier elements that had snuck in with the masses of refugees. Disorder broke out between the two groups. Employees harassing refugees; refugees assaulting employees. However, the Clan knew something else was at work, sensing a dark cloud was falling over the system. The source was believed located when a team led by Macron Goura tracked down a thoroughly insane sorcerer named Curwen Sunei in the ancient tombs on Inos 42. During the mission, young apprentice Aleho Ruoxf was captured by Sunei and tortured. After battling through the insane sorcerer’s horde of reanimated corpses, Goura and Tsainetomo Keibatsu bested Sunei, saving Ruoxf. However, they spared Sunei, believing he could be of more use to them alive than dead, and perhaps able to spread some light on the recent spate of ghostly hallucinations.

Cyrus Raze, the man appointed by Robert Daragon to investigate the nightmares plaguing them both.

But the capture of Sunei did not bring an end to the troubles plaguing Orian. Daragon’s nightmares became worse and he secluded himself away as his health began to fail him, suffering repeated blackouts. The consul unearthed deleted footage that revealed Cyrus Raze, a brief apprentice of Trevarus Caerick and Darth Vexatus, had been behind the assassination attempt on the Clan’s leaders at Dystopia. The revelation appeared to confirm what Daragon had long feared: that the shadow that had fallen across the Orian system was the work of Shan Long and his surviving agents. The consul had the man brought before him and, with the help of Macron Goura, discovered Raze had been suffering the same nightmares as Daragon and others. Although, unlike the others, Goura himself had learned how to shield himself from psychic invasions after what had happened to his mind on Kangaras. Privately, Daragon revealed his condition to Raze and offered to cover up the man’s crimes if he put a team together to venture to Antei before it was recaptured and search for answers in the ruins of Kalekka Tower. Raze knew his chances were slim, but it was that or the consul would bring him before Lord Sadow. In the end, the man begrudgingly conceded to Daragon’s demands.

As Raze put his team together and the rest of the Clan and Dlarit forces readied themselves for the return to Antei, a second problem was brewing in the Lower City of the Sky City of Amphor. The Jedi stranded in the system were getting closer to uncovering the truth behind the Dlarit Corporation’s masters. Furthermore, a wandering Force-sensitive named Jaspen Kraitus had found his way to the Orian system, following dreams of a man who Kraitus believed could give him the answers he sought about his parents and the tattoo that had always adorned his forehead. When he crossed paths with wanted posters for one ‘Trevarus Caerick’ he thought he had finally found his man. Kraitus employed the now-bounty hunter Aisha Qifaxa to investigate his suspicions, but she was discovered by a team from the Dlarit Special Operations Group and taken into custody by Macron Goura. As Goura awaited pickup with his new prisoner, both Kraitus and the other Jedi who Aisha had had dealings with converged on the spaceport to save her. Goura narrowly escaped with Aisha, but Kraitus and the other Jedi had now discovered each other – and the truth behind the Corporation’s masters.

One of the last surviving Ekind warriors.

Aside from the joint threat now of both the Jedi who had uncovered the truth of the Corporation – although it still remained unclear how much they actually knew about how deep the rot went – and the still unexplained feeling that something worse was coming out in the darkness, the Clan faced a series of other setbacks during the year. As Kar Alabrek underwent repairs following the chaos of the Battle of Inos, new problems arose in the northern hemisphere of Tarthos when an isolated holdout of Yuuzhan Vong was discovered. The outpost was eradicated, but it remained unclear how or when the aliens had infiltrated the system, and threw up an entirely different concern about how many more Vong infiltrators could be masquerading as other species behind their ooglith masquers. A separate situation arose on Sepros where it emerged a small number of Ekind had escaped the ritual sacrifice of the rest of their species and gone into hiding. They had now started regularly attacking the Clan facilities located on the planet, so efforts were made to defend against the raids. However, the continued attacks defied all previous experience with the usually fearful and disorganised Ekind, leaving some suspecting the hand of a presently unknown third party.

Just as the eleventh hour approached, a final complication was thrown into the already chaotic situation: Sakura Haruno finally gave birth to the next heir to the Sadow dynasty, Remulus Sadow. However, as the Dark Council and the other Clans neared their final preparations, the Clan had no choice but to put its own concerns on hold and ready itself for the reclamation of the Antei. Whatever the outcome of the now imminent military campaign, the Clan knew the winds of change were blowing. Whether or not this would be for the better remained to be seen; but one thing was certain: nothing would be the same after the liberation of Antei.

Liberation of Antei (30 ABY)

Turning point

As 30 ABY neared its close, after nearly four years the Brotherhood was finally ready to return to Antei and reclaim it from the Yuuzhan Vong who had taken it in the disastrous battle at the start of 27 ABY. A joint task force from the Dlarit Navy and Dlarit Special Operations Group rendezvoused with the Navy of the Iron Throne and the other Clan fleets at the Radama Void located near Ord Radama from where the fleets then proceeded to the Shroud surrounding Antei. The Iron Throne forces went on ahead, attempting a risky micro-jump directly through the Shroud itself. Without Trevarus Caerick anymore, and with Lord Paladin on the Dark Star helping guide the Council fleet in hyperspace through the Shroud, Clan Naga Sadow was also forced to pass through the Shroud along with the rest of the Clans at sublight to arrive two days behind the main forces from the Navy of the Iron Throne.

The Du'san Boundary.

Ahead of the main force, Cyrus Raze and his team had already passed behind enemy lines and inserted onto Antei. There they made their way across the Jadan Pass into the heart of the Du’san boundary to Kalekka Tower in search of answers to the darkness that was plaguing both Raze and Robert Daragon. When Raze reached the tower’s summit he encountered the man who Daragon had suspected was behind it all along: Shan Long. However, as Raze entered the traitor’s presence, what was left of his mind was finally consumed by the darkness inside him. As the darkness reached out to consume the energies of the fragments of the Star of Ombus arrayed around Shan Long, Shan Long blasted Raze off the top of Kalekka, sending him tumbling into the boundary’s volcanic depths. While Antei’s fate had never concerned Shan Long, he knew his exile was at its end. His darkest fears had been realised, and if he was to win the coming battle he would need others’ help – and they his. So, taking Raze’s shuttle, Shan Long left Antei to return to the Clan he had abandoned two years earlier.

Outside the Shroud the Clan rendezvoused with Raistlin Majerus and the Kangaras Division, which had been reassigned to Antei and been launching regular raids on the Vong forces for several months. However, Majerus reported that of late no movement had come in or out of the Shroud, as if the Yuuzhan Vong had fallen silent. As they made their way inside the Shroud, the Clan came across a number of derelict hulks – Yuuzhan Vong cruisers that were literally breaking apart and liquefying as if in their final death throes. Macron Goura led a small team to investigate the drifting hulk of the yorik-stronha spy ship Zhaetor-zhae while the rest of the Clan hurried ahead to rejoin the Dark Council at Antei, desperate to find out what was going on. While the away team investigated the fast crumbling Vong ship, Goura was attacked by a spineray. The situation became more complicated when Raze’s scout transport returned to the Final Way carrying Shan Long, who was immediately arrested. Lord Sadow placed the traitor under the direct watch of his closest and most loyal Son, Robert Daragon, until they could decide what to do. But, before the Sons had determined the betrayer’s fate, the fleet arrived at Antei, emerging through the Shroud head first into a massive graveyard of dying Vong cruisers. The Yuuzhan Vong were already dead.

Omancor Crask, Jedi Lord and General.

Master Yoni opened a direct transmission to Lord Paladin on the Dark Star who revealed that Antei had been taken over by Omancor Crask, a Jedi General and style-appointed Jedi Lord who had taken it upon himself to wage a new Sith War, having foreseen a coming darkness that would eclipse everything that had been seen before. Also, Paladin sensed Shan Long’s presence and issued strict orders to Lord Sadow that the sorcerer was not to be harmed until the Grand Master had personally interrogated him. Just then, Goura contacted the fleet to report his findings that the Vong ship had been infected with a strain of the Alpha Red virus – raising doubts over Crask’s claim of being a Jedi, who for years had refused to sanction the virus. However, the answers would have to wait. They had a planet occupied by a rogue sect of Force-users in command of a vast droid army. Not planning to run away and abandon their homeland a second time, the combined forces of the Army of the Iron Throne and the Clans began their invasion – their liberation – of Antei to take back what was theirs.

Unification

The Yuuzhan Vong may already have fallen but Antei was still under enemy occupation all the same. Forces from the Army of the Iron Throne deployed to the surface in two beachheads in the sunside of Narmar and the Shadowlands of Adas. While some of the Clan flew fighter cover against the droid fighters swarming across the planet, the rest deployed in dropships to the two beachheads but the landing zone in Narmar was overrun before it had even had a chance, and a rapid evacuation was launched by Goura and his team to recover Ashura Isradia and Aleho Ruoxf who had already landed in Narmar. In Adas, the second planetary beachhead was in danger of a similar fate until Malisane de Ath isolated the source transmission from the local droid control relay and organised a raid to disable it, opening a long enough window for the rest of the anti-air teams to be safely deployed.

Before the Clan could catch their breath after securing the landing zone, reports came in that FOB Spear was being overrun and the scout team was in danger of being lost. The commando unit already out at the droid bunker proceeded with haste to the Forward Operating Base to reinforce the scout unit, while back at the main landing zone the fleet deployed the rest of the mechanized division, which then moved to follow behind and rendezvous at the FOB. As the battle was unfolding on the ground, back on the Final Way Daragon was struggling to retain control of his mind, and beginning to lose it to the darkness the way Raze had. Furthermore, troubled by Daragon’s behaviour, Tsainetomo hacked into the shipboard computers and unearthed evidence that the consul had been behind the cover up of the Dystopia bombing earlier in the year. Elsewhere on the surface, Raze had not died as thought but had instead become something far worse and was now sweeping his way across the battlefield. When he ran into a team from Clan Tarentum, the two Clans went on high alert with each other. Back at FOB Spear, the droid raiding party was defeated but heavy tank reinforcements were close behind. Reinforcements were called in from Clan Taldryan and tensions ran high when Goura deliberately blew up part of the Taldryan unit in revenge for what they had done four years before during the Fall of Antei.

A number of Clansmen were captured during the battle at FOB Spear and hauled off to the nearby Jedi Command Post where, instead of killing them, Jedi Master Gelusk sought to redeem them back to the light. Zaxen Isradia’s and Zaroth Rakiroyo’s wills began to falter, but de Ath, Agrist, and Jade Atema managed to sabotage the droid IFF transponder which sent the droid forces into disarray, attacking each other as much as the enemy. Just in time, the mechanized division from the main beachhead arrived to take the battle to the haywire droids and control of the Forward Operating Base was finally re-established. With the FOB safely back in Brotherhood hands, the Clan continued further east into Antei to rendezvous with forces under Clan Scholae Palatinae’s control. There the Clan received new orders to bring in some of the enemy Jedi Generals for interrogation. At the forward camp, Goura set up several of his trademark torture devices to help procure information from the captured Jedi about the defences guarding the other sites throughout Adas.

Cyrus Raze, fully consumed by Darth Vexatus and holding one of the two fragments of the Star of Ombus he stole from Kalekka Tower.

As the battle at FOB Spear was going on, back at the main landing zone Tsainetomo Keibatsu arrived following his discovery that contrary to everyone’s assumptions that Shan Long had killed Raze, the missing scout was in fact still alive somewhere in Adas. Sensing something amiss, the Keibatsu risked the wrath of Lord Sadow and went off mission to investigate his suspicions—although Ashura Isradia assigned Aleho Ruoxf to go with him. Deep in the desert, Keibatsu came across a raging hurricane, within which he discovered that he had been right—Raze was not dead. But the man he found was no longer Cyrus Raze. Instead the Keibatsu uncovered the horrifying truth that against all beliefs to the contrary the second traitor, Darth Vexatus, was in fact still alive, and had now taken over Raze’s body. Determined to silence the Betrayer once and for all, Keibatsu took up arms against him, but he was easily bested by the once-Sith Lord-turned-wraith. But, before the Keibatsu could be consumed, two scouts from Tarentum and four Jedi Masters arrived, seeking to investigate the hurricane as well. As the dark monster battled the six new arrivals, Aleho Ruoxf was able to recover the now-unconscious Keibatsu—and one of the Jedi who had also been knocked unconscious—and fled with them both on her swoop while Vexatus was distracted.

From FOB Spear the Clan split off into several teams to hunt down the enemy commanders, while at the camp further east tensions flared between the Naga Sadow and Scholae Palatinae forces; the two clans beginning to take the pressure and exhaustion from the prolonged fighting out on each other. Jade Atema, Alexander Anderson and Valorian; and Malisane de Ath and Agrist separately secured two Jedi captives who they returned to the eastern camp for interrogation by Goura, who thus far had not managed to procure anything further than the Brotherhood already knew—most of the Jedi choosing to die during interrogation before revealing anything. Increasingly it seemed Omancor Crask had kept many of his followers in the dark of his true reasons for developing his determination to root out all darksiders left in the Galaxy.

Back on the Final Way, Shan Long had convinced Daragon that he was no longer the enemy and that Cyrus Raze was the true threat. Ultimately, Daragon conceded that the Jedi were but one part in the escalating warfare on the surface, and that if they were to survive the coming battle they would need the sorcerer’s help. Against Lord Sadow’s orders, Daragon headed to the surface with his prisoner, determined to face the truth with his own eyes. But in the back of his mind the maddening darkness was pounding heavier still as he neared Antei’s black sands. At the main beachhead, Lord Sadow was furious with Daragon but had little time to worry about Shan Long while he still had a war to oversee. Elsewhere, Omancor Crask had abandoned the planet and headed into orbit to deal with Lord Sarin personally. The Jedi left on the surface knew that their fate was likely to end in martyrdom and became ever more desperate.

The Valley of the Lost.

Orders were issued by General Faylen that the Clan was to proceed on the Hall of Immortals and secure it before the Jedi could burn it to the ground. It was then that Ruoxf arrived back, Tsainetomo and Jedi in tow. The captured Jedi was quickly carried off for interrogation, while Keibatsu had just the energy left to announce to the whole leadership the revelation he had encountered in the desert. With the situation escalating beyond their control, Lord Sadow, Daragon, Shan Long and all the others who had remained behind at the landing zone took to their shuttles to head to the Hall of Immortals and rendezvous with the rest of the Clan to reinforce.

The final battle erupted in the Valley of the Lost on the steps outside the Hall of Immortals when the Clan arrived to engage the Jedi and droid forces that were setting up charges around the Hall in an attempt to bring the entire structure down. Throughout the valley, further Jedi teams were already in the process of bringing down thousand year old statues and monuments. As the Clan leaders flew across the desert with reinforcements, Daragon finally began to succumb to the darkness seeking to wrest control of his mind. Desperate, he at last submitted to Shan Long’s offer of salvation, knowing that in accepting the Mark he was betraying the trust Lord Sadow had placed in him. However, as the former traitor had promised, through the Force bond they now shared Shan Long was able to shield Daragon’s mind from the psychic attacks by whatever remained of Lord Vexatus. The consul and overlord arrived just as the Clan laid siege to the Hall of Immortals itself, heading inside to take up arms with Jedi Masters Nejj Kenten, Qira Vaal and Lordien. While Goura took up arms against Lordien, Manji Keibatsu and his apprentice, Dyrra Skye, dealt with Qira Vaal and her own apprentice; and, on the roof of the Hall, Lord Sadow himself duelled the Jedi Master in command, Nejj Kenten, while Tsainetomo Keibatsu held off Kenten’s MagnaGuard defenders. Elsewhere, Fremoc Pepoi, Ekeia Iclo, Xander Anderson and Krandon Rowella set charges along the valley’s entrances to hold off incoming droid reinforcements.

Battle for the Hall of Immortals.

As the Jedi Masters were defeated on the surface, Lord Sarin duelled Omancor Crask in the skies above. But the battle was matched, and in the end both died after the Exodus was damaged by their fighting and crashed into the surface of Antei. However, at the Hall of Immortals, the Clan managed to defeat the three Jedi Masters and their forces. But then the darkness arrived. Whatever remained of Cyrus Raze had defeated the four warriors who Aleho Ruoxf had left him battling in the desert, and had now twisted the four into mindless berserkers bent to his will. As the Clan mopped up any straggling Jedi and the last remnants of the droid forces, a hurricane swept over the valley, blanketing the Hall of Immortals in fog. The four berserkers laid siege to the Hall, engaging Daragon; Goura; Manji and Tsainetomo Keibatsu; and Jade Atema, Xander Alexander and Zaxen Isradia. The four berserkers were slain, but not at the cost of Atema being mortally wounded, and fearing that right before its death part of the berserker’s essence may have passed on into her. As the berserkers fell, Vexatus – in the body of Raze – moved against the Hall himself, the firestorm enveloping the structure as the entire Clan and much of the nearby Brotherhood forces took shelter in the basements. The final confrontation of the war took place when the entire Clan joined their minds in a Force meld led by Lords Sadow, Paladin and Shan Long to hold back the waves pounding against the building. As Vexatus’s anger grew worse, he opened a rift in the space above the Hall of Immortals, seeking to suck the entire building into oblivion—but the Clan fought back, their combined might pushing him back and wrapping him in a bubble of their own collective energy. Vexatus lost control of the storm he had unleashed, his body ultimately tearing apart as he was sucked into the pit of the black hole he had tried to unleash.

In the aftermath, much of the Hall itself was in ruins, but the Clan had survived—by working together as one. Lord Sadow recognised without Shan Long they may not have been able to channel their strength into a meld to direct against the Betrayer, and despite all that had happened two years earlier, the Battle of Lehon was at long last finally forgotten. The Clan was united. The Yuuzhan Vong had fallen. The Jedi had been slain. And Muz Keibatsu, a Son of Sadow, now sat on the Iron Throne itself as Grand Master of the Brotherhood. The war had ended and the Dark Age of lies and betrayal was finally at its end. Looking out across tthe glassed and smoking sands of the Valley of the Lost, for the first time in more than four years the Clan was finally able to look into the future with hope.

War's End (31 ABY)

The liberation of Antei saw the Clan triumphant and spirits at their highest since the original Yuuzhan Vong incursion into Sith Space almost four years earlier. Nevertheless, attacks along the Orian Pipeline still continued, straggling Yuuzhan Vong and Peace Brigade holdouts launching piratical raids from an unknown base and striking fear along the local stretch of the Hydian Way. With supply lines still under siege, contact with the outside galaxy and Corporate Sector remained difficult; further, with RePlanetHab's reconstruction of the countless worlds devastated by the war set to take years, the Corporation had no choice but to continue to host to the many refugees who had found their way to the Orian system, putting further pressure on already strained resources. As the Clan and Corporation now sought to rebuild, none suspected the Vong who Lord Paladin had once feared to be hauled up in Tarthos's arctic—until his expedition in early 30 ABY discovered no trace—were real after all and had been making progress in infiltrating the Corporation's command while the Brotherhood had been occupied with organising the Antei operation.

The new Warmaster

Varesh Shai, Warmaster of the Yuuzhan Vong remnants, on the bridge of Yammka's Sword.

Unknown to the outside galaxy, on the edges of the Tingel Arm lingered the remains of Baanu Amnan, the worldship that the Clan believed it had destroyed three years ago during the Battle of Telos. In truth, one lone Vong had managed to command the worldship's dovin basals to pull it into darkspace. Though the planetoid-sized Koros-Strohna had torn apart during the jump, the dead fragments of Domain Amnan's home had since been taken over by Varesh Shai and his armies from Domain Shai. They had since harvested it for resources to regrow a new generation of ships. The Yammka's Sword was the first, a mighty Kor Chokk grand cruiser, formed around one of the largest pieces left of Baanu Amnan and constructed around the Warmaster's existing flagship. With his allies from Amnan and various other domains, Varesh had been leading strikes along the Hydian Way for the past two years. For his devotion, and his refusal to accept that the Supreme Overlord could have fallen, the once Slayer and now self-declared Warmaster had been hailed by his high priestess, Seef Lacap as Khattazz al'Yun—the Avatar of God. With the Yuuzhan Vong Empire's collapse, Varesh had become convinced the Gods had abandoned them—and the new Warmaster set to redeem the Chosen Race by finishing the task he believed Shimrra had set before them: cleansing the Promised Land of the Jeedai heresy.

What not even Varesh himself ever realised was that he was being betrayed by one of his own: Eckla Muyel. Supposedly a low ranking intendant, Eckla was in truth Eshin Shul, the Shamed One who had been condemned to death by the Supreme Overlord after the Fall of Antei, subsequently hunted down by Drathul, the revered late Supreme Commander of Domain Amnan, and finally left for dead by the avatar of Yun-Shuno during the Battle of Telos. However, Eshin had not died and had since infiltrated the new Warmaster's court, seducing Tolok Amnan, the young new warleaader of Domain Amnan; ever since, she had been conspiring with the Master Shaper Niiriit Phaath to imbue one of the Chosen Race with the blood of a Jedi in order to gain mastery of the Force and take her revenge on the Sith who had shamed her. Under the guise of Eckla, Eshin pushed for the attack on Orian by feeding Tolok the information that would play on Varesh's desire to exterminate the dreaded Sith, who were rumoured to be even more powerful than the Jedi themselves. In the two years leading up to the invasion, Eshin and Niiriit had utilised Tolok's resources to capture countless Jedi, Sith and other Force-users, torturing them into submitting to the True Way and serving Eshin as her own "Slayers", her personal warrior elite. To this end she had dispatched the Zhaetor-zhae to Antei, loaded with spinerays to corrupt the Sith if and when they finally went back to recapture their homeworld.

Sacking of Sadow Palace

Macron Goura leading the Sacking of Sadow Palace.

The Yuuzhan Vong invasion of Orian came without warning in the dead of night. Throughout the system, agents working for Vega Incorporated, which was headed by the discredited former mayor Sylus Vega, and his deputy, Jinkil Moksuna, a survivor of the failed True Brotherhood invasion, were at long last activated, together with with Vong infiltrators, all under the command of Bur'lorr Amnan, head of the infiltration teams and one of the warrior caste's elite Hunters. In Seng Karash, Deputy Commissioner Wyla Sarn shut off Marakith Skyhook's defences; in Kar Alabrek, Commander Ran Arnet did the same to Tarthos's grid; but it was at the very heart of the Disciples of Sadow, in Sadow Palace, where the greatest treachery of all took place. Macron Goura, former apprentice to the Betrayer, Darth Vexatus, broke into the Hive, Orian's central intelligence database, and disabled the entire system's defence network. With Orian in total blackout, the Vong armada led by Warmaster Varesh launched its attack. Peace Brigade fleets commanded by Admiral Yashais dei Izvoshra laid siege to Aeotheran, Amphor and Tarthos, trapping the Disciples of Kressh and Ragnos planetside as the Brigaders moved to capture the cities, their strike teams led by captured Jedi and Sith who had been converted to the Vong's religion in the two years since their Supreme Overlord's defeat. As most of the Clan remained isolated throughout the rest of the system, on Sepros the main Vong battlegroup laid siege to the palace, bombarding it from orbit and deploying strike teams on a one way suicide trip to slay as many Sseeth and dark Jeedai as they could find in order to redeem the Chosen Race in the eyes of their gods. The Simus Institute was slaughtered, dozens of junior apprentices falling to amphistaff fangs or coufee blades.

Yuuzhan Vong hauling captives onto a slaveship.

The chief traitor himself made his way into the hidden sanctum of the Order of the Black Guard deep beneath the palace in the ancient catacombs; there he found his new mistress's true prize: Remulus Sadow. After defeating the infant Sadow heir's guardian, Ashura Isradia, Macron took them both to an escape craft and fled to the massive Yammka's Sword in orbit before. Back aboveground, a second betrayal, this time by Delta-1, Aurek, with the help of the bounty hunter Xarask, had captured Robert Daragon, hauling the consul away on Xarask's ship, Razorback. As the palace smouldered on fire, the surviving DSOG troopers battling the remaining Vong drop teams, victory looking impossible, until salvation arrived in the form of Fleet Admiral Araic Simonetti. The Commanding Admiral of Special Operations had raced home to Orian with the Final Way after Colonel Kal Septka of the Palace Guard had managed to get a distress call out. With the Special Operations Division's arrival, the Warmaster's main battlegroup withdrew, their primary objectives already accomplished.

Invasion of Orian

Chazrach and a bioengineered serpent assaulting Seng Karash.

Fire Breathers laying siege to Kar Alabrek.

Liberation may have come for Sepros itself however Admiral Izvoshra's forces remained in orbit of the colonies throughout the system. The Vong themselves may have withdrawn, their mission complete, having spilt the blood of many Jeedai already, but Sylus Vega and the other Brigaders had no intention of giving up their prize: Orian. Chaos erupted on the streets of Seng Karash and Kar Alabrek as—still in a communications blackout—the two Houses remained cut off from each other. The DSOG fleet remained stuck at Sepros, Izvoshra having announced that if the Brigade fleet was engaged he would issue a full Base Delta Zero orbital bombardment to deny the Corporation victory. On Tarthos, the Disciples of Ragnos battled the Jedi, Brigade and Vong hordes, cleansing Alabrek Castle of the infestation. Fremoc Pepoi's son was captured during the attack, sending the young knight on a killing spree as he hunted down Captain Paterson, the leader of the Brigade's forces on the surface. Paterson's death bought the Dark Jedi teams the opening they needed to push the invasion forces out of the Hub, securing the city's central district. Despite the disciples' success, Ylith Atema was captured during the fighting, being hauled away to one of the lingering Vong slaveships. Across the system on Aeotheran, Delta-32, Orenth, had performed a similar betrayal to the one on Sepros, allowing the Brigade's forces onto Marakith. As the chaos unfolded, Malisane de Ath and Agrist used the opportunity to launch a raid on Vanise Tower against Meria Vanise, who they had unmasked as the former founding triumvir of the True Brotherhood Severina. Though Severina initially bested them, setting a resurrected Tslotha Garnath on them, de Ath subsequently lured her to a final confrontation in Dystopia, where he had planted a bomb within the head of Talorthane Zemar, the Vong he had captured back during the Fall of Antei. Unable to sense the deception, Severina had no opportunity to prepare herself for the explosion, which was powerful enough to bring down the entire tower. Marakith's tractor beams secured the wreckage, but with Orenth's betrayal the city was held to ransom, the rogue Delta-class Advanced Commando threatening to drop the wreckage on top of the Dark Jedi battling in the streets below. As the Disciples of Kressh ushered the civilians into the central Government District, setting up a triage unit in the Peace Headquarters, Tsainetomo Keibatsu infiltrated the skyhook and fought Orenth off, the DAC escaping, but the skyhook re-secured.

Peace Brigade siege

Sylus Vega, President of Vega Incorporated.

As the Vong fleet returned to Baanu Amnan out in Wild Space on the outskirts of the Tingel Arm, the fighting continued throughout Seng Karash and Kar Alabrek, the Dlarit and Brigade fleets locked in a stalemate. It was five days before the Vong left behind on Sepros had been dealt with, the wounded addressed, and Colonel Septka able to start working his way through the wreckage—within which he discovered the truth of who had betrayed them. In the ruins of the Hive, Septka discovered the digital footprints left behind by Wyla Sarn and Ran Arnet that incriminated them as the culprits who had sold the Corporation out. Septka relayed the new information to the Clansmen still trapped in Seng Karash and Kar Alabrek. As Nix Graves and Dyrra Skye made their way into the Police Headquarters to arrest Sarn, in Kar Alabrek Fremoc Pepoi and Raven went to arrest Arnet. However, none had been prepared when Sarn revealed herself to be a Vong, using the surprise to escape into the city; similarly, on Tarthos the Disciples of Ragnos were unprepared for how deep the rot went, their own security team turning against them, buying Arnet the opening he needed to escape. As Graves and Skye led their teams after Sarn, heading into the Undercity to a secret mining shaft that had been installed during Vega's time as mayor to lead to an abandoned mine, Pepoi and Raven chased Arnet into Tarthvos's arctic reaches, heading off in search of the Vong base that Lord Paladin had speculated about so long ago. The two teams respectively made their way to Vega Mine in Aeotheran's jungle and the wreckage of Obsidian Station, which had crashed into Tarthos four years earlier during the True Brotherhood invasion. Finding Vega Mine infested with Killiks, the Disciples of Kressh fought their way through the insect swarms and Vega's hired mercenaries, fighting off the corrupted Shadow Academy student Fiula Muyel along with Vega's bodyguard, Ghon; once the team reached Vega himself, they beat the access codes to reactivate Marakith's defences, then executed the treacherous mayor. Elsewhere, the team on Tarthos battled the corrupted Jedi Knight Khalee Muyel and the Vong commander himself, Bur'lorr Amnan, to reactivate Tarthos's defence grid. During the fighting, however, William Darkfire was knocked unconscious and captured by one of the Vong warriors, who fled with the incapacitated Obelisk journeyman.

With the planets' defence networks reactivated, the DSOG fleet that had been waiting in orbit was finally cleared to engage the Brigade ships. Without the Vong armada to support them, Admiral Izvoshra's forces were no match for the advanced Dlarit warships and Dark Jedi battleteams. As the Final Way micro-jumped to Amphor to engage Izvoshra's battlesphere itself, the Kaleesh admiral signalled the withdrawal, issuing orders for all Peace Brigade ships to fall back to the rendezvous point with the rest of the Vong battlegroup in the Tingel Arm. However, Izvoshra's Nightsister-turned-Slayer, Nen Muyel, overruled his orders, informing the Patriot's Fist's Chazrach slave crew to hold where they were because Varesh had never had any intention of the Brigade surviving the battle—nor any desire for them to lead the darksiders to the hidden Vong shipyard's location. Nevertheless, as the Fist took heavy fire from the Final Way, Izvoshra took up arms against the converted Human Slayer, besting her in single combat in order to finally signal the full withdrawal, what remained of the Brigade fleet withdrawing with him. With Orian liberated, Fleet Admiral Simonetti knew they had no time to spare and that if they were to finally bring an end to the war they would need to pursue Izvoshra back to hidden base that the Vong had been striking from. Though it went against every bone in his body, Simonetti initiated Operation Rancor, the Corporation's final doomsday protocol, which authorised the use of the Violator Gas Bomb stored in the Cenota Facility on Gamuslag, a warhead loaded with enough of the pathogen to wipe out all life in an entire star system—and, unlike Alpha Red's deployment at Antei, Violator Gas was indiscriminate about what it killed. With the VGB loaded aboard the Final Way, Simonetti took what ships remained operational and headed off in pursuit of Izvoshra.

Pursuing the enemy

The mobile criminal space city of Refuge.

During the Sacking of Sadow Palace, Kal Septka had managed to plant a tracking device on the Ghtroc Class 580 light freighter onto which Robert Daragon had last been seen being carried onto by an unknown Trandoshan. As the rest of the Clan headed off in pursuit of Izvoshra's straggling forces, a lone Clansmen was spared to head off in search of where the consul had been taken. The Razorback's trail led the lone Dark Jedi operative to an empty region of deep space just off the Hydian Way, where the trail promptly went dead. As the operative feared he had reached a dead end, an immense space station emerged from hyperspace, the fabled mobile criminal space city of Refuge. The Dark Jedi managed to get on board and infiltrate the city as it jumped back into hyperspace again. Followingthe bounty hunter who had taken the consul, the operative discovered he had arrive too late, and that Daragon had already been moved to another location; however, he encountered the true extent of the betrayal: Delta-1, Aurek, the very first of the thirty-four Delta-class Advanced Commandos—and the man who was meant to protect Robert Daragon at all times. After beating the information out of the treacherous commando, the Dark Jedi secured the coordinates for where the consul was to be taken and headed off in pursuit on a journey that would take him to the other side of the galaxy.

Jinkil Moksuna, Vice President of Vega Incorporated.

While the Special Operations fleet headed into the Tingel Arm, the operative tracking the consul journeyed to the other end of the Hydian Way to the Phare system in the Minos Cluster—the original home of the Disciples of Sadow until the Exodus twelve years before. The Dark Jedi found a ruin of what the system had once been. Without the firm leadership of then-governor Astronicus Dlarit or the resources of the Dlarit Corporation, the system had fallen into disarray, taken over by the criminal underworld. The Imperial Remnant had long since imploded, its fleet lost to warlordism and infighting. Travelling to the system's capital, Sif, the operative found the Saraii—the local Chiss offshoots— had become polarised; the name Sadow was still remembered fondly by some, but by many others it was synonymous with the viceroy and corporation that had abandoned them to the corrupt remnants of the Empire. Making his way to the capital city of Juraas-Kur, the lone operative came across a familiar name: Vega Incorporated, overseen by Vice President Jinkil Moksuna, twin to the very same Jingi Moksuna who had been slain in the True Brotherhood attack four years prior, and whose criminal and corporate power had made him into Sif's de facto governor. The rot ran deep, the Clan's enemies having united and marshalled against it together to bring down Orian, Vega Incorporated having become an arms manufacturer for the Peace Brigade fleets of Yashais dei Izvoshra that now served Varesh Shai. The lone operative fought his way inside Vega Incorporated's headquarters, battling through the ranks of mercenaries to where the consul was being held before taking up arms against Moksuna himself and rescuing Robert Daragon.

Children of the Gods

The slaveship that captured William Darkfire.

While the Disciples of Sadow had been driving the Peace Brigade out of Orian, Varesh Shai's fleet had left Orian Space, heading back out to Wild Space, believing themselves victorious. However, in the days that followed, the Warmaster grew unsettled upon his armada's return to Baanu Amnan. Still awaiting the return of the Supreme Overlord, Varesh began to question what more the Gods expected of him, having proven he was greater than even the Sith. Following the counsel of Tsaak Shai, his religious guide, he at last heeded the word of the high priestess, Seef Lacap, recognising that the Jedi conversions and intercaste affairs of Domain Amnan had gone on long enough and that Tolok Amnan and Eckla Muyel must suffer the consequences of their blasphemy. The Warmaster issued orders to his fleet's commander, Romm Shai, that Tolok was to be relieved of command and all Amnan forces were to either to swear loyalty directly to him or else be destroyed.

As the domains' alliances were falling apart, over on the Voice of Agony Eshin Shul and Niiriit Phaath were conducting their final experiment. The pair had tried for so long, injecting Vasi Khess, Niiriit's former student, who had been shamed because of her experiments' side effects, with countless blood samples from their captured Jedi-turned-Slayers. With the blood of Remulus Sadow, son of Astronicus Sadow and heir to the Sadow dynasty, one of what the Master Shaper referred to as the Children of the the Ancients, the pair finally hoped that a pure sample would fulfil their quest for Force-sensitivity. Instead, the injection sent Vasi into shock, killing him. With Niiriit's experiment a failure, Eshin stormed out of the laboratory with her two Slayers, Shok and Krag Muyel—formerly known as Macron Goura—and headed back to the cells to retrieve Remulus and get out before she could be caught up in the unfolding battle between the two domains. After Eshin had gone, however, Vasi reawakened, tearing free from his restraints and mocking his former master for her "victory" before he incinerated her with Force lightning, declaring himself the Light of the True Way and that it was time for the Shamed Ones to rise up and claim their rightful place as the Promised Land's Gods.

Vasi Khess, Chosen of the Extolled.

As chaos unfolded on the Voice of Agony, the Patriot's Fist arrived back with the surviving Peace Brigade fleet. Infuriated, when Izvoshra contacted the Yammka, Varesh cursed the infidel admiral for returning to Baanu Amnan's location, fearing that the Kaleesh had placed the entire fleet in jeopardy and risked leading the Sith there. Taking his rage out on his high priestess, Varesh executed Seef with a lightsaber he had taken from one of the Sith apprentices he had slain, condemning her for her failure to divine the betrayal of their Peace Brigade allies. Declaring that Yun-Yuuzhan had forsaken them, Varesh announced that his armies would forever be remembered as the Yammka Vong, the Children of Yun-Yammka, the Children of War; that it was a curse their generation must carry if the Chosen Race was ever to redeem favour with the rest of the True Gods.

As Varesh was denouncing his own gods, Vasi Khess was rampaging through the Voice of Agony, liberating Shamed Ones—now declared the Gods' Chosen: the Extolled—from their forced servitude and slaying all those who had oppressed him, from warriors, to priests like the Apostle of the Undying Flame Taug Lacap. Vasi encountered the captive Ylith Atema in the cells, who had been experimented on by one of Niiriit's apprentices. Vasi battled the Sith into submission, hurling him unconscious halfway through the ship's interior into an amphistaff garden. Elsewhere, one of Vasi's other initiates was converting the captured William Darkfire into a half-alien hybrid, implanting numerous biots. As Vasi butchered his way through the ship, Eshin retrieved Remulus and Ashura Isradia from the cells, hastening to the bridge where Tolok was waiting for secure her transportation off ship—and ultimately away from Baanu Amnan forever. The ship itself was by this point in danger of breaking up, sustaining heavy fire from both the Yammka Vong and Peace Brigade fleets. Eshin reached the bridge just in time to witness Vasi's arrival, leading a pack of fellow, Shamed Ones, the now Force-sensitive Vong incinerated the entire bridge crew—Tolok along with them. Leaping to his mistresses's defence, Shok Muyel charged at Vasi only to be struck down along with the rest. Vasi scolded Eshin as the worst of all of them, worse still than even Varesh himself, who he said at least had faith as an excuse, and condemned her Sith Slayers as heretics. Krag hurled his own wave of dark energies at the Chosen Vong, the two's attacks momentarily locking together, until Vasi got the upper hand and hurled Krag away. Vasi then reached out into the mind of the Voice of Agony, exerting his will over the thousands of biots and directing them to charge the cruiser into the side of the Yammka—just as the Dlarit fleet arrived at Baanu Amnan.

Operation Rancor

File:Eshin2.gif

Eshin Shul, the true mastermind behind the Invasion of Orian.

The Dlarit fleet arrived just in time to witness the Voice of Agony collide with the Yammka's Sword. Uninjured, Vasi revealed himself to the Warmaster, issuing his death threat. Varesh concluded that Vasi had been the heresy he must undo. The Warmaster gave his aide, Tsaak, leave to escape—accepting that it was his place as Warmaster to die, and Tsaak's to continue the Yammka Vong's crusade should he fall. Unlike Vasi, the collision had knocked Ashura and Krag unconscious, though Krag had narrowly managed to shield the baby Remulus from the falling debris; Eshin, however, had been buried underneath rubble, her legs crushed. When Krag came round, he initially went to rescue Eshin. However, knowing she would die no matter what now happened, Eshin revealed how she had manipulated them all; how she was not really Eckla Muyel, but Eshin Shul, the Shamed One who had masterminded the attack on the Dlarit fleet at Antei, who had betrayed them at Telos; how she had since corrupted Krag to the True Way through the spineray that had attacked him on the Zhaetor-zhae at Antei a year earlier; how she had never sought anything other than the death of all those who had shamed her, Vong, Jedi and Sith alike; and that Vasi was the weapon she had now forged to bring down both ancient religions together. As if awakening from a dream, Macron Goura finally broke free of the spineray's control, ripping it off his back before executing Eshin, then going to help Ashura and Remulus and get off the Yammka before it was destroyed in the unfolding space battle. Upon encountering one of the Dlarit teams who had by now stormed the Vong flagship, Macron put Ashura and Remulus into one of the Vong escape pods and—in spite of the proconsul's protestations—launched it towards the Final Way before anyone could stop him, then instructed them to take him to the VGB so that he could at last finish what he had started in order to atone for his role in everything that had happened.

Elsewhere, Manji Keibatsu was leading teams led by Nix Graves, Dyrra Skye, Fremoc Pepoi and Raven, who were helping transport the VGB to the Hall of Confluence in the centre of the Yammka. Ylith Atema had since awakened from his duel with Vasi and was now en route after the Extolled leader, who was now also converging on the Hall of Confluence to take revenge on the Warmaster who had shamed him. As the VGB crew neared the Hall, the Warmaster himself arrived, along with his personal retinue of Hunters, and a now corrupted William Darkfire. As the journeymen battled the Hunters, Fremoc reluctantly taking up arms against his friend William, trying in vain to convince him to see reason, Manji joined up with the now freed Macron Goura and the pair of Sons of Sadow engaged Varesh. However, strong as the pair were, the Warmaster seemed virtually indestructible, his very skin immune to attack.

Elsewhere, Ylith had caught up with Vasi and the pair engaged each other again, Ylith drawing power from the curse Darth Vexatus had left him with, but still not enough to hold the Vong off. With Ylith hurled away again, Vasi continued on to the Hall of Confluence, where he finally encountered Varesh. Growing desperate, Manji and Macron held back, leaving the two Vong giants to destroy each other first. As Varesh duelled Vasi, Fremoc managed to get through to what was left of William, convincing the mutilated man to tear from off the Vong implants, ripping his own face off in order to free himself of their control. As Vasi scorched Varesh with lightning, Varesh's ceremonial Vonduun crab armor, together with the biots that encrusted his skin, began to peel off, but still the Vong Warmaster continued. It was at that moment Ylith arrived, his cursed body still empowering him when he leapt at the Force-charged Vong, battering him into the side of the VGB—damaging the warhead in the process, and spilling toxic fumes across Vasi, the Shamed One finally dissolving into a pool of blood as Macron Goura leapt at the bomb, clenching his hand around the broken valve. With Vasi dead, and Varesh's armour burnt off, Manji charged at the Warmaster again, supported by fire from Tyren Atema. The second of the Atema brothers' gunfire surprised Varesh enough for the Keibatsu, together with Fremoc, Soolin, Dyrra and Ryuk, to cleave their lightsabers through the Vong's chest, carving him into pieces.

The Yammka being torn apart during the detonation of the Violator Gas Bomb.

With the two Vong finally dead, the Yammka venting atmosphere from the impact crater, suicidal Vong from Domain Amnan launching kamikaze runs along the grand cruiser's side, and the VGB venting gas, the Clan rapidly began heading back to their evacuation ships, only Macron staying behind—nobody else able to withstand the toxic gas, and the alchemist still carrying the guilt for having helped the Vong. But William Darkfire refused to see the Son of Sadow throw his life away, and—despite Macron's protestations—announced he would stay behind instead. Begrudingly, Macron handed the valve over to the mutilated journeyman and hurried off after the others, who were now battling their way through the evacuating Vong to their transports. William held out as long as his hand could suffer the burning to buy his fellow Clansmen as much time as he could, only finally letting go when two Vong arrived to investigate what had befallen their Warmaster. Declaring his Oath of Knighthood, William at last detonated the bomb, the Violator Gas spreading throughout the ship, killing everything instantly, dissolving Romm Shai on the bridge, before the Yammka collapsed through the orbit of the nearest chunk of Baanu Amnan, hitting the surface with the full force of several megaton warheads, shattering into thousands of pieces and flinging burning lumps of contaminated rock throughout the system and into every other piece of Baanu Amnan. The flaming wreckage of the Yammka slammed through the surviving Vong cruisers, splitting them in two, as well as smashing through the bridge of the Patriot's Fist and taking Admiral Yashais dei Izvoshra with it.

Rebuilding (31 ABY—Present)

With the Vong attacks throughout Orian Space finally at an end, the Clan was able to at last resume normal trade relations with the Corporate Sector and, where possible, begin repatriating the many refugees taken on since the Yuuzhan Vong War had first begun back to their various homeworlds. With the war at long last over, the Dlarit Corporation was at last able to look to the future for the first time in more than six years...

External Links

• Clan Naga Sadow's homepage
• Fractured Mirror (Competition) website
• CNS Vision Statement website
• CNS Vision Statement video (YouTube)
• CNS Vision Statement video (Photobucket)
• Clan Naga Sadow - Ninth Great Jedi War trailer (Photobucket)