Outside the sealed doorways stood two of the four scarlet-clad Imperial guards. They wore sinister, projectile-shaped helmets with only a narrow black slit through which they could see. The two guards stiffened, crossing their force pikes to deny him entry. Brakiss strode forward without hesitating. “Move aside,” he said. “I must speak with the Emperor.”
“He has requested not to be disturbed,” said one of the guards.
“Disturbed?” Brakiss said, appalled to hear the words. “Our fleet is going down in defeat; our Dark Jedi are being captured. Our TIE fighters are being shot down. Tamith Kai is dead. The Emperor should already be disturbed. Move aside. I must speak with him.”
“The Emperor speaks with no one.” They moved one step forward, holding out their weapons.
Brakiss felt fresh anger boiling within. It gave him strength. The power flowing in his veins tapped directly into the dark side of the Force. He could see why the Nightsister Tamith Kai had found the experience so exhilarating that she kept herself in a constant state of pent-up fury.
Brakiss had no patience for these meddling scarlet-clad obstacles. They were traitors to the Second Imperium—and he responded, letting the Force flow from deep within him.
His lightsaber dropped out of his billowing sleeve and fell firmly into his hand. His finger depressed the power button. A long rippling blade extended out, but Brakiss did not use it as a threat. He had grown tired of threats, of word games and diversions that prevented progress. He unleashed his anger.
“I have had enough of this!” He struck wildly from side to side. His anger narrowed his vision to a tunnel of black static that surrounded his two targets as they scrambled to use their force pikes against him. But Brakiss was a powerful Jedi. He knew the ways of the dark side, and the red Imperial guards had no chance against him.
In less than a second, Brakiss had struck both of them down.
He activated the sealed door mechanism. The security pass codes argued with him, so he used the Force to blow out the circuits. With his bare hands he wrenched the stubborn door aside, then strode into the Emperor’s private chambers.
“My Emperor, you must help us,” he called. The light around him was red and dim, hot. He blinked, finding it difficult to see—but found no one else around. “Emperor Palpatine!” he shouted. “The battle turns against us. The Rebels are defeating our troops. You must do something.”
His words echoed back at him, but he heard nothing else: no response, no movement. He pushed on into another room, only to find it filled with a black-walled isolation chamber, its armored door sealed shut, its side panels held in place with heavy burnished rivets. This was the enclosed compartment the red guards had removed from the special Imperial shuttle. Bulky worker droids had lifted the heavy container out of the shuttle’s hold and carried it here.
Brakiss knew the Emperor had secluded himself inside the chamber, protected from outside influences. Brakiss had feared that the Emperor’s health was failing, that Palpatine needed this special life-support environment just to survive.
But at the moment, Brakiss didn’t care. He was tired of having doors shut in front of him. He, the Master of the Shadow Academy, one of the most important members of the Second Imperium, should not be brushed aside like some civil servant.
He pounded on the armored door. “My Emperor, I demand that you see me! You cannot let this defeat continue. You must use your powers to wrest a victory from the hands of our enemies.”
He received no answer. His battering noises quickly faded into the thick, blood-colored light that filled the chamber. Brakiss’s heart froze into a chunk of ice, like a lost comet from the fringes of a solar system.
If the Emperor had forsaken them, they were lost already. The battle had turned against the Second Imperium—and Brakiss had nothing more to lose.
He switched on his lightsaber again, held the thrumming weapon—and struck. The energy blade sparked and flared as it cut through the thick armor plating—nothing, not even Mandalorian iron or durasteel blast shielding, could resist the onslaught of a Jedi lightsaber.
He sliced through the hinges. Molten metal steamed and ran in silvery rivulets down the side of the door. He chopped again, hacking out an entrance, tearing open the wall like a labor droid dismantling a cargo container. He stepped aside as the thick chunk of armor plate fell to the deck with a deafening clang.
Brakiss stood waiting, frozen with indecision, as the smoke cleared. He held his lightsaber up … and finally stepped inside.
He stared in disbelief. He saw no Emperor, no plush living quarters, not even any complicated medical apparatus to keep the old ruler alive.
Instead, he found a sham.
A third red guard sat in a complex control chair surrounded on three sides by computer monitors and controls. Brakiss saw a library display of holographic videoclips taken over the course of the Emperor’s career: the rise of Senator Palpatine, the New Order, early attempts to crush the Rebellion … recorded speeches, memos, practically every word Palpatine had spoken in public, plus many private messages. Powerful holographic generators assembled the clips, manufacturing lifelike three-dimensional images.
Brakiss stared in horror as it began to make sense to him.
The red guard lurched to his feet, scarlet robes flowing around him. “You may not enter here.”
“Where is the Emperor?” Brakiss said, but as he looked around he already knew the answer. “There is no Emperor, is there? This has all been a hoax, a pitiful bid for power.”
“Yes,” the red guard said, “and you have played your part well. The Emperor did indeed die many years ago when his last clone was destroyed, but the Second Imperium needed a leader—and we, four of Palpatine’s most loyal Imperial guards, decided to create that leader.
“We had all of the brilliant speeches and recordings the Emperor had made. We had his thoughts, his policies, his records. We knew we could make the Second Imperium work, but no one would have followed us. We had to give the people what they wanted, and they wanted their Emperor back—as you did. You were easy to fool, because you wanted to be fooled,” the red guard said, nodding toward Brakiss.
The Master of the Shadow Academy stepped deeper into the chamber, his lightsaber glowing with deadly, cold fire. “You tricked us,” he said, still in the grip of incredulous horror. “You tricked me—me! I was one of the Emperor’s most dedicated servants, but I served a lie. There was never any chance for the Second Imperium, and now we are being destroyed here because of you! Because of poor planning. Because there is no dark heart to the Second Imperium.”
Blinded by rage again, Brakiss flowed forward like an avenging angel, his lightsaber held high. The red guard staggered away from his controls, reaching into his scarlet robes to withdraw a weapon—but Brakiss didn’t give him the chance.
He cut down the third Imperial guard, who fell smoking and lifeless onto the array of controls that had created the fake Emperor. The illusion had cheated Brakiss, and the Shadow Academy, and all his Dark Jedi … everyone who had devoted their lives to recreating the Empire.
“Now the Empire has truly fallen,” he said, his voice hoarse and husky, his face haggard. He was no longer calm, like a statue, no longer a well-polished representative of perfection.
Hearing a noise outside the chopped-open door to the isolation chamber, Brakiss turned to see a flash of red—the fourth and final member of the group of charlatans. Brakiss moved slowly, feeling stiffness and pain, utterly discouraged—but he could not let this last one get away. His honor demanded that the deceivers pay. Brakiss rushed after him.