Ned POV
Korriban did not welcome war.
It remembered it.
The world hung red beneath us, old and dry and spiteful, a grave dressed as origin. Around it gathered the great Sith convergence: ash fleets under Darth Akrul Veyth, tomb lances bearing dead-house sigils, academy survivors, priest ships of Darth Synda Korr, noble remnants, war engines, relic carriers, and a thousand lesser ambitions pretending, for one last hour, to be civilization.
Varis stood at my right.
He had gone silent when Korriban filled the glass.
Some men return to holy places. Others return to the scene of their species' longest illness.
"They will not all fight together," he said.
"No."
"They will try to."
"Yes."
Order's projections filled the command air and broke themselves. Too many rival commands, too many old rites, too much Force pressure rising from tombs that had been fed with centuries of belief. Foresight did not open as clean road. It opened as red sand blown into the eyes.
Renn watched the fleet count.
Omega watched me.
Lana watched Korriban.
That was important.
The first exchange turned space white.
Ash fleets advanced in crescent formation, their hulls blackened by old atmospheric wars, each ship trailing particulate smoke like funeral cloth. Tomb lances fired from behind them, beams not of clean energy but something older, light dragged through ritual until it carried memory as weapon. Three of my ships died before Order found the rhythm. One broke apart so slowly that escape pods spilled like seeds from a burned fruit.
I did not speak.
There are moments command becomes silence because all words are smaller than the room.
We drove toward Korriban anyway.
Varis mapped rivalries faster than guns could spend them. "Left wing hates the priesthood. Akrul will not protect Synda's lower carriers if threatened by dishonor. Strike there."
Order adjusted.
Renn sent reserves.
Omega moved to the wounded decks.
Lana led acolytes in a boarding counterstrike against a tomb carrier whose halls screamed in dead languages when opened.
I descended to the surface in the third hour.
Red sand rose around the landing like old blood remembering weather. Statues watched from ridgelines. Tomb mouths opened. Sith champions stood between them in ranks so formal they looked already dead.
Darth Synda Korr's voice crossed the plain.
"You come to end the Sith by becoming their final proof."
Darth Akrul Veyth answered from the battlefield below her temple, enormous in ash-black armor, carrying a blade too large for any ordinary body and exactly right for his.
"Let him come close enough to bleed."
Good.
I walked forward with my army behind me, and every step felt like argument with the planet.
At the center of the red plain, beneath tombs that had taught generations to confuse hunger with destiny, I gave the offer.
Not surrender.
Simplification.
"One doctrine," I said. "One movement. One hierarchy. One source. Kneel and live as power given structure. Refuse and become memory disciplined by fire."
The old Sith hated me for that more than for killing them.
Because it was not Jedi mercy.
It was not Republic law.
It was their own dream made obedient to someone outside them.
Then Korriban answered.
The ground opened.
Ancient guardians rose.
The sky filled with ash.
And Darth Akrul Veyth came for me like a mountain remembering it had once been a blade.
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