As the shuttle landed in the docking bay of her flag ship, the captain and her aides were standing at attention.  A small compliment of soldiers stood by as well in a traditional honor guard formation.

The Captain saluted as her leader drew near.  "Where would you like to head next, ma'am? With Balmorra under your control, which planet is your next conquest."

An important question.  With Balmorra already setting up shipments of supplies and weapons for her, and the rumors of a major defeat suffered by Darth Furor, it was time to make a push to expand her empire beyond her rivals.

Her skirt swirled around her ankles as she strode down the gangplank and through the hangar.

"Set a course for Korriban, Captain. I have heard disturbing rumors that someone has built an academy to train disciples. As you know, by treaty, Korriban is supposed to be left uninhabited.

If the treaty has been violated, then it is important that I seize it for my cause as soon as possible."
This message was last edited by the player at 19:42, Thu 31 Mar 2016.

The Captain saluted her, and then turned to head to the bridge.  Their destination would be Korriban, the ancient burial site of many prominent past Sith Lords.  It is currently a neutral planet under no one's rule as per the treaty signed by the Sith council.

Once Sarai exited the shuttle, the ground troops and her personal bodyguard squad exited onto the landing bay floor. They started moving equipment and returning to their normal quarters.

The rest of the crew and soldiers went back to their posts and the technicians locked the bay down for the impending trip through hyperspace.

She made a quick organization chart, then sent out hypertransceiver missives to all of her currently unoccupied captains. A third of her fleet would move to protect Balmorra, a third to protect Dromund Kaas, and the other third would make for Korriban with all speed.

If indeed someone had violated the treaty, Sarai needed to crush their power base on Korriban, and take it for herself, as quickly as possible. It could also have been a trap, however, and so she wanted to make sure that enough of her assets would be in place to protect her holdings, should that prove the case.

It was a gamble to try to seize the tomb world, with its many relics and strength in the Force, but it would pay off in a very big way if she succeeded.

The orders were sent and the fleets began moving to their new locations.  It would take a day or so to move everything into the new positions and get the logistics straight.  Meanwhile, new weapons and other supplies were being brought up from Balmorra as the first of the new equipment.

Sarai ordered the captain to exit hyperspace just outside the Kuiper belt of Korriban's star and use minimum thrust ion drives to intercept Korriban's orbit while the ship was cloaked. It would likely take a few days; space was a mind-bogglingly large place, and using primitive drives was very slow.

Her reinforcements would wait outside the Oort cloud, just beyond the boundary of Korriban's solar system. Once the Dawn Rider has approached Korriban successfully and determined whether it was inhabited, the reinforcements could use micro-jumps and plasma drives to arrive in a few minutes.

Meanwhile, Balmorra would receive orbital shields and a small garrison, which would then train the locals in proper military discipline. The PR campaigns were going swimmingly, and protecting the planet from sudden strikes by Sarai's rivals, as well as the Jedi and Republic, was certainly important. Balmorran industry would more than triple her wealth and ability to project power.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:26, Tue 12 Apr 2016.

The Dawn Rider continued its slow drift towards Korriban.  Running on minimal power, and using only the previous thrust and inertia, it appeared just another space object to anyone who might notice.  Most sensors would not detect its approach and write it off as an asteroid or space debris.

The captain had a runner send a message that they were about 20 hours from Korriban's orbit.  This archaic message system kept power low and the changes of any signals undetected by enemies.


After the runner left, Sergeant Besh looked back over at Sarai.  "What is the plan again, ma'am?  I think it best to go over one final time."

The ship drifted forward slowly and without incident for the first 17 hours.  It moved like a piece of space debris and slowly made its way towards the gravity of the planet.

A message came over the comm channel. "Ma'am, we are getting close. And this is the most dangerous part of the approach. I wanted to let you know we are within visual range."

The towering vision repeated herself: "We will enter high orbit and observe with passive sensors and telescopes for a few days to determine if there is indeed a settlement of some kind on Korriban. If we cannot find one that way, we will use active sensors, including ground-penetrating radar. Once, if, we find it, then we will ascertain its purpose and provenance; if at all possible, we will then seize it."

---

"Thank you, Captain. Please feed the visual data to my chamber monitors."

She lounged in a chair and brushed her hair. It was not yet the time to reach out with the Force, but instead to plan and plot. The Force was itself like an active sensor and could reveal one's presence, particularly in the case of users such as herself, who had no particular skill with concealment.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:07, Thu 26 May 2016.

A moment later an image came up on the chamber monitor.  The voice of the ship's main communication officer came through as well.  "Here is the video feed ma'am.  We are on course as instructed.  We detected a radiation signature above the planet, but without active sensors we cannot determine its origin."

"Very well, Lef'tenant."

She held up her thumb, index finger, and second finger. "High orbit thrice and low orbit thrice. If you cannot locate the source of the signal by then, inform me and prepare the shuttles for launch; we will explore on foot."
This message was last edited by the player at 17:25, Mon 30 May 2016.

After making the three passes on the planet, the lieutenant copied the data onto a portable datapad.  She then stood up and made her way to Sarai's personal chambers.  She pressed the door call button and took a deep breathe as she awaited the answer.

"Come in, Lef'tenant," Sarai answered, sweetly. The core self that she grew up with was in fact a very nice person, but trauma during the later periods of her maturation had driven her to understand the nature of power.

She kept her minions in a constant state of uncertainty, sometimes gentle and kind and other times stern and harsh, doling out punishment and reward seemingly at random. Only the most intelligent of her underlings could know what she truly felt about them, for only they understood themselves enough to overcome their instincts. Gratefulness was not, on the whole, a strength of sapient beings.

And so they worked tirelessly to gain Sarai's favor, for she was formless, near-impossible to grasp, her esteem a rare and difficult prize only the cleverest and most dedicated could capture.

Sometimes she regretted her manipulations. She crushed her doubts without mercy; power waited for no one.

It would also probably help if she pretended like she was doing something important on her computer terminal, rather than just playing a video game. She hurriedly brought up some spreadsheets.

The weak signals were isolated to one of the ancient temples.  There seemed to be two different signals on different frequencies.  One was coming from the tomb of Ajunta Pall and the other from the tomb of Naga Sadow.  The information was either encrypted or using some matter of transmission the ship's crew were unable to decipher.

Sarai ordered her best marines and operators to board three of the Dawn Rider's Lambda-Class shuttles. She herself would board one of the others, along with other elite marines and agents and her advanced battle droid bodyguard.

Her own shuttle was launched first, alone, from the space-facing side of the Dawn Rider. A very short hyperspace jump carried it to the adjacent system, and another back into Korriban space, as if arriving by itself from hyperspace at a perpendicular vector to the Dawn Rider's orbit.

She had one of her agents send hailing codes with the proper inter-Sith IFF codes to each tomb signal source on the planet's surface and waited for a response.