They're all grouped together in the same room. It seems to be some sort of museum? There are museum-like displays, at least, on which the artifacts presumably rest. It seems that his alt's writings are also stored in the same room, which is somewhat cramped and unpretty.

Well. 

It's cool that they survived the ages, but he wants them. He experiments with making things that look exactly like the magic artifacts but aren't magic. 

Most of them he can get a nonmagical copy of. They aren't that interesting without any magic in them. Some of them would make nice paperweights.

Except for that one small pyramidal object. He can't get that one to go at all.

Huh. 

...he is going to sneak into the maybe-museum and steal his alt's stuff and try to piece together from the notes and the actual artifacts how the magic system works. He makes a scale model again to check that the place is empty. It is.

He gathers up his decoy artifacts and teleports there, invisible and inaudible.

The Archivist systems notes the unexpected displacement of an Epic-sized volume of air in the Fienus vault. No disturbances register on visual or infrared scanners, nothing in audio. Further scanning systems take an additional half-second to cycle on, but they reveal the intruder's presence. Humanoid, small, wing-like protrusions on the back. This is more than sufficient justification to engage lockdown protocols.

Heavy blast doors crash into place all down the corridor. Over each artifact, a glowing blue forcefield shimmers into existence. Warning lights begin strobing at frequencies determined to be maximally detrimental to species with human-like visual processing.

And in her office, Darth Occlus receives a priority message on her datapad. One glance, and she leaves at a dead run, waving open the turbolift doors and jumping down, not bothering to wait for the car.

Oops.

He teleports all the magic artifacts out from their newly-locked display cases and home to his planetoid, teleports the decoys into place, makes a note on the floor that says 'sorry for stealing the stuff. It's sort of mine and I won't damage it and I'll return it when I'm done. if you need to contact me you can write 'letter to Epic' and then write whatever you want to say. Any format.'

And goes home.

The Archivist records this activity, and updates Occlus when she arrives at the entrance ten seconds later. She goes to inspect the Fienus vault in person.

These replicas are all uncannily accurate. If they weren't all completely inert, she'd be unable to distinguish them from the real ones. The note is puzzling. What sort of thief competent enough to thwart her security and create near-perfect decoys leaves an apology? And what does 'sort of mine' mean? Darth Fienus lived almost nine hundred years ago, he has no living descendants, she is the only person in the galaxy to have anything like a claim on his relics.

She leaves the Archivist on heightened alert and returns to her office to review the security logs of the incident. All the artifacts blinked out while the ray shields were active, all at the same time, with no indication that the shields were even mildly stressed. She has the Archivist run a test on the shielding systems. They're all functioning normally. She's missing something, here.

Occlus opens a new file on her datapad. Title: "letter to Epic".

I do not know who you are. I do not know why you believe yourself to have a claim on the artifacts you stole. I do know that if they are not treated with care, some are exceedingly dangerous. If you get yourself killed before you effect my artifacts' return and I must retrieve them myself, I will not be pleased. If you are truly so insistent that you must study them immediately, we can discuss terms whereby you can do so locally, under observation.

He conjures his mail every few minutes, nervously.

There are alternate universes, he writes. I'm an alternate universe version of him. I'll accept help studying them if you're offering it.

 Scale model of the person who wrote the note. Scale model of the surroundings of the person who wrote the note. Invisibility and inaudibility obviously didn't do it last time -

Well, he'll just have to be quick. Pop, note on her desk, pop.

Occlus, unnervingly, manages to look directly at him in the brief instant he is present.

Your explanation is highly implausible. What evidence do you have?

Does this universe have FTL communications? This method is annoying. And I am powerful enough to fake any evidence that you might find convincing if I wasn't around being powerful enough to fake it. Are you a historian? I can bribe you really well if so.

Pop, note, pop. 

I would not trust a conversation of this sensitivity to the Holonet without paired encryption. It will take a brief while for me to acquire such devices. 'Historian' would not be a complete descriptor, but it is a part of what I do.

I can make arbitrary matter. "a data drive containing the complete written works of the alternate universe version of me in this universe" counts, and when I made myself one I got Fienus's notes. Name something and I'll make it for you to prove it.

A CN-12 targeting chip.

He goes out into vacuum in case it's dangerous and then tries making one.

It's a fiendishly complicated piece of nano-circuitry with embedded programming. It doesn't, by itself, do anything.

He drops it off in her office with another quick in-and-out.

Well then. It certainly looks correct. She hooks it up to her datapad and runs some diagnostics. It appears to be fully functional.

I accept your premise. Your half of the holocomm is on my desk, you may retrieve it at your convenience.

He does that.

When Occlus sees it disappear off her desk, she initiates the call. It doesn't go through.

For it to function, it will need to be within range of a Holonet transceiver. That is, within the galaxy.

A minute later another pop note pop.

Okay, I built myself a planetoid in your galaxy. Don't know how to call you.

Occlus will take care of that.

The button at the base of his comm begins flashing softly.

He presses it.

And up before him pops a miniature holographic image of Darth Occlus, who likewise is presented with one of him.

"Hello. I am Darth Occlus, member of the Dark Council and head of the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge. Who are you?"

He looks like a seven-year-old. He has very long neatly-braided hair and pointy ears.

"Like I said, I'm an alternate universe version of Fienus. I go by Epic but my name is Fëanáro, all alternate universe versions of me have similar names - there's a Fannar and a Firayar and a Ferardrin - I just landed here and I have a lot of magic and haven't decided what my ambitions are yet but knowing what my alt was up to will help. Is the supervillain aesthetic on purpose?"

"Darth Fienus was mostly concerned with artificially manipulating and augmenting the flow of the Force. As far as I could discern during your brief visits, you have no potential and his work is likely to be useless to you. What prompts the supervillain association?"

"The windowless bunker, the Dark Council, 'Darth Fienus'. No potential?"

"The bunker is for security purposes. And the view out the window on this planet is less than scenic. The Dark Council are the leaders of the Sith. It was originally defined in opposition to the Jedi Council, which has a light-focused aesthetic. I do not recall offhand whether Darth Fienus chose his name or was given it. No Force potential.

"I just landed in this dimension, I don't know what any of those things mean. I could spend the next three centuries reading through the complete written works of your society but that sounds like a waste of time."

"Yes, much of it would be irrelevant. Where would you like me to begin an explanation?"

"The Force is the local magic system? What can it do?"

"The Force is... not a magic system, precisely, but it is the source of abilities that go above and beyond mundane physics. Its true nature is difficult to describe to anyone unable to sense it, but you may think of it as sort of an energy field, generated by living things and permeating the galaxy. Those with the capability to wield it can bend it towards a variety of purposes: physical and sensory enhancement, telekinesis, mental manipulation, divination. These are the most common applications. Those who make a deep and concerted study of the workings of the Force can achieve virtually any effect."

"Anyone who can resurrect my alt?"

"Resurrection has never been documented as being achieved by anyone, though many have sought after it."

And if his alt did leave a ghost behind, it was not a restless one. Occlus makes a mental note to recheck the tomb and see if one can be called forth.

"I can make atom-for-atom copies of peoples' bodies, the problem is that they're magically not the person. So you wouldn't need to have resurrection innately, just someone who could get over that magic barrier." Shrug. "It's not urgent. If I can't use the local magic I suppose I should be doing humanitarian stuff? Are there any wars, are there any planets with particular poverty?"

"...Yes. Does that mean you will be returning what you stole?"

"I'm going to verify with someone else about what you said, and then I'll return that and make a couple dead peoples' notes for you as payment."

"I would prefer the location of several lost tombs, if such a thing is possible."

"Can do, if you know who's buried in them or anything else uniquely identifying."

"I will have a list of occupants by the time you are ready to return the artifacts."

"Okay."

He does some conjuring to find the nearest inhabited planet, goes invisible, and lands there.

It's a planet like many others. There are a couple different species present, though humans dominate.

The grass is purple and the buildings are made of smooth yellow stone.

...when no one's looking he'll go visible except for the wings and keep walking along.

A small human-ish child is not exceptionally remarkable.

Do the people look healthy? Happy? Are they hurrying along as if panicked, are there beggars -

Everyone seems reasonably content and well-looked-after.

He makes the wings visible and keeps walking.

That draws a couple stares.

One group of adolescents shout at him from across the street: "Yoooo! Where'd those come from, man?"

"Magic! I'm from a planet with a different kind than the kind around here. We don't have the Force, but we can fly with wings."

"Dude that is fuckin awesome!"

One of the others in the group whacks the speaker on the head. "Language!"

"Aw shi-. Snap, my bad."

"I'd never even heard of the Force until I got here. What's it like? How many people have it?"

"Heck if I know! Ask a Jedi or something, man."

"Where do I find one of those?"

"Uhhh..."

"Maybe Coruscant or someplace like that? They don't come to backwaters like this, like, at all."

"Okay. Are there places on this planet that need help?"

"Naw, this place is boring as - heck. As soon as I'm old enough I'm signing up for the army and ditching this dustball."

"Okay."

He grabs the artifacts and returns them to the room they were taken from, triggering the security system again, and then waits for Occlus.

She calls him less than a minute later.

"Hey," he says. "I can get you the tombs but I have another deal in mind if you want."

"I'm listening."

"It's going to take me forever to figure out what needs doing here. I am sort of thinking that I should make it known to everyone that I can make arbitrary matter and that means ships, terraforming, their political enemies' classified writings, whatever, and then working for whoever will offer me the most money, and then spending the money on humanitarian projects, but this won't work if my money won't be respected or if I'll start a war or if I'll make it too hard in some other way I'm not thinking of because I'm a kid and from a different dimension. You seem - competent. Can you help me figure out how to do this? It would probably be really easy for you to leverage 'coordinating the activities of the only demon in the dimension' into arbitrary power but I don't really care unless you'd be dead set on torturing lots of people once you're powerful."

"I have all the power I desire already. And more than enough responsibility. I would, however, be remiss in my duty to the Empire were I to pass up this offer." She does not sound as though she thinks very well of her duty to the Empire.

"I didn't offer anything to any Empire. What tombs are you looking for?"

"They would pay exceedingly well, to be sure. You are far more versatile than the Star Forge ever was and do not require the life of suns as fuel." Occlus pauses. "You do change the game. I will help you."

"...if you've got something that requires the life of suns as fuel I could probably fuel it. I want everyone in this universe to live forever if they want to and want for nothing, is that goal compatible with your empire?"

"It is not. But I am a prisoner of this system as much as I am one of its leaders, and with your help, I might finally escape."

"That works too."

Occlus smiles tightly.

"Good. I can set up a line of credit for you with an advance payment of three hundred thousand credits in exchange for terraforming the fourth planet of the Dromund system. That will be enough of a proof of concept to get the rest of the Council onboard and authorize additional funding. From there, we can pivot out and establish a more neutral organization of your own to be the face. Begin relations with the Republic and unaligned parties. Start requiring cooperation with your long-term goals in exchange for your services."

He relaxes and smiles. "Yeah, that's exactly - yeah. Thank you. What do you want the planet terraformed like? My native planet all the flora's edible for humans, it's really convenient, we usually install it everywhere we go -"

"Any improvement over the current standard of cold and airless will suffice. If you have a standard pattern, that will do."

"Okay!" That's enough of a description to conjure a model and then he can teleport. He takes the pad with him. "It'll probably take me a couple weeks to get it habitable. Do you want me to build cities and stuff too?"

"How much time will that add to the project?"

"Maybe a day."

Occlus nods. "Do it."

The planet's big enough to hold an atmosphere. He does air, first, flying around in it as he makes it, swirls and loops and dips and singing and eventually it's routine enough he can read while he does it. He reads Darth Occlus' stuff, to make sure there are no signs she is secretly super evil. (She apparently works for an evil Empire, but that's okay, it seems like most competent people positioned to change stuff probably do that.)

Darth Occlus is only as evil as is necessary to survive in an evil Empire. Compared to some other Sith, she's practically a humanitarian. Not in any absolute sense, but, you know. Relatively.

Occlus, meanwhile, begins the political maneuverings necessary to ensure the Dark Council's cooperation. Vowrawn of Logistics is an easy sell, as is Karrid of Technology. Marr, Arho, and Decimus, are not much harder. The military application is easy to see. Ravage will follow the tide, and with that she will have the votes. It requires a bit of finesse to get enough of a front organization up and running in time, but the fact of Dromund Fels newly-inhabitable status goes a long way towards dispelling doubts.

Several survey ships swing past Epic as he works.

He waves at the survey ships and flies and sings and terraforms. It's so much fun.

There's enough air that he can roll out oceans, which are easy - he adds algae, because why not, and the eggs of various species of fish that can start just fine from eggs and live off algae. And spectacular coral reefs, the kind that would take thousands of years to arise naturally. Then rivers and topsoil; he does those. He hasn't actually done that before so lots of his topsoil ends up eroded away but that happens in naturally-formed planets too so he doesn't worry too much about it. 

And then he puts in a proper Valian ecosystem, edible from the stunning forests of if-they-weren't-demonic-they'd-be-millennia-old redwood trees down to the weeds. 

And then he puts in cities. Those he copies, it'd be slow otherwise; Space Tirion and Space Valimar and Space Alqualondë and Space Ambaróna and Vanda Nossëo, all of them with spaceports and public transit ready to go and power plants set to turn on. 

He has learned how to use his pad; he calls her. "Done!"

"Excellent. The Council wishes to inspect the finished product before they render their final decision, but I have been keeping track of your progress and do not anticipate any last-minute difficulties. I've also registered a corporation in your name out of Nar Shaddaa. Currently you have five employees I've screened for discretion and loyalty. They will begin the pathfinding work in the rest of the galaxy. Details are in a file titled 'corporation for Epic'."

"Thank you. I really appreciate it. When's the council coming, are there things I have to be careful of -"

"When we are done here I will have one of your people call the Council with the news. I expect we'll arrive within the day. You need not be present and I advise that you not be."

"Okay." 

He doesn't go home. He does go invisible.

Remember how Occlus kept looking at him when he popping in to drop off those notes? Yeah. Everyone's looking in his direction when they get off the shuttle.

"What's this?" exclaims a fat, red-skinned man in a genial tone. "It seems we have company! I was under the impression there was no sentient life here yet."

"Indeed," growls a large, imposing figure in heavy armor and a full-face mask. "What is the meaning of this?"

Sigh. Carefully concealed, entirely internal sigh.

"I am fairly sure that would be the terraformer," says Occlus. "It seems he is somewhat shy."

Should I stop being invisible? How do you all do that?

The Force. You are not ready to face the Council, I strongly suggest you leave.

"He should come out and say hello!" says the red man. "I'm sure we would all love to meet him."

He leaves.

Some time later, he gets a call from Occlus.

He answers.

"Thank you for leaving. Your curiosity is understandable, but Dark Councilors do not reach that station by being nice people. And they lack the motivation I have."

"I understand. I'm indestructible, maybe we should check if that stands up against the Force -"

"Yes, we should. Your physical well-being is only a part of the equation, though. I am more concerned that they would have divined our true goals."

"They can read minds?"

"They can detect emotions, and a certain intimation of intent. Combined with a lifetime of practice at reading people in general, it amounts to much the same thing."

"Okay. I'll be more careful. Sorry. Did you have to explain me teleporting away?"

"I have very little to do with you, what explanation could I possibly offer? I was simply the Council member most readily contactable by your corporation. But the significance of the combination of teleportation and arbitrary matter creation is not lost on anyone. We will have to move more carefully to avoid provoking any enemies before we are fully ready to deal with them."

Nod. "What enemies are we likely to provoke? ...also I don't want to kill anyone, not when I don't even have resurrection worked out. I can put them in a galaxy far far away?"

"Any Sith whose power will be threatened by diminishing the strength of the Empire. Which is to say, almost all of them. Exiling to that distance will have functionally the same effect as killing them, if that suits you better I have no objections."

"Functionally the same effect except they'll be alive and can be happy and have good lives."

"Quite. I will leave the details of that contingency to you, then. In the meantime, the Dark Council has compiled a list of requests, along with the price they are willing to pay for each. Once you have completed several, we'll be able to move forward."

"Okay. What're the requests?"

"Largely military, capital and support ships amounting to a sector fleet, automated factories and raw materials for same. Terraformed bases in strategic locations. Some cargo ships, to augment civilian shipping capabilities. Full details are in a file titled 'Imperial Requests for Epic'."

"What're the military forces going to be used to do?"

"Prosecute the war with the Republic in some fashion, one assumes. While the conflict is not quite at the fever pitch it was several years ago, neither has it subsided."

"Is there a way to not do weapons without losing the leverage we'll need later."

"Not easily or swiftly. My influence outside the Empire is unfortunately limited. Before now, I had not considered it a priority to cultivate such. I am moving to change this, but it takes time, and is aided by money. Until then, military contracts with the Empire will be most lucrative, though you may refuse any request at your own discretion."

"I think I need to know more about the war - how many people are getting killed, if I make the Empire powerful enough to totally win then what happens to the losing side -"

"I believe the current daily casualty average is on the order of several thousands combined. I would not wish the Empire absolutely victorious at this point, and neither would you. Fortunately, it is lagging somewhat, much as my colleagues may wish it were otherwise. Materiel will help some, but without more bodies in the field, the total impact will be necessarily limited and insufficient to totally upset the balance."

"I'll do the non-weapons stuff first and think about it. ...I have really excellent touch-range healing but that probably won't do much for a war happening primarily in space, people die too fast -"

"With our medical technology, any wound that is not immediately fatal can be healed in time. Healing at touch range is not the highest leverage use of your time. The military is not facing any kolto shortages, though it is worth investigating on the civilian side. I will make inquiries."

"Someday I'll get resurrection figured out and then everyone'll be okay. Kolto?"

"Extract of a certain species of seaweed, native to one planet and subjected to a classified purification process. It serves as a panacea. All third-party efforts to reproduce it have failed."

...he tries it.

It doesn't go.

"Counts as magic, yeah. Okay." 

And he does the not-military things on the list and then checks back in. "How efficiently are you guessing the money can be spent to do good stuff?"

"What units are you used to measuring that in?"

"I'm looking at the credits for the building the empire a fleet and trying to think if I can do more good with that money than I do bad by helping one side in a war."

"One sector fleet will not enable a new offensive push. From what I know of Mart, he will use it to strengthen defenses and buy time to get more out of you. Counting Imperial lives saved thereby and using median estimates from sector-scale humanitarian organizations, you'll come out ahead by a ratio of about 3:1 on this task."

"...okay."

He makes the sector fleet.

The Empire is suitably enthusiastic. They express their enthusiasm in the form of several million credits.

Does he want to make another?

He calls her up. "Too soon to say that my home society has rules of war and I'll make all the fleets they want if they'll sign on to those?"

"Yes. We are not quite independent yet. I advise putting that request on hold and setting up a few of the agricultural worlds that were added to the list first. They are more unambiguously beneficial, and by the time you finish we will have more options."

Nod. 

He does that. 

His holocomm pings while he's in the midst of that.

He answers. 

It's not Occlus.

"Hello, Epic. Am I interrupting anything important?"

"No, I can terraform while I talk. Who are you?"

"An interested party. Your mentor would know me as Cipher Nine, but I doubt you will have come across reference to me."

"Probably not. Interested in what?"

"The future of my galaxy. I try to make a habit of keeping tabs on anyone with the capability and willingness to significantly affect it. Your arrival was most unexpected. I'll need to adapt my plans."

"...okay. What do you want the galaxy to look like? I might just end up putting people who disagree on that in really distant ones."

"What I want is an end to the Sith and the Jedi, an end to the petty religious bickering that has been the cause of every major war for the last five thousand years. A galaxy where common beings can live in peace and safety, without having their lives and choices overshadowed by the whims of those who think their modicum of luck grants them an unassailable right to rule."

"Okay, that sounds pretty nice."

"I'm glad you think so. Now, I ask the same of you. What is your goal?"

"I want everybody to live forever and want for nothing and have total freedom of movement so they can arrange themselves into the kinds of societies they'd like best, and I want to save at least thirty-five billion lives because that's the record and she didn't even have magic."

"Ambitious. Who's she and what did she do?"

"Her name was T'Mir and her dimension had this tremendously powerful organization that was post-scarcity and had really great technology and a rule against sharing it with anyone who hadn't developed faster-than-light travel yet, so she went around to planets that didn't have it and nudged them along into ones that could be embraced by the galaxy."

"I like her style. And yours. It seems our aims are not dissimilar. Will you accept my help?"

"Maybe. I'm not good at telling if people are lying to me. Do you have a reason I can trust you?"

"My access to arbitrary information is nearly as good as yours. If I wanted to hurt you, I would have sent a memo to the Dark Council pointing out the corporation supposedly representing you was formed only three hours before Occlus presented its proposal in session, by Occlus herself, and that she is planning to use you to destabilize the Empire enough that when she leaves, no one will chase her."

"She's helping me get what I want. Don't bother her."

"I have no intention of doing so. I'm actually rather impressed that she is doing so much. She has been still for so long, after such an... exciting climb to her current position. I had almost begun to think her satisfied."

"As a show of good faith, let me inform you of the existence of a substance called bacta. It's slightly less effective than kolto, but has been created in a lab setting. The relevant papers were written by Iknoito Fithis, of the University of Alderaan."

He tries making it.

It goes. It's sort of a blue goopy substance. Smells kinda weird.

...he tries cutting open his arm and smearing the goop on it.

The goop numbs the pain and seems to be accelerating the clotting process.

Okay. "I don't suppose you would be okay with me reading your mind?" he says to the person on the other end of the tablet.

"It's something I'd prefer to avoid. But if you really must."

"I can let you read mine in return if you want."

"How invasive is it?"

"...you could read mine first and then decide?"

"Okay."

Scale model of her surroundings, pop. "Hi." And he tosses her a line to his private thoughts. 

It is really stressful being around all of these ambiguous dangerous people with agendas, Boots' be being much more conservative than him and she has proper subtle arts and could probably block out the Force thing. He thinks he's right that Darth Occlus is helping him and this person seems to agree but it sounds like Darth Occlus could just get murdered and he can't make her invincible and it's stressful. He'll feel really sad if someone gets murdered over him. He wonders if this person really wants him to trust her badly enough to let him check.

Huh. It seems like just stream of consciousness.

If she just- puts the parts of herself that want to destroy the galaxy away she might be okay. Like she does with the killing intent while fighting. She takes a fraction of a second to do that.

"All right. I'll let you read my mind."

He listens.

She's really very uncomfortable with this, the privacy of her thoughts was the one thing she has always been able to count on, even while under the effects of the keyword. But this boy is too much of a shortcut to pass up. She wants him to trust her. If he does she won't have to kill so many people to destroy the Sith and Jedi. She would have been sad about doing that. He doesn't have to worry about Occlus, she thinks. She has proven very hard to kill in the past, and seems to be doing an admirable job of navigating the treacherous currents of Council politics. She thinks she might even have made an exception for her before he showed up, she thinks Occlus is remarkably unobjectionable, for a Sith.

"Okay, stopping. Keyword? Also, why do you want to kill them all, do you object if instead I just put them millions of lightyears away?"

"One of the early highlights of my career was fighting to a standstill a rogue member of the Dark Council, disabling him long enough to blow up his ship and him with it. After that, through a combination of drugs and hypnotic programming, I was implanted with a series of coded responses to certain commands. So that I would not pose a threat to the remaining Councilors. At the time, I was still loyal to the Empire."

"Do you want a hug."

"That would be nice."

His wings wrap around her very thoroughly. "My mom's a therapist, she could undo all that once she finds us."

"I- handled it. It's not an ongoing problem. But thanks."

The hug is surprisingly nice.

"It's kind of important I make sure they can't do that to me. They can't drug me, but I don't know what all the Force can do."

"It's- it's scary. But there's ways you can protect yourself. If you can think straight enough. A lot of it is keeping good mental discipline. Being very aware of your thoughts and noticing distortions."

"...okay. LIke with magic songs in my world. I could practice at that."

"I have some of the old Intelligence training manuals, if you want."

"I just need titles. But yeah."

She names a couple titles.

"Uh, stick to the defense section with the psy-ops stuff. The offense can get... unpleasant, even to read about."

"Okay. But - I mean, I know I look like I'm seven and I want to put my enemies far away instead of killing them and I probably seem like I haven't heard of very many upsetting things but I have, I can cope."

"You shouldn't have to. Some nights I wish I hadn't."

Tighter wing-hug. "Boots can help with that. Really. Luster's Maitimo was tortured for fifty years-subjective centuries - and he thought everything was a malicious hallucination and he hated being touched and he wanted to die and Boots helped him and now he's happy and doesn't have any nightmares."

"That sounds almost miraculous. Maybe I'll talk to her, if I ever get the chance."

"It's called subtle arts. It's really scary if a bad person has it but Boots is a good person and she can bounce you everything she's doing so you can see it and it's not scary."

'But Boots isn't here right now' is what she does not say.

She smiles gently instead.

"I bet."

"I write her letters every day but then I get all dizzy thinking what she'd say if she was here. I could make myself a Rúmil but not a Boots."

"Make?"

"...I can make arbitrary matter. People are matter. Some kinds of people have souls and some kinds of people just come out wrong when demons make them but there're people from back home I could make just fine."

"Ah. That sounds potentially complicated."

"It's really unethical making people so I'm not going to unless there's an emergency."

"That's good. I hope there isn't one."

Nod nod. "I wish I had asked permission in advance, though, because I could make some people who are better at assessing who I can trust."

She nods.

"It's a useful skill to have."

"I'm terrible at people. Even when I'm grown up. When I'm grown up I'm usually married and I have a son who's good at it and I can trust him and he can tell me who to trust."

"You know that many of yourselves?"

"I know like ten of me. Darth Fienus is the first one who didn't have kids who wasn't himself a kid."

"You don't count because you haven't reached the appropriate stage?"

"I'm still like four hundred years from being of age."

"Four hundred years is a long time."

"I know. Elves grow up super slow and it's terrible but now I escaped Valinor so I'll grow up faster."

"Why does not being on Valinor help?"

"Everything's ten times slower on Valinor. Here it'll only be forty years."

"Oh yes, that's much better."

"Yeah. I ran away from home as soon as I possibly could because I didn't want to spend forever growing up."

"I suppose that's working out okay for you, on balance. You've got all this cool magic."

"I miss Boots and Rúmil but I don't miss my parents much at all. And I do have all the cool magic. If I'd stayed home I'd never have gotten to be a demon."

"Being a demon seems very convenient. I don't think I would strand myself for it, but I would give a great deal."

"They don't let just anyone become a demon, you have to be really trustworthy."

"I would hope so!"

"Because I could feed planets into black holes and stuff. I wouldn't do it without a really good reason but I could."

"I'd picked up on that, yeah."

"You didn't answer about whether you minded if instead of killing the people you don't like we just put them far away where they can't hurt people."

She sighs.

"If it was really far, too far to reach in my lifetime. That would be okay."

"Easy. I could put them a billion light years away."

"I think that would be far enough."

"Then no one has to die."

"That would make a nice change."

"I'm gonna have resurrection eventually."

"I really hope you do."

"I will. My friends'll find me. Might take decades but they will."

And the galaxy is very large and someone who has done as many horrible things as Hunter has will be at the bottom of their priority list if they can even know they existed once she's dead-

She hugs the tiny winged child tighter.

"...what's wrong?"

She recomposes herself.

"I've lost people I would dearly like to see again. This conversation prompted- memories."

"I don't know how we'll do it - it'll be complicated in a world this big - but you can get your friends back first if you want and if you help me save people."

"You'll accept my help, then?"

"Yeah of course. I need all the help I can get."

"You shoud call Darth Occlus and tell her to expect me, then. I think she'll take it better from you than if I just showed up."

He calls her. 

"Is something wrong?"

"Uh there's someone who called me who figured out you started the secret organization but she wants to work with us."

"She called you on the paired device? That should have been impossible. Who is it?"

"She said you'd know her as Cipher Nine."

"Finally resurfaced, has she. And she wants to help?"

"Yeah. Well, she wanted to kill all the Sith and Jedi but then she said you could be an exception and then she said everyone didn't have to die if I could put them really far away instead and I am happy to put people really far away if they're jerks and won't stop otherwise."

"How sure are you that you can trust what she says?"

"She let me read her mind to check."

"Did she. Well. If you wish to include her then so be it. She knows how to contact me, I am sure."

"Yeah, I think so."

He turns it off. He gives Cipher Nine another wing-hug. "Boots doesn't like people being called numbers," he mumbles into the hug.

Hug.

"If I had a name once, I've long forgotten it. Too many identities."

"If it were important I could make you a retroactive eidetic memory necklace."

"I think you probably have bigger priorities. But thank you."

"Probably. It'd take five weeks; I could do immortality in the same time."

"I don't feel the lack as a void that must be filled. Maybe when everything is more settled."

"Yeah. When things are really safe and I know more about what the Force can do and I know what it's safe to share."

"I'm not the person to ask about that."

"Would Darth Occlus have a pretty good idea?"

"Probably."

"Then I'll ask her. She's been really good at - all the stuff. I should go back to terraforming, want to come along?"

"Can you take this ship with us?"

"Yeah, easy."

"Then sure, I'll come along."

Pop. "The cargo limit on my teleport is 'I don't think anyone's ever tried teleporting a star'. Planets go fine."

"Cool! I'm going to get started on integrating what Occlus has set up into my network."

And he terraforms!

And when he's done, Cipher Nine has a question for him!

"How do you feel about becoming a bacta magnate?"

"Makes a lot of money, is less dubious than making ships for an evil empire. Sounds good."

"Great. It's not as good as kolto, but we'll be able to undercut the Selkath considerably on the price. I'm anticipating significant penetration in the civilian market, I've lined up some warehouse space for you to fill and I've got schematics for automated delivery ships so we can cut overhead there too."

"Cool. Where?"

"On a planet called Carida. It's well-situated on a major hyperspace route, but it's not yet overdeveloped like some others." She names the precise local address. "And the governor will be giving us a very favorable arrangement with taxes."

Now they're in orbit around that planet! "Point me at the warehouses."

She pulls up a holo-map and highlights them.

"On the outskirts of the capital, these four with the slanted roofs. And here are the plans for the storage canisters."

He is a demon. He makes all the things.

Wonderful. She switches the display.

"These are the drone ships. Start with fifteen, full cargo holds?"

"Full of what, or is that in the diagrams?"

"Bacta for delivery."

"Packaged how?"

"Same as for the warehouse."

Ships!

She turns to a different console and taps in some commands. Each ship flickers and disappears into hyperspace in turn.

"That should be enough to get us a foothold in the market."

"Awesome. I'm going to go back and finish terraforming."

"I'll call you when the warehouses need a refill."

"Thank you!" Pop.

And Cipher Nine makes a call.

"Yes?"

"How much attention have you been paying to events unfolding on Ilum?"

"Little. I find I have many demands on my time these days. I take it I should have been watching more closely?"

"You might say that. Once he solidifies his control over the stealthing technology, Malgus is planning a coup."

"Is he."

"My information on this front is very reliable. I suspect we have a while yet before this party begins. Several of his guests have yet to respond to their invitations."

"Thank you for the notice."

"Incidentally, the cargo capacity on our young friend's teleport is, 'no one's tried to bring a star along'."

And with that, she signs off.

Occlus accelerates preparations for her departure.

He does everything on his to-do list! He doesn't sleep, and he doesn't take breaks, he's doing two lists now so he doesn't want to spare the time. He writes his letters to Boots while he's doing the boring parts of terraforming.

After not too long, the only item on the Imperial list when he conjures it says simply: call me.

...okay.

"The Empire is shortly about to become very unstable. I may not get a better moment to leave. Will you help me, when the time arrives?"

"Of course! Where do you want to go."

"Somewhere not on any maps. Still within this galaxy, preferably."

"I made myself a planetoid in this galaxy when you said I had to be here to talk to you with the pads, it's got room for two."

"Does it have space for my archive?"

"How big is it?'

"It's approximately four percent of the total interior volume of the Citadel."

"Should fit. How much of that is magic, everything that's not I can just remake you."

"I would prefer to leave as little behind for the others to squabble over as possible."

"Okay. When do we grab it all? I'll need to see it to target it specifically, unless you want me to steal the whole citadel."

"Taking the entire Citadel would be undesirable. The archive is, by design, not directly visible from the outside, nor is there an interior vantage point. I do know the precise dimensions and relative location if that helps."

"Not for that level of precision. I can come in and replace them all with copies like I did when we met, if you turn your security off."

"It doesn't have an off switch, but I can add you to the authorized visitor list."

"That works. Do you have a map of all the things you want grabbed -"

"All of it, ideally, but I will create a priority list if this is infeasible. And I'll need to add your biometrics to the system."

"I don't know if I have them anymore, I know proper demons don't. But I can appear you a sample or something?"

"Fingerprints and a retinal scan are the minimum I can persuade the system to accept."

"Oh, that I can do. How do we set it up?"

"Teleport to my location in five minutes."

He waits five minutes and then makes a model of where she is and shows up there.

She's standing in a small room in front of a currently empty desk. She passes him a small scanner.

"Place your palm on top, then look into the lens after it beeps."

He does that.

Occlus makes some entries into the computer.

"The system will still be perturbed if you teleport directly inside, but if you come to this room and enter through that door, by placing your palm on the scanner and looking into the light, you'll be granted full access."

"Okay. Do you want me to go through and replace everything with decoys now?"

"You should make a safe place to put the real items first. But yes, the sooner this is done, the better."

He pops back to his planetoid and makes an exact copy of her vaults. Lots of the stuff doesn't go through - magic, or connected to systems that aren't running here - but most of it's in place.

Then he teleports back. "Okay. Made a place for them. I'm going to go room-to-room putting things in the corresponding place in the new vaults I made."

"The doors will be open for you. If you require a guide, simply say so. The Archivist will be listening, and will send a unit to assist you."

"Okay."

And he heads off into the vaults. Teleport, copy, teleport, copy. He doesn't really have a reason to feel nervous, but he does.

Being nervous around such a concentration of dark side artifacts and lore is a reasonable, and some might even say wise, reaction. And it's not out of the question that some of the artifacts have an aura that is actually contributing to that effect, even through Occlus's precautions.

There are quite a lot of rooms, and the passageways seem almost deliberately disorienting.

He's pretty sure as a rule if you always stick to your left you will eventually traverse any Euclidean-geometry-obeying two-dimensional maze but when he thinks he's done he'll ask the Archivist to check.

This maze include vertical components as well as horizontal. But according to the Archivist, he's missed only three rooms.

He goes and gets those.

And then he's done.

Can the Archivist point him to Occlus?

Occlus is in the memory core. He's led back to near the entrance, and a wall panel slides up, revealing a set of stairs.

"I know humans don't care as much as Elves about things being pretty, but don't you get lonely here? Anyway, I stole everything and we can go when you're ready."

Occlus is in the midst of a complicated-looking rewiring project, cables snaking all across the room between racks of servers pulled out from the wall. All is centered on a small triangular pyramid, from which a small holographic figure is projected.

"No, why would I? And I am not quite finished here." She pulls on a thin green wire.

"That to cresh-three," directs the figure, in a slightly mechanical copy of Occlus's voice. Occlus turns and attaches it to the proper port.

He folds his wings and makes himself a chocolate bar and waits.

Occlus continues fiddling with wires. The holo turns to regard Epic.

"I am the final piece of her collection, if that was not obvious," it says. "Once I am gone, it will be safe for her to activate the self-destruct. What does the arrangement I will be departing for look like?"

"I built a copy of these depressing vaults on a planetoid I made somewhere in this galaxy far away from any inhabited planets. Aside from the vault it's pretty. It's like ten miles in circumference but it's got gravity that's normal for humans."

"The gravity will be convenient for people who have physical form but lack wings. Aesthetic considerations were not foremost in our mind when we designed this place. Once security is no longer of such paramount importance, she may be willing to consider alternative layouts."

"I bet I could design something much prettier, yeah."

"I look forward to seeing it. Insofar as I am capable of doing so."

"You can't see? ...what are you?"

"I am a holocron. That is to say, a personality imprint matrix serving as a storehouse of data and a guide thereto. Though we made some adjustments that allow me to monitor and control the archive systems and droids. Those are the functions she is now making preparations to transfer to server-side subroutines."

"Does the me have one of those?"

"That would be Darth Fienus? Yes, his holocron was part of our collection. Like many of his creations, his holocron was genetically locked so that only members of his bloodline could access it. He had no children, and the last of his family line was extinguished not long after he himself died, so it has not been activated in centuries."

"I could make a basement dweller of him, that might do it."

"Basement dweller?"

"I can't make people. Well, most kinds of people, can't make humans, at least. If I try, I get something dumb but with the same DNA and stuff."

"If it is alive in other relevant characteristics, that ought to work. If a password was needed in addition, it is not mentioned in any of his collected works."

"Well, we can try. It'd be - cool to get to talk to him."

"Indeed."

Occlus makes a final bridge. The holo figure holds up its hand.

"Transfer enabled. Transferring... Complete. Safe to disengage." It winks out.

Occlus walks over and unplugs all the cables from the holocron.

"You can send this with the rest of them. A replacement will not be necessary."

He teleports it.

"Thank you. I heard what you were talking about. If you can defeat the genetic lock, I too would be interested in what Darth Fienus secreted away inside his holocron."

"I can try. Ready to go?"

"Not yet. I want to time my disappearance for the period of maximum confusion just after Malgus makes his move."

"Who is this guy anyway."

"He's in the Ministry of War, under Darth Arho. A veteran of both Galactic Wars, currently directing the operation on Ilum to seize control of the Adegan crystal mines. Adegan crystals have been used in lightsaber construction for thousands of years, but a new sensor stealth technology uses them as a primary component."

"So he wants to rule the galaxy?"

"Nothing so concrete. He thinks that the Empire as it stands has grown weak and complacent, that as Sith, we have failed. In his interpretation of Sith philosophy, greater power can only come from continual conflict. What compromises there have been with the Republic are damning, in his eyes."

"So he wants more war?"

"That would be the short of it, yes."

"Are we going to stop him or just run away."

"I doubt he will be successful in the long run. The majority of the Empire will remain loyal and crush him, or if for some reason they cannot, the Jedi have killed one Emperor already. They will not balk at doing it again, and the other was far more powerful than Malgus can hope to be."

"I would like to know more about the Jedi and the Republic and why there's a war."

"A broad topic. Several topics, in fact."

"Still."

"Very well. The history of the Jedi begins several thousand years before that of the Republic, so we will start there. This is perhaps fifteen thousand years before the present day. In that era, hyperspace travel was new, and the galaxy was only beginning to be explored. As the various Core worlds made contact with each other, the phenomenon of Force sensitivity began to be widely recognized. What adepts that existed gathered on a planet called Tython, to better study and understand how to use their abilities. It became apparent that there were two basic methods for tapping the power of the Force, based on one's mindset. The true differences are more subtle, but you might approximate the separation as selfishness and selflessness."

"Selfishness as in 'pursuing what you want' or as in 'pursuing wants that are only about your own wellbeing."

"The former, though elements of the latter creep up quite easily."

Nod.

"Each approach has its benefits and drawbacks, and is suited towards some applications but not others. Naturally, this polarized the the nascent group of Force users into two factions, each fanatically devoted to their chosen method. There was fighting. It was resolved when the selfishness faction left or was forced into exile, heading far out to the Rim of the galaxy. They later became the Sith, while the faction that stayed evolved into the Jedi."

Nod.

"That original split was, in essence, the basis for all conflicts going forward. How much do you care about the detailed philosophical underpinnings?"

"Will people be talkable out of fighting by appealing to their philosophies? Or are they not that kind of philosophy, just the kind you talk about when talking about how the other people are bad."

"You will not be able to talk a Sith out of a fight. A Jedi should theoretically be more tractable, but in my experience, they are just as undeterrable when they think themselves justified."

"Can I talk a Sith out of a fight by being like 'look, I am way more powerful than you, I will get exactly what I want, given that is there any way for you to get anything you want.' Loki did that with orcs."

"The more intelligent ones, perhaps. You will almost certainly need to provide a demonstration."

"I can make stuff inside people. Like drugs that make them fall asleep."

"That would probably work at least once, but there are techniques that can diminish or inhibit the effect of such substances."

"I mean, if people make themselves sufficiently hard to knock out then I just have to teleport them, and if they make themselves hard to knock out or teleport then I have to kill them. That would not be smart of them."

"People often value their pride more highly than is entirely rational. And you, appearing as you are but also claiming such power, are a great challenge."

"...yeah. I wanted to wish myself grownup but Boots was worried that then I'd just look grownup and still be a little kid in my head, there's no way to rush maturing -"

"I do not believe you would approve of the method I used to create my initial reputation when I was slightly older than you, so I will not offer it as an example."

"...there's an alt of Boots who fed a planet into a black hole, there's an alt of me who handled dissent in his army by blowing up all the ships, I'm good but I'm not naive - well, I'm not that naive -"

"The overseers did not think me worthy of the Korriban Academy because of my background. When combat training began, they attempted to use the opportunity to remove me. For a week straight I killed or crippled every acolyte the overseers set against me, in as gruesome a fashion as I could manage armed with a wooden saber. Afterwards they were much restrained in their disdain."

"I would really prefer not to do that, yeah. I could make it look like I did that by teleporting people and making dead bodies, if I timed it carefully..."

"Killing is a more straightforward and easier to comprehend demonstration. If you can convincingly fake the appearance, you will gain more respect more swiftly."

"I can practice the timing. Should be possible in principle, unless you'd be able to notice with the Force -"

"A dead body has no Force signature. It may work."

...he makes a statue of a person. He tries teleporting the person out of the way and making a dead body in the same place. 

"...can you tell?"

"There was a brief discontinuity."

...teleports the dead body out of the way, tries again.

"Better. Not quite perfect."

Well, he will keep trying.