Ignoring the risks, Mnggal-Mnggal sent 10 of his agents into the Republic to blend in and hopefully get close to Progenitor Nyssa. The agents were strong, but not strong enough to fight a Progenitor alone.
That is why he sent 10 of them since that should be more than enough to deal with her. If not then he would just go himself.
They were powerful enough to get away, if need be, but he doubted that would happen. To assist the agents, Mnggal-Mnggal had them equipped with a new ship design that they recently developed. It used ancient technology from species who's names were now lost to time.
The ship itself was extremely powerful and fast, making it an ideal ship for hit-and-run tactics. With the ship and the agents, the success of the mission was basically guaranteed. But if it failed? Mnggal-Mnggal didn't really care. He would just return to his previous plans and avoid the Republic until Daimon was out of the picture.
———
The Ssi-ruu had their own plans in the works. After the planet Irellan was liberated, the Varraxians counterattacked and took to the offensive once again. But the Ssi-ruu were more clever than that.
They knew the Varraxians expected them to launch an all-out assault to try and stop their advance, so they feigned a retreat to draw the Ascendants and Varraxians away from their key systems.
Once the bulk of the Ascendant forces had evacuated Irellan and other planets to secure other worlds, the Ssi-ruu sprang their trap. They rearmed and hit the other side of Varraxian territory with more force than anyone had predicted.
But High Ascendant Crowne had measures in place for this. The three million Ascendants that remained as defensive forces had proved their capabilities despite overwhelming numbers. Every planet and orbital station that was attacked by the Varraxian's were held by Ascendants across the board.
Even though the Ascendants were restricted in terms of weaponry, they still overpowered the Ssi-ruu at nearly every engagement. The Ssi-ruu had gambled on numbers and surprise, but they had not accounted for the sheer resilience baked into every Ascendant's biology and training.
On Kessik Station, an orbital shipyard critical to Varraxian production, a Ssi-ruu strike force of nearly two hundred thousand troops descended in a massed assault, expecting to overwhelm the garrison that was left behind.
Instead, they found themselves facing four thousand Ascendants who had turned the station's corridors into a labyrinth of ambush points and collapsing bulkheads.
The Ssi-ruu commander, a war-priest named Skreel Vantha, had studied the previous engagements obsessively. He knew about the drop pods, the tanks, the overwhelming firepower that the Ascendants brought to open battlefields. So, he chose confined spaces instead, hoping to negate the advantages of Imperial technology and force the fighting into something more primal, where numbers might finally matter.
It didn't work the way he hoped. The Ascendants adapted within minutes, discarding their heavier weapons for close-quarters engagements, using their augmented strength to physically dismantle the Ssi-ruu assault teams squad by squad. Skreel Vantha watched through a viewport as his forces were slowly ground down, corridor by corridor, level by level, until finally he ordered what remained of his strike force to retreat.
Word of the failed assault spread quickly through Ssi-ruu command channels, and for the first time since the war began, doubt crept into their ranks. The Ssi-ruu had always operated on the assumption that overwhelming numbers and fanatical devotion could overcome any technological disadvantage. Kessik Station proved otherwise.
Crowne received the reports from his war room aboard the flagship in high orbit above Irellan. He studied the tactics that the Ssi-ruu tried to employ and transmitted them to the rest of his force so that they are already prepared in case the Ssi-ruu try the tactic again.
————
On the Republic front Aruun's agents had already made contact with a Sith Council member sympathetic to expanding the war's scope beyond simple conquest. Kirsi and her companions arrived at Korriban aboard a stripped-down transport, designed to avoid detection, its hull painted with old smuggler transponder codes that would confuse anyone checking registries against known Sith military assets.
The Sith Emperor received them in his private sanctum. He was suspicious of unsolicited offers of aid, having learned through centuries of experience that gifts freely given from the shadows often carried hidden costs.
"You claim to serve no master," the Sith Emperor said, studying Kirsi for any malicious intent. "Yet someone trained you. Someone gave you purpose. I would know who that someone is before I accept anything you offer."
Kirsi, even though she was blind, could feel the weight of scrutiny through the Force. "My master wishes to remain unknown for now, Your Majesty. What matters is what we can provide. Knowledge of Imperial military doctrine. Insight into how Progenitors fight. And something more valuable than either."
"Which is?" questioned the Emperor.
"A way to strike at Progenitor Nyssa without drawing the Emperor's direct attention to your Empire." This was a lie of course, since Mnggal-Mnggal's agents were already moving in, and it was likely that the blame would be put on the Sith. But the offer was compelling enough that the Sith Emperor leaned forward slightly.
"Explain."
"There are others who move against the Progenitors already, for reasons of their own. If your Empire were to... coincidentally align its efforts with theirs, the blame would scatter across multiple actors. Daimon would have no single target for his wrath, no clear thread to pull that leads back to Korriban."
The Sith Emperor considered this. It was, he had to admit, an elegant proposition. Plausible deniability
had always been the Sith's most reliable weapon against enemies too powerful to face directly. He studied Kirsi's face, searching through the Force for the deception he knew must be there. He found layers of it, but nothing that pointed clearly toward betrayal of his own interests.
"And if this plan fails? If Daimon traces the blame back to us regardless of how the threads are scattered?"
"Then you lose nothing you have not already lost," Kirsi replied. "Your Empire is already at war with the Imperium's puppet. The Republic bleeds because of your actions. What difference does one more shadow make when the galaxy is already stained red?"
The Emperor's lips curled from his amusement. "You speak with confidence for someone who claims to serve a nameless master."
"I speak with the confidence of someone who has seen how this ends, Your Majesty. My master has watched empires rise and fall for longer than your Sith Order has existed. He does not gamble. He calculates and then makes moves."
"Then let your master calculate this," the Emperor said, rising from his throne. "I will not commit Imperial…. forgive me, Sith Imperial resources to an assassination attempt I did not plan and cannot control. But I will not stop you either. Operate within my space if you must. Use what intelligence my Council can spare without drawing attention. But if this fails, and Daimon comes looking for answers, you and your companions will vanish from Korriban as though you never existed. I owe you nothing beyond that."
"That is more than sufficient," Kirsi said, bowing her head slightly. "My master expected nothing more generous." She was quite disappointed. But this was something that was also in her plans. Now she would just frame the Sith since they don't want to actively get involved.
The Emperor watched her and her companions depart his sanctum, already thinking about what was going to happen in his mind.
If the plan succeeded, the Republic would lose the one leader capable of turning their fortunes around, and he would bear none of the visible cost. If it failed, he would simply deny all knowledge, and the shadowy benefactor Kirsi served would absorb whatever consequences followed. It was, by any measure, a wager with very little downside.
That was what he thought, but he still forgot how efficient the Imperium is at finding the ones who did the attack.
Kirsi returned to her companions waiting in the hangar bay, the ship humming quietly as it prepared for departure.
Their next destination was already set: a series of jump coordinates that would take them into Republic space through smuggler corridors that Imperial Intelligence had not yet mapped.
"The Sith Emperor has decided to not get the Sith themselves involved, but has decided to look the other way," she told her companions as they boarded. "That is something we can work with."
One of her subordinates who had been one of Aruun's earliest and most loyal converts, frowned beneath his hood. "We were already briefed on the entity known as Mnggal-Mnggal. What if his agents succeed before we even arrive? We will have risked exposure for nothing."
"Then we adjust," Kirsi replied. "Aruun does not care which hand delivers the blow, only that the blow lands and the blame scatters. If the Old One's puppet dies at another's hand, we simply ensure the galaxy believes it was Sith work all the same. Rumors spread faster than truth." Old One was the nickname she had given Mnggal-Mnggal after learning about him.
The ship lifted off from Korriban's surface, cloaking systems engaging the moment it cleared the planet's gravity well. Behind them, the Sith homeworld faded into the black of space as they jumped into hyperspace.