Star Wars (Legends):The Eternal Conflict. Book:2

Chapter 6 (The Road to Hell)

Location: Tendrando Arms Secret Base below the surface of the planet Socorro

Lando Calrissian stood on a catwalk, overlooking a sea of cylinders; hundreds even thousands. The Lando of 6 months ago would have been horrified by the sight, calling it a perversion; an abomination.
That Lando, was conceited, and ignorant of true loss and pain. That Lando, could leave the office and pick up his perfect little boy and throw him up in the air, to the youngster's squealing delight. That Lando could grab his vibrant voracious wife and kill an afternoon under shimersilk sheets. That Lando be damned.

"Beautiful! Absolutely Beautiful." said the shadow beside him. Part force power, part machine, Darth Malgus (known to Lando as Veradun) epitomized abomination. It wasn't the real Malgus, of course. That one had lived, fought and, presumably, died over 3 millennia ago. The "Thing" standing beside him, was the ultimate result of Darth Mekhis's ancient experiments. The Enhanced Malgus Holocron, spent the first 20 years of it's existence, teaching the warrior trade to acolytes and apprentices on Korriban. With the decline of the Sith Empire seemingly eminent, someone had installed the Holocron aboard, what turned out to be, the last generation of Sith Meditation Spheres. There had, originally, been 24 of these advanced holocrons.  Of those 24, only 5 (besides Malgus's) had survived the eons.

It took many smooth words and schemes within schemes to convince Lando to hunt down those five, but he did. He needed to. It was all part of the plan...

For the first time in his existence "Malgus" was free! Via Lando, he had the resources of a small star system at his disposal. He was also free of "Ship". While living as a vessel had it's advantages, it also had it's difficulties. Since the day he was created on that Sun Razor so long ago, he had never experienced existence as a humanoid. But Fate had united him with the one man in the universe that could change that.

Tendrando arms was on the cutting edge of robotics, AI, and unconventional weapons systems. Creating a mechanical body worthy of housing the cloned consciousness of an ancient Dark Lord, was not that tall an order for Lando's people. Roughly based on the YVH Design, it conjured up images of a walking corpse. An elaborate interface wasn't necessary, Mekhis's design had all contingencies covered. A fitted triangular cavity received the holocron, and allowed Malgus to, in effect, posses it.

Instead of the usual armaments (blaster, Missiles, slug throwers), however, the droid chassis was only armed with the unnatural strength inherent to mechanical limbs. Malgus had no use for such crude weapons; all he needed was a lightsaber and the force.

The lightsaber, was easy to acquire. With the resurgence of the Sith, came clashes with the Jedi. On planet's throughout the Galaxy, Jedi and Sith lay slain, their bodies pillaged for anything valuable. Lightsabers had began to pop up on the black market, and with Lando's resources, it was ease itself to procure.

Now the force.... That would be prove to be a bit more difficult. The nature of the enhanced holocron meant that he would be powered by the force. He could use it to contact others telepathically, and he depended on it to warn him of danger, and for quick battle reflexes. But he lacked telekinesis, and all but the weakest form of force lightning. But he had a plan for that too. He had a plan for everything!

A major part of his plans included those cylinders lined up before them. Lando had been of great use to Malgus. But it had taken all kinds of verbal acrobatics to manipulate someone like Lando to this point. Actually manipulating Lando was impossible. Not only was he extremely intelligent, but the man had a force-like ability to read people.

But Malgus had an uncanny gift of his own: He could sniff out feelings of betrayal in another and knit together sentences full of just the right words to give the disenfranchised soul a feeling of being understood. They knew, that he knew, that they knew, kinda thing. And just the same, they would fall victim to his subtle pokings and proddings.