Victory is reserved for those willing to pay its price.
—Sun Tzu
The Hundredth Day is the thirty-fifth installement in the Untitled New Sith Wars series. Facing unimaginable disaster, Mali Darakhan must devise a plan to stop Valin Aresh and redeem his fallen Padawan, Aldayr Nikodon.
Opening Crawl[]
Excerpt[]
| Source: The Hundredth Day | Attribution: Sakaros |
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Only the Force could have dropped them not only within scanning distance, but almost within physical sight of whatever Aresh had cooked up here. A handful of light pickets ranged out at a distance—enough to provide some advance warning, but woefully inadequate to repel anything more than a recon probe—so Aresh was clearly going for secrecy over firepower. The pickets' scanners were no match for Elata's Jedi transport; her real worry had been the monstrosity at their core. Larger than the largest warship she had ever seen and most of the space stations, it resembled nothing more than a city unearthed from its native soil and propelled into space—though perhaps a Mandalorian city, since it bristled with enough firepower to level a planetary region. For all its fearsome appearance, though, Elata thought of it like a dead Star Dragon—no shields defended its angular hulls, no turrets tracked them on approach, and most critically, no sensors so much as passed over them. She had thought at first that Aresh was building some superweapon here, where no one would ever find it, but even in space, she had noticed the lack of construction crews. The High Galactic writing had been enough to solidify her suspicions—Aresh had not built something new, but found something old. But what? | |
Segments[]
Appearances[]
| Characters | Creatures | Droid models | Events | Locations |
| Organizations and titles | Sentient species | Vehicles and vessels | Weapons and technology | Miscellanea |
Characters
Dramatis personae
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Other characters
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Creatures
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Droid models
Events
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Locations
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Organizations and titles
Sentient species
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Vehicles and vessels
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Weapons and technology
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Miscellanea
Plot Summary[]
Elata Cazars and her Padawan, Zaella Sabir, have infiltrated a derelict space station in the middle of nowhere, occupied by the Supreme Modality. They are unable to identify it, but when Valin Aresh senses their presence, Elata dispatches Zaella to take word to Mali Darakhan. Remaining behind to cover Zaella's retreat, she kills First Zerek, then duels Aresh himself.
Aboard the Coronet's Jewel, Narasi Rican and Tirien Kal-Di receives a Nine Thirteen emergency beacon from Zaella. They successfully rescue her and return her to Mali's fleet, but they and Mali's senior advisers are baffled by Zaella's report. Supreme Chancellor Nulu Thini leaves Mali as Acting Supreme Commander of Republic Forces Galactic North to hold Republic gains in the face of Elata's death. Narasi and Tirien both try to comfort Zaella, but Tirien discovers Zaella's sketch of the space station. He, Narasi, and Mali all recognize it, but can not identify it; they contact Jedi archaeologist Dil-Faan Ravaydi, who shares the horrifying revelation that the station is actually a Pius Dea cathedral ship, which may still possess a virus implanted by the Bureau of Ships and Services which caused the cathedral ship fleet to be lost in hyperspace.
Aresh, believing the Modality's triumph near at hand, remains aboard the cathedral ship despite suffering a wound from Cazars. Aldayr is feeling stymied by his lack of development as a Sith, but Aresh tells him he must continue to prove his worth to the dark side. He anticipates Aldayr's next trial will be killing Narasi and Mali; he has sensed the Jedi trying to seek him out in the Force, and is sure they will come.
As Mali, Tirien, Kenza Rowkwani, Narasi, and Zaella try to decide how to handle the cathedral ship crisis—Mali and Tirien deduce Aresh is trying to weaponize the BoSS virus—Zaella suggests using the nuclear bomb Tirien and Narasi retrieved from Runganna the Hutt to destroy the ship. While Tirien and Narasi go to Cademimu to get more information about the BoSS virus, Mali struggles with the choice between committing a war crime by using a nuclear weapon and risking potential societal collapse if Aresh succeeds. In the end, he elects to use the bomb, and the Jedi team retrieves it from Elata Cazars's Valor.
The Jedi successfully board the cathedral ship, but Aldayr senses their presence. The Jedi split up—Mali and Tirien to confront Aresh, Kenza, Narasi, and Zaella to intercept Modality forces in the hangar bay and redeem Aldayr. Tirien takes on Aresh's Vanguardian bodyguards so Mali can fight Aresh, but Mali struggles against the Sith Lord's power and mastery of lightsaber combat. In the hangar bay, Kenza and Zaella fight the Modality forces while Narasi tries to reason with Aldayr. Unable to draw him back to the light, she has no choice but to kill him. His death rattles Aresh enough for Mali to overpower him; Mali refuses to execute him out of anger, but strikes him down to save Tirien.
The Jedi destroy the cathedral ship and destroy or disable its defensive picket fleet. Tirien is grievously wounded and suffers multiple cardiac arrests, but survives long enough to reach the Coronet's Jewel. When he and the others have recovered, they journey to Coruscant, where all five are award the Chancellor's Service Medal, and Mali receives first-class Corellian Bloodstripes. Despite Aresh's death and their acclaim by the Senate, Mali and Narasi are despondent over Aldayr's death. While the High Council elects Sil Kadych to take Cazars's vacant seat, Zaella becomes Kenza's Padawan, and Tirien insists Narasi take time away from the Eighth Fleet to work through her grief before returning to war.
Behind the Scenes[]
Early in development, The Hundredth Day was called Crisis of Faith; Sakaros changed the title when he wrote Tirien's title-drop speech.
Shout-outs include:
- Zaella's perception of the cathedral ship ("I feel…cold. Death.") is the same as Luke Skywalker's of the dark side cave on Dagobah in The Empire Strikes Back.
- Elata's observation that the Jedi Guardians are titled "Guardian", not "Warrior", was made by Yoda in The Jedi Path: A Manual for Students of the Force.
- Narasi thinks the navicomputer is trying to avoid "flying right through a star or bouncing too close to a supernova", the same concerns Han Solo had as the Millennium Falcon fled Tatooine in A New Hope.
- The floating medical droid tending to Aresh's maimed face is an homage to a similar scene involving Darth Malak in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
- Kadelle mentions that the Rogue's Gambit needs a new etheric rudder. Sakaros was rereading Heir to the Empire: The 20th Anniversary Edition while writing The Hundredth Day and threw in the etheric rudder as a shout-out to Timothy Zahn.
- The data the BoSS droid rattles off to Narasi about the Second Chance was inspired by this image.
- Part of Aldayr and Aresh's final conversation mirrors dialogue between the Emperor and Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi.
- The part of Aresh's prophecy relating to the envisioned Sith emperor being "scarred and deformed" by a Jedi comes from the Declaration of a New Order in Revenge of the Sith.
- Jendaya Rose describes the laws of war as "not a suicide pact", a phrase sometimes used in regards to the U.S. Constitution.
Aresh notes that he had hoped to have a surprise for Mali. Sakaros's original concept of the confrontation on the cathedral ship's bridge had a clone of Mali, grown from the genetic material Aldayr brought Aresh, but Sakaros realized the few months between The First Cut and The Hundredth Day were insufficient for growing a clone and shelved the concept.