Shadow Academy

A torus-shaped space station located near the Galactic Core, covered with weaponry and protected by a powerful cloaking device. Shadow Academy, capable of hyperspace travel, can move to a new location at a moment's notice. Built by the Second Imperium for the express purpose of training Jedi in the dark side of the Force, the station is stark and austere, with harsh, spartan accommodations for its students, locks on every door, and chrono chimes marking every quarter-hour. Brakiss, a former student of Luke Skywalker's, leads the Academy with the assistance of the Nightsister Tamith Kai. Various sections of Shadow Academy include the docking bay, a large meeting room, a holographic training chamber, Brakiss' private office, and a spherical, zero-gravity arena at the station's hub. The entire station is riddled with chain- reaction explosives, set to detonate if the new leader of the Second Imperium is displeased with Brakiss' progress. Consequently, Brakiss is never allowed to leave the station. Nineteen years after the Battle of Endor, Jacen and Jaina Solo and their friend Lowbacca were kidnapped and brought to the Shadow Academy to train as Dark Jedi. Soon after the children's escape from the station, the Shadow Academy moved to Coruscant. Hiding behind its cloaking device, the station was able to launch attacks on New Republic convoys and recruit several people (including Jacen and Jaina's friend Zekk) to serve in the Second Imperium. The station was revealed when Jaina overwhelmed its cloak with a light beam from one of Coruscant's orbiting mirrors, but it managed to escape and establish a new hiding place near the Denarii Nova. It was here that Zekk, in a lightsaber duel in Shadow Academy's hub arena, killed his chief rival Vilas and became the Second Imperium's Darkest Knight. [YJK]