【自译】星战小说《达斯·普雷格斯》第一章（1）

1: THE UNDERWORLD
1.地下
Forty-seven standard years before the harrowing reign of Emperor Palpatine, Bal'demnic was nothing more than an embryonic world in the Outer Rim's Auril sector, populated by reptilian sentients who expressed as little tolerance for outsiders as they did for one another. Decades later the planet would have a part to play in galactic events, its own wink of historical notoriety, but in those formative years that presaged the Republic's ineluctable slide into decadence and turmoil, Bal'demnic was of interest only to xenobiologists and cartographers. It might even have escaped the notice of Darth Plagueis, for whom remote worlds held a special allure, had his Master, Tenebrous, not discovered something special about the planet.
在帕尔帕庭皇帝的恐怖统治的四十七个标准年以前，巴尔登尼克不过是外环的奥里尔星区的一个初生萌芽的世界，居住于此的共和国人民难以忍受外人——正如他们对彼此的态度。几十年后，这个星球将在影响银河系的事件中占有一席之地。它本身也在历史上臭名昭著，但在那些预示着共和国不可挽回地滑向颓落和动荡的重要年份里，巴尔登尼克的兴趣只在于外星生物学家和制图师。它可能甚至逃过了达斯·普雷格斯的注意，对于他来说，遥远的世界有着特别的吸引力——如果他的师父，泰尼布勒斯，没有发现这个星球的特别之处的话。
"Darth Bane would appreciate our efforts," the Sith Master was telling his apprentice as they stood side by side in the crystalline cave that had drawn them across the stars.