Author's note: This story does not fit into any of my established timelines. It is purely its own story.

I squint my eyes against the harsh glare of the merciless sun that beats down on the dry savanna around me, trying to angle my face away from the blinding evening rays as I push on into the west. There is nothing for miles, just a uniform blanket of coarse grass and a few forlorn clumps of stunted, leafless trees scattered over the terrain like dry kindling waiting to be collected. I have been walking for days across this inviting wasteland, taking only as short and few rests as I can manage. My rations ran out two days ago, and my strength is waning as I am relentlessly buffeted by the dry wind.

Though the sun, the heat, and the wind may suck the vitality from my body, I must carry on regardless. My mission is too important to allow me to stop now, even for a moment, or I could lose my chance forever. In a way, the punishment of my body is a blessing; it will make what I have to do only that much easier.

I can see the compound! I am finally here!

My eyes behold the monument to evil with equal parts awe and revulsion. Painted blood red by the fierce glow of the setting sun against its surface, the magnificent idol that stands proudly before the entrance to the Sith Temple on Dathomir is a fearsome sight. The stunning marble figure raises a crown above his head, not noticing the sword that has been plunged into his back.

It represents the cycle of power amongst the Sith: Even the strongest can be brought down by the most conniving. I smile at it and put my own interpretation to the exquisite work of art. It is, in way, exactly what I am here to do.

Suddenly, I feel replenished, no longer drained from the long walk I have made to get here. This is my one chance to do the greatest service to the galaxy I ever will in my life.

I stride confidently past the idol, toward the imposing marble steps leading into the Sith Temple.

Though the Sith number few in competent Force users, their servants swell to ever greater numbers with each passing day as thousands - millions even - flock to their promises of easy conquest and plunder of the Republic. I can sense thousands within this temple alone, and yet more in the surrounding compounds. There are deadly Sith disciples here as well, formidable adversaries for any Jedi such as myself. I must avoid them at all costs until I make contact with the one for whom I have come.

This is where the Assassins are trained, where they call home, and where they store their captives. Here, on Dathomir, is the blackest heart of Revanna's treachery; where she bends captured Jedi to her will, to be used against everything for which they once fought and died. The pulse of evil is stronger here even than on Korriban, where ancient Sith spirits travel the desert sands and haunt those few who walk its surface.

Dozens of Jedi Knights have fallen; not killed, but captured by Revanna's skilled Assassins, and brought to this place to be broken in their bodies and spirits. These Assassins are the single deadliest talon of Revanna's attack on the Jedi Order and the Republic. And deadliest among them is the man for whom I have come.

I travel the shadows of the temple, slipping stealthily through the bastion of wickedness and staying out of sight, for I cannot be discovered yet. Finally, I make my way into the personal quarters of the Assassins, where I find him alone, sharpening his blades

"Jaq Rand."

I say his name and he hears me instantly, whips his entire body around at the sound of my voice. He is already lunging for me as I observe him.

He is everything I have heard and more. In the dim light, his pale triangular face is ghostlike, the eyes sunken in bony sockets dark and cold yet burning with an undefinable lust, dark hair swallowing the light as it falls over his face nearly to his eyes.

As his body flies towards me, I try to lash out with the Force to protect myself. He expects it; I can see it in his eyes. By in my weakened state I can summon nothing. Barely a second has passed and he already knows how weak I am from my journey here. He is closing the distance, and I can see his face start to glow with victory.

Still I do not yield to him. Not yet. The time is not right. This must be a total victory for him, and not due to any lack of struggle on my part. He expects this of me; no Jedi has ever before offered herself to him as I am doing now. He hunts them down and vanquishes them. This must be no different.

I snap my lightsabre to hand in a fraction of a second, ignite the crystal blue blade and aim to block his plunging knife.

He hits me full force, knocking me backwards to the floor, where I land heavily with him on top of me, knife going for my throat. With what energy I know not, I somehow manage to knee him in the stomach at a sharp angle, forcing him to roll off of me. I try to swing my lightsabre, but my arms are too slow, and he is too fast for me.

His knife comes slashing at me. He catches the back of my lightsabre hand with the blade, severing my fingers before I even have a chance to react. The pain is worse than anything I could have imagined, it rips a scream from my throat as I instantly curl up into a loose ball on the floor, exhausted and finally spent.

I feel his knife around my neck, he has seized my arms behind my back, holding me completely helpless.

"Nice to meet you, Jedi," he whispers into my ear. "We're going to have some fun."

I try not to smile and give myself away to him as he summons more Sith to bind me. He cannot know of my true purpose. Not yet. The time is not right.

As I am dragged off toward the dungeons, he is watching me with those dark eyes of his, no doubt already hungering for the horrific things he will do to me. He has beaten me, and he knows it. He has nothing more to fear from me; his victory is total.

He believes he is in control now, and that is the most important thing of all.

But I am the one who is in control. From the moment I began my long walk to get here, I was in control.

There is total blackness surrounding me, darkness so dire it can be felt. I am shivering with the cold. They keep the dungeons cold, colder than one would expect on a warm planet like Dathomir. I haven't slept for four days since being brought here. There is no light or any way to mark time, but whenever he comes down, he likes to tell me how long it's been since I've had rest or relief of any kind. He brings light when he comes to torment me, and until such time as he can see in the dark, he will always have to. That is the one small comfort I can have when he is down here with me.

My stomach rumbles, reminding me yet again how long it has been since I've had any food. Water is not a problem. Often during his sessions, it is impossible not to drink. He tilts my head down and pours freezing liquid over my head until it is everything I can do to keep from drowning in place.

My hand throbs constantly. Four fingers are missing, the knife wound encrusted with dried blood. He took care not to let my hand get infected, but would not permit it to be healed. He likes to twist the wound from time to time and see the tears of pain it wrings from my eyes. I occasionally wonder if I will lose the hand anyway, despite the stinging antiseptic he slathered over the severed knuckles and tendons, causing the wound to froth with red foam.

A light! The stairs are illuminated, he is coming! A blinding lamp snaps on above me, shining into my eyes and forcing me to look away. I have nowhere to turn my head but to look in the direction from which he comes. I can see him approaching me with that smug expression of dominance on his face. Very quickly, his face becomes a mask that he thinks shows nothing.

I can see right through him, sense his breathless anticipation as easily as I can feel myself shivering. These sessions are important to him. Indeed, they mean everything to him, because this is when he is the one with all the power, total control over his victim. He is enraptured by the experience, he relishes it as he would making love.

He doesn't know that I am the one in control.

"Good morning, beautiful," he says to me, his eyes not matching the cheery tone of his voice. They are still just as dead. "Feeling bad yet? Oh, I'm sorry, it's been ninety-eight hours and forty-seven minutes since you've had any sleep. Does it get chilly for you down here?"

He smirks and grabs me by the hair, takes a whiff of my scent, which by now must be putrid. He closes his eyes as if getting a heady rush. "Are we ever going to have fun today, beautiful."

I cry out in pain as he twists my head, aching muscles in my neck protesting the violent treatment. He has something in his hand; a needle. He plunges it into my neck just below my jaw, angling it up towards my ear. It is not so much painful as it is bizarre, but is merely a precursor to what he does next.

That needle he sticks in my head starts to hum with a high-pitched squeal, pouring agony into my brain. My arms are tied behind me, twisted and bound to the rack, and for a moment I want nothing more than to wrap my fingers around my skull as I scream in brutal torment. All of existence is reduced to nothing but pain, and for an instant I forget even who I am, momentarily losing myself to the suffering.

I pass out from the pain. He is not happy, he lost control. I regain consciousness upside-down, my head submerged in icy water, so I give him what he wants; I struggle. It is very easy, because I want myself out of the frigid water. My body shivers violently in its attempts to warm me after he heaves me upright.

He slaps me, hard. He is furious.

"Don't ever do that again!" he growls. "You're not to do anything without my permission, because your life isn't yours anymore; it belongs to me. I can do whatever I want with you, and no one is going to help you."

To prove his point, he balls his fist and punches me surely as hard as he can. I recoil from the blow to my midsection, trying to catch the breath he ripped from my lungs. Before I can recover, he does it again, even harder. My lungs cannot draw breath; I would have an easier time trying to inhale solid durasteel. My vision is filling with purple fog by the time I finally summon a shaky cough and a painful wheeze of the chilly dungeon air that hurts me as much as the icy water.

I cough and hack for a few minutes. He waits patiently for me to regain my breath, pleased with his work.

"I thought we might try something new today, beautiful," he says to me, his face again taking on that look of apprehension and unrealized lust. He is holding a short rod in his hand, identical white tips on both ends. "I'm not a Force whore like yourself, but I always like to see what lightning does to a person." He smirks, waves the rod in his hand. "That's right, precious, you didn't think only you and your fancy powers could put a nice shock on someone, did you?"

I close my eyes and summon my inner serenity. I want him to do it.

Come on, I want you to do it! Hurt me! Do it, precious!

I hear the electric buzz of the torture instrument activating, welcome the exquisite agony as he prods me in the stomach with the device. I am unsure how long it goes on, my body feeling on the verge of bursting into millions of tiny, scorched pieces. My screams, could I have heard them, must be ear-splitting. Truly unable to do anything but, I give him what he wants; I struggle futilely against the impregnable bonds, scraping my wrists and neck raw. I am powerless, completely under his control.

And yet, I am in control. I want him to do it.

Inside my own mind, nothing can touch me. Where I am, I have all the power. He can never break the walls of my sanctuary, not if he tries for a thousand years. It is a sad thing, that for him the illusion of control should be shattered as it must. He does so enjoy having power over others as others once had power over him.

I suddenly realize the pain has stopped, all that remains of the burning agony a universal sore across my whole body. I am gasping for breath, my throat hoarse and ragged. I have been crying, tears tracking wet streaks across my dirty face.

He watches me intently, drinking in my suffering eagerly. But on that face he thinks shows nothing, I can see a confused frustration. He is at last grasping that I am not like the other Jedi he has beaten, brutalized, slaughtered, or otherwise abused. The realization is coming to him that all the pain in the galaxy will not sway me.

I do not fear for my life, nor do I fear pain. For my own life has no value, only my contribution to the greater good is of consequence. To truly follow the edicts of the Jedi Code, one must accept this truth, and surrender their very lives to the cause. Only those willing not only to kill but to die for the greater good will find enlightenment.

He is slowly coming to realize that he has no power over me. He could kill me a hundred times and I would not care.

"So what'll it be, beautiful? I'm ready to do this every day for the next two years if that's what it takes." His words are the empty bravado of a man who knows he's been beaten but refuses to admit it. "How long do you really think you can hold onto your precious principles? You may think there are things even I won't do to you, but you're wrong. I don't care what happens to you. It doesn't matter to me, one way or another, if you die. There are plenty of other Jedi for me to turn."

I smile inwardly at his statement. He can't let me die, his ego won't allow it. He has to dominate me, subdue me, break me; turn me. If I die, I win and he loses. And he is terrified of losing control.

"So you don't care about me?" I ask in my ragged, nearly inaudible voice.

He crossed his arms and sneers. "Not one single bit, precious."

"Ah, but I care about you, Jaq. I care for you and I want to save you."

At first, he laughs at my statement; a cruel, selfish, uncaring laugh. I wait patiently until his derision turns back to the same cold apathy and he fixes me with his dead eyes.

"You're a fool, Jedi. I don't want to be saved. I don't need to be saved."

"Yes, love, you do," I insist. "You're good at what you do, Jaq. Dare I say there is no one better than you. Revanna knows this, it's why she's kept you busy. You're the best there is, precious. Do you think Revanna is going to forget about you?"

For the first time, his confusion is obvious on his face. If only for a brief moment. "Now you're talking more nonsense," he sneers at me.

"Think about it, Jaq. How else could you do what you do with such proficiency? You can hear the Force, love. That is the truth. Revanna has been watching you, watching as your power grows with each day, all the while you remain unaware of it. How long until she decides you have become a threat? How long until she orders you bound and dragged to her lair, where she will strip you of your mind and your very will itself. She will make you her slave. She will hold all the power over you, the same as you hold over me. There is no escaping this fate, Jaq, precious. You are too good at this."

My words connect with him. He has heard the rumors, I suspect there are few among the Sith who haven't. Whether lies or truths, he knows the stories that Revanna is breaking the wills of her followers, even those who were her closest friends, and turning them into nothing more than living tools, slaves to her power.

It does not matter to Jaq if the rumors are based on truth or nothing more than fantasy. His mind is already convincing itself of their authenticity because he is terrified of becoming a thrall. He must have all the power, the control. I am confirming his worst fears, and it is so easy to believe a lie you are afraid is true.

Shaking with rage, he clenches his fist around the handle of his white torture rod. As if heated by his anger, blue sparks crack from both ends of the device as he touches it to my flesh, wedging it underneath my bonds.

"Sleep well, beautiful," he says to me as lightning crackles from the torture device, stretching across my body and trapping me like a pulsating spider's-web of agony. The lights shut off and I am left all alone with the pain.

It's alright, precious, I wanted you to do it.

I spend the night in excruciating torture. Not for one instant am I without pain, not while Jaq's torture rod is pressed against me. While I scream and cry, my body bucking and struggling against the implacable restraints, my mind travels to that place only I can go, that inviolate sanctuary where nothing can touch me.

My spirit is safe while my body is in torments.

Hours have passed when I suddenly feel the agony cease. The torture rod is taken away and a single light flickers on, showing me Jaq's face.

For the first time, I see him shaken. His dead eyes now hold fear.

"What do you want?" he snarls at me.

For the first time, I let him see my smile. "I want to save you, love."

He scoffs at me. "No you don't. Jedi are only concerned with saving their own. They don't care about the people 'beneath' them. If it's the people versus the Order, the Order always wins out. You don't care about me. You want to save your worthless hide, just like every other Jedi I've held in this cell."

"Oh you are wrong, precious," I say, cooing in as soft a voice as I can manage. "I do care about you. I came for you, because you needed me. And I was right, wasn't I? About Revanna's plan for you?"

"How could you possibly know that?"

"That's not important, love. You know I'm right. Come, I'll show you," I say.

I have been saving my strength for this moment. This is where I will succeed or fail. I rip into his mind with the Force, letting it wash over him, inundating his senses. The noise of every life form in the galaxy resonating in the Force assaults his mind, its limitless warmth and light pours into him. He has no defense against what is a part of him. I am not doing anything to him, I am merely showing him what he truly is.

I have cracked open his facade with fear and doubt, and self-realization is destroying him from within.

Jaq staggers back, falls to the floor howling with the intensity of his experience. For the first time, he is not feeling the Force unconsciously through a myriad of mental filters and distractions; this is the power of the Force in all its raw, visceral glory.

How does it feel, love? Is it as good for you as it is for me? You can't escape it now, it's inside you, forever. This is who we are.

He gets up an hour later. I've waited patiently for him to recover from his life-shattering experience.

Ah, what a fragile thing is life! Dangerous, as well. Life and freedom, especially, are dangerous concepts that must be avoided, for they lead only to avarice, apathy, and selfishness; the seeds of evil and paths to the Dark Side. A life's worth is measured only by its ability to contribute to the greater good.

My own life's sole purpose has been to show this simple fact to Jaq Rand, Revanna's most ruthless Jedi hunter. For in so doing, I have destroyed him, and never again will he hunt the disciples of the Force. In that way, I have served a higher good than myself, achieved the ultimate virtue of self-sacrifice.

Jaq stands unsteadily, staring at me with something new in his eyes. It is an emotion I cannot explain, but must have expected. Love, hate, satisfaction, and revulsion all at once. Somehow, looking into those beautiful brown eyes of his, I know what he is going to do.

Go on, precious, I want you to do it. Go ahead! Do it!

He leans in close to me, puts his hands around my neck, and squeezes. His thumbs close off my windpipe and I cannot draw a breath. My lungs protest, suddenly desperate for air. Choking noises escape from my throat, but inhaling is impossible. His grip tightens and my vision begins to blacken.

This is the end, I realize. With what little time I have left, I look into his eyes again and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have succeeded. He leans closer and presses his lips against mine as everything goes dark.

It is the last thing I feel.

...And then... nothing. After the blackness of death has washed over me, nothing. Not light, not darkness, but an indescribable nothingness all around me, until finally the world coalesces before me.

It is distant and diffused in my sight, as if only just beyond a thin curtain. I am at last one with the Force, and still I see him. He is weeping over my dead body.

Salvation through sacrifice. My life has taught him the worthlessness of his own, and my death has destroyed him. He is no longer the man he once was. Never again will he be a threat to the Jedi Order. And he will never stop running from this moment, because he cannot escape what he has done. Not ever, as long as he lives.

I'm sorry, love. This is the way it must be. I saved you but you didn't want to be saved.