The truth of her awakening was still ringing in Khana's head when Overseer Chaskar came for her. Though he wasn't yet close enough to address her, she felt his presence in the Force and hesitated turning around to greet him, knowing her eyes were wide and her mouth gaping. Her late Master's words rung in her head so profoundly, all she heard were gongs of alarm and confusion wailing about a dark past she couldn't even remember. The anger, she realized with a slap of remorse, was still all-too present; it circulated her veins like a disease running rampant and she wondered how long it would be before she could purge this Sith sickness from her body.

Khana blinked at her surroundings: the Emperor's Citadel. She remembered it only from the time she had stormed it with the other Jedi Masters—a day that felt like yesterday, and yet, somehow, lifetimes ago. The walls were cold and dark, floor shiny and black, and the only splashes of color were red tapestries and banners paying homage to the Empire. The vastness of the room was made so by the shadows in the corners and by the open energy shaft guarded only by waist-high railing. Across the way from where she stood, red-clad guards were like statues on either side of the door.

Khana looked down at her clothes: tunics layered over her chest and cinched together at the waist with a wide, leather double-buckle belt, bracers and boots to match her waist piece, and cloth pants—all black. The lightsabers at her hips were her own. She reached back and felt along her head-tails, fingers stopping as they hit something metallic; her lekku, she realized, were pinched together in the back with silver cuffs normally seen on Nautolan. She was dressed as a Sith, wearing the uniform then as though she had all her life. I have, she tried to calmly remind herself. I've worn this uniform all of my life. Black is just a color. It means nothing. I am not a Sith, and this is not a Sith uniform.

Khana remembered her Master's words and closed her eyes. You were not yourself, he told her. What you did in your time of darkness was not your fault. Deep down, Khana didn't know if she believed him. Could she really excuse herself like that? But right then, she had to believe him. She had to in order to escape. She had to in order to focus on the now instead of what she had become, what she had done.

The Twi'lek took a deep breath to calm herself and began drawing on the Force for a cool clarity to wash away her doubts. She tried to purge the anger, too, but found it would not go; refusing to waste too much time on things that could be resolved later, she cleared her mind and considered the facts. They still believed she was one of them. The ruse wouldn't last forever, but if she played her cards right, she could maintain the façade long enough to find out what happened and get out of there.

Khana turned around and narrowed an angry stare on the red-skinned Sith who approached her.

"Sith Knight Kallys," he began with some chagrin, dipping his head in a shallow bow. She wasn't sure if it was his addressing her as a Sith Knight or at all that repulsed him the most. Still, hearing her rank within the Sith Order surprised her; though she didn't fully understand what a Sith Knight equated with, she used the balance of power in the Jedi Order and afforded herself some attitude.

"Overseer," she snapped back, glaring up at him.

He sneered at her tone but held his tongue. "One of the scum you arrived with awaits another session of interrogation. Since your return from Taral-Five, it is Master Drex Atar's will you conduct the interrogation personally." Chaskar almost rolled his eyes at whatever idea was next on his tongue. "He seems to think you've somehow improved your understanding of the dark side and now possess the cunning and cruelty required of you to extract the secrets of our enemies' annihilation."

She sensed his comments were out of line, even for an Overseer, and decided to follow through with it. If Khana was going to play the part well, she couldn't let herself be pushed around. His loathing of her seemed leashed by reigns she could only guess were directly related to rank. If she were beneath him, he would have no trouble pushing her around; his behavior, however, was distant, schoolyard bullying. She had no choice but to call him out.

"Questioning Master Drex Atar's judgment, Overseer? I believe that's beyond an overseer's minute duties and limited expertise. Or should we ask my Master?" she hissed and watched his nose pinch up in another sneer, skin wrinkling against the jewelry at the bridge. Khana gave a satisfied smile and moved on. "Which particular bit of scum are you referring to? I came with several."

"The Jedi girl," he replied quickly. "I understand she used to be one of us. I will watch your interrogation and report back to Master Drex Atar." He gave a disconcerting smile. "If I am unsatisfied with your progress, he will surely hear of it."

Khana didn't have time to rebut his remark with some cocky line of her own; her thoughts were fixed on his words and repeated over and over again in her mind like a broken holo. Jedi girl, used to be one of us. Kre'tan? she thought. Or Kira? Khana tried to reach out through the Force to see if she could detect either woman's presence on the citadel but the dark side choked her connection, limiting her senses. She followed Chaskar stiffly, mind divided between fear and her tutelage reminding her to calm herself and think clearly. Upon recognizing the conflict within her, doubts about her innocence over her fall to the dark side further clouded her judgment. What had happened to lubricate her change?

But that was a question for another time. Khana aggressively reminded herself to stay focused. Once she considered the situation logically, she understood the captive was not Kre'tan. It was Kira. If it had been Kre'tan, she would have felt her presence regardless; for reasons she had yet to discover, Khana could sense Kre'tan's presence the moment the Twi'lek came planetside, even if Khana had been hundreds of clicks in another direction. At first Khana had understood this connection as a result of their both being Twi'lek and Jedi; then, she realized it went deeper. A Force bond, perhaps, but even without a strong presence of the light side, Khana felt her. No, her memories of the assault on the citadel extended far enough back to realize she had sensed Kre'tan's presence departing.

So Kira had been trapped and tormented all this time—a time she'd yet to determine. Regret reverberated painfully in her chest. Not long before, her eager padawan had freed herself from the Emperor's hold on her… only to be brought back to the source of her torment and captured. It was too much to bear. And it was all her fault. She should have left Kira further behind than the ship; she should have left her on Tython, where it was safe.

Another phrase of Chaskar's made its way into her consciousness. Another session of interrogation, seems to think you've improved, are now capable of extracting—that could only mean one thing: Kira had resisted! Resisted Khana's torments or someone else's, she didn't know, but her padawan had resisted! Khana stifled a smile and followed Chaskar around another corner.

Her joy was snuffed out at the sight of Kira strapped vertically into the interrogation table. She was pale and gaunt and dark circles were deep under her weary eyes. She wore the rags of her old robes. Khana clenched her jaw, fighting back the anger and guilt surging through her. Kira steadily lifted her blue eyes to meet Khana's own purple-gray hues and a spark of determination faintly lit the former padawan's gaze.

"I know you're still in there," Kira began and Khana could sense more of her fighting spirit rising to the surface. It occurred to her that the broken, weary Kira she had seen at first was merely an illusion; she had repressed herself, conserved her energy and her strength. "You're not one of them," Kira continued. "If I beat him, you can, too."

Chaskar rolled his eyes as he leaned against the frame of the table she was strapped into. "Not this again," he mumbled.

Khana felt a stab of rage that was almost immediately replaced with a flood of sympathy. How many times had Kira called out to her and begged her to hear her voice, to return to the light? How many times had she been left disappointed, watching the woman she'd learned from and followed loyally spiral down the dark path Kira had struggled so hard to escape? How many nights, Khana wondered, had Kira sat in a dank cell and toiled over a new plan to save her fallen master?

Don't worry, Kira, Khana thought. I'm not one of them anymore. I will save you.

"Let's begin," Chaskar said as the Knight made it to the console, and, for a moment, his voice was devoid of the usual snugness. It lasted only the two words, because as soon as he started speaking again, the snide and condescending tone returned. "It's a simple device, though no doubt you remember how to even power it on, given your past failures."

"Overseer," Khana growled. "You're wasting precious time with your insolence."

"Then a brief overview for the expert," he replied complacently. "Three inducement settings, each inflicting greater pain on the subject. Tormentor monitors the subject's vital signs, stopping just short of delivering lethal damage." He smiled to himself and his next statement seemed more for his own amusement than for her benefit. "Still quite agonizing, however."

"Khana, I know you can hear me," Kira began again, stretching as close as she could to her former master in spite of the binds that held her down. When Khana made brief eye contact, Kira managed a smile. "You can beat him. You're strong! You're stronger than this. The Emperor has no power over you."

It took all of Khana's strength to break eye contact and return to working the machine. In her peripherals, she saw Kira's face momentarily fall, but it hardened with determination quickly after.

"Proceed with the lowest inducement setting," Chaskar continued. "Get your subject"—spoken with pure repugnance—"focused."

Khana fiddled at the machinery, fighting the anger welling up inside of her. She shut her eyes tight, trying to center herself and quell her emotions; when she opened her eyes again, a solution came to her.

"The tormentor isn't functioning, Overseer," Khana said, stepping away from the console; she didn't have to fake the disgust in her voice. "There appears to be a problem with the controls."

"Blasted technicians," Chaskar cursed, shifting blame almost robotically. "Step side," he barked even as he shoved his way between her and the console. "I'll have a look."

He knelt down to peer at the wiring beneath the panel and Khana wasted no time. She lifted her leg and her boot connected with the back of his head, smashing his face hard against the metal console. A loud thunk was heard as his skull cracked against it and then he slumped to the floor.

"You killed him," Kira said; it was almost a question but her words were too mingled with surprise.

"He'll live," she replied. The disappointment in her own voice shocked her. Khana met Kira's hopeful gaze as the Knight stepped over the body to undo the binds on her former padawan.

"It's about time," Kira exclaimed, realizing her friend was back to normal—for the most part. The panic she'd been suppressing started to show. "Get me out of this thing."

Even as the bonds dissipated, she stumbled out of their hold in a rush to be free and hugged herself protectively. Khana stepped closer to her, frowning with worry.

"I'm so sorry," she hissed. "Kira, I'm so sorry. Are you all right? Have you been badly injured?"

"I'll be all right," Kira said quickly. "I'd be better if we weren't in the middle of Sith central."

"No one knows I'm back to normal," Khana told her, "but I can't fool them forever. We have to leave now. Where are the others?"

"There are no others," she replied. "Doc and Rusk managed to escape with Zhan and Kre'tan by stealing an Imperial shuttle. Tee-seven was deactivated once they found they couldn't extract his information; I think they thought you could do it once they had you under complete control."

"Where is he being held?"

"With the ship?" she guessed and shrugged. "There were no droids where I was kept."

Khana nodded and glanced around the room; finding the cuffs used to transport Kira, she snatched them up and held them out.

"I hate to do this to you, Kira, but if we're going to get through here and convince everyone I'm still—"

"Say no more," she interrupted. "I understand. Just put them on me—fast."

Khana snapped the bindings in place but didn't lock them. Silent communication in a single glance briefed them both on their escape plan; after working together so long, the two women understood each other with a scary degree of accuracy.

The two women walked one behind the other through the corridors and Kira's head hung low. Only one Imperial guard stopped to question the prisoner transportation. Khana explained the tormentor problem and that she was on her way to employ less conventional tactics for interrogation, things she had learned on Taval V. The guard seemed satisfied and no one questioned her again.

The path back to the hangar easily came back to her as memories from the assault on the citadel rushed to the surface of her mind. It took all of her willpower to walk the rest of the way once she knew where she was going. She wanted to be as far away from that place as she could—far from the anger and far from the shame. She wanted the peace and quiet of her ship and deep space to meditate, to understand what had happened and why. If it was as simple as the Emperor dominating her mind, would she feel this level of hatred and guilt?

To distract herself from her personal torment, she thought on positive things. Kira was relatively healthy and uncorrupted. T7 wasn't scrap. Doc and Rusk had escaped the punishment. Zhan and Kre'tan were probably deep in Republic space, married and happy. She hoped. She could take comfort in that hope.

Khana stopped walking the moment she cleared the guards and started down the hallway to the hangar holding her ship. She reached back to knock off Kira's binds and the two women began sprinting, Kira only a step behind her. And as her ship came into view, so did a red-skinned Sith. He stood tall and dubious, arms folded over his chest, and dressed head-to-toe in black power armor. Beside him, T7-01 wobbled and beeped happily. She noticed corpses in her peripherals but was too charged up to acknowledge them.

Khana glared angrily at the Sith, refusing to let anything come between their escape.

"Get away from my ship!" she growled on approach, ripping her lightsabers from their hilts. "We're leaving!"

She ignited both blades and flinched back as two crimson beams shot up before her. She could feel the heat from her weapons on her face and knew her surprise was lit by a red glow. They were her lightsabers. They were hers! She had crafted them herself. She recognized their shape as well as the feel of them in her hands. They've been tampered with, but even as she thought it, she knew it was untrue. She had changed them herself. There was no other truth, and, in that moment, she understood just how far she had fallen.

...

The memory burned fresh in Khana's mind as she sat in her room on the edge of her bed and clawed at the pommel end of her lightsaber, fingers slipping over the metal surface. It was an unnecessary, panic-induced, aggressive assault on her weapon, thoughts too muddled and mind far from centered to go about her task the right way.

She didn't care. She desperately wanted to dig those red crystals out of her sabers. She would worry about replacing them later. The shock of seeing them had tipped her over the edge. Her spiral into darkness had gone so far, she had realized, and Khana could barely trust herself until she had purged all of the evidence of the descent for a clean shot at recovery.

The buzzing energy rattled through her limbs and caused them to tremble. It was pouring out of her now—the overwhelming emotion. She had contained it far too long and now was unable to hold it in any longer.

Lord Scourge's words shot through her mind.

...

"If I wished to fight, I would not have freed your droid," the Sith told her, avoiding—for the moment—mentioning the red sabers and her reaction to them. "Or killed these guards."

Khana took a quick look around the hangar, examining the bodies more closely. T7 beeped and booped, explaining that the Sith was telling the truth.

"More guards will come," the Sith continued, entirely calm. "Shall we go before they arrive?"

"We?" she snapped.

"Do you think I freed you so that I could watch you fly away? Perhaps wave to you before I told the Emperor of your easy escape?" His words were spoken so quietly, so steadily, Khana had trouble maintaining focus with unfamiliar emotions sizzling in her chest. "I could have killed you on Quesh, had I wanted. Did you never wonder why I hesitated?"

Khana swallowed the hard lump in her throat and found the courage to disengage her sabers; she shifted out of the battle stance as she lowered her arms to her sides, eyes never leaving the Sith's red gaze. Those eyes. She knew she'd seen those eyes before. Memories or visions, she wasn't sure which, flashed in her mind and always present were those red eyes, watching her.

"Tell me," Khana said curtly.

"I have waited over three-hundred years to see the face that came to me in a vision." He paused only a moment but the intensity in his countenance bore down on her with the weight of the silence in a lifetime. "Your face."

Khana tipped her head up by her chin, inhaling a deep breath through her nostrils. How could that be true? To her knowledge, Sith did not live for hundreds of years. Yet he stood before her with such a claim, spoken with sincerity and conviction.

"I am much older than you think," he answered her unspoken question. "Only a few beings have ever broken the Emperor's domination. You and that girl are special." The word was suddenly whispered, hushed like a secret too precious and too wonderful to reveal or contain.

She knew why.

"We have the power to destroy your master," Khana said.

He almost smiled. "Not yet," he replied. "Not without my help. Though the Emperor seeks to conceal his true plans, I have seen them. That vision has driven me to this." The Sith stepped closer to her, his broad shoulders and black garb filling her sightline, enveloping her. His tone dropped an octave, gaze still holding hers with a fierce concentration. "I pledge my loyalty to you. Take me to your Jedi Council on Tython, and I'll reveal why."

"This is a trap," Kira interjected, stepping into their closeness to form a triangle.

The Sith did not acknowledge her with his eyes but countered the statement, irritation growling in his tone. "I seek to save this galaxy from annihilation. Without my help, your ship will never escape. I can guide you to freedom."

Khana felt trapped and curious at the same time. Ignoring all else, her Master's words kept coming back to her—over and over again. Your dark ally will help. She frowned at him and discovered she was slowly nodding.

"He meant… you…" she said quietly. "Who are you?"

"You may call me Lord Scourge. I will always be Sith," he reminded her quietly, "but that does not mean we cannot work together." He took a step toward her and his voice grew louder. "Time is a luxury we no longer possess. We must go now. I will navigate us through the defense grid."

Khana nodded acceptingly and turned swiftly, leading the group up to the boarding ramp of her ship and into the heart of the Corellian Defender-Class. Without any true trust, she had agreed to let him on her ship—mainly with the promise that he would guide them away from this place. She could attempt to flee herself and get shot down, stay and be captured, or allow him to guide her to safety or into a trap. At least there was a chance she could get Kira and T7 away. Besides, if Khana could not trust herself anymore, she could at least believe in her late Master's words.

"The cockpit is up through there," she said, pointing to the opposite side of the ship. "Tee-seven, get Ci-Two activated then unlock the galaxy map. We'll need to get ourselves out of lock-down while Scourge sets our course. I'll be up in a minute. I'm going to get Kira into the med bay."

"I'll be fine," her old padawan tried to protest, but Khana guided her by the shoulders to the steps down into the lower level.

"You need medical attention, Kira. Besides, this could be a bumpy ride… I don't want you taking anymore knocks before we get a chance to get you examined."

Khana helped Kira onto the bed, sifted through Doc's medical equipment that looked as though they hadn't been touched in years, selected a kolto shot, and injected it into Kira's arm. Then, she strapped the young woman onto the bed and promised C2-N2 would be down as soon as he was active.

Back up top, Khana hopped into the co-pilot's chair as the ship began warming to life.

"How's that lockdown coming?" Khana asked her droid friend. He beeped and whirred, security spike locked into an access port near the starboard monitor station. She checked the readout on the display but the warning letters and red x-lock were still splayed. "Keep up the good work."

There was a spark and series of snaps when the outlet surged. T7 whooped excitedly as he shot across the room and hit the port side with a great smack. He crackled momentarily with the electric current riding out of his little, metal body, and then the red sign turned to green.

"Great work, Tee-seven!" Khana exclaimed as the ship began to lift-off. She buckled herself in and ran her fingers across the console in front of her, activating manual steering. Scourge was already guiding the ship out of the hangar from the seat opposite hers. "You know what you're doing?"

Scourge snorted impatiently, eyes focused on the black and starry expanse before him.

They idled out of the rayshield, passed the vacuum barrier, and then blazed away from the citadel. Khana readied the turrets but luckily there was no need. The light corvette cut past the defense grid with ease and she realized Scourge must have used some sort of temporary friendly signature. By the time she saw the alarms light up on the console to warn her that the citadel had them locked on, Scourge was already crossing the defense grid and calculating the jump to lightspeed.

As soon as they hit the warp, Khana got out of her chair and made her way back downstairs to where C2 was tending to Kira's wounds.

"Welcome home, Master—" he began but she held up her hand to silence him.

"Later. How's our patient?"

"She suffered many injuries over a prolonged period of time. I'm afraid there was internal damage, though nothing beyond repair. I'm in the process of stabilizing her condition, but for a full recovery, a kolto tank would be ideal," the droid told her.

She nodded and took a seat next to Kira. She grasped the woman's hand.

"How do you feel?"

"Not a damn thing," she replied weakly and managed a brief grin. Khana almost smiled back, but couldn't. "We make it?"

"In hyperspace as we speak."

"Good." She rolled her head lazily and blinked like each time she might not open her lids again. "I'm glad you're back."

"What happened?" Khana asked, determined to know the truth.

"Zhan came bolting back with Kre'tan. She was in bad shape—like her mind was being dominated but… sick. Rusk and I went out to cover them and Zhan tried to power up the ship but we got hit with lockdown. He and Rusk managed to high-jack an Imperial shuttle then he and Doc loaded Kre'tan onto it. I was worried Zhan was going to leave you behind so I said I was going back for you. I guess he didn't care… he took off with everyone still on-board.

"When the Imperials came," she shrugged, "I was overwhelmed. They took me into custody. Told me you'd been defeated. Too bright…" She mumbled lazily. Kira shook her head, no longer bothering to open her eyes again. "Seems like so long ago…"

"And… what did… what happened to me?" Khana asked hesitantly.

Kira frowned but refused to open her eyes, refused to answer.

"You're back now," Kira said at length. "You beat him. He can't win now. That's what matters."

"Kira—"

"You beat him," she insisted.

C2 approached the table again. "I'm sorry, Master, but I need to administer the sedative now."

Khana nodded and got up, giving Kira's hand one last squeeze. She made her way out of the medbay and back up to the cockpit. Scourge stood idly by with his arms over his chest, watching silently and intently. She ignored him, moving straight to the galaxy map. It took only a few seconds to plot a course for Tython, noticing that as she worked, Scourge departed.

When she turned to leave herself, she knelt next to T7. "Keep an eye on things up here, will you?" she asked. "And lock him out of the mainframe. I don't want him talking to anyone, accessing anything, or steering us anywhere unless I approve."

T7 beeped out that he understood. After a moment, Khana lowered her head.

"Do you… know what happened that day?" she asked quietly.

"Whooo…" he replied, a low-pitched droning sound. She nodded and patted his head as she stood up.

"That's all right," she replied quietly. "I'm sure I'll remember…"

Filled to the brim with all of the emotions of the past hour, Khana headed toward the back room. At the holoterminal, she attempted to dial the Council, but it only rang into empty space. She guessed it was hyperspace interference and planned to try again the moment they dropped out.

When she turned around, she found herself face-to-face with Lord Scourge. She had to clench her hands into fists to keep them from shaking and take a deep breath to steady herself as much as possible. She didn't know how much longer she could restrain herself.

"I thank you for your trust, Jedi. I might not have given mine so freely were our positions reversed."

"I didn't think Sith knew how to trust," she remarked as casually as possible. He almost smirked.

"We'll work well together. In time, you will believe me."

"Why are you here?"

"I will speak of my vision in detail to your Council. Suffice it to say, I have long-opposed my lord Emperor," he told her, and she could tell she would get no more from him.

With a nod, Khana slipped around him and made for the exit. "You are welcome to a room. Stay away from Kira." They were simple rules and spoken curtly. She found herself devoid of the patience and understanding she once possessed. It unnerved her.

He is not lying, a voice said to her. She paused mid-step. It was his voice—the voice of her former master. Look inside yourself, Khana… You will know the truth for yourself.

She glanced back at the Sith only to find him watching her keenly. She turned and, with quiet strides, she headed for her room.