This is how it happened.

This is the story of how everything changed.

It was not long after the Tartarus Event that Asmodeus Halcyon made the decision to expand his holdings. He had special projects on the mind that would require more stable funding to process, and his own financial standing would have to be bolstered to accomplish this. Thus he approached several like-minded Sith from various positions within the Empire, and proposed an arrangement. These 5 men, and Asmodeus himself, would go into business together. Where one lacked, the other provided. Where one partner was weak, there would be another partner that was strong. They protected and covered each other's operations to mutual benefit, and the extra funding it provided allowed Asmodeus not only the financial security he required, but also a position of power and influence beyond that he previously held on his own.

Though most were content for Asmodeus to lead them through as he had always done, there were some within the Phantom Legion who began to question this leadership. The last several years had been utterly chaotic, and most of these troubles could be directly tied to Asmodeus himself, or with the clan that he led as a family. There were even those bold enough to openly call for his impeachment as head of the Council. Such voices, bold as they were, knew better than to speak these concerns aloud in his presence.

Among these detractors was one in particular who believed that Asmodeus' leadership was not only detrimental to the Legion, but in fact would see all members lives laid low at the man's whim. This was unacceptable in his mind, and so he began his plot to have Asmodeus removed from power. He knew the only way Asmodeus would ever hand over the reigns would be if he were no longer able to lead, physically. An assassination attempt, if only partially successful, would be sufficient to remove him from the playing field. But everything must be planned carefully. Scheme over scheme, moves ahead of moves, a plan was set into motion.

Deep beneath the surface of the prison planet Belsavis, a young girl was running. The sound of her scrambling footsteps was a unique one, as it was offset by the clanging of metal against metal. Interspliced with the off-beat footsteps, the whoosh of a hydraulic pump could be heard. Kaikorero, a young orange-skinned Togruta, had stolen a pack of officer's rations from a guard outpost, and was now fleeing down the high-ceilinged tunnels to safety. The guards had given up the chase long ago, but nearby prisoners knew that little Kai was adept at finding food, and that if they caught her, she could trade that food for her life.

Kaikorero scurried around a corner to break line-of-sight, and quickly turned the crank on her mechanical leg. The hydraulics hissed again, the timer began. In three second, the pump would be released. Kai took a running start, and then jumped. Thoom! the hydraulics fired, and the cybernetic leg launched her high in the air. She disappeared through a paneling in the ceiling, and the inmates in pursuit rounded the corner to find an empty hallway.

She giggled as she watched through a vent as the prisoners began to argue angrily about whose fault it was that the girl had been lost. After the fight had died down, she climbed up through the vents to a junction point in the system that she had long ago made her home. It wasn't much to speak of, the vents were small enough that she could just barely squeeze through, though she had managed to smuggle up enough scraps of blankets and old clothes to make a decent enough bed. Scattered about the tiny room were bits and pieces of various broken and disassembled tech. She had been scavenging for years, trying to build herself a long-range communicator.

Kaikorero had been born on the prison planet. Her grandfather had committed some crime against the Republic and had been hidden away here in secret. She was the third generation of her family to suffer for crimes they had not committed. Her mother, her last relative, had died in a prison riot when she was very young. Belsavis was all she had ever known, and to be able to speak with the outside universe, to contact someone that existed outside this hell...

Kaikorero snacked on one of the rations she had stolen while working on her comm station. One day, she would speak with someone from the outside. Someday she would establish that link, and find a way out of this world of violence and starvation. This, the only world she had ever known.

After several hours of tinkering, she went to bed, closing the book on yet another day of defeat. She had no use for wallowing, however. Feeling sorry for one's self had no place in a prison. Not even when she lost her leg did she despair. It was only an opportunity to apply herself to the study of cybernetics. A little girl hobbling around on one leg might as well hang a sign on her neck reading "free meal" down here.

"You're a resourceful little brat, aren't you?"

Kaikorero's heart leapt as her eyes shot open. A new voice.

She turned in her bed to find the communicator online and transmitting. The voice...it had come from it? Had it been a dream?

She crawled over to the derelict comm and tapped it several times.

"You speak Basic, I assume?"

The voice startled her again, and she hopped in the air with a cry and a giggle. "Yes! Yes! Hello? Can you hear me?"

"I can. But we don't have much time, so you must listen carefully. Do you want off of this world?"

A tear rolled down her cheek. Could this be happening? "Yes, of course! More than anything."

The calm voice continued. "I can get you off world. I have a private shuttle that can sneak in, collect you, and get you off world. But at a price."

"What do you want? Whatever it is, I can get it! I can steal anything, anything at all!"

"I don't want something stolen. I want someone dead."

She stopped, and her smile faded. Was this it?

Silence on the line.

She looked down at her mechanical leg. She remember how she lost the original, and what she had had to do to escape that.

"I don't have time to indulge you. Are you in?" The voice was cold, impatient.

Kaikorero stretched her jaw, her sharp teeth clamping down on the last meal she would eat on this horrible planet. "I'm in."