Kallig's Legacy

by Adriarnna

A high born house falls, betrayed by the very Emperor they swore to protect. A thousand years later a young woman of low birth struggles to find her place in the changed Galaxy. Can she survive the trials placed before her, the temptations and betrayals. Can she be the savior of a now forgotten house?

2. Chapter 1

Chapter One

"Catalyst"

3,649 BBY

Dromund Kaas

With a whine of engines and a swirl of dust, the large passenger conveyor sped away from the landing platform. With its departure, eighteen people stood within the orange marked safety zone, gawking at the ornate architecture of the towering buildings all around them. Overhead, dark clouds boiled and flashed as lightning crackled between them in fingers of blue and white streaks, while the boom and rumble of thunder rolled over them, echoing and re-echoing throughout the city.

"Stay together people, this is a restricted area." Natalia Onasus called out. "If anyone strays too far from the group you'll find yourself answering some pointed questions from Imperial Security or Imperial Intelligence, most probably both. Now, follow me please." The young looking woman led them away from the platform dressed in a close approximation of the Imperial Army's class 'A' uniform. It carried no rank insignia though, instead she had the word 'Guide' stitched boldly across the jacket's right breast pocket; she like everyone else in the party, wore a large identity badge hung around her neck with a brightly coloured cord.

The first meeting between her and this latest party of tourists to Kaas City took place several hours earlier where at the end of introducing everyone and a security briefing held under the stern eyes of a grim faced officer from Imperial Intelligence she had passed out those same identity badges. One member of the party was already missing, left behind at the tour company's offices after failing that same Intelligence Officers scrutiny. Natalia had introduced herself as their designated tour guide and an employee of the Kaas City Board of Tourism. Although many in the party suspected she was really an agent for Imperial Intelligence; they would have been shocked to know just how right they were.

"Welcome to the Citadel Compound, more properly known as the Alpha Four Deck Pad Platform for the Citadel. Now as I am sure many of you know Dromund Kaas is one of a number of worlds and systems whose navigational coordinates were lost during the Great Hyperspace War. I expect many of you to ask how this can happen. This answer is simple and yet not so simple. Dromund Kaas was at that time a small colony world for the Empire." She waved at the structure behind her. "This building originally served as the primary accommodation facility and Administrative Headquarters for that colony. Since it was a small colony, numbering just a few thousand in population, and not long established, very few star ships visited this world. In fact, if you had been a colonist of that time you would have considered yourself very lucky to have seen just one ship a year arriving. The only regular ships that travelled here carried only essential supplies and colonists."

"So, you have a very small number of ships visiting the colony, a star system that was not located on any known trade routes of the time and only a handful of star ship captains with the required navigational coordinate's when war breaks out. The local military Governor for this sector seized the ships involved in re-supplying this colony for the duration. The surviving records show that these ships performed herculean work before being lost during the war along with their navigational data. A successful hit and run raid on this sectors' Fleet Base towards the war's end destroyed among many other things, all remaining references and data on the system in the Fleet archives. Follow me now please, stay together."

"Some twenty odd years after the end of the war the planet was rediscovered. With the destruction of the pre-war Empires Capital during the early weeks of the war, the Emperor concluded that the more central location of Dromund Kaas within the borders of the Empire made it a much more suitable and defensible location to build the new Capital on. That occurred at a time more than one thousand years ago. The city and planet have since developed much in that time. The Citadel you see today, while retaining the general appearance of the original colony building has undergone a great deal of expansion and now serves as the Official Residence of the Emperor, the Dark Council and the centre of Government. Please have your Identity Cards, passes and paperwork ready for when we pass through the security checkpoint."

It took the group of tourists a little over half an hour to pass through the public security checkpoint. Ms Onasus spent that time pointing out various famous or celebrity Lords and Darths of the Sith Order who passed by the waiting members of the tour party as they stood nervously stood as the security staff processed their entry into the Citadel. Sudden excitement crept into her voice while it dropped to reverent tones at the appearance of one particularly striking individual striding across the rotunda surrounded by aides and bodyguards. The group stared in fascinated awe at the appearance of one of the famed members of the Dark Council.

Once past the checkpoint they moved forward only a few yards before Ms Onasus stopped to stand against a waist high protective barrier. Turning to face the party, her back pressed against the barrier as the huge active power coupling within crackled and dominated the open centre of the rotunda. The great gaping jaws of the open shield hung suspended one above the other in their withdrawn maintenance position exposing between them a leaping, dancing finger of pure energy that created a dazzling spectacle, illuminating all around with a brilliant light.

"Welcome to the Citadel. For those of you wondering how, the Citadel gained its name during the early years of the colony when in times of peril; the colony population would seek shelter within this building, which, I should add, is one of the earliest and certainly most strongly constructed of those structures remaining from the time of the original colony." She paused a moment. "Behind me is the main power coupling for the original power generators of the city, the energy flow you see is in fact the point where the generator above connects to the Kaas City distribution network. This system now functions as a backup supply to the city's main power generators, which we will be visiting tomorrow. Now from where we stand you will see as you look around..."

A pair of Sith's deep in conversation, walked past the party of tourists. "...So with the ship disabled the troopers went across to secure the crew and navigational data. It came as a huge surprise to find their cargo holds full of slaves though. The information I had, pointed to that pair of scum bags as the ones bringing in the majority of the spice to Dromund Kaas. As soon as everyone was secure, we searched that ship down to the hull plating and found only some glitterstim, maybe two kilos worth at most. It was most certainly not the six thousand kilos I believed they collected from Kessel or any of that blasted gannarian narco-spice which was our main concern."

"What! Now wait just a farkling minute, gannarian narco-spice, when in the nine hell's were you going to mention that. How much of that druk did you think they were carrying?"

"According to the information from my contacts, there should have been about fourteen thousand kilos net mass aboard."

"Toska ne linga voe bashkal! Are you serious, fourteen thousand kilos?"

"Yes."

"Maulk, that's over sixteen billion credits at current street value. Now I can understand why you wanted to stop that ship so badly. Damn and there was nothing but slaves and presumably a personal stash aboard?"

"Yes, I'll be travelling to Nar Shaddaa in a few hours to 'discuss' the accuracy of the information with my contacts there."

The other Darth stared ahead in contemplation of the implications of that much spice hitting the streets and the growing population of Dromund Kaas. Suddenly he began chuckling. The younger Darth turned to stare in surprise and rapidly rising anger.

"What? I fail and you find the possibility of that much druk hitting the streets of the Capital to be funny!" He demanded.

The elder man quickly brought his mirth under control. "No, no it's just that I realised the bust was a bust."

Wincing at the poor pun, the younger Darth shook his head in exasperation. "Quintus my friend, you wound me deeply besides I personally interrogated the captain of that ship." The smile that accompanied that statement was not pleasant. "Before having him stripped naked and tossed in among the slaves he was transporting. They should arrive soon for the next slave auctions in Dreshdae on Korriban, as for the ship, it's impounded and up for auction."

Grinning ruefully, the man called Quintus glanced at his companion. "You had me worried there for a moment, Vreetan. I should have known better than to have any doubts about you missing a chance to make a few credits out of the situation. Talking of slaves, have you heard about this farkling fool idea coming from the Dark Council about testing slaves for Force sensitivity!"

Vreetan stopped abruptly to stare. "What, really, you're not joking with me now Quintus?" He strode forward quickly to catch up. "Slaves capable of using the force?" He mused in thought. "It's an utterly ridiculous idea, the very suggestion is insulting, to think that... to suggest that a mere slave could became a Sith." He made a disgusted sound. "Tell me they terminated the idiot who dared suggest this, at the very least tell me this traitor is currently enjoying their remaining life cycle inside a pain amplifier?"

"No, it is not a joke. The Dark Council are to start debating the issue tomorrow. Some force-forsaken fool has even gone so far as to compile data to back up these claims. Oh, I have to say that the quality of the apprentices coming out of the Academy in recent years has fallen." He looked around before lowering his voice. "Just between you and me there are plans going ahead to shake up the entire Academy system." He looked away and grimaced before raising his voice. "But I agree with your views that those of mixed blood or, from impure bloodlines could not make adequate Sith. It's... it's so far beyond disgusting that words fail me." He paused to swallow the bile he tasted in his mouth. "Nevertheless, the council is intending to give serious consideration to the proposal."

"Adri! Adriarnna!" Vreetan screamed angrily. "Where is that girl? Adrarnna!"

Somewhat confused at the abrupt change in the conversation Quintus asked the first thing to come to mind. "Adriarnna? Who or what is Adriarnna? Is this some new plaything of yours?"

"Quintus please, as if I would lower myself to using a common slave when I have the attentions of a certain Lady. No, I required the services of a new slave after the disaster my old one made of my wardrobe and this one seemed the best suited of those in that smuggler's cargo hold; beside she did not cost me a single credit. Young enough to train right, physically strong, somewhat intelligent and I suppose pretty enough to distract those I deal with if you like them plain looking. Personally I'd rather kiss a sarlacc."

A red-skinned female Twi'lik teenager skidded to a stop before them, breathing hard, she forced out the words between gasps. "You called, Master?"

Without warning Vreetan lashed out, the blow was powerful enough to spin the girl completely around as she collapsed to the ground. "Where the farkle have you been?" Without pausing for an answer, he gesticulated. The girl erupted from the ground to hurtle across the chamber. With an almighty crash, she slammed face first against a wall, the noise turned heads throughout the rotunda. Blood smeared the wall from a broken tooth piercing her lip. Vreetan followed in a stalking gait across the rotunda, screaming. "When I call for you SLAVE, you will answer immediately. Immediately, do you understand schutta?"

Sobbing from the pain, the young girl struggled against the invisible force that pinned her to the wall. From somewhere, past the pain and terror, beyond even the deeply buried resentment and anger, she found a reserve of strength, a strength that flowed like a raging torrent into her. Slowly, inch by inch she pushed herself away from the grey wall against which that invisible force held her. Turning her head, she glared hatefully at her master a moment before the slave's emotionless mask slammed back into place, the momentary display of hate and defiance wiped away. Beyond Vreetan, she caught the analytical stare of the one named Quintus. She tore her gaze away from the thoughtful expression of the older man, back to the furious face of Master Vreetan. From between painfully gritted teeth and swollen bleeding lips ground out the words, he expected to hear. "Yes my Master."

Mollified he dropped his hand. "Go find my apprentice girl, I want him back here in no more than twenty minutes or you'll spend time tonight as his plaything for punishment. Now be gone with you." Sneering, he savoured the look of fear that flashed across her face; he knew she had no idea where his apprentice would be and he so enjoyed the screams that came from his apprentice's room when he 'punished' her.

Hissing from the pain, she dropped to the floor, scrambling quickly away. Quintus Mardur watched as she fled, only he caught the look of utter hate the young Twi'lik girl threw back at Vreetan over her shoulder before vanishing through the great doorway. In disbelief he blinked hard, had he really seen what he thought he had, had the girl's eyes truly glowed with a red tinge when she glared backwards. Turning slowly back to the prattling of the younger man, he realised Vreetan was completely oblivious to the incident.

"That girl is going to be trouble, you know that?" He mused.

"Her! Hah. She's just a slave, a stupid farkling slave. She's nothing to worry about and if she does become a danger why I'll just crush the life from her and get another one."

As they moved on Darth Mardur thought hard about Vreetan's attitude and the blind contempt he displayed for the slave girl, somehow he could not stop the thought wondering through his mind that Vreetan would not live a long life.

---

Far below the rotunda with its tourists and busy government workers, beneath even the recorded foundations of the building a largely forgotten labyrinth of subterranean tunnels and rooms cut through the ancient bedrock. The oldest of these consisted of a series of interlinked naturally occurring cave systems, modified and adapted by the earliest planetary colonists.

The original colony on Drumond Kaas had been small. Largely ignored and forgotten by the Sith Empire because of the lack of any form of notable exports of any kind. A small religious splinter group had been the original settlers on the planet, founding that first colony while making their home amid the vast jungles, poisoned swamps and viciously teeming fauna. It was they who had dug out the foundations and laid the first stones that would one day, thousands and more years in the future, become Kaas City.

They discovered the natural cave systems entirely by accident and recognised an opportunity. There was no time wasted in converting some of the underground systems into a complex of interconnected storerooms and places of refuge.

Construction of a heavily fortified compound against the vicious predators that roamed the surface world had always been a high priority since the earliest days of the settler's arrival, a necessity on this world where an attack would come suddenly and silently in the night. The cave systems provided them with an expedient alternative to long heavy excavations while they built their protective redoubt. It rose slowly over a few years from the jungle atop the hidden entrances to the caves. Those who ruled the settlement at the time saw the building of the redoubt as an excuse to have many undocumented alterations made to the cave system in secret, after all, building material coming into a construction site arouses no suspicion nor does the removal of rock rubble, which they often used to supplement the hardcore in other foundations. Over time, the redoubt expanded to become a great fortress against the constant incursions of the predators. Slowly it became more and more central to the lives of those living in and around it. Gradually, over time, knowledge of the caves slipped from living memory, only remembered as legend by a diminishing few. Even the original name of the fortress was lost; soon everyone just came to call it the Citadel.

In the modern world, those few who retained knowledge or by lucky accident discovered the ancient caves utilized them as places to hide their secrets from prying eyes. Less than a handful used them to retreat completely from the world above as they conducted their dark researches and arcane rituals in solitude. Many unfortunates who gained knowledge of these places vanished in exploring them, their disappearances often leading to wild rumours and spectacular stories. Most who inhabited these ancient tunnels went further to protect the secret, deliberately emplacing snares to entice the unwary away from the entrances to their hideaways and instead to their deaths in fatal traps. Unknown to all but two beings the Emperor himself maintained secret chambers in some of the oldest of the tunnel systems down there.

---

The room was huge, oddly shaped and very crowded. Illumination came, not from the cold and dark light bars hanging from the bare rock of the ceiling but instead from the pale blue flickering of active data archives, the harsh glows of active display screens and holographic projection systems. The room was a library, a private library for an individual devoted to learning the secrets of ancient Sith magic and all of its rituals.

Towering shelves packed with datacrons, ancient scrolls, stone tablets, holocrons and many other forms of record keeping stood side by side beside the humming databanks of the most modern of research computer systems and holographic memory cores. Scattered throughout this all, safely secured in protected niches lay hundreds if not thousands of priceless Sith artefacts. It was widely regarded as one of the greatest collections of Sith historical knowledge to exist at that time and only one person knew of its exact location.

The possessor of all this, had taken extraordinary pains to provide protection for it all. Multiple fire suppression systems, redundant ray shields, even energy-cancelling devices of multiple types lay hidden beneath false panels. The entire room could even be flooded in seconds with protective foam killing any living organism but protecting everything else.

The room itself was located almost at the deepest part of the underground system in an area that was as geologically stable as could be found anywhere on the planet. Outside this room, behind dozens of forms of camouflage lay ring after ring of visible and invisible guardians, automated anti intruder defence systems and vicious creatures that thrived in the dark.

Everything in this particular room was an original; however, that had not stopped the present owner from duplicating everything in exacting detail at several other hidden locations scattered across the Galaxy.

The figure strode purposefully through a maze of paths, heading directly toward the sound of steady beeping coming from the main research station. Garbed from head to foot in a robe of expensive fabric the predominately black, grey and red colour was exquisitely styled to emphasize and flatter the form of the woman within while hiding the carefully crafted armour worn beneath, the colours and style very much the latest fashion among the powerful elite of the Sith Empire this year. The woman walked, looking neither left nor right; instead, her full attention focused upon the data terminal in her hands.

"Toska ne linga voe bashkal!" She cursed loudly in sulphurous tones that echoed throughout the room. "Those fierfek brained munks! Damn them, damn them all, three years of research, three years, ruined and all because those... those druk filled... argh!" The scream bounced from the walls around her. Tapping furiously away on the hand terminal, she continued to curse in a sulphurous voice, often switching between multiple languages.

Nearing a turn in the path, she jerked a communicator from a hidden pocket. "Taggan!" She spat the name loudly, almost screaming it again at the communicator as soon as the link was established. "Taggan, I have a job for you."

"Greetings Lady..." The being at the other end of the link began politely only to have their words cut short by her brusque words.

"Yes, yes, greetings and all that druk. Now Taggan, I want you to arrange an accident for the Hutt Nal'Koniki, something pleasingly gruesome and utterly fatal. You understand?"

A stunned silence hung in the air over the link as she waited impatiently.

"Well? Can you or can't you do it and if you can, how much?" She prompted.

"My... My Lady." The man stammered as he gathered his wits. "Nal'Koniki is not someone you can just walk up to and blast in the face!" The voice replied.

"Yes I know all about that little piece of gutter filth. What I am asking you is can you erase that slug from the Galaxy in a spectacular fashion, something that is very nasty, extremely painful and above all else final?"

"Well... yes, my Lady, but it would take some time to set up and the expense..."

"Damn the expense, I want that druk for brains expunged from the Universe. Well?" She demanded.

"A day, my Lady, give me a day to look into it, do some research into the Hutt and his habits, and then I can give you an answer." The man mused, the shock fading, replaced by the excitement of a professional challenge as his mind began contemplating the logistics involved.

The assassin would do it, she knew he would from the intrigued tone of voice with which he answered, the woman smiled nastily. She knew Taggan did a lot of business with Nal'Koniki and other Hutts, she also knew most of it was illegal, she also knew the power vacuum the sudden death of the slug would cause, would not, could not last long as another of that disgusting race moved rapidly to fill the hole left behind. However, more importantly to her, killing Nal'Koniki would wreck the plans of certain Darth's. Skotia and Thanaton's names came immediately to mind, with regard to their dealings with the Hutt Cartel.

They had just had her latest apprentice killed, which she did not really care about at all but the boy had been so close to obtaining the artefacts she needed to complete her research. Now she wanted revenge, but the Sith Code disallowed her from taking direct action upon the others personally. Normally that would not bother her at all but those two Darth's in particular were too public, too powerful and too well known.

A thought wormed its way to the front of her mind. It would require discrete handling through a source that no one would believe if captured. A source that could she could safely dispose of afterwards, someone obvious and yet unacceptable to the vanities of the Sith.

"Very well Taggan, a day then, and Taggan! Do not try and warn the Hutt, you would not like the consequences if you cross me." She finished speaking, her voice now as cold and deadly as frozen helium.

Stepping around the final bend in the path the centre of the room came into view. A comfortable chair waited beside the huge table littered with various artefacts. The central display built into the table flashing in time to the steady beep of the computer system.

"Now, what do we have here?" Fingers brushing across the interactive display, she began reading. A chilling terrible smile spread slowly across her face. "Now that is most interesting, most interesting indeed!"

---

Outside the Citadel, long fingers of lightning rippled across the dark skies as freezing rain fell once again over the slowly expanding capital. Over the crash of thunder rose the scream of tortured air as another in a long queue of heavy cargo transports descended from orbit towards the distant spaceport. Its load of refined and raw ores destined for the massive construction projects pushing out the boundaries of the city.

The red-skinned Twi'lik teenager ran from the taxi point, her brain tails flapping wildly behind her as the girl headed as quickly as she could across the plaza towards the loud sounds of the cantina. She hated her master, but his apprentice terrified her. Kalon Brassoc was a pure blood Sith that resented with every atom of his being the position of apprentice to a human. Secure in the knowledge of his own ability and position, a position earned entirely by the family name and not through any skill he believed he had, Kalon was extremely arrogant, exceptionally cruel, good with a dark sabre and dumb as a post.

Adriarnna shuddered in fear and nausea as thoughts of the punishments Kalon would devise raced through her head. Twice already in her short service she had suffered beneath his hands and the thought of spending a whole night in his grasp as punishment caused her to come perilously close to losing all control over her fear and attempt to run away. The painfully tight heavy metal shock bands wrapped around both her upper arms and thighs provided a constant reminder of how bad an idea that would be.

Pushing through the many milling aliens and even stranger beings clustered around the entrance to the cantina she headed inside. Passing through the weather field at the entrance she winced at the pounding beat of too loud music that combined with the eye watering smells of dubious substances and foul drinks that assaulted her senses. Continuing along the crowded corridor, she did her best to ignore the wondering hands that groped her. Making her way down a wide flight of stairs she entered the huge taproom, all the time staring around searching. The crowded large square shaped bar squatted behind the circular main dance platform that rose high above the room's centre while smaller lower one or two person dance stages formed tiny islands of packed bodies scattered throughout the already crowded place. She stopped and stared as a beautiful pale blue Twi'lik dancer ground and spun her skimpily clad body against the metal pole rising from a stage, gyrating in time to the beat of the music. A shriek to her right snapped her head around in wide-eyed fright. She was in time to watch as another nearly nude dancer was dragged bodily from a low stage by a glistening scaly-skinned alien of unknown race; the dancer's screams rising louder still as what little fabric she wore for her costume was torn from her body while the multitude of beings gathered around the pair cheering and laughing.

A sudden unexpected pull on her lekku, dragged her painfully backwards as rough hands fondled her growing curves, twisting she managed to glare to the side and across her shoulder into the broad leering face of the hands owner.

"Fresh meat, Froat knows just how to treat you." The alien's voice slurred in her face, its huge wide eyes glazed over with the effects of either spice or alcohol. The stench of its breath washed over her she tried desperately to twist away, only to halt at another painful yank on her lekku.

Forcing down the panic that bloomed she stared at the alien and recognized the race, relaxing she allowed the alien to pull her closer still as she waited. Suddenly she unleashed the coiled tension in her body in a single powerful kick to the creature's knee. Onlookers groaned and winced as with a piercing wail, which rapidly passed far beyond the limits of hearing the alien gave an almighty spasm before crashing to the floor unconscious. She grinned as the hands fell away, thanking the knowledge that not every race kept its genitals in the same place.

A pause in the music of a few seconds as the band against one wall finished their current piece of awfulness and prepared to start another piece even more appalling and loud happened just then, but in those few seconds of blissful silence, she recognized the voice she sought screaming out for another drink. Quickly she forced her way towards it.

"Another I said." Kalon demanded slamming the empty mug down on the wide bar top. The short barman opposite merely stared back at him while the outstretched hand gestured for payment. Kalon ignored it sneering as he slammed the empty mug down once again.

Sighing the barman spoke. "Credits first or get out. I don't give free drinks here."

The words caused Kalon to stagger to his feet and glare back. "I said, you farkling scum, give me another drink."

"No!" The barman replied, watching carefully while those seated nearby who had been looking on with amusement now looked wildly around for escape as the air crackled between the two. Abruptly those nearest decided that being somewhere else, anywhere else seemed like a great place to move too, now! "Now get out of my bar you drunken fool." The barman finished answering while hidden beneath the bar he firmly pressed a small foot switch.

Concentrating blurrily Kalon raised a hand. In his drunken state, he failed to be aware of what went on around him so he never spotted the disguised Imperial Intelligence agents dressed as two of the cantina's burly bouncers stepping up on either side. Not once did he pause to give a single thought as to why a simple barman would dare speak as this one did to an obvious Sith Lord. True to his arrogant nature, he behaved just as stupidly in his usual emotion fuelled manner and decided it would be simplest to exert his superiority by choking the life from the barman. Then he could take his choice of bottles from behind the bar and whatever paltry few credits he found in the cash register.

Smirking, he clenched the raised hand and waited for the satisfying sounds of panicked choking. The smirk slid slowly from his face when after a minute nothing happened, he stared in drunken confusion at his hand then to the barman. Grinning the barman just nodded to the two men standing patiently beside him. Strong hands gripped his arms twisting them painfully behind his back before dragging his struggling cursing body through the crowded room, to the delighted shouts and jeers of other intoxicated patrons.

Feet dragging, he twisted his head from side to side, screaming in a blurred, slurring voice. "Release me you scum, you have no idea who you..." The room suddenly spun as he abruptly gave up part of the alcohol he had consumed, all over his front and the floor before weakly finishing his shout. "... Dare to defile with your touch. Release me I say." Belching dangerously, the room began spinning again.

"Ah shut yer trap girlie." One bouncer grunted out.

"You don't scare us with yar bantha druk mumbo jumbo." The other added.

Minutes later the cool damp outside air slapped his face as he found himself literally thrown bodily through an open side doorway. His befuddled brain took several long minutes to realize that he now sat in a crumpled heap in a large puddle of water on the wet ground located in a wide passage between the cantina and warehouse next door. He shivered in the chill damp air as cold dirty water soaked into the expensive cloth of his robes. From behind, the two watching bouncers turned away at the lack of immediate response, resuming their interrupted conversation.

A clear, concise voice of an educated man spoke now, quite different from the broad thick accent it had used moments before. "Now then, you were saying something before that drunken oaf interrupted us about the implications of that new quantum entanglement theory that the Imperial Science Institute has released. I believe you began to explain how the new theory would affect Nth Dimensional Geometry with special relationship to the quantum interaction level of drive fields generated by Hyper Light engine systems."

"Oh yes, it is quite an elegant piece of work and should improve drive efficiency by nearly..."

The click from the closing door cut off all further conversation.

Sitting there in confusion, the faint sounds of running footsteps grew louder as they approached. He ignored them, struggling to rise instead as the alcohol fed humiliation he currently felt turned into anger; the anger growing becoming a burning, seething rage. Slowly, ignoring the filthy water that cascaded from him, he finished working his way upright, the growing rage now consuming all remaining rational thought.

"Kalon? Master Kalon? Is that you? Are you all right?" Adriarnna asked as she rapidly approached the rising man.

Slowly turning his head, Kalon recognized the girl. 'An easy target, she'll do.' The thought tumbled through his mind as the rage and anger exploded into activity now he had a focus for it. A swift gesture and Adriarnna smashed bodily against the stone and steel grey wall of the cantina, searing pain erupting throughout her chest. Another gesture, as he staggered closer and she slammed into the ground with the sound of snapping bones. She cried out with the explosion of sudden jarring pain. With glaring brightly glowing red eyes, he snarled like a wild animal, all rational thought now suppressed completely by the overwhelming rage.

With yet another gesture of the hand Adriarnna bounced upwards only to smash back against the wall again, her body spinning faster and faster, grinding against the stone abruptly she flipped over, finding her limbs splayed out in the shape of an X against the wall as ever-increasing forces pulled her arms and legs out from her body. Through the increasing pain, she felt muscles and tendons stretching to their limits.

Kalons slurred words penetrated her mind. "You bitch, that was all your doing wasn't it? You set me up! You conspired to humiliate me, didn't you? You paid that barman to get me drunk, to humiliate me before that scum back there." Each sentence tumbled after the last, each accompanied by a new burst of pain as the forces holding her tugged viciously at her limbs with every outburst. "Well, speak up schutta, don't you have anything to say? Why else would you be here! Waiting, watching, and enjoying my humiliation. Well guess what my little toy; you will never do it again. Never, do you hear me, NEVER!" The last word echoed between the walls with the intensity of a primal scream.

With a loud snapping hiss, a column of shimmering red energy erupted from the hilt that appeared, grasped tightly within his hand. He staggered forward, the tip weaving in small random circles through the air. He thrust the blade forward and she screamed in terror, liquid flowed soaking her thighs, leaving a small but growing pool beneath her. The blade flashed forward in repeated thrusts and jabs each bring a scream or yelp.

"Well schutta, are you not enjoying yourself, I know I am? Is the show not entertaining enough for you now, it certainly is for me!"

Again, the blade twirled and danced, each dip bringing yet another pain filled scream from the terrified girl.

"So, bitch, before I rip that tongue from that pretty little head of yours; let me hear you explain why you are here? Tell me what mischief you thought to cause?" Without waiting for an answer, he balled his empty fist and punched her, sinking it deep into the muscles of her stomach.

"Well, answer me damn it."

Wheezing and gasping for air, she forced herself to form the words. "M… Master w… w… wants you n… n… now. Cit… Citadel r… ro… rotunda."

Barely listening to the words, he began to amusing himself by smashing his unencumbered fist randomly into her body. The words however did register and slowly worked their way through his drink sodden mind. When realization came, he snarled in pure hatred and rage instantly blaming the girl for wasting his time. Stepping back he gripped the dark sabres hilt in a two handed grip before bringing the blade sweeping straight down in a vertical cut from the classic position of high guard, his intent to cleave the wretched girl in two.

His arms flexed powering the humming blade forward as he put the entire mass of body into the swing and smashed face first into the ground. The blade winking out as the hilt spun away wildly in an increasing upward arc that flew high over the roof of the cantina.

From behind came a deafening screech of grinding twisting metal as stacked shipping containers belonging to the warehouse slowly toppled forward. The three top most containers of the stack strained against their restraining anchors. Metal buckled, locking pins sheered as securing straps and tethers failed. With a bang that echoed back and forth, they shifted suddenly as his uncomprehending face glanced rapidly around searching for the source of the noise. His stupidity expressed itself for instead of running for the clear ground at the end of the alley he stood and looked numbly about.

The side door of the cantina burst open seconds later. The booming impact echoing still amid the fading shriek of collapsing containers as they came to rest partly buried in the ground, a ground that still shook for a few seconds more. There was no music coming from the cantina now, only the screams and shouts of frightened beings.

"What the bloody hell?" One male voice cried out at the sight of the scene mere meters in front of him.

"Holy Sith!" Came a second. "Get a Doctor, we've got injured here."

At the sound of the words, an older man started forcing his way through the press of drunken leering ghouls filling the corridor leading to the open doorway; the man was none too gentle as he shoved bodies out of his path. "What do you need, I'm a Doct… holy druk!" The voice rose in startled shock as the older man took in the scene. One quick glance at the visible parts of the crushed body surrounded by a growing pool of purple blood from under the tangled mass told him that at least one being was not going to require his help. A cry from one the bouncers dragged his head around, what he saw moved him quickly forward to the crumpled form against the base of the wall where the kneeling bouncer who yelled was waving at him. Quickly he checked over the young red-skinned Twi'lik, she still breathed but raggedly. The scores of injuries included deep burns, cuts and slashes cauterized from the use of an energy blade, a shattered nose and at least multiple fractured bones. He tried to list just the fractures he could find, knowing that full body scan would be required to find them all. And finally, a massive number of old fading bruises with more recent ones already starting to form, it all told a story of a level of abuse he really did not want to think about.

Opening his mouth to yell for someone to get an EMT heading their way, a large basic medical aid kit slammed down beside him as one of the other bouncers skidded to a halt beside them. "Boss has already called for an EMT, they're on the way, thought this may help, it ain't much but it's better than nothing."

From off in the distance, the howling wail of an approaching security speeder increased as Kaas City Security responded to the same summons.

"What the hell happened here?" The short burly barman exclaimed from where he now stood in the doorway, he was part owner of the cantina and an experienced if semi-retired Intelligence agent, Behind him another pair of bouncers began forcing everyone else back inside. The music stuttered and started up behind him at a subdued volume.

"Damned if I know boss. Damned if I know." Answered one of the bouncers, the smallest of the group that worked the detail at the cantina, he was also the one directing the actions of all the other disguised agents.

With flashing blue and red lights and a spray of water, a Security Force speeder came to rest at the mouth of the alley, disgorging several officers before it came to a full stop. It was only the first of many.

---

Nine days later

"By majority vote Council Resolution 88564/FSD has passed."

With those words the watching beings crowded around the cantinas largest wall panel display screen began muttering among themselves. The cantina was quiet today, several of the live dancers wandering between the tables chatting with the patrons, giving the occasional private dance and serving drinks while pre-recorded holographic performances flickered atop three of the smaller stages. Numerous maintenance droids scurried about cleaning, polishing and repairing some minor damage left over from a drunken brawl of the night before.

Darth Mardur sat quietly in the shadows behind a table in a dark corner booth. A hot mug of sweet smelling java juice rested atop the table, his hands wrapped around the thick ceramic mug drawing comfort from the warmth it radiated as he watched the reactions of the others to the breaking news of the slave sensitivity testing law. Some of the patrons had drifted away from the display screen hung above the centre of the main bar while others stood clustered beneath it listening to the continuing news summary and prepared analysis of what the broadcast stations paid experts thought the new law meant.

He had fully expected the Sith to be in an uproar over this law but contrary to his expectations the majority took it with a stoic acceptance he found disquieting. It seemed many had long recognized that the huge number of mixed bloods throughout the Empire far exceeded those of pure blood and these days the Sith were composed of beings with a certain state of mind and not just a member of a nearly extinct race.

The general population however complained loudly about the new changes, a fact that he was finding strangely humorous since most of the population of the Empire did not own slaves but somehow they still resented the change in status of the slave races or more specifically those slaves who demonstrated sensitivity to the Force.

The rest, those who actually owned slaves had protested long and loud, claiming that all manner of things would occur if the Council enacted this new law. From simple but painful increases in the cost of purchasing consumer goods due to the Imperial bureaucracies refusal to compensate them, the businesses that produced items, for any Force capable slaves they found and took. Up to stories of how Sith trained ex-slaves would run amok causing mass death and destruction as they fought to free others from their lives as beasts of burden in their rightful place in the complex hierarchy of class systems that existed within the Empire.

A cowled figure slipping into the seat opposite interrupted his thoughts. He showed no reaction to the sudden intrusion but inside he scowled cursing himself for his inattention to his surroundings, an inattention that could easily get him killed.

"Why my dear Quintus how absolutely lovely to see you again." The woman's voice all but purred as she spoke.

"Lord Zash." He returned in greeting recognizing the woman's voice and imprint upon the force with his subtle probing. "It's been a long time Zash since we last met like this. It was, if I remember correctly, on Korriban Station only a day or two after you 'graduated' from the Academy."

"Ah yes, those were simpler, happier days." With that, the woman Zash reminisced of their time together at the Sith Academy.

Not wanting to prolong the meeting or remember the innocence and errors of their youth Quintus interrupted. "What is it you want Zash, you don't exactly have a reputation for engaging in small talk?"

"What? A girl cannot spend time with an old friend now and then?"

Snorting he shook his head. "We may have been many things at the academy Zash, occasional lovers, acquaintances maybe but we were certainly never friends." His conscience squirmed on the word 'lovers'. "Now, I only have a few minutes remaining before I leave, so what is it you want?" For one fleeting moment, he saw the pain his words evoked reflected in her eyes and he struggled not to reach out, to take her hand and comfort her.

"All right then Quintus, I understand. After all, I was the one who dumped you, who betrayed you. I can hardly expect you to forgive me, let alone forget." They stared at one another for a long minute as a sea of memories passed between them.

Struggling to keep his composure and almost failing at the realization that deep down he still held great affection for this dangerous woman.

She spoke, breaking the moment a fraction before he opened his mouth. "I understand you are heading to Traxis Three soon, I have an interest in some artefacts recently found in the digs there by the Imperial Reclamation Service. The Service is going to be on planet for some considerable time still and I would dearly love to get my hands on those artefacts before next year. Your ship is the only one scheduled to make a stop there for the next year and a half so I am asking for a favour. I want you to collect a crate containing those artefacts I am interested in and bring them back with you."

"Do I look like an errand boy to you?" He snapped.

"No of course not, but it is just a single small crate and will take up hardly any room aboard your ship. So for old time's sake will you do this, you won't even have to go out of your way?"

He thought about the request for a minute or two, considering. "A single crate you say? I will require your notarised assurance that there is nothing inside that is contraband, just in case customs inspects it on my return. I assume you already have the appropriate licenses and paperwork for me to be transporting these alien artefacts for you?"

She slid a data wafer across the table. "This contains all the licenses and paperwork you need; it should take less than an hour of your time in all, the Bonded Courier will meet you at the spaceport on arrival and the crate is seal with an Imperial Reclamation Service seal."

"Very well Zash, but if I find out that this is another one of your games, if this is some ruse of yours to cause me trouble, I will come for your head, do you understand?"

"Yes and there is nothing to worry about my dear Quintus." She nodded as she rose.

"And Zash..." He waited until he had her full attention. "Leave the past where it belongs. Whatever there was between us is dead, leave it that way." He watched her leave before feeding the wafer into a hand reader.

Damn that woman, I should never have gotten involved with her.

Outside the cantina, Lady Zash turned into an alleyway between two buildings and leaned against the wall. For several minutes, she stood there, her shoulders heaving.

Damn him, damn him, damn him! Why did I throw you away Quintus? You were the only one that ever meant anything, so why did I do it?

At the back of her mind, a tiny voice whispered. For the power and position, what else is more important? Composing herself, she emerged some minutes later, projecting for any who may have watched, the stern coldly calculating face of a fearsome Lady of the Sith.

---

Three days later

Kaas City Medical Centre

"What in the Emperor's sacred name do you mean 'I have to pay for her treatment'?" Vreetan screamed into the fear-whitened face of the clerk. "I never authorised any of this and I sure as druk am not paying to... to have a slave treated. I refuse."

"But… but… you can't!" The young man stammered out before the furious face of the obviously irate Darth. "She's registered as your property and the Empire…" The words cut off abruptly as he started clawing franticly at his throat.

"Can't? You snivelling little worm, you dare to say can't to me! You dare to tell a Darth of the glorious Sith Empire what they can and cannot do."

The entire room had fallen silent at the rising sound of arguing voices, now everyone strained to hear the words from a suddenly soft deadly voice. The snap hiss and gurgling scream made everyone except the two central figures flinch away. The plasma beam hummed as Vreetan brought it up before the struggling man's face. "She is a worthless slave, not my property. She has nothing of her own, her life means nothing to me and if I wished her healed I would have brought her here myself. She is nothing to me, do you hear me, nothing. You people should have left her to die and then paid me for the parts you stole; instead, you try to cheat me out of my credits and you will still harvest her organs for parts." He sneered at the struggling purple face of the clerk. "I don't think so."

The hum of the dark sabre changed as light streaked through the air before the watching eyes. The body thudding to the floor broke the paralysis that held everyone immobile in frozen expressions of fear and horror. Most turned away fighting the rising bile in their throats while Quintus together with a tall armoured bounty hunter beside him stood watching from the entrance of a consulting room in disgust. Vreetan strode off through the doors of the medical centre, ignoring the terrified people and the hate filled looks aimed at his rapidly disappearing back.

Stopping an alien nurse that came running past, he shook his head. "You cannot help him. You can only clean up the pieces." Three eyes stared back as the face changed from a look of stricken worry horror filled sadness. "They spoke of a female slave brought in for treatment, where is she?"

"Wh… why do you ask?" She stammered out.

"I have my reasons, reasons that will not harm you if you answer my question, now where?"

"Room 417, Trauma Recovery Area."

He flicked his hand in a smooth gesture before her face as he spoke softly. "I was never here, we did not speak. Now go." He watched the nurse's eyes glaze over as a quizzical expression spread across her features, turning she gave a squawk of shocked horror and rushed towards the crumpled corpse.

You bloody damn fool, it's always the thrill of power, of watching someone squirm as you intimidate and humiliate them. Do you even realise that one day you are going to walk into a gundark's lair Vreetan? You are going to push someone who will strike back because they have nothing more to lose and everything to gain.

Walking outside, Quintus turned to his companion. "I'll meet you back at the ship, you get her ready to leave. I have a couple of last minute chores to see to." The bounty hunter merely cocked their head in a questioning manner. "This is something I have to do; I'll explain it all to you later, okay?" A single firm nod and the bounty hunter walked off, Quintus stared at the back of retreating bounty hunter for a long moment before looking upwards at the rising face of the medical centre. Ignoring the startled squawks of surprise, he touched the Force and leapt four stories to land lightly on an office balcony.

Faces looked up from their work in shock and surprise as the door to the small balcony slid open and a smiling Sith Lord stepped in, closing the door he turn, nodded to everyone watching and strode off through the offices of the centres accounting department.

The doors to the recovery ward swung quietly shut behind him several minutes later as he began pacing slowly along the aisle, eyes flicked to left and right as they searched a particular face. A shout and noises of a struggle drew his attention. Staring he caught a flash of scarlet skin between a gap in the drawn privacy curtains, without pausing he walked briskly over and stepped through to find three men, presumably nurses and a doctor struggling to strap down the young red-skinned Twi'lik female. A third female nurse stood waiting, hypo syringe raised ready for the right moment to step forward. He simply grabbed her wrist, as she started walking forward and squeezed, forcing her to drop the syringe.

"Hey! What do you think…Oh Holy Sith!"

The faces of two of the three men struggling with the girl on the bed turned and promptly froze at the sight of the scowling Sith.

Speaking loudly the doctor continued to strap the girl down. "Damn it, stop druking about and grab her, we need to get her sedated." The struggling doctor exclaimed. The female nurse sniggered before adding her own comment. "Sure, right. She can't pay for her treatment so the price of her can cover her costs and save others." The doctors only reply was a sudden yelp as a flailing hand slapped him across the face. "Come on damn it, sedate her."

"I do not think I can allow that. In fact, I am pretty sure about it." Everyone froze at the voice. "What are you doing to my property?" The voice spoke softly in a cold, calm tone that made everyone nearby shiver.

Stepping quickly away from the girl who suddenly snarled and twisted, trying to bite his hand, the doctor turned to see who had spoken. His eyes closed to thin slits and he glanced from the newcomer to the staff members and back. "Who are you and what are you doing here? You are not the slave's owner of record. He has refused payment for services." The eyes slid sideways to the female nurse. "So we have the legal right to harvest her organs to cover payment. So, whoever you are, I suggest you bugger off before you suffer an accident you cannot pay for."

Three quick indrawn gasps of terror came from the nurses at the words from the doctor, to what was obviously a Sith Lord. Frightened eyes flickered back and forth between the two as they all prepared to run in any direction that took them away from the short vicious fight and sudden gory death they expected to occur at any second.

Throwing back his head, Quintus roared with laughter and swept the now grinning doctor into a hug. "Alrick, you ass, one of these days you're going to pull that tough man routine once too often and get hurt."

"I know, I know Quintus but hell I can't let you get a too swollen head now can I?"

Chuckling, the pair looked around at the confused and wary expressions on the faces of everyone else. "So what were you really going to do with the girl?" They had both turned to stare at the struggling girl: she returned their stare with a fierce glare of her own that masked more than a little of the fear she was feeling.

Quintus gestured but grunted in annoyance at her continued struggles. Stepping to the end of the bed, he stared straight into her eyes and spoke calmly, as he his words penetrated her fear her struggles slowed. "Relax now, relax. I am your friend. I promise you that I will not harm you, so relax. Relax."

Watching, the others relaxed too under the spell of his soothing voice.

"Damn I really wish I could do that. Anyhow, I was going to sedate her for the night, then see about putting her to work in the kitchens or with the custodial staff for a few days. Let her work off some of the debt while delaying her master." He looked at the now quiet girl listening to their every word warily. "You know the routine, tall tales filled with medical gobbledegook, something about injuries and required recovery time. Anything to give her the time needed to recover properly." He turned away from the now placid young girl to stare at the scowling man. "Why the interest in a young slave Quintus, do you know her?"

"Yes, I do a little. She intrigues me and Vreetan, you've met Vreetan haven't you Alrick?" The other nodded. "Vreetan has pissed me off once too often. His treatment of this slave girl is a perfect example, you do know that she should be reported to the Sith under that new slave testing law the council passed a few days ago?" Alrick gaped and look back and forth between the two. "He beats her viciously without cause or reason and gives her to his apprentice for punishment. That apprentice of his, Kalon Brassoc, has a reputation even the Sith Order find distasteful."

Alrick looked closely at the man. "And what else, I know you Quintus; we've spent too much time together on one battlefield or another for me not to recognize when you're holding something back."

Taking a deep breath, he nodded. "I believe, no I know she's force sensitive. I believe her full talent is awakening."

Four pairs of eyes stared in wide shock at him as his words sunk in, three turned slowly to study the stunned, open-mouthed Twi'lik. "Can I talk with her privately somewhere Alrick? I assume she can be moved?"

"There's a nurses station at the far end of the ward with some offices and a dispensary behind them. And you young lady." He pointed directly at her and wagged his finger. "You will come back after your talk with Darth Mardur, get back into that bed and sleep, no more fussing about, do you hear me?" It was a gentle voice but there was no mistaking the underlying steel of command. She nodded rapidly in agreement.

Turning to the girl Quintus spoke calmly. "Come with me girl, we need to talk." With that, he began striding away, after only a few paces however, he stopped. With a shake of the head, a soft sigh escaped his lips before turning around. With a flourish, he offered his hand to the girl. "I am not Vreetan, I am nothing like him. I will never be like him." The words came softly, barely above a whisper but Adriarnna caught them clearly. Together they walked to the rooms at the end of the ward.

"So child, do you have any idea of who I am?" He paused to allow her to answer; slowly she shook her head no. "Odd. I admit all I know of you is that Vreetan calls you Adriarnna or Adri and claims you as his slave. So, I ask what is your name and what do you prefer to be called?"

Quintus watched the girl stammer a few times and look around wildly, he presumed she was unused to such courtesies. "Ad… Adriarnna my lord"

"Now then explain to me how you come to be in his possession?" Pulling a chair from under a desk, he bade her sit and retrieved another for himself as she stammered and stuttered over his gentle questions. "My... my mother and I..." She stared hard at his eyes for a moment before taking a deep breath. "The woman I called mother and I came... were from a small farming colony called Spindle's Last Stop. Raiders came and attacked the colony; I'm not sure how long ago..." Quickly she blurted out a tale of destruction, capture and enslavement. "... Mother said they would sell all of us women at auction but I was not so certain, not with the... entertainment we were required to provide our captures with." Reaching through the Force he gently probed her, tried to calm her as he himself found his anger rising at the unfolding tale of repeated rape and beatings. "Eventually we reached a world of blue sands and purple skies where they sold us, at least those of us who were left; maybe a third of us had died at their hands by then. It happened as mother had said it would. The kept us kids with our mothers or those who we called mother for protection." He had heard tales similar to this many times over the years, unlike others he found it was not something he could easily accept. Quickly he snapped out of his musings and turned his attention back to the girl, she had drawn her legs up to her chest in the seat by now, wrapping her arms around herself and slowly rocked back and forth, the chair squeaking softly with each movement. "... Thought it was pirates attacking the ship taking us to our new masters, we lost some when one of the pens decompressed during the fighting, I still remember that whistling sound and their screams." It was unthinking on his part, he held out a clean handkerchief for her as she sobbed softly at the memory. "... Loud clang and soon afterwards imperial troopers forced the cargo hatch locks."

"That matches with the little I know." He grunted. "So Adriarnna, tell me, how long have odd or strange things been happened around you?"

"My Lord?"

He grinned to take the edge from his words. "It's not a difficult question Adriarnna. For how long now have strange or unusual things happened around you, particularly when you get upset or feel very powerful emotions, most probably intense anger or hate?"

"I… I…" She stammered in fear. He could feel the fear with using the Force, it poured off her in waves.

Gently he asked. "You will not be in trouble Adriarnna, how long?"

In a voice barely above a terrified whisper, she stared at the floor and answered. "Since… since I was of three seasons of age."

Rocking back in the chair he mused to himself, he needed to be certain. Looking past her, through the door and watching the movements of patients and staff in the ward beyond he paused as an idea came to mind. In a voice suddenly laced with exasperation and distaste, he exclaimed. "Druk, what's that farkling Vreetan doing here? Looking for you I expect since he doesn't know I'm here." As he spoke, he watched her intently from the side of his eyes.

The reaction was immediate and more, much more than he needed to satisfy his suspicions. Her body immediately tensed, head snapping up as her soft features twisted into an ugly expression of profound hate, her eyes began glowing with a bright red hue before she caught herself. Abruptly her face went blank, her head dropped to stare at the floor and her whole posture changed to one of quiet submission, but during that brief period of reaction, he caught the strong undercurrent of the Force swirling around her with her sudden surge of hate.

For over a minute, he continued to stare over her shoulder. "Relax Adriarnna, relax, he's gone, he never spotted either of us in here." Biting of the rest of his words he waited and watched, gently probing her through the Force and becoming more convinced of his suspicions. "Now then, I want you to go straight back to bed. Let me deal with young Vreetan." Once again, that powerful surge of emotion rippled through the force at the mention of the name.

You fool Vreetan; you complete and utter fool. Not seeing what is so obvious to the eyes is one thing but not even feeling the way the Force reacts around her is something else. You're not only stupid, you're dangerously blind. I don't know what will kill you first, the stupid arrogance you flaunt or your unthinking cruelty but I do know that day is coming.

He watched as she walked back to bed, meekly accepting the fussing of the nurses, his mind racing as he considered probable events. He had a mission to perform and a promise to keep. Slowly he walked away deep in thought, stopping only to pay for the girl's treatments while leaving a sealed message for his old friend Alrick before heading out into the chill night air.

---

Two hours later

Vreetan grunted as the chiming of the door disturbed what he jokingly called his meditation. Tying a robe about him, he walked softly through the lavishly decorated rooms of the apartment ignoring everything but his own thoughts. Most of the furnishings that surrounded him were expensive although obtained at little to no cost to him. Thick rugs of extinct animals carpeted the floors while rich tapestries from a dozen worlds hung from the walls. Paintings from walls between the tapestries while sculpture-adorned plinths stood in small alcoves. It would have been a beautiful apartment if any of the art and decorations matched in style and colour instead it had been collected haphazardly, with little thought given except to its value and how much grief it would give to whomever it was taken from.

"Who is it? What do you want? Do you know what time it is?" He called out in irritation, activating the security scanner. "Quintus! What is it, what's wrong?" He triggered the door release.

"Nothing is wrong my friend and I apologize for disturbing you at this hour but since I will be leaving in an hour I needed to discuss some issues with you before I do."

"Come in, come in. Would you like a hot java juice or perhaps try that Corellian fire brandy I told you about?"

Stepping inside he allowed his eyes to travel over the displayed art, they paused here and there on certain pieces he knew Vreetan enjoyed, not for what they were but from the pain and suffering he had inflicted on others in taking them, but one or two new pieces made him stop and frown. Stirring himself to movement he followed Vreetan through to the main living area, he stood waiting as the young man mixed a drink for himself.

"Sit, please sit Quintus. Now what did you want to talk about?"

For several minutes, they talked of several issues important to the Sith Order and of an upcoming politically motivated joint operation they would both be participating in as soon as he returned from this latest mission of his but all of that was of little import to Quintus. Finally, they finished what he considered minor trivia but was the sort of political and practical information someone like Vreetan considered of great importance.

He began rising as if to leave then paused, schooling his features to express a sudden thought. "Well that's all settled so I should be leaving. Thank you for your time Vreetan, I know this is a nuisance at this time of night but it takes no small amount of pressure from my shoulders to have it all sorted out before I leave... Oh that reminds me I wanted to talk to you about that young slave you have."

"What, the Twi'lik schutta? Did you know that the stupid cow got herself beaten up a few days back? She's in the central Kaas City Medical Centre at the moment." He snorted in disgust. "They had the gall to demand I pay for her treatment! As if, I mean, she is just a slave and a useless one at that. So I refused, told them that if they wanted payment they should harvest her organs for it. I was getting bored with her clumsiness anyway. If she survives the centre, I'll let Kalon deal with her when he gets back. I believe he is off running some errands for Darth Marr." Quintus hid his reaction to the obvious lie and the large amount of satisfaction that leaked from Vreetan at dropping so prominent a name into the conversation. "Kalon takes a positive glee in disciplining her."

Quintus paused a moment as if in reflection. "Well I want you to buy her from you, I find I have need of a serving slave and if she is as dumb as you say then I will have no fear of her plotting mischief behind my back. So, since you have made it clear you want rid of her and I need someone, name your price?"

He had just managed to bite back the words 'I know she's in the medical centre, I paid for her treatment'.

Shock exploded across the younger man's face. "Huh? She's just a stupid slave, worthless and you Quintus, you have never owned slaves before. You don't know anything about instilling loyalty in one let alone the proper ways to discipline the miserable druks"

"Will you or won't you sell her to me?"

"Tell me why and I'll consider it, she's useless at just about everything. Druk, she doesn't even make a fun toy in bed."

He thought his original idea of an excuse good enough but Vreetan was letting his curiosity run wild and now he needed a better answer. "I… I may just need something to use as a distraction, bait in other words on this mission. There is a certain shall we say ambassador that is partial to young females of her race and she may help grease the wheels of diplomacy, besides he rarely leaves his toys alive to talk about his business dealings and if she is as worthless as you insist, well no one will miss her then. Now, how much do you want for her?"

Vreetan grinned manically as his imagination fired up. He insisted on more details.

"Vreetan, you know the guidelines we operate under concerning missions as well as I do, but you are a friend and fellow Sith so I have already said more to you than I should." He watched as the young man nodded in agreement but caught the leaking feelings of disappointment. He also knew Vreetan had a big mouth and a bad case of verbal diarrhoea, a bad combination that ensured he was shunned by many of the Sith when it came to back channel communications.

They spent a little time haggling over the price; Vreetan just could not pass up an opportunity to make a credit or two even at the expense of his friend and mentor. Quintus meanwhile forced himself to bargain, finding the whole process tedious but knowing fully that Vreetan would become suspicious if he did not. That suspicion would certainly make him refuse to sell the girl to him.

Vreetan however just could not rein in his curiosity and wanted to know exactly what Quintus intended to do to the slave, every time he asked a question that broached the subject his friend skilfully deflected it. Eventually though even he tired of the game and thought only of the credits to be made. In his twisted mind however, he created a fantasy based on what little he did manage to worm out of Quintus. It was to him the simplest possible answer, Quintus wanted the young slave to worm secrets from the Ambassador during 'pillow talk' before allowing the alien ambassador to appease its sadistic whims and kill the girl tying up all loose ends. The obvious flaws in the fantasy he ignored as he entertained thoughts of the exquisite tortures the girl would suffer at the hands of the alien Ambassador before it tired of its latest toy.

Twenty minutes later as they stood at the door, Vreetan held up the large red plastic disc he had just fetched. "Well this is her ownership disc; I've already registered the change of ownership with the central database. Are you really sure about this Quintus?"

Quintus nodded, accepting the disc. "Yes."

"Well watch yourself with that one, she's as dumb as a stump, just don't let her near anything valuable."

"Night Vreetan, I'll let you get back to your meditation."

"Any time old friend, any time."

As soon as he left the building Quintus headed for the droid at the taxi pad, his mind settling down to review the details once again of his mission, but in a tiny corner of his mind a stunned voice kept whispering, what am I going to do with a slave?

---

Forty-eight hours later

Master cabin aboard the 'Starry Explorer'

The woman held the red disc above bed covers and giggled as the voice of Quintus trailed off, it soon became a rich before turning into uncontrollable laughter. "So 'Mister I will never own slaves' you now own a slave, a female slave?" She erupted into another bout of laughter at the pained expression on his face.

"So what are you going to do with her now you own her?" The woman Marianna asked fifteen minutes later as she snuggled tighter against his body in their bed.

"I don't know, I really don't know. Hell, one the reasons I bought her was to keep her out of the hands of those bastards Vreetan and Kalon. Now I don't have a clue." He frowned as the woman laughed at him again only much softer than her earlier mirth.

"So I don't have to worry about you straying then?" She asked from where she tucked against his side, her impish face turned upwards to stare while her right hand played with his greying chest hair.

Looking down he recognised all the small signs and rolled his eyes eliciting a giggle from her, she was going to tease him about Adriarnna he knew. "What do I wear on the finger of my left hand Marianna, what do you wear on your left? I think that is all the answer you need." He paused and looked at her again only much closer this time, spotting the tightness around her lips and the tension around her eyes. He sighed and twisted onto his side so he now stared at her face to face. "Why do you get this way every time I spend more than a few minutes around another female?"

The tight smile faded as she sat up taking the warmth of her body and the sheet with her until she finished up with her chin resting on the knees of her drawn up legs. He sighed and wrapped the loose ends of the sheet around her naked back as a long robe floated across the room to him. Staring at the painted far wall of their cabin with worried eyes, she took several minutes to answer. He reached for her once but stopped at instantly when she flinched at his touch. "I know what life in the Empire is like Quint. Sure, we may wear commitment bands but how often do they mean a damn thing. Do you think I'm stupid Quint? I know all about the other life partners and mates and... Hell the mistresses of other Sith. I know so many of them play their little perverted power games in and out of the bedroom, of how they jump and creep and sneak from one bed to another all the while claiming to be pious and true to their spouses." He watched her shoulders shiver under the sheet and wrapped his arms tightly around her, deliberately ignoring the flinch this time while holding her tightly in his embrace. "I... I'm scared Quint. I'm not like that, I don't want to be like that. I don;t know if I could take it if you started acting like that." She paused for a few minutes, breathing heavily; he said nothing just held her tightly, thinking. "I know what the rest of my clan think of me, think of our marriage but hell let's be honest, I'm a disgraced Mandalorian woman but... I'm still Mandalorian. Ever since we first met on Quesh, I've been faithful to you but when you are away, when I see you in news vid reports with other women, I can't help wondering."

He had thought she was a jealous woman whenever any other female was near him but he had never thought, never considered why. Now he blessed that secret journey years ago, the one that had taken months and caused much speculation among the Sith. He had travelled to the battlefields of Qurax all those years ago and pleaded, begged he amended silently, his case before Mandalore right there in the middle of a small but vicious war. The minor detail that he had been forced to fight his way through Mandalores guards just to challenge the Mandalore himself and then having to duel Mandalore himself at the time had certainly made for an exciting trip. A trip he told Marianna very little about when she asked. Often using the Mandalorian system of honour as a shield, explaining how an oath of honour between himself and another, he never said Mandalore, bound him to silence. Privately he thought his refusal to take a mandalorian life unless absolutely necessary had won him a grudging respect from the ever-touchy Mandalorians. For four months, he had fought and bled beside the Mandalore and others before the man had surprised the hell out of him, calling him brother and granting his request but on one condition. He did not even mind the clan tattoos now he had become used to them although the memory of that argument they had on his first night back with Marianna when she finally saw them after his long months of absence still made him wince.

"Marianna..." He tightened his embrace around her. Ignoring the tense muscles and stubborn resistance, gently he dragged her into his lap and held her tightly. "Marianna, oh my beautiful Marianna, I'm sorry, so very sorry." He kissed the top of her head and felt the wet spots on his arms. Raising a hand, he held it inches from her face, letting her see it. "Let me show you what you mean to me Marianna, let me put these fears to rest forever." He watched her face turn to look up at him, purple eyes damp and vulnerable. At that moment in time, he hated himself with a passion for causing this beautiful woman so much hurt.

"How?"

"Like this." With those words, he gently cupped the side her face. Reaching out through the force, he sought out that soft glowing ember that he knew was her mind and touched it. He knew exactly when he made contact, for she abruptly froze, not even breathing her eyes wide-open as their minds meshed. "Breath my wife, keep breathing." Gently, he worked his way through the outer layers of thought until he found the person within. Delicately touching that core, he opened his mind fully to it, to her and built the link. "Look, see my thoughts, all my memories. Feel what I feel, see what I see, and hear what hear. It's all there, the good and the bad. See and feel what you mean to me Marianna." Through their connection, he now poured all the memories of them together and apart since they first met. The joy and anger she caused him, the slow changing of feelings as their relationship deepened, the shock he felt when realization finally struck that he loved her. He gave it all to her, allowing her to walk wherever she wished through the landscape of his mind.

In return, almost without thought she opened herself to him too, showing him all of her memories, including the secret fear of losing him to another that slowly ate away at her confidence and love.

He felt her relax in his arms and melt into the embrace, he felt her arms encircle his body as the fear and anger she held, slowly dissolve.

The sudden sharp inhalation of breath and eruption of hysterical laughter startled both of them. Head snapping up she stared at him with an awed expression as tears streamed from her eyes her words came out in a shocked scream.

"You fought the MANDALORE himself!"

The screaming voice rose higher.

"You fought an honour duel with THE MANDALORE in the middle of a farkling war."

Again, the screaming climbed higher.

"You fought for my clan name, my name and my honour, you idiot, you crazy fool, you... you asshole!"

The connection broke as she slammed him flat against the mattress, raining kisses and nibbling like a crazed being all over him.

"You... you actually fought Mandalore to a stalemate in the battle rings defending my honour! You... You... You fool, you crazy, idiotic fool. Why?" The words kept repeating between her kissing, caressing and nibbling.

He did not stop to think, he just spoke the words he felt in his heart. "I love you Marianna and I could no longer stand to see the pain your disgrace caused you, it had to end, one way or the other."

For several seconds he saw stars as she slammed her mouth hungrily upon his, devouring them and inadvertently butting foreheads. Their initial connection was completely broken now but soon each would become aware of a tiny spark within them that would forever link them together. Slowly they came back to the present world some hours later to find their bodies entwined beneath torn sheets, each grasping tightly to the other. He chuckled crazily.

"What's so funny?" She panted out; slightly dizzy from the heady feelings of complete love and adoration she could feel.

"Well first I'd forgotten all about that Gunrian Ambassadors party, that image you had of me fleeing security dressed in that stolen ball gown, I never realised just how ludicrous I looked." The pair of them started laughing again.

Wheezing slightly, as she rubbed herself against as moved up alongside him, until their faces were level. She could not resist adding something though. "Well, you certainly had the legs for it." They clasped each other tightly as they erupted into fresh laughter.

"Second, I think a stalemate was the best result I can ask for with the Mandalore." She stared quizzically at him. "Well if I had beaten him, I would have become Mandalore, I think that is the custom among your people, but if the Council of Clans refused to acknowledge me then the whole Mandalorian people would be after us. If I had killed him then I would have had Mandalorians lining up to prove I was not good enough to be Mandalore and if I had refused those challenges..." Both of them shivered at the thought. "And finally..." He kissed her lips tenderly as he gazed deeply into the purple depths of her lovely eyes. "And finally, if I had died, if I had made the Mandalore fight so very hard for my life then you my beautiful wife, would have still regained your honour and place back in your clan. I would have proven to those stiff-necked bastards that I was a worthy husband for you. It would have restored all that you had lost in their eyes for choosing me as you did." Tears filled her eyes again at his words. "I would gladly have died for you Marianna to give you that which you hold most precious. To give you your honour and your family back."

Outside the cabin, the gentle humming of the ships systems filled the air; the service droids, which had paused to listen to the earlier laughter now bleeped softly to each before continuing with their work. On the flight deck, the lights on the instrument panels winked silently while beyond the thick observation windows, the streaked bow wave effect of hyper travel left stretched lines of blue and red before and behind the ship.

Some hours later, the pair sat around the table in the briefing room, while steam rose from the cups before them.

"So, do you honestly have no idea what to do with that girl?"

"You know I don't. This is why I am asking you."

Marianna laughed again but gently squeezed the hand cupped against her cheek. "And you are certain she is a force user?"

"Yes, but she's unfocused, not fully expressed. There's no control real there at all. She does things without subconsciously, strong emotion triggers dangerous outbursts and she could easily kill someone. Life as a slave is hard so it's a miracle she hasn't killed someone already or been found out by the Sith Order."

"Well send her to the Academy, they'll train her, teach her whatever she needs to know. It sounds like a simple solution to me."

"It's not that simple. If she was a Sith's child or had any real control over her talent I would, but she does not and without that something extra to help protect her..." His voice trailed off. "She's too naive, too inexperienced with how the galaxy." He paused in thought. "With how the Empire really works, they would destroy her just for fun and throw any living remains to the wild animals to fight over."

Looking up at her husband Marianna wondered not for the first time how he had survived the rigours of life as a Sith. They were famous for their passions and lust for power and just as famous for the unthinking acts of cruelty they perpetrated. The thought had crossed her mind of how much she really knew about the man who had stolen her heart. The she coloured slightly as the memory of what they had recently shared rose up and she knew her red skin had darkened with the blush. She knew far more now than many wives did about their husbands, he had shown her everything after all, the good and the bad.

"She needs somewhere safe where someone will teach her what she needs to know in order to function safely in the Empire, somewhere where she can grow up, have a little fun and develop her force skills. I wonder..." Marianna's voice trailed into silence as she stared into space, her mind chewing through various ideas. "Vxun Academy!"

Astonishment showed on his face. "A military boarding school? Do you think she could she cope, it will certainly be a lot different from what she's experienced so far?"

"It's probably a hell of a lot better than she's used to after being a slave and she's young enough that she'll learn and get some use out of it, oh I'm not saying it will not be a shock at first but I suspect she'll adapt quite well."

"You talk as though you know what she will go through, what to expect?"

"Well yes, I should since I myself am a Vxun graduate."

Now it was his turn to blush as he sorted through her memories. Her giggle at his change of colour certainly did not help. "Hmm, of course I remember now but..." They talked for several more hours as the stars beyond the little bubble of life that was the ship streaked by. They talked of a future that Adriarnna would have, neither noticing when they stopped thinking and speaking of her as a slave.

---

Dromund Kaas

Twenty-eight hours later

Darth Krassus Vreetan gripped the duplicate slave ownership disc tightly as he stepped through the entrance of the medical centre. Just barely did he hold the anger he was feeling in check, the urge to lash out at those around him was great. News of the death of his apprentice had finally reached him that morning, a few quick exchanges of messages and a personal visit revealed that the only potential witness was that worthless ooga Adriarnna.

His anger controlled him, a condition he was completely intimate with, what he did not realize though was just how badly that anger was affecting his judgement right now. His lust for power had brought many enemies and the conditioned paranoia that protected that power had saved him from grief many times or so he believed, by driving him to kill those enemies who would work against him. That boiling, towering anger he now felt though had unbalanced him, pushed his paranoia to heights he had never before experienced.

The unexpected visit several nights ago from his 'friend' Darth Mardur with his desire to acquire ownership of the schutta had already given him concern. Now firmly in the grip of his paranoia, his churning thoughts over just who had killed his apprentice and why had produced a crazed theory in the last several hours. Now he was firmly convinced that his so-called old friend had set the whole operation up to discredit him. In his twisted mind, the whole puzzle fitted neatly together.

First, the now dead informant on Nar Shadda who had sold him the information of which ship to intercept, then the discovery of the so-called slaves found aboard instead of the massive load of drugs. The huge loss of face in the eyes of his superiors within the Sith Order had been galling, then, came the very much-delayed news of the death of his exceptionally gifted apprentice. An apprentice who he felt had such a promising future and a positively delightful talent for extracting information from others quickly. And finally there was Darth Mardur, his friend, who had never owned a slave before in his life, who just happens to turn up right before leaving on a council mandated mission to 'buy' his first slave. It was all too much of a coincidence in his mind.

He gripped the disc tighter still, threatening to crush it as the plastic case creaked in his hand. He had acquired the habit of making and keeping duplicate discs after an embarrassing episode years before where he had 'lost' a very expensive slave due to his lack of missing ownership documents. Normally he would have destroyed the duplicate identity disc after he disposed of the slave. He had been in the act of digging this one out to destroy when the message of Kalon's murder had arrived. Now with this to hand showing he was still the owner he could claim the bitch Adriarnna and force her to tell him just what part in Mardur's mad scheme she played. Inwardly he snarled in vicious glee, he hoped she would resist, he was looking forward to enjoying himself as he extracted the information from her. It was more fun when they resisted, and destroying a slave's will was half the fun of owning one after all.

Stopping at the desk of the Admissions Clerk he shoved the disc at the man on duty and screamed, he liked screaming at people, it made them flinch and cower, he so enjoyed watching them cower it made him feel the power he could command and it never failed to arouse him also. "You have my slave here, where is she?" He waved the disc violently under the startled clerk's nose. "What have you people done to her, why have you kept her from being returned to her owner?"

The man flinched but recovered quickly enough to stand his ground. "Sir! Lower your voice!" He snapped back. Vreetan immediately hated the man for refusing to cower. "Now if you'll give me that ID then we can see who the hell you are talking about." He stuck out an expectant hand and glared back at Vreetan.

The sudden hissing swish of the dark sabre came, mere fractions of a moment before the clerks screaming started. The clerk stared down in numb shock at the cauterised stump of his wrist; the hand laying flat upon the counter top beneath. Then the pain and realization struck.

Vreetan laughed manically at the dawning expressions of pain and horror on the man's face before making a smooth slashing motion with the sabre that removed the man's head from his shoulders. The screams of others who were only now starting to react was the most exquisite music to his ears. Walking around the admissions desk he kicked the cooling corpse out of the way and called up the current patient list, it did not take long to find her assigned ward.

Turning towards the stairwell, he waved his hand at two rapidly approaching security guards, guards that found themselves hurled backwards, the lucky one smashed through a thick synth-glass window, while the other hung finished up embedded in the solid wall, his life extinguished from the crushed body.

Four floors up, Adriarnna watched along with everyone else as security guards rushed past the entrance of the recovery ward while multiple cryptic announcements overlapped each other from the PA system.

The man sitting up in the bed opposite called out as another nurse rushed in. "What's happening, what's with all the noise?"

"Never you mind. You just lay still there."

"I said what's happening? We may be sick but we're not deaf, listen?"

In the distance came the sounds of screaming and shouting. Suddenly a tattoo of blaster shots broke out.

"That's blaster fire! What's happening?" Fear made him shout.

With an exasperated sigh, the nurse hurried over and tried to hush him up; everyone in the ward though heard her too loud words. "I'm not sure, they say a lunatic being moved to lock down broke free of his escorts and is trying to escape through the centre, security are moving to take him down." She snorted in disgusted. "The fool is supposedly claiming we are hiding an escaped slave that belongs to him here."

Adriarnna froze in panic at the words; her stomach lurched and she suddenly felt very strange, she did not look around but she would swear she could feel the accusing stares of everyone turn her way. Her heart thumped painfully in her chest at the words they all heard carried faintly by a distant, barely coherent scream. "Where is she? Bring me that schutta of a slave! Give me that ooga!"

One of the patients laughed. "What the hell is he yelling about? What's an 'ooga'? Is that some new alien species?"

Several very dirty looks silenced the laughing man as the nurse hissed loudly for quiet at him while giving him a truly evil look. "You disgusting fool, everyone knows it's an incredibly offensive term for this." She smacked the crotch of her pants. The man's face coloured and he muttered several apologies.

Black despair fell over Adriarnna at that first sound of Vreetan's voice. Another series of shots rang out, closer this time. Looking slowly around she saw the fear she felt reflected in the faces and postures of others.

"Come out; come out where ever you are slave. Answer me schutta! What did you do to Kalon, schutta? Who do you really work for bitch? I'm coming for you bitch, I'm coming and you're going to answer me."

Each word sounded closer. A nurse peeking out the doorway to the ward screamed as a humming red blade suddenly erupted from her back as a dark shadow stepped slowly into the room.

"Ah, there you are schutta. I warned you bitch. I warned you so many times to answer immediately when I call. Now it seems you have answers I want, answers you are going to give."

Like many others in the ward Adriarnna opened her mouth to scream, unlike the others something invisible gripped her throat and squeezed hard. Her air cut off and all she could do was gag as that same invisible grip ripped her from the bed to slam against the wall. Tiny lights danced in her vision as the sound of the other patients screaming reached her from far away.

"So, schutta, how did you do it, eh? How did you kill Kalon? Wait, wait, what am I saying. You could no more kill Kalon than any of these other peons. No, you must have lured him to where the real killer waited. Who was it, who killed my apprentice? Well, answer me damn it."

She found herself shaken violently from side to side, the invisible grip on her throat making breathing, let alone speech, difficult. Desperately she tried to make a sound, any sound.

"You disappoint me slave, this could have been so easy, I ask the questions and you answer them, but you refuse to speak, for this I will have to punish you. You will not enjoy this, but I know I will."

Abruptly she found herself hurled the full length of the ward, sailing high over the heads of those cowering on or under their beds below. The impact tore a primal scream of fear and pain from her throat as her recently mended ribs and shoulder shattered again from contact of the solid wall. Fear and hate boiled up from deep within, the pain fuelled them both. Looking up she watched in a whirling haze as Vreetan slowly advanced upon her, an expression of malevolent joy spread across his face. Determination rose within her, determination to live, to escape and determination to revenge herself upon the evil creature that tormented her. Lights exploded before her eyes, intense colours swirled and swooped and she screamed as everything changed. A red mist dropped across her vision like a veil.

With a shriek of tortured steel, a buried support beam was torn partway from its anchors by some unseen force from within the wall as a monitoring instrument flashed across the room heading straight towards Vreetan, only the exceptional reactions of a trained Sith saved him from having his head crushed.

"Who did that? Come on out you coward and face me like a Sith, not like some snivelling Republic scum." The objects covering a table shot towards him, he easily smashed them away with a sweep of his red bladed dark sabre.

Meanwhile Adriarnna crawled inch by pain filled inch away, her rage and hate growing as the hunger grew within her to hurt Vreetan, to make him suffer as he had made her suffer stoked the flames of hate higher. Each time she looked back, another object flew across the ward towards him. Each time the object moved a little faster, each it move a little more accurately.

An empty diagnostic bed, trailing electrical cables and leaking pipes was ripped noisily from the wall to speed across the ward as another on the opposite side imitated its action. Vreetan blasted one aside with a wave of Force power but the other caught him a glancing blow from behind. He slammed forward to land face down upon the floor a few feet from where she lay. Looking up, he battered a full bedpan away, its contents splattering him.

Adriarnna caught the spinning bed before it crushed a fear-frozen patient; loudly it slammed to the floor in an empty space. Something grabbed her leg and yanked viciously, Adriarnna wailed from a fresh explosion of pain as she found herself flipped over to lay face up. Eyes aglow with an evil red light she glared at Vreetan in undisguised hate and with teeth clenched against the pain made a slashing gesture of her hand.

Vreetan caught the gesture and the corresponding manipulation of the Force. For the first time since laying eyes, his upon her he realised the awful truth as a wave of force power washed over him, a wave he barely managed to deflect around him, and a wave that came from a dumb slave.

Steel groaned as structural beams twisted and flexed. Dust rained down from the ceiling, cement and plaster cracked, shattered and with an ear-deafening clang, a heavy steel girder tore through the false ceiling, as the thick bolts and welds anchoring it in place failed. In the blink of an eye, it sped arrow straight for Vreetan. He rolled but not quite quick, enough as his left arm parted from his body, vanishing through the floor as the heavy girder carried it away. He screamed at the sudden eruption of pain. His glowing yellow eyes fixed upon the steady red that stared back. Slashing his remaining arm sideways, he unleashed a force wave of immense power that flowed from the side straight towards the snarling slave.

Consumed almost entirely by her hate and fear now Adriarnna felt it, a raging torrent of molten emotion flowing through her veins, in her mind's eye she pictured another wave of force that rushed from the opposite side to strike that wave already speeding towards her. Within that rapidly narrowing gap everything, except for one trapped patient who miraculously found himself suddenly laid gently upon the floor at the opposite end the ward, caught between the two colliding waves of force instantly became crushed rubble or twisted, shattered wreckage as with an almighty booming sound the two force waves slammed together. Even as the sound echoed throughout the medical centre slowly fading, the wall beside Adriarnna exploded outward in a shower of dust and concrete fragments as a girder within ripped from its seating with a screech of tortured steel that clawed at already numbed ears. Its twisted lower end a giant tangled ball of metal, it swung up in a great overhead arc with a motion reminiscent of an ancient warrior on some distantly past battlefield. Accelerating through the apex of its arc it came inexorably forward, aimed straight at the rising form of Vreetan.

Too late, he realized as he raised his stunned head; too late did he recognise the danger. Just before it struck, his eyes dropped to blink once in stunned disbelief as his mouth gaped open to scream, abruptly the evil yellow light in his eyes vanished for good. The girder struck on the point of his skull as under the command of gravity and the downward arc of its swing it ploughed through his body.

The booming reverberating sounds of the still shrieking girder striking the floor and burying itself within smothered the sickening sounds begun bare fractions of a second before that expressed the utter ruination committed upon Vreetans soft body. Adriarnna watched, the red glow in her eyes flickering as his skull vanished into the chest before that too disappeared beneath the mass of moving steel and concrete, she had one brief fragmentary glimpse of the wet organic explosion before everything vanished beneath the moving mass of steel and synth-crete into the floor; numb ears never heard the grisly sounds.

Adriarnna panted heavily, her mind replaying those last couple of seconds. Abruptly she vomited all over herself as realization of what she had done washed over her. The broken right arm and shoulder screamed as she rolled her body over slightly to the left and looked down the length of her foul smelling body at the girder imbedded most of the way through the floor. Adrenaline bled off now and the pain came crashing down in one massive wave as her body began shaking hard enough to make her bounce. Blessed darkness claimed her then. She never felt the crack of her head as it struck the floor or the hands of an awed and frightened Arlick as he and the few brave nurses who had stayed to try to protect their patients stepped out from where they cowered behind the nurse's station. One nurse later commented it was a blessed miracle that only the two combatants suffered harmed.

"Holy Sith!" Arlick could not stop himself from exclaiming from his kneeling position as he stared at the destruction, noting the scared but safe patients who all had come through the incident without a single scratch many appearing from behind barriers of twisted beds and equipment. For several long seconds he stared at the tiny area of splattered blood and shredded organic tissue surrounding the bent and buckled girder buried deeply within the floor, he had no idea what he was going to say to Darth Quintus Mardur when he returned. Looking down at the red Twi'lik, he wondered what he would say to Imperial Security, Imperial Intelligence or worst of all the Inquisitors of the Sith Order.

---

As the holographic image faded, Quintus Mardur stared open mouthed at Marianna, who in turn stared back in shock.

Marianna recovered first. "I think, I think the Vxun academy would be a really bad idea now. Druk, if Adriarnna lost it like that at Vxun..."

Cringing at the thought Quintus just nodded. "She swatted him down like a fly."

"What's going to happen to her?"

He shrugged in reply. "Well Security and Intelligence are involved, if Intelligence gets her my guess would be forced training as an assassin or deep cover agent, if Security has her then it's up to the courts unless..."

"Unless what Quintus?"

"Unless I get involved or the Sith, after all a mere slave just took out a ruthless young Sith Lord." He layered heavy sarcasm on the word 'mere'.

"Will they get involved?"

"Almost certainly, but not overtly, no one likes to wave their mistakes in public. Vreetan had obviously lost it and that's something the Sith will not want to draw any more attention to than there has to be, at the same time a slave killing a Sith Lord is something they cannot let go, not without an example being made. My guess is they will move behind the scenes to ensure Security gets her and then throw every charge they can think of or concoct against her. If Intelligence get their hands on her then she'll be whisked away and hidden before the Sith Order can act and the Sith hate any thought at all of some organization like Imperial Intelligence having their hands on a powerful force user."

"So, they'll manufacture an excuse to have her terminated quickly."

"No, that would be far too clean a death for too many of the Sith, no, I suspect they'll arrange something. Probably something like having her sent to the Torture Arenas of Marr or the Blood Pits on Dreshdae." He missed the expression of horror his words evoked in Marianna at first, when he did see it, it was too late to say anything else. "Wherever she gets sent, efforts will be made to ensure she suffers terribly for a long time before dying as painfully as they can arrange it. Marianna. Marianna?"

She stared across the table at him in horror at the cold-blooded way he spoke of the humiliation and brutality that young Adriarnna would most almost certainly face. Then she saw the anger, it lay buried deep within him, but she knew him, knew how to look and read his true feelings. She could see the wheels of his mind spinning.

"You're planning something; I can see it in your eyes. What craziness are you dreaming up now?"

Rising he began pacing the short distance between the bulkheads. Slowly a grin touched his lips. "Do you still maintain contact with your friend from the army? What's his name, Ragar, Rasar, Rampur?"

"Raupan? Yes, he's retired now, runs a small business in Dreshdae, why?"

"Didn't you tell me he knew someone involved in the Blood Pits, a family relation or something?"

Not liking the direction of the conversation, she fixed that look upon him.

"Don't look at me like that."

"Then if you want me to stop, tell me exactly what you have going on in that tiny little space you call a mind?"

He stopped his pacing beside her and cupped her face lovingly. "Do you think if I arrange for the Adriarnna to be sent to the pits on Dreshdae that your friend would take her in, train her, teach her how to fight and more importantly how to survive?"

Now it was her turn to look thoughtful. As he sat, she rose to pace.

"He might but that's going to be one hell of a huge favour we ask of him, he may say no."

"We won't know until you ask."

"Quintus." He paled at the tone of her voice, whether she knew it or not all of her fears of losing him to another screamed out in that tone. "Why are you doing this for a slave, is there... is there something else, some other reason for you to be so involved?"

Moving swiftly he knelt beside her seat, cupping her face, staring into those beautiful glistening purple eyes that were so vulnerable at that very moment. "Yes, there is." Reflexively his grip tightened as she tried to turn away, the tears coming now. Taking a deep breath, he tugged her face back to meet his eyes as he soothingly stroked her red lekku with his other hand. "I look at her and I see our daughter Kiki." The damp hazel eyes opened wide as Marianna erupted into heaving sobs of grief at the mention of their long dead child. Reaching deep into a hidden pocket he pulled out three flat pics from inside and laid them out one by one upon the table. Through it all he kept his wife head buried in his one handed embrace.

"Marianna, look at this and tell me I'm an old fool."

She sniffled and turned to follow his hand as it touch first one picture then a second and finally with an extended finger came to rest on the third.

In the corner of the cabin, a pale ghostly shadow nodded to itself before fading away on the air currents.

---

Imperial Security moved swiftly, taking only two days to prepare a hearing for the red skinned Twi'lik. Darth Mardur could not attend to defend his property as the laws allowed, instead an Advocate from the Sith Order attended at his request. While the Advocate fought a war of words in the closed hearing, the result was a foregone conclusion to all those permitted to attend.

In less than a day, the slave was condemned to the Blood Pits, there to fight for the entertainment of the crowds and cameras of the sporting media that transmitted the spectacle across the Empire, there to stay for a minimum period of ten years or her until her death, whichever came first. As was traditional in such judicial affairs involving slaves the Empire paid the owner of record for the slave the basic market value of the sentenced chattel. Then they turned around and auctioned the slave off to one of the fighting houses that operated the Pits, the only real surprise came at the auction when a small elite fighting house based on Dreshdae purchased the girl, paying more than the larger, better-known houses.

Alrick watched some hours after the sentencing from a distance as the still recovering girl was forcibly marched up a loading ramp and onto the prisoner transport shuttle. He had tried to speak at the hearing but it was obvious neither side cared what he had to say, that the hearing was a sham, a mere formality for a conclusion already selected by others.

He watched as with a whine the shuttle lifted and curved away through the towering spires before shooting up through the sky. He walked away, only stopping to step into a public communications booth.

"The package is on the way."

---

Notes:

Revised 2nd April 2014

Again revised for reasons of flow and vocabulary.