Her trip back happened without incident and she soon met up again with Felix at the base. His eyes lit up when he saw her.

"Hey you're back and with the thermal bore device. I guess we softened "Captain" Valon up for you huh?"

"I'm sure you did" she replied. "I suppose now you're eager to leave this world."

He chuckled. "You got that right. My men are inching closer to the landing pad bit by bit every time I turn around." Then his expression grew serious.

"Thank you for this. I have to say you're uh, really not how I imagined a Jedi to…"

He was interrupted by a sudden beeping from the comm system.

"Sorry, priority call" he said as he went over to holo-terminal. Curious, Kory went over too.

Her eyes widened as a familiar image appeared. It was Valon, alive and completely unharmed. He glared at her.

"You're gonna pay for that insult Jedi. You and the Republic" he said darkly.

"This must be a fake" she said in disbelief. "I know Captain Valon is dead."

Felix checked the control panel. "It doesn't seem like a fake" he said hesitantly, clearly shaken by what he was seeing.

Valon went on, "My boys just found the heat exchanger for every Republic base in this area. I might have ransomed it back before but now its finished, and you all get to freeze." The hologram abruptly vanished.

Felix turned to her. "My men will soon be back from exercise. They can't know that Valon's still alive."

Kory nodded. "I don't like lying to comrades but in this case we have to or they'll mutiny."

"Just what I was thinking" he agreed. "I could take them to pick off White Maw scouting parties, it'd keep them from finding out and build up morale, but if that heat exchanger is destroyed everyone will die!"

"Leave it to me" she said. "I'll keep the heat exchanger safe."

He sighed. "You're a life saver." He took out a data-pad, tapped a few keys and pointed to the screen. "The exchanger is located here, and here's a Republic outpost. We'll use it while we're tracking those scouts. Meet up with us there when the exchanger's safe."

"I will" she reassured him.

"Good luck."


Taking the speeder she had "borrowed" from the pirates, Kory followed Felix's directions and soon arrived at the heat exchanger. She got there just in time to catch a group of White Maw pirates in the act of setting explosives to destroy the building. Navigating her way through the structure she despatched the pirates as quickly and painlessly as she could, and then hurriedly disarmed the explosives.

Just as she finished disarming the final bomb she heard approaching footsteps. She turned, expecting to see White Maw reinforcements, and was surprised to see that the new arrivals were in fact Imperial troopers. There were three soldiers in the white armour of snow-troopers and an engineer. Two of the soldiers were carrying standard blaster rifles but the third was armed with a tech-blade and a carbonite gun. The design of his armour indicated he was their leader.

"Excellent" he said. "In position and right on time. Good to know our spies are earning their pay."

"Now Jedi, our orders are to freeze you in carbonite and bring you in alive, not kill you" he went on. "So kindly surrender now and spare us all a lot of effort."

"That's a very generous offer but I'm afraid I'll have to decline" she replied wryly.

"They told us you'd be stubborn" said the leader. He turned to his men. "Keep her still so I can get a clear shot!"

Kory flung out her arms on either side, sending them all sprawling with a powerful wave of Force energy. Before they could recover she telekinetically pulled the carbonite gun from the leader's hand and sliced the barrel off with a flick of her lightsabre.

The soldiers scrambled to their feet, unsung their rifles and opened fire while their leader drew his blade and rushed to attack. She batted away the bolts and used the Force to hurl the disarmed explosives at them.

Before long the soldiers were defeated, leaving only the engineer. As she shut off her weapon she saw that he was crouching and clutching a wound at his side. She smelled burned flesh. Clearly he had been hit by one of the wildly ricocheting bolts.

"No, please! I'm just an engineer!" he pleaded. "Please don't kill me!"

"Why did you want to capture me alive?" she asked.

"One of our spies told us you'd angered Captain Valon" he replied. "The commandoes planned to use you as bait to lure him out. They needed you to recover the armour Valon stole."

"Why go to so much trouble over some armour?"

"This armour's worth it. It's an advanced prototype we found in a crashed starship and took to our labs. That armour uses built-in nanotechnology to repair itself when damaged. Not only that but it heals any wound the wearer sustains. They just got it working when Valon stole it. That's all I know, I swear!"

She nodded. "All right. You can go."

He tried to stand but collapsed, one hand still on his wound. "Please great Jedi, could you heal me? I'll never make it back to the landing pad in this state."

Kory didn't hesitate. She reached out her hand to the hurt engineer, palm facing him. Just as she had done with the jewel bird on Tython, she let the life-affirming energies of the Force flow through her and then into the engineer. In her mind's eye she saw him being bathed in gold light

A moment later she withdrew her hand. The engineer stood up and stared down at his wound to see it was almost completely gone.

"Thank you Jedi" he said, his voice a mix of gratitude, fear and disbelief. "I won't forget this."

She accepted his thanks with a nod. As he left she thought, so that's Valon's secret.


Kory proceeded to the outpost to meet up with Felix and his men. She arrived to find it under heavy attack by the White Maw. She joined the fray and between them they were able to drive the pirates away.

Felix rolled over the body of an Advozse and looked down at it. He tensed as he heard the sound of a blaster leaving its holster. Slowly and carefully he turned around to find Kree pointing the weapon at his face.

"Those scouts were co-ordinated. They tracked us back here" said Kree, his voice full of anger and bitterness. "Captain Valon's still alive isn't he? You lied to us!" He glared at Kory. "Were you in on this Jedi?"

"I'm sorry for deceiving you" she said sincerely. "But I've found out how Valon keeps surviving. We can…"

"It's too late for that" he yelled. "We're getting out! We're not gonna…"

In a sudden burst of motion Felix struck the gun from his hand and knocked him to the floor with a solid punch.

"Either talk or shoot Private" he said, his voice level as he dusted his hands off. "Trying to do both never ends well."

He turned to Kory. "You're in command Jedi. I keep special punishments for this kind of behaviour."

She shook her head. "He's just scared. Let him off with a warning this time."

He looked down at the Private. "That's forgiveness Kree. You'd better remember it, because if you try a stunt like this again the memory is all you'll have" he said firmly.

"Yes sir" he said as he stood, head lowered.

"But Kree's right" said another soldier. "Nobody can stop Vallon."

"We can" replied Kory.

She explained to them what the engineer had told her. When she had finished Felix got a thoughtful look.

"We did get intel about a hidden Imperial lab close by. There might be some information on this armour there."

"If you knew about this place then why haven't you already shut it down?" she asked.

"We didn't have the numbers. The place is crawling with guards" he replied. "A frontal assault would be costly but we could keep the guards busy while you get inside. Or… we could try to lure them away and get them lost in the snow. It'd be risky but less risky than fighting. It's your call."

"Lure them away. Don't fight unless its unavoidable" she replied.

Feix smiled. "Minimal casualties and a chance to be sneaky. I like it."

He turned to his men. "Get your gear. We're hitting the White Maw and the Empire this time."