Interlude One

The evening mist fell slowly over the forested pass, enveloping my vision in red. I often cursed the enhancements the academy had seen fit to force upon me when they discovered my particular talents, but in this moment I gave a silent thanks to the Sith Lords who had so clearly seen the necessity of such an act.

"Are you fit to continue, or will we have to postpone?" My mentor, Adam, allowed sarcasm to bleed through his tone as he waited crouched beside me. It was impossible to postpone a task assigned to us by any one of the numerous Lords of the Brotherhood of Darkness; doubly so if the Sith in question was as respected amongst the upper echelon of the Brotherhood as our current benefactor was. Even if the thick mist had left me blind, deaf, or otherwise incapacitated, we were expected to find a way to complete our task. We did not live with defeat.

"I'm fine." I gripped Gambol Shroud at my waist to emphasize my point, finger subconsciously stopping before tripping the hairline trigger built into her hilt. He only nodded before turning his head away and focusing to the North.

I passed the time as I had learned to pass the time in the academy: quietly and without moving a muscle. Briefly, I listened to my surroundings to find some way to change my mental routine, settling on the chirps of nearby birds.

One, cresh.

Two, aurek.

Three and Four, esk.

Five, grek.

It wasn't long before I was predicting the next chirp and its corresponding pitch in the conversation taking place throughout the canopy, and after a minute of getting used to the new patterns, my mind began predicting the notes of the bird song in the background, replacing my previous pattern of continuously counting pazzak cards.

Feeling confident that my routine would sufficiently hide me, I began to turn my thoughts to my kit before Adam spoke again.

"Get ready, the train is approaching."

Together, we made our way through the mist to the lip of the cliff and prepared to jump onto the speeding train.

"Are you going to tell me what our task is now?"

"I already told you, routine hit. Jedi knight and any apprentices he has with him."

I knew better than to press the issue with Adam. Our superiors had chosen to keep specific information regarding a task from me before, and although I often did not understand their reasoning, I trusted in their wisdom as I had been trained to do for a decade.

"Thirty seconds."

I reached out to the Force to cloak myself as I felt Adam do the same beside me. There were many differences in the style and method the two of us used to conceal our presence, but the end result was the same. We would be much harder for the Jedi to spot, let alone fight. This was, after all, our purpose in this galaxy.

"Ten seconds."

Adam's voice was distorted by his cloak of darkness. He was invisible to most senses, using the Force to bend the light around him. Combined with our reflexive ability to hide our presence in the force, only those with extremely sharp senses and beings that could filter their vision through frequencies he was silhouetted in would be able to detect him at all.

"I'm ready. I shall follow." My voice was changed as well. It seemed to come out of multiple shimmers; all taking my shape, and all constantly moving in and out of the shadows.

"I lead. We move as one."

With that, Adam and I leapt toward the empty tracks, reaching out to the Force to send us both flying far further than conventionally possible. Just as we began to descend, a silver blur appeared and we touched down silently on top of the fast moving train.

A twitch down Adam's frame and we began running down the length of the train. The wind continually threatened to blow me off the top of the train, but I would not allow it. For the third time today, I called to the Force and pushed myself down with enough continual force to prevent the wind from robbing me of my footing.

After we traveled down five cars, Adam motioned for us to stop and crouch over an access port. It was likely locked, but a subtle wave of Adam's hand had it falling open for us. As one, we drew our blades and dropped into the cabin below.

The first fell by my blade, a simply dressed aqualish who had been sorting cargo. He hadn't even noticed our presence before his head was cleanly removed from his torso. Adam moved at the same time as I did, catching both the head and the body before they would make enough noise to alert the passengers of the train to our presence.

Adam pointed to the door to the rear of the car before moving to the front and slipping out the door. I moved without hesitation toward the back door. It was unlocked, and after passing through the gap between the cars, I crouched before the door to the next car. Although I could feel it was unlocked, I took a moment to reach out through the Force to identify the force sensitives on the other side of the door. There were two. My targets.

In one motion, I was through the door. I a fraction of a second, I had the layout of the cabin. It was small, separated into separate rooms by glazed transparasteel. The two force sensitives were sitting down, facing each other. One, a twi'lek male, had his eyes open; likely a result of my entrance. The other, a young bothan female, had yet to react.

Before the bothan could move, I used the assassin's pistol built into Gambol Shroud to blast a hole in her back. She fell face forward, limp. The twi'lek had jumped to his feet, his lightsaber in his hand. Curiously, he did not charge at me, nor did he use the Force to push me back or pull me forward. The Jedi raised his free hand to lock the transparasteel door of the wall and moved in front of it, his saber raised in a guard.

"You will not succeed here, Sith. Surrender." His voice betrayed his fear. We both knew he would fall here, his words were for the benefit of those behind the wall. I could already see movement through the blurred glass, twelve blades of light appearing of various colors. I took a moment to reach again through the Force and felt them – they were barely there, untrained and unskilled compared to even the weakest Jedi Knight. Thirteen shadows in the Force.

I charged the Jedi guarding the door, waiting until the very last moment to feint back slightly and allow his counterstrike to pass through a shadowy clone before pressing in closer. My movement was fluid and unnatural, honed to perfection after years of practice. A single maneuver had placed me within his guard, and a single twitch sent my blade through his heart. It had been quick. Easy. The Jedi deserved his fate if this had been all the fight he had in him.

I spun to his side as I pulled my blade from his chest, letting his body collapse to the floor. A step placed me before what had once been a door. Now, a single pane of transparasteel stood before me. Whatever the Jedi had done to lock the door, it had certainly done its job. For a moment, I considered that his failure may not have been complete, but those thoughts vanished as I reached again for the Force and pushed.

A blast of force shattered the thin transparasteel wall, revealing the thirteen Force sensitives that I had overlooked on my first search. Thirteen young, scared faces looked up at me as I advanced through the glass.

I paused for the first time in…well…I couldn't remember a time before then. Before this moment, I had always followed orders without question, as was expected of me as an assassin. Here and now, however, I wanted to stop. I wanted to turn around and tell Adam that I'd completed our task.

The oldest stood as tall as she could before me, both hands gripping her training saber in a basic guard.

"Please, let us be! We're just kids!"

"You're just targets." Adam's disembodied voice came from behind me and my reflexes kicked in as I surrendered to my training.

I killed them all.

I murdered them all.

They didn't put up a fight.

That only made it worse.