Star Wars: Lode Star: Shattered Souls

by Immortalkaos80

1st in a series. The galaxy stands on the brink of ruin. The NJO and the GA wage a colossal war with each other to prevent an unspeakable vision of the galaxy enslaved under tyranny more monstrous than even Palpatine's from becoming a reality. But an even greater darkness looms, the harbinger of the worst darkness the galaxy has ever known, and nothing is as it seems.

10. Chapter 10

AN: Reader request. Please R&R. Also, please answer a question...do you want to see ALL of the mysterious woman's memories or would that bore everyone?

Star Wars: Lodestar

Shattered Souls

CHAPTER 10

Luke had lost all track of time. He could have been in the meld for moments or years, though inside of it, awash in the memories of a woman he was already growing to know but had not yet met, it felt as though he were living every moment in real-time with baited breath. It was only his great practiced skill that allowed him to keep the meld stable, to keep Cilghal and Tekli separate and the wall he had built to shield he and the woman's primal portion of her mind as they worked. Had it been anyone else, they would have certainly been consumed by it.

The young Jedi left Tython without delay, despite her exhaustion, sent ahead by Master Orgus who stayed behind to tend to some remaining business, to assess the situation on Coruscant. She reported to the orbital station above Tython and caught a VIP transport, a Wanderer-class which was a converted Thranta-class corvette stripped of the bulk of its weaponry, booked for her by the Grand Master herself, which had stopped for refuel on the way directly to Coruscant.

Luke was somewhat disappointed that the young woman had gotten no respite after the war on Tython, not even a day, for even a Jedi, even one as talented and strong in the Force as the young woman was, needed some time to catch their breath and recoup. But he took some solace that she would at least have the days or hours, though he sensed it would be the latter, aboard the transport ship to rest before she was pitched into whatever awaited her on Coruscant that had Master Kiwiks so guarded and worried.

That however was not to be.

No sooner had the young woman and T7 gotten settled in the passengers' lounge than she was approached by a Twi'lek woman wondering if, since she was a Jedi, any of the ship's personell had contacted her. When the young woman asked why the ship's crew would have any reason to contact her when she was a passenger just like the Twi'lek was, the Twi'lek woman expressed that she had heard rumors that the Esseles was being followed by an Imperial warship…despite the Treaty of Coruscant strictly forbidding it. Alarmed by the thought but certain that if there was an Imperial Warship following them that the crew would have alerted the passengers to get to safety the young woman began to say as much only to have her danger sense go off the instant before the klaxon began blaring.

The ship was under attack. Turbolaser fire rocked the ship, tearing through the transport's inadequate shields and sending everyone to the deck plates. The laser fire was followed by the ominous hollow bang of boarding capsules puncturing the hull, even as the doors to the lounge leading to the rest of the ship were blasted open.

The young woman was quick to react, ordering the passengers to get back. She raced with T7 for the blasted doors and the bridge. The crew of a civilian transport would need all the help they could get under assault by an Imperial warship. She ran headlong into the first batch of boarders, Imperial Pacification Droids.

She and T7 battled their way through them, clearing the corridor and then herded, or carried the unarmed crew—those that weren't dead-stranded there back to the passenger lounge to safety. Then she turned back and headed for the bridge, taking the nearest turbolift to the command deck even as the transport was mercilessly pummeled by turbolaser fire.

She reached it only to find the Captain dead, killed by an exploding console and the First Officer in a panic because weapons, comms, the engines and hyperdrive were offline, shields were gone and the warship had them in a tractor beam. They were dead in space. She managed to get the panicking First Officer calmed down and thinking again when the Imperial ship hailed them.

It was a Grand Moff Richas Kilran—a man the young woman recognized as being better known in the Republic as the 'Butcher of Coruscant' for his brutal and cruel violence during its sacking ten years before. He demanded they surrender and that they attempt no resistance and then demanded that they surrender a 'known Anti-Imperial terrorist and seditionist' named Ambassador Vyn Asara. The Empire would label a Republic Ambassador a terrorist. But the First Officer claimed to have no idea who Kilran was talking about and the crew manifest proved he was telling the truth. However, Kilran admitted that he already had Imperial spies onboard the ship and they had confirmed she was on board and to stand aside as Imperial Soldiers boarded the Esseles via the primary airlock—or be killed.

But the young woman knew even that was no promise of safety—even if they identified and handed over this mysterious Ambassador—Kilran wasn't called 'The Butcher of Coruscant' for nothing, he was famous for never leaving survivors. He'd take the Ambassador and then kill them all anyway. So, she asked the First Officer to get to work getting their systems back on line while she dealt with the boarders. He agreed saying he'd send their security team—small though it was—to meet her there and she headed for the primary airlock.

At the airlock she was greet by a lone Mon Calamarian Commader named Narlock and three untried Republic Privates but together they faced down the invading Imperials and secured the airlock. Only for the Twi'lek that the young woman has spoken to just before the attack to come running in to tell them the attack on the airlock had been a distraction to give Kilran time to get a group of Mandalorians onboard who had triggered the ship's security lockdown and taken the bridge, cutting them off and removing any chance they had unless they could get past the Mandalorians…and the lockdown.

She also revealed that she was Ambassador Asara, wanted by the Imperials for simply doing her job as a diplomat, traveling to worlds previously seceded to the Empire during the Treaty of Coruscant and trying to convince them to come back to the Republic—which was in and of itself a violation of the Treaty. She'd been traveling under an assumed name for security purposes. That had worked out well.

There was no way out but to retake the bridge. So the group worked out a plan. Commander Narlock and his men would create a distraction to keep the Imperials from realizing that the young woman was heading for engineering to gain the aid of the ship's engineer to get past the security lockdown. Ambassador Asara—who had come armed with a borrowed blaster-would stay with Narlock until the young woman had cleared a path and then join her in engineering.

The plan decided, the young woman and T7 made their way to engineering, battling their way through more Imperial boarders to reach it only to find the engineer and his team locked behind a security shield, which had descended to protect the engines from sabotage when the lockdown was triggered. They were trapped inside giving them only two ways to bypass the lockdown. Either shut down all the secondary power conduits to cut the power to the bridge and the lockdown—which would take time they might not have since Commander Narlock and his men were being overrun and the Mandalorians might kill the command crew before they could do it or initiate a reactor reset—which would vent the engineering compartment, killing the engineer and his team—but be quicker.

Ambassador Asara-who had made it down to join the young woman, voted to reset the reactor. In angry appall the young woman had declared they were not killing innocent people when there was an alternative. The Ambassador had relented, reluctantly, but hinting that the young woman's hesitance to sacrifice the few for the many was going to get them all killed. But the young woman held to her convictions—reminding the Ambassador that they were trying to save lives not take them and that they could have just as easily sacrificed her to the same end as she was demanding the young woman sacrifice the engineer and his team but hadn't. The Ambassador promptly shut up and the young woman headed out to disable the secondary conduits.

It was hard going and the young woman was faced with wave after wave of Imperials as she navigated through three decks, often forced the climb the turbolift shafts to get where she needed to be because they had sabotaged them and Force levitating T7 up behind her, but she managed it holding off the well armed, well trained and merciless Imperials while T7 shut down the conduits one by one.

She returned to engineering and reported her success to Ambassador Asara's astonishment. And then—just a little bit spitefully—pointed out that the alternative worked, forcing the Ambassador to admit she had been wrong and apologize. Then, saying nothing more of the Amabassador's willingness to sacrifice others to save her own skin and the lockdown broken Asara went to help Commander Narlock create a second diversion to kept the remaining Imperials busy while the young woman went to face the Mandalorians on the bridge.

She was assailed by a horde of Mandalorians the instant she hit the command deck whose most ardent desire in life seemed to be to either blast the Jedi full of holes or incinerate her with their trademark flame throwers. Hitting a moving target, moving with Force Speed and that never moved on only one plan, utilizing Force Leap to go up and over, proved to be a challenge for them, to say nothing of defending against an expertly wielded lightsaber.

It wasn't easy and she got more than a little scorched but she made it through the Mandalorians to the bridge where she was met by their leader, a huge brute of a man named Ironfist—who was holding the command crew captive and bound-he mockingly clapped to congratulate her for making it that far. She was a sight, in charred robes, covered in sweat and soot. But the worst mistake an enemy could make was to underestimate a Jedi.

She asked him to surrender, telling him she didn't want to hurt him or his men and meant it. But the Mandalorian only laughed and said she'd have to be crazy to think she could take them all out alone much less him—the undefeated Mandalorian warrior and then ordered his men to vape her.

Forced to fight, she took down Mandalorians until it was down to only her and Ironfist. It seemed that the two were matched in combat and Luke worried that with her flagging already exhausted from Tython and now the attack on the ship that the Mandalorian would kill her.

Ironfist, seeing that the standard fare of blasters and flame throwers hadn't stopped the Jedi resorted to dirty tactics…rocket launchers. The young woman was forced to spend her energy dodging the almost enescapable missles. Had she been anything but a Jedi she'd have been blasted into tiny pieces already. Evading the rockets but unable to get near enough to strike at the Mandalorian and knowing she was losing her strength, not even a Jedi could hold out forever, she got fed up. And stopped fighting.

Luke felt a flutter of panic in his throat. She simply stood there and let the laughing Mandalorian fire at her, confident in her demise. But at the last second, as the missles shot straight for her, she grabbed the rockets with the Force and sent them hurtling back the way they had come. Ironfist went wide-eyed in shock and tried to dodge but he was no Jedi and his own rockets blasted him into oblivion.

Luke mentally gave a whoop of triumph, feeling something of his old youthful exuberance at the unorthodox victory.

The young woman shuffled wearily over to the captured crew, who were cheering and crying out in amazement as she removed their binders, wearily waving off their praise. Ambassador Asara and Commander Narlock arrived, now that the bridge was safe and demanded to know if there were any spare shuttles in the hangar bay. It took the woman a moment to figure out why, tired as she was, but then she realized. They'd retaken the ship, they had the engines and hyperdrive back on line…but they were still locked in the warship's tractor beam and the only way to disable it was to go there and disable it.

She winced and Luke felt sorry for her. She was worn to a thread and the worst was yet to come. And again he fervently wished he was there to help her.

The woman's only response to the situation was a tired and exasperated, "The tractor beam. Why not? We've been fighting insane odds all along, no sense in stopping now."

When it was decided that Ambassador Asara, disguised as nothing more than a Republic trooper would go with the young woman, because she had been onboard an Imperial warship before and knew where the tractor beam controls were located, along with Commander Narlock's three men to hold the hangar bay against Imperial seizure once they got onboard, they moved off to head for the hangar bay but the First Officer asked to speak with the young woman privately. She nodded for Ambassador Asara and Commander Narlock to go on ahead and remained to hear what the First Officer had to say…and was flat disgusted with what he asked of her.

He'd spoken with the engineer and knew what Ambassador Asara had wanted the young woman to do. He thanked her for saving his crew and risking her own life in their place and then said that the only way they could be sure that the Imperials would stop chasing them, even if they got free of the tractor beam, was if they had no reason to chase them. He wanted the young woman to leave Ambassador Asara behind once they got the tractor beam deactivated, going so far as to attempt to bribe her with credits to do it, saying it was only what the Ambassador deserved for attempting to kill his crew to save herself.

The young woman had vehemently refused, saying that is she wouldn't let Asara sacrifice his men she wasn't going to let him sacrifice her either and left the First Officer to think about his shaky morality, wondering aloud whether or not everyone on the ship was trying to toss someone else under a speeder.

The young woman, Asara and Narlock's men, made it alive into the warship's hangar though there was no way to prevent the Imperials from knowing they were coming and they got a little cooked by laser fire on the way over. Once onboard the troopers stayed behind along with Ambassador Asara who would keep in contact with the young woman via comlink, giving her directions to get to the tractor beam controls and would serve as back up if the young woman died in the attempt.

Expectedly, the instant they docked they were assaulted by Imperials as the warship's alarms sounded an intruder alert. But the young woman, exhausted as she was, called on the Force to revitalize her lost stamina and, T7 ever at her side, fought through them to the corridor beyond, following Asara's commed directions to head for engineering deck and that she would have to deactivate the power station before going for the tractor beam controls in the power core.

She and the little droid had to battle through more than thirty, security droids, auto-troopers and two dreadnaught battle droids to even get to the turbolift. Once on the engineering deck they met more resistance in the form of another horde, this time Imperial Troopers, Imperial Officers, more auto troopers and more Dreadnaught Battle Droids between them, the power core and the tractor beam controls.

They fought through them however and disabled the power station… only for the Grand Moff…fully aware of them being on board, decided to greet them by holocom, noting that he was truly impressed and that of all the things he'd ever seen, she topped the list. He mockingly apologized for not being able to greet them in person to which the young woman quipped that she was terribly sorry if she was inconveniencing him and would he prefer if they came back later.

The Grand Moff had laughed apparently amused and said that he had already 'arranged accommodations', that his forces would be along shortly to escort her there and that she would find these far more deadly that she had Ironfist before cutting communication. Resigned, she muttered, 'Here we go again', to T7 and prepared to fight her way through both the forces sent to apprehend her and whatever lay between here and the power core.

The woman's sense of humor was growing on Luke and he would have laughed if he hadn't realized the danger she was in and how utterly exhausted she was.

She was forced to battle through another forty enemies to get to the power core and when she did she was met by a massive ISS-7 Guardian Battledroid the size of an X-Wing guarding the core. Which was suspended over the reactor…with no railings. One misstep and she'd plummet to her death just as Palpatine had the first time. She set T7 to slicing the power consoles for the power core and went to face the huge, deadly, droid drawing on the Force yet again to keep going.

Taking one look at the perilous drop into the reactor the woman decided she really did not want to fight the massive droid where it could hurtle her off to her death with a single well placed shot. So she attacked the droid and then fled back down the ramp to the main deck of the power core room, tricking the droid which was massively armed but not terribly bright, to chase her onto ground of her choosing. There she battled the droid while T7 hurried to slice the power consoles until she managed to back it into a bulkhead, pinning it at her mercy and cut the massive thing into pieces.

Luke was terribly impressed. Sometimes the best way to win a fight wasn't extravagant use of the Force or awe-inspiring lightsaber techniques, sometimes it was just good battle tactics.

In the meantime, T7 had successfully sliced the power consoles and the young woman drudged back up the ramp and disengage the tractor beam, then destroyed it so Kilran couldn't recapture the ship. It provoked Kilran to start taunting her over the warship's intership announcement channel. He calmly told her that this was getting out of hand and she was leaving him precious few options but to kill her even as Ambassador Asara was relaying that the way the young woman had gotten to the power core had been cut off, she'd have to find a different path back to the hangar. And the only other way to get there… was to go through the detention level to the waste collection center, through to the garbage compactor and out it's lower chute to the other side of the maintenance deck.

Luke didn't know if he should laugh at the utter irony of it or cry at the very real danger of being funneled into a trap of crushing death. He was struck by something Callista had once said to him, the Force had a sense of humor.

With a sigh the young woman simply resigned herself to the escape route and headed for the detention level. There she had to battle her way through more Imperial forces and once she got to the waste collection center, drop down into the compactor without breaking something on the long fall, Kilran taunting her all the while to surrender before he did something drastic. She ignored him and used the Force to control her fall, springing when she could from one collection pipe to another until she reached the bottom and then lowered T7 down as well.

The moment they were inside, Kilran activated the compactor. Luke couldn't say he hadn't seen that coming. The young woman and T7 scrambled to reach the lower chute before they were crushed to death. They made it. Barely. The walls of the compactor clanged together just as the young woman's foot cleared the chute.

Kilran announced that she had left him no choice.

She made it out of the chute with T7 and back onto the maintenance deck only to find that she would have to fight her way through more Imperials who had taken control of the hangar deck despite their best efforts to hold the location. She did, exhausted, covered in soot, sweat, blood, bruises and whatever vile things had been in that garbage compactor only find her path into the hangar from this side blocked by ray shields even as the opposite side, the one she'd originally exited the hanger from, was entered by four Imperial Troopers…and a Sith Lord.

Horrified and knowing that the three inexperienced Republic soldiers and Ambassador Asara had zero chance of surviving without her, and that in her present condition their chances weren't much better, she rushed to slice the door controls and disable the ray shields.

But a human, Jedi or not, can only move so fast, do so much. Before she could get the shields down the Sith had Force choked the life out of two of the Republic troopers, skewered another casually through the heart with his lightsaber and had Ambassador Asara suspended in the air, choking her to death with the Force. The ray shield fell and the young woman, calling on every bit of the Force she could draw to her, rushed to save Asara from the hands of the Sith.

Luke despaired but didn't give up hope. The Force was with the young woman but she was running on pure adrenaline and the Sith Lord was fresh and full of power.

"Let her go!" the young woman cried.

"Greetings," the Sith Lord said, unthreatened by her. He dropped Asara, injured but alive and turned to the young woman giving Asara a chance to crawl away to safety. "At last a real live Jedi. How have I looked forward to this. A true Sith cannot go long without a true challenge."

"There is no need for violence. You create a conflict that does not exist. We can settle this matter peacefully," the young woman tried to reason with the Sith.

"To destroy a dangerous enemy, that is the way of a true Sith. I was promised a battle and I will have it. When I carve your heart from your chest your fellow Jedi will sense your defeat, as will my Master," the Sith gloated.

"The Force is life, not death. Give up your hatred. You don't have to continue down the dark path. You can still embrace peace," the young woman said, still trying to reach the Sith.

But Luke could tell she was too spent, that even if she had been aware of what she had done with Bengel she couldn't have replicated it, not here, not now. But he admired her efforts terribly. And though he knew that even if she died, that this was a memory and he was inside her mind in his own time, he was still frightened for her.

This was no simple Dark Jedi who'd gained his knowledge by trial and error, this was a fully trained Sith Lord well versed in the ways of the darkside.

"Peace is a lie! There is only passion and through passion, I gain strength. The power of the darkside is infinite! Are you ready to face oblivion?" the Sith railed.

"I do not fear you. There is no darkness that does not flee from the light," the young woman said. And Luke could feel it, she didn't, she'd given herself over to the Force.

"There will be no fleeing from this fight!" the Sith raged and swung his light saber at her.

She blocked it with her own and said sadly, "Then you leave me no choice."

Luke watched the woman brave the Sith Lord and his four troopers, fighting valiantly until both Sith and troopers lay dead around her. Utterly exhausted, she sank to her knees, trying to draw enough strength to get to the shuttle and Asara. But even in her hard won victory over the Sith she would find no respite.

Kilran came over the announcement channel again, to notify her he was charging his main turbolaser batteries again and that in a moment her pathetic ship and her pathetic friends would be nothing but floating space debris.

Somehow, the young woman found the strength to haul herself back to her feet and gather the injured Ambassador up, T7 whirring worriedly behind as they scrambling to get back on the shuttle and return to the Esseles before it was blasted into spacedust. Somehow, she piloted them back to the Esseles hangar deck and somehow, using sheer force of will and a flat refusal to give up born of a stubborn streak the length of the Hydian Way, she made it to the bridge at a dead run with the Ambassador in tow.

When she got there, she begged them to please tell her they'd calculated a hyperjump, any hyperjump, to get them out of there before the turbolaser could fire as she passed the injured Asara off to a medic. Thankfully, they had and as the young woman let herself sag against a bulkhead with relief the First Officer punched the button, hurtling the Esseles into hyperspace a nanosecond before the turbolaser fired.

The First Officer, who had rethought his moral choices, thanked the young woman for saving them all and said they all owed her their lives. He tried to reward her with a collection of credits taken up from the crew but she refused, claiming that it was the Jedi way, that it had been a duty and an honor to have helped them and expressing her sorrow that she hadn't been able to save the three troopers that had gone with her. The First Officer assured her that he didn't blame her for their deaths and that they'd died bravely. She agreed but still wished it had turned out differently.

Asara, now at least able to stand on her own feet and speak, approached and the First Officer, nervously but genuinely, told her he was glad to see she'd made it back safely too. Asara thanked the young woman as well, calling her a hero, which the woman humbly denied. But Asara also warned her that Kilran would not forget what she'd done and he would stop at nothing to get revenge.

The young woman thanked her for the warning and promised that she would watch her back and then wearily retired to her assigned compartment to use the refresher, collapse into a Jedi Healing trance and sleep, leaving the crew to see to the repairs and get them the rest of the way to Coruscant.

Luke felt every ounce of her exhaustion as if it where his own and he was desperately glad that she had finally gotten a respite, even it would be brief, a Jedi Healing trance could do wonders for one even in that short a period of time. But Luke worried that the young woman's arduous trial by fire on Tython and her subsequent trial en route to Coruscant were harbingers of what was to come. The Force had a way of tempering you, setting you on a path that forged a tool of its own making for what was to come and if this was any taste of it…this constant ceaseless battle…he worried for the young woman. He didn't want to see the gentle, empathetic woman cloaked in a warrior's body turned bitter and jaded, broken by strife…and he was concerned at the tendency for her to end up by order or circumstance, fighting her battles alone.

When the young woman finally made it to Coruscant, blessedly without further issue and rejuvenated by her brief time in Healing Trance, it was to find that word of her deeds on Tython and aboard the Esseles had beaten her there. The only solace she had from the whispers of awe and wonder from others was that Courscant was so large and densely populated that as long as no one knew who she was, they didn't bother to treat her any differently than anyone else. But she was still deeply bothered by the hero-worship that had followed her to Coruscant, alarmed by the potential danger it presented for people to see her as a hero capable of accomplishing anything without fail. And she didn't even make it out of the spaceport to see the sweeping majesty of Coruscant's skyscape before she was accosted by politicians—or at least a politician's aide who had been lying in wait for her.

The smarmy and thinly veiled suck up was the aide to the senator of Coruscant Vanara Kayl and he had come with a 'request'. The aide went on with a speech about how Coruscant still suffered in the aftermath of the Sacking with a shattered infrastructure, a booming refugee population and whole sectors of the city descending into anarachy and that all of those things hindered the rebuilding of Coruscant—and all of which were quite probably true—but they were used as nothing but selling points to his real objective. The Senator thought that the young woman was 'specially qualified to deal with a dangerous and urgent threat' and wished to meet with her immediately.

Luke recognized it for exactly what it was. A Senator swooping in to grab a young Jedi inexperienced with dealing with the political maneuvering and schemes of the Senate to subvert the Jedi to serve her interests before the young woman realized she was being used. Luke fervently hoped the wise young woman saw through the ploy.

She didn't quite grasp that she was being baited but she did know her priorities. She told him she was on Coruscant on pressing business and that she was already late but promised to speak with the Senator if the aide cleared it with Master Orgus first. The aide-predictably-insisted that there wasn't time and that she must speak with the Senator's secretary Minister Imogh at the Senate Tower immediately but the young woman wouldn't be pushed. She compromised by telling the aide that she would speak with the Minister and the Senator, but only after she had met with Master Orgus. Annoyed but having little recourse the aide relented and the young woman headed with all speed for her meeting with Master Orgus and Master Kiwiks at the Senate Tower.

Luke privately snickered to himself at the aide's failure to manipulate the young woman even if she hadn't seen through the ploy—yet.

The young woman was however, delayed a few moments more, as she exited the spaceport and caught sight of the breathtaking skyscape of Coruscant in all its glory. The architecture was ancient, and in its way more regal than the Coruscant Luke knew, but it was still most certainly recognizable as the same massive world-city and he didn't blame her a bit for being taken by the sight. It was beautiful. But even as she took in the majesty of Coruscants towers, when she looked down, the many of the wounds of the planet's sacking remained a decade later, black gashes and pit that glared back at her from below. She pulled herself away with some effort and continued on.

She made it to the Senate Tower, gawking like a child at its regal elegance the whole way—to Luke's quiet amusement and pleasure-only to be confronted the moment she got inside by Minister Imogh, Senator Kayl's secretary—who quite promptly blocked her path and que'd up the Senator via portable holocom, notifying the Senator that her 'special appointment' had arrived. She protested, thoroughly irritated and insisting that he was interfering with a Jedi in the course of her duties but was unwilling to offend the Senator directly since technically the Jedi were in the service of the Republic and the Republic was ruled by the Senate. Luke understood her frustration all too well.

The Senator quickly arrived and apologized for her abruptness but that time was a luxury she didn't possess. The young woman didn't miss the irony that the Senator was perfectly willing to rob her of time she didn't possess either as the Senator went on say that Coruscant was being inundated by refugees fleeing Imperial tyranny—many of which had been stranded there since the Sacking-and many of them had taken over the Old Galactic Market Sector, huddling in old warehouses and shops abandoned during the Sacking—and now they refused to leave.

However, if the Senator had hoped to gain the young woman's sympathy she failed miserably. The young woman sympathized with the suffering refugees with nowhere else to go and asked if anything was being done to help them. The Senator insisted that they were trying to but that resources during the rebuilding were stretched thin and that a criminal presence had risen to dominate and exploit the refugees. The Migrant Merchant's Guild, once a political advocacy group for the refugees, had turned over the years into a crime syndicate that had turned their former advocacy into a protection racket holding the refugees hostage to their rule with military grade munitions and attacked Coruscant Security Forces if they dared venture into their territory to stop them, setting fires and rioting. The Senator claimed they were facing an armed insurrection.

The young woman pointed out that Jedi were peacekeepers not police and that she had come on urgent business that she must attend to but the Senator all but held her hostage, trying to convince the young woman to help her. She claimed that the com lines to the sector were jammed, they'd lost contact with their security forces in the sector and the refugees were caught in the crossfire, innocent victims of the brutal criminals.

The last part got her. The Senator obviously had a great deal of experience with Jedi and knew exactly what chords to hit to get her way. The young woman couldn't leave innocents to die, it wasn't the Jedi way and it wasn't her way. Luke didn't blame her when she agreed to help but he was silently cursing the Senator for using such a underhanded ploy and he wondered why the Senator hadn't simply asked Master Orgus for help before now—the fact she'd gone after a politically inexperienced Jedi—made Luke deeply suspicious.

The Senator told her to find her security chief Captain Winborn and he would help, then she'd thanked the young woman and finally let her leave to make her—now even later—meeting with Master Orgus and Master Kiwiks.

She arrived to find Master Orgus, Master Kiwiks, Padawan Kira Carsen, a Republic Mon Calamrian General named Var Suthra and a scientist named Eli Tarnis waiting for her.

Master Orgus dryly pointed out that she was late and the young woman apologized, noting that her ship had been attacked by Imperials and she had been temporarily kidnapped by a Senator on the way there. Master Orgus jokingly said he'd forgive her tardiness—this time and then warned her to be wary of politicians, that even their best intentions often came with a large quantity of self interest and they weren't afraid to forget the niceties of democracy to satisfy that self interest. The young woman promised to remember and then they got down to business.

It seemed the Republic had constructed a planetary scale weapon without consulting the Jedi. Doctor Tarnis insisted that his work barely qualified as a weapon, it was most humane military technology ever developed. A planet prison that with a single activation supercharged the upper atmosphere of a planet, turning it into a planetary sized ion cannon. Any ships attempting to enter or leave the planet would be instant disabled. It was, Doctor Tarnis said, perfect enemy containment without loss of life.

The young woman observed that you couldn't contain the 'enemy' without casualties, even if all the planet prison did was keep ships from leaving or entering the atmosphere there would still be those who would try out of desperation or a misguided belief they could overcome the weapon and that the weapon could just as easily be used to capture and hold a planet for domination as well as defense. Doctor Tarnis was indignant but Master Kiwiks broke in pointing out that regardless of the points for or against the weapon it was far more likely it would be used for violence since Doctor Tarnis had allowed the weapon's design files to be stolen by a bunch of common thugs.

Doctor Tarnis, ever arrogant, brushed off the Jedi Master's concern flippantly stating that he doubted the lot of thugs had the brain capacity to realize what they had and that the files were encrypted in any case. General Var Suthra promised that his people were pursuing every possible lead and Master Orgus asked the General with all due respect that wasn't it time the Jedi got involved and taking control of the situation. He said he and Master Kiwiks needed to speak with the Supreme Chancellor about what had happened he need the young woman out there looking for the design files. Master Kiwiks also advised her Padawan that she would stay to assist since her security expertise might come in handy.

The young woman had readily agreed to her task saying that anything was better than talking to politicians. Master Orgus had smiled calling her a Jedi after his own heart.

Luke couldn't have agreed more.

But any other thought he might have had or the significance of it was lost as a tall dark-skinned man came rushing into the chamber in a hurry, arrowing straight for General Var Suthra.

The man was Agent Galen with the Strategic Information Service, what was Luke realized through the woman that era's Republic Intelligence Service, and he had a lead on the criminals. General Var Suthra directed him to report to the young woman and Kira while he and the Jedi Masters went to speak with the Supreme Chancellor. Leaving Doctor Tarnis with her. Agent Galen switched debriefing gears so smoothly it was impressive.

He reported that thirty-two hours ago the thieves had raided a military storehouse, stealing not only the weapon's design files but supplies and weapons. The young woman was quick to pick up on the correlation to the information she'd gotten from Senator Kayl about the Migrant Merchant's Guild having military grade weaponry. Agent Galen continued reporting that the thieves' leader had slipped up and been caught on security cam. He was a Rodian smuggler named Vistis Garn.

Doctor Tarnis expressed disgust and wondered why alien gangsters would want to raid a military storehouse. The young woman pointed out that they must have known what he was working on to make a strike that specific. Doctor Tarnis had-ever smugly sure of himself—insisted that was impossible and had to be a coincidence. The young woman however, doubted it. So did Luke. The young woman might be inexperienced with politicians but she had a sound strategic mind and she'd learn to handle the politicians in time.

The young woman kept the task set to her by Senator Kayl, to herself, letting Agent Galen tell her about the Guild as though she'd never heard of them and Luke agreed with her. Something wasn't right. Agent Galen expressed the opinion that—armed as they were- the Guild's headquarters would be near impossible for anyone but a Jedi to reach. Doctor Tarnis, suddenly seeming to gather exactly what kind of trouble they were in—decided he need to get some air. Meanwhile the two Jedi decided Kira would stay behind and use Agent Galen fancy SIS security network to distract the thugs to give the young woman some quality time with the smuggler Vistis. The young woman would report via an unjammable implanted comlink—to bypass the problem of jammed communications in the sector-when she had found Vistis.

So, freshly outfitted with a comlink in her skull, the young woman set off, the loyal T7 ever at her side—but Luke noted once again, alone-using the SIS's and the Jedi's authority to commandeer an airtaxi—and headed for the Old Galactic Market sector. Luke knew the area, but by his time, it had become an ancient abandoned network of tunnels below the habitable levels if Coruscant—he wondered if the Sacking was what had proved the area to become the empty and dangerous urban wilderness it was in his time.

When she got there, working her way through the initially civilized area nearest the landing pad, it was to be apprehended by yet another Senator's aide—much to her befuddlement and alarm. How had they known where she was going?

At any rate, the aide revealed that he had come on behalf of Senator Doli-bur Barc who was 'working to restore the Republic'—and wished he could be there among his people in person. The young woman had dryly observed that if the Senator had wanted to be there, he'd be there and politely asked the aide to dispense with the speech and get to his point.

It came down to the Senator believing that to restore the Republic's glory they had to reestablish their technological superiority. The young woman pointed out that they should be seeking superiority but balance. The aide had agreed-entirely missing the point—and the Senator had arranged to receive a shipment of advanced computer ships but that the shipment had been hijacked by the Guild and Republic Security was to afraid to try to retrieve them. The young woman pointed out that Republic Security had a lot on their plate at the moment as did she.

But—ever a compassionate and helpful person-she promised to look into it since she was heading that way anyway but would not promise anything more. The aide had accepted that and asked her to seek out Security Chief Denal-Zon—who had been running the investigation before Republic Security had given up and that he might know where the shipment had been taken to. He prevailed upon her to return the shipment to the Senator's office in the Senate Tower directly when—confident that it wasn't an 'if'—she retrieved it. The young woman thanked him for the information and set off again, working her way deeper into the sector which was surprisingly well kept and civil for something supposedly run by a group of political advocates turned gangster.

Eventually, she ran into Chief Denal-Zon completely by chance. He revealed that there was more to the situation than the Senator or his aid had said. The 'advanced computer chips' were control chips for remote Rylothian Slave Collars—patently illegal in Luke's era or the young woman's. Apparently, the Senator's plan was to use the chips in slave collars to forcibly recruit and keep soldiers for the Republic, there by securing the Republic's 'technological superiority'. The young woman was deeply disgusted and alarmed.

The security chief knew what the Senator had planned but without the control chips as proof he had nothing to take to his superiors to out the Senator's corruption. The young woman promised to retrieve them so that the Senator could be properly prosecuted for his corruption. The Chief had thanked her and she and T7 pressed on. Now she had three missions instead of one. It seemed that the young woman was destined to constantly have more than any one Jedi should have to handle on her shoulders.

While the concourse that separated the landing pad and its adjacent shops and cantinas had been perfectly civilized, all out war waited on the other side. She reached Captain Winborn and his few remaining men, who were pinned down behind barricades on this side of the separation unable to get past the gangster's superior stolen firepower.

The man had never been so happy to see a Jedi in his entire life. He and his men were getting cut to pieces, under armed and not trained to fight an army of killers. The gangsters were smart, organized and obviously trained off world. He was desperate to cut power to the sector, because the gangsters hadn't just taken over the Old Market sector…they were planning to bomb the Senate Tower by hiring slicers to access every network node in the sector in an attempt to take over the automated speeder flight paths to cause thousands of mid-air collisions and rain debris on the Senate Tower like a meteor storm. Things had just gone from dangerous and deeply worrisome to outright crisis. The plan to attack the Senate Tower along with the fact that the gangsters had stolen to plans to the planet prison couldn't be a coincidence, the thugs were planning to take control of the entire city if not the whole planet.

The young woman, thoroughly trained in strategy and a quick study of it in the field, advised Captain Winborn to hold his position and keep the gangsters thinking nothing had changed while she notified Agent Galen to start evacuating the Senate Tower, shut down all travel via the automated speeders and then went to disable the nodes Captain Winborn and his men couldn't reach.

The Captain looked like he might faint in relief and readily volunteered his men to her service. The young woman thanked him, relayed her findings to Agent Galen and plunged into the fray. She pressed back the gangsters, downing at least twenty on her way into the criminal held territory to reach the first node where she kept the thugs busy while T7 locked down the node. She and the little droid had to battle through another thirty gangsters and their droids despite avoiding them when she could to reach and lockdown the remaining two nodes, all the while herding civilians back toward the path she'd already cleared and safety to keep them from being killed in the skirmishing.

In the process of securing the nodes, T7 came across an encrypted message on the hijacked network. Unable to decrypt it themselves and with more pressing matters to tend to now that the danger to the Senate Tower and the speeder network were in hand, she had T7 copy the message and keep it until they could report back to Captain Winborn. Then continued on, heading for the Guild's headquarters, deep in their territory.

When she reached it, she fought her way inside when the thugs refused to stand down, searching the facility for the stolen munitions, the slave collar control chips and the smuggler Vistis Garn. She found all three.

Visits, who appeared to be a coward, was holed up in a storage room cowering behind shelving. When he realized he had been found by a Jedi he didn't give her time ask for his surrender. Instead, he proved his act of cowardice was exactly that, an act. The storage room was rigged with blaster turrets set to a remote. He fell back and activated them, forcing the young woman to battle him and the turrets. She destroyed both turrets and then, when he tried to shoot her point blank with his blaster defeated him by neatly slicing the barrel of the blast clean off. Panicked the smuggler surrendered saying that the Guild wasn't paying him enough to die for them.

The young woman demanded the planet prison design files he'd lifted which he was more than willing to hand over but revealed—in the interest of striking a deal—that the Guild had already decrypted the files and he had already transmitted a copy to his client but he'd only tell her who had hired him if she promised to let him go. Somewhat amused, she agreed to his terms and the smuggler revealed that it was the Black Sun gang—a crime syndicate that still existed in Luke's time and which he had faced off against himself—that had hired the smuggler. He was working both sides and selling the plans to both gangs for double the profit. He didn't know why Black Sun wanted the files and didn't care he was only in it for the credits.

Not able to gain further information from the Rodian, the young woman was true to her word. She let him go—after she mind tricked him into giving up being a smuggler and finding something good to do with his life. The smuggler left mumbling about going home to Nar Shadda and settling down.

Luke was deeply amused and approving of the well played turn about by the young woman.

The young woman commandeered a repulsor sled, loaded up the stolen munitions and the slave collar chips then contacted Agent Galen with her news. He was pleased but refused to discuss it even over the unjammable comm channel because there had been a major security breech back at their location. He urged her to hurry back and he'd get her up to speed.

So with all haste the young woman and T7 hurried to return to the Senate Tower with their retrieved goods, stopping only long enough to deliver the evidence Chief Denal-Zon needed into his hands and to report to Captain Winborn and pass along the encrypted message T7 had discovered on the hijacked network. The Captain decrypted it with an old Guild code Republic Security already knew about and both he and the young woman were shocked to discover that Senator Kayl had created her own crisis and nearly gotten thousands of people killed in the process by taking credits from the Guild as payment for promised housing projects they never received. When she had refused and sent Republic Security to deal with them the Guild had retaliated by raiding the military warehouse and plotting to bomb the Senate Tower.

Was the entire Senate corrupt Luke wondered with chilling concern. Bad enough that half the galaxy was in the hands of the Sith Empire but if the Republic couldn't even count on its own government and the Jedi were foolishly letting themselves be controlled by that government…it didn't bear thinking about. Luke was having second hand flashbacks to what he knew of his Father's time and what it had resulted in. The annihilation of the Jedi Order and the total domination of the Republic by Palpatine and his Empire.

Captain Winborn however was reluctant to deliver the message to the proper authorities for fear of retaliation against him for outing the Republic's most beloved Senator. He wasn't as brave as Chief Denal-Zon. The young woman assured him he didn't have to. She'd have a chat with the Senator herself.

When she and T7 made it back to the Senate Twofer, handing off the recovered munitions to the Military she didn't get more than three meters in the door before she was waylaid—again—by Senator Kayl's secretary Minister Imogh. The young woman had intended to meet with Agent Galen first, the security breech was more urgent, but it seemed she'd have no choice but to address the issue of the Senator's corruption now.

Luke could feel her burst of vehement agitation, borne of genuine annoyance and anger at the corruption she kept encountering in the very soul of the Republic but also borne of growing weariness. She'd just fought through a small army—alone—again and it looked as if the worst was yet to come. Luke remained concerned and distressed by it. The young woman was being thrown hard and fast into ever increasingly convoluted and dangerous (even if it didn't appear so initially) situations.

But true to her nature and her training as a Jedi she calmed herself with little effort as the Minister—oblivious to her awareness of the truth—exuberantly called the Senator to his side. The Senator however was solemn and guarded, dismissing the Minister curtly, leaving her alone with the young woman.

She admitted that Captain Winborn had contacted her and told her about the attack the young woman had thwarted that would have killed thousands—including her. She thanked the young woman for what she had done tersely and then confessed that Captain Winborn had told her that the young woman had the incriminating communication in her possession and that she would like it destroyed. It wasn't a request.

The young woman, to Luke's pride but not his surprise—refused telling the Senator she was a subject to the laws of the Republic as anyone else. The Senator claimed that the young woman was too young, that she didn't understand. She then went on to try and place the blame with the Jedi for withdrawing and leaving Coruscant to rebuild alone—despite the fact that the Republic had blamed the Jedi for the Sacking of Coruscant in the first place and hadn't wanted their help. She went on to say that her opponent in the elections was a vile man who was lazy, stupid and corrupt with no interest in rebuilding only taking from those who had suffered in the wake of the war. She'd had to win—for the good of the Republic—by any means necessary. But her opponent had far richer campaign funders so when the Migrant Merchant's Guild had approached her asking for housing developments and offering her credits to get them—she'd accepted their 'donations' to fund her campaign and beat her opponent and that she wouldn't hesitate to do it again.

Greatly dismayed and disgusted the young woman had countered that the Senator should hear herself, that after everything that had happened she still wouldn't admit to being wrong—even though what she had done had nearly cost thousands of lives when her plan backfired.

The Senator insisted she wasn't wrong, claiming if the young woman had been there when Coruscant was sacked and trillions killed, if she'd seen the poverty and despair—she'd understand insisting she'd stolen from those criminals to rebuild Coruscant for its people and set things right and that she would see the Guild brought to justice but that the young woman held in her hands the power to ensure she succeeded in doing so. She begged the young woman to let her continue 'healing' Coruscant and destroy the recording.

But the young woman would not give in telling the Senator she was wrong and admitting that while she hadn't been on Coruscant when it was sacked she had felt every person killed die and that she had seen the poverty and despair the Senator spoke of in the short time she'd been on Coruscant but advising her that perhaps there were times that the end justified the means but when you built your entire argument of a series of those times—or a willingness to continue to do so—she'd find she had built an entire philosophy of evil. And that other's would only follow her example as the right one—justifying what they did in the name of justice and righteousness—to do evil things. That if she really loved the people of Coruscant she would admit her mistake and let them decide whether or not to forgive her and set an example of repentant good not shameless evil.

The Senator became disgusted with her, refusing to admit what she had done was wrong and saying that the Jedi could think of her if dishonest if she liked but that she was just being a realist but that there was no point in arguing it with someone with outdated ideals that caused more harm than good. But she admitted she couldn't force the young woman to destroy the recording and that she wouldn't make her go public with it. She'd call an emergency meeting in the Senate, tell them the truth and let them decide.

The young woman, trying to reach the belligerent Senator, said it was for the best, that Coruscant would be rebuilt with or without her and promised to help finish the good the Senator had started despite going about it the wrong way.

The Senator had wryly suggested that perhaps the young woman should run for office, promised to see her properly recognized for her heroism in thwarting the attack on the Senate tower—which the young woman insisted wasn't necessary—and bid her farewell.

Luke thought that perhaps, the young woman had gotten through to the Senator after all. The young Jedi was learning, quickly, in more ways than one and more out of sheer necessity than anything else. He just hoped it wasn't too much, too fast.

The young woman—didn't see it at the moment however—she was just relieved that the incident was over and she was no longer being held hostage by Senators when she had a more important mission to worry about. She drew upon the Force to refresh herself, to reenergize her tired body and went to find out what it was Agent Galen was so being so secretive about.

She returned to their meeting room in the Senate Tower, reporting to Agent Galen that she had gotten the files but that the smuggler had transmitted a decrypted copy to the Black Sun. Kira was noticeably absent and she asked about the Padawan's whereabouts as Agent Galen passed the files off to one of his people to go over and find out what they contained.

Agent Galen admitted that Kira was partly why he had wanted the young woman to hurry back so quickly. He told her that while she had been gone kidnappers had grabbed Doctor Tarnis the designer of the prison planet.

Shocked, worried and slightly confused the young woman demanded to know how that could possibly have happened since the Senate Tower was the most secure building on Coruscant and was crawling with guards.

Agent Galen said the guards hadn't stood a chance, the kidnappers knew exactly where to hit them and that Kira had led a security detail in pursuit but the kidnappers split up during the chase. He started to explain more as the young woman grew deeply solemn—realizing the only way the kidnappers could have known where to hit the Senate Tower to capture Doctor Tarnis was if there was a traitor inside the Senate Tower who'd supplied hem with the information—even as Agent Galen's portable holocom went off.

It was Kira and she was obviously in trouble. She had the kidnappers pinned down but they wouldn't surrender, they were taking heavy fire and she didn't know how long she could hold them. That was all they got before the call cut off.

Agent Galen noted that Kira was in over her head.

The young woman barely curbed the desire to snap that, yes she was thanks to him, and wanted to yell at Agent Galen for letting an 18 year old Padawan lead a security detail in pursuit of kidnappers instead of himself but she didn't, it would be vital wasted time. Instead, she demanded to know where Kira had made the call from.

Agent Galen said the signal had come from the spaceport and that the kidnappers were probably trying to take the Doctor offworld. But the young woman—fully aware of the implication—was already out the door, running with Force enhanced speed for the nearest speeder pad and leaving poor T7 wailing miserably behind with Agent Galen.

She swept right past anyone in her way, who scattered with cries of startled alarm, barely registering that a Jedi had just blazed past them and seized the first speeder she could get her hands on—not even slowing down—just hollering back over her shoulder that she needed to borrow it even as she was already zooming away. She proved the Jedi had been fully justified in placing her in the Jedi Starfighter Corp. as she steered the speeder, zipping into, out of, through, over and under the congested traffic of Coruscant's skylines like a crazed hawk-bat at speeds that broke every law in the databank and would have terrified even the most daring podracer out of five years of their life.

Luke felt sorry for anyone unfortunate enough to ever meet her in a space battle, anyone trying to get a target lock on her would have a hell of a time but the starfighter pilot in him itched to try himself against her, to race against her and match his skills to hers.

The young woman didn't even stop when she got to the spaceport, speeding right past the port authorities into the building itself, hurtling down the corridors, dodging bystanders expertly as she reached out with the Force in search of Kira, but the sound of blaster fire would have told her where the Padawan was in any case.

The young woman plunged straight through the open blast doors of the hangar bay from which the blaster fire was coming, assessed the situation with a warrior's trained eye in less than an instant, realized she'd had the luck to come in on the side Kira and the security team were pinned down on, ducked behind makeshift barricades and personal portable blast screens as the kidnappers hammered them from across the hangar and acted.

She pointed the speeder directly at the kidnappers, stood up in midflight and back flipped into a Force leap, letting the speeder keep going as she landed neatly behind Kira. The speeder careened into the kidnappers' barricades and exploded into flames, sending the kidnappers scattering to avoid being caught in the explosion or cooked alive-buying Kira, the young woman and the security detail time to regain their footing and giving them time to formulate a plan while the kidnappers collected themselves in the chaos.

The young Padawan gawked at the young woman. "Nice entrance and just in time," she said in relief. "These guys get points for courage but we're a little outnumbered. There's more than a few trigger happy thugs over there."

"I'd say there's a lot more than 'a few' from the sound of things," the young woman said.

"The kidnappers are threatening to kill Doctor Tarnis. But they might be bluffing. I'm not even sure this bunch have him," Kira added. "We lost the others."

"Have you tried talking to them? Are they open to the possibility of surrender?"

"After that stunt you just pulled? I doubt it. But I tried negotiating with the leader. He shot at me. Very rude." Kira quipped and then looked at the young woman with a frightened desire for guidance hidden behind her bluster. "So how do we handle this?"

"I won't risk them killing Tarnis. Even if they don't have him we have to act as though they do until we know otherwise. We'll do this the hard way."

"Then you shouldn't go in alone. I borrowed a stealth field generator from Agent Galen, makes me practically invisible. I can sneak in first then when you attack I'll take a few thugs by surprise. What do you think?"

"It's a good plan," the young woman agreed. "Suits me just fine."

"Really!?" Kira blinked at her in surprise.

"Yes," the young woman said. "You've made it this far and held your position against bad odds. You're doing well."

"Great!" Kira exclaimed delighted with the encouragement. "Now you see me…" She touched a small device on her belt, grinned and disappeared in a flash of light. "Now you don't."

It was the young woman's turn to blink in surprise, finding it mildly odd to be listening to someone who she couldn't see with her eyes though she could still feel her there through the Force. "I want one of those."

Kira chuckled. "Sorry, there's just the one. I'll get into position and attack on your signal. Let's rescue us a Doctor."

The young woman nodded and ordered the security detail to stay back and guard the exit for any stragglers in case the kidnappers tried to make a break for it on foot. And assaulted the kidnappers from the front. Caught by surprise as they were still trying to collect themselves from the speeder she'd all but thrown at them, the first few went down easily but it didn't stay that way.

The young woman fought through twenty Black Sun thugs before she could get inside, racing up a ramp to the hangar's control deck where she could see more of them holed up behind the lowered shield. She could feel Kira beside her, waiting and ready.

The young woman, sliced through the control deck door controls, disabled the shield and gave an almost imperceptible nod to Kira. Together they raced inside.

The young woman, being the only visible one, was assaulted immediately, three of the thugs rushing her en mass.

Kira force pushed another one across the control room to bounce off the wall into unconsciousness but was immediately struck by blaster fire because she'd given away her position.

"Kira!" the young woman cried in alarm, distracted for an instant in worry over the Padawan's safety and nearly costing the young woman her head as one of the thugs that had rushed her swung at her neck with a vibrosword.

The young woman ducked at the last second and drove the hilt of her lightsaber into the man's gut, knocking the wind out of him then clocked him under the chin on her way back up. He tumbled to the ground out cold and the young woman Force leapt clear of the other two to put herself between the remaining thugs and Kira who she felt through the Force was thankfully unconscious but not wounded. The stealth shield generator had deflected the worst of the blast shorting out and knocking the Padawan unconscious in the process.

The fight was on. The remaining two thugs she'd leapt clear of doubled back and the four on the other side of the room came at her in a mob. Blasters firing and vibrosword swords swinging. Even when the opponent wasn't a Sith, fighting six people at once took skill and wasn't easy but she did it. Only one remained alive at the end and he knelt, clutching his wounded side and glaring at her.

"Jedi scum!" he spat. "I'll kill you!" He vowed viciously, realized he was in no position to kill anyone wounded and disarmed. "Some day."

Behind them, Kira came around and struggled to her feet, shaking off the discharge of the shorted shield. "He sure killed my stealth shield generator," she complained as she came to join the young woman. "Oh well. It was fun while it lasted."

"Are you alright?" the young woman asked the Padawan.

"I'm fine," Kira insisted. "Just a little headache. Isn't team work grand?"

"You did well, Padawan. You handled yourself like a true Jedi, Kira"

"Wait. I want a holo of that so I can play it back for Master Kiwiks," Kira joked and then grew serious. "No sign of Doctor Tarnis though. That kind of puts a damper on things."

"We were the decoys," the remaining thug spat. "Now you'll never see your little Doctor again.

"Is that so?" Kira said, she looked at the young woman. "Give me a minute with this guy. I'll make him talk."

The young woman arched a brow at the Padawan but didn't feel that Kira had any violent intentions toward the thug. She was wary but curious how this bitingly sarcastic Padawan planned to get the thug to reveal the doctor's location. She shrugged and waved her on. "Be my guest. If nothing else this should be entertaining."

"Oh. Thanks for the encouragement," Kira muttered sarcastically. "The thing is we don't need him to talk…when I can just read his mind."

It was all the young woman could do not to laugh aloud as Kira very deliberately and ominously knelt in a meditation position and lowered her head suggestively as the thug went wide-eyed and began to panic.

"What? Stop that! Get out of my head! Get out!" he railed, terrified. "The doctor's in the Black Sun headquarters! Salaar has him! Just leave me alone!"

Kira stood up and the young woman was biting her tongue hard to keep from breaking into gales of laughter.

"Cheap thugs will believe anything," Kira snarked. "I can't read your mind, stupid."

The thug gawked in outrage. "You… you tricked me?"

"Smooth Kira," the young woman admitted and laughed "Very smooth."

It was smooth and dirty and audacious. It reminded Luke, heart-breakingly of something Mara would have pulled. Caustic wit and all. She was impatient and impulsive, more than Mara had been, but she was little more than a child—that would come with time.

"Thank you," Kira said. "I'm here all day."

"Black Sun is a major crime syndicate," the young woman said growing serious again. "Whatever they want with Tarnis, we'd better save him, quickly. You and the security handled things pretty well before I got here. Think you can clean this up? I need to report this to Agent Galen."

Kira blinked in surprise at the young woman again, obviously shocked at the about of trust she was being given. "Really? Yes! You bet we can. You trust me to handle this?"

The young woman smiled at her and it was a beautiful smile. The open, free one Luke had only ever seen her grace Master Orgus with. The one that wasn't tempered by Jedi calm or doctrine—just her. The Padwan's rough charm had disarmed her. "If no one ever let's you do things for yourself, you'll never learn to do them Kira."

Luke knew where that sentiment came from. The young woman's lifetime of being beaten over the head with the non-attachment rule by the Order until she had withdrawn from any attachment at all, a state from which Luke was glad she had finally emerged thanks to Master Orgus and because if it he thought perhaps that she might find a friend—and a balance to her own seriousness—in Kira.

The young woman—relaying what had happened via her com implant en route to Agent Galen-arrived back at the Senate Tower to find Masters Orgus and Kiwiks had returned from their meeting with the Supreme Chancellor along with General Var Suthra and that things had taken a second far graver turn for the worse than a kidnapped imperiled scientist. The group was quietly but strongly involved in a fierce argument.

The design files that had been stolen and retrieved had data not just on the planet prison but on every weapon prototype and research facility, the Republic had. The General was irate. The Republics most powerful experimental weapons—superweapons—and the Black Sun now had access to them. But the young woman was dismayed and deeply disturbed that the Republic had been building caches of superweapons as though this were the Empire not the Republic and hadn't told the Jedi they had them—again. She was also well aware that they should be more concerned not that Black Sun had access to them but why they wanted access to them in the first place. She asked what the prototypes were and why the General hadn't felt the need to enlighten them before now. The General furiously shot back that things were called top secret for a reason.

Master Orgus asked the General—who was an old friend to him—to calm down and pointed out the young woman's question was a fair one but he would have to answer it later, they needed to move now to protect the superweapons from being stolen and used against the Republic with which all the Jedi agreed. The General revealed that the prototypes and their research facilities were located on three off world, hidden bases, armed with minimal defenses so they didn't draw attention and leaving them desperately vulnerable to attack.

Master Orgus decided that he and Master Kiwiks would split up to protect and secure two of the prototypes while Agent Galen took the third. The young woman would get the 'fun' part—rescuing Doctor Tarnis and the copied data files from Black Sun.

Concerned she asked if she should go with them to help secure the weapons instead but Master Orgus insisted that if she dealt with Black Sun now they might not need to secure anything. Master Kiwiks added that her Padawan, Kira, would stay behind to, taking Agent Galen's place as computer expert in case the young woman needed it. Master Orgus warned her that Kira was impulsive but to give her a chance, that he thought they would make a good team. The young woman had replied that they already did, that Kira was a little rough around the edges but she liked her. Master Kiwiks urged her to share her wisdom with Kira and then General Var Suthra escorted the Masters to the spacedock and their ships. Agent Galen stayed behind only long enough to put all his resources at the young woman's disposal, turning over command of his men to her—including a special tactical unit of experience security officers stationed in Black Sun territory. He advised her to seek out the groups commander, Sergeant Nidaljo and promised he'd tell him that she was coming, get Kira plugged into the security network and caught her up on what was going on before he left—laving the young woman free to head for Black Sun territory without delay.

And yet again—Luke noted—leaving her to fight alone until she reached Sergeant Nidaljo.

The young woman left Agent Galen and the Senate Tower, collecting T7 as she did—who adamantly fussed and screeched at her for leaving him behind. Luke could understand some of what the droid was saying but the ancient—and he was ancient having been built 150 years before the young woman's time and never memory wiped, serving a dozen Master's (or partners as the droid preferred to call them) in that time—but he was still learning the droid's antiquated form of binary and so he missed some of what the droid said. But what he didn't miss what the droids fierce loyalty or his absolute and innocent almost childlike devotion to the young woman (he like those she met, was awed by her and seemed to be convinced the young woman could accomplish anything with a wide-eyed idealism)—perhaps she wasn't entirely alone after all. It wasn't the same and the little droid would never understand the depth of loneliness she felt but it was something at least. Luke hoped it would be enough.

The pair didn't get far however before they started being waylaid by half a dozen people in need—at least to their way of thinking—a Jedi's help. Everything from a Senator who reached out to the young woman desperate to understand the maddeningly confusing droid representatives of the Gree Enclave sent to assist in the repair of the city's infrastructure damaged during the sacking to a member of the 'True Republic' movement convinced another Senator was trying to force the Republic to ally with the Empire and they needed a Jedi to steal documents proving it from the Senator's courier droid to an undercover SIS agent that wanted her to help her find out the location that the Black Sun was using to hide hijacked contraband weapons so her cover wouldn't be blown.

All of it the young woman politely refused since she had a far more pressing mission but promised to send aid, relaying it all to the returned and newly security network ensconced Kira at the Senate Tower. The young woman figure if Agent Galen was going to put her in charge of all of his resources, she and Kira might as well use them for something—something that helped people instead of just skulking around gathering information and if the SIS couldn't find the resources for it…it didn't exist.

Luke approved. The young woman was quick on her feet and was already learning to use the resources available to her to do what needed doing without trying to do it all herself—saving her own waning strength for the Doctor's rescue.

But to his disappointment, even that newly acquired talent wasn't enough to spare her. When she got into Black Sun territory it was to find the entire place in chaos—the place was a warzone and she and T7 were dodging blaster fire from the moment they hit the landing pad. The security patrols had given up and abandoned the area—refusing to come back and threatening to mutiny or quit if forced to-leaving the civilians caught in the crossfire to fend for themselves and die in the process—all but one beleaguered and embittered old veteran who should probably have long since retired but refused to give up the fight even if he had given up hope. Alone he had no hope of succeeding and was desperate to stop the Black Sun's sadistic games amidst the fighting.

They were stealing supply crates that the security patrols had—before giving up and fleeing—dropped for the trapped civilians who couldn't even get out to get food the fighting was so heavy—then taking the supplies but putting the crates back where they found them, rigged to explode when a hapless starved civilian tried to open what was supposed to be their saving grace. They left just enough of the crates with a few paltry supplies left in them so the civilians wouldn't know which ones were death traps and which weren't so the desperate civilians would keep trying and taking bets on which of them would get blown up next.

The young woman was so disgusted by it she was nauseous. She knew time was of the essence and she knew what it would cost her in personal reserves—but she couldn't and wouldn't leave the civilians to be slaughtered in the Black Sun's sick games. She promised she would stop them and commended the old officer for at least trying against no-win odds when no one else had. The poor old guy burst into tears he was so grateful and touched and when she told him to get out of there before he got killed he went smiling and hopeful—for the first time in a long time.

The district was a disaster area, fires burned everywhere and the cries of injured and dying civilians filled the air. There were heavily armed gangsters, hunter droids and even snipers everywhere and the place looked more like it had been hit by a strafing run by bombers than an army. And it was an army. No wonder the security patrols had given up.

But the young woman took it all in, drew on her calm center—and leapt into the fray. Luke's heart swelled with pride at her courage and her integrity but he also developed a cold pit of fear for her safety. Again, she was facing an army, alone and against impossible odds just to reach her destination and save countless lives along the way from the Black Sun's sadism.

She and T7 battled their way deeper and deeper into Black Sun territory, fighting one wave after another of Black Sun forces and disabling the rigged supply crates as they went. Luke's breath caught in his throat at one point as two starved children—a brother and sister by the look of them who couldn't have been more than ten years old—approached one of the crates before the young woman could reach it. But the young woman made it to them in time, nearly breaking a leg in her bid to get there and skidding to a stop between them and the crate.

The children—starved as they were—saw only a person intent on keeping them from the food they desperately needed. But the young woman, herded them up, discovering that they were both orphans—their parents killed during the war. They'd been scrounging a living down here since they were barely able to walk. She explained that the supply crates were dangerous and gave them all of the food capsules she possessed, standard equipment for a Jedi, with the full knowledge that she had no idea how long she'd be trapped down there herself—but knowing the capsules would save their lives. Then she stashed them in a safe place, hiding them in a burned out apartment and made them promise to wait for rescue—that she'd send someone for them—relaying the information to Kira even as she said it.

The children were beside themselves with joy and gratitude—no one in all the years they'd been down there had ever offered to help them—they didn't even know what a Jedi was. But the young woman and T7 left them better off than they found them, safe and soon to be plucked from the horror of their lives and placed in the care of those who would ensure they got an education and spent the rest of their childhoods the way children should.

Back into the fray she and the little droid went, the young woman growing steadily more exhausted from the demands of fighting an army single-handedly, drawing on the Force constantly to keep from succumbing to fatigue as well as for combat.

By the time they reached the location of the tactical unit Agent Galen had sent the young woman to find—which was overrun with Black Sun she had to battle through just to get inside—it was to discover Sergeant Nidaljo in the midst of ordering his men to prepare to evacuate the area. They had tried to secure a perimeter around the Black Sun's headquarters in advance of her arriving per Agent Galen's orders but the Black Sun had proved too much for them to handle—they'd lost seven of their number—more than two-thirds of the unit. There was only Sergeant Nidaljo and two others left alive and the Black Sun hadn't suffered a single casualty. The Sergeant was pulling out before they all died.

The young woman told him not to panic, she was there now and she'd help them. But the Sergeant wasn't hearing it. He claimed she had no idea what they'd been up against—never mind she'd just fought an army by herself to get there—and they weren't equipped to fight the Black Sun's contraband military grade weaponry.

Luke began to wonder if there was anyone left in the Republic who hadn't lost all hope but the young woman. It was Palpatine's domination of the galaxy all over again, the Sith Empire didn't have to even try to conquer the half of the galaxy the Republic still—tenuously—held. The lack of hope consumed by despair was doing it for them.

But the young woman had hope enough for them all. She told him if they surrendered now and ran away, his men would have died for nothing. That there was still a Doctor in the Black Sun headquarters waiting to be rescued. Was the Sergeant just going to leave him to die? That this was a moment of truth. Would he give up and run—and let evil win. Or would he stand up and fight? That there was always hope, even if it was small.

Luke felt that strange sensation in the Force again. The same one that she'd used unconsciously in desperation on Bengel Morr and was using just as unconsciously again—reaching out for the Sergeant and his men. What was that?

The Sergeant caved. He reluctantly agreed that he'd go with her but he wouldn't make his last two men. But that didn't matter, they rallied, eagerly even, saying the young woman was right they couldn't give up now and one piped he'd always wanted to fight alongside a Jedi.

Then—together—they planned their raid on the Black Sun headquarters. The unit couldn't get in until the base's security network was disabled, the young woman would take that task and attack from the front while the unit took the back entrance—dividing the Black Sun's forces-and they'd meet in the middle. By the time they'd finished planning the attack, the Sergeant was as eager to help as his men. She'd done it again, turned certain defeat into a fighting chance…into hope.

The raid on the Black Suns' base was hard and fast, an exercise in infantry blitzing as the Black Sun forces scrambled to deal with being attacked on two fronts, by cosmically few but determined assailants.

The young woman made it to the rendezvous point first, disabling the security network by the simple of expedient means of a lightsaber to the innards of the security consoles only to stop dead in her tracks in stricken horror, to find the Black Suns' leader, Salaar, surrounded by guards, in mid…frantic…holocall with…Doctor Tarnis…who wasn't a Doctor. It couldn't be.

"Tarnis, we risked everything for you—stealing those data files, faking your kidnapping—and this is how you repay us?" Salaar railed at the dark robed figure on the holocom pedestal. The young woman felt sick dread turn into a ball of ice in the pit of her stomach. It had all been a trap, a diversion, all of it.

"You were compensated with enough weapons and armor to make Black Sun invincible," the figure with Tarnis's face and voice said unapologetically.

"Invincible?" Salaar cried incredulously. "There's a Jedi carving up my base! This is your fault! We never should have trusted the Sith!"

"If a Jedi has come for you Salaar…," Tarnis—the young woman was no longer in doubt that it was him—said, "…it wasn't my doing."

Luke felt what she was going to do before she did it. He wanted to cry out. To stop her. Again he cursed that he wasn't there, that this wasn't now. That he couldn't help her.

"Tarnis! You traitor!" the young woman yelled in furious betrayal—driven to the edge of exhaustion and too stricken, too shocked, by the discovery of Tarnis' betrayal to keep her presence hidden and stepping forward into the jaws of Salaar and his men. She was incredibly strong in the Force, skilled, talented, a Jedi in every sense of the word—but she was still young—and human. Luke had been no exception at her age. "You won't get away with betraying the Republic, 'Doctor' Tarnis!"

"The name is Lord Tarnis," the revealed Sith condescended. "I've shed that old skin."

Salaar turned to face the young woman, armed and arrogant, sure of his safety surrounded by his guards, as Tarnis went on via the holo.

"I have no time for this nonsense."

A second Black Sun guard slipped up behind her, a blaster to her head. But she didn't flinch, didn't react in fear. She could feel Sergeant Nidaljo and his men approaching through the Force. Tarnis smiled viciously on the holo.

"Finish your pointless battle. Coruscant's fate is already sealed."

The young woman's blood ran cold as Tarnis disconnected the call. He was going to seize the planet prison prototype and use it Coruscant. They'd all be trapped on the surface at the Empire's mercy, unable to escape. Fish in a barrel.

Salaar grinned triumphantly at her as the guard behind her started to pull the trigger. The blaster shot rang out. But it wasn't from the guard. The guard dropped, dead, to reveal Sergeant Nidaljo behind him with his men.

Luke breathed again.

The young woman activated her lightsaber. "Glad you could join the party, Sergeant."

"Wouldn't miss it," he said.

The young woman looked, angry but controlled again, at Salaar. "Care to surrender?"

Salaar snarled. "Kill them all!"

And the fight was on again. The young woman, T7, Sergeant Nidaljo and his men made short work of the over confident Salaar and his guards. After, the young woman drew a long, calming breath struggled through exhaustion, furious betrayal and terror for Coruscant and everyone on it, to face the Sergeant.

"I can't believe it!" the Sergeant exclaimed in exhilaration, unaware of the dire peril the planet was in. "We just took down Salaar! Black Sun won't forget that anytime soon! We lost some good soldiers but this victory gives their deaths meaning!"

"Your men fought bravely. You should be proud," the young woman commended.

"Thank you for leading this mission," the Sergeant said. "Thank you for giving us back hope. Black Sun will have reinforcements here soon. Any sign of the man you came to rescue?"

The young woman took another deep breath, about to tell him what had happened when Kira popped up through the holo com, having sliced the channel.

"There you are! I lost you for a while. Something was interfering with your comm implant. We intercepted Salaar's holo call to Tarnis. I can't believe he's a Sith!" she said alternating from relief to find the young woman alive and fury at their betrayal. Then she grew solemn. "But that's not the worst news. The planet prison prototype here at the lab? It's a fake. Tarnis already stole the real one."

The young woman turned stark white. He wasn't going to do anything. He was doing it. Now. "Trace that holo call. We have to find him!"

"Already on it," Kira promised. "Get back here. And hurry."

"On my way," the young woman promised.

"Sounds like your work has just started," Sergeant Nidaljo said solemnly. "Come on, we'll help you get out of here a little faster than you would alone."

And they did, helping her plow a path through the incoming Black Sun reinforcement forces all the way back to the landing pad.

There she thanked them fervently and they her.

"Keep fighting," she encouraged as she mounted a speeder. "And may the Force be with you."

"We will," he promised. "Good luck, Jedi," Then he and his men saluted her smartly as she departed at break neck speed.