Paneau, capital city of Dalon
Redgrave Apartment
25.7 APC

Though it was already well into the night, Ethan hadn't tired at all, completely captivated by the breathtaking woman laying beside him. His bedroom was dark and quiet, easily amplifying the soft sound of her restful breaths and highlighting her fire-red hair and glowing gray eyes with the subtle ambient light filtering in from the street below. She lay on her stomach with her head turned to him, her eyes lazily content as she in turn gazed at him, and he couldn't imagine a more perfect moment to savor in the silence.

"You're still wide awake," she observed with a careful whisper, a coy smile playing at the corners of her mouth. He brought a hand up to her face, gently brushing her hair from her temple to tuck it behind her ear. Her smile broadened with his touch, mesmerizing him even more. He almost forgot to respond.

"I don't want to miss anything."

She rolled her eyes playfully, her face sinking even further into her pillow. "I can't be that entertaining."

"You're...intriguing."

Curious, she lifted her eyes with her brows furrowed, doubting his claim. He leaned closer to her, leaving barely a breath between them as he continued with quiet intensity.

"There's still so much I don't know about you, Miss Natiyr. You're a mystery. I want you to tell me everything."

She grinned. "You're sorely mistaken. There's not much more to me. I'm as simple as they come."

"I already know that's not true," he laughed lightly, again lost in her eyes. "Come on, humor me. There has to be something you haven't told me yet. I know you've got...two sisters?"

Her expression fell noticeably, making him wince. The disdain in her voice matched the uninterested look on her face. "Twins. Younger by six years. And they're both Jedi Knights now. My parents' pride and joy."

He knew he had to tread lightly. "You don't think your parents are proud of you, too?"

Her gaze locked with his silently for a long moment before she spoke again. "I've done what I can these past few years. You wouldn't understand."

Seeing an opportunity to connect to her more deeply, he took it, despite the fact that he would be divulging incredibly personal information about his past that he had kept closely guarded, even from his closest friends in his squadron. "I think you'd be surprised." He had immediately captured her attention as he had intended, and though he remained somewhat reluctant to share, he settled himself into his pillows, taking a quiet moment to gather his thoughts. "My father was a pilot, too. He was even the commander of the Rallyes for several years before I ever touched a starfighter. It kept him away from home, a lot, mostly when my brother and I were quite young. As I got older...I came to resent him for it. To me, it felt like he had abandoned us, and it was especially hard on my mother. He was killed in action a few years ago, and I...I couldn't even bring myself to come home for his funeral.

"My older brother Aiyden is straight-laced and boring, always has been. I tried to be like him in my teens, but it didn't matter what I did, it didn't matter how much I denied it or how much I distracted myself with anything else I could get my hands on...nothing felt as right to me as sitting in the cockpit of a starfighter." He paused briefly, releasing a slow breath. "My mother begged me not to go, but...I had to. It's all I've known, and it's all I'm capable of. I've hardly talked to her since. She'll give Aiyden anything he wants, but not me. I know where I stand."

Meeting her eyes again, he was slightly surprised to see that such deep understanding and compassion had taken over her entire expression. She slowly lifted her upper body from the bed, supporting herself on her crossed forearms as she spoke softly. "Your mother probably saw a lot of your father in you. She didn't want you to make the same...choices that he did, since they cost him so much. Having to be apart from your family for so long is trying."

"But I don't have a family, at least, not like he did."

Her eyes shimmered with a faint hint of a smile. "Maybe not yet, you don't."

He was already so taken with her, he moved before he realized it, leaning into her and taking her up in a sweet, gentle kiss as he wrapped an arm around her back. She returned his embrace with as much as he gave, moving even closer to him so there was no more space between them in their moment. When he reluctantly pulled back from her, he held her gaze, lightly brushing his fingers over her bare shoulder.

"You are...so unbelievably gorgeous."

She narrowed her eyes with a wry grin. "Did that line work on the other women you've been with?"

Her constant redirects were beginning to form a pattern, he mused. "None of them even come close to you. And those 'other women' at least believed me when I told them something like that."

She again dismissed his compliment with another grin, leading him to the realization that astounded him. "...you really don't see it, do you?"

"See what?"

His voice hardly worked. "How beautiful you are."

She seemed to read his eyes for a long silent moment before she reacted, her cheeks flushing in apparent embarrassment as she looked away from him. He hadn't intended to distress her, but surely someone had told her at least once before at some point in her life; how could she not know that about herself, especially now? Desperate to lighten her mood, he continued on a different tangent. "It's been a few years, but the last time I saw your sisters, they looked a lot like your dad. You, on the other hand...you're the spitting image of your mother."

He appeared to have hit an even deeper nerve as she turned completely away from him, noticeably trembling under his hand that remained on her shoulder. He struggled to recover. "I'm sorry... I honestly didn't mean to upset you. I really did intend it as a compliment." Trying to comfort her, he gently ran his hand down her back, patiently awaiting some kind of response from her. Eventually, she did return to him, but she looked more...afraid than anything. She seemed to be studying him warily, as if trying to determine if she felt comfortable enough to explain herself.

He kept his voice as gentle as possible as he continued stroking her back affectionately. "What is it, Cordira? Come on, you can tell me."

After a modest silence, she shook her head. "You wouldn't believe me."

He held her gaze with intense curiosity and a small, supportive smile, hopefully convincing her that he could be trusted. "Try me."

Another lengthy moment continued as she hesitated, taking in and releasing several shaky breaths for a full minute before she looked away from him once more. He could hardly hear her weak words.

"I am a clone of my mother... That's why I look like her."

Though he certainly wasn't expecting that kind of turn, it made sense, especially considering how touchy of a subject it appeared to be for her. Putting it all together, he carefully responded. "So...you assume that you being a clone of her automatically makes you unattractive?"

She seemed unprepared for his question. "You're not...repulsed by me, now that you know what I am?"

"No, of course not. Why would I be?"

"...I'm a clone of another, older woman. I'm an experiment that wasn't supposed to survive."

"Why would that make you any less of a person? You're living and breathing, aren't you? If anything, I'd say that speaks volumes about the kind of fighter that you are. You may be a clone, but...you truly are unique. I could tell that right away."

Despite appearing to be slightly less upset, she stubbornly remained unconvinced by his assertions. As he picked up her hand and interlocked her fingers with his, he decided to take a different approach to get through to her, hopefully forcing her to process things through another angle. "You said your sisters are twins. Are they identical or fraternal?"

"Identical."

"Describe them to me."

Though she seemed uncertain where his question was taking her, she obliged, tightening her hand around his. "Aruun is...creative, open, free-thinking. She can be flighty and emotional, though, often acting without forethought and reacting with her heart. But Arlen is more about facts and reason than anything, and she is undyingly loyal. She would fight to her last breath for you if she called you a friend."

He nodded, finding it difficult to contain a broadening smile. "Your sisters share the exact same genetic makeup, but you just told me about two very different people. You and your mother might be the same person genetically, but you didn't grow up with the same experiences that she did. You were shaped into someone else entirely. You are not your mother, Cordira, and you don't have to be. You are your own amazing, beautiful person...a person that I'm beginning to think...I've fallen in love with..."

Though he knew she was still breathing, she remained completely motionless, her eyes intensely fixed on his. Her expression was...perplexed, yet almost blank, to the point where he wasn't sure if she had heard anything of what he'd said. Had he gone too far, too quickly? It was uncharted territory for him, as well, since he had typically been on the receiving end of such a statement...

"...you really mean that."

Her words were more of a statement than a question, but it was her tone that confused him. "I do. You sound like you're surprised."

Her eyes softened with remorse. "As far back as I can remember, I've been able to...read people. I can feel when their words have the wrong meaning or no meaning at all behind them. My family, and my closest friends...none of them have ever been completely honest with me when it's mattered the most. Some of them have even lied to me, to my face, for years. But you...you've meant everything you've said."

Leaning closely into her once more, he held even more tightly to her hand, keeping his voice soft. "I would never have a reason to lie to you. You deserve better than that."

With only a moment's hesitation, she returned to him a gentle, yet passionate kiss that he had no intention of ending for the rest of the night.

Startled awake by a sudden, chilling shriek, Wil Rys'tihn sat up from his makeshift bed on the floor and looked around, unsure what he was seeing. Sleep was immediately gone from his mind, instantly alert as he took in the panicked chaos that was unfolding within the large room, and as he stood up, he was relieved to see Eger Jax rapidly approaching him.

"Eger, what's going on!"

"I don't know," Eger answered with concern as he stepped up to Wil, turning his back to him as he continued to watch the others scrambling on the opposite side of the room. "The guards have started to grab random people and take them away. Stay behind me so they don't see you."

"What? No, Eger, don't hide me. They've already seen me. We need to blend in with everyone else so we won't be targeted."

Eger shook his head decisively, stretching out his arm to keep Wil behind him. "Sorry, but I'm not going to let you take that chance."

Before Wil could protest further, a pair of Trandoshan guards quickly made their way toward them at the back of the room, wasting little time in singling them out and leveling their blasters at Eger directly. A third Nagai wordlessly stepped around the other two and grabbed Wil by the arm, despite Eger's attempt to block him.

"The boy comes with us," the Nagai stated with dark authority, pulling Wil away forcefully. Despite the two blasters trained on him, Eger stepped forward to again defend him.

"No, let him stay! Take me instead."

Reacting faster than Wil expected, the Nagai whirled around in a blur and struck Eger hard across the face with the grip of his hefty blaster, sending the older man to the floor just as swiftly. It was the first act of violence the guards had used against their captives, and Wil could feel the collective fear emanating from each person intensifying with each moment that Eger remained motionless in a heap. The Nagai resumed his grip on Wil's arm and dragged him through the parted crowd toward the room's only exit with the two Trandoshans leading the way, menacing the already terrified people by sweeping their blasters' aim about them. Though he worried for Eger, forced to leave him behind without knowing his condition, Wil somehow maintained a neutral expression for his fellow prisoners as the Nagai shoved him through the door.

Seeing the hallway for the first time since being placed in confinement more than four weeks prior, Wil made sure to furtively study every detail of his surroundings as the Nagai ushered him ahead. He desperately hoped something would give him a clue as to where they had been taken, or maybe even spark an idea for an escape later -

A sharp, intense pain in the back of his head suddenly sent him flying forward, landing him face down on the cold, durasteel floor. His vision blurred to the point of being completely useless, and in a state of waning lucidity, he hardly felt the two pairs of hands that had picked him up by both arms and dragged him for what registered as only a few brief moments. He felt the hands release him carelessly and he collapsed onto the floor once more, laying in place until he could get a handle on the agonizing headache he was left with. Finally able to force his eyes to cooperate, he opened them as he slowly raised himself up, carefully looking around.

He had been locked alone inside a small, dimly lit room that was empty save for a bench in the middle of it. There were no windows, no visible control panels, no surveillance cams, and like the room he had just been taken from, one door was the only way in and out. In all the time he had spent as these pirates' captive, he had always gotten the feeling that they'd been stashed away in a massive complex, like an abandoned military outpost or similar structure. He felt a faint humming vibration under his feet in this new room, though, casting doubt on his previous assumptions. Either he had been moved closer to a large generator of some kind, or he had been transferred to a starship while he was partially incapacitated. He suspected he was being intentionally confused, but he could garner no further information from the walls around him, and it frustrated him.

What would his Uncle Cade or his brother Malin do in this situation? He could position himself beside the door and take his visitors by force whenever they came, fighting his way out as far as he could go, but that was an extremely risky gambit with the little intel he had managed to gather. If there was an accessible control panel, he could rewire it to open the door on his command, but he was apparently locked in from the outside. With such limited options, he would have to wait to act until a more favorable opportunity presented itself; he only hoped he had the patience to endure it.

Though he was still somewhat lightheaded from the blow he had taken from behind, he slowly paced the perimeter of the room, running his fingertips along the wall to find any imperfections that might indicate a hidden panel. He listened intently for any new sounds, but the low, droning hum was only eclipsed by his footsteps as he walked, making him sigh. Whatever the equipment producing the noise was, it had to be quite powerful, yet he couldn't identify it. What were these pirates up to?

After some time, the door behind him swept open with a heavy click, and Wil turned to watch the same Trandoshans and Nagai step inside warily, their blasters raised in warning. They said nothing as they studied him, and when Wil remained in place for several tense moments, they moved aside to allow in an older woman. She was slight with angular features and long, silvery hair, but it was her impersonal, piercing gaze that put Wil on edge. Though she looked like she was unarmed, she seemed to be in command, and her three guards even seemed slightly anxious in her presence. Wil chose to maintain silence as he waited, unsure just who he was up against.

The woman smiled after a brief hesitation, looking Wil up and down. "My, my...you're awfully young." Without a response from him, she stepped closer, calmly clasping her hands together in front of her. "I thought that for sure I would have more success with some of your older companions, since I waited out their resolve these past few weeks, but perhaps I should have started with you." She turned one palm upward and held it forward, revealing a small holoprojector that she activated with a button.

"I'm looking for someone," she continued plainly, watching him closely for his reaction. "I need to know if you can assist me."

Despite the control he desperately attempted to exert over his expression, he looked at the hologram floating in the woman's hand and instantly recognized the subject, resulting in the subtlest flinch that gave him away. A dark smile returned to her lips, sending a chill down his spine.

"Finally," she breathed, vindicated. She turned to her guards, giving the Trandoshans an order. "Bring his friend in here. We have some things to discuss."