Okay guys, here's the next chapter! Sorry if it took a while and if it's choppy and rushed, but I've been busier between this story and studying. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it! And stranglin, thanks for the review again - - this chapter is dedicated to you! Enjoy!

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The bridge that led to the estate spanned a kilometer-deep chasm between two residential complexes, constructed predominantly of fortified transparisteel––a queasy knot pulled itself tighter in Fallon's stomach. He was looking directly down, through the crystalline panels under his boots, and watching the crosshatched rivers of airtraffic course through the duracrete canyons dozens of meters below.

He suddenly found himself feeling grateful––just so incredibly, immensely grateful––of the high rails that hugged either side of the bridge, repelling the ferocious hyperwinds which could have tossed him over the side like a feather in a summer breeze.

The bridge swayed with a heavy gust of wind, and Fallon nervously averted his eyes skyward. He sensed the Commander's approach as she took a place beside him––she must have recognized his anxiety, for a faint smirk now graced her rosy lips.

He caught the expression from the corner of his eye. "I'm just..." he said slowly, "nervous."

"Oh?"

He inclined his head. "About the task at hand."

The Commander looked skeptical, but she nodded anyway, still smirking. "Of course." she said, visibly biting back on the smug light in her eyes. "I see..."

Fallon's jaw clenched, but he said nothing more. One pace ahead of the Commander, Canderous spoke in a low, substantially disgusted voice. "There's the rich bastard..."

Fallon followed the Mandalorian's gaze; at the opposite end of the bridge, which stretched from the docking complex to a pair of doors embedded with stained glass and sleet gravel, a man approached.

He was shorter than even Commander Shan, but by far older, overdressed in expensive clothing, his thinning gray hair stylized in a fashion descried more often in Coruscanti youth. The sunlight focused to perception portions of his face where numerous powders had been applied to at least try to cover up his wrinkles.

Davik Kang certainly did appear to hold himself in an age-range far younger, far more unfledged, than his own.

Fallon frowned, just a bit. "I figured he would have been a couple centuries younger, from what I've heard about him..."

The crime lord strode out swiftly to meet them. "Canderous––" he greeted in a polished, somewhat cordial voice that felt to wrap around everyone on the bridge. "I see you've brought guests with you." Davik swept his beady blue eyes over Fallon, then the Commander. "Most intriguing, if I do say so myself." he said, lifting an eyebrow. "...you usually travel alone."

A new voice broke into the atmosphere. "It's not like you to take on partners, Ordo. You're getting soft."

Fallon looked up, and startled. Before them stood a stout man dressed in a heavy blue overcoat that seemed to swallow him from shoulder down; slapped on his face were goggles so big they almost ate his kriffing head.

Fallon tensed––he hadn't even seen the merc move from the entrance, let alone sensed him.

And just as quickly as the merc had appeared, animosity could be felt curling within Canderous like a hot black smoke.

"Watch yourself, Calo." the Mandalorian growled, his eyes swimming with a fiery light that was surely fledged blazing inside his skull. "You might be the newest kath hound in the pack, but you ain't top dog yet––"

"Enough!" Davik shouted, just a scrape above openly hostile.

Fallon blinked. He watched the crime lord's eyes flash with an almost deadly fulgor, turning cold and hard as snow-dusted cortosis. For a lasting stretch of silence everyone on the bridge became quiet and tense, and Fallon's discomfort only increased when he saw, from the corner of his vision, the Commander's hand brush instinctively past the holster clipped to her belt, wherein her lightsaber rested snug––

Then Davik barked laughter, short...and immensely more nerve-racking than the silence.

The crime lord's presence suddenly softened, mellowing back into a rather pastoral nature. His warm smile, which before had faltered dangerously, gradually thawed away the brittle ice in his eyes and returned. He spread his hands.

"What can I say? I can't have my top two men kill each other––that's not good business, now is it?" he said, a sliver below cheerful, his tone scraping by just a hair above impending violence.

Much to Fallon's surprise, Canderous' head sank, as did Calo's––it was a somewhat humorous, slightly depressing sight to see: either brawny mercenary stare shamefaced down at the transparisteel between their feet, like younglings being reprimanded for a wrongdoing.

Fallon lifted an eyebrow. He glanced at Commander Shan and allowed his own subtle smirk to play on his lips, although the smile shifted indecisively between a 'what in hell' kind of smile, or a 'should we run' type. She merely responded with an inconspicuous shrug, her gray eyes hard as chips of stone.

Davik spoke again. "I'm sure Canderous has an explanation as to why he's not working solo anymore."

Ears pricking, Canderous raised his head and nodded. "This is a special case, Davik. I ran into someone the Exchange might want to recruit. You may have heard something of his exploits already."

Fallon stepped forward, squeezing his hands together behind his back. He stood straighter while Davik examined him, seeming to take several minutes for his mind to register. Around them, the bridge swayed slightly as a gust of wind swept against it––

"Ah, yes––I recognize your companion now!"

Fallon braced himself not to startle when Davik grinned. "The rider who won the big swoop race! Very impressive...as was your display in the rather heated battle afterward."

Fallon forced rather than allowed himself a smile. "Brejek had to learn that double-crossers tend to end up dead."

Davik threw back his head and barked laughter, short, unsettling as a rabid mynock. Fallon shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, but otherwise kept his grin intact.

"An important lesson to learn, no doubt!" Davik chuckled. His grin had widened so far across his cheekbones that Fallon thought his face might split open. "In my line of business I've seen far too many people suffer for not understanding such principles..."

Fallon smiled, painfully, and nodded, clenching his hands behind his back until he felt his knuckles start to sting––

Then the crime lord turned his attention to the Commander instead, his eyes twinkling mischievously with visible lust. Fallon's jaw clenched.

"And this here would be your lovely prize..."

Bastila regarded him coldly; Fallon struggled not to, feeling his blood climb to his ears. And next should be her lightsaber, your face and the floor, you gluttonous, laserbrained slug––

"I wouldn't get too close to her!" he blurted.

A frown touched Davik's brow. The crime lord froze where he stood, looking urgent. "Why not?"

"Because, ah–– " Fallon gave a slightly shaky laugh, racking his brain for anything to say, just to get that pig's eyes off of her. "Because she's got a bad habit of––of biting..."

The crime lord blinked. "Biting––?"

He looked at Fallon uncertainly.

Astonished with even his own stupidity, Fallon only went on nodding. "Um––I'm not quite sure why, either..." he said, "But I get the feeling that the Vulkars' abuse during her captivity may have..." He spread his hands, tapped the side of his head with one tentative finger. "...knocked a few bolts loose, if you know what I mean."

He fought the urge to look at the Commander, and felt something that resembled terminal rage boiling around her presence.

Beside him, Canderous chuckled and shook his head. "I ain't too sure myself, Davik." he sighed, "The crazed shutta actually took a snap at me on the ride here––gods know what could've happened, had we left her behind and she somehow broke loose into the city..."

A frown marred Davik's brow, and a tight grimace plastered itself where a smile tried weakly to develop. His eyes flickered nervously to the Commander, wary––after a moment, a cold, feral smile met his stare directly from her face.

His throat bobbing, the crime lord casually backed away, just a couple steps.

"Well," Davik said, reverting uncouth back to the former topic. "...with the recommendation from Canderous here, and of course a thorough background check, youcould become part of the Exchange."

Satisfied as he watched Davik glance nervously in the Commander's direction, avoiding eye-contact, Fallon grinned and nodded. "Canderous has told me much about the business." he said briskly, clapping the Mandalorian awkwardly on the shoulder.

Canderous fidgeted on contact, uneasy, then nodded. "Many would kill to prove themselves worthy of this honor..." he growled.

At the Mandalorian's emphasis on 'kill', Fallon snapped his hand back, extending it instead toward Davik. "You're offer intrigues me, sir––I look forward to working with you."

"Come with me." Davik sighed, grasping the extended hand in a deathgrip that almost crushed Fallon's fingers. "I'll give you a tour of my operation. I'm sure you'll be impressed."

Fallon barely managed to extract himself from the handshake. "Lead the way, sir." he said sorely, ignoring the pain now jolting through his hand. Davik turned and began to walk toward the gleaming entrance doors, and Fallon fell into step alongside the crime lord, feeling the piercing daggers of Commander Shan's glare driving into his back.

.::.

Carth leaned on the rail of the apartment balcony that overlooked the cityscape, and he gazed out into dusk, unsure of how long he stood there, staring. He was tense. Uneasy.

Worried, even...

An almost overpowering disturbance was gnawing in the back of his mind, some inexplicable fear that chased away reason and speculation and every possible modicum of sleep––already, the minutes of the day were smearing together in a blurry, timeless haze that left him contemplating on only one half of his foggy brain.

At first he'd thought it was just this, lack of sleep, that was bothering him. After all, he hadn't slept since...whenever he'd actually last slept.

But then the disturbance had shifted inside him, welling in a way that crisped his senses and sharpened his nerves, as if nature itself was operating through his earliest, most primal genes and preparing him for some drastic environmental disaster or prodigious change around him. Even now, everything––every gleaming headlight, every wailing siren, every breath of stinking pollution––seemed sharp to him.

Of course, there was one other explanation for his unaccountable trouble: the last time his stay on a world like Taris had sunken into his bones, had been on Telos––

And that was still the nightmare of his every dream's haunting embrace.

But it wasn't what bothered him now. No, as of now he was just stuck with an overwhelming, entirely distressing, nearly overpowering bad feeling...

And he didn't even know why.

Behind him, the Wookie grumbled in his sleep where he was curled into a slumber so deep that Carth had assumed he was hibernating. He'd tried to make conversation with the beast––even though half of the time he couldn't decipher an actual phrase from a heaving, threatening gnarr––but the Wookie wasn't exactly chatty.

Neither was Mission, ever since their little spat in the sewers days ago. Presently, she was inside, her nose buried in toying with her blaster at the workbench or tinkering aftermarket behaviors into the T3 unit, which now had countless auxiliary tools due to both her and Fallon's engineering.

Carth scowled. On thought of that subject, he should tell one of them to fix the droid's behavioral core––something was wrong with the blasted thing; it was broken or faulty, and now the droid's attitude was growing increasingly, almost humanly unpleasant to be around.

Everyone was unpleasant to be around, for that matter...

Ever since the encounter at the Sith base, the kid had become as aphonic as a deaf mute, meanwhile the bloody Jedi only continued to maintain an absolute-silence, slipping out cryptic answers to every single one of his goddamned questions––

Carth heaved a sigh and turned his eyes to the skyline. Twilight was starting to fall, dragging its faded hues out along the gleaming spacescrapers, slipping over the sleek chrome surfaces of airspeeders that clogged the landscape. Kilometers above, Carth could make out, just barely, the tiny dark pinpricks of the Sith fleet, positioned just outside the planet's gravity well––

A frown touched Carth's brow. Did something up there look different?

He'd kept an eye on the blockade every day, ever since they'd been stranded on this gods-forsaken planet, and gradually the fleet chain had burned its position into his memory. Now he could have spotted it with his eyes closed.

Each separate vessel had been arranged so that they interlocked, in a sense––the invisible lengths connecting them hadn't been so centralized, as to allow mobility for emergency jumps. And the ships in higher orbit had been positioned gunward, within a clear open range to vaporize illicit crafts leaving or entering the atmosphere, meanwhile the ships in lower orbit were screened starboard within reach of support carriers, tightened to a mobile barricade across either half of the planet––

But now...

Carth squinted up at the skies, straining until his eyes began to ache. Now the blockade was moving, not away, but––

He felt his blood freeze. They were moving aside...?

From what the Republic starpilot knew about the Sith's, or anyone's, orbital tactics, it appeared to his naked eye that the Sith fleet was preparing for a bombardment.

Carth blinked. "Oh gods..."

.::.

Bastila hovered over his shoulder, her eyes darting from the lit console readout as he input the launch codes, then to the sealed doors behind them, then back again––

Incessantly.

Revan's bare hands stroked the console. The readout at his fingertips sped through an endless list of scrolling rows of numbers. He paused and lifted his hands tentatively, and looked up at her. "Commander?"

"Hmm?"

"You standing over me is profoundly nerve-racking."

Bastila blinked. "Sorry––" she muttered, turning elsewhere, sweeping her eyes out over the blaster-chopped computer surfaces that lined the walls of the room. Her eyes flicked briefly to the bodies of three security guards now lying twisted on the floor. Then she stepped around them and continued pacing.

She knew panicking over the present situation made very close to precisely no sense at all. And yet, she just couldn't shake feeling so anxious––

No matter how she focused her emotions, no matter which or how many Jedi mantras were buzzing along on the inside of her skull, she just couldn't shake this overwhelming, entirely distressing bad feeling...

From the other end of the room, where he stood watch by the door, Canderous looked amused. Bastila's mouth compressed, but otherwise she ignored him.

She continued pacing.

"So Bastila..." Canderous sighed. She could hear the smile in his voice––he was bound to start this sooner or later. "I heard a rumor that the Vulkars captured you without much of a struggle."

She froze where she stood, her temper thawing to the surface and licking fire into her nerves. "How can you actually think this is the right time to pester me like a brainless kriff?"

The Mandalorian shrugged almost innocently. "I just figured that it must have been embarrassing for you, to be bested by a handful of street thugs..."

She took a step toward him, then bit down on her temper. "There were..." she said, "extenuating circumstances. And I can assure you it took far more than just a handful of Vulkars to subdue me."

Still at work with the console, Revan spoke over his shoulder. "Okay––let's not get into this."

Canderous chuckled. "Whatever you say..."

The Mandalorian returned to his watch and remained silent for a small while––three seconds at the longest.

"...all I know is that if we had more Jedi like Bastila fighting against us in the Mandalorian Wars, my side might not have lost."

An angry, fiery void opened up in Bastila's chest––

"Bold talk coming from a broken-down mercenary who was serving at Davik's heel! I'd call you his pet kath hound, but they have enough loyalty not to turn on their masters."

A dangerous light entered the merc's eyes. "Insults?" he said, as if echoing his own thoughts. Then he inclined his head and growled dangerously, "Maybe if your Master had trained your lightsaber to be as quick as your tongue, you could have escaped those Vulkars, you spoiled little Jedi princess––"

"I was not spoiled!" she forced through her teeth, "I was given the same training as anyone else in the Order––"

"Stop it!" Revan twisted around, frustration burning helplessly in his eyes. "You're acting ridiculous, both of you!"

Bastila looked at the former Dark Lord for a moment, then released a heavy breath that unclenched her smoldering nerves. She shook her head, turning her back to Canderous. "Just how long is that code?" she said to Revan.

Eyes fixed on the readout, he shook his head. "Not too long."

"And––?"

He sighed, "And now I'm disabling the Hawk's security systems."

Bastila frowned. "Where did you get the codes for that?"

He mumbled a reply almost inaudibly, "The prisons..." he shrugged, "...downstairs..."

Bastila shook her head. She shook it again. "The prisons?" she echoed indignantly, "And what––one of Davik's prisoners just handed you the codes?"

"No, I freed him first. Then he told me the codes."

Bastila's jaw dropped. She started to speak, but he spoke first.

"Commander, if you're not about to thank me, then you should save your words for later––" he said, turning swiftly away from the console as a grin split crookedly on his face. "Because we're ready to go..."

Of course, by this point Bastila was no longer listening to him. She was no longer aware of the fading sneer planted on Canderous' smug face, or the cocky gleam in Revan's eyes that slowly fell away as he saw whatever black, cryptic fear was hatching behind her own.

By this point, she was no longer in the present.

She was inside her head, rather, trapped––frozen with fear as a flickering, towering front of the dark side swept into the drafts of time, and billowed like roiling smoke into the riptides of the Force, whispering contempt, casting ragged swaths of shadow over every edge in sight and raining down ageless, slithering fear, spreading wide its wings of peril and wrapping itself around––

Until the world was consumed in darkness.

And just as swiftly as the monstrous disturbance had hatched, Bastila was thrown back into the present, shaking where she stood melded to the floor, fear crawling through her bones and seeping in through her skull, opening up a cold, empty void in her chest. Screams of a memory that had yet to happen faded to silence in her head.

"Commander––?"

His voice sounded hoarse, almost so helpless; her head snapped up––

The dragon was half-collapsed on the wall, all wrapped up in shadow. His eyes were raw, and red, and he appeared to be struggling with something deep inside of himself, as if the terror-monster of the darkside that had hatched within the heart of the Force was ripping into his own heart, sinking its poisonous fangs into his soul and dripping fear into his blood. Bastila blinked; the dragon was gone––

A stranger now sagged weakly in the dragon's place, the comlink on his wrist buzzing, maddening, and Bastila started. "You should––" was all she got out before a distant thunder began to roll, not inside her heart but rather outside.

Tremors rocked the floor under her boots, and she looked to the dragon––Revan––

"Are they––?"

As if to answer her stammering question, Carth's voice crackled through the wrist link, confirming exactly what fears were spinning like the galaxy through her mind.

.::.

All throughout the galaxy, all at once, Jedi felt the death of Taris.

As the planet turned slowly around the backscattering of its blue-burst namesake star, fire rained down upon the global city. Thunderbolts burned through atmospheric entry and smashed into the sprawling cityscape below, unleashing enough power to vaporize entire kilometers on impact, leaving the crippled skylines smoking with prayers of desperation and destruction and terror.

Picking herself up from the pain that clawed at her heart and threatened to swallow it forever in darkness, Bastila stumbled almost nervelessly down the quaking corridor. She glanced out a huge arc of window, which was now beginning to crack under stress from the shocking wavefront that sheared across the cityscape, and she nearly choked when she saw the curtain of red rain blasting into the skyline and moving gradually toward the estate––

She shouted to pick up the pace, her own heartbeat spiking, every breath feeling as if her lungs were filled with scalding hot gravel. She breathed into the Force a near inhuman wave of stamina, if only to get Canderous and Revan moving faster.

Almost in the blink of an eye, the gleaming doors to the hangar stood before them––Revan sprinted to the door control, his typically steady hands trembling as fear racked ghost white into his pale face. The doors zipped aside––

And almost the instant they stepped through, parallel doors on the opposite end of the hangar slid into the blast wall, and out stepped two faces who could never have made this situation any easier...

"Well, look who we've got here," Davik shouted, towering beside Calo, a light almost as fiery as the approaching storm burning in his eyes. "thieves in the hangar––"

It was as far as the crime lord came with words, before Bastila's lightsaber snapped to life and whipped through the air like a missile, swinging end over end in emerald arcs that rode on waves of the Force, shooting not for Davik's head, nor Calo's, but rather toward the durasteel support girders that crosshatched the hangar's vaulted ceilings directly above them––

Ushering her will to the Force, the green blade swerved and slashed through the girders.

Barely registering the situation as shrieks of anguished metal cut through the air, Davik scrambled––

He was just a hair too slow as the smoldering, white-edged supports tore free of their collateral beams and came crashing down upon him. The entire hangar thundered. Bastila's lightsaber swung back down, handgrip smacking solidly into her palm just in time to catch the hail of blasterfire that erupted from Calo's pistols, from where he'd managed to dive into clearance outside what was now Davik's makeshift burial shroud.

About ten yards away, the Ebon Hawk dominated the center of the hangar, safe, inviting––her mirror-polished exterior plates gleamed in the blasterfire that chased the trio up the loading ramp. Despite the merc's skill, soon Calo was just barely managing to slip around the bolts batted back his way, meanwhile Bastila could feel the bouts of adrenaline bursting through Revan as he and Canderous scrambled through the Hawk's close-confined passages, scouting out the cockpit.

The ship's repulsorlifts initiated even before the ramp had begun to close, and the sublights roared to life in a blinding wash of electric blue. A few last bolts were squeezed from Calo's blaster, shooting into the ship before the ramp sealed itself closed, and the Ebon Hawk streaked from the mouth of hangar and into the burning sea beyond.

.::.

Carth nearly collapsed when he saw the mirror-polished vessel streak down and scrape alongside the balcony. The ramp's seals hissed and the door descended, and the first face he saw was Fallon's, looking nervous and almost apologetic.

"Sorry for the delay, Commander."

"Save it for later," Carth said as the fellow soldier stepped carefully down the ramp.

Fallon gripped the handles beside the open hatch as wind scoured through his hair and plastered his clothes to his skin. Somewhere behind Carth, Zaalbar moaned, and the starpilot spun around to see the Wookie cradling a core-shocked, immobile Mission toward the railing.

As Fallon pulled the twi'lek girl up the ramp and stowed her away someplace inside the ship, Carth's eyes flickered west, to the approaching storm of red.

Gods, just a mile now. A kriffing mile––

"Go!" he shouted, dashing forward and shoving the shaggy beast with both hands as the Wookie hobbled up the ramp and scrambled through the open hatchway. The instant that second stinking, hairy foot graced the gloom of the ship's interior, Carth sprang atop the rails of the balcony, arms flailing for balance––

NO, no, no, no, no––

Fallon's hand shot out and grasped him just above the elbow. The soldier pulled him onto the ramp with calm-nurtured ease. "Try to watch your step, Commander." he said, following Carth inside the main hold as he struck the button that closed the ramp behind them.

The deck lurched under Carth's boots as the ship shuddered and groaned into motion, and he caught himself on the edge of the holocomm console against one wall. "Who in hell is piloting this ship?" he growled through his teeth.

Fallon nodded in the direction of a narrow shoulder-passage that must have led to the cockpit. "Either Commander Shan or Canderous..." he said absently, kneeling gently to Mission where she was huddled stricken against Zaalbar's shag coat, her face wearing only a ghost of an expression.

Carth sprinted for the passage, pelting through a right-hand corridor and staggering into the cockpit. He breathed in his surroundings. Off on his starboard side, Bastila sat strapped in full crash webbing before the copilot's strip of controls. On the opposite side of the banking partition, a hulking, graying mass of man was hunched over the port dashboard––Carth's stomach nearly heaved when he saw the man's nervous, flustered hands fussing skittishly over the controls.

He dashed forward. "Up and aside, pal," he snapped.

The man took his angry eyes from the controls and glowered up at Carth, clearly ready to argue if need be.

"Just move aside, Canderous!" Bastila hissed through her teeth.

The man named Canderous muttered some Mandalorian-sounding expletive under his breath and stood, gesturing to the empty seat before shoving past Carth. "All yours, ma'am..." he grumbled, shouldering his way out of the cockpit.

Carth sank into the pilot's seat, brushing his fingers along the surface of the controls, feeling their shivers beneath his touch.

"Let's hit the sky 'til we see lines," he mumbled, easing into the thrusters, listening for the contrabass roar of sublights as he swept his gaze out past the tinted canopy, which was already starting to collect the ash and soot drifting up into the atmosphere.

All around them, Taris was burning.

His heart pounding its presence clear beneath his ribcage, Carth spared a brief glance at his comrade over the partition––he couldn't even begin to imagine what pain she must be feeling through the Farce, or the Force...or whatever it was called. But her face remained stony and blank, the only sign of anguish present on her features being the way her mouth was pursed tight, or how her knuckles banded bone-white to the flesh against her grip on the yokes. And for a moment, Carth actually almost felt a pang of humanity surface for the young Jedi.

Then he returned to the present and focused his mind on the situation at hand, fighting the memory of Telos that whispered into his head as he navigated the ship from the gaining storm of fire.

.::.

The Ebon Hawk streaked up into the atmosphere, breaking the clouds and shuddering through the planet's gravity well as dusky skies slid past the canopy and faded to the boundless black trench of stellar infinity. Stepping into the cockpit, Fallon spotted the blockade outside glinting in the starlight.

He'd just made it over the threshold when explosions began to buffet the ship.

Carth fought the yokes as the next round of blasts nearly knocked the Hawk from its trajectory. He glanced down at the scanning readout and cursed. "Incoming fighters!" he warned, then turned his head to Shan. "Any suggestions, Commander?"

Commander Shan's jaw tightened as she swept her eyes over the star charts. "Just...stay on course. Plot a jump for Dantooine––there's a Jedi enclave there where we can find refuge." she said, to Fallon's eye noticeably forcing her voice stay at an even pitch.

She twisted around in her seat, and looked up at him. "Get to the gun turrets. You have to hold those fighters off until we can get the coordinates punched in."

"I–yes, Commander––" he stuttered, stepping back over the threshold and turning, his shoulders catching wedged in the cramped space and nearly throwing the rest of him toppling off balance. He stumbled back into the main hold, disoriented, confused, startled and shaken. He was afraid––no terrified––his turbohammering heart still ripped wide open and bleeding some kind of blind pain that felt strangely distant from fear.

And then he spotted Mission, huddled in a shaking, stricken ball beside Zaalbar––

Afraid...

And the sight ignited a sizzle in his blood––and the sizzle kindled rage in his nerves, turning his confusion into a fiery wash of nuclear flame that swallowed his fear and spat it out as ash, flash-freezing his pain into the voice of a cold, ancient dragon nestled within the sinewy void torn into his heart: a demon of times lost, of memories forgotten––of things cold and broken.

...and not quite dead enough.

And amid his confusion, the dragon began to snarl inside his head, it's eyes as cold as the endless dark wheel of the universe outside, it's voice sounding like the earliest memory he'd made upon exiting the womb and embracing the new light of his new world, feeling like the whispers of the Force that had eaten life alive just quantum moments before the bombardment had begun.

The dragon offered a whisper, wrapping him in a blanket of darkness, and like a warm hand on his shoulder directed him through the unfamiliar corridors of the ship, releasing him with a breath of confidence at what he assumed––no, what he knew––to be the right alcove.

He gripped the ladder with either hand, and he pulled himself up, heaving his body into the compartment as yet another round of hailfire rocked the ship and lit up the breathless maw outside the canopy with strokes of brilliant, blazing fire.

The dragon breathed reassurance, and his legs folded and he sank into the gunner's seat, his hands settling on the cold yokes.

And all at once, in one blazing moment, the dragon slithered deeper inside, morphing into the rage that sank into his bones and melded with the conforms of his body––rage that, no matter how badly he would have liked to fight it, whispered and beckoned, and tugged at every corner of morality within him, burning his nerves raw and yet cooling down them symbiotically, taunting him with every seductive touch.

From his heart a message catapulted itself sleeting to his brain––and clarity blossomed.

Oh, he thought in a voice too calm to be his own, I get it now...

What he felt inside interlocked hands with his own, talons of fire to fingers of flesh...and became a weapon.

Somewhat nervous, he lowered his firewalled nerve to the floor, watching its sink and fold over on itself like a silken curtain as the dragon took control. With vector pedals for feet and scanners for ears and cannons for fists, Fallon closed his human eyes and fired the first shot, and felt the fire erupting from the turret's muzzle, breathing from the maw of the dragon itself.

.::.