WHEN Task Force 3 reached the Simbar Cluster, the Bulwark led the starships following it to the Corvus System and paused. After arriving, the Imperial Army troopers Sluka had requisitioned were returned to the Bulwark and the Kuat Drive personnel were relocated into the Corvus orbital shipyard. The capital assets were added to the ever-growing Corvus facilities which included four Imperial Construction modules in addition to the permanent facilities in orbit over the planet. The Executor-class Star Dreadnought, the Bastion, was docked so that its upgrades could begin. Afterward, the Sentinel-class shuttle carrying Agent Sluka and Sal (aka Varina Gisald, daughter to the LAST KING of Adelhoffe), as well as her Alinde Cats gangers and the personnel swept away from the Advanced Weapons Project, headed to the Svobrum system.

On the way, Agent Sluka and Sal discovered the location of the secret to passing through the treacherous stellar phenomena known as the MORKAI ANOMALY. When they translated the text written in the ancient language of the TYTHON TRIBES found in his Father's journal and coupled it with the inscriptions on the Shoto hilt of the Unnamed King, it told them the hiding place of the passage data. The sole King to reach the Anomaly and return had deliberately landed his shuttle on the ocean world of SVOBRUM beneath the Sarastan Sea in order to hide the passage coordinates through the Anomaly and keep them safe while his trusted servant awaited his return onboard the shuttle.

Little did Agent Sluka and Sal suspect, but their shuttle was being FOLLOWED.

Thus begins THE FORCE SETS THE PATH, EPISODE 6 of THE ADVENTURES OF AGENT MALGO SLUKA, ISB…

Outer Rim
Svobrum System
Svobrum
Sarastan Archipelago Resort, property of Janda Financials

The sky was clear and blue overhead as a flock of birds flew out over the ocean. A blue ocean that stretched to the horizon. Agent Sluka and Sal walked side by side down the dock, each wearing a black diving suit which clung to their forms. Agent Sluka's suit conformed to his lean, muscular and angular physique with long limbs. A spear gun was slung over his shoulder and a pack was on his back. As always, Agent Sluka's trusty blaster pistol was on his hip too. Sal's suit revealed her own lean physique with long limbs complemented by the curves of her waist and bosom, a pack on her right hip. Her long hair, once blue and then blonde, had become the red of her picture in the historian's shop and was pulled back over her head, twisted into five long braids that ran down her back.

"Have you charted a boat to take us to the site?" Sal asked in her low voice as she scanned over the water.

"Nope," Agent Sluka answered. "I've done better than that," he added as they reached the end of the dock. Sitting over the edge, and hovering two meters above the water below was a white speeder bike. "I really wanted to use the prototype armored speeder bike that was in Task Force 3's Pod, but the Rebels got it," he said with a laugh. Sal just stared at him as they stood on the edge of the dock. "Officially, we drove the Rebels away from Task Force 3's Pod. They fled with their wounded and a few of the items. We retrieved the remainder and logged it in."

Sal continued to stare at him as they stood there. Can I trust him?

"The Assistant Director tasked with ensuring the safety of the assets in Pod 3, and their removal, hates me and wants to have my superior terminated and me alongside him. Fortunately, I do not play such silly games," Agent Sluka said with no hint of sarcasm. "I arrived two days early because I believed the recurring acts of sabotage being committed by those Rebel scum was a threat to my mission and managed to save some of the assets in her Pod as well as mine." He looked down at her with a smile. "That's what the official forms say anyway."

Sal looked at Agent Sluka for a moment, her white smile vanishing as sadness momentarily flashed on her face. He's locked into serving his superior. Clinging to him like the family he doesn't have, she realized. Can I pull him from it? Sal forced a smile onto her face. "Let's do this," she said.

Together they hopped off the dock and onto the speeder bike, straddling the double seat, with Agent Sluka piloting.

Each put on a pair of goggles and sat down. Sal put her arms around Agent Sluka's waist and leaned up to his shoulder. He quickly engaged the bike's drive and accelerated across the waves, salty air blowing in their faces. Across the shallow ocean they raced, passing schools of fish and swimming crustaceans as well as countless unnamed creatures.

Shortly after beginning, they passed directly over a school of large crustaceans.

One sprang from the waters, barely missing the speeder. Then a second. Then a third. A fourth ejected from the water directly in front of the speeder. Agent Sluka immediately braked and Sal slammed hard into his back. Sal's body shifted and her momentum yanked her away from his side as Agent Sluka whipped around the airborne crustacean, but she held tightly. Agent Sluka laughed out loud and glanced over his shoulder at her. He had a smile. A moment of happiness, she realized. Not the fake bravado he shows all the time. She smiled back at him. "You did that on purpose," she said with a laugh.

"Of course not," Agent Sluka replied.

She reconsidered her conclusion about his bravado Actually, I think only half that bravado is fake, if that much.

Together they raced across the waves. Thirty minutes after leaving the Sarastan Archipelago behind, the bottom of the ocean dropped out from under them. Gone were the countless schools of fish, crustaceans, and other animals. Gone were the flocks of birds hunting the surface. The sky was light blue and clear while the ocean beneath was dark, nearly black. For thirty more minutes they jetted above the waves.

Then, an enormous mouth erupted out of the water beneath them, lunging toward them.

Sal glanced down in shock as its teeth snapped shut just beneath the speeder bike. "What was that?" Agent Sluka screamed over his shoulder at her.

"I don't know," she answered and looked back over her shoulder. A single enormous fin broke the surface. She was able to discern its form beneath the water, a long and dark eel-like shape with a trio of dark shapes trailing from it. Tentacles! Sal realized with shock. "It's following us," she quickly yelled into his ear.

"Damn," Agent Sluka answered as he accelerated forward. "It won't do any good to try and lose it because we're here," he said. "The Unnamed King's shuttle should be around here somewhere." He turned the speeder bike in a wide circle so as to not slow too much.

Sal watched the creature change direction and cut the corner as he turned the bike. In an instant, Sal saw everything.

The ocean floor had risen beneath them and the water was shallow. Coral growing. Schools of fish. A motionless dark silhouette she knew was the Unnamed King's shuttle. The great beast following. "It's closing on us," she said.

"Can you slide by me and take control?" Agent Sluka asked her.

"Yes," she replied and Agent Sluka immediately leaned to his left, releasing the grip he held in his right hand. She quickly reached forward and grabbed the grip he had released. Agent Sluka then quickly moved behind her while she slid up front. "What are you going to do?" Sal asked over her shoulder as she tried looking back and forth to find the creature. There it is, she said to herself as her eyes caught its silhouette moving in from her left. She turned her attention back to Agent Sluka. He didn't answer her but she saw what he planned. He was holding the spear gun in his hand. "You don't think that will even scratch it, do you? It's gigantic." Sal said as she continued turning the bike in a wide arc, allowing the creature to close the distance.

"Not like this," he answered, nodding his head at the speargun. "But like this," Agent Sluka added as he pulled a small item from his pouch and clipped it to the spear. He looked back at her and smiled.

A mini thermal detonator, she realized.

"Let it get close," Agent Sluka said.

"Will do," Sal answered. I got a bad feeling about this.

"Here it comes," Agent Sluka said.

The great beast rose up from the water slowly, like a great sea serpent.

Its maw was enormous, with rows of teeth, each nearly a half meter in length. Three fish-like eyes bulged out of its head, spread equidistant around its circumference. Agent Sluka took aim with the speargun at the beast's maw.

Suddenly, everything rocked, then spun, and they nearly rolled over.

The beast had slapped the speeder bike with one of its tentacles. Sal's legs, then her body, came loose from the bike but she held tight to the handlebars, dangling in the air. Agent Sluka pulled the trigger on his speargun as he dropped to the water below but it shot harmlessly through the air and passed off into the distance.

Sal clung tightly to the grips and twisted them to turn the bike right-side up and settled her body half-way in place. She quickly re-straddled the bike and turned to look for Agent Sluka below. She found him and despair filled her heart.

One of its three tentacles held him in place.

She wondered for a moment why it hadn't swallowed him then realized the answer as she felt its gaze upon her. Three alien eyes. It's waiting for me, she realized. Here I come.

Sal reached into her hip pouch as she whirled the speeder bike around and slowly headed straight toward the beast's maw. The speeder bike froze in place, hurling Sal head over heels over its front windshield. As she tumbled, Sal saw the great tentacle which had latched onto the speeder bike. Focus, she instantly thought. Her eyes locked on the beast's maw as she tumbled forward, right hand tightly clenched around what she had pulled from her pouch.

Sal slung her right arm and released what she held in her hand.

Go! Sal cried as she watched the two mini thermal detonators fly through the air. No! she cried when she recognized they would miss the beast's maw. She reached out to the Force, to try and move the detonators, but lost control in her tumble. For a moment, Sal felt something, as if it touched her soul, but did not know what it was. She continued to tumble and crashed into the water.

The explosion filled the air and her ears.

Blood and flesh rained down upon Sal as the water became choppy from the landing debris of the beast's corpse. She quickly oriented herself and began to tread, looking through the debris. "Malgo!" she screamed. She heard a muffle and twisted around looking for its source. He was swimming toward her in the rough waves. She began swimming toward him.

They reached each other and joined in a short embrace.

"That was awesome," Agent Sluka said. Sal just stared at him. "When you tossed the detonators…I saw my life before my eyes when I knew they were going to miss…but they changed direction and went in its maw!" he added. "Unbelievable!"

"But…" Sal began, then stopped as realization dawned on her. He did it, she said to herself as she collected her thoughts. He used the Force and he doesn't even realize it.

"Sal, Varina," Agent Sluka started. "I don't care what you want me to call you…" he pulled her close for a kiss and she obliged him. A wide smile filled her face. "I got my rebreather, how about you?" Agent Sluka asked her.

Sal nodded.

"Let's get down there and see if we can find what we came for as well as something to get us out of here."