Outer Rim
Svobrum System
Svobrum
outside the Sarastan Archipelago

Agent Sluka and Sal quickly donned their rebreathers and then swam below the surface, below the swarms of fish that were beginning to gather around the beast's corpse. Down they swam to the darkness of the shuttle on the ocean floor.

As they did, a dark shadow covered the surface of the water overhead but they paid it no mind for the object of their mission was before their eyes.

The vessel was covered with coral and barnacles, so much so that it was difficult to tell the fore end from the aft. Small crustaceans crawled over its surface. Old model, Agent Sluka noted as he tried to recognize its origins. The underside hatch should be about there, he realized as he saw a gap between the sea floor and the vessel. How can we be that lucky?

He pointed the gap out to Sal and swam to it while she followed.

Agent Sluka pulled an illuminator form his pouch and turned it on. He looked under the vessel and was shocked at what he saw. A manual lock? And it was clear of debris. This is too easy, he thought. Hmmm, Agent Sluka said to himself as he realized there was not enough room to open the hatch. He quickly began digging the sand from underneath the hatch and found the going easy. Within a couple minutes, Agent Sluka had excavated enough room to open the hatch.

He twisted the manual lock and it opened downward as a great bubble of air burst forth and pushed him back. Agent Sluka looked back at Sal and smiled through his rebreather, then swam through the hatch.

Sal followed behind him.

Agent Sluka came out into a dark chamber and climbed out of the water, then helped Sal climb out behind him. "We've made it," he said to her with a smile. She forced a smile back. He could practically feel her excitement and hesitation. "Come on," he said and walked toward the fore of the shuttle while holding his light before them and looking around as he did.

"I can't believe the stories my Dad told me are true," Sal said as she turned her own illuminator back and forth looking at the insides of the shuttle. Step by step, she followed Agent Sluka to the front of the shuttle and there they froze.

A figure was sitting in the pilot's chair, turned around and facing them.

After a moment's surprise, Agent Sluka realized the figure was a corpse. It was still in full uniform and appeared to have become mummified in the sealed environment of the shuttle. "That's got to be the servant that the Unnamed King left here," Agent Sluka said. "And the data to safely pass into the Morkai Anomaly should be in a box locked in the storage compartment back there," Agent Sluka said as he and Sal simultaneously turned toward the aft of the shuttle.

Turned around to face a dark figure walking toward them.

Agent Sluka instantly heard the blaze of Sal's lightsaber as she drew it. A faint blue glow filled the compartment from her blade. Almost as instantly, he heard the blaze of another lightsaber. A blade of red cast its own light in the dark shuttle. A blade of red plasma emanating from a curved Shoto hilt, a red so dark as to be almost black.

The Inquisitor stood before Agent Sluka and Sal, yet in his hand was a dueling blade rather than his Inquisitorius doubled-bladed lightsaber.

"Yes, it is I," the Inquisitor said as he stopped, holding his lightsaber before him, his face barely visible behind the dark red blaze.

Agent Sluka reached for his blaster, yet it eluded his grasp. The inquisitor flicked his wrist and the blaster flew through the air and behind him into the darkness. Sal glanced over at Agent Sluka and grimaced. I don't think she's ever fought someone wielding a lightsaber before, he realized.

"The Force has favored you these past years, yet you know nothing of what it can do," the Inquisitor laughed. "That's why I've played you." The Inquisitor took a step forward. "Assistant Director Magnusson would have buried you and Janda long ago but I stayed her hand. Stayed it so that you would lead me here," he continued. "You led me here while I patiently waited in the darkness."

"Waited like a spider?" Agent Sluka asked as realization dawned on him.

The Inquisitor smiled and took a single step forward.

"Waited, because you are too dim-witted to discover the secret yourself," Agent Sluka snapped as he took a step to the right. Why can't I have Conor here with his Bespar arm and armor right about now? Agent Sluka asked himself.

The Inquisitor smirked at Agent Sluka and turned toward Sal. "And you, my dim-witted friend of this idiot," he laughed. "I was born on Revelen 3 and Altoson was born on Tarpau 1. But we didn't come together pursuing the blade of the Unnamed King. We came together in the Inquisitorius, doing the Emperor's bidding."

Sal's face dropped in shock than she refocused.

"Yes," the Inquisitor laughed. "Jarrik Altoson and I were Brothers within the Inquisition. Brothers before he tossed aside his service to the Emperor." He paused and smiled, a wide smile behind the dark red glare of his blade. "And you believed he was a Jedi."

The Inquisitor glanced back and forth, then took a second step forward and turned to Agent Sluka.

"Yet, he did believe in the tales of the Five Tribes where I did not," the Inquisitor continued. "I give him credit for that. But he left the Inquisitorius. Vanished from the Empire's sight after he killed your Father. Vanished chasing his Ambition, a dream of power in the Morkai Anomaly." The Inquisitor frowned a moment, then continued. "Vanished until you lucked into his presence and killed him. When I took possession of your Father's journal, I realized there was truth behind the legends."

The Inquisitor took one more step forward, bringing him almost into deadly range for his lightsaber.

"That's why I tracked you down, little princess," the Inquisitor snapped as he turned his head back toward Sal. "I figured you would be able to help me decipher the Tython script in the journal…but this buffoon gave you a mini thermal detonator."

As his words finished, Agent Sluka sprang toward the Inquisitor and so did Sal.

The Inquisitor shifted his hips to the right, batting away Sal's lightsaber strike and simultaneously reached out with his free left hand.

Agent Sluka stopped in mid-motion, then was hurled back into the mummified corpse of the Unnamed King's servant. The two crumpled to the floor together.

Sal glanced over her shoulder at Agent Sluka. A fraction of a second later, the Inquisitor thrust forward with his red blade. She barely batted it aside, then quickly stepped to her left, just in time too, as the Inquisitor swung with an overhand blow into where she had stood a moment before. She quickly shifted her hips to the right, sliding her right foot over as she returned a horizontal strike. The Inquisitor batted it aside too and spun to his left, toward Agent Sluka, circling her.

Agent Sluka stared at the mummified face, a centimeter from his, then his eyes darted down his body. Lying there, next to his hand was an item. A Shoto hilt. The servant's? The question popped into Agent Sluka's head but he didn't answer it. He just grabbed the hilt and leapt to his feet. Agent Sluka didn't ignite the blade first to see if it contained a kyber crystal. He brought both hands over his head and slid forward, leading with his left. As he did so, Agent Sluka swung down and ignited his lightsaber.

A white blade of plasma instantly appeared and stuck down at the Inquisitor's right side.

The Inquisitor turned like lightning and raised his red blade in his left hand. The two blades clashed in midair, red holding up white. Blue plasma came for the Inquisitor's head from his other side. He slid back, to Agent Sluka's right, and shifted his blade from left hand to right. The blue plasma blade missed his body but sliced through his right arm. An instant later, Agent Sluka slid across to his right, past the Inquisitor's stance. The blade of white plasma slid under the left elbow of the Inquisitor and through his torso, separating him into an upper and lower half. The red blade extinguished as the hilt dropped from the Inquisitor's hand and his right arm fell to the ground beside it while the upper and lower halves of his body collapsed on top of one another.

Agent Sluka stood there with white blade in hand and stared at Sal with blue blade in her hand. She cracked a smile.

Simultaneously both blades extinguished and their hands dropped. An instant later Agent Sluka and Sal embraced tightly.