Anakin has hardly had time to consider where to begin an investigation into his findings on Thyferra—traitors on Coruscant, and deep within the Republic's infrastructure, at that—when duty pulls him from his focus and redirects him into the line of fire once more. It is, to his frustration, that same source that so often draws him from making any real progress on this investigation into the Taths and the Dark Side and the Sith: The Council.

Mace Windu catches up to Anakin as he prepares to head out to the Senate District, the Jedi Temple rising like a mountain behind him on the Processional Way, the great statues of Masters of old rising before the temple's sloping stairway. "Skywalker," says Windu, his voice the same sort of authoritative that has always told Anakin that no good news is on the way. Master Windu is not Master Yoda or Obi-Wan or the more moderate of the Jedi leadership; he is a bringer of storms, a bearer of tempests, a man Anakin respects yet finds it so hard to see eye-to-eye with. He will listen to Windu, as is his duty as a Jedi Knight. But he cannot find it in him to look kindly upon him.

"Master," says Anakin, bowing his head and folding his hands within the folds of his Jedi cloak. Custom. Formality. Show as little as possible that will draw Windu's ire, for he just wants to get this conversation over with as quickly as possible. "Something the matter?"

Windu's eyelid twitches. Great. Already he has said something wrong. "Something you can help me with, at least," Windu says. "I've been looking all over for Master Kenobi. He hasn't signed out of the Temple in any way, but no one has seen him inside. No one knows where he's gone, either, and in our Council meeting earlier today he was conspicuously absent. It's not like it for him to miss a meeting without reason. Do you know anything about it?"

Phew. This time, at least, it's—technically—Obi-Wan's fault. At least Anakin won't get the blame (probably) if Windu or the others sniff him out on Mandalore. "I saw him a couple days ago, but not since then, Master. Sorry. I've been training with Ahsoka," Anakin says, shrugging. Again with the technicalities. He did see him a couple days ago and hasn't seen him since. Windu doesn't need to know the rest. "It's hard to get time for real training with the demands of the war, you know. I want to keep my Padawan sharp."

"Of course. Dutiful of you," Windu growls, his tone dripping with disbelief. But he is quick to put away the suspicion as he moves on: "If that's so, then the Council does need you for something else."

What a surprise. "Actually, Master," Anakin begins, "I was going to check on that data I recovered from Thyferra, about—"

"The Taths. I received your report," Windu finishes. "As it is, Skywalker, you'll be interested in what I have to say."

"Uh, all right. What's that?" Anakin ventures.

Windu motions for them to move out of the sunlight and the public view. When they approach one of the great statues, Windu draws close and says, "Earlier, we received a report from the Jedi we sent out to investigate your findings on Empress Teta from a while back. The business concerning Ternon Tath and his estate."

"Wait, what? You actually had people doing that?"

Mace looks confused. "Of course. We said as much. Did you think we wouldn't follow up on your information at all?"

Well, yes. "Of course not, Master. I'm just…just surprised something came out of it."

"Our contact we sent, Sae Tristess, reported in," Windu says. "She claims to have found some sort of ancient Sith weapon—a Dark Side nexus, she called it—on the planet Ziost, deep in Separatist territory. According to Sae, it's powerful enough that it could impact the war, gravely—and, according to her, the Separatists have also found it." Windu frowns. "It seems like what you found on Empress Teta has paid off, even in a roundabout way. We can't confirm Sae's findings right away, especially not with a planet so obscure and so distant as Ziost, but neither can we let something like this go."

"Ziost. Never heard of it."

"It's an ancient Sith capital world. Thousands of years ago it was a hub of the old Sith Empire, but it's long since been lost to time. Few know of it," says Windu. "But that's of no concern. If there's a major presence of the Dark Side there, a war-changing presence, we can't sit idle. We have to act."

Anakin shakes his head. Who is this Jedi he's talking about? "I don't want to cast doubt on…uh, Sae, and whatever she found…but you're sure about this, right? What we found on Thyferra—"

"—can wait, Skywalker. We are at a critical point in this war," says Windu, putting his hand on Anakin's shoulder. "We're only just keeping the Separatists at bay. Your victory at Thyferra was important, but it came at a high cost with Luminara's death. Any great tipping in either direction could send this war down a drastic path, and what Sae's intel points to is just that: A major advantage in Count Dooku's favor. We can't ignore this."

"So what's the plan? We send an infiltration team or something?" says Anakin. "How's that impact me?"

Mace looks grim. "No. There's another thing, too: A few days ago our scouts recorded Admiral Trench's fleet abandoning his positions near Kashyyyk. Abandoning the Separatist attack on the Wookiees period. They're headed deeper into Separatist territory for no real reason, and their general direction would take them straight towards the region of space that Ziost's located in. Our best guess is that if Sae's information is accurate, the Separatists are fortifying the planet and securing their new prize."

"Ah. So a proper invasion."

"Exactly," says Windu, nodding.

Anakin stifles a laugh. This is not a well-thought-out plan. "How, exactly, do we invade deep into Separatist territory when we can barely hit their border garrisons like Thyferra?"

"If you'd let me finish, I can explain," says Windu, irritation seeping into his tone. "Master Plo Koon's navy is in the process of mounting an invasion of Shantipole. Meanwhile, Master Fisto's forces are currently stationed near the Hapan border. Master Fisto's fleet will split in two, half of his forces joining up with Master Plo's, in order to draw off further Separatist reinforcements in the region. Meanwhile, the ships that returned with you from Thyferra will head out immediately to Lantillies and connect with Master Fisto and the other half of his squadron. With the Shantipole invasion occupying the Separatists in the area, you should be able to ride up the Perlemian Trade Route without interference and make a break for Ziost. Once there, tackle any Separatist defenses. Then you and Master Fisto will head down to the planet, find out just what's going on, and deal with it for good."

Anakin sighs. "Always on the move," he says.

"Look," says Windu, "I know it's short notice. But you uncovered the start of this path. I trust you to take care of this, Skywalker. The Council trusts you. The war could hang on your success or failure. Don't let me down."

He takes a breath. Holds it in for a moment. Lets it out. Something about this seems off, wrong. A tickling in the deepest of his feelings, as if the Force is warning him of some hidden danger beyond even what Mace Windu sees. Look out, look out. The Dark Side is alive and waiting and it will not play fair. But he cannot turn an order down, let alone one with stakes as great as Windu suggests. "All right," he says. "I'll get going to link up with Master Fisto's forces as soon as I can, then make for Ziost. Think Obi-Wan's going to miss out, though."

It has been nearly a week since the crash-landing on Mirial, and the frustration is starting to get to Sae. They have made little headway in getting off the planet. They have no ship, no connections, no route out of this dingy spacer town lost in the frosty desert. They are little more than fugitives here. She has no idea if the Council has heeded her desperate plea, if they converge on Ziost even now, or if her voice was lost in the tangle of hyperspace communications that clogs the Holonet, another jumble of words and data garbled and distorted until it dies somewhere between here and the Core Worlds. She can only go on faith that someone has listened—faith and the Force. Beyond that, her only hope in this unfortunate situation is to figure out a way off of Mirial—and so far that endeavor has returned only emptiness.

Now, however, as she stands at a food vendor's stall procuring supper, the Force slams her with an overwhelming sensation of dread.

It is like the feeling from the Celestial at Ziost: A wellspring of darkness deep within, curdling, stretching, grasping at her heart with a hammer of anxiety. Then, as she grits her teeth and turns away from the stall, she closes her eyes and the vision comes to life behind her eyelids. Dusty streets. A jetpack. Black smoke, percussion blasts, a flashing green lightsaber that all too quickly falls away.

Tamri. She's in danger.

Sae drops the two fruits she was considering buying and breaks into the street. She had only sent the girl to do one thing—fetch just one necessity out in the town's biggest market—and already that instruction crushes her with regret. Why didn't you keep Tamri with you? This is a foreign planet, a world deep in Separatist territory. Did you think no one would ever find you? Hurry, hurry now. How much time do you have? How much time does she have?

Cloaked and hooded Mirialans grouse and scoff in indignation as she pushes past the late afternoon crowds, hurrying as fast as she can down the narrow town avenues. Perhaps, she thinks as she runs, it is only a vision of the far future. Maybe it is just a trick of the Force, an ill-feeling of a different time, a fool's sight. But that darkness from Ziost that courses through her says otherwise, that dark tendril poking out from her mind that taunts her with the voice of Master Gallia and all the rest of the fallen: You saw the future on Ziost, did you not? The future I showed you. Do you trust me? And if you do, why would this be any different?

Are you willing to gamble with fate?

Down one street, then the next, then a snaking alley, right left right. The feeling of dread only intensifies with each passing second. That taint of the Dark Side—it is pressing against her heart. Something horrible is about to happen.

Then she breaks into a wide avenue down which flee dozens of Mirialans, screams and shrieks and howls of fright thundering from the crowd. Sae forces through them, a wild sailor pushing through the tide of frightened citizens, until she sees in front of her, alone in an evacuated stretch of street with only settling dust around him, the face of a man she thought dead back on Ossus.

Lendon Rust. And draped over one arm—the limp body of Tamri.

He spots her a moment later. No sooner has Sae taken her first step towards him then he draws a pistol on her and opens fire. No words. No greetings. No taunts. Nothing but the admission that they are foes and that no language save the antique tongue of violence shall chronicle their passing.

Sae has her lightsaber ready. Her yellow blade flashes as the first shot comes in, melts on her saber. Projectiles, not blaster bolts. Rust is a crafty sort of scum. Sae spins away from a flurry of bullets, sidesteps, and then hurls her lightsaber like a tomahawk. It's a good throw: Rust dives to evade it, letting go of Tamri as he falls to the sandy ground. Sae freezes. Tamri's so vulnerable there, limp, lifeless: What has he done? Her hesitation is all Rust needs, however. He spins to his feet, pistol at the ready, and fires a volley of bullets Sae's way.

Ducking behind a building, Sae recalls her lightsaber and focuses. Kill him. Kill this bastard. Forget compassion, forget mercy, forget the Light; there is only life and death, and it is Tamri's life hanging in the balance. Sae somersaults out from her cover as Rust fires. With the Force she grabs a fallen piece of scaffolding dislodged from his gunshots, levitates it, then hurls it like a meteor straight at Rust.

The mercenary is on to her, however, the battle at Ossus giving him plenty of experience in combatting Jedi. He activates his industrial Haxion Brood armor and his shoulder-mounted jetpack roars to life, noxious, inky fumes billowing from the exhaust nozzles as he takes off and dodges Sae's missile. With Tamri loaded onto one shoulder he lifts into the air and settles down onto a building's roof, firing another volley Sae's way before, at last, he speaks: "Did you think I couldn't track my own ship?" he shouts over the chaos of civilians running this way and that. "I've been following you all this time. Did you think I died that easily back on Ossus? Don't think so, Sae. There's a big bounty on Jedi, and I intend to collect."

"You damn backstabber," Sae snarls. "Come on down and get another bounty, then. I'll finish what I started on Ossus."

He laughs. "You really aren't like what I thought of Jedi," he says. "But you're more trouble than you're worth. The girl'll fetch me a good price, and I know that unlike you, she can shut up and obey."

"She's not fetching you shit. I'll kill you!"

"Not today, Sae. Not today."

He taps his forearm and launches a hail of micro-missiles from a wrist-mounted launcher. Sae dodges away as the warheads explode all along the ground, bursts of flame and smoke blooming around her. When the scene clears she just catches a glimpse of Rust flying away over the rooftops—just enough to follow him. Without hesitating Sae leaps up the buildings, lightsaber drawn. She ignores the shouts from the streets. Run, run. Run like you never have before. Tamri's life depends on it.

He isn't far. A few blocks. She hurries as fast as she can go, but his jetpack is faster—and when he notices her still on his trail, he spins in mid-air, fires a volley of bullets that sends her dodging away, then launches a pair of smoke bombs. Black smoke mushrooms in front of Sae, clouding her eyes with a chemical irritant as she blinks away tears. Push through. Keep going. She dashes through the stinging fog, but when she makes it through and wipes the tears out of her eyes Rust is nowhere to be seen. There is only the chaos on the ground, the blowing of the desert wind, and the forlorn sun above, pale and sad and lonely. She has lost him. She has lost her.

And the darkness laughs. And it laughs.

By the time she has returned to their hideout in an abandoned building far off of the center of town, Neelotas has a blaster in his hand. "Shit," he says when he sees her, setting the weapon down. "Took you long enough. 'Bout thought you'd gotten abducted or something."

"Tamri," Sae murmurs, her voice devoid of emotion, humanity, life. Flat. Droid-like.

"Wha? Where is the girl, anyway?"

Sae presses her fist to the crumbling wall. Stares into shadow. Her heart turns inwards, daggers digging at the flesh. "Ask your pal."

Neelotas pauses before he answers: "What're you saying?"

"Lendon Rust," breathes Sae. "He's been tracking us via the Evening. He said so himself."

"Rust? What?"

"I ran into him in the streets. We fought. There's a bounty on Jedi," says Sae. She pauses. Breathes out. "He took Tamri and escaped."

"Rust is here?"

"Was."

"Rust is alive?"

"Apparently."

Neelotas snaps his fingers idly. "I, uh…huh. Shit."

"I don't know where he went," Sae says, her voice monotone, empty. "I lost him."

Neelotas is silent for a moment, the vacuum between them filling up this sorry hovel. Shadows and stillness. The weight of the moment falling upon every square inch. All of this, everything from Belderone up until now, has led to this—their discovery on Ziost, their flight, the destruction of the ship in orbit, and now this loss. The blows keep on raining down. The storm is ceaseless. "You said he had a bounty?" says Neelotas at last.

"Want to collect? I'm right here."

He laughs, but it is not a mirthful thing. "Nah, I…he's probably running the old Brood trails."

Sae turns. She can hardly feel a thing now: It is as if her insides have emptied out and now only a shell remains, a husk, a carcass. The darkness has hollowed out everything else. There is pain. There is loss. There is no more. What will fill that void? "What do you mean?"

"Look, it wasn't that long ago that Rust and I were a part of the Haxion Brood, and the syndicate's got a pretty substantial infrastructure network. Galaxy-wide," says Neelotas. "They don't mind people who leave and come back, either. They wouldn't mind Rust collecting a bounty."

"What are you saying? Do you know where he's gone?"

"Maybe. Dunno until we try, but I have an idea of how to try," says Neelotas. "Look, the Brood has a waystation near Ord Radama, not all that far from Mirial. You got a bounty or anything else interesting to hand off, you can do it at a Brood waystation, collect your fee, and the people on board will send the shipment on to headquarters, or wherever it needs to go. It's an efficient little distribution network. My guess is if Rust is trying to collect on a bounty for Tamri, he'll dump her as fast as he can. It's not good business to hang on to bounties. Closest dump spot's the Ord Radama depot."

"So he'll take her there?"

"I have no idea. But we can try it," says Neelotas. "We could play pretend. Set up a fake buyer's arrangement for slaves. I still know their codes; I could backdoor a little something that could scan their manifest, see if she's there. I don't know, wizard, only thing I can think of."

Sae muses. "We'd have to get off-world for that."

"Yeah. Require a ship. Which we don't have."

"Didn't you say back shortly after we'd crashed that there was some magistrate in town? That he had a ship at the spaceport?"

"Yeah. I did," says Neelotas. "What about it?"

Sae lowers her head. The Light has failed you, has it not, Jedi? Then what shall you turn to if your old ways have fled? What use were those ways if they led to this? "I will not leave her to…to whatever. Captivity or slavery or worse," she says. "I'm getting Tamri back. I'm finding her. No matter what it takes. No matter what. You get me?"

Neelotas raises his blaster. "Oh yeah. That's the kind of thing I understand."

An hour later and they stack up in front of one of the emergency exit doors to the town's humble spaceport. One main dock—one ship inside, a modestly-decorated star yacht of a Mirialan dignitary who has no idea who is coming. "Hey," says Neelotas as he fumbles with the door's wiring in an attempt to hotwire the controls. "You can leave the messy business to me if you want. I was a pirate once; I can do it again. But it's a messy business. You're a Jedi. If you don't want to get your hands dirty—"

"I do not care," Sae seethes. "I'm going in."

Neelotas hesitates before answering: "All right, then. You want blasters to stun?"

"Don't give a damn."

"O-kay."

Sae smolders; her spirit roils. All she can think about is Tamri's body, limp over Rust's arm. One crash-landing. One unfortunate accident. One bad day, and suddenly her Padawan is gone, the universe taking Tamri away, seizing the one thing Sae cares about in this wretched galaxy. This miserable, cursed place. It's all unfair. It's so damn unfair, life. It takes and takes and takes. And just when you think you have lost it all, it takes even more. There isn't anything good about it.

Well: Fine, then. She can't undo what is done, so instead she will show anyone in her way just what she thinks about this blasted world. Damn morals. Damn playing by the rules of a Jedi Knight. She will not let Tamri go.

After a minute of finagling Neelotas opens the door. In the first shadowy alcove a Mirialan security guard turns from his cluster of watch cameras, sees Neelotas's blaster, and blurts out in surprise. "Intruders!" he shrieks into his wrist communicator. "Intruders in—"

Sae does not let him finish. She reaches out with the Force, grabs the man, and drags him into the ignited tip of her lightsaber. At once his voice is cut short. At once his life dies in her weapon.

She tosses him to the round and marches on. The Light seems so far away now. That taunting voice in her laughs and laughs and laughs, that blight that has stuck around since Ziost. She cares no longer.

Another alcove, another guard. Neelotas fires before Sae can swing her blade; his blaster bolt takes off the top of the guard's head. They are so far gone now.

A hallway twists and turns. Then an empty storage hall. Then a door, and then they are into the heart of the spaceport itself, the launch bay where a gleaming star yacht rests parked and three well-dressed Mirialans, man, wife, and son, gather just off of its lowered boarding ramp. A trio of security guards turn at Sae and Neelotas's entrance. Their mouths drop at the sight of her lightsaber. Weapons rise.

Sae takes the closest guard's head off in one swing.

A fire dies in her, right there, right then. It has always been like this, hasn't it? You. You have always been one step from the ledge. She has kept you in the glow of day. She has kept you upright. When your world fell apart, when you saw no other path then the great darkness that awaits us all in the end, it was Tamri pulling you back, was it not? And now when she is taken from you, what is left? What is left but oblivion? What is left but the eternal darkness that is without end and without bottom, that can swallow up anyone, everything, man, Jedi, time, space? What are you before that cosmic hell?

Well, here you are. Here you are, everything you could have always been. You knew it way back after Master Gallia's death, when you invited oblivion, when you wished it all to end. Here it culminates. Here all that has ended, and here you might look upon what shall begin. Welcome, Jedi: This is the future. First you saw it. Now you live it.

A guard fires, and Sae deflects the bolts lazily. The first reflected bolt veers off over the head of the Mirialan nobles; the second catches the guard under his left arm and he falls. The third of the security trio moves to engage but Neelotas is faster, firing once, twice, thrice, dropping the man before he can unleash a single retort.

And then they are alone. The two of them hijackers, pirates, scum, before the three Mirialan nobles cowering before them.

The man—the magistrate, Sae guesses—pulls a blaster pistol from his robes and attempts a vain defense. "You won't get away with this!" he shouts.

An ignorant attempt at heroics. The kind of stunt a holo-actor would perform on a vid. Sae could knock away his blasts, use the Force to trick his mind, any number of innocent actions, but she does not. She cannot. The darkness is all around her now, sucking her in, and in her fury she reaches out with one hand, grabs the man by the throat, and squeezes.

First the Mirialan drops his blaster. Then he grabs his throat, his face contorting, his breath stalling, stammering. Sae lifts him off the ground, her face twisted into a raging grin, her grip tightening as the Mirialan chokes. You who might stand in the way. You who would get between Tamri and me: Do you see what real power is now?

Quietly, quietly, there comes a whisper in the recesses of Sae's mind. A familiar voice. Soft. Controlled. What is the way of the Sith?

The Mirialan noblewoman nearby now rushes to her husband's defense even as she clutches her son's hand: "Leave my husband alone! Let him go!'

Neelotas grabs Sae's arm: "Wizard, c'mon. We get 'em."

Sae stirs from her stupor. Her anger recedes. She loosens her grip and drops the nobleman, ignoring his stuttering and gasping as his wife and son race to his side. "Get aboard. Let's get going," she tells Neelotas.

The noblewoman looks up at her with a face full of righteous anger. "That's a lightsaber," she spits as Sae strides past her. "You're a Jedi, aren't you? The Jedi are supposed to be peacekeepers! Fighters for justice! What do you call this?"

Sae looks down at her without a care in the world for her plight. Her face is stone. "Tell it to someone who cares," she says.

A minute later and she enters the yacht's cockpit, a starkly utilitarian design for an otherwise pristine vessel. Neelotas already sits in the pilot's seat, clicking buttons and shifting levers. "Got the launch sequence ready," he says. "You, uh, okay, wizard?"

"Fine," mutters Sae, slumping into the copilot's seat. "You can get us into the Haxion Brood's database, correct?"

"That's what I said. I'll hook up a connection once we're away from here. If Tamri's at that base—if Rust acts like I expect him to—we'll find her," says Neelotas. "You'll have to do some acting, though. Gotta sell them the idea that we're actual slavers looking for a purchase."

"I can do whatever I need to do," says Sae. "Just get us going."

"On it. Don't worry about me. I got this."

And then they are off: The yacht lifting skyward, engines blasting away at Mirial as they take flight from this poisoned globe, Sae's emotions like a ship in a tempest. Rollicking, jumping, quaking. The storm is upon her now. There is no light in the hurricane: Only the darkness, only the black clouds boiling up around her, thicker, higher, anvils pressing down with such force that she is ready to burst.

Tamri. Tamri. I am coming to save you.

And I will kill anyone who gets between us.