The Grey Following: Lady of Balance

by Jokie155

Maarani, a Twi'lek woman in the Republic Starfighter Corps, encounters a powerful Sith known only as Kiarna. The chance meeting soon escalates into ever-growing threats and attacks from all corners of the galaxy, centred around the will and movements of a Force deity known as the Lady of Balance... (First chapter full rewrite is complete, one off revision project.)

1. Rising Star

As always, it is a time of great strife.

The legacy of the Jedi Civil War has left the galaxy scarred. Without its greatest leaders, the legendary Revan the Redeemed, and the Exile, Meetra Surik, dissonance has ruled on high. Peace is a forlorn dream.

A resurgence of the Sith was not expected so soon after their departure. What was hoped to be a few centuries of relative calm to recover and rebuild in, has been reduced to mere decades. Now, a terrible, long war has stretched the galaxy to its absolute breaking point.

There is no Rebellion. There is no Resistance. There is barely even a Republic.

It is now when a miracle is needed most. One cause, one figure of hope to tip the galaxy back from the edge of absolute collapse, and reunite the factions of those opposed to the Empire.

Through hope, inspiration and unity. Or fear, absolute control, force.

---

The view of the stars did not remain undisturbed for long. A flash of red light darted across, gone as quickly as it appeared. Soon, two more, and then another.

It was fully interrupted by a Republic A-wing tearing through, just barely keeping ahead of the Sith interceptor chasing behind. There were already a number of scorch marks along the fighter's hull, where narrow misses outright had become narrow misses of the most vital systems.

The pilot herself, an older Zabrak woman than most in the ace squadrons, was frantically struggling with the navigation system as the continued damage wrought havoc on all the controls.

"Red Eight to Red Leader! I'm getting torn apart here! Red Leader-!"

Her plea was cut short as the thermic missile finally found its mark, ripping the A-wing to shreds on detonation as the shielding gave out altogether. The pursuing interceptor flew through the debris without hesitation, scattering the pieces further.

Once the kill had been confirmed, the craft circled right back around towards the looming Imperial battlecruiser in the shadow of Sarka's orbit.

On the bridge of the vessel itself, aptly named the Seething Blade, the lead commander of the Imperial Forces, one General Morgak, stood watch. Hands behind his back, upright and proud, simply smirking at the unfolding display. Every few seconds, his faded blue eyes glittering a little at the sight of another Red Squadron fighter going up in flame.

As the first skirmish began to draw to a close, he finally brought his eyes away from the view ahead to that of the pit surrounding him. "Status?"

One of the officers in the pit began reading out the report, though did not look up from his station. "No sign of secondary launch yet. The Dodonna's Guidance is moving into projected intercept course. Arrival at expected coordinates estimated in twenty three minutes."

"Very good." Morgak turned to march back down to the holotable towards the middle of the bridge. There, his strategist officers were continuing to monitor the battle as it unfolded. Small holo-models of Republic and Imperial starfighters continued to move around each other, the former notably fewer in number, and in retreat.

"Full launch of Blue Squadron expected in no more than twelve minutes, General."

"Prime the capture droids, I want this timing to be exact. Let me remind you all that this of the utmost priority to our Dark Lord. We may very well never get a similar opportunity."

"Yes General."

Morgak moved his hand around to the controls at last, bringing up a secondary display of Sarka's surface away from that of the space deployment. "Ground coordinators, what is the status of Shadow Hand?"

Another of the advisors gestured up to a red point that appeared on the planet display. "Her pilot has just confirmed surface touchdown. Droid, trooper and Sith forces are moving out to engage the Jedi garrison here." She pointed to a small yellow square that marked the area the garrison occupied. "Reports indicate that the garrison is led by Jedi Master Koor, very recently appointed to the High Council according to Republic chatter."

"Yes, the Twi'lek did mention a gratuitous end to a previous Council member when she returned." Morgak brought up what data they had on Koor, then after a bit of reading dismissed it. "Have the Sith keep her from venturing too far from the garrison. I want it under lockdown. The Shadow Hand must not be disturbed. And not because I have any care whatsoever for her enjoyment of this operation."

By then he had formulated his basic plan, bringing up new visual instructions to the hologram. "Droids will lead the attack, troopers are to spread out through the forests on regular patrols to support Sith movements."

"Yes General."

---

On board the Dodonna's Guidance, the mood was far more frantic. Rear Admiral Ileyan had taken command not too long ago at the request of the Jedi. And while he had a good rapport with the crew and pilots alike, he had not prepared for such an abrupt attack after mere weeks of silence from the Empire.

"Red Squadron status!"

"Five confirmed dead! Three without power or thrusters of any kind, six sustained major damage and returning to vessel. Red Leader, Two, Five and Seventeen still engaged with the enemy."

The ship shook as a Sith interceptor ploughed into the starboard, scattering across the ship's shield. It still rattled everyone on the bridge that much more.

"All capable Red Squadron fighters are to withdraw to covering fire solutions. Admiral Clarke's fleet is still over six hours out."

"Sir! Incoming transmission from surface base!"

Ileyan grunted under his breath before circling back to the holo-table. At one of the positions around it materialized the image of Jedi Master Koor. A taller Zabrak compared to most of her kind, clad in armour in addition to her Jedi robes, with a long band of hair running directly along the middle of her skull to a ponytail at the back. One of the larger horns just above her forehead was little more than a stump, a defining feature that set her apart from many others.

"Admiral, we've got Sith and support forces moving on the base as we speak. No scan of their deployment vessel, but I have a strong feeling that they're being led by the White Terror."

The frantic chatter between all of the bridge officers and crew went very quiet at the simple mention of that name. No-one doubted the word of a Jedi Master after all, even if they all wished to the best of their ability that she was wrong.

Ileyan's face went sickly, the only real giveaway to his feelings as his very dark skin made other expressions of fear hard to read at a glance.

"Then her master is here too."

"I'm afraid so, Admiral. I'm going to do what I can to hunt down and kill the Sith here. Whatever they're planning up there, do use extreme caution. General Koor out."

Ileyan reached up to his face, grasping along the jawline in tense thought. There was still no visual cue as to the whereabouts of the command ship, or any traced readings to tell them where exactly the damaged enemy fighters were putting in to land.

When his decision was made, he turned back around and snapped his fingers at the intercom officer. "Get Blue Squadron mobilized immediately! All of them! I need Sergeant Chaser on the line now."

The intercom officer nodded while reporting that through, then looked back to the Admiral less than a minute later.

"Blue Leader requests clarification on whether Blue Six is to be deployed as well."

That made Ileyan pause again. In the midst of everything, he hadn't found nearly enough time to get to the bottom of the situation that Koor had called him in for. Perhaps he was making a mistake in his next choice, but the deteriorating situation outside demanded every single fighter pilot they had.

"Tell Blue Leader my order is absolute. Wildfire isn't the best, but she is still better out there than locked in her room. And I want her dosage of antidepressants observed and on record. I won't tolerate a second incident."

"Understood." The officer relayed that as well, nodding when confirmation came through. "Blue Leader reports space-time of all fighters in under ten minutes pending final repairs and flight checks. Sergeant Chaser will be reporting in through audio channels momentarily."

"Fine." Ileya looked out through one of the bridge windows at last. The design of all Hammerhead cruisers meant they were at the forefront of of the vessel. If there was another ship out there, it had to become visible at some point without any visual clutter from the hull itself.

"May the Force be merciful this day. We face the Dark Lord of the Sith."

---

"Two minutes!"

At that moment, Chaser, a Zeltron mechanic, was still in the women's locker room, doing her best to finish cleaning up despite knowing that effort would go to waste soon enough. Being hounded for responding to the bridge wasn't making it any easier, especially when already having to relay instructions to one of the fresh recruits working the deck via personal holocom.

"Pull the servo matrix, put it aside and slot in a new one. Don't bother trying to make that one work, you'll just waste too much time. We fix them up once the pilots stop hitting the deck."

"Okay Sarge, if you say so."

"I do say so, rookie. Grease-monkeys don't tinker around, we get them patched up and in the air. Now can I shave in peace or what?"

She didn't wait for a response before closing the link, getting back to the last traces of hair on her jawline.

In the mirror, she noticed Lia Sturo, the Nautolan technician of her team, walk back. As always, she looked rather cold in mood, even with the latest emergency at hand.

Chaser could already tell what was coming. "No, I'm not going to start yelling at them. Bao-Dur never yelled, and he's still one of the absolute best in his field. They'll learn soon enough."

Lia just rolled her deep black eyes. "Admiral is calling again. Guessing he's got something other than Red Squad fighters in mind."

"Fine by me."

Once Chaser was done, she quickly returned to her locker to dress, while also keeping her hand out and ready. On cue, she caught the pill case tossed to her by Lia, quickly taking her needed dose before suiting up in overalls.

"Two more weeks." The taste was bitter as always, but very much needed in her case. "Think you can handle the team while I'm away on recovery?"

There was only a nod from Lia, though she made sure it was seen nonetheless.

"Two more weeks, and it's the end of hormone pills. Just need to survive the Empire picking now of all times to come banging on the door."

When finally suited up in her mechanics overalls, she retrieved the holocom and made for the door. "Head up to the bridge, they're going to need you there more than anywhere else if this turns ship-to-ship. Last I heard they haven't been hitting the pilots with droids or ion shots anyway."

On the way down to the hangar deck she finally tied her blue hair back, only then reaching for the holocom to use it.

"Figures I'd be in the shower when the Sith attack. What you need me for Admiral?"

"Blue Six's fighter. You've looked at it already, sargeant, can it be spaceworthy in ten minutes?"

"The Twi'lek's A-wing? Engines have been refitted but there's still-"

"Can you do it?"

Chaser was approaching the stairway down to the hangar deck at that point, giving her just enough time to run through the list in her head again.

With a sigh, she relented. "It'll be spaceworthy, but just barely. It needs a lot more than ten minutes work, no exaggeration."

"We need everything we can make use of out there. It's going to be a long battle before reinforcements arrive, and we're already down over half of the patrol squad. Get it done."

"Aye sir."

She was on the deck itself not long after, immediately taking charge from the junior deck officer with a simple gesture.

"Alright people keep it moving! We're gonna have a bad shift ahead, let's keep our pilots one step ahead of the Imps!"

Across the expansive floor lay Blue Six's fighter, situated further from the deployment and landing areas for obvious reasons. Most of Blue Squadron had only just arrived in the few minutes since the alert had gone out.

By the time she had reached the fighter in question, getting straight to work on the bare minimum repairs, seventeen of the eighteen pilots in Blue Squadron had assembled on the deck.

Only half were humans, or at least human-like. Eight years of prolonged war across several sectors meant that ace pilots had to be distributed to lead their own squads and wings with the various faction fleets. Blue Squadron was as close to a cohesive group of those qualifying as aces by definition as the Republic had.

Darrik, the current Blue Leader, one of the humans with a bristled gold beard, grumbled rather brashly under his breath at the headcount, noting the absence of Blue Six.

To his immediate left was Omena, a Togruta with bright red skin that made her stand out even more than being one of the only of her race to actually take to fighter combat at all. More than that, she had quickly risen to the place as Blue Two, with her callsign of Razor referring to more than just her chilling, and rarely seen grin.

"I'm keeping this brief; there's a ship out there we can't see, and a hell of a lot of fighters that have already gunned down Red Squadron mid patrol. Right now our orders are not to seek and engage the main vessel, or to head into aerial combat to support the garrison below."

He nodded to Omena, who continued the briefing on for him.

"We're heading out to defend this ship until reinforcements arrive. No heroics, no stunts. Anyone who gets fifty kilometres away from the Guidance is spending the next week in the brig. No ifs, buts, or whining. Good people have already died out there. Understood?"

The other fifteen pilots all chanted the same acknowledgement mostly in time. Some turned to disperse to their craft immediately, amongst the maze of Red Squadron fighters that were still being wheeled around to repair bays. A few lingered a little longer upon noticing the last member of Blue Squadron on approach.

As if the half done-up state of her flight suit wasn't enough, the blue Twi'lek looked dead in the eyes, was barely keeping herself upright, and didn't even have her helmet in tow. The presence of lekku meant that simply throwing her a spare one at hand wasn't an option either.

Darrik's face of deep resentment said it all, tipped over the edge by the dark look he got from Blue Six when she took notice.

"Stand fast Wildfire!"

One of the other pilots, a younger man who went by the callsign Piledriver, moved to intercede only to be brushed aside by Omena. She went right to standing behind the Twi'lek as Darrik closed in.

"You're riding the thin wire of insubordination, Maarani."

Maarani remained quiet, still somewhat slouched in posture. Mostly waiting for the antidepressants to kick in more than anything. Not that she had any reason to care about what Blue Leader said to her by that point, so damaged was her relations with almost the entire squad by then.

With Darrik starting to go red in the face, Omena took it as a sign to step up as well. To the further bothering of Piledriver, it was only to bully Maarani once again.

Her hand gripped onto the shoulder of her flight suit, yanking it up until she was forced to stand straighter. "When your CO gives an order, you damn well follow it!"

Maarani slowly twisted her head, locking eyes with Omena, and just barely resisting the urge to spit at her.

"Bite me. At least I'll bleed out quickly."

That earned her a fierce grip of her chin, Darrik's fingers digging into her jawline when he yanked her head back around. Piledriver's move to intervene was again stopped by Omena herself.

"Five men and women better than you'll ever be are already dead, Twi'lek. One more word, and I will put you on a pod and send you to the Imperials myself! One more word! If your death wish is that strong, one more word!"

"That's enough!"

Darrik found himself in the surprisingly fierce grasp of Chaser, one arm around his chest pulling him back, the other clenched tightly around his neck. A grip that tightened when he went to elbow her, and she took without so much as a grunt.

"You're out of line, sargeant!"

Chaser lifted her chin up defiantly, pulling hard again until she saw his hand release Maarani's face. "Got your pilots whipped into inaction real good, huh? Do as you're told, don't speak up, don't interfere. Bet the Admiral will have a few words to say about the squad leader manhandling his pilots instead of getting out there and gunning down Imperial scum."

Omena had a very dark look to her eyes, still keeping to her own grip on Maarani while she stared down the Zeltron. "You don't blackmail Blue Squadron. We're the ones keeping the Imperials from gunning you lot down."

"And me and my crew are the ones who stop your fighters from blowing toxic fumes into the cabin because someone got sloppy with a nicked hose. But I don't let my floor crew get sloppy. I get things done. Better start working on a resume for cargo liners, pilots."

Chaser held her own until both pilots backed down, releasing her headlock on Darrik with her knee at his back to shove him out of the way as soon as she let go. Once Maarani was free of Omena, she unapologetically took her by both arms to walk her well away from the others.

Such an unexpected show of defiance had the pair of pilots disturbed, Darrik in particular who looked right at Maarani. He wasn't about to try challenging Chaser after that.

"Fly straight, or it won't be Imperial guns you'll be looking down the barrel of."

Both began to move away, as did Piledriver once Maarani gave him a disgusted look at his own inactivity.

Once certain they were gone, Chaser retrieved her holocom and brought it up, glancing at Maarani infrequently after that.

"Admiral, you need to know that Blue Leader and Blue Two came within an inch of beating Blue Six's face in, with Blue Five as a bystander. I broke that mess up, but from the sound of it that wasn't their first incident at all."

"I see. General Koor's concerns were more warranted than I expected then. Is Maarani alright?"

Chaser took a longer look at the Twi'lek, who was starting to move out of the vacant look into barely restrained anger and bitterness.

"She got roughed up, but nothing serious. I'm working on her craft now. Chaser out."

Right after that, Maarani stormed past Chaser to her craft, ignoring the Zeltron on the way.

Unfazed, Chaser went back to work on the fighter itself. "So, which is it?"

By then, Maarani had climbed up onto the wing, awkwardly circling around to try and remember how she usually got into the A-wing seat. She didn't say anything in response initially.

Chaser continued anyway. "If he had actual grounds to get you court marshalled, he wouldn't be ranting and growling like a bigot. Or using his second as a thug. So, which is it?"

After sinking into her seat at last, Maarani finally made the effort to finish securing her flight suit before starting up the routine checks. It took some time, but eventually she spoke up.

"It's not because of the name that he hates me. And no, I can't talk about the actual reason."

Face nearly buried into the open compartment of the nose, Chaser nonetheless maintained acute hearing. "The name?"

Maarani rolled her eyes and went back to being silent, getting harsh with the controls when she found a set that didn't respond.

Something Chaser quickly moved to address, while still trying to ease that heavy tension around her. "I know his type. And I don't mean men in general. Just the ones that think they're everything."

"I don't look at men much, I wouldn't know."

"Ah." It was a small tidbit, but at the very least enough for Chaser to go on from. "Well, the nicer ones are what I look for myself. Then again, not that many that last past the point where gender transition gets mentioned. That's life huh?"

At that, Maarani's head went back against her seat. "Why are you doing this?"

"Fixing your ship?" Even before the reaction, she could tell that was a bad move. "Look, I've seen you around since I got transferred here. And I know you've seen me-"

"And we're both minorities so clearly we have some goddess damned common ground to bond over! Is that it!?"

When the conversation finally died out, she went right back to running through the checks again. That time she got through the usual lot without notable incident, enough for her to ease up just a little.

"I'm not one for talking while I'm pissed off at the other pilots and my head is full of chemicals. Good on you for standing up for your identifying as a woman. I won't bother you with fleeting glances at your fake tits and not-actually feminine ass anymore since you're clearly not interested. Okay?"

As soon as she got the all clear for a full power-up from the ship's computer she did so, much to the perturbance of Chaser. Not that Maarani cared by that point.

"By the way, mechanic, the starboard airfoil has been jammed upwards for weeks now. In case the next pilot to fly this crap doesn't notice, fix it for them."

She closed the canopy at that, putting an end to any further conversation. Not long after, she finally got the all clear to lift off the deck and start moving towards the launch zone, strapping herself in fully while doing so.

"Blue Leader to Blue Squadron; form up on spacefall. Friendly covering fire ends in twenty seconds. Sound off."

The sole comfort Maarani had in the seat of her fighter was that it was a lot easier to be professional, regardless of how she felt. On the deck, the gloves were off. In space, they did still rely on each other to not get blown out of the sky by a stray shot.

"Razor standing by."

"Starlight standing by."

"Maven standing by."

"Piledriver standing by."

She only ever bothered to pay attention up to that point. Problems further down the roll weren't for her to deal with after all.

"Wildfire standing by."

While the rest of the squad went through their calls, she made one final check of her instruments. The airfoil warning was still standing out as a bother to her, but since they were stationed on the ship instead of at the garrison she had no valid reason to set back down. Short of complete circuitry failure of course, at which point the fighter would drop anyway.

"Covering fire cycle on hold. Clear to one thousand metres. Watch your IFF. Watch your firing arcs. Check your targets. There's still four of Red Squadron out there right now. Deploy in order."

Being at the end of the first wave, Maarani kept her eyes right on the exit path, hitting the burners as soon as she was clear of the Guidance proper. The launch bay faced away from the planet's surface, leaving plenty of room to spread out and orientate to the stars beyond before circling back into formation.

Immediately, her readout lit up with several distant blips. The few enemy interceptors that had chased down Red Squadron had apparently been destroyed already. Few being the key word, as she counted over twenty at least that had stayed out of range. There was no counting whatever could be lurking further into Sarka's umbra.

"Don't get cozy people! Word from the Admiral is that we could be staring down at the flagship and not know it. We know for a fact that the Empire have been tossing bad pilots at us like we're wolves. Don't get lured out."

Before long, the whole squadron had formed into two x-formations, lead by Darrik and Omena respectively. Both slowed in speed as they moved beyond the firing range of the Guidance, entering the effective void.

It didn't take much longer for the sudden lack of activity to become unnerving, especially for the four Reds who had moved to join the formations as well.

"Admiral Ileyan to Blue Squadron. We still aren't reading anything inside the designated fly-zone. They are holding at ninety kilometres from current position."

"Blue Leader to Red Leader, thoughts?"

"They were running us down pretty hard while we were scattered. This beats me."

There was a small pause after that, not easing the tension by any means.

"Alright, eyes out for each other people. We loop back in a minute, break and reform on my mark."

Maarani kept her eyes forward. That cold feeling in the pit of her stomach was really gnawing at her. The readings on those Imperial interceptors were still well beyond the set limits of their patrol. And yet there was a distinct feeling they were in fact being surrounded. She still couldn't see anything in front of her.

"Blue Squadron, this is Raider. Confirm twenty two marks at a distance of roughly fifty kilometres? Are they holding position?"

For once, Maarani decided to break from her usual silence on the matter. Her suspicions being shared was comforting in a twisted way. Enough to act on.

"Wildfire confirming count, twenty two marks at said distance. Do we loop back now?"

"Blue Leader to Blue Squadron, prepare to break and regroup on return heading. Reroute power to aft deflectors, and-"

For just a moment, all twenty two Republic pilots went quiet as a pair of blue mechanical eyes lit up in the space directly ahead of them.

"Scramble! Scramble!"

All awareness of the rest of the squadron went out the window for Maarani, something likely common for everyone else.

There was no swerving and boosting out of the way of the starfighter droid headed right for her. By the time it had fully powered up, the two craft collided, allowing the droid to latch directly into the armor plating and deliver a burst of energy that disabled all of the electronic functions.

In her moment of panic she wildly threw her head around. All the other fighters had met the same fate, twisting and spinning around. Only RCS control remained functional due to being hydraulic in control.

The droid attached to her fighter was quick to lurch the entire craft around before she could try shaking it off using said thrusters. Once it had scanned again to confirm she was adequately disorientated, it fired up its main engines to begin looping back on its own course into the umbra.

Alongside the other seventeen that had captured the rest of Blue Squadron, leaving the last four to hold Red Squadron dead in space as easy pickings.

---

"Capture droids!"

The shock was shared amongst the bridge crew yet again. For Koor however, who had been on call in anticipation of Chaser's report, it was so much worse.

"My god. Get them back." Despite all her training, and the preparation she had undergone for a potential duel with the White Terror, she abandoned her cool Jedi nerves for just a few seconds. "Get Maarani back!"

"I plan to!"

Ileyan left the holotable to return to the intercom officer once more. "Tell Sargeant Chaser to get back down to the hangar for incoming emergency repairs. Then get me the forward weapony officer."

While that was carried out, he returned to the helm officers, gripping the chair on the left while pointing with his free hand. "Military thrust! Dead ahead, don't deviate except on immediate risk of collision!"

"Weaponry officer standing by!"

After the rumble of the engines rising to full power ran through the bridge, Ileyan went back to the holotable. To Koor's left, a second holoimage had materialized, that being of the officer herself.

"Sir."

"You once told me your shooters could take the equivalent of a bottle top off at a hundred metres in spatial terms."

"Boasting is one thing sir-"

Koor's expression quickly turned to disapproval. "Admiral, you can't possibly shoot the droids off at that range! Not even with Jedi precision!"

Ileyan motioned his hand for a chance to continue. "There are twenty two fighters out there with droids grappled on at different angles. Shoot within two metres of the droid itself without hitting the fighter. Thinnest possible beam. Keep firing along the same axis, any shift in trajectory could be fatal. Can you do that?"

"We'll need just over a minute to reconfigure. Get us calculations and we might just be able to do that, sir."

"Then stay on it until I tell you otherwise. When we find that destroyer, or we free all our pilots."

As soon as the weaponry officer tuned out, he brought the display of the battle in towards the helpless fighters ahead of them. By then, eighteen had moved much further away than the rest. Too much of a coincidence, but one he double checked nonetheless.

"Identification on these four fighters!"

"Observation deck reads Red Squad markings! No IFF signals to confirm!"

Once again, Ileyan looked to Koor for guidance. "They wanted Blue Squadron. Why?" And circled around towards the holoimage of the Jedi. "Because of Maarani?"

"They wouldn't take the whole squadron if it was about someone specific, someone they could identify that easily. Right now I'm just as much in the dark as you are about why. Get them all back, and maybe we'll find out."

"I'll do that, Master Jedi. Mark my words."

That time when Koor's holoimage dissipated, they both knew it would be for several hours at least. Much as he wanted that further comfort of Jedi guidance at hand, he could only imagine just how terrible things were about to get down on the surface.

He had to focus on the crisis laid out ahead of him.

"Time to intercept?"

"Capture droids outpacing our velocity. Rescue pods are deploying now to assist in recovering Red Squadron, estimated six minutes. Weaponry officer reports ready to fire parallel to captured craft as instructed. Calculations are being relayed now."

"Do it."

---

Within a minute, they had passed deeper into the penumbra of the planet, approaching the point of full darkness.

Still dazed by the shutdown of the inertial dampeners, Maarani couldn't do much else other than stare out the window. Doing her utmost to not think about the fate laying before her for even a small time.

They were heading counter to the day-night cycle of Sarka itself. Passing over those waking to the morning, and soon those yet to wake. From what she knew, there wouldn't be many on the surface looking up at eighteen streaks of light in the night sky.

Not that they could do much about it anyway.

Inevitably, her recovering senses drew her focus back to the droid clamped to her craft. The position it had clamped at meant she was effectively flying downwards from her personal perspective, further disorientating her awareness of position.

Somewhere above her head, the Dodonna's Guidance was probably giving chase, though she didn't have the strength or determination to tilt her head back far enough. That and her lekku tended to get in the way enough as it was.

That left the destination, which was impossible for her to see altogether. Maybe not intentional, but it scared her even more to not know what to expect nonetheless.

"Well, Tebahney. I wish it didn't go down like that for you, but I think it's still going to be better than what's waiting for all of us."

She sank her head back as much as possible against the seat until the wedge-shaped rest between her lekku pressed into her skull.

"We deserve it, after all. You didn't."

A sudden flash of red light drew her attention planetside again. When the second flash came, she recognized it as a blaster shot, only coming from the wrong direction.

She made the effort to shuffle forward and tilt her head back as much as possible without straining her neck. Sure enough, the Guidance was on approach, and firing blaster shots in the direction of the squad. Each was close enough to illuminate the hull of each fighter as it went past. Already, some were starting to struggle against the droids holding the craft captive once more.

It didn't take long to connect the intent of those shots. Actually pulling off the extremely precise timing and movement needed to make it happen without blowing a hole in her own craft was another matter. And the Imperial interceptors were still out there after all.

She had to be capable of spaceflight.

"Goddess, Force, whichever of you is going to be merciful…"

When the droid started to adjust its course to evade those shots, she made her move. A mechanical lever switched the controls over to the RCS, which she pulled right before the next shot in sequence flew past.

With a desperate inhale she brought the needed boosters to full power, twisting and rotating the fighter to the left while bringing the nose right into the line of fire. All the while nearly screaming her lungs out at the moment of truth.

The whole fighter shook violently as the struggling forces between her thrusters and that of the droid finally came to an end with the droid's upper section being blasted to pieces. It resulted in her spinning downwards for several seconds, but at least out of the way of further blasts, and into relative freedom.

She was still stranded in the dark, and with nowhere near enough thrust left in the RCS to get back on course for the Guidance and land. She needed power back for the main engines and controls.

"Alright. Power cycle, come on power cycle. Nothing blew out, right?"

Working on rebooting the ship's drive meant keeping her head low, and thus unaware of how the rest of the squadron was handling their attempts to escape from capture. And from the aforementioned danger of the interceptors closing in for a more decisive end to her control over the situation.

---

"Status?"

"Enemy barrage underway as anticipated. Three, no five fighters have broken free of capture droids. All others are taking evasive action. Estimate four minutes until enemy cruiser enters target space."

Morgak nodded as he returned to the holotable once more, watching the approaching image of the Dodonna's Guidance with a small smile. "Right on course. Instruct the droids to begin clearing the projected corridor. Interceptors are to engage and drive the loose fighters towards the planet's surface. Force them to land near but not at the Republic garrison if possible. Not intact or destroyed, merely disabled."

Once the attending comm officer left to relay those instructions, he brought up an audio channel to another part of the ship, reserved for his use alone.

"Dark Lord, we stand ready to enact the plan. The Republic have acted as predicted, we are setting the final stage now. The pilot you specified has not broken free of her capture droid, and will be on board alongside the rest of the squadron following our next move. Are your calculations ready?"

When the voice came through at last, it left a mild chill on all but Morgak. It was cold in tone. Deep, but not broken. The thick accent was the only real indicator that it wasn't a droid on the other end, at least to those not familiar with the Dark Lord's identity.

"I am sending them up now. You are absolutely certain my target is among those to be picked up?"

"Visual confirmation from the surviving droids. It's definitely her." Morgak motioned for a list of those that had escaped, which he started reading from right after. "Blue Five, Six, Eight, Eleven and Fourteen have escaped so far, they should be regaining power within the next minute. I've already ordered they be herded back to your Shadow Hand's location on the surface."

"Very good, General. I await execution of the plan."

"As you say, Dark Lord." Once the channel had been closed, he looked back up to the holoimage. The capture droids had cleared out of the area between them and their target at last, leaving the interceptor group to do their part.

"Is the Guidance continuing its barrage?"

"No sir. It ceased firing once the droids assumed nonlinear courses."

"Good. I want them to continue evasive patterns until this is done, clearance of three kilometres from the corridor. The same for our interceptors once their part is complete."

---

Down in the private observation hall, the room itself was near pitch black due to their position, as well as the deliberate lack of any external lighting to continue masking their position. The only visible light came from the view of the stars beyond.

The Sith Lord herself was kneeling in front of that window. Gazing across the stars, and the faint points of light that marked the continuing battle further ahead.

A few moments passed, after which she lowered her head just a little. From the black silhouette of her kneeling form extended a hand of bright red skin, marked with intricate black tattoos. She passed that hand across her view towards the planet, inhaling deeply.

"Five will be delivered to you, apprentice. They will arrive soon. Be ready."

That hand lowered back down, returning to the darkness surrounding her. Very lightly stroking down the sole remaining lekku on her right side. A subconscious motion, brought on by the end goal she had in mind.

---

The Guidance had entered the shadow of the planet entirely by then. The rescue pods had thankfully reached Red Squadron before the interceptors, but they were still some distance from providing covering fire to those few of Blue Squadron not out of reach altogether.

Ileyan had gotten back in contact with the weaponry officer by that point. Koor was in the field doing battle of her own by then.

"Barely a third got themselves free. Still waiting to see if they can regain power and restore communications. I wish I could say I believe this ship has the firepower to fight and board whatever's lurking out there, but without Jedi on board we can't risk it."

"I understand, sir. If nothing else, should we attempt to shoot to disable?"

"You did your best with the pilots, not a single friendly hit from our readings. If you can take out the hyperdrive without too much collateral I'll approve it. Otherwise, we have to leave the rescue mission to a specialized taskforce. Blowing our best pilots to bits is not acceptable."

"Even if they're in the custody of the Sith?"

Ileyan curled his lip inward a little, head lowering down. "I'm not here to fire on our own people. I'll face the consequences if we don't get them back immediately."

The arrangement of the remaining capture droids caught his attention at last. Whatever the reason, they had cleared out of the immediate area that they were previously heading down. That left the interceptors, who were also evading that same area on approach.

"Lured into a trap twice over. Fantastic."

He slammed his palm against the table to release that frustration before returning his focus. "The moment we re-establish contact with our pilots, tell them to clear that area of space. If the Sith are already using the dark side to hide from our scanners, they may just be about to test a new Force weapon on us as well."

Through the doubtful glances, Ileyan left the table to once again stand at the forefront of the bridge, facing the enemy.

"Maintain thrust, divert shield power to forward emitters. I want constant scans on the area ahead, and all data streamed to the surface garrison. Let's at least warn the Republic about what to expect." He could practically feel the further doubts from the other officers, something he had to address. "I don't think any amount of evasive maneuvers will get us out of this now. We take it head on, and hopefully save the rest of the fleet in doing so."

---

Twice, there had been a flicker of life from the control systems before they died out shortly after. Stress was reaching its limit for Maarani, holding back on the urge to go absolutely mad. There had been plenty of warning stories about pilots opening the canopy when they went frantic.

"Come on! You fill my back with shrapnel, only to give up trying to kill me now? Come on!"

After the next strained cycle of the manual start mechanism, the panels finally blared into full life. Bringing with it the incredibly comforting sound of the main drive firing back up from its cold state as well.

"Finally! About time you useless crappy-"

Her head smashed against the panels as she was struck from behind. A precise movement by the interceptor pilot wedged her fighter in between the wings of his craft just long enough to propel her forward, then unlatch to vacate the area himself with minimal damage.

It was enough of an impact to really leave her dazed as her fighter spiralled away from the planet. She was the last of Blue Squadron to regain control, and with little time left, sending her into deep space was more viable for keeping her alive than into the atmosphere.

---

"General, sensors report the corridor is clear. Blue Six has been relocated to the outer threshold, the remainder are on descent now."

Taking one last look at the table, Morgak turned from it to stride up the long walkway to the front of the bridge.

"Stand down silent running. Time until optimal coordinates?"

"Fifteen seconds. The Dodonna's Guidance has focused shielding on the forward angle."

The smile set in on his face. He extended his right hand out to the side, two fingers pointing. When the moment came, he gestured them downward.

"Execute."

---

It all happened in an instant.

For just a few seconds, Ileyan and others finally caught sight of a ship in the pitch black, confirming their suspicions at last. Just as quickly it was gone.

Only to have reappeared right alongside them.

It was a similar reaction down on the hangar deck where Chaser was continuing to work. One moment, the view beyond the forcefield of the open hatch was empty space. The next, the starboard hull of the Seething Edge.

Still dazed by the impact, a trail of drying blood running down her forehead, the most Maarani could see from her angle was the star just barely shining its light over the western horizon of Sarka. It wasn't until the flash of energy on the arrival of the Edge between her and the Dodonna's Guidance that she noticed its presence at last.

When that moment came to an end, Morgak's order to fire silently echoing across his deck, chaos ensued.

The attack itself was utterly devastating. So much time had gone into preparing the ship for that crucial hyperdrive maneuver, culminating in a virtually one-sided exchange that only lasted a minute. Anything more would easily have been in excess.

Every single cannon and turret along the facing hull fired right into the broadside of the Guidance. The angles weren't exact, only a small fraction of the hangar bay itself coming under direct fire, but it was still more than enough.

All along the ship, hull plating was blown off. Decks and outer halls ripped open, sending many helpless crew out into the void between the two ships. As the attack cut deeper, vital systems began to shut down, rendering the ship itself helpless.

By the time the firing ceased, the Dodonna's Guidance had already started to fall out of orbit towards the planet. It would take some time to crash, and would circle around quite a way before doing so, but there really was no chance of getting it out of the atmosphere.

In the observation room, the Dark Lord of the Sith watched the display unfold, and tried to smile.

---

"Ladies and gentlemen…"

Morgak turned on the spot with a hard clack of his boots together, standing straight and proud. Every single Imperial officer on the bridge was quick to do the same in return.

"Well done."

He followed it up with a salute, which in turn was reciprocated. The upstanding mood broke after that, as everyone including Morgak himself began to congratulate those around. Through handshakes, small pats to the shoulder or even a few words of praise.

After finishing with the main strategists, Morgak turned his attention to the table once more, resuming the earlier channel.

"Dark Lord, we will begin retrieval of the pilots immediately. By all accounts, the plan was an unmitigated success."

"You may offer my gratitude to the crew, General Morgak. They have proven themselves exemplary this day."

"Thank you, my Lord."

He closed the channel once more, looking back up to the rest of the officers. "To earn the praise of a Sith is no small feat. Nor was this controlled micro-jump. I expect you all to be there for a celebratory round of drinks when we return to Ziost."

By then, the Guidance had moved past them altogether, drawing his attention to the display once more.

"I want tracking on that wreck, projected location of impact as well as time remaining. All capture droids are to converge and deliver the fighters to the main landing bay. Have them assembled for inspection when the time comes."

"And what of Blue Six?"

Morgak looked up towards the solitary blip. With a small smile, he shrugged in response.

"If the pilot resists, drive them towards Shadow Hand's location as with the others. If not, have a fresh capture droid deployed to bring them in as well."

---

Fire was already spreading across the bridge of the Guidance. Many of the officers were motionless at their posts. Ileyan was slumped over the cracked holotable, the display glitching around his lifeless body.

From the corridor further back came the whooshing sound of a fire suppressor. Wielded by Chaser as it turned out, her gashed arm roughly bandaged by a sleeve ripped from her overalls and held in place by her hair tie.

"Lia! Ileyan! Hayde!"

The latter two she caught sight of soon after. On closer inspection she confirmed the admiral's death, something that made her wince deeply. Hayde took longer to reach at the helm, braving a massive rip in the floor plating that was spewing out yet more fire. In a way, finding him unconscious but alive made the situation worse, as getting him out in his state would be a monumental task.

Left with no way of doing it on her own, she began moving back through the bridge. Finally she caught sight of Lia, slumped against the port facing wall with the mass of tentacles splayed out around her shoulders. Unlike Hayde, she was at least partially conscious.

Some prompting from Chaser, and having her arm grabbed to pull her up helped most of the way to recovering her senses. Her deep eyes looked rather clouded nonetheless.

"Chaser…"

"Admiral's dead. I'd say a lot of the command staff are. Lost a lot of good people on the deck, pilots and mechanics." Once confident she could let go, Chaser released her grip on Lia's arm to get back to controlling the fire in the floor. "Can you help me get Hayde and the others to the pods? There's people trapped all over the ship, and so far you're the only one I've found up in this section."

Lia took several seconds to slowly look around the bridge before finally following Chaser. By then she had wrested the chair free of the shrapnel jamming it in place, allowing both women to carefully slide Hayde free of it.

It meant being right in front of the forward windows, and the view of the ship's impending fate. The Sarkan star's light was already starting to glimmer at the horizon, which for everyone on the surface would be sunset. For them, sunrise meant hitting the upper atmosphere. One step closer to smashing across the forests below.

"Lia, focus. We still need to check the others when we've got Hayde secure."

It took her a while longer, but the Nautolan eventually recovered enough to do just that. She couldn't repair the sensors nearly fast enough to make gauging their time left worthwhile. Having an actual number wouldn't help with the abundant stress either. The best either of them could do was rescue anyone they found and get out when things got too hot.

Regardless of how many were possibly going to be left behind.

---

Maarani's vision remained blurred even while she fumbled for the controls again. Flying in that condition would normally be an instant disaster, except there was just enough awareness to know she was now alone out there. No radio chatter from the rest of the squadron, or the Guidance itself.

Seeing the fiery streak across the torn hull told her enough. Even from that distance, she knew it was in no shape to come pick her up. Meaning she had to go to it, ideally without crashing.

It still left the looming threat of the Sith destroyer on her left. When her vision cleared a little more, she could see some of the other Blue Squadron fighters being hauled into its hangar bay.

Therein lay the conflict that started to brew in her mind. Everything that had happened in the past couple months had driven that terrible rift between her and the others. The assault was merely the latest.

And yet, she knew from so many experiences and stories just how monstrous the Sith could be to their prisoners. Part of her wanted to spite her fellow pilots to her fate. Part of her wanted to spite the Sith instead.

The destroyer was closer, and between her head injury and the antidepressants wreaking havoc on her brain chemistry, all survival instinct and rational thought had been done away with. There was just simple, animalistic urges. To destroy, and more than likely be destroyed herself.

A light shake of her head put her lekku back into a comfortable position so that she could lean back, and finally go full throttle. Straight past the interceptor coming at her, headed on a direct attack run for whatever parts of the destroyer she could hit.

---

"The last of the capture droids have entered the main hangar deck with their targets. No further attempts to escape. All readings indicate full discharge of RCS reserves across the squadron."

"Excellent." Morgak took the time to lock in the list of confirmed captures. Whatever else happened after that moment was no longer the responsibility of the military. "Ensure they are all disarmed before presentation. I don't want good troopers being shot in futile escape attempts. Or the pilots taking their own lives."

"Yes General."

That left Blue Six to deal with, who by then had rather annoyingly evaded the interceptors sent to finish them off. One fighter couldn't damage the Seething Hand to any meaningful degree, especially with so many Sith on board and no larger vessel to back up its attack. It did have more fuel for evasion however by virtue of being deployed long after the interceptors. Not to mention most of those were busy further ahead in their orbit of Sarka.

"Disorientated several times over, and still committed to an attack run. Either they're naively faith-blind, or have a death wish."

"Orders?"

The faint rumble of the first volley of blaster fire striking the shields reached the bridge at last. With a small exhale of disinterest, Morgak lifted his hand for a dismissive gesture. "Clearly they won't take to being driven to the surface. Turrets are free to-"

"No, General."

That time, the holotable switched out to display the Dark Lord herself. Still shrouded by the cloak that went over her seemingly enormous head, the only parts of her discernable were the hands, the lekku, and a bit of her chin that bore white markings instead of black.

"The time will soon come where I will rain death on the Republic. I want them to taste a reminder of that power first. Stand your interceptors and turrets down. I will personally deal with this stray fighter, and make my message clear."

"Very good, my Lord." Morgak motioned with his hand for the others to carry out that order. "We will remain on standby until the situation changes."

---

The first pass did nothing. She hadn't expected it to. She wasn't expecting anything. All she felt she needed was that constant urge to lash out. All the bitterness and hatred for the Empire, the Sith, and even her fellow pilots had a real outlet.

Dogfighting interceptors needed concentration, her eye on the targeting systems, and trigger discipline with friendlies in the area. Attacking a destroyer entirely on her own needed none of that. There was no questioning the lack of anti-fighter barrages from the vessel itself, or why the interceptors had left her alone to go chase the others.

She came around for the second pass, pulling a wide turn to fly right up the length of the destroyer from tip to stern. No regard for who exactly was on board, who she might kill if she did somehow breach the shields. They were the people who killed her family, as well as what friends she did have, and had turned her life to misery again and again.

Towards the end of the second pass, approaching one of the observation decks, she was snapped out of that silent blood fever by the fighter lurching hard to the left. So much so that she nearly passed out from the g-forces that somehow got through the dampeners.

The rumble in her ears made her wince more, a dead giveaway of when the Force was at work. Through the madness, she knew she had gained the direct attention of the Sith. And it was just enough to start wearing away her madness with the very real, legitimate fear that came with having their attention.

Not enough to stop her from circling around for a third pass.

---

True to her word, the Sith Lord had moved to stand upright in order to exert her control of the Force outward. Well beyond the observation room, into the space beyond. Probing, reaching out for Blue Six's fighter as she approached. Casting her hand aside to enact the same on the fighter itself.

The red-yellow blaze in her eyes started to glow just a little as they traced the turning arc. The deflection was no small feat. But now that she had taken a read on the craft, she could do more. Getting a read on the pilot would be feasible.

"One desperate person with nothing left to lose. How typical…"

She watched the flashes of blaster fire hitting the shields at the other end of the ship. Drawing closer by the second. Remaining poised to strike all the while.

When the moment came, both her hands lashed forward, catching the fighter with all of her control of the Force on display.

Against all physics, and to the amazement of those Imperials watching, Blue Six's fighter came to an absolute halt. Over a hundred metres away from the observation room, but still close enough for what needed to be done.

"And now, for the message."

Both her hands were trembling, knuckles searing from the struggle she faced to maintain that level of control. It fed back into her connection to the dark side, drawing more of that twisted energy right back into asserting her will. Probing with her mind for a direct link at last.

Inside the fighter, Maarani was frozen just as much as her craft. Eyes forced wide open, barely able to move, the rest of her body shaking at the hold kept over her. What she could see of her hands came through as a slight blur.

That terror rooted in only grew further as the rumbling in her ears deepened. Accompanying the sensation of fingers rolling up along her arms. Invisible, intangible, and yet so clearly touching her skin. Moving upward, closer to her head.

It was then that she began to recognize the presence, not just on the basis of being held captive by an extremely strong Sith. It was one she had felt before, eight years previous.

On board the ship, the struggle for the Dark Lord continued. Her reach drawing closer to her goal. Working through the nerves, embracing the emotions and sensations pouring out towards her. The moment of mental contact was within reach. The moment in which she would once again prove the true extent of her powers.

Going down to the hangar deck and probing the minds of the captured pilots was simple, and something planned anyway. The moment before her was on a level of its own altogether.

Both women felt the moment of contact when it happened. Just the briefest exchange of direct feelings. An awareness of the other. A name. Whispered by the other in turn.

"Maarani."

"Lasidia."

It was cut short by a force that cut the link between the two abruptly, and rather violently.

Maarani was released from her hold into a total hallucination that was just as unstable as the fighter itself. She shot well past the Seething Edge, images flashing before her eyes as delusional voices started to echo in her mind.

"Return to base. Return to base Wildfire. Re-re-re-re-re-return…"

Eyes lidded, she was barely conscious by the time her course ended up headed directly for the Dodonna's Guidance as it slammed into the atmosphere below. By the time she ended up ploughing into the hull in turn, the A-wing's hull shape causing it to become wedged in the armour plating, she had passed out completely.

The last image to cross her mind had been that of a desolate landscape, though she didn't recognize it at all.

---

For Darth Lasidia, the cut was rather more dramatic, seeing her thrown back across the hall with a hard thump of her body against the floor.

It took a few seconds to recover, to stand and return to the window. Her hood had been thrown clear by the impact, leaving her face fully bare, and the montrals signature to her race open to the air once again.

Being a Togruta meant developing a unique connection to the Force by default. Rising to the level of leader of the Sith, and all the twisted corruption that came with it had changed that unique connection beyond recognition.

And yet, in all her years as the Dark Lord, not once had she felt so completely blindsided by an action of the Force itself. The moment of contact had told her enough to know that Maarani was not the source of that cut at all.

That frightened her so much more than if it had been the Twi'lek pilot defending herself.

"Maarani." She repeated the name twice more following that. In her disbelief, she couldn't quite come to terms with what at first sounded like a coincidence. The shared name was too much.

With one last glance out at the stars, she turned and began marching towards the doorway at the other side of the room. Bare feet thudding along the floor with every heavy step, she didn't even bother to pull her hood back over in her desperation for answers. The desire to send a message had vanished altogether. Now, there was simply a lack of understanding that had to be resolved.

Driven further by the fact that she too had glimpsed that desolate landscape. But unlike Maarani, she recognized it well.

---

She arrived on the bridge mere minutes later, much to the surprise of many of the officers. Morgak aside, the most they had seen her was when she made her speeches on Ziost, typically at the waning hours of the day and fully hooded.

To see her without the hood, and in the strong lighting of the bridge itself, put things into an odd kind of perspective. The real mystery of her appearance was gone, not that her race was unknown to them. But her towering presence and menacing face thanks to the markings, both natural and tattooed, more than compensated for the chilling effect that hiding her face had achieved until then.

In contrast to all the officers, Lasidia couldn't care less about the shift in how they perceived her. Striding right up to the holotable, she dismissed the tactical display with a gesture to bring up a link to the Imperial spymaster on Ziost instead. True to her position, she was entirely unsurprised by Lasidia's full appearance, or the call itself for that matter.

"I want every available file on Blue Six accessed and decoded. As soon as possible. Starting with known relations."

"The Twi'lek? I thought you concluded she wasn't the desired target."

"She isn't. My target is in custody. This Twi'lek, Maarani, is something else entirely of concern to me. Get those files."

"As you command. I'll move my agents into position now. Expect the first batch within minutes."

"Don't bother with anything deeply restricted. For the time being I am not concerned with rumours about her deployment on Mirial. Rather her potential ties to the Jedi. I believe Arani is her family name."

"Understood. I will pass those parameters along. Keeper out."

Once the transmission had closed, Lasidia brought back the tactical display. "Where is Blue Six now?"

Morgak simply raised an eyebrow. "Either splattered across or wedged in the hull of the Guidance. She flew right into it after you released her."

It was a very matter-of-fact statement, not intended to slight or undermine Lasidia in any way. Other Sith of a different age would have treated it as such at a moment's notice, and probably gone for a Force choke as a result.

Lasidia was so very different from those Sith. Her temperment was cold certainly, but definitely not wasteful or paranoid of those she trusted. When she corrected that assumption, it was not spiteful, intended to put Morgak in his place. Their working relationship was far from that indeed.

"I didn't release her by choice. Some greater power intervened on her behalf, I know from what I gleamed that she couldn't possibly have done that herself. I need to know just how she has earned the favour of the Force itself, and that starts with learning exactly who she is."

She looked to the display again, glancing over the marker that indicated the Dodonna's Guidance, and it's projected area of impact. Not that far from where her apprentice was currently on the prowl comparatively, but still well beyond posing any danger to their ground forces.

"Continue to monitor the ship. If Maarani survived the impact, she might just find a way to escape before the crash. I want her chased down to the surface if she escapes with her fighter, ideally within the hunting zone. Kiarna will handle her recapture." With one last glance to the marker, Lasidia began to move away from the table. "I have strong doubts Maarani is going to be allowed to die in this manner. Continue with the plan, I must investigate my own sources."

"And what of the pilots? They should be assembled by now."

Lasidia rolled her shoulders before turning to leave the bridge. "Rak'Sakar will handle them. We will deal with the survivors later. He knows what to do with the one I have sought out. And do not inform Kiarna of this development, should Maarani somehow make it to the surface. I want her to learn what she can on her own instinct. Simply tell her to exercise some restraint when it comes time for Blue Six's turn."

After she had left the bridge, Morgak simply shrugged and went back to work. "For the sake of clarity, this conversation does not leave the bridge. It especially does not reach the troopers. Any rumour spread will prompt an investigation by the council of Sith sorcerers in addition to Keeper. Understood?"

---

There were at least a hundred troopers on the deck by the time all thirteen captured members of Blue Squadron had been assembled. The reflective armour of old had been toned back to scruffed metal. Originally the result of scrounging for new pieces from the remnant reserves weathered by the passing decades, it had quickly become a standard for all fitted pieces.

Amongst the troopers, a vast majority were human or near-human, many worlds having fallen under the influence of the resurgent Sith Empire. Even some by choice. There was no distinguishing them based on race or gender however. The only difference lay in the shades of colour across the divisions and specialities, while their commanding officers more often than not stayed in uniform instead of armour. Jet black in either case.

Two such officers watched over the troopers that were keeping the members of Blue Squadron in place, all armoured in dull steel. It was a stark contrast to the orange jumpsuits of the pilots, and particularly those like Omena.

Of the pilots themselves, Darrik was the most unsettled, still struggling against the tight grip on his arms at being rendered powerless. And not in control.

"Wing Commander Lao Darrik! I would speak to General Morgak immediately!"

The first of the two officers tilted his head to the other with an unamused look. "So aggressive. A shame, really."

The second officer nodded in agreement, eyeing up some of the others before sighing to herself. "Too aggressive. We won't be keeping hold of them for long I'd expect."

From across the deck, another officers shouted to attention, prompting the rest to stand tall. Those keeping the pilots in place were excepted of course.

Their own desperate struggles and words to each other died down as a chilling feeling swept across. Soon, every one of them looked to the right, in the direction from which Darth Rak'Sakar was approaching.

At a distance, some of the less well-versed in the galactic races mistook him for a Trandoshan. The green scaly hide was obvious from a distance. But as the Sith Lord drew closer, that assumption was dispelled to something far more sinister.

Barabel had long been reputed to be friends of the Jedi. A few were well known in the order. But, like the notion of a Togruta Sith Lord, he was an exception to the trend that only made his existence all the more threatening.

Every step closer towards the line-up came with a clink of the claws on his feet against the floor. Drawing deeply from the dark side had corrupted his body in a very different way from the usual pasty, ill look that had sometimes afflicted humanoids in the Sith. Instead, the hardy, but refined look of his people had almost devolved in a way.

Feet that typically fit into boots had arched up in the middle, spurred by the shape of those enlarged claws. Small spines lined the front of his shins, as well as his arms. A similar set sprang from the ridges that started at the back of his jawline and wrapped around above his head, which further enlarged his already menacing expression of cold malice. Behind him swayed a tail tipped with several barbs, jagged hooked ridges lining the inside of each.

The only thing that didn't look outright savage in the literal sense was his hands, though solely because he had much greater control in how far his hand claws retracted.

Both he and Lasidia opted for simpler black tunics, though unlike her, he had chosen to forego the matching cloak to conceal more of himself. He wanted the pilots to see him in full, and tremble in fear.

He remained silent for the entire duration of walking past the pilots, only glancing to each once with those fire-flared reptilian eyes. When he reached Darrik's position, he stopped and stood upright, hissing through his thick maw of teeth.

"I will speak to General Morgak! You hear me lizard? I will only negotiate-!"

Just for an instant, there was a blur between Darrik and Rak'Sakar. Darrik stopped speaking right after, soon falling to his knees and gurgling a little.

Rak'Sakar motioned his bloodstained claws to the troopers to release him, watching the pilot fall to the floor without any regard. In the back of his head, through the matted hair, five holes had appeared where there were none before. Matching the general shape of Rak'Sakar's claws.

Anyone who had seen Rak'Sakar in action had done so from very far away. So for the pilots, it was the first time there was any actual evidence to the rumour that he had mastered the art of speed. That he could reach around to the back of the head and plunge his claws in within a fraction of the time it took to blink was still unfathomable.

At last, the powerful Sith Lord finally decided to speak,.

"The key to our victory will be extracted from the head of one of you. Darth Lasidia seeks a weapon of incredible power, left behind by the powers long since passed. Speak of it freely, and we may yet be inclined to show mercy. Resist, and death will be the mercy we withhold altogether."

The silent exchange of looks between the various pilots said it all. None consciously knew what Rak'Sakar was talking about. In some cases even on a general level. Tales of the ancient Rakata and their great and terrible machines of the dark side had not widely circulated after all.

"Very well."

That blood stained hand went back up, the claws passing over the face of each pilot in turn as Rak'Sakar started walking back. Every time, the deep rumbling in the ear of the pilot marked the onset of intense pain, the mind being probed for any surface memories triggered by his mention of the weapon.

Omena didn't experience the rumble, as all Togruta lacked ears due to their horns filling the role instead, but the pain came nonetheless. Worse in particular as for reasons beyond her comprehension, the probing had focused down on her.

In a move that seemed to mirror Darrik's treatment of Maarani in a fitting moment of karma, Rak'Sakar grabbed her by the jaw, pushing her head back.

"How amusing. The answer is plain to see, and you do not even realize it. You hold the key to discovering its location. Darth Lasidia will enjoy this quite immensely. She has a particularly seething hatred for those of her own kind."

His hand moved away from her jaw, only so that he could take her throat with the Force. The other hand he motioned to instruct the troopers to escort the rest of the pilots away. Much to their clear objection, as loyalty to Omena had been instilled long ago.

By then, Rak'Sakar had lifted her off the floor, letting her really gasp and struggle against the invisible hold around her neck, pressing the oesophagus a little tighter with every passing moment.

"Enjoy this moment, little Togruta. This is the height of comfort and safety you will be granted from now on."

When the time came, he shifted his hand at last, rendering her unconscious and letting her drop to the deck.

"Strip her. Leave only the bare minimum. Drag her to the prepared cell and leave her there. Do not speak to her. Do not acknowledge her. Darth Lasidia has sole authority over her fate now."

The pair of remaining troopers stood to attention in acknowledgement before moving to drag Omena off.

Rak'Sakar turned back to the doorway he had come from, giving one last motion of his hand for the attending officers to follow behind, keeping his tail close that time. Once the rest of the troopers had given their salute, they too began marching off to return to their designated posts.

---

The air was thin when Maarani finally regained consciousness.

Her fighter's canopy had been shattered by the impact. By some miracle, it hadn't gone inwards towards her face as was more likely to happen inside an atmosphere. In space, the cabin pressure ensured it always blew outward.

It took a little while to gather her bearings. She hadn't really seen any Hammerhead-class vessel from that particular angle, it being on its side relative to the planet below where gravity had taken hold of it. In a way, having a fixed sense of up-and-down meant she was actually less aware of where she was on the vessel's hull.

After freeing herself from the harness, and clambering up to freedom through the empty frame of the canopy, it became a little easier. She had landed somewhere between the hangar doors and the main drive section. To her left, where the upper hull of the ship was located, there was an enormous scar of charred metal that stretched far out into the distance, very gradually sloping downward to the lower section of the ship's bow.

"Shit."

It was all that came to mind. Repeated more when she got down from her fighter to the hull of the Dodonna's Guidance itself. The nose had wedged in under the armour plating that had peeled back from the impact. A bomber-class with its larger engines would possibly pull it free before burning out, but she highly doubted it would be the same for her A-wing.

The real nature of her situation struck home at that, sending into a rather enflamed bout of swearing and kicking at metal until she burned out that short fuse. She had escaped the Sith, but at that moment in time there was no way to escape her own ship before it ploughed into the ground.

She had done enough crying the past few weeks. There wasn't any anguish or sadness left, just frustration, and for the most part a complete lack of hope.

"Is this it? Is this retribution for all the times I've said 'goddess damned? Or have I really pissed the Force off? You abandoned me! Remember?"

Just for a moment, in the midst of the thin gusts of air that whistled around her flight suit and lekku, she felt a strange tingle across her skin. Moving in a specific direction, drawing her attention towards the bow of the ship.

She hadn't taken a proper look until that moment, thus hadn't noticed the one spark of hope left for survival.

Many of the starboard facing escape pods had been destroyed in the attack. More had already been deployed, evident by the closed hatches lining the hull. Just over two hundred metres down the hull however, there was one left. And the design of them did allow for exterior access in the event that someone was on EVA during an evacuation.

For a few seconds, she stood there, staring at it from that distance. It was in her nature to brush off such things as being too convenient. And more accurately to assume that the universe was toying with her after she had just finished ranting at the various cosmic forces.

Simple rationality made her launch into a sprint. If it was still intact, it was her best chance at survival, and that was all she needed to go for it.

With the clear blue sky above, and the clouds quickly approaching below, Maarani bolted across the battered hull. Her lekku were bouncing against her back all the while, as sprinting was never her strong point and thus held her back from achieving the ideal speed.

"Fine… you… do this… and…"

Her heart nearly stopped when a loud hiss came from the escape pod. The outer clamps had just released.

"No. No goddess dammit no!"

She was closing in on the fifty metre mark when the hum of an engine started to rumble up through the hull below. That time her face really was scrunching up, filled with desperation as she thudded closer to her goal.

At twenty metres, the escape pod shot out into the air, leaving the hatch to close behind it.

Maarani only caught a faint blur of blue and pink before the pod vanished below the clouds again. Some part of her suspected it was Chaser, last off the ship by the look of it, probably completely unaware she was out there.

That thought was gone shortly after as she just stumbled back, and gradually just curled up. Yet again she had reached out after backing away so many other times. Yet again it had burned her. She couldn't think of anything else to do but huddle and await the end, head buried against her arms folded across her knees.

"Tegama."

The faint voice called out her proper name twice after before she even acknowledged it. After what had just happened, she was ready to show any other 'miracles' exactly what she thought of them with a hand gesture.

Until she felt a hand on her shoulder.

She caught only a tiny glimpse of it. It was blue, the exact same as her own skin tone in fact. It was enough to fully draw her attention away from accepting doom if nothing else.

"Choose this path. Survive."

Utterly confused, Maarani turned around fully. Back beside her fighter stood a Twi'lek, obvious enough from the blue skin and lekku draped across the front. She couldn't see much of the face from that distance, nor the clothes, beyond the fact that they were grey in colour.

The Twi'lek was gone the next time she blinked. She was still rather embittered by the first fleeting chance of escape being taken from her. But, being called by name, a hand on the shoulder and a beckoning figure were all rather more tangible than some prickly skin. Or else a collective sign that oxygen deprivation from the thin atmosphere was setting in fully. In addition to the multiple concussions, the antidepressants and an invasive mental probe by a Sith in the mix of ways her brain was screwed around by.

Given the worst possible case was that her fighter would dislodge from where it had become wedged, she decided to get back up and start running for it immediately. In that case at least, the worst case still gave her some room to catch up in, and actually solved the main issue trapping her there in the process.

She hadn't counted on how much harder the two hundred metres back would be. The Guidance had passed through the upper layers of the atmosphere into the cloud layer by then. Her run back quickly devolved into stumbling, as the slight ease in her ability to breathe wasn't nearly enough to overcome the rest of the factors against her.

When she reached the fighter once more, still wedged under the plating, she went over the options again. Many times she had been warned about the danger of firing up the main thruster within a metre of any hull. Switching it to reverse could easily make the danger of overheating worse given how the ventilators functioned, sending all the raw heat into the hull of the ship and thus right back at the fighter's underside.

Even with her legs sore from the double sprint, she prepared for the next best option by situating herself between the fighter and a large section of the peeled hull. With her back pressed into the sun-warmed metal, she lifted her boot while eyeballing for the best impact spot, then proceeded to start stamping as hard as she could against the fighter itself.

There was no sound of metal tearing amidst the expected groan of warped plates being pulled on. Nothing had sprung up in the impact and impaled the hull of her ship. That was what she convinced herself of anyway, as the notion of her effort being completely futile was not something she wanted to have in mind.

After several attempts, she brought her foot to rest with a pained gasp. Still no indication the fighter had budged. And with the clouds around starting to thin out, she didn't have much time left at all.

"Fine. What'll it take, huh? What gets me out of this? Because if it's a promise to stop chasing women, hating myself and wasting credits on overly-processed food instead of an investment plan then I'll just sit here and die instead!"

Rather than a simple rumble that was just enough to shake the fighter loose, a fierce bulkhead failure ripped through the structure of the Guidance itself. The continued heat buildup on the port hull from its descent had finally done its damage, ripping the armour plating off with enough force to send the opposing hull into a rippling mess.

No longer gliding in a sense, it was very much ramming down against the atmosphere, air pockets of dangerous pressure forming in the core sections of the ship where doors had been sealed, causing it to rush for any possible opening or weakness, and blow it wide open.

Maarani was thrown from her seated position as metal whined and twisted around her, very much like the surface of a stormy ocean. Somewhere in the middle of being tossed and hurled around, she watched her fighter slide free of the deep wedge, towards the lower hull that opened up to the surface below.

In light of all that had happened, she made the quite possibly fatal decision to chase after it. It was impossible to stand, let alone run across the hull as it continued to twist and contort under the stresses coming up from below as aerodynamics broke down altogether.

Leaving caution behind, she was practically crawling towards the fighter with how often she stumbled back down. Every time she felt a shard of metal tug at her flight suit, it brought on the momentary fear that it was going to be the end.

It wasn't until she had clambered back inside the canopy and roughly settled into her seat that she felt capable of conscious thought at all. There were no time for safety checks, or to get her harness on despite how much she was being tossed about inside the fighter itself.

As soon as she restored power again, she brought the main engine to life. Waiting for that horrible moment when she'd slide off the hull into freefall, and hopefully not fly out of the empty canopy when she went to speed.

Just before the moment came, she closed her eyes and breathed in.

"Stupid sarcasm aside; please, don't let me die like this."

The drop came. Marked by the aft section of the fighter tilting back over the lowest edge of the Guidance, the nose pointing upward to the storming skies above. Her stomach already starting to shift, lurching as the fighter nearly flipped backwards, threatening to drop her out.

She opened her eyes, then went to full thrust.

It was more than enough momentum to pin her to the seat. Immediately she started to spin to an upright position, though not by her deliberate choice.

When the spinning continued, the view ahead flipping constantly from the grey clouds to the green forests of Sarka, she finally looked down at the warning light.

Of course, in an emergency take-off situation, anything non-essential was left out of maintenance checks for the sake of speed. Neither Maarani nor Chaser had expected that repairing the jammed airfoil would be of any relevance in a space fight.

She barely had enough control to bring it around towards the direction the Guidance had been falling in, as it was the same direction that would take her to the ground base. With just one airfoil however, one that was already in poor condition, getting to the landing zone was quickly becoming impossible.

"Come on! Come on!"

A blaster shot scored the port wing at that moment, destroying the only airfoil she had control of. The thrusters on the wing that remained simply weren't designed for usage in an atmosphere, and definitely not at the speed she was going.

"Interceptors! Really!?"

The second volley of shots struck the main engine dead on, causing it to die out completely. She was now flying entirely on momentum, with the controls shaking violently in her hands as the jammed airfoil threatened to break off altogether as she tried to keep the spin under control.

Inevitably, the treeline drew closer. First contact was marked by the snap of branches being struck by the nose. Soon, leaves were whipping around her face, mixing in with twigs that bounced around and occasionally nicked at her skin.

"Just stay up a little longer! Come on! Just-"

A particularly tall tree flashed into view in front of her without warning. The speed of her fighter saw it plough right through the trunk, shattering the wood into a hailstorm of splinters and tree shards.

She felt a hard thunk strike her left lekku. Immediately after, without any real time to investigate, she lost consciousness altogether.

---

Koor nearly missed the beeping of her holocom over the whine of her lightsaber slicing through another Imperial trooper. Given the only other attempt to contact her since entering the battlefield had been the warning about the Dodonna's Guidance, she made every effort to find a safe place to bunker in for the moment.

"Group up! Check your fire, eyes out, watch for Sith!"

Once she and the Republic soldiers had found a suitable dugout to enforce in, she knelt down to finally draw out the communicator itself.

As before, the base commander's image appeared when it came to life, though his expression was just as dour as it had been the last time.

"General, tracking station just reported a sighting of another Blue Squadron fighter. Looks like the same one that hit the Guidance. Got loose, then shot down by an interceptor. IFF was garbled, but my guess is that it was Blue Six."

Koor looked up from the communicator at that, casting her perception of the area around further out. There were many more Imperial troopers in the area, and no small amount of Sith.

"Have you got coordinates?"

"It's several kilometres away, long hike through the forest. Looks like she got away from the impact zone. But General, we've had sightings of the White Terror between the projected crash site and your position."

It was exactly what Koor didn't what to hear, but expected nonetheless. That cold, sadistic presence was unmistakable, and had grown far stronger in the past half hour. She had tasted fear, and pain, both of which were known to feed into her dark power. If Maarani had survived the crash, she would certainly be close to, if not next on the list of targets.

Reaching her at all seemed dubious given the distance, and the fact that they'd be under attack the whole way. Reaching her before the White Terror was impossible.

Contemplating whether they'd get there in time to keep her alive was something she simply couldn't allow herself to do. Far too many distressing outcomes that could easily break her focus when she needed it most.

"I can't justify going after her alone, not with the Sith about. Tell me the moment we have relief forces, or you have confirmation of a sighting. And keep the heavy trauma beds open. I'll send the pilots I find back your way."

She stowed the communicator away, using that time to signal the soldiers accompanying her to prepare for her advance. The exchange of blaster fire had only stopped when they moved out of sight. They would be watching for movement, meaning she had to plan her rise from the dugout carefully.

"I'm sorry Maarani. I truly am."

Koor readied her lightsaber as she moved to a crouching position, then leapt out of the hole, activating her lightsaber midair. As soon as she landed with a loud crunch of leaves and branches, she was flowing through the incoming blaster fire with ease. Every deflection with her blade, and evasion with her body coming through instinct alone.

It was hard to stay in the mindset of being careful and meticulous, but anything else would see her and the others killed. And that would leave no-one left to save Maarani or the others from the Republic's worst enemy of that era.

---

Maarani's flight suit was soaked by the time she regained consciousness. Rainwater alone wasn't enough to wake her clearly.

The first thing she noticed was leaves, branches and other debris scattered across her lap as well as the controls. All of which were clearly dead, as even the emergency indicators had gone off altogether. In all likelihood, her fighter was now destined to be stripped down for parts. Not that she really cared at that point.

The next thing she noticed was her surroundings. The sky through the trees above was grey, with light rainfall that would only be a minor inconvenience otherwise, the sort that even a thin layer of growth could adequately protect against. Which meant she had been in the open for quite a while.

That was when she went to tilt her head, and felt something pinning her left lekku in place.

It was very high up, as she could barely move her head. Without having seen what had happened just yet, she couldn't dare tugging it.

Carefully, she reached her right hand across, checking that the very tip of that lekku was still there to start with. She could feel contact in the region, but it was different, almost distant.

Trailing up, she nearly flinched when her fingers brushed against a chunk of wood. Teeth clenched, she started to trace around it.

It took a great deal more effort to not choke up and panic when she finally realized that her lekku wasn't being pushed back against the seat, but had in fact been literally pinned to it.

She couldn't begin to imagine what brain damage there potentially had been. It certainly felt high enough up the tendril to have struck neural tissue. Then again, she was conscious, and at least able to move her arms. A bit of cautious testing confirmed she still had control of her legs.

It left her with enough ability to move in any case. She very gradually pushed herself up, tilting her head to the left as she did so to keep the small section of her lekku between the head and the point of impact from pushing or pulling too much.

Eventually, she was able to lean on her left shoulder, which left her staring at the wood shard holding her in place that was almost half the length of her arm. What she could see of it anyway.

With everything that had happened in the past hour alone, probably more, her nerves were on the wire's edge. Any calm she felt in that precarious situation had to be shock. Inevitably, it would wear off, and her body would hit back with everything she should have experienced at that moment. She had to get free before that happened.

"Goddess don't make me do this."

She awkwardly brought her left hand up from where she had been leaning on it, putting more weight on her feet to keep the balance as she did so, then laid it flat against her lekku with the palm up. Two fingers to each side of the shard, giving her a better visual on the angle to cut at.

Once in place, she moved her right hand down towards the respective side of her seat. After some tense fumbling, she pulled the vibroknife free. The sheath she had to pull off using her teeth, leaving the dark grey blade to clink with the occasional raindrop.

"You can do this. You can do this."

The words felt hollow as she whispered them to herself, bringing the blade to the underside of the shard. Teeth clenching again, she switched it on, trying not to cringe even harder at the hum that was very audible at that distance.

Little by little, she grazed the edge against the wood shard, making sure that the cut upward wouldn't veer off the wrong way. When it came time, she inhaled deeply, then began to draw it upward.

The power cells wouldn't last long at how high she had set the frequency, but keeping it that way meant the actual cutting process went quickly, and without any unpleasant reverberations into her lekku.

When the blade came up through the top, leaving that end of the wood shard to drop down past the seat, she gasped out loud. It was the only means of relief she could allow herself, before the inevitable task of cutting the other side came to mind.

There wasn't any possible way to get a look under her lekku, certainly not one that'd let her eyeball the angle right either.

She left the blade facing from her mouth as she bit down on it for holding, leaving her right hand free to get her lekku out of the way to slide her left hand up underneath. There was enough padding in the headrest to let her push the cover further down the wood shard at least, though it didn't leave much room at all to get the blade into.

When it came to starting the cut itself, she just closed her eyes and hoped that her blind judgement was good enough. There wasn't much else to be done after all.

After about ten seconds, there was a very faint snap as the last fibres broke under the vibration, allowing her head to sway forward at last.

As far as she knew, that was the hardest part out of the way. Until the point at which she collapsed in utter agony anyway, but she would be found long before then anyway. It was a small miracle that she wasn't bleeding elsewhere, and the rainfall meant she wasn't at risk of dehydration. She just had to get as close as she could to the Republic base as she could manage, then wait for rescue.

The knife went back into the sheath, safety locked into place and on a much lower frequency, which in turn was strapped to her right thigh where the flight suit had been designed to hold it.

Before going for the blaster stowed on the other side, she cautiously attended to her lekku. Remaining careful, she did her best to wrap the emergency bandage around the wood shard in such a way as to hold it in place. The last thing she needed was the wound turning aggressive from her lekku bouncing about, something she couldn't really control otherwise. Walking slowly wasn't going to get her far.

With both draped over her front in any case, she finally reached down for the blaster. The past few weeks had left her in a state where everyone questioned the wisdom of letting her keep it. For the moment anyway, those thoughts of despair weren't in mind. The need to survive in spite of the Sith's attempts to take her down overruled anything.

And while Sarka wasn't known to have particularly aggressive beasts like a number of other planets she could name, she was hardly going to assume there weren't troopers on the ground looking for her. Those faceless enemies she could gun down from a distance, while in the cover of the surface scrub. Shooting them in the back to gain an advantage even. Honour had lost its meaning to her long ago.

With it clipped to her left hip, and the handful of ration bars inside the compartment stuffed into various pockets, Maarani finally made for the departure.

Almost immediately after trying to rise from the cockpit, her vision began to spin in a sickening way, sending her back into the seat. The ringing in her ears afterwards didn't help at all.

The only solace was that there were no loud noises to further drive that disorientation, or hinder her recovery from it. Given she didn't know how high she was above the ground, as the fighter had lodged into trees rather than rocks, she needed to be able to keep her balance.

She sat there for a minute, keeping her breathing steady, then reached up to try again at a much slower pace.

The ringing started to return, but the gradual pace kept it at a dull tone. Fixing her eyes on the end of the fighter's nose helped keep the dizziness away, at least until she was sitting up on the frame of the shroud and had both feet resting on the sides of the cockpit.

From there her view of the forest was much better. Getting down from the midsection of the fighter was less than a metre drop on the right, while the left extended close to was perched on a rocky ridge amongst the growth, but the arrangement of the trees meant there was no danger of tipping over. Another stroke of fortune.

"Okay. Okay. One step at a time…"

The A-wings were designed with mostly flat hulls, minimizing her risk of sliding the wrong way when it came time to climb along the midsection. The rain had washed away almost all the bramble and wood chips that might have been scattered across its surface however, meaning slips in general were more likely.

With more breaths, and some very precarious balancing despite the canopy frame digging into the base of her spine, she soon had her legs up above as well.

Some more careful moving and sliding along the frame eventually brought her down to the hull itself. Not wanting to risk standing up, she slowly moved around to a position she could crawl across from, keeping her fingers spread wide to try and minimise the chance of slipping while crossing the short but tense distance.

Never had she felt so relieved when she finally rolled onto her side and felt the damp moss and other small plants brush around her lekku. Solid ground, and without breaking an arm or leg in getting there.

That time she didn't wait as long before attempting to stand up. The ringing and the dizziness had faded a little more, and while she did feel sick at first on standing upright, she was at least able to stay that way until it passed.

With no other pressing concerns, or dull pains that could possibly lash out at her later, she finally pushed off the tree she had been leaning against and took her first steps around the ridge.

It was expectedly slow to begin with, but once she found her pace it was easy enough to keep from swaying. Before long, she had circled around to get a much better look at the state of her fighter at last, as well as the direction she had crashed in that would hopefully point her towards the base itself.

Somewhere along the line, the port wing had been ripped off entirely, while the starboard had wrapped around one of the trees that it was wedged in between. The scorch marks on the engine section confirmed the precision of that shot. Specifically aimed to disable, not destroy. It also confirmed her worry that there would be ground forces to contend with, prompting her to unbuckle her blaster and keep it hand, thumb resting on the safety.

It was then that she noticed something on the very edge of her peripheral vision to the left. Not enough to get a real detailed look, as it was blurred and distorted at that angle. And with everything that had happened she wasn't even convinced that it was real.

After all, a HK-50 droid of all things showing up behind her at that moment seemed completely absurd, even if it was in fact part of the Imperial search party.

When she spun around on the spot, drawing her blaster, all she could see was empty forest that quickly started to spin around as the dizziness set in once more. The hum in her ears leading up to that she dismissed as part of the paranoid hallucinations that she was bound to get more of soon enough.

"Great, delusions. Delusions, delusions."

Her eyes started to close a little, accompanying the gradual slurring of her words. She felt ready to pass out again.

Forcing herself to take the first step brought her out of that a little. The next came more easily, as did the one after. Soon, she was awkwardly stumbling forward, working up to something of a more stable walk. Passing out would only cost daylight hours that she had to make the most of. Even if it was in fact overcast and she couldn't use the sun for a sense of a direction, being able to see where she was going was the only thing keeping her from stumbling at every step.

She only had the most vague, and overgrown of paths to follow. The Sarkans primarily lived underground, and they had mastered the art of efficient tunneling long ago. Any surface travel that left those paths visible at all was rare. It was still just enough to keep her from wandering off in the wrong direction entirely.

A few minutes later, once she was definitely out of earshot, the HK-50 assassin droid that had just arrived on the scene finally deactivated its personal cloak.

"Report: Target located, identity confirmed. Discovery narrowly averted, suspicion not raised. The Sith have not tracked her down as of yet."

"Statement: Continue to observe in stealth. Do not attempt to approach. We will relay instructions as they come at the allotted hour."

"Statement: Orders received and confirmed. Initiating stealth observation protocol."

After performing a routine check on its blaster rifle, the HK-50 unit reactivated its cloak, then began to follow Maarani into the forests at a distance. Only the faint rustling of leaves around its legs, and the occasional dull sound of metal clunking on stone gave away its presence. Nothing that could be detected by even a Sith at the distance it had been programmed to keep at.

---

It was some time later before Maarani finally slowed the pace she had worked up to. Not quite jogging, but certainly going a lot faster than when she had started. And no longer feeling in danger of keeling over at any minute while the world span around her.

The reason for her slowing down, and in fact stopping altogether was something else entirely. Immediately, she started looking around for a vantage point, or short of that just a hiding place. It was faint, but the rumble in her ears that came with usage of the Force had started up once again. A Sith knew she was in the area, one she couldn't see.

Whether it was even possible to just hide from them she didn't know. That didn't stop her from clambering off the path towards a fallen tree that had turned to rot long ago. Heavily coated in moss, and with dense ferns surrounding it, that was the closest she could get to visual camouflage with rich blue skin and a bright orange jumpsuit.

Laying flat down on her stomach, lekku draped over her back that time, she found she at least had a decent angle on the clearing ahead, including the path itself. Enough to get her blaster into, and gun down any troopers accompanying the Sith in question. Shooting Sith directly was always doomed to fail, but that was what the knife was for.

The last measure was to slow her breathing as much as she could manage, keeping it to much longer, but shallow and silent breaths.

A horrible sensation went down her spine when the Sith in question finally came into view. Less of a chill, more akin to a cold finger running down her back.

Unlike just about every other Sith, the shape was predominantly white. A long coat that stretched close to the ground, brushing along the undergrowth, and up into a tall collar around the neck. A vest underneath of the same material, and seemingly a white bodysuit beneath it all. All trimmed in crimson, matching the mask itself.

It was simple in shape, just a curved surface of white that covered the entirety of the face and ears, but didn't extend further. Across that surface stretched a bright red handprint, completing the visage.

Maarani had only heard occasional stories about the White Terror, enough to put her previous plan of attack out the window altogether.

She was alone after all, not a single trooper in sight. She didn't need backup. Where she walked, pain and death followed. Even Jedi had failed to even get a scratch on her. A pilot with a serious head wound, a blaster and a vibroknife was no match.

As the White Terror drew closer, exemplifying that horrid feeling, Maarani pushed herself lower to the ground. Still remaining observant.

At that distance, she could see the top of the lightsaber hanging from the right hip. A crenellation of metal petals, spaced out from each other and sharpened at the point, but little more. The fact that she was left handed didn't mean much, but it was something that briefly took Maarani's mind off the harrowing fear she was experiencing. The Sith herself didn't even look feminine, leaving little else to distract with in a twisted way before the end came.

When the White Terror finally stopped, right in her line of fire, she caught her breath altogether.

The Sith herself, Kiarna, turned her head slowly at that moment, scanning the area with her perception of the world through the Force. As of yet only known to a few, it was the only way she could ever perceive things. The colour spectrum meant nothing to her, save for lightsaber crystals she had learned the phases of years previously.

Instead, there was the various vibrations at which all matter and energy existed at. Holograms and other energy projections and discharges such as blasters were intense, easy to distinguish. Metals and other inorganics were dark, but tangible nonetheless. And in between, all organic life, ranging from the faint glow of insects, to the blooming radiance of the strongest Jedi and Sith.

For the moment, she saw only the soft hue of plant life. But the presence of another sapient was strong in her mind nonetheless. The urge to hunt, to hurt, to wound was strong. To feed off the agony and fear, and bolster her power to fight the Jedi Master that was intent on fighting her.

She could sense enough fear to move to the next stage, to extend her power more, and draw her prey out of hiding.

"Pilot!"

Her voice had only a faint hint of its artificial nature. The vocal synthesis was near flawless otherwise, projecting her smooth voice, her playful tone, and commanding demeanour. The Force flowed freely around her in raw darkness. It would be a simple matter to project her will out, to command the pilot stand up and reveal themselves. She didn't like to hunt that way however.

"Here is my proposal!"

Kiarna laughed right after that, twirling around on the spot, splaying out both her gloved hands through the light downpour. It gave Maarani a brief look at the back of her head. Seemingly unprotected, her short sandy blonde hair tied back into a small ponytail. The only place aside from under her chin where pale skin was visible above the neck of the bodysuit.

"Three chances! If you can outrun me, I'll let you go! If you fall to the ground, you forfeit that attempt! I reserve the right to use whatever means I have to cause you to fall, but not to slow you down! Let me worry about what happens if you fail those three chances, mm?"

Maarani's hands trembled a little. It took a few more silent breaths to get the shaking under control, keeping her aim right at Kiarna. All she needed was one clean shot. The back of her head looking unprotected seemed too convenient to aim for, and she doubted she could land the hit anyway. Instead, she went for the region right above the belt. She could outrun a Sith that had lost use of their legs after all.

"Time is wasting, pilot! Take my offer now, or when I find you I won't be so generous!"

Kiarna began to lift her left hand, reaching out more directly with the Force. Searching in a circular pattern, starting to turn away from where the feeling of another was strongest.

Maarani's finger closed in over the trigger. One eye closing, the other staring down the iron sights, lining up her shot for the final moments.

"Five! Four! Three!"

As soon as Kiarna was facing directly away, Maarani pulled down on the trigger.

While not nearly as fast as Rak'Sakar, Kiarna was still trained well in the Force. Enough to manipulate her speed enough to spin around, draw her lightsaber and activate it to deflect the blaster shot away in the half second between firing and impact. Her face was directed down towards the ground, though her sight was now fixated on the shooter at last.

"Bad move. Shooting a blind woman in the back, now that's just pitiful."

Her right hand remained gripped on the lightsaber as she whipped out her left, then clenched it.

In a hail of moss, mud and rotting wood, Maarani was yanked from her hiding spot through the air, flailing around helplessly until her throat landed in Kiarna's cupped fingers. Only then did the Sith tilt her head upwards to look at the Twi'lek.

"Another killer, I see. How does it feel to take a life that you can see, and feel? Have you ever held someone by the throat, squeezed the life from their body?"

She tightened the grip a little, causing Maarani to cough. Then relaxed it again when she got her answer, snickering.

"No, you're a brawler. A pilot that loves to punch, to bruise, to break bone and tooth. To feel blood on her knuckles."

At that, Kiarna released her hold, dropping Maarani to the ground. While she coughed and heaved in breaths, the sparking purple blade of her lightsaber came around. Directed towards the Twi'lek.

"Three chances, and only because I respect your kind of brutality. The other pilots have tasted blood, but only out of a sense of duty. Pathetic, hollow." She knelt down, curling her left hand under Maarani's chin, forcing her to look right into the handprint on her mask. "You enjoyed it, and that is something we have in common."

Her moment of quiet was gone, that hand lifting from the chin to strike with the back of her hand, sending Maarani back to the ground in a coughing fit.

"Ten seconds, Twi'lek! Start running!"

The sound of Kiarna's lightsaber lashing out at a nearby tree frightened Maarani into a stumbling run, still struggling for breath. Every second was marked with another lash, the grating sound of a lightsaber slicing through wood making her teeth clench uncontrollably

The last strike was faint by the time it came, but it didn't lessen her desperation to get away in the slightest. If nothing else, getting closer to the base meant getting close to Koor. Surviving long enough for a timely Jedi rescue was the best she could hope for. That or being gunned down fatally by a surprised trooper, which at least would be quicker than what she'd suffer in the hands of the Sith.

She nearly stumbled when the first lightning strike cracked past her into a tree ahead. The blast on impact sprayed charred wood across the clearing as the whole tree came down. It was different from the usual pattern of arcing lightning from the fingertips, but its explosive result made her all the more terrified of being hit directly by it.

The second blast came less than a minute later, much closer that time. The hail of smouldering chips caused her to put her arm up in reflex, upsetting her sprint pattern just enough to trip at the next root in her way.

It wasn't long after she crashed to the ground that she felt a boot stepping down on her back, keeping the air knocked out of her lungs as she struggled to breathe again.

"Second chance. And you were doing so well." The boot lifted away as Kiarna twirled her lightsaber around her finger, letting the hum rise up through the octaves. "Run!"

Despite being short of breath, Maarani went right back up to the sprint. Her breaths had deteriorated into hacked coughs by then, forcing more air into her lungs regardless of the strain. Desperation to hold out until help arrived had become mere desperation to survive at all. All she had in mind was the terrible possibilities of what capture meant. She had no idea what had happened to the other pilots, but every sadistic word from Kiarna had told her all she really needed to know.

She nearly fainted when the hum of the spinning lightsaber started to grow louder again.

A loud crack behind her drove her on faster still, legs burning at the joints, throat dry and coarse.

Every second, the spinning lightsaber swung behind her to the other side, taking its time in reaching her. Taunting, never slowing in its vicious twirl through the air. Cutting through the trees and tall plants like nothing. So very capable of cutting her to pieces if she continued to run.

When the next pass sounded as if it had come just shy of her lekku, and she could see it arcing out in front to her right, she gave up. That time when she collapsed to the ground, the lightsaber whirring overhead before arcing back towards Kiarna, she was practically sobbing. Of course the Sith was going to cheat, and not leave her any real chance of escape. It was just another part of the sick game that she had fallen into. Wearing down all her stamina and will, so that when it came time there was nothing left to fight back with.

Rather than a boot on her back yet again, she felt an ethereal grasp around her ankles, which proceeded to pull her backwards.

The rainfall had left the ground soft. Every attempt to grab at the grass and plants uprooted them. Each grasp at a branch or rotted log saw it snap or crumble in her fingertips. What solid objects she could get a hold of didn't last long as her fingertips were dragged from them.

Not long after, she was lifted from the ground at last, hurtling back into Kiarna's grip again. That time dangling upside down, her lekku precariously within reach.

Kiarina opted to hold her hand right in front of the face instead that time, ready to delve deep into her mind.

"Do forgive me, but I just realized I hadn't even caught your name. How uncharacteristically rude of me."

Maarani tried to spit in one last act of defiance, only managing a small trail of saliva, and what she soon realized was blood.

"Your name. Now!"

The rumble in Maarani's ears grew intense at the moment when those fingers closed in. A mind invasion, much deeper than the simple handwaving of a mind trick. They went far beyond the subtle suggestions of thought or action into the realm of invasive scanning. Drawing all of the mind to the surface.

It was also intensely painful. Put to use by Kiarna, it was nothing short of agonizing.

Maarani's scream pierced through the forest, unable to move from her position at all as her whole body suffered under the probe.

"Your name! Who are you?"

"Tegama'Arani!"

Quite unexpectedly, it was Kiarna who fell silent at that moment. Her hand dropped, more graciously than what Maarani got as she fell to the ground in a bruised pile.

After a few moments of thought, the lightsaber came back to life once more, directed right at Maarani's head.

"Liar. I know that Masadar and Rilana only had one daughter! I watched my master cut their heads clean off! And that of their sons! I maimed the head of their only daughter to keep her under control myself! Liar!"

Maarani was on her knees by then, a quivering wreck. Just about all of her strength had been sapped away, her determination on the verge of breaking. All that remained was an awareness of the shift in Kiarna's position. The mention of her name had tipped her off balance. Anger was not the strength of her captor at all. One last chance.

"I am Tegama'Arani. Daughter of Masadar'Arani, and Rilana'Arani. And Masaka is no sister of mine!"

Her hand pulled the vibroblade free of its sheath right as she threw her weight at Kiarna's midsection. She didn't even notice the lightsaber slip free of her hand as her grapple threw the Sith to the ground. All she knew was that she had caught her captor off guard, and even then was bringing the blade closer to her neck as she kept her pinned to the ground.

It was over just as quickly.

Once Kiarna regained her focus, all she needed was a flick of her wrist to hurl Maarani off her and into the nearest tree with a hard thud.

Not content to stop there, she tightened her hold and flung her across the clearing right into another tree, then span her around before bringing her crashing to the ground once again.

That time, she was well and truly spent. Her last effort had failed.

Kiarna was far from done, flicking Maarani back upright and throwing her against a nearby rock. Her thrill of the hunt had been interrupted completely, and with the last transmission from the command ship being an order not to kill, she was now left feeling very upset at the denial.

All she could do for the time being was interrogate. For that, she reached her hand out to her lightsaber, activating it as soon as it landed in her palm, then pointed the blade right towards Maarani's eyes.

"If you are in fact of their lineage, why are you a pilot? Three children of a Jedi Master and a Sith Overseer, all given great potential in the Force. And then you…"

Her head tilted to the side just a little. Something had shifted her perception, altered her attitude towards the Twi'lek. Not substantially, just drawing on feelings that were otherwise constantly repressed.

The lightsaber went away, clipped back to her belt. She knelt down to grab Maarani's chin, tilting her head upward. "You're not just a mundane. The Force is stilted around you." A less painful mind probe soon turned up the answer, her anger at the denial of entertainment soon turning to genuine curiosity. "You've been blocked from the Force. No small feat by any means. Why haven't I heard of you?"

Maarani just stared back at that mask blankly. There was nothing left, not even the last ember of defiance now that the torment had ceased. It didn't mean she was inclined to answer her questions however.

In that time, Kiarna had looked a little deeper, then beneath the mask, formed a small smile.

"I wasn't expecting you to fight back. None of the others did. But like I said, they're not interesting. And I wasn't given any special orders. So tell me…" Her hand started to move from grasping at her chin, to stroking up along Maarani's cheek instead. "What makes you special?"

Whatever had gone on in her mind earlier, that simple touch brought Maarani out of the blank state into outright revulsion.

"Don't touch me. Don't you use that against me!"

"Answer my questions then. You interrupted my fun. I was enjoying watching you run in terror. But now it's all gone, you've given up." That hand slowly moved up and around to her lekku, trailing back down to the weeping bandage wrapped around the wood shard.

Maarani's eyes followed that hand fiercely, anticipating that the torture would resume at any moment. She still didn't have the strength to lash out again.

Unfazed, Kiarna let her fingers explore around the wound, starting to visualise the entire depth of it. "I can fix this. Believe it or not. Sith embrace the dark side, but we understand the light has certain advantages. Many of my kind are gifted with foresight. As a child, I was found to be a prominent healer instead. Answer my questions."

"Go to hell."

Tilting her head once more, Kiarna flexed her fingers about at the bandages first, then the shard. Once they had come free, she delicately eased the chunk of wood from the lekku, sealing up the flesh behind it. Within a minute, the only remaining trace of the wound was a pale scar.

"I'm not above pity, little Twi'lek. Something tells me you deserve it, whereas your fellow pilots didn't. Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me the thought of them suffering while you walk out of here healthy doesn't make you smile."

In a twisted irony, it brought back the tears for Maarani. In that situation, faced with what she still felt was an agonizing death, that suggested situation was something she would smile at, and agree with. Admitting that any Sith, least of all the White Terror herself was right hurt more than any wound possibly could.

"My master clearly has great interest in you to have ordered you remain alive. Now I know enough to agree. Why continue to fight for the Republic? Why cling to the Jedi when they both abandoned you long ago? I can't provide everything you might want…"

That hand returned to the Twi'lek's chin, stroking around it once more.

"But if you cooperate, I can ensure you live better than any of your kind ever will. Perhaps I and my master will even find a way to break that block in your mind."

An icy feeling began to form in the back of Maarani's neck.

"No. I'm never joining the Sith, or the Empire."

"I still have to bring you in. I can't let what I've learned slip away. Come quietly, it really is for your own good."

The icy feeling spread further. Maarani's stare started to become frantic, eyes twitching about, irises tightening.

"Kill me."

"What?"

"Kill me!"

She made a lunge for Kiarna's lightsaber. In quick reaction, Kiarna herself grabbed at her wrist. For an instant, the direct contact had a different sensation to it altogether. A moment of understanding, of two minds linking. Akin to what had happened earlier between Maarani and Lasidia, but so much deeper than that.

When it passed, Kiarna was standing up again, lightsaber drawn for a fight. Maarani was nowhere to be seen, even with the extended sight that she had through the Force.

"Maarani?"

In the next second, that change of persona reverted back to how she had always been. The sadistic killer, fuming over the loss of her prey. And now, the last thing she could remember was standing over Maarani, ready to interrogate her about her past.

She could feel a great turbulence surrounding her presence in the Force. It hadn't yet affected her vision, but the feeling was strong. Something significant had just happened, and she couldn't remember anything of what had caused it to manifest.

Hesitantly she reached up to her mask, then stopped.

Both she and Darth Lasidia had maintained a telepathic link for many years at that point. Strong enough to communicate with each other over great distances, though at her insistence they had used standard communication means for the duration of that operation instead. The sensation of their bond had remained nonetheless, until that moment.

Somehow, it had been broken cleanly, without her conscious awareness of it. A much more worrying layer to the growing mystery of her recently lost memories.

Her hand went to the mask at last, switching on the direct comm line.

"Shadow Hand, report please."

"We've been attempting to contact you for several minutes now. Darth Lasidia has expressed grave concern. What happened?"

Kiarna tilted her head around the forest clearing. What else could she say, but the simple truth? There was no point in lying after all.

"Blue Six got away. My recollection of the whole matter since hunting her down is gone. Somehow. She isn't a Force user, she can't possibly have mind tricked me. All I got was her name."

She looked around again, only now sensing a faint trail that had the sensation of being made by her escape.

"Tegama'Arani. Maarani."

"Orders are not to pursue. Repeat, do not pursue. Return to command ship. We have the target pilot, Blue Six is no longer of immediate concern. Darth Lasidia wants you to report to her with haste."

"Understood, General Morgak. Returning to Vastes now, and ensure the rest of our forces retreat."

Much as she and Morgak tended to thoroughly dislike each other, for once she was feeling far less argumentative. The loss of memory had shaken her confidence considerably, and had drained the power she had accumulated leading up to that moment.

"I'm in no condition to fight the Jedi Master now. They'll have to fall back quickly. I won't wait long."

"No matter. We have what we came for, Koor is merely a small bonus that can be forfeit. Forces in retreat as of now."

Kiarna lowered her hand from the mask at last, setting her focus on the location of the Vastes. Once fixated, she started off in that direction at last, trudging through the plants and mud alike without a second thought. That encounter had changed her significantly, and despite what she clearly knew as fact about her, Maarani still seemed to be at the centre of it all.

---

Less than half an hour later, Kiarna was striding through the halls of the ship. The sound of her footsteps was lighter, but nonetheless unique, warning any ahead of her to keep well out of the way.

Her silent march through the vessel ended at the observation room. The only mildly surprising thing was that Darth Lasidia was standing, not kneeling. She was still looking out across the ship. Sarka took up the left side, the starscape took up the rest.

"What happened, Master? She was in my grasp, I had her at my mercy!"

Lasidia waved her hand for silence, turning around as she did so. When she approached Kiarna however, there was no anger, no hatred. Those were the only emotions she could properly feel, and made known many times. If she was feeling other things, it wasn't coming through on her face, or her voice.

"I know. This is my fault, Kiarna." She outstretched her right hand to Kiarna's shoulder, holding it firmly, then sliding it down along her arm. "I tried to probe Maarani's mind myself. I learned only that she has a greater power protecting her. And, a great darkness within."

Kiarna just tilted her head. "I sensed nothing actually dark about her. She was…" For a few moments, she heard distorted echoes of her own voice. Possibly the leading edge of her lost memory. Just barely enough to go on from. "She's blocked from the Force. It certainly didn't feel like she was being protected from my wrath."

"Nevertheless…" The hand slipped away as Lasidia turned back to pace, still thinking over what she had learned herself. It was incomplete, barely surface level. She needed to seek out more reliable sources of information, and soon.

After a small exhale, she turned back again, that time keeping her distance. "Maarani is a severe danger to powerful Sith. I know this much. Her lineage with the Jedi being kept secret from us is no coincidence. But there is something else as work. Two things, in fact. Something grey, and something dark." Her fiery eyes cast about the empty, barely lit room at that moment. "I recognized one, the other remains unknown. And that is what makes it the true danger at this time. Neither of us can risk approaching her again, not until we have learned of a way to combat both threats."

Kiarna's hand tightened into a fist for that. Being held back did not sit right with her at all. "And when we do learn the truth? When we do find a way to overcome the threat she presents?"

"She will be yours to do with as desired. It has been some months since your last Twi'lek pet died, after all." At that, Lasidia began to move back towards her favoured kneeling spot, moving quietly as ever. "I want you to begin investigating any and all leads we have on what happened to her. Whom else is involved. Keeper located a report that indicated a crash in the same timeframe as our attack on the enclave. She was the sole pilot, and in her own words, she lost use of the Force as a result. I don't believe that statement for an instant."

Much as the notion of simply running around the galaxy, collecting information instead of killing Jedi bothered her, she knew better than to question her master's judgement.

"A mere crash wouldn't be enough to put in place such a block." Again, she had a vague recollection, but nothing that extended beyond a few seconds after her real memory ended. "I will do this, master. Wherever this leads me. I want that Twi'lek to suffer and squirm."

"In time. For now, I have what I need. The next stage of my plan must continue. I can only delay the final preparations for so long. You have until then to turn up something solid to be used against her. After that, you must keep your word that you will not engage until my return. Understood?"

Begrudgingly, Kiarna gave a small nod of compliance, then turned to leave.

"And remember. One of those forces surrounding Maarani broke our mental link. It may have been to cut off our reliance on each other. It may have been to establish a new one."

There was a half head turn from Kiarna before she approached the door, having stopped in place again. The thought repulsed her, but she chose to put it aside before leaving the observation deck at last.

Once she was gone, Lasidia brought back up her comm link to the bridge.

"We are done here. Prepare for return course to Ziost. Inform the council of sorcerers that we will convene in one week. Kiarna will have other matters to attend to and won't be joining on this occasion."

"Understood, Dark Lord. Adjusting heading now."

While the stars outside started to shift in time with the deep rumble of the Seething Blade's drive, Lasidia closed her eyes once more, resting both hands on her lap.

"A lineage of light Force wielders. A darkness within that seeks to corrupt. A Force deity that pursues balance. What did they do to you, Maarani? Why has the Lady of Balance selected you?"