Hi guys, it's me. Before we begin today, I'd like to thank you for sticking with me this far. It's good to know that the stories I've been dreaming up over the last two years aren't complete rubbish.

Please feel free to leave comments about what you think went well, what didn't work out, and what I could have done better. Also, if you have any suggestions for things I could add, or improve, or change, please leave a note in the comments section. This story is a work in progress, and ideas are always welcome.

Khem Val sends his regards, and wishes to express his heart-felt desire to devour your souls as soon as possible.

May the Force be with you.
Tulak Porg, Dark Lord of the Sith

Entertainment District

Kaas City

As a species, Sith Purebloods sat at the top of the Empire's social hierarchy, widely regarded as the epitome of everything it was to be Sith. In many ways, they were the face of the Empire. Unfortunately, that made it almost impossible to blend in in a crowd.

She'd done her best. She'd swapped her Sith robe for a civilian cloak, with the hood up to hide the prominent bone spurs on her cheeks. She'd dirtied her face to both fit in with the people of the lower levels and hide her vivid crimson skin. A carefully precise application of the Force dulled the yellow glow of her eyes so that they would not be noticeable, at least at a glance. But Loka still felt exposed, no matter how much she kept her head down and tried to avoid attention.

She was good at not attracting attention. The key to surviving the Sith Academy on Korriban was to convince the more powerful acolytes that you were not worth the trouble of bullying, let alone a threat to their position. Any Sith middling in the Force who managed to get off the graveyard world alive learned how to make themselves seem small and unnoticeable. On Korriban, her race had been an advantage- she had become just one of the many relatively impotent Purebloods skulking in the corridors, shaming their ancestry with their weakness. In the busiest part of the biggest city in the Empire, however, it made her stand out.

The irony was that Loka didn't need to hide herself. There were many other Sith of all ages and races in the Entertainment District, flaunting their social status and mind-tricking retailers into giving them ruinous discounts. On any other night, she might have been tempted to join them. But Loka was not here for fun, not tonight. Her contact must not know her nature, not until it was too late for him to wriggle out of their meeting. And she had a sneaking suspicion- a niggling in the Force, in the back of her mind- that she was being followed. Another lesson from Korriban: people following you, and taking pains to avoid detection, rarely meant you well. All Sith learned that lesson quickly, or they died.

It had not been easy to set up the meeting. She'd had to call in a favour with Darth Reliyk's agents in Imperial Intelligence, who had first searched the Red Codex for promising contacts and then set up a meeting with a man who had spoken to a man who had spoken to a man who had arranged the meeting. Getting Intelligence involved had been a risk, controlled as they were by Darth Jadus, but if tonight paid off it would have been a risk worth taking. And if it didn't… well, Darth Reliyk could always find himself another apprentice. She doubted she'd be of much use once Jadus had finished with her.

Going behind the backs of two Dark Councillors was insanely suicidal, and insanely exhilarating. Sith fed off adrenalin, off the thrill of taking risks. For a disciple of the Dark Side, danger only made things more fun. And if she was successful, she was confident Darth Reliyk would forgive her a little bit of intrigue.

She had reached her destination. The Dark Heart was one of the seedier casino/cantina hybrids in the Entertainment District, which of course made it a magnet for any Sith Apprentice or young Imperial Aristocrat out looking for fun, that most addictive of drugs. The meeting had been arranged to take place in one of the back rooms, away from prying eyes or ears. The instructions had been clear, and woefully unimaginative. Come alone. Come unarmed. Tell nobody. Standard underworld deal, really. Loka had been keen to get into the spirit of things, and had indeed left her lightsaber back in Reliyk's speeder as instructed. Her mysterious stalker was causing her to regret that decisions slightly but, she supposed, it would a good exercise in adaptability. After all, a Sith was never truly defenceless.

There was a lengthy queue outside the door, which Loka took great pleasure in blatantly jumping. Brushing off the scandalised whispers behind her, she made confidently for the bouncer at the door. He was a Feeorin; seven feet tall, built like a Wookiee, the blue-green skin of his bared chest covered in scar tissue. His eyes locked onto her, identifying her as a trouble maker, and began to move.

Loka moved faster. Her hand quickly flashed past his face, and she muttered quietly under her breath. "You will let me in. No questions."

The bouncer blinked, then his eyes glazed over. "I will let you in," he murmured, almost to himself. "No questions."

"Capital." Loka patted him cheerfully on the back and, chuckling, ducked past him through the Dark Heart's doorway. Behind her, the Feeorin blinked again, shook his tentacled head in confusion, and returned to his post.

Three hundred years ago, a Sith Lord undercover in the Republic Army had captured a single moment of Malachor V's destruction in the Force, now frozen forever in time. Something about the Dark Heart's interior reminded Loka of that image, a dying world imploded by its own gravity. It repulsed her and yet, in an odd way, appealed to her as well. Whoever had designed the cantina's architecture had defied convention and enforced their own design on the building, fearlessly looking deep into the darkest depths of the universe for inspiration. They would have made a good Sith.

The Dark Heart was certainly seedy, but in a sophisticated sort of way. By the entrance stood a reception desk manned, or in this case womanned, by a green skinned Twi'lek. She was dressed in the typically revealing outfit of a Twi'lek dancer, the effects of which were slightly offset by the ugly looking shock collar attached to her neck. A slave, then, rather than an employee.

Loka made her way over to her, hugging the folds of the hood close to her in order to hide her face. The Twi'lek looked up at her approach, and gave her a wide, beaming smile. "Welcome to the Dark Heart, madam," she said, with what Loka sensed to be slightly forced cheeriness. "Can I get you a table?"

"Not thanks," muttered Loka, keeping her head bowed. "I have a reservation. Code Mynock Delta Seven."

The receptionist recoiled in surprise. "Oh. I see." She tapped a recognition code into her terminal, her manner now more nervous than welcoming. "Mr Xainak? Your guest is here."

She tapped her earpiece, and gestured hesitantly to a side door. "He'll see you now. Through the door, third on the right. Use this key card."

Loka nodded her gratitude. "Thank you. This meeting never happened."

She left the receptionist dully repeating the words she had just spoken, and slipped through the doorway she had pointed out. The corridor was dark, barely illuminated by the glo-orbs that hovered in the air, yet another intriguingly disturbed part of the Dark Heart's design. Loka was beginning to see why it was so favoured as a hang out amongst her fellow apprentices.

Following the receptionist's instructions, she stopped in front of the third room on the right. A small plaque on the durasteel door informed the world that whatever lay behind it was private, on pain of unspecified consequences. Somehow, Loka doubted they included a polite request to leave the premises.

She scanned the key card she had been given against the sensor, and the door slid open with a serpentine hiss. The room within was just as dark as the corridor outside, sparsely furnished and with only the dim light creeping under the shutters to highlight the hulking figure who sat at the far end of a long table. Loka smiled her usual cheery smile, and stepped inside. "I assume you are my contact?"

"If I weren't, would I be so undisturbed as to your entering my private room?" The voice was surprisingly cultured for someone so big, and carried an air of confidence and authority with it. "I must admit," it continued, "I am somewhat surprised that you turned out to be so young. Are you sure you know what you're getting into?"

"Not at all." Loka sat down at the near end of the table, taking care to keep to the shadows. "Isn't that what makes it fun?"

"Fun…" The being Loka had already mentally labelled as Mister Shadyface seemed to savour the word. "Fun is certainly one way of putting, young lady, but I'd be careful as to how deep you go. The underworld will not spare you for your youth."

"Story of my life. Listen, as much as I'd love to trade banter for the next half hour, I don't have much time. So," Loka finished. "Do you have the package?"

"Of course," Mister Shadyface replied. Loka moved forward, but he held up a hand. "Ah, ah, ah," he chuckled. "Credits first."

Loka scowled, and Shadyface laughed gently. He tapped a button on what was either a gauntlet or a prosthetic arm, and two sets of glowing lights appeared in the gloom behind his shoulder. "Before you attempt anything rash, may I draw your attention to the two droids behind me? One false move, and they'll turn you to ash before you can say 'backstabbed'. Understood?"

Loka paused and then, reluctantly, reached into her cloak and pulled out a small data chip. "Here. Half a million credits, as agreed. The transfer is completely untraceable on either end. Just plug it into your account and watch the numbers flow." She placed it down on her end of the table, and flicked it across. Mister Shadyface reached across to take it, and for a moment his face was illuminated clearly in the second-hand light of the city. A Nikto, and dressed far better than most of his kind. Intriguing. She cleared her throat. "The package?"

"Right here." Shadyface hefted a square briefcase up onto the table and gestured for Loka to take it. She got up warily and crossed to the other side of the table, reaching out for it. The Nikto grabbed her wrists suddenly, his scaly grip like iron. "Before we all shake hands and walk away, I thought we might do a little renegotiation. My people went to a lot of trouble to secure this little trinket, certainly more than half a million credit's worth."

Loka met his steely gaze with an even steelier one of her own. "We had a deal, sir."

The Nikto released his grip and shrugged. "Consider this a free lesson in business, my dear. People are always going to take advantage of you, and you must never walk into a negotiation empty handed." He smiled, as only a lizard man can. "Perhaps you could see your way to making the price two million credits? If not, I'm sure my bodyguards could persuade you."

Loka took a step back, putting as much distance between herself and the droids as possible, which was admittedly not very much. It was a small room. "Two million? Forget it."

Shadyface's eyes narrowed. "Don't be a fool, girl. I'm part of the Exchange. You're lucky I don't just take everything you have on you and leave your smoking corpse in some alleyway. Which I might just do anyway. Do you still think this is fun?"

Loka grinned. "Oh, yes. Definitely."

"Then you are mad."

"So I've been told."

The two continued to stare each other down. Finally, the Nikto lost patience. "Enough. I want to see just which foolish child I'm about to give a sorely needed lesson in reality. Show your face."

And so it begins. Loka felt her pulse quicken, as it did whenever she was about to cut loose. "If you insist."

She could have just lowered her hood, but Loka was never one to pass up an opportunity for drama. First, she let go of the stream of Dark Side energy that she had been drawing on since she entered the Entertainment District. Her camouflage dropped, and bright yellow eyes glowed in the depths of her shadowed face. Shadyface recoiled in shock, and Loka flung back her hood, her theatrically jutted jaw showing off her prominent cheek spurs. Her only regret was that she did not have a lightsaber to complete the show. But we take what is given, she supposed.

Mister Shadyface leapt up from the table, and swore. "Sith!" He gestured angrily to his droids. "Kill her!"

The droids raised their blasters, at the same moment as Loka reached out with the Force and hefted them into the air. One actually managed to get of a shot, which perhaps unsurprisingly given its situation went wide, before she clenched her fist and crushed them into sparking metallic debris.

Mister Shadyface backed away nervously as the remains of his bodyguards dropped to the floor, with a clatter that was to him horribly reminiscent of a coffin lid falling into place. His bravado had entirely vanished "Perhaps I was too hasty, Sith…" he began. His back hit the wall, but he kept on going. "I'm sure we can come to some other arrangement…"

"Yes, we can," agreed Loka. "You will give me the package, and in return I will let you live." The Nikto grasped at his throat as an invisible hand closed around it and lifted him off his feet. "Just nod."

Shadyface nodded frantically, as frantically as a being in a Force choke can, and Loka let him go. The Nikto scowled as he pulled himself back up, his fear contested by his anger. "Take your prize and leave, Sith. Never contact me again."

Loka picked up the box on the table, and began to leave. At the door, she paused. "One more thing."

A blaster flew from the grip of a fallen bodyguard droid and into her hand. Loka took aim and fired. Mister Shadyface collapsed, cursing, as her shot took him in the knee. She looked down on him sternly. "It's 'my lord' to you." The door slid shut.