Leon's grip on his blaster was becoming increasingly slick. He had nearly sweat through the bantha leather palms of his gloves, from both stress and the heat. The world around him flashed red and screamed with the painful terror of klaxons. Leon was surrounded by five, maybe six, Triral soldiers. Their blasters were all trained directly on his head, ready to fire arcs of deadly plasma through his body, ending his life, at any moment. With trepidation, Leon moved to activate his personal energy shield on his left forearm: it wouldn't deflect all the bolts, but it would give him time to take out at least half of the soldiers present. After that, he'd have to wing it. Fun, if dangerous.

"Freeze! We don't want to have to kill you!" one of the soldiers, a Rodian woman to Leon's left, commanded. Despite what she had said, her trigger finger twitched expectantly. Leon did as was recommended – better to be captured momentarily then escape than to die and not escape at all. Still, it was embarrassing. "Drop your blasters!"

Leon narrowed his eyes, but did as he was told. His pistol and rifle fell to the ground, where he slid them across the ground towards the Rodian. The blue skinned, buglike alien nudged them away with her foot and spoke again, "Now, keep your hands behind your back and walk slowly towards me!" Leon slid his hands down his sides – "Slowly, Sith!" – and then to his back. He was playing a dangerous game, but it was already playing out in his favor. Leon had always been lucky, after all. "Now walk to me – again, slowly."

Leon furrowed his brow angrily as he walked towards the Rodian. His thumb was already on the activator for his energy shield, and his fingers were curled around his only chance at survival. When he was within a few feet of the Rodian, he pressed the button and his face took on a look of disdain. He whipped his activating vibrosword around through the air and decapitated the Rodian. Blaster fire immediately began to bounce off of the thin magnetic membrane surrounding his body, the impulse slightly tickling him even through his armor.

Leon continued through with his assault, driving his shoulder into the chest of the nearest soldier, tripping her down to the floor. Leon then turned to the next one, dodging – somehow – between the barrage of blasterfire that was assaulting him from all sides. As he assaulted the third soldier, slashing off the Twi'lek's hand and snatching his blaster from the air. Leon turned to the other soldiers and fired his blaster, simultaneously slashing back at the Twi'lek's throat as he did. Unfortunately, his assault had given the enemy soldiers ample time to hit his stationary form; with a low beep Leon's energy shield approached its limits and shorted out against his skin. As blasterfire collided with his unshielded body, Leon grimaced and threw himself to the side behind a nearby table. His skin was slightly singed from the blasterfire that had glanced across the beskar weave of his armor. For not the first time, Leon was incredibly glad that Revan had been able to make a personal deal with Failyn Ordo and her Mandalorians for the beskar that had saved his life on many an occasion.

"Are you done toying around?" Erea asked over comms. Leon growled as the blaster fire flew through the air above his head, leaving smoking scorch marks on the wall opposite the table. "We don't have long before the ship is destroyed. We don't have time for screwing around!"

"Oh, I'm sorry that my death defying antics have bored you," Leon retorted as he glanced over the table. He immediately ducked back down as a blaster bolt grazed his hair. "Unfortunately, I'm still a little busy. So wait."

Leon shut off the comm and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. When he opened his eyes again, it was as if the world was moving slower. He was so focused, so intent, on the fight that he wasn't even registering that he seemed to know where the enemy soldiers were aiming before they even did. He jumped over the table, instinctively twisting his body between two oncoming blaster bolts. They moved quickly, but it was no longer near the speed that the plasma bursts formerly appearing nearly instantaneously at their targets. They were dangerous, true, but Leon was beyond dangerous.

His blade sang through the air, a silvery light that whistled as it vibrated and sliced the air. His saber stabbed into one of the soldier's chests and he lashed out with his foot. The alien woman fell down, unconscious, even as her colleague's life bled out of him. With that, Leon turned to the two surviving soldiers and fired his stolen blaster. The plasma ran from his weapon towards the terrified soldiers, who became preoccupied with just surviving. Eventually, the two crashed into each other and the blaster fire ran through one. Their bodies crashed to the ground, entwined together with the corpse atop his former squadmate. Leon aimed the blaster at the begging man's face and pulled the trigger. The room was quiet as Leon turned again towards the unconscious soldier and, with a feeling of both pity and disgust, he killed her as well. Time returned to normal.

"Wow, that was..."

"Commander," Leon noted as he resheathed his blade and mag-locked the blaster to his thigh.

Erea was silent for a moment, then, "Well, I suppose I can understand why they called you Saber." Her voice was falsely light, joking. The line crackled for a moment, the explosions riddling the ship's hull affecting communications momentarily. "That was disturbing."

"Survival is a battle of tooth and nail, Commander Naga," Leon replied as he walked towards the door. "It is rarely beautiful. It sounds as if you were successful in obtaining a video feed."

"I... yes, I was" the commander replied. She was silent for a short while. "Why did you kill her? She was unconscious, helpless..."

"My choices were that, or risk a later attack. Commander, I need you to check for a Jedi on the path behind me. How far back is this Jedi that is hunting me?" Leon asked emotionlessly. He did not care for this avenue of thought – it was unimportant to him. The Triumvirates had not stopped to think when they had killed his father on his commercial ship, so why should he think of killing their soldiers. He was not the bad guy in those scenarios. "I would rather not die on account of a pointless debate on the morality of warfare. Honor is a fool's tool – Glory is of no use to the dead."

Comms crackled for a moment. "A Jedi?"

"Yes," Leon said as he opened the next door.

"It looks like he's three or four rooms back, gaining fast. I'd run if I were you," the commander noted.

"That's probably enough time," Leon said as he sprinted down the next hallway. He slowed to a halt outside of the next door. "I'm here."

"Okay, door's locked," Erea told him. "Just give me a couple seconds to get it open."

"YOU!"

Leon snarled and turned to the blonde Jedi. The soldier's vibrosword was already out, ready to – barely – fend off the coming attack. "He caught up," Leon snarled into the comm. To the Jedi: "You killed my friends!"

"And you are a monster bathed in blood," the Jedi retorted. The blue saber at his side flickered menacingly. Leon thought, for a moment, that he saw the Jedi's eyes flicker to a yellow the soldier was more accustomed to seeing amongst the Sith he served under. "Any friends of yours deserved death!"

"Shut up, Schutta!" Leon roared, his vision bleeding into an angry, baleful red. The world around him disappeared, and all he knew was battle. Blade and bone and blood and death that he would inflict upon the wretched, disgusting creature that threatened him, that had... Leon couldn't quite remember, but he knew that the being with a blue sword before him deserved unimaginable pain. Leon's rage-warped mind was quick to oblige in granting that just dessert.

Leon rushed forward, screaming at the top of his lungs. His cortosis weave sword slashed through the air, narrowly missing the face of the enemy. The Jedi said something, taunting Leon, but he couldn't hear. He was too busy moving into his next attack, blade already stabbing furiously through the air where the Jedi stood. Brown robes tangled on the vibrosword's edge, shredding the cloth that trailed behind the Jedi as he dodged the attack. A noise buzzed faintly in Leon's ear, the ghosts of words in his mind.

The fight continued, with the Jedi seeming to toy with the soldier, that same angry, yellowing glint in his eyes as he stared down at the ordinary man. Every one of Leon's attacks missed by the smallest margin, but the Jedi was moving slowly, deliberately with every one of Leon's attacks. The Jedi could have moved out of the way with more room to spare, but instead seemed to enjoy the frustration he was putting Leon through. "That's it, get angrier. I want to kill the monster that killed my men," the soldier spat, the noise just barely making its way through the haze of bloodlust that permeated Leon's mind. The words had the desired effect, driving Leon to the brink of savagery. His grip on his blade grew ever tighter, the sweaty palms of his gauntlets slipping and squeaking against the hilt of the vibrosword until...

Leon's blade flew from his hand as he slashed down at the Jedi, the blade soaring through the air. The Jedi laughed and raised his hand. Suddenly, an invisible wall collided with Leon and sent him rushing towards the wall. He collided with the durasteel with a loud thud, and the haze of rage in his mind was replaced with a dull, throbbing pain. As the rage ebbed out of his body and gasped in pain. He had a lightsaber burn, painful but nothing serious, on his left forearm. He hadn't even noticed that.

"Leon! I said run! Can you hear me!?" Erea was basically screaming over the comms, trying to get the other soldier to finally hear her. The concussion ensured her words broke through the fracturing wall of his rage. "Leon!"

"Run," Leon croaked into the earpiece. The world around him was spinning; it hurt to talk.

"Who are you talking to?!" the Jedi snapped. He swung his lightsaber into Leon's face, inches away from Leon's eyes. The Jedi's gaze flicked to the locked doorway. "Some other monster in there?"

"Go... to hell," Leon snarled between ragged breaths.

The Jedi laughed cruelly and his skin palled, cracking. Then it was gone. Perhaps Leon had imagined it. "Willing to sacrifice your own life for another?" the blonde man asked. He smiled, eyes half lidded. "If you weren't irredeemable, I would find that endearing. Instead, it just informs me there is another monster in there." The Jedi turned to the door. "Don't worry. You're next."

"No... Run, Naga," Leon snarled, dragging himself across the ground.

"Not without you!" the woman replied desperately. "Just... wait, I'll figure something out. Give me a few seconds!"

Leon laughed dryly at what the woman begged. He struggled up to his feet, collecting his still active vibrosword from between two plates of the wall's durasteel tiling. "Stop," Leon growled at the Jedi. The blonde man froze and turned slowly towards Leon, eyes intrigued in the odd sight of a normal man desperate to get in a sword fight with a Jedi. Leon took ragged breaths and stood off center.

"And what do you hope to accomplish, hm?" the Jedi asked. His lightsaber hung at his side, humming and smelling faintly of ozone. The lights of the ship flickered as an explosion rocked the hull, causing the hallway to be bathed in the faint blue light of the Jedi's saber.

"Just a few seconds," Leon breathed. He groaned and clutched at his torso – he had broken ribs.

"I doubt that you will succeed in that," the Jedi responded, raising his saber towards Leon.

"Maybe, maybe not," Leon said, taking a deep, shaking breath and letting it out. Again, the world seemed to slow down. Leon noticed it this time, however. The Jedi seemed to move as if he were a normal person as he attacked, his blue blade moving faster than most could react. But Leon was able to easily deflect the blade. No, he thought, it's slower than a normal fighter.

"What are you!?" the Jedi snapped as Leon deflected a savage flurry of strikes, suddenly unencumbered by the fractures in his ribs, of the concussion rattling his brain. Energy flowed through Leon with an intensity he did not quite understand. Adrenaline, he knew, could do amazing things, and now he was a firsthand witness.

"What are you!?" the Jedi screamed again, his assault becoming more and more wild. Inexact. Strong, but with a distinct lack of any finesse, a depressing oddity in a Jedi. Leon had heard the Sith claim that rage made one more exact, more powerful. Perhaps in a Jedi this was a falsity.

Or perhaps not. The blue saber of the Jedi came down hard on Leon's saber, the sweat of his palms once again working against him. The powerful hit slapped Leon's blade from his wrist and to the ground. The Jedi slammed his palm into Leon's midsection, and with a burst of Force, Leon landed on the wall. He did not fall, however. The Jedi held his arm out, pointed at Leon with a clawed hand grasping the air. Leon felt pressure build around his neck. He was being choked to death.

After the first minute, his brain began shrieking. It wanted air. It needed air. Especially with the concussion. The second minute was worse. The brain began to feel like it was burning, suffering in earnest. He began seeing things. The brain cannot easily process unknown information, like an invisible hand strangling the life out of someone. When faced with such uncertainties, the brain decides to show one the most terrifying things it can imagine. Fictions, myths that were harbored in the deepest, darkest memories of the sapient mind. Minute three... most humans don't last that long.

Luckily, at the tail end of minute two, Leon did not die. In fact, he was no longer being strangled at the end of that minute. There was an explosion of plasma laced electricity from the door conduit, accompanied by the hissing of the door opening. The Jedi was not able to dodge this trap, focused as he was on slowly tearing the life away from Leon. The Jedi screamed in pain as the electrified plasma arced across his skin, lightly charring it at odd intervals. Leon fell to the ground, just outside of the reach of the energy. The Jedi fell to his knees as the energy dissipated, and immediately fell unconscious.

Leon breathed heavily for a moment, then collected his vibrosword and glanced down at the lightsaber. Cautiously, he reached down and picked it up. With a flick of his thumb, he activated the blue blade and aimed it at the Jedi's throat. The world slowly began to return to normal: the burns on his skin, the throbbing in his skull, the sharp pain of his broken ribs poking into his internal organs. He'd need to take a month long bath in bacta once this was all over, and that would just be to fix the surface injuries. "Don't kill him."

Leon closed his eyes and smiled. "Commander Naga," he said. He looked over at the woman, still smiling knowingly. She was tall, probably nearly 1.8 meters. Human. Her eyes were a deep, warm green that rested underneath red, sideswept bangs and a bob. She wore military dress, the maroon dress shirt, pants, and boots customary of True Empire formal uniform. A collection of small, but notable, medals adorned her left breast. Erea Naga's eyes were filled with things that are enviable and rare, if dangerous: mercy and pity.

"Don't kill him," she said again, simply. "Just don't."

Leon looked at the woman, dumbfounded at what she was asking of him. The Jedi had murdered his... his family. "No. I'm going to kill him." Leon raised the blue saber.

"NO!" Erea shrieked, jolting towards Leon. He froze, the blade hovering in the air. "Don't kill needlessly. We're not monsters, despite what he said."

"He killed my entire unit," Leon responded. His eyes were fixed on the unconscious Jedi's face. The lightsaber wavered in his hand. "Their blood screams for vengeance, Commander Naga. A Jedi versus any soldier, no matter how skilled, should mean death. He showed no mercy, so I should not."

"It's Erea. And show you are better than him. Show you will not kill an unarmed man!" she begged. She walked up to Leon and placed her hands on his shoulders. "If you do, maybe he will defect. Come to the right side. Please."

Leon blinked slowly. "You aren't going to drop this until I agree, are you?" he asked her. She nodded. Leon sighed and deactivated the lightsaber. He maglocked it onto his belt next to the vibrosword. "Fine... I don't feel strong enough to argue anyways." Leon fell to his knees, his upper weight barely supported by Erea's grasp.

"Let's get into the escape pod," Erea stated. She, with great difficulty, was able to drag the man, who was quickly falling into unconsciousness, into the nearest escape pod. "It's the only one I'll eject – it'll look like a misfire."

"Hope... I don't regret... letting... live," Leon said as he slipped in and out of consciousness. "Or... your fault..."

"Yeah, nice," Erea replied as she sealed the escape pod and programmed the S.O.S. Beacon, but did not activate it. Did not want the Triumvirate fleet picking up the call. With an explosive burst, the capsule jettisoned into space, drifting amongst the fleet of the Triumvirate that had surrounded the Jagged Fel on its path from contested Outer Core territories to Imperial Space proper. "We're going to have to wait until their fleet enters Hyperspace. Their gravity is pulling us away from Taris."

Leon struggled to his knees and glanced out the pod's viewport. "... close... Too close," Leon noted. He grimaced in pain as a lightning bolt traveled through his nerve center. "Bacta... pack..."

Erea nodded and pulled the pack on Leon's armor open, grabbing the dozen or so bacta packs in it. She placed them to the side of the pod, then turned her attention to Leon, tearing the metallic outer shell of his armor from his body. Movement outside of the escape pod caught her eye, causing her to freeze. "No..."

The pod had drifted incredibly close to one of the frigates of the fleet, too close in fact. The customary streaking of the white stars began outside of the pod. "We're caught in the fleet's Hyperspace wake," Erea mumbled. And then, the space they had occupied was empty. The fleet was gone, Leon and Erea with it.

SWSWSWSWSW

The Captain's boots clacked worriedly as he entered the bridge. The man he was about to talk to was not a bad man, by any means. In fact, he was a hero of the Triumvirate and known for his incredibly merciful nature. The Admiral was also incredibly passionate, driven in the protection of the government and peoples that he served in battle against the Sith Empire and their current leader, Darth Nernyn. Failure had not been an option in their assault on the Fel, not to the Admiral, but failure was the result nonetheless. The Captain shivered as the Jedi who had led the assault on the ship passed on a medical gurney, screaming from the painful wounds that ran up and down his arms. Who could do that to a Jedi?

The bridge, when the Captain entered, was a flurry of activity. Different soldiers and tacticians ran about, planning moves in the war hours ahead. They were preparing for any possibility of what would be found amongst the data of the Jagged Fel's main computer system. The Captain almost pitied the uselessness of their scurrying movements.

At the center of the bridge stood the Admiral, grouped with his central advisers around a map of the galaxy. He was in his early thirties or late twenties, the youngest Grand Admiral in the history of any galactic government. He held a cane in his right hand, some sort of wood from Yavin IV, to support his limping movements. He had brown hair with matching dark eyes, and a face that held hints that it once smiled much more often. "What is it Captain?" the Admiral asked as the man approached, not even looking up from the intelligence before him.

The Captain snapped to attention. "Sir, I regret to inform that the information in the system was cleansed before it could be taken. The mission was a failure, Admiral Taas."

The Admiral stood up from the table, putting his weight on his cane. He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "It's not your fault, Captain," the Admiral assured sadly. He opened his eyes and Van Taas turned to the Captain again. "Did the secondary objective succeed?"

The Captain nodded. "Yes, Sir. We found the bodies of the Sith Special Forces in the bridge with a wake of destruction. There was one Sith Imperial Knight aboard killed during the first salvo, it would appear. However, Jedi Knight Braden Zerr was found horribly wounded and without his lightsaber."

Admiral Taas frowned. "Question Knight Zerr as soon as possible. If there was a Sith, perhaps the information survived with him," the Admiral noted. He looked towards the hyperdrive techs. "Set course for Coruscant – the Triumvirs will want to hear what the Jedi has to say."