Hello all! Sorry Sorry Sorry for the very late chapter update, real life and my full OC projects got in the way. Anyway, here's the next chapter for your reading pleasure.

The ship landed with a heavy thud and with a final shudder her engines went quiet. In the darkness of the main hold, the Ninth sister relished the cold darkness of her makeshift quarters. Her right arm ached as the new augmentation sent slivers of ice into her flesh. Within the baskar cylinder was… something the Emperor had found within the deep core. An amorphous black orb, a mix of tainted Kyberite and something utterly alien , that pressed against her stump reaching into her flesh and flaying the nerves with tendrils of liquid hate, feeding her connection to the dark side. Darkness within and darkness without resonated as her hate fed off the pain, reminding every cell of why she still lived.

"Cal Kestis." She growled, the metal around her creaking with every syllable.

Then the hatch released and her quarters were flooded with light. When her eyes adjusted, the ninth sister looked out at a shabby excuse for a town and bit into her lip. She knew she had to atone for her defeat, but being sent after some probably half starved mutt on a mud ball still angered her. By all rights she should be hunting Kestis, not some scavenger hoarding Phrik metal.

"Inquisitor." A purge commander said over her comms. "The other ships have landed and we've begun our sweep of the town."

"Good, no restrictions on terms of engagement." The Ninth sister said. "Purge this entire outpost and retrieve the forge no matter who you have to gun down."

"Understood." The purge trooper's connection went dead and in its place she heard the sound of blaster fire.

She stepped out onto the landing pad, watching as the ground was lit with the red light of blaster fire. Her lips curled back into a smile as plumes of smoke began to rise out of the buildings and the screams of the townsfolk filled her ears. Agony shot through her right arm and with a grunt she pressed her hand to the dark silver cylinder. With a guttural scream the internal machinery activated the kyber crystal within and the metal warped inward before stabbing out into a barbed blade, melding metal and kyberite together in agonizing ecstasy. A dark red light began to seep into the seams where metal and crystal twisted and the Ninth Sister felt the heat of it on her face like the hateful kiss of a poison sun.

"Let's hope this mutt can put up a decent fight." She growled lowering her weapon before dropping down into the chaos below.

/

"Get in the fucking transport Jedi!" Iro yelled as he threw the last of the forge components into the back of the transport.

"No, I'm not getting in that thing." Cal said, watching with horror as Rowan's posse strapped down the forge. "That's a vermilion X-31, the battery packs on those things are more likely to explode than hold a charge!"

"Hey now, I learned to drive land vehicles on this old girl, show her some respect." Iro said, turning to watch the other end of the alley. "But if you insist, Rowan's got another transport stashed a few blocks away. He was planning on taking it to draw draw off some of the Imps, so you can tag along with him, happy?"

"Not at all." Cal said, rubbing the throbbing pain in his side as BD-1 dropped from a roof to drop onto his shoulder. "But it will have to do."

"Troopers are moving this way from the landing pads." Merrin said, appearing atop the transport and startling Iro. "Something is with them, a darkness like a walking wound."

"That would be Masana." Trilla said as she slipped through a side gate to join them. "She's alive and I do believe we should be on our way before she finds us."

"This one has some sense." One of Rowan's crew, a short young woman with ridiculously long ears and green skin said. "Listen, we need to be going quick or our asses will be warming a prison capsule before long."

"Something tells me they won't be breaking out the containment capsules this time, Teek." Rowan said, stepping out of the shop's back entrance sporting a bright red lipstick stain on his forhead. "If we're dealing with inquisitors they're either after the ginger or us, and something tells me they aren't going to be picky about just who they pick up."

"Oi Rowan." Teek said, tapping her forehead. "You got a mark there."

"What?" Rowan asked as he checked one of his tonfas.

"I left a wee smudge on your forehead love." The giant red head said, stepping out of the shop and wiping the mark off his forehead with a handkerchief. "Good thing I got all the others, eh?"

"Um...uh..." Rowan stuttered for a moment before he regained some of his composure. "Now then, Jedi you're with me, we'll be taking the stashed speeder a few blocks away. Draw the inquisition off while my crew gets the forge back to the Cinnamon Wind. If you have anyone you want to get out of town it'd be best to get them out with them."

"We will be going with Cal." Merrin said as she appeared next to Cal.

"Yes, I do think we will be." Trilla said as she stepped through a side alley to stand on Cal's other side.

"You know how to use that blaster?" Rowan asked Trilla.

"Point the shooty end at the thing that I want dead and pull the trigger, correct?" Trilla asked.

"That's about it, yeah." Rowan said, smiling a gap toothed grin.

"Then I know how to use it."

"You remind me of my mother." Rowan said before turning to his crew. "Alright folks, I'll escort our new friends out of town while you lot get that forge back to the ship. Once you've got that sweety loaded break out the Iso 5 capsule and get it prepped for jump. Any questions, comments, or concerns?"

"That capsule is worth more than the whole bleeding ship!" Teek protested.

"And we've got an entire Inquisitorial regiment on our assess." Rowan's tall girlfriend said. "I think we can be a wee bit wasteful."

"Aren't you forgetting Max's job?" Jin asked.

"Oh yeah." Rowan said withdrawing a small transmitter from his pocket as he turned to Cal. "You might want to cover your ears."

Before Cal could comply, Rowan pressed the red button on top of the transmitter and it emitted a deep thrumming sound. The sound of crunching metal and glass filled the air as the near derelicts taking up space on the landing pads imploded before bursting into pure light and fire. Shock waves washed over the town and would have knocked Cal off his feet if Merrin hadn't grabbed hold of him.

"I do so love those old republic scout craft." Rowan said, taking what looked to be an ear plug from his ear. "The insulation they used has an...exciting reaction to pure vervinium fuel vapors energized with derritic radiation."

"See, he is a terrorist." Trilla said.

Trilla, Rowan, and Merrin ran through the back alleys with Cal riding in Rowan's back as the lean man darted through the oddly calm alleyways. Cal had made it a solid block before his side had started to hurt bad enough to notice and a block after that he could barely stand. Just before he was about to collapse to the ground, Rowan grabbed Cal roughly and threw him over his shoulder and continued running.

"Do you..." Cal huffed. "Do you do this often?"

"Often enough." Rowan said, chuckling as he rounded a corner. "I've seen my fair share of accidents at the factory I grew up in, and sometimes you just have to carry someone out of the danger zone. I'll add just add this to your bill."

"I...have a bill?" Cal said.

"A long one if the day keeps going like this." Rowan huffed as they turned into a alley way where a covered craft waited.

Rowan hefted Cal into Trilla's arms and hurriedly pulled the cover off a speeder that looked older than the Republic let alone the Empire.

"That is our escape craft?" Trilla asked.

"Yes, there's really not a lot options on a planet where the biggest industry is sulfur." Rowan said hopping into the speeder and firing up its engine with a wet sounding rumble. "Don't worry about this old girl, bought her off a farmer who only drove it into market once a week."

"Really?" Cal asked as Trilla helped him into the back of the speeder with Merrin.

"Does it really matter?" Rowan said.

As Trilla loaded into the passenger sear Cal sunk into the back seat. His side pulsed with pain and little flecks of white were floating around in his field of view. A headache was threatening to blow out the back of his head and as he massaged his temples he felt Merrin's hands on his neck. Cal looked up and sighed as he watched green flecks of light dance across his vision. He felt the speeder shudder and prepared for the inevitable lurch as they stared moving when he a chill ran down his spine. Cold stabbed into his chest like as he looked down to the end of the alleyway where a hulking silhouette stood.

"Cal Kestis!" The Ninth sister yelled from the end of the alleyway as a line of storm troopers formed behind her.

"Friend of yours?" Rowan asked, slowly reaching down to hook one of his tonfas onto his arm.

"The line between enemy and friend is thin these days, who can remember?" Trilla said, staring at the barbed blade seemingly growing from her former comrade's arm. "What is that on her arm?"

"I don't know." Cal said, forcing himself to sit up. "But it feels off, like it's made of ice and headaches."

"Alright, we're cornered by an inquisitor with a sword growing from her arm and a firing squad covering her considerable ass." Rowan said, adjusting a side mirror to show Cal a line of storm troopers at the other end of the alley way. "I'm thinking of fleeing in the opposite direction from her. Any objections?"

"No." Trilla said just as Rowan slammed down the accelerator sending them flying at the inquisitor.

Rowan and Trilla began firing their blasters at the sister, filling the alley with smoke and crimson light as Rowan twisted the steering wheel. A sickening pop came from somewhere within the speeder and it went into a spin bringing the rear engines in line with the sister and the storm troopers. With a curse on his lips, Rowan slammed his fist onto a red button built into the speeder's console and they rocketed forward, bellowing out smoke and flame from the rear engines as they went.

"I am so glad I ripped the exhaust muffler off this piece of junk!" Rowan yelled as they shot away.

They rocketed down the alley way, engine screaming as Storm troopers unloaded a volley of bolts that dinged off the edges of the speeder. A moment and a meaty thwack later, the speeder crashed through the firing line and out onto the street. Cal tried to celebrate but felt a cold sliver of ice stab into his stomach. He looked down and realized that a length of twisted black metal was stuck through the back of the speeder and stabbed into his side.

He looked back as cold spread up his side and caught sight of the Ninth sister stepping through the smoke, what was left of her black blade dripping with black ichor. Time seemed to slow as they considered each other, a hunter and her pray sizing each other up in the fleeting moment before they could turn the corner. She mouthed something and though he couldn't hear her words Cal knew what she said.

I am coming for you, Kestis.

?

Greez paced back and forth in the Mantis' sitting room. He would have chewed his fingernails if he hadn't already chewed three of his finger tail till they bled. The latero was used to stressful waits in the Mantis at this point, but usually the kid was in decent shape and Greez didn't have to share a landing space with a weird looking ship.

The Cinnamon Wind sat a few hundred yards away from the Mantis, a ship that looked to be constructed from the corpses of a fighter, a freighter, and a high priced yacht. Greez even spotted some parts probably ripped off a clone war era gunship and a few parts that even he didn't recognize. Regardless of its makeup, Greez didn't trust the ship at all. It looked like a smuggler's ship that had been prettied up enough to pass through Imperial scrutiny.

The fact that it also had it's main cannon aimed at the Mantis wasn't exactly soothing his worries either. A speeder loaded with the astroforge and what looked like a crew caught between the pirate and worker's aesthetic had pulled in around thirty minutes before and started loading their prize with the help of a custom droid that looked to be made out of construction equipment welded to an oven. Once they noticed the Mantis, a green pip squeak had ordered the cannon pointed at them.

"Calm down Greez." Cere said, patting her friend on the shoulder. "Cal and the others are one their way, and I've got a feeling that cannon isn't going to fire."

"Really?" Greez asked. "I guess my instincts are off then."

"That's a Praetorian 7 model cannon." Cere said. "Rated for void combat only since they had a nasty habit of lighting a rough mile of atmosphere on fire. Saw it a few times during the clone wars, I don't think they're stupid enough to fire it, but they aren't above using it to intimidate."

"Good to know it'll kill them too I guess." Greez said, grimacing.

Then a proximity alarmed went off and Greez's head swiveled to see a beat speeder, it's engines smoking and red hot, come screaming into the clearing. Greez couldn't feel the force, couldn't pull the fancy sensory feats Cal or even Cere were capable of, but he did have eyes. What they saw was Cal, paler than bone with dark blood sticking his poncho to his side. His blood ran cold and as he bounded back through the bridge bulkhead his mind flashed back to fishing Cal and the others out of the water, not knowing if the kid was going to die or not.

"Cal!" Cere yelled as she darted out of Mantis with Greez on her heels.

By the time the two had made it out of Mantis, Trilla and the speeder's driver were hauling Cal out of the backseat. Without a moment's hesitation, the driver started barking orders as presumably his crew poured out of the other ship. Cal was handed off to the makeshift droid who handled him like a kitten in its huge arms before the driver turned to Greez and Cere. He leveled one green eye on Greez and nodded before handing him a datastick.

"You're the pilot." He said. "Those are the coordinates to my station, the Jedi's been injured by some Imp prototype. He needs a blood transfusion and probably a new kidney judging from the wound. I've got the equipment to keep him stable on my ship and a doctor waiting back at base, so if you don't mind meeting us there we can be off before an Imp cruiser starts leveling this side of the planet."

"Kathis Blackfire, I presume." Cere said, something passing between the two as their gazes locked.

"Another one?" The driver asked, flashing Cere a gap toothed grin. "I go by Rowan, but the name Granny picked out for me was Kathis. Listen, you're friend is in bad shape and a fucking inquisitor is on our ass, so how about we save the introductions until after jumping out of here?"

"Cal rides with us." Cere said.

"Do you have an autodoc on that yacht of yours?" Rowan asked. "A transfusion kit? An antibiotic suite? Even a sanitation protocol? I know you want to take care of your own, but he's been stabbed in the gecking kidney and is probably bleeding internally. Now's not the time to play musical star ships."

"He's right." Trilla said, appearing at Cere's side something black and thin in her hand. "We need to move, for Cal's sake and ours. The Ninth sister is leading a band of purge troopers here right now, and she's been grafted to a weapon forbidden by the Emperor himself before now. We need to-"

Trilla was cut off as a hail of blaster fire cut through the air around them. She bounded forward shielding Cere and Greez as she pushed them back up the Mantis' gang way. Rowan meanwhile unsheathed his tonfas and had begun laying down his own volley of lighter fire. He fell back to his ship as the Cinnamon Wind's engines began to cycle. Just before he disappeared into the ship's hold, Rowan turned to Greez and mimed out a seven number sequence. A sequence Greez knew was an encryption cipher key, probably for the datastick's encryption algorithm.

"Greez!" Trilla yelled from the bridge. "We need to go!"

Greez turned and ran to his chair, coaxing the Mantis to full capacity as he stabbed the datastick into his terminal. He keyed in the numbers and watched as the encryption was deactivated and his nav computer extracted the coordinates. A loud crash drew his gaze up from the computer and he saw the Cinnamon Wind lift up through the tree cover ripping their hiding space open before blasting off. With a grunt he pulled up on his controls and had the Mantis rocketing in the other direction just as heavy blaster fire started to pepper her hull.

"I'm coming kid." he muttered as they shot through the air and into hyperspace once they cleared atmosphere.

?

Twelve hours later…

Trilla sat in the dining area staring at the sliver of black metal around ten inches long floating inside of a small containment tube. Cal's blood coated it, still wet despite it being over half a day since she'd pulled it out of his side. She could feel the power of the sliver, the coiling darkness that whispered to her hatred, her anger, and her greed all at once. A power that had been used to torture her until she let it in and start to rot her from the inside out. This little sliver was so inundated with dark side energy that she half suspected the thing would glow a bright red if she ran some electricity through it.

"That was inside Cal?" Cere said, sitting across from Trilla.

"Yes, the Ninth sister's thrust was mostly blunted by the speeder's chasis but a sliver made it through." Trilla explained, watching her former master's eyes linger on the sliver.

"You said this was a weapon?" Cere asked, forcing herself to look up from the sliver. "A weapon even the Emperor wouldn't use?"

"I misspoke." Trilla said. "I previously believed that he wouldn't waste an Inquisitor to deploy this...thing. The Emperor found it on a dead world in the deep core. A hollow world that had been left a shell floating in space, or so the rumors say. There at the center of that strange planet he found a sphere, kyberite warped by the dark side, twisted even more than the Emperor himself. Expose it to Baskar and it creates a force amplifying alloy then once it's exposed to flesh it begins to form a parasitic relationship with the host. It greatly enhances their power, but twists them into a monster. Well, even more of a monster."

"Does it kill the host?" Cere asked.

"In a way, yes." Trilla said. "Eventually their spirit and mind are consumed by the dark side. Though it can take time depending on the will of the host, the corruption spreads and they eventually devolve into a hateful facsimile of who they were. Their skill and talent devoured for raw power and their memory corrupted to feed never ending hate. Imagine the most pathetic sith, lost to their own power and hatred, but empowered far beyond the limits of a normal organic. The Emperor ordered it locked away and only used as punishment for assets that fail the Inquisition."

"She survived Kashyk just to be grafted to a parasite." Cere said, her eyes once again locked onto the sliver.

"Force sensitivity is rare but not rare enough that an inquisitor can be made an example of." Trilla said, tapping a button on the side of the containment tube turning the glass opaque. "Cere, how are you feeling?"

"Fine." Cere said, blinking away a far off look in her eyes. "I'm fine."

"I know more than anyone the allure of the dark side, Cere." Trilla said, tentatively reaching across the table to rest her hand on Cere's. "The light can sting to the eyes of those who've been in the shade, but no matter what we can't let it tempt us again."

"Trilla..." Cere said, her fingers wrapping around Trilla's. "I'm so-"

"You don't need to say it." Trilla said, withdrawing her hand. "I don't blame you anymore."

"But you don't forgive me either." Cere said, no hint of a question in her voice.

"Have you heard anything about Cal?" Trilla asked, refusing to look her former master in the eye.

"Yes, managed to get a line to the Cinnamon Wind once we left the system." Cere explained, putting her hands on her lap. "Ca's stable after a blood transfusion, but his kidney is badly damaged. He'll need a transplant which our new friends say they can provide. Apparently Rowan runs an organ trading buisness to fund his...hunting."

"This Rowan sounds more and more trustworthy by the minute." Trilla said.

"They claim to be cloning the organs instead of harvesting them." Cere said, shrugging.

"Well when has cloning and Jedi ever been a bad combination?" Trilla asked with a dark chuckle.

?

Cal was lost to his dream. He vaguely remembered the speeder and the sharp pain in his side, but as he wandered deeper into the depths of his dream the memory faded out to back ground noise. Background noise that tickled at his mind as he walked through a thick forest, tall trees old as the sky with roots so tightly woven that the ground was like stone. A strange gloom hung over the place as if dawn and dusk were fighting for control of the light.

On he walked through the trees until he came across a building that with two huge smoke stacks spewing sweet smelling vapors. It took him a moment, but Cal eventually realized that the building was a bakery of some kind. Sitting out front was a young dark skinned woman dressed in a regal suit sipping at a steaming mug as she talked with a young man with flour caking his apron. The young woman reached forward and entwined her fingers with his before drawing in for a kiss. Cal looked away and shook his head only for the bakery to dissolve away, morphing into an inferno.

He watched a mansion burn as snow fell all around. The same young woman, now dressed in a night gown, was on the ground screaming as she clutched a bundle to her body. Then the image shifted again and Cal watched a girl, no older than three, be led away from the young woman and what had to be a younger version of Moira Blackfire by a woman in Jedi robes. As the Jedi and the girl walked out of sight, the vision changed again to a young woman standing with her back to him.

She was alone and dressed in what looked like modified clone trooper armor, Katarn class commando armor by the looks of it. Even through this vision, Cal could tell the force was strong in her and he reached out through the force instinctively. As he did, she turned her head and looked over her shoulder at him revealing her face to be a feminine mirror of Rowan Blackfire's.

A sense of deja vu washed over him, and Cal felt a familiar aura around the girl as she turned to consider him. Maybe it was in the way she stood or the twinkle in her dark green eyes, but as they considered each other Cal couldn't help but think of Rowan. Then Cal noticed something in her left hand, an object carved out of a bright green crystal and etched with dense script. It looked like a holocron, but far more intricate than any he'd ever seen.

"Solemnace." The girl said drawing his gaze up from the object.

"Solemnace?" Cal asked as the world began to dissolve around them.

"The key is on Solemnace." She replied, holding up the object and letting it dissolve away.

"The key to what?" Cal asked, the ground giving way in chunks at his feet.

"The door buried beneath our order's first home." She said before dissolving into shadow as the world collapsed around them, leaving Cal to be smothered by darkness.

?

Vader walked through the silent forges as fast as his cumbersome cybernetics would allow. Hatred and rage fueled every step as he walked, lamenting this damnable place with every strained breath. Outside the synthetic opal windows, Mustafar's vast lava flows bubbled and spilled across the scorched surface in the great rivers that warded most from even considering a landing on the planet. He liked that, despite all of the bad memories this planet had to off there was some solace to be taken in the isolation of the planet. Of course, it's powerful connection to the dark side helped too.

Soon, his palace would be complete and if his modifications to its design performed as he hoped then his chance would come. The chance to slip the diluted physical pain that fueled his current meager powers and to slip into a state of oneness with the dark side that not even his Master could fathom. For as he walked, Vader could still feel the Force all around him even if he could not tap into it with his master's "augmentations" constraining him so. It was there, waiting for him, waiting for the chosen one to bring balance to the Force as was his destiny.

Anakin Skywalker's destiny you mean?

He stopped walking and clenched his fists, the metal of the walls warping as the voice whispered in his ear.

"I have no need of more ghosts." Vader said, turning to the hooded apparition behind him. "The last I vanquished when he attempted to hijack my castle."

"That was a spirit of a Sith, Vader." The apparition said in a voice that Vader recognized from his childhood. "A powerful one, that is true, but a spirit maintained by an anchor in this world and his own greed. I am more powerful in the force than that lost soul could ever imagine."

"Then leave me to my work and go annoy my master." Vader said, hand slipping down to his light saber. "He is very interested in those who have come back from the dead after all."

"Sidious is far beyond my help or even the greatest powers of the Force." The apparition said. "But you are not, even now he plots to replace you. Not today or tomorrow, but one day another will rise who he will attempt to bring into the darkness, and with him strike you down."

"I don't think I will allow that to happen." Vader said, releasing his grip on his saber and turning. "No one can kill me."

"I wish that were so." The apparition said, letting Vader slip further into the belly of his castle.

?

Cal woke into a world of sterile white light and the smell of anti septic. As his awareness slowly returned to him, Cal noted that he was in a moderately comfortable bed and his body felt good. Exhausted and hungrier than he'd ever been, but good. The aches and pains of his wounds were there, but more a nagging reminder than the pulsing throbbing he'd felt during the escape from…the Ninth sister. He remembered the cold of the blade sliding into his side, somehow cutting through the speeder and into his flesh.

He sat up and ran his hand down his side where an incision scar ran a few inches across his skin. Furrowing his brow, Cal looked around and saw that he was in a small and cluttered infirmary with tall shelves stocked with seemingly every medical device and medicine Cal had ever seen. Despite the clutter, the Infirmary was probably the nicest he'd seen since before the Purge. Well, it was nice enough to look at while he allowed his mental faculties to slowly come back online. Then the doors opened and a tall creature stepped into the room and considered him with huge grey eyes.

"Jedi, it is good to see you awake." The creature, a female Kaminoan Cal realized, said. "Are you experiencing any discomfort after the surgery?"

"I'm feeling great actually." Cal said before processing her question. "Wait, what do you mean surgery?"

"You experienced a laceration to your left kidney and severe blood loss." The Kaminoan said. "My employer provided blood transfusions and ordered a kidney to be flash cloned for transplant. I can safely say that the transplant was a success and your recovery time has been shortened by concentrated bacta application and your companion's holistic method. The only lasting side effect is that your caloric energy stores are near depleted."

"Is that why I'm so hungry?" Cal asked.

"Yes, all of your internal nutrients were consumed by the quickened process." The Kaminoan explained. "If you wish, my employer has invited you to breakfast, and I recommend that you sate your hunger as soon as possible. You will find your things in the bin next to your bed."

With that, the Kaminoan turned on her heels and left Cal to his confusion. A moment later the space in front of him flashed green and Merrin appeared to gently push him back onto the bed. She didn't say anything at first, just ran her fingers over his neck and face. Sending feelers of energy into his muscle, surveying his condition with her strange force magicks. After a few minutes of that, Merrin sighed and smiled down at him.

"Thought I would have to save you again, Cal Kestis." She whispered.

"You didn't?" Cal asked, managing a chuckle despite her weight resting on him.

"No, our host did." She said, her smile getting just a little warmer. "When you were losing blood he offered his. Apparently he is a "universal donor"."

"Good to know in case I need to top off the tank." Cal said. "And the kidney transplant?"

"You will have to ask him." Merrin said slipping off him to stand by the bed. "His explanation involved something called a Spaarti cylinder and that tall fish woman."

"Flash cloning then." Cal said, patting his side. "I remember Spaarti being a competitor to the Kaminoans, quicker but the clones they made were more volatile."

"More volatile than the clones you served with?" Merrin said handing him his clothes neatly folded into a stack.

"Surprisingly, yes." Cal said, as he stood to get dressed. "How long have I been out?"

"A week, you were unconscious when we arrived, and the fish woman put you into a coma to aid your healing." Merrin said, leaning against a wall and making it very obvious she was enjoying watching him dress. "The others are delayed by an Imperial blockade, but they should be arriving tomorrow.

"They made it out, good." Cal said slipping the last of his clothes on and sliding his light saber into it's place. "What about our hosts? You've taken a look around I'd guess."

"Yes, we are in a space station, a big one." Merrin said, fixing a strap on his shirt. "The facility itself is very big, but no bigger than some of the temples on Dathomir. Split into living areas, working areas, a communications room, and other rooms that serve the facility as a whole. The "boss", Rowan, is interesting, he follows me sometimes, follows me closer than most are capable of. But, I sense no malice from him or the others who serve him. Suspicion and caution yes, but no malice."

"I don't think they'd have given me a kidney if they had malicious intent." Cal said, chuckling darkly.

"I do not feel this Rowan is the type of man who trades in gifts, Cal." Merrin said before gesturing to the door. "Come, we have been invited to breakfast."

Merrin led Cal out into a network of hallways and down one hall towards the sounds of voices. They stepped from the hall into a spacious dining room where Rowan sat at the head of a sprawling stone table supervising two young girls, one on each side of him, as they ate fruit mash. The two girls, each probably no more than a year or two old, had light brown skin and small nubby horns accented by mahogany colored hair. When Merrin and Cal stepped into the room the two girls looked up from the breakfast scattered across their high chairs and began patting Rowan's arms.

"Da! Murrin is here." One said.

"Da! The sleepy man is awake." The other said.

"Thank you sweeties." Rowan said, gently brushing away the girls' assault. "Welcome back to the land of the living, Jedi. Sit down, breakfast will be out in just a moment, and I have something I want to discuss with you."

"I suspected you would." Cal said, slipping into a chair as Merrin did the same next to him. "Are these two your-"

"Daughters?" Rowan asked. "Yes, just turned two last month, Roweyna and Reywan say hello to Cal Kestis. He's going to be going on a buisness trip with daddy soon."

"Hi!" The twins said in unison before returning to playing with their breakfast.

"Hi." Cal said, smiling at the girls before turning to their father. "What do you mean by a buisness trip?"

"Eat something first." Rowan ordered as a hulking droid entered with two piping hot plates full steaming food. "We can talk buisness after you fill your stomachs."

When Cal and Merrin were done eating, Rowan placed his daughters into a playpen and led the pair to his workshop. It was a space much larger than the dining hall and filled with machinery of all kinds. Cal noticed that the Astroforge had been installed at the center of the room, and that it had been integrated alongside equipment dedicated to everything from chemistry and manufacturing to engraving and dyeing.

"So, the way I see it, you owe me for the price of a top quality kidney plus the blood I so graciously donated." Rowan said, walking to an over stuffed work bench at the center of the room and leaning into it. "Naturally, I don't want to go back to Karro anytime soon, I have a nice space station where the Imps can't find me and a very lucrative buisness in the cloned organ trade. But, when a Jedi walks into your lap you'd be a fool to not make use of him. I'm looking for something, someone, and Cal I think I can find both if you help me."

"You're looking for a Jedi." Cal said, the visions in his dream tickling his brain. "And a key."

"And here I thought that Jedi intuition was exaggerated." Rowan said, withdrawing something from his pocket and handing it to Cal.

Cal looked down at the object and blinked as he felt a powerful force signature pulse out from it. It appeared to be a silver compass, engraved in detailed constellations and trimmed in gold, but Cal knew it was far more than that. He clicked it open to reveal an intricate set of internal machinery built around a softly glowing sapphire. Gauges and needles spun round and round on the compass' face as Cal's perception washed over it, as if it was saying hello.

"That is a star compass, pre-Republic era." Rowan explained, gently wiping mash off his daughters' faces as he talked. "The gem at its center is a piece of ancient kyber crystal, hyper compacted by millions of years beneath a mountain. Ancient force users, the precursors to the Jedi and the Sith in fact, used compasses like these to navigate the galaxy and find hidden pathways to places no non Force sensitive could find."

"There were a few of these in the temple archives." Cal said, remembering several scoldings for smudging the compass display's glass as a young padawan. "Though none of them were this complex."

"From what I've been able to dredge up that compass was built during the last days of Tython." Rowan explained. "Before the whole system was abandoned, Tython was the center of the galaxy for most Force users before and long before that, the seat of a race that had mastered hyperspace through the Force. Somewhere on Tython is a gate, a doorway to a pocket dimension where the greatest scientific discovery of our era waits."

"And what would that be?" Cal asked.

"The wireless transfer of immense power through hyper space." Rowan said, turning to slap his hand on a remote summoning a holographic display of a star with thousands of specks orbiting it and a massive ring. "From the records I've dug up, in this pocket dimension is a device that represents utter mastery of hyperspace and the power to circumvent the Imps."

"What is this?" Merrin asked, watching the display with cautious curiosity.

"I call it a solar swarm, imagine a swarm of mirrors directing sun light into a collection ring." Rowan explained. "Once that light is transformed into electricity it can be beamed or transferred to planets, whole systems if need be. All I need is the resources to build just one, a decently sized planet would probably do the trick, and the secrets buried on Tython. With all of that, I can build swarms in isolated systems all across the rim and beam power to anyone not wearing impeccably cut grey uniforms."

"If I'm following you, you want us to help you find a Jedi who knows something about this key, correct?" Cal asked.

"Yes." Rowan said, a hint of desperation glinting in his eye for a moment, like flint on steel. "

Cal stared at Rowan for a long moment, reached out with the Force to probe his emotions. There was something being held back, and Cal knew what it was just as he knew that Rowan was looking for the key. The young man wasn't just searching for hyper space secrets, but someone that was taken from him when he was a child.

"Rowan, why did your family fake your death?" Cal asked.

"As my grandmother is fond of saying, sometimes death is a useful disguise." Rowan said, looking Cal in the eye before sighing. "It's also a good way to hide a Force sensitive child from the Jedi."

"I'm guessing you weren't the only one that was supposed to "die" that night, right?" Cal asked.

"No." Rowan said, turning away to stare at the display. "Her name was Kella, she was my twin sister and taken by the Jedi when she was three years old and lifted a rock without using her hands. I would have been taken too if Granny hadn't arranged for a fire in our room that night."

"You think this sister of yours is alive?" Merrin asked. "I thought that Jedi were all killed, save for a few scattered survivors."

"Kella's not dead." Rowan said, gripping the side of the workbench until his knuckles went white. "I've felt her my entire life, be it a hallucination or the Force connecting us, I can still feel her."

"Not only that." Rowan said, turning to face them both and snatching the compass out of Cal's hands. "But she's looking for the same thing I am. I've been tracking her for more than a year now, she's moving through the shadows, hunting after scattered bits of lore and artifacts just like me. I found this compass, well more liberated it from a planetary governor, and it can take us to the gate. Kella on the other hand is looking for-"

"The key?" Merrin asked. "For what use is a door you cannot open, eh?"

"Exactly." Rowan said, snapping his fingers. "I believe Kella has the key, or is getting close to finding it."

"Alright, if she has the key and you have the map." Cal said, thinking over Rowan's words. "Then why not go find your long lost sister and uncover the secrets yourself? Why not just give us the slip?"

"Well..." Rowan said, scratching the back of his head. "She sort of wants to kill me."

"Why?" Cal and Merrin asked.

"I might have stolen this compass from her before I realized who she was." Rowan explained. "And I might have killed her pet when I blew up her ship as a distraction."

"Trilla was right about him." Merrin said, looking to Cal. "He is a terrorist."