The world spun and blurred, and Dirk had a hard time making sense of his perceptions. Sounds roared in his ears, and the temperature seemed to fluctuate wildly.

**Center yourself, Dirk.** A voice rang out in his mind. **Concentrate, heal yourself, and you will be able to see and hear again.** Dirk did as the voice commanded, and his vision unblurred.

"You're going to be suffering from hibernation sickness for a while," an auburn-haired woman to his right was slowly and loudly saying to him, just relax, your sight and hearing will slowly return to normal." A tall, lanky dark-haired man stood next to her, a nasty looking heavy blaster pistol strapped to his belt..

"Actually, miss, I can see and hear you perfectly well. Now before you turn me over to your master, may I at least have my clothing back?" With a slight tug through the force, the blaster flew into Dirks grasp, which he quickly brought to bear on the two. "On second thought, I think I'll get out of here on my own." Quickly adjusting the setting , he stunned both of the shocked pair.

Wrapping the thermal blanket around himself, Dirk stood, noting with distaste the faint odor of bacta, then proceeded to stride out through the open doorway.or try to. He took three steps, then his legs seemed to vanish from underneath him, and Dirk sat puzzled in the floor. Huh, he thought, why won't my legs work? Then he remembered what the woman said.something about hibernation sickness. But you don't get ill from a healing trance, or a hibernation trance, either one. Just how long was I out? He wondered, as consciousness slid away once more.

Once again, Dirk Talon knelt, trying to get his left leg to work despite the deep saber burn through his thigh. The woman who called herself Darth Vixen stood over him, spinning that two-bladed lightsaber of hers like a baton in one hand, holding his fallen master's own lightsaber in the other. He looked past her to the fallen form of his master's body, the fallen lavender-skinned form of twi'lek Jedi Dogo Dal-Odo, his head looking so lop-sided with one of his lekku head-tails severed during the fight which killed him. The sith woman's foot pinned his remaining lightsaber to the ground, the other destroyed during the battle. The woman taunted him, mocking his holding to the light, revealing that the council was wrong about one thing.the rule of two. While there was always only one master and one apprentice among the sith, the sith were broken into three castes, Lords, Warriors, and Acolytes. thus, there were in truth six sith at all times, not just two. Then she started slashing and stabbing at him with her lightsaber, over, and over, and.

"Al right, wake up, you!" Dirk blinked as he returned from sleep, to find himself restrained in a bunk. "I don't know HOW you did that, but I don't care. You're gonna stay here until I think it's safe to let you up again, got it?" The tall man glared angrily at Dirk, but it seemed a normal kind of anger, not the all-consuming rage of a sith.

"I.I'm sorry, but I thought you were someone else." He looked around.
"This isn't the inside of an Imperial ship."

"Chuuba, no, it isn't an Imperial ship! Just who the blazes are you, anyway?"

"Sorry about Tyler," the woman said, "he kind of got angry at being shot with his own blaster." That drew a chuckle from her other companion, a greenish-tan Trandoshan. She visibly winced at the reptiles laugh.

"My apologies, to all. I am.Dirk Talon, and I was a prisoner on an Imperial dreadnaught until I woke up here.wherever here is."

"You're on board my ship, the ShadowHawk," Tyler said. Dirk sat there. "What, you've never heard of the ShadowHawk? C'mon, she and the Millennium Falcon are tied as being the two fastest ships in the galaxy! The Starlight Intruder comes in a pale second!" Dirk still looked uncomprehending.

"Er, Tyler, he's been frozen, remember? Corellian YT-1760's were still a new ship design around that time. He's never heard of those three ships." Tyler fumed at that.

"This is a 1760? I've seen the YT-1300 design before, that side-mounted cockpit looks dangerous to me." Dirk said, an odd tone to his voice.

"Yeah, that's why I got a 1760, instead, same basic design, but the cockpit is mounted in the center of the front, between and slightly above the cargo mandibles." Tyler said, his anger suddenly, inexplicably reduced to mere irritation. Dirk smiled, and continued to talk technology with the ShadowHawk's captain, asking questions about the ships engines, it's modified hyperdrive, the fact that the cargo hold was smaller than normal to make room for shield generators and structural reinforcements; and the top-side quad-laser cannon that the crew had installed along with the ion cannon on the bottom side of the hull.

"Sarlacc's bones, you've turned this ship into a flying gunboat, Captain!" Dirk proclaimed. "What are you people, Pirates? Bounty Hunters?"

"Nope, we're independent traders of officially illicit materials."

"Smugglers is what Tyler's trying to say." The woman interjected.

"Captain Tyler?" Dirk recalled once seeing a holo-drama about an inept, lecherous starship captain by that name.and by the look on 'Tyler's' face, so had he.

"The name's Tyler Dare, Popsicle-boy, Captain of the ShadowHawk. This is my co-pilot, Grusk, and the ship's mechanic," "Engineer!" the woman objected, "Nima Ryndor, engineer on the ShadowHawk. And you, Dirk Talon" If that is your real name, Tyler thought, "are on board MY ship. We found you frozen inside a bacta tank, inside the hulk of a derelect dreadnaught class ship. It doesn't look like the Imperials gave much of an effort to rescuing the crew, judging by some of the bodies we found on board. Most had been killed by the lack of air, when the life support gave out; others were flash- frozen like yourself, but dead. You were extremely lucky, kid, somehow the bacta tank kept you in hibernation, right on the very edge of that last space-walk."

"Er Tyler, " Nima whispered to him as she pulled him aside, "Earlier you were convinced this guy was an Imperial, now your telling him everything about us??? What's wrong with you?"

"Huh? I." he shot a suspicious look at Dirk, who lay on the bed. "Okay, something funny is going on, here. If this guy is an Imperial, we just gave ourselves away to this guy. On the other hand, if he was a prisoner, like he said, he must have been fairly important for them to go to all the trouble of healing him up in a bacta tank. Either way, we can't let him loose.we're gonna have to turn him over to the Rebels and let their Intelligence people figure out what to do with him."

"Cap'n, " Grusk said, in as low a whisper as his rasping bass could go, "The gadget I hauled out of the bacta? Looksss like sssome kind of energy- basssed cutting tool, it'sss got a high-powered energy cell, a raw cryssstal I can't ID asss a lasing gem, and a couple of other jewelsss that are linked with a trio of energy-guidesss asss sssome kind of focusssing array. The jewelsss are natural gemsss, too and I can't ID thossse either; when I run them through the mineralogical databassse, they come up as ressstricted information, under Imperial code sssomething-or-other. "

"Could it be a weapon of some kind, a laser disguised as a work-tool?"

"Not at the moment, it'ss sssoaked in bacta, it'd have to dry out firssst. And not likely, it'sss got a one-meter range, there'sss a gravatic focusssing disssk that arcs the beam back into the unit, which rechargesss itsss own power cell. But if it'sss a laser, I'm a wookie; the beam those gemsss would emit would be an entire order of magnitude more intenssse than any laser I've ever ssseen, The bonds on the molecules of the gems are almossst fourth-dimensional ssstrong-bondsss, harder than any diamond ever produced. Lasing them would make a cutting beam with a wavelength that almost coils in on itssself, like the lased plasma of Tibanna gas when shot from a blassster."

"Which would explain how the disc-unit could arc the energy like a plasma- cutter loop." Nima mused.

"Except it's a very tight arc, elongated to double in on itself, almost, the effect would seem like a rod about a meter long." Tyler guessed. "Some kind of mining tool? An experimental shipyard scrap-cutter?"

"Not likely, " Nima said, scratching her scalp in frustration. "I've seen something like it before, I just can't place where.something back on Hoth, I think."

"Right now, we've got our mystery guest to tend to." Tyler remarked, turning back to the med-cot's occupant. "So, Mr. Talon, is it? We're going to take you as far as some friends of ours who we're re-supplying, and you can deal with matters there. Sorry, but we've got other runs to make, afterwards."

"Look, I'm grateful for the rescue, and all, but could I have my clothes back?"

"You were in a bacta tank, kid. You can scrounge some spares out of some stuff we picked up a few runs ago, if you want."

Soon, Dirk was dressed in a pair of tan-colored trousers and jacket, with a light green undershirt, and he completed the ensemble with forest-green half-cloak someone had left behind, as well. Not quite the trousers, tunic and robes the Jedi Padawan was used to, but he had to admit, he looked good, nonetheless. He clipped his lightsaber, returned by the ShadowHawk's captain, onto the belt, and holstered on an antique Corellian Arms S-5 Heavy Blaster Pistol and Ascension Gun. The device was good as both camouflage and a useful tool, since it could be used in climbing, and no one would expect a Jedi to be wearing so crude a weapon as a blaster.