Kazzy:  Okay, sorry about this takeing so long… *pouts unhappily* I really didn't mean to take this long.

Disclaimer: Why the hell am I still doing it?... Oh gods… OKAY!! IT'S NOT MINE!! NONE OF IT!!! GAHHH!!!

Chapter Nine



Han's eyes sprang open as sensation came flooding back over him. He felt the cold metal beneath his bare back. That feeling only lasted a moment, though, and then blinding red pain slammed through him. An anguished scream was ripped from his throat. He tried to sit up, to pull away from the touch on his back.

His mind blurred as the pain overwhelmed him, his screams echoed torturously off the walls, each echo growing in strength. His muscles contracted briefly, causing agony beyond imagining. He fell back against the metal, the pain there. He tried to raise his back and the muscles contracted yet again.

His screaming was heart-breaking to the other prisoners. And he was in a maximum security cell. He was the first to make a sound that others could hear.

Out of the red mists of his mind, a pair of even redder eyes became apparent until they were all he could see.

……Leia……

Her soft voice floated back to him… the words at first indistinguishable. Then slowly they made sense.

I don't need you.

I don't need you.

I don't need you.

I don't need you.

I don't need you.

I don't need you……

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Kyp awoke slowly. It wasn't until after he blinked several times that the ever present pain was simply… gone.

He swung his feet off of the side of the ledge. Carefully resting his feet flat on the freezing-cold floor, he tapped his toes, reveling in the sensation of movement, conscious movement, without pain.

He stood cautiously, his arms outstretched in an effort to help him keep his balance. His first tentative step seemed to go well, until his knees buckled and he plunged unceremoniously to the floor.

He lay there for a while, his harsh breathing more of a rasp. Gritting his teeth he rolled over and pulled himself over to the ledge where he braced his shaking forearms and leaned his head on his hands.

"Here. Drink this." The voice was his first clue that he was not alone in the cell.

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Tanyr walked easily back to his quarters, wrapped in the passionate embrace of Zylar. He could feel the absolute incredulity of his crew. He could hardly keep from laughing and wiping his lips. It felt weird to be kissing scales, and not particularly pleasant.

The two practically fell through the door into his quarters. As soon as the door closed, Zylar stumbled back against the wall, laughing her heart out. Tanyr grimaced and dragged his hand across his mouth.

Zylar, noticing this, calmed down slightly. But only slightly, he noted cynically.

"You're enjoying this way too much." He muttered as he pulled off his bed pallet. Dropping it on the floor he quickly tapped a code into the almost imperceptible key pad imbedded in the metal. A small panel slid back and a small dark blue sensory LED blinked a few times as it preformed a retinal scan.

Bleeping its verification an even smaller image projector slid out and he took it gently.

Walking over to his desk he placed it at the bottom of his dataterminal. A small needle quickly pricked his finger, using the blood for DNA verification. Without a sound it started up, the red key-pad image laying flat against the table.

Placing his fingers on the keys he quickly began to tap the images, each touch bringing a new letter to the wide screen.

In a few short seconds he had hacked into his own ship's accounts, quickly downloaded the log for the evening and deleted the hard copy of it.

After encrypting it so well that he doubted that even his prodigy Ghent could crack it, he sent it to the Black Fighter he leaned back for a few short minutes then leaned forward again and began to hunt for something.

Finally he found it. He was staring at a recording of a holo message between two people. His partners Jexna and Tramis he noted.

His eyes slowly grew as he realized the full import of what they spoke.

He didn't even bother checking over his shoulder. "Zylar." He could feel her jump, and then her guilt as she placed the holo of the beautiful woman he was in love with back inside his pillow case. "Rumple your hair and clothes then go out and tell my crew that to get out of hyperspace and to reset our course of Coruscant."

Zylar groaned but did as he asked. As soon as the door closed behind her, he called the holo image to his hand.

He flicked it on.

It was a picture of Mara Jade.

He had snapped it on a whim around five years before; her red-gold hair was pulled back by several black bands, her black suit so form fitting that he swallowed. In her hand was a small blaster that seemed the very embodiment of darkness. Her jade green eyes were wide and her lips slightly parted. She hadn't been expecting him.

It wasn't until after she had run off into the darkness that he realized that there were two men laying on the floor dead.

Dropping to his knees beside them, he realized that one of them was still alive and that under his body was a baby.

The man was a Jedi he said, as was his brother, he waved a hand at the other limp form. The baby was his nephew Zekk. His eyes had filled with tears at this point. He had pleaded with Tanyr to help him with something. Tanyr felt compassion and promised to help him with whatever he wished.

The man carefully described the process. Tanyr felt helpless when he realized that he had just agreed to essentially help kill this man.

But Zekk had turned his emerald gaze on him and they so reminded him of the jade eyes he had seen only a short time before that he nodded. So he and the man merged. Not only their Force signatures, but their Life signatures as well. Looking at another body and acknowledging it as yours, sort of, was the weirdest thing for Tanyr. He was no longer just Tanyr.

He was two people in the same body.

Tanyr and Djai.

After a short time, he found how impractical this was, and shunted Djai off into the small swirling gray, Force-sensitive rock that had been in Lyaral's, Zekk's mother, wedding ring.

The last things he had done for Zekk were to place the rock around his neck on a leather thong and create a compulsion deep inside of his mind. He felt bad, knowing that if Zekk attempted to remove it, he would be in pain. But he also knew that the pain of the compulsion would be insignificant compared to the long range loss of the stone.

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Zylar opened the door and looked at Tanyr, whose black blue eyes were almost closed as he stared at the holo of the little red-head as though he needed to find a fault with her.

He's in love with her. She realized with a jolt. A smile quickly appeared, and just as quickly disappeared. We are following the orders of a love-sick captain. Oh Force help.

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Kyp accepted the cup from the small human girl whose pixy-like face was framed by dark hair and whose deep brandy eyes seemed to be larger then life.

An unexplainable attraction held his attention riveted on her.

He sipped the near boiling stim quietly as she chatted away about nothing in particular. He hid a smile in the cup as he noticed the gloves she wore. Made from reptilian skin they felt like cold, dry scales as he recalled the last memory he had of someone speaking to him.

The door opened and a towering man stood there. "Tyrael? Get out," he ordered the small girl. Her face paled and she slid off the ledge where she had been seated beside Kyp and ran from the room.

Kyp stood warily, holding his cup of stim protectively.

"You've stolen my little girl's heart," the pirate said dangerously. "I want to keep you away from her."

Kyp stared at him in almost open shock. If it was ten years from now he might understand this but the girl was just seven! Illogical!!

He opened his mouth to argue just that but the man quickly crossed the room and yanked his cup of stim away and hurled it to the floor.

"Hey! What th-" Kyp protested as he reached out his hands in a futile attempt to catch it. The man slapped a pair of stun cuffs on his wrists and began pulling him out the door and down a corridor.

"Come on, it's time to get rid of you."

Kyp stumbled and he heard a small gasp. He turned his head and spotted the little Tyrael standing by a corner. Her little hands pressed against her mouth and her eyes looking darker then ever from worry.

"Kyp…" she whispered as her daddy pushed him around a corner. "Kyp…."


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Kyp's arm was nearly wrenched from its socket as he ran on tip-toes in an attempt to keep up, literally, with Tyrael's father, Redrik.

The pirate outweighed him by a good seventy pounds and was at least six inches taller. Not the greatest situation for a skinny fifteen-year-old like me, Kyp thought wryly.

The pirate turned a corner; a short pug-faced alien quickly opened the blast door. Kyp felt his arm wrench and then a jolt of energy from the cuffs raced up his now immobile arm. The pirate curled his lip at Kyp then practically flung him into the back seat of a beat up speeder.

He glared at Kyp. "Stay put Durron. We wouldn't want to have to hunt for you." He turned on one heel and stalked off. Kyp lay there, the pain in his arm slowly overwhelming him.

The door opened and closed.

"Kyppie?" Tyrael's voice was a whisper. "Kyppie? Are you alright?"

Kyp groaned and tried to turn his head, only marginally succeeding. "Hey lil' rose." He tipped his chin at the small red-rose emblazoned on the slender bar of milky white attached to her gray Imperial uniform. "Where'd you get it?"

"Papa, for my last birthday. I turned this old." She held out one hand, all of her fingers extended and two from the other hand.

Kyp's quiet grin changed to a grimace as his arm shifted and yet another jolt of electricity raced up it.

"Kyp!" Tyrael cried out; jerking back as a few stray sparks landed on her outstretched hand. Her face twisted in fear and horror as the first person to ever befriend her was racked with pain. In an act born of desperation she grabbed his arms and yanked on them.

Her eyes went wider then ought to have been possible for the small humanoid. An angry snarl escaped her lips, her horror and fear giving way to righteous anger when she saw the stun cuffs. Bracing her shoulder against his chest in an attempt to keep him immobile, she reached down with her spare hand to her ankle and drew the small blaster that was strapped there. In one smooth move, she brought it up and shot the locking mechanism.

The electricity died as though it had never been there, but Kyp's suddenly still arms felt like lead. His eyes fluttered open and he gave a slight grin as his eyes focused on the small rose.

"M'little Rose."

"Little roses are rosie," Tyrael said solemnly.

"So that makes you Rosie?"

She gently pushed him onto his back and then shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe?" She quirked an eyebrow and gave a small smile. "I can be your Rosie if you want…" she offered shyly.

A warm smile crossed Kyp's face. "My lil' Rosie……"

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Redrik stormed into the room. "Durron is in a speeder."

"Did you speak with Tyrael?"

"She knows to keep away from him if she wants to keep him alive," the irate father grated.

"Ah. You put it like that, did you?"

"Not in so many words…" Redrik shifted uneasily. "But I think she gets the point."

Tramis gave a wry, cold smile as he looked up from his data pad. "Redrik. Don't screw this up. If your brat makes us lose the deal with the Empress, I'll kill her."

Redrik's back felt like it was suddenly bathed in ice as fear skidded through him. He swallowed. "Yes sir."

"Well done." Tramis stood easily and tossed the data pad onto the desk in front of him. Walking to a wall he opened the doors to his weapons cache. Selecting a small, compact blaster and sliding it into the holster in between his shoulders, he turned and slid his jacket on. His eyebrow rose sardonically as he studied his second in command. "I'll go on with Durron alone. Come as soon as Jexna docks."

Redrik nodded tightly and turned to the window. "Oh, and Redrik?" Tamris said casually as he paused in the doorway, not even bothering to look over his shoulder. "If you come within forty meters of Kyp… I'll torture Tyrael. Then I'll cut out her heart and make you eat it. Do you understand me?"

Redrik could feel the wave of numbness descend. "I understand."

"Good." The door slid shut behind Tramis.

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Jexna dressed in snug, pink leathers as quickly as possible. The neon color looked atrocious against her pale skin and even more so when she added the nearly sheer, sickening-orange cape that flowed from one shoulder and was clasped at her opposite wrist.

A light knock at the door summoned her from her contemplation before the large mirror adorning one wall.

"Captain."

The man leaned his head forward slightly, his toes right at the closing line. "We have docked, m'lady. First Officer Jestyn is awaiting you."

Jexna's cheeks grew slightly pink as she recalled exactly how well she knew her brother's First Officer. "I… I'll be right there." She slammed the door shut, literally, on the man's face.

His shout of pain and agony was both annoying and gratifying.

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Mara watched Laedala warily. The woman's slight form shifted briefly and then her eyes opened. Mara's eyes narrowed at the dark chocolate color of the woman's formerly red eyes.

"You… You were with… with Luke." Laedala's dark brown eyes filled with tears. "Weren't you. I felt your signature meld with his for a split second…."

Mara's sense's pricked. "I was. What's it to you?"

"I'm his sister!" Laedala protested, a few tears rolling down her cheek and met the corner of her full lips, wetting them slightly. "Leia! Doesn't that count for anything??"

"If you were Leia, it would. But since you're not…" Mara trailed off coldly.

Leia dropped her head in her hands, her thoughts a whirling mass of agony and loss. There was something… missing… she lifted her watery brown eyes to the jade, ice chips of her assailant. "Please… Let me know how his last few moments were… let me know he didn't suffer…." She curled into a rather awkward ball and sobbed softly.

Zekk's emerald eyes softened with compassion as he saw the obvious distress of the former Senator.

**Don't do it Zekk.** Djai's voice was low. **I don't know the vixen's game but it's nothing good.**

**Djai, it's not Empress Laedala. It's Senator Organa. She wouldn't hurt Lady Jade.** Zekk tried to reason.

Djai was silent, the very fact impressing upon Zekk as to how urgent Djai was. Zekk swallowed. The room had suddenly become just that much hotter.

He looked over at the throne where Jaina lay. Her little pink mouth was open and she was snoring softly. Zekk snickered briefly at her.

Mara looked at the woman's quaking form and was reminded inexplicably of Skywalker. They're twins. No duh. Mara snorted at her own foolishness. Skywalker and Laedala were twins.

That was that.

And this was the twin she had sworn to protect. She sighed and reached out a hand to touch Lae-Leia's shoulder. "I can show you. But we'd have to form a temporary bond." Mara stressed the word "temporary".

Leia raised her face, hope brightening her dark eyes. "Really?" her voice cracked.

Mara nodded her head and breathed out slowly. Cursing Skywalker for setting her up like this she slowly reached out to Leia's mind. Sensing none of the darkness she would have expected from even a fledgling Sith, she pushed aside her reservations and began building a bond.

After a few moments the bond was almost created. And then something went wrong.