Sons Of Destiny Episode II: Equilibrium

by Kjoil

After years of exile, Skar finally comes to Coruscant with his new apprentice. But his past continues to haunt him, and it seems the past itself is far from dead...

4. New Allies And Old Enemies

Inside Mount Lori the small crippled insertion team had set up camp momentarily at an intersection of tunnels. The half-finished corridors of the would-be shelter had walls in some areas and lacking in others, pipes and thick wires lacing the floor, which also only existed partly. Lighting was not yet up, but the soldiers had placed several small light projectors here and there to give some illumination.

At present the three soldiers, Stix, Salvor and Call, sat in as much of a circle as they could produce, while the Jedi, Jarod, sat at the mouth of the tunnel they'd come through, seemingly lost in his own little world while they went through their information packages. The pilot was fast asleep in a corner.

A small holographic projector placed in their center displayed various images and documents regarding the planet and its current situation. Memorizing schematics of the repair yard and its weaknesses, the three soldiers exchanged opinions and formulated a plan. The repair yard had two power sources, both of which they planned to shut down, leaving their orbital defenses out of function, opening them up for an assualt from space.

The shortage of power would also blacken the entire station, depriving the enemy of lights and communication.

Once that was accomplished, leaving the repair yard unable to restore power, they would evacuate, and wait for back-up in the form of more Republic troops from Coruscant. There was no way they could take out the entire army if it proved necessary. They would have to draw the army into the open, on the snow plains and take them out in a surface attack.

The plan was full of holes, but it was the best they had. But before trying to get the repair yard they had to hook up with the reconnaisance team, if they were still alive. Even if they weren't, gear and intel left behind might prove valuable to their mission.

But that part of the mission relied on the RATM, without it they couldn't find the recon team. And they needed Kast to find the RATM.

Stix looked over his shoulder at the Jedi and then back at his teammates. "What's with this guy?"

Salvor glanced at the Jedi's back. "He's Jedi, they're strange. Don't try understanding them."

Call hugged his rifle to his chest. "He's in charge now?"

Salvor, the leader of the team, raised his eyebrows. "What makes you say that?"

"He's a Jedi...they're usually - "

"I don't care what they usually are," Salvor stated firmly, "this is a joint effort. We're lucky to have him, he saved our lives."

Stix, the hothead of the group, looked over his shoulder again. "Guys, what's keeping Kast? Aren't scouts usually supposed to be ahead of the rest?"

Salvor turned off the projector, dampening the light around them significantly. "Kast can handle himself."

Call shook his head. "Without him we're going to - "

" - have to elect the new best looking."

All three soldiers turned in their seating to see Kast crouched down in one of the tunnels, his face blue almost to the point of frozen. Behind him hovered the small saucer-like RATM, its small lights scanning everything. He held his rifle up, aimed beyond them.

Aimed at the Jedi.

Jarod slowly stood and faced the four of them, keeping his eyes on Kast.

Salvor rose from the floor, standing in the line of fire, and pointed a finger at Kast's rifle. "Explain yourself, Kast."

Kast's knees slowly extended, raising him to full height, his aim fixed on the Jedi. "I found Dasan."

Jarod's eyes squinted. "And?"

Kast's jaw trembled. "I found Dasan's body sat upright against a wall of ice, his legs buckled up beneath him. He'd been sliced open like a can, his rips were bent inward, burned, his entrails frozen solid in the cold. The wound was cauterized. He was taken by surprise."

Jarod shifted his head to look at the sleeping pilot, pondering something. "The pilot must've known about this. One of the rest of you told him. But he never said it was the work of a lightsaber." Jarod looked Salvor in the eyes. "Why didn't he?"

Salvor didn't answer, and kept his back to the Jedi.

The mechnical hum of the droid hovering behind Kast lended its own atmosphere to the tense situation.

Jarod looked at the other soldiers. "You thought I did it."

Kast still stared at Skar, his eyes hard and searching. "Did you?"

Jarod shook his head. "No."

Kast breathed shallowly. "Dasan was my friend. The wound began at his belly and moved upwards. You can tell because the area where the wound begins is burnt more than the area by his throat. It came from below and exited above."

Jarod seemed to make something of that little piece of information. "Its called the Ascending Star. Its a Jedi move, an old one though."

Jarod tightened his grip on the rifle. "You didn't answer my question," Kast said. "Did you do him in?"

Jarod sighed. "Why would I do that?"

Kast shrugged. "I don't know. A pity that the lightsaber wound doesn't leave off a color from the blade that did it."

Jarod held out his hands. "I had nothing to do with it. I asked to see the body because everyone made such a big deal about it. I wanted to know why." The Jedi ran his palm over his beard. "Now I know."

Kast looked at his teammates. "The Republic must've had a reason for sending a Jedi. They must have been expecting something like this. No matter what Red thought there are not many who can stand up to a Jedi."

Jarod nodded. "You're almost right. The terrorists are led by someone I knew a long time ago."

Salvor finally looked back at the Jedi. "Someone you knew?"

Jarod nodded. "A…friend. I volunteered to come here because I might be the only one who could stop him."

Kast's body stiffened and a look of betrayal washed over his face, his jaw tightening. "What about us? Were we just along as a decoy?"

Jarod shook his head. "You were sent as the main assault force, officially I'm not even here. Skywalker thought I might have better luck with your team around."

Stix stood up. "Wait a minute. The Republic doesn't know you're here?"

"No."

"Why not?" Call asked.

Jarod exhaled. "Its a long story, alright?"

Salvor turned back to Kast. "Lower your weapon, that's an order. He was with us the entire time and he's saved us more than once. If he wanted to betray us he had plenty of chances."

Kast's rifle started to shake in his hands but it didn't lower.

"Now, soldier!"

Kast's hands slowly lowered the weapon, his face filled with defiance. Strapping his rifle over his shoulder he nodded to the RATM, which instantly began displaying its recordings of the repair yard.

"Here's what we found."

Laid out in a green virtual simulation the base looked like a fortified castle, not a repair yard. The entire station was built almost like a circle, dozens of buildings surrounding other buildings. The outer ring of buildings were all hangars, where they repaired damaged ships. The inner ring was living quarters, storage bays and command stations, while in the center of both rings the control center laid.

A huge building towering over the outer rings, but having no real other purpose than housing the main generator. The yard looked like a city inself, but there were no streets or constructed pavement on the surface surrounding the buildings, although there might have been but was now covered in snow.

And while the display showed the buildings, it didn't show many entry points.

Tracker had also spotted what it had called a "scrap yard" on the other side of the repair yard. Its cameras had showed them something that had once been very large ships, but now gutted and looked more like skeletons, rotting corpses in the snowy terrain. The hulls had been peeled off cleanly and the remnants of the ships had been lying outside so long that were no longer any tracks to be seen.

Kast thought it was odd, but he'd seen stranger things in his days.

Salvor whistled. "I'll tell ya, if the Republic ever decides to move shop, this place would work. Its hard to believe this is just a repair yard, a civilian base."

Jarod almost smiled. "This wasn't always a Republic repair yard, you know?"

Salvor's eyes hardened. "No, I didn't know."

"Oh," he said, not sounding the slightest bit surprised.

Kast felt slightly annoyed by the response. They should cut the small talk and keep their attention on things at hand. He suspected the Jedi was withholding because the information had merits. Something about the station gnawed at him. "What was it before?"

Jarod crossed his arms. "A long time ago this was an Imperial base."

Kast hadn't seen that one coming. But looking at the station again, he began to see why it looked so...out of place. It definitely matched designs of buildings on Coruscant, where most of the buildings left were infact constructed by Imperial architects. "Why did the Republic turn an old Imperial stronghold into a repair yard?"

"Good question," Jarod remarked, "an even better one would be why the Republic went so much out of their way to station it so far from the Core. We're practically in the Unknown Regions as it is. On the border. This is Outer Rim territories. The only thing close is Belkadan and Bastion."

"Bastion is the Empire's capital," Call pointed out.

"Exactly."

Stix looked at Jarod. "You think the Empire staged this assault?"

Jarod shook his head. "No. Why would they? The Empire is all but gone, only a few admirals remain. They wouldn't, couldn't, do anything like this. Right now Imperial loyalists are pleading for a voice in the Senate, doing something like this doesn't exactly help their chances."

Salvor raised an eyebrow. "The Empire is fractured. This could be the work of a small faction."

"A small faction wouldn't last a second against a Republic fleet." Kast raised his chin. "Except if they had something that convinced them they would win."

Jarod knelt down by the holo. "You're missing the bigger question. Why did the Republic set up a repair yard this far out? There are no real enemies out here. Most of the ships in Republic are too far away to ever consider this place as a possibility if they ever needed repairs."

Salvor scratched his head. "Maybe it was built in case a Republic ship should ever find it way out this far and need repairs? You know, in case a ship was nearby this place."

Jarod smiled, but there was something lurking beneath that smile. "You give the Republic too much credit. They're not all goodie-goodie. Try thinking as a soldier." Jarod held out his hand towards the station. "What strategic benefit does this place have?"

Each soldier envisioned the galactic map in front of his inner eye.

"It does create some good chances to ambush the Empire," Call tried.

Salvor added. "I heard this place had been teeming with business, from High Command. But there are no warships nearby or even any battles that would suggest this place would have any kind of activity."

Kast found it hard to keep up with all the detective work Jarod had thrown at them. "You think…they're massing a fleet to start an assault on the Empire?"

"Finish them off for good?" Jarod thought about it but shook off the idea. "It would look like something the Republic could think of, but with all the senators running the Republic these days, that sort of thing would have to have been covered up real good. The Senate wouldn't approve. And the Republic would never do anything so risky. The Senate would dissolve in seconds and it would destroy the Republic. No, its not like that. And I don't think it has anything to do with massing a fleet, either."

"But something is going on," Call said. "Someone is sending Republic ships here to be refitted."

The Jedi's face was cold with dread all of sudden. "Maybe they're not here to be refitted. Maybe they're dropping something off?" Jarod sat up. "One of the members of the High Command asked if there was anything being built here, like a superweapon. There are many research and development stations around. We were reassured this place wasn't housing anything like that."

Salvor frowned. "But why would the Republic be building anything like a superweapon? I thought they learned that lesson with the Death Star, and the Sun Crusher."

"Not to mention the Darksaber," Kast said.

Call frowned. "I thought people were smarter than that."

Kast took his eyes off the station and turned them to Jarod instead. "You knew all this information, and I had to drag it out of you."

Jarod looked up at each of them. "Listen, even I don't know what it means. It could be nothing. This is combat, all my senses are alive and I won't take anything for granted. The Republic are people, just like the Empire was. To me, the only thing that separates them is motive." Jarod's words sounded reasonable enough. "Maybe the Republic finally found a motive, a reason, that would make it necessary for them to create a little backup insurance, in case hell froze over."

Kast turned his eyes back towards the station. "I wish we knew more about what kind of ships that have been through here. And how many. At least then we could make a reasonable theory. All we have is bits of data that don't match up."

Jarod nodded, his thoughts elsewhere. "Yeah," he said slowly, "sounds fishy."

Kast couldn't let go of the superweapon theory. "Maybe the terrorists knew something was here and the Republic sent us to pull the lid on them. Keep the knowledge from spreading."

"To keep it from the public, you mean," Salvor's voice was dark and somewhat mixed with contempt.

"Right," Kast confirmed.

Jarod shrugged. "The Republic isn't much for change, though it certainly could use one. A big one."

Kast found himself conspiring against the Republic, his home, his family. But somehow, with what he'd learned, he couldn't turn back from the fact that something was very wrong with this setup. "You have no love for the Republic, do you?"

Jarod shook his head. There was no doubt. "No love, only loyalty. One of my…friends said that the Republic is too busy fighting in the Senate over petty differences to ever fully understand what kind of responsibility they have to the Galaxy. Like I said, the only thing that separates the Republic and the Empire is motive."

Kast found himself agreeing with Jarod. "If the Republic knew the kind of damage it might do to their position as a superpower to build a superweapon, they must really be worried about something. I mean its one hell of a risk to take. Something must've spooked them good." Kast looked down into his hands, conscious of a big change in him. "I've been on hundreds of missions, but this is the first time I've ever thought about what I was really doing."

Call nodded. "I feel the same way. Starting to think about what I was maybe helping others do."

Jarod smiled at them. "Feels good, doesn't it? Feels like you're really involved. Feels like you can make a difference."

Salvor still wasn't comforted. "If you're right about the Republic being scared, you have to consider what might do that to a government that big."

"Something that would disrupt their position," Stix established. "A real threat."

"Something big, something we've never seen before. Something hidden," Jarod's face was grim, "an invasion. Something with enough clout to terminally tip the balance of things."

"Invasion?" Kast asked. "By who?"

Jarod rose. "Certainly not the Empire, and I'm willing to bet that these Sons Of Destiny have nothing to do with it either. The universe is vast and infinite. There are many places a threat could come from. We only know about a small portion, merely a fraction of what exist in our world, our time." Jarod stopped talking and looked back down at the station with skepticism emitting from his eyes. "Hundred hostages sounds like a bit much."

"What?" Salvor asked.

"The repair yard is big, I'll give them that. But the Sons of Destiny claimed they had over a hundred hostages. The repair yard doesn't need a hundred men to keep it running."

"Maybe pilots from the outside, from those ships that are coming through?" Stix put in.

Jarod nodded. "We may have to question one of the hostages to find out what was really going on. Why there's been so much traffic."

Kast thought back. "When we came in, there were only a small patrol of starfighters to protect this station from an attack from space. No cruisers."

Jarod kept his eyes on the station. "Maybe they're still waiting for their own fleet to arrive. Looks like they've set up a few armaments against such an attack on top of some of the buildings."

Salvor nodded. "We plan to take those out."

Kast nodded to Tracker which scrolled through the images. The droid flipped through the images of the stripped ships on the ground again. "What do you make of this?"

Jarod shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe they need material for something inside."

Kast had thought the same thing. "This supposed superweapon?"

"Maybe, or maybe they're just rebuilding the yard, securing breaches in security." Jarod frowned sourly. "Maybe they're just bored."

Kast laughed quietly, and then thought of something else, something a little more relevant. "Remember you said the Republic didn't know you were here? That means the Republic never intended to send a Jedi."

"That's right," Jarod said with a confused look.

"But when the ship went down, we were lucky to have survived."

Salvor looked up at the Jedi. "Yeah, we wouldn't have survived if you hadn't been there. We should have been dead, but you saved us. If the Republic supposedly sent me and my team to…stop whatever was going on here, and you sneaked onboard, what does that say of the Republic's effort?"

Jarod's face didn't hint at any surprise. "You think they intended for your team not to make it? But why?"

Salvor shrugged. "At least then they could say that they tried sending in a rescue team. But if they think we're dead, if they didn't plan on us making it, they'll have to find another way. I think they'll send a fleet here to destroy the station."

"Sacrificing the hostages," Call pointed out.

Jarod didn't look particularly surprised. "You think the rescue mission was planned to fail?"

Salvor held out his hands. "It would give them an excuse for trying, now nothing can hold them back from destroying this place."

Jarod almost looked angry. "Removing the evidence." He frowned. "And us. We'll talk about it later. For now we don't know what the Sons of Destiny want. We only know they're here and they have hostages. That's our mission."

Kast agreed. "But we'll keep our theories in the backs of our heads, right?"

Jarod smiled like a predator. "Of course. Pessimism will keep you alive."

Kast sighed, but a sarcastic smile moved over his lips. "Yeah, but with optimism at least I'll have a smile on my face when I go."

Salvor looked to Kast. "Have you tried contacting the recon team?"

The young soldier shook his head. "No, I decided against communicating at all, in case anyone was listening in."

Salvor nodded towards the RATM. "I think its time we tried."

Call stepped forward. "Why haven't they tried contacting us?"

"Because they're dead," Stix stated coldly.

"Maybe," Jarod said, not discounting the fact, "but we need to make sure."

Kast shifted his boots. "They didn't reply. No one's heard from them. They must be dead already."

"Or they may be alive," Jarod said, "like us. If we're lucky there still might be some communications-equipment or at least information from the last week that we can use. Its a worthy goal."

Kast still didn't like it. "Why would you want communications equipment?"

Jarod's blue eyes were sparkling with confidence. "To let Coruscant know that we're still alive and that we will complete our mission."

Salvor crossed his arms. "Do you honestly think we stand a chance?"

"Maybe, maybe not. You all need to get ahead of yourself. Focus. You came here to do something." Jarod's face expression became more thoughtful. "The Republic will not stand for the kind of terrorist act the Sons of Destiny have pulled here. If the Sons of Destiny are trying to liberate the Galaxy from the New Republic, they're going to have a hard time about it. Coruscant would rather sacrifice the hostages than let a small group of terrorist overrun their rule. It all depends on us, we've sworn allegiance to the New Republic. Like it or not, we can't back out on them now."

Kast agreed. "Tracker has the best range. I'll take him outside for a better signal."

Jarod nodded. "I'll join you."

Kast wasn't too keen on that. "Why?"

Jarod smiled slyly and looked around at Kast's teammates. "Because you don't trust me enough to leave me here, do you?"

The rest of the soldiers chuckled.

Kast bit back his anger. "Let's go."

---

Rishi Kjoil sat in the backseat next to the small Trandoshan youngling while the Jedi Knight flew the speeder, a crisp new model, so clean and undamaged that Rishi suspected it to be no more than a day or two old. The small Trandoshan was whimpering like the child it was, not like the merciless killer it had been earlier, which put Rishi on edge. He'd snatched the kid because he figured it would have been easier to coax information out of it, but every time he talked to the alien it started crying and sometimes even screamed, a very high-pitched animal scream.

Rishi had given up and now concentrated himself on the Force for patience, preparing himself to go at it again.

The Jedi flew with diamond-like precision, swooping in and out of the lanes at rocket speed with a grace that made him one of the best drivers Rishi had ever flown with. That said, the man still looked uncomfortable behind the controls and that worried Rishi.

"I thought Luke was out of touch?" Rishi said loudly over the noise of swooping traffic.

"He is."

"So how'd he contact you?"

The Jedi looked over his shoulder and grinned. "The usual channels."

The Force was what he meant. Rishi reached out to the Jedi with his own Force, but could read nothing off the mind of the Jedi, nor did he sense the Jedi was aware of his probing. The man was sealed up tight. The kind of steel mind Rishi had only sensed in few people with Force potential.

But Rishi still felt the man to be nothing more than a rookie at the Force, he'd shown great promise with a lightsaber, but his telekinesis and mind-trick skills needed improving. He was well gifted in concentration and great with a lightsaber, yet he was nowhere near through his training.

"Who trained you?"

The Jedi dodged an incoming speeder at the last minute, looping the speeder around, almost throwing Rishi out of his seat, and made his stomach churn.

"What?" the Jedi asked.

"Who trained you!" Rishi repeated.

Rishi could see how the Jedi's face changed in the reflective screen. He went from concentrated to anxious, almost painfully self-conscious. "No one you would know."

Rishi frowned. "I know most of the Jedi Masters in the Order."

The Jedi dove the speeder down beneath an oncoming group of taxis and then straightened the speeder out. "Like people know about the Kjoil?"

It was an attack more than an answer. Rishi knew how undisclosed the existence of the Kjoil were inside the Jedi Order. Maybe the Kjoil weren't the only additions to the Order that stayed concealed. Rishi frowned even more. He thought he was special. But then again, wasn't every Jedi special?

"What's your name?"

"Kal - " the Jedi managed to say before having to put the speeder into a vertical plunge, deep into the mix of the other vehicles, as a recklessly speeding driver swooshed over their heads. The Jedi eased the speeder back up and finished his sentence, " - Kal Ulani."

It didn't sound familiar. Not even the last name, which told him he was not the second generation of a Jedi in the Order, though such were scarce.

"Never heard of you."

The Jedi Knight chuckled. "Until today I hadn't heard of you either," his voice changed from playful to more serious, "I guess we have at least one thing in common."

But was it a good thing to have in common, Rishi asked himself. "We both like our privacy."

The Jedi Knight, Kal Ulani, laughed more lightly this time. "We can get touchy-feely later. How's the interrogation going?"

Interrogation sounded rather harsh to Rishi. He didn't see the youngling as a prisoner and he planned to let the little one go once they'd found out what they needed to know. Maybe it was the age thing that bothered Kal. Rishi turned his attention towards the young scaly reptile alien. Then he reached out to the Force, placed his hand on the boy's shoulder and soothed his fear with the Force.

"Do not be afraid."

The young boy's reptile-like eyes opened, the tears almost gone, and looked out at the city, looking more like a curious young boy who saw the metropolis for the first time from this high. Rishi kept the boy's fear at bay, his worries and his anger. And in doing so he managed to retrieve the part of the alien that was still young and innocent. The boy smiled at the passing traffic, and Rishi knew his work was done.

He settled into his seat better and drew the attention of the boy to himself. The eyes blinked and then the boy gave Rishi his full concentration, no longer seeing the evil man who had killed his friends and kidnapped him.

"Your name is Trass, right?"

The alien nodded, the full head movement of a child.

"What can you tell me about the men who attacked me?"

The alien began blabbing everything it knew, in more detail than Rishi would have expected from such a young boy. Even illustrating some events in hand movements. The only problem was that it was doing it in its own language.

"Wow, slow down! Do you speak Basic?"

The boy answered but Rishi guessed the answer was no, since he still didn't understand a word coming out the boy's mouth.

Cursing, Rishi threw his hands into the air. "Great!"

"Hold on!" Kal shouted, seconds before pulling the speeder straight up, increasing the speed as the vertical vehicle began to feel more like it was heading for atmosphere than heading somewhere on this planet. Rishi was pounded back into his seat, and he supported Trass against the seating. Up ahead Rishi saw dozens of starships moving along in their designated safe lanes, while Kal bore down on them with suicide speed.

"What are you doing!" Rishi shouted over the roar of the speeder's engine.

"We're being followed!"

Rishi looked behind him, which was actually beneath him, and saw two speeders breaking off the trail they'd been on before and taking up pursuit. And adding to the scare, Rishi realized they weren't speeders. They were Headhunters, a multi-purpose starfighter. Rishi didn't know much about this particular fighter other than the Z-95 Headhunter was largely recognized as the premiere starfighter of its era, and the forerunner of the incredibly successful X-wing. He didn't know anything else, but he already knew what mattered the most.

This was bad.

"Kal, they're starfighters!"

Confirming it, lines of red began blasting past them, flying harmlessly by as Kal's expert skills brought them through the growing mass of ships without much difficulty. The fighters however were even more maneuverable and seemed to have no problems keeping up, dodging in between the larger ships around them, while repeatedly blasting with their blaster cannons. Kal's driving was keeping them safe for now, but it wouldn't last long before those fighters got in a lucky shot, and in a speeder like the one they were in, one shot was all it would take.

Trass had already dropped himself down to the floor-panels of the speeder while Rishi kept himself down behind the seating, red beams of light flashing everywhere, as well as the very chaotic driving by Kal. He couldn't find one good thing about the situation he was in, other than the fact that it didn't seem long before it would all be over.

"Get us out of here!" Rishi shouted.

"Why didn't I think of that!" Kal replied sarcastically, his hands working the controls. Kal brought the speeder in close with a lane of very large transports, hiding the tiny speeder gradually in between the mammoth ships, but it was a technique Rishi knew wouldn't last forever. They were horribly disadvantaged against the starfighters which had both speed and weapons on their side.

Rishi looked down at his lightsaber, realizing it was worthless in a situation such as this. He might be able to block some of the fire, but that was it. More than ever he wished to be back on Draori, his primitive bow in hands. He'd been a great shot with the bow, the best among the refugees, and right now he'd trade it for the lightsaber. The arrows might not do much good though he gathered, if the fighters were using their shields.

"Do you know some place safe?" the Jedi Knight asked over his shoulder.

Rishi couldn't think of any place they could hide from the starfighters. It was always so much easier underground. Man to man fighting, not starfighter versus speeder, was much better. "No, we can't outrun them."

The Jedi swooped past a transport, so close Rishi could see people moving around inside the bridge as they flew by. "Maybe we can outgun them."

"With what?"

Rishi could see the Jedi smiling in the windshield. "A New Republic assault frigate."

Rishi laughed. "And where do you plan on finding one of those?"

The Jedi looped the speeder horizontally and brought it out into the middle of the traffic lane, red darts of fire whistling past them, and pounded on the throttle. Rishi had to sit up from the backseat to see what the man was doing. Straight ahead, directly in their path was the frigate Rishi guessed the Jedi was talking about. Heading straight for them.

"That's suicide!"

The Jedi kept his course, bearing down on the frigate, aiming right for the bridge section of the giant vessel.

"Break away!" Rishi shouted.

But to no avail, the Jedi only increased the throttle to maximum. Trass on the floor started crying again, adding to the millions of sounds around them, but none of them enough to drown out the horror and curses going through Rishi's mind. Either the Jedi was very smart or very, very stupid, and Rishi voted for the latter since his plan didn't seem to include being able to walk away alive afterwards.

Behind them the two fighters eased into attack formation, their cannons spraying red lightning at them, gaining on them. Rishi could hear them getting closer, could feel their presence growing more and more intense.

And then more lights began dancing around them as the frigate began blasting its turrets at the small speeder heading for them at an insane speed. Merely protecting themselves from the rampaging small speeder on its way to make a permanent dent in their hull. The space around them was filled with red and green rays of death coming from separate directions, both parties trying to wape the single kamikaze speeder.

Rishi clawed his hands into the armrest. "Whatever you're gonna do, do it now!"

And up they went, Kal lifted the nose of the speeder, flying straight up, while the two fighters behind them continued on their course, unable to break away. The first fighter broke hard left, almost saving it except for a nasty shot from the frigate which scorched one of its wings into molten metal. The second fighter had time to get clear, but in descending beneath the frigate the fighter rammed straight into a freighter flying below it.

The fighter slammed into the hull of the freighter, exploding in dozens of pieces that bounced back and forth between the frigate and the freighter before dissolving into nothing but flaming debris.

Rishi swallowed the taste of vomit he had in his mouth and checked behind them. The fighter that had flown into the freighter was no more, yet the other fighter was still alive, though spiraling endlessly down into the rest of the traffic, smoke trailing behind it. As Rishi watched, the cockpit section exploded and out jumped the pilot, plummeting to his death.

He'd been better off dying with the ship.

But then flames erupted from the falling man, slowing his descent and soon he began to fly upwards, jetting around and coming back towards them, a single flame of exhaust behind him.

A jetpack.

"We're not safe yet!" Rishi shouted back to Kal, as the man rocketed towards them. Rishi got to his feet and ignited his blade, ready to fend off the rocket man. Salves of blaster bolts preceded the flying man, and Rishi parried them all with effortless care. It took a very good shooter to hit a speeder while flying with a jetpack, and Rishi was amazed by the accuracy of the fire.

Rishi blocked some of the shots back at the man, but it was pointless, the man moved too much, back and forth, up and down, to have any chance of getting rid of him that way.

"Why are they after us!" the Jedi shouted.

"I was trying to track down an informant called Rarsk Dokyan," Rishi yelled back, in between protecting the speeder from the well-aimed shots with his lightsaber, "but I'm starting to think he's looking for me too!"

"Track him down for what?"

"I believe he's holding information about the terrorists group that's been threatening the Republic, the ones who bombed the Senate!" Rishi ricocheted a bolt with his blade, and then another, but had no luck in hitting the rocket man with his own shots. "He's the one who delivered the message to the Holonet about the occupancy."

The Jedi frowned. "Great. Just wanted to make sure I'm wasn't going to die because of something unimportant."

Rishi had time for a quick smile.

The rocket man was getting more and more close to the speeder, so close that Rishi could spot more details about the man. It was then he felt a chill run down his spine like no other.

"You've got to be kidding me," he said to no one in particular.

Mandalorian armor.

"Its Boba Fett!" Rishi shouted, the level of fear in his voice so clear even he could hear it.

"Nice of him to drop by," Kal shouted back sarcastically. "Take him out!"

Easier said than done, Rishi thought. Dressed in armor that could be traced back 4,000 years, when clans of Mandalores fought against the Jedi during the Great Sith War, Fett swirled back and forth behind them, blasting away with his twin blasters.

The name Fett carried with it a cold air of competence and nightmares, even for those with a clear conscience. Fett was covered in a sleek armored suit that concealed an arsenal of weaponry, including retractable wrist blades, rocket darts launcher, flame-throwers, and a snare. Even his jetpack carried an explosive rocket ready to be fired when needed. Fett was known as the Galaxy's best bounty hunter, and having heard rumors and stories about the man, Rishi knew that reputation was deserved. No one had ever escaped Fett, and once he was on your trail you might as well start writing your will.

"Persistent, isn't he?" the Jedi remarked

Fett hammered the speeder with deadly bolts at such speed that Rishi had a hard time keeping track of all of them. Rishi chose to spend his strength primarily on those that were lethal to either him or his companions, or the engine of the speeder for that matter. Rishi sighed to himself when he realized that meant all of them.

"Can't we outfly him?" Rishi shouted.

"Not in this traffic," Kal retorted.

"Great," Rishi muttered to himself and concentrated fully on the armored hunter pursuing them through some of Coruscant's thickest traffic. Rishi knew the man had an advantage to him, the helmet and armor he was wearing was packed with motion and sound sensors, making it easy for him to fly in this traffic without having to concentrate on not hitting passing speeders or ships. The helmet would always warn him in due time to evade any threat.

Then came the moment Rishi had been waiting for.

Fett pulled back for a second to reload his blasters. Rishi took one step onto the engine compartment of the speeder and jumped forth into the air, flying through emptiness and latching on to the costumed man flying behind them, drawing him down into darkness of Coruscant. The jetpack wasn't powerful enough to hold them both up, and down they went, trailed by an exhaust flame from the rocket pack.

Rishi held on as best as he could to the back of the jetpack, while the man struggled to beat Rishi away from him.

Fett elbowed him and kicked him as much as he could, but Rishi was safe behind the man, the only problem being the flame burning him slightly when he got too close. And, of course, the ground that was rushing up to kill them.

Appearing unaffected by the insanity of their fall, Fett holstered his twin blasters, whipping forth a line of claws from both his gauntlets, crossing his arms over his chest to slash Rishi with the blades beneath his armpits. Rishi stayed clear of the vicious-looking claws, maintaining his hold on the out-of-control jetpack.

Fett slashed like a madman, constantly whipping his blades back and forth, trying to push Rishi off, or just plain kill him. Rishi was not at all happy with how the interrogation was going.

The hunter then retracted both blades, and his helmet turned to stare down at the oncoming ground. Fett laughed, a sick insane chuckle as they both plummeted past the flying speeders and taxis. Using his full weight, Fett produced a flip in midair, aided by the drive of his jetpack, pulling Rishi around to the front.

Oh, not good!

Rishi was now beneath, which meant whatever they would hit he would hit first. Rishi produced a Force bubble around them both, slowing their descent, but not enough to land perfectly on top of the transport that flew beneath them. Rishi slammed down onto the transport, his entire body filling with lightning pains, screaming his lungs out in agony.

Fett, completely unmoved by the hard landing, rolled away, his claws out, securing a perch by slamming them down into the hull. It took Rishi a second to realize why he'd done so. The hull was curved and Rishi was still recovering from the touchdown when he realized he was starting to slide away from the crash, closer to the edge, about to roll right off the side of the transport.

Using the Force, slowing his roll significantly, Rishi saved himself at the very edge of the transport but as he looked up the rocket man was already standing at the peak of the slope, blasters aimed at him. Two shots were fired and Rishi had to roll sideways to dodge them, while trying to get on his feet and back up to the flat section.

The man fired again, relentlessly pounding at Rishi with blaster bolts. Rishi's foot supported against a beam and he pushed himself up, jumping the twenty feet up the ship and landing parallel to the rocket man.

Rishi charged down the hull with his lightsaber drawn as the man blasted away at him. Rishi parried each shot while running towards the man, up until the point that the transport started to lift its nose up towards the stars. Even for such a big ship, it didn't take long before Rishi began to feel the change and started to fall backwards down the ship's hull, the rocket man following him in a tumble, both of them sliding down the back of the ship and would soon fall to their deaths.

Again.

Fortunately the ship evened out again, and Rishi slid to a halt meters away from the engine section, while the rocket man came at him like an avalanche, his heavy equipment sliding him even further. Rishi managed to have time for a curse before the man crashed into him.

Rishi cried out in sudden fear as they both went over the edge.

His hands grabbed at everything they could and he caught hold of the ledge, not sure if it would save him or not, since he was now hanging directly in front of the engine of the transport. Aside from the pain in his arm, massive flames flaring in front of him, he could already feel the hairs on his body start to melt, as well as the pain of the heat driving through his body. It was unbearable.

Adding to his distress the arm he was holding on with felt like lightning was shooting up and down its nerves.

It was then he realized how heavy he actually was. The rocket man hung beneath him, holding on to his leg, his armor protecting him from the heat of the flames washing over him. Thinking of no better thing to do, Rishi tried kicking the man free, not understanding why the man hadn't already jetted off with his jetpack. The man held on for his life, oblivious to Rishi's kicking and it was then that Rishi realized why the man wasn't using his jetpack.

The fuel line had torn open somehow and was pouring down the man's body as he fought to get back up over Rishi. It wouldn't be long before the fuel caught fire and the jetpack exploded. And being this close together meant that it would take Rishi along with it.

As if the hunter had read his mind he unhitched his pack, allowing it to fall down into the traffic exploding against a passing speeder beneath them. Fett held on with one hand, working his other hand to aim his gauntlet out into the open traffic around them.

Out shot a snare and a grabbling hook, securing itself into the side of a passing speeder. Rishi imagined the hunter's arm would be pulled out of its socket by such a tactic, but as the speeder flashed by them Fett was dragged along with it violently, but appearing in complete control of his situation. Rishi watched the speeder fly out of view in the chaos of the traffic, Fett dangling behind it.

Leaving Rishi to die alone.

Master!

He didn't know why he called out for Master Skar, hoping the man would somehow hear him and come to his rescue, but Rishi knew all too well the man wouldn't. He felt sorry, and not just about knowing he was about to die, but the fact that he'd never straightened out the problems between him and Master Skar. If only he could make his Master know that he was sorry.

Please…hear me!

Rishi tried pulling himself up, using what little strength he had left in his body but it was no good. He was too weakened from the chase, the fight and the drop. Rather than dwelling too much on the subject Rishi decided it would be better to accept the situation and do what he had to do. Rishi reached out to the Force, calmed his mind and accepted his untimely end. His mind a blur and his skin feeling scorched, his arms pounding with pain, he sighed as he let go of the ledge well knowing it would kill him. But simply unable to take the pain anymore.

Please…hear me!

---

Skar came out of his meditation with a gasp. He felt cold inside, horribly cold. And just before he'd come out of his meditation, he'd heard Rishi's voice. He'd felt the boy's presence inside himself, feeling his apprentice's fear and anguish. He'd been meditating, which he normally didn't do, but he wanted to see if he could make contact with Master Bo-Hi again, and find some more answers to the puzzle. Not just the puzzle about the terrorists, but also the enigma and unbearable truth about Shinran. He'd found nothing, but Rishi had invaded his mind just then.

Skar sighed and took in a deep breath, hoping it would make that terrible feeling go away, but it didn't. After contacting the recon team without any luck they'd visited the site only to find their presumptions confirmed. The recon team had been killed, bodies taken away and their gear strewn all over the snow.

Returning to the mountain they'd decided to settle down for the night. Skar had no idea what or who might have killed the recon team but he hadn't been surprised in the slightest. They'd scavenged what had been left behind which wasn't much.

Skar looked around at his team, most of them sleeping, but he was not surprised to see Kast staring at him across the cave, a worried look on his face.

"Nightmares?"

Skar shook his head. Drawing on the Force he felt himself coming back together, but much slower than it used to. That feeling of shame that Rishi had felt, that he'd translated to Skar through the Force, it hung in the back of his mind like a bad dream he couldn't wake up from.

"Meditation."

"You were meditating?"

Skar leaned back against the wall, hugging himself closely to try and stop the shaking he knew would sooner or later come. The fear. "I was…trying to focus myself before we headed out, by opening my mind up to the Force."

Kast didn't seem to understand. "How?"

"It lets me perceive things through the Force, other places, sometimes even the future or the past. It helps center you, so you know your place and your role better." Skar sighed, those words true but it wasn't how he'd felt. If anything he felt he belonged back on Coruscant with Rishi. The boy was in pain, so much pain and Skar wished he could be there. Wished he'd known what had happened. "Meditation is a getaway."

Kast moved his eyes away from Skar, to the tunnel leading outside. "I couldn't sleep either. We're usually dropped right into the thick of things, never much for resting like this. I've never slept in a hostile area before," the young man looked tired enough though, "anyway, what did you see?"

Skar ran his hand through his hair and realized he didn't have an answer. "I don't know. The Force, it shows you the events that are about to occur. It's kinda like seeing all the choices you've made in your life and seeing the way they mesh together. Into who you are now. And you see the choices in the future and you … feel the present while being aware of everything."

Kast shrugged. "Sounds crazy."

"It is."

"So what did you find out?"

Skar straightened out. "Nothing substantial, just premonitions about the future."

"Like what?"

"I didn't feel the joy of normal meditation. Instead I felt fear and emptiness. Someone called for me. He vanished before I could learn more."

Kast seemed listen carefully, very attentive to what Skar did and said. Whether that was because of mistrust or other, Skar couldn't really say. In the end they were both dependant upon each other. It was important they were honest. Sure, keep telling yourself that…Jarod.

"Who?"

That Skar knew all too well. "My apprentice. I fear something's happened to him."

Kast nodded. "Can you tell what?"

"No…just that he thought he was going to die."

"Is he dead?"

Skar reached out to the Force again, wary of doing so, not sure he wanted to know the answer to that question. But it turned out to be a positive response. Rishi was definitely still alive, yet he was in agony and despair.

"No, he's still alive." Skar shook it off, happy to know that much and decided to change the subject. "What's your view on…free will?"

Kast's eyes moved back to him, a hint of confusion in them "You mean, do I believe in it? I guess I do. Don't the Jedi?"

Skar squinted at him, not wanting to speak for every Jedi that lived, knowing how different each person's perspective on the purpose of life was. "I do. It is our choice to choose the paths before us. We can choose whether or not to go down the right path. Each path has consequences and we must accept them. The free will is inherent in all beings. I can choose where to go."

Skar again began to feel something in the horizon. Some uncertain fate or destiny approaching. He could literally feel the Force moving around him, like the stage-workers before a big play. Skar didn't know what was going to happen, but he could feel the enormity of it all. But he couldn't see his own place.

And then Kast asked that question he sometimes wondered himself.

"Why did you become a Jedi?"

The cave felt very small all of a sudden. Skar's eyes darted out towards the opening of the cave, wishing he could see the millions of stars that hung over them, like silent spectators to their thoughts and plans. Each star a mirror of another, yet possessing its own unique radiant signature.

"The stars…each time I look at them, it feels like I'm becoming someone else. When I left Nar Shaddaa behind to become a Jedi, it was the first time I really saw the stars up close. So close I felt like I could reach them, touch them. It was a turning point for me. After the whole ordeal with Kayupa, I was onboard a Republic frigate, trying to decide which path my life should take. Again I found my answers amongst the stars. When you look at the stars, it feels like you're looking at the entire world in one image. You feel like you're seeing it all, and yet you're only seeing a very small piece of the entire image. I became a Jedi to honor my family's expectations. When I'd completed that, I had to figure out how and where I'd direct the power. I ended up on Coruscant, as a protector, a guardian." Skar's eyes fixed on the floor between them. "Now the stars are calling again, and they called me here. There is something wrong here, that I have to balance."

Kast nodded. "Your friend, right?"

Skar turned towards Kast and gave him a doubtful look, a moment of weakness in his glare. "You…think I was wrong to come here?" his otherwise controlled voice now sounded fragile, wounded.

Kast shrugged. "Everyone has their own reasons for doing things. Right or wrong, its all subjective."

Skar gave him a slow nod.

Kast could tell the Jedi hadn't been given the answer he had hoped for. The Jedi looked to his own hands for counsel, those odd red markings over his hands intrigued Kast but he hadn't found the guts yet to ask about them. Kast had several tattoos on his body, most of them a memory of something in his past. Something he'd felt was important to remember. He wondered what the Jedi's tattoos meant to him.

Skar folded his fingers together and bowed his head down until his chin touched his chest. "I…wasn't the one that killed him."

"You never said that you were," Kast whispered, "you said he wanted to die, and that he got his wish."

Skar raised his head back up to look upon Kast. "He got his wish…and he passed on his pain to me. The pain he couldn't live with."

Kast didn't understand. "What are you trying to say?"

"He…" Skar looked away, shutting his eyes tight as to hold back tears. His mouth curled and his lips started quivering. "Someone that I loved…she gave herself to save me."

"Save you?"

"She knew I cherished my friendship with Kayupa too much. And rather than let me sacrifice myself because I couldn't kill him …she stepped in my place."

Kast didn't know what to say. Jarod hadn't seemed like the kind of man who would doubt himself or his actions. He was too controlled to second-guess himself. But maybe this was an exception. Kast had never found pleasure in any long term relationship. He hadn't had time for it during his training and his career. Women and love, that was something that got notched off the list. All that mattered was the training and the mission.

Kast felt sad admitting that to himself. Because what was life all about, if there wasn't time for love?

"I don't know what to say, Jarod."

Skar sniffed. "This isn't about revenge or putting things right. Kayupa died once before, he can die again for all I care, but…if he is alive, then she died in vain." Skar's eyes turned misty. "I can't let her die for nothing. Her death served a purpose. I wish it hadn't but it did. If Kayupa is still alive, it would be a mock against what she did for me. I won't let him do that. He can't be alive."

"So you don't think its him?"

"I saw him die. I set fire to his body. The man I knew is gone…this can't be him." All the evidence seemed to prove it though; he'd talked briefly with Kayupa's spirit during meditation, and Skind Kjoil's ghost still lingered in the Force unredeemed. He didn't understand it, and a part of him was in no hurry to understand. He had a feeling he wouldn't like the answer.

"But it feels like him, doesn't it?"

"Yeah."

"He must be after more than just meeting you again. To have gathered this whole army, staging the siege. It has to be more than just you."

Skar wiped away the mist from his eyes and then examined the scenario in his head. "I can't imagine what he might be after. All I know is that it includes me," his face turned pale, almost lifeless as he stared into nothing, "history repeats itself. I will fight him again."

Kast felt out of place. This whole siege, this mission was really about the differences between Jarod and someone he'd known, believed to be dead, now masterminding a siege on a repair yard. A repair yard which in its own way was a big mystery. Kast couldn't remember any other mission where he'd spent so much time in hostile territory, doing so much talking, thinking and scheming. This time it was different. Something prevented them from heading headfirst into the battle. It wasn't fear, Kast was sure it wasn't fear, he couldn't wait to get moving. Something else; maybe doubt, or maybe suspicion.

Kast felt like he was picking the lock on a door, trying to find the right wires and tools to open the lock before he could enter. If they'd missed a valuable clue of information it was possible they'd be dead before they even got inside the repair yard. Kast didn't like the fact that Jarod had been 'invited' here, but in the end they had no other option but to pursue their original objectives; rescue the hostages, stop the terrorists. Plain and simple, it seemed.

But none of them knew what they were trying to stop the terrorists from doing. Was the Republic really just trying to cover themselves? Who was the enemy? Too many things didn't add up, and Kast had a feeling things would seem a lot simpler when he got inside. Once someone started shooting at him, he would know who the enemy was.

Kast scratched his chin. "What if you misjudged your friend?"

Skar's worried look magnified. "What do you mean?"

Kast's voice was careless, almost sarcastic. "What if he isn't really out to kill you?" Kast tilted his head. "Maybe he just wants his friend back."

Skar's insides soured, another view of the situation that he hadn't thought of. Kayupa had in the past tried turning Skar to his side. The tension building in Skar's wanted to be released, he wanted to get his hands dirty and get it over with. He felt guilty that these soldiers, these good men, had been brought into it. That lives had already been lost because of a decade old feud between Skar and Kayupa.

Skar looked at Kast with sympathy. "You're not obligated to continue, but I can't do this alone," he said.

Kast knew the Jedi would get killed if he tried on his own, but he didn't have any confidence in himself being able to help Jarod in any way. It seemed impossible for them to have any chance on their own. "I know. And I want to help, its not that. But - it seems so unreal. I keep thinking - " Kast listened to the feelings in his heart, "nothing seems real."

Skar's eyes looked to the ground. When he spoke, his gruff voice sounded like a teacher, a mentor. A leader. "Things like training and sense of duty alone won't get you through a mission like this. I told you about not fighting anyone else's battles. You have to back up your training with an ideal, a purpose, a goal other than simple completion. This…isn't worth risking your life for, unless it has a grander purpose to either you or the things you believe in. We're not in this to make a name for ourselves."

Kast listened to the words, but it was a whole other world than that he was used to. Fighting for good - no one had ever told him about that. It was the sense of duty that kept people alive through battle, it was their courage and training that made sure they never fell in combat.

Kast felt sad inside, he wished he could have fought for something all those times he'd been on a mission. Everything he'd ever done, all his records, his medals, his scores, they seemed so hollow and pointless now. They were trophies, trophies of blood.

Blood money.

"I'm starting to realize some things." A deep sense of regret took nesting in his heart. "My parents were right," he said, his words filled with remorse, "I'm only here because I was assigned to this mission, not because I wanted to," Kast whispered to himself, "that was what my parents knew. I couldn't even do this right, it was another easy way through life. This way I didn't have to make choices for myself, my CO would always make them for me. I'm not cut out for this. I should have been a mercenary. I would have been paid more and at least then I could pick my own battles."

Skar shook his head. "Mercenaries are killers, they only fight for money. A soldier has honor, loyalty and dedication. You can stop it now. You can make this mission your last, you've got no choice if you want to survive," Skar said confidently. "Whatever happened between you and your parents has nothing to do with this. If you've been keeping the memory of disappointing your parents too close to the heart, you're likely to think they were right every time something bad happens. Don't give up until you're sure the battle's lost." Skar flashed a brave smile. "And even then, don't make it easy on them."

Kast knew he was right. Jarod seemed to consider the bigger things more easily than him. Kast smiled briefly. He believed the man was right. He still had a duty. Kast didn't want his parents to know he'd died sitting around doubting himself. If he had to die, he was gonna make his sacrifice count.

"You know all these things through the Force?"

Jarod frowned. "Doesn't take the Force to see what I just told you."

Kast felt the weight of his rifle in his hand, its burden a sign of his unbroken allegiance to his disillusioned self. But it was a part of him as much as an arm or leg. The rifle had saved his life many times, and maybe it could save him one last time. Maybe it could change him.

Skar looked over Tracker, the small droid grounded for once. "By the way, what is that thing?"

Kast smiled as he looked over at Tracker. "Its an RATM, Remote Assistance Tracking Module. We call it Tracker."

Jarod continued to inspect the curious hovering droid. "It may come in handy."

"It has so far. Me and Tracker have been through a lot together. He's the one who helped me find you in here."

"Quite the little eye in the sky, huh?"

Kast laughed, thankful for the distraction. It felt odd to laugh. "He hasn't let me down yet."

Jarod nodded and his face remained as grim as it had been before. "Lets hope he keeps that trait alive. This isn't going to be easy."

Kast loved the sound of those words. "Affirmative. But I'm through choosing the easy path in life."

---

Kayupa's fingers slowly depressed the buttons on the keypad next to the tall black doors. Taking his time, he pressed in the combination. Behind him laid a long dark tunnel, slightly alive with small fires from the expensive and elaborate defensive systems Kayupa had had to break through. As he'd entered the first four digits of the five digit code, he stopped, reached out towards the Force and allowed it to flow through him. He was anxious, too anxious.

Bordering on going mad with anticipation; this had been the moment he'd waited for so long, for thirteen years he'd waited to stand at this door, to press that combination and hear the doors unlock and slide open before him.

Good things came only to those who waited.

His finger pressed down -

And the doors unlocked with a loud mechanical clank, slid open, laying way to stale air and thick dust. This room, this chamber, hadn't been breached in almost five years. Kayupa took a step back, letting the sensation sink in. He was really here. This was really it. He had to almost gather the courage to take the first step inside.

As he did, one by one small lights flickered on inside the chamber, some in the ceiling, some in the floor and some on the cylindrical walls. The chamber was ten meters across and maybe thirty meters high at the center. As he looked up, he could barely glimpse the ceiling amidst the bright lights, but he was sure it was there, a shadow behind the stars. The floor had a coat of dust lying over it, so thick that when he walked it blew away like waves at his feet.

It was then he noticed the humming, he thought it was just the light fixtures at first, but then realized it came from the fusion generator in the other end of the room. Kayupa held out his hand, pushing away rubble and debris from his path, throwing it to the sides of the room, crashing against the walls.

He ascended the small steps that led to a dais in the center of the room. A small console stood in the center of the circled dais, and Kayupa stopped before it, looking down at the small dusty screen, wiping away the worst of it with his sleeve and then activating the console with eager fingers. The screen lit up in red, displaying its functions and asking for clear code confirmation. Kayupa typed in the memorized sequence he'd learned some years ago after hearing about the existence of this very chamber.

Don't...

He stopped typing halfway through the sequence, at first thinking he'd heard something, but there was no one else there. He reached out to the Force to find out if anything had happened but there was nothing. Junn was still pursuing the Jedi intruder and his companions trying to figure out what the Republic were hoping to do to his plans. Nothing else was out of the ordinary. He resumed his typing, having just pressed the final part of it when he heard footsteps behind him.

His blaster was aiming at the target even before he had identified it.

"Oh, its you."

She stood in the archway to the room, her delicate features brightening the room slightly with her careful smile. Her companionship over the years and her love had been his energy for getting this far. Her mere presence his only delight in life.

"What are you doing?"

Kayupa smiled and then turned to hit the confirm button. The screen lit up and so did the rest of the room as a loud boom resonated against the walls. Soon the floor began trembling and five round hatches slid open in a semi circle around the front of the dais. Kayupa started walking backwards down the dais, reaching out for her hand, giving it a loving squeeze as he felt her fingers interlock with his.

Slowly five cylinders the size of a full grown man rose through the hatches in the floor, rising up onto the floor level, hissing excesses of freezing air around their bases.

"We're repeating history, my love."

The glass cylinders themselves were caked with dust but as Kayupa approached them, he began to notice shapes inside. He was not ignorant to what was behind those dusty glass cylinders. He knew perfectly well what was behind them, and this was the second part of his anxiety about this moment that he'd waited for so long. He could feel his fingers tingling with energy, surges of power running through him, one might call it excitement but he knew it to be hatred, anger and disgust.

And as his hand ran across the glass of the closest cylinder, he revealed the suspended form inside hanging in a gelatinous fluid. Two sets of dead eyes stared back at him, pale white skin almost fully deteriorated, the bones bulging beneath the paper-like skin. The hair flowing with the current of the gel inside it, a mouth hung open, revealing rotting gums and the fluid itself that held the body afloat had turned almost red with age and blood.

Nevertheless Kayupa was able to recognize the identity of the dead man. He shuddered. "Technology can mimic life."

She walked up beside him, took a look at the corpse floating in the water, dead in time by lack of attendance from the people it had relied upon to survive. Its makers. Her hand flew up to cover her mouth and she turned away from the dead clones of Skind Kjoil, burying her face in Kayupa's cloak.

But Kayupa did not look away, he wasn't deterred. He knew this moment would come. He'd longed for it. He wasn't happy about it, but he wasn't sad about it. He'd known what he'd find down here. That didn't mean it didn't break his heart when he noticed the cylinder at the end of the line was empty.

"This is where it began, my love," tears ran down his cheeks, his jaw trembled, "this is where they did it."

The clone hatchery had once belonged to the Emperor and this had been where they'd cloned Skind Kjoil. This was where it had all happened. This was where Kayupa's nightmare began. It was here they created the worst nightmare any person should ever have to suffer. It was here they ruined his life. Kayupa's jaw tightened and he nudged her aside carefully, while his hand drew his lightsaber.

The room lit up in a red gloom.

And one by one the clones were destroyed, their corpses serving as nothing more than the target of Kayupa's anger, the hatred that had swirled inside him for all this time, the burning rancor that was his life. The pain nullifying his life, the sorrow corrupting him, the hatred his only path left to walk.

When it was done he stood there, the mutilated corpses at his feet, the fluid inside the cylinders splashed across the water and flowing between his boots. His shoulders rising and falling with his breathing, the hatred far from sated.

This was why Junn had been set up to work inside the yard, she was to confirm whether the rumors he'd heard were true. He'd had to pry the information out of Junn's former employer, Derrik, before he'd admitted to the existence of the cloning facility hidden within the old Imperial stronghold.

It was during the Galactic Civil War, during the Emperor's reign. When the Republic moved in and drove the Empire away, they didn't investigate further what this place really was. What it had been part of. But Derrik found out and he reported it. The Republic had forced Derrik to keep it a secret, threatening his wife and children.

His family.

Kayupa had managed to extract the information through his web of spies and informants inside the New Republic. Kayupa had yet to find out who had charged Derrik to keep it a secret or why. Why the Republic had chosen to keep the cloning facility a secret.

Kayupa didn't blame Derrik for betraying the Republic once he thought his life was over, and Kayupa had to promise to protect the man's family any way he could. Kayupa only hoped he could. Derrik was not a fool, he was just manipulated. Any man would act as he had if their family had been on the line.

He could still hear Derrik's whimper. I don't care about the Republic anymore…All I want is my family.

Kayupa sighed.

Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.

Kayupa powered down his lightsaber, attached it to his belt. He ran his hands across his face, felt the tiny pearls of sweat and tears on his face, smiling faintly. His massacre had felt better than he'd thought it would. Whoever said that anger solved nothing had never been through his life. Kayupa felt almost happy, feeling slightly more complete, only wishing someone had been here all those years ago when it had all started and done then what he'd done now.

Kayupa turned to her, seeing her at the console, reading through the progress diary one of the Emperor's technicians had kept on the procedure. Kayupa joined her at the console and read the screen over her shoulder, squeezing her shoulders beneath his hands, offering her his strength. He could feel the sorrow inside her, the sorrow she shared with him in this. The way they shared all their pains, the way lovers shared life.

She turned her head and allowed him to see her smile. "Its them, no doubt. Spaarti cloning cylinders."

Kayupa nodded. "A device used to grow clones, a remnant of the Clone Wars. The Emperor kept a large number of Spaarti cylinder cells hidden throughout the Galaxy. Its amazing they've been kept hidden for this long."

She frowned. "Thrawn found one of them."

Kayupa smiled. "I never doubted he would. If not for our informant inside the Republic we would never have found it."

She read on. "There are details on procedure. Plenty of history. Everything's logged."

"Good," Kayupa said. Then a more worried look crossed his face. "What about the clone madness, does it say anything about the cure?"

"Funny you should mention it. I think I've just found it," she typed in a few commands, "full details on how to avoid the clone madness. This cell must've been remote-linked to the one on Wayland. There are full details on how Thrawn manufactured the clones. Seems they used ysalamiri to form bubbles devoid of the Force around the cylinders."

"Ysalamiri," Kayupa muttered to himself. "I'll take care of that."

"This allowed them to create a living and perfect clone in as little as twenty days."

Kayupa was already reaching for his comlink, flicking it on.

"Jovis here."

"Jovis, take the Civilian and a group of your men, ten at the most." Kayupa smiled to himself. "I want you to find something for me…on Myrkr."

Jovis sounded surprised. "Myrkr?"

"That's right," Kayupa said, "there's an animal there called a ysalamiri. I want you to bring me at least a dozen of them."

Jovis didn't understand. "What does this have to do - "

"Just do it," Kayupa ordered, "consider it an undisclosed paragraph in your contract. Another fifty thousand will be added to your account if you can deliver." Kayupa made a devious smile. "And only you will know about the extra fifty thousand, the rest of your crew doesn't need to know."

Jovis' thick swallow could be heard clearly over the comlink. "Fine, I'll do it," the mercenary said carefully. "Guess its better than hanging out here with that Jedi lunatic running around."

Kayupa flicked off the comlink and took a look around the room again. "Remarkable," Kayupa said to himself, casting a glance at the five cylinders beyond the dais, slightly filled with some admiration for the technology. All though he had damaged the cylinders somewhat he was still sure he would be able to fix them again. After all they were an important part of his plan.

The woman kept reading. "There are still samples of genetic codes stored inside the cylinders of all the subjects they used before. Even the Emperor's." She smirked and threw him a teasing smile. "Wanna make a Palpatine?"

Kayupa kissed those lips, sharing her happiness at how fortunate they were in their mission so far. Then he glanced down at the list of subjects they could make if they wanted to. "Jorus C'boath, Luke Skywalker," he stopped reading aloud, and although he was expecting to see the name it still cut him deep. "Skind Kjoil."

A warm hand found his. "Its in the past, my love."

"I know." He let out a heavy breath. "I know."

"The dead clones were suspended in hibernation. They weren't being built to be used right away. The Emperor had them as an ace in the hole. If he should ever need them. But the first one was - "

Kayupa looked at the last cylinder, the empty one. Anger boiled inside him again. "It was just a test run, a prototype."

She calmed him again. "It was then, it doesn't matter anymore."

Kayupa frowned, leaning against the railing around the dais, noticing the fluid on the floor that had been suspending the clones inside the cylinders. He flung a finger at the dead corpses on the floor, and looked to her. "The other four, their growth was accelerated."

She nodded, reading the information off the screen. "Each Spaarti cylinder contains a computer processing system that jacked directly into the cerebral cortex of the developing clone, flash-pumping information into the growing mind." She looked up at him. "You're right, these four were different from the…prototype," she said as harmlessly as she could, not wanting to hurt him, "it was created as a child, with very little flash learning. It was born as a normal child, without any knowledge of its identity, unlike the others who were breed into complete reflections of Skind Kjoil. Their genetic structure was modified to make them more obedient."

Kayupa frowned in disgust, turning away from the cylinders, resting his eyes on something that didn't haunt his past. "Humans have overcome the laws of nature."

She powered down the console, turned to him offering her support if he needed it. Sometimes he didn't, sometimes he just wanted to be left to his anger. It was his guide, the hatred inside him was too well-settled to ever be overthrown. Kayupa reacted on his emotions, powerful only through the wills of his heart.

He turned away, a block of stone. "If they'd never done this, I wouldn't - "

She embraced him, pleading him to stop. She must've known that what they'd found here, what they'd known they would find would not go easy on either of them. This room had spawned far more than just a clone of Skind Kjoil, it was because of this room that the Sons of Destiny had grown so strong. They would never have existed if it wasn't for Kayupa. And soon they would show the world what a crippled life of deceit they lived in.

"Life isn't as precious as it used to be," he whispered into her ear. Kayupa's comlink buzzed at that moment and he brought it to his lips. "Go ahead."

Junn's static signal came through. "General, this is Eulogy. The intruders are moving out. It seems the mountain was the site of an unfinished shelter."

Kayupa was surprised that piece of information had not reached his attention, but it didn't seem crucial in the end. "And?"

"Between the shelter and Hope's Haven lies..." She left the sentence unfinished

Kayupa's insides froze, but none of his shock translated to his voice. "The hydro generator. Are they linked?"

"There's an underground tunnel that runs both ways, one to the shelter and one to the station. Thermal vision confirms it. The tunnel comes out at the bottom of the main building."

Koll nodded. The main building had a lift that ran through every level of the structure, straight up to the command center, from which anyone could shut down the entire facility and leave it open for an attack. "Interesting...but rest assured they won't be able to penetrate through there."

Junn sighed on the other end. "Have you forgotten that one of them is a Jedi Knight?"

Kayupa felt a tinge of anger, but quelled it easily. "No, I haven't."

"What if this was their primary objective?"

Kayupa pushed away from the woman and the railing, suddenly conscious of what Junn was saying. "If they destroy the hydro generator now - "

"We would be helpless against an attack, there could be a fleet lying in wait for something like this to happen."

"We're not ready for such a strike, not yet." Kayupa damned himself. He had been too wrapped up in finding the cloning facility to think clearly. His objectiveness had faded. He thanked the stars he'd let Junn stay with the advancing enemies. "You must make sure they don't make it that far."

"Are those official orders?"

Kayupa closed his eyes. "Kill them," he ordered, "kill them all." He flicked off the comlink. And then he turned to the love of his life, reaching inside his coat to retrieve a thin glass vial, tiny drops of dark blood inside. "That last cylinder is still working. Its time for a test run."

---

Usually the first thing he felt when he woke up was drowsiness, but that had been replaced with a skull-splitting headache. He stirred where he laid, moving slightly to his right, trying to wake up. The pain in his head grew with his every little move, compounding inside his head, expanding until he thought his head would crack open. His last memory included fighting with a bounty hunter, falling towards Coruscant's surface, as well as hanging in front of the engine department of a cruiser, so naturally his first instinct was to keep moving, to slip whatever held him until he was sure he was safe.

A firm hand planted on his chest to keep him lying still. "Rest easy, young one. Don't move," a gentle voice near him said.

He had no inner compass or bearing on where he was, nor where the person who'd spoken would be. All he had was the darkness inside his soul, accompanied by a pain inside his head so great he thought would soon die. He chose to remain still on whatever he was lying on, hearing the words spoken repeating again in his mind. Concentrating on them because they were all the distraction he had to take him away from the pain.

Another pain slowly registered. His skin felt tender, it felt more like an outer shell and he'd never been conscious before then on how encapsulated by his flesh he really was. He could actually feel it, a thickness around him like he had grown fur and was adjusting to the warmth.

A humming heat surrounding him, reminding him of his burns. He could also feel the pain in his arm, and as he tried to manipulate it he found he couldn't move that limb. But he was too weak to open his eyes to see what had happened to it. Or whether it was even still there.

"Where…am I?" he whispered, but the words still thundered like a storm inside his head.

"Safe," the delicate voice whispered.

Rishi relished those words, happy to know that. He ignored the thought that he might have been taken captive, safe could mean so many things. He still wasn't sure how he'd survived. It had to have been a miracle.

"Miracle?" a second voice said, this one rough and direct. "Just fancy flying."

Rishi recognized the voice and as he reached out blindly with the Force he felt the presence of Jedi Knight Kal Ulani.

"Kal…what happened?" he muttered, regretting it the next second as he heard his own words magnify inside his mind, tempting the pain.

"After you jumped off the speeder - I'll remind you later how stupid that was - I turned the speeder around and went after you. You're lucky to have survived. It was pure luck that I was there in time to catch you when you fell."

Rishi swallowed, trying to rid himself of the dryness in his mouth. "Thank you."

Kal's presence came closer. "You mind telling me why Boba Fett wants you?"

Rishi remembered his encounter with Boba Fett, the masked warrior. Rishi guessed Fett had been hired by this Rarsk Dokyan, the informant whom Rishi suspected was working for the Sons of Destiny, to take out any and all who knew about his shadowy business. The ones who'd hunted him outside the Tusken had to have been hired by him too, and now Fett.

Maybe Fett was personal, maybe Rarsk had found out Rishi was snooping around and had Fett called in to take Rishi out. Crip had been killed, but he'd said there was someone after him. If he thought Fett was after him he wouldn't have said 'someone', people didn't say someone when they meant Boba Fett. Rishi was sure Fett hadn't killed Crip. And there was no other reason anyone would send such a talented hunter after Rishi. Rishi had no prior problems with anyone.

Fett was just suddenly there, hunting him, right when he was about to solve this mystery and capture Rarsk Dokyan. Rarsk knew Rishi was after him, and he'd hired the most notorious bounty hunter there was to come after him.

"It must've been the Bothan," Rishi said.

"This Dokyan guy?"

"The one who's working for the Sons of Destiny. The one who sent the message to my Master."

"Right," Kal said carefully, "we'll work on that once you're okay again."

Rishi stirred, feeling a slight prick in his otherwise numb arm. "Where am I?"

Kal laughed. "Trust me, you don't want to know."

Rishi found it odd how few people realized that saying that you didn't want to know made you want to know even more. He started to sit up but something, a hand, pushed him back down.

"You really don't want to know," the soft voice said.

Rishi pushed away the hand with what strength he had and managed to sit up. He tried opening his eyes, but it was like lifting a speeder with one finger. His eyelids felt too heavy. He reached out to the Force for strength and found just enough to open his eyes. A blinding light stared back at him, as though he was diving directly into a sun, making him flinch and turn away. He tried opening them again when they were pointed in another direction, but the same blinding light met him.

"Am I blind?" he asked, not sure he wanted to know.

"No," the kind voice chimed, "your skin is severely burned. This room emits special lighting that advances the normal growth of your skin's healing ability. Without it, it would take months before you were back to normal. This way it only takes a few days. I've been - "

"Stop! Stop talking!" Rishi snapped, each word he heard filled his head with tremendous pain. "Who are you!"

"This is a native healer. She specializes in burn-victims like yourself," Kal answered for the woman with the soft voice of a spirit. "We're safe here. I've been here before."

Rishi guessed all he could do was trust the Jedi. He didn't really have much choice. "Why is the lighting so powerful to my eyes?"

"Its possible your eyes have suffered some damage," that sweet voice suggested, "right now I'm focusing on healing your skin back to normal."

"It isn't so bad," he said, "why didn't you want me to see it?"

He heard Kal clear his throat. "That wasn't what we were trying to keep you from seeing."

"Then what is?"

"Your skin," the tender voice next to him whispered, "I've managed to improve the speed of the healing but its still pretty bad. As I said it takes a few days to completely - "

Rishi sighed. "Look, I appreciate you helping me, but I don't have days to sit around here! I need to get back out there. I have a job to do!"

He heard Kal snigger. "You're not going anywhere looking like that. You look like a fried Rancor chew toy."

Rishi heard the woman suppress a laughter.

"Very funny," Rishi muttered.

"Fett won't have a hard time finding you next time," Kal added, "he can just follow that scent."

Rishi heard the joint laughter coming from them like a waterfall inside his head, angering him, yet he was grateful that they were able to joke about it. That meant it wasn't serious. It meant he would be alright. Enough to beat them senseless later.

Off the top of his head he was reminded of something else. "What happened about to our little Trandoshan snitch? The kid?"

"I let him go," Kal said.

"What? He might have known something - "

" - But not before I asked him some questions. We were lucky your healer had a protocol droid that understood reptile. Seems the kid was a slave. But you were right about Dokyan, the boy confirmed it. Dokyan ordered the kid to follow that group of mercenaries that went after you, even he didn't know why. Dokyan threatened to pound on him if he didn't."

Rishi cursed. "I'm beginning to dislike this Bothan more and more with each second."

"Kid gave me the address. We'll leave for it as soon as you're ready."

Rishi tried to open his eyes again, but it was still too powerful for him to see anything. "Sithspawn! We can't wait any longer. What we find there might be essential to the Republic's investigation. Kal, you'll have to go without me."

"I'm not going out there if Fett is still trying to keep up his quota. We'll stand a better chance as a team."

Rishi smirked. "Afraid to take him on, huh?" It felt good to bring Kal down a notch.

But the Jedi must've been expecting him to say it. "You took him on yourself and look at you now; roasted to perfection! No way, I'm not going out like you did."

"But you have the Force," Rishi said, "I wasn't thinking clearly. If you were ready for him, surely you could beat him."

He heard Kal sigh. "Force or no Force; Fett isn't your average thug. That man has been chasing people all his life and he's never failed. I don't want to be another name on a very long list of kills."

Rishi was of a different mind. He hoped he would have the chance to dent Fett's armor again, in a fair man-to-man fight this time. He hoped he would meet the bounty hunter again. Rishi knew he wasn't going to be on Fett's roster. He would show the man, and that was all he was, a man, that messing up Jedi didn't go unpunished.

"How long before I'm done here?"

"A couple of hours," the soft voice said.

"Hours! You said days a minute ago!" Rishi shouted.

"I said days, but - "

Kal interrupted. "I was going to tell you when you cooled down a bit. You've already been here two days."

Rishi felt like beating something. "You lied to me? Then what was all that talk about me looking like roasted meat and me not wanting to see how horrible my skin looked like!"

Kal sniggered again, a confident laugh followed it. "That was fun."

Rishi cursed.

"You look fine," the gentle voice said.

Rishi couldn't believe two days had passed since his encounter with Fett. He guessed he'd had no choice in the matter. He would've been no good if his skin had been as bad as they'd said. But that didn't mean he liked being jerked around. He sighed. "Have you heard anything from Skywalker?"

He felt a touch of hesitation coming from the Jedi. "No…I haven't been able to reach him."

"I thought you two were buddies?" Kal had claimed Luke and him had been contacting each other through the Force. Rishi had never met Kal before and had his doubts about the man. To be able to keep a connection of communication through the Force between Coruscant and Msst was no small feat, and Rishi felt confident enough to claim Kal wasn't attuned enough to pull it off. Maybe Master Skar could, he'd had a longer friendship with Skywalker. Rishi was certain that he couldn't. But feeling too tired to further the matter Rishi logged it in the back of his head for later scrutiny.

Rishi tried to relax. "Tell me about yourself, Kal. I don't know anything about you."

"There's not much to know."

Rishi snorted. "You knew who I was when you came looking for me."

Kal tried to avoid the subject. "That was different. Skywalker gave me instructions to look out for you while he was gone."

Rishi shrugged. "So, you know my secret. Tell me yours."

"I don't have any secrets."

Rishi felt his anger reaching its boiling point. "You're not a normal Jedi, are you?"

"You should be resting - "

"What I should be doing is finding out who the blazes you are! You come out of nowhere, claim that Skywalker trusted you to look out for me. But you won't tell me who you are, where you came from. Skywalker may have trusted you, but you and I are a totally different matter," Rishi had to breathe to calm himself down again. "So start talking."

He heard Kal sigh. "I come from a long line of Jedi. My grandfather fought in the Clone Wars, but he was killed in the Jedi Purge." Kal hesitated. "By Lord Vader himself."

Rishi felt the man's anguish. "Darth Vader killed your grandfather? Who trained -"

"Nevermind," Kal said sharply. "get your rest. We can talk when you're back together."

Rishi sighed, realized he wasn't getting anywhere with his questions. "Fine, let me sleep the rest of the time. Then I'll be ready."

He felt Kal agreed. "You really think this Dokyan has anything to do with the terrorists?"

"I'm not sure," Rishi said as he laid back down, getting ready to rest, "but all the leads I've found point to him. Maybe he'll give us a new clue. He may not be working with them, but he is involved."

Kal snorted. "Sons of Destiny; sounds like a day-care center for Jedi orphans."

Rishi laughed, feeling slightly better now. The headache had vanished somewhere along his talking, he hadn't even noticed it. Maybe they'd given him something. "I'd feel better if we knew that Dokyan hasn't already left the planet."

"I'll see what I can find out," Kal said.

Rishi heard the man's boots turn as he was about to leave the room.

"Kal?"

He heard the boots turn back around. "Yeah?"

Rishi swallowed his pride, and it tasted bitter. "Thank you for saving me."

He felt Kal was smiling, proudly and somewhat uncomfortable with the praise. "Don't sweat it. You get better and we'll go after these guys." The boots turned away from him again.

"Kal?" Rishi said again.

"What?" This time the boots didn't turn around.

Rishi used the Force to make his words have a bigger impact than they normally would. "Don't ever lie to me again. If I'm going to trust you, you have to be trustworthy. Don't jerk me around. I appreciate your help," he tried not to sound too hostile, but wasn't sure he pulled it off well enough, "but if I can't trust you I'd rather go on alone."

Rishi felt the embarrasment coming from Kal's position in the room. "I understand."

Rishi allowed his mind to drift, falling rapidly into a sleep pattern, but only externally. With the Force he kept a probing eye over everything around him, aware of the room, the street outside, seeing it all in black and red before his third eye. He didn't want to let his guard down. People were after him now, this wasn't just an investigation anymore.

---

The underground tunnel ran for miles and miles underneath the snowy plains. A single pathway of metallic surfaces had been laid out in the center of the tunnel, and once every twenty feet a single light fixture had been attached to the wall. It offered very little light but it was enough. The tunnel was far enough that the distance between the lights offered little help in letting them know how close they were to the end of it. Tracker supported their vision with its small projectors but it made little to no difference.

The tunnel itself was always an even twenty feet in diameter, leaving enough space for all the soldiers to walk in a wide fan, their rifles trained on the space ahead of them, always ready for a change or an ambush. Neither of them could put the feeling out of their heads that they were back in the Gauntlet. The only sounds they could hear were their own breathing, their own footsteps on the metal, and Tracker's electronic humming.

Skar brought up the rear, muted lightsaber in hand, with the pilot walking between him and the soldiers. None of them spoke a word, knowing every little sound would echo down the tunnel and might alert an enemy to their presence. It was a dangerous game but it was all, and therefore also the best, they had.

Once everyone had rested, they'd divided all the rations between them, while Skar had donated his to the rest of them. While he could feel the first signs of hunger, however much he used to Force to hold it back, he felt wrong taking anything from them. They needed it more than he did.

The team looked better now, back to their strengths, although still complaining about the cold. The pilot had fallen into scared silence, talking only when spoken to. He was terrified being in this kind of enviroment, so one of the soldiers had given him a single sidearm. They all doubted it would serve much use to him, but it gave the pilot a feeling of false security and sometimes that was all that was needed.

Though the tunnel was getting on their nerves, it was several degrees warmer than the outside, which meant the soldiers could shed their borrowed jackets and now marched resolutely in their own clothes. Dark and blue armor over black fatigues, helmets that resembled a more rounded version of Mandalorian helmets, geared up in all their equipment. In the dim lighting of the tunnel they were mere shadows, only visible for a short second as they passed a light fixture. Stix was the only one audible, his one leg dragging because of the grenade he took to it earlier.

Salvor, Call and Stix carried their single long-range rifle proudly by the waist, while Kast kept a lighter version of it, but with more gadgets attached. Looking at the weapon you got the sense that Kast meant business and he kept it close to the body, always viewing the world down its frame. But there was a change in the way his eyes saw the world, Skar noticed. Kast had been enlightened by his talks with Skar and was determined to make an end to the kind of life he'd been living so far.

Skar worried about their mission, many things seemed to play against them. They were only a handfuld against an entire army, and they were on unfamiliar territory. He had also yet to find out who or what had killed Dasan. If it had been a Jedi, a true Jedi, he figured he would have felt its presence in the Force. He was sure whoever had killed the soldier wasn't one of the mercenaries they'd taken out back at the crevasse. Something was very wrong about it, and he didn't like feeling as -

Skar was lost in his own thoughts when the Force suddenly called out to him, like an alarm going off in his head, alerting him to a presence far behind him. Skar didn't turn his head to look since he knew he wouldn't spot anyone back there. But when he reached out to that area, he could definitely feel a presence, someone concentrating a great amount of energy towards them.

Skar could tell by the level of focus the person was exhibiting that this was the sniper that had killed Red the other day when they'd arrived. Skar had reached out to the Force then and told the rest of the strike team that he couldn't sense the sniper, and nor had he now until the sniper had begun to present a threat.

If the sniper had been connected to the Force and had been blocking Skar's senses he would have known. He would have been able to tell. But this was different. The person used no Force, and yet it eluded the Force's attention. And Tracker, hovering above them, hadn't spotted the person either. He could feel the sniper getting ready to fire.

You can't run from a sniper, you'll just die tired.

He had to think of something quick.

"Wait up," he said in a low voice, though the tunnel magnified the sound enough for all of them to hear, and hunched down, "I have to tie my boot."

The soldiers stopped. Kast glanced around them and then looked down at Skar when he thought the man was taking too long tying his boots. It was then he noticed that Skar's boots had no laces.

Kast caught on quick and fortunately he kept the act going. Skar could sense Kast was aware of something amiss and hoped the sniper couldn't see the arrow Skar drew in the snow next to his boot. The arrow pointed between Skar's feet, to the area behind him. Kast knew that meant he couldn't talk without the sniper knowing, since his front was turned in that direction.

But then the pilot came walking back to Skar, unaware of the threat, and got in between the sniper and him.

Skar felt like pushing the man away, but knew he couldn't alert the man to the danger without the sniper knowing. Snipers were usually trained in lip-reading and the sniper would know if Skar said anything. If they started running it would make no difference and Skar wanted the sniper off their backs for good.

He could feel the danger tickling away in his mind, only a few seconds until the crucial shot would be fired. He had to wait until the trigger was pressed, and that meant he only had less than a second to do what he had to do.

The sniper fired and the bolt came wheezing down the tunnel with lightning speed. Hunched down, Skar swirled to his left, scissoring the pilot's ankles with his outstretched foot and dropping the man to the ground. The pilot hadn't even touched the ground when Skar came up and around with his lightsaber blazing, and following his swirl through he batted his lightsaber against the bolt and ricocheted it back down the tunnel, right back at the sniper.

In the distance he felt the bolt hit the rifle it had been shot from, and a brief distant glare suggested he'd been successful. He reached out to sense the sniper, but felt nothing there. The exploding rifle must've taken him out too.

Kast came up alongside Skar, looked off into the distance of the tunnel where the shot had bounced back, checking the scene with his helmet's binoculars but saw no movement, only small pieces of flaming debris.

The pilot stared at all of them, his entire body shaking.

Skar turned off his lightsaber, and nodded towards the small flare still visible far down the tunnel. "He was following us."

Kast turned off his binoculars. "Ever since - "

"The crevasse. It was him that took out Red...but he wasn't the one that killed Dasan. I would have known."

Kast looked over at Skar, and Skar felt the anger in the man, felt how he wished he'd been the one to kill the sniper. Personal grudges could get one killed in situations like this. "You sure?"

Skar nodded.

"Good," Kast muttered, that meant the man still had a chance to claim his revenge.

Salvor nodded to all of them. "Lets keep moving." Salvor lead Stix, Call and the pilot on while Kast stayed closer to Skar this time.

Only a few minutes later they came to an abrupt end, the tunnel ended in a thick slab of metal. Though heartbreaking, none of them ever made it to full worry. Anger was quick to take the lead, resulting in several mutterings of curses.

Skar stepped forward, holding out his hand on the metal, trying to get a feel of its stability and thickness. The psychometry also told him that the slab had been put there not by the terrorists, but by Republic technicians several years ago. There was little else to know, except the sensation of a faint vibration coming off the wall.

Skar stepped back. "There's something behind it, something powerful."

The soldiers opened up their helmets, their faces moist and pale enough to see even in the darkness. Salvor looked over his shoulder once, checking his rear, before daring to raise his voice. "Can you cut through it?"

Skar nodded. "Sure, but it could be a trap."

Call hugged his rifle. "Its a little late for traps. They know we're here."

Stix stepped forward, shouldering his rifle, taking a long good look at the metallic wall. "Salvor, can I - "

"No," the team leader said bluntly, "stop trying to blow everything up. Jarod's lightsaber should easily make us a hole."

Stix banged the wall with his armored fist, snarling in dissapointment. "Stop trying to blow everything up. You're starting to sound just like my mother, Salvor. Let me do it, just this one time."

Skar smiled, charmed by the slight psychosis of Stix. "Tell you what, you make the hole." He held out his lightsaber hilt.

Stix looked at the weapon in awe, which quickly changed into repulsion. "Nah. You take this one. I'll take the next one."

Skar chuckled. "Okay." And then set about cutting an entry through the metal. The lightsaber was inserted easily, instantly melting the metal, sending sparks flying around his fingers as he moved the hilt down and around in a wide circle. Using the Force he removed the metallic plug and set it down gingerly next to the gab.

Tracker was first to go through, checking the space beyond before giving them the clear signal. Kast stepped through, his light-equipped rifle casting a cone-shaped beam of light around his surroundings. One by one they all moved through, and found themselves in a chamber only halfway through construction. Two out of four walls were missing, no ceiling except for a deadly looking group of frozen staglamites.

Beyond the chamber's floor and walls, a wider and taller untouched cave passage continued for miles, a frozen lake running down the center of it. But there was light, brighter projectors every twenty yards in floor, wall and ceiling. Skar almost found the sight of the passage way beautiful, the lights glistening off the frozen lake and croppings of staglacites looked like stars buried in the snow.

But that wasn't the thing that caught his breath; it was the hydro generator pounding away in the small room before the passage way. The generator itself resembled a giant robotic heart hung up on thick wires, suspended in the center of the air, while more wires descended through a well in the floor beneath it.

"It's the auxillary generator," Salvor said with a hint of glee in his voice. "I don't believe it."

Skar nodded. "You're right. The main power generator unit is down the well, probably gathering power from a lake running deep within the lower levels of these caves. And its online as well."

Kast whistled, but it came off more skeptical than happy. "This is a bit too lucky, don't you think?"

Skar walked over and bent down by the well, looking down the shaft. He couldn't see the bottom of it, but he could hear waves crashing and more electronic soundscapes. "There's no such thing as luck, Kast."

Kast made a mocking face behind the Jedi's back.

Call stepped away from the generator and stared down the vast cave passage that awaited them. "They have to know we'd find it. And if this is their only supply of power you can bet they're on their way here."

Stix nodded. "He's right. We should - "

Salvor turned to Stix, his voice sounded frustrated but direct. "We are not blowing it up, Stix."

Stix's jaw fell. "WHAT!"

"Not yet," Skar added, "we can use it as a bargaining chip. We should set remote charges and head on. If we blow it now, they'll reroute the power within hours. The hours blowing up this generator gives us, could win the battle here once the Republic shows up."

Salvor nodded. "Exactly."

Stix's mouth was still wide open, but eventually he frowned and pulled out explosives. "Fine! But I place the charges!"

Kast padded Stix on the shoulder. "And when the time comes, you'll trigger them too."

Stix prepped his devices and planted them. "Won't be much fun if we're too far away to hear it, though."

Call turned away from the cave ahead of them and faced his comrades. "We're wasting time here."

Salvor nodded. "Finish setting your toys, Stix, and let's move out."

Stix completed his demolition job in record time, Skar thought as he stood by the edge of the chamber's floor, looking down into the mesmerizing cave beyond them, when the soldier returned. Skar was also surprised to see the man was still carrying the two explosive packs that he was supposed to plant.

"Someone beat me to it," Stix said, a disgruntled look on his face as he put the explosives back in his satchel. "The section that I'd chosen as the best place to plant them was taken. Five charges bigger than these were already planted, and armed."

Salvor's eyes widened. "By who?"

"Beats me," Stix said, "why would they blow up their own generator?"

Skar believed he knew the answer to that. "Because of us. We found this place because we deemed it to be the easiest place to penetrate. They knew that. So they set up bombs in case we proved their point."

Kast wasn't convinced. "But why would they detonate their own emergency generator? They could have set up more teams if they believed we would come through here. They didn't have to waste explosives on us." Kast frowned. "And if the bombs were intended for us, why haven't they been blown yet?"

Skar felt uneasy now that Kast pointed out they could be blown sky high any second. "Good point. Let's get out of here."

The cave beyond the small chamber looked deserted, and it didn't seem to have been used for some time. The cave hadn't been excavated in the snow, it was made by nature, but someone had set in the light projectors as well as the groups of wires and cables that ran along the ceiling of the cave. Conduits for the power generated at the bottom of the shaft behind them.

Nodding once to Kast Skar started to walk on -

Only to find that he couldn't. He stood there, frozen as if by fear. He felt suddenly conscious of a tremor in the Force, like a wave of warning passing through him, just like the one only minutes earlier. But this was much worse, a feeling of death. The space ahead of them felt vacated, almost like a tomb. A hollow emptiness resonating through the Force.

"We're...close," he muttered.

Kast looked over at Skar. "What makes you say that?"

"Because something's not right."

Kast's hands tightened on the rifle. "What's wrong?"

Skar tried putting it into words, although nothing could describe the horrible emptiness inside of him. "I can feel the station ahead. This place…it feels cold, dead."

Kast didn't look like he understood.

"Something…evil was here. A long time ago."

Kast chucked queasily. "Don't tell me you believe in ghosts?" he joked.

Skar shook his head. "Ghosts are myths."

Kast agreed. "And myths aren't necessarily true."

"And yet they happen all the time," Skar added. He had never felt such a concentration of the Dark Side in one place, not even in the tomb on Kryuu where Skind Kjoil's ghost had been imprisoned. Something so dark in the Force that it felt like headlights bearing down on him, blinding him, an impact soon to come.

He chose to pull away from the Force, feeling that the amount of impression he got from it was overpowering him. He wouldn't be able to focus on the mission if he concentrated on that surge of evil.

Then it all became clear. He wasn't focusing on the darkness.

The darkness was focusing on him.

I am you...

"No," he whispered to himself.

Next to him Kast looked scared out of his mind, eager for clarification. "What? What is it?"

Skar's lightsaber lit up, illuminating the cave in bright green. "The Darkness...I think its still here."

Then it came again, unasked, like a talent you were born with but never really understood.

A warning.

"Get down!" Skar pushed Kast away from the center of the chamber, as a salvo of blue blaster bolts came flying over the heads of the other soldiers and the pilot, from further down the tunnel.

---

Kayupa entered the control room, finding Derrik Melar already there, released from his cell and back on duty as Kayupa's new supervisor. Kayupa paid no attention to the man as he went for the nearest console to investigate the situation. He could feel Junn's pain, feel her shame and knew that meant the Jedi would already be at the emergency generator by now. Neglecting Junn for the moment he concentrated on getting rid of their intruders first.

Kayupa checked through all the cameras in that area, and finally found one overlooking the tunnel where the advance team he'd sent was busy holding back the Jedi and team inside the tunnel.

He pulled out his own comlink. "Rancor Group, come in."

The reply came through quick enough but it was hard to make out due to the static and the loud background of gunfire. "Rancor Two…intruders…pinned down…"

Kayupa nodded confidently. "Do you anticipate success?" Kayupa wanted to know the mentality of his soldiers. If they didn't think they could win the battle, there was no reason for them to waste their lives trying.

"Phase 3 ready?" the soldier asked.

Kayupa turned to Derrik. "How far along are we?"

Derrik looked anything but optimistic. "We're having problems with the routing, we're not ready yet. It could take hours."

Kayupa sighed. "Negative on Phase 3, Rancor Two." Phase 3 was designed to destroy the auxiliary hydro generator using shape charges. Kayupa had always intended to remove that part of the structure because it presented a possible entry point for the enemy. The main compound was well fortified, even from an attack from orbit.

Phase 3 also included setting up a second power supply inside the main compound to replace the power coming from the emergency generator. As it was they were running on the power of the secondary hydro generator because of a problem with the main generator.

But if they could trigger the charges now it would take out the lights in the tunnel, and it would remove the weak point in their armor. But blowing it now would leave them without power and vulnerable to an attack from the outside, like Junn had previously suggested.

Kayupa turned to Derrik. "What about that fusion generator down below in the cloning facility?"

"It might work," Derrik said, "but it will take some time to reroute."

"Do it," Kayupa ordered.

"That will interfere with Phase 4," Derrik commented.

"No," Kayupa answered, "that Jedi will interfere with Phase 4 if we don't stop him soon."

Derrick set about his difficult task.

Kayupa turned his attention to the screen showing the firefight. He could barely make out his team's opposition. As if answering his internal wish the Jedi jumped out from the shadows of the tunnel, into the view of the camera.

A face.

Kayupa froze. He's here...

---

From far down the cave passage a group of enemy soldiers started pouring out of the darkness, their rifles screaming. Skar embraced the Force and grabbed onto the very fabric of time as he rolled forward into the tunnel. He moved in slow motion, his mind picking up hundreds of details of the tunnel and his armored assailants before he'd even cleared the roll. He came up with his lightsaber, protecting himself against a wide fan of fire, as he dove back and forth, also protecting the soldiers from the onslaught of blaster bolts. His team were quick thinkers; they kicked up the metallic plates covering the floor of the chamber behind him and used them as shields, since the tunnel offered them no natural shelter.

Seconds were stretched out into infinity, aided by the Force Skar became a wall of protection that ran to meet the enemy head on. The lightsaber swirled endlessly in his hands as he ran on down the length of the tunnel, ducking in and out what little cover he could find. To the enemy he moved like lightning but for him he had oceans of time to contemplate every move, every target and every tactic.

A soldier was apprchasing him from the other end of the tunnel, hiding behind their own shields as well, as they blasted away. The icy columns deteriorated under the blaster fire and filled the passage with the sound of thunderous lightning.

Skar came up to another column of ice, stopped there and waited for an enemy soldier to come around the corner. But another soldier was already there. Hiding behind the exact same column as Skar, so close to each other that they could have touched each other.

They both jumped out at the same time, facing each other. Skar could see the man's knees bending in slow motion, to duck beneath Skar's blade, and he copied the move. Down on his knees he lashed his blade out in a wide fan, slicing through the soldier's kneecaps, and cutting the column they'd used as cover in half as well.

The other soldier came up behind his fallen comrade and Skar needed only to raise his slightly to tear the man apart with it's blade, cutting up through the center of his body.

Skar ducked back behind his halfened column, he could feel plenty more soldiers up ahead. He needed rest before he went on. Using the Force as strongly as he had to increase his speed demanded a lot of his concentration.

Kast came running up behind him and ducked down behind a column across from Skar, ready for action. Skar came out from behind the bulkhead, fired a swarm of angry red bolts from his sidearm at the soldiers, and ducked back behind it for cover when they fired back.

Across from him Kast was repeating Skar's moves, except he did it with the carbine, shooting ten times the amount that Skar was and in half the time. Bolts crisscrossed down the narrow tunnel. Skar ducked out again, the recoil pounding through his wrist and upper arm as he added to the already out-of-control situation.

Kast followed again as Skar moved behind the safety of the column, laying down a suppressive fire to keep the attackers at bay. The soldiers retaliated with their own tactics, trying to flush Kast and Skar out.

Tracker had remained further back, assessing the situation and offering help whenever it calculated a tactic that was above ninety percent survivable. It also offered a remote camera which transmitted an image of the tunnel ahead to the soldiers' HUDs, making them able to see the enemy without having to stick their neck out in the line of fire.

Skar jumped out again, fired rapidly, depressing the trigger as fast as he could, dozens of fiery red beams darting down the tunnel, but even with his Jedi senses he was unable to collect a hit or even graze any of their attackers. Kast had the same amount of success, only he didn't look as disparaged as Skar. But Skar knew he had to have been thinking the same thing.

Stalemate.

Kast slumped back behind the column, already reaching for a new charge. "Any thoughts!" he shouted over the roaring blaster-fire.

Skar fired two bolts around the corner, not expecting to hit anything, only wanting to keep their attackers at bay while Kast rearmed himself. "Surrounding them is out."

Kast laughed and cocked his rifle, returning to wasting his bolts at their adversaries. "How about some of that Jedi stuff? Ain't you got something up your sleeve?"

Skar reached out to the Force, touching the minds of the enemies down the tunnel and felt like he hit a brick wall. Their minds were too strong. Manipulation only worked on the weak-minded and these were not. It felt almost as if they'd been trained to be able to withstand the intrusion of the Force, which left Skar with only one option.

Skar was well adverse in deflecting bolts but with the drain he felt after using the Force to quicken his advance, he doubted he could deflect enough bolts to keep him alive. Skar looked up and saw the heavy cables running along the ceiling of the roof between the light fixtures. He looked over at Kast who looked back at him with a cocky smile.

Bedtime.

---

Inside the control room the screens, computers and the ceiling lights tunnel went black as night.

"What happened?" Derrik cried in the darkness, scuffling around somewhere, bumping into things. "I'm blind!"

"No, you fool," Kayupa barked through the darkness, "they blew up the hydro generator. We've lost all electricity." The room lit up in a reddish glare as Kayupa activated his lightsaber. Using it a torch, he then found his comlink. "How far along are we on the fusion generator?"

A voice crackled at the other end. "An hour, General."

Kayupa switched the frequency. "Rancor team, what's going on down there?"

The response was alive with screaming blaster-fire and the distant familiar hum of a lightsaber. "….pinned down…no chance of escape…"

Kayupa smiled confidently at Derrik. "Sounds like things are under control - "

"No, General!" Rancor Two screamed, "we're pinned down!"

---

"Wait here," Skar said to Kast as he marched out directly into the line of fire, his lightsaber deflecting and blocking each bolt coming his way with effortless care. He started walking down the tunnel, closing the gap between him and the attackers with each step.

His hands moved like lightning, by their own will, controlled by the Force as he strolled down the tunnel. The bolts bounced off his blade, ricocheting into the walls, lighting the tunnel with bright flashes, supplementing the blade's green glow.

He felt more confident about his ability to block their shots now. It reminded him of how he'd once challenged the blocked mind of a monk on Kryuu, helping him break through his focus by snapping his weapon in half.

Cutting the light had done the same for him here. The attackers started backing up, their rifles still blasting at him when he was close enough for them to see his sickly calm face as he maneuvered between the shots.

When he deemed he was close enough, he began bouncing the shots backwards rather than into the walls. Several soldiers shouted in pain and fear as their weapons exploded in their hands. Skar moved in, never a moment's hesitation, his blade cutting through the thigh on the closest man, pulled his hands up high, cleaving the man in half.

Two quick slashes turned a second soldier into three pieces of indeterminable meat, before rolling forward, hacking off the hands of a third soldier, as the man went for his shin-blaster. Skar pulled the blade back, slashed right-to-left, slicing the man's head in two just below his ears.

Caught in the confusion and their own fear, Skar made quick work of the rest of the enemy, cutting them all down in seconds. The tunnel quieted down, only the hissing sound of his blade breaking through the tranquillity.

Skar's hands were still shaking, the hilt wrapped inside his palms, when Kast came up beside him. Skar knew he'd had no choice. He'd always objecting to the dogma that the only way to defeat an enemy was to kill. He despised killing, it was the very center and pinnacle of all that was evil to him, and yet he had come to realize that a lot of times, in a lot of ways, it was the only real choice he had.

And even now, as he felt their lives silently and slowly leave the dead bodies, he could feel a touch of sorrow that wasn't his, like a breath of fire inside him.

His team came up behind him. Kast knelt down by one of the dead guards, studying their equipment. What stood out most was their black as night armor, their bodies fully protected in what felt almost like a mixture between rubber and steel.

Kast sighed. "These aren't mercenaries. These must be what you saw on Coruscant, huh?"

Skar nodded. Indeed these were the soldiers he'd seen on the holo-transmission. The real Sons of Destiny.

Salvor whistled. "This is very advanced. I've never seen anything like this before. I doubt anyone in our Galaxy has either."

Skar crouched down beside him, agreeing more and more with his statement the longer he looked at the armor. The armor looked alien, and Skar felt that even Kast had no idea of what culture or weapons-manufacturer could have developed it. Skar had also seen Kast score a pair of shots directly on the armor, but the guy had still gotten up afterwards and fought on.

It seemed their bolt-proof combat gear was made out of dura-armor, a type of protection suit that absorbed and diverted blaster-fire into operating its onboard systems. Their suits had the same equipment as his and Kast's helmet, which not only boosted the wearer's chances but also his senses.

But Kast only had the helmet, these guys they were up against were wearing full battle garment, giving them superhuman abilities, such as running faster, leaping higher, able to withstand the pressure of combat longer as well as being able to function longer through the suit's inner monitoring systems.

The exoskeleton could no doubt detect an injury or a wound anywhere on the body of the soldier, and then distribute the needed treatment. The suit itself was alive, acting as a protective outer skin to the wearer. Skar had read articles on this kind of armor in the past, knowing that the materials inside the suit that made it so efficient were minuscule, so small the human eye couldn't even see it without a lens, which meant the suit weighted almost nothing.

Skar sighed. "I think you're right. These guys must've brought it from wherever they came from."

Kast couldn't take his eyes away from the suit, feeling slightly jealous he didn't have the same kind of edge to a combat that they'd had. Skar realized that if he hadn't had his lightsaber they wouldn't have walked away from this firefight.

"Too bad you broke them," Kast said lightly, "I wouldn't have minded trading."

Skar contemplated the idea of stealing an enemy's uniform and using that disguise to move through the plant. But the sensation of anguish he'd felt earlier, that wave of sorrow, told him that these soldiers were connected more than just brothers in arms. They were…close, almost family.

The Empire's stormtroopers had been mindless drones, eager to obey any order. But these - they were individuals, which was why they'd been able to withstand his manipulation. Without a doubt they even knew each other's names, and that meant a disguise wouldn't get them very far.

They would be recognized on the spot. It also meant Skar wouldn't be able to hide from one of these guys using the Force.

Kast padded him on the shoulder. "You alright?"

Skar powered down his lightsaber, his hands still shaking, his entire being trembling. Skar felt another surge of anguish. "No." He forced himself to look at Kast. "I feel…pain. Sorrow."

Skar felt a there-was-nothing-you-could-have-done coming, but thought that Kast was too smart for that. Like himself, Kast would see that even though the lightsaber was the only weapon that could have gotten them out of there as fast as they needed, it shouldn't have been like this. Skar had allowed his rage to get the best of him -

What rage?

Skar thought back on when he'd decided to use the lightsaber, he hadn't felt any anger, only resolve. He'd felt no hint of the Dark Side or even second-guessed himself. It had come on its own, it was murder without hate. It was slaughter, not for anger, but because it had come naturally. Skar swallowed the sour taste in his mouth. This had come naturally, without thinking.

"I've never felt sorrow for my enemies, ever," Kast said.

"I didn't say it was my sorrow," Skar muttered and closed his eyes. He found that feeling of sorrow, wrapped his hand around it and traced its source through the Force. Somewhere someone was watching. Somewhere someone was judging and tracking. He could feel the presence of that person, and almost like a two-way link, he could faintly see the person reaching back inside him, staring back at him.

---

With a trail of footprints in the snow, as well as drops of blood beside them, Junn made it to the lift at the bottom of the closest structure in the main compound. Gasping in pain, and tears turned to ice on her cheeks, she depressed the switch for the lift with her left hand.

Which was now her only hand.

The blast that had destroyed her rifle had been too quick for her to evade, leaving her with her right hand blown off, ending at her wrist in a bloodied and mangled piece of flesh and bone. She cursed herself, she'd been too cocky, too sure of herself. That's the only reason the Jedi had managed to outdo her. It had to be the only reason. Still she found it remotely comforting that the Jedi hadn't been able to detect her before she'd gotten a round off.

The lift doors opened and she pulled herself inside, closing the doors behind her and pressed the switch that would take her back inside the main building. She slid down the wall of the lift as it rose up towards the base. Junn gathered enough courage to look at her wound, taking two deep breaths before doing so. The hand was completely gone, all that remained was a bone sticking unnaturally amongst the black burnt flesh that had once been her wrist. Junn could still feel the hand, she felt like it was still there. She knew it was just a phantom pain, but she wanted more than anything to prove herself wrong.

It was the worst injury she'd ever endured. She'd been shot, stabbed, burnt, even electrified, but she'd never lost a limb before. She would have accepted her loss easier if she'd at least killed the Jedi. Junn banged the back of her head against the wall in frustration. She didn't want to accept defeat, she couldn't, she was trained not to ever know what defeat was. How was she supposed to fight now? She could get a prosthetic limb, but it wouldn't be the same. She would have to grow accustomed to it and that could take weeks. Who was going to lead the army now?

She didn't know what she was going to say to her General. She'd failed him for the first time. And the pain of knowing she'd done so was far greater than the pain of her wound. Junn gathered her legs beneath her, sunk her head in between her knees.

The tears flowed almost immediately. And she cried so hard her chest began to hurt, her wailing drowning out the heavy mechanics of the lift as it ascended up into the main building.

---

Still waiting for an update from the Rancor team, and sick of watching all of his technicians working faster than they were before to restore the power, Kayupa paced the floor. Without warning Kayupa's legs suddenly vibrated beneath him and he had to support himself against the wall to remain standing. A dark spear had penetrated his heart and he could feel the loss of an ally somewhere in the facility. Kayupa gasped and thought he was going to vomit.

A quick touch of the Force cleared the clouds from his inner eye and allowed him to inspect where that horrible feeling was coming from.

He looked over at Derrik. "We've lost the Rancor Team."

He saw the way his shoulders sank, the way his face turned pale with fear. "All of them?"

He nodded, the heavy weight of his heart almost pulling him to the floor. "All of them."

"Was it - "

"That man," Kayupa answered his unfinished question, and slowly but surely he felt the anger that originated from that hollow place where he'd felt his men die. The Jedi was becoming a problem. Play time was over.

He pulled the comlink to his mouth and clicked over to a different frequency. "Sonnet...bring them in."

---

They were at their destination, a passageway into the station behind thick sealed doors, when they heard it. At first, it was merely a whisper. A low stalking voice far away, resonating softly off the walls of the tunnel. But it grew. That soft whisper rose into vocalization, a haunting rising and dropping frantic voice. It sounded like grazy muttering, words without sense or meaning, changing instantly between shouting and yelling.

The symphony carved itself way through the confidence of the soldiers, driving its tip straight through their hearts, filling them with fear.

"What the - ?"

And then a light, at the far back of the tunnel from where they'd come. A red light miles away, but still visible due to the tunnel's linear structure. It grew in sync with the voice, closing the distance slowly, but far quicker than any of them preferred.

The light and sound apart, Skar also felt an approaching in his mind. That evil he'd sensed earlier, its beating grew in his mind, encompassing slowly his every sense. That haunting song, the vibrating light and the thick shroud of darkness over his mind's eye...Skar was not easily startled, but even he admitted to feeling afraid.

The soldiers fell into position, raising their shaking rifles at the growing light. Their helmets internal systems worked to give them a better view or even an idenfication of that enemy closing in on them, but none of their systems detected anything.

Skar stood behind their line, lightsaber in his trembling palm, while the pilot cowered behind him.

The light was no where than a mile away when it stopped, freezing in place and flaring bright red. But the voice continued to grow and grow in their ears, falling into yelling and growling.

Skar's fingers tightened on the handle, and he contemplated ordering the soldiers to just open fire upon it. Whoever was doing this, whatever it was, was clearly trying to scare them, weakening them at the same time. Letting them fire at the light would give them some inner sense of control, of fighting back, of stopping that menaching voice.

But before he could give the order, the voice went into full screaming, the roaring sound thundering off the walls of the tunnel, clawing at their ears. The Dragon's Tooth screamed in return, trying to drown out the pain filling their heads.

And that's when it struck.

Not from the mile away that the light has stopped, but to the wall on their right side. In the darkness a swift shadow stepped directly out of the wall, grabbing Call's throat with one hand, pulling the small soldier off the floor.

Skar's lightsaber came to life, the green light filling every inch of the tunnel, except the shadow. The being seemed to be a dark hole onto itself, swallowing every light while remaining as black as night itself.

Skar engaged, but the shadow flung Call's body at him, smashing them both against the wall.

Salvor opened fire, crying out in terror, the bolts striking the shadow dead center at close range, but every bolt seemed to simply vanish itself its darkness, swallowed by its darkness. Before he could understand it, the shadow flung the rifle from his hands with the back of its right hand, sending the rifle flying down the tunnel. Salvor screamed at the top of his voice, up until the shadow jumped onto him, shrouding them both inside its immense cloak. For a second Salvor was there, and the next, when the shadow had moved its cloak over him and emerged beyond him, he was gone, swallowed inside its darkness.

Being closest, Kast was next in line. The shadow dove in at him, but Kast rolled to his side. Stix roared like a wild beast as the shadow moved straight on towards him. The shadow grapped him by the throat and pushed him up against the wall. Kast came around on his knee, rifle ready.

But only in time to see the shadow hug Stix and the wall tight, devourering the big soldier in its blackness and then melting with the wall, fading from sight.

Gone.

Unable to understand the things happening around him, Kast turned around, finding the Jedi, Call and the pilot all still there. Kast could feel his heart beating against his chest, ready to jump from its perch. "What was that!"

The Jedi was about to talk, when the shadow came back out of the wall behind them, snatching up the pilot and fading back inside the opposite wall. Call and Kast opened fire, raining hell upon the walls around them.

Skar held up his blade, ready to protect himself. He had no idea of what kind of enemy they were up against, he'd never seen anyone wield such power, not even from a Jedi. As far as he knew there was no way a Jedi could teleport from one space to another, let alone carry another soul along with it.

The tunnel was filled with the pounding firing of rifles, their muzzles creating lights flickering at an insane speed. Skar reached out to the Force, letting its energy fill him and then spread his awareness out in circles arond him. All he had to go on was the closeness of this darkness, but no detailed estimation of where it was. He only then began to ponder that if it was a being outside of the Force, if such a thing existed, it would be able to be sensed by the Force if it was not a part of it. But if it was indeed the same darkness that he felt around him, it had to be a part of it.

His thoughts were interrupted as the shadow emerged again, this time coming up through the floor. Its own inhuman cry mixed with that of a screaming Call as it continued to fly upwards, fading into the ceiling above them, taking Call with it.

Kast's rifle sent a hailstorm of bolts at the ceiling above him, but hit nothing. Skar closed in, next to Kast, pushing their backs together.

Kast changed the charge in his rifle. "How do we defeat it!"

Unseen to Kast, the shadow emerged through the floor a few feet ahead of Skar, this time manifesting slowly. A dark shape of a man forming itself from the floor itself until it stood face to face with Skar.

Skar swallowed hard and reached out with the Force to Kast. "We don't." He sent Kast into forced sleep, hoping maybe that small action would save the soldier. Kast slumped down onto the floor, instantly out cold.

Skar focused his attention back on the shadow, raising his lightsaber above his head. "Who are you!" he screamed.

The shadow's head slowly began to take shape, edges and corners forming a face. The head took on the pale color of skin untouched by light in a hundred years. Eyes bulged out of the skin, cold dead white eyes staring back at him. The black around the face morphed into a hood that slowly fell upon newly born shoulders, revealing long black hair. Out of its cloak's sleeves came two perfect hands that soon crossed over its chest.

Far down the tunnel behind it, the red light still flared, casting a red sheen around the edges of the shadow man. When he spoke, his purple lips stayed frozen. His words went straight to Skar's mind. I am Sonnet...I am you.

Skar remembered that voice, from his vision onboard the Civilian. "You...you were in my vision?"

The red light behind Sonnet grew as it sped down the tunnel towards them, landing neatly in the shadow man's right hand, in the form of a red bladed lightsaber.

Skar's hands tightened on his own lightsaber. "You're not a Jedi!" he yelled, trying to fight his way out of the nightmare.

Sonnet's lips cracked open to smile. No...I am not. I am beyond.

Skar could feel the Force surging through, wanting to attack, but feeling it was pointless. And Sonnet just stood there.

"What now?"

Sonnet nodded. We wait.

Skar frowned. "For wha - ?"

A faint hum broke through the tunnel and soon enough the sealed doors behind Skar were sliced open down the middle like a tin can. The doors remained closed with a smoking melted gash between them. But then the doors began to move, creaking along the floor as they were pulled apart by some powerful force, opening fully to reveal a man wearning a worn coat. The doors slammed shut again with a loud boom behind him.

Due to the poor lighting in the tunnel, a single light fixture above the doors, Skar could only see the man's lips along with the beard that grew around them. And he couldn't help think it looked all too familiar. And when he spoke, Skar's heart was tossed up against the wall in agonizing terror.

"Its been awhile, hasn't it?" Kayupa mused. Kayupa's face was still hidden in the shadows, but his voice carried down the tunnel clearly. "It was you," he stated, "that destructive presence I felt." Kayupa took a single step forward, revealing his stern face.

Skar didn't want to believe it. He looked exactly what Kayupa would look like if he was twenty years older. But it was still an older Kayupa, and not the one he'd spoken to in his vision. Why there was a difference he still couldn't understand. He reached out to the Force once again for strength, for guidance.

"Welcome," it sounded nothing like a welcome, "brother."

Skar couldn't tell if his own heart was still beating, he was too paralyzed to feel anything but fear. "You're…really alive."

Kayupa's shoulders rose as he chuckled. "Surprised?"

Skar felt the nervous sweat spreading across his skin. "But…she - "

"Failed," Kayupa said strongly. "Her love to you might have been great, but it was no match for me." Kayupa nodded to Sonnet behind Skar, and the shadow stepped back. "You are strongly fated today, brother. You see, you are destined to die."

Skar turned his lightsaber around to protect himself against Kayupa.

The doors behind Kayupa wheeled open again, this time letting a tall slender woman walk through, stepping down small steps to stand aside Kayupa, both of them glaring upon him with scrutiny and blinding hate. Skar could feel the woman's hate for him in the Force, only doubled by Kayupa's roaring confidence and power. His darkness almost overshadowing hers, his being clouding her sensation in the Force, but he could still feel touches of it.

Touches of good inside the woman. The woman turned her hood at Kayupa, smiling all too much for his taste. There was love in that look. Skar felt his knees begin to shake. Kayupa put his arm around her waist and Skar saw the way she folded into his arms, like she was used to them, like she belonged in his arms. Who was she?

"What's going on?"

The woman turned her face to look at him. Kayupa was almost beaming with excitement as he closed his eyes. Skar felt Kayupa closing himself off from the Force, allowing the woman's sensation to shine through in its fullest. And although Skar had never felt that touch before it was familiar. The look on the woman's face, a hint of a smile, as she pulled back her hood, made Skar's knees buckle.

Skar took a step back, baffled. "No, you - "

Her once brown hair had silver running through it and the eyes were the same as they had been years ago in the last hologram he'd seen of her. He couldn't believe she was here. He'd presumed her dead many years ago. Forgetting all about Kayupa, joy set in and soon a set of tears ran down his cheeks, Skar couldn't control his joy. He wanted to run to her and hold her in his arms, hug her like he'd wanted to all these years.

As he'd never had the chance to do. "Sasa?" he said carefully. "Mother?"

She nodded slowly, that smile on her face that he'd recognized so long ago. Although he wanted to embrace her more than anything, Skar started to walk backwards.

Kayupa laughed. "Isn't this touching? Its almost a family reunion."

Hearing his voice shredded through Skar's joy and happiness, destroying that perfect dreamlike moment when he met his mother. Skar's lightsaber came up and he charged against Kayupa, not sure what he was going to do, but he knew he wanted Kayupa out of this moment. To leave him with his mother. He didn't understand why Kayupa was with his mother, or why the way they looked at each other made him sick inside, but he felt he could make it go away by cutting Kayupa down.

He never got far enough as Sasa held out her palm, pushing Skar back. Skar went down hard, sliding the few last feet across the floor, sliding towards Sonnet.

Kayupa laughed. "How's that for bonding?"

Skar pushed himself up, weak and weary from the attack. He lifted his lightsaber in a vain attempt to defend himself. It was then he first realized his mother had struck out at him. She was the one who'd pushed him back. Why, why would she do that? Had Kayupa manipulated her?

Skar turned his frenzied eyes to Kayupa. "What have you done!"

Kayupa only glared at him.

"What's going on!"

The man he'd once called his brother, crossed his arms over his chest. "It's simple really. I've spent the last thirteen years thinking of killing you."

Skar's eyes darted back and forth between the two, not understanding the events that unfolded around him, but knowing too well that something was very wrong with this picture. And Kayupa would die for the way he'd manipulated his mother.

"Thirteen years?" Skar sneered. "Must be a slow thinker, huh?"

Sasa frowned and moved her hand up -

Kayupa gently moved Sasa's hand down. "No, not yet." Kayupa looked beyond Skar. "Sonnet."

Skar got back up and surrendered himself to the Force, throwing himself at the oncoming Sonnet. His green blade came in with a wide left to right slash, intercepted by Sonnet's red blade. The blades clashed, sending sparks over them both, and remained there.

And then, with his free left hand, Sonnet reached out and grabbed hold of Skar's blade, locking it within his fingers. Skar's eyes widened, his fingers should have been burnt right off, but they remained intact, securing a grip on his blade that he couldn't fend off.

Skar looked up to see Sonnet's white featureless eyes staring at him, filling him with fear. Sonnet kept the blade locked with his left hand, now able to remove his own blade, swirling around on his heel, bringing his right hand and lightsaber around in a wide strike.

Skar saw the red blade come around, its light growing and building as it approached. The sound of its vibrant hum was the last thing he heard before it connected with his face. The world exploded in a searing hot pain, and a crimson light that stabbed into his eyes, filling him with fear before sucking him down into the darkness.