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...

5. The Need For Equilibrium

The sheer thrust of the blue blade was enough for the door to cave inwards, resonating a loud crack and boom down the streets and alleys around the old abandoned building. Rishi peeked inside carefully, his blade acting as a torch. He sent out a investigating wave with the Force, but came up empty. However he was still prompted to continue their search. "You sure you got the address right?" he asked over his shoulder.

Kal stood with his back to the doorway, his eyes searching the surrounding area. "Positive."

Rishi frowned. "The boy could have been lying - "

"I checked with the Force," Kal said calmly.

Rishi rolled his eyes. "Gee, I feel so much better knowing that." He didn't trust Kal to sense a Rancor in the Force before the thing had already eaten him and left him with the rest of the dung. Rishi silenced his blade. "Well, we shouldn't keep the guy waiting."

Kal glanced over his shoulder to look at Rishi quickly and then turned his eyes back to the streets. "I thought you didn't sense anything."

Rishi held out his hands. "I could be wrong."

"Your first time I bet," Kal said as he left his post and went first into the building.

Rishi followed the Jedi who moved with a confident swagger, like the building was really some place quite different in his reality and he felt he had to exude confidence to avoid being rumbled by unseen enemies. Rishi held up a protective bubble around him, moving it across the surfaces and rooms around him to check for activity. The building felt vacant, extremely so, and he began to wish he'd been the one to interrogate the Trandoshan kid, figuring the boy must've lied to the Jedi about this place. All he saw was dusty floors and the inside of a building that longed to die.

Rishi twisted his face behind the Jedi, mocking the man's confidence and air of cognition when the Jedi really had nothing to back it up with. Rishi had met powerful Jedi in the new Order, but this one must've have been at the back of the line when they handed out midiclorian counts. This was obviously a ploy from the Trandoshan.

"Hey, Kal; when the kid was giving you this information - "

Kal held up a finger. "Don't start."

"I'm just saying this place is - "

"Don't start!"

Rishi chuckled to himself. "Alright, fine."

Kal glanced over his shoulder. "If you weren't so cocky, you might actually be helpful."

Rishi shrugged. "Yeah, but what fun would that be?"

But then it came.

An underlying feeling of threat in the Force. Rishi was quick to ready his combat senses but he didn't allow any motion that would let the Jedi know he'd felt something. The Jedi still continued with his swagger through the halls and rooms of the building, apparently completely oblivious to the danger Rishi had sensed close by. The Jedi didn't feel it.

Why hadn't he felt it?

Rishi readied his lightsaber beneath the cloak, keeping his movements and sounds to a minimal, testing the Jedi to see when he would pick up on the threat himself. Rishi definitely felt a presence now, but it wasn't human. All it was in the Force was a background ambience, like the scraping of nails on a wall. But it boggled Rishi tremendously that the Jedi took so long to locate it. He reasoned that it must have been that the Kjoil had a stronger relation to the Force than a Jedi, but if that was the case the future of the Jedi looked very grim. By now Rishi was sure even a human would sense something -

Rishi's inner thoughts were cut short when the threat manifested itself. Three gleaming circular objects rolled into vision ahead of them. The wheel droids curled out, transforming into insectoid-like battle droids. Transparent shimmering shields expanded out around them, as their blaster arms began firing.

The building exploded into activity and motion with the fight that ensued. Rishi was quick to push Kal out of the way, the Jedi still removed from the danger in sheer shock, when Rishi jumped out with his hissing blade. The destroyer droids set the air on fire with deadly bolts as Rishi ran towards them, dodging the blasts, crisscrossing across the grounds as he advanced on them.

Only once did he put up his blade to block a blast, directing it back behind the droids to destroy a concrete pillar. The upper part of the pillar broke off and slammed down on the farthest droid, crushing it beneath the weight, the shield flicking away and the droid bursting into electrical sparks.

Growing more and more furious with the whole situation, Rishi began to think the Jedi must've been knocked out when he'd pushed him aside. The Jedi was still lying on the floor, trying to get up, leaving Rishi to fend off the two droidekas on his own. Rishi reached out his free hand and pulled the Jedi's lightsaber to him, lighting up the second blue blade and charged forth.

Rishi fended off the bolts coming at him easily, even sending most of them back at their shooter. With the return fire stricking their shields, the insectoid droideka started walking backwards on their spidery legs. But before getting anywhere, their shields began flickering beneath the onslaught of their own bolts, revealing a weakness.

Rishi jumped forth, closing the distance between him and the droids, he caught one droid with a blade across its right leg, halting its retreat. With the blue blades swirling around him Rishi sliced off both its blaster arms and left the hulking droid in several pieces before finishing it off with two reverted downward stabs into the face of the droid.

"Kal, get up here now!" Rishi shouted at the top of his frustration and disgust at the Jedi's inability to help.

Tossing the man his lightsaber, Rishi watched as the Jedi came alive with unequaled fury. The man attacked the remaining droid with such swift and forceful moves that Rishi could feel the man's anger and his hatred through the Force. He wondered if the man's anger was a result of embarrasment in himself. Rishi hoped it was. He hoped the man felt embarrassed, he should. Rishi didn't have time to baby-sit. And being a team meant one person didn't do all the work.

The Jedi screamed in anger as he slammed his blue blade down upon the last helpless droid, letting his anger flow freely and uncontrolled as he acted out his shame upon the mechanical assassin. The droid sputtered and crashed down into pieces, letting out one last mechanical moan before dying completely.

The danger faded, Rishi noted in the back of his mind the antiquity of these droids. He had never seen this kind before, but just the design and weapons spoke of a previous generation of droid technology. Strange.

However, he was quickly preoccupied with another matter. A huge warning sign was blaring inside Rishi's head as he looked over at the panting Kal.

Jedi and anger don't mix.

"Cool it down, alright?" Rishi urged.

Kal still stood over the droid carcasses, his lightsaber humming, lending its own air of tension to the situation. "Back off!"

Rishi killed his own blade. "Were you skipping classes the day they talked about the Dark Side at the Academy?"

Kal glared at Rishi, his lightsaber still alive, a fact that bothered Rishi. "I told you; back off!"

"I'm trying to help you - "

"No!" the Jedi retorted angrily, "you're making fun of me. Just like you've done ever since we met! You think you're so superior."

Rishi snorted. "That's because you're a joke." The moment he'd said it he wished he hadn't, thinking of a way to take the harshness out of his statement again. "I mean…you're not really a Knight, are you?"

The Jedi Knight didn't answer, he just looked away, hissing through his teeth in fatigue. Kal's silence spoke volumes.

"You're…an apprentice, am I right?

Finally the blue blade was extenquished. "An apprentice…my Master died not so long ago."

"What happened?"

Kal knelt down next to the droid corpse, mournfully staring at the object of his anger. "Its a long story. I told Master Skywalker that I wouldn't train with another Master. You know what its like. The one who trains you is more than just your tutor. He's your ally, your friend. The person you trust above anyone else."

Rishi folded his cloak around him. "You felt you would betray him if you finished your training under a different teacher."

"Right," Kal said, "Master Skywalker accepted my decision, but warned me there might be consequences and that it was important that I faced up to my Master's death. That I didn't allow myself to grow too involved in my sorrow."

Rishi sniffled. "But you have."

"Not by choice," Kal fought back, "when I fight, its just more familiar for me to tap into my darker side."

Rishi nodded. "I've noticed your abilities aren't that evolved. It would do you better to finish your training. Don't let your Master's death hold you back, if you stay wrapped up this way you'll end up getting yourself killed because you wanted to honor a dead man. I doubt he'd feel honored that way."

Kal cringed. "You think you know everything, don't you? You think its that easy? Don't lecture me about what I gotta do, I took care of myself just fine before I met you."

Rishi held out his hand towards the scored armor of the battle droids. "But you would have been killed sooner or later if you couldn't sense something like this coming your way. You were too shocked out of your mind to protect yourself. I had to push you away."

Kal stood up. "You sensed they were coming?" Kal's hands balled up into fists. "And you didn't tell me?"

Rishi felt like the rear of a gundark. "I was testing you. To see how far your skills really went. When we were fighting back at the alley - "

"Weren't you the one who preached about trust!"

Rishi opened his mouth -

"You think you're the greatest Jedi there is, don't you? You're so bleeding arrogant that you think you can jeopardize other people's lives just to satisfy your own curiosity! Even back at the alley, you were willing to kill all those people. For what? So you could prove to me how good you were!"

Rishi felt his own anger begin to simmer. "I would have gotten away just fine."

"Yeah," Kal grinned, "sure you would. But you'd have to call for someone to carry all the body-bags!"

"I'm not like you, Kal."

The Jedi snorted. "That's one thing you're right about. I know killing when it can be avoided is wrong. That's what they teach Jedi. Are Kjoil really that different? They don't believe lives are worth something?"

Rishi stepped forward. "Don't talk about something you know nothing about."

Kal didn't stop. "The Emperor managed to wipe out almost all of the Jedi. And you know who helped him? People like you; the Kjoil."

"You're wrong," Rishi defended himself.

"That's what the history books say," Kal went on, "and now I see for myself. You are definitely capable of it."

Rishi couldn't deny what had happened in the past, but it had nothing to do with the present. "I'm not going to go through this exercise with you, Kal. The Jedi past isn't exactly squeaky clean either."

Rishi turned away from the man, hoping that would end the conversation. He was getting pretty annoyed with the Jedi as it was. But in a way he found himself in Master Skar's place when he'd denied Rishi to go to Regana. He now understood what it was like to be dependant and watchful of someone who wasn't ready for what they were getting into. Kal was like that too.

Rishi pointed at where the droidekas had originated. "Let's go; this way."

Their path lead them up several flights of stairs. Neither of them spoke to each other as they searched out the person who'd sent the droidekas after them. Kal walked behind Rishi this time, Rishi blamed that on the Jedi not wanting to be in front if another attack should come. And Rishi could also feel how the Jedi was exaggerating his use of the Force, the guy was almost suffocating Rishi's touch with it, drawing too much of it in. Rishi contemplated lecturing the man on the overkill but thought better of it.

The faster he found Dokyan and interrogated him, the faster they could get out of there and Rishi could get rid of the Jedi. But not without leaving him enough advice and preaching to fill a space cruiser.

Rishi noticed motion sensors on the walls, even some on the floor but he walked through them nonetheless. It was no secret they were here anymore. And motion sensors only meant they were getting closer. It would give them nothing to destroy them. And each time he stepped through a beam he could feel someone nearby reacting to that sensor going off; the motion detectors moved both ways.

Their search led them to a power-recharge unit. There were also three spots on the floor which wasn't covered with dust and what looked like tracks leading out the room. Rishi figured it was here the droidekas had been stationed before someone had sent them hunting. Rishi touched the unit and it was warm under his touch, but not from use, it was alive in the Force.

Dokyan had been here.

"Let's split up," Rishi suggested, "we'll be able to cover more ground. Go back to the stairwell and check the next floor."

Kal glared at him defiantly. "Do you trust me to do that?"

Rishi repressed his anger. "I trust you to want to find this guy too and stay alive. That's enough for now."

Kal took off back the way they'd came.

Rishi used the psychometry talent to lock down a sense of the Bothan's feelings, thoughts and brainwaves through the feeling he'd gotten from the recharge unit. After that it was a walk in the park. He traveled through the building, following the Bothan's scent like a tracker. The Bothan mind was filled with fear and despair which made it stand out in the building like a rancor at an Ewok tribe party.

Rishi used the Force, and the Bothan's tracks appeared like a red line on the floor. Rishi simply followed the line through several levels, through doorways and through many rooms. Rishi blocked out all other distractions and focused on the hunt. He found himself in a room that looked like it had once been a dinning room. The red scent worked its way into the kitchen. Rishi found a fury of old food ration packaging crumpled on the floor. The Bothan had eaten here earlier. Rishi lifted up the crumpled paper, in his mind all covered in red, and reached out to the Force.

The scent became stronger and Rishi followed it out of the dinning room and down the hall. The whole building began to grow a ghostlike sensation to it.

The red scent continued into a large two level chamber with many gangways working across the room. A huge generator was pounding on the lower level, resembling almost a huge beating heart, next to a pair of desk littered with datapads and what looked like very powerful computer consoles.

The generator was glowing bright red and Rishi could feel heat coming off it. He couldn't imagine what purpose the generator had other than powering the consoles, but it seemed a bit much. A maze of huge snake-like cables were running across the floor. Rishi ignored the loud machinery and clatter as he began to feel the presence of the Bothan closing in.

Rishi strolled onto a gangway, feeling the entire room inside the Force. The Bothan was in here somewhere, he was sure of that now. And the Bothan knew he was here too. Rishi began transmitting waves of peace and safety, hoping to snare the Bothan in a trap of benevolence.

Rishi stopped where he was as he felt a warning in the Force.

Something's coming towards me! Something's -

The comlink on his belt vibrated.

Sighing and feeling slightly embarrassed Rishi brought it to his lips. "What!"

"Lost Cause here, " Kal said, "I've checked everything and there's nothing here. Where are you?"

Kal began to read more and more as a non-Jedi in his head. The man couldn't even sense where he was. "One of the higher levels, I think our guy is somewhere up here. I've found what looks like a control room."

"Computers?"

"A couple." Rishi remained where he stood while keeping his senses alert for the Bothan who had to be somewhere around here. He could feel it. "But powerful ones. I think this is his workplace."

Kal mock-gasped. "You mean the Trandoshan wasn't lying after all? Wow."

Rishi snarled. The dark loud chamber began to grow on him. It was too obvious a place to hide. Something was wrong. Rishi began to feel maybe he wasn't the hunter after all, maybe he was the hunted. He began advancing down one the gangways that hung suspended over the roaring generator. One hand on the comlink, one hand clutched around his lightsaber.

Again the feeling of uncertainty swam to him on a dark wave. "I've found something that looks like an armory," Kal said.

Rishi felt his warning sense tickle in his stomach.

"And there's a weapon missing - "

Rishi rolled left and came up with his lightsaber ignited, as the red beam shot past his face. Rishi ducked behind a console and shut off the comlink. Somewhere in front of him the Bothan was hiding. He could feel it clearly now; the fear. He peeked around the corner and saw one area of the chamber light up in red with the Force.

There you are.

"Listen to me! All I want is information. If I bring you in, they won't hurt you, I swear." Rishi felt his grip on the lightsaber get slippery with sweat. "I won't hurt you."

He heard what sounded like a snort somewhere further into the room. "You…you're the Kjoil?" the alien spoke back in Basic.

Rishi wasn't surprised the man knew who he was. He'd been sending bounty hunters after him all week. "Yes. And you're Dokyan, right?"

Another blast flew past Rishi but it was too lousy an aim to even make Rishi move. The shot harmlessly bounced off the wall and fizzled out. Another blast rang through the air. Rishi tightened his grip on the lightsaber.

"Don't make this harder on yourself, Dokyan! You can trust me!" Rishi lied. The first chance he got he would beat the snot out of Dokyan for all the trouble he'd caused.

"You're all out to kill me!"

Rishi supposed the man must've gotten paranoid from all this time alone in this building. Rishi only wished it hadn't come out now. "I'm trying to find out information about the terrorist group in the Sumitra sector! The ones that took over one of the Republic's repair yards and blew up the Senate Chamber!"

He heard the Bothan laugh.

Rishi felt like he was getting nowhere. Thinking of a final resort that would allow him to take the Bothan in alive, he relinquished his lightsaber and tossed it away from himself, he heard it bounce off the gangway before rolling to a halt. He could feel the Bothan picked up on the fact.

Rishi rose to his feet, held up his hands and started walking slowly down the gangway. "Talk to me, we can work things out."

The Bothan stepped slowly forward on the gangway from behind a workstation. He held the blaster trained on Rishi's face but Rishi could feel the tremors in the hand holding the blaster.

Bothans were a short furry, bipedaled creature, native to the planet Bothawui. Dokyan had cream-colored fur and orange eyes. Rishi was hardly an expert on Bothans but he'd once or twice watched Borsk Fey'lya on the Holonet. They spoke with great eloquence and their fur rippled in response to their emotional state. By their nature Bothans were very greedy and excelled in manipulation. They were masters of brokering information, and had a spy network that rivaled the best the Empire or the Old Republic could create. Well known for their intelligence-gathering abilities, Bothans were perfect spies and important players in galactic politics.

The Bothan picked up the lightsaber with his free paw and shoved it into his belt. Rishi shifted a little to the left to leave him with more grounds to move in if he suddenly had to dodge a shot from the blaster.

"I only want to talk," Rishi said calmly, hoping that calmness would rub off on the Bothan.

The Bothan laughed, his fur alive with activity. "Where is your friend?"

Rishi reached out to the Jedi and felt him very close by. "I'm not sure."

The Bothan chuckled humorously as he walked towards Rishi, bringing out a pair of stuncuffs with his free paw while keeping the blaster aimed at his face. Rishi offered his hands and the Bothan slammed them onto his wrist and pushed Rishi down on his knees. "Why are you here, Kjoil?" the Bothan's voice was raspy, almost evil by nature. "I know you have been looking for me. But you are looking for the wrong people. I am not the one you're looking for."

Rishi groaned. "You're the one who supplied Wedder Dhohji with the message from the terrorists. The one my Master was meant to get."

"I did," the Bothan said.

"So you're working for the terrorists."

Dokyan laughed loudly. "What terrorists?"

Rishi growled. "Don't play around with me. I've been through too much to find you already."

"Now you've found me. What do you want to know?"

What was he trying to do? "I told you! Information about the terrorists!"

The Bothan grabbed Rishi by his collar and held him up to his face. "What terrorists!" the Bothan spat.

Rishi didn't get it. "Has being cooped up in here cooked your brain, Dokyan? You know what I'm talking about."

Dokyan laughed. "You've been misled, my Kjoil friend. I do not know any terrorists."

Something very frightening crept up Rishi's spine. "How did you even know I was a Kjoil in the first place? Or even that my Master was?"

The Bothan looked almost bored. "I know everything that happens on this planet - "

"Sure you do."

Both Rishi and the Bothan were shocked to hear the third voice. Rishi looked over his shoulder to see Kal standing behind the Bothan, his lightsaber hilt buried into the Bothan's temple.

"Drop the blaster," Kal instructed.

The Bothan dropped the blaster over the gangway, it cluttered as it hit the floor beneath them. Kal swirled his hilt, igniting the blade as he did, slicing through Rishi's stuncuffs. Kal held his blue blade up under the Bothan's furry throat.

Rishi massaged his wrists as he came up. "Well, Dokyan. Let's see if you feel a little more chatty now. The terrorists. I want everything you know about them - and I will know if you're lying. Even the slightest fib will mean your neck so I suggest you be a little more forthcoming than you've been so far."

Dokyan snarled. "I do not know - "

Kal moved his blade an inch and the air filled with the smell of burnt hair.

"I'm not playing around anymore, Dokyan. Start talking."

The Bothan shuddered, trembling with fear. Rishi could feel his rash and fleeing thoughts bouncing like a ball, saw the sweat running down beneath the Bothan's fur, between those orange emotionless eyes.

Rishi grew impatient. "My friend here may not look it, but he's an excellent barber. What do you say we let him give you a trim?"

He could feel the fear radiating off the alien like a bad stench, mixing with that scent of roasted hair, yet the Bothan still didn't cave. Rishi hadn't expected the alien to put up so much resistance. Bothans were very smart but they were also very paranoid, which meant they were easily startled. Clearly Dokyan was trying to protect someone.

And Rishi was getting tired of it. "Your choice," Rishi nodded to Kal, "shave him down."

"No!" the Bothan screamed. "I'll talk!"

Rishi stepped forward and raised his voice. "Who are you trying to protect, Dokyan! The terrorists! I don't think they'll care about a simple slicer working out of an abandoned warehouse!"

Dokyan's eyes lit up with fire. "Slicer! I'm an informational-liberator!"

Rishi cocked a smile. "So start liberating."

The Bothan snarled, a weak attempt at remaining in control, but eventually even he didn't believed it. The Bothan sighed. "I might as well start at the beginning, with the one fact that seems to have passed you by," his furred face stared at Rishi with obvious contempt, "the Sons of Destiny are not a terrorist group."

---

Moving swiftly across the roof of the adjacent building, Boba Fett readied all his weapons systems. Despite his heavy armor and equipment the man moved with a stealthy silence. The dark armor allowed him to blend in naturally with the surrounding buildings as he moved from shadow to shadow until he found the perfect spot.

He crouched down on the edge of the roof, instantly turning into a gargoyle, only the movement of his flowing cape betraying his presence.

Fett activated his thermal scope and immediately found the targets he was looking for. The three life-forms lit up red inside his visor, one of them decidedly shorter than the rest of them. On the left side of his HUD a range designator told him the distance in meters between them and him. The three figures were huddled around a desk, the heat of a nearby generator almost shadowing their body heat.

Still frozen in place on the ledge Fett activated his long range microphone, listening in on their conversation.

"…it will take a few minutes, but it should tell you everything you want to know…"

The Bothan.

Moving his tongue to flick the switch inside his helmet that armed the rocket in his new jetpack, Fett listened in silence.

---

Rishi and Kal led Dokyan to his workstation below. Computers were cluttered everywhere and the huge generator still pounded like a giant heart behind them. Dokyan slouched down into the chair at his desk, appearing to have been born into that chair, immediately starting up his computer. Kal and Rishi flanked him, cautious of his every move.

"It will take a few minutes, but it should tell you everything you want to know."

Rishi sighed. "Lets start with what you know."

The Bothan licked his brown leathery lips. "I first heard the name Sons of Destiny about ten years ago. I was a simple slicer then, worked on contract for a guy out in the Outer Rim. He was a mercenary, I broke into security nets for him, confused the coordination of his enemies, making it easier for him to conquer. It wasn't a bad job, he paid me well - "

"Get to the point," Kal said annoyed.

The Bothan complied. "One day I was searching through the Holonet for news and I stumbled over a news story about - it was nothing, one of those casual stories you flip over without giving it a second glance." The Bothan smiled proudly. "What it really was, was a bogus story, all lies and deceit. But it was so professionally done that you wouldn't know it unless you looked deeper."

Rishi didn't feel impressed. "And that's what you did?"

The Bothan nodded. "I did my background checks and came up with some interesting facts. None of the names, places, events or dates in the story matched with anything recorded in galactic knowledge. The so-called riot dispute over rights was completely manufactured, you see? That planet didn't exist, those people never lived - which makes it ironic that it was a story about people claiming their rights as humans," the Bothan chuckled at his own amusement.

Rishi didn't think it was funny, and he didn't feel he owed Dokyan a smile or even a reply.

The Bothan caught the notion. "With my interest peaking I began to study the story under a new light. I scanned the entire story looking for some irregularities - like graphical glitches, typos, hidden messages within the pictures, stuff like that. But it had none of that." The Bothan smiled and lifted a finger. "What it did have, was this!" Slamming his finger down on the keyboard in front of him he brought up the document on his screen, then divided the screen into two, placing a copy of the first document next to it.

"Do you notice anything strange about these two copies of the same news story?" Dokyan asked, rubbing his palms together in obvious delight at sharing whatever it was he'd discovered with someone else.

Rishi read through both documents, it was the same story, word for word. The pictures attached to it were the same as far as he could tell.

"No, nothing."

The Bothan growled. "I see the Force doesn't work as well as optics." Dokyan tabbed his keyboard. "First I'll erase the pictures in one of the documents, so you'll only see the text. The second document will still have the pictures attached. And then I do a word count."

The results flashed on the screen.

Rishi gasped and thought his jaw might hit the floor. "How the - ?"

Dokyan was alive with giddy. "11561 letters, or symbols if you will, in the first document, the one without the pictures," the Bothan's raspy voice was buzzing ecstatically. "And 11570 in the second."

Nine letters had gone missing because of the pictures' absences. Rishi studied the pictures in the second document with more scrutiny. The pictures all showed rioters holding up banners and signs. All of them with symbols more or less readable.

"I can't read the signs, I can make out a few symbols, but that's it."

Dokyan tapped his screen. "You're reading the same thing as the terminal is. It can't read the blurred ones either. But in each picture, one or two symbols are very clear."

Rishi believed he knew where it was going. "And if you piece those readable symbols together - "

"You get this."

The Bothan pressed a button and the two documents vanished, revealing a black screen. Slowly each of the nine symbols began typing themselves over the black canvas. And even before they were halfway, Rishi felt the sweat running down his back, reminding him of the time he'd captured Wedder and found the Kjoil symbol on the surface of the datacard. Even more terrifying than when he'd been confronted by those twenty mercenaries in the alleyway. Even more gut-wrenching than seeing Boba Fett shooting at him. Rishi felt sick, but all the Bothan did was smile victoriously.

"So, what do you think?" he asked.

Rishi read the screen.

Jentarana.

"By the stars - " Rishi managed to say.

The furry alien chuckled. "After that it was easy enough. I ran a search of that word, came up with some very interesting info. I even sliced into every data I could find containing that word, ran the same checks as I did with the first document, and found the same hidden symbols in all of them. Every piece of information regarding this Jentarana, was planted by the Sons of Destiny. Information just like the first document that they'd staged to make a very formal invitation."

Rishi's legs still felt weak. "Invitation?"

"A location. And a date," the Bothan's orange eyes looked like gold in the dusk, "for recruitment into the Sons of Destiny."

Rishi looked over at Kal, and saw the same horror on the Jedi's face. Rishi understood the magnitude of it all, and although it was picking at a fear inside of him he never knew he had, it didn't deter him. It fed him, made him more hungry.

The Bothan went on. "You see, they needed someone so good at slicing that they made a test. Think of it as a job-application. The only one who could break their code, their hidden messages, was me."

Rishi leaned against the table. "What was the location?"

The Bothan chuckled again, his voice loud and booming. "You're sitting in it! This is my workplace. The Sons of Destiny hired me to be their information masker, their data-retrieval expert. The one who had the technical know-how to achieve the kinds of goals they had. Someone who could get into everything. The best in the Galaxy. I've been working for them ever since. Doing their surveillance, planting the information they wanted. I've been their link between them and their more unknowing accomplices here on Coruscant. The senators, the guards, the military; all of them under close surveillance. Learning their weaknesses, learning to find the right kind of information to make every one of them do what we wanted them to do."

Rishi ignored the disgust, but found another one building in him. This time aimed at the Bothan who took so much pride in his crimes. "You said you'd found out about it ten years ago. This has been going on that long." Rishi looked over at Kal, and he could see the Jedi was as worried as he was.

"For ten years?" the Jedi muttered.

The Bothan was beside himself with happiness. "Correct. The Sons of Destiny have controlled everything going on in the Republic for the last ten years, through me. They just don't like to gloat about it. They control everyone, but nobody knows it. Every time the Sons of Destiny needed something done, they'd plant the information through me right in front of a person who would react favorably, because of the information. Lies, deceit and misinformation; its been what's kept the Republic together for the last decade!"

Rishi felt like vomiting. There was a sick hollow feeling in his body. The feeling of being watched. The feeling of being misled.

"I'll give you an example, then." The man's fingers moved over the keyboard and several of the monitors came to life with surveillance tapes of countless rooms and places inside the Republic's buildings.

Rishi saw the face of his Master in all of them, recorded at many different times and places, each clip had his Master in a starring role. There were recordings of him training in a simulator, pictures of him in places and buildings Rishi knew nothing of, clips of him talking to people Rishi didn't know. The final clip shown was of his Master on a balcony. Talking to Skywalker and Rishi himself.

Rishi felt a moment of awe, then anger as he realized his Master had been followed and watched for some time now. He witnessed himself arguing with Master Skar on the balcony, shortly before Rishi had made his departure. The camera angle zeroed in on his Master's face, showing the man's unspoken grief and regret marked across his face in explicit detail.

The Bothan freeze-framed the picture of his Master's longful stare out over Coruscant. "Your Master, he followed the trail of this Kayupa. Walking into an obvious trap, as you stated so perfectly at the time. Why is that?"

Rishi felt a lump in his throat. "He thought someone he knew was behind it. He wanted to know if it was true."

"Do you think he doubted it was the person he knew?" the Bothan asked teasingly.

Rishi swallowed hard. "No."

"You see? You see how easily he fell for their ploy? How easily he was coaxed by the information? All they did was give him a name, and off he went, into a certain ambush. Thinking only of this…friend. All they did...was give him the name, knowing it was his greatest weakness.."

Kal stepped up. "So you're saying this Kayupa wasn't involved?"

The Bothan frowned and shrugged. "I have no idea. I only work for them. I devise their schemes, that's all."

"You set the trap," Kal said.

The Bothan held up his furred palms in surrender. "All I know is what I'm told. I don't know who runs the Sons of Destiny or if there even is a leader. But I know they're masters at what they do. The Sons of Destiny wanted your Master on Regana, and he obeyed, not out of free will, but because of the manipulation, the bait the Sons of Destiny placed in his hands. See how easily the will is betrayed, how easily manipulated people are if you have the right kind of data? I was even ordered to make sure the death of Crip Tyrral did not pass you by, that you knew they were on to you."

Rishi's hand fell to his lightsaber, wanting more than anything to pass judgement on this psychopathic alien. Kal placed his hand Rishi's wrist, calming him slightly. But the fire inside Rishi stayed alive, only showing in the hateful glare he set on Kal's hand.

Dokyan laughed even more. "Look! You're doing it right now, I told you something, and you're reacting! See how easily it works." The Bothan steadied himself and leaned back into his chair. "I'll toss you another little treat, my little Kjoil friend. Do you know what Jentarana means?"

Rishi searched his memory of the Kjoil language but came up with nothing. "It was the name Skind Kjoil chose to give the weapon he built to protect his home-world."

The Bothan snorted. "How ironic that it all comes back to him, the man who founded the Sons of Destiny." The man thought to himself. "Well, in spirit, one might say."

Rishi stepped forward, anger brewing inside him. "What do you mean 'in spirit'? He was dead! He chose the name because it was the name he would have picked for his son, if he'd ever had one."

The Bothan glanced up at Rishi, an unreadable phantomlike expression on his face. "In the Kjoil language and legend, a Jentarana," a creepy smile stretched across the alien's face, "is a child of fate...a son of destiny."

---

Rishi sat alone in a corner of the room, far from Dokyan and Kal. Kal was still interrogating the Bothan for everything he knew, and although that had been Rishi's objective too once, he realized he just couldn't listen to anymore. He found that if he believed what the Bothan had told him he would grow mad. Who could back up what the Bothan was saying? How would he know it was the truth? The Bothan seemed sure enough of his claims.

Kal had checked through the Bothan's entire database and found that the Bothan indeed had spent the last ten years inside this building, and that he'd sent coded messages to almost everywhere on the planet. There was plenty of proof that the claims were the truth. Rishi just didn't want to believe them.

With his hands pressed against his skull, Rishi whispered a curse. He didn't want to believe it, but he had no choice but to believe.

Its too big...its too much.

But in a way, a terrible way, he wasn't surprised. He'd always felt the Republic was acting against common sense, a stupidity and ignorance in all its actions. Maybe this was why? Maybe this was what had propelled him into the life in the underground? But if that was true...was his choice not really then an action of the Sons of Destiny? A reaction to their actions? He started o doubt everything. Everything but the sickening feeling in his stomach, and the undeniable fact that his Master had walked right into a trap greater than first imaginable.

"I can make a man throw away his entire life," he heard the Bothan bragging, "at the push of a button. Some of our targets were good men, no ghosts in their closets, but by analyzing their profile, our research, we could build an opportunity that would lead them onto a path of corruption and then use it against them. Money, women, you name it we've done it. Who would be able to resist their fantasy, if we made it real for them?"

"You sound like a pimp," he heard Kal say.

The Bothan shrugged. "Everyone's for sale in some way or another, we all have prices, desires." Rishi felt the Bothan's gaze from across the room. "Even you two."

Rishi looked up and glared at the furry alien, adding as much hate and contempt he could into his gaze, wishing he could kill the Bothan that easily. Just by looking at him. "Right now…the only thing I want is to see you dead."

The Bothan didn't seem threatened. "But would you follow it? Jedi are the hardest to ensnare, too up-stuck. But there's always a way. No one's perfect. At least not yet. The Republic is doomed to the slavery they've put themselves in."

Kal looked like he wanted to ask something, but was afraid to.

And the Bothan noticed it. "Would you really want to know?"

Kal shook his head after a moment of contemplation. "I guess not. Are there others like you?"

The Bothan shook his head. "Not on Coruscant, certainly. Maybe on other planets, in other galaxies. I doubt the Sons of Destiny, as ingenious as they are, have limited themselves to one universe. But consider yourselves fortunate, you're the first to have gotten this far."

Kal dismissed the Bothan and turned around to look at Rishi. "Who is this…Kayupa?"

Rishi sighed. He knew that story all too well. "Back in the days of the Old Republic, my Master's uncle was known as the greatest Jedi warrior ever, the strongest ever to exist." Rishi narrowed his eyes. "And more than just a warrior, he was a shrewd politician and a clever strategist. He was the pinnacle of the old Jedi Order, revered and respected. But eventually his feelings drove him mad and he became obsessed over a woman. It lead him into corruption, into the Emperor's hand. He strayed from his Jedi ways and became a Sith Lord."

Kal looked dumbfound. "A Sith?"

Rishi nodded. "Before his turn he created a superweapon called the Jentarana, which could only be guided by a Jedi, and only by him. In his Sith days he was about to turn that weapon over to the Emperor in exchange for access to a Sith afterlife where he would be reunited with the woman he loved, in death. Master Skar's mother tried to stop him and Skind took his own life once he'd realized what he'd done. But instead of joining with the woman he loved in the afterlife he was imprisoned in the place where he died as a spirit, as a ghost."

Rishi inhaled deeply, like he was searching for an inner center to calm his emotions. Some place far away where the world made sense and everything wasn't so complex.

When he couldn't find one he continued. "Before his death he was cloned by the Empire because of his skills. The clone of Skind Kjoil was turned over to the Jedi Master who taught my Master; Master Bo-Hi Dzog, and he was schooled and trained as a Jedi in the hopes that he would one day help bring the Republic back to life. Some thirteen years ago they found my Master on Nar Shaddaa and he went with them hoping to become a Jedi and learn about the Force. He became friends with the clone, not knowing he infact was a clone. Eventually they journeyed to take the Jentarana back. It was only as they were about to succeed that mission that he learned the truth. The clone killed his Master and he wanted Master Skar to kill him, so he could escape his fate as a clone. Once he died and the Jentarana was destroyed Skind Kjoil's spirit was freed." Rishi lowered his head. "The clone's name was Kayupa, the man that supposedly has now taken over the repair yard."

"But you said he died?"

"Obviously he didn't. I think…My Master thinks that Kayupa may still be alive."

"You think he's the head of the Sons of Destiny?"

Rishi shook his head. "I have no idea."

Kal nodded and turned his eyes back to the Bothan. "So…how does it feel to betray an entire planet? An entire government?"

The Bothan hardly budged, he just gave Kal his most fiendish smile yet. "All too easy."

Kal flinched. Rishi felt the sudden anger erupting inside the man. He was amazed how Kal was able to hold it back and not beat the Bothan senseless. Had it been Rishi he doubted he would have been able to stop.

"What do the Sons of Destiny use their manipulations for?" Rishi asked.

The Bothan looked at him. "They're going to topple the government and create a new one. They believe its their fate, their destiny, hence the name."

"A government built on lies," Kal added.

The Bothan's eyes turned to slits. "The New Republic isn't that much different. They're also dishonest and weak. They brought this on themselves - "

Rishi stood up. "No. You brought this on them, through your deceit and your lies. Don't sit there thinking you're doing the world a favor! Nobody ever asked you to change the way our world works! And don't even for a second assume you know how the Republic works. The only thing you know about the Republic is how to destroy it!"

Internally Rishi realized he was blaming the Bothan for all the things he'd ever disliked about the Republic in his time here. Everything that he'd objected to, everything he'd felt was wrong about it, he traced back to the Bothan. And he wanted more than anything to kill the man who'd taken away the freedom from all the people in the Republic. This pathetic little alien that thought he was so powerful, and the creep even dared to brag about it.

"In the end, you're just another puppet," Kal taunted.

The Bothan's eyes darted to Kal, his fur rippling with anger. "I'm not a puppet, I'm the puppet master!"

Rishi felt his hands balling into fists. "You're nothing but another victim of the control you've helped spawn. Just another asset. You think they give a damn about you?"

The Bothan's eyes made the slightest hint of motion, as it quickly looked at somewhere behind Rishi. The Bothan forced his eyes back on Rishi, but Rishi saw it.

Rishi looked to where the Bothan had looked and saw a tiny camera filming them all, hidden inside a hole in the wall. Rishi couldn't help feel the irony was perfect. "Someone at this very moment is watching us."

Kal grabbed the Bothan by the collar. "Why are they monitoring you?"

The Bothan's fangs were in plain sight, his fur alive with activity. "I don't know."

Rishi walked towards them. "Is it possible you have flaws too? Weaknesses."

Kal pulled the Bothan to his face. "Which are you? A rebel or another prisoner? A captive of your own creation, your own nightmare."

The Bothan hissed through his teeth with repressed anger.

"Why don't they trust you?" Rishi said as he stood beside the two. "What do they have on you?"

"Those people you worked for before," Kal mentioned, "you sold them out for a better deal. Are they afraid you'll do it again?" Kal grinned. "I don't blame them. Bothans are not the most reliable sort; always back-stabbing for more profit, more power."

"Someone's already tried, haven't they?" Rishi pushed. "Someone's on to you. Who?"

The Bothan pushed Kal's grip away and sat back in his chair, his face twisted in vengeful anger.

"Listen; the Sons of Destiny are not - "

Rishi heard the window pane in the ceiling above them break into millions of shards and less than a second later a trail of fire came crashing down like a fireball. Rishi managed to jump aside as the missile came striking down between them, obliterating the center of the room in a huge explosion.

Rolling to safety as far away from the strike as he could, Rishi could feel the Bothan's life slowly fade somewhere in the chaos of burning computers. But he was still alive, Rishi could feel him in the Force but the alien's life was fading with each second. Rishi was surprised that the Bothan had survived such an impact, since the alien had been closest to the rocket's explosion while Kal's presence had dimmed away to almost nothing on the other side of the room.

Rishi couldn't believe what had happened. And yet as he saw the rocket man descending through the hole in the ceiling, landing gently in the center of the missile's impact zone, he could believe it.

Rishi felt an exhilaration flowing through him, his body quickening at the prospect of fighting Fett fairly. But before he could even begin to mount a plan he felt a stabbing sensation in his right shin. And as he looked down he found a piece of sharpened shrapnel digging into his flesh, painting his leg and the floor in a crimson red.

Rishi tugged at it violently, eager to attack Fett as fast as possible, but the pain magnified a thousand times when he tried to wrestle it free. His hands came away slick with his own blood and he looked up in growing horror as he realized once again Fett would have the advantage.

Instantly moving, Boba Fett wheeled around and found the Bothan lying in a shamble of destroyed and smoking equipment behind him. His knees bending slowy , Fett crouched down next to the whimpering Bothan, the hunter's emotionless helmet bowed down to face the Bothan as the alien took its final breaths. It was obvious the Bothan was in extreme pain, the explosion having burnt almost all of his fur away and left the alien a smoking hulk of roasted fur and flesh.

Fett's visor lit up in the surrounding fire, and the nearby flames danced over his armor, throwing shadows across the room.

"Why…why..." the Bothan managed to ask through painful gasps.

Although he found it hard to believe Rishi saw a shudder run through Fett's armor, like the shiver of cold air, and if he didn't know better from all the legends he'd heard about the merciless Fett, he might have tempted to say it looked like the hunter was feeling remorse. Shame.

Pity.

Rising again, the bounty hunter resolutely freed his sawed-off EE-3 rifle and fired two bolts into the Bothan's chest for good measure.

As Rarsk died, Rishi felt something not adding up in the back of his head. Wasn't Fett working for Rarsk? Why would he kill him? Rishi thought hazily. Was it a mercy kill? Somehow the idea of Fett feeling any pity for his victims sounded wrong. One didn't get as far as him and become as infamous as he had by being soft. But then again he hadn't gotten this far by failing. Had Fett really wounded and then later had to kill Bothan by accident?

As he watched, Fett then looked over Kal's unconscious form nearby, the rifle following his eyes, but for some reason he didn't kill the Jedi. Fett's helmet turned to look at Rishi and Rishi could swear he saw a malignant smile behind the T-shaped visor.

Fett began walking towards him and even though every part of Rishi screamed to defend himself, to get back up and fight the hunter, he couldn't. He tried to crawl away but his body was too paralyzed by fear to move, too shocked to even think of getting back up. He couldn't move. His body wouldn't move.

Rishi trembled where he laid, Fett was already standing over him, that faceless mask glaring down at him, the fire nearby highlighting his armor and portraying the hunter as some sort of invincible deity in the midst of the engrossing fire.

"You…killed him?" Rishi stuttered.

Shaking his head so little that Rishi wasn't sure the helmet infact moved, Fett raised his rifle against his shoulder to bear down on Rishi. "Everyone dies," Fett's scrambled voice stated coldly.

Before Rishi could even think of going for the lightsaber, Fett's rifle lit up and Rishi's world turned blinding bright before turning sickeningly dark.

---

Betrayal.

Of all the things he was feeling this one he was sure of, he felt betrayed. Everywhere he looked he could see Kayupa and his mother staring at him, their eyes filled with hatred directed towards him. The feeling of betrayal was all he had to latch onto, it was the only thing that kept him sane. And with it came small streams of anger and guilt, even some hate of his own. Hating felt good, revenge felt even better. The prospect of someone dying, anyone dying, gave him a center, a motivation. A reason to not just keel over and die.

As soon as he could get his hands on a weapon he knew he would feel better. Betrayal was a very underestimated emotion in his book. It could do wondrous things, it was a healing emotion. And the anger kept him warm inside. As much as he knew these emotions were corruptive and wrong, he found himself feeling comfortable with them. It was all he had.

All he had, aside from the pain.

Skar felt encircled and surrounded by torment, mostly physical but some of it came from his own mind, his own thoughts. Like waves his own failures and regrets came crashing against his resolve, weakening him, making it easier for the physical agony to creep its way through his defenses, finding berths from which it launched calculated attacks on his body and his strength. He felt pain writhing up his legs, his feet felt like they were burning, an engrossing pain that washed over him in waves, making him shake and stutter. His mind moved in circles, feeling pain, finding a way to defeat it, finding failure, feeling the pain anew.

He awoke in the dark cold chamber, wearing only his pants and no boots, tired and beaten. His feet hung inches off the floor, which he almost couldn't see in the darkness. His chest was heaving, struggling to breathe, the sides of his rips pounding in pain, hammering like the pain in his head. His tussled hair hung over his face, drenched in sweat. His stomach ached from hunger. He heard muttering voices, some mocking and some rasping with evil. He couldn't open his swollen eyes yet, but the pain in his stomach and the dizziness in his head made him want to heave. Skar could feel that his hands were tied and his legs bound to something that felt like a metal wall.

The cold metal sent chills down his back but he lacked the strength to flinch from the sensation. He felt his long sweaty hair draped over his face, and thought he tasted blood when he swallowed, which in itself sent an indescribable pain down his body.

Let it be a dream...

A very, very bad dream…

His eyes tried to find light in the chamber but none would reveal itself. He couldn't move, except for his legs but they were too strained and weak to even twitch from the pain. He concentrated the strength to his eyes and began to open them. He could see light, two figures standing before him. Skar saw his mother leaning against the wall to his right in the silo-like chamber.

But before he could concentrate on her presence he looked over his shoulder to see what it was that held him above the floor in the darkness. Looking into two dots of red light, he saw a metal face. A droid. Instantly he knew that it was a detainment droid holding him. Detainment droids floated on repulsors above the floor and they had binders which secured their prisoners in an iron-grip. He could feel four sets of arms locked across his chest and stomach. A single set of hands held his wrists at the small of his back, he couldn't move them.

He could feel the clammy sensation of his sweaty back against the cold metal-casing serving as the droid's skin. He coughed and spat mucus on the floor.

The darkness fluttered before his eyes, little stars dancing back and forth. He could smell something close to vomit nearby. Voices were taunting him. Mocking him. He could hear at least three people conversing nearby, talking about him. He lacked the strength to talk, his jaw felt broken. The voice that had spoken before sounded close enough for him to believe it was Kayupa talking. What was Kayupa doing with his mother, and how had he survived? Why was he still alive?

His mind flashed before him, remembering what had put him in this position. He'd been placed in a cell. He tried to figure how long ago that had been but he failed. It could have been days, hours, or weeks, he told himself. Even months. Or was today still today?

I really don't know.

The very last thing he remembered was Sonnet's red lightsaber connecting with his face, a fact that should have left him blind, not to mention dead. Yet there was no damage done to his eyes, and although he left immense pain, the fury inside his heart let him know that he was not dead.

Not yet.

Skar gave up trying and surrendered himself to confusion as a square of light appeared around the edges of a door before him, the door opened and in walked the man who had destroyed his life. Kayupa. The door slid shut behind him, and the man walked into the small light beam that activated between them as he approached.

"How are we doing, brother?"

Skar spat his own blood at the man but it didn't hit him, instead it just ran down his own chin as Skar charged against the droid's hold on him, eager to choke the terrorist to death. He wanted to shout but his voice was surprisingly weak after so long in captivity, not having used his tongue in longer than he could remember.

Out of the corner of his ear's range Sasa spoke.

"You called him brother?"

Sasa was talking to Kayupa. Talking about the friendship between him and Skar. A friendship Skar was regretting for every second that went. As well as his inability to destroy Kayupa once and for all.

He longed to be close to her. He remembered feeling much younger, like a little boy again, he had felt like his mother's son when he'd seen her, even when she was standing next to Kayupa. Even when she'd attacked him, he could still recall the feeling of joy.

That joy seemed a million miles away now. He tried to muster enough strength in the Force to reach her but failed. He tried opening his eyes, wishing to see her again, if only briefly, but couldn't.

"That was in the past," Kayupa answered her.

Skar couldn't say he didn't share the same sentiment. He couldn't agree more. Skar looked up to see Kayupa, standing before him with his arms crossed and a dark evil glomming from his eyes. Skar spotted hatred in those eyes.

"This is my wayward brother," Kayupa stated to no one with a vicious snarl on his lips, "he taught me everything. The one who made me. The reason I still exist. My old friend."

Skar wanted to talk, wanted to curse the clone to hell, but his jaw felt broken. He couldn't talk, and even if he could he knew cursing Kayupa was pointless. It hadn't worked before. Skar looked at Kayupa, feeling his own hatred for the clone peaking inside his heart.

"I'm - " was all he managed to get past his lips, that single word sending a million aches down through his throat and spine.

Kayupa tilted his head, raised his brows. "What?"

Skar took a deep breath, and mustered the strength to defy the pain, finding his hate to be an excellent motivator. "I'm not your brother!" Skar screamed, each word shooting lightning down through his body, through his every cell. But he was glad he said it, the pain was bearable if the soul was released.

After a while, killing off the uncomfortable silence, Kayupa chuckled amusedly by Skar's outburst. Finding the strength to do so, Skar looked to his mother. Saw her staring at him with a hatred he couldn't understand. Why did she hate him? What had he done to deserve her animosity? He'd lived his whole life trying to live up to the guidelines and path that she'd laid out for him. He'd done everything he could to make their sacrifice worthwhile, the sacrifice she had made so that he could become a Jedi. What was she doing next to Kayupa? Why was she working with him?

Skar grew more and more convinced that Kayupa must've manipulated her, turned her into an ally. Turned her against him. Skar felt the fire building in his veins. The anger he felt overshadowing any thought. He would kill Kayupa for manipulating his mother, kill him for whatever sinister purpose he had brought her into.

Kayupa glanced over his shoulder at Sasa. Their eyes met and there was a mutual understanding and grotesque love in their eyes. Strained and weak from the entire experience Skar decided he would need to replenish his strength soon if he was going to stay awake.

Skar reached out to the Force -

And felt nothing. At first he blamed it on his tired mind and tried again, but he felt the same hollow emptiness inside. A cold well that had once housed an endless reservoir of strength and clarity. The place inside him that had always been warm and giving was now blank and vacated, stripped of it previous power.

It took Skar a few moments to come to grips with the fear.

He had lost the Force.

Kayupa smiled briefly to Sasa and then concentrated his eyes on Skar again. "What's the matter?" Kayupa's smug grin mocked him. "Did you lose something, hero?"

Skar wanted to look at his mother again, hoping to find some love in her eyes for him, but Kayupa kept him solely focused. "What have you done!"

Kayupa held out his palm towards a third body in the chamber. Sonnet sat on the floor to his right, his eyes closed beneath the rim of his hood, his pure pale face very concentrated. The Jedi, if that was what he was, was secluded inside the Force, and then it occurred to Skar that the person must've been blocking Skar's touch with the Force. It took a very powerful individual to do so to another Jedi. But having seen Sonnet perform so many other tricks, this must have been the easiest the man mastered.

"How does it feel," Kayupa asked, "to be human?"

Skar bowed his head down. "Its not so bad. You should try it sometime."

"The block is only temporarily. I have something a lot more permanent in mind for you," Kayupa glanced at Sonnet in the corner, "but for now it will have to do."

Skar coughed. "Permanent?"

Kayupa smiled fiendishly. "I'm having a shipment of ysalamiri brought in."

Skar snorted. He understood what Kayupa was saying. Ysalamiri were slender, gray-furred creatures that created bubbles devoid of the Force, native to the planet Myrkr. The bubble could be up to 10 meters in diameter. Skar felt enough confidence to make a grim smile. "They won't be much good after I kill them."

Kayupa held out his hands. "By all means, kill them. It won't matter much."

Skar didn't get it. "If I kill them - I could use the Force again." Skar turned his vengeful eyes to Sonnet. "I'll even kill the prodigy over there."

Kayupa laughed. "Killing the ysalamiri won't do much good. Once they arrive we're going to perform a slight surgery. You see, I intend implant ysalamiri genes inside you - namely the part of them that shields them from the Force."

Skar began to fight against his restraints, but figured it would be pointless. "No - "

Kayupa's face was stone. "You'll be forever blinded from the Force, just another human. The operation is irreversible, my old friend."

Skar lowered his head, the thought of being blocked from the Force forever terrified him deeply, but as long as it wasn't done yet he figured there would still be a chance to escape that fate. "Why - why am I here? Why didn't you just kill me?"

Kayupa flinched for a second, and even through Skar didn't feel the Force he still believed to have spotted a weakness in his old friend's armor, in his resolve. Kayupa gave him a silent stare for a while before talking. "You'll be dead soon enough, my friend. Don't worry."

Skar kept his eyes on him and nodded towards Sasa. "What did you do to her?"

Kayupa's jaw tightened.

Skar grew more angry. "What did you do to her, you sick piece of - "

Before Skar could regret his words Kayupa swiftly punched his face sideways with a powerful blow. Skar's head snapped back and he felt an incredible warmth rushing through his head. The blow magnified the pain he was already dealing with, but Skar managed to look back up, seeing Kayupa looking down at him. Kayupa spat in his face once before turning back around. His mother was standing right next to him, but she didn't help him.

She just stood there.

Why aren't you on my side, mother? Skar exhaled, letting his pain drift with his breath. "Is it love, Kayupa? Does she make you feel human? You're not human, you're nothing but garbage - "

He felt the invisible hand wrap around his throat, choking him, preventing any more words from leaving his lips. Kayupa's outstretched hand closed in a fist. "Who are you to talk about being human?" Kayupa said with great vehemence and disgust. "Look at you, you don't even know who you are." Kayupa pointed at his clothes. "You wear that suit to remind you of someone else, someone who was stronger. Someone you admired because he had what you didn't! Your lightsaber blade is colored the way it is to honor your old Master, to honor both of them, thinking it will endow you with a sense of strength." Kayupa shrugged. "Or maybe…its shame from your inability to save them. Your betrayal."

Skar fought against the invisible grip on his throat, summoned all the strength he could borrow and screamed through the chokehold. "You shut up!"

As the powerful cry echoed through the chamber, Kayupa stepped back two steps, his hand falling to his lightsaber on instinct. Skar almost didn't catch it, trying to fight back the chokehold, but he managed to catch a glimpse of Kayupa's worried face, saw Kayupa looking very surprised, almost startled.

And he saw Kayupa look to Sasa, for guidance. Sasa had the same worried expression on her face that Kayupa had. He'd surprised them somehow. He wished he could touch the Force to find what it was that had them startled.

The hand around Skar's throat slowly faded away, and Skar couldn't resist striking a confident smile. "You scared, Kayupa? You should be."

Kayupa's knuckles cracked once by his hilt, and then met his other at the lower of his back. "It must be… tiresome, not being sure who you are, fighting to find some name to put on your own tombstone. Trying not to be just a mirror of another man."

Skar spat. "Don't talk as if you know me, Kayupa. We parted a long time ago. Whatever you got planned here, I'm going to stop it. Don't act as if you have any idea of who I am anymore - "

Kayupa snickered carefully, a glance thrown Sasa's way. "On the contrary; Its you who don't know who you are. Still trying to live up to the legend, and failing miserably."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Skar asked.

Kayupa held his fists at his hips. "It means there are some things about me you have yet to learn and I'm running out of time for games." Kayupa cracked his neck once, and then drew his blaster in a right-handed move so fast Skar didn't realize it right away.

On reflex that should have come much sooner, which told Skar she hadn't been expecting it, Sasa moved and jumped between them.

"Koll, no!"

Skar's insides deflated so fast it felt as if the world had lost all gravity, his insides pulled down into a black hole beneath him. The world turned upside down, tilted around and bounced off nothing, creating only a cavity in everything Skar knew to be true. That name, the name from so long ago, a name that Skar had barely thought of in a decade, a man he'd never thought of. The shock drove through Skar's mental defenses and left him exhausted and weak as if he'd just ran across the Galaxy. Skar saw his mother standing before him, protecting Skar from the blast.

And the man, Koll, was glaring down upon them both.

"Koll…Riokon." Skar said the name carefully, fearing if he rushed it, it all might vaporize into a hazy dream. Skar looked back and forth between them, franticly thinking of ways possible for them to be alive. Skar couldn't take his eyes off them.

His parents.

They looked so much like him. He was lost in the unexplainable feeling, the room dissolved around him. There was only the moment where he met his mother and his father. He was taken aback by how much the man reminded him of Kayupa, but Skar remembered how he'd previously been mistaken for Kayupa. They bore a resemblance to each other that was almost startling. Kayupa had been a clone of his uncle, which was why they looked so much alike. Skar could see pieces of himself in his father's face, and the joy of the reunion overtook him with such strength he didn't even think about why he was still bound to the wall.

Koll holstered his blaster and pulled Sasa close roughly. She seemed to struggle inside his grip, wanting to be free from his hands, but he sent only an angry glare her way.

On top of the millions of questions Skar wanted to ask, one stood out. "You? But you died?" Skar mustered.

Koll Riokon laughed, while Sasa struggled inside his firm grip. "Death is not a tangible thing. Death can be faked, and it can be avoided." Koll placed a small kiss on Sasa's forehead, pushed her aside like she was nothing and then walked towards Skar. "During the Clone Wars I grew a very strong dislike to the Republic's way. The war changed the Republic into a much more fragile government. They were desperate, and as such they executed desperate measures. Me and my Jedi brothers were sent into combat against impossible odds, assured to not survive, but we had no real choice. The Republic favored sacrificing me and my brothers before admitting that things were out of control."

"I was sent into the battlefield with a battalion of men, a war-zone gone completely haywire. The Republic sent my group there only to appease its commitments to their loyal members. We weren't meant to survive, we were only meant to try; giving the Republic an excuse to say the least. The same way you were sent in, the soldiers joining you, they too were victims of sacrifices orchestrated by the New Republic."

Skar nodded, still suffering with that feeling of unreality from being, from meeting his parents. "What about Sasa?"

Koll explained. "Before my departure I told her that I wouldn't be coming back. That she would soon receive word that I had fallen in combat. And she did." Koll smiled. "I stayed dead, along with other Jedi who had sensed that something wasn't right. Together we devised plans and ideas for how to proceed. We couldn't go back. Coruscant was the last place we wanted to see ever again. Some of us left the Galaxy, never to be seen again. Sasa left Coruscant behind and we traveled into the Unknown Regions, hoping to find something or someone else worth fighting for."

Skar looked at his mother, standing behind Koll with her back turned to them both. Though Skar was no longer Force-sensitive he could see some sorrow in the way her shoulders slouched. Skar wished he could use the Force to calm his emotions, to find some clarity in it all. Skar tried to smile, feeling a gentle warmth inside. The thought of his parents being terrorists targeting the Republic for some reason, didn't even register; nor the fact that he was being held a prisoner by them and that they were using a Jedi to block his touch with the Force. Or that they planned to take away the Force from him for good. His father had even continued to keep up the charade as Kayupa before finally revealing himself.

It then dawned on Skar that they'd been using the Kayupa name to lure him here, for a purpose he had yet to realize.

"Why did you pretend to be Kayupa?"

Sasa turned on her heels, leaving the room and leaving Koll alone with Skar. Koll looked back at Skar, a disgusted look on his face. "Its very simple. You are the clone of Skind Kjoil, the one who killed my son."

Skar's world crashed in on itself. "No - "

"And I must say; for a dead man you look very healthy…Master."

---

Several minutes had passed since Koll had told him, and yet the chamber was still silent from those last words. Skar refused to buy into it, it was another ploy but for what reason he couldn't pinpoint. Something was wrong, they couldn't be right. He was he, he was Skar Kjoil. He'd fought feverishly to find out who that person was, he wasn't about to let that go now. What he'd heard, what he'd been told, was working through his memories and his thoughts trying to find some evidence that would contradict what they'd claimed. Something that would prove it was a lie, nothing more. But he couldn't.

Koll might have been right, but all he had said had been merely words. There was no physical evidence. And as long as evidence was absent he found he could still maintain some level of control over himself. He wasn't going to let them take it away from him.

Lies, that's all. Just lies…

Skar took in a deep breath.

Please, let it be lies.

He tried to fight it at first but it came on its own, his mind needing to think through every possible scenario with this new data. Filling him with a hollow sickness, he couldn't help think that if Shinran's child had ever been born, if Koll was right, the child would be Skind Kjoil's son.

Koll leaned against the wall, studying Skar's painful look as his eyes wandered from place to place, trying to find something that would make it go away, something that would make him feel better. But there was none, there was only the cold chamber and those words still echoing in the back of his mind.

You are the clone of Skind Kjoil.

Skar bit back the nausea in his stomach, and stared at Koll with all the strength he had left. He wanted to say something but he didn't know what. He had nothing to contradict what he'd been told, no hard evidence to give him back what they were trying to take from him.

Strangely enough, the real Kayupa now hovered like a spirit in the back of the room, right next to Sonnet, watching the proceedings with a tilted head, morbidly curious at the situation. Skar could hear Kayupa's breathing but he wasn't sure anyone else could. Considering the idea that Kayupa really was Koll's son, it felt odd that Koll didn't give Kayupa any attention. He was just there, and Skar believed he was the only one who could see him, hear him. But why, he didn't know.

It hurt him to realize that Kayupa's ability to remain a spirit was because he had a soul of his own, that he never was just a cloned soul. Kayupa's eyes shone with some sympathy, and that lended Skar enough strength that he was able to hold back crying out to him. Something told him Kayupa was on his side, and not Riokon's.

Skar stumbled over words. "I can't…believe it."

Koll tilted his head. "I know you weren't aware of the truth before this, and I'm sorry I had to play you for a fool. But even though you won't believe it," Koll whispered, "it is the truth."

Skar shook his head. "It's…it's not true."

Koll pushed away from the wall, walking over to stand right before him, his eyes showing some pity. "I suppose no one ever told you about the kind man he really was. You know only the legends and the terrors he produced. Maybe that is how he should be remembered, but there was another side to him." Koll's voice took on a level of sadness as he remembered the past. "We were best friends once, as close as being brothers as two people not related could be. He taught me, and mentored me in the Order. Everything I know came from him."

Koll's look turned painful. "But after Selia came into his life, his priorities changed. And the fire that fueled our friendship, burned a hole between us. His turning to the Sith I didn't mock. I knew how much he loved her. But...Sasa joined him not long after, and together with the Five Epigones they started their rebellion. They stole the Jentarana and Skind was going to sell out the Epigones and his sister in return for the knowledge about afterlife that the Emperor had."

Skar compared what Koll said to what he remembered from the Holocron. "She joined her brother?"

"Only partially. I managed to persuade her about Skind's intentions to sell her and the Kjoil out for his own winnings. That's when they called each other out and wanted to settle it all. Skind challenged her on Kryuu, hoping to kill her to obtain Selia's old lightsaber. You know the rest. He came to his senses and took his own life, but his terror would continue for years to come."

"The Republic found the Jentarana and the clone baby. What about Sasa? Did she return to the Jedi Order?"

"Not quite. The Jedi Council restored her title and position but under some special restrictions. As this went on, me and Sasa grew more and more wary of the changes we'd been through in the past. We began to see things in a different light. The Clone Wars were our easy escape from the Republic, and we pulled back into hiding. The fool Bo-Hi snatched you on Nar Shaddaa before we could. It was our plan to use you against the Emperor."

Skar looked over at Kayupa's ghost. "And you missed out on Kayupa too?" He turned his gaze back to Koll. "What is it you really want?"

"Liberating Coruscant is the first step, however this isn't about personal glory - "

"Revenge is personal," Skar snarled.

"It's...moved beyond revenge, my old Master, I no longer want to destroy the Republic as much as I feel it is my duty, my destiny. But if you're referring to my revenge upon you, I assure you it is but one small step."

Skar swallowed blood. "Is that why you called me out here?"

Koll looked confused. "Called you out?"

"The datacard...the one you had Wedder Dhohji deliver to me...the one with the Kjoil markings. It was a message to me, wasn't it? You sent it, tricked me into coming out here so you could kill me."

Koll smiled lightly. "And who is Wedder Dhohji?"

Skar longed for strength. "The information broker."

Koll's eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about? I didn't know until you showed up in that tunnel that you were even involved with this. I knew you were somewhere on Coruscant, but I, as well as Sasa, decided against facing you there in person, knowing you would die eventually once my plans came to full fruition as long as you stayed on Coruscant."

Skar could discern no lie, but it didn't make sense. "Then...someone else sent the datacard...to lure me out here."

Koll scratched his chin. "Yes...so it would seem. Interesting. But it is little consequence now. I will deal with this matter in due time."

Skar continued to speculate. "The bombing of the Senate?"

Koll shook his head. "Not our doing. One of Skywalker's past Jedi apprentices, a young man named Brakiss, is responsible for that. His motives are beyond me, but his timing is perfect. The Senate is in an uproar and it has left the Republic with limited means to defend itself against us," he turned away from Skar, a fatigue in his shoulders. "You yourself must see what kind of world is needed. War and drastic change is all that seems to drive evolution forward anymore."

Skar frowned. "No matter what you do, you'll be remembered as a killer, a terrorist, nothing more. How are you gonna explain future generations that you killed their parents so that they wouldn't have to learn to fight for themselves?"

Koll scowled. "Future generations? Since when was there any thought about the future in you, brother? You were always too busy obsessing about the past, about the woman you lost." Koll's rage built up, his voice becoming a thunderstorm. "When did you ever give a damn about what your actions meant! You never cared for anyone but yourself!"

Skar felt Riokon's anger and used it to feed his own. "I'm not Skind Kjoil!"

Koll pointed his finger at him. "That's why I hated you, you only thought about yourself! You tried to turn my wife against me! You told her I was in the way of your plans!" Koll clutched his own hands in anger and fury. "But you never had any plans, except your atavistic desire to raise Selia from the dead! You manipulated Sasa, making her think she was part of some great plan of yours, but the truth is you were just afraid I would take her away from you, isn't it? But she loved me too much, to listen to you." Koll held out his hand as a fist. "And now, soon, I'll have my redemption. I'll kill you and then I'll create something so…empowering that the Galaxy will forget they ever heard the name Skind Kjoil. I will surpass you, brother, and the legend, the fairytale of the Galaxy's strongest warrior, will be forgotten. And I'll take my place in history as a savior."

Skar couldn't hold back his laughter. "Listen to yourself. Its all about revenge. You're hiding your real intent under a shroud of righteousness, just so you can bury a dead man once more."

Koll's look soured. "I suppose I was a fool to think you'd understand. Caring about something other than yourself was never a trait you possessed. None of the Jedi know what's really coming. Which means someone else has to step in. Evolution has never occurred without some kind of sacrifice."

Skar closed his eyes. "People shouldn't have to die for it."

"No," Koll's voice sounded beaten, "I...dearly wish I could avoid that too. But the signal, the symbol of change, must be hard and direct. It must capture the attention of the entire Galaxy."

Skar let out the air in his lungs. "You'll be making it easier for others to destroy everything. Like it or not, the Republic does manage to maintain some degree of peace. If you destroy it, others will scavenge the remains and the Galaxy will end up in chaos."

Koll smiled confidently. "No need to worry. I'll be there to clean it up."

Skar smirked. "Your little army's gonna take care of the entire Galaxy? Sounds impossible."

"It's merely the beginning. Brother, the Sons of Destiny will be around long after you and I are in our graves. The future is not a straight line. There are many corners and crossroads. There are many possible outcomes, and many changes that affect the outcomes. Building the future is not just about doing the right things, its about teaching others as well. We must create awareness so that others can join us. And if we affect enough people, finally we may have our Dream fulfilled. A future that we've made for ourselves."

Skar snarled. "All people will remember is the lives you took, pretending to do the right thing!" Skar felt fire flaming through his veins, burning with hatred for the man he'd once called father. "You may not know it yet, but there's an invitation to hell out there with your name on it!"

Koll snickered at his threat. "Sadly, you won't be the one handing it to me." Then he reached inside his cloak and pulled out a small pyramidal object.

Skar recognized it in an instant. It was the Holocron he'd left behind on Kryuu. The one Luke had asked him about, the one he'd thought about going back for so many times but decided not to. The instrument that had been his only teachings once, the thing that had told him the truth about Skind, Selia and the Jentarana. Seeing it did bring some other elements into light.

Koll tucked it away again. "It was never yours to begin with. It belonged to my son, he was supposed to have grown through the teachings inside, rather than learning from that miserable Dzog."

Skar felt more anger rising inside of him. "You're not half the Jedi he was."

Koll smiled. "No, I am far beyond his simple tricks. He was a disgrace to the Jedi." Koll sneered. "Textbook case on how to fail."

"He knew the truth?"

Koll nodded. "He did. But once you were in his control he abandoned my son. He believed you to be his tool for redemption. He knew my son was inferior to you. He knew you were the only one who could control the Jentarana and give him back his glory." Koll spat on the floor. "The man was a coward, a weakling. Although he corrupted and led my son into his fall, I find it of some small pleasure that my son killed that worthless creature. The man who lied to him, the one who destroyed his life, too concerned with his own to care for anyone else." Koll started to turn towards the door.

"I'm not done yet," Skar said.

Koll turned around, eyeing him skeptically. "What?"

Skar inhaled slowly. "Kayupa - why use his name?"

"Kayupa?" A silence followed that name, but soon Koll chuckled lightly at something only he could find funny. "I'm amazed that name does not strike some chord with you, my old Master. I would have thought, regardless of your newfound life, even that name would somehow resonate to you in the Force."

Skar didn't know what he meant. But in some ways, more than one, the name had always been with him. Sometimes it worked as a mantra, something he could pull strength from. The memory of his brother. But on the actual name's origin he didn't have the slightest clue. He remembered 2L telling him that it meant 'brother' in his native language. Master Bo-Hi had chosen it because he must've known that Kayupa and Skar would someday meet and grow as close as they had.

"You're wrong," Riokon said firmly, invading his mind. "Your late Master Bo-Hi was a poor excuse for a Jedi, and why the Council ever chose to let him ascend the rank of Master is beyond me. He was a fool, strong only in weaknesses."

Skar fought against his chains, biting back the anger Riokon had lit inside him. "Don't you talk that way about him!"

Riokon raised his hand slowly, but Skar felt it like a ton of pressure as he was pressed back against the detainment droid. "Don't mistake me for the young boy you once suckered, Master. There's a world of difference between us then and us now." Riokon lowered his hand. "Master Bo-Hi thought he was holding the clone of Skind Kjoil, he was charged with the responsibility of making it….go away."

Skar had heard this story before. "Master Bo-Hi couldn't…he couldn't kill the child." Skar spat mucus mixed with blood on the floor. "He thought it was wrong to blame the child for what Skind had done."

Riokon nodded. "And therein lies his weakness."

"Why? Because he had a heart? Unlike you?"

Riokon took one step closer. "Because he single-handedly destroyed the Old Republic."

Skar felt like a sheet of ice had wrapped itself around his guts. "What?"

Riokon closed his eyes, as if he was calling upon old knowledge. "Skind Kjoil was cloned using the very same Spaarti cylinders that are on lower level of this building. When a subject is cloned, it creates a disturbance in the Force. The late Grand Admiral Thrawn used ysalamiri to counter this side-effect. Any Jedi can feel this disturbance in the Force when he is close to a clone. Generally clones are mindless, obeying servants who care for nothing except fulfilling the wishes of their masters or creators. In your case it was slightly different; the Emperor himself transferred his own spirit into new clones from time to time, to stay young, to live forever."

Koll bowed his head slightly. "But in your case, not only did it exhibit a disturbance in the Force, but it was even stronger than usual, and it was stronger because it was Skind Kjoil's genes. The Jedi were already very weak at this point, the rising Dark Side clouding their vision. That was why Master Bo-Hi was asked to rid the Galaxy of the clone; because the Jedi Council knew the impact it's presence had on their power. Selfishly, and greedily, they wanted you dead."

Skar didn't want to hear anymore.

"Because Master Bo-Hi did not destroy you, the Jedi were powerless against the Emperor and Lord Vader. The Dark Side overtook them and they were left weak and scattered, easy pickings when the Purge came." Riokon opened his eyes, an age old sadness in the corner of his eyes. "You caused their downfall. You and your weak Master."

Skar stuttered. "That's - that's not true!"

"It is also the reason why the Jedi of today are not even close to being as powerful as the Jedi of old. Why even Master Skywalker has been unable to make any real progress in his attempts to build the next generation of Jedi. He cannot see it, but his biggest obstacle has been right in front of him this entire time. In you."

Skar didn't believe it. "But I - I was never on Shalasha with him! That was Kayupa! Bo-Hi never had the chance to destroy me."

Riokon smiled fully. "This part will really make your heart bleed, at first he was infact given you, the real clone. But he switched the babies with Lwen while they were still young. Lwen didn't know, but we knew. We watched over him while he thought we'd left him. We watched him dump you with Lwen on Nar Shaddaa where he thought the severe conditions of that planet would surely kill you when he could not. He stole our son from Lwen, switched the babies, and Lwen never knew. Lwen always believed he was raising my son."

Skar found it hard to accept, but somehow he knew it to be true. "And Master Bo-Hi took Kayupa..."

"Maybe the old fool was too sentimental for his own good. Rather than killing a child, he chose to raise a child." Their eyes met. "He left you to die on Nar Shaddaa."

Skar shook his head. "He came back for me!"

"He came back for the Jentarana. And while he was there he sought you out, looking for someone who could help him restore the Jedi Order. Someone powerful. Someone he could manipulate into his very own puppet."

Skar swallowed his own blood again. "Skind Kjoil's clone."

"The only one who could operate and understand the Jentarana, thus giving him a chance to pay back the betrayal he'd designed which left the Galaxy in such disarray." Riokon opened his hands. "It all makes sense, Master. It is the truth." The old warrior turned his side to him. "Sasa and I watched over you on Nar Shaddaa because we believed sooner or later the Emperor would find you there and it would lead us to him so we could destroy him."

"You used me as bait? But you just said how dangerous I was - "

"We chose to take that risk. You knew nothing of the Force at that time. We felt confident that if you grew too powerful we would have to destroy you, but you were far from such power when you slipped out of our grasp. When Master Bo-Hi took you away from Nar Shaddaa." Riokon turned his back to him. "Unfortunately you killed our son while you were out of our sight. When the Republic took you into its custody we were unable to retrieve you so that we might undo the flaw that was made long ago. The flaw we also neglected to give its full attention."

Skar looked at the floor, at the drops of blood and spit that laid at his feet. He didn't want to believe it, but somewhere inside him he felt illuminated. He was finally able to gather the pieces of his identity and all the inertia he'd always felt into a solution; a reason. And that reason was killing him, because it went against everything he'd ever taken for granted. Everyone was liars, everyone had held back from him, everyone had betrayed him. And as much as he wanted to blame them all for their lies, he felt he just couldn't. He was the biggest lie of them all.

All he was, was a lie.

Right from the start.

Riokon looked at him over his shoulder. "I've been completely honest with you, my old Master. Infact; I may be the only one who ever has." The General clasped his hands together. "So now you understand why I must kill you. Why I must finally unmake this terrible mistake, once and for all. I am only thankful to the Force that I will have the chance to do it in person, rather than you being simply another casualty in the oncoming assualt on Coruscant."

Skar tried his best to block it. Tried to find something else to focus on. "You didn't explain why you used his name? Why call yourself Kayupa? Why masquerade as your own son?"

Riokon looked at him. "I guess it must seem strange to you that I used the name Kayupa, but as I said before I am not the one who lured you out here. I often use that name as a cover...in some part as homage to you, to my former Master."

"Homage?" Skar was brought out of it by a mechanical sound as one of the detainment droid's arms unlocked, the others still holding him firmly locked. The free arm extended a small siring and Skar saw liquid inside it. The arm reached around behind him and he felt the prick of the needle as it touched his back.

It slid inside his skin and scrapped against bone before settling. Skar bit back the pain, he tried to move away from it but couldn't.

Riokon walked towards the door, touching the controls. The door opened and Riokon stood as a dark shadow against the light pouring in from the outside. "In some part Master Bo-Hi must've also named my son Kayupa to honor you, my old Master." Riokon looked over his shoulder one last time. "That was the name you used to call me."

"I don't - " Skar stopped talking, and with dazzling clarity he finally understood. Riokon had never claimed to be Kayupa, he'd always been honest. He'd always been him. It was not the name, it was the meaning behind it.

"Consider this my last honor to our old friendship instead, brother," Riokon said low but gently as he walked through the doorway. "Your days are numbered."

The needle injected.

---

Koll stopped just outside the door, listening for the clone's screaming. And when it reached his ears from beyond the thick walls and door, a frenzied desperate cry, his heart felt like it cradled inside a lover's care. The voice and the terror in that cry as the clone pleaded for help, Koll was sure nothing had ever sounded so good before in his ears. But it was a short pleasure, soon enough the clone passed out from the drugs and silence didn't hold the splendor of his everlasting hate begging for help.

He smiled to himself shortly, looking down at the floor. He felt foolish but he couldn't help remembering hearing his Master cry out before. At one point of his life he would have run to the man's aid, even laid down his life to protect him. He felt so far removed from those times, though he was sure it was a part of him. He couldn't see the distance traveled in between, the three decades that had passed since then seemed so fragile and so worthless. He was sure there was great wealth in the memories of those decades, but right now it seemed so far away.

He was back there, thirty years ago, ready to face his Master in combat. Ready to kill the man for his betrayal. Koll had spent many years in the embrace of the Dark Side, listening to its desires and its cravings, slaying and killing in its name. He'd known pain through the Dark Side, pain was its very essence. He'd explored hatred and anger to its limits. Fueled the emotions so far that it felt like he was going mad. He'd lost himself at one time, becoming nothing more than a living breathing embodiment of everything the Dark Side stood for. He'd seen true evil, he'd been it. He'd achieved it, he'd encouraged it in others. And yet today it held no grasp over his soul anymore. He'd moved beyond its control.

The hallways outside the dungeon he'd set aside for the clone were empty, blank smooth walls barely illuminated. Derrick had managed to have power up and running again by rerouting the main power supply to the fusion generator down in the bowels of the station, from the cloning facility. Derrick moved on emotions to his family back on Coruscant, moved on the desire to see them again.

Koll had been honest enough to tell the man that he couldn't promise such a thing, that he knew nothing of their fate. Derrick had been saddened to hear that but the man still believed that the Sons of Destiny were his best chance at seeing them again. Koll honored that decision, and had no intentions of betraying the man. He understood family better than anyone, after all the last thirty years he'd been spent building a family. A very lethal and motivated family.

He looked down both ends of the hallway, finding it strange to be alone. Usually either Sasa, Jovis, Junn or one of his aides were by his side. As it struck him he realized he hadn't had a moment alone to reflect in several years. It felt odd, but quite welcome. He knew Jovis was on his way back from Myrkr, but Junn and Sasa were a different story. Junn was in a medical wing, receiving a new prostethic for her right hand. He knew she carried her own feelings of failure and he would allow her to have those. Junn was good, but she was headstrong. This incident would break her slightly, but it had to come sooner or later. She was better knowing she was not invincible.

But Sasa...

She'd left so abruptly, perhaps confused about her emotions in this affair whereas Koll's feelings were set in stone. He hated the clone with every fiber of his being and the abomination would recieve its just execution soon enough. But Sasa had always been an emotional sort, and he supposed he should have expected her reaction. When she'd traveled to Kryuu all those years ago to face her brother, it wasn't out of hatred. It had been an attempt to save him. It was an unnerving fact, but he trusted her enough to know she would do her duty to the fullest.

He let out a deep breath and concentrated. In a matter of hours the last shipment of supplies would arrive, carrying also the last of the Inner Council, the leading body of the Sons of Destiny. Koll was General, and Sasa his wife, but aside from Junn, his lieutenant, there were others. Men he trusted beyond question. He longed to see them, to hear their voices again, to feel the unity in his heart when reunited with his most loyal friends.

Despite setbacks and this last surprise the mission's phases were well underway; the dismantling of the Watchmen was complete, rerouting the power was complete, perimeter defences were in place, and Phase 4, testing the stability of the cloning facility was also in progress. And once the rest of the army arrived, they would be ready for Phase 5, the final stage of their plan on Regana.

He nodded to himself and started walking down the hallway, seeking out wherever Sasa had dissapeared to. As he boarded the lift at the end of the hallway, some of the clone's words sent a stirring through his heart. Something he had been unable to forsee, but a matter he was sure he could deal with.

Then...someone else sent the datacard...to lure me out here.

The lift's doors sealed shut. Once secure inside the lift he reached out to the clone again, wanting to make sure it was sedated. The clone had been hit with an overdose of several drugs, the effects of which would put it in a thick stupor from where it would not awake for many days. But even in its dreams, he could feel the clone's mind fighting against the obvious truth deep within.

The clone still fought internally, he was still looking for some shred of evidence to give him final proof. Koll knew no matter how hard the clone worked it wouldn't be long before the man met his end. He could have killed him by now, but he wanted it to accept the truth.

He didn't want to fight the clone when it was weak, he wanted to fight his Master. He wanted him to accept it -

"Your lack of understanding thespirit will be your undoing."

Koll turned inside the tiny lift and whipped out his blaster. But the man speaking to him was the last person Koll would have expected to see. Koll's grip on the blaster, once considered one of the firmest in the Galaxy, shook.

"Master?"

Skind Kjoil's ghastly face stared back at him, his smile in place and his eyes still as strong as they'd ever been. Cloaked in a black robe and shining with his own immortal glow, the Kjoil Master held out his hands, standing no more than four feet away. "Humans can transfer enormous quantities of strength into their beliefs. His persistence is not of confusion or a search for truth. Its his hatred blamed at you. A hatred because you've unraveled his entire life, just as your son's life was unraveled, which led to his demise."

Koll had taught his soldiers never to lay down their weapons when faced with a foe, but even he knew he could not harm a ghost with his blaster. He steadied his aim on Skind's face. Mostly because it felt good, and more because it was a dream he often had, one with many pleasures of filling his Master's skull with red hot beams of light. "His suffering won't be long."

Skind Kjoil's face turned sour for an instant. "You can try all you want, but it will be pointless. Skar is the kind of man we heard about when we were young. Strong, dedicated, trust-worthy. He's the man we dreamed of being, Koll. To kill him would be to kill an idol for us both. None of us can defeat him," Skind sighed. "and when time runs out for this Galaxy we can both reflect if we were right to even try so."

Koll moved his blaster down, the rage contained in him surpassed his guard. "You talk of nothing. You talk of someone, something, that nature or the Force did not create! Someone without the blessing of life. Someone sick and twisted made him back in the past to test my dedication, my temperament today."

Skind looked at him. "Is that what you really think?"

Koll nodded. "You saw what happened during the Old Republic. You saw how innocent men died in vain. You know what happened during the Clone Wars. There was no loyalty to the men who fought for the Old Republic. There was no reward, no medals, no gratitude. I was testing to see what kind of government we were fighting to protect." Koll cursed. "And I found out, and to say I was surprised would be a lie. To say I was horrified…would be an understatement."

Skind nodded, he seemed to understand, yet his gaze hadn't changed for one time while Koll had emptied his heart. "It's hard to feel pity for those who died, when I was responsible for the deaths of so many of them. It was my strategic ability that the Emperor wanted for the general of his armies. In return he offered me a way for me to be back with Selia. I took it, well knowing he would generate a clone of me. He didn't shy away from telling me that much. Palpatine knew it and I knew it. He said he didn't want my abilities to go to waste. I paid it no mind at the time," Skind's eyes turned to slits, his jaw tighteneing, "yet to this day I wish I had slain that old man where he stood. For thirty years I've wandered as a ghost through the lives of so many. Seeing things, intimate and personal, in the lives of strangers."

Koll focused on the spirit, the transparent shimmering shape of a man he'd once loved. "You met my son."

Skind nodded. "When Kayupa stepped into my tomb," Skind shook his head slowly, "you can't imagine the happiness that coincided in me. He was a way out. The very person whose existence denied mine, or so I thought, walked right into my lap. I had no way of killing him, since my powers are only so deep in this form." Skind looked over at Koll, a silent sympathy locked in those dead blue eyes. "I wanted to kill him. Like I've never wanted to take a life before. I told him where to go to unlock the pain inside him, and I prayed he would fail."

Koll stepped forward, his teeth bared in anger. "That was my son! Who you manipulated and sent off into his doom. You and a bunch of others lied to my boy, told him unbelievable terrors that made him crazy."

Skind again seemed unaffected by the tragedy of his deceit. "But where were you? How could you abandon your own son like that, Koll? How could you leave him in the hands of a predator? Where were you, his father, to protect him? To raise him?" Skind laughed. "I am no more responsible for his fate than you were."

Koll was still full of rage but he had no one to lash out at. "We chased every source of information we had on Bo-Hi!"

Skind Kjoil smiled slyly. "But you never thought to check out Kryuu. The source of all of this. The place where it all began."

Koll steadied himself, his anger had made him tremble with anxiety and he felt faint. "No. Neither Sasa nor myself wanted to go back there. It was only when my son died that I felt him. I heard his scream across the Galaxy. I went as fast as I could." Koll closed his eyes, trying to avoid crying at the memory. "But all I found were the remains of the Jentarana. I wasn't expecting that. Bo-Hi was supposed to have destroyed that thing years ago."

Skind hugged himself, his face illuminated with a tinge of pride. "The Jentarana is like me. In more ways than one. Just when you think you've got it beat, it just jumps right back at you."

Koll disregarded his words, he just stared hatefully into nothing. "All I had was a name…my son cried out his own name at the time of his death." Koll looked away and his lips quivered. "Skar." Koll shook with intense pain. "A name I loved, became the name of my sworn vengeance."

Skind frowned. "This isn't about him. All this, your work, your army, your soldiers. Its about the Republic. Who do you think you're kidding?"

Koll straightened up. "This is a lifelong hate, much older than the one I hold towards you, or your clone. The Republic has always been a cursed project. Even the might of the Jedi couldn't uphold the needed balance. The Republic allowed me, and our brothers, to die without giving it a second thought."

"That was the Old Republic. Things are different now, new leaders."

Koll shook his head. "It has nothing to do with the leadership. The disease is deep within the veins of Coruscant, corrupting everything it comes across." Koll looked up at his former Master. "My son shared my sentiments. He planned to dive the Jentarana right into the heart of Coruscant. The explosion of the generator would have been enough to take out a great deal of the planet's surface, and if that wasn't enough, the radioactive seepage would render one fourth of Coruscant uninhabitable for centuries. It would have been a momentous occasion, one I would not have been sad to let my son undertake." Koll nodded proudly. "Even his sacrifice would have been worth it."

Skind Kjoil looked at him in a disgust. "You'll revenge the thousands of your brothers who died, by killing innocent billions?" Then he looked away. A slight smile crossed his lips. "I've taught you everything I know. From strategy, combat, the Force, life and love. But I forgot to teach you common sense." Skind sighed. "Its true that the past is our only link to the future. But our memories shouldn't be corroded the way you want them. There are other ways of teaching future generations about the dangers of war. You have a responsibility to the future to keep track of the mistakes we've made. But you're not giving them advice, you're not giving them helpful tips. You're passing on more war and death."

Koll didn't move, didn't budge an inch. "Its all I have to give. And I will be remembered as the messiah who gave them the clean slate this Galaxy needed to make a better government. I'm passing on hope, and one big wake-up call."

Skind nodded. "And what about your soldiers, your children? Think of the world you're leaving them to fix. Think of the heritage you're bestowing upon them - "

Koll lifted his blaster and trained it at Skind's forehead. "My son is already dead by the hands of your mistake! He's already paid the price like so many of my friends and family did! My son is dead because of you!" Koll ground his teeth with anger. "So don't tell me about passing on the right stuff. All you've ever passed on was death!"

Skind smirked. "You can't blame me for that. I'm not in control of his actions, he's simply following his own will. If a baby dies at birth, do you blame the mother? Come on, Koll, you used to be smarter than this." Skind leaned against the wall. "What I find most humorous is the fact you're pledging this war against the New Republic under the name of vengeance for your son."

Koll kept his blaster aimed at Skind. "What's so humorous about that?"

Skind smiled. "You're building this army to take your revenge for your so-called lost and betrayed son. But you've never even met your son. You've never even gazed into his eyes and seen the light behind them. I've met your son, I heard his good will and intentions. Remembering that time now, I can recall every word he said, because they sounded like you. He was a good man, a good Jedi. But his ego was crushed under a tremendous lie you pushed him right into...where did you ever find enough proof to allow calling yourself a father?"

Koll tightened his grip on the blaster and pulled the trigger. He gave it no thought. The red beam coursed through Skind Kjoil's face and emerged on the other side, exploding against the lift's wall. Skind's face dissolved like a cloud, but slowly it rebuilt itself and the smile was still perched on Skind's lips.

Koll cursed in anger.

Skind remained untouched. He just laughed heartily. "Many times on many occasions people have tried to kill me. You're the only one that's gotten this close and failed." Skind laughed even louder. "I've always been stronger than you, Koll. It must be a great anguish that you'll never have the chance to prove otherwise."

Koll bit back the pain, his blaster still in hand, smoke coming from the barrel. "Damn you, Skind. You deserve a lifetime - no, a million lifetimes as the ghost you are. Maybe I should lengthen your agony." Koll whispered the words with great resentment. "Keep you from Selia forever."

Skind laughed again, adding to Koll's torment. "You have that power. Just let the clone live."

Koll looked up into his Master's face. He despised his Master enough to wish him a life of pain, but his hatred against Skind went so far he would rather prove himself against him in real life rather than to prolong the misery of a ghost. He would kill Skind's clone and prove himself stronger than his old Master. Skar would die, even if that was what Skind was coaxing him into doing.

"When you meet Selia…remember I was the one that gave you to her. Remember that every second you spend with her is given by me." Koll's face turned gray with perverse pleasure. "I will kill you, Master, and eternity with Selia will be spoiled because when you see her, you will know that I was greater than you. When you touch her, you will hear my victory cry in your ears. And when you kiss her, you will taste my joy."

Koll got so ecstatic that he lunged out at the ghost but his hand went through Skind's face and Koll thrashed down on the lift's floor. The pain from the impact pounded through his shoulder but he paid it no mind. He couldn't stop laughing.

"I will kill you, Master!"

Amidst the insane laughing Skind Kjoil's ghost form began to dissolve into a cloud of nothing next to Koll. But the hysterical Koll managed to see his Master one last time, shaking his head in amazement at Koll's hatred, before the ghost disintegrated. Skind's voice whispered for the last time over the slowing of the lift as it reached its destinated level.

I lend my trust to you in this and wish you good fortune, for my own sake. But I already know your words are meaningless.

---

Beyond consciousness and beyond dreams, Skar found himself inside the libberatium, the space Master Bo-Hi had revealed to him, where spirits in the Force could convene. Just as before it existed as a black emptiness, illuminated only a small shred of light that fell upon him from an undiscernable source. But even there Skar had to fight an internal struggle. His mind was pounding him down emotionally and spiritually until he almost couldn't take it anymore, fearing he might go completely insane, his chaotic thoughts that tried desperately to cling to something, anything. Everything was such a mess and he found he still longed for the moment to fade and he would wake up, maybe on Coruscant or maybe back on the Civilian. He didn't care where. Just anywhere but there.

You are the clone of Skind Kjoil.

The words resonated through his soul. And Skar looked up to see Kayupa, the spirit of his old friend and nemesis, keeping him company inside the libberatium. It perplexed Skar that he himself was able to enter this space in the Force, when Sonnet was assumingly still out there, blocking him from the Force. Kayupa carried himself with the same dignity and confidence he'd always had, but there were hints of amusement in his expression, a kind of pleasure.

Seeing Kayupa made him remember Koll, the man who'd ruined his life. The man that for a few moments had been his father, only to transform into an apprentice Skar had trained in another life. The pain thumped through him momentarily. Trying to fight it back, but knowing he couldn't, the truth began to shape itself into his mind, rebuilding the fragile pieces of his identity that he had fought so hard to build. Like a parasite it erased his name and his past, leaving only blank spots that needed to be filled.

The truth settled with a heartbreaking sigh. All his life he'd lived the fairytale of being Skar Kjoil, the nephew of the greatest Jedi ever to live, he'd set right so many wrongs and had given so much hope to those without. But it was never his, it never had been. It had been the glory of someone else.

He was him, he was he.

Skind Kjoil.

With the realization slowly settling, Skar found another pain from the past scurrying its way across his brain until it fixated in his memory. Kayupa had been him. The knowledge crystallized his heart. Skar grabbed onto the pain, because it was all he had left, a dread filling the place in his soul where the Force had once resided.

Kayupa began to walk over to Skar, until they were standing face to dead face. He looked at Skar, pity radiating from his eyes. Skar tried to keep his strength up, but this was too abstract for him to keep up any longer.

Kayupa leaned into Skar, Skar could feel his dark and evil presence so much he thought it was his own. Skar looked back at the spirit of Kayupa, and stared down into his undead eyes. And when he spoke his voice echoed through the darkness.

"If you weren't already dead...I'd kill you a million times over."

Kayupa chuckled loudly, his cackle echoing into infinity. "I deserve that. Depressing, isn't it, brother?"

Skar shook his head. "This…can't be happening. You should have told me."

Kayupa hugged himself, staring at the darkness around them, a puzzled yet amused look in his eyes. "I could have..."

Skar kept his glare on Kayupa. "Why didn't you?"

Kayupa smiled smugly. "I spend all day with ghosts, Skar. I need a good laugh once in a while."

Despite the anger flowing through him, Skar couldn't help smile slightly at that remark. "Same old Kayupa, ey? Same old bastard."

Kayupa held out his hands. "What can I say? Master Bo-Hi pulled one on both of us, didn't he? I knew there was something he wasn't telling. Knew he had something up his sleeve."

Skar turned his face away. "Are you my friend?"

Kayupa shrugged indifferently. "It takes two to make that decision, but I'll leave it entirely up to you. Seems to me all of your friendships come with some measure of hate or pain."

Skar snorted. "Why can't I ever meet normal people?" Skar thought of Kast, and the other commandos. "What happened to the commandos that were with me?"

"They're being held somewhere in the station, still alive. Koll has some kind of plan for them, but I don't know what it is."

Skar nodded. "What's his real plan? How does he intend to destroy Coruscant?"

Kayupa shrugged. "I don't know. I don't think many do. He's waiting for something, or someone, to come to him."

"What's with the scrapyard of ship outside?"

"I don't know."

"He managed to reroute the power too."

"He did," Kayupa said, "the orbital defences are up and running again. He'll be ready for the Republic retaliation that is sure to come."

"Maybe that's what he's waiting for," Skar said.

"What do you mean?"

"He's destroyed all his own ships...there's no way to move the army out of here. I think he intends to destroy Coruscant from here. But I can't figure out how."

"Maybe something to do with the cloning facility in the lower levels," Kayupa's eyes hardened, "the very same that spawned you."

Skar hugged himself. "I still can't...I won't believe any of it."

Kayupa smirked. "It doesn't matter. You wanted to know how I could maintain my presence in the Force, when all I was, was a mirror of another man. Well, turns out I wasn't. I have my own soul, my own identity. I wondered about it at first too, but the Force gave me no answers." Kayupa closed his eyes. "I am Skar Kjoil."

Skar shook his head. "No. You have a presence because you are Skind Kjoil. Like the real Skind Kjoil you're trapped in the same afterlife."

"No, brother." Kayupa sighed. "Skind Kjoil is alive because you are alive. It was you that activated the Jentarana on Soliton, your bloodstream, not mine."

Skar's hands balled into fists. "You can't prove that because its a lie."

Kayupa shook his head slowly, his lifeless eyes peering beyond the reality around them. "Skar, you're going to have to embrace it, just like I did. Then you'll see the hopelessness of fighting the truth. You, and Skind Kjoil, have only death left in this life. There is no redemption. You've spent your entire life trying to make good for all the damage he did, but its time to realize that the only way you can do that is by ending it all. The world never needed a Skind Kjoil in the first place. Give the man his dignity, end this charade now."

Skar stared at Kayupa, trying not to think of him as what he was but what he had been. "Why are you telling me this?"

Kayupa looked directly into his eyes. "Because I know you're looking for a way out. And you're not too choosy about it either."

"What?"

Kayupa rubbed his hands against each other. "You're thinking about killing yourself, aren't you?"

The words took Skar far beyond himself. The idea of dying had not crossed his mind until then. Since Riokon had talked to him, he'd tried to make the facts and lies fit together in a non-harmful pattern. But in some ways, he supposed, to die would make it all so much easier. Everything would go away. Everything would be nullified, his pain would vaporize and he would be free of it all. Free of this twisted reality.

Free to see Shinran again -

Skar shook his head at that thought. No, don't say it. Don't even think it!

"Don't hide it. You are," Kayupa said, "as I was. It hurts, doesn't it? The thought of how much we've accomplished. Of how much we've suddenly lost, on the inside. It's enough to drive any man crazy."

Why was he saying these things? What good could he benefit from his death? Why was he feeding him these thoughts? "I'm not crazy!" Skar shouted as much as he could, his voice resonating eternally. "Everyone else just is!"

Kayupa chuckled. "Exactly."

Skar felt the hopelessness of it all conquer him, leaving him drained. He felt like a vampire had bit down into his very soul and sucked out every last ounce of strength and understanding. "Why…why is this happening to me?"

Kayupa shrugged, a blank look on his face as if he was really discussing something much less important than this. "Because its the truth," he said calmly. "Don't fool yourself into thinking that fate, the Force, or even some kind of god suddenly had it in for you and warped reality. That's not what happened, not even close. This…is reality coming too late. It happened for me too, and I blamed everyone." His eyes closed. "You have to blame everyone, because you know you didn't do it. But there's nobody who really deserves the blame."

"You killed Master Bo-Hi," Skar pointed out.

Kayupa nodded. "I took it out on Master Bo-Hi, yes, but more than him I took it out on life. I blamed life…as ridiculous as it sounds, I blamed life. The very thing that I had never asked for. If life was going to screw around with me, I wasn't going to be around for the show. I'd had many joys, many pleasures and I'd been a happy man, but I blamed the one thing that never asked anything in return or lied to me." Kayupa looked away. "It was then I had to ask myself; would I rather have never lived?"

Skar didn't want to hear the regrets of a dead man, much less Kayupa's. All he wanted was to leave, but to go where? To do what? In his mind it was as if the pain only belonged to this place, and he thought that if he left it would go away. Like a bad dream.

"It won't," Kayupa said to answer his thoughts. "It won't ever go away."

Skar didn't want to hear those words. He feared those words, they battered what defenses he had left. Skar felt his body tighten and his jaw worked as he felt those tears waiting to be released crawl up the inside of his face. "This…I won't accept it! It can't be real! This is a dream," Skar said, not really believing it himself, but hoped so desperately it was true. "You're not real, you're dead. Shinran killed you!"

Kayupa hugged himself, his face blank as ever. "Is that the way you saw it?"

"What?"

Kayupa didn't answer right away, he contemplated his words carefully. "You chose to think of it as her killing me, but what if I was just an excuse?"

"An excuse for what?"

"To be free," Kayupa said bluntly. "Shinran isn't - wasn't the first to long for a release. Long for the freedom that people somehow think they can only achieve through death. What makes you think she wasn't running away from something?"

Skar didn't understand. "Like what?"

"Like you."

Skar snarled and wanted more than anything to tear out whatever was keeping Kayupa alive. Whatever lifeless heart that kept beating in that dead chest. To kill him, again and again and again. "You bastard!" he shouted. "What gives you the right! How dare you!"

Kayupa shrugged, a cold look in his eyes. "I thought that as long as we're studying alternative realities, we might as well do it thoroughly." Kayupa leaned back against the wall. "You're dead. Skar Kjoil is dead. I'm dead. Who are you really?"

Skar felt overwhelmed with anger. "I'm…me!"

"And who is that?"

"Someone who won't be fooled by these lies!" Skar roared, his voice louder than ever. "You and Koll. You're both sick. Twisted and evil. What would you know about reality? What makes you think that even for a second I would believe you!" Skar screamed, fed up with this discussion. Sick of having Kayupa bringing him down, brining him further and further into his own despair. Was he still trying to break him? Had Riokon asked him to do this? Why?

Why not just kill him?

Kayupa bowed his head slightly. "Your identity may have changed but your ideals shouldn't have. You're still the same person, all that's changed is the way you think about yourself." Kayupa smirked. "The name you write on the bottom of the paper, that's all. Don't tell me your life has changed that much."

Skar squinted. "You believed it did. You went crazy."

Kayupa hugged himself. "Well, spending thirteen years hovering in the Force doing nothing but retrospect changes a man," Kayupa joked.

Skar sighed. "It's not that easy for me, Kayupa. For a moment I thought Koll was you, then I thought he was my father. Now he's - " Skar looked hard for the words, "an apprentice in an alternate life. Someone I taught, and someone I abandoned which made him hate me. I can't relate to that. And I wanted, more than anything, to believe he was my father. That they were my family. For two minutes I had a family."

Kayupa nodded. "And in an alternate life I was your uncle, your friend and your worst enemy. Nothing's changed." Kayupa looked ahead, seeing things in the Force that Skar couldn't. "You're forgetting things I taught you long ago. Things of the heart. I've been by your side the entire time since you undertook this mission, watched you drown your emotions thinking it was the right thing to do. You're listening to your heart, as I so many times taught you, but you're not understanding what its saying to you."

"What?"

"Think back, you chose to take this mission but why? Because you thought I was involved. You thought this was a job for a Kjoil, for you, something only you could do. You thought the feeling you felt in the Force was something about you personally, but the real thing it was telling you was that you were needed here. You treat each impression from the Force like it has something to do with your own problems, when infact its closer to saying 'move on'. It was telling you to get over yourself because the future of hoping no dangers will come is not true. You are a Jedi Knight and a Kjoil Knight, Skar, but when you think about it you've never received any Kjoil training."

Skar's head came up. "What?"

Kayupa explained further. "The training you were taught back on Kryuu was Jedi training, not Kjoil. So your touch with the Force tells you what to do as a Jedi, you thought it was the Kjoil side telling you that you actually had free choice. You didn't listen closely enough because you haven't learned to distinguish the two. It was the Force, the Jedi Force, that told you to come here, for truth. You were needed here, and the Force brought you here."

Skar didn't want to understand. "You're saying...that because I thought it was my Kjoil side that told me to come here, I didn't see that the Force, as a Jedi, needed me here?"

Kayupa smiled. "Correct, brother, you thought you would gain some insight here, but what the Force was really doing was pushing you away from that and placed you in a hostile territory for you to gain reasonable insight. The insight your Jedi side needed. And you've been teaching Jedi training, even Rishi, your little apprentice, you've stuffed him with what you knew, which is all Jedi training. You have no Kjoil training."

Despite how empty those words made him feel he could see some light in it. And he couldn't help think that maybe that was what Kayupa had been trying to tell him all along.

"So you're saying - "

"I'm saying there's a lot about the Force that you have yet to learn. You still haven't learned the full potential of your heritage, things that could get you out of that dungeon," Kayupa said with a wink. "My father is lost beyond hope. I can understand his motives, but I don't think he's right." Kayupa pleaded. "And you are the only one who can stop him, and keep the promise you gave to Skind Kjoil."

"But I'm not him!" Skar yelled.

"Would it make it easier for you to think of yourself as Skar Kjoil? Would you still fight Koll and kill him? Would you kill the person you think of as your father? Or your mother?"

Skar opened his mouth to talk, but there were no words. No comforting outlook at all. And without the Force, how was he to know?

Kayupa turned his back to him. "Denying it makes it easier. Easier to hide from the truth, than to acknowledge the pain."

Skar shivered from a cold that didn't exist inside the room. "I have proof. When the Jentarana was destroyed I felt him join with the Force, and when you died I felt the Force become stronger."

Kayupa was unaffected. "Then why is Skind's spirit still so active? Believe me, he has not settled into the netherworld. He is watching us," Kayupa's eyes searched the room around him slowly, "even now. Plotting. The surge you felt in the Force upon my death was the Dark Side being released from my body."

Skar shook his head. "I won't accept it, its not true. I won't give up everything I am, everything I've done. I can't."

Kayupa sympathized. "I know, believe me. I know. Whether or not you choose the embrace the fact, your time is running out. No matter who you think you are, Koll will come for you. And since you won't be able to kill those you believe are your family, you must at least give others a proper chance. Achieve the peace you've always wanted, the peace you've deserved. You and I both know that you can't kill your own father. You've longed for a family since the day I met you."

Skar turned his face away. "Leave me, Kayupa. You can't help me anymore."

"I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this is how it is. This is your destiny."

Skar sighed. "My destiny? This is my torment." Skar didn't want to look him in the eyes. "How can I trust you?"

Kayupa stepped in front of his vision, holding out his hand and placing it on his chest. "Because I'm your friend. The only friend you've ever had."

Skar wanted to believe those words, but he'd done so before and it had ended in catastrophe. "What…what was that injection Koll gave me?"

Kayupa removed his hand. "Among other things it was extracting a blood specimen from you, Koll wants a sample of your blood to make sure you're really who he thinks you are. It was also a truth serum, avabush. Its designed to calm you down, making you docile. Making it easier for you to accept the truth."

"But why?" Skar asked weakly. "If Koll hates me so much why hasn't he killed me yet?"

Kayupa smiled slightly. "He hasn't killed you because he hates you so much. He wants you in a fair fight. He wants to prove his superiority over Skind Kjoil, so he can unmake him." Kayupa hesitated for a moment. "That's…what a lot of things revolve around in his plans. Let him have his victory, and you could have yours too." Kayupa looked at him, pity radiating from those once trustworthy eyes. "You mustn't hang on, Skar. For the good of this Galaxy...you have to let go."

---

When Regana's sun rose over the ridges and mountains in the horizon it cast a shine so brilliant over the plains of snow surrounding the installation, that the soldiers on outside patrol had to cover their eyes with their hands while their eyes adjusted to the new brightness. Some even optioned to activate the eye-shields in their helmets, dampening the effect slightly, while others enjoyed the moment of natural beauty the sun bestowed upon the cold world.

To a soldier, seeing the sun rise was more than just a way of knowing what time of day it was. It was a thankful reminder that they'd survived another day. Each of the Sons of Destiny troopers said an unvoiced prayer that they would be fortunate enough, skilled enough, to survive another day and witness this spectacle again.

However, for some on Regana seeing the sunrise was a source of anger. With Jovis on a special mission for the General of the terrorists, the crew he'd left behind on Regana grew more and more frustrated with their situation. Tired and sick of doing the same patrols every day, drunk and conspiring, the thirty of them hatched a plan to turn the tables around for their benefit. Banding together half of Jovis's men they turned against the army and demanded payment in return for the lives of the hostages they were assigned to guard.

Koll Riokon watched the situation unfold from the window in his office, the chamber he'd made into a dining room, his clear and vengeful eyes devising a plan for how to retake the structure with minimal damage to hostages and his own men. In some ways the incident reminded him of what he was about to do to Coruscant, their mission. He had no desire to kill any of the millions that would die, but he knew how important it was that at least some died.

Massacre and tragedy; those were the true foundations of change, the death of someone dear was always a slap in the face and it demanded new thinking. Mankind was not powerful through the rule of the Republic, they were slaves to it. But he would set them free. He would correct the wrong he abandoned so long ago.

Coruscant, home of heroes, Koll thought to himself, the symbol of humanity to the Galaxy. Koll snorted. What do they know about humanity? Insanity in individuals is something rare but in groups and government it is the rule.

Through him the Galaxy would grow. Every trial endured in the right spirit made a soul stronger than it was before. The fundamental ills of Coruscant, the source of its troubles, was stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power. At all times, day by day, the soul had to fight for freedom and freedom from want, and not just in war but also in peace. He would give them peace, just as soon as the war was over.

Regret hiring the mercenaries he did not, he'd enjoyed sharing experiences and thoughts with Jovis, and the mercenaries had helped Junn push back the clone and his military accomplices when they'd crashed in their ship.

All in all they'd been great assets, cheap even, which was why he was not surprised when the rest of Jovis's men decided to revolt against him. In the absence of their leader they began to speculate on their own, and simple creatures as mercenaries were their first thoughts inevitably revolved around money. Koll knew the mind of a mercenary, he had anticipated this. He had no intention of paying them for the hostages.

They had no hostages.

Koll touched his right temple once with his hand. Outside the window on the connecting bridge between there and the building under siege, the platoon leader acknowledged his command with a crisp nod. The man turned about and relayed the command to the five special unit troopers. Koll felt a surge of pride as the six of them sprung into action, the wild winds picking at them.

The door to his office slid open and Sasa walked, dragging her cloak across the floor. She wore concern as she walked up to stand beside him. Koll reached out his hand to hold hers but she folded her arms over her stomach instead. He didn't want to take it personal, he knew she got like this during situations that could either end very fortunate or very disastrous. Koll remained unalarmed, he'd planned this incident for as long as he'd been on the planet.

Sasa made a heartfelt sigh. "I hate it when things go wrong."

Koll nodded. "There is good in every situation, you just have to look for it."

Sasa was not reassured. "Wish my eyes were as good as yours."

Koll glanced at her. "How is Junn recupperating?"

Sasa shook her head. "She blames herself, and she fears why you haven't been to see her yet, afraid you're too ashamed of her. But despite her injury, it may prove to be the best thing that ever happened to her."

"I know."

"I'm not talking about humility, Koll," she said bluntly, "I'm talking about her fear."

Though she was standing right next to him, Koll couldn't help feel there was a wall between them. "Fear?"

"Yes. She is indeed humbled, broken even. She's scared of going back out there, knowing now she will never be as strong as she was before. She doubts herself, and in that mode of thinking she's beginning to think of alternate paths."

Koll's chest sunk. "Leaving?"

"With her injury, she will be as invincible as the army used to think her to be. They know now she is defeatable. She believes someone else should take her place as lieutenant."

Koll had never thought he'd hear those words coming from Junn. "Has she lost faith?"

"Not in the mission, but in herself. She only wants what is best for us, for the army," Sasa's words were direct and to the point, "and I also believe it is best. Junn carried us this far, its time for someone else, someone new to lead the army. Junn took the army through its infancy, she brought them up, raised them, loved them. Now she has to turn over her position to someone who can lead them through the greatest battle yet."

Koll bit his lip. "Maybe."

"There is no maybe, Koll. She is decided. She has no regrets, but she feels now that she's sacrificed enough."

Koll read between the lines. "And what about Krych?"

Sasa's insides warmed at the thought of Krych, her apprentice and Junn's lover. "There'll be a problem, without a doubt. But she feels she's done enough." Sasa sighed. "And I agree with her."

Koll ignored that comment and watched the surgical precision with which his men planted explosive devices on the connecting bridge. The bridge outside the window was the only one leading in and out of the hostage hangar now. The others had already been dismantled during the first stage of their take-over, cutting down on options for an enemy to use as an entry point. This last one he'd left because he felt safer being able to personally oversee its safety from his office. In minutes the platoon leader would blow away this last entry point, making it impossible for anyone to enter.

Or leave.

Sasa seemed to notice it too. "I don't understand."

Koll smiled, his eyes still on the situation on the bridge. "To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe."

"What are - "

"I'm playing the role of a very upset landlord," Koll said with a sly grin. "I'm locking them in."

"And what about the hostages?"

Koll hugged himself and turned to her. "During last night's patrol shift our soldiers transferred the hostages to another structure, a safer location. The building is empty," he smiled, "except for a few drunkards who decided to betray us."

"So now we're short one structure?"

Koll shrugged. "This facility is more than big enough to suit our needs. One structure less won't affect our plans." He glanced at her. "Trust me. I've thought of everything."

"Surely they can get out."

"All previous entries and exits have been welded shut and all the water and power supply has been rerouted around that structure. Soon our little mercenaries will not only be starving, but also freezing to death. Even their weapons can't help them now. They're trapped in their own betrayal."

She almost smiled, yet that concerned look was still there. "How do you think Jovis will react to us killing his men?"

Koll knew she would ask that, he had hoped she would. He'd rehearsed the daredevil smile he gave her. "Kill? My dearest, I have no intention of harming a single hair on their heads. All they have to do is lay down their weapons and surrender. I'll put them on one of the small shuttles belonging to this station and they'll be flown right off this planet." He chuckled. "I'm their employer; I can fire them, but I can't fire at them."

Sasa smiled and even gave a short laugh.

They were interrupted by the sudden appearance of a hologram hovering over his desk. The size of a hand, Koll recognized the scrambled face of the man that had hired him and his army. Koll pushed away the sudden fear that went through his heart.

"General Riokon," the hidden man said in a deep dark voice.

Koll nodded respectfully. "I was unaware we'd agreed to communicate at this time, Eclipos."

The hologram shifted, a distortion passing over its few features. "We have not. However, some information has passed my way that I feel obliged to share with you. In response to the failed insertion the Republic has just launched a task force heading for Regana."

Koll sat down at the desk, running a palm over his face. "Task force?"

"A group of three Star Destroyers, led by an Admiral Gout Saul."

Koll nodded, a brief smile passed over his lips. "Three Star Destroyers," he looked over at his beautiful wife, "excellent."

"How are things on Regana?"

Koll turned his attention back to the hologram. "Better than expected. We've rerouted the power to a safer source, and eliminated all of the best entry points. Perimeter defenses are up and running, and the cloning facility is already hard at work."

The hologram lowered its head. "Will the subject be ready in time?"

Part of their arrangement was for Koll to provide their employer with an untainted clone, one that this Master would use for himself, moving his spirit to a younger form, much like the Emperor had done countless times. "Yes. The rest of my Inner Council and troops should be arriving any moment now."

The hologram nodded. "Anything else?"

Koll thought of the clone below, but decided against mentioning it. "No, we're one hundred procent."

The hologram tilted its head, and the voice deepened. "You're lying to me, Riokon."

Koll smiled. "I have told you all that you need to know, and I once again remind you to trust me."

A chuckle. "Very well."

Koll disconnected the transmission with the flick of a button and swirled his chair to meet Sasa's confused gaze. "Do not ponder so heavily on these matters, my dear. Rest assured; everything is in control."

Sasa looped her eyes. "Really? Why didn't you tell him about the clone, our only real hostage that's still alive?"

Koll felt off guard. She'd been with him for as long as he could remember, they'd been married for decades. She never second-guessed him, she always trusted his judgement and his assessment of any situation. It felt strange to suddenly hear her question him. "You know why he's alive."

"Its insane, Koll. We should do away with him as soon as possible. He's a liability."

Koll wasn't worried. "Sonnet is with him."

Sasa had always distrusted that mysterious man known as Sonnet, though Koll considered the man to be his most trusted advisor. Koll would often counsel with Sonnet on matters of great importance. He was more a shaman than anything else. Sasa didn't like him because she didn't know what went on during those private session the man shared with Koll. Always a shadow in black, Sasa couldn't recall a time having ever seen Sonnet's real face. But Sasa admitted he was a great asset to their cause, and she could definetly feel the vibrant energy swirling inside the promising acolyte.

Koll walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tightly and laid his head on hers. "Every great accomplishment has some risks."

"So do the failures."

Koll placed a small kiss in her hair, soothing the tension between them. "He's our prisoner. Without the Force he can do nothing - "

"He's my brother," she said abruptly. "Believe me, if he wants to he can do plenty of damage. He is dangerous, Koll. Everyone knows it but you."

Koll understood her. He didn't want to risk the clone running free any more than she did. He had no intentions of keeping it alive, his threat about injecting ysalamiri genes was no more than that; a threat. He wasn't planning on keeping it alive long enough to need such a surgery. He just liked seeing the man squirm. He liked letting the clone know that his fate was in his hands. Koll added some pressure to his hold on her and softened his voice. "Down in the dungeon, when I drew my blaster, you stepped in the way. Why?"

Her shoulders tightened beneath his hands, suddenly feeling afraid. "I...don't know. Old reflexes."

He understood. "You want to talk to him before we kill him, don't you?"

She sighed. "I guess...he's still my brother in some part."

"It's alright," he said, "I don't blame you. I felt the same way."

Sasa relaxed in his arms, falling into him, exhaling most of her anxiety. "I don't know. It just…we're so close to our goal. It feels stupid to take risks now, espicially for personal reasons." She turned around and placed her forehead on his chest. "He killed our son, Koll. How much longer should we postpone his death?"

Koll ran his fingers down her back, and back up, caressing her in the ways he knew she liked. "He'll be dead before the day is through, I promise you." His heart darkened at the thought of his encounter with Skind Kjoil in the lift, the anger he'd felt had almost pushed him into insanity. But soon it would end, with the death of the clone, Skind Kjoil's ghost could no longer haunt him.

She turned to look at him, a worry passing over her face. "You...something is wrong."

Koll closed his eyes, avoiding to look her in the eyes. "Has Skind ever...talked to you? Talked to you from the other side?"

She tensed up immediately. "As a ghost? No."

Koll suspected as much. "I saw him...yesterday. After I left the clone he showed himself to me in the lift."

Sasa's breathing became shorter, her heart pounding against her chest. "What did he say?"

"He mocked me. He wants me to kill the clone because it will set him free. And as much as I want him to suffer, I know I have to do it. For equilibrium." He winced. "It was strange, Sasa. He was right there, alive and breathing for all I knew. I was...a little happy to see him again. But it felt so strange, he was the man I remembered. Not the hateful image that I've been building up in my mind. I felt young again." He opened his eyes, tears flowing freely down his cheeks. "I missed him so much."

Her hands went around his waist, holding him tight. "He was my brother as much as yours. If not more."

Koll buried his face in her shoulder. "I hate him, Sasa. I hate him so much...because I miss him."

She didn't say anything, but tightened her arms around him. Koll was a pillar of strength and resolve, but she knew the sensitive side beneath all his armor. The same caring nature that had propelled him into their mission, a warrior with the heart of a pacifist.

He caressed the back of her neck, scenting her hair. "Its been a long time since I've held you like this."

"Too long," she muttered.

Koll nodded. "I remember when we used to lay in bed for days and just talk and make love."

Sasa remembered those days with great happiness, but lately those memories were fading more and more. She missed those times. "Those days died…with our son."

Koll sighed. "The pain drove us apart."

Sasa shook her head against his chest. "No, we drew apart. We were both hurt and we didn't talk about it. We should have talked about it."

Koll fought to keep himself from remembering those times too much. "Skar died. What was there to talk about?"

She pulled back slightly, so she could look into his eyes. "Look where we are, Koll. We're in control of an army of twenty thousand professional soldiers and killers. We've taken over one of the most lucrative repair yards in the Galaxy and we're about to destroy Coruscant in the name of vengeance. Let's face it; there was never room for a family between us. We've never been cut out to be parents, Koll. Where does a son fit in?"

Koll hesitated, he didn't like feeling emotional when there was work to be done. "What about Junn? She joined up with the troops."

Sasa caressed his shoulder. "She is not ours, Koll. And as much as I know you think of her as a daughter, she isn't. We have a wonderful friend in her, a great asset, but her life is polluted by us as well."

"She is as much a daughter to me, as Krych is a son to you."

Sasa thought of Krych. While it was true that the relationship between Master and Apprentice sometimes went beyond that, and she couldn't deny feeling like she had a son in Krych, it just wasn't true. Krych was not her son, but she was proud to be his Master.

"Skar was our weakness," Koll said carefully. "Now we are strong, just you and I."

Sasa felt slightly furious. "Some people think parents grow by their children, we could have learned from them as well."

Koll ran his palm across her cheek. "Sasa, I know we've failed as parents but as warriors we will prevail."

Sasa leaned back into him. "But for whom? We're both long past our primes. We won't live to see the revolution. We're only lashing out because we feel betrayed . We won't be around to see the consequences of our commitment."

"Does it matter?" Koll hugged her as much as he could, whispering into her ear. "Its been my lifelong dream to fix the decay spreading through the Republic's channels and connections, the disease that is infecting everyone it touches. The Republic is doomed to fail, its cornerstone was the Jedi and they were its only strength. But even they couldn't prevent the pieces from falling down. Malicious as it may seem, I want to bring the Galaxy into a turmoil, into a frenzy where people finally realize they have to take their lives into their own hands. They can't hide behind a signet and trust governmental leaders to make them safe. Security starts at home, inside, and people have to see that. Its the only way the Galaxy can feel safe again."

Sasa wanted that dream to come true as well, but there were other facets of the truth to consider. Things they couldn't ignore. "Coruscant's fall will fan into a hundred wars and millions will die."

Koll pressed his lips against her forehead, closing his eyes. "The Sons of Destiny will live out The Dream as our progeny. You know our mission doesn't end here, Sasa, there will be thousands more afterwards. And people will swarm to them as a unit. The Sons of Destiny will be the guardians of the Galaxy and they will set the tone for how the world must truly strive. Their sphere of influence will engulf hundreds of worlds, hundreds of people, and their power will be endless."

Sasa felt small inside his arms. "A new Empire, using the same tools that Palpatine used; fear."

Koll shrugged. "The Empire did some good things too. Fear governs the spirit, it invokes new thinking and instinctual living. Only through fear can the world evolve and find a true, better nature."

"But what about us? Where do we go?"

"We flow with the stream."

Sasa looked up at him. "What about our love? Will it emerge again or will we continue to fight as we always have, leaving other dreams in lack of fulfillment?"

Koll turned his head to look out the window. The soldiers had already primed the detonators and were ready to blow the bridge. "As you said," Koll gave his platoon leader a single nod and braced himself for impact, "those days died with our son."

---

When the Civilian finally broke out of hyperspace, Jovis sat back in his chair with a nervous sigh escaping his lips. He realized all too well that ever since he'd signed up with the terrorists his heart had been working at tripled effect, he wasn't usually this uptight during a mission, but this deal was different from those in the past. Most of the time they were hired to go directly into combat, not all these secondary tasks or standing guard. He wasn't sure which way he liked the most. The calmness had its perks, he just wished it was over soon, waiting made him more and more tense.

He considered his trip to Myrkr very productive, they'd managed to ensnare twenty of the ysalamiri creatures, and he believed his General would be pleased. Finding the creatures had not been difficult, but fending off their natural enemy, the vornskrs, had been grueling to say the least. Jovis had fought all his life, but he'd never encountered anyone or anything that had given him as much as a hassle as those vicious canines. He'd left with ten men but only eight remained now. Two of them had bought it when they'd met their first vornskr.

The first man had been attacked and sizing what they'd found of him, they hadn't bothered trying to salvage the rest of him. The second man however had tried to rescue him, but he'd never returned from the wilderness.

All in all Jovis counted his luck, and considered the mission a success. Considering the payment it was well worth it. He could always find new guns for hire, but money was much more scarce. The locals of Myrkr had told him about the ysalamiri. He was interested to note that the creatures exhibited a bubble in the Force that nullified its power. Any Jedi within ten meters of a ysalamiri would lose his connection to its power and be deprived of his strength. Jovis had, of course, noted this to be the main usage that the General intended the ysalamiri for.

Possibly even against this Jedi intruder that had been lurking outside their base when he'd left. Jovis hadn't communicated with Regana since then, but when the Civilian returned to the system the terrorist stronghold on the surface of the planet looked the same. No damage, no scoring, and personnel hustled about outside in the now almost empty and freezing scrap-yard. Still the same misplaced feat of technology in the middle of a icy blizzard.

All of this he read from his screens because the moment they'd shot through the atmosphere they were met with the ferocity of the constant wild winds. Neither Jovis nor Akla could make any visual confirmation of the base, all they had was its signal.

The Civilian was rocked from side to side, making Jovis more than a little queasy. Akla kept his focus at his console, the Arkanian never expressing anything but complete concentration, using their sensors to guide them through the turmoil. A thick white carpet hung over the viewport, allowing them to see nothing but the never-changing twirls of miniature twisters swirling over their ship's hull.

Jovis hoped that Akla knew what he was doing. Jovis couldn't tell what was up or down anymore, everything was just a thick blur. A nasty shake moved through the ship and nearly threw Jovis out of his command chair.

"Should I be worried?" he asked over his shoulder, not really wanting to hear the answer.

Akla cast him a very uncharacteristic smug grin. "About what?"

Jovis nodded to himself and closed his eyes. If something was wrong, or if they were about to crash, Jovis wasn't sure he wanted to know. The ship flip-flopped into a sudden dive that almost made Jovis heave because of the sudden change of direction. He felt like he was standing in an express-lift going straight down, only then to go straight back up, before circling around itself and starting over. The flight was unbearable, and Jovis prayed for it to end soon.

Jovis reopened his eyes at just the wrong time. Out of the viewport he could make out a dark shape of something inside the storm heading right for them. A shadow moved behind the veils of the white storm, like a giant cetacean about to surface water.

"Brace yourself!" Akla cried as he forced the Civilian into a sharp plunge.

Whatever it was went right over them, shadowing the bridge in complete darkness as it passed. The bridge shook with tiny vibrations as this second ship flew overhead, looming over them for several seconds before disappearing completely.

And when it was gone, Jovis sat back with his mouth open, staring at the roaring winds outside with a new appreciation. His nails dug out of the leather on his command chair as he slowly turned his head to look at Akla. He wouldn't have been surprised if the man had vanished into thin air along with the rest of the ship behind him, infact he rather anticipated it. But Akla was still there, still tapping away on his controls, eyes concentrating on the screen in front of him.

Jovis had been staring at him for a very long time before the alien looked up and noticed his surprised face and open mouth.

"Are you alright, sir?"

Jovis collected himself quickly, not really sure how to answer Akla's question. "What the blazes was that?"

"A transport," Akla said with a snort, "a big one."

"Big?" Jovis asked. "Was it one of those Watchmen-type ships?" Jovis remembered the mammoth slug-like ships that he'd seen when he'd first arrived on Regana for this job. The ones that had been emptied and scrapped.

Akla shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. The ship doesn't appear in any of our records. If it had been a Watchmen, we would have identified it." Akla shifted in his seat. "Besides, the Watchmen on Regana have already been dismantled."

Jovis nodded, he was right. And it bothered Jovis that he'd never had the courage or the memory to ask the General what they were using all those ship-parts for. He made a note to himself to ask the next time he got the chance. For now the mystery of that ship appearing out of nowhere was more than enough to puzzle him.

Jovis leaned back into his seat, and found it mildly comforting to see the winds clear up outside his viewport.

The Civilian eased its way through the rest of the storm and arrived without any further incidents in the same hangar they'd been assigned to the last time. Once the ship was settled, Jovis made his way to the stern and immediately handed out orders. He wanted those ysalamiri off his ship as soon as possible. Akla helped rally the men together, organizing them into groups. Though the ysalamiri were not that large, their cages were, and heavy too.

Jovis supervised the moving, waiting for the General to arrive and welcome him back. He was expecting a good pat on the back for a job well done. Jovis even felt slightly proud, almost giddily. He couldn't wait for the General to see -

A heavy explosion went off nearby and Jovis and his men were all thrown on their backs. The hangar trembled violently and ceiling panels fell from the sky, bouncing loudly against the hull of the Civilian. One of his men got pounded by a panel, knocked out instantly. Jovis was still trying to get the ringing out of his ears when he ducked beneath the Civilian for cover. Akla was already there. Jovis wasn't sure but he thought he heard klaxons blaring in the distance.

Had they been attacked? Jovis wished he knew. He thought of calling the General on his comlink, but as long as his ears kept ringing he wouldn't understand what the other man said anyway.

Akla was shouting something, but Jovis couldn't hear him. The hangar was still shaking from the initial explosion when a second one followed, this one much louder. The hangar they were in felt like the center of an earthquake, like some god had taken the hangar into the hand and decided to bounce it up against a wall like a ball. Jovis banged his head several times on the underbelly of the Civilian, Akla was clutching the fabric by his neck, shouting in vowels.

Whatever had happened, Jovis was sure it was bad.

When no more explosions followed Jovis pushed his men back into work, happy he couldn't hear their curses over the ringing in his ears. Akla was the one who pointed out to him that ships were arriving on the planet. Large transports, though smaller than the Watchmen, fitting the same characteristc slug-like design. Jovis and Akla watched as the ships flew over their heads and proceeded to their own hangars. Jovis couldn't figure out why the General had deemed it necessary to bring in more troops. There were already thousands of them on Regana.

Jovis turned on his heels when he faintly heard doors slide open in the back of the hangar. Unlike the last time he'd arrived on Regana he found himself smiling as he saw the General of the terrorists come walking towards him. The man moved lightly across the floor of the hangar, his eyes focused on the boxes filled with ysalamiri being unloaded at the stern of the Civilian.

Jovis saluted him with a smile when they met halfway across the hangar. "Mission accomplished, General - "

"The money's already been transferred to your account," the General said without a hint of a happy note in his voice as he walked past Jovis without breaking stride, he only stared at the ysalamiri being unloaded at the Civilian. There was a sudden look of fatigue in his eyes. "I..I thank you."

Jovis's smile faded. "You're welcome. General, about those new ships - "

"They are bringing in our ground assault vehicles, as well as the last of my Inner Council," he said in a monoton voice.

Jovis didn't understand. "But the Watchmen - "

"Were only carrying our troops, all twenty thousand of them."

The mercenary leader still wasn't comforted. "One of them was. The other four Watchmen - "

"Serve another purpose. With this new arrival, we are full in numbers and armament. These new cruiseres will also be dismantled soon."

Jovis still didn't understand. "You're tearing apart all of our capital ships," Jovis himself noted the use of the word our, "for what? You're stranding us here."

"We still have the B-wings and the station's smaller shuttles. They are sufficient for our needs, I assure you." The General turned his eyes to him, a seriousness behind them he couldn't decipher. "There's a matter we need to discuss."

Jovis held out his hands. "Sure."

Carrying a growing wary sensation in his belly that he suspected was more than indigestion, Jovis walked after the General out of the hangar, with Akla in tow. Jovis could hear as well as feel the quick breathing of his Arkanian subordinate behind him, Akla was also worried about something.

The General was taking them lower into the central building than he'd ever been before. The deeper they went underground Jovis began to feel more warm, a thick humidity in the air that made him feel like he'd stepped into another atmosphere. It felt more like a jungle down here, and he could tell from Akla's sudden gasp that he'd noticed it too.

Jovis looked over his shoulder, could barely make out Akla's solid-white eyes in the darkness of the tunnel and gave him a brief nod of encouragement, wishing he could somehow address the newfound fear he felt. Akla still walked with his natural dignity, yet he seemed to divert a lot of his attention to the back of the General, perhaps still carrying a grudge from the terrorist's previous insult about the Yaka and the Arkanians.

For the moment Jovis wished he could trade places with Akla. The Arkanian could see in infrared and the growing darkness of the tunnel began to worry Jovis. Where were they talking them? What were they keeping this far down?

The General palmed a pad next to a door that Jovis couldn't even see and a growing square of light appeared in front of them. It was only then that Jovis noticed the woman, the dark beauty as he'd come to think of her, was joining them, bringing up the rear with her silent steps.

Her and Jovis exchanged looks in the slightly lit corridor, but it wasn't the kind of look he was hoping for. She gave him a glare of scrutiny and then nodded ahead towards the doorway.

"Go," her voice almost a whisper.

Jovis walked forward, entering the next room with Akla coming up beside him. The door closed behind them and the woman sealed it from the inside. The room consisted of a large space, one that Jovis suspected had been emptied for its new purpose. Five man-size cages were lined against the wall to his left, draped with white sheets. A few technicians were scurrying at the other end of the chamber, welders cutting through the thick metal walls, creating holes and tunnels through them half the size of a man. Jovis could feel an even greater amount of heat inside this room and noticed sets of very bright projectors spread throughout the room, the brightness of it all almost blinding him, the heavy screech of laser on metal in the back almost deafening him.

With a wave of his hand the noise quieted down to absolute silence, as the General marched towards the five cages covered in sheets.

Kayupa held out his hand, ripped it aside and the sheets flew away. A loud animal-like cry resonated through the chamber from all five of the creatures. Jovis took a step back in fear, bumping into the woman, who remained like a solid block of stone, unflinching by the five feline predators in the five cages.

Kayupa moved his hand again and the projectors at the other end of the room turned off, drowning the room in thick darkness. Jovis thought about running for his life. Something didn't feel right at all about this. What were they up to?

A faint light appeared ahead of him, a glowing bubble surrounding Kayupa's hand as he moved closer to one of the cages. Inside it the predator stalked him behind the thick metal bars, screeching and scratching, roaring in its heinous treble. The creature was half the size of a man, walking on four legs, their leathery skin a pale gray color which filled Jovis with fear.

Their feet and fingers had razor sharp claws on them. Yellow eyes shone through small rows of horns that made up for eyebrows, as Kayupa walked ever closer to it, holding up his hand, bathing the animal in some unnatural light. A two meter long tail whipped back and forth behind the deadly feline, a small blade at the end of the tail. Their jaws were laced with multiple rows of sharp teeth; the presence and look of the creature so terrifying that Jovis didn't think too hard on how the General had conjured a light from nothing.

"This is called a vhronik," he stated, his voice carrying and echoing through the darkened chamber, "it is a native of a planet called Kryuu. A people there revered this creature as a sort of deity, treating it like a god and used it to test their faith. The vhronik have a very strong connection to the Force, which the Jedi serve," their leader explained, a level of respect in his voice, "a vhronik kills those who are not strong enough with the Force, those who are not aware of their power."

Jovis only listened with half an ear, too much fear and repulsion was running through his mind to remember the details of what he'd said. "You had them brought in as well?"

"Yes," the General said as he neared the creature. The animal snarled at the General as he came closer, a look of angry hunger in its evil eyes. The General placed his face right up close to the bars, staring down on the sneering beast.

Jovis felt scared out of his mind.

"We've starved them for a very long time," the General said loudly, "I think its time for them to feed again." He backed away from the cage and nodded to a nearby technician. "Release it."

The technician looked dumbfound. "Sir - "

"Release it!" the General roared.

Reluctantly the technician deactivated the single cage from a nearby console. The bars lifted and the creature was free.

Jovis had never been so terrified in his life.

The vhronik lunged at the General instantly, leaping from its cage in a single jump and landing in front of Koll, two feet of air all that separated them. Snarling the creature attacked, its tail whipping around it and flashing through the air. The General jumped back, putting more distance between them. The creature stared at them all, devoting a special amount of attention to the group of technicians scurrying in the back of the room to its left. It dug its claws into the floor and prepared to pounce -

But he stepped in between it and its would-be meal.

"No, not them," he whispered, his eyes full of glee, "they're not what you want."

The animal snarled in reply, setting itself for an attack. And then it leaped, coming at him with its claws flared, its jaws wide apart, and its heart full of hunger for him. The man never wavered, he watched interestingly as the creature flew through the air, merely seconds from reaching him. Jovis felt like pushing the man away, but before he could move to help his General, he had already moved.

Pivoting on his heels he moved to the left, his hand reaching inside his dark coat to pull out a cylindrical golden object. Next thing Jovis knew, Koll had ignited a beam of pure crimson red from his weapon, awaiting the creature's next assault.

Jedi, Jovis thought. He's Jedi!

Almost afraid to, he looked behind him at the woman. She must've been expecting his look, because she opened her cloak slightly to let him see a similar weapon attached to her belt.

They're both Jedi.

He hadn't seen any evidence of them being so before, and that was why it shocked him so much. He'd never heard of any Jedi leaving the New Republic. The Jedi Order as it was, to his best knowledge, was scattered and still work-in-progress.

But as he watched the General engage in combat with the vhronik, he knew for certain that his employer was anything but a trainee. With deadly speed and unmatched grace for a man his age he approached the creature, his weapon of light shrouding the room in a thick red. The creature moved from side to side, its gray scales almost black in the lilac lighting.

Though he couldn't claim to know much about animal behavior, he did note the hesitation the creature exhibited. It was afraid of the General, its moves focusing more on moving away from him rather than attacking head-on.

The General forced it further and further back in the chamber, pinning it in a corner. With his lightsaber held pointing at the floor by his hip, he moved slower and slower towards it, a grim smile on his lips.

Inside his mind, this was not a vhronik. It wasn't even an animal. It was the object of his hate for the last thirteen years, the clone of his dead master. It was the face that had existed in the back of his mind for what seemed like forever. It was his everlasting torment. And he took great pleasure in the way it cowered, trapped in the corner of the room, unable to escape him. Afraid, defenseless, powerless against his hatred. How he'd dreamed of this moment, how it felt almost real to picture Skind's face on that creature. It felt almost perfect

Biting his teeth together he swiped the blade down, cutting the animal in two down its side. It cried out in terrible screams, its scales burning and filling the room with the scent of burnt flesh. Koll struck again, severing its long thrashing tail from its body.

Its sorrow-filled eyes looked up at him with a desperate plea for him to stop. It had accepted him as worthy, he was strong, he was not its prey anymore. It acknowledged his power. Koll stood back for a moment, watching the animal writhe in its pain, watching with perverse pleasure how his Master begged for compassion, admitting his weakness against him.

Now it was perfect.

He knew through the Force how his son had once fought against these creatures on Kryuu, how his son had given in to his anger. He'd filled their caves with screams and carnage as he'd killed several of these carnivores with great fury. And it seemed now, that Koll could almost taste his son's anger, his power through the Force. He felt as if his son was standing right next to him, sharing this moment of equal hate and disgust at these creatures. The completion Koll felt accenting that emotion almost brought him to tears, the cries of the creature as it wailed in pain only heightening his pleasure.

Koll's hand tightened on the hilt and for the moment, nothing existed around him. There was only him and his son, together again. Sharing one of those proud moments of union that the clone had deprived him of.

For a moment he was almost complete.

Out of the corner of his focus he felt another presence in the Force. The vhronik's screams ended with an abrupt crack as its throat twisted and its neck broke. The creature flattened on the floor, and the room filled with a terrible silence.

Koll turned around, seeing Sasa standing behind Jovis and his Arkanian companion. Her hand was held out towards the dead vhronik. An instant of anger washed through him, but he could do nothing to undo what she had done. Her compassion for the creature had ruined his moment, and while he might resent her for it, she would not suffer for it. The love they shared, amended any fault. He accepted her actions, though it felt all too familiar.

Koll shook his head, clearing his mind of those thoughts and powered down his saber.

Jovis looked back and forth between them all. "It couldn't have been easy obtaining these creatures? Why kill it then?"

Reattaching his lightsaber to his belt Koll grinned and nodded to one of the technicians hiding in the back of the chamber. "Release the others."

With some hesitation the technician complied. The four other cages opened and the quartet of vhroniks were freed. But unlike the first one, they left their cages with great caution. Their claws clicked on the floor as they moved out as one. But they went no further than the outer area of their cages. They sat back on their hides and looked around as if inspecting the premises. Their yellow eyes passed over every living being in the room, but they did not attack.

Like loyal pets they just sat there, awaiting the commands from their master. Their owner.

Koll caught the look of surprise on Jovis's face as he witnessed it. Even the Arkanian was taken aback by the sight. Sasa only smiled grimly.

Jovis looked back at him, a very broad look of stupidity on his face.

"Domesticated Jedi-killers, Jovis," Koll said loud enough for anyone to hear. "A terrorist's best friend."

The mercenary leader made a nervous smile. "General Kayupa - "

"Koll," he corrected him, "my name is Koll Riokon." Koll didn't care for explaining further why he hadn't revealed his true name earlier. "These vhroniks are only a portion of the herd I had brought in, there are more caves like being built around the facility. The ysalamiri are also to be distributed through out the entire facility. I want you, Jovis, to ensure the full completion of that task. Take a small work crew and organize it." He took out a small datapad from inside his coat and handed it to Jovis. "Here's where I want you to place them."

Jovis took a look at the small screen and frowned. "This will put them in even numbers all over the facility."

Koll nodded. "On top of unused storage lifts currently at the very lowest of this base."

Jovis rubbed his chin. "But their Force bubbles won't be effective at that level."

Koll just stood there. "I know. Another thing; The men you left behind when you went to Myrkr have turned to mutiny, Jovis. That explosion you heard were shape charges I had placed around their current position. I've locked them in for the time being. And I do not blame you, but I hope you understand that they can't stay here."

Jovis looked furious at first, but then he looked around at the room he was in and realized he was terribly outmatched if he wanted to start a fight. A look of clarity came over his face, as well as the Arkanian's, when they both realized why they'd been brought down here.

Jovis cleared his throat. "I understand."

"If they've done it once, they can do it again. Its best to ship them out immediately. And I suggest you give them the Civilian."

Jovis's eyes widened. "No chance in - "

Koll held out his hands. "Jovis, you're not a mercenary anymore. You're one of us, and once this mission is completed you will possess a wealth unequaled by any mercenary in today's records. You will leave the game with the record, on to live a life in honor, fighting for me. You can have any ship you want."

Jovis liked the ideas, but the Civilian was a personal effect. He didn't like handing it over to those moronic gun-slingers. But he also knew he wouldn't survive the next few minutes if he turned down the General. "There are other shuttles on this station that could - "

Koll shook his head. "Forget them. I need for you to give them the Civilian, as proof of your loyalty, as a display of faith."

Jovis felt manipulated. It was strange; he wanted what the General promised him, but he still felt like he was forced to actually take it. Jovis nodded, feeling some that fear in his heart be replaced with prospects of a rich honorable life as a warrior, a crusader.

"Alright."

Koll smiled. "Good. After all; its just business. Not personal."

Jovis's jaw tightened. "Right. Business."

---

Satisfied and secure in the belief that Jovis would not become a problem, Koll took Sasa under his arm and returned to the upper levels of the main structure. Jovis and the Arkanian had been put to work, he'd assigned them to bring the ysalamiri to the lower levels, to the cloning area where those creatures would soon be put to good use. But before he went to check on that progress he had to welcome his new guests.

Since Junn's unfortunate accident a stirring of insecurity had been growing among the soldiers. It was vital that they squashed that insecurity before it grew and crippled their abilities and self-confidence. And that encouragement came in the form of five new additions to their army.

Apart from himself, Sasa, and the soldiers there existed a collection of Jedi who'd joined their cause over the years, Sonnet only being one of them. Specialists in their own areas, Masters at their craft. The two Masters had been part of Koll's original mission during the Old Republic, together they'd left the Republic behind once its judgement started to falter. Since then they'd worked together to create the greatest army that the Galaxy would ever witness.

Hand in hand they entered the hangar, the sight of a familiar cruiser parked in their hangar bringing new confidence to their spirits. Together they walked to stand at the base of the ramp of the newly arrived transport.

The first one to show himself was Eknath, the slumped-over, bald headed psychopath, dressed in a ragged gray robe. Eknath wasn't quite human, his skin had the same color of ash as his worn robe, with black depressions like thin black scars running across his body. His force was telepathy and psychometry, and so his codename was Prophet. His expressionless face showed all the signs of a deeply introspective and cunning genius of mind-power.

He descended the ramp with deliberately slow steps, a shadow moving behind him. Cowering in the shade of his telepathic Master was Joon, recently aged fifteen. Barely having reached puberty yet, he was young, and had trained all his life to be a servant of his powerful Master. Koll knew him to be nothing more than an extended arm of Master Eknath's power, which was why he'd been aptly named Tragedy among the troops, and to himself, which at least showed he was somewhat aware of the unfairness that was his life.

Eknath smiled warmly as he bowed before Koll, the robes hanging on his thin form. "My Master," his voice was a snake-like whisper, his eyes red like fire, his lean face almost inviting if one didn't know what devilry existed beneath his surface. "The Force is with us."

Koll extended his hands and shook the long thin hand of Eknath with both palms. "It brings comfort to my soul to see you again, Master Eknath."

While they expressed their joy at seeing each other again, Joon, the apprentice, stood in his Master's shadow, dressed all in black. His eyes concentrating on the floor as if it was the most interesting thing in the world, his eyes always intense and a bit afraid. Old scars on his face showed how fiercely Master Eknath punished failure.

Sasa felt great sadness inside whenever she felt Joon's presence. The boy would never live a fulfilling life as Eknath's apprentice. He would always be a shadow of someone else, merely a tool for Eknath to use. Though sharp and wary always, it seemed there was no intelligence behind those youthful blue eyes, no childlike innocense. He was a servant as much as one could be. His own faltering identity was being squashed under his Master's ruthless and demanding persona. A clumsy and dirty lightsaber was clipped to his belt across the black tunic.

Eknath turned his red eyes to Sasa, and she recollected the nightmares she'd had in the past that he'd starred in. In many ways she had never grown accustomed to the Master's scary persona. She feared him because she knew he could enter her mind as easily as he could break Joon's spirit. Nothing was hidden from him. It was like standing in front of a vhronik; you knew you couldn't show fear because that would only make it attack, but the bear already knew you were afraid. Sasa feared what would ever happen if Sonnet and Eknath ever decided to gang up on her in her nightmares.

Eknath extended his slender hand and Sasa shook it quickly, the sensation of his wrinkled flesh wrapped over his cold bones and his yellow nails made her shiver. "Welcome, Master Eknath."

"Mistress Sasa, you become more stunning with each day that passes," he bent down to kiss her palm, but she pulled it back, "and quicker too."

She smiled politely. Eknath had always been part of their plan ever since they'd learned that cloning created a disturbance in the Force. With Eknath as their spiritual handyman he could counter that threat.

"An urgent matter regarding the cloning phase of our plan requires your expert attention, my friend," Koll sounded sincere enough that even some of Sasa's apprehension faded, "but we will discuss this matter in more detail once we're all settled."

"Excellent," the skeleton-like Eknath said and turned to his apprentice and they both set into motion.

Coming down the ramp behind them was Master Raine. One half Sasa's size, but twice her age, he was a very old Master, supporting his body on an old wooden cane. The oldest of the bunch, his old wrinkled fingers betrayed the youth and stamina he possessed in the Force. He was also the only one in their unit not devoted to the Dark Side, still a pure Jedi he claimed he went wherever the Force took him, and the last many years the Force had chosen him to help them. This view of the Force had earned him the name of Finality.

Hovering behind him in a giant cage, suspended by the Force, was the apprentice, Ragh. Of a species Sasa had yet to define, he was three times the height of his Master and three sizes abroad as well. Ragh wore only a loincloth made from the hides of ripclaws, red already in fabric but with dried spots of blood in several places.

His face was a maze of piercing and tattoos, huge rusty rings hung from his nostrils, and studs ran up the front of his nose. He was more animal than man, more creature than sentient. Big as a tank and with the muscles to go with it, he was one gigantic monster of anger and hate. Banging his fists against the bars, Ragh snarled and spat at anything his dumb animal-like eyes found.

Raine had to occasionally use the Force to calm the creature down, Ragh was only released from his cage in combat, and when he was free everyone knew it was wisest to stay as far away as possible. Not to picky about what he ate, anyone could end up as a snack. Koll had once joked that Ragh was so immense that he was like a planet onto himself, and because no one got away untouched when he broke loose, he was called Gravity.

Raine bowed slowly before Koll bent down on one knee to see eye-to-eye with the Master.

"Welcome, Master Raine."

The tired and withered face that hid beneath his heavy hood was that of a warm fragile old man. Unlike with Master Eknath, Sasa had always enjoyed Raine's company. Considered the wisest and most experienced of them all, he was quick to start a philosophical debate. His weak exterior often betrayed the high intellect and quick reflexes he hid so well.

"Thank you, Master Koll," the kind and friendly voice said, with hints of genuine happiness beneath it. "Have you room for a bothersome old man?"

Koll smiled affectionately, and Sasa couldn't help it either. "Always, my friend."

Raine nodded carefully and limped past them, the sound of his cane touching the floor following him and the suspended Ragh behind him as he left them.

"What, no flowers?" said a young voice up the ramp.

Caught off guard Sasa smiled truly for the first time that day and her joy was so great that Koll sensed it, wrapping his arm around her as the last new addition casually walked down the ramp.

Krych was not her first apprentice, nor would he be the last. He had long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, with a few strands of it dancing across his face. Krych's lightsaber itself was made of silver, laced with rings of gold, its reflection shining in Sasa's eyes. The apprentice wore a tunic over his bare chest, strips of black fabric wrapped around his arms, highlighting the muscles brought on by extensive training. Krych was young, but the way he carried himself gave off the impression of a confident man, not a boy. A man who'd seen his share of combat and warfare. Sasa's proudest creation and the closest thing she had to a son.

Now.

Sasa embraced him fully, dispensing with the tired old tradition of the apprentice bowing before the Master. She was too happy for that, and she relished the sensation he sent through her, that maternal instinct that he evoked in her.

"Welcome," she said warmly, and for the first time that day she really meant it. "Thank you so much for coming."

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," he said, glancing at Koll over her shoulder. "Thanks for having me, General."

Koll clasped the man's shoulder, shaking it a little. "We're beyond titles, Krych. And anyone who can make my wife beam like this is always welcome."

Krych smiled like a giddy child, but something passed over his face as he looked around. That was when Sasa remembered that task she had been dreading. The thing she had tried not to think of until she had to give its worthy attention.

Krych's youth vanished in a second. "Where's Junn?"

---

Wearing a big cloak instead of her usual military uniform, Junn leaned herself against the railing. Atop the highest building belonging to the station, she pulled the sleeves down deliberately over her right hand to hide it from view. It was a habit she'd noticed in herself in the last few days, one she excersized even when no one was around. The cold wind beated against her face, forcing forth tears that needed little incentive.

She had tried to remain straightened as she walked down the hallways of the station. Occasionally she would be passed by soldiers who greeted and saluted her as usual. She did her best to return their greetings, but she had to remind herself each time to use the left hand. She also couldn't help noticing their eyes focusing on the sleeve over her right hand, and each time it stabbed in her chest.

She read pity and sympathy where she'd once read respect and reverence, and she hated it. Her new prostetic still wasn't responding the way she wanted it to, but mostly because she hadn't taken the time to aquaint herself with it. She did her best not to use it, unwilling to accept the situation. It didn't feel right, it felt like an abormination on her right wrist. Like a disease, an infection she could never shed.

She couldn't cry away the shame she felt inside, the feeling of failure that was only supported by the fact that her General had not even bothered to contact her since the injury. She knew she'd be safe from her own shame only when she was alone. Crying in plain view of her soldiers was another disgrace, one she did her best to avoid.

The first time she'd left the infirmary with her new hand the nearest lift she'd found had the slowest doors she'd ever experienced. And the descent alone through dozens of levels had felt like a sanctuary, only broken by the chime as the lift had reached its level and the doors reopened. Junn was running constantly inside her own mind, trying to break free of chains that were never there, thinking up infantile excuses for her own fear. But she could never quite escape her own scrutiny.

Through Sasa she'd learned that the Jedi responsible for her injury was still kept alive, but the woman wouldn't say why. Junn had pondered maybe going to see the Jedi, to look the man in the eyes, but for what good she couldn't see.

Her world had changed so much, she'd never felt so helpless. Three days ago she was a warrior, ready to fight and die for her General if he asked her to. But now she felt more vulnerable than ever, weak and defenseless. She saw now how her life before only held value when she was rewarded by her superior, how hollow and meaningless it had been. She knew a war was brewing inside the station beneath her boots, but to her the world was suddenly so much more than warfare and fighting.

She'd lost her hand and most of her effectiveness in combat, but not because she was missing a limb. Because she'd seen the face of Death closer than ever before. Her injury was not critical enough to kill her, but nevertheless a part of her had died. What parts that remained of her had yet to determine where they wanted to be in the life she still had in store.

The lift onto the roof chimed before the doors opened and Junn's heart felt lifted only a second before it fell crashing to the surface far below.

"Strange place to find you," a familiar voice said, "no targets in sight."

Junn turned to face him, hiding her hands away inside her sleeves. Seeing Krych, her lover through many years, brought to her a feeling of safety and warmth, but her eyes did their best to avoid locking with his. She felt shameful, and lesser. She didn't want to be drawn to his handsome face, just as she'd always been. "Loyalty."

He nodded, only hinting at a smile, staying a good ten feet away from her. "Eulogy."

She drew in a big breath. He'd always respected her space, until she showed him that it was okay to come closer. He knew her like that, but knowing he knew her so well did nothing to lighten her mood. It only made her feel worse. "Its good to see you again," her eyes watered and she could feel her voice breaking, "I've missed you."

The wind pulled at his long hair, and he squinted his eyes against the cold wind ripping at his bare arms. He stood right there, but it felt like lightyears between them. "Koll told me about your accident."

Sasa felt her hand throb inside the sleeve. "I see."

Krych pocketed his hands and looked out to his left, focusing on the horizon, a hurt expression on his face. "Talk to me, Junn."

She shook her head, tears rolling down her cheeks. "I don't know what to say."

Krych nodded to himself. "I just traveled from one end of the Galaxy to another to see you...but I feel like I'm even further away from you now."

Her heart broke. "I'm sorry," the tears intensified, "I have so much I want to tell you, but...I just can't. It hurts."

"Well, you have to," he said sternly, his eyes finally locking on hers, staring at her, "you have to make me understand this."

She'd dreaded him giving her no choice, but mostly because she expected it. He was strong like her, forceful and to the point. In a less weak state she would have fought him back, but she realized he deserved an explanation. She knew his hardness came only from love, and she loved him for being hard with her. Not many others were ever so honest.

She summoned the courage. "I was trailing intruders - "

"No," he said, "I know the reason. I want to know the effect."

She started to shiver from more than just the wind. "What do you mean?"

He leaned foward and took steps closer to her. "I'm not talking about your physical change, Junn. I'm talking about the change inside you. Something's different."

She smiled carefully. "Blast your Jedi senses."

He shook his head. "I haven't reached out to the Force, Junn. I'm afraid to. I want to hear it from you."

"Why?" she stuttered.

"Because I know you need to say it out loud. You may have already told others, but you haven't told me. And I could feel something different, and not by the Force, the moment I set foot on this planet," he smiled coyly, "and unless your feelings have changed much in the last few months, I'm still that one person deepest inside of your heart."

She could feel her own chest tightening. "This last month, I was looking forward to seeing you so much. But in the last two days, I began to fear this moment."

Krych looked away again, a hardness in his eyes. "You talk a lot, Junn, but you're not saying anything."

"You're pushing me too much - "

"Because you keep pulling back!" he yelled, his voice echoing over the wind. "Damn it, tell me and let's get it over with."

She broke completely on the inside and her pain pushed her to just spill it all out. "I can't stay here anymore. I can't fight anymore. I can't live this life anymore. I don't want it anymore, Krych. I'm done with the army. I could have died out there, and for the first time it seemed real. For the first time I thought I actually would die. I've been so stupid up until now, I thought nothing could touch me. But it can, and it did. And for the first time I realized I might never see you again."

He still didn't look at her. "I've lived with that feeling every damn time you went on a mission, Junn. Nothing's changed."

"Yes, it has."

"Why?"

She trembled with pain, her every cell screaming for understand. "Because I love you, Krych. And I know now that's more important than any of this. No ranks, no medals, no great accomplishment comes even close to that. I know you and I could be so much happier somewhere else."

He glanced at her but looked away quickly again.

"We've done our time here, Krych. I've seen enough fighting, enough blood," she started to stagger, her legs feeling faint, "I don't ever want to feel like that again. I know Koll and Sasa will accept it if we left."

Krych sighed. "My training is not over yet."

"So what?" she implored, "what does it really matter?"

He turned his side to her. "It means everything. I haven't seen or felt what you did, Junn. I love you, but I am here because I made a promise. Because I saw the kind of future we both wanted for our future children. That future is not here yet."

Junn stepped forward. "But it will be, soon. The army can do this without us."

He shook his head, refusing to look at her. "I never thought I'd hear this from you, Junn. I can't believe you'd back out now, when we're so close."

She didn't know what to say to make him see it, to make him understand, and she couldn't stand seeing that small look of disgust in his eyes. "I saw a light, Krych."

He still stared at the ground. "Koll and Sasa have been grooming us to take over once this mission is completed, you know that. To turn the army over to us once they'd made the first steps. We would be rulers of all this, Junn," he looked out over the horizon, "the very hands that shape the Galaxy. With you by my side, we could change the world, Junn, and we could still have everything you're talking about now. How can you throw away a chance at immortality?"

She cried harder. "Because I know I am not going to be here forever. And I want the rest of my life to be devoted to someone I love, and not an ideal. Think about it, I mean really think about it; I lost my hand and my entire perspective changed. If it can happen that easily, how is my judgement suitable to run a Galaxy?"

He frowned. "Dumbest thing I've ever heard you say, Junn."

She signed. "But its how I feel. I can't do it, Krych. Its not the kind of life I want anymore."

He stood there, frozen. "But it's what I want. I want to finish what I started, and live up to my promise and commitment."

She felt so lost inside. "Why? Why is it so important to you?"

He chuckled coldly. "Why? Three days ago you felt exactly the same. How can you ask me that?"

She felt helpless. "I don't want to lose you, Krych. I don't want for you to get hurt before you realize the things I did."

He looked up at her. "Well, maybe I have to. I made a promise to the Sons of Destiny before we got involved, Junn. I have to live up to it."

She didn't feel like she knew him anymore. "Because you want to change the world?"

"No," he said flatly, "because of something you've forgotten; loyalty."

Junn opened her mouth to talk, but the reality of what he'd said came with a delayed pain. She wanted to curse him for doubting her like that, but found herself at a loss for strength. And though she felt resentment towards him, she still felt like the only place she could heal completely would be in his arms.

Junn turned her back to him. "Funny...I always imagined the loyalty you're been named for included me."

He stared into her back. "It did, when we had the same ideals. You're forcing me to choose."

"No," she said softly, "I'm trying to convince you that there is only one choice...if you still love me."

"I - " he stopped talking. "I said what I wanted to say. I'll be with the others if you want to talk to me again. I can only beg you to reconsider."

She nodded. "Is there...any hope left?"

"You know me, Junn," he said, "I go where the brass tells me. As long as I have a mission, I need nothing else. I'm a soldier."

She looked at him over her shoulder. "Need nothing else? Was I just a distraction to you?"

"No," he said, and his own voice started to sound frail for the first time, "you were my reward in a world where soldiers don't receive medals. The light on the other side of battle, the thing that kept me going, kept me alive." He started to turn away. "But getting involved with comrades is never a good idea. Emotional attachments, feelings of any kind, have no room on the battlefield. In a way, I owe you. If we end it here, I can go on fighting without worrying about seeing you again."

She felt like crying again, but there seemed to be no tears left. "Is it that easy for you?"

"You made it easy, Eulogy." He said nothing for several heartbeats and then turned and walked towards the lift. "And you can't blame me for living up to my name, when you do it better than anyone else."

---

Feeling the tension all the way to the skin that dotted the points of her long fingers, Sasa stepped through the passage as the doors slid open before her. The spherical chamber at the end of the hallway was twice the height of the door at the end of the hall and had only a singular set of stairs running down to a flat platform that took up one fifth of the sphere's size. Already there, standing in a circle around the reflective pool in the center of the platform, were her accomplices in life.

She descended the stairs and greeted them all with a nod before taking her place in the circle next to her apprentice, Krych, her tool of war. Krych graced her with a stale bow before stepping to his rightful place to her left and slightly behind her. It was the place of an apprentice to stand in the shadows of one's master. Though they had barely had time to talk since he'd arrived, now was not the place to utter such sentiments.

Koll stood in the center of their circle, hands firmly placed at his lower back. His face was strong, the stern eyes looking over them all, seeing possibilities in each of his agents. His silver hair and beard, except for the scar running from the left side of his jaw to his left eyebrow, made him stand out like an aristocrat. A politician, though he would frown at that description. Though they'd been married for nearly two decades, he still filled her with his innate power and presence, bringing her to remember those days she'd first met him back to life. Though he was now reaching his early sixties, his physique showed no sign of digress.

But for each day that went Sasa felt as if more and more of Koll was slipping. She knew how much he changed in the heat of battle, she only missed his full attention. It had been so long since they'd been alone for more than an hour. As close as he was, she still missed him.

Koll stepped forward, breaking the circle and gazed deeply into the reflective pool separating them all. "Welcome, my friends. It warms my heart and spirit that our long separation is finally over. Now that you are here, the Force has strengthened us. It has brought us together now, so close to target."

Koll collected himself. "As you have been informed, the Republic responded to our demand by sending a lone group of commandos. It is clear now that the Republic will not stop there. I have been informed by our contractor that a full-scale assault is underway, in the shape of three Star Destroyers. A Force that could easily wipe us from the face of Regana, if it weren't for our hostages." Koll looked around at each of them. "I assure you now, that the approaching Star Destroyers were never out of our calculations. Regana is under our control, of that there is no question. The hostages are quiet as mice, and the Republic's fleet we will be more than able to handle."

Eknath, the powerful master of minds, stepped forth. "How do you propose we counter this threat?"

Koll looked at the Dark Jedi. "Because of our hostages they are unable to simply blast us from space. Since my declaration of occupancy was sent to Coruscant, the whole Galaxy knows we're out here. They'll have to stage a ground assualt, and that is where we'll beat them."

Eknath didn't look convinced. "Three Star Destroyers...not counting what ground vehicles they might bring, its still an army of competetive size. The losses on our side will be substantial."

Koll smiled slyly. "There will be no losses on our side in the ground assault, I assure you."

Raine, the only Jedi in their group, stepped forth. "You have something up your sleeve?"

"Indeed I do, but I want it to be a surprise." Koll started walking around the reflective pool. "You needn't bother yourself with the ground assualt at all."

Eknath was still skeptical. "You've made changes since our last meeting."

"Yes, I have. To spare as many of our soldiers as possible."

Eknath nodded, having been given his answer. But as he looked around their circle, it seemed he had more questions. "What about this prisoner you're keeping?"

Sasa saw how Koll stiffened, his face paling for an instant before he regained control of himself. "A Republic officer, one from their primary attempt at breaching our security." Sasa could feel how her husband fought the urge to look at her. Maybe he knew the surprise he would find there would throw him off his charade. "He is none of your concern. We're merely keeping him for interrogation."

Sasa looked over her shoulder to see her apprentice. Sasa was glad to see her trainee again, his youthful look a source of joy for her. He played the part of the perfect Padawan without err, merely her shadow as they discussed matters at hand. But Sasa had felt it, from the moment she'd walked into the chamber. His sadness that hung so heavily and apparently on his sunken shoulders.

He looked up at her, his eyes glassy and empty, and then returned his gaze to the floor. She wished for some way she could comfort him, her maternal instinct told her to reach out for him, to hug him to her chest and allow him to release those painful emotions that were starting to affect her too. If they hadn't already.

Krych and Junn's relationship had been a great symbol of the unity among all their soldiers, of the loyalty and love they all shared for each other. Krych loved Junn with all his heart, and it pained Sasa to see her apprentice in such turmoil. Though his face revealed nothing but what could be described as teenage dislike, a general discomfort with the rest of the world, his insides roared like a great bonfire. He was in agony, his mind only partially aware of the circumstances around him.

As she looked back to the reflective pool, she noticed Raine glaring at her from across the room. She only then realized how open she'd left herself. Raine's gaze shifted to her apprentice and Sasa wished she could somehow shield her apprentice from the man's stare. The old Jedi looked at her apprentice as if he was looking through him. He was reading Krych's mind.

Raine came out of his probing, his eyes snapping open. Immediately his eyes went to Koll. "What has happened to your lieutenant?"

Sasa stepped forth. "This matter is not - "

Koll silenced her by raising his hand. "Junn...has decided to end her service," he said coldly and bluntly. His powerful gaze fell upon her apprentice, and Sasa could feel Krych staring back at their leader, stirring inside with anger. "Let's make no complications about this. She was injured by one of the intruders. The very one I hold in a cell right now, awaiting his execution."

Without thinking, Krych crossed to stand next to his Master. Krych's anger ran well with the poisoned smile he possessed. His message was clear. He wanted to execute the prisoner. Understanding fully why he wanted that privilege, she also knew that Koll's pride was much too great for that. If anyone was going to kill the clone, they would have to go through Koll first.

Saying a silent prayer for her apprentice, Sasa stepped back behind her apprentice as Koll slowly closed the distance between him and Krych. Krych met Koll's strong glare without flinching. The silence between them could deflect the blast of a Death Star.

But Krych was smart enough to know when he was wrong and finally bowed his head in compliance, accepting his place as the apprentice.

Koll nodded at the boy's submission. "Do not let your heart, as broken as it is, intrude, young one. I hope you will remain loyal to us, though she has chosen other paths."

Sasa had to fight to keep herself from intruding. This was insane. He was preaching Krych on a lesson he needed to practize. He was being selfish. He wanted the clone all to himself. Sasa found herself at a conflict; she wanted to defend Krych and certainly help him through his difficult stage, but Koll was her husband, she couldn't go up against him.

"To stay vigilant, we must remain focused," Koll added to the young man.

Sasa bit her lip, trying to hold back the anger. She would allow Koll his pride now, because she knew how much this meant to him. How long he had waited for the moment when he could go up against his former mentor, prove himself to be better. But once the clone was gone she would surely point this situation out to him. The Sons of Destiny had not gotten this far by lying to each other, by being selfish. They were professionals. Koll reminded them all of that, while Sasa could feel him toying at the prospects of killing the clone all the while.

Krych didn't look up. "I understand," his youthful voice stuttered.

Sasa frowned on the inside. At that moment she felt someone inside her mind. She would have guessed it to be Koll but the sensation was not that of her loving husband. She passed her gaze to Eknath, their most powerful telepath, and his drone Joon, but Eknath was not focusing on her but rather the squabble between Krych and Koll. Joon she felt wasn't even capable of probing minds. No, this was someone else. Someone powerful.

She felt a shiver run down her spine.

Koll finished his lecture and Krych retreated to his place behind her. Sasa nodded sourly to Koll. "He won't dissapoint you."

"Good," Koll said gently. He walked away from them, his boots pacing to stand across from the reflective pool. "It is at times such as these that the very fabric that binds us together mustn't challenged. There can be no room for petty issues."

Master Eknath brought attention immediately to another subject. "What was that skirmish we witnessed upon our arrival?"

Koll's jaw tightened. "Through a Bothan on Coruscant I enlisted the help of a small mercenary group. Crude and weak in discipline, in the absence of their commander, they turned to mutiny. They were in a position to set our timetable back significantly. I ordered their evacuation."

"And their commander?" Eknath asked. "How did he respond?"

Koll shrugged. "I cannot predict his actions. He may feel betrayed, but with what I know of the man I'm sure he will see that it was unavoidable. He's a business man, not a warrior." Their leader smiled. "He was the one who brought us our supply of ysalamiri. I do not wish to hurt him, he's been of great help. It is possible he might think of enlisting. I know I trust him."

"And if he doesn't see it our way?" Sasa asked, wondering seriously at that possibility. Since Koll had chosen to send back most of Jovis' men, it was possible the man would carry a grudge. Put a blaster in the hands of grudge and suddenly you had revenge.

Koll's face was masked with regret. "I will deal with it."

Master Raine, his tired body moving to the pool, spoke. "What about the test-run of the cloning facility?"

Eknath shivered in his cloak. "If we are not able to clone the subject - "

Koll turned on his heel. "The clone is already underway." Koll looked to Eknath. "You must prepare, Master Eknath. Your skills will be invaluable." Using the ysalamiri meant the clone did not produce a disturbance in the Force. Eknath would ensure that did not mean that the cloned body wasn't bereft of the Force, since Eclipos had requested a Force-sensitive host. Eknath was also needed to make the transfer of Eclipos, since no one could transfer their own soul.

Eknath bowed. "I will not fail you."

"Once the transfer is complete, I would like you to be our eyes, Master Eknath. With your exceptional skills as a psychic you can pinpoint an intruder or a breach faster than any security camera. I also want you to add your magic to the hostages, make them even more docile. We can't afford any disruption, just to be safe. I know you can do it."

Eknath was not the kind to blush but Sasa still felt she could spot a change in his teint. Sasa felt something twitching in her stomach, though felt more like keeping it to herself than voicing her concern. Koll must have felt it. His predatory eyes glanced to her and she knew she had no choice but to speak.

"The ysalamiri were brought in late. If the clone madness has not been deflected in time we will have to wait an additional twenty days."

Koll smiled and Sasa felt lava flow through her belly. "Yes. She's right." He darted his eyes to Eknath. "Perhaps it would be best to prepare another cloning as soon as now. The five cylinders are all working."

The Jedi Master Raine nodded. "Provided we agree to terminate it, if the first test goes smoothly."

Koll nodded, fully able to follow Raine's thoughts. There were already too many clones in the world, and despite their need for the technology, none of them approved of the monstrosity itself. "Yes, that would be wisest."

Raine and Eknath looked to each other, both of them agreeing. Eknath smiled wickedly. "I will see to my assignments."

Koll turned his eyes back to Raine, and couldn't help smiling. "Jedi Master Raine; a herd of vhroniks have been delievered to the station. I have already tamed a few of them," his eyes moved to the beast Ragh standing behind Raine, "but with your affinity for handling monsters I believe you to be the most suitable to tame the rest. We need them loyal to us."

The old Jedi bowed humbly. "As always, I will do as you ask, old friend."

The meeting adjourned and Raine left with Eknath close by, their apprentices following them like the obedient subjects they were.

Sasa couldn't help feeling singled out. Only her, Krych and Koll were left in the spherical chamber.

Koll sighed heavily and then turned his eyes to Krych. "You would do well to remember your place and teachings, Krych. Although I consider us family, now is a time I need the loyalty you are reknown for. Go."

Krych nodded carefully, bowing to them both before leaving them to be alone in the spherical chamber. She allowed him to see the weariness in her eyes, allowed him to know she was not happy about the way he'd treated Krych.

"Don't bother, my love. I sensed it." He turned away and supported himself against the edge of the reflective pool. "I'm sorry."

She kept her eyes on the floor. "What do you think you've achieved, Koll? How do you ever expect him to follow you if he finds out how you've deceived him? How you've taken from him his rightful revenge. Junn is...was his lover."

Koll sighed. "I know." He looked over his shoulder at her. "I don't want you as an enemy, Sasa," using her name gave him leverage, "you and I are the foundation of it all." Koll swallowed hard. "Please don't hold it against me."

Sasa felt his pain. "Of course I don't. I just want this to be over. Personal feelings have no place in what we're doing. Once the clone is - " Sasa folded her hands in front of her, felt the sweat claming them together. "Once he's dead, we can continue as planned."

Koll declined his head. "It won't be long."

Forcing a faux smile she turned on her heel and ascended the stairs. She reached the top of the stairs and turned to see Koll staring at her by the pool. He gave her the saddest look she'd ever seen from him. That of a fragile man.

His voice was low, but she heard each word as clearly as if he'd whispered them in her ear. "You…are my everything, my love. I throw all my trust at you, don't throw it back in my face."

Saying nothing she left the chamber, in search of wherever Krych had gone to deal with his broken heart, feeling Koll's words hit the very center of her heart, and feeling a pain worse than what Krych was going through. She felt certain death and despair in the future, but the only thing that really bothered her was that she couldn't discern whose death.