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...

6. Destiny's End

Though it felt like days since Kayupa and Koll had come to visit him, it came as no surprise to him when Sasa finally came to see him on her own. Skar managed to feel some sense of hope as she elegantly moved through the chamber, a careful nature in her moves, a hope he at last could talk to her alone. He could see something undecided in her eyes, and while he might exploit it for a weakness that would get him free, he also hoped there was a part of her that saw him as who he wanted to be.

She came walking towards him, dressed in a thick robe and with sleep in the corners of her eyes. Although Skar had no memory of her facial expressions other than the Holocron, he recognized tired and depressed emotions on her face. Paying no attention to Sonnet, she offered him a flask filled with pure water inside.

Holding it up to his lips, he sipped as much as he could hold in his mouth, then swallowed the water, feeling its cool composure running through his body, and took another sip. They didn't speak to each other, even when she gently wiped her sleeve over his face, clearing away the day old sweat from his brows. He saw edges of Kjoil tattoos within the sleeves on her arms, the very same that covered his sore arms. For a moment he could almost smile, almost forget the situation wasn't the exact opposite of what he'd always envisioned of him being with his mother.

He tried to lock eyes with her, trying to make her look into his eyes. "Free me…."

Her face remained the same as she cleaned away the last of the dirt. "This…is not over yet." She looked down at the floor, a brief smile moved over her lips and she turned her head, almost as if she was afraid he might see it. "I don't even…know what to call you."

Skar's jaw quivered. "I'm …Skar."

She didn't look back up. "That's your truth."

Skar turned his face away, torn and bitter with anguish. "It's the fact I've lived with and tried to uphold all my life, I'm not going to give that up now."

She hugged herself and summoned the courage to look into his eyes for the first time, almost studying him as if he were an object rather than a living being. "Admirable. But also gullible. You are not my son, and you are not my brother. You exist somewhere in-between."

Skar sighed. "You don't know what it's like."

"No," she shrugged. "I suspect I would cling on as much as I could to who I thought I was. Like you're doing - "

"Then stop your holiness!" Skar barked.

Her feet moved her back a step at his outburst, a fear stirring in her, but also some kind of recognition. There was something she recognized in him. "I don't see why you can't accept the truth, anything else is folly. This is the way it is."

Skar pulled at his restraints but it solved nothing. He was torn between his desire to make her see who he was, to stop this nonsense, and the desire to choke her for her stubbornness. Why couldn't she see it? Why was she doing this? Why was Koll? "I've lived my entire life as Skar Kjoil, that's all I know I am," Skar's voice cracked, "I'm the boy that stared at your image at night, listened to what I thought were your last words, and saw a mother. I read about Koll Riokon and saw a father. What I found in those glimpses, they were my family."

Her face turned compassionate for a second, but then it was gone again. Her stony face filled with animosity and a slight pity. But it was the kind of pity you showed people who were insane, it wasn't real compassion. It was just sad. "They too are no more," she said sharply, "even me and Koll are not the same. We love each other, sharing deeply the wish to revenge what was done to our son."

Skar looked up at her. "Then why haven't you killed me yet?"

She smiled briefly, much too briefly. "Koll may run things here, but I'm his wife. I have a say."

Skar shook his head. "That's not an answer."

She hugged herself again, her face turning towards the floor. "I've come to…I look at you and see my brother's face. I hear your voice, and I hear my brother's voice. But when I listen to what's behind the words and see what's behind the eyes, its another person. Its a man who's lived as my son all his life." She looked into his eyes, and her hands fell to her sides. When she spoke her voice was vulnurable. "If you turn to our side, we can be a family. I promise."

Skar turned his face away. "Turn to your side?" Skar smiled mentally, not because he wanted to take that offer, but it was proof that she did feel something for him. She did see who he was.

"If you will help us, join our army."

"No," Skar snorted. "I won't betray - "

"I'm giving you a chance to have a family," she stated firmly.

Skar shook his head. "What you're talking about…isn't a family."

"Its the only option I will give you."

Skar sniffled. "I don't suppose Koll knows you're offering me this." Skar wanted more than anything to be with her, but not like that. He wanted her to accept that he was her son, he wanted to hear her call him son, he wanted her to show him the love he'd been denied all his life. He wanted to make her proud. "No thanks."

"There will be no second chances. This is your only chance at being with us."

Skar leaned his face as close to her as he could. "Not until you admit…who I really am."

She shivered. "You - are a scarred memory of a man whose tyranny does not translate into words. A man who betrayed his family, his friends, and his people for a dead woman. You have no mother, and no father."

Skar pulled his face back. "I know…who I am."

"You know a lie." There was a look of exhaustion on her face. "You would rather hold onto your pride than have a family?" she asked, but the way she said it implied no answer was needed. "This is getting you nowhere."

Skar blinked. "Why are you really here?"

She ran her palm across her face, stopping it above her brows, her tired eyes looking at something he couldn't see. Thinking something he couldn't read. And when she looked at him, there was a longing on her face. "For a second, for argument's sake, imagine that what you've been told is the truth…and tell me about my son, the one you knew as Kayupa. Tell me, even the bad things."

Skar felt a tinge of jealousy, like he wasn't his mother's favorite. That she didn't want to hear about what he'd been doing. Her and Koll were obsessed with the dead in a way that made him cringe, a feeling of sickness surrounded them both. Skar sighed. "There weren't any. He was a strong man. Someone I would have been proud to be." Skar shuddered to think of him. "Someone I take pride in calling my friend."

She frowned. "But you wanted to kill him?"

Skar shrugged. "There was never any real hate between us. He was…looking for a way out. I didn't want to kill him. I felt pity for him. He deserved to be free. He'd been through so much…and now to think that he might not have been the mistake he thought he was, its sad to think he died because of a lie. One of many reasons why I can't believe what you're telling me. Kayupa was a great man, but he's dead now. It would be terrible to think he died for nothing."

Sasa trembled, her face pale and flinching. "My son…he would have made me proud. Its a shame what happened but in the end you were more likely to succeed than he was. He wasn't the kind of man who would go to Draori and try to free the hostages. You did that. You defeated the other Epigones. Your genetic code might not be what you hoped for, but they don't tie you to anything."

Skar sighed. "It's hard…to still feel any shred of faith in myself. I was meant to lead trouble away from Kayupa and instead I brought it right to him."

Sasa shook her head. "He came to see you, and you both felt the connection."

"If I'd known then, I would never have gone," Skar retorted bitterly.

Sasa shook her head and when she spoke, her voice and words were light as air, almost soft and gentle in his ears. "No, it was your destiny, not his; in the end you were the better Jedi." At last she smiled, a true and honest smile aimed right at him. "There were so many nights, when I would hear about your exploits from our spies in the New Republic. When you joined the New Republic I was overwhelmed with pride. And sometimes I was even able to deceive myself. I pretended you really were my son. Those moments, though brief and tainted with deception, were the warmest I've known in a long time." Her face shifted, a tightness pulling at the skin around her eyes. "I should have seen it long ago, because I've seen it all before. The hysteria, the panic, the pride, the strength. Only one Jedi has ever had so much…determination." She looked up at him, but the warmth was gone. "My brother wandered in the public eye all his life."

"He lived an illuminated life. Not much privacy."

She laughed heartily. "My brother, he didn't want privacy. He wanted the public's eyes on him at all times, he wanted the fame, the reputation, the popularity. He wanted it because he believed he could control everything if enough people knew him. That's how he got inside the Senate chamber, and how he managed to protect our home planet."

Skar remembered the details. "That's how he gained enough funds to build the Jentarana. He manipulated it all with Chancellor Palpatine, right from the beginning. When did he turn?"

Sasa sniggered. "Nobody knows. There is proof that maybe Skind was the initial would-be ruler of the Republic. Him and Palpatine worked side by side. Skind chose not to go for the leadership because he wanted Selia more than power. In retrospect she saved the Galaxy from someone perhaps even more evil than Palpatine. She saved them…from you." Her right hand came out from inside the robe she was wrapped in and held out a smooth cylinder object. Her fingers moved across its surface delicately, lost in her own memories.

Skar's eyes widened. His lightsaber. A light of hope illuminated his weary mind.

"It looks like my brother's," she muttered, "although you didn't apply the family tree. Why is that?"

Skar couldn't take his eyes off the weapon and wished he could touch the Force for just a second so he could escape. But it was pointless. The Force was still too far out of his reach. He felt like a novice again, nothing but an apprentice, still struggling to learn the basics of training. Skar sighed. "I…I didn't want to be reminded of the past every time I used it. Past is prologue."

She turned the handgrip over in her hands. "Your skills are impressive."

Skar smirked, his eyes still fixed on the weapon in her hands. "Its self-taught."

"Then you're really good." She shook the lightsaber in her hand one last time as if testing its weight before concealing it beneath the robe again. "Too bad its not going to help you this time."

Skar frowned. He wasn't dead yet. "Tell me about Koll's plan. What are his intentions?"

She tilted her head. "You honestly think I'd tell you?"

Skar tried to smile his most charmingly. "Of course. You're a good guy."

She softened inside, he could tell that much, gentle compliments like that, even one as crude, were rare to her. "What makes you say that?"

Skar kept his smile. "Your eyes."

"My eyes?"

"They're not the eyes of a killer."

Some of the anger came back into her stare. "No, they're the eyes of a woman who's trying to rectify a wrong."

Skar shook his head. He didn't believe her. "Eyes are the mirrors of the soul. I see compassion in yours."

She took a step closer to him, her glare and her voice those of a hunter. "What you see in my eyes, is the shattered remains of a mother's love for her son."

Skar nodded. And truth slowly came to him, and for once it was a warm sensation. "It was you, wasn't it?"

She looked away.

"You sent the datacard, the one that got me out here?"

She stared at nothing. "I did," her voice broke, "I wanted to be sure. Koll doesn't know. Whether you were my son or my brother...I still wanted to look one of you in the eyes again. Its been so long since I felt like I was part of a family."

Skar wanted to hold her, comfort her. "You've got me."

She stirred. "You're not my son."

"That's not what you feel inside."

"How would you know?"

Skar closed his eyes and took a deep breath, channeling himself not through the Force, but his own strength. "I can see through you, and I see it. You can hide it from Koll but sooner or later you'll have to stand up for what you want. With Koll there is no future, with me there is a family."

She laughed. "You still don't get it, do you? Its you who is hiding, its you who'll have to face facts sooner or later. And you are the one with no future."

Skar allowed the insult to flow through him, but without the Force he found it hard to keep his vigilance and his focus. "I've accepted the possibility, but I'm still not convinced."

She shrugged. "Then there's really nothing more I can do for you. You're only prolonging the inevitable-"

"Next time you see Koll," he said before she could finish, "look into his eyes. Look into his soul and tell me what you see. Is there any hope of happiness or love left for you in those eyes?"

Her hands turned into hardened fists and her lips became a feral snarl. "How dare you."

"Just look," he said gently. "And you'll see what I mean."

Silencing her own fury she gave him one last hateful frown before turning on her heel and headed for the door.

"Mother," it broke Skar's heart to say it, "you can still make things right."

"All that matters to me, is family, as fragile as it is," she stopped at the door, but didn't turn around to look at him. "And you are not my family."

"I'm the only real family you have!" Skar cried.

"Well," she whispered, "that ain't much."

Skar wrestled against his restraints. "Look at me, tell me I'm not your son. Look beyond my face, my words, and confess…you love me."

She nodded slowly. "I do. I love the men you're supposed to be." She focused on his tattoos. "I love seeing my brother again, parts of me have missed him. Parts of me have regretted dearly the events that brought me here. But it's past now, and I can't undo it. And yet, you are my past...and you will soon be undone."

Skar coiled his hands into fists. "Listen to me! Koll's not stable. I don't know what he has planned, but I know I have to stop him. I've seen that kind of madness before. In Kayupa. They're both just as twisted. Their personalities can't take defeat because they set up ideals for themselves that they can't reach. Its that weakness I can use."

Sasa took a step back, turned and looked at him with a frosty smile on her lips. "You talk about killing my husband - like I wouldn't stop you."

Skar shuddered. "Reach inwards, mother. Find the part of you that was a Jedi once, and tell me what he's doing isn't wrong. Tell me, as a Jedi, you don't want to stop him just as much as I do."

Sasa shook her head. "I can't kill him."

"Then you must set me free!" Skar pleaded.

Sasa smiled carefully, and her eyes showed some illumination, as if she'd finally been given the proof, the reason she had come to see him. "For a second there I thought I had a son. Until you started talking about Koll." She tightened her jaw. "Now, I hear you brother. I hear the evil, the day you took your own life. The man that tried to turn me against Koll, for the glory of the Kjoil. But it wasn't for their glory, was it? It was for the Empire, it was the Emperor. Your sick wish to be the most powerful Jedi. You just wanted me as a tool, you didn't care that I was your sister, to you I was just another asset. An asset you could use to get what you wanted."

Though he wanted to, Skar had nothing to say. He knew she knew, deep down inside, how wrong she was.

"My son will be revenged. And the Republic will die for the lies they inflicted upon him. And soon, my brother will die, once and for all." She leaned in close. "The world never needed a Skind Kjoil in the first place. And soon they will all perish. The real one, the clone, and my poor son, who was misled by the very people you're trying to protect." Her face dimmed slowly. "You will not stop us."

Skar locked on her eyes, admitting to himself that he'd lost the chance of turning her to his side. And since that chance was gone, there were very little options open. "No...maybe you're right." He smiled coldly. "So I'll just have to kill you."

Sasa was unable to retort, if she even had one ready, as the doors to the dungeon opened. Skar looked over Sasa's shoulder to see someone new, a tall thin aged humanoid, a gray-skinned man with odd looking black markings across his body, dressed in a ragged cloak. The markings on his flesh seemed to suggest he'd been beaten by an electric whip. One espicially gruesome scar ran from the right side of jaw up and across his face before ending at the back of his head. He stepped through the doorway, sealing it behind him, and stared at them both with eyes glowing red.

Sasa glanced briefly over her shoulder at the man, clearly surprised and a bit anxious about the man's entry. "Prophet."

The tall man nodded, looked down at Sonnet, smiled once and then looked back up, locking his devil eyes upon Skar. "What a touching display."

Sasa turned to face the man fully. "What are you doing here?"

Prophet, as he was called, paid Sasa no attention and kept his gaze upon Skar. Skar could almost see devious thinking going on behind those red eyes, and when the man smiled coldly there was no questioning it. "I heard we were entertaining guests. I came to see if the rumors were accurate."

Sasa was surprised. "Rumors?"

Prophet held out his hands in a grandiose gesture. "The clone of Skind Kjoil. Who could miss up on such an...oppertunity?"

Skar didn't want to know what the man meant by 'oppertunity'.

"Does Koll know you're here?" Sasa asked.

The man raised his eyebrows. "Does Koll know you're here?"

Sasa took a step to her side, standing fully between Skar and Prophet. "If you're not here by order, I can easily give you one to leave."

Prophet snickered at her threat. "The lovely wife has teeth, I see." His eyes became slits. "But I wonder if she dares to bite."

"I know why you're here." Sasa stood her ground. "You don't need to do this, Eknath."

Eknath, Skar noted the name.

"I do," he whispered softly, "you and I both know."

Sasa shook her head. "Koll won't - ".

"I'm doing it for him."

She looked so powerless standing there. "But why?"

Eknath turned his eyes back to Skar. "You know why."

"There must be other ways," Sasa pleaded.

Skar looked back and forth between them. What were they talking about?

"We're running short on time, Sasa. I knew the moment I set foot inside this station. It must be done. For the good of us all."

Sasa's voice sounded heartbroken. "But if...we can still talk to Koll - "

"No," Eknath said coldly, "you know him better than that."

Sasa glanced over her shoulder at Skar briefly and then back at Eknath. "I think I may have found another way." She closed her eyes. "Read my mind."

Eknath's face was puzzled, but his gaze fell upon Sasa with such intensity Skar almost felt like he was being blinded by an oncoming light. The seance lasted several seconds before Eknath tore his gaze off Sasa again.

"Its dangerous, Sasa."

"You know it can be done," she said confidently. "I'll take responsibility."

Skar was starting to feel fed up, sick of being a spectator. "If you're here to kill me, then get it over with!"

Eknath looked over at him, a look of amusement on his face. "Kill?" He chuckled madly. "Not quite."

Sasa nodded to Eknath, reached inside her robe again and pulled out Skar's lightsaber. She gave it one last reminiscent stare and then handed it to Eknath. Skar didn't understand why, but he was distracted when she looked back over her shoulder and gave him one last sad gaze. Seconds later she had left the room.

Skar concentrated on Eknath. "Then why are you here?"

Eknath held out his hands, looking very pleased with himself. "I am here to redefine torture."

Skar tensed up, a fear passing over him.

Eknath started approaching. "I am Prophet, but as you may have just heard, my real name is Eknath."

Skar tried moving himself backwards but only managed to push himself flatter against the droid holding him. "You didn't answer my question."

He started circling Skar, hands inside his robe as he talked, his eyes towards the floor. "I am one of the Jedi that fled from the Republic during the war, along with Riokon. Once, many years ago, I was a member of the Jedi Council, mentored by Master Yoda himself. But like Riokon, I grew tired and wary of the Republic's way, and began to understand the truth. I've helped him build this army over the last decades," his voice turned poisonous, "on many occasions I've heard him rant on about Skind Kjoil, and his betrayal. I also heard about the death of his son. I know the stories so well you might think I was actually part of them. But they are just memories. And to be honest with you, I am growing tired of a man who can't stop talking about the past, while claiming he wants to save the future."

Skar didn't understand. "You're - "

"Don't get me wrong; I want to save this Galaxy as much as he does, but I know Koll better than he perhaps knows himself."

Skar remembered the little mind-reading Ekath had performed on Sasa. "You're a telepath."

"Any Jedi is, esentially, but I am particularly gifted at it. There's not a mind or will I haven't been able to bend in all my years. Koll's mind is a troubled one, but there is still a basis for a power I need to acheive my goals."

Skar couldn't help but feel this Eknath only sounded like he was using Koll and the army for his own ends. "Your goals?"

The man ended his circle, standing before Skar. "To see this Galaxy restored, just like the rest."

Skar still didn't get it. "What does that mean?"

"It means Koll is focusing on you, at the moment, prolonging your execution for his own sick pleasure. I came down here to kill you, so he can focus on the mission again, as well as ending this unbalance your every existence has placed upon the Force. To create equilibrium between dark and light."

Skar straightened up. "Then get it over with."

Eknath shook his head. "Not yet," he looked over at Sonnet. "You see, as Sasa just pointed out to me, there's another way. A dangerous one, perhaps. But," his red eyes glistened, "one with a very favorable outcome."

Skar's fear and worry started to build. "And you're going to tell me, right?"

Eknath grinned. "No, not at all. But I do wish to confer with you, in your final moments."

He didn't understand. "Confer?"

Eknath nodded, his face showing a slight vulnurability. His eyes dimmed. "I know all about you, Kjoil. I know about Kayupa, the Jentarana, your dreams, Master Bo-Hi, even the sickness that's moving through your body."

Skar's head came up. The sickness? Did he mean the attacks he'd been having. "Sickness?"

"Yes, it is a constructed part of your birthright. Clones are given a limited lifespan, they only live for a handful of decades, before their bodies shut down and die." Eknath smiled cruely. "You're dying, my friend. Your time in this world is almost up."

Skar suppressed his fear, he'd been facing death the last week. And although the knowledge shocked him he refused to let it show.

Eknath chuckled. "You can't hide anything from me, I told you. I know all about you," his eyes became slits, "even about this woman...Shinran."

The name sent a jolt of lightning through his very spirit. The pain of her memory was weakening him and he couldn't allow that, he had to stay strong. "Yeah, so?"

Eknath's head tilted. "You should know I don't need to read your mind, your thoughts and feelings are as clear to me as the smell of your blood on the floor. You can't hide anything from me."

Skar wanted to fight, but he began to understand it was pointless. Without the Force he was clay in Eknath's hands.

Eknath nodded, clearly sensing Skar's internal surrender. "I also know about her carriage, which, in a way, makes me consider Sasa's plan even further."

"What?"

Eknath's head came up. "It makes the plan...possible, and lowers the risk."

Skar was infuriated. "What are you talking about? What does Shinran have to do with anything!"

The telepath smirked. "You lack the knowledge, but it is not your own failing. It is the failure of those who instructed you. The weakest of the weak, upon which you bestow so much love and reverence."

Skar fought against his restraints. "Tell me what you're talking about!"

Eknath shook his head. "It's not important that you know. You should find comfort in the fact that you'll be seeing her and your son soon enough. But I am not interested in your woman, or your dead son. All I am interested in is your heritage." He stepped forward, his hand touching Skar's shoulder. "Kjoil strength."

Skar felt nauseous, a wave of sickness passed over him. He could feel Eknath now, tampering with his mind, playing through his memories like a hologram.

Eknath had read his mind again. "Kayupa was right; you haven't acheived your full potential yet, and without the Force you never will."

Skar's defenses, as they were, caved completely. He could feel oblivion starting to suck him down, darkness around the edges of his vision. A great hollow feeling inside him that swallowed everything. Eknath's snake-like voice was all he could latch on to.

"The truth I embrace, as Koll and the others, is the foundamental factor in your heritage. You see, I was there. I was there the day the Kjoil came into our lives, the day a brighter race was brought out of the shadows. A powerful race, the most powerful even. None spoke about it, no one dared, but there were mutters in the corners of the Jedi Temple. Jealousy, disbelief, repulsion."

Skar felt himself wilt away in Eknath's words.

"Skind Kjoil rose beyond the boundaries of any Jedi, he mocked and ridiculed everything the Jedi took for granted. They believed they were the pinnacle, the very will of the Force, it's greatest embodiment. That they were the good and anyone following the Dark Side was evil," his voice took on a softer edge, "and then Kjoil entered the picture, able to surpass their Jedi powers, able to use the Dark Side if they willed without consequences. No one could hear it, but the resentment and the confusion resonated through the Jedi Temple, like a subtle earthquake, for years."

Skar was halfway lost, drifting on waves of words and ancient stories, awake only because the images that pounded his brain through his own imagination. Spiteful people in the shadows, talking about his uncle, his family, his race. And slowly it occurred to him what Eknath was trying to say, the message he'd missed all those years.

That single fact, that never pondered possibility, slowly brought him back to the surface.

His voice was breaking, dry and coarse. "We were...the real - "

"Exactly!" Eknath pulled back from his mind probe, violently, detaching himself from Skar's thoughts faster than was healthy for anyone being examined by the Force. "The Kjoil are the strongest, the brightest, how are we to believe anything other than that they were the real embodiment of the Force? Jedi, Sith; they were just shadows of you," he held out his palm, "shadows of what the Force originally imagined. And the Force does have a will, it is almost as sentient as those who enforce it. It does create circumstances, oppertunities, fated accidents, that acheive it's design, through it's followers."

Skar felt exhausted, weary from Eknath's mind control. "The Kjoil...they were the real sons of destiny."

Eknath smiled full of delight. "The very hands of fate."

Skar sought inwards, tried to understand what it meant. On the grander scale it meant that...what did it mean? That the Jedi were wrong? No, not wrong, just misled, unaware. But if the Kjoil really were the true governors of the Force, why had the Force held them a secret? The Kjoil were oblivious to the world for many generations until that day, the day of the Gathering, when the Kjoil reached out to the Jedi and made them aware of their existence.

Eknath was almost snickering with glee. "You see it, don't you? The Gathering. The Kjoil felt they were needed, the Force told them they were needed. Until then the Kjoil were safely hidden away, until the Force understood that their presence was needed in galactic affairs."

Skar felt like he was choking on truth, with no way to cough it out of his lungs. "But why? Compared to years later the Republic was in no great distress. Why not later? And why were only five of them taught Jedi techniques? Why not all of them? If the Force has a will why did the Force let Skind create the Jentarana when it served no real - "

Eknath held up a finger to silence him. "You misunderstand. There are no predestined events, no great plan...there is merely an idea."

Skar frowned. "An idea?"

"The Force is not an all-knowing entity, it is a sentient will in all living things, an energy created by life. But the Force cannot predict or see the future. The Kjoil were brought out of hiding at that particular moment in time for reasons and motives we cannot guess at. And no matter how you regard the Force, whatever perspective serves you best, make no mistake; the Kjoil are it's strongest, most connected myrmidons."

Skar shook his head. "So what? It doesn't matter."

Eknath's red eyes flashed. "Really?"

"Yeah."

The telepath reached inside his cloak slowly and retrived the lightsaber that Sasa had given him. Skar's very own. The sight of it blossomed hope inside of him, his every sense and instinct ready to pounce on a chance to be free. He felt his body tense up, his spirit rising.

Eknath tapped the hilt against an open palm, seemingly fascinated by the blunt sound. "I used to carry one of these...back in the days of the Republic. I used to slay my enemies with a swift stroke," the green blade flashed into life in his hand, humming intensely, "used it to defend those in danger, those protected by the Republic, under the missions I was given by the council. At least...that was what I was trained to think, to believe," he swirled the handle in his hand, slowly, careful of the blade, "that was the lie stuffed down my throat."

Skar's eyes fixated on the blade. "Lie?"

Eknath straighted out his right arm, sighting Skar's face down the length and tip of the blade. His voice was soft, reminiscent. "I was young then, a hopeful youth that wanted to be a hero, who wanted to save the world. I believed the myths and the stories, I gained the powers and I believed to understand the Force and my place in life." He powered down the lightsaber and the blade slowly faded back into its hilt. "I truly believed that we were doing the Force's will, that we were the avatars of light in this world."

Skar could feel himself being coaxed by the man, genuinely wanting to hear what he had to share. Eknath seemed a wise man, a powerful acolyte, but one burdened with the many ways life could be scrutined. "And now?"

Eknath cradled the hilt in his hands. "I know now that the Force speaks differently to us all, that there was no universal will that all Jedi were meant to follow. The Force has hopes and designs for all of us, it knows us all better than we know ourselves. The Sith understood this, at least, and used it to further their own wills. But the Jedi," his face crumpled with pity and regret, "we were too damned arrogant. Too sure of ourselves. Too lost trying to do good."

His eyes came up fast, staring into Skar's. "But you...the Kjoil...you knew. You understood. The world is not black or white, and whatever darkness we embrace or face comes not from a Dark Side but from inside of us. The Jedi who fell to the Dark Side, did not do so because they weren't strong; they fell because they simply didn't understand what the Force really was, because it was never theirs to begin with. The Force was too much power for someone like them, the power too much for so ignorant and arrogant beings. The Kjoil should have..." his words stopped coming, his face filling with anger.

Skar started to understand. "We should have been in their place, we could have stopped the Sith."

Eknath grinned madly. "Yes, that would have been a better fate. Sith and those fallen to the Dark Side are not the same. The Sith power is different. But there is a greater power than them. Kjoil genetics hold the highest number of midiclorians ever recorded in Jedi history. They are the true essence of it's power, the strongest of it's children. We, Sith and Jedi, are just shadows compared. Kjoil are the true wielders of the Force, anything else is just pretend. So you see, it does indeed matter."

Skar wasn't entirely convinced. "But the Kjoil are no better. Our weakness is our passion. It corrupts us too easily."

Eknath shook his head. "You're thinking of Skind. While it is true he turned to Sith, remember he did not do so by accident; he did it chasing the means to an end."

Skar understood that too well. "Access to the Sith afterlife."

Eknath nodded. "Which I sincerely doubt is different from any other afterlife, but Skind was an impatient youth, too manipulated by Jedi dogmas. Though he was the strongest of them all, they buried him with their rules and restrictions. Instructed rightfully he would have found a way to reach Selia in the afterlife on his own. Same thing happened to the rest of the Epigones...the ones you slew on Draori, they suffered the same abuse and lies."

Skar thought silently for a moment. "Maybe you're right...as you said, it's all perspective."

Eknath laughed warmly, clearly amused by Skar's comprihention. "Indeed it is. However, it is my truth."

Skar remembered slowly that Eknath was here to kill him. "But why tell me all this?"

The man's red eyes flared with evil, a smile slowly spreading across his face. "Because in all your thinking, all your puzzling back and forth, you opened up a weakness in your mind. Lost inside your head and memories, you forgot the outside world that still exists, and I used it to get what I wanted."

Skar's body tightened. "What?"

Those red eyes burned in Eknath's face, his voice like salt in a wound. "Don't worry...I'll take good care of them."

Skar blinked. "Who? Who will you - " The truth revealed itself in a blinding flash before Skar's inner eye and sent tremors through his body. Hundreds of hopeful eyes looking back at him, smiling couragously for the first time in a long time. His family, his people.

The Kjoil refugees.

Skar fell into rage instantly and tore at the restraints with all his anger. "No! You leave them alone!" His face turned red in hatred and words fought their way through clenched teeth. "If you touch them, I'll rip out your black soul! I'll kill you! You hear me! I'll rip you to pieces!"

Eknath chuckled, unafraid. "Small words coming from a restrained prisoner, bereft of the Force." He smiled grimly. "However, speaking of ripping out souls..." He let the words trail off and turned to face Sonnet on the floor, bowed his head and closed his eyes.

What was he doing? Were they communicating?

The chamber started to close in around Skar, and he knew whatever he had to do to escape would have to be done soon. Skar's eyes examined every corner of the room, every wall, floor and ceiling, even Sonnet, who still perplexed him with his powers, every tiny detail for something, anything.

"You won't find anything, and even if you did I would know." Eknath turned his face slightly to the side, keeping his eyes closed. "Sonnet is timeless, older than you and me combined. Though he looks young, don't be fooled. He's maintaining his outside appearance, like the one he's chosen for the time being, using the Force. He has no real physical form, he is an extension of the Force."

Skar kept searching, not ready to succomb to his fate. "Extension?"

"Darth Vader was once a boy called Anakin Skywalker. Skywalker had no father, he was concieved by the midiclorians. Sonnet's origin is remarkably similiar though he never really existed in a tangible form. He's not really alive, he's a..." Eknath looked for the right words. "I can't even describe it, the truth that bore him into this world. I don't think there's a word for it. He is the Dark Side, a physical presence of its will. His power is not determined by training of experience, he has access to the Dark Side in way I can only admire. He doesn't need to call upon it, you see? He is the Dark Side, its very will in an almost physical presence. But since I don't believe the Force really has sides I am forced to believe that Sonnet is a last desperate attempt from the Force to acheive some goal.

Skar found it hard to believe. "You said timeless?"

"Yes, he is as old as the Force itself, as evil as they come." Eknath opened his eyes slightly to look upon Sonnet crouched at his feet. "But all beings are born neither true evil nor true good. Its our society, our culture, that affects us in many ways that makes us grow more benevolent or more malicious. The concepts of free will and the ability to choose who we will become, has become our guiding beacons when we feel we're slipping too much into darkness."

Skar said nothing, He wanted to run, run far away, run from words and faces and facts that he never wanted to see or hear again.

"If free will is never explained to us, of if we lack the means to demonstrate it, we become victims of life's lottery of random, and meaningless, events. Its our faith that saves us, our belief that we can choose our own destiny. Its the only hope we have. But what if we lost that faith? What if we're convinced or proven that free will is merely a dream?"

Filled with grief Skar still manged to think it through, starting to lose hope in finding a way to free himself. "We lose ourselves."

Eknath nodded. "We fall at the mercy something beyond our control, beyond our understanding. We believe nothing matters then, and if nothing matters…what do we have left? We're always believed, hoped, that existence mattered. That our fears and efforts would pay off eventually. That life wouldn't just turn out to be as ridiculous and cruel as we feared. Our sanity rests at this principal, its what keeps us together, motivating us to keep going, even when things seem hopeless. If even the forces of destiny are proven a lie, an illusion, there's no reason to do anything. Some people call it liberating, they believe it to be the ultimate freedom, to let that which does not matter slip away, leaving us uncaring about anything. Others can't cope with it."

Skar looked at him. "What happens to them?"

"They become you," Eknath said bluntly, "shattered on the inside, clinging to the only things they know to be real. Their abilities."

Skar knew that to be true; on Soliton he'd lost faith in all he believed in and it was his will to fight, to kill even, that had kept him going. Kept him wanting to face Kayupa, to kill the thing that had stolen away his ideals and faith with not too subtle actions. And once again he found himself lost, but without a way to fight, without a way to even choose to fight.

Eknath nodded to himself. "You understand." The man turned away from Sonnet and turned his full attention to Skar. His right hand raised slowly and he spread his fingers apart. "Now...it's time to die. Try not to make a mess as you leave."

Eknath's probing was not a subtle connection of minds, it was an in-your-face fist that instanly weakened him of all physical strength before unfolding its claws and clutching his mind inside. And he cried out for help by reflex, wanting anyone to hear him.

Eknath's mindmeld was an engrossing cloud that dimmed all light around him, barred his thoughts from any refuge. He fought physically against it as much as he could, tossing in his fixed position but achieving nothing, the droid's restraints were too powerful, but it was all he could do to distract himself from the growing darkness floating over his mind's eye.

His thoughts drew inwards and he closed his eyes to stop himself from seeing Eknath's sickening grin as he broke him. But he found no safety behind closed eyelids, he felt like he was suffocating, drowning. And he could almost see the other side of the imaginable water he was fighting against, but couldn't reach it. His mind was swimming, fighting against Eknath's entry, but getting nowhere. Every time he felt like he was just about to break the surface, darkness grabbed him by the ankles and pulled him back down.

He could feel the Force around him, but he couldn't touch or bend it. It was a one way connection, orchestrated by Eknath. He could remember using the Force, the way its powers would course through his body, filling him with its light, a beautiful warm light which he could channel into his own wishes. He could remember it all, but he couldn't grasp control of it anymore. It was there, on the other side of the water's surface

It occured to him slowly that the veil he was fighting to break had stars behind it, and as he turned eyes away from what laid before him he found the same stars all around him. He was the center of the universe, and all the twinkling stars around him were millions of miles away.

He was plunging towards something, a darkness amidst those faint lights, the darkness that Eknath was slowly but efficiently forcing over his mind. The procedure was breaking him, and he knew that was what Eknath wanted, but he had no way of fighting it. If he'd had control of the Force he might've been able, but not like this. Slowly he began to see other things among the stars, images and memories he wasn't sure were his. Voices that spoke to him, but he couldn't hear them fully.

"Hmm. You're stronger than I thought," he could hear Eknath's voice far away, a distant echo, "I may need to call upon some help here."

And then, a face.

Sonnet's face was there, between the small lights, staring back at him coldly.

Coming closer.

Coming straight at him.

Skar could feel Sonnet's powerful presence barging through, charging at him without hesitation, breaking his defenses one by one, slowly but surely acheving his goal of leaving him completely open. Skar knew there was no escaping it, but it dawned on him that if he couldn't prevent it, maybe he could use it. And so, instead of holding back, he opened himself fully. Sonnet flooded through him, filling spaces of his mind with his own presence and rapidly filling every corner of his mind, he could feel himself wilting away, the light inside him dimming more and more as Sonnet's ravenous spirit began to take control.

But as he felt himself becoming more and more Sonnet, at one point they were almost one with equal amounts of control, and Skar accepted himself becoming part of Sonnet.

Because Sonnet still had access to the Force.

Skar grasped it, tore it through the darkness around him and allowed it to fill every space inside himself that he could spare. And in the far of it all he could hear Sonnet screaming out in terror. Eknath's probe stopped instantly, a wave of surprise replacing it. And Skar's soul was reforged, full of the light of the Force.

He opened his eyes to see Eknath staring back at him with wide eyes. "Its impossible!" the telepath cried as he backed away from him.

Skar channeled the Force through him, and sent out a force-wave that tore the droid from his back, sending it twirling against the wall behind them, exploding instantly. Skar dropped to the floor, his body beaten and weak, but the Force flooding into him replaced any fatique. The Force wave had knocked Eknath up against the wall as well, but the telepath was still concious, staring back at him with eyes full of fear.

Sonnet was gone from the room, nothing but wall and floor where he'd sat before the probing. But Sonnet's dying scream still echoed through the corners of his mind, the fear and anger washing through him, filling his body and soul. And Skar tapped into his anger and his hate full-fledged, unafraid and uncaring for the dangers in doing so. He didn't shy away from the anger, infact inside it he found a bountiful reserve of power. Electrical surges began fluttering around his limbs, dancing across the blood-soaked floor, sputtering with energy.

The Dark Side.

And then he heard it, the door opening before him. The delightful sound of soldiers rushing into the room, getting ready to attack him. Skar faced them head on, charging at them before they could get the drop on him, unleashing a roundhouse kick on the nearest soldier's neck, shattering his throat and windpipe, killing him instantly.

The next one raised his blaster and would have killed him if Skar hadn't kicked the blaster up into the air with his left foot. Skar's his right foot followed and kicked the soldier back into his comrades, immobilizing them for precious seconds, as Skar somersaulted backwards, grabbing the guard's descending rifle while it was still in the air and immediately opened fire upon them.

Once the bodies laid perfectly still and the clutter of armor had ceased, Skar put the rifle in its safety position, and looked down at the terrified Eknath, whimpering in the corner. He reached out and pulled his lightsaber from Eknath's possession and then raised the rifle to kill the telepath.

But a warning sense brought to his attention the approach of more soldiers outside the dungeon. With an unlimited reserve of anger, Skar felt like he'd been handed an endless supply of power. It seemed the bar had been lifted and all that remained was a desire in the Force to impress its user. Skar used the Force to elevate him above the floor just seconds before the soldiers charged into the room below him, thinking not to the check the space above them. Skar dropped back down then and landed in a crouch in the midst of the soldiers, swirling on his boots with his green blade held out, gutting four soldiers.

At the end of his swirl he threw the blade out, watching as it hovered on the air, dashing back and forth around the soldiers while it chopped at them, cleaving arms and expertly removing limbs. When it was over the blade returned to his waiting hand, just in time for him to deflect a bolt coming from outside the dungeon, sending it back and leaving a hole the size of a fist in the soldier's helmet.

With bodies surrounding him, Skar sheared his lightsaber in the air, using it to remove the load of anger and fury settling around his heart, flexing his limbs as he awaited the next assault.

Four more came through the doorway. Stretching out his free arm, he made a fist of his hand. One soldier fell to his death immediately, gargling blood on his visor, his heart ripped from its chest with one quick pull.

The remaining three attackers behind him began to fire, their rifles spraying blue bolts across the room, all of them weaving around Skar, bouncing off his lightsaber. And then he was on them, slashing left and right, evading their clumsy defenses, his burning blade moving through them like they were nothing but air.

When their bodies stopped moving, he settled back and turned off his blade, looked around to see that Eknath had run off during the fighting, but not really affected by that fact. There was an indifference inside him that came with his lust for killing, he wanted to kill Eknath, but there were plenty of others nearby to satisfy his desire for blood and carnage.

Skar strolled through the doorway and once outside a grim expression washed over his face. More soldiers were coming from down the corridor to his right, behind a closed door down there. The door began raising itself into the ceiling and Skar reached out to the Force to block it halfway. He threw himself on his belly, punched the safety off the rifle with a loud resonating click that seemed to ebb down the room, disappearing in the following roar of the fully automatic setting of the rifle.

Skar could only see his enemies up to their knees behind the half open door, but it didn't matter. Knees were as good a place as any to shoot a target. that existed only to offer him a forum in which he could vent his anger. The first man he chose, got both his kneecaps blown wide open, dropping him to the floor screaming his lungs out.

The second man turned around to see this, making himself the next victim, as the pounding rain of blaster-fire shredded his ankles into red lumpy pieces of indeterminable flesh. The last soldier had just enough time to fire off a salvo of his own beneath the door, but as quick as he was it didn't save him from having to sit in a wheelchair the rest of his life.

As cruel and painful as it was for them, Skar couldn't find enough humanity in his heart to even pretend he felt any sympathy. And even knowing it was unwise to leave behind still alive enemies, he felt their pain would serve as a greater vengeance than killing them. He wanted them to fear him, he wanted to make an example of them. So others would know that the gloves were off.

Three soldiers barged into the corridor from his left. His rifle's five-hundred bolt clip depleted, Skar leaped up and behind them, bringing out his lightsaber as he landed, surprising the soldiers. With one swiping move, he cleaved four shins. The two men tumbled to the floor, crying in agony, their legs ending in scorched stumps beneath their knees. The last of the soldiers turned to face him, but he was too slow.

Tightening his grip on the lightsaber, Skar swirled on his knee and kicked away the man's feet beneath him. Before the guard had even hit the floor, Skar dug his sword up and through the flesh beneath the man's chin, pinning his punctuated head to the ceiling, blood oozing down Skar's hand that held the hilt.

Skar powered down the blade and the man fell from the ceiling, a smoking hole in the ceiling above, as well as one straight through the man's skull. He stepped over the weeping men that had been spared for now, saw the blood running between all of them like a river that bound them all to the same revenge.

Almost consumed so fully by the darkness raging inside him that he no longer could remember the virtues he'd once rested his life upon, Skar stepped through the doorway, the hallway behind him littered with corpses, some of them still whimpering from the multiple wounds he'd distributed to them. Muting the moans and crying behind him, the doors slid shut.

---

Koll was en route to the dungeon where his second squad should have just arrived. His anxiety was building with each step he took, a worry for his men, they should have called back and announced their capture by now. But more than that, there was also a worry that one of them might end in the position where they actually killed the clone before he got the battle he wanted. Rather than waiting for them to call him, he called them.

"Squad, what's your status?"

Only silence.

"Squad, what's your status!" he shouted.

A crackle came through the silence, he could hear breathing, heavy breathing at the other end. Blaster fire followed and Koll's hand tightened around the comlink. He heard screaming, familiar voices crying out in agony, hidden beneath the thunder of loud blaster fire.

Koll entered the dungeon two minutes later, flanked by Sasa and a squad of his own men. Initially he felt his own remorse at seeing the dead bodies of his men, but it only grew as his entourage felt it also. He whisked away the thoughts and marched through the dead, sparing only one or two glances to identify the faces that could still be identified.

Koll grunted as he found lettering cleaved in the side of the door that their intruder had escaped through. Carved by a lightsaber. Koll ran his hand over it, clearing the letters. There were symbols there, but he couldn't read them. He did recognize them as Kjoil symbols though.

"What does it say?" he asked Sasa.

She came up beside him and read the symbols. She looked over at Koll, hesitant, but managing to say the words out loud when she looked away. She whispered, "it says; death escapes no one, you have been warned." She shivered. "Do you feel it? The Dark Side has him now."

With a heavy snort, Koll turned to the door undeterred and continued down the path of his prey.

Lingering in the dungeon a few seconds more, Sasa looked back up at the lettering carved into the wall.

One way or another, I'm coming for you, mother.

---

Operating the controls, the hatch creaked open like an old rusty door. Hurrying inside, he crouched down and closed the hatch behind him as silently as he could, listening for dangers in this new terrain with every sense he had in his arsenal. The entryway lead onto a walkway above a storage room. The floor beneath him was however not lined up with crates and boxes like a normal storage room. What met him inside made him shudder with unwanted anxiety. And as fortunate as it was, he didn't believe it to be a coincidence, it couldn't be chance that he'd found this section of the yard so fast.

A hundred hostages crowded the floor beneath the walkway he was huddled down on. Skar leaned against the railing to look down, scouting the prisoners for wounded or dead. They all seemed unharmed. Infact they seemed fine.

They were happy.

Skar looked up, aiming his rifle at the two guards standing on a walkway intersecting his. It would only take one glance in his direction to spot him. Skar spared a glance back down at the prisoners. Not one was hurt. Not one of them was looking for a way out of there. Skar clenched his jaw tight, a feeling of betrayal writhing in his belly. Not even one disgruntled look on any of the faces down there. Some of the prisoners beneath were actually chatting away like nothing special was going on around them. Children were playing and giggling. Playing ball.

Skar kept his eyes on the two guards ahead of him, trying to make himself as small as possible.

None of them want to leave. They're happy. They don't want to leave. Something's…made them docile. All I get from these people is well-being. Safety.

Skar's throat clogged.

Eknath did this.

But before he could act on it the two guards further down the walkway spotted him and were already radioing in their discovery when Skar leapt out from his shelter and let his rifle drown out the screaming of the hostages with a salvo of red lightning.

His bolts hit nothing and Skar knew he was forced to seek cover elsewhere, the walkway was too small for him to put up a fight. Resolved he threw himself over the railing of the walkway, softened his landing with the aid of the Force and touched down in a clearing in the center of the hostages.

The hostages all pulled away from him, some screaming, as he ignited his lightsaber and started to draw the attention of the guards over his head. They stayed focused on Skar, raining a thunderstorm of bolts at him. Skar deflected them deftly, concentrating on keeping the hostages safe as the blasts bounced off his blade.

Skar performed a sideways shoulder-roll just in time to ward off one shot from wounding a young boy, but the boy's face met him with fear. To them he was the evil one. He began to feel the subtle waves of fear coming from them, impacting against him like currents of water, pushing him back. He felt hazy and light on his feet at the strength of their growing animosity against him. It almost killed him when a shot from above fell outside his concentration.

Skar bounced the shot back, hitting the support strut for the walkway above his head. Without consciously working for it, three shots deflected later the entire walkway fell from the ceiling. Skar immediately reached out his free hand, concentrating all his energy into that motion, creating a cushion beneath the walkway, keeping it from smashing down on the supposed innocent hostages.

He was forced to give up his defense, shutting down the lightsaber, as it took all of his focus to keep the walkway hovering. Three hostages were cowering beneath it, screaming in fear at him.

Damn it! Get out of there!

Finally Skar was able to let the walkway drop, smashing it against the floor and he had had to support himself to keep from falling when the blast shook through the floor. Swirling on his knee Skar lined up his rifle with his shoulder, shooting open a hatch behind him that had been sealed to prevent the hostages from leaving. It was an exit for him and for the hostages.

"Come on!" Skar shouted back at the hostages, keeping his rifle aimed over their heads, ready to defend them if more soldiers should come.

Not one of them moved.

Another group of guards swarmed into the room, their weapons held at the ready. Skar shouldered the rifle and switched to his lightsaber, swirling he weapon in his hand, motioning them to charge. In silent communication the group holstered their rifles and instead retrieved a smooth hilt from their equipment belts. Each hilt extended into a long metal shaft, twice the length of his lightsaber, and the guards swung the staffs over their heads.

Skar charged forward.

One of the soldiers met him head on, while the others stayed back. The moment Skar's lightsaber impacted with the shaft Skar was surprised. His blade should have carved through it like air, but instead it met resistance. Without a moment of hesitation he pivoted around and struck at the guard's back but the staff was already there, blocking his attack.

They're made from cortosis ore. I can't cut through them.

Skar went back a step, bringing his blade up as the rest of the soldiers flanked the first one, slight sounds of evil chuckles beneath their helmets. Skar felt their confidence rising as they displayed their skills with the staffs, thinking they had the best of him. Thinking they had him.

Skar joined in on their chuckles. My blade can cut flesh, Skar set himself in a defensive posture, what can your staffs do?

The eight soldiers rushed him, but before the first staff had even made contact with his lightsaber, Skar swung about in the thick of them, swinging his blade in wide circles. Three of them went down without even understanding their mistake, the air around them filled with red smoke as the blood splashed from them and around them. Like a hurricane of motion Skar took down two more, the blood flying through the air from the first three dead hadn't even touched down yet, and was now thickened with even more crimson clouds.

The blood washed over Skar like showers, but his rage and quick steps kept him focused on the fight. Blood ran down his form, painting his face in dark red camouflage. The last three soldiers tried to make the best of the confusion and bashed their staffs out in blindness. Skar blocked two hits, three hits, and four hits before bending down on his one knee, lashing out his blood-soaked arm and slicing through the midsection of a soldier.

The last two came from each side of him, the staffs swirling over their heads, their electronic snarls almost comical. Skar pivoted out of their target zone, and for a moment it seemed the two would run into each other. While they managed to dig their heels into the floor fast enough to avoid slamming against one another, the floor they had chosen wasn't suitable. Both of them slipped on the blood of their comrades, crashing down on their backs.

Skar stepped back behind the closest, pulling the man up by his collar and inserted his lightsaber through the back of the man's head, ending his struggle in a microsecond. The blade sheared through his visor and continued through the air, melting into the other soldier's face in kind. Skar powered down the blade and both of them fell to the floor, their faces replaced with a melted slab of burnt flesh.

Skar turned back to face the hostages. "Come on!" he implored.

Nothing. They still just stared back at him with fear, even more so now with his display at killing so ruthlessly. He wished he could undo what he'd done, but he realized he had no chance of winning this.

Nothing to do for them, Kayupa's voice said inside his head.

You can't undo this.

Run!

Skar accepted the circumstances and ran through the hatch. Even though the next section of storage rooms seemed vacant, except for stacks of metallic crates almost touching the ceiling, that didn't mean there weren't traps waiting to be sprung, or enemies to face. It couldn't have gone unnoticed to the terrorists that they'd lost their men in the tunnel beneath the surface, or what had just happened with the hostages.

Skar readied himself, feeling a sudden sensation of cold passing through him. He could feel Sonnet moving around his mind. Skar felt his heart beating faster, his danger sense. The direction the danger was coming from was somewhere beyond, somewhere not in this realm. It was an engrossing and powerful pull on the Force's strength, someone in constant tune with the Force. He had only once felt such a pull on the Force and then it had been bad. Skar grimaced.

He felt Sonnet inside of himself, like a ghost, almost taking control of his body but Skar fought it. He felt the spirit wanting him to lose control but he wouldn't. And feeling more of the darkness, the ever-growing black that was slowly consuming him from within but also outside, he felt that if he just kept moving, he could escape it.

But before he could even begin to search for a way out of the storage room he felt a presence beyond his own. He wasn't alone. Skar held his rifle out in front of him, as he sidestepped slowly behind a crate. He heard sounds nearby, and enhanced his senses with the Force. There was definitely a living being somewhere nearby, he could feel the heartbeat, the rushing of blood coursing through veins, and feel the micro vibrations of movement as the subject moved.

Skar backed himself up against the crate, and sneaked a peek around the edge of it. A woman was standing by a workstation, littered with tools and apparatuses, apparently unaffected or unaware of the fighting in the adjacent storage room.

The woman was young, maybe twenty, dressed in heavy gray army pants and a white shirt, with empty blaster-holsters on her thighs. There was bandaging around her right wrist and hand. She wore army boots and a hood fitted over her long blond hair. The woman's hands were hidden in front of her, tampering with something he couldn't see.

He ducked back behind his cover, his chest ached from stress and worry and he felt he could barely breathe. His head was swamping with too many thoughts, and he was amazed at how he had been able to keep his cool so far. He found that in worrying circumstances, such as combat, his instincts took over and his actions were produced out of his own quick thinking and gut feeling.

He was a warrior no doubt, but he felt like he was possessed by a demon when the warrior instinct came out. The demon was slowly leaving him now, he could sense its departure when his breathing became normal and his danger sense quieted down.

Skar straightened up, raised his rifle to aim at the woman's back, and started sneaking up behind her. She didn't appear armed, but he didn't want to make that assumption on his lacking information. Neither did he want to put her down dead, if she infact wasn't armed. A kill like that was nothing to be proud of, Jedi or not.

Skar snaked himself across the floor, crossing the distance. With his right hand on the blaster, he stretched out his left hand to touch her shoulder, applying a little magic to his touch, enough to knock her unconscious. He was just two steps away from her.

Just a little further…

The light boom startled them both as Skar's boot touched down on a air-duct grid. Skar could feel his own skin freezing, as well as the woman's skin. All the hairs on his body stood up and for a brief few seconds none of them dared to move, but they both knew. The woman knew she was not alone and Skar knew she knew.

Skar took the initiative. "Don't move!"

The woman snarled then sighed. "Another infestation? This place is crawling with bugs."

Skar walked close enough for her to feel the barrel of his rifle on the back of her neck. "You armed?"

She nodded towards a shelf to their left, two blasters laid there, well away from her reach.

Skar was reassured. "Any other weapons?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Who are you?"

The woman hesitated answering. "Junn." She turned her head slightly enough for Skar to see her right eye glancing over her shoulder at him. She kept turning, eager to see who her attacker was.

"Freeze." Skar pressed the barrel against her neck

But she kept turning. "Its hard not to in this place." She came around fully and their eyes locked. Skar thought he'd seen her somewhere before, but wasn't sure where. Something about the way her eyes looked at him felt familiar. There was a hint of melancholy in them, as well as excitement. The kind of anarchy one would expect from someone who loved the feel of battle. She was a soldier alright.

She smiled sardonicly. "The Jedi."

Skar opened his mouth but nothing came out. For a moment he slipped, but then regained his control of the situation. "Hands up."

She held up her arms, like any hostage would do. She knew the procedure. Somewhere in the back of his mind Skar saw himself as Kayupa, holding Shinran at gunpoint, both of them trying to explain their actions. But Skar didn't have to explain anything this time. She was the enemy. He could put her to sleep and then disappear but the familiarity in her eyes restrained him.

Skar held her in his crosshairs, ready to drop her the moment she tried anything funny.

She bit her lip. "You're going to kill me?"

Skar noticed her right hand, apart from the bandaging he recognized the off color of prostetic skin. "I don't kill someone...unarmed."

"You don't have much other option."

Skar was able to link two and two. "You were that sniper."

She smiled, and there was almost pride in her cold eyes. "That's right."

Guilt surfaced inside of him, though he couldn't explain why. He could feel some sadness inside her, related to her injury. She radiated victim. And feeling that sadness he felt responsible. And for a second he forgot why he was there. "You - "

"You don't need to bother," she said sternly, "I don't need your sympathy." Casually she glanced at a screen on the table to their right.

Skar's eyes followed hers -

The woman's right boot slammed into his left shoulder, kicking him sideways into a crate. He shot off a couple of rounds as a reflex, but she was already running towards the shelf with her own blasters. Skar lifted up his rifle and aimed at the small of her back.

But as he shot, the woman reached the shelf and kept on running up the wall, dodging the shots, somersaulting at the top and landed back in the center of the room, her blaster aimed at him. Skar gasped as he laid on the floor, his weapon aimed at her, and hers aimed at him, none of them speaking.

The silence grew thick, it was a stalemate.

Skar didn't dare move, he stayed down on the floor with his rifle aimed at her. Skar reached out to her, could feel her surging in the Force for the first time, it felt like a breath of fresh air, she was still untrained. He could feel the Force in her dwelling and could feel her reaching out to something in the room.

Skar looked to his left to see the crate come flying against them both, hurdling like a torpedo. Both their weapons were knocked out of their hands, as they both moved away from the crate. She hadn't counted on the crate to hit her too, but it did. A sign of her lack of training in the Force.

Skar rolled to his side, watched the crate circle around her under her guidance as it came around her, and continued onwards towards him, trying to squash him against the floor. Skar commanded the Force to slow the events around him, or at least give him extra speed so he could think of a solution.

Time slowed and the crate slowly drifted towards him. Skar had just enough time to pull his rifle, and her blaster, into his hands, then he turned over to face the incoming crate.

Skar beckoned the Force and time stopped completely. The crate hovered above him like a giant shadow. Skar blasted away, his fingers working as they pressed the triggers in both his hands as fast as they could, shredding the crate into a million flaming pieces. The crate disintegrated before him as the red beams hailed through the air.

Slowly time started ticking away again and the flaming debris picked up speed as they began to fly the other way through the room, before finally exploding in a giant flash. He heard the woman screaming on the other side of the explosion. As it wore down, Skar jumped to his feet and tried to see through the glare.

The woman was lying on the floor amidst all the fire, her legs pinned beneath large pieces of the blown-up crate. Four of his shots had pierced through the crate during the fighting and struck her. She was hit twice in the stomach, once in the arm, and the last shot had left a grueling roasted mark on her shoulder. The sprinkler system turned on and washed them both in a cold pour.

Skar stood over her, listening to her defiant sneering, watching the tears blend with the water running over her face. Her sadness was blooming, and he couldn't help feeling affected by it.

She cursed, spitting blood from her lips. "You win again, Jedi. That's twice you've broken me."

Skar strapped the rifle over his shoulder and clipped her blaster to the lightsaber ring in his belt. "You're still alive."

She groaned, shaking her head. "My hand is gone...I'm shot...My legs are broken..." her good hand touched the wounds in her stormach, "...breathing won't last for long."

Skar hunched down next to her, touched her hand, felt the small heartbeat that was beating slower and slower for each second. Skar sighed. She was right, she would die soon. He knew he could help her end it, or he could help her survive, but she was still an enemy. He felt sad for her, but didn't know what to do. He only knew he wanted to help her.

"Leave me," she cried. "I don't want your help."

Skar nodded. Even if he wanted to, there was no time to help her now. If she was destined to live on, the Force would make it so, without his help. Others would find her and save her. But if they didn't...

"I'll be back for you."

She looked up at him, her tearfilled eyes showing some fear. "For the rest of me, you mean?"

Skar was about to answer, to tell her his intentions, but true enough his danger sense flared. Danger was closing in on him.

Skar ran for the nearest door. The hall beyond was no better, soldiers were swarming at the end of the hall, planning to assault him from behind. Skar ducked behind the bulkhead and one of the soldiers came running towards him. When the guard was close enough Skar ran forth meeting the man midway, pulled the rifle from the man's hands. Skar followed up with a quick elbow to the face, smashing through his visor and the soldier went down, blood oozing from his nose.

Skar swirled and unleashed hell with the rifle. He wasn't shooting to hit, but more to lay down a suppressing fire that would make anyone down there duck for cover leaving him a window of opportunity to escape in.

Blasting at full automatic he walked backwards as fast as he could, he knew there was a door somewhere behind him, hopefully one he could seal from the inside. But he was forced to hide himself as the soldiers ducked out from their safety and shot at him. Like him they laid down a fire but one more chaotic than his. They shot to destroy whoever was shooting at them.

Skar crouched down behind a bulkhead, and took a deep breath. Shots whizzed by the bulkhead, but he fought to remain calm. Stretching out to the Force he felt seven or so enemies advancing down the corridor towards him, shooting from behind bulkheads and crates. The shots ricocheted off the walls and flew in all manner of directions.

With his back against the bulkhead Skar lifted the rifle up over his left shoulder, aiming at the roof, and tugged back on the trigger. There was no way he could shoot those behind the crates from in front, but his shots bounced off the ceiling and flew down behind the crates, killing those who thought they'd chosen a perfect hiding place.

Skar read his power supply off the side of the rifle. 53 shots, which wasn't much in rapid fire. Skar switched to single shot, and looked over his shoulder. Two soldiers had died in his bouncing shot trick, but the other five were obviously learning from their example. They started shooting at the walls, trying to get an angle right that would take him out. Skar had the Force to warn him in case any of them had a degree in physics.

"Hold your fire!" someone shouted at the end of the corridor. Slowly the shots died out and the silence broke through the smoke in the corridor.

Then Skar heard laughter. "Just what I'd expect from you, Master! Ingenious!"

Koll.

As much as he wanted to kill Koll, he knew this wasn't the place and time, the odds were against him. He lifted the rifle up against the bulkhead, aiming for the wall far away down the corridor, somewhere behind the crates and the soldiers. He had to time this just right.

Skar pulled the trigger.

The shot raced over the heads of the soldiers, past Koll, bouncing off the far wall and coming right back the way it came, Skar ran for the door. The shot came flying right behind him and it struck into the door-panel just in time for the door to open in front of Skar as he rolled through the opening.

With a flick of the Force he closed the door behind him and sealed it with the rifle.

Yes, run! Run as far and fast as you can!

Skar thanked Kayupa with a snort for pointing out the obvious, but did start running as fast as his weary body would allow. He passed through several empty corridors, cargo holds, work stations, empty hangars, leaping through their every obstabcle like a professional track runner. His lungs soon began to burn like he'd swallowed liquid fire, his feet and legs beginning to feel like the bones had been removed and reduced to shapes of screaming muscles.

His every nerve was riddled with fear and urgency. He didn't know where he was going, he just knew he was going to run until he fell over or fell dead. And he wouldn't look back, he could never look back. All he had was the running, as long as he ran his body's pain could distract him from anything. Even the screaming howls of the Dark Side now firmly nested inside of him.

"Do you where this corridor leads?" Skar asked in his panting.

Kayupa's laughter was insanely loud inside his head. Does it matter?

"Of course it matters!" Skar snarled, "I don't want to run into an ambush or a trap!"

No, Kayupa continued to laugh like a madman, rather a high ledge or a sharp object.

Skar could feel himself slowing down, suddenly concious that Kayupa maybe wasn't the most reliable source of information. "What?"

It doesn't matter where you're going, Skar. You're heading the same thing as everyone else, you're just running towards it. Death.

Skar shook his head clear of those thoughts. "I'm not going to - "

Then what are you going to do? You're alone, with an army of thousands against you, led by people you don't have the heart to kill. This place is beyond you, Skar. There is some honor in accepting that, in ending one's own life for the greater good. All you have left is death; do it for equilibrium, for freedom, for me, for Shinran -

"No!" Skar yelled with all the breath he could spare while running, "I won't give in to it! You won't break me, Kayupa!"

- for your son.

Skar knew he had to keep running, but he couldn't. The thought of his child tore through his defenses like it was meant to, and carved a deep wound through his heart. His running slowed to a mere walk, before he finally leaned against the wall and sunk down on the floor, breathing heavily which only made the tears flow faster.

"Damn you, Kayupa," he wept, "I hate you. Why are you doing this to me?" The cold floor sent more shivers through him, and the darkness around him felt like it was closing in, like the corridor itself was trying to swallow and destroy him, just like everything and everyone else around him. "Why!"

I've seen your son, Skar. He looks just like you, and he asks for you sometimes. He wants you to come to him. Shinran has tears in her eyes when she talks about you. She misses you.

He reached out to the Force, eager to feel them, to see them, to hear them. If the story was true, there really was someone on the other side waiting for him, but there was only one way to know. He'd already allowed the Dark Side to take hold of him, to become part of him, more than he had intended. He could still hear Sonnet's voice whispering in the back of his mind, he could sense the hatred of the Dark Side deep within him, in a place light could not reach.

If there even was a light.

The Force governs everything, Skar. It is the fabric of fate, of destiny. Only those who have it are able to enforce it, to bend it, to change the course of the future. I've seen the future, Skar. The future as it is now with you still alive. And I see barren warplains, I see planets on fire with battle, I see blood flowing endlessly into a spiral of death that will consume this entire Galaxy. And you are the sole cause of all that darkness, all that evil. You can change it, Skar. Know that it is your destiny to die.

"NOOOOO!" Skar screamed as loud as he could. The chaos in his heart and mind was becoming true madness, building and building until he finally surrendered to it. He clutched the lightsaber to his chest. "I'll kill them! All of them!"

Kayupa grinned mockingly. Alone? You don't stand a chance. You're only making them more powerful. Its time to step aside and let a younger generation take over.

Skar thought about that. "You mean Rishi."

Yes.

Skar shook his head, shedding tears around him. "He is not ready. He's just a boy, he'll get himself killed."

And whose fault would that be?

Skar's already broken heart burned with anguish. "Mine...I failed him." More tears flowed down his cheeks. "I failed as his Master."

And you continue to do so. As long as you live, you're only weakening him. There's only one way you can save him.

Skar finished crying, but the anger and the hatred remained in him. A fuel for his resolution, a burning fire that made him stand back up, grasp the lightsaber firmly in his hand and start walking back down the corridor from where he came. "No...there's another way." Skar ignited his lightsaber, the green blade snapping to life, filling the empty corridor with its hiss, like a serpent ready to strike. "I won't kill myself, Kayupa. If I die, I die fighting. I die ripping Koll's heart out and stuffing it down Sasa's throat. I die killing as many as I can."

Kayupa stayed silent for a moment. You've got no chance, Skar.

Skar shrugged indifferently. "I thought you'd be happy. This proves I believe in you."

How?

"You yourself said that I hadn't reached my full potential, that I only knew Jedi techniques and that I'd barely scratched the surface of Kjoil powers," Skar smiled, a sick venomous grin, "Skind Kjoil killed thousands in his lifetime, so if I really am him," his grin tightened, his teeth clenched together in perverse lust for killing, "I have a lot of catching up to do."

---

Koll was leading his troops through the corridors of the station, following the trail of blood that the clone had left behind, as well as the monstrosity's presence in the Force. The presence in the Force was strengthening, the distance closing between him and his prey. He had no answers for how the clone had managed to escape, and he didn't care. At least not yet. Right now there was a task to be done, one he had put off for far too long. The sound of the troops marching behind him made him feel glorious inside, their tight rhythemic stride filling him with confidence and ferocity. And although he had fought in hundreds of battles, none had ever given him such pleasure as the one he was trailing now.

With his platoon of soldiers following him, Kayupa was thinking about which fighting style he would employ once he faced the Jedi. It had been years since he'd fought anyone connected with the Force outside of training.

Him and his army turned a corner, entered a small hangar, the patches of blood leading straight across behind doors into another corridor. They continued without breaking their stride or taking halt.

You cannot run from me, Master. I will hunt you to the far ends of the Galaxy if I must. There is no -

Kayupa stopped in his tracks, a horrible coldness moving through him. He felt a heavy deep darkness was being used somewhere. Someone was feeding anger into the Force and was in return granted -

Oh, no.

He was halfway across the hangar when the doors before them split down their center and opened easily. Koll held up his right hand, the first line of troops getting down on one knee with their rifles ready, while the second line aimed their rifles over the shoulders of the first line.

Koll's hand slowly descended, as he took in the sight of the beaten, broken and bloody man standing in the doorway. The pants were black with blood, his bare chest glistening with sweat across blue and dark bruises. The clone's free hand waved through his long slick hair, folding it back and revealing two eyes burning with rage.

The other hand moved up a green lightsaber before his face, clutching the hilt a hand's length from his chest.

Koll smirked. "So...you've stopped running."

The clone's face remained frozen, those angry red eyes staring back at him. "I realized...the further I ran...the further I was from you."

Koll's heart filled with excitement, standing on the footstep of a dream at long last coming true. He opened his coat and clipped two hilts from his belt, igniting twin red blades. "I was starting to worry you would not face me, the way I had hoped. I'm glad you've come to see the inevitability of it. You and I are destined for this. Only your breaking...can make me."

The clone stood, seemingly considering his words, but all that came from him was a light chuckle.

Koll sneered. "You find this amusing?"

"I wast just thinking," the clone swung the blade down to point the tip at Koll, "when you die, I won't have to listen to anymore of your whining."

The soldiers behind him stirred. Koll's insides came alive with anger, an unstoppable current of hatred soon following. His hands tightened on his two blades. "Very well," he said through clenched teeth, "no more words." He swung both blades at his sides and set himself, keeping one blade ahead of him and one up by his head. "Your screaming will be your only eulogy!"

The clone lowered his lightsaber slightly, and tilted his head. "If you want me, Koll," his other hand came up, fingers sprayed, "you're going to have to wait."

Koll felt what he could only describe as a gigantic invisble hand close around him, lifting him up from the floor and tossing him to the side. He crashed against the far wall, heard several bones crack down his left side before slumping to the floor. Both lightsabers fizzled out, scorching his palms, and died before even rolling from his hands. He felt a surge of darkness pass over him, one greater than any he'd ever allowed to flow through himself.

A symphony of hauting ghost-like voices, the kinds he'd only heard Sonnet produce, sang directly into his ears as he watched the clone leap from his station, smashing into the horde of troops before they could even get a shot fired. The giant hangar doors opened by their own will, exposing those inside to the roar of the blistering winds outside. Gusts of air manipulated by the Force pulled the living, as well as those already dead, troops outside, scattering them across Regana's virgin white snowy surface.

And the last thing Koll saw before darkness took him, was a brilliant green blade swirling in the midst of an endless swarm of soldiers, cleaving heads and opening chests, while the wind carried off the remains to the great white oblivion outside.

---

Sasa bowed her head, the sadness filling her. She'd felt it before, deaths of this magnitude. She'd always been the observer in all of their wars, the mother figure of the army, the one watching over them. Many had told her that the thought that had carried them through battle had been to see her smile again. She was their mother, as Koll was their father. But the only thing that had changed was that the deaths she felt through the Force were usually those of the enemy. Not their own.

She knew Koll was out of action, knocked out and now oblivious to the slaughter happening in the hallways and corridors of their base. Why their enemy had spared Koll was anyone's guess, but Sasa had her suspicious. The man who thought of her as a mother, would reap through this station like a whirlwind, killing anything he found until someone killed him.

Knowing that Eknath had succeeded in moving Sonnet's soul, if the being even had one, into her enemy's body, she knew he possessed a power unlike any Jedi, Sith or Kjoil had ever owned before. The special strength and freedom of a Kjoil, with unlimited access to the Dark Side, the stronger side of the Force, was a living nightmare, a mockery of their carefully laid plan.

Sonnet was supposed to have taken control of the body, but somehow the Kjoil had outsmarted Eknath. The whole mission stood on the edge of a sword, with Koll unconcious, Junn was dying below in a part of the station that was burning to the ground fast, and losing soldiers by the dozens every second. Her only hopes were Krych, Raine, Eknath and their respective apprentices.

Sasa reached the chambers that Koll and herself had made their temporary home, tossing off her robe and instantly undressing. She flicked on her comlink, opened up a frequency and placed it on the bedstand while she collected her gear.

"Krych, Koll is out of action and the prisoner is running rampart throughout the station. Get in touch with Eknath and Raine and tell them to meet me down in the cloning facility. We'll stand a better chance united," she opened a large metallic chest by the foot of the bed and pulled out its contents, a suit of armor she'd only had the chance of using a handful of times, but one unsurpassed by any other she'd ever worn, "Krych, do you hear me?"

A few heartbeats passed before he answered in an indifferent but labored voice. "I hear you."

She could tell instantly by his tone where he was. "Is she alright?"

"I don't know," he answered, "I haven't found her yet. The fire has spread more than I expected."

She sighed, fitting pieces of armor over her slender form. "Don't get yourself killed - "

" - over her?" he put in. "That was what you were about to say, wasn't it?"

She pulled on boots, tightening them. "You know it wasn't."

He didn't sound convinced. "Have you spoken with Derrick?"

A panic passed through her heart. "Why? What's wrong?"

"The Republic fleet...it'll be here in twenty-four hours."

Finishing dressing herself, she glanced at herself in a mirror, fully decked out in a deep crimson red battlesuit. It had a protective layer of coating underneath the real pieces of armor, a leathery black bodysuit that protected her from fire as well as blaster bolts, while the real armor was made from cortosis ore, able to withstand a lightsaber. The news of the Republic fleet's imminent arrival dampened most of her joy in feeling the uniform on her again. "That will complicate things."

"You don't say," Krych said sarcasticly. "Eknath is already in the cloning facility, transferring the test subject."

Sasa's body stiffened. "What! Who gave him authorisation?"

"Himself, I suppose."

"What about Jovis?"

"Haven't seen him."

Sasa clipped her lightsaber, complete with a Kjoil family tree, to her belt, starting to feel like a fighter again, a warrior. She hadn't raised her lightsaber outside of training for almost five years, but she'd had a feeling she would break that record during this mission long before they'd even embarked.

"Right, well, I'm heading down to meet Eknath. Pull out of there and link up with us."

"No, I'm staying."

She cursed. "Krych, there is no time for this. Focus," she hated having to say it, but she knew it would help, "remember your loyalty."

She heard his breathing change on the other end, his quick panting became a calm even flow. When he spoke, his words were emotionless, with all the warmth of a droid's vocal pattern. "Understood. See you soon."

As soon as that transmission ended, she changed frequency. "Jovis, are you still alive?"

The connection was littered with static. "Warm and cozy."

"Where are you?"

He laughed darkly. "Well, since your prisoner escaped and people started dying, me and Akla have holed up down below with the vhroniks. Charming company, I might add."

She thought for a second, she'd forgotten about those vicious canines. It seemed chance was still on their side. "Good, now I want you to release them."

His hesistation was evident even over the static. "Wha - ? Where is the General?"

The fact that he even questioned her angered her to the core. "Unavailable," she said through clenched teeth, "now do as I order and release the vhroniks."

"Right away, of course," he said, sounding very defensive, "but what's happened up there?"

She tensed. "I don't know all the details yet, but you're right about the prisoner break. He's loose inside the facility and not too happy."

She heard what sounded like a metallic lock opening on the other end, animal howling and claws touching floor.

"Vhroniks are free."

She nodded to herself. "Let's hope they prove their worth."

"Any other orders?" Jovis asked.

Sasa plucked the comlink from the bedstand and attached it to her gauntlet. The lights in the chamber faded in and out for a few seconds before dying completely; the Kjoil had reached their generator already. The fact worried her but it changed her resolve. In the back of her mind she admitted to herself that the mission was on a turbolift going straight to hell, but she also knew it hadn't reached there yet.

"There go the lights," Jovis said. "Does that mean the prisoner is already at the cloning facility?"

She shook her head. The fusion generator that the plant was currently reliant upon was in the cloning facility. "No. It means Eknath is draining power."

"Draining power?"

"For the test subject of the facility. The first run. Looks like he's gone ahead of plans. How far are you from the cloning facility? I've ordered the others to meet up with me there. Can you make it there?"

"Maybe," he said in a distracted voice, "what about the ysalamiri?"

Sasa's insides froze. "Are you thinking - ?"

"I'm planning. Riokon asked me to stage them all around the facility, in the lower levels. They're decked out on basement lifts, all of which are linked to a single control. If I raise the lifts - "

She finished the thought. "They would dampen the entire facility."

"Leaving the Jedi intruder weakened."

She nodded. "But also us."

"But weakened he's got no advantage against our numbers."

She knew he was right. "You surprise me, Jovis."

He chuckled lightly. "But without power, the lifts won't work."

"The power will be restored soon enough. And when it does, I want you to raise those lifts."

"Understood. Does anyone even know where the Jedi is?"

Her feelings told her to go and look for Koll, but the man had survived through more battles than she could count; if anything she trusted him to take care of himself. And she also knew he would want her to see to the mission first, to think straight and not let personal feelings intervene.

Personal feelings are what got us here in the first place.

She snorted. "Just listen for the screams. It's everyone for themselves now, Jovis. Do not try going after the Jedi. He's out of your league."

---

The repair yard was too small for him, too few enemies to kill, not enough blood to spill. It felt like a cage, walls that only kept him at bay, kept an insatiable inside of him tamed and unreleased. He wanted to kill, he wanted to tear life from existence, he wanted to carve a hole through the very curtains of this world that kept him locked in a physical form. He wanted to swallow up entire galaxies, he wanted to rip star systems from the face of the universe.

Skar Kjoil, if he could still be called that name, was a tidal wave of anger and bloodlust flooding through every corridor, every chamber and every little space with a lightsaber that never ceased to move. He preyed on life, every shred of it he could lock onto, he hunted down. The army was facing a single adversary and losing. Their numbers dropped at a steady rate, a single outdated lightsaber cutting up millions worth of credits in armor and equipment.

Skar smiled in the midst of all the carnage, as an old part of him remembered the young girl who'd taken his test-scores back at the simulator on Coruscant. He bet she would have been impressed with his results. The death-toll - no, he corrected himself. Targets didn't have death-tolls.

They had nothing.

The killer inside him counted targets, for that was all they were; targets. No longer did he see the intelligence behind eyes, the sensation of emotions he blocked out consciously. He didn't want to think these targets had dreams or even hopes. Or families. He didn't want to picture children being left behind without a parent, he didn't want to think of the life he'd had without parents. He didn't want to feel human, he cared nothing for mercy. These targets were no different from training droids to him. They were lifeless,

And Skar marched on, like the blade of death itself. So far the Dark Side had kept him alive, but at a great cost. it was better this way. They were wrong, he was right. He felt justified. Skar tore down entire buildings with pure hatred, dismantling the repair yard one structure at a time. He knew sooner or later they would stop coming, and he would reach the Inner Council of the army, he would fight Eknath, he would fight Koll and all the others he could now sense who were with them. The ones he knew intimately through his connection with Sonnet.

And he would find her, and he would plunge his lightsaber down her throat, killing her for the love she was never there to give him and still denied him. The thought of killing them all didn't even bother him. He only feared what would happen when there were no more to kill.

He feared being alone.

He'd always been alone, he could see that now. Even with a handful of friends around him he'd never been satisfied, he would always crave something he didn't know what was. He would always doubt if all he had was ever enough, because he didn't know when he couldn't handle more. It was the same with the Force, he sucked it down into himself, as much as he could hold, even when it felt like he was about to explode from the inside. He would drain this galaxy dry of the Force, for all the good it never did, for all the wrongs it never rectified. And all the things it had never shown him, the truth and the lies.

He could feel himself losing, becoming more and more dark inside, darker than even Sonnet had been. And although a part of him, the old part of him, screamed for peace, the sound drowned out in explosions, blasterfire, the hum of his lightsaber and the dying cries of thousands upon thousands of soldiers.

---

The single guard standing outside the dungeon kept himself informed of the events through his comlink. By the way things were sounding, their main prisoner had escaped and was rampaging through the repair yard in a killing spree. The General was missing and all of the Inner Circle was being sent to the cloning facility underground. He'd tried contacting the squad leader, Eulogy, for more information on the situation but no one responded on her frequency.

Afraid to admit it, he was starting to feel the first sensations of fear passing through him. The lack of proper communication and the fact no one knew where the General was, was a scenario he'd never experienced before. He knew his orders were to stay put outside the dungeon, but being there alone worried him for the first time when he didn't know what was happening in the rest of the repair yard.

He was standing right outside the sealed magnetic doors into a certain cell when the lights above him flickered like a fading heartbeat before dying completely. His hands started to tremble in the thick darkness. His helmet's internal AI kicked in sure enough and the night vision setting came to life.

Only to reveal a fist painted in bright green against black flying towards his face. The punch knocked him out instantly, his body went lax and he dropped like a stone.

Kast massaged his right hand with his left, nodding to his comrades inside the dungeon that the coast was clear. "I think the helmet broke my finger."

Stix came out first, instantly claiming the unconscious guard's rifle for his own. "Quit your whining. If you had to break a finger for us to get out that stinking cell, I'd break every one you have."

Kast winced as he popped the finger back in place, biting back the pain. "Gee, Stix, you make me feel all warm inside when you say those things."

Stix kept searching the guard. "Stow it, Kast. I ain't in the mood."

Salvor came out next, snatching the guard's sidearm, a simple blaster, but still far more advanced than their original gear. Call grabbed the guard's helmet, pulled it onto his bald head, checking the different frequencies for intel, and trying to get in touch with Tracker, if the droid was still operational. They shared the rest of the guard's gear evenly, Kast himself satisfied with just the single vibroblade by the guard's shin.

Call listened intently. "Seems our friend Jarod is responsible for this. He escaped and is currently raging a one-man way against the terrorists."

Kast smiled. "Maybe he could use a hand."

Salvor nodded to his men. "Right, listen up; we've got no chance with just this equipment. We proceed quietly, and arm ourselves with whatever we can find. Once we're properly equipped, we'll link up with Jarod and find out where to go from there."

Stix looked at the other's equipment. "If you guys are hiding detonators out on me, I swear I'll - "

"STIX!" Salvor shouted. "Did you hear me?"

Stix, looking extremely grumpy, cocked his rifle. "Sounds like a plan."

Kast juggled the vibroblade between his right fingers. "I'll take point."

---

Krych ran down the flaming corridor as fast as he could, ducking under and jumping over obstacles as the walls around him caved in and sparks sprayed. Ignoring his many new wounds, the growing fires and collapsing structure, he checked every hatch and door for a path that would lead him to where he figured Junn would be. He tried to calm his breathing, trying to make his heart stop pounding. Trying to make his feelings go away, tried no

care about what he was doing. He trusted that no harm could fall to Junn, a woman who had deserved no evil and no pain. A woman who had merely been tricked by Koll and his own selfish wishes. A woman who hadn't deserved the treachery he himself had shown her.

His silenced lightsaber in hand, following the Dark Side like a compass, he found a storage room blazing with fire from burning and exploding crates, a cloud of thick smoke covering everything, and ducked inside. At first sight Krych didn't recognize the room, there was deadly fire everywhere and electrical currents hissed from scorched cables and instruments.

And there Junn was, lying peacefully in the center of the snapping flames. Krych was about to smile at seeing her but then the realization came over him.

He couldn't feel her.

With slow hesitant steps Krych walked through the fire like a ghost, the flames dancing between his fingers and legs, oblivious to the pain as he reached the body in the room and crouched down next to it.

Krych ran his hand over the face of the corpse. His shoulders fell down, and his back arched. Uninvited they came, a rush of memories and feelings coming from the still present soul in Junn's body. The woman's presence in the Force was almost gone but her spirit seemed to linger around the body yet. Krych could feel the spirit, almost hear it. Hear its frustration, its fear of what was to come next.

More than the grief of losing the only person he'd ever really loved, he felt shame in himself. Not only because he had walked away from Junn, but because of the fact that he hadn't been able to protect her, help her. He would have been with her, if he hadn't been so stubborn. That was what she talked about, and she'd been right. And it shamed him even more to admit that this sort of thing had to happen before he came to his senses.

"Junn," Krych said quietly, his voice breaking. Kayupa gathered Junn up in his arms, hugging her. Junn's dead eyes stared at him, staring past him and past everything. Junn's eyes stared into whatever place she was going to, far away from him. "I'm so sorry, Junn," he whispered into her ear, "I was wrong. I should've...I didn't know, I'm so sorry." He cried and he hugged her closer, holding her as if it would make her come back. Krych reached out to the spirit, calming it with his own touch, telling it in gentle notes that it was time to leave.

But it resisted.

The thought of her spirit, her warrior's pride refusing to give in, tore at the strings of his heart. "No," he whispered, "please, just go."

And still it resisted.

He deepened himself, trying not to think of himself as pushing Junn over an invisible ledge, killing her fully. But in fact, that was what he was doing. He was killing her. But he understood only then that it wasn't her that was resisting. But someone else was pushing the other way, someone more powerful than him.

Krych stood instantly, igniting his red lightsaber, searching the crumbling chamber for the source of this intrusion. He circled around himself, checking the shadows, the corners and the -

The ceiling. Sitting up there, crouched down on a group of large pipes, a pair of eyes stared back at him.

Red eyes.

Krych's feet spread apart and he brought up his blade. The figure scoffed at the display and jumped from the pipings, landing gently on the other side of the room. The man was dressed only in a pair of torn fatigues, his upper body stained with blood, cuts and wounds, a mess of blood, sweat and soot. The long dark hair was soaked with perspiration, clinging to his face, several strands running down the front. His bare feet seemed to pay no mind to the fires burning around them. He held a single lightsaber clenched in the bloodied grasp of a tattooed hand, intricate symbols that ran up both muscular arms.

His eyes bore into Krych, and although the man was a stranger, Krych felt a familiarity of the man in the Force. And it was the only thing holding him back from cutting him down.

The man's lips cracked into a devious smile, and when he spoke his voice was deep and omnious. "Krych."

The voice was familiar also, which brought even more terror to his heart. "You know me?"

The torn man shrugged slowly. "A part of me does."

Krych gathered the pieces, but was still reluctant. "Sonnet?"

He nodded, seemingly distracted by something. "He's part of me...another part of me, although I am - " his eyes flickered, his face scrunching up, " - losing grasp of where he begins, and I end."

Krych's confusion went up against a bright sun and was instantly melted. This was the prisoner. The man who'd taken Junn's hand, the one responsible for her death. Krych's veins flowed with hatred and anger in a second, like his blood was fuel itself and the knowledgement of this man was the spark. "I'll show you where you end." His feet ground into the floor, setting himself. "You did this," he pointed to Junn with the tip of his red blade.

It took several heartbeats for the man to look down at Junn's body, his eyes become slits and he looked like he'd never seen her before. The man was clearly unstable, perhaps going on insane, yet his presence brimmed with so much power in the Force that Krych could almost feel it like a wind brushing up against him.

The man's head tilted -

- and Junn coughed up blood. Her lips began to draw breath again, fighting for what air she could pull in. Krych took a quick step forward, shocked with disbelief. She was breathing. He almost forgot about his enemy, until he realized what had happened. The man had brought her back to life.

Krych took another step forward, wanting to hold her, comfort her -

But the man's hand moved and the green lightsaber came up fast, holding Krych at bay with the tip of the blade only inches away from his face. The powerful man smiled tauntingly. "She doesn't belong to you."

Krych felt a chill. The man indeed carried a sensation reminiscent of Sonnet, the Dark Side's living embodiment. And it seemed he carried Sonnet's memories as well. Krych could feel the Dark Side radiating off the man in great surges, like he was the Dark Side itself. Krych was devoted to the Dark Side, but he was just a practitioner; this man was the Dark Side incarnate.

The man's blade never wavered as he repeated his words. "She doesn't belong to you."

Shifting on his heel quickly Krych batted the man's blade aside effortlessly, coming around fully with a strike of his own. The blade whipped across the air over Junn's body, but never connected. The prisoner jumped back, landing amongst a pile of burning crates. He looked around at the flames snapping around him with a dissaproving scowl.

Krych raised his lightsaber in a guard.

The man scoffed. "A little warm in here, don't you think?" Flinging out a fist he mentally pulled a large burning crate from the floor and slammed it across the air that separated him from Krych. The crate exploded furiously against the wall to Krych's right, leaving a giant gap into the freezing outside. The flames around him snapped as the heat of the room was sucked out.

The man chuckled madly across from him. "Let's step outside, Krych!" The man ran for the gap and somersaulted through. The man swirled around himself before landing gingerly on the snowy floor seven levels below.

Desperate for vengeance, Krych followed, leaping through the gap. In his descent he saw the man below him in the snow, looking up. And before Krych was even halfway to the ground, the man leapt up to meet him, striking at Krych with his blade several times as he flew by. The fight in midair Krych managed to survive, but only by luck. Having to defend himself in the air had distracted him and as a result he now crashed down into the snow below him like a rock. He cried out in pain, but forced to himself to disregard it when he saw the man coming back down amongst the falling snow and tearing winds.

Krych rolled to his side, hearing the man drop down close by only a second later. Krych jumped to a stand, snow flying off him as he whirled to face his attacker.

The man stood there, half naked amidst falling snow and chilling winds, yet his face was solid as rock. His green lightsaber made little circles in the air by his feet, but it was more by impatience than carelessness.

"Do you feel it, Krych? The uselessness. You've given yourself to the Dark Side and now," his long hair whisked around his face, and only those red eyes shone through the strands, "now it wants more."

Krych set himself, ignoring the cold that threatened to steal his awareness. He placed a bubble around him against the chill, and sharped his mind into a single focus; to fight. His blade came up, and Krych allowed everything else to fade away. "Then it will to come and get it."

The man laughed insanely, clearly infatuated by Krych's defiance. "Good," he beat out his arms, loosening the muscles it seemed, but lightning poured from his hands that threw up the snow around his feet, "I admire your audacity...a shadow fighting against the blaze of a sun."

They engaged in a fierce duel. Red against green blades flew through the air, melting particles of snow as they touched, the air filled with sparks and the distorting sound of lightsabers crashing against each other. The man kept his sick grin through the entire fight, perversly reveling in the simple fact that he was fighting, that he was about to destroy, main and kill.

And though Krych's instincts were the same; to gain power and to conquer, to be victorious, the man's spirit was drowning out Krych's. Krych was merely a flowing stream against the man's roaring ocean.

And he admitted to himself that he was unable to match the man's powers, but resolve and anger veiled that insecurity too eagerly. The man was a boundless reserve of ferocity, an animal of the Dark Side. There was no soul left behind those red eyes, no hint of mercy, no clue to a part once human.

The two and their lightsabers flurried, circling and pounding on each other with all they had, their feet kicking up the snow. Krych kept his own, sticking to his teaching, placing his trust in his Master's lessons. If he lost it now, caved in to his own pain, the man would pluck him from existance as easily as wind bended leaves. And he had no doubt the man was aware of this, that this was just a game to him.

And Krych was willing to play; but it was a loser's game since all the powers Krych possessed felt like they flowed from the man himself. In a sense Krych was fighting the very thing that made himself powerful. Krych could see the man standing before him, lean and seemingly as fragile as any living being, but in the Force the man stood out as a wall, an endless wall that moved slowly across the snowy floor, trying to push Krych off the edge and out of life.

But the fear only strengthened Krych, it fed him. Fear and anger became the only power he had to fight back the current of death this man personified.

The man sighed with pleasure, as they both pulled back. Krych felt dizzy and heavy from exertion, his bare arms rippling and burning with tension. His back started to hunch, but he refused to take his eyes off the man. The cold air being pumped into his lungs made his chest hurt.

The man wasn't even breathing hard. "At the end of heartache, and soon the end of life."

Krych could barely hear the words over the wind and the thumbing in his ears. "I'll kill you for hurting her."

The man appeared unruffled. "Kill me? Boy, you can't even tire me."

"It's all I got," Krych said as he started to straighten out, "you won't stand in our way."

The man just stared at him, dazed it seemed, the red in his eyes dimming. "Our way...yes, he was there when you first met Junn. I was there when you made your first lightsaber," those red eyes lost all feature, oblivious to the world surrounding him, "I remember Sasa fighting me on Kryuu. At times you would seek me out, wanting to know more about the Dark Side," the man rambled on, confused about his own identity, "he was always present, he saw it all. I witnessed everything from the shadows. Sasa was afraid of me, because she didn't understand him. I am born from Darkness, but there is a greater evil."

Krych tried to make sense of it. "A greater evil?"

The man just nodded. "What happens when you became so powerful...even the Force is not enough? When even endless doesn't - " He then shook his head a second later. "No, it's - not true." He lost himself, fighting back and forth between his own identities. "It flows...it flows to us too easily."

Kryck could feel the man's internal struggle and upon that surge of power came also disruption, a vergence in the Force. It felt like a razor digging into his brain, a splitting pain that almost numbed his very senses. He could see a light before his eyes that grew, forcing apathy into his very soul.

Deciding to fight it and tired of being ignored, Krych seized the moment and launched himself at the man, stabbing his lightsaber forth, but only to impale empty air behind the man as he sidestepped. Krych kicked out behind himself desperately and managed to knock the man to the ground, blowing up snow around him. He groaned but rolled to a stand before ever lying still.

Krych turned to face him again, his blade coming up over his head and cutting a line through the man's flattened outline in the snow, where'd he laid only seconds before. But once again the man just stood there, several feet away, still lost in his own thoughts, still contemplating things beyond the small matter of the duel.

Krych snarled in anger and charged forth. The man sidestepped again casually, almost by reflex, kicking Krych across the shins as he passed, dropping him onto the ground. The Dark Jedi swallowed snow but rolled forward to a stand quickly, and once again turned to face his attacker.

Krych raised his sword, feeling heavy in body and spirit. He knew he was losing this battle, the man was just toying with him, and he wouldn't let him escape. The thought of dying filled Krych's mind and it carried Junn's sweet smile through everything. He dared to smile, finding some relief in her image.

"You too are darkness," the man muttered in a low voice, mostly to himself, the wind obsorbing most of his words, "but the Force has no sides. There is only the Force, and it is not of a dualistic nature. What changes us is within ourselves. Right or wrong...there is no such thing. What matters is the spirit."

Krych allowed the moment to pass, regaining his strength while it lasted. "You're wrong," he said back, "I changed. I felt the change when I turned."

The man's eyes closed. "No..you're lying...I was there when you turned." His voice had an edge of mocking in it. "You wanted it, the power, you were amazed. An orphan that Sasa took in, like a son. You wanted the power so you could be like them. You sold your soul to have a home." The eyes opened, the flaring red eyes on fire. "And your loyalty is a dream. It is the mask you've pulled over your own lies, to hide from yourself that you know you don't belong with them. That they will never be the real family you dreamed of, the family that deserted you."

Krych's fingers tightened around the handle. "Shut up..."

The man was undaunted. "Sonnet was not of born of the Dark Side, but the Force. He didn't choose darkness. His spirit was born as a contingency, destined to be there..." the words trailed off. "The Force wanted this to happen, all of this...was planned. To help me understand." His body started trembling. "I am you."

Krych didn't understand anymore. "What?"

The man nodded to himself after a few seconds, finally appearing to understand his place. "Fine then, enough playing."

The man pulled up his empty hand in an instant, fingers sprayed. The push hit Krych like a wave of pain and Krych flew with the speed of a snowball tossed across the plain, flying out of control. After several seconds he smashed against and through a wall into a lower level of the building they'd vacated minutes earlier. He tumbled through the broken wall and slammed up against another wall inside, finally stopping his flight. He dropped to the floor, his body broken in some places, a concussion slowly drapping his brain.

The room around him was dark as night, a black only disturbed by the stars in front of his eyes and the dim light from the outside glowing through the hole in the wall -

The prisoner came flying through the hole, as if the winds themselves carried him, setting him down softly on the floor inside. He straightened out slowly, his red eyes fixated on Krych, his voice rising to a menacing roar. "This is where you belong, Krych, with the rest of the shadows! Time to end all this misguiding, all these illusions of grandeur. There is only one child of the Force, one true hand of fate!"

Krych wanted to fight him, wanted to stand strong but his body wouldn't let him. Too much pain, too much hurt. His brain was slowly shutting down, succombing to the injury his head had sustained. He started to cry, started to think of Sasa and Koll and Junn. All those he had failed.

The man began to approach him but but never made it past the first step. His eyes narrowed, like he was sensing something new. Krych only then felt it too, an approaching darkness, a blackness he had felt before. He could feel it, moving slowly and invisibly through the air around them, until it touched them.

The Force left Krych and his body finally betrayed him in full, becoming a heavy burden that sucked his soul down onto the floor. He felt ill, suddenly so powerless and drained. And across from him the man was also on the floor, struggling to just keep breathing, groaning from a deep pain.

The ysalamiri cages.

Krych smiled.

Thank you, Jovis.

The two of them locked eyes across the dim ray of light, judging whether or not they would continue to fight. Although his head wasn't all there, the blow to it made the shred of light between them feel like a giant sun, this advantage to the battle gave him some encouragement, a last flicker of hope to kill the man. Krych could read fear in the man's eyes and that was incentive enough. He lifted the lightsaber from the floor, though it seemed to weigh more now than ever before.

The man inhaled deeply and when he spoke his voice was normal, gruff but also frail. "Don't try it, kid. I trained with a lightsaber long before I felt the Force. It's suicide to fight with one if you can't touch the Force."

Krych spat blood on the floor, ignoring the wave of nausea running through his body.

The man clutched his own lightsaber and stood, his shoulders slouched and his body waving back and forth. "Come on, then."

Krych swirled the blade in his hand, and a smile spread across his face. Krych took two joyous steps forward before switching into a run with his blade held high, screaming ferociously. The man blocked the overhead swing with a one-handed grip, but it was clear from the weak defense that all his strength was not in it. He stumbled back a step, shaking his head.

Krych pulled strength from his hate, now being devoid of the Force. He fed on his desire to inflict pain and revenge upon this stranger, this insane man from nowhere, who'd torn apart his life. And it felt good, pure revenge, untouched by the tendrils of the Dark Side. Untainted by it's own selfish desire to break and corrupt, to feed.

His teeth were clenched so hard it hurt his jaw, his face burning with sweat, and his hands brought the weapon down, batting his red blade with all his hatred upon the weakening man again and again.

But the man seemed to have already planned ahead. He stepped back as Krych swung the blade in a semi circle from his left to right, and overswinging in anger he brought his own blade around on his right shoulder, burning a straight line across his own shoulderblades. He screamed briefly in pain, a searing pain spreading across his back, his knees folding beneath him.

The man stepped back in and kicked Krych in the head, dropping him on his back. Standing over the apprentice, he reverted the lightsaber in his hands and held it up above Krych.

The man made a tsk-tsk sound. "Sorry, kid. You should've - "

A scratching sound went through the chamber. Both of them froze where they were, suddenly aware of a presense beyond their own. The man moved up his green blade like a torch, trying to fight back some of the darkness of the room. The walls around them were sloped upwards, mansized holes welded into their surfaces -

Both of them stared into the darkness inside those holes, several sets of yellow eyes staring back at them, and the sound of lips smacking.

The vhroniks.

Instantly fearful, Krych pounced on the moment, scissoring his legs around the man's shins, dropping him to his knees. Krych rolled free and away from him, then ran up the sloped wall closest to him, careful of avoiding the holes, though he thought he could feel the vibrations through his soles as the animals reacted. At the top he bent down in his knees and jumped up, his fingers clutching onto piping in the ceiling.

He pulled himself up and worked quickly with his lightsaber to carve a gap through to the next level. He swung himself up through the hole and laid himself flat on the floor next to it, struggling to breathe. This level was also on fire, dangerously close to him, forcing him to cough out the smoke. He rolled over to the hole, wanting to see the vhroniks tear the man apart, but the concussion finally took hold of him and he passed out, drifiting away into a nothingness, fire dancing dangerously close to his face...

---

Skar, facing the many new revalations he'd experienced through his meld with Sonnet, stared back coldly at the dozens of yellow eyes that moved in the darkness around him. They circled him, surrounded him, getting ready to attack. In the back of his head he remembered Shinran telling him about Kayupa's encounter with these creatures back on Kryuu, how Kayupa had killed countless of these canines using the Dark Side. Skar wasn't afraid. Even without the Dark Side they were just animals and his lightsaber was still in his hand.

The vhroniks prowled, staging themselves at every corner, acting as a group. He heard them communicating with each other, through growls and snarls, he could almost feel the excitement in their animal sounds.

Skar swung his lightsaber around, defending himself. The vhroniks started shaking in a frenzied state. Their hunger and desire to kill filled their tiny brains, until they were ready to explode with a lust to taste blood and shred flesh.

He felt confident in his ability to take them, even though without the Force and the Dark Side his body was slowly feeling the effects it had ignored for too longer. The wounds, his concussion from the crash of the Passive, his hunger, the pain in his arms from all the fighting he'd done in the past few hours rampaging through Hope's Haven. All of it was slowly coming back to him, draining him like a ruptured wound.

He could feel his body shutting down. He could feel -

The pain shot through him like a spear, the sickness that he'd held at bay for so long, for so many years. The disease Eknath had claimed was a part of his cloned genes, his limited lifespan. His heart raced, his mind wobbled, and dark edges of the corners of his vision started to grow and grow, consuming his very sight.

He was dying rapidly.

Skar dropped to his knees, and almost didn't feel the lightsaber rolling from his fingers. He barely heard it touch the floor, as the stabbing pain built inside of him, forcing him to scream out in agony. It magnified, throbbing through him like a pulsating geyser of torment.

A single vhronik jumped at him, lashing at him with its tail and he was swung around on his belly. He tried to stand back up but the fire running through his bones and veins left him weakened on the floor. He fought to keep his eyes open, to focus on the lightsaber lying no more than two feet from his hand. He trained his mind to keep it locked in his consciousness and extended his right hand to grasp it.

Almost there, fingers grazing the metallic hilt, his hand then froze in midair.

Don't...

He thought he heard something, a voice, a voice he'd heard very long ago. Not Kayupa, not Skind and not Bo-Hi, but someone else. Someone connected with them.

Don't, Skar...You don't have to.

He remembered the voice, and tears started to fill his eyes.

"Shin...ran?"

He heard her laugh, her sweet soft laughter. And all his heart bloomed with joy, while the rest of his body started to shut down. All he had left was the strength to smile, and to simply surrender to the sound of her voice, knowing it would carry him off and that he didn't need to be afraid. Soon she would be there with him again.

Skar took in a deep breath and gave himself to Death, letting the face of Shinran be the image that carried him into eternal sleep. Shinran's smile was already taking him beyond this world, and her sweet voice in ears drowned out the sound of the vhroniks as they launched from every corner of the room, crawling onto him like a swarm of insects, fighting and clawing at each other for fresh meat.

Skar imagined he'd see darkness in death, but Shinran's eyes was all there was, luring him on, egging him to follow her beyond the curtains of this world, behind the faint sensation of his body being ripped apart. Skar didn't fight it, didn't turn his face away from the beautiful face of death. He went for it, with all the heart and soul of the man he once was. And onwards, into plains of grass waving softly beneath a brilliant sky, he chased her.

---

As the wave of pain passed over her, the mourning of a Kjoil's death in the Force, Sasa stabilized herself against the wall outside the cloning facility. She'd felt the sensation before, but it never ceased to astound her, to surprise her. She doubted Jedi far away would feel it, but this close it took all breath out of her. It brought a sensation of sadness with it, one she could easily relate to because she knew which Kjoil had perished. Her real brother had left the same quake in the Force. Though she was somewhat relieved that things were finally back in balance, she couldn't help wonder how their prisoner had met his end. But for now she was satisfied knowing the man was infact finally dead.

She straightened out, cleared her throat and wiped away the single tear the feeling had left behind. Letting the tense air leave her lungs she activated the doors and stepped inside the facility.

Eknath sat there on the steps to the operating dais, his head slouched down between his knees, looking drained and weak. It appeared as if he hadn't heard her step inside, but she knew that wasn't true. The man could probably sense everything going on in the -

"You are right, my lady," he said in a dry voice, his head slowly rising to look at her, "he is dead now. It is over."

She nodded, fighting the tension his presense and closeness always brought to her. "How?"

Eknath's tired eyes locked on the floor, a grim expression on his face. "Vhroniks. Those creatures tore him apart."

The image in her head brought a feeling of sickness to her. But she quickly forced her thoughts away from it and drove for the next question. "Did it work?"

Eknath nodded to a mansized capsule in front of one of the cloning tanks. "It is done. The host body is ready for the transfer, and the Force is still brimming in it's cells. However," his voice changed into one more annoyed and irritated, "that fool Jovis raised the ysalamiri cages too soon. It could have been dangerous. If I was unable to use the Force to keep the ysalamiri from blocking the clone's link to the Force, the body would have been useless."

Sasa nodded. "We were lucky."

"It wasn't luck, and it wasn't the Force."

She decided not to delve further into the subject. "Why has the Force been restored?"

Eknath's lips curled. "The vhroniks...they hunted down and killed every one of the ysalamiri. Sought them out like the disturbance they are. It is fortunate that Koll disciplined those animals not to hunt us."

Sasa agreed. "Where is Master Raine?"

Eknath's eyes stirred. "He is on his way. Krych is alive but I can't seem to find him. Koll is also somewhat of a mystery."

She was afraid to ask. "Junn?"

Eknath looked worried, his eyes dimming as he sought out her mind using his powers. "She is alive, but she doesn't want to be found. She needs time alone, at least...that's what her mind tells me."

It worried Sasa, but she was happy to know the lieutenant was still alive. "We will give it to her." Sasa's eyes moved involuntarily to the clone hatceries in the back of the chamber, three empty, one recently used and one still holding their back-up clone body, in case the first test went wrong. She supposed that body, that sleeping dormant form flowing slowly within the glass container, was useless now.

"Derrick and Jovis are also on their way here," Eknath said in a flat voice, clearly unconcerned with their fates.

Sasa tilted her head to look at him. "What happened to Sonnet?"

Eknath's face crunched up. "The Kjoil...devoured his soul."

She was skeptical. "Devoured his soul? Impossible."

Eknath rose slowly from his seating, dusting himself off. "It happened. You, like him, have failed to reach the full potential of a Kjoil. You are born with the Force, and you've been taught control of it. But a Kjoil doesn't need control," Eknath's words were like wisdom plucked from the air, infinite wisdom only a man of his intellect could acheive, "a Kjoil's power is endless. The Jedi and even your brother taught you control, but they were only trying to mire your powers, downplay your strength. The prisoner understood this; they are children of the Force, Sasa, just like you, and their power is endless." He looked at her, a weary smile on his face. "I consider myself fortunate that my own soul was not taken along with Sonnet. Being there...I know it could easily have happened."

The words startled Sasa, though she'd thought those same thoughts before, but too afraid to try them out. Too much control, too much power, would drive a person insane. She was satisfied with what she had, but she knew others, like Eknath, could never have enough power.

She thought about what to do next, with Koll out of action she would have to assume control. She made her mental list of her assests and formulated a plan that would put them back -

Something was missing. "Where is Joon?"

Eknath's face turned away quickly, fast enough to let her know something was indeed changed. "He's...resting."

"Resting?"

Eknath merely nodded, his eyes averted.

She crossed her arms. "What happened down there? I thought you knew what you were doing."

Eknath kept his gaze on the floor. "He was...stronger than I expected."

Sasa sighed. "I said that from the very beginning."

"Yes, and we should have listened. It was a dangerous ploy, but even you know why it had to be done."

She nodded. "I did, and still do."

Eknath grinned. "Interesting."

The doors opened. The hunched over Jedi Master Raine moved his aching old body through the doorway, groaning with each step, joining them at the dais. His eyes, though warm and kind as always, carried a taint of sadness. He exhaled heavily and leaned his body into the same seating that Eknath had vacated. "It would seem...we have overestimated ourselves."

Eknath frowned. "Not all of us," his eyes passed over Sasa, "but some of us."

Sasa wished Koll was there with her. "Koll did what he felt was right."

"Yes, exactly," Eknath snarled, "what he felt was right. Right for him and his vain attempt to prove himself. But all he has proven is that he is unworthy of leadership."

Raine shook his tiny head. "We all have weakness, even the brightest of flames must extinguish when put against a cold blizzard."

Eknath stood by himself, his thin fingers tapping the railing of the operating dais impatiently. "Is that another Jedi dogma?" he asked spitefully.

Raine's eyes sharpened, clearly insulted. "I have never judged you, my friend, on your choice of side in the Force. I respect your choice, and I would expect you to do the same for me."

Eknath chuckled to himself. "I did not choose a side, I chose a means to an end."

"And I, an ideal," Raine retorted. "I'll let you abuse the Force all you desire, Master Eknath, but do not mock me for simply listening to it."

Sasa found herself relieved that none of their apprentices were around to hear them argue about the Force, proving that they had as little grasp of what the Force really was, or entailed, as anyone else. As parental figures, their Masters had to appear resolved about the matter.

"Where do you stand on this, Lady Sasa?" Eknath asked darkly, slowly turning to face her. "Have you chosen or are you chosen?"

She didn't want to answer but she actually realized she was leaning more towards Eknath's way of thinking. Sasa didn't regard the Force as multifaced, it was a tool she had been born with and she could not imagine life without it. But it was not a companion, or a source of light, it was merely a tool. A weapon forged in her through the years, one made to strike against all the wrong in this world.

But even though she admitted to sharing beliefs with Eknath, she wouldn't give him the satisfaction. "I stand alone," her voice ended the discussion like a blade through bones. "How many of our troops fell?"

Raine sighed dissapointedly. "It is difficult to say, many of them are still regrouping. But it would be wise of us to reconsider our next course of action."

She contemplated the next stage of their plan, and the involvement of their troopers. "Yes, it would seem we will have to take a more active role in the upcoming battle. To make up for the losses."

Eknath didn't hide his discontent. "An active role? Your apprentice still lives, as does Junn."

She shook her head. "Neither of which are at full strength. Someone will have to lead the army."

At that fact, Eknath's face changed, wide-eyed and suddenly seeing many new possibilities. "Yes...and you are second in command."

Why Eknath was eager for her to assume command of the army puzzled her and that feeling alone was enough motivation for her to turn down the suggestion. "No, it will not be me. My place is here."

Raine shifted his small body, clearly uncomfortable. "I will send Ragh to aid the troopers."

Sasa nodded, thankful for the addition. She looked back at Eknath.

The telepath shrunk into a mere shell of himself. "No. No chance. Joon will stay at my side. He has no place in open warfare."

Sasa was not surprised, which in itself opened up new ways for her to strike at him. "I never thought Joon mattered that much to you."

Eknath bit the inside of his lower lip. "He's a tool, if you can even label him a person anymore. He's my weapon of choice," his eyes wandered, looking for a reasonable counterpoint, and his lips twitched when he found one, "to control Joon I would have to be in complete concentration, fixed on him." He smiled victoriously. "And as we all know when the battle begins, I am needed elsewhere."

He was right, Sasa admitted. But she wouldn't have expected anything less than for him to weasel his way out of giving up anything that belonged to him. "Then who?"

Raine coughed, a dry and coarse cackle. "It must be you, Sasa. Koll was the blade and the shield of this army. But you are the heart of it. It is you that the soldiers think of as their mother, the person whose smile gives them courage. Only you can send them into battle, since our two lieutenants and Koll are missing. I am a withering old man, and as Master Eknath stated, he is needed elsewhere. Neither Joon nor Ragh can do it."

Sasa fought for alternative suggestions, even ones she found doubtful. "What about Jovis?"

Eknath chuckled. "The man is a mercenary and the soldiers know it. They would never follow someone driven only by currency."

"He's not a mercenary anymore."

Raine sided with Eknath. "The soldiers don't know him as you do, Sasa. It wouldn't work."

Sasa felt trapped. She had no choice, and neither Koll nor Krych were there to comfort her. She felt so alone, and found it impossible to amass any kind of confidence. With time slipping away, and a Republic fleet on their doorstep, she knew she had to find a plan, and quickly.

Her voice broke. "A-alright. I'll do it," she cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders. "Gather the remaining troops outside...to the south of the station. That is mostly likely where they will strike, the flattest terrain leading into this station. Once they are all gathered and the fleet arrives I will speak to the soldiers. Find out what's keeping Jovis and Derrick, and find out what's happened to Krych. I will look for Junn and - "

"All orders are hereby rescinded."

The entire group turned to see Koll Riokon standing in the doorway into the cloning facility. His head was slightly bowed, but his eyes were clear and sharp as day itself. His gaze fell upon each of them as he slowly stepped inside. His coat was torn in several places, pieces of it touched by fire, pieces of armor glistening even beneath the dim lights in the chamber. His face was smothered in sweat and ash.

Derrick and Jovis, as well as Akla Jawk, appeared from the hallway behind him and joined the group inside the chamber.

"Koll!" Sasa cried in relief.

But his face did not change. "As I said; all orders are rescinded. I am in command here."

Though her heart was touched with the joy of seeing him alive, she could feel by the tone in his voice that he was changed. And that his anger involved her as well. "What happened?"

His neck straightened, and his eyes would shot lightning if they could. "Events forced us to delay the inevitable. And it seems now it could not have come at a better time. I trusted you to maintain discipline while I was detained, but I can see now I gave you too much credit."

Sasa started to feel like she was being cornered. "I maintained command while you were...detained, so if you disagree with any of my orders, you take it up with me."

Koll stared at her for a long time, his eyes speaking in volumes, but only to her because she knew his eyes so well.

Eknath looked away. "This bickering is pointless. There's a Republic fleet on it's way here Without power we have no way of communicating with them - "

"And why would we want to communicate with them?" Koll asked, an edge to his voice. "We're out here to kill them, Prophet. Not chit-chat."

Eknath glanced at him. "And how do we kill them then?"

"The ships launched are carrying troops and ground assault vehicles, a surface battle just like we always wanted."

Sasa turned her side to him. "But we no longer have an army." She bit back the obvious remark. Because you wanted to play with the clone, instead of killing him like we were supposed to.

The entire group was startled as the doors opened again, revealing a frail looking Krych. He leaned against the wall and started to fall forward. Sasa raced to catch her apprentice, supporting him against herself and walking him inside the facility. Only once she was close enough did she see the damage he'd suffered . His face was burnt severly, all identifiable features gone, She didn't know what had happened to him, but she tore her eyes away from his face before nausea could take her. The group stood back as Sasa laid her apprentice down on the floor of the command dais, kneeling down next to him.

"Is he alright?" Koll asked, with some sympathy in his voice.

Sasa ran her hand over Krych's face, feeling the roughness of his scorched skin beneath her fingers. "His face is..." she couldn't say it. "He's suffered a concussion, and some broken bones. But he's going to be alright. Bacta should heal him up."

Koll started to ask more questions but his words never emerged, as a second unseen person in the doorway moved into the chamber and brushed up against Koll's shoulder as he walked to take his place by Eknath's side. Koll identified Joon easily but it took several glances before he noticed the change for the first time.

Joon wore a piece of cloth over his eyes, bound at the back of his head. Beneath the edges of the cloth, several wounds and scabs were visible. Eknath, with his back to Joon, bowed his head and started to shiver.

Out of nowhere Koll raised his hand, and Eknath flew across the room, slamming face first against the far wall. He dropped back down on the floor and rolled over to face Koll, leaning up against the wall. His lips dripped blood and his breathing intensified. Koll's hand was still outreached, his voice a rasping cold.

"Why?"

Eknath spat blood. "He did it to himself."

Koll's jaw hardened. "We both know that Joon doesn't do anything out of his own will."

Eknath got to his feet, still supporting himself against the wall. "I did it primarily to enhance his vision."

Koll frowned with disgust. "Enhance his vision...has all sanity finally left you?"

"Don't be dense. I'm talking about the Force. With all the recent Jedi, Dark Jedi, Kjoil and clones that's been roaming the fortress its left little in the ways of balance, espicially for some of our younger, more inexperienced adepts. Now Joon can see outside the physical world, he can see the Force like streams of water, all painted in different colours."

Joon stood like a statue, oblivious even to the fact that people were talking about him, a puppet only moving by Eknath's will.

Koll stepped forward. "We have thousands of men...sensors in place all over...vhroniks...and you still found it necessary to mutilate your own apprentice?"

Eknath was starting to show signs of fear, with Koll approaching him more and more. "His shell is mine to govern, he's merely an extension of me - "

Koll raised his hand, slamming and holding Eknath up against the wall again, a few feet off the floor. "Then next time cut your own eyes out!"

Eknath fought for breath. "Why...anger? I've...done countless things against Joon...you've never objected."

Koll released his grip and Eknath landed on his feet, clutching his own throat. Koll turned away from him, letting out a deep sigh, clearly disillusioned. Koll drew in as much breath as he could hold, the sound of it almost painful. "I want to trust the good in you I once knew...I always believed you would know the line before you crossed it. Is there no emotion left in you?"

Eknath's eyes widened. "Emotion!"

Koll shook his head. "Torturing our own men...it's damaging to the rest. I don't want this sort of thing to take place in my army."

Eknath's entire body hardened. "Your army?"

Koll turned around quickly, holding out his hands. "What happened to you, Eknath? Where was I when you lost it?"

Eknath grinned nefariously. "I have only one emotion left inside; compassion. Compassion for this galaxy and its future. All I do, I do to strengthen it."

Raine joined in on the discussion. "By cutting out a poor boy's eyes?"

Eknath shrugged. "Joon is fearless, uninvolved," Eknath's eyes passed over the others. "Between him or Krych, a man so wrapped in sorrow he cannot think straight or follow orders; who would you choose? Between him and Sasa, a woman unable to govern her own heart or feelings; who would you choose?"

Krych was thankfully barely conscious, unable to prove the man wrong. Sasa bit her lower lip in agitation while tending to her apprentice, hoping her husband would kill the psychopath right then and there.

Koll took a slow step towards Eknath, his eyes wandering. "Our emotions make us strong, and our ability to understand them in time - "

"But we don't have time, Koll! These petty personal conflicts are what's driving us apart. What good will we do in a war if all of our soldiers, by their own internal wars, are already burned out by the time the first blade falls?"

Koll's eyes were frozen, yet Eknath could almost see the thoughts bouncing back and forth behind them. "I am the General; do not make any desicions again without consulting me first. Is that clear?"

Eknath frowned. "Koll - "

"General," Koll insisted.

Something in Eknath's eyes changed, a clear glimpse of wounded feelings and sadness. His head bowed slowly. "Yes, General," his voice was full of venom. "I shall obey."

Koll smiled victoriously. "Its time to introduce discipline again."

Eknath stood there like a monument of defiance, his every bone and thought screaming to burst and roar. Anger and wounded pride corroding every part of him, his only salvation was the fact that he wouldn't let Koll have his victory. If the General wanted a pet, he would have one. "Understood, General."

Koll drew in air slowly. "Here's the plan; once the enemy army has touched down Prophet and Finality will go to the highest point of this base and await my command."

Eknath and Raine looked to each other in confusion. "To do what, exactly?" Raine asked.

Koll didn't answer, his hard face showing no signs that he ever would.

Raine nodded, thinking better of forcing the issue considering Koll's temperament. "We will do as you command."

Eknath glanced angrily at his new partner, his exhalation carrying all his annoyance. "It looks that way."

Koll nodded, an overly pleased look on his face. "Loyalty, once he's healed up, will meet up with our remaining troops, lead them to the northmost building and await my command."

Sasa looked up. "Northmost? Why there?"

Koll looked to his wife, a small smile. "Because I will adress them before they go into battle, and our enemy might convene on the southern plain, but we have a surprise waiting for them there. If it lives up to expectations, we might not have to send a single trooper into combat." Koll looked to the next in line, the puppet Joon. "Tragedy, you will scour this facility, every corner, every bulkhead for Eulogy. She's still alive."

Joon nodded, not a glimmer of hesitation in the obedient youth and unlike Eknath and Raine he marched in a straight line for the door and left the Inner Council to themselves.

Koll smiled again at that fact and looked to Raine and Eknath.

They looked to each other and then followed Joon's lead and left Koll with Sasa, Krych, Jovis and Derrick.

Koll's eyes locked onto Derrick. "Derrick, there is a B-wing fighter waiting for you in the hangar of the adjacent building," Koll's voice became soft and kind, "go retrieve your family. If you leave now you will have amble time to get them off Coruscant before our strike. I thank you for your service, and relieve you of it. Go to them, save them."

Derrick's eyes were wide with joy but also confused. "You're letting me go?"

Koll nodded. "I only needed you to maintain this station while we underwent our mission. I do not need you anymore. Consider it a payment."

Derrick still looked doubtful.

"You didn't expect me to uphold my word, did you?"

Derrick looked to Jovis, looking for anyone who could share in his bewilderment. "No...I suppose I didn't."

Koll grinned. "I get that a lot. I am not an evil man, Derrick. In time you too will see that my actions have only goodness in them. It is hard to see that now, but your children will reap the benifits, I assure. I pray you will live long enough to tell them that you helped the Galaxy became the safe haven they will live in."

Derrick smiled, almost bursting into tears. "Thank you, General," he looked around at the others. "Thank you, all of you."

Sasa felt like crying too, the kind of joy she sensed from Derrick she hadn't felt in a long time. She nodded to him, and smiled warmly. "We thank you, Derrick."

Derrick's eyes became moist and he looked like he wanted to run for the hangar, but couldn't because he couldn't find the words to express his full gratitude.

"No more words, Derrick," Koll said, "go now. Go to your family."

Derrick's tears were finally freed and he chuckled. "Yes, yes I will. Thank you so much for this." Derrick ran for the doorway and soon dissapeared down the hallway.

Back inside the chamber Jovis looked anxious, dreading what assignment he would be given. Akla stood behind him, the alien's otherwise emotionless face starting to pale slightly.

Koll's eyes stayed focused on them, and he slowly began to walk in an orbit around them. "Your's is the easiest task of all; I want you to tell me, in all exquisite detail how you were contacted for this assignment."

Jovis's brows lifted. "What?"

Koll stopped at Jovis's right, his gaze burning with anger. "I have come across evidence of a traitor inside my unit," his head lowered slightly again, "and you two are the latest additions."

Sasa felt her insides turn to stone. "What?"

"Someone has had a hand in the way events of unfolded. I learned that much from the clone. Someone wanted him out here. Someone who knew what he was."

Jovis tensed up, but in some way he'd known this moment would come. "You contacted the Bothan on Coruscant, looking for a mercenary group. I took the contract. All the sheet said was to go to Regana."

Koll's brows came up. "That's all? You took the contract based on so little intel?"

Jovis shrugged. "There's usually not a lot more. The fee I was suggested was considerable, and, given that, you don't ask a lot of questions." Jovis scoffed to himself. "Hell, I still don't understand why you needed me and my men. All we've done are little delievery mission."

Koll raised a hand. "Yes, I know. I have been holding you back for your real mission. But it seems now, with the arrival of a Republic fleet, that you're about to be put to real use."

Jovis was starting to feel even more anxious. He had a feeling he wasn't going to like this new mission.

"First; go and gather your group. Round up the hostages and await my command."

He felt uninformed. Worried. Jovis held out his hands in confusion. "That's it?"

Koll nodded. "For now."

"Why not tell me the rest right away? Why all this secrecy?" Jovis looked at Sasa but the woman had her eyes elsewhere. Even Akla looked unpleased. "You still don't trust me. That's it, isn't it?"

Koll cackled. "Do you trust me, Jovis?"

Jovis hesitated. "I'm trusting you with my life just by being here. But I don't like being kept in the dark."

Koll understood. "It's important for me to keep information at a minimum. You will notice none of the others asked for further information. And they don't know what they are about to do. The full design of this plan is kept only by me and my wife," he held out his hand towards Sasa, "the rest of our unit trusts me, trusts my judgement and planning. And they've known me for decades, Jovis. They understand that they will be told when they need to know, and so will you."

Jovis still wasn't satisfied, his hands slowly becoming fists. He knew he would acheive nothing by debating the matter further. He didn't like feeling pinced, played for a fool. And no, he didn't trust Riokon as much as he wished. Too many things were wrong, too many variables he didn't understand. It didn't make sense that the Sons of Destiny needed his little group to fulfill their Dream. He remembered standing up himself during their dinner many nights ago, Riokon had gained respect for him that night. Maybe he could again.

Jovis straightened up. "Alright. I'll complete any mission you throw at me. There's just one thing."

Koll looked up. "And that is?"

Jovis pocketed his hands. "Tell me why I'm here. Not the mission, I don't care about that at all. But you could easily have sent any of your own men to fulfill any task you might throw at me, and you know that too. Why an outside group? It doesn't make sense. And I want to know. I need to know."

Koll stood still, his eyes burning straight through Jovis, contemplating the matter. Jovis suffered the stare as best as he could, if it was a contest of strength he really didn't bother participating. The General already knew he would win, but Jovis would persist out of simple defiance.

The General opened his mouth to talk -

Akla started laughing lightly, the alien seemingly finally grasping what Jovis could not. All eyes fell upon the Arkanian.

"Do you not see, Jovis? He doesn't want to tell you," the alien stepped forward, "he doesn't want to hurt you."

Koll smiled a little. "Your Arkanian friends lives up to the wisdom of his species."

Jovis stood in the middle, feeling blind and deaf. "What are you talking about?" he said to Akla.

The Arkanian locked eyes with Jovis. "They needed an outside group, someone expendable. From the very start they've done everything to minimize risking their own soldiers. Even taking the time to carefully plan for it. But they realized lives would be lost. And that's where we came in, our group," the alien looked back at Koll, "think about it; they were sent out with Eulogy to stop the intruders, they were selected to guard the hostages, all very dangerous assignments."

Akla began to smile, tearing apart a secret that explained the reason for them being on Regana. "But something happened for which they hadn't planned. Our own men mutinied, but the General couldn't kill them because it would anger you, Jovis. And he still needs you. The men sent offworld in the Civilian, which he had you donate to them to romance you even more, made it nessecary for him to use his own soldiers in capturing the escaped prisoner, otherwise surely our group would have been charged with that task."

Koll stood there, listening with a patient smile.

Akla went on. "And even this new task, rounding up the hostages, I'm sure leaves us expendable."

Jovis felt betrayed, and he cursed himself for not seeing it before. "We were buffers. Expendable help." He remembered Junn saying the exact same thing during their dinner long ago. She wasn't being intentionally crude, she was being honest. "Junn was right."

Koll nodded. "Yes, hired to do a job. The fact that your men died is their own fault," the General smirked, "but don't try and tell me you ever cared for those men, Jovis. You labeled them as useless yourself."

Jovis admitted that. "They were still my men. You should have told me."

Akla grinned. "He wanted to, and he would, except for another unplanned incident."

Jovis wasn't sure he wanted to hear anymore.

"He began to like you."

Koll laughed, and started clapping his hands together. "Very good."

Jovis looked back at the General. "Is that true?"

Koll stopped clapping his hands and just smiled fully at the mercenary leader. "Indeed, it is. However," his right hand came up, fingers sprayed just like he did with Eknath, "you keep some very tiresome company."

Akla reached for his sidearm and managed to unholster it. But before it could aim at Riokon, the blaster exploded in Akla's hands. Jovis fell back, covering his face from the shrapnell and flames. Sasa protected Krych from the blast by leaning over his body. Through the ringing of their ears, Akla's alien scream slowly punched through. The alien fell to his knees, clutching his bleeding wrist beneath his left armpit.

Acting on instinct Jovis drew his own weapon and aimed at Riokon. Koll moved his hand over, ready to block the shot if Jovis decided to fire. The room fell into silence except for Akla's whimpering. Jovis stood there frozen, seeing Koll's face down the sight of his blaster. He wanted to fire, except for Akla the rest of his group were faceless morons. But Akla was his trustee, his friend. At times his only friend.

Koll awaited Jovis's move. "Fire if you will, Jovis. I do not blame you."

Jovis tightened his grip on the weapon. "There's no point, is there? I haven't got a chance against you."

On the dais, Sasa removed herself from Krych and stood up resolutely, making herself part of the proceedings, her body language signaling that if Jovis tried anything he would have to deal with her as well.

Meanwhile Akla continued to groan in agony.

"He was right, Jovis," Koll said, "I do like you. You've been impartial, obedient, resourceful. I like you because you remind me of myself. You have a goal, an object or ideal you want to reach, and you go for it, undaunted by the dangers involved. You live for this, it's all your life holds." Koll's hand started to lower. "You are a part of us now, Jovis. It's not the money anymore, and you know that as well. You've admitted it to yourself. You want glory, you want fame and recognition. And you know, as I do, that great acheivements demand great sacrifices. All you have to do is pull the trigger," Koll's eyes fell upon the wounded Akla, "let nothing hold you. Not friendship, not love, not loyalty. Do it for yourself, just as you've always done."

Jovis glanced over his shoulder at Akla, the alien still on his knees, his clothes drenched in blood. The alien was crying, his head bowed down. Jovis looked at him, for the first time it seemed. The man was a confidant, but he was alien, just like the rest of them. He felt close to the being, but it was still an employee. Whatever friendship Jovis told himself he shared with this man was purely based on profession courtesy really. Was he going to let Akla stand in the way of immortality and power?

Jovis shook his head. What was he thinking? Why was it so easy? His mind started to swirl, a veil of darkness shrouded it. All noise died out except for Akla's crying, that annoying alien cry. It started to wear on him, started to make his jaw bite together. The sound grew inside his head, drowning out his own thoughts. That irritating alien whimpering. Shut up, he thought, be a man, take the pain.

Akla still groaned and moaned, the sounds of a pathetic weakling. The sound continued to build, growing until Jovis couldn't take it no more. His body shivered with anger and annoyance, frustration tempting his every cell.

Akla slowly moved his bleeding wrist out from inside his armpit and stared at the wound, his wailing rose again, his crying intensified and the alien curled together on the floor like a baby.

Jovis bit his own lip and tasted his own blood. The pain went straight to his head and Jovis exploded on the inside.

The blaster in his hand moved to aim at Akla instead.

"Shut up!" he yelled and fired. The bolt struck Akla in the chest, throwing the alien a few feet backwards on the floor. The alien cried louder. "Shut up!" Jovis fired again, this time hitting a shoulder, blowing the alien even further back. Akla's bloodshot eyes flew wide and stared at Jovis with mixed hate and misery. "Shut up!" Jovis screamed again and pulled the trigger rapidly, pushing the alien up against the wall until he couldn't move anymore, continuing to rain shots upon the weak and annoying alien.

"Shut up!" Jovis cried with each shot, emptying his blaster into the alien's already dead and shattered body until the blaster ran out of rounds.

Jovis stood there, panting for air, his teeth still clenched in hatred, his finger still pulling the trigger though no shots fired from the muzzle. Akla laid in the corner, his body a mess of blaster holes and blood-covered clothes, but his whimpering had finally stopped.

Jovis finally lowered the blaster, feeling spent and exhausted.

"Good," Koll said behind him, his voice slow and deep, "very good, Jovis."

Jovis holstered the blaster, feeling empty but powerful inside. He turned to look at Koll. "No more questions, Riokon," he said, feeling like a new man, a stronger man. "I've got work to do."

Koll smiled brilliantly. "You're excused."

Jovis marched out of the chamber, a sense of pride in his steps. The corridor outside swallowed him up and left Koll alone with Sasa and the unconscious Krych. Sasa kept her eyes on her husband, a discontent look in them.

"You pushed him, I felt it."

Koll shrugged. He walked over and sat on the steps of the dais. "A warrior must push every angle to his advantage to get what he wants."

Sasa stood behind him, staring into his back. "You scare me sometimes, Koll."

Koll put his head down on his knees, exhaling, his voice becoming less omnious and more normal. "You should have seen him, Sasa...the clone. He was a monster. He dwarfed my powers. Everything I've learned, all I've ever done, all my strength and all my powers...gone, with the movement of his hand. He was strong," Koll said the word like it wasn't enough to describe it, "stronger than anything I've ever felt. I felt the Force itself start to drain from me, like he was pulling energy from me. As if he was sucking the very life out of me, merely by his presence."

Sasa moved away from Krych and sat down next to her husband. "He took out more than half of our men, and left this station in ruins. I told you it was a risk."

Koll kept his head down, nodding. "I know...I see that now. I was too proud, too obsessed. He...has humbled me. I'm afraid, Sasa," his voice became fragile, "I'm so afraid. I never - "

Sasa put her arm around him, offering her support. "It's alright. He's gone now. Our mission goes on."

His head came up slowly, fixating upon the mansized cylinder holding a clone in the corner. Then his face turned to look into her eyes. There were tears in his own, but he smiled. But Sasa only wished it could have been a brave smile instead of a deceptive one.

"No," he said in a deep voice, starting to smirk, "our mission is over, Sasa." He nodded towards the doorway. "It's their mission now."

She didn't understand. "What do you mean?"

He faced her again and leaned his face in to kiss her lips. He kissed her hard, passionately, with all the fierceness of a man who'd never expected to kiss her again. He held her lips close to his, enjoying all the love she gave him in that kiss, tasting her as if for the first time.

He stopped the kiss and leaned his forehead against hers, talking in a low voice with his eyes closed. "The war has begun, Sasa. Our part is done. It's time to stop dreaming."

She felt his warm face against her own, and it seemed all the world around them had dissolved. "I still love you, Koll."

He smiled and kissed her again briefly. "I know," his left hand came up and held her cheek inside. "I'll see you when you wake up."

Sasa's heart began to pound fast, an instant fear crawling over her, feeling him touch her with the Force. Before she could speak or move away, her eyes moved to the back of her head and her body turned heavy. She drifted into sleep inside his arms and he kept her from falling to the floor, cradling her tight.

The doors into the chamber opened on cue it seemed and a squad of soldiers in black armor moved inside, rifles at the ready, eyeing Koll holding his wife close within his strong arms, rocking her back and forth.

"Is everything ready?" he asked, his face buried in her hair.

The lead trooper nodded. "As you requested, General."

He moved his head away, and wiped away the tears he'd dropped on her pretty face. "Good, then take her." He held her up and two soldiers moved forward, helping each other carry the sleeping beauty. He stood up, dusted himself off and straightened his back. The soldiers marched out of the chamber, except for the lead trooper who stayed behind. With a hesitation in his movements, he extracted a small holoprojector from his belt.

"Eclipos," the soldier said.

Koll nodded and dismissed the soldier. Once he was alone, except for the sleeping Krych, he activated the two-way link projector. A full-sized hologram of Eclipos appeared on the floor before him, shimmering and fluttering and as always fully devoid of any identifiable features.

"General Riokon."

Koll nodded slowly.

"Will we be ready, General?"

Koll smiled confidently. "Oh, yes. A war to end all wars." He walked down the steps slowly, grinning satisfied to himself. "Soon the Galaxy will once again be in the hands of the Sith, and you, Darth Eclipos, will rule the Galaxy as you always envisioned. I assure you, my Lord, the very best is yet to come. "

To Be Concluded in

Sons Of Destiny: Episode 3 - The Eclipse Of Fate