Shattered Knight

by Tim Radley

KoTOR: Eight months on from the fall of the Star Forge the expected peace has not come to the Republic. The news of Revan's return has become a source of schism and conflict within the galaxy, and Revan himself has his own demons to face.

7. Thieves in the Temple

7. Thieves in the Temple

Constant flickers of lightning illuminated the Republic gunboat as it descended towards the makeshift landing pad – little more than a space cleared amidst Taris's endless fields of debris. Its passage looked jerky and fraught as the strong crosswinds buffeted it violently, but its pilot guided it true. Dirty grey snow swirled thickly, settling in filthy drifts.

Juhani watched its descent wordlessly, vague relief puncturing the numbness.

Her tattered robe flapped around her body. She looked gaunt. She'd lost almost a third of her body mass during the long, benighted trek through the undercity. A Cathar's metabolism burned fast and hot, and their rations had been pitiful – particularly with a Wookiee as a travelling companion. It had gotten to the point where they'd even briefly considered trying to cook and eat the flesh of the Rakghouls that constantly harried their progress.

Next to her, the only sound coming from Zaalbar was the slightly wheezy rasp of his breathing.

Never much of a one for conversion – except perhaps with Mission, who was more than happy to take over ninety-percent of the required burden – he'd withdrawn into himself almost totally over the last few days. Sometimes even direct queries had gone completely unanswered.

In a human, she would have feared that this indicated that he was giving up and succumbing to despair. But she didn't quite get that sense from Zaalbar. Instead, he seemed to be . . . focusing. She wasn't entirely sure that was right, but she couldn't really think of a better way of explaining it. Mentally preparing himself for the trials that lay ahead, perhaps.

The gunship touched down gently and its repulsors powered down. The snow around it began to melt visibly and immediately from the heat radiating from its hull, accrued during atmospheric re-entry.

They'd reached the surface slightly under 36 hours ago, finally managing to make contact with another of the Taris survey teams. From there, they'd been transported to this makeshift field hospital, where their wounds and malnutrition could be treated. Republic security forces had also spent several hours interviewing them.

With the news that no trace had been found of Mission there'd been a brief moment when Juhani had feared there was going to be a case of shooting – or more accurately, savagely mauling – the messenger. But the volcanic flash of Zaalbar's emotions she'd sensed hadn't had any outward manifestation. For some reason she'd found that slightly worrying.

The gunship's boarding ramp opened with a soft hissing sound. A couple of Republic military personal descended, hunch-shouldered and leaning forward against the wind. They moved quickly to secure the gunship's landing gear to cables in order to prevent the vessel being flipped if one of Taris's frequent storms hit.

Then a third figure, dressed in slate grey Jedi robes, came into view.

Juhani stepped forward, away from Zaalbar's side, striding out across the landing pad until they were separated by bare meters. For a moment they just stood, looking at each other.

"Belaya?" Juhani asked quietly.

Belaya's mouth opened to say something, but closed quickly with no words spoken. Juhani couldn't be certain, but it looked as if there were tears in her eyes. It might just have been the effects of the wind. They embraced.

-s-s-

"Where the hell have you been then?" Canderous's gravel-rough voice greeted Bastila as she loomed out of the mist in front of them. His vibro-sword dropped back to his side and the set of his shoulders relaxed just slightly.

A fractional smile touched her lips. There'd actually been a degree of relief in the Mandalorian's voice, unless she was completely mistaken. Whether it was over seeing her safe, or simply due to her not being another ravening vornskr was perhaps open to question.

She suspected that only a few hours earlier any concern from him would have annoyed the hell out of her. Strangely, right now it didn't. "I just needed to be alone with myself for a while. Work a few things out to my satisfaction."

He looked at her strangely. Wondering over her sanity perhaps. "And did you?"

She shrugged. "I . . . I think I made a start on it, at least."

Canderous grunted, looking her up and down. "You look absolutely terrible."

No doubt. She simply raised one eyebrow in response. "Hmm? Well I don't see you having to beat the ladies off with a stick just at the moment either."

The flash of surprise in his eyes almost made her laugh. That she didn't was down to a vague suspicion that she wasn't really fully in her right mind just now. Walking back from the ruined mirror-chamber, she'd tried talking to the voice in her head – sure that it wasn't part of her. There hadn't been any response, so she'd ended up having a conversation with herself, talking aloud as she slogged through the swamp water and the clinging mist.

The words of her dark reflection still echoed within her, and some of them burned intensely. But she had found that she was able to bear them without flinching away. Most of them, at least. Like most demons, they didn't seem quite so terrible or frightening held up in the cold light of day.

It took them about an hour to reach the Sith temple.

The structure loomed out of the mist in front of them – a louring battery of dark Force energy that appeared almost to have grown out of the surrounding swamp, accruing slowly over the centuries like a huge, malignant stalagmite. As the mist swirled and thinned briefly, strange and ominous looking towers could be glimpsed, reaching high above them. Like the rest of the structure, they had a disturbingly organic look to them.

Bastila stopped in her tracks so suddenly, neck craning upwards, that Velta Laska inadvertently walked straight into her back, sending her stumbling forwards. She managed to keep her balance barely, and chose to pretend she hadn't heard Canderous's quickly stifled snort of laughter.

There was still no sign of any Sith military presence. No guard posts. No patrols. No gun turrets or laser fences. No battle droids or assault vehicles. It was impossible to gain any sense of whether there was anything living in the structure through the Force, the pure darkside presence of the temple overwhelming everything else.

They walked the perimeter of the structure slowly and carefully. It was some time after noon and the heat and humidity were savage, every forward step sapping. Water sloshed and dripped. Insects droned. The palpable tension infecting them was just as sapping as the conditions.

Eventually, though, they ran out of excuses not to go inside.

A line of broken, vine-swathed pillars led up the temple's main – and indeed, only visible – entrance. The combined sound of their footsteps on the damp, decaying stone was conspicuously loud. Another pair of vornskr attacked without warning, bounding from the temple entrance at their approach. Like the other times they both immediately went for Bastila to the exclusion of everyone else.

"Some bastard's got to be controlling them," Canderous muttered afterwards, in the middle of cleaning the blood from the blade of his vibro-sword. "Animals just don't behave like that. I've hunted enough to know that."

Terentatek's do, Bastila thought but didn't say. As she looked down at the sundered corpses, blood being slowly absorbed by the porous grey stone, part of her wondered what it must be like, being born Force-sensitive in a place like this. That part shuddered.

Inside the temple progress was slow and tedious, moving through a procession of overgrown and decaying chambers with painstaking care, constantly on the lookout for traps or ambushes, or simply more of the vornskr. Minutes ticked by, stretching out into hours. Nothing was turned up though, one empty room following another. Gradually the edge of the tension became dulled by monotony. Only Jansa seemed to retain any enthusiasm, and there was the sense that even she was starting to succumb to the ennui as it became more and more apparent that the place had been thorough looted over the past centuries.

Now they stood in the only section of the temple that remained unexplored.

A broad hallway opened up in front of them. Vegetation forced its way up through the broken paving stones on the floor, and shelves of pale, variegated fungus grew up the walls, imparting a strange and slightly eerie splendour to the scene.

What gave them all pause were the deep, shadowy alcoves spaced every few metres along, ten on either side in all. Inside each alcove lurked another of the cowled and faceless statues. Halfway along the left-hand wall one of them had collapsed into several pieces, though the rest appeared to be intact. After her last couple of experiences with the things, Bastila found herself extremely reluctant to pass between them, her skin prickling with an unpleasant crawling sensation, and the fine hairs on the back of her neck rising. No one else – not even Canderous – seemed much more eager.

"So, what if our Sith friends decided to destroy whatever it was you think they came here for? Either that or simply took the fraking thing away with them when they left." Canderous's tone was sour as he broke the lingering silence that had settled in.

Bastila glanced at him sidelong. "Then we've had a wasted journey, haven't we?"

He muttered something she didn't catch, words drowned out by the constant dripping of muddy water through cracks in the ceiling.

She drew in a shuddering breath. Reaching out carefully with the Force, halfway expecting to stir another of the vornskr into frenzied assault through her efforts, she probed tentatively at each of the alcoves in turn. Despite the humidity, her mouth managed to feel dry, and her heart was suddenly tripping over far too quickly.

The measure of slightly unreal serenity she'd found after the confrontation with herself was, apparently, to be short lived.

Eventually she reached the conclusion that the statues were different to the ones she'd encountered in the swamp. Where those had been filled with active, almost living malevolence, these were hollow shells, anything they had once contained now departed. Although they reeked of darkside taint, it was nothing more than that of the temple as a whole.

"I see something. There, in the shadows."

Bastila jolted at the unexpected words. They belonged to Velta Laska. All heads swung slowly to look at the spot where the Ithorian was pointing.

-s-s-

Tamar stared at the pinprick of light high in the flawless, cobalt blue sky. As he watched it flared, brightness increasing several hundredfold, before slowly dying away again.

The last death throws of the Long and Winding Way.

"Well, that's that then."

Tamar nodded once, not looking round at the man who'd spoken – a fleet lieutenant by the name of Chinn.

They had actually made it to hyperspace ahead of the attacking Sith. Unfortunately, the Long and Winding Way had been so badly damaged in the pirate ambush that they'd only been able to limp as far as the nearest planetary system before their hull began to loose structural integrity, forcing them to drop back to sub-light.

From then onwards the situation had deteriorated with an impressive degree of alacrity.

Micro-fractures had spread rapidly through the midsection of the Winding Way's hull, causing breaches that opened half a dozen decks to vacuum. Amidst this, one of the portside turbolaser nacelles had buckled and ruptured under the stresses being inflicted on it, causing an explosion that managed to sever one of the ship's main coolant flows. Normally that wouldn't have been too much of a problem, a military vessel like the Winding Way having a high degree of redundancy built into its critical systems. Unfortunately, two other key adjacent coolant flows had already been lost in the pounding they'd taken from the pirates.

As a result, one of the main portside engines had started to overheat, and an intense fire had broken out in the aft of the ship, cutting off portions of three more decks. A critical point in the ship's main reinforcing spine, already weakened from the pounding it had received, was directly in the path of the fire. As it began to heat rapidly, it started to bend alarmingly out of shape.

And that had accelerated the fracturing of the ship's hull exponentially.

At the point, the decision to abandon ship had been unavoidable. It had simply been a question of whether the Winding Way broke up first, or the burning engine went critical and exploded.

Tamar drew his gaze down from the sky, sweeping the horizon.

He didn't even know what the planet was called, but this particular portion of it hardly seemed the ideal spot to have crash-landed. Arid badlands stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction – undulating ochre-coloured hills and deep winding gullies. Sparse vegetation – in the form of wizened and spiky shrubs – at least hinted at the possibility of water but they'd seen no actual trace of any. He suspected they'd need it before too long.

Earlier on, a few strange, double-winged creatures had been spotted in the distance, soaring on updrafts rising from the baking land, but as twilight faded smoothly towards the onset of night, all trace of them had gone. In contrast to just a couple of hours earlier there was very definite chill to the air, and the temperature was still dropping steadily.

Escaping the Winding Way hadn't quite had the calamitous feel of imminent doom he remembered from the Endar Spire – in large part due to the fact they weren't under constant enemy fire – but it had still been pretty hairy. Those lucky enough to be on the front and starboard areas of the frigate had been able to evacuate fairly safely on ships stored in the landing bays on that side of the vessel. Jolee and the droids, for instance, had made it safely to the Ajunta's Blade and clear.

Unfortunately, he and Yuthura had been on the portside of the ship, cut off from the vest of the vessel by a combination of fires and vacuum. The only landing bays within reach were also open to vacuum, and it was questionable whether any of the ships stored there were in working order in any case, pirate boarding shuttles having apparently done a very thorough job of trashing them on the way in.

That had left the escape pods. Déjà vu all over again, Tamar thought dryly.

He'd gotten separated from Yuthura as they'd tried to help wounded crewmembers flee the ship. Consequently, they'd ended up evacuating on different pods.

At least he'd spoken with her via comm. since they'd landed, so he knew she'd gotten off safely. Unfortunately, it seemed that she'd touched down about sixty kilometres to the north of his position, with a dirty great canyon that spanned half this continent smack between them.

And worse, she was with Marshall and several other Republic intelligence personnel. It didn't, he supposed, reflect too well on himself that he'd come to regard them with almost as much suspicion and trepidation as he did the Sith. They were, after all, on the same side and working towards the same approximate goals.

On the bright side, Yuthura had reported that they'd managed to rescue Auza's data core from destruction with the rest of the ship.

"Over there." Another Republic officer whose name Tamar hadn't managed to catch gestured to the western horizon line – assuming that you called the direction where the sun set west. "See?"

Tamar saw well enough – a bright line in the sky that could only be the re-entry trail of another ship. As he looked, he spotted a second, and then a third, apparently evenly spaced.

His jaw tightened, and he had a sudden, ominous feeling inside his chest.

Theoretically they could have simply been more escape pods, or perhaps some of the ships that had evacuated from the Winding Way earlier, looking to pick up survivors. Tamar somehow knew with absolutely certainty that they weren't though.

They were the Sith.

In their desperate flight from the pirate ambush, there hadn't been time to do anything to mask their hyperdrive wake. And this was the first point along that wake trail anyone would check.

The Winding Way had put a distress call, aimed at the nearest Republic base at Cybloc, before it exploded. But it would be fourteen hours at the absolute earliest before anyone would answer it.

He glanced around at the others. Even without the benefit of the Force he could see from the collective look in their faces that they'd reached pretty much the same conclusion he'd just come to.

There were fifteen of them in all, gathered together from the various pods that landed in the immediate vicinity. Three of them were on stretchers, even a combination of kolto treatment and his efforts at Force healing not having done much more than make them slightly more comfortable. At least one, who had an appalling looking head injury, was unlikely to survive the night – even if they weren't going to be forced to spend it fleeing cross-country.

He touched his earpiece. "Yuthura, do you copy?"

A crackle of static, then, "I copy Tamar."

"Are you looking at the western horizon line? In the sky?" As he watched, he saw the lines blossom into scores of little dots – troops and equipment being dropped in from high altitude.

"I'm looking," she confirmed. Her voice sounded weary and strained.

No doubt the Sith had been able to trace their escape pods from orbit. Unlike on Taris there was no vast background noise of technology to mask their positions.

"They'll sweep up through the hills from the west, like beaters trying to flush guntek birds from the under brush and drive them towards the hunters' guns," he stated, switching over to coolly analytical mode. "They'll have already deployed another larger force somewhere up ahead, waiting for us to be driven into their arms. That means we'll either have to try break out the sides of the trap . . ." difficult, since a number of canyons and gullies hemmed them in, not easy to traverse at the best of times. ". . . Or somehow find a way to slip through their lines."

Needless to say, even more difficult.

There was a brief hesitation before Yuthura spoke again. "They have Black Dogs . . ." A tiny pause, before she clarified. "Dark Jedi Force trackers with them. If either of us calls on the Force for any reason they'll be able to zero in on our positions immediately."

He didn't ask her how she knew this. Standard procedure, he suspected.

"We'll need to go radio silent too," she added.

His mouth was dry. Their conversation felt disturbingly like a goodbye. His gut was churning, and none of the words he wanted to say would voice themselves. "Head north, as fast as you can. At least ten kilometres. Further if possible. Stick to whatever cover you can find, but not so that it delays you significantly. After that, while it's still dark, turn west. If you're quick enough you might make it round the end of their lines . . ."

"Tamar!" she snapped, cutting him off. The exasperation was clear in her voice – she already knew this of course, better than he did quite probably. Then, a moment later, more gently, "Take care. I . . .." Another pause. "Just take care."

"Take care," he echoed back lamely. There was so much more that needed to be said.

The comm. link shut off. The dots in the sky were growing larger.

Nearer.

-s-s-

The object, vaguely spherical, glinted softly where dim light caught on its surface. It was . . . well, it was about the size of a human head.

Bastila just nodded as Canderous looked to her for confirmation as to whether it was safe to approach it.

Stepping forward, he bent down, grunted once, and picked the object up. Something sizable dropped out of it, hitting the ground with a rather unpleasant sounding thud, before bouncing and rolling over a couple of times.

"Sith helmet," he commented, holding it up for them to see. "Complete with accompanying Sith head."

He nudged it over with his foot, peering down at it in distaste. "Given the humidity and the voraciousness of local insect life . . .." A short pause. "I'd estimate no more than a week old." He nudged the severed head with his foot, rolling it over. "Neck's been cauterised." He looked briefly back at Bastila as he said this.

Walking slowly and carefully a few more metres down the hall, Canderous stopped and grunted again. "And here we have some blood." He indicated great rusty brown streaks and swirling patterns spattered across the stonework. "A lot of it too. So not all lightsaber work." He took another few paces forward. "And a severed finger, wedged tight between two paving stones. Nice." Another glance back at Bastila. "Looks like an honest-to-goodness Iridorian slaughter-dance."

Which perhaps went some small way to explaining the lack of a Sith military presence. They were all dead.

Lieutenant Jansa had moved close to Canderous, her small, slight frame almost childlike next to his bulk. "Perhaps they turned on themselves," she said quietly. "There's something about this place . . . I don't know. It gets inside your head."

Bastila choked back a laugh, which she doubted would be well received. Rather an understatement, to say the least. It was all too easily imagine someone – particularly someone who embraced the darker side of their nature – succumbing to the surrounding taint as time passed, sanity slowly warping and cracking under the strain.

"And then, after killing each other, they cleaned up the mess?" Canderous asked, ever practical.

Jansa glared at him. "You call this clean?"

"Well there sure as hell ain't enough body parts to go with the blood."

"Maybe them vornskr ate 'em," one of the commandos suggested sourly.

In the end, the mystery of the missing bodies was solved soon enough.

At the end of the hallway, a large, vaulted chamber opened out before them. Dead in the centre of this was some kind of well – or perhaps, if you were inclined to morbidity, a sacrifice pit. They didn't need to look to find out that this was where the bodies had been dumped. The smell gave that away clearly enough from a distance of at least ten metres.

As Canderous shone a flashlight beam down, briefly illuminating the pit's contents, Jansa and one of the commandos stumbled away gagging. Bastila found it a struggle not to join them, her throat clenching spasmodically. The brief glimpse she'd received was the sort thing to burn itself indelibly into a person's nightmares.

And she had more than enough in the way of nightmares to be going on with already.

"Someone's still alive here," Canderous stated matter-of-factly as the flashlight beam snapped off. "Someone had to drag them here, and I'm not figuring the vornskr would feel the need."

Bastila nodded, images of what she'd seen in the pit still playing behind her eyes.

"You don't reckon they'd have gone? You're hardly going sit tight on top of that lot." That was Tasker.

Always assuming that the person or persons hadn't simply killed themselves, Bastila thought darkly. It was that kind of place.

"Best assume not, eh? That way we don't get bitten on the ass."

Bastila turned away from the pit, ostensibly studying some of the chamber's baroque décor. She wasn't really seeing it, and her hands gripped the hilt of her lightsaber tightly.

"Anything here seem like what we're looking for?"

She jolted slightly as Canderous ghosted silently up behind her. He could move incredibly quietly for such a big man. After a pause, she shook her head, a frown furrowing her brow. "I think . . . the brief image I got from him was something . . . spherical . . . circular. And a smaller chamber than this one." The Sith's crowned head had almost scraped the ceiling.

"Over here." Another of the commandos – a quiet, serious looking man called Antilles – called out, several minutes later. He sounded shaky. "Found something."

He was standing in the opening of what initially appeared to be nothing more than another alcove, though this one was absent of statues. It went back a few metres, and then turned at a right angle to the left into another passageway that was almost invisible from the outside.

As she looked at it, Bastila had a memory flash of something she'd glimpsed in the Sith's memories, superimposing itself over the opening, and stopped, staggering.

Canderous caught her arm. "This it?"

She nodded, unable to speak.

The passage led to another chamber, much smaller than the main one. Bastila experienced a profound sense of déjà vu as she stepped inside it, as if she'd been here before, though rationally she knew it wasn't her own memories she was experiencing.

The ceiling was about eight feet above the ground. Even given the crown, that would put the Sith as similar in stature to Malak. Bastila's lips compressed into a line.

The chamber was dominated by a strange, semi-spherical device that somewhat resembled an astrolabe, slightly over metre in diameter. It was made of some kind of dull, bronze-like metal, and was heavily streaked in pale blue-green verdigris. On the wall immediately behind it was a smooth stone disk, geometric patterns of Sith characters scribed around its rim.

"So what the hell is it? Another damned star map?" Canderous did not sound impressed.

If it was, it certainly wasn't anything of Rakatan design, Bastila thought. The technology looked far too crudely mechanical for that, and there was no sense of any kind of power stored within it. As far as she could tell, it was just . . . metal.

Jansa had stepped forward, peering at the contraption in a way that made her look almost comically myopic. "Not a star map," she said at length. "I think it might be the map of a planetary surface though – a portion of it, at least. See these things connected to the arms here?"

The objects she indicated resembled parts of the outer shell of a globe, though if that was there case there appeared to be a number of them missing. "Maybe they're supposed to represent tectonic plates or something. If you look closely, you can see lines and patterns scribed on their outer surface. It's difficult to make out because of all the wear . . .." Then, excitedly. "And that edge there? It matches that one way back up here almost perfectly. They're meant to fit together; I'm sure, forming one complete design."

Muttering to herself, Jansa dropped to her hands and knees, crawling beneath the strange not-astrolabe. Her voice rose abruptly in excited pitch. "There are six tracks down here, all with Sith numerals scribed around them. I think . . . I think if we know the correct numbers for each track, we move it round like so . . ." Abruptly the contraption made a harsh squeaking noise, and one of its constituent plates jerked round a fraction. "And everything fits together."

Bastila wandered past the strange contraption and looked up at the disk on the wall. The patterns of characters inscribed around the rim were arranged in six pairs, though she wasn't able to read them.

That was significant somehow . . .

"Do you think that these could represent galactic coordinates?" Velta Laska gurgled from behind her. Suddenly she felt very stupid indeed.

Jansa was abruptly crowding in close too. In her enthusiasm, she seemed transformed. "Yes, yes. Of course." Abruptly she pulled a datapad from her pocket and began feverishly typing something into it. A moment later came a muffled curse. "That can't be right. If they're galactic co-ordinates it indicates a point somewhere beyond the galactic rim."

Velta Laska leant over Jansa's shoulder. "You're using Coruscant as the zero point. This is ancient Sith, correct? Probably predating contact with the Republic, yes? It would use what – I'm sorry, I'm not so familiar with Sith culture – perhaps Korriban instead?"

"No, no." Jansa shook her head. "Korriban is unlikely. Although it's the best-known centre of the Sith among the general Republic populace, it was never actually the Sith capital at any point I'm aware of. I . . . I think Ziost might be a more likely bet, though of course, if I had a better idea of the exact time-period . . ." she trailed off, keying rapidly again.

A pause, then, "Damn, still just empty space according to this. I suppose it was too easy to be true"

"It's here." Bastila said softly.

"Pardon?" Both Jansa and the Ithorian looked round at her. They seemed to have forgotten there were other people present.

"The co-ordinates will be based on here. Dromund Kaas."

"Well, if you say so." Jansa sounded doubtfully.

A moment later, she was shaking her head again. "Nice try, but still empty. See?"

"The axis of alignment you're using is wrong," Canderous interrupted shortly, his voice contemptuous. "You're still using the Republic system. Honestly, so self-centred, you can't see the meteors for the asteroids . . .. The Mandalorians always used a different alignment method – until fairly recently at least. I'm told we copied it from our early contact with the Sith."

Jansa's face took on a musing look and she tilted her head to one side. "Let's see . . .."

A couple of seconds later and the datapad displayed a star system.

It wasn't anywhere that Bastila was immediately familiar with. Jansa and Velta Laska seemed similarly nonplussed. It felt ever so slightly anticlimactic.

Canderous didn't share their reaction. "Shaft me sideways with a Baragwin repeater," he muttered as he crowded in behind them. "So Organa was right about Hoth being a decoy."

At the looks directed his way, he leant forward and tapped the datapad's screen impatiently. "Daragba. Revan set up a sizable Republic base there during the Mandalorian War. Force knows why. It's the ass end of nowhere, and of precisely zero strategic value – at least until he stuck his troops there. We tried and failed to obliterate it, sure that it must have been some kind of brilliant stratagem. The bastard was like that – made you search for deep, hidden meanings when all he was doing was picking his nose."

Bastila didn't like the sound of that at all, but the fact was it fit. Indeed, given the vision, it made perfect sense. Sort of. Of course, the key question of what Revan had gone to Daragba to discover remained unanswered. She couldn't see one thing though. "Apologies if I'm missing something, but how exactly does this confirm Organa's suspicions?"

"Zoom out a bit and look at its position. It's three sectors over from Hoth. You can bet that if Republic command tries to retake Hoth and reinforce along the trade spine, this is one of the places they'll draw the ships and troops from."

Opening Daragba up to attack itself . . .

Her thoughts were interrupted as a voice spoke from behind them, smooth and courteous. "Oh, very well done, all of you." Half-mocking applause echoed through the chamber. "I believe it took my Lord Malefic in the region of three hours to figure all that out."

Everybody turned around, reaching for their weapons.

-s-s-

Yuthura sat cross-legged in the shadow of a boulder near the summit of a low hill and waited. She was alone, no sign of anyone at all in the vicinity.

Night had closed in fully several hours ago. This world had no moon, so it was very dark despite the clear sky. She could feel herself shivering constantly, and if she stopped clenching her teeth so tightly, she knew that they would chatter. Her head tails were drawn in close to her skull, wrapping together under her chin.

Although in many respects hardier than humans – able to go much longer without water, and, with their multiple stomachs, easily capable of digesting and extracting nutrition from sources that a human would find inedible or even outright poisonous – Twi'leks were not well adapted to the cold. The complete lack of body hair didn't much help for starters, and the additional surface area of exposed skin her lekku gave to lose heat through was an aggravating factor.

At least the boulder sheltered her somewhat from the bitter wind. She glanced down at the chronometer around her wrist, which also displayed the current temperature. A few degrees below freezing.

She sneered at herself. Pathetic. What would you be like on Hoth or Arkania?

Part of her was still halfway inclined to light a fire – it would hardly draw more attention to her than she was already doing deliberately – but she stayed herself. If the Sith saw she was waiting for them in advance they'd be that much better prepared, and her chances of doing what she needed would be that much lower.

Lower then zero?

She ignored the cynical inner voice. Instead she made herself concentrate harder on what she was doing, sending tiny probing feelers of Force out towards the Sith lines, just significant enough that she was sure they would be noticed, but not so obvious that it would look too blatant. She rubbed her hands together and wiggled her toes inside her boots to keep circulation up. Being half numb when they caught-up to her wasn't going to help.

Tamar's plan for them to try to go north until they were outside the jaws of the Sith trap had failed abysmally. The terrain had simply been too rough and mazy for them to make good enough time, and a blind turn up a dead end gorge, forcing nearly half an hour of backtracking, had killed their chances stone dead.

It was then that she'd made her decision.

Marshall had, of course, argued the toss, blatantly accusing her of taking the first available opportunity to betray them and run back to her old masters. With neither the time, nor the inclination to debate the matter, she'd simply reached into his head and forcibly persuaded him to see things her way.

As a Sith, she wouldn't have thought twice about doing such a thing, so maybe the guilt she'd felt over it meant she'd changed more than she sometimes thought. Although obviously not so much as to stop herself doing it entirely.

The fact that the action would draw the Sith even more certainly to their location had, at that point, actually become an advantage. By the time Marshall came to his senses again a few minutes later, the die was already irrevocably cast.

It felt like she'd been here for hours now. During that time, she'd questioned her own motives extensively, but still hadn't managed to dissuade herself from this path.

In the end, it came down to a starkly brutal choice. Either all of them could be captured and – almost certainly – killed by the Sith, and the data core they'd gone to all that trouble stealing would be lost, content unknown. Or she could try to lure the Sith away from the others, giving them a chance – however small – at escaping.

It felt like a stupid plan. Cretinous. And when it came down to it, she was scared. She knew well enough what was going to happen if the Sith captured her.

So just make sure you're not captured, hey?

Yeah, easy enough, that. The shudder that passed through her this time had nothing to do with the cold. She could only come up with one way to avoid capture, and it didn't exactly fill her with joy.

For the first time in a long, long time, she'd allowed herself to start making attachments to other people. For the first time in a long time, she'd allowed herself to have things that she truly feared losing.

In the end though, paradoxically, that had made the decision easier rather than more difficult.

Yuthura made a hissing noise through her teeth. If she was going to do this, she had to focus, and fight purely and simply to win. No doubt. No distraction. No regrets.

She sensed the Sith forces reach the start of the gully that would lead them the last half mile, straight to her position. Standing up, she stretched, working the stiffness from her limbs. The cold suddenly felt a very distant and trivial thing. One hand went to a pocket, clutching the small remote control device it contained. The other grasped the hilt of her lightsaber, though she didn't ignite it. No sense in making herself too easy a target.

Her heart tripped over rapidly and she could feel sweat forming on her brow, though the cold wind dried it instantly. She stared down towards the gully, counting the seconds.

Sorry Tamar, I wish that . . .

Sighing to herself, she let thought die away half formed. He would either understand, or he wouldn't.

Now. She pressed a button on the remote.

A fraction of a second later came the sound of six small, and from this distance rather weedy, detonations. She heard panicked shouts. Through the Force, she sensed pain, several lives extinguishing in a flash. Felt through the Force, the loss of a Sith life was exactly the same as the loss of any other life.

Gritting her teeth, she forced away pity.

Several blaster bolts, fired in panic, lit up the sky. A moment later there was a sharp cracking noise, followed by a dull rumbling as a portion of the rock face collapsed, sending a miniature avalanche cascading down into the gully, right in the middle of the Sith force and effectively cutting it in two. More screams and shouts of panic rang out.

That was . . . unexpected. The explosions had been mainly intended to confuse and distract; to slow. By luck – by the will of the Force perhaps – she'd managed to pick a weak spot.

For a moment, she pondered whether to run. Perhaps that was enough to buy her the time she'd sought to gain.

But then she felt them coming. The dog pack. There were eight of them, closing fast, filled with dark power and furious rage as the charged ahead of their troops, baying for the kill.

That drew a savage, scary smile. Normally they travelled in packs of four, one to a legion. Which meant her efforts had drawn an extra pack – away from Tamar; away from the others.

They reached the bottom of the hill, lightsabers igniting, harshly glowing red beacons in the darkness. She watched them as they spread out around the base of the hill, seeking to cut off any route of escape.

"You cannot run from us, Revan." The voice was harsh, almost guttural. "And you cannot fight us all. Surrender, and maybe we will show mercy. Save yourself some pain . . ."

Yuthura snorted to herself, blocking out the words. But if they thought she was Tamar, then all to the good.

One of the Dark Jedi near the speaker started to edge up the slope. There was a brilliant flash of light and a resounding bang as he trod on one of the frag mines she'd concealed in the scree. He was thrown backwards, at least twenty feet through the air, one of his legs torn off at the knee. By the time he slammed, broken and twisted, into the ground, he was dead.

The leader trailed off, gaping. She sensed the others' momentary shock and disarray.

Before they could recover, she moved. A single Force jump sent her flying down the slope, straight towards the leader. She didn't ignite her lightsaber until the last possible instant, and he didn't become aware of her until much, much too late. As he desperately attempted to adjust his guard, she sliced unerringly through his neck.

His head bounced away from his body, which appeared to take several seconds to realise it was dead, finally slumping gracelessly forward in ridiculous slow motion.

As she landed, she snapped the lightsaber off again immediately. Taking a frag grenade from her belt, she rolled it, bouncing and clattering, towards one of the others.

The noise meant he was able to evade it, but when the grenade went off, the brilliant flash it caused destroyed the night vision of all those who where looking in that direction – which was everyone except Yuthura and a couple of Dark Jedi around the other side of the hill.

Taking advantage, she sent forth distracting waves of fear and confusion through the Force, spinning away from her position – a lithe and deadly ghost in the darkness. A short bladed vibro-knife came to hand from a sheath in the top of one of her boots as she darted behind another of them – a woman this time. Yuthura opened up her throat, already gone again by the time she collapsed, gurgling horribly.

Three down in seconds. She felt a kind of grim, icy calm.

The fourth was slightly more alert, spinning and raising an arm across his throat as she came up behind him. Her vibro-knife pierced his forearm, wedging tight between radius and ulna, and getting yanked from her grasp.

He reeled back, swinging at her clumsily with his lightsaber. Although not much of a threat in itself, it did force her to ignite her own lightsaber again, giving away her position and relinquishing the main advantage she'd gained in a single stroke.

Another of the Sith – a huge, heavily scarred and tattooed Zabrak – decided not to waste time with niceties and filled the air around the two combatants with a storm of crackling Force lightning. His supposed colleague took the blunt of the blast as Yuthura rolled agilely away. He collapsed in a charred and smoking heap.

Then, teeth bared, the Zabrak charged at her like a marauding bull Reek, twin red lightsaber blades flashing.

She parried adroitly as she came to her feet again, her movements a graceful and deadly dance. She was forced to fall back before the Zabrak's superior reach and strength though, all too aware that she couldn't afford to be drawn into a lengthy duel, with the three remaining Sith closing on them fast.

His momentum and fury gave her no room to even counterattack, and her arms began to ache with each parry she made to his brutally powerful thrusts. Coolly –calmly – she reached past him with her mind, gasping hold of a loose rock and yanking it down the slope.

It landed directly on top of another of the mines she'd laid.

The Zabrak reacted instinctively to the explosion, while she was fully expecting it. As his defences wavered, she skewered him precisely through the chest. The look in his eyes was almost bemused as he abruptly found he didn't have the strength to lift his limbs any more. Then he fell, face down in the dirt.

The seconds she'd lost proved costly though.

As she tried to Force jump back up the slope to buy herself time and put herself back on firmer footing, a Force wave slammed into her, knocking her flying. She slammed into the ground hard enough to blast all the breath from her lungs. Too winded to stop herself, she tumbled and bounced back down the side of the hill, before finally crashing to a halt.

Sharp pain flared in her right arm and, at some point in her fall, she'd lost her lightsaber. It lay almost thirty feet away, still glowing brilliant purple.

Grimly, battered and abraded, she hauled herself upright. Immediately, before she could even begin to brace herself, another Force wave slammed into her, knocking her violently back down like a giant, pummelling fist. Dimly she was aware of the three Sith closing in, though the brilliant red of their lightsabers was the only thing she could make out of them. A third wave pummelled her; a fourth; a fifth, ripping all trace of her defences apart.

Like a broken rag doll, she bounced against a boulder bigger than she was, feeling sharp, agonising pain as her ribs cracked.

When the sixth wave hit, consciousness finally faded entirely.

-s-s-

"Interesting, don't you think?" The figure, at the moment nothing more than a gaunt silhouette, made a waving gesture. Immediately Bastila sensed a massive flow of darkside Force energy, not just from him but from the entire temple around them too – a titanic black tidal wave.

It crashed over them, slicing through her hasty attempts at constructing a defence as if it wasn't there. She found herself unable to move, or act in any other way, glued motionless to the spot. From the small amount she could see in the periphery of her vision, it appeared that everyone else around her was similarly afflicted.

It wasn't like being caught in a stasis field – that had a hard, brittle sense to it, as if the air around you had turned into a casing of glass. Instead, it felt more like her brain had been suddenly and thoroughly disconnected from her body, none of the commands she was trying to send to it getting through. Oddly, it wasn't in any sense frightening. Indeed, she felt almost relaxed, liberated of the need to take any action or make any decision. In fact, it was somehow . . . pleasant.

Part of her recognised that the lethargy and inertia were all part of what had been done to her, but despite that, it was very difficult to rouse herself, or make herself care.

"They say that Bailor Dromund created this chamber without ever setting foot on the planet it points the way to, guided by the Force as he sought out the means to destroy Marka Ragnos. I have to confess, I find all this ancient Sith history fascinating."

The figure stepped forward, out of the shadows. Something deep inside Bastila flinched, though it didn't come close to reaching the surface.

He resembled the dark reflection she had fought – grey and greasy, veins showing like a web of black corruption just beneath the surface of his skin. In him though, the decay had gone much further than it had in her double. It almost looked as if his flesh had started to wither away, his frame unnaturally gaunt with every tendon showing starkly. His hair was no more than a few wispy, colourless strands clinging to his naked scalp. Crusted yellow eyes shone with a deeply unhealthy gleam in the half-light.

The scariest thing though, was that there were still a few traces about him that indicated he was a young man – probably not much older than she was.

The disfiguring effects of the darkside were hardly an unknown phenomenon. What wasn't known, however, was what triggered it. It certainly didn't seem to afflict all, or even most, of those who embraced the darkside. It didn't seem to be tied to how powerful, or far into the darkness a person had progressed. Neither Revan nor Malak had ever shown any sign of that kind of disfiguration, for example, and they'd both been Dark Lords of the Sith – supposedly as black as they came. Exar Kun was supposed to have remained hale and vigorous right until the bitter and bloody last. And as with this case, it didn't even seem to be contingent on age.

Perhaps it was like a form of cancer, she thought as she looked at his grey, hollow-cheeked face. Like how some people could smoke twenty death-sticks a day their entire life and still live until they were ninety, while others would be struck down with lung tumours before they the age of thirty.

Or perhaps it was something far more fundamental than that.

"Dromund Kaas. The House of Dromund." The smooth, almost silken tones of his voice were distinctly creepy, originating as they did from such a rotten and tainted looking source. "Not many are given the honour of an entire world named after them."

He walked past Bastila, out of her field of view. She caught a whiff of something sickly sweet hanging in the air around him, lingering unpleasantly in her nostrils.

"It's surprising how few have heard of Bailor Dromund these days." The voice took on a musing tone. "Or maybe not. Nobody, especially the Sith, remembers a loser. Once he was grand enough that he challenged the great and storied Marka Ragnos for rulership of the entire Sith empire, you know? He was defeated of course, but he escaped with his life, fleeing to this world in exile with those followers still loyal to him. This structure around us is the place he first landed. The first temple. All the others are but pale copies, made by Dromund's followers after his death. Of course, the swamp swallowed all them long ago, just like it swallows everything." A brief, considering pause. "Except for their guard dogs, but even they are something different now . . ."

Finally, he trailed off. Bastila listened to the sound of his footsteps close behind her. She couldn't so much as turn her head.

"One thing has always intrigued me. Was it the nature of this place that sent Dromund mad, or was it Dromund's madness that caused this place to become as it is today?" Another pause. He stopped directly behind her. His breath, close to the back of her neck, bore a faint wheezing note. "I suppose it matters not. One thing I do know is that Dromund was terrified that Ragnos would track him down and kill him – utterly obsessed by the notion. He spent all his last years in preparation, building his strength for a battle that never came.

"This place is his fortress. It acts as a sink of dark Force energy. You can feel it, can't you?" These words seemed to be aimed directly at her, the voice dropping conspiratorially. "It flows through the walls. He sacrificed scores of his followers in dark rituals, capturing their tortured essences and binding them to the statues that line the hallways and dot the surrounding swamp. Eternal sentinels and guards, and – if necessary – dark batteries from which he could draw strength. No, my dear, that wasn't just your imagination. And of course, you've all felt the disruption field yourselves. That's nothing mechanical – a simply miraculous feat . . .."

Again, he trailed off. He walked back round in front of her again. "But where are my manners? I do go on, don't I?" A mock sigh. "Please accept my apologies, but it seems so long since I had anyone to talk to. Perhaps we could take our conversation to less cramped and uncomfortable confines? Yes, I think we should."

With that he turned away, walking briskly back down the passageway. He raised a hand, snapping his fingers. Bastila found herself walking after him, despite having made no conscious effort to do so. It felt like her body no longer belonged to her, and she couldn't make her mind focus sufficiently to even begin to challenge it. The others followed along behind like a regiment of toy soldiers, all lined in formation.

They stopped again as soon as the reached the chamber with the sacrifice pit.

"There, isn't that better?" As Bastila breathed in and out, the foetor of decay was almost overpowering.

He stepped close to her again. "I must say, it's quite an honour to be in the presence of so famous a personage as Bastila Shan." He smiled. His teeth looked as grey as his skin, the surrounding gums almost black. "And but for a quirk of fate I suppose I might be calling you master now. Tell me, Lady Shan, how did you like the little surprise I prepared for you out in the swamp? I was quite impressed by the way you overcame it."

He tilted his head to one side, apparently waiting with interest for an answer. She couldn't so much as move her lips though. After about a minute of lingering silence a flicker of what looked liked annoyance passed across his face, though it turned quickly into a chuckle. He waved his hand across her face like a magician performing a conjuring trick. "Apologies. How absent-minded of me. You may speak now."

She cleared her throat. "I suppose, in a way, I should probably thank you."

He blinked, seemingly caught by surprise by her response. "Oh? I hadn't expected you to be quite so . . . magnanimous."

"It helped show me how pathetic I was being."

"Hmm." Bastila could tell he wasn't entirely pleased by her response, and he drew back from her a fraction. "You don't recognise me. Do you?"

"Should I?" She recalled his earlier comment about calling her master. "I suppose you were one of Malak's pets on the Star Forge." As Bastila spoke, she found that some of the lethargy that had gripped her earlier had faded. She strained with every ounce of willpower she had to make her body move, but she didn't manage so much as a finger twitch.

His response was a low chuckle. "I guess I've changed a bit since you last saw me. I don't quite have the same handsome good looks as then, and anyway, you would only have been fifteen."

She stared at him, struggling to see anything remotely familiar in his blasted visage.

"Don't you remember? Because I remember you very well. You slapped me when I tried to kiss you. Does that help ring any bells?"

Bastila felt the blood drain from her face. Briefly, another face superimposed itself over the cadaverous ruin in front of her – brash, bronzed and beautiful, framed by flowing blonde hair. Despite all the massive differences, the underlying bone structure seemed to match. "D-Derren?"

He smiled with a glee that looked strangely childlike. "At your service. I have to say the years have been kinder to you than they have to me . . ."

She wasn't really listening. She was just staring at him in a kind of shell-shocked semi-daze.

Derren Horvath had been a couple of years older than her, a seventeen year old Padawan when he'd followed Revan and Malak in disobeying the will of the Council by joining the fight against the Mandalorians – charming and with the cocky arrogance of someone who still deep down believes they are going to live forever. She remembered the face-slap incident all too clearly.

". . . Of course, it was all for a bet. A kiss from the perfect little ice princess." He smiled again, and scratched the tip of his nose. "I didn't really mind losing the bet, you know? Because I knew that you didn't slap me because you didn't want to be kissed. You slapped me precisely because you did want me to kiss you. You slapped me for puncturing that feelingless façade, and making you a little less the perfect Jedi."

"Looking at you now it seems I made a very good choice."

He snorted, but didn't really seem annoyed. "A choice not to feel, or live, or be a real person. The Jedi are afraid of real people – too complex, too unpredictable, too difficult to control and full of icky and chaotic emotions. What they want is drones; feelingless automata to unquestioningly serve their definition of duty and the so-called will of the Force. But we aren't meant to be like that. In time our 'imperfections' show through and we 'fall', or to be more accurate, we escape from their crushing tyranny of the spirit." A slow shake of his head. "Quite the number they did on you though, Bastila. Even after tasting freedom you still go crawling back."

"And you think what you've found is better somehow? When did you last look at yourself in the mirror?"

He smirked. "About the same time you did, I believe." He leant in close again. "You know, I think I'll take that kiss I didn't get before, for old times sake. I think you're going to struggle to slap me this time."

She couldn't flinch away, despite her desire to. His breath was hot on her face, sickly sweet attar of decay. She could practically taste the corruption on it, as if he was slowly rotting from the inside out. Ever so lightly, his lips brushed across hers . . .

And to her surprise he drew back, a strange flicker of something she didn't recognise showing in his dirty yellow eyes. "It's not as if there's anyone left to collect from on that bet anyway," he murmured. "I watched Sedona being pulverised by a Basilisk war droid. And I cut Ferris down myself." A smile, which she thought looked almost pained. "My final exam to gain entrance to the Sith ranks."

Bastila just stared at him, utterly silent.

"Strange how things turn out, isn't it? Six years ago neither of us would ever have foreseen anything remotely like this."

"It doesn't have to . . ."

Before she could finish, he whirled abruptly away from her. "Oh, stop fidgeting Mandalorian!" His voice was inhumanly loud, weirdly distorted and seeming to originate from more than just a single throat. Bastila saw him gesture – felt the dark Force flowing through the temple walls coil and gather at his command, before exploding through his body in a black wave.

She heard Canderous groan, followed by a crunching impact. A moment later and the groan turned into a startled exhalation. That was followed almost immediately by a dull, wet thud. Bastila wasn't able to turn her neck to see what had happened, but then, she didn't really need to.

Derren – it was still difficult to think of him as such – had pushed Canderous down the pit with the rest of the corpses.

He turned back to face her, slow and watchful. She could still sense the Force he'd drawn from the temple swirling around him in a vortex of vile, corrupting energy. His eyes seemed almost to shine with it. Whatever brief moment there had been between them – whatever tiny glimpse of humanity he'd let slip – was gone, locked deep away.

"Now, where were we?"

-s-s-

"They're turning back," Chinn murmured. "Withdrawing maybe."

After a short pause, he handed the nightvision binoculars across to Tamar. Tamar watched the scene grimly.

The best part of a kilometre away, he could see the top of the Sith assault walker that had been closing in on their position inexorably. It had turned through 180 degrees, and was retreating back down the shallow valley it had been advancing along. As he continued to watch, he caught glimpses of Sith troopers, scurrying like shiny, armour-plated ants in its shadow, also now apparently retreating.

Except they weren't.

The urgent freneticism of their movements suggested they weren't simply withdrawing from the field, the Republic fleet arriving to the rescue just in the nick of time. Instead, they reminded him of a hunting pack that had suddenly caught the scent of blood.

Something inside him tensed up. Yuthura.

He lowered the binoculars staring off at nothing.

What he felt was close to physical pain, and he struggled briefly to control his breathing. Breaking radio silence to issue a warning would only allow the Sith to zero in on her position all the more surely, as well as giving themselves away into the bargain. Trying to contact her via the Force was liable to have exactly the same effect.

Briefly he considered trying to create some kind of diversion or distraction, to draw the Sith back towards them. His instincts as a soldier reluctantly overrode his attempted rationalisations for this though. He had a care of duty to see all those with him safe. Risking himself was one thing. Risking all of them was entirely something else.

And he was only guessing. He told himself it was only a guess.

Finally, he turned away. His voice, when he spoke, was harsh, his knuckles clenched white around the binoculars. "Let's get moving. We're not out of this yet."

-s-s-

"This is purely idiotic. You're behaving like the villain in a bad holo-novel."

Consciousness returned slowly and painfully for Yuthura. The voice, from somewhere close by, scraped across her nerve endings like the jagged edges of a broken glass. Her head throbbed. Every indrawn breath caused pain to stab viciously through her side as her cracked ribs shifted. The tightness in her chest made it feel as if a heavy weight was pressing down on her.

"You're questioning my authority, Seldach?" The answering voice was female. It was familiar to Yuthura, but she couldn't immediately place it in this context.

Her arms were pulled up, above her head. The right one was a mass of dull, throbbing pain. As she cautiously tried to shift her position that pain flared sharply to life, and she had to bite down hard to stop herself from crying out. Broken she concluded, snapped along the same fracture that Tamar had inadvertently inflicted on Coruscant. Also manacled, tight and unyielding metal bonds cold around her wrists.

Despite the fact that she must have flinched, no one immediately called out that she was awake, as she half expected.

"She should be back with the fleet, inside an interrogation cell!" The first, grating voice again. "We have neither the proper equipment to restrain her, nor the expertise to interrogate her."

"Speak for yourself," the oh so familiar female voice purred. Not being able to place it was akin to a maddening itch between her shoulder blades. "I assure you that I have all the skills necessary to extract exactly what I need."

"Stop letting delusions of grandeur go to your head, Lashowe." A tiny, convulsive shiver passed up the length of Yuthura's body. She was lying on something that felt a lot like rough, unyielding rock, tilted at an angle of about thirty degrees. So that was why the voice was familiar. "You're only in charge because she killed both Nagara and Vogun. You're so far out of your depth here it isn't even funny."

"He shouldn't speak to you like that." The words belonged to a third-party, heavy and ponderous. "You want me to make him stop?"

"Oh, don't worry yourself, Tregan. I can deal with this worm." Although Yuthura couldn't see it, she could picture the expression on Lashowe's blandly beautiful face well enough. That cruel, too avid smile; the glint of cunning that wasn't nearly as clever or surreptitious as it liked to think. "He's about to leave us in peace. Aren't you Seldach?"

Yuthura heard a hissing, indrawn breath and risked opening her eyes a fraction. Instead of a detention block, she appeared to be in some kind of cave, presumably not too far from where she'd been captured. Portable electric lights illuminated a trio of dark silhouettes about twenty feet away, although she was still surrounded by darkness.

"This violates procedure totally. Stop being such an . . ."

"Procedure?" Lashowe's voice was sneering as it cut Seldach off. Attempting to keep her breathing shallow, and consequently less painful, Yuthura tried testing her bonds again by pulling on them with her unbroken left arm. They held tight, having no more than a couple of inches of give in them. She couldn't strain her neck enough to actually see them. "Listen to yourself. We are Sith. We aren't bound by such petty . . ."

"Explain that to Lord Auza."

Very, very cautiously, Yuthura began to reach above her head with her mind, probing at the manacles, and the chains they connected to, with the tiniest, most surreptitious touches of the Force.

Lashowe snorted. "We were ordered to find Revan, remember? We have, at most, 24 hours to do so. Then Republic reinforcements arrive from Cybloc and chase us off. Any useful information we can extract from her therefore has, at best, a 24-hour lifespan. And you want to waste that time by slavishly following procedure? Do you want to be the one to stand before Lord Auza and explain how we let Revan slip through our grasp because we failed to show the slightest hint of initiative?"

The locking mechanism of the manacles was electronic; perhaps come sort of code sequence. Yuthura quickly determined that she wasn't going to be able to spring them using the Force. Of course not.

She took a deep breath, struggling to retain her calm and stay focused on this one immediate problem. So maybe . . .. As rapidly as she could without drawing immediate attention to herself, she began to manipulate the Force into making the spot where the manacles connected to the chains oxidise at a far faster rate than normal.

"Well, do you Seldach? Because if you do, you're going to end up just like she is. A mind-wiped slave wearing an explosive collar. Act like a slave. Be one."

Seldach didn't deign to respond. Instead, he whirled on heel and stalked out of there.

"Follow him," Lashowe, snapped peremptorily at Tregan. "Keep an eye on what he's up."

When he too was gone, she turned and started to walk towards Yuthura. Yuthura let her grip on the Force dissipate.

For a time Lashowe simply walked slowly around her, saying nothing. The only thing Yuthura could hear was the soft, steady sound of her footsteps, round and round. Build anticipation. The anticipation of pain breaks a person far more surely than pain itself. That had been Uthar Wynn. Keep the prisoner off balance, and be unpredictable. Routine, however awful, is survivable. Chaos and constant uncertainty are not.

She knew all about Sith interrogation methods very well indeed. In a strange way, the part of her that was still managing to remain calm found it interesting to view them from the other end.

The footsteps came to a halt. Lashowe had always shown an aptitude – and even enthusiasm – in this particular field. "To think there was a time I used to be afraid of you."

Yuthura said nothing. Lashowe leant in close, grabbing hold of her chin, gloved fingers digging painfully into her jaw as she tilted it back. "Now I see how powerless and pathetic you truly are."

Something about Lashowe's attitude suggested to Yuthura that she was still trying to convince herself of that fact, though. She simply returned Lashowe's gaze impassively. Lashowe responded by backhanding her hard across the face, snapping her head violently to one side.

Abruptly she felt buzzing mental probes assailing her, swarming like angry flies as they attempted to find some kind of gap in her mental defences that they could exploit. She held them off. If there was one area of the Force she had become truly proficient at as a Sith, it was protecting her mind against outside interference, and compared to some, Lashowe was strictly an amateur.

The probes died away.

Yuthura swallowed, lubricating her throat so that when she tried to speak it would come out as something more authoritative than a croak. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, her lips already swelling from the blow she'd received. "Just so we're clear – and you don't waste your time unnecessarily – I have no knowledge of Revan's whereabouts. I'm sure you're going to spend your time torturing me anyway, but I thought it would only be polite to establish the futility of it up front."

Another backhanded blow left her head spinning. Lashowe leant in close, her eyes seeming to glitter. "You lie. We sensed at least two Jedi in the vicinity, of a strength that is hardly ordinary."

Yuthura gave her a patient look. "Firstly, I'm not a Jedi." Which was true enough. "And secondly, the other Force user you sensed is Jolee Bindo." Which, even by the loosest interpretation of truth possible, wasn't.

The third backhanded slap surprised her somewhat by not arriving.

"Truly transparent." Lashowe sneered, although the sudden doubt was clear. "We know that Revan was on board that frigate. Only two Force users of any strength were detected on the surface of this world. You are one, therefore Revan is the other."

Yuthura sighed impatiently. "It's no wonder the Sith are losing this war, is it? For all we accuse the Jedi of being hidebound, we're just as bad. There were at least six Force users on the frigate, including myself. I was separated from Revan on board. He made it to an operational docking bay in time and took a spaceship. I did not. He could have reached anywhere within several hundred light years of this point by now. All I do know is that this is the one place in the galaxy where he definitively is not."

It was a punch to her torso this time. The pain from her cracked ribs almost made her black out. Her mouth worked goldfish-like as she struggled to drag breath back into her lungs. It felt like a rusty saw blade was being dragged through her side as her chest heaved.

"Well, like you so perceptively said, I'm going to spend my time torturing you anyway." Lashowe smiled unpleasantly. "And oh yes, I will enjoy it. Perhaps during that time you'll come up with an alternative story to amuse me with?" She drew a vibro-knife from the belt of her grey and black robes. As she switched it on, its edge became a blur. Holding it up and tilting it, its blade caught the light, flashing brilliantly.

Yuthura finally managed to draw enough breath to speak. "I'm sorry."

Lashowe stopped short. "Sorry?"

Sorry for helping turn you into this, for all you sought it out with such fervour. She didn't say that though.

"What are you sorry for?" More insistent this time, and she could feel the edge of furious anger within her – dark and flickering traceries of Force hanging on the air around her, ready to lash out.

"Sorry that you're going to be dead, within five years at the outside."

"And you're going to be begging for death in five minutes at the outside. But you're not going to get it. Once you're too broken to be of further use, my lord Auza has a pretty collar lined up for you to wear." The vibro-knife hovered about an inch from Yuthura's cheek, a distracting blur in the corner of her eye.

"Still too ready to trust in the flattery of others," Yuthura continued, knowing that she was playing a very dangerous game indeed. "Ruled by your vanities and insecurities, needing to be worshipped and adored. Those other two – the ones supposedly under your command. Already they manipulate you so easily between them."

Lashowe snorted contemptuously. "Seldach is an idiot, too timid and staid to be a proper Sith . . ."

"But it's his friend, Tregan, who's the dangerous one. The one who's got you fooled."

Lashowe blinked. She covered her surprise quickly. But not quickly enough for someone swimming in these firaxa shark infested waters. Five years, if you're very, very lucky. Yuthura's thoughts were tinged with sadness. "I have Tregan wrapped around my little finger. He would do absolutely anything for me." A residue of doubt punctured her smirk though.

Yuthura gave her a pitying look. "You're an attractive woman. I doubt he finds it too much of a hardship to keep the pretence of servitude up, given the . . . rewards. For now at least. And he has Seldach to draw your suspicions and paranoia away from him. He can't really be as stupid as he seems and still have made it through a Sith apprenticeship, can he?"

"Shut up!" Lashowe grasped one of Yuthura's head tails tightly, twisting it and yanking it down hard.

The pain was excruciating and it was a struggle to prevent herself from crying out. She gritted her teeth and tried to take some small comfort that her words had found their intended target. If she lived long enough to be able to exploit that.

The flickering edge of the vibro-blade touched her cheek, cutting shallowly but not enough to impart more than a light stinging sensation. "I've heard that a Twi'lek's lekku are very important; that they have more blood vessels and nerve-endings than almost any other part of your body, and can give both great pleasure . . ." Lashowe stroked the head tail she still gripped crudely. "Or great pain." Her grip tightened, vice-like. "I've even heard it said that a Twi'lek's deepest and most basic memories are stored within their cells. Is that true?"

The grip relented slightly. Yuthura met Lashowe's gaze wordlessly, able to feel a droplet of blood sliding down her face like a hot tear from the cut on her cheek.

The knife moved away from her cheek, out of her field of view. "If you beg for me prettily enough, I might leave you one of them instead of amputating both."

Yuthura felt the tip of Lashowe's knife touch halfway along the lekku she was still holding, no more firmly than it had touched her cheek. But where she had scarcely felt anything before, here it burned like a drop of molten steel spilt on her skin. She struggled not to flinch; to twist away; to thrash. Called on all the pain suppression and calming techniques she knew. Serenity . . .

Except she remembered Seela Vek, lying in a broken heap on the floor of her cell, sobbing endlessly, her sanity gone with her lekku – a woman who had survived months of Omeesh's abuses, shattered irrevocably in an instant by one casual act of mutilation. It was an image that would haunt her always, and for all the physical and mental abuses she had endured in her past, it left a part of her terrified. To be so utterly broken in a way that it was impossible to resist . . .

Her jaw clamped tight. Let a single crack show in your defences and the Sith had ways of widening it into an abyss. Pretending to beg might not seem much, but if you begged once, you would be made to beg again. And again. And again. And each time you would end up relinquishing a little more ground to your interrogator, until there was no ground left.

As the silence lengthened, the pressure of the knife-blade increased and it cut deeper, penetrating the tough layers of muscle fibre, blood welling up copiously. Yuthura could feel sweat pouring off her as she struggled not to scream.

Someone walked into the cave. Yuthura didn't hear their approach until they were nearly on top of them.

"Lady Lashowe, my apologies for . . .

Lashowe whirled away. The abrupt cessation of pain left Yuthura gasping. "What is it, you imbecile? Can't you see I'm busy?"

"Admiral Gredthe, my lady. Asking for . . . for you. If it wasn't important I wouldn't have . . ."

As they left her alone again, Yuthura took a deep breath as she tried to suppress her shaking, and resumed surreptitiously channelling whisper fine threads of Force to weaken her bonds.

-s-s-

"So, nowadays you're a lackey for Darth Malefic are you?" Bastila struggled to keep the desperation out of her voice.

Derren Horvath stopped and looked around slowly. In front of him, arranged like waxwork combatants, two of the Republic commandos – Tasker and Antilles – stood motionless, apparently poised to plunge their vibro-swords through each other's torsos. She could see sweat pouring down the side of Antilles' face, his eyes bulging wildly.

"Didn't I stop you speaking?" There was vague irritation in his voice. "Obviously not, it seems. How very . . . absentminded of me." He smiled slightly as he looked at her. "Hardly a lackey, my dear. For the moment my orders are to follow the Great Lord Malefic."

"Your orders?"

Internally her thoughts were not on the conversation, instead occupied with trying to locate the strange inner voice she'd experienced several times before. Zikl, it's you, isn't it? Part of her was annoyed at taking so long to work that out. I . . . I need your help.

There was no response, as there had been no response out in the swamp.

Derren sighed and shook his head. "Unimaginatively tedious as the man unfortunately is. I mean really, even his schemes of conquest are second hand, based on vague misunderstandings of Darth Revan's old goals. It's almost pitiable." His eyes refocused from whatever distant place they'd drifted off too. "But such are my true master's wishes, and for now one obeys."

"Your true master? You mean Darth Auza then." She was well aware of the civil war going on for control of the Sith, and the two main factions in it.

Zikl, I know you're in there! Please! It was like shouting into a vast, empty, echoing vault, and inwardly she felt cold. Perhaps his silence meant that he had regained consciousness, the fragile connection between them gone. Or perhaps . . .

A contemptuous snort cut the grim thought off, half formed. "Oh, please, Bastila. Do me a little more credit than that. I follow the true Lord of the Sith – and I don't, of course, mean Revan."

Finally, a voice answered her, confused and lost and very, very weak. I . . . I . . . Yes, Zikl. That sounds right. A long pause. Bastila?

Yes, Bastila. Part of her was dismayed by how weak and confused the voice sounded, barely there at all. It didn't contain any hint of the confidence of before, steering her gently towards the right path. Something, she sensed, had changed drastically.

It's difficult to cling on. I should be somewhere else now. It's pulling me. So difficult. I'm sorry . . . for letting you down.

Letting me down?

The council put us together for a purpose, to help each other fulfil our potential. But I was too trapped within my timidity . . . And now I don't know if I have enough of anything left to be of any use . . .

"And who is this true lord?" She tried to sound conversational, aware that she'd been silent for too long. Keeping two entirely separate conversations going concurrently was not a skill she'd had much chance to practice.

"A very dangerous and cunning creature." His teeth bared in a grin. "I have learned well at my Lord's hand."

I have to find a way of breaking this paralysis. It irked – and shamed – her that, while Canderous had almost managed to break free of the hold over him, she'd made absolutely no headway against it at all. That the Mandalorian could be so much more mentally disciplined than her . . .

His attention is fully on keeping you trapped. He sees you as the threat, and keeps most of his attention focused purely on keeping you restrained. He underestimated Canderous, and didn't pay him enough mind. It is no weakness on your part. Zikl sound slightly less ephemeral this time.

"Still just a lackey though," she managed to say aloud.

Derren spread his hands. "For now. We all need to be lackeys at times, even Sith. Soon though . . . I think I will have drawn enough power and knowledge from this place for that to change. Already I have absorbed nearly a dozen of the statue-bonded shadows into myself. When I've absorbed them all I will be ready to drain the power from the temple itself. And then . . ." He winked at her.

She stared at him in dull horror. "You've . . .?" The whole idea of touching that darkness, let alone embracing it voluntarily left her utterly aghast. "Can't you see what you're doing to yourself?"

He tilted his head to one side, temporarily resembling a gaunt and oversized black carrion bird in his shabby robes. His yellow eyes seemed briefly nonplussed. "One must make sacrifices," he murmured, almost to himself. Then, more firmly, "I am transcending the bounds of mere flesh."

"You told me yourself what happened to Bailor Dromund!" she snapped at him. "There'll always be that little bit more of it to 'absorb'; a bit more power to consume. Except you're not the one doing the absorbing and consuming, are you? Look at yourself. You're falling apart. Like Dromund, the only thing this place is going to bring you is madness and death."

"Oh, blah." He made a waving gesture. "You're still just the same tediously sanctimonious fifteen year old girl, blathering about the dangers of daring to live."

How did you escape from the neural disrupter? Zikl's voice asked her, dragging her thought back to the urgent matter in hand.

You can see my memories? She felt heat – mixed indignation and embarrassment – flaring to her cheeks.

Derren, laughed, misinterpreting her reaction completely.

I'm sorry, but it's difficult to avoid in here . . .

And not what we need to be discussing right now, she interrupted, admonishing herself to focus. She thought about it a moment. I escaped the neural disrupter because of Tamar's subconscious usage of the Force. It had pierced through the disrupter-inflicted daze, and by grasping hold of it through their bond, she'd been able to forge her own connection to the Force.

Then perhaps you can break this the same way.

Derren had stopped laughing, and was now peering at her suspiciously. Bastila's mouth worked, fumbling for something to say to distract his attention. "You killed all those men in the pit didn't you?"

His gesture was dismissive. "They're Sith. Your enemy. You should be thanking me for saving you the effort. Except all life is sacred to the Jedi Order, blah-di-blah, blah. You never get tired of preaching the same old hypocritical tune?"

Her jaw clamped down on her retort. The same way?

"Besides, to be perfectly accurate I didn't kill them. They killed themselves."

"At your behest. Whatever they were, they followed you, and you betrayed them utterly."

There are active Force flows all around you. She clearly sensed the doubt from Zikl as he said this.

Derren sighed. "You know what Bastila? You really are an incredibly boring conversationalist. I know, you're only trying to distract me. Keep me talking. Buy a few more seconds, until some nonexistent miracle arrives to save you all, or maybe simply to live that short bit longer. But by the Force, you could at least try not be so interminably dull about it." He made a cutting gesture, and her jaw locked tight.

Unaccountably the accusation of being boring burned. Focus, idiot, she all but snarled at herself.

Zikl's meaning finally registered. Draw on the same dark Force energy Derren was. The idea filled her with stark dread. I can't do that! I'm not strong enough . . . I . . .

"So, well done, Bastila," Derren was saying. "You've brought these men an extra couple of minutes of life. I'm sure they're both eternally grateful." He gestured sharply.

The two Republic commandos plunged there vibro-blades deep into each other's chests.

-s-s-

Yuthura sensed their approach: Lashowe and one other – Tregan probably.

In trying to hurry the process of escaping from her bonds along, she'd drawn too deeply of the Force and given herself away. There was no going back now. No second chances, or explanations that would wash. She had perhaps thirty seconds.

She could tell that she'd severely weakened the chain connecting to the wrist manacles, the metal corroded to the same degree as if it had spent several hundred years exposed to inclement weather, brittle and worn. Not brittle enough though, especially with the handicap of a broken arm.

Gritting her teeth, she changed tack, attempting to draw the heat out of the metal, slowing the vibration of the air molecules around it to speed up the rapid temperature drop.

Their footsteps were clearly audible now, hurrying. Where it came into contact with her skin, the metal was so cold that it seemed to burn her flesh. Her breath came in short, hissing gasps from the effort.

Abruptly she fed the heat back into the metal, drawing as deeply of the Force as she was able. The chain connecting the manacles began to glow, first a dull cherry red, then harsh orange, and finally white.

The skin of Yuthura's wrists began to burn and blister. She screamed rawly, pain, effort and focus all in one. The footsteps broke into a run.

As she yanked on the bonds as firmly as she could, the stress on her broken arm almost made her pass out. Her vision swirled in angry patterns of red distortion.

The bonds shattered.

A pummelling wave of Force came crashing through the cave entrance, but Yuthura had already rolled to one side. Tregan came barrelling after it, lightsaber blazing angry red.

He was overeager. Yuthura sidestepped the big man's charge agilely, lashing out with the length of glowing chain still attached to her wrist.

It caught him around the throat. His scream choked off rapidly, his flesh sizzling. The smell of cooking meat filled the air, both hideous and at the same time repulsively mouth-watering.

Yanking back hard, she pulled Tregan over, then stamped down on his face. His lightsaber leapt up from the ground into her left hand, and she whirled to face Lashowe.

Lashowe's approach was much more measured than Tregan's. Her eyes were filled with hate, though no words were exchanged.

It was a short and uneven fight. Hampered by her ribs and forced to fight with her weaker left hand – and with even that weighed down by the length of chain – Yuthura was panting raggedly after the opening, probing exchanges, air burning like molten lead in her lungs. As their lightsabers clashed and locked together, Lashowe took advantage, kicking viciously through Yuthura's guard into her cracked ribs.

She reeled back, blocking the next flurry of Lashowe's purely on instinct as she struggled desperately to keep going. Then the lightsaber was gone from her grasp, knocked flying as her defences twisted hopelessly awry.

A moment later she was flying back through the air, caught by a vicious whip-crack of Force lightning.

She lay on her back on the cave floor, scarcely able to move; scarcely conscious. Lashowe loomed over her. Her boot trod on her broken arm, grinding down sadistically.

Yuthura cried out, struggling to focus – struggling to think – through the pain. "I'd hoped you would put up a better fight," Lashowe was saying, seemingly from several hundred miles away through the roaring, rushing noise in Yuthura's ears. "This is hardly a victory for me to boast about . . .."

The words faded. Yuthura's gaze fixed upon something glinting in the gloom. The lightsaber that had fallen from her grasp. It had switched itself off, but . . .

"And so the pupil surpasses the teacher. Not that you were ever much of a teacher . . ." The heat of Lashowe's lightsaber blade against Yuthura's cheek made the pale-violet skin darken and blister.

Snap-hiss. Tregan's lightsaber ignited. Yuthura called it to her hand, and Lashowe whirled, eyes widening in surprise. Her blade raised instinctively en guard . . .

And Tregan's saber sliced straight through her calf, just below the knee.

Lashowe made a soft, moaning noise and toppled over. Yuthura managed to roll out from beneath her as she fell, kicking her in the wrist as she landed and sending her lightsaber bouncing away.

It had all taken less than a second.

Lashowe lay on her back, eyes wide, hyperventilating as shock set in from the sudden loss of her leg. Snarling with the effort of trying to suppress the pain of her own injuries, cradling her broken arm against her chest, Yuthura walked across and trod down on the hilt of Lashowe's saber. Shutting off Tregan's weapon and slipping it through her belt, she bent down and picked it up. Insurance that she wasn't going to fall victim to the same kind of trick she'd just pulled.

"Please . . . please . . ."

As she stood over her, Yuthura could see Lashowe shivering violently. "Mercy?" she asked her softly.

Her eyes focused on Yuthura's face. Suddenly she looked very young indeed, vulnerable and frightened, all the conniving cruelty stripped away to leave someone who was barely more than a girl – a pretty, vain, deluded girl.

"I . . . I . . ." Her chest rose and fell so rapidly she could barely manage to speak.

"Want to live," Yuthura finished for her.

Cunning flickered briefly in Lashowe's eyes. "I can . . .."

"Shh!" Yuthura cut her off sharply, grimacing to herself. She knelt down at Lashowe's side, and after a moment's pause, started to channel healing Force in an effort to allay the worst effects of the shock.

Her thoughts were racing. She knew that she didn't have much time, and either Seldach or some of the Sith troops were bound to check up on the situation soon. Where they were in relation to the main body of Sith troops, she didn't know, though she suspected they would be some distance from the main encampment. Even Sith tended to finds the sounds of interrogation intrusive when they were trying to sleep. Right now though, she wouldn't have bet money on her ability to fight off a quadriplegic womp rat.

"There are other paths you can take, you know." Yuthura watched Lashowe's face and let out a breath. "But you're not really listening are you? You'll just nod agreement to anything that lets you live, and go straight back to being the way you were." She shifted her grip on Lashowe's lightsaber.

Fear flickered. "No, I . . ."

"I told you to shut up." There was a click of clashing teeth as Lashowe quickly closed her mouth, the rate of her breathing picking up again. "Just listen."

Yuthura's gaze darted briefly to the cave entrance, then back again. "I meant what I said about five years. It's less now. Chances are you won't survive the week if you stay a Sith. You might manage to pin this mess on Tregan if you're clever, but the problem is, you're just not that clever. You're going to have a very tough time, with Seldach especially." She looked down into Lashowe's panicked eyes, almost able to taste the surge of her fear. She hadn't even thought that far ahead. Part of her wanted to snap at her to get a grip.

"If I were you," Yuthura continued, "I'd find some place to hide until the Republic fleet show up. No one's going to know who you are, and at worst, you'll spend a period as a prisoner of war. I'd suggest going to the Jedi. They'd take you in if that's what you genuinely want, but . . . I suspect you don't have that in you. Not yet anyway. So do this purely for yourself. Make yourself a life, because right now you don't have one." She winced, standing up, then murmured, "And I really don't need any more blood on my hands."

As she walked away, she sensed Lashowe's relief, and wondered briefly if anything that she'd said had even registered. She had the uncomfortable feeling that she was probably making a very big mistake.

But . . . it was a mistake she felt she had to make.

-s-s-

Bastila could feel Tasker and Antilles dying, impaled on each other's blades. It was horrific and darkly fascinating all at once.

Derren watched the two men avidly, black thunderclouds of tainted Force gathering close around him. He was like a vampire, drinking their deaths as ravenously as if it was hot blood – feeding too on the fear and sharp horror of those watching. His attention, for a second or so at least, was entirely occupied.

It was her chance. The one chance any of them were likely to get.

Yet she hesitated over it. She knew the tale of Ulic Quel-Droma, who had tried to use and master the power of the darkside for the purposes of the light, well enough. Every Padawan was taught about his fall, and the lessons to be drawn from it.

You did not master the darkside, no matter how strong and powerful you thought you were. The darkside mastered you. And she was weak and damaged – had already succumbed to its lure once before.

No. Zikl's voice, desperately faint and seemingly dwindling by the second. You are strong. And . . . you understand the dangers as well as any Jedi alive.

I can't do this! She almost wailed back.

Yet if she didn't, they were all going to die. Like Tasker. Like Antilles.

In the end, she couldn't not try.

As soon as she touched it, the blackness filled her as rage and hate, rampaging tides flooding through her, tainted water pouring from a broken damn. The paralysis snapped instantly. Entire oceans of dark power opened up before her – this temple; this swamp; this entire festering world, all of it there for her to use. Derren was just a bug before her, ripe for squashing. Nothing could stand before her, not Darth Malefic, or Auza, or this person Derren claimed to be the true Sith Lord. Even Revan would be forced to bow, her slave and plaything. Exhilaration filled her, sweeping her up, mortal weaknesses and doubts falling away. The air around her seemed to crackle and pulse, alive . . .

And she let go of it. All of it, in a single instant, draining away between spread fingers that twitched to close and grasp it. That ached with the need.

Lies. The same lies that the Star Forge had seduced and distorted her with.

She was on her knees on the damp, mouldy stone, sobbing; wrecked and consumed by self-loathing. The tainted Force still swirled around her in a vortex and her craving for it wracked her with violent shudders. She wanted to reach out and regain the exhilaration so badly it hurt her physically.

She feared it and wanted it in equally compelling measure. To be powerful and confident and sure.

To lose everything of any value that she was.

Derren was looking at her, eyes wide with shock. Tasker and Antilles' corpses had collapsed, limp and lifeless to the floor.

Groaning with effort, cheeks streaked with tears, she staggered back to her feet. She could feel her heart thudding erratically. Zikl murmured words of congratulation and encouragement that didn't register as anything more than buzzing.

His shock quickly sublimated, Derren bared his teeth. He gestured sharply, summoning up a lightning storm to scourge her with.

Without any conscious effort or thought on her part, she found herself wrapped in a protective sheath of charged particles, deflecting the lightning away from her and leaving her unscathed. Something inside her faded and dwindled, leaving her feeling desperately lonely and disorientated.

One last gift.

She bit down on those feelings and shoved them aside. In response to the lightning she Force-pushed him back, towards the gaping pit Canderous had fallen into.

He caught himself easily, still more than a metre from the edge. "Kill the Jedi first and don't let old times sake get in the way." His smile was ruefully self-mocking. "Next time. Next time, I'll remember."

She rushed him, their lightsabers clashing together with a vicious crack.

The frailty of his appearance was deceptive. His defences held firm against her onslaught with an ease that suggested he was simply indulging her, watching and waiting for the moment to swat her down. Derren always had excelled at saber fighting, she recollected.

Renewed fury flared, and combined with the residues of dark side energy flickering through her, she actually managed to drive him back a couple of paces, right to the edge of the pit. There he steadied himself though and held firm.

An almost contemptuous parry as her momentum died away knocked her lightsaber out wide, leaving her defences gaping, wide open to a counterthrust . . .

Canderous's hand rose above the lip of the pit, clamping tight around Derren's ankle and yanking hard.

He swung and missed.

Bastila felt the heat from his lightsaber blade as it passed close by her face. She didn't hesitate over taking advantage as he tottered backwards, slicing straight through his right wrist then kicking him in the chest so that he lost his balance entirely.

He let out a startled gasp as he toppled backwards, landing a moment later with a wet, squelching thud.

Canderous pulled himself up from the pit, sprawling on his back on the floor, breathing heavily. His hands were torn and bleeding, and he was streaked from head to foot in gore, sculpted in glistening red, reeking of rotten flesh.

She barely saw him.

"He's still alive," Bastila murmured as Canderous hauled himself slowly and painfully back to his feet.

She was staring down into the pit, the harsh yellow glare from her lightsaber illuminating Derren as he lay, twitching feebly atop the mounds of dismembered body-parts, clutching the cauterised stump of his severed wrist to his chest. His eyes looked wild and unfocused, but she could still feel the Force gathering around him.

Her feelings were a mess – paralysing. She was unable to make head nor tail of them.

Without saying anything, Canderous calmly and methodically took a plasma grenade from his belt, activated it, then dropped it into the pit.

As she registered what he'd just done, Bastila started to yell at him furiously. "No! What the hell are you . . .?"

Calmly he grabbed her around the waist and yanked her back from the pit's edge. A blast of scorchingly hot air erupted upwards a second or so later.

When it had died away and silence had settled in, she whirled back on the Mandalorian furiously. The paralysis gripping the others had broken, and they fell to their knees – gasping, coughing.

Canderous seemed completely oblivious to her anger. After a moment he tilted his head to one side, apparently trying to dislodge something stuck in his ear. "Sorry, Princess. Did you say something?"

-s-s-

This time the Sith were withdrawing for real.

Dawn was approaching, light showing along the eastern horizon line. The night had lasted several hours longer than galactic standard. Entire swarms of drop ships seemed to be ascending and descending in a carefully choreographed dance, drawing an intricate criss-crossing mesh in the sky with their vapour trails.

Which meant either that they'd got what they wanted, or the Republic fleet had arrived from Cybloc. Or possibly both.

Tamar watched in a kind of dull, unfocused agony, waiting and waiting. Finally, after what seemed like hours – though the sky hadn't gotten that much brighter – the flow of drop ships seemed to stop.

He gave in and risked breaking radio silence. "Yuthura?"

No answer. There wasn't even static. The comm. link was completely and utterly dead.

Before the implications could set in as more than a vague sense of amorphous dread, the comm. link came to life on its own. It was Cullen, one of the Republic intelligence officers serving under Marshall. Tamar listened for a moment before cutting him off. "Are you all safe?"

There was a slight pause before a response came. "We . . . managed to evade the forward Sith lines. We're still in possession of the data-core."

"Which wasn't what I asked, was it?" Only the surface was calm.

The hesitation was longer this time. When Cullen spoke again, his voice contained the kind of careful matter-of-factness used to report bad news to a superior officer who you just knew was going to bite your head off, and no matter that you weren't to blame. "We were cornered by the Sith. Ban indicated she could lure them away from us using the Force. She was . . . apparently successful in that endeavour, because the rest of us were able to escape."

"And Yuthura?" Tamar's voice seemed to belong to someone else. He wondered how it could sound so . . . normal.

"We haven't heard from her in at least eight hours."

If she were dead, I would know. I would know.

Except that logic dictated that he wouldn't. He'd spent the last few hours quite deliberately as far disconnected from the Force as he could manage. Just because you love her, it doesn't change the way the universe works. A shudder passed through him. Not now. Not before we . . .

"First chance she had, she ran off back to her masters," Marshall's voice interrupted, sour and angry.

If he'd been standing in front of Tamar, fist would have just connected very, very firmly with face. There is no emotion. He laughed bitterly at the sheer, inept stupidity of that idea. Right.

Cullen's voice interjected quickly. "Please forgive the Director. Ban used some kind of Force persuasion to stop him arguing with her. I don't think he's quite back in his right mind yet. The rest of us . . . we understand that we wouldn't be alive without what she did."

"Thank you Cullen." Part of him had gone insane. That was the only explanation he could come up with for this voice that kept on answering calmly and implacably. It proceeded to clinically reel off the location of a point they should head towards. "Jedi De'Nolo out."

"Is everything all right, sir?"

He didn't see who asked the question; just nodded slowly. "Everything's fine. Looks like we might just make it . . ." Yes, everything's fine. Why wouldn't it be? There is no bloody Force-damned emotion after all. Instead we have peace, and isn't that just wonderful?

He had to keep focused, he knew. There were a thousand different things he needed to think about and address, and when it came down to it, getting taken into custody by the main Republic fleet was better than being captured by the Sith only in matter of degree. If Jolee and the Ajunta's Blade were still in the vicinity, then maybe . . .

He was furious with her. He didn't want to be, but he was. He wanted to yell at her, to . . .. What if they hadn't killed her? What if they'd captured her? What if she . . .. The thoughts crawled like venomous snakes in the bottom of his brain, hope and horror together.

There was a voice speaking in his ear. At first it didn't register, the turmoil in his head drowning it out. ". . . Tamar?" It sounded concerned.

He stopped in his tracks; swallowed. The relief made him shake.

"Hey, Yuthura." It still sounded dementedly calm and unconcerned. "Interesting night?"