I fucking tested positive for covid, which was absolutely not fun in the slightest. I started shaking like I had parkinsons, and couldn't get warm under a set of fairly heavy blankets.

Also, Book of Boba Fett and Zomboid are both really good. The ringworld thing in Episode 5 is looks like poop from a butt, though.

Read and review.

Lexi slowly returned to the waking world. Her vision was blurred, and there was an intense throbbing in her head. Her entire body felt like it was on fire, a problem scarcely helped by the blinding light in whatever room she was in. The floor was cold, hard metal, and for a good, long while, she just laid there, her entire body too heavy to move properly.

There was the faint sound of a hinge door opening, and a series of footsteps, before Lexi had ice cold water splashed on her face, waking her right up and meeting her captor face to face. She was tall – a little bit under Nax's height, and extremely slim, and she was wearing some kind of infiltration suit that, while efficient, was nowhere near as advanced looking as Lexi's was. "Sorry about knocking you out, Interloper." she apologized, as Lexi rubbed her head to ineffectively mend the pain and get the water out of her eyes. "But we couldn't take any chances. I'm sure you understand that those in our position must take… necessary precautions."

Lexi grimaced at the feeling of another sharp pain. "...Did you guys have to hit so hard? Or, you know, splash me?" she questioned, and her eyes finally properly adjusted so that she could make out the Rakata's facial features. The peak of her head was considerably shorter compared to the other Rakata that she had seen, but interestingly enough, she had a ridge going back across her head, starting roughly from where her nose was, akin to what the Vurk have. Her skin was jet black, and her eyes were a piercing amber, with red warpaint highlighting her elbows, cheeks, and nose ridge.

The faintest hint of a smirk appeared on the woman's face, and Lexi finally connected her to the voice from when Lexi was snooping around – this was Venta. "I'll tell him to hit harder, next time." she sarcastically replied, before getting properly serious. "Need to ask you a few questions so we know what to do with you, so let's start with something simple – your name?"

Lexi opened her mouth, about to say her real name, before she caught herself. "...Clihx." she answered, and Venta seemed a little bit apprehensive. "I already know who you are, Venta, alongside your partner, Shu'ul. Don't know who the kid was, though."

"So you're already familiar with us, then." Venta responded, before she pulled a chair out from under a nearby table, rotated it around so the back was facing Lexi, and sat down on it, still looking at her. "You know, Clihx, snooping around is considered impolite in some cultures." she said, before gesturing to Lexi's bag, which had been sitting on the table, wide open. "Since you did it to us, I figured it was only fair we rooted around in your things."

Internally, Lexi cursed herself, mostly for preemptively writing her report. The Loth-cat was almost certainly out of the bag now.

"I know where your teleporter is – I've seen the thing before. What I want to know is, how did you Interlopers get it to work?" Venta pressed. "Those things are so old that even the craftmasters can't get them to work, so how did you of all people do it?"

"Don't know the specifics of it." Lexi answered truthfully, and Venta didn't seem to believe her. "All I really know is that you need a Force user to make it work, and from what I gather, you don't exactly have many of those around here."

Venta narrowed her vision at Lexi, whose hands were still bound together. "Who's Nax?"

"Are you familiar with the human strung up in a plaza? The one that's been mutilated and stoned since he got here?" Lexi responded, and Venta gave a slow nod. "That's Nax."

Venta breathed deep. "Last question for now." she started, pausing a moment to consider what to say. "You're a potential security risk. You may have even drawn unnecessary attention to us. Why shouldn't we have you killed and your body dumped into a coolant river to throw Dantinian off our trail?" she posed, hoping to catch Lexi off guard.

Lexi, however, had already anticipated this. "Because I am more of a useful asset to your entire resistance than you realize. Droids, blasters, armor, equipment, assault tanks, air support – you name it, I can find a way to get the others to put it in your hands. Anything to help bring down Dantinian." Lexi defended bitterly, before realizing she had a killshot. "Besides, if you killed me, I don't think the Dreamer would be too happy about that."

That gave Venta something to think about, and for what felt like an eternity, she remained silent. "...The Dreamer isn't real. It's a myth, made up by a delusional assistant to Virgilius's inner circle on his deathbed." she hesitantly said, sounding like she barely believed her own words. "How you learned about the Dreamer is beyond me, but I'm afraid you've been lied to."

Lexi shook her head. "Oh, no, the Dreamer is very much real. I've been acquainted with her long before we even arrived here." she replied, and Venta still seemed suspicious of whether or not she was telling the truth. "Think of it this way – Dantinian's been in power for, what, about twenty years or so? Our ship crashed here a little bit under that, and the worst conflicts between Dantinian and us up until this point have been skirmishes." Lexi started, making sure Venta was listening clearly. "Does Dantinian seem like the type to dedicate so many resources to a war where he doesn't stand to gain much strategically? Aside from securing the rings, that is."

Venta breathed a defeated sigh – Lexi had made her point. "...Let's say I believe you. What do you stand to gain from this?" she pushed, wanting to know what Lexi's angle was.

"Besides sabotaging Dantinian's war effort, you mean?" Lexi said, before leaning forward. "I want Nax rescued." she answered with absolute seriousness.

"Ah." Venta simply said pointedly. "Your lover?"

"A friend." Lexi corrected, squashing Venta's assumptions where they laid. "I owe him my life, as does the Dreamer. If he were to die in captivity, then I doubt the Dreamer would be around for much longer after the war." Lexi opined, catching Venta's attention and letting her mind wander. "They're… close. It's why he's up there in the first place."

Venta visibly connected the dots. "Ah, so he's the 'Dreamer''s lover." she realized, putting a strange emphasis on the word Dreamer that indicated that Venta very much thought Lexi was lying to her, but was going along with it anyways.

"You promise to get him free, and I'll help you shut down the Worldshaper." Lexi promised, and Venta looked almost amused at the fact that Lexi was trying to pull out all of the stops to save her own life.

"Please, enlighten me," Venta sarcastically requested, knowing inside that whatever Lexi's answer was, she was going to be full of it. "What is the Worldshaper?"

"A terraforming tool." Lexi answered plainly, recalling on the information Kyra and Nax had relayed to her. "Big armored worm, something like twice the length of our ship. It was made for tearing up mountains and creating natural rivers to help colonize new worlds for your species, was it not?" Lexi questioned, adamant that she was correct. "I don't think I need to spell out how dangerous Dantinian having it in his control is."

Venta's veneer of smugness immediately dropped – she had doubts about the Dreamer still, but there wasn't a doubt in her mind that Lexi knew what she was talking about when it came to the Worldshaper. "I'm going to discuss this with the others." Venta abruptly said, before getting up and leaving the interrogation room, shutting the door behind her.

Lexi rolled her eyes. "Sure, just leave me with my hands tied. Not like I've got anything important to do." she muttered under her breath. "Skughole."

Kyra and Sawei returned to the workshops of the Odynaro, their prize of duranium floating just behind them. Most living people they came across had the good sense to give them a wide berth, lest the chunk accidentally be dropped on their feet, while the many droids they encountered simply didn't care.

Sawei spotted the B1T Foreman had assigned to the level to oversee the design process, and quickly beckoned him over. "Oh, it's y-" the droid started to snark, only to spot the chunk of duranium hovering in the air behind them. "...Maker alive, you know I just said 'chunk' as a joke, right? This is easily thirty kilos." the droid commented, partially exaggerating for comedic effect.

"Consider it a gift." Kyra replied, before looking around. "Where do we put this thing in so we can get on with me actually building my lightsaber?"

The droid glanced around, before shouting an electronic screech across the workshops, and receiving a nearly identical one in response. Several seconds later, they heard heavy metallic stomping approaching them, and around a set of machines came a CLL-8 load lifter, with its original platform 'hands' replaced by more traditional manipulator claws. It had been painted with the symbol of the Helljumpers across its front, and seemed to be reacting intelligently to its surroundings, unlike most others of its type. The B1T barked another order at the load lifter, and it walked behind the trio, grabbed the chunk of duranium, and trundled off to the resource stores to get it into the production pipeline as soon as possible. "The load lifter will handle that. In the meantime, let's get you started on making the lightsaber. Do you still have that datacard?" he asked. Kyra quickly produced the requested item, and the droid nodded. "Perfect. Follow me."

The droid returned them to the machine Kyra had used to create the plans on the datacard, and the droid pulled open the side panel. Reaching further inside the side panel, the droid pulled on something, and a rectangular piece of the machine dropped out from its slot on the droid's right – a conveyor belt. "The card, please?" the droid requested, and Kyra handed him the datacard. "Appreciated." the droid said, before slotting it into the computer, pressing several buttons, and setting the machine to life. "Now, we wait." the droid commented as the machine rumbled and churned away to produce the weapon's parts. The droid then turned to face the pair of Jedi. "If you would entertain me for a moment while your weapon is made – why, exactly, do you need this in the first place? Blasters are overwhelmingly superior compared to melee combat, so why would you willingly give up that advantage to get closer than you need to?"

Sawei cast an unassuming glance to the droid. "Lightsabers, in the hands of a skilled Force user, are superior to blaster weaponry." she started, pulling hers out to emphasize her position. "Imagine for a second – you unload a heavy blaster into someone with a lightsaber, and they simply deflect every bolt away, or even worse, redirect them back to you. Conventional weaponry can't even scratch a properly trained Jedi." Sawei boasted, proud of her skills with a lightsaber. "Aside from the fact that it's the traditional weapon of a Jedi, Dantinian evidently has his own, and considering the interest he has in Kyra, it would be best if she weren't left out to dry, so to speak."

The droid simply observed her momentarily, before looking to Kyra. It cocked its head, let out a hum of what sounded like contemplation, and then returned its focus to the machine's diagnostics. As the manufacturing process drew on, Sawei slowly grew impatient. At first, she started tapping her foot against the floor, but after a while, she started fidgeting and pacing around. "...You know, Kyra," Sawei started, trying to think of something to stave off the boredom. "It's little things like this that make me regret not pushing Master Ar'ai into training me to be a sabersmith."

"Why's that?" Kyra asked, looking to the Twi'lek.

"Real lightsabers – the ones that aren't training sabers, that is, are typically made by hand smithing in a special forge. Machined ones are serviceable weapons, but to make one like this is a break from tradition." she noted.

"We've had a lot of breaks from tradition – why is machining my lightsaber any different?"

Sawei curled her lips. "Machining it takes the personal touch away." Sawei replied, casting another glance at the machine working away at Kyra's lightsaber. "With sabersmithing, if the smith and wielder aren't one and the same, there's still typically some kind of a bond between the two, and even if there isn't, the smith's personal style is still embedded within the lightsaber. With manufactured sabers, it's all… calculated." she continued, pulling out her second saber to emphasize her point – while both were radically different designs, with one being utilitarian and almost blocky, and the other appearing as if it were a civilian glowrod, both had similar parts, namely a mushroom-shaped emitter head with eight prongs protruding outward slightly, and rounded activation switches. Sawei then clipped her lightsabers back to her belt. "Functionally, there's barely a difference, but it's just strange."

Kyra processed what Sawei was saying, and realized the distinction she was trying to make. "You're saying that lightsabers are crafted, not manufactured." she said, and Sawei nodded, pleased that Kyra had gotten it. "I suppose that makes sense. Still, neither of us have the skill to do that, and I doubt anybody else here does."

Their conversation continued to more idle subjects, until the machine eventually changed its pitch, and the droid immediately attended to the conveyor belt. The Jedi walked over to its side, and out the slot in the machine came a medium-sized plastoid hardcase – the kind you would store multiple handblasters inside. When it was at the end of the belt, the machine quickly shut off, leaving their part of the workshops relatively quiet.

With careful fingers, Kyra undid the three latches and popped the hardcase open to find her lightsaber's components inside. She rubbed her index finger against one of the frame components, and found that it was still very much warm. A brief glance at the components satisfied Kyra, and she shut the case, sealing the latches. "Thank you." she said in a rather polite tone, before making way for the exit, eager to finally construct her lightsaber, and Sawei quickly followed after her.

When they were gone, the droid let out an exaggerated sigh, relieved that he no longer had to deal with their personal pet project, until he remembered that without them, it was back to fighting with binary load lifters over interpretations of orders, and that relief quickly turned back into anguish.

The droids had all assembled in the crew lounge to watch Kyra finally build her lightsaber. Zeethree was absolutely at the edge of his metaphorical seat, waiting to see what the finished product looked like, Katy was excitable, and wanted to see how lightsabers had changed since her time in the Old Republic, Arfive was just interested in seeing what Kyra had made, and Knockout was stood in the corner, quiet as ever.

Kyra was antsy to finally get her hands on the lightsaber, to say the least. She unlatched the top of the case, and after taking a few deep breaths to calm herself, shut her eyes and began the assembly process. The parts for the crystal chamber assembly floated out of the case first, then the focusing crystal support housing. Power systems came next, along with the connections to make it actually work, and the process was repeated for the other end of the saber, and Kyra joined the two together. Then, she inserted the emitter heads and connected those to the focusing systems, and completed the electronics, and to finish, she began assembling the exterior plating and grips. The grips went in first, and were sealed in by the plating. All she had to do now was insert the crystals.

Pulling the emitter assembly out of the bottom of the saber, Kyra opened the case Sawei had taken from Dav with the Force, and she took half the focusing crystals from the case, before partly disassembling the support housing of the bottom half of the saber and inserting the crystals, and then re-inserting it. She then opened the top part of the saber, pulled out the emitter housing there, and then did the same thing, except she didn't re-insert it.

Kyra finally opened her eyes, and produced the kyber crystal that Val had given to her. What was originally an innocent gift from one young and stupid lover to another was now the key to her survival. For such a small, fragile thing to hold so much power…

Kyra floated the lightsaber to her hand, the top end still sticking out, and she slowly, deliberately inserted the crystal into the chamber by hand, before adjusting it ever so slightly with the Force. Satisfied, Kyra grasped the emitter head, screwed the assembly back in, and connected it back together. Holding the saber out from her body, the end with the crystal pointed upwards, Kyra breathed deep, and…

Snap-hiss-shoo.

The entire crew lounge was bathed in the most brilliant shade of cyan. It took Kyra a few seconds to process that she had, in fact, done it, and she looked on in awe at her lightsaber. The blued duranium plating made it look almost purple under the lighting, and the gold lines seemed like they were glowing. The holes in the chalice-shaped emitter heads were, in fact, for a crossguard – excess energy was being shot out of the triangular holes, and a ring had formed at their tips to create a crossguard. "It's… beautiful." Kyra remarked, before getting up from the seat, lightsaber in hand. Once she had cleared the space, she took a few practice swings with her new weapon.

Given her fairly extensive experience with the practice sabers Sawei had found, it was fairly surprising to Kyra that her lightsaber sounded much less like those, and more like a vibroblade with the swings she was taking. Of course, it was still distinctly a lightsaber – it was hitting the same pitches and tones when Kyra swung it in a particular way. When she held it idle, the blade had a melodic hum to it, almost… angelic?

Kyra reached inside the hilt with the Force, and activated the first of several mechanisms she had inside. With a flick of her wrist, the hilt extended outward a considerable length, snapping back into place with a solid, meaty chunk. Putting her off-hand onto the weapon, she hefted it up, pointing it towards the wall, and again, took a few jabs with the weapon. In its pike configuration, the weapon appeared to handle much more poorly for close quarters combat. Then again, she had mostly trained with standard lightsabers – adaptation to additional styles would be necessary.

Flicking her wrist again, the lightsaber collapsed back into its original configuration, and, after making sure she had a firm grip on the top saber, Kyra yanked it off with surprising ease. The lightsaber wasn't broken – quite the opposite, in fact. It had been designed so that the sabers may be separated at will. This earned a series of wild cheers from Katy, who had evidently never seen a lightsaber quite like Kyra's.

Once again reaching into the weapon through the Force, Kyra tested the emitter head manipulation, and just as it was designed, the emitter head tilted forwards slightly. Adopting the opening stance of Makashi, Kyra readied herself against an imagined opponent, and, evidently, was satisfied with the way the lightsaber handled in that configuration, so she left it as it was, instead of resetting it to its original, straight position.

When Kyra shut the lightsaber off, the sound of the blade powering down sounded more like air passing out of a deflating balloon than it did a lightsaber deactivating. Regardless, Kyra turned to Sawei, and there was this big, almost dopey smile on her face – if it wasn't clear that she was happy with her lightsaber, it sure was now. "Master Moryne," Zeethree started, sounding particularly worried all of a sudden. "This is to save Master Strag, isn't it?" he questioned, his photoreceptors dimming ever so slightly.

Kyra gave the protocol droid a nod. "Yes, Zeethree." she answered, clipping the lightsaber to her belt. "Dantinian, the one that captured Nax and is… torturing him," she continued visibly straining herself at the thought of what Nax had to endure. "...He has his own lightsaber, and considering the role I'm supposed to play in the coming weeks, I needed a way to fight him on equal terms. Hence..." Kyra trailed, gesturing to the lightsaber, wordlessly finishing her sentence. "Nax is being used as bait, that much is clear to me, and it's going to work better than Dantinian could have ever hoped. Only issue is, there's a difference between walking blindly into a trap, and knowing it's there in the first place."

Sawei blinked twice. "Kyra, don't be ridiculous." she chastised, and the padawan looked to her. "Dantinian wants you – the second you step outside these walls, every capture squad he has at his disposal is going to be tracking you down to capture you and bring you to him."

"Then we take the fight to them." Kyra replied, dead serious. "They'll have standing orders to capture me alive, but I don't have to keep them breathing." she ominously commented. "Cut them down, whittle them away, and soon, Dantinian won't have much of a trap left for me other than some goons with rifles and himself."

There was a series of rapid, frantic knocks at the boarding ramp door, and Knockout's photoreceptor flickered momentarily. "Speak." he ordered in a low tone, and all in the room could hear a muffled explanation coming from down the corridor. There was a brief wait, and Knockout looked directly at Kyra. "It appears to be your lucky day, Master Moryne. Command wants you on a LAAT out to the frontlines in thirty minutes. There's been some kind of incident that requires your attention."

Kyra and Sawei stood up in the LAAT, intently watching the young officer in front of them awkwardly prepare the briefing. He set a device out on the floor in front of him, and a hologram of the existing frontlines activated, lighting the troop bay up in a bright blue color. As it stood, Wargate was serving as the main forward operations base for this part of the frontlines, with a string of smaller outposts stretched closer to the lines, and the actual operational area for the infantry was a massed network of trenches, bunkers, and gun emplacements. Evidently, the war had stalled on this part of the ring. "Five hours ago, we lost contact with multiple groups of forward artillery spotters behind enemy lines." the officer started, pointing at a couple of villages behind the enemy trenches. "Wargate command sent in two-man recon teams to uncover what happened to the spotters, and what they discovered was the spotters had been brutally dismembered by bladed weapons, along with a datapad containing a fragmented message." he continued, pressing forward in spite of the fact that he was disturbed by the sheer brutality of the deaths. "The message, when pieced together, was as follows," the officer went on, before clearing his throat. "'COME OUT DREAMER. SURRENDER AND YOUR DEATH WILL BE SWIFT.'"

Kyra pursed her lips. "Huh. Wonder who wrote that down for me." she dryly commented, knowing exactly who ordered this.

"Who, indeed." the officer remarked, pacing back and forth on his end of the hologram, evidently not understanding the sarcasm. "After checking with multiple resistance sources, we have uncovered a group of likely suspects – 'The Hand of the Reclaimer', a group of assassins widely considered by those precious few aware of their existence to be part of Dantinian's inner circle."

Sawei raised an eyebrow, giving the officer a confused look. "Why were we not informed of this group?" she questioned, very keen on finding out just why intelligence dropped the ball this time around. "This is something that concerns both myself and Kyra."

The officer looked a little unsurprised at the outburst. "We had no concrete proof that such a group even existed in the first place." he defended, before stepping aside from the hologram. "'Watch out, there might be a group of secret assassins out to get you' isn't exactly helpful information."

Kyra motioned for Sawei to lay off a little. "What are they capable of? I'm assuming they're well trained, but we need specifics on what we're dealing with."

The officer changed his focus to Kyra. "From the few descriptions of encounters we have, the Hand appear to be Force-sensitive." the officer noted with deadly seriousness to his voice. "The resistance – in particular, the Tetrarch's cell, have had multiple run-ins with them. We estimate one of them to be worth at least a full company of regular infantry, and the Hand wiping out entire squads of resistance members is not unheard of." the officer continued, double checking his datapad to make sure he wasn't reading things wrong. "Our picture is still incomplete, but assume all are highly dangerous – they're unlikely to fight the two of you on even terms."

Kyra was about to ask another question, but the troop bay suddenly turned a dim red, drowning out the blue light from the hologram, and there was an electronic wailing sounding – they were receiving a missile lock. Without any verbal prompting, the three of them braced for impact, hunkering down on whatever they could grab hold of, and the LAAT pilot began to violently maneuver to evade, with the heavy thud thud thud of countermeasures deploying reverberating throughout the troop bay mixing with the shuddering of the frame from the g-force load being placed upon it. There was a loud whistling rapidly approaching, before it shot by with a crack, harmlessly exploding well enough away from the LAAT. For a brief moment, the cockpit returned to its original blue, and the alarms ceased, only to immediately return. Staying put where they were, they had faith that the pilot would be able to evade the missile again.

Faith that would turn out to be misplaced.

The whistling rapidly approached, and instead of screeching by and exploding, there was a violent shudder in the frame of the LAAT caused by an explosion further back, towards the engines. The missile alert had been replaced by flight computer alarms, providing verbal warnings of stalling, engine failure, and to pull up, repeating in a pattern. They physically felt when whatever remained of the control surfaces went, and the LAAT entered a flatspin. "Brace for impact!" the pilot warned over the comms, shortly before the LAAT entered the trees, which tore the wings apart, and the LAAT hit a tree right where the troop bay connected to the cockpit, stopping the flatspin dead and sending the occupants flying around the bay.

Miraculously, Kyra and Sawei were barely moved from their spots by the crash. They were dazed, yes, but not knocked out. The same, unfortunately, could not be said for the officer who had been providing the briefing – his head had been bent to the side at about a sixty-degree angle, and his eyes had glazed over. He was assuredly dead, but Kyra, when she collected herself and noticed the body, checked his pulse anyways, and she received the expected answer to her question.

"We're in friendly territory – who shot at us?" Sawei openly pondered, before reaching out with the Force to the troop bay door that hadn't been irreparably damaged by colliding with a tree, and she yanked it back from its seals with a loud screech of metal grinding against metal.

"They shot twice, so it was obviously intentional." Kyra noted, following the Twi'lek out of the bay. Kyra then moved up towards the cockpit, jumped up, and looked inside the canopy to see the status of the pilot and copilot. At a glance, both seemed to be limp, but Kyra wasn't sure, so she tried to pull the canopy from its seals, and upon finding that it had been jammed shut, simply ripped the whole assembly off and tossed it to the side with the Force.

The pilot was limp, but he was very much conscious. It looked like it took all of his strength to even look at Kyra. "...Jedi, I can't-" he started to say, before lurching forward in pain. "-can't feel my legs." he managed to get out.

Kyra looked further into the pilot's seat, down where the aether-rudder pedals were, and she spotted a growing pool of crimson leaking down the pilot's leg, starting at about where the kneecap was. "Big piece of shrapnel got you." she explained, looking closer at the damage – bits of bone and muscle were poking through. "Sawei!" Kyra shouted, still focused on the wound. "I need you up here and tending to the pilot. I'm going to check on the co-pilot."

Kyra shifted up towards the co-pilot's seat, and Sawei took her spot next to the injured pilot. Before she could actually check on him, though, there was a tingling in her spine – the kind that meant to get the hell down from there. Immediately dropping from where she was holding on, Kyra activated her lightsaber just in time to deflect a blaster shot aimed at her head.

Her heart immediately began to race as she looked for the shooter, and finally, a scope glint betrayed them. Immediately reaching with the Force, Kyra grabbed the sniper and pulled them from their position towards her. By the time she had visual confirmation of the shooter, they had already switched from their rifle to a straight-edged sword, intent on landing an overhead strike on Kyra. Again, Kyra reached out with the Force to her assailant, and slammed them into the ground with enough force to shatter the average person's skeleton.

Yet, when the dust settled, the assassin was still there, with a maddened, bloodthirsty scowl on his face. "Such power..." the assassin remarked in perfect Basic, before readying himself for another go at Kyra.

By now, Sawei had gotten down and activated her sabers, and they were ready to meet the assassin's challenge head on – were it not for the fact that three more had jumped out of the treeline, each carrying their own specialized swords, or staff, in one case, and each and every one of them was fixated on Kyra, who wasn't taking her eyes off the first assassin for a moment.

In sync, the assassins darted forward with incredible speed, and Kyra only barely had time to move to a more advantageous position in the field. With all four of them on her, she would have to carefully manage her footwork and breathing to keep from overexerting herself. The four of them moved to encircle her, like a pack of hungry wolves. Each of them was sizing up Kyra, mentally coordinating with each other to plan the best attack to bring her down.

Sawei intervened quickly enough that whatever attack they were planning couldn't be executed, and she dragged away two of the assailants – one with two swords, and another with a quarterstaff/polearm hybrid, while Kyra had the two with one sword each. The first assassin that had took a shot at her launched himself forward, crossing in front of his partner to block line of sight, and Kyra quickly realized that they were trying to weave their way around her to get strikes in from behind her. Dashing to the side, Kyra evaded the maneuver and took a light swing at the first assassin's feet, forcing him to jump to avoid losing his legs, and inadvertently exposing his partner's side. Having realized that the second assassin was a bit slower on the reaction, Kyra pressed her advantage and attempted a disarm, only for the assassin to push her free hand out and blast Kyra with the Force, sending her tumbling backwards, which she quickly recovered from.

With the fight having been momentarily reset, the two assassins sought to taunt Kyra and proceeded to circle her. "Why do you fight the inevitable, Dreamer?" the female assassin questioned, speaking as if communicating through a vocoder, despite her face being clearly visible. "Your fate is sealed for your defiance to His will.

Kyra ignored these taunts and readied herself again, and the assassins did the same. They spread out in a half-X formation in order to keep Kyra's attention at least partially divided, and then moved in at the exact same time to force her into an impossible situation. Kyra, already aware of what they were trying to do, pushed ahead, choosing to exploit the weak link in the second assassin, while taking a gamble on what the swords were made of.

The female swung her sword low, towards Kyra's legs, while the male swung overhead. Kyra blocked the first strike and forced her into a blade lock, and she raised her arm to catch the male's attack, putting her faith in the strength of the beskar to hold up against whatever material their weapons were made with. Her gamble paid off – with a resounding clang that shook Kyra's bones, the armor plating resisted the strike. Still stuck in the blade lock and not going anywhere any time soon, the female leaned forward a bit, looking down at Kyra through her helmet. "You can't even save your lover – what makes you think you can save yourself?" she taunted again, striking a much more personal note for Kyra.

The pair pressed their weapons inward to try and disarm Kyra, and the male took his turn to intimidate Kyra. "We took great pleasure in carving him up – did you know that?" he questioned in a dark tone, grinding his blade down on Kyra's armor plating. "When we first strung him up and let the commoners have their way with him, all he would scream was your name - 'Kyra! Kyra!'" the assassin mimicked, making Nax sound as pathetic as he could. "At least, that was until we cut out his tongue."

Something inside Kyra snapped. She didn't respond to the taunts and threats the assassins were laying on her as they tried to beat her down into submission.

In one swift movement, she broke away from the blade lock, redirecting it away harmlessly, and maneuvered so that the cleave on her arm would do nothing but scrape against her armor. Then, Kyra jumped over the two, who were tracking her the entire time. When she jabbed at the female, they both blocked the strike and attempted a disarm, to which Kyra responded by swiping at them with a wave from the Force, causing them to stumble backwards. Momentarily dropping all pretenses of lightsaber combat, Kyra pressed her advantage against the stunned Rakata, and put all the strength she had into smashing her helmet into the face of the male, and she landed the hit with a very satisfying crack.

The male, to his credit, wasn't incapacitated by the blow, but he certainly wasn't immune to it – blood had spurted from his nose, and Kyra was certain she could see some visible signs of fracturing in his skull. Figuring it best not to push her luck, Kyra switched her focus to the female, and parried an incoming blow, before following up with a riposte, right into the female's free arm, damaging it severely, but not severing it. Now faced with the very real situation that her partner was suffering from blunt force trauma and she had a limp arm, the female started to fight much more defensively, constantly keeping her distance and making sure the fight was at least somewhat tenable for her.

Whenever the female would try to take a swing at Kyra, she would easily block it, continuing to walk forward at the wounded Rakata, almost like a force of nature carving chaos when given the opportunity. The female eventually gave up on the idea of fighting Kyra with her sword, and began to pick up large objects with the Force to throw at Kyra – objects that she effortlessly swatted away. "SHUU'TAO!" she shouted in the direction Sawei was, and Kyra immediately picked up on the new, incoming threat.

Kyra blasted the female with a wave from the Force, before pivoting to meet the threat head on – it was the Rakata with a quarterstaff – Shuu'Tao, evidently. The two Rakata Kyra had been fighting immediately cleared out, the female grabbing the still dazed male and running off into the trees, meaning Kyra and Sawei now had fair fights. Shuu'Tao's expression was flat – there was no bloodthirsty grin or maddened passion coming from him at all – perhaps a little bit of disdain for the two that had retreated, but he was otherwise completely blank.

From the way Shuu'Tao was coming at her, he absolutely intended to use the reach his quarterstaff provided to its every advantage, and Kyra prepared herself accordingly, adopting a more defensive posture. The instant he was in range, he struck low to trip Kyra, only for her to dodge to the side, jumping over the staff. Shuu'Tao, though, must have anticipated this, as he redirected his swing immediately, and nailed Kyra in the side, throwing her landing off quite a bit, though she still ended up on her feet. Shuu'Tao pressed his advantage, and smashed the end of his staff into Kyra's chest, before hitting her in the faceplate with it, momentarily dazing her. Shuu'Tao went for another blow on her while she was stunned, but Kyra reacted quickly enough to get away. In the brief pause in the fight, Kyra absolutely expected a taunt – threats of Nax receiving more torture, perhaps. Instead, she received a satisfied smirk from Shuu'Tao, and he adjusted his grip on his quarterstaff, tightening down his stance.

The two charged each other simultaneously – Kyra was naturally faster, but Shuu'Tao seemed to have accounted for this, and he pre-emptively blocked Kyra's low, sweeping strike, and he used the other end of the staff to block another strike when Kyra redirected her saber. It was a constant back and forth between the two of them – Kyra would reposition for a strike, and Shuu'Tao would block it just as quickly. It was effectively nothing more than a battle of attrition with the way it was currently going.

Seeking to break the stalemate, Kyra feinted an overhead strike, one which Shuu'Tao moved to block, and time seemed to slow as Kyra maneuvered the saber around the quarterstaff for a horizontal slash. Shuu'Tao, still caught up in blocking the vertical attack, narrowly caught on to Kyra's maneuver in time, and blocked appropriately, forcing the two of them into a blade lock. "...Impressive, Dreamer." Shuu'Tao remarked, his voice cold and calculating. "My Lord will be most pleased with your skills."

Kyra narrowed her gaze at the Rakata and said nothing as she held down the quarterstaff with her saber. Before she could even react, though, Shuu'Tao broke away and started hammering away at her with the staff, blow after blow, too fast for Kyra to even defend herself. Shuu'Tao whacked Kyra's wrist, knocking the saber out of her hands, before following up with a series of blows to her helmet. Somehow, the helmet seals were disengaged, and an upwards strike knocked Kyra's helmet off, sending it flying into the grass and letting Shuu'Tao see what Kyra looked like underneath the helmet.

Not that it mattered, anyways. Shuu'Tao continued assaulting Kyra as she tried to defend herself, before ultimately knocking her onto her back and poising for a downward strike on her face to knock her out.

Three blaster shots rang out, completely breaking the flow of the fight. Out of sheer desperation, or perhaps instinct, Kyra had drawn her blaster and shot Shuu'Tao three times in the stomach. He stood there, and Kyra still had her blaster trained squarely on him, both of them frozen. They both realized what had happened at the same time, and Shuu'Tao immediately retreated, clearly struggling with his wounds. He let out a high pitched whistle to the remaining assassin, and without any verbal communication, his comrade evacuated with him. Kyra, of course, continued to shoot at them from her position, the adrenaline still coursing through her system, but the pair were too fast for the bolts to hit them as they fled.

Kyra fired several shots into the treeline, even as Shuu'Tao and the fourth assassin disappeared into the shrubbery. Struggling to catch her breath even as her heart fought to break out of her chest, Kyra remembered something – Sawei had been engaged as well, almost the entire time in fact. Kyra holstered her blaster and pulled her lightsaber to her with the Force, before getting up and running to Sawei. "Sawei!" she shouted.

Sawei, now that her adrenaline rush had subsided, had collapsed to the ground, bleeding from just about every part of her body. Bruised, battered, and broken was the only description for the heap that Sawei had become – but she wasn't dead, far from it in fact. Sawei kept letting out hisses and growls as she frantically tried to cover her wounds with her hands, rolling around in pain. "Kyra!" she strained to yell, as her padawan came to her side. "Kyra, I need you to-" she started, hissing in pain as she changed focus from an abdominal wound to a deep wound on her shins. "-haah, hell. I need you to use the Force to help me with my wounds."

Kyra nodded, and instead of questioning Kyra on how to exactly do that, simply chose to focus with the Force. Pressing her hand against a particularly deep wound running the length of Sawei's right arm, Kyra focused exclusively on closing the wound completely. Hisses of pain from Sawei slowly softened, indicating that something was working, at least. Kyra moved from wound to wound, working with the Force, until Sawei's hissing and groaning completely stopped, replaced by her forcing herself to breathe.

Sawei grabbed Kyra's arm, and the padawan pulled her up, lifting the Jedi onto her shoulders and carrying her back to the relative safety of the LAAT. "Those two..." she started, giving Kyra a blank stare. "...They're on a completely different level. That wasn't a duel – that was a hunter toying with its prey." Sawei said, still shocked at just how hard she fought back, only to still end up in the state she was in.

Kyra checked Sawei's wounds to make sure that she was fine, and then got up to check on the pilot and copilot. "At least their skill isn't uniform." Kyra pointed out, searching with the Force to make sure the assassins truly had fled. "The two I fought were aggressive – reckless, even. Skilled, but not to the level of Shuu'Tao."

Having sensed nothing with the Force aside from some local wildlife that had come to investigate the crash, Kyra carefully moved out of the troop bay, jumping up to the cockpit to check on the pilot and copilot. It seems that, in the heat of battle, one of the assassins had killed the pilot and stabbed the copilot's body, just for good measure. Both were dead. "Blast." Kyra cursed under her breath, before looking for the in-cockpit communicator. Kyra found it blinking a soft green on the left control panel. Grabbing it, Kyra put it to her ear, and with a click, was put through to the communications channel. "This is Aurek One, is there anybody on this net?" Kyra asked, receiving a brief burst of static.

"Reading you, Aurek One." a clone replied, sounding somewhat disinterested in his job. There was another burst of static, followed by a few loud booms as something hit the clone's end of the commlink. "Aurek One, Aurek One..." the clone repeated to himself mindlessly, trying to recall whose callsign that was. "Oh, sithspit." he cursed, after realizing who he was speaking to. "This is FOB Besh, what do you need, Aurek One?"

"I need a pickup in a ground transport." Kyra quickly responded, looking around to make sure nothing was trying to sneak up on her. "Our LAAT was shot down by hostile forces – our officer was killed on impact and both the pilot and copilot are dead. Master Klorr is alive, but injured. Hostiles potentially still in the area."

"Copy that Aurek One. Gonna need you to turn the transponder on so we can pinpoint your location." the clone requested, now much more on edge. "On the right hand control panel in the pilot's seat, there's a switch marked ETPS. Pull the red cover off and flip it."

Kyra maneuvered around to the other side of the cockpit and quickly found the switch in question. Kyra took the cover off, and with a satisfying flick, did as was requested of her. "Done, now what?"

"Got you. Sit tight and wait, Aurek One. ETA is thirty minutes, we're rerouting a patrol team to your location ASAP. FOB Besh out." the clone responded.

"Cheers." Kyra said, before dropping back down into the troop bay, pulling the side doors shut to conceal herself and Sawei a bit better.

It was going to be a long half-hour, that was for sure.

Shuu'Tao clutched his stomach wound – it had already been disinfected and treated with vitor, but his body was still reacting to the shots he had taken. The Dreamer, for all intents and purposes, had been soundly defeated, yet she possessed the will and determination to keep fighting, even when she was on her back with his hadal staff coming down on her head – an admirable quality that those preceding her often seemed to lack.

The same, unfortunately, could not be said for his allies. While Dihn'Ra held his weight against the Traitor Knight's student, the same could not be said of Thrit'Mo and Cev'Lin, who crumpled fairly quickly. Shuu'Tao gave them a disdainful look as Thrit'Mo and Cev'Lin walked side by side, clearly terrified of what was to come when their report was to be made back at camp, and rightfully so – failure was foreign to their group as it was. Dantinian would not like what he was going to hear.

There was a soft whistling above the heads of the group, followed by the crack of twigs being snapped underfoot, and another Rakata joined the quartet, armed with an anti-air missile launcher – Jiv'Luy, the one who had shot down the Dreamer's transport. "Where's the..." he started, obviously looking for the Dreamer, only to take a couple looks at the state of Thrit'Mo, Cev'Lin, and Shuu'Tao and connect the dots. He then promptly cursed in some obscure local dialect of Rakatan.

"You know, Jiv, we could have had her if you had-" Cev tried to start, pushing the blame off to him.

"Silence." Shuu'Tao barked, spooking Cev from the harshness of his tone. "Your own incompetence is why we have to tell the Master why we are empty handed." he continued, very much wanting to tear into her further. "There is nobody to blame except yourselves."

Cev offered no resistance, and wisely kept her mouth shut. The group pushed deeper into the forest, sidestepping a slaughtertree and a pack of compdogs before they arrived back at camp. Jiv dipped into one of the tents, and came back out with a holovox, holding it out. "Who wants the honors?" he offered hesitantly, knowing exactly how this report was going to go. Cev and Thrit clearly weren't interested, so Dihn and Shuu'Tao were the only two options, and Shuu'Tao chose to bite the bullet.

Shuu'Tao grabbed the holovox, turned it on, and keyed in the channel for Dantinian. The device played its rather obnoxious connection tone as Shuu'Tao set it down in the center of the group, and after a tense wait, a life-sized hologram of Dantinian appeared, and the Hand got on their knees, bowing their heads to their Master. Neither party said anything, but Dantinian was looking around. At first, his expression was blank, but as he searched for his prize, that blank look turned not to rage, as the Hand had expected, but rather, disappointment, like a parent upset with their child. "Where," Dantinian started, casting several glances around. "is the Dreamer?"

Shuu'Tao remained on his knees. "The mission to capture the Dreamer was a failure, Master." he admitted, and Dantinian focused on him, clearly waiting for him to elaborate. "The Traitor Knight's student was with her, and while we maintained a two to one advantage for the majority of the engagement, Cev'Lin and Thrit'Mo were overwhelmed by the Dreamer, and would have been killed had it not been for my intervention." he reported, feeling the ire of the two as he specifically named them. "I was more than a match for the Dreamer, and the mission would have been a success had she not taken me by surprise and shot me, at which point Dihn and I vacated the area."

Dantinian said nothing for a while, before he eventually looked to Cev and Thrit, causing them to seize up from fear. "The Hand is my most trusted and valuable asset. Each and every member is irreplaceable, but that does not mean I will tolerate failure." he warned in a venomous tone, before turning back to Shuu'Tao. "It is clear to me that regular cells will simply not cut it, so to that end, link up with the H'uil cell towards the frontlines. Whenever you engage the Dreamer, she is to be utterly overwhelmed in any engagement. Honorable combat means nothing in the face of the future of our species." Dantinian ordered. "End communication."

With a flicker, the hologram disappeared, leaving the group with their orders, and a whole lot of relieved tension. Cev and Thrit had expected nothing short of absolute rage that would end with Dantinian killing them through the Nexus, but this was a comparative slap on the wrist. They were all aware of his temper – after all, any officer that Dantinian has had problems with in the past tended to 'disappear' after a visit from one of the Hand.

Without another word, Shuu'Tao picked up the holovox, and the group packed up camp, before starting the long journey to the frontlines on foot.

Lexi idly hit her head against the cell wall. The Rakatan resistance had kept her locked in the cell for the better part of the day, but at least they were bringing her food – cured and dried meats, mostly, but food was food. They'd even uncuffed her, albeit after they had taken her stuff out of the cell and put it into a footlocker across the way,. Of course, it wasn't like she would be able to escape anyways, as the resistance had posted a rather beefy looking Rakata at her door, and with only one exit, she was stuck.

Bored out of her mind with the fact that she had just been sitting on her ass the whole day, Lexi decided to pester the guard and make conversation, if to do nothing more than entertain her. She got up and made it about halfway across the room before the guard stepped aside, and the door creaked open, letting Venta and Shu'ul in. Shu'ul was certainly an interesting sight – he lacked the 'head cone' that most Rakata had, and his head was instead much flatter from eye to eye, almost like a plateau. His skin was also much more fleshy in tone, and he had to visibly focus on keeping his mouth closed, preventing him from exposing his sharp maw of teeth. "Good news for you, Clihx." Venta said in a determined tone, before taking Lexi's bag off her back and tossing it to her. "You get to live. Get your gear, you're deploying with us in two hours."

Without another word, Venta left, leaving Lexi with Shu'ul, who was giving her a pretty mean stare. Lexi acknowledged him, before setting her bag on the nearby table and rifling through it, re-attaching her weapons and equipment that the resistance had taken off her person earlier. When Lexi turned back around, Shu'ul was gone as well, and had left without as much as making a sound – surprising, considering his size.

In any case, Lexi had work to do, and she wasn't going to get it done from inside that cell.

And that's that chapter done.

I've been wanting to create a more attainable goal to measure Kyra's progress rather than just 'train with Sawei → kill Dantinian', and the product of that was the Hand, who are a small (low double digit numbers) of Force-sensitive Rakata that are mostly equivalent to Jedi Knights in terms of training, with the added caveat of them basically having to write the entire book of how a Force user is supposed to fight, since the Rakata haven't had access to the Force in literally thousands of years.

Also, shit, three years gone by just like that, and Pulsar Company is still going. Feels good.

Until next time.

-Tweak