I'd like to apologize for the delayed chapter. Again.

I'm sorry this keeps happening, but I've just been very unfocused with my writing as of late, on top of me getting some more hours (relatively, considering the dogshit pay I had for most of March and April where I would work 8 hours and get an 80 dollar paycheck. Fuck Dollar General, by the way, those shifts weren't even worth the fucking gas) again at work, and also taking a second course for college. When this chapter goes live I'm probably going to take a break to sort myself out and, you know, actually get back into the swing of things so I stop being all over the place like I have been as of late.

If you want my opinion on Kenobi, it's just that it's alright. Reva is a dogshit fucking terrible character though, and should not have been in the show, period.

Read and review.

Blackwall read over the report again, and again, and again. Still, he could not believe the absolute bantha fodder that had happened under his very nose. "What, exactly," he started, trying to find the appropriate words to describe his frustration. "...made you think that sending our most valuable asset out into enemy lines, unprotected, for work that slagdamn droids could do..." he continued, his anger boiling over. "...was a good idea?! I should have you shot!"

Hinj swallowed, trying to formulate a response, but Sawei stepped in for him. "Commander, normally, I would agree, especially considering the fact that this stunt nearly cost us the war, but he did go out of his way to provide us with an extract, which, if he did not do, would have likely ended up with the both of us captured or killed." she pointed out in an effort to temper Blackwall's rage.

The clone looked at Hinj, scrutinizing his body language and expression. "Extract or no, it's still a very tempting prospect to blast him right here." he threatened, before reaching for his holster to emphasize his point, though he ultimately did not draw his weapon.

"Sir, I-" Hinj tried to start.

Blackwall immediately gave him a death glare. "Shut your mouth before I stick a thermal detonator in it!" he barked, cowing Hinj into doing as he was told. Sawei shot him a look that signaled for him to cease the theatrics, no matter how angry he was over the near-disaster of an operation that Hinj had started, so Blackwall keyed something into his datapad, and in came a pair of Magnaguards, who walked up behind Hinj. "For this utter failure in judgement, I am stripping you of your command, and you are being thrown in the brig for the rest of this war. Take him away." Blackwall ordered, and the droids grabbed Hinj rather forcefully, before dragging him off to the turbolift. As soon as Hinj was gone, Blackwall relaxed a little. "Swear to stars, I'm going to pop a blood vessel one of these days." he remarked in an exhausted tone. "Especially considering what's coming up."

"What is?" Sawei questioned, giving Blackwall a somewhat confused look.

"Our next big obstacle." he simply replied, before pulling up a hologram on the command table of the current frontlines. Not far from the current front was a long, open stretch of flat desert that covered a significant chunk of the remaining distance to Noridar. There were two mountain ranges running along the length of the walls, only starting and stopping with the desert. In short; it was the perfect place to ambush any sort of armored or mechanized push, and even an airborne push, with virtually no cover the whole way through.

"...Oh, that looks like a fun time." she sarcastically remarked, before trying to theorize a way to mitigate the worst of what the flat offered for combat.

"The Rakata call this the 'Durado Flat', for relatively obvious reasons. It's also the biggest pain in my ass right now, because it's going to grind our offensive to a halt." Blackwall elaborated, though somewhat unnecessarily, considering Sawei knew how he planned operations. "I am not walking our troops through there. Not a damn chance."

"Do you have a plan, short of blowing the mountains up?" Sawei inquired, before remembering what happened the last time an offensive Blackwall was in command of had ground to a halt. "...Or, you know, nuking their positions?"

Blackwall breathed deep, and input a few commands to the hologram, before it switched to a subterranean view. "There's a network of tunnels that go underneath the flat, but I guarantee you that Dantinian's got them rigged to blow and trap any force we send in. Topside's going to be crawling to shit with emplacements and air defense, and considering the terrain they'd be hiding in, we can't just smack the defenses with SEAD and bomb the emplacements."

Sawei pursed her lips as she tried to think of a solution to the predicament. "We could go around." she offered up.

"Sawei, it's a chokepoint. There's no 'going around.'" he reminded her, and Sawei shook her head.

"Who said it had to be on the surface?" she countered, and it was then that Blackwall understood what she was getting at. "We could send LAATs underneath the ring and have them pop up behind, offload troops and assault teams, and-"

"And then we have to run logistics through the Flat. LAAT logi wouldn't be able to support that." Blackwall bluntly interrupted. "Which, again, puts us back at square one."

Again, Sawei shook her head. "You're not thinking creatively enough, Blackwall. How many bulk freighters do we have?"

Blackwall remained quiet for a moment as he caught on to where Sawei was going with this. "There's three we have in the walls. They're all Action VIs, and only one is actually spaceworthy."

"What about the other two?"

"No idea. They could probably be restored with some effort, but the captains're gonna bitch and moan that we're commandeering their ships." Blackwall noted, flicking his fingers as he tried to think of sources of other bulk freighters. "There's also a bunch of Action Vs and VIs that're sitting up in orbit, though who knows what sort of condition they're in – probably crap, borderline scrap metal."

Sawei snickered at the comment, before returning to her usual professional tone. "We wouldn't need a whole fleet of them. Maybe… four or five?" she postulated. "Stock two up with MTTs loaded with droids and as much equipment to set up FOBs as possible, and load the others with enough guns, ammo, food, and medical that they wouldn't need a resupply until the war was over." Sawei continued, slightly exaggerating the matter.

Blackwall pursed his lips in thought. "That… could work." he eventually admitted, mentally going over his choices. "But we would need a distraction – something to draw their attention away from their backlines and to the Flat. I'll need to speak to Foreman to get something going." Blackwall went on. As if on cue, Foreman came up to the bridge, his photoreceptors a dim yellow. Blackwall looked at the droid. "Speak of the devil, and he shall appear!' he joked, confusing Foreman somewhat.

"...I've come to deliver the results from the latest rounds of testing you requested for the BX-Ds, Blackwall." Foreman started, before keying something in on one of the many built-in devices on his body, and then fully directing his attention to the clone. "What were you discussing before I arrived?" he inquired, and Blackwall gestured to the hologram. It took Foreman a mere fraction of a second to recognize what it was, and where the problem was in regards to the broader offensive.

"How feasible would it be to create a vehicle that could create a bunch of hologram illusions of other vehicles?" Blackwall inquired, and Foreman's photoreceptors turned yellow momentarily.

"...Not impossible, but harder than it would seem." the droid answered, rapidly trying to throw something together internally. "It would have to essentially have a hyperintelligent droid brain controlling it, a massive power source, a hi-resolution photoreceptor, and high power hologram projector, and only that on the chassis."

"Why the droid brain?" Sawei asked.

"If you shoot a missile at a hologram and it hits, but the hologram doesn't react, it ruins the illusion. The brain is there to track threats, manage the holograms appropriately, and keep the illusion up." Foreman answered, beforee turning back to Blackwall. "Why do you ask?"

"We're going to airdrop troops past that flat and completely go around it, but I want to create a diversion to make sure the Rakata think we'll be going straight through the Flat and draw their attention away from the airdrops, hence, the vehicles." Blackwall replied, growing increasingly confident in the plan. "No, better yet, we'll make them think we're committing the bulk of our armored and mechanized forces to the Flat with this hologram vehicle, let them all get "destroyed" by enemy armor, and when the Rakata think they have the advantage and have most of their local forces in the Flat for a counter-attack, we cut off their logistics lines with the airdrops and starve them out. Two mynocks with one blaster bolt – resistance is virtually nullified from the end of the flat to halfway to Noridar, and we force those in the Flat to either fight on our terms, or die hungry."

Sawei listened intently to the updated plan. "Blackwall, you scare the hell out of me sometimes." she admitted, but she said it in such a tone that implied preference for that strategy, rather than just performing the airdrops, which would be a mistake, as they could be sandwiched between the troops in the Flat, and the reinforcements coming from Noridar.

"I'll… run some simulations and get back to you, then." Foreman said in a somewhat resigned tone, acting as if Blackwall were treating him solely as a means to pump out new designs on a whim, before he made for the turbolift. "Kindly review the reports on the BX-Ds, so that I may adjust them as necessary." he commented somewhat idly, before disappearing behind the lift's doors.

Now that the planning had reached its logical endpoint, Sawei sought to change the subject. "Have you heard back from Sapphyra at all?" she inquired.

Blackwall's mood soured immediately. "Not a word." he said, clearly concerned with the lack of communication. "She was supposed to send her first report in the other day, but so far, not a peep from her." he revealed. "I have no idea why she's gone quiet – all she had to do was gather intelligence on their defenses and industry and report back, nothing more, nothing less."

Sawei pursed her lips for a moment. "What if she found Strag?"

"I specifically told her not to bother with him if she did."

Sawei nodded once, before leaning on the command table. "That may be true, but are you sure she's a good listener?" Sawei suggested, and Blackwall froze, perhaps realizing his mistake. "All three of them – Strag, Kyra, and Sapphyra, that is, are all very close to each other. It's not unreasonable to think that Sapphyra found Strag, who, mind you, is currently being tortured, and has abandoned her original orders to rescue him."

Blackwall raised an eyebrow. "How do you know Strag is being tortured, Sawei?"

"Kyra attempted to make contact with him several days prior to Sapphyra's teleportation, and I… assisted her." Sawei admitted, feeling a bit of shame that she was enabling Kyra's attachment. "I also have reason to believe that Kyra informed Sapphyra of his situation shortly before the teleport actually happened."

Blackwall remained quiet, considering the implications of Sapphyra changing her objective on her own. "...Hell's bells." he cursed, trying to think of ways this could impact BX-D deployment. "Last time I let a damned civvie volunteer for infiltration work." he muttered to himself, before pulling up the datapad with the BX-D testing on it to check on progress. If Lexi had irreparably damaged future operations with the droids, there would absolutely be hell to pay.

Sawei, seeing that Blackwall was now concerned with trying to avert a potential disaster, quietly excused herself to go check up on Kyra.

Kyra slipped in and out of consciousness in a constant loop. One minute, she would be partially awake and aware of her surroundings as droids did… something with her legs, the next she would be back under, seemingly skipping days at a time whenever she alternated between the two. Sometimes she would hear a familiar voice – Sawei's, maybe? Then again, she wasn't really able to tell.

Having grown so used to this cycle, it took a while for Kyra to realize that it had stopped, and she was now simply lying in a bed, and her arms felt like they were asleep, accompanied by the annoying feeling of them being pincushions. Slowly opening her eyes, she saw that she was back in the Dropstorm's medbay, with a whole bunch of medical equipment attached to both of her legs, creating a kind of web. On the opposite end of the room was none other than the 2-1B that had been assigned to her when they first fell down to the rings, and she cleared her throat to get his attention.

The droid looked up from the console he was working at, and turned to look over at her. "Oh, you're awake." he said bluntly, clearly not happy that he had to take care of her again. "You've sure got a penchant for ending up in my care, Moryne." he continued

Kyra sighed, looking down at whatever was going on with her legs. "What happened?" she questioned, before resting her head as she began to feel lightheaded. "...and why do I feel, uh…" she trailed, failing to find the word for the sensation.

"Loopy?" the droid answered for her, before pulling out a small capsule-shaped device and inserting it into some unseen port underneath where his jaw would be. "You're on enough painkillers to kill a rancor, and the 'why' is that you tore up your legs something fierce."

"...How bad?"

The droid made an electronic click as he accessed his memory banks. "Well, let's put it this way – if we didn't have vitor or bacta, or, Maker forbid, modern medical procedures, you probably would have died from the stress to your heart from all that adrenaline before we could even do anything with your legs. Don't forget the poison that still was in your system, too, that was real fun. Honestly, you're lucky you'll even be able to fight again, let alone walk." the droid mused, before raising his arm and activating a built-in datapad. "I have no clue what kind of Force-induced bantha shit you did to tear up your legs that badly, but you're going to be stuck in that bed for a while." he continued, before there was a knock at the door. "Who's there?"

"Klorr. Is she awake yet?" Sawei said, her voice muffled slightly.

The droid looked at Kyra and deactivated his datapad. "Yeah, she's awake alright." he confirmed, before moving to trade places with Sawei. "Have fun." he quipped to Kyra, before leaving.

Sawei, when she entered, certainly seemed less than pleased with Kyra's current situation, and she showed it in the way she approached Kyra's bedside. "What the hell happened?" she started, emphasizing every word and wasting no time whatsoever on grilling Kyra for the mistake. "Why in the name of the Force would you ever agree to a lone wolf mission where you're deep in enemy lines as a known target, spotting for artillery? That's the exact reason we have probe droids!"

"Yeah, but..." Kyra started, before trying to get into a bit of a more comfortable position. "...I still killed one, and then we captured Vu'Shol, so that's two members of the Hand, gone and dealt with." she reminded, much to Sawei's chagrin.

The Twi'lek simply sighed at the reminder. "That does not justify your nearly suicidal act, even if strategically, it's a victory." she went on, before gesturing to the mess of equipment around Kyra's legs. "Because now, you're helpless until your legs heal. Vulnerable. You and I both know that's not a good thing with what the Hand seem to be capable of."

Kyra gave a slightly cocky smirk. "Sawei, I'm sitting in the medbay of one of the most fortified locations on the rings. Between me and those walls, there's legions of droids, volunteer militia-"

Sawei stopped her right there. "That's exactly my point, Kyra." she said in a scathing tone. "You know exactly how badly we tore up those Rakata, and we're just two Jedi. Imagine the damage the Hand could do if they all committed to an assault to capture you while you're like this. Knockout and I can only do so much." Sawei pointed out, before putting her hands on Kyra's leg, and an energizing feeling coursed through her body as Sawei applied healing via the Force. "That is precisely the reason we need to minimize the time you spend in this bed, doctor's orders be damned."

The feeling of loopiness disappeared relatively quickly when Sawei applied the healing, and Kyra could think a bit more clearly. "Has Vu'Shol squawked at all?" she asked, wondering if their prize had borne fruit.

"It's only been about a day, Kyra. He's not even awake."

"Really?"

"Yeah. You did him in pretty good, so he's still way out of it. Interrogators are chomping at the bit to get at him, but I'm going to need to be there to make sure he doesn't try anything funny when he does wake." Sawei went on, before taking her hands off, and the energizing feeling ceased. "You know, like try and escape. Not that he would get far on his own, anyways. You pretty much crippled him for life with how badly you cut him up. Can't move on his own, can't feed himself, can't do anything. He's completely dependent on us, but with the Hand, I don't expect that to necessarily mean compliance."

Kyra relaxed in the bed a bit more. "So, what if he doesn't talk?" she inquired, wondering what the plan was then. "Or, worse, if he tells Dantinian what happened through the Force? Maybe even leaks what's going on with me?"

Sawei shook her head as Knockout entered the room, looking as intimidating as ever. "He's in complete and total isolation. Guards aren't even permitted to be in the room unless I'm there with them, and there are droids watching the live guards to make sure he's not controlling them. Foreman even donated some of his Magnaguards for protection, so there's not a chance in hell that he's getting out, and with me constantly watching his every move even without being physically there, he's not sending a message out." Sawei elaborated.

Kyra appeared thoughtful for a while, but didn't say anything. Sawei, however, had grown used to Kyra's mannerisms, and picked up on this, imploring her to speak her mind. "...Can you use the Force to speak with the dead?"

Sawei was caught off guard by the question. "...Yes, but what brought this on?" she inquired. To her, Kyra generally seemed to favor the practical applications of the Force, so her sudden interest in the more esoteric piqued her curiosity.

Kyra clicked her tongue as she thought of how to explain her 'experience' without sounding insane. "...Well, I spoke to a dead member of the Hand." she said, having decided that the blunt route was the best choice possible. "Shuu'Tao's brother, specifically." Kyra clarified.

"What." Sawei simply said, flabbergasted by the admission.

Kyra straightened herself in the bed. "When I finished the artillery spotting, I took the speeder and followed a river. I was tired, though, and figured I'd at least take a nap so I would be more alert for the rest of the trip."

"A nap?" Sawei echoed. "Behind enemy lines?"

"Shut up." Kyra shot back halfheartedly, not in the mood to argue the point. "Anyways, I heard a tree branch snap in the dark, woke me right up, so I drew my blaster and waited for whatever made the noise to come out." she went on, her tone growing softer the further she went. "...Nax came out, looking exactly like how he should. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I let my guard down."

Sawei silently judged her for holding her attachment to Nax so tightly, enough to let her guard down for what was an obvious trick, but she otherwise said nothing.

"I thought it was just me having a dream, but everything after put that in doubt. When he disappeared, I kept going down the river, and then this… fog started rolling in, thick and heavy. Couldn't see anything, so I tried using the Force, and I just sensed this... malignant presence all over the place. I heard Nax screaming in the fog, but I caught on that I was being toyed with, and sped off as fast as I could." Kyra recalled, clearly regretful over abandoning "Nax," even if it was a fake. "Then the water started to rise. Got into the turbines and killed the engine, and I got sucked into the river when the speeder went under. Couldn't get out, and got dragged all the way to a waterfall. Spat me out, managed to slow my fall, but I ended up getting knocked out on impact anyways."

Sawei raised an eyebrow. "It seems that his brother is a trickster, Kyra."

Kyra shrugged her shoulders. "Don't have any idea if he was or not. When I woke up after the fall, I was in a burning swamp, with a stream just stretching ahead into the fog, so I just… walked forward. Then, I saw mud coalescing together into, well, a Rakata, floating up in the air, with his back turned to me. He started mumbling to himself about sadness for whatever reason. I drew my blaster, asked him who he was, and then he turned to me, and introduced himself as Shuu'Lin, before going on another monologue about me being a 'vessel of suffering.' Then, he beckoned me to follow him, and, well..." Kyra trailed, still finding trouble describing the experience, to the point where she was unintentionally skipping details.

"...Well? What happened?" Sawei questioned, imploring her padawan to go on.

"I…" Kyra started, internally doubting her own memory of the event. "...I saw dead people. People that I had killed since I escaped the Bantha. Each and every one. They were all walking past me, each one carrying the wounds that I inflicted on them – severed limbs, blaster scarring, shrapnel – everything. Some ignored me, others shambled after me. Some just floated in the water." Kyra recalled, catching herself staring at the wall blankly as the memory of the dead came washing over her. "Whenever they touched me, I'd feel the exact pain that killed them. Horrifying doesn't even begin to describe it, but I kept going, even though Lostur crawled out of whatever pit in hell that had swallowed him, just to haunt me again and try to kill me." Kyra grimly remembered, still disturbed by the actions of the dead slaver and the shadow he cast upon her life. "There were so many dead. So, so many." she continued, her tone quieting further. "...When I got to those that died in the artillery strikes, I couldn't do anything to get around them. They mobbed me and dragged me under the water, each one getting a taste of revenge, inflicting the pain that I caused them a thousandfold, before moving on. When they were finally finished, Shuu'Lin tried to lecture me, and I just… lost control."

"Lost control?"

Kyra blinked twice. "Sawei, ever since I escaped the Bantha, I've had to fight tooth and nail to keep my freedom. From Lostur and his gang of lackeys, to Dantinian wanting me for a ritual sacrifice." she reminded the Twi'lek. "I've had to shoot, stab, and fight my way out of situations no person should ever have to go through, so being told that I was guilty of murder, well, it made me snap. So, I tore into him as hard as I could, and, well… Shuu'Lin backtracked. He had misjudged me, apparently, and I guess tried to apologize by letting me in on a few secrets."

"And?"

Kyra held up one finger. "First, he was killed for disobeying Dantinian, so there may be infighting within the Hand that we can exploit, probably with Shuu'Tao, considering they were brothers." Then, a second finger went up. "Second, Virgilius, the one who was running the Rakata before Dantinian, may not actually be dead – Shuu'Lin hasn't seen him at all." Kyra raised a third finger. "Third..." she tried to say, before choking up, showing that whatever the third thing was, it wasn't easy for Kyra to talk about. "...Third..." she tried again. "...Nax isn't just being tortured. He's been..." she went on, her voice quieting to barely above a whisper. "...mutilated. They've cut him up, keeping him on life support so that he doesn't die. I-" she said, before finally stopping herself from thinking about what Dantinian had done to Nax as tears began to stream down her cheeks.

Sawei remained ambivalent to the display, however. "Cut up? How so?" she questioned, unintentionally upsetting Kyra further.

She wiped her tears away – a futile endeavor, considering her current state. "He has no eyes. He has no vocal chords. His arms and legs have restraint marks all around them, and his body is covered in bruises, cuts, and lacerations. Covered head to toe in blood. It's..." she tried to go on, before burying her face in her hands, having had enough. "...He's got one foot in the grave already. Shuu'Lin showed me what they had done to him, and..." she mumbled, horrified at the fate that had befallen Nax.

It was then that Knockout had finally seen fit to speak up. "Master Klorr, I believe that Master Moryne is suffering from post-traumatic stress. I strongly advise abandoning this subject before things turn ugly." he boomed, and Sawei caught on to the thinly veiled threat.

Sawei's mouth hung open for but a moment. "My apologies, Kyra. I didn't intend for you to-"

Kyra's state had stabilized somewhat. "...I know you didn't mean to upset me. It's just..." she trailed again, before pulling her face from her hands and brushing her hair out of her face, looking straight at Sawei with red eyes. "...What kind of monster would do that to someone?"

"One that needs to be stopped, Kyra." she said in a reassuring tone, before putting her hand on her shoulder. "And we will stop him. That much I'm sure of." she continued, speaking confidently, before she decided to heed Knockout's suggestion and leave the room.

When Venta had said that they had 'bad blood' with the Tetrarch's cell, Lexi interpreted that as just stupid petty disputes that drove a wedge between the two groups – disputes that could be resolved with negotiation and dialogue.

As it turned out, 'bad blood' was an understatement. The actual state of the relations between the Noridar partisans and the Tetrarch's cell was much closer to the ever-present gang wars of the Coruscant underworld, with tempers running hot and fingers itching to pull the trigger at a moments notice. The cell had sent a few forward scouts to intercept the group, and at current, they were all being held at gunpoint, surrounded, while Venta argued to try and gain passage. "This goes beyond you, me, or what happened, Tiro!" she shouted, making her frustration known, while those under the Tetrarch looked on, unimpressed with the display. "We need to find the Worldshaper, and if we don't-"

"-It'll kill us all." Tiro finally interrupted, acting as if Venta were out of the loop. "We're acutely aware. You think you're the only ones looking for it, Venta?" he pointed out in a scathing tone, agitated by Venta's apparent naivete. "Just because you cut yourselves off from the others and fell behind doesn't mean everyone else did the same exact thing."

Lexi finally cleared her throat to gain their attention. "Then, isn't that more of a reason for us to collaborate?" she offered as a suggestion. "If you're going to tear at each others throats over whatever it is that happened instead of working together, then you're going to get nowhere, period."

Tiro calmly approached Lexi. "...And who are you to speak with such authority on this matter?" he questioned, looking her up and down. "Seeing as how you're not one of us, after all. Please, go on."

Lexi held her ground. "It's my understanding that you're part of one of the cells Commander Blackwall reached out to to forge an alliance with to fight Dantinian." she started, maintaining a stone cold expression. "I'm sure he'd love to know that my mission is being impeded by some inane rivalry." she threatened, before looking at the equipment that the Tetrarch's men were carrying. "You guys're carrying a lot of our equipment." she pointed out, gesturing towards the multiple Rakata carrying DC-series blasters. "You wanna keep those things fed?" she asked, and a few of them examined their blasters, before giving a few halfhearted nods and shrugs. "Then it would be in your best interest to let us through."

Tiro wasn't having any of it, however. "We will not be forced into submission for this-"

"I never said anything about submission." Lexi interrupted, and by this point the two were nose to nose. "What I want is cooperation, and if I have to threaten to take your toys away to get that, then so be it." she went on, and still, Tiro was unmoved, so Lexi decided to try a different approach. "Have you ever lost somebody close to you, Tiro?" she questioned, and Tiro's expression softened, which Lexi took as a yes. "Then surely you've thought about a scenario where you could have saved them. I have that chance to save someone close, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let that opportunity slip from my fingers." Hopefully, tugging on his heartstrings could get her to the Tetrarch, who might be more amenable to letting the partisans through.

Tiro did not respond, and an eerie quiet soon settled over the group as he considered Lexi's words. "...She can come in." he eventually said, relenting somewhat on his position. As Venta and the others made a step to join her, the blasters went right back up. "I didn't say you could come in." Tiro hissed, immediately cowing the partisans. "You shalani are going to sit here and wait." he said, his tone growing more agitated, before he reached for his vox. "Tetrarch, I'm letting the Helljumper girl in." Tiro reported, and there was a burst of inaudible speech from the device, presumably granting him permission to let her in. He then motioned to one of his subordinates, who subsequently gestured for Lexi to follow him to the base.

Lexi exchanged a brief glance with Venta, before running after the subordinate. The subordinate paid virtually no attention to her presence aside from a glance over his shoulder, not even turning his head fully to look at her. "What was that about?" she asked, trying to get something out of him that was perhaps more restrained than what Tiro was ranting about to the partisans. Predictably, however, she was simply ignored, and after several minutes of walking through dense vegetation, they came to a rocky outcropping at the base of a hill. The Rakata pulled out some kind of small device, placed it in front of a hidden scanner, and a visual scanner came out of a port in the rock, looking him up and down. It then retracted, and a tunnel opened up into the hill. With another simple gesture, the Rakata told her to go on through, which she did, and the door shut behind her.

Proceeding onwards and into the camp, which was inside the hollowed out hill, she was met with the rather curious sight of a stolen exo, staring her down, cannons pointed her and at the ready to blow her away if she made as much as a move for her blaster. "Stand down." a calm, almost chilling voice said in the distance, and the exo lowered its weapons, stepping aside. There, near what was clearly the tent of the one in charge of the cell, was a Rakata in a somewhat faded set of ceremonial armor, flanked by two guards in gear that had clearly been supplied by the Helljumpers. "What are you standing there slackjawed for, girl?" he questioned, beckoning her over. "You came here for a reason, and I trust that it wasn't simply to waste our time." he pointed out. Lexi didn't immediately respond, but she quickly walked up to who she assumed was the Tetrarch. He made a spinning motion with his fingers, and the guards dispersed, before he disappeared inside of the tent, with Lexi following him inside. "Quite bold of you to threaten to take our equipment away, considering you're clearly not part of their command structure." the Tetrarch noted, looking Lexi up and down, before seating himself at his command table. "Only the most desperate would make such a threat, so, tell me, what is it that you're after?"

Lexi gave the Tetrarch a confused look. "I'm looking to help the ones I came here with regroup so that we can track down the-" she started to explain.

The Tetrarch, however, shook his head. "Not that." he said in a somewhat dismissive tone, before clasping his hands together and leaning in. "The Worldshaper is our mess to clean up – you don't have much of a reason to be looking for it. Not unless you have something to gain." he suggested, showing that despite this being their first interaction, he was capable of catching on extremely quickly. "Indulge me."

Faced with virtually no other option but to tell the truth, Lexi crossed her arms, looking down at the Tetrarch. "I understand that your delegates to the Dropstorm met the Dreamer as part of the negotiations." she started, trying to figure out how to make this work. "There's a man being held prisoner in Noridar. His name is Nax, and he's a close friend of mine, but more than that, he's the Dreamer's lover." she explained, and the Tetrarch shot straight up, with that having gotten his attention. "Dantinian had almost captured the Dreamer, but Nax managed to rescue her, and ended up trading places with her. He's been mutilated, tortured, and starved, all while being kept on life support so that he doesn't die prematurely. I promised Venta and the others my help with locating the Worldshaper in exchange for them helping me rescue him." she finished, stepping a bit closer to the Tetrarch. "The Dreamer and I both owe him our lives, so you can imagine why it seems like I'm so desperate to save him. Especially since, if he were to die, there's no telling what could happen to the Dreamer. She may fall to the dark side in despair," Lexi suggested, practically talking out of her ass as she still didn't understand the full implications of Force sensitivity, as well as the two sides of the Force, even with the little that Kyra had told her as Sawei trained her. "...or she may end up taking her own life after the war. Neither of which are desirable outcomes, considering the importance your people seem to place on her mere existence."

The Tetrarch remained quiet for quite a while – long enough that the pause in conversation had caused the bodyguards to become antsy, as they had begun shuffling around outside. "…I had no idea that the Dreamer's life hinged on that of another – even if that other was a lover." he admitted, significantly more concerned than he was mere moments ago.

"That brings me to another thing – Tiro, the one leading the squad that held us up, was pretty aggressive with my group. Venta had also told me that there was 'bad blood' between you and them, but so far, I haven't heard a damned thing about what caused that animosity." Lexi said, her temper restrained, but still making itself known. "I'd like to know what happened, before this becomes a problem for my mission."

The Tetrarch gave off a somewhat annoyed sigh, before moving back and reaching under the table, where he began rifling through a stack of dataslates. Having found what he was looking for, he yanked it out and set it on the table, before turning it on to read. "The Noridar cell – those who you arrived with, abandoned our cause early on in Dantinian's reign." he explained, and Lexi was bewildered, with her expression simply saying 'that's it?' However, the Tetrarch was not done. "Cells come and go as they wish, but that is not the issue. The issue is that, when the Noridar cell did so, they effectively prevented us from ending Dantinian early and restoring Virgilius's advisors to power."

"What? Why would they do that?" Lexi pressed.

The Tetrarch made a few taps on the dataslate, and a hologram of an older Rakata appeared. "Shanderas, the one who led them before Venta, hated both Dantinian and Virgilius. When the time came to march on Noridar, he wanted to be the one in control, and so he had been feeding all cells false intelligence and reporting our movements to Dantinian, which ended up with most cells at the time being obliterated." the Tetrarch recalled, hiding some measure of anger underneath his seemingly cool mask. "They are traitors."

Venta had not mentioned Shanderas to her before, whether that was out of shame, or to keep her away from things she wasn't meant to know. "But Shanderas doesn't lead them anymore." she countered. "Venta and the others had formed a contingency that hinged on cooperation with you, specifically. If they still wanted to put themselves in charge of everything, why would they bother trying to form up back here?" she questioned.

Before the Tetrarch could respond, there was a ping on his vox. "Another group of traitors has shown up." Tiro said from the other end. "What should we do with them?"

Instead of immediately answering, he looked to Lexi, clearly expecting some form of negotiation from her, and it was negotiation that he got. "You're hunting the Worldshaper, but you don't know where it actually is." she reasoned. "You've probably tried slicing those maintenance drones down in the tunnels to get its location, but they blew up before you could get anything out of them." she continued, keying in several inputs to produce a hologram of just part of what she had decrypted. "I, however, sliced one and swiped everything off of it. I've got a complete map of the subsurface caches on the rings, but what's inside them is only marked by specific riddles, which I don't know the answer to." she continued to explain, before gesturing with her head to the entrance. "There's someone in that second group who knows the answer to what I have. If you let them in – both groups, that is, and resupply them, I'll give you a full copy of everything that we uncover." Lexi finished, laying her offer clear out on the table for the Tetrarch to consider.

The Tetrarch seemed to hesitate momentarily, before pressing down on his vox. "Let them through." he ordered. "Both groups."

"Sir?" Tiro responded, silently questioning the order.

"Shanderas is gone, Tiro, and they've come to us to make amends. I am willing to offer them a second chance to atone for his mistake." he said, his voice remaining calm and collected. "We are to feed them and offer them a resupply in exchange for extremely valuable information. Let them in." he said, leaving the unsaid potential for reprimands to hang in the air if Tiro did not do as he was told. There was a grumble from the vox, and it shut off. "I do hope that the information you recover is mutually beneficial." he commented, before putting the dataslate back where it was, and digging around for a completely different slate.

Lexi, meanwhile, excused herself to go and greet the partisans that were being let into the base. The first handful were just some of the grunts, but following behind them was Venta, along with Kintik and Shu'ul, who both looked like they had a bomb go off in their faces. Lexi hadn't actually seen Kintik before, but he looked about how she expected – extremely scrawny, but to his credit, he was kitted out in enough cybernetics to make someone from the Ascendancy blush. Shu'ul, meanwhile, was leaning heavily on Kintik, creating uncomfortable strain for the smaller Rakata. Lexi moved to support Shu'ul, but some of the less injured partisans beat her to the punch, and brought him to one of the medics. "...You know, you could have warned us about Dantinian wanting your head on a spike." Kintik complained, stretching now that Shu'ul was off of him. "Would've saved us a whole bunch of trouble evacuating on short notice."

Lexi gave him a disapproving look. "I'm not sure what you're talking about." she responded, trying to deflect. "I thought Dantinian wanted all of us dead equally."

Venta put her hand on Kintik's shoulder. "He knows, Lexi." she said, and Lexi relaxed slightly.

"Of course I know, and that data better be damn well worth it." Kintik said, clearly angry that their entire operation had been uprooted, and they now had to start from scratch. "Gimme." he demanded. Lexi was half-tempted to make him ask nicely, but instead gestured with her head to move somewhere more private, away from the entrances. On the way there, she pulled out and turned on her datapad, and began a backup of everything on it to her suit. "What I want to know, Lexi, is how you even managed to pull this data from the drone in the first place. Every time we've tried, they just-"

"-Self destructed, I know." Lexi interjected, cutting Kintik off. "The honest answer is that I'm just the better slicer." she boasted, sounding extremely prideful, but as far as she was concerned, it was the truth. "When I was a kid, I used to do this to get by, and I got good at it. Shutting off self destructs on droids was just part of the job, and it's barely any different here, though I didn't expect a backup killswitch." she admitted, before retrieving the drone's travel history and displaying it as a hologram. "Here is where the drone has been. None of the locations are explicitly marked, obviously, which is where this second bit comes in." she continued, before switching to the display of the riddles. "I've been having a hell of a time trying to figure out what all of this means, but I've just come to the conclusion that I can't. They're all riddles that are specific to you as a people, which means I'm shit out of luck as far as figuring out what they mean."

Kintik had become transfixed on the riddles, completely turning his mood upside down, and he motioned for Lexi to move down the list slowly. "...Terraformer, terraformer, weapons cache, agricultural equipment, foundry, subsystem…" he rapidly muttered under his breath, skipping items that he deemed unnecessary, before the list came to a stop. "Why did it stop?" he asked, his trance broken.

"That's the extent of what I've managed to break the encryption on." Lexi answered, and Kintik's agitated mood returned. "Couldn't really do more, considering we were trying not to get shot at on foot." she tacked on, and Kintik stewed. "That's where you come in. You're more familiar with whatever programming language this stuff is all coded in than I am. We'll get the list done faster with the both of us working on it, and that means getting the Worldshaper out of the picture faster." she finished, and just as she did, the datapad completed its backup. She then promptly wiped it, and began a copy of what she had taken from the drone to the datapad.

This was going to take a while, and Kintik didn't exactly seem too endeared to the idea of working with Lexi, even if it was for their own good. Slicers being competitive was something Lexi had grown used to, so maybe she had accidentally slighted Kintik in some way, and Lexi was mentally preparing herself for a lot of heartache. In any case, they had a job to do, and calling the list extensive would be underselling it.

Dantinian paced back and forth in his private quarters, trying to figure out how exactly Sapphyra got past everything. She couldn't have walked – that would have necessitated going through Durado, and an airdrop would have been picked up on sensors. The tunnels were another possibility, but they were so labyrinthine that it wasn't likely. None of the posts between Noridar and the polar control center had reported contact either – in fact, they've been quiet since the fighting broke out.

In one moment, she was behind Interloper lines, and the next, she was right underneath his nose, creeping about with the terrorists. With her appearance without as much as a trace of how she had arrived, the need to recall and reorganize the Hand due to the loss of two members within short order of each other, and with the fact that the Interlopers kept sniffing out his probes for their encampment that were meant to figure out where the production had been coming from, it was somewhat stressful. Dantinian then paused his train of thought as it had brought something to the forefront of his mind, something that he had not anticipated – with the twins out of Wargate, that opened the possibility for Sapphyra to have-

As unlikely as it was, he may have just found the answer to why Sapphyra had come out of nowhere.

Now much more alert, Dantinian made for the door, but sensed a presence. "Shuu'Tao." he simply called out, and the door opened, his servant kneeling in the frame, as if he had been there the whole time. "I did not call for you. Explain yourself."

Shuu'Tao remained calm under the gaze of his master. "I sensed that you were troubled, master." he explained, and Dantinian's expression was unchanged. "I intended to assist, though if you would rather I-"

Dantinian did not let him finish. "Give me your reconnaissance droid." he ordered, and Shuu'Tao complied without complaint, handing the small droid over. It was tiny, barely the size of his fingertip, but despite this, it was incredibly advanced for such a small package, suitable for what he intended to do with it. "Follow me." Dantinian commanded, leaving the room with Shuu'Tao in tow.

Shuu'Tao did not say anything until they left the palace and began descending to the lowest tier. "Master, what exactly is the problem? You seem… shaken." he said, carefully choosing his words so as to not incur Dantinian's wrath.

Dantinian's lip curled slightly. "Sapphyra's sudden presence was uncalled for, and I have been trying to understand how she appeared. Recall our prisoners at Wargate, Shuu'Tao." Dantinian said as the guards slammed their pike rifles into the ground to signal his presence. "Virgilius had two advisors, Satio and Mailo, who were spatial and temporal displacement specialists, respectively. They conducted teleportation experiments millennia ago, but gave up out of weakness, but there are two products of that research – one underneath the very ground Noridar was built on, and another that it links to elsewhere on the ring." Dantinian explained.

Shuu'Tao quickly caught on. "You believe she used this experimental device to teleport underneath our defenses?" he inquired, and Dantinian gave a silent nod. "How would they have even accomplished this? Teleportation isn't even something the Empire had managed to completely understand at its peak, let alone Interlopers who can barely scrape together a functioning settlement."

"That," Dantinian replied, looking over to Shuu'Tao. "...is something I intend on finding out." he said. Some of the craftmasters had noticed Dantinian, and moved to approach, but were quickly shooed away by the guards, leaving the pair to make it to the bottom tier with little trouble.

Turning to the right at the first available opportunity, they eventually came across the plaza where Nax was being held. The crowd was much smaller today, and many weren't even bothering with him. "Such a waste." Shuu'Tao remarked upon seeing his battered, bloodied body. A large red stain had since trickled down the wall that he was restrained against, which was partially turning brown from how long it had been there. His muscles had also almost completely disappeared, leaving him a skeleton of a man, far from the defiant prisoner he was when he had been captured.

The comment caused Dantinian to pause and look over his shoulder at Shuu'Tao. "Are you implying that he is undeserving of his punishment, Shuu'Tao?" he questioned, taking on a deadly tone with his voice.

"No, master." Shuu'Tao replied, keeping his offhand on his hip. "I was implying that he should have been given a punishment more befitting of his background." he corrected, and Dantinian gave him a look that told for him to elaborate, but to be careful with where this went. "He has – or perhaps had, considering his current state – a warrior's spirit. Few would dare to attack you so brazenly, and yet he did, in spite of the immense gap in capability, all to rescue his lover." he explained, before looking to his master. "Were I in your position, I would have turned him into an arena fighter, where he could die an honorable death, rather than dishonoring and shaming him by having him strung up like this."

Dantinian's expression soured. "Your obsession with honor continues to frustrate me, Shuu'Tao." he reprimanded, turning fully to the assassin. "We are here to restore the Infinite Empire to its former glory, not whinge about the honor of a prisoner of war who got in our way." Dantinian continued, approaching Shuu'Tao and staring eye level with him. "The next time you meditate upon the Nexus, draw out the trillions of dead souls from the collapse, and ask them if honor matters. Their silence will be your answer."

Shuu'Tao opted to not respond verbally, and instead acknowledged his master's sentiment with a nod. Satisfied, Dantinian turned back around and continued on their intended path, eventually taking them to a service entrance to the tunnels below, and a simple flick of his wrist opened the door for them. They proceeded downwards, with Shuu'Tao shutting the door behind them to make sure they weren't followed. Shuu'Tao was no stranger to the service tunnels of the rings, especially those underneath Noridar, but they would never not be impressive to him. Having lived here his entire life, it was sometimes easy to forget just how truly massive they were, with the drones in the artificial caverns below buzzing around like a swarm of bees, tending to subsystems and infrastructure. He did not let himself remain transfixed on the mechanical marvel for long, though, and quickly followed after Dantinian.

Dantinian remained quiet, but Shuu'Tao could tell he was deep in thought – much had been transpiring on the frontlines since the Dreamer arrived, what with Mak'Lo being confirmed as killed in action, Vu'Shol having disappeared, and the several divisions of armored, mechanized, and airborne units that were meant for the inevitable battle at the Flat that were destroyed. Quite a lot of pressure was being put on Dantinian, even if all they had to do to win the war was to get their hands on the Dreamer, and it would all be over.

Eventually, Dantinian turned in towards one of the hallways that shot off from the main service tunnel, passing through an airlock and into what used to be a partisan safehouse, though it had clearly been abandoned. They both sensed multiple presences ahead, further in the facility, but easily determined that they were supposed to be there, as they were part of the guards on the surface, though one among them that stood out was Executor Halvim, the commanding officer of all of Noridar's guards. "Executor!" Dantinian called out, and the Executor came forth from within the facility, kneeling and looking up to his leader.

"R-Reclaimer!" he stammered, his normally deep, commanding voice cracking, as he was clearly shocked that Dantinian had suddenly shown up from virtually nowhere. "I-I was not informed that you would be making a visit-"

"That is the idea of a surprise inspection, Executor." Dantinian simply said, before gesturing towards the facility. "Have you found anything out of order?" he inquired, proceeding inside as the Executor followed behind him. "Aside from the fact that this facility used to be held by terrorists, that is."

"Yes, Reclaimer. We have found evidence that the equipment here has seen a power surge as most recent as last night. We are not sure what caused this surge, but-"

"Wonderful, Executor. I will take it from here." Dantinian calmly stated, but internally, he was furious. Sapphyra had most definitely been in Noridar for more than just a few hours, so the Interlopers had absolutely sent something else through the teleporter. However, no guard on the surface or in the tunnels below has submitted reports of new abnormal activity, as it seemed that the terrorists had all fled once the manhunt for Sapphyra began. The Executor tried to relay something to Dantinian, but he was too focused to pay much attention to what was being said.

The pair proceeded past the empty tanks where subjects would have been restrained and tapped for their connection to the Force to fuel the teleport. They hadn't even been broken or shattered, they were just empty. Eventually, though, Dantinian and Shuu'Tao proceeded into the main test chamber, towards the teleport pad in the center. Dantinian then stopped, and touched the ground, feeling through it with the Force. "...It's exactly as I suspected. The Interlopers have activated the teleporters and have sent at least two agents through – Sapphyra, and one unknown."

Shuu'Tao followed in Dantinian's footsteps and came to the exact same conclusion. "How can we activate it on our end, master?"

Dantinian remained quiet for a while, trying to recall what little he knew about how the twins had developed the teleportation process. "...The system requires a direct connection to the Nexus. The original process required several tappers to be present to act as batteries for the system to draw upon, but since the Interlopers have been so kind as to activate it on their end, there should be enough energy here for me to simply rip a hole open and send something through." he theorized, before standing up and pulling out Shuu'Tao's droid, activating it. "It would be wise to stand back, Shuu'Tao." he warned as he shut his eyes to focus, reaching his free hand towards the teleport pad. As Dantinian worked, the chamber began to come to life – mechanical arms with crystals on the ends reached down from the ceiling and began to spin around the pad, firing beams of yellow-orange energy into it. Various other systems spurred into action, but clearly the system was being strained by the output from the lack of maintenance – lights began to flicker out in the chamber, and the whir of the arms was uneven in pitch, a matter not helped by the fact that they seemed to be loose. Still, Dantinian upped the intensity of the procedure, and the beams grew brighter, as did the cacophony of noise grow louder. Another set of arms came down from the ceiling, which proceeded to set themselves in place, before beginning counterclockwise rotation to keep with the first set of arms. They then proceeded to fire a laser into the crystals, which turned the yellow-orange beams into a kaleidoscope of color. A third and final beam was shot down from directly above the teleport pad, and Dantinian determined that this was sufficient. Slowly, a visible tear began to appear above the pad, where all of the beams were meeting, and it was only here that Dantinian began to visibly strain. Shuu'Tao was momentarily tempted to assist, but ultimately recognized that he would be of little use – Dantinian knew what he was doing, even if he was struggling with opening the rift in the first place. Once the tear was wide enough, Dantinian raised his offhand and threw the droid into it, before ceasing to hold the rift open and dropping to the ground, mentally and physically exhausted by the strength required to perform the task. Shuu'Tao helped his master to his feet, and held him up as he recovered. "And now we wait." Dantinian muttered to himself.

The droid's external sensors were momentarily overloaded as it was thrown out the other end of the rift, but it rapidly adjusted and shot to the ceiling of the opposite chamber. As far as it could tell, there had been no visual evidence that it had even arrived – no alarms blaring, no soldiers investigating – it was in the clear.

The droid darted from the near center of the chamber to one of the vents that it had determined led to one of the control rooms. From there, it sat in near perfect silence, listening for anything of interest. "Gravesky." a feminine voice, presumably a researcher, said. "Take a look at this."

The droid couldn't see what was happening, but could hear Gravesky, whoever he was, let out an impressed whistle. "Fraggin' weird power spike, Keina. When the hell did this-" he started to ask, presumably having just seen the time of the power spike. "Did we accidentally send something through and then forget about it?"

The droid took that as its opportunity to leave, and proceeded through the vents towards the exit airlock, though unfortunately for it, the vent didn't proceed through the airlock, rather, it went straight up, and faced with no other choice for escape, followed the vent up, coming to a small grate nearly completely overtaken by the grass. The droid activated its plasma torch and proceeded to cut through the grate, before letting it fall away and then fly through, providing it with a near perfect view of the camp outside the facility in broad daylight. As the droid scanned the place, it spotted a wheeled vehicle coming in, carrying what appeared to be a fresh load of guards in its bed. As they unloaded, some of the guards who were at the camp beforehand swapped places, and the droid immediately made the connection that this was a rotation of the guard. Engaging its thrusters to maximum output, the droid bolted from several hundred feet in the air, directly into the front right wheelwell of the vehicle, creating a loud thud on impact.

"The hell was that?" one of the guards wondered aloud, and the droid immediately moved itself into a position where it would not be spotted, choosing to hide inside the brake pad. "Something flew under the vehicle." another commented, and the crunch of dirt and gravel underfoot grew closer as someone came to investigate. A set of fingers crept just past the wheel itself, and a light was shone into the well and underneath, before just as quickly being shut off. "There isn't shit under here." the voice said, much closer to the droid, before it walked away. Its position secured, the droid removed itself from the brake pad so that it wouldn't accidentally be crushed, and returned to its original position in the wheelwell, the sound of its movement concealed by the idling engine. Three hits against the vehicle signaled for the driver that it was time to leave, and that idle turned into a monstrous roar as the engine revved to life, and the guards returned to their home settlement, unaware of their new passenger.

And that's all for now.

See you guys whenever I've sorted myself out. I've got a lot mounting on me financially thanks to Dollar General's god awful labor budget not giving me sufficient hours to pay for everything I need to pay for. Unironically has me considering as an avenue for income since I have a account from before they changed the pricing or whatever for creators a few years back, alongside taking art commission with Koikatsu studio. I actually wrote out a carrd for that specific purpose, too, but it's not live.

-Tweak