The Imperial Center was not what Tara had been expecting. She watched as the planet grew in size as the shuttle neared the surface, and the look on her face was a mixture of disbelief, fear, sadness and with a hint of regret. Starkiller sat at the co-pilot's controls while Tara stared out of the viewport and Vader was in the doorway.

"So, it only took an emperor three-thousand years to finally capture and hold onto Coruscant?" It was a near-whisper and not meant for comment or conversation. Neither Vader nor Starkiller said anything in response and Tara rolled her eyes, more to herself than anything else.

She had only ever visited this system once before when she was tasked to escort her half-sister so she could infiltrate the SIS and feed them bad data to set up points on the planet for some obscure undercover mission. Tara didn't ask and Jaena didn't tell. When this was occurring she mostly saw the inside of a bunker while Jaena did all of the work. She was pulled out of the brief memory when the shuttle landed on the pad. The hissing of the hydraulics and the quiet buzz of the engines shutting down was the only sound in her ears for the moment.

"Apprentice, you will remain here with the ship while I take our… guest… to see the Emperor."

"Yes master."

Tara raised an eyebrow at the man as she headed towards the exit and she was certain she heard a bit of a whine from him. Once she and Vader left the ship and she was firmly on the landing pad did she actually sense what was going on around her. At the end of the pad was a transport waiting for them but Tara stopped and looked around at the city planet. She opened herself to the Force just to be sure and she didn't like it at all.

The Dark Side of the Force was permeated through the planet and to her trained eyes it left a hazy redness to the atmosphere, turning the planet an unnerving shade of crimson. When she was last on this planet it wasn't like this at all. After three thousand and some odd years she figured that maybe it would be expected. The Sith and the Empire were cunning and power hungry. It was only a matter of time before the Core Worlds fell to the faction. She turned her attention to Darth Vader and frowned at him before she followed behind and got into the transport. As soon as she was seated the driver took off.

"You are troubled by something?"

Tara, at first, wasn't paying attention to Vader. She blinked and turned her head to look at him. "There is such a Dark Side presence on this planet," she said. "The last time I was on Coruscant it wasn't anything like this. It was governed by the Republic Senate and the Jedi."

"It is the Imperial Center now," Vader corrected. "The Jedi of old are no more. They were weak and it was shown. The people gave up on them. It only made sense that it would become the seat of power for the Emperor."

"The Force is very off balance."

The pair said nothing more to one another for the duration of the ride to their destination. As they neared the large Imperial Palace it struck Tara in the gut when she saw where they were going. With no Jedi and no Republic to speak of the one place she ever knew to be basically drowning in the Light Side was now home to the Empire. The Jedi Temple was still the same as she once knew it from her time, having only seen it once when she was here with Jaena, but there were significant differences and the thick red aura around the structure was just the start of it.

As they came closer Tara's skin began to prickle. She took deep breaths, tried to calm her mind as she inhaled each breath. She was never good at controlling the Dark Side once it took a hold of her. Had it not been for Leyland and Nathrrya she would have wound up so entrenched in the Dark Side that she feared she would never return. Nathrrya was her lifeline, but that lifeline is no longer there.

"Hang in there, kiddo. You'll be fine."

Tara could hear Nathrrya's voice as clear as day and she looked around confused at first. Once the transport landed on the pad and Vader disembarked Tara had to pull her mind back together and follow. She could feel the weight of the Dark Side against her, begging her to open the box and plunge deep within it. It was hard, but she forced her body further and stood tall regardless. She had to remain strong, for her sake – because that's all she had left.

Tara only ever heard stories about the inside of the Jedi Temple. Once she had met Nathrrya's cousin, the Hero of Tython, and a well respected Jedi Knight within the Order. As far as Tara was concerned he could have been offered a seat on the Jedi Council and the last thing she remembered was that Grand Master Satele Shan was about to as well.

This was not that place. Vader guided her through the desolate hallways of the temple and she looked around her at the ancient stone and the improvemets that the Empire had done to the place. She's always envisioned a serene place, something comfortable and safe. What she was walking through now had no inkling of its former glory.

As the two turned a corner Tara's attention was drawn to a room off in the corner. Not caring that she stopped following Vader she veered off course and made her way to the door. It was an archway and on the other side was a double-storied room that seemed to have been, once, a training room. As she walked through it flashes of younglings and masters came and left her mind. Great excitement turned to fear and her head began to hurt. A dark shadow fell over her mind and she turned to see Vader standing behind her, nothing but his suit's mechanical sounds echoing in the space. She looked up into the black mask of the tall man and her mind raised a red flag.

"Do not walk off. I have no problem putting you in cuffs." Vader turned and Tara lingered, her head turning back to the room briefly. She held back a tear that threatened to drip from her eyes. She said nothing and followed without getting curious about the remainder of the rooms she passed, thought they all felt the same to her.

Spast, Nat… I need you, but I don't want you to know what's happened now.

The pair continued through the palace. The deeper they went the more Tara could feel the Dark Side closing in around her. She shoved it off her and tried to keep her mind calm, level, the way Nathrrya taught her to. It was helping, for now. One thing she became more aware of were the others. She didn't see them right away but she could sense each individual Force signature as they walked. One stuck out from the others. Curious, she opened herself to that signature and it retreated. She had to smirk, and then stopped because Nathrrya used to do that.

"Who was that?" she asked quietly. They maintained their pace with one another as they neared the end of the hall and approached a large set of doors. No doubt it had to be the throne room.

"Mara Jade. She happens to be a favorite of the Emperor and the more skilled of the Hand."

Tara scoffed. "The Hand? Please, don't make me laugh. I've dealt with the Hand before."

She quieted down as the large doors opened to a vast room with more space within these walls than it seemed to be in the rest of the palace. She looked up at the three-story tall room and the breadth of the location reminded her of the casino on Nar Shaddaa and the Thule palace on Alderaan. Seated before the full wall window in a throne and up on a dais was another black clad figure, hunched over in his seat and with his hood pulled over his head.

There was a saying about first impressions, and the impression that Tara received from this so-called emperor is that he was a shriveled white thing hiding behind younger Force-users that refused to show themselves. Her opinion was growing cynical as the moments drew on and her scowl was hard to suppress. As she and Vader came closer to the center of the room she locked eyes with the man sitting on the throne. His eyes were red and just to spite him she lowered her mental shields – she didn't care if this was a good idea or not - and allowed him to touch her mind. Her eyes went from green to gold.

"You are very strong in the Dark Side of the Force," Palpatine stated. Vader and Tara stopped in the center of the room. She didn't like how his shriveled lips formed that sort of hungry grin. Suddenly Tara was a lot more uncomfortable and she immediately put her shields back up. That wiped the grin off his face. "How long have you been Sith?"

Tara refrained from snickering, though she was feeling pompous. She kept herself chill for the moment. "The Sith were a race of red-skinned Dark Side users. They decided to mingle, much to the distaste of the more pure. I, myself, am not Sith. I am a human and my Force sensitivity is very strong… stronger than you and you don't like it."

The first problem with this emperor, that Tara was able to figure out, was that he was very safe in his seat of power. Because he felt safe, he didn't feel the need to hide his thoughts. When he touched her mind she was just as able to sneak into his and that was the first thing she came across: the Emperor was afraid of those more powerful than him. Her comment didn't go unnoticed and around her a few other black-clad figures stepped from the shadows, each of them with a hilt in their hand. The grin was gone from his lips now.

"You are too bold for your own good. I am afraid of nothing." His voice was raspy and it grated against her mind uncomfortably. She was getting irritated just being in the same room as him and her fingers itched for her lightsaber, which was dishearteningly absent. Tara could feel the Nathrrya inside her head telling her to calm down, but this was it. If she was already going to go down, then she was going to go down as herself the way she always was.

"I doubt that. You probably have it all locked away and tied with a pretty little bow and you're hiding behind those you control in some way or another."

"Enough! I will not tolerate your insolence."

Almost as if on queue the four additional figures in black from head to toe pulled their weapons. All around her red lightsabers activated and closed on her. She was torn between groaning in annoyance and screaming in anger. She settled for a huff of indignant snarling as she took a step forward.

"You are beginning to get on my nerves. You call me before you and have one of your lackeys bring me. Then you call me insolent? I've dealt with much worse than what you're throwing at me now."

Tara took steady paces towards the first of the Hand. He came forward, raising his lightsaber and Tara ducked quickly and turned, thrusting her elbow up into the man's abdomen. She felt his breath hitch and he hesitated which she took as an opportunity to stand straight. She slammed the top of her head into his chin and she grabbed his saber as he went falling back. Another turn and a quick slash sent the man falling dead to the floor.

The second was a smaller framed individual. This one was swift on their feet and preferred the quick motions of Form Three. Tara knew that Form Three could also mean they can use Form Five and so could she. She advanced on the guard and clashed their blades together, their feet doing and intricate dance along the marbled floor. Behind her the other two guards came forward and she barely had time to protect her back. She ducked down and side-swiped the man in front of her. He fell, tripping on her leg and she took his lightsaber. Stabbing him in the chest she concentrated the Force into her legs and leaped high into the air to get away from the last two.

Now armed with two sabers she felt a little closer to her comfort zone. Though preferring a double-bladed saber she would have to manage with dual-wielding. It only dawned on her then that all of this was set up so the Emperor could see her skills and what she was capable of. She glanced from the Emperor over to Vader and then to her opponents – two lay dead on the floor and the other two advancing on her. She was being made a fool of.

"I am not a source of entertainment." She deactivated the lightsabers and threw the hilts down to the floor. The remaining two guards looked down, uncertain of what was going on. In the brief moment Tara had used the Force to hide herself and she was behind them. With concentrated Force energy in her fists she hit both of the remaining guards on the nape of their necks. The blow to a sensitive portion of their bodies caused them to black out and fall to the floor unconscious, but not dead.

Taking a moment to collect herself, Tara took a breath and turned back towards the Emperor. She was in a foul mood and was done with his shenanigans. He looked more intrigued by her now, and partially wary still. Tara's headache was coming back.

Who are you?"

"My Lord," Vader said, now stepping forward. "Before you is Lord K'natara Synge. Her history is ancient, as is her heritage. You are looking at a descendant of the once great Lord Aloysius Kallig." Tara turned her head to Vader, half surprised that he had found anything about her family history. "Her mother was Darth Nox, head of the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge within the Old Sith Empire."

This piqued the Emperor's interest and Tara watched as he leaned ever so slightly forward. It seemed like he knew his history if he was this interested and impressed. "Darth Nox, by my personal opinion, has to be the most intriguing Sith of old. She had survived the possession of her master but this left her mind broken—"

"And you have your history wrong, you prune." While Tara admitted that her relationship with her mother wasn't the greatest in the galaxy, she didn't like it when people had facts wrong. If someone was going to talk about her mother they could at least say the right things. "Nox survived the possession but it was Thanaton who was after her when she inadvertently smushed her master's soul into that of one of her companions. In order to be strong enough to stop him from killing her she had to go and suck four Force ghosts into her and that is what broke her mind."

"And you were born when this was occurring."

"Wrong again!" she growled. "Spast, who is teaching history nowadays? I was born when my mother was still under apprenticeship to her master. She was on mission on Balmorra when she met my father. I was… a burdened accident to her but I was the daughter of my father."

"I sense some anger in you from those memories."

"Of course you do. I'm not hiding these emotions. I've dealt with them before and I still do. Why do you care?"

"That is of no importance. Besides the fact you are quite powerful and surely quite adept I wanted to see you for myself. I needed to know if you could be trusted."

Tara lowered her eyes and suppressed a chuckle. Oh, the irony! "I see. Well, you saw my skill, saw my potential."

"Yes." The Emperor considered a few things as he eyed the woman and those scattered on the floor. She was skilled in the Force and very good at controlling herself. She could kill or maim without too much trouble. He would have to watch her closely. "Vader will be your immediate superior. He will watch your every move. Seeing as you come from the same faction as the rest of us, you are expected to uphold those ideals within my Empire. There is a rebellion growing and you are going to help squash it. Now go, Vader has his orders and he will brief you from there."

Tara looked at the Emperor, sitting comfortable on his throne. Her shields were up as well as his now and she intended to keep it that way for a long while. She had to allies anymore and considering she was standing in the Jedi Temple, she could safely assume they had to be long gone. As much as she hated playing by the rules she now knew she had to… for now.

Neither Tara nor Vader had spoken to one another from the moment the Emperor dismissed them to the moment where she was sitting across from him on his personal cruiser. She couldn't tell what was going on inside Vader's mind and she couldn't see his face to get an idea of what he was thinking. All she knew is that with the very brief meeting she had with the emperor she came to several conclusions.

"He hates people more powerful than he is," she said. "All of those Hands, as you call them, are weak and held down on purpose because they could have easily taken me out in a match of four against one. It was not hard for me to kill two and knock out the other two. He's just as bad as Baras – Darth Fat Arse as Nat liked to call him."

"Who is this you speak of?"

"Wow, you spoke." Tara looked at Vader but he remained stoic. She shrugged. "She was my step-mother. She married my father and after that she was basically my unofficial master since she put a lightsaber blade in Baras' gut before the entire Dark Council. The creep was paranoid and while his schemes are very similar in nature to your so-called emperor, at least Baras' were founded on more than just being afraid."

She sat back in the chair and crossed one leg over the other and huffed. She was tired and her head was still throbbing with the headache from the encounter. "So, you're my boss now? I don't do well with superiors."

Vader pulled out a datapad and placed it on the table between them. He opened a small compartment in it and pulled a datachip from the object. The chip was placed into a computer connected to the table and a hologram of a very large ship appeared before Tara. Her eyebrows raised as she gave the man a skeptical look.

"This is the Accuser. It was commissioned a number of years ago and is now completed. She is currently making her way through the galaxy to pick you up here as I am going to make you the commander of this vessel and you will be in charge of those on it."

"Woah, hold on a minute." Tara waved her hands and sat forward, putting both feet on the ground. She rubbed her temples and looked at Vader. "You're putting me in charge of that ship? Why the spast are you doing that? You don't know me, you certainly can't trust me by now to do this. What makes you think I won't have it crashed?"

Vader studied her for a moment. She was a hothead, brash and strong and had a lot of potential. If anything she reminded him of the person he used to be a long time ago. Starkiller had similar characteristics. He entered a code into the computer input system and the hologram changed to that of a man looking to be in his thirties sporting the rank of captain.

"This is seriously messing with me, Vader. Why are you doing this?"

"Because I can. The Emperor put you under my watch, but he didn't tell me what to do with you. So I am making you my second-in-command. You will head this ship and you will abide by my orders and only my orders." Vader deactivated the computer, took the chip from it and returned it to the datapad and slid it across the table to Tara. "Your orders are all there. Your missions and other operations are also there. Contacts, allies, anything you need is all there as well as the complete dossier of the Accuser and all troops."

Tara reached over and hovered her hand over the datapad, her eyes on Vader for a long moment. She was still not sure about this. "You have a mission for me already?"

"There is a rebellion forming against the Empire. The details are all on your datapad, but the immediate mission is for you to kill the instigator and squash them before they can get the word out and gather more strength."

"Great, I get to go on a hunt for this instigator and I have to start by scratch? You have any idea how long that'll take me to get star—"

"I already know the identity of the instigator. It's Starkiller." Tara's form stiffened and she sat straighter in her chair, both appalled at the idea and partially not surprised. "The Emperor found out about him and he is to be dealt with. I am not going to do it as I have more important things to tend to. Intelligence uncovered a secret meeting on Corellia and I am sending you there to apprehend those conspirators and to kill Starkiller."

After a long moment of silence and reflection on Tara's end she finally stood up and snatched the datapad from the table and turned to leave the room. "It warms my heart to see that nothing has changed since my time."