Chapter Two
As the Regulus approached the planet Lessuris, N'Lola slowed to a halt in a median orbit and then rose from her seat, turning to walk into the rear cabin and stop standing directly in front of Kalo Arkath.
"Yes, my Lady?"
"Come with me, citizen," she replied. He stood, and followed her immediately into another part of the shuttle. When she indicated for him to sit down at a small table meant for eating aboard the one-hundred-and-seventy-seven-foot shuttle, he did so without hesitation, though somewhat apprehensive. She stepped up and sat on the edge of that table, directly in front of him, and he blinked as he looked up at her, he'd always played the bad boy, but the truth was that he'd never been the person he'd feigned to be on Tatooine. It was really just a survival mechanism once he found himself stuck in Mos Eisley for a few years with no way off that dusty, arid rock.
"N'Lola, what are you…" asked as she lifted her hands toward him, then trailing off as he felt a strange and semi-familiar sensation in his head and realized she was using the Force for something.
"I am implanting two false memories in your mind," she said, answering the intended question.
"Wait, you can do that? You can make up fake memories?"
"Yes, it's a trick called False Memory. If a true dark-sider searches you out, they will probably use a power of the dark side of the Force called Memory Walk, it's a form of torture," she said informatively, "I am providing you with two layers of protection against that. First, I am implanting two memories in your mind and locking them to your memories of the actual events. By the way, we're having sex right now, just so you know."
"… do I need to be physically exhausted after this?"
"No, we're on a safe ship, the memory I am implanting is of a quick but relaxed tryst."
"Well, that's good to know," he breathed the words in a sigh of relief, "Wait, two layers of protection?"
"Yes, the false memories are just the first layer. If some dark-sider uses Memory Walk on you and searches your mind for our interactions, they will see three memories. First, us having sex in the back room of a cantina while I recruit you for a mission, the real memory from the hangar, and lastly a memory of us having sex instead of seeing a memory of us having this conversation. The second layer is a trap: if they look at either of the memories of the two of us having sex, they will be hit by a backlash of Force power that I am investing in the trap right now."
"What if they look at both memories?"
"If they're weak, it'll probably kill them," she observed as she sat in front of him, a palm hovering to either side of his head about four inches from one temple or the other. He blinked at her answer, suddenly even more thankful that he was not a Force-user, himself, and had absolutely no sensitivity to it, whatsoever.
"So, um… N'Lola… I mean, Lady Vurkoth…"
"You may call me N'Lola. What is it?"
"You told those mercs I'm well-endowed," he said, biting his lower lip as a faint hint of rose coloured across his pale pink cheeks, "Is there any way I should describe your body if someone asks?"
"If you brag about my body, I'll kill you," she said seriously, then smirked a little bit as his muscles tensed, "Relax, I'm kidding. Tell them I am quite curvaceous but that a gentleman does not talk about a young woman's body in that way and that the best you can offer is to tell them how tall I am, the colour of my skin, and my facial markings." He breathed a sigh of relief anew.
"You have a dark sense of humour, N'Lola… that wasn't funny," he said, taking another deep breath as he watched her scoot back across the table and drop off the other side onto the bench, then stand up.
"I guess it depends on your perspective," she replied, "By the way, you will remember the actual events of this experience and our first meeting, and will be unable to see the memories I've implanted I n your mind unless or until a dark-sider attempts to scan for them."
"Thank you."
"You are quite welcome. Here," she said, tossing a leather pouch on the table, "Your reward for assisting me in my mission. It's three thousand credits, to further ensure you are able to get safely off Lessuris once we are gone, to relocate to whatever part of the Empire you wish – or any planet outside the Empire, for that matter."
"Thank you, that is… more than generous. Do you… have any suggestions for where I should go?"
"Somewhere inside the Empire," she said, "If you leave the Empire to go live in another spatial sector, you'll be at greater risk and it will rouse suspicions when an imperial loyalist uses an imperial reward to leave the Empire."
"Greater risk?" asked Kalo.
"If you remain in the Empire, you'll be regarded for assisting me as an imperial loyalist, and therefore you'll receive a small degree of imperial protection wherever you go. Your imperial citizen file will reflect you've aided an imperial agent on Tatooine. If you leave the Empire, it increases the possibility that someone will come looking for you, including and especially dark-siders who are imperial agents. There are, however, a few places where you would be safe from both the Empire and Jabba the Hutt."
"There are?"
"The planet Sarkhai, assuming you don't mind living in a forest," she replied, before leading him back to the rear cabin where the Barabel were sitting. Then, one by one, she took them into the lunchroom, fabricating memories in them to reinforce her account of the sequence of events on Tatooine, and since then, implanting memories in each of them of overhearing a tryst with Kalo. Once she was done, she erased from their mind the memory of the last few minutes and replaced it with additional moments of quietly sitting in the rear cabin waiting to land on Lessuris.
Finally, Force-exhausted and in need of rest, she brought the ship down into a spaceport of Lessuris, whereon she commanded several rooms at the nearest hotel in the spaceport. She remained awake long enough to watch Kalo leave the planet on a shuttle bound for destination unknown, and then took her rest, under the armed guard of her new Barabel soldiers, her own personal loyalists. The Fleet had a crew of one hundred twenty-four thousand two hundred and seventy individuals at minimum, of whom almost none were loyal to her, but now, she had thirty-seven more loyalists of her own, in addition to Nuav and Xuax. Likewise, there were thirty fewer imperial or Golm-loyalists for her to be worried about when she returned, since they were now corpses on Tatooine.
Fire and smoke filled her vision as the twelve-year-old woke in her bed with a start, though that was not what had woken her. There was fire in the hallway, smoke billowing out of shattered windows, though the fire had not yet reached her room, and neither the smoke nor flame were what woke her. She sensed something completely unfamiliar, something utterly dissimilar from all she had known before.
She could no longer feel the presence of her family, a long line of guileless, unsophisticated country-dwellers, farmers and foragers only. For hundreds of years, her family had lived on this remote outskirt of the city, foraging in the nearby woods and maintaining elaborate agricultural gardens. They lived in one of the lusher, greener sections of the planet Bpfassh, though it was an arid planet with broad expanses of barren desert. Even the inability to sense the presence of her family was not what had woken her, however. Fear, wrath, and hatred, so powerful it roused her from a dead sleep, origins unknown but origins irrelevant: she had known only the more pleasant aspects of her Force sensitivity up until this point, only the gentler and kinder emotions. Tranquility, happiness, comfort, love, things now lost in the burning ruin of the homestead as the twelve-year-old walked carefully through the house in an attempt to escape the wreckage.
First, though, she checked other rooms, the rooms of her younger brother and her elder sister, both of which presently empty. She had used the Force before, though she knew not what it was, and now she used it to smother the fire in her path. As she neared the front door of the home, with a shout of horrified disbelief, she found the bodies of her ten-year-old brother and fifteen-year-old sister. It wasn't the fire that had killed them, her sister had died guarding her brother, but something had caused fatal injuries to both: their bodies were not whole, were not in a single unified piece. They had been murdered by some manner of weapon capable of shearing through flesh like a hot knife through a bowl of melted butter. As she neared the front door, she heard the sound of battle, felt the surge of rage, hatred, and power-lust bombarding her senses, and instinctively closed herself off from them. She stumbled through the front door, and stared in horror at the apocalyptic scene that she beheld.
Her mother and father lay dead, just ahead of her, dead from what were unmistakably a few hundred gunshot wounds from blaster rifles and pistols. Ahead of that, two men and a woman in strange robes of different colours: one white with pale brown, another white with pale grey, and the woman in white and pale green. They were human, and unknown to her, though she recognized humans when she saw them, having grown up in the Galactic Empire, where humans were the most prevalent species. Past that, more than two hundred imperial Storm Troopers lay dead, their blaster rifles and pistols clutched in a death grip. Beyond even this, however, was where the action still unfolded, one man clothed in black robes lying dead from a searing wound that had cut his body in half, and three more black-robed men standing in a hostile triangle. Each hooded and robed, each armed with strange weapons of bright, luminescent vermilion that they held and wielded like a sword.
A low hum came as each contained beam slammed into another, clashing with a flare of power against each other as the three men vied for supremacy on this smoldering battlefield. One with his back toward her, two facing in at him and each other simultaneously, one of them managing to knock a weapon out of the nearest one's hands. The weapon whipped through the air towards her with a low hum; one of the men dropped his own weapon and jerked his hand out toward her, and the weapon stopped just four feet from her. At the momentary distraction, the disarmed man with his back toward her jerked his hand up, lightning arced out of his palm and slammed into the man who stopped the luminous weapon from reaching her. It hovered a moment as the man was hit by lightning, before moving away from her in a sharp whip that carried it back towards the group. Even as the lightning crackled, the blade slammed into the one with his back toward her, cleaving him in half and leaving the other one badly scarred by the electricity. A moment later, the third whirled around and fatally impaled the lightning-scarred second, and the second slumped dead against the earth.
The last man deactivated his weapons and holstered them on his hips, turning toward her and walking in her direction slowly, smoothly.
"I am Darth Fralius, child. These three were murderers, Jedi who came to kill your family and destroy all that you knew to make you their padawan, a Jedi word for slave," the blue-green-skinned Feeorin said. N'Lola looked up at him, and she knew him at once for a liar, because even though she had never seen a dead body or a battlefield, common sense told her that the positions of the bodies refuted his account.
"I am a servant of the Empire, my men and I came to save you, but we were too late to save your family. As my ships arrived, your home was already ablaze, your family already murdered," continued the Feeorin's lie, "I lost many men, but it is worth it to save you from these three rebel Sith and these murderous Jedi slavers."
"Thank you," she replied, deciding to give him the answer that he wanted, the answer he expected, a blind acceptance of his account.
"I will train you as my apprentice, I will teach you to hone your power, and then you will never again be at risk of becoming the victim of rebel savagery or Jedi slavers," continued Fralius, "What is your name?"
"I am N'Lola Vurkoth," she answered, continuing to give him the reaction he desired, soon boarding with him a shuttle large enough to have carried all of the storm troopers that now lay dead around her ruined family home. She could tell a lie when she heard one, and she knew everything he had just said to her was a complete falsification of what had actually occurred here. She had never seen a Jedi before, had never heard the word Jedi or padawan for that matter, but she knew that whatever they were, Jedi were not slavers and padawans were not slaves. This she was sure of, because Fralius was lying when he said that they were.
N'Lola gasped as she woke with the sunrise on Lessuris pouring through the hotel window, sitting up at once and straightening her clothes. She hadn't thought about the night of the massacre of her family for over a year, but the memory was as fresh as ever as she woke from the dream of remembrance. As she woke, she quickly proceeded into the hotel room's bathroom, bathing and washing up, then redressing and emerging to discover her Barabel had already prepared themselves and were simply eating breakfast. She joined them coolly, pushing the dream from her mind, and within an hour they had boarded the Regulus anew, entered hyperspace, and were on their way back to the Indomitable.
The admiral had explained everything to her, when he brought her safely back to the Indomitable, the duality of their names, the timing and circumstances for the use of different names. On her return to the ship, she immediately provided her report, though she knew he planned to interview or interrogate every member of the Barabel crew she'd brought back. As soon as she was done with her report, she retired to her personal quarters, extended her senses, and connected with Nuav and Xuax, informing them of what was happening and instructing them in what she needed from them. Between the three of them, they covered each Barabel in sequence with a partial Force Veil as Admiral Golm's interview proceeded, even as he used Memory Walk to examine them more closely. For days, he examined each one, before deciding that they were imperial loyalists and as long as he had Palpatine's tacit approval as admiral, the troupe of Barabel would be no threat to him.
One morning when she woke, she sensed a weird shift in the attitude of a small portion of the ship's soldiers toward her, more specifically amongst the storm troopers. As she walked to one of the ship's shower-halls, she sensed that there were others nearby, almost following her except not quite so. She stood in the hall for a moment, waiting as a few men inside finished bathing and left, jumping a bit when the young woman was outside the bathing room, before quickly hurrying on about their way. It was best for them that they not dally, after all, when the admiral's attaché was standing right there to observe you in the act. As a few other men approached, she held her hand up toward them, and they stopped instantly at sight of the only young woman, indeed the only female, on the entire ship.
"Find another shower-hall, I am using this one," she instructed, and the handful of men nodded and quickly turned around, hurrying away from her down the corridor, though she could sense others drawing nearer. She sensed more purpose in them, and darker intent, but she decided to disregard it, because she needed to bathe. N'Lola entered the bathing hall, proceeding through the first room, where she intentionally removed her light saber and her gauntlet, lying them on a counter amid the sinks for washing hands and brushing teeth. She set down her small black bag, which contained her morning hygiene tools, beside these, then proceeded to a room with towels and benches. There N'Lola undressed and took a plain white towel, then proceeded into the showers. Even as she bathed, she sensed those same men drawing steadily nearer, tentatively nearer, and she could hear them as they spoke with one another, as if their voices were amplified and the shower was muted.
"Are you sure about this, commander?"
"That little bitch killed Delk and his men, there's no way a few paltry criminals overwhelmed someone that was as good as Delk," replied the commander, dressed in his casual uniform, as opposed to battle dress, like the rest of his platoon, "we're going to… elicit a confession that she killed them, herself." He was far more suspicious of her than the Admiral was, insomuch as that the Admiral had expressed no suspicion in her whatsoever up until this point. Her training thus far was minimal, though she'd managed to survive well enough and had learned by watching him, as Sith Apprentices often had to: Sith Masters didn't really do teaching and training. Even as cautious as he was being to not squander the potential represented by the level of her Force sensitivity, he wasn't coddling her and he was not a supportive or paternal mentor. As she dried herself, she could hear them creeping to the outer doorway of the bathing hall, slipping inside as she promptly redressed herself in all but her weapon and her gauntlet.
"Stupid little slut left her weapon out here," whispered the platoon commander conspiratorially, "This will be a lot easier than expected. Typical weak little girl, too stupid and inept to be a threat." She smirked as she listened, as she straightened her shirt and smoothed the right armhole. As she did, the platoon commander stepped into the open arch between rooms with his men, and with a breath she focused a frigid gaze on him and his men as they seemed to sort of swarm in with him.
"I will offer you one opportunity to survive this," she said in a solemn tone, "Leave now, and I will not kill you." The platoon commander's expression contorted with rage and hate at the perceived insolence.
"Silence, you filthy little whore! You're going to learn to speak only when given permission to speak, today!" shouted the commander in reply. Delk was a close friend from their days at the academy, and he had not taken well to the news that his friend and his friend's entire platoon had been massacred by mere thieves, and then to see her return unscratched, having replaced those men so casually was too much for him. Even as he roared at her, the steel panels began to tremble and the rivets to vibrate as she focused on them, one of the simple steel panels on either side of that arched doorway. Sixteen rivets shot out of the two respective panels, which balanced precariously in place having no rivets to secure them, as the rivets floating in front of her were crushed and rounded.
They changed from heavy-duty rivets with a two-inch-wide head to four-inch spikes a half-inch in diameter, as N'Lola crushed the rivets through an expression of the Force. A moment later, those rivets shot through the air like bullets from a gun, slamming into eight men with precision aim as N'Lola focused on her attackers. She struck each man with two spikes, one in the dead centre of the forehead and the other puncturing the Adam's apple and the upper spine, simultaneously. As eight men out of thirty dropped to the ground dead, the platoon commander roared angrily.
"Get the little slut!" he shouted, and they started to rush across the twenty-foot distance between them until the two panels suddenly moved. Each panel was an inch thick, four feet tall, and six feet wide, forged from durasteel, yet it floated as lightly as if it were no challenge whatsoever for her to lift them. The men jerked to a stop before being forced to leap backward, as the two panels swept toward each other, slamming together on either sides of another man, fatally flattening him between them. As they came apart, they started to shift and contort as her expression of the Force crushed the metal until it was reshaped into a two-inch-wide blade three and a half feet long and a sixteenth of an inch thick, with a six-inch handhold.
"I warned you," she advised, as the blades suddenly moved in the air and whipped around, brutally shearing down nine of the remaining twenty-one men as the last twelve leapt out of the way. As they hurried nearer to N'Lola, blades whirred through the air with a metallic whistle, cleaving fatally through two more of them before the handles slid smoothly into her hands. She leapt instantly forward, carried with an unnatural grace by the Force, her black hair fluttering behind her in the process, as her arms moved out in an arc to either side. Blades clove through the throats of four more men on either side, before she landed in a lunged-forward stance with the blood-drenched edges outstretched ahead of her. Her hair swept forward ahead of her as she landed, as well, with her back to the two survivors, one being the platoon commander, Korrin Vult. As she rose smoothly to a stand and turned, her hands moved again, and grip on blades loosened as her arms moved, blades whirring through the air as she flung them, guided by the Force. The two men turned too slowly, eyes widening as they saw the blades shearing the air toward them, then slamming into each man's sternum and slamming him backward into the wall, impaling him and pinning him to the wall.
A second smooth, unnaturally graceful leap carried her over the bodies of the spike-slain, landing on the far side, in the first chamber of the bathing area. The doors of bathroom stalls were open, and she approached the sinks, setting to the task of combing and then brushing her hair and binding it in a ponytail, brushing her teeth, affixing her holster and pulling on her right gauntlet. Finally, she holstered her light-saber, just as a knock on the wall came, and her eyes turned toward the opening, where an imperial sailor stood, eyes wide.
"Yes, sailor?" she asked.
"My Lady, I heard a commotion, and…"
"These men attempted to assault me as I came out of the showers. Please report to Admiral Golm that I have killed platoon commander Korrin Vult and his men, cause of action: violation of imperial regulation number 312," the young Sith replied, and he swallowed but nodded quickly in understanding.
"Yes, Ma'am, sorry to disturb, Ma'am," he replied obediently, quickly turning and proceeding to deliver the message from the admiral's attaché to the admiral. She nodded, and then proceeded to the training hall of one of the ship's barracks, where she activated her light-saber and then began to practice her form, openly. It was best she practice the expected methods of battle that the Admiral had assigned her to practice, where she would be most visible. If they saw her practice in a public locale, they might not suspect that she was engaging in additional practice in a more secret manner. As she proceeded through her practice motions, in methods to counteract the moves and patterns of the Jedi, the same people who had risked Bpfasshi hostility in their failed attempt to rescue her, she sensed men approaching. Her eyes narrowed with concentration as she continued her training, even as two entire platoons filed into the room, forming a bloc on one side of the room, facing her.
She noted as she practiced her form, that they had taken up firing position thirty men wide and two men deep, and N'Lola sharpened her focus. One line on one knee, rifles in hand, the second line standing with the same, but she allowed them to think she was ignoring them for the moment. She twisted as the first shot was fired, her blade coming through the air in a deep hum as it intercepted the shot and redirected it, where it slammed through the visor of one of the storm troopers' helmets and killed him. Instantly, the rest of them opened fire, and she slid gracefully between the shots even as she deflected one after the other, blaster shots ricocheting back into the firing line. Every motion of her light-saber deflected a blast back against them, each deflection killing one of the storm troopers in the opposing firing line. Finally, the firing stopped, when there was only one thing in the entire chamber that continued to draw breath at all, the fourteen-year-old herself. She immediately deactivated her light-saber and holstered it, then proceeded directly to the admiral's ready-room, ringing the door forcefully as soon as she stepped in front of it.
"Enter," came the voice of Admiral Golm, and the doors opened immediately. She stepped through at once, allowing an irritated expression to cover her features as she shrouded inner calm with a tempestuous surface, feigning aggravation for her Master's benefit.
"Admiral, I have been attacked by three platoons of storm troopers this morning and was forced to slay them all. Is there something I should be aware of?"
"I am aware of the situation, N'Lola," he said in answer, "The attack in the bathing hall was not by my order. As for the other, I feel that congratulations are in order, you have passed your second test; my compliments upon your performance." Her eyebrow twitched with feigned irritation to discover that her Sith Master had sought to surprise her with a pop quiz, in a manner of speaking.
"Also, I believe that those two platoon commanders in particular were preparing to move against me, as well as the platoon commander who moved against you in the bathing halls. I decided to preempt those platoon commanders by telling them I was concerned you had betrayed the Empire and ordered them to attack you as you trained, trusting my competent, efficient apprentice to eliminate her attackers," he continued, "a task you completed quite ably, by the way. However, there is one small problem."
"Problem, Admiral?"
"Well, when I report that three platoon commanders went rogue and attacked my apprentice in an attempt to do severe bodily harm to her, the Empire will undoubtedly send three auxiliary platoons to replace them," the Admiral said, "Unless, of course, I preempt that. If, for instance, I should report one hundred and twenty storm troopers have been slain, but that I have already replaced these with imperial loyalists confirmed by my apprentice…"
"…then the Empire will not feel compelled to send new platoons to replace them," N'Lola said in conclusion of his train of thought, and the Admiral nodded.
"Exactly," he replied, "Your next mission is to locate and recruit ninety warriors whose loyalty will be to me with priority, and the Empire second." She nodded in answer, with a faint hint of a smile.
"I will prepare a Delta-class shuttle, Admiral," she replied, but he shook his head.
"No; I know you are fond of the Delta-class shuttle, N'Lola, but it cannot transport soldiers efficiently. I want you to take all four of the Curich-class shuttles, the Barabel soldiers you recruited will accompany you," replied Golm, "During my examination, I observed that Zivvac, Vindac, and Ketar, are skilled pilots capable of handling such craft. Between these ships, you will be able to transport the ninety replacement commandoes you locate, whom I will trust you to verify personally, though I will, naturally, examine them myself, upon your return."
"Naturally, Admiral," she replied in a subordinate tone, with the cordial nod expected of his apprentice and minion. She had learned to veil herself from him with specificity, to predict the response he wanted and give it to him.
"You depart in 3 hours, prepare yourself and the escort I am sending with you. I will leave it to you to decide where you wish to look for replacements," the Admiral replied, and she nodded, turning sharply and exiting the ready-room promptly. Soon, the squadron of four Curich-class shuttles sailed out of the hangar bay of the Indomitable, with the Regulus in the lead. Trailed by the Aer, flanked by the Romulus on the port side and the Zor on the starboard, the squadron entered hyperspace in unison, headed for the planet of her choice. Each of the four ships had nine Barabel aboard, though there were ten on the Regulus. As they proceeded into Hyperspace, N'Lola took a breath as she began to think back as the shuttle squadron swept in a rush toward the planet Barab I, their flight utterly unobstructed.
"Remember, Ricona, most of your enemies will be weaklings who lack Force sensitivity, who will attempt to lie to you, who will attempt to deceive you. I will now show you the technique required to extract truth from a captured enemy, to take from them the truth whether they wish to provide it or not," said Darth Fralius as he looked over and examined her a moment. Then, his eyes returned to the captured enemy, one of those whom the Empire was attempting to drive into oblivion… a Jedi. The thirteen-year-old observed intently, as her Master expected, while her Epicanthix mentors shielded her through the power of Force Veil, feigning within her the subtle emotional responses that Fralius was expecting to see.
"This is called Memory Walk," he said, then turned his Force on the captured Jedi. She observed him intently as he worked; she let her senses track his every act, studious in the extreme, though her goal was not the one instructed. She pinpointed weaknesses in his particular technique, in how he was doing it, and she pinpointed weaknesses in the entire process, ones which were vital to the trick and which would not vary from him to another dark-sider. Even as he tormented the Jedi for hours, N'Lola forced herself to observe with a sort of detachment, while the Sith Lord worked his torture on his victim.
~There is nothing you can do about this, young one,~ said a voice in her mind, even as the Jedi captive had his eyes closed, or looking with a sort of defiant serenity at Darth Fralius, ~He will kill me. Do not attempt to rescue me, you have not yet the power or the training to do so, but your time will come.~
N'Lola blinked once to signify her understanding of his communication, he couldn't see it without looking at her, but he could sense the acknowledgment. Nuav and Xuax were shielding her against being discovered by Fralius, but not by being discovered by this nameless Jedi. He could sense the serene pool that hid deep beneath the surface, an aquifer of tranquility veiled by the presence of a jagged and icy mountain. He could sense, also, the stirring of her true sentiments: empathy, sorrow, and the desire of one who wished that there might be some manner in which to save him from the natural result of his capture.
The nameless man died more than a week later, and she had been forced to attend every session, to observe, to learn how to force information from an unwilling source. Instead, she studied the technique itself, studied the user's technique; she examined it, meditated on it, and unraveled it in her mind. Finally, she developed a countermeasure, a trick that she called False Memory to herself, in her mind, and she used it. She implanted in his mind, daringly, right under the nose of Darth Fralius, a new memory, a deeper memory, a memory that suggested all other memories were an illusion, were misdirection, that all information he had gathered had been intended to be gathered. The discovery threw Darth Fralius into a seething rage, and unable to contain his wrath at the sensation of having been so completely deceived, he slew the unnamed Jedi, who died with an expression that was a faint smirk of approval.
~… clever girl,~ the voice whispered into her mind with understanding, seeing the memory of something he knew had not happened at the same moment that Darth Fralius had seen it. He knew it instantly for what it was, and at once, he knew where it had come from. Even as Fralius soared into uncontrollable fury and struck him with a deadly burst of lightning, the unnamed Jedi died with a maddeningly triumphant smirk on his face.
"You see," Darth Fralius said to his apprentice, panting heavily with rage and exertion, "As I told you, your enemies will be always weaklings and liars." He snarled, enraged, at the scorched and smoking corpse, as it began to disintegrate into a pale blue mist with bright cerulean sparks, dissipating as the Jedi's energies returned into the mass of the Force.
"Your lessons are done for today. You are dismissed," growled Fralius. He greatly wished to harm something else, but targeting his own apprentice would have been pointless, not to mention a waste of her potential for Fralius to have his revenge on the Jedi for making him look the part of a fool to said apprentice.
"Yes, Master," she replied obediently, and quickly exited the torture chamber, thankful that it was over and the poor man would no longer be tortured.
The sound of a high-pitched beep broke her from her reverie, as the ship slowed from hyperspace and came to a complete halt in an extra-orbital position over the planet. Mere moments later, the Regulus was joined by the Aer, the Zor, and the Romulus, and the four vessels descended into the Barabel atmosphere. The planet was rife with many clans, and worse yet, Planetary Safaris was poaching the planet's natural wildlife illegally, and even attempting to fool the Empire into giving them permission to do so when the indigenous began to kill them for it. Preempting the arrival of one particularly violent run by the poachers, they landed in the area that her scanners indicated they planned to land themselves, which happened to be a large Barabel village.