Krayt embedded his fist into the soft casing of the 2-1B medical droid and he enjoyed the sick pleasure of the electricity arcing through his flesh as the droid slowly died. Zara woke up with a start in the bed beside him and he slowly removed his hand from the droid. He noticed that they had been transferred to his command ship infirmary, and the gentle throb he could feel told him they were in hyperspace. In all likelihood, they were returning to Coruscant.

"Lord Krayt?" the young Twi'lek asked.

"Rest, Zara," Krayt growled. "Our vengeance will take time, but is assured."

"He betrayed me," Zara said. "He called me a friend."

"He is more worthy of the title of Sith Lord than he realizes," Krayt said with a mixture of pride and hatred. He painfully sat up, struggling against the hole that had been burned through his side. Thankfully the lightsaber had not cut through his spine, but the wound was healing much slower than he was used to. The Bacta had only been moderately successful at repairing the damage. He reached into the Force and tried to dull the pain, but it felt like looking through a dark tunnel. The Force was resisting being his ally.

"Lord Krayt, you must rest before your next Bacta treatment," a nurse approached him. A pretty young female human dressed in white, Krayt wanted to lash out at her with the Force for ordering him to do anything. When he tried, she did not even appear to have noticed that her hair had gently moved.

"What is happening to me?" Krayt demanded, resisting her gentle attempt to make him lie down.

"You were impaled with a lightsaber, m'lord," the nurse said, easily overpowering the weakened Sith Lord and forcing him to lie down. "And your body is not responding well to the Bacta. We think your armour is interfering."

Krayt finally relaxed on the bed, but a sharp pain spidered out from the lightsaber wound across his entire body. It felt as if every nerve was hit by a needle at the same time, and the pain passed as quickly as it came on.

It took him a few moments to recover, breathing heavily to focus himself. When he looked over at Zara he realized that he had probably screamed from the agony. She looked terrified, but remained silent.

Krayt closed his eyes and recalled Jacen's last words to him. Jedi justice.

He knew Jacen could control Yuuzhan Vong biology in ways that even the shapers themselves could not. He had counted on Jacen to join the Bogan Empire either through appealing to his intelligence or his misguided loyalties, and remove the armour as a courtesy. But he finally realized what Jacen had done to him; the brat had convinced the armour to devour him.

Krayt reached into the Force and tried to draw its power into his rage and burn the armour off if necessary, but not even the glass of water beside his bed trembled. He realized that he could barely sense Zara beside him, and nothing beyond that.

Jacen had not only convinced the armour to destroy him. He had stripped away the Sith Lord's connection to the Force.

"Zara," Krayt growled, closing his eyes and fighting another burst of pain from his armour. His voice trembled as he fought to control his pain and rage. "You must find Jacen. He has much to atone for. His lightsabers have tracers planted in them. You will find the tracking codes on a data card in my quarters on my desk beside my holocron. You know him better than any of my servants. Track him down and bring him to me."

"Yes, m'lord," Zara said, but the nurse shook her head.

"No, you need rest. Both of you. You're both due for another Bacta treatment in one hour."

The nurse walked away, but both Sith Lord and Bogan assassin could see they were being watched. For the next hour, they waited for their Bacta treatment wondering how their next encounter with Jacen Solo would turn out.

[[[[#]]]]]]]]=(=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

With a bright red and white glow, the mask of carbonite peeled away from the body of Luke Skywalker and he painfully inhaled his first breath of air. As the thawing process was completing, Jacen put a hand on Luke's forehead and reached out toward his connection in the Force as if flicking a switch in his brain and turned it off. Next, he took the injector in his hand and shoved against Luke's carotid artery, injecting him with the molecularly modified water solution he had prepared weeks before.

"What?" Luke demanded and started to thrash around, but Jacen applied the Force to steady his uncle and prevent him from moving.

"Easy, Uncle Luke," Jacen said, applying the Force to him in calming waves as if he were a scared bantha. "It's me, Jacen. I just injected you with the cure for the Vong spores."

"I can't see," Luke said, settling down with Jacen's reassuring presence, but his blue eyes looked around sightlessly. "And I can't feel the Force."

"I disconnected you from it," Jacen said calmly. "There's no time to waste, and I didn't want to be peeled off the bulkhead for using an injector on your neck. The carbonite thawing process has been described as rather unsettling."

"Believe it."

"I'm going to reconnect you now," Jacen said and reactivated his uncle's connection to the Force. "You should put yourself into a healing trance. I'll work with you to finish neutralizing the poison, and then we'll have to put you in the Shadow's Bacta tank. There is considerable damage."

"I understand. I can't feel my legs."

"I know. You need to get into a healing trance, now."

An hour later Jacen placed his uncle in the horizontal Bacta tank and affixed the breathing apparatus to his face. He activated the auto-engage sequence and stepped back, allowing the tank to take over the process of sealing and filling the tube. Mara chose that moment to finally appear.

"Well?"

Jacen shook his head and looked at her. "The good news is that I've neutralized the poison. The bad news is there is some damage that can't be repaired."

"How bad is it?" Mara demanded. Her eyes carried a pleading look, desperate for some news better than Jacen could report. They both stood with their eyes locked on the level of Bacta in the tank as it slowly filled up over Luke's body.

"Even while in carbonite the poison spores were eating away at the nerves in his spine," Jacen said slowly. "Based on what I could sense, there is up to a ninety percent degradation in signal quality from his brain to his feet. The poison may have entered through his legs and worked its way up, which explains why his arms are functioning fine."

"Ninety percent?"

Jacen hesitated as his uncle began to float in the viscous blue-tinged fluid.

"I'm not a doctor, but if I was to hazard a guess, and I have to say I'm getting too good at my guesses," Jacen said. "Unless he gets a prosthetic spine, he'll never walk again."

"But prosthetic spines only provide up to sixty percent..." Mara stopped talking when she realized what she was saying.

"I know," Jacen said, pulling his aunt into a hug. "I know."

[[[[#]]]]]]]]=(=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

A cold chill down her spine warned Jaina of an impending confrontation before the doors to the bridge of the Ol'Faithful opened.

As the doors opened, the distinctive voice of Emriss Kol rang through the bridge, silencing everyone. "Jaina Solo, you stuck up brat! How dare you reorganize my flight group without consulting me?"

Jaina slowly turned toward the seething woman as she approached and said "That's 'Admiral Solo,' Commander Kol."

Emriss pointed a finger at Jaina's face so it was an inch from her nose. "You switched the shift lengths on me over night."

"I did."

"And didn't even tell me! I had half my patrol ready to fly and the knuckle draggers didn't have my fighters ready because we were four hours early!"

"Should've checked the schedule," Jaina said calmly and turned back to the diagnostic console she had been reviewing.

"I'm changing it back."

"If you do, I'll relieve you of duty," Jaina turned her attention back to Emriss and crossed her arms across her chest. "I'm sure I could find a primate that will follow my orders better."

"You have no respect for authority," Emriss growled. "The fighter group is my responsibility, not yours. Keep your arrogant, stuck-up nose out of my command."

"I'm your commander," Jaina said. "I expect my orders to be followed. I told you to change the fighter group…"

"And I told you we don't have the man power," Emriss cut her off and shook her head. "Your orders, my ass. You aren't fit to give orders. You aren't a third the leader your father was."

Jaina punched Emriss square on the jaw with a Force-enhanced punch hard enough for the other woman to do a pirouette and stumble back several paces.

"Don't you dare talk about my dad," Jaina seethed. "Get off my ship."

"You're pathetic," Emriss spat. "You got this job with a name you're not worthy of carrying."

Jaina used the Force and shoved the offending officer across the bridge toward the door.

"I SAID GET OFF MY SHIP!" Jaina screamed. Another push shoved the woman tumbling out the door, and a third pushed her well down the hall.

Jaina finally noticed the entire bridge crew staring at her in shock.

"Get back to work," Jaina barked and retreated to her office, forgetting about whatever diagnostics she had been looking at.

[[[[#]]]]]]]]=(=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

An hour after Luke had been put into the bacta tank Mara and Jacen finally left the small med suite on the Jade Shadow to find Eriana, Ben, and the cute red-headed girl that Jacen had not yet been introduced to sitting in the common area. Jacen saw an unexpected side of his aunt during that hour, one he had never seen before. He knew she had been the Emperor's Hand, a cold, ruthless black ops agent, and as a Jedi she was always one of the more emotionally reserved. He knew she had killed hundreds of targets in cold blood under the service of the Emperor and could probably list a hundred ways to kill someone in a single breath if she tried. But today he saw her as a lost little girl trying desperately to cling onto what was left of her life. She cried about Luke, the family, carrying too many secrets, and Jacen felt completely awkward that she picked him to unload on, not to mention lost on a few topics she had babbled on about while he sat there in silence. He held her, consoled her, and did his best to ease her troubled mind, but watching one of the people who had been a rock in his life shatter in front of him was not easy.

Jacen took a seat beside Eriana on an acceleration couch and Mara took a comfortable plush chair. Everyone sat in a solemn silence until Jacen finally broke it.

"Thank you," Jacen said. "All of you. I know you stopped at nothing to find me and..."

"You're the closest thing to family I've ever had," Eriana said, reaching over and giving his hand a squeeze to cut him off. "And I'm the one who left you behind. Of course I had to go after you."

Ben and Mara nodded in agreement, and, surprisingly, the other girl did as well.

"I'm sorry," Jacen looked at the red-headed girl sitting across from him. She was quite pretty, looked about his age, and bore a striking resemblance to both Ben and Mara. "I don't know who you are."

"Your cousin," she said quite sarcastically. She nodded her head toward Mara, and he could sense a very strong tone of resentment in the gesture. "Guess who kept me a secret."

So that's the secret Aunt Mara was crying about, Jacen thought and looked to his aunt. She smiled grimly.

"Do you know who...umm...?"

"Luke is her father," Mara said in a soft, emotionless voice. "He doesn't know about Amidala yet."

"Oh," Jacen said and looked back and forth between Mara and Ami. "Well, umm, welcome to the family, Amidala."

"I go by Ami," she corrected him with a sharp tone that seemed more directed at Mara than at him. "And I'm not staying. I have a job I have to get back to. Hopefully I'll never see any of you again."

Mara closed her eyes and clenched her jaw. Ben looked at Ami with a pained expression, but she kept her eyes locked on Jacen as if daring him to convince her otherwise.

"Probably for the best," Jacen agreed, despite knowing it would not be the popular thing to say. "This family isn't the safest one to be a part of. Heck, even I've been kidnapped and blackmailed in the past year."

Eriana and Ben laughed at his comment, and Mara even found a tiny smile. Ami merely seemed a little confused.

"Jacen, we're on course to Corellia to meet up with Shada," Eriana said. "With Karrde's passing, Shada has asked me to meet her there and absorb his operation. I don't know who could run it right now, but I can't do both jobs."

"Don't ask," Mara said immediately. "Not interested."

Eriana and Jacen both laughed, but Ami held her hand up tentatively while awkwardly looking back and forth between Jacen and Eriana as if she was seeing both of them again for the first time.

"Umm...I'm sorry," Ami said. "Who are you and why are you taking over Karrde's operation?"

"I'm Eriana. I'm the leader of the Black Vornskrs."

"Oh!" Ami's eyes went wide as she realized the importance of the company she was in. "That's why we docked on a Black Vornskr Star Destroyer with no questions asked. I thought the leader of the Vornskrs was some crazy Dathomirian witch that ate people's eyeballs for looking at her the wrong way."

"The media never gets anything right." Eriana smiled. "Not that I'm complaining. Intimidation is good in this line of work."

"Aren't you a Jedi though? I thought Jedi and pirates don't mix."

"It's complicated," Eriana said, avoiding the mention of her Jensaarai heritage since she was not completely sure if she could trust the newest addition to the Skywalker clan. "Karrde's been one of our strongest supporters from the beginning."

"I guess you're my new boss then," Ami said with new found embarrassment. "I've been infiltrating Fleet Procurement and Deployment on Coruscant. That's how I knew how to find you. I'm planning on going back and resuming my cover."

"Don't."

All eyes turned to Mara in surprise at her remark, but Ami's gaze hardened.

"I don't need career advice from you, mother."

Mara finally turned and faced her daughter. She looked weary, almost defeated and unwilling to put up a fight, but still determined to make her point heard. "The fight you got into on Tattooine has already spread word that one of Karrde's people infiltrated Krayt's government. It'd be suicide to go back. Karrde and I had a rule: never put a good agent into the same bad situation twice. You can only count on people to be duped once."

"That's not your..."

"No," Eriana interrupted. "It seems to be my decision now. Pending confirmation from Shada that you can be trusted, you'll come back with us until we can find a use for your skills."

"But..."

"Consider those to be your current orders, Miss Jade," Eriana said and stood up. "I need to go to the bridge. Jacen, can you please join me? I want to prepare for our meeting with Shada."

Jacen and Eriana exited the Jade Shadow, and three steps off the end of the ramp Ami caught up to Jacen and grabbed him by the arm.

"I want to go with you."

"Shada only asked for us to be there," Eriana said with a tinge of annoyance in her voice. "It's an informal meeting."

"No, you don't understand," Ami said, pointing back toward the Jade Shadow. "I can't stay with her. Every second I'm around her she's judging me without even saying anything. I...I've always been in control, but around her everything is just..."

"You can't live up to her legend?" Jacen offered.

Ami looked at him in surprise, as if he was the first person she had ever met who understood her, and nodded enthusiastically. "Yes! Exactly! I've always been compared to her. No matter whatever I do, she's the platinum standard. Being around her is a billion times worse."

"She's right about going back to Coruscant," Jacen said. "If you stay with us, we'll have to find you a new assignment."

"I know," Ami agreed. "This is what I'm talking about. She...I can't think clearly when I have her judging me. I promise I'll do better. You won't regret keeping me on if you do."

Jacen looked back at Eriana, who shrugged at him. He pulled Ami into a hug, which she returned after a second of stunned inaction. After he released her he slid an arm around her shoulder and they continued following Eriana out of the hanger.

"Living up to the legend," Jacen repeated as they neared the door. "Like I said, welcome to the family."

[[[[#]]]]]]]]=(=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Zara was discharged from the infirmary after her second two-hour Bacta treatment. Bacta, in conjunction with a healing trance, had virtually healed up the wounds in her arm and leg to the point where she could get along with only a slight limp. As instructed, after dressing herself in her usual outfit, she proceeded directly to Lord Krayt's quarters to acquire the tracking codes for the devices implanted in Jacen's lightsabers. She entered the code she had been given to open the door, and the door opened to reveal a dark room lit only by a soft red glow. She entered the room cautiously, still afraid of the essence of Krayt despite knowing he was half the ship away struggling to recover from having his own lightsaber ignited through his chest.

Moving quickly and silently as she had been taught as to avoid any lurking ghosts that might alert Lord Krayt to her presence, she half-ran across the room toward his desk but stopped when she saw the holocron. The ancient Sith device glowed with a tantalizing pulsing red light from within. She slowly approached the desk, mesmerized by the light coming from the holocron. She reached toward it, her fingers stretching toward the black surface, and she moved her hand away just before touching it and palmed the only datacard on the desk. She took two steps back away from the desk and turned around, walking toward the door. About a metre away from the door, she turned back and looked at the holocron, still pulsing with its enchanting red light.

An hour after her incursion into Lord Krayt's quarters, Zara felt the giant warship drop out of hyperspace even inside her little ship, Fang. The navicomputer uplink indicated that they had arrived at Coruscant, and Zara requested an immediate departure on Lord Krayt's authority. Once she cleared the hanger bay and set a course for the other Obsidian-Class warship in the system, the Tormenter, her heart finally stopped pounding in her ears. She reached into the hidden compartment she had discovered under the console and extracted Lord Krayt's holocron. She reached into the Force and nudged it back to life, the red pulsing light reawakening like the sick perversion of a heartbeat.

The image of a cloaked figure appeared above the holocron cast in the same eerie red light.

"Who disturbs the slumber of Darth Vectivus?" the hooded projection asked.

"My name is Zara," she replied, her voice trembling slightly. She could feel the holocron reaching out toward her, probing her mind with the Force.

"You are but a child, Zara," Vectivus said. "Return to me when you find your light."

The figure of Vectivus disappeared, leaving Zara very confused.

Why would a Sith Lord tell me to turn to the light?

Unable to dwell on it any more, Fang was close enough to the Tormenter to request docking clearance, and thirty minutes later she was on the bridge marching up to Wyyrlok. The panoramic view of the outside of the ship always caught Zara off guard every time she entered the bridge of an Obsidian Class destroyer, and she had to focus this time to ignore it so she could retain the respect of the crew. In the middle of the bridge at a data console she saw the Chagrian Bogan Warrior named Wyyrlok, the one often said to be Lord Krayt's most valued servant.

"Ah, Zara, we meet again," Wyyrlok said with an indifferent tone. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Lord Krayt ordered for Jacen Solo to be returned to Coruscant," Zara snapped with as much authority as she could muster and handed him the data card she had brought with her. "Use these codes to track the transmitters immediately. We will leave once you have a lock on the signal."

Wyyrlok turned to face her with a look of amusement on his tattooed red and black face. He gently plucked the data card from her fingers and smirked at her.

"Of course, m'lady," Wyyrlok said as sarcastically as he could. "It would be my honour."

Not willing to stoop to her superior's banter, she turned and marched toward the bridge exit.

"Will you need quarters, your highness?" Wyyrlok continued his sarcastic tone.

"I'll stay in my ship," Zara called back. Despite being entitled to quarters on any ship she was stationed on, her thoughts retreated to only one thing – deciphering the holocron.

[[[[#]]]]]]]]=(=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-