It stood there before her, its lights almost blinding in the dusty gloom. The air was heavy and oppressive and Brinna could not shake the feeling that an unseen presence was watching her…

She woke with a shiver. Without even really thinking about what she was doing, she dressed hurriedly and went out into the common room to find Bastila. She knew immediately that Bastila had once more shared the "vision" with her. Oblivious to the stares of the rest of the crew, Brinna began to talk with Bastila about what they'd seen. Though it shouldn't have surprised her anymore, considering it was the third time she'd shared a vision with Bastila, it still left a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach to learn that every detail of her dream was in perfect agreement with Bastila's description of her own vision.

"I don't envy you having Princess crawling around in your head," Canderous muttered to Brinna. He was loitering by the caffa as she poured herself a mug.

"You have no idea," she said, running a tired hand back through her hair and taking a long sip from her mug. She looked at Carth and saw that he was staring blankly ahead, turning his mug in slow circles over and over again.

"Still think it's a good idea to bring him along on this mission?" Canderous asked.

"It's better than my idea to bring you along," Brinna snapped at him. He gave her a cool glance and she sighed. "Look, I shouldn't have snapped at you. It was a legitimate question. I'm just a little uneasy after this latest vision. Anyway, you know we have to take Carth with us. I can't let him go on like this, torturing himself wondering what happened to his son. Besides, he's never failed us before and I know he won't now."

"I guess it'll be up to me to look after you two, then," Canderous remarked casually.

Brinna eyed him suspiciously. "What did Jolee say to you?"

"He told me he'd find very unpleasant uses for the Force for me if I didn't make sure that you don't succumb to the dark side while we're on that Sith-infested planet."

She couldn't help but smile wryly. "Wonderful. I got a lecture from Bastila last night and now this. I'm glad to know that everyone has such confidence in me."

Canderous grinned at her. "Cheer up. They just underestimate you, just like they underestimate me. None of them are smart enough to realize our superiority."

"You're not the least bit egotistical are you?" Brinna asked with a smile.

"I only speak truth," Canderous said.

"Maybe I'll go ahead and let Jolee use the Force on you, even if you do manage to help me get back to this ship in one piece when all is said and done."

"Now that's gratitude."

"Did you really expect anything less from me?"

Brinna cuffed Canderous on the arm and left him to go sit by Carth. The others were occupied and Brinna took advantage of this to seize a private moment with him.

"Are you ready for this?" she asked him.

"As ready as I'll ever be," he said grimly.

"Carth, whatever happens down there, remember that you're not in this alone. I'm here."

"I know," he said, placing a hand briefly over hers. "And I appreciate it."

He left the common room and headed toward the equipment bay. Brinna let him go. She figured that he could probably use a little time to himself.

A minute later, Juhani's voice came over the comm, telling everyone to strap in for landing. They touched down smoothly and Brinna and Canderous were up and out of their seats the second the ship ceased to move. They met up with Carth at the loading bay, waiting tensely for the ramp to be lowered.

They were stopped at the spaceport doors by a Twi'lek with the Korriban Port Authority. He asked them for a twenty-five credit docking fee. As Brinna handed it over to him, he commented on her being a Jedi. She asked if many Jedi came through Korriban and was sorry to hear that the Twi'lek had seen quite a few. Apparently, there were more and more Jedi defecting to the Sith cause every day. The information made Brinna set her mouth into a grim line.

As soon as she had set foot on the planet, she had found herself thinking how glad she was that she'd decided to leave her fellow Jedi behind on the ship. They wouldn't be immune to the dark energies pulsing through the planet but at least they would be more sheltered from it than Brinna would be once she found some way of getting into that academy. She had felt the lure of the dark side a few times but it was nothing like the pull she felt once she was on Korriban's surface. She could only imagine that it would get worse once she was in the academy and she found herself thinking that perhaps she shouldn't have received Bastila's lecture so harshly the previous night. Bastila may be younger than Brinna but Brinna had to admit that there were things that Bastila knew that Brinna did not, however loath to admit it Brinna might be. Brinna had never been foolish enough to think it would be easy to resist the temptation of the dark side but she had secretly scoffed and rolled her eyes at Bastila's many lectures. She now found that she understood why Bastila had been so intent on beating the information into her head.

"Are you all right?" Canderous asked her.

"I'm as all right as I will be as long as we're here," Brinna told him. "Let's just do what we need to do and get off this planet as fast as possible."

"Got it," Canderous replied with a nod.

They left the spaceport but made it no more than a few meters down the corridor leading into the Dreshdae settlement before they had their first unpleasant encounter with the Sith. A young man by the name of Shaardan had three hopefuls before him and it appeared that the unfortunate three had done something to displease Shaardan. He was busy threatening them when Brinna, Carth, and Canderous walked up and as soon as the hopefuls caught sight of Brinna and her companions, they turned and appealed to them for help.

Shaardan didn't exactly look pleased by this turn of events but he asked Brinna for her opinion as to how the hopefuls should be punished. She asked what they had done and was completely stunned when Shaardan informed her that they hadn't done anything but that he intended to punish them just the same.

This, then, was the power of the dark side that Bastila had warned her about, the Sith evil against which Carth had so valiantly fought. Throughout her career, Brinna had run into many unsavory characters but she had never before met anyone who was so depraved that it caused a shiver to run up her spine.

Using her best persuasive tone, Brinna told Shaardan that he should let the hopefuls go because they weren't worth his time. Unfortunately for her, her persuasive words did not have the desired effect in this instance and she watched, horrified, as Shaardan called on the Force. Bolts of lightening shot from his fingers and the hopefuls went down with a chorus of horrific screams. Cold as ice, Shaardan turned on his heel and walked away. The scent of charred flesh was heavy in the air and Brinna didn't realize what she was doing until she felt Canderous laying a restraining hand on her arm.

"Easy now," he growled into her ear. "You don't know what the situation is. He could have a whole battalion waiting for him just around the corner."

Though she knew Canderous was right, it took all of Brinna's strength not to chase after Shaardan and strike him down. She had never thought that the phrase "seeing red" could possibly be true until that very moment. Her hands had automatically gone to the lightsabers at her belt and Brinna found that she was shaking as she lowered them to her sides.

"Do you need me to go get the old man or the Cathari?" Canderous asked. She was astonished to hear a note of worry in his voice.

"No," she said, taking a shaky breath. "I can handle this. I lost it there for a minute but now I know I need to be on my guard."

Carth was staring at her in concern and she knew that her reaction must have been pretty strong to have yanked him out of the trancelike state he'd been in ever since he'd heard that Dustil was alive and well.

"Come on, let's go," Brinna said, deliberately turning her back on the bodies of the three unfortunate hopefuls and pressing forward.

She did her best to compose herself but it took several minutes and some silent chanting of the Jedi Code to stop the trembling in her hands. Never before had she experienced such senseless violence and it had shocked her to her very core. As if what she had witnessed wasn't bad enough, she could not stop thinking of her own reaction to it. She'd been plenty angry before, had even entertained thoughts of violence against those who had provoked her ire, but she had never before come so close to striking out in anger as she had at that moment.

Maybe you can't handle this, she thought. Maybe you should go back to the ship and get Juhani or Jolee.

No! I won't have them exposed to this. I'm strong enough to defeat it; I just can't be stupid enough to let my guard down again. If it drains every last bit of strength from me, I'm going to get that Star Map and get us the hell off this planet without allowing either Juhani or Jolee to take a single step into that damned academy.

They had barely recovered from their first run-in with one of the Sith Academy students before they had another. Just beyond the corridor was a large room and almost as soon as Brinna set foot in it, she found herself accosted by a hostile young blonde who clearly had issues with the Jedi who had defected from the Order and joined the academy.

Before Brinna could react, Canderous stepped in front of her and said, "You should turn around and move along, kid. You don't want the trouble we'd give you."

The student haughtily replied to Canderous by asking him if he had any idea how many Sith were on Korriban, to which the Mandalorian replied, "Not enough to save your sorry self."

Undaunted, the girl continued to harass Brinna, who wearily told the Sith that she wasn't looking for trouble but that she wasn't there as a source of amusement for the Sith student and her companions. The Sith girl probably could have spent the rest of the day trying to goad Brinna into a fight but her fellow students grew bored and drew her away from Brinna and her companions.

"Nice kids," Carth remarked as they watched the students leave.

From the way he clenched his jaw, Brinna guessed that he was thinking about Dustil counting himself among such illustrious people and she found herself worrying about Carth more than ever. Aside from being told that Dustil was, indeed, dead, Brinna knew that his being told that Dustil had joined the Sith was the worst thing that could possibly have happened. For her part, Brinna was convinced that the Sith must have done some serious brain washing when it came to Dustil. How else could she explain why he'd joined the very organization that had killed his mother and bombed his home planet into oblivion?

They stopped to do a little trading in the Czerka shop, unloading some of their unneeded items. Brinna had hoped to learn a little more about the academy from the Czerka employees but it soon became clear that no one outside of the Sith knew much about the academy.

Their next stop was the cantina where they found a couple of pilots who'd been loading Sith artifacts and shipping them to Taris before Malak had blown it to bits. Brinna was very interested to hear about these artifacts, although the pilots couldn't tell her much about them. They were, however, able to tell her that the artifacts had been discovered in the valley on the other side of the academy. According to them, there was no way to sneak into the valley unseen. The only people allowed in it were the Sith students and their teachers.

"Well, it looks like we now have another reason for finding a way into that academy," Brinna told Carth and Canderous as the three of them sat sipping and drinks and discussing what they'd learned.

"How do you propose to do that?" Canderous asked her.

Brinna sighed. "It looks like I'm going to have to pose as a turncoat and try to get into the academy as a student myself."

"What?" Carth asked, staring at her like she was crazy.

"It's the only way we're going to get out into that valley. If the Sith are pulling ancient dark side artifacts out of there, then the Star Map must be there as well."

"You can't do this. It's crazy. If they find out who you are…" Carth protested, but Brinna cut him off.

"It's a chance I'll have to take," she told him.

"I agree with Soldier," Canderous chimed in. "There must be some other way to get into that valley and find that Star Map. If the Sith find out your true mission, you're dead meat."

"There is no other way," Brinna said firmly. "You heard what those pilots said. It's a risk I'm going to have to take. We have to find that Star Map or we won't have any hope of stopping Malak."

"Then I'm going in there with you," Carth said.

"So am I," Canderous added.

"No way," Brinna told them. "How am I supposed to explain why you two are following me everywhere I go?"

"You'll just have to think of something," Canderous told her. He finished his drink and stood up from the table. "Now, let's see if we can figure out how to get you into that academy."

Brinna tried her best to dissuade Canderous and Carth but her continued protests fell on deaf ears and, exasperated, she finally gave up. Though she didn't want them exposed to the kind of danger that would be present in the Sith Academy, Brinna had to admit to herself that she was a little relieved that Carth and Canderous had insisted on going with her. It was difficult for her to admit, but she felt that it would be wise for her to have someone watching over her, making sure that she didn't stray from her mission.

They made their way out of Dreshdae and toward the academy building. As soon as they stepped through the settlement's doors, they were afforded a view of Korriban's bleak surface. The planet was one large, dusty wasteland.

"Nice place," Brinna commented as they stood surveying the scene.

"It's appropriate at least," Carth said tightly. "Since the Sith are so fond of making wastelands of other worlds, it's only fair that their own should be a wasteland."

"Well, now I can see why there's no sneaking into the valley," Canderous said, shading his eyes and gazing past the academy. "There's nowhere to hide."

The words sent a shiver up Brinna's spine. "What's going on over there?" she asked, pointing in the direction of the academy. She could see someone in a Sith Academy uniform standing across from what appeared to be three hopefuls. Something about the scene didn't sit right with her. Through the Force, she could sense the malice of the academy student but she had yet to run into an academy student who didn't ooze malice so there had to be more to it than that.

Her instincts proved correct. She learned from one of the hopefuls that the young man in the academy uniform was named Mekel and that he was conducting some sort of test. Brinna frowned and walked over to Mekel to ask him what was happening. She was something less than surprised to learn that his "test" was no real test at all, that he was, essentially, torturing the hopefuls, telling them to stand in place just to see if they would continue doing so until they collapsed.

"Oh what a sweet guy," Carth said under his breath. "He should get the Sith congeniality medal."

Brinna tried her best to sweet talk Mekel into letting the hopefuls go but he would not relent. He did decide to go to the cantina for a meal, so Brinna tried her best to convince the hopefuls that the "test" had been nothing more than a lie. One of them thanked her and ran off to try to find another way of getting into the academy. Another dropped dead before her eyes and the third refused to believe her.

"You did what you could," Carth said, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

"It wasn't enough," Brinna said. She had curled her hands into such tight fists that her trim nails bit into the flesh of her palms.

"You can't save everyone," he told her sadly.

"I will save your son!" she vowed, turning toward him with a flashing gaze.

He looked a little taken aback by her vehement statement but she could also see that her words had offered him some comfort. "I know," he responded.

"We're not going to be saving anyone if we don't find a way into that academy," Canderous pointed out gruffly. "Somehow, I don't think that guard is just going to let us walk right through the doors."

"No, but maybe he can tell us something useful," Brinna said.

As expected, the soldier refused them entrance. However, Brinna was able to get him to tell her that a Sith Master named Yuthura Ban was in charge of new recruits and that he believed that she had gone to the cantina.

"Looks like we'll be having a little chat with Yuthura Ban," Brinna said as they made their way back to the cantina.

Yuthura Ban turned out to be a lovely violet Twi'lek with an intricately tattooed face. Her Force aura was very powerful. There was a great deal of anger in her but Brinna sensed something under the surface and knew that there was more to Yuthura Ban than met the eye.

Brinna engaged the Twi'lek in conversation and couldn't help but listen in fascinated disbelief to what Yuthura had to say. Brinna had always wondered how the Sith had managed to draw so many into their web, but as she listened to Yuthura, it all became pretty clear to her. Though she knew full well that there were plenty of people out there who were happy to join the Sith just for the sake of attaining power, she had always wondered how those who had seemed to be good could possibly have been fooled by the Sith. Yuthura had many interesting and creative explanations for the depravity of the Sith and it didn't take Brinna long to see how such explanations could play on an impressionable mind. Talking to Yuthura was a sobering lesson in the malleability of the humanoid psyche and it did not sit well with Brinna.

Finally, Yuthura asked Brinna if she was interested in joining the Sith and Brinna faced her greatest mental challenge yet. Yuthura was no fool, as Brinna was certain many before her had learned. Lying through her teeth and yet managing to successfully convince Yuthura that she had a burning interest in joining the Sith would be difficult. Fortunately, the Force was with her and though Yuthura seemed a bit suspicious, she bought Brinna's lies and consented to accept Brinna into the academy. She then asked about Brinna's companions and Brinna said the first thing that came into her head: she told Yuthura that Carth and Canderous were her slaves.

At the mention of the word, Yuthura's eyes darkened and Brinna sensed some very malevolent emotions coming from the Twi'lek. This, however, lasted no more than a few seconds and Brinna almost wondered if she'd imagined the whole thing.

Yuthura escorted Brinna into the academy, where they met in a round room with Master Uthar, the head of the academy, and three other prospective Sith. Brinna wasn't surprised to see that her competition consisted of Mekel, Shaardan, and the blonde girl who had harassed them in Dreshdae. She listened impatiently as Uthar spouted yet more Sith rhetoric, which had the other students practically eating out of his hand. When he questioned Brinna, she found that she was tired of lying and so she answered him honestly, making it quite clear that she found the Sith morally repugnant.

Brinna could sense Carth and Canderous's amazement and disbelief, which only grew stronger at Master Uthar's response. Rather than striking her down where she stood, he seemed almost pleased by the honesty of her responses. Brinna realized that he was looking forward to doing what he could to strip her Jedi ideology away and watch her turn into another Sith automaton.

Uthar stopped speaking at last and Brinna was escorted to her quarters, which consisted of an open room with a small bunk and a footlocker. She noted that all of the rooms in the academy were like this, even the room inhabited by Yuthura Ban, who was just on the other side of Brinna.

"How nice. They can spy on us at will," Brinna muttered when she was alone with her two companions.

"Your slaves?" Canderous asked, looking at her with an upraised eyebrow.

"You two insisted on coming in here with me and you told me to come up with something to explain your presence, so I did. Deal with it. Considering our extreme lack of privacy, you'd better put on a convincing performance or you'll blow our cover," she hissed.

"Yes, Master," Canderous said sarcastically.

"We'd better lay low for tonight. As much as I'd like to find Dustil and the Star Map and hightail it out of here, we'd better take things slow or we'll draw unwanted attention to ourselves," Brinna said.

"Right," Carth said. He was eyeing the volcanic rock walls of the room with distaste, looking as though he was going to fly out of his skin at any moment.

"We'll look for Dustil first thing in the morning," Brinna told him. "In the meantime, I suggest we all get some sleep."

"There's nothing like the comforts of a solid rock floor under your back," Canderous remarked.

"I hardly think it would do for the three of us to share this bed," Brinna told him. A second later, she realized what she'd said and she blushed from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes. Carth was too preoccupied to catch what she had said but Canderous leered at her as he stretched out next to the bunk. She shot him a dirty look and then turned her back to him.

Even though it had been her idea for them to get some sleep, she knew that she would get precious little—if any—herself. Though Carth and Canderous didn't look entirely comfortable, they were not Force Sensitive and Brinna knew that they weren't experiencing even half of what she was.

The dark side was so strong on Korriban that she was half-convinced she could see it coating the walls with a slimy, black ooze. It was like a beast crouching, ready to spring on unwary prey. The walls emitted a thrumming noise so low that it was nearly out of her range of hearing but once she heard it, it seemed to grow louder and more insistent until she felt like her heart was beating in tandem with its rhythm. Her blood seemed to flow through her veins in time with its tempo and she knew that if she was to just close her eyes and let go…

"Are you all right?" Carth asked, breaking into her thoughts.

"What?" she asked, dazed.

"You looked like you were in a trance or something. It's this place, isn't it? It makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I can't imagine what it's doing to you."

"It's trying to devour me," Brinna blurted.

Now Carth looked really concerned. "Brinna, maybe Canderous was right. Maybe we should go back for Jolee or Juhani…"

"No," she said, a little too loudly. She lowered her voice before she continued. "I don't want them going through this too, especially not Juhani, not after what she's just been through. I know you and Canderous are just trying to look out for me so I want you to understand that I'm just trying to look out for Juhani and Jolee."

"I know you are, but are you doing it at the expense of your own safety?"

"That doesn't matter," Brinna said.

"It does to me," Carth replied forcefully. "We all knew the risks when we agreed to this mission. I'm not going to stand back and watch you make yourself a target so that everyone else will be protected."

"Carth…"

"You take care of everyone but yourself. Do you expect me to just stand back and not say anything to you about it?"

She was extremely touched by his words, especially since she felt he had no business voicing them at this moment. He should be worrying about his son, not her.

"I'm not going to do anything stupid. I promise," she told him.

"That's right you aren't," he said, sitting up and grasping her hand firmly. "I'm not going to let you."

"Don't worry about me. Worry about yourself," she told him.

"Someone has to worry about you and since you won't, I will," he said stubbornly.

"I should have taken to calling you 'The Most Stubborn Pilot in the Galaxy'," she said, exasperated.

He smiled. "It's a fitting title."

"Just…just know that I feel better knowing that you're here," she told him.

"Likewise," he said. He gave her hand a firm squeeze before releasing it. "Now get some sleep. I'll keep watch."

She nodded and closed her eyes, but sleep didn't come for a very long time. When it finally did, it provided her with little rest as she had one nightmare after another.