Darth Jadus' heart was well preserved: Every vein and artery was clearly visible in the transparent casing it was in. Badesh stared at it and thought that it would be much more satisfying if it still had a pulse. Should he ask Quinn to install a pacemaker? His thoughts lingered a little longer on the possibilities to make the heart look more 'alive', then Badesh lowered his sight and continued reading the newest report on the Revanites.

There were hardly any new facts or occurrences about the cult. A mixture of anger and disappointment washed over Badesh and he glanced once again at the heart on his desk. He sighted and took Quinn's report on Lord Arkous activities. It appeared that he remained as unsuspicious as ever… but then he saw a note that Vette had inserted on one of his trips to the core worlds: "Official reason: Meeting with the commander of the 106th naval division. But said Commander was on the same time as Arkous on the Imperial Fleet. Why would they travel to Manaan to meet up?"

Right below Vette's comment Quinn had inserted another: "Arkous travelled five times to Manaan in the last year, three times on official business, two times secretly cf. file 13434984933507034II."

This was strange indeed, why would Arkous who was involved in military offence visit the homeworld of kolto? He skimmed through Arkous' schedule and saw that he was about to make another trip to Manaan in a few days. Somebody had to shadow him.

Badesh activated his personal holocomm and called Keeper. As soon as her small bluish figure appeared he asked: "Keeper, I have an assignment for Cipher Nine. Is she available?"

"No, my Lord. She is currently on an important mission on Coruscant and can't be recalled at this moment – unless you insist of course."

"No, I don't – I will see the mission through personally. If you don't hear from me or my associates within two weeks… assume that we have been killed."

Keeper bowed. "Yes, my Lord."

Badesh ended the call and signalled Vette and Quinn to meet with him on the Fury.

ooOOoo

It was fairly easy to follow Lord Arkous on Manaan. He met with official representatives of the manaanian government and attended a conference on weaponised kolto.

Vette sighted. "There is nothing secretive about all this stuff. Perhaps we were too paranoid." She stood on a small balcony and pretended to watch the local wildlife. From time to time she glanced at Arkous who talked to a few natives on the plaza.

"Stay sharp," Quinn's voice sounded slightly distorted in Badesh's earpiece. Quinn observed Arkous from the nearby park.

"I feel something about Arkous… he is focusing his energy. Relax and think about something neutral – he is scanning the vicinity with the force." Badesh had spoken quickly and smothered his force signature as quickly as he could. He had anticipated that Arkous would take precautions before he unveiled his true intentions on Manaan. Badesh had instructed Quinn and Vette to train their minds to quickly focus on something unsuspecting. Most force users could sense aggression or other strong emotions, but not mild feelings.

Badesh stood in a data pad shop on the promenade; he didn't see Arkous but he felt his force signature. His prey was moving to the harbour. Manaan was a water-world and the natives normally lived under the water. Most of the infrastructure was hidden in the gigantic ocean that was covering almost 90% of the planet. Badesh glanced at his holomap of Manaan and activated his microphone.

"He is heading to pier 207, we will meet there."

Badesh was the first to reach the location and approached a selkath worker who attended to the small submarines which were used to reach the underwater structures.

"An U-boat left from this pier a few minutes ago – where is it headed?" Badesh demanded to know.

The selkath female blinked a few times and answered in the slurred speech of the natives: "I'm sorry, sir. I am not at liberty to reveal the destination of said boat."

Badesh heard footsteps behind him, Vette and Quinn had arrived. They had no time to loose. Badesh closed his eyes and focused on the worker, then he opened them and stared directly in the black eyes of the Selkath. "You want to tell me where the boat went!" He disliked this course of action but sometimes force persuasion was very efficient even when he usually preferred a more violet solution.

"I want to tell you where the boat went… It's destination is laboratory K," replied the worker with a monotone voice.

Badesh continued to stare at her and intensified his focus. "Prepare a boat for us – and program it for laboratory K."

Green blood started to run from her nostrils. "Yes, of course. I will program a boat for you." Badesh was amazed. It was the first time that his force persuasion had caused somebody to bleed. It was truly satisfying. He wondered what would happen if he… but there was no time. He gestured the worker to get to work, she started to prepare everything.

"That was impressive, my Lord," said Quinn with one raised eyebrow. Badesh allowed himself a smile, his mask did hide his face. He registered that Vette had a concerned expression on her face; she clearly was unsettled by this display of power.

"So, uh, you don't have to cut somebody with you lightsaber in half, you can also fry their brain?"

"Of course, but it only works on the weak-minded," Badesh simply replied. Sometimes he couldn't understand why Vette stated the obvious.

The worker returned. "The boat is ready, sir."

Badesh nodded and they entered the submarine. It was very small, but also very fast. Within minutes they had dived so deep that the water was pitch-dark. Suddenly the boat slowed down and docked on a station; the door slid open and they left the submarine and stepped into a medical facility. The bright light almost blinded Badesh, but after mere moments his eyes adjusted to it. Then he reached out to Arkous' force signature and found it a few hundred metres away.

Badesh dimmed his own force signature and slowly walked into the direction in which he assumed the Lord was. They crossed several hallways; it was very suspicious: There were no workers, the laboratory seemed abandoned. The smell of kolto and sea-water hung in the air. Badesh heard muffled voices and lifted his hand to signal his companions to stay back. He advanced forward and stopped finally in front of a door. There was no doubt, Arkous was in there and he was talking to someone. He recognized two other voices, one of them was a Selkath… and the other sounded republican.

"…progress is good, Arkous," said a deep male voice with a republican accent.

"I always deliver what I promise." The Selkath sounded upset.

"Of course you do, doctor." Arkous sounded as jovial as always.

"We should inform Re…" begun the man with the republic accent, but he was interrupted by Arkous before he could finish the sentence.

"Somebody is here… I sense three faint force signatures nearby," gone was the friendly tone, Arkous sounded angry.

Badesh was surprised that Arkous could sense him and his companions, he had clearly underestimated him. There was no point in waiting any longer – he had to confront them. Badesh pushed the button at the door and entered the room as the door slid open. Footsteps behind him indicated that Vette and Quinn had caught up.

A Selkath, Arkous and a man wearing a republic uniform stood in the laboratory.

"Arkous, we should kill the Sith before he disturbs our plans," suggested the republican soldier – his rank insignia indicated that he was a Colonel.

"I'm afraid that won't be possible, my friend," the jovial intonation had returned to Arkous voice. "May I introduce one of the most powerful Sith in the whole Empire. There is no need for us to try to defeat him, we can't win against him."

"Explain you intentions a once, Arkous – or I will cut bloody pieces from you until you yield!" growled Badesh.

"You don't understand, the Colonel and I are mere pawns and we have to stop you – even if it costs us our lives and this laboratory," replied Arkous and took a small device from a pocket in his robes.

"My Lord! It's a detonator!" yelled Quinn.

Badesh drew his lightsaber and threw it at Arkous, but when the blade severed Arkous' hand from his arm it was already too late; an ear-deafening explosion shook the laboratory. A quick look at the ceiling showed Badesh that small cracks were spreading through the infrastructure. The whole infrastructure was about to collapse.

"I was an honour, Lord Arkous" said the Colonel quietly, drew his blaster and shot the Selkath and then himself in the head.

Badesh leaped at the remaining opponent to prevent him from committing suicide, but just as he was about to reach him Arkous had pulled with his left hand his lightsaber from his belt and had impaled himself on it. Arkous was dead before he even fell on the floor.

Badesh howled in frustration and ripped Arkous left arm out of its socket and threw it against a computer console in the middle of the room. Then he forced himself to calm down.

"Quinn, how much time do we have?" he asked as he turned around to face his companions.

"The walls will collapse in less than two minutes – we have to get out!"

"Damn!" muttered Badesh under his breath and they started to run towards their submarine. But they were stopped at the door: it was on emergency lockdown.

"Stand aside!" yelled Badesh and tried to force-push the door away, it buckled but didn't open. He focused again and finally pushed the door out of its angles. From the corner of his eyes Badesh saw how water started to run from the small cracks in the walls. Within moments they reached the next door, it was also on lock-down.

Badesh channelled all his anger into one mighty force push and blew the door away. Unfortunately the force blast also caused the cracks to spread further. Badesh glanced at Vette, she was terrified. Quinn looked equally scared and the very sight made Badesh even angrier. He had to get them to safety! They rushed down the hallway, the water was already knee-deep. Suddenly a contact noise rang out, a scrambled voice was heard. It got clearer and a male voice with a republican accent spoke: "To the survivors of laboratory K: I will attempt to open the next blast doors, stand ready!"

Vette reacted with incredible presence of mind. She ran to the nearest commstation and pushed the reply-button. "Please help us! Some red-skinned man set off explosives! Me and my co-workers just want to get out!"

"Don't bother, sweetheart," retorted the man, "I know that you're Imperials; but guess what… I will help you anyway." Badesh was confused, how could he know that they were Imperials? And how could he slice the computer so quickly to open up all blast-doors?

But true to his word all the doors slid open, Vette, Quinn and Badesh rushed to their submarine and managed to get in just before the water came crushing down on them.

"What was too close for comfort!" sighed Vette and let herself fall on one of the seats.

"The auto-pilot has engaged, my Lord. I assume that the U-boat will take us back to the pier," said Quinn smoothly, but as Badesh looked at him he saw that Quinn was paler than usual.

To Badesh's surprise the commsystem activated itself and the voice from before rang out: "We should meet up; it seems that we have common interests. I will be in the cantina on the orbital station in an hour."

Badesh was intrigued about the development, but he was also distrustful. It couldn't be a trap, otherwise the man wouldn't have helped them. But he was clearly someone who was aware of the Revanites.

ooOOoo

Exactly one hour later Badesh, Vette and Quinn stepped into the cantina. It was quite full and they slowly moved through the masses to an empty booth in the back. The smell of cheap alcohol and sweat disgusted Badesh, a customer vomited on the floor as they passed. It was truly a sleazy place.

As soon as they sat down Quinn pulled a small scanner from his utility belt and made a quick sweep for bugs.

"We are clear," Quinn whispered.

Vette waved the waiter, a male Twi'lek, over and gave him 100 Credits. "Two beer and your best whiskey please – and we don't want to be disturbed."

A few minutes later the waiter brought the beverages. Quinn looked at his beer with a frown.

"My Lord, the hygiene standards in this cantina are way below average… I don't recommend drinking whatever brewage the waiter has brought us."

"You're just too picky, Quinn. I've been in cantinas that were way worse!" exclaimed Vette.

Badesh smiled behind his mask but didn't say anything. He wouldn't remove his mask in public anyway to drink his whiskey.

The conversation died down and all three of them scanned the vicinity with their eyes. A quarter an hour after they had sat down a tall human male with brown hair and a red leather jacket stood up from one of the tables next to them and casually strolled over. As he drew closer Badesh saw that he had unfamiliar implants on the left side of his temple. Badesh reached out through the force and was surprised to find a very faint, strangely familiar resonance. The man's force signature reminded him also of Quinn… so ordered and focused.

"May I join you?" asked the man calmly and sat down next to Vette before they could answer.

Badesh didn't say a word, he just stared at the man.

"It seems that we owe you our lives, you have our gratitude," began Quinn. "Am I assuming correctly that you don't work for the Empire?"

The man leaned back and smiled a little. "You are correct… Officer. You know, you may be out of your uniform, but one look at your well-polished boots tells me that you're imperial military. I could eat breakfast off these things."

"And who are you, Mr. Expert-Slicer?" asked Vette and smiled. Badesh sensed that she was very focused, her friendly attitude masked how alert she was.

"Me? I'm just a disavowed SIS-Agent who asked dangerous questions – the name is Theron. And who are you guys?"

"Do you expect us to believe that you don't know who we are?" replied Quinn smoothly. "Didn't you track us?"

Theron eyed Badesh. "Your boss isn't a talker, is he? Well, I tracked Colonel Darok to Manaan and sliced into the lab to check out that one of the most decorated war heroes of the Republic was up to. As suspected he was indeed a Revanite."

"What do you know about the Revanites?" inquired Badesh and leaned forward. At the same time he tried to probe Theron's mind, but something blocked him out.

"Enough to save a couple of Imps who are apparently dangerous enough to trigger a full-blown Sith Lord to commit suicide just to take them with him. Look, I don't want to beat around the bush; we both know that these guys are bad news. I became aware of them a year ago and it took them only a couple of weeks to brand me as a traitor and lunatic. We are talking about the highest ranks of the Republic intelligence and military. And my guess is that the Empire is equally compromised."

"Maybe," retorted Badesh curtly.

"Aw, come on – let's lay all the cards on the table! I was a top-agent of the SIS and I'm desperate enough to talk to a fucking Sith about my secret mission!"

"Watch your tone," growled Badesh, a surge of anger boiled up in him.

"Okay, look… I will give you my whole intel. You don't have to trust me, trust the evidence."

Quinn's eyebrow rose. "You would give us your intel without striking a deal first? That's highly unusual."

Theron frowned. "You wouldn't honour our deal anyway, why waste time with it? But I know you Imps, you're ruthless and you will wipe out every last Revanite, even whole planets if you have to. And perhaps it is the only way to save the galaxy!"