The flight to Coruscant's Jedi Temple had been ordered by all three branches of the Galactic Triumvirate; preliminary reports regarding Nihilus' mask and the events on Ossus has terrified all three leaders. The hyperspace jump was a short one, but the day had been a very long one and sleep was a welcome diversion. Despite the physical and mental tolls of the battle with Nihilus, Theron stared at the ceiling while he struggled to sleep through the loud snores of Van and Rhen. Theron rolled his eyes as the loud rumblings echoed through the nearly empty ship and kept him from sleeping – partially. Theron also refrained from closing his eyes, fearful of the images that played through his mind in an endless cycle every time he stared at the back of his eyelids.

Theron would advance slowly towards someone – the faces were different every time, ranging from strangers of Jedi or Sith, up to those of the crew still on the ship with him. From there, regardless of whether friend or foe, the dream would play out the same. Theron would advance on the sapient, occasionally with ill intent or none at all, and a feeling of hollow anguish would rush through him, building from a whisper into a scream that would fill Theron's mind and block out the snoring entirely. Then purple light would flood out of Theron's hand or chest towards the cowering Force user, who would wither away into nothingness. The being would die, and the hollow screams would die down. But they remained, just below the surface, ever intensifying. The dream would replay, then; death upon death echoed through Theron's mind. The worst part was that each death made Theron less and less... emotional. It got to the point where the deaths of Rhen, Van, and Ana did little to stir Theron's soul.

So instead of sleeping, Theron stared at the ceiling for at least two standard hours, struggling to stave off even glimpses of this darkness that resided within him. "What's wrong with me?" Theron asked himself. He felt a jittering on his leg and nearly jumped out of his bed before realizing that the movement was due to his shaking hand. With great struggle, Theron forced his rattling body to stop moving.

Nihilus was a Force wound. The powers he used on you... an old teacher once told me that some techniques can only be learned from experience. You experienced it firsthand, unlike the others, Revan said, trying to make the young Gray Jedi feel better. Or so Theron believed. Your life is infinitely more complicated now – and given your strength in the Force, that says a lot. You've got a destiny, kid.

Theron ignored the voice – no longer sure in his belief that the source was imagined – and slowly curled into a sitting fetal position. The idea that Nihilus lived on in Theron himself... the mere prospect chilled the young man to the bone and caused an echo of Nihilus' hunger to whisper through Theron. He shook his head and climbed out of the bed, rubbed his hands across his face and walked to the main room of the ship where Ana was busy starting Theron's report. "You know I was joking when we did that bet, right?" Theron asked her as he sat down on the couch.

"Sure you were," Ana replied with a skeptical glance in his direction before returning to the datapad to finish Theron's report. "Can't sleep?"

Theron studied Ana's determined face. "No," he explained finally. "The recent fight with... whatever the kriff Nihilus was – it shook me up."

"Me too," Ana replied without taking her eyes from the datapad. She tapped a few boxes on the screen then bit her bottom lip.

Theron coughed once. "I – uh – so, you're lightsaber is weird."

Ana laughed and placed the datapad on the table before her. "It always comes down to the lightsaber with you boys," she joked. "Are you threatened by my having two?"

Theron glared at Ana dryly. "I'd be scared if you had one," Theron replied, dueling innuendos with the woman.

Ana chuckled. "As would I. It's... It's unique."

"I'd like to see it," Theron replied. He smiled and punched her shoulder lightly. "Hey, if you let me study yours, you can study mine."

Ana chuckled. "That sounds fair," she said. She stood up and walked to the doorway, where she stopped and looked back at Theron. "You coming?"

Theron shrugged and walked away with Ana. She sashayed in front of Theron as the two went towards the cargo hold. Ana's nightclothes were simple sweatpants and a tight tank top, colored as most of her clothes were – Imperial knight crimson and black. They were baggy, but her muscular yet feminine body still filled them out rather pleasurably. Theron immediately thought back to the first time he had so callously called her "boobs." An apt, if grossly oversimplified, title for the intelligent, strong woman standing before him.

"Stop staring at my ass," she shot.

"W-I – No, I – Kark!" Theron grunted to himself. Ana chuckled to herself in front of him.

Theron stared at the ground the rest of the way into the cargo hold and quietly, sheepishly collected his saber from his personal footlocker. He pulled his most prized possession– he glanced at Revan's mask in the footlocker and thought, Okay, the saber is my second most prized possession. – from the metal box. His thumb traced across the metal crest he had long before built into the hilt for aesthetic design and personal reasons. His skin ran across the crest of the Fel Dynasty interlaced with the insignias of the Solo and Skywalker clans. He smiled at the hilt for a moment and then looked over at Ana, who was holding her saber loosely in her left hand and studying Theron intently.

"Stop staring at my ass," he shot.

Ana grinned at Theron and tossed her lightsaber over to him. He did the same and soon the two were holding one another's deeply personal weaponry; Theron could faintly sense that the saber was attuned almost perfectly to Ana's own Force aura. "You obviously take great care in maintaining your weapon," Theron said. He looked around the hilt and studied the blaster apparatus. "This looks like a heavily modified Czerkatech 411 holdout blaster integrated with an extra emitter matrix and... is that a secondary power supply? How did you cram another one into the saber hilt?"

Ana stared, a little surprised at Theron. "I – Well, I suppose your claims of being good with machinery are true," she said. Theron shrugged. He looked down at the lightsaber again and continued to study it. Ana sighed. "I – what's this symbol?"

Theron looked over at her. She... she doesn't know? He asked himself. He could barely keep the surprise from his face. Probably for the best. She is loyal to Gann, after all. I doubt Horn would tell him, of all people, of my heritage.

Theron considered his options for a moment. "It's an old family symbol," he eventually said.

Ana waited for further elaboration. "To which family does the crest belong?"

Theron remained silent for a moment. His suspicions were indeed correct, and he made a mental note to thank Horn for keeping silent on his past. "That is knowledge I do not wish to dwell on." Theron walked over to Ana's footlocker and placed her saber gingerly into the box. "My family was murdered in front of me when I was young."

Ana remained quiet for some time while Theron stood with his back to her and his eyes fixed on his feet. The image of his mother cut down by multiple colors of laser flying through her body flashed through his mind combined with the vision of his new power gained from Nihilus. He used the screaming hunger to tear the life away from the assassins and burn away the encroaching murderers. He felt goosebumps run across his arms as he took pleasure in the imaginary experience. "I had no idea," she murmured apologetically.

Theron smiled sadly, shrugged, turned around, and responded, "You couldn't have known. If your bosses didn't tell you, I wouldn't know how you would have figured that out."

"Still, I wish I could have – It gives some explanation to your... crass behavior," Ana said. She rubbed her arm in embarrassment and put Theron's saber away in his locker.

"Thanks for putting the 'cr-' there," Theron lamely quipped.

Ana chuckled in pity. "Well it's not your worst joke yet."

Theron smiled. "What about you?" he asked finally.

"I've made better jokes than that, Theron, and you know it," Ana replied caustically.

"No, your family. Where's your family?" Theron asked. Ana shuffled uncomfortably at the question and began to run her hands up and down her upper arms. "Sorry, if that made you – I'm not used to being around... anyone but Rhen, really."

"You guys are good friends?" Ana asked, deflecting from the question about her family.

Theron graciously went along with it. "Yeah. His grandpa took me in after my parents died. My earliest memories post-murdered parents are of me and Rhen running around with Shado at the -"

"Wait? Shado Vao?" Ana asked. Her arms uncrossed and she began to smile. "Rhen's a Vao?"

"Kriff... Don't let him know that you know – he's, well, he doesn't like living in that shadow – no pun intended," Theron said. He frowned. "That, and Shado's death ten years back really hurt him – me too. Too many lowlives in the mid-levels at once, and there wasn't much for the family to bury."

Ana sighed. "I heard it was bad, but... I hadn't heard that."

"Rhen's family doesn't really like people knowing. But I figure, you're going to find out eventually. Still just... keep it on the low, okay?"

Ana nodded. "Of course," she said.

The two of them stood awkwardly in the cargo hold for a while, both coming close to saying something further, but neither fully committing to it. Finally, an alarm sounded. Ana and Theron glanced at each other through the screaming klaxons and each pulled their lightsabers from the lockers with the Force. The two rushed to the cockpit where Van was sitting in the pilot's chair wearing his taun taun print pajama set. "Real manly," Ana told Van as she and Theron got near.

The pilot glared at her for a moment before returning his attention to the view outside the ship. Floating, dead in the empty blackness, was a ship unlike any Theron had ever seen before. The ship was a simple sphere with four small, jagged wings sticking out upward and horizontally. There didn't seem to be a view point on the dead fighter. "Where's its warship?" Theron asked. He glanced down at the radar, and there was nothing.

"This doesn't sit right," Van said. He looked around. "Where the hell is Rhen?"

Rhen ran in a few seconds later. "Sorry, I – well..."

"He doesn't like being around people in his sleeping clothes," Theron said with a gesture at Rhen's fully clothed body. "He's a bit of a baby."

"Shut up – what's going on?"

"This fighter is just... floating there. No damage."

"So why did we stop?" Theron asked.

Van shrugged. "It took us out of hyperspace."

Theron laughed incredulously. "I'm sorry, it sounded like you said that this simple fighter took us out of hyperspace."

"I did," Van said. "Which is why the alarms sounded and we're sitting here staring at something that won't let us go into hyperspace."

"Wait, we can't reenter hyperspace either?" Theron asked. He leaned forward into the back of the copilot's chair and stared at the fighter. The disappointing ball of metal had suddenly become very interesting.

"What are you thinking?" Rhen asked.

"Dock with it. Scan for microbes and life signs. Maybe we can integrate the anti-hyperspace tech into our ship," Theron said.

"If there even is a docking port," Van grunted cynically. He pointed at the fighter. "There doesn't even seem to be windows for a viewing port."

Theron sneered down at Van. "You're a barrel of happy times, ain't ya?" he growled. Theron pushed off from the co-pilot's chair. "I'll spacewalk, use my lightsaber to cut into the ship, and scan the interior to see if it's safe for the Eagle's atmosphere."

"Thirty creds there's an evil, unknown species inside that wants to kill us," Rhen said.

"I will not be taking part your foolish gambles – of course there's a monster in there," Ana replied. She crossed her arms and looked over at Theron. "I say we destroy it, here and now. Leave nothing for anyone passing by, and minimize the dangers towards us."

"Bah, where's your sense of adventure?" Theron asked. He grinned at the others in the cockpit before running off to the cargo hold. He quickly grabbed the space suit and threw it on over his night clothes. He clipped his saber cautiously to the belt of the spacesuit.

"I have a bad feeling about this, Theron," Ana said from the doorway. Theron spun around to look her in the eye. "That ship is... I'm not sure. But I know that it isn't good."

"Well, that makes four of us. But, hey, I'll have my lightsaber and the Force on my side. I wouldn't worry about it," Theron said. He grinned and put on the helmet of the spacesuit. He hit a button on the inside with his chin and the helmet snapped into place and the suit pressurized to atmosphere level. "How do I look?"

"Fat," Ana responded with a sigh. "Fine. Just be careful."

Theron smiled. "Since when am I not careful?"

"I've known you all of three days, and I haven't seen you be careful once," Ana returned. She leaned out of the doorway to let Theron through and followed him to the inner airlock door. "For once, just be careful."

Theron looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "Fine." He looked away from her and marched through the airlock door.

"Depressurizing... Deprssurizing..." a computer voiced hummed after the inner doors slammed shut. The outer doors flew open. "Oxygen available for... Twenty standard minutes. Trajectory calculating..."

Theron blinked as the computers of the ship began transmitting data to the translucent screen of the helmet visor, giving him a safe, efficient passage to the dead fighter. Theron followed the green arrows to the edge of the ship and looked out into the infinite expanse of space. Then he tensed his legs and jumped into the vacuum towards the fighter.

He drifted in the emptiness, slowly meandering at a constant velocity towards the ship. "You okay out there?" Van asked over comms.

"Great," Theron replied quietly as he gazed in awe at the universe around him. The stars of countless worlds shined brilliantly around him as he followed the path to the fighter. He had spacewalked before, but the sights somehow managed to amaze him every time.

Theron listed lazily through the infinite abyss towards the fighter for another few moments, then collided with the alien fighter. His momentum translated into the ship and he began to drift even more slowly away from the Eagle; the fighter began to spin slightly in the frictionless environment. "I've reached the fighter," Theron breathed over the communications system. "Proceeding with... surgical cutting?" Theron pulled his lightsaber from his belt and pointed the emitter towards the ship and tapped the saber into activation. The plasma shot into the fighter and Theron slowly, agonizingly, cut a hole almost a meter in diameter into the fighter.

When the hole was finally completed, Theron thought to himself, I really hope we didn't cut any of the cool tech.

Theron, this ship is familiar to me. Leave it. You need to leave it.

Theron ignored Revan and reached one arm towards the Eagle's airlock. With a mental nudge, Theron began to pull the fighter slowly towards the Crimson Eagle. When he was close enough, he said, "Activate magnetic connectors, Van." A series of blue lights – electromagnets – flared into being and the fighter flew towards the Eagle until contact was made. Theron held on to the fighter with the Force and ended up safely inside the airlock. He jumped from the fighter's exterior and continued speaking into the comms. "Activate the plasma wall and scan the interior of the fighter for life."

A few moments later: "It's clean. Any microbes that were in there are long dead, now."

"It would have to have been in vacuum for... almost 600 days," Rhen said. "If it's been drifting for that long, how come we didn't see it here on our way from Coruscant? How come no one has?"

Theron looked over at the ship. "Vent some atmosphere in here, guys, so we can see what's in there."

Theron watched as air hissed into the environment around him, then removed the helmet from his head and turned his attention back to the fighter. While he stood there, the spacesuit on his body decompressed and he slid out of the brown and orange protective shell. The inner airlock slid open with a hiss, and Theron summoned his lightsaber to his hand – just in case the fighter had an as-of-yet unseen defense mechanism. The others took up semi-defensive positions at Theron's sides, and Theron used the Force to open the new door to the fighter.

The air hissed as new, strange atmosphere was introduced to the environment. Theron thumbed his saber into existence and walked slowly towards the metal sphere. He put the saber's blade into the fighter's canopy and looked around at a mess of buttons and a chair with a lightsaber cut through the back. "Can we download the data from the fighter's computers?" Rhen asked.

Theron looked over at Van. "Toss me that datapad you're hiding," he said while he deactivated his saber.

"What datapad?" Van laughed.

"The one with which you were surfing the holonet for porn just before you went to sleep. We could all hear you in the refresher," Theron said.

Van blushed. He stuttered, "I – I -" Theron cut him off with a look and Van, with a roll of his eyes, tossed the datapad from the inside of the jacket he was wearing.

"Thank you. But really? You're too loud." Theron grumbled. He crouched down to the fighter and leaned in slightly. He ran a cable to a misshaped port and data ran across the screen of the datapad. Theron pressed a button on the side of the datapad and the data from the fighter began to download to an external drive. "I don't recognize this language."

"What do you mean?" Ana asked. She walked over to the fighter. "I'm sure I'll recognize it – I know many written languages."

"Good luck – the writing isn't even remotely related to Besh," Theron said as he handed her the datapad.

"I'm sure I can – what the kriff?"

"You don't recognize it?" Theron asked. The Imperial Knight shook her head. "Yeah, thought so."

"This data'll be useless!" Ana muttered as she handed the datapad back to Theron. "They'll be lucky to accidentally find out what color the paint is!"

Theron took the datapad and removed the external drive from the side. He unplugged the handheld from the fighter and tossed it over to Van. "I'll buy you another drive on Coruscant. Or you can charge it to the Triumvirate military," Theron remarked as the datapad flew through the air.

Theron stood up and pocketed the drive. "Let's space the fighter and blow it up – leave as little as possible for the Sith." Theron walked out of the airlock with the others and they vented the alien ship. Three volleys of turbolaser fire later, the Eagle was in hyperspace towards Coruscant once again.