Ana walked slowly through the dark halls of the research station. She held her silver saber defensively, moving it faster than the eye could see at the slightest noise that echoed through the dead satellite. "Just how much further is it to the main computer room?" Ana asked, half-annoyed and half-scared. She stepped gingerly over a body with complicated, torturous lightsaber wounds that crisscrossed all over the torso in intricate twirls. An incredibly savage work of art.
"Three doors on your left, upper right door in the large octagonal room," Van replied, his voice crackling slightly over communications. The sound buzzing in Ana's ear added to the feeling of fear that permeated the very air of the ship, smothering her. Ana was ready for everyone else to finally be on the research station, with its dark shadows that kept reminding her of the creeping claws of Nihilus. She struggled to ignore the similarities.
She finally reached the octagonal room a few moments later. She approached the door that would lead her to the main computer room but froze when a sound came to her from the opposite end of the room. She looked over her shoulder, and the noise – a small, weak whimper – drifted into her ears again. Ana twisted around and gazed deep into the shadows. "Who's there!?" Ana shouted. She waved her saber closer to the darkness in the corner. The whimper responded as the dim glow cast light on a middle aged Devaronian man in fetal position.
"Don't hurt me, please don't hurt me!" the man screamed. He began to sob suddenly and he curled up even more tightly. "Please... Please..."
Ana sighed and reached her left hand out to the Devaronian. "I'm not going to hurt you," she said. She grabbed the man's shoulder and eased him upward. The Devaronian went slowly with her hand until he was standing. He stood, terrified and flinching at the slightest noise. He looked like he could be a good third of a meter taller than Ana, were he not hunched over, hiding within himself. His horns were smoothed down to the shape of two bone-white circles sticking a centimeter out of his forehead.
The man fidgeted and began to wring his hands. "I – Help me. A Sith did this – they're still in here!" the Devaronian shouted. His hands grabbed on to Ana's cape and he tried to pull on her pleadingly. "Oh, the Sith won't stop until we're all dead, we have to run! Please!"
Ana was slightly terrified by the man clutching so desperately at her for protection. But she couldn't show that fear – she was an Imperial Knight, fearless and unassailable in battle. "Don't worry, we can get you out of here," Ana said. "I just need you to stay calm. Follow me."
The Devaronian nodded. "I – Just don't leave me," he begged.
Ana nodded sadly at the man and took of Theron's mask. She placed the mask on a magnetized pad attached to her hip armor and gestured for the Devaronian to follow her. She smiled non-threateningly. "Come on," she said.
Ana walked off towards the command room. She did not hear the quiet creak of an opening locker as a Sith collected their lightsaber with a devilish grin.
SWSWSWSWSW
Theron paced wildly in the cockpit. "You're gonna have to stop that, or I'll shoot you in the leg. I don't think we want to be a man down on this," Van told him.
Theron shot a look that said "Shut up" to the pilot and continued pacing. It had been almost five minutes since Ana's last communication.
"Okay I've opened the d -" she had begun. The sound of a lightsaber and the screams of a man erupted in the background. "What the hell!?" Ana's lightsaber had cut in then, just before all comms had gone dark. They'd been jammed.
There was precious little information, and Theron was deeply worried. "How long until docking is complete?" he asked Van.
"Two minutes, just hold your dewbacks," Van replied. He sighed in exasperation. "You're making it take longer!"
Theron growled and continued pacing. Rhen walked in to the cockpit and chuckled to himself despite his worry for Ana. "He's still at it?"
"Oh, shut up," Theron snapped.
"Calm down, Stoopa," Rhen snapped back.
Theron glared at his friend for a moment then continued to pace. He felt his mind drawing near the Aura of the mask, pulling them together, and his anxiety lessened for a moment. The ebb and flow of the mask's power was like the sound of ocean waves crashing softly against the sand. Then Theron's mind returned to thoughts of his missing crewmate, and with that came odious worry.
"Docking complete in four... three... two... one..." the ship lurched heavily as the two airlocks' magnetic docking rings came to life and the ship slammed into the satellite. Rockets lurched slightly on the station to prevent orbital decay. "Okay, we're ready."
Theron rushed from the cockpit and slapped his hand against the button to open the door. When it didn't open fast enough, Theron slammed his hand against the button over and over again until the bulkhead finally flew open with a hiss and the sound of metal scraping against metal. Theron snapped his lightsaber on before the doors finished opening and jumped through the crack. He glared down the darkness and activated his communications. "Van, lock the doors as soon as Rhen leaves the ship. I'm going in."
Theron ran forward into the darkness, following the feel of the mask. Ana had to be with it, and if she wasn't... Theron knew he would have to kill whoever it was that held the artifact of impossible power.
SWSWSWSWSW
Rhen, silently at first, cursed Theron as he roamed the empty, shadowed ship. "Stoopa Shcutta... E Chu Ta!" he hissed to himself. "Splitting up is always a bad idea. Any two-bit holo-horror will tell you that much!" Rhen leered at the darkness and fidgeted nervously at every shadow cast in the viridian light.
Rhen turned quickly, saber spinning in an impossibly fast circle as he heard a noise quietly collide with metal behind him. "Who's there?" Rhen asked. He stopped the spinning of the blade and stood in an aggressive ready position.
"H-hello?" a man's voice asked. Rhen walked forward a few steps and brought his saber before him. A chiss male was walking towards the Jedi, scared yet confident. "Finally, a Jedi. We heard you were coming this morning -"
"Are you the Sith?" Rhen stepped forward aggressively.
"You know there's a Sith on board? H-no. I'm not a Sith. My name is Dr. Delen Yarnik, I'm the head archeological researcher here. The S – The Sith, I know who it is, though. He's this Devaronian, he's... He's very smart, and... We have to get out of here before he kills us," the man begged.
"W – But two of my friends are in here. One's been wounded," Rhen said. He glanced around worriedly then furrowed his brow. He looked over at Yarnik. "How many Devaronians served aboard the ship?"
"W – Three," the doctor replied. "There are three."
"Well, if more than one survived, I'm going to need your help identifying which one's the Sith," Rhen said. He grabbed the doctor by his shirt.
"I'm not coming with you!" Yarnik shouted. "I'm going anywhere near a Sith!" The doctor tried to pull away from Rhen, but the twi'lek's grasp held fast. The doctor's eyes went wide and he began struggling to escape even more.
"You are coming with me," Rhen demanded. He twirled his lightsaber once in his right hand.
The doctor's resolve wavered. He was no longer sure if a Jedi now or a Sith later was worse. Finally, he acquiesced. "I will accompany you, for now."
SWSWSWSWSW
Theron held the Devaronian scientist by his shirt. "You're sure this Doctor Yarnik is the Sith," Theron grunted. He glared at the red-skinned alien and nodded. "Fine."
The scientist nodded. "I am sure. Thank you for saving me, but we have to get out of here. He attacked the woman, the woman you said that you sent in. We opened the blast doors and all the other doors that had been sealed when the ship went into lockdown during the Sith attack."
"And what happened to her?" Theron asked frantically. He ignored the whispers of the mask in the back of his mind and struggled to keep his attention in the moment. "Where is she now?"
"She... she died when Yarnik attacked," the Devaronian replied. Theron gasped as a strange, powerful force collided with his midsection. His grief must have been showing on his face. "She... meant something to you?"
Theron looked at the Devaronian. "You're going to help me find the good Doctor. We're going to kill him."
"But he's... No, we need to get out of here. If we don't get out of here... everything we know will die. We need more people here – I – I think I heard him say something about reinforcements on a communicator just after he attacked. No, we need to get out of here." The Devaronian grabbed Theron's wrist, and the Gray Jedi looked sympathetically down at the Devaronian.
"I'm sorry, but I'm not leaving without – my friend's body. Take me to the command center."
"Fine," the Devaronian said. He walked into the darkness, and Theron followed.
The two reached the command center of the research station after just a few minutes. "This is where the fight started." Embarrassed, the Devaronian added, "I ran away just as it began. Yarnik almost found me – taunted that the Jedi lady was dead, and I was next. When you finally docked, he ran off."
Theron opened the door wordlessly and glanced inside. A fight had indeed begun in the room – the evidence clearly supported that. There were electrical burn marks crisscrossed with still golden lightsaber burns that cleaved through the assorted computers and relics that had been hung lovingly on the walls. One of the computers – the comm system that facilitated all communications in or out of the system – was cleaved completely in half. "Well, we weren't jammed." Theron's eyes fell on a long piece of crimson cloth, and he suddenly felt hollow. "Do you have any idea where they could have gone?"
Theron waited a few moments for an answer, then turned around. "He's here! Yarnik's over there!" the Devaronian shouted. Theron rushed towards the terrified man and looked into the hall. Indeed, there was a man – Chiss, about 1.7 meters tall – standing next to...
"Rhen! Get away from that Sith!" Theron shouted. He ignited his saber and rushed towards Yarnik. He swept his saber down and it collided with Rhen's viridian blade.
"Sith? Yarnik's the head researcher!" Rhen responded. He looked over Theron's shoulder and his eyes hardened. "That guy behind you is the Sith!"
Theron glanced back at the terrified Devaronian. "What? No, he's the victim! Yarnik's tricking you!" he shouted. He shoved against Rhen's blade, and the saber lock between the two ended.
Rhen glanced at Doctor Yarnik then furrowed his brow. "No. Yarnik's clean, I can feel it," Rhen said. He twirled his saber and pointed out to the Devaronian. "It has to be him."
Theron heard a disgusted sigh and electricity began to course through his and Rhen's bodies. Their screams echoed through the otherwise silent darkness until their minds shut off and their bodies hit the ground.
SWSWSWSWSW
The Sith held advanced slowly, savoring the feeling of triumph. Killing the Jedi who had threatened Krayt... great rewards would be given. The researcher... that would be for entertainment on the way back to the Temple. The Sith felt that their torture was rusty. The Sith grinned and raised his saber to slash it through the bodies of his victims. The saber rushed down, ready to claim flesh.
A silver bolt of energy, however, collided with the falling red plasma and the Sith felt his saber recoil. "Ah, the woman finally returns to die," he said. He held the saber in front of him, both hands on the hilt.
Ana walked out of the darkness and ignited her twin sabers. Her cape was in tatters and segments of her armor were missing, but she looked stronger for it. "We'll see who's about to die," she replied. Ana jumped through the air towards the Sith, her blades flashing arcs of silver and orange.
The Sith expertly deflected the attack and turned with the momentum to strike at Ana's head. She slapped the saber away with her mainhand saber and stabbed with her shoto towards her foe's midsection. The blow was deflected and she turned with the parry to elbow the Sith in the face. Blood spurted from his face and he stumbled backwards. He looked up as the blood dripped down his lips. "I'll kill you for that, schutta," he said, cold fire running through his eyes.
Ana grinned and flourished her sabers. "Like I said, 'We'll see who's about to die.'" Ana threw her orange blade at the Sith and ran after it. The Sith deflected the spinning blade of death just as Ana slid across the ground and delivered an upward kick to the Sith. He flew up and hit the ceiling. The red lightsaber fell from his hand and deactivated. As the Sith fell from the ceiling, Ana stood up and swiped her saber upward.
The two halves of the Devaronian Sith flopped onto the ground, lifeless. Ana stood tall and grinned down at her defeated enemy. "Looks like it wasn't me who died," she spat at the Sith's body. Then she turned her attention to the unconscious Theron, Rhen, and Doctor Yarnik.
SWSWSWSWSW
"I told you," Rhen said for the fifteenth time. "I told you he was the Sith."
"Okay, already, I get it," Theron snapped for the fifteenth time. "Calm down." Rhen just smiled smugly in response.
Theron shot a dirty look at his friend, then returned his attention to Ana. She was carrying the still unconscious Doctor Yarnik. Theron felt the familiar weight of his mask in his pocket. Both had returned, safe, to him. "We thought you were dead," he told Ana.
She glanced over her shoulder. "What? Wow, do you have any faith in my abilities?" she joked. She laughed, but quickly stopped when she saw that Theron wasn't laughing with her. "Really?"
"It definitely sounded like it," Rhen pointed out. With every other step he grimaced – the lightning had done more damage to him than Theron.
Theron glanced over at Rhen. "Do you need some help, buddy?"
"Nah – I can hold out until I get some bacta from the ship," the twi'lek replied. "I was right and you were wrong – that definitely will keep me going."
Theron rolled his eyes and returned his attention to Ana. "What happened?"
She grinned. "Tried to get the jump on me just as I unlocked the doors. Claimed he was, I don't know, the son of some Krayt-age Sith. Malaria, or Malandia, or something stupid and Sithy like that. Almost as bad as Revan -"
My name isn't bad! It's badass maybe! The voice in Theron's head was incredibly indignant.
"- and he wanted our ship. Figured let us dock, then murder us all. Take off, be home before dinner."
"Did he hurt you? Why'd you run?"
"You knocked me out during the fight. You guys docked, then I hit the wall. He did too, stumbled off and hid just as I lost consciousness."
Theron was quiet for a while. "I'm glad you're okay."
Ana grinned back at him. "Well I'm glad you're okay."