Hunter sat on the mansion roof, dangling his feet over the edge as he stared out toward the center of the city. The rain had been falling hard for some time now, pattering against the abandoned streets and dusty roofs of the center of Lothal. Tech had confirmed a dangerous level of acidity in the rainwater – a fact which did not surprise anyone in the least.

Ever since Quinlan had gone back to meditating and rebuilding his shields, whatever that meant, Hunter's squad mates had been relatively quiet. There had been one brief spat between Wrecker and Crosshair over something that was probably inconsequential, but as they hadn't advanced beyond the 'whispered arguing' phase, Hunter hadn't bothered paying attention to it.

Tech had been keeping his attention on his datapad, as usual. A few minutes ago, he'd reported that Vythia was still sitting motionless, where she'd been when Crosshair checked.

The sergeant frowned and leaned back on his hands. He didn't like how little he still knew about Vythia and the Jedi and Sith and – well, the Force overall . . . or at least, what it made people capable of doing. Or even what it was capable of doing on its own. Malachor hadn't been inhabited by Sith in centuries, but their use of the Force had twisted everything on the planet.

Not to mention that the situations on Malachor kept getting weirder and weirder. Hunter was almost tempted to think they'd survived the flash flood through sheer dumb luck. Another five minutes wandering in the tunnels, and they'd have been crushed.

Then there were the statues. The Zabrak woman, a few stories below him, and her slaves and friends; the black, four-armed and golden-eyed statues with their strange ability to react to intruders; the Guardian and Lord Lothal, and all of his subjects who'd been frozen in time . . . And there must be others inside the rest of the houses, petrified in the midst of their daily activities. Maybe they'd all been hiding, waiting for the Jedi to be defeated, and never had the chance to come out again. It would explain why there were no people on the streets themselves.

Hunter eyed the collapsed center of the cave roof. He supposed it was possible that everyone had been in whatever served as a town square and been petrified there, and then the roof had fallen on them hundreds of years later. I can't wait to get out of this dead city. It's nothing but a tomb.

A few minutes later, quiet footsteps approached from behind, and Quinlan sat down next to him, staring out across the town.

Hunter followed his gaze and saw nothing of note. When the Jedi didn't say anything, the sergeant drew his knife and began flipping it idly between his fingers. He was on his fourth set of rotations when Quinlan drew a slow breath and let it out in a sigh.

"Hunter?"

"Yeah?"

"I think Trayus is gonna be a problem."

Raising an eyebrow, Hunter sheathed his knife. "I thought you already thought Trayus would be a problem."

"Well, I think it more now. I wonder . . . Maybe there's a way to keep Vythia from wanting to go there?" He ended on a hopeful note.

Hunter considered for a moment, as did Quinlan. Then they exchanged equally disbelieving looks and went back to staring out over the town.

When their other three teammates joined them silently, Hunter almost smirked at the picture they made – four commandos of different sizes and builds, and one Jedi, all lined up on the edge of a flat roof with their legs hanging over the edge as though it were a transport.

"Are we just gonna sit here?" Wrecker whispered to Tech.

"I am not the person to whom that question should be addressed."

"Why, Wrecker?" Quinlan asked, sounding interested. "You got another suggestion?"

"Nope. But I wish I did!"

". . . Oh. Well, fortunately for you, I do have a suggestion."

"So do I," said Crosshair. "Let's get back indoors and figure out what Vythia's been up to all this time."

"My plan exactly!" Quinlan hopped to his feet.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Hunter got up and faced him. "Quinlan, that is in no way a plan."

Hunter's squad mates and the Jedi stared at him expectantly, as though waiting for him to continue.

The sergeant sighed. "Okay. Vythia's stayed in one spot all this time. She probably thinks we're still out cold, right?"

"I would presume so," Tech replied. "Unless she finished whatever it was she was doing that required us to be unconscious, but I doubt that. We all woke up earlier than she intended, based on my data."

"Wait, yeah . . ." Quinlan glanced at him in realization, then shook his head. " "Force, I'm an idiot."

"So what else is new," said Crosshair, not looking up from the case of toothpicks he was opening.

Quinlan brushed off his comment. "I didn't even stop to think – how long did she want us unconscious, and why? She could have misfigured the dose, but of course that doesn't fit with what we've seen of her. She's careful. But you say we woke up early?"

"She does not know we are clones," Tech said. "And therefore she could not possibly have accounted for our increased metabolism."

"I see. . ."

"And you are a Kiffar," Tech added obviously. "She must have researched your race in order to calculate the dosage, but she may not have been careful enough. My research indicates that nearly half of all Kiffar – forty-eight point three percent, on average – are much more resilient to drugs and poisons, due to blood type, than the remaining fifty-one point seven percent. You do fall into the former category."

"Yeah – I knew that . . . Guess it makes sense that most non-Kiffar wouldn't know, though."

"Right," said Hunter. "So, Tech. How long do you calculate she wanted us to remain sleeping?"

"It is hard to get an exact number, but I would estimate that she intended us to sleep for at least twelve hours. Possibly longer."

"Then she has no reason to suspect we're awake yet, far as we know." Quinlan crossed the roof to the trapdoor. "Come on – and keep it down, okay?"

"What are we doing?" Wrecker asked in a loud whisper.

"Well . . ." The Jedi opened the door. "I think we should take the opportunity to figure out what she's up to."

"Yeah? And what do you suggest we do?" Hunter stopped next to him and folded his arms. "Sneak down the stairs and cut a hole in her door without her noticing?"

"Actually, no." Quinlan gestured Tech ahead of him. "I dunno about you guys, but I've had enough of this passively going along with everything Vythia says."

Tech looked up, only his head above the level of the roof, and said, "But I thought that was necessary to the mission."

"Yep, and it'll be necessary again once we're back under her watchful gaze," Quinlan said. "But right now? We're going on the offensive."

Crosshair stopped mid-step, hesitated, then turned his head and looked east, toward the outskirts of the city.

Hunter followed his gaze to the barely visible silhouettes of the two shuttles. He looked sideways at Crosshair, then met Quinlan's smirking gaze. "Are you serious?"

"What?" The Jedi looked injured. "I'm always serious."

Rolling his eyes, Hunter went back down the stairs.

Tech crouched beneath the Phoenix's starboard wing next to Quinlan and sent him a mildly interested look. "I still cannot believe you convinced us to do this," he announced to the world at large.

"That's 'cause you haven't known me long enough," Quinlan told him, and waved for Crosshair to join them.

The sniper dashed across the open space and ducked into cover beside them as Tech muttered, "It is certainly not a plan we would have come up with."

"Uh, yeah, I'm pretty sure it is." Quinlan stood beneath the sealed shuttle door and considered it for a moment. "You just didn't get a chance to think over it long enough."

"Yeah," Crosshair agreed, joining him. "Tech or Wrecker would've thought it up quick enough."

"But not you?"

Crosshair was silent – probably searching for an answer that wasn't an outright lie.

Quinlan gave him a few seconds, then elbowed him sharply. "Silence is frequently taken as an admission of guilt. Or so Tech tells me. Just saying."

Smacking his arm away, Crosshair said, "I take it we're going the direct route."

Tech squeezed between them, holding a small device. "If by 'direct route' you mean 'through the main door', then yes. We are."

Quinlan dropped to one knee, boosted Tech to stand on Crosshair's shoulders, and turned to keep watch on the mansion. "That scramble key looks pretty impressive."

"It is," Tech said, fitting it to the door's security pad. "Theoretically, if given enough time, it would be capable of analyzing and slicing through nearly any security code imaginable. The most advanced lock I have actually tested it on, though, was a computerized security lock with dual-layered polymorphic code."

"No kidding," said Quinlan, who had only a vague idea about polymorphic code. And by vague he meant almost nonexistent. He was not often in a position of needing to get through a lock completely undetected – he usually handled locks with a quick lightsaber thrust – and when he did need to, he usually poked around until he located a key card.

The door hissed open. "We are in," Tech said unnecessarily, and hopped from Crosshair's shoulders into the shuttle.

"Awesome." Quinlan jumped, caught the shuttle floor, and swung up. He was also talking more than necessary, but the conversation helped distract him from the virulent pulsing of the Force against his shields, which was just annoying. "What's not awesome is that we don't know what we're looking for. Again."

"Well." Tech clicked on a flashlight and shone it around the cargo hold. "I suspect we could locate the artifacts easily enough."

"We could, but I don't think we need them," Quinlan said, glancing outside. "Crosshair, stay on guard. We're gonna check the cockpit."

When Crosshair nodded, Quinlan ducked back inside. "Tech, I'll try to locate some of these records Vythia keeps mentioning. You see what data we can gather about Vythia and the Prince."

"Without leaving any traces of our having been here, I presume," Tech answered, trotting into the cockpit.

"You presume correctly." Quinlan's gaze was drawn to a large silver chest in one corner of the cargo hold. Even with his muted Force-senses, he could feel the odd, invisible bubble around the chest – and, beneath the bubble, the vaguest projections from the scepter and the shard.

Quinlan glanced back at Tech, who was busily occupied with the ship's navicomputer, then reached hesitantly toward the chest. He had no intention of touching any Dark Side artifacts, but maybe those records she'd been talking about were in here as well . . . Then again, there could be some sort of protection on the chest, intended to let her know that it had been tampered with. After a moment, he decided to keep the chest for last, just in case he didn't manage to find anything else.

"The navicomputer records, up until the exact minute we left Nar Shaddaa, have been wiped," Tech reported. "I could still access them through the general computer, but it would take time."

"Don't worry about it," Quinlan answered, still casting about the hold in search of the records. "We might have only a couple minutes left, and I don't think that would tell us anything really useful."

"Understood." Tech hopped to his feet and moved over to the comm station. "I assume the priority is still tracking down this mysterious Lord Sidious."

"Yeah. I don't expect you to find much, but any clue we can get is something more we can use – and something more than we have at the moment."

"Hm." Tech set to work on the comm station. "I could locate and copy any codes she has, but I am not yet familiar with her security measures. She may have ways to track that."

"Yeah, let's avoid that for now – but definitely keep it in mind for later." Quinlan went back to glancing swiftly in each box, but avoided touching the contents as much he could. The lines had been blurring over the past few days, and he could no longer tell how much of his native psychometric ability was being used as opposed to his Force-ability. Not that they were really unrelated things – in fact, the Force ability stemmed from the native ability, which was also technically a low-level Force ability . . . or something. There were probably some scholars out there who'd written very clear and concise papers on the subject.

And speaking of papers . . . Quinlan stared down at the contents of the new metal container he'd just opened. A small stack of crinkled brown pages were pushed to one side of the box, leaving the other half empty. The top page contained writing in the Sith language.

"Tech? I don't suppose you know how to read ancient Sith . . ."

"I have not been able to memorize enough of the symbols," Tech answered in a rather apologetic tone. "There were a fair number of hieroglyphs on the temple door, but even with Vythia providing a rough translation, I could not match them up properly."

"Gotcha." Quinlan picked up the stack of papers, relieved when he got no impression from them, and stared at the first one. "Ironically enough, I wasn't being serious."

Tech blinked. "Oh." Within an instant, he was back at the commstation, flicking through the usage history.

Quinlan flipped through the stack. Some of the parchment was new – but still parchment, not flimsi – and the rest was incredibly old. Parchment this old was almost never seen. He'd only ever come across it in the Jedi Temple and in a few other important buildings which kept historical archives of their planets.

Where did Vythia get these? He picked up a paper that held a faded, colored drawing of a thin knife, the blade of which was covered in runes. The hilt was black, with a red or orange jewel set in the pommel. Another kyber crystal? Or something more common? And what's important about it? Or is it just something she found and kept?

He couldn't read anything on any of the pages, but the last sheet of parchment – this one quite new – contained another picture. It was a strangely detailed sketch of a long, narrow room. Each stone in the walls was drawn in, and the crypt or tomb, or maybe just a solid stone table, which stood at the far end, had absolutely no markings on it. It appeared to be perfectly smooth, but Quinlan had no idea what it was meant for. The ink drawing showed a shadow falling across the tomb or table from some object to the left and out of sight in the picture itself – the shadow appeared to be from a tall person, but that was all Quinlan could discern.

Quinlan went back to the picture of the knife and committed the first few runes on the blade to memory, then replaced the stack of papers in the box exactly as he'd found it.

"None of these are in Basic," he said, dropping the lid with a clang. "And therefore none of them are immediately useful, unless Vythia decides to teach one of us how to read and write ancient Sith and then let us look at them again . . ."

Tech looked up. "That seems unlikely."

"Yes, Tech."

"And it would be difficult to learn the language even once the characters themselves were decrypted."

"Yeah." Quinlan shrugged, not really disappointed. He hadn't been expecting much, anyway, even though it would have been nice to find a key, providing proper translations of each character used, and a guide to a long-dead language. . . "Got anything, Tech?"

"I do not. Our own communications with Vythia appear to have been the only ones that she has sent since leaving Nar Shaddaa. I have also scanned the silver chest, and there are multiple items inside. I cannot get a clear reading, but I believe the scepter is in there."

"The scepter and the shard," Quinlan agreed. "And there are more than two items?"

"Yes. At least eight."

Quinlan raised an irritated eyebrow, went back to the door, and leaned out. "No luck with the records. Anything going on out here?"

Crosshair glanced up at him. ". . . It's raining," he said. "And you've been in there nearly five minutes."

"Nothing from Hunter?"

"No."

"Hmm." Quinlan rubbed at his chin, then cast an uneasy look back at the chest.

"What?"

"I didn't say anything."

Crosshair tilted his head back, managing to convey how unimpressed he was despite his helmet. "What's your next brilliant plan?"

"To break into the Force-nullifying chest – though it might take a while."

"Why?"

"I'll have to remove the hinges. That chest has a good old-fashioned padlock on it, and I unfortunately do not have my lockpick."

Crosshair slung his rifle onto his back and clambered up to join him. "The lock won't be a problem."

"Uh . . . Why, are you good with 'em?"

"Why do you think Hunter sent me along?"

"To get you out of his way?" Quinlan pointed him to the metal chest.

"That is a valid and not unlikely hypothesis," Tech commented with a smirk from where he was poking at his datapad.

There was a short pause, during which Crosshair studied the lock on the chest and Quinlan wished he'd brought along his lock pick set. He had one lock pick in his pack, but it was the wrong size. His spare set was probably back at the Temple someplace, unless maybe he'd given it to his padawan for her last birthday? He couldn't quite remember. He definitely recalled planning to gift a set of lock picks to Aayla.

"Tech," said Crosshair.

Tech leaned over, fumbled in one of the narrow leather pouches he'd strapped to his left boot, and pulled out a thin object, which he tossed to Crosshair without looking.

The sniper snatched it out of the air and rotated it once through his fingers. "This should do it. Want me to try first?"

"Yeah, if you want." Quinlan wanted to touch the chest as little as possible, given its probable contents. "Just be careful and go slow. This thing could very well be trapped. I'm not feeling any danger, but . . ."

"There are no devices on the outside, or connected to the chest," Tech reported casually. "However, the inside of the chest could contain a threat."

"Right. I'll open it after you take care of the lock," Quinlan said.

Crosshair nodded once, then set to work on the lock while Tech hovered over his shoulder, glancing between his datapad and the ship.

Quinlan activated his comm. "Hunter, Wrecker."

"Right here," the sergeant answered promptly. "Anything on your end?"

"Not much useful so far," he answered. "We're just trying one more thing before heading back. What about Vythia? You heard anything from her yet?"

"No – in fact, she still hasn't moved."

Quinlan tilted his head. "Hey, how can you tell?"

"Electromagnetic impulses," said Hunter, then went on to explain before Quinlan could ask. "This close, with only a couple people around and no electronic devices, I'm able to do that. I've got Wrecker in the hall on guard, too, just in case – figured he'd be the one to wake up first, if the sleeping gas had worked the way she thought it would, so even if she sees him, she won't be too suspicious."

"Hopefully."

"Yeah."

Crosshair withdrew the pick from the padlock and looked up at him, gesturing to the chest.

Quinlan nodded and turned back to his comm. "Well, hopefully, we'll only be here a couple more minutes. We'll notify you when we're on our way back."

"Understood."

Hunter signed off, and Quinlan moved to the chest as Crosshair slipped the lock free of its hasp. "Nice," he said. "Okay, guys, stand back, just in case."

They each took a single step back.

Quinlan shot a look at Tech, who said, "We have armor."

"Good for you."

"You do not," Tech went on. "Would you prefer one of us to open the chest?"

"No, I would not." Muttering under his breath, Quinlan gripped the lid. He took a couple of seconds to focus his attention on his shields, then opened it with a quick, hard shove.

The lid thudded against the floor behind it, but thankfully the bubble in the Force remained intact. Unless he removed some artifact from the chest, he would not have to worry about being under a more focused attack by the Dark Side.

Letting out a huff of relief, Quinlan peered into the chest. It was lined with a soft, grey fabric, and was mostly empty. There was the scepter, and the shard of Adas' double-bladed axe – or, rather, the shard of the shard of the axe. And there, directly beside the scepter, lay a familiar knife. The first few runes were exactly the same as the ones in the picture – and there was a red stone in the pommel.

Quinlan got up, reopened the box that contained the sheaf of parchment, and flipped through until he found the drawing of the knife. Without a word, he held it out over the chest.

The two commandos glanced from it to the knife, then at him.

"They are identical," Tech said, adjusting his goggles. "What does that mean?"

"I have no idea. . ." Quinlan bit his lip and returned the papers to their box, once again careful to ensure that they appeared exactly the same as before he had found them. "And I'm getting as tired of saying that as you probably are of hearing it."

He eyed the knife again before shifting his attention to the remaining items – five red kyber crystals, which lay in one corner of the chest in a transparent box. They were relatively small, perhaps half as large as those generally used in lightsabers. He tilted his head curiously. "These are unusual."

"They must be for Vythia's lightwhip," Tech said promptly. "Among other reasons, lightwhips were hardly ever used was because five to ten kyber crystals were needed in order to allow the plasma core to function in a manner similar to that of normal whips."

"She's already got crystals in the hilt, though," Crosshair said.

"Kyber crystals can shatter," Quinlan said. "Especially in a weapon that unstable." He glanced at a faint depression in the grey fabric. "Guess that's where the mask was, earlier, but why did she want it? What does she need it for?"

Neither of his companions answered, and Quinlan sighed. "Well, I guess this wasn't a complete waste of time," he said, closing the chest lid. "At least we know the knife is relatively important – for some reason. Of course, now we've also got even more questions. Oh, well, you win some, you lose some."

Crosshair replaced the padlock and clicked it shut.

After a careful check to ensure that they hadn't dragged in ash or dirt or anything that would indicate to an observant person that they had even been on the Phoenix, they left. Tech balanced on Crosshair's shoulders to reseal the door, and then they moved back toward the houses. When they reached the street, Quinlan turned back, reached cautiously out to the Force, and sent a gentle gust of air across the ground between them and the shuttle to remove any tracks they might have left.

"We're on our way back," he muttered into his comm, following Tech down the street.

"Okay," answered Hunter. "Still nothing from Vythia."

"Good. Let's try to keep it that way."

They met Wrecker in the hall, and the four of them hurried back into the room to join Hunter.

Quinlan briefly summarized what they had found, and ended with, "I don't suppose you guys have any ideas about . . . any of that."

"Well, I sure don't," answered Wrecker, frowning. "Except – why d'you suppose Vythia doesn't keep the knife with her?"

"That's a good question, Wrecker."

"Maybe she doesn't want to carry two," Hunter said. "But why keep it locked up with the artifacts? Is it an artifact?"

"Not . . . properly speaking, no. I don't think so, anyway. I have the vague impression that it hasn't been used before."

"It is possible that it is a ceremonial dagger," Tech suggested.

"You mean, as opposed to a more durable weapon," Quinlan said.

"Precisely."

"Seems more likely than it being a decoration," Crosshair said.

"Yeah." Quinlan returned to where he'd been sleeping earlier, and sat down. "I hope you're wrong. But something tells me you're probably right. Course, it might not have anything to do with us or our particular mission."

"She didn't find it while we were with her," Hunter agreed. "Then again, that might not mean anything. She knows a lot more than she's letting on."

Tech huffed and sat down cross-legged. "I suppose we could always ask her about the dagger, though that would require us to admit we broke into her shuttle."

"Yep," said Quinlan. "And that would be obviously problematic. For reasons." Wrecker sat down across from him. "I guess that means we're not gonna tell her we know she tried to keep us asleep?"

"Right." Quinlan slid down the wall until he was lying down. "We're just going to pretend we never woke up, never discovered she sneaked off in the middle of the night to retrieve that stupid mask, and have no idea that she's got some ulterior motive."

"That should not be hard to pretend," Tech said.

Crosshair smirked. "Yeah, unless she asks us if we invaded her ship."

The team members glanced at each other.

"Right. . ." Hunter said slowly. "We'll just have to keep our eyes open, then."

"Not right now, we won't." Quinlan shut his eyes pointedly. "We've got at least a couple hours left before we head out. If it's all the same to you, I intend to get some non-drug-induced sleep, thanks."

At oh-seven-hundred, Hunter and the rest of his team had gathered in the main room of the mansion, but it was nearly oh-seven-thirty before Vythia joined them. She cast a quick glance at each of them, wearing her usual calm smile as she said, "I trust everyone is feeling better this morning."

"Yeah." Hunter cracked his neck absently.

"Vertigo's gone," Quinlan added. "Course, we had plenty of time to sleep it off, so that probably helped a lot."

Hunter did not think that the Jedi was being particularly subtle, but Vythia didn't seem to notice anything strange about his words. She didn't even blink. "Shall we return to the ships, then?"

Hunter nodded. "Whenever you're ready."

"Yeah," said Wrecker. "Let's get out of here already!"

"Yes. . ." She smirked. "Lothal is not the most cheerful place, is it?"

She went to the door, and the others followed her out into the street. It was still raining, but not as heavily. Despite the clouds, there was a bit of dim sunlight filtering into the grey, silent town. The river was no longer roaring, either, though Hunter could still feel the vibrations as the heavy water shifted and sloshed in the half-full riverbed.

When they reached the shuttles, Hunter watched Vythia carefully, but she did not seem to suspect anything. She entered a command into her wrist comm to lower the boarding ramp, then mounted it and entered the security code without the slightest hesitation. "I will lead the way, one more time," she told Hunter. "If all goes well, this should be our last flight on-planet."

He nodded and entered the Marauder. Tech was already in the pilot's seat, flipping switches as he prepared the engines for takeoff. Wrecker took over co-piloting, and Hunter stood behind Tech. "Trayus Academy," he said. "Hopefully, this'll be our last destination on Malachor."

"Oh, good!" Wrecker started the engines. "I'm liking this place less and less."

"You mean the planet?" Quinlan muttered, drifting over to them. "Yeah, me too."

Crosshair put a toothpick between his lips and shifted it almost meditatively. "It's like . . . It's like it grows on you, but in the wrong way."

Hunter watched as the Phoenix flew slowly over their heads and toward the vast hole in the cave ceiling. He hadn't thought of it in those terms before Crosshair spoke. He was right, though. Maybe it was his imagination, or maybe it was just the oppressive atmosphere of the planet, but he'd been getting more and more uncomfortable as their time on Malachor increased. It was almost unrecognizable, until he thought about it – and then he wondered how he could possibly have missed it.