A/N: Merry Christmas, Satisfactory Saturnalia, and Happy Holidays! We're back and getting close to the finale: at this rate, I have more than enough chapters stored and ready for completion by mid-January or thereabouts.

It took months of writing to build this demented story, and it's been a whale of a time writing it. I'm looking forward to sharing all the many and varied insanities of these final chapters... though given that I've already included the seven deadly sins, Rulan being a creature of Naga Sadow, a past partnership between Rulan and Revan, the GenoHaradan being the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, and the appearance of shapeshifter clones, you can only imagine how the hell I could possibly make this story any weirder.

Well, seatbelts at the ready and tray tables in the upright position, please.

Anyway, without further ado, the latest chapter: read, review, and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Urgh.

Getting everyone out of Kosytus Station took some time.

The shapeshifters weren't immensely difficult to deal with, for it seemed like the best of the batch had left with Hulas or the Sith, and those that remained were the runts of the litter, ill-trained and ill-matured, certainly nowhere near old enough to match the strength of Rulan Prolik. Add to that the fact that a good deal of the station was on fire, and it didn't take too much time or effort to wipe out the entire stable, especially since everyone on the team was smarter than them.

The real challenge was getting their hands on a ship with enough fuel and engine power to make it all the way back to Yavin Station in one piece – and given that just about everyone who wasn't in the process of burning to death had same idea, it was easier said than done.

After some brutal infighting with the other survivors, they managed to find a decent-sized transport by the name of the Beatriu, well-armoured, well-shielded, and more importantly, fully fuelled and repaired for the journey. Best of all, there were enough crew compartments to allow them a little bit of space if they didn't mind having two people to every room. So, once they'd found their places and allowed Carth to take his seat in the cockpit, they let the Beatriu blast off into the bleakness of the Antenora System, out back along the route to Yavin.

In their wake, they left a vast, imposing, and doubtlessly expensive installation burning from the inside out in the depths of space. Once, every window had been black and lightless, but now it glittered like a misshapen gemstone in the endless night, one porthole after another lighting up and casting an fiery orange glow on the station's lustreless black façade. From a distance, the true extent of the damage was hard to discern unless you noticed the odd angle of its position, for its orbital stabilizers were beginning to fail, and bit by it, was beginning to tumble backwards through the lightless depths of the system.

Within a matter of days, it would have left Antenora altogether, and though the fire would eventually be extinguished by the first hull breach, there would but nothing left of Hulas' grand project by another lump of debris hurtling through Wild Space, millions upon millions of credits boiling away into the darkness with nothing to show for the investment except for the fifteen-strong batch that had just been sent to Malak.

Oh yes, the GenoHaradan were in shambles now.

Judging by all the ships pouring out of the blazing wreckage, hundreds of them had survived the ruination of Kosytus, and there were probably even more of them who'd never made it as far as the station in the first place, and the organization itself probably had several billion credits in assets across the galaxy. Given time, they might be able to recover from this disaster…

…but for the time being, the guild was badly wounded, a floundering swimmer gushing blood into the ocean, and the sharks were almost certainly beginning to gather: now that Hulas had lost his best chance to become a partner to the Sith, his erstwhile allies wouldn't be happy to find that their latest wonderweapon had just gone down the drain, and they'd be looking for a scapegoat. And then, of course, there were always the overambitious members of the GenoHaradan themselves ready to replace Hulas as Overseer now that he'd made the mistake of showing weakness in what should have been his moment of triumph.

Perhaps that was why Hulas was going to Tatooine: maybe he thought the failing Czerka outpost was the perfect place to hide while he waited for the storm of reprisals and betrayals to finally die down… or perhaps there was something he needed there. Either way, the fate of the GenoHaradan would be decided on Tatooine.

As the little ship lurched into hyperspace, Tarrah found herself gently sagging into the depths of her seat, all but melting into the upholster after what felt like hours of uninterrupted stress and effort finally caught up with her. She hadn't realized just how little she'd slept in the last few days, and now it was once again catching up with her; she needed to sleep… and yet, she couldn't afford to.

She needed to see that the job was done, that Hulas was dead and the potential advantage to the Sith was wiped out once and for all. She needed to know that her mistake had been undone.

And then Juhani sat down beside her, and all of a sudden, all Tarrah could think of was her warm hands running down the length of her back, soothing her fears and easing those terrible, gnawing doubts that plagued her whenever she was alone. She was aware that Juhani was slowly wrapping her arms around her, drawing her into a warm embrace, and wanted nothing more than to kiss her; after all, tired as she was, victory had still left her woozy with euphoria and eager to celebrate in her own, weary, worn-out, semi-conscious way. But all she could do was lean on Juhani's shoulder and allow the Carth to lull her into a wonderous, drunken stupor.

And yet, some desperate thread of professionalism made her stir in spite of herself. "Need to stay awake," she groaned, struggling to sit up. "Still so much to do. Need to be ready."

But Juhani just pushed her back into her seat, the Cathar's warmth smothering any desire to move.

"Sleep," she told her, gently. "You've done enough for today, brave warrior: you have earned your rest. We will wake you when we need you the most."

The last thing Tarrah remembered, before she finally slipped out of consciousness altogether, was Juhani lying down on the couch next to her, arms cradling her body as she drifted off to sleep.

Looking back hours later, she wished that it had been totally dreamless, but alas, not all her demons were at rest along with her.

Hulas mopped a small ocean's worth of sweat from his brow and reviewed the situation playing out below him.

So far, their efforts were progressing rapidly.

Ever since they'd brought the Equus Albus to a rough landing in the Dune Sea four days ago, they'd been able to convert the partially buried yacht into a laboratory in which they could replicate the successes of Kosytus. Thankfully, the air conditioning was enough to withstand the sweltering heat of Tatooine's daytime, while the portable gun turrets from the armoury were more than enough to keep the local predators and savages at bay. Combined with a regular patrol by the surviving operatives, plus two shapeshifters kept in reserve, and their base was secure. After all, only the Sand People knew the location of the base, and by now, they knew better than to tangle with GenoHaradan-standard weaponry, and the so-called greater numbers they brought to the fray were easily warded off with a few deliberately vulgar displays of power from the shapeshifters. Anyone else who might have a mind to attack the facility – Revan, Malak, local gangsters, or Republic do-gooders – would have to find them first.

Meanwhile, Dr Dorsk had managed to replicate his formula with considerable ease with the resources available to them, enough to begin conversion on at least fifty potential test subjects. Over the course of the last few evenings, Subject Alpha had been able to capture about a dozen residents from nearby Anchorhead for Dorsk's experiments, and so far, the injectable serum was everything he'd promised, granting full conversion into a functional shapeshifter within sixty minutes.

So far, there were only three downsides to this process: first, though brain damage remained consistent enough to destroy the victim's mind and memories, they still needed to be trained for obedience, and without the conditioning equipment they'd been forced to abandon on Kosytus, that left the operatives struggling to train the young shapeshifters with electrostaves… and because they weren't working with closed training compounds, their shapeshifters could easily outmanoeuvre the trainers. So far, they'd been forced to put down their last batch of new shapeshifters before they could escape, so they'd need to either cannibalize the ship or scavenge the materials for a proper training pen before they could start again with new captives.

Secondly, the survival rate was exactly as Dorsk had suggested, and more than half of the kidnapped subjects died quite messily over the course of the conversion, and the other half had been eliminated over the course of the failed training session, so more kidnappings would be needed to build a proper army.

Thirdly, though potential converts were potentially unlimited, materials for replicating the formula were not, and by now, Dorsk's chemical stores were almost depleted; they only had a few doses left, and after those were used, they'd have to steal more components from Anchorhead if this conversion spree was to continue.

But even with the trio of difficulties, they were still doing better than Hulas had expected when he'd first fled into space. So far, the Sith weren't aware of their presence on Tatooine, since the Equus Albus hadn't landed in Czerka territory, and with mining forays into the deep desert growing rarer with every passing week, the chances of them being found were nothing short of astronomical.

True, the risk of being discovered by the residents of Anchorhead was always a problem. After all, raiding the town for supplies even in the dead of night would give some sharp-eyed local the chance to notice the continued intrusions, kidnappings, and thefts. But then again, who in their right mind would actually try to follow them into the desert? Czerka was constantly cutting back on mining, hunting licences were no longer being granted, the hunting lodge itself had long since been decimated, local security had no jurisdiction beyond the walls, and everyone else knew that leaving the safety of Anchorhead's walls meant either dying of thirst in the day or being murdered by Sand People at night. So, who the hell was left to stop him?

Nobody.

Here, beneath the shady canopy of his research tent and the air-conditioned staterooms of his custom-designed luxury yacht, Hulas had everything he need to reclaim what had been taken from him and built upon it ten-thousandfold. All he needed was a little time and a few resources, and he would have his revenge. Soon, those of the galaxy who dared triumph at their "natural talent" and all the other undeserved privileges and riches they called their due, all of them would be laid low and forced to surrender their gifts to him through the wonder of conversion.

Best of all, the Box had been retrieved just that morning: Subject Alpha had snatched it out of Motta the Hutt's personal quarters while the bloated wannabe businessman had been down at the swoop track, then dragged it back to the Equus Albus over the course of the next few hours. Thankfully, the shapeshifter hadn't questioned the order not to open the Box, given that it had been trained back at Kosytus, but then again, Alpha would probably be outwitted by the latch if it tried.

Now the fabled Box sat right in the middle of his stateroom, a great stone prism thrumming with energy and almost boiling-hot to the touch. He hadn't gone to the trouble of opening it yet, but he could tell that there was great power within just by standing in its presence, just by feeling the buzz of its inexplicable energies rippling against his skin. Anything that Darth Revan too scared to keep it was more than worthy of hoarding, using, and ultimately exploiting… but for now, he'd happily keep the Box in reserve, until such time as he needed its power.

Looking back on his life, Hulas now understood that everything moved in cycles: the universe and all its undeserving people would try to take from him, would steal that which should have been his and destroy what he'd built… but no matter how much the universe took from him, Hulas would always find a way it back and make it greater than ever before. In a way, it had been necessary for Kosytus to fall for conversion to be perfected.

After all, it meant that the power of the Box now belonged to him.

Given time, perhaps it would mean that, with a little bit of refinement to the formula, the power and longevity of a shapeshifter would belong to him as well.

Regardless of whether this worked or not, he would make sure this place was marked with a monument to his victory once he'd claimed all that was owed to him, something that people would look upon with wonder and dread for millennia and never be able to destroy.

In one form or another, he would be immortal.

"You know, the last time I was here, I made a very solemn vow never to set foot on this ball of dust ever again, and not just because a mad Gamorrean beat me to a pulp here and definitely not just because I dropped off the scariest cargo I've ever seen here. I just wanted to be free of the kriffing heat. Now I don't know if I should even bother making the promise a second time: I'm condemned to keep visiting this planet."

"Lighten up, boss. With all the crazy stuff we've seen in this galaxy, Tatooine could turn into a forest paradise in the next six months."

"That's even worse! The moment this place becomes bearable, the universe will just give me a different desert planet to keep blundering into. Mark my words, there is another barren planet in my future just like this one, dunes and all, and I am damned to keep visiting it for all eternity."

"Oh come on, how many Tatooine-like desert planets can there be?"

"Quite a lot, Mission!"

"Hush, both of you. Now is the time to concentrate…"

Tarrah sighed deeply and forced herself to ignore the sweltering heat. Not for the first time in her life since becoming a Jedi, she reflected that she still hadn't acquired anything close to the serenity so many other Jedi found easy to exhibit – or at least imitate. Even with her powers growing daily and all the memories of Revan gradually pouring back into her brain, she still hadn't found herself any wiser or more serenity than she'd been on the day she'd woken up aboard the Endar Spire all those months ago. True, she'd learned from her experiences, most of them quite bitter, but she was no closer to the state of perpetual grace that so many masters of the Jedi Order seemed to exist in without even trying.

They'd arrived on Tatooine scant hours ago, bringing the Ebon Hawk to a rough landing atop the cave where they'd found the local piece of the Star Map. It had been a risky choice, but with Czerka in the pocket of the Sith, landing at Anchorhead would have been too dangerous, and besides, the cave was the only place where they could be certain that the ship wouldn't sink into the dunes if given enough times. Out here, they could at least be assured that nobody would find them except for the Tuskens, and hopefully, the team they'd left back at the ship would be enough to keep the Hawk safe from any attackers.

With the modified swoop, she'd taken Juhani, Mission, and 47 on a mad, wildly swerving journey across the dunes, carefully skirting past any areas under Czerka surveillance, until they finally reached Anchorhead. By rights, they shouldn't have gone anywhere near the dilapidated little town, but by that point, they were out of options: the navigational data they'd retrieved on Kosytus had only told them that Hulas was heading to Tatooine and not where he'd gone after arriving, and orbital scans had revealed no trace of his ship. The only hope of finding Hulas was to sneak over Anchorhead's walls and pray that the locals had seen or heard some trace of them.

So, while 47 stood guard over the swoop, Tarrah, Mission, and Juhani had spent almost three hours stealthily combing the city for data, hiding beneath stealth fields as they eavesdropped on conversations, sliced their way into terminals, and even tried to interrogate a few people with the aid of the old Jedi mind trick. But it wasn't until they made their way to the swoop track that they'd finally hit the jackpot: Motta the Hutt had been in a towering rage about something being stolen from his offices, ranting on about how anyone could have been stupid enough to take "the Box."

That had gotten Tarrah's attention. Once they'd heard the security guards claiming that the thief had been a shapeshifter, she'd known they were on the right track, and once they heard one watchman had supposedly seen the wildly shifting figure dragging the Box over the westward horizon, she knew they had everything they needed – or at least, everything they were going to get.

Once they'd gotten back to the swoop and began heading westward, it didn't take too long for them to find what they were looking for. As strong as the GenoHaradan shapeshifters were, lifting something as heavy as the Box still required a great deal of effort: while wasn't impossible to imagine one of these polymorphs becoming a bird, unless they'd miraculously gained all the power of Rulan Prolik in the last couple of days, then the thief wouldn't have been able to just carry the Box home in its talons. Its only option would have been to lug the thing along on foot, and unless it was intelligent enough to operate a sled of some kind, that would have left very distinctive tracks on the sand.

Combined with a clear day and a total lack of recent sandstorm activity, Tarrah had the perfect trail to follow.

For over an hour, they'd followed the tracks across the Dune Sea in the swoop, weaving around Tusken encampments and skirting past huge packs of Wraids, until at last, they'd caught sight of something half-buried in the sand about fifty kilometres west of Anchorhead. A quick look through the macrobinoculars confirmed that it was indeed a ship, and despite being partially concealed beneath several tonnes of sand, it was clearly the Equus Albus, for the neon green letters of the ship's name were just barely exposed to the air. More importantly, the ship was obviously defended: even from at least a couple of klicks away, the roving guard patrols were plain to see, as were the automated gun turrets dotting the surrounding dunes.

Worse still, they could already sense the shapeshifters lurking in the background, invisible but impossible to ignore.

Getting any closer would have left them wide open to a sniper attack, so they parked the swoop behind one of the larger dunes, surrounded it with concussion mines just in case the Jawas got curious, and then made their way towards the buried ship on foot.

So, here they were, once again trudging through the dunes and wishing they could be anywhere else, hoping that this self-inflicted nightmare would finally be over after this mission.

Well, Tarrah was hoping that; she couldn't speak for any of the others: 47 was no doubt calculating the precise distance to open fire on the defenders, Mission looked as if she was reconsidering her decision to wear black armour to a desert planet, and Juhani… well, her gaze hadn't left Tarrah at all in the last twenty minutes.

By that point, there was still a good deal of distance between them and the ship, so as the four of them began slowly edging apart to throw off any snipers, Tarrah immediately took advantage of the newfound privacy and asked Juhani, "Are you alright?"

"Apart from the heat, I am perfectly well. Why do you ask?"

"Well, you've been staring at me for the last few minutes, so I had to wonder."

Juhani gave her a mildly exasperated look. "I am deeply concerned about you, Tarrah. You might have convinced the others that you have put all your anxieties to rest over this-"

"I have."

"-but I saw how you slept on the way to Tatooine. You are clearly having nightmares, and I can tell from what you say in your sleep that they are not all about Revan's memories returning. The outcome of today frightens you: you are afraid you will make another mistake, or that the mission will suffer for your previous deal with Hulas, or that the Republic will be endangered by what you did. Most of all, you fear that even if the identity of Darth Revan does not return, you will turn to the Dark Side anyway."

Tarrah's eyebrows shot heavenward. "You got all that from one in-flight snooze?"

"I like to think I know you well enough to interpret what you fear the most. But that is not the point: I need to know that this is the end of these fears, Tarrah. I need to know that we can put your mind at ease today and you can begin to heal."

"Not an easy thing to hope for. We've still got Korriban and the Star Forge to deal with, remember?"

"True, but today means the end of the mistake you hold yourself responsible for. Malak, the Star Forge, the rise of these new Sith, all of these are the responsibility of Revan, not you. But this? You blame yourself for; it hurts you, and…" Juhani hesitated. "It hurts me," she confessed at last. "It hurts me to see you torturing yourself over what you did, to know how deeply you doubt yourself when I know you are so much better than that."

"I think that's less reality and more you putting me on a pedestal, Juhani."

"How can I not, after all you've done for me? But this isn't just romantic infatuation. I can see you clearly through the Force when I put my mind to it: I can see that there is darkness there, but more importantly, I can see light blotting out those shadows. Whatever flaws you have, you have always resisted them; whatever mistakes you've made in the past, you have always done your best to set things right. And that is why I worry: I need to know that you will not go on punishing yourself after today."

"You want to know if I'll be okay after Hulas is dead?"

"No. I want to know that the woman I love can be herself again and not have to fear what that means."

Tarrah felt Juhani's hand on her shoulder, and despite the need to focus on the mission, she found herself stopping just behind the final dune between them and the direct approach to Hulas ship.

As far as she'd seen, the patrols hadn't gone this far, so she felt safe enough to stand there as Juhani gently turned her around on the spot and ran a hand along the length of her face, gently stroking her cheek.

And then, just as Tarrah was beginning to wonder just how far Juhani was prepared to take this affectionate gesture with an important mission imminent, something in the dune behind Juhani shifted ever-so-slightly. And then, where there'd once been nothing more than sand, there were now a pair of luminescent orange eyes peering out at them.

There was a split-second pause, as she realized exactly what this meant, and then Tarrah instinctively blurted out the oldest and most obscure of all the expletives in her impressive lexicon.

"Oh… Belgium!"

She had just enough time to wrap her arms around Juhani and fling themselves to the ground before the shapeshifter erupted out of the sand with a bloodcurdling roar, catapulting itself right through the spot where Tarrah and Juhani had been standing a moment ago.

Landing elegantly on the opposite dune, it turned, a bristling leonine mass of glistening jet-black scales, growling with unbridled fury as a scorpion-like tail rose from its back and razor-sharp crab claws sprouted from its flanks, each point and edge glinting with the distinctive sheen of cortosis weave. By the time Tarrah and Juhani were back on their feet and had their lightsabres at the ready, it was already advancing towards them, creeping ever-so-subtly closer with its stinger raised to strike.

And yet, it didn't attack.

For a moment, Tarrah wondered if this was meant to be a sign of fear, if one of Hulas' ersatz shapeshifters was finally intelligent enough to be cautious about attacking armed targets. But she couldn't sense any fear in the creature's emotions, only slavish devotion and animalistic rage; this one was a little cleverer than the others, maybe enough to use primitive tactics, but-

Her eyes widened.

Sensing movement behind her, she spun around just in time for a second shapeshifter to spring from behind the dune and dive towards her, this one in the lumbering form of a gundark with gleaming metal fists. Caught almost completely off-guard, she barely ducked the first wild swing of the creature's fists, and only just managed to block the second one. Cursing the fact that these shapeshifters understood cortosis weave so well, she flung the shapeshifter backwards with a shove of the Force and went on the offensive as best as she could, but the damn thing recovered with infuriating speed and lunged at her again, this time in the form of a Kath hound, forcing her to dart backwards, away from the snapping jaws.

Behind her, Juhani was keeping pace with the first shapeshifter, but only just. These two shapeshifters were a lot quicker and cleverer than any of the novices and body doubles that they'd fought at Kosytus, and with a horrible sinking realization, Tarrah knew that the one Juhani was up against was probably the leader of the pack.

This one wasn't meant to hide in corridors for ambushes or soak up blaster fire on behalf of their boss. This was the elite assassin of Hulas' current crop, the oldest and most experienced of them all, too valuable to even end up working for the Sith.

Worse still, these shapeshifters were intelligent enough to understand tactics, or at least the first one was. These attacks weren't just meant to kill, but to drive them back, up the side of the dune and into the firing line where the turrets or the guards could easily pick them off. And judging by the shouting from beyond the dune, Hulas hadn't known that they were here a few minutes ago, he sure as hell did now.

Well, Tarrah thought. I wanted a final confrontation. Looks like I got one…

A/N: Up next - the final confrontation.

Care to guess what happens? Feel free to let me know.