The Supernova glided safely and smoothly from the dregs of hyperspace into the Khar Delban system, its controls still under the sure control of one Erik Kartan. Several hours before, Shayla had retreated to the back for some much-needed rest; Erik agreed to sleep in the pilot's seat to keep an eye on things, knowing she would be more comfortable laying down. Even as they glazed through the atmosphere of Kee'l Doba, however, Erik heard the cabin doors open behind him, and Shayla slipped into the copilot's seat. Ever-an-adept pilot, he spared a moment to glance over to her.

"You might want to notify Graysith that we're incoming, cause I don't know if she expected us back so soon."

Shayla replied simply by nodding, then without so much as a word closed her eyes. Erik could almost feel the tendrils of her Force-senses stretching out, as though they were an extension of himself. He smiled at the thought, then turned his face forward once again to control the navboard and complete a smooth landing into the spaceport.

With the Supernova now touching ground, its systems cooling, Erik turned to regard Shayla.

We have returned with some information regarding Tyberius, she thought out simply, remaining frozen, eyes closed for a moment longer.

Then she opened her greeny-blue eyes and directed them to Erik. "Come, we will head for the Temple."

"Unannounced?" he asked as he stood alongside her, his look somewhat skeptical.

"Graysith will know we are coming," she answered calmly.

Then she turned her face forward, walked down the now-extended hatch of the Supernova, and out onto the tarmac even as Erik retracted and secured the hatch behind her. In moments he was again at her side, his aspect very alert.

Graysith waited calmly in the Great Dining Hall for the approach of Shayla and her husband. She had taken up the position he had formerly held at the stone fireplace, a goblet of Sith wine in her hand, and stood there taking occasional sips, a quiet shadow amidst the crowd of Sith who were there partaking of their dinners. They in turn maintained a fair distance from her, sending her glances every so often which betrayed their curiosity -- and perhaps concern -- over the fact that one who was in such apparent leadership over them was not in fact herself Sith.

Graysith was keenly aware of these concerns. Her eyes darkened visibly as she easily picked them up from the general murmur of the diners.

I am more Sith than any here, she thought darkly to herself, if only by earning that inheritance by the flesh of my flesh and the blood of my blood!

Again she raised the goblet to her lips and was beginning to take another drink when the sound of footsteps came to her ears. She smiled then and lowered the glass, still staring ahead into the dancing flames of the fire, now aware of the escalating startlement of the Sith present when they realized that two humans had just strolled this deeply into the Temple.

"Welcome, sister," Graysith said smoothly, now turning round and raising her glass. "Welcome, Mr. Kartan. Your arrival is far sooner than I expected; I take it you have been successful in your quest?"

She paused a moment, then continued with "We were in the process of trying to pinpoint his exact location--

--apparently some of the Kaminoans have a "prophecy" dealing with a visitor from the future and I suspect that vistor could be Tyberius--

--when Erik and I saw his ship, in the form of a comet, leave Kamino altogether. Logic tells me he will seek out JhinDarra, for he has a lead on just where she might be. He seems to fear the rule of the Sith in the future...

...and from the few words I've had with him I know he believes that killing the All children is the only solution to his "concerns." I know this not to be true; with the proper instruction these children will learn to use their abilities when necessary and not abuse them. Tyberius fears how the Sith will be in his future..."

Shayla paused, a strange sort of understanding falling into place:

How did she know that events which lead to Tyberius's future had not already changed, thus changing that future? After all, in another future...

...Graysith woud have been dead, had she and Lord Recinis not been placed back in time to stop the event which would have caused that. So who was to say...

"Perhaps the Sith of his future are not the Sith of the future we are now headed for."

With that Shayla merely quieted, her greeny-blue eyes meeting Graysith's violet ones. "Many things have changed already. Perhaps they have already changed to the extent that what Tyberius fears...

...no longer exists..."

Graysith let a slow smile curl darkly over her features as the word flowed out from her lips like black water. Her own eyes darkened to the hue taken on by the air itself just as true night falls; with a little jolt she hooded those eyes and took a slow sip of wine. When she raised her head from her goblet, all indication of the emotion that had fleetingly touched her face was gone, replaced by smooth blandness.

She let her eyes close in a languorous blink.

"Whatever future has come to pass is that future this Tyberius so feared, no matter which action of ours now may have upon it. Otherwise, would it not be more likely that he simply would not come into this time at all, and that we would then not even know of him?"

A more genteel smile now crossed her lips.

"You say he has left Kamino altogether?" she whispered, now gliding silently over to stand directly in front of Shayla. She pinned her eyes into those of the young woman.

"I find this... serendipitous, to say the very least."

With that she raised the goblet as if in a toast to a victory not yet attained... but one which by her very look was sure to come about. Finally--

"It is disappointing that this Tyberius could not be entreated to join me here in Phrinnchatka, but... ahh, it matters not. That he has fled Kamino for now is enough.

"I will be having business there. And in the meantime...."

She let her voice trail off as she now moved to the sideboard, where she set down the goblet. Her hands clapped in an authoritative manner; it seemed as if she no sooner had let her hands fall to her sides when an imposing Sith appeared at her side. He turned eyes the color of aquamarine first upon her, and then to Shayla.

"See to their comfort; I shall not be gone long."

With that she bowed her head to all, and left the Dining Hall. Behind her all conversation momentarily stopped... then picked up again in her wake.

Salandaar merely bowed his head to her retreating back, and turned with some expectation to Shayla and Erik, waiting to see what they would wish for.

...and that something had everything to do with the words Graysith had spoken. If the Sith now were the ones Tyberius feared so very much...

...and if they were the ones that Shayla believed perhaps would take the Universe and govern it with an ironfist...

...then what were he and Shayla doing on their side?!

Stepping in behind Shayla, he laid a hand on her shoulder, and let it tighten there. "My wife and I would like to be taken somewhere to get some rest," he stated plainly, his brown eyes deceptively calm.

"We are Three, and Triad shall we be, my child," she whispered softly into the muffled silence of the room, a strange dimness marred only by the flames dancing in the stone fireplace that dominated an entire wall of the chambers. For a moment a deeper shadow seemed to flicker in her violet eyes as memories of another fire leaping and dancing in a similar room, sending heat to warm a certain pair who occupied that room, came wafting from somewhere deep within her soul, almost as if taunting her. She let her eyes harden against the struggling image, forcing it back and away, and concentrated on her sleeping daughter again.

Then she simply turned and exited, going once more into the corridor without and following it until she came to another chamber. Although this chamber was as ornate and grand as the one ShaRhylla lay recuperating in, certain adroit touches lightened it a bit to where it would be more appropriate for a younger occupant, a child. In the center stood a gilded and bejeweled bed, one with canopy and high, protective railings which in turn guarded a small and sleeping form.

Graysith moved up to that small bed, and stood staring down at the flame-haired infant who slumbered peacefully there. Something of a smile moved her lips; quickly, she bent and smoothly lifted her little niece, so smoothly and quickly that the child didn't even stir.

Now her lips arced upward in a genuine smile as, the gesture as swift and smooth as the one by which she had taken Darra into her arms, she opened a portal through the All. Seconds later it snapped closed, leaving only a dancing fire to light an otherwise empty room in her wake.

In the Dining Hall....

Salandaar turned a somewhat supercilious aquamarine gaze upon Erik, then flicked his eyes to Shayla. He didn't say one word, but at length tipped his horned head politely to them, waving a clawed hand toward the door into the Dining Hall.

Graysith smiled to herself as with a wave of an otherwise empty hand she closed the portal. She took one brief glance about her, then raised the Claw-bearing hand and pointed it toward the child's bed which took a dominant position in the middle of the room. The very molecules of the air seemed to writhe and unwind, the bed itself took on a shimmering appearance as its atomic structure was unraveled, the spot where the child's bed stood was suddenly a place in reality extremely difficult to look upon.

And then reality settled in to reveal another bed in place of the smaller one, one far more luxurious, canopied, covered with silks and satins and furs... and larger than the other.

One meant for a princess... or a queen....

Graysith nodded to herself with pleasure, then hooded her eyes and blanked all emotion from her being. Coolly calm, she folded her hands afront herself, turned toward the closed door to the chamber, and headed toward it. It opened before her, allowing her egress from JhinDarra's rooms and into the corridor outside, where she proceeded to quietly leave, seeking Lord Roan.

"What's wrong?" she queried simply in his direction, not assuming anything for the moment.

He remained silent at first, his brown eyes meeting hers, the concern in that look clearly evident. Then, "It's just the way Graysith dismisses Tyberius's concerns regarding the future of the Sith. What if..."

He paused a moment, his brown eyes wandering from her greeny blues for a split second before they returned, "What if we are getting involved in something that is wrong, Shayla?"

Then he simply trailed, his eyes only for hers. A minute or so passed in complete and utter silence, and Shayla considered, understanding from a smaller viewpoint why he might feel this way. After all, she'd been struggling with something similiar herself...

...but found herself returning to thoughts of the way the Universe as a whole viewed the Sith, the way she had viewed the Sith...

once upon a time.

"Evil never made anyone whole," she had told Graysith on that day so long ago, when she had been snatched from the Praxeum.

But then their were two sides to every coin, two viewpoints to every action...

...and often more. Like the t'plikk fruit and the worm: killing the worm was good for the fruit, but bad for the worm, whearas allowing the worm to live and feed from the fruit was good for the worm and bad for the fruit.

Two sides...

Just as there were two sides here. Whatever Tyberius feared of the Sith, he saw from his own perspective...

...but did he have the entire whole in mind? Considering the fact he appeared very much a Dark Jedi...

...probably not.

Finally Shayla's greeny-blues refocused from that place far off where they had drifted. "Tyberius's view of the Sith in the future is certainly not enough evidence to validate his claims," she said smugly. "And please remember that Choosen sister I am...

...and as that I will remain. I trust Graysith..Jharmeen...entirely, regardless of how things may appear, for what's evil to one is good for the other. Now you have got to simply trust me on this...

...or perhaps you need to consider how to resolve the issue for yourself..."

She trailed a moment, then finished with, "...and soon."

Quieting at that then, she merely continued to gaze at Erik with her greeny-blues, watching him as he stood in quiet contemplation, reading his concerns even still. At length she took note of just how tired she in fact was, and rose a hand to her mouth to stifle an involuntary yawn. "I'm going to get some sleep now," she finally spoke up, turning towards the wardrobe then looking over her shoulder, a mischevious grin finally playing about her lips. "Will you be joining me, Sir?"

Erik quirked a brow, smiled in return and seemed to push all of his worries to the backburner as he approached her and wrapped arms about her. She directed her greeny-blues up into his browns, a bit of her former seriousness returning. "You know you are going to have to settle your own concerns about this," she stated quietly.

But somewhere deep down inside Erik Kartan knew he was searching for reassurance...

For that was something he couldn't do, no matter how badly he wished to slowly rip that flame-headed witch's entrails from her, inch by inch, relishing the agonized groans and piteous screams the act would assure him...

Graysith had adhered to their own Laws, and by those Laws had taken her rightful position as Dark Lady of the Warriors. The ex-Dark Lady, now shamed away into exile for the remainder of her life, could not by law even attempt retribution: Graysith was the new Lady, and if Dark Lord Roan would now dare try to challenge that, then he would find his own title in jeopardy.

He growled as he stormed through the Temple, accompanied by his own vile thoughts as well as by the dancing shadow that was cast upon the cold stone walls through which he moved. It flickered about, sometimes leading the way, sometimes lagging behind, as he passed one torch-bearing wall sconce only to come upon another.

He paid it little attention. All he could do was think of Kreesha, his beloved, his life, his--

The sound of footsteps came into his ears, and he came to an abrupt halt. A snarl lifted his lips; was it her?

But no. None other than Erik Kartan came around from an intersecting corridor ahead, his own head filled with gloomy thoughts by the look he carried upon his own face.

Roan's lips curled in contempt, and he drew himself up to his full formidable height.

He did not, however, dare to push this any further. Though it was apparent to him that all the Sith in this temple held respect for Graysith and followed her wishes, Erik was yet uncertain as to just how Roan played into all of this...

...but he had a suspicion he was about to find out.

"Graysith!" he flung the word from him as if it were an anathema. Then--

"Swine! You do not belong here, you have never belonged here in Phrinnchatka, never have you been welcomed, the very stones of the Temple cry out at the effrontery of your very presence here! That you dare desecrate the halls in this manner; humans do not belong with the Sith!"

With that the Dark Lord could control his trembling rage no longer. He took a quick step forward and bringing his arm across himself in a great swooping arc, cleanly back-handed Erik against the side of his face, hitting him so hard that the young man went stumbling backwards and sideways to crash into the stone wall of the corridor.

Well, something inside of him managed to rise up and say, I guess you got your answer concerning the relationship between Graysith and Roan...

Erik blinked his eyes again, trying to clear the fog, and as best he could directed his brown eyes towards the towering Dark Lord. "Some...seem to feel differently," he grunted, his eyes still unfocused, the fog still very much there.

He scowled blackly at her, his lips curled superciliously to openly reveal his fangs. His brilliant turquoise eyes were hooded and dark with rage and promises unkept; indeed to see the pair of them standing there none would have the slightest inkling that she and Lord Roan were once lovers, and that he was in fact the father of her daughter.

The stalemate stretched into a seeming eternity, one in which Graysith spoke no word but stood her ground, her diminutive height somehow unapparent for the cool strength she herself was blazing forth. And then, perhaps in recognition of this, or perhaps in sudden viewing of the Tattoo of Entitlement which shone in golden splendor upon her wrist, Lord Roan backed down.

He glared at her a moment longer, his muscular chest heaving, his clawed hands fisted, before suddenly whirling and departing, leaving not so much as the sound of his receding footfalls in his wake.

It took Graysith a moment to collect herself. Then those lustrous violet eyes seemed to open up; she blinked twice, then glided over to where Erik still lay half supine against the stone wall. She tilted her head a little to one side and stared down at him, forcing the Glyph to bank its nuclear fires as she herself seemed to bank something deep within herself.

...and he couldn't help but note how very distant she seemed. He shoved these thoughts to the far corners of his mind for the moment, managing a somewhat strained, "I'll keep that in mind." Then he finished with, "Thank you for your...

... assistance. I'll be returning to check on Shayla now, she was sleeping like a baby when I left her...

...and I don't dare let her wake up and go looking for me alone...

...not now."

With that he turned on his heel, his pace somewhat slowed as he then began to take his first steps back in the direction he had come from.

Just as his form was entirely disappearing into the darkness, carried at last to the edge of the light she produced, she called out.

"What the Dark Lord has said is quite true, Mr. Kartan," she said, not raising her voice yet projecting it cleanly and clearly into his ears. "As unfortunate as those words might be, and irreversible the circumstances leading to them. Crossroads of sorts are destined to come, as well as certain... choices to be made regarding them."

At length, Shayla roused, opening her greeny-blue eyes to regard him. Even half-awake, she seemed to read something worried within him, and that look she sent his way even as she sat up on her elbows read "What is it?"

Sighing as something within him ached for how this was going to hurt her, Erik took her face and cupped it in his hands, directing her eyes into his. "Shayla, you've gotta listen to me. The Sith...don't want us here. I crossed paths with Lord Roan...and he said as much."

He paused a moment then, and Shayla opened her mouth to probably direct a rebuttal in his direction. The look he directed her way, however, indicated that he wasn't quite finished. "Shayla... Graysith has said as much as well; she was also in the hallway. She spoke of choices to be made, as unfortunate as it was...

...and I know this much. I don't want to sit around here and wait for you to get your heart broken."

Pausing once more, Erik took a deep breath and completed what he was saying with one final and very direct statement. "We've gotta get out of here Shayla...

..and we've gotta get out of here now."

...but that didn't mean she was going to accept it. Something deep inside of her kept pointing out that there simply had to be more to it, that there was a "Bigger Picture" somewhere in the words he was telling her he'd heard.

And after all, she still trusted Graysith. She'd taken her as her Sister...

Finally, as Erik's hands fell from her face, Shayla shook her head, totally refusing to believe what he did. Then, quietly yet very distinctly, she replied. "No, we are not leaving here..."

She trailed a moment, then changed her statement slightly. "...at least, I'm not leaving. I don't believe it. I just... can't..."

Shayla blinked back tears even as she got to her feet. Erik stepped in, and reached to take her chin in his hand, directing her eyes to his once more. "It is the truth, and you know it," he said quietly but firmly, his brown eyes once more staring honestly into hers.

As she stared into those sincere brown eyes, a small hurt began to rise within her. Whom this hurt was directed towards exactly, Shayla didn't know. But she did know one thing: she stil wasn't ready to accept what Erik was saying, no matter how sincere he might be.

"Shayla...?" Erik spoke quietly and somehow supportively into her cloud of thought.

In response, she jerked her greeny-blue eyes to his, then reiterated the one single word that summed up everything she was feeling at the moment. "No."

Then, before Erik had so much as a second to react, Shayla whirled and fled the room altogether into the corridors of the Sith Temple, all the while disregarding her husband's calls for her to stop.

...or so she hoped. She need time to think, time to get away from that utterly sincere look in his eyes...

..time to examine this matter for herself. Problem was, she didn't know exactly where to start to find the answers she sought. So instead of heading somewhere specifically she continued to wander through the corridors of the Temple, most of its residents seemingly asleep for the lack of sounds within its walls. At length, however, the sound of steady and somehow angry footsteps could be heard behind her. Whirling on her heel as best she could with her now unevenly distributed weight, Shayla turned to make visual contact with whomever was behind her, uncertain if she was being followed or if this was merely coincidence.

"We must see to bettering the care-taking of this Temple," he snarled at last, his voice a low yet penetrating whisper that arrowed ice-cold into Shayla's ears. "For again I find my walk truncated by another piece of vermin crawling about its halls."

With that he lowered his head, his eyes staring directly into Shayla's from beneath his lowering brows, and continued to bear down upon her. The young woman shrank back at his approach, but he came on like a tsunami, and when he was within reach he repeated the act he had performed earlier upon her husband.

Perhaps with a touch more roughness as well, for he knew who this woman was to Graysith.

He didn't even bother to see the results of his handiwork. He knew as clearly as if he watched with his own eyes that Shayla now lay crumpled in a silent heap on the stone floor, the echo of her impact against the walls still lingering in his ears, as welcomed there as the seductive whisper of a lover's caress.

...something just was not right here, aside from the bad feelings he was getting about what was going on in general. No, something was wrong, something at this very moment. He stretched out in the Force for Shayla, and wasn't entirely surprised that she didn't reply.

But he pressed onward after her regardless.

And he was in the process of rounding a corner when he was met with the sight of his wife, her body crumpled and unmoving on the floor of the Temple, her head laying awkwardly against the wall.

"Shayla!" he cried, dropping to his knees beside her quiet form. Beside her then, he reached for her shoulder and shook her, trying to rouse her. At first, she was totally unresponsive. "Shayla, com'n!" he begged, his brown eyes clouded with worry.

At lenght, she stirred slightly and opened her lids halfway. Her eyes were unfocused. He took her face in his hands, and directed those strangely tired eyes to his. "I've gotta move you," he said to her. "What happened?" he then queried.

The question didn't seem to register. "Tired...so tired..." she muttered, her lids falling slightly as she struggled to keep them open. Then quite suddenly she reached out a hand and gripped his arm...

...and rather intensely. Her whole body seemed to tense, her breathing suddenly heavy as she was still clearly struggling for consciousness...

...and at length the tension lessened, and once more her eyes drooped, this time even more so. "It... hurts..." she nearly mouthed, so quiet was her voice.

Then her eyelids fell completely closed and her hand from his arm. Erik shook her once more. "Com'n babe, I can't heal you, I don't know how..."

She merely groaned, her body again growing tense, one of her hands now reaching to grab the fabric of his tunic. As this pain seemed to reside in her once again and she relaxed, Erik began to get an inkling regarding the source of this strange pain.

He shook Shayla again. "Shayla, sweetheart...are you in labor...?" he trailed as her foggy greeny-blue eyes fell into his, never seeming to come into focus. "Baby..." she muttered strangely. Then, "Too soon..."

She trailed at that, her lids once more falling closed.

Erik's heart merely leapt into his throat. He didn't know what to do, or whom to turn to. But he did know one thing: even if Shayla wasn't going into labor, she seemed to have a concussion.

He shook her again til her eyes came open. "Stay with me, Shayla," he said quietly, standing and then scooping her up into his arms. "You've gotta stay with me..."

Then he turned and began to run in the direction where he had seen Graysith last, feeling the muscles in Shayla's body tensing once more.

He had to get help...

That, and Erik, who stopped to nudge her every so often when he saw that she was drifting.

Another pain crept in and rocked Shayla's slight form, this one seemingly more intense than any of the preceeding others. Almost on instinct, she reached both arms out to wrap them about Erik's neck, gripping him for dear life as he continued to jog with her cradled in his arms. His warm strength was comforting...

...but it did little else as far as relieving the pain which seemed to be growing exponentially each time it shot to life within her. Gripping Erik even more tightly, Shayla stretched out, almost unconsciously seeking any other means to ease her hurt. On a purely gut level, she knew what was happening. But on a conscious level, she was still too discombubulated from Roan's swift attack to really do anything about it.

And it was that gut portion of her which stretched out at that very moment, crying desperately for help through every Force-link Shayla maintained...

It WAS too soon...

All the while, Shayla clung to him, at times going limp and at others tensing, waves of pain seeming to swell in her and then subside. He didn't know how long he had searched, but at length he finally tracked the Force-essence he sought til her back was in sight. Her steps were smooth and measured, but it didn't take that much more effort for a very worried Erik to hurry to step in front of her, a now limp and suddenly very sweaty Shayla still cradled in his arms.

His brown eyes leveled with the violet pair in front of him. Those brown eyes sought for something as he spoke, his words pleading. "Help her...

... please."

Then he stood where he was in silence, his wife still in his arms...

...and once more clinging tightly to him as another wave of pain wracked her body.

Graysith straightened, her clasped hands hidden within the fluid lines of her black practice doba. She cast one quick look directly upon the pale and sweating Shayla, then averted her eyes altogether, and though it at first appeared she was looking into Erik's face the fact of the matter was that she was somehow looking past him.

"This is the world of the Warriors," she said at length, her voice as flat as her eyes. "Here, warriors either live or die. There are no healers; the healers are of the Sorcerer clan, and are on the sister planet of Khar Delba. But then you know this."

She paused a minute, a vestige of life coming into her face. Then it smoothed back into impassivity.

...at least not anymore. Meanwhile I'm going to search for someone who will help her.”

Without waiting for so much as a reply then, Erik began walking away, his arms tightly about his wife even as he sensed her continue to struggle. Every so often she groaned, clearly in pain. But his steps remained purposeful as he departed the Sith Temple on K’eel Doba altogether and made his way for the spaceport. Though the burden he carried was beginning to take a toll on him, Erik refused to let that stop him; only when they reached the transport did he recieve a few minutes rest before he once more had to gather Shayla back into his arms. Her sweat and his began to mingle, and deep inside a part of Erik’s own heart ached as he pondered his options, which were few. He knew he had to get Shayla somewhere, soon. But he didn’t know if the options left to him at this moment would reap any benefit. But he had to push his doubts to the side and pray that his overall past experience with one particular entity would prove true.

Gods help them if it didn’t.

Not even stopping to place Shayla in a cot in the back of the Supernova, Erik hurried inside and laid her on the deck of the cabin, not wanting to leave her side. She flailed out for him as he did so, panicked at the removal of his proximity, so he reached a hand out for a moment to lay it on her sweaty brow.

“I’m right here,” he said softly. “I’m gonna get you some help.”

He hoped.

Turning to the navboard with that, Erik then fired up the engines and lifted off, figuring coordinates for a dangerous hit and fade jump to the nearest planet, praying once more that this would not be a fruitless trip. Hitting atmosphere and then space, finally clearing the gravity well of K’eel Doba, Erik pulled the hyperspace lever.

Mistaken he is indeed, the thought welled up unbidden in her mind, pushed there by the remnants of something she could no longer really recognize. For it is not that I do not care.

I cannot.

It was as if that brief thought served as forclosure to a life gone past. What lay ahead was the future... a future which, although even with her use of the All she could not predict with one hundred percent assurety, was one she could state with solid finality that probably would occur. And she would do everything in her power to tip that probability into reality.

The Glyph on her forehead brightened immeasurably then as, waving her hand in an almost nonchalant manner, she opened up another portal through the warp and weft of space and time, and with casual ease stepped forth to the place she had visited in the not too distant past.

Moments ticked by... until the dim stone corridor of the Great Temple of the Warriors was once again a-bathe in the light of that mysterious sigil embedded into her flesh and very being.

Only this time she was not alone.

The Portal snapped to a close as with gazelle-like grace she turned partly to the side, indicating the corridor which stretched ahead into darkness.

"This way, daughter," she said smoothly, now turning with a dark smile and leading the way she had indicated. Beside her, the blue-eyed redhead let an innocent smile light her features, and nodded in turn.

Somehow managing a fairly smooth reversion, Erik wasted no time, but hit atmosphere immediately, zeroing in on the coordinates for the capital city of Choyapenthe. In another few minutes he landed the ship on the far outskirts of the city, uncertain as to the amount of attention his desent might have gained. As the engines cooled he stood then turned and scooped a writhing Shayla up into his arms. Her hair was slick wet with sweat, her skin cool and pale.

"I'm getting you some help," he reiterated, leaving the ship and then securing it before he began to move at a quick pace towards the city.

Shayla, not focused on anything at the moment but the imminent delivery of her child whispered a forced, "It's too late..."

Erik shook his head, in total denial. Then he quickened his steps even more, not paying one ounce of attention to any Sith whom he might have passed by. He merely kept his eyes forward as he moved along til at length he found himself at the steps of the Great Temple of Khar Delba. With absolutely no hesitation he entered, Shayla's sweat again mingling with his own as he continued onward with a purposeful stride to the very Dining Hall of the Temple.

Trust....

The flame-headed young woman watched, her wide blue eyes clear and calm, as the door to the lavish room given to her closed in the wake of the one who had introduced herself to her as Mother. She stood quietly for a moment, not at all taken aback by the unique knowledge of her own identity, nor for the fact that what others she had seen in this grand and glorious place seemed not to be constructed in quite the same manner as she and her mother. Yet they all seemed to bear honor toward them; as Graysith had led her to her chambers the few servants they had passed had all stopped to bow their heads to them in deference.

Darra blinked, thinking about this all, wondering where the next day would lead her. She moved to the curtained balcony and threw the lush fabric aside, then walked out and leaned out over the stone balustrade. Unbeknownst to her, she was mimicking nearly perfectly the image the Chosen Daughter had presented so long ago, when she had then watched the challenge between Loban Kenobi and Lord Recinis being enacted in the courtyard below.

No such excitement offered entertainment at the moment. Night had fallen over Phrinnchatka; the quiet broken only by the cries of hunting birds in the cool distance. Darra let her eyes lid languorously, and inhaled a deep breath. Then she released it with a smile and a sigh.

Whatever would come, would come. And whatever it would be, it would be good. For she felt a strange affinity with this place and these people; this world was good, and she was glad to be a part of it.

...he in turn recieved nothing.

Very well then.

Without so much as a further word then, Erik turned and paid little heed to the Sith partaking of the grand food in the Dining Hall. All he knew or cared about at the moment was that he would simply have to get help elsewhere.

And that meant moving fast, perhaps faster than he even realized. For as he departed the steps of the Sith Temple and began heading for the Supernova on the outskirts of the city, he didn't make it too far before Shayla let out probably the most agonizing scream he'd ever heard. Her nails sunk in desperation into his neck, the grip so tight that Erik fell to his knees, Shayla still in his arms.

"He's coming..." she managed finally. "Right now..."

With that Shayla let out one more agonizing scream, this one seeming to eminate from her very soul as Erik prepared himself for the delivery of the son he knew would soon be born...

His Father!

--in the Inner Sanctum that great Sith had taken upon himself still flicked before his eyes; he couldn't help but frown reflexively as they played over and over there like a holo-vid stuck on instant replay.

She was here, with her companion; she who was the Sister to the Chosen One, the one who in turn....

His frown deepened and he shuddered, casting that thought off into the whirling vortex of emotions it had provoked within him, and he quickened his pace. Soon his hurried footsteps carried him to the Dining Hall; he burst inside, glancing quickly around, fresh worry rising in his amber eyes when he saw only the surprised looks the members of the temple household cast back at him.

He gritted his teeth, letting his fangs peep out as he pursed his lips in frustration.

That one always was one to jump quickly! he thought to himself as he whirled in the doorway and continued along the way he had been going. Soon he came to a set of double doors which opened onto the Great Receiving Room; he didn't bother to acknowledge the presence of the other Sith who moved about in their duties, some backing off in quick and quiet respect for him, but continued on past the Throne, and out into the foyer beyond. Another set of richly carved double doors waited for him there, they burst open at his approach, and he stepped out onto a portico made of semi-precious stone. The crystal faces in that stone glittered and flashed beneath the rising K'eel Doban sun, their shining surfaces reflecting reds and oranges and deep golden tones.

Ayelmaar peered about himself, then shook his head in disgust.

I have been given such honor... and I return this by using my abilities with such weakness! he berated himself as, deigning not to chase on foot any further after the vanished targets, he paused, seemed to draw himself up into himself somehow, reached out a sensually clawed hand, and opened a Portal through the All, just as Aelvedaar had taught him.

It was difficult, and something he could yet barely achieve without nearly falling to his knees from the effort, yet he managed to remain upright and at least outwardly firm. Heaving a great sigh, he stepped through that Portal...

...and came out nearly three-quarters of a kilometer away, out upon a grassy place, where a desperate Erik Kartan was kneeling beside an altogether too-white Shayla.

Aeylmaar stiffened, immediately knowing what had happened. He hurried forward and fell to one knee on the other side of Shayla, one hand reaching out to lay in a diagnostic manner on her forehead. Beneath his clawed hand her flesh was clammy and cool, yet she seemed to writhe with fever. Ayelmaar frowned, now sending a serious glance toward a tiny bundle of something which someone had managed to wrap up in a bit of torn clothing. Reaching out with his newly budding talents, he sensed the still-struggling lifeforce within that tiny speck of flesh... yet a force which was somehow diminished, for all the miniscule size of the body it inhabited.

He rose quickly to his feet, and sent a meaningful look into Erik's eyes.

"Come, quickly," he said, then said no more but reached out himself and took up that tiny bundle. He waited then until Erik gathered Shayla up in his own arms, then reopened the Portal. This time it disgorged him and the others directly into Aelvedaar's Inner Sanctum; Aeylmaar stepped out, crying for his Father, but the great Sorcerer was nowhere to be found.

In front of them the Crystal Octahedron was swirling with that distinctively greeny-goldness one finds difficult to look upon, in the very process of folding and moiling over itself as a scene therein was fading from view.

Aeylmaar continued on past the Octahedron, frowning to himself for the silence the Inner Sanctum offered them, and from that silence taking unspoken leave to act in the stead of the Dark Lord of the Sorcerers. Behind the Octahedron there stood the cylindrical form of a Sith incubator; it was the work of moments to activate it. He then unwrapped the tiny form and glanced down, to anyone else the little being appeared dead, but the Chosen Son still felt the stubbornness of life refusing to give way. He stroked the little boy's tiny head but once... then placed him into the protection of the incubator.

THIS is what Tyberius had caused...

With effort, Erik at length tore his brown eyes from the incubator to now look into those of Aeylmaar, who was now cocking a brow in his direction. "You said that such matters...

...didn't concern the Sith," Erik said quietly, his browns a bit vague.

Then he glanced down to Shayla, whose lids were falling to a close, her skin growing somewhat warmer but her limbs hanging limply. Erik knew she had to be utterly exhausted.

"My wife?" he queried worriedly then, his grip about her unconciously tightening a fraction as he then looked back into the gaze of the Heir to the Sorceror's Clan.

"This is perhaps of importance, for it was provoked by one who appears to have more than a passing interest in my peoples," he said darkly, finishing in an even darker tone. "Considering that the presence of my peoples is something of which only a very privileged few should be aware."

He paused at that, ignoring the little voice that was trying to prompt him to close his mouth. The fact that Aeylmaar wasn't offering he or Shayla anything in the way of hospitality was really gnawing at him...

...considering that they were supposedly so very priveleged.

"I appreciate your help, no matter the reason. I must tell you, however, that my wife and I will not be leaving here so long as our son remains. He might represent a 'matter which concerns the Sith' to you, but he is first and foremost my son."

He paused at that, frowning before adding one final thought. "Strange that while what happens to my child is of importance, what has happened and will happen to my wife does not. Perhaps we are all merely pawns for the gain of the Sith after all..."

At last he spoke, his voice carefully neutral, yet carrying the barest wisp of menace in its overtones.

"What is of importance to the Sith is of our own affairs, human," he said quietly, now tilting his head a bit and in that motion presenting his gracefully curving ram's horns as though he were a bull preparing to charge. "You are in no position to dictate what is and what is not; and take a care, that you do not find your own importance bloated beyond its reality."

He paused, letting a small eternity pass between the two of them. Then he straightened, waved a hand toward the incubator, and then clasped them gracefully in front of him.

"This one your wife bore has not been placed in this incubator to promote its growth beyond her womb," he then went on, his voice smooth and indifferent. "Rather, it has been placed there in stasis, to prevent further degradation from occurring. Due to the premature state of its arrival, should it be removed from the protection of the incubator it would surely die. So you see--"

Now the slightest hint of something other crossed his saturnine features and he smiled broadly, exposing his gleaming fangs in the process.

"You shall thus find yourself a permanent inhabitant of Khar Delba if you truly intend to adhere to your words. This is the world of the sorcerers; know you anything of sorcery or magick to pull your weight and thus earn a living among us, human?"

He fell silent then, his smile broadening, and in his eyes something even darker began to raise it's head and laugh.

So where exactly was her son?

Working tooth and nail against the bodily desire to simply rest, Shayla forced heavy eyelids open, and directed them upward, her vision not yet clear enough to analyze her surroundings. Still, she knew she was being held by someone, and could at least make out the Force-signature to know it was her husband. He seemed...

...distraught?

Realizing that her lips and mouth were entirely too dry for speech, Shayla swallowed, trying to bring some moisture to her mouth. Then, in hopes of diverting Erik’s attention from whatever had it, she reached up for his shoulder and rasped, ”Zack?”

Erik directed those brown eyes of him down upon her, worry and concern and something else she couldn’t quite put her finger on swimming in them. He looked away to something else for a split second, then turned his eyes back to Shayla. “He lives,” Erik said quietly then, and somewhat vaguely, taking a few steps forward before lowering Shayla a bit til her feet touched the ground. She wasn’t quite steady on them yet; so Erik remained behind her. Her greeny-blue eyes fell upon the very tiny form of a little boy in...

...a Sith incubator?

For the moment, Shayla didn’t even try to analyze that, for suddenly her eyes were filled with tears. Unthinking, she reached out to touch the outside of the incubator, leaning forward til her cheek rested beside her hand. Questing out with the Force through a mother-son link, Shayla closed her eyes, tears streaming as she sought for any speck of life she could find within her child. At length, she found it. Not entirely aware of it, she whispered, ”My little boy...

...my little Zack...”

He is probably off sulking in the night, plotting his own black revenge.... Her lips curved in a sensuous smile at the thought, her eyes darkening to a hue that challenged the night itself.

Aye, but we shall come to grips... and soon.

Propelled by her own thoughts she moved on in a leisurely manner, moving up one street and down another, as pale and silent as a wraith and as unobserved by others. It suited her well to travel thus, unannounced and unseen amidst the heart of a population of warriors, of a race who were born to magick, and now ready to inherit something far, far greater.

At length she found her feet had carried her to a familiar building. It was the Great Library of the Sith. She paused momentarily at the foot of the stairs which led up to the grand entrance, letting images of times past flood her, searching carefully within to determine her own reaction to those images.

She smiled, and placed a foot upon the stone, and thus quickly and gracefully ascended the steps and entered into the dark hallways of the library. It did not take long for her eyes to become accustomed to the differential in lighting; off to one side whirled the Orb of Knowledge, spinning quietly in mid-air, suspended between it's haloing ring of lesser orbs, waiting for A Question.

Without hesitation she strode up to it.

"I wish to see the current Ruling Lords of the Sith," she said in a soft voice, one which murmured off to blend imperceptibly with the shadows of this place, shadows which held the runes of the ages in their incorporeal grasp. The Orb seemed to brighten; then a familiar holographic image came into being directly behind her, life-sized and for the fact that the images were shown as they were at this time, seemingly alive as well.

Dark Lord Aelvedaar sat in regal silence upon his Great Throne, his robes of black and deep royal and nearly incandescent white underscoring the bright vehemence shining in his volcanic eyes. Behind him there stood a shadow of amber, ram's horns held at a forty-five degree angle as the Dark Lord's Chosen son waited to inherit that throne.

Next to Aelvedaar there was a blur, a shade, an ever-shifting cloud of red and turquoise and gold. It was not quite apparent, as though hesitant to be shown, in wonder of its very existence. Graysith's smile darkened to see Roan's image presented in such a manner... and her teeth flashed in the dark as a full-fledged smile crossed her features when she beheld the image next to him.

For there was none. All the Orb had to show her was Lord Aelvedaar, a surreal Roan... and nothing else. And yet, hovering over this image, there seemed to be another shade, a deep moiling cloud which strove to incorporate itself from the very molecules of the air, one darker than the darkest night yet bearing in its depths tantalizing flickers of violet and turquoise and blue.

The Chosen Daughter threw back her head, the motion causing the hood of her cloak to fall back. Her long and richly wavy hair tumbled down as the library rang with her musical laugh; then she sobered, turned, and left this place to it's own brand of knowledge of the present.

As well as to hints of the future.

..or rather someone else...

...mattered as well. Still not moving, Shayla stretched out in the Force for the strength of her husband, whom she knew was hovering close by. And only then did she at last pick up the very vaguely familiar life-force that had been right there with them all along.

Something of the protective nature shot up in Shayla’s psyche, prompting her to stand and whirl as best she could, for she was still quite exhausted. She stood in front of the incubator, her eyes wide as she finally recognized her surroundings...

...and as she recognized Aeylmaar. Her greeny-blue eyes shot into the brown ones of her husband, her look revealing confusion. “How did we get here? Why did you take us from K’eel Doba?” she queried in his direction. “Why didn’t you seek Graysith’s help, she would have...”

Shayla froze mid-sentence, as something about the look in Erik’s eyes troubled her. “Shayla, she wouldn’t,” Erik stated simply, his browns entirely too sympathetic for her taste.

”That can’t be...” Shayla whispered in denial, “She wouldn’t betray me like that, she chose me as her sister...

As though a dark pool of water they slipped from the coushoned bed she lay on, slitherign accross the floor and into the shadows, where for a brieff moment twin pin-pricks of red light exploded into existance, before dieing out into darkness once more.

Many a time he had said it, many a time had his enemies realized it, as long as shadow existed so would he...as long as he desired to cause mischive, he would have the chance...
It was a turning wheel, his desire feed the evil of the universe, and the evil fed his desire.

Slowly he vanished, entering a parralel universe...a place of shadows, a place where he could regenerate his dark energies...for along with having been "vanquished" earlier, his being was devided, he had placed half of himself upon the woman...Wickeds beloved Graysith, half of his being to infect the womans child, and grow for himself a new body...yes, a body that could grow with feelings if its mother desired, that would mean nothing, for when the body was ripe, his other half would claim it, uniting with the inner darkness that child would be born with... None could say he was stupid. for entaris was far from it, he was clever, and never took chances.

But now he would remain within the shadowy realms, and gain what strength he could... Along with hopefuly gaining another little something he had in mind... He was a clever one...and he never took chances...Ever.

The lavish bedchamber rang with the moans of the young half-Sith, as beset by something not quite a dream but something surely nightmarish she writhed amidst her bedclothes, her pearl-clawed fingers grasping and twisting the cool ivory sheets, tearing great rents in them as she thrashed and cried out. Her turmoil expanded, filling her, dark memories welling up, filling her, leeching her from herself, toying with her, urging her, and as that hideous feeling flooded within her her violet-rimmed turquoise eyes snapped open and she bolted upright in bed.

For a long moment she remained thus, sitting still as a statue, the last echoes of her cries ringing from the stone walls into her delicate ears, her hands reaching out for something she had once had, yet recoiled from with all her being, yearning to seek it out and blend with it again. She blinked, her mouth dry, her heart pounding in her chest, her senses heightened and alert as with that great power inherent to her she slowly, fearfully reached out a questing tendril....

Dark Heart? Is that you?

The remnants of the fire popped and snapped in the fireplace, momentarily flaring and creating shadows that danced a tarantelle upon the floor. Swallowing, she slid from the bed, the cold stone icing her feet; she paid it no heed but padded to the curtains which closed off the balcony from the chamber proper and laid a pale hand upon them. A moment's heart-chilling hesitation... and she flung them wide....

Only to reveal the sleeping city of the Sith in the quiet darkness below.

Now ShaRhylla shivered, and wrapped her arms about herself. Memories came and began haunting her, teasing her, not quite revealing themselves, lingering just at the outskirts of cognition, and somehow she knew that if she went back to sleep she would not awaken quite ever the same. Her nails dug into the tender flesh of her arms, sending rivulets of blood rippling down her pale arms to stain her gown and blot upon the floor, but she paid that pain no great heed. In fact, it was welcomed.

Once there was a pain... she believed there was a pain... a great and welcomed and longed for pain....

Uttering a little cry, ShaRhylla sank to her knees in the fading light, gripping her arms to stay awake, and watched the encroachment of the dark as little by little it took dominion against the dying flames of the hearth.

((OOC: ShaRhylla next appears in Not Lost, Yet Not Found in the "Jedi/Sith forums, thank you.))

"There's a Dreadnought in orbit!"

"Wait, we're still erasing his program. Only a few minutes left..."

"They're landing troops!"

"Damn...get the shuttle ready! We have to get Romanus on it as soon as we're done..."

Romanus awoke from the beeping, blinking red light on his control board. It was a warning that his ship just exited hyperspace.

Alright, now let's what the Usurper is capable of...

The hunter quickly placed several commands onto the ship's computer to scan for any nearby Imperial ships. The display monitors aboard, however, begun to fade in and out and emit static.

I popped Eagle out of hyperspace behind the dim little red dwarf, coming in from behind it just in case there was anybody looking. I really didn't expect anyone to be watching, however, weird powers or no. I mean, I'd think that She couldn't possibly be on top of everything not all the time....

Roon's Treasure but I was surprised to find the possibility of being found out by my sister the least of my worries. My short term sensor array lit up like Boonta Eve even as I screamed into the Khar Delban system, flashing the signature of ship after ship after ship so helpfully, almost as if it were asking me what she wanted me to do about them. I had scarcely the time to realize that they were Imperial ships, hovering just out of normal sensor range (thank you Terrin for enhancing this yummy little lambda!) before my own senses acted on my behalf, my hand flashing out to shove us right back into the safety of hyperspace again, damned the planet's proximity....

Eagle shuddered as if torn in two directions, pulled by the K'eel Doban gravity well as well as the strangeness that occurred in warped spacetime. For a moment she trembled, hanging exquisitely on a razor's edge of something.... then swooped parsecs away, hidden beneath that timeless veil.

I swallowed heavily.

Hell's Bells, what in the name of all the Fates were that many Imperial ships doing hanging around out here? Up to no good, that was for certain!

For a moment my lips shook, tears springing into my eyes as I thought that my last out was... well, out. Then I firmed.

OK. So they have a suspicion about this system, that much is obvious. If I just scoot nonchalantly on down to the surface, what can they do? Follow... right? And who would be waiting there? Sith, right. And what would evolve from that? Ruckus and general brouhaha. And what could you use this as cover for?

Getting yourself into that Sith fighter, that's what.

My resolution firm, I dropped into realspace long enough to turn a complete 180 around the Z-axis. Then I sent Eagle flying back, swarmed into the system, and before the Imperial fleets could so much as blink -- at least I hoped -- I was out of hyperspace and hitting the thick atmosphere of the planet.

Destination: Phrinnchatka.

Bho'zzhr turned his gold-flecked black eyes... all three of them ...up to his superior.

"Shall I initiate tractor beam, Sir?" he dared to hazard, then winced at his own effrontery and turned back to his boards. He pinned his eyes on the green blip as though his life depended on it, waiting for chastisement.

Which never came.

The major straightened up behind him, a crooked smile darkening his handsome features. His eyes glittered as hard and cold as his insignia.

"Negative, Ensign," he said smoothly, tugging his uniform into even more immaculate denouement upon his person. "Orders are to tractor anyone trying to depart the system. Just keep an eye on that lambda; if it has landed there, it is sure to depart at some time... or not.

"And in the latter case, we don't have to worry much about it now, do we? Oh, and Ensign--"

The major laid a cool hand on Bho'zzhr's shoulder, relishing how the triple eyes blinked simultaneously at that touch, and interrupted his own orders.

"Send a reply to Usurper, and belay the sensor scramble. That is the only ship which has the freedom to come and go as it likes in this system."

Ensign Bho'zzhr nodded, a quickly uttered "Yes, Sir!" crackling from his mouth as he turned back to his boards to relay the message on to the ominous looking infiltrator... and to keep an eye peeled out should that impudent little lambda ever show it's face in departure.

All three eyes, that is.

Thank Khaandon for small favors...!

The star-struck skies brightened briefly as Eagle descended, her wings outspread to catch the slowly increasing winds and grip them for dear life. Luckily for us however, as we moved down through the upper layers of K'eel Doba's atmosphere and approached it's troposphere, the terminator announced its presence with a thin line of black, a line which got wider and wider the lower into orbit we came.

At least some luck is still with me, I thought as I gripped the controls, maneuvering delicately and initiating the engine mufflers to sop up our thunder. Looks like Phrinnchatka is in night; maybe I'll be able to pull this stunt off after all....

Down and down we went, now well into the "sphere of weather," towering clouds of reddening gold changing to raven's-wing purple, interior blues deepening to a black just a shade lighter than space, all screaming past like thick wads of multi-colored cotton, thick enough to completely hide us during the last thirty miles or so of our descent.

At least hide our visible presence from anyone looking, I thought grimly, keeping my eyes pinned to the radar screen. Khaandon knows if they've got any other sensor arrays up and running; what the heck do I know of this city, anyway?

Nothing much, and that was a fact. Other than it was where I had shared, so briefly, a moment of complete joy with my husband before I had turned stupid and--

I bit that thought off, frowning, and tipped my head to the forward viewscreen.

Keep it together, ol girl, I admonished myself. Don't forget there are a touch wee more individuals down here now, and you are going to stand out amidst them like a sore thumb if you're seen. So keep your wits about you!

The night around us deepened, thickened, now filled with a heaviness that was rent by occasional flashes of light in the distance. Eagle cried out into it, as if annoyed that her thunder was being further dampened by the approaching storm, and wished to find a place to rest before it struck. I obliged her, directing her onward and downward, still hoping we would be chased to a landing, but knowing not so much from the silence of my own aft sensors but by the chill in my gut that we were not.

Another bolt of lightning tore the sky, and another. And soon they were firestorming hard and fast, joined by thunder I could hear inside Eagle, who only screamed louder when a great and vicious fist of wind came up out of nowhere and shook us. It was all I could do to keep her in at least an approximation of steadiness, aiming ever downward toward the capital city, which lay somewhere in the rain-shredded darkness ahead.

And then I had only the barest second or two to realize the hairs on my neck and arms were standing straight up before the entire universe exploded, sending Eagle and me into a brilliant blue-white limbo....

Darra didn't mind in the least. For some reason she wasn't a bit afraid of the storm; in fact, as the wind began picking up and the clouds to lower, unleashing lightning and thunder, she found herself exhilarated. It was as if there had been something far more frightening, somewhere deep in the recesses of her unconscious mind, that she had weathered effortlessly; this storm was but a pale shadow of that impalpable sensation, whatever it meant.

She sighed, her long red hair now blown about her face as she placed her forearms upon the stone balustrade and leaned into the crisping wind. A rumble of thunder pushed yet more rain into her face, and a violet shard shrieked across the sky, lighting the sleeping city in surreal light, and causing her to open her mouth in a smile of laughter.

Wonderful! she thought, now closing her eyes and leaning into the wind so much that it seemed she would tumble from the balcony altogether. Her balance was impeccable, however, and her grip strong. Widening her stance then, she pressed her hips against the stone and flung her arms out to either side of her.

So wonderful, like flying....

Then it hit her: a strange sensation, totally foreign. With an abrupt start she pulled back, her wide blue eyes widening further to peer into the escalating storm, as though seeking something.

What is this? she frowned to herself, tilting her head a bit to one side. It is as if something... no. Someone is in danger, somewhere close... but who? Where?

Her frown deepened then as she pondered the strange niggle which bit by bit began to insist that she depart and go....

Do what? I am but new here myself; I know no one but Mother.

Gripping her arms about herself, she gritted her teeth. Then closing her eyes she concentrated on pushing that strange sensation away, keeping it at bay, and lifted her face into the storm once again.

"Allright, have it your way," he growled, standing up, "I'll take over the scanners and see if we can pick the Eagle up. She should register as a friendly if she's anywhere out there."

Matt nodded, switching places with Jasyn then and taking the ship controls as the final reversion beep sounded. Reaching for the hyperspace controls, Matt pulled the Raptor smoothly out of hyperspace as Jasyn slid into the copilot's seat.

"Establishing orbit around K'eel Doba," Matt announced helpfully as Jasyn sent the Raptor's scanners to work. In but a second information about the planet--

--lifeform readings, weather, and terrain--

--streamed in, along with readings on any ships in the area. Like the Eagle, the Raptor's scanners could reach just a little bit further...

"What the hell is out there?!" Jasyn growled, pointing to the readout, which indicated a horde of ships floating on the outskirts of the system.

Matt frowned, looking at the readout himself. ”Imperials...” he muttered irritably. Then, suddenly, he pointed a finger towards a ship indicated by a friendly-looking green. "There she is!" he exclaimed.

“So, follow her down,” Jasyn said almost bluntly.

“The storm...” Matt started hesitantly.

Jasyn frowned. “I don’t give a damn about the storm. Maybe it’ll give us some cover...”

Beside him, Matt sighed in resignation, taking the Raptor out of orbit and into K’eel Doban atmosphere...

...where they were greeted most kindly by thunder and lightning and rain. Matt struggled with the controls, and the Raptor bounced back and forth in response to the winds flying about her.

“Oh kriffing hell,” Jasyn groaned, gripping the seat.. “I hate space travel...”

Matt ignored him, still working to dodge lightning...

...and trying to see just exactly where they were heading as he homed in on Prinn’chatka and worked to start the landing sequence. Then, something tumbling in the fog of K’eel Doban space caught his eye. No sooner had he seen it when Jasyn sat up a bit in his seat, his eyes wide. “It’s the Eagle!” he exclaimed, “And she’s out of control...”

“She’s gonna crash,” Matt said worriedly as the rains became heavier and Matt manuevered the Raptor for an unelegant landing.

Jasyn didn’t think he could look, if not for the spiraling images of the sky in the viewport than most certainly for the immenient crash.

“Looks like she managed to start the landing procedure before she lost control,” Matt decided, his green eyes still straight ahead. “At least the slowed speed of the landing cycle will help minimize the damage.”

Jasyn didn’t even want to think about it. He didn’t want to even watch...

...not that he could see a whole hell of alot through the rain and the fog...

...but at the same time, he couldn’t tear his eyes from the scene of a barely discernable Eagle making her last few spirals towards the ground below.

Almost on impulse, Jasyn reached out and slapped one button on the Raptor’s controls, opening a secured frequency to the Eagle.

“Galen, it's Jasyn...can you read me?”

En route, I managed to scrabble a landing cycle initiation; I was in the final procedures of this when a green light blinked for my attention.

"Galen!" a worried, staticky voice crackled, then garbled as a board finally blew it's last circuit nearby and went dark. "--ead me?"

"Oh, kriffing HELL Jasyn, wha--?!"

I don't know if he heard me or not. In fact, I don't even know if I got the message sent; my fingers were so busy trying to breath a semblance of life back into Eagle that I might have altogether overlooked the communication relay control.

All I knew was that suddenly everything shimmied, jittered, sparked and went black... and through the forward port something that looked like the biggest mountain in the universe was coming up fast.

Funny, but I didn't know there were mountains here... but this one is too high. Too, too high. And coming too damned fast....

"Oh, hell, Matt, get us down, fast!" Jasyn snapped, reaching for the send button again. "Galen...?!" he called worriedly. "Galen..?"

No response.

"Dammit, I'm not getting through! Could you hurry it up with the landing?!" he spat.

Matt didn't turn his eyes from the viewport, which had 99.5 percent of his attention, but he managed to divert the remaining .5 percent for a comment. "If you'd like to come over here and try for yourself..."

But even as he said that, the Raptor made final descent in the fog and rain, her landing gear fully extended as she made ungraceful contact with the ground below. The Raptor jolted and bounced in response.

But Jasyn was up on his feet before she made total touchdown, headed for the back to grab medical supplies. As he did just that, throwing a few odds and ends about which were in his way, Matt shut the engines down and then headed towards the back himself, just in time to meet Jasyn at the hatch with a satchel full of supplies.

"Come on," he said, extending the hatch, his look determined. "Let's get over there, rain or no..."

"This is the Usurper. Seeing as how sensors are coming back online, you know why I'm here. I'm looking for the planet K'eel Dobo, or Doba, or whatever, but the name isn't showing up anywhere." He then sat back to await the Imperial's response.

As he waited, Romanus couldn't shake a bad vibe he got when he jumped into this system. It's like the whole space around him was...different...like it shouldn't be there. Or maybe he shouldn't be there.

Or maybe I'm losing my mind. Sithspit, I need to find that kid!

Run, run together in the night.

Indeed, this is the mighty hunter? he thought to himself as he nodded once to the major, who turned to Ensign Bho'zhrr. The three eyed being snapped to attention, and opened a return frequency to the hovering infiltrator.

"This is Captain Landarian of Relentless, responding to infiltrator, signature 3489-Yh45-ST34, callsign, Usurper. You have entered into the Khar Delban system...."

...if he doesn't know that, then what kind of hunter is he?

"...which, as your sensors show you, consists of two planets in orbit about this rather nondescript red dwarf. Which one is Khar Delba and which one is K'eel Doba.... well.

"You have a fifty-fifty chance of landing on the correct planet on your first planetfall.

"Usurper, it would do you well to stay clear of any inter-ship transmissions in this sector. Landarian, out."

...and there was the fact that it was entirely too quiet.

Eeriely quiet.

Jasyn shivered, and he wasn't sure if this was because he was chilled by the rain or if it was because of something else entirely. Still, he pressed on, approaching the crashed Eagle and beginning to survey the damage so as to access just how to get inside safely. Her fore suffered the majority of the damage; the aft was still fairly in tact.

"Well, it'd be best to go in via the hatch, but she's secured right now, and I don't think we have the time to pry her open..."

"The viewport," Matt said simply.

Jasyn pursed his lips, then nodded, not saying a word but instead heading for the fore, starting to pick his way through the rubble so that he could get in.

...which incidentally was sitting sideways on its base...

...had no pilot. Jasyn's browns flitted about the cabin as he began searching.

Gods, don't tell me she was thrown out during the crash...

"Jasyn, over here!" Matt exclaimed, skidding to his knees somewhere in the corner of the cabin. When Jasyn hurried over, Matt was already worriedly taking lifesigns on Galen, who was sprawled out in that particular corner, one of her arms laying at a peculiar angle...

Jasyn winced at the scratches and abrasions, falling to his own knees and getting medical supplies out to clean injuries and place bacta patches on them.

"Lifesigns are good, she's just unconscious; probably got knocked out," Matt observed.

"Do you think she has any neck injuries? I hate to move her without being certain..."

"We've gotta," Matt said. "I have a bad feeling in my gut."

Jasyn nodded mutely, still applying some bacta patches. The injuries were ugly enough and would probably hurt like hell...

...no, raking the Raptor's hull...

...and pounding. Something wanted inside. As if it was gonna do him a lick of good, Jasyn whirled, grabbing his blaster from his weapons belt and standing in front of the still-unconscious Galen. "What the kriffing hell is out there...?!" he blurted, blaster now trained towards the source of the sound. "Get us the kriffing hell away from here!" he continued, barely noting the movements of Matt as he made his way to the cabin, and started warming the ship up.

All the while, Jasyn stood, blaster still in hand. He eyed it for a second to make sure it was on kill...

...and just continued standing firmly.

"Hurry the hell up Matt, would you!" he yelled towards the cabin as the Raptor's engines started to wake up. "Whatever is out there...

...it ain't friendly..."

"Bloody hell," he growled a bit breathlessly, struggling to pull himself out from under the cot. Using his left hand, he grabbed a side and pulled his way out...

...which in turn made his right side throb even more. But through the stars, he was finally able to worm his way out...

...just enough to assess that Galen had fortunately only rolled over on her belly and against the bulkhead which was supposed to be behind the cot. About this time, Jasyn's commlink beeped, and he struggled a bit to get his left hand over to press the accept button without sliding underneath the cot again. "You okay back there?" came Matt's voice.

"I think I might...

...have broken something," Jasyn stated, wincing at a stab of pain. "Galen fortunately didn't roll too far. You?"

"Maybe a little banged up...

...but okay. Jasyn, we can't take off like this. Unless we can figure out a way to get ourselves right-side up...

...I think we could be in some serious poodoo, buddy."

Jasyn scowled, another throb of pain distracting him, but not enough for him to miss a final comment. "Tell something I don't know..."

Now he sat there and stared at the two planets in front of the Usurper. One of them was K'eel Doba, the other one was...whatever.

As he stared at one of the planets, however, Romanus again felt that familiar Force-presence...

Well, it's the only thing I got for a sign, so here we go...

...when several sensations descended upon her in a rush. Somewhere her daughter, the child between her and Dark Lord Roan, had awakened, and was fighting her own battles in the night. Graysith's violet eyes flew open and the Glyph began brightening as she stepped forth in response to that unintended cry, when the sensation of other entities joined that of ShaRhylla's in her psyche: somewhere the tuk'ata were hunting... finding something... someone...

Now she came to a halt, sensing out more intricately, sending a tendril of herself into the outness beyond her that was the warp and woof of spacetime in the immediate vicinity of K'eel Doba; what she found made her snort in a strange admixture of surprise and disgust.

Her sister was here... her blood-sister... and two others she had once held an alliance with.

Even as this recognition descended upon her it carried with it the assurety that her tuk'ata were on top of things, holding Galen and her companions in one place. She smiled, sending a message along the link she shared with her faithful M'wonBo'o.

"Bring them as sheep to the Temple, my sweet...."

Then she turned her attention to the other entity she sensed, one not yet treading upon K'eel Doban soil, but one in-coming nevertheless. There was a certain streak of darkness in this one that set her blood icing in sheer joy of the discovery; her eyes darkened then as she nodded to herself, and continued on her way back to the Temple, the ravening Glyph shattering the rain with its light.

How wonderful, to have... visitors once more, after so lengthy a time, she mused as she came at last to the Temple, sending another tendril out through the link yet maintained with Roan, a link she despised but kept enforced for obvious reasons, to notify him of the discovery.

Mounting the steps leading to the Temple's apex she quickly ascended, the darkness strobing with lightning all about her, and quickly gained the top. She then crossed the courtyard above and entered the Temple proper; passing through the great foyer where a certain dark sword had once shattered a pillar, to be sent into the Elseness forever, she came upon the Throne Room. A pause at the dias upon which the splendidly bejeweled and intricately carved Throne of the Dark Lord hulked; then she mounted those steps, seating herself atop in the Cathreda of the Dark Lady, waiting for Roan and "their"... visitors ...to make an appearance.

As we surged through hyperspace, I kept my mind focused on locating Galen and the others. I was nearing exhaustion trying to keep a lock on them. It seemed we were headed in the right direction. Time passed slowly, noone speaking so as to not break my concentration. I pulled the lever to return to normal space. Just in time too! We almost went right through the planet. I guess travelling through hyperspace really wasn't like dusting crops.

"Master, can you feel it? The evil energy in this system. And wait what are those over there? Star desroyers??? In this supposed SITH system! This is not good!!!"

I quickly piloted the ship out of sensor range.

"This is going to be very dangerous, but you'll have to trust me. I'm gonna "LEAP" right into the atmosphere." I plotted a course that would take me right to the edge of the planets red hued atmosphere. "Here we go! Hold on tight this could get rough!" I said as I pulled the hyperspace lever once again.
5.....4.......3.......2.......1........ I pulled the lever one more time and reenterd normal space.
WHAM!!! We hit the atmospheric pressure like a tonn of duracrete. The poor old Lamby groaned in protest and swung out of control.

"Dash! Alexis uinconisnce and this is not going to be pretty." i said as I looked out the view port. The ground was getting closer and closer.

This is not good. I thought.

"Jebbua, create a force sheild around the three of us while I pilot this thing down. That will take away some of the impact if I'm unsuccessful."

I closed my eyes then and let the force be my guide. My hands were a blur to the naked eye, moving this way and that pressing different buttons, pulling levers. Anything to level us off and regain control. I did manage to reduce the speed of the old Lamby. Mostly because the engines had gone off line.

"I can't get control! Brace for impact in 5....4....3....2...."

The impact of the ship colliding with the planets surface snapped the ship in half as if it were a dried up twig. The cockpit remained embedded in the small crator that it made. While the back half of the ship, including Jebbua and Alexis, went sailing on by me. It was the last thing I saw, before total blackness dominated my line of vision.

1. i was on the ground and bleeding really badly.
2. part of the ship that must have broken off was on top opff me, so i couldn't move.

But that one shall indeed come to me, oh yes, one way or another....

Her thoughts were interrupted by the harsh sound of bootsteps echoing hollowly upon the stone; Graysith arched a delicate brow as Dark Lord Roan approached and came to a halt at the foot of the dias. His turquoise eyes fairly glowed of their own accord as he stared up at her, the struggle to remain calm obvious by the manner in which his jaws were clenching, and his hands. For a moment he remained a silent shadow there; then he bounded up the dias in three great steps and whirling, took a seat in the Throne of the Dark Lord, gathering his luxurious robes about himself as though not to come in contact with her as he did so.

Graysith merely smiled darkly, questing outward yet again... and came upon it as suddenly as a dianoga's strike.

More interlopers, who hold their lives in such little value.

Now she straightened up in her seat, her eyes matching her smile, the Glyph beginning to raven upon her brow. She turned to Roan in one smooth motion, and in short, terse words informed him of the newest visitors to K'eel Doba; that fine personage merely curled his lip in a dark smile of his own and waved a commanding hand.

Salandaar was before them in a flash, bowing, then straightening up to await his orders. Roan turned to Graysith, a brow lifted as his lip curled and he nodded to her. Her smile only broadened and she turned to the Sith warrior.

"Take an... honorary squad of your finest Sith warriors, my dear Salandaar," she ordered him evenly. "Follow through the link I now give to you. At it's end will be a broken ship, and broken occupants, with broken dreams. Break them further, my dear one, and make certain they come here unto us... oh, and my dear Salandaar--"

She paused a moment to send a command flashing through the link she maintained with M'wonBo'o, informing him that he and his mates would soon have reinforcements; the Chosen Daughter of the Sith greatly desired that all those who had come to K'eel Doba so suddenly would be ushered into the capital city together. At the other end of that link, the great beast let out an affirmative growl; Graysith turned her focus outward once more.

"--M'wonBo'o and his mates have tracked others who have come to us. They will be joining us as well; I would desire to have all of you together here in the end of it."

She fell silent then as the Sith warrior bowed, turned, and calling to his finest troops exited the Temple. It was short work for these fearsome beings to march through the storm, soon coming to the broken ship where they found it's occupants laying about in unconscious, little heaps. A quick inspection, and those occupants were thoroughly disarmed, and dragged out into the raging storm. Lightning strobed the night, illuminating the horned and fanged Sith, who ringed the pitiful beings in rigid silence, muttering to themselves.

Salandaar shook his horned head, made commanding gestures. Several of his warriors gathered up the unconscious beings like so much cordwood, turned, and in formation marched through the storm back to the city. On the way Salandaar paused, pointing with one clawed finger toward yet another shadow in the storm-pocked distance. About fifteen of his warriors bowed, and broke from the ranks to go to where three tuk'ata were busily mauling another ship laying broken on K'eel Doban soil.

Then Salandaar continued with the remainder of his men, carrying his burden who yet remained unconscious, and in this manner brought them into the Temple and laid them on the stones before the Dark Lord and Lady. Then he bowed and backed off, stationing his men, weapons at the ready, and waited for his next order.

...one of the bulkheads. The Raptor meanwhile shook as whatever was out there persisted in trying to get in; Jasyn had a really bad feeling that it was going to succeed soon as the grating of what sounded like claws screeched against her hull.

Jasyn gulped as a memory popped out of somewhere deep within his mind where he’d buried it; a memory of the last time he had encountered anything having to do with both a Sith world and claws.

Terrin...

...the tuk’ata...

Jasyn gulped again, his eyes shifting to Galen’s still-limp form.

No WAY could he let that thing get in; at least, he couldn’t let it get to Galen or Matt....

Letting his mind spin a bit as he tried to come up with an idea, Jasyn pursed his lips. After some length of thought, he pressed a comm-frequency in, opening a secure channel with Matt once more. “Look, buddy, I have a feeling we have at least one tuk’ata out there. No way is he getting to us without a fight, and I’d be more than happy to take him out, considering our last brush with one of these monsters,” he said darkly. “I don’t know if we can roll ourselves back over,” he then continued, “But I figured maybe if we extend the Raptor’s wings that might redistribute her weight and get her back on the ground. And if it doesn’t well...

...maybe we’ll take out whatever is out there, tuk’ata or not...

...can you do it?”

“On it right now, Jas,” came Matt’s reply. “Anything’s worth a shot at this point.”

And even as those words were spoken, Jasyn could hear the whirr that accompanied the beginnings of the extension of a lamby’s wings, along with a whole hell of alot of grating. Whether that was due to the persistence of the animal outside or the protest of the Raptor, Jasyn wasn’t quite sure...

...but if it was whatever was outside, it had suddenly got a hell of alot louder...

Wait I.

Man, did the tuk'ata manage to get in here fast...

And that's when Jasyn realized that it was not alone...

...and that suddenly a horde of Sith were upon him, fully armed. He aimed his blaster at whatever happened to be coming and his and Galen's general direction and squeezed the trigger.

Not that it was going to help, but give a guy credit for at least trying...

I blinked that eye, wondering what was wrong with what I was viewing.

Lessee now, hmmm. I must still be in Eagle, for there are the familiar blue and gold seats, and there's the navigation console... even though they're suddenly affixed to the wall and not the floor... hmmm... and oh look, there is Jasyn and Matt, now how did they get here? I must be dreaming....

The last things I managed to see before nodding my head in affirmation to my last thought were the incredible ones of ten-inch claws piercing right through the hull, a powerful arm swiping them in a gleaming arc to wipe a blaster Jasyn was holding into nonexistence, followed by myriad looming and horned shadows which took over the night. Even as those demonic things took over my consciousness I caught a glimpse of two humans fighting... fighting vainly, even though one or two of the shadows seemed to yelp and drop from sight....

Yup. Sure as there's Treasure on Roon.

I gotta be dreaming....

Aaron's poor ship...

This time, however, the warriors were ready for what Matt was gonna throw their way; before Jasyn could react to it or try to assist, one of the warriors pommeled Matt on the head with his sword, instantly knocking the man out.

Jasyn grabbed the navigation console, hoping to catch the warrior off-gaurd as he swung with it. As he did so, parts flew all over the place, and a few grunts and yelps accompanied that. Jasyn was so consumed with taking out what was in front of him...

...that he thoroughly missed what might be behind. He didn't have time to analyze what hit him when the Universe immediately went black...

Either Tarnus sent more guys like me after the child, which I seriously doubt, or the Imperials are starting to slip up in their defenses...

Curious as to who the inhabitants are of the ship, Romanus piloted the Usurper to land near the wreck.

As he approached it, he could no longer sense their presence there...but it was replaced by something darker. Something that was swiftly fading away...

A trail. Hell of a fast one, too. Whoever took these guys got some speed with 'em.

Primitive feelings of HATE and ANGER welled through my psyche. My blood coursed through my veins like an erupting volcano. Swelling with Dark energy. My head felt like it were about to burst. I relized that while I was out of the game that anything could have happened. You've let everyone down again! a voice in my head screamed to me.

"I won't let that happen!"But you can't even help yourself! How will you help others?

My Lavender orbs flashed open glowing in the dimmness of night, as I returned from the resesses of my mind to the land of the living. "AAAAAARRRRRRHHHHHH" I roared. I tried to sit up but to no avail, as I found myself fastened to some sort of stone slab.

With a surge of unprecidented strenght, I ripped free from my restraints. Quickly jumping off of the stone slab in time to avoid the large blunt object that crashed in the precise position my head had been. I reached for the borrowed Lightsaber at my waist to find that it was not there.I guess it's gonna be the hard way!

Several large an ominous looking creatures surrounded me. Claws raking through the air, hungry for my flesh. I used as much energy as I could muster and mentally pushed all of my attackers away. All but one. There stood a lone Sith warrior. Probably a high ranking officer in a grand army of warriors. He smiled at me with fanged teeth, as if to say your puny skills are no match for me boy!

"A tough one eh? We'll see about that!"

The sith warrior advanced as I searched for a weapon of some sort. Just my luck. Nothing around! But he wasn't going to get me without a fight! I rushed in at him, extending my left fist to make contact with the side of his head. CRUNCH!!! The contact with the Siths horned head shattered my hand. The being just stood there smiling at me.

Pain was not an option for me right now as I was too far lost in the Dark Side. All of that pain I channedled through my good hand and sent streakes of Blue/white lightning at the Sith. How I hated these beings! The Sith warrior reeled back against the wall, howelling with pain. I poured on the juice. The screaming stopped. The Sith was dead. But I took too long as the group of Sith I had knocked back surrounded my Exhausted body once again. With a final burst of Dark Energy I created an explosion of Blue Flames around my being. Dealing serious burns to all the Sith surroundiing me. I had weakend the group, but they were still too much for me in my now weakened condition. The sith over powered me and had me subdued once again.
There certainly was strenght in numbers! If only Jasyn had waited for Jebbua and I! These were my final thoughts as I faded back into the blackness.

Her lip curled and she shot a glance to Roan, who nodded. Then she nodded in turn to Salandaar, who approached the writhing and delirious Dash and with quick and almost furtive movements leaned down and wiped the blood from his head and face. The resulting injury gleamed wetly in the dim light; it was easy enough to bind with herbs and a clean bandage.

That accomplished, Salandaar bowed briefly to Graysith and returned to his troops, all who yet stood in a stolid ring about the three people, waiting as did their Lady and their Lord for them to arouse themselves from their unconscious state.

Graysith frowned as time ticked on, though the darkness which oozed from the flailing Dash fought to return a smile to her lips. The frown won the small challenge.

If these feeble beings didn't awaken soon, they would do so to find themselves buried away in the temple dungeons for the rest of their pathetic lives.

"Where I am?" I asked and with that i become silent and waited for her to answer.

I opened and closed my hands before my eyes to be sure I wasn't imagining anything. Sure enough, my hand was fine. And my body seemed no worse for wear. My head on the other hand...
Could it have been a dream? Or a nightmare even? Could I really have turned that far to the Dark side?

Romanus finally stopped in the middle of a large rock formation and rested his shoulder on a nearby rock-face. It's been hours since he set off for whoever took the crew of the downed ship, and he felt like dropping dead on the ground.

"I swear...this...this is the last place I expected to be..."

Suddenly Romanus heard something scatter dirt and rock behind him. He immediately reached inside his coat, grabbed one of his spikes, turned, and threw it at whatever caused that noise.

He heard a shout of pain as a dark figure only a few yards away collapsed to the ground.

Who--

Well, at least in as civilized a manner as a stranger barging into her domain could manage, considering he had been dragged before her by a squad of Sith warriors.

...when a small noise came to her ears. She cut off the sentence she was about to utter, cocking her head and lifting a brow as in the distance came the rhythmic pounding of cadenced footsteps, accompanied by the unmistakable clatter of tuk'ata nails on stone. Smiling, she watched as her dear and loyal M'wonBo'o came bounding into the Great Receiving Room, and clattered to a rain-splattering halt at the foot of the dias. There he spit out his mouthful of trenchcoated stranger, then turned and ran off to find Ghrr and A'liya.

Bare seconds passed, and the remainder of the storm-drenched Sith warriors entered, burdened with Jasyn and Matt and....

A shadow flitted through the violet eyes of the Dark Lady of the Warriors then, as beside her came Lord Roan's undeniably delighted hiss:

"Well, well, well....

"We meet again... whelp."

Guests.

His sensuous lips curled in derision, just enough to cleanly display his elongated and razor-sharp canines, and his eyes glowed with a satisfaction he couldn't help but feel simply by comparing himself to these mere humans.

How weak they are, how snivelling!

Musing further, he now strode down from his throne, coming to a halt in front of the silent trenchcoated one. For a moment he stayed there, sensing out with the All, clearly feeling the darkness in that bald-headed one, smiling further to sense it. He then followed suit with the others, coming to a stop before each of them, one by one, seeking deep into their very essences with his talents as easily as a hot knife cuts through butter. One by one he beleaguered their souls: Dash -- ahh... yet more darkness in this one... Jebbua, the young and lithe Alexis, the stalwart Matt and the slowly awakening -- as well as slowly simmering -- Jasyn, leaving for the last....

Her.

Now his smile broadened to a full-fledged one, exposing his gleaming teeth. He reached out a clawed hand and took Galen's chin up roughly between his fingers, his nails raking her already bleeding and bruised flesh. Slowly, in a terrible mockery of tenderness, he leaned down and whispered into her ear, very low, very quietly, so that only she could hear.

"So good to see you again... whelp. We shall have to get together and ... remember the good times we had together, shall we not?"

His claws tore fresh gouges in the skin of her face then as, ripping his hand abruptly from its clutch upon her he turned and mounted the dias as a warrior king mounts a stolen kingdom. At the top he whirled, his elegant robes whirling about him, revealing his glistening and deadly battlesword, and leveled a steady and dark gaze down upon the young Jebbua.

"The question is not where you are... human," he sneered, raising his arm to point an imperious finger at them all.

"The question you must ask yourselves now is why indeed have you come here. Have you tired of life, then?"

Still standing like a statue riven in stone, he fell silent and waited to see who would speak first.

Prayed that he was, in fact.

And it wasn't because he had a few minor physical injuries causing him some aches and pains. It was the sight of Graysith and Him there...

Jasyn let his browns focus a bit better, and then he let them follow the Dark Lord as he stopped for an all-too-long moment in front of each of them: Some bald-headed guy, Dash and Jebbua and that girl...

...what the kriffing Hell were they doing here...?

...and finally Matt then he and Galen. Roan seemed to spend extra time considering her, then in a smooth motion sunk his claws into her skin, whispering something into her ear and then leaving fresh gouges as he ripped his claws from her.

Jasyn bit his lip in anger, nearly drawing blood. He all but pratically ignored the Dark Lord's final words as he simmered til at length his emotions were boiling. Struggling against the grip one of the Sith warriors had on him. His brown eyes flitted from Graysith to Roan...

...gee, sure appeared she had changed rontos in midstream; this didn't look good to say the very least...

...and back and forth again. Seeming to forget just who he was speaking to, Jasyn growled, "Leave them alone, they've done nothing! And leave her the Hell alone...!"

Still boiling mad, Jasyn's browns locked on Graysith rather than on Roan. The look in them was clearly furious...

...but something deep inside them indicated a curiosity as to what, if anything, she was going to do...

She sighed.

"Come, come, Ankrist; do cease your posturing. Clearly they know who you are... or at least have great intimation of it at the present time. These dramatics will gain us naught; sit, and quiet yourself, please."

Blinking, she turned her focus back to the others.

Blinked yet again, and finally spoke.

"You have yet to answer a question which has been put before you. We seek no battle with anyone here; why have you come invading our privacy here?

"What is it that has brought you here to K'eel Doba?"

But even as she uttered that question, the trembling look in her sister's brown eyes told her the answer that she sought. And while her expression remained emotionless, her demeanor icy calm, the Glyph on her forehead began flaring into indignant life as she turned a meaningful look upon each one of them, one after the other, silently and in her own imperious manner commanding each one of them to speak.

No WAY was he gonna spill anthing right away, especially not with HIM here, especially not after some of the things he'd done to Galen, to Darra...

...and to Terrin...

Romanus sat up, and wiped some sort of goo off his face. He was practically coated with it. Add to that a searing pain to his head and throughout his lower body, and you have one of the worst days of his life.

Where am I?

He wiped his eyes to see more clearly, and nearly jumped (if he wasn't hurting so bad), when he spotted a huge creature towering over somebody.

"Oh hell." The Force was going off like fireworks in his head. He wasn't sure if it was coming from this thing in front of him or the whole place, and frankly he didn't care.

There was only ONE truly dark presence in this room, and I had felt it befoe. The bald headed guy I fought on Sullust. What the hell did he have to do with anything here?!?

"Honorable hosts, I am Dash Kelderon. IT is no mishap that I came to your planet this day. I came is search of my friends there." I pointed in the general direction of Galen, Matt, and Jasyn.

"These two..." Again pointing, this time toward JEbbua and Alexis, "were unwilling participants in the journey. Only coming along because I gave them no other alternative."

Graysith cocked her head a bit to one side, a preemptory hand of caution flashing out in the direction of the lowering thundercloud at her side. In response, Dark Lord Roan merely growled, and finally took his seat. There he remained silent -- at least for the moment -- glaring at the humans who were so obviously at their mercy. And if looks could kill, this particular group of humans would have perished in a ravening cloud of sith flame.

When she was certain the impestuous Sith would not press his attack -- for indeed, he had been on the verge of doing so! -- she spoke.

"Your words have no meaning, Dark One," she purred silkenly, like a cat who has caught a particularly plump mouse. "But for the sake of the perceived honor which you seem to feel so prevalent about you--"

She cut herself off yet again, now sending a sweeping glance about the row upon row of warrior Sith who yet held the intruders within their confining ranks, then casting it to the far end of the Receiving Room where the three tuk'ata lurked, waiting, and finally sending that glance briefly into the shadows where something else bided its time. Her brilliant violet gaze returned to Dash, and she stared straight into his eyes. The Glyph howled in cadence upon her brow.

"--for that sake I shall consider them, for therein I do find a grain of truth."

Now she swung her eyes to the still spluttering stranger in the trenchcoat, from whom she felt a great outwash of darkness flood. He didn't look the least bit afraid; in fact, the aura he projected almost was one of insult, as if he simply couldn't believe someone had the audacity to actually take him somewhere without his own permission.

She smiled darkly, nodding in certain... recognition... to that transparent sensation. Then she seemed to jerk somehow, visibly lightening her demeanor. Her eyes bored holes into Romanus.

"And why have you come here?" she asked, the tone of her voice pleasant enough, the look in her darkening eyes anything but...

...then raised a hand to stop him before he answered her. A particular look spawned of certain understanding flicked deep within her eyes then, for she knew to the depths of her soul that what he would answer -- if he deigned to be truthful with her -- would not be spoken aloud in the presence of the others. Indeed, if at all.

She leaned back, letting her countenance soften, lowering the electromagnetic hurricane on her forhead to a mere zephyr, and once again resumed her finger's idle trace of the krayt dragon pearl in the arm of her cathedra. Her eyes flicked to Matt and Jasyn, and lastly to Galen; she held that connection a long moment, letting her sister know she knew why she had come; indeed, what other reason would there be for it?

"You have strong friendships, sister," Her words finally broke the silence, the tone of her voice surprisingly soft. Then she rose to her feet.

The ranked Sith came to a respectful attention, their spears and swords gripped in their hands, ready for the merest look....

"Show our guests to rooms, and where they may clean and refresh themselves and tend to their injuries. We shall dine two hours hence; none here look as if their wounds would preclude them from attending.

"I shall expect you all."

She fell silent then as the warriors bowed, then ushered the group off down the hallway behind the Receiving Room. As they clattered away, Graysith held out a hand, stopping Salandaar in his tracks.

"Find their ships, or the remnants thereof," she commanded in a near whisper. "See to the destruction of what is unusable; no salvage crews of their empire shall sully K'eel Doban soil! And if any are unmarred, see that those should find harbor in Ch'arlingua."

Salandaar bowed, then turned and hurried off. Behind her, Roan let out a disgusted snort, rose and stormed from his throne to disappear down another corridor than the one in which the group had been taken. Graysith merely smiled to see him go, and regained her seat upon her own throne, where she fell into a lengthy brown study, lost in the implications of all that had occurred.

At length a deep and querying whine broke her concentration, and she smiled to feel M'wonBo's loving face tendril twine about her leg. Realizing enough time had passed for her orders to have been carried out, and assured by one quick investigation with her talents that they indeed had, she opened a short portal through the All. The tuk'ata at her side, she stepped out into the spaceport of Ch'arlingua. It hummed with the comings and goings of the Sith, all intent on their inspections of the ships long unused; it did not take long for her to command that great spaceport emptied of the living. When the last Sith had departed, she sent one final glance upon the exotic ships resting there, now joined by Usurper.

Standing at the very edge of the tarmac, she tilted her head back and closed her eyes. On her forehead the Glyph began ravening up the electromagnetic spectrum; at her side M'wonBo'o yowled. An impervious chronotic shield sprang into being around the tarmac, enclosing the ships and locking them away from reality. It seemed to shimmer somehow, and hum, although it was extremely difficult to look upon and its harmonics far beyond the resolution of the human ear.

She staggered a bit and reached a steadying hand out to her tuk'ata. He growled, lending her the support she needed in the aftermath of this small use of her inexplicable talents. Then she sighed, firmed, and left with M'wonBo'o, letting the portal snap closed as she chose instead to travel back to Phrinnchatka through the tunnelled transport system.

Soon it would be time to dine with their guests. Perhaps she would then determine the real reason they were here.

Here searching for his FRIENDS? Buddy, he sure changed his tune...! And how did he find everyone here on Kee’l Doba...?

With effort, Jasyn let some of the tension in his jaw loosen. Finally he spoke. “What a ahhh... surprise to see you here, Kelderon,” he growled. “So what are you going to do, now that you have...

...oh how did you put it...?

...caught up with this particular bastard that went off to help a friend as quickly as possible?”

At that he fell silent, leveling a glare with Dash for a long moment before he let his brown eyes shift to the bald-headed newcomer. Knowing that few even knew the coordinates to any of the planets in the system and keenly recalling that someone else had once followed him once before in hopes of finding Galen, Jasyn was rather disturbed by the stranger’s presence. After all, this guy did seem to have been right behind the trails of he and Matt and Galen...

“And just who the kriffing Hell are you?”

Arching a brow slightly as he then regarded the stranger, Jasyn merely folded his arms and waited. Needless to say he wasn’t thrilled in the least about being here again, and particularly not when he didn’t trust but a third of the parties he suddenly found himself stuck with. A Sith brandy would sure be nice about now...

Yet through it all, I didn't realize quite how many shadowy monstrosities were with us... nor did I fully understand that Jasyn and Matt and I were suddenly not the only humans, aside from "Sister Dearest," present upon this planet from hell.

I groaned, blinked, and sat up, a hand going to my head. Beneath me, cushions of down gave surprisingly firm support to my bruised body.

"Hey, Jasyn, thanks--" I began, but got no farther. My eyes, unwilling sensors that they were, now obliged me by scanning the room I was in almost of their own volition, taking in the data and filling me in on what they had earlier neglected to inform me of.

Or perhaps they had tried after all, and my poor brain was too occupied with other struggles. And now it seemed as if I was going to head straight back into that state of mind altogether....

"That's who poisoned Loban!" I yelped in warning, pointing for a nanosecond to the figure in black the moment his image passed the neural jungle into my head.

"Look out, Jasyn!"

--and... Dash? Oh, Hell's Seven Circles....

Then I had no more room for thought. I didn't even pause to inspect my surroundings, although from the corner of my eye they did look remarkably familiar. I was too busy scrabbling backwards over the top of whatever it was I had been laying on, my hand equally busy scrabbling for a weapon, any weapon, as I flung myself as far from Romanus as I could, my eyes trained upon him until they were finally blocked by the piece of furniture I suddenly found myself on the floor behind.

--in vain--

--for a weapon of his own. And that's when Jasyn's hand hit a disturbingly empty blaster holster; only then did he remember the Sith taking it from him back aboard the Raptor. Meanwhile out of the corner of his eye, Jasyn saw Matt move to help Galen back to her feet, so he leveled a brown-eyed gaze in Romanus's direction. "I don't know what the Hell you are doing here or what you want with us, but you'd best keep your distance," he growled, stepping back himself to join Matt and Galen, thankful that this guy, like everyone else, had been removed from his weapons. His eyes never quite left the trenchcoated figure, however.

Even if the appointed hour for dining wasn't too far away, it was most certainly going to be a very long wait...

“You know I wouldn’t lie to you,” Erik said quietly then, searching for something of comfort to tell her. He dreaded the moment where he would have to tell Shayla that Zack would never be leaving here, not as things stood. “Our baby will be safe here. We--“

He paused, struggling with his next words, “We will have to leave him here at least for now, as we are not Sorcerors, and therefore cannot make a living on this world,” he said quietly, something in the depths of his eyes darkening at his last words.

Perhaps some felt they were not fit to breath the same air, either...

...unless perhaps he was being given no other alternative. And really, what choice was there? Zack was barely hanging on to life as it was. Moving him would most certainly kill him...

She leveled a greeny-blue gaze into his brown eyes. ”Wait,” she whispered quietly. Then she stepped away from him, her greeny-blue eyes falling into Aeylmaar’s amber ones, the look in them strangely calm, all things considered. “You would permit me to come and see my son?” she queried quietly and non-accusingly, forcing her motherly instincts and emotions aside to view this situation from the bigger picture...

...and from what would truly be best for Zack. After all, the Sith had seperated a child from her mother once before...

...and it had not been with ill-intentions towards the child, so far as Shayla saw it. So she waited in silence then, her greeny-blue eyes still affixed to Aeylmaar’s in question, her thoughts not far from where she was going to go from here...

"Pull yourself together, man." he said, wiping some more of that goo off his sleeve. "If I wanted to hurt any of you, you'd have cracked skulls by now! But it seems we're all stuck in the same pile of bantha dung..."

Romanus laid back on the couch. It was quite soft and comfortable, and he REALLY felt like going to sleep now. Unfortunately, there was still that dinner to attend to.

As well as that strange woman...could that be the girl's aunt?

Using my body as a Ch'iss sheild to cover the group, I watched the bald man very carefully. He was a crafty one, and I worried that he may have gotten a weapon or two by the search. I also kept a watchful eye on Jasyn. I didn't need another blow to the head at this point!

There was no reply forthcoming from this mystery man. "Alas this is getting us nowhere. For now we should work together, to get off of this planet alive. I'm willing to put aside any differences we may have for the time being." I eyed Jasyn again to make sure he didn't come down on me. "Provided you co-operate with us for now!"

COOPERATE!?!

Something about the way Dash seemed to switch from Knight in Shining Armor to Mediator at the Tables in but the merest span of seconds, accompanied by the way this black-coated piece of bantha fodder was lounging so comfortably now upon the couch--

Hey. That's MY couch, buster, even if I was forced into departing from it momentarily...!

--cut through my immediate panic at seeing the one who had sent Loban into his coma. For a moment I quivered on the floor, blind rage rapidly replacing the fear in my eyes, battling against the logic which rose within me with the advanced admonishment that I not try anything stupid....

Hey. When was I ever the one to heed logic? I mean, totally?

The last smug sentence Romanus had uttered was still burning in my ears as I suddenly launched myself over the back of the couch and came flying, all feet and fists, smack in the bald-headed guy's unsuspecting lap.

"You BASTARD!" I snarled, heedless of the immediate movement of the others around me, just trying to put in whatever fury-induced licks I could as compensation for what he had done, before I was either stopped by the others...

...or killed by this slimebag.

Romanus didn't seem the type who worried about hitting women. So I let Galen punch and scratch away. Ready to move on the man should he even raise a hand to defend himself. He deserved all that he was getting and more.

Still, Jasyn stuck close should he be needed but never so much as lifted a finger to stop Galen. And hell, this guy had been searched up and down for weapons like the rest of them; there was absolutely NO WAY he had anything on him, so this might be the only good shot Galen would ever have...

Buddy, if only he had a blaster to lend to her...

He stiffened into an emotionless statue. The only movement coming from him was the flaring of a single nostril; without speaking so much as one syllable he arrowed his eyes directly into Shayla's, held them there for what seemed hours longer than the actual seconds which had passed.

"You already know the answer to that question, human," he finally whispered.

Then he simply turned and walked away.

But Romanus, too, has a limit. As his face turned red, both from his rage and the small scratch marks Galen left from her strikes, it was clear he was reaching that boiling point. There was a brief lapse between hits, in which Galen was preparing to attack again and left herself defenseless.

And that's when he lost control. His left hand shot up and gripped Galen's neck hard, almost digging his fingers into the back of her neck. Yet before she realized what had happened, she still delivered two more punches into his face. The other two were quickly moving in to help her, but Romanus had jumped up off the couch and onto his feet.

A swift backfist with his right hand on the blue-guy, followed by a sidekick to the third, unknown man's chest sent them back. Romanus, still holding Galen by the neck away from him, backed away from them.

I couldn't. I was too far gone. There had been too much, too much... and quite suddenly I didn't care anymore. All I knew was that Father, Jharmeen, Sorben, Darra, Terrin, and now Loban had all been loving parts of my life... and were gone. Dangling carrots, one by one, each snatched cruelly from me as I continued plodding forward as if I were but an automaton, only to end up on a planet of nightmare surrounded by all those I had fled in order to protect their lives.

If I wasn't hurting so badly I would have laughed for the sheer irony of it all.

All of it then, all the pain, all the anguish, every lick of it just suddenly coalesced and formed into the dark-coated image of the man who had me by the neck. Whose fingers I could feel digging cruelly into my neck, into my throat. The heat of his fury washing over me like a tidal wave, adding impetus to the grain of logic who waved its figurative arms even harder.

I didn't care. I just didn't care any longer.

Like a runaway machine whose off-switch is broken, I kept kicking and scratching and gouging, tears of mingled rage and agony trailing from my reddened eyes.

You bastard! You cowardly bastard! I wanted to cry but could not, for his grip about my throat was too tight. It tightened further, now cutting off my oxygen supply; that only triggered me to press my attack more strongly.

You won't kill me yet... I'm not ready to die just yet... you're going to pay for what you've done.

My flailing fingers found the front of his trenchcoat, ripped it open to reveal sweat-gleamed flesh beneath, and it was that flesh I now sunk every nail into as deeply as I could... which was to their full extent.

Nonetheless, it was something that needed to be dealt with immediately. Anger still flowing through his muscles, and using the assistance of the Force, Romanus turned and throw Galen at the blue-guy. He broke off the Force-choke to try and catch her, but both were still knocked to the ground.

Romanus, rubbing his neck, swiftly backed up again so all three were in his view. He held his right hand behind him, summoning dark side energy into it. He could feel it forming into a ball of electricity.

A stampeding reek would have been easier to stop at that point. Like I said, all I was aware of was red, and the powerfully dark strength washing from this black-sotted creep, whose dire presence only drew me toward him like a magnet.

You asked for it!

Strange it was, something not quite of that which men term real, yet possessing the epitome of such awesome power as to make the raging nuclear fires of a star seem less than the feeble light of a match. It was as if it were a color unsensed, an odor nonexistent, something positively there but not; indeed, it was more as if instead of being aware of a new strangeness, I was suddenly being shown the heart-tearing emptiness of all my previous existence in which it had been not. Even so I didn't really feel this, didn't lend a lick of notice to it; all I knew was that my instinctive lunge to attack this man had turned from something sparked from the purity of righteous anger...

...to something darker than night, something foul and gibbering, which now raised its weird non-ness in cool calculation...

...and took up the blue-white lightning being pumped into my system and sent it back tenfold, straight into the dark one's blood.

The force of that utterly unexpected eruption sent me recoiling head over hiney, where I crashed into someone coming to my assistance. I wasn't sure; on something closer to a conscious level I was still seeing red, only now that red was broken with splotches of shocked incredulity.

What in the name of Hell's Seven Circles was that... and how in the name of all of Roon's Treasure did it come from me?

Then that shock melted beneath a fresh onslaught of sheer dark and evil hatred... and I smiled, leaping to crouch in preparation of yet another launch into Romanus, with the realization that this final emotion was flooding not from him.

But from me.

He could still breathe, thankfully.

I'm still alive...haha...this sucks...

Trembling, I reached out, lay the back of one hand on his face, moved it with deceptive tenderness down his cheek.

Mine-- something deep and unfathomable growled beneath my soul of souls.

just unconsince. thank goodness. I thought after i took Galen's post. I got up and looked at the others.

"Anybody got any water?" I asked. "and another thing. What do we plan to do here now?"

--as if he could really do anything about it--

--when something happened, and something that appeared to come from Galen shoved that blue-white lightning back at Romanus, knocking him flat on his back...

...and Galen as well.

With the greatest concerted effort, Jasyn picked his jaw up from the floor and helped Galen back to her feet. For a moment she stood equally shocked; then suddenly went for Romanus once more, straddling him. Jasyn didn’t have too much sympathy for the downed man...

...that was a fact. But then, he really didn’t want to see Galen get hurt any more than she might already be...

Like she was gonna get hurt after that—that—what WAS that...?!

...but he moved to try to get her to back off. About that time her eyes rolled back in her head, and she fell limp. The Jedi moved to check Galen’s pulse, and asked if anyone had any water, then going to Romanus and checking for his pulse as well.

Jasyn scowled. “We ahhh... care if he’s alive or not?” he queried darkly, his pointing finger indicating Mr. Trenchcoat. “I think not...”

Even as he said this, Matt, who had gone off somewhere or other, managed to return with a goblet of water, handing it to the Jedi helpfully then stepping to the side.

Only then did Jebbua’s last query register in Jasyn’s head. “And what do you mean by what we plan to do here now?” he growled. “It’s not up to us anymore, and besides, we make no decisions without Galen’s input.”

At that he knelt beside Galen, who Jebbua had at least rolled off Romanus. He picked her up, sending a look at Romanus that could have killed as he did so, and returned her to the couch where she had been resting before.

Then he whirled and eyed Jebbua. “Leave Mr. Trenchcoat where he is,” he stated darkly. “He can take care of himself..."

Finally Shayla shifted, turning once more to the Sith incubator, her look focused on the very small child within. Something deep within her simply ached, every atom in her being longing to simply stay there with him.

But she couldn't. And she suddenly needed something so desperately to fill the hole in her heart...

Turning to Erik, Shayla finally spoke, her greeny-blue eyes leveled with his. "We need to get back to K'eel Doba," she said in a as-a-matter-of-fact tone.

"There is no way we are going back there after she--" Erik started, but Shayla cut him off with a look.

"Things are not always what they appear," Shayla said flatly, her eyes suddenly diverting from Erik's to rove about the Inner Sanctum.

She wasn't even sure they were what they appeared to be here...

"We're going back, and that's final," she reiterated, suddenly realizing that her legs felt like jelly underneath her. "Let's go, while I still have the strength in me to stand at all."

Nodding at that, not saying so much as a word, Erik simply moved to Shayla's side, placing a supportive arm around her and casting one final long glance towards the Sith incubator protecting his son...

...and then leading his wife from the depths of the Temple and beyond to where he had berthed the Supernova.

However my head was still on straight enough to see about getting this mysterious guy restrained so we didn't have anymore surprises out of him. I searched the luxurios room for something to bind Romanus with. The tie-backs from the posh, velvety, deep purple curtains seemed as if they would do the job. I snatched them up and bound the strangers hands and feet. Then using a short lenght of the "MacGuyvered" bindings, I tied his hands to his feet like a cowboy would "round up" a calf.

"That aught to keep him out of our hair for a little while anyway." I checked everyone over for injuries. Even Jasyn. "Hold still" I told him. "I'm just gona give you a once over to make sure nothing is broken."

Aside from a few new scrapes and brusies, everyone seemed fine. Seemed fine! Galen had yet to recover from her... well, whatever it is that she had done. And that worried me. "Jebbua, let's see what we can do for her." I sat down in the hopes that Jebbua would follow my lead. Some Padawan I am. I seem to take charge every chance I get!

I began to probe inside Galens unmoving body with the force. Searching for something, anything, I could do to help her recover!

"This may take a while." I informed the others.

What gives here? One minute this Kelderon guy doesn't seem to give a damn about Galen, and the next he's right on top of things...?

Frowning a bit at that, Jasyn stuck just a little bit closer, all but completely ignoring Dash as he checked over everyone's injuries...

...that was, until he and Jebbua came around to do whatever it was they were doing to help Galen. Jasyn slit his eyes minisculey, keeping a very close eye on the two of them....

"Look Jasyn, I know we don't see eye to eye on most things. But I'm improvising here! If you can think of something better to do with that guy, then go for it!"

In fact, they were groans... and they were coming from me.

A deep and resonating utterance, originating from somewhere deep between my chest and my throat, put figurative fingers upon lids that felt as heavy and gritty as all the spice Kessel has ever mined, forced them open, and then sat back snickering to itself. Gradually the whirling colors and sounds and smells came to a stop, revealing something blue which hovered over me. Even as the form began to crystallize something whammed into me like a runaway ronto, sending an unwilling heat blazing into my face. I reached out a weakly flailing arm.

Damn those pheromones anyway...!

Now the groan issued from my mouth with a vengeance. I struggled; then my flailing hand connected with Dash's shoulder and I hauled myself up to discover I was once again on the couch and being tended to.

This is getting to be a habit--!

"Wha-- what happened?" I managed groggily, still tottering on the edge of full awareness and that wonderfully fuzzy state which immediately precedes it. My grip on Dash's shoulders tightened then, but it wasn't in an effort to remain upright.

It was that somewhere, somewhere deep inside of me, something hovering just beyond the limits of unconscious recognition drew back with a laugh that was pure Night, coiled into a tiny lump of something, and quietly closed whatever door it was that was hiding beyond so securely in my psyche.

I shivered without really knowing why, and put my arms around myself, for suddenly the room seemed to be filled with ice.

Turning his attentions to her one brief question, he answered, “Our pal over there,” he started, his look dark at that, “Tried to send some ligtning your way a la the Emperor. I was sure he’d hit you, when suddenly the lightning was somehow...

...pushed right back at him. You managed to knock the bastard out...

...and yourself as well.”

Jasyn quieted at that then, wondering again precisely how this happened. Certainly Galen had to have some Force abilities or...

...or just maybe she had something else as well. Jasyn’s mind flashed back to another time and place, remembering when he’d heard Terrin relate how he and Galen had gotten away from Graysith and Roan in the Temple of Khar Delba....

...and how Terrin always seemed to think what happened had as much to do with Galen as it did the unborn Darra.

That weird power that Graysith and her children and Galen’s children had...

...somewhere, deep down, did Galen have it too? For how could she have kids with this power if she didn’t?

At length, Jasyn snapped from his thoughts, trying to calculate just how to state them. "Galen whatever happened almost looked like...

...like some of that power that your sister has.”

Not knowing what else to say at that, Jasyn simply quieted, eyeing Romanus every so often...

...but keeping the majority of his attention focused on Galen and the others in the room.

"Kill him! KILL HIM!"

"Remember, your name is Romanus..."

"...carrying cargo of foods and medical supplies to Coruscant..."

"Welcome to the Imperial Army."

"She's mine, Corporal! GET BACK!"

"Corporal Romanus, you have been dishonorably discharged..."

"If you are reading this now, then you are Number 19..."

"Figure out the machines, and you'll be immortal..."

Romanus opened his eyes, but quickly shut them. His dreams have come again, bringing him back to consciousness a lot quicker than he thought. The last glimpse he had was that they were still in the room...

And they hadn't dragged me out yet.

I walked over to Alex is who was staning to the side wacthing everything.

"Could you go find a blanket for Galen? She is cold, and needs to be warmed up." I said to Alexis making sure that only she heard. She hurried off to find one.

Then I headed back over to the couch and on my way back I noticed that the guy in the trenchcoat looked like he was having nightmares or something the way he kept struggling on the floor.

That said then, Jasyn returned his full attention to Galen, wondering if anyone had even heard the words he had spoken concerning whatever had happened between Galen and Romanus only minutes before.

Well, apparently not Mr. Jedi Master over there, some shoulder-devil snickered.

Jasyn did his utmost best to ignore it. Now is not the time for that...!

So instead he simply placed a hand on Galen's shoulder, concerned. "Galen?" he queried, then simply fell silent without moving so much as a milimeter.

"That wasn't me...!" I whispered, shaking my head in something approximating denial and wonder. "It- it couldn't have been me...."

Jasyn started to reply when he was abruptly cut off. The door to our room opened as silently as the wings of some night bird, revealing in its frame the ominous outline of an aquamarine-eyed Sith. He bowed his horned head to us in a somewhat perfunctory manner; then turning a bit to the side he indicated the corridor without.

I turned a wide-eyed glance from Jasyn to Dash to Jebbua, then ended that sweeping look back upon the one who had been sent to retrieve us. He waited while we trooped into the corridor... then went into the room to unbind the trenchcloaked slimebag and shake him into somewhat rude wakefulness.

Romanus in tow, he returned to where we were waiting. Then he led us to the oh-too familiar Dining Hall, where a glossy black table was waiting for us. She sat at one end, looking calm and self-assured... while the opposite seat from her was occupied by the looming form of the lowering Lord Roan.

Only the sounds of our shuffling footsteps marred the electric silence as we were led forward and ushered into seats, with me finding myself near one end with my sister on my right and Romanus on my left. On his other side was Jebbua; across from Jebbua was Jasyn, then Alexis across from Romanus, and finally Dash's blue-skinned form was placed across from me.

When all were present, Roan lifted a clawed hand; upon closer scrutiny I saw it contained a wine goblet completely dwarfed in his grasp.

He said nothing, but held that goblet high, waiting....

We entered the grand dining hall. The large black table looked quite imposing. The room was a bit dark and dreary for my likeing, but I could tell that it was quite lavishly decorated. We were seated. Galen accross from me, with Alexis on my right, and Graysith on the end to my left. Jasyn on the other side of Alexis; Jebbua across from him, the trouble making trenchcoated guy across from Alexis.
How I was beginning to hate that trenchcoated guy!!!

The gargantuan looking Sith held up a goblet of some sort, waiting for something.

I didn't want to do anything to upset our hosts so I waited for Galens lead. She had been here before.

...well, it had always been Terrin. Good thing Matt was here...

...this drink was gonna be needed. So, with no further ado than that, Jasyn reached for his own glass, more interested in its contents than in the "toast" Lord Roan seemed to be waiting for. As he glanced at it, the demon liquor raised its head and snickered.

Brandy. Is that...

...Sith brandy...?!

Almost instinctively, Jasyn now reached for the glass, picked it up, and started to raise it to his lips without so much as a toast...

...when out of the corner of his eye he spotted a warning...

...yet extremely calm...

...look from Matt Stanza.

Damn. Some things never change. Here we go again...

As these thoughts sped through Jasyn's mind Matt, most certainly keenly interested in the actions of all present and particularly the Sith, simply raised his glass, his green eyes revealing nothing of an emotion whatsoever. Jasyn's eyes grew a bit vague.

He always hated this stuff...

...after all, Dark Lord Roan...?!

And if HE hated it, he couldn't imagine how Galen must be feeling. Why if Terrin was here, he would...

Jasyn forced himself away from these thoughts, something distant in his eyes darkening. Then, a bad feeling worming its way into the forefront of his psyche, Jasyn raised his glass...

...and with much effort, forced himself to wait.

After quite a bit of a debate, Erik had managed to convince Shayla that they should return to K'eel Doba in standard rather than hyperdrive so she could get some rest. As he sat there alone, staring at the controls, again Erik hesitated in returning to K'eel Doba at all. Shayla had already experienced enough hurt for the past few hours...

...how could he take her back there again to experience more...? Even now, she still didn't believe him concerning Graysith...

,..at least not entirely; this was evident in her demand to return to K'eel Doba even after what he had told her.

Was it that she just didn't trust him, or did she simply need to see for herself? Then again, was it something else entirely?

Erik frowned at that, knowing somewhere deep down that it wasn't a trust issue...

...but still somewhat discomfitted by it. Unconsciously one of his hands strayed to the navboard...

"Don't even think about it," a level, if still somewhat tired, voice spoke, breaking his thoughts.

Erik turned to look at Shayla, but she wasn't looking at him; rather, her greeny-blue eyes stared dead ahead into space towards a nearing K'eel Doba, the look in them somehow distant.

"How much longer?" she asked.

For a moment he simply gazed at her, then diverted his own eyes to the planet looming in front of them. "Just a few more minutes and we'll start the landing cycle," he started, then turning back to her. "How do you feel?"

For an instant, Shayla's eyes grew impossibly more vague. Then, "As well as can be expected, for a mother who has given birth and had to leave her child somewhere for his own good."

Erik pursed his lips, a small hurt of his own running somewhere down deep. He reached out a hand to lay on her arm supportively, and let a few moments pass by in silence which was only broken by a proximity indicator. For another moment, Erik remained quiet then, "Have a seat," he said softly to his wife, his hand slipping down her arm and around her own hand as she then moved to the coplilot's chair of the Supernova. Only then did he let her go, and return his attention to the navboard. After establishing orbit around K'eel Doba, he reached to pull up the coordinates for Char'lingua...

...and again frowned, looking up and directing wide brown eyes in Shayla's direction. She merely arched a brow in question.

"The spaceport," he started, "It's not there..."

It just isn't going to happen....

...at least not properly, anyway. Jasyn seemed ready to simply dive in, unheeding to any toast whatsoever. Everyone else...

...was just simply waiting.

Well, there's one way to fix that. Make a toast, and see what happens from there.

With quite an amount of nerve, Matt then let his green eyes sweep across every person sitting at the table. Then he made the toast:

short, simple, and right to the point.

"To whatever lies ahead," he said, raising his glass once then taking a drink.

Nearby Jasyn nodded once, rose his own glass...

...and took a good drink before lowering the glass once more. Matt tilted his head slightly, his green eyes sending yet another warning glance in his buddy's direction.

Take it easy there, pal. Take it easy.

Beside her, Erik shrugged, but Shayla couldn't help but wonder if deep down he was thinking this might have been done to prevent them from returning. Shoving that thought aside then, Shayla closed her eyes, questing out with her Force-talents to access the situation for herself...

...and to determine if Graysith's familiar Force-entity could be found. After some length of seeking, Shayla found precisely what she was looking for.

I'm on my way back...again, she thought out across the Force-link she had with Graysith. Then, opening her eyes, she looked to Erik once more. "Can you find coordinates for Prinn'chatka?" she queried then. "It'll be the largest city on the planet, I believe...and right next to that blank spot that would be Ch'arlingua."

He nodded once, then turned to the navboard and went to work. In a matter of a couple of minutes, he looked over to Shayla once more. "Found it...

...I think."

Shayla frowned a bit. "Well, we should at least be able to tell once we get closer...

...I'm sure Graysith is still in the city. Fly into atmosphere and see if there's anywhere we can land."

"Might take some time," Erik observed then, "K'eel Doba is rather populated; there seem to be alot of cities."

"Well, if all else fails, we'll get to Prinn'chatka the traditional way," Shayla responded. "We'll walk."

I took a large gulp of the dark liquid in the ornate goblet that I held in my hand. It burned my throat all the way down, leaving a tickling sensation. I had to clear my throat with a subtle "Ahem".

"I'm not sure that we have all been properly introduced. I am Dash Kelderon, Jedi Knight in training. This beautiful woman to my left is Alexis. And her brother Jebbua Dahutt my teacher." I pointed in his general direction. "For some reason or another I feel you already know Matt, Jasyn, and Galen. But the identity of this man." I pointed to Romanus. "Has me completely baffled. He is definatly not with us!"

"Now that the introductions are done, I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about your beautiful planet? And perhaps some insight into why everything I've been taught about the Sith seems to be a lie. You certainly don't seem like an evil race of beings. If anything you seem a proud and honorable people."

I once heard that Flattery will get you what you want. I hoped this was working!!!

I looked to my companions for a sign to stop or keep going. Jasyn downed his goblet of Sith Brandy. I wondered if he was even paying attention to me.

I had decided to continue with my flattery, when a young looking sith woman arrived with exotic smelling dinners. Everything smelled soo good. There were several types of "greens" and a nicely cut portion of... well, I wasn't sure what kind of meat that was. But I wasn't going to be the first one to try it. I decided to wait for a better time to continue speaking. Perhaps I'd continue after the meal was finished.

...thoughts of her son, thoughts of her husband, thoughts of chosen sister...

...and thoughts of what might lay ahead. Also her mind revolved around recent events; and suddenly something became quite obvious to her even as they continued towards the Temple.

Aeylmaar. It was always Aeylmaar that she and Erik encountered. So then where was...?

Before she could finish that thought, Shayla's attentions were focused to the approaching Temple doors...

...and to the great Sith warriors who guarded them. Respectfully she bowed to them, a sense of de ja vu sweeping over her as Erik did the same.

"We wish to see Graysith," she said calmly, evenly.

Again the great horned Sith nodded, sending her a meaningful look before leading she and Erik inside to the Dining Hall where...

...much to her surprise...

...several people sat with Dark Lord Roan and Graysith. She scanned the table briefly, recongizing some and yet not recognizing others; with great aplomb Shayla merely cast meaningful looks in all their directions...

...even in the direction of Galen Danner despite the way their last meeting had progressed. At that thought, Shayla couldn't help but frown, if only momentarily.

Where was Loban?

Deciding not to press that one at the moment, the Chosen Sister finally approached Graysith, once again nodding to her in the utmost respect. Then she leaned in close, speaking softly to fill her in on what had happened on Khar Delba...

...and to give voice to her suddenly rising concerns.

"My premature son lies hanging to life in an incubator on Khar Delba, perhaps only as human bait to the elusive Master Tyberius...

...and perhaps not," she started, a pain running deep before Shayla let it fade. "As I understand it, I will not be allowed to return to see my son; the rift between humans and the Sith there appears to be great.

"Therefore it greatly troubles me that Lord Aelvedaar shows not his face; both times either I or my husband have encountered the Sorcerors it has always been Aeylmaar, never Aelvedaar...

...and it is always been with aloofness on Aeylmaar's part, as though he is hiding something or does not trust us with something. I just know Aelvedaar is plotting something...

"Thank you for the report," she said smoothly, her voice low, her tone unruffled, her eyes cutting to pin upon Lord Roan. "But you speak of things which have no place here among our... guests."

Now she slid her gaze from Roan's thunderous look, pausing once to give Erik a particularly lowering look of her own. Finally she placed both hands on the table's edge, pushed back her chair, rose to her feet. Whatever conversation that had been in progress between the others ground to a complete halt.

"You have accomplished that which I have sent you to do, to the extent of your abilities. Your obligation to me and to the Sith are with that now complete. You are free to go, and to find the life which awaits you without."

Nodding once to Shayla, she then turned from her and regained her seat. One pale hand took up her fork, stabbed at a choice bit of meat, carried it to her mouth. From the shadows behind her, Salandaar came forth to stand with quiet meaning behind Erik and Shayla, one hand lightly upon the hilt of his battle-sword, waiting.

Now the Chosen Daughter laid her fork down once again. After wiping her lips with delicate little stabs of her napkin, she raised her face to the others, capturing the attention of all with an even more delicate cough. When all murmurs had quieted, she spoke, her eyes once boring holes into Lord Roan's but her words clearly intended as reply to Dash.

"Strange I find this arrival of the lot of you, you who have pretense of innocence in being here. You claim connection with the sister of my blood, yet with that connection you claim ignorance of us as well. And you have the sheer effrontery to attempt flattery with such sickeningly sweet words."

Her chair made an awful, hollow clatter against the stones as she rose suddenly to her feet again, knocking it down as she did. One hand reached out and took up her wine goblet.

"You are not here to gain a lesson in Sith history, that much is certain!" she suddenly flared, now fire igniting in her eyes as she swept a regal look from one to the other around the table. "You are here for purposes of which you have yet to speak, and you skulk behind your honeyed speech like a dianoga in the swamps of Dagobah.

"This will cease!"

With that she threw her goblet, and stood in trembling anger as it dashed to pieces at her feet. The splintery crash echoed like a thousand laughing voices as she stood there, the Glyph now igniting into ultraviolet brilliance, the wine she had been drinking pooling like spilled blood at her feet.

But she wasn't yet finished.

A slow, cruel grin crept across her face, exposing something of the whites of her teeth. Though she was not born of the Sith, by some strange trick of the firelight they appeared as suddenly sharp as the fangs now peeping out from the equally curling lips of Dark Lord Roan. Her eyes darkened to oxblood in her face, and the hand once holding the goblet now loosened, the arm straightened, and in one inexorable motion she indicated the people ringing the table before her. But although her eyes never left them, the words she spoke were clearly intended for Shayla.

"As sister I chose on that day long past, I now give you one final caveat. You shall serve the Sith or not; in doing so you serve me.

"Kill them. Kill them all.

"All who are not Sith who are in this room other than you and I; all non-Sith!

"Now."

Now that pale and slender hand lowered to hide itself within her cloak beneath which lay the hidden form of the Tooth of S'slan. She fingered it lovingly, and waited.

Romanus made an look-what-you-got-us-into glare at the blue guy, before standing straight up out of his chair holding his arms up.

"Whoa whoa! Let's not get too rash here!" He pointed a finger at Galen. "I came here in search of her. She stole something of mine and her mates here thought it best to give me a few bruises in return."

He stared back at the Sith woman at the end of the table...the one who's obviously in charge here. "Hey, it's a payback thing. You do stupid things when your mad...like landing on this planet for one." Romanus smiled...for about two seconds.

I'm so dead.

"Okay, okay. Before we pass judgment here let me make this clear: I am not Sith, but I am more and less than human." There was a serious, yet desperate, look in his eyes as Romanus continued. His arrogant stance was long gone. "I'm sure you sense it. I'm a hell of a lot different than any other being you've met before, and can be very useful to you..."

So easily dismissed...

...and now this? What use was there for killing these people, she didn't even know some of them...

...why her? Why had they not already been destroyed if in fact that was what Graysith or Roan had intended all along? Instead, they sat eating with the Lord and Lady...

...as guests? Was Graysith somehow trying to make a point? This didn't seem at all like something she would request to be done.

Well, point or no, Shayla simply couldn't do it. Perhaps this would be her final destiny; she'd already lost her son, had already all but forgotten her brother, and had seemingly lost her place as Sister and Adept.

All she had left was...

Shayla's mind centered on that one thing she did have left per the moment.

Erik... all non-Sith...

...did that mean...?

No way.

Firming then, ready to meet whatever destiny awaited her, Shayla simply spoke one word, softly, utterly ignoring Romanus's ramblings to save his own skin.

"No."

She pinned her with a dark gaze like an entomologist pins a particularly fascinating speciman. A tendril of her essence wormed into Shayla's mind, bringing with it a single word:

"Failed--"

Then she withdrew that tendril, snipping off the force link established between them with a decisive snik. She took a step back and finally spoke aloud.

"You will leave this place... all of you and never come back if you wish to live. All of you, that is, with a few... exceptions."

Smiling like the krayt dragon with the biggest pearl she motioned to Salandaar, who yet hovered behind Erik and Shayla. He nodded back, raised a hand in command, and was promptly obeyed as some strapping warriors broke off from the group hidden in the shadows of the Great Dining Hall. A couple went immediately to Romanus, surrounded him, prompting him to his feet with short meaningful jabs of their weapons. Then they turned and disappeared with him through a quietly lavish doorway in the back of the chamber. The others surrounded Galen, yanked her from her seat, and dragged her away as well.

The remainder of the Sith drew their swords in unison and took a step toward the remainder of the group. They stood in rigid expectation, waiting, the blades of their swords glittering in the subdued light with something other than the mere scintillation of tempered durasteel.

At the other end of the dining table, Dark Lord Roan sat smirking. Finally he raised a napkin to his lips, dabbed them delicately, and rose to his full towering height. He nodded to the others as if they were merely departing for caf in the study.

"If you will excuse me," he rumbled with a courtly bow, then departed in the direction the warriors had taken Galen.

Graysith only smiled more broadly as she watched him go. That smile remained on her face then as she turned back to those remaining behind. Either the events which had occurred had done so with such swiftness that none other had a chance to move or say anything...

...or each entity present knew that to move or speak would only usher death and were wisely remaining still as stone.

Another succinct nod from the Dark Lady of the Warriors, and the Sith had the group on its collective feet. Behind Shayla and Erik, Salandaar finally drew his own sword and with it requested they join the others. This was accomplished without fuss or remonstration; soon all who had come into the Khar Delban system were huddled together as dewbacks on Tatooine are herded by Imperial troopers.

"And to assure that you do not return... at least not in the very near future...."

Before anyone had the time to so much as blink, the lighting in the Dining Hall was shattered by the suddenly ravening Glyph, which at lightspeed escalated up the electromagnetic scale into gamma and beyond. Graysith closed her eyes and threw back her head, her hair floating about her head in the field generated by that sigil, looking like flaming seaweed in an ultraviolet sea. With all her energies she sent forth questing tendrils into the minds of those before her, easily penetrating their feeble mental defenses, probing, seeking... and at last finding. Using the incredible strengths of the All, she erected barriers within the minds of each of those present: Jasyn, Matt, Dash, Jebbua, Alexis, Erik and Shayla, and blocked from their conscious thought any and all memories having to do with the Sith.

Every lick of them.

The strain of being invaded in this manner was too great. One by one they dropped, unconscious, the final flickerings of exotic cities and strange technologies and tall and stately horned beings dimming from them to fade into the dark. One by one they were picked up by a Sith warrior, who bowed to the unseeing Daughter of the Sith, turned, and quickly carried off to where Supernova sat waiting for the return of her owners. One by one they were trucked aboard, dumped into seats; as Shayla and Erik arrived, the former being carried by Salandaar, that Sith watched as his warriors departed. With quick and sure fingers he dialed a departure vector to Sullust, set it to initiate in ten minutes and then to scramble the origin of the ship's point of departure. Then he quickly left the ship to return to the Temple.

Behind him, precisely ten minutes later, there came a rush and a roar as Supernova lifted from K'eel Doban soil, seeking the purity of space, and then the even cleaner lines of hyperspace beyond. Within her comforting confines, the little group snored on.

Left behind, alone in the Grand Dining Hall, Graysith uttered a little grunt as the Glyph gradually quieted down. Her shoulders sagged from the effort she had just put forth, her eyes feeling as heavy as stones. For a moment she stood gathering her strength, one hand reaching out to a chairback for support. Then she drew herself up into her former regal demeanor and glided to the small door in the back of the room.

The lounge she entered was lit by wall sconces, heavy with rich carvings and lush fabrics. Romanus was seated at a small table, a goblet of glittering green liquid before him, a somewhat surprised aura radiating from him although to his credit he showed nothing of this.

Another smile flicked about Graysith's lips as she approached where he sat. Joined him. Raised a hand to a suddenly appearing young Sith lass, and ordered a goblet of her own. Turned her violet gaze directly into his dark eyes.

"You seek power, I sense it within you," she began a bit offhandedly. For a moment she held him with her gaze, then turned it upon the goblet she held in one hand. She turned that goblet about, watching the light reflecting off of its contents for a moment before quietly setting it down.

One hand made a waving motion, as if to indicate not merely the richness of the Sith lounge but all that existed beyond its walls. Her casual look became suddenly filled with nuance and unspoken meaning; laying her hands gently upon the table she leaned forward. Her breath came out sweet and warm with the words she now spoke, and as soft.

"And now you will be so kind as to tell me how you may be of use to me," she purred, and fell silent.

"Outgoing from the Khar Delban system, one ship, course vector seems to be... Sullust; Engineering! Get a tractor beam on that ship... ARRGH!!!"

The lieutenant went so far as to fist his hands and smash them down upon his computer boards, as heedless to the pain produced by that action as those boards were to his ability to damage them, as the ship referred to popped into hyperspace with a small burst of laughter.

The conning tower of Relentless grew ominously quiet then. The lieutenant stiffened at his station, gained control of himself, then keyed a frequency to Engineering.

"I presume what was just viewed was not a cached glitch?" he queried, stiffening further at the returning, "Negative, Sir."

He sighed, waiting for the footfalls he knew were forthcoming. His track record certainly hadn't been impeccable as of late, and with the loss of this latest ship....

The door to the conning tower whooshed open, right on target. Booted feet crossed the glistening deck, came up behind him. The aura of something ominous clouded over him.

"Lieutenant...."

After a few moments, he opened his eyes and looked at his host. "Alright, I'm ready. Now where do I start off at...oh yeah."

Romanus coughed to clear his throat, then straightened up in his seat. "Okay, as I said before I'm not exactly human. I'm a clone, you see? Developed by the Empire."

"After Palpatine bit the dust, the Imperials went nuts hunting for the remnants of his cloning facilities. The Jedi were coming back, and they sure as hell wanted to be ready for 'em. Around this time, a bunch of...uh...I guess Dark Jedi were sniffing 'round for something called 'The Valley of the Jedi.'"

"Now, an Imperial ship discovered a planet where Palpatine shipped some of his facilities to. The Empire dropped some buildings and a group of scientists there and took off."

"That's where I," he pointed at himself,"was made. Along with 18 of my bros. Most of which I killed during the test runs. And...oh...oh wait, I forgot to mention! We were clones of Anakin Skywalker, genetically modified and conditioned so we were superior to the Jedi."

"Anyways, after the testing I was considered to be the alpha copy for the next wave of clone Dark Jedi. Unfortunately, some idiot named Desaan persuaded the Empire to drop the project, and move on to makin' Reborn soldiers with the Valley thing."

"The project was canceled, but the docs refused. They sent me away just after the Empire landed troops down there to teach 'em a lesson. And now here I am..."

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Still unspeaking, she considered all Romanus was saying, engulfing him with a look that on one hand was sweet as nectar, on the other could devour worlds. Then her lips crooked in a little smile, and her hands dropped to lay on the table, one sliding across so that the very finger that had been tapping against her teeth now brushed lightly across the knuckle of one of Romanus's hands as it lay casually on the table, holding his goblet by its stem. And with that bare contact allowed a small tendril of her talents to flow into him, to bring a modicum of soothing warmth into his strained and affronted muscles.

"Tell me of these Reborn," she whispered softly, that none other would hear but the dark entity sitting across from her.

You came off too ambitious, you moron.

Other than that, she didn't move a millimeter.

Jedi. Reborn. A-- machine???

The more her thoughts whirled in her head, the more statue-like she herself became until at length it seemed she was not a living being but something crafted by a master artisan. Yet more time ticked past, in which the buxom Sith lass arrived with another set of goblets; the whispering sounds of her setting them down before the two and removing the others was as soft as the sussuration of a Belkin's wings, yet echoed alarmingly in the sudden silence of the lounge.

Graysith blinked, letting the tiniest of smiles curl upon her lips. Once again she leaned forward toward Romanus, but this time did not reach out to touch him further.

"And how would you, a mere one, be of assistance against entire armies of these Reborn?" she asked at length, ending with an almost offhanded comment: "Either they are not the threat some might perceive them to be, or you are indeed a powerful man."

Romanus's temper showed briefly on his face; his neck turned red as he tried to control himself from making an outburst. He completely missed that last bit about him being 'a powerful man', but his anger started to die down anyways. He knew his 'host' could sense it and, in a way, Romanus feared what she might do about it.

"Understand this, whoever you are." he said sharply, directing his emotions to his speech, but also hiding the fear in his voice. "Reborn are not Jedi. They never were, and never will be. They're an abomination to their species, and to those who use the Force. The very sight of them sickens me, and its worse when I see the people who fear them."

Romanus abruptly stood up from his seat, leaned forward, and pressed his knuckles on the table. "I've killed dozens of them, on remote planets all over the Outer Rim. They're no match for what I'm capable of. If it was up to me, I'd purge this galaxy of every single one."

Graysith let her full lips curl in a bit of a smile; with yet another broadening of that grin she placed her goblet carefully upon the table and looked up at Romanus. Noted to herself his own actions, the fluid movements of his body: his strong hands knuckling upon the table, his leaning forward, then seating himself as though not having a care in the world about the fact that he was currently sitting in a lounge of a temple full of beings thought to be extinct from the galaxy for four millennia.

She got quickly and gracefully to her feet, and came round the table to stand behind the trenchcoated clone. Her slim hands found purchase upon each of his shoulders; without further ado she began kneading them, letting her fingers work into the tense and thick muscles there, finding and eradicating knots. She didn't say anything, just let her hands work into his flesh, until at length his shoulders became loose and supple beneath her touch.

It was then that she leaned down to whisper into his ear. Her breath came as soft as a spring breeze.

"From your words I can only believe that you are indeed a fierce fighter, my friend," she murmured, her hands not leaving his shoulders but keeping firm hold upon them. "One who has what some have come to call the Dark Force at his beck and call. I can sense this in you, not only the clear ability but the yearning to use it, to destroy without second thought, to kill without qualm.

"But...."

She paused for a moment, drawing in a breath, the intake ruffling against the smooth flesh on the top of his skull. Then she leaned in even closer so that her lips were scant millimeters from his ear, and continued in a whisper scarcely louder than the sound of falling thistledown.

"Can you love in equal measure? Have it within you to find compassion, and pity, and willingness to act for the good of a cause, for those who would gain by it in turn?"

Graysith and Romanus saw the bodies of the guards that had been at her door lying dead in the entryway. This guard, whoever he was, was unnaturally strong. They both scanned his face, and noticed one important thing: the man's eyes were blank expressionless. He did not have the fiery glow of Sith eyes. He looked like a toy or a doll almost. He just stood there, staring at both of them. Suddenly, he spoke in a flat, monotone voice

"Must capture Graysith. Must capture Graysith."

The man sounded like a zombie, a talking doll. He chanted this as though it were the only thing that mattered in the world. Odd indeed, for a Sith. Without warning, though, the guard drew his Sith sword and lunged, directly at Graysith, still chanting wildly

"Must capture Graysith!"

((OOC: After this, I won't have contact with a computer for a week, so keep going and keep the topic alive. Cya, all.))

In many regards, circumstances warranting it, a mere second can encompass an eternity. And in others, create one in its entirety. This was of the former variety.

One second... in which the other patrons of the lounge began to react. The dim lighting cast even dimmer shadows, revealing the beginnings of movement as here and there the Sith began to respond each to his or her own way: heads began to turn, mouths to open, bodies to begin taking themselves upright.

One second... in which the warrior who was coming at Graysith and Romanus -- one of her most loyal -- covered another ten feet, blade lifted high with gleaming, deadly intent.

One second... in which Graysith felt Romanus begin to stiffen beneath her touch, whether in surprise or readiness to attack he hadn't yet the time to reveal to her.

One second... time enough to make a decision. And she did.

She stayed her hand, and waited.

The question of whether or not she actually wanted Romanus to interfere on her behalf was lost as he summoned one of the swords of the guards at the entryway to him. The blade flew past the assailant and into Romanus's hands, who was already on his feet and charging at his opponent. He deflected the man's sword, stopping his charge at Graysith and forcing him into a fight.

Romanus stared at the guard's face; this guy's cheese fell off his cracker a looong time ago! There was NOTHING there, a blank expression.

The Sith guard launched a series of fast, reckless attacks on him. Each blow was incredibly hard, and Romanus always found himself on the brink of letting go. But each swing also left him open, and as the guard slashed straight downward, Romanus spun to the side, dropped to the ground, and performed a leg sweep.

The guard hit the ground hard as Romanus brought his sword forward...

A slight smile of satisfaction curled upon her lips as she raised one slim finger, almost as an afterthought...

...and summoning that wonderful power given to her by Aelvedaar so many long months ago, reached out unto the very molecules of the air. Their vibrations began to slow, and they began to crystallize even as the Glyph on her forehead flared into life to light them in a surreal ultraviolet glow. The smile faded somewhat with her effort then, as she swayed in the aftermath of forming a wall of solid air between Romanus and the fallen warrior. She blinked then, jerking herself from that secret place she travelled to when using her powers, and focused on the pair in front of her.

Romanus stood over the Sith warrior, blade halted in its downward slice. Beneath him, separated by that invisible yet very much tangible wall, lay the Sith warrior, his eyes huge and empty hollows in his head. Graysith had not merely erected a barrier between the two combatants, but had allowed it to thicken, actually pinning the Sith to the polished stone floor of the lounge. He lay there, still struggling, trying to wield his blade against his attacker, the blank look upon his face the sole indication of how aware he really was of his surroundings.

Graysith waited... and waited a bit longer. To all outward appearances she seemed to be contemplating the scenario; in actuality she was regaining her strength. A frown now marred her features as, allowing a tendril of her essence to penetrate into the warrior's being, she sensed the absolute blankness within.

Her eyes flicked up to Romanus, and she nodded slightly in approval of his actions.

"A pity," she said then and allowed the barrier to drop. Rejuvenated, the Sith warrior slashed upward with his blade, his actions not so much in the attempt of attacking that dark being who straddled him as much as to go through him to get to the Chosen Daughter. His eyes as empty as a shark's, he snarled, sliced upward, slashing, kicking out with his long legs....

I blinked, suddenly aware of a chill that seeped into my skin, that crept into my very essence like the cool onset of Death... a chill which brought with it a vague memory of sitting at a table, then being unceremoniously dragged off to....

To where?

To this place... where turquoise eyes came bearing down, the fires of Hell's laughter gleaming in their depths.

A shudder yanked me upright, and I blinked again. The ghostly afterimage of those eyes disappeared into the shadows, leaving the lingering sensation of laughter that was almost palpable. I shivered, leaping to my feet before I really understood where I was, or how I had gotten there, or why. All I could think to do was to inspect myself, frantic, seeking to find the deep wounds I knew I would surely find, for wasn't that what happened to me the last time I had been in this place?

There were none. At least nothing visible.

I blinked again, wrapping my arms about myself, and finally looked around. Immediately wished I hadn't. For as peripheral vision and the haunting echo of near consciousness had already informed me, I was in a dank, dark cell so very similar to the one I had been dragged into so very long ago by those nasty Noghri, whose slashing claws and clutching hands had performed superbly to make me forget anything but utter, complete, and total agony.

Not this time. I appeared hale and whole... and quite imprisoned.

I cut my eyes to the foul-looking door. It was covered with something that almost seemed to writhe upon it, it's wood worm-ridden and blackened by age. It was quite solid, bolstered by huge bolts and heavy hinges and large, round nailheads; it's aloof solidity broken only by a small slit about four feet from the floor. An upwelling sense of disbelief drew me to that slit, half expecting to see the baleful eyes of Noghri guards peering in at me through it. But no.

I was quite alone.

I was very much, too terribly much alone....

I reached out to the door with both hands, and laid my palms against the moss-befuzzed wood. Then a burst of despair struck me, and I slid down to my knees.

If I was in here... what in Hell's Seven Circles had happened to everybody else???

JhinDarra shivered, placing her arms about herself, and struggled mightily to keep from simply bursting into tears. There was no warning, no clear understanding; for some inexplicable reason, however, she was suddenly filled with a sense of despair so deep, so overwhelming that she leapt up like a startled gazelle and fled her room, letting her feet take her blindly through the passages and corridors of flame-lit stone as though the very hounds of Hell were snapping at her heels. Now tears did come, filling her eyes, blurring the view before her; she gulped a little and closed them, letting something other reach out and see for her, allowing it to take her to the One she was certain could lend her comfort.

Her footfalls scarcely sounded in the hollow halls as she moved rapidly along, red hair tumbling along in her wake. And at length she arrived where that unfelt sense led her: the Grand Dining Hall. With no thought but to seek her mother, she hurried inside, homing in on the link with the Chosen Daughter; passing patrons enjoying a late dinner, she continued on through to the door at the back.

There upon its threshold she came to a screeching halt, the tears drying in her eyes for the flames of outrage now erupting therein. For before her was a totally unexpected tableau: the sight of Graysith, coolly aloof, with one of her own warriors on the offense, his blade gleaming sharp and deadly in the sconce-spotted dark.

Between the two, a dark-coated stranger. His bald pate gleamed like a death's skull, and he too wielded a sword of the Sith.

Something began rushing upward then, overtaking her earlier sense of despair, filling her with heat and outrage and a different type of fear, one so deeply seated she was not clearly aware of it. She paused, then began to lunge forward, to do exactly what she hadn't a clue...

...but was once again stopped as her mother's eyes cut to her. The look in them was like a solid wall of durasteel, halting her just as assuredly as if she had slammed into it. Tottering a bit then, combating the fiery anger and the cold despair which now returned with a vengeance, she stood there, her eyes wide, chewing on her lip, knowing she could do something yet not knowing what.

And wondering, indeed, why she had the persistent urge to even want to try.