StarDestroyer.Net BBS

This is a collaborative work between me and my friend Mike, who lurks here sometimes but doesn't post. It is about 21000 words worth of consecutive vignettes and short stories that combine into something approximating a novella. Neither of us really knows, or cares, about the EU, so we have ignored everything after the Thrawn Trillogy.

Tense bounces around from vignette to vignette, but I think it's good anyway, or else I wouldn't have posted it. Comments and criticism are desired.

Enjoy.










A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....

STAR WARS
The Kindness Lie

In the chaos after the destruction of the second Death Star, two hostile governments emerged: the New Republic and the Imperial Remnant.

Over the following decades, their power became more entrenched, and their war raged on. Poverty spread. Whole planets burned under turbolaser fire. Crime rose where government could not spare its power; slavery grew rampant; petty dictators carried out their own purges on countless worlds. Trillions died.

A new order of Jedi arose and flourished. But a band of Jedi turned to a man named Tantiss and betrayed their pacifistic brethren, hoping to use the Dark Side to end the cycle of war. They were defeated at great cost, and their minds were consumed by hate. Greatest and most terrible of them all was Tracyn Chaelos, a Dark Jedi who had left his apprentice behind....









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The Monster
31 ABY - Eleven Years Ago


I am a monster.

The words reverberate through the core of my being, their truth painfully evident in the blood pooling at my feet. I didn’t have to kill her, really—she was nothing to me, just a silly girl with the bad fortune to be caught in my path—but there she lies, nevertheless, her severed head lying neatly beside the rest of her body as if the stroke that killed her had placed it there on purpose.

She could’ve come with me. I gave her that chance, that single, shining opportunity to join our cause. But someone within the Order got to her first, filled her head with big ideas and noble sentiments. Probably her dead Master, who proved even easier to kill than she. Pacifists are such fun that way: spend a lifetime training yourself not to fight, then see how useful you are when a monster shows up at your door.

About two blocks worth, judging by this fool. That’s hardly enough running time for your young, pretty apprentice to get a head start.

And she was pretty. I’d never seen her before today, but she had a good body. Nicely shaped breasts, good hourglass figure, strong legs, all the right curves. I might’ve had the chance to explore them, had she joined us. Who am I kidding? She’d have been in my bed in about five minutes flat, if I’d offered. Master Tantiss’ followers deal in passion and flame, and my very name evokes the burning, aching, joyous pain of fire searing flesh.

She would’ve been mine, had she joined me.

Now she’s dead. Pity. I could’ve used a good lay.

I kneel beside her, wipe my hands on her robe. The pool of blood is spreading over the durasteel deckplates, now, and I must step carefully to keep it from reaching my boots. The girl wasn’t the one I came for, and I don’t intend to be at a disadvantage when I find my true mark.

The air is cold in here, but I’m not bothered—already I can feel the heat and passion of bloodlust falling over body, drenching my soul with its sanguine yearning. I’ve already killed two Jedi today, plus the handful of their pathetic “Rangers” and other lackeys. Please. I’ve killed children that proved more of a challenge—and isn’t that sad? Give a normal human a gun and a uniform, give him armor and grenades, give him training and practice and he’s still just a normal human. And I’ve killed more of those than I can count.

There. The hairs on the back of my neck and forearms go stiff as the slightest whisper in the Force passes across my senses. He’s here, now, and not far. He wouldn’t like to fight me—he knows he’ll die—but he has no choice. He thought he could hide here, thought he could escape the fate of the other Masters, thought he could just run away from it all. Typical Jedi sentiment.

There’s a door in front of me. That won’t do, so I casually chop it in half. He’s there, just through the other side, bathed in the soft blue glow of my lightsaber blade.

“Traitor.”

Aineias always did have a way with words. My lip twitches.

“Not here to talk.”

He sneers, and a pair of purple blades extends from his closed fists. I almost laugh—I knew the winged fool liked to fight with both hands, but purple? Gaudiness becomes a Jedi not. I don’t laugh, though—not now, not yet. Laughter throws them off, but you don’t want to use that too early in a fight. Make them desperate, then rub it in their face, but don’t provoke them while they’re still confident. I smile.

He doesn’t strike first. That doesn’t surprise me—not because he’s a Jedi, but because he’s not a fighter. Tantiss has sent a lion to kill a scholar, and the lion plans to enjoy it. My blade comes down hard across his left hand weapon, a flare of white energy crackling where the swords meet. His right hand blade is already whipping around to skewer me, and I obligingly parry it to the side. He laughs.

“This won’t last long, pup.”

I don’t think he’s ever seen me fight. That’s good, because I’ve damn sure watched the holos of his practices duels. He’s out of his element here, enclosed and without terrain to work off of. And my bladework is infinitely better, but I don’t let him know that. Not yet.

Another flurry of blows rains down on me. He’s moving faster, whirling the lightsabers more, trying to find the killing strike. If it was Vash, I’d have made a move to disarm at least one of those blades now, but in truth this isn’t much of a challenge. I want the winged Jedi to think he’s winning, so here and there I slip up—but only just so, and never enough to place myself in real danger.

Our blades lock and he throws me forcefully backwards. He’s leering, gloating as if he’s finished me off. I can feel the red mist at the corner of my eyes, just out of sight and mind, begging to take over. A Jedi would fight it; I embrace it.

I leer back.

Aineias draws back, ready to begin another series of strikes, ready to continue the dance. But he doesn’t dance like I do, and I’m already getting bored by the music, and all I can see is red. My weapon moves without being told, finding its way perfectly in between the whirling purple spheres of light before me, sinking deep into the soft flesh around his heart and then down, down, deeper, deeper. I don’t register the expression on his face, because Tracyn, the man, has checked out. Only the monster remains.

He’s trying to say something, but I don’t listen. I can’t. My blade comes down on him, and he goes to the floor. I strike again—and again, and again, and again, until the red mist has faded from my eyes and only the mangled corpse of a Jedi Master remains. This must be how a butcher feels, I realize, as I see that my clothes are stained with gore and my boots with blood. The stench of entrails and seared flesh burns my nostrils, while charred shreds of clothing and flesh litter the shiny deckplates. My gaze falls on an arm, still clasping one of the lit weapons. I stare until the lightsaber goes dark.

The monster smiles.






Awake
41 ABY - One Year Ago


Tick, tock. Tock, tick.
Down and down,
Round and round,
Here where hate and fear abounds…

My eyes open, and I am, again, awake.

No—no, that is not right. My eyes cannot open, for my body is gripped in the cold sleep of a Jedi stasis field. But my mind knows where it is, at long last, and I am, again, awake.

Perhaps not for long? Lucidity comes and goes, rises with my hatred and falls with my despair, buffeted by the inexorable roar that is ISOLATION. Together, men can be horrified; but to be left alone, alone and awake? Sanity can endure only so much.

I have counted to ten million. One, two, three, four, one hundred, one thousand, one million, ten million! I have tried to name all the stars I know, all the species, all the worlds. I have turned myself loose, for months or years at a time, to rage silently against my “merciful” tormentors.

And I have remembered.

My cousin’s skill was formidable: he turned my strike, leaving me open from sternum to skull. But Vash merely spun his lightsaber around in an elaborate disengagement, and I smiled as he again failed to kill me. He was still too focused on the flashy moves, still too eager to learn. He could not defeat me, not like this; not now, on Yavin, at the height of my power!

But even as I raised my sword to resume my attack, he lashed out in a blindingly fast counter. I barely had time to realize that his flourish was a setup before his blade had cleaved off my hand at the wrist. The shock opened me, just for a second, to his next attack; an impossibly powerful shockwave coursed through me, and then -

Darkness.

There was a trial, or so I was told. Two votes to kill me outright—my grandfather, Triax—but the rest…

The rest were “merciful.”

Killing is not the Jedi way, they said.

We cannot do this, they said.

Imprison him, they said.

And so I am bound. Left awake, but paralyzed. Left to stew in my own hatred, or to rot in my own despair.

I have imagined their deaths—entertained furious, impotent fantasies of the shock and horror on their faces. I have raged at the darkness, fought bitterly to stay awake—to remain Tracyn, the man. I do not want to be an animal; it is enough to be a monster.

I have wondered. If Tantiss had not chosen me, if I had not felt that first rush of power when we murdered Skywalker, where would I be? If I had not tasted that primal delicacy, would I hold a seat on the Council today? Could I have been the one to strike the killing blow against Tantiss, instead of my grandfather?

LET ME OUT LET ME OUT LET ME OUT

I struggle against the silent, invisible tide that rises once more.

I will not despair.

I will not despair.

I will not despair.

I, Tracyn Chaelos, have not breathed for eight years. I have not tasted food—not experienced pain—not known a woman’s touch. I have not felt the furious pleasure of victory, nor the sinking agony of defeat. I am empty.

I am alone.

A voice.

I do not know where they have hidden me—a barren asteroid, a dead moon, a cell at the bottom of the ocean—but I can neither feel the Force nor the strength of my own hand. And yet—

“Release him.”

A hiss in my ear. The click of plasteel armor, and the tapping of keys.

“You will serve me, Tracyn Chaelos.”

My eyes open—for real, this time—and immediately recoil at the bright halogen light that illuminates my cell. With effort, I open them again. I will not surrender the small gift that is sight, not again.

I do not recognize the man beside me, but my instinct is to destroy the red-armored Royal Guards that flank him. A low black hood conceals the man’s face; his accent, however, is unmistakably Imperial.

"I am Emperor Ravenous, legal master of the galaxy. And you will serve me." He pauses, a dark twinkle in his eyes. "In time."

"Do you think so?" I say at length. Eight years of imprisonment deprives a man of fear.

"Yes," he says, smiling. "Yes, I do."

I feel myself smile.

I am free.

Tatters
27 February 42 ABY


The night they came for her, she dreamed of him. He was as she knew him, as she loved him. Teacher. Master. Mentor. Friend.

"When the match starts, he'll come. But you're faster. What do you do?"

"Strike; neutralize his initiative," Carinna said.

He nodded.

"He wants to beat you, knock you down again. I know that, you know that, he knows that. What do you want?"

She faltered. He hadn't asked her this before. Wasn't it obvious? "I want to win."

Her mentor grinned. The expression was dangerous on his lean face. "Yes. Want it. Want it with your whole self."

The Yavin daylight faded then, faded to dusky red, and a chill swept over her as the temperature plummeted. Tracyn's grin vanished. His robes changed color, turning to dingy white that fluttered in the creaking wind. Her beautiful robes had turned into a horrible dirty grey smock.

"They're coming. They'll destroy you if they catch you. If you want to live, kill them all."

Tracyn Chaelos disappeared, dissolving into the white curtains over the barred window to the red-lit hall. She was shivering in her cot; the thin blanket provided by the Mind Ward was tangled around her waist and offered little warmth. It was dark; the cells' interior lights were only on during the day. The high warble of suppressed blasterfire reached her ears from down the hall.

They're coming, Carinna.

Great. Now she was hearing voices when she was awake. Had she moved her plate yesterday? Had the Force answered her call? Had she said she was Carinna Versun, Jedi Padawan, when they shot her full of truth drugs and dragged her off to the Blue Room again? It was hard to remember.

She rolled out of bed. The floor was ice on her feet and knees. One of the iron bedposts was loose. The top half was covered in rubber to keep the Patients from killing themselves on them, but the bottom in the cement was bare and sharp. She wiggled it. Yanked at it. Damn second screw was stuck tight under its rubber cover.

They're coming. If you want to live...

She shifted around and kicked it hard. It didn't budge, and now her foot hurt.

She remembered a more recent Tracyn, his warrior's face at peace. He knelt, barely breathing. She was beside him. She felt his warmth. "Reach deeper," was all he said. It was all he needed to say. She reached, but found nothing. She closed her eyes, emptied herself of herself, and reached as deep as she could. And there it was. There it was.

The bedpost clattered off the cell's far wall, trailing a puff of cement dust.

If you want to live...

Their footsteps were in the hall. No alarm had sounded. The post was in her hand, rubber grippy under her cold hand. They had found her. After - she counted on her fingers, gave up, and guessed - ten years? They had thought she was dead, and now they were here to finish the job. She knew it. Knew it like she knew she was Carinna Versun. Damned to them, she was who she was!

The post felt sickeningly right in her hand. Ten years since she'd held a blade, but her arm knew its craft. Her left hand trembled, but her right was firm. Her pulse pounded. The light vanished as someone blocked the window. She was on the right side of the door. The doorknob turned. Carinna's breath cought in her throat.

I want to win.

Kill them all.

The door opened. For one sick second Carinna thought she would freeze, and then she was upon them, mouth squeezed tight, eyes wild. Her skill was dulled by years of disuse, her body was tired and weak. But good training dies hard, and surprise was with her - and running through her was the power of the Force. Aye, her arm knew its craft, and her eye guided it well.

There were three men, with guns.

There was considerable mess.

Afterwards, after she crept down empty red-lit halls, through doors they'd forced, past the nocturnal wailing of the other inmates; after she saw the corpses of the Mind Ward night staff crumpled in their own blood; after she gunned down the man stationed to guard the entrance with his friend's own blaster; after she fled into the street and towards the undercity, where the penniless could hide and survive - after all that, she felt the guilt. Sick self-loathing assaulted her as she stared at the blaster in her hand, the blood on her smock. She felt sick but choked back the vomit when her body tried to throw away her dinner. She cried, and shook, and shook, and sobbed.

After several minutes, she felt better. Not okay - that would not come until much later. But better.

Several minutes later, she vanished through the permanent smog layer into the city's poor district. She wasn't safe, not yet. But she was alive, armed, and free. For the first time in a long time, Carinna Versun smiled.






Bloodstained
1 March


There is only one law in the undercity. Take what you can. Keep what you have. That's it. That is all.

I was closing my shop as normal. The undercity isn't a safe place but I take precautions, and I do alright down here. It's not like I could live uplevels, anyway. We Believers aren't welcome there. I just want peace, just like everyone else. Down here I make good enough, and I have some peace, and I can draw my pictures without some Royal trooper taking a truncheon to my skull. Still, there are risks.

I had just closed the security door over the front entrance when I caught the whiff of blood on the breeze stirred by the fan in the middle of my shop. Must me from down the street, I thought. I went to secure the window cover and was struggling with the latch when I felt someone looking at me; an unpleasant tingle between my shoulderblades. In the dim reflection on the corrugated steel, there she was.

Bloodstained. She was bloodstained. The big blaster she had pointed at me in a solid isosceles stance was speckled with red. There were flecks of dried gore in her hair, streaks of it covered the bright blotches of fever on her pale face. The smock hanging off her gaunt body had splotches of red-brown where blood had dried stiff against her skin. Even her eyes, dark, haunted, bloodshot. She was a corpse, a specter, a charnel spirit, a vengeful murdered ghost. I struggled to breathe. I was going to die.

"Please don't move," she said. Her voice was weak and high and somehow that made it worse. I took a breath. Her stench was on the air and I wondered how I hadn't noticed it earlier. She must have sneaked in hours ago and waited until she had me alone.

With that thought, some of the horror disappeared. Of course she had. The way she held that blaster, she was probably military or police. A special forces trooper could have bypassed my security. She was an escape, or a deserter. Maybe a POW. Not a ghost.

I raised my hands slowly.

"I need food, money, medicine, clothing. You have them. I need them. I need them."

That may be, but I needed them, too. Without my wares, I might get by; without the money, I'd lose the shop. And then I'd just be another homeless old scumslick on the streets of the undercity. Besides, someone this desperate might kill me anyway, to hide witnesses. Wrinkly old man I might be, but I wasn't ready to die just yet. I steeled myself; my heart was pounding. My eyes found her neck and I noticed that her arteries, too, were pulsing fast under the deep shadow of grime. I took a slow step forward, trying to get close enough to contest the weapon.

She slipped her finger into the trigger-guard and tightened it over the trigger. Her hands were shaking but the barrel stayed fixed on my center of mass. "Please," she said.

So much for that.

As I complied with her wishes, I became gradually aware that she had no intention of shooting me. SpecOps she might be, and pretty fucked up by the look of her, but it was training, not bloodlust, that held the blaster's barrel over my centerline. It was silenced: she could have killed me as soon as I shut the door, and nobody would have known until the next day. She was desperately hungry; her voice rasped with thirst, and there was food and water in arms reach, but she kept her gun on me - why? Because she wanted to get clear of me before she put the gun away. Because she didn't want food bad enough to just kill me for it. When we came to the cash register I was confident enough to make my move.

Getting the shotgun from under the counter would be easy, but I needed her gun off of me first. Even if she didn't want to shoot, she might kill me if she thought I was going to kill her. I concentrated on the hard part.

I think, now, that that saved my life.

I went over it over and over in my mind. I turned the key in the register. I didn't have a safe; I didn't keep any money here overnight, anyway. Pull the drawer, throw the drawer, sidestep right. Pull the drawer, throw the drawer, sidestep right. It creaked as it came out. Adrenalin pulsed through me in anticipation of what was coming, hot as blasterfire. There was a click as the wheels came off the rails. I pulled the drawer. I threw.

Before it left my hands, she was moving. Bills and coins sprayed from the cash drawer; she bent sideways, sidestepping to follow my own movement. She was faster than anyone I'd ever seen. Faster than anyone could ever be. The drawer tumbled past her, missing her face by centimeters. She didn't even blink. She had expected it. Foreseen it. But her pistol wavered a little. Only a little, but a little was enough.

I had the shotgun in my hands before she had the gun back on me. She should have shot me when I threw the drawer. I could see from the widening of her eyes that she hadn't expected the weapon. If she had, like I said, I might have been a smoking corpse right then, before she had time to remember that she didn't want to pull the trigger. As is, she had a gun on my heart, and I had a gun on her feet.

I fixed her with a stare that I hoped was intimidating. I was glad for the counter between us: my hands were steady, but my knees were shaking. "You don't want to shoot me," I said.

She said nothing, but her eyes flickered to the door, and in that glance was all the answer I could ask.

"I'm going to point this gun at you, but I don't want to shoot you, either. I need this money. I need this stuff."

Her finger tightened on the trigger, and for a long, long moment I was sure I had guessed wrong and I was going to die. But a tear formed in one bloodshot eye. She tried to blink it away, but it escaped her lashes and made its own new streak down her filthy cheek. She eased her finger off the trigger. I raised my weapon as she backed towards the door. She lowered her gun.

Should I kill her? I'd try again, in her place. Maybe not immediately, but soon enough. She could get food and water and clothing from others, but I had the only medicine for miles, and she wouldn't make it miles in her condition. Desperate enough... I'd kill me if it was what it took. I fixed her back in my sights. I think she knew that, too. She worked at the latch with mechanical determination, but she was trembling. I should kill her. I should kill her right now.

But I didn't.

In stead, I said, "Wait."

She turned.

I said, "Stay."

Everybody wants peace.

"Stay with me," I said. "I can help you."

She looked at me and I felt chills. All of a sudden I was sure she was looking through me.

She said, "Okay."






Water
1 March


Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink oh, water Force I'm back they got me they got me water Force its cold it's cold it hurts it's cold it's cold water flowing down my back, in droplets down my back. In a shower on my back. Shower, just a shower. It's a shower. I am safe.

I breathe. The air is cold and wet. My head hurts. I have a fever. The little silver pill will help but it needs ten minutes. Water drums on the back of my neck. I turn and water stings my face. A little gets in my nose and I start to panic again but I make myself cough and breath and it's OK because it's just a shower and I'm safe here and it's just a shower and they can't hurt me any more, and water is just water and it's cold and it's wet and it's making me clean.

I turn and scrub with the cloth he gave me, and I turn and I scrub and blood and water flow, down my hair down my neck down my body down the drain, down the drain, down the drain.

When the water down the drain is clear and I can't smell the stench of blood any more, I wring the blood and the grime from the rag and try to splash the water cold water cold water on the inside of the shower to get rid of the little red-brown-clear droplets clinging to the inside. I think that's all of it. Numb my fingers are numb; it's cold. I'm shivering. I turn off the water. The water stops.

I am cold but I go out of the stall into the tiny little bathroom where he's left a little bundle of cloth and the top one is a towel so I use it and I am dry again. The clothes are much too big, but they're clothes. He's left little lengths of cord and I fumble with them to tie the pant legs tight enough so I don't trip over them, and my fingers are numb so they flutter awkwardly like freezing birds with bad wings as the winter rains fall on Alba. Alba? On Alba, my home.

I'm feeling better, now. He gave me some water (warm water) and a silver pill that has made the fever fall. I can breathe better and my thoughts are not so muddy but I still feel the ache in my head and in my bones and in my belly and I know I'm dying, but he has drugs for that too. I knew that when I came to take them. I smell something hot and it smells good, and I realize I've been standing here in the cold and damp little room with the toilet on my left and the shower at my back. I have no shoes and he has my gun and the Force is far away. I go out to meet him. He thought he should have shot me, I could tell, I could feel it, but he didn't, and he helped me and he clothed me and now he smiles.

He has his shotgun across his lap and I don't see my blaster. I don't see my smock, either. I never want to see that smock again. He's sitting at a table and he's pouring something thick and steaming from a plastic jug. He smiles and I remember smiling and I smile back; it tugs the corner of my mouth and my cheek twitches for a second and then I'm smiling and it feels good.

He beckons, and I come.

He offers, and I eat.

He gives me a pill and water and explains that I'll need to take the pills twice a day, and they're expensive so don't go off the schedule and waste them.

I drink the water.

The water is good.






Needs
8 March


Rrrip. The paper sack tore, mostly missing the the dotted line and releasing a puff of drab-colored dust. She poured the contents into a wide metal bowl, which rang with a hissing, tinkling sound as the powder sifted into the water, turning a vivid earthy orange as the water activated dyes in the thickening slurry. Tiny patterns formed and vanished, twisting and spiraling in mad chaotic swirls. Carinna smiled, appreciating their transient beauty, even as her belly twisted hungrily. The box claimed to be "Royal Coruscant Goose Eggs" - though Carinna didn't think there were many royals on Coruscant, and if there were geese there, she had never seen them. They smelled like food, though, and by the Force she was hungry.

The stove creaked and fizzled as she turned it on, but the electric heating element under her pan flashed from dull black to glowing cherry red in under a second. She eased back the dial, stirred the mixture in the bowl until it was a uniform orange - though she felt that the swirling patterns were still there, just hidden to her sight.

Sssizzz, went the mixture on the pan. Saliva jumped to her mouth, making it ache wonderfully. She stirred it, frowning at the weakness in her arms. The only other sounds were the clattering thrum of the ventilation pump and the distant screech of repulsor-trains carrying uplevels workers to and from work, but something tingled in the back of her mind. She frowned, glancing about.

Nothing was amiss. The dilapidated apartment behind the shop was, if anything, more fortified than the shop itself: the windows were tiny and barred; the walls were reinforced with sandbags and corrugated steel; the floor was rust-stained, rough-laid cement. Pemm was out, and his cheerful young friend Gerar was not visiting today. She was alone. She looked at the door for a long moment, then turned back to her eggs. They were almost done. She turned off the stove, thought about getting a plate and making some toast as she had planned, and, as if in answer received an emphatic growl from her stomach.

She ate from the pan with the spoon she'd been stirring with, burning her lips on the mixture. For a second, she held the first bite in her mouth, feeling a reflexive twist of rejection. She had coughed up most the soup Pemm had given her on the day she met him, fever deep-set in her belly, in her bones. For days, it was the same: the fever robbed her body at the same time as it kept her from eating. But the pills had worked, and the fever was gone, and she had kept enough down that she wasn't starving and she could eat without fear. She noticed the taste of the eggs. She thought nothing had ever tasted so good before.

She was halfway through the pan and flushed with the heady rush of the body rewarding itself for eating when something made her look up again. A moment later she heard footsteps outside, and involuntarily tensed. Her eyes flickered to the the knife on the table, the stool beside her, the cane by the door, the still-hot cast-iron pan on the stove. Pemm's wizened face appeared in the tiny barred window. She breathed again. There was a rattle of keys. The door opened. Pemm was there. Gerar was not with him. The old man was pale under his dark skin, sweaty, breathing hard. There was great sadness on his face, and terror in his eyes.

"They know."

She waited, looking intently at him. Ice gripped her heart. Pemm would continue when he was ready, but she already suspected what he would say.

"They know you're alive, Carin. And -" he looked away. Carinna remembered that her gaze sometimes made him uncomfortable, and looked down at the eggs on her pan. She was still hungry, but she didn't feel like eating any more.

"They made a sweep, Carin. Wrong neighborhood - Fabian's district, nearer the Mind Ward. How did you know to come here? To my shop, when others were -" he squeezed his eyes shut, waving his hand in apology for his tangent.

Carinna waited. His next words thudded into her like physical things.

"They made a sweep. They took prisoners. They took Gerar."

A different ache assailed her mouth and throat as she felt the beginnings of tears. Hopes that had grown since her escape vanished in a moment as her fears came to fruition. She nodded. Hair fell over her eyes, but she didn't brush it away.

"Then they know," she said. She forced herself to straighten, to push her hair out of her vision. "You know what I have to do."

He looked at her with the same resolute valor he had shown on the violent day of their meeting. It was only a week ago, but it felt like an age.

"You'll need the pistol," he said at last.

"I'll need the pistol."






Run
9 March


There is little to compare with the sheer visceral power of a Y-Wing starfighter. All thruster and cockpit, the fighter is built from the start to be a dive-bomber, peerless for linear acceleration. Generations of pilots and mechanics have further modified their craft, stripping off armor and rerouting fuel lines, bringing the spaceship's mass down to that of a fighter half its size, and this one is characteristic of them all, although it has been stripped of its guns and torpedoes in the conversion from warship to rich man's toy. I hope it performs as well as I hoped when I picked it out as the craft I would steel. As well as I need.

Ignoring the increasingly urgent orders from traffic control to explain myself, to power down immediately and wait for clearance, I run a quick preflight on the unfamiliar controls. I haven't flown a starfighter in twelve years and even then I never operated a Y-Wing, but the layout is similar and I feel, very faintly, the whisper of the Force as I run my fingers over the controls. My heart races - and freezes as the man from traffic control cuts off and is replaced by a hard female voice addressing me by name.

"Carinna Versun," she says without preamble. "I am Captain Morn. If you lift off, we will kill you."

I test the rudder controls, feeling where they stick, where they slide. I wobble the flightstick. It is a little tight and will take strong force to control.

"I want to help you, miss Versun. We all just want to help you. But we can't let you go away in your condition. You might hurt someone, and you're bound to hurt yourself."

They know my communications are open. This is a civilian bird; the computer sends a pingback after every received message to help communications tracking at near-c relative velocities. They know I am listening, even though I do not respond. I breath as Tracyn taught me, almost hearing his words in my ears, and control my fear. I activate shields and search radar, painting everything from horizon to horizon, doubtless setting off alarms all over the cityplex. I activate the engines and feel their rumble build to a high steady scream just on the edge of hearing.

"Please, miss Versun. Do it for your loved ones, if not for yourself."

In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Emptiness and fullness. The repulsorlifts come on with a dull thump and the ship wobbles a little as it lifts off its landing struts.

"Please, Carinna!"

I slam the throttle forward. Even through the powerful inertial compensators, I feel G-forces pushing me deep into the hard padding of the upright, forward-facing seat. I haul back on the stick, feeling sudden adrenalin hit me. A mad smile penetrates my fear as I am flying again, flying a starfighter, unlimited by the restraints of conventional aircraft, freer than a bird, freer than the wind. In fifteen seconds I will be clear of the gravity well, and I have the jump to Coruscant already plotted in. I bank hard to starboard and the first turbolaser shot tears the air where I had been, and fight to control the fighter as I am buffeted by the turbulence of its passing. My shields take the brunt of a bracketing shot that would have clipped my starboard engine and I angle the deflectors to maximum aft. More shots slash up at me as I juke and spin, lighting the night sky with lines of vivid crimson; another, this one fired at a low angle from the widening horizon, glances off the deflector screening the ship's belly. A row of green lights above my head turn red and I feel the ship's aerodynamics change as something tears away. My smile is gone, and I breath in short shallow gasps, Tracyn's lessons forgotten. I don't have fifteen seconds.

More laserfire flashes around me. One strikes when I am inverted and half the cockpit canopy goes black. I try to slam down on the left rudder pedal, but in stead of a sharp bank to port, I feel a flash of sudden pain from my leg. I ignore it. I am at 300 kilometers, above the Mesosphere, in almost pure vacuum, but still within the planet's gravity well, where a hyperspace jump carries a thirty percent chance of smashing the pilot flat in an inertial compensator overload, if the ship doesn't come apart entirely. Seven seconds have passed. Something deep within me screams a warning.

Jump.

I strike the hyperspace controls and prepare to die.

---

My tongue feels like a cotton sock. Something is choking me. My ears ring. I am cold and hungry and thirsty and my leg is all wet. I open my eyes and lift a shaking arm to brush away the hair that has fallen in front of my face. My fingers are sticky with half-dried blood.

Whatever cut my leg is out of it, now. The once-gray cloth of Pemm's pants is plastered over my leg and hip around a deep gash in my upper thigh. I find myself staring at it, not sure what to make of this unwelcome hole in my flesh. It isn't bleeding any more except for a slow ooze, so I know the arteries are fine, but I feel like I should do something about it anyway. I struggle out of the crash restraints, and find that I can breathe more freely. One of the straps was crushing my chest and restricting my lungs. Outside, the mottled blue light of hyperspace rushes past in an endless swirling tunnel. I can hear the ship creaking in rhythm with the slow cycle of its hyperdrive, and I wonder vaguely if the ship will survive translation back to realspace.

Remembering my intent with a start, I strip off my jacket. Like everything else I am wearing, it used to be Pemm's; I hacked off the ends of the sleeves so that my hands would stick out, but it is still huge on my too-thin body and it is easy to work my way free of it. I tie it tightly around the wound, though moving the leg makes me dizzy with pain. By the ship's clock, I have been in hyperspace for two hours.

---

“My name is Jessica,” I tried to lie. “My name is Jessica and I am a banker's daughter and yes I'm a schizophrenic but I'm better now and you can let me go and -” but when I opened my mouth, of course, I told them the truth.

"I am Carinna Versun. I am a Jedi Padawan. I came here on a mission from the Jedi Council to-"

"No," he said patiently, his voice full of heartless compassion. "You're not."

The walls were blue. The walls were blue. The walls were blue.

I scream when I wake up. The sound is strange, grating, inhuman from my raw throat. I don't even notice that I am wetting myself until it is too late to try to fight it as urine turns my pants wet once again. I want to cry. I had packed something to urinate in, foreseeing this problem, but I had to leave my bag behind.

A hard looking young man had stopped me as I approached the final landing pad. I could see the ship I was prepared to steal over his shoulder. I had staked out the shipyard and I mugged the Y-Wing's owner, a soft looking young man, as he left the secure area. I had hit the owner with a stun blast and left him in the gutter.

"I'm going to have to see your identification," he said.

He was wearing a port authority uniform, but he didn't look like port authority's hired security guards. His hand was near his pistol. Mine was in the back waistband of my pants and I was holding my bag in my hands; there was no way I could get it in time - and he kept glancing past me as if waiting for backup to arrive. I reached for the Force, hoping against hope, and concentrated all my will on my next statement.

"You don't need to see my identification."

He looked puzzled, but resolute. I felt the beginnings of fear.

"Yes, ma'am, I do."

"Oh," I said. "Well, I...." I seized upon an idea - probably not the best idea, but an idea nonetheless. "It's in here!" I hurled the bag with all my strength, straight at his face. He cursed and went down, and I sprinted past him. Leaving the bag. And my blanket. And my water. And my food.

I look at the clock. I have been in hyperspace for seventeen hours. The journey to Coruscant is thirty-five. I shiver again, and my desire for warmth wars with my knowledge that turning up the cockpit heat will rob my body of more water than I've already lost. I am still staring absently at the thermostat when I drift back into unconsciousness.

The Devil Baron of Dairax
11 March


Their sorrow rises to greet me, subtle and warm, tingling like a woman's touch at the base of my spine. It is bitter. It is sweet.

Down I go, into the dark. I do not know what I will find, save one thing. One thing, one man is all that matters.

Imago.

Imago.

Imago.

I followed his trail through cities and underworlds, through record books and the tortured confessions of noblemen and whores who felt the cold tickle of my knife upon their flesh, between their legs, upon their noses and eyes. I smile at the memories: hot blood over cold steel, and the music of their screams. He is wealthy and powerful, but he was careless. My smile becomes a grin. Carelessness was his undoing.

I tracked him here, hiding the traces of my pursuit in freezers, in dumpsters, in alleys. There were some that I left, of course, to confuse my pursuers. I remember Jeanette, especially, how she pleaded as I carved her flesh. Rumors of a madman, a serial killer with a flare for the dramatic, were the smoke that hid my steps.

And here I am. The door to his - palace? The bodies of twenty guards litter the stair, dead before they had a chance to scream. There is a place for artistry, I muse - but this... this is the place for revenge.

I pause a moment. The door was white, once, but it is white no longer. A thousand handprints stain it red. They are small, frantic. They smell of fear, of woman, of blood. Are hers among them? I snarl, and my introspection dies.

The force answers me as I scream, striking forward with one open hand. The door creaks under my fingers for half a second and I leave my own fingerprints on the bloody door - and then it is open, answering my scream with a wail of ripping durasteel, and I am granted my first view of Hell.

Hell it is, and an impostor claims the devil's throne.

I spin without thinking: blasterbolts scorch the air where my head has been, and then my lightsaber is in my hand, blazing bloody red, and I am among them. A man dies screaming, split from groin to sternum. A woman twitches as I send bolt after deflected bolt into her smoking corpse. The dark side is in me and through me and Hell screams my praises as I slay.

There are crosses to my left, and to my right, spreading out in a delta shape. The room is dim, lit only by the strobing flashes of blasterfire and the sullen glow of the lamps mounted on the high-vaulted ceiling, but by that faint light I see a masterpiece of murder, a gallery of despair. Each crucifix is occupied. Some hang upside-down; some are spread-eagled; some hang in the T-shape once favored by the Mandalorians, long ago. Each is naked. Each is female. Each is beautiful, in the moment of anguish, in the bloody terror of death. Their souls linger. Their hate and panic fill the stones, and the stench of their blood carries with it pain unimaginable. It is wine on my lips, perfume in my nostrils. I fight deeper, and already the floor runs red.

By now, alarms ring, and forces are mobilized. But this is no fortress. I pause for a moment, motionless amidst the slaughtered dead, so close to one of the crucified that I can see every cut on her ruined belly. It is not a fortress, but what is it? Not a palace. A gallery? That is closer - I can feel his artistry, a mirror of my own. But not quite right.

I stoop to the corpse at my feet. The guard's blaster is cunningly disguised in the body of a whip, and he is naked but for a plain metal mask that covers his face - which lolls unnaturally, dangling by a thin strip of flesh. I plant a boot on his chest and grip his hair and pull until the skin and muscle tear and I can lift his masked head to the lamplight - and I realize that the mask is not plain after all. It is covered with bloodied text, scratched in a thin spidery hand. A gentle stroke of my fingers brushes the blood from its surface, and I read the words without comprehension – and revelation comes as the nonsense passes though my mind.

I am in a temple.

Back in the cities, they called Imago “the Devil”. The Devil-Baron of Dairax. I curse myself for not understanding sooner. He wasn't mad - or, more precisely, he was mad, but his madness had a method. He meant to become a Sith. He had gotten his hands on some artifact, or some book of inane ravings, and he had conceived to conjure the Dark Side. Could it be done? There were rumors of chimeras forged by Sith sorcery, of people and animals twisted by the darkness. Dark Lord Ravenous had an expansive library, but I had not read any of it while I stayed with the Sith. I frown. I shrug, and toss the head to the floor. I am Tracyn Chaelos, murderer, traitor, torturer, monster. I am a Dark Jedi. The Force is my servant - I smile as I twist the phrase - and here in this temple of terror and hate, it is a powerful servant indeed.

Something is – coming? Waiting? I can feel it as the revel of slaughter fades into the background power that throbs from every broken corpse: there is humanity, and terror, but also a sullen animal hunger. Once again I recall the rumors of the Sith, and I tingle anticipation and dread, each emotion welcome, each emotion sweet. I cast about for the right path to take me deeper, submerging myself in the tangled flow of the Dark Side...

And I see her. She is beside me, nailed to the cross. It is her face staring down at me, accusing me with dead eyes. The mad certainty of it clutches at my heart; it is her - her in the corner of my vision - her whose ribs are black with bruises not yet faded in death. I struggle as the red mist rises, as the Dark Side threatens to take me. A scream builds from deep within me; my lightsaber is in my hand, burning red in the dark; a terrible, almost palpable whirlwind of power swirls up about me. I clench my teeth and I look.

Even gazing full on, I see her, at first. The corpse has Carinna's hair, and it falls across her face as I remember it, partly obscuring eyes almost the same color of brown. She is the right height, the right build. I raise a hand, gently, almost reverently, and brush aside her blood-stiffened hair.

An unfamiliar face screams silently down at me, twisted in the moment of despair. I can take no pleasure in it. I clench my fist and strike her bloody face, driving it back against the roods of her crucifix. I strike again and again, feeling faint surprise at the lack of blood as I crush her nose, break her teeth, snap a cheekbone. Only when her face can no longer haunt me do I shake my aching hand and leave her.

Still I feel a nagging urge to check the other crosses. I suppress it, damning myself for a fool. If her body was here, I would feel her. I stride onward, head down, arms out, saber burning by my side. I am not here to find Carinna. I am here to avenge her.

I descend another stairwell, carved of stone, and even in my black mood I have to appreciate the subtle irony in placing the entryway highest and the centerpiece the depths. The Hungerer lies behind a reinforced door. I let my fear become anger; I draw the force to me and plunge my lightsaber deep into the durasteel, sending a thought forward through the door.

“I am coming for you,” I murmur to the Hungerer. Then, in a moment of inspiration, I project the thought deeper.

“I am coming for you, Imago.”

A crude rectangle glows cherry red in the doorway where I have cut it, and the skin of my hands is burned raw despite my efforts to redirect the tremendous heat of slagging metal. Without the Force, I would have nothing left but charred bones. I hit the doorway with a hammer of will and the rectangle falls inwards. I follow it, my lightsaber at the ready and a smile on my lips.

My smile vanishes as I see what lies within. I am in an empty hall, its cross section a perfect square seven feet to a side. It extends as far as I can see. I feel the Hungerer, so near I must resist the desire to turn, imagining hot, dank breath on the back of my neck, but I see nothing and hear nothing. I turn slowly, looking at the ceiling, the floor, the walls. They are bare metal, featureless but for rivets and, down the center of the hall, a trail of bloodstains and bloody human footprints extending as far as the dim glow of my lightsaber can penetrate the darkness. I concentrate, breathing deeply, shutting down the lightsaber and reaching out with the Force. But there is nothing. Nothing but the stench of death and the inexorable feeling of the Hungerer's closeness. For the first time, the icy hand of doubt trails down my spine. Lightsaber ready but unlit, I walk forward into the waiting dark.

I have walked for half a minute, and still I feel the Hungerer, somewhere just out of sight, just out of hearing. It occurs to me, suddenly, that I have not checked the walls, or the ceiling just inches over my head. Realization dawns before objective thought, and I ignite my lightsaber, stepping towards the wall on my right. I slash hard, expecting resistance; the metal gives way like paper, peeling back unnaturally from my cut.

In the darkness, someone is weeping.

Run, says an insistent voice at the back of my mind. If you want live....

I ignore it, reaching out a hand to draw aside the metal. My fingers close around the foil-thin surface...

And my heart stops as someone else's fingers grip mine. Even in my shock, I react with the skills a lifetime of violence has taught me: I reverse the grip, clamping strong fingers around a thin wrist and heave backwards, simultaneously thrusting forwards with my weapon. The "wall" tears as I drag an emaciated body through and into my blade.

The human is so far gone that I cannot tell its gender. It looks up at me with tears glimmering wetly in its eyes, seeming not to notice the meter of radiant death that is cooking its internal organs. I tear the 'saber free, ripping up out through a collarbone that seems barely covered by skin and the life vanishes.

The Hungerer is here.

The sound is nothing I have ever heard. It is a shrieking like fingernails on slate, a moaning too deep to come from human mouths; a high, warbling whimper that is like a child but somehow wrong. They come in ones and twos and amalgams of twisting dozens, and the hungry feeling that I have felt is suddenly so powerful I feel it drives me momentarily to my knees. It is a pain in the belly drawn up next to the spine; a bone-deep ache that makes my legs heavy and my knees water; a hollowness below my heart; a weakness behind my eyes; an all-consuming need to devour. The Dark Side billows from them in waves as they stagger from all directions, unleashed, perhaps by me, perhaps by their master; below and beyond their hunger is malice, hate, terror, fear, panic, despair. I curse myself as I lash out, forcing myself to my feet. I cleave something in half - a woman fused with a man, front to front, in a hideous mockery of coitus, and then a phantom pang of hunger doubles me over and spots dance before my eyes. I curse myself.

What lies beyond the gallery, Tracyn?

The masterpiece.

Their souls cling to them. The women crucified in the gallery were an appetizer, a demonstration of the beauty of pain, but they were lucky; Imago had let them die. Tortured souls rush at me - flee towards me as though driven. A part of me – a part that I had imagined dead – feels sudden sorrow as I realize they do not even mean me harm. The lost and tortured souls crowd around me, grope at me, whimper at me. Their hunger is unbearable but they do not tear at my flesh.

I grip my lightsaber tightly. I am bleeding, bruised, struggling to breathe, and though they have not truly struck me, I will soon be dead, unless....

I find my footing.

I find the Force.

I kill them all.

Rippling power flows up through me as I channel the dark energies that Imago has used to bind and torture them in his own mad quest for power, and they tumble from me, cartwheeling through the air in a shamble of twisted, living bodies. I brace my feet wide, draw breath, and embrace Hell in all its glory. Where I had felt weakness, I feel power; where water, steel; where hunger, lust. I roar laughter, feeling power such as I have never known suffuse every cell in my body.

I run. Oh, yes, I run. I run at them, that mass of ruined, pitiful humanity, dissecting them with hot delight. Only the thought that Carinna might be among them gives me pause - but I would feel her if she were here. No - she is long dead, murdered by the devil I seek. And so I laugh as I destroy his works, imagining his power dimming with every slash and stab. I burst through them, feeling the path towards Imago like the pull of a riptide, and still they pursue me. Singletons flee towards me in comic-opera strides; some amalgams seem more to roll or slither, so many bodies have been fused into one under Imago's mad necromancy. Still more tear their way free of the walls; others drop from the ceiling, only to be met by my force-guided blade. I am damp with blood and other fluids; my feet tangle in intestines and I am nearly dragged to the floor, but I lurch up and run on.

Imago's corridor of the damned falls away behind me, and, predictably, I come another stairway.

I enter the devil's throne-room with a smile tugging at my lips.

---

After the pitch darkness of the tunnels, the light is blinding. I burst through heavy golden gates and slam them absently behind me, slaying Imago's naked guards with absent-minded detachment. His throneroom, I am sure, is a wonder, if I would just look at it. Single-minded as I am, I see gold and red silk from the corners of my eyes; strange pillars and swirls of fire gouting from hidden depths. There are screams on the air, seeming to come from all directions: high, feminine, agonized. I know the devil's workshops must lie around his throne, and part of me longs to see them.

But I have eyes only for Imago.

And he, for his part, has eyes only for me.

"You intrude on my domain, Jedi."

He is dressed in black robes of some sort of leather. I recognize them from a dusty picture Ravenous had displayed in the back of his library: he has modeled his attire on the clothing of Exar Kun. He jabs a crooked finger at me, and hidden blaster cannons spit red fire. Buoyed up on his own waves of darkness, I deflect them with contemptuous ease, returning the bolts, not to Carinna's murderer, but into statues and artworks - ancient and priceless artifacts of the millennia-dead Sith Empire. I owe Lord Ravenous much for rescuing me from Jedi captivity, and he would treasure even one of these. I smile.

I owe Imago more.

I send the last bolts back to their source and am rewarded by an explosion of sparks as the weapons are destroyed. I can feel his fear. I reach out with the Force. There are no more blasters. There are no more guards. There are lives, but they are all weak and afraid: more of his victims, suffering as we speak. I clip my lightsaber to my belt and reach within my vest for the cold steel knife that rests just over my heart.

I feel his power. Here at the center of his temple, he has channeled the Dark Side with scientific precision and artistic flare, all focused on himself. The victims' cries seem superimposed with his name... Imago. Imago. Imago. He has found some small fraction of the power of the Sith. In a far away way, I feel surprise. I did not know it could be done.

"Who are you?" he says.

"I am -" I pause, and choose the lie that I know will hurt him the most. "I am Tracyn Chaelos. Dark Lord of the Sith."

He produces a weapon from his belt. I stifle a laugh as he ignites it: it is a lightsaber, doubtless purchased at some enormous price. The blade is purple, and I remember the words of a younger, saner me.

"Gaudiness becomes a Dark Lord not," I say, stalking towards him.

He is brave, if mad. He holds his ground, speaking little as I close. His power buffets me, but I form my own into a protective shield, and his fear deepens as he realizes, somewhere deep inside his blackened soul, that he is not the devil, he does not command the Dark Side, not even in his own little Hell. He attacks at me and I void, letting the weapon sizzle inches from my face. I try to feel anticipation, but now, with vengeance in my grasp, it feels like the road was too easy, like I am killing a rabid animal, not killing a man. I let him strike at me twice more before I catch his force-accelerated chop with a lightning grab at his wrist. My whole body is a blur as I twist his arm, pivot my body, plant my boot just above his elbow. I wait until he realizes what is about to happen before I stomp down, snapping his arm. The lightsaber deactivates as it tumbles to the floor, and I fling it away with a tendril of Force. I hit him in the belly, folding him over; before he realizes I have begun to move, I am behind him, gripping his shoulders and slamming him to the floor. I kneel over him and, at last, I draw the knife. I wait, patiently. I don't think he will beg, but I know he will talk.

"Why?" he says at last.

I smile. "I knew a girl once. Not like that, no, no. I loved her, and she was beautiful, but I never touched her. She was my student. She was my apprentice. She was my sister, my daughter, my friend."

I place the knife with care, just between the appropriate ribs, and apply just enough pressure to push the razor tip through his clothing so that he can feel its cold touch on his skin.

"Her name was Carinna Versun," I say. "I left her in your palace on the planet. She was supposed to investigate the disappearances... the rumors of the disappearances of all the young girls."

"And I suppose," he says, "that you think I took her?"

I push the knife. It breaks the skin. Imago winces, but does not cry out. "I know that you took her, Baron. I want to know what you did."

He smiles, and I feel like I am looking at a mirror. "Why would I remember one girl? I'm sure she was nothing special. Perhaps I had her raped and crucified. Perhaps I made her into one of the things you killed on your way through the Corridor. Perhaps I raped your Carinna Versun myself?"

I restrain my anger. He is hiding something, and I will find it. If he thinks he can escape my inquisition, he is sadly mistaken. I peel back the eyelids from one eye with my left hand and hold the knife in place with the Force. I brush his eyeball gently with my fingertip, and fight him back down as he bucks and writhes against the pain. Before I ask the question, I do it again, this time letting my fingernail scrape the sensitive jelly of his eye.

"You will tell me what you know," I say, putting the weight of the Force behind my words.

He emits a long, agonized sigh, but he smiles as he speaks again. Something is wrong. This is not as I had foreseen.

"Yes, Tracyn. Yes, I will."

I wait. He does not speak, and my need to know overcomes my pride.

"Tell me, damn you! Tell me!" I release his eye and press the knife down slowly, relishing, even then, the way Imago shudders, just a touch, as the knife passes through tensed muscles and exploding nerve endings. I stop the blade short of his heart. I can feel it pounding through the hilt of the knife. And the devil continues to smile.

"Carinna is alive, you fool," he says at last. The world stops. My thoughts swim. He twitches, then laughs, until the knife nicks one of his lungs and his laugh ends in a bloody wheeze.

"We found her... two days ago... but she escaped... left the planet. You... were a Jedi. They said... she said...."

I drive the knife through Imago's heart. The heart keeps thundering for just a moment, even as it is skewered by the blade; his eyes bulge; his face contorts; his muscles spasm uncontrollably, and his blood wells up over the knife and the hand that holds it.

My hand is badly burned, and his blood is hot. It should hurt. It should burn. But I feel nothing. I rise. All around, but out of sight, women continue to scream. My body is bruised, bleeding. My muscles are beyond exhaustion, beyond collapse. But I feel nothing.

I feel nothing.

Interlude
14 March


Terrant stood amongst a half dozen Service Corp. maintenance workers in the Academy's bay, watching intently as Master Kintak's X-Wing entered. Midway through the hangar, the battle-scarred snubfighter kicked in it's repulsorlift engines and slowly descended to land.

A few moments after touching down, the hatch popped up, and the orange-headed pilot vaulted out of the cockpit onto the hangar deck and nodded a quick greeting to the nearest service workers. He was smiling pleasantly enough, too; but through the Force, Terrant felt a slight, unsettling feeling emanating from the man.

"Take me to her, Master Sarlin," said Vash immediately, and although Terrant knew the title was merely a formality for those watching the scene, he was a little surprised at the shortness of the request--no, the demand.

"Yes, of course, Master Kintak." Sarlin recognized the need to stow his usual lightheartedness; any news relating to Tracyn - especially since his escape - was bound to be of great, personal interest to Vash, as well as their grandfather, Master Ses-Cae Desdina.

Kintak fell into step as the two Masters walked with added haste towards the nearest bank of elevators. "I trust your trip to Yavin went well?"

"Quite well, actually," said Vash. "I had a good spar with Master Tann." There were still a few Service Corp. personnel around. "And Padawan Dréan did not take too badly to being left at the Praxeum. He seemed to understand that his apprenticeship to date has been as much out of necessity to keep him under surveillance as anything else, and that ending that arrangement is a sign of trust. When he's ready to choose a master for himself and complete his training, it will be done."

"Good. He's a bright kid, I'm sure many of our apprentice-less members will be willing to take him on," Terrant said, watching the nearest door open with a hiss of air. "Was your spar with Master Tann recorded, by any chance?" Though out of formality-requiring range, Sarlin continued to refer to Triax as Master far after his apprenticeship ended.

"It was," said Vash. "Master Reeth insists on keeping records of all training in order to capitalize from individual and collective experience. It's not a bad idea, actually." The Jedi entered an elevator, and as the door slid to a close behind them, Vash's demeanor changed subtly, but the difference was impressive to the trained eye. His shoulders dropped slightly, his lower lip curled upward, and his eyelids appeared beset by weariness. "And Terrant," he said, abandoning formality. "Sorry about being rude before. The thought of Tracyn loose has me on edge."

"Not a problem, Vash. We were all hoping that duel eight years ago was the last action he'd see. Wishful thinking. I'm anticipating getting far worse very soon," Sarlin said as a second hissed signaled their arrival on Carinna's floor.

"Indeed," said Vash before they left the elevator and walked to her door. "Well, let's do this thing." He knocked on the door.

Carinna opened the door. Recognizing Vash, she smiled. "Master Kintak," she said, bowing first to him then to the other. "Master Sarlin."

Vash nodded to Terrant. "Thank you, Master Sarlin," he said. "Please leave me with her for a short while."

"Of course," said Terrant who nodded and left the two alone.

"Please sit down if you like," said Vash to Carinna as he entered the room. "We have a lot of catching up to do."

She allowed Vash to enter and shut the door behind him. She let him have the chair, seating herself on her bed.

As Vash sat, he heard a sudden electric beep. He raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

Carinna half rose, glancing towards the microwave oven at the other end of the room. "Sorry, Master. I was making tea. Would you like some?"

"Yes, please," he said as she stood. "Master Sarlin told me you had a vision?"

She poured the steaming brew into two mugs of different sizes and carried them over. She shook her head. "I thought it was a vision, yes, but it was probably just a dream."

"Thank you," Vash said taking a mug. He took a sip before continuing. "Having never had a vision in my life to date, I probably wouldn't be able to tell you if it was."

"Would you like me to tell you about it?"

"I would."

Carinna explained the dream and its circumstances, noting that she had recently been drugged and that she had heard blaster fire when she came fully awake. It was a memory, or mostly a memory, from early before Tracyn had taken her as his Padawan.

"He questioned me, to help me see that I was ready. He said, 'When the match starts, he'll come. But you're faster. What do you do?'; I said, 'Strike.' He said, 'He wants to beat you, knock you down again. What do you want?'; I said, 'I want to win.' He said that was good.

"Then - I was starting to wake up, and the cell got mixed up with Yavin - the light dimmed and became red like the hall light, and it got cold, and Tracyn's clothes were faded white like the curtains, and I was wearing the smock. He said, 'They're coming. They'll destroy you if they catch you. If you want to live, kill them all,' and then I woke up and heard the blaster fire.”

Vash listened to the story intently. "Do you remember killing them?" he asked.

Carinna looked ill but nodded.

"I used the Force to break off part of the cot. They were metal but coated with rubber, except it was sharp on the end that went into the floor. Three were at the door and I killed them with the post. I took one of their guns and followed their path to the exit. They had forced the locks and killed the staff. I killed the forth one with the gun and got away."

Carinna's fingers were shaking a little but she managed to take a sip of tea.

"Indeed," said Vash noticing her hands shaking and sipping his tea in sync with her. "That does not sound like a simple dream, although I'd rather not read too much into it just now. How long ago was this?"

"One month and... eleven days? Twelve days?"

"Thank you," he said taking another sip of tea. "That will be enough information for now. Tell me: Would you like to stay at the Temple? I imagine confinement on a space station can't be all too pleasant."

The Temple. Coruscant. A trillion sentient beings packed onto one world. She had read what Tracyn had done - what he was willing to do. She shook her head.

"No, master. If there's space here, I should stay away from those who can't defend themselves. Tracyn - the traitor will seek to come for me. I've read his file, and I knew him well." She paused. "I would like a job, though. I've worked on fighters and light craft - every hangar needs more mechanics. Or the library, if there's room?"

"You are right, of course. Best not to give him reason to land on Coruscant," Vash said. He could feel her sincerity through the Force, and that and the presence of reason were enough for him. "And as you said: the station could always use another mechanic. As for the library, it doesn't compare to the Archives below us, but they might have some room for an evening librarian."

"Thank you," she smiled.

Vash finished his tea, placed the empty mug on a small table, and thanked her again before standing. "Good bye, Padawan," he said, returning Carinna's smile. "And do avail yourself of the Mess. You look like you could use a few more decent meals."

And so the Jedi Master left; the interview was over.

Carinna appreciated the de facto invitation to leave her quarters, but after she shut the door for Vash, she went back to her bed and sat on it, staring at something a thousand yards beyond the floor with her chin cupped in her hands. She remained there for a long time. At last she smiled, stood, and went back to her desk. She put in the history file for 39 ABY and went back to work.

Wanting
16 March


On 13 February of the year 42 ABY, the hypercomm relay in high orbit over planet Alba went down unexpectedly for two hours. A dim hyperspace exit signature was tentatively recorded shortly after function resumed, but when the repair crew arrived, no traces of infiltration were found. Nevertheless, they followed standard procedure for possible compromise of the secure interstellar comms network - through which flowed not only personal communications, but also all of Alba's interstellar trade data. They reformatted the data storage; they flashed the BIOS; they ran careful tests for surviving spyware and malware.

Nobody thought to check the manual input dial on the to-/from- console. Not that it would matter. That system was self-contained, and to-/from- was easily hidden by the sender or receiver if privacy was desired.

---

On 11 March of the same year, a woman claiming the name Carinna Versun appeared in the Coruscant in a badly damaged Y-wing. She had been injured and was unable to give a cohesive report. She underwent Bacta therapy at the Jedi Academy under the care of Padawan Sirii and Master Terrant, after which she was interrogated by Master Terrant with Sirii standing by. She was placed under partial house arrest in the Jedi Academy in Coruscant until further interrogation by Master Kintak revealed her to be safe. The date was 14 March.

The next morning, a hypercall was placed from the Jedi Academy to planet Alba. Its duration was one minute, thirteen seconds; it was flagged and recorded for the intended recipient, who was unavailable to receive the call when it arrived. From: Carinna Versun; To: Marlow &/or Walter Versun, Kin of Sender.

---

The next outgoing message to Coruscant First Financial, Inc, which was sent twelve minutes after the termination of the Jedi Academy hypercall was sixty-three bytes larger than expected. The computer system stored the error, but it fell below the display threshold and no human saw it before the computer cleared its cache at the end of the hypercall. A few insidious lines of code tripped a flag on a larger and more potent program, gave it their information, and overwrote themselves. The program, inserted by a low-level tech who saw no harm in the benign single-use spyware, executed its function.

---

At 0715 Coruscant Meridian Time, one Tracyn Chaelos - Dark Jedi... murderer... traitor - received a simpletext message on his screen. It was in code, but he read it like Basic. It read,

Carinna Versun, from Jedi Academy (Coruscant), to Marlow &/or Walter Versun, Kin of Sender
15 March 42 ABY, 1933 CMT.

The murderer smiled.

---

As tradition and ironclad bureaucracy held, station time was the same as ship time, which was Coruscant Meridian the galaxy over. A century ago, when civil war had first set the galaxy aflame again after a millennium of peace, the Separatists scheduled their sorties and shifts around the time at the Republic Senate hall; the time on the Rebel fleet's order to launch for Endor matched the time on the clocks in the Emperor's dark palace; today, the New Republic and the Emperor put millions of soldiers each moment to the brutality of battle, unable to reconcile, unable to agree on anything - except, when aboardship or aboardstation, how to set their clocks.

On the Jedi Academy, it was 0912, and First Shift was well into its second quarter.

Jo banged the sealed hyperdrive unit with the flat of her hand, expressing the frustration that both women felt.

"Dammit, Koensayer. Had a perfectly good thing goin' with the mark five, ah? Reliable, easy to fix, plenty of operational life. So now they start shipping us this crap."

Carinna said nothing, but grimaced as she worked a screwdriver into the catch release to unbolt the oblong metal case. Koensayer had started building new starfighters around their patented Mark Six sealed-unit hyperdrive, supposedly ten percent more fuel efficient and a percent faster than the open-to-vacuum Mark Five. At least, they would be if the sealed unit would stay sealed. This one showed the flaw in that plan: little hairline cracks had already started spiderwebbing out from the aftward end.

With a grunt, Carinna forced the catch open at last. She stepped aside before Jo could try to simultaneously occupy the same space, laughing inwardly at her superior's singlemindedness when it came to the job.

"Nice," Jo said, not looking up as she fitted a ratchet and started in on the first bolt. "Clean break."

Shim and Vostormo and the droids were at work on the other side of the hangar, running postclamp on the seal between the Jedi Academy station and a cargo hauler that had just landed. It was an easy job, so Jo didn't bother supervising them. Carinna ran the electric breaker carefully along the seal as the deck chief popped loose the bolts, and between them they were soon balancing the massive top shell of the broken sealed unit on a clamp-on repulsor field - and both of them wishing they'd thought to keep a couple droids for their own project. This was heavy, nerve-wracking work - and too late to turn back now. The top shell had to weigh at least a hundred kilos, and though the precariously-balanced repulsor took most of that, that also meant that any significant imbalance could launch the plate in the tipped direction with enormous force before the repulsor's safety cut in. Which was long enough for it to land on one of them, or to utterly smash the fifty-thousand-credit hyperdrive they were disassembling.

It took almost five minutes to inch the top shell off the sealed unit and safely onto the floor. They were both sweating - and neither of them had noticed the little round droid that had floated up on them. Its primitive intelligence must have categorized their work as do-not-disturb, because it didn't speak until they looked up.

"Message for Carinna Versun, Occupant Code 88329P, automated, from hypercomm station.

Carinna's breath caught as the messenger droid paused, sorting its stack of input pins for the appropriate transcript.

"Incoming call, priority blue. Sender: Walter Versun, from Alba. Timestamp present; realtime standing by. Message ends. Return message?"

Carinna's face lit - not with happiness, exactly, but with inexpressible hope. Her brother was alive. Maybe her father, too. The news might be bad; the reunion might begin in recrimination, in anger. Walter had been fiery in his youth; she hoped he had mellowed with age and not soured. But her brother... he would love her, and she would love him, and everything would work out.

Even as she stammered her response, she realized how hollow that hope was - but she cast away her fear and let herself smile.

"I'll - I'll be right there." She turned towards the shift leader, who was already grinning her characteristic lopsided smile. "I mean, it's my -"

"Go talk to your family, Miss Refugee. What, you don't think I asked who you were before I took you in my crew?"

Carinna flashed a grin as she fled the hangar in pursuit of the repeating messenger droid. Jo watched her go, then sighed as she turned back to the sealed unit. The whole apparatus was coated in the gluey black residue of the atmosphere-safe coolant-lubricant Koensayer had started using under the assumption that their damned sealed unit could manage to hold the atmosphere in. Would've been an easier job with two people, Force take it. "Dammit, Koensayer," she muttered, working loose the first power leads. "Mark five worked just fine...."

---

"0921 | message begins | you will be billed 0.75 rc/m starting now" - the black background behind the message topping the screen dissolved to show the interior of one of the Academy's private comm booths and its occupant.

Tracyn had fancied he would be ready when he saw her. He had imagined their meeting a dozen times over the past weeks, since the moment where he wrung the truth of her survival from the black soul of the Governor of Dairax; indeed, his predictions for Carinna proved perfect. Her expression of hope and love and mingled glee and fear clung to her face for a moment as she saw him, only the sudden widening of her eyes slipping past her surprise to give immediate confirmation of her emotions as confusion became shock; color drained from her face as she recognized him; the smile that had danced on her lips vanished and she recoiled as if slapped. He had foreseen this. He had expected this.

He had not excepted the sudden strength of his need for her. The horror in her eyes and on her lips... perhaps the subtle elegance she displayed even shocked, even in her worksuit... he couldn't quite lay a finger on the cause, but as badly as he had wanted to get his apprentice back before, it was nothing to how much he wanted her at that moment.

He did not want her for her body; he could get other women easily, and what he wanted with her went much deeper than that. He didn't want her for her power, though he respected and cherished it as something he had once cultivated. He didn't want her for her mind, intelligent as it was.

He wanted Carinna.

And that's all there was to it.

They both fought to contain their emotions. Tracyn leered inwardly as he recognized his own techniques in his Padawan's self-collection, and let that leer escape as the fierce fatherly smile that had always been his to give her.

"Carinna," he said, honey on his harsh voice. "I know you are thinking about killing the transmission. Please don't."

He enjoyed the surprise on her face for a moment before continuing. "Don't worry. I'm not invading your thoughts. But you are my Padawan. I know you. You know me."

"I knew Tracyn Chaelos, my master and my friend. I know no murderer."

"Fair," he smiled. "But you still don't want to kill the comm. I don't know when we'll get to speak again. And I know you need the truth. What I can tell you, from my side."

"I don't - I -" she paused, struggling. At last she said, "Speak."

---

He paused, readying, she was sure, a prepared speech. His dark hair was shorter than she remembered it, but no less wild, and his tall, lanky body conveyed the same impossible, irrepressible power and physicality - but when she looked at his face, she had to repress again the urge to scream, to choke, to flee. There was a constant smile on his killers' lips where Tracyn had been sombre and steadfast; his face, always warlike, had turned cruel. His control was great, but the Force fed her senses and she knew him well. She could feel the subtle probing as he searched for gaps in her mind's defenses. She could read the cruelty of his eyes when his control wavered. She could feel his boiling hatred, the heat of his desire.

She cast aside her fear.

The murderer spoke.

"And I did nothing to your family, if you were afraid of that. One of them might even call you, later. I needed a way to find you, to contact you. To tell you the truth.

"We were both betrayed. The Jedi sent us to Dairax to do good, yes. But the Empire needed to be destroyed. They promised us we were galaxy's hope. They lied.

"You have read the histories. I see it in your eyes. You know what the Empire has done. What it is doing. They did nothing. Tantiss showed us the truth. War was upon us. We needed to fight.

"The Jedi sent us to Dairax - sent us into danger while they sat safe in their Temples and did nothing. Tantiss showed me the truth. He asked me to help him. You agreed. I left you. For that, I am sorry. You were young. You could not have known the risks of working solo. I should have. I failed you. I have done what I can to redeem myself for that. I will do more, if you let me. There is so much I can teach you. I love you, Carinna."

He spoke the truth, she knew. But only a fragment of it. I want you, said his eyes. I desire you. Yet even as she recoiled, she recognized a response in herself. He had been her master once; her mentor, her brother, her friend. She could not believe him, but she wished she could. She had loved him, once.

"We are at war, Carinna" he rasped, his smile dropping away. "In war, people die. The Jedi had to fall. We turned all that we could. We could have ended the war, Carinna. We could have made peace. The Jedi stood against that. They betrayed the peace they tought us to hope for. They were the enemy. We killed them. I killed them."

I reveled in their blood, said his eyes. I murdered them with joy.

"But we lost. And the war went on. The Jedi imprisoned me, even as they sent no missions to rescue you. They tortured me, as you were tortured. I found your file, on Dairax, after I killed them. Yes, I killed the ones who were guilty. Your work was not in vain."

She blinked. He paused, recognizing her surprise and relishing it.

"The Jedi have not told you, have they? Ask them what the government of Dairax was doing. They must have learned by now. Ask them what it was doing while they ignored your disappearance, while they chose to leave you for dead and treat your mission as worthless. When I was freed, I sought you. I found the trail you had left, and followed it to the ones who tried to murder you. I killed them. I cut them down in their own little Hell. I would have found you, but you were already gone. I never gave up on you, Carinna.

"Come back to me, Padawan. They call me a traitor, but the Jedi betrayed us. Let me resume your teaching. I will not leave you as I did once. You are my Padawan. I love you."

---

He saw her indecision, and dared to hope. Were they lies, what he said? He had never considered himself a liar, and they came easily enough. He smiled, projecting all his hope, all his unfettered desire.

---

The list was long. The list was cruel.

Names and faces. Names and faces. Names and faces of the murdered dead.

So many she had known. Jorum. Hass. Kyrin. Aineias. More, and more, names upon names.

So many he had killed in joy, knowing that he had betrayed them and joyous in his knowledge.

He had been lying, she knew. Lies of omission, perhaps, but false all the same. She had known from the beginning. If he had called her a week ago, he might perhaps have won her, but she knew the truth. The Jedi had not fought because there had been a chance for peace - a chance for peace without slaughter. She had struggled for it. Tracyn had struggled for it. The Tracyn she had known. The master she had known would not have called himself a monster; would not have thought it and known it and reveled in its truth; he would not have seen hell and loved its warmth; his feelings toward her would never be of desire.

She looked into his face and shuddered.

"I loved you, monster," she whispered. "I love Tracyn still."

His power was formidable, she knew; even from far away, he might kill her with a thought. She struck as he had taught her: quick, decisive, without projection or hesitation. She saw the hidden rage break over his features for a terrible half-moment as she acted - and then her finger stabbed home on the communicator switch, and the display dissolved to black.

---

Across the densely-packed Coruscant habitation block, plants withered; babies cried as if with colic; sentients shivered at the silent magnitude of Tracyn's wrath.

Before him, a single message blinked on the bottom of the dark viewscreen. It mocked him with its banality, with its promise of hope. It read,

message ends
Walter Versun, from Alba (Alba), to Carinna Versun, Kin of Sender.
16 March 42 ABY, 0932 CMT

Whispers in the Dark
3 April


It felt right, when I made the decision. I suppose I hold by it. But as I watch her leave with Tracyn's lightsaber under her robes, I worry.

It is a link. A link to a past that should never have been, but nonetheless was – which should have destroyed her, but failed. I saw it flicker across her face as she took the weapon, and in that moment she looked, for the first time, afraid.

Carinna took to my instruction with the ease I had expected. She knows the way of the sword, though her style, even now, mirrors his. Still, that means her strikes are clean, her footwork, with a little coaching, straightforward but reliable. Her speed rivals mine. Before long, she will be faster.

We trained for two hours, drill after drill after drill, unrelenting except for momentary breaks for water. Before long, she will not need water. The Force flows through her as I have helped her to remember, though sweat runs down her face and soaks her tunic and hair; she retains control of the weapon, though it was made for hands much larger than hers, even when sweat stings her eyes, even when her arms ache and tremble with the sustained effort and her body aches from the impact of practice bolts. She accepts the suffering and moves through it, welcomes it. She knows.

She will face him, when she is ready, if I can make her ready. I frown, turning suddenly and striding out of the practice room so that the cleaning droids can do their work. When she can fight for hours and days without food, without drink, without respite... when she can lose a limb, fight on, and triumph; when she can stare evil in the face and feel nothing but peace – then, will she be ready? I worry that she will not. I am an old man, and I have seen too much. I have a right to worry.

I know that she can make her self do it – that she will make herself do it. She thinks she has no choice, and she is at peace with that knowledge. She has what I could not have given her: she sees her death or her damnation, and walks knowingly towards it, clinging all the while to hope. Hope. Not the Force, which might save her, if I... I shake my head.

She loves him. The man that he was when he wielded that sword for good, before its blue blade was tainted with murder, torture, hate. The man she hopes – does not believe, but nevertheless hopes – is in him still.

I stop suddenly, for something in my shriveled old soul has found what I dare not admit. In a way – not her way, but a way nonetheless – I love him too.

---

When Carinna saw Jo approaching, she knew something was wrong. The deck chief had accepted Carinna into her crew of mechanics back when the official story was still that Carinna was a political refugee, but though she had been as shocked as the rest of her crew to learn the truth, Jo's restrained kindness had never wavered. Which made Jo's expression of stunned concern all the more ominous.

Carinna allowed herself to be drawn aside.

“Carinna,” Jo said.

“Jo?”

“You hafta see the news. It's -” Jo lifted her hands helplessly. “It's about what's been happening on Dairax is all I can say.”

The younger woman felt a prickling at the base of her sweat-damp neck. She nodded. “Okay.”

Jo led her to one of the station's three crew lounges, which was nearby; and, skirting a badly-worn sofa, she marched towards the holonet display. On the display, a blue-skinned, five-eyed commentator was excitedly recounting the morning's sports highlights. The room's other three occupants looked up as Jo tuned away from their broadcast and searched up the news report she wanted – but the deck chief all but growled at them, and they turned back to their card game without comment.

“You better sit down,” said Jo.

Carinna stiffened, but complied. She watched with interest that soon became horror as the improbably-symmetrical face of Coruscant News Network's Miranda Kal became superimposed over the skyline of Dairax's capital city. Carinna had nearly died over that skyline, and it was not one she would soon forget – but she barely recognized it. Pillars of smoke stained the sky, and fires raged unchecked in the poorer quarters. The snap and snarl of distant gunfire was audible in the moment of silence that accompanied Miranda's poised countdown to begin her report.

“I'm Miranda Kal, reporting live from Peerage City on Dairax, a mid-rim planet in the Galactic Northeast. Civil unrest broke out here three weeks ago, when planetary leader Baron Imago was reported dead, and there has been mass rioting, looting, and an attempted military coup. All attempts to impose order in the capital have failed, although there are large pockets of stability elsewhere on the planet. Today I have a special guest who claims to know how it all began, calling in from an undisclosed location under the condition that he remains anonymous.”

She reached one perfectly-manicured hand off-camera, adjusting something.

“Go ahead, sir,” she said.

The voice off camera was rasping and deep. “I killed Baron Imago.”

Carinna stiffened – not at the words, for she knew who had killed Imago, but at the unmistakable sound of his voice. She barely noticed when Jo took her hand and held it tight.

“He was a psychopath and a murderer. But that is not why I killed him. You have the files I sent you to buy this 'interview', Miranda; you can do a long report on them later.”

There was a pause, and Miranda drew breath to respond, but he cut her off.

“The real thing he was doing, the thing you'll have to take my word for, was that he was trying to become a Sith. He had found some sort of spellbook, I think, and thought that by focusing the Dark Side with enough torture – did you get the photographs, Miranda? I took them just for you, you know. He thought that he could get the Force to answer his call. But... that is not what I killed him. That's not why I'm here.”

Again there was a pause. Miranda drew breath, then winced, expecting subconsciously to be cut off again. At last, she asked the question he wanted.

“Why did you kill him?”

“I killed him for Carinna Versun, who I know is listening,” he said, his voice booming over the line. “I killed him to finish your work, Carinna, as you know; and I killed him to avenge you when I thought he had murdered you, too.”

“Enough!” said Miranda. “That's quite enough!”

He talked over her. “Our last meeting ended badly, Carinna, but there will be another. You will come to me, and I will welcome you.”

“Close the line! Dammit, Lars, close the line!”

“Believe in me, Carinna,” he said very quietly. “I will contact you again. Soon.”

There was a hiss of static, quickly muted. Miranda brushed back a stray tumble of hair that had escaped her thousand-credit haircut, subconsciously adjusting her clothing and her face back to their well-trained demeanor of mingled pleasantry and gravity. But Carinna, still gripping Jo's hand, still pale, still steadfast, saw what most would have missed: the glimmering beginnings of tears in the reporter's immaculately made-up eyes. And Carinna, unlike most, recognized the strength it took for her to smile, apologize professionally, and wish the Galaxy goodnight.






Before the Storm
10 May


She knelt on the durasteel floor, as was her custom, in the minutes before her master arrived. Her new master - Ses-Cae Desdina, not Tracyn. Not Tracyn ever again. Her eyes were closed, but she could see the light by the warm yellow-red that seeped through her eyelids; she could smell the room's odd melange of odors: sweat, antiseptic spray, old oil and older metal. She knew its shape, not only from memory. In a dreamlike half-conscious way she could feel its corners; its high ceiling; its shape and its span; the warmth of walls she did not touch; the tumbling, chaotic-yet-regular twistings and flowings of air cycled through the practice room. The room was silent, soundproofed, but beyond her own soft breathing and the beat of her heart she could sense the sounds of passing feet in the corridor outside, the scrape of chairs in the room above her. The Force told her this and more, and she listened from a still place deep within her self, untouched by the outside world, where she was truly at peace.

For all its clarity and depth, it was a fragile peace. It was the center of a world gone mad, the heavy waiting silence before the breaking of an ocean wave. The future held one thing... one man. Tracyn. Tracyn Chaelos. Her former master dominated her future, stationary in the flow of time that pushed her inexorably towards a confrontation. He had contacted her many times, using news reports and private calls, and other, more sinister methods. Most recently, someone - she was sure it was him - had hypered into the system and lobbed a space-suited body at the Jedi Academy. When the Jedi recovered it, they found an already-autopsied cadaver, still tagged with the name of the morgue from which it had been stolen. The man's broad back had been cut hundreds of times with a sharp knife into a message ostensibly for her, requesting a chance to speak with her, demanding that she come alone, threatening evil if she did not. She did not forget. She could not forget. But she had reached deep, reached deeper, and found resolve, resilience, hope. Here, in this room, under this light, she found peace.

It was nearly time for Master Desdina to arrive when the light went out.

Before Carinna's conscious mind recognized the change in brightness, she was standing. Tracyn's lightsaber, her lightsaber, flew to her hand and a meter of actinic fire blazed from its broad emitter. She was already moving when the Force screamed its warning in the back of her mind, already reacting before she realized that there was a threat. There was a snap like breaking styrofoam, and then a blade of green light slammed against her lightsaber. Twice more she defended herself, half-blinded by the sudden change in light; she tried to riposte against the half-seen wielder of the green lightsaber, but her thrust was batted aside. She felt him close, faster than fast, and let the Force guide her.

She managed to avoid a broken rib, but his knee still hit with enough power to fold her over. A telekinetic hammer struck her as she focused on avoiding the next lightsaber strike, and again the Force saved her from broken bones as she slammed against the far wall. Sparks and spots danced madly in front of her eyes and she could barely breathe. Who was attacking her? Why? How? She cast aside her confusion and fought on, regaining her footing, launching attack after attack at her mystery assailant. He had clouded his presence in the Force, but his actions spoke clearly enough for his intent, and his power, even with his energies distracted by the dissemblance that had let him take her by surprise, was self-evident.

You're faster, said Tracyn's voice in the back of her mind, and, though she feared the beast he had become, she knew it was true. Her blade was flickering lightning, propelled by technique, strength, natural skill, and the guiding hand of the living Force. Her opponent's style changed - and as he deflected another blow with a twisting disengagement that, just a week ago, would have torn her saber from her grip, she recognized him.

"Master Desdina," she said, feinting towards his face, voiding his return strike, slashing upwards at his groin.

The lights came back, and the haze that had blocked her mind's sight lifted. He deactivated his lightsaber. There was no trace of menace, no antagonism, no threat. She held her own weapon in a high guard, taking no chances, as the ancient Jedi Master removed the mask and cowl that had hidden his face. Desdina smiled, but his eyes were sad. She was surprised to discover that she felt no fear.

"You have learned much," he said.

She shut down her lightsaber, beginning to understand - not only the reason for his false attack, but also what he would say next. Of course I'm not ready, she wanted to say. I'll never be ready to face Tracyn. That isn't the point. That isn't the choice I have to make!

But she understood, too, that that would not change her Master's judgment - nor, indeed, the fact that he was probably right. She bowed, waiting for him to say the words she knew he would say.

"It will take a Jedi Knight to face Tracyn," he said. "And you're not one. Yet."






Something Breaks
14 May


He’s close.

The thought is not my own, but it mirrors what my senses already know. Evil has a distinct taste, a flavor if you will: heavy and bitter at first, but then ever more intoxicatingly powerful the deeper in you go. We’re trained to sense it, to embrace it, in a way most other Jedi—or, for that matter, most other sapient beings—should never have to. Ours is a hard life, but we are hard people. We know the evil that men do. It’s how we find them.

The Kuati sewer stretches out before me, thick with its own pungent reek in addition to the intangible one my soul can taste. Despite the stink, I can feel a hunger welling up in my belly—the same hunger I knew as a thirteen-year-old girl, listening to Master Tantiss back on Yavin IV. It is a familiar hunger. But it is not my own.

That was the first time I saw him. There were many details to pick out, on that day—the dead Jedi, the burning of the forest by Tantiss’ rogue allies, the scent of fear and panic that rippled through the children one after another—but the only thing that stayed with me was him. How he looked. How he stood. How the light of his weapon glinted against the cold green of his eyes, just before he killed Master Bolle. How he smiled.

How he hungered.

Tantiss desired something noble. That, I’ve never doubted. The methods he chose to pursue it were perhaps flawed—No, I have to remind myself, not perhaps. They were—but the spirit of the Mission was, itself, pure. We followed Tantiss because he made us believe, because we wanted what he wanted.

When you train to become a Jedi Shadow, they teach you a lot about stealth and infiltration, which are the tools you use to get close to the target; but they also teach you to know your target, as well. You watch the holovids, read the reports, talk to the friends. You learn to anticipate his next move. You learn to predict when he’ll fight and when he’ll run. You understand how to get inside his mind, what’s going on underneath the savage smile and glinting eyes.

Tantiss believed in the Mission. Of that I’m certain. But the other…

He did not.

It’s sad that I can’t quite say his name, even a decade later. He became something of a boogeyman for the younglings, over the years, which has made him ridiculous in their eyes, but to those of us who watched him move, who felt the unadulterated savagery beneath the Jedi robes and easy smile—we know better. We know a monster when we see it. We know what evil feels like.

It amazes me still, I think idly as I step around the carcass of some breed of sewer rat, that the Council didn’t have him put to death. His grandfather certainly advocated it; the old man had seen evil already, decades before any of us were even thought of. He knew what had to be done. But the others hadn’t seen, didn’t know; how could they? Nearly all the “Dark Jedi” returned to the light side of the Force after the war’s end. Flush with optimism, the Council decided to lock him away, frozen in body and imprisoned within his own mind.

Eight years he stayed like that. Eight quiet, peaceful years. Eight years we tried to forget that men like him ever existed, where we had ample chance to grow naïve. Can you imagine? Awake for eight years, without a soul to talk to, without a thing to do but stew in your own hatred?

Is it any wonder he wants us dead today?

I’m a Knight. A Jedi Shadow. I’ve helped bring more than one renegade to justice, and there are five others just like me crawling through the stinking sewer. But in the back of my mind, a small voice laughs. It remembers his name, and it’s not afraid to call him by it. You remember that Ranger boy—the one you thought was cute? You were there, just like the rest. You watched Tracyn paint the kid with his own friends’ blood, just sat by and watched him. And then, when he lashed him up in the tree, and laughed, and wondered how long he’d last…

“Shut up!”

My voice echoes through the sewer, loud and afraid—but can he hear it? Is he near?

Is he watching me?

Easy. Breathe easy. I check the chrono at my wrist, and frown. He’s supposed to be just up ahead—that’s where he said he’d be, when he called Carinna Versun. He said come alone, but Master Desdina wouldn’t hear of it, and his Padawan had acquiesced. He sent us—the Shadows. The best hunters in the Order, trained killers all. Nothing we see down here can break us. Nothing.

Right?

Breathe. Get your lightsaber.

I round the corner.

Something breaks.

---

Not long after the news of the catastrophic failure of the attempt to assassinate Tracyn reached the Jedi Academy, a small packet came by mail. That alone was strange, for Carinna had never received a paper envelope before. The data chip on the front was made out to her—not to the Jedi Order, not to her Master, but to her. It had passed screening, though, so the mail droids must not have thought it contained anything hazardous when they’d slipped it in her box. Still…

Her finger slid in between the folded top of the packet, slitting the manila paper clumsily. It ripped in unevenly, and at one point she’d gotten stuck. A small voice inside her told her to give up, to throw it away. She knew who had sent it. And she knew why. The Padawan pressed her lips together and tore. Inside, she found smooth paper, and tugged it out, gently.

Something inside her that had been warm and bright flickered, sputtered, died. She let out her breath slowly, and was several moments in deciding to draw it in again.

Carinna had seen corpses before. Had made corpses before. Every Jedi had seen death, particularly those who’d taken an interest in the healing arts. They’d watched the cold dismemberment of donated cadavers under the skillful laser scalpels of trained doctors, and been fascinated—if moderately repulsed, at first—with the results such experiments yielded. Underneath, everyone was more or less the same: pink and squishy and all-too-easily torn apart.

He’d hung a dozen live people against a wall. The pictures showed them, all too clearly: how they’d been wearing work clothes – or school clothes, she saw, turning the pages... one... by one... by one. The children were wearing school clothes.

He’d hung them on hooks. Like meat. In a neat line against the duracrete wall. He’d rigged the room with explosives and left them hanging there, helpless and terrified against the terrible force of his transient mercy. A series of photographs showed how the Jedi strike team had blundered straight into his surveillance equipment long before they’d found the room—part of Carinna wondered how he had sent the letter so fast, and part of her hated herself for wondering. She turned the pages mechanically, holding back her emotion as a the dwindling flame of a matchstick holds back the dark. They showed how he’d watched them as they slugged toward it; how he’d detonated the explosives as soon as the Jedi were near; how he’d hung up the bodies—or what remained of them—side by side with the the now-dead civilians; that he'd opened their eyes and mouths in a parody of mirth and photographed them all with a wide-angle shot—

A message. A message at the bottom of the last photo. A message penned in something that had once been red but had faded to dark brown.

How does it feel?
Isn’t it sweet?
Isn’t it wonderful?
Aren’t you complete?
The blood on your hands—
The ash in the air—
Though I’m over here, and you’re over there!

How does it feel?

This, I Wanted
5 June


Peerage City lay in ruins. The mute, blackened skeletons of abandoned skyscrapers stared down accusingly through broken-window eyes at deserted, litter-strewn streets. Gone were the mobs, the rioters, the looters - fled, all fled in the slow disheveled trickle of refugees from the broken capital of Dairax. In the smoke-hazed distance, a forlorn siren wailed, signifying emptily the too-late rebound of government and law. Even the birds had abandoned the city. The humans had taken their dead.

A lone starship had creased the sky, unopposed and unquestioned. Some, to be sure, saw it land. Some, perhaps, even spared a moment to wonder what it would bring. But the many-barreled turbolasers and missile batteries that dotted the city glared blindly at the unassuming twilight sky. Only one man truly cared about the ship's arrival, but he had known that it would come - had felt it long before it penetrated the atmosphere. He did not look up, though in the shadows, he smiled.

All this Carinna perceived as she walked the streets, threading her way through crashed vehicles and fallen rubble. All this she felt, and more. Perhaps the Force told her, or perhaps her knowledge came from something older and stranger still, but she knew where he was, and she knew why, even as she knew that it would do no good to seek her friends - Pemm, who had saved her life; or Gerar, who had betrayed her to death. None challenged her as she walked, though she felt eyes upon her from the black windows of burned-out shops. Was it her bearing? The lightsaber worn openly at her side? Or did the survivors of Peerage City's civil war simply feel, as she felt, and slowly turn away?

She followed her feet where she knew they would lead, and as the last sunlight reddened the western horizon, she found herself back where she had started three months ago - where the path she followed ended and began. Where she had been a prisoner for twelve cruel and soul-eroding years.

Carinna Versun, Jedi Padawan, looked up at the Mind Ward and felt true fear.

The chain securing the heavy, once-white doorway had been severed cleanly, and Carinna recognized the work of a lightsaber. Panic tingled at the back of her mind, but she let it pass through her. She imagined eyes on her back but she breathed deeply and did not turn. Her heart beat hard. She pushed the door open, steadying herself, and was not surprised when they slammed shut behind her, sealing the Mind Ward into its own isolated half-darkness. Tracyn Chaelos was waiting.

She drew her lightsaber, feeling its familiar, too-large solidity under her hand, but she did not light it. Tracyn must have activated the old generator, for most of the dim red night lights were glowing, illuminating corridors she knew much too well. The last time she had stood in this doorway, she had shot a man dead, and the glassed-in office to her right had been full of uniformed corpses. The office seemed miraculously preserved: its large panes of perfect glass denied the desolation that had been wreaked upon Peerage, and there were no corpses within it. There were not even bloodstains. She walked past it, finding the interior gate to the patients' wards forced by the same practical slash of a lightsaber. As she did so, she felt a trembling in the Force, almost so slight as to be unnoticeable. She had half-raised her lightsaber when her eyes fixed on the video camera at the far end of the corridor. She reached out with the Force to smash it when another, more powerful tremor presaged a deep, hollow rippling bang. Power flowed up around her, answering her call to shield her from the inevitable following shockwave, the searing heat and spray of shrapnel that would accompany the bomb - it was a trap, a trap like the one that had taken the Shadows, and she had walked like a fool into the center, believing naively that Tracyn did not want to kill her.

But there was no explosion, no shockwave, no agony and death. Carinna felt the Dark Side drift slowly about her, and recalled, with sudden clarity, the banging sound her door had made every time it had been opened by the electric panel mounted on the outside. She multiplied the sound a dozen times, a hundred times, and understood what Tracyn had done - understood it even as sick horror gripped her insides and she realized what crime the Mind Ward's new guardians had committed when they fled their posts. She turned where Tracyn had turned and pushed through the door whose freshly-repaired lock he had severed with his lightsaber.

Already, their stench was in the air. Carinna fixed her gaze steadfastly ahead, but still she saw them, on either side of her, in various stages of slow, sterilized decay. One had sprawled out into the corridor. Her forehead was caved in and blood matted her short gray smock. Carinna saw that she had no fingernails. Dying of thirst in her cell, she had battered herself to death against the unyielding door. Carinna wondered when the escape attempt had changed to attempted suicide.

Some cells had been empty, but the others were more than enough to fill the Ward with the stench of rot, feces, blood, decay. She saw from the corner of her eyes men and women in every position of death: some were curled into fetal balls; some clutched at the air with rigor-frozen fingers; others still lay on their cots, looking almost as though they could be sleeping except for the inevitable signs of advanced decomposition. The Dark Side lingered on them, wafting over her in sullen waves. It is, she thought, unwittingly echoing Tracyn's words, a gallery of despair.

She passed through them the only way she could: one step after another, eyes ahead, lightsaber drawn. She paused only once as she followed Tracyn's path by the doors he had forced, her eyes flickering to the cell that had been hers. It was empty, reserved, perhaps, against her eventual return. Carinna shivered and moved on.

She knew where Tracyn would be. She had awaited his message, knowing it would come. He had drawn it out; given her time to wonder; allowed her, with demonic insight, to force herself to return again and again to the photographs he had sent her of his murder and desecration in search of a hidden message – that if she did not find the message and answer it, he would kill still more people in her name. But the message had come, unsigned, penned in simple black ink on white paper – the second letter she had ever received.

Meet me, love, in two weeks time
in the room where truth is lies.

And so, with her heart fluttering high in her chest; with a scream trapped deep within her; with ice on her spine and sick, terrified tightness in her belly, Carinna opened the doors at the far end of the Patients' Ward. At the end of the long, doorless, lightless, featureless hallway, was an open door.

In that door, framed against the vibrant light of the Blue Room, stood Tracyn Chaelos.

As one, they ignited their swords. It was an odd dichotomy: hers, blue, backlit in red; his, crimson, reflecting on blue. Across a distance that was more than space, master and apprentice gazed at each other, content, for a time, to let the wavering thrum of their lightsabers be the only sound. Carinna stepped forward.

“You have come,” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

"I wanted this."

"Yes."

And he had. He did. He wanted her with all his being. But she had not come because he wanted her, nor because she thought she could be enough. Nothing, he thought, will satisfy my hate. Nothing will win my vengeance. I will have you, at any cost. In time, you will be my apprentice again; and together we will make the galaxy burn. But Tracyn said none of this. She knew it. Perhaps she had always known it. He could feel her certainty over her terror, over her resolve. She knew this, and yet she had come.

Was it love?

Tracyn backed slowly into the Blue Room; and, clinging not to strength, nor to the Force, nor even to love, but to the small unblemished flame of hope... Carinna followed.

She entered the Blue Room with her chin down and her saber ready. Its cold blue light gave her skin the pallor of a corpse over her plain gray clothing. Tracyn reached out a hand as though in welcome, and slammed the door behind her.

Carinna lunged. Master Desdina would have balked, cautioning her to wait, to respond. Master Desdina had been wrong before. She crossed five meters in the blink of an eye, her lightsaber flickering towards Tracyn's heart. He countered with a powerful vertical arc, sparks flew as master and student clashed. They needed no words, these two, communicating with the silent ease of deep and long-held love. They had never needed words - and here, in this room, any words would have been empty.

Winds spun from forces beyond the human understanding swept up the sparse furniture of the Blue Room, so innocent without context: a chair, a hose, a rack of dry syringes. Tracyn broke the chair across Carinna's back. She staggered, spattered his face with needles and drove her heel into his groin - where it found a hard plastic plate in stead of man's vulnerability. Lightsabers crashed and snarled, and the first droplets of their blood mingled on the blue-painted floor.

"I knew a man," she said at last, in a ragged pause, "who longed for peace."

Tracyn feinted twice and struck at her with the Force, but she was ready, and the wave broke against her defenses.

"I loved him, Tracyn. "

The monster smiled.

They fought on, and on, beyond the endurance of any mortal man, locked together in the room where the truth was called a lie, where Carinna had all but vanished into insanity. At every range of combat they struck at one another. She defended herself against a flurry of blows, moving instinctively along the paths that Desdina had taught her to follow, stepped inside his guard and broke his nose with a blow of her elbow. He spat blood and threw her to the ground. She felt something crack in her chest as he followed the motion with a crushing blow of will. She scrabbled backwards, fending off blows to her body and legs, breathing raggedly through her mouth, and somehow managed to stand.

"Join me," he said.

"No."

"I love you!"

"You desire me."

The words hung heavy in the air, as if trapped by the walls that had seen the truth denied so often, by so many. Even as Tracyn faltered, Carinna took advantage of his vulnerability, her face twisted with pain and effort. Faster than any eye could follow, the blue sword struck again and again, for it knew its art as Carinna knew hers: it was a sword, and its purpose had always been death. But a new fear seeped into the room, already redolent with the lingering emotions of anguish and despair. It was Tracyn's fear, though not of death. It reeked of the Dark Side.

Tracyn screamed as the last of his humanity burned away.

His first blow swept hard from left to right, striking away Carinna's Force-strengthened guard. He smashed her back and back, the powerful muscles of his back and arms tensing and bulging as he hewed at her. Drops of blood flew from his lips and chin. Carinna ducked a slash and stabbed him in the thigh; he batted the lightsaber away and drove a kick into her already-broken ribs. Air left her lips in a strangled hiss. He hurled her across the room, using the Force as a bludgeon. Her lightsaber - his lightsaber, he saw with sudden anger - flew from her grasp, and he commanded the Force to bring it to his hand. It nestled there with perfect familiarity, made by him, for him, so long, long ago. Tracyn leered and drew breath to speak.

"Join me," Carinna said.

Tracyn blinked. Carinna smiled sadly.

"I love you."

Her eyes were distant, not quite focused on his face. She pushed herself to a sitting position. There was blood running from one side of her mouth; she had bitten through her tongue. Tracyn advacned, wary, even then. There was something of his old self in the room, lingering like a memory of a dream, but not in him. Even now, even here, even at the end of her life, he could feel Carinna's hope, small and wavering but painfully bright above her sorrow and her fear, and it troubled him. She was his student. He snarled. She would be his student again, when he had cut off her hands and restrained her; he would break her, turn her to the truth, and she would be his, his for all of time. She was his student.

She was his student indeed.

He'll come, Tracyn had said once, thirteen years now gone. What do you do?

And Carinna struck. She struck without warning, without forethought, without hesitation. Her eyes fixed for a fraction of a second on the sharp fragment of the broken chair beneath Tracyn's feet as he stepped over it, and she hurled it upwards with all the power of the infinite Force. Tracyn was fast, faster than lightning, faster than she, but there was no time: the primitive missile flew upwards, bypassing by millimeters the Dark Jedi's concealed armor and sinking deep, deep, deep.

By some secret strength, Carinna lunged, ignoring agony and shock, and before the pain had registered on Tracyn's face, she was upon him. The blue blade slashed out more in reflex than in action, and chopped in half her groping right hand. Her left closed around the hilt of the red sword in Tracyn's right hand. She drove a knee into the broken chair-leg, forcing it deeper, and the sword came free.

Tracyn stumbled.

She slashed, and his hand and the blue blade that it held went tumbling. He lunged for the weapon, groping with his right hand. She stabbed, and the blood-colored blade slammed deep into his torso, cooking his lungs. He looked into her eyes as a thin wisp of smoke drifted from his open mouth. Power flowed to him, drawn by his pain, by his fear, keeping him alive beyond the point of death.

Carinna ripped the weapon out through the side of his ribcage and drew back to strike again. Tracyn held her eyes for a long moment. He nodded, very slightly.

As Carinna Versun struck off her master's head, the man smiled.





The End

Very interesting, a bit of a 40K feel in some ways, certainly shows your unique writing style. Did you co-edit with Mike or co-write?

Both. I wrote a majority of the pieces, but he wrote several, and there's nothing here that both of us didn't contribute something to in the form of editing, and the planning was cooperative.

I forgot to mention, Interlude includes text from two friendly fellows who I only know by internet alias. Credit where credit is due and all that.

Glad you enjoyed