Before - Legends Ghosts of Korriban (Revan/Bastila/Chak/OCs post-KotOR action psychodrama) Updated Ch. 14 5/30/2016!

Awesome enjoying the strategizing & other discussions. The insertion team under Seela - I like how she and Yuthura work together. Nice reading more of Chak's astuteness & Bastila/Revan - they play off one another like L/M actually.

 

Talk about the height of praise!

What can I say? I loved the dynamic between the two in the game itself, and always wanted to have the chance to expand on it.

 

Prologue feedback:

Fate seems to jerk Yuthura around to extremes. But she's a well-intended person at her core. I guess impatience for justice, more than anything, led her to the Sith. She shares some traits in common with Revan and that shows in the influence he had over her person despite his short stay at the academy.

She's an underrated character, and the development you're giving here is worthy of praise. I hope she can continue to develop, and nothing too nasty happens to her and her rag-tags just yet.

Your writing style is something to be coveted. It's professional quality, and yeah, beautifully traditional.

Good luck.

 

Thank you for the prologue review, metophlus, I hope you'll continue to provide feedback.

I like your appraisal of Yuthura as a character in KotOR, a sentiment I share (not least which in that canon—ahem, "Legends"—never really does give an indication of her fate). That was part of the point of the story, really, to flesh out her development as well as to explore what she and Revan have in common—and what they will both have to reconcile through the course of the story.

I'm also glad you like my writing style.

 

Chapter One

You're writing in a time period that's already established, but so far you've been careful to respect the lore. We're told about Khoonda Outpost and enclave lootings, and given a hint of Master Vrook (presumably).

The interplay between Revan and Bastila was clever at times. He's a charming rogue, she's a conservative reactionary. A lot of dialogue options with Bastila in the game did have a snarky tone to them.

Good stuff!

 

Thank you, metophlus.

My first playthrough of KotOR I was as a female, but once I tried it as a male I immediately fell in love with the interactions between male Revan and Bastila, whether or not the player chooses to follow the romance path (but tell me who could possibly resist that accent? ). When dealing with canon characters, I've always tried to be faithful to their portrayal in canon media, and have developed an interesting tool to help: by imagining every line of dialogue spoken in each character's voice (if there isn't one, just pick an actor you like for the part), it is easier to see what works and what doesn't.

It gets more interesting in the next couple of chapters.

 

I'll find opportunities in the near future to practice your advice, Goodwood, and I will update you on how it goes on a technical level.

Chapter Two. . .

The foundations for a restoration of Dantooine are well set.

Seela is wise and receptive for a marine, a sort stereotypically associated with action over smarts. She advised Revan himself, and knew to indulge Yuthura and Ibratu'na their kinship. (I laughed out loud at the idea of a Sith retirement plan.) Small detail here, but it was neat how she casually pointed out the ideal spot for a base.

Back to the fact that you know how to bring out the chemistry between two interacting characters. Hetton and his XO make a good pair. The Admiral acts a narrow-minded but experienced grump, and Nor makes him relent with well-reasoned ideas. I'll also give props to Yuthura and Trunma. . . she speaks, he listens and trusts because she's shown herself a true leader, regardless her dark Sith past.

Can't wait to see Revan, Yuthura, and Bastila interact as a trio again, if that's in the cards. And uhh yeah, the Admiral wants something or rather from the refugee leader there. That one feels a bit more awkward, but I look forward to the follow-up.

 

metophlus It's funny you mention Seela as not being your stereotypical jarhead, because she's actually a carryover from a previous novel of mine, The Last Full Measure. More about her history is told as the story unfolds, and you shouldn't be spoiled very much for that one if/when you choose to read it.

The captain and admiral are yet more carryovers from previous stories, and in my mind Nor is played by Keith David in looks as well as voice, while Kedlis is basically Admiral Paris from Star Trek: Voyager. The dynamic of captain and first officer is one of my favorite aspects of the various incarnations of the Star Trek franchise (except for ST:Enterprise for obvious reasons), and it's also something I like doing; there's a lot of it in the DDC I did from last year, and later chapters as well. As for Yuthura and the refugees, a lot of that trust comes from her taking the risk in getting them offworld, while the rest of it was built up over two years of hard work. She listens to Trunma as much as he listens to her.

There's some more interaction between Revan, Bastila and Yuthura later on, but it isn't central to the plot—yet. I have some possible ideas that have not yet been explored for later chapters (the thread is up to Chapter Nine, but I started Chapter Thirteen a couple of nights ago).

 

Chapter Three...

Setting - You contrasted Republic and Sith warships by their interior moods. Neat.

Plot - Admiral Hetton is dispatching Yuthura, Seela, and a marine squadron to Korriban in order to root out Sith survivors.

Characters - Revan and Bastila are focused primarily on the past: the Dantooine bombardment by Malak, the sacrilege in the enclave by scavengers, Revan's recovering memories and former tyrannical deeds, etc. They're traumatized as a couple while gradually healing as a couple.

Yuthura, a recovering dark sider, will return to the location where she was once at her most corrupt. She wants to help because this is her duty as a Jedi, and the growing colony on Dantooine could only further benefit from her assisting the Republic.

If Captain Melao were to become a villain... I would piss myself. Luckily he's an ally who knows the board, pieces, and rules really well.

Random - Personally... reading Jhorn's survey of the Deliverance was depressing. I struggle to write those kind of professional reports that lend believability and credence to military scenarios. I guess I just don't have the brain for it.

If anyone ever said you shouldn't write to impress others with fancy words and sentence structure, that person never read your stuff.

 

Thank you for the analysis, metophlus. Indeed I was going for such a contrast, and you can thank the video game this is based on for providing inspiration for that aesthetic assessment. I simply took what the game depicted and put forth some sort of reasoning behind the contrast, and I thought that such an observation would serve to deepen Yuthura's character. Revan and Bastila experienced a lot, both prior to and during the events of Knights of the Old Republic, and I wanted the narrative to reflect that. Well-taken about Captain Melao, but he was only ever just another ship's master...albeit a rather astute one both professionally and in relation to others.

The best advice I can give with regard to writing military technobabble is this: cold, clinical detachment, particularly when whatever a report is about is an inanimate object (a starship, a vehicle, a weapon, etc.). Star Trek in all its incarnations is a good example to follow, especially for military sci-fi. You also have to be intimately familiar with the technology your universe uses, and the ways in which it can be abused for story purposes.

I think there's also a Treknobabble generator somewhere out there that provides problems and solutions.

 

Chapter Ten


"What is 'protocol Tatooine-38?'" Yuthura asked, attempting to wrest control of herself from the overwhelming sense of dread that the prerecorded greeting—or her proximity to Korriban itself—had sparked.

"Case shorthand, meant to let our superiors know what course of action I intend," Seela explained bracingly, recognizing her friend's distress. "It basically means that we're proceeding with caution."

"If they're still in hyperspace, they won't receive the message," Yuthura said dubiously.

"They know when we're supposed to have arrived, they will have reverted for a short time to wait for any transmissions we might send," Seela elaborated. "Follow the beacon in, nice and slow. In the meantime, I've got some thinking to do."

The cockpit fell silent as the crescent of Korriban grew larger in the forward viewport. Assuming the task force had departed from Dantooine on schedule, it would still be another six to eight days before they arrived in orbit, which meant a solid week of making sure that whatever thugs on the surface masquerading as Sith didn't find them or, worse, realize that someone unwanted had infiltrated their midst. As far as Seela could determine from this latest development, they had two things going in their favor: the fact that this vessel had frequented their destination before (and might yet be familiar to whoever was running the place), and the presence of a genuine Force-sensitive. Unfortunately, both of those factors could quite literally blow up in their faces, if the wrong sort were to come to such realizations. If I learned one thing in boot camp, however, Seela mused, it's that you work with what you have, not what you want.

The descent into the atmosphere was bumpy, but not overly so, and it was fortunate that dusk was beginning to settle onto the spot where the signal beacon was leading them. "Dreshdae," Yuthura breathed once the Deliverance had descended to twenty thousand meters above the surface. "That's where the source is."

"We're only a thousand klicks out," Seela agreed. "If they've got further instructions for us, they're not in any hurry to get in contact to send them."

"That assumes they have the spaceport back up and working," Yuthura hedged. "If they had real inter-system communications, there wouldn't have been a need for the looping transmission we picked up."

"What're you thinking?" Seela prompted after a beat.

"The spaceport was completely ransacked when I left," Yuthura stated harshly. "There is no way the comm gear in the control tower survived, and if whoever is down there had the wherewithal to replace it, they wouldn't have settled for a weak homing beacon." She paused, momentarily deep in thought. "They are probably using comlinks, tuned to the same or a similar frequency."

"Stang, and I thought Anchorhead had a primitive setup," Seela rumbled. "I hope you're right, because that's about the only way I can think of to fool them into letting us land."

"What do you mean?"

Seela smirked. "How's your Huttese? Know any other trade languages?"

"Gooddé da lodia," Yuthura replied with an impotent shrug. "Kee chai chai cun kuta?"

"You'll do fine, trust me," Seela said, barely restraining a peal of laughter as she dug into her belt pouch. Her accent was a little rusty, but she had the phonetics and syntax down pat as she offered a greeting and inquired what they were doing there; the Twi'lek's pronunciation was certainly better than her own. "Use this," she continued, "keep your Force sense as small as you can make it, and no one will recognize you as long as you keep speaking in slug tongue."

Yuthura dutifully but dubiously examined the black plastoid disk that the Marine handed her, which looked like a bog-standard makeup kit only larger. Opening it, she let out a sigh of resignation. "You're not serious."

"You mean to tell me that green isn't your color?"

"I..." Yuthura began, her eyes flicking helplessly from the viewport to Seela and back again. "I...will do my best. Can you take the controls while I paint myself?"

"Sure," Seela agreed, not unkindly as she flipped the intercom switch once more. "We're on our way in, get ready," she advised her squad. "Put on your helmets, check your seals, prep weapons and hope they don't decide to search the cargo area. If they do, shoot to kill and run for the hills, we'll make contact somehow."

"Ooh-rah!" the Marines replied in unison.

— — —​

Pacing the vast bridge, Commander Chak Ravartin glanced at the ship's chronometer mounted above the navigator's station. It was nearing the end of the noon watch, and though nothing exciting had happened aboard any of the task force's four ships since their departure from Dantooine, the crew of Stalwart Defender were doing their jobs amidst an air of expectation. So far, everything was going pretty much as expected, but even as he had the deck and the conn, Chak felt that something wasn't quite right. Nerves, probably, he speculated. Can't let them show, though.

At least he didn't have to run chaperone on the two Jedi while he had the watch.

"Sir, it's almost time," called the Gotal who was serving as comm officer for this rotation, her voice raised so that she could be heard over the background noise of the bridge crew.

Chak walked over to the comm station, keeping his gaze on the chronometer as he did so. "Are you set to receive, Lieutenant?"

"Yes sir, the system's active, we're just waiting for the reversion."

"Good," Chak replied soberly. Turning toward one of the bridge talkers, he caught the Human's attention. "Get Commander Harbo up here," he ordered. "She'll have the watch once she arrives."

"Yes sir," the talker replied, and relayed the order. "She's on her way."

Though Lieutenant Commander Grace Harbo was a good six or seven years older than he was, Chak knew that she respected him. This was despite the fact that he had been brought aboard as the new exec rather than the promotion and appointment going to her, as the next in line for the job. She was a good officer, skilled in navigation and gunnery; she was also a former CPO who had taken a commission during the early stages of the war after her previous ship had been blasted out from under her. It struck Chak as odd that the woman hadn't opted to try for a transfer, since she was more than qualified to captain a Foray-class frigate if she so desired, or to take the XO slot on just about any Hammerhead or Axehead cruiser in the Republic Navy. Well, she'll get her chance to play XO when we get to where we're going, he reflected. She doesn't have much experience with ground ops anyway, so it's just as well.

"Time," the comm officer called, snapping Chak from his reverie.

"Helm, spin up the ion drive," he ordered briskly. "Shields, Guns, prepare to activate as soon as you're able. Nav, you may bring us out of hyperspace at your convenience."

The chorus of acknowledgements was immediately swallowed up by a flurry of activity as officers barked orders and chiefs saw to their divisions. Barely ten seconds after he had given the order, the endless cloudy skyscape of hyperspace shattered into lines that shrank back into the pinpricks of stars in deep space.

"Sensors?" Chak inquired.

"No contacts, sir," the Devaronian manning the post said. "We're at least three light-years from any significant astronomical bodies."

"Good," the commander replied, satisfied. "Our consorts will not have stopped," he explained for the benefit of the crew. "Comm, got anything yet?"

"Not yet, sir."

"Then we wait until—" Chak began, but the rest of his sentence was rendered moot.

"Sir, we've just been pegged by an encoded hypercomm burst transmission, source unknown," the Gotal interrupted.

"Excellent," Chak said flatly, his face an expressionless mask. "Route it to the captain's ready room, then erase it from your console and logs."

"Aye aye, sir," the comm officer confirmed once she had finished obeying the commander's orders. If she was confused by these curious developments, she made no sign. All she had known was that the battlecruiser was supposed to drop out of hyperspace at a certain time, wait for some sort of message to arrive, and then proceed onward to the next jump point.

"Nav, get the plot back up if you please," Chak ordered." Helm, make any course corrections you need, then punch it."

A hatch hissed open on the aft bridge bulkhead amidst the acknowledgments of the helmsman and the navigator, and Commander Harbo came striding confidently up the compartment toward where Chak stood. "I relieve you, sir," she stated formally.

"I stand relieved," Chak replied with equal formality. "I'll be in the captain's ready room if you need either of us."

"Understood, sir."

Nodding to the rest of the watch officers in turn, Chak left the bridge and made his way aft. When he reached his destination, it was to find Vice Admiral Hetton striding toward him from the other end of the corridor. "After you, Commander," the older officer said smoothly, and one after the other they entered Captain Melao's office.

"It's decoding now," Nor advised the two officers once the hatch had resealed itself. His console beeped, and he turned the terminal screen around so that his exec and the admiral could read the terse note that had been delivered across a dozen sectors.

"So, now we have some idea what we're dealing with," Admiral Hetton said, taking a seat while Chak remained standing. "Can't say I'm surprised."

"I'm not familiar with this protocol," Chak said.

"There's no reason you should be," the captain replied, handing his exec a datapad. "You weren't in on the planning stages."

"No reason I should have been," Chak surmised, at which both of his superior officers nodded. Entering the name of the protocol into the 'pad called up its entry. "Evidence of surface occupation observed," he read aloud, "as well as recent activity in orbit and spatial vicinity of target. No direct sightings. Planetfall possible. Risk of detection is moderate to marked. Proceeding with caution.

"Begging your pardon, sirs," Chak asked after a beat, "but doesn't that mean we don't really need this scouting mission after all? It seems to me that, now we know there are Sith down on Korriban, they couldn't hope to resist us when the task force arrives."

"They may not be able to win, but they'll certainly put up a good fight," Captain Melao said grimly. "Alternatively, they could simply go underground and wait for us to leave, ultimately defeating the entire purpose of the operation."

"It's probably what would have happened if we hadn't sent 'Lieutenant' Ban and her team in ahead," the admiral pointed out. "Of course, Korriban can't really support sentient life for very long, so any attempt by the Sith to flee wouldn't get very far. That's a danger the scouting party will have to face as well, should they be wigged out."

"Understood, sir," Chak said, shrugging in a why-do-you-need-me-for-this sort of way. "What are your orders?"

"Nothing right now," Nor replied, managing to keep a straight face. "You'll be going down with Commander Hrakness in the third wave, speak with him at your convenience to arrange the particulars. I'm also entrusting you to help in arranging the deployment of our starfighter screen, since Commander Bundt is still fairly new to the job."

Nodding, the commander turned on his heel and left the ready room.

"That boy will put us both out of business, one day," Kedlis Hetton observed with a wry smile. "I'm glad you took the chance on him, rather than promoting Commander Harbo. He's probably the best XO you've had yet."

"Harbo is a good officer, but her imagination is somewhat lacking," Nor confirmed, squirming in his chair slightly. "It's probably an artifact of her time as an NCO. The thing is, she wants to command this ship some day, but she just doesn't have the talent for it; I keep telling her to get a frigate or apply for the XO slot on a more sensibly-proportioned cruiser."

"You'll have to take the matter out of her hands, then," Kedlis replied grimly. "I know you don't like to do that to your people, but sometimes it's necessary for the good of the service. Even if she hates you for it for the rest of her life, she'll understand...eventually."

"I'll take it under advisement, sir," Nor said, his expression blank.

— — —​

"We're coming up on our target," Seela announced over the intercom. "Twelve, are you picking up any comm emissions?"

"Wait one," the E-TAC replied, apparently fiddling with one of his gadgets. "Sporadic low-power transmissions in low-frequency bands, really primitive stuff. Encoded, but the scramble protocols are at least three years out of date."

"Can you bust through it?" the first sergeant asked.

"Can you breathe oxygen?" the petty officer shot back. "We'll have eavesdropping capability by the time you set us down."

"Still nothing," Yuthura observed, a grimace curling her green-painted face as her painted lekku twitched. "If there are any other ships down there, their engines are cold or inoperable."

"Time to roll back your Force," Seela advised grimly, as she did the same. "If no one says anything by the time we reach the spaceport, set down in whatever bay you think is best. I'd rather if we didn't have to land in the middle of a field with no cover."

"Understood," the Twi'lek acknowledged, sending Deliverance into a slight bank to port to get a better approach vector. The edges of the settlement were becoming visible amidst the barren crags of the planet's surface as the ship descended past five hundred meters in altitude. So far, the only detail that Seela could make out was a vast collection of multi-hued canvas that she assumed would, upon closer inspection, turn out to be either a large tent city or else a few really big tents cobbled together from many disparate elements.

At fifteen kilometers' distance, a crackle of static came over the comm unit, on a slightly different frequency than the direction-finding loop transmission had used. "...confirmed...moving on...course. Land...bay...two seven."

The two exchanged a look. "Was that aimed at us?" the Tatooinian asked hesitantly.

"I think so," Yuthura hedged. "There's only one bay that ends in '27,' but it wouldn't have been my first choice."

"If that's the case, I think they're waiting for your response," Seela prompted.

Yuthura nodded grimly, then flipped the comm unit over to TRANSMIT. "Acknowledged," she replied in Huttese. "Adjusting course."

"Two, this is Twelve," the E-TAC said over the intercom. "That was definitely a comlink transmission aimed at us. Whoever these guys are, they're working with scrounged equipment held together with space tape, chewing gum and the dark side of the Force."

"Acknowledged, Twelve," Seela replied, glancing at Yuthura, who nodded. "We're about two minutes out."

— — —​

"Hmmm, haven't seen one of those in a while," the scarred man huffed in a gravelly voice, his hand shielding his face from the glare of the setting sun.

"Seen what?" inquired his Weequay partner in a brittle tone, as the two stood atop the remains of the spaceport control tower.

"It's an old Quartermaster-class supply ship," the Human replied smugly. "The Republic used to use them to ferry important cargo and personnel, but they got rid of them all years ago."

"Who cares, as long as they got stuff we can use?"

"Oh, we'll milk them alright, but I expect that whoever's flying that thing might not take too kindly if you try to push them too hard."

The Weequay patted the hilt of the lightsaber attached to his web belt. "Let them disagree," he said gruffly. "I haven't had a decent fight in weeks."

"Okay, time to throttle back," the Human advised mildly, though inward he was tensing himself for a confrontation. "We're here to welcome this latest arrival, after all."

The two Sith watched in silence as the incoming vessel, its pilot either unfamiliar with their surroundings or else a bit rusty behind the controls, circled the outskirts of Dreshdae before heading in toward their assigned berth. Docking Bay 327 was currently the only one in service at the moment; of the spaceport's original thirty facilities, only five remained in working condition, and the other four were currently occupied by a smattering of older vessels in various states of disrepair or cannibalization. It was a testament to just how thorough the devastation had been two years ago, that the duties of spaceport controller had to be handled by two pairs of watchful eyes and a comlink that had been obsolete during Exar Kun's tenure as Dark Lord.

It was to be expected that his Weequay apprentice would feel as he did; he was, after all, a relative newcomer who had earned his lightsaber only a week prior. The Human had been there since before the war, and had been one of the very few to have survived the spasm of self-destruction that had convulsed through the entire valley in the wake of Master Wynn's apparent death at the hands of one of the students. Even after all this time, he didn't know much about what had happened to trigger the cataclysm itself, only that he had escaped death by the thinnest of margins as everyone he had known for the previous four or five years tried to kill one another in a rage-induced quest for power. That little incident had taught him quite a lot, and such knowledge—and his early contact with and support of the older man when he had worked his injured way back to the Academy—had led to his current position of lead combat instructor and deputy headmaster. Dell Ordon had risen farther in these times of adversity than he had ever expected to achieve when the Sith had been riding high, back during the campaign against the Republic.

Brushing at the thin coating of dust that had accumulated on his brand-new uniform, Dell watched as the incoming freighter finally pulled up and alighted upon its assigned berthing. "Stay here, Krul," he ordered, his tone soft but commanding. "Be ready to jump in if necessary."

"Got it, boss," the Weequay ground out as his master jumped confidently from the roof.

Dell landed with the grace of a taopari on another, lower roof that branched out across most of the spaceport, connecting the tower with each clutch of landing facilities. Casting furtive looks about as he extended his Force-awareness outward, toward where the newcomer had landed, he struck out toward Bay 327, arriving at the small overhang that encircled the landing pit. Nodding in satisfaction that no one had yet to emerge from the ticking, hissing vessel, he lept lightly down to the floor of the bay and rapped smartly on the egress hatch on the starboard side of the cockpit with his gloved right hand. "Welcome to Korriban," he announced grandly. "You can come out now."

The hatch opened at his words, and two females emerged from the cockpit of the supply ship. The first to exit was a quite striking blonde Human in nondescript spacer attire, followed by a green-skinned Twi'lek who looked as though she had dressed in the dark with clothes from at least a dozen different wardrobes. The mish-mash outfit was startling enough to elicit a bark of laughter from Dell as he took in the absurdity of what he was seeing. "Nice getup," he quipped, unable to help himself.

"E chu ta," the woman hissed sharply, her face wearing a hard expression as her sense in the Force pulsed angrily. Mastering himself, Dell focused on her for a moment, feeling...

"You'll have to forgive my friend," the Human explained in Basic as she interposed herself between Dell and the Twi'lek. "She had to leave home in rather a hurry."

"So I gather," Dell replied, smiling slightly. "I'm Dell. Might I have the pleasure of your names?"

"I'm Seela," the Human said, her smile mirroring Dell's. "That's Tolbra'nar." Leaning in conspiratorially, she continued in a low murmur. "Got hired to ferry her out here, but she wouldn't say why. If it's all the same with you, I'd rather leave her here before she decides I need to stick around as her chauffeur."

Dell crossed his arms over his chest, his gaze passing from one female to the next. Tolbra'nar, if that was her real name, definitely had the spark, but the Human...she was different. Try as he might, he simply could not get a read on her. It was almost as if she was there, but not there at the same time, like some philosophical experiment gone horribly awry. "That depends on a few things," he replied, masking his moment of disquiet with the kind of snide response one was expected to make in these situations. "Like, for instance, how you heard of this place."

"What, Korriban?" Seela countered incredulously, as though Dell had asked her the chemical formula for water. "You've been stuck on this dirtball for a long time if you think the rest of the galaxy's forgotten about it." She shrugged nonchalantly. "And if you wanted to keep your little shantytown secret, then you don't go setting up a homing beacon."

Dell glared at the blonde, though he watched from the corner of his eye as the Twi'lek moved off seemingly absentmindedly, her lekku shivering along with her arms and torso. Though Tolbra'nar's body language gave off an impression of intense discomfort, her Force senses—minimal as it was—was focused, but on what he couldn't tell. "There's a substantial fee for the use of this facility," he advised Seela offhandedly. "And credits are no good out here, as I'm sure you are aware."

"Oh, here we go," the blonde muttered resignedly. "That schutta over there isn't paying me enough to deal with this, but you're not going to let me leave until we do, right?"

"That's right," Dell confirmed smugly. "So, what've you got?"

Seela made rather a show of examining her own vest and gunbelt and that of the Twi'lek, before casting her gaze back toward the supply ship with a shrug. "Ration packs, some blaster gas and power cells, a box of comlinks I picked up on Lianna..."

"The box of comlinks will do nicely," Dell interrupted. "Assuming you've also got the field calibration unit to go with it."

"Oh, stang," Seela replied with a start. "No wonder it was so cheap. But hey, tell you what I'll do—"

"Skip it," Dell interrupted again, "we'll make do. Bring the box out and I'll think about kicking your request up the line."

"Thanks, buster," the Human ground out. "I really appreciate that."

Dell looked on as the Human returned to her ship and the Twi'lek continued to fumble about near the bay's retaining wall. Though this was hardly the first ship he had greeted since the signals had started to go out, this was the first one whose occupants had elicited such a curious mix of reactions within him. He was not disappointed to see the pair of females; it had been a long time since he had enjoyed any such companionship, after all, and both were quite fine specimens. On the surface, this seemed to be a fairly routine dropoff, given the obvious sensitivity of this Tolbra'nar woman, but something tugged at the corner of his mind like a bit of mold to the sole of a boot. Seela, if that was her real name, was either a ridiculously poor smuggler or the best actress this side of the Corellian Run. At least the Twi'lek's unaccustomed bumbling was easier to explain: nearly every Force-user who had ever come to Korriban before, in his experience, was at least moderately overwhelmed by the sheer presence of the dark side here. Some became nearly catatonic, though those that did and then recovered of their own volition would almost always go on to achieve great things. He had been one such person.

After about five minutes or so, Seela reemerged from the cockpit bearing a large fiberplast box, on top of which rested a rectangular contraption with a number of ports set into the side. "Is this what you meant?" the blonde asked cheerfully, setting the crate at Dell's feet and handing him the device. "I found it lodged under my seat, must've gotten knocked around somehow."

Frowning, Dell examined the thing. "Yeah, that's it," he hedged. "You sure those comlinks are clean?"

"Nope," Seela replied, shrugging. "Haven't got a clue, I'm no tech slicer."

"Fine then," Dell said, making a mental note to examine a few of the devices for himself before passing the lot along. "Return to your ship and stay inside, if you value your life. I'll take care of Tolbra'nar from here."

"Whatever you want, buddy," Seela replied flippantly, making a throwing-away gesture with her right hand. "You heard the man, schutta," she yelled at the top of her voice. "Follow him and he'll see you're taken care of."

"Smeeleeya whao toupee upee," the Twi'lek replied with an irritated grunt. "Beeska mu-moolee bu Halapu."

Fluent in Huttese from a young age, Dell understood every word, and wondered why his newest charge was making such a spectacle of herself. Smile when you say that? The payment is in the HoloNet? Perhaps she simply didn't care what the Human did now that she had arrived, since anyone who voluntarily came out here had to know that the HoloNet didn't reach as far as Korriban. It wouldn't be the first time a hopeful had hired someone else to transport them here, only to leave their hapless pilot behind to fend for themselves, stiffed out of whatever fee they had been promised. Glancing back up at the control tower as Tolbra'nar approached, Dell reached out with the Force and tapped his apprentice's mind, letting Krul know that their business here was done.

For now.

— — —​

"Twelve, did everyone hear all of that?" Seela asked through the intercom once she had climbed back into the cockpit of Deliverance and sealed the hatch.

"Affirmative, Two," the E-TAC replied. "One's little bug is up and running, I doubt they'll ever realize we're listening in."

Seela nodded in satisfaction. The bug had been his idea, and she'd managed to attach it firmly within the folds of Yuthura's head-wrap without the Twi'lek's knowledge while she slept. "I'm guessing you've cracked their comlink code, then."

"That's a roger. They're not really saying much, though; they must not trust the things, or else don't have enough for everybody."

"Of course, our little gift will help to remedy that," Seela chortled. That, too, had been the Navy man's doing; he'd come up with the code-snatcher before they had left Stalwart Defender, and had gotten the supply officer to give the mission a box of civilian-grade comlinks that would have gone to the refugees on Dantooine, if two of the farmholds they had made alliances with hadn't already combined their resources to manufacture them on a limited basis.

"It's definitely going to help matters," Seela advised, "but we wouldn't want to rely on the Sith being this stupid for very long. Six, do you think you and your team can scale a five meter duracrete wall in armor and pack, in the dark and without being detected?"

"I'll have to take a look at the surface, Two," she replied soberly. "If it's too new, which I doubt, then my tools may leave marks that others may notice."

"I don't think that'll be a problem," Seela said, a note of disgust in her voice. "No one's bothered to maintain this place for years, by the look of things. And I got a very good look while our welcoming committee was busy sizing up One."

Seela had suspected that this Dell person wasn't the only one who had monitored their landing, but Yuthura's use of hastily-improvised code phrases confirmed that at least one other Force-user had also been present nearby. And she would bet every stripe on her arms that that second being had been sitting atop the half-wrecked control tower, providing overwatch.

"Okay, here's what we'll do," she said briskly. "Six, take Twelve, Four, and Ten and escort Twelve to his hidey-hole so he can report to the satellite. Then get back here and we'll start sending the rest of the team out to their preselected positions. Case Three is in effect—enemy Force-users are present, use extreme caution."

"Copy that," Six replied smartly, and a steady stream of acknowledgments followed.

 

Terrific developments and teamwork.

 

Thanks! What did you think of the use of Huttese phrases?

 

Very nice! And I really liked reading more of Chak's excellent command ability versus someone else's whose not as competent to be in that position. Of course the higher ups recognize that.

 

Chapter Four

Technical -

This sentence is so you:

...

The reader will appreciate the single example of humor in all the dreariness:

Setting - N/A

Plot - Mostly same as last. Seela does receive her mission and react.

Characters - We meet Georg Oakes, a scarred veteran and Jedi who fought in many key battles against the Sith.

Hrakness is a tactical-minded Commander with a conscience. He's repressing his worries like everyone else.

I know the Republic officers are pressuring Seela into a highly dangerous mission that she feels poorly prepared for, but she just woke up on the wrong side today. Sleep hang-over?

Yuthura's critical of herself for even vaguely considering a round of Mind Game with the captain. Sad, but necessary.

Random - This chapter overwhelmed me with its high-fiber content and length. Yet next to nothing actually happens in it.

 

LOL @ your "Random" observation—I don't quite know whether to take that as an endorsement of my writing style or simply a wry observation.

Seela's reaction is what I'd imagine any professional soldier's would be if given such a choice that was not a choice at all, and hopefully I was able to pull that off convincingly. Having never served in the military (not for lack of trying), these are the kinds of situations at which I can only give my best guesstimate.

 

(Apologies for the huge gap in posting)

Chapter Eleven


Her mind a tumult of emotions and memories vying for attention, Yuthura followed her erstwhile guide as he led the way through a rusting blast door that squealed indignantly upon opening and closing, and a series of absolutely filthy, dimly-lit corridors that smelled faintly of garbage, permacrete dust, stale lubricants, and the faintest hint of old blood. It was apparent that Dell had mistaken her mental turmoil at having returned to the place where she had done so many dark deeds for the kind of disorienting confrontation with the dark side that so many first-time visitors felt, especially those who were Force-sensitive. Ever since the Deliverance had set out from Dantooine with its crew of infiltrators, she had been preparing for and counting upon such a misapprehension; nevertheless, the sensation of actually setting foot on this planet once more, after having been away for so long, had come as a slap to the face and a durasteel-clad punch to the gut.

In the end, she reflected, that was probably the whole point, and possibly the only reason that this particular gambit had fooled a man she had once helped to train for more than a year. Seela's sell-job had been the icing on the cake, however; the man had been distracted by her near-mute presence in the Force, and her improvised performance as a ditzy smuggler was a masterpiece of feigned confusion and resigned indignation. It was a well-known fact of the universe that most sentient beings perceived what they wished to perceive, and the two women had used that to their advantage, contriving to present their greeter with as wide a variety of false leads and phantom impressions as possible. Naturally, that had been the easy part, because now Yuthura had—by necessity—broken one of the blonde Marine's most basic axioms of warfare: never go anywhere without backup.

"Try not to get lost," Dell said, his gravelly voice projecting an air of indifference. "It's a bit of a mess here."

Yuthura grunted a reply, not trusting herself to speak. She was now being led through the small support complex that funneled new arrivals from the spaceport to the Academy; with a start, she realized that she had just passed the spot where Revan had "earned" his apprentice medallion. The small concourse beyond was lit by a smattering of dying glowpanels, as well as a pair of holes that had been blasted through the roof, the rough edges bearing the telltale marks of Force lightning. Rubble had been swept into a shadowy corner at the far wall, so that this area and what had once been the Czerka Corporation regional headquarters were rather cleaner than the rest of the facility appeared to be. Relatively-speaking, of course.

The cantina she used to frequent, where she would often pass final judgment on those seeking entry, surprisingly appeared to have suffered little damage in the tempest of purest violence that had wracked Dreshdae. It was, in fact, currently open for business, though aside from the Rodian bartender, few beings were currently patronizing the place. One of them waved at Dell as he peeked in, the scarred Human casually returning the gesture. Everyone, the proprietor included, wore the same uniform—the uniform she had once worn herself—and they appeared not only well-kept, but almost brand-new.

The trek only came to a complete stop once Dell reached the middle of the durasteel bridge that spanned a deep chasm that opened out into a broad gorge, which otherwise separated the support facility exit from the entrance to the Academy. One of the statues that had bracketed the huge stone door that led the way in had been toppled, fracturing itself into several pieces on impact with its fellow, blocking the entrance and scattering bits of rock everywhere. Dell nodded at the pile of debris.

"There's only one test you have to pass, before we let you join us," he said grimly.

Yuthura inquired as to what that test might be.

"It's simple, really," Dell replied. "Let yourself in, by any means you can think of."

As the sun began to sink behind a distant crest of mountains, Yuthura found herself facing a dilemma that, compared with the truth of her current situation, would have been laughable if it wasn't so important. To her, the solution was obvious: use the Force to lift the debris aside. But she also needed to maintain the fiction that she was just another potential, possessed of some awareness but little real strength or ability. What would Seela do? she found herself asking, marveling to herself at how the Tatooinian seemed to cope with such situations with little apparent effort. A mental image of the blonde Human's laughing face prompted an absurd thought, and she strode toward the blocked door, pushing experimentally against a large chunk of stone with her foot.

It didn't budge.

Kneeling in the dust, Yuthura examined the ground surrounding the stone, and quickly realized that this was an oft-repeated exercise. Someone had been careful to make it look as though the statue had crumbled in such a way of its own volition, but in reality, everyone had to move the rock aside just to gain entrance. Perhaps someone else stood sentinel elsewhere, moving the rock back whenever another being needed to go in? It was an ingeniously simple training tool, she thought, as it forced one to continuously rely upon the Force and the emotions that fueled the dark side. Wishing to avoid the now-obvious trap, Yuthura made rather a performance out of pushing against the rock, allowing her connection to the light to flow freely, keeping her from injuring herself even as she managed to push it a few centimeters with every shove. It wasn't that heavy, perhaps five or six hundred kilos, but the shape of it and the ground upon which it rested conspired to make for quite a grueling test—Yuthura doubted that even a Wookiee or a Herglic could have accomplished the feat unaided. A few grunts and Huttese curses gave off the impression that she wasn't exactly enjoying herself, and by the time she had manhandled the rock clear of the door, the sky overhead had turned a deep blue-black that was liberally spangled with stars.

"Not the most elegant test, I know," Dell said airily as Yuthura heaved the door open, panting with real effort now. "But it weeds out those who would otherwise be wasting our time. Welcome to the Korriban Sith Academy."

There were no words for "thank you" in Huttese, and mindful of the fact that Dell would have known this, Yuthura offered the man a formal bow, her lekku unfurling to hang limp from her shoulders.

"Yeah, well, we'll see about that," Dell said, correctly guessing her intent. "Find yourself a place to bed down, there's plenty of room. Training starts at dawn, if you're feeling up to it."

And with that, the Human strode off, leaving Yuthura to decide for herself what to do next.

— — —​

One of the drawbacks of the plan, it transpired, was that there was no way for anyone to actually speak to Yuthura. Though the bug was almost untraceable as a passive listening device, according to the E-TAC, making it into a two-way system would have resulted in making it that much easier to detect. As such, the risk to her and the mission was more than Seela was willing to take. She was starting to regret having to let her go off alone in the first place, but there had been no help for it, not once the Sith had made contact. Just by the way he carried himself, how his right hand seemed always to hover just around his thigh even though he wore a thick woolen poncho over his all-too-familiar uniform, it was clear that this Dell person had been armed. Making things worse was the fact that only "real" Sith would be permitted to carry lightsabers here, and so Yuthura had left hers behind, effectively rendering herself nearly defenseless.

"Two, this is Six," a voice said into her reverie. "We're clear and en route to the primary point of contact."

Shaking her head ruefully, Seela gathered herself. No room for regrets now, she reminded herself. "Copy that, Six. Any sign of civvies?"

"We've seen a few lights coming from run-down buildings, and some heat signatures wandering around outside the perimeter of the spaceport, but they're all clustered on the other side of town from where we're going."

"Don't get too reliant on the tech," Seela advised. "These Sith are resourceful little scum nuggets. If you feel like you're walking into an ambush, or even if you might accidentally run into one of the locals, back off and try another route. We cannot afford detection."

"Understood, Two. Will advise you of any developments."

And that was another drawback: with Yuthura off to who knew where by now, and with the Sith watching their ship, by the time dawn came Seela would be alone. While the idea of camping out on Korriban had never exactly been a thrilling proposition, she liked the idea of being stuck in the cockpit of ''Deliverance'' and playing mission controller even less. It had occurred to her that Dell's threat had been intended for the role she had played for him, rather than the highly-trained and proficient soldier that she was, but she hadn't wanted to risk the refugees' old ship. Now, however, Seela understood that the mission was more important than that; the man had quite obviously not realized that nine Marines and a Navy comm specialist had been quite literally smuggled to the surface right under his nose. The irony of it elicited a bark of laughter from Seela as she opened the hatch to the rear compartment. "Change of plans," she announced to the six armored beings that remained. "I'm going out with the rest of you."

The Marines nodded in acknowledgement as Seela stripped off the spacer garb she wore and slipped into a body glove, tacking on the plates she had owned since before the battle over Ord Mantell with practiced ease. The distributed heft of the armor and helmet made her feel infinitely better, as did the bulk and weight of the BR-12m sniping blaster in her hands once it was reassembled. Now properly prepared to face whatever the Sith might throw at her, Seela grabbed a piece of bench and began to wait for Six and the rest of her team to return.

"Heck of a show you put on earlier, Two," Three commented dryly. "You should be in holodramas."

"I'll consider it when we get back," she replied dubiously. "But right now, I'll settle for the hazardous duty and combat pay we're getting."

"Ooh-rah," Eight said. "Though even that doesn't seem like enough, considering where we are."

"Steady on, Marine," Nine advised. "We've made it this far, and we've given them no reason to suspect we're here."

"That's right," Seela said bracingly. "They're dangerous, but once you know how, it's fairly simple to make a Force-user underestimate you—to their cost. Note that I said 'simple' and not 'easy,' however. Remember what I've told you, and you should do fine."

The Marines nodded, and a companionable silence fell as each soldier went over their own part of the mission in their heads. There was a nice overlook that had a commanding view of the nearly-dead city, including what Yuthura had identified as the entrance to the Sith Academy, and that was where Seela had wanted to set up her own nest. Though Yuthura had felt certain that there was no chance at all to get a team in position to monitor the Valley of the Dark Lords without being spotted, during the cursory flyby that Deliverance had performed prior to touching down, Seela had been inclined to agree—at first. What she hadn't told the Twi'lek was that she had in fact spotted a small gully that appeared to connect the town to the valley by way of a large basaltic outcropping; if they could find the entrance without being spotted, then it ought to be a relatively simple matter of keeping sufficient cover between the observers and the valley itself.

"Six checking in," said the Arkanian Marine who had, in the time since the team had been formed, become Seela's impromptu exec. "Twelve is secure and has successfully uploaded an update."

"Good work, Six," Seela replied, feeling a slight sense of relief. "Anything significant to report?"

"Negative, Two, save for another small pocket of possible civilians."

"Understood, Six. Head on back and we can plot out what you've seen."

"Copy that. ETA approximately twenty minutes."

She was almost five minutes late, but Seela didn't hold that against her. "Had to avoid a night patrol," the staff sergeant said by way of explanation once she, Four and Ten returned to Deliverance. "Four beings; two Human, one Aqualish, and a Weequay who seemed to be in charge. All four were armed with blaster rifles and sidearms, though I'd bet my stripes that their leader had a lightsaber as well. They didn't spot us."

"Did you get a track on them?" Seela asked once Six had indicated where the patrol had been sighted, as well as the location of the other group of civilians.

"Not really," Six admitted with an uncomfortable shrug. "It was a near-run thing, and too risky to try and get a plot. Not from where we were, at least."

"That's alright," Seela said reassuringly, casting her gaze about the rear compartment; nobody was wearing their helmets now. "Ten, you're with me," she continued, then began looking over Yuthura's map. "Six, you'll take Eight instead and proceed to this point."

She stabbed at the approximate area of the entrance to her shortcut, then began to explain what she wanted the pair to do. Between the two spotters Eight, being the only other graduate of scout/sniper school in the squad, was the better-qualified, and Six would need all the help she could get if the feeling in Seela's gut was anything to go by: if the Valley of the Dark Lords was so unimportant, then why was the only known terrestrial entrance to it blocked by an academy for the dark arts? It occurred to her then that Yuthura might simply not have known about the fissure, or else that in her time there, it had been sufficiently guarded so as to preclude any attempt by unauthorized persons to force the passage. If the latter was the case, then it was possible that the Twi'lek had simply forgotten, or else she hadn't wanted to get the team's hopes up, or even to avoid the mission being compromised as a result of such an attempt.

Or she could have deliberately withheld this information.

As much as she wanted to believe that Yuthura wouldn't do that, Seela was under orders to at least assume the possibility of such a betrayal, in addition to the consequences that such a willful act would bring about. Nevertheless, she knew where her duties lay, and part of that was to ensure the success of the mission at any cost. "Belay my last," she said after a brief pause to consider all of this, taking Yuthura's lightsaber from where it had been stored and clipping it to her own utility belt. "Ten and I will run the passage ourselves. Six, you and Eight take Point Osk and provide overwatch on the town. The rest of you, your orders are unchanged. Let's move out, people."

"Ooh-rah!" the Marines replied collectively and forcefully, the cheer expressing their feelings at finally setting out on the task which they had come here to perform.

— — —​

MISSION LOG: OPERATION "CRIMSON LANTERN"​

​

COMMANDING OFFICER: (BREVET) LTJG Y. BAN (GUIDE)​

MISSION COORDINATOR/XO: 1SGT S. DAR (LEAD)​

REPORTING OFFICER: 1PO X. CAPLAN​

​

UPDATE 1.0: ARRIVAL AND FIRST CONTACT​

​

1.1. ARRIVED IN HORUSET SYSTEM AT OR AROUND PROJECTED ETA. ENCOUNTERED LOW-FREQUENCY LOOPING TRANSMISSION BEARING INSTRUCTIONS FOR INCOMING STARSHIPS SOON AFTER. FOLLOWED INSTRUCTION TO USE TRANSMISSION AS HOMING BEACON, POINT CONFIRMED AS SETTLEMENT "DRESHDAE" AND ONLY KNOWN SEAT OF HABITATION ON KORRIBAN. RECEIVED LOW-POWERED COMLINK CALL FROM PERSON(S) ON SURFACE, CONFIRMING SIGHTING AND PROVIDING FINAL LANDING INSTRUCTIONS.​

​

1.2. MADE LANDING APPROX. TWO HOURS BEFORE NIGHTFALL, LOCAL TIME; CONTACT WITH LOCAL AUTHORITIES ESTABLISHED SOON AFTER. MISSION LEAD AND GUIDE DEPARTED VESSEL UNDER COVER OF PREVIOUSLY-ARRANGED CIVILIAN ID AND USING AD HOC CODE PHRASES TO ESTABLISH PARTICULARS. GUIDE CONFIRMED PRESENCE OF ENEMY FORCE-USERS WHILE LEAD SUCCESSFULLY DISGUISED INTENT OF LANDING.​

​

1.3. MISSION GUIDE DEPARTED WITH LOCAL AUTHORITY IN THE DIRECTION OF OLD SITH ACADEMY. LEAD BELIEVES THAT THERE ARE SITH ON KORRIBAN AND ESTIMATES THAT SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS IN REESTABLISHING OPERATIONS HAS BEEN MADE. LEAD BELIEVES THAT GUIDE HAS BEEN ASSUMED TO BE A PROSPECTIVE STUDENT. ANTICIPATE COMPLICATIONS IF GUIDE IS UNABLE TO RETURN DUE TO RISK OF BEING COMPROMISED.​

​

1.4. THREE-MAN TEAM ESCORTED COMM SPECIALIST TO SECURED LOCATION, THEN RETURNED TO INSERTION VEHICLE TO CONFIRM FINAL DISPENSATION OF SCOUTING PAIRS. LOCAL POPULACE MUCH REDUCED, ANTICIPATE LITTLE DIFFICULTY IN REACHING AND MAINTAINING COVERT OVERWATCH POSITIONS. LEAD WILL ATTEMPT TO BLAZE TRAIL TO VALLEY OF DARK LORDS AS NO POINT IN SETTLEMENT CAN PROVIDE SATISFACTORY LINE-OF-SIGHT.​

​

UPDATE ENDS.​

— — —​

"This is not a nice place to be," muttered Ten under his breath.

Seela nodded in sympathy with the Gotal; she knew that most members of his species were at least somewhat sensitive to the Force and could sometimes feel its presence on a conscious level. It also explained why a significant percentage of Marine Force Recon troopers and those serving as scout/snipers were Gotal, and Ten was certainly a keen observer. "Can't say I liked the idea of coming here," she confided in the man, knowing from experience that sniper pairs needed to trust each other to the hilt and not stand on rank or ceremony. "But here we are."

It had been simplicity itself to scale the walls of the landing bay in which Deliverance had been berthed, after which the ten Marines paired off and separated to begin their infiltration runs. The only hitch was that, in order to maintain the fiction that only two people had arrived in the vessel, they had had to hump all the extra supplies needed for an extended recon all in one go, leaving nothing behind in case the vessel was searched. This had included destroying Yuthura's map, though by then everyone had already memorized it as best they could, as well as scouring the cockpit and aft section for any incriminating evidence that might have been inadvertently scattered about by ten sentients confined to a small space for more than three days. So, instead of just their armor and weapons and possibly twenty kilos worth of supplies apiece, each Marine had had to strap on nearly eighty extra kilos in weight and bulk. Normally this wouldn't have been a problem; on several occasions Seela had completed thirty-kilometer forced marches in full armor and with over a hundred kilos worth of gear. Such exertions were common for Marines both in peacetime and war, as it helped to keep them at their best.

The problem was that, under so much weight and bulk, each Marine was now far less graceful than they normally would be, making sneaking around a partially-ruined but still inhabited town somewhat more perilous than originally planned. Five and Eleven had nearly been compromised while attempting to skirt another night patrol, when Five accidentally banged his helmet against the top half of a two-part door that had been left open. Seela had also nearly blown her cover when, after scanning a half-demolished residence for bio-signatures using the sensors mounted in her own headpiece, she spotted yet a third patrol, this one consisting of at least eight well-armed foot-mobiles. It had taken more than an hour to successfully sideslip the knot of natives, who weren't actually out walking a circuit but instead standing a sort of loose vigil around a small cluster of what appeared to be burnt-out storehouses, and if it weren't for the thermo-regulators built into the Marines' suits, she was sure that one of them would have been spotted by the locals. After all, forward-looking infrared technology is older than the hyperdrive, and to assume that even the rubes on this barely-habitable dirtball didn't have some form of night vision equipment would be the height of folly.

Eventually, Seela and her spotter were able to find what appeared to be the near terminus of the gully she had discovered, which turned out to be only a couple hundred meters beyond the furthest storehouse from where the squad of guards had been mingling. It was also nearly blocked by a large and very weather-beaten boulder, which the two Marines were only barely able to squeeze past without making too much of a racket, and even then only by crawling in the dirt on their bellies and passing their equipment through one parcel at a time. Carefully the pair had trekked, mindful of what might be out there, keeping at least five meters apart as they hugged the base of the cliff overhead. From the air, the path had appeared to be a simple crescent, but on foot it soon became apparent that the geography was a lot more complicated than had been anticipated at first glance. The overall effect, in Seela's mind, was like a perversion of her old stomping grounds on Tatooine; a twisted mockery of the Jundland Wastes she had prowled as a teenager. Perhaps the only reason why the two Marines hadn't fallen flat on their faces—at best—was that the skies overhead were crystal clear, providing sufficient starlight even in the deepening chasm to avoid any deadfalls or other hazards.

"Go," Seela hissed as she and Ten crouched behind an outcropping near where she reckoned this gully, which had turned into a steep ravine, poured out into the broader valley. Her Gotal spotter moved stealthily up, quietly crouch-running forward and into another piece of cover and settling himself in as he cast a cursory glance ahead, his weapon poised to return any incoming shots.

"Set," he hissed back, at which point Seela joined him. "Looks clear."

"Bounding," Seela whispered, the pair repeating the process once more. Now that they were near the exit, procedure and common sense demanded that they do their level best to minimize their chances of being detected, particularly since they hadn't been able to see much of their goal during the trip in. Such leapfrogging had been a mainstay of Marine infantry tactics almost since the Corps's inception, and was a proven means of progressing while under fire on land or aboard ship, as well as for staying hidden while in unfamiliar terrain. "Lots of starlight up ahead," she said after the two had settled into the cover afforded by a boulder the size of two repulsortanks stacked one on top of the other. "I think we're here."

Ten leaned out, his helmeted head bobbing to and fro as he took in the sights. "Affirmative," he agreed gruffly, then began gesturing toward the valley. "The only problem is, there's no way in space we can stay here."

Seela imitated her partner's gesture, and realized that he was right. Beyond the boulder, the valley floor opened wide, such that with the light-amplification technology in their helmets, both she and Ten could see almost as well as they could in daylight. "The Jedi said this place is a necropolis, filled with tombs for dead Sith Lords," she explained. "It looks like whoever is living in the Academy now aren't content to stay inside; they've set up some sort of digging operation and I'd bet a year's pay they're also doing other poodoo out here, where they can work unobserved."

"I heard that the Sith on Korriban were nuts for archeology," Ten confirmed. "Scuttlebutt says that even during the war, Sith of all ranks could be found here, looking for old trinkets."

"The scuttlebutt, in this case, was correct but woefully inadequate," Seela said dryly, remembering the briefings she'd attended and the former Dark Lord's own account of his time here. "Revan's report says that the tombs here were popular destinations for Sith apprentices looking to impress the headmaster at the time, a Human named Uthar Wynn." She considered what she had seen for a moment. "It looks like we've come out near a tomb, but I don't recognize it as one of the four Revan described."

"And unless you've learned to read written Sith," Ten quipped, "I don't think we'll be finding out."

Seela didn't reply, her attention focused on the wall of rock next to them. "It'll be dawn in a couple of hours," she said instead. "If we're going to climb, we'd better start now."

They only barely made it in time, making camp and preparing their hide as the sky began to turn gray with the coming of the sun. When daylight finally broke over the Valley of the Dark Lords, both Seela and her spotter were all but invisible as they took in the commanding view they now possessed.

"All callsigns, this is Two," Seela breathed into the squad frequency as she watched a number of beings entering the valley. "We're in position. From now on, no unnecessary comm traffic, but don't hesitate to report any oddities. Take naps and eat when you need to, but work it out with your partner first. If you need to relocate for whatever reason, call it in. And for fierfek's sake, don't shoot unless you absolutely have to. We're here to observe and report, nothing more. Out."

— — —​

It is not as it was, Yuthura thought to herself as she stepped tentatively deeper into the corridor that led to the main dormitory level of the Sith Academy, the enormity of what she was doing ever-present in her mind. But it is close, and it must not be made whole again.

Once Dell had departed to wherever it was he went to at night, there weren't many other sentients up and about. Those that were, all of them armed and dressed in the same standard Sith garb from the last war, paid not the slightest bit of attention to the outrageously-dressed Twi'lek as she picked her way through the place. Contrary to all of her expectations, it actually looked rather reasonably well-tended. The only appreciable differences between the Academy where she had taught and the place she was in now were, as far as she could tell, a direct result of the damage that had been inflicted by the brutal power struggle that had torn the place asunder before spilling out into the spaceport and city beyond. Most of that had been either cleaned up to at least look more presentable (and to provide busy work), or else tucked away behind some new decorative element. As she walked, her footsteps soft on the worn and warm stone floors, Yuthura recognized at least one statue that had to have been dragged bodily from the tomb of Marka Ragnos, as well as a carving that could only have come from some sort of shrine dedicated to XoXaan—one of the original Dark Jedi whose burial place had yet to be rediscovered, as far as she had been aware.

"Pity the fool among this lot who tries going back there," muttered a passing Human, who looked to be in his early thirties. His dark skin almost blended in with the gloomy lighting as he sidled into Yuthura's peripheral vision and gestured toward the carving, a look of churlish pride on his visage.

Yuthura posed a simple inquiry, barely remembering in time to continue speaking in Huttese.

The man nodded with some satisfaction. "It bears the mark of XoXaan, one of the Exiled Ones who came to Korriban and taught the Sith the true power of the dark side. Her tomb was thought lost to the ages, but only a month ago I led the expedition that finally found it. To think, all those years of fruitless searching, and it was just beyond the Valley proper not a kilometer past the tomb of Tulak Hord, tucked neatly into the mouth of a ravine." He grinned wickedly. "Unfortunately, I was also the only one to leave the place alive, which meant I had to lug this thing back on my own."

Her eyes wide in what she hoped to be an expression of earnest appreciation, Yuthura asked what had taken the rest of his team, provoking a low, sinister peal of laughter from the man. "We Sith always have had an affinity for traps, luring in the weak and stupid, and letting their overconfidence become their undoing. Even in death, we guard our secrets and our power most jealously." Still grinning, he nodded conspiratorially toward her. "You would do well to remember that, Miss...?"

"Tolbra'nar," Yuthura supplied.

"Ah, an interesting Rylothean name. You may call me Fline, it is a pleasure to meet you."

Yuthura shook the offered hand, and immediately got the impression that Fline's interest in her went well beyond wanting to impress the latest potential student. She shouldn't have needed the Force to determine this; the lecherous gleam in the man's eye, the hesitancy with which he allowed her to let go of his hand, were all giveaways to his intent. But it hadn't been until the termination of such tactile contact that her danger sense was set off, cluing her in to how much trouble this man could cause, and not just for her. Even as the Human continued to bloviate on and on about the perils he had faced during his time here, dropping hints as to the secrets he had learned, and other useless chatter that she had heard so many times before from those seeking to inflate themselves, she decided that this was someone she had to stay away from at all costs. Finally, Fline seemed to run out of things to brag about, and he departed with a promise to meet "Tolbra'nar" at the morning meal to "help you find your place here."

I know where you want me, Yuthura railed to herself as she strode toward the dormitories, and it isn't anywhere I want to be.

It took her a few moments of silent walking before she was able to regain control of herself. The dark side wafted about like a miasma here, and Yuthura had to rely heavily on remembered impressions of the peaceful Dantooine landscape in order to keep herself centered, a feat that was difficult enough without having to worry about sexual predators masquerading as teachers. This was nothing new to her, really; during her time here, a number of her fellow instructors had exhibited such behavior without shame. Though most tended to be females happy to use their looks and charm to get what they wanted, there had also been a few males in on the act. It was even encouraged to a certain extent, as it was seen as yet another pathway to power and prestige, and there was almost never help for anyone who objected to being taken advantage of in such a way—save, of course, for taking matters into one's own hands and striking back. Such was the way of the Sith, after all, and though she was no longer one of them, Yuthura knew that she could not afford to ignore or dismiss any aspect of the local imperative.

Hugging herself, she turned off the main corridor toward the clutch of dorms where she had stayed when a part of the Academy leadership, hoping to find some measure of peace in the echoes of her and Revan's mutual acquaintance from before. It was a slim hope, she knew, but it was the only thing she had going for her at the moment, and it came as no great surprise or disappointment to find that someone else had claimed her old quarters. The door was closed and sealed, but by slowly and cautiously probing the Force, she could get a sense of who lived within—only to detect the subtle presence of Dell as he meditated. So, he's the deputy headmaster, she mused to herself as she retracted her presence and retreated from the cluster; Revan's old room had also been claimed. It is just as well there are no echoes here.

It wasn't until another half-hour of skulking about through narrow corridors and hallways, looking for a place to bed down, that Yuthura began to feel a strange sensation. It was almost as though the darkness that had descended around her like a thick woolen cloak had gradually been lightened, though she couldn't figure out why. Following the sensation as it grew more acute, she soon came upon an empty one-person room—more of an alcove, really—which contained nothing save for a single cot and footlocker that were both caked in perhaps two years' worth of dust. "Now, who lived here?" Yuthura asked herself softly, not caring whether or not anyone would hear as she crouched before the footlocker and opened it, only to find it almost empty. "I guess no one...wait a minute."

She had been about to close the lid when she noticed the small datapad that had been wedged into the near corner, apparently so that it would escape the notice of any looters. Upon activating it, the answer to her muttered query was promptly revealed.

THE JOURNAL OF KEL ALGWINN​

"Oh, Kel, please tell me you left before it all fell apart," Yuthura breathed sorrowfully. She had known of the man, had known that he had had doubts about whether or not he was doing the right thing. But in her own ambition, she had dismissed him as a non-issue that would resolve itself in due course. In the days after her own flight, however, she had realized that he had been a Jedi trying to wear a Sith's clothing; a fish out of water in all the ways that mattered. Taking a deep breath to center herself in this peaceful eye of a very tangible storm, she called up the most recent entry, which was timestamped to right around the time of the Academy's fall.

DAY 92, 1955 hrs​

​

That guy who says he's Revan came by again yesterday, and we talked some more about leaving the Sith and trying to go over to the Jedi. I've told him before how difficult it is to walk away, but apparently he's free to come and go as he pleases, so why shouldn't I be allowed to? Definitely something to consider. I always feel better after he and I have talked things over. There's just something so wrong about how my fellow students prey on each other, it doesn't feel right. I do my best and learn what I can, but to actually use what they're teaching us on other people...I don't think I could do it, not even in self-defense.​

​

Anyway, earlier today Masters Wynn and Ban took "Revan" out to the Tomb of Naga Sadow for the final test, the one where you've got to prove you can be a Sith in full. It's all very hush-hush, what goes on in there and what you've got to do to pass, but rumors can be bought for a dozen a credit. I should feel sorry to believe half of them, if only for Revan's sake. But if he is who he says he is, I don't think the Masters really know what they are in for, not that they would care to hear the opinion of a flitnat like me.​

​

After writing this out, it is now obvious to me that something big is about to happen, so I'd better get a move on if I want to leave before...oh, poodoo...​

Blinking sudden tears from her eyes, Yuthura's gaze was drawn from the datapad to a spot a few meters down the corridor where Kel Algwinn must have met his end, trying to escape from a place where he never should have come to. Almost as though her outpouring of grief for a man whom she had previously never cared for was a summons, Yuthura thought she felt the presence of a friend in the room.

No, that wasn't quite right. It wasn't one presence, it was two, and both of them were urging her to rest and gather her strength, promising to stand sentinel for her as she did so.

 

Chapter Twelve


One of the less common misconceptions among most folks regarding Jedi is that they do not dream, unless of course they are sensing something through or from the Force itself. Yuthura Ban had learned early on that this wasn't the case: she dreamed, as did all sentient beings with brains and bodies that required what might rather generously be called a standard sleep cycle. However, Jedi and Sith dreams tended to be quite different experiences to what she understood to be the norm; they were murky, less concrete, and generally more difficult to pin down than a greased-up gornt on spice. In some ways she almost envied this aspect of non-Force sensitives and -users, in that they had some measure of manipulation over their nighttime visions. She had even heard of the concept of lucid dreaming, wherein a being could assume direct control and oversee aspects of the dream personally...in a manner of speaking.

It wasn't until she rose from her slumber, in response to a bass gonging noise that reverberated through the walls and ceiling as though the entire building was being struck, that Yuthura realized what her nocturnal mind had concocted for her. She now held within her a clear, dispassionate impression of Dreshdae and the Valley of the Dark Lords as they were now, unclouded by past memories or the tumult of emotions that hung in the air with all the grace and subtlety of a storm cloud. She even knew where the five teams of Marines and their comm specialist had set up their initial scouting positions, including the spot picked out by Seela Dar and her spotter...but how could that be?

The spirits who had stood guard over her reposing form gave off an impression of slight amusement mixed into their concern for her, and it was all Yuthura could do to resist joining them in laughter had they been capable of it. She had recognized one of them almost instantly; despite his death, that part of Kel Algwinn that had chosen to shine in the light and become a Jedi still lingered in this dark place, unaffected by the rage-filled phantoms of those Sith that had slain him and been slayed in their turn. The other she did not know by name, but felt as though she had likely encountered him at least once when he was still alive; she suspected that his presence had a lot to do with whatever had kept Kel's own lingering self from being overwhelmed. Of course, none of this was based on any knowledge that Yuthura had ever gained in regards to Force ghosts and other, similar phenomena, nor did she have any idea why her ethereal companions had not simply merged back into the Force upon the deaths of their physical bodies. The Sith she had known didn't believe in such apparitions, though rumors of spectral impressions of long-dead Lords had always been around in one form or another, even as legends circulated regarding powerful Darths who were said to have perfected some form of physical immortality. Rather, it was almost as though the spirits themselves were guiding her, letting her experience their essences even as they subtly communicated with her through light touches of emotion and barely-heard almost-whispers. The meanings of these whispers she did not quite understand in a way that she could translate into words, yet they were implicitly clear within her mind.

As she left her alcove and merged into a thin stream of students who were, presumably, heading out for the morning exercises that Dell had suggested she attend, Yuthura felt oddly refreshed. She had expected her rest to be fitful and incomplete at best, her dreams hounded by impressions of ill deeds and ways in which the dark side might try to call her back—which had happened a few times during those first weeks on Dantooine—but that hadn't been the case this time. To her the reason why was clear: the spirits had done as they had promised, keeping the shadows at bay and fending off the negativity that ran through the walls of this place like blood pumped through the body of a leviathan. No one else she encountered seemed even to notice, in her rumpled, slept-in fashion nightmare, the Twi'lek who walked as though the gravity had been dialed back.

The exercises were simple enough, conducted as they were in the open space just beyond the small switchback that separated the Academy from the Valley of the Dark Lords. Dell was leading, as Yuthura had figured he would be, and she found it easier now to keep up an appearance of following along without the threat of compromising herself. Most of the routines weren't really intended to be physical exercises at all, but tools designed to enable those whose talents would allow it to draw in and focus the ambient energies, gradually becoming stronger in the Force, which given where they were taking place, this meant the dark side. With the help of her ethereal companions, however, she found that by shifting her focus in a slightly different way, she could discern a few currents of peace and eddies of calm here and there, floating about like random acts of rebellion against a world gone mad. In as many moments as it took her to realize the existence of such hidden drafts of the light side, Yuthura realized that no world, not even Korriban, could ever be so hopelessly irredeemable. After all, a planet could hardly be held responsible for the actions of those who lived on it; that would be like blaming a blaster for the actions of its wielder.

The lesson here was obvious: on a world where life existed, there would always be the light. Now that she understood this, she was grateful for the fact that she had not asked Revan how he had maintained his own focus and composure when he had been here. It wasn't because he would not have shared what techniques he had employed, because she knew that he would have; rather, her focus might have already been predetermined in such a way as to miss this vital truth of the universe. As her own Master had once said, one's focus determines one's reality, and in allowing herself to find her own way while here, Yuthura had at last begun to learn true control. It was an extraordinary, tremendously empowering feeling, and she would be forever grateful for having experienced it.

Once the exercises finished and the student body was dismissed for breakfast, Yuthura found herself the sudden and unwelcome subject of Dell and Fline's combined scrutiny as they strode toward her. Other students, upon noticing this turn of events, couldn't scurry away fast enough lest they be tractored in as well, somehow.

"Well well well, it's nice to see you made it," Dell said, crossing his arms over his chest while Fline looked on, a leer in his eye. "Feeling better?"

<As well as to be expected> Yuthura, standing stock-still, replied in Huttese. <How may I be of service?>

"Makes me wonder how she expected to feel, coming here," Fline said dubiously, not caring if the object of his disdain was standing a meter in front of him. "If she's got talent, let her prove it."

"She just did, you idiot," Dell shot back. "You should have seen her when she first arrived."

Fline made a sort of hailing gesture, and as if summoned by an invisible snare, two meter-long wooden poles shot through the morning air toward the trio and landed in the dirt before his feet with a clatter. Stepping back a pace, he called one of them to his hand and began flourishing with it, spinning it hither and thither as though pantomiming half of a lightsaber duel. "Pick it up," he said crudely once he had finished a particularly flowery routine. "Pick it up and see how long you can keep your feet."

Yuthura looked to Dell, who shrugged and smiled slightly. "Do it."

Her eyes and senses never leaving Fline, Yuthura bent her knees and reached out for the staff that had been left her and dragged its tip along the valley floor as she rose back to a standing position.

"She acts like she thinks I'll behead her at any moment," Fline scoffed, then gave a huge, theatrical sigh of exasperation. "Scrabbling about in the dirt as if she were a common slave, is this what the Sith have come to?"

"Some of our greatest warriors started out as far worse," Dell reminded the man none too gently. "As for your question, yes, this is what the Sith have come to, what we have managed to cobble together here with Revan and Malak both gone. And careful you don't stain that uniform too badly, you'll be lucky to get another to replace it."

"Assuming she can even touch—" Fline began, but his sentence was cut off by Yuthura's opening thrust, which he only managed to parry a few centimeters from the bridge of his nose. "Stang!"

"I did warn you," Dell said blithely, his smile growing.

Just by the way her opponent had countered her initial attack, Yuthura knew that even in her current state, she would have been able to pick him apart at her leisure. She knew full well that Jedi do not use the Force for attack, only for knowledge and defense, but she hadn't used the Force for this, had she? She wasn't about to compromise her integrity, not now that she knew she wasn't alone after all, that she had allies real and ghostly alike, so she simply used the fighting skills she had learned through long and arduous years of training her body and mind. She took hits, both purposeful and unintentional as she continued to meet Fline in as close to a state of non-Force use as a Force-user could possibly be. He was bound by no such convention, and at several points he nearly succeeded in dropping her onto her rear end, but Yuthura had more than enough experience on this man to stay in the fight. Obviously unused to such exertion against a new recruit, and just as clearly used to the finer things in life as well as getting his own way, Fline eventually put an end to the charade by slapping Yuthura down with a wave of Force energy.

"Enough!" he exclaimed, panting and grunting as he tried to regain his composure. "Stupid little schutta, who do you think you are?"

<I am Tolbra'nar> Yuthura replied, feigning exhaustion as she used the staff as support to help her stand back up. <Former high enforcer and bodyguard for the Bareesh Kajidic>

Dell burst out laughing, his mirth bounding across the valley and echoing off the rocky landscape beyond. Several heads turned in their direction as the instructor tried to get himself back under control, meanwhile Fline was looking more and more murderous. Finally, the scarred Human fell silent, though his face still bore a look of such smugness, Yuthura thought it ought to be fined. "You're lucky she's just a neophyte, Fline," he chortled. "Give it a week and she'll have you on the floor in five seconds flat."

The darker-skinned Human gave Yuthura a look that, were his eyes lasers, she would have been vaporized on the spot. "She'll have to survive that week," he countered, his voice quiet but quivering with rage and near-humiliation. "In fact, I've been meaning to mount another expedition to XoXaan's tomb, and I think I know the perfect pathfinder."

Yuthura remained silent, willing herself to betray as little of what she was feeling as possible, either by movement, expression, or sense in the Force. Now that she had learned what to look for, this was easier than it had been even before she had left her alcove. Her mind, however, was racing with possibilities for removing Fline from the picture and making her life and mission much simpler. If she could manage to get him alone in the tomb...

No, that is the dark path, she admonished herself, remembering something that Revan had said. Better to let him make the first move, for he cannot know how capable I truly am.

"Suit yourself," Dell replied, shrugging in superb disdain. "But don't go just yet, give her a couple of days to get comfortable and maybe learn a few things. Now, run along and see to your class, I want to speak to our friend in private."

Though his expression remained unchanged, the other man nodded in acquiescence and stalked off, heading back toward the Academy entrance. Dell watched his retreat for a few moments, then wordlessly beckoned for Yuthura to follow him. "It's nice to see that little murglak taken down a peg or two," he commented idly as the pair progressed further into the Valley. "Have to say, I wasn't expecting much when you got here yesterday evening. But to be honest, I find it refreshing."

Yuthura asked why that was so, taking care not to sound too eager or pleased with herself.

"Hutts don't usually let their bodyguards just get up and leave," he observed wryly. "You had to have done something seriously stupid, or else you've got more guts than half the student body put together. Whatever the reason, I might have a use for you here that can be of benefit to the both of us. To all of us, really."

Yuthura bowed her head, acknowledging the somewhat backhanded compliment—this was just Dell's way, after all. It was readily apparent that he cared for those he was tasked with overseeing, a sort of camaraderie that had to have come from having eked out such an existence here between Revan's spectacular departure and the current date. Part of her felt sympathy for the man, as he had been a good and capable student who had worked hard to earn his place at the Academy, always meeting opponents head-on rather than stabbing them in the back, and only fighting in self-defense. Perhaps that was why he had survived the near-total purge in the first place; it certainly explained his position here, if nothing else.

<Who is the headmaster here?> she inquired softly as they passed the entrance to the tomb of Ajunta Pall. <Or does the top nek always lead the morning exercises?>

Dell let out a low chuckle, the first sign of genuine, non-biting humor she had heard from him in years. "Straight to the point, just like with Fline," he said amiably. "I'm not the head honcho here, but I am the next best thing. No, Uthar Wynn is headmaster; he's had the top job for, well, much longer than anyone here has lived on Korriban."

So confident in her newfound insight and plans for her continued undercover mission was she, that Yuthura nearly tripped over her own feet in shock at the casual mention of that name. It can't be! she silently raved as she fought desperately to keep the sudden fear and loathing from showing. We killed him! He died in that tomb!

"You okay?" Dell asked, his smile fading. "You look like you just saw a ghost."

— — —​

"Two, take a look to your left, about ten o'clock low," Ten whispered from behind the macro binoculars he held balanced against a fallen obelisk. "There's a couple of folks coming up on that one tomb they didn't carve out of a mountain. See someone familiar?"

Slowly and deliberately, Seela Dar brought the stock of her rifle around, careful not to disturb the scraggly shrub underneath whose foliage she had planted herself. Resetting the bipod and waiting as the lens autofocused to account for the shift in position, she muttered range estimates to herself. "Scanning," she whispered by way of reply as she glassed the indicated area. "Well well, looks like One made it inside, and her cover's intact."

"What makes you say that?" Ten asked dubiously as he continued to monitor the Valley below.

"Simple," Seela replied, as airily as her whispered voice allowed. "That Human she's walking next to, he's the same one who met us when we arrived dirtdown. If she'd been compromised, I highly doubt he'd be walking with her as if they were pals."

"Sure wish Twelve's bug was live-feed," Ten remarked. "Otherwise we'd know for sure. Or at least, you would."

"Couldn't risk it," Seela agreed sourly. "We're already pushing things too far as it is." Tapping the frequency toggle with her tongue, Seela switched over to the private channel between herself and the E-TAC that the man had hooked up for just such a data request. "Twelve, this is Two. Give me a leech dump."

"Acknowledged, Two. Uploading now."

The data arrived in moments, and Seela used her helmet controls to call up a playback. As she listened to Yuthura's various musings and encounters, a clearer picture began to emerge of what was going on down there. Near as she could tell, the Twi'lek's cover was indeed still intact, and she was starting to make friends and enemies all at once—just like any other Sith might do, the Marine surmised. And Dell, who was apparently second-in-command, had taken a seemingly genuine interest in "Tolbra'nar" and wanted her to help him with something. Damn, she needed to make contact somehow, and sort out just what was happening and how the scouting mission could use the current goings-on to their advantage.

There was one clue to be had, however, and as far as Seela could tell based on her observations of the Valley and the information relayed in briefings and via Yuthura's map, she and Ten were quite possibly lying right on top of it: the tomb of XoXaan. If this Fline character's circuitous summation was anything to go by, she was just another one of those exiled Dark Jedi who had taught the Sith how to be even more cruel and vicious than they already had been, which meant that Seela already didn't like the idea of running around inside the place where they had dumped the old mynock's body. It was well understood by most within the Republic Military that the Sith love traps, and though she had a pretty good grasp of military demolitions and most modern takes on such tricky fieldcraft, she held no illusions about her ability to undo or skirt beyond two-thousand-year-old mines and other hazards.

Still, it was something to consider, and as she watched Dell and Yuthura while they continued to walk toward them, Seela decided that she would give the matter some further thought.

"Continue overwatch, but keep a lookout for One," she advised Ten as she began to shift herself around to be more comfortable, drawing back her rifle so it would be out of the way but still readily accessable. "I'm going to eat and take a nap, then it'll be your turn."

"Understood, Two," the Gotal acknowledged with a measure of relief, taking up his own rifle and using its scope rather than the macrobinoculars. "I'll let you know if anything serious starts to go down."

"Thanks, Ten."

— — —​

"You do realize that the last time we sent anyone in there, we lost three promising students—and all so you could bring back a simple decorative carving of no real use to us."

Though it wasn't easy, Fline managed to keep a straight face as the headmaster catalogued the litany of failures that had accompanied his discovery of and expedition into the tomb of XoXaan. Even by the standards of Sith burial practices, her sepulcher had been especially heavily-fortified against intruders, which went a long way toward explaining why the place had eluded would-be looters and archaeologists alike for so long. That original expedition hadn't gone three paces into the foyer before the first student had found himself without a head, the victim of an automated lanvarok. The other two had died before that room had been fully crossed, one disappearing down a deadfall hidden by a breakaway tile, and the other killed by an ancient defense droid programmed to activate upon sensing intruding life-forms. The only reason he was here to tell the tale at all was the fact that the droid, most unexpectedly, had given him leave to do so, even giving him the chance to claim one—and only one—artifact from among the horde of seemingly incredible treasures scattered about the room. He'd taken what he had thought sufficient evidence of the expedition's success, thinking that it might provide some clue as to how to access the powers that the ancient, near-legendary Dark Jedi was purported to have possessed.

Much to his chagrin, he had been wrong.

"Yes, Master, I know," he deferred, keeping his voice steady despite his feelings of inadequacy at having come so close to utter failure. The Sith Master before him had at the time praised Fline's efforts and prohibited any further unauthorized ventures. It was well understood by most that the man's intonations were clear: he did not regard anyone else at the Academy as being sufficiently trained and prepared for such challenges. Dell, always the toady, had been adamant that this was not the case, and he considered the headmaster's caution as admirable given the overall situation—there were few enough apprentices on Korriban as it was to risk their lives unnecessarily. Fline, on the other hand, wasn't having any of this. "However, there is our newest arrival to consider."

"You mean the Twi'lek?" Uthar Wynn asked, a note of disdain in his voice. "She has been here, what, a day at most? What makes you think she would be of any use to you?"

Fline felt his face flush; it cost him something to admit this, but he was willing to risk it. The allure of XoXaan's power was a strong one, and if he could claim it... "After this morning's exercises, Master, I decided to test out her skills for myself. She...nearly beat me...without using the Force."

At those words, Master Wynn's entire aspect seemed to change. "Did she, now?" he muttered, bringing the tips of his fingers together in a contemplative gesture. "And you think that, given some 'real' training, she might be of use to us?"

Fline nodded respectfully, though inwardly he was whooping with glee. "I would teach her myself, of course."

Uthar stood from behind his desk, his eyes locking with the junior instructor's own as they came to his level. "I'm sure you would," he ground out. "Your proclivities are known to me, Fline, and I wonder just what sort of instruction you would provide—assuming you aren't simply using her for your own ends."

That small triumph vanished in a puff of smoke as Fline recoiled from the accusation. The old man had given him just enough room to trap himself, and he had stomped into the rhetorical snare like an infant tu'kata. "Let Dell teach her, then," he replied, composing himself. "Have him lead the expedition if you like, but it would be foolish to leave me out of it."

"It would," Wynn retorted, "if I were to choose to let such an event take place." He paused, bringing his arms from behind his back to fold them over his chest, his glare intensifying. "As it happens, events are unfolding in such a way that we will have but one more chance to explore the tomb, and it must be done soon or else not at all."

Fline's heart began to burn with impassioned longing. "So you will grant us authorization to proceed?"

A twisted smile bloomed upon the headmaster's tattooed visage. "Yes, it will happen," he agreed, his voice bearing a hint of menace. "Beware you mind your manners, however, or any victories you think you have earned will be for nothing."

Suppressing a shiver, Fline sketched a bow. "It will be as you say, Master."

"See that it is," Wynn said, his stance and sense in the Force betraying nothing. "The academy is approaching a crossroads, and I would hate for you to miss the chance to make a difference in securing its future."

Utterly nonplussed, Fline backed out of the headmaster's study as quickly as grace and decorum would allow. He had arrangements to make, people to consult, and materials to gather if he was to make this mission happen. As soon as the door sealed behind him, he began to wonder just what could possibly happen to limit any future activities here on Korriban, but even as he walked back to his own quarters, he dismissed such thoughts as irrelevant to the task at hand. Uthar Wynn, so far as he could tell, usually preferred directness over cloak-and-vibroblade mischief, and had always been as merciless in the application of punitive measures as he was sincere in his proclamations of praiseworthy actions.

— — —​

"Excellent, most excellent," Dell said with some small measure of pride as Tolbra'nar lifted the third stone and set it to orbiting the pair of them where they sat in the shadow of an obelisk. "Go ahead and pick up another one."

The sun was creeping past its zenith, and already the Twi'lek had made excellent progress in learning basic telekinesis, which ought to boost her already formidable fighting skills. Her little fracas with Fline had conveyed megabytes of data in regards to her raw abilities and previous life experience; she was a brawler no doubt, but as graceful in form as any dancer. Her style evoked a few hints of the Echani forms, but in appearance only, and Dell was certain that she would become an excellent practitioner of the Ataru form of lightsaber combat once the time was right. Still, there was something familiar about her that he couldn't place, and he only began to pick up on it in the wake of her reaction to his utterance of the headmaster's name. Nevertheless, he knew where his priorities lay, and soon he'd leave this woman to pursue her training on her own while he attended to the needs of other students.

The fourth stone passing uncomfortably close to his face brought him from his reverie, at which the woman offered up a silent gesture of apology. "It's okay," he said easily. "You've shown promise, but I need to see to the others. Fline will no doubt have gone to the headmaster to seek permission for his little junket, and I can think of a few more things you'll want to work on if you are to survive."

Rising, he extracted a key-card from a belt pouch. "Here, take this," he said. "It'll let you access the Academy library and computer system."

Tolbra'nar let the stones fly out of her Force-grip, whereupon they skidded along the ground to rest haphazardly among the detritus of the valley floor. Standing up gingerly, she accepted the card and made an inquiry in Huttese.

"Oh, you know," he said nonchalantly. "You've started to learn the physical aspect, maybe look into sensory enhancement and perception? The Force can help you to anticipate blows and where your enemy may be weak, or when he may be attempting to trap you. All useful things to know, either when in a scrap or in your other duties."

The Twi'lek nodded and muttered her understanding, at which Dell turned and began to make his way over to where a knot of Humans sat in the shadow of Tulak Hord's tomb. The Force betwixt the quartet was electric as they tested each others' mental defenses in an exercise designed to toughen them up as well as to practice the basics of Dun Möch. None of them had been at the Academy for more than a month, but all had demonstrated the potential to become strong, and he was content to inject the odd attack of his own. He began with minor psychic assaults, about on par with what the students themselves were hurling at each other, but quickly ramped up the intensity; it wasn't long before he mentally slapped one of them hard enough to make him fall off of his rock and onto the ground.

"No shame, Eklen," he said, offering the young man a hand even as he caught sight of Tolbra'nar out of the corner of his eye. "Learn from the pain and make it your own, and next time you will stand stronger."

The exercise continued, and Dell offered the Twi'lek a smile as she moved on.

With an answering shrug, Yuthura left the cluster of Humans to their activities, thankful that, for the moment, she wasn't being subjected to such bombardment. As she walked back toward the Academy entrance, she began to mull over the "lessons" that Dell had been working to teach her; as she had anticipated, it had been something of an effort to convincingly playact at being a mere apprentice again, her surroundings notwithstanding. Somewhat to her surprise, the man hadn't tried to plant the hooks into her, as had been the case when the Academy had thrived and nearly everyone who entered the place had already known of the dark side of the Force, even if at times that knowledge might be little more than rumor. Rather, he simply sought to impart the basics only, her assumption being that he wanted to make sure that a neophyte could handle the sheer power of negative feelings once the exhortation to use what they offered was initiated. Perhaps he simply put too much faith in the warm-up exercises conducted at dawn, or else he had at some point happened upon one or more new ideas on how best to train Sith so that they became strong without having to prey upon one another. If the latter was true, then he might well succeed to the detriment of the Republic and peace-loving people everywhere. However, this also left Yuthura with an interesting conundrum: what if he could be turned away from the dark path, saved from its damning grasp as she herself had been?

The spirits, who had kept her company throughout the day, seemed to applaud this idea and even began to offer hints of suggestions.

He isn't an evil man, by nature, Yuthura reflected as she entered the building and sought out the meal hall. If he ever committed an evil act, I never saw it. For the briefest moment she wished that the same could be said of her, but the thought was hushed by the older of the two echoes. Fair enough, she thought in response. While I'm going through their database, I'll look into his records. There may be clues within.

Dining on what amounted to little more than combat rations seasoned with locally-grown produce, which itself was unexpected given the circumstances, Yuthura kept to herself. A handful of other beings, students who seemed to be gathered around another instructor, occupied the other end of the relatively small room—small in comparison to the officers' mess aboard the Stalwart Defender, at least. Her curiosity getting the better of her as she ate, she let the Force enhance her hearing enough to pick up on what was being discussed. Something about a new attempt to raid the tomb of...ah, yes, Fline had indeed wasted little time making good on the threat implied by his earlier posturing. Like the firing of synapses in the sentient brain, the rumor-mongers always managed to find things to keep life interesting. Far from being concerned, however, Yuthura found that she was actually looking forward to joining the expedition; it would pass the time and serve to further her cover, as well as providing opportunities to get a better picture of how the Sith here had gotten back onto their feet. As she ate, she began to contemplate a nocturnal visit to the edifice itself to see what she could see.

For reasons she couldn't identify, this idea seemed to please the spirits, the older one in particular.

Wondering if there was something they knew that she did not, Yuthura finished eating and made her way toward the computer terminal closest to her little alcove. What Dell could not have known was that while she wasn't the best slicer out there, she had known enough to help design the system that the Academy had used during her time there, when it was being rebuilt at the commencement of hostilities with the Republic six years previously. Therefore, using the security card he had given to her as a jumping-off point, she managed to penetrate the entire system inside an hour without popping off any alerts or other flags—little had been done to alter the network or its architecture since her departure. They've even left my old account active, she realized with a start. I suppose they thought I had been killed, an easy assumption to make.

Armed with total access to the archives and database, Yuthura swiftly confirmed that Uthar Wynn was still among the living and indeed retained control of the Academy. After plunging deeper, she soon realized how the Sith here appeared so well-supplied—not three days prior to her arrival in-system, a convoy of freighters had deposited a little more than three thousand metric tons worth of goods, including uniforms and enough sets of Sith Trooper armor and weapons to outfit an entire company. After downloading a full data dump, she called up Dell's records. Though she had known him fairly well from her time as deputy headmistress, she knew little of his life prior to joining the Sith Academy. What she found was not what she expected at all, though as she mulled the details over, the datapoints before her began to fill in the missing pieces.

"Like me, he lost his way," she whispered to herself. "Perhaps there will come a chance to remind him, to bring back what he has forgotten."

— — —​

As dusk began to descend upon Korriban once more, Seela Dar watched through her rifle's scope as the last of the students trudged up toward the mouth of the Valley and the Academy beyond. She and Ten had, in turn, observed quite a few goings-on, including Yuthura's retreat back to the school and a number of practice duels. She had decided that, with the coming of darkness, it was time to do a bit more scouting, the idea being to get the kind of read on the landscape that can only be had by personal experience. Her mind made up and with no one present that she could detect, Seela gently nudged her spotter in his armored ribs, bringing him awake from his own power-down sequence. The two continued their routine in silence, Ten watching the upper valley while she monitored the lower portion, for an hour as the sun finished setting and a clear, star-filled night took its place.

"Keep a tight watch on my six," she advised Ten once she was satisfied that there wouldn't be a night shift. "I'm going to have a look around."

"You sure about this?" he said gravely, his aspect dubious. "Break line-of-sight and I might not be able to reacquire, then you'd be in a galaxy of hurt."

The Gotal had a point, Seela realized. After their initial sweeps of the valley from within their hide, the two had compared notes and estimated that between them, they had only been able to account for eighty-seven percent visual coverage of the place as Yuthura had outlined it. That didn't account for the switchbacks her map had shown separating it from the Academy, but that couldn't be helped; they could keep eyes on where the short, serpentine gully opened out onto the broader plain, and that was sufficient for their needs. With the other teams covering the rest of the settlement from the other side, the Sith could do little beyond their headquarters that would not be observed by Republic forces. All that aside, she felt this task was a necessary one, since the far end of the valley provided a tempting place to set down half a company if not more. If she could plot out where best to put a sufficient landing zone that could be defended and held, then the 13th Marine Battalion could trap the Sith from both sides, making the whole operation that much easier and potentially less costly.

"Improvisation, Ten," she replied after a moment's consideration. "It's served us well thus far. Alternate your focus between myself and the entrance, and you should be able to spot any incoming in time for me to make myself scarce."

Slowly backing out of the hide after stowing her rifle and checking her sidearm, Seela added "And besides, I've got an edge."

The set in Ten's shoulders and the way he canted his oversized helmet conveyed kilobytes of data as to his mood; he didn't like this one bit, and Seela couldn't blame him. One of the few rules that her instructors at the ELP had been adamant about not breaking was that commanders must not take point, but that was exactly what she was doing. Sometimes, even hardened veterans can't know everything, she mused as she eased her way down from their perch atop the tomb. And I've been making things up as I go along ever since they gave me this assignment.

Freed of her burden from the night before, the climb down was much easier, and barely two minutes had passed between the start of her descent and her arrival at the valley floor. Silently unholstering her DL-3 pistol and flipping the selector switch over to stun, she crept out from the shadow of the tomb, her head bobbing to and fro as she took in as much as she possibly could. Her throttle pulled back to zero, she continued to slither forward in a crouch-walk, dodging in and out of cover as much as she was able. After rounding a particularly large stone, she beheld the towering edifice atop which her spotter had undoubtedly lost visual contact; she sent him a double-click through her helmet comlink to assure him that she was okay. Seela had barely finished performing this action, however, when she realized that she was not alone in admiring the scenery.

Not two meters in front of her, Yuthura Ban stood at what could charitably be called parade rest, completely oblivious to the presence of the Marine kneeling in her dim shadow.

Setting her comlink to its lowest power setting so that Ten—and only Ten—could possibly pick up the signal, Seela cautiously stepped back behind the stone. "Is there a reason why you didn't spot One heading toward our hide?" she hissed indignantly. "Because she's standing in your shadow right now."

There was a short pause before he replied. "Sorry Two, but I'm drawing a blank. Best I can reckon, it may have been half an hour ago, give or take. Got a nice big buzzing in my head that wouldn't go away. Still kinda tingles."

She could tell that he wanted to add a comment about not liking this planet, but was grateful that he'd left it unsaid. Steeling herself for a confrontation she did not want, Seela acknowledged the reply with a click and walked back toward where Yuthura stood, still in silent supposition. "Nice night for stargazing," she commented with a nonchalance she didn't feel, the muzzle of her pistol mere centimeters from the Twi'lek's back. "Too bad I forgot my macroscope."

 

(c'mon folks, just a little feedback? )

Chapter Thirteen


The Human's words, coming out of nowhere and delivered with a biting air of indifference, nearly scared Yuthura right out of her skin. She did drop the datapad she was holding, however, but didn't bend over to pick it up; her Force-enhanced kinesthetic and exteroception senses, combined with long experience, were telling her that a bolt from the blaster hovering mere millimeters from her left shoulder blade awaited such a movement, even if it was made slowly and with deliberation. Instead, she gradually raised her hands and kept her gaze focused on the entrance to the tomb she had come to visit. Even as she evaluated the situation, she couldn't keep herself from shivering with fear. Even her spirit guardians could not be of help, since by Seela Dar's very nature they were as blind to her presence as a microbe would be to a starship.

Though she didn't want to believe it, there was only one reason Yuthura could think of for why the Marine was acting this way, and why she was even in the Valley of the Dark Lords in the first place. She must think that I have betrayed the mission, somehow, she thought dolefully. I have to convince her of the truth.

"I must admit, I thought it impossible to reach this place from Dreshdae," she said in a morose, motionless murmur. "Had I known, you would not have had to take such a risk in blazing a trail."

"Risk comes with the armor, Yuthura," Seela replied firmly, her blaster still aloft. "It's what we breathe, eat, sleep and live. You've got two minutes to give me one good reason why I shouldn't fry you right here and now."

"If you will permit me to retrieve the datapad I dropped," Yuthura proposed, her lekku twitching in an unconscious fear reaction, "you may understand."

"No sudden moves," Seela advised grimly.

With deliberate caution, Yuthura eased into a crouch, extended her right hand toward the datapad, and grasped it, drawing it into the air as she eased back to a standing position. Extending her forearm behind her, she presented the device to the Marine, who swiftly took it.

"Turn around, slowly, and keep your hands where I can see them," Seela ordered softly as she flipped the 'pad to ACTIVE and downloaded its contents into her armor's own computer, using a short hard-line cord that drew from the front of the helmet. A steady stream of data painted itself against the inside of her faceplate, and even as the Twi'lek turned to comply, she quickly realized what Yuthura must have been up to while cosseted inside the Sith Academy. "Is this complete?" she asked, some of the ice melting out of her voice as she felt a slight dribble of relief, causing the tension that had built in her chest since discovering the Twi'lek's presence out here to ease somewhat. "Do they know you've breached their computer security protocols?"

"I helped to create their security, six years ago at the start of the war," Yuthura confessed, her body language betraying a sense of regret for not having shared that piece of information. "I was certain that they had changed things since my departure, but that wasn't the case."

Casting her gaze toward the ground, the Twi'lek shrugged helplessly and gestured toward the Academy. "It was all I could do to remain myself once Dell had taken me inside this place," she admitted. "Even then, I might not have succeeded if it weren't for the help of two spirits of light, echoes of people who had died here as Jedi."

"Is that so?" Seela asked somewhat dubiously, though as soon as she said the words, she remembered something that Georg Oakes had once told her: Even in deepest darkness, the smallest candle may yet thrive. He had said that to her aboard Admiral Dodonna's flagship, Vibrosword, during the lead-up to the mission to capture Revan. The two had bumped into each other in the NCO mess, and had gotten to talking about past battles, and she had wondered how he could keep on going, fighting people whom he might have previously counted as friends. We do what we do because we are here, and because we must, he had gone on to say. Soldier and Jedi, pilot and trooper, we are all the sum of our choices.

Though nearly every aspect of her training demanded otherwise, Seela chose to relinquish the advantage her unique ability provided and let herself open up to the Force, her gut telling her that the Twi'lek before her had not, nor would she ever, betray the trust that had been granted her. As she did so, the full impact of simply standing on the surface of Korriban hit her like a slap to the face from a cold, wet and powerfully-muscled tentacle, and she visibly shuddered. However, no sooner had she begun to buckle under this feeling of utter wrongness, she was enfolded by a two-pronged sense of warmth, of welcome and support, that fortified and emboldened her against the dark energies that seemed to hold this entire planet in their durasteel grip. Apparently Yuthura's ethereal friends were true friends indeed, and she returned their gift with unabashed gratefulness and a mute query. Will you do the same for my Marines?

Though she couldn't hear it per se, Seela felt what must have been their mutual affirmations. "Two to all callsigns," she said over the squad frequency, after restoring her helmet comlink's settings. "Do not reply. Prepare to feel a whole lot better."

Returning the datapad to Yuthura with her left hand, she finally lowered and holstered her blaster with her right, then unhooked a long, cylindrical object from her utility belt. "I brought you something you might need," she said warmly, holding it out. "Can't be a Jedi without a lightsaber, and we'll need a Jedi's help to keep the Sith from figuring out that we're here or what we're doing."

Hesitantly at first, clearly afraid of what would happen upon being seen with the weapon, Yuthura extended a hand toward Seela, then finally closed it on the hilt. "I'm sorry you had to go through all of this," she said as she hooked the lightsaber to her belt, her lekku twitching in sincere apology. "If the Sith had realized you were here..."

"Skip it," Seela replied, not unkindly as she removed her helmet. "Tell you what; you tell me what you've been up to, what your plan is, and why you're out here in the dead of night, and I'll tell you about a couple of things I wasn't supposed to. Deal?"

"Deal," Yuthura agreed, relief radiating from her such that a blind mynock with brain damage could pick up on it.

— — —​

"Not that I'm complaining," Ten muttered as Seela eased herself back into their hide, "but just where in Chaos have you been for the last two hours?"

The Gotal's voice was considerably more cheerful than it had been since arriving on this planet, and the blonde from Tatooine was glad of it. He was concerned, true, and rightly so; she and Yuthura had been out of his sight for almost the entire period and no further contact had been made in the time since that rather cryptic transmission. "Playing a hunch, mostly," she explained with a small shrug. "And it's paid off rather handsomely. You'll see in a minute."

Composing herself and mentally reviewing all that had been discussed in the shadow of XoXaan's tomb, Seela activated the squad tactical frequency once more. "Two to all callsigns, prepare reports on your observations thus far, then burst-fire them to myself and Twelve. Twelve, prepare to receive a large encrypted burst transmission; our superiors will find the data it contains most illuminating. Out."

"I guess I'll get started on that, then," Ten said with a shrug.

"That's okay," Seela replied idly. "I'll fold our data in with the other teams' reports and shoot it over to Twelve. In the meantime, take another nap if you feel like it; we're going to have to keep our eyes peeled once dawn comes."

"Thanks, Two."

"No problem, Ten."

MISSION LOG: OPERATION "CRIMSON LANTERN"​

​

UPDATE 2.0: DAY 2 OBSERVATION REPORT​

​

2.1. OBSERVATION TEAMS BLAZED TRAIL THROUGH SETTLEMENT "DRESHDAE" AFTER DARK ON FIRST NIGHT TO REACH PRESELECTED OBSERVATION POINTS. NO MAJOR INCIDENTS, TEAMS REMAINED UNSPOTTED. SITH PRESENCE OBSERVED MAKING DIRT-PATROLS BY DAY AND NIGHT, SOME IN FOURS AND OTHERS IN NEAR SQUAD STRENGTH. TEAMS ARE FOCUSING ON MAPPING OUT POSSIBLE CIRCUITS.​

​

2.2. MISSION LEAD AND SPOTTER SUCCESSFULLY PENETRATED VALLEY OF DARK LORDS, REACHING PREVIOUSLY UNDOCUMENTED TOMB BELIEVED TO BE THAT OF DARK JEDI XOXAAN, AND SECURING KEY OBSERVATION POST. CONTACT RESTORED WITH MISSION GUIDE, WHO OBTAINED DOWNLOAD OF SITH ACADEMY DATABASE; SEE ATTACHED FILE.​

​

2.3. MISSION LEAD AND GUIDE HAVE CONFERRED ON POSSIBLE PLAN OF ATTACK, AND BELIEVE THAT A TWO-PRONGED ASSAULT WILL PROVIDE BEST RESULTS IN NEUTRALIZING MAJORITY SITH PRESENCE. GUIDE BELIEVES IT POSSIBLE TO TURN KEY SITH PERSONNEL WHILE MAINTAINING COVER AS NEW STUDENT. WILL UPDATE BOTH ITEMS AS NECESSARY.​

​

UPDATE ENDS.​

— — —​

"That's right, that's it exactly," Dell intoned quietly, nodding in satisfaction. "You're a natural for this kind of fighting, you know, it's no wonder the Bareesh entrusted you as a bodyguard."

Yuthura returned the gesture after sheathing her practice sword, her lekku twitching in gratitude for the praise. In the three days since having reestablished communications with the rest of the scouting party, she had carefully maintained the illusion of being just another student, at first spending most of her time during daylight hours either pretending to study treatises she'd practically memorized nearly a decade prior, or else going through the cadences of basic lightsaber combat with the other pupils. Almost immediately she had been tasked with leading those exercises, the suggestion having come from Dell halfway through the very next day. He had taken her aside that evening and told her that the expedition to XoXaan's tomb had been approved by the headmaster, and that she would be apprenticed to Fline, who would serve as expedition leader, during the mission as well as for her training afterward. This had been at the other instructor's own request and, with Master Uthar Wynn's blessing, there was no getting out of it if she wanted to remain a Sith.

It was at this time that Dell had revealed his plan, which included teaching "Tolbra'nar" as much about the Ataru form as possible, knowing that the younger Sith's own Shien was weak against it. "But only if he starts trouble with you," Dell had cautioned. "Master Uthar will know it if you have a go at him at the wrong time." The rest of his plan had essentially confirmed Yuthura's hunch as to the possibility of saving Dell, as it revolved around implementing a new sort of esprit de corps among the Sith on Korriban. Eschewing the old system of proving one's worth by any means necessary and with no holds barred, his ideas sought to instead bring those whose abilities allowed them to advance in the Force to unite their efforts toward a set of common goals, including solidarity and a sense of teamwork that Yuthura thought impossible for the dark side to maintain for long—she had all but said as much to Captain Nor Melao, back over Dantooine. One of the keys to the success of this proposition, in Dell's mind, was bringing her into the fold as a new sort of student instructor, who would lead classes and learn alongside the other students while at the same time chaperoning their efforts and intervening in any disputes. Already she had had to step in to prevent a couple of fights, finding out in the process that her observations regarding Dell had carried over to his students; though the temptations were certainly there and had left imprints upon them, these people weren't being nearly as actively seduced as had been the norm when she had been deputy headmistress.

The following two days had been just as difficult as the first two, perhaps more so given the difficulty of maintaining the façade of the fast-progressing neophyte in the face of near-constant threats, both physical and mental—Yuthura's danger sense had been prickling off and on almost non-stop. Since no curfew was enforced on the students, no one had so much as batted an eye at her initial nighttime incursion into the Valley, so she had repeated the feat on each successive night to send a brief summation of the day's events, written on flimsi and lofted into the breeze to be carried up to the first sergeant from Tatooine with a judicious push from the Force, who would drop a pebble down at her to indicate receipt. Even those leisurely strolls were not without their pitfalls, since all of Korriban's predators became most active at night, and Yuthura had come close to stumbling straight into a tu'kata pack as it devoured a freshly-killed shyrack the second time she tried it. Still, it was no more a danger than that faced by the rest of the Marine scouts, and she secretly felt a little guilty at first that she got to live in relative comfort so long as her cover remained intact. That notion had been released at the urging of her ethereal comrades, however; essentially, their shared sentiment boiled down to "save your energy and focus on your own task."

So it was on the morning of this, her fifth day of playacting for the benefit of the mission to destroy her erstwhile comrades, that Yuthura and Dell had gone into a relatively private area of the Academy so that she could demonstrate her knowledge of Ataru—which had been her chosen form since she had first been a Jedi apprentice all those years ago. It was also the day before the expedition to the tomb of XoXaan was due to begin, which would by some quirk of fate take place just as the window for the Republic fleet's arrival would open. There no longer remained any doubt in her mind as to how the ensuing battle would play out, but for her it was less a matter of the result as it was how many friends she might lose during the course of events, how much blood would be spilled in what, for the Sith gathered here, was ultimately a pointless, unwinnable fight. If she was to subvert the deputy headmaster and bring him back to the light, to save him and whatever others she might reach from the trap that had nearly claimed her, she was going to have to get things moving now.

Dell, as it happened, inadvertently took the lead himself, handing Yuthura the means to gently slip into his mind that she had been seeking for the last four days, as she had let herself become part of the man's notions and plans for the future. "I think it might be time you got the chance to practice with a real lightsaber," he said gently, stroking his chin as he paced the small practice room, casting a furtive glance at Yuthura. "I've got a feeling you're going to need all the help you can get in that tomb."

<Thank you, Master.> she replied deferentially, her posture becoming servile. <I have done my best, and I am glad that it pleases you.>

"That's not what has me concerned, Tolbra'nar," Dell replied, somewhat nonplussed by the sudden change in attitude and body language. Most of their spoken interactions had been banter liberally spiced with sarcasm and biting wit, or else the formal exchanges expected of Sith student-teacher relations, and he wasn't sure what had prompted this new tack. "I'm more worried about what this expedition will mean for the student body. You've been here four days now and you're further along than most here, with a lot of untapped potential. It seems a waste to let Fline get you killed."

<Are you certain that is what bothers you, Master?> Yuthura replied coyly, tapping into the Force just enough to help ensure that her posture and lekku gave off the proper signals. <You aren't like the others. You...care about us. You care about me.>''

"Of course I do," Dell replied before he could stop himself, his ears going pink with embarrassment. "I mean, it's the only reason we've survived this long."

Taking great care to do it just right, Yuthura strode flirtatiously toward the deputy headmaster, batting her eyes once as she closed to within a discrete arm's reach, and extended her left hand. <You do care.>

"I do care," Dell repeated in a rote monotone, his own hand finding Yuthura's.

<I have a lightsaber already.> she purred, then leaned in close, her lips barely a centimeter from his ear. <It is in my quarters, would you like to see it?>

The spirits which had acted as her sentinel and confidante hadn't exactly been thrilled with the idea of this false seduction. In the end, however, they had agreed that this was perhaps the only way to finally reach the man, to bring about the chance to save him from himself and the rest of the Sith here. Their influence had helped to keep Yuthura on the straight and narrow as she had hatched this plan, and even now served to keep temptation at bay as well as to aid in subduing Dell. This they did by helping to keep his mind and senses pliable—after all, she was speaking only truth. At the same time they worked to bring forth a few old, long-buried memories of a much happier time, by subtly chipping away at the man's mental barriers.

"I would like to see it," Dell agreed, still in that bemused voice. "Lead the way."

Most of the student body and their instructors were out in the Valley for morning exercises, so the halls were nearly empty as the pair made their furtive way to where Yuthura slept. She wasn't afraid of being stopped and questioned by any of the few sentients they passed on the way, or of what Dell might try to do to her if he chose to resist. Thanks to her companions, she knew that Uthar Wynn had been spending a lot of his time in a cave off the switchback, thus his presence wasn't much of a factor for the foreseeable future. This wasn't to say she was free from worry, since if her onetime student reacted badly to this attempt to redeem him, her cover would be effectively blown. Such an unfortunate event might cost her her life, but it wouldn't necessarily compromise the presence of the Marines. Thanks to Seela's candor and the additional risk she had taken, however, Yuthura knew that the rest of the team would know about it should such be her destiny, and would be able to react accordingly.

<We are here.> she said demurely as she and Dell arrived at the door to Kel's old cubbyhole. The door hissed open at her touch, and they slipped inside.

"This place hasn't been used in years," Dell remarked wistfully as Yuthura resealed the entrance. "The last person to live here was..."

"Kel Algwinn," Yuthura replied in Basic as she began to rid herself of her green face paint and letting the Force flow between them. "A Jedi trying to wear the mantle of a Sith, yet he died as he was meant to be."

Released from the influence he had temporarily been under, Dell's visage registered blank shock as his entire aspect seemed to deflate like a punctured bladder. "Y-Yuthura?! What the hell—"

Yuthura's reply was soft but stronger than beskar as she stood tall before him, as though she were a general delivering the mother of all reprimands. "Major Dell Ordon, Twenty-first Infantry Regiment, Sixth Infantry Division, Republic Army. You have been a long time gone since Althir and Malachor."

"H-how do you know that?" Dell stammered, the color draining from his visage. His legs began to give way as he backed away from this phantasm of the Academy's past, and he slid down the rough-hewn wall opposite the door. "I never told you any of that..."

"It is the summation of your true self," Yuthura continued remorselessly, "the self you abandoned when Darth Revan revealed to you what you were. Do you not remember the pledge you took when Serroco was bombed? Do the innocent lives lost to those you taught in the dark arts not resonate within you? Do you even care for their murderers, as you pretended to when I returned to this place?"

Dell's eyes began to stream as he collapsed to the floor, a low moan escaping his lips and giving voice to the turmoil that raged within. It was clear that a full-scale emotional war had broken out within his own mind as he attempted to reconcile what he had been told versus what he was plainly seeing and sensing through the Force. He had always liked Yuthura, she had been an excellent teacher and they had remained friends when he had become a Sith in full. As such, part of him hadn't been willing to believe what Uthar had told him, that she had conspired with another student to kill him and take over the Academy for themselves. Yet her presence here meant that there could be no other explanation for her absence during the cataclysm that had nearly cleansed Korriban of sentient life. The headmaster had believed her dead, either killed during the infighting or else overwhelmed by predators, yet here she was in the flesh, whole, hale and hearty, and absolutely shining with the light side. It didn't seem possible that such a presence could exist on a world as bereft of morality as this, but that wasn't the only thing.

She was flanked by two more presences, each the disembodied essence of a Force-sensitive who had died in the light upon this dark planet, and both were reaching out to him just as his onetime mentor was. Her countenance remained etched from granite, yet her aura was warm and welcoming, beckoning him to remember the man he had once been. He had been a soldier, a proud member of a proud unit that had accumulated many honors over the centuries as its members did their duty to the Republic. He had fought against the vast armies of Mandalore the Ultimate from beginning to climactic end, had seen things no sentient being should have to see, and endured much hardship both physical and mental. It had nearly broken him, but he had persevered.

"It wasn't a happy war for you," Yuthura continued, her voice and expression thawing as she knelt before Dell's prostrate form. "You would have given anything to make the killing stop, but you were led astray by a false promise, that you had within you the power to force peace upon the galaxy."

"But...but what happened to you?" Dell all but begged, then his tone became accusatory. "You were my teacher just as I am theirs! You...you killed many yourself!"

"I did," Yuthura admitted without reservation. "And not a day goes by without some reminder of what I was, the trap I fell into, the same trap you were ensnared by. I was given the chance to break free by the very same man that, in a different guise, lured you to the dark side in the first place."

Yuthura's confession, stated baldly and with the authority of truth reflected in himself, Dell realized that he had met that last student, the one Uthar had all but fawned over in the weeks prior to the Academy's destruction. The man had even asked Dell once if he had ever taken one of the tomb defense droids apart to see how it worked, polite as you please, and he had replied in the affirmative. And on that last day, when the bottom fell out and the full fury of the Sith blasted through the place like a gamma ray burst, he had seen him again as he bolted for the entrance. They had locked eyes for the briefest of moments, and Dell had felt certain that he was about to die, but the expression on the other's face had been one of sympathy—had he known then what Yuthura knew now?

"He was and is Revan," the Twi'lek said into his thoughts as she offered him a helping hand. Reluctantly Dell took it, and with surprising strength he was lifted to his feet even as a seemingly unbidden puff of cool wind wiped the tears from his eyes. "And as he gave me a chance to redeem myself, I offer the same to you. Join me Dell Ordon, and together perhaps we can save some of your charges from themselves."

"I...need some time alone," he answered reluctantly, staring at the dusty floor as he wrung his wrists self-consciously. "You...you better put that makeup back on."

Yuthura reached out and enveloped the Human's hands in her own, locking gazes once more as he flinched at her touch. "Dell...be safe."

There was a pregnant pause as the two held this pose, until the silence was finally broken by the man's throaty chuckle at the irony of the request. "I haven't felt safe in two years," he stated, barely recognizing his own voice. "Did you really come back just for me?"

The request was a reasonable one, but it nevertheless startled Yuthura with all that it implied. Telling the truth might harm both of their chances of surviving the events to come or, worse, it could cause Dell to reject her completely and double down on darkness and die as a Sith, the lie that had defined him for the better part of a decade. Even now, the Twi'lek couldn't be certain whether or not the man before her would take this chance, despite all that was going on in his mind; he was starting to remember, that much was plain, but what would he do with this newfound knowledge? Would he choose to take her offer but stay on the sidelines, or would he tell the headmaster and doom them all? She wasn't worried about her own life, rather it was his and those of the Marines she had led to this place that Yuthura was concerned for, to say nothing of the rest of the population and the fleet that was, even now, on its way.

"No," she said finally, having decided to reveal at least part of the truth—he deserved that much. "But when I saw how you teach, I realized that you were never meant to be a Sith, that you simply train and let your students find their own path. Perhaps that is why you never sank to my level, and why you can still free yourself."

Yuthura paused, releasing his hands. "I can't do it for you, Dell. I've opened the door, but you have to walk through it. Do what you feel is right."

To punctuate the sentiment, she backed up a step and pressed the door actuator.

— — —​

Stang, this is rich, Dell thought to himself as he trudged moodily through the main corridor on the way to his private quarters. As he progressed, he began to see things differently, not quite as though walking these halls for the first time, but with a new perspective. Unbidden, memories of past atrocities committed within the Academy's walls intruded upon his thoughts, threatening to overwhelm the shaky grip on sanity he still possessed in the wake of Yuthura Ban's dramatic reveal—both of her new self and the man he had once been. But one of the spirits that had accompanied her, the one that felt more familiar to Dell than the other, was still with him, and served as a bulwark that allowed him to see these tragedies for what they were, free of emotional entanglement. Passing the large stone entryway that led out toward the old spaceport and what was left of Dreshdae, he stopped for a moment on the very spot where he and Revan had last seen each other, and mulled over what had happened next.

Not a moment after the man had fled through the front door, one of the guards had sprayed the area with blasterfire hoping to catch him in the barrage, and Dell had flattened himself against the wall to get out of the way. Blithely ignoring him, the armored soldier had stormed off in Revan's wake, only to be cast back by a wave of Force energy that sent him skidding across the floor, his helmeted head impacting on the central plinth and knocking him senseless. Dell had sprung forward to try and help, but he hadn't moved two steps in the unconscious man's direction before a stray disc from a lanvarok ensured he would never rise again. Utterly terrified by what was happening, he had retreated into himself as he sought a place to hide, eventually using the Force to help him climb into a crevasse in the ceiling above one of the library's study rooms. There he had stayed, balanced on the vibroblade edge of losing his mind completely as several students and a pair of instructors had torn one another to shreds with reckless abandon. Losing track of time after the last screams had died off, Dell had only ventured out of his bolt-hole when the pains of extreme hunger and thirst had nearly caused him to lose his grip and fall to the floor.

The time between then and Uthar's return had been a miserable existence, as often hand-to-mouth as not, with frequent (and frequently deadly) fights over the most basic of resources. Even the headmaster had struggled at first to restore order upon his return; Dell had recognized him almost at once and, grateful for the restoration of some semblance of normalcy he represented, had been quick to latch onto the man and be his right hand. Barely a week ago, he had looked upon this time in his life as a test of his resolve, his dedication to the ideals of the Sith, regarding Wynn's example as the height of endurance and determination. Now, in the face of the truths Yuthura had blasted from the recesses of his mind to hover at the forefront of his thoughts, he realized that he had been wrong. The headmaster was an unrepentant cancer upon the galaxy who reveled in death and sought only power for himself, using and discarding people like toys in a never-ending quest for dominance. And he, Dell, wasn't really a Sith, he never could have been.

It just wasn't in his nature.

His legs were as lead as he tore his gaze away from the spot where that soldier had died and continued the trek to his room, wondering all the while how in Chaos he was going to get out of this mess. Finally he arrived, closing and locking the door before blowing an enormous sigh of consternation and throwing himself onto the thin bed set into the far wall that seemed his only refuge. The spirit that had accompanied him said something, and though Dell couldn't quite understand the words, in the light of Yuthura's admonitions its meaning was clear: he had been hiding from himself for far too long. It was time to gaze honestly and unashamedly into the mirror, and own up to what he saw there.

There was only one problem: he didn't know how.

Yes, you do, said a voice, and he realized then whose essence had gone with him, it was that of the man in whose quarters Yuthura now resided. It is a basic meditation you yourself have taught others.

"Yuthura?" Dell whispered tentatively, then he realized that the voice wasn't just hers in his mind, but that of Kel and a being called...Sroal? Somehow, they were intertwining their presences and strength in the Force, in order to forge a connection between himself and his onetime teacher that went beyond mere thought and emotion, undetectable and untraceable by others.

Do what you feel is right, all three intoned gently.

Pushing himself out of the alcove and taking up a position on the meditation pad set in the middle of the floor, Dell closed his eyes and began to relax into the Force. Almost immediately he felt a wave of dark energy rushing toward him, but before it could make contact, Kel's spirit cast itself around him like a bubble of light, preventing the corrupting influence from touching his mind. Sheathed in this small pocket of the Force, Dell suddenly felt as though a tremendous weight had been lifted from his shoulders, like a metamorphosing insect breaking free from its cocoon to become something greater than it had been before. Is this to be the consequence of the lie I was told? he mentally asked himself. That I should have to wear this dark mantle like a neutronium cloak for the rest of my life?

''No,'' he continued after a beat, his resolve rebounding and growing exponentially as he realized that the Twi'lek had been right, that he was living a lie and that he could be free of it if he so chose. ''I do not accept this destiny.''

What destiny do you accept, then? the combined voice asked him.

"I don't know," Dell whispered in response. "But anything is better than this."

No sooner had he completed this declaration than a series of impatient rappings echoed through his quarters like the concussive blasts of proton mortar bombs. "Dell, we've got trouble," came the gruff voice of his apprentice. "The headmaster wants to see you down at the switchback cave."

"On my way, Krul," Dell said loudly, so that the Weequay could hear him through the stone entrance. Could this get any worse? he thought to himself, knowing the answer before the notion had fully formed.

"Make it quick, I'm supposed to go with you."

— — —​

"Understood, Six, out," Seela Dar said grimly as she began to digest what her de facto exec had just told her. "This is going to be a circus," she added with false nonchalance to Ten, who was watching a training class try to subdue one another with padded sticks in some perverted notion of ordered melee combat. "Anything interesting going on down there?"

"They better be grateful those aren't real lightsabers they're playing with," the Gotal muttered disgustedly. "My old DI would've made short work of the lot, one at a time or all at once."

"That bad, huh?" Seela asked, grateful for the humorous mental imagery.

If what the Arkanian Marine had told her was correct, Seela was going to need all the laughs she was going to get, because the staff sergeant had come to a definitive conclusion regarding the Weequay she had spotted on that first night. Over the course of this, the week from hell that was a different sort of punishment than that meted out by basic training, the team had come to a lot of conclusions about the Sith gathered in and around the Academy. One particularly uncomfortable observation had been made on the third night, that simply because their targets were using scrounged resources and out-of-date technology, they were by no means stupid or undisciplined; this had come when Three and Nine's position had nearly been compromised by one of the night patrols, which had broken into and ransacked the abandoned residence right next to the one the Rodian and Duros pair had staked out. Other buildings had been randomly searched as well, and the bugged comlinks Twelve had rigged up—as well as other comm intercepts—confirmed that this was a nightly practice, with little centralized command and control. Seela's response to this development was to order her teams to figure out a number of spots they could rotate to and from, and to ensure that they could quickly abandon their hides without leaving evidence of their existence or being spotted by encroaching denizens, which entailed more hard work and mental overhead that no one in the squad wanted or needed. This had had the desired effect, as there had been no further incidents of that nature.

Fortunately, until now that is, this had been their most pressing concern. Other conclusions that had been easier to make had included the fact that the colony must have received a major supply shipment quite recently, as the Sith could increasingly be picked out by the uniforms they wore and the weapons they carried, holdovers from the most recent war—which had been confirmed by Yuthura. There was also the fact that nearly everyone in Dreshdae was either part of the Sith or else a direct supporter, whether they wanted to be or not, which was confirmed by a few overheard conversations and intercepted calls. This meant that the chances of snatching a lone being to pump for information, without being detected or ratted out, had gone from slim to none; this didn't bother Seela, as she hadn't given much credence to the idea in the first place. The last and, perhaps most pertinent of these lesser concerns was the fact that, given the numbers and observed technology and tactics of the Sith here on Korriban, Seela and her squad were confident that there was little hope for their enemies when the hammer finally came down. All of this and more had been condensed into daily reports for the E-TAC, who had remained in his initial hide since nobody had approached to within a couple of kilometers, to encode and shoot up to the orbiting relay satellite.

Thus, Six's conclusion was especially unwelcome, particularly as the chrono tracked ever downward toward zero-hour for the invasion. To her, and now Seela, there could be no doubt that the Weequay was not just a Sith, but a Force-user and likely a pretty powerful figure within the Academy's hierarchy. She had directly observed a heated exchange between the alien and another likely Sith, a Human, who in retrospect had rather unwisely further provoked him on whatever issue had prompted the face-off. The Weequay had subsequently, in one fluid motion that Six had barely managed to catch, seized his lightsaber, activated it, removed the offender's head, and returned the hilt to his belt, shouting something at the top of his voice as two others made to dispose of the body. Then he had taken out his comlink, one of the new ones that Seela had delivered, and promptly rushed off back in the direction of the Academy. The E-TAC was quick to forward the recording:

"Krul, get back to the Academy and collect your Master. I need to see him and you at the shyrack cave as soon as possible."

"What's Dell done now, Master Uthar?"

"Never mind that. Do as I say and make it quick, we have precious little time."

Sithspit, this is not what we needed, Seela thought ruefully to herself as she continued to watch the various activities underway, her concern for the Twi'lek trapped inside the Academy palpable. Thanks to Yuthura's nightly reports, she had known that the old headmaster was still alive, and that he had been spending a lot of time in a beast-filled cavern off the trail from the school to the valley, but to hear his voice was another thing entirely. What he was doing there and what he could possibly want on such short notice, the Marines could only guess at, but Seela's gut was telling her it could be nothing good.

She had been paying attention back on Dantooine, when Revan had described the character of Uthar Wynn.

 

So, I've really only had time to read the first few chapters, but I very much enjoyed the prologue and how natural the unfolding of events feels in chapter one. The aftermath of the Jedi Civil War, at the least the more immediate aftermath, doesn't seem to have been explored much by other fic writers, especially not in such an organic way.

Overall, I liked chapter two and what it's setting up for. Although I thought it was a bit odd that Yuthura didn't want to speak Revan's name out of concern for his animosity, but then ended up saying it anyway, which really only amounted to everyone getting a little uncomfortable and then shrugging it off. Perhaps it'll come up again in later chapters, but it was just something that stood out to me. I still really like Yuthura's growth as a character and I'm pretty excited to see how her tale unfolds alongside the rest of the cast. I'm also growing quite fond of Trunma and Seela. Good OCs.

Revan and Bastila were also in-character, which is always note-worthy in fanfic. You've got a pleasant way of describing the world and making it tangible as well. Great job, Goodwood. Looking forward to reading the rest.

 

Thanks for the feedback, Glor, glad you're liking it so far!

As for Yuthura's intent, even though it's been a while since I wrote those chapters, I'd like to think that she did what she did as a means of testing him and herself both, and not necessarily because she wanted to avoid his ire or catch him out. It's been a while since he spared her, after all, and she hasn't had any other contact with the outside galaxy; all she's had to base her progress on up to that point was how those in her group have perceived her, and they certainly would have known the name of Revan. Perhaps, on reflection, I could have driven that point home with a little KotOR-based exposition, but it didn't seem necessary at the time, and I really wanted to avoid retelling parts of the game for obvious reasons.

Cheers.

 

Chapter Fourteen


Lieutenant Commander Ibratu'na was the last to enter the admiral's briefing room for this, the last conference to take place before the task force was to revert out of hyperspace just outside of the Horuset system to make contact with the scouting team's comm relay and make any final alterations that might be needed. The other company commanders of the 13th Marine Battalion and its CO were all present, as was the admiral, his flag captain and XO, all four Jedi, and the executive officers of the three cruisers accompanying the Stalwart Defender, who would transfer back to their ships just before the final jump into the system. This was simply to be a refresher, the first half of a before-and-after comparison between what was known from Revan's last visit to Korriban and what First Sergeant Dar's squad had learned, as well as the time for Commander Bodt Hrakness to lay out his initial plan for the deployment of the Marine ground force. As the Twi'lek took his seat, Revan rose and strode toward the holoprojector, activating it and gesturing absently at the dirty ball revolving before them.

"Tomorrow we will get a much better picture of what we're facing," he stated matter-of-factly, "but we know quite enough already to draw up a preliminary battle plan."

He flicked a switch, and the view changed from an orbital shot of their destination to a grid map of Dreshdae, its spaceport, the Academy and the Valley beyond. "The Ebon Hawk's sensors aren't exactly up to the standards of a dedicated scout, but when I last visited she was able to pull enough of a thranta's eye view of the only habitable part of Korriban to draw up a basic holograph. While dirtdown, I was able to fill in most of the blanks; even during the height of the war, the settlement was very poorly-equipped to resist a spaceborne assault. Distance behind the lines and the sheer size of the Sith armadas that could be called upon for support were the primary obstacles to any attempt by the Republic to mount a retaliatory strike."

"Why wouldn't the Sith have beefed up the planet's defenses?" Commander Hrakness asked, his mild tone genuinely curious. "Like with us and Dantooine, surely a successful attack there would have put a damper on their morale, at the very least."

"I can't say for certain," Revan answered soberly, causing a number of heads to shake. Commander Ravartin alone nodded understanding, while Bastila simply looked bemused by the question. Unabashed by this response, he continued. "Dreshdae is far too small to support a proper military garrison, and any supplies would have had to come from off-planet. The Sith like to believe they are above such petty needs, especially with all the commerce that the Czerka Corporation was bringing in. And they certainly had enough ships stationed in nearby systems to intercept any attack before it could threaten the surface, which was certainly not the case for us and Dantooine."

"In any case," Bastila added, "such defenses would have been severely impaired by the lack of manpower after the Academy's fall, especially so after Darth Malak's defeat and the destruction of the Star Forge."

Most of those gathered at the table seemed to accept that, including Ibratu'na. "Yuthura doubtless saw for herself how much the population was impacted by these events," he said. "However, First Sergeant Dar's initial report makes it clear that we can expect resistance of some kind."

"What kind of bolt-holes might the Sith try to run for?" Georg Oakes asked. "It seems to me as though we're going to be on the surface for a while, rooting them out or trying to sort civilians from potential combatants."

"You're right," Revan acknowledged with a grim nod. "There are certainly ways into and out of the general vicinity of Dreshdae, but unless the Sith have set up supply caches elsewhere on the surface, they won't get very far before the elements claim them."

"We'll need all of our starfighters, shuttles and transports, from all four ships, to conduct a meticulous search pattern," Commander Ravartin supplied. "Even with those numbers it'll take a few days at least, assuming we don't need them for ground support ops or to meet a spaceborne threat."

"So we're looking at a long-term occupation even after we've swept the planet," Admiral Hetton surmised, his expression sour. "Command won't be happy to hear that; they've got enough on their plates as it is without having to set up and support a garrison so far out on the Rim."

A murmur of agreement made its way around the table, and Revan nodded once more. "That is correct, Admiral, I was about to recommend just that, despite the logistical problems such an act would pose. Korriban is desolate, barren, barely even worth setting foot on much less establishing a colony, but the Sith hold it as sacred, and they will never rest until they possess it once more. It is as dear to them as Coruscant is to the Republic."

"First things first," Captain Melao intoned softly, his mocha visage meeting Revan's gaze. "We need to get our forces in orbit and on the ground before we can even think about any future activities. Commander Hrakness, have you finished drawing up your battle plan?"

"Yes, Captain," the Marine officer replied, rising to stand on opposite sides of the holoprojector from the older Knight and picking up a stylus.

"Commander Ibratu'na's Cresh Company will land here, at the mouth of the Valley of the Dark Lords," he said, drawing a line of arrows between two ridges in a bright crimson that was very visible against the bluish hue of the grid map, indicating a spot some two klicks down the valley floor from the tomb furthest out from the Academy. According to Revan, this modestly-sized edifice had been dedicated to a minor Sith that had attracted little attention in recent years. "Commander Alizo's Besh Company will land here," he continued, encircling an area on the far side of Dreshdae from the Academy and its spaceport that was relatively open. "Taking and clearing out the Academy is our primary objective, and as each unit in the first wave advances toward it, Commander Petra's Dorn Company will land and act as a reserve for Besh, while Commander Nummu will take her Aurek Company in behind Cresh and act as flanking support—it's a fairly wide valley at that point and I'd rather not let any enemy ground forces have the chance to flank Ibratu'na's people and cut them off."

The battalion commander made more marks on the map, outlining his proposed routes of advance as well as possible trouble spots. "Alizo and Petra, your people will be the most vulnerable if this turns into urban combat, especially as we move to take the spaceport, so I'd like to have your landers and two squadrons of Aureks remain close by to provide gunfire support. Ibratu'na, you and Nummu might want to land a couple of squads or a platoon apiece on the crests of the valley walls to provide overwatch on your advance, but I'll leave you to make that call once we know more."

Ibratu'na nodded in reply, as did the Wroonian sitting next to him, each of them wearing appraising looks. Commander Hrakness's battle plan was straightforward and sound, and none of those present could find any obvious faults with it.

"Looks good," Revan agreed, tucking his arms behind his back. "My only suggestion would be to send down a fighter sweep before the dropships go in, tasking the pilots to scan the buildings for life forms and demolish those that are uninhabited. This should give your people a bigger firebreak between their landing zone and any possible cover the Sith might use against you."

"I can see to that," Commander Ravartin spoke up before Bastila, who looked somewhat shocked at the idea, could raise an objection. "I've been in this position before, and can work up profiles for our pilots to sim on. I'll also remind them to use lasers only, no proton torpedoes."

"I'd also suggest assigning an extra demolitions specialist to each squad in the lead platoons," Bastila suggested instead. "Sith have always loved traps."

"I've some experience with old-style Sith snares and other sorts of hazards," Oakes added. "I can brief your demo techs on the kinds of obstacles they might encounter."

"That's a good idea," Commander Hrakness said gratefully. "My company commanders can send them your way."

"Is there anything else we need to discuss?" Admiral Hetton asked, rising to join Revan at the holoprojector.

There was silence as the various officers and Jedi cast brief glances around the conference room.

"In that case, all we can do until tomorrow is follow up on these general plans and ideas. You are all dismissed."

As the gathering dispersed Ibratu'na, along with Chell Nummu, Oce Alizo, and Jusulu Petra stuck together as they made to return to the battalion muster room, in order to brief their own platoon commanders and squad leaders on the plan and what to expect. They had already been given the preliminary details, which meant that by now every man and woman in the 13th Marines would know as much about their destination as the task force's leadership had at the outset.

"I'm sure Dar will have some good news for us," Chell said warmly as she walked beside the Twi'lek, who was the most senior of the four company commanders, in time of service if not in rank.

"Oh, she will have news," he replied curtly. "I'm not certain on how good it will be, however."

"No news is good news, most of the time," Oce added, his attempt at lightening the mood falling flat.

Jusulu cocked her head at the Human, her Nautolian features set in a grimace. "That was bad even for you, Oce," she chided. "You're lucky he's in uniform right now."

Ibratu'na had never really been much of a military socialite as an enlisted man and NCO, but the ethos of the Republic Military's officer corps had forced him to be at least a little more open with his comrades, especially among Marines. Since joining the 13th, he had found himself among a more laid-back sort than he was used to, even if his fellow officers adhered to the required high standard of discipline when on duty. The other three company commanders were especially prone to boisterousness during off-hours, and hardly a week had gone by when they weren't trying to waylay him into attending some party or other function to "loosen him up a bit." After nearly two years he had found himself gradually coming around, though when things would get serious, such as this whole mission and the people he was risking, he tended to withdraw into himself and his responsibilities. If anything, this egged them on even further, Chell being her usual flirtatious self as well as a hideous optimist; Oce cracking some pretty terrible jokes and the occasional gem—usually only after he'd had a few; and Jusulu, alternating between feigning an almost Sith-like bloodlust and pretending to be the only sane voice in the room.

His concerns over the last few days hadn't been so much on the mission itself or its goals, though they were certainly paramount within his well-trained officer mind. Rather, he was concerned most for two of those who had been sent ahead and were, even now, in deadly danger; the irrepressible Human first sergeant from Tatooine who had become something of a fixture of his military career, and the former Sith Master who had given so much of herself despite not having had a stake in the outcome. Ibratu'na had sensed in Yuth'uraban before, when the two had first met on Dantooine, that her feelings were genuine and that she had wanted nothing more than to do right by those she had rescued from Korriban, and he couldn't help but wonder how she was holding up now. Despite the fading tattoos that marred her countenance and the homespun robes that all but obscured her figure, he had seen in her a woman of great strength and beauty, in possession of a supreme moral character that could only have come from years of experience on the wrong end of civilization and a sincere desire to repent. Having heard her story, he had wanted nothing more than to be the man who could serve as her anchor point in the universe, to help her to finish rebuilding her life and perhaps find a bit of happiness—even if it meant resigning his commission and living on Dantooine for the rest of his life, though hopefully it wouldn't have come to that. He still felt drawn to her, but as of now, all he could do was hope that she made it through the next few days and the action that they would bring.

When things became intense and he found himself alone in a crowded room, Ibratu'na couldn't help but wonder what Captain Reyolé would do in his place. He had barely had the chance to get to know the Agamarian colonist before her disappearance, but she had had quite the influence on him—he had, after all, taken her advice and joined the Marines. Despite everything she had been through, the Human had been able to reach that critical balance point between being a good leader and a good friend, alternating between the two as duty and necessity required. Even she hadn't been immune to the stresses and strains of command in wartime, as he had seen in the lead-up to the attack on Revan's flagship, but under the circumstances he had found it easy to forgive her; training Army troopers in the ways of the Marine in little more than a week would have been a monumental challenge for anybody. When all was said and done, the woman had been an excellent role model, and Ibratu'na wished he could be half the soldier she was. Still, he had learned a few things, both from her and his fellow Marines, about how to reach beyond his inner turmoil in order to lighten the mood.

"Let's get this briefing over with," he said in a terse rumble, pausing for effect before cracking a huge smile. "Because afterward, it's going to be a free-for-all in the shockboxing ring."

"Oh no, I know that grin," Oce said, his brow climbing ever higher. "We are so dead."

— — —​

Was it just Dell's imagination, or was Krul acting as though something had crawled under his craggy skin when he wasn't looking? The Weequay positively stank of recent death, which as soon as a couple of days ago wouldn't have bothered the Human, but now it was a repugnant odor that he simply could not ignore any longer; it was a wonder he managed to keep a straight face at all while in the presence of his own apprentice. Even without the Force, Dell knew the younger being had been the killer, it showed in his body language as well as the faint scent of ozone giving away the recent activation and deactivation of his weapon—lightsabers left very neat, tidy wounds, after all. Knowing better than to ask what had happened, he kept his mouth shut as he continued to follow Krul through the Academy's halls and out into the canyon, speaking only once they arrived at the entrance to find that they were not the only ones that Uthar Wynn had summoned.

"Fline, Tolbra'nar," Dell said curtly, managing to suppress the urge to meet the latter's gaze.

"So what's this about?" Fline asked waspishly, indicating the newcomers. "I was in the middle of something."

Dell had no doubts as to the veracity of this statement. "Search me," he quipped, sensing the younger man's confusion, which mirrored his own. "You weren't the only one who was occupied, but when the headmaster calls..."

"Yes, yes, ever the unctuous one," Fline shot back coolly. "If I find out that you've sabotaged my efforts, so help me, I'll—"

"You'll what?" Dell asked with a snort, crossing his arms carelessly. "In any case, I haven't said a word to Wynn since we met to discuss your new apprentice. If anyone should be worried about incurring retribution for anything, it ought to be you if you get her killed."

<This is all very touching> Tolbra'nar interjected angrily, and Dell secretly admired how well she played her part. <But I am perfectly capable of handling myself.>

"You say that now, but have you even been inside there?" Krul inquired mockingly, gesturing toward the cave mouth. "If the shyracks don't get you, the tu'kata will. And that assumes that another terentatek hasn't decided to move in."

<If Master Uthar is still in there, then it is already dead> the Twi'lek asserted calmly.

Dell let out a hearty chortle. "All this posturing is really quite fun, but such witty repartee is holding us up. If one of you wants to tell him why we're late in answering his summons once we find him, then by all means, go ahead."

Suiting action to words, Dell stalked off through the entrance, with Krul and Tolbra'nar close behind and Fline as the reluctant tail-ender for their little group. This particular subterranean network wasn't all that extensive, as these things went, but it did have a couple of small, out-of-the-way passages that were rumored to lead to the surface at points just outside of Dreshdae. These rumors had gone untested because no one Dell knew was possessed of such terminal stupidity, though there remained a persistent story regarding a handful of Sith "rebels" who had succeeded in using one to flee Korriban before the Academy's fall—this despite Uthar's desire to have them rooted out and killed to serve as an example. One of the more popular combat exercises for the last few months had been to send pairs of students into the cave system to face off against the various beasts that lived within; in Dell's opinion this had the added benefit of teaching its participants to trust one another while engaged in battle. The trek wasn't long, as it didn't take much effort to use the Force to find the headmaster, and the usual predators were strangely absent. The older Human, as it transpired, was lurking in a corner at the far end, beyond an apparent naturally-occurring bridge that spanned a seemingly bottomless chasm.

Uthar Wynn was sitting on the dusty ground in a meditative posture, one facing of the stone wall behind him appearing as though it had recently been disturbed. "It's about time you got here," he said gruffly, rising to his feet. "I have news."

An uncomfortable silence passed between the four of them as Dell sensed something strange within the Force, localized...but how could that be? The ghost of Kel Algwinn confirmed what he was feeling, that behind the wall there was a passage, and beyond that passage was a nexus of immense dark side power. The sensation of it threatened to turn Dell's stomach, a sensation that was not helped by what the headmaster had to share with them.

"The Republic is coming," Wynn said, his voice cast in carbonite. "As a result, the expedition to XoXaan's tomb is cancelled."

A thrill of abject terror washed over Dell, and he sensed that he wasn't alone in this; the Twi'lek's own aura also betrayed a measure of fear, though thankfully only he seemed to spot it. In that moment he knew exactly why his old comrade had reached out to him as she had done, taking a titanic risk to do so, since she couldn't have known how he would have reacted. Even now he wasn't entirely certain what he even wanted to do with himself, but with the headmaster's announcement that he and "Tolbra'nar"—and the other two who had been summoned—instinctively knew to be the truth, Dell understood that the time he had left in which to choose a side and destiny was fast running out.

It was Krul who broke the silence that had descended upon the cavern like a thick miasma. "When, and in what numbers, Master?"

"I do not know for certain," Wynn answered curtly. "It is enough to know that they are on their way. We must do all that we can to prepare a suitable reception for them, of course."

Most unexpectedly, Dell's first reaction to this statement was anger—but not anger toward the Twi'lek and what she represented. Rather, it was the way in which Wynn casually passed down his sentence of death for all those currently living on this planet that raised his hackles. He had known the headmaster well enough by now to observe the signs, to see beyond the text stream and read the data stream, and his gut was telling him this had everything to do with their recent visitor, a visitor whose identity had still not been disclosed to the rest of the Academy. All of this and more came to Dell over the span of a few heartbeats, and he was able to compose himself enough to give off the appropriate mannerisms. "Master, if they come, they will come in overwhelming force," he said somberly. "Even were we to be given a full month's notice and another convoy of supplies, we would be able to accomplish little against them."

"In the broader sense, you are correct," Wynn said grimly. "But you mistake my intentions; I have no desire to see the Sith rubbed out so easily."

"Then what is to be done, Master?" Fline asked, his lip curled in a cruel sneer that seemed quite out of place. "How are we to survive the coming onslaught?"

"Oh, don't be so melodramatic," Wynn bit back. "It is not as though we are without options. Yes, most here will die in the battle to come, ideally after taking as many Republic lives with them as possible—"

"Not if they send in the Marines," Dell interrupted, his anger getting the better of him as everyone else painted him with a wide variety of looks ranging from dubious to outright scandalized. Uthar Wynn's expression remained cold, calculating, and Dell wondered if he had finally crossed some invisible line, even if he had no idea what such an unspoken boundary might have divided him from.

"Do continue," the headmaster prompted acidly.

Unseen by the rest, Tolbra'nar's eyes met Dell's, and the look they shared filled him up like drink as he became more confident both in himself and what he wanted for his life. To Chaos with the Sith and the dark side, he thought to himself as he prepared an appropriate response. The sooner I get away from this place and back to the Republic, the better. Revan was once a Jedi, so maybe I can find some sort of refuge with them...

"Despite what others might want to think, Master," Dell said after a beat, "the Republic isn't stupid. I served with Revan and Malak before they became Darths, back during the Mandalorian Wars. My unit fought alongside elements of the Third and Ninth Marine Battalions during the final campaigns, so with all due respect, I can tell you that the average Marine is ten times the soldier that anyone here could ever hope to be."

"They still die when you cut'em," Krul put in sourly, his hand casually caressing the hilt of his weapon.

"Let us not get ahead of ourselves," Wynn said, raising a hand to forestall an argument. "We have among us enough students and apprentices, skilled in the Force and basic lightsaber combat, to give pause to any invasion force. That is why I have summoned you here, so that you might be able to better prepare them for what is to come so that they may prove themselves worthy."

<Worthy of what?> Tolbra'nar asked delicately, her lekku twitching in agitation.

"What is worthy of anything, to a Sith?" Wynn asked cryptically, making a gesture of indifferent dismissal. "Go and see to the students. I will remain here and await developments."

— — —​

As the sounds of water dripping from stalactites erased the footsteps of his departing students, Uthar Wynn pushed out with the dark side to ensure that he was alone. Once satisfied, he pulled a device from the pouch at his belt and flicked it on; it was round, about the size and thickness of his open hand, and brightly-plated in a metallic golden material. A few moments after activation, a light mounted in the side winked over from red to green, and a twenty-centimeter holographic figure blossomed forth from a lens mounted in the center. "They have been informed, Master," he said deferentially. "Soon the bait will be sufficiently ready for the line."

"You are cutting things a little fine," Darth Igdrasil replied smoothly, her voice only slightly distorted across the light years. "Even from here, we can feel their approach."

"Even the Jedi would be suspicious if they were to achieve complete surprise," Uthar reminded her tartly. "Especially given what they will find here upon their arrival. If there is one thing I will credit Revan with, it is his axiom of never underestimating his enemy."

"I assume they are properly surprised?" she asked. "We don't want things to be too difficult for our Republican guests, do we?"

"Of course not, my Master," Uthar said with a nod, an ironic smile parting his lips. "In any event, I have reason to believe that a number of parameters have shifted, in such a way that once all is said and done, the Republic ought to be even more convinced that the Sith have been extinguished."

"Oh? Do tell."

"Do you recall meeting my deputy, one Dell Ordon?"

The small translucent figure brought a thoughtful hand to her crimson chin. "Indeed I do. Another of Revan's creatures, was he not?"

"Yes, Master," Uthar continued. "He was among those brought into the fold as the war with the Mandalorians entered its final phase, made aware of his sensitivity, and later sent here for training. He was not, however, subjected to Revan's later methods of indoctrination, and something has changed within him. Though I do not know precisely what it is or what might be the agent of this shift in his attitude, I no longer believe he is fully committed to the cause. He may even cherish some hope of outliving this iteration of the Academy."

"That is not the only thing, is it?" the Darth prompted idly.

"No," Uthar admitted sourly. "I have reason to believe that Korriban is also playing host to a number of uninvited guests, though I cannot say how they came to be here or why they have come. I was planning to have them rooted out and eliminated, but given how invested we are in the outcome, I wanted to get your feel of the situation first."

The figure hovering just above the sophisticated holocomm device bowed her head, several moments passing in silent contemplation, during which Uthar had no doubt she was peering into the Force to see what to make of this news. It had, after all, been the dark side that had let him in on this particular secret. "No," she finally said, her tone pensive. "They would prove more trouble than you could possibly comprehend. It would be better to let them maintain their illusion of supremacy, or need I remind you of the vital importance of this entire exercise?"

Uthar nodded acceptance of the implied rebuke. "As you say, Master."

"Continue to grant Dell his delusions as well, Uthar," Darth Igdrasil purred, a look of malice gracing her countenance. "In the battle to come, he may provide a clue as to the source of his troubles, a source that must not survive."

"That will not be easy," Uthar cautioned, his tone resolute. "Not if you wish me to remain where you have assigned me, and yet also fulfill his command. I can guarantee the completion of one task or the other, but not both, and we both know whom I would least prefer to disappoint."

The holographic Sith gave a low, cruel chuckle. "You impress me, Uthar. It is well that you will soon be dead also, otherwise you might have become a threat to me. Someday."

"I was always a threat to you, Igdrasil," Uthar replied, his expression quite cheerful as he delighted in the look of consternation on his Master's crimson visage. "But he knows for what reason I give my life and those I was to send you, and for this I will be honored beyond even your petty imaginings."

"Just make sure that you play your part before that happy moment comes," the Darth replied venomously.

"Absolutely, my Master," he shot back gleefully. "I wouldn't give you the satisfaction."

The connection broken, the figure of his onetime mentor shrank back into the holocomm device, which Uthar Wynn proceeded to smash against the cavern wall bordering the entrance. It had been a pleasure indeed to finally be able to speak to her as an equal, if not a superior, even for that brief moment in time. She had always been proud, that one, never hesitant to remind him of his good fortune at having been appointed as her apprentice, and thus able to enjoy all the benefits therein—despite the hazards, which he had always adroitly avoided. It could not have been plainer that, upon relaying the full extent of the command with which he was being entrusted, that she was jealous of his recognition despite her own privileged position. But such was the vagaries of life in the Empire, and such were the rewards for excellence in compliance both in this life, and in the Beyond.

And now, finally, the time had come to fulfill his destiny.

With a wave of his hand, he pulled away the stone plug and cast it into the abyss barely three meters behind him, then unsealed the elaborately-carved door hidden beneath. Casting one last look back toward the mouth of the cavern, at which he wondered how such a nexus of power had escaped his notice for so long prior to Darth Igdrasil's visit, he stepped inside and began to make his way ever deeper into the tomb of Ludo Kressh.

— — —​

"Two, this is Twelve," Seela Dar's helmet-mounted comlink buzzed, waking her with a start. "Got some trade for you."

"What is it, Twelve?" she asked, her voice thick and dry as she reluctantly dragged herself from her slumber. It had been another hot day for the pair of Marines lying hidden atop XoXaan's tomb, and Seela was feeling quite filthy underneath her armor and body glove; no one in her squad had had any time or opportunity for much in the way of personal hygiene. It was also barely ten minutes into what was supposed to have been a two-hour nap, and she was feeling rather grumpy about being roused in such a manner. Such was the way of the soldier, however, and she worked hard to keep these feelings under wraps—especially when she was in command and neck-deep in such a situation as her Marines had found themselves in.

"Picked up on a tightbeam holocomm transmission a few minutes ago," Twelve said darkly, and Seela could tell that he was not happy at all, "coming from somewhere in your vicinity, heavily encrypted, Just finished putting it through the computer."

Grunting a curse, the Tatooinian turned herself over and around to once more take up her rifle. Ten was still up and spotting, his gaze currently on the broader end of the Valley, and she halfheartedly began to scan the narrows, in the vague direction of the Academy. As she focused in on the mouth of the switchback, however, she noticed with a dubious twist in her gut that a number of people, nearly all dressed in the slate-gray uniforms of Sith officers, were trickling into the open area between the first two tombs. "Could you get anything from it?"

"Negative, Two," Twelve replied tersely. "The level of sophistication is like nothing I've ever seen. I couldn't even tell you where it was pointed at, just that it was two-way, and one endpoint was somewhere just outside the Academy. Neither the encryption used nor the carrier frequency match up with anything in my database; not Republic, not Sith, not even Mandalorian, and I can tell you from experience that the Hutts have nothing even close to this level of tech."

"Well, at least that rules out any involvement from the slugs or the bucketheads," Seela groused as the trickle began to thicken. "Log your analysis and shoot it up to the satellite as soon as it's completed, in case we don't get the chance to fold it into a report later."

"Aye-aye, Two," the E-TAC acknowledged resignedly. "Either way, I sure hope this doesn't turn out to be a game-changer."

"You and me both, Twelve," Seela agreed wholeheartedly as she continued to monitor the building activity in the Valley below. The nasty feeling in her innards began to grow as she soon realized that the multispecies mob, at least fifty strong and still growing, was forming itself into a military-style formation; a handful of others stood slightly apart from the rest, looking for all the galaxy like NCOs directing their troops. "Once you're done with that, continue as otherwise directed and hope to the Force that things don't get frisky before they're supposed to."

"Understood, Two. Out."

Seela poked Ten in his armored ribs and subtly motioned for him to direct his attention at the parade below. "Check out what's going on down there. Look familiar?"

"Yeah, it does," Ten replied, and it was obvious that he didn't like what he was seeing any more than Seela did. "Pink Rontos On Parade."

Seela had to suppress a snort of mirth at the reference; she had seen plenty of rontos on her homeworld, and had a pretty good idea of how they tended to behave. Remembering the holo-comedy the song Ten mentioned was from, combined with the idea of a bunch of Sith acting like a drunken mob of those quadrupedal beasts of burden, couldn't fail to cheer her up despite whatever the theatrics she was witnessing might imply. Ever the professional, however, she realized that this would be something Command might want to see for themselves, and touched a panel on her helmet just to the right of the eyeplate. This action activated her helmet's in-built holocam and directional high-gain microphone—a feature of Marine battle armor that, to her knowledge, was rarely-used—and began to record what was happening.

 

Superb developments with the mission and Yuthura helping Dell out. This cements her own right track.

 

Glad to hear from you, Nyota!