The Devils in the Details: When it all comes undone, Part 1

[The Message]

Access Denied. Access Denied. Access Denied. Access Denied. Access Denied. Access Denied. Access Denied. Access Denied. Access Denied. Access Denied. Access Denied. Access Denied. Access Denied. Access Denied. Access Denied. Access Denied. Accerzzzzt. DenieEEEeed. Acccd ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ER- O RE RE ** .......

Access Granted.

---Data feed in progress---
--Sync active--
Sync Complete - Link complete...

- Uploading.


Imperial Center on Coruscant. The communications office of Imperial Intelligence, sat first grade communications officer, Tanya Brootin with a warm cup of fresh caff clutched between chilled fingers. She stared blankly into the monitor, her face a bask in the green glow of data scrolling over the screen.

Thank god for caff, Tanya thought, with a light sip of the steaming beverage. She enjoyed her job but some days watching the endless droning logs of conversation wore on a person. Most were not even important, just some plebs who managed to mention a keyword the Imperial Intelligence had flagged. Today was another one of those days.

A red blip suddenly flashed onto Officer Brootin's screen. Here goes another one, Tanya thought dryly. She tapped the screen appropriately enlarging the alert, which immediately began spilling information and alerts across the screen. Tanya squinted her eyes in suspicion, setting her cup of caff down as she read through the data. It wasn't a simple key word alert this time.

"What the frell...this can't...?" Tanya's fingers slammed into her keyboard frantically. This was wrong, she repeated to herself. Something with the system, it had to be some glitch or internal error. The screens green glow quickly gave way to red, the alerts spread like some plague over the screen. Whatever it was came searing through the hard line infecting the database. Suddenly the screen went black. KRRSSH!

Tanya's body shook with adrenaline. She was clutching her right hand. Her fist having slammed through the emergency glass to hit the a large, dangerously red, button. The hard line to the Intelligence data base had been cut. The button was an emergency shut down to lock the system from intrusions. It would set off small charges along the main communications hub that housed the main lines into the intelligence data base. Several other communications officers stood up, looking around confused as their stations went dead.

"Officer Brootin. Explain!" Her commanding officer, Gentry Pown, came rushing over.

"Sir the system, I thought it was a glitch or an error at first. Someone accessed Intelligence from outside our network. When I tried to confirm an i-dent' then the system it..." Tanya's body continued to shiver, she was staring absently at her bloodied hand, shards of safety glass sparkled from her knuckles. "I don't why they would..."

"Security breach? Which department? What were they after? What did they take? Tanya explain yourself."

"That's just it, sir...it was like the system was attacking itself. The first alert was a simple name flag but then, data, news, all our feeds began alerting. Am I the only one who saw it? I ran a trace to the source but it came back classified. An internal department sir. The breach was sending data to local news centers with names of operatives, holo recordings of missions, everything in the archives was being shuttled out into public data spaces." Tanya stared at her black screen in bewilderment trying to comprehend the last fifteen minutes.

"Tanya your rambling. Speak plainly. Who was it?"

"Sir the breach was from within intelligence."

"Your saying we have a traitor? Someone hacking into the system from inside?"

"I had to cut the line. It was the only way to stop the data from being sent out."

"Tanya, you realize the data that has been sent out already is still over the public network? Without our main access line we can't cut their feeds. You've cut us off from taking any action. Go, Get your self fixed up. Hendren contact the hardware crew and get the back up line activated. We cant cut that feed until access is restored."

"Yes sir, auxiliary communications are up now. Getting access to the public network feeds. They're still broadcasting. Sir I'm also getting emergency comm. chatter over the lines," Hendren clutched his ear piece tightly, trying to make sense of the audio. "Something about an explosion?"

"Sir the lines up. Systems are back online and the data feed is... cut. There, news feeds are no longer transmitting. Alerts look clear." The communications pit was a chaotic ballet of reports, each tech yelling out updates as they fell back on training to regain a handle on the situation.

"Commander? I found a data seed in our system. Whoever it was that hacked in left a message it seems. Its a clip directed to...us?" Hendren piped the clip onto the main screen allowing the rest of the crew a visual.

"What is it?

"A holo recording it looks like." The holo jittered for a moment before the resolution was stabilized. The building stood tall amongst others, clearly it was on Coruscant somewhere. The tip was billowing black smoke into the sky while flames licked out from blown out windows.

"Where is that? Someone identify that building, I want a location." His finger speared at the screen as he spat orders, too many unknowns, too many questions for a commander of communications, it all made Gentry far too uncomfortable.

"Sir, I got it. Its the TLN news tower...wait...thats not a recording...thats a live feed. Reports are saying the building was rocked by an explosion five minutes ago."

"Get emergency crews out there if they haven't been alerted already. I need to know how far behind in events we are, updates people. I need them fifteen minutes ago!"


----Two hours after breach incident, Communications commander of Intelligence Gentry Pown's office.

"Report." Gentry was laying back in his seat, finger tips sat sorely over his closed eyelids. "Keep in mind good news would be welcome."

"It took some time but we found the source. Its a building on Coruscant, in the lower district, here are the coordinates." Hendren slipped a data board over the clear duraglass table.

"Lower district? Last reports were that the line was patched through from the TLN news line. Hence why the broadcast was sent over their network. Your now telling me that the assailant hacked in from another location without a main line?" Gentry squinted an eye suspiciously at the young officer. Hacking in over a main line was a feat in itself. accomplish able by a very select and small group of slicers, but from a remote distance with no direct line to our systems? Impossible.

"Speaking freely sir?"

"Of course."

"I have no frelling idea how the assailant did it. We traced back an initial attempt on our system. Several i-dents were used but they had all expired years ago. As you know we change encoding and issue new access passes to even the highest level of our departments monthly. Whoever it was obviously had access to our systems at one point years ago.

"So it was an inside job? It couldn't have been some informant in our department selling expired access passes on the black market?"

"No sir. It had to be an inside job. Approximately three minutes after the first attempt I found data prints going through our own network looping back and forth through personnel profiles. Most of them very high up on the food chain."

"Do you have the names of the users it went through? I'm assuming you ran a cross reference for them in our database?"

"Yes sir I did. Half of them don't even exist in our data base and the others are classified beyond my clearance. It took some digging but I managed to trace his route through our system to a back door which is how I discovered the buildings location. That's how I know its an inside job. But there is something else..I don't understand sir."

"What is it?"

"There was a text document left on his last data print embedded in the system. I didn't read the message but its directed to Grand Inquisitor Karl Valten?"

"I see...good job and the names, you didn't mention or let anyone else see them did you?"

"No sir."

"So what did the TLN building have to do with this? Don't tell me the direct feed to their network was a coincidence."

"No, far from it. From the security reports and the emergency response briefings. A group of men stormed the building and commandeered their equipment. Opening the ports for our feed to be broadcast. If someone had tried to shunt the data straight through on its own without letting them know it would have been buffered. That is, until the director reviewed and put it on air. These men apparently were part of this plan and were ready to broadcast live as the feed came in."

"What exactly was broadcast and to what end?"

"Thats where it gets weird..." Hendren tapped a data pad which began to play the recorded broadcast and handed it to Commander Gentry. "R. S Esalis head of Imperial Intelligence."

Gentry looked at his young officer very unamused. "I know who she is Hendren. I report to her."

"Er, yes sir. But play the clip it switches to a battle recording of Imperial missions dating back years ago. Most of the scenes are full of death or massacres preformed by our troops. Events we have done well to keep covered up. The media has been instructed to play it off as a new holo movie in production. Anyway, If you continue the video, most of the faces I don't recognize but...there, that's Admiral Telan Desaria."

"Grand Admiral." Gentry corrected, "So what are you saying? Are these warnings?"

"Warnings. Targets maybe?" The young officer theorized.

"So basically what I'm looking at here is a single man, or group of men, has broken into Imperial Intelligence. Broadcast our archives, which appears to have been cut together in some sort of threat? Blown out the top of a news building. Stolen data regarding people who don't exist and left behind a message to the Grand Inquisitor." Gentry wished he was a weaker man so he could start crying over this mess.

"Yes sir. I believe that's everything sir."

"Good now try explaining why any of it has happened in the first place and you can take my job." At least Gentry wouldn't be going into a meeting empty handed. He still had the location of the assailant. "Dismissed."

Gentry tapped one of the seven data pads Hendren had delivered, in particular the one addressed to the Grand Inquisitor. He knew the title existed but he wasn't informed of the mans name until know. The letter contained a list of names. Tapping the recording he watched the faces, they were set in order with names on this list, showing their profile first then the recordings of battles.

Each name had a specific message, he purposely skipped over for a rightful fear. This was growing beyond him. The two names he did recognized where possibly the most dangerous people in the Empire.

This hacker was picking a very dangerous fight.

[The Message]

The Building,

Coruscant, the lower districts, un patrolled by the Empire for the most part. Far below the expansive skyscrapers and towering crystal buildings that stood majestically amidst the clouds. The lower districts were the dirt that dwelled beneath the angels. The pride of society inhabited the heavenly upper levels, blessed by beautiful blue skies and a warm sun. The lower levels had the dredges of society, thugs and criminals, who skulked under the cloud of constant smog and shivered beneath an endless night with stars of neon signs. The great ecosystem of Coruscant.

There in the district of Kel'd held but a single tower that stood so solemn and overbearing it was nearly a symbol to the decrepit underworld of the lower districts. Its black windows thick, its walls rigid and high, more of a fortress then a building of business. Like a fortress it was grand amongst the hobble of tiny buildings. Most weren't even connected to the power grid but instead had grown like barnacles onto other buildings, creating clusters of debris, only rats would be proud to call home. The only entrance was a main door, guarded by several unsavory characters. The men stood nervously. None of which knew each other but each held a data pad with a picture and instructions. They were to talk to their contact when they arrive and give access to the building with further instruction once inside. That's all they knew and that's all they needed to know with credits being paid to their pockets.

So they stood in the darkness under the tower, each waiting for a stranger.

[Baralai Lotus]

Baralai approached the area, seeing the dirty underbelly of Coruscant. It was disgusting, crawling with filthy degenerates. Baralai had no intention of staying here longer than he needed too, but his curiosity had gotten the better of him. He had to come and find out who it was that had delivered this message, and more importantly, he had to discover how they knew his name.

Darth Ouroboros.

He hadn't used that name since the Sith Order had fallen. No one would hold him back from finding out exactly who it was that had done this. There were two options as to who this one. Either it was a lost member of the Order, or worse yet, it was the only other people that knew his name.

The Inquisitoriate.

They were the most viable option, and Baralai feared that more than anything else. But he was prepared. He'd had years to train and hone his skills, and he was much more deadly than he was last time. He wouldn't lose this time, and if he ran into Y'roth or Tear, their deaths would be quick.

He approached the dirty tower, it's darkness stretching up into the skies themselves. Baralai saw the men standing outside the tower and approached them, pulling out a cigarette and lighting up.

"So, who sent me this message? Was it one of you?" Baralai looked at the men, the silver snake on his eye patch glistening in the moonlight.

[The Message]

Danul pulled at his jacket with crossed arms. It was frelling cold this time of year. The damned thermo generators never worked this far below Coruscants surface leaving the masses of Kel'd District in the shadows of winter. He shifted his weight uncomfortably along the buildings wall. No one had been brave enough in their new position to bring a chair but he was seriously contemplating it. Who knew how long they would be waiting. After all they had been standing around on shift for roughly a week now.

It took several days but the group of men eventually broke the distrustful silence, a joke here, a borrowed stim there to break down the social barriers and into the lands of small talk. Danul refused to partake in the chat-chit. He instead sat quietly in the corner, away from the main group as they joked and conversed. He hated small talk and the cat calling or gawking at passerbys the rest of them had taken up to pass the time. This was a job, something he was trying to take seriously. Admittedly it was boring, but hell, who didn't want get paid for standing around doing nothing.

"Check out patches."

"Hehe Arrr...space pirates."

Like a pack of Barnair Hyenas, Danul thought dryly to himself. He saw a single man walking down the sidewalk toward the building. At this time of night? Suspicious Danuls face squinted at the man. It was a little late to walk about Kel'd by yourself. Wait patch? An eye patch?

"Think he heard you he's coming this way. Ooh you've done it now Barristan...Haha." The men jostled each other jokingly their body language stiffening slightly when the man spoke. His voice was unusual...

"So, who sent me this message? Was it one of you?"

"Frell." Danul cursed under his breath. From his corner he held the data pad up parallel to the mans actual face which was only a meter or so away. It was him. "Sir, over here." The rest of the men went quiet when they realized their first contact had come. Danul waved the man over while removing a pager that had been given to him by a small probe droid earlier in the week. He pressed down on the button. Nothing. Was it broken?

"Uh...ehem. Well this is for you and thats all I know." Danul passed him the data pad with his picture on it. The man took it, his own picture drove his curiosity as he attempted to look through the files but they had been password encrypted. "Ah...I take it you don't know it either. You wouldn't happen to know why your here, would you? The lads and I have been waiting a wee-"

The large doors to the building rumbled to life, opening outwards. Most of the men had jumped, startled by the sound, including Danul himself. It had been a week or so and the doors had never opened or made so much as a creak. A small droid was floating just within its entrance.

"Enter." The droids voice cracked with static. "Please follow." The rusted orb spun in place and leisurely floated back inside the building. The large doors shuddered with effort as they closed slowly behind. Baralai had only a moments notice to choose to enter or the doors would close. He would not have come all this way for nothing, no, he needed answers.

The Sith would quickly find himself following the droid down a long hallway. Obsidian floors shined with polish while the walls were bare and bone white in color. The bright white lights above caused a sort of snow blindness. To bright to be comfortable but not so much so as you couldn't get by through squinting. The inside of the building felt more like a bunker then a towering building. There didn't seem to be any doors, besides the original doors he gained entrance from, just a plain hallway that ended in a dead end.

The tiny droid stopped and turned. It's central eye squinted toward Baralai, his hand vibrated and if he had glanced down the data pad was now unlocked.

"Answers to some of your immediate question lay within that pad. Others will be answered shortly." A rectangle like crease suddenly formed along the wall to the right of Baralai. The sound of hissing air could be heard before the door slid back to reveal a small room. "Further instructions lay within the pad also. Note: Weapons are discouraged within the room." The droids humming pitched higher and its sphere body listed to the left and down the hall where the entrance was located.

---Data Pad Contents --

Password: Accepted
Message to Darth Ouroboros - Open - Cancel - Delete
- Open -

We write this message to you in confidence and hope that you share similar political interests. We know the political landscape may be of little interest to a man such as yourself but you are a man of power. Like any man of power you have a gravitational pull. Lesser men are swayed under this influence. Sometimes this power attracts those that rival your own.

What power could possibly rival a Sith such as yourself? The only power capable of course, The Empire. Who's gravity of influence spans this galaxy with lesser men flocking to its control. Perhaps this is why you may be interested. Perhaps this political approach may interest a man like yourself with certain vendetta. Perhaps. Though this leads to a question, will your influence combine with our own OR will our own gravitational pulls attract each other to destruction?

Further discussion is of course essential so please be patient, relax in the room we have provided.

When you are ready enter this code (******) into the panel near the mirror.

Sincerely The Gemellae.

---

The message on the pad ended there. Exploring the data pad revealed an attached Intelligence file on Baralai along with a recording of his interrogation while imprisoned by the Inquisitoriate. Explaining how the droid may have traced his whereabouts along with the knowledge of his Sith title.

Perhaps this ruled out the Inquisitoriate then again this may all be one elaborate trap.

The room was small. Containing a single chair, a sink, and a mirror on the wall with a dull glowing data panel that contrasted the white walls that surrounded the Sith. Time would tell what Baralai truly thought of the situation but for the mean time, trap or not, the doors were shut behind him.

[Hera]

The sleek black finish of the Inquisitoriate limosine blended in with the shadows of the street, masking its presence effectively, even as its design intended.

Within its plush interior, Hera watched the building through the shadowed window with interest. Apart from the few individuals loitering around the main entrance, who surely were lookouts of some form or another, the street was deserted. Whoever had sent the message would, perhaps, be waiting within. Or, failing that, someone who could atleast explain the cryptic visitation to her of some nights before to some satisfaction.

Initially, upon its arrival, Hera had thought the message delivered to her in private by one of the hover-droids the Imperials were so fond of, was a test of some sort. But on further consideration, she could see no reason for it. What would the Inquisitoriate be seeking from her that they didn't already know? Helghast through his interrogations had stripped her to her barest soul, smashing any barriers she may have had the will to erect. Over time, the constant monitoring and policing of her every move, the close proximity to Grand Inquisitor Valten and his Nightmares had left her with very little to hide. Why would they go to such elaborate efforts to trick her into doing something they could remonstrate against her for? They could easily just outright kill her any time they pleased, if it so served them.

It made no sense.

And what made even less sense, was that she was given license to investigate it. Or, more accurately, that she was not refused the freedom of going for a ride on the company dime, despite being ambiguous about her real purpose for requesting so. Accompanied as she was with the familiar soldier escort who, no doubt, would give a detailed account in the morning, Hera had been granted the limosine's use. It wasn't a stretch for the Imps really. They knew she had no where to run, and no desire even to do so.

"What'd'you think?" she asked the uniformed boy seated across from her, his knuckles white from holding his rifle so securely in his lap. He made no answer. "Looks kinda shady, doesn't it." She peered closer through the glass, answering her own question. "Who are these jokers?" she continued on, more to herself than her stoic companion. "They'll be sorry for wasting my time, I tell you that mu--" Her threat stopped mid-track, as a figure from her not too distant past approached the small knot of men in front of the building.

It couldn't be...could it?

Hera was shocked into momentary silence. Was it really him? It was so dark, it was hard to be sure. She pressed closer to the glass, her breath fogging it up, annoyingly. She'd presumed him dead. Long gone, a shattered battered shell left to rot in some dungeon of the Citadel two plus years ago. Just another of Helghast's statistics.

She stared in disbelief. She knew that man. What was he doing here? Her mind raced with possibilities.

There was no question of her not going into the building now.

The Message had promised her surprises within.

If this development was any thing to gauge by, Hera was not going to be disappointed.

[The Message]

"Oye check out that fancy limo." Rentzen stood just over six feet tall. His eyes were sunken from too many sleepless nights. His eyes red from just as many nights spent abusing Carcintine dust. It was like watching a swaying clock tick-tock back and forth. If you watched him for any amount of time you became entranced. Until he would sway too far in one direction and stumble or fall, depending on how big the hit was.

"Limo? Hah, Rentzen in this neighborhood? I thought you weren't shootin up on the job anymore mate."

"Aye, where you lookin Rent? I don't see anything."

"Could have sworn I saw a Limo..." Rentzen blinked his red, dopey eyes, squinting briefly in the direction he thought he saw the vehicle.

"Sure mate, sure, I know this gig pays good but not that good. Look guys an Imperial giving away candy, OoOoo.."

"Yeah, yeah alright, already. Hell with this im out. Standing around for a weeks end. I earned more sellin 'tine spikes' on Orrin street. Any o' you lot want this contact? Give you one third of what I'm being paid for it." Rentzen scratched at the back of his neck like the mere question caused him irritation. The man was likely wanting out for a hit. The shifts they pulled lasted days and for an addict like Rent, hours without his substance of choice wasn't a life he wanted to live. Especially with credits in hand.

"I'll take it." Danul had been sitting on the curb finishing a stim. After his contact had arrived he was suddenly jobless again. One third of something is better then nothing. Especially when the work was just standing. He would have been doing that for free anyway.

"Right you are then. Lucky man too, this ones the looker of the bunch heh." Rentzen reached into his pockets and tossed the appropriate amount of creds at Danul and then flung the data pad lazily to the curb before walking off. Danul could have cracked him one for that but scrapping with Rent was likely a gamble in diseases to attract from merely touching the creature. Nimble finger tips pecked the spilled credits into his palm then retrieved the data pad, balancing it on his knee. His thumb gave the 'magnify option' a tap, enlarging the data pads profile.

"Hello Miss Hera..." Danul mused with a long suck of his stim as he eyed the attractive blonde in the picture.

[Hera]

Grey-blue smoke curled in languid tendrils about Danul's head, his gaze still bent downward in perusal of the datascreen information. He'd have noticed the shuffle of feet beside him, no doubt, but it wasn't until the unnatural quiet of the other men rested on his ears that he actually looked up.

Hera stood over him, her companion in arms behind her with his rifle levelled, but held close to his own body to avoid undue attention. Neither of them smiled in greeting.

Hera and the soldier had exited the limo even as one of the men detached himself from the group and walked off, and with the attention drawn the other direction, their approach had been unnoticed until they were right upon the men.

"You fools have something for me?" she opened without preamble, addressing, in particular, the man with the datapad.

[The Message]

Danul stared blankly at the woman, the stim hanging limp from his bottom lip. A memory from child hood when his mother had caught him watching adult holo's suddenly flashed to mind. He had blushed a deep red back then from the embarrassment, now was no different.

"I uhm..." He gave the stim a lick pulling it back between his lips, pulling a long puff to buy himself some time to compose himself. Danul gave the woman a long up and down look and smiled to himself, it was definitely the correct blonde.

"I believe this is for you." Standing he spun the datapad over his palm and handed it to the woman. "Im not sure what it is to be perfectly honest. None of the lads here do either. We're just messenger boys. Basically we're told to give you the pad then.." He reached into his coat pocket which gave the guard a twitch.

"Uh then I hit this button. Easy fella." Danul slowly removed the pager between two finger tips, letting the guard see it was no weapon. He gave the device a click. This time the doors came to life far quicker accompanied by the same deep rumble.

The small droid was still hovering in at the entrance. Its center eye shrunk at Hera. "WelcoZZraxxt**" A puff of smoke was coughed up from the droid. "Welcome." Fingers of smoke still clug to its rusted sphere of a body as it turned and floated back inside the tower and out of view.

Danul winced at the high pitched electronic squeel the droid had let out at its first welcome attempt. "That thing needs recycling. I think it wants you to follow it. Least thats what the last guy was invited to do." The doors began to close within moments of the droids disappearance. "I would hurry too, that droid doesn't seem to be the patient type." Danul winked at Hera and stepped back.

The guard gave a look of reluctance to Hera, but the woman pushed forward past the doors anyway. He let go of his rifle for a moment as if to reach out and grab Hera by the arm but at the last second thought better of it. The guard gave a grunt and pushed forward past the doors as well, following her into the tower.

At the end of the hallway the droid was waiting. "The data pad has been will unlock once you enter the room. Please relax and take your time as you consider what has been written." A door to Hera's left was suddenly sucked back revealing a small room. Comfortable for maybe one but a tight squeeze for two.

The room was simple enough it held a single chair, a sink and a mirror, with a data pad next to it. "Enter when ready."

[Hera]

Hera rolled her eyes - another small cubicle. Story of her life.

The hovering droid had whizz-banged its way down the corridor, its worn circuits working hard to keep itself from fritzing into a ball of smoke and fire as it issued its directives. It kind of reminded the Sith of an old butler who was long past his prime. Age having worried away at sight and physical agility but leaving the dignity in performing its service untouched. Pathetic, really.

"You think whoever was runnin' this show would spring for some new equipment, eh?" Hera tossed to the young soldier walking beside her, smirking at the droids difficulties. The antiquitated equipment inspired no confidence in either of the individuals trailing in the orbs wake. The riff-raff at the front door had given off the same impression.

Hera felt her uneasiness at this cryptic summons lessen as she moved deeper into the building. Nothing she had seen so far was familiar, or to be specific, Inquisitoriate-familiar. This was an outside party, she felt certain, operating independantly of Valten or Helghast. Independant even of the Imperials themselves. Certainly, if the droid was any indication, it looked like it had been salvaged from some space junk, stolen from some cast off work-horse barge of the Empire and recycled for someone's own personal interest. And personal interests were always appealing in their potential to be manipulated.

And so, Hera stepped obediently into the cubicle as the droid instructed, meeting, for a moment her companion's stare, "Feel free to shoot anyone who gives you the slightest concern" she encouraged. And as she bent to pick up the new datapad, the door slid shut and locked behind her. Hera shook her head resignedly, "story of my life."

[The Message]

---Data Pad Contents --

Password: Accepted
Message to Hera DrenKast - Open - Cancel - Delete
- Open -

Uploading Images - Successful.

The data pads screen shifts through a slide show of images. There also appears to be a timer in the top right hand corner counting down from five minutes.

First Image: Depicts a lab or what appears to be a medical facility of some kind. The medical staff hovering over tables with white coats give it away. Looking carefully you notice Imperial insignias and ranks displayed on their collars.

4: 28
Second Image: A series of large vats filled with an unidentified green liquid. Small shadows within them indicate there is something suspended inside but the shape doesn't hint at what it could be.

3:46

Third Image: A lab technician seems to be running a test on a panel near one of the vats of liquid. The panel display shows various information one of which seems to be an electrocardiogram. Whatever they are working on has a heart beat.

2:58

Fourth Image: Showed two scientists, assuming thats what the white coated Imperials were, standing side by side over looking over two dozen tubes. The tubes contained the same thick green liquid but were slimmer yet far taller in size. The shadows within had grown as well taking a slender humanoid shape.

1:52

Fifth Image: Some of the tubes were now black while the remaining ones were beginning to show what seemed like black oil mixing with the green. The faces on the technicians gave the situation a saddened tone of disappointment. Something wasn't going as planned.

: 58

Sixth Image: The technicians again huddled around a table. This time their starch white coats were smeared with blood. Two pink human feet could be seen poking out from the huddled mass of stained red lab coats. A possible operation maybe?

:10

Seventh Image: Elated faces of the scientists in a large group of what seemed to be around twenty. Two of which were clutching a bundled infant each. A group photo...celebration?

:01

- Images Deleted -

Uploading recording...
- Complete.


A camera lense comes into focus to show two girls running rampant through a lab much to the chagrin of the technicians trying to work. The lab is a medium size with a group of six technicians working at three different desks. Along the side are a set of stairs leading up to a second level. But its the middle where the camera is focusing as it attempts to follow the two girls who are climbing about the room like deranged monkeys.The girls look to be around four or five, strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes (if you paused the footage to check). Two nurses are chasing after the younglings who have now taken some medical equipment, from a technicians desk, hostage.

One of the nurses manages to nab a girl and a struggle quickly ensues with squirming arms and legs. The other girl giggles wildly as she weaves around tables and chairs with the nurse hot on her heels.

It seems all fun and games but the thought of "until someone gets hurt" comes to mind.

The fleeing girl suddenly trips and falls skinning her knee over a steel grating. The other twin is still entwined in the nurses grasp. The camera zooms in on the little girl who had fallen. Her eyes are already welling up with tears when the nurse finally catches up. Panning to the other girl it shows she is beginning to cry as well even though the other girl is physically unharmed.

The situation seems to be a common occurrence when none of the technicians bother to look and those that do give a look of annoyance rather then concern. That is until the lights in the lab suddenly begin to flicker. The two girls are becoming increasingly upset, sobbing turns into wailing until both children are screaming at the top of their lungs. The situation seems to only be growing further out of control when several glass beakers and light fixtures explode in a shower of class and sparks. Various control panels about the room explode outwards while chairs and desks tremble and shake. The nurse panics and drops the child from her arms. It only takes a few seconds for the twins to rejoin in a close hug and the room goes silent.

The camera surveyed the room in its aftermath. Broken glass littered the floors, control panels still smoked and sizzled and anything not nailed down had been shoved outward toward the walls. In the center the twins sat quietly inspecting each others tiny cuts and scrapes. The team of technicians along with the nurses had fled the room leaving it empty save for the camera man.

From behind the camera you can hear someone laughing.

- End Recording -

We have thought of what to say to you for a long time. Perhaps its our deficiency in words but we find it hard to communicate our reasons for -Error.

- Text File corrupt -

The rest of the message is jibberish. The file having been destroyed somehow most likely the result of that damn droid short circuiting. Its further instructions lost now save for the last point of instructions which are simply five words.

tradel'q
etul
al'bek
ruul

[Hera]

"Huh."

Hera held the datapad loosely in her hand and sat back slouching, her body angled off-center fashion in the chair, her legs stretched to one corner of the small cubicle. It was the third time she'd gone through the information and it made no sense now, just as it hadn't the first time she went through it.

She scratched her temple, perplexed more than anything else, at just what, precisely, she'd been reviewing. Or why.

"Huh" being the only comment she could really manage at the moment.

Sure, biological experimentation was not a new concept within the Empire, or the galaxy for that matter. Cloning and all its other nasty little genetic engineering off-shoots had been a fact of life for a long time now. So what did it have to do with her?

And whats with all the nonsense, "We have thought of what to say to you for a long time, blah blah blarg?" Tell me what, she wondered.

"Tell me what?!" she yelled out loud. She looked at the mirror and sat forward, "Tell me what, you little freaks?" Cold blue eyes waited expectantly for an answer from behind her own reflection. They were probably there, watching, whispering together like truant schoolboys.

She threw a balled fist into the door and pounded loudly.

"Hey - morons! Tell me what?"

She banged louder.

"And just what the frell is a tradel-que?"

[The Gemellae]

There were no answers to Hera's questions. The walls did not respond nor did the door retreat under her assault. The only response came in the form of a soft pitched buzz that filled the room. That sterile hum of older lighting systems, how archaic she thought, sucking in a deep breath which was quickly spat out in a sigh of unrest.

It was like the room had finally become fed up with her tantrum. The lights flicked out and the room went dark. Hera floated blindly in the swallowing void of black the room had become. Unsure if to move or listen. The only device that may have held any help was the data pad in her hand which gave up only the lightest of glows. The light source was barely enough to find her own fingers.

Then she heard it. The sound had caused Hera to whip her head in it's direction. Blind eyes squinting for the source while her hand, tentative at first reached out, finding only emptiness in the black. It was a voice, soft, like a little girl who seemed to be singing. Her fingers past through the air where the sound was coming from finding nothing.

Names scripted in the stars...
And who to stand against our will...

A second voice, young and light like the first joined in on the second verse. Together they repeated the two verses in harmony. A light thudding of feet skipped around the floor circling Hera. With each pass their voices grew softer until the singing had died into a soft susurrous. It felt like two little girls playing a game, the intermittent chirps of laughter being held in were injected throughout the song.

Hera flinched back at what felt like tiny hands grabbing at the Data pad. The Sith stumbled backwards, tripping over the chair, the door to the room flew open letting Hera tumble out into the hallway. The sudden contrast of pitch black to the white glare of the brightly lit hallway blinded the woman momentarily. Her eyes eventually fell into focus on two twins standing at the end of the hallway.

The lights began to flicker nervously in the twins presence. The girls were wearing simple white dresses with red shoes that matched the fiery color of their hair. They were whispering into each others ears while keeping an eye on the Sith who was still squinting under the harsh light. Then as if they had come to a decision they spoke:

"Follow us"
"Follow us" The girls spoke in unison.

The twin on the left turned and reached up to a keypad installed into the wall behind them.Nimble fingers danced over the keypad to the elevator. "Tra-del-q" She whispered each syllable. A piece of the wall slid back to reveal a set of shiny metallic doors. The twin turned back around and looked to Hera with a smile, seeing if she understood.

The overhead lightening continued to flutter blanketing the hall in darkness for split seconds at a time. Small hands suddenly grasped Hera's. The twins had managed to appear next to her in a moment where the lights had died. When the lights buzzed back to life the Twins were standing on either side of her. Each had taken up one of Hera's hands as they walked forward towards the metallic doors at the hallways end. Stopping they turned back to face the Sith. Their faces, soft and innocent with girlish smiles showing their excitement.

"Follow us Mother."
"Follow us Mother."

The lights again failed and flickered back to life. This time the lights stayed on. The twins had disappeared to be replaced by Hera's guard who had a confused look sprawled over his features. Hera was standing in the hallway with her arms still angled forward. At the end of the hall the shiny steel doors had disappeared but the keypad remained.

And we were gods once...

[Hera]

Hera found the soldier's eyes and held them, questioning. Did he see that, them? Did he hear what they said, did he understand what it meant?

The young Imperial sensed her confusion, read her questioning look. He shrugged, "The lights are fracked" was all he offered.

The Sith scowled, he was no help.

She couldn't be sure of her own senses, what her eyes had seen. Or what she'd heard. The ancient song, one from her homeland...How could they know it? Why, would they know it? The whole thing gave her the creeps.

Hera remembered back to when she'd last recited that song. (http://sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?t=12703) It was a horrible memory, and linked to the man she'd seen enter this building before her - Baralai Lotus. It was a memory rich with dark emotion - full of torture and agony, of her own helplessness and thwarted fury.

Flashes of images raced through her mind. Helghast, Tear, those terrible needles, Baralai hanging like a side of Rancour meat on a hook, his tongue ripped from his mouth. The images lead a well-worn path to other faces, other hatreds, Valten and their ambiguous friendship, his Nightmares who avoided her if they could, the grinning, physcotic Crestmere, of her stabbing Helghast with a knife, or at least trying to and failing..

"You alright..?" the soldier inquired, concern creasing his brow further as he stepped forward to touch the Sith gently on the arm. Hera had not realised how heavy she was breathing, or that the hand holding the datapad was shaking with anger.

His touch broke the imagery and brought her back to the present.

"They used a code" she said in answer, the officer's frown deepend as he didn't quite follow.

"The girls, they used a code" she explained and used a finger to tap in "tradel'q"

The shiney metallic elevators doors appeared and the soldier stepped back, surprised.

"Eeh" Hera smiled at him, pleased with the result and looking a little creepy herself, he noticed.

"And lets try this...." she entered 'etul'. The doors opened.

Another smile and a gesture toward the soldier to join her, which he had no choice but to accept.

She tapped in 'al'bek' which opened a panel within the elevator itself, on which Hera entered the last word in the sequence 'ruul'.

"Here goes nothin" she said as the doors closed and the turbolift engaged into motion.

The girls had called her Mother. Or, atleast, thats what she'd thought they said. If the datapad was to be believed, the twins were the product of genetic labour that had finally, successfully, produced a viable return. What the connection to herself was, DrenKast felt dubious to speculate on. She'd had no offspring, of that she was certain. Whoever was orchestrating this little drama had best be very, very sure of their facts. She did not take being toyed with, lightly.

The elevator stopped and the doors opened accordingly.

The interior of the room that opened up before them was dark, and smelt..strange. Floating out of the void was music, light, playful...bizarre.

Hera and the soldier exchanged a look, then stepped forward through the threshold together.

[Baralai Lotus]

Baralai sat in the room, looking at the four white walls surrounding him. There was nothing, in the room, just himself. And after having lost his tongue, he was used to the silence. Baralai had forgotten what his real voice sounded like. It had been so long since he had actually spoken. Baralai placed a finger on the wall, and started moving it around in circles.

Baralai had always liked that shape, a circle. So continuous, so eternal. . .so perfect. It was one continuous line, wrapped around infinitely on itself. It was such a good symbol. Baralai smirked as he thought about the Order, and wondered if it would have a symbol. Perhaps he could make one, every great Order needed a symbol to rally behind, and the Sith were the greatest of them all.

He continued to look around the room, still bored. He was sure that whoever had called him here knew him. They had called him Darth Ouroboros, so, there was no question they knew who and what he was. Baralai wanted to meet this person face to face, he wanted to talk to them, to see the look in their eyes. More than anything though, he wanted to know who they were and exactly what it was they wanted.

[The Gemellae]

"What the fraaak...?" The guards handle on the situation had dropped much like the tone of his question, ephemeral and puzzling. Shadows of large animals, Mynocks, Tauntaun's, even the waving shape of a Rancor floated across the wall and over their faces. The guard took a step forward and squinted, clearly not believing his eyes, the animals were not really animals at all but wooden statues with saddles strapped to their backs. They spun merrily on the edges of a rotating circular platform. The pieces ever slowly rising up and falling down continued to spin languidly to the cheerful plink of music. The center of the ride had strips of dull gold lightening giving the room a warm bronzed tone while causing shadows to stretch out to the farthest corners. The pair shared a look, clearly a merry-go-round in the middle of a building wasn't common place.

The guards weapon jumped to his shoulder with a click when the movement of a little girl skipping by startled him. The twin seemed oblivious to their presence. She was humming the same tune Hera had heard them singing before. She had a box in her arms with a small rod curved to a right angle sticking from the side that she was twisting. The metallic music jumped pace and died with each crank of the rod. The faster she cranked the more rapid the beat of the music. The girl was smiling, slowing the music teasingly then speeding it back up. As the notes played she turned to face Hera with a smile.

"Are you looking?" The girls whispered in unison to the pair standing in the door way. One of the sisters appeared riding the tauntaun. Her head twisting, as the ride went round, to keep an eye on the two who had entered the room.

"You're not looking." They whispered together again, the twin on the ride was making her second pass while the other continued to crank the toybox, the notes climbing to the eventual climax of the song.

"Why aren't you looking mother." Their voices repeated with irritation. Although it was obvious Hera could not keep an eye on both of them at once. Suddenly the top of the jack in the box popped off causing both girls to scream. The twin holding the box let it fall to the ground, barely missing her toes, she turned giggling frantically and ran to her sister. They both fled quickly from view to the other side of the carrousel but their giggling could still be heard throughout the room.

The box fluttered nervously over the ground. Tipping from side to side even jumping an inch or so off the ground. It was managing to hop and skid its way toward the pair standing in the doorway. If Hera peeked, she would see it was a box within a box, or more accurately a cage within a wooden box. The cages roof was marked Atropos. Inside the cage the sound of feathers ruffling and the squawk of crow was clear.

"Are you looking now mother?" The twins whispered from no where and everywhere at the same time.

[Naberius]

"Ouroboros." The voice was gravel over glass. A trandoshan's hulking frame stood menacingly in the doorway to Baralai's room. The Sith's eyes skimmed over the alien's armored body. The trandoshan's frame spanned past the width of the doors entrance. While his height bordered on seven feet, translating into being irregularly large for his species, which was a feat.

"Follow." His voice was raspy, spitting the word out with little more then a growl. The large reptile turned stalking toward an already open elevator at the end of the hallway. Baralai was slow to rise from his seat but made leisurely pursuit of the beast that awaited. The doors sealed behind the Sith as he entered and without even the slightest of hints the elevator's level indicator began to climb. They were going up it seemed.

The trandoshan stared forward his hands clasped firmly behind his spiny back. His jaw rolled and his lips peeled back showing rows of sharp teeth beneath, it looked as if he was stretching. "You no doubt have questions regarding my master's offer. I will answer these questions but I will be honest with you Ouroboros. I am not fond of galactic common, it is a dissatisfying dialect and my tongue has never had the taste for it. So let us not waste each others time in pointless posturing and games." The door to the elevator slid back with a hiss, which caused Baralai to arch an eyebrow, as it easily could have been the trandoshan and not the elevator doing the hissing.

Another series of hallways. The hulking mass of the reptile slid past the Sith and took the lead out of the elevator, hands still clasped behind his back. "Ask your questions."

[Baralai Lotus]

Baralai grimaced as the Trandoshan spoke, "Who is your master? How did he know a title I haven't used for years? What am I doing here?" Baralai followed closely behind the man, watching his hulking form head down the hallway. Something about this situation didn't seem right, it seemed off.

"Most of all, I want to know, what does your master want with me?"

[Naberius]

Naberius continued forward leading Baralai into a room, massive and black, filled only with the echoing of their foot steps. The trandoshan's skin seemed to crawl and shift, the sickly green of his scales changed color trying to match the dim black of the surroundings. He had remained silent after Baralai's barrage of questions, making note to appreciate his bluntness, he finally turned to face the Sith.

"I serve the Gemellae. Your title is known to them from another. You are here because your curiosity got the better of you." Naberius activated a small button on his wrist and the sound of hydraulics accompanied the lowering of a plank leading into the stomach of a small ship. The ship seemed like a regular transport shuttle with no markings of any kind, definitely non military.

"What do my masters want with you? That is up to you Ouroboros. We know what the Empire and those serving it have done to you. The Gemellae are offering you a chance to join them in bringing destruction and chaos to it. That is why you were chosen. Because of your hate." Naberius turned back to the ship and stalked his way inside, stopping at the top he glanced sidelong over his shoulder at Baralai.

"Follow us Ouroboros and we will give you the power to take revenge on those responsible." With his invitation given the trandoshan slipped into the ship disappearing from view. The choice was Baralai's now.

[Baralai Lotus]

Baralai listened to what the Trandoshan said.

What they had done to you. . .

The Inquisitoriate. Whoever this Gemellae were, they knew of the Inquisitoriate and what they had done to him all those years ago. They knew about the hate he had for them, and how they had destroyed him. Baralai wasn't sure what this man wanted, but he knew what he had to do.

He stared into the darkness of the ship, and stepped inside. He would do whatever it took to get back at the Empire and the Inquisitoriate. He would destroy them.

[Naberius]

"Good." Naberius closed the plank behind Baralai as he entered. The ships engines fired and the hull rumbled deeply, clouds parting before their bow, they turned skyward. The trandoshan turned in his chair, after activating a sequence for the autopilot to follow, and regarded the Sith. He was standing his eyes set on the viewport out the front of the ship watching as sky dispersed into stars and satellites. But his eyes were fixed on something farther, not something as simple as stars in space, he was dwelling on the pain in his past. Naberius could relate, most beings held painful moments in their past but force users were unique. Painful moments could warp that person in such a way and make them unrecognizable, a different person entirely.

Dark siders used pain for fuel and their hatred was ammunition for their powers. The mere mention of the Inquisitors was enough to set off that power in Baralai. If the Sithling had never been tortured by the Empire would he posses any of the strength he does now? Does he realize that in some sick sense he was made better by the Inquisitors for that endless memory of pain. If he ever accepted this truth would that dull his thirst for revenge? Or would being confronted by it burn his soul into a hatred that could only be tamed by his need for power. Naberius did not know but he was hoping he those questions would be answered soon.

"My masters have a task for you Ouroboros. Something to test your abilities. The weapons we need to destroy the Empire must not be blunt." Several red lights flashed over the Shuttles overhead console. Naberius noted the ironic timing as he was about to mention the dangerous part.

"Ahead of us is a Star Destroyer. A symbol of power and dominance held by the Empire. We want you to take it for us." The trandoshan watched as Baralai's eyes widened with the shock of such an idea. The smallest of Star destroyers usually held a crew compliment of nearly ten thousand. It was an expected reaction.

"We will sneak on board and you will kill the commanding captain. You will do this in such a way that the rest of the ship will be oblivious to the change in command. How you accomplish this is something we leave for you to figure out. Note when I say "we" that means I will be watching your progress and noting your success." Naberius paused and stretched his jaw, growling uncomfortably, it was becoming sore. Galactic common was such a foul language. "...or failure."

[Hera]

Hera was having trouble deciding which was the more disturbing - the grinning, painted faces of the carosel animals, strangely grotesque in the shifting shadows that fell on them like water, or, that the twins kept calling her 'mother'.

The slowly crescending music, the childish teasing of the girls, the whole weirdness of the setup all together was starting to grate on the Sith's patience, short as it was. She was about to shout at them to stop the games and tell her what she was supposed to be looking for, when the box popped and the twin dropped it to the floor.

The movement of it, the hampered skip along the floor made Hera and the soldier step back a pace, startled.


Drawn by curiosity, and yes, the annoying prompting of the girls, Hera moved forward and peered inside. Atropos? Hera gasped, shocked and was immediately suspicious. What do they know? Who are these people that know such things? Had they found her lightsaber? Had they found ShadowFaene? And the crow - what was its meaning? She immediately pictured Rommelisch, the ancient mage who lurked like a shadow within the Imperial Citadel. One she had courted as a friend, or more accurately - an ally. Did this little production involve him?

The voices had gone quiet, Hera noticed at length. So too had the music. Sound seemed to have been blanketed in a thick wrap so that all she could hear was the crow's beak pecking against its confines. The room had darkened, enfolding her in its black cape. She couldn't see the soldier who had accompanied her. Nor could she see the carosel and the painted faces. The blackness was complete with the exception of a circle where she was standing. Just beyond the reach of the light, she heard small footsteps shuffling towards her. They seemed to come from every direction and Hera turned her head first left, then right in order to locate their origin.

"Is this all there is for me to see?" she asked the shadows, her tone deliberately gentle and inviting confidence. "What is it that I need to do?"

[The Gemellae]

"Set yourself free."
"Set yourself free." They whispered. The voices had changed. Still familiar enough to recognize the voices were still that of the little girls but the sweet accent of youth had left them. The change in their voices clarified when two faces suddenly emerged from the shadows. Not at hip level where Hera was expecting. Instead she found herself staring directly forward at the two girls who now neared her own height.

"That is what you must do. Father tells us animals who are caged too long forget. They forget who they are, what they are, and just accept they are no longer wild. You are no animal mother but we wonder, have you forgotten?" The two twins spoke in unison like they always did and when they finished one of them raised a fist. Within that fist was a lightsaber, its hilt was gilded and its shape and length drew memories of familiarity. Atropos, Hera thought immediately, when it was passed into her hand. No...it wasn't Atropos, its design was almost identical but the gilded hilt had a wash of silver in it and the inscription read 'Morta'.

Behind them a circle of light shot down from the ceiling to reveal Hera's guard. He was tied to a chair. He was struggling against his restraints, jerking his torso forwards then back several times before slumping against the chair in futility. The guard's hands twitched against his binds when he saw the three women staring at him. Next to him was another man with a black bag placed over his head. A trickle of crimson was dripping down his neck. His body was motionless with only the steady rise and fall of his chest to hint he was still alive.

"Free yourself."
"Free yourself." The twins sweetly chimed again as they stood aside, inviting Hera to make her choice.

[Naberius]

The ship sped quickly through Coruscant's atmosphere. Bypassing shipping lanes and regular launch procedures it was quickly flagged by Imperial shipping authorities. After several hailing attempts the Commander of the Victory II-class Star Destroyer 'Glorious Reckoning' was contacted for assistance.

On board the Glorious Reckoning, maintaining fleet security over Coruscant's Orbit.

Commander Oloc Bentir scowled down at the data pad. The communications officer standing at Oloc's side swallowed hard knowing his commanders temper. "Unacceptable. You can take this order along with the last two and toss it out the airlock. Tell that fool to do the same with himself. This ship does not submit to his whims. This is still the Imperial Navy and I'll be damned before I let some secret authority tell me otherwise."

"Commander Port Sec. requesting support in apprehending a renegade shuttle escaping orbit toward our position." A young ensign called up from the communications trench.

The Commander stirred in his chair, handing back the data pad to the nervously pale communications officer standing next to him. "Renegade shuttle?"

"Yes Commander. It apparently broke shipping queue and has left orbit without authorization. Its lacking any markings or identification and It's refusing communication."

"Is it manned?"

"Scans have confirmed life signs aboard the shuttle, sir."

"Very well. Launch a squadron of fighters to intercept the renegade shuttle. Disable it and bring it into the hanger bay. We'll find out what this is about." Oloc stood with a sigh, this was becoming a cumbersome day.

-------

On board the unmarked shuttle

Naberius snorted disgustingly as he pushed himself back from a smoking command console. It was spitting sparks and sizzling with the stink of burnt wiring. The fighters had past them once with a volley of warning shots across their bow. When Naberius failed to change course they sidled up on the shuttles flanks and disabled her with ion blasts. The shuttle was now listing to the left side as it floated dead through space.

The trandoshan found himself weightless and floating next to Baralai. The aging shuttles gravity plating must have been shorted with the ion blasts. Not that it mattered, gravity would be restored once they were pulled into the Star Destroyers hanger. At that point the ship would be swarmed by storm troopers as they systematically cleared and searched every room and compartment on the ship until they found them.

Naberius glanced a look to Baralai who had remained silent through the attack. Perhaps he was preparing a plot on how to preform his given task. The trandoshan had felt the same when he undertook his first mission. It had changed him. His body had been whole at that time there was only the flesh but now he was more then just mere flesh. He glanced to his left hand, his right remained on a bulk head to keep him from floating aimlessly. He was born with three clawed fingers on each hand, like all trandoshan's, but he was no longer like all trandoshan's. He had been transformed into something greater.

Naberius's mind was shaken from thought as he felt the ships hull rumble beneath his grip. Glancing out the nearest view port he noted their speed increasing toward the Star Destroyer.The 'Glorious Reckoning' was pulling her toward their hanger bay with a tractor beam.

"It wont be long now Ouroboros."

[Hera]

It was difficult to pull her eyes from the weapon the girls had placed so freely in her hand. So many years since she'd had the honor. Her fingers folded familiarly around it, gripping firmly then opening once more to cradle it reverantly in the palm of her hand.

..Morta... The word 's meaning was not immediately known to Hera and she cast her thoughts to the corners of her mind in an attempt to recall it. It was not of her homeworld origin, that she knew instinctively, but she had heard it someplace before.

Peck..peck..peck

The crow was testing its confines, feeling its limitations with its beak within the box, as the girls called to her.

"Free yourself
Free yourself"

Hera looked up, and then over to where her guard and another man were held bound.

This was all so damn cryptic.

Peck..peck..peck

The guard was looking at her now, clearly uncertain as to his chances, but yet he held out hope. Hera could see it in the unspoken plea of his eyes.

"Free yourself
Free yourself"

She ignited the lightsaber, and the shock of light that shot from its hilt made Hera rock back on her feet a little. The blade illuminated the room and drew every eye to it. Even the man with the bag covering his head, tilted towards the blade's presence, sensing or perhaps hearing it.

The power the weapon engendered was intoxicating, and Hera laughed a little.

Peck..peck...peck

"Free yourself
Free yourself"

Free myself...

Hera folded the lightsaber through the darkness, threading and weaving it in a mesmerizing flow. The young guard could not look away from it, though his eyes were huge with fear. The other captive caught each breath as the hum of the weapon came close, then withdrew.

Peck...peck...peck

"Free yourself
Free yourself"

Without warning, Hera spun, seizing one of the twins by the throat and threatening the other at chest-point with the lightsaber.

The crow cawed racously at the sudden movement and flapped its wings in agitation.

"Morta..Godess of death, if I recall correctly" she said to the twins, a disturbing humor in her voice. "A cannibal, apparently. Do you think she devoured her young?"

She tightened her grip on the one girl's throat and stepped an inch closer to the other.

"It's time you showed me the way out of here" she said darkly.

[The Gemellae]

It probably delighted Hera to see the look of shock settle coldly into the faces of both twins. As one took a step back from the point of the saber while the other struggled under the Siths grasp, her fingers trying to pry room to breath.

"We did." The twins responded, their voices cracking in unison. The twin at the saber points end winced uncomfortably while her hand clutched at her throat. She took another step back which took her closer to the two prisoners. "We came to take you back to father."

A chill struck Hera then. At first the thought was the allusion to another player in this sick play of darkness and dance but then the numbing feeling of her fingers stung the point of reality home. Hera looked back to what she knew should have been her hand wrapped around warm flesh instead she found the swollen eyes of a child weeping under her grasp. The child hung limply from her neck under the Siths grasp. The twins feet dangled clear from the ground while her arms swayed lifeless at her sides, no longer struggling. Several slow tears fell from plump paling blue cheeks conveying the sorrow filled look of mercy her eyes held.

"Please mother, you are hurting us.
Please mother, you are hurting us." Hera glanced forward again to the stronger of the two voices and found the other twins height had washed away back to the child in a simple white dress. She was holding up the crows cage while her legs and arms trembled convincingly under the weight.

"If you open. We can show you." The twin holding the cage began to weep silently now but it took Hera a moment to understand why. The voices always in unison had stopped. This time the twin had spoken alone as the other girl held in the Siths grasp had gone silent. "Please..."

[Hera]

If the girls had been expecting some form of maternal sensitivity from the Sith, they were greatly misguided. Even if they really were a production from her own genetic blueprint, Hera had no motherly instincts whatsoever and, in point of fact, had always determindly avoided any such weakness. Hera had no time for children, had no inclination to find time for children and, quite frankly, never understood those who chose to burden themselves with such leeching, soulsucking, grubby encumbrances as offspring. The child before her wept quietly atleast, that was a small mercy.

Hera allowed the first twin to slip her grasp and the child sank delicately to the floor, her small frame wraith-like in its fragility. With her free hand, Hera snatched from the mirror image the box containing the crow.

"Fine" she said, disengaging the lightsaber and tucking it into her belt. She turned the outer clasp and opened the box, holding it at armslength incase the agitated creature burst forward in an excited effort to escape.

The prisoners had remained still, silent audience to the drama playing out infront of them.

Hera was curious as to the identity of the second captive, but all things in good time. As she kept one eye on the bird and the other on the second twin, Hera drew things back to the mystery at hand, "Just who is father?"

[The Message]

The crow cawed, its head canting to the side to view Hera with a soulless black eye. Its wings fluttering for balance as it hopped from its cage and onto it's liberators wrist. Beyond the crow the twin was smiling widely, her eyes still swollen with tears, one might have mistaken the situation for the twin getting caught laughing too hard. Her demeanor had changed drastically from the mournful weeping girl into a giggling child who's posture was bent with playfulness.

"Thats one of fathers friends." The smiling twin had her hands shyly clumped at her chest and was angling a mischievously crooked finger toward the hooded prisoner. Before Hera could turn to regard the prisoner she felt slender arms slide leisurely over her shoulders in what felt like a...hug?

"At least we know mother has not lost her teeth." Two voices echoed in unison again. The second twin had risen silently from the ground while the Sith's attention had drifted to the Crow and its cage. No longer a child, the second twin was standing tall having shed the illusion once again. She leaned forward resting her chin in the spot between her 'mother's' neck and shoulder. "Do you see it yet?" They whispered.

If Hera had been trying to move up to this point, weather to shrug the woman off or fling the Crow, who was inching its way up her arm, she would instead find her body wasn't listening. Again she tried to move, this time teeth clenched, with straining hiss of air escaping her lips. Nothing, she was paralyzed while the crow's black eyes kept steady on the Sith.

"Maybe she needs help to see." Exclaimed the twin, who still looked the part of a child in a simple white dress, as she skipped toward the tied up guard. The little girl reached up and began to climb up his legs. Gripping tightly to his uniform when he twitched in an attempt to shake her off, she continued undeterred. When she successfully reached the summit of his knee the guard suspiciously craned his neck back and away as far it would stretch from the girl. With arms outstretched for balance she took step after step toward him until finally she stopped and leaped forward coming down hard with both feet into his lap. The guard buckled under the impact, instinctively leaning forward to try and protect himself. The little girl reached up and quickly dug her finger nails into both of the man's eye sockets. the guard screamed and violently rocked the girl off. The tiny crimson haired child landed with a thump next to the chair. She was giggling with her red stained hands cupped to her chest like she had trapped a mouse. Standing she trotted quickly over to her sister and 'mother'.

The child climbed up Hera's frozen body. Her tiny feet hooking into the Siths belt to keep her steady as she looked into her 'mother's' cold blue eyes. The little girl smiled, but it was a cruel smile, dark and sinister, unnatural for any child.

"Close your eyes mother..." With tiny bloody fingers the small girl peeled back Hera's lips, wriggling finger tips between teeth, to wedge open a stiff mouth. Reaching inside she grabbed the Sith's quivering pink tongue and squeezed. In her other hand she let the severed eye of the guard drip and dangle between them.

"Do you remember what happens next? Father told us the story." It was slow at first the tight pull from the girl's little hand as it stretched her tongue uncomfortably. Then the sharp sting underneath and the flooding taste of iron filling her mouth. The sound of ripping flesh accompanied by soft gurgling until finally, like a loose tooth, Hera's tongue was ripped out.

Then it all came undone, like some disputed sweater, a thread was pulled and the darkness of it all unraveled. Shadow and blood gave way to an enveloping white world. Underneath it she could here a single voice, dulled and dim, like it was on the other side of a Coruscanti hotel wall. What was it saying? The more she focused on the voice the more the white world around her faded. First to simple shapes, then colors, slivers of emerald, rectangles of metallic grays. She felt the soft warmth of a blanket slide from her shoulders as she unknowingly rolled over in bed. Blinking, Hera suddenly bolted upright as if waking up from some horrid nightmare. She found herself staring at her surroundings while her mind worked to shake off the sands of sleep that made everything feel foggy and dull. A quick, testing, flick of her tongue (which was very much intact) against the roof of her mouth which was a reassuring sensation.

Was it a dream?

[Tear]

"Pleasant dreams, Hera?" His voice a familiar nightmare in itself. The Inquisitor was sitting on a simple chair next to Hera's bed.

[Hera]

It was with difficulty that Hera focused on the words spoken to her. Her reality had been torn from the gruesome events of moments before like pages ripped from a book and tossed to flutter and land where they may.
Ironically, they fell at the feet of a man Hera had not really ever expected to see again. The shock to her was evidenced in the thumping of her heart in her chest and the feeling of dread that, like a cold sweat, had broken out all over her.

The dark amusement in his voice was at Hera's expense. She knew she must look as bewildered as she felt. Thank god her tongue was still in her head. She shivered involuntarily at the memory, it had all felt so real.

Attempting to compose herself, Hera sat up straighter and ran a hand through her hair. Finally, daring to catch Tear's eyes and hold them with a defiant glare, she spoke with her usual candid spite, "Where the frell have you been?"

[Tear]

His features remained unflinching under her presumptuous tone. After all, despite his absence in her life, Hera had only been gone in his for a short period of time. Tear had grown used to her impudent attitude. It was a trait every Hera marked clone exhibited. "Still as sassy as I remembered."

But he, no doubt, was not as she remembered. His blonde hair no longer fell in long strands but were now cut short and slicked back. The lines in his face had deepened and his features hardened, giving a hint that where ever he had been it had tested him. His once icy blue eyes were now an angry blaze of orange and yellows and although she did not yet know it the once fine line the Inquisitor had always tread between madness and duty had been forever lost.

Ignoring Hera's question he countered with one of his own. Steepled finger tips offered her a glass of water, still dripping with condensation, to sweeten a response. "When offered the chance to kill that guard and free yourself, why didn't you take it?"

[Hera]

"You were wanting a little stereotypical Sith mayhem and bloodlust were you?" she answered derisively. "If your memory serves you so well, Tear, then you'll know I dont like to do what's expected of me. Besides, there was no advantage in killing those men, they were at no point any threat to me. It will take more than two dead lackeys to free me." She paused and her eyes narrowed, "How do you even know about those guards anyway?"

Hera's face took on a distasteful expression as a new thought occurred to her, "Was it you that made the tadpoles? Are you Father?"

That would explain some things, she supposed. It also made the twins referring to her as 'Mother' that much more disturbing.

"There was a carousel.." she rubbed her face with her hands as she stimulated her memory, "And a Crow. And a lightsaber." She immediately began to pad the covers with her hands and ran searching fingers beneath the pillows. Not surprisingly, the lightsaber was not there to be found.

She turned her focus again to Tear who was watching her closely. She had not really taken in his appearance too carefully at first, the whole thank-god-Ive-still-got-my-tongue thing taking up much of her attention. But, studying him now, he looked a little unhinged. His eyes were like two supernova's going off inside his skull giving him a decidedly volitile appearance. It was not a change for the better. She took the glass of water, but did not drink.

"What's happened to you?" she asked, "Why have you come back?"

[Tear]

"Maybe I was." He said plainly in response to her question. In truth situation was created as an experiment of control. The result was as predicted, even under influenced conditions she was still rebellious and defiant.

Tear listened silently, watching Hera relive the moments of her encounter with the twins. It was an odd thing to see them interact after so much time. The twins had an incessant curiosity regarding their origins and in particular their Mother. That much was still evident when they interacted with her. The illusions of children, the carousel, their playfulness towards it all. The outcome couldn't have pleased him more. Love is a powerful emotion and to have that love rejected would give them a reservoir of strength to draw from. The confusion of being cast aside by someone they viewed as their mother would also further their dependence on him.

He grinded his teeth tightly in thought as he pondered Hera's tiny inquiry's. Whats happened to me? Why have I come back? Who was she to ask such questions. Does she forget her position? Then again If she was to play her part she would need to know about some of it eventually. Tear let out a smooth controlled sigh.

"Do you have time for a story?"

[Hera]

"It look to you like Ive got somewhere to be?" she snapped. "Go ahead, tell me your story, Tear."

Hera had a myriad of questions that needed answering, but now did not seem to be the time to ask. The Grand Inquisitor was in a chatty mood, and the less sidetracked he came from that, the better the chances of some sense coming out of the present situation. Her thoughts turned fleetingly to Valten....with Tear back, would that now mean Karl would no longer be sitting in the big chair? The idea was amusing as hell.

Tear could bet, however, that she would be expecting some explanation for the liberties he had taken against her. Sure, she was a prisoner, but him helping himself to her DNA to create the Frankensisters was not going to go unchallenged. Of course, Hera would have to kill the clones. Surely Tear recognised that? Or, loooking at him now, maybe he didn't. Not yet anyway - he didn't exactly appear to Hera that he was in full hold of his mental faculties. That might work in her favor, too. She held that thought close as she shifted in the bed to make herself comfortable. If she recalled correctly, Tear had a tendancy to long-windedness. She settled herself and sipped from the glass of water.

"Im all ears" she said with a smile.

[Tear]

"In the world I see. I'm stalking endlessly around a shattered chain of planets while trying to protect a dying beast. I know it's wounded and going to die. Smells of its death and blood still hang heavy in the air. It draws scavengers too numerous to count. I am faced with a decision." The lights in the room were dim, and easy on the eyes. His voice a calm tone that rang of difference from the excited torturer Hera once met in a cold steel chamber.

"The last time I was on Coruscant the Empire was that dying beast. It had lost its head and was slowly being picked to death, not only from the rebellion, but from within by squabbling, scheming Moffs . I sought a way to change that. It was on the planet Vjun, in Bast castle where I discovered recounts of Vader's former battles, intelligence data, and even his personal holo notations. Much of it was ruined and those items not destroyed were beyond comprehension by even the most scholarly of my Imperial scientists." There was a dark tone in his voice giving hint to something more grand then he was letting on.

"None of it made sense. His notes were cryptic and mostly written in semantics, that I'm sure only another Sith could understand, and I was no Sith. At that point in time the force was nothing more then a tool to me. No different then a blaster or a powered suit of armor. There were nuances and methods to learn this tool but the mysticism so many held toward it I always found laughable.

So how do you get a handle on a science that has no form of measurement? You speak to those who have studied it longer then you. In Vader's notes I found mention of a planet called Susevfi. Apparently, the Dark lord was approached by a force sensitive hailing from a cult that was located, and later destroyed, from the same planet. After they were massacred an imperial outpost was setup to keep watch. While at Bast, as fate would have it, I began receiving reports of force sensitives raiding that same outpost. So I gathered an Inquisitorial task force and left to investigate.

It was a cult calling themselves the Jensaari. They practiced a mixture of philosophies and from what I understood they had an honorable code much like Jedi but from the way they fought allowed emotions to guide their actions like the Sith." He shook his head lightly as if there was a tang of regret at the memory. They had been a most formidable force, smart, disciplined and vicious in the defense of their home. They had managed to destroy the outpost in the conflict. But the ending was inevitable. They were out numbered, out gunned and heavily out supplied by Imperial forces in orbit. Those that were not killed outright were captured and taken for interrogation.

"One of the cult members was part of a species called the Anzati. This species, through our experiments on him, actually seemed to feed on the life force itself. They were able to 'sense' the presence of it in sentient beings. Especially those that were force sensitive. They actually fed off of it draining the 'soup', I believed he called it, from beings as a form of sustenance.

If such a creature was able to drain life, able to drain the force from another, would it be possible to infuse the force into a being otherwise un-sensitive to the force? Using the surviving Jensaari to decipher the works and recounts of Vader I was finally able to make progress in my research and it all began to fall into place. For the first time I felt it." Tear opened his hands, fingers spread to points with palm facing up. "This connection. This guidance or foresight of my actions. To be able to pull the strings of fate into a conceivable web of possibilities. It was all laid out so plainly for me." His fingers began to curl as if he was slowing crushing an invisible ball. A dull rumble began to shake the furniture in the room. Tear's eyes suddenly flicked back to Hera's and as quickly as it had come the rumbling vanished.

"Have you ever heard of a planet called Khomm or better yet, Cartoa?" He didn't wait for an answer, "Cartoa had been home to the Cranscoc the species who created Spaarti controlling devices. During the Clone wars there was a factory of Cloning Cylinders made by the Cranscoc. Most if not all were presumed destroyed during the war. The Khomm, however, are a race dependent on the science of cloning. To them it's their only means left of survival and procreation. I had originally sought them out for information regarding cloning but was disappointed in learning their process was extremely limited to their own genome. However, It was these people who pointed me in the direction of Cartoa and their fabled Spaarti cloning Cylinders." Tear left out the minor detail of leading a task force to invade Khomm. Where he nearly decimated the entire planet in his savage search for answers. As slaves the Khommites were more forth coming regarding their science and the locations of others who might be of use.

It was at that point he stopped. Silently mulling the details of the past few years in his head. It had taken just over a year for his forces to find what remained of the Spaarti devices on Cartoa. Most were too damaged to be of any use and those that were recoverable took repairs and modifications that spanned another year before they were ready for experimental procedures. During that time he continued his research into the possible transfusion of the force into a clone in efforts to ultimately create a force sensitive army. The captured Jensaari were again key in discovering the secrets in Vader's data that inevitably lead him to one of the last pieces of the puzzle on the planet Serenno. It was in the late Count Dooku's family residence that he found equipment and data regarding the manipulation of Qymaen jai Sheelal, a Kaleesh general.

Dooku had managed to infuse the general with the blood of a dead Jedi. In essence instilling him with life to keep kept him alive long enough to be transformed into a cybernetic creature known as General Grevious. The droid General's exploits were legendary even though it was rumored that Grevious himself was not force sensitive. It was clear the infusion seemed to have instill some sort of gift. Regardless, it was a start to the entire process and with the final puzzle piece in hand the experiments began.

"I will spare you the minor details but needless to say I found what I required. The cloning process wasn't so agreeable in our first attempts. It took over three hundred test trials before a viable clone was produced. A simple humanoid at first. It was actually one of the good doctors who volunteered his genes for the first attempts. After the initial success we began focusing our efforts in cloning force sensitives." Tear stood from the chair his face twisting in frustration with the mere memory of it all.

Stepping toward a seemingly solid gray wall he raised a gloved hand, tapping a hidden panel, causing the metallic wall to slide away to reveal a broad durasteel window. Beyond the window hung Coruscant. It's glittering gold surface spun ever so slowly beneath the endless lines of shipping lanes which seemed to stream endlessly from the massive gold planet. He glanced back casually at Hera watching for the realization that she was not planet side any longer.

"They were all failures. The force sensitive clones died mere weeks after being created. Using the dead we tried to use the force sensitive blood and infuse it into regular human clones. They died in much the same way after every procedure. It seemed the life we were attempting to fuse into them was the very source of the corruption that ended up destroying every clone we created. In the end we decided to use a single subjects DNA and refocus our efforts." Tear turned, blazing orange eyes studied Hera carefully for a moment.

"You were that subject and regardless of our increasingly successful attempts at prolonging expiration every force sensitive clone continued to wither and die. I must have watched you die a thousand times."

[Tear]

His wrist beeped cutting the silence and snapping his mind to the present as his memories had inadvertently flooded his thoughts. It was odd seeing Hera with so much life. Snarling defiantly in the monsters maw like she always did. There was a small moment, however, when he looked at her in that bed. He half expected to find death to be found kneeling over her, whispering to her sickly failing body. Sometimes he missed it.

Tear gave the small device hidden around his wrist a squeeze, and a voice emanated from it with response.

"This is Mephis. The one you requested has arrived."

He nodded to himself walking back toward Hera to take his former seat. "So we walked hand in hand with both life and death and in endless circles we went until I saw that path to break us from the ouroboros. We would impregnate the clones with other force sensitive DNA giving us a good chance of offspring with high midi-chlorian counts. There were nine test subjects. Three of which were of the Hera E-generation clone line. The other two died before birth resulting in the death of the infants as well. But the last of the three lived long enough to give birth to twins."

Tear learned forward on his knees as he continued, "Those two girls you met that brought you here. For all intents and purposes of genetics are your daughters and do very much take after your force sensitive legacy.

The reasons for their survival over the other two subjects of your same class line are varied like most scientist theory's are but the one I believe truth seems appropriate. The other two Hera's were lively as most usually are before their death. But the one who successfully gave birth was near death throughout her term. The theory is the twins took the role less of a child in the womb but more of a parasite in the body and were siphoning their mothers very life force to sustain them. Obviously such an act at their development wasn't a conscious choice by the twins but perhaps something more...destined.

And now we have an appointment to keep." Standing the Grand Inquisitor made for the door, "There's more to tell. Coming?"

[Hera]

Hera moved slowly, thoughtfully, from beneath the warmth of the covers as Tear bid her to accompany him.

The tale he'd recounted revealed a great deal about where the Inquisitor had been, and the project that had consumed his attentions, during his long absence from the Citadel. As Hera stepped into her shirt and slacks, (her host having done her the courtesy of leaving them folded neatly on the end of the bed) she considered what it all meant.

Poor Tear, he'd tried to cook himself the beginnings of a Sith army, his best efforts producing a pair of psycotic dopplegangers, who, should they survive, will probably turn against him, killing him like he deserved.
Engineering clone offspring with a force-sensitive was a novel idea, however disgusting, and she had to give him credit for that. But surely the results would only be a pale imitation of the real thing, the purity of the original losing its patency in the process like carbon imprint to paper. Only time will tell, she supposed.

He waited for her, his eyes watching her darkly as she buttoned her shirt. Hera could see in his expression that he was reliving the times he'd stood and watched her die. The bastard.

Why her, she wondered as she passed through the doorway, Tear now falling into step beside her. She looked over to him, tilting her head up slightly as he was atleast a foot taller than she. She held a certain fascination for him, that much was obvious. And she could safely guess who's DNA he'd provided in order to claim the moniker of 'father'. He probably thought he knew her since he'd spent all this time in what passed as her company. "You may live to regret the things you've tampered with Tear" she said a little too casually. "You've taken a frelling great leap accross the proprietary line and I may just to do the same one day." Her cold blue eyes held his, reminding him that she was still a Sith and there are yet surprises she is capable of.

"I want that lightsaber" she said looking ahead once more as they walked. "And that's not a request."

[Tear]

"You are mistaken." His voice was cold as he stated the fact. "It would be surprising if in this massive universe you were able to find anything I would hold valuable enough to evoke a sense of sorrow."

His thought drifted momentarily to the twins. Was there a sense of love there? Some twisted sense of fatherhood? He had witnessed their birth and played the part of father in their brief childhood. He was the tall figure who scooped them up from the ground with scraped knees and cheeks soaked with tears. Maybe he did love them.

Was that a weakness? Could they be his source of eventual sorrow? Or could they be a source of great strength, a focal point of dedication in his quest for a better universe?

"You fail to remember you have no rights here. You are a prisoner and as such, Imperial property. Unlike others I have no illusions regarding your lethality so you will remain unarmed and escorted at all times until you otherwise deem yourself worthy."

Tear reached out suddenly taking Hera by the wrist slowing the pair to a gradual stop. The two stood alone and silent in the corridor. She moved to wrench her wrist from his steely grasp but he turned on her. tightening his grip, and with a hard tug on her arm pulled the rest of her body toward him. Then he spoke, his tone burning dark with conviction...

"You live because I will it so and though I will not deny your place in things I have foreseen, you can be replaced Hera. Do not forget your tone while speaking to me and you will mind your tongue. You are well to remember I am of the mind to rip them out on occasion." With that he let go of her wrist and continued down the corridor.

"Back to other matters before rudely interrupted with your demands. My cloning research spanned many installations with hundreds of scientists working on various experiments throughout Imperial space and beyond. One such installation was beginning their testing on infusing children with the force. Not clones but regular children. Last reports reveal they were very close to a break through when the installation was suddenly destroyed." Tear turned to see Hera, who was trailing slowly behind, a look of contempt spread over her features. He ignored it.

"The labs were destroyed by a group of terrorists lead by a woman called Lilaena De'Ville. She was apprehended after the incident but managed to escape and flee Coruscant. Inside this room is an, unwilling associate of sorts, the leader of the Black Sun Syndicate. She likely has her filthy little claws into all the illegal transports on and off Coruscant so the chances of her knowing what ship and where the terrorists fled to are high. If she doesn't, she probably knows someone who does."

The eight Inquisitor soldiers bowed their heads and slammed their fists against their chests in salute with Tears approach.

"What is that?" The Grand Inquisitor gestured to the Twi'lek who was leaning idly against a bulkhead.

"Reeouurraa's body guard sir."

Tear sneered.

**Note Continued in http://www.sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?p=288356#post288356 ( The Devils in the details At POST #7. ) **

[Baralai Lotus]

Baralai floated next to Naberius, silently watching as they floated easily toward the Star Destroyer. He was concentrating, trying to get ready to sneak past more than a small cities worth of Storm Troopers and guards. It wasn’t going to be simple, but luckily enough, Baralai had spent enough time in the shadows to have become familiar with them.

The ship was being tugged gently into the dock, and as the ship crossed the threshold of the dock, both Baralai and Naberius sank to the floor. Baralai pulled the force underneath him, cushioning his fall and allowing him to sink gently to the ground. There was no noise, which was what Baralai needed, since the Storm Troopers were most likely right outside the ship.

He walked softly over to the docking door of the ship and hid himself behind a few crates that had been tossed around in the battle. It allowed him enough cover to stay out of sight from the guards. As for Naberius, it was his job to keep himself hidden. Baralai was on a mission, and as far as he was concerned, nothing would stop him. Naberius had some form of knowledge and would not share it with Baralai until this task was complete, and so, it would be completed flawlessly.

The soft hiss of the docking bay door could be heard echoing within the tiny vessel, and then the muffled voices of Storm Troopers. Baralai reached out and grabbed the energy of the Force, tearing and pulling at it, making it form exactly as he wanted. The familiar cold of Force energy rolled over Baralai, allowing him to obfuscate from the sight of the Storm Troopers long enough to get around them.

“Search the ship men; we know that something is on there alive. Find out what it is and get it out of the ship, we’re not sure if it’s hostile or not.”

The heavy clang of boots coming up the docking ramp came closer and closer, and Baralai watched as the Troopers came from below and into the ship.

“Only three?” Baralai thought as he watched them begin to search the ship, starting to overturn crates and boxes in an attempt to find whoever was onboard. Baralai was unsure where Naberius had vanished too, but it was none of his concern anymore, and he turned, heading down the ramp of the ship quietly, still obfuscated from the eyes of his enemies.

Baralai was quite visible, almost out in the open, but by wielding and shaping the Force, he had hidden himself from the mind’s eye of the Storm Troopers. They were already weak willed and weak minded, so it wasn’t a difficult trick to pull off, and as long as he could remain out of the direct sight of the Storm Troopers long enough to find a way to the bridge, he was sure he could make it.

Baralai headed out of the docking bay, sticking close to the walls and dark corners that were so very rare in a well lit Star Destroyer. Baralai had never been on a Star Destroyer before, but he knew a little bit about them from having read about them. The engines and all power generators were located near the rear of the ship, the soldier’s quarters and mess halls were in the top left, followed by the prison cells in the bottom left, with the bridge located up in the right hand corner of the ship, near the very top.

If Baralai was correct, that would make the docking bay near the bottom center of the ship. There would be no need for Storm Troopers to be roaming too far away from the docking bay, and that meant there should be a way up to the bridge via an elevator somewhere nearby.

Baralai stood on the side of the tiny ship the Troopers had been searching and waited for them to leave. There was no one else in the docking bay, not any other ships or Storm Troopers. The Star Destroyer must have been floating through space the past few days, most likely on patrol, making sure that suspicious ships and smugglers didn’t make it into the Empire’s space without them knowing and getting their own cut of the profits.

It didn’t matter who you were, Sith or Jedi, smuggler or commoner, if you had something that the Empire could take from you, they would. It didn’t always have to be credits either; Baralai had learned that when the Inquisitoriate had taken his eye, but his pride had healed from the bruises and beatings it had received.

“No troopers in sight,” Baralai thought as he turned the corner and headed off for the hallway of the Star Destroyer. The hallway was empty, just as Baralai had expected it to be. He strode down the hallway, keeping his eyes and ears open for any sights or sounds. His connection to the Force was open, so if another Force user came too close, he would feel the wave of energy caress his skin. He’d have time to prepare.

However, it appeared there was nothing more than soldiers and officers on board. With the Inquisitoriate it was very rare that any Force sensitive could find his way among the ranks of normal soldiers and officers. Baralai could see a turn coming at the end of the hallway, and as he approached it, he heard the calls of several soldiers. Each talking with one another as they hurried down the hallway.

“They haven’t found anything on the ship in the docking bay. However, we detected signs of life on the ship. Get in there and make sure that nothing gets in or out of that docking bay.”

There were a few grunts of acknowledgement among the soldiers that trudged along behind their leader. Baralai saw a door leading into a room behind him, and as he waved his hand the door opened silently. Baralai slipped in the door and waited for the soldiers as they passed by. When their voices became unnoticeable, Baralai slipped back out and continued down the hallway.

The hallway seemed to stretch forever, the ship’s hull rattling with the pressure of space pushing down upon it. The cool grip of the Force had rolled its way over Baralai and was beginning to push down on him. It had been a while since he had used the Force this long, and it was starting to show. His breathing became slightly heavier, his will waned slightly, and his eyes became heavy.

“No!” He thought, “I cannot show weakness!” The living energy was trying to tear at his body, but there was nothing that would stop him now. He could see the elevator shaft at the end of the hallway. The Force bore down on him, biting back for all the years that Baralai had used it to twist life and force death upon others. He had bent the very life force to his will, and now, the Force was fighting back, and fighting back hard.

Baralai struggled to reach the elevator doors, and he waved his hand, opening the doors with ease. As soon as the elevator doors had shut, Baralai lifted the obfuscation from his body, and when the Force energy left, his body lightened, and he felt the weight on his chest lift off. It was as if the Force had been strangling him, as if it had turned his own dark energies against him.

As the elevator rode silently to the bridge, Baralai prepared himself. He placed his hand on the hilt of his whip, feeling the familiar steel under his fingertips. A smile stretched across his face as the elevator dinged, signaling it had reached the bridge.

“What the. . .?” some of the voices in the bridge echoed off each other, and the doors slid open.

The figure standing in the doorway was smiling, his hand inside of his coat. He was silent, and his face was hidden behind his hair, which fell messily against his face.

“Who the devil are you?” The man who stepped forward wore an officer’s uniform, signaling he was the Commander of the vessel stepped forward, signaling for some of the troopers to surround him. Six troopers came forth, standing in front of the Commander, and the man stood silent.

“I demand you put your hands up and lay on the floor. You have three seconds to comply.” Still he stood, silent and waiting.

The clock on the commander’s console clicked three times, and the silence inside of the room was palpable. A word was screamed, and weapons clicked, along with the hiss of a weapon being ignited. A flash of red light was splashed against the wall, waving and ebbing in and out of the shadows that danced across the walls. The figures fell against the wall as white helmets rolled to the feet of the crew managing the ship.

Baralai stepped forward and disengaged his whip, and threw the chain out wrapping it around the body of the Commander. Another click, and pieces, gore and blood splashed down onto the floor. Where a man had once stood, proud and in uniform, there was now a mass of flesh and blood, pieced and cubed in a pile on the floor.

The Crew was in shock, unaware of what to do.

“You all will do as I say, or you shall meet the same fate.” Baralai projected his voice into the minds of the crew, tapping into their thoughts and grabbing hold, allowing him to make sure they did exactly as he said.
“Now then, there is a Trandoshan in the ship in the docking bay. Call a group of two soldiers and let them know he is to be escorted to the bridge elevator, and then to be left to come up to the bridge. Tell them the commander demands it. As of now, I am in control of this ship, and you do nothing without my say so. Understand?”

There were a few silent nods as the drones spun back around and began work on their duties, calling up the guards to bring the Trandoshan to the bridge. Baralai didn’t know what Naberius had wanted with this ship, but it had been taken, and Baralai had completed his mission.

He assumed the seat the Commander had once sat in, sitting at the helm of the ship. He sat, his eye gazing out the windows of the ship into the emptiness of space. This was how a God sat, accomplished and in power. It was a feeling Baralai could easily appreciate, and as they continued on into space, he raised his head and smiled, the silver Ouroboros on his eye patch glinted in the overhead light, as he gently slid the pile of gore and mess to the left out of his sight.

“Such a waste of a perfect specimen.”

[Naberius]

"Unnecessary." A voice like cracking glass bellowed from behind Baralai, who managed to turn, just in time to see the monstrous figure take shape from the corner of his eye. In the time it took Baralai to twist his spine and plant the tip of his boot to the floor for leverage, allowing him to turn all the way around, the monster was already on him. Towering close to the ceiling Naberius bowed low to stare dreadfully into the one good eye Baralai had.

His maw widened with the dull crack of his jaw bones grinding and before he spoke the smell of rotted flesh wafted disgustingly into Baralai's face. "Sleep now Ouroboros and your vengeance will be realized when you wake. My masters will make sure of it."

From beneath the creatures cloaked form he produced a gloved claw. Sitting on top, like a life raft upon an ocean of black leather, was a small red pill.

"Take it." The tone of the dark words gave no reason for trust nor did the creatures demeanor hint to the illusion of safety. It was very possible, and the thought had occured to Baralai, that he was being used as a disposable assassin by these "Gemellae". But as Baralai Lotus stared at the tiny red pill, tossing an accusatory glance into the empty eyes of Naberius, he found a surge of defiance roll up from his stomach. He was a Sith and no pill would be his destruction and any fear he harbored at the unknown would not be his controller. The Sith snatched the pill to toss it fearlessly down his gullet, no hesitation, no questions asked. He had experienced horrors already at the hands of his enemies. What more could they do to him?

It only took a moment and the world began to warp around the student of Sith. Baralai attempted to stand as the haze over took him. His knees wobbling weakly in rejection to his motives but regardless he pressed on toward the elevator doors. Leaning against the wall he gave the console a smack with his elbow recalling the elevator to the bridge level. The lift never made it in time as Baralai found himself sliding limply down the wall, his vision beginning to tunnel and cloud.

"Well? Come now snake man we musn't keep them waiiiitin..." Baralai's voice took on the tone of a drunk near the end of his intoxicated journey. He wasn't sure but he could swear the reptile was smiling as he stared down upon him. It was the last thing he remembered seeing.