What is thy bidding, my master?

During the Rescue on Coruscant

It had been sixty days since Akasha Khan had arrived in the mobile Jedi coven known as the Wheel - sixty days that had seen more frenzied activity than her entire stay on Onderon. In some ways, it was hard to imagine she'd lasted among the Jedi so long and insinuated herself so deeply among them. In other ways it was easy to believe that her ruse was the truth - that she had come in search of peace and balance, that the friendships she had made here were real and free of guile, that she, Akasha Khan, had become a disciple of the Light. But in the secret places of her heart, she told herself, she had never forgotten why she was really there.

When she had arrived, she had come with few material possessions. One of those was a pendant on a pewter chain with a stone that resembled an opal. When she had awoken this morning, a tiny red light on the side of the stone had pulsed twice. She knew what that meant. She excused herself from her half-Nautolan roommate, Kala, and padded silently out into the corridor.

She had scouted out the location earlier while exploring the Whaladon. The Action VI transport had a very meager engine room, and to compensate there were a half-dozen crawlspaces hidden behind access panels to access key systems. Akasha had discovered one such passage, between the primary sensory cluster and the fuel pumps, was particularly spacious, and the noise of the engines was loud enough in the entryway too muffle voices from deeper within. It was the ideal place to have a covert conversation.

The Orryxian carefully pulled the grate back into place over the crawlspace entrance and retreated to the protected sanctum beyond. There, in the dull red glow of the passive worklights, she laid the opal pendant on the floor and squeezed the sides. She bowed face-down on the deck as the opal began to glow, projecting a baleful face in the darkness.

"Master De'Ville. I am your servant."

After two months among the Rebels, De'Ville was beginning to itch. Not a physical itch, more like a mental one. It needed scratching in the worst way. Oh, there had been opportunities here and there, but her cover demanded a low profile and hardly any use of the Force.

It had been a difficult two months, to say the least. Seeing a familiar face, albeit her headstrong apprentice Akasha Kahn, was refreshing. And knowing that they were carrying on their duplicitous ways under the noses of the do-gooders of the galaxy was exhilarating. Not quite enough to relieve the itch, but a good start.

De'Ville stared impassively at her groveling student, and said, "Get up, I am not a god. You need not bow."

As Akasha rearranged her lithe body, the Dark Jedi continued, "I trust you have ingratiated yourself to your hosts, and have a great deal to tell me."

"I thought it suited the atmosphere," she said with an impudent smirk - at least this time she was out of striking range. She leaned back on her haunches with her paws on her knees.

"Yes, master, I have much to tell you. They have welcomed me with open arms. I even have a Jedi master now. As for the Jedi Order themselves, they have a few extraordinarily powerful leaders, but they also have many children, and most of them have never even held a lightsaber. They are disorganized and vulnerable, master."

"How many knights or higher? How many padawans are there?" De'Ville made a notation on an encrypted datapad as Akasha told her the numbers.

"Tell me about your Jedi master." Darth Malleus looked at the small hologram where it knelt on the desk in her cramped quarters on Dac.

"Her name is Tionne Thanewulf. She was a Jedi Knight during the Old Republic but preserved herself through carbonite freeze."

She felt a momentary pang at the thought of betraying Master Thanewulf to her "other" master - but it wasn't really betrayal, was it? Anyway, if there was anyone among the Jedi who could see the wisdom in allying with someone as bold and powerful as Lord Callidus, it was Tionne.

"She is not like the other Jedi, Master," she said. "She encourages me to explore my passions. She scoffs at the rule of the sanctimonious old masters. She is skilled in the arts of stealth and deception. I think she would make a powerful ally."

De'Ville frowned slightly. Her own Jedi master had done more than encourage her own passions, and yet apparently that was not how such things were normally done. Callidus had instructed her further on the differences between her upbringing and that of a so-called 'normal' Jedi.

The differences had only caused to inflame her anger even further. Her idol worship of the great A'na Eldhil had festered and changed into something bitter and terrible. It strengthened her.

"You do, do you?" De'Ville raised an eyebrow. "We shall see. And have you made friends among the other padawans?"

"A few," Akasha replied. "I often spar with a Togruta male named Shoda Kulan. Also a human woman named Corell Capstan. And... 'friend' would be too strong a word, but there is a young human knight named Abarai Loki who I've clashed with since coming aboard. He doesn't suspect anything, but I'm quite positive he doesn't like me very much."

Her thoughts drifted to Kala. Akasha didn't yet fully know what Master De'Ville's designs on the Wheel were, or what doom she was bringing on each of the people she mentioned, but Kala was the person she'd drawn the closest to, almost the way she'd drawn close to Lanai on Onderon. She decided in that moment that she wanted control over what happened to her roommate, whether good or ill. Maybe... if it came to it, maybe she'd join with them if Akasha asked.

"I know of others, but none of real consequence. As I said, there are many children aboard. But... there are rumors passing among the children."

She was holding something back, De'Ville was almost sure of it, but reading Orryxian facial cues was more of a guess than a science. She wondered where all the children had come from, but something Akasha said made her put that question on hold.

"Rumors? About something important or just idle gossip amongst youngsters?"

"About Padawans who've been disappearing."

She knew this was prime information. She'd been pondering it ever since the attack by the Decimator, and she wished she knew more.

"Some weeks ago we were attacked by an Imperial Star Destroyer. We narrowly escaped with some significant damage, and there were casualties among our defense fleet. But there was also one Padawan who disappeared entirely from the ship. A week later, another Padawan disappeared while on a mission with her master on Baskarn."

She licked her lips to wet them. "They are afraid, Master. Afraid that something is attacking them."

Attacking them? "Fear is a good emotion to have, especially when the entire Empire is their enemy."

De'Ville thought for a moment, and then said, "I want you to fan that flame. Find out, if you can, what happened to these missing Padawans. And keep that rumor going. The more these younglings are afraid, the better."

She was terrified a great deal of the time when she was a Padawan, it was almost insulting that these Jedi would not feel that same metallic tang in their mouths when they had to enter a dark room.

Akasha nodded. She had experienced her own baptism of fear - in the fighting pits on Klatooine, in the predator-infested jungles of Onderon. It was fear that had awoken her to the power of the Force, that had given her the strength to kill. And it was fear that kept her bound to Master De'Ville, at least until the day when Akasha grew powerful enough to overtake her.

"Their fear is especially strong now. The most powerful Jedi have all gone on a dangerous mission to the Imperial Center. They have not spoken of it openly, but from what I have overheard, they are trying to rescue a Jedi out of the clutches of the Empire. Someone named Serena."

The Jedi were going to Imperial Center? How... how... stupid. "They risk everything for one person?" De'Ville shook her head. "Their compassion makes them blind, and foolish. The Inquisition is not likely to give up their prize - if this Serena has survived their attentions."

Her back began to feel sore at the thought of the Inquisitors, and she added with a snarl, "Maybe the Jedi will kill a few of them." She hadn't heard of any joint mission with the Jedi, but she would have gone along if the Rebels had made it an option for her. Find Helghast and cut his frelling head off.

She'd made a fist with one of her hands, and had to consciously unclench it.

Akasha shrugged - she knew little of the Empire and even less of Imperial Center, and her only barometer of the danger involved was the serious way the knights had carried hushed conversations about it, and what trembling conversation passed among the younglings.

"Is there anything you would like me to do while they're gone? There are still knights around, but not nearly as many as there usually are. I can move around the ship more or less undetected."

"Yes, there is." She stared at the girl's hologram. "Find out where your convoy is. And find out where you are going."

A thrill passed over Akasha's spine, making the fur along her back stand on end. It would be dangerous sneaking onto the bridge; even with the Jedi gone, the captain and bridge crew were still aboard. But if she could sneak into a zakkeg's nest on Onderon, she was certain she could infiltrate the bridge and pull up the navigational data.

"It will be done, Master."

She paused to review her mental list of information she wished to share. Both what had happened on Lethe and with the strange holocron were fairly far down on that list.

"The Jedi have formed a new Council," she said. "As far as I can tell, there are four members. I can give you their names."

Her master nodded, ready to record them. "Jedi Knight Daria Nytherciria, a blind human female. Jedi Knight Solomon, a human male. Jedi Master Drin Kizael, a trianii male. And..."

Once again, she paused, knowing she was about to drop a proton bomb.

"Jedi Master Navaria Tarkin. Who is the very image of the Empress."

"You have done well, my student." A Tarkin amongst the Jedi? Callidus would be very pleased that they had uncovered this information. And a Jedi Master, no less.

"What are you trying to hide from me?" De'Ville said abruptly, her face stern. It was a guess, but she would never tell Akasha that she could not read her mind from thousands of lightyears away. Or even across the room. No, there were things better kept from her apprentice.

Akasha's ears flipped upward (damn it!) before she could even begin to wonder what her master was sensing. Depending on how you sliced it, there were several things she was hiding - or that she simply hadn't gotten around to saying yet.

"I'm hiding nothing, Master," she replied. "I'm only trying to place priority on what I believe is important."

She could tell that Master De'Ville would not be satisfied with that. "The Jedi recovered a very strange holocron. It allows several adepts to join together in a sort of dream state. And..."

Akasha wrinkled her nose in distaste. It appalled her to admit such weakness to her master. "It forced such a dream on me and several Jedi. It made us believe that we were living other lives, as peasants in a village during the ancient Sith War. It was silly and pointless, Master, something some Jedi created to teach a lesson long ago."

De'Ville leaned forward, curious. Akasha was quick to say that this exercise had been pointless, yet designed to teach a lesson. "Fascinating. And what lesson was this... foolish exercise designed to teach?"

Her own recollections of what she had been taught about the ancient Sith War were very poor. After the Purge she had not done many traditional lessons, and she hardly remembered anything that had happened before. That old life meant less than nothing to her.

Akasha hesitated, trying to cover over the storm of emotions that thrice-damned holocron had forced upon her. Sometimes they still invaded her dreams - that sickly, cloying weakness she'd felt toward her fictional brother, and her mother, toward that simpering soldier who was supposed to be her lover... If Akasha had been in that girl's shoes, she would not have wasted so much effort trying to delay the inevitable conflict. She would have decided who she wanted to live and whom she wanted to kill, and the rest of the village could burn. It was as simple as that.

"Something about remembering the past," she said. "And something about the battle between love and hate. But what does it matter? They're the same, really - just two ways of controlling someone."

De'Ville nodded, "It is important to remember the past, however.

"To remember the mistakes of others. And determine to never repeat them, like the Jedi are failing to do even now. Again they are ingraining themselves into a political entity, much like they were in the days of the Republic. It is only a matter of time before this gambit fails them and they are destroyed."

Perhaps they were already beginning to come to ruin. "There is already unrest among the younglings, with these mysterious disappearances." She looked at Akasha closely. "Make sure you do not fall prey to whatever is responsible for them."

The thought had occurred to Akasha that she might meet whatever it was that had claimed two Padawans already, and that it would be an opportunity to test her mettle against something more formidable than the teenagers she regularly thrashed in the sparring chamber. But she really had no idea what it was, or how she'd avoid it if she saw it.

"I will do my best, Master," she replied. "Has there been any news from Onderon? Any new orders for us? We don't hear very much about the galaxy at large from in here."

"I hear the Onderon/Hapes alliance is stretching to include Ambria," she said. "But I am going to contact Callidus after we are done here. I needed your information first."

De'Ville smiled, "You have done well, Akasha."

Akasha bowed her head. "Thank you, Master."

The projection evaporated away, and the glow of the opal died down. Akasha quietly gathered it up and slunk back out of the crawlspace to continue her mission of subterfuge and deception.