Title: Between Darkness and Light, part 1
Author: Per'agana peragana@excite.com
Rating: PG-13 for now, NC-17 eventually
Setting: Around the time of ANH, except that the Emperor has "died" before
the events of the movie could happen.
Category: Drama/Alternate Universe
Summary: A former Imperial reporter finds the Force and the Sith, becoming
apprentice to Darth Maul, she prepares to take on the menace of the galaxy,
Maul's former master Palpatine.
Disclaimer: All the SW characters are George's, but I borrow Maul from time
to time. Don't sue me, I won't profit off this!
Feedback: (borrows Ziggy's bullhorn again) Please!!
**********************************
PROLOGUE: Medical laboratory, intergalactic media mogul Augustus Trent's
secret base off Republica Prime.

I leaned back in my chair with a sigh. The long-awaited operation was over,
finally. My limbs ached from sitting so perfectly still for so long. As I
asked his prognosis I noticed my voice was rusty from the hours of
prolonged silence. Trent's hired surgeon couldn't be sure of the outcome
given the extent of his mysterious patient's injuries, but at least he set
the chance of survival somewhere higher than zero, though far lower than
"cautiously optimistic." The surgeon looked at me and said it depended on
the patient, on how well his body could heal. I smiled under my protective
mask. I had little worry on that front. I knew his strength, and I knew
mine. And I knew this was way better than droid medics could have done, and
cheap at the price no matter how much interest I could end up paying for
this little favor. I had known Augustus Trent for a while and we'd traded
favors and information several times, but I knew I'd owe him forever for
something this big. I suppose I've made snap decisions before, but this one
really took the prize--risking so much to save a Sith Lord?

I went back to the little cubicle of a room I'd found to sleep in while I
waited for his recovery. The surgeon had never seen his face and was sworn
to silence, buoyed by the thrill of being the first surgeon to operate on a
patient injured to this degree. Still, droids had taken him from the stasis
chamber where his two halves had lain for over forty years, and droids would
take him to the bacta tank where he would recover. Unlike those of the
surgeon, droid memories could be erased.

I sat on the stiff cot and committed myself to stop the cycle of worry,
instead giving myself over to looking back at the thread of time that
brought me here. I am thirty-two years old, and 28 of those years passed
without a blip. The Republic fell when my brother and I were in grade
school. I grew up in the Empire, part of the Empire, serving the Empire. I
never believed I could want anything else. My undergraduate degree in
journalism, my Master's degree and PhD in political science, my
reporter/essayist job for the Empire's media wing, all part of a slow,
planned progression up the ranks of Imperial propagandists. My name on the
byline, Alexandra Elizabeth MacRae, PhD, was the height of pride-but so
little compared to the Force. Unlike the Force-sensitive children taken from
their parents by the Jedi of the Old Republic, I found the Force as a
fully-formed, intelligent, skeptical adult. I met my first Jedi while in the
middle of my service to the Empire.

But please don't think I apologize. No matter what anyone hears in these
days of the New Republic, there was a lot of good in the Empire. Those in my
line of work don't persuade from corruption and greed, but out of a sincere
belief. Despite my bullheaded stubbornness and sarcastic tongue, I have
always been tenaciously loyal to the Empire.
Perhaps that's the only thing that saved me, because the one reporter's
instinct that I truly possess is pure, insatiable, fearless curiosity. For
anything, everything, and especially for restricted information that few
sane people would touch with a 10'
force pike. During the high point of the Empire, the restricted list
definitely reserved a starring role for the Jedi, so perhaps our meeting was
inevitable.

I met Hyatt, self-proclaimed Jedi and spiritual counselor to the Rebellion,
while information-gathering during an undercover story on Rebel-minded
groups in the Core Worlds. Most of these group members were rich, dissipated
college kids determined to buck the establishment in what was becoming a
trendy way. Not that there aren't college students truly committed to the
Rebellion, but you rarely find them in the wealthy and protected Galactic
Core. In the Core being a Rebel is a fashion statement. Hyatt, on the other
hand, was the real thing--a true relic of the Old Republic. I expected and
received the attention of the Imperial censors over including him in the
story, but I was damn unwilling to run from a source this interesting,
despite dire warnings of what "they" were going to put in my (probably
rather thick) "file". Jedi teachings of any sort had been banned in the
Empire for years, and I was curious to hear what he had to say. The
anti-Jedi censorship never made sense to me--little censorship ever does.
Among other things, it doesn't work. People will kill for forbidden
knowledge. They don't care about what they can buy on the remainders shelf
at Galaxy Literature & Prose. Besides, the Jedi had an ancient glamour that
even the Empire couldn't wear away.

In all reality, Hyatt's Jedi dogma was neither terribly interesting nor all
that unique, yet I was willing to flaunt the censors and keep seeing him.
Hyatt had tried to persuade me of the error of my ways, and he had actually
found the one thing guaranteed to grab my attention--he told me that I am
Force-sensitive. Now everyone hears that Imperials don't believe in the
Force. Largely true. I was skeptical, but my aunt has talked about the Force
for years, ever since she moved onto what she calls "sacred land" on a small
planet in the Inner Rim. Aunt Sharan isn't exactly a mystic, and if the
Force meant something to her, I figured I needed to hear what Hyatt had to
say. But his lessons were philosophy and meditation, and at the time, I was
curious but I didn't really *need* it. In six short months, all that
changed. Hell came knocking at the Empire's door, and the Force was all I
had left to fall back on. The Hell that I speak of is, of course, the
explosion that blew apart 20 years of galactic unification and prosperity.
The day Emperor Palpatine's personal Star Destroyer, the Majestic,
encountered a mass shadow in hyperspace and blew itself to bits, killing
everyone aboard--including the Emperor.

Without the Emperor's real and symbolic leadership, his Empire crumbled soon
after. Most folks were in too great a shock to realize how quickly symbols
of Imperial leadership--especially the nearly ubiquitous
Stormtroopers--vanished from the landscape. Before anyone could blink, the
former Rebels had installed themselves in Coruscant's Imperial Center and
had formed themselves a New Republic. Nobody asked how or why, we were all
too busy trying to pick up the pieces. I could never work for the New
Republic, and my Empire was gone for good. I packed up my apartment, fled
the Core Worlds, and moved onto Aunt Sharan's ranch.

Claros III was a haven for my family. My brother and I spent several years
living on the ranch with Aunt Sharan. In my heart I agreed with her-that
land *is* sacred. We learned to honor it as she did, and we earned a place
among the Ixtali Chacope, one of the planet's Force-using indigenous tribes.
When I went to school and joined the Empire, a lot of my affection for
Claros faded into the background. When I came back, I found the tie had
grown that much stronger.

For five years I lived like a desert hermit on Claros. I learned to live off
the land and breed horses and cattle. I hid and tried to heal. I let this
sacred land teach me about the Force that Hyatt said lived inside of me. I
learned to take pictures, old-style photography, haunted images of the
desert's stark majesty. And in the biggest surprise of all, Arawana, the
eagle-eyed wizened old Medicine Woman of the Chacope, called me to her side
and began to teach me their ways. A rare honor for an outlander like me, it
was even more surprising when Arawana passed me to her daughter to continue
my learning. The Chacope teach the way of both darkness and light, that both
are needed and vital parts of nature. Still, people "tip" one way or the
other. Zihna was of the darkness, and her words and her visions called up
that vital, suppressed part of me until I felt strengthened and renewed by
it.

And now, I thought, I've been led to the Sith. The warm vision of Claros
faded rapidly in this cold, metal room. I heard a bleep at the door. One of
the medi-droids, with the signal I'd been waiting for. I'm no great Jedi
healer, but I felt up to the task anyway. I left my quarters and followed
the droid into the recovery area. The lights in the room were dimmed to
almost complete darkness, leaving only the ghostly, greenish shimmer of the
bacta tank to illuminate the space. He hung vertically in the center,
surrounded by wires hooked up to glowing monitors. I had seen him in foggy,
uncertain visions. I had seen the probe droids' holo. I had seen the pieces
of his injured body that the droids removed from the stasis tube. But I
wasn't prepared for the full, real thing. The red-and-black tattoos covered
his entire body, though clearly his skin was originally black. I winced as I
imagined the pain he must have felt as they applied the fields of red. He
was completely unconscious, yet his body pulsed with life. He frightened me,
but excited and even soothed me. I could feel the Force flowing through him
from the other side of the room. He took my breath away.

My eyes swept down his naked body, and tears fell down my face for this man
I did not know as I took in the deep scar that was already forming on his
waist. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to center myself, calling on
the Jedi techniques I'd learned. I stepped forward and walked up to the
bacta tank, calling on all my reserves of concentration. I hestitantly
reached out to him, my hand shaking as it moved closer to him. I laid my
hand on top of his head. I barely brushed one of the short, hooked horns
that protruded from his head like a crown, but I still felt a jolt of energy
rip through me at the contact. His skin was smooth, but frighteningly warm.
I opened myself to the peace and calm of the Force, letting its energy flow
through me and into his body as I settled into the healing trance.

An indeterminable amount of time later, I felt myself slowly lift out of the
trance. My body was chilled to the bone from so long in the cool room, yet
my hand still glowed with warmth from where it had lain on his head. His
body was still unmoving, he did not waken at my touch. It was irrational,
but somehow I had nearly expected that he would. Still, I felt the Force
flowing even more strongly through him now. I had done what I could, the
rest was up to him. I went back to my little cubicle to sleep and wait.


Subject: Between Darkness and Light,, part 2


Okay, being disgustingly ill with the flu finally gave
me time to get some of this done. (Ziggy, pass your
Ny-quil this way! :) This part and the next should
take care of my incredibly-long backstory (apologies
if it seems too long, but it's necessary for the rest
to make any sense...) I should have part 4 tomorrow,
which will *finally* be about the present, and Alex
and Maul will finally get to meet...

Title: Between Darkness and Light, Part 2
Author: Per'agana (peragana@xxxxx.xxxx
All disclaimers in part one.
Feedback: Please!!

**********************************
I tossed and turned unceasingly on my narrow cot.
Sleep wouldn't come. Though the
healing trance should have exhausted me, I was
restless and wired. My hand retained
the memory of his skin and my mind endlessly traced
the pattern of his tattoos. I stood
with a sigh and walked through the maze of corridors
to the little kitchen, nodding to
one of Trent's agents as I made myself a warm cup of
tea.

At 3 am standard time, this place was even more
deserted than normal, the hallways
echoing with the tinny footsteps of maintenance droids
and the air unbelievably chill. I
wrapped my hands around the warm cup and tried to call
up images of Claros' hot
desert sun. The sensation came to me without effort,
and I remembered how difficult it
was to leave Claros, how close I had come to living
out the rest of my life there.

Despite my full life with the Chacope and with
Sharan's ranch, I hid on Claros. I hid from
everything that reminded me of my Imperial past. I
walled myself away from even
thinking about the Empire until an old friend of mine
from the Imperial Security Bureau
came to seek me out. Austin had a frighteningly
plausible theory that he knew my
political mind would be able to analyze-- to either
tell him he was nuts, or tell him he
was indeed onto something. At first I thought he was
nuts. Then I realized he was onto
something. Austin's theory was pretty simple. The
Emperor, aware of the threat posed
by the Rebels' successful use of the potent symbology
of the glory days of the Jedi and
the Old Republic, faked his own death to allow the
Rebels to take charge and fuck up
the galaxy to such a point that even former Rebel
supporters would be screaming for a
return to the good old Imperial days. His ISB-gleaned
intelligence of a seemingly
flawless Imperial evacuation after the Majestic
explosion was persuasive, and it made
sense from a political standpoint, though it was a
gutsy move....more importantly, it
gave both of us something to live for and fight for.
We figured that Palpatine was
waiting for the New Republic to devolve to a certain
point before riding in on his white
Star Destroyer to save the day. It was as good a
theory as any, and I really did want to
stop hiding. I also decided that if there were going
to be an Empire: Part II, I didn't want
to spend it as a second-string reporter at a
second-rate newszine. I decided to take our
little theory and my nascent Force skills and apply
them the only way I could think of to
help bring down the New Republic *and* make a splash
that the Emperor himself might
actually notice--I decided to infiltrate the newly
reconstituted Jedi Order.
        
Oh, now *that* was a hell of a plan, I mused,
remembering. Me, infiltrating the Jedi--
forgetting that the Jedi could read minds, and
ignoring the simple fact that no one has
ever accused me of too much subtlety or congratulated
me for the ability to keep my
thoughts to myself. Despite that, though, it didn't go
nearly as badly as it could have.
Hyatt was my only real link to the Jedi, so I went
back to Republica to look for him. He
was already taking advantage of the new tolerance for
Jedi by setting himself up as
Jedi Master to a small cadre of eager students. It
took little convincing to add myself to
the group, since Hyatt was overjoyed that Miss
Ex-Imperial-Me had finally seen the
Light, so to speak. He never picked up on my real
reasons for being there, and I kept
my cover story pretty close to the truth-- that I'm
still loyal to the Empire, but it's gone
now and past is past and the Force is the closest
thing I have to a future with any
meaning.

What started to mess me up with Hyatt wasn't my spy
stuff, but my almost instinctive
bad reaction to the Jedi way. I thought the Jedi Code
was nonsense. As a Chacope, I'm
trained that being able to heal and being able to harm
are two inseparable sides to the
coin that is Nature. As a writer and a political
theorist, I believe that strong emotions are
the source of both creativity and the will to effect
change. If you sever the limb that the
Jedi call the "dark side", you kill the tree. Besides,
though I've met enough people that
"tip" toward the peace-and-love side of things, I was
rapidly learning that I wasn't one of
them. And I had begun to worry that Hyatt could see
it, too.

What's worse, Hyatt even more or less confessed that
he was training me as much
because he feared I'm headed toward the Dark Side
without Jedi intervention than
because he ever thought I'd make a good Jedi. Stupid
dumbass reason to train anyone,
I had thought, and I promptly petitioned the Jedi
powers-that-be for a new teacher.

It was a good thing the re-formed Jedi council wasn't
much like the old Jedi council, or I
probably would have been probed deeply for the reasons
why I wanted a new teacher.
However, two decades of Vader-led Imperial pogroms
against the Jedi led to a glaring
absence of trained Jedi to lead the re-formed council.
About the only Jedi of any
prominence these days was an Obi-Wan Kenobi,
supposedly a general from the Clone
Wars, and he certainly had way too much on his mind to
worry too much about the
mindset of impatient new students.

Luckily for me, my next teacher was nothing whatsoever
like Hyatt. Tassadarus is alien
and while he had the "official Jedi stamp of
approval", his Force philosophy is that of
his people, which diverged somewhat from that of the
Jedi. By no means an adherent
of the Dark Side, Tassadarus does value the concept of
balance in the Force.
Tassadarus' way is less primal than that of the
Chacope, but *much* closer to it than
the rest of the Jedi. He's also a kind, caring,
accepting individual without all the Rebel
baggage that came along with Hyatt. Eventually I told
him pretty much everything,
including my hopeless plan to infiltrate the Jedi
(which, given my personality, I think he
found rather amusing). I felt much freer with
Tassadarus, and not having to watch my
every word also made it possible for me to truly
pursue study in the Force for its own
sake.

I progressed far more quickly than I would have
imagined. Tassadarus says I'm very
strong in the Force, which was surprising only until I
realized how completely the trait
seems to run in my family. I figure that
Force-sensitive people have strong Force-
influenced talents throughout their lives even if they
never actively learn to work with
the Force. The Connelly Sisters, my mother and Sharan,
are both Force-sensitive,
though Sharan is the only one that developed any skill
with it. I smiled, remembering
how quickly her fellow ranchers heeded her "woman's
intuition" when she told them a
storm was coming on. I also realized the Force ran
through my mother's uncanny ability
to memorize and then play music that she's heard for
only a few seconds. My Force
talent, then, had to be the ability to make huge, and
(fortunately for me) usually correct
leaps of intuition. The other thing I've got is a
talent for visions, kind of a natural affinity
to Jedi powers like farseeing. Training with Zihna and
Arawana often involved asking
the ancestor spirits for visions about significant
events, and I took well to those
rituals—and they seemed to take well to me. I had
already had one unsettling vision
while training with Hyatt's little band-- I had an
image of Palpatine that left little doubt in
my mind that he's a Force-user, and a strong one at
that. My first intuitive "leap" came
while talking with Tassadarus about Darth Vader (who
was not on the Majestic at the
time of its "accident" and has been rumored to be all
over the galaxy doing all manner
of things ever since).

Vader's always been an enigma to many Imperial types.
The multitude of frightening
stories from the military about his murderous brand of
"personnel management"
coupled with some of the things he's said publicly add
up to a gigantic public relations
disaster for the Empire. A hundred stupid and corrupt
Moffs couldn't begin to equal the
bad press that Vader received on a regular basis. We
in the Imperial media have
always wanted to see him muzzled--or better yet, see
him trip and fall on his lightsaber-
-but the Emperor has never been anything but
supportive of Vader's role in the Empire.
Discussing him with Tassadarus, we realized that
although Vader is a strong Force-
user (and consumed by the Dark Side, if you listen to
the Jedi-- and I actually tend to
believe them on this count), he seems obedient to the
Emperor. In fact, the only person
who has ever seemingly been able to keep Darth Vader
on a short leash is Palpatine--
which I figured would be logical if Vader just
happened to be Palpatine's apprentice.
The next leap was simple-- since Vader is known to
call himself "Dark Lord of the Sith"
and he's Palpatine's apprentice, then it made a
certain amount of sense that Palpatine
must also be a Sith. Whatever a "sith" is, anyway.

I looked at it this way-- whatever my future was
likely to be with The Empire: Part II, it
became increasingly clear that it would involve using
the Force to the Emperor's
benefit. Actually, I'd begun to hatch an even more
bizarre plan-- what if the Jedi could
be made to serve the Empire? Not as "dark Jedi", but
in the role they've more or less
had for millennia as peacekeepers, mediators, and
warriors against the corrupt. After
all, corrupt Imperial leaders didn't exactly benefit
the Empire as a whole. It would be
useful to use such a potent symbol as the Jedi to
combat them, and better yet, it would
steal a lot of the Rebellion's fire. They couldn't
easily claim the Empire was persecuting
the Jedi if there were Imperial Jedi, after all. Of
course much of the remaining Jedi from
the Old Republic would never go for it, but there was
always the option of training new
Jedi students in a philosophy that's more like that of
Tassidarus, a bit more open and
tolerant-- the Jedi Code, but with room for both peace
*and* emotion.

Nice plan, I thought, and surely my fellow
propagandists would approve, but there was
one big obstacle in my way. Palpatine hadn't only
banned Jedi teachings, but he'd had
a coalition of "inquisitors" led by Vader hunt down
and kill outright as many Jedi as
they could find. Unlike the generally untrue
accusations that Palpatine hated women
and aliens, this one was factual and deeply
disturbing. I hoped an explanation for
Palpatine's prejudice might lie in the meaning of this
word "Sith." I also hoped that if I
could learn about these Sith, it might help me to in
essence "speak his language" and
perhaps make him more receptive to my Imperial Jedi
project.

Trying to research the Sith through Jedi sources
turned up frustratingly little of use. The
Sith were said to use the Dark Side of the Force and
were defeated in a war with the
Jedi thousands of years ago. The Jedi also seemed to
be scared shitless of the concept
of the Sith, and warned us against them in their usual
patented studying-the-Sith-will-
lead-you-to-the-Dark Side doom and gloom fashion. So,
being generally reckless, I
decided to take my appeal directly to the source. I
found a remote spot and
concentrated, letting my mind flow with the Force. I
did what the Jedi had always
warned me about--I let the anger and rage flow into
me. I tried to channel all the anger
and rage built up over my life into the Force,
centered around the single word "Sith".
The dark energy surrounded me, and I had an odd sense
of someone watching me, a
vague and undefined image of red and black accompanied
by a long red light. Nothing I
could really pin down even when I used the Force to
enhance my memory. It remained
stubbornly elusive. Not only that, but it entered my
dreams. For weeks afterward I had
feverish dreams that I could only partially remember,
with red and black afterimages. I
started to fiddle with an illustrator program each
morning trying to capture the image,
but with little success. Over the weeks, I built up
about two dozen vaguely usable
images. Still undefined, though. I worked on using the
program and my memory to
merge the images together, and was able to glimpse
what seemed to be a strangely
tattooed red-and-black face, with a black cowl, and
some long red light nearby. My
visions were always superimposed on the starry
blankness of space. And still, they
remained tantalizingly incomplete.

Now, I thought, I know what they mean. The Sith Lord
in the bacta tank fit the tattooed
images perfectly, though I still wondered about the
red light. A lightsaber, perhaps, but
the light seemed unusually long. I finished my tea and
went back to my cubicle. The
next few days passed slowly. When not sleeping or
eating, I spent all my time in the
recovery room, reading and remembering.


Title: Between Darkness and Light, part 3
Author: Per'agana (peragana@yahoo.com)
All disclaimers in Part one
Feedback: Please!

**************************
I recalled that over time, my normal life intruded and
the vividness of the dreams had
started to fade. I spent my days working on training
in the Force with Tassidarus. My
Force skills grew nicely, but one thing continued to
nag at me. I lacked a lightsaber.
Tassadarus, considered a priest among his people, was
less than well disposed toward
physical combat, so he didn't see the need for one--
despite the fact that the lightsaber
is the seemingly universal Jedi symbol of Force-use.
Still, while he couldn't help me
make one, he was willing to help teach me some of the
basics involved in using one.
However, I quickly exhausted his small reserve of
knowledge on the subject. I needed
the real thing. While lightsabers were quite hard to
find, I remembered one possible
source.

Shortly after the Empire's collapse I had borrowed a
ship and explored some
coordinates I'd obtained during a story and found an
old abandoned base, a long-
disused starport way off the established trade routes.
It was called Zahan's Dome and
was most likely last used some time before the
beginning of the Clone Wars. The
coordinates had not been easy to get my hands on, and
I've been keeping them deeply
hidden in my memory as an ace in the hole for the
future. While most functions were
shut down, the base still had power and life-support,
and was now staffed entirely by
droids. What the base offered that made it extremely
valuable was the motley collection
of scouts, starfighters, miscellaneous freighters, and
even an old Dreadnaught that
were still at the port, having survived their
likely-piratical owners over the last fifty-some
years. The value of a missing fleet-even one this
small and out-of-date-was
inestimable.

The Dome had apparently been built as a sort of shadow
port, a gathering place for
less than honest individuals. It had a few really odd
features, and the one that made me
remember it at the moment was a "museum" of sorts that
featured all manner of odd
stuff and space junk, and also included a small
collection of Jedi memorabilia. I couldn't
be sure, but I thought I remembered lightsabers. I
also knew something was going to
happen to me at the Dome. It sounds corny, but the
Force filled me with foreboding.
Tassidarus let me go without issue, but I could tell
he was worried.

The lightsaber issue was solved without difficulty.
Yes, there was an entire case of
lightsabers, many of which didn't work. A couple of
quick power-cell recharges fixed
most of them, though, and I easily found one that I
liked-one with adjustable blade
length, a beautiful silver hilt, and a brilliant
violet blade.

After I had found my lightsaber, I had clasped it to
my belt and went wandering through
the Dome's landing bays. There hadn't been time for a
thorough inventory the last time
I'd been here, and I realized that my Imperial Jedi
project would take a lot of money-
funds that could easily be obtained by selling some of
the Dome's abandoned fleet. The
Dome's main computer had sent a 3PO protocol droid as
an "ambassador" to my
wanderings, and together we logged the ships in the
various docking areas.

Save for the dreadnaught, most were unremarkable-
various freighters, some Z95
Headhunter and hyperspace-capable Y-wing starfighters,
and assorted older craft. One
ship stood out- its angled side panels were so
reminiscent of a TIE fighter that I easily
identified it as an old Sienar design, but the rest of
the craft looked like no Sienar ship
I'd ever seen. The back was wide and ball-shaped, sort
of like a TIE fighter, but the
front nose was long and angular. Some of the outer
hull material was exciting, since it
hinted at possible stealth capability. Stealth ships
were highly illegal, and a find like this
could be lucrative indeed.

I did a complete visual survey of the outside, then
fiddled with the controls for the exit
ramp. The exit ramp dropped silently, and I jumped
back in surprise, sure that I hadn't
been able to find the right code to lower it. Two
odd-looking round black droids whizzed
out of the ship, one remaining near the entrance, and
one taking up station on the ramp
itself. I looked back nervously, and asked if the
protocol droid had any data on these
strange droids.

The main-computer droid responded that the craft had
been at the base several times
before the base had been abandoned, the only being
that had ever left the ship was a
tall humanoid in a long, hooded black cloak. No, his
face had never been seen in any of
the base's monitors. Shortly after the base was
abandoned, this craft returned- this
time, only these droids emerged. They queried the
droids at the base, seeking
advanced medical assistance that the base was unable
to provide. These droids then
returned to this ship, and no activity has been noted
since. The computer had no clue
about the makeup of these droids, or whether or not
they were armed.

I reluctantly walked toward the ship, then slowly
walked up the ramp. Both droids
quickly swung into position in front of the entrance,
blocking my passage. Unwilling to
find out they were armed the hard way, I retreated. I
was more curious about the inside
of that ship than ever, and there was something
else.....an odd feeling about these
droids, a darkness and a dread....but also an
excitement, as if these droids somehow
registered within the Force.

No, that simply could not be *possible*, droids were
blind to the Force! Still, this was an
old ship, and I had to admit my knowledge of the Force
was decidedly lacking. It
couldn't hurt to try. I walked back up the ramp toward
the droids, stopping just short of
the entrance, and reaching out with the Force toward
them, attempting the telepathic
link.

While I didn't have the sense of joined minds like
I've experienced with a living being,
*something* clearly happened. I felt what seemed to be
a ripple of recognition from
them. "What is the security code?" chirped one of the
black droids.

"I don't have one. I am here to offer assistance to
your wounded master", I said quickly,
extrapolating from the protocol droid's data.

The droids seemed to be trading data back and forth,
conferring. Finally, one said "what
assistance do you offer?"

Oh, boy. I hadn't expected this question! If I lied
and said I could provide medical
attention, the lie would be obvious pretty quickly. I
decided to wing it. "I can take him to
receive medical attention, and I can help him with the
Force in the meantime." What the
hell was I saying? Not only did I have no clue who
this person was or how they were
injured, I had no idea if I could (or even *would*)
make good on either of those
promises.

"Type?" asked one of the black droids.

"Type? Of what? Of the Force?" I asked in
bewilderment. What did it mean, type of the
Force? There are bazillions of types of Force-users
out there! Wait a minute, though-
this ship was at least 40 years old. In other words,
Old Republic. I remembered that
things were a bit more structured back then. You were
either a Jedi or.....oh, no! It
couldn't be possible.....I thought through things
again. Clearly these droids weren't
made by Jedi, their "feel" was too dark. Given the
Sienar design of the ship, I was
betting that I wasn't talking about some obscure Alien
Force-philosophy, either. Which
left... I took the leap. I stood ramrod straight in
front of the droids, and said, with a
ringing, confident tone, "Sith."

The droids suddenly parted in front of me, allowing me
to enter. They were clearly
uncertain, though, and stayed almost on top of me the
whole way in. I did a quick tour
through the ship, which was unbelievably small inside.
It wasn't easy to see in here,
considering that the ship had long ago been powered
down and ran only on emergency
lighting, but it was clean, and very spartan. Certain
areas- including a small stateroom
and what seemed to be an exercise area had a dark
residue to them in the Force that
left me tingling. However, I didn't see the long-dead
body I had rather expected.

"Where is he?" I asked the droids, following them to a
bank of still-brightly-glowing
controls, some of which were vaguely familiar. "Stasis
chamber?" I guessed. "How is he
injured?"

The droids appeared to confer again, and decided to
answer me. Yes, it was a stasis
tube. The other answer had me reeling. "Bisected? What
do you mean *bisected*???" I
suddenly felt a surge in the Force, an afterimage of a
lightsaber passing through a
black-clothed figure at about waist-level. Oh, my
Gods! How in the galaxy was I
supposed to fix someone with such a severe injury?
There was no way the Force alone
could heal him, and the protocol droid was right- the
Dome's medical droids weren't
even close to being up to a task like that. Still, if
it was a lightsaber wound, it likely was
cauterized on contact. If these droids were quick
enough getting him to the stasis
chamber, there was a slim possibility... I thought for
a moment, conscious of the droids'
close, and likely dangerous proximity. Well, there was
one option....

I looked at the droids. "I'm taking this ship to where
I can find a surgeon for him." I held
up a hand to forestall their objections. "It's the
only way he's got a chance. It's me or
nothing."

The droids beeped at each other again, then parted in
front of me. One droid floated
along in front of me and I followed him to the
cockpit. Thankfully, I'd piloted Sienar
shuttles before and this ship wasn't designed all that
differently. I powered it up and set
a course for Republica, trying not to ask myself why
in the universe I was going to ask
Trent to pay a surgeon to secretly operate on someone
I didn't know- save that this
was the only way I was likely to get answers to my
questions about the Sith.

I glanced at the droids. "If he's going to have
surgery, I'll need to know his race."

The droids were silent. "You don't *know*?" Not good.
Since the stasis tube was flush
into the wall, there was no way I could look inside,
either, not without disturbing the
stasis field. "Do you have a holo of him or anything?"
I asked in desperation. At least I
had a chance to match a xenoanthropology search to a
holoimage.

One droid hummed for a moment, then beamed a narrow,
blue holoimage onto the
floor. I looked, and felt the bottom drop out of the
floor. "Gods...." I whispered in
disbelief as I came face-to-holoimage with the
tattooed man in my dreams.

A sudden disturbance in the Force shook me out of my
reverie. I glanced up at the
bacta tank, and gasped in surprise as my eyes met his.
His eyes were like the essence
of a planet's core, molten gold rimmed with fiery red.
The heat and intensity of his glare
seared through me, pinning me to my chair. Fear
tingled at millions of nerve endings,
and I had to fight to clamp it down and stand, facing
him. I bowed my head slightly.

"Greetings, Lord of the Sith", I said with a calm I
didn't feel. He looked silently at me for
a few spare moments, then turned his gaze downward,
examining himself, conducting a
thorough inventory of his damaged body. The immense
recovery bay suddenly felt
close and claustrophobic, and I realized that I was
intruding on something intensely
private. "You were horribly wounded and have had major
surgery," I said quietly, stating
the obvious. "I will be in the next room, let the
droid know and it will retrieve me."

I forced myself to leave the room, nodding at the
medi-droid as I passed by. I went back
into the little cubicle and reluctantly shut off the
monitor to the recovery room. I briefly
felt panicky without the camera's clear view into the
room, but I trusted in the Force that
this meeting was destined.

Time passed slowly. I tried to sleep and failed, sure
that he would call for me any
moment-and fearing that he would somehow slip away and
I would never know. His
ship was here at the base, I wondered if he were able
to sense it. I felt a sense of calm
creep over me at the thought of the Sith ship,
remembering my time on it.

I didn't even realize I'd fallen asleep until the
medi-droid beeped at me, startling me
awake. "He is calling for you..." the droid said in a
tinny computer-voice. I quickly put
on clothes and ran a brush through my long, curly
auburn hair. I didn't want to keep him
waiting, but I felt I needed to keep a certain sense
of decorum and control about myself.
I splashed some water on my face to make me a bit more
alert, then I turned to follow
the droid into the recovery bay.