*********************************
The tall Sith Lord caressed his deadly instruments as he thought. A finger
ran along a gleaming pannel, traced the curve of a dial. He enjoyed the
sensations almost absently, most of his mind focused on the group called the
Sith Chicks.

Sith Chicks! What impudence! He would make sure they would regret usurping
the title of the deadly order of the Sith. Of course, the Sith had tried
that before. He resolutely ignored past failures, except to learn from them.
It was time to try again. He sent his mind spiraling into the Force,
searching for his first victim:

+++++++++++++
Sythe sat staring at the glowing screen. The first paragraph of a brand new
story stared back at her. In fact, it had been staring at her for the last
five minutes now. The final words she had typed: 'Mace looked up from the
training floor and crowed "Who's your Jedi Master?"' seemed to have stalled
her creativity. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

Immediately she felt hands on her shoulders, gripping hard, yet not hard
enough to hurt. She caught a tendril of some exotic scent, and her eyes
popped open in surprise. The sensations vanished at once. Sythe looked
around, she was still alone in front of her computer. Curiously, she closed
her eyes once more.

The presence was back. She felt hands caressing her neck this time, hands
calloused from holding a weapon. Warm breath ran along her cheek as she felt
heat near face. She slitted her eyes open and again all sensation vanished.

"Alright, be that way." Sythe said, as she leaned back in her chair, and
closed her eyes once more. Now her head was pressed against a hard stomach,
and the heat from her visitor seared along her shoulder blades as he leaned
forward to better see the screen. She heard Darth Maul's deep seductive
voice read the words from the screen, slow and menacing. "Who's your Jedi
Master?" The words sounded so different when they were full of menace. A
thrill coursed through her and she turned her head, still carefully keeping
her eyes closed. She felt his lips on hers as he slid his hand under her
shirt to tease her already erect nipples.

"Hell," she thought as pleasurable sensations continued to course through
her, "the story can wait until tomorrow."

+++++++++++++++++++
The Sith Lord opened his eyes and sighed in frustration. He was unhappy with
himself, and that made him angry. He should not have given her such a
pleasant fantasy to distract her. He used his anger to draw energy to
himself, and once again stroked the outward symbols of his power. Darth
Yahoo felt through the Force, and identified another Sith Chick sitting in
front of her monitor. With malicious glee, he slowly reached out and stroked
a few keys, then sat back to wait....

++++++++++++++++++++
Lady Starblade grinned as she clicked the icon that would send her newest
story to the SithChicks list. She had spent a lot of time and effort on that
story, and knew several members who would be happy to see it. She felt an
odd urge to rub her hands together with glee, thinking of the feedback she
was sure to get. An hour later, she was anything but gleeful.

The story hadn't appeared yet. Not in her inbox, not on the site, nowhere.
Annoyed, she looked for her backup to resend the story. She stared at the
screen in disbelief. It was gone. All her backups were gone, it was as if
the story had never existed. Frantically, she checked everywhere in her
electronic world. Gone.

Lady Starblade was furious. She swore in every language she knew, and some
she made up for the occasion. "Son of a wampa! I hope you get saber
fizzle!" Visciously, she punched the computer off, anger roiling off into
the night, an almost palatable thing. Fine, she would redo it tomorrow, she
certainly wasn't going to do all that work over again tonight.

++++++++++++++++++++++
Darth Yahoo luxuriated in the waves of anger coming from his victim. He
leaned back in his chair, his pleasure almost becoming a physical arousal.
Her emotions were always so strong, so pure. The Sith Lord again drew his
hand over his instruments, but this time he felt every minute sensation
against his skin. Power, that was all that mattered. Power was the best
aphrodiasic. The dark Sith Lord cast his mind out for his next victim.

++++++++++++++++++++++
Sami started writing furiously. At last she felt she could get a handle on
this plot bunny that was gnawing at her. Suddenly she heard her TV flick on.
Startled, she got up to look. Yes, it was on, playing some obscure little
anime channel. She watched a convertible fly through space, with a rough
looking cowboy inside. It landed in some electronic mecca, and Sami shook
herself. She turned the TV back off, frowning in puzzlement, and went back
to the screen.

It took a minute to get back into the flow of the story. She had just
finished the first paragraph when her rats started raising hell. Quickly she
got up to check on them. They seemed to be alright, other than running
around making more noise then any two rats had a right to make. Sami settled
them down and went back to the computer.

This time it took longer to get rolling on the story. The constant
interruptions were distrubing her inspiration. Eventually she added two
lines before her cat jumped on her lap. "Sabi" she scolded, half-heartedly.
She looked into Sabi's emerald green eyes, and sighed. "Bet you need to
eat." she told her friend.

When Sami finally got back to her computer, she was just plain disgusted.
She seemed to have picked up a virus somewhere. The only thing the screen
would show was a cutesy little cartoon dragon with a tag reading "Smaug"
around his neck, flying back and forth across the screen wiping out little
cartoon data bits.

Great. She would have to run a virus scan, check the systems, all that mess.
There went the story for tonight.

++++++++++++++++++++++
Darth Yahoo closed his eyes in sensual pleasure. This was working out better
than even he could have forseen. The Sith Lord drew in a shuddering breath
as he reached down to stroke his growing erection. He closed his eyes, and
opened his senses. Tendrils of Force coursed down electronic pathways.
Darth Yahoo found the desperate, the lost, the hopeless in front of their
electronic pacifiers. He drank in frustrations and biterness, rode the waves
of despair and pain. As he threw his net open wider, the knowledge of his
power over them made his climax twice as intense.

++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sorcha looked at her last words. 'Yoda glided down the runway, wearing the
Mr. Universe crown and sash.' She sighed in frustration. Nope, comedy
wasn't her thing. Backspacing over that she tried a new tack.

'Yoda looked on from backstage, ready to catch any wayward Padawans that
might have...' Her fingers rested on the keys. Might have what? She was
sure she knew where that sentence was going when she started, but it seemed
to have gotten lost in a dark alley and forgotten where it was supposed to
be.

She reached over to click on her stereo and Jeremy Iron's voice came out low
and menacing. "Yes our teeth and ambitions are bared; be prepared!" Ah,
Scar's song from the Lion King, now there was inspiration for a villan.

Backspacing again, she gave it another shot. 'The gallery was full of
dignitaries with bets on who would win...' Yuck! All her ideas seemed to
stall, as if they were being drawn into thin air. She wasn't the most
accomplished of the Chicks, but Sorcha knew she could write better than this
drivel. She had several wonderful plot bunnies clamoring around her bed, but
somehow tonight the words wouldn't arrange themselves to say what she meant.

Sorcha gave it up as a bad job, and closed down to read her latest silly
romance novel, 'Waves of Desire.' At least it had a good looking guy on the
cover.

++++++++++++++++++++++
Darth Yahoo cleaned himself up with a flick of the Force. He turned back to
his pannels, and moments later was profoundly relieved at his sense of
timing. Feeling an overwhelming dark presence behind him, he turned and
beheld his Master. Darth Yahoo slid from his chair onto his knees, bowing
almost to the ground before the dark shape.

The Sith Master stood there, amused. He was Master of all Sith, whether they
acknowledged him or not. Whether they knew of him or not. He had the
ultimate power over everyone, and like many with such power only felt the
need to exercise it occasionally.

"How are things going?" Darth Yahoo felt the words rather than heard them.
It was not mental contact, it was something more, or just perhaps different.

"Excellent, my Master. Not one Sith Chick has posted anything tonight.
Everything is going according to plan." The darkness thickened around the
Sith Master, and Darth Yahoo felt his Master's pleasure. The Sith Lord knew
he was forgiven for his earlier indulgence. Without comment, the Sith Master
was gone.

++++++++++++++++++++++
Angel settled in to her favorite chair, ran the icy bottle of Coca Cola over
her cheek and neck a moment to let the condensation cool her, and connected
to Sith Chicks. She blinked at the screen in shock. No messages. Not one
message from the Sith Chicks. No stories. No jokes. No 'everything's bad'
or 'everything's good'. Not even a post about the weather.

Angel wrote a short note. 'Hey guys, how about a round robin? Any ideas?"
She reached for her mouse...

++++++++++++++++++++++
Darth Yahoo sent his will coursing along the electronic synapses of his
computer dominion, but it was too late. Angel's post appeared.

+++++++++++++++++++++++
The Sith Master looked with icy anger at the words on his screen. So the
little upstarts had foiled their hidden adgenda once again. He stared
thoughtfully at the post, his anger cooling into cold calculation. If there
was only some way he could harness the power of the Sith Chicks, he could
direct it at his will. Thinking hard, the greatest, darkest, most powerful
Sith Master of all, Darth RealLife made his plans.

Sorcha