Mebeth woke to the sound of Bo punching the wall.

“What is it?” she asked, rolling to her feet.

He span to face her, cradling his hand. “Oh, hey there, Miss Keep-the-Humans-Company. What is it, you say? They’ve taken off and taken our weapons, that’s what.”

His words shocked any morning weariness away and she scanned the room. Bo’s blade was nowhere to be seen. Hers rested in her hand, where she had clutched onto it all night — clearly stealing it would have been too much of an ask. In a moment of panic, she wondered if they had gone for something more valuable and she brought a hand to her side, but her sabre still lay safe beneath the folds of her clothes.

Bo’s eyes were dancing. Wild. “Told you we shouldn’t have stayed,” he growled.

A flash of annoyance rushed through her, both at herself for not noticing their escape and at Bo for his reaction. “And I explained why that would be a bad idea.”

Bo said nothing and just stood there, panting. But she saw his eyes drift, down to the training blade she held. She had him at a disadvantage and he knew it.

He thinks I only have one trick up my sleeve, she thought. I can catch him out, get him on-side again.

With that, she threw it to him.

Surprised, he still caught it deftly, but rather than thanks, his eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“What’s wrong?” She chuckled, but the noise came out as a tinny sound in the chamber. “You can’t think I trapped it while we slept, surely?”

“People like you don’t give up advantages easily.”

Mebeth raised an eyebrow. “People like me?”

Bo opened his mouth to say something, but closed it without a sound. He shook his head. “We haven’t got time for this.”

Given the sheer density of anger around him, flocking as a cloud of birds before attack, Mebeth thought better of arguing. When Bo wheeled on his feet and took off, hurtling through the doorway, she followed. There could be traps, that was true, but Bo was without doubt first into every breach.

A few seconds later, she learned that her safety was a poor assumption, as Bo sped through the path of a sensor and its delayed reaction sent a hail of blaster fire screaming toward her at her head height. She swore and ducked forward into a roll, then pushed off the ground with the Force in a sprint which brought her level with Bo again.

“So,” she said between breaths, “what are you running after? Them, or our objective? This pace seems a bit fast for archaeology.”

He didn’t make eye contact when he spoke. “I’m going to make them pay.”

“You have a weapon again. You’re no worse off than when you started. Why go after them when you could spend that time making sure you get back before them?”

“Because I could spend that time making sure they don’t get back at all.”

“Bo.” She grabbed onto his wrist and brought them both staggering to a halt. “They could have killed us in our sleep.” Or you, anyway, she added mentally. “They didn’t. Getting out of here before them is the most revenge you should be after.”

Bo tore his arm free, hawkish eyes glaring out from under heavy, bald brows. “Don’t tell me what revenge I should or shouldn’t take.”

“If you go after them, I won’t follow.” Mebeth raised her chin, jaw set. “We’ll see how good you are defending yourself against two of them, on your own.”

“I’d manage.”

“You couldn’t even manage to keep your hands around your own blade. Take your chances, but I’m not cleaning up the mess.”

Mebeth found herself tracing the lines of Bo’s muscles as they worked silently around his jaw and neck, his teeth gritted together.

Eventually he relented. “Fine. We’ll do it your way. No hunting after ‘em. But if they run out of here with the only artefact and we’re stuck wandering this place forever, blame’s resting fully on you, you hear?”

She nodded. “Are you ready to head off, then? A little more logically, this time?”

“I…” Now that Bo had stopped moving and had calmed down, some of his anger seemed to have stalled. He kneaded his furrowed brow with one hand. “I’m going to scout ahead a bit, see which way’s which. If you take that route over there,” he nodded behind him, where a corridor led away into darkness, “I’ll take this one. We’ll meet in half an hour’s time, see which way looks most promising.”

Mebeth searched Bo’s face for any sign of other plans, but if anything, all he seemed was frustrated. “A good idea,” she said. “Don’t get distracted if you spot the others.”

“I can’t promise anything,” he replied, then look her in the eyes. “Will you be okay without a weapon?”

With only a slight hesitation, she answered, “More than you would.”

Bo snorted. “You’re not gonna’ let that go, are you?”

“Of course not.”

“Oh well. Back here, half an hour. Call me if you find anything.”

She nodded, then they both turned to follow their respective routes. Mebeth set off at a walk, but she heard Bo break into a jog. It did make her wonder if she was being too cautious about this, whether she should be racing to find her ticket out, but she pushed her doubts aside. She did, however, pick up her pace a little.

For the first time in what felt like a while, she was able to study her surroundings in detail. A high ceiling arched overhead, light from the wall sconces stopping just short of its stone, which bore simple engravings along its length. She wondered how long it had taken to carve out this entire mountain and whether such a thing could be done as well today.

As if to prove its size and grandeur to her, the tunnel went on for another eight minutes of fast walking with only small, empty side-chambers along its route before it hit a massive chamber.

Mebeth halted in the entrance, not because of shock at the room’s size, but because the floor had crumbled away beneath her. She looked down upon a pile of collapsed masonry, sloping away into two separate rooms below. The rubble pile had blocked their doors from the inside, but a quarter of each room lay bare.

The rooms seemed, to her, like antechambers. One was more refined than the other, with more elegant carvings and a half-covered table with straight-backed chairs. The other was almost barren, but it was darker and a sinister air clung to its walls.

Just then, her datapad chimed. Bo was calling her.

She answered the call, only just able to make out Bo’s voice above the static.

“Come quickly,” he said. “I’ve found the twi’lek.”

Mebeth jogged behind Bo along the corridors, a growing sense of trepidation gnawing at her mind. She used her frustration to feed into her connection to the Force, strengthening her resolve against whatever lay ahead.

“He’s just up ahead,” Bo panted.

Bo said he had found the twi’lek, but Mebeth wasn’t quite sure that ‘found’ was the operative word. For the twi’lek to stay in one place, and for Bo to act as he was, the twi’lek had to be dead. That was the truth of it, she knew that; how he had died was another matter. Why was Bo so out-of-breath?

They careered into a high-ceilinged room at a sprint, twisting to a halt at the foot of a great, grey stairwell. Sprawled across the edge of the first landing lay the broken body of a twi’lek. His blue limbs splayed across the jagged rocks at unnatural angles. Blue lekku rested, bruised and crushed, over his eyes and battered face. His back broke across the steps and masonry was scattered around him.

Mebeth hissed: a sharp intake of breath. “What happened here?” she asked, voice a whisper.

“Fell straight through the ceiling. Didn’t even cry out.”

“No, really. How did he die?”

Bo frowned at her and folded his arms across his chest. “Fell through the ceiling, like I said. Bout of fire followed him down. Must have disturbed something on the upper levels.”

“I’m pretty sure I would have heard that.”

He shrugged. “Maybe you were further away than you thought.”

Glancing at the body again, Mebeth gritted her teeth. Could Bo really think her that stupid? The marks that striated the twi’lek’s body with bruises and lacerations were obviously the work of a training blade. She’d seen the results of their strikes often enough. The hole in the roof was too uniform to have been a random occurrence, the slabs of rock too small and sparse to take such advantage of one gifted with the Force. Of course, there was always the possibility that the humans had done this.

Mebeth strongly doubted that that was the case.

Nonetheless, she kept all trace of emotion off her face, apart from perhaps a feigned glimpse of pity. Announcing her suspicions would give up an advantage, of a sort. One which she could not afford to give. Instead, she stepped forward and pried the twi’lek’s training blade out of his still-warm hand. She tested its weight in the air, then nodded to Bo, unsmiling.

“A fortunate find. It looks like we’re on even footing again,” she said.

Bo shot her a slight smile in return, but she noticed a tiny flash of relief pass over his features.

“Anyway,” he said, “you find anything? Not sure I want to try where he came from.”

She nodded. “I think I have. Back there along the corridor there were two chambers, each partially buried. I didn’t get to examine them much before you interrupted, but there could be more down there.”

“Well, if there’s nothing down there,” Bo jerked his thumb at the corpse, “we’d best move quick so we can explore this way before he starts to smell.”

Mebeth scowled at him, but they ran back together toward the rooms she’d found before Bo called her. They were, of course, just as she’d left them, but she noticed now a subtle tug, a solid mass in the web of the dark side which called to her.

Bo obviously felt it too, and she saw his face light up in anticipation.

Staring at the two opposing rooms, one sparse, the other refined, she said, “If you were a Sith lord and you chose a place like this as your stronghold, where would you keep your priceless relics? In a place you access yourself or a place you choose to show off to your guests and people of power?”

He snorted. “To show off, of course. Why, you reckon it’s down that way?” He gestured at the refined chamber.

Mebeth remained silent. Power is victory. And knowledge shared is power diminished. She had fixated upon the other path, herself. The design of this place, the thought process of its architect, all pointed toward the practical path — the path not intended for guests. But she felt herself drawn to the other chamber. Light glimmered off gold inlaid in the walls, glanced off the backs of gilded chairs and glistened in the garnet eyes of idols. They winked at her, beckoning her in.

Bo had already taken his first steps.

“Help me out here,” he said. “Need to move this rubble.”

They began clearing the rubble, at first using just their hands and their accelerating the process with the aid of the Force. The dark side was strong here, lending strength to their limbs and hearts, but it was a sickly thing. They worked at a fevered pace, scrabbling like kath hounds at the mound of stone, eyes glazed, fixated on the invisible prize beyond.

How long they spent there, bent double over a dwindling pile of rocks, Mebeth could not say. When she regained control of her senses, it was as if she were waking up under the grip of some mind-addling illness, unaware of where she was or what she had been doing.

She forced her awareness out from under the murk clouding her mind. Torches with flames an eerie green lined the route they took, growing in intensity the further they walked. Bo walked beside her, in a trance of his own, completely oblivious. But he still clutched his training blade, she noticed, and so did she.

As she carried on, whispers touched her ears, the same way they had before in the cave on Alderaan. Lies, they told her, myths and falsehoods. Lies perpetuate vengeance perpetuate lies perpetuate…

She shook her head. She felt sick to the pit of her stomach. The Force was in turmoil here, a condensed region of turbulence centred on whatever lay ahead.

It was at that moment she realised the flames were not real. They were visions of the Force, just as the whispers were its tendrils reaching out to ensnare their minds.

At the last second, she tore herself free of the illusion and smashed into Bo with her shoulder, crushing him against the wall. The lights flickered, died and went out, replaced by reassuring orange flame, thick stone walls and a floor.

Bo cried out, not in pain, but horror. He slipped downward, front foot carrying the weight of his body down into empty space where the corridor gave way to a gaping pit in the mountain. Only just breaking free of his own illusion, he was confused, powerless to draw upon the Force to save himself. He reached out, hand grasping at the air by Mebeth, a primal cry for help bursting wordlessly from his expression…

And he fell.

Mebeth watched Bo drop away beneath her as if in slow motion, ages of inaction ticking past before she burst into action. She launched herself to the floor and stretched out her arm, reaching out to grab Bo’s hand as she hauled him toward herself with the Force.

Even so, taken unawares, she only just managed to take hold of his sleeve. It stretched out, a frail piece of fabric caught between her grasp and the fathomless void, before Bo came to his senses and latched on with his other hand.

Most people trying to do what she had done would have met an unfortunate end, dragged down into the depths with their companion, but then most people didn’t have the Force. Mebeth grunted, hauling him onto the remaining patch of corridor and flattening herself against the wall.

Bo panted and passed and hand across his eyes, wincing. “Thanks,” he said, then seemed to collect himself and smile at her. “So much for us being even again.”

“Even?” Mebeth raised an eyebrow, dusting off her shirt. “We were never that.”

He chuckled. A playful spark had appeared in his eyes again, bright with danger flashing underneath. But he shrugged and peered down into the fall which had nearly claimed him. “Guess we’re not finding anything down here, huh?”

She shook her head. “We would have been better trying the other chamber. Come on,” she stood, offering him a hand, “we ought to head back there.”

Clasping her hand, Bo dragged himself to his feet, nodded and turned to leave. Mebeth took one last look behind her, glancing down at whatever mysteries were lost to shadow, before joining him.

The entire way back they were plagued by the pull of the pit behind them, battling their minds and senses as they trudged onward. So it was with a breath of relief that they both returned to the chamber, where the strong tide of darkness ebbed into a dim, nagging sensation.

They stood for a moment, together in the gloom. Then Bo turned to face her, waving one arm in the direction of the other buried chamber. “Don’t fancy digging,” he said.

“No,” she agreed. “Not this time.”

As they walked toward the second mound, they joined their efforts together. Each taking bearing part of the rocks’ weight with the Force, they manoeuvred it, slow and steady, to the side wall before setting it down. It was easier than she’d expected, somehow — like the insidious limbs of the dark pit had strengthened as well as ensnared them.

“If this isn’t it, I swear…” Bo shook his head. “I could eat a bantha. An entire bantha.”

“Something tells me it wouldn’t be food that finished us off in this place. Come on.”

Mebeth led the way through the doorway they’d cleared. There were no torches lining the route this time, only a close blackness. While it didn’t have quite the sinister feel of the other passage, they were still blind, relying on intuition to steer them on their way.

Close behind her — rather too close for her liking — she could hear Bo running his fingers along the wall. For the first time since entering the stronghold, she realised she could no longer hear other sounds. No creaks, no groans, no rustles of sand dislodged. Only the sound of flesh brushing rock, their footsteps, her own breathing and Bo’s just behind her.

Darkness stretched out before them, and behind them, and with it came silence.

After a considerable length of time, it was Bo who broke the silence.

“If there’s nothing down there…” he began.

“It’s looking likely.”

He sighed, the warm air brushing past her neck. “If there’s nothing down there, where do you suggest next?”

Mebeth scowled and picked up her pace slightly, replying, “For all we know, there’s nothing under this mountain but droids and traps.”

“We could take a droid with us.”

“The Sith Academy has droids. The cantina has droids. The Republic has droids. The droids have droids. Everyone has droids,” she said. “Nobody’s interested in droids, especially when they’re hundreds of years old.”

“But d’you reckon Kant…”

“If two apprentices can take out a room of them, he isn’t interested.”

“Hmph,” Bo grunted and fell into silence once more.

Again, it was some minutes before he next spoke.

“If we don’t find anything…”

It was Mebeth’s turn to sigh. “Yes?”

“What will you do?”

“Me in particular?” she asked. “What have you done, run off with the goods?”

“And leave you all alone in here? Never.”

His words sounded friendly enough, but Mebeth wondered how much of it was true beneath the banter.

“Well,” she said, “you haven’t fallen through the floor again, so it looks like I’ll have no luck losing you that way.”

“If you wanted to get rid of me, could’ve just let me fall.”

She shrugged, the motion lost in the dark. “So I could. I missed a trick, there.”

“Nah, I’m just too charming not to keep around.”

“You wish.” She snorted. “I bet the twi’lek thought you were pretty charming, too.”

Bo gave no reply, and the air between them filled with sudden tension.

Eventually, he said, “I didn’t kill him, you know.”

Mebeth weighed her response carefully, though it only took a fraction of a second. “I know. I…”

She would have finished her sentence, but just then they burst through the last of the shadow into light, or what seemed like it. Mebeth halted on the lip of the doorway, Bo’s shoulder bouncing off her stationary back.

Before them lay a long chamber with a vaulted ceiling, held up by thick stone columns. Everywhere around them — on the ceiling, on the columns, on the walls, on the floor itself — runes were carved into the stone. They littered the ground beneath their feet, turning a smooth surface into a maze of calligraphy.

“Someone had too much time on their hands,” Bo muttered.

Mebeth took a few tentative steps into the room, spinning in a circle to examine the area around her. The runes seemed to have no order to them. They were haphazard, chaotic… but so was the Dark Side. They could be meaningless, but as trepidation began to tremble in her gut, she put herself on alert.

“Bo, don’t go too far.”

While she had been gazing at the runes, Bo had wandered further into the chamber. He turned to look at her now, raising an eyebrow.

“Come on,” he said, raising his arms, “you can’t say you’re scared of a few doodles?”

“You did read some of those books in the library, right?”

“Interesting ones, sure. Not so much the others. Why?”

“Surely someone told you something about it in all your time on Korriban.”

“Nope,” he said, then hesitated. “Might not have been paying attention.”

Mebeth shook her head, unimpressed. She didn’t know much about it herself, but assumed that in the home of the Sith, students might more easily stumble across teachings of alchemy. Perhaps Bo just was stupendously unobservant.

In the end, she said, “Let’s just say some Sith put more stock in doodles than you. We should move before we find out why.”

Though he didn’t look convinced, he followed her nonetheless, tagging along beside her as they approached the centre of the room. She couldn’t sense anything in the Force here, but that didn’t stop her feeling sick with nerves. She could have scolded herself for the weakness of that, but it was right to be wary. Wary kept you alive.

As she looked at Bo, she wondered if perhaps she had confused wariness and consideration with inaction and indecision in his case.

“Where’s the light coming from?” he asked of a sudden.

Mebeth stopped in her tracks. Looking around, she couldn’t see a single torch or source of light anywhere. And yet light permeated the space, brighter than any of the rooms they had visited so far. But it wasn’t a natural light; the entire chamber was bathed in a warm, orange glow.

Up the etched columns, she followed it with her eyes, tracing a path to the very peak of the vaulted roof. She fixed upon the source just in time to see a vivid gush of bright white. The ceiling melted away, carvings saturated into blank slates with the glow. A wave of light struck her eyes, reaching out and enveloping them in a searing blaze.

A jet of flame burst forth to greet them.

I can't help feeling that I'm writing this like the 'oh no, you rolled a fumble AGAIN' party. And I feel like maybe I've ended on too many cliffhangers. Ack!

Bo lurched to the side, tugging Mebeth after him, but there wasn’t enough time. Mebeth felt the first wave of heat pound down on her skull even as she raised a hand to ward it off.

The heat lessened as she used the Force to push the heat aside — and she saw Bo do the same — but then the flames themselves hit. Held above them by a fragile hemisphere, the air ignited. Liquid fire poured over its surface, wide tongues searching for an entrance.

It didn’t stop. Second by second, the sheer pressure of relentless energy pushed them back and down, knees buckling toward the floor. Mebeth’s hand had been pushed back so far it was almost touching her nose and it felt as if her hair had all been seared away. Her eyes stung in the heat and burned in the light. She couldn’t see Bo.

But then she felt cool air behind her and tumbled backward, dropping her temporary shield to scramble away from the unleashed fire. To her relief, Bo rolled away from it in time.

For almost a full minute the flames continued to race downward, roaring and buffeting and licking out along the floor. Bo and Mebeth stood well clear of the deluge, but they couldn’t help staring at it — a hungry and for now unstoppable force of nature.

Then as if with the flick of a switch, the fire went out, and its last tongues came to rest upon the ground.

Without further comment, Bo nodded to a door cut in the wall nearby. “Let’s carry on.”

Mebeth nodded, but ran her tongue around her parched mouth as they set off. It was like licking dust. Whatever was through the next doorway, they had to find some excuse to leave soon. If not, she was certain they’d die in this place.

“Blades out, this time,” she said, and they drew their training blades together, holding them ahead of them in readiness. It wouldn’t protect them against fire, but it would most things.

Bo examined the walls as they entered the next passage, though his interest was solely in detecting traps and not admiring the architecture.

“Wish the stingy Hutt-spawn’d just give us proper lightsabres,” he muttered. “Would make this a whole bunch easier.”

Mebeth said nothing.

“What do you think is so worth protecting?”

Paying more attention to the runes than to Bo, she replied, “Water, I hope.”

Bo snorted. “Don’t think there’ll be any water left in the whole mountain after that.” He gestured behind him, back to where the flames had been.

“I can’t help thinking that Kant would get far more value out of this place if he got us to study its writings and mechanisms rather than bring back any random artefacts of slight note.”

“Sure, but that wouldn’t be a trial, would it?”

Nor would giving us lightsabres before we even began.

They rounded a corner and came face-to-face with another doorway, but this one was held shut with a small, wooden door. It looked out of place among all the stone and metal, but somehow it belonged. When she reached out to touch it, it was smooth and warm beneath her cautious hand.

“If this turns out to be someone’s bedroom…” Bo shook his head, hands on his hips.

“It won’t,” Mebeth said, then pushed open the door.

It swung inward without a sound and opened onto blackness. The scattered glowing eyes of some dying embers spotted the space, so Mebeth reached out with the Force. She felt for the subtle change of pace their heat caused in the atmosphere, felt their potential still lying in wait underneath, and coaxed them back into life.

She was surprised when she opened her eyes and saw them all light up. She hadn’t expected that to work, but there they were, and they illuminated the room around them.

“Neat trick,” Bo said, peering round the doorway. Then he whistled softly.

Mebeth nodded as she surveyed the area. Tight-rolled scrolls, pale in the torchlight, lay in heaps upon the floor. Some were covered by rubble, which had fallen in from a floor above, and by the limbs of broken shelves.

“If this doesn’t count,” she said, “I don’t know what will.”

As she said it, she felt a rush of elation. They’d made it. They’d both get out of here alive. All the years of training, all that time seeking after knowledge and not being allowed it…

Then Bo reached for one of the scrolls and it crumbled to dust. The particles scattered, blown by a wisp of breeze with no origin but disappointment.

He paused, hand still hovering above the floor, and Mebeth’s heart sank.

“There must be hundreds of scrolls here,” he said, half hopeful, half concerned.

She glanced about, frowning at the parchment on the floor. They could spend ages just searching for a scrap. Finally, she said, “There’s a quick way to sort this out.”

“Sounds like that sentence comes with a ‘but’.”

She nodded. “It could leave us with nothing, but that would be the case even if we spent ages searching.”

“Nothin’ to lose, then.”

Grimacing, she shrugged her shoulders and began to stir the air in the room. It was only a gentle movement, enough to jostle the scrolls just a fraction, but even so they soon disintegrated. Cloying parchment dust filled the air, floating in a lazy spiral around them.

“Got one!” Bo called.

Mebeth turned to look and sure enough, he stood cradling a small, leather cylinder. He held it out in front of him as if it could fall apart at any moment — which it probably could.

“Good.” She breathed a sigh of relief.

Bo smiled and chuckled slightly, tension falling out of his shoulders.

“Well, let’s not waste time,” she said. “We…” She hesitated, then brought her attention back to her surroundings. All the dust had settled now, layering itself on top of nothing but rock and wood. “Only one, you said?”

Hearing movement behind her, she turned to see Bo place the scroll gently to one side. A change had come over him. A shadow passed across his features, obscuring anything that had come before.

With white knuckles, he held his blade before him, then fixed his eyes on her. They were empty.

Mebeth looked at him askance, eyes flashing a warning. She took a step forward. “Bo…”

“I worked for this,” he said. His voice was breathy with excitement. “I deserve this. I won’t let you have it.”

She wanted to reason with him. She wanted to try. But as much as she wracked her brain, she couldn’t think of anything to justify them both leaving this room together. And even as she did, the growling whispers of betrayal began to gnaw their way up from her heart.

Mebeth met Bo’s gaze and for a second, as she laid her hand upon the hilt of her blade, a second of understanding passed between them.

But then Bo rushed toward her, mind set upon the kill.

I was rooting for the both of them to make it out alright.

I changed my mind so many times when planning this chapter whether they would both make it or not!

Adrenaline surged into Mebeth’s system with a jolt. She brought her training blade up just in time to intercept Bo’s strike, the shock of it lancing down her arms as the blade caught its full force. A loud clang echoed around the chamber.

Bo arced his blade over his head, then back down stronger than before, but she caught it at a glance this time and diverted it sideways. A swift kick at Bo’s shins made him step back beyond her reach.

With that, Bo gave up on a purely offensive assault and flicked his blade into a back-handed grip, shielding its movements behind the length of his arm. He regarded her warily now, but his eyes still held a maddened blaze and every muscle in him was tensed for action.

Mebeth lunged forward before he had time to attack. She brought her blade up in a sweeping arc as she lunged, but he knocked it to the side and jabbed toward her face. Ducking beneath it, she spun to the side. She lashed out, and the blade connected to his ankle with a satisfying crack.

For a second, Bo stumbled, but he regained his feet with a scream of pain and fury. He slashed at her face, punching with his free arm when she caught the blow.

Pushing the blow aside with the Force, Mebeth kept moving forward. Bo’s style was solid and unpredictable for now, but left a lot of time between attacks. She would have preferred two blades to press the attack, but that wasn’t an option here. Yet.

A few more punches rained toward her midsection, but she blocked them all, either with the hilt of her blade or with the Force. She even caught him a few glancing blows across his knuckles, but the pain didn’t faze him.

From the look on his face, it was clear Bo was getting increasingly frustrated with his inability to land a hit. He began to put more power behind his punches. As much as she could easily repel them, they were beginning to wear her down. She found herself creeping backward as they fought, ever closer to the wall.

While she was distracted for a split second, Bo seized his chance and landed as solid punch on her jaw. Though she cushioned it at the last second, the pain of it flashed through her system. She instinctively lashed out with the Force, knocking them both back several feet as Bo tried to ward it off.

As she sprang to her feet, Mebeth seethed. She charged at Bo, harrying him with a series of lightning strikes in a half-likeness of Jar Kai, knocking any incoming blows aside with a Force-shielded fist.

Bo held his own as best he could, but soon smashed against the far wall.

Arms raised high for a final, strong blow to his head, Mebeth failed to take his desperation into account. He rushed in under her attack and headbutted her. One of his horns caught her just below the eye and she cried out, slashing down where he stood. But Bo stepped aside and caught the blade in one hand. Holding both blades above his head, he brought them screaming down.

Then both blades splintered. There was a roar, and the room filled with blazing red. Mebeth’s lightsabre growled as if in hunger, cutting across the rhythm of the fight. It danced a dazzling arc and came to a halt with its tip no more than a centimetre from Bo’s neck.

He pressed back against the wall, and even though the sabre hummed, the room grew quiet. Its light glimmered as a thin line in his pupils, which gazed toward it in trepidation.

Quietly, he asked, “Where did you get that?”

“Alderaan,” she replied, panting.

“What?”

“I’ve always had it.”

Bo’s eyes flickered to her face, then, and it seemed some hurt lay behind them, more than any injury caused by the fight.

“How?” he asked.

Now that the fight was over, Mebeth’s anger slipped away from her and she only felt tired. She lowered the blade — though she kept it active — and stepped back.

“I found it,” she said, and then a thought came to her. She glanced up, looking Bo in the eye. “I found it here. I can say that. I found it here, and you found the scroll.”

Of all the replies she expected Bo to make, she hadn’t expected him to laugh, but he did so now. It was a bitter laugh and he turned his face away from her as he grimaced.

“No,” he said. “No, I don’t think so.”

“What?” Mebeth frowned and took half a step forward. “Why not? It’s the perfect-“

“You’d let me go back with my tail between my legs, all the time knowing you had me at your mercy? Nah. Not me.”

“I’d let you go back alive. Surely that’s all that matters?”

He glared at her then, and the cold grey of his eyes cut into her like shards of ice. “You really want to let someone go who’s seen you’re weak?”

She narrowed her eyes. “What?”

“Mercy,” the word oozed out of his mouth. “Compassion. You really think that’s what the overseers are looking for?” He laughed again, but the noise was hollow and sad. “Leave me in this cave alive and you might as well join the Jedi.”

With a flash of anger, Mebeth took one look at his grimacing face and drew her arm back, then slammed him against the wall. She held him there, the weight of her will pushing him back against the rock, but still he laughed. She drew back and slammed him again, and again and again until her arms and mind were weary with the effort.

At some point, he stopped laughing, and some time after that Mebeth let him drop down to the floor, limp.

She stood there until she was certain she could still hear him breathing, then took the scroll and left. There was no point in killing him, after all. He wasn’t the enemy. Nor were the Jedi, at the basest level.

No, peace was the enemy, or the notion of it, and the Empire was the grand engine that struggled against its fallacy. Bo was a tool of the Empire. So was Mebeth, and so was every other Sith in the galaxy. Unless they hindered its progress, what right had any of them to bicker and fight amongst themselves?

All in all, full embracement of the dark side was inefficient. Today, Mebeth had tempered it with pragmatism. After all, Bo may have survived, but he’d still have to make it across the desert when he came to.

Mebeth stepped out into the diminishing light of her second day by the mountains. A cruel, chill wind cut across the sands, slicing the skin of her hand as she drew it across her eyes.

She was weary, and not just with tiredness but with exertion, the weight of which was beginning to make itself known. But still, a calm certainty lay over her — a sureness that had come with the choice of leaving Bo alive.

The revelation felt sudden to her. Perhaps it had been her subconscious throwing an excuse out to delay any rash decisions, but the thought had made perfect sense.

Peace.

One step, then another, and she set out into the desert. It would be a long walk, and a cold one in the night.

Peace was at the centre of everything. In a way contradictory to its definition, the notion of peace was the cause of every bit of conflict in the galaxy, perhaps in the universe, in all existence.

For if one wanted to put a better name to peace, she mused as she trudged across the sand, and began to draw on the Force to warm herself, then it would be ‘lack’. Lack of conflict, lack of feeling, lack of caring. For peace to truly exist, there could be nothing.

The night wore on.

Everything decays. Everything peaceful becomes wroth. Everything good becomes sour. A call for peace was a call for the cessation of existence itself. Peace could only exist when reality ended and the word ceased to have meaning or definition.

Those in pursuit of peace could for a time have the illusion of success — a battle won, even a reign of thousands of years — and yet their armies would wither, their civilisation would crumble, and the cycle would begin anew. The Jedi, in their dogged fight for serenity, achieved nothing more than fanning the flames.

Even as Mebeth mulled over the ideas, as the warmth fuelled by her inner flames crept through her, she lost her train of thought. Why peace was a lie, but absolute chaos was not agreeable, she couldn’t remember.

She realised she had been walking for days, repeating the same principles over and over, imagining the rise and fall of the galaxy from beginning to end. Her body was numb; her thoughts had grown apart from them.

Mind and matter joined again as two seas meeting, crashing against each other and tumbling over. Her mind, which had been ordered and almost robotic in its manner, eventually succumbed to the heavier, darker weight of her physical spirit. It had fed on hunger and pain while she thought, bolstering itself with the dark side, keeping her alive and marching onward.

All concepts and ruminations cast aside, she raised her eyes from the floor and halted. Her senses, now enhanced, picked up a pale shadow of life beyond the crest of a dune. It ambled about, slow-minded at first, then with a mental quickening of fear.

Mebeth picked up the pace.

Upon reaching the top of the dune, a wraid came into view. It swung its club-like arms in a directionless panic, beating great swathes of sand into the sky. In it, Mebeth saw her way out.

She advanced down the opposite bank, one arm raised, reaching out to it with her tempestuous mind.

The wraid didn’t take to it kindly. It roared in anger and confusion, the terrified whips of its thoughts battering her own, fighting back at the same time as retreating. Mebeth collected her thoughts, fed her anger off its own, and pressed onward.

A thin wail broke from the creature’s lips as it buckled under the pressure of her will, straining on one knee to stand. It growled, dragging itself forward. Then, only a metre from Mebeth’s outstretched hand, it stopped.

Mebeth remained still. Its teeth were bared. Its nostrils quivered, the scales around them pulling back. The whites of its eyes flashed and a rumble began deep in its throat. And then its mind broke, and its voice became a pitiful whimper.

So Mebeth made the creature bow before her and stepped up onto its back. Though she had forced the connection between its body and spirit apart, she could still feel its mind in turmoil beneath the surface. She began to turn this pain and anguish to her own cause before spurring the wraid onward, aware that its torment would be her only sustenance for the coming days — or perhaps weeks.

Whether it was weeks or days in the end, she could not have guessed. She passed across the wastes in a stupor, awake constantly to maintain control of the wraid, nodding alert every now and then only to see the desert stretching out as it had been before, in every direction. She had never quite appreciated the size of the desert before being in its midst, alone. Though Horuset beat down on it, it was colder than the snows of Alderaan even during the day. Or so it seemed.

After many miles, when her stomach no longer ached and the dry conglomeration of her tongue inside her mouth felt normal, she spied something in the distance. When next she was conscious enough to notice it, she saw it was a small dig site — an outpost with some scant few tents and a couple of covered speeders.

As much as her body begged her to stop, she wanted to get to the academy directly. She wouldn’t stop for anything.

Instead she called to one of the foremen as they loped past. His eyes widened as he turned to see her croak out, “Call for food and drink to be ready at the academy.”

And then she was gone.

She remembered nothing from there to the entrance of the academy, where the wraid finally collapsed. It died on the spot, and Mebeth left it there at the bottom of the ramp without pause.

Her body had begun to eat itself from the inside out. There was nothing holding her together but the power of the Force; she had to force her trembling legs up the slope, but kept her head held high.

Along the corridors she marched, following a trail of nervous slaves and the starvation-heightened smell of food. When at last she reached it in her old shared quarters, she dove upon it with voracious appetite, not caring the slightest what the food was, nor the drink she consumed.

She didn’t remember finishing the meal. She didn’t remember climbing into bed. But at some point, her head sank into the pillows and her mind slipped into oblivion.

Mebeth’s mind strove back into awareness with the persistence of a snarling hunger. Her fingers twitched with restless energy, her body refuelled by last night’s feast but yet too weak to constrain the full force of a will so long kept active. While she had just had one of the deepest sleeps of her life, there was a part of her which had not laid down to rest.

In evidence of this, a pain stabbed through her stomach. It startled her fully awake, drawing a sharp breath, and she opened her eyes,

It was strange, really, how a few days’ journey in dismal conditions could so radically alter one’s view of the world. When Mebeth took in her surroundings, familiar though they were, she felt as if she were looking upon the world anew. The difference would have been imperceptible in description, but to her it was plain as day.

Getting up, she swung her legs over the side of her bunk and slipped down to the floor. A collared human stood by the door, eyeing her warily.

“What?” Mebeth grunted, adjusting her tattered clothing.

The man’s skin was stretched thin across his bald head, and she could see the thin tracings of veins underneath. “Overseer Kant has commanded your presence, ma’am.”

That came as no surprise, but Mebeth glanced around the room. “How long have you been standing there?” she asked.

“I was commanded to remain here until you awoke, and only to disturb you once you had done so.”

Uncommonly kind of him, she thought, but said, “Thank you,” and turned to leave.

“Ma’am,” the slave called after her, “would you not rather a change of clothes and a warm bath? We have made such preparations, and I am led to believe that the overseer is not impatient for your arrival.”

Mebeth hesitated for a moment, but could see no reason to refuse, so she allowed herself to be led through the corridors of the academy to the baths, where she sank into the water’s warm embrace with all the sighing pleasure of any who had seen nothing but sand for days.

She stayed in the water until she was quite clean, and until the chill of the surrounding air began to be a nuisance more than the water’s appeal. The slaves gave her no choice of clothing, but there was nothing to fault in their selection.

So it was some time around midday that Mebeth finally arrived by the overseer’s chambers, shrugging a cropped leatheris jacket over a too-big blouse and faded utility trousers. Her lightsabre she had tucked into one of the pockets, not too certain of having it on display yet.

The door opened even as she reached it.

“Come in,” came the voice of Overseer Kant.

She entered to see the overseer standing behind a worn recliner with a small kolto administration unit tucked between its legs. Her eyes flickered to his mechanical throat. She wondered how much pain it caused him.

“So, you made it,” he stated, matter-of-fact. He didn’t gesture for her to sit.

“I did.”

“I trust you remembered the purpose of your visit and did not succumb to the cowardice of fleeing?”

Mebeth snorted at the suggestion, but reached inside her jacket and pulled out the musty scroll, offering it to Kant.

He eyed it with suspicion, but took it and turned it over in his hands. “Is this it?”

She meant to remind him that scrolls were meant for reading, and he couldn’t possibly know what ‘it’ was before bothering to take a closer look, but she bit her tongue. She hadn’t read it herself, after all, and now wondered if she would regret that. Instead, she said, “That’s it,” and added, “The traps, combat droids and jets of fire proved rather more difficult to contain.”

Kant narrowed his eyes at her, but tucked the scroll away onto his shelf before speaking again. “Then it seems I have no choice but to make a proper Sith of you.”

Mebeth managed to restrain a smile — just.

“But,” Kant said, and her heart sank, “First I would like to know what happened to the others. They don’t appear to have returned. Was that your doing?”

She shook her head. “No more mine than their own. I met two of the humans once. One was injured. Both fled and I saw neither again. I found the twi’lek apparently crushed by rocks in one of the stairwells, but judging by the injuries I think it more likely that one of the others finished her off.”

“That makes three.” Kant’s hands tightened on the back of the recliner. “What of the zabrak?”

Mebeth hesitated, looking the overseer in the eyes, until some moments later she said, “He suffered a fall. There was an illusion, luring him onwards. He followed it until the floor disappeared beneath him and he fell. I was travelling with him at the time, but I had no food and didn’t stop to check if he was dead.”

“He fell. Of course.” Kant seemed unconvinced. “Then two may yet live?”

“Possibly, but I don’t know if they’ll have been able to find anything else in the fortress. All the other scrolls were old and crumbled to dust. Everything else was either murderous, common or too affixed to the scenery.”

Kant scoffed. “My threats to those returning empty-handed were meant to serve as incentive, not promise. Those returning as such shall live, certainly, but they will find their upwards progress somewhat limited until they prove themselves afresh.”

Mebeth nodded. A part of her had expected as much.

“So,” she asked, “what do I do now?”

“Due to the nature of your coming to our academy, the manner of your leaving will not see much change. You have no need to seek a sponsor or a master to serve; you are still apprenticed to Lord Constantia. I expect he will give orders for your continued service and education.” Kant began to pace, tapping the recliner with one hand. “We have tried to contact him, but as always he remains aloof. If he shouldn’t respond even to you, you may of course remain here to continue your studies.”

“Thank you,” Mebeth said, although she hadn’t truly begun any studies upon Korriban to know what there was to continue. She would either have to bury herself in books or seek a tutor, and all the while she would be surrounded by other apprentices and hopefuls. She didn’t mind the idea, but nor did she cherish it.

Eventually, as Kant wore more of the bruised carpet down, she asked, “So nothing much is to change for me, then?”

“A little greater respect, perhaps, though that is solely through the merit of your achievements, and the strength of your presence, should you be cunning enough to keep it honed. That and the fact that you are now permitted to wield a lightsabre. The slaves will show you the facilities — I would advise you forge one for your own.”

Another hesitation, then Mebeth inclined her head. “I don’t need to.”

Kant laughed, “Then good luck—“

She brought out the blade from her trouser pocket and held it up — still in a firm grip — for Kant’s inspection.

“You found this as well and didn’t think to tell me?”

Mebeth shook her head. “I didn’t think to tell anyone at the time. I found it years ago, on Alderaan. When I was eight,” she added.

Kant's eyes gazed down at the blade intently. She wasn't sure if he was examining it or trying to burn into it with the power of his sight. He could probably see Mebeth's knuckles whitening as she tightened her grip. She had had the blade for too long to give it up, but this was the time more than any else to show it.

Eventually, Kant's lips hardened into a thin line and he said, his voice a little strained, “I see. You’ve had it all this time?”

“I have.”

He sniffed. “Were I your master, I would have forestalled that privilege. But what’s done is done. Go,” he said. “Go and find your master, if for some reason he finds your communication more enticing than that of his peers.”

Mebeth inclined her head, sharply, then backed out of the room and headed for the cantina, buoyed by a creeping new sense of freedom.

Mebeth hunched over her datapad with a mug of tea cupped in one hand; she imagined anything stronger may have seen her turned down as too young to drink and although she could make a scene about it, she would rather not be embarrassed in her present company.

These couldn’t be called company, as such. A small cluster of older Sith, no lords or ladies among them, they had been gossiping across the other side of the bar for the best part of an hour. Three human males laughed and took swigs of bitter while a woman scowled at a pureblood, already deep in his cups with malice and mirth in his eyes.

She had been listening to them for some time, having sent an inquiring message to Lord Constantia earlier. Now she just browsed through holo-ads without paying them much attention, both ears trained on their conversation.

“—should have seen how easy it was to wipe ‘em out,” the pureblood was slurring, leaning back against the counter. “Pathetic bunch of baseborn cowards. Took hundreds of thems myself. Galasy won’t miss ‘em a jot.”

She heard two of the men clink glasses and laud his achievements, barely less drunk themselves, though the other said, “I heard they didn’t even fight.”

The pureblood snorted. “Juss’ shows how weak they are. Don’t fight for yourself, don’t be ‘prised to die. And why,” he waved his glass in the air, one finger pointed aimlessly, “why should anyone save ‘em? ‘Public didn’t, who will?”

“There’s hardly any glory in killing civilians who don’t even fight back,” the woman muttered.

From the glimpses Mebeth got of her, in the occasional reflection off the bartender’s metal mixers and tumblers, she didn’t seem impressed. Her crossed arms, stiff shoulders and frequent sharp glances at one of the humans was indication that she wasn’t entirely there by choice. She was probably here for the company of one, and soon may be loathe even to that.

“S’not about glory.” The pureblood crossed his legs and curled a hand through his long, black hair. “Is about teaching them a lesson.”

“And what lesson is that? You want them to fight back?”

He shrugged. “You said it yourself: no fun when they don’t.”

“Oh yes,” her lips curved into an icy line and her words dripped with sarcasm, “because you so love them to fight back, don’t you? Or…” she paused, tapping a finger against the bar, “…perhaps not. You can’t fight villagers with a mind of their own and from what I hear — which isn’t so very difficult with your loose tongue — you can’t ‘take them’ conscious, either. I don’t think you go after glory. You’re just weak.”

The pureblood bridled at her comments and nearly fell off his chair as he swayed upright. The men all became suddenly silent; even the bartender placed a glass back with special caution.

“I’ll have you know…” the pureblood started. His breath reeked, even from where Mebeth sat, and she caught sight of the fiery glow of his eyes from the distorted bulge of a bottle of Corellian red.

He suppressed a belch, then carried on, “I’ll have you know, I defeated Jedi upon Ord Radama.”

Mebeth paused in her scroll along the adverts. The name rang a bell, but she couldn’t quite remember why. In any case, the woman spoke again.

“One Jedi. Not even that. A Padawan, barely weaned off training blades, no doubt.”

“She had a light… a lightsub…” He stumbled over the word for a while before giving up.

“You didn’t even kill her,” the woman sneered. The man next to her shuffled in his seat.

“She suffered.” He tried to make an emphatic point by gesturing, but ended up punching his neighbour’s arm. “As all Jedi should.”

“Suffered? Lord Bekos says she was asleep when he found you upon her. And what use in letting her live?”

But the woman would no sooner get a reply than the pureblood would walk in a straight line. He launched into a furious tirade against Lord Bekos, gesticulating so wildly that he dizzied himself, fell off his chair and had to be escorted by his now somewhat reluctant and cowed companions. They shuffled away around the corner and the bartender resumed his cleaning duties.

Shaking her head, the woman got up to leave, but Mebeth slipped off her bar stool and walked over to her before she moved off.

“Excuse me,” she said.

The woman blinked and looked down at her, though Mebeth’s latest growth spurt put her only a few inches shorter.

“What do you want?” she asked, though not unkindly. “You the one who came back from the trials yesterday, aren’t you?”

Mebeth nodded, but got to the point. “Who was that man?”

“Which?”

She raised an eyebrow. “The drunk one, who got carried away.”

“Ah, Drunkenwell.”

“That’s his name?” Mebeth frowned.

“Oh, now, that’s…” The woman’s mouth opened and closed while she searched for an answer. “That would take a long time to explain. In any case, that’s Zoro Choress. Mad as a shyrack, with no less than tens of ill-begotten spawn littering the galaxy if vague approximations are all to go by.”

“How do you mean?”

The woman looked her up and down, then, and even there in the heart of the Sith Empire, she clearly decided the truth was too much for a girl of fourteen. Instead, she waved it away with, “He has done a great many evil things. Pointless things. Unwarranted, unskilled and unlicensed. Steer clear of him.”

“What did he do on Ord Radama?” Mebeth meant to ask, but she was interrupted by a series of metallic thumps and several cries of protest outside.

Both Mebeth and the woman turned to the doorway along with the bartender and in clanked Four-Three, trailing a stream of disgruntled guards and slaves. Its head whirred for a moment, scanning the room, before its eyes settled upon Mebeth.

“Ah,” it began, “you survived, then. Good. Lord Constantia sends his regards.”

“I’m sorry, could you expand on ‘busy’?”

“No.”

Mebeth ground her teeth together as she sat across the table from Four-Three. They had withdrawn to a private meeting room after the droid’s arrival — and some hasty apologies to the guards. Now, she couldn’t get the slightest bit of useful information out of it.

“Why?” she asked.

“Lord Constantia instructed me that his activities were not to be revealed. Therefore I may say busy, but no more.”

She sighed. “Okay, so what do you have for me?”

“Eight hundred thousand galactic credits.”

Mebeth blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“There’s no need to apologise, mistress,” the droid said.

“Eight hundred—”

“—thousand—” Four-Three corrected.

“—credits,” Mebeth finished, scarcely believing it even as she spoke the words. “H-how?” She gathered her wits a little. “Why?”

“The master’s final words on the matter were that he would not need it where he was going. As for how, of course, it is quite simple. We sold your estate.”

Mebeth frowned. “My estate?”

“Oh yes.” Four-Three’s tone managed to seem nonchalant, through its tinnish quality. “It was sold quite some time ago, after you first came into service of the master. As the only surviving member of that family, not that your name was on any official record, the proceeds of the sale went to you. Commission and acquisition fees were paid to the Empire first, obviously. You took half the cut.

“I think you will agree that it fetched quite a handsome price, once we made sure to dig a grave for the bodies. A shame the majority of the thranta could not be recaptured, or the price would have been significantly higher.”

The bodies. She had left them there, of course, all those years ago. Abandoned out in the snows of Alderaan. Fresh anger boiled up inside her at the memory, but it was tinged with sadness. She quashed it, then returned to the matter at hand.

“That’s enough to buy a house, I imagine?”

Four-Three tilted its head to one side. “A house? Certainly, but it very much depends upon the planet. Apartments are a far safer choice, more commonly available throughout the galaxy, especially in large cities. I would advise several strong investments, the acquisition of a steady income and the rent of a property that income can maintain, to begin.”

Mebeth shook her head, “I’m not really looking…” then paused. She would have to find somewhere to live — and sooner, rather than later. But she’d been looking to Lord Constantia for direction, here at the completion of her trials, and now that he was gone… was this perhaps his next test?

“You look confused, ma’am,” Four-Three said. “If you are worried about managing your investments, I was going to recommend befriending a banker, but the master briefly described that that can be problematic. He has assigned some of his staff to manage the funds for you, if you wish.”

Nodding, Mebeth absent-mindedly agreed, but added, “And could you ask them to arrange accommodation for me, on Ziost?”

“Of course. Your old quarters are no longer available, but something else will be found. When do you intend to leave?”

Mebeth swept a cursory glance around the room, grimacing. “As soon as possible, but there’s one thing I need to do first.”

“That is?”

She didn’t clarify at first, but clasped her hands together on the table and leaned forward. “Four-Three, tell me, what are the core concepts of your programming?”

“I obey my master’s commands, and that of the Empire.”

“In which order?”

Four-Three whirred a little before answering. “My master is a servant of the Empire.”

“But if he happened to do something against its values, by accident, say?”

“Then I would reproach him for his actions.”

“But you wouldn’t stop him?”

A silence, then, “No.”

“And what are Lord Constantia’s orders regarding me?”

Sensing the direction of her questions, Four-Three replied miserably, “Of the rules I can tell you, the only one is that I must serve you as I serve the master. If,” it added with a note of triumph, “it causes no harm to him.”

A slow smile crept over Mebeth’s features and she tapped her clasped hands once, lightly, against the table. “Don’t worry, no harm will come to him, as long as we’re not caught.”

Four-Three sank visibly lower in its seat. “Caught, ma’am?”

With a thrill of excitement coupled with hate, she brought to mind the face of Zoro Choress, mottled with alcoholic warmth and boasting of his conquests. She brought to mind the mother she had never known — a Jedi, maybe, but flesh and blood all the same. Would she have abandoned her to the snow? Probably not, if she had survived. Mebeth couldn’t exactly blame herself for her mother’s death, but it seemed there was one man who may be blamed for Mebeth’s birth.

“Ma’am,” Four-Three said, slowly, “Can you expand upon ‘caught’?”

Mebeth turned her attention back to it and her smile drained away. “I need you to help me kill a man.”

It didn’t take long to find out where Zoro Choress lived. A great many pureblood tongues were eager to lament him as the runt of a once-great household. His fortune, boundless. His talents, few. That his legitimate bloodline would end with him was a relief curtailed only by the dwindling numbers of the species as a whole.

Mebeth realised that the other purebloods didn’t regard her with curiosity because of her questions, but rather because they couldn’t place her. While their community could by no stretch of the imagination be called close-knit, it was likely they were all aware of each other. Mebeth was new, an outsider. But their interest only ever lasted until they decided she didn’t merit their attention. That interval was painfully short.

Regardless, she now made her way to his chambers along corridors which grew in subtle riches as she drew closer. Choress had bribed his way to this location, of course. His standing would otherwise see him in the shared quarters, most likely.

“Mistress, I must say…” Four-Three began.

“Quiet,” she said for the hundredth time that evening.

Four-Three withdrew back into its sulk. The manner in which it kept turning on its axis to look back over its shoulder was beginning to gnaw at the end of Mebeth’s tether. The droid’s nerves mingled with her own rising sense of anger.

Neither emotion suited her now and she half expected any of the dozens of guards to stop them as they travelled, but none took notice — or if they did, they feigned ignorance. Still, Mebeth couldn’t find that reassuring.

They reached Choress’ chambers unnerved, undisturbed and unannounced. The sterile red light of the locking mechanism served as silent observer to their arrival, but a faint thrum of music crept through the closed door. Choress was home, then.

Mebeth hesitated, then buzzed the lock. The music didn’t stop, but the door slid open a few seconds later.

With a glance back at Four-Three — and a quick jerk of the head to instruct it to stand outside — Mebeth entered the room. As the door slid shut behind her, she was greeted with the sight of Choress, his limbs sprawled at every fluid angle over the sides of a plush recliner. Empty bottles nestled around him on the floor, miscellaneous fluids spilled over priceless rugs, and a hidden sound system pumped deceptively loud music into the air.

Confused, she stood in the doorway, staring. Choress made no move to get up — and it was that fact alone, perhaps, that made her stay. The gall of his ignoring her riled her up. She stepped fully into the room, the door hissing closed behind her, and cleared her throat noisily. It was with some effort that she kept her arms by her side. She didn’t want to come into this encounter the aggressor.

“What?” Choress half croaked, half drawled from beneath the cover of one hand.

“Are you Zoro Choress?” Mebeth asked.

“I am.” The Sith nudged two fingers apart, peering out at her from a crimson frame. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh,” Mebeth shrugged, feigning nonchalance, and nudged a small pile of datachips to one side to sit on a stool, “I’ve heard a bit about you.”

“And?”

“I thought I’d come to hear more from the man himself.”

The finger gap closed again, but a second later Choress groaned and drew himself upright. To Mebeth’s surprise, his eyes locked onto her with complete clarity and alertness. There was some calculation behind his eyes, some hunger being fed behind the hungover façade.

Mebeth knotted her eyebrows together and blurted out the first question that came to mind. “Why the music?”

“What?” Choress frowned, himself.

“Why the music? I’ve heard hangovers give a nightmare of a headache. Doesn’t it aggravate it?”

Choress didn’t reply for a moment, but then chuckled and glanced away, a smile splitting his face. “You’ve only heard?” He turned back. “Really, the academy could always teach the blade, but never the world. But yes, yes the music does aggravate it. That’s the entire point.”

“How do you mean?” Mebeth was still a little taken aback by how much more coherent and well-spoken he was on his own. She had a nagging suspicion that he cultivated his earlier appearance, but why and to what effect, she couldn’t guess.

“Pain. Discomfort.” Choress made a slight move of his shoulders, brushing the issues aside. “If you feel them, you can feed on them, don’t you agree?”

Mebeth inclined her head in a half-nod. He was right, of course. She hadn’t travelled across the desert by feeling happy about herself.

“But you can’t have come here to ask me about my dubious taste in music,” Choress said, leaning against the side of the recliner. “What do you want to know?”

Even as she said it, she wasn’t sure she wanted to ask at all. “I heard you were at Ord Radama. What was it like?”

The light behind his eyes fired up afresh, though doubt flickered through them for a second before he answered. “Ord Radama? Oh, that was a fine battle. A complete rout. Fire rained down from the skies and through the streets. It was a fine victory.”

“What was your part in it?”

Choress laughed, brows low over his eyes. “Do you doubt what the others say about me?” he asked, then added in more concerned tones, “What do the others say about me?” and leaned forwards.

Mebeth blinked and stumbled about for words. “They say you fought a Jedi,” she said. “I haven’t met a Jedi yet, or fought one. What was it like?”

“Quick,” he replied. He drew back, then, satisfied with her question. “Yes, quick. Not that she was particularly weak, of course, but I defeated her easily.”

For the briefest moment, Choress’s eyes glazed over and his lips twitched upwards. She caught in that moment a sense of deeper hunger and unbidden malice, a lust for power and control, and she remembered why she had come here.

Choress recovered from his lapse of concentration, but it had sparked a fire in Mebeth. She felt it grow as he continued speaking of a different battle.

And yet as he spoke, her mind drew her attention to the countless guards she had passed on her way here, the fact that she was in the heart of the Sith Empire, the sheer number of questions sheer had asked to so many people to make her way here.

She watched Choress speak and it made her sick with rage. He lazed in front of her, a picture of indolence and boastfulness, a flawed glass waiting to be shattered. The rage grew inside her, twisting at her gut, howling in her mind to be released. Choress didn’t even sense it. Deep in his own story, he didn’t even see.

She cut Choress off mid-sentence by standing abruptly. His confused face was the last she saw in that room before she strode out with some flat excuses, hands clenching as she moved out of view of the door.

Moving faster now, she raced towards the academy entrance, holding herself back only by the strongest effort of will. Even then, she didn’t release it. She kept going until she found a secluded spot behind some rocks, well away from any signs of life.

The momentum broke. She yelled in frustration, all her anger pouring from her in waves and crashing against the rocks. It took hold of her, a roaring torrent coursing through her, blinding her to herself and her surroundings.

Some time later, the wave broke and her rage seeped away with it. She lay panting against a solid wall of rock, one fist bloodied, nestled amidst a patchwork mess of shattered stone. Her other hand hung by her side, limp, and she slipped down to the floor beside it.

She shuddered from the aftershocks of rage. All these years of training and she had never experienced it so raw and harsh. It only followed that she had never really learned to master it.

That fact in itself made her angry, so it was with a kind of patched-together resolution that she stood up, determined to find Lord Constantia, determined to continue her training herself until he could teach her better.

And if he couldn’t? If he couldn’t, she would find someone else.

Her return to the academy didn’t go unnoticed. People’s eyes followed her as she walked past them, mirthful, as if let in on some amusing secret. Perhaps they all knew. Perhaps they’d been waiting for her to misstep with Choress. The attention sent icy pins and needles crawling like static across her flesh.

She trudged up the steep stone slope of the academy, glowering at the floor. Her hands were thrust deep inside her jacket pockets to ward off worse attention; they were still bruised and bloody from her outburst.

A familiar voice caught her attention as she rounded the corner into the atrium and she hesitated in the entrance, looking up. In the centre of the room, beneath the looming obelisk, Lord Vodil stood, metallic face unreadable, clawed limbs dimly reflecting the ambient light.

Before him and dwarfed by his proportions was Bo. Alive. He was a little skinnier around the ribs and his skin stretched with unhealthy pallor across the bone structure of his face, but he was alive. How hadn’t he starved?

As she watched, Lord Vodil nodded once, then span on his heels and left, leaving some irritated but wary slaves frowning at the fresh scratches on the floor.

Bo bowed, turned and caught Mebeth’s gaze. Her heart stopped in her chest and a confused mixture of hate, disgust, guilt and relief swirled into the cacophonous void it left behind.

They stayed blinking at each other for several more uncomfortable moments until Bo dragged his feet into action and moved towards Mebeth. His eyes never left hers for a moment. If either of them chose to look away… it felt as if it would make that one weaker than the other.

“You survived, then,” she said when he came to a halt two feet away.

Bo ignored the statement and instead said, “I hear congratulations are in order.”

Mebeth paused for a moment. “Yes. I’ve passed the trials.” She trailed off, unsure what to say. She hadn’t been paying enough attention to catch any of his conversation with Lord Vodil. If Bo had failed, why has he been talking to him? Had he told Vodil what she had done to him in the stronghold? She searched his face for the answer, but found nothing.

“Where are you off to next?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” That was a lie, but in terms of overall direction, it felt more truth than any other answer.

“Hasn’t your master spoken with you?”

“No.” Mebeth frowned. She hadn’t expected Bo to be his usual joking self, not after the events they’d been through. But he was acting stranger still. He was curt, his spine straight and stiff, his words almost cut short as they spilt out. If he hadn’t wanted to speak to her, why was he?

An awkward silence stretched between them for a few more moments, then Four-Three arrived. He clanked up beside them, looked between the two and said, “Mistress, where have you been? I have booked your shuttle flight. It leaves in five minutes.”

Bo took one look at the droid, flicked his gaze back to Mebeth briefly, then left. She stared at his departing back until he disappeared from view, trepidation and unannounced sorrow dancing a jig in her stomach. He knew she’d lied about knowing where to go next, now. What he would do with the information… that was the question.

“Mistress, please…”

“Alright, Four-Three. I hear you.” Mebeth sighed. She had a feeling this wouldn’t be the last time she saw Bo. The next time might be twice as awkward and a thousand times as violent.

“We really ought to…”

“Yes,” Mebeth turned to glare at the droid, conscious of the staring guards and slaves, “I rather think we should.”

They walked together into the growing night, along the dust-and-boot-worn path to the landing pad. The last of Horuset’s bloodied light spilt across the weathered monoliths and beaten rocks, casting deep black shadows out behind them.

Mebeth couldn’t help feeling that by leaving Korriban, she was leaving something behind. There was so much history here, so much knowledge rooted deep into the rocks. She was leaving behind the opportunity to learn more from people who could teach her, to discover more about the skills she possessed than Constantia would ever reveal.

And yet she didn’t belong here. She hadn’t been born beneath this frigid sky. She hadn’t been raised on tales of it in centuries past, didn’t know anyone on its surface. She left because she had to, though maybe not because she should.

Still, even when she took her first step onto that shuttle, she realised she had no idea where she wanted her life to lead. She still possessed that same yearning and hunger for more that she had when stepping on her first shuttle all those years ago. She still wanted to learn and wanted to prove herself. She just had no idea where to start, who to turn to, what occupation to pursue.

They lifted off the planet’s surface and for the first time, the enormity of the galaxy hit her. There were so many options — a billion permutations and more, all waiting for her to take their path.

The thought should have excited her, but as they sailed further and further from Korriban, she slipped further and further into despair.

Late 3,642 BBY, Taanab:

Mebeth forced her eyes, burning with effort, over the same line of text she’d read ten times already, trying not to scream. Her fingers tapped a relentless rhythm on the desk beside her, drawing frustrated glances from the slim workforce occupying the other desks.

It wasn’t that she hated paperwork. It wasn’t that she found the subject — soil sample analyses and atmospheric reports — particularly dreadful, but she’d been stuck on this planet for months already, with no end in sight. The days stretched on, feeling far longer than their already dreary length.

“Ma’am?” someone said.

Her fingers came to an abrupt halt and she flicked her eyes up from her datapad. One of the team’s scientists stood there, a middle-aged human male, wringing his hand together.

“What is it?” she asked.

“If you, uh…” The man shifted from foot to foot. “If you needed to take a break from reading for a while, one of the sensor nets is down again. I was going to send some lab techs out, but…”

…but Mebeth was making them all feel nervous and getting out of way would let them work easier. Some charred trees further into the jungle stood testament to the fact that it sometimes worked to clear her head, as well.

She pressed a forefinger against one brow to stave off a building headache and nodded. “Transmit the coordinates and I’ll deal with it.”

It was pointless, of course. Taanab was host to very little wildlife — perhaps none, as they hadn’t encountered any yet — and as far as they knew, no other faction had an interest in the planet. The only suggestion of prior occupation came from centuries-old ruins scattered a few hundred kilometres from their location.

But with nothing else to do, what choice did she have?

Resigned to a trawl through the jungle, Mebeth stepped out into the creeping sunlight, blinking at the rush of fresh air and vivid green foliage.

Three years. She’d followed Constantia’s trail for three years, coming full circle with each route she tried, winding up on Ziost each time. After the last, she’d given up. She’d sold her services over to the Ministry of Logistics, who had sent her here, to oversee a survey into Taanab’s fitness for colonisation.

She shuddered then, as she did every time she thought of the years she’d wasted. How much more could she have learned if she hadn’t been chasing her master’s shadow? Fact was, she’d never know. Not now.

The jungle gnarled around her, becoming thicker underfoot. Every plant raised greedy limbs into the sky, thirsting for the sustenance of light. Where whatever remained spilt down, vibrant oases piled into the small patches. Everywhere else lay in permanent shade. No doubt the sensor net had been taken out — yet again — by the jungle’s virulent growth.

In any case, it was a long walk to reach it, so there was plenty of time to think as she clambered over the vines and roots of the undergrowth.

She couldn’t help feeling that she didn’t present the appearance of a typical Sith. She tended to avoid robes, opting instead for tight-fitting sportswear and utility jackets. They were more practical, though lacking any armour, not that her current situation demanded it. And office work didn’t exactly create any opportunities to assert herself, so she just let them get on with it. Maybe that was best, but she felt like an extra arm that the main body of the team couldn’t work out how to use.

The bushes ahead rustled, but it took a few moments for the fact to register. Mebeth stopped, frowning, and listened.

There it was again, perhaps a hundred metres ahead. There was no wind today, so that couldn’t be behind it. Life was the only possible cause.

Senses now on full alert, Mebeth crept forwards, maintaining a steady and silent approach to the source of the noise. She realised that the faulty sensor should be just in front of the next set of trees — if the local wildlife had been disturbing the equipment, that might explain why trying to clear the plants away hadn’t worked.

A few steps further and the sensor came into view. Only a few thin vines clung to it for the moment — not enough to render it useless — but that wasn’t the problem. A man Mebeth recognised from their shuttle crew hunched over the controls opposite her, connected to it via a wire which snaked away behind his ear.

An implant, Mebeth thought, and a spy. She jumped to the conclusion without a second thought, reached out with the Force and tore the man away from the sensor, slamming him into a nearby tree. He screamed in pain as the wire tugged free from his implant, clutching at his ear.

When she stepped out from behind the tree, his eyes widened. His hand dropped down from his ear, reaching for a pistol at his waist.

Mebeth got there before him, drawing the weapon into her own hand as his grasped at empty space. She shot his hand for good measure before overloading the power pack with a burst of electricity and throwing it into the wilderness to explode.

The man watched this display with mounting panic, cradling his injured hand against his chest.

“Explain yourself,” Mebeth said, placing one hand on the hilt of her lightsabre. “Quickly.”

“I- I was just-” The man was shivering from shock. “I was just repairing the-”

“Nice try, but I’ve just come from the outpost. No one sent a tech. What were you really doing?”

She got nothing but a glare from the man, even as the shivers overtook his body. His lips were sealed tight, the lines of his face taut and drawn.

Shrugging, she began to move towards him slowly. “Did you know that lightsabres,” she said, drawing her own, “cauterise as they cut? From a trained wielder, of course, they tend to be lethal, but…” She ignited the blade. “Well, how long do you want this to last?”

She heard the man’s breath begin to come quicker, saw his chest rise and fall, but still he said nothing. So she touched the tip of her blade to the man’s shoulder — the same side she’d already injured — held him in place as he began to flinch and pressed forwards, ever so slightly.

His face contorted. Muscles tensed in his neck, pressing out against pallid skin as veins became a harsh contrast against the canvas of his face. He didn’t scream, so she pressed further. A sharp intake of breath marked the breach of skin, accompanied by the sweet and acrid tang of its burning.

“Who are you, “Mebeth asked, “and who do you work for?”

Blood welled around the man’s lips as he bit hard to combat the pain. His eyes were screwed shut. Still, he said nothing. She couldn’t help being a little impressed, but his resistance was pointless. He had nothing to gain from this.

The blade ate further into his flesh, through tense muscle, as beads of sweat broke out on his forehead and rolled down into his eyes.

At last, he couldn’t take any more. He let out a strangled, gasping scream and tried to shake his head from side to side before blurting out, “Dragos!”

Mebeth withdrew her blade and stepped back, letting him slump forwards on the floor.

He lay there panting for a while, shuddering on his knees, looking ready to retch, before he could speak again.

“Larson Dragos,” he said. His eyes made contact with hers, then darted away with a flash of guilt. “Republic SIS.”

Mebeth threw the spy into the survey building to cries of alarm from the scientists within. Two guards snapped alert and trained their rifles on him, but the sergeant shot Mebeth a questioning glance.

“A spy,” she explained. “He’s responsible for our faulty sensor net, not the wildlife.

The guards’ gazes hardened and some surprised murmurs issued from the scientists. The spy — Dragos — stumbled to his knees and leant to support his weight against a desk, panting. He still nursed his wounded shoulder.

“Republic?” the sergeant asked.

“Apparently.”

“What’s he doing here?”

“I intend to find out.” Mebeth turned to the scientists and gestured to the door. “Leave.”

They filed out in a dutiful line, leaving Mebeth alone with the sergeant, a private and the Republic spy.

She felt a little thrill of excitement when she thought about it — a Republic agent, here on her planet… well, the planet she was on, anyway. Not only was this a much-needed opportunity to relieve her boredom, but Dragos was the first Republic citizen she’d seen. They were ‘at peace’, of course, but to be so close to the enemy was a tangible buzz.

As soon as the last person left, the sergeant shut and locked the door behind them. Meanwhile, the private dragged Dragos to his feet, ignoring his gasps of protest to cuff his hands together. The soldier left him wincing, unsteady on his feet as his wounded shoulder tensed at the cuffed angle.

“So,” Mebeth said, “what are you doing here?”

Dragos let out a strangled chuckle. “You’ve already got that I’m a spy. Imagine the rest should be obvious.” He shrugged, then coughed up a violent string of expletives at the pain in his shoulder.

“Yes, so you were spying. I get that. But what for? What was your interest in the sensor net?”

“Same reason you’re here — we want the scans.”

“Then why keep breaking the equipment?”

He started to shrug again, then thought better of it. “It’s not my place to ask.”

The sergeant cleared his throat. “Ma’am, I find it doubtful that even a thin motivation wouldn’t have been covered in his briefing.”

Dragos fixed him with a shaky glare. “Or I’m just good at doing my job without needing to quibble over unnecessary details.”

“For people who value individual freedom so highly, you seem very obedient.”

“Yeah, well I chose that.”

“Enough!” Mebeth frowned at the sergeant and Dragos in turn. Reaching out with the Force, she applied a sharp pressure to Dragos’ shoulder, making him groan and fall back against the desk.

“How many more of you are there?” she asked. “Where are they now?”

“It’s just me.”

“You’re lying.” She put more pressure on the wound. “You’d need an escape route — a way to get off-world if anything went wrong. At the very least, that means a ship. Where have you hidden it?”

Dragos squirmed. “Blind spot in the sensor net. I put it there.”

“So you could take us there?”

Pain rolled off Dragos in physical waves, washing against Mebeth. She fuelled her excitement with it, feeding some of it back to Dragos to amplify it further.

His face contorted. He barely managed to grunt, “No.”

Changing tack, Mebeth tugged his other arm away from his body with the Force until it popped, loud enough to make the private jump. Dragos screamed, rocking forward over his knees.

“Stop!” he sobbed. “This isn’t worth it. It… it’s just information, that’s all we were after!” After a few gulps of air he continued, “I was to delay your progress so you gave up and left. If you found anything interesting, I was told to cover it up and report back. Weren’t interested in this planet until you came here — but the peace can’t last forever and they didn’t want to give you any advantage.

“But I haven’t covered up anything,” he looked up at her, pain dimming any strength in his eyes, “I swear. There’s nothing here apart from what the data shows.”

“And your ship,” Mebeth reminded him. “I suggest you take us to it while you are still able to walk.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

A hint of defiance came back into his features as he replied, “They’re already on their way.”

Without missing a beat, Mebeth turned to the sergeant and ordered him to evacuate the base. They had no defensive capabilities here — even the shuttle they’d come in on was light on armament. With no clue what ship was coming for them, their best bet was to run.

She didn’t see it as a cowardly decision. While a part of her chafed at leaving conflict behind, there was nothing more for them to do here, that much was clear. But if they could attack, they would. Peace was failing, fast.

The sergeant rushed off to organise the evacuation while the private escorted Dragos to the shuttle, to be chained to a bulkhead and brought back for further questioning. Mebeth closed her eyes and reached out to sense the oncoming vehicle, until she could feel it as a small tug on the edge of her consciousness.

“Five minutes,” she said, snapping her eyes open. “We have five minutes to clean up. Get to it.”

The sergeant had returned with the team and they began to pack away the base together. The field equipment was designed to be easy to move — quick to dismantle and able to pack away neatly — so there shouldn’t be a problem.

That very much depended on when the ship decided to open fire.

Since Theron has set the bar unrealistically high, it's worth mentioning that Dragos isn't meant to be a particularly good spy.