((This will give a bit of backstory and some continuity to all of my stories.))

 

<Over forty years in the past, on the planet Raltiir>

 

Jedi Consular Emily Hollian was no stranger to fear. After all, she was a Jedi. The uneducated, or superstitious might say that Jedi did not feel fear, but that was utter rubbish. She was afraid. She was also very confused. She had been in an airspeeder, she remembered that. There had been an explosion, she remembered that. But she couldn’t remember anything else. She focused her mind as she had been taught from an early age and tried to scan around herself with the Force. What she found scared her further. She was still in the speeder, what was left of it. It had apparently impacted the ground with sufficient velocity to drive a broken piece of the frame completely through her lower body. But that wasn’t the worst part. No, it was the dark and forbidding presence that was slowly closing in on her position that utterly terrified her. She focused herself further, acknowledged her fear and let it pass. She opened herself to the Force and tried to force the strut that had impaled her out of her body. She managed to move it a few centimeters before the pain drove her concentration away. But she had to get free before the darksider that she could sense easily now could…

 

"Easy." She froze as a soft voice came to her ears. The voice was male and sounded concerned. “There is no need for that, Ma’am.” He was closer than she had thought.

 

Emily didn’t reply, she was channeling the Force. In a massive push, she managed to get the strut that had impaled her to move enough that she could roll clear. Pain flared along her left side as it contacted the remnants of the speeder, but all of her focus was on the nondescript human male who stood before her. Her lightsaber arced from her belt to her hand and the green blade ignited.

 

"Come on." The man spoke again. “Ma’am, don’t do that. I don’t want to hurt you.” But malice lurked under his words.

 

Emily shook her head, conscious of wetness dripping down her side, of pain running all along her left side as the light wind stirred along her body. She ignored both.

 

“Did you plant the explosive in my speeder?” She brought her left hand up to hold her saber and nearly lost her lunch. It was charred almost black in places, but it still functioned. It hurt as she flexed it, but she could use it.

 

"No." The dark Force user shook his head. Now his voice was cold. “I need you alive, Ma’am. The explosive was likely some criminal’s idea. I can find out who and punish them if you wish. Come along, and your injuries will be tended. Neither of the others were suitable, you should be.”

 

Emily felt of her body go cold at his soft malicious words. “You… what…? She asked carefully. She had been sent to this world to check on a pair of Jedi who had been sent to handle some complex negotiations. Neither had checked in for several days and the Order was worried about them. No one had suspected the presence of a Dark Jedi, or whatever this being was. There was something… odd about him. She shook her head, holding her pain at bay through sheer force of will. She was no padawan, she was a Jedi Knight. “I won’t help you.”

 

"No?" The man smiled a bit sadly. His voice was kinder now. “Who says you have a choice? Sleep.” The Force stretched out to her almost gently. Almost.

 

Emily fought the compulsion that flew over, around and through her with every fiber of her being. She grimaced and kept her saber up. She was not going to let this man, this Dark side scum, defeat her so easily. She moved towards her opponent and then she blinked. How had she gotten on the ground? She rolled, trying to get up and she screamed in pain as her arm and side hit the ground. Where was her saber? Why was her vision darkening? She screamed again as a dark form towered over her, but then blinked as she saw the man’s face was not angry, not cold, but… worried? She took that puzzling image into darkness with her.

 

A mechanical sounding voice roused her. “…soft tissue damage to left shoulder and arm, puncture wound through upper left quadrant of abdomen, second degree burns on left arm, left torso and left side of head. Probable concussion. Evidence suggests internal bleeding as well.”

 

The dark man’s voice was cold again. “Repair the subject.” It was as if he were discussing a machine, Emily thought. But somehow, she knew he was talking about her.

 

The droid’s reply quick. “Given current conditions and equipment, probability of subject survival is less than 40%.” Emily tried to move, to fight, to do anything, but she couldn’t. Her body wasn’t working, she couldn’t even feel it. Of course, with what she had felt before, that MIGHT not have been such a bad thing. Cold metallic fingers touched her head and the droid spoke again. “Subject is conscious, administering sedatives.” A sting on her arm had her wincing.

 

Emily tried to fight the drugs, but they were too strong and in short order she was falling, slowly. The man’s cold voice cut through the fog that surrounded her now. She was falling into it, but she clung to his words. “As soon as the subject is stable, we are going to move her. This area is not secure. Those other two Jedi will be back shortly, and we need to be gone by then. Start treating the wounds.” She felt pressure on her scalp and then blissful numbness drove her under again.

 

The next time Emily woke, she was floating. She felt… numb. Nothing hurt, but then again, she couldn’t feel much of anything at all. She cracked her eyes and found herself floating in a sea of green. Bubbles floated up from below and she could look around a little. Emily relaxed just a little; she was in a Kolto tank. Whoever had her didn’t want her dead. She looked at herself and found she was wearing only a respirator mask and medical sensors. Her head felt odd, then she realized that all of her hair had been shaved off. She had never been body shy, but… She blinked as a shadow fell over her. She looked out and there he was; the darksider who had captured her. His image was distorted by the glass, but his sense in the Force was the same. He looked at her and then turned away. She couldn’t speak, the mask prevented it. And even if she had been able to, what could she say? She was still pondering that when she nodded off again.

 

Emily knew that it had been some time since she had last woken when she woke again. She opened her eyes cautiously and found herself lying on a bed in a small room. It took a moment for her to realize that the only window she could see had bars across it. It wasn’t a room, it was a cell. She looked around, but there was no door that she could see. She shook her head slightly and sat up slowly.

 

She didn’t hurt, at all. She looked at herself and she was wearing a patient gown and nothing else. She shook her head and smiled as hair flowed across her face. She remembered the feelings in the tank, pain and… She paused. Her hair had been gone, which made sense from a wound treating point of view, especially if she had been burned. She examined what she could see. The left side of her body had new, pink skin in a number of places. She remembered all of those places hurting, but when she poked the skin experimentally, it didn’t hurt. How long had she been unconscious?

 

"Who are you?" She shook her head and spoke. “Where am I?” Her voice was calm and matter of fact. She had to be under observation.

 

A cold mechanical sounding voice answered her. “You will speak when spoken to, Subject 17.”

 

Emily didn’t flinch. “What do you want with me?” She could not restrain a scream as pain flowed through her. She shuddered as it vanished as quickly as it had come.

 

The voice repeated. “You will speak when spoken to, Subject 17.”

 

"You do not own me." Emily shook her head and her voice was calm when she spoke again. “My name is Emily Hollian. You will not hold me here.” She raced herself for more pain, but it didn’t come. Instead, a voice she remembered answered her.

 

"No." The voice of the dark side user that had captured her was cold and hard. “You were Emily Hollian. But, according to your Order, she died in a speeder crash a year ago. Now you are Subject 17.”

 

"What?" Emily blanched. A year? “What do you want with me?”

 

The cold voice laughed. “You will see, Subject 17. You will see. Go ahead, fight. It makes the victory so much sweeter.”

 

The voice cut off and Emily sank back onto the bed and cried softly.

The days were a bleary routine. They were starting to blur together despite Emily’s best efforts. Her meditations were helping her stay sane, but they couldn’t completely dull the horror of what she was enduring. She wore a slave collar and stun cuffs now, and nothing else. The food that she was given was nourishing, if unappetizing. She did not think she was losing weight, or gaining any. The hatch hissed open and she controlled a flinch as the small droid hovered out of it. She had tried, once, to get a hand into the hatch that the droid came out of. The resulting shock had knocked her unconscious. So now, she just lay quiet as the small hovering bot came close to her head and an appendage touched her shoulder.

 

Fighting them didn’t work. If she smashed one, two showed up. If she smashed those two, three appeared. As always, a small sting and again she tried to stiffen, uselessly. As always her ability to think was diminished only slightly, but her control over her body vanished. She couldn’t move as much as a muscle as the wall to her left moved. Technically, she could use the Force with her mind clear, but to do what? The wall slid out on rails and then slid to the side and her heart lurched as she saw the bulky droid approaching again. She kept her fear at bay through sheer force of will as it entered her cell slowly.

 

The heavy droid that entered as the small medical bot hovered back out the way it had come was well beyond her ability to fight. She probably wouldn’t have had a chance even if she had possessed her lightsaber. Without it, she had no chance at all. The paralytic drug was just insurance. With her body paralyzed, she could do nothing. Telekinesis had never been a strength of hers, she had always been a negotiator, not a fighter. Her skills had laid in determining the best outcome for all interested parties, getting upset individuals to compromise, to see all sides of an issue. She had been a lawyer, a judge and an advocate, not a warrior.

 

She couldn’t move at all as the padded arms that had apparently been built specifically for the purpose slid beneath her. It lifted her easily, cradling her body as it lifted it to take it for her daily regime of torture. She couldn’t even scream. All she could do was cry silently as the loud steps of the droid sounded through the hall that she had become so used to. Thirty seven steps, then a turn to the right. She had memorized that, in an early attempt to plan an escape. But the only time the wall opened, she was paralyzed. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get the Force to eliminate the drug quickly enough. She tried anyway. After that turn, twenty four more steps, and then the door. Her pulse pounded in her ears as she saw the apparatus out of the corner of her eye, but then the droid carried her to the table and laid her down. It was odd how gentle the droid was. She was sure it could have just dropped her onto the padded table, but it never did.

 

As always, cold metallic fingers mover her body parts into the proper positions and restraints clicked closed. Forehead, neck, wrists, abdomen and ankles, all were held tight to the table by the cold metal restraints. She closed her eyes, knowing what was coming, working hard to remember the Jedi Code and all that she had been taught. A sharp pain in her tailbone had her gasping as the paralytic drug finally wore off. Then all sensation below her hips simply vanished. She could do nothing but watch as the apparatus was swung over her lower body and then he was there, standing in her field of view.

 

Now he wore a set of surgical scrubs, but there was no mistaking the taint of the dark side that pervaded the man. His voice, as always, was silky and soft, but full of menace. “Good morning 17. Time for your next test.”

 

She dredged up strength from somewhere. “My name is Emily Hollian, you will not win. Surrender now and the Order will be merciful.”

 

"Wow." The man, she had never learned his name, laughed heartily. “Such spirit, even after all this time. You are remarkable, girl. Pity.” She writhed in pain as whatever they had done to her hurt. It was probably some kind of implant.

 

Emily gasped, and then focused herself. “You are gravely mistaken. I won’t help you.”

 

Pain came again, but this time from a recognizable source. Force lightning arced from the man’s hand into her arm and from there throughout her body. It went on for an eternity. When the current finally stopped, he spoke. His voice was still that cold, dead, terrifying thing.

 

“Oh no, my dear 17. It is you who are mistaken, about a great many things.”

 

He touched her cheek, and she winced, but no pain erupted. Instead, he pulled the apparatus down around her body and she felt pressure as things touched her. She felt the same strange cold things pressing on her as always. She had no idea what they were, or what they were for, but it couldn’t be anything good.

 

She gasped out words as the pressure on her body built. “Why are you doing this?”

 

Her voice was calm to her ears. It made no sense. He never asked her any questions. He never tried to turn her. And as always, he didn’t answer her questions, just looked on as she finally gave in to the pain and screamed. As always. But this time, something was different. His face was almost serene now as he smiled at her.

 

His voice was almost gentle. “You will understand in time, 17. In time.” Then waves of pain crashed in on her and it was all she could do to stay conscious.

She had no idea at all how long she had been in the cell. It all blurred now. She was lost in a haze of pain and fear. Everything was blurry, everything was odd colors, odd feelings. She struggled to her feet in her cell, trying to focus, but nothing worked as it should. She collapsed to her knees. Everything was off. She felt… odd. She felt heavy and light at the same time. She could feel the Force flowing through her, but… it was muted. She had never felt like this before. And then, it happened. The door of her cell opened. She flinched, but no droid appeared to carry her to pain. She stared at the door for a moment before trying to rise, only to fall again. She crawled on her hands and knees, working to get up the energy to defend herself if she was attacked. But no one did. She managed to get to her feet, and staggered forward. She had no idea where she was going or what she was going to do when she got there, just that she had to move.

 

Then she heard it. Them. Lightsabers, clashing. She could feel the force boiling ahead of her as she staggered, holding herself up against the wall. Her brain was fuzzy, but she thought maybe a Jedi had come to fight the Dark one who held her. So it was a bit of a shock when she came into a larger room and found two human males wearing black who were squaring off against each other, both with red lightsabers. She blinked, but then her body moved, without her command. She blanched and tried to fight the compulsion, but she couldn’t. Her body moved to a table and there on it was her lightsaber! Her hand picked it up, and her body turned back to the fight.

 

The nondescript man who had hurt her for so long was smirking as he faced off against his opponent. “You are a fool to have come here, Dargon. Surrender and serve me. You cannot win.”

 

The being called Dargon was limping, from what she could see he had taken damage already. But his posture was erect as he faced his opponent. And… She stiffened. He was smiling! “You of all people should know better than to boast before the battle is done, Kuilon.”

 

She could only watch in awe as the one called Dargon unleashed such a torrent of Force lightning on his opponent that the very air sang with power. The being called Kuilon, the one who had hurt her so badly, dodged and parried, but then a tendril of the lightning caught him. Then two, then five, then ten arcs of blue white power all connected to his body. He was trying to ground the power, but it was arcing too fast and too strongly. He was being overwhelmed. His mouth opened in a silent scream. The being called Kuilon was struggling against the power that the one known as Dargon was pouring at him. Dargon’s attention seemed to be all on his opponent. She heard a voice in her head.

 

Strike him down 17. Now!

 

She couldn’t fight the compulsion as her arm came up and her lightsaber ignited. She took an attack form against her will and started forward. The stranger, the one called Dargon, looked at her and…sighed.

 

“Geez... Always the pervert, huh, Kuilon?”

 

Something she couldn’t define took hold of her. It wasn’t Force stasis. It wasn’t anything she had ever encountered. It was gentle, but at the same time, unbreakable. Then something touched her mind and it cleared. For the first time in a long time, she could think and she focused on the Jedi code. There is no emotion, there is peace…

 

Kuilon’s voice sounded in her head again. He sounded desperate now. Kill him, 17! Do it now!

 

She spoke. Her voice was rough from pain and fear, but her tone was calm. “My name… is Emily Hollian. I am not… I am not your slave…” She deactivated her lightsaber and collapsed to her knees. “I am… a Jedi.” She couldn’t keep her head up. Even the sound of renewed Force lightning could not make her raise her head. She was so tired now.

 

A horrible scream sounded, one that cut off almost as soon as it had started. Then the stench of scorched meat filled the air and Emily fought to keep her gorge down. She looked, she had to. The form of her tormentor lay, limbs askew, robes smoldering and burns disfiguring his features. But…he wasn’t human! She had no idea what race he was. His long eyebrows and the tufts of what looked like fur at his cheeks were no race that she knew. She looked up into the eyes of the newcomer and then rose slowly to her feet. Her lightsaber was still in hand.

 

"I..." Her voice was weak when she spoke, but calm. “I have no quarrel with you, sir. I simply wish… to leave.”

 

"Mi'lady..." The being called Dargon nodded to her. His voice was kind, however. “You are hurt, mi’lady. You need help.”

 

"Not..." Emily shook her head, struggling against a wave of dizziness that threatened to overwhelm her. “Not… Yours…”

 

"Please." Dargon bowed his head. “Mi’lady, please… Let me help you.”

 

The nude woman froze. To have a Dark Force user say something like that! To say please? To essentially beg her to accept help? Something was wrong. Something was off. She stared at the human. No… No he wasn’t human either. He felt the same way the other one had, he was hiding who and what he was. Emily shook her head.

 

“I can’t trust you. You are not what you seem.”

 

Then, his form changed. No, the image that covered it vanished. In the place of the nondescript human was another of that odd race. The eyebrows were long and pointed, but gray, where the other’s had been dark. The tufts of fur on his cheeks as well were gray. He spoke and his voice was kind.

 

“My name is Dargon Darkstorm." He said quietly. "Yours is Emily Hollian? I mean you no harm this day. You are sick from what this scum did to you, even if you do not feel it.”

 

"I cannot." Emily shook her head again, and grimaced as the dizziness increased in severity. “You follow the Dark Side. We are enemies. We can only ever be enemies.”

 

"Well." Dargon sighed so softly that for a moment, she wasn’t sure he had. “No, actually I don’t. I use the Dark side, but I do not follow it. It’s… complicated.”

 

"That..." The Jedi blinked, that made no sense at all. She spoke softly. “That… makes no sense. If you use the Dark Side of the Force, it corrupts and eventually controls you. I…” She gasped, her stomach seemed to be trying to come up through her throat.

 

Without sense of transition, she was lying on the floor, looking up at Dargon’s face as he laid a gentle hand on her forehead. She felt fear, but Dargon’s hand was cool and comforting. His voice was soft.

 

“It’s all right, Emily Hollian. It’s all right. Rest. Sleep.”

 

She tried but couldn’t resist the compulsion that raced through her. But something… Part of her didn’t want to. She wasn’t afraid now. She should be; she knew that. But she wasn’t. The compulsion as accompanied by something else. Something that took her befuddled mind a moment to identify. It was compassion. She was still trying to figure out how and why a Dark Force user would feel that way when she nodded off.

Edited August 10, 2012 by kalenath

Emily Hollian woke suddenly. She was free from pain for the first time in a long time, but her mind was fuzzy. She was also so weak she could barely open her eyes. What she found when she did astounded her. She had wondered if it had all been a dream, but then again, Jedi did not normally dream. She was lying in a bed, one with rails like a hospital. She was wearing what looked like a hospital gown. Her left arm had tubes into it, but nothing hurt. She looked around beyond her immediate situation. The room was bare. There was NOTHING else in it. No decorations, no plants, no nothing. If not for all the medical gear, she would have thought herself back in her cell. Well, except for the fact that the bed was comfortable, she didn’t hurt at all, was wearing something, was not restrained or wearing a collar and…

 

Her thoughts broke off as a harsh voice sounded nearby. “…and I will see this ‘subject’ of yours, Inquisitor.”

 

A voice she recognized from somewhere replied calmly. “As you wish, this way.”

 

A door she hadn’t seen opened and two figures walked into the room. One was the black robed being she had seen, the one her tormentor had called Dargon. The other was an unknown, but from the sheer malice that poured off of him, she was in even worse trouble than before. His aura stank with dark power and his eyes… The yellow orbs bored into her soul. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything. She tried to summon the Force and it wouldn’t answer her. All she could do was lie there.

 

"Fegh!" The stranger looked her over dispassionately and then shook his head minutely. “She is unacceptable. Why did you take her, Inquisitor? Mercy?” The voice was cold and mocking now.

 

The one called Dargon didn’t move, but his voice was just as cold. “Hardly. I wanted to see what Kuilon had done to her, maybe it could be useful. I also wished to interrogate her, perhaps she has information. It will be four years out of date, but potentially useful. His records were encrypted, so it has taken some time to unravel them, as you know, Mi’lord.”

 

"Oh?" The form of what had to be a Sith lord snorted in sour laughter. “And is that the only reason?”

 

Dargon smiled thinly, and Emily winced slightly at the sheer malevolence in it. “No. I wanted her to hurt. I like hearing her scream.” His voice was still that same cold, calm tone and Emily shivered.

 

The other man smiled thinly. “Now that I can understand. But…” He sighed in soft regret. Emily tensed as she realized he wanted to see he hurt himself, to hear her scream at what he did. The Sith’s voice was cold now. “She is a liability. Dispose of her.” He turned and left the room.

 

Dargon’s face was still that same cold thing as he came to her bedside. She tried to speak, tried to move, to fight as he shook his head slightly. Then she felt the Force turn a switch nearby and fire flooded through her veins. She croaked, trying to scream, as darkness followed the pain and she was dragged down into it.

 

***

 

It came as a hell of a shock to Emily when she woke again. She was lying on another bed, a patient gown covering her. She was clean, warm and dry. But she felt so odd. She moved her fingers and toes and all of them worked. But something was wrong, something was off. She froze as a voice spoke from nearby.

 

“Good morning.” The voice was kind, and female. Emily turned to see an old woman sitting in a chair beside her bed. Her hair was long and black and her eyes were a piercing green. They twinkled with merriment and compassion. The woman smiled at Emily. “How do you feel, Miss Hollian?”

 

Emily blinked and then spoke slowly. “I…” She broke off, her voice sounded normal. After so long of hoarse croaking, to hear her voice sound as it should felt wrong. But she focused herself and nodded to the woman. “I feel… detached. As if I am not all here. Am I drugged?”

 

"No." The woman shook her head and put a gentle hand on Emily’s. Emily flinched slightly, but the touch was gentle. The woman stroked the Jedi’s hand soothingly. “No you are not, Miss Hollian. My name is Karli and I am here to help you.”

 

"I don't understand." Emily blinked in confusion that must have shown on her face even through her tight control. “Help… me…? With what? I feel fine.”

 

The old woman beside her bed gave her hand a pat and spoke gently. “Miss Hollian…” She broke off as Emily sighed. “What?” She asked just as gently.

 

Emily snorted in sour amusement. “Miss Hollian was my mother. My name is Emily.”

 

"Okay." Karli chuckled. “You go ahead and laugh, girl… Emily. You will need your sense of humor.” Something in her tone and sense in the force had Emily stiffening. It spoke of strong emotional pain and regret.

 

"What?" The Jedi consular’s voice was soft and worried now. “Why? What is wrong with me?”

 

"Oh Emily..." Karli bit her lip. It was clear she didn’t want to say. But then she sighed and laid her gentle hand on Emily’s shoulder. “Scan your abdomen with the Force.”

 

Emily did, mystified and then… She couldn’t help it, she screamed. What she sensed inside her was… She barely noticed when Karli pulled her up and into an embrace. She barely noticed when two women in nurse’s attire came running in, only to stop at a curt gesture from Karli.

 

Emily felt herself teetering on the lip of a wide and hungry abyss. She pulled herself back through sheer force of will. She made herself look at the tiny dead thing that lay within her womb, it wasn’t human. Even with her general lack of knowledge of biology, she could see that. And then she turned her gaze on Karli who nodded. When Emily spoke, her voice was almost calm. Almost.

 

“What have you done to me?”

 

"Oh Emily..." The kindly older woman held her tight as she shuddered. When the old woman spoke, it was calm and gentle. “We didn’t. That bastard Kuilon did. And that isn’t the first. None of them were viable.”

 

"What?" Emily felt the ground crumbling under her feet, and she knew she was maybe a step removed from madness. “Why? In the name of the Force, why?” She was crying now and Karli held her close as she sobbed.

 

"Because he was insane." Karli’s voice was soft, but filled with anger now. “He was trying to breed Force users. It isn’t possible to clone beings who can use the Force, something drives them mad. But he was trying anyway. He was very sneaky about it, but then again, he had to be. The Emperor declared that kind of thing illegal after some fairly spectacular incidents.”

 

"Ah?" Emily blinked through her tears. “Emperor?” She asked carefully.

 

Karli looked as if she wanted to spit, but then she nodded slowly. “Yes. You have missed a lot, chained up in a cell as you were.” Karli sighed as Emily shuddered again, and then gave the younger girl another hug. “It’s okay, Emily, it’s okay. It will be okay.”

 

"I... I..." Emily’s control finally cracked. “I just want to go home.” She sobbed into Karli’s shoulder.

 

Karli’s voice held regret as wide as an ocean now. “I am sorry, Emily. You can’t.”

 

Emily went as stiff as if she had been hit by carbonite. “What? You…” She tried to squirm away from Karli, but the older woman wouldn’t let her go. “What do you want with me?”

 

Karli’s voice was gentle now as the two nurses came closer. “We want to help you, Emily.”

 

Emily was struggling, trying to get out of Karli’s gentle, but irresistible grip as one of the nurses produced a hypo. “No… No.. Leave me alone! No… Don’t...” But everything she tried, Karli seemed to be able to counter. The nurses both had looks of compassion on their faces as they took hold of her as well. Emily was crying, screaming, trying to fight as one nurse laid the hypo against her shoulder and numbness spread from it. The numbness swiftly spread through her entire body. As she drifted off, she heard singing. Karli had such a great singing voice. It soothed her as she fell into blackness.

Emily sat in a meditative posture and tried to clear her mind. It was so weird. These people were so weird. They were Sith. Followers of the resurgent Sith Empire, and some of them actual members of the Sith species, a race that most people in the Republic thought were extinct. But they were nice!

 

When Emily had woken, after the surgery… Karli had been there as well as the two female nurses. They had been kind and gentle in helping Emily get back in shape while filling the Jedi in on what had happened while she had been locked in a cell. Emily could not keep a small smile off her face even now. Karli had all the give of a rock sometimes. She was kind and gentle, yes, but she was also tough as hell. And she had the vocabulary of a drill sergeant when she was trying to get the younger woman to exercise. Emily’s smile vanished as she thought about what Karli had told her.

 

Everyone in the Republic has assumed that the Sith had been destroyed after the mess with Revan and the Star Forge. The Jedi had faced troubles after that, but to the galaxy as a whole, nothing had come of the wanderings of the Exile. Even now, with the stark evidence of system after system falling to the might of the Imperial forces, Emily could hardly believe what she had been told. But they had no reason to lie to her. Did they?

 

It was so strange. The strange family was not trying to turn her. They were not interrogating her. And while at times some of them were curt, they all tried to at least be polite to her. This was not what she expected from a Sith family. Not that Sith were supposed to have families. From what she could recall, the followers of the Dark Side had looked on love as anathema. Something about it leading to mercy? She wasn’t sure. Ancient history had never really interested her. She had always been more focused on the now.

 

Emily shook her head and sighed. This was getting her nowhere. She needed answers and the best place for her to find them, was of course, the Force. She had access, under supervision, to the excellent library that the family boasted, but… It felt wrong, somehow. The two ancient Sith holocrons that dominated the library gave her the creeps, so she spent as little time in it as she possibly could, which was sad. The sheer scope of information that was available there was amazing. These people had been collecting material for centuries. She shook herself again, she was distracting herself. This was not the time to be wool gathering.

 

Emily had refrained from going too deep into meditation since her awakening from the surgery. She was somewhat scared of what she would see if she delved too deeply. She shook herself and snarled. She had requested this time alone specifically to do this, and now she was wasting the time. The family didn’t like leaving her alone. She did get odd moods occasionally, and likely would for some time. The doctors said it was a side effect of the aborted pregnancies, and the texts she had studied concurred. There didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it so she just grinned sourly and bore up with the somewhat overpowering care that the family was lavishing on her.

 

But now, it was time. She sat in the middle of the spacious quarters that she had been told were hers and closed her eyes. The Force sang in her veins and she relaxed slowly, carefully. It wouldn’t do to lose herself now, she had…

 

“Mom?” A soft, scared young female voice had her freezing. What the…?

 

She opened her eyes and stared in shock at the small form that stood in front of her. It was a young human girl, maybe five standard years old. No, it looked like a young human girl, but it wasn’t. There were telltales, small things. The hair wasn’t quite human, and the face was just a little too angular. But it didn’t matter, she was beautiful. The hair and the eyes though… Emily inhaled sharply as she realized the girl looked quite a bit like her!

 

"It's okay." The girl spoke again. She sounded far more mature than she looked. “I am scared Mom. I don’t want to go. I want to stay here, with you and Dad. But I know I have to. I will not dishonor our family.” The determination on the young face was somewhat worrisome, but then the little girl smiled and Emily could not help but smile with her. “I will run rings around those idiots at the academy. You know I will. This is just basic indoctrination. I need to succeed, but not well, so they will send me home in disgrace and not kill me. I will be back and it will be all right.”

 

The girl held out her hands to Emily and without thought, Emily reached back to take the young human in her arms. But then the girl vanished. Emily recoiled. A vision. This was a vision. Then with a start, she was back in her body and she felt her eyes burning. She tasted salt and worked hard to calm her emotions, to slow the rush of her pulse, to calm the thumps of her heart. It took several minutes for her to calm herself, but during that time, she reflected on what she had seen. On what she had felt during the vision. It was starting make sense now, everything was.

 

Emily shook her head as she felt Karli approach her door. The older woman had specified a time limit to Emily’s meditations, and enforced it with draconian efficiency. The older woman knocked on the door and Emily spoke softly.

 

“Enter.” Karli came in and stopped by the door, her face a mask of worry. Emily met her eyes and sighed. “You knew, didn’t you? That is why you all have been nice to me.”

 

"Emily?" Karli blinked, and both her face and her sense in the Force was confused.”Knew what?”

 

"Maybe you didn't." Emily thought things through for a moment before responding. “I need to talk to Dargon.”

 

Karli stared at the younger woman, her face and sense in the Force worried. “He should be back this afternoon. Emily, have you been crying? Are you all right?” The older woman’s voice was kind as she took a step in, but stopped, not wanting to crowd the Jedi.

 

"All right?" Emily shook her head. “No. My entire world just rocked on its axis.” Her voice was calm though. “I saw something in the Force. Something I need to talk to Dargon about.”

 

"Oh." Karli stared at the younger woman before nodding. “Is it something I can help with?”

 

"Well." Emily smiled just a bit sheepishly and nodded. “Yes. I am going to need your help. I… I know nothing about child rearing.”

 

Karli froze. “Emily…” Emily couldn’t blame the older woman. The Jedi had some very odd moods now and again. But this was no mood.

 

"Yeah, Karli." The Jedi sighed. “I know how it sounds, but…” her eyes were burning again. “Karli… I saw a little girl, she looked like me.” Karli stiffened. “She looked like me…but not. Like Dargon does when he cloaks himself.”

 

Karli shook her head and her voice was sad now. “Emily, it is probably just a residue from what you went through. God knows how you are sane, girl, Jedi or no…” She broke off as she saw Emily crying softly. “Emily…?” Her voice was worried now.

 

The distraught Jedi shook herself and focused, calming herself as best she could. “She called me ‘Mom’, Karli… She called me ‘Mom’.” Emily bowed her head and didn’t move as Karli came to her side and hugged her tight. “It was… It felt right… Jedi should not attach, but it felt right…”

 

The old woman smoothed the younger one’s hair gently as she supported the shuddering Jedi. “This… This is going to be… interesting…” Karli’s voice was thoughtful as she held the younger woman. But then she sighed. “I will tell Dargon as soon as he returns.”

To say that Dargon was startled by what Emily said was the understatement of the century. For the first time since she had seen him, his façade of indifference vanished and he looked baffled. Karli looked at him, shrugged and left the room quietly. They were meeting in Emily’s room. It was large enough and private enough. Emily stared at the door as it hissed shut behind Karli and then at Dargon who was not cloaked in his guise of a human for once. She was sitting in a comfortable chair near the bed and Dargon was standing by the painting she liked so much.

 

She raised an eyebrow and he sighed. When he spoke it was careful, each word considered. “This is not… I never thought about anything like this.”

 

"No?" Emily looked at him, her face serene. “Then why did you help me? Why have you and your family been so nice to me? I am an enemy of your Empire.”

 

Dargon looked at her and his face was blank again. “Are you?”

 

Emily sighed quietly and looked away. There was a painting on the wall that she truly liked, a seascape. “Dargon, I am a Jedi. The rulers of your Empire have no love for Jedi.”

 

"True." The Sith nodded slowly. “According to the Empire, yes, Jedi are enemies. You, however, are not.”

 

Emily blinked. “Say what?”

 

Dargon slumped where he sat. “I..um… Well… When I killed Kuilon, I reported everything to the Empire. It was standard procedure, and I had to follow procedure, I was under intense scrutiny. But when I was ordered to kill you, I didn’t.”

 

"I... I remember." The Jedi stared at the being who had saved her from a horrible fate. “Why didn’t you?”

 

Dargon shrugged. “I told myself it was to interrogate you, to ferret out secrets of the Jedi order. I kept telling myself that, to hide the real reason behind a mask that even Sith lords would have difficulty getting past. But I was lying to myself as much as I was lying to the Empire.”

 

Emily froze in place. Something was off about his reply. “Then why?” She asked slowly when he didn’t continue.

 

"Emily..." Dargon frowned in thought, obviously trying to choose his words carefully. “I am an inquisitor. My job is to ferret out enemies of the Empire and eliminate them, using whatever means necessary. Recently, inquisitors seem more interested in gaining power, legally or illegally, than in doing what they are supposed to do. Inquisitor means ‘truth officer’. But I lied to my superiors and hid you for a personal reason. Perhaps that makes me a traitor, perhaps not. I don’t know. I have no intention of harming the Empire. And I want to protect my family. Which is why we can’t let you leave.”

 

Emily nodded unhappily. “I know. Karli explained.” The fact that Dargon had lied to his superiors was one thing. But if she left, and word got back to the Empire that she had survived and had escaped from this place, well, Dargon and his family would suffer greatly. She shook her head. “That isn’t the only reason, though, is it?”

 

Dargon shook his head. “No. Tell me, Jedi. Do you believe everyone can be saved?”

 

"Well..." The Jedi who was sort of a prisoner blinked and shook her head slowly. “Not everyone, no. There are some who, either through action or inaction, go far beyond the norm, but for most, yes. Why?”

 

"Fair enough." The erstwhile Inquisitor nodded, his face impassive, but something in his Force sense spoke of tension. “And what is the Jedi view on love?”

 

Emily felt her cheeks heat a bit. “I wasn’t talking about love; I was talking about the will of the Force. I know this sounds weird, but… It felt right.”

 

"Please..." The being in black robes didn’t take his eyes off the woman. “Emily, it’s important.”

 

"Okay..." Emily shook her head and fell into lecture mode. “Jedi are not supposed to attach. Jedi are supposed to avoid strong emotions. We are supposed to love all unconditionally.” Dargon looked at her and she flushed a bit more. “I know, I know. It doesn’t always work. But there are valid reasons not to attach, not to fixate on a relationship.”

 

Dargon nodded, his face still serene. His voice was calm. “What reasons?”

 

"Dargon." Emily sighed and then laughed a little sourly. “Are you really curious or just leading me on? If so, say so and I will desist.”

 

"I am not leading you on." Dargon shook his head and when he spoke his voice was almost inaudible. “I have a reason, Emily. But I need to know what you think before I burden you with it.”

 

The Jedi shook her head and shrugged. “I … well, I never really thought about it. Uncontrolled emotion is a bad thing. I am pretty sure even Sith say the same.” Dargon nodded slightly and Emily continued. “After all, if you are not in control of yourself, are you strong or weak?” She asked quietly.

 

Dargon grimaced slightly and then nodded slowly. “Good point, but not one that most Sith would agree with. Of course, in my experience, most of the beings who follow the way of the Sith are power mad idiots. It’s the relative few who are not blinded by their lust for power who can get incredibly dangerous. Of course a ‘relative few’ in talking about an interstellar empire is hundreds, but scattered across the entirety of the Empire.

 

The woman sitting in the chair nodded. That made sense. “Well, there are other reasons. First of all, if you focus on family, what does that leave you to focus on being a Jedi? And if you focus on being a Jedi, what kind of parent will you make?” She slumped. “I… I think what I saw was the future, but… I don’t know. Maybe it was just my mind making up things.” She froze as Dargon came and stood beside the chair.

 

"Emily..." Dargon’s smile was kind as he took her hands in his. “Would it help if I told you I have seen the same thing in a vision? But she called me ‘Dad’.”

 

Emily stiffened. “You… I…” She was shaking now, trying to control the emotions that flew through her. Then she blinked as Dargon knelt by her side.

 

Dargon’s voice was calm. “Easy, Emily. Be at peace. There is no Emotion…” He began the code of the Jedi and Emily joined him. “…There is peace.” They chorused and Emily relaxed slowly. Dargon nodded and when he spoke, it was kind. “You will need to understand your emotions to deal with them.”

 

Emily narrowed her eyes. That didn’t sound anything like she might have imagined a Sith saying. “I would have thought you would be quoting the Sith Code, seeing as how there is only one way to make sure a child is viable even with modern technology.”

 

Dargon smiled a bit mysteriously. “Ah, but to quote the Sith Code, I would have to believe in it. And I don’t.”

 

Emily shook her head, completely baffled. “If you are trying to confuse me, you are succeeding.”

 

Dargon smiled widely. “Emily, I am not a Sith.” Suddenly, Emily could see deep, deep into the being in front of her, deeper than she had ever been able to. What she saw stunned her.

 

The Jedi shook her head, completely undone by what she sensed within the hardened shell of the Inquisitor. “You… I… No… I can’t… We shouldn’t…” She was babbling, but it didn’t seem to matter.

 

Dargon smiled sadly. “You asked why we helped you? Why we are nice to you? It is simple. I have loved you from the first moment I saw you. You were so proud, so hurt, so violated, and still you managed to stay calm and in control. I envy that ability. Anyone going through what you did could be excused going mad.” He looked away for a moment. And when he met Emily’s eyes again, his were glistening. “If you choose this, I want it to be your choice, not some remnant of brainwashing. So I have to ask. Do you want this? Knowing what is entailed? I know Karli has told you some of what will transpire.”

 

"Yes." Emily grimaced, her face turning introspective. “Yes, she has. She thinks I am insane. Part of me thinks I am insane, but it feels right as silly as that sounds.”

 

"True." The inquisitor shook his head. “We all follow the will of the Force, Emily. Some of us knowingly, others… blindly. And if it leads us together, who are we to say no?”

 

Emily shook her head, but not in negation, in disbelief. “This is going to cause problems.”

 

Dargon took her hands in his and smiled. “I don’t care. If you want a child by me, I will not leave you to raise her alone. I have seen far too many children forced to grow in unloving or unstable situations to ever want a child of my own to face such hardships. I wouldn’t do it to you either, Emily. You can sense why.” Emily found herself unable to speak. The depth of feeling that Dargon was showing her now was intense to say the least. “What say you, Emily Hollian? Will you marry me?”

 

Emily focused herself as she had been taught from her early years and then smiled a little as she took Dargon’s face in her hands and gave him a kiss. When they came up for air, she spoke. “Yes.”

<25 years before the Treaty of Coruscant>

 

Of course it wasn’t that easy. Emily reflected as she recovered from one of the most strenuous ordeals of her life, but it was worth it. The Jedi consular hugged the small being to her chest gingerly and smiled as it moved slightly. The tiny bundle they had named Jina was exhausted and sleeping. Her day had been just as stressful as Emily’s, if in different ways. Emily had thought she was prepared, but nothing could have possibly prepared her for this. Even Jedi training had been stressed to the limits with the ups and downs, the horrible pain that even the best painkillers could not dull entirely, and then the wild surge of joy when a small female voice started crying. And then actually seeing her and holding her for the first time…

 

Nothing at all compared to the thrill of holding a small life in her hands and knowing that she, Emily Hollian Darkstorm, had helped create it, her. Jina was marvelous, beautiful, a wonderfully docile baby. Emily had been studying parenting, and with Karli’s enthusiastic help, had been preparing for this day ever since they had found out that she had, in fact, conceived. Then Emily winced as the tiny form woke, squirmed a bit and then clamped her mouth onto her food source.

 

Karli sat beside Jina’s bed, a beauteous smile on her face as she watched Jina feed. “You don’t know sore yet, girl.”

 

"Ah Karli..." Emily sighed, but her face was still smiling. “Jedi do not know pain.” But she winced again and relaxed.

 

"Sure they don't." Karli nodded slightly, smiled and laid a gentle hand on Emily’s shoulder. “You may be able to deaden the pain, daughter in law, but you just stressed your body a lot more than even a Jedi is going to be able to bounce back from immediately. Don’t push it. Jina needs you. You need sleep, Emily.”

 

"I know, but..." Emily shrugged carefully so as not to dislodge the waif that was feeding. “I don’t know when I will be able to. So much emotion, even Jedi training has limits.”

 

"Figured that." Karli nodded with a smile, she remembered. “Do you want some help to sleep?” She waved a hand at a table nearby that had an array of pill containers laid out on it.

 

Emily shook her head slowly, and had to work to keep her nausea at bay. Her morning sickness had been awful. Luckily, she had been taught how to control nausea early in padawan training. “I don’t think I will be able to keep one down. Should I call Mei?” Mei had become Emily’s personal nurse, assistant and special friend while the Jedi was laid up. The girl was almost Emily’s age and was a kind soul.

 

Karli smiled fondly. “No, I can do it if you want. But let’s make sure Jina is finished before we do knock you out. She is likely to wake up often tonight. I know none of my kids slept for more than two hours at a time for at least two weeks after they were born. I will stay with her, its part and parcel to being a mother in law.”

 

The Jedi winced. “Two… Weeks…?” She sighed but then smiled as her tiny daughter released her grip, sighed and was immediately asleep again. She shook her head and smiled. “I will defer to your greater experience in being a mother then.” Karli grinned at her tone and got up from her chair. She watched as Karli deftly pulled the materials from a drawer and started preparing the injection. As Emily waited, she reflected.

 

It had been a momentous year. From the moment Dargon had proposed, her life had taken some serious twists and turns. Parts had seemed to fly by, other parts had seemed to crawl. Dargon, Karli, Mei and the others of the small family had taken Emily in and taught her a lot, about a lot of things. Emily had, of necessity, become very interested in biology. The sheer scope of what Dargon had to do to make sure that she would be able to carry a child to term had been mind boggling. Dargon had spent much of the last year in labs of various kinds. Of course, that had not gone unnoticed.

 

As Karli finished preparing the hypo and started back to the bed, Emily looked at the silver object in the older woman’s hand and shuddered. She didn’t move, careful not to disturb the slumbering bundle. Jina was a good baby, or so Karli kept saying, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed being woken from her naps. Karli stopped just at the edge of the bed and looked at Emily.

 

Emily’s mother in law spoke softly so as not to upset the baby. “Are you all right?”

 

The Jedi, or former Jedi, she wasn’t sure if she still was one at the moment, shook her head. “I was just remembering the last time you gave me an injection.”

 

Karli winced and sat down beside the bed. The hypo vanished somewhere. When she spoke her voice was sad. “We didn’t have a choice Emily.”

 

Emily sighed. “I know. I understand, it was just… It was really, really weird not being in control of my body and mind.”

 

When an Imperial inspection team had come through the first time, it had been unannounced. The family had been forced to improvise while Dargon greeted the team. Emily had been reading in the library when Karli had burst in, pulled her into another room, and… Emily winced in memory.

 

"I know." The older woman laid a gentle hand on Emily’s shoulder. “I am sorry Emily. We didn’t have a choice.”

 

Emily nodded, but her mind was still reeling. Karli had been… different, harder. On one level Emily had known it was an act, but… Being stripped, restrained to a bed and then drugged with something that fogged her mind enough that she couldn’t talk or even move had been terrifying to the Jedi, especially after what she had endured before. The Imperial team, satisfied that she was an experimental subject who bore only a slight resemblance to a dead Jedi, had left without incident. Part of what had convinced them must have been the absolutely genuine terror that had seeped through her befuddled mind when an evil looking woman in black robes had examined her physically. The woman had been utterly professional, but so cold, so remote and so dark… It had taken Dargon and Karli some time to calm Emily down and get her to understand. Even now, she was hard pressed to keep the terror at bay. And there had been three inspections since then. Dargon was apparently under close scrutiny for some reason. Of course now they had a system for it.

 

As Emily was steeling herself to ask Karli to inject her, Mei came in, her face worried. “Grandma…. We have a guest.”

 

"A guest?" Karli froze in her seat and her face was worried. “Who, child?”

 

"Well..." Everything stopped as a soft voice answered her from behind the frozen girl in the doorway. “That would be me.”

 

Emily hadn’t thought she could get any stiffer, but she managed as a small brown form walked around Mei, patted her on the arm and nodded to Karli. But his gaze was on Emily and the bundle Emily held. The alien had long ears, tufted short hair and three fingers on each hand that ended in claws. What was odder was that she could not sense him in the Force, it was as if he wasn’t really there. It was the best camouflage she had ever seen of a being’s Force sense. But in that case, this being was insanely powerful. And dangerous.

 

"I am sorry..." Karli didn’t move. When she spoke, her voice was odd. “Lord Dargon is not here, Grandmaster Trugoy.”

 

The small brown form nodded. Emily felt her heart start to thud and she focused to keep calm. It wouldn’t help, and it would likely wake Jina, which might be bad. Sith as a whole had no time or patience for children. But Bladeborn, of which Trugoy was the leader, were not Sith, were they? Everything she had read had said they were different. Strange.

 

"Yes." Trugoy nodded sagely. “I know, I need to talk to Miss Hollian.”

 

"Uh..." Emily felt her heart fall completely out of her chest. He knew! Somehow, he knew… Through sheer force of will, she managed to keep her voice submissive and calm when she spoke. “I am afraid I don’t know any Miss Hollian, Grandmaster. My name is Emily Darkstorm.”

 

"Of course it is." Trugoy smiled and suddenly, Emily felt okay. He wasn’t hostile, maybe a bit worried, but not angry or hostile. “You are a very good actress, Jedi. One of the best I have seen. Be at peace, Ma’am. You have already had an incredibly stressful day. That is a beautiful child.” His smile was gentle as he looked at Jina.

 

"No..." Emily felt her heart start thudding again. “Leave her alone.” Her voice was calm still, but she gathered Jina into a tighter embrace. The waif snuggled closer but didn’t wake.

 

Trugoy smiled, but Emily was not mollified. He raised a hand when she would have sat up. “No, no… stay where you are or you will wake her. I will leave her and you alone if I can, Emily Hollian Darkstorm. Your secret is safe with me as long as Dargon is loyal. I know his loyalty to his family is stronger than his loyalty to the Empire, so I am telling you this. Your child will do great things, and terrible ones. Her choices will make or break the galaxy. So we will be watching. For now, rest new mother. You will need your sleep.” To Emily’s amazement, he bowed to her! Then he was gone. After a moment, Mei followed him out, her face serene, but her sense in the Force was shocked.

 

Emily stared after him and then looked atKarli who looked just as poleaxed as Emily felt. “I… This wasn’t a dream, was it?” Karli shook her head, bemused and Emily surprised herself with a small laugh. “We need to figure this out.”

 

Karli shook her head slowly and her hand came up with the hypo. This time Emily didn’t flinch. “For now, you need sleep.” She injected Emily with the deftness that spoke of long practice and then waited while Emily drifted away into a haze of blissful rest. She smiled as she reached for Jina. “Come here, youngling. Your momma needs sleep.” Emily drifted off conscious of soft singing. She loved listening to Karli sing.

<Seven years later>

 

Emily was very good at waiting. She had not been originally, but in her training as a Jedi and now in her hidden life as the wife of a fake Sith, she had been forced to learn patience well. But this was driving her mad. Nothing was worse than being the mother of a hurt child and having to watch as others tended her daughter, even others she trusted completely. She sat on the couch in the waiting area and tried not to fidget.

 

“Mom?” A small voice asked from nearby and Emily turned to see her son sitting quietly. “It will be okay, you will see.”

 

She held out her hand and the small boy came into her arms and snuggled close. It never ceased to amaze her how calm her kids made her on occasion. Of course they could be infuriating at times, any children could be. But hers were special. She knew it was just her own perception, but to her, Mikol, Cina and the girl who was just now being wheeled out of surgery were the best children in the galaxy. Cina, at 6 months old, was too young to be exposed to this. But Mikol was solid at 3 years. He acted so grown up on occasion that Emily actually worried sometimes that he would never have a childhood. She remembered bits of her own fondly and didn’t want any of her kids to suffer because of her own inadequacies. But he never showed any jealousy, fear or anger. He was such a sweet child. She feared for him when he would have to go to the academy himself, after what had happened to Jina there. But then the Jedi forced herself to relax, there was nothing she could do about it.

 

Emily watched as the medics wheeled Jina to the recovery ward before replying. “I know, Mikol. I know.” She ruffled his hair and Mikol smiled as he nestled closer. She looked up as Dargon came out of the surgical suite, a satisfied look on his face. Emily raised an eyebrow and he nodded.

 

Dargon’s voice was quiet, but carried easily. “The lightsaber wound to the abdomen was clean. It self cauterized, and it missed most of the vital organs. The elbow that was pulled out of socket and stomped on is a bit more worrisome, but the repairs we made should hold. She also has a skull fracture, so we will keep her under observation for a couple of days.”

 

Emily nodded to the list of injuries. “Can I see her?” She asked quietly. Something was bothering her greatly.

 

The man in black robes was long time in answering. When he did it was quiet and sad. “I don’t think that is a good idea right now, Emily.”

 

"What?" His wife stiffened. “Why not?”

 

Dargon’s gaze was far away, at something only he could see. But when he spoke, anger was heard deep, deep down in his tone. Enough anger that Mikol whimpered a bit. “They tried to break her, Emily. They succeeded. She fell.” Emily gave Mikol a squeeze and he relaxed but then her husband’s word sank in.

 

Emily’s face went slack. “Oh my god… No…” She rose quickly, holding Mikol close as she started for the door. Dargon blocked the door and Emily snarled at him. “She is my daughter, Dargon! I have to help her. Even if she wasn’t I have to help her. It is my duty as a Jedi.”

 

"Emily..." Dargon sighed, but didn’t move from where he blocked the door. “Emily… Think. They used every means they could think of to break her mentally. I read the reports and they… they sicken me. But…” He sighed.

 

The female Jedi looked at her husband. “But what?”

 

"She..." Dargon spoke softly. “She didn’t break until they used you against her. In her mind.”

 

The woman with the child in her arms felt the planet rock on its axis. “They… what…?” she asked in disbelief.

 

The erstwhile Sith inquisitor sighed and put his arms around his wife and son gently. “Emily… It is what Sith do. They find a weakness and exploit it. It took them almost two years to find her weakness. It cost several students their lives for the instructors to find her weakness. But when they did find it, they did what Sith do. They broke her. Emily, she is one step removed from madness. The students who ambushed her wore your image. She killed them all, while they looked like you.”

 

The Jedi was shaking her head in horror and disbelief. “No… I…” She felt her eyes burn and focused herself. “I have to help her.”

 

Dargon shook his head. “If you go in there, Emily, she will attack you. She very nearly attacked me, apparently they tried using my image a few times as well. I um… Well…”

 

Emily looked at her husband. “What did you do?”

 

"Emily..." Dargon sighed and would not meet her eyes. “Is it Dark Side to use an enemy against another enemy? To escape with a wounded child, Emily?”

 

Emily stiffened. “Dargon…? What did you do?”

 

Dargon still wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I… They were going to kill her. She wiped the floor with all four of the senior students who attacked her in the refresher. She killed two of them, disarmed the other two literally, and was leaving when two of the instructors cornered her. One was going to… I…” Dargon’s voice broke. “Emily, help me, I was so angry, I wanted them to hurt.”

 

"Dargon?" Emily looked at her husband and then set her son down on his feet. He scampered to the side, face worried. Emily moved to stand beside her husband. Her voice was still quiet, but held a bite now. “What did you do, Dargon?” She repeated.

 

Dargon bowed his head. “They were going to enslave her, put bindings of the Force in her mind, turn her into a puppet. None of them had realized exactly how powerful and tough she was until then. Four on one and she wiped the floor with them, Emily. The instructors reacted as Sith do, with avarice. She had no chance against two full fledged Sith. She was down, she was screaming… I had to do something…”

 

Emily shook her head and hugged her significant other. “What happened, Dargon? What did you do?” She asked gently. Dargon finally met her eyes and she recoiled as she saw flecks of yellow in his otherwise impassive brown orbs. He had used the Dark side. “Oh my god, Dargon… No…” Her voice was horrified.

 

Dargon was crying now. “I took control of them both. They were tough, but no match for me. I turned them on each other. It was easy, they were Sith. They detested each other. They were still going at it when I left with Jina. Emily… I… I wanted them hurt for what they did to Jina, and… I think they both died. I didn’t stay to see. I carried Jina out to my ship and told the headmaster that Jina was now my apprentice. Then I left and brought her here.”

 

Emily slumped, but then embraced her husband. “I think I would have done the same, or worse. This is why the Council forbids attachment so strongly. But I don’t care. I can and will help you and Jina through this, Dargon. It will not be easy, or quick. Be we can and will do it.”

 

Dargon stared at Emily, and then smiled. “Thank you, Emily. I have been so scared… So…” He shook his head and then both of them started as small hands took theirs.

 

Mikol looked at both of them and his voice was sure. “Mom, dad? It will be all right.”

 

Emily had to smile at the clam surety in his voice and Dargon smiled as well. Both of them embraced their son, but both also knew that this was not going to be a simple matter. Not now.

<8 years later, 10 years before the treaty of Coruscant>

 

It had almost gotten routine. That was bad. Emily knew that falling into a routine was never a good thing, especially when her life and the lives of everyone that’s he loved hung in the balance, but she couldn’t help it. Mikol had flunked out of the academy, on purpose. The absolute LAST thing that any of the family wanted was to become visible to the powers that be in the Empire. Jina’s spectacular slaying of four students as, supposedly, two instructors, had very nearly spelled doom to the small family. It had taken Dargon talking VERY fast to keep the hounds away.

 

Now Cina was there, and keeping her cool as best the hot headed girl could. Emily worried about her youngest. And she knew that Cina would be her last. The docs had tried, but after the last attempt, they had been forced to sterilize her. Her internal organs simply could not keep up with the strain, even with the best medical tech the Empire had and the Force, there was simply no way to have another child. So Emily and Dargon had, um… adopted a few. So that was what Emily was doing when Dargon returned from his latest trip.

 

He staggered into the main room, his eyes haunted and his posture slumped. “Emily…” His voice was as haunted as his eyes.

 

Emily blinked and turned from the game that she had been playing with two of her adopted children. Lisbet and Jul did not have the Force, but she didn’t care. They were good kids, well trained and disciplined now. She and Dargon had started a small training school for soldiers that had grown over the years and now was providing training to some of the best and brightest of the Empire. Candidates from as far away as Drummond Kaas were attending now, and Emily kept herself and her kids far, far away from it. She was on her feet and at her husband’s side in an instant. The two kids were also on their feet, one moving to take Dargon’s cloak and the other to get a cup of tea for him.

 

Emily helped her husband to a chair and sat him down. He was shaking slightly. Emily stared at him; she had never seen him shake. But when she spoke, her voice was calm. “Dargon? What is wrong?”

 

Dargon accepted the cup that Lizbet gave him and sipped slowly. He managed to calm himself slightly before speaking, but even without the Force, she could see that he was seriously upset. When he spoke, his voice was tightly controlled. “We went to Tralus, Jina and I. We were sent to ‘acquire’ one of the bugs that live there. For experimentation, for dissection, for study. I had no idea, Emily. They were not animals. They are sentient. Mad sentients.”

 

"What?" Emily shook her head, baffled.. “What happened, Dargon? Where is Jina?” She stared at the door as if expecting her daughter.

 

"I lost her." Dargon winced and would not meet her eyes. “They took her. The bugs did.”

 

Emily froze. “They what? Dargon, they eat people!” She had been informed of what the Sith knew about the race of huge black bugs that lived on the moon of Correllia and occasionally travelled elsewhere. “You left her there?” She tried to keep the accusation out of her voice, but it flew regardless.

 

Dargon shook his head, his entire being spoke of fatigue far beyond normal. “I tried, Emily. I couldn’t get close. They didn’t… It was weird. They didn’t eat her. They did something else. I had no idea why.”

 

Emily shook her husband, and not gently. “Dargon, make sense. What happened?”

 

"I tried." Dargon slumped. “I tried to get into the nest, but there were just too many of them. Every time I tried, they found me, chased me away. Then something odd happened. A team of Republic Special Forces and a pair of Jedi arrived. They went in, they found her. They fought their way out. They lost people, but they got Jina out.” His face was so sad now.

 

Emily stiffened. Something in his force sense. “Then what?” She asked quietly.

 

Dargon slumped. “The girl they found wasn’t Jina, Emily. The bugs…” He was crying now, softly. “The bugs wiped her mind.” Emily’s horrified gasp was matched by the two children. All of them liked Jina. She was odd and dangerous, but they liked her. Even with her penchant for diving into battle naked to test herself. “She didn’t remember me. I snuck onto the ship the Jedi were on. She was so small and lost in the medical berth. The Jedi were gone, talking to the remnants of the Special Forces team, I think. I was going to try and get her. She didn’t know me. She fought me. I… The Jedi returned and I had to flee.”

 

"And?" Emily was shaking in fear and grief. “What happened to Jina, Dargon? Where is she?”

 

Dargon sighed. “They were going to take her to Coruscant for medical treatment. I tried to stop them… I fought, and I lost.”

 

"Dargon..." His wife froze in place. “If you lost…”

 

Dargon looked old and tired suddenly. “The Jedi I fought knew I was Jina’s father. He told me he would see to it she was safe and taken care of. They were not sure if they could help her. She was… is… a mess. He defeated me easily, and then he let me go.”

 

Emily was in shock, she knew she was. “They… they will take care of her. Probably better than we can.”

 

Dargon looked away for a moment. “It gets worse, Emily. I… interrogated the bug I captured. I know why they took Jina alive. Why they tried so hard to get her back when the Jedi and Special Forces took her.”

 

Emily waited, but Dargon didn’t continue. “Dargon?” She prompted.

 

"it was horrible, Emily." Dargon sat up straight, his posture becoming rigid. “They wanted to use her to breed Force using versions of themselves. They were going to use her to make a horde of huge, flesh eating, Force using insects, Emily. They remade her, Emily. They hurt her, badly, in capturing her. They repaired her body, using biotechnology that is way beyond anything the Empire has. They were going to alter it, so she could be a brood mother for their race.”

 

Emily felt all the blood leave her face. “How do you know that, Dargon?”

 

Dargon slumped again. “I asked.”

 

Emily shook her head. “You… What?”

 

The erstwhile Sith Inquisitor sighed and rose to his feet. “Come with me.” Emily silently followed her husband as he left the room. She followed him through the compound that served as the home of the Darkstorm clan, and then she followed him into a section she had never been in. A glace told her what it was. A dungeon. As dungeons went, this one was fairly comfortable. No water, no rodents, no… She froze and recoiled as she looked into the cell that Dargon was approaching and a large black bug lay on it's side in the middle of the floor there. Its legs had been lopped off, apparently by a lightsaber, but it looked at Dargon with intelligence in its compound eyes.

 

Dargon nodded to the bug. When he spoke, it was in a formal tone. “Kioulinhighjutsofruitploniun, meet Emily. Jina’s mother.”

 

"Greetings, Mi'lady." The bug nodded to Emily and Emily froze as the bug spoke accentless Basic. “Forgive my inability to rise.”

 

Emily blinked and looked from the bug to Dargon. “What the flarg?” Her eyes narrowed as she scanned the bug with the Force. “You… You are sane. I thought your people were all insane.”

 

"All the others are. I was." The bug nodded again. “Your mate has healed what was done to my people so long ago. Inadvertently, but he has restored my mind. I am free of the madness that was all I knew from the moment I hatched.”

 

Emily looked at Dargon, her mouth hanging open. “What did you do?”

 

"I don't know." Dargon shook his head slowly. “I really don’t know. I was trying a dozen different things at once to communicate. Suddenly, well, she talked.”

 

"indeed." The black bug made a soft sound. “Your mate saved me from madness, Emily Darkstorm. Anything I can do to help, I will.”

 

Emily shook her head, utterly bemused. “She? Uh, you are female, Kio- um… I cannot remember your name. I apologize.” Her old training as an arbiter and judge came back as she tried to remember how to act.

 

"Apology accepted." The bug nodded to her. “You may call me Niun, Emily Darkstorm.” Her tone held humor.

 

Dargon nodded. “Yes. Niun here is a sterile female of a race called the Sitolon. Apparently there are more of them out there than we knew about. And they don’t like us. Force users. Nuin was telling me about… Well, what happened to Jina and why.”

 

Emily sat down heavily on the floor. “So… What can we do?” She asked quietly, trying to get her mind around this predicament.

 

Dargon bowed his head. “I have been ordered to set up a clandestine garrison on Tralus. To keep Niun’s people as contained as we can. And I have been ordered to put Mikol in command. His orders will be to kill Jina if she ever returns.” Emily’s eyes went wide, but before she could protest, Dargon continued. “I was ordered by the Emperor, Emily.”

 

Emily shut her mouth with a click. No one sane defied the Emperor’s commands inside the Empire. She slumped. “I… I…” She felt her eyes burn, and Dargon embraced his wife.

 

Her husband’s voice was soft now. “It gets worse.” Emily stiffened and he continued. “One of the Special Forces soldiers who rescued Jina was Will Kalenath.”

 

Emily felt her world suddenly shiver, as if the galaxy itself had suddenly frozen in place and then started again. “Oh my god…. It’s begun…” Both of them had been researching various things and both had recently uncovered disturbing information about the Kalenath and Darkstorm families. An ancient prophecy suddenly looked as if it were coming true.

 

"Yes." Dargon nodded. “Yes. The Seven are rising. And Jina is one of them.” Emily stared at her husband and then buried her face in his shoulder and wept.

<5 years before the treaty of Coruscant>

 

Emily shook her head as she took her place by the slumbering woman. Mei nodded and left the room. But Emily knew she had to do more than just sit with this sorely hurt woman now. The woman was not asleep, her eyes were open, but vacant. She had to do what the Force was prodding her to do. Dargon might be annoyed with her for this, but... She had to try. Emily laid her hands on the soldier's arm and forehead and focused herself as she had not in many, many years. The Force answered her call as easily as ever and she could feel the power seeping into the still form in front of her, soothing, cleansing, healing. The staring eyes in front of her... blinked.

 

"Sharra?" Emily asked gently. "Can you hear me?" There was no response. Emily sighed, nothing for it, she was going to have to go deeper. She called the Force again and threw herself into Sharra Kalenath's mind.

 

A whirlwind of emotion surrounded her. Images, memories. She saw battles, people dying in Empire and Republic colors, Jedi, Sith, all sorts of beings. But then she ran into a wall.

 

"Ow..." Emily said slowly as she retreated from Sharra's mind for a moment. "What the hell? A block...? Has to be a block...But... Wow that was powerful."

 

"Emily?" Mei's voice was worried. Her friend came into the room. "You cried out."

 

"I am okay, Mei." Emily hastened to reassure her friend. "I am trying to help her." She waved a slow hand to where Sharra lay silent.

 

"Emily..." Mei's voice was disapproving. "If Nuin can't..."

 

"I know." Emily said sadly. "But I think I did find out what is causing this. Why or how? That I don't know. How is Will?"

 

"Still asleep." Mei said sadly. "He is as much of a mess as she is. Do you think...?"

 

"I can help her, Mei." Emily said solidly. "I just need a little more time."

 

"Okay." Mei said with a shrug. "But this time I am going to monitor you."

 

"I would appreciate it." Emily said a she laid her hands back on Sharra's still form. "And this time I am going to try to get around the block instead of ramming my head through it."

 

She heard Mei chuckle as if from a great distance as she entered Sharra's mind again. She could almost see it. A wall across Sharra's memories. And not an externally created one either. It was as if the woman had put it up herself. Emily gently insinuated herself around the edge. She was not prepared for what she saw. It was as if she were watching from outside as the scene unfolded.

 

Sharra was in Republic uniform. She was walking along a corridor. It looked like a military base. A glance to the side showed Will in uniform, walking beside her. Both had no expression on their faces. The pair walked to a door marked "General Mak' and Will knocked.

 

"Enter." An older male voice sounded. A Kel Dor in Republic Uniform, with General's stars on his shoulders, rose from his desk and nodded to both. Will and Sharra both saluted and he returned them. "Will, Sharra, good to see you. I take it everything is taken care of."

 

"The senator is in custody, general." Sharra said flatly. Emily tensed. There was something about her voice, something wrong.

 

"Good." The general didn't seem to hear whatever was in Sharra's voice. Or care. "This has been a hell of a mess. You have both earned some leave time." What was going on? Emily had no idea.

 

"Have we?" Sharra asked calmly. "Is that so? How many children's lives is a leave worth, General?"

 

"Sharra?" He asked slowly. "I don't know what you mean."

 

"We are not stupid, General." Sharra said slowly. "Will and I have done...evil things for the Republic. To see the Republic survive. It is the duty of any soldier to place him or herself between those who would harm innocents and innocents. Any who would harm innocents..." She stopped talking as the general shook his head.

 

"Look Sharra. I know this hurt you." The Kel Dor sighed. "It hurt all of us, but it wasn't your fault."

 

"No sir, it was not." Sharra said slowly. "We followed the chain of command. We did as ordered, placing the bomb in the bank as you ordered. But..."

 

"Stop right there, lieutenant." The General said harshly. "I take responsibility for my operations. I messed up. "

 

"Did you?" Will's voice was as cold dead thing. "Did you really?"

 

"Will!" Sharra hissed. "I have this." Will looked at his wife and nodded, stepping back a pace.

 

"Look, I know you are both stressed." The general said gently. "You both have earned a great deal of..." He broke off as Sharra glared at him. "Lieutenant..." He shook his head. "What?" He asked sourly.

 

"This." Sharra laid a message chip down on the general's desk. He stared at it and froze. "The senator's aide sent his final report with us. You knew. You knew who the conduit in the Senate was. You knew all along. You knew all along where the terrorists were getting their money."

 

"Sharra..." The General said slowly. "It is not that simple."

 

"Begging your pardon sir..." Sharra said slowly, carefully. "I think it is. So I only have one thing to ask before I walk out of here and go to the Judge Advocate General's office." The general went stiff, but Sharra didn't seem to care. "Why? Why blow up a bank? Why use us to kill a bunch of civvies and kids? Why, general?" A tear fell from Sharra's eyes. "Why?" She demanded.

 

"You are stressed, Sharra." The general said kindly. "I know this hurt you. It was my order, my responsibility."

 

"I planted the bomb!" Sharra screamed. "That makes it my responsibility! I knew it was wrong and I did it anyway! You ordered us to do it. You said, and I quote 'It is needed'! Why?" She snapped. "Why was it needed?"

 

"I don't like your tone, lieutenant." The general said slowly. "You have no right to question me."

 

"No?" Sharra asked sadly. "The eighteen little bodies I pulled out of rubble I made give me that right, General. Did you know there was a daycare in there?"

 

"No." The general said just as sadly. "I didn't. But that doesn't change the facts. They were going to shut this division down. Now they are not and we even got a funding increase."

 

"You..." Sharra froze in place, her face ashen. "You... What? You did this get funding?" Emily hissed in horror, horror matched by Sharra's face and voice.

 

"Sharra... I know this is bad." General Mak said gently. "But it is for the best. We are defending the Republic."

 

"Begging your pardon sir..." Sharra said flatly. "The oath that I took says to defend the Republic against enemies foreign and domestic. I think you are going to hear from JAG soon, general." She turned to go, but he sighed.

 

"You are so naive, Sharra." General Mak said sadly. "You and Will are both on unpaid leave as of now until we can have a full psyche screening done. The medics are waiting outside. JAG is not going to listen to crazy people, Sharra."

 

"Crazy people." Emily tensed at Sharra's words. Uh oh...

 

"Sharra, you are stressed." The general said gently. "This is my responsibility. I ordered this. You are not responsible. Stand down, relax. It will be all right."

 

"With all due respect, General..." Sharra said flatly. "Kiss my choobies." She turned for the door. "If I have to I will broadcast this over the fracking holonet for all to see. You terrorist scum! You are no better than the ones we killed on Correllia."

 

"Fine." The general said as he reached for his desk. "Sharra Kalenath, you are under arrest for treason-URK!" He grunted as he jumped the short distance between the door and his desk, slamming his fingers in the drawer he had been reaching into. "Ah! Sharra! I...!"

 

"You dare!" Sharra slammed her hands, fully trained in several forms of martial arts, into the recoiling general. "You dare call ME a traitor, you murdering filth?" Emily watched, awed, as the furious woman beat the Kel Dor bloody. She jerked as Sharra pulled the being's mask off, and then the Jedi blanched as she saw a blinking device in the woman's hands. She was trying to shove it down the alien's throat!

 

"Hey!" A new voice sounded. A young voice. "You! Freeze!" Emily spun to see two soldiers in the door, both had blasters out, but both were focused on Sharra. Neither saw Will, who ALSO had his blaster out and aimed.

 

"Will..." Sharra said as she retreated from the still form at her feet. "No... We are soldiers, like them...We were even young and dumb like them... once..." Her husband stared at her and slowly dropped his gun. The guards jumped at the sound, they had never even seen him. She collapsed in a heap and started to cry.

 

Emily hissed as she slammed back into her body. "Oh my god..."

 

"Emily?" Mei asked, concerned. "What?" Then her eyes went wide as Sharra coughed and started to cry.

 

"Sharra..." Emily said gently as she took the woman in her arms. "Easy... Easy..." She crooned. "It's okay. It will be okay. You are a soldier, not a terrorist, not a monster, not a murderer. A soldier. Sharra. You are..."

 

"Who are you?" Sharra gasped out between sobs.

 

"My name is Emily, Sharra and I am here to help..."

Emily sighed as she held Sharra’s sobbing form. The woman was a mess. Small wonder, given what Emily had seen in the other woman’s memories. But Emily had managed to get through to her, and now, Sharra was finally calming.

 

The female soldier’s voice was hoarse from pain and grief, but clear. “Thank you, Emily. I… I don’t know what happened. I was… We were… On Correllia… Then…” She paused and looked around, baffled. “I don’t know what happened after that. There were people in grey and black around, but they were nice…? And a woman in grey was feeding me, caring for me? That makes no sense. They were Sith… But… Not Sith. Or not… bad Sith? I don’t know.” She repeated quietly.

 

Emily sighed and hugged Sharra again, feeling the tension leaving the younger woman as Emily’s gentle presence helped her cope. “I don’t know myself exactly what happened. I do know that Will went to Korriban.”

 

Sharra froze, her face a study of shock. “He what? But… Korriban is a Sith held world… Emily… I…” She recoiled. “Are you Sith?” She asked as she tried to extricate herself from Emily’s embrace.

 

Emily let her go, and sat back, her face serene. “If I was, I would lie to you. But no, I am not. I don’t expect you to take my word for that, but I can prove it to you and I will. You are currently on the planet Vanaria, which is deep in Sith held space. You are not a prisoner, Sharra. You are a guest. From what I understand, the whole thing of Will going to Korriban was a ruse, a ploy by Republic Intelligence to get something from there. What, I have no idea.”

 

Sharra shook her head slowly. “I…” whatever she was going to say was cut off by the door opening. Sharra stiffened but then she stared as a figure in a wheelchair rolled into the room.

 

The old woman was scowling, her green eyes flashing. “Emily, that husband of yours is out of his depth…” She broke off as he saw Sharra looking at her and her face lit up. “Ah, our sleeping beauty has finally woken. Good day, Miss Sharra.”

 

Sharra stared at the newcomer, knowing it was rude, but unable to help herself. This woman was old. At least in her tenth decade. She had short gray hair and the most piercing green eyes Sharra had seen outside of her husband. Matter of fact…

 

Sharra spoke slowly and carefully, as if afraid to verbalize what she thought. “Do I know you?”

 

"We have never been introduced." The woman smiled gently and rolled up to the bed. “You may remember me, I have helped tend you since you arrived here. But you don’t ‘know’ me.” Now she grinned. “But I can remedy that. My name is Karli. Karli Kalenath.”

 

Sharra stared at Karli and then at Emily. Her face was a study of shock that quickly smoothed into a mask. “I… Well…” She made a soft noise somewhere between a snort, a groan and a small laugh. “I don’t know what to say.”

 

Karli smiled a bit sourly and moved her chair so she was beside the bed. “I think we need to talk, you and I, girl. Emily… You are needed in the other guest room.”

 

Emily looked at the elder of her odd clan and winced. “Karli…” She wanted to stay with Sharra,. The woman was still very fragile, and Karli, while she was kind and gentle at times, sometimes she had all the tact of a bull rancor with a toothache.

 

Karli snorted, and this time pushed Emily a bit, prodding her to move. “I won’t eat her, Emily. Go. Before they rip out a wall.”

 

Sharra stared from one to the other and then slumped. Only one man she knew had that particular effect on people. “I love that man, but he is so stubborn.”

 

Emily and Karli both laughed. Karli patted Sharra’s arm and nodded. “That is all that matters, girl. You love him. Everything else will follow. Now, then…What do you want to talk about?”

 

Sharra’s response was cut off by the door. Emily was smiling as she left the room and shut the door. But as soon as she left the room, her smile vanished, she could hear them. The sound of her husband’s voice, while low, was cold and clear. Will’s voice, while nowhere near as recognizable, was clearly audible. She bet people on the other side of the planet could hear him as loudly as he was shouting. She shook her head as she strode towards the other guest room, her face going serene as she worked to remain calm.She knew what she had to do. Emily walked in the door of the guest room and bellowed at the two men who were shouting at each other. Her cold, clear and loud voice cut right through their ranting like a lightsaber.

 

“Both of you, shut up!”

 

She marched into the middle of the small room and glared at Dargon who would not meet her eyes and then at the other. Will was only half clothed, but his face was red from exertion and rage. He opened his mouth, but she didn’t give him the chance to speak. Her voice was clear, cold and in full command voice. She had never been in the military, but she had raised three children, Force sensitive children at that.

 

“You! Sit!”

 

The force of her command voice had Will in a chair before his fore brain caught up with the rest of him. He stared at her, shocked at this interloper into his argument. But she was turning to Dargon, who was already sitting in a chair on the far side of the room. Emily smiled grimly. “Smart boy.”

 

For a moment, she looked from one to the other and then she sighed. “Now I don’t care WHO started what, why or how. I will not have such carrying on in my house when we have invalids here. Do I make myself clear?” Now her voice held threat. She sighed and calmed a bit, not that she wasn’t. She was just very good at faking being angry. “Now, we are going to talk. Rationally. Calmly.” She stared at Will and then blanched at what she saw. He was weaving. “Dargon?”

 

Dargon shook his head. “He won’t let me touch him. He hit me.” Her husband’s voice was calm, but underneath lay anger and fear for Will. The man was sick.

 

"Will?" Emily stepped slowly towards Will. “Will Kalenath. Do you understand me?” Will was shivering as he tried to stay upright. Emily walked slowly towards him, ignoring the half strangled cry of alarm from Dargon. She knew Will was dangerous, and more importantly, she knew why. Her voice was calm and gentle when she spoke. “Will Kalenath, we are not your enemies. We are family, you and I. Distant relations, to be sure, but family.”

 

Will stared at her as if not really seeing her. “Sith…” he gasped out as he staggered a bit.

 

“No, we are not.” Emily smiled a bit sadly and shook her head. She reached to her belt and extended her lightsaber to him. Dargon gasped, but didn’t move. Will stared at it for a moment before taking it. He stared at it for a moment and then at Emily. The blade ignited in a spray of green plasma and the room lit up with odd shadows as the light from the blade pervaded every corner.

 

Will stared at the green light for a moment as if entranced. “Jedi…?” He asked slowly, as if not believing his eyes.

 

Emily smiled and nodded. “Yes, Will, we are Jedi. Although not all of us are fully trained yet.” She glanced at Dargon who winced.

 

Will stared at the blade, and then at Emily. Then he looked at Dargon and back to Emily. His face held shock. “He really... is...a Jedi…?”

 

"Yes." Emily sighed. “Technically, he is a padawan, my padawan. I haven’t come up with a suitable trial for him yet.” She took a step and gently grasped the hands that held the blade in her own. “Will, we follow the light.”

 

"I..." Will was shuddering hard now, but the blade deactivated and fell into Emily’s hands. She caught Will as he fell. His voice was almost inaudible. “Help…?”

 

Emily gently lowered the soldier to the floor. Her voice was soft as she held him. “We will, my cousin.”

<5 years later>

 

Emily was having a hard time keeping herself controlled. It was less dangerous now, in Sith space anyway. The Sith were busy elsewhere. She felt another surge of grief come. She acknowledged it and let it pass. But it was hard, so hard. She had known a number of the Jedi at the Temple on Coruscant. It had been her home of over two decades after all, after she had been found by the Order and brought there for training. To hear it had been razed by Darth Malgus’ assault hurt, badly. It had been a shock to hear that the Sith had attacked Coruscant, the capital of the Republic, but the fact that they won the battle had been upsetting. She wouldn’t know for some time who had survived. And maybe it was better not to know. And then that blasted ‘Treaty’…

 

The rest of the family was working to keep her busy, that was the best way to deal with grief, she knew. If she had time to mope, she would, Jedi or no. It still wasn’t safe to be a free Jedi in Sith space, but the inspections were fewer and easier to fool now. She was busy cataloguing a set of new entries for the library, a task that had to be done right the first time, trying to keep from thinking about the Room of a Thousand Fountains and the Archives in flames. So she sat at the desk, inventorying the new acquisitions and working to make them accessible to the family. Tedious work, but that was what she needed right then. She needed to focus on something other than grief. She knew that Jina had not been on Coruscant when the Sith arrived, but she also knew that Will and Sharra had been.

 

The two soldiers were…Well, Emily loved them both as family. And she loved them unreservedly. Jedi were not supposed to attach, and Emily tried not to, but the affection that she had for Sharra was heartfelt and sincere. Will was quite probably the single most annoying being she had ever encountered, stubborn as a block of duracrete, but loyal and unshakable, if insanely aggravating at times. She shook her head. Will and Sharra would both have fought when the Sith arrived, it was what they did. And in battle, people died. But the not knowing hurt Emily, it hurt just as bad as knowing in her heart that her home of over two decades was gone, obliterated by the Sith.

 

She was so focused on her work that she was taken completely off guard when a com chimed. She blinked and looked up from the book she had been cataloguing, trying to find the com on the desk that was completely covered in stuff. Papers, books, writing utensils of various kinds, all kinds of stuff cluttered the desk. She found the com when it chirped at her again and keyed it on.

 

“Darkstorm.” She didn’t have to fake the monotone this time. She was literally numb now. The Sith inspectors praised Dargon for programming Emily well enough to use the supposedly brain damaged Consular as a secretary. It was an excellent cover. Of course, Emily wasn't really brain damaged, even if right now, she almost wished she were. It would hurt less.

 

"Emily." The face that showed up on her screen was the absolute last on she would have expected. Emily felt her heart jump. Sharra’s face was pinched and drawn. But she played her part, as always when she and Will visited. “Is this a bad time?”

 

Emily blinked at the screen and then blanched. “Sharra… This is a bad idea…Contacting us this way.”

 

"I am covered, for the moment." Sharra shook her head. “I am on a authentic Imperial scramble link, and I don’t have a lot of time. I need you Emily. Will needs you.”

 

Emily sat back, a bit nonplussed at the brown haired woman’s tone. “Sharra… What is wrong? Obviously both of you survived.”

 

“Sort of.” Sharra shook her head slowly. “Not over any kind of com. Can I land?” Her face held entreaty now.

 

Emily sighed. While Dargon was gone, she was in charge. Well, technically, she was in charge period, since she was the elder Jedi. She had finally fashioned a trial that pushed him to his limits and he had succeeded. She had been so proud of him, she had tried to resist the feelings of pride, but then the rest of the family had shown their own appreciation. And it was a good sized family now. Dozens of adopted kids had reproduced, and now, with the training that Karli had instituted, they were a small army, highly trained and capable. Which caused its own problems.

 

Emily thought hard. “What are you flying? We can’t afford too much scrutiny.”

 

"Like I said, I am covered." Sharra smiled a bit thinly. “I am flying an Imperial mark Seven assault shuttle with totally authentic battle damage.”

 

Emily nodded. “We will be ready.”

 

But they weren’t. Emily had seen Will poisoned by Sith toxins and the Dark Side of the Force. She had seen the man literally soil himself in a bed due to Force induced nightmares. She had seen him flattened to the floor by headaches so strong they had resonated into her own skull. But she had never seen him like this. The shuttle had landed with no fanfare, and the ramp had lowered. Sharra had come down the ramp, leading Will who was…blank. Tracks of tears coated his face, but there was no expression on his face as Sharra led him into the house. The family stared at him and then jumped to help.

 

Sharra shook her head as two young girls in Sith army uniforms led Will to a couch and sat him down gently. Her face was a mask, but just a hint of what she was feeling slipped through the cracks and Emily embraced the younger woman. Sharra returned the embrace gratefully.

 

“Things have changed.”

 

Emily smiled, just a little sourly and nodded. “Yep.” She turned to the others. “You know what to do. Check all the feeds and make sure they are reporting what we want.” Sharra’s eyes went wide as the youngsters saluted her and darted off in multiple directions.

 

“What the…?” She asked, almost in a daze as Emily led her to a chair and sat her down. “You are bugged?”

 

Emily surprised herself with a laugh. “Yeah, Dargon has rivals and enemies within the Sith. People who keep trying to find dirt on him. We find new monitoring devices every week. The good news is that all of our people are loyal, and every attempt to suborn one has been…well...” She smiled a bit grimly. “Dargon does not brook trespass. And a Sith inquisitor has all kinds of ways to make people’s lives uncomfortable.”

 

Sharra smiled at that. “I know, ah Emily…” The mask slipped and Sharra was suddenly crying. “I…”

 

Emily sighed and embraced Sharra. “Oh Sharra. I heard, about Coruscant. Is…” Her voice turned hesitant. “Is it as bad as the news says? The Sith claim to have won completely.” She jumped when Will responded.

 

"Worse." He said hoarsely. The girl who was placing a blanket over him froze as he looked up. But he smiled at her and she responded in kind and she finished d****** the blanket.

 

The girl smiled. “I will be back with tea, grandma.”

 

Emily smiled back at the youngster. “You do that, Polli. For three.” The girl nodded and darted off. Emily looked at Will. “What happened?”

 

"No..." Will shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

 

Sharra snarled at him. “Will, you know better! You have to talk about it. If Karli were still alive…” She broke off, and grief came over her face.

 

Emily too, felt a stab of grief. The wound was still raw, even after six months. Finding Karli had passed away in her sleep had been a massive shock. The woman had been such a fixture, such a driving force behind the family, for so long, that without her, Emily felt directionless much of the time. But now the family had a grandma again. It was Emily’s job now. Karli had spent years preparing Emily for this.

 

The Jedi looked from the woman in her arms to the soldier on the couch and nodded. “Yes, we need to talk this through. Will, what happened?”

 

Will’s gaze went far away. “It happened again, Emily. This weird thing that I do.” Emily froze, the first time he had ‘merged’ as he put it, with a starfighter, he had torn an entire pirate ambush apart. But the rest of his squadron hadn’t survived. Emily rose and walked to the couch. She sat beside Will who flinched. “No… Don’t touch me right now, Emily.”

 

Emily laid a gently hand on his arm and gave a soft squeeze. “Shhh… Will, shhh… It’s okay.” She pulled his head down until it rested on her shoulder and she felt wetness through her robes. She stroked his short hair, calming. “What happened?”

 

Will’s voice was muffled. “We got our butts kicked…”

 

Emily waited patiently and after a few minutes, and Polli returning with the tea, Will sipped his and started talking again.

 

The soldier’s voice was quiet, but no one tried to get him to speak up. “There are a lot of things I can’t tell you. Hell, there are a lot of things I simply don’t believe myself. Much of what has been said, printed or broadcast about the Dragons is nerfosik.”

 

Emily nodded, but didn’t speak. The Dragons were, had been she corrected herself, the Republic’s premier fighter squadron. They were only called in when everything else had gone to hell. They had the reputation of getting the job done no matter the cost. She had known that Will was one of them, but nothing else. Even Dargon hadn’t been able to find out any more than that, and she doubted that Imperial Intelligence had been able to do any more. The Republic normally was an open book security wise, but anything and everything to do with the Dragons was so tightly compartmentalized that any and all information that was obtained on them was immediately, by Imperial Edict, sent to Druumond Kaas and Imperial Intelligence HQ. The Dragons had possessed the reputation for doing the impossible, and doing it with style. Will had joked one time about their motto. ‘Difficult is for other people. We do the impossible.’ But Will was speaking again.

 

“I am not going to go into what we were, or why. I know Imperial Intelligence is going to find out more. Now that the others are all dead, well, security will loosen. It’s a fact of life. People will talk. But not me. I can’t talk about it.”

 

Those simple words had Emily sighing. There was so much that he couldn’t talk about. So many things that hurt him, so many things that bothered him, and she knew his pain, she knew his grief. She had helped him, a lot. But there was so much more she could do, IF he would open up to her. But he couldn’t. He had given his word, and that was that. She gave him a squeeze, sipped her tea and waited. After a moment, Will spoke again.

 

“I was on leave. We had just come back from a seriously messed up mission. We all got out, but everyone was a mess. But the others all said I had to get out of there, drugged me and shipped me off.” His face held rueful admiration for his lost squadron mates. “I woke up in bed with Sharra and she…well…” His face turned bright red and Sharra smirked. Emily smiled and held out a hand to Sharra, who took it and entered the embrace; sitting on Emily’s other side.

 

"Ah." Emily snickered just a little. “I get the picture. This was on Coruscant?”

 

Will slumped. “Yeah, military quarters on base. Not the most luxurious of accommodations, but comfortable and secure. Secure was a good thing, and now… It is even more. Not that I am going to see those again.” Emily stared at him, his tone was wistful.

 

“Why not?” She asked, giving him another squeeze.

 

Will didn’t speak for a long time and when he did, it was monotone. “I am an outlaw now Emily. We disobeyed orders.”

 

Emily froze in place, a half formed cry on her lips. For this man to disobey orders… Something was very wrong. He lived discipline, he was more tightly controlled than many Jedi Emily had known, and she knew why. She didn’t speak, but she could feel Sharra’s tension as well now. She hugged them both. “You both have a place here, if you want it.”

 

"No." Will smiled at Emily and his eyes shone with unshed tears. “Thank you, Emily but we can’t. The Stormhawk needs us. And we won’t do that to you.”

 

Emily shook her head, bemused. Something in the way he said it sounded like a ship name. “The what?” She wasn’t up on current Republic ships, but most Republic were named for virtues, capital ships anyway. To name one for a predator…

 

Will looked away and Sharra spoke. “The Stormhawk is a prototype Republic battlecruiser. State of the art technology, high speed, heavy shields and heavy weapons. Or I should say it was a Republic battlecruiser. It isn’t anymore.”

 

Emily stared at the woman, shocked to her core. “Sharra…? Wha…?”

 

A Geonosian mouse lizard might have had difficulty hearing Will’s voice from less than a centimeter away. “We mutinied, Emily. We deserted.”

 

"What?" Emily hadn’t known her body could get that stiff. “Oh my god… In the name of the Force, Sharra… Will… Why?” For these two beings, who lived and breathed duty and obedience, to mutiny, to desert…? “What the hell happened?”

 

"I..." Will shook his head slowly. “I don’t know the whole story. I likely won’t. But when the alarm klaxons went off, I was out the door in an instant. We had prepared, but no one had thought the Sith would dare. I mean… Coruscant, right? It had the heaviest defenses anywhere in Republic space.” Emily nodded and Will continued as if he hadn’t seen her move. “I was heading back to the base. The squadron launched without me. That was standard operating procedure. I could move faster than any of them anyway. I knew I could catch up. The Stormhawk was still in spacedock, she had undergone refits and repairs after an idiotic newshound decided to get a very up close and personal view of the ship as it decelerated from hyperspace after her a maiden voyage. The repairs took some time. Pity about that yacht, it looked nice, but hey, he probably got the story of his lifetime. Well, it had to be the story of his life, because he died. They never found any pieces of his ship bigger than a hand but it made one hell of a mess of the Stormhawk’s bow.”

 

Emily winced. Just the thought of some pampered rich kid’s yacht colliding with something massive decelerating from lightspeed was nasty.

 

Will was shaking now but controlled himself. “I was climbing, I was way out of position. The squadron as not where it was supposed to be. Our orders were to seek out command ships, blow them away, confuse the issue, deny the enemy command and control. It was what we did best. The Sith had to be in command at all times, their personnel are mostly drones, give them orders and they are dangerous, give them nothing and they stand there looking stupid while people blow them away for fear of crossing their masters. We knew the Sith had too much firepower to beat head on, so we were going to hit them from the flanks, hit and run. But…” He broke off and shuddered again.

 

Emily hugged him again. “But what Will?”

 

Will was obviously baffled now. “It was as if someone had sent them out already, but if so, whatever they had been ordered to do was insane. Even by our standards. I tried, I tried to reach them. But they were so far out. I couldn’t get to them, Emily. I tried… I couldn’t…” He was crying softly now. “Marc went first, he was lead. The others tried, they tried hard. But there were just too many Sith. I counted eight squadrons just in my sector alone. I don’t… I…” He broke off and shook himself hard. When he spoke again it was calm, or almost calm. “I lost it Emily, I became the machine again.”

 

Emily had thought she was as stiff as she could get. She had been wrong. When Will went machine like, people died, often in large numbers. That was likely why the Dragons had recruited him in the first place. The first time he had done it; his previous squadron had been ambushed by pirates. Of the pirate transport ships and fighters, only two pilots had survived the attempted ambush, but Green Squadron had been wiped out. It had happened since then, and each time, Will’s enemies had died, in large numbers. She shook herself, Will needed her. She pulled him close and held him.

 

“It’s okay Will. We will find a way to help you.” Her voice was gentle and soothing as she held him.

 

Will shook his head. “I don’t want help anymore Emily. I just want it to end. First Mom and Dad in that stupid shuttle accident, and now this. I… I can’t go on, Emily… I can’t…I…” He stared at her and then grimaced. “Oh you rat…” He slumped as the sedative that Polli had put in his tea finally took effect and Emily lowered him to the couch slowly.

 

Emily held him as consciousness fled his body. “It will be all right, Will. It will be all right.” She held him until his breathing relaxed into sleep rhythms and then turned to Sharra who was not looking at her. “He tried to die again, didn’t he?” Sharra nodded silently. “Oh Sharra…” She hugged the younger woman tight and Sharra was suddenly crying as well.

 

The younger woman’s voice was soft and filled with pain. “I can’t help him, Emily. Can you?”

 

Emily sighed and scrutinized the form that lay beside her. “I don’t know. But we will do what we can.”

<A day later>

 

Emily watched silently as Will slept. The family doctor was working on him, she still couldn’t get the bug’s full name quite right and she wasn’t alone in that. So the whole family, except for Dargon of course, called her Nuin or ‘The Doctor’. It was a secret even more closely guarded than Emily’s not being an actual prisoner, that they had a real live bug as a co-conspirator. Not even Will knew about her. He wouldn't likely react well. The Sitolon’s skill in medicine had to be seen to be believed. And she was kind. That in and of itself was incredible to the Jedi, what little she knew about the race suggested that the absolute last thing any Force user should expect from them was kindness. Finally, Nuin stepped back and nodded to the other being in the compartment. Dargon stepped forward and Emily tried not to wince. She did not like this. Emily knew that they had to do this; that they had to alter Will’s memories for the whole family to be safe. When he was working for the Republic he had been somewhat safe; protected by the bulk of the Republic military. But now that he and Sharra were outlaws…

 

Emily sighed and strode from the room. She couldn’t watch this. Even if both Will and Sharra had agreed to having mental blocks put in to keep them from being able to spill information under interrogation, it hurt to see them lying there, being violated in a such cold and calculating way. Hopefully, neither of them would have complications. She walked into the next room and sat by her friend’s bedside. She started as Sharra’s voice came.

 

“It’s the only way, Emily.”

 

Emily smiled a bit sourly as she looked at Sharra. Sure enough, the woman’s eyes were open. ‘Serves us right for trying to let you sleep. Sharra… Did you know what they did to him? The Republic?” Emily had been both shocked and appalled by what the doctor had found inside Will’s skull. Sharra looked away and that was all the confirmation that Emily needed. “Sharra…”

 

The brown haired woman’s eyes were sad when they met the Jedi’s. “What can I say, Emily? Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

 

Emily shook her head, baffled and horrified by the calm acceptance in her friend’s tone. “Sharra… There were implants in there that the doc says were intended for obedience. Small wonder he is having difficulty staying sane. Did they do this to all the pilots?” Sharra didn’t answer and Emily snarled at her. “Sharra, it is important. Implants like this are downright dangerous. One small mistake and the subject is left paralyzed or a vegetable. I don’t care if the Republic uses this kind of thing. I do care if they use it on you or Will. Which they did.”

 

"I..." Sharra shook her head. “Emily… I… I can’t talk about that.”

 

"Sharra?" Emily stared at Sharra for a moment, and then her eyes narrowed slightly. “Can’t as in ‘do not wish’, or can’t as in ‘can’t’?” She asked carefully.

 

"Emily..." Sharra grimaced and then shook her head. “I… I can’t…”

 

Emily cursed quietly. She laid a hand on Sharra’s arm and stroked it gently, calming. “Easy, easy. Let me speculate. And since I am speculating, you just lie quiet there. If someone else put blocks in your head, they don’t cause pain when you try and speak of it, you just can’t. I would feel if you felt pain.”

 

Sharra smiled slightly. “Sneaky Jedi.” But then she frowned she opened her mouth but nothing came out and Emily nodded. She probed the younger woman’s mind with the Force and snarled quietly.

 

“We were not looking for other blocks. Son of a Barve…” She cursed again and laid her hand on Sharra’s head. What she felt startled her. “How did we miss this?” She asked incredulously. The blocks were pervasive.

 

Dargon’s voice answered her. “We didn’t. But I can’t remove them. I don’t have the knowledge.” He was slumped as he came into the room. “I would do more harm than good. All we can do is limit their effectiveness.” Sharra stared at him, her face worried and he smiled at her. “Sharra… Think of Karli.”

 

Sharra stared at the man and then her face lit up. “A Jedi did this to me.” She spoke quickly. “He said, it ‘was needed’, it was ‘For the Republic’. It… It didn’t hurt… but…” She was crying now and Emily gathered the woman into her arms.

 

"Easy, my friend. Easy." Emily kept her voice soft and soothing. “It’s all right, Sharra. It’s all right.”

 

Sharra took some time to calm down, but eventually, she did. “They did this to Will?” It wasn’t really a question.

 

Emily looked at her husband who nodded, but his face was grim. “What they did to him was a lot worse. None of the implants seem to have functioned properly, and thank goodness. If they put these implants in all the pilots of Dragon squadron…”

 

"Yes." Sharra looked away. “They did. The neuro links allowed the pilots to react faster and more efficiently than any natural pilot, even Force users couldn’t compete sometimes.”

 

Emily sighed and gave the younger woman a squeeze before setting her back in the bed. “Sharra, Will has the Force.”

 

"Huh?" Sharra stared at Emily, her face ashen. “He… he what?”

 

The woman in gray Jedi robes nodded. “Not a lot, not enough to train. But he has it.”

 

Dargon sighed. “There has been a lot of interest in neuro linkages in the Empire, but there are always snags. The main one, of course, is what happens to you if what you are linked to takes damage. Of course the Sith don’t care about their pilots, but it is inefficient, and they deplore inefficiency. Add to that the fact that the best scientists in the Empire have been unable to get the linkage implants small enough to put inside a skull, and well…” He shrugged. “I am not surprised that the Republic took this path. I am surprised that a Jedi would involve him or herself in this. This is…” He shook his head and his face was sick. “This is wrong. I am surprised none of their pilots went insane.”

 

"The Dragons were." Sharra shook her head slowly. “They all were. Every one of the Dragons was insane in some way. But loyal, I don’t know if it was the training or the implants, but they were intensely loyal as well. From what little I know, that was one of the criteria.”

 

Dargon sighed. “Probably a bit of both.” He shook his head. “Sharra, you need to know, and whoever is your doc needs to know this too. Whoever had Will first programmed him to be a killing machine. He still has that programming, buried under the man he has become. When it triggers, when he ‘goes machine’ as he puts it, no one will be safe around him. Not even you.”

 

Sharra shook her head. “He wouldn’t hurt me.”

 

"Sharra, please listen to me." Dargon sighed and came to the woman’s bedside. “No, he wouldn’t. He would kill you. If you trigger his programming, he will kill whatever or whoever is close, using whatever means he has available.”

 

Sharra’s face went white. “That is why they always had their own docs. The Dragons. What can I do?”

 

Emily smiled and ruffled the younger woman’s hair, a move that had Sharra scowling at her. “For now, sleep. We have plans to make in the morning. But we need Will awake for that. And I bet he won’t wake for a while.”

 

Dargon nodded as he patted Sharra’s hand. “Yes. We have some things we have come up with, things that will give you, Will and the Stormhawk an edge. But for now, you need sleep.” Sharra smiled as she drifted off, for the first time in years free in her own mind.

 

Emily waited until she was sure Sharra was asleep before rising and following her husband out the door. Only after the door was closed did she speak. “Will you tell them?”

 

"What?" Dargon grimaced. “That a bona-fide Republic hero did this and will do more to try and stop the Seven? They wouldn’t believe me. Heck, I barely believe Vandar is capable of such horror.”

 

Emily shook her head. “It is going to get worse. Now that he is in effect running Republic Intelligence’s Special Branch, it is only going to get worse. And it doesn’t help that every time we get close, that crazy Bladeborn is there.”

 

"Well..." Dargon snorted. “You try reasoning with Sharlina of the Bladeborn. It doesn’t work.”

<Four and a half years later>

 

Dargon was going to be angry with her, Emily knew that. But she also knew that this was the only chance they were going to get. When Will had come the last time, he had been… She shuddered a bit in memory. Emily had seen Will close to the edge on many occasions since she had known him, but that was the first time he had actually scared her. It had taken both Emiy and Dargon some time to calm Will down, to get him to explain. And when Will did…Emily liked Sharra. There were not very many people who knew the truth about the Jedi. Most people who met Emily Darkstorm thought she was either enslaved by Dargon or that she had been brainwashed somehow. After all, why else would a Jedi be serving a Sith?

 

When Will had returned the last time, he had done so alone. He had asked Dargon for a large, insanely large, baradium core warhead. A small baradium core warhead would take out a starship, a large one would take out a city. The one Will wanted would devastate a continent. And when they had found out why he wanted one… Something had fluttered through Emily at that point, something that she almost didn’t recognize. It had been a long time since the Force had called her to action, but she still recognized the feelings, the sense of wrongness when Will told her that Sharra was dead. So, she had dosed his tea. She had left Will in the care of the family; they would take care of him, keep him from hurting himself and gone hunting. She had put away her gray robes, donned a set of brown ones, and pulled out her lightsaber for the first time in years. But she was still in good shape, and the Force answered her call.

 

It wasn’t hard at all to find Sharra. She knew the woman so well that the Force almost sang of the woman’s pain to Emily. Emily had never actually been to Korriban, but the oppressive air tried to stifle her as she walked through the Sith facility. The few guards that’s he had seen were easy to trick with the Force. Something was wrong though, something was off. She couldn’t quite place it. But something was… ah… Where were the droids? In any Sith facility, there would be numerous droids scurrying about. But here, there were none. Something was wrong. A trap? Maybe. A scream reverberated through the oppressive quiet, and Emily felt her heart lurch. Sharra. The Jedi kept her pace slow and careful however. A misstep here would be fatal, and not just for her.

 

She acknowledged her feelings and let them fall away as she made her way towards the source of the screams. The Sith hated Will for many reasons, a feeling he reciprocated with interest. She paused just outside a doorway and listened. A soft, silky voice, thick with evil, was speaking. It sounded male and arrogant.

 

“Now you are just being stubborn. Come on, ma’am. All you have to do to end your pain is give me the name of the planet. Just a simple name. Give me a place and your pain will end. Where is it? Where is the Enclave?”

 

Emily’s heart froze as she heard Sharra speak. “Go to hell, Sith slime.” The younger woman’s voice was hoarse with pain and fatigue. But seeing as how she had been a ‘guest’ of the Sith for over a week, that was understandable. But there was something… off about her voice. Emily paused, trying to figure out what was wrong. The Force wasn’t screaming at her, well, no more than usual when she was standing on a highly dangerous planet for Jedi to be on. She listened as Sharra made a noise like she had spit. “You have the wrong person, idiot. My name is Carra.”

 

The Sith’s voice was sour now. “Now you are just being stupid. Fine.” The recognizable sound of Force lightning split the air and Sharra screamed. Screams that cut off in mid note. Then the Sith cursed. “Drat. She did it again… Cursed woman, making me lose my temper.”

 

Emily swallowed her Force sense as she hid behind a large set of lockers. A man in black robes strode from the room, muttering to himself. “Idiot woman. Well, I will get the truth from her, I will find this precious Enclave of theirs and I will get Will Kalenath. My master will be pleased with that. But now I better tell him she will be unconscious for a few hours.”

 

Emily waited until he was gone before entering the room. Even prepared for it, she had to gasp silently as she took in the bedraggled form of the former Republic soldier. Sharra was a mess. She was restrained to the usual Sith interrogation frame, and of course, she was not wearing anything. It was meant as an interrogation tool, to make a subject pliable. Not that it had apparently worked with Sharra. Her beautiful hair had been shorn off, one arm hung oddly in the restraints and her breath was labored as she slept. Even from where Emily was, she could see untreated injuries on much of the woman’s body. Emily stood for a moment, looking around, trying to see if there were surveillance devices or traps. There was one camera, but it was pointed towards the restraint frame. It was the work of a moment to set it onto a loop. With an attentive person behind the monitor, it wouldn’t take long for her deception to be discovered, but hopefully it would be enough time.

 

Emily was moving to release Sharra when something rang through the Force. She threw herself to the side as the wall of the torture chamber blew in. Her lightsaber was in hand and ignited as a swarm of armored soldiers rushed in. But… They were not Imperial!

 

“Who the hell are you?” One of them asked as he aimed at her. But he didn’t fire. The green blade of her lightsaber hung between him and her, so blasters would not be such a good idea.

 

Emily’s expression might have almost been a smile, almost. “I could ask you the same thing.” All of the armored forms were aiming at her now. There were only four of them, but Emily knew her life hung by thread. She was good, no question, but against four Republic Special Forces troopers? She was not that good.

 

The one who was apparently in charge sighed. “We have maybe twenty seconds before this place is overrun. Lets get her and get out.”

 

"Right." Emily nodded. “I came for her myself. Shall we?”

 

The trooper laughed sourly. “Let’s.” He made a hand motion and two of the other troopers moved to the door. The fourth moved to where Sharra lay silent. Emily went with that one and held the unconscious form while the trooper cut the restraints quickly and efficiently. She stepped back while the medic worked.

 

She took two steps back and looked at the commander. She spoke carefully. “This is too easy.”

 

The trooper nodded. “Yeah. We should have had a response by now. Something is… cover!” He shouted as fire came from the hall. The two troopers at the door started laying down fire at the doorway but Emily’s gaze was drawn to the hole the Special Forces had made.

 

A black robed form strode into the mess, his face a sneer. “Stupid Republic dogs, what makes you think you are getting out of here?” He paused as if seeing Emily for the first time. “Who are you?”

 

Emily smiled, but there was no humor in it as she brought her saber up to a guard position. “Your worst nightmare.”

Emily knew, as soon as the Sith charged, that she was in trouble. She was good, no question, but she was no guardian. Her skills with the saber were distinctly subpar. Of course, she really didn’t need them. There were other ways to fight, as this luckless Sith was about to find out. He came in, lightsaber up in a classic form as he closed the distance quickly. Then, he stumbled as Emily reached out with the Force and struck with her preferred weapon. She shook her head slowly, always with the over muscling. Most Sith seemed to think with their muscles instead of their brains.

 

The man in black shook himself and snarled at her. “Enough tricks, Jedi! Face your death!”

 

Emily shook her head sadly. “How about you face yours instead?” Her calm eyes met his and he froze in place as the Force grabbed him and held him tight. Then it seeped into his head, despite his best efforts. He was struggling, against the bonds of the Force that held him, against the insidious thoughts that seeped into his head, against the… Everything seemed to stop as a blaster sounded. Emily looked up in shock to see the team commander lowering his rifle.

 

“Why did you do that?” The Jedi asked, stunned, as the man in black fell, his face carrying a look of surprise that it would hold until the muscles slackened.

 

"Why not?" The soldier shrugged. “He was an enemy, a dangerous one. I had a shot and I took it.”

 

"But..." Emily shook her head, bemused by the man’s reply. “I was trying not to kill him.”

 

The commander made a sound somewhere between a groan, a sigh and a snorted laugh. “Ma’am…” His tone was resigned. “I am not a Jedi. I see an enemy and I deal with him, her or it. If it helps at all, I am the one who killed him, not you.” It was obvious that the soldier had dealt with Jedi before from his response.

 

Emily sighed and shrugged as she deactivated her lightsaber. “Okay.” She moved to stand beside the hole in the wall and the team leader followed her. She looked both with her eyes and the Force. Then she shook her head. “I don’t sense anything else out there. That Sith probably came alone, trying to make a name for himself.” She ducked as fire redoubled from the hallway. The troopers at the door returned it with interest. “We should go.”

 

The team leader nodded. “Medic?” He asked the one tending Sharra.

 

The medic’s voice was distracted as she; yes definitely a she by the voice, worked to strap Sharra onto a small portable stretcher. “Patient is stable. But we need to get her to real docs. Boss… how are we going to carry her?” The thought was obvious. It would take two beings to carry a stretcher, because Sharra was not going to be walking anywhere for a while. That would only leave two to fight.

 

Emily smiled slightly. “Leave that to me.” She made a gesture and the medic jumped back with a strangled oath as the stretcher bearing Sharra’s still form rose into the air.

 

The medic snarled at her. “Don’t do that…” She muttered something under her breath about ‘fracking Jedi’.

 

Emily shrugged. “Sorry, but I can carry her and free up all of you to fight if needed.”

 

The team commander sighed and spoke quietly. “I am actually hoping not to fight. We took a big risk when we saw this soldier in here. This isn’t our mission, but we don’t leave people behind.”

 

Emily nodded, but her gaze was on the hole in the wall. “You know who she is?” She asked quietly.

 

The team commander shook his head. “Not a clue. We found a file on her in the data storage system we hacked to get our mission objective. It said she was a soldier, so we decided to act. But we don’t leave people behind.” There was something feral in his voice now as he repeated himself.

 

Emily’s eyes narrowed a bit, but she nodded as she focused on making the stretcher float towards the hole. “Let’s get out of here.”

 

The team leader nodded. “Right. Two, Three, leave the Imps a present and lets boogie!” He stared out the hole, the team medic following, weapon ready. Emily shook her head as she followed. It was a totally alien concept to her, for a medic to be carrying -and using- a weapon. But needs must when the devil drove, she reminded herself. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

 

Emily was tense. Something was wrong, but she couldn’t imagine what. She half expected Sith ambushes at every corner. In the distance, she head explosions and felt sick as she felt deaths through the Force as Sith troops obviously ran into prepared traps the Special Forces team had left behind them. But the walk was quiet. No one attacked them, and very shortly, the team was making its way into a small secluded valley where a small Sith shuttle lay nestled. Emily arced an eyebrow at the team leader who nodded.

 

Emily smiled as she realized it was the same class of shuttle she herself had ‘borrowed’ from a Sith depot to get to Korriban. “Good cover.”

 

The team leader snorted quietly. “That it is. We better get out of here fast. Something is wrong.” His voice was quiet.

 

Emily nodded. “Even without the Force you feel it too.” It wasn’t really a question. “Something…” She staggered in midstride as something terrible echoed through the Force.

 

Two of the troops grabbed the stretcher before it fell and the team lead put out a hand to steady Emily. “Ma’am?” His tone was worried.

 

"I... Through the Force...I fear something terrible has happened." Emily had to take a moment to catch her breath. “It felt… Like thousand voices cried out in horror and were suddenly silenced.” All four of the soldiers stared at her and she waved them towards the shuttle. “We have to get out of here. Something terrible just happened. And I get the feeling something else terrible will happen if we don’t get out of here. Now.”

 

The team was efficient. They secured Sharra’s stretcher and one of them made his way to the cockpit. Emily had to sit down; her head was spinning from whatever she had felt. She barely felt it when the ship took off. But the voice of the team lead had her looking up. For the first time the man’s voice was un-obscured by the helmet. The face that was visible now was young, dark haired, maybe twenty five standard years old, and worried.

 

He squatted down near the Jedi, and looked from her to the stretcher where the medic was working. “Lieutenant Jollions, Ma’am… Do you have any idea what happened?”

 

Emily shook her head, trying to clear the screams from it. “No, but whatever it was… it was big… I think…”

 

She and the LT both looked up as the pilot’s voice came over the intercom. The man was…scared? “Uh… boss?”

 

The team leader stiffened. “What is it corporal?” Emily looked at the man and then both rose to move to the cockpit.

 

The pilot’s voice held something that took Emily a moment to recognize. Abject terror. That wasn’t a feeling she had ever gotten from a Special Forces trooper before. “You need to see this, sir…” Emily and the LT entered the cockpit in unison.

 

"What is...?" Emily froze as she and the commander stared out the cockpit viewport. "Um..." She blanched. She had passed this way on her way to the ground. "Wasn't there an Imperial space station and shipyard there?"

 

"Yes, Ma'am." The pilot said, his voice tautly controlled. "Both are gone. Readings say... Nuke... Big one."

 

"Oh my god..." The LT said slowly. Emily looked at him, he was not looking at the spot where thousands, maybe more, Imperials had been minutes before. Instead he was...

 

"No..." Emily breathed as she saw a garishly painted small ship. It was easy to see, the laser fire coming from it dwarfed the output of some capital ships. The few Imperial ships left in the area were trying to fight it, but it danced through their disorganized fire, seeming to laugh at their efforts. She could taste his rage, even from where she was. "No..."

 

"I thought all the Dragons were dead." The pilot said slowly. "I mean..."

 

"All but one, Corporal." Emily heard someone say with her voice. Odd, it sounded a lot calmer than she felt. "All but one." She said as she watched Will strive for his goal. Vengeance.

"Yes!" The pilot crowed as Dragon 4's fire sought and decimated yet another Imperial ship. The transport they were on had boosted when ordered to get clear by Imperial Space Traffic Control to run. Of course, it was a transport, not a starfighter, so it ran with the speed of a snail, or so it seemed to Emily, anyway. "Take that you Imperial bastards!" The young man snapped as the Imperial escort exploded. The angry Dragon arced away, bent on destroying more prey.

 

"Corporal..." Emily said slowly. Both Special Forces personnel turned to look at her and she shook her head. "I understand your feelings. Believe me, I do. But this..." She waved a hand at the empty space where a bustling Imperial station and shipyard had been. Until a nutcase had nuked them anyway... "...is going to cause problems. big problems."

 

"Yes Ma'am." The LT, he had said his name was Jollions, said slowly. "I know. But we have been kicked so hard. We fight, and fight, and fight, and no one seems to care. Then someone does something like this, and..." He shrugged. "He can't win, not alone. And we can't help him. Not like this."

 

"We can help him. You know who that is on the stretcher?" Emily asked softly. He shook his head and Emily continued. "Will Kalenath's wife."

 

"What?" The LT bit off whatever he was going to say next as his eyes went wide. "Oh my god. He thinks she is dead. Can we...?"

 

"If we broadcast..." Emily said slowly. "They will be on us in moments. He doesn't know it, but he is buying us time to get clear. We can't squander that." She looked around at the mass of ships that surrounded them, Imperial vessels of many kinds that were trying to escape the Dragon's wrath. For it's part, the Dragon was busy slaughtering any armed Imperial Navy ship that dared face it.

 

"That man..." The corporal said slowly. "He and his wife are both heroes. I don't care what HQ says, sir, Ma'am..."

 

"I agree, Corporal." The LT said slowly. "He is a legend among us grunts, Ma'am. He has done so much, so many good and bad things... But to do this..." He waved where Emily had. "He has lost it."

 

"Maybe." Emily said slowly. "But I have met the man." No lie. Both SpecForce people looked at her and she shrugged. "He lives contingency planning. That was why I was here, to rescue his wife. I heard she might be alive, so I came. I owe him."

 

"And I thought we had some crazy jobs." The LT said soberly. "Begging your pardon, Ma'am. But Jedi or no, that is nuts."

 

"I have advantages." Emily demurred. "But yes, it does seem a bit nuts. How long to hyper?"

 

"We are still in the gravity well." The corporal said slowly when the LT nodded to him. "Not far in, but if we deviate from the assigned track, well..." Emily nodded. The Imperial orbital defenses, although apparently useless against the Dragon, would make minced meat of the slow and barely shielded transport.

 

"And how long until they figure out we don't have an actual flight plan?" Emily asked. THe LT just looked at her and she blinked. "You do?"

 

"It's not official." THe LT said with a smirk. "But as long as we are gone before anyone realizes that the systems were sliced, or IF their records are thrashed by what Will did..."

 

"They have redundant record systems." Emily sighed. "The Empire is nothing if not efficient in keeping records on where their people go and why."

 

"Agreed." Jollions said with a sigh. "But we should..." He broke off and blanched. "Crap!"

 

"Oh no..." Emily said with feeling as she saw and entire Sith battlefleet drop out of hyperspace near where the Dragon was savaging the last few Imperial ships it had attacked. "How many...?"

 

"Battleship, carrier, three escorts, two... Aw crap!" The corporal snapped. "Two anti-fighter platforms. He has got to be out or nearly out of munitions. He can't take them all... Can he?" The corporal asked as the Dragon turned onto another vector. But...

 

"What the...?" The LT asked as the vector that the Dragon was taking started to make sense. "Why would he head for the planet? He can't hide there."

 

"He is not going to." Emily said, feeling faint. "He... He wouldn't have just one nuke..." She knew he had racks for three on the Dragon. Even if he had used the big one he had asked Dargon for... He would have more.

 

"Boss..." The corporal said, his voice horrified. "Even if he launches from way up... There is no way he is going to get clear. Not with that much firepower in his way..."

 

"He doesn't want to." Emily said softly, her head bowing. "He just wants to take a lot of them with him."

 

"Corporal..." The LT said slowly. "Start recording."

 

"Sir?" The pilot asked, unsure.

 

"Every recorder you have." The LT said sadly. "We can't help him. We can't tell him his wife is alive. If we try and help him, we die. But we are likely the only Republic Forces anywhere nearby. We need to let people know what is about to happen. What has happened. The Empire will blame us for this, but... He isn't affiliated with us. We need proof of what he is doing... and.. What the hell??" The LT snapped as the plot changed.

 

"Who the...?" Emily asked softly as new ship simply appeared within the battle that was now unfolding. An odd looking ship. It looked like a cruiser melded with... She hissed as she recognized the ship from descriptions. "Is that...?" She asked, unsure.

 

"The Stormhawk!" The LT replied. "Oh... flarg..."

 

"Will, stop." A voice came across the com bands. A male voice, harsh with fear and pain. "If you nuke Korriban, they will blame the Republic! They will respond in kind!" There was no answer, except music that grew louder suddenly. The Dragon's engines pulsed brighter, pushing the ship towards the planet with it's lethal payload.

 

"They are broadcasting in clear!" The Corporal said slowly. "They want to stop him, and they want everyone to know they are trying to stop him. Why?"

 

"They are not stupid." Emily said sadly. "They know what the Empire will do."

 

"Will, turn around, don't make us do this!" The voice of what had to be the commander of the Stormhawk was sad now. Again, there was no answer. "Very well, goodbye, my friend."

 

"No!" Emily shouted as red lances of fire flew from the Stormhawk, but not at the Imperials. The Dragon flared brightly for an instant under guns that would punch holes in dreadnoughts. Then, it was gone. But... Emily flinched. She could still sense Will! His anger was gone, and he was alive! Somehow, he was still alive! A trick?

 

"They just..." The LT seemed stunned. "They couldn't have just..."

 

"If he had nuked Korriban..." Emily said sadly. "The Empire likely would have attacked in full. I will go... tend Sharra..." She paused as the com band chimed again with another transmission. 

 

"Pirate vessel, you are ordered to surrender and prepare to be boarded." The voice of an Imperial cut across the coms. "Resist or attempt to flee, and you will be destroyed."

 

"That will be the day, boot licker." The voice of the Stormhawk's commander was angry now. "I just killed my best friend to save your sorry shebs. So why don't you and your little puissant wanna be navy go flarg off. Matter of fact, I think I will send a little message to your Empire, here and now." An absolute torrent of fire went flying from the ex-Republic battlecruiser and Emily blanched as she realized some of it was not aimed at the Imperial fleet. Some was in fact, streaking towards...

"...she is stable for now, sir." Emily could barely make out the voice that was speaking. It sounded like the Special Forces LT she had been dealing with. "We should transfer them both to proper medical attention as soon as possible."

 

"I understand, Lieutenant Jollions." The voice that spoke was one that Emily had never heard, but she was sure that she knew it, from somewhere. "That was well done, Lieutenant. It wasn't your mission, but it was very well done."

 

"Sir..." The LT sounded unsure. "I have grave reservations about turning her over to him, sir. I mean..."

 

"I know, LT." The teasingly familiar voice said quietly. "He is insane. But we don't have a choice. With Will Kalenath dead, if he really is, I am not so sure..." Emily could not restrain a slight hiss and the voice sharpened. "She is awake. Get Sharra ready for transport."

 

"Yes sir." The LT said and his sense in the Force vanished.

 

"Well, what am I to do with you, Emily Hollian?" The voice said sadly. Emily opened her mouth, but she couldn't talk! She panicked for a moment and the something gentle patted her on the arm. "You were hurt very badly by blast shock, robes don't do so well against ion cannon fire. They intubated you as a precaution." She opened her eyes and saw nothing. The voice sighed. "The blindfold is also a security precaution. What you cannot see, you cannot manipulate. I remember you, Emily. So bright, so kind... Oh child, what happened to you? You dropped right off the grid after your 'death'. No one has seen you in almost forty years." She was shaking her head now. She recognized the voice. Jedi Master Tokare Vandar. "Easy, Emily... Easy... I won't hurt you. We are taking you and Sharra to proper medical care. We have the absolute best care available at the moment."

 

Emily felt fear the like so which she had not in many, many years. Vandar worked for Special Branch. She shook her head, conscious of pain.

 

"Easy, Emily." Vandar said sadly. "Sharra is a mess. Idiot Sith put things in her head. We are going to get her somewhere where we can try to take them out. If nothing else we can disable them. We will take care of her no matter what. If her husband is dead, then... matters are worse, and she will need a lot of care and compassion as well as a chance to revenge. If he is not... Well..." Emily made a snarling noise into the tube in her mouth. Sharra would make a heck of a hostage. But only if people were stupid or suicidal. The moment Will found out... She slumped and Vandar sighed again.

 

"I know you are scared, Emily." Vandar said sadly. "You have no reason to be. We will not harm you or her. And... What the...?" Vandar's sense in the Force was shocked now. "Oh my god...You...?" A gentle three clawed hand traced Emily's brow. "You are Jina's mother...And that Sith is her father...Oh my..." There was no censure in his voice. Just awe. "Wow... That is incredible, Emily." His hands were soft, soothing gently now. "You are incredible. You will be one heck of an asset, Emily. Relax..." His voice was soothing as she tried to tense. "You are going to sleep, and then, we are going to move you and Sharra to a highly secure Republic Intelligence facility."

 

One where you have Will's parents and sister? Emily snapped in her mind. But of course, he couldn't hear her. Dargon had discovered that but been unable to do anything but nudge a concerned party towards where Special Branch was lurking.

 

"I know you are angry Emily." Vandar said sadly. "But it is for the best. We are doing the best we can. For you, for Sharra, for the galaxy as a whole." His voice changed pitch. "Are we ready?" He asked someone else.

 

"Yes sir." What was obviously the voice of an armored trooper replied. "They will go on a regular transport, they will be here in a few minutes."

 

"None of ours are available?" Vandar asked sharply. "Why?"

 

"That crazy Bladeborn tore up the base on Hoth, sir." The trooper replied. Vandar sighed and the trooper continued. "We lost a bunch of personnel and... 8410-1. She apparently was left behind in the rush of evacuation."

 

"Oh, you have got to be kidding!" Vandar snapped. "All this effort and the whole organization cannot secure one old woman from a crazy bloodthirsty witch?"

 

Maria... Emily thought with a smile. She hadn't been able to find out MUCH about what Special Branch had done to Will's family. She knew that his mom and dad were prisoners, and that they had a daughter now. just the thought of a little girl being raised by the parents of her friend, controlled these monsters... It made her want to spit. Well done, Sharlina, I hope you made it hurt...

 

"Sir..." The trooper said diffidently.

 

"I know, soldier." Vandar said with a sigh. "I know. But we did just catch a break." A three clawed hand stroked her arm gently. "This is Emily Hollian, she is Jina Darkstorm's mother." A hiss came from the soldier and Vandar continued. "So we are going to treat her very gently. No carbonite for this one. Gentle sedatives, full plumbing. Keep her calm, but not in hibernation." Emily jerked under the hand that was touching her, trying to roll away, but then other hands had hold of her. "Easy there, Emily..." Vandar crooned. "Just relax... Just relax... It will be okay..."

 

Something stung her in the elbow and she struggled harder, but then lethargy swept out from that point, dragging her down. She fought, but the soothing numbness was too much and she fell into darkness.

Pain woke Emily. Fiery red torments arced through her body but she did not react. She simply lay there. She did not need to open her eyes to know she was still blindfolded and fettered.

 

"Aw geez..." A male voice sounded from nearby. "You are no fun at all." A giggle came from that voice. "I bet I can make you scream..." A hand touched her brow again and power flooded into her. She ignored it, ignored the pain and power that attempted to overwhelmed her. She simply ignored it and it could not touch her. "Well drat...That has never happened before. Hmm... Maybe..." The hand was now touching her, touching in places only her husband had. But she did not react. If this was who she thought it was, her only chance was not to react at all. It worked.

 

"Man, what a cold fish..." The voice said in disbelief. "And you bore three children? No... Not a chance... You are no fun at all. Maybe Morgana can do something to improve your disposition when she is done with that Sharra girl." She felt a very dark presence step away and then she heard a hatch open and close. Only then did she let out the breath she had been holding.

 

"Oh crap..." Emily said slowly not the tube that was still in her mouth as she cast out with her mind, slowly, carefully. She could sense two very dark beings aboard, Sharra, and nothing else alive. She shook herself and started to summon the Force, but then something went 'click' nearby and her brain turned fuzzy. When she could think clearly again, she tensed, someone was touching her. By the hands, a female.

 

"Oh, you are right, master." The woman said with naked lust in her voice. "She is so cold... Now that I am done with the other, I can work on her?" The woman asked. "With Sharra in stasis, I am bored... I can warm her up..."

 

"Have at, Morgana." The voice of the dark being -it had to be the madman known as Ravishaw- "The master wants her alive, but... I don't think anyone would mind if she was a bit more... pliable." A feminine giggle came from nearby as the hands started exploring again. Emily was trying with all her might to resist the feelings that were flowing into her now from the other, then it stopped as a new voice sounded.

 

"That is a mistake." The male voice said quietly. "I wouldn't do that, Ma'am." A gasp and a thud came from nearby. Emily felt the lust filled female suddenly fall unconscious.

 

"Who are you?" Ravishaw asked. Emily couldn't be sure, but was that fear he was protecting now? No, it couldn't be.

 

"Who?" The new voice asked quietly. "Who is but the form, following the function of what and what I am is a man in a mask."

 

"I can see that." Ravishaw snapped.

 

"Of course you can." The newly come voice said soberly. "I am not questioning your powers of observation, I am merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is."

 

"You are beginning to annoy me." Ravishaw said with a snarl. "That is a bad idea."

 

"Well..." The new voice said with a sigh. "I could spout some kind of alliteration, but it is probably better for me just to knock you out." Emily stiffened in shock as the dark presence she felt close t hand...fell unconscious. The voice sighed again. "I will get him and her clear. Samuel, get Sharra to an escape pod... And you... You know what to do..."

 

"Yes, Master." An impossible voice said sadly. "Mom... Mom, it's okay." The blindfold that Emily had worn since she had woken up in Vandar's clutches came off and she stared up into the sad eyes of her youngest daughter. "Let me get you loose." The tube that ran down her throat was removed slowly and Emily could talk again.

 

"C...Cina?" Emily asked, her voice breaking as she saw the scars of pain and fear on the young face. "No..."

 

"Mom..." Cina undid the restraints and sat down, pulling her mother into an embrace. "It's okay. Mom... Shh..." Cina said, hugging her mother gently as Emily started to cry.

 

"No. No it's not." Emily said sadly. "What happened? You were at the Academy on Korriban...You disappeared." Disappeared on Korriban usually meant dead. She had wanted to go hunting as soon as she found out, but Dargon had convinced her not to. He had better sources for such things. And then Will had come, and she had wound up here.

 

"Mom, we don't have time." Cina said sadly. "I... I did well at the academy. Too well. They knew I was faking my few inabilities. I... They figured out I lied to the instructors." Emily felt her face go slack. There was really only one punishment for that.

 

"But... You are not dead." Emily said slowly. "Cina..."

 

"We need to get you to the escape pod." Cina said with a sigh. "Can you walk?"

 

"I..." Emily nodded as she rose to her feet. Her daughter's urgency was spiking. "Why? Why do I need to get to an escape pod?"

 

"Because five minutes after the stealthed ship we came in undocks, this ship is going to explode." Cina said harshly. "Mom, please..."

 

"I won't leave you, Cina." Emily said as she staggered along, helped by Cina's strong arm. "I can't."

 

"Yes you can." Cina said sadly. "Sharra needs you, now more than ever. And you can't help me, Mom. Not now."

 

"What do you mean?" Emily asked as she saw the gaping port for the escape pod just ahead. Inside she could see a slumped female form, Sharra. "Cina?"

 

"I love you, Mom." Cina said as she helped her mom to the pod. "But you have to go."

 

"Come with me." Emily begged. "I can help you!"

 

"No you can't." Cina said sadly as she turned to go. "Hurry Mom..."

 

"Cina...Come with me!" Emily said sharply as she grabbed her daughter's sleeve. When she did, a mark shone. "No..." Emily breathed. "No!" She cried as she drew her unresisting daughter into an embrace. On CIna's arm was the mark of a Bladeborn.

 

"I am sorry, Mom." Cina said, not moving. "I just wanted to make you and dad proud of me. But now I am stuck. I owe my master my life. He saved me when I was ambushed by four full Sith on Korriban. But no matter what they did, they could never dim my love for you and Dad. Know that no matter where my life takes me, I will remember you and I will always love you."

 

"Cina!" Emily cried, horrified. But her daughter gave her a powerful shove. She went flying back into the escape pod and before she could get out, it sealed. "No!" Emily screamed. "Cina!" The pod jerked and a jolt threw her to the deck, where she sat, crying. "No..."

"She is not one of Trugoy's, Emily." Dargon said sadly as Emily sat beside Sharra's bed. "He doesn't know where she is or why."

 

"You trust him?" Emily asked softly, her hand on Sharra's.

 

"No." Dargon said with a shrug. "That would be foolish. But he IS justifiably annoyed that someone else has started an order like his. When the Emperor hears of this... Ah..." He grimaced. "There are going to be problems. Are you okay?" He had been... less than enthused by what Emily had gone off to do. He could not argue with the results however, and he had freaked when she had told him about Cina.

 

"No." Emily said, her face hard. "Someone stole my baby. Someone... She called him 'Master'. Whoever it was has control of her. I never saw his face, just a voice. A..." She shook her head. "It didn't sound Dark, Dargon. I couldn't feel any of them..."

 

"Could it have been what Ravishaw did to you?" Dargon asked gently. He was more than a bit upset, but not with Emily now. Emily fingered the chitin bandages on her head and sighed. Niun would likely not let Emily out of her clutches for some time. The damage inside Emily's head had been extreme. She hadn't had a clue how bad she had been hurt.

 

"I don't...think so..." She paused as the woman in the bed shifted a bit. "Sharra?" She asked gently. "Sharra, can you hear me?"

 

"Ah..." The supine woman groaned. "No... No, don't..." She begged. "No..."

 

"Shh..." Emily soothed her friend. "It's okay. You are okay. You were rescued. Easy..." She kept her touch gentle and professional as Sharra's eyes finally opened.

 

"Ah..." The woman blinked and slowly focused on Emily. "Do... Do I know you?"

 

"Sharra...?" Emily asked, her face turning horrified. "You don't know me?"

 

"No." The woman in the bed said, her tone fuddled. "Please don't hurt me." She begged, recoiling a bit.

 

"I won't. My name is Emily." Emily promised. "It's okay." She reassured the woman. "Sharra, it's okay. Dargon?"

 

"Sharra?" Dargon said gently from where he stood. "How do you feel?" He was wearing brown robes now instead of his customary black. Sith robes might be good camouflage, but they would likely also drive Sharra mad as hurt as she was.

 

"I..." Sharra's voice was a little stronger now. "I feel light and heavy at the same time. I feel really..." She seemed to shudder in place and then her eyes lit on Emily again. "Who...? Do I know you, Ma'am?"

 

"What the...?" Emily said slowly. "I just told you my name. It's Emily. You know me, Sharra."

 

"Who is Sharra?" The woman asked, her voice solidifying as she woke up fully. "My name is Cara, Cara Riggs. What? What has happened to me?"

 

"Oh dear..." Emily said as she worked to keep the scared woman calm.

 

<Four hours later>

 

"They didn't wipe her mind." Niun said with a sigh as she sank back on her haunches. Sharra lay unconscious on the medical table. "What they did was worse. And I can't fix it."

 

"Niun?" Emily asked. She hadn't heard that much pain in Niun's voice for a long, long time. The Jedi steeled herself and asked. "What did they do?"

 

"There are two sets of implants in her body." Niun said sadly. "All are rigged to self destruct -explosively- if tampered with. The Sith tracker and control implant is fairly straightforward. I can and have disabled that. The others... I can't, Emily. If I try, I will kill her." Emily slumped and Niun laid a small manipulator on the older human's arm. "I am sorry."

 

"Not your fault." Emily said with a forlorn smile. "Dargon?"

 

"The Sith implant is a known design. One for tracking and taking control of a subject." Dargon said slowly. "Nasty, and almost impossible to remove. The other, the one that is causing her...mental issues... Ah Emily... No one has seen anything like it. It is similar to some of the nasty implants that Republic Intelligence's Special Branch have been working on, but... not. And..." He slumped.

 

"And?" Emily prompted her husband.

 

"And the Sith who implanted her ordered her to kill Will." Dargon said sadly. Emily froze in horror and Dargon nodded. "With the implant disabled, the commands are dormant. For now."

 

"So if we send her back to him..." Emily said, her tone somewhere between disbelief and horror.

 

"She will eventually remember and kill him. He likely won't fight back." Dargon said with a sigh. "Niun disabled the implant, but it extended tendrils throughout her body before then. We cannot remove them without killing her. But it is disabled. The other implant, frankly is the one that worries me."

 

"We don't know what it does, Emily." Niun said gently when Emily turned her worried eyes to the bug. "It is secreting something that neither Dargon nor I have seen before. Whatever it is, it defies analysis." Nuin slumped all four of her shoulders. "We... We can't help her." The admission obviously hurt the bug. Emily laid a hand on the bug's arm, returning Niun's kindness.

 

"So..." Emily spoke slowly. choosing her words with care. "We cannot get the implants out. If we give her back to Will, she will eventually snap the blocks that we can put in, and kill him." She shook her head. "How many personalities have we seen?"

 

"Two primary." Dargon said sadly. "Sharra and Cara. Neither of them remember us, so the blocks we put in before are still holding. But... We have seen other personalities forming. One of which is a total subservient, probably what the Sith was aiming for. Another just screams. Emily..." He paused as Emily nodded. "Emily?" He asked, cautious.

 

"If Will find out about this..." She waved a hand at the woman on the table. "He will go completely berserk. We can't tell him. We can't send her back to him, not like this. We can't keep her here." The admission hurt Emily, but Sharra was wanted by the Empire and she likely wouldn't be able to manage a deception of the scale that would be needed to survive Imperial scrutiny. "So... Hmmm..."

 

"Emily..." Dargon said slowly. "I know that tone."

 

"Where is the last place the Republic would look for a deserter and mutineer?" Emily asked reasonably. "And the Empire? Would they be able to find her there, as thoroughly as we could hide her?"

 

"She would be in grave danger!" Dargon protested. "Emily, no."

 

"No more danger than any of the rest of us." Emily retorted. Niun stared at Emily and Emily sighed. "Sharra is a soldier. Where better to hide a soldier than among other soldiers?" Niun hissed in wonder and not a little fear at that and Emily nodded. "Dargon, can you... I don't know... Strengthen one or two of the personalities to keep them dominant?"

 

"I can." Dargon said slowly. "Should I?"

 

"It's her only chance." Emily said sadly. "I don't want to do this, but where else could we hide her? We will need to change her appearance significantly, but we can do it. At least among the Republic Forces, she would have kindred souls. I think she would be safer there than just about anywhere else. They have their share of...unstable types there I bet." The others stared at her and then at the slumbering soldier woman. "I don't want to do this. I will miss my friend. But... I have already lost her, and this is the only way to keep her and her husband safe."

 

"I..." Niun slumped, all four shoulders drooping. "I will get a maker ready. To change her appearance only. Emily..." Niun begged. "Are you sure?"

 

"No." Emily said sadly. "But we can't help her in any way except this. We can hide her. Dargon..." She asked. He nodded and moved to the table where he took the slumbering woman's head in gentle hands. "Be gentle."

 

"I will Emily." He promised. She shook her head and fled the medical area. She couldn't watch this. Even Jedi control had limits.

<Ten years after the Sacking of Coruscant>

 

Emily plunked herself into her favorite chair with a sigh. She was tired, so tired. It hurt, so much. But none of it was physical. She missed Mei, so much...

 

Mei had been her rock from the moment Emily had woken in this house, hurt, sick and scared out of her mind. Mei had been a friend, a confidant, a bastion and more than once, a swift boot to the bottom. She had been one of the things that Emily could always count on in this mad world the Jedi lived in. But not anymore.

 

Mei had fought, so hard. But in the end, the rare form of blood cancer that Niun had diagnosed her with had triumphed. No one had stinted, Mei had not suffered in any way. But... Mei had passed away in her sleep. Emily bit back a sob. So many lost. Karli, Jina, Mikol was busy with his garrison., Cina was gone, Will was off being crazy with his piratical friends, Sharra was hiding in plain sight in the Republic military, and now Mei... She felt... so alone.

 

"Grandma?" Emily looked up into concerned eyes. Polli was one of her adopted children's children. She and Dargon had adopted a bunch of kids, many of whom had lost parents in the various conflicts the Empire got involved in. All were loyal, but... To Emily and Dargon first, to the Empire second. Polli knelt down beside her chair, her blue eyes watering. "Grandma?"

 

"Polli." Emily could barely make herself heard over the pain in her chest. She focused, pushing past her pain and grief. She was hardly the only one grieving. "Oh Polli... I am all right."

 

"No, you are not." Polli said, her face ashen. "I am going to call Niun. Hold on."

 

"Don't bother Niun." Emily said with a sigh. "I am just tired. And a bit lonely. No more than that...Sit with me?" She asked gently.

 

"Any time, Grandma." Polli said gently as she sat. "It feels so...empty here now." Polli said sadly. "I know it does."

 

"Yeah." Emily agreed absently. "So many out and about, doing what needs to be done. But... It hurts and I... I don't want to lose any more of you..." She broke off as Polli took her hands in gentle grips.

 

"Grandma..." Polli said gently. "You raised us to bear responsibility. You trained us to do what is right." The girl said as she gave Emily's hands gentle squeezes. "This is needed. We need to pave the way for the Seven. If we don't..." Polli gulped and Emily nodded slowly. If they didn't, bad things would happen. Worse things. But then Polli stiffened. "Grandma?" Her voice turned sharp as Emily sank back into her chair. "Grandma!" Then the girl shouted. "Doc!"

 

"Polli...?" Emily asked. She paused. What the...? She could barely hear herself. "Wha...?" She was so tired, so... So very tired.

 

"Grandma!" Polli's voice was sharp with fear now. Someone was shaking her, harshly. "Grandma! Stay awake! Niun is coming!"

 

"Don't bother her." Emily said slowly. "Just...tired..."

 

"No." A harsh voice sounded nearby as a black shadow covered. her. "You are not just tired, Emily.... Damn it! Why didn't you tell me it hurt?" Niun was mad.

 

"I..." Emily paused, confused. Nothing hurt.. "I don't..." She said, confused. "Niun...?"

 

"Hold on, Emily." Niun touched the seated woman with a claw and pain flew through the Jedi. She groaned and Niun snarled. "No! Emily! No! Don't you dare die on me!"

 

But the darkness that reached up and grabbed Emily was gentle and soothing. She fell into it, comforted despite the screams of denial that she could hear even as she lost consciousness.

 

<Later>

 

"Emily?" Emily could hear Dargon's voice. It sounded as if he had been crying. "Emily, please... Don't leave. Don't leave me. I know I have been busy... But please..."

 

"Where would I go?" Emily asked reasonably. Then she stiffened. Was that her voice? It was so low as to be nearly inaudible. She was unprepared for strong arms to scoop her up and hold her tight.

 

"Emily!" Dargon exclaimed. He was crying. She could feel the patter of tears on her face. "Oh Emily, don't scare me like that." He said in a scolding tone. "I thought I had lost you. After so much other pain... I couldn't handle it. Not now..."

 

"It didn't hurt..." Emily said, dazed. "Nothing hurt. What? What happened...?"

 

"You had a heart attack, Emily." Niun said soberly. Emily opened her eyes and the bug was squatting nearby. "A bad one. I was angry, but it wasn't your fault. It was massive and likely you didn't feel anything when the blood flow stopped.

 

"Stopped?"Emily asked, her voice slowly gaining strength. "I was tired, but... Oh my god, Niun... I didn't... I wasn't..."

 

"I know, Emily." Niun said gently. "With all the stress you have been under, I should have been on guard, watching. Thank god for Polli." Emily looked at the bug and Niun sighed. "She did artificial respiration until I could get you down here to proper care. She blames herself, but there was no way she could have known. Hell, I am the doc and I didn't see it." The Sitolon's self recrimination was easy to hear. "Oh, Emily..." Niun reached out a slow claw and Emily took it in a limp grip. "You scared me. I thought... I lost Mei and I have lost others... I didn't want to lose you too."

 

"You won't." Emily said with a bit of her old fire. "Ok, a heart attack. How bad?" She looked at her chest and froze. There was a mass of something on her chest, but it didn't feel bad. It felt... alive? As she watched, it shuddered, as if contracting, then relaxed. "Niun...?" Emily asked, somewhere between fear and awe.

 

"Polli did what she could." Niun said sadly. "I didn't have what I needed, so I brought you down here. But..." Niun made a sad sound. "Emily... Your heart died when blood flow stopped. There was nothing I could do. I tried. Polli's exertions kept your brain alive, but... there was too much damage to save your heart."

 

"Niun..." Emily felt calm descend on her. "I am alive. No matter what you did. I am alive, my friend. Do not blame yourself for anything you had to do to keep me alive."

 

"I didn't know what to do, Emily." Niun said, sounding as if she were sobbing. "You were not responding to any of my treatments. She said it was feedback from something... I had no idea at the time, just that you were slowly slipping away. I had to do something..."

 

"Niun..." EMily said as she squeezed the claw she still held. "It's okay. What is this?"

 

"Your new heart." Niun said slowly. "I couldn't... I couldn't save your old one, so I... I put you on artificial circulation until I could get a replacement. But none of the cloned organs took... I wasn't going to lose you!"

 

"Niun." Emily said as she let go of the claw and slowly, gently poked the mass on her chest. It flexed a little. Like... Like chitin! "What is this?"

 

"I called for help." Niun said slowly. "I had no idea. I just... screamed for help. She responded. She told me what to do to save you. That mass will shrink. Eventually it will absorb into your body and there will be no external signs."

 

"Niun..." Emily felt her control starting to erode and she stepped on it, hard. "Who are you talking about?"

 

That would be me, Emily Hollian Darkstorm. A gentle female voice sounded in Emily's head. Kioulinhighjutsofruitploniun was desperate to save you. Do not blame her for her fear. For all her skill, she is still a child by my race's standards. She did not know what to do, or how. We aided her.

 

"Si'to'lon..." Emily said, dazed. "I... I don't understand. "

 

To save your life, Kioulinhighjutsofruitploniun gave you a heart like ours. The gentle voice in her mind said. Our healers determined that it was the only way to save you.

 

"Why?"Emily asked softly. "I... I am just a Jedi. Why do this... for me? I am unworthy of such a gift..."

 

You are needed. The voice of what had to be a Sitolon queen receded a bit. You have much recovering to do, Emily Hollian Darkstorm. We will be in touch. Emily tried not to cry as the kind sense vanished from her mind.

 

"I..." Emily stared from Niun to her husband and back. "I didn't think they talked to us. They don't like us, for what happened to you, Niun and for what Mikol has had to do to keep the Dark bugs imprisoned on Tralus." He had been force to take...drastic steps on occasion.

 

"They don't." Dargon said as he came back to her bedside. "But they have cause. I will be here now, Emily. I am sorry I left you alone. I will not again."

 

"Dargon..." Emily protested. "You are needed. You need to..." She broke off as he placed a finger over her lips.

 

"My wife needs me." He said gently. "And... I need you back on your feet, Emily. It has started." Her eyes went wide in horror and he nodded. "I found Nia on Tattooine, but I was too late. She was captured. They are taking her to the Special Branch base Talus. The one that masquerades as a Sith HQ."

 

"Oh my god..." Emily said with a gulp. "Dargon... Can you get her out?"

 

"No I can't." Dargon admitted. "But I don't have to. I sent an anonymous tip to a friend of the Stormhawk that a person of interest was being taken to that base for interrogation, torture and brainwashing. I think we can rely on them and him, don't you?"

 

"You know what they... he will do..." Emily said flatly. "But... if that is the case... Its begun."

 

"Yes." Dargon said sadly. "All the players are on the field now and it's time to see how good we are. See if we are good enough."

 

"We are." Emily said with a smile. "After all, we are family and nothing in the galaxy is stronger than that.

((And THAT takes us back to my first fanfic Shades of Gray... Emily and her family will be around. Comments or suggestions always appreciated. Flames might get to explain themselves to the Darkstorm Matriarch. Word of advice... Don't tick Emily off.))