The Darkness Within Her

Cariaga Sin rose from her bed leaving Roak still asleep. She'd ordered that she not be disturbed, but somebody was sending a message to her comm center anyway. Somebody would have to be killed for it unless there was a vital reason for it. She looked down at Roak as she threw on her robe.

The previous night had been quite the experience. He'd returned from a mission feeling self-assured, had challenged her and taken her for a prize. Or so he thought. He could not have known that she allowed him to win. Apparently, it did not occur to him that a brand new Marauder defeating a Master would simply not be that easy. It was neither for his fighting prowess nor his intellect that she found him so appealing. It was that after almost a year, he'd finally learned to channel his passion, and this she found exciting. His passion stirred hers, and so she’d had her way with him. He was not unpleasant to look at, nor to spend an evening with, she had found out. And so she let him sleep, hoping to be able to return quickly.

"Why am I being disturbed?" she angrily asked the Sith Captain on the comm screen.

"Forgive me, but Lord Sion wishes to see you immediately. I would not have otherwise disturbed you."

"Very well," she said, turning off the comm and stalking away from the console. The one thing that could have ruined the morning she had planned, had occurred. So she used the refresher, and afterwards put on appropriate attire. She hooked her lightsaber to her belt, and with a final look down at Roak, she left.

She passed through the Proving Grounds on her way, nodding at the other instructors as she went, and passed the prison cells where those Jedi weak enough to be taken alive were kept.. That was where she had found Roak, almost a year ago, not weak, but strangely less responsive to the Dark Side than they had hoped, and since he presented a challenge, he had been given to her to be her apprentice. She had found him to be weak, but still with potential, and now Lord Traya had rewarded him with Marauder status. She thought it a bit premature, but Cariaga was commonly regarded to be a harsh instructor by all.

But as she entered the Trayus Core, she put all such thoughts from her mind. It would not do to have Sion invading her mind and pulling out this aspect of her life. She approached the center of the core and went down on one knee before the meditating form of Lord Sion.

No matter how many times, one saw the man up close, it would be always be difficult  to believe that he still lived with the absolute ruined nature of his body. Crisscrossed with so many scars, he could have easily been mistaken for a corpse. One of his eyes was a dull grey, while the other was a piercing black. The scene taken in all together, made for a disturbing sight, even for another Sith. Sion was not just another Sith, but a wholly unique Sith Lord.

"How may I serve?" she asked, head bowed.

Sion rose and stared past her, seeming not to even notice her, but then spoke in his coarse voice. "There is a traitor in our midst. Lord Traya conspires with the Jedi to defeat the plans of the Sith. That cannot be allowed."

"Do you wish me to find her, My Lord?" she asked, head still bowed.

"That will not be necessary. I already know what path she has taken. Instead, you will go to Korriban. Reports have come to me that a Jedi Master hides there. If it is true, I wish to know immediately. Contact me and me alone. We cannot allow our enemies to reside in one of our strongholds."

"Yes, My Lord. Do you wish me to kill her?"

"No. She will serve a greater purpose to come. You are only to determine if she is there or not. Do not otherwise hinder her. Do not fail me, Cariaga."

"I will succeed, or die in the attempt, My Lord."

She rose and left the Core, stopping back in at her quarters and switching her regular lightsaber for a double-bladed one. Roak was still asleep. So typical of men. She left quietly and went to the hangar, where she found the Lieutenant at his flight control desk.

"Roak Rizelis recently returned in the Shyrack. I will require the use of that ship."

"Of course, Mistress. The ship was maintenanced yesterday and is ready to go. There is an astromech with it. When will you be departing?”

“Immediately.”

She walked down the row of ships, finding the Shyrack at the end. Waiting beside it was an astromech who beeped and whistled at her approach.

She glared down at it. "I am not familiar with droidspeak. Therefore, I will give the orders, and you will carry them out. Now get on board. We leave immediately." She watched it roll up the boarding ramp and into the ship with a whistle. If she would not pamper her own students, surely she would not do so for a droid.

She entered the ship and made her way to the cockpit. The droid was there plugged into the computer and already powering up the ship. Clearly it was an experienced droid, and she was thankful for it. A droid that needed to be given orders every step of the way was a useless droid. Presently it turned its head toward her and beeped. She looked to the computer monitor where it's words had been translated into a text message.

"The ship is ready for takeoff. Do you require that I put us into orbit?"

"No, I shall do it myself. What is your designation?”

‘G2-29’ flashed on the screen.

She wasn't ready to trust it that much but even more important was the fact that she enjoyed flying as no other instructor at the Academy did. Cariaga strapped herself in and took the controls, lifting the ship up and out of the hangar. Giving it full throttle, she brought it into a very steep climb into Malachor's chaotic atmosphere.

The droid squealed in alarm, emitting a burst of beeps and chirps.

She checked the monitor. "I am well of aware of the storms. When I require your assistance, I will ask. Until then, you are too remain silent and power up the shields, diverting all auxiliary power to them."

Indeed a storm, lay directly ahead of them, the violent sort that had sent many ships crashing to the ground. The storms had both kept this secret lair of the Sith safe from prying eyes and also been the death of many Sith who lacked the skills to contend with them. She had no intention of evading them.

Cariaga pushed the throttle to full, drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes. She focused on sensing her surroundings with the Force, pushing it outward from herself, sensing the machinery around her, the droid, the computers and then outside, feeling the contours of the ship and feeling the vibration of it's hull as it cut through the sky. Once she had extended her senses that far, she began to create a shield around the ship with the Force, a shield which she made stronger and stronger until she felt it ready.

There were many kinds of passion, Cariaga thought to herself. The passion one knew with a lover was but one of them. Passion could apply to anything that one felt strongly enough about whether it be an activity, the acquisition of knowledge or even a philosophy of living which demanded that they always test themselves, otherwise risk becoming complacent. This philosophy was the way of the Sith, but more importantly, it was her way. She had elected to test herself against Malachor's violent atmosphere once more. The hostile nature of the planet made it an ideal testing ground for Sith trainees.

They hit the storm full on, the lights in the cabin growing dark from the shock of it, but the emergency lights came on almost immediately. The cabin began to rattle while she concentrated on the Force, both to protect the ship and to guide them through the storm.  The droid emitted another series of alarmed squeals, but she paid it no mind. Then the ship began to shake violently as the storm did it's best to tear through both the barrier she had constructed and the shields of the ship itself. Soon they were in the center of the storm, and she smiled as she struggled to remain in her seat so much was the ship being thrown around. The droid with its magnetic treads, remained locked in place, though it felt the stress the ship was undergoing even more intensely. And then they passed through the center of it, and the storm became less and less severe until finally they were out the other side.

She took a deep breath and let it out slow, relishing the test of her abilities, though regretting it was too short. Relaxing her grip on the Force, she opened her eyes and looked out the viewport in time for the ship to pass through the uppermost parts of the atmosphere and into orbit around the planet. There she saw once again the mass of wrecked ships, floating there waiting to be dragged down to the planet's surface by the planet's gravity. She navigated amongst them at breakneck speed,  and brought them in very short time out of Malachor's gravity well.

She looked down at the droid. “Can you get into Trayus Academy’s sensor system?”

The droid replied in the affirmative.

“Good, then get me the last known trajectory of the Ebon Hawk. I must know where Lord Traya went.”

She settled into the pilot’s chair and waited. In a very short time, the droid beeped something out, so she checked the monitor. As she was reading it went into another series of beeps and whistles.

“You have a recording of a message received by Roak from Lord Traya on Telos? You are expressly prohibited from recording communications. You are entirely overdue for a memory wipe. Play the message.”

-----

"Have you done as I asked?" Lord Traya asked.

"Yes, Lord Traya,” Roak said. “It is as you suspected. Sith assassins were dispatched to kill her, but they have been destroyed, and the woman is safe. She is being transferred to a Republic vessel called the Harbinger. They have said they are taking her to meet Admiral Onasi."

"Well, done. You are an Apprentice no longer after this thing you have done. You are a Marauder now. Return to Malachor. I shall intercept the Harbinger myself and look after the woman."

"As you wish, Lord Traya."
 
-----

She listened to the message and wondered who this woman was that she was important enough to bring Traya, herself, off of Malachor. Sion had said she was consorting with a Jedi, was this female a Master of some sort? And then it occurred to her. Revan. Only she was of enough importance to stir the Sith Lords from their lair. Sion had lied to her, that was clear. He did not wish to see Revan return. No doubt he would feel threatened by her as he was by Traya.

“Telos would make a good place for them to meet,“ she said, thinking aloud. “The disturbance in the Force caused by Malak’s bombardment there would shield her presence from other Force users if she is attempting to be discreet. Plot us a course for Telos.”

Cariaga stepped out of the cabin, for a moment to consider, and walked toward the rear of the ship where the Captain's cabin was. Lord Sion’s orders were unimportant in the greater scheme of things. He’d become nothing more than a problem. The sooner he and Nihilus were slain, the sooner the Sith could begin to act as a whole again.

 She'd just entered into the main hold, when the vision came to her through the Force. She closed her eyes and immersed herself in it. Roak being attacked by Sith assassins in this very room. She saw him fight with a new intensity. He hadn't showed that kind of intensity in their sparring, had apparently only in this room come to understand how the Dark side worked through a person. She saw one of them stab him in the shoulder, the same shoulder she had driven the lightsaber into. Apparently pain was one of the few things that did motivate him to trust his feelings. She done right to stab him as she had. He'd learned how pain could inspire, though thankfully not to the degree that Sion did. She'd prefer Roak intact rather than carved up like a ronto steak. Amazingly even the droid helped. She hadn’t realized that an astromech could even use the blaster pistols they often came equipped with, had thought of it only as a last resort. But then the assassins were all slain. This must have been when he contacted her. She had sensed the change in him, though to reward him for it would have been to inhibit his growth as a Dark Jedi apprentice.

He hadn’t been able to find out from them why they were here, but it certainly seemed as if somebody, didn’t want Traya to find the woman she had been searching for. That somebody was Sion and he had ordered his assassins to kill Roak rather than let her be found. Instead, he had merely aided Roak in his training. Had made a Marauder out of him. She supposed she owed Sion thanks for that. Except that he was now trying to kill Traya, and that she could not allow. So she turned around and walked back into the cockpit.

After receiving the coordinates from the droid, she put them in the computer and then pulled back the lever. The stars blurred into star lines, and the ship entered hyperspace. She settled back in her seat and slipped into a deep meditation.

Several days later, she brought the ship out of hyperspace close to Citadel Station.

“Citadel, this is the Shyrack? Requesting permission to land,” she said into the comm.

“What’s your cargo, Shyrack?” came the reply.

“At present, empty.”

“What’s your business on Citadel, Shyrack?”

“Purchasing botanical samples from Telos, Citadel,” she answered, annoyed with all the questions.

“Okay, Shyrack. You’re cleared to land in docking bay B7.”

“Clear, Citadel. Shyrack out.”

She brought the ship in, dodging some of the traffic around the station, and brought it down into the hangar. She powered it down and slipped the safety harness off. Looking at the droid, she said, “See if you can slice into the station’s computers. I’d like to know if the Ebon Hawk is here or has been here. They have a few days head start on us, so it might already be gone. In the meanwhile, I’m going to have a look around. Contact me as soon as you have anything.”

She didn’t wait for a response, merely stepped out of the cockpit, through the gangway and down the ramp to the hangar floor, pulling on a black cloak over her robes as she walked. She was careful to hide her lightsaber from view within the cloak.

“Welcome to Citadel Station. Do you have anything to declare?” came the voice over the speaker above her. Turning and looking over the ship, she saw a booth where a lone figure in a Republic uniform watched her through a window.

“Yes, I do have something to declare,” she said, moving across the hangar and up the stairs into the booth.  She waved a hand towards the woman and said, “You will tell me what you know of  a ship called the Ebon Hawk, and you will not remember this conversation later.”

“I’d be happy to tell you what I know about the Ebon Hawk,” the woman said and checked the computer. Eventually she looked back up at Cariaga. “No such ship is docked here or has been recently.”

Of course, it was entirely possible that Lord Traya had simply covered her tracks, nonetheless it was worth checking.

With that, she turned and walked out of the docking bay, through a pair of sliding doors which led to a lounge area. Several travelers waited there for their flights. She moved through another pair of sliding doors which led to a shuttle.

“Where does this shuttle go?” she inquired of a person getting ready to board it.

“To the entertainment module,” the man in said, a non-descript individual in street clothes. He looked her up and down, “Say, Gorgeous, you lookin’ for some company?”

Immediately, she felt the rage almost completely overtake her, her hand reaching toward her lightsaber as this insolent....but then she stopped herself, and forced a smile. It would be less conspicuous for her to be traveling with another person rather than alone, no matter how distasteful it might be. So she stepped up next to him, slid her arm through his and pulled him rather forcefully into the shuttle. “I’d love some company,” she purred in her most seductive voice.

“Whoa,” he said, struggling to keep his feet, while she stepped into the shuttle. “That’s some grip you’ve got there.”

“I know.”

The shuttle doors closed and lifted off giving them a better view of Citadel Station than she’d had from the Shyrack. She could see now why the shuttles were necessary to get around, as the station was separated into a series of modules which could not be accessed by foot.

They quickly reached the entertainment module where she allowed the man to lead her into the cantina, past where a busty woman stood talking to a pair of Gamorreans. He led the way to a table in front of a stage where a band was playing and a pair of Twi’lek females danced. She had to force herself not to turn up her nose in disgust at the scene, and instead offered him another fake smile.

“Why don’t you get us a couple of drinks,” she cooed, disgusted with herself just a little bit for having to put on the act.

“Sure thing, Gorgeous,” he said, getting up and heading over toward the bar, before stopping and coming back. “Uh, I don’t have any credits. Do you think...”

She sighed, rolling her eyes and reached for her credit chip. She handed it to him, grabbed him by the collar and yanked his face close to hers. Passing a hand in front of his eyes, she said quietly, “You will not steal that credit chip as you are probably intending. Instead,  you will bring the chip and my drink back, and then you will make some inquiries around the bar about a ship called the Ebon Hawk.”

“Yes, I’d be happy to do that for you.”

She shoved him away, and turned back to look at the band. They weren’t bad, but the fact that women had to dance for men like this, repulsed her. If Roak had made the extremely unwise decision of asking this of her, the storm beasts on Malachor would now be chewing on his corpse.

She was interrupted in her thoughts by the fool bringing back her chip and drink. “I’m going to look into that,” he said, his face very serious now.

“Yeah, you do that.”

It was a very short while later, when Cariaga had decided her efforts would best be spent elsewhere, that the busty woman from the bar walked over and had a seat at Cariaga’s table.

“Hello, Beautiful,” she said in a low voice. “I hear you’re looking for the Ebon Hawk.”

“Don’t call me beautiful. In fact, don’t call me anything. Just tell me what you know. Quickly.”

“Ooh, you’re a feisty one. You...” she began choking and gasping for breath,  reaching for her throat and looking across the table at Cariaga who had clenched one of her hands into a fist.

“I‘ve no times to be playing games with a common whore. Do you understand that?” Cariaga asked her.

The woman, coughing and reaching for her throat, finally nodded.

Cariaga released her grip. "Now you were saying."

The woman hacked and coughed, falling back into the chair. “Okay, it’s a smuggler’s ship. Used to belong to the Exchange. Word is a Jedi stole it from Davik Kang on Taris. That’s all I know.”

"What Jedi?"

"Revan."

"Revan? What do you know of Revan?"

"Just that. Look, whatever you are. You seem capable to me. I'm hoping we can do business."

"Here's what you don't understand, Luxa. I don't make deals. People do what I want them to do, and that‘s all there is to it." Cariaga told her. "Now I can use some help which is why I'm not going to kill you. Let's go."

She grabbed Luxa's arm and dragged her out of the cantina. “You have living quarters somewhere. Show me!”

Luxa led her to another shuttle which took them to Residence Module A. From there it was a short walk to her quarters.

 It was a suite of rooms which, Cariaga dragged her through room by room, checking to see that they were clear. She kept one hand on her lightsaber as she did so. In the bedroom, there was a man in undergarments was sprawled in the bed, apparently waiting for Luxa.

“Who’s this, Luxa?” he asked, looking Cariaga up and down with a smirk.

Luxa shook her head at him with wide eyes.

Cariaga shook her head at the pathetic wretch, extended a hand out toward him and with a pulling motion, used the Force to throw him out of the bed and to the floor. She shoved Luxa towards him. “Now both of you get out. These are my new quarters.”

“Hey, you can’t just...” the man started to protest, walking.

The lightsaber was out of her cloak, and one end of it activated before Luxa could begin to try and stop him. In another instant, the violet blade was stabbing through the man and just as quickly withdrawn. Finally the blade came to rest pointed at her. Her gaze flickered back and forth between the blade and the corpse lying on the floor.

Cariaga regarded her for a moment and  then de-activated the lightsaber. “Luxa, you may now take him out of here.”

Shaking, the woman cautiously approached the body lying at Cariaga’s feet and began to drag it away.

“Don’t come back,” she heard Cariaga’s voice saying, as she dragged the body outside of the apartments.

Taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly, she sat on the bed, setting the lightsaber down beside her. She pulled out her comlink. “G2-29, can you hear me?”

The droid beeped out an affirmative.

 She plugged the comlink into the comm unit next to bed and looked at the screen. “Have you found anything in the Citadel computers?”

“Nothing. There is no ship currently docked called the Ebon Hawk, nor has there been in recent history.”

“Very well. Keep me posted.”

She glanced out the window at the panorama of Citadel Station outside the window. So the information Cariaga had received from Republic flight deck officer was true. There was something wrong. Lord Traya should have been there already. Either she had been delayed or diverted her course. She laid down on the bed and closed her eyes momentarily...

She didn’t know how long she’d been sleeping there when G2 beeped excitedly from the console. She glanced over at the screen.

“The ship just landed,” came the blinking message.

“Very well, G2. That’ll be all for now. See that nobody has been able to trace our comm signals, and I will contact you when I need you again. Oh yes, and forget the memory wipe.” She got  up and shut off the console. Grabbing her comlink and lightsaber, she hid them within her cloak. She changed the code that secured the entrance and slipped out of the apartment.

The corridor was strangely empty, the lights having been dimmed. She sensed their presence an instant before they attacked, the lightsaber moving to her hand and both beams activating. All was a suddenly given a violet glow, as she spun it in her fingertips and then rammed it through the chest of the first Sith assassin to drop out of stealth. In another instant, six of them materialized in a semi-circle around her.

She looked around at them incredulously. “You are fools. You know who I am. You must wish to die without purpose. Very well, who is to be first?”

And they came at her in pairs, but she smiled at them as they did so. Her lightsaber moved in blur of activity, spinning around her, cutting through the chest of one of them, and then slicing through the mid-section of another. Two more fended off her attacks, while yet a third approached from behind. That one received a burst of crackling Force lightning full in the face that engulfed him and sent him to the ground writhing in pain. The other two, she charged, running the first through and then swinging the other end of the blade. The fifth one had his throat crushed by the Force for his troubles. The one that lie writhing on the floor, she jabbed with the lightsaber to put the fool out of his misery. The effort took only a short time, these bunch of Sith assassins being newer recruits and showing their inexperience.

She looked down at them and the anger rose inside her, her knuckles growing white around the hilt of her lightsaber. The squandering of the Academy’s resources was something that aggravated her to no end as Sith Lords such as Sion sent many to their deaths with nothing to show for it. As an instructor, it was her efforts and time that were wasted time and time again as students were sent out before they were ready and promptly slain. Apparently he felt there was unlimited number of recruits lined up, ready for training on Malachor when there most certainly was not. Fool!

“I’ll be sure to tell him you felt that way as I present your broken corpse to him,” a voice said. A figure in black unattached itself from the shadows, the red beam of its lightsaber coming to life. “You are supposed to be on Korriban, Cariaga.”

She snickered. “You are fortunate to have found me before Lord Traya found you, Maeros. The agony she would put into you would be exquisite, though not from your viewpoint.”

“My business is not with Lord Traya but with the broken Jedi. The one they call the Exile.”

“I don’t know who that it is, but you will not get the chance to conduct your business.”

She let her utter contempt for the man fuel her rage, letting it engulf her and then she charged him, blades spinning and  slashing at him in blinding combinations. He was driven back by the Force of them, fending them off, being thrown on the defensive immediately and remaining that way as she launched attack after attack at him. The smile on his face faltered as he barely got his own blade in place time after time to defend against her strikes. The battle raged on, the flickering of red and violet glows giving the corridor a uncanny glow. The hum of the sabers and the crackling of the sparks as they met each time echoed down the corridor. Maeros slipped an attack of his own in between her flurries but largely remained on the defensive. Until she suddenly switched off her lightsaber and took a step back. “Sion wastes the talents of yet another.”

Maeros smiled, though somewhat uncertainly. “Do you wish to surrender, Cariaga?”

He received his answer in the form of force pike being rammed through his back and protruding out of his chest. He stared at it in shock and then felt it withdrawn from him as he fell to the floor. And then he knew nothing more.

From behind him, another Sith assassin stepped into view and pulled her mask off.

“Mora,” said Cariaga with a smile.

“Master Sin,” Mora said, bowing.

“What news do you bring?”

“I traveled with Lord Sion and the others, and intercepted the Harbinger on its way to Telos. We captured it and soon after, we were boarded by the crew of the Ebon Hawk including Lord Traya. They transferred the Exile to that ship and fled. We tracked them to the Peragus mining station, but they escaped again to Citadel Station. Maeros and several others of us were dispatched here, while Sion took the Harbinger to Korriban.”

“And who is this ‘Exile’?”

“I do not know. I saw her from a distance on the Harbinger, but did not recognize her.”

“She is not Revan, then?”

“No, Master,” Mora looked confused. “Is Revan expected here?”

“I do not know, only that this Exile is obviously of great importance to both Lord Traya and Sion. I cannot think of anyone else who could stir the interest of both Sith Lords.”

“Nor can I,” said Mora, appearing thoughtful.

"And Halysia Terhi is still aboard the Ravager? Has there been any progress opening a dialogue with the Miraluka?”

“She is, but she has said the Miraluka is difficult to communicate with.”

“Tell Halysia to continue with her efforts. The woman must me be made to understand that there is only one master of Malachor and of the Dark Side. That she will either choose to be with us or against us when Nihilus is finally struck down, the honor of which I hope will be mine when the time comes.”

“I will do so, Master.”

“Whatever Lord Traya’s mission is, she has been very secretive about it. Still, we must lend her whatever aid we can.”

“Agreed,” said Mora.

“Dispose of these bodies. I will contact you when I’ve decided on a further course of action.”

“Yes, Master,” said Mora, bowing again. “Did you wish to take Maeros’ lightsaber as a prize?”

“The prize is yours, Mora. The blow was well struck.” Cariaga nodded at his corpse. “If all Sith assassins fought as you do, we would have defeated the Jedi much sooner.”

“Thank you, Master.”

Cariaga turned and walked back into her quarters. She sat on the bed once more and closed her eyes. Drawing heavily on the Force, she reached out with her senses searching for the presence of ...

“Cariaga, you are hear on Telos? Why?” The voice of Lord Traya sounded in her mind, startling her.

“Master, forgive me for the intrusion. I was informed by Lord Sion that it was his intent to kill you, but I have come to warn you but have arrived too late.”

“I am not helpless, Cariaga. Especially against one so limited as Sion.”

“This I know, Lord Traya. But Mora and I have dispatched a team sent by Sion to kill this Exile that you travel with.”

“I see. Had I known of Sion’s intent sooner, I would have requested your assistance. Very well. We will be departing this station soon. I will contact you when I have need. Until then, continue your watch on Sion and keep me informed of his location.”

“Yes, Master.”

Then her presence in Cariaga’s mind was gone. She sighed. Lord Traya was apparently going to tell her nothing about this Exile person. As always, she would have to find out on her own. In the meanwhile...

She turned to the comm next to the bed and sent an encrypted message to Malachor. A moment later, Roak appeared on the viewscreen.

“Cariaga."

“I am on Telos, Roak, and I am in need of company.”