Delaborde-class Star Destroyer Themis, in orbit via King’s Galquek

Adrian Ravenna strode down the gleeming hallways of the Themis, his footsteps loudly reverberating throughout the corridor. To his left, a lithe blonde quietly walked to his pace with the grace of a professional ballet dancer. Glancing at him, she brazenly grinned. Ravenna gazed back at her, confusion sweeping through his face.

“What?” questioned the Susevfian.

Hawk shook her head. “That look on your face is amusing. You look like a kid who’s being led to the school principal…”

“I don’t know, it just seems so awkward to be back here; on the ship,” mused the Jensaarai, “I just got to use to the flow of life pervading every nook and cranny on the groundside, to the free-flowing thoughts and random ideas that people were thinking about. Now that we’re here…trapped in metal box in space…the Force almost seems distant; the only life around us are soldiers and sailors, and there’s a lack of numbers and diversity with them…”

“Oh? How so? Do you mean in thoughts or who they can be?”

“Ah…both. Definitely both,” replied the dark-haired man.

They reached a set of sliding doors guarded by a pair of almost overly alert soldiers encased in dark blue battle armor with Chartreuse yellow striping. Each of Krieg’s soldiers gripped their blasters a little bit tighter and concentrated on the two figures in front of them. Nervousness seemed to slowly seep from them to their surroundings and from into the Force itself. Ravenna’s lip twitched, wondering why a pair of supposedly friendly sentries would be edgy around him. He felt a slight twist of the current nearby him, and both of the guards seemed to ease up a bit.

Kitty…

What? I thought I could help them out…and I have, right? Or do you want them trembling in our presence like some Grand Darth Emperor or whatever the hell they used to be called in the old days…

I think you enjoy your line of work too much…

Do you now? Do you know what I’m thinking?

I know what I’m thinking, and that’s that we’re late for a meeting.

“You two feeling all right?” questioned Adrian, raising an eyebrow.

“Ah…yes sir. The Commodore has been waiting for you.”

“Is General Krieg with her?”

“Yes sir.”

“Thank you,” responded Adrian.

The doors slid open in front of them, and the two Jensaarai walked into the Scout Lab’s conference room. Ravenna spied both Valeska and Krieg as soon as he walked into the room. As usual, the two senior officers had occupied one of the room’s far corners with its set of tables. Seeing the Jensaarais’ presence, the pair of commanders rose from their chairs and offered them a crisp, professional salute; to which Adrian returned his own, and Kitty ignored. The Abhean woman waved her hand across the table, gesturing for them to sit. They did, and the two officers followed suit.

“So what news about Callie?” queried the self-exiled noble.

“Adrian didn’t tell you?” asked Valeska, “when they took the base on Nim Drovis, they wiped out the last presence of the Neo-Grissmath Party; they’ve been vanished everywhere else in the Sector as the Confederation has expanded. What we found was that Phrog had actually begun to dismantle the bits and pieces of what was left of the Party and send them across the galaxy. When we took it, she was away on Nam Chorios, apparently consulting a specialist of some sort. And we’re eighty percent positive that she’s still there.”

“Why?” inquired Hawk, “it can’t be that difficult of a planet to escape from, considering that most of the gun stations aren’t being used anymore and there isn’t any Confederate presence around the planet.”

Valeska nodded. “It wouldn’t be, save the Confederation controls the rest of the Chorios system, and with the gravity anomalies produced by the system’s triple star configuration, there aren’t any immediate jumps to and away from it. And given that she knows that we know that knew that she was on Nam Chorios, she’ll probably be expecting Confederate forces and spies getting ready to ambush her in space. No, she knows that her best place to hide is on the ground, especially since Nam Chorios isn’t officially part of the Confederation yet; Negotiations are still going on with Thorn, but it only seems to be that way because they don’t want to look desperate.”

“Are they desperate?” asked Ravenna, “There aren’t really any threats to drive them into the Confederation, right?”

Saheel shook his head, “Not any military threats or threats that would immediately endanger their people at least. But the simple matter is that they need to if they want their people to live at the standards that the rest of the Meridian Sector now lives at. The Confederation not only brings security to a planet, but it in many cases, particularly in more backwater areas like my own, it improves the infrastructure and way of life quite a bit for some people. Case and point, the Organ Replacement Program, which almost no-one else has in the galaxy…”

“They want to save some face,” considered Kitty, “I guess that’s not too much of a surprise. We can’t expect them to publicly fall head over heels, begging for admission. At least not in their current condition.”

“Well, in any case, it’s going to get worse if Callie is on planet for any longer,” advised Ravenna, “We need to find her, and get rid of her of somehow.”

“Getting there won’t be too hard; the Shadow is parked groundside, and we can take her for a spin to Nam Chorios without attracting too much attention,” replied Kitty, “but actually finding and killing her might be a bit difficult; even for you.”

Krieg laughed. “Finding a single person on a planet with intel as sketchy as ours currently is nigh impossible, Adrian. We’re going to have to wait, or send down a lot of people, droids, or whatever to find her. If you’d like, I could arrange for my 8th Regiment to go down there incognito. They’re fairly good you, even at this sort of thing. I trained them myself...”

The two Force-users spared a quick glance at each other.

“They actually seemed fairly nervous when we saw them today, at the least the guys you have sitting just out of the door…”informed Ravenna, “I’m sure they good though at their job…”

Saheel grinned. “Do you know why?”

“Why what?”

“Why they were nervous, naturally.”

Valeska smiled. “Saheel told them that you were the next Darth Vader, and if they didn’t do everything perfectly, you’d decapitate them with your lightsaber…”

Adrian shook his head in disbelief. “Why?”

“Payback and motivation,” replied the general, “those two hadn’t kept their gear up to specs. I thought that getting chopped up by a lightsaber would be motivation enough, and I was right. Right?”

Hawk rolled her eyes. “How did you get a command position? Don’t answer that…”

“We need to get going,” interrupted the dark-haired man, “to the groundside spaceport.”

“So quickly? Isn’t that a little rash given the intel? At least have a plan…” suggested the Commodore.

He shrugged. “We’ll improvise. Between Kitty and myself, I’m fairly certain we can take her down if…when we meet her. I beat her nearly by myself not too long ago.”

Valeska shook her head. “I’ve heard that before, especially from students when I taught in the Academy. It usually doesn’t work out so nicely.”

“We’ll be fine…”

The Rogue Shadow emerged from the hyperspace to skid along the atmosphere of the desert world of Nam Chorios. Friction ensued, and searing flames flared up on the freighter’s ventral side, simultaneously illuminating the glossy black hull and making a mirror image of the fires on the ship’s underside. In the cockpit of the vessel and ignoring the blaring alarms of the Shadow, Hawk muttered incoherently and gradually lowered the craft in the atmosphere. Directly behind her, Ravenna half-stared and half-prayed as he watched the ship’s damage reports slowly flow in on the diagnostic screen.

“How badly are you toasting my ship?” demanded Adrian.

“Not too badly,” replied Hawk callously, “the friction with the atmosphere is making things a little hot, and the Shadow hasn’t exactly been through as rough as a maneuver like this, but the heat shields are holding; that’s a good sign. It means you won’t be fried bacon…yet.”

“That’s reassuring. Set us to the ground already, and I’ll be feeling twenty times better…”

“It’s not that bad, is it? It was a slight miscalculation of the micro-jump on my part. We should have dropped a little sooner, just out of the gravity well…”

The Susevfian shook his head with intentional exaggeration, and proceeded to ignore the ramblings of the pilot. Instead, he stared out of the viewport at the increasingly growing plane of harsh yellows and vibrant oranges. As they entered the upper atmosphere, the young Jensaarai felt the ripple of life reach out towards him. He reached out and turn, and let himself dip his mind into the diminutive rivulet of life energy. But as the Rogue Shadow edged even nearer to the surface of Nam Chorios, the brook turned into an overwhelming tsunami of life which pulled him under and submerged him fully into the feelings and thoughts around him. Everything felt amplified, as if the inhabitants thrived inside his very innards. Adrian shook his head sharply, and struggled out of the chaotic waters to reality. He muttered.

“What?” questioned Kitty.

“Can’t you feel it?”

A few seconds later, the blonde frowned. “It’s like Almas, but different. It feels like we’re in the middle of a traffic nightmare on Coruscant.”

He nodded. “It’s another Force nexus, or so it seems. But this one is less pure, not like it’s been tainted, but like it’s just always been around to run wild.”

“The Jedi weren’t here for hundreds of years to mold it to our liking…what a pity…”

“This makes things a tad more difficult…I was kinda planning on using the Force to find Callie…but with this pure chaos, we’d be like…well, blind.”

“At least until we get adjusted to it.”

“Who knows how long that’s going to take…”

“Hopefully shorter than your whining,” complained Hawk, “Given that you’re my boss, I can’t exactly order you to shut the frak up, but I’d appreciate it so that I…we can land safely…”

Sparing a glance at the setting sun through the viewport, Ravenna grumbled and cantered off to the hold of the Mon Calamari-built freighter. In it, several sacks and duraplast crates lay half-organized across the deck. He walked over to one of the boxes, withdrew his lightsaber, and tapped a switch. The blue blade sprung to life with its characteristic humming. Gently stabbing into the crate, Adrian twirled his saber in a circular motion, and a circular plate fell out of crate’s side. He deactivated his lightsaber, and reached into the crate to withdraw a smaller carton of utility belts and several add-ons. Ignoring the belts themselves, the Jensaarai plucked several of the modules and added them to the utility belt he was already wearing.

Gkharris, Nam Chorios

Adrian gazed at the sprawling mess that was the small city of Gkharris, one of the original settlements built on the planet by the Grissmath Dynasty. And it showed. Small sandstone towers half-grew from the desert floor to stand stunted under the harsh sunlight of the planet. A closer glance revealed the crumbling bricks and sandstorm polishing of the buildings’ walls. On the dusty streets, a menagerie of peoples, professions, and cultures mingled together in their daily routine. A well-dressed Herglic bartered with a gray-haired street vendor over the price of a meal; couples strolled among the throngs, blissfully unaware of those around them. And everywhere, people gawked at the stands, the shops, and what they thought were people more unusual than they. It vaguely reminded the Jensaarai of his time on Pedducis Chorios hunting down a pair of hitmen from a small-time criminal gang.

But it was different.

Years back, according to a holo-news service, there had been a fraternal group called the Honorable Order of the Scarlet Cape; a reference to the Grissmath Dynasty’s preference of using scarlet clothing. But two decades previously, the group had seemingly vanished from the public in the blink of eye. Remnants of that Order had been found and captured in the actions between the Confederation and the Neo-Grissmath Party, leading several of the analysts to suggest that the Neo-Grissmath Party had sprung from the Scarlet Capes, who themselves had originated from Gkharris. Thus, instead of having informants and a precise idea of their opponent’s system of operations, Ravenna had but a hypothesis and a gut feeling.

“Did you feel that?”

Adrian’s head swiveled about to face Kitty Hawk, and he shook his head. “Feel what?”

She pursed her lips. “It was slight, but I felt a poke in the Force, like someone was hesitatingly checking to see if anyone else was here…and she immediately drew back when she felt my presence.”

“How do you know it was a she?” questioned the dark-haired man.

“I…I just do. It feels that way.”

He nodded. “It probably is Callie then, given the rarity of our kind in the galaxy…we should be on our guard.”

Adrian, while not as adept as Hawk in mental applications of the Force, immersed himself in a light Jensaarai trance, feeling the Force trickle through his veins to pour into his brain. He began to feel light-headed, and released the built up energy in a mental wave. Rolling out across the area, Adrian felt the probe received attention from only two other people. The first stood next to him, and he felt the faintest thoughts of curiosity and wariness emanate from her. But the second come back as a strong probe of its own, filled with malevolence and aggravation. He already felt as if he was standing before her, each intently gazing into each other’s eyes. Ravenna felt hate and bile rise up and suffuse her essence; she had finally, fully embraced the darkside.

Fool; you have ruined a chance for the galaxy to overthrow a government which has enslaved millions; one that has killed more, and has even destroyed planets outright. You shall pay that. You have ruined my chance to make things right. There is no undoing your and your precious Confederation’s deeds now. The only thing I can do is return the favor and ruin you.

And how exactly are you going to do that?

You, being the hero that you are, are going to meet me in the lobby of the Redthorn Hotel in a half hour, or else I’m going to explode the entire Loronar complex at the capitol. You can’t make it there in time, and even if you did, those explosives don’t like to be touched.

Fine, I’ll be there.

Adrian just stepped through the crystasteel doors to the Redthorn Hotel, and gave the room a quick glance. Crimson wallpaper with endless rows of prickly rosebushes dominated the room, forcing the lobby’s few other decorations to a subservient role. Most of the furniture inside was made of a dark, redwood from some nameless planet which seemed to support the wallpaper like as if they were its lackeys. Adrian mentally frowned. Ick. Is this some sort of overly romantic getaway, or did Palpatine’s Royal Guard do the decorating for this place?

“Right this way, sir,” offered a voice to his left.

Ravenna turned to face Callie, who wore a sycophantic expression and one of the Hotel’s uniforms. She gestured for him to follow, and reluctantly, the Jensaarai ambled behind her. His right hand slipped past his rough-threaded poncho to the lightsaber concealed beneath it. Shaking her head, Sunrider laughed as they walked through another door.

Do you really think that that will help you here?

The Susevfian squinted. I don’t know, but do you think I trust you? You lost my trust, your honor when you ran away on King’s Galquek…

He felt a surge of anger rush through her veins.

I did what was best for my people, and that, life and freedom, are more important than honor.

Uh-huh. Like when you tried to kill your own people to save the Neo-Grissmath cause?

Their deaths would have allowed billions to be free…if you hadn’t got in the way. Now their work, their sacrifice is for naught. After years spent planning, and hundreds of volunteers, the cause is destroyed by a Jedi novice and a self-interested, greedy government.

I understand where you’re coming from…

And I don’t care where you’re coming from.

“How very diplomatic of you,” stated the Jensaarai, “did you really think-”

She pivoted about to glare into his emerald eyes. “What I think, is that you don’t know crap. And I’ll prove it. Do you know where we are?”

“The Redthorn Hotel?”

“The birthplace of the Neo-Grissmath Party, and the former headquarters of the Scarlet Cape. There’s a reason for the color scheme, and it reminds us of one thing: to become accustomed to the sight of blood, because sometimes we must spill it to right the wrongs in the galaxy.”

A silver object ripped itself out of her pants and into her hand. With snap-hiss, the sea-green blade engendered itself and lashed out towards the Jensaarai. Out of pure instinct, the Susevfian fell to the floor with a muted thud. The fallen Jedi’s blade continued on its path, slicing the air where the Confederate’s head would have been. Prone on the ground, Adrian released a vicious kick to Sunrider’s chin. The attack barely knicked the woman’s leg, and only managed to dislodge her footing. She stumbled backward. Adrian drew his own lightsaber and tapped a button; his cobalt surged forward towards Callie. Ravenna warily staggered onto his feet and frowned.

“There’s no honor in a surprise attack.”

She callously laughed. “I remember the teachings of the Jedi Order, and the only thing I’ve seen is that they fail. A surprise attack is efficient, effective. And that’s why it’s users live. And that is why the Jedi fail and fall. Honor is beneath me now; I have become enlightened.”

“Honor is the only thing that separates a hero from a criminal,” countered Adrian.

Callie laughed again. “You really are like your mother. I will enjoy finishing you off just like her.”

A torrent of emotions threatened to break through Adrian’s fragile and artificial calm. Confusion and anger pushed and pried their way through and entered his mind. He let out a feral yell, and with all of his might, swung his lightsaber at the woman. She managed to deflect it with a subtle parry from her Makashi training, but Ravenna’s blue blade flashed as quickly again, and for once, Sunrider found herself on the defensive.

Her glacial eyes stared at him with unprecedented clarity and calm. They called out to him throughout space and time, and while they sought to project a mother’s love, they only succeeded in excaberating him further; Adrian shook his head, futilely trying to shake the visage out of his mind, and threw all his strength into another saber blow. His cobalt blade swung awkwardly at Callie, and hammered away at the woman’s own sea-green blade. The two blades connected with a flare of light and a sizzle. Ravenna followed through his blow, and Sunrider’s parry went off course and her lightsaber sliced into a nearby chair. As smoke and the smell of burning ozone arose from the furniture, the fallen Jedi stepped back with a conceited, maniacal smile.

“I remember when I killed her. She begged me to spare your life, and to grant her a quick end. And I decided then to grant her neither-”

Adrian, still tormented by a specter of his past, lashed out at the fallen Jedi again with a vicious blow. Sunrider deftly parried the Jensaarai’s attack and prepared for a riposte, but she saw a blur, and ducked instead. One of Ravenna’s fists plowed directly to where she had been just milliseconds before. She swept her sword in a low blow at his feet, and succeeded in igniting sparks, charring through his greaves, and producing a shallow burn to his shin. She smiled, and then crashed into floor under the force from one of Adrian’s stomping kicks. The floor creaked and splintered as Sunrider leapt to her feet. A thin stream of crimson ran down her sleeve from where a set of splinters had embedded themselves. But Callie’s smile grew larger; which only excaberated Adrian’s anger more. The Jensaarai prepared himself to launch another assault.

“I remember it so clearly,” recounted Sunrider gleefully, “why I remember her cries were only drowned out by the high-traffic all around us.”

Adrian paused. Wait…what? Elshandruu Pica was so peaceful…so idllyic…modern life just seemed to coexist as nature’s understudy…traffic was sparse. And then he felt it. She’s lying…and I let myself believe her…frak me. I wanted to kill her; I thought I was about to kill her, and avenge my mother and do my duty to the Confederation. But I was only fooling myself and falling into her hands. A wave of guilt seemed to coalesce around himself. Ravenna somberly leaned back and assumed the classic Soresu defensive stance.

“You lie,” announced the Confederate sadly, “Why do you try to harm everyone you meet? Must you bring the pain and harm that the Sith brought to you too? You only do their bidding then.”

She frowned, and withdrew a small box from her belt. “Sometimes it’s a necessity to get the chance to right the wrongs suffered by me and the rest of the galaxy.”

Staring at the new object, Adrian felt his heart drop like a house into a sinkhole. The detonator. Frak me twice. The air shimmered behind Callie, and a shimmering object darted and plunged itself into the fallen Jedi’s left arm. With a bewildered scream, Callie dropped the detonator and whirled about to face Kitty Hawk. The other Jensaarai flourished her vibrodaggers around her with a false bravado. The Confederate agent weakly smiled. Callie shuffled her feet to prepare to lunge. By the maker, no! Adrian reached through the Force, gripped the Neo-Grissmath’s body, and ripped it back towards him. Sunrider took to the air like a mynock and rocketed into one of the rosy walls behind her. She hit with what seemed to be a deafening thud, and slid down to the floor with a tormented moan. As Adrian hobbled over towards the fallen Jedi, pain shot up through his right leg. He grimaced with each step. He abruptly stopped, and focused the Force to simply block out the pain to become a numbness; he still wouldn’t be able to move terribly well, but it removed the possibility of his pain being used to turn him to the dark. But another source of pain threatened to encroach into his mind and break his Jensaarai trance: Agony flood over the room from the dark Jedi, but unlike Adrian, it only served to strengthen her and force deeper into the dark side. Nonetheless, Sunrider slowly rose, her body battered and bruised throughout. She stumbled towards his foe, prompting the Jensaarai to smile. A pair of invalids with lightsabers. This is going to be great. The Susevfian gestured to the woman from Ampliquen.

“You can’t win this-”

“Neither can you-”

With those words, the woman stiffly lunged forward, her saber haphazardly surging forward to only sear the air two meters to the left of the Adrian. His face wrinkled into a befuddled smile as Callie teetered and tottered around, fighting some invisible foe. Without the lightsaber, and under different circumstances, Ravenna would have thought her drunk. But Callie was no ordinary person, and he highly doubted that she had suddenly become drunk without imbibing any beverages. Adrian reached out with his mind and entered the currents of the Force. And then he felt it, the streams of conflicting thoughts which enthralled Callie’s mind. Throughout all of it, he could feel the touch of Kitty, waging her mental war on the fallen Jedi. Adrian edged closer to Sunrider, and her haphazard striking finally connected with his own cobalt blade by pure accident. Her confusion turned into bewilderment, frustration, and anger; anger which focused and honed her senses. The effects of Kitty’s mental assault waned, and Adrian felt the Pelagian noble withdraw her attention from Sunrider to concentrate on a new task.

Now, Callie’s blade deftly slid and sliced through the air, her fatigue overridden by the forces of determination and focused anger. Adrian found himself whipping his blade around in tight arcs across his body. The blue and green blades crashed and sizzled between the two opponents in a stylized lightshow. Her assaults began to lash out him like the tendrils of a Sarlacc, and Adrian found himself awkwardly retreating on his numbed leg.

Duck.

Adrian didn’t duck; he collapsed to the floor and felt his armor absorb most of the impact. Curse that leg… He glanced up to see one of the crimson upholstered chairs soar over his head and into Callie. The fallen Jedi managed to severe one of the chair’s legs, preventing it from impaling her, but the rest of the chair smashed into her, knocking her on her back down to the floor again. The two lighsaber duelists rose from their feet, and locked their eyes together. Instead of the anger and agony that had possessed Sunrider throughout most of the encounter, Adrian could only feel an overwhelming tiredness sweep through her. Abruptly, Callie stumbled over to a nearby window and shatter it with a swish of a lighsaber. He threw his lightsaber at the former Neo-Grissmath leader, but she fell through the window and onto the ground. Adrian raised his palm, and the lightsaber flew back to his hand. Kitty strode over to the window.

“She’s gone.”

Adrian sagely nodded. “Her life presence seems to be fading…”

Hawk frowned. “Dead?”

“I’m not sure,” admitted the other Jensaarai, “it could be some stealth trick. It could be from the loss of blood. But either way, she’s not exactly in a position to fight.”

Kitty snorted. “Neither are you.”

Adrian grinned. “True. What about the detonator?”

“What detonator?”

You know, the boxy thing that she dropped when you stabbed her.”

She shook her head. “It wasn’t a detonator.”

“What was it?”

“A recording device of some sort; I looked when you were engaging her in that duel afterwards.”

Adrian feigned a smile. “I’m glad that while I was fighting her, you had fun holorecording us.”

“I thought it was a detonator too,” announced Kitty, “but in any case, the recorder was transmitting to an outside source too.”

“Odd. So if that wasn’t the detonator…frak.”

“No worries,” assured Hawk, “while you were following her, I got in touch with Loronar officials. They ran a sweep, and there’s nothing there.”

“Another lie of Sunrider’s,” mused Adrian, “wonderful.”

Kitty nodded.



Unknown Location

The doors whisked open to reveal a dim room whose only illumination came from the sets of holo-projectors which lined the walls of the circular room. Callie took a breathe of the stale air, and slowly ambled in. She glanced at the projectors, which replayed her encounters with Adrian Ravenna. One of them showed Adrian whipping his blue blade at him, and she involuntarily shivered. A muffled chuckle emanated from the center of the room.

“You seem to have found yourself quite an adversary, Callie.”

She bowed. “Master Quest.”

The former Jedi, the former Emperor’s Hand strolled over to the other fallen Jedi. Years had passed since he had worked the courts of the late Emperor Palpatine, and his smooth, youthful features had since given way to a craggy face made by hard years and more than several incidents of torture. But the old Sarcev, with all of his charm and noble bearing, still shone through his depilated exterior. The old man eyed his apprenetice carefully.

“You much look better then when Tior recovered you. I trust GS-4 was successful in his treatment of you.”

Sunrider eyed the man wearily, and merely nodded.

“Good,” replied Sarcev, turning his back to face one of the more recent holos, “it is hard to fight one Jedi, let alone two. Your training must have gone well then.”

“But not well enough,” sighed Callie, “the organization you built up, the Scarlet Capes, and what it became is now gone; shattered under the oppression of the Confederation.”

A wry grin grew on Quest’s face. “The Scarlet Capes were nothing more than a bunch of disillusioned colonists who were impressed by a few words of High Galactic and a person with a personal connection to the late Emperor. What you turned them into was impressive enough in my eyes. Still, it is unfortunate, although not too unexpected, that the mission went awry. I did not take into the account that you would have to be fighting Jedi. Did you learn their names?”

“No, but their faces will be ever emblazoned in my mind; I will never forget them.”

“That is good,” advised Sarcev, “and remember what they’ve done to you when you train or fight, and it will only strengthen and consolidate your power.”

She nodded. “And I will kill them both soon.”

“No, you cannot. I forbid it,” rebuked the pale man, “you are not yet strong enough to take them both on, and we have other work to do. Besides, these Jedi could become useful to us…”

“I doubt they will be turned; I mean, I wasn’t able to…”

Quest shook his head. “No, not like that. They may not turn to embrace their full potential, but ignorant as they are, we share with them a common enemy: the Empire which destroyed your Order and my life. They will not want to the Empire live, and neither will we…”

“You suggest an alliance? Let me go, I know them…”

“No,” countered Sarcev, “not yet. They already have negative feelings for you, for who you have become and what you have done, despite having a common intent. We will need another contact to talk to them, when the time is right.”

“Garask?”

Quest only smiled in return.