Dolash was surprised to be asked these questions, and took time to consider his response. Eventually, he spoke.

"I have found the Order to be an excellent place to learn, to better myself, and to discover more about the Force. But I feel the draw of a galaxy greatly in need of the Jedi, in need of those like you and I. It was that draw which lead me to discover the dark book in the sewers, and the power it had to corrupt the Jedi librarian Yuri.

"The other Jedi who accompanied me to the sewer seemed fine, although I have not seen them since I have awoke. It was thanks to them that I succeeded, and I have also come to greater appreciate the aide of other Jedi."

He paused, for the next part was difficult for him to phrase. "I... wish to serve the Jedi, and the people of the galaxy, and I feel that what I can learn from this place is outweighed by my burning desire to contribute what I can against the troubles of the galaxy. That which I have not learned, I am willing to take the risk of going without if it means I will be able to lend aide sooner, for the weight of the fact that every day I spend here is another day I have spent away from where trouble brews and spreads is growing heavy. It was that weight which originally caused me to leave the temple at night and lurk in the city of Theed.

"I humbly request your permission, if I may." And with that Dolash bowed his mighty frame so that it was lower then Leia's in respect.

Leia leaned back in her chair, her informal posture betraying the formal tone that their meeting was about to take.


"I agree that you have reached the point in your Jedi training where to keep you here at the Academy would be to hold you back. As you said... being a Jedi is all about venturing out into the galaxy to both learn and teach, and hopefully do some sort of good. Your time here as a Padawan at the Academy prepares you for the obstacles that lay ahead in your life as a Jedi.


I believe for you, that time is over. You have already indicated to me here that you have also recognized this, which makes me all the more confident in my decision."


Leia noticed the Azguard look up sharply at her use of the word 'decision' as if in sudden intrigue.


"You have demonstrated that through hard work and perserverance you have grown and matured as both a Jedi and an individual, and it is time for your accomplishments to be recognized on a more official level. Dolash, do you feel that you are ready to carry the title of Jedi Knight for this Order?"


Leia waved a hand dismissively.


"Me actually knighting you is a mere formality, to both honor you and signify your achievements to others. You've already developed your skills to the level of a Jedi Knight, and reguardless of whether or not you accept the formal title and the powers and responsibility associated with it, you will still be one."

Dolash looked out on the quiet hall of the Jedi. In it, there was peace, safety, comfort. All the things people of the galaxy thought they wanted seemed to melt away in this place, in here there was only the security and comfort brought by an entire legion of people attuned at the most basic level to life itself.

But outside... no further then a few steps away, there was no peace. No rest. No security. It had been lost, despite the best efforts of those with ten times the power and a hundred times the wisdom of Dolash. It was more then he had ever had to face in his life, and yet on his shoulders would rest the responsibility of a few to restore the balance, restore to all the peace taken by the few. This responsibility was his to give up now, his last chance to take the easier road.

But... he would not. He could not. He would face this responsibility, for people like Yuri who did not deserve what was thrust upon them. It was a choice he had already made, some time in his past, to take up this role, to serve, wether he had known it or not.

"I am ready, Master Leia" he said, with absolute confidence

Leia grinned, and rose from her chair.


"Then it is my honor to welcome you into the Order as a Jedi Knight. I hope that you will continue to learn and grow, and that you will find some way to put your newfound skills to good use. I know this meeting is deceptively informal, but from this point on you are officially a Jedi Knight.


Leia paused for a moment, during which she simply smiled at Dolash.


"There will be a small ceremony in the near future to commemorate your achievements, and to officially recognize your new role within the order. You are actually being promoted with Fraktusk, and the ceremony will be held for the both of you. You two are sort of like a graduating class, the Academy's first in a long time.


There are still arrangements to be made, and I will get back to you about those later. I... wish I could spend more time with you now, but there is something else I need to look after.


Congratulations Dolash, I am sure I speak for everyone when I say that we are proud of what you have accomplished."


Leia formally bowed to Dolash in a gesture of respect, and then turned to leave.


In the span of five minutes, a young Jedi had just found his place in the galaxy as a Jedi Knight. Hopefully, things would work out well for him. Few Jedi successfully made it through Jedi training; but even fewer made it to Master. So many parts of the galaxy were adverse to Jedi... and nobody was immune to the temptation of the dark side.


Leia departed, leaving the Dolash alone with his thoughts.

Dolash sat alone with his thoughts, only for them to fall silent. For a moment, he had complete peace - all the voices, all the questions, everything that rested on his mind vanished, and left him in a pool of morning light creeping in from the windows.

After what seemed an eternity, Dolash rose. The silence broke, but it was not broken by the thousand shards of madness, just the united strength of his minds. There were no words, no solid thoughts, and yet even so, he now knew what he was going to do.

Most of the crew of the little shuttle were asleep, snoring lightly atop pull-out beds along the small living space their ship allowed. The Arrow Flight it was officially called, and for the show of the thing the name was engraved on the dash-board. The only two which remained awake were at the controls - Proq and Jubaz.

"So" said Proq, fighting the exhaustion that attacked his senses "Where do you think we're going?"

Jubaz, whose tougher Rodian constitution had yet to feel the touch of sleep, shrugged casually "Dolash knows, right? The Force will guide him, you can sense it on his mind."

Proq continued to squirm, trying to find a comfortable way to sit in the copilot chair. "Well... yeah... but still. I don't think that's really enough. I mean, what were we supposed to... Is this right? I don't know."

Jubaz was unaffected by his friend's confusion, but noted Proq's awkward tone. "You worry too much, friend. Are we not supposed to trust the Force? You and I have felt it, and has it ever turned us wrong? Has it ever betrayed us?"

"No..." Proq mumbled "I guess not..."

"There you go. If you must, remain vigilant, but fear only clouds your judgement. We will know what to do when the need arises. But for now, I will trust in the Force, and in Dolash."

Proq nodded. "Ok then. Looks like we're coming up on Freeport 9. This is where we were headed."

The Securities Chief for Freeport 9 was tall and anxious, pacing his office in front of the visiting Jedi. He was also a wookie, which made things slightly awkward. Luckily, he had a translator droid.

"Raaaaaaugh" he said, his voice a tad warbly.

"Consa would like to know why you are bothering him on this day." said the translator.

Dolash bowed. "Good day, sir. We are here to ask about a man who went missing some time ago."

The wookie paused, and although it was hard to determine expression from his face, Dolash could feel a slight ripple of fear.

"Rooa... Gru" the wookie asked, his voice now becoming low.

"Consa wishes to know exactly who you are looking for."

"I don't know, but I have a feeling you do."

After more pacing, Consa finally sat behind his desk - an odd sight, for both had to be custom built to accomodate his frame. "Roooarg, hu gre raaaaar."

"Consa says he knows who you are looking for, but that he cannot help you."

"Wait, what?" said Ian "But you're securities chief! You have to help us!"

It was either Dolash's guesture for Ian to calm down or the wall-shaking roar from the wookie that silenced him. Dolash waited a moment before continuing. "We need to know what happened to the man that went missing. I can promise you no trouble will befall you if you do tell us, but whatever happened here has more significance then either I or you has placed on it, as of yet."

Consa considered this, and then finally relented. Without letting out so much as a growl, he tapped carefully on a control panel far too small for him.

In a second, a holographic recording appeared above the table, from the perspective of various security cameras. The man Dolash had seen had just disembarked from what looked like some sort of run-down freighter. The design was unfamiliar, however, it bore quite a few of the markings of the Black Dragon Empire.

He wasn't notable in appearance, although Dolash quickly realized that was because he was trying hard not to be. Normally, he would appear as a tall, healthy young man, and even through a hologram Dolash suspected he was favoured by the Force - he could not completely hide himself in a crowd for it's presence.

The hologram cut forward ten minutes when a second ship arrived. A Black Dragon ship. Four... things got out of them. Four creatures in jet black armour and marked with their home nation. Everyone in the vicinity instantly began to move away from them, like a frightened school of fish - no one wants to linger around bounty hunters.

It was not long before they found and chased the man that had arrived earlier. The pursuit didn't last, these were professionals and they came equipped. He was soon pinned, and taken away.

"Where did they take him?" asked Jubaz "They could not be based far from here, if they employ bounty hunters, or else the cost would be too great."

Once again Consa looked uneasy, but the droid translated calmly "We do not know, but then again... the rumour has always been that the Black Dragon takes it's prisoners to Kessel. It is a friendly planet to them, and the nearest planet on this side of the Coalition's territory. To put their prison elsewhere would put them at a disadvantage."

"Very well then." said Dolash, rising "We go to Kessel."

The ship was in the flow of hyperspace, and it's crew of Jedi gathered together to discuss their next move.

Dolash sat entranced at the far end of the main passenger area, just outside of the cockpit. Reaching out through the force, he tried to follow the thread of the person he had felt earlier.

Whoever it was, the man was certainly force-sensitive. Dolash could almost feel his anguish, like a beacon, coming from Kessel. All he could feel was stabs of emotion and confusion, the thoughts were far too garbled to make sense of or speak to. Dolash roused himself, and turned to his fellow Jedi.

"Who here knows of Kessel?" He said.

Katria nodded "I do. I studied this region of space before, Kessel isn't exactly the nicest place in the galaxy. It's small, poisonous, and whoever's held it always turns it into a prison. Prisoners do the dangerous work of mining Spice, the drug. Even the supposedly holy Black Dragons mine it, and make a brisk profit from it - it's awful, really. Obviously, since the Dragons own it, less is known about how it runs these days, they're pretty secret."

There was suddenly a shudder aboard the ship. "Oh, and black holes. There's lots of them around Kessel. Don't worry, we're on a course away from them."

Dolash nodded "All right. So what do we know about BDE? They're a run-of-the-mill quasi-religious despotic war society with a lot of captured territory and subdued populations - ergo, dissidents, rebels, and heathens. They can't just kill all of them, for the dual reasons that someone has to mine the spice and that being killed is somehow less scary then being sent to an alien planet to be worked to death. We can guess there'll be a prison population here of people who don't deserve to be imprisoned."

"Well then, I'm sure we can do something about that." said Shillia. "What's protecting it?"

"My guess?" said Katria "A fully-kitted out defence fleet and heavily armed ground forces. They need to keep the prisoners contained, comb the nearby area for smugglers, and discourage any rescue attempts. The area is under Farfalen Jurisdiction, so I expect we'll see plenty of their forces."

"Any force users?" asked Jubaz.

"Unlikely, except maybe as prisoners."

Jubaz nodded "So no real threat."

"All of this still leaves the question of how we're supposed to get off of this place!" said Ian "I mean, sure, we could escape, but what about the prisoners? I don't think we can fit them all in."

"To maintain both a prison and a fleet, there must be plenty of shuttles and ship around." said Proq, casually. "We'll just snatch some of them, create a diversion, and fly everyone out in the confusion. Easy."

"No." said Fwar "Not easy. I do not see how we can circumvent their forces twice - the second time especially, considering that they will be alerted. Realistically, it is very unlikely an escape would succeed."

Dolash took time to consider, before responding. "There is one thing we are forgetting in this endeavour. The Force. It can shield our entry, and if we are skillful, it can shield our escape as well. Together, we should have the power to deceive them."

"How can you be so sure we have the power?" said Katria "How do you know we won't need help?"

Dolash paused again, and nodded. "I will put out a call for other Jedi. If others hear, they may come to help us." Dolash closed his eyes, and felt the Force flow through him. Like a ripple in a vast pond, he sent forth waves in the Force, stretching across space at a prodigious rate - the relatively calm waters of the Force having been undisturbed for years.

"If you're going to do that trick thing, you better get started now. We're coming out of Hyperspace." said Ian, who jumped to the controls.

In orbit over Kessel....

The Shoto class cruiser Maletstrom was idling in orbit over the world. The cruiser had just arrived from Hargeeva a day ago, with a few new prisoners to be added to the mine work force. The planet was brimming with thousands of prisoners, so they had a program in place to deal with overcrowding. Every so often, a training regiment of Dameun troops would visit Kessel to conduct a battle in order to stay in fit fighting trim. A few thousand of the least productive workers would be rounded up, given weak weapons, and would be assembled to attack the Dameun troops. Any prisoners who survived the battle would be set free. Since the program had been enacted one standard year ago, twenty four battles, one every two weeks, had been waged. In total twenty nine Dameun troops had been lost in combat, and tens of thousands of worthless prisoners had been slaughtered. Only five had survived the battles, and had been set free. Those five had just been captured again, one of them being seized by bounty hunters on a distant world. No one escapes the fury of Dameo. Nobody. The next prisoner versus warrior battle was to commence this afternoon, and the Commodore himself was to be in attendance, thought the capitan.

The sensors officer shouted an alarm. "Capitan, ship detected coming out of lightspeed. Unknown class and configuration, marks are also unknown. Ship is at extreme sensor range, coming in fast." reported lieutant Hansen.

"Raise alarms. This is not standard Dameun protocols for entering or leaving a system. Hail the ship, request their identity immediatley.

As the viewscreen showed him a command bridge of a Black Dragon cruiser, Dolash smiled. I hope this works.

"Ship! Identify yourself!" Said the crewman.

Dolash waved his hand. "You don't need us to identify ourselves, we have a code clearance. It was a stretch, but with a visual to work with he could just feel the minds of the command bridge. They were tired, bored, and distracted with the thought of some violent entertainment coming up. It was more then easy to manipulate them.

The crewman nodded, as did his commander. "Yes, that is... the correct code sequence."

Dolash waved again "You can call off the alarm, this is just a safety inspection. You were told of it in passing a week ago, it must have slipped your mind."

The commander, looking in a daze, went over to his controls and tapped a few buttons. The alerted ships stood down once more.

Dolash found the concentration harder to hold. So long as they were not woken from their daze, he could keep them shrouded in an imagined shelter of illusion - looking to them like a standard safety inspector group in a regular, unmarked shuttle. They were almost past the fleet, when Dolash felt his concentration weaken. The other Jedi looked concerned, and both Fwar and Shillia began to concentrate, lending him their strength.

With the strain somewhat allieviated, Dolash managed to maintain the illusion until - at last - they were out of sight and out of range of the protective fleet, heading towards the prison complex.

"That was a close one." murmured Dolash, as he took his seat. "Bring up the map of the Prison Complex again."

A holographic image of the groun of Kessel formed before him.

"The train system that takes prisoners from the prisons to the work pits is nearby - if we set up camp there, we'll be able to intercept them." Katria pointed to a point near the mines on the thin, snaking train. "At this time of day, they'll be preparing to take the prisoners back to their prison, so we can ambush the train then."

Dolash nodded. "I will reach out through the Force, to see what I can see. Keep us on a path close to the ground and out of sight, we'll have to make the trip to the train on foot." With that, he closed his eyes, and returned to trance.