CHAPTER NINETEEN:               Darth Korriban silently stalked into the main chamber of the EREBUS, glancing around with eyes glowing like embers as the doors behind him slid shut and bathed him in darkness. Quietly, he moved through the void to look over the glowing readouts monitoring his charge’s health. The series of displays, as well as a steady murmur of the heart monitor told him she was in good condition. Once satisfied, his fingers brushed over a control, illuminating part of the cabin with a faint ambient light.

            Korriban had since given Lanna a change of clothes; her modest undergarments covered by one of his short grey robes. Although they covered her torso, the tunic left much of her legs exposed so that many of the thick black lines which traced themselves horizontally across the white fur on her thighs were clearly visible. Her hair was also tousled, the thick brown strands still disheveled from her first violent encounter with the Sith Lord.

She had spent much of her time in Korriban’s care heavily sedated, looking up at her captor with glazed over eyes. He talked to her, sometimes, always in a soft and refined tone; an almost tender voice that had once frightened Lanna much more so than when he had been violent. She soon began to suspect that the root of his graciousness lay in some sort of twisted attraction he had developed for her. But in all her time in captivity, Korriban had never made any kind of noticeable advance. To the contrary, he was quite platonic, polite and compliant with her requests, so long as she did not demand her freedom.

But Lanna remained skeptical and defensive, the contradicting memories of his brutal assault against her still fresh in her mind. She would converse with him in a limited manner when her strength allowed her to do so, and she never once felt pressured to reveal any information which might pose a danger to StarFleet. Unbeknownst to her at the time, Jamarr had already provided ample amounts of assistance in that area, and the Empire’s use for her and her comrades would soon be at an end.

The black-furred panther stalked to her side and gently ran his palm over her cheek to draw her back to the hazy world of consciousness. Lanna stirred and blinked her eyes open slightly, looking up at him with distant eyes. When she realized what he was doing, she pulled away from his hand and sighed.

He looked down at her intensely for a moment, making no expression or sound. Lanna looked back with her own distant gaze and wondered idly what awful mysteries lay behind those glowing amber eyes.

She would linger on such musings long, however, as a soft metallic click from the unlit side of the cabin suddenly caught Korriban’s attention. He turned his gaze accusingly toward the shadows and watched as several more clicks sounded against the deck, noting keenly the shape of a person beginning to rise from the darkness. A milky-furred woman emerged into the muted light, a floor-length black cloak swirling around her ankles with each crisp step. Her stormy eyes flashed with anger and annoyance as she spotted the brunette lying on the table, the hand of her lover just removed from an apparently affectionate stroke of her cheek.

Amaranth Jadeite looked up to face Korriban with one of her carefully sculpted eyebrows arched in mocking question. “Your loins burn for another in my absence, I see?” Her voice was an icy growl. She stepped toward him and glanced back down at the tigress, the words which followed spilling from her pursed lips like venom. “How precious . . .”

That comment drew a look of aggravation from Korriban. “You misju—“

But she put one of her fingers to his lips, the deep violet lacquer she had applied to her claws only that morning flashing in the room’s soft lights. “Perhaps,” her tone softened into a purr and her hands glided back, untying the drawstring of her overcloak. “Perhaps I can convince your straying gaze to return . . .” She slipped a hand out of the sheer black tunic she wore, bearing her arm from bicep to wrist.

            Korriban growled and in a moment he had clasped his hands over her arms, clutching Jadeite in place. He buried his teeth in the side of her neck in a bite almost hard enough to break skin.

            The significance of the gesture was not lost upon Lanna; the Klingons behaved similarly when engaging in such rituals. She turned aside and began to wonder over her situation; thus far Korriban had treated her well, even though he had more than thoroughly unsettled her. This woman, his lover, it seemed, might soon change that.

            Jadeite, however, was too wrapped up in other things at that exact moment to pay Lanna much mind. She smiled to herself, satisfied at her paramour’s hastened acceptance of her invitation.

But much to Korriban’s annoyance she expertly slipped out of his grasp, shifting so that the jungle cat would not leave gouges in her neck as she withdrew. She flashed him a coy smile and stood back, taunting him. “Or perhaps not . . .” Her hands descended to gather up her tunic, slowly drawing them halfway up her arms. She stared accusingly at Lanna and then glanced back up at him, making her wishes concerning the tigress clear.

            Korriban shook his head. “She means nothing to me.” He spoke, the growl still evident in his voice.

"Prove it," Jadeite dared, taking a risk with her lover.  "I want to see her die."

He huffed at that, "No."

She frowned, vexed, and wished for skill enough to probe his senses that she might know for certain his intentions if she dared to press further. Since she had no assurances, Jadeite resumed her original tactics by kissing Korriban's lips. She would find some other way to rouse the truth from him, later; she had no intentions of leaving anytime soon.           

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Zannah Lyles slumped back into the pilot's seat of the Imperial shuttle and sighed heavily. Since her escape, to be safe, she had changed her course to follow a relatively anonymous hyperlane—one which wouldn’t be encoded in any Imperial navicomputer, anyway—but she was still uneasy.

“Dammit,” the Lemorian cursed under her breath, “stupid kids and their trends . . .” She had turned to smuggling to keep out of sight, and now because of a group of hoodlums she had lost her ship, her cargo, and likely any chance of ever doing business in the Yag’Dhul sector ever again.

Even though odd patterns of blue light and shadow blanketed the cockpit around her, the radiance flooding in from the chaotic realm of hyperspace, she found her thoughts unable to rise from the bleak darkness she had encountered at the station. The lure of the Dark Side was a virulent and seductive evil, thoughtlessly able to bring great suffering to untold billions. Zannah was no stranger to the atrocities of the Empire or those of their allies, the Sith, but something about seeing those young men—little more then children and holding the hopes of a future generation—willfully carrying on the legacy of darkness was disturbing and disheartening. It had, sadly, become “fashionable” to be associated with evil.

Zannah shook her head as if to clear it. Dwelling on the situation would do nothing to change it. She turned her attention to the navicomputer a moment, checking to see how much longer it would be before her shuttle crossed the border into the Unknown Regions, a distant and relatively unexplored portion of the galaxy. The Lemorian, eager to get as far away from the Yag’Dhul sector as possible, had set a course for an obscure star system nearing the outer edges of the galactic rim. The Lambda shuttle’s astrogation computer had no hyperspace maps extending very far into the mysterious area, and Zannah would eventually have to pilot the ship manually. The world she hoped to reach was called Daktia; she had friends there who would provide safe haven while she gathered her wits and decided where to go from here.

Zannah’s hands streaked back through the black strands of her hair as she stood and stretched her willowy form. She had been sitting in the cockpit for a long time, and had not as yet taken the opportunity to explore the rest of the tiny shuttle.

Some idle poking around had revealed the Imperial craft to be mostly empty, boringly Spartan and somewhat cramped. The only objects of interest she found at first were a handful of rations inside of a storage container in one of the rear partitions and some spare machine parts that looked as if they had come out of a protocol droid in an overhead compartment.

She continued on like this for several minutes before coming to a sealed door near the rear starboard ion engine. Zannah tried her hand at several Imperial codes that she knew off the top of her head, but none of them granted her access to the room. Normally she wouldn’t have been so concerned, as locked doors like this were impossible to open from the inside, but something strange caught her attention.

Perhaps she had been too distracted by the situation to sense it before, but as Zannah ran her hand across the metal surface of the door she felt the unmistakable presence of someone inside. Her sense of it was weak; too much so for her discern whether friend or foe waited within, but the Lemorian was in no mood to take chances. She unsheathed her lightsaber and ignited it with a snap-hiss, the prismatic blade showering color over the otherwise neutral grey bulkheads.

Using it like a cutting laser, she forced the tip of the beam through the durasteel door and meticulously sliced a hole large enough for her to step through. The lightsaber fizzled and sparked as she did so, the metal bubbling away into molten orange until she completed a rough oval shape that she quickly kicked in. It hit the deck with a deafening clang and Zannah’s eyes searched anxiously through the darkness, her Jedi senses reaching into the void for any sign of a threat.

The Lemorian stood there for several seconds, the lights from the outside casting her form into a monochrome silhouette lightly hued by the shifting glow of her lightsaber. She could feel no darkness, no threat, only the weak sense of a presence, inanimate somehow, as if trapped. A realization came to her a few seconds before she found the switch to the lights: whoever was inside was likely an Imperial prisoner.

The light only helped her eyes to confirm the conclusion; strapped to the rear wall of the shuttle was the frame of a man frozen in carbonite, agonizingly resembling a living statue. His hands were at his sides, unresisting, but the expression that the unfortunate individual wore upon his face was one of pain and consternation; his ears folded back and a frown on his face.

Beside the prisoner lay a small sealed container labeled with the words in Basic lettering: Classified Equipment. But the Lemorian, understandably, was more interested in the unexpected stowaway rather than any toys the Imperials had sent along with him.

Zannah placed a hand toward her opened mouth and cautiously approached the frozen block. "I wonder what he did to deserve this . . ." she mused, lowering her lightsaber and finally switching it off. The smuggler Jedi stepped up to the side of the statue and ran her hands over the casting which molded over his face, considering his helpless form with adamant curiosity.

Soon, her fingers drifted toward the release controls on the side of the block, but she stopped herself before keying anything in. "Imperials use carbon freezing to transport dangerous criminals," she reminded herself.

She closed her eyes and began to stretch out with her feelings toward the man trapped in the carbonite. There was no aura of violence or anger about him; any malice that he hid in his heart she could not detect. After a moment of intense deliberation, she decided that any enemy of the Empire was to her a friend and keyed in the release procedure.

An insidious hissing noise started and the smell of steaming carbonite filled the air. The ridges on the impression which molded to the man’s face turned to cracks, and from within the cracks spewed out bright white light. The cracks grew into rifts that glowed red as the light from inside the stasis device grew brighter, so bright that Zannah had to shield her eyes from the deluge.

When it faded, the Lemorian found herself holding up an ebony haired young man with dark brown fur and distinctly fox-like black ears. He was shivering as if cold and in mild shock, his unsteady motions making it difficult for him to speak.

"Easy now," Zannah said, supporting him and she lowered down to the floor, "just relax until the worst of the hibernation sickness passes. You should be right as rain in thirty minutes or so depending how long you were in suspended animation."

Captain Marc Xavier sat up and scooted back distrustfully at the unfamiliar voice. He looked at Zannah with foggy grey eyes. "W—who are you?" he demanded, coughing. "Where am I . . . why can't I see?"

Zannah reached out toward Xavier and he pulled back as he felt her hand touch his arm.

"First of all, calm down." Zannah said steadily. She could sense a strange aura coming from the captain now. Something powerful, yet, different from anything she'd ever felt before. "My name is Zannah Lyles. I believe I've accidentally rescued you in the process of saving my own tail from the Imperials. You can't see because of the hibernation sickness from the carbonite. Given enough time, it will pass and you will regain your sight." She reached out for him again, slowly, and this time the captain started but didn’t pull away. "Just relax," she soothed, "rest easy for now."

Captain Xavier let out a sigh and blinked his eyes, still not seeing anything around him. His shivering gradually passed and he settled after several minutes.

Zannah peered at him curiously. "Are you able to stand?" she asked, "this place may not be a luxury liner, but there are some bunks in the adjacent compartment. The deck plating isn't all that comfortable . . ."

Xavier nodded in agreement and bent his knees to stand. He tried to push himself off the floor, but he didn’t have the strength yet. Zannah slipped an arm around his waist and helped him support his own weight as she led him to the tiny crew cabin. She eased him onto one of the lower bunks before settling herself on the one opposite.

Marc rolled his head back and forth a few times and swallowed. "You didn’t answer my other question," he breathed. "Where am I?"

Zannah's tone had a wry note in it. "You're onboard a hijacked Imperial shuttle. We're heading out on a back road hyperspace route toward the Unknown Regions. I have some friends out there who will protect us." She paused and looked toward the cockpit, "Speaking of which, I need to check our position." She sat up on the bunk, stood and started toward the cockpit, "you rest until the sickness passes, then we can trade our respective stories."

"Unknown Regions? Hyperspace?" The captain said between coughs. But Zannah was already too far away to hear.

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Back within the confines of the USS FELIX’s conference room, Commander Weiss, Lieutenant Commander Cyber Hare and Lieutenant Elizabeth Denver were briefing the remainder of the senior staff on the situation. The proceedings all had an air of surrealism to them, as if each of the officers were simply characters living out a predetermined moment in some greater narrative, none of them knowing to what extent the story would go.

"Those negotiations were a sham," Elizabeth said firmly, looking down across the long polished table at Weiss, "I could read him plainly. He's got a hidden agenda. His agreement to the cease fire is only to give him time to better assess his situation before he decides to strike."

"I agree," Romeo said with an appreciative nod, "so we have to assume their intent is hostile.”

Cyber cocked her head curiously. "There is no definite way that we can determine exactly what his motives are," she forwarded. "However, if we try to analyze the situation from a viewing perspective similar to his, we may be able to infer a general idea as to what he is planning."

"It's more complicated than that," Elizabeth said. "That entire scene was staged. Those officers beside him were too quick and too eager to support or oppose what Tarvik said. It was like it was rehearsed."

"Quite possible," Cyber said, "I did observe a fourteen percent increased average amplitude variance in their vocal modulations when they responded to something the Grand Moff had said. That would be consistent with them knowing what he was going to say."

"This is all very fascinating and everything—" Selune piped up, clearly finding the other officers conversation to be dancing around the point. "—but ultimately irrelevant. They are lying and we know it. We should take back our crew members and collapse the anomaly before they get a chance to kill someone else; allowing this charade to continue only exposes more StarFleet officers to unnecessary danger."

"We do not know what the effect of closing the rift would have on the fabric of local time-space." Cyber said, "We could end up collapsing subspace for a radius of several lightyears."

“A handful of lightyears of space which provides little or no tactical value to the Federation at thi—”

Romeo shook his head and raised his hand for silence. “That option is unacceptable at this time. Think of the consequences if there were an uncharted M-class planet in the Hayen Corridor? We could end up stranding a civilization out here without even knowing it.” He sighed, crossing his arms creasing his brow in thought, "It's a shame about the captain," he spoke in what was hardly more than a mumble, "Xavier would have come up with something clever right now to solve this problem."

"He's not dead." Elizabeth said, as if giving Weiss a warning.

Romeo sat up as all eyes at the table turned to consider the counselor. “That is a possibility, given the circumstances,” he offered impassively. “But I think it’s time we considered the possibility that Marc did indeed perish on the away mission.”

"I have," the counselor insisted, meeting each of their inquisitive gazes. "But remember what Tarvik said about the captain? That his body was caught in the hypermatter stream? That’s impossible; because the report clearly states that the main reactor was deactivated before the away team left.”

Everyone at the conference table paused at that, realizing that the counselor had a point.

“I've studied negotiation proceedings and interrogation sessions before,” She continued. “Even without a slip-up like that, I know when a person is lying and Tarvik was showing all the subtle signs of it for his type. When he spoke about the captain he tried to mask it; same thing when he said he wanted to bring this 'cultural misunderstanding' to a close. That’s my professional opinion, commander.” She added with a bit of finality.

Romeo took a breath, as if unappreciative of her input, but he nodded slowly, finding no point in arguing. “Counselor, you bring up a more than valid argument,” he conceded. “We will operate on the assumption that Captain Xavier is alive until proven otherwise.”

Cyber chimed in, seemingly oblivious to the bit of tension that had flashed through the air. “If the counselor is correct and Tarvik is attempting deception,” she offered, “then one would be wise to think of the governor as approaching this situation as a chess game. This move, then, would simply be an intermission; an opportunity to lull us into a false sense of security. If that analogy holds, then it may mean that he is coming close to his final move.”

Romeo considered the lieutenant commander. "Final move?"

"Yes, sir.” Cyber nodded, “to checkmate."

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Four of the five remaining Imperial star destroyers held in formation before the DEATH STAR like pointed daggers warding off an enemy. All but the GALACTICA were fanned out in front of the immense battlestation, holding relative position as the final preparations were made to tow it back across the rift. The GALACTICA, however, was undergoing active repairs, hiding beneath the TYRANT like a youngling suckling to its mother as repair crews tended to her damaged ion engines.

The bridge of the TYRANT was a hive of quiet and intense activity, the various officers coordinating repair efforts while instructing their crews to begin operations to reinforce the tractor beam systems.

Standing quietly on the observation walkway, his thoughts distant from the situation, Fleet Admiral Sher Khal'Saad calmly regarded the remote purple distortion in the starfield that was the space time rift. It was curious to him, an enigma which seemed to defy his very notions of existence and yet existed; it was real, and he was only beginning to dimly sense its significance to the Empire and to the future histories of both the old and new galaxies.

An aura of silence and unnatural cold floated around the tiger, dark power and self-discipline evident in every inch of his frame. The bridge of the command ship pulsed and thrummed around him as he continued his meditations, gazing calmly out across space and time. It was not until Captain Ferris, his executive officer, stepped forward to address him did the admiral pull his consciousness back to the realm of the present and turn his amber feline eyes upon him.

Upon his return from negotiations with the Federation, Governor Tarvik had ordered that the DEATH STAR be towed back through the wormhole and returned to Imperial space pending repairs. Since that order had been issued, the crews of the star destroyers under Khal’Saad’s command had been working feverishly to prepare to have the station safely moved.

After conferring briefly with operations command, Captain Ferris strode quickly to his superior's side, report in hand. "The SENTINEL is in place, admiral." He reported smoothly, seemingly unaffected by the chill that radiated from his longtime commander. "We are ready to begin the towing procedure."

The admiral remained almost motionless, only acknowledging Ferris’ report with a slight nod. "And what of the repair efforts?" His voice was a deep cultured purr, carrying with it a sinister whisper that sent a shiver up the spine of every officer within earshot.

"Well under way, milord."

"Good," Khal'Saad pivoted smoothly on his heel, stepping deeper toward the center of the bridge to better survey the control pits on either side of him. "Inform the other ships that we are ready to commence towing."

The ferret nodded crisply. "At once, milord."

Seconds later, the tractor generators aboard the star destroyers began to hum and buzz with energy. Their beams probed deep into space with invisible arms, latching one by one onto the gargantuan orb of the DEATH STAR. At first, its perfectly spherical frame began to pull into a slight ellipse, bringing with it a thundering creak of strain before the momentum of the rear half of the station pulled into place, restoring the battlestation to its normal shape. The five star destroyers arrayed out in front of it, the immense towing operation began its steady crawl back toward the rift.

"Report?" Khal'Saad asked, noting the subtle motion of the stars at the bridge windows.

Ferris looked up from a computer display, turning a dial several notches to the left before answering." All systems show nominal; acceleration at point zero-zero-seven-five MGLT."

"Excellent, captain. Carry on."

For a few moments it appeared to most of the crew that the procedure would go on with little problem; with each second the DEATH STAR gained more speed and tension on the bridge began to ease back into the familiarity of routine. Still standing at the viewport, Khal’Saad frowned, his attention focusing sharply in the here-and-now. His mind had heard a sudden whisper of danger, of battle . . . the combat alarm buzzed, breaking through the quiet murmur of activity and sending the officers in the tactical pit into a frenzied rush to assess the problem.

Ferris looked up, concern evident in his eyes.

"Sir," an officer called, "I'm tracking a large number of unidentified signals emerging from the wormhole; high acceleration, bearing on a direct intercept."

"Not ours." Sher said, already knowing the answer.

“They’re not transmitting any known IFF codes, sir. Closest match we have on record is . . .” the officer paused, double-checking the readouts on his display, “. . . Amazon, sir, Yuufusion. The records we have are over sixty years old, milord, so tactical information is incomplete at best.”

Admiral Khal'Saad raised an eyebrow. He had heard stories about the Yuufusion people, even read the occasional historical report buried in the records kept by the Old Republic, but had hardly expected to come into actual contact with them. "The Amazons?” he echoed. “Indeed. Power up our super-heavy cannons, make it obvious.”

Ferris looked up, "Milord, we will have to reroute our power from the tractor beams."

"I am aware of that fact, captain. You have your orders."

"Sir, I'm picking up another group of vessels also exiting the wormhole; also bearing on an intercept course."

"More Amazonians?" By now Khal’Saad was leaning over the tactical pit, looking down at the officers in earnest.

"No, sir,” the report came back,” Their weapons and shields are at full charge, and I’m getting solid tactical returns on their designs. IFF codes match those known to be in use by the Rebel Alliance.”

Admiral Khal'Saad snarled, baring his fangs viciously. "Rebels," he muttered. "Sound full tactical alert. Raise shields and scramble all fighters. Inform the fleet, we are under attack. Signal our escorts to protect the DEATH STAR at all costs . . ."