Private The Bright Knight and The Man in White

[The Man in White]

Wearing: Civilian garments

Armed with: Sword of the Resistors (Green Bladed Lightsaber)

Standard Ventilators (Recharging Commando Pistols)

Came to Coruscant in: Shell of The Resistors (Defender Class Corvette)

Objective: talk with Starlin Rand


The Defender Class Reproduction drifted lazily into the Atmosphere of Coruscant,close to the Jedi Temple, days after Laertia Io had bombarded Gihinnom rather than let it escape, killing almost it's entire compliment of passengers including the forces she was ostensibly aligned with. She would go on trial at some point, but not yet.

As horrified as he was at her act, which confirmed to him her insanity had completely gotten the better of her, a part of him wondered if he would ever have the nerve to do something like that just to try and win. Laertia advocated Total War against foes like the Maw. The problem was, Laertia was trying to work with people who didn't believe in total war to win.

Laertia Io scared him because there had been so many points during the Gulag Era that he had nearly gone off the deep end trying to bring a stop to Phyre and her lethal rampage. Points where he had almost done stuff like that, only to stop himself at the last moment because he knew he would never be able to take it back. Even when he was still with Jen, she would often catch him awake, staring into the ceiling at night, silently wondering if his hesitance to go the full distance had allowed Phyre's vicious slaughters to go on even further than they might otherwise have.

On the other hand, he deeply pitied Io, once he had learned the whole story. The poor woman had never stood a chance, mentally speaking.

Such a waste...he had thought to himself in the days since Kerest. Losing such a powerful, talented, and most horrifyingly, well intentioned person, in her own way, to madness and destruction, to eternal enmity with a Jedi Order he knew in his heart wouldn't learn from this disaster, that was a tragedy. Laertia had been on the verge of being a champion of the Order, flawed though she was. And then she had cast it all aside, defied the Jedi. Told them what they were doing wasn't just wrong, it was evil. And he could tell she believed it, and that was even more horrifying to him. Because part of him thought she had a point...

In his opinion, the Order hadn't been told that to their face enough in history by their own. And perhaps that was what made the feud so bitter on the Jedi's end of it...they weren't facing an enemy opposing them on the basis of greed for power, or wanting the Dark Side to triumph. Laertia didn't care about any of that. She was simply fighting them so savagely now out of moral disgust at their choice to fight the Sith.

She believed she was bringing them to justice.

Zabka knew her frustration, more than he would ever dare admit out loud.

How many times had he nearly rebelled during the Plague? Too many. Trying to color in the Jedi margins while battling a beast like Darth Phyre had caused him some permanent anxiety issues. He'd held off the nervous breakdown for as long as he could. But after the Plague ended he had retired, and spent the next twenty years or so a nervous, stumbling drunken wreck. Than he was just a plain homeless wreck for the twenty after that. Phyre had put him through some chit. And so had the Jedi, he admitted only in the most blood soaked parts of his memory.

Ironically, it was Xiphos's brutality towards the Jedi that had brought him out of hiding, forcing him to journey forward and encounter Starlin, his son, who he had left over too many enemies on the verge of finding him, and too many personal demons...

Zabka wasn't here on Coruscant as anything but a screw up. He loathed Syd for being more of a parent than he (and she was an even WORSE screw up!). He didn't know how to make it up. Maybe he couldn't. Should he even try?

He settled on the landing pad of the busy city planet he had hid for years on. It felt funny, being back here after re-announcing his presence to the Galaxy at Lao-Mon, where he had gunned down dozens defending Starlin.

He hadn't made or even prepped food, because he wasn't sure Starlin would want to eat anything from him. He still dreaded the inevitable run in with Jen. She might be pissed enough to actually shoot him.

Would he let her?

Zabka sent out a transmission to Starlin's comlink (Don't ask how he got it.) He had arrived as he said he would, and waited for Starlin to show. He suppressed an anxiety attack as he waited on the open hatch of his blue starship for Starlin to arrive. He would have gone to where Starlin was but he feared it would have been awkward...

 

[Starlin Rand]

A half hour after Zabka sent the transmission, Starlin emerged from the starport building’s doors. The young man was wearing a black tie suit—very out of place on a landing pad, and certainly strange attire for a meeting with his father. But he wasn’t wearing the suit for Zabka.

As he strolled toward the corvette, his hands in his pockets, Starlin looked a lot older than he was. That air of hard-won maturity stayed with him until he came to a stop in front of his father, and just like that, he instantly felt like a little kid again. It was a feeling he suspected would take a long time to go away.

“Hey, sorry if I’m late,” he said. “I, uh… got a little sidetracked. Traffic was bad.”

Before an awkward silence could descend, he asked, “Would you like to go out? Someplace to eat? I know a good place… I can pay.”

He almost cringed. All this had sounded much more natural in his head. Instead it came out sounding stiff and uncomfortable. Well, at least he was trying... and if it all didn't work out, the black tie had a purpose either way. He'd just be having dinner with his mother alone.

The Man in White​

 

[The Man in White]

Zabka awkwardly shuffled about as he finally saw Starlin Rand . It disturbed Zabka, how much Starlin was starting to look like him.

He had that same weariness. The same emotional exhaustion Zabka once had, first fighting Darth Themis, then Darth Phyre.

"It's okay..." Zabka said. Traffic is always bad here...

At Starlin's offer to go somewhere to eat, Zabka nodded.

"That sounds like a good idea. I'll go in half on the check if you want." Zabka offered awkwardly, cringing internally as he stared at his son.

Oh half the check, eh? Riiiight Like that's gonna make up for the YEARS you weren't there. he thought guiltily.

"Starlin...um..." He trailed, scratching the back of his head.

"Nothing I say can ever make up for the fact I wasn't there for you. You deserved a Father who wasn't scared of failing you the way I failed my apprentice. A Father who didn't have so many skeletons in his closet it was all I could do to keep them from bursting out...but they did burst out. And the fear did win. And for the fear especially...for the fear I felt when you used the Force without realizing it...for that, I apologise most of all." Zabka said, finally just deciding to say it while he still could.

"I can't ask for your forgiveness. If it happens it happens. All I can ask for is a chance to earn it. And I want to earn it. But please know...I was bad man, and...and it eventually caught up with me. I did...things." he admitted.

He shuffled about a bit.

"Probably not the right time to say all of that, huh?" he asked.

 

[Starlin Rand]

Once Zabka had accepted the invitation, Starlin gestured for him to follow. “It’s no problem,” Starlin said. “I’m starting to make some money on my own, y’know. Syd, uh, she gave me a few things over the years, really valuable stuff that could be sold for tons of credits. Bars of aurodium and rare gems. I saved it up rather than spent it, and started investing in, heh…” He snorted. “In resorts and spas.”

As they walked, Zabka seemed eager to unload. Starlin listened. It was basically what he expected. Zabka hit all the right notes in the well-worn, earmarked pages of the apologetic parental abandonment playbook. Well, that sounded cynical. At least he was trying to make things right. Right?

“I mean, at this point any time is the ‘right time’,” Starlin murmured. They had reached his airspeeder, an old secondhand vehicle with a few scratches and dents. If Starlin had indeed come into money, he had yet to buy himself a nicer speeder. He climbed into the driver’s seat and waited for Zabka to get in before taking to Coruscant’s skies.

“I’m not gonna lie, I have a lot of questions,” he continued, keeping his eyes on the airways as he navigated traffic. “So does Mom. She asked to come to dinner with me and you, y’know. I told her it would depend on you…” He shrugged. “Do you mind? I mean, are you ready for that yet, or—if not, I can just call her and tell her. I told her I’d stop by and pick her up on the way if you said it was okay…”

In his nervousness, Starlin started to reach toward the radio dials to turn on some music, only to stop himself, still waiting for a response from Zabka.

A half hour earlier…

Starlin had stood before his bedroom mirror one last time, checking his appearance from all angles. While he gazed at his reflection, he noticed his mother leaning against the doorway behind him, her arms crossed over her chest. He turned to face her.

“You look nice,” she said.

“Thanks,” he replied, his fingers tracing over the lapel of his jacket.

“Where’d you get it?”

“I bought it.”

Awkward silence fell between them, lasting several seconds before she spoke again. “So… what’s going on?”

“I’m going to meet with dad and talk to him,” Starlin said with a shrug. Noticing the uncertainty in Jen’s expression, he added, “You could still come with us.”

“Mmm.” She pursed her lips. “I’m not sure why I would want to do that. So much time has passed, and things are different now…”

“To put things to rest,” Starlin suggested. “Or try to, at least. So we can all move on together.”

She sighed. “I just don’t want to deal with… I mean, look at yourself.” She gestured, her metal bracelets jangling together. “You’re wearing a suit to a meeting with your own father. What does that tell you? What does that tell him?”

“I’m not wearing it for him,” Starlin said, a small smile touching his lips. “I’m planning on going somewhere nice afterwards. I’ll invite him, and if things don’t work out or he doesn’t want to go… well, it’ll be my treat for myself.”

Her brow furrowed. “Where are you going?”

“The Cobalt Club.”

“That swanky place?” Her eyebrows shot toward the ceiling. “But, Starlin—why? How are you gonna pay for that? Are you gonna eat there? Do you know how much their food costs?”

Starlin laughed. “It’s fine. I can pay for it. I have some money now. Speaking of which, how would you like to move into a nicer apartment, one with a door that doesn’t get stuck? Or get a brand new ship and go wherever you please? Or… I don’t know. Whatever you want, Mom.”

He suddenly reached out and pulled her into a hug. Jen was surprised at first, but quickly acquiesced, embracing him tightly.

“I’d have to think about it,” she said, gently stroking his hair with one hand. “This is all so sudden—you gotta realize, I keep thinking of you as a Padawan before I remember you’re a Knight now.” Pulling away, she looked at him. “If you really have some serious money, I don’t want you to spend it on me.” Her manicured fingers brushed his eyepatch. “Get yourself a prosthetic eye instead of this thing. I’d rather you spent money on protecting yourself and improving your quality of life.”

“Hey, pretty soon I’m gonna have enough money to improve both our qualities of life,” he said. “Besides, the eyepatch isn’t so bad. I can still see you with it. But you’re right—it’s what they call a distinguishing feature, and a person in my line of work doesn’t want to be looking distinguishable.”

She shook her head, then sighed. “Okay, you’ve convinced me. I’ll go with you to the Cobalt Club. But here’s the deal—”

The buzzing of Starlin’s comlink interrupted her. He grabbed the device and read the message. “He’s waiting to meet me at his landing pad.”

“Chit, I have to get ready.” Jen headed out of the room, pausing briefly to finish what she had been saying earlier. “I’ll come, but on one condition: I stay here while you go to meet Zabka. You talk to him first, tell him you and I have an engagement planned—oh hell, did you make reservations for only two at this place?”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of it.”

“Right… wow. Okay.” Disappearing into her bedroom to change, she continued to talk to him, raising her voice to be heard. “Tell him we’re going there after you guys have talked, or whatever. But if Zabka doesn’t want to go to a public place—and there’s a chance he might not, knowing that man and his bad nerves—then you’ll just leave, and that’ll be that.”

“If you don’t want to see him, why are you—”

She stuck her head out the door. “It’s not every day I get to go to the Cobalt Club, baby!”

As she disappeared back into her bedroom, Starlin crossed his fingers behind his back, a plan forming in his mind...

The Man in White​

 

[The Man in White]

"T'sid always was generous towards her friends..." Zabka remarked to himself more than Starlin Rand .

He blinked back the memory of Darth Phyre burying him alive on Klatooine.

"I did about the same thing when I was your age..." He said quietly as he got into the old speeder. "Keep your name off documents as much as possible. You don't want your enemies being able to track and sabotage your assets. They found me twice that way."

Zabka looked like a deer in headlights when Starlin said Jen would be joining them.

"I don't mind her joining. Honest." he said, suppressing the panic attack.

OhchitohchitohCHIT... He thought.

"I'm...I'm ready if she is..." Zabka said, eyes darting to the side window. Were they being followed?

No...that was just paranoia. He'd made multiple random jumps to hyperspace before coming here. None knew he was here.

"How is Jen... personally, I mean?" Zabka asked, trying to prep himself. "And where did you have in mind?"

Slow steps in conversation were best for now...

 

[Starlin Rand]

“Yeah, should probably get more into the habit of using an alias,” Starlin agreed.

Since his gaze was focused on not crashing into any of the other speeders around him, he didn’t notice the panicked expression on Zabka’s face. He detected maybe a hint of paranoia and anxiety in the Force, but not enough to make him rethink this little reunion he had arranged between his parents.

“Cool,” he murmured, getting into the airlane that would take him by his mother’s apartment. “Uh, well, she’s remarried.”

Maybe that news would come as a disappointment to Zabka, assuming he had held out hope that he could return to a normal life with his wife and son. Starlin doubted it. Too much time had passed, and it would be unfair for anyone to expect their spouse to wait that long.

“Her husband’s a pretty decent guy. He’s a mechanic. She helps him with repairs. She also was doing this thing for a while where she was taking in homeless street kids. I even… brought this Sith acolyte to her one time, hoping she could help him find a better life. He liked her, but it didn’t work out...”

The speeder pulled up in front of the apartment building. Trying not to think about Arcturus Dinn , Starlin sent a message to his mother to let her know they had arrived. “Oh, we’re going to this place called the Cobalt Club,” he said, remembering Zabka’s question. “You ever been there?”

Jen somehow managed to leave her apartment and rode the lift down to the building’s lobby before she had to stop. She stood before the door leading outside, biting her lip, wondering if she had lost her nerve after all. Her husband was away for the evening; there was a big game tonight, and he was watching it at a friend’s house. She hadn’t told him anything except that she and Starlin were going out to dinner together. Maybe that was why she felt almost as if she were about to commit a crime...

Stop it, she told herself. You’re a grown up, not a teenager fretting over an ex-boyfriend. Do this for Starlin’s sake, at least.

Gathering up her courage, she pushed through the door and walked across the yard to the parked speeder.

She was wearing red. The dress was one of the nicest pieces of clothing she owned, yet it was just barely fancy enough for a place like the Cobalt Club. Hopefully not too sexy, either—she didn’t want to send her ex-husband mixed messages.

Or did she?

No, nope, don’t go there.

She piled into the backseat of the speeder, glanced at between Starlin and Zabka, and struggled to figure out how to greet them. Hello boys? Howdy y’all? What’s up? Good evening?

“... Hi,” she said.

The Man in White​

 

[The Man in White]

Zabka had long ago resigned himself to the fact he would not be able to go back to how it was. All he could do was try and atone.

Upon hearing she had married again, Zabka gave no sigh of disappointment. He knew it was inevitable. Hell, even if he had stayed, she probably still would have left him. He kept way too many secrets, and she had known it.

Some days he hadn't been able to speak at all to her. Or his son. Too busy trying to fight down the urge to scream at some horrible experience during the Gulag Era.

(Cutaway of Laertia screaming on Kerest)

It had driven her to immense frustration and drugs and drink. Him to Death Sticks and silence working on the vessel...for the next mindless smuggling run where the profit would be gone in a few months. Or days, depending on how much their demons drove them to their vices.

"I'm glad she's remarried. At least she has stability."

Something I couldn't give her, even though I wanted to. he thought in private.

"I've never been to it...I wasn't familiar with the club scene. It was too...public...in my day." Zabka answered.

He forced calm in himself as he felt Jen nearby. He dared to turn and face her, having no idea what to say until she said an awkward "Hi."

"Hello, Jen..." he said respectfully, expression barely composed. His eyes, not dulled by drug use, were instead sharp, scanning, alert. An expression Jen had rarely seen on him...

... except after being in a fight. Which he had been. Some Brain Demon Cultist had tried to off him a few days before he left for Coruscant. He had been forced to blast her apart with a shotgun. Before that, Lao-Mon.

His Killer Instinct was back, and there was no way to hide it or pretend it didn't exist. He tried to soften his gaze, but that alertness for Danger, the paranoia, could not be excised from his stare. Rest assured, it was the same gaze Laertia and Maple had.

She must have realized he was more than he seemed after the first time she saw him get in a fight. Or that time she caught him disassembling and reassembling a blaster rifle at high speed (He had never done it where she could see that ever again afterward.). A dozen little things, each year, piling up one after the other. It must have eventually dawned on her he was a very dangerous man. The frustration had probably come from not knowing how or why.

"You... it's good to see you again..." he said awkwardly, trying to avert his gaze slightly so the stare of someone all too used to killing people wouldn't be quite so in view. He didn't want to scare her. Or Starlin.

"I feel a bit underdressed honestly. If I had known we were going to a club, I might have put on something fancy..." He said with a nervous chuckle.

He suppressed his paranoid urges to ask how many exits the Club had, how fast the authorities would arrive in an emergency, how fortified it was against assault. He didn't want to worry about that. He hated worrying about that. It was why he had never taken them any place fancy in the old days, because he couldn't guarantee their safety due to not being sure how many of the countless enemies he had made would hit him where he was most Vulnerable. Fortunately, Life as a hand to mouth smuggler hadn't allowed for many opportunities to do so.

"I won't stick out, will I?" he instead asked Starlin Rand

Smooooth, Zabka. he thought to himself sarcastically.

 

[Starlin Rand]

“Well, this is a special club...” Starlin trailed off just before Jen clambered into the backseat. Through the rearview mirror, he saw his mother and his father lock gazes.

Jen’s blue eyes held Zabka’s, remaining fixed on him even after he turned away. For all its intensity, his gaze didn’t frighten her. Quite the opposite—it drew her in, threatening to pull her back into his orbit all over again. But she knew that if she became his satellite, that orbit would drag them both into a violent and destructive collision that neither would ever recover from.

“It’s good to see you, too,” she said softly, finally looking down at her lap.

She had no illusions about their time together. It had been far from ideal. He had refused to speak about his past, even though it obviously haunted him. She had been too ashamed to talk about her days as a mercenary and slaver. Perhaps that was part of what had drawn them to each other—misery loves company, even if neither knows the full extent of the other’s pain.

“I think you’re overdressed, Starlin,” she remarked, reaching forward to tug on the edge of his black tie.

“You look nice too, Mom,” he complimented her. “And I wouldn’t worry too much. Dressing up is part of the experience, not a requirement.”

He hit the gas, blasting off toward the Cobalt Club.

***​

The Cobalt Club was a white tower, elaborately overdesigned from duracrete and transparisteel. Starlin pulled into the parking lot and leaped over the door, walking casually up to the entrance. He flashed the clerk a card, and was immediately let through without further ado.

Inside the Club, a Twi’lek woman in a blue sequin dress stood before a microphone on a stage, her singing backed by a droid band. People sat at tables or milled about, enjoying the music and the food. Starlin led the way to a table covered in a white cloth. Once everyone was seated, a waiter arrived, asking about drinks. Starlin ordered a martini; Jen hesitated, started to ask for wine, then changed her mind. “Just water.”

Once the waiter was gone, Starlin glanced between his parents, wondering where to even start. He was hoping that after they had dinner, he could take them down to the sanctum, but in order for that to happen, things would have to get a lot less awkward between them.

“So, uh… Dad,” he said, leaning forward. “Where have you been all these years?” He hadn’t meant for the question to sound accusatory, but it did come out a little that way. Jen folded her hands on the table in front of her, quietly listening.

The Man in White​

 

[The Man in White]

Zabka nodded, relieved he would not be the sore thumb in the group.

Jen wasn't hostile to him. That was a relief. He wouldn't have blamed her for being furious at him. Part of her probably still was. But he understood.

When Jen looked down, Zabka took that as the cue to be silent for the moment. There was no hostility. Best to keep it that way.

Starlin Rand then rocketed the speeder off to the Cobalt Club. Zabka remained silent, glancing idly at the side mirror to watch for any tails. None. Good.

Zabka took in the tower as they pulled up.

"Swank..." He noted idly as he followed Starlin in, who flashed a card and they were let through without question. They didn't even search Zabka for weapons.

He felt utterly exposed here. But he hid it well.

He sat calmly at the table, until the waitress showed.

Jen ordered water, Starlin ordered a Martini (Zabka wasn't sure if it was shaken or stirred), and Zabka ordered a glass of ice water also.

Then Starlin asked where he had been all these years.

Zabka took a sip of his water, put it down.

"Well...y'know, when you lived as long as I have and you do the things I did...you inevitably make enemies. In...my case...I was really good at making enemies. I made a lot of them when I was a Jedi...my occupation in the order was as a...a 'Problem Solver'."

He took another sip, blinking back the memories of his duel with Surt'r.

"A standard trained Force User is already a potentially very dangerous opponent. But then there are those Force Adepts just a cut above others in terms of the lethality they can project. That was my main focus...'retiring' these problem individuals. Laertia Io, before she went insane had a very similar occupation to what I did..."

Zabka suppressed the anxiety attack, taking a big gulp of water, presperation showing in the sides of his head.

"Like I said, you make a ton of enemies. My first was Darth Themis, who I put away for life on Jedha, then it was my own apprentice, a woman I recruited known as T'sid (NOTE: T'sid is pronounced the same as "Syd") Surt'r...then I was forced to fight her again after she got...resurrected... and in the process of fighting her I racked up dozens and dozens of other Dark Adepts with little bullchit mini-factions and private armies of their own swearing vendettas on me, many of whom unfortunately knew how to extend their lives beyond what they otherwise would have had during the Gulag Plague--Darth Rigor never stopped looking for my ass until at least thirty years ago...dunno what the feth happened to her, don't care...and these...feths...they can sure hold grudges, which I understand, considering the sort of stuff I did to them and their friends."

He took a large gulp of his ice water, a bead of sweat sliding down his forehead as he fought against the anxiety attack.

"Point is, they never stopped looking for me...which was partly why we were always moving around as smugglers, Jen, and why we were never able to go anywhere fancy. Being mobile frustrated nearly all tracking efforts. In fact, it was when that last job went south and we couldn't do it any more that they were finally able to get closer to tracking me until one of them finally managed to...you remember that burglar I ended up shooting about a few weeks before I actually left, Jen? That wasn't a burglar. That was a Sith Assassin. I knew if one had managed it, more would have. And I couldn't guarantee your safety. Either of you. So I decided they had to all finish dying before they found you both, and got you killed in the cross-fire. I have been tracking the lot of these people down and...'retiring' them. Still haven't gotten all of them. Took a temporary break. Was burned out. Still haven't gotten all of them..."

His fingers idly tapped his nearly empty glass.

"But that, in truth, is only half the reason I left you both..." he confessed, tapping his fingers rapidly as stress increased.

"The other half was I was scared." he admitted. "I had seen Starlin manifest a sign of Force Sensitivity without realizing it...he floated a remote control over to him without being aware it was him doing it. You were out getting beer, Jen, and it was a few days before the 'Burglar' and I freaked out because I had never seen any signs he was open to it because I was constantly trying to escape my own connection with drugs."

He downed the last of his ice water.

"I knew my stuff...knew my chit... could have taught him how to use it, Jen...but when the thought crossed my mind to do so...all I could think about was how I had failed T'sid. T'sid had been like a daughter to me...and I ended up having to kill her with an explosive crossbow bolt because nothing else worked on someone that powerful." he explained grimly, eyes darting about for the waitress.

"I ended up dreaming about that day for the rest of the Gulag Plague. In detail. I figured it was better he didn't know it because it would have made him and you even more of a target...and knowing that kind of knowledge can bring misery to the one who practices it...and it often does, even when their intentions are noble. I was terrified of failing Starlin the way I had her. The fact that there were lethal enemies who had gotten my scent was all the excuse I needed to bail. So I used a bit of Force Sorcery on you both to make it less easy for my enemies to track and detect you. Then I went out for a pack of death sticks and spent the next bunch of years doing nothing but killing people who were after me, and would have gone through you to get me."

Zabka stopped clutching his glass he leaned back.

"I deeply apologize for what I put you both through. But I wasn't a honest man. Probably wasn't even a good man given what I was already responsible for by the time I met you, Jen." he said, glancing at her respectfully before turning to his son.

"I never wanted you to go through what I went through. But you're in it now and this business...this business does not let people go easily...my enemies are literally your enemies now..."

 

[Starlin Rand]

Listening intently, Starlin nearly choked on his martini olive when Zabka mentioned T’sid Surt’r. He chewed slowly and swallowed hard.

It was impossible to forget his visit to the Tomb of Cidd Cinndurr on ExGal Alpha. The revelation that Syd Celsius was much, much older than she appeared, and had a far darker, more complicated past had stuck with him. The same with her revealing she had once been Darth Phyre on Csilla. It was one of the many reasons his attitude towards his first master had shifted. Like his father, she had kept many secrets.

The similarities between the names, the precedence of Syd having alternate identities, and the fact that Syd and Zabka were old associates, made it easy to connect the dots. T'sid Surt'r was Syd. At this fething rate, everyone Starlin knew was secretly Syd in a past life or connected to her somehow.

“Hey, uh… how old are you, exactly?” Starlin asked. He had noticed his father hadn’t visibly aged in the twelve years since he left, but Cidd's tomb was thousands of years old, and who knew how old T'sid might be. Having a dad with supernatural longevity was… kind of awesome, but also really fething wacked out.

"I deeply apologize for what I put you both through. But I wasn't an honest man. Probably wasn't even a good man given what I was already responsible for by the time I met you, Jen.

“I never wanted you to go through what I went through. But you're in it now and this business...this business does not let people go easily… my enemies are literally your enemies now..."

As Zabka spoke, Jen had remained quiet, showing little emotion. When he finished speaking, she snorted and shook her head, smirking grimly behind her hand.

“Zabka…” she began, chewing her lip as she chose her words carefully. “Ridding the galaxy of superpowered maniacs is a service, not a crime. I understand that you’ve seen things that haunt you. But if you honestly think killing these motherfethers makes you a bad man… a violent man, sure. But you’re not the villain you think you are.”

In the olden days, they had called her Donna Bambino, “child woman”, for her youthful beauty and innocent-looking blue eyes—one last sweet deception before her targets met their grisly ends. Jen stared at Zabka now with a gaze so piercing, it could have nailed him to the floor. Her set jaw locked any pronouncement of her own sins behind her clenched teeth. It would be a waste of time, arguing over who had done worse things in the past. Even if some part of her was almost angry with him for thinking he was the bad guy who couldn’t be forgiven, when she had killed innocent people and sold children into slavery for money. The birth of her son had been her wakeup call, and while she had cut her way out of that business for his sake, it meant all she had left was the guilt and the shame and the gnawing hunger for an escape.

Jen sighed. “I wish you could have told me the truth, but… what’s done is done.” She crossed her arms, staring at the tablecloth. “Just tell us what we have to do to protect ourselves.”

Starlin opened his mouth to speak, but then the waitress returned. “Are you ready to order?”

“Uh, I… um…” he sputtered.

“Do you need another minute?” the waitress asked patiently, perhaps sensing that she had come at a bad time.

“No, no, I don’t think so.” Starlin glanced at his parents, shuffling his menu. “Um… what would you recommend?”

“The prime rib is very popular. So is the Atrisian duck, and the Chaldean pasta…”

“I’ll take the pasta,” Starlin said.

“The same thing,” Jen muttered.

While Zabka ordered, Starlin became distracted looking over at the stage. The Twi’lek had begun a new song.

“We used to say, ‘ah hell, we’re young’. But now we see that life is sad, and so is love…”

The atmosphere in the Club seemed to have shifted, growing gloomier, although it could’ve just been the darkening moods of the three people sitting at the table making it seem so melancholic. Starlin's thoughts turned toward his miserable youth. The beatings. The drugs. The stealing and the abuse. Could he blame his father for all that, simply by not being there? Should he bother telling Zabka about it, knowing it would only make him feel like chit?

"Look, it's... okay," he murmured once the waitress went away. "I asked about the past because I was curious. But Mom's right. We should focus more on the present and the future. Who are these enemies we need to worry about?"

The Man in White​

 

[The Man in White]

Zabka blinked at the question Starlin Rand posed about how old he was.

"More than four centuries..." he answered, fidgiting. "I can't give you an exact age because, honestly, I lost count. Then there was that twenty year bout where I was kinda blitzed outta my mind due to a nervous break with reality. I had practiced Sorcery so long it had done something to my cells. Slowed the aging process."

Jen only mildly chided him, telling him he wasn't as bad as he thought he was.

"Thanks for that..." he said quietly, respectfully.

The Waitress showed asking if they were ready. Zabka, not wanting to rock the boat, ordered what they ordered...pasta. He also asked for a refill of water.

While the waitress went away he decided to address Jen's question first.

"Um, don't go up against a Force Adept with anything less than a shotgun. Preferably one that fires solid ammo..." he began slowly. "If you must go up against one with an energy weapon, make sure it's a Charric, a Sonic Weapon, or a Particle beam blaster. But Shotguns by and large have a very good chance of killing one. Poison gas that works on skin contact as opposed to being inhaled are good too. In your case, I'd invest in keeping a Ysalamiri around somewhere, Jen. There are amulets...stuff that protects against direct Force attack... speaking of which..."

Zabka went into his pocket, pulling out Starlin's fully repaired Tal'Kar bracelet.

"You dropped that..." Zabka said without elaborating how he had recovered it... or repaired it...

"Now as to 'our' enemies...that would be The Cult of The Brain Demon...Gods, I always thought that name was fethin' stupid, like, could they be any more obvious--they are an extremely vicious and depraved Cult of Sith, known for sacrificing even infants in their rituals. Take my advice, where they are concerned...shoot first. Don't bother with questions. Shoot first, because if you lose, you're usually in for a pretty horrendous death. It was founded by Darth Phyre, the most..."

Zabka stopped a moment, looking at Starlin. He knew he loved Syd. How much should he say? Did he really want to totally destroy whatever regard for her he might have still harbored?

"... sadistic and evil Sith that I have ever personally encountered..." he continued slowly.

"You run into nasty Sith all the time in this business but Phyre...Phyre was on another level in terms of depravity and sheer cruelty. You know someone is rotten when even other Sith, many of whom were extremely evil themselves, found her too evil for even their tastes."

The Pasta mercifully arrived.

"She was created when the survivor of a Dark Side cult performed a spell that allowed an evil spirit to enter the minds of multiple powerful Sith Lords. I don't know to this day how they managed it, but they somehow acquired Surt'r's remains and...corrupted them into that...that beast..."

Zabka could not help letting a little of the cold venom he still held towards Phyre into his voice.

"I know you probably don't want to hear this but it's the truth, Starlin...all of it..." Zabka continued after taking a moment to get his emotions under control. "She killed a lot of good people. The Mandalorian Crime Hunters. Moya De Lifte and her Jedi...and countless others...it only ended when I got desperate and used this magical hourglass thingy that tore her apart and allowed me to...reforge her into an anti-Dark Side living weapon, and made her hunt down her own cult without her being aware of it."

Zabka took a bite, chewed thoughtfully and swallowed.

"Now the thing about the cult is, you are never technically fighting just one Witch. You may be fighting up to a dozen or more in a single body. The strongest personality is the one that controls the others, and can take their forms if their own skillset isn't cutting it."

(Multiple cutaways of all the Witches that trained Starlin in Syd's body)

"Nullification Resin introduced into their body is extremely poisonous." Zabka explained. "Blessed weapons will also do the job. They are severely weakened in Light Nexuses...Force Light is a good bet, but the strongest ones, like that one from Kerest, the one with the Cyberpunk Fetish, will survive it, because they have hundreds of personalities bolstering their strength."

(Cutaway of The Amalgam sitting in a luxurious chair by a fireplace)

(Amalgam: $#@& YOU NARRATOR, I DO NOT HAVE A CYBERPUNK FETISH, YOU TAKE THAT CHIT BACK!)

(Narrator: Ignores)

(Amalgam: Folds Arms)

(Amalgam: Phooey)

 

[Starlin Rand]

More than four centuries. Even though he had been expecting a potentially even greater number of years, Starlin rubbed his forehead in shock. “Damn. You really are an ‘old man’, Dad.”

There it was again. That sense of strangeness, just from saying the word Dad.

Some of the tension at the table seemed to ease up after Zabka thanked Jen. It lessened further still when he responded to her question of what they would have to do to protect themselves not with coordinates to a safehouse, but with advice about weaponry. “I’m a little out of practice,” Jen replied with a small snort.

Starlin took his repaired bracelet, examining the metal chain in the club’s moody lighting. “Nice—thanks,” he said, slipping the bracelet over his wrist. “I could’ve used this last week, when I got in a fight at a nightclub on Bespin…”

He trailed off, his gaze darting toward his mother, but it was too late. “You got in a fight?” Her eyes widened, then she laughed. “What would you need a bracelet for in a bar fight?”

“The bracelet’s special, Ma…” Sighing, he started to explain. “Well, there was this Mirialan dude who was—uh, he was harassing this young lady, so I had to kick his ass, y’know?”

That was not at all what had happened. Starlin had gotten wasted and happened to notice Ishani Sibwarra was there. She was with some guy, a stranger, and Starlin just… well, it was partly concern for her and partly simple jealousy that caused something inside him to snap. He’d grabbed the guy and started whaling on him. He felt like a complete prick afterwards, but he had been really, really, really drunk and not thinking straight. At least, that’s what he told himself. It was easier to believe the alcohol was to blame for his behavior than it was to accept that he may have had a violent streak.

“Anyway, it turns out the guy had a friend who was like, I dunno, this weird fething shadow creature thing. He joined in and started attacking my mind, making me see chit that wasn’t there.” He tapped his forehead with one finger. “Luckily, the girl came to my rescue. She sprayed some anti-shadow chit on me, and the motherfether left me alone.”

“Did you sleep with her afterwards?” Jen asked bluntly. She knew Starlin was lying about what happened, or at the very least tweaking the details, but she wasn’t going to give him a hard time about it. He was a grown man; his mistakes were his own.

Starlin laughed awkwardly, his face reddening at the question. “No, I—I was just being nice. Doing a community service, really.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, his smile faltering. He’d spent the rest of the night in a jail cell, puking into a bucket. The Mirialan had a broken nose and a concussion, courtesy of being punched by Starlin’s durasteel right hand. Starlin was lucky the guy wasn’t pressing charges, obviously because he was afraid of him…

The food arrived and Zabka brought the conversation back to cults and witches. Glad to be moving on to a different subject, Starlin listened intently to his father’s words, soaking up the new information on Syd—on Darth Phyre’s past exploits. He had to admit, he was worried. Not just for himself, but for Syd as well, and everyone she associated with. She had told him once that she had few friends, and that was what worried him most—that in the absence of support from people who cared about her, she would fall prey to the machinations of her enemies.

“So what you’re saying is, she’s the victim of an evil cult,” he said, stabbing his fork into his pasta almost violently. “And you’re the one who fixed her.” Twisting the noodles around the prongs, he shoveled the pasta into his mouth at a frenzied pace, as if he hadn’t eaten in days.

Jen frowned. She didn’t know Syd was Phyre. Starlin had never told her what he’d found out about his master at Csilla.

Catching her eye, Starlin chewed and swallowed his last bite, then sipped from his martini glass before speaking. “It’s complicated, but… well, Syd used to be Darth Phyre. She used to be a Sith, is what he’s saying.”

“Oh.” She raised an eyebrow. “I hope Professor Nimdok didn’t know about that. Because if he did…”

“He did know.” Starlin wiped his mouth with a napkin. “At least, he knew she had been a Sith. He’d heard of Darth Phyre, but I don’t know if he was aware of the full extent of her… crimes.”

“That man certainly acts as if he knows everything. Wouldn’t he have conducted an extensive background check on her before he sent you off to be her apprentice? And if he knew she was a Sith, why would he entrust you to her?”

“Look, it doesn’t really matter anymore.” Starlin interrupted. His mother and Nimdok hadn’t gotten along ever since Starlin lost his hand on Dantooine, and Starlin had no answer to her questions regarding Nimdok's reasons for sending him to Syd. “Nimdok knighted me. Was an informal ceremony, but I’m officially a Jedi Knight now, not some naïve Padawan learner. I haven’t seen or spoken to Syd since Kerest. Before that, I hadn’t seen her since we fought at Csilla.” Starlin paused in remembrance of that lost world. “So, if you’re worried that Syd could corrupt me or something, don’t bother. She left me behind.”

He stared at the remains of his meal, his appetite vanishing. “I used to think it was so fething cool, that I had a teacher who was willing to let me learn things outside the narrow Jedi training regime. Even if some of it was just plain weird. When I was training with her, sometimes she would change into someone else. She told me it was her way of teaching me different abilities, by taking on other forms. The last I counted, there were six of these ‘Sorceress’ personas, each with their own appearance and powers. I got used to it over time, but was never comfortable with it. I didn't really need all these fancy abilities. I just needed a teacher, a friend. I needed Syd.”

There was a hitch in his voice when he said her name, and his eyes looked a little glassy, but he refused to allow himself to be overcome with emotion. At least, not here, not now. Taking a deep breath, he straightened in his chair. “After this, I’d like to show you guys something, if you’re up to it. It won’t take long.”

The Man in White​

 

[The Man in White]

"I wouldn't go so far as to say I fixed her..." Zabka corrected reluctantly. He had tried to hold such sentiments in the past but was never successful. And for good reason.

"More I like... reprogrammed her...after all other measures had failed. But she was a victim, yes..." he conceded.

Zabka listened as Starlin filled him in on certain details about his apprenticeship to Syd.

"I don't think she can help it..." Zabka elaborated. "Force Spawn such as her are very powerful...but it comes with drawbacks. When I...remade her or whatever you wanna call it, she was remade with set limits...she was an entity of flames. Living flames. Not capable of taking on new personas... obviously she found a way around that...but Starlin, even when I was still training her, she didn't 'human' all that well, though she sincerely tried...and there's a chance the personalities inside her may have had more of a say than perhaps even she realized. It takes a lot of strength to be the boss when you have multiple people living inside you the way she does, and that's when it's just the six that you know of. If they were all giving you instruction then they saw something special, something worth cultivating. They might have influenced her without her being aware of it. She might have well believed she was fully in charge, though that probably wasn't fully the case, since they went out of the way to convince you they were all Syd... Wouldn't surprise me one bit if they edited her memories to let her think she was the one who had been training you when you were interacting with them...Darth Cyberpunk-Fetish probably has dozens and dozens of personalities in her, and they're all homicidal, I'll stake my life on that."

(Amalgam: Glares at the name Zabka gave her)

(Narrator: Enthusiastically extends middle finger to The Amalgam)

(Amalgam: Sticks out tongue at Narrator)

Zabka ate a bit of pasta.

"Starlin, I have nothing against trying to help save her. But just keep in mind who and what you are trying to save...and who's coming along for the ride. And you gotta remember... she's probably still in terrible shock over Kerest, and probably Rhand also at this point...despite my own misgivings, I'll help you, if that's what you want..." Zabka promised.

When Starlin said he had something he wanted to show them, Zabka got curious as he ate.

"I'm definitely up to it..." he said to Starlin Rand . "Lead the way after we eat..."

 

[Starlin Rand]

“It’s hard to keep track of all the weirdos and clowns Xiphos associates with these days, but I think Darth Cyberpunk Fetish is the one who busted my eye,” Starlin remarked matter-of-factly, sipping his drink. “It was worth it though. I got to deliver a pretty great one-liner during that duel. ‘The truth hurts; invest in ibuprofen, witch’.”

Jen pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers. Arguably she wanted to terminate the Amalgam with prejudice more than anyone else at the table, but she was also the most ill-equipped among them to do so. Nor did she have any desire to go trifling with strange magic in the hopes of regaining her old vigor, especially given what drinking from the proverbial fountain of youth seemed to have done to Zabka.

“Let me guess,” she murmured. “Whatever it is you want to show us, it can’t be mentioned in public.”

Starlin smirked as he signed the check. “That, and I don’t want to spoil the surprise.”

After the meal, Starlin led them back outside the Cobalt Club, the crooning voice of the lounge singer suddenly silenced as the door shut behind them. There was a bit of a chill on the Coruscanti air now that night had well and truly fallen. Jen tightened her shawl across her bare shoulders, watching curiously as Starlin, instead of leading them back to the speeder, walked off to one side, put a cig in his mouth, and lit it with a small flame balanced on the tip of his thumb. He stood with one hand in his pocket, idly puffing on the smoke for a few moments, then casually slipped into an alleyway along the side of the building.

Exchanging a quick glance with Zabka, Jen followed their son around the corner. She found Starlin leaning against the wall. The embers gleamed in his good eye as he waited for both of them, then pressed his hand against a brick. The stone slid inward, revealing it to be a false front covering a genetic code scanner. After it scanned Starlin, a door-shaped portion of the wall slid open, revealing metal steps heading down.

Pressing a finger to his lips, Starlin winked and headed down into the darkness. Once Jen and Zabka were inside, the door slid shut again, sealing them inside and away from prying eyes.

A rather long trek down a spiral staircase ended in a large chamber that was noticeably soundproof—their footsteps did not echo in this place, despite how cavernous it was. Starlin flicked a switch. The lights came on, revealing a personal armory fully stocked with weapons, armor, and other assorted gear.

“I built a secret base in the basement of a nightclub,” Starlin said. “It’s an armory, a training center, and a bunker all in one. This place could survive the glassing of Coruscant.”

At the far end of the room there was a high-tech computer setup. Starlin approached it, and with a wave of his hand over the keyboard, various holographic screens popped up. Surveillance data taken from Holonet traffic and the news media were briefly displayed, the remnants of the last time the computer had been used. The keywords being monitored included names—Syd, Laertia/Xiphos, Cameron Crownwraithe and several more of Xiphos’ children, along with the various organizations linked to her, were being traced deep into the farthest reaches of the dark web, all in hopes of learning their secrets and tracking their movements.

There was another name, too, who appeared much more frequently searched for than the others. The Alliance Senator Ishani Sibwarra…

“Years ago, Syd had me build a base on Taris—she called it my castle,” Starlin muttered as the screens went blank. “After things started going south and I wasn’t sure if I could trust her anymore, I figured I had better not keep all my assets in one place, at the very least. So I built this place and a few more hidden hideouts on different worlds, paying for the goods with the money I had saved up from selling loot and investing the earnings…” He shrugged. “What do you think?”

The Man in White​

 

[The Man in White]

Zabka glanced around at Starlin's set up. It troublingly reminded him of some of his own hideouts. He had opened up his with a switch hidden in the bust of a famous playwright, and would slide down a pole to his. He'd stopped doing it after one of his underlings back in the day had compared him to a male stripper doing a routine.

"Let's hope we don't have to test that claim..." Zabka said.

(Cutaway of The Maw whooping Coruscant's ass in a surprise attack)

Zabka slowly looked over the files he had dug up so far.

"So tell me, Starlin...what motivates these people to aid Xiphos? What's the draw? I gleaned a little from that biography your professor friend wrote, so I can maybe get The Amalgam helping her. But normally these individuals would never be found working together. Yet Xiphos managed to convince them to..." he trailed, eyes falling on an old image of her as a Stage Magician at a circus. She looked completely unlike the ruined person he had caught a glimpse of at Kerest, battling Syd with everything she had.

"I'll grant you, they're a bunch of freaks, like me... (Ahead of the Curve: 90 XP) but normally being freakish to these degrees would normally preclude them working together...not ensure it..."

"If they were clowns..." said a voice with a contralto in the back. "They'd be dead by now..."

Zabka spun around, a 9 mm pocket pistol coated in Reflec slid out on an action holster mechanism attached to his arm.

It was Vera Mina , using a configuration not known to either Starlin Rand or House Io, that of an extremely fair skinned red head in fairly revealing wear.

"Pardon the intrusion..." The Android said. "I've come to warn you boy...you are being smoked out. They've sent one of their most lethal Assassins after you. They are hunting for you as we speak."

"Who the feth are you?" Zabka asked.

"Hardly important." The Android said crossly. "An Advanced Model 1 has been deployed for your son. They don't know about this place, but If you don't want them getting suspicious, I suggest you never come here in person again. They're excellent at recognizing patterns and extrapolating."

"What the feth is an Advanced Model 1?" Zabka asked.

"A Nanite based Assassin Droid, limited production Model of the Prototype you encountered at Kerest..." Vera answered. "It's setting up an ambush at your Mother's place Starlin."

"How do I know this isn't some fake out to get us to trust you?" Zabka demanded.

The pale skinned woman smiled.

"I don't do fake outs. If I wanted you dead, there would be no need for an Advanced Model 1." she boasted pridefully.

"Why are you telling us?"

"I have no wish to see the boy die..." The woman answered, standing up. "And if I were you, Starlin, I'd get a lot more paranoid about backtracing attempts. Either way, you've been given your warning and I have done my good deed and can rest now..."

The woman activated her suit's stealth field.

"I left a location to a safehouse to hide your Mother, by the way...it's on a holodisk on the table..."

The woman left the room as Zabka lowered his gun.

"Starlin ..." he breathed. "We're being hunted..."

 

[Starlin Rand]

It was hard to tell what Zabka thought of the hideout. Did he approve? Disapprove? Was he proud of Starlin for taking the initiative? There was no clear sign of emotion on the old man’s stern, stoic face.

Jen was less opaque. “Holy shit,” she whispered, looking around. “Starlin, this is amazing. I’ve heard of mancaves and treehouses, but this is next level. What do you call this place?”

“Sometimes I call it the Starlin Sanctum,” he replied with a grin. “Just for fun.”

"So tell me, Starlin...what motivates these people to aid Xiphos? What's the draw?"

Zabka had evidently discovered Starlin’s Holonet-monitoring. “Oh, yeah, uh…” Starlin rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, it’s pretty complicated, and there are a lot of blank spots...”

Approaching the computer monitors, he brought up a chart with pictures and names. A photo of Laertia lay at the center of the web, with lines connecting her to various associates and organizations.

“There were a few people I encountered on Kerest whom I had never seen before, all of them major allies of Xiphos.”

He selected blurry stills taken of Darth Themis, Arianna Belasko, The Battalion, and Maple Harte during the battle, obviously recovered footage from hidden cameras in the fighters’ helmets.

“This one we actually managed to capture,” Starlin said, highlighting the photo of Maple. “Maple Harte, aka Uri Udinia, another student of Ursula Sandraven. Professor Nimdok knew of her from Xiphos' stories, but this was the first time we'd ever actually encountered her in the flesh. We interrogated her, but she didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Bit of a nutcase, so who knows what her true motivations are. She was cognizant enough to escape SJC custody, though.”

He then selected Arianna. “We were able to positively identify this woman as Countess Arianna Belasko, a known witch specializing in hydrokinesis. I think she may simply be devoted to Xiphos’ cause, and I’m sure Xiphos finds her useful. She’s a very wealthy businesswoman.”

After that, the Battalion. “Essionian chroniclers matched her to Lady Elaine Tear, a former Crusader who was believed to have been killed several centuries ago. My guess is she was converted into a member of the Cult of the Brain Demon, since she was commanding their forces on the battlefield at Kerest.”

For Darth Themis, he shook his head. “This one, I have no clue who she is. But she was powerful, and she took us by surprise.”

While he was at it, he quietly added another connection to the chart: a line connecting Syd and Zabka as former comrades.

That was when Vera Mina showed up. In an instant, Starlin had his lightsaber in his hand, while Jen, not one to play the damsel in distress, pulled a disruptor pistol from a hidden holster attached to her thigh and pointed it at the mysterious, scantily-clad redhead. Zabka hadn't married her just because she looked good in white, after all.

They listened to what the intruder had to say, of course. Starlin’s lips thinned. And Advanced Model 1? Nanite-based assassin droid? Groan.

“At my place?” Jen’s eyes narrowed. She counted herself lucky that her husband wasn’t there tonight, but it was still annoying to have to worry about coming home to a murderbot waiting to assassinate your son.

As the mysterious woman left, Starlin set his jaw and snatched up the holodisk she’d left behind. He had no intention of actually sending his mother to any safehouse recommended by a stranger, for obvious reasons—he was afraid to even put the holodisk into his computer, in case it was carrying a virus or some sort of remote spying program. “Mom, I’ll send you someplace safe. Call Silo-Hur, too. You’ll be fine.”

"Starlin ..." he breathed. "We're being hunted..."

Glancing at Zabka, Starlin simply muttered, “Yeah,” then pressed his palm against the wall. A panel in the wall slid open, revealing his personal armory, including some of his best gear.

“I’ve got some suits of armor Syd and I collected over the years,” he told his parents. “Shields and weapons too, including more lowkey stuff. If you think we’ll need it…”

The Man in White​

 

[The Man in White]

"We'll need it. Definitely. I might not have fought a Nanite Assassin Droid before." Zabka said, going over and pulling out an SE-14r Repeating Pistol and a pump action shotgun, expression cold as he inspected the weapons.

"But I know whatever it is, you'll probably have to be ready with maximum firepower in order to defeat it. There's no way anything that involves the descriptor 'Nanites' ever ends well for anyone." Zabka snorted. "Where'd she get this technology anyway?"

Zabka then noticed Jen had a Disruptor Pistol.

"Old habits die hard?" he joked grimly, remembering she had used that trick when they had first met.

He then glanced back at the blurry images.

"Arianna Belasko. In my day she was known as Alexandra Victoria Arianna Belasko." Zabka said. "It took me over three years to expose the full extent of her depravities. This was before the Gulag Era. She wasn't Force Sensitive...not at first. But her innate savagery and bloodlust was so innate that the Goddess The Cult of The Brain Demon worships was impressed. It apparently rescued her spirit after she was burnt at the stake and turned her into a Monstrosity called The United. As for this one..." he trailed, eyes sliding over to the Battalion.

"She was a crucifixion-happy psycho even before her conversion. Frighteningly skilled duelist though. Eventually her zealotry got the better of her in an...incident...in the Nightengale Highlands on Ession. Elaine and a number of Crusaders went to the residence of The Bloodscrawls, a family of Composers who weaved the Force and Musical Theory together. Elaine believed the Bloodscrawls to be hiding some massive secret that could make Ession a mighty power. It ended in bloodshed with all The Bloodscrawls massacred. Elaine took an extended journey trying to atone for the tragedy. Not that it mattered much in the end. And as for this one...I'd know that purple Catsuit anywhere. That's Darth Themis. A powerful seer. She was my Arch Enemy in the era before the Plague. She was a Heretical Sith who had found out some way of twisting The Light Side to her own purposes, founded a whole cult dedicated to making the Light do their bidding. She was the founder of many terrible magics...but why she would be working with the Cult of The Brain Demon, since she was very much staunchly Anti-Dark Side, makes no sense...it took me years to finally catch and imprison her on Jedha....and it also took years to fully oust all of her deep cover agents in multiple territories."

Zabka turned to Starlin Rand and Jen.

These are all very heavy hitters. They shouldn't just not be working together. They should be at each other's throats..." he remarked before shrugging. "Ah well, we'll worry about it later after the big explosive action sequence. You got an escape passage?"

 

[Starlin Rand]

"Where'd she get this technology anyway?"

"Probably one of her allies." On his diagram of Xiphos' associates, he had left a noticeably blank spot. It was reserved for a mysterious benefactor, someone he believed had been supplying her with funds, gear, and technology. He had yet to discover their identity.

Starlin quickly exchanged his civilian clothes for a suit of armor. It wasn't subtle, but the sight of heavily armed and armored individuals on Coruscant, especially in his old neighborhood, wasn't that unusual.

Jen smirked at Zabka's comment. “What, did you think I became just a harmless housewife?” It was true that she had given up much for the sake of Starlin, and she regretted no sacrifice on his behalf. But she still had a few tricks up her sleeve, the disruptor being one of them.

"Mom, I'd rather you..." Starlin trailed off as his mother picked up a gun. "...went somewhere safe," he finished with a frown.

"They're attacking my home. I'm going to defend my turf," she said, picking up some ammo.

While he wasn't happy at the prospect of putting his mother in a combat situation against a dangerous, unknown foe, Starlin put the matter on hold as he listened to his father's explanation of the two women's identities, as well as the incongruity of their working together. "Well, I assume they share the same goals, or at least have some overlapping aims," Starlin replied. "Or they could all be connected somehow, and we just aren't seeing it. Is there any chance they're related to Xiphos, or old colleagues, friends she made in her travels?"

He did have a secret escape route. The tunnel led elsewhere in the city, detouring through the sewers. They'd have to come up via a manhole cover. His base, meanwhile, went into full lockdown, barring anyone else from coming in... or out.

The Man in White​

 

[The Man in White]

"Housewife or not, you would never be harmless, Jen." Zabka assured her, as he listened to Starlin's answer.

"It's possible. When I was opposing Darth Phyre I had to make friends with some shady types. Not too shady, mind you, not slavers or pirates or some chit like that, but they'd buried more than their share of bodies. When Laertia found herself in complete opposition to the Jedi Order she was likely faced with the stark choice of compromise or surrender or death." Zabka mused as he took point for going into the sewers.

The sewers were humid and its walls slick with moisture.

Zabka kept the shotgun tight against his body, alert, as he made sure to listen to any directions Starlin pointed out.

It was in a sewer very much like this, that Jen had first gotten a hint that Zabka was more than he seemed. They had pissed off a load of Exchange Mercenaries in a wacky scheme involving Adrenal Stims and Tenloss Disruptors.

They had both been forced to throw the clothes they had been using away afterward. The smell had been too powerful to clean out.

Sewers. Great escape routes, excellent levels for shootouts, terrible, awful smells.

"Oh, Gods, it smells like the aftermath of that chilli festival I went to last week!" Zabka muttered. "If the stalls had been sapient, they would have deserved a mercy killing."

Meanwhile.

They had gotten into Coruscant via replacing the CIS war surplus that had been delivered to the military.

The order from Arianna had not yet reached them, so the mission was still go. They were still under the command of the Advanced Model 1.

They hadn't been able to extract his exact position, but the back trace had led them to believe he was using some sort of safe house.

The Advanced Model 1 had searched Jen's apartment, extrapolated her destination, and relayed it to the Mercenaries after their containers had been deposited in a Coruscant dock yard. They had been repainted in GA Security Colors.

They had cut their way out of the cargo containers, 007 in each one, and after that, weapons had been a matter of procurement on site. A soldier patrolling the docks would get snatched into the darkness by robot hands, knocking the soldier out, and taking his rifle.

"So what'd this kid do to piss off The Maker so bad?" the heavily modified B1 asked in the voice of a Fett clone (the same voice almost all the mercenaries had) to another as it dragged a soldier tied up and bound into a supply closet

"Some stuff that went down at Kerest. Skullfaces won't talk about Kerest." another answered as it picked up a belt of grenades. They were about to head for the route closest to the night club.

"All I know..." trailed another as it charged a blaster shotgun. "Is we're about to turn this guy's evening into an action film."

"Will the Quicksilver be there to meet us?" asked the first.

"Our job is to prevent his escape. She is the one who has to actually kill him. I don't like our odds with this pilfered equipment."

"Quicksilvers creep me out. They're like preppy cheerleaders with knives." grumbled another as they started marching down the streets.

"It's the Organic ones that make me shudder." said one holding a medium repeating blaster.

"One big happy family though, right?" another asked quietly.

"Where else could we get treated this good?" the first one asked as they got closer to the Night club sewer entrances. But they still had no idea if he was actually down there. One squad went off into the sewer, while another squad took position close to the entrance of the night club.

Little did the squad that went into the sewers know they were about to hit the jackpot...


Starlin Rand

 

[Starlin Rand]

Navigating the sewers was an incredibly unpleasant experience, as one might imagine. The stench alone was enough to make Starlin gag. To lessen the intensity, he breathed through his mouth—though he could’ve sworn he could almost taste the filth in the air.

His parents didn’t seem to be faring much better. Jen stayed quiet, while Zabka tried to lighten the mood. Starlin focused on not puking and making sure they were going the right way.

The escape route was a straight shot with only a few turns. But as luck would have it, Starlin’s danger sense flared. Something was in the sewers with them…



“Around the corner,” he hissed, halting in his tracks. “A whole squad… and they’re headed straight for us!”

“Well, don’t just stand there! Use your Jedi powers!” Jen hissed back. “We’ve got you covered!”

Starlin was admittedly a lot more nervous about combat with both his mother and father’s lives on the line. The familial bonds between them could prove a liability… or a great strength.

“I’ll slow them down,” he said. “You mow them down.”

Closing his eyes in concentration, right as the squad rounded the corner, he called upon the Force to slow their movements to a crawl. Activating an energy shield she had taken from Starlin’s stash, Jen took the opportunity to open fire with her disruptor…

The Man in White​