"I'm not entirely sure why this sort of thing keeps happening here." Davor watched out the window as plumes of smoke rose from around the city. "Every time we turn around, some new invader is showing up and claiming us for themselves." He shook his head, raising an arm to lean against the transparisteel window.

"It's not even like we're even mining tibanna or bacta or coaxium or anything." The Rodian scratched his neck with the edge off one of his suckered fingers. "Nothing that any of the huge players would be interested in for their war efforts."

"Right?" The human watched as patrol ships swarmed the skies, one of the fire teams arriving to spray down a burning building with jets of water. Davor raised a cup to his lips, the caf nearly cold and bitter enough to make his lips peel back and expose his teeth.

"Did you hear what the guys were saying downstairs?" The Rodian put down the datapad, leaning forward in his chair.

"What, that we're not paying them enough to be working in this sort of unrest nonsense?" He pushed up away from the window, turning and crossing his arms.

"No...Well, that too." His voice hushed to a near whisper. "They think they're Jedi or something."

"You're better than that, Kib." He scoffed, stepping toward his desk. "Even if Luke Skywalker was real, he sure as hell is not going to come down here and teach people on the far end of the galaxy so that they can create an Empire of dirt miners..." He set his cup down, then let out a laugh.

The Rodian made a face, his proboscis curling up under itself.

"What?" He unfolded his arms.

"You're from the core aren't you?"

"Well, -ish." Davor tilted his head. "Why?"

"I grew up in system. Parents landed on Tarthos looking for work when I was young." The Rodian explained, his hands gesturing with long fingers as the human looked on. "You don't know the...stories we all grew up around."

"What, that the mining colony was started by cultists and sorcerers?" He scoffed. "Yeah. I heard that one."

"How about the laser swords?" Kib watched them man's body language change, his arms crossing again and a frown appearing from the corners of his mouth. "You've seen them too."

"Yeah, but there's bound to be some sort of..."

"And the stories about the talking tree? Or the drunk cowboy and his seal?"

Davor winced at him. "Oh come now, what does a bunch of kid's stories have to do with Jedi?"

"I'm just saying, that maybe there's something behind those stories. I mean, in all of the stories, they do Jedi stuff. Pushing things with their mind, talking without their mouths, all that." The Rodian leaned back in his seat, fingers drumming across the arm of his chair.

"Oh come on... What's next, you're going to tell me that the Crimson Crazy and the black-eyed demon...whatshisname are real, too."

Kib snorted. "The horror vid stuff? I hope to hell not." He laughed.

The console on his desk chirped, and Davor leaned over to press the button. "Go ahead."

"Sir, there's a man here to see you." The voice came through thinly, the speaker too small to reproduce the receptionist's voice well.

"I didn't have any meetings until this afternoon." He paused. "Who is it?"

"They're from Naga Sadow." She cleared her throat. "He says his name is Ashen."

Davor glared at Kib, then at the console on his desk, then back to Kib. He straightened his back, swallowed hard and blinked as the door opened.

Mactire sat on the edge of a destroyed bridge. The battle on Sepros was not going well, in his mind. Too many people were being killed, and not just on both sides of the conflit. The innocent civilians that he had been assigned to protect in this region, were slowly dwindling down. Both sides have done wrong but neither side thinks so.

Sighing heavily, the Grey Jedi slowly stood up and dusted off their cloak. He turned slowly and started walking through the wreckage of this once proud city. The buildings for what they were once seemed to now be those of twisted metal and broken glass no more than a few meters high. They seemed like perfect places for snipers to pick off the remaining population that was still loyal to Clan Naga Sadow.

As he stepped slowly into a building he felt as if the Force was guiding him, he slowly placed his hand out and reached out with it, trying to feel what was pulling him in this direction. An echo in his mind played slowly of him and Tasha, on the bridge of the ship before being sent on their separate ways.

‘’You’re going your own way this time Mactire. And this time that will be good for my ship, my speeder and my sanity.” The Twi'lek said, turning to him and smiling lightly.

“When are you ever going to live that down. So I broke your speeder. It wasn’t like I got you shot or anything” Mactire fired back through his helmet, lightly stepping off to the side towards his drop pod.

“DIDN’T GET ME SHOT?! You got us surrounded by the enemy and had them almost KILL US!” she hissed with a slight playful venom.

“Don’t forget Mactire, we are here to protect the people this time. Do your best and may the force be with you.” She said before running to her ship

As the area came back into focus Mactire regretted not replying back to Tasha, knowing that it would probably bring one of them bad luck. The building slowly started to become darker the further he went into it. Though he couldn’t tell for sure, he felt as if he was descending down towards the basement or the subbasement depending how the building was constructed.

He pulled out his commlink and tried radioing for anyone in the area, but all that hissed back at him was static.

“Sithsblood. Either no reception down here or the comms are jammed.” The Grey Jedi muttered lightly to himself.

As Mactire started to turn back a chill ran up his spine as the ground quickly gave way beneath him.

Relying on his skills he lept from side to side of the walls heading down towards the bottom.
Hitting the ground hard with a thud Mactire’s legs slightly felt sore from all the strain that he put on them coming down this hidden shaft.

“Great going Mactire, another fine situation you got yourself into. Either you go looking for trouble or trouble always finds you,” Sighing heavily shaking his head as he looked around.

Off to the left of the shaft there was a small red light off in the distance and what appeared to be flashes of bright light, almost in tune to a rhythmic beat.

Slowly making his way towards the room, he smoothly pulled out his lightsaber, to be on the ready in case anything were to happen.

Upon entering the room Mactire looked around and was shocked at what he had just come across. Sith artifacts of alchemy and Nightsister recipes just laying around. Surely these were treasures that even the rest of the Clan didn’t even know about.

Quietly behind the Grey Jedi, a small figure with a syringe slowly made its way over to him. The figure slowly hovered closer to the Grey Jedi. The syringe was filled with a strange liquid. As the figure got closer it injected the contents into the back of Mactire, through a small area of his armor.

“WHAT THE?!” Mactire shouted as he ignited his arctic blue saber and turned around quickly slashing the figure in half.

The figure started to hiss and smoke as his saber cut through it like butter. The droid's eyes flashed and slowly started to go dimm.

“Another test subject in…. In…….. injected.” where the cold metallic words of the droid as it faded into the beyond.

Mactire felt an itch in the back of his brain as he started to make his way around the room. He found a terminal and a busted holocam. Placing his datapad connection into the terminal he started to download all its contents, and picked up the holocam on his way out.

Something still didn’t add up in his mind though. Why was there a secret almost abandoned room in a building that had Sith alchemy and Nightsister notes in it, and what was it that had been injected into him.

The building started to rumble as the sound of bombs being dropped began hitting the ground. Mactire ran with all his speed through the twisting corridors until he came outside to a small wave of fire before him and a speeder to his left side. He quickly got on it and in the back of the speeder was a red furred Cythraul snapping at the cage.

“Hold on little wolf I’ll get you out of here I promise you.” the Grey said softly to ease the creature.

Turning on the speeder, Mactire hit the accelerator and headed off back to the area where the base for ground operations was supposed to be, all the while feeling his body slightly tingle.