The sun had been down for hours, and the base he had landed at was observing light discipline during the tumultuous times surrounding them. Even though he'd been called by one of the most influential people from the independent House Ektrosis, Keirdagh was wary. These people, surrounded in power had just spat in the face of the establishment. They had declared war on the whole Brotherhood. It was only his close relationship with Telaris Cantor that even brought him out of his self imposed exile.

"You look lost, Colonel," said a man with a deep, resonating voice his face hidden by the low red lights and the shadows. Something about him though, radiated power, and gold strips trimmed his cloak. "The galaxy is changing, Mr. Cantor. Let us see if we can shape it together."

There once was a man who looked like a Panda and liked to walk naked in the woods.
I came upon this man.
I wish I was born Miralukan.

Korroth sat on the cold metal floor, his hands dumped to the sides, his head slouching forward. His eyes were wide open, though the cell was completely dark. The other captives had fallen silent by now; no more sobbing, no more screaming, no more banging against the walls. The stench was thick and overpowering, hardly any air circulated in the cramped room. Occasionally one of them shifted around to relieve the ache in their limbs, but most had become near-catatonic in their state of dehydration and starvation.

The Pau’an’s brow furrowed. His fingers closed into fists. His mind was not here, it was in his home city, on the day of victory, the day of peace, when he and his confederates had liberated the Ikan people from war. On the day when the Ikan people had recompensed their liberators with death.

The young revolutionaries had thought that no price was too high to stop the bloodshed, to bring down the warmongering City Council. Even their own intimate patriotism was slaughtered for the sacrifice. They had surrendered their city to the enemy, but to avert its destruction, to end its absurd suffering. They had thought that the Ikan people would rejoice and work together to rebuild.

But not so. The people would not share in the sacrifice. They took the peace, sure, but not the bloodied hands. They killed the young betrayers and, though Korroth was still breathing, they killed him too.

A turning point in my life, was when I was only twelve. My adoptive father taught me many things, one of the most important was trusting no one. My father and I stopped at the city of Kandarin, on planet Calabrex to hide from some assassins following us. During our few months there, I fell in love with a girl named Kallina. We spent every waking moment we had together, that we could. Unfortunately, I should have followed my father’s teachings, as I learned on our last night in Calabrex. Even now I can still feel her last breather against my neck as I slid the knife between her ribs. I only did this out of anger because of her betrayal and lies. You see, she was the apprentice to one of the assassins hunting us. It caused me to turn down the path of the dark side before I was able to find the balance of myself in the Grey Jedi Order. I do slightly regret killing her but it also caused a great change with a great lesson. Never trust anyone.

Falling in love with Lilith. Our illicit passion led to me killing my first master when we were both a Padawan for him. From then on it has been a constant battle for me stay Gray and not fall wholly in to the Dark..

“The problem is simple, Sadowans. We know the Dominion are here, but they are such a mixed group of species we can’t distinguish them from our own citizens. If this parasite persists for much longer, we could be facing the collapse of our entire system. We have to flush them out, whatever way possible,” Locke’s voice came through clearly over the hologram channel. There was no mistaking the severity of the situation.

“What do you propose we do? We can’t very well arrest at random, and if we make it known there is an issue we could face mass panic,” Bentre responded.

“To be honest, this threat is too great to remain conservative. I’m open to whatever suggestions you have. I expect your best ideas by the end of the rotation. Locke, out,” the Sadowan Consul concluded as the hologram blinked out of existence.

Aul sat back in his chair, in front of him a desk littered with notes and articles barely visible in the darkened barracks quarters. His datapad was a continuous scroll of information, projecting a starscape of characters onto the human’s eyes. Most of Naga Sadow’s Knights were out scouring the streets of Seng Karash looking for anything suspicious, but Aul, newly field-elevated due to his performance on the initial attack on the Dominion, had locked himself in his room to think. This was a puzzle, and like most puzzles Aul had encountered in the past this would couldn’t be forced into a solution.

The Dominion was here - in their midst. Their numbers weren’t so great that they could be easily identified as an amassing force, and the diversity of their appearances helped them meld in seamlessly with the already varied populace of Aeotheran.

“These Dominion scum… how can we possibly root them out?” the scientist mumbled to himself. He placed both elbows on his desk and sleepily laid his head in his hands with his eyes closed. “We can’t sacrifice the health and safety of civilians… despite what the Dark Jedi say.”

A few moments later Aul fell asleep, his head slipping through the palms of his hands and landing heavily on the desk with a thud. Celsus snapped awake and shook the tiredness from himself. Trying to focus his vision again, his eyes rested upon an article laying on the edge of his desk about the detection and ablation of cancer in Twi’lek patients.

“Cancer! Of course!” Aul exclaimed as he quickly opened a holo-connection to Locke.

“Aul, good, what’ve you got for me?” the Consul asked expectantly.

“The Dominion is a cancer, sir,” the Knight began.

“Uh, yes. Sure, it’s a cancer, a parasite, whatever you want to call it. We know this already,” Locke responded, sounding unimpressed.

“No, what I mean to say is we can approach the Dominion presence on Aeotheran as if we were approaching the detection of a cancer. You see, under certain circumstances you can identify the origin of a cancer by looking for signatures of accumulated substances in those cells that are not found in the surrounding tissue. Simply put, the Dominion will have a signature in their bodies from their extended time on Cha’kota that the Aeotheran civilian populace won’t have. We can ‘tag’ the signature, just like we do with cancer so we can surgically remove it,” Aul explained.

“Ok, I think I’m following. But how do we tag it?” the Sadowan leader asked.

“Uh… just one moment,” Aul responded and typed a string of queries furiously onto his datapad. He tapped his fingers anxiously on his desk as the results of his search compiled. As a satisfying beep came from the datapad, Aul let out a small chuckle. “Sir, blood test results from some of our captured Dominion subjects indicate a high elevation of a number of isotopes, but most importantly there is a surprising amount of solubilized, conjugated silver in their blood. Most importantly, every species of prisoner we have shows the same level. Precipitated silver colors skin a distinct blue shade. We can precipitate the silver in their blood with simple salt solutions, and it’s extremely quick. Salt the water, sir. The color change is almost always permanent, so they’ll stick out like a sore thumb.”

“Salt? That’s it? What if they don’t drink the water?” Consul Locke asked skeptically.

“Showers, misters, random ‘hose breaks’ whatever the case. Find a way to get them drenched in salt water or to consume some of the salt water. Salty food even. Just get their salt levels up and the balance will shift, precipitating out the silver into their dermis and turning them blue,” explained the scientist.

“I’ll send the word,” finished the Consul, “let’s hope this works.”