The pain and the darkness and the overwhelming urge to cut his own throat, to put the blaster in his hand to his head, to take his own life in anyway came to a sudden stop. There was a warm light over him that flickered and swayed between the shadows cast by the tall grasses and abundant trees. He rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself up. It smelled like it had just rained. The soil and foliage was damp under his palms and knees. It was so familiar. He curled into a crouch and realized that he was barefoot and shirtless. A light tapping by his face drew his hand and he could feel the simplistic Togruta headdress wrapped around his lekku and montrals. There on a a leather strap hung a tooth from the single akul he'd ever managed to take down. Just the one, but it had been enough to pass out of childhood and it was only a formality anyway. A foreign tongue whispered to him from somewhere far away but resonated in a hiss on the wind. He followed it, slinking through and blending into the shadows of the garish, fire-tinted grass. Soon he came to a road paved with lava stones, worn smooth from thousands of years of travel. A preteen girl sat on a low stone wall that lined the road swinging her feet and plucking the petals off of a white flower. Not sure why exactly, he sat next to her. "Hey, Iisska," she sighed. "Hey, Myna," he said, "Long time no see." "Yeah," she said quietly and looked at him out of the corner of her eye, "You got big. What do you do, lift things and put them back down all day? ... Can't be anything too strenuous. You were always lazy and looks like you still didn't get rid of that belly." "It's not a belly," he argued, "It's completely average... after that much booze and human food." That managed to get a giggle out of her, "And your montrals still look funny, even grown out. I've never seen anybody with them sweeping back that far." "I don't have to listen to this" he started to stand up again. "Iisska," Myna chuckled and twirled the beads on her headdress around a thin finger, "Come back. I'm kidding." He slumped back down with a smirk, "Yeah well you were always pasty and bony." She elbowed him in the ribs, playfully. Then they both fell into silence. He watched as more of the white petals were stripped from the red center of the flower and tumbled down to the stones. It wasn't until a few moments later that he realized the trickles of blood seeping out from under them when they landed. "I thought we were going to get married," Myna finally whispered. "I was twelve when I said that," Iisska blushed and scratched his head, "Besides, your mom hated me and my family. She'd never have sold me any of her girls, let alone you." "That wouldn't have stopped you back then," Myna dropped the barren stem into the puddle of blood on the ground, "I would have loved to have seen the look on her face." Iisska smiled, "Yeah, me too." "Iisska..." she clutched at her chest. "Yeah?" he asked. "Why did you kill me?" The young girl turned to look him in the eyes. Her right eye was brilliant acidic green and filled with tears. The left was smashed along with the side of her skull into a bloody mess. Bone protruded through the ruined flesh and massive bruising spread out from the wound. Blood and pale yellow fluids flowed down her neck and chest. Iisska jumped up and recoiled away from her. She stood slowly and followed him. "I didn't even do anything to you," she sobbed and tried to wipe away the tears. "That's not what happened!," he backed away from her, "I wasn't trying to--" "Yes it is!" she screamed in agony, her soft face twisted, "And you got away with it! They let you out! You should be rotting away in the RJCDC with the other filth! You shouldn't be allowed to be near anybody! Your mother should have abandoned you!" The sky grew dark as she approached him and he suddenly found himself with his back against a wall and nowhere to run. Insectoid fingers reached out of the void and dug into his wrists and ankles, burning and tearing where they gripped. He was starting to panic as the pain in his skull returned and he pleaded with her, "Myna! I swear it was an accident! I never would have--" "You're dangerous, Iisska. You're a monster. You're evil..." she hissed. The long sharp fingers shot into his heart and churned. The sky was black and the land was on fire. The road was a river of blood. Myna got so close to him he could smell her. The flesh was tightening and becoming brittle around her bones and her eye sockets were becoming hollow. She reached out with skeletal fingers and touched his face. Behind her bodies stepped out of the flames, all alabaster and beautiful, but devoid of a soul and starving. They consumed each other but could not satiate the hunger and the rage that drove them. He screamed in pain and writhed trying to get away from her touch and the black claws that held him down. He wanted to kill her again. Kill her and put her in a place where she would never come back. She needed to die. They all needed to die. He forced the fingers from his body and blasted her down into the blood flow, holding her under until she suffocated and dissolved into nothingness. His skin darkened and black veins reached across it's surface. Fangs bared, eyes glowing red, headdress adorned with teeth ripped from the jaws of sentient beings. He could erase it all. --- A sensation of falling overtook him and Iisska was jolted awake just before slamming into the ground. He scrambled up and tripped and rolled until he was huddled into a corner. There he caught his breath and remembered where he was. The medical bay on the Harpoon. It was quiet and still. He was alone. For a moment he put his head on his knees. Sith Lord Gallow. The name repeated in his mind over and over again. Everything else had been a blur, but that stuck with him through the blinding pain. Just what was a Sith Lord anyway? Where in the damned 'verse was Zen? This was all his fault. "Zen," Iisska growled while pulling himself up. He stomped out of the medical bay looking for the man. Iisska staggered to the ship's lounge looking for Zen, or anybody he could interrogate for that matter. It was empty for the time being. He walked over to the synthesizer and ordered the strongest drink it would let him and slammed it back in one breath before getting another. If it didn't help him remember last night maybe it would help him forget what parts he still had. Early morning be damned. Immediately he felt a stabbing nausea but held it back. Again he went looking for the crew. "Zen! Sterling! Balva! ... Hello!?" Balva poked his head out of a duct above Iisska. "Whut da bluddy 'ell are you screamin' aboot now?!" it was obvious that Balva was a little more than tipsy as well. "I'm not screaming!" Iisska screamed, "I..." he cleared his throat and lowered his voice, "Have you seen Zen? I wanna talk to him." "Nope. Not at all. "He retreated back into his duct. Iisska sighed, "Well do you have any idea where he may have gone? C'mon man." He was already long gone, Iisska's voice would go unheard. Iisska glared up at the duct and took another deep swig from his drink before moving on. He stopped by his room to kick off his boots on his way to check on the A.I. core to see if Trinity was up and running now. She would be more help. He knocked on the panel outside the core, "Anyone home?" There was no response at the door. Trinity was not active yet. He gritted his teeth and growled in his chest, "Uhg, dammit! Fine! Whatever everybody just up and vanish! Why not!? Not like we were all just very nearly killed or nothin'! Not like Zen's a fucking... something... But that's exactly the problem! Was I the only one who felt that!? Did you people SERIOUSLY not FEEL THAT SHIT!? I mean c'mon! That was like... I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT WAS LIKE!" Iisska kicked in the door to the cab and slumped in one of the chairs before falling forward and slamming his head on the control panel in frustration. There was a long silence. "Ow..." he mumbled. Marquis came up behind him and slumped an arm onto his shoulder. "Hey buddy. What is wrong?" "Everything..." he whined and tilted his head so his chin was now resting on the panel, "I don't know what's going on and I don't know what to think and here I am just rambling and talking to myself. Fuck. I hate being alone Sterling. I hate-- Wait. 'Buddy?'" "What? I am unallowed to say the word "Buddy" now? He mused. "It seems to me that you are on the right track to forgetting." He gestured at the bottle. "Zen is being weird." Remembering he had sweet sweet comfort he took another long drink as soon as Sterling reminded him of it. Then he grimaced as it hit his stomach hard once more. "Weird? That's the most fucking erroron-- errorous-- erronous... yeah, erroneous statement I have ever heard," he grumbled, "Do you have any idea what he was talking about with that... thing or where he is now?" "The...bit about how he is a sith lord...yeah. I am keeping my opinions to myself on that. At least until trinity is fully back online. As for Zen...I think he is in his room." "There's that word again. Sith. What's a sith?" "You...do not know? How long have you lived under that rock, Iisska?" "OH!! OH OKAY!!" He shot up to his feet and nearly fell, but caught himself, "Everybody knows about this thing except me! That's fine! Not like I haven't been running around the galaxy since I was seventeen. Not like I haven't seen a bunch of shit and never once heard of this mysterious awesomeness that somehow everybody knows about but me! OH DARN! MUST HAVE BEEN LIVING UNDER A ROCK!" "To be completely fair, Iisska. Anybody running about the galaxy since they were seventeen WOULD know what a Sith was." "OH!! OH REALLY!! OKAY!! I'M A LIAR NOW TOO!! I GET IT!!" The Togruta stood up straight, frowned and narrowed his eyes before taking a deep breath and placing a hand over his stomach in a pose of the utmost regal modesty. "Sterling. Please. Just tell me what--" without warning Iisska doubled over and puked into the closest scrap bin. If Marquis could, he would be smiling right now. Instead, he laughed. "Okay. Think Jedi, but wants to kill everybody. Think Jedi Master, but the reverse. A Sith Lord. Then think of Zen, whom is a Gray Sith, neutral, but follows the sith doctrine. He is a gray sith lord." Iisska lay on the floor next to the bin, "That was terrible, Sterling." "Oh. Right. You cannot think. Just know that he has earned his super powers." "Oh. Right. You cannot think. Just know that he has earned his super powers." "No, no... I get it. Kinda... Okay not really, but it's a start," he mumbled, "You. You knew this?" "I did not know he was a sith lord, but I knew he was a Gray sith." "Oh. I guess... I guess that's..." he sat up slowly and crossed his legs, "That's happened. It doesn't matter now, though. We're all going to die here." "Not unless you get off of your ass and fix the engines. Trinity should be around soon enough." "So, get off your arse." He kicked him. Iisska curled up to protect himself then stumbled up. "I can fix the engines... most likely. I'm super talented like that," he smirked, "That's not the problem, though. Nobody can fix a cracked hyperdrive. You have to replace the whole damn thing. Even the people who build them for a living don't exactly know all the ins and outs of the tech and they wouldn't dream of making a repair like that. Even if I do get those engines fixed we'll be thrusting through space for an eternity before we reach the next populated outpost." "Well. Time to learn then. We have plenty of time for you to become the only hyper drive specialist in the known universe." "Sterling. Listen. Just listen for a second. If I mess up," he spoke slowly with deliberate hand gestures, "Even just a smidge. If I look at the hyperdrive funny. If I sneeze and it gets upset. We all die a terrible disgusting death." "Consider it a challenge then." He looked at him, his eye a light pink. "Trinity will be able to help, but the ship's auto repair system is shoddy at best. " "Yeah I was afraid of that. We'll have to shut it out of the hyperdrive for the time being," he scratched his chin, "With Trinity's help... So. Just so we're all clear on this. You've all come to terms with death? Right? We're all in agreement that death is imminent?" "We are in the midst of a Sith Lord. We are all bound to die one way or another. Hop to it." "Fan-fucking-tastic," he rubbed his hands together, "I guess this way I will get to kill Zen after all," he chuckled nervously, "I'll see you around, Sterling... And thanks... I feel... well I almost feel better. A little. Probably." Iisska left the cab still a little tipsy but feeling stable enough to work. Once down in the engine room he tied his lekku back and dragged his tools out of the million places that had wound up the day before, gathered the ruined parts he would need to focus on, and the salvaged bits he would have to tear apart to desperately patch things up. Then he maneuvered deeper into the engines where the hyperdrive lay in wait. It just sat there, shut down, slumbering, waiting for him to start stabbing at it so it could get angry and murder him. He reached out to the small fracture where the intricate patterning in the cells didn't line up. Then he stopped, afraid to even touch it. He just stared. He had no idea what to do. He wanted to fix it. For all his resentment and fighting and depressing nay-saying he really wanted to fix it and get out of here. He wanted to live. He wanted all of them to live. How, though? Not knowing what to do about it now and having zero ideas he went back to work on the main engines.