The deep darkness of space spread out around the massive seventeen kilometer ship that patrolled the asteroid belt around the Circle?s hidden facility. The Interrogator 2, an Eclipse Class Star Destroyer that had been stolen from one of the secret shipyards in the deep Core during the chaos after the time of the resurrected Emperor was the command ship of Romax Pol. Only six ships of this kind were ever built and all were believed to have been destroyed and all but this one actually were.

Romax knelt in the center of a huge chamber, originally a cargo bay that had been converted into the Dark Lord?s personal meditation chamber. The only light in the room was starlight coming through the transparasteel dome in the roof of the chamber. With his eyes closed, Romax cast his mind out though the Force deep into the bowels of the ship to find his friend, Travanix, who for now was content to be kept here in the brig of the Interrogator 2. With a practiced ease Romax reached out and connected his mind to the mind of his friend and began the all to important conversation, a conversation that was long, long overdue.
?It would seem we have a bit of a situation.?

In his mind he could see Travanix close his eyes and join in on the conversation.
?No worse than the situation on Kelvan Five.?

?True, however there were considerably more than what we are dealing with now.?

?They also seemed to have a better understanding of how to blackmail someone.?

?Indeed.?

?How shall we proceed??

?They are trying to keep this by the book, to keep all the members that are not already on their side from shifting.?

?Agreed ? otherwise there would have simply have been an assassination attempt rather than a trial.?

?A search of records, private and otherwise is in order. We need to understand how this deal was constructed.?

?Review of the evidence as well.?

?Agreed. There may be something else in there, perhaps something they overlooked that would postpone the sentencing.?

?That is a good place to start. Dispatching an investigator to Gli'us may aid in turning up something else as well.?

?Excellent idea.?

?How much longer do you think they are going to go along before they begin to question??

?I have already heard questions being posed by those that might be considered "loyal" ? as such a thing exists.?

?Very well; continue on with the work.?

?Good evening.?

With the connection between their minds broken, Romax?s eyes slowly fluttered open and once again focused on the here and now. He looked up to stare out the dome into the depths of space for a moment before he reached out to tap a key set into a recessed panel on the floor, calling for one of his aides. There was a great deal of work to be done.

It had been a little over 12 hours since he had been stuck in this hole. He hadn't been in any sort of confinement since his days at the academy, and even then it was meant as a training exercise in order to learn what it would take to break out: the more creative the method, the better the grade in the exercise.

He had sat up in the bed, meditating, clearing his mind of random thoughts to focus on the greater issue at hand: How did this happen? Who is really behind it? How did they implant the evidence? And why now? What is the play here? During its first iteration under the Commander, he had seen an attempt at a coup, but it was different. One of the captains decided he did not like having to report to a commander, and gathered a couple of others to bring him down.

It was for nothing since the Commander had a far more loyal following. But this, this was aimed at not just him, but his operations as well. Who ever was behind this wanted more than just getting him out of the way: they wanted him stripped, discredited and gone with no chance at coming back or even having anything resembling a reputation.

Additionally, something like this takes time, waiting for the right moment, waiting for the weakest link. Vul?gu was just the simplest place to start, then involving the syndicate and the Hutts.

Suddenly, an alarm started blaring, the lighting switched from the normal white to low red. Emergency lighting, but not battle stations. He stood up, moving towards the door. Troops were moving quickly, one of them mentioned power disruptions and outages throughout the ship.

This had gone from getting rid of him to actually getting rid of him!

The detonation at the end of the hall was loud. The way the hall was structured, and the material would focus the blasts only in two directions. That would include the shockwave that followed the energy release. There was a shout of ?Get cover? just before the explosion and then several sounds of thuds against the corridor, then silence. The red lighting that had been there was now gone, or at the very least, diminished. He heard a couple of groans as he moved out of the cell, heading in the general direction of Katerina?s cell. He leveled the blaster, checked his corners. His military training was taking over.

His movements were sharp, memory muscle dominated each action. The Force extended his senses: His hearing picked up the safety release on the rifles down the hall he was approaching. He ducked into another corridor just as blaster fire erupted down the way he was headed for. Something hit the ground and rolled passed him. His eyes went wide before he turned his head and slammed his eyes shut quickly.

The flash was disorienting to say the least. The sound and the light slowly died down as the thump of boots slamming the ground brought the troopers to the corridor he?d been hiding in. They did not hesitate and began opening fire down the hallway.

A man in medium-weight armor leaned into Katerrina's cell, sighting down the blaster he held steady with both hands at the obviously-empty bed. With a grunt, he turned to the left, right into the jabbing fingers of the Apprentice, who found the seam between helmet and body armor, striking true to partially collapse his airway, the blaster clattering on the floor as both hands clutched at his throat. Before he could take another gasp, there was a crunch of bone, and he landed silently on the floor, his neck broken, his fallen blaster now held neatly by Katerrina.

She knew she had minutes, likely even less, before the others realized the assassin's attempt on her life failed. Keeping to the shadows, she left the hated cell, taking a temporary position on the opposite side of the door, body tingling as she again "listened". It didn't seem like there were many in the group, and those that were in it didn't seem to take her seriously, with thoughts of "only an apprentice", "probably a slave with a few tricks", and others with graphic detail on what was planned for her when she was caught. Like these bumbling idiots even had a ghost of a chance of catching her.

A sudden blast snapped her back to herself, a boosted leap up and back barely clearing the bolt that made the wall directly where she'd been smoke. A slight growl was all the rage she allowed herself, as a full-on Force Scream inside a ship in space would be disastrous. Keeping the blaster at the ready in case anyone got too close, she wound her way through the corridors to where she thought Master Travanix had been taken, leading her pursuers on a grand chase, using the ship to her advantage as she lured one cluster of assassins into another, letting them do the killing for her, as her mind slipped back into her training days, drawing strength and skill from the old wounds. And this time, she did not fail.

She'd just shaken off the closest set of men chasing her, crashing one violently into the other, sending both directly into the line of fire of their fellows further down the corridor. As she raced to where she could "see" Travanix was, she was brought to a sudden halt by the back side of the Repeater. Katerrina ducked into an alcove, using the shadows to conceal herself as she appraised the situation.

Four men and a large repeating blaster. Sounded like a training exercise to the Apprentice.

The noise of the weapon served to mask her own movements, sighting down her commandeered blaster, and one guard fell before his comrades knew it, slumped to the floor with a telltale hole in the side of his head. She rolled to the other side of the corridor, her second shot ricocheting into one of the support legs of the repeater, her own leg coming around in a heartbeat to take the second guard off his feet, and her left fist crushing his windpipe made it two guards and a large blaster, which the operator was turning towards her.

Diving forward, a bolt sliced through her hair, and another grazed her back, leaving a smoking welt where fabric and skin melted. Anyone else would've been slowed. But all the injury did was fuel Katerrina's rage. Blood red spotted her vision as she grabbed the operator by his neck, not even bothering to choke him, instead tossing him like a refuse bag into the path of his own weapon, which was still firing in a wild pattern down the hall from where she'd come.

The last man tried to run, self-preservation winning out over credits, managing to get a couple feet away from the chaos, before Katerrina's eyes were on him. He screamed, he clawed at the floor in a futile attempt to stop himself, but his screams were cut short by the E-Web, as she flung him into it.

That left only the weapon.

The E-Web was sputtering, clattering where it had fallen, the blood and bone of its operators staining the floor, walls, and ceiling of the intersection. Darting into the alcove again, just barely out of the line of fire, she turned her focus onto the plastic and metal of the repeater. With the groans that only metal can make when manipulated past its molecular bonds, the E-Web repeater went silent. And then it exploded, sending shrapnel everywhere, including the alcove.

After brushing the metal bits off herself, leaving a few blood trails here and there where larger pieces got through her uniform, she closed her eyes, seeking Travanix in the Force.

~"The weapon has been dealt with. I'm heading towards your position now."~

Katerrina then moved into the corridor, picking her way through the debris before breaking into a slow run, on the alert for any other surprises.