A Tale of Two Sisters

((Woot! 6,000th post!))


Sounds filtered into the subconscious.
Muffled at first, indistinct. Voices, footsteps, the sound of birdsong. She felt a cool breeze drift across her face as she opened her eyes.
Aleina Fel sat upright and looked about her, greeted by a sight she did not expect to see. She was under the silken covers of a lavish bed, an opulent and elegant one not unlike her own on Korriban, but this one was a light peach-cream colour and the silk felt cool against her skin, in stark contrast to the humid heat of the red world she called home.
The room she was in was large and sparsely furnished but was tasteful and had an expensive look to it. What furniture there was shared the same cream colourings and the entire wall to her left led out to a balcony, no windows or shielding keeping her from the outside world... a world which, when she turned her head to view it properly, was full of sunlight and white-clouded sky.
Pushing back the covers she found herself in unfamiliar clothes, a white night-gown of purest Lashaa. Swinging her legs around and out of the bed she noticed they did not have the greyish tone she was used to seeing, and her hands similarly, were pale pink. Confused, she got to her feet but was hit with a sudden dizziness and found she had to steady herself on one of the bedposts for a moment to get her bearings.
It was then that she noticed a large dresser stood in the corner, not far from the entrance to the balcony. It was ornately fashioned, beautiful yet simple carvings running across its surface. They held no importance except aesthetically, a simple design pleasing to the eye.
Not sure how to proceed or what had happened to her, the Hapan darksider opened the tall dresser doors looking for her clothes.
Swinging the door open she was met with a mirror that held her reflection, and the sight she saw almost floored her.
She was still the same woman, the same height, weight and build, but the vision that looked back at her showed no signs of dark-side corruption. Her skin was a healthy pink, supple and toned, and her eyes sparkled an emerald green, full of life and expression. Gone was her grey marble-like skin, her deep red eyes that glowed like tiny suns. Her hair was still black, but more of a very dark brown than the shade she knew, the one that seemed to suck the very light into it. It was worn differently as well, her straight shoulder-length style had been replaced with a longer design and her hair fell about her face and shoulders in ringlets.
Dumbfounded, she stepped away from the dresser, completely forgetting to get dressed as she intended and instead walked out onto the balcony as if in a stupor.
The sun was warm on her face as she looked out into the valley below. Whatever structure she was in seemed huge, made of some creamy-white marble and set high into the mountains. Foggy dew blanketed most of the area around the building but further in the distance she could see small homes among green fields, tiny figures going about their business as airspeeders and colourful birds filled the skies. It seemed oddly familiar to her somehow, as if she had seen it somewhere before, but it looked unlike any planet she had visited while aboard Omen or her time with The Agency. It shared certain elements with worlds such as Alderaan and Corellia, but it was neither.
A sudden jolt of pain in her right temple made her keel over and grab her head, a surging headache that caught her completely off-guard and unprepared. It was only a sudden pain however, and was gone almost as quickly as it appeared. As she straightened up she fancied she heard a distant voice from somewhere near her room but could not place it or what was said.
Thoroughly confused and highly suspicious, Aleina went and sat back down on the edge of the bed, staring at her hands that she kept turning over and over.

What had happened to her? Where was she?

“Oh, Aliena. You're up!”

The voice came from the doorway at the other end of her room, one which she had not noticed until now had no door, just an archway into the adjoining corridor. In the archway stood a stunning green-haired human woman, dressed in an expensive-looking robe that indicated that she was a member of the upper classes here, wherever 'here' was. A couple of years older than Aleina but no more than five at a guess, she was wearing a pleasant smile and the darksider felt no deception or malice from her. Though she didn't know who she was, the woman certainly seemed to know her and perhaps more confusingly, had absolutely no fear of her. Not since meeting Deimos had she experienced that openness. Even her Employer, The Mysterious Falleen, was wary of her when they first met – a survival instinct that most intelligent creatures shared. This woman however had no fear of her, not even distrust.

Interesting.

“Come along, you must get dressed. Everybody is waiting for you – especially Mother.”

Adorning herself in a simple yet elegant floor-length robe, Aleina felt as if the the whole process was done on autopilot, almost as if she was watching someone else slip the dress around her hips; tighten the clasp at her shoulder. Although everything was in perfect focus and her senses seemed clear she couldn't quite shake the feeling of everything being in a dream-like state. A quick pinch of her left arm did not wake her up, merely caused a slight tinge of pain. It was oddly welcome, it reminded her she was alive after all.

The woman - whose name she still did not know - waited just on the other side of the archway, along with two other women who silently stood to attention in gray and blue armour. They were quite obviously house guards of some sort, though why their presence was required was unclear. Was she a hostage? perhaps... but it didn't feel like she was any sort of prisoner.

"You look stunning, Aleina." The woman who had first greeted her said, a large almost theatrical grin across her face. "We should hurry, Mother wished to see you before the ceremony began."

Ceremony? that seemed ominous. She didn't know what was going on, but she decided to play along to see where things went.

"I'm sorry, I overslept." She replied, noticing her voice had lost some of its base overtones and sounded slightly higher, more femine.

The woman nodded as she walked, the Force-User at her side.

"That's quite understandable, you've had quite a lengthy journey back to The Cluster."

Aleina kept pace with her as they navigated the various corridors, all decorated with expernsive finery equal to anything she'd seen on Coruscant or assembled in her own private chambers at Odal Temple.

"Yes, even with the use of hyperspace it was still a considerable distance." She decided to not allow herself to fall into any traps but instead coax information from her new companion.

"True, but the same journey you took as a child was considerably slower, we often take the improvements for granted as we've grown up with them, but it used to take three times as long to navigate to Coruscant before, or so I'm told. Its just a shame we've only seen you a handful of times since then...we understand of course, but its still not easy."

So, Coruscant. That was where she had come from.

The two women and their escort rounded a corner and came to a large set of ornate double doors, fashioned from a reflective white metal with an elaborate gold leaf design woven into its surface. As they approached, two more female guards took hold of a handle each and slowly began to open the doors for them as they approached.

"Ah, here we are..."

....and if she was 'returning' to The Cluster then that must mean....

The doors swung open dramatically and the corridor filled with light as the room beyond it was a combination of dazzling whites, silvers and cream; the only breaking up of such brightness was the tinted glass across the long windows which looked out into a massive garden and estate. Though elegantly decorated the chamber was sparsely furnished, the centerpiece being a large throne-like chair upon which sat a woman in her early fifties yet still exceptionally comely with high cheekbones and peircing light blue eyes. Upon her head was an elaborate head-dress that almost resembled a crown, and she was surrounded by three women, all staggeringly beautiful in different ways. The two that stood on her left were both red-headed, one slightly taller than the other but both with full buxom figures and dressed in outfits that were just risque enough to be enticing but conservative enough to still look tasteful. The woman on the right looked similar to Aleina - the new Aleina that is - with long blond, wavey hair and green eyes who stood with a much more impartial and controlled stance.

She was on Hapes.

"Please, come in my Daughter." The matriachial figure said in a deep, authoritarian voice. It was not a request.

Normally the Darksider would balk at the slightest hint of an order, mercilessly dispatching anyone who dared speak to her in such an insolent tone, but before she knew what she was doing she was following the order, stepping into the room and kneeling before the woman who had addressed her.
It wasn't some sort of trickery, no sorcery or mind-control, it was instead a deeply buried conditioning from her childhood: one that she barely even remembered. She didn't know how, or why; but this was her Mother, The Lady Lana Fel.

"As you are aware, your sister Che'el is due to be wed today," One of the two red-heads (presumably Che'el) giving the slightest smile as the mother spoke. "and your Order has been......kind enough to release both you and your sister Meletna for a day to attend the celebrations. For all my reservations of the Jedi, they do at least honour most of our Hapan traditions."

Jedi? Aleina felt a wave of confusion roll over her, but she remained focused in the presence of the House Mother, she remembered one of her first memories of falling afoul of her temper. But what was going on?

"The Husband we have chosen is of good breeding and the women of his family will join with ours to strengthen House Fel in this matter." She paused momentarily and looked to Che'el who nodded in agreement. "But before the ceremony your father has arrived and wishes some time with Meletna and yoursef. He is here only briefly however, and must return to naval duty within the next two hours. You are both therefore given leave to commune with your father but be aware: you must be in your wedding attire and ready for the ceremony in no less than four hours."

In accordance with Hapan ettiquette the House Mother rarely lowered herself to converse with the members of the House directly, but it was understood that she would not futther the conversation as Meletna walked away from her mother without looking back and walked up to Aleina.

"It is good to see you again, Sister." She said as she motioned Aleina to follow her out of the room. Everything was over so rapidly she barely had a chance to process it all.

Aleina looked at the woman to her side. She knew the name and she knew the eyes, but everything else about the full-grown woman at her side was a stranger.

"And you, Sister."

"It has been so many years since I saw you, with both of us fighting the Sith on different warfronts I was concerned I would see you next at your funeral, or you at mine." Meletna half-smiled then, trying to make light of the galactic situation as a whole. "It is good that the Jedi Council let us both attend Che'el's special day though. There are times when I wonder what lives would have been like if we had not joined the Jedi."

Aleina felt the slightest well of anger rise in her, being associated with the Jedi in any other capacity than a killer of theirs was beginning to annoy her.

"Indeed."

As they walked, Aleina became increasingly aware of the familiarity of the place, little snipetts of memory were beginning to return to her from childhood: the occassional plant or painting would strike up a memory in her, or the waft of a certain scent of flower would remind her of a time long gone. She was in the halls of the Fel Family Estate just outside the city of Ta'a Chume'Dan, on her homeworld of Hapes. It was part of a life she had left behind, one she had completely forgotten.

As the two women walked into an anti-chamber before heading into the east wing of the estate, Meletna piped up.

"Just before we take audience with Father, there is someone else here I think you might like to see, Aleina. He's here on business with Mother, but it is a happy coincidence notheless. I imagine it has been some time since you saw Master Tavik, is it not?"

"Kordath Tavik? He's alive?" Aleina said, forgetting herself momentarily.

"Well of course I'm alive," Said the unmistakable voice of the Arkanian as he stepped out from behind one of the pillars in the antichamber. Dressed in the robes of a Jedi Master, his long black hair was tied up tightly into a bun and his pupiless white eyes fixed on his former Padawan.
"Surely you wouldn't see me dead, would you?" he joked.

To say Aleina was conflicted would be an understatement. Part of her wanted to tear the throat of the man out, with her bare hands. Force him to feel a fraction of the physical and mental torture she had suffered; both in the blackness of space and at the grubby hands of the Bim Prime slavers. She wanted him to feel the helplessness and the anger and the shame.
Yet an equally large part of her was so happy to see him, as if acknowledging her life since leaving home had been a mistake, a dream. There was a tangible part of her soul that just wanted to drop at her feet and beg forgiveness.

She chose the middle path; that of practiced indifference.

"Greetings....Master." She said as she bowed her head slightly, the return to her old ways of behaviour more a mechanical response than an emotional one.

"It is good to see you again, Aleina." The Arkanian Jedi said as he stepped forward, and bowing his head in an similar respectful manner. "I have not seen you since the Council approved your Knighthood. You have grown, and the Force seems strong with you."

He turned and bowed slightly to Meletna as well then, but did not offer his greetings as it was obvious the two had already met; she nodded in return.

"Meletna here tells me that your Sister Che'el is to be wed today, you have my congratulations on their union."

The Hapan woman was beginning to feel angered by all the polite niceties that she was being shown. She couldn't recall how she had gotten in the bed an hour earlier or why she was there, but she could clearly remember her life with Deimos, The Falleen and the Agency. Without aknowledging Tavik or Meletna directly, she walked past them and sat down on a marble bench, tucking her -suddently maddeningly elaborate - white dress up under her.

Tavik and Meletna threw one another a confused glance then Aleina's sister approached one of the two House Guards.

"Would you give us some privacy for a couple of moments, please?"

The two guards simply stood to attention and then filed out of the room, leaving the three Force-users alone. Tavik sat down to Aliena's left, and Meletna to her right.

"Something is troubling you?" The Jedi Master enquired.

Aleina sighed, then looked the Arkanian in his pupiless white eyes.

"Everything is bothering me. This place, my appearance - you two."

"I'm not sure I -"

"Well no, you wouldn't. You're not meant to. To be frank I don't really see the reason to explain myself to a figment of my imagination except for maintaining my grip on reality."

"Aleina, you're not making any sense. Do you consider us....figments?"

"Of course I do!" she almost shouted in pure frustration as she slammed her fists into the marble seat so hard that she left blood on their white pristine surface. "None of this is real! I am no Jedi! You -" She said as she pointed at Tavik " - are dead. Ripped apart in space by mercenaries!"

Her head snapped toward Meletna.

"...As for you, you share my sister's name, but I do not know you!"

Meletna raised an eyebrow.

"Did you hit your head, Sister? you have been a member of the Jedi Order for almost twenty years. You studied under Master Tavik until you became a Knight and have been at the forefront of the Galactic Civil War ever since. Why would you even think you were not a Jedi? you are one of the most celebrated Jedi Commnaders of the past five years."

"Perhaps the War has taken more of a toll on our Knight than we had realised. A Jedi's mind is often pushed harder than most and we are required to accept hardships that would break most others without question or regret. Yet even we sometimes need to step back from what life asks of us, to recouperate and recover. Aleina has received no such respite, until now."

The Darksider simply tilted her head back and laughed.

"Oh please, spare me! You are not real, neither of you. This place is an illusion, a fabrication designed to keep me from regaining control. I am either badly injured and at death's door, and this is my mind's way of interpretting events or, more likely I am under some kind of mind-alteration. Drugs or Force-influence, it doesn't matter. Either way I just need to find a way out of this delusion and return to the Falleen, to the Agency."

"Agency?" Tavik enquired, remaining calm. "Perhaps this 'Agency' you speak of are responsible for your current....condition?"

"NO!" she screamed right in his face; and the lines around his panic-sticken expression seemed to shimmer slightly, as if losing focus and regaining it again. Or perhaps she imagined it, she wasn't sure...she was just so damned angry.

The Jedi Master stood then, regaining his composure after the woman's sudden outburst.

"Perhaps it would be prudent if we gave Aleina some time, Meletna? She seems out of sorts, and our presence here seems to be only exacerbating her condition. The Guards are outside, I'm sure she will be fine left alone for a few moments."

Aleina simply hung her head, saying nothing.

"You go, Master." Meletna said as she looked from her Sister to the Arkanian. "I will remain here with Aleina a moment longer. I will join you shortly."

"As you wish," The Master said as he bowed deeply to the pair and quietly existed the chamber.

The two sisters sat alone on the bench.

Slowly Aleina lifted her head and looked to the blond woman beside her.

"Why are you still here? I refuse to engage in this pointless 'game' any further."

Meletna smiled.

"You're right, you know."

Aleina squinted slightly, suspecting a trap.

"None of this is real. You're not on Hapes, you're in a bunker on Ilum. You're surrounded by ten Jedi Knights, all attempting to search your memory for information by using mind control."

"Ah, of course. Unable to make sense of what is happening to me, my mind decides it is best to make figments of my imagination become increasingly sarcastic. How very helpful."

"Really, and why would it do that?"

"Why wouldn't it? After all, if I were actually being mind-controlled by ten Jedi, they would already have the information they require. My mind would have no way of knowing I was under such an illusion, let alone be able to conjure up a figment of my sister to inform me of it. My abilities are impressive, 'Meletna', but even I am not arrogant enough to think my mind could resist such a barrage."

The blond woman leaned against her sister then, affectionately. Repulsed, Aleina pulled away and glared at her.

"True, but there it is, nontheless. You ARE in an illusion constructed by others. You ARE at least partially aware of what is happening to you and they ARE losing control. Did you see the shimmer around Tavik's face when you confronted him? That was you, almost breaking through their illusion."

Aleina rubbed her chin in thought.

"Say I believe you,"

"...and you should, I'm you."

"...who are you then? why are you not a part of this fabrication?"

"Its a little hard to explain. I'm you, or rather...a part of you. Deimos locked me away through certain dark-side techniques and training. Ever wonder where your humanity went? why you're such a cold-hearted b.i.t.c.h. all the time? Its because your mind was so traumatised by what happened to you that what little of your humanity had to be locked away, be given time to...recouperate. I'm still here though, Aleina, and I've grown strong. Strong enough to give you the ability to ward off these mental attacks. They can't take over your mind because they can't get at me, that locked up part of your soul."

"Oh excellent, so now I'm schizophrenic as well? It really is turning out to be an interesting day."

Meletna grinned.

"Not as such, no. But listen, revealing myself to you like this has made me vulnerable, we need to find a way to break you of their control....and fast. If I know The Falleen and the others, they're sending a strike team to reclaim you, but killing any one of those Jedi before we get out could prove....disasterous."

Aleina ubruptly stood up, clenching her battered fists that dripped blood from the bruised knuckles.

"Finally you say something that makes sense. Lets get the frack out of this backrocket dellusion."

As the two women made their way across the room toward the exit, Meletna suddenly grabbed Aleina's arm.

"Listen," She began as Fel turned to look at her with a confused look. "There is a good possibility things are about to get a little....strange. The fact I have revealed myself to you means that 'they' know about us as well and will know we're fighting against them. They're likely to use your own psyche against you, things from your subconscious - you should be prepared."

Swinging the doors open the two were met by the guards from before, only this time they were carrying shock-pikes and no helms. Instead they looked identical, and they both looked like Aleina - the real Aleina.

"Not terribly abstract," she muttered as the two guards engaged them in melee combat, swinging their shock pikes into the fight. Meletna crouched and ducked under the long sweeping strike of the first guard-clone, coming up with a hard upper-cut straight to her opponent's jaw and knocking them back into the wall. As the unconscious guard hit the ground her body seemed to shimmer momentarily, then vanished. As the second guard lunged for Aleina she twisted her body and moved behind her attacker, elbowing her opponent in the wrist and forcing her to drop her pike, which she took as part of the manaeuver. The look of sheer terror on the guard Aleina's face was unusual to the real Aleina, who had never seen herself look distressed before. It was only a brief image however, as the face and guard it belonged to vanished seconds after being skewered by the pike. That too, vanished.

"I'll say this for our psyche, at least we're tidy. No dead bodies cluttering up the place..." Meletna joked as they continued their run down the corridor.

Without warning, everything went dark and both women immediately stopped in their tracks. A sound of sobbing could be heard, which steadily grew louder and louder until it sounded as if it were mere feet away. Suddenly a bright light shone down from above, a spotlight illuminating what appeared to be a cramped cargo-hold. Both Hapans had to shield their eyes from the bright light momentarily but as their eyesight adjusted they saw a young Aleina crouched over the body of some Human man, and both were caked in blood. As the light hit her the sobbing stopped, and she slowly turned toward the two women.
The young Aleina's eyes were pupiless black and she was coated in gore: her hair was matted with chunks of flesh and dirt and blood dripped from the corner of her mouth. A mouth which also held what looked like a couple of fingers crunching between her blackened teeth. A quick glance down at the body showed it to be covered in hundreds of teeth marks.
Aleina shrugged as Meletna looked on in horror.

"I fail to see how this is meant to effect me," She commented coldly. "This is from my past, it holds no regret or remorse for me - it was what I had to do to survive."

In comparison, Meletna slumped to her knees, sobbing. The blond Hapan woman could barely look at the atrocity of cannibalism, but found she could not look away either.
At the last second Aleina realised the attack was meant for the part of her psyche that Meletna represented, forcing it into a state of paralysis so it couldn't protect the rest of her mind. She was able to steele herself just in time as Young Aleina launched, suddenly turning more feral as she did so. Her jaw contorted to grotesque proportions, filling with razor-sharp teeth and her nails extended into wicked-looking claws as she hurtled through the air toward the dark-sider.
Aleina stood her ground then dropped onto her back seconds before the point of impact and brought her legs up sharply, catching Young Aleina in the gut and using her own momentum against her as she flung her over her head and slamming into the wall behind her. The she-thing landed with a crash, but was not so easily defeated as the guards from before. It regained its bearings and spun around, morphing once more so it looked more like a small Rancor than a human, but still possessed features from the young girl; the same black eyes and shock of dark mane, the same blood-coated face.

The thing charged again, and Aleina looked around desperately for a weapon to use against it as it bared down upon her, growing in size as it did so. Finding nothing to defend herself with the Hapan Darksider took up a defensive pose and waited for the thing to crash into her.
Then suddenly, she remembered: regardless of the situation it was still her mind, she still had control...
As the slavering beast came within clawing distance, roaring all the while, Aleina calmly held out a hand and the thing stopped mid-charge, as if it had hit some kind of barrier. The Darksiders' eyes glowed an eerie red in the half-light as the thing crashed in vein against the invisible wall.

"This is my mind. My rules. All I am capable of in the real world is amplified in here, it is a shame nobody warned you."
With a grin full of pure molevelance, Aleina slowly clenched her outstretched hand into a fist as the thing screamed in agony as she crushed it using the power of the Force. Limbs bent and snapped, spraying blood in all directions as the creature wailed and finally fell silent as she crushed it into a small pile of gore upon the floor. It vanished then, and light began to appear around them.

Meletna regained control of herself and ceased her crying, slowly gathering herself up from the floor. The light grew brighter until all around them was white, then slowly colours began to fade in, and shapes. The enviroment changed around them once more until they stood upon a plush carpet in an opulent penthouse suite. Large tinted windows filled the walls through which could be seen the towers of Coruscant as airspeeders and ships passing by. Down one end the room was an enormous desk - almost comically so - and at the end of the desk was a high-backed chair, turned away from them.

The chair turned around slowly and Aleina was less than surprised to see The Falleen sitting there.

"So, you decided to fight. That's good, Aleina. It is how it should be. Her Employer said, his voice full of the usual cold confidence she had become so accustomed to over the years.

"Whoever you are and whatever you want, you've not done your research." She sneered as she strode foreward, defiantly.

"I would never harm The Falleen, and he would never harm me. To use him as a representation of conflict here in mind, is misguided."

"Ah," The Falleen said as he rested his fingers on his chin. "You misunderstand, my dear. I do not wish to harm you....but he does." Outstretching a hand and pointing a long emerald finger behind her, The Falleen maintained the pose and slowly vanished. Aleina cautiously turned around to see that shadows had suddenly snuck up behind them, out of which a robed figure stepped with a face obscured by a hood and a drawn and fully extended silver light-saber in their hand.

It was a lightsaber she recognised.

"Greetings, Deimos." She said, taking a step backward.

"Greetings to you, my young Apprentice." He replied, his silken voice dripping with malice.
She knew she was outmatched as the man stepped forward and lowered his hood; his old wizened face with hooked avian features grinned menacingly. Even if she had a lightsaber and Meletna at her side, Aleina knew she had little chance against the Sith Lord.
As if in response to her growing insecurity, her former Master seemed to increase in size as he stepped toward her.

"You took too long, Darth Fel. It is the way of the Sith for the Apprentice to seek dominance over the Master, to kill and replace him. But you took the cowards path, my child. You ran, and I grew stronger...more powerful. You have grown weak and petty, and now I shall correct my mistake and replace you with a more promising student..."

"I am no Sith!" She yelled in desperation as she launched an arc of purple Force Lightning at Deimos. It stuck him and he retracted momentarily, then seemed to shrug it off and continued to slowly walk toward her. He continued to grow in size as if the Lightning were feeding him somehow, making him stronger.

Meletna, who had remained silent all the while, outstrectched her hand and slammed the Sith Lord with a blast of Force energy almost knocking him from his feet but pushing him back several feet.

"Get away from her!" She shouted.

"You." Deimos almost spat the words as he recognized who the woman before him was.
As the two Hapans kept pressure on the Sith Lord he began to shrink and was pushed backwards, but somehow Deimos got a second wind and began to snarl with anger, forcing himself forward as if trudging through a sand-storm.

"We can't hold him!" Meletna yelled in a panic.
Suddenly a voice came from Aleina's right, from the shadows. It was a voice she knew.

"Aleina!" Out of the darkness came Leta Orbus, an Agent of the EPOCH and a battlefield comrade of Aleina's on more than one occassion. In one hand she carried a high-powered blaster rifle and her other was outstretched, as if offering a hand in assistance.

"Ma'am, can you hear me? You need to snap out of it, we have to go!" Agent Orbus was her usual calm, collected self but she sounded rushed. Aleina looked to Meletna for some sort of guidance, to which her Hapan sister nodded and winced against the effort of holding Deimos off.

"Go to her, Sister! I will hold this demon at bay. Go!" She managed a smile then, to try and reassure some part of Aleina that it would be O.K.

The Darksider retracted her lightning then and Deimos charged forward, enraged. She didn't have the luxury of seeing what happened next, however: Aleina turned and ran toward Leta, feeling the oppressive force of Deimos gaining on her as she ran. She lept the last past of the distance and clasped hold of the Agents hand just as she felt Deimos' breath on her neck.

Colour and heat flooded in all around her as she found herself looking up into Leta's face. She was wearing infiltration armour which had a few blaster marks across it and a thin trickle of blood could be seen against the Agent's temple, but she seemed otherwise unharmed.

"Ma'am, are you fit to move? We need to get out of here."
Aleina looked about her. She was in the centre of a room which was flanked on all sides by gun-mental gray walls and dimly-lit neon tube-lighting. Surrounding her were the bodies of ten individuals, smoking from a combination of electric shock and blaster fire. They all wore the attire of Jedi Knights, yet oddly the colours they wore were dark gray. Behind Leta stood a full team of locked and loaded EPOCH Agents, a Strike Team made up of new Initiates, no doubt.

"W-what happened?" She managed weakly as Leta helped her to her feet.

"You went missing a week ago, Ma'am. Several squads were sent out on our Employers request. After a few interrogations and tip-offs, our team followed a lead that you were here, on Ilum. We discovered a covert Jedi base and fought our way to you. We found you using Force-Lightning on these Jedi, and it allowed us to make the kill-shots."

Straightening herself up but still leaning on Leta for support, Aleina looked about her with a confused look on her face.

"Jedi? what would they want with me?"

"Unknown. However, our intelligence indicates these are a cell of Jedi Shadows, and it seemed they were after some sort of information they believed you had."
Nodding to the Strike Team to clear the way, Leta helped the Chief Operative until she was able to stand on her own.

"We've got a shuttle prepped and ready to go. We can have you in hyperspace within the hour and heading back to Korriban."

"Very good, Agent Orbus. I want you to handle one more thing for me during the journey."

"Ma'am?"

"It seems my Sister, Meletna Fel, might be alive. "

".....Find her."