Ren replayed every word of the conversation with his mother in his mind over and over again. Had all of this really happened over his decision not to kill a single desert creature, or had the old woman decided this years ago? Had she spared him because somewhere within her twisted, dark-side-ridden mind she loved him, or had she seen the conflict she was in coming and simply wished some part of herself to go on after her death as she stated? What was he to her? After twenty years with the old woman, he did not know. He had seen a mother's love through the eyes of children from many worlds and many species as he mentally traipsed the universe, but he was never certain he had ever known it himself.

In the midst of this Ren considered the myriad of possibilities of freedom. He knew he had to hide from the Sith and the Jedi and he had some notion that he would need to acquire some form of money, but beyond that he had very little idea of what to do with himself. He had virtually no experience dealing with people who were not trying to kill him. He had no friends in the galaxy—not even cordial associates. Yet he had the Force. It was his ally, and with it he had overcome impossible odds time and again.

He sat down on the desert floor, folding his hands within his lap as Tessar's white sun blared down its deathly heat from above. He shut his eyes and straightened his spine. The Force spoke to him at nearly all moments of the day, sometimes warning him of danger, sometimes answering small questions, but guidance on such a massive shift in his life seemed to require especially deep concentration. He relaxed his mind and body as one and let go of all connection to the world around him.

Ren saw the sand and rocks around him lift and shake in the air through his Miralukai vision while his human eyes remained closed. The Force poured through him and his consciousness began to stretch through time and space and he let it take him, surrendering himself completely. Giving himself to the Force came easily. It had always been his only friend.

Still and tranquil, Ren sat for minutes and then hours. The blazing hot sun disappeared and evening came, followed by the freezing cold of Tessar's night. Ren continued to sit still. He could feel the distant tingle of the future beginning to grow in his consciousness. Deep into the night an image slowly formed in his mind. Blurry and vague at first, the thing slowly took shape into one of what spacers called "Grottos." Grottos were drifting space stations converted from asteroids that had been mined out. They were large, cavernous places crudely sealed off from space and often pumped full of poor quality oxygen, but they had the distinctive advantage of being nearly impossible to locate if one did not know exactly where to look. They showed up as innocuous meteors in space to all but the most refined scans. Grottos were often a venue for criminals and other extremely dangerous beings to meet and conduct business outside the normal channels of The Republic. Ren knew such places well; his mother had been taking him to them since he was a young boy.

This Grotto was composed of a deep brown stone laced with crudely welded ashen gray metal. Within its thick walls was something—he could not yet see what—that was of immense importance to his destiny. The Force would grant him no details, but it seemed to whisper that the need to travel to this place was an urgent matter, and that there was no time to sit and ponder life without his mother. If he wanted to be anything more than a lost soul and a wandering target for other Sith, he had to swallow everything that he was feeling and take action.

Ren's eyes flicked open and he came out of his trance rather abruptly. The night air was cold enough to bring about hypothermia, but he ignored this, feeling exhilarated more than anything else. He stood and shook the dust and sand from his cloak and pants. Then he felt around his belt and the concealed pockets within his clothes. Virtually everything he owned was on his person. He had a few caches of food, explosives, and medical supplies hidden at various points on the planet, but nothing else. His mother had taught him to live simply in this way so that he could start a journey anywhere at a moment's notice.

Ren needed a ship, but that was a simple matter. There were seven ships on Tassar that he knew of that were simply sitting in the sand. The various beings who had crewed these vessels had come to kill him, and now their bodies littered the planet's surface. The closest of these ships was only a few kilometers from where Ren was standing, and with very little hesitation he channeled the Force through every cell in his body and launched into a preternaturally fast run over the sand toward it.

Ren came upon the vessel—a small, black, Echani spy ship– in only a few standard minutes. The Echani crew had tried to ambush him while he was hunting for food, relying on their stealth-field-generators to mask their presence from his senses. He had felt their presence long before they were upon him, and he had out-flanked them. It had taken him only a few minutes to wipe them out after that, but before he did he made sure to rip the command codes for their ship from the pilot's mind. This had been a practice of Ren's for the last five years or so, when his mother had begun to leave him on dangerous planets longer and longer. He had found solace in having escape routes, even if he had never used any of them.

Ren spoke the command: "Kavan es Solo," and the black, shining side doors opened for him. He walked inside the vessel and gazed vaguely at its empty compartments. He had stripped this ship bare of all supplies after he had dispatched the crew. Only the extra guns and armor remained, for Ren had no use for such things. He moved into the cockpit and switched on the navigation computer. A brilliant green and yellow, three-dimensional star-map appeared before him and without an instant's hesitation his eyes moved to an empty point in space on the grid. He knew with perfect prescience that this was where the grotto was slowly drifting through space. The Force was nearly screaming it in his mind.

Ren entered the coordinates and then his hands moved automatically to the thruster controls. He had been piloting ships since he was five years old. The vessel was off the ground in seconds and rising into the sky. Through the dura-glass he watched the sun set over Tessar's horizon. He was happy to leave the planet behind him, and as he thought of this he thought of everything else he was leaving behind and a small thrill coursed through him. He thought if he could give any name to what he was feeling, it would be happiness.

When the ship breeched Tessar's atmosphere Ren felt the enormous gravity let go of him very suddenly. He had almost forgotten how much effort it had taken to keep his body from giving out under the strain. This was only one in a very long list of things he would not miss. Feeling relaxed, he engaged the hyperdrive and watched as the black tapestry of stars before him shifted into brilliant, oncoming streaks of blue.

The voyage took a little over a standard hour, and in that time Ren sat in silent meditation in the pilot's seat. Inwardly he wondered what it would be like to speak to other people. He had rarely spoken to anyone other than his mother for the last twenty years. If such emotions had not been so thoroughly trained out of Ren's mind, he suspected he might have felt nervous. He had no idea what to expect, but then his life had been designed to be one challenge after another, and he had managed to come through each one.

When the space again returned to its normal black color through the glass, Ren gazed upon the grotto from his vision floating perhaps five or so kilometers away. Almost immediately the communication screen on the cockpit lit up and a very gruff sounding voice hissed through, saying: "Echani vessel, your ship is not on our guest list. Please be good enough to identify yourself and explain how you know this location before one of our missiles makes its way to your hull."

Ren had expected this, and had a prepared response. He tapped the screen and said: "I come on behalf of the Blind One."

"Oh," the voice muttered, suddenly sounding very nervous, "I – I apologize. Please choose any docking port on the rock, f-free of charge."

"If you speak of this to anyone, you will die," Ren said before he switched off communications. He was not sure how well his threat would work, or how many people might have been listening to the transmission. Invoking his mother's name was a calculated risk. Grottos were a place of criminals, and his mother was one of the most feared criminals in the galaxy, if not in all of history. Her name would do much to frighten such people into cooperation, but it would also attract attention. Ren knew he could not stay in this place for long after doing so, but he sensed that the floating chunk of rock was only the first step in a very long journey.

He piloted his ship to the nearest open port, which was a crude metal opening in the side of the rock several sizes too large for his small ship. When he veered in the magnetic lock of on the port's floor took very abrupt hold, suddenly slamming his ship into place. His side-bay door opened automatically and a hot, stinky gust of air made its way into the cockpit. Ren stood from the pilot's chair and walked out, the Force pulsing within his skin. His senses told him this was exactly where he was supposed to be.

No greeting awaited Ren. He exited his ship into a long, dirty corridor of metal that seemed to have bent and cracked in many places and then been crudely welded back together. Through dim lights above he saw what looked like scorch marks from blaster fire here and there, and dried patches of what he assumed to have been blood. Ren walked on, noting these things but feeling largely indifferent to them.

He passed through a series of hydraulic doors and long, bending hallways. He did not know if he was supposed to check in with any form of security, but if there was one they did not seem to be interested in confronting an agent of the Blind One. That was convenient, he thought. He was free to move toward his goal, which he could feel he was. The Force was guiding his every step.

Eventually he came to a set of doors that opened up into a very large, multi-level cantina. Terrible, alien music mingled with rough, guttural conversations in multiple languages suddenly replaced the silence of the empty hallway. The cantina was not crowded. Perhaps a third of its tables had seated customers and there were not an abundance of people walking around, but the patrons who were there spoke loudly to one another. Ren spotted members of at least twenty different races, most of which he recognized, most of whom were armed. Twi'lek dancing girls moved about on raised, circular black platforms as strategically placed lights bathed them in intense patterns of different colors. As Ren took all of this in he wondered why the Force would possibly lead him to such a place.

He stepped into the cantina, making sure that his cloak concealed the Sith markings on his robes and the light saber at his belt. He wanted to remain as innocuous as possible until he had a better understanding of his situation, though truly he did not know enough about interacting with other beings socially to understand what was and was not normal behavior. He strode over to an empty table in the corner closest to the hall from which he had come. As he moved he felt eyes gaze at him from several different directions, but none made serious note of him. His survival instincts told him to position himself such that blaster fire could come from as few directions as possible. He made careful to note what objects he could hurl with the Force if he were attacked.

Ren had been seated for perhaps five standard minutes when the Force tingled within his consciousness. His eyes shifted instinctively to a hydraulic set of doors about ten meters down the left wall from him. He focused as a strange and massive figure walked into the cantina. The figure was alien, with bronze skin. A walking mountain of muscle, he was at least as tall as a wookie and probably twice as heavy judging from the girth of his chest, arms, and legs. He had curved ears that ended in pointed tips almost level with the top of his cleanly shaven head.

As impressive as the alien's physical form was, his armaments were even more astonishing. His body armor, which must have been custom-made, had what appeared to be heavy blaster rifles grafted on to the underside of the forearms. The creature had additional pistols on his belt and chest, as well as an array of what Ren sensed to be grenades in small compartments. What truly grabbed Ren's attention though was the massive, silver vibro-sword slung diagonally across the alien's back. It looked to weigh nearly as much as Ren's body. Ren judged that even with the creature's great size he could not wield such a weapon effectively in battle unless he were several times stronger than he looked, which seemed impossible.

This hulking alien was the reason Ren was on the grotto. The Force whispered the truth of this in his mind as he watched the creature walk over to the bar. The bartender, a small Twi'lek male, nervously approached the creature and said something Ren could not hear. The alien responded in an inhumanly deep voice: "No drinks. I'm meeting someone." The twi'lek gave a timid nod and returned to the other patrons.

Ren stood and walked toward the creature. He was not sure what he was supposed to do, but he felt a strange sense of urgency to the situation, as if something dangerous would happen soon.

"Take another step and you die," the alien said very abruptly, but without turning his head when Ren moved within two meters of him.

This surprised Ren. He had moved silently as he always did, and whatever infinitesimal noise he made should have been more than drowned out by the sounds in the cantina. The alien had no obvious technology with which to sense an approach from behind and Ren could not sense any connection to the Force whatsoever from him.

"Are you Sith or Jedi?" the creature asked, still without turning his head.

The question surprised Ren even more. It took him a brief moment to try to comprehend why the creature was asking him this before he answered: "Neither."

A low chuckle that sounded almost like the growl of a great cat rumbled from the alien. He stood and turned, facing Ren, towering over him. "It is one or the other, I believe." Thick white fangs showed as he spoke.

"You believe incorrectly," said Ren, staring back. The alien had strange golden eyes with cat-like slits to the pupils.

"You move like a Sith, and you have the eyes of a killer," the alien growled, and as he did he pointed a long, thick finger at Ren, the end of which had a curved white claw. "I find it very interesting that the Brotherhood found someone like you. Why would they do that unless they don't intend to keep up their end of the bargain?"

Ren frowned. "I do not know what you are talking about. I have nothing to do with any Brotherhood."

The alien leaned in very close to Ren, peering. Ren continued to stare back. He did not have the feeling the Force wanted him to fight this creature. After a few seconds, the alien seemed to relax a little and said: "This is quite a coincidence then, isn't it? If you're not with the Brotherhood, why were you approaching me?"

Ren saw no reason to lie, given that the creature had already somewhat figured out what he was. "The Force guided me to you."

"Huh," the alien grunted. "The Force is trying to get you killed then." He glared at Ren, his lips curling up and displaying his thick, fanged teeth. "If there were another day, and you weren't so damned young, I might have already taken your head off. I hate Sith."

"I am not a Sith," said Ren.

"I don't care what you are. I have serious business to deal with. Now get away from me before I lose my patience."

Ren frowned. The Force continued to pulse within him, telling him that his destiny was directly linked to this creature, and that they were not to be enemies. What they were to be remained very much in question, given the alien's extremely unsubtle hostility toward him. Ren decided that since the Force was not directing him toward any course of action he should back off for the moment and let whatever business the creature had run its course.

"As you wish," Ren said, his voice cold. He turned and walked back to his table. The alien turned back to the bar, hunched over, taking no further notice of him at all.

Only a few minutes passed before once again the Force tugged at Ren's consciousness and his eyes flicked over to another set of hydraulic doors. A half second later those doors slid open and four heavily armed men walked in. They looked to be Echani from their style of light, agile armor and sleek weaponry. The one Ren sensed to be the leader was a tall man in his mid thirties with black, spikey hair and fiercely deep blue eyes. He walked in front of the others, brining them to the alien from behind. At this point, Ren subtly aimed his wrist computer at the four figures and tapped in a command while reaching down into his belt and retrieving an earpiece, which he placed in his right ear canal. The covert military grade wrist-com his mother had provided him was excellent with distant sounds, and it easily centered in on and amplified the voices of the people he watched and while filtering out everything else.

"Hello, Cathock," the leader's voice crackled through the earpiece.

The hulking figure, whose name appeared to be Cathock, turned around and faced the men. Ren sensed his hatred, and he guessed that Cathock could kill these four men quite easily right there in front of the bar. He did not though.

The dark haired leader asked him: "Did you bring it?"

Cathock answered in a solemn voice: "Yes. Is she alright?"

The dark haired man gave what sounded like a very crude chuckle. "We haven't killed her, if that's what you're asking. But your kind, wel-l-l-l, they can take quite a bit, can't they?"

Cathock grabbed the leader so fast by the neck that the man did not even have time to shriek. He pressed the tips of his great claws into the soft tissue of the throat and glared at the other two men, baring his teeth and letting out a deep growl that caused them to flinch several paces back.

Cathock's victim, visibly terrified, hissed through a constricted windpipe: "What do you think you're doing?! When they find—"