Ren awoke to the small hours of the morning as dawn was only just appearing over the mossy terrain. He opened his eyes to see Neeka gazing down at him with a soft, contented smile on her face.

"Good morning," she whispered.

"Did you sit here the entire night?" Ren said.

"Of course I did," she said. Ren felt a small wave of guilt at this, which Neeka seemed to instantly detect, for she said: "It wasn't a labor. Cathock and I don't really sleep much - maybe a few hours in a month at most - not that we need even that. It doesn't really feel natural though, even to us, so we meditate. I've been going in and out of a trance all night. It was very relaxing, and every time I came out of it I got to look down at you." She brushed the back of her knuckles against Ren's temple. "It felt good, being so close to you all night."

She gave him a curious look then and said: "Did you dream?"

"I think so," said Ren. "I think I was in a fight somewhere."

"Your heartbeat accelerated quite a bit at a few points," said Neeka. I wondered at what was passing through your mind. " Her lips gave a small twitch and she said: "I've never dreamed before... the most sentient beings do."

"I think I was reliving the fight with the triplets," said Ren, "but there were also nice moments about you." He sat up and cracked his neck. As he did this, he noticed a small pain in the back of his hand, and touched it with his fingers.

"I'm sorry about that," Neeka said, "I held your head in my hands for most of the night, but here and there you were right on my armor."

The last word in the sentence set off an extremely unexpected surge of inspiration in Ren's mind. Immediately he brought his wrist computer to his mouth and said: "Dalvin, can you synthesize matter?"

"Eh?" Dalvin's voice muttered. He sounded groggy and vaguely annoyed. After a few seconds though, he said: "Yes."

"I need full set of Mandalorian armor to my dimensions, but it should only look like armor. I don't want it to be made of any high-density material. I need to be able to move around as freely as possible and not have my ability to channel the Force restricted in any way."

"Camouflage?" Dalvin muttered.

"Exactly," said Ren.

"Got it. Give me about twenty standard minutes."

"It might be best to make sets for my parents as well."

"I'll contact them and explain your idea," said Dalvin.

"What's your idea?" Neeka. "You want to appear as one of the soldiers?"

Ren reached into his robes and brought out the necklace, which glowed dimly in the early morning light. "Between this and the armor, I'll appear to be just another soldier to the Sith when they attack us."

"And you can use your powers surreptitiously to help our side," she said, her brilliant eyes lighting up. "As long as you're careful, you can go undetected."

"Their raw numbers are too much of a problem, but I'm very good at killing basic soldiers, even in mass. I've been doing it my entire life."

"I like the idea," she said. "You're too much of a target anyway." She frowned then and said: "Dalvin, do you have any idea how the Sith got Ren's image or how they know to go after him?

"Not yet," said Dalvin. "They certainly haven't sliced into my systems because, well, they just can't, and all of your wrist coms are monitored by me at all times and they weren't the source either. If I had to guess, I would say that the triplets you killed had some sort of automatic holographic recording system on their bodies."

Ren clenched. He had been so caught up in Thaleska's death that he had not thought to search her body for electronics, or her sisters. It was an extremely basic precaution after killing someone with comrades nearby that he had learned to take many years ago.

"It still doesn't explain why they consider me a more important target than my mother."

"Maybe Darth Sarak sensed who you were," said Dalvin.

"No, I would have known. However powerful he is, he's not as sensitive as I am."

"How can you be sure of that?" said Dalvin.

"Because no one is," said Ren. He blinked immediately after saying the words, surprised by them. He had spoken automatically, and yet upon he felt that they had come from a very deep place of truth within his mind. He knew with a certainty that he was the most sensitive Force adept in his entire galaxy - perhaps even in the whole universe - except for perhaps one. His thoughts shifted to Kalethian's. That's why you chose me, isn't it? He dared to put forth the words into the mental plain of the Force. He paused and waited, but no response came.

"Well, is the Force making any specific predictions on when we can expect an attack?" said Dalvin.

Ren shut his eyes for a few seconds, reaching out. This time an answer came immediately. "Yes. Today. The threat feels like it will come in the next few hours."

"I see," said Dalvin. He sounded skeptical and concerned at the same time. "Well, everyone is fairly prepped. I suppose I'll get started on that armor for you."

"Thank you," said Ren. He turned to Neeka then, who had a frightened look on her face.

"Are you afraid?" she whispered. "You don't seem afraid at all."

Ren sighed. "I'm most afraid you'll get hurt, but I've been in mortal danger so many times I think I'm numb to it." He glanced to the left and his eyes fell upon his mother, who was silently meditating on a small hill away from the others. "That's what she wanted. That's one of the parts of me that is truly Sith."

"I'm a little scared," she whispered, and she moved up and hugged him, resting her head against his shoulder. "You can't face him alone, Ren... when he comes."

"You never know how a battle is going to play out or how much control you can exercise over it. Whatever happens, I'm not an easy being to kill even in the terms of great Sith lords."

"Maybe you should..." she paused, seeming very uncomfortable, "go see Satral and see if he'll give you more knowledge."

"I already have everything Kalethian is pleased to give me at this stage," said Ren. "He won't grant me any more until I pass another trial."

"You mean kill Sakar?"

"It would seem that is the test, but I can't say for certain."

"But if you did kill him, would you still want the knowledge?"

"No," said Ren, looking into Neeka's yellow eyes, "I don't think I would." He smiled at her. "I've found things that interest me more."

She laughed and cupped his face in her hands. "You can't die, Ren. Whatever comes at you, you have to fight through it, or evade it, because if anything kills you I'll charge in at it in a blind rage and it'll probably kill me to."

"Please don't take yourself hostage," said Ren. "If I die, you have to live." He looked her in the eyes and said: "no one else will remember me - not the way you will."

The words seemed to catch Neeka entirely off guard. Her eyes filled with an intensity of compassion. "Alright, Ren, I'll try to stay alive."

"So will I," Ren said with a smile. Just then Ren's mind stretched out as if of its own accord, picking up very suddenly on an intruder's presence. He turned in the direction of a large hill of stone and moss.

Ren's mother whipped into place at his side, moving at the speed he knew only she to be capable of. His father appeared half a second later. Ren could vaguely sense their thoughts enough to know that they were not aware of the danger he felt, but only of the abrupt shift in his consciousness. They had both been incredibly focused on him, it seemed.

"He's going to come around that hill in a moment," said Ren.

"Who is?" said Donthar.

"The Sith scout who's about to find us." Ren heard his own voice become sarcastically amused.

"Dammit, I can confirm that," said Dalvin, "but how the hell did your senses pick them up before my sensors?"

"We should kill him," said Ren's mother.

"I'll kill him in just a few seconds," said Ren, "but it isn't going to make much of a difference. His superiors are tracking his position and they'll be able to pick up on whatever happens to him instantly."

"I can confirm that as well," said Dalvin. "And you are correct that killing him won't save us."

Just then a figure in black armor atop a shining black speeder bike whisking through the air at a remarkable speed came around the side of the hill, just as Ren's vision had predicted. The soldier seemed to instantly lock on to Ren and his companions' position and headed straight for them. His vehicle emitted a terrible scream as he hurled over the uneven rock and moss. He aimed a rifle at Ren. Ren heard two light sabers instantly erupt from their hilts. He had no need of his parents' protection though. With a simple gesture he stopped the bike dead in the air, denting its frame with the application of his power. With a scream, the rider went flying over his own handlebars, dropping his gun instantly, his own momentum carrying him spinning end over end through the air. His neck would have snapped when he hit the ground, but Ren was not ready to let the man just die. He guided the man's momentum to the point on the ground directly in front of him, dropping him on his knees. The soldier's body armor did a fine job of protecting his legs from being snapped, but the impact was still extremely painful and he let out a second scream.

"What are you doing?" said Donthar.

"I need some information," said Ren. He flicked his wrist, letting his will take full hold of the Force. The man's black helmet was ripped off in an instant, revealing a pale face that gazed up with blue, terrified eyes.

"He'll talk," said Ren's mother.

"I don't need him to," said Ren. He reached out and put his hand on the soldier's forehead. Ren had never shown the extent of his mental powers to his mother and he sensed that they, like many of his other abilities, had been enhanced by his exposure to Kalethian. As he began to bore into the soldier's mind he found that it was absurdly easy to tear through stray thoughts and memories. He could find the very recent past when the directive had changed from Magretta Blakthar to Ren Blakthar. With this knowledge fixed firmly as Ren's goal, relevant memories seemed to almost want to make themselves known to him. One in particular pressed itself into his vision.

Ren, who became this soldier named Nirek Veskin in a vibrant flash of memory, was standing in the throne chamber of the Sith ship. One of the gray skinned aliens was being led in slowly by a group of armed guards. It was Satral, Ren realized, and for a brief instant he tried to call out to the elder Krell, but he could say nothing for the moment was locked in time. Instead, he only listened.

"You are looking for the wrong Blakthar," Satral said with a mischievous smile. "If you want even the slightest shred of my master's power, you must kill the boy who has already begun to unlock it."

Ren's eyes shifted to the one Satral had been speaking to, and he saw Darth Sarak rise from a great, metal throne. He was at least as tall as Cathock, with shoulders and muscles just as thick, but he wore strange black armor that seemed to let the Force flow freely. Ren could feel the almost sickening magnitude of darkside energy flowing through and around him. Ren fully understood all the warnings he had been given about this Sith lord. Darth Sarak was a monstrous being of power, cruelty, and murder.

"Tell me more, little gray skin," said Sarak, his voice low - almost guttural -

like a great predatory cat's growl.

Satral's smile broadened. "I will tell you everything, my lord."

The vision ended and Ren drew his hand back. "Interesting," he said, letting irritation ring in his voice. He turned to his mother and said: "I don't think this soldier is of any further use."

In perhaps a tenth of a second his mother had switched her light saber on and taken the soldier's head off in a blur of crimson.

"Magretta!" Donthar shouted, "he was a disarmed prisoner!"

"Your point?" she said, turning to him.

"That was murder," Donthar said, his voice full of attack.

"I suppose it was," said Ren's mother. She turned to Ren as if the conversation were over. "Do you sense any others coming towards us?"

"No, not yet. He was one of a few scouts sent out. They know we're here, but it will probably take at around an hour to fully mobilize their force, give or take twenty minutes."

"What did you find out from him?"

"That Kalethian is manipulating things even now. He wants this fight. I can't say why for certain, but it's probably to test me."

"Did you see Kalethian?" Dalvin's voice asked.

"I saw his puppet go and talk to Sakar about me."

Ren's mother hissed. "We shouldn't play his game. We should leave this place, unless-" her head jerked up toward the sky.

"What?" said Donthar.

Ren completed his mother's thought, for it had occurred to him as well. "Leave in the portal he created? Do you think we can?" As if to answer himself, Ren posed the question to the Force and almost immediately an overwhelming sense of death and doom resounded back in accordance with any attempt to enter the portal, not only for himself, but all of his companions. "If we try, our vessels will be destroyed."

Ren's mother turned to him. "You know what this means, don't you?"

"Yes," said Ren. He gazed around, looking at Neeka but not into her eyes. He felt sick. Loosely, he had been holding on to the possibility that the ancient Sith lord was somehow his ally - that Kalethian had somehow reformed in his thousand years of meditation. Ren had wanted to believe that he was chosen for some great purpose because of his gifts, and because he could reach deep within the dark side without ever being encased in it. But that was not so.

"Troops are mobilizing," Dalvin's voice said through wrist computers. "I estimate we have twenty-three minutes before they can attack us in full force - thirteen minutes if they don't want to wait for all of their scouting parties."

Neeka's breath quickened. "Ren," she whispered. There was nothing else in the sentence, but the affection and fear in her voice communicated much and her eyes much more. She loved him, and they were about to fight a superior force that had a very decent chance of killing at least one, if not both of them. Her fear ripped through him.

"It's alright," said Ren, "I don't think he created me from across the universe and brought me here just to watch me die at the hands of another Sith lord."

Frowning, Donthar said: "What do you mean created you?"

"You mean you haven't figured it out yet?" said Magretta.

"No, but..." his eyes shifted back and fourth between the two of them and he said: "I think I can guess what the two of you have concluded." He gazed reticently into Ren's eyes for a moment, and then said: "To think that my only great sin came from the machinations of an ancient Sith lord on the other side of the universe."

"Does that change how you feel about me?" Ren said. "How you look at all of this?"

Donthar hesitated for a brief instant, then smiled and reached out and squeezed Ren's shoulder. "I don't care how you came to be; you're my son. I'm so happy you exist."

Ren had never heard such kind words from his mother and they made his heart swell with joy and ache for the life he might have had if this were the one who had raised him. But there wasn't time to say or even think about such things. All he had time for was: "It will be an honor to fight with you, father." He turned to his mother and said: "And with you."

He expected a terse response from his cold and lethal mother, but she only said in a soft voice: "And with you, my son."

Cathock's low voice tore through the peaceful silence then on all of their wrist computers at once: "I just heard from Dalvin. My men are moving into position. Neeka, I need you in the ship. I don't really know where the other three of you should be."

Ren's mother looked at his father with the smallest trace of a smile. "Shall we protect our child?" she said.

"I would enjoy fighting beside you just this once," said Donthar with a smirk.

They walked off together, side by side, toward the formation of soldiers between the ships.

Neeka grabbed Ren's face very suddenly and yanked it to hers and kissed him so passionately that it was almost uncomfortable. "You stay alive, or I don't know if I'll keep my word."

"I always stay alive," said Ren, feeling himself smile.

This seemed to relax her a little. She leaned in and kissed him one more time and whispered in his ear: "I love you," and then she turned and scampered away.

Ren blinked at the words, unable to believe that she had said them. A few strange seconds passed before Dalvin's voice crackled through his wrist computer, saying: "Your armor is ready, by the way."

"Thank you," said Ren. He began walking toward Dalvin's strange ship, his heart weighing heavily within him. He had not been raised to love. He had been raised to kill, and in this he had always been terribly gifted. His mind was on that now. He could already feel his enemies moving toward him. They would find him waiting, and ready.