It took very little time for Kalethian to come upon Sakar's flag ship. His pawns were working very hard fighting one another, and Kalethian's perceptions absorbed every facet of the battle. The surprise attack had failed. Sakar had anticipated correctly what Ren's companions would do and had taken precautions. The cybernetic man was orchestrating a battle involving the mandalorian army and the small vessels at his disposal. Neither side had the upper hand, though Dalvin and Cathock were holding back from a full assault on the Sith vessel since they did not know where their precious Neeka was within. Kalethian could feel her though.

"Hmmm, I'm going to hypothesize based on the fact that you're flying right now that you aren't Ren anymore," the cybernetic man's voice said through Ren's wrist computer.

Kalethian smiled. "That is correct." Out of all the beings he had pulled into his web of pawns, this Dalvin was the one potentially the most useful, and perhaps most amusing to keep alive.

"Well, ancient one, did Ren surrender his body for nothing or are you going to help us get our Neeka back?"

Across the battlefield, Kalethian sensed the cybernetic man enter in the first half of the command to detonate the explosive in Ren Blakthar's wrist computer. "You cannot kill me with your weapons, clever as they are, and if you try anything I will kill you."

"Exactly what I would expect to hear from a newly resurrected Sith lord who can't figure out how to get an explosive off his arm before it detonates."

"Hah!" Kalethian chuckled. "I'm only warning you because in a moment you will have your precious Neeka back, and then you may decide it best to try to end my existence. It would be a horrible mistake for you and everyone else on this planet."

"Mentally filed," said Dalvin. "Now, about getting my precious Neeka back."

"Yes," said Kalethian. "Draw all your men away if you care to save them. This will only take a few seconds."

"Understood."

Almost instantly, the two ships ceased attacking the great Sith vessel, and very shortly after that the ground troops began to withdraw. Kalethian did not wait to see whether they were all safe before he willed himself up in front of Sakar's ship perhaps twenty meters in front of the hull. Suspending himself thusly, he reached out to the minds of every officer aboard the ship and whispered: "This is Darth Kalethian. I have killed your master and now I am going to kill all of you. I have no interest in your surrender, but if you would not die like cowards then fight me now for your lives."

He waited the few seconds necessary for the shock to set in over the men. It did not take long for they were in the midst of battle and their minds were already set to fighting. Then he felt the guns begin to lock onto him and he smiled. In his new young body, he felt passion he had not known since his own youth thousands of years ago. His heart burned wildly for the simple, visceral thrill of fighting and killing, and he saw no reason not to slake his urges.

Eight plasma canons - each capable of liquefying dura-steel armor - fired at Kalethian at once. He made no move to dodge, but held up his hand and willed a curve in the quantum field around his form. The blasts moved at light speed toward him. For a flash of an instant he saw a brilliant ball of red light envelop him as an enormous stream of deadly particles flowed harmlessly around him and sprayed out in many different directions at once. It was over in the blink of an eye, and as several strips of the planet he had stolen burned down beneath him from the stray particles, Kalethian hovered calmly in the air, gazing at all of his victims.

His hand still raised, he made a small gesture. A fissure in the thick plating of the Sith ship's hull appeared, tiny at first, but with a terrible screeching sound it quickly began to grow. In the span of a few seconds, Kalethian tore the ship in half down the middle from front to back. Chunks of engine parts, thick, sparking, hissing wires, and other elements of the vessel's connective tissue stretched and broke as the two halves separated. Men began to fall out, but Kalethian gripped them all with the force and suspended them. Those who did not immediately slide out of the ship he yanked out with his will, gathering them all into a terrified, suspended cluster in the air. He also willed the young mutant girl, who was incased in a gas chamber that kept her sedated, out of the ship's left half and brought her to a gentle hover at his side. This done, he turned his attention on the men, some of whom were attempting uselessly to move their hands to weapons on their persons while others were trying to voice pleas for their lives. None of them could move of course. Not one had the strength to resist Kalethian's power.

He let the two halves of the ship fall and crash into the planet's surface below. Then he reached out and took hold of the some fifty Sith troops' throats with the Force and began to choke. He sensed them writhe and scream internally, and he felt an intoxicating thrill in putting them all to death without the slightest shred of mercy or hesitation. He could have killed them all instantly, but there was more pleasure in drawing out the moment and feeling their fear - their horror.

Once dead, he let them men drop through the air and he turned his attention to the unconscious girl. Somewhere deep within his psyche, the tiny fraction of his consciousness that still held traces of Ren Blakthar was focused on this girl's safety. Affection was not an emotion Kalethian had ever felt to any degree of purity. Always the dark side had touched his feelings, even from birth he imagined. Always he felt compelled to either dominate or destroy.

He floated over to where Ren Blakthar's allies were gathered on a hill below. They - probably Dalvin in particular - had the sense to understand that there was no running from him. Instead they had silently watched the fight. Kalethian floated down with Neeka to the mossy surface of his own planet. There, in the sunlight of the star he had stolen from the Daithross system millennia before, Kalethian gazed into the eyes of several of his most crucial puzzle pieces he had slowly shaped and assembled through time.

"Hello," he said. He felt a relaxed sense of satiation after killing Sakar and his troops. He could feel the mass fear around him, particularly from the supposed warrior race of mandalorians.

He turned to the chamber holding Neeka, and with a thought he shattered the dura-glass enclosure and willed the tubes that were continuously feeding sedatives into her veins to disconnect. It took only a few seconds after that for her incredible regenerative powers to metabolize and dissipate the foreign chemicals and restore her mind and body to working order. She opened her eyes and gazed up at him, a deeply affectionate smile on her face.

"Ren," she whispered. She moved to her feet and started toward him, arms moving out for a deep embrace, but then she froze in mid step. "No," she said, her eyes going wide. Her smooth features contorted into an expression of sheer horror as she looked at him. "No!" she screamed. Her lips curled up, revealing the lovely thin white fangs within and she let out a furious growl and snarled in a guttural voice: "Give him back!" She had no weapons at her disposal, but Kalethian sensed the muscles in her compact, elegantly designed body coil and the claws on both hands extend.

"There is nothing for it, child," Magretta Blakthar said. Many heads turned to see her. She had very suddenly approached with the perfect stealth of a Sith assassin. Kalethian alone had felt her watching from the side. She was perhaps his favorite puzzle piece. Though not quite as powerful as Sakar, she was a far more refined embodiment of Sith philosophy - more intelligent and graceful than the vulgar brute could ever be.

Magretta moved to the young mutant girl and said: "No power that we could ever acquire could restore my son to this body."

"No!" Neeka hissed. She glared at Kalethian, beginning to tremble with rage. "He did it for Me, didn't he! That was your Plan!" As she screamed the words, Dalvin and Cathock dashed up to her, each putting a hand on one of her shoulders.

"Neeka, he gave his life for you," said Cathock. "You must honor that."

"My thoughts exactly," said Magretta in a cold voice. "My son sacrificed himself for you. You will not dishonor his will by destroying yourself now, you foolish girl. I will hack your arms and legs off if you try." In a fraction of a second one of the witch's lightsabers was out and extended in front of Neeka's face. "I assume your limbs can be reattached, but I do not truly care."

Tears began to pour out of Neeka's eyes. "I won't let him go!"

"You will," said Magretta. "That is what Ren wanted. That is why my son is no more."

Neeka took several slow breaths, seeming to go over everything that was happening. Then she straightened and all the fight seemed to leave her. She collapsed into her brother's arms and began to sob.

Magretta turned to Kalethian then and said: "What now, great Sith lord?" Her tone had a wonderful mixture of hatred and respect, which was perhaps the finest compliment one Sith might pay to another.

"What now," Kalethian repeated slowly, not as a question. The answer was beyond anything she might have guessed. As he looked upon the woman who had given birth to his new body, he reached down into the depths of his stolen planet. The krell - millions of them - were clamoring about. Some of the more adept members had an inkling that their master had returned. Most though had no idea what was happening. Kalethian latched on to fifty or so with his consciousness and killed them. As this happened, the memories of his dying creations flooded his mind. Some had lived generous, kind lives, while others had been greedy, or vicious, or lazy, or overcome with lust. Every moment of happiness or bitterness or calm or stress entered his mind like memories recalled from a dream. All krell were extensions of him, and all ultimately were him. Their bodies and minds were nothing more or less than conscious Force energy, growing and gestating for thousands of years. As the fifty died, the power that animated their forms rushed back to its source, and Kalethian let out a great sigh of delight as he felt the boy's cells infuse with new power, and new midi-chlorians were transmuted into his blood.

He let a small laugh escape as new power pulsed through his flesh. What had long ago been only a handful of crude creations had proliferated into millions, each a living, breathing, sentient receptacle of power. As he had planned two millennia ago, Kalethian would now sacrifice them at will. There were perhaps limits to what the boy's mortal flesh could contain, which Kalethian could discover through experimentation, but that mattered little. The power of the krell had virtually limitless uses.

"Interesting," he heard Dalvin mutter.

Kalethian smiled at the cybernetic man. There existed few in the universe who could understand on any level what he had become, and was still becoming.

"You will make yourself a god," Magretta whispered.

The term seemed utterly apt, given the level of energy now at Kalethian's disposal.

"Yes, a god," a cold voice said from behind. Kalethian cocked his head and saw the reptilian woman, Malanctha Despoth, standing a few meters away. With his mind distracted with the absorption of the massive quantity of Force energy, he had failed to notice her subtle presence. Vaguely he found this irritating. Evidently he had sacrificed some degree of his omniscience by once again anchoring his consciousness to a mortal body. "Great Sith lord," she said, her elegant reptilian features softening as she spoke, "I have wondered about this since I learned of the possibility of your reincarnation, so to speak. You abandoned despotic control over the whole of the ancient Sith empire, did you not? May I ask... was it out of apathy?"

It amused Kalethian that this slender creature had the audacity to speak to him with such little trace of fear. "It was," he said, knowing where her logic was leading.

"With your power all the resistance our entire galaxy could offer you will be as nothing. What shall you do with a life so devoid of challenge? Why would you even bother to conquer a galaxy so easily dominated? Where will the thrill be? What will be the purpose?"

"The purpose?" he said, staring into her brilliant eyes. "Can you even begin conceptualize the universe as I see it? I am an immortal, omniscient being who has observed your galaxy for thousands of years. Do you actually believe yourself capable of understanding me, let alone capable of dislodging me with words? Tell me you are more clever than that lest I shall spray your brains all over the ground with a thought."

To his amusement, the lizard gave the faintest trace of a smile. "You have not killed me, nor any of the others, great Sith lord. You even saved the life of my dear friend Neeka. I am only but a humble mortal before you, but I would seek to understand."

"You do not believe I do this all to honor the boy whose life I stole?"

"No, you're not doing this to honor Ren," Neeka said, her voice vibrating with a beastly growl. Kalethian gazed at her, sensing that she saw into him more deeply than any of the others could. Her remarkable biological senses could detect every electrical and chemical signal in his brain, every twitch of every muscle, and these and other things drew pictures for her the way the Force drew pictures for him. As her fierce golden eyes stared into his own, Kalethian knew that Neeka understood. "We are his toys," she hissed. "Whatever he has planned for us doesn't come from any place of nobility in his heart." Still held in check by her two brother figures and a Sith assassin, she bore her beautiful white fangs at him.

"Truly, you area special creature," said Kalethian. He raised his hand and clenched his thumb and forefinger, and the Force took hold of Neeka's neck and lifted her off the ground.

"What is this?!" Magretta hissed, and her lightsaber moved instantly to Kalethian's face, the triangular tip of the blade coming to a sharp, controlled stop just before his left eye. Behind her, Kalethian sensed the thick muscles in Cathock's body coil for attack while beside the mutant Dalvin glared at Kalethian and his numerous mechanisms within his cybernetic arm began to hum and shift. Kalethian sensed a hidden weapon within the Cybernetic man's body more powerful than anything yet revealed. Kalethian froze Cathock, Malanctha, and even Magretta with a simple telepathic command. Utterly unable to resist his mind, their limbs slackened and they stood obediently as he willed them. Still holding Neeka suspended in the air, he turned to Dalvin. "You're one of the only beings in the entire universe whose mind I cannot take hold of."

"Neat," said Dalvin, glaring with hatred. "I wonder if you're wondering if you have the power then to stop all the electronic communications my cybernetic brain can send out to - say an anti-matter explosive, or series of explosives, within my arm, or within perhaps a device on the wrist of a certain newly reborn Sith god."

"Kill him!" Neeka hissed through her tightly constricted throat.

"Strongly considering it," said Dalvin. He raised his cybernetic arm and the hand flipped up on a delicate hinge, revealing a glowing white focusing lens to what Kalethian instantly understood to be a beam weapon unlike anything he had ever encountered before.

"I think not," said Kalethian, and with a thought he negated surge in radiation and electromagnetic energy within Dalvin's limb. The humming sound stopped and the arm swung down, utterly dead and limp. He looked into the cyborg's eyes. "I could shut down the cybernetic sections brain as well, but that would be a disgusting waste. You're not the one I wish to kill just now."

"Why kill Neeka?" Dalvin snapped. "How could that possibly serve your ends?"

Kalethian made a slight gesture with his left hand and willed Neeka to slam down onto the ground. She had enough control over her body to catch herself and land in a kneeling position, but then Kalethian froze her form in perfect stillness. "I am going to cut her head off now, with all of you forced to watch. Can you guess why, computer man?"

The biological eye on Dalvin's face widened and the muscles around it tensed hard. "You want to make us hate you. You want to push us to the point where we will dedicate our lives to killing you."

Kalethian felt the left side of his mouth curl up in anticipation. "And why would I do that?"

"Most likely something to do with wanting opponents." Neeka said. "We're your puppets."

Kalethian let out a slow sigh of air. "It took nearly three thousand years for me to reach the state in which I now exist. My power is like nothing your or any other galaxy has yet seen. Still, I feel I can still become so much more, but to reach any greater spires of power I must face actual challenge." He gazed around at Malanctha, Cathock, and Magretta. "In a manner none of you can imagine, I chose each one of you long before you were born for your wonderfully formidable qualities. With the correct motivation and resources, you might actually generate a threat to me." He raised his hand and reached down into the heart of the planet he had long ago formed. Focusing his immense power, he summoned several tons of the great horde of treasure he had assembled up through the rocky core of the world, which cracked and split in a great quake to allow the moving mass to pass upward unscathed. Within a few seconds a great bubble of precious metals and jewels, coins, legendary weapons and armor of long forgotten ages, ancient books and holocrons and even parchment scrolls and other artifacts thought lost from every period in history lay in a great heaping pile.

"Enough lies before you to build and sustain an enormous and well equipped army," Kalethian said. He looked at Dalvin. "With it, you can develop and construct new kinds of weapons. This is my gift to you."

"We won't play your game," Dalvin snapped.

"You will," Kalethian said. "You always have and, as you are about to see, I know exactly how to motivate you."

"Please don't!" Dalvin hissed through gritted teeth.