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All about them the newly dead arose, their crippled bodes, wounds still fresh and oozing, shambling towards their oppressors, foes, and stranger alike with undead ferocity. Those whose bodies had long since been devoured by the incinerators, their ashes little more than space dust spreading across the cosmos, swirled. Their invisible hands grasping at the edges of reality, their assign subtle chills as unseen winds passed by. In this paling of the boundary between life and death, they could reach across the veil, unseen claws rendering exposed flesh as they whispered of the imminent demise of all aboard. For they that were not bound by the mortal world could see what those bound to life could not. They had seen it and whispered amongst themselves, delighted that oppressor, stranger, friend and foe would be joining with them soon enough. It was inevitable as the station continued to accelerate towards the world below, it’s axis becoming the epicenter as the gravitational dampeners strained and began to fail against the centrifugal force. Throughout the station a new series of klaxons began to wail. It meant little as the mechanized voice warned of imminent impact, urging those aboard to brace themselves. Had it been a rogue ship, perhaps; but what the sensors that now triggered the automated sensors now sensed was Nephis VIII itself. All that mechanized warning did was increase the fear that already flowed like a river through the station. Not that it mattered to the droids. They had their orders: no one escaped. Within the control room, panic had set in. The looming doom was taking ahold, empowered by the flow of darkness that now ravaged the station by both design and intrusion. Finally, the first man broke. The thought of his family, a half a galaxy away, his children, going on without a father; it was too much for him. Shoving himself back from his console, the jailer shouted. He could not take it. Running to the doorway he began to shout in panic and fear, a righteous anger boiling over as he bashed ineffectively at the door’s control console. That was all It took. Beneath the professional exterior, the tension broke. The command room broke into chaos as crewmen began to scramble inputting codes in desperation, trying to stop the inevitable, trying to escape. It would be of little use; the station’s designers had taken such a catastrophe into consideration. Their actions meant nothing, or they would not have, had the station not been hacked by an unknown entity at the same time. It should not have happened; but the state-of-the-art programming that had been put into place upon the station’s construction had slowly not been kept up to the highest levels as designed. In a state of chaos, it had been just one other thing that slipped through the cracks. Because of all this, one inadvertent code frantically keyed in on the bridge at just the right moment, at just the right place, on just the right console, had its intended effect, only . . . more so. Every door on the station hissed open. Locked latrine doors where political prisoners had taken refuge; cell doors; access shafts; the doors to the command center; all of them, the entire station was open to to everyone, everywhere. The maze becoming infinitely more complex. That was not what made it even more dangerous though, in addition, the bastardization of the codes opened garbage chutes, access ports, docking bays, doorways to the vacuum of space. In a moment, entire corridors and rooms became vacuum tubes as their contents were sucked into the void of space. The cafeteria instantly was torn asunder via a simple garbage disposal. Doors ripped from hinges, tables and chairs putting dents in the walls as they were vacuumed into a tornadic maelstrom of nothingness. Other areas of the station took similar damage as the temperatures across the station began to plummet even where the vacuum had yet to reach. Back in the courtyard, Inmortos felt the increase of death around the station. The voices of the undead howled in rage and glee at their predicament. His magics had taken on a life of their own. More accurately, regained the lives that had been taken from them. He needed to do little else to maintain it; life, the twisted dark side of the force, together would maintain what he had unnaturally sparked back into creation. He heard the voices as they cackled. He heard their whispers above the cacophony. Their doom was imminent. His, Inmortos, doom was imminent. ”NO!” He snarled. It would not end this way. His eyes flashed with ice as his vision took in Apothos. He would not be destroyed again because of his wayward former apprentice. Akheron, Solus, this unknown Sith imprisoned for crimes that had not even been a blip on the radar of the Sith Empire, none of them were worthy of his death; and as they stood here discussing their philosophies ignorant it seemed of their looming destruction, Inmortos made his choice. Even Mavanger urged that they flee. Stepping forward, the death lord approached the throne of Apothos, lightsaber hilt held before him. “Morlissssssss,” he hissed with a snarl, “do not lose this or,” he nodded at Solus’ mechanized corpse, “my future tool. I will return to you for this when you are free of this prison and I of mine.” The specter of a Sith stepped back, leaving a path towards the door clear, cleansed by the shambling hungry undead that innately bent to his will. The winds of the spirits seemed to blow towards the doorway; or it might have been the touch of the void reaching this far into the station, clawing for one and all. Inmortos hands were already moving, his arthritic hands pained as they danced intricately in the air. “Flee you fools,” he snapped as the force pulled stoppered vials from his robes, elixirs made from a dying world, souls snared at the point of damnation. Ancient words of power, the spells of long lost cultures, death cults, and god-kings that pre-dated the Sith and their dark Jedi ancestors by millenia poured from the Krath Lord’s dehydrated cracked lips. His teeth mashed his tongue as blood and ichor dribbled from his mouth down his robes. Frigid purple-black smoke billowed out of the necromancer’s robes seemingly unaffected by the devolving world around him. Each hard syllable cracked like soft thunder as the magics of long forgotten sinners called forth their ancient spirits from deep within the void, forgotten shadows of eternity. The sacrifices of the world below served as a conduit for the atrocities, the sacrifices, aboard the station all around him. Inmortos had accepted his circumstances, but not his lot in it. The presence of the spirits all around him spoke of yet another means to unnaturally extend his life. He would not be exiting this station, not lime the others. Once again, his body would die here. If all went accordingly, his spirit would be free of this mortal coil; free to possess the bodies of the weak willed and willing as his needs saw fit. The zombies all about him sensed the necromancic energies that radiated from the death lord. They were drawn to it, empowered by it. They salivated as they clawed and gnawed at anyone who dared approach the font of power they desired, that whispered to them the sweet lies thst they might be able to regain their own lives if they consumed enough life energy from others.

Keenava finished tearing the flesh from her meaty entrée with her teeth and took a moment to wipe at her mouth with the closest napkin-like utensil she could find. She patiently listened to Sandy's words and bowed her head gently at appropriate moments. She even preened a little when the young woman told her how proud she was. It was odd; she felt feather-light tingles brush at the tips of her fingers, and her lekku twitched ever so slightly at Sandy's words even when they both knew very little of each other. But compliments were not things the Twi'lek got very often, so anything positive was either regarded with suspicion or admiration. It all depended on intention. And Sandy was not expressing any level of condescension. Her praise was genuine. Her request, however, was far from simple. It wasn’t like Keenava had anything to hide, but maybe she didn’t need to go into every knitty gritty detail. "Well, to know about my past, you may need to understand a few things that you may find difficult, or you may not fully relate to due to your time with the Jedi. For instance, No one is born a Sith. No one comes into the world wanting to cause harm. Well… The vast majority don’t. I can’t account for every baby in the galaxy and all potential conditions.” Keenava took a small meditative breath and clasped her fingers together upon the cold steel of the table. “Regardless… the vast majority of Sith only become Sith due to pain, trauma, loss, or some disconnection from the rest of the galaxy. In their desperate cry, they search for strength and that strength isn’t usually offered by the Jedi. At least, it hasn’t been.” “My story started years ago when I was sold into slavery to settle a debt. I was the first to be sold, followed by my sister, and my mother. But I fought to be first in the hopes that I might protect them from the same fate.” Keenava felt a burning line build on the rim of her eyes as her story continued, telling her of tears that were fighting to the surface. She stifled the impulse. “It was years before I saw them again. And when I did, I was forced to witness my mother’s death while others looked on and laughed. Thankfully, my sister never had to see that. But that moment broke me. I lost all touch with who I was, what I was, and where I was… And it wasn’t until the darkness found me that I had any purpose. The darkness offered hope. Hundreds of thousands of slaves went years without ever having hope. The Jedi didn’t see or know where they were, whether that was due to other issues or just not being able to save all the souls in the galaxy, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t the Jedi’s fault, but their inaction led to possibility. And for people like me, I was easy to take advantage of.” “Masters came and went: Jzora Scorpio, Julio Furion, and Exodus. Each discarded me when they grew tired of me. But through all that, I learned who I was. I mastered the common, Twi'leki, and Huttese languages. I learned many subjects and taught myself a great many things. But it was all hollow. I engaged in the petty Sith squabbles and did many stupid things. I even got into a fight with a woman named Ailbasi Zirtani. That was the last stupid fight I got into before I died; truly died. We all know how prolific cloning is in the Galaxy even if the expense isn’t always worth it. But for the first time in a long time, I didn’t know a single soul that had my DNA. I went a long time floating in nothing. But something felt odd, right before I came back… like a bright burning blue flame casting away the shadow that had embraced me for so long. And when I woke up a few days ago, I felt like a big arm had just wiped the slate clean. I felt like I was given a chance to start over. And this time, I was going to do what I could to make a better choice.” Keenava sighed. “Apparently some slaver had won my DNA over a game of Sabaak from one of my dad’s old contacts. I was touted as a rare specimen with a valuable skin defect. Black skinned Twi’leks due tend to have a bigger price. They kept me on drugs for several days and it wasn’t until I woke up in a dancer’s dress that I had any idea where I was.” “Reflecting on my experience now, I wouldn’t say that the Dark is an addiction. I’d say it’s a curse. The great irony of it is that, as a people, we fought to free ourselves from the shackles of duty, obligation, honor, integrity, slavery, morality, etc. But in the end, we traded our shackles for another set. The dark side cripples you. While it grants you power, it clips your wings and creates the illusion of safety. It creates that appeal that you call an addiction, but its so much worse. Empty promises, betrayals, power struggles, egos the size of oceans; that and more were the day to day with my contemporary Sith. Even if I never become a Jedi master, I never want to go back.” Keenava’s face was liberally speckled with tears that left slightly darker lines upon her obsidian skin. Her expression was solemn, and her body language was numb. It wasn’t everything, but this would at least give them both some context.