“We can bring you in-“ she began to rattle off the classic bounty hunter line to me.

“Cold! If you’re not prepared to kill, then you’ll have completely wasted my time,” I yelled, cutting her off. With that, I began scaling the buildings by jumping back and forth between the alley walls.

I made it about halfway before a hail of blaster bolts rained down from her position. It wasn’t enough to hit me but slowed me down. I was forced to split my concentration between deflecting bolts and scaling the walls.

Below me, Bariss engaged the two foes at the rear of the alley, while the large creature, that was clearly a wookie, charged her with an electro staff.

I soon had the mystery attacker in my line of sight. The heavily armored and helmeted woman was set up in a sniping position at the top of the building to the left. Her blaster was set to full-automatic and sprayed bolts in a continuous stream until I was just a few jumps from her position.

She seemed to understand the futility of that strategy as I got closer and instead tossed a smoke bomb around her position. I sprinted right into the cloud, only to be greeted by a spout of flames to the face. My assailant had used the smokescreen to backtrack and set up her wrist flamethrower.

I moved with just enough time to redirect the flames using a force shield. The flames didn't roast my face, but the acrid smell of burnt hair let me know that some had managed to ruin my stylish cut.

She wasn’t finished with her tricks though. Just before I got within striking distance, electrical webbing shot out from the tank below the barrel of her blaster. This might have worked in her favor if I didn’t have a lightsaber. In a flash, the net was split into four pieces. It took even less time before her blaster fell apart from another few slashes.

She almost had time to pull out a vibro-knife but was soon screaming in pain. The hand that reached for the knife dropped from her side. A force-assisted punch to her helmet left the armor cracked, and she fell to the ground.

“Crink, that hurt,” she muttered through strained breaths.

“This shouldn’t,” I replied. One last slice took her out of the fight for good. Then, I set about scrounging her body for information. There wasn’t much, a couple of credit sticks, a few other gadgets, and a bounty puck. Then I turned my attention down to the alley where Bariss was fighting.

I wanted her on the team to, in gaming terms, fill out the supporting role. I knew beforehand that she was skilled in healing. Since she came aboard she revealed that she also learned to exorcise moderate amounts of dark side corruption; both were skills she gained from Stass Allie. I suspected that she had a better ability to pierce the veil than most Jedi. She was already able to use instinctive astrogation. That skill required some ability with future sight. More importantly, she was able to see the Clone Wars for the farce they were. Such a feat may have required a strong ability to see into the future. She was either able to push through the shroud set up by Sidious or use her critical thinking skills to piece it together on her own. Well, it could have been both.

Thus, it was a nice bonus that she could also make a suitable combatant for the team. In the alley below, Bariss was like a blur. She was exceptionally light on her new legs and blasted towards the two thugs at the back of the alley.

She used the retractable pike as her weapon. From what I understood, she formally trained to use the traditional lightsaber, though she had skill in dual-wielding. That said, it didn’t look like she minded the heavier weight of the pike. Her swings sliced through the air with practiced fluidity, cutting apart the blasters of the two men. Just as the Wookie reached her, she blasted everyone back with dual force pushes.

The two humans were sent flying out into the street and didn’t get back up. The Wookie was knocked down, but the famously hardy species was back up in no time.

Though the creature’s strength was legendary, it was no match for Bariss’s speed. The two charged each other and with a single well-timed strike, she cut down the Wookie and came to a sliding halt well past his body.

With the fighting done and nothing else left to do, I dropped down beside her.

“Check this out,” I said and tossed her the bounty puck.

She activated it, and my holographic image appeared. Underneath it was the title, Unknown Jedi Conspirator and a corresponding bounty of ninety thousand credits.

“Nothing with my image?” she asked.

“Not on her. I assume she didn’t know you would be traveling with us,” I replied.

“I’m probably a special case anyway. I can only imagine Sidious’s reaction when Vader tattled to him about my existence,” I continued.

“Is it possible they made the connection to your chain code?” she asked as we left the scene.

“Not likely, we were much more careful during that outing, and I force tricked the clerks who did the paperwork,” I explained. “Today though, we spent a significant amount of time in the open.”

“I believe it is time to leave then,” she replied.

I nodded in agreement.

We landed the Fury inside the massive structure that could one day become the hangar for the Rebel base on Yavin IV. The temple was an ancient and large stone pyramid. It was predated the Great Galactic War by over a thousand years.

It originally served as a sort of living tomb for Naga Sadow who, after losing the Great Hyperspace War faced exile. He and his enslaved Massassi warriors built the giant temple and Sadow hibernated below until a worthy apprentice unearthed him. It didn't work out. The man who woke Sadow up just murdered him instead of taking him as a master. It was later coopted by another famous Sith Lord, Exar Kun. He would use it as his power base while he waged his own war against the Jedi. I’m sure others used the place since, but Aphra only needed it to find the Ordu Aspectu.

Alha and Alhoy would accompany our archaeologist family on Aphra’s quest to find the beacon, but as their group ascended into the rest of the temple, but I held Bariss back from following them.

“Aren’t we going with them?” she asked.

“No, I doubt there’s anything that will explode, so the siblings should be fine. More importantly, I vaguely remember reading about a great Massassi warrior that slept underneath the temple,” I explained. As we talked, I ran my hands along the wall of the Hangar. Supposedly there would be a hidden door that led into the catacombs.

“And you want me to accompany you in order to wake him up?” she asked.

“Obviously,” I replied.

“Can you just explain why?”

Before I answered her, my hand touched the false wall. With a slight use of the force to power the mechanism, the door slid open. The stones ground against themselves and then came to stop with a satisfying clunk revealing a passage to the basement. I lit up my lightsaber and stepped down into the dark. Bariss was quick to follow with her borrowed blue pike lighting held in front of her.

On the way down, I explained the history of the temple. I also educated her on how great the Massassi were. Originally they were the warrior caste of the first Sith Empire. Generations of selective breeding and Sith alchemy eventually turned them into a distinct offshoot of the species. They grew larger and taller than the stock I was from. They were made less intelligent, but also became incredibly loyal to their masters. Their loyalty was unique among the Sith species and made them very useful subjects. Physically, they still retained many of the Sith features like face tentacles, bone spurs, and red skin but were far more beastly.

“So, this temple was constructed by the Massassi?” Bariss clarified once I finished. We were deep under the temple now. I had no map but allowed the force to guide me along to the eventual destination.

“Yes, Naga Sadow ordered them create it,” I replied.

“Sadow and the Massassi were Sith correct?” she asked.

“Again, yes. But, not all Massassi are trained in Sith arts. Most were just soldiers,” I explained.

“If the Ordu was a Jedi order, what were they doing here?” she pressed.

“The place acts as a beacon that connects to their citadel. I already explained this,” I replied.

“Yes, but why did they choose this Sith temple?” she asked.

“Oh, I don’t know, why does anyone make this crinking moon a part of their plans,” I replied with exasperation. Yavin was up there with Tatooine in how often weird stuff happened there for no reason. You would think this forested moon was the center of the universe.

“It just feels suspicious. This place is filled with dark energy. If they were as righteous as Aphra claims, why were they so interested in this dark temple?” she explained. Bariss certainly had a brain. The Ordu's ultimate goal was remarkably Sith-like.

“Don’t think about it too hard. Sadow was dead and the Massassi were long extinct by the time the Ordu came,” I offered.

We reached the end of a hallway, and I could feel that we were at our destination.

“This is it,” I said. I again pressed the force into the wall, and its mechanisms opened before us.

“The ancient Massassi warrior is in there?” she asked once we we entered the large room. She was pointing at a large cylinder in the center. It was made of transparisteel, or some other type of glass, and filled with liquid. It was far too cloudy to make out any shapes from within the chamber though.

“Yeah. I read that Exar Kun’s greatest warrior was placed in the isolation chamber so that he could be awakened to guard the temple,” I replied.

“Won’t he just attack us as trespassers then?” she asked.

I thought for a moment. Then said, “I assumed he would just recognize me as his superior. But if he attacks I should be more than enough to subdue him."

“That’s not- Oh whatever, let’s do this,” she replied.

At the base of the chamber, there were a series of computers, somehow still in working order. As when I pressed a few buttons they came to life. Very few in this day and age would have been able to read the controls on the machine since it was written in the Sith language. Most didn’t grow up thousands of years ago inside the Sith empire though.

With surprising ease, I found the awakening procedure and booted it up.

Tubes began to drain the liquid away, but soon I realized something was wrong. Bariss ever the empath began to suspect something as well.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Well, I’m not sure what that is. It doesn’t look like any of the Massassi I knew,” I explained. The creature inside the chamber looked more like a green reptile than a Massassi. The beast was massive and far larger than what I expected. It was less like a humanoid and more like a quadruped.

Then its eyes opened. Though they were yellow, they were also slits in a reptilian fashion. Worse, once it looked around the room and focused its attention on Baris, feral rage filled the room. It came with such an intensity that we both got into our stances.

With a glass cracking roar, the creature shoved a claw through the cylinder. It had an incredibly strong grip. That strength was used to crush and pull the glass apart until it shattered into an opening.

The beast was impossibly fast. It even rivaled my own speed as it jumped out of the chamber towards us.

I moved to intercept with a horizontal slash. The creature, no matter how strong, was still unarmed in the face of a lightsaber. Or so I thought.

The lizard blocked my blade with the back of its clawed hand, leaving both Bariss and I stunned. I drug the sword up its arm and was relieved to see it burn into the creature’s less protected flesh.

With a screech, it jumped back to circle around us. Not wanting to face another powerful charge I jumped in and began slashing away at the beast. It held up well against the onslaught with its resistant claws. I couldn't land any strikes, and it's strength was more than enough to stop my blade.

Bariss, meanwhile, circled around and stabbed into the beast from behind.

With a horrible screech, it stopped blocking my attacks and instead tackled me. The force of the movement got underneath my guard. So, instead of pushing against the attack, I rolled backwards with its movements and with a force-empowered kick, tossed the beast behind me. It struck one of the load-bearing columns in the room and continued on straight through it.

The collision caused that entire section of the temple to shake, bringing dust down around us.

Fear filled the room and replaced the feral rage coming from the beast. When it got back to its feet, it regarded us warily before leaving through the door we opened.

The abrupt end to the fight left me stunned, and I could only watch it go before my mind began working again.

“What the kriff was that?!” I yelled and looked around the room. Bariss seemed like she was about to answer me, so I added, “that was rhetorical.” There was supposed to be an eight foot tall red warrior in there, so why was did a twelve foot long green lizard emerge from stasis?

“Fine,” she replied. Then she dialed up Alhoy on her communicator.

“Be on the lookout for a dangerous…lizard creature,” she said into the device.

“Does that have anything to do with the quakes we’ve been feeling up here?” Alhoy asked.

“Yes. Be advised it has saber-resistant claws. Its hide is exceptionally tough. Our strikes caused shallow cuts at best. A stab was able to pierce the creature more deeply,” explained Bariss.

“Ok….where did this thing come from?” asked Alhoy.

“I’m sure your master will explain everything,” Bariss said. It sounded like she was smirking. I wasn’t sure because I made my way back to the console. There was a significant amount of information on the device, and I was hoping to figure out the situation with it.

Again, it didn’t take long to find what I was looking for. The computer console had a surprisingly large amount of information on the Massassi. Basically It was almost like their entire history on Yavin was collected here. Finally, I made it to the part about Exar Kun and this creature.

The answers left me seething and the console didn’t survive my small fit of rage.

“What? What’s wrong?” Bariss ran over to me. By that point the computer and isolation chamber had been reduced to rubble.

“That was the Massassi we were looking for,” I replied through gritted teeth.

“I thought you said-“

“I know what I said. That beast used to be a man named Kalgrath, but Exar Kun mutated him into that mindless animal,” I explained. I walked towards the exit and waved for her to follow me.

“You said Exar Kun controlled the Massassi here for a time, why would he mutate them?”

“Not sure. I guess we could go ask him,” I explained.

“Go ask him?”

“The idiot tied his consciousness to another temple on Yavin. The records on the console say he sacrificed most of the Massassi on the moon to become immortal.”

“He became an immortal temple?”

“Well, he might call it immortality, but it’s a lot more like purgatory. Especially since he’s been stuck on this deserted moon for thousands of years.”

“There’s an immortal Sith Lord here?” she said half hysterical at the news.

“If you consider that immortality, then there’s like thirty immortal Sith lords,” I replied nonchalantly as we climbed the stairs.

“T-thirty, where? We should destroy them!”

I froze for a moment. “You do understand that I acquired the rank of Sith Lord,” I replied.

“That’s different. What about Exar Kun, you said his spirit is here?”

I wheeled on the woman and stuck my face uncomfortably close to hers. “Exar Kun would eat your mind. He so enjoys turning good little Jedi into his pawns,” I replied. That man relished the chance to make someone a user of the dark side more than anyone else I’ve ever read about. Give him a few millennia of boredom, and he’d probably blow a wall in the effort to turn her.

Without waiting for her response, I turned around and continued climbing up the steps toward the Ordu Aspectu chambers.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Every famous Sith Lord gets a specialty they are known for. One of Kun’s was corrupting people. His saber was apparently so thick with the dark side that the Jedi had to lock it away from their members. It was too alluring and caused many to falter just in its presence,” I replied. “If you went into that temple, he’d fill your head and overwhelm your senses.”

“I’ve trained my mind defenses,” she retorted.

“It’s not up for discussion. If I ever go into that temple, I’ll be alone. If you ever go into that temple without my permission, I’ll leave you stranded here,” I replied definitively. I didn’t need some deranged cultist in my crew.

I did eventually plan to raid the place. Sidious had a monopoly on many of the best Sith Holocrons. Yet, kun’s temple was untouched somehow. He should have information on Sith Alchemy, Essence Transfer, and even the type of mass essence drain that my old boss was famous for. If I was going to survive, thrive even, in this place I couldn’t stay a simple warrior. Yavin was evidence enough of that. Warriors were used; Sith Lords were the users.

When we finally made it to the Ordu’s chambers, we were greeted with a bright golden light.

The sun was filtering in through the windows and blue crystals shined like stars in a pattern on the floor. A large device in the center of the room was concentrating the sunlight and refracting it into a beam that pointed towards something in space.

“I assume this means it worked?” I said after my eyes adjusted. The archaeology group was spread out in the room and excitement was in the air. Korin was using some type of navigational device to record the coordinates from the beam. He was also humming to himself while doing it. Alha and Alhoy both had visible smiles at the beautiful sight. Even Loni seemed to be enjoying herself despite the distaste she’s shown for her husband’s obsessions. Chelli was scooped up into her arms. Her eyes were wide in wonder.

“I believe so,” Alhoy reported.

“No giant lizard sightings?” I asked.

“Thankfully nothing,” he replied.

The device in Korin’s hands beeped. Then he turned around and shouted, “We’ve done it! This could be the Citadel’s location!” He was practically jumping up and down.

After picking up his wife and daughter in a hug, he turned towards me and said, “We must go at once! This is the find of the century!”

I sighed. “We should talk about the Citadel on the ship. Don’t get your hopes up. We are not going to head there for a while,” I explained.

“What why? This is the penultimate stop. We are at the threshold,” he argued.

“For starters, you still owe me before I take you to the Citadel. There are also certain things you should know about the place before we go,” I replied.

“If you were just going to deny me at this stage, why bring us here?” he pushed.

“I’m not here for you. I was here to find another crew member and it just happened to be the same place you wanted to go,” I replied before turning and heading to leave.

“New crew member?” the siblings asked together.

“It didn’t work out. An immortal Sith temple turned him into a lizard,” Bariss explained in a serious tone.