Ren observed very little after Malanctha left him. He was lost in thought. Never in his life had he interacted with so many people in this way, and his mind needed time to digest it all. In many ways, this was what he had secretly longed for his entire life. In others ways it was all very alien and strange, and he felt he perhaps did not yet have all the skills he needed to succeed. Still, the Force gave no impression of a misstep, but was instead urging him onward, and he trusted the Force above even his own mother.

Eventually he wandered back to the ship and found Neeka perched on the top shouting orders at a series of technicians and droids hovering around on jets. The night had grown very dark, but Neeka showed no sign of tiring. She was alive and vibrant. As soon as he drew within her range of vision she detected him.

"Ren!" she shouted. She smiled and immediately leaped down from the ship. Several of the technicians cried out in horror as her dropped the eight or so meters to the landing pad, but her nimble legs absorbed the impact so smoothly and gracefully that she scarcely made a sound. She scurried up to Ren and said: "How was the Cantina?"

"It was all very interesting. I met Dalvin and Malanctha. Cathock asked me to join your crew."

Neeka's face lit up even brighter and she threw her arms around him, hugging him tight. Ren was a little shocked. No one had ever hugged him before. His Sith-trained reflexes had not stirred as she came at him, for he was in no danger, but he scarcely understood what was happening. At the same time, Neeka's hold was gentle and, as his apprehension lessened, very soothing.

"Oh, uh, sorry," she said, drawing away. Took a step back and looked down, and the smooth, golden brown hue of her skin reddened slightly. Ren could feel many emotions emitting from her at once, but the one that resonated, and set his whole body tingling in a warm, happy sensation, was that attraction to him.

"I'm r-really glad you're coming aboard," she said, still looking bashful.

"I am –" he had never used such words before, "happy as well."

"You can have the room on starboard-left. It's nice and big, and it has a very comfortable bed that folds out of the wall."

"I'm sure it will be fine. I do not require much."

"I want you to be comfortable," she said, her smile warm and friendly.

Ren let out a small chuckle at these words.

"What?" she said, laughing lightly herself but looking very confused.

"I don't think anyone has ever wanted me to be comfortable before."

"Oh," she said, blushing once more. "Well there's nothing wrong with having someone want to make you happy."

"I suppose not," he said. He felt a hot tingling of nerves flush through him. Nothing, no person had ever made him feel like this before. What was it? Neeka was pretty, certainly, but a pair of Twi'lek female assassins famed for their exquisite beauty had once cornered him and he had scarcely been affected. Neeka was like no one and nothing he had ever encountered before. She was... special, and he wasn't sure why, except that what seemed to set him ablaze came not from her appearance, but from inside of her.

"I have need to meditate, if you do not mind," said Ren.

"Oh, alright," she said. "I have to get back to work on the ship anyhow. I hope we can talk later though." The words sounded very much like a question, and she gave him a wide eyed, searching look.

"I would like that," said Ren.

She smiled and said: "Alright." Then, to his amazement, she leaped upward and caught hold of an outstretched bit of hull armor from behind without even looking, and used it to flip her body upwards to the point form which she had originally jumped down. Her strength and agility were most impressive.

Ren walked into the ship and moved straight to his new quarters. He found an expansive, but mostly empty metallic room composed only of a computer desk, a restroom, a handful of locking shelves, and a panel on the wall which Ren assumed to be the foldout bed Neeka had described. He liked the simplicity of it all. For most of his life he had been moving around, and found that open, empty spaces suited him best.

He walked into the center of the room and shut his eyes and muted his conscious thoughts, which was more difficult than usual. He had managed to remain collected and in control amidst the flurry of new experiences, but now, as he sat alone, his mind wanted to replay the conversations, the looks, and all of the new sights over and over again. He was feeling something to which he was unaccustomed: excitement.

"Falling," he whispered, imagining himself soaring downward at magnificent speed – not toward any surface, but in an endless dark and silent tunnel. He needed to fall away from everything to the point of his own essence. He had not been taught these things; he developed his own meditation techniques during his years of solitude. The Force had called to him to find a way.

Finally he reached the valley of his mind, where all stray thought vanished. There he held himself, tranquil and unthinking, waiting. It was not a state of peace, as the Jedi sought, but a self-aware nothingness, beneath and outside of the spectrum of light or dark.

A face appeared to him, dark and shrouded, but it's outline showed what appeared to be sharply jutting horns. Ren sensed the darkside. Terrible, grinding hatred creaked around in the black soul of whomever this being was. The face became clearer and the aura grew with it. The horns, Ren saw, were not biological, but jutted out of a helmet that encased a great, ugly brown, alien face. Two milky blue eyes with strange, white pupils were gazing suddenly at Ren. Ren stared back, still unthinking, only coldly perceiving. This was instinct. So long as he did not think, he was only a shadow to this being, and he could not be sensed.

The face became clearer still, and a body formed beneath it. It was a tall and muscular form, clad in dark armor that matched the helmet. A strange, back handled lightsaber hung from the creature's belt, and waves of death emanated from it. This being had killed perhaps even more beings than Ren. There was terrible dark power emanating from this sith – deadly skill that might even dwarf his mother's.

Ren's mind pulled back suddenly as he sensed an intrusion upon his solitude. He withdrew from the mental plain of the Force as quickly as he could. How long had he been in his trance? Hours? Minutes? He had no perception of time in such states, but whatever had passed during his meditation had brought danger to him. Within a fraction of a second he was awake again, standing. His eyes flicked to the metal doors to his new room. They hissed open, and a man entered, looking surprised as he saw Ren.

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir,"" he said. He was middle aged, and had a repair uniform on. "I was looking for the auxiliary terminal."

Ren gazed at the man coldly. "No you weren't," he said..

"W-what do you mean?" the man. He looked confused, but Ren sensed him subtly reaching for a weapon behind his back. Ren reached out and gripped the man by the throat, clamping down with the Force and lifting upward. The man let out a shrieking hiss as his body rose above the ground.

"A computer file," said Ren, searching the man's mind. "You're searching for a file on this ship. Why?"

Ren let the man drop and he fell to the floor, hissing. "Please, this is a misunderstanding," the man choked. "I was only-"

Ren drew his lightsaber and walked up to the man, letting the crimson blade show just in front of the man's face. "Don't lie to me" he said in a soft whisper, barely audible above the hum of his weapon.

The man let out a tiny whimper of fright. "I don't know what the file is," he said. "I was paid just to copy the hard drive and then install a virus and destroy the memory banks here."

"Hmm," Ren grunted, sensing a half-truth. The man was inventing, and his hand was edging again toward a weapon that Ren sensed was concealed in his right sleeve. Ren moved the light saber closer and said, "Who paid you?"

"I took the job through an independent broker. I don't' know who my client is."

Ren leaned in. He sensed truth in the man's voice and it disquieted his resolve. As he delved into the man's mind, he caught images and thoughts spiraling in every direction. "You have a daughter," said Ren.

"Y-yes! She's five! I'm sorry! Please don't kill me!"

Kill him, Ren could hear his mother hissing in his ear. This man had seen his face and seen him holding a red light saber. It was a liability. A swift, clean stroke of his life saber increased Ren's chances of survival. It would be easy. It was the logical decision.

His mother had spent nearly two decades driving compassion from him. He had rationalized killing at first, and then stopped. Death was an essential component of his existence. To all whom he met save his mother, he was death. Yet, as he looked down at this cowering man, he did not feel like an apprentice in training. He could make his own decisions now, based on his own philosophical beliefs. He was no longer playing by anyone's rules but his own.

"You're going to forget my face," whispered Ren. His hand moved to the man's skull and he fit his fingers around it. Though he seldom used them, Ren's mind control powers were enormous. He overrode all memory of his face and their encounter and constructed a new version of events. "You searched the entire database of this ship and found no traces of what you were looking for," he said.

"N-no trace," the man muttered, his eyes glazed over.

Ren thought for a moment, then said: "You uncovered traces of an encrypted file being transmitted to an unspecified location on the planet Averdash, but it was immediately deleted afterward and written over."

"Yes-s-s," the man whispered.

"You're going to stand up and walk out of here. You won't look at me. I don't exist. Give your prepared excuses to Neeka Vens and then return home to your daughter."

Ren took his hand away and the man immediately stood up, looking calm and collected. His eyes scanned the room, passing over Ren without the slightest trace of recognition. Then he turned and headed down the hall.

Ren sighed and sat back down on the floor. Sparing the man's life had been stupid, but he hoped his little trick would work for the best. The fictional transmission to Averdash would most likely take the focus off Cathock and Neeka and send their enemies were half-way across the galaxy on a hunt for a phantom file. The only significant danger was if they were thorough and paranoid enough to subject the technician to extremely advanced mental scanning, or if they were somehow in league with a Sith with gifts comparable to Ren's. The former was far more likely than the latter, but neither was very likely at all.

Ren felt a wave of something like peace wash through him. Mercy was a wonderful thing. As he was thinking on this Neeka appeared at the door to his room, her incredibly smooth, tanned face seeming almost to glow in the pale light of the ship. She was connected to his peace somehow, Ren felt.

"Did a worker just come through here?" she said.

"Yes, I said hello to him," said Ren.

"He was all glassy-eyed," she said, scrunching her face up. "Seemed like he was on death sticks or something, but I didn't smell any narcotics." She looked at Ren and said: "Did you do one of those mind trick deals?" she tapped her temple as she said the word: mind.

"It's difficult to hide things from you," said Ren, smiling.

"Why would you want to?" She raised an eyebrow. Her question seemed playful.

"I'm not used to having –" he paused, the last word feeling strange in his throat: "friends."

Neeka smiled at this. She started to say something, and then stopped, slumping as whatever words she was going to say died. After a moment she whispered: "Are we in any danger from that man?"

"No."

She looked at him, her golden eyes seeming to stare suddenly into the depths of his soul. "You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, because I trust you." As she said the words her expression became serene.

Ren marveled at Neeka. Her thoughts remained obscured to his Force senses in the complexity of her alien brain, but it was impossible not to see the heights of faith in her simple words. He had never imagined meeting such a person.

"Thank you," was all he could say.