Ren awoke seventeen standard hours later, his eyes drooping open slowly in the dim, half-light of his room. His mind had kept him in a sort of trance, as it often did when there was something important to communicate through the Force. He had seen the dark, Sithlord face over and over again, and he knew with certainty that it was not the face of Kalethian. There was another enemy, unknown to Ren except for a recurring image and a psychic impression of malevolence and hatred.

For the first time in years, Ren did not comprehend the nature of what the Force wanted him to understand. This being, whoever he was, was a threat to Ren's existence, and was connected to his destiny, but Ren had very little idea of how. He had, of course, logic at his disposal. He could easily reason that this being, if he were not Kalethian, was most likely on the track of the Kalethian portal. That would mean that the two of them were competitors for the knowledge of the ancient Sith master. Yet he was certain that there were other pieces to the vision he was not seeing – pieces obscured by the intense presence of a Sith lord. This was cause for concern for both himself and all of his new companions.

He walked out through the door of his room and onto the ship's main deck where he saw Cathock's massive form hunched over a worktable, his strong and clever hands manipulating the inner pieces of a blaster rifle.

"Good morning," Cathock said without turning to face Ren. "Neeka was starting to worry about you. I really envy your human ability to sleep. It seems like such a wonderful way to get out of helping with all the work we've had to do."

"How far are we from the portal?"

"Less than an hour, actually. You have excellent timing."

"Are there any signs of other ships?"

"No. Not even Dalvin's scanners have picked anything up which – trust me – means that no one's out there."

Ren reached out with his mind and indeed felt nothing around them beyond the two smaller ships. "Are you well stocked for battle?"

"Of course," said Cathock, grinning a wide, heavily fanged smile. Then his thick eyebrows knitted together and he said: "why?"

Ren hesitated. He still wasn't sure how much the hulking alien monster truly trusted him, or what he would make of Ren's visions. He was also not used to discussing his worries with others. His mother had taught him, rather mercilessly, to solve his own problems. Still, he had more or less become part of a team for this mission, and he was still deciding what that meant to him.

The Force blessed him at that moment as Neeka walked in to the room. He felt far less reticent with her than with Cathock, and the information he possessed concerned her safety, which had somehow come to feel very important.

"I've been having visions of a Sith lord."

Both Neeka and Cathock turned to him, alarm ringing in their golden eyes. Evidently, they took Force visions very seriously. Cathock spoke first: "Is it Kalethian?"

"No. It's someone else. He doesn't seem to be directly aware of me yet, but he's tied to me somehow. That could very well mean more people know about this wormhole than we know."

"Is it only one?" said Neeka.

"Yes, but he's definitely a Sith lord, which means he could have many servants."

"And you don't know anything other than that he is connected to you in some way?" she said.

"Yes."

Cathock scrutinized him. "Might you be leading this Sith lord to us somehow?"

"He already said the Sith wasn't aware of his presence," said Neeka with annoyance in her voice.

A miniature hologram of Dalvin appeared suddenly in front of them, projected from a side wall on the ship. "I would like to sincerely thank you for bringing me in on this excursion, Cathock," he said in a dark voice that felt like what Ren had read to be sarcasm. "A Sith lord? Well, either the Sith boy is just having bad dreams or we may all die."

"How the hell did you hear our conversation?" said Cathock, gritting his teeth.

Dalvin only chuckled in answer to this and said: "I already have initial readings on the worm-hole. It's sending out a very interesting wavelength that travels approximately one hundred and forty-two point-five times the speed of light. Please bear in mind that I have no scientific frame of reference for what I am about to say since no one has ever actually encountered a stable wormhole before, but extrapolating every variable to the best of my ability, I would estimate that the portal has been open for approximately one-hundred and thirty standard minutes, and that at least two vessels have passed through it."

Cathock's eyes glinted wide open, and Neeka gasped ever so slightly. Ren spoke first: "What can you guess about the ships?"

"Judging from the magnetic resonance, I would say that one was of comparable size to your vessel, and one was considerably larger – perhaps five to six times the size."

"Not quite an army then," said Cathock, "but that's big enough for a considerable sized squad of soldiers, or perhaps droids. No telling what kind of gear they're armed with."

"Actually there is," said Dalvin. "This wave the portal is sending out carries infinitesimal, yet highly distinctive – well, I suppose I would say echos of energy signatures it has encountered – at least recently encountered. There is no guessing at the degradation rate, but what particularly concerns us are traces of Artak plasma, carthian plasma, and trechlor."

Neeka squinted. "Both plasma types are used in standard republic baster rifles."

Cathock sighed. "Yes, but that could mean either Sith or republic soldiers, since the Sith have gotten their hands on so many of the republic's weapons at this point in the war."

"Still, what the hell is trechlor?" said Neeka.

Ren gazed down. "It's the energy source for several different styles of light saber."

"OOH! This is interesting!" said Dalvin rather abruptly. "It seems these two ships were briefly engaged in a fight with one another, judging by the number of cannon blasts that seem to have been fired. Neither one of them was the victor though, at least on this side of the wormhole. If I had to guess though, I would say that the smaller ship started to lose the fight and retreated into the portal."

"Can you tell which ship had the trechlor energy signature?" said Ren.

"Hmm," Dalvin muttered. He was silent for several seconds, and then he said: "Both, so far as I can tell."

"Sith fighting one another," said Neeka.

"Or one ship with Sith and the other with Jedi," said Cathock.

"Anything is possible," said Ren.

"I feel like this is growing beyond anything we're equipped to deal with," said Neeka. She looked at Ren with uncertainty. "Is this fortune worth dying for?"

"Actually I would estimate that we would have above fifty-percent odds in a space battle between us and either vessel if all three of our ships were to work with coordinated firing patterns and tactics. After all," Dalvin's hologram grinned widely, "they have likely never encountered a ship like mine."

"What about a ground fight?" said Cathock.

"Too difficult to say, but the lizard bitch stated with surprising clarity already that we are all extremely competent specialists with a wide array of skills. With my scanners, and perhaps Ren's prescience, we can likely keep several steps ahead of the enemy and pick off their members a few at a time through cunning. There is certainly no reason to assume defeat beforehand."

"Damn right," said Cathock. Still, Ren sensed anxiety in the biologically engineered soldier.

Ren's mind began to hum as they drew near to the wormhole. He was sitting back in his quarters, meditating once more when he felt vibrations in the Force as he had never dreamed of. He had always conceived the physical side of the Force as power over matter, but what he sensed now went far beyond that. It was as if reality itself were bent. Space was manipulated on a cosmic scale, and even time had been altered and circumvented within the space of the wormhole, which Kalethian had managed to create. Ren tried to imagine the strength of will that creation had taken – the scope of knowledge and intelligence and understanding of the Force – and it left him in utter awe. Kalethian had been – or still was – a genius in the Force beyond compare.

"We're about to enter if you want to come up and see this, Ren," Neeka's voice said through the communication system in his room.

See it? Ren thought. How could the simple organs that were his eyes convey the vast complexity and exquisite beauty of what lay before them? What could he see that would allow him to appreciate the mind that had bent such vast energies to its will? And yet he did want to see, so that one more sense could behold the magnificence of accomplishment, and so he could be close to Neeka in this moment.

He walked up to the bridge. Cathock and Neeka were at the controls, but he hardly registered them. In the blackness of space outside of the cockpit window, Ren saw a great, swirling corona of brilliant energy. Every color in the visible spectrum churned and gleamed and shifted, spiraling around a pulsing central sphere that was somehow blacker than the blackness of space.

It's beautiful, isn't it?" Neeka whispered.

He gazed down at her and smiled. She didn't need Force adept senses to appreciate the majesty of what was in front of her. She was not a fool.

Dalvin's hologram appeared very suddenly in miniature at the front of the cockpit and said: "You can't imagine the data I'm getting right now. This is beyond the discoveries of the greatest astrophysicists in the galaxy. And to think, this has been here for thousands of years."

A second hologram of Malanctha appeared next to Dalvin's, a slight smile on her smooth features appearing. "Well done, Cathock," she said. "I believe I shall be the first Falleen to travel beyond the bounds of the galaxy thanks to you."

Cathock chuckled. "For all we know that damn thing is going to rip us into trillions of atoms."

"For all you know," said Dalvin with an accompanying laugh.

Ren looked at the shimmering blue image of Dalvin and said: "Can you pick up any readings from the other side?"

"No. All I can scan is the wormhole itself – interesting as that is. But I assume you're wondering if there are enemies on the other side waiting for us?"

"Yes," said Ren.

"It's certainly a possibility, but improbable based on current data. The ships I scanned were loaded with ground Forces, indicating of course that they plan to land. Also, whether they are motivated by the vast wealth of Kalethian's horde or his knowledge of the Force, there would be no strategic advantage to hiding in space and letting another side take the prize only to ambush them."

"Why not?" said Cathock.

"Either prize explodes along with a ship if it's shot in flight," said Dalvin. "No. It is highly likely that all three groups have already landed. We might, however, encounter probes that one group has left behind. That's what I would do, and what I will do as soon as we are through the wormhole. If they have probes waiting for us, I'll jam their signals, slice them, and take control. That way we can manipulate what our enemies think is coming and going through the tunnel."

"Dalvin is very good," said Cathock, glancing at Ren from his seat.

"What about your senses, Ren?" said Dalvin.

"Just like you, I can't sense anything other than the portal. Its power is eclipsing everything in my minds eye at the moment."

"Frustrating," said Dalvin, rolling his biological eye.

Ren smiled, ever so slightly. He knew little of the cybernetic man to whom he was speaking, yet he felt a sort of kinship with him. Dalvin seemed to perceive the universe in ways most people could not imagine, much like Ren himself. Not even Ren's own mother could truly comprehend the scope of his clairvoyance, and yet he supposed this half-man, half-machine being might be able to.

"Do we need to take anymore readings before we enter?" said Malanctha.

"Not even my systems can predict the precise nature of what will happen once we pass through that tunnel," said Dalvin. "However," he broke off and his hologram seemed to be pressing commands into a computer that did not appear in his representation. A few seconds later, Ren saw a small metallic sphere appear in front of the cockpit's window and begin traveling toward the portal. It moved remarkably fast and reached the circle of black within seconds. As soon as it touched the outer corona, it did not seem to enter so much as vanish in a brilliant burst of white light.

"This should tell us what we need to know," said Dalvin. Everyone watched in silence as the great wormhole continued to swirl silently in space. Ren could not feel the probe with his senses. It had vanished from his perception the instant it vanished from sight. Perhaps a standard minute or so passed before a second flash of white light burned on the edge of the dark sphere, and Dalvin's probe reappeared.

"It's fine," said Dalvin. "At least one enemy left probes – poorly cloaked – just on the other side. They could not detect mine, but mine could certainly detect theirs."

"Let's go then," said Cathock.

"I'll go first," said Dalvin. "Follow my trajectory and at high impulse and stay approximately four kilometers behind."

"Right," said Cathock.

"I'll go third," said Malanctha.

The two holograms disappeared and Ren watched Dalvin's small, strange vessel move past their ship toward the portal. Cathock began tapping commands into his console and the ship suddenly followed Dalvin's.

As the portal grew larger through the dura-glass window, Neeka's hand moved out to Ren's. She knitted her fingers through his and as she did Ren felt a great swell of exhilaration. Neeka was frightened, he felt, but also incredibly focused and alive. This moment was something to be revered for both of them – something they would never forget. Ren clutched her hand to his, enjoying the tickle of her claws, which pressed ever so gently against his palm. Then Dalvin's ship vanished in a third brilliant flash.

They had only seconds to ponder what would happen to them before their own ship struck the portal's edge. Whatever flash of light they had seen the other objects produce did not appear to them, but instead they saw and felt something very different. It was nothing and it was everything. Sight vanished. Touch did not exist. Ren could not feel Neeka's hand or see her. He was not even on the ship so far as his five senses, as well as the Force, told him. He was merely a speck of consciousness flowing along a great and invisible river of time and space. He knew, somehow in that perfect state of blackness that he was whipping through trillions of light-years of space every second, though he could not say how. It was an invisible sense of motion beyond comprehension. He felt that he was not a physical being, but a flood of atoms holding together by loose bonds that meant nothing. He was nothing, yet he still existed and was still alert to all of it.

Whether it had been hours or a fraction of a second Ren could not perceive when he suddenly became a physical being again. He was on the ship with the two aliens, his hand still entangled with Neeka's, and they were all alive. He felt as though he had just woken from a strange and incredible daydream that had passed in an instant, and he was not disoriented in the slightest but only unsure of what had just happened.

"Look out the window!" exclaimed Neeka. Ren felt her fear emanate through her skin.

Ren was already looking. Space was wrong! There were no stars anywhere, but instead a great and unending blackness as far as they could see.

Malanctha's hologram appeared and she said: "Did something go wrong? Where did we end up?"

"Is this even space?" Neeka said.

"Oh, we're in space," said Dalvin, his hologram suddenly reappearing. "Tilt your ship forty-two degrees forward, and do try to relax. We're quite safe at the moment and this is all incredibly fascinating."

Ren heard Cathock's great fingers tapping into a console and then the ever so subtle shift in artificial gravity of the ship tilting downward. They all saw it at once: a single blue star burning in the vast expanse of darkness, and to its side a small green and blue orb which they recognized as a living planet.

"This should be impossible," said Dalvin. "A single star like this... an outlier to the galaxies. It just doesn't make any sense how the necessary collection of gas and cosmic debris could have gathered perfectly at this point in space."

"Could something like this have been accomplished with the Force?" Malanctha's hologram whispered. "Could Kalethian have actually created a world and even a star in space?"

"Yes-s-s-s," Dalvin exhaled, as if this were a very tedious and childish statement. "Even assuming such an absurd thing to be possible, there is still a very obvious problem in such logic: Darth Kalethian is roughly two and a half thousand years old by Sith lore. All readings indicate this star is well over a hundred billion years old."

"Do you have an answer then?" said Malanctha.

"There is no explanation that fits what we currently know," said Dalvin. "The star could not have come into existence on its own and it is extremely... improbable that Kalethian willed it into existence."

"Improbable?" said Neeka.

"I can make no safe assumptions as to the limits of power a Sith lord might possess who could create a wormhole. All I can say is that to have created this star we would have to list time travel as well as the ability create matter in the vacuum of space to his abilities."

"What do your senses tell you, Ren?" said Neeka.

"I-" Ren paused. He had suddenly realized the Force felt strange in this place. The trillions of minds that were ever brushing his consciousness now seemed impossibly far away. Their loss pained him. It was like suddenly discovering he had gone blind or deaf.