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ASTALDO STOPPED DEAD IN HIS TRACKS when he saw a familiar shape lying lifelessly on the carpeted floor of the Senate building.

It was his master Miko Palmaran. One of his hands was severed from his body, the fingers still curled around the hilt of his lightsaber.

Slowly, as if in a nightmare, Astaldo closed the distance between himself and his master. He couldn't be dead. . . But Miko's brown eyes were glazed over and they stared into the nothingness of death. A black hole decorated his throat, giving him an obscure and gaping second mouth.

Astaldo suppressed a sob as he dropped on his knees by Miko's side. He pressed his fingers underneath his master's chin, careful not to touch the scorched wound but the midichlorians no longer moved under his touch. The river of life was stilled below Miko's pale and cold skin, and it would never flow again.

'What happened?' Aramis asked Freia and Windu while putting a comforting hand on Astaldo's shoulder. Miko's wounds were obviously made by a lightsaber, but why would Windu or Freia turn against one of their own?

'He was a Sith Lord,' Freia explained, hanging the hilts of her sabers back on her belt.

Aramis' eyes grew wide, but Astaldo jumped up, furiously shaking his head.

'No, impossible,' he shouted, tears on the brink of escaping his eyes. 'He renounced the Dark Side years ago!'

'All deceptions,' Freia answered between clenched jaw from stubbornness. 'You didn't see what we saw, padawan Naharion.'

Astaldo screamed out in frustration. 'He wasn't a Sith,' he shouted again while taking a menacing step towards Freia.

Aramis feared he might attack Freia and he tightened his grip on Astaldo's shoulder, silently ordering him not to go any further.

'Calm your thoughts, you should, young padawan,' Master Yoda said to Astaldo before focussing his emerald green eyes back on Freia. 'Explain your actions, you will, master Alathfire.'

Freia nodded while folding her hands behind her back. 'Miko wielded a blood red saber. I sensed the Dark Side all around him, and I stroke first before he could attack me or Master Windu.'

Astaldo couldn't believe what he was hearing. 'That's it? That's all?' he asked bewildered. Since when was that enough reason for a Jedi to strike someone down in a lethal way?

'He just got back from a mission in the Outer Rim,' Astaldo continued, his anger boiling underneath his skin. 'Maybe his Jedi saber broke and he had use his old one. You had no right to kill him without a trial!'

'I had every right, the Dark Si--,'

Astaldo interrupted her with a roar, and Aramis quickly pulled him behind his back. In one swift movement, he grabbed Astaldo's lightsaber before he could do anything stupid.

Astaldo, however, was too furious to notice. 'Of course you could sense the Dark Side!' he shouted around Aramis' back to Freia. 'He renounced it but it was still present, like it is in all of us. You're supposed to be a peace keeper, not an executioner!'

Freia shifted uneasily from one feet to another while giving Windu a sideway glance. Was it possible she had been too quick to judge?

'These are dangerous words,' Windu said after a small silence. 'One might start to think Miko taught you the Dark Side as well, young one.'

Astaldo's jaw dropped, his thoughts swirling so wildly and chaotic it was impossible for him to make a coherent sentence. 'I -- no, my master -- he. . .'

The door to the Galactic Chamber suddenly slid open with a ominous hiss, and Freia half-expected another enemy to appear in the opening and her hand already shot towards one of her lightsaber hilt, but it was just Chancellor Palpatine and Vice Chair Mas Amedda.

Palpatine cast one look at the fallen Jedi Knight before turning his attention to the ones still standing. 'Well done, Jedi masters,' he said with an unreadable expression. 'You have slain a dangerous enemy of the Republic. This is one step closer towards peace all across the galaxy.'

Freia breathed out in relief, she had been right, she knew it.

✧✧

KAI DOZED OFF as the sun above the planet of cities sunk below the horizon. Shadows fell into the High Council chamber, engulfing his surrounding with darkness and causing his eyelids to grow heavier and heavier. He hadn't slept since he started to decipher the Seperatists' schematics of the Force sensitive droid, and Master Meadowdancer's chair was rather comfortable.

He startled awake, though, when the lights ignited in the northwestern tower and a pair of footsteps shuffled through the empty room. Just before it could hit the floor, Kai caught the holo-pad that fell off of his knees due to his sudden movements, and he blinked a few times to sharpen his eyesight.

Grand Master Yoda and Master Windu stood in front of him, in the middle of the round chamber.

Quickly, Kai jumped up from his seat, his fingers fumbling with the holo-pad. 'Master Yoda, Master Windu,' he greeted them with a respectful nod of his head.

'Padawan Ryder,' Windu acknowledged him while he sat down in his own chair, 'you have double-checked the confiscated schematics of Dylkogh?'

Yoda didn't move to his chair but kept leaning on his wooden cane, his eyes observing the nervous padawan whose fearful thoughts buzzed through the room like a swarm of Bandaras.

'Five times actually, Master Windu,' Kai corrected him. He took a deep breath, but he was still afraid to say what he had found out. If he said it out loud, it would become real, factual even. The responsibility leaned heavily on his shoulders, it felt as if he could sink through the floor of the room any second. Maybe he should have checked it a sixth time anyway? Maybe he had made a fault after all.

'Your conclusion?' Windu encouraged the boy but still, Kai flinched by hearing the natural sharp tone of his deep voice.

'The Seperatists can make a Force sensitive droid. It is real, the schematics are real,' the padawan spilled his thoughts, his words tumbling out of his mouth like a waterfall.

Yoda pressed the three fingers of his hand against the side of his head, rubbing the skin thoughtfully. 'Stop this, we must,' he said to Windu and Kai.

'Located, where, the droid factories, are?'

'According to the plans there's only one, Master Yoda,' Kai answered. 'It is somewhere on Dylkogh.'

'Send out a team, we will.'

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