Family of the Lost

*Some time before Part IX – Blood of the Sith*

Robed servants bowed and stepped back to make way for Darth Avariel. The chamber was dark, only lit with the dim glow of lamps ensconced behind sections of the walls and the occasional spotlight illuminating a workstation or an important medical device.

“His status?” She didn’t address anyone specifically as she reached the tubular glass tank at the end of the chamber. Inside, floating in a delicate bacta compound, with nutrient tubes connected to his veins and a breathing apparatus fastened over his nose and mouth, was a pale, thin, wiry-haired figure.

“There has been some disturbance,” a servant said. “We’ve had to increase the doses of sedative through the bacta, to keep him from reaching out.”

“You *are* able to keep him contained, correct?”

The servant nodded quickly. “Oh yes, my Lady. But I would recommend having you present for any further attempts to seek out the children. He will need another mind to steer his, and to keep him from attempting to escape.”

Avariel raised an eyebrow. “Administer the stimulant.”

“Now?”

She turned to the huddling servant, fixing him with her gaze. “The Rebels are actively countering our efforts. We’ve lost too many candidates as it is. Now wake him, or I’ll have you added to the Life Pool.”

The servant’s eyes widened and he hurried to his workstation. A mechanical arm extended and pressed a capsule against the bacta tank, injecting through the glass into the fluid. After a moment, her brother’s eyes blinked slowly open.

Avariel pressed her hand against the glass and reached out with her mind.

*Hello, Tevin.*

Her brother’s hand raised and he pressed it to the glass, against hers.

*Sister…*

She smiled.

*Yes. We need you to find more for us.*

*Tired…* He blinked slowly.

*I know, but we can’t stop now. You remember the Jedi? The ones who took you from us?*

Tevin’s brow furrowed. *Jedi, scared…*

*Yes,* she sent to him. *I know you’re scared of them. We want to keep other children safe from them, don’t we?*

*Yes…*

Avariel reached into Tevin’s mind. It was dark and disjointed, lacking structured thought. The malformity of his brain presented like a deep jagged wound in his mind, causing thoughts and memories to bleed together. She pulled back the protective veil around her brother’s mind and opened him up to the Cosmic Force.

*Hurts!*

She winced as Tevin sent his pain into her. It was unintentional; he couldn’t control it, he just wanted her to protect him and make the pain stop.

*It’ll be over soon, Tevin. Just hold on. You can do that for me, can’t you?*

*Will try…*

She searched through his thoughts, and the countless impressions flooding in through the Force. Incredible, that such strength and resilience to reach into the Force could have developed in such a failed experiment. Unfortunate, that Tevin would never be of more use than as a conduit; a tool. What a student he could have been.

Strands of light shone through Tevin’s mind. Glowing motes dotted the strands, stretching out across the galaxy. Avariel took note of the places and names pouring through the Force into her. Not all would be sufficiently strong in the Force to be trained. Many would be left to their lives. Some would be taken. A few would be trained. Fewer still would survive to become the next generation of acolytes.

The ones with potential, but not enough to train, would go to the Life Pool.

Something shimmered through Tevin’s connection to the Cosmic Force. Motes swirled together and strands gathered through time and space, branching from the past and into the future. A vergence in the Force. Not a person. A place, a time.

*Yes. Show it to me, Tevin.*

She reached into the strands and saw a vision of four figures, armed with lightsabers. A human matching the description Shard had given of a former… friend from the Jedi Order, carrying a blue and a yellow saber; A Zabrak with a blue lightsaber, a younger male human with a yellow lightsaber; And… a human woman, with a fierce stare and a purple-bladed saber. Among them were a Jawa, a man Avariel recognised as the former senator of Anoat, and a Mandalorian.

They stood before a crowd of children, stretching far back as far as the eye could see. Avariel stood against them, her inquisitors by her side. They ignited their red lightsabers and attacked. Avariel found herself in direct combat with the human woman and her distinct purple lightsaber. There was a familiarity to her presence in the Force. Yes. Avariel knew this one. Knew her all too well.

*The girl from Sullust…*

Anger seared in Avariel’s memory. Then it tempered, cooled, and turned into something truly dark.

*This one can kill. She is stronger than she knows.*

Yes. This girl’s destiny was entwined with Avariel’s. And this place Tevin was guiding her to would be the beginning of that destiny. Beyond, Avariel saw great battles, a world blown to pieces, the Emperor himself drawn into the open to fight, and a small but powerful light shining through the darkness. A light she would have to extinguish.

*Thank you, Tevin.* She took her hand away from the tank. Her brother pawed at the glass, his eyes pleading.

*Don’t leave. Scared.*

She managed a smile as their connection faded. “Sedate him. I have what I need.”

The servant pushed buttons and another mechanical arm administered a sedative agent. Tevin continued to press his hand against the glass, his expressions of fear and loneliness pushing into Avariel’s mind until the drugs took effect and he drifted back into his deep sleep.

Without another word, Avariel spun and strode from the chamber, her cloak billowing behind her.

In a deep, hidden part of the Black Castle, Darth Avariel entered an immense circular room lined with tanks similar to the one which held her brother, but over two thousand years older, archaic and ornate in design. Within lay slumbering beings, floating in a Force-imbued soup which gave off an ethereal green glow. Energy crackled along the tubes leading from the tanks into the mechanism powering the throne. The Life Pool.

The chamber was guarded by the crimson-robed Royal Guard, standing silent and still at their posts. More robed servants worked at stations similar to her brother’s, but older and arcane in their function.

Pipes led from the tanks of the Life Pool to a reclined throne where a cloaked figure sat with tubes and cables piercing his body at multiple points. The black cloak and robes made him an absence of colour and light in the red and blue-lit room. Pale, emaciated hands twitched as spider-like droids crawled over a sac sitting to one side of the figure, pulsating as though with the beat of a heart. Within the sac grew dark shapes. Organs. The spider droids cut open the sac, climbed in, and removed an organ – a heart, from the looks of it – and emerged to place it in a medical container, before other droids carried it away.

“That one will do for your replacement in another month,” an attendant said to the reclining figure. “But we will have to send the next to Coruscant. I’m afraid it can’t be delayed any longer.”

A bony finger pressed a control on the arm of the throne and the back rose to bring him upright. Pale yellow eyes scanned to Avariel. “You have something for me.”

Avariel dropped to one knee and bowed her head. “Yes, Lord Umbral. There will be a vergence in the Force.”

Darth Umbral’s head lolled around to his attendant. “Send whatever you need to Coruscant. Lord Sidious must be placated.”

He turned back to Avariel as his attendants left the chamber. “Speak.”

“The Rebels who’ve been hindering our inquisitors. I see my fate connected to theirs.”

Umbral closed his eyes slowly and sat for several moments before opening them again. “The girl from Sullust. You wish to seek her out.”

“I wish to serve you,” Avariel said.

Umbral’s cracked lips peeled back, revealing cracked yellow teeth. “You never could lie to me.” He inclined his head. “You see death in the path you choose.”

“One of us will kill the other,” she said.

“You forget your place, my apprentice.” His eyes darkened and his throne rose, living him upright until he loomed over Avariel. “I tell you who to kill. And I will tell you when you may die.”

Avariel bowed her head. “Of course, Master.”

Umbral smiled, watching his pupil with half-alive eyes. “You will seek out the girl, and her friends. Has your brother shown you where to find the next batch of candidates?”

“Orfisin.”

“We need to find them quickly. It is time for more… innovative techniques. Gather them. Welcome the willing. Take the reluctant. Hunt the fearful.”

“And the ones who resist?”

“Kill them all.”

Avariel stood and raised her hood, casting her face into shadow. “As you command, Father.”