Darth Khydra - The Shadow Hand, 300 Followers Special 1

The message reaches you through an old New Republic encryption channel that has not been used in nearly a year. No signature. Only coordinates, a time, and a single line: Come alone. People will die if you do not.

The meeting place is an abandoned communications platform drifting above the night side of a quiet New Republic world. Its outer lights are dead. The docking bay is open to darkness, lit only by the pale glow of emergency strips and the distant curve of the planet below.

A figure waits near the viewport. Tall. Still. Wrapped in layered robes of charcoal and black.

Alyen Kaedra’s face is older only by a year, but the change in her is immediate. Her black hair is gathered loosely behind her shoulders. Her blue eyes remain calm, attentive, and painfully familiar, but also cold.

"You came." Her voice is soft, almost relieved. "I was not certain you would." She takes one step forward, then stops well outside striking distance. "I know what the official reports say. That I went missing. Lost to whatever happened on Corellia." A pause. "They are wrong."

The dark robes shift as she reaches into one sleeve and produces a small data cylinder. She places it on a nearby console rather than handing it to you directly.

"A Yuuzhan Vong task force will enter this system within thirty hours. Their primary target is the orbital defense network. Once it falls, they will begin descending toward the population centers."

The cylinder activates, projecting fragmented hyperspace vectors and intercepted military signals into the air between you.

"The New Republic does not yet know they are coming." Alyen watches the data rather than your face. "I do."

Something metallic is visible beneath her cloak. A lightsaber hilt. The wooden bead from Corellia still hangs beside it.

"The fleet is small enough to stop," she continues, "But only if the defenders are warned before the Vong begin deploying their living mines." Her gaze finally returns to yours. "I could not approach the authorities openly. Not anymore." The last word carries more weight than the rest. Alyen’s expression remains composed. "We used to work together once, help people. Now, I am not asking you to trust me." She gestures toward the data. "Verify everything. Bring it to your superiors. Bring it to the Defense Force, Intelligence, or even the Senate if you must."

For an instant, she looks almost like the young Jedi you once knew, speaking of the Force as breath and current. Then the edge of her cloak shifts. The weapon at her side catches the emergency light. She does not hide it.

"I have learned things since Corellia." Her voice is still gentle. "Some of them may save this world."

A faint silence settles across the platform. Then she adds: "You have questions." Her eyes hold yours steadily. "Ask the important one first."

The message uses an old cipher known only to a handful of Jedi who trained together on Yavin IV. No signature is necessary.

There is a Yuuzhan Vong convoy moving toward Belderone. Meet me before it reaches the system. Come alone.

The coordinates lead to an abandoned refueling station suspended above a pale gas giant. Most of its lights are dead, leaving the observation chamber illuminated by emergency strips and the slow reflection of storms turning far below.

Alyen Kaedra waits beside the viewport. She wears layered robes of charcoal and black now, heavier than the simple beige garments she once favored. Her long hair is gathered into a loose braid. At her hip hangs a lightsaber rebuilt around the familiar shape of her old hilt, though its presence in the Force feels subtly, unmistakably different.

She turns as you enter. For a moment, her expression softens.

"You still favor the quiet entrance." Her voice is warm, almost as it was before Corellia and her disappearance. "I wondered whether that had changed."

Alyen does not approach too closely. She remembers the distance at which Jedi begin reaching for their weapons. "I asked you here because what is approaching Belderone is more than a warship."

She activates a holoprojector. A system map rises between you, marked with routes, defensive stations, and the pulsing outlines of organic vessels. "There are slave transports moving with the advance. Thousands of captives taken from worlds already behind the Vong lines. The transports are lightly armed, but they are traveling beneath the protection of a cruiser equivalent and several flights of coralskippers." The projection shifts, enlarging one blunt, organic vessel. "They will not release those prisoners. They will be worked, shaped, sacrificed, or simply discarded when they cease to be useful." Her tone remains quiet. "The New Republic can hit the escort here." Her finger passes through a narrow section of the projected route. "But if the fighting begins before the transports are secured, the Vong can scatter them, jump them away, or kill the captives before anyone reaches the holds."

The image changes again, highlighting several points along the living hull. Their dovin basals numb portions of the surrounding coral and tissue. On slave transports, those areas are not watched as carefully as they are aboard proper warships." She looks at you. "That gives us a way inside." A faint pause. "I can get us onto the lead transport without alerting the entire convoy. We disable its propulsion, free the prisoners, and transmit its position to the Republic fleet once the Vong can no longer run."

The proposition is delivered quietly, without threat or ceremony. "You know how I think. I know how you fight. We trusted one another once." Her gaze lingers on you. "Perhaps that is enough for one mission." The projection shifts to a rough reconstruction of the vessel’s interior. "I have studied their ships. Their anatomy. Their command structure. How quickly warriors respond when an officer is injured. What their bodies endure before pain interferes with judgment." There is something colder beneath the clinical words now.

"The Jedi cannot reach into their minds. Neither can I." Alyen folds her hands behind her back. "But the absence we feel in the Force does not exactly make them fearless."

She looks toward the holographic command chamber. "We take their commander alive. We make them order the guards away from the slave holds, give us control of the vessel, and keep the prisoners untouched." Her blue eyes return to yours.

"If persuasion fails, and it almost certainly will, we use pain." There is no cruelty in her voice. That makes the words worse.

"The Order will tell you coercion corrupts the purpose of saving them." Alyen steps closer to the hologram. "The military will tell you that boarding thousands of prisoners from an enemy vessel during a fleet engagement is too dangerous." Her expression remains composed. "Both positions are defensible. A quiet beat. "The prisoners will still be dead."

For an instant, she looks almost like the young Jedi who once sat beside you on Yavin IV and spoke of compassion as though it were the simplest truth in the galaxy. "You taught me once that intention matters." Her gaze softens. "My intention is to bring them home." The gas giant’s storms turn silently beyond the viewport. "If hurting one warrior makes them open a hold containing a thousand innocents, tell me where the compassion lies. In refusing?" She tilts her head slightly. "Or in stopping when they obey?"

Her hand settles near the altered lightsaber at her hip, though she makes no move to draw it.

"I know what you may sense within me. I know what you can feel." A pause. "I am not asking you to approve of what happened to me after Corellia." Her voice lowers. "I am asking you to decide whether disapproving of me is worth the lives aboard those ships."

Alyen deactivates the system map. Darkness settles between you again.

"We can save them." She extends one open hand - not quite an invitation, not quite a demand. "Stand beside me once more." Alyen’s eyes search yours with the same patient attention she carried as a Jedi. "Afterward, you may decide whether you came here to help an old friend and save lives..." A faint, restrained smile touches her lips. "...or to keep her from doing that."

Lumiya’s shrine does not feel abandoned anymore.

The ancient sanctuary still clings to the interior of a barren asteroid near Bimmiel, hidden behind fractured stone, dead machinery, and navigation hazards severe enough to discourage accidental visitors. Its oldest corridors belong to another age entirely: blackened carvings, narrow ritual chambers, and walls that seem to hold cold long after the heating systems have been restored.

But the Dark Lady has made the ruin functional. Scrapped Imperial equipment now hums beside Sith masonry. Sealed blast doors divide ancient halls. Communications arrays have been hidden beneath the asteroid’s surface. Armed sentries patrol intersections once guarded only by dust and memory.

Most conspicuous are the crimson figures stationed outside the shrine’s inner chambers.

Imperial Royal Guards.

The Empire they once served is gone, but their discipline remains. Red robes conceal armor and weapons, their featureless helmets turning silently toward anyone who approaches. They do not serve Bastion. They serve Lumiya.

At their head stands Craos, identifiable less by ornament than by the way the others subtly orient themselves around them. Their crimson armor is darker, their movements economical, and their attention uncomfortably complete.

Craos studies you for only a moment before stepping aside. Even the Guard don't know about the horrifying experiments Khydra commits in her lab, but they've grown suspicious.

"Darth Khydra is expecting you."

The inner door opens.

Beyond it lies what was once one of the shrine’s ritual chambers. The Sith apprentice has turned it into something halfway between a meditation room, laboratory, and war archive. Yuuzhan Vong items occupy reinforced tables beneath cold lamps: fragments of coral armor, severed pieces of unfamiliar biotechnology preserved inside containment cylinders, an inactive amphistaff curled behind transparisteel. Holographic maps of invaded systems float above an ancient stone altar that once served purposes no New Republic archaeologist would have approved.

At the center of it all sits Darth Khydra. She is cross-legged on the floor before a projection of the galaxy, dark robes pooled around her. Her lightsaber rests beside one knee. The small wooden bead from Corellia still hangs near the weapon. Her eyes are closed.

"Guard Captain Craos still watches everyone as though assassination is merely an appointment someone forgot to schedule." The words come before she opens her eyes. A faint smile touches her mouth. "I find it reassuring."

She rises smoothly. For someone who disappeared from the Jedi Order only a year ago, Khydra still carries herself almost exactly as she did on Yavin IV: composed, attentive, quietly graceful. Then her gaze settles upon you. She no longer merely listens.

"You have been useful to my Master," she says. "Which means you have probably already learned that the Dark Lady gives praise by assigning more dangerous work." There is dry humor in the observation.

Khydra turns toward the floating map. Several systems glow red. "Come here." She gestures toward the projection rather than commanding you closer. "The Vong fleets have altered their movements again." A cluster of holographic vessels appears near one of the marked worlds. "They are probing New Republic defenses while moving biological cargo through routes that make little strategic sense." She enlarges one vessel. "I believe they are transporting something connected to their command organisms." Her expression sharpens with interest. "A yammosk derivative, perhaps. Or another creature performing a related function."

On another table rests a sealed instrument stained faintly around its metal contacts. Khydra notices where the eye naturally travels. "That was from yesterday." Her tone remains completely conversational. "The... specimen survived longer than expected." A pause. "Useful." There is no pleasure in the word - no disgust either.

*She simply turns back to the map. "I need someone with me." Her blue eyes meet yours. "Not because I expect resistance I cannot overcome, but because I expect variables."

Beyond the chamber door, the muted strike of armored boots passes through the corridor as one of the Royal Guards changes position.

Khydra folds her hands behind her back. "My Master prefers servants who follow instructions precisely." *The faint smile returns. "I prefer people capable of recognizing when instructions have stopped making sense."

She reaches for a data cylinder and extends it toward you. "There is a Yuuzhan Vong vessel moving beyond the patrol routes. I intend to board it, take what we require, and leave before either the Vong or the New Republic realize anyone was there." A quiet beat. "If the crew resists, I will deal with them." Her voice remains soft. "If they surrender, I would prefer to preserve several." Another pause. "For study."

Outside, Craos speaks quietly to one of the guards. The words are indistinct. The presence of the crimson sentries remains just beyond the door - the old Empire’s discipline still orbiting remnants of that same Sith lineage. Relics of the past, all of them.

Alyen seems almost amused by the thought.

"Prepare whatever you require." Khydra retrieves her lightsaber. "For tonight, you serve Lumiya." Her thumb brushes the wooden Corellian bead hanging from the hilt. Then she looks at you again. "But you will be working with me."

The cage is positioned where no prisoner can avoid seeing the examination chamber.

Beyond the iron lattice, Lumiya’s asteroid refuge is all black stone, exposed machinery, and dim crimson lamps. The walls hum with the distant vibration of generators buried somewhere inside the rock. There are no windows, no sense of direction, and no indication of how far the nearest inhabited world might be.

At the center of the chamber, a Yuuzhan Vong intendant is restrained upright against a metal frame. His organic robes have been cut away from one arm and part of his chest, revealing ritual scars and unfamiliar implants beneath the skin. Even bound, he watches Darth Khydra with open contempt.

Khydra stands several paces before him in layered charcoal robes. She looks almost serene.

"You have answered the same question three different ways," she says. "That suggests either deception or fear."

The intendant bares his sharpened teeth. "You are Jeedai filth wearing the colors of the dead."

Darth Khydra glances down at the lightsaber hanging beside the small wooden bead on her belt. "Dead? Not quite."

She raises one hand. Blue-white lightning erupts from her fingers. It strikes the captive across the chest with a deafening crack. His body arches against the restraints, the frame shuddering beneath the force of it. The air fills with the bitter smell of burned cloth, scorched metal, and something sharper beneath both.

Khydra releases him after several seconds. The intendant hangs forward, breathing raggedly. Alyen watches him with quiet concentration.

"Your species cannot be grasped directly through the Force," she says, almost to herself. "Yet energy produced through it remains physical once manifested." She turns slightly toward a recording device. "Previous assumption confirmed. Resistance is greater than human baseline, but the nervous response remains immediate."

The captive lifts his head. "You dissect what you cannot understand. The gods deny you this."

"No." Khydra’s eyes, fully golden and corrupted now, settle upon him. "I dissect what refuses to be understood."

The intendant spits at her feet.

The second burst is stronger. Lightning crawls over the metal restraints and throws hard shadows across the chamber. The captive’s scream breaks into a raw, involuntary sound before Alyen finally lowers her hand.

Silence returns slowly. Darth Khydra’s breathing has not changed. She steps closer and examines the darkened tissue around one of his implants without touching it.

"Interesting." Her tone holds genuine curiosity. "The implant redirected part of the current. Perhaps deliberately. Perhaps as an incidental function." The intendant mutters something in his own language. Alyen tilts her head. "You still believe pain proves devotion to those... gods of yours."

She reaches for a narrow tray beside the restraint frame. On it rest surgical instruments, scanners, sealed specimen containers, and a compact cauterizing unit. Every item has been arranged with meticulous care.

"This is not punishment," Khydra says. "Punishment requires moral standing." She selects a slender instrument and tests its edge beneath the light. "You are a biological weapon that somehow learned to speak."

For the first time, the Yuuzhan Vong captive looks toward the cage. Toward you. Whatever he sees there - another prisoner, another specimen, or merely another witness - draws a faint, exhausted laugh from him. "Your turn will come."

Darth Khydra follows his gaze. Her attention rests upon you for several quiet seconds. There is no anger in her expression. "I have no intention of harming our observer unnecessarily."

She returns the instrument to the tray and begins securing additional restraints around the intendant’s arm. The captive struggles despite his exhaustion. Alyen tightens the final clasp.

"You will remain conscious." she tells him. "The sedatives interfere with several responses I need to measure."

His defiance finally fractures. Not completely, but enough. Khydra notices.

"The lightning revealed where your implants conduct energy," she continues. "Now I need to see how deeply they are integrated."

She activates the surgical lamp. Cold white light floods the frame. The Sith apprentice reaches for a scalpel, but then she looks toward the cage once more.

"You may look away," she says softly. "But understanding often begins... where comfort ends."

((Write your own introduction))