Varek knew he was going against orders, but he felt he had no choice. In his mind, the Jedi Council was beng too passive, watching instead of acting to save a Jedi from the Dark Side. His personal shuttle dropped out of hyperspace above the frozen blue-white sixth planet in the Hoth system mere minutes after an Imperial long-range transport. As the transport docked alongside an orbital station, Varek guided his shuttle into a nearby hangar. Unobserved by him, the Dark Ghost also dropped out of hyperspace as he landed.

Still dressed as a bounty hunter, a helmet hiding hid face, he found an unobtrusive spot to watch the transport's few passengers disembark. Most of them, he observed, were Imperial technicians, though he noted a few cold-weather troopers and a handful of Reclamation Service officers among the crowd.

Then he saw Ashara.

She had definitely changed since he'd seen her last. Where before she had seemed impatient and arrogant, eager to prove herself, she now seemed confident, authoritative, commanding. Gone was the bulky heavy armored coat and leg-plates she'd worn on Taris; in their stead was a form-fitting set of black armor, seeming almost like a second skin, with a black long-sleeved woolen robe over it. Her robe's hood covered her montrals, hiding most of her face, but the blue markings on her forward lekku were unmistakable.

"Ashara..." he said softly before he realized it.

Her head snapped up, fixating on him. He gulped as her now-yellow eyes met his from across the hangar.

Of course she heard me, he thought. Her montrals pick up everything. He held his breath as she strode purposefully toward him.

Ashara scowled as she approached the bounty hunter. She knew that Force aura, even though she could tell he was trying to suppress it. She threw her hood back as she stepped in front of him.

"Varek," she greeted him. "I knew I felt you on Quesh. Why are you here?"

"Is there somewhere we can talk, Ash? In private?"

She gave a curt nod, then led him over to a side storage bay.

"Well?" she demanded.

Varek removed his helmet, setting it on a nearby crate. "I was worried about you," he explained. "I've been following your path as best I could since you ... since Taris."

"Since I killed that fool Master Ryen on Taris, you mean."

"He was a good man," Varek tried to explain.

"He held me back!" she hissed, interrupting him. "And he coddled you. I bet you still can't use a lightsaber."

"Why did you do it?" he asked her. "Why join the Sith? Why did you fall?" These were questions that had plagued him for months, questions which he so far had no answers, only speculation.

Ashara locked eyes with Varek, her yellow eyes reflecting in his brown ones, and his in hers. Through the Force she probed for any hint of deception from him. Although she was prepared to smash through his mental defenses, he surprised her by willingly lowering them.

Satisfied by what she felt in his mind, she began relating her tale. She told him of Lord Kallig contacting her on Taris, of the vision she'd had before that which Master Ryen wouldn't even listen to, of the Sith assassin she'd defeated, of how Kallig encouraged her. She spoke of her initial doubts, her duel with Jaesa, and her choice to murder Master Wazz. She spoke of her growing affection for Kal, and their kiss.

Varek took it all in. He could see the patterns emerging. In many ways, he could see where every time a Jedi could have helped her, they inadvertently through their own inaction pushed her farther away from them. The Sith Lord Kallig had taken advantage of that, he concluded. He felt pity for her, and yet could not deny that as a Sith she'd traded cockiness for confidence, and arrogant pride for determination. He'd always found her attractive, but he found the new Ash even moreso.

"I understand," he told her finally, "and I wish you the best."

"You're going to report all that to the Council, aren't you?" she asked him.

"I have to."

"No," she purred menacingly, suddenly grasping his head in her hands, "you will not." Varek screamed in pain as Ash forced her way deep into his mind.

It was a technique she'd learned from Darth Angral's holocron, based in part off the Jedi mind trick. Whereas the mind trick simply nudged a mind to be more accepting of a plausible suggestion, the technique Ashara used on Varek forcibly changed parts of his mind however she wished.

Varek mentally fought back with all of his strength. Ash's eyes narrowed; she hadn't expected him to have this strong a will, and pushed harder.

"You... will... not..." he groaned.

"You are MINE!" she countered.

With one final mental push, Ash punched through his mental defenses and into his mind. Now given free reign, she amplified that seed of resentment toward the Jedi she found buried, and altered his sense of loyalty. She smiled, a predator's cold satisfied smile.

Releasing his head, she pushed him away. He stumbled backwards and dropped to one knee to steady himself. To anyone else, though, it looked as though a bounty hunter was kneeling in supplication to a Sith.

"Whom do you serve now, Varek?" she asked.

"You, my lord," he replied automatically. He blinked. "No, I don't. I serve the... you." His puzzled expression broke into one of anguish.

"That's right," she told him, cupping his chin in her hand. "You serve me now, old friend. Not the Jedi, not the Republic. Me. You will be my spy among the Jedi, feeding me all you know and performing any task I give you, without hesitation. And you will hide your new loyalties from everyone else. Do you understand?"

"Yes, my master." He fought it. Intellectually he knew he should rebel, but Ash's rewiring of his mind ensured he could not.

"If anyone not working for myself or Lord Kallig asks who you serve," she asked, "who do you say?"

"The Jedi," he replied, "and by extension the Republic."

"Good. Stand up." He did so. "Now, go about your duties until I call upon you."

"My lord," he told her, as Kal and the rest of the Dark Ghost's crew approached, "the Jedi have assigned a shadow to follow Lord Kallig. I don't know who."

Ashara pondered this. "Find out who and quietly eliminate them," she commanded. With an, "As you command, my master," Varek grabbed his helmet and left.

"That was your old friend from Taris, wasn't it?" Kal asked Ashara as he approached. "Have you turned him to the Sith, too?"

"Not yet," she explained, wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling him in for a kiss. "I just forced him to serve me. We'll see if he has the strength to do what is necessary later."

"I take it your pilgrimage to that Master Wazz helped you?" Andronikos asked her.

"I killed him," she replied coldly. "I know my path, and myself. I am Sith."

"And as soon as I have the authority," Kal told her, "I'm promoting you to the level of Lord of the Sith. You are worthy of it."

"'Lord Zavros'," she purred, rolling the name across her tongue. "It has a nice ring to it."

"Come," Zash told them, "we have a ghost to bind."

Espionage was not a skill set typically taught to Jedi. For one thing, the deception involved almost inevitably ran contrary to the Jedi ideal of honesty. Despite that, a small number of Jedi in each generation going back thousands of years completed their training working for and/or alongside intelligence agencies. And sometimes, in rare cases, these Jedi passed their knowledge to their padawans and other students they deemed worthy.

Unknown to Ashara, Master Ocera had been assigned to the Strategic Information Service during the Great WAr, and had passed much of that knowledge and skill to Varek. However, while Varek had the theoretical knowledge, he was still inexperienced in the practical aspects. Still, he had survived undetected posing as a bounty hunter for a few months at this point.

And one of a spy's greatest mental assets is the ability to become their cover identity, burying their true personality behind the cover. And sometimes they had a cover over their cover. And for someone trained in the Force, sometimes the cover personality could have other uses, particularly when expecting a mental assault.

Varek sighed as he removed the copy of his mind he'd put in place between his real mind and Ashara's crude yet forceful attempt to alter his mind.

That skill was stronger than expected, he thought to himself. Still, she fell for the ruse. She'll be more trusting of me now, so long as I give her no reason to doubt me.

Now I just need to find the other shadow and fool Ash into thinking I've eliminated him.

Finding a Jedi Shadow was not easy, he had to admit. Most of them were trained to hide in the Force, both by cloaking themselves physically, rendering them near-invisible to the naked eye and most sensors, and by altering their Force signatures. Most, like Varek, simply suppressed their Force aura to make them appear "Force-blind"; a select few others could "disappear" from the Force entirely, as if they weren't there at all. So finding the Shadow tailing Lord Kallig in the Force was not an option.

Fortunately, Varek had been taught more mundane tracking skills in the swamps of Taris, where tracks disappeared faster than on Hoth.

When tailing a person, there are three main ways to tail him: keep the guy in your sights at all times, follow the tracks, or figure out where he's going and beat him there, laying in wait. Only an amature relies solely on the first option; these folks are usually too obvious, having learned it from watching too many espionage technothriller holodramas. A good tracker uses the second option to lead into the third.

Another great truth is that everyone relaxes when surrounded by their own people. Even the most security-conscious Jedi lowers their guard slightly in Republic outposts, and even more in Jedi enclaves. It was unlikely that the Shadow arrived in the Imperial base like Varek had, due to having been just assigned, so he rode out on a tauntaun north, stopping only long enough - once he was out of sight of the Imperials - to cover his bounty hunter armor with his Jedi robe, securing his lightsaber to his belt.

Approaching Aurek Base's sentries, he waved as two of them called him to a halt.

"How's it going, fellas?" he asked cheerfully as they inspected the ID he handed them.

"A Jedi?" the one commented. "You guys are getting popular."

"What brings you here?" the other asked.

"I was tracking a Sith Lord not too far south of here," Varek explained, "when I received a message indicating I was to assist a fellow Jedi. Have you seen any leave here recently?"

"You just missed 'em," the first sentry replied. "Two big-name Jedi - the Hero of Tython and the Barsen'thor - and a Master Tuno headed southeast toward the ravine. The Hero went to help out Sergeant Suicide Rusk, the Barsen'thor to assist the Rift Alliance forces, and Tuno to aid some privateer against the White Maw."

"Also some quiet woman," the other sentry added. "We weren't able to get much out of her, but she booked a speeder straight to Zerek Outpost near the Graveyard."

"The Graveyard?" Varek asked. "That would be the starship graveyard where all those ships went down during the War, correct?"

"Yes, Master Jedi," the first sentry confirmed. "The White Maw are entrenched there. Even a Jedi will need help against their numbers."

"Thanks much," he told them. "How long ago did she leave?"

"Just missed her," the second replied. "Not more than fifteen minutes."

"Thanks again."

He headed over to the base's speeder service, leaving the tauntaun behind - speeders could travel much faster than tauntauns, after all, and booked passage on the next taxi speeder out that way.

Someone in the archives must have figured out the ghost's location, he thought.

While waiting, he transferred his conversation with and observations about Ashara to a database. He just hoped the other shadow would agree to his planned ruse and take it to the Council. He inwardly dreaded what might happen otherwise.

Author's Notes:

I apologize for how late and short this chapter is, particularly relative to the other chapters.. I ran up against the writer's block beast a few months back when I got this far, and haven't yet wrangled it into submission. So I figured I'd share what I have.

Feedback is greatly appreciated.