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"Ah, rage, there it is. That is what we must destroy. Passion fuels a fight, it is inevitable. But rage... rage gives one focus, but with such narrow views he finds himself unable to see the trap set around him. Such as the one you're in now." He muttered, hitting a small button, which turned on a ray shield, surrounding the woman.

"And while you're in there, listen well to what I have to say. If you truely have changed, then you have nothing to fear. But trust me, when you find yourself staring at your inner self, and it manefests itself into a sith, don't be whining to me about who has heart and who does not."

Labrynth paused, hanging the spoon back on the wall.

"Picking up a lightsaber and doing a couple good deeds don't get you into the esteemed order. Only a true change of heart can. You fear the loss of your lovebird. Typical sith nature. For someone which I thought might actually fare the better, you sure don't live up to such high appraisal. Neb must have been a fool to think you were half as great as he gave your complements when he sent me that holodisk months ago. The urchin did a fine job... at finding someone worst than him."

Labrynth turned off the ray shield, freeing his prisoner.

"Until you learn to steady your hand, your head and heart will be much more difficult to train. You are not special enough to bypass this stage. For someone wanting to be in love with someone, you sure do one hell of a job losing your head. Emotions kill. Your love is deadly in its current state. Mood is for lovemaking and poetry, not fighting. And Love unabated saves nobody if it kills them in the process."

He sat down in a chair, relaxing a bit.

"In all the years of my life, I have experienced many things. I resent my former pupil. But I learned one thing that will help you now from him. Love is a great thing. But you are a fool to believe that that alone will solve all problems. Are not the jedi, when they die, one with the force? Which all other Jedi draw strength from? And isn't it not possible to draw from the lifeforce which one has departed from? You see, while you fear the death of your lovebird, you are selfish, and will commit to the darkest acts with your beliefs. Neb delved into this topic, heavily I might add, to produce results. Despite his inability to ever find a soulmate, he at least compiled a knowledge needed to comprehend this. When, not if, when one of you dies, that does not mean you are forever gone. In fact, if you are true jedi, you will have nothing to fear, as you will be together for as long as you exist. While the touch of flesh on flesh may be missing, the love still exists. And if you truely wish to be near him, all you have to do is feel the force, and he is right there with you."

"So, the question is not who am I to talk about heart, but how selfish are you over the touch of a man?"

Labrynth rose from his seat.

"This is why we start with the hand. Because the heart is only capable of learning once the head and hand are steady. And because of that, your outburst only proved one thign to me: You have much more to learn before you can ever achieve what you wanted. You were warned this would be more difficult of the paths. And you were warned by me that this training will nearly kill you. I never meant physically. In fact, the digging of the graves was a simple exercise to help build a little muscle and see how far your patience would go, as well as seeing how well you would listen. You passed that part, are you so willing to fail this?"

"We must crawl before we can walk. This is enough training for one day. I'm sorry Feron, but there is no need to test your skills. You have the same faults as your bird there. You need not both be tested individually. A true love would learn from each other."

Labrynth took off down the hall.

"Dinner's in the kitchen."

" I see there's actually some real wisdom behind the ranting old man after all. But, you must understand almost all my life I've known only hate. Once I found love, I became overwhelmed by a feeling I thought I'd never have again. I already lost my family, and that's enough pain for a lifetime. " Angel tossed the sword back to where she got it from, but since it was without any Force powers to aid her aiming, it merely hit the wall and fell to the floor. After a barely audible sigh of disgust, she picks it up and puts it back, then catches up with the others.

Blue blade met blue blade, as Mordranna blocked Rekan's attack. "Good control," she replied approvingly. "I sense that you will become an incredible swordsman," she commented. At once, she disengaged the humming blue sword. "Of course, combat prowess is not the only test of the Jedi."
She then looked out onto the blue ocean of Corellia. "In the Force, you must find peace. I suspect that your former master taught you that much. But, did you know that even now, he is still with you?"
Mordranna then gave a slight nod. "Yes. He is a part of the Force, just as much as your saber and your robes. Just as my own master that trained me is. They are here. They are in the ocean. They are in my ship. They are even in the plushie that Sami gave me," she concluded with a mild blush and chuckle.
"This is all I have for this day," Mordranna announced. "I should like you to think upon my words."

The Pirates all managed to find their way to Skull base without drawing attention. As soon as they landed, they began to repair and refuel their ships, as well as cache the Greel wood in their storehouse. Cale watched his men dart back and forth and took in a breath of the conifer scented air.
"Nice place to put a base." he mused to himself not for the first time.
"Terrific. We're glad you think so." Rain said as she came up behind him. "So now what?"
Cale shifted his stance and drew out his flask. "We made off with a small fortune of valuable material and handily defeated a Sector Ranger Frigate with a suposedly inferior force. Hell, all they managed to do was short out our turbos, and we weren't using them at the time anyway. The Crew is sharp. Even as diminished as we are we're still damn good." He took a pull from his flask and offered it to her. "I think we should hit something big."
Rain took the flask and sipped from it. "Like what, Cale?"
"I'm leaning towards an expansion of our fleet. Something in the frigate line or bigger. Something sleek, sporty, and deadly." He looked up at the sky, catching a glimpse of one of Skull Base's sister moons on the horizon. "Yeah. that's the ticket."
"Captain, I'm not sure thats a good idea. Sure another ship would be good, but I thought we were trying to lay low."
Cale grinned. "I want to see how far I can go, how far I can push the limit. I'm out to become a legend, Rain. And a legend can't rest on his laurels. Besides, if I don't have a few pretty new ships when next I call the fleet up, It'll look like I've been lazy."
"What about Project Arcadia?" His Operation officer asked.
"I don't have enough money to finish financing it and besides, its nowhere near completion. In the meantime, I have to be bringing in profit. A bigger ship means bigger profits, especially when you get one at a five digit discount."
Rain sighed and ran her fingers through her long hair. "Yeah, but that also means more mouths to feed. Big ships have crews in the hundreds, if not thousands. And thats alot of men to keep under control and pay. The money from those big jobs will disapear pretty quickly."
"Then we just have to run a tighter ship and hit even bigger targets. No Guts no glory."
Seeing she couldn't change Cale's mind, Rain gave a resigned sigh. "Fine. where do we begin? Do we go and hunt down the Pearl?"
"Listen, the less we do to piss off the Rangers, the better. Besides, those Neb B's are old ships. No, we need something classier, more up to date. First thing we do is start with reconassance and look for a likely target."
"Then what?"
Cale took his flask from the taller woman and took a pull. "Then its just a matter of getting them to come to us. This is what we'll do..."

Labrynth headed into the kitchen, where two bowels were served.

"As for my foundry of knowledge, I must admit that Neb was capable of keeping me updated. I know all the events which happened on Ossus, and the battle of Coruscant is being evaluated by Rook on Manaan. Trust me, your histories and personal convictions are quite well known to me."

She walked forward, "What do you sense?" She said bowing, and some-what interested.

The Class 1000 Cruiser Astral Cleric continued its slow patrol of Republic space, Maintaining a careful watch for Imperial, Sith, or Pirate activity.
The Astral Cleric had patrolled this route before, but under a different crew and banner. Her base had surrendered to the Republic two years ago and so she was drafted into the New Republic Navy. Rather than assign her a new home though, the Republic assigned a new crew to her and put her back on patrol. The fleet was needed elsewhere.
Suddenly they caught a faint transmission, a distress signal from a freighter under pirate attack.
Pointing herself towards the distress signal, she made the jump.

Fifteen minutes later, the light cruiser emerged upon the scene of the Raid.
The Pirate ship in question, a modified Y-head corvette, was blasting the holy hell out of a badly damaged medium freighter. But the pirate ship was in for a shock, as the Astral Cleric leveled her mighty Ion Cannons it her direction and fired, a wave of energy slamming into the Corvette. Weakly, the corvette returned fire but another salvo silenced the ship.
The Pirates weren't going anywhere for awile. Quickly the Light Cruiser pulled alongside the Medium Transport and boarded her to provide medical help to the possibly wounded crew and to aid in making temporary repairs.

On the far side of the transport, a trio of figures made their way on the outside of the hull towards the now docked Cruiser...

"And I shall keep my skills growing." He said spinning the hilt in his hand deactivating it at the same time, force jumping, up into the rafters. As he was giving chase he would feel the darkside of the force grow with in him once more.

"The master shows the other two favor." He said igniting his lightsaber once more. "And I'm not one to be put aside."

He lifted his left hand up yelling out. For the first time he sent out force lightning toward Drake. It wasn't very powerful nor controlled.