Koy'itar slowly raised her hands as if complying with the Temple guards. As her hands came up, she hooked her thumb in a small ring hanging from her belt, bringing with it the grenade she had attached to the ring by a slender wire. The guards noticed the grenade the moment it cleared the pouch on her hip, but it was too late as she swung her hand around to fling the grenade toward the Jedi.

Without a second of hesitation, Koy'itar spun and bolted in the opposing direction. She only managed to take three steps when an invisible hand grabbed hold of her and held her immobile. She looked over her shoulder and found one of the guards with his free hand extended toward her, using the Force to halt her escape. Another of the Jedi had caught the grenade in mid-air and kept it frozen in place as well.

"Did you actually think that would work?" one of the three guards questioned.

"No," she admitted. "But, this will."

Koy'itar thumbed the activation button on a miniature control pad located on her wrist. The grenade exploded in a blinding flash of intense light. Because of her goggles, she was protected from the full intensity of the blast, but the guards lacked the proper optical filters in their masks and were overwhelmed, collapsing to the floor as their lightsabers automatically deactivated when dropped.

Ignoring the unconscious forms of the guards, Koy'itar abandoned her attempts to blend in and sprinted the rest of the way to the vent. Tearing off the cover, she dove head first into the vent and moved without caring how much noise she made as speed was more important. Reaching the end of the shaft, she hooked her gun into the cable and harpoon she'd left in place when entering. Once connected, Koy'itar dropped straight down, the cable slowing her descent until she came to a smooth stop at the platform a short distance from where she'd left her transport.

The vehicle was dull gray with a pair of adjustable, bright yellow fins for navigating air currents. Jumping into the open topped transport, she fired up the engines and shot away from the landing pad. Turning a corner and putting a tall building between herself and the Jedi Temple, Koy'itar flipped a switch on the console in front of her. The bright yellow fins folded up and retracted into the hull while stubby, red wings extended to either side of the engine ports. A compartment opened up behind her seat, and a roof unfurled until it covered the interior. Glass partitions raised to connect with the roof and enclose the cockpit.

Changing the course of her craft again, she joined one of the slow moving lanes of traffic just before the Jedi security ships flew past. They were looking for a thief, but since the shape and color of her transport currently looked nothing like the vehicle they'd seen departing the Temple, she was practically invisible.

In the confines of the cockpit, Koy'itar couldn't hide her satisfied smile. She'd accomplished her mission and escaped unscathed. All that remained was delivering the disk to her partner. She wondered what might be so important on the disk and what her partner was ultimately going to do with it.

   ***   

The cargo hauler, looking like a flattened sphere of battered metal, emerged from lightspeed over the frozen ice world of Hoth. Koy'itar adjusted the controls for a smooth descent through the upper atmosphere. Her transport was secured in the primary cargo hold, leaving little room for anything else, and she'd escaped Coruscant without further incident, leaving her free to continue to the prearranged rendezvous point.

As her ship broke through the thick clouds, she cruised across the snow covered mountains and planes of ice stretching out for miles in all directions. To both her eyes and her sensors, the world seemed complexly devoid of life. Using the coordinates she'd been provided, Koy'itar set her ship down near a cave entrance. The hole in the mountain wasn't large enough for her ship or transport, but the sensors detected a massive network of tunnels beyond the opening. She thought if it could be hollowed out and the entrance widened for vehicles, it might make for a suitable base for a small army.

Koy'itar switched on a few countermeasures to protect the ship from intrusions, just in case, and exited into the biting cold wind. Wrapping a heavy scarf around her face and headtails, she hurried through the ankle deep snow toward the cavern entrance and ducked through the low opening. The environment was tolerable inside, and she looked the place over, finding it cold, dark, and as apparently lifeless as the rest of the world.

Her assumptions were proved wrong when she heard footsteps approaching from one of the many passages leading outward from the cavern chamber where she stood. She dropped a hand to the grip of her blaster.

A red-haired woman stepped into view. Clad in a long cloak, her attire under the covering was sparse, leaving her legs and stomach bare and revealing black tattooing that entwined like vines across the pale skin on the right side of her body. Held in her right hand was a lightsaber, currently activated and humming loudly while the red energy beam cast its crimson light across everything in the vicinity.

"Were you successful in securing the disk?" the woman asked Koy'itar flatly. No emotion registered in her voice.

"I was," Koy'itar admitted. "Since we're partners in this, would you mind telling me what it is and why you sent me after it?"

"It's a fair request," the woman replied. She swept the blade of her lightsaber through a small pile of snow, igniting the incendiary charges concealed underneath. The cavern was lit with bright orange flames and waves of refreshing warmth began to fill the air. "If you want a full explanation, I'll have to go back to before I started calling myself Solus, back when I was known as Jedi Knight Tira Marthos."