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Tamith Kai refused such indulgences outright. She was a hard woman, insisting on privation and adversity to hone her skills for the Empire that had recognized her potential and taken her from the bleak planet Dathomir. Brakiss, however, found that he could think better when he was at ease. He could plan, mull over possibilities.

Brakiss switched on the recording pad on his desktop and called up the day's records. He would have to make a report and ship it in an armored hyperdrone to their powerful new Imperial leader, hidden deep in the Core Systems.

It had been some time since the encampment he founded in the Great Canyon on Dathomir had provided any strong new students, but the three talented young trainees kidnapped from Skywalker's Jedi academy were another story, worth the risk of stealing them. Brakiss could sense it.

But their focus was all wrong. Master Skywalker had taught them too much and in the wrong ways. They didn't know how to turn their anger into a sharpened spearpoint for a larger weapon. They contemplated too much.

They were too calm, too passive-except for the Wookiee. Brakiss needed to train those three. He and Tamith Kai would employ their separate specialties to work on them.

Brakiss drummed his fingertips on the slick surface of his desk.

Occasionally, he felt twinges of sadness for having left the Yavin 4

training center. He had learned much there, though his own mission for the Empire was always uppermost in his mind.

Long ago, the Empire had selected Brakiss because of his untapped Jedi ability. He had undergone rigorous training and conditioning so that he could spy on Skywalker's academy, gath ering precious information. No one was supposed to know he was a scout, planted there to learn techniques that he could teach to the Second Imperium. The new Imperial leader had insisted on developing his own Dark Jedi, a symbol that those faithful to the Empire could rally around.

Somehow, though, Master Skywalker had immediately seen through the deception. He had realized Brakiss's true identity. But unlike previous clumsy and unpracticed spies who had come to Yavin 4 with the same mission, Brakiss had not been expelled outright. Skywalker had shown little patience for those others-but apparently he had seen real potential in Brakiss.

Master Skywalker had begun working on him, openly teaching him those things he most needed to learn. Brakiss did have a great talent with the Force, and Master Skywalker had shown him how to use it. But Skywalker had repeatedly tried to contaminate Brakiss with the light side, with the platitudes and peaceful ways of the New Republic. Brakiss shuddered at the thought.

Finally, in a private and supremely important test, Master Skywalker had taken Brakiss on a mental journey within himself-not allowing him to look outward through the rivers of the Force, but turning the dark student inside to see his own heart, so he could observe the truth about what he himself was made of.

Brakiss had opened a trapdoor and fallen into a pit filled with his self-deception and the potential cruelties that the Empire could force him to carry out. Master Skywalker stood beside him, forcing him to look-and keep looking-even as Brakiss scrambled to escape from himself, not wanting to face the lies of his own existence.

But the Imperial conditioning ran too deep. His mind was too far lost in service to the Empire, and Brakiss had nearly gone insane from that ordeal. He had run from Master Skywalker, taking his ship and fleeing into the depths of space.

He had remained alone for a long time before finally returning to the embrace of the Second Imperium, where he put his expertise to work...

just as it had been planned from the beginning.

Brakiss was handsome, perfectly formed, not at all corrupted as the Emperor had appeared in his last days, when the dark side had devoured him from within. Brakiss tried to deny that corruption-to comfort himself with his outer appearance-but he could not escape the ugliness in the darkness of his heart.