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The Twi'Lek drew himself taller, gathering together his few ragged scraps of pride. "This is all that remains of me and my once great clan," he wheezed. "I should have followed the others into the Bright Lands, but Nolaa Tarkona cruelly exiled me to the cold. I could not make the long journey across the shadows and into the purifying sun."

"Who are you?" JaCen asked. "What's your name?" Overhead, the wind turbines spun and vibrated, powering the haphazardly propped glowpanels.

The Twi'lek took a deep breath. "I am Kur...," he said, then hesitated.

"Just Kur.

I have no clan name any longer. It has been stripped from me."

"Nolaa Tarkona did that to you?" Jacen asked.

The Twi'lek turned his face away, as if unable to bear the truth.

Tenel Ka switched off her lightsaber and answered for him. "When a clan is defeated, the five clan leaders are exiled to the daylight side of Ryloth. In the Bright Lands, at the mercy of the heat, they soon succumb to death."

"But Nolaa threw me to the cold wastes instead," Kur said. "I have eked out a living, under these generator stations that provide power and air circulation for the caves below. But most of the large Twi'lek cities are far from here. Nolaa Tarkona selected an isolated area for her headquarters. From there, she keeps the rest of my people living in fear."

Seeing no actual danger from Kur, Jacen and Tenel Ka crept deeper into the cave, seeking shelter from the crackling cold outside. To Jacen, the warrior girl's skin appeared translucent and blue from the frigid temperatures... not to mention banged, bruised, and scraped from their rough fall across the rocky ice field.

He wasn't much better off himself, but at least he'd had his comfortable coverall to give him some protection--much more than Tenel Ka's reptile-skin body armor had offered.

The Twi'lek exile stood up. He reached back around some rocks near a flickering glowpanel and pulled out a tattered, worn strip of hide, a very meager blanket. "Here, girl, use this. It's the best I can offer."

Tenel Ka took the blanket, which Jacen helped her drape over her shoulders. She hunched down to conserve her body heat and Jacen huddled next to her, adding his warmth to hers.

"When I came here to this place, I found one weak and starving rylcrit,"

Kur said. "Deep in the caverns of some of the larger Twi'lek cities, my people raise those hardy animals for meat.

But this one had survived out here in the waste-lands.

It died soon after I found this cave. I ate the rylcrit meat over the course of a month. I used its bones to make tools and its hide to make the blanket. May it warm you enough to survive for another day."

Tenel Ka's voice was gruff, almost defiant, despite the shivering she tried to control. "We must survive another day," she said. "We must escape."

Kur chuckled, a sound like crumbling dry leaves. At this, Jacen stiffened and took offense.

"We will get out of here," he said. "We've got a ship coming."

"So you expect to get off of Ryloth?" Kur said.

"Then someone must have given you false hope."

Jacen glared at the Twi'lek. "How did Nolaa manage to take over all your cities?" he asked, changing the subject. "She doesn't seem to have nany Twi'lek followers in her Diversity Alliance.

In fact, considering the large populations in some of the cave cities, I'm surprised she has any control over them at all."

"Nolaa Tarkona is an anomaly in many ways.

Twflek culture has ancient traditions. Our power is distributed among the clans and cities. We maintain that power through cleverness, deceit, wily tricks... rather than through violence and force.

"But Nolaa Tarkona doesn't play by our rules.

She escaped from slavery, gathered her allies, and came to our tunnels with a small army. She attacked without warning and overthrew the clan leaders. Some she sent down into the ryll mines, others she killed outright. For me she reserved a special punishment. I was exiled here instead of being sent to the Bright Lands, where I should have gone to become part of the fire."

Kur looked down at his clawed