//Anger is of the dark side.// This was one of the first things drilled into a prospective Jedi's head at Luke Skywalker's //praxeum//. But now the young Jedi was unwilling to accept Master Skywalker's advice. The Yuuzhan Vong had taken one of the most precious things in his life, and he had been unable to do anything about it. The Vong would pay. With or without the blessing, permission, or even enmity of the other Jedi. The //Hidden Deck// was a Corellian freighter, similar to the //Millennium Falcon// in form, if not in purpose. However, it was much more heavily armed, a fact that gave Senik Almore much pride. After all, the //Falcon// was legendary in part for her missiles and quad cannons. Now, the Jedi Knight was in realspace, about fifteen or sixteen light-years from the nearest known Vong presence. Not far, when considering the high speeds needed to get from star system to star system within a few days. The //Deck//, however, was faster still, with extremely modified engines capable of traveling from Coruscant to Endor in a mere twenty-five hours. If he could reach hyperspace. Senik scanned the Vong presence nearby. They were, he knew, unable to be sensed through the Force, so he had to rely on more conventional-from a non-Jedi's point of view-form of detection. "Hey, Kin, focus a bit more on the big ships there," he ordered his ship's droid caretaker. "Check for gravitic fluctuations outside normal dovin basal parameters." The droid responded after a whir that lasted for several seconds. "No anomalies," it replied in its usual monotone. Senik nodded. While the rumor among the Jedi was that the yammosks communicated through gravitic fluctuations, this Jedi preferred to believe that it utilized something more like the Force, something understandable if it could only be accessed. Anakin Solo believed the same thing-while the two were not close friends, the younger Jedi had made a point of bringing up his view at the meetings on Coruscant Master Skywalker had called. //It makes sense//, Senik had had to admit. //Focus!// There was no time for reminiscing. Maybe when he returned to Coruscant he would be lucky enough to see Anakin again. Then maybe he could learn how the Jedi boy-Senik refused to think of him as a full Knight, despite all of his accomplishments-had learned to sense the Vong. //Anger may be of the dark side, but it's the best tool for this mission.// Vengeance was decried among the Jedi as another method the dark side would use to get its hooks into a Jedi's soul, but Senik knew better. Vengeance had become his goal in life, the only thing he lived for. He had had a fiancée once. Her name had been Keleen. She had not been a Jedi, but Senik hadn't cared. She was beautiful, she had a good heart, and-best of all-she had truly cared for Senik, had loved him for who he was inside, and not because he was a Jedi. She had died at Duro. She had taken the job as a refugee pilot as a way of staying close to Senik, but Master Skywalker had assigned him to Corellia, while Keleen had been sent by SELCORE to take refugees to their future world. And, true to form, the Vong had attacked. Senik had seen the holos twice a day at least in the year since then. She had been within a kilometer of safety when a suicide coralskipper had rammed her ship. Senik had become convinced that, had he not been on Corellia, he would have been able to get her outsystem. After the Vong were exterminated, he would have to have a talk with Skywalker. All this passed through Senik's mind in a matter of seconds, between the time when he entered and exited hyperspace. Suddenly, he was in combat. The lead ship, largest of the battalion, was his first target, mainly because he believed it most likely to contain the yammosk. A quick barrage of proton torpedoes and the frigate analog was no more than a cloud of expanding coral, having not even had time to release its coralskippers. Senik had expected it. "Kin, get to the weapons controls. I won't be able to fly and shoot at the same time," he said, cursing himself for having not thought of it sooner. A minor mistake, but in this life, those little mistakes could be fatal. "As ordered," replied Kin, moving with the speed only a droid designed for the task can attain. Now the skips were coming from the other ships, including a smaller version of the frigate analog he had already destroyed. One landed a direct hit on the engines. "No," gasped Senik in shock a moment later. A whole new group of Vong ships had emerged from hyperspace right on top of the fight. Kin had been doing a masterful job of shooting, but against this many ships... "Kin, we're getting out of here." As he spoke, Senik delved into the Force. He tried to gain enough power to rip apart a Vong ship. At first he thought he was succeeding, but then he realized that Kin had chosen the same target. With another curse, Senik brought up his hand and, calling Kin to pilot, blasted a hole in the transparisteel canopy using Force lightning while using another part of his mind to hold the atmosphere in. It was something only a desperate Jedi would try, and only in the most severe cases. In Senik's opinion, this qualified. After a little while, he was able to figure out how to maneuver the lightning enough to get around the dovin basal shields, but he was tiring. He drew upon the holo of Keleen's death for inspiration and instantly felt a renewed surge of anger. He was able to manipulate the lightning more quickly than ever before and with much more accuracy. Ten minutes later, there was only one ship remaining, and Senik was tiring. Still, he wanted to complete this mission. "Kin, take us toward it." The droid swiveled in its seat. "Sir, analysis indicates you will not be able to hold the atmosphere in much longer. If you want to live, you will instead order me to patch the hole in the cockpit." A wild gleam entered the Jedi's eye. "My orders stand. Take us there." The ship in question was a form Senik had never seen before, a weird cluster bubble shape, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that the anger was exhausting the Jedi, so much so that his lightning was unable to be sustained in order to hold the air in the cockpit. Still, the thought of completing this battle drove him on, and his lightning gained in strength, to the point where the hole in the canopy had been expanded enough to prompt Kin into saying, "No more, sir! That will run you out of energy and us both out of patches much too soon!" The Jedi simply growled at his droid, which proceeded to latch itself to its seat. And that was when he sensed it. The vast energy field spoken of by all of the Solo children after the battle at Helska. The angry Jedi let loose a stronger blast, his strongest ever, only to watch it fade into a dovin basal. Senik struggled to hold the atmosphere in the cockpit together but when the time came to order Kin to patch the hole, he divided his concentration just a little too much. Fifteen minutes later, a call came in to the //Deck//'s cockpit. Kin answered. "Greetings, Mistress Keleen. How did you survive? And where have you been for the past year?" Senik had programmed it to ask those questions in the unlikely event that she contacted them again. "Hi, Kin," replied Senik's fiancée, not wanting to bother with an explanation. "Is Senik available? And why do you sound so strange?" Kin glanced at the hole in the canopy. "Sadly," it replied via a direct connection, "Senik will not ever be available again."