Crosscurrent

AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT

Across the hatch, written in an enormous, diagonal scrawl of dried blood, were three words. Jaden felt chilled when he read them.

"Mother is hungry."

Jaden stared at the hatch a long while, rooted to the last stair. Moving from it seemed a fateful step, a portentous act. Holding his ground, he again reached out through the Force, feeling for the presence of any nearby Force-users.

Making contact almost instantly, he winced at the bitter recoil caused by the touch of a dark sider-but not a pure dark sider. Jaden felt the dark side as though it were adulterated with… something else, the same way his own signature was that of a light-side user adulterated with… something else.

Sentience curses us with a desire to categorize.

He looked down at his hand as if it were a thing apart from him, a piece of him that had betrayed the rest and thereby corrupted the whole. Tiny streamers of Force lightning curled around the glow rod, twisting like things alive.

The regard of the Force-user on the other side of the hatch fixed on him. The mental touch felt as greasy as the air, just as infected with putrescence.

He descended the step and opened the hatch.