Disclaimer: Star Wars, KOTOR, the characters and settings belong to Lucasarts, George Lucas, and Bioware. No infringement is intended, nor is money being made by me. I'm just playin'. Please don't sue me.
Summary: The original "Five Things That Never Happened To..." was a meme/challenge that went around Livejournal in 2003. I've adapted it here for my own nefarious KOTOR purposes. Thanks as always go to Bintwin, my beta extraordinaire, who's been very patient with my forays into Star Wars fanfiction.
Five Things That Never Happened To Carth Onasi
I.
The whole damned ship was coming apart.
Carth could feel it in the shudders that quaked through the decking of the Endor Spire under his feet, in the growing chill as the internal systems failed deck by deck, in the faint yells and screams of the crew as they fought the Sith boarding parties. Years of space battles had taught him the feel of a dying ship, and this was one.
Bastila Shan had already made it to her escape pod and was away, thank all that was holy in the galaxy. His job would be easier without her underfoot, playing at being a commander. He'd been angry at the assignment when he'd been given it, knowing it for the demotion it was in spite of the way Commander Isheer had talked the mission up. "Advisor", he'd said. "She needs a level head around, one with military experience." Babysitter, more like. An easy mission for a man too burned out to fly his own ship, too "mentally unstable" for a command, whatever the frak that meant.
And now who was it making sure that this heap of junk stayed airborne, that her crew—the ones that were left, anyway—stayed together? Why, Advisor Carth Onasi, of course. Too unfit to command his own vessel, but the only one aboard able to hold this one together while it died. Carth felt his mouth twist bitterly, and forced the emotion aside.
The computer panel in front of him showed the life signs of the last survivor, inching her slow way through the bridge deck. He half-wished she'd hurry—the hair on the back of his neck was standing on end, sure that the squadron of Sith that had him pinned down in the escape pod bay were going to come bursting through the door at any moment. The doctors had claimed he was paranoid...but it wasn't paranoia if people really were trying to kill you, was it?
"Be careful!" he said into his communicator as she reached his position. "There's a whole squad of Sith Troopers just on the other side of that door! You'll need to—"
"Find some way to get rid of them. I know," the woman replied. Her voice was low and pleasant, even laced with mockery as it was now. Carth smiled ruefully, and watched as the life readings of the Sith winked out of existence all at once. She must have overloaded the computer terminal somehow. Then her life reading moved through, and the door between them slid open.
Carth recognized her on sight. She was mid-height, a plain woman with brown eyes and hair, dressed in utilitarian clothing. She'd come aboard with Bastila, part of the young Jedi's entourage, though he hadn't been formally introduced to her.
"You made it just in time," he said. "We're the last crewmembers left. We can hide out on the planet below."
"Right," she said. She paused, and extended one long-fingered hand. "I'm Jedi Revan, by the way."
"Carth Onasi." He took her hand and gave it a firm shake, returning her neutral smile, and gestured toward the pod. "After you."
II.
"Nomi Sunrider did it."
"She was an exception! She was one of the greatest Jedi who ever lived...and even then, she didn't exactly get a happy ending, did she? Consider what happened to Ulic. Good support for your 'Jedi can have relationships' theory, there."
"Oh, for...look. I'm not going to—to turn, okay? I'm not going to go evil and take over the galaxy or anything like that! All I want is—"
"Oh, I know what you want. And I know the Code forbids it! How you made the rank of Knight when you spend half your time being led around by the—"
"Hey! I do not!"
"You do so! Revan's got you so twisted around you don't know which way is up! If she said jump, you'd fall all over yourself, asking how high. Why she'd even want to look at you twice, I don't even know."
"She likes me. And I like her! I don't see why it's such a sin to—to—take her out, or something."
"Oh, right. That's all you want. Jedi have rules for a reason, you Gamorrean. And besides, she's the darling of the Temple. Everyone loves her. She wouldn't even give you the time of day."
"She would too! In fact, she has. We went out for caffa twice last week."
"You did not!"
"Did too!"
"You're so full of—"
"Jealousy doesn't suit you, baldy."
"I'll make you bald, you man-ape. And I'm not jealous."
"Hah."
"It doesn't mean anything, anyway. I bet she'd go for caffa with me, if I asked her."
"I doubt it. I'm better looking. And besides, she told me she thinks you're too tall."
"She did not!"
"Hah!"
"I hate you. I hope you know that."
"You love me. Now if only I could get Revan to admit that she loves me. Then life would be ideal."
"Love you? Love you? By the Force, you do have it bad. Master Vrook says—"
"Master Vrook is a—"
The hiss of a door sliding open cut the sentence off. Two faces turned at the sound, and flushed with shame as Vrook, Jedi Master, glared down at the two young Jedi seated on the low bench.
"Jedi Malak," he said coldly, "and Jedi Carth. Take this conversation elsewhere." Both young knights nodded, gulping in unison, and rose, moving toward the door with almost unseemly haste.
"Carth," Vrook called as they hit the other end of the room. "Report to me tomorrow, and we will discuss the sections of the Jedi code that cover relationships."
Carth nodded, blushing with shame. Vrook turned in a sweep of robes, and left the way he'd come.
"Told you!" Malak whispered.
Carth elbowed him in the ribs.
III.
Carth turned from the computer console, datapad in hand.
"My orders have come through," he said to Morgana. "I've got my next assignment. They're shipping me out."
His wife was standing at the counter in front of the sink, her face turned away, but he could picture her expression. Those luminous eyes would be closed, the full mouth set in a worried line. She'd known when she married him that he was a military man through and through, but it didn't make these partings any easier. She always took it hard...more so now, after Dustil.
"Where are you being deployed?" Her voice was steady, but she didn't turn around. She wouldn't want him to see her struggle for composure. She never did.
"It doesn't say. I expect I'll hear all about it at my debriefing." He examined the tense set of her shoulders with trepidation. "I doubt I'll be in harm's way—I requested that I not be sent on any dangerous missions."
She made an unhappy noise. "You said that last time."
Last time, he'd been assigned to fly escort to a special transport, and had nearly been shot down by Mandelorian forces when they had attacked without warning. He'd barely escaped, spent two months in a med facility afterward, and still had twinges in his left knee when the weather changed.
"Nothing's going to happen to me," he said softly. "Morgana, you have to believe that."
"I have to believe it?" She whirled around, and sure enough her face was flushed, her eyes wet with tears. "Well I can't! After everything that's happened since this bloody war began, don't you try to tell me what I have to believe! You don't know what might happen! Someday you're not going to come back, Carth. If not this time, then the next. Or the next. And then what?" Her voice broke on the words, and she wiped at her face, raising one hand to fend him off as he made to reach for her. "You keep insisting that nothing will happen, that you'll be safe but you can't promise. You can't promise."
The worst of it was, she was absolutely right. He'd told her over and over that they'd be safe, had left her with Dustil on Telos because it was safe. They had both grown up there. It was a colony planet, not a military one. Not a target. No one could have guessed that the Sith would attack it, would raze it to the ground the way they did. But that was no comfort for Morgana, who had held Dustil as he died. No comfort for Carth himself, who had arrived too late to help.
Carth looked at his wife, hunched over the sink, her shoulders quivering with grief, and had no words of comfort for her. She was right.
He couldn't promise anything.
IV.
Olen, Garath
Olen, Tanny
O'leon, Patterson
The memorial for Telos had been going on for what seemed like ages.
Soldiers of the Fleet stood at impeccable attention in the square. Around the edges, crowded against the environmental barrier that protected this air base from the ravaged atmosphere beyond, stood a grim and silent crowd of survivors. Far fewer survivors than soldiers, Admiral Dodonna noted. She wondered how many of them personally knew the names being read over the loudspeakers and scrolled along the huge holographic display at the front of the square. Every one, probably. The Sith had done their job here well.
The carefully modulated female voice droned on.
Olormne, Olleane
Oloz
Oluan, Abra
A small group of Jedi were standing not far from her place on the ceremonial dais, looking shell-shocked—and well they might. Dodonna's innards twisted, though her face remained impassive. Malak had been a favoured son, as Revan had been, before they both turned to evil. As Saul Karath had been for the Republic, before he deserted.
All three had colluded in this. All three were responsible. And between them they had scooped up or killed the best of the Republic and the Jedi. Who was left to fight them? Who had the personal charisma to unite their forces into a machine capable of defeating the Sith? The Force knew she didn't. All the military might in the galaxy was no match for Revan's tactical genius, for Malak's ferocious battle fury, for Karath's in-depth knowledge of the Republic fleet and its battle plans. Telos was just the beginning.
Just a taste.
Omazez, Mes
Omazez, Mos
Omeri, Trine
The whole display left a bad taste in her mouth. The stiff rows of soldiers on the parade ground, the solemn dignitaries lining the dais, the slow progress of names scrolling across the screen above them all. It was a grim business, and served no purpose she could see. The dead were dead, and this did them no honour. The living had to go on fighting, and all this display gave no comfort.
Onasi, Carth
Onasi, Dustil
Onasi, Morgana
Dodonna shifted her weight from foot to foot in a subtle move familiar to every career soldier, easing the ache of standing too long. The names would never end, she thought. To tally them all, to name every family torn apart, every person lost without record, every good soldier fallen at the hands of the Sith...it was impossible. The list would go on forever.
Onell, Coree
Onen, Albrent
Onepra, Magren
The war was never going to end.
V.
The deck of the Star Forge shuddered under Carth's feet.
He tried to ignore it, tried to focus all his attention on the woman in front of him, to reach her though the haze of evil that surrounded her. He'd known that she had fallen, but there was knowing, and there was knowing. It made his heart ache to see the stain of the Dark Side on her face, to see her beauty marred by evil.
"I had to come," he said. It had felt like a compulsion, like the universe had been dragging him to this point, to this moment. To her.
"You should have stayed wherever you ran to," she said, her voice curiously flat. "You shouldn't have come here."
Carth took a deep breath, trying to quell the sick nervousness in the pit of his stomach. She hadn't struck him down out of hand. He tried to take hope from that. "Maybe not, but I had to come. I love you," he said, rushing to get the words out before she stopped him, before he lost his courage. "Even now, even after all you've done. I love you like I haven't loved anyone or anything since my wife died. I have to believe there is still some good in you. That there's still some part of you I can reach. There's a part of you that believes in hope, and mercy. And love." He reached out, knowing the gesture was futile, knowing he had to try. "Please—"
And she wavered. She made an abortive gesture toward her lightsaber, but her hand dropped back to her side. He could see the doubt in her eyes as she looked at him. He was reaching her, just as he'd known he could. All the time they'd spent together on the Ebon Hawk hadn't been for nothing. She felt for him, loved him the way he loved her, the way he'd thought he'd never love anyone again. Her lips parted, as though she might speak—
"Carth." Revan stepped out of the shadows, where he must have been waiting for just this moment. His face was marked with the same darkness that infected Bastila, the taint of the Dark Side. "I knew I sensed your presence. I should have known you would find a way to meddle in this one last time."
Despite himself, Carth took a step back. "Don't interfere, Revan. This is between me and Bastila." But the moment was gone; Bastila's expression hardened, her eyes going cold as Revan's aura swept over her.
Revan smiled, the calm, reasonable smile that had once won him accolades and adoration across the galaxy. The smile that Carth himself had trusted, often to his own regret. "No, Carth, it isn't. It is between the three of us, just as it's always been. But Bastila didn't choose you. Not before the Leviathan, not after, and not now."
Carth looked at Bastila. "Don't listen to him. Please, Bastila. I love you. We can still leave, there's still time. If you strike him down—"
"No!" She shook her head, stepped away from Carth, and he knew, with a pain so deep it didn't even hurt, that he had lost her irrevocably. "Together, Revan and I will rule the galaxy. It's...it's too late for us. I think it always was. There is nothing you can offer me that I want."
"Whereas I can offer her the galaxy." Revan smiled again, bent, and laid his lips against Bastila's temple. "Strike him down, Bastila," he murmured. "Where we are going, there is no room for him."
Carth closed his eyes and waited for the blow to fall.
-S-S-