This fanfic is directly inspired by LeoGirl19 and Arsenel's own work, "His Spirit, Her Soul". Hopefully however they are different enough that there is room for both on this site. I plan to go in an unique direction with this: there will be many large interesting changes to the storyline, and plenty of small ones, due to me paying lip service to "the butterfly effect" and wanting to throw some irony and twists in. On the massive shifts: basically some of the events from KOTOR 2 are colliding with the first game, and the characters, settings, and villains are all getting mixed together, which means if you haven't played the second one, you will not understand this at all, because it heavily draw upon it's ideas and themes, and at the core is more connected to the The Sith Lords, then to the Bioware version. (this all came about because I did not find it feasible that Bastila was powerful enough to be the leader of the Sith... but The Jedi Exile was... and had the potential to be the main villain- and from there it all fell into place rather quickly and smoothly.)
Oh and when everything seems to be changing, yet some stuff still lazily remains, like they get shot down over Taris on The Ender Spire, even through the ripples should have altered everything, I'm just going to say it's the will of The Force that things still happened that way. That's what's great about writing an AU in a setting with a destiny like magic system- it you sloppily leave some contrivances still in, just say it's "meant to be" The perfect excuse. Um, Franrico, you said that the butterfly effect would ah touch everything- why are they still flying around in the exact same ship from the first game. That's kind of hard to believe isn't it...
Its destiny! *shifty eyes*"
One final word, there are many revelations to be uncovered, and much of this story will play out like a mystery, with pieces and clues of the puzzle being discovered throughout the journey. A lot of information is being held back, and the characters do not have all the knowledge. Here are two hints: do not assume anything...and there is a point of divergence... one that is of massive important to Reven's character.
EDIT: I've corrected numerous errors in this chapter. (all thanks to the help from my beta editors!) Hopefully it will be easy to get into now.
What Shines Through
Chapter One: Sent Back: A New Mind Awakens
Flashes and flickers, lights and images. A vision warped or altered by the fact that it was delivered and watched in a dream. Fog lined the edges, and their mouths moved slowly, as if their speech was underwater. Yet even then, his voice cut through the dullness loud and clear...
"Look upon me and see desolation!"
"That is indeed what your master advocates" Revan said, while effortlessly batting away and parrying the corrupted Jedi who circled in front of their Dark Mistress, attempting to guard her. "But I sense from you something very different. The Exile wishes her servants to embody the dark dead places in the galaxy - to model themselves after one specifically, and you picked Tatooine, your home planet, a place of much misery and hardship, a seemingly perfect choice. Yet-"
He dispatched the remaining three who fought him in a flurry of his purple blade (decapitating one quickly, stabbing the other two) and then swung it down low, pointing at his opponents booted feet, in a ready position. Darth Shan stood before him, terrible and ominous, wearing the turbans of the Tusken Raiders loosely coiled around her face like a set of bandages hiding a grotesque wound, goggles peeking out of the rags showing bloodshot mad eyes, completely covered head to toe in thick heavy blood covered robes. Steam and mist rose and obscured her, making her image waver and appear blurry, as it seeped upwards from metallic apparatuses consisting of tubes and water tanks attached to the plates on her front and back; a battle scarred set of devices (also symbolic of her world; used by the inhabitants to attempt to survive the inhospitable stretches of land) nicked and cut with lightsaber blades, wounds from which the vapor leaked. Her hands were adorned with many pearls on golden rings, and the fingers and toes ended in sharp white claws, ripped from slaughtered dragons within secret caves. Much of her was dry and harsh, her voice was raspy, and her stare went on endless and monotonously, like the dull eternal never changing plains of sand.
Yet, Revan in all his wisdom, objected to this facade, this costume. He was not fooled, or completely impressed. On the flagship of the Sith armada , he attempted one more time to find the secret flame that he believed still burned within, whether it be fueled by the Dark Side or the Light, one that was in dire danger of being smothered by Darth Vuncroy's own particular teachings, a nihilism that threatened The Force directly.
" - Yet, no matter how well you cover it up, I still see the burning sands of Tatooine swirl behind your brow", she threw herself at him, hissing dementedly, attacking with fist and nail, fending off his sword blows with metallic bracelets that caused it to bounce off and flicker, "a hidden passion and dark beauty scurry secretly like lizards beneath the surface", he grew louder and louder, more passionate and sincere, punctuating every point with a blow, "a heart that feels greatly coiled in hibernation like a frog or reptile waiting the cool of night", she ignited her double bladed light saber, and swung it over her head, "a lightsaber itself that glows and bakes with the heat of the duel Suns!"
"Bastila! You may be Tatooine, but it is not dead and neither of you. You glow and shine with all its life and energy! Now that you see this, can't you-" His face was earnest. He was putting all he had, all he was, out there.
"My master knows of this and allows it - I will continue to use the Force, The Dark Side of it, until my Lady fully comes into her own. As long as it serves her, I will use it as a poison. You seek to redeem me to the Light Side with talk of the energy and vitality of life, when I already experience it much more then you, embroiled in the power of chaos and murder!" She smirked and threw a hand up in the air, lighting springing from it. It arched over to Revan, crackling, and he stopped it with his palm, light and smaller bolts deflected away, wildly, in different directions. He looked down sadly and muttered, almost to himself, "There is a flaw within our teaching, then... How can I hope to tempt you back to Good, away from the ways of Death of the mind and soul, with talk of passion, when the Jedi are all about repressing emotion? The Dark Side truly does have more to offer then, in that case... Darth Vuncroy's emptiness was born of the Jedi, and molded by the Sith, and now her hatred of all life is something beyond the both, an anti-force that is beyond good and evil. Her true teachings are not that of the Sith or Jedi... There is only one thing I can do then."
He launched himself at her, all speed and grace and power. The fight was over quickly, but every second eons of offense, defense, strategy, retreat and advancement were cramped. Blade met blade thousands of times, and before it was over centuries of individual warfare, the two of them locked in immortal struggle, had passed. Revan's overworked nerves saw an opening, and using skill that surpassed hers, urged his tired muscles to direct one final assault. Her double bladed lightsaber was broken in half. Briefly she attempted to fend herself with two weapons, but they were sliced out of her hands, and she was struck down.
Mab Argonberth's dream ended with the mysterious figure falling to the ground, it's clothed face rolling directly into her view, and a tall well built man with a ugly blocky face standing over, looking ominous and forbidding in all black, his tight coat rising and falling as he panted heavily, a purple light saber at his side. She woke screaming and sweating, slicked in a perspiration so unlike what she was used to... that of war
This cold clammy sweat didn't bring up memories of some half forgotten conflict that stretched across the whole galaxy, like her exertions and exercises usually did, but darker more nauseating ones of insanity...emptiness...loneliness... She much preferred the former, even though it filled her with random baseless anger and rage... to this...existential dread. But it seemed that the nightmare terror soon would be covered up, replaced, with the usual normal feelings of simple violent conflict, bizarre faint memories (more sensation, emotions, and stray thoughts) of blood lust and genocides that occasionally sprang up whenever she fought and dueled, danced murder, because battle was calling once again.
For the Endar Spire was under attack.
She looked up at him with a smile and explained why she was looting the Sith Raider's corpse. "Command took away my blaster away after I kept staring up at the ceiling and shooting the rafters of our room in boredom. Man, long space trips are dull."
The Ithorian chuckled, "That just makes me glad I choose the bottom bunk."
"Don't worry, Haskel, I would have totally kept the muzzle pointed away from you if you were on top- I would have just tried to have some fun by ricocheting it off the walls or something"
"To your right!" he shouted.
She cried, with perhaps more volume than was necessary, and threw the sword, spinning in the air, into a Sith Raider's throat. The pirate, wearing old trooper armor patched up with bulky steal and leather covers, beard and head wrapped with bandannas and strings, collapsed to the ground. She ran over to him and grabbed his rifle, holding it up with one hand pointing vertically and checking to see if it was primed. She ripped a couple grenades off the Sith's old worn belt, and tossed them to her bunkmate. As they sprinted along they discussed the bare essentials of what was going on, now talking in quick voices, the first kill of the battle changing the mood of the conversation. "Why are these assholes attacking? Not for fuel or supplies or anything; they could just rob a trading freighter then."
"This is top secret, they told me (him neglecting to add something along the lines of, "they were going to tell you to, but you were probably off shoving your face with dessert stolen from the kitchen hold - yeah I know you lock pick your way in at night when you want a midnight snack," or "I'm surprised you don't know, you seem to love eavesdropping, what's that you always say, 'I'm a scout, and when you stuck in a tiny ship and can't scout out areas, you start scouting people-information'" showed just how dire the situation was, how much that bright flash of blood had affected them - enemy combatants actually in the main areas - they had thought that the alarm was just something small, like some punks were crawling around on the hull in spider mech suits, trying to drill their way in, or a spy had attempted to sneak an antimatter case in, and they were going to put everyone in lock down to look if he had planted any more or had allies- but then the sound of gunfire started and the ship actually began to rock from cannon shots") only because I work for Squad Alpha-Five - Master Revan is on board. Yup" he said to her shocked face, "He's been on board for a while. No one knows why. It's all confidential."
"But what do they want with The Tactician?"
"If they can manage to kill him, or damage the ship enough that it crashes, Darth Vuncroy, The Exile, will have another powerful Jedi knocked off her list. A few more influential figures killed and the terrorists will be able to spread anarchy across the entire galaxy."
They briefly sprinted down a hallway before seeing that it ended in a large bunch of Sith- they backpedaled as quickly as they could, and continued their mad rush down a different path, the multiple doors and branches all a blur as they ran as fast as they could. Occasionally they would jump in a battle, to help strike down an already outnumbered and wounded Sith, or while running take potshots at the backs of distracted duelists, only firing when the bandits weren't looking or they could get a clear line of fire. Otherwise they made their way down the to the north side of the transport vessel; now that Mab knew why the pirates were attacking, she knew where her friend was taking her. "They're going to hit us with everything they got, all the heavy duty shit, aren't they? Fission and atom bombs, not just lasers."
"Yes - the raiders are just on board to disable the shields and then try to escape."
"Dammit! If this alarm was a Code Green, I would of totally headed to the battleship station right away and launched out into space in a fighter craft; try to buy us some time"
"I know you like to play the heroine, but we were screwed from the beginning - that was the first part they wounded. The hanger's annihilated- a gaping hole leading out into space. Besides, look out of the window- this isn't the right type of ship for that sort of fight, and we're outnumbered!"
She slowed down and stared out of the porthole. The Endar Spire was in the middle of a swarming chaos - hundreds of ships, some so tiny they could only strap one ion cannon on the underside of their steel bellies, others large enough to have multiple turrets hanging off, shooting a steady stream of laser bolts at absurd speeds - all a few minutes ago blended in with the rest of the space traffic ringing the planet and merely disguised as merchant ships or transport cruisers - dive bombed, strafed, and swooped at the hull slowly crumbling under the siege. Escort and police vessels attempted to defend The Endar Spire, but in the madness they either fired at each other, suffered mysterious sabotages, or were pushed away by the dense blocks and lines of attacking and confused ships. The spies had spent months infiltrating the business and army fleet surrounding Taris, and now their trap was underway -a quick brutal ambush, an inefficient assault willing to sacrifice many (the sky would be streaked with glowing comets, and spotted with shining flashes, and the habitants would have to endure a flaming rain for weeks) Reinforcements would arrive in a few minutes and utterly demolish them, but that amount of time was all they needed - lights flickered on and off, and sparks exploded from almost every conduit as the power system strained under the pressure or quickly routed energy to other parts without the safety protocols in place.
What Mab saw was the remnants of Bastila Shan's Sith army, and the new way it now fought. When Shan and Vuncroy returned from the Outer Rim, they were at the forefront of a vengeful discontented force of veteran soldiers, and disillusioned, angry ex-Jedi. Like a hot air front meeting a cold, this army collided against the galactic civilization, its peace and calmness, and halted briefly, a visible tension running and trembling down this line, a storm brewing. The war was sparked into action by the news (considered false by the Republic and declared a lie by the Jedi) that the Council had attempted to capture and execute this faction's beloved leader, Vuncroy, and had sent her into exile, for her deeds.
As the conflict continued, The Exile's growing inhumanity and monstrousness could no longer be fully concealed, and much like a sociopath conceals their murderess impulses with a normal quiet life, Bastila attempted to act as her mask of sanity, a intermediary between her and the army, continuously justifying the genocides and massacres with talk of "revolution" and a new order. But like all disguises, even this one eventually slipped, and The Exile and her apprentice could not fully conceal that there were more esoteric reasons for their actions. The final blow was struck when Bastila was assassinated, and the Sith faction crumbled, disintegrating into raiders and pirates and thugs, vaguely enfranchised by The Exile to continue their campaign or simply do whatever they wanted, to murder and pillage, loosely organized by a few still remaining dark fanatics- their ranks occasionally bolstered by evil ambitious force users, twisted assassins trained in hidden secret places, who followed The Exile's own teachings, criminals, gangsters, and soldiers of fortune, sensing an opportunity that this now chaotic mob with no rules offered, and the weak-willed, reduced to little more than zombies, recruited and held under the The Exile's thrall to staff the ancient and debilitated ships and tools of war.
Mab Argonberth understood this and more, intuitively cutting through the complexities, and multiple layers of meaning and shifting alliances, to the simple core of it, and what was really going on. That bewildered her, since the only thing she normally comprehended that easily and deeply was battle, and although this had elements of war in it, it seemed more like politics. But she was beginning to realize, deep down, that this was war, pure and simple, a war of a different type, a war for the galaxy's soul. And what terrified her was it was not a war for the galaxy's soul in the clichéd way Bastila would have framed it in her speeches, not a war for the soul meaning a conflict to decide what path the galaxy would go down, to decide what choices the "soul" would make, but literally a war for the soul, as if it was a tangible object, that could actually be obtained with force, could be bandied about back and forth, stolen and maimed and destroyed and...consumed... A war for the soul of the galaxy in which the soul is the thing that was being fought over itself, not the actions it could take... Mab was beginning to understand why Revan's main stratagem was to simply blockade the populous planets and keep The Exile's flagship away from them, why he tried to isolate her fleet and keep her away in the Outer Rim, and what exactly happened when she managed to bash or sneak or trick her way near a colony... why the news reports were censored, and people spoke of bodies splayed out miles on end, foot to head, laying catatonic or dead, end to end.
An effective way to snap someone out of a gazing staring reverie is to somehow have the thing they look through itself be affected; and it often does seem an appropriate ending when they're as deep in and it's as profound as this one was: their mediation or quiet daydreaming interrupted by a thumping bird against the windowpane, the ominous crash of a freshly dead copse ending the vision with a nightmarish quality, a rippling splash in the once tranquil pond almost acting like a scrying pool, a face suddenly appearing out of the darkness, rain blurring the view, or wind blowing trees to block and tap and scrap - in Mab's case, her calm unfocused daze that somehow began to understand the movements of the ships, and the connection between them, and expand beyond that, to what she could not possibly know, was interrupted by a sharp sound; a crack appeared in the porthole and raced to one side. Immediately, a hatch closed over it, and alarms began to sound:
"LEVEL THREE SHIELDING IS UP. REPEAT LEVEL THREE SHIELDING IS UP!"
She blinked and came back to reality, and stared at Haskel in a slightly bewildered manner, wondering where she had been for those last couple minutes.
"Level Three Shielding is up! If they pierce that and the hull, we'll get sucked into the vacuum! We have to get to the escape pods, come on!"
"What are we going to do when we land on the planet, Haskel?"
"They won't care about us! Besides, this attack is a big mistake, a Republic fleet will come clean them up soon, and then we will just have to wait on Taris until we get picked up."
They ran down an incline, Mab rolling the last few feet before going into a crouched position and pointing her rifle rapidly in all directions, then pumping it violently, a small box flying out of a compartment as she did so. She shoved in a different one, a cube with blue tubes covering it, and then pushed a few buttons on the side. The muzzle glowed a fiery red. She bravely ran ahead of the Ithorian, providing explosive covering fire. She paused at an intersection of two hallways, a site of a recent fight where blockades and small pieces of metal propped up to act as shields still remained, and cocked her head.
"Do you hear that?"
"No - should we go the other wa-"
"Hush. Close your mouth. Your breathing is too loud."
"..."
"..."
"Your other mouth to, Haskel"
"Well, you should of said-"
"I thought it be fairly obvious that's what I mean-
"Cultural boundaries, I guess-
"Shut up!"
They finished talking over each other in rushed whispers, and then she raised an eyebrow, a look of recognition coming onto her pretty face. "Lightsabers!"
"Dueling?"
"Yeah - so it's not just enemies over there - someone on our side too. It's safe to head in that direction; if they're evenly matched, the Dark Jedi won't have a chance to go after us."
They ran down, getting closer and closer to their final destination. They could have just gone past, but Mab skidded to a halt, grabbed a confiscated pistol out of the holster, and kicked the button near the bright red door.
"What are you doing?"
"Offering my help, if they need it!"
The rolling circular entryway moved to reveal a female Bith Jedi with a bright blue lightsaber attempting to fend off two attackers, strangely dressed foes covered head to toe in black, metal masks wrapped around their faces with grates for mouths and giant red multifaceted crystal eyes. They both wielded crimson light sabers, and all three clashed against each other, buzzing and sending off flying sparks.
"I can't shoot them - I can't get a lock on them, they're all moving too fast!"
They jumped and spun and pirouetted over each other, the flips and springs happening so quickly it almost seemed as if they were in more than one place at once - leaving images behind of themselves when they already left milliseconds before. Something occurred at speeds beyond Mab's capacity to see, and then the Bith collapsed, holes suddenly appearing that smelt of burnt flesh.
The two assailants paused for a second, looking over the body, and then suddenly sprang, leaped nimbly, each to one side. They landed against the walls and then began crawling on them, hanging sideways like spiders, towards Mab and Haskel. As they moved, sticking on surfaces, defying gravity, the lights blew out, darkness following behind them like a malevolent shadow, a tangible entity that pushed and grew and spread. They stood paralyzed in terror.
There was a sucking sound above Mab, and she looked up. A assassin hung above her and breathed in rashly, and almost as if the air it inhaled was more than just a lungful, as if the act of it breathing had more force then was usual, a few of her hairs wavered and moved, and a couple strands floated up straight in the air. She felt cold, and there was a tugging at her mind and soul, a weak pull that she tried to resist. It landed in front of her, cat like in its dexterity, and its partner, slowly, confidently, ambled up to its side, and stared at her. It moaned, hissed slightly, her cloths now rippling towards it, and a tongue, definitely not human, thick and black, slithered out between the tight metal bars, and then pulled back in rapidly, cutting itself, leaving a few beads of blood on the cold blackness. It paused for a second, and then flicked rapidly out again, the red drops disappearing.
Mab shrieked incoherently, and fired her gun without reason, not aiming at anything, a wild barrage. The two Sith moved and deflected the bolts back, spinning and thrusting their blades. Even so, not all were blocked; a few beams were missed and hit shoulders, legs, scraping and leaving small trails and ravines of ripped flesh. The bolts hit at random areas, damaging the personal shielding and camouflage system: so that those areas rippled and flickered, the parts that deflected the laser now shimmering, some sections because of the damage and stress erroneously turning invisible, so heads floated in midair, and parts of the chest lay unconnected to anything else; a collection of body parts hovering and bobbling. Mab was menaced by a unattached arm, and this only enhanced the fear, only made the figure seem even more wraith like, even more ghostly, even more something not of this world, a phantom from a different realm.
The bolts moved back at the duo, and in the split second of time, without any chance to make a decision, Haskel acted instinctively, and threw himself in front of their course. He was hit, and lifted off his feet in a red glow; thrown back into Mab, knocking them both down.
"HASKEL!"
She grabbed him underneath the armpits, ignoring his wince of pain and cry of agony, and the loose hot feel of the meat beneath her fingers, and began pulling him backwards as quickly as she could, shuffling with his feet, dragging him along on the ground. She only looked up when she heard her friend say in horror, "May the Mother Jungle preserve us... it's The Disciple."
Out of the spreading darkness, that claimed more and more space not as a simply block of obliqueness but in the form of grasping beams and lines of dark, a man walked, a man wearing a pure white set of robes. He was cold and stern, a moving but unchanging statue of ice, remaining the same, in motion but the basic outline, the carved and chiseled lines forever frozen: there was a sense of glacier implacability about him as he walked towards her, slowly and surely, with a certainty that entailed anything in his path would either flee out of his way, or be destroyed completely by this juggernaut, but either way, nothing could stop him. She looked at him, and saw visions of a gloved hand curling around a flower and causing it to frost, children, emaciated orphans with missing teeth and tattered rags, starving outside during a winter storm because of cruel laws and uncaring governments, she saw mad blizzards swirling behind his eyes, and hypothermia in his lips, and understood that under The Exile's teaching, in her symbology he had chosen to represent this, and this was his place in her pantheon of death.
He continued towards them from the opposite side of the hallway, and the assassins who were now standing over them, towering it seemed, as Mab's nerves changed everything into a funhouse perspective, paused for a moment, respectfully deterring to their commander. He ignited a shard of ice, and pointed it at his two soon to be victims laying cowering on the ground; he held it out with a straight arm, elbow locked, gesture steady ( no shake or tremor of excitement caused it to bounce up and down and wobble slightly, or the fingers to snap and twitch and squirm excitably; there was no insane smile on his fair marble face, his shoulders didn't shrug and jitter and throw off the crease and fold of his cloths, or cause flecks and smudges to appear; no string of hair fell out of place {it was monochrome, absent of any color, except for a few strands of muddy gray that looked like dirty snow} his chill biting breath, heated by no blood or heart, didn't quicken almost orgasmicly , and his speck eyes didn't twinkle and glitter with anticipation, no they were a dull hard ice, never melted into tears, or warmed into kind moist pools- he was impeccable, perfect, calm and dull- because the simple matter of the fact was he didn't care, he wasn't aroused, or particularly pleasured by murder, he didn't derive any enjoyment from it- and somehow that was worse, even more terrifying then the two monsters above her who stood stiff and erect, trembling with hunger and lust- at least she understood them, that they were simply beasts off chains, rapid animals whose training was broken and had gone feral, but where was he, she couldn't as easily classify him- and it horrified her)
One of the assassins stabbed a beam of fire into Haskel's heart, and his partner did the same, lancing his side. Haskel coughed up his last breaths, and said as loud as he could, "Run! RUN!" He curved his almost insectoid like arm at an uncomfortable angle and pushed her backwards, so she fell out the door onto her ass. He then hit, with a balled up fist, the button that closed the door. She saw him, as it slide shut, use the last of his strength to grab the lightsaber by its hilt, pulling the assassin's hand along with it for the first few seconds, plunging, pushing it even further into his body so he could grab it with his left arm, and then tear it up hastily through his shoulder, now leaving the wounded limb hanging on by a few pieces of gristle. A blink later, a trail of molten metal moved up the door- what he had done was push the sword further into his chest, so he would be able to reach the handle with his still useful, more dexterous hand, to tear it through his arm and seal the door, hopefully buying her some time.
She ignored his sacrifice hysterically, and pounded on the door, screaming his name, sliding to her knees, fiddling with the controls and tearing up the wire. Her cries where cut short when the blue blade of The Disciple's sword stuck through the door, inches away from her shocked face, her wide eyes, disarrayed hair, and now quiet slightly gaping mouth. Then something inside her snapped and she sprinted away, shrieking and flailing.
As she ran, arms wind-milling madly, it almost seemed as some watcher, some protector, was making the path in front of her easier; green emergency lights flickered on (the ship was now completely dark) the sides of the gently curving hallways wherever she went, and although the horizontal elevator that shot across the middle of the ship was in lockdown, it opened and launched for her; she noted that the reason for it being taken off line was a sound one as the glass box tumbled and rotated haphazardly across the void, the shaft being broken open and shattered in many parts by explosions, so she stared out in wonder and dismay through the clear container into the void of space through the many holes and jagged rips in the hull. The momentum and speed she got from being fired was the only thing that kept her from falling/floating away, and when she reached the end of the line, she didn't stop, but kept going, end over end, bouncing violently into a disordered lobby. She grabbed the emergency hatch, and twisted the melting bar with all her strength, ripping it open and clambering out.
The help didn't stop there, several maintenance routes and catwalks opened up for her, and she had almost reached the escape pod bay (which ran alongside the main control room). It was amazing how much ground she had covered in the last few seconds, surely the fastest one had ever gone on this ship, made more impressive by the facts that she was taking the unorthodox out of the way routes, dangerous cramped corridors and jungles of electrical wires. Just when she was beginning to get suspicious (a third door had simply opened by itself) a harried voice exploded in a rush of static out of one of the still working intercoms.
"This is Carth Onasi! I've been looking after you using the computer system- you've almost made it, you're almost there. Take a right, then climb over the rubble and go through the interconnecting droid storage rooms. I'm on the other side of the door; I've barricaded it, but will open it when you arrive. Avoid mess hall four; the Sith have set up explosives there- and last time I checked there were still some soldiers in the armaments chamber- go the long way! Come on!'
She nodded, hoping the pilot would see the look of gratitude on one of the still functioning cameras (unlikely, since two of the black half-spheres had been shattered, and the others she saw {small mechanic eyes} were either flickering and flashing, gouged out of the wall by craters, or blocked by smoke) and then sped off, on her final stretch, her goal within her grasp. Suddenly, there was an abrupt change to one angle as something massive hit one of the tubular engine decks protruding of the side of the ship, and everything tilted wildly. She was thrown off her feet as the vessel heaved and shuttered, thrown into a wall violently and then rolled downwards, as everything began to point that way, slamming painfully into door, coming to a rest.
She did not have long to lay in a daze, however, as debris and rubble skidded her way. Avoiding it by flipping forward twice and the running at a wall and kicking off so she flew at a ceiling grate, she still did not pause in her mad rush as she gripped the vent and ripped it off, and then pulled herself into the engineer shaft, going hand over hand on the tunnels handle ladder.
Wildly improvising, she took two rights and then a left in the claustrophobic space, and then dropped down into a room, right into the middle of a squad of Sith, on one last mission, carrying a small warhead. Screaming frantically, she brutally rifle butted two in the face, and then shot the third one in the gut, and hearing a regiment of robots coming down the hallways, and glancing at the other doorway, which led into a swirling inferno of strange sticky ash, took a third option and rolled through a flaming jagged hole, through the blaze and into the evacuation room, patting out flames that had burst on her jacket.
As she recovered herself, a short stocky, broad shouldered man walked out to her, and stuck out of gloved hand, grabbing hers and pumping it quickly. "Nice work, soldier" he said gruffly, and paused when he noticed exactly how disheveled she was ( a bloody nose with a thick trail going all the way down to her lip, and completely frazzled hair). He decided to comfort her and patted her lightly on the cheek with his palm, saying in a gentle calming voice, "You were magnificent" his tone now quiet and personal. She stood still for a minute, panting heavily and then began to catch her breath, and inhale/exhale evenly, only occasionally lapsing into a more anxious style of respiration, sometimes gasping and stopping in the middle of talking, to avoid hyperventilating like a runner at the end of an exhausting marathon.
"How many landing crafts are left, Carth?"
"Five; Master Reven sensed three intel officers knocked out in the med bay; he's bringing them back here. We'll take those last two ones and-"
"Wait! We're getting separate pods! Even if there is a chance that someone else migh-"
"It's too dangerous going two to a pod! Their capacity is one person and one person only. The seatbelts, and padding are simply not made for any more- if we try to cram in together, we could get a concussion, split our heads open, or worse- and we need to hit the ground running, we need to land in tip top condition, there are too many spies and infiltrators on the planet to go to a doctor or lose any time resting. Hey, if you get knocked out, I can't drag you to safety."
"But what about the other people- it's worth the risk!"
"No! the reason I was contacting you is because you were the only one with any chance of making it, everyone else is trapped, or too far away. Master Revan and I have shepherded as many people as we can- no one else can be rescued, it's time to leave.
"And what about Revan", she said, slightly maliciously, a contrary argumentative look on her face, "how is he going to get off of the ship! Fly?"
"Kind of." In response to her confused expression his voice rose in anger and anxiety. "Look! He doesn't need one! Ok! Just believe me! He has something else- trust me. Now we have to go!"
He shoved her forward and into an escape pad, while she nodded in a bewildered manner. As a glass panel slid across the back, she stared through it at Carth. He pulled out a small circular disk with a wide screen on it and split it in half, removing one part and sticking to the side of the pod, and said, "This is a tracking beacon. Take it off when you land- I have the other piece. Follow the dots and we'll meet somewhere in the middle and stick together. Talk to no one. Keep a low profile. We only need to stay for a day or two, until the space battle is cleaned up, and the Republic sets up a base where we can go to be extracted. Good luck!
"Yeah, right back at you"
She pulled the seatbelt across her shoulder, and shoved her head back into a small indentation, the cranny closing cushioned restraints around her neck and forehead. Grabbing onto the two handles, in her armrest, she wrapped her fingers around them, and pulled them back, like throttles, activating her part of the launch mechanism. Immediately the pod was shot out, a bullet out of a gun flying across a battlefield, over muddy trenches, and smoking holes, a musket ball swerving and curving slightly through groups of armored knights with clashing swords. She was a human projectile, a cannonball flying towards a dark and ominous fortress, heading through battlements and ramparts of shadow and black sharp gates that blocked her way, to the gigantic citadel that was in front of her. She was ammunition speeding through a desolate chaotic explosive war zone, flying blind and invisible, seeking its target, and she was part of the guns last barrage, the fighter's last stand, the revolver that had launched her falling out of worn cowboy hands, to a dusty earth, scattering the dirt, blood dripping onto its ancient wooden stock, the pistol that had fired her spiraling through the air in an arch as it was blown out of the combatants grip, the machine gun overheating and dropped, glowing red and hot. The duel was lost, and it seemed she was the final shot.
Yet the dead man's aim was true, and his goal and target was not missed- she avoided all the ships and pierced the atmosphere of Taris, shooting through the sky, on fire. Her crash fields activated, and she hit a tower, exploding through the side, leaving a huge hole in the glass (chips of which spun and fell through the air, falling mirrors). She skidded across the office floor she had landed on, people screaming and jumping out of her way, crashing through chairs and desks and cubicle walls, before finally stopping at the far end of the square room, a fiery trail behind her. Shocked workers began crowding around her, or helping their fallen and crushed comrades. The group began to condense, grow thicker, and move closer, and a silent expectant pause fell upon them, until the top of the pod shot off into the air and embedded itself in the ceiling. Mab stumbled out, wrapped clumsily in a parachute, and tripped over the side. She struggled spasmodically for a few minutes until she finally uncovered herself, her countenance ruffled as she scanned the crowd that was looking at her. Then she held her hands out, and began walking backwards, the cloth trailing around and behind her, absurdly trying to pretend as nothing unusual had happened and that she was just going to disappear, never to be heard from again, just trying to become a bizarre incident that randomly interrupted these normal people's lives. She reached one of the doors to the square room, kicked it open, and then spun around and ran down the metal staircase laughing hysterically.
She watched the the dot that represented Carth as she walked towards it in a vaguely straight line; it slowed down frequently, almost to a stop, took out of the way routes, and even at some points went backwards or sideways, sometimes pausing for long periods. After an hour of navigating the urban jungle, Mab was slightly infuriated and had some choice insults for Carth thought up. However, when she finally saw his face (he was wearing a gray trench coat, and a hat pulled over his head; two days worth of auburn stubble had also grown on his cheeks and chin) a swell of relief that he wasn't hurt rushed through her so strongly that she couldn't stay angry. Still, she was the type of girl so in love with her own wit, that if she came up with something good, she still had to say it, even if the mood or moment wasn't right, or the perfect opportunity had passed. She couldn't just let it go to waste, so she would either quote her inner dialogue to the conversation partner with an air of depreciation and a degree of ironic removal, showing how silly (yet brilliant) she was for thinking these things, or modify them slightly, speaking them in a different tone of voice: changing an angry jab to a playful one, showing that no harm was done in the end.
In a gentle, teasing voice, she said, "What the hell Carth? What were all those stops for- potty breaks? I thought they gave you pilots space diapers."
He said dryly, "No, I... I must have used all my space diapers up during the freaking terrifying attack on my ship that I just barely survived."
She looked at him in the eyes, sympathetically: a connection was made, "Yeah, we've been through alot."
They were mostly silent for the rest of the way back.
They walked down the dingy gray hallway, observing the spiderweb cracks on the walls and listening to the dripping of the leaky pipes overhead. A magnetized bullet train zoomed past somewhere close by, and the entire area shook, a few more pieces of cheap building material (designed to quickly become low rent housing in a matter of days, some kind of strange growing plaster) exploded out of the walls, falling in chunks, or dribbled in dust form from holes in the ceiling.
"My stops were to find a place to stay for a few days (at most)" he added, "until the Military shows up and sets up a secure location. I also needed a disguise... just something relatively simple. I'm in a number of databases... marked down in a couple of files-"
"Well here it is - an alien flophouse., Should be fine enough."
She walked into the gloomy wet domicile, and looked around in delight. "I was so worried about where we were going to stay- and now you find a place like this in the first few hours!" She smiled at him beatifically and practically threw herself into his arms. "Oh, you saved my life- what can I ever do to repay you?" cooing flirtatiously, in a cheesy exaggerated manner.
He chuckled, playing along with the joke and held up a finger with a golden ring on it, "Sorry, damsel in distress... I'm married..."