The mechanical screech of alarm klaxons unwillingly intermingled with the sounds of blaster shots and the hums of lightsabers. Air felt heavy as I pulled breath after scarce breath into my lungs, which sputtered like a poorly lubricated cog machine. A cadre of dark cloaked figures phalanxed themselves in my way; but I pressed on. My victory was nearly at hand; a victory far too long in coming. My goal was my obsession, which in turn fueled my strength.
A haze of red obscured my vision as I charged. The electric crackle of our plasma blades sent metallic shocks shearing down my spine. With renewed energy, my Jedi brethren stampeded into combat, their blades a lethal rainbow of brilliant colors. We met our enemies head on, nearly bowling them off the bridge.
After parrying off some uncoordinated assaults, I engaged a seemingly unoccupied Dark Jedi. His attention was imprudently divided by the two most pressing matters of the moment; the all seeing gaze of his master and myself. My flurry of burning yellow attacks outweighed his oath of sycophancy. He ungracefully threw up a patchwork of defenses, but he had already conceded too many advantages. I gained leverage over his blade, and jerking upwards with my own, delivered a simultaneous and powerful kick to his undefended abdomen. His saber clattered out of his hands as he plummeted backwards merely ten feet in front of his master. I suspect he wasn't pleased.
As tempting as facing Revan on my own was, I could not take such a risk. I turned in a moment of mortal clarity I saw blurs of red and blue swirling in the motions of combat; the imprints of my allies and foes in the Force. In a flash it was gone and I threw myself back into the fury of battle. The scale of this blitzkrieg battle was temporarily balanced before I found a weakness in my opponent's technique. In a moment he was dead as I cleaved through his chest. The entire defense of Dark Jedi unraveled. In a split-second, the entirety of Revan's honor guard was merely a pile of charred corpses. I sensed some of Revan's underlings flee the bridge as we rounded on their master.
I felt the saccharine high of near victory, the feeling of knowing that your opponent is finished, that they are running out of cards. Revan was our ultimate opponent. Unfortunately, he was both his last card and his strongest- but I knew that he would not be enough.
Challenging him was empowering. I was about to unleash a storm of hoarded aggression upon one who had always seemed so hopelessly untouchable. I was in the palm of the upper hand.
"You cannot win, Revan," I declared. As the words left my mouth they prostrated themselves out of sheer unworthiness to the momentum of this occasion. But I digressed, reigning in my feelings of rage, disbelief and indignation. As much as I despised him, I remembered my Jedi philosophies; There is no emotion, there is peace.
Revan was as appallingly predictable as any other dictator consumed by megalomania. He would be defiant to his last breath; he would never accept defeat. The facade of omnipotence would only die if he did. I could sense his gaze. He projected the only the emotions which his marred conscience would allow. Past the mask, his face toted an expression of amusement and boredom. We were merely a mediocre entertainment to him. Even now he was laughing at us. His hubris amazed me.
Then I couldn't see. My vision was alternately black and white as I desperately tried to regain focus. I caught a glimpse of a young Jedi being sucked out of the enormous bridge window. A fire was ignited but was quickly extinguished. I was too busy trying to find oxygen to figure out why. I was pulled up against a computer console by a voracious pressure as the metal around me glowed white hot, soldering my fingers. The windows snapped shut like the jaws of a dragon, with durasteel plates sealing them. I was the only one left. I had lost all of my friends. I looked to my side to see the charred figure of Revan. He was out cold. I had the overwhelming compulsion to kill him. He had earned it.
My mind screamed at my body to get up and murder him, but I held back. I was better than that. He could be saved. And so I peeled back his mask...
SPUHHHHHH! For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Sam Koda exhaled. His senses returned, hitting like a brick. It was painful, pain being the first sensation to return.
He lay in a pile of some sort of rubble. The acrid smell of Peragian fuel lambasted his nose as his vision slowly reconstituted itself. Though diluted by a severe concussion, Sam's mind quickly reached a trustworthy prognosis relating to his current state of being: not good. Blood flowed freely from a series of open cuts, abrasions and larger wounds that covered the parts of his body that he could see; his armor was thoroughly destroyed. Multiple shards of industrial material were lodged in his skin at odd angles and in inconvenient areas. More troubling to him than all of the previous was the fact that Sam had no idea what was going on.
"Welcome back," said a voice unknown to Sam. Re-angling his head, he saw an early middle aged man with brown hair in a blood orange jacket.
Not in any capacity to maintain consciousness, Sam did not. His senses quickly drained away like sand from an open palm, and everything became black.
Carth had a long and illustrious military career, stretching back twenty two years, starting at age sixteen. A marine in the Republic Navy and veteran of two major wars, Carth was no stranger to battle or to adrenaline. His body could scarcely supply the quantity of the hormone his nerves demanded, and Carth became nervous surprisingly easily. Although he eventually became somewhat accustomed to the torrents of battle, Carth would never become accustomed to killing - only adept at it.
His full name was Carth Onasi, and he began planning his "escape" from the childhood into the military at a very young age. Adulthood could not arrive quickly enough. Although the minimum age requirement for humans stood far off at eighteen, Carth joined the Galactic Republic Marines at the tender age of sixteen. Doing so required intense physical conditioning and a military recruiter with a flexible interpretation of age. Given that Carth was fiercely determined and that bonuses for military recruiters were tied to recruitment numbers, Carth was easily able to meet both requirements. At seventeen, when his training concluded, Carth Onasi marched onto a Republic cruiser with pride. Carth was a soldier, and there was absolutely nothing that neither Republic age laws, nor his inebriate parents could do to change that. Childhood was a disappointment, and it was over.
Opening a medical supply kit, Carth continued to run his past through his head like an overused roll of film. He was thirty eight, and colorful professional and personal histories filled the gap between his enlistment and his current predicament. Carth had begun and lost a family. He cheered for Revan during the Mandalorian Wars only to curse him when he turned the momentum that defeated the Mandalorians against the people he originally tried to protect. As one who was on uneasy speaking terms with mortality, Carth could not budget the luxury of a mid life crisis. Still, Carth's current predicament prompted him to question his career choice. His "escape" into the military left him stranded on Taris, completing a parabola that began on an appalling ecumenopolis and was fast lined to end on one. Carth had nothing to show for surviving the recent battle that left him in this predicament but an unconscious Scout whose bandages he was now changing.
Although Carth could not put a name to the face of this Scout, he seemed blatantly, tip-of-the-tongue familiar. Aside from the odd sense of familiarity, the Scout did not possess very memorable physical characteristics. He possessed a finely conditioned physique, as with all young people in the military. He had dark blonde hair and brown eyes, and fair skin. Obscuring his face was a rough beard, the product of two weeks without shaving. Carth reasoned that the beard was interfering with his facial recognition skills. Tired of dizzying himself trying to remember his name, Carth was eventually forced to refer to the handy ID card sewed into the man's uniform. Samuel Koda; a somewhat generic surname of untraceable pedigree, but an uncommon (at least in Carth's experience) first name. Shan likely cherry picked him as part of her mismatched entourage of Jedi and specialists, implying that he possessed skills of at least vague utility. Maybe Carth had seen Sam aboard the Spire once or twice. Now Sam depended on him.
Sam slept soundly and soundlessly. An old radiator creaked loquaciously against the constant exhale of water running through metal pipes. It was a score to match the scenery (which was assuredly disgusting) that kept the void out of Sam's ears while he lay comatose. Then, the water suddenly stopped, and either because of it, or coincidentally, Sam awoke. It was terrifying.
Sam's body felt immovably heavy, and his eyes, after a long hiatus, were very sensitive, even to the paltry amounts of light of his surroundings. He had sleep paralysis. He struggled to wiggle his toe, to scratch one against another in hopes of rousing himself, but it was ineffectual, and he was quickly slipping back into sleep. His eyes, fluttering, calmed, preparing to close once again, until something caught their attention. A man in a blood orange jacket entered the room, a door swinging open after several awful creaks. Sam's visual and auditory systems alerted the rest of his brain, which flared back to life. His lungs exhaled deeply, expelling the stale air which had built up do to minimal sleep respiration. In a split second convulsion, Sam fell off his bed and onto a half-assed acrylic floor.
"Sam Koda? Holy Force, you're awake!" The man rushed over to Sam's side with a hybridized expression of relief and incredulity.
"Commander Carth Onasi?..." Sam's voice trailed off in uncertainty. Carth nodded affirmatively; Sam had seen this guy on the Endar Spire lots of times. Thought of as a soldier's soldier, Carth had, as an ensign put it, "seen more combat than the rest of this pathetic crew put together, tight ass Jedi included". The ensign put unusual emphasis on the word "tight".
"What happened?" inquired Sam hoarsely. As he said this, his lips cracked bloodily, completely parched. He licked them, but he was running low on, among other bodily fluids, saliva. Carth took notice, and unscrewed a water canteen strapped at his hip, and offered it to Sam. Sam snatched it with voracious ferocity, spilling some on himself. He set about downing the entire canteen as Carth waited patiently.
Kneeling, Sam took the opportunity to survey his drab surroundings- a small, one-room apartment designed and maintained with affordability rather than comfort in mind. The entire place was mired in dust and grime. Carth, limited in cleaning supplies (none), had attempted to scour the room, with unsatisfactory results. The floor, cheap acrylic, was badly rotted. It was obvious that although the apartment was vacant, it at one time housed an impressive standing population. There were piles of clothes fitting a colorful variety of species, not all of them humanoid, and all of them bug eaten. A closet contained several tunics meant for young boys but better suited to old women.
In alternating corners of the room were a small, Spartan kitchen and a flimsy door, which appeared to lead to a bathroom. A single lamp panel on the ceiling above provided light. Overall, Carth's choice of apartments impressed Sam. He picked the place no one would willingly enter. Sam drained the last of the canteen and returned it to Carth, who raised an eyebrow in surprise that the canteen was empty.
Sam repeated his question. "What happened? What is happening?"
"Take it easy. You've sustained an impressive amount of head trauma. Do you remember the Endar Spire?" asked Carth.
Sam nodded. "I think I can remember everything... but the last few days are a blur." He ran a mental check, running through his basic life information: age, birth, home planet, home town, et cetera. He did not appear to have amnesia.
"You've been unconscious for the more than two standard weeks," said Carth, uttering a tactless laugh. Sam's mouth fell open.
"What the FUCK!" Sam shouted. He rarely swore out of genuine surprise.
"Take it easy- just be glad you're alive. I thought you were brain dead.," said Carth, furrowing his brow. He helped Sam move from the floor to a sitting position on his bed.
"I might have given that impression. What with all the concussions," said Sam with a crestfallen look on his face.
"I've had to feed you... not my favorite chore. Your gag reflex has a hair trigger."
"Uhhh... sorry."
"Don't worry about it," Carth reassured with a chuckle. "I'm just glad you're OK. During your stint of unconsciousness, not much happened. Do you remember what happened beforehand?" Sam answered with a blank stare. "OK. I'll try to refresh your memory. The Endar Spire, our ship, along with several others, was selected to escort Bastila Shan and her Jedi posse on a mission of theirs. They practically took over the ship. Very presumptuous, and secretive. Most of us didn't know what was going on- including me, and I'm a Commander." Carth scowled, muttering something snarky.
"Jedi fill a niche that comes with latitudes," Sam commented.
"You don't say," Carth agreed. He abandoned his scowl and continued. "You were transferred onto the Endar Spire because of her."
The transfer had been an enormous irritation to Sam, even more so in retrospect. It had been a sour departure from his friends and colleagues, with no explanation given.
"We were scheduled to stop at Taris to refuel and resupply. The Sith were waiting for us. Our ship- and the entire fleet- was obliterated. Only a few of us made it off in time." Carth grew quieter as he continued, letting out an exhausted sigh.
"We crashed landed here on Taris. You smacked your head pretty hard when our escape pod hit the ground; the rest of your body didn't do much better," Carth said with a sympathetic inflection. "I brought us here, and patched you up the best I could."
"Oh god..." Sam looked incoherently at the floor. "Are there any other survivors?"
"It's possible. Ours was the last escape pod," said Carth. "The loss of the ships was not that bad... I mean, lots of people died and all, but... the Republic has plenty of other ships and recruits. But if Bastila is dead... the Republic may be as good as finished."
"What? That's ridiculous. How can one person, even a Jedi, be that important?"
"Well..." Carth briefly considered his response. "I guess I can tell you. Bastila is no ordinary Jedi; she has a unique talent. It's called battle meditation- with sheer will through the Force, she can influence the outcomes of entire battles. A very rare talent. She's the Republic's secret weapon, probably the reason we have survived the war this long. I don't pretend to know how it works- but however it does, it is incredibly effective. It improves troop morale, efficiency, tactics, unit cohesion- making everything work seamlessly. Whatever can go right will. It has the opposite effect on the enemy."
"Then how the hell did this happen?" Sam asked incredulously.
"Battle meditation is very helpful, but it's not a cure-all. We were completely outnumbered, and the attack was fast. Bastila probably didn't have time to use it before the Sith had completely overwhelmed us." Carth began to pace. "They don't tell the average grunt about her powers- that would be too risky, not that it makes a difference. The Sith already know about her; they've had her in her sights since she took down Revan."
"Bastila is the Jedi that killed Revan?" You don't kill someone like Revan without making a noticeable splash. "They ambushed us to get to her," concluded Sam easily.
"Most likely. Malak has made hunting her one of his top priorities, and likewise keeping Bastila safe is one of the Republic's top priorities." Carth let out an angry huff. "That's why this mission- whatever its intention- was a terrible idea."
Sam took a moment to mull over the new information, trying to find an optimistic viewpoint from which he could interpret it. There was none. "What do we do now?"
"Right now, you need to take it easy. You could have serious brain damage. And then... I don't know." Carth looked uncomfortable. "I'm gonna fix our rations," he said, retrieving two red packets from a large red duffle bag. "Take a shower, Sam. Two weeks in bed and you're getting ripe. Just be careful in the bathroom; it's crawling with granite slugs." Sam could not tell if Carth was joking.
Sam willed his limbs to move, staggering as he rose. Two weeks in bed left his limbs slightly atrophied, and more than slightly stiff. Although moving was painful, but Sam preferred it to lying in bed, which was merely a dry wall slat and various folded textiles that Carth had attempted to make comfortable. It was not at all. Carth would call it bracing.
Another standard day passed as Carth and Sam hid in the apartment. Carth prepared rations, tearing into his with gusto. He spent most of his time tinkering with an already extensively modified blaster pistol or exercising lightly. Sam did the latter as well. At other times Sam played one sided games of tic- tac- toe with Carth- one sided in that only Sam was actually playing. However, even with the high flying intensity of tic- tac- toe to entertain him, Sam was afflicted with stir craziness. Carth sat stoic.
Neither man talked much. Any attempt at conversation ended with an awkward repetition of the initial statement. There was not much to say that they were not trying to avoid. The apartment projected an atmosphere of futility.
Eventually, however, boredom and worry got the better of Sam. He had been jogging in place for half an hour. "What do we do now?"
Of the thousands of possible answers that such a general question could have warranted, Carth chose one of the most blunt and pessimistic. "Well, we're completely screwed. That limits our options. The Sith have quarantined the planet, so we're stuck here- at least until they find Bastila."
Carth began preparing rations. "Have a ration. This type is meat flavored." He handed a cup full of gray sludge to Sam.
"Yes, gray is my favorite meat..." Sam sat the cup down at a safe distance beside him. "Do we have any way of knowing if there are other survivors?"
"Not directly," said Carth, setting aside his ration. He thought for a moment before continuing. "Every escape pod is equipped with a black box- it tells us what happened when the pod crashed- not of high interest to us. More importantly, it gives us the locations of the other pods. I brought ours with us when I brought us here." He retrieved a small black device with a simple touch screen interface from the bag with the rations.
"Have you searched already?" Sam asked.
"Most of them were not very difficult to find- all I had to do was follow the crowds," answered Carth. "We had a relatively safe landing- even with your injuries. A warehouse broke our fall. The others were not so lucky. The escape pods I saw landed in the middle in crowded streets- there were no survivors. Probably killed a couple bystanders on impact, too." Carth shook his head, frowning. "Too many Republic soldiers wind up as crash test dummies."
"What about Bastila's pod?"
"She was one of the not-so-lucky ones. Her pod pierced the Middle City, where we are, and landed in the Lower City," Carth said, shrugging. "I might have searched, but I didn't want to leave you alone for too long, and the Sith quarantine is pretty strict. They've basically sealed off the lower levels of the city with security checkpoints- more thoroughly than I would have thought possible."
"Can anyone get through?" Sam asked, trying to find an addendum to that troublesome tidbit. "They can't keep the largest section of Taris sealed forever."
"If you are a Taris citizen with identification, you can get through."
"That seems too easy," Sam said, loosely folding his arms.
"Taris is... socially backwards. You have to be human to be a citizen- and racism isn't only the de facto system here. It's official law. And you have to both be born on Taris and have proven Tarisian pedigree to be a citizen-"
"Or screwing someone who is," Sam postulated.
"True, if not particularly relevant. In this apartheid system, only about five percent of the population are citizens."
"And the upper caste probably does not fraternize much with the lower ones."
"Such is the nature of etiquette, I suppose," said Carth, shaking his head with a slight grin. "I grew up on Correllia- not a great place to live, but better than here. Most of the same restrictions still applied."
"I grew up middle class on Deralia. But don't worry, I feel guilty," Sam said with a smirk.
"Smart ass. At any rate, it's going to be difficult getting down to the Lower City in a manner more ceremonious than jumping off a ledge," Carth concluded.
"Can we wait out the blockade?" Sam realized the folly of his words as soon as they left his mouth. "Then again, it sounds as if the only way this blockade ends is if Bastila is found."
"You're smarter than I would have thought someone who was comatose from head trauma could be." Carth said dryly.
Ignoring Carth's comment, Sam thought for a moment. "So there is no way to get past a security checkpoint that won't get us and most of the people on this planet arrested. I'd imagine that there are more than a few people angry with that policy. I'd also imagine that a few of those more than a few are smart enough to fraud the Sith."
Carth considered this for a moment. "You'd be right. The Sith set up a few propaganda kiosks around here with information on bounties. I didn't figure it was relevant at the time, but a few of the unlucky people on the list are wanted for identity fraud."
Sam grinned. "So it's been only two standard weeks since the quarantine started and people have already figured out how to fool the system? Impressive."
"Yep. If we can find one of the bounties, knowledge we have of their whereabouts alone should be enough to leverage them into making us IDs," Carth explained.
"Blackmail?" Sam was not fond of the idea of threatening someone who shared a common enemy with them.
"We're broke. You've got better ideas?" Carth reminded him.
"I suppose I don't. Still, we should be careful. Blackmailing people can easily backfire- quite literally. We have to avoid violence as much as possible," Sam said in a noticeably serious tone.
"Agreed," said Carth with a curt nod.
Sam's face adopted a pensive expression and he sat on his bed. "I may have grown up on Deralia, but I've seen enough of the galaxy to know that crime is at most as far away as the closest liquor trough, which shouldn't be hard to find on a planet like this."
Carth gave a small laugh. "There is at least one within shouting distance from the lobby."
"Well... we may not be have much of a shot at finding Bastila, or living to escape this planet, but we're not completely screwed, are we?" Sam gave Carth a teasing look, the latter realizing that Sam had succeeded in causing him to redact his initial assertion.
Carth was sufficiently impressed. "OK, so we may not be completely screwed... but don't think much of our chances. If the Sith catch us- and you can be sure they have the crew manifest from the Spire- then we are."
"But we are on the same page- we need to search for Bastila," Sam asked.
Carth let out a deep sigh. "Any hope of finding her is unrealistic at best. And at worst... it's like searching for a needle in a minefield. Between the gangs, and the Sith, and the fact that we aren't native speakers of the dozen or so languages you have to know to avoid starting a race riot-"
"I realize that the circumstances are less than favorable- but we have to try. The Republic needs Bastila," Sam urged, standing up. Leaning against the wall, he added "And chances are that Bastila, being a Jedi and all, can help us just as much as we can help her."
Sam was persuasive, to put it mildly. Carth felt inspired and somewhat ashamed, a mood akin to what he felt when he first enlisted in the Marines. "You're completely right. It's morning now-" Sam was not sure how Carth could tell, given the windowless apartment. "- as good a time as any to start looking."
Carth began rooting around in the red emergency supply bag, eventually digging out a white plastic packet. "Here- a change of clothes. Should be about your size." The size on the packet was simply listed as "male". "We can't have you walking around in your Republic Scout uniform on a Sith controlled planet, much less one that you've worn for over two weeks."
Sam smiled. "Thanks." Before turning to change in the bathroom, he inquired "What do we have in the way of weapons?"
"Why do you ask- you know we shouldn't use them," Carth responded.
"I know. But in case things get too hot to handle-"
"Do you have any actual combat experience?" Carth cut in sharply.
Sam vaguely recalled firing a blaster pistol on the Endar Spire. "Aside from basic training, and I guess what happened on the Spire, not really." Wanting to seem useful, he added "I can speak five major languages- Ryl, Mando'a, Bocce, Huttese, and of course, Basic. I can also understand half a dozen more."
Carth nodded, impressed. "I know enough Ryl to ask for directions, but that is the full extent of my linguistic skills. We might not need weapons if you're half as good at talking as you say you are. But, in case the need ever comes up, here." Carth tossed a blaster pistol in a holster to Sam, followed by a short vibrosword in its sheath, with Sam one in either hand. "Keep the blaster concealed."
"Do we have any energy shields?" asked Sam hopefully. All it took was a well placed blaster shot to wind up dead, permanently dead. With an energy shield, it took several or more.
Carth shook his head. "Unfortunately, no. They can only pack so much into these emergency bags. We don't need them anyways. Surviving is as simple as not getting shot," Carth reassured.
"That makes me feel... better?" Sam abandoned the issue.
Sam made a quick trip to the bathroom, eagerly stripping away the dirty rags that had once been his uniform. The clothes Carth had given him were a monochromatic tan shirt with black pants, neither with any embellishments save for the clearly defined crisscross stitching. However, they were comfortable and practical, doing little to attract attention. Size "male" clothes fit Sam comfortably. Carth wore his clothes under his blood orange jacket. They fit him snugly due to his naturally larger physique, something he was not entirely happy about, but he kept his grumbling to himself.
Sam stood ready to begin their search. This would be the first time he had been out of the apartment since Carth brought him there, which left him feeling slightly apprehensive and agoraphobic.
Carth turned around to offer one more piece of knowledge. "Sam, they say the Force can do terrible things to a mind, that it can drive you into some terrible new level of insanity, and destroy your very identity. Dark Jedi specialize in this. That's why if we get caught, you have to kill yourself. It's for your own good." Carth's face was completely humorless. The expression seemed rather alien on him.
This did not make Sam any more eager to step outside. He managed to anyways.