"Awaken."
She heard the word in her head and acted without thought, waking cold and wet in a glass tank and unfamiliar room. Breaking free from the tubes that held her, she escaped the tank and crawled her way to the center of the room where she lay unmoving for a few moments. She tried pushing herself up, but fell back to the floor with a thud, deciding the ground was preferable.
After what felt like a very long time, she managed to pull herself up and survey her new surroundings. She found herself in the center of a ring of flashing lights and beeping monitors. It was a medbay and the tank she had been in was of the kolto variety. She must have been injured quite badly, but she had no recollection of what had happened to her or the events that had brought her to this place.
The other four tanks in the room held what seemed to be workmen of some sort, they were dressed in matching gray and blue uniforms. Judging from their lifeless bodies, she did not think that even the healing waters of the kolto tanks could help them anymore. The incessant beeping coming from the angry sounding machines behind their glass cases seemed to echo her thoughts.
She looked down at herself then and noticed she was in nothing but an undersuit and her sneakers. Something would probably need to be done about that, so she set off in search of information and hopefully some clothing.
It didn't take her long to uncover some of what had happened here. She learned from a medical computer the name of the ship that had brought her to this station, the Ebon Hawk, and also that she had arrived with two droids and a deceased woman. Still, none of that seemed the least bit familiar to her.
Additionally, she learned where here was, a Peragus mining colony, located inside of a large asteroid somewhere in the asteroid belt circling Peragus II. There were vague memories of something about a mining explosion a few years before that had rendered the planet unusable, nothing concrete. She was aware however, that this was still an important source of fuel for the Republic.
Slicing into the medic logs told her there had been some sort of massive droid malfunction on the station and that the men in the tanks had been administered a lethal dose of tranquilizers. For that matter, so had she. She didn't know yet if those things were related, but they both seemed worth investigating. Noticing that the morgue was across the hall she unlocked that door via the console.
There were two bodies in the morgue, one an elderly woman and the other a young man in the same uniform as those she had seen in the tanks. She was examining the male body for signs he had met the same fate as those other unfortunate souls when a noise from behind caught her by surprise.
"Find what you are looking for amongst the dead?"
A voice she recognized. The one from the tank. This must be the woman her medical records said she had arrived with. The one who's body she had just passed. How had she ended up in here?
"Your voice - it was the one I heard as I floated in the kolto tank."
She didn't like the idea of someone in her head.
The woman was old, but it was hard to judge just how old, covered as she was, from head to foot in a brown cloak that masked her face in shadow.
"I am Kreia, and I am your rescuer - as you are mine. Tell me - do you recall what happened."
"Not a thing," she replied carefully. "The last thing I remember, I was on board a Republic ship, the Harbinger... what happened to it?"
"I confess I know little more than you do... I do not know where here is," admitted Kreia.
"The Peragus mining facility." She realized a hint of smugness had crept into her voice. This woman set her on edge.
If Kreia noticed her tone, she did not show it. "I do recall rescuing you... the Republic ship you were on was attacked, and you were the only survivor. A result of your Jedi training, no doubt."
How could the woman know about that? The insight left her feeling less sure of herself.
"If you think I am a Jedi, you are greatly mistaken."
"Your stance, your walk tells me you are a Jedi. Your walk is heavy, you carry something that weighs you down," came the old woman's response.
"The Jedi Order and I have a... troubled history."
She said it in a voice she hoped would end this line of questioning.
"So it would seem. Keep your past - and let us focus on the now," said Kreia.
She took a moment then to examine the woman more closely. Far older than she, the woman's eyes were completely hooded and her cloak resembled the robes of a Jedi master. From these few minutes of cryptic conversation, however, she decided that whatever this not dead woman was, it probably wasn't Jedi. She tried peeking under the hood, but without much success.
They spoke at length, the old woman seemed to know some of what had happened, briefing her on the attack of the Republic ship, the Harbinger, which was the last place she could recall being. She also hinted at a nameless enemy that was supposedly on their tail. If she was correct, quick thinking was required.
She had expected Kreia to want to accompany her further into the facility, there was safety in numbers after all, but instead the older woman sat down on the floor of the morgue and began to meditate. Very odd, but she left her there with a warning of caution and went off in search of more survivors. She was quietly relieved she hadn't been asked for her own name yet.
Dead bodies littered the rooms beyond. It was never easy to see the results of battle and she was saddened by the sight, but she had long ago learned to not let her emotions, strong as they were at times, cloud an objective. Right now, getting off this facility was her main priority. Finding a vibroblade near one hapless victim, she immediately put it to use against a few of the droids she held responsible for the carnage.
She had to fight her way through several rooms of those aggressive mining droids, but she was rewarded with a few more answers when she sliced a security console.
The security officer's logs strongly suggested all of these troubles started happening after she had arrived. She frowned at that. Those would be more lives to add to her death toll. In fact, she still hadn't found anyone alive besides the old woman back in the morgue. Something told her she could not trust Kreia. Something else she'd learned from the logs nagged at her as well. There was a bounty out for Jedi. She had been gone a long time.
It was true, she had actually been one of them. If Padawan counted for anything anyways, she couldn't count the ranks she had received after the war started. She had left her Masters behind to follow Revan, to aid the Republic before the Mandalorians could overtake them all, because there had been no other choice.
No other choice. She had been so certain of it at the time. Ten years in the Outer Rim can do much to a perspective. For her part in the war she had been exiled and worse, a little over a decade ago, but if the security records were any indicator, that wouldn't matter much to anyone hunting Jedi.
Before leaving the security desk, she flipped through the stations of the remote camera. Empty room. Empty room. Droids, more droids. But finally, she found what she was looking for. Locked in a holding cell was a human man. Alive. He was a relatively attractive man with dark brown hair, and he was wearing a leather jacket. His mouth was moving. He seemed to be talking to himself, there didn't appear to be anyone else around. Where were the guards or jailer?
Realizing she had been watching him longer than was strictly necessary, she quickly shut off the feed and headed for the next room. She would find him soon enough.
She was fighting yet another malfunctioning droid when all of the sudden it flowed through her, stunning the droid just before her blade cut through its metal carcass. The Force! It had abandoned her all those years ago, the emptiness that loss had left had been a wound deeper than any vibroblade could ever cut, one that she had thought could never be healed. But here it was, the Force, within her reach again. She could hear it like a song, quiet, but constant, playing in the back of her head.
And then that Kreia woman was there in her head again, too.
"Ah... you hear it. It is faint... but it is there."
How could the woman possibly know? And how was she able to do that?
But everything else were completely eclipsed by the Force. It was all she could hear. All she could feel. She dropped to her knees. The feeling of being once again connected to the universe around her in such a way after so long was overwhelming. She hadn't remembered just how alone she had been all those years until she suddenly wasn't. One just can not understand the power behind "May the Force be with you" until it is not.
She sat in that room, as stunned as the droid she had just decimated, for a few minutes. Alone, yet not alone for the first time in a very long time. She just listened. But it could not last, this crisis was like all the others she had faced since leaving the Enclave to fight in a war she was too young to have anything to do with. Impatient and demanding of her immediate attention. She pulled herself together and back to her feet and continued through the next door, wiping away tears she hadn't noticed had fallen.
When she finally made her way to the bridge, there were plenty more damaged mining droids to fight through, and a sealed door to the containment center. When she reached the door, she heard Kreia's voice in her head once more.
"...ah... beyond this door someone yet lives... be mindful... his thoughts are... difficult to read... but you have nothing to fear from this one... and he may yet prove useful..."
She ignored the older woman. Whoever he was, she would help him. She would save any she could at this point. She needed to, had to even. Too many lives had already been lost on her account and if the Force had found her again, she wasn't about to squander this second chance. She easily found the override and headed towards the holding cells.