Author's Note:
1) This little fic is sort of a lead-in to the Betrayed sequel, although it does also stand alone. Worry not, there are no spoilers.
2) The Exile featured here is meant to be the same as my Exile in "An Ale Between Two Strangers" and "Betrayed".
3) Many thanks to Trillian4210 for allowing me to borrow the name Attarand, as it was too perfect to resist.
4) I suppose this could be an entry for Kendoka Girl's Intelligence challenge, but I'll leave that up to you.
5) This one is unbeta'd (gasp!), but as such I was anal in my own editing, so I hope it's not too horrible! It was fun writing, so I hope it's fun reading!

Of Sith and Jedi, Old Friends and New

Atton held his blaster low in both hands, proceeding through the Harbinger's dark halls in a sort of crouching run. His eyes darted across the shadows in front of him, searching for any sign of the cloaked assassins that seemed to follow his new-found Jedi friend like firaxa sharks after an injured orchana ray.

This is crazy, Rand. What are you even doing here? He didn't like this situation. Not one bit. And the Exile's order to have them all split up had only heightened his apprehension. She's insane. She has to be. Why else would she keep us on this boat… The Republic cruiser was full of dead people, and not all of them had been killed by the assassins. He'd stepped over several now that had been murdered in a different fashion… their bodies broken and splintered, crushed by an overwhelming power. He had yet to find anyone – or any thing - on the Republic cruiser capable of such an act, and he continued to fiercely hope he wouldn't.

Atton stopped in his tracks; the tickle in the back of his mind warned him that something was wrong. He brought up his blaster, but before he could find a target to shoot at, an invisible force slammed into the side of his face and knocked him spinning to the ground. His blaster flew from his grip and slid down the hallway, coming to rest against the side of a dead Republic soldier. Atton scrambled for it immediately, but no sooner had his fingers grazed the weapon then it was kicked out of his reach again.

The pilot heard the sound of a stealth unit being deactivated and realized with dismay he'd been ambushed. He sprang to his feet, launching a fist at his assailant's face. His blow struck the other man in the jaw and the Sith staggered; but then something from behind drove into Atton's kidney and dropped him to his knees.

Atton ground his teeth together, trying to ignore the pain, trying to breathe again, groping at the wall to help him get back to his feet. He somehow managed it, though his vision narrowed. He swung again at the dark shape in front of him; felt his fist connect solidly with ribs and heard his opponent grunt with the impact. The pilot balanced himself for a kick meant for the other man's head, but before he could follow through a hand blasted through his guard and smashed into his sternum.

Atton's vision blacked as the oxygen was torn from his lungs. He stared up at the corridor ceiling through a haze, his chest burning as he struggled to suck in air and willed himself to roll over and keep fighting. But he couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. His heart raced wildly beneath his ribs as he waited to die.

Beneath the roaring in his ears he heard the Sith chuckle. A pair of shiny black boots came to stand by his head. They were soon joined by two more pair. Three of them. Should have known. Always travel in threes…

"Well, well," a low voice drawled, and in the back of Atton's mind a memory stirred. "If it isn't good ol' Jaq Attarand."

A jolt of pure terror stilled Atton's labored breathing efforts. The Sith assassin who had spoken crouched down next to the pilot, and Atton stared up into the smiling face of a man he had not seen in a long, long time. A man he had never wanted to see again. "Torren Goben," he choked out, the tightness in his chest finally beginning to ease. "You son… son of a schutta…"

"I never thought I'd see you again, Jaq," the man said quietly. "I thought for sure you were dead." He shook his head, his smile widening, although the look in his blue eyes remained cold and calculating. "We searched all over the galaxy for you, you know. Everywhere. But a slimy little worm like yourself knows where to hide, I suppose, eh?"

Atton swallowed hard. He could breathe more deeply now, but his heartbeat still thundered in his ears. He glanced past Torren to the other Sith, attempting to determine his odds of surviving this encounter.

"Strange, isn't it?" Torren asked, still watching Atton with the greedy, patient look of a predator that has cornered its prey. "How ironic that you escaped our grasp all those long years only to be caught now, when we are no longer looking for you."

"Just… just lucky… I guess," Atton panted. Feeling was slowly returning to his arms and legs, and although his muscles still tingled, he was already planning Torren's death.

"Lucky?" The Sith grunted in amusement, but then all traces of the fronted goodwill disappeared. He scowled, grabbing the front of Atton's jacket and pulling the pilot bodily to his feet.

Atton grimaced as Torren slammed him against the wall, but took his chance. He struck out with a fist again; his disorientation made him sluggish, however, and Torren ducked the blow, then answered with a fist of his own. Atton was also too slow to react quickly enough, and soon found himself on the floor again.

He blinked, his head throbbing and nose burning. Atton only vaguely registered the blood now dripping off his chin and pooling in his mouth as he spit onto the floor and laboriously drug himself to his hands and knees.

"Lucky?" Torren repeated. The man sent his boot into Atton's gut and the pilot grunted, crumpling back to the ground. "You're a filthy traitor, Attarand," the Sith snarled. He hauled Atton to his feet again, throwing the younger man into the clutches of the other two assassins. Each of them took one of Atton's arms and held him firmly, but the pilot sagged in their grip, still trying to recover the breath that had once again been knocked from his body.

Torren paced a short line in front of the pilot, fixing Atton with a furious glare. "Do you have any idea how many good men died because of your disappearance? Do you have any idea what the rest of us suffered because of it?" The older man shook his graying head, coming to an abrupt halt in front of Atton. "The wrath of Revan was very great, indeed," he whispered menacingly. "One of her prized Elite Assassins, one of her best, vanishing without a trace from a Force-forsaken world on the edge of the galaxy, leaving only a last, dead Jedi in his wake… she didn't like that, Jaq. She didn't like that at all."

Atton lifted his dark eyes to meet Torren's burning gaze. "Yah?" The pilot coughed and spit more blood onto Torren's boot. "Well Revan be damned."

The Sith's face turned dark with rage; in a blur of motion his hand went to his belt, and the next thing Atton knew an excruciating, white-hot pain blazed itself up into his chest from a spot in his left side. He cried out at the suddenness of it, but then clamped his jaw shut and gritted his teeth against the nausea building in his throat. Sweat broke out along his skin and the pilot fought the sting of tears as Torren yanked the vibroshiv from where he'd stabbed it into Atton's flesh.

"Lord Revan is gone," the man hissed vehemently, his eyes still locked on Atton's paled face as he held up the bloodied blade. "But had she caught you, she would have seen to it that you paid for your failure, your weakness… your treason. She had your punishment planned out very thoroughly, Jaq. She would have broken you, destroyed you, made an example of you for all those weak-minded fools who dared to doubt their loyalty to her cause."

Atton kept his eyes focused on Torren's age-lined and battle-scarred face, attempting to pull his consciousness back from the darkness that lingered at its edges. He tried to calm his ragged breathing, but his efforts were futile. The pain that shocked through his body from the vibroshiv wound made it hard for him to concentrate on anything. Torren Goben had been trained in the art of torture and interrogation just as Jaq Attarand had once been, and the stab had been perfectly aimed. It had missed all critical organs, yet created a great deal of pain and would, if left untreated, eventually kill the victim. Very slowly.

"And where is Revan now?" Atton croaked contemptuously, acutely aware of the warm line of blood that slowly crawled down his left thigh. "What happened to her cause? To her unyielding power?"

Torren smiled almost sympathetically. "She has gone to fight a greater battle, but you already knew that, Jaq. You know where she went, and why. The day you heard news of her departure must have been a great day for you, eh?" The man's mouth twisted into a wry expression. "I suppose you went out and celebrated the event, even? Had a few drinks, a few women?"

A knowing smile made it to Atton's lips despite the pain that still racked his body. "You have no idea," he said.

Torren finally sheathed his vibroshiv, crossing his arms over a broad chest, and looked down at Atton with scorching disapproval. "That must have also been the day you let yourself finally relax. After all, with Revan gone, who would bother to keep looking for you?"

"I did start sleeping better after she left," Atton remarked as nonchalantly as he could manage.

"Fool," Torren sneered. "You've let yourself become soft. The Jaq I knew would have never been ambushed, not even by those wearing stealth generators. He most certainly would have at least offered me a challenge in hand-to-hand combat." The Sith took a step forward, leaning in toward Atton's ear. "Oh, and he wouldn't have been caught dead standing side by side with a Jedi."

The burn of anger grew hot in Atton's chest, but a strange, cold shell seemed to form around his heart at Torren's words. He had forgotten, will all the thoughts of his own possibly impending death, that these Sith assassins had actually come in search of Nell Roe. A multitude of thoughts raced through his head all at once. Had they found her? Did he want them to find her? Could he possibly barter her to get out of his own predicament?

"She's not a Jedi," Atton growled. "You're wasting your time." His words surprised even himself, but he held Torren's gaze evenly.

The Sith's smile returned. "Once a Jedi, always a Jedi, my friend," the man said. "And our boss just wants them all dead. He doesn't bother trying to convert them, as Revan once did. But I like it better this way. The only good Jedi is a dead one, as you used to say."

"So you're still doing someone else's dirty work, even after all these years?" Atton snorted, shaking his head in disgust. "How disappointing, Torren. I would have thought you'd made more of yourself by now."

The older man chuckled, turning his back on the pilot. He drew a deep breath and pulled another device from his belt. The other two assassins tightened their grip on Atton's arms, and he could feel their anticipation thicken the air. He braced himself as Torren turned around, but the Sith took no immediate action. Instead the man held the device just an inch from Atton's nose.

"I think you know what this is," Torren said.

Atton swallowed hard, and it was all he could do to keep his eyes from dropping to the short, wand-like tool. "Yes." His voice was suddenly hoarse.

"I may be doing someone else's dirty work," the Sith whispered, "but at least I have a purpose. And at least I'll get to see to it personally that you pay for your betrayal." The man broke into a malicious grin and activated the device. White-blue energy crackled at the end of it and Atton drew back despite himself. "Now," Torren continued, still in an ominous whisper, "I'm going to ask you one last question before I watch you gasp your last breath. Where do you think your little Jedi friend has run off to?"

Atton remained silent, but his heart slammed into his ribs with painful force. His eyes dropped briefly to the torture device, and for one agonizing second he wished he had an answer. He'd used the device many times in the past; it had been a favorite among the assassins, as it was designed to mimic the effects of Force lightning for non-Force users. No other single tool under Revan's employ had been more successful in breaking Jedi than that simple, short staff. He'd seen what it was capable of first-hand. But he'd never dreamt he'd be on the receiving end of one.

"Tell me where she is and I'll shave an hour off your suffering," Torren said, breaking the heavy silence.

An hour? For stars' sake…. "I don't know," Atton blurted as the Sith leader made a motion to move forward. "There, you have your answer. And it's the truth."

Torren peered at him for a moment, then shook his head and clicked his tongue admonishingly. "Pathetic, Jaq. First you betray us, and now so eager to give up your new-found companion. I wonder what the Jedi would think of that? Perhaps I'll ask her before I kill her."

A surge of anger lit Atton's body and he lashed out with a boot, catching Torren square in the knee. The man's leg snapped and the Sith screamed out as he hit the floor, the energy baton rolling away to join Atton's blaster.

The pilot lunged after the weapon, dragging the two assassins who held him a good meter before they recovered from their surprise well enough to plant their feet and slow him down. Atton wrenched his arm away from one and sent his free fist into the second one's nose. The second man dropped heavily to the floor and didn't move.

Atton swung around to deal with the first one, but the young man had been well trained and the pilot was met with a blow to the chin that knocked him stumbling. The corridor lights dimmed and Atton barely clung to consciousness, falling against the wall as he turned to confront his remaining opponent. He noticed almost immediately the other man had somehow gotten a hold of the torture device, and not long after Atton registered this fact, his world exploded in a burst of blinding agony.

It ended some time later, though Atton had no way of knowing how much time had actually passed. The pain that bored into every nerve of his being abruptly stopped, leaving only the dull, throbbing ache of the vibroshiv wound behind. His vision cleared; he saw the assassin standing over him, energy baton in hand. But there was something wrong… the man stood completely still, his face slack with shock. It wasn't until the vibrosword moved that Atton realized the Sith had been impaled. The blade withdrew from the man's chest; Atton rolled onto his side to avoid being crushed by the body as it thumped to the floor.

The pilot stared up at Nell Roe as she casually leaned down to wipe her bloodied sword on the body of the man she'd just killed. Then she straightened, and her eyes went to Atton.

He struggled to sit up, ignoring the spikes of protest that issued from his side. But a low chuckle from the other side of the hall froze his actions just as surely as a carbonite beam.

"So there you are," Torren Goben mused, looking at Nell. He sat against the wall, but the grayish tone of his skin and the sweat that beaded on his forehead told Atton the man was still in a great deal of pain. From the looks of the assassin leader's leg, he should have been in an unconscious heap.

Stimulants, Atton thought, and then wished like hell he had some of his own.

Nell regarded Toben curiously, but did not approach him.

"Came to save your comrade, did you?" Toben asked mockingly, then sent Atton a glare of loathing. "He's not worth it. He was going to sell you out to save himself."

"Don't listen to him," Atton protested at once. But it had been true, if only for a moment, and the shame that realization brought both confused and irritated him. Why should he care? He hardly knew this woman; why should he feel obliged in the least to endure more suffering just to protect her?

Torren was laughing. "What's this?" the man asked, wincing between his chuckles. "You can't possibly care what she thinks of you? She's a Jedi! What the hell has happened to you, Jaq?"

Atton's heart skipped a beat at the name, and he hoped Nell hadn't caught it. He didn't want her to know. Especially not now, while he was unable to defend himself.

"Who are you?" Nell demanded of the Sith, taking a step forward, sword in hand.

Torren's maniac grin grew wider, and Atton knew even the stimulants wouldn't be able to keep the man awake much longer. The pilot didn't want to wait that long; his right hand edged toward the blaster lying near his side.

"Who am I?" the man repeated. "Why don't you ask your friend over there?" He nodded toward Atton. "We go way back, him and I. Way back." Torren's blue eyes glittered with malice, and Atton suddenly knew the man was going to tell her everything. His fingers reached the blaster's grip and curled around it.

Before he could take further action, however, Nell's green gaze met with his own, and the look on her face hollowed his insides. In that moment he understood exactly why he didn't want her to know about his past, why he had defended her against Torren's hatred, and why his deliberations about giving her up to the assassins had made him feel so guilty. She trusted me… Jaq Attarand hadn't known real trust since the beginning of the Mandalorian Wars. And Atton Rand… Atton Rand had never been trusted, nor had he trusted anyone else. Until now.

He hadn't had much choice in the matter though, now that he thought about it. The Peragus situation had thrown him and Nell Roe together; the circumstances forced them to depend on each other for survival. He had only trusted the ex-Jedi because there was no other option. Luckily for him, she hadn't yet let him down. He couldn't be quite sure of her motivations for trusting him in return, but whatever her reasons, Atton knew Torren's words had just shattered their foundations.

There was question in Nell's eyes as she looked at him now. Curiosity, doubt, suspicion… everything Atton had become accustomed to seeing on people's faces when they looked at him. She no longer trusted him. Not fully, not like she had just moments before. And Atton suddenly found he hated Torren Goben for taking that away from him. He raised the blaster.

Nell's eyes widened at the sight of it. "No, wait –"

Atton fired; the bolt struck Torren in the head and his body jerked once, then sagged forward. Nell stared at the body for a second, then whirled on Atton angrily.

"What in the hell were you thinking?" she demanded. "I told you to wait! I was going to ask who sent them!"

"He wouldn't have told you," Atton said simply.

Nell scowled, sheathing her vibrosword and stalking over to his side. "I think you underestimate my persuasive skill," she growled.

Despite himself, Atton tensed as Nell dropped to one knee beside him. But she only reached into her belt pouch for a hyposyringe of stimulants and a small kolto patch. "Lay back," she instructed.

"I'm fine," Atton insisted, though he felt as if he'd been trampled by a herd of bantha. "We don't have time to –"

"This will kill you if you don't let me treat it," she snapped, nodding toward the knife wound. "And believe it or not you're no good to me dead. So shut up and let me do this."

Atton reluctantly lowered himself back to the floor. He winced as Nell jabbed the stimulant syringe into his thigh with unnecessary force. Okay, so she's pissed. But she still wants me around… so she's gotta still trust me a little bit...

"Look," he said, then grimaced as she lifted his shirt and slapped the kolto patch onto his side none too gently. "About what that guy said…"

"Did you know him?" Nell asked.

Atton swallowed. "No," he said firmly. It's easier this way. No need to invite unwanted questions if I don't have to. "He obviously had me confused with someone else."

"Obviously," Nell commented, and Atton couldn't tell if she meant it sarcastically or not. It didn't matter either way. He was going to stick with that story no matter what. "Don't move," she ordered, finishing with his injuries and standing up. "I'm going to see if any of these guys have a medpac on them."

Atton watched her move away and begin to search through the pockets of the Sith assassins. This habit of hers amused him. Ex-Jedi Nell Roe filched anything not nailed to the floor. She had even searched the bodies of the dead Republic soldiers upon boarding the Harbinger. Admittedly, her passion for looting had turned up some very useful and otherwise expensive things, but it had also added considerable weight to Atton's belt.

Sure enough, Nell soon found what she was looking for and returned to Atton's side. She opened the medpac and pulled out the SynthFlesh container, placing it on his chest. "Here. Once that kolto has a chance to set in a bit, apply the SynthFlesh straight to the wound and keep still for at least ten minutes."

Atton opened his mouth to say he knew perfectly well how to heal his stab wound, but then thought better of it. No unwanted questions, he reminded himself. "Thanks," he muttered instead, eyeing the SynthFlesh container with distaste. He hated the stuff – the whole cold, sticky, bad-smelling entirety of it. He sighed heavily, winced as the motion sent a spike of pain through his side, and then looked back to Nell, who had moved off to further examine the assassin's bodies. She currently prodded experimentally at one of the men's shoulders with the toe of her boot.

He decided to keep quiet for awhile. So far Nell had handled Goben's last words and Atton's pitiful explanation for them very well. The pilot still couldn't believe she hadn't asked more questions about it. Of course, that was fine with him. But still, he didn't want to push his luck. Perhaps if he just stayed silent and still she would forget this incident ever happened…

"Atton?"

He startled at the sudden sound of her voice and grimaced, bracing himself for the worst. I knew it was too easy. "Yah?" he answered cautiously.

"It's probably time to apply that SynthFlesh now."

He barely restrained his sigh of relief. "Oh, right." He fumbled with the small container briefly before finally snapping it open, then blanched at the smell. But the pilot forced himself to administer the gel to his wound, eager to get up and going again. The sooner they were off this creepy boat the better.

He glanced over at Nell again only to see her standing over Goben's body, staring down at the mess that had once been the man's face. Atton felt his insides twist at the sight of her brooding expression, and he knew then, without doubt, that ex-Jedi Nell Roe still had plenty of unwanted questions to ask him. And knowing her as he did, even after such a short time, Atton Rand had a good idea he would eventually end up telling her everything she wanted to know. It was only a matter of time.

This is why you travel alone, vac-brain, he scowled to himself. Because when you spend enough time with someone, no matter who they are, sooner or later they'll start asking questions. They'll start wondering about where you came from, and who you are, and what you do. Flaming hell. He tossed another surreptitious look in Nell's direction, then shook his head. He already knew what had to be done. The same thing he always did when anyone came close to asking too many questions.

As soon as we get off this rock, I'm gone.

He ignored the small inkling of regret that snaked through his chest at the decision. So she let me out of that cell. In her undewear. But she's also nearly gotten me killed... several times. It's not worth it. It's just not worth it.

Atton only hoped they could get off the Harbinger without running into any more "old friends"...

THE END

(Sort of...)