(Star Wars and everything related to it belongs to Mr. Lucas.)

On the quiet farming planet of Dantooine, four Jedi Masters were eagerly doing what it was that they did best; lecturing young people on the perils of fun, excitement, and life in general.

Meanwhile in front of them, the easily distracted and highly unmotivated Lane Jerko, Republic Scout ID#-UN1337, did what it was he that did best. Which, as fate would have it, was not paying attention.

It was something he had been doing a lot of lately ever since he had woken up in a distant Republic outpost nearly a year ago. With no clue how he got there, or what had happen to his beloved ship, Lane had been forced to sign on with the Republic as a scout in order to pay off the near-criminal medical expenses he had apparently accumulated. It had not been a very good contract either, but it had been his only option at the time.

Now he found himself on a planet that even a conservative librarian would find stifling, and listening to a long winded speech from an alien that could easily double as a lawn ordainment on a rainy day.

To his left, stood Bastila Shan, the young, proud, beautiful, and highly ambitious padawan of the Jedi Order. Even from here, Lane could smell her strangely intoxicating perfume, or at least he hoped it was her perfume.

Less then a week ago, Lane had fought Sith patrols, packs of rak ghouls, big stinking pig-men, inconspicuously placed rancors, swoop gangs, and spent entirely too much time wandering around in sewers, in an effort to rescue her. He had been beaten, bruised, yelled at, shot at, stabbed, blown up, burnt, electrocuted, gassed, ran over, spat on, vomited on, bled on, and an assortment of other things he was still trying desperately to forget, before he finally found her.

Surprisingly, after seeing the beautiful young Jedi standing there helplessly in an intriguingly-leather outfit, all his suffering had suddenly seemed worth while. He had even vowed then and there to do anything and everything possible to recuse that vision of loveliness that he saw before him.

Of course once he had, that same vision of loveliness had to go and open her mouth, and ruin the whole thing.

She had been arrogant and bossy, annoying and insulting, and a host of other things that not even Lane would comment upon in mixed company. She had practically dismissed all of his efforts to rescue her, and instead chose only to listen to the supposed Republic War-Hero, Carth Onasi. This had infuriated Lane. Not to mention the young Jedi and Carth had then become nearly inseparable. They had bickered. They had pulled rank. They had even gazed longingly at one another from across a crowded room.

Lane was not stupid. He knew what was going on, and the way Bastila had completely wrote off all of his efforts to rescue her had only confirmed his suspicions.+

Yet, Lane had been surprised at how jealous he had felt.

Eventually his jealousy got the better of him, and he had set off on his own to find a way off Taris. Thereby leaving Bastila, Carth, Mission, and the Wookie to argue and flirt amongst themselves. He had then met up with the Mandalorian Canderous, and purchased the droid T3-M4. Together, they had been able to find away off Taris. Unfortunately this had also meant taking the others a long with them.

Oh well, he would be free of them soon, he reminded himself while the Jedi Masters prattled on in front of him.

-

". . .that is why we are considering you for Jedi training. Only then can you, along with your companions, set about stopping the Dark Lord of the Sith," Master Zhar finished, and folded his arms together.

Lane quickly stirred himself out of his day-dreaming, having sensed something was expected of him when everyone in the room began quietly staring at him.

He quickly tried to remember what all the Jedi Masters had said about duty, obligation, and companionship. His thoughts then turned to Bastila, then to Carth, and then to Bastila and Carth, and how annoying they had been on Taris.

Lane scowled at the memories, as his jealousy peaked once again.

"Nah. I think I'll pass. Thanks for the offer though," said Lane

"What? What do you mean you'll pass?! Have you heard nothing we've said!" shouted an outraged Master Vrook.

"I heard you," Lane yawned. "Darth Malak, evil Sith Empire, fate of the galaxy and all that; it's not for me."

"Why you audacious little—, "

"—Master Vrook, patience please, " said Master Vandar. The small alien turned to Lane. "The council will respect your decision, . . . if this is what you wish."

"Great," said Lane, "Good luck with the whole civil war thing," he gave the Jedi council a friendly wave on his way out. "I'm rooting for you."

-

Lane stretched, and yawned again just as he stepped out into the corridor.

"Whew, talk about dodging a bullet. . ." Lane said aloud.

"Huh? What did the council want with you?" asked an irritated Carth, who had been trying to listen to the meeting from behind the door.

"Oh, they wanted me to become a Jedi, and save the galaxy from the Sith, I think," said Lane. "Apparently they are getting awfully desperate."

Carth was stunned.

"You? A Jedi?!" the Republic soldier snapped in disbelief.

"Um, yeah. Weird huh?" said Lane sheepishly, although he was secretly enjoying the look of disgust on the republic soldier's face.

Ever since they had first met, Carth had annoyed the heck out of Lane with his constant paranoid questioning. Things had definitely not improved after Bastila joined them, either. Lane had practically been counting the seconds until he could be free of them both, and now was his big chance.

"Anyway, I turned them down," said Lane, "I have better things to do."

"You turned them down?" said Carth, gritting his teeth. "They give you the chance of a lifetime, and you say. . . no?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

-

Lane made his way back towards the landing pad and the Ebon Hawk, nodding politely to any Jedi he came across.

Carth followed behind him, fuming at the young scout's willful negligence towards the rest of the galaxy. His mind was boiling with suspicions.

He was well aware that the Republic allowed their deep space scouts more leeway when it came to military discipline and Republic-regulations, but Lane's actions on Taris had been too much. Carth also knew that, as the ranking Republic officer, he should have been the one in charge on Taris. He should have been the one to rescue Bastila, and not this . . .

A thought suddenly dawned on Carth as he watched Lane walk up the Ebon Hawk's loading ramp, and into the ship.

Of course! That's it! He's a spy! . . . but for who? Carth stopped to wondered at the base of the ramp. Part of him was momentarily taken back by this inconvenient and uncharacteristically sensible question, but he quickly recovered. That's not important! He's a spy! He's going to try and gain our trust slowly over a period of time, only to then betray us, and—Ow

Suddenly, Carth's thoughts were interrupted by his pack, which contained his few remaining belongings from Taris, hitting him squarely in the the head. He fell backwards with a loud thud.

"Geez, nice reflexes, Ace," said a satisfied and smirking Lane, just as the loading ramp began to close.

-

Within the Ebon Hawk's cockpit, Lane found his new droid, T3-M4, was still running diagnostic checks on the ships systems.

"So, how's my lovely new ship?" asked Lane, practically kicking his heels in excitement.

"Beep-beep woo," replied T3, in a tone that sounded a little too sarcastic for droid.

"Damn, and we're not likely to find a replacement in a by the books Jedi Enclave, eh?"

"Beep-beep frotz."

"Well. . ., I just hope it holds for that long. Tatooine isn't exactly close."

"Beep woop weep."

"Right, then you can fly while I get some rest."

"Beep-beep woo!"

"Because, I doubt they know how."

"Beep beep . . .beep?"

"He's not coming with us."

"Beep?"

"No, she isn't either."

"Beep-beep, . . .woop."

"I am not! I'm glad to be rid of her," snorted Lane, "Now, c'mon—"

" 'Wop wop wop.' "

"—and stop snickering like that."

-

After inputing the coordinates into the nav-computer, Lane flopped down into the Ebon Hawk's cushy pilot seat. Which, he thought gleefully, was now his.

"T3 my friend, . . .today, life is good," said Lane, leaning back.

Suddenly, an out of breath Mission rushed into the cockpit

"Are we leaving so soon? I hardly had a chance to look around" Mission pouted.

"Yes, we are. I don't like it here," said Lane. "For some reason these Jedi make my skin crawl, but you're welcome to stay if you want," he added, hopefully.

"No, like I told you on Taris, Big-Z and I are with you all the way—,"

"Don't remind me," Lane shook his head.

"—and I mean it." said Mission, seemingly not hearing Lane's not so subtle interjection as she sat down in the co-pilot's seat.

"How about you, Canderous?"

The large Mandalorian had quietly been learning against the wall.

"It's not likely I'd find any work on this planet with all these Jedi around. What do you have in mind?"

"I don't know, maybe some bounty hunting, or salvaging, or maybe a bit of smuggling; whatever pays," said Lane. "I'll even let you do most of the killing."

"Sure. As long as I see some action, I'm in."

"In that case. . .," Lane sat up straight, fixed his eyes on the stars above, and raised his hand. "It's one-hundred and six thousand parsecs to Tatooine," he said, "We got a full cargohold of Tarisian ale, a busted up hyper-drive, a pair of slave girls, an exiled wookie, an out of work Mandalorian, an underage Twi'lek, the Sith are probably after us, it's dark, and we're all wearing sunglasses. . . T3—"

"No, we aren't," Mission interrupted.

"—What?"

"We're not wearing sunglasses. You said they cost too much, remember?" Mission explained, "Although, I think we might have enough cardio-regulators to go around. There seemed to be a lot of them on Taris."

"Right, whatever," said Lane, annoyed at the interruption, "T3,—"

"We haven't got any slaves, either," said Canderous, spitefully, "your Jedi Princess set them free as soon as we landed on Dantooine."

Lane sighed. Some people really had no sense of the moment,"—T3, hit it!"

-

The Ebon Hawk remained stationary on the landing pad. There was a single muffled clank from within.

"Beep, woop?"

"Not literally, you bucket of bolts."

"woo."

And then, with what could only be called a strange kind of stagger, the Ebon Hawk slowly raised itself off the ground, and took to the skies.

-

Carth watched the spaceship climb higher and higher into dark atmosphere above. Even though part of him suspected it was all just a clever ploy to lure him into a false sense of security, so he could then be betrayed later.

"Ha, I won't be fooled that easy!" Carth roared, defiantly shaking his fist at the sky. No spy was going to fool him!

-.

Meanwhile, Bastila stepped out of the Council's chambers , feeling both flustered and aggravated.

She just spent the last twenty minutes trying to assure the Masters that she was not to blame for Lane's decision. Not that it had been much use. When he had rejected the Council's offer, every one of the Jedi Masters had been able to see clearly see into Lane's mind, and they had not liked what they saw there at all.

For one thing, there had been a lot of images of Bastila, or more precisely, images of specific regions of Bastila. This had worried them, especially Master Vrook, who had to be reminded of the Jedi code no less then seven times by the other Masters. There had also been a number of troubling images of her and Carth together. This had earned a number of disapproving glances from the Masters. Bastila was certain there were going to be long lectures on the terrible dangers of romance, and the healthiness of cold showers and brisk morning jogs in her very immediate future.

However worse still, underneath Lane's outer hormone laden mind, the Jedi Masters had clearly sensed something sinister lurking. Each of them had recognized it as the same something they thought they had removed from the galaxy nearly a year ago. The very same something that had caused incalculable amounts of pain and suffering throughout the galaxy.

It had winked at them.

And now, as much as Bastila hated the thought of it, she knew she had to speak to Lane.

-

"Carth," said Bastila when she emerged from the Enclave corridor, "what are you doing out here?"

"Well, you see. I—," said Carth.

Bastila shook her head slightly.

"Never mind that, Carth. Where is Lane? I must speak with him."

"He's gone," Carth pointed towards the night sky, ". . .or so he wants us to think!"

Like everyone else who had spent more then a few moments in Carth's company, Bastila had learned to ignore the pilot's incessant paranoia.

"We must find him! The fate of the galaxy is at stake!"

Finally, thought Carth, someone else who had seen through all the trickery and lies. Lane was dangerous. He was deceptive. He had refused to share his life story on Taris! Ever since he had been hit in the head, things had become much clearer.

"You're right, Bastila," said Carth, sticking out his chin with an overly symbolic flair, "for the safety of the entire galaxy, . . . we must stop him."

Carth ran a gloved hand through his dark and heavily conditioned hair. He then gave the young jedi his specially patented look. The same one that he practiced in the mirror each night before bed. It was always a pleaser with the ladies. At least, that is, the ones that weren't secretly out to betray him, he quickly reminded himself.

"What? . . .Oh, yes. You're right," said Bastila, who had been taken back by how suddenly dashing, and more surprisingly, how uncharacteristically sane Carth had almost sounded. Maybe she had misjudged him.

". . . and I won't sit around and wait for him to betray me either!"

Then again, maybe not. Bastila sighed.

-

The Ebon Hawk swam through space like a inebriated salmon through a river of vaguely inconsequential unimportance. The auto-pilot ensured that the right buttons beeped. The right flashers flashed, and the Levers were leveled. Thus freeing the crew to whatever indulgence they fancied. However, since the ship did not contain a five squad firing range, ice-cream parlor, nor a multi-species strip club; they had settled for watching the telecast monitor. They soon regretted this.

"Just the good ol' boys. . . Never meanin' no harm. . .," blared the monitor.

"Change it already," ordered Canderous.

". . .beats all you never saw. . ."

"I can't," said Mission. "Lane had T3 do something to the receiver before he went to sleep."

". . .been in trouble with the law since the day they was born. . ."

"Beep-woop weep!"

". . .straight'nin' the curves. . . ."

"No one is blaming you, T3," said Mission.

". . .flat'nin' the hills. . . ."

"Oh, those are definitely fake," said Mission, after a female Twi'lek appeared on the screen.

". . .someday the mountain might get 'em, but the law never will."

"Who cares," said Canderous, "they look real enough, and that is all that counts."

"Rroogh uraagah groha," said Zaalbar.

Both Mission and Canderous edged away from the wookie.

"That's just creepy, Big-Z."

-

The Leviathan, flagship of the Sith fleet, continued its orbit around the now extremely ruined remains of Taris.

The Sith had came to the planet in search of the Jedi Bastila. Acting on the fear of losing her, Malak had the Sith fleet destroy the entire planet. This devastating act had, at first, shocked even the Sith themselves. The Sith soldiers could only wonder about the terrible and ruthless mind behind their current leader.

Now however, after a very confusing week , while they were still wondering about the mind behind their Dark Lord, it was for entirely different reasons.

"Taris is. . . is completely destroyed, again, m'lord," said Admiral Saul Karath, commander of the Sith fleet. "The city is ruins, again. They. . .," the Admiral shook his head,"again, offer no resistance."

"Excellent," said Malak, who did not turn his big-eyed gaze away from the ruined planet below.

Admiral Karath was beginning to wonder about Darth Malak, himself. So far, the Dark Lord had ordered the destruction of Taris eleven times over the past week. It had been bad enough when he tried to change the color of the standard Sith uniforms, but this was proving to be even worse. People were beginning to talk.

First, they had bombed the planet's larger structures to rubble. Then, the not so large structures. Then, the only slightly bigger then average structures, and so on. By now, the pattern had continued the point where the Sith were being forced to send out construction crews to build new structures, just in order to have something to destroy. The whole matter had become becoming terribly depressing, and a real morale killer. Plus, they were running out of plywood.

Despite his misgivings the elderly Admiral waited patiently, while in his mind he was hoping against hope that the Dark Lord would, at least, say something different this time.

"We cannot risk Bastila escaping us," said Dark Malak.

Admiral Karath sighed, and inwardly cursed all of creation.

"Admiral, I want this planet completely destroyed. Wipe its pathetic existence from galaxy one and for all," ordered the Dark Lord of the Sith, seemingly oblivious to the scornful and tired glances from the bridge crew of the Leviathan.

"Perhaps, m'lord, . . .we should—"

"Your predecessor once made the mistake of questioning my orders, I would hope you are not about to repeat his mistake."

"No, m'lord. . . .I shall order it at once." Karath said, shaking his head in resignation.

-

Within a bunk on board the Ebon Hawk, a prone figure snored. Occasionally it grunted. All too often, it scratched itself in less then modest places. Although beneath all of this, it dreamed.

"The council will never accept us back after this.-"

"-Even from here, I can feel its dark power around us.-"

"-I can only wonder if the path we start here today will lead to something darker then either of us can imagine."

"Sheesh, listen to you. I haven't even gotten the door open yet, and you're already taking on like some emo-goth Jugian."

"I am only concerned about what foreboding fate may await us at the end of this sinister journey."

"Fine. You go on and run back to the Council. I'm sure they'll welcome you back with open arms, too, along with all the other 'children' I apparently led astray. You can then tell me about how it went when I come to sack Coruscant."

"Ahh. . . would be that a fitting end for such as us. For we, former brothers of the order, forced by the. . . um, . . . force, to face each other in single combat to decide the fate of the galaxy."

"Malak, if you don't cut out all this bloody nonsense, and help me with this blasted door, we're going to be facing each other in combat a lot sooner then that!"

"Forgive me, Revan, but I fear if I strain myself in this bastion of darkness, I may not have the strength to maintain my diligence towards the light."

". . . You are SO lucky the Jedi exiled Tarah."

"We both know my abilities far surpass hers , Revan."

"Maybe, but she had breasts, and would probably know how to open this damned door. Which is a hell of a lot more then I can say for you."

-

A small two-man shuttle rocketed away from Dantooine's atmosphere.

"How do you even know where he is headed?" asked Carth, punching in the coordinates for the remote planet of Tatooine.

"I told you Carth," said Bastila, annoyed at having to explain things once again, "through the force, he and I share a bond. A bond that links our minds together. I was able to determine that he was headed to the remote planet of Tatooine."

"Wow, that sounds complicated," Carth looked impressed, although he had already come to a strict conclusion about how trustworthy any one linked to Lane, in any matter, could possibly be.

Bastila merely nodded. She was too busy trying to convince herself that she hadn't lied to either the Council, or Carth. Technically, it was true that due to their force bond, she had been able to sense many of the thoughts passing through Lane's head, even at a great distance. Therefore, since it was entirely possible she could have used to force to determine Lane's destination, there was no actual reason for her to mention the message she had received from Mission before the Ebon Hawk had left Dantooine's system.

Of course, she was not entirely sure why the young Twi'lek had done this, but now was not the time to question the motives of others. Regardless, it was undoubtedly the will of the force.

She smiled at her reasoning. Bastila knew she would someday make a fine political-litigation advisor; should the whole Jedi thing not work out.

-

"We're here!" beamed a cheerful Mission, after prodding Lane awake.

Lane groaned and got to his feet. It felt like he hadn't been asleep for more then a few moments.

"You look terrible," Mission put her hand to his head. "Bad dreams?"

"Mmhmm, this time it was two men, and no women at all," Lane yawned. "I was better off when I was dreaming about Bastila."

He immediately sensed his error, and mentally slapped his forehead.

"Whoa, you were dreaming about that snobby little thing?" Mission asked with a smirking grin.

"Yeah, well, she wasn't so bad in the dreams," said Lane. "Probably because she didn't speak," he added, and pulled off his shirt.

Oblivious to Mission's embarrassment, Lane began changing his clothes. The tight Republic issued underwear wouldn't cut it on a desert planet like Tatooine. Besides, they made him feel too constricted. His boys needed to be free, he told himself.

Mission quickly turned around to give Lane some sense of privacy, not that he had seemed all that concerned about it.

"So, you liked her that much?" the young Twi'lek asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.

"Nah. Not that it matters now," said Lane, while trying to rip the arms out of the shirt he had been wearing. "I think she had a thing for that Carth guy, anyhow."

"Carth. . ., but I thought he was gay?" Mission looked confused. "I mean, the guy practically couldn't keep his eyes off you the entire time we were on Taris. Then on Dantooine, he was so moody every time you left."

At this sudden and terrifying thought, Lane, who had been in the midst of putting his pants back on, tripped over a stray pants' leg, and landed heavily on the floor.

Having a conversation about the sexual orientation of extremely paranoid pilots in stressful environments, as Lane very specifically chose to think of it, was not something he wished to discuss with the young Twi'lek girl. Ever. In fact, if there was ever a list of things he did want to talk with Mission about, which was very likely to be a short list to begin with, somewhere near the top would be a long lecture about never mentioning anything like that to him ever again.

For now, however, he just cringed, and tried to put the sheer horribleness of the idea out of mind.

"Well even so, " Mission continued, "Bastila still must have made quite an impression, if you are dreaming about her."

"Were dreaming," corrected Lane. "I'm not anymore, remember?"

"Oh right. Now you've moved onto dreaming about two guys." Mission giggled conspiratorially, "Maybe you'll be dreaming about Carth, next."

Lane scowled at the young Twi'lek.

"You're becoming just as annoying as T3."

"That reminds me," said Mission, "You should have a look at him. He's been acting awfully weird lately."

"Why?" Lane shrugged, as far as he was concerned, he already had enough problems to worry about.

"Ever since we left Dantooine, he has been watching those weird shows on the telecast monitor non-stop. Then after we landed, he asked if he could be panted brown, with orange stripes," said Mission. "He's also insisting we call him TC from now on."

Lane shook his head in resignation.

A year of ago, that would have seemed strange to him, too. However after all these months of working for the Republic, it almost seemed ordinary.

"I'll try to get his memory wiped while we're here, " said Lane with a non-committed shrug.

Outside the ship, Tatooine waited. After all, there was little else it could do.