Flashes of red against yellow, fighting desperately with every bit of my strength. The enemy fell at my feet and I stood a moment, chest heaving. One more door between us and the target.

He stood uncaring of our intrusion, casually choking a soldier to death with nothing but the power of the Force. Tossing the corpse at our feet he faced us calmly, his dark robes and masked face betraying no emotion.

"You cannot win, Revan," I said, glancing at the Jedi to either side of me. We all had our blades ready, and he stood without so much as drawing his saber. He turned away, looking out the window ahead of him, and I suddenly saw our mistake.

The shields were down, we'd destroyed them to make our boarding. We were on a defenceless ship and Malak's fleet was firing on us, a rain of flame and death racing toward us through silent space.

Even if we succeeded in our immediate goal, the chances of surviving were minuscule. And Revan knew it, taunting us with his inaction.

I had no time to think, no time to act. The barrage hit, and the ship shook. The massive windows shattered, smashing into the dark lord, into myself, into the other Jedi by my sides. My protection was stronger than those of my allies, Force energy pushing the exploding glass away from me, keeping me safe. I was knocked to the ground, but not seriously injured.

The dark lord lay crumpled and unmoving beside the shattered window. My Jedi allies lay unconscious - or worse - and Malak's bombardment wasn't letting up. I had to get away now, or this really would be the end.

I struggled to my knees, the moment seeming to hover frozen as I stared out at Malak's still-firing fleet. We'd succeeded in dethroning one dark lord, though not in a way I'd have chosen and at far too high a cost.

The war was far from over. How much more would we yet lose?

"Some Dark Lord, heh," I barely recognized my voice, so cracked and weak. I blinked at an unfamiliar ceiling. My head was pounding, but I felt more aware, more myself. The Endar Spire might well have been a nightmare, and I was just back in a random apartment, looking for contacts for my next smuggling run—

"Bastila!" I mumbled, heart suddenly pounding. She wasn't there. She wasn't there. I sat up and looked around frantically.

"Good to see you up instead of thrashing around in your sleep," came an uncomfortably familiar voice.

Onasi?

Curses. It had been real.

Where was Bastila? I put a hand to my chest, but that wasn't right. She was. . . I was. . .

"You must have been having one hell of a nightmare. I wondered if you were ever going to wake up. I'm Carth, one of the soldiers from the Endar Spire. Do you remember?"

"Yeah, Onasi. Best pilot. Where's Bastila? Where are we?"

"You've been slipping in and out of consciousness for a few days now. Try not to worry. We're safe, for the moment."

"But where is Bastila? She's not here, she's—"

"Calm down, we'll find her. I've been asking around, and it sounds like most of the pods crashed into the Undercity."

"Then that's where we need to go."

Onasi held a hand up to slow my frantic rush of words. "We need to be careful, keep a low profile. The Sith have quarantined the planet and imposed martial law, and we do not want to be caught."

"I don't care about the danger, I have to get to Bastila!"

I tried to stand, but Onasi took my shoulders and gently pushed me back. "You need to calm down, okay? Bastila's a Jedi, she can look out for herself long enough, assuming she's not dead already."

"She can't be dead," I insisted, trying to convince myself as much as Carth. The empty place within me that used to be full of her presence spiraled continually into darkness, mocking the emptiness of my insistence. If she was dead, it would feel different. I truly, deeply believed her to be alive, but persuading my conscious mind to believe wasn't easy.

"We'll find her, but you need to slow down. We won't be any use to her if we get caught by the Sith, I've heard grim stories about dark Jedi interrogation techniques. And you're still recovering, you need food and rest."

"I'm fine," I mumbled, but accepted the rations he handed me gratefully. I was weak and tired, and the only way to help Bastila was to regain strength as fast as possible.

I nibbled slowly, wary of upsetting my stomach, while Onasi reported on the events while I was unconscious. He'd managed to drag me to safety, avoid Sith patrols, locate a safe hideout, and amass a good amount of information on the crashed escape pods in only a few days and without attracting undue notice.

I was feeling much better about our chances by the time I felt strong enough to leave. Onasi wasn't heralded as such a great soldier without cause, he really did know how to get things done.

But, fate conspires against the best of us sometimes.

The moment we stepped out of the apartment, we were spotted by a Sith patrol. No dark Jedi, thank goodness, just a low-level enforcer and his droids. Still, I wasn't even close to prepared for a confrontation.

Again Onasi saved me, whipping out his pair of blasters and firing before they knew what hit them. I ran forward in time to smash one of the droids with my new vibroblade.

(I'd laughed at Onasi's expression when I asked after my pack of loot. He'd brought it all, though seemed not to realize what I wanted with all the cheap generic weapons from the Sith boarders.)

Smuggler habits die hard, and you never know when you'll find someone wanting to buy a good handful of weapons.

Point being, with a vibration cell upgrade, my sword now fit the category of vibroblade, which made me much happier. Though I still felt as though the weapon was too slow and heavy, inelegant.

I'm not a Jedi. I'm not Bastila. I've never had a lightsaber. I'm just a smuggler. Remember that?

Carth was talking to a duros about hiding the bodies, but I was too absorbed in mentally berating myself to notice what they said. Something inconsequential, no doubt.

I had to find Bastila. She was missing, and not just physically lost, but the part of her I carried within me burned emptily into silent darkness every moment. I could only just sense her presence, slipping away from me continually.

"She's alive, but there's something very wrong," I mumbled, then snapped my attention up. Some twi'lek was trying to sell us energy shields, but I waved him away. "We have to find her," I told Onasi urgently, staring up at him desperately.

"Relax, you won't do anyone any good if you make a scene and get us arrested."

I nodded, took a breath, then turned to the salesman. "How do we get to the Undercity?"

He laughed. "The Undercity? You'd have to be mad to want to go down there! If you knew how hard we work to stay out of the lower levels, and you want to go all the way down?" He shook his head. "There's an elevator, but I hear the Sith are guarding it now."

"Where is it?"

He gave directions, and I nodded thanks. "If you're going down under, you really should have an energy shield," he added. "And at a very reasonable price."

I ignored his continued attempts to describe how amazing and useful this worthless piece of junk would be and pushed past firmly. "Not interested."

The elevator to the lower city was locked down and guarded. Of course.

Much as I would have preferred to jump the Sith soldier and head down immediately, Onasi pointed out that there were far too many witnesses on the open street. Causing a ruckus like that in the open would have gotten us moved up the Sith priority list like nothing else.

"We'll need some kind of disguise if we want to slip past this guy," Onasi muttered as we moved away, and I reluctantly agreed. As much as I had to know what had happened to Bastila, I wouldn't be any use to her - or anyone - if I got us caught by the Sith.

So we went to the one place we knew they patrolled, that wasn't quite so public. The apartment buildings.

We strolled up and down empty circles and those packed with travelers, wandered through rooms that were technically locked up securely and liberated a good sackful of assorted goods of moderate value.

Onasi didn't seem entirely pleased with my stealing everything in sight, but we would need credits any way we could soon enough.

I was just about ready to give up and attack the elevator guard no matter the consequences, when we stumbled into a Sith investigation.

They were actually interrogating an alien about stolen Sith uniforms.

We carefully knocked them out, then took theirs and advised the alien to get well away. If they already had a suspect, they'd have no reason to come after us, and he looked like the type who knew how to disappear.

The lower city would be one step closer to Bastila. She'd still be alive. At least, if we found her this moment I knew she would, but every minute we wasted could be the last. My sense of her was so weak, weaker than I could ever remember it being.

I'm not Bastila, but was I once? It was strange, I could remember more about her than about myself. Nothing specific, just impressions. I knew I was a smuggler, I knew she was a Jedi, but I felt like a Jedi, and in my dreams I always just knew that I was Bastila.

It was giving me a headache thinking about it.

"Tell me about yourself," I instructed Onasi, as we retraced our steps back to the streets.

"Me?"

"I need something to keep my mind off worrying about Bastila," I explained. "Please."

"Well, I've been a star pilot for the republic for years, seen more than my share of wars. Still, nothing in the Mandelorian wars came close to the senseless violence these Sith are capable of. My… my homeworld was one of the first places destroyed in this war, bombed into submission by the Sith, and there wasn't a thing we could do to stop them."

"That must be painful," I said, not sure what else to say.

Onasi didn't seem to notice, just kept right on talking, his voice growing more agitated. "I just go where I'm ordered, do as the fleet admirals tell me, but that shouldn't mean I've failed them! I haven't."

"I'm sorry," I said, worried. He seemed like he'd been holding back a lot of emotion, and it was probably good for him to talk about it. But I had no idea what to say in this kind of situation, and he suddenly looked a lot more dangerous, tight on the edge.

Then he sighed, as though suddenly drained, his clenched fists loosening. "You probably mean well, but… I don't want to think about this now. We should stay focused, in any event. If you have questions, ask them later."

"Sure, another time," I agreed. We reached the street level and donned our Sith helmets in silence, then crossed to the elevator. We didn't even need a story, though I'd had one hastily prepared, the guard just assumed we were a patrol and waved us on through.

Lower city. One step closer to the undercity. One step closer to Bastila.

The lower city of Taris was certainly not a place I'd have chosen to visit. It was dim, grimy, uncared-for, and infested with street gangs fighting it out in plain sight. We had to take out more than one group of thugs representing a 'Black Vulkar' gang, whose territory we seemed to have stumbled into.

I suppose I must have been acquainted with the underworld at some point for my smuggling trade, but until we met Canderous I couldn't imagine any of these gangsters being worth my time.

He was standing in the shadow of a doorway when we approached, leaning against the wall, one hand casually on an obviously expensive custom repeater. His face was hard, everything about him was hard, and he wore a thin black sleeveless shirt that showed off his impressive strength despite his obvious age.

A confrontation was taking place in the brightly-lit intersection between two dim streets, and I thought it best to stay unnoticed. Onasi had already been dazed by one of those stunner-sticks the Vulkars favored, and they seemed inclined to attack strangers on sight. So we watched from the shadows as a weasel-faced man tried to demand payment from the thugs, and they refused it with typical tough-guy bluffery.

Then, at a gesture from the little man, Canderous strode out into the open, repeater held casually in both hands in front of him. The stance didn't quite threaten, but it was clear that he could be ready and firing in seconds.

Immediately the attitudes of the gangsters flipped - they recognized him at once and they hastily assured the weasel-faced intermediary that they would pay as promised, then scampered away.

"Too bad, I was looking forward to cracking some heads," the mercenary rumbled. He shook his head derisively. "Idiots."

I knew immediately that this was the kind of contact I should be making. People like this Canderous were the ones with the actual power, and well connected to those with the actual money.

I started forward to introduce us, but he glanced our direction and held up a hand. "I don't have time for small talk, I'm on a special assignment right now. And you really don't want to get on my bad side."

"Nice meeting you," I said hastily, and backed off.