As Carth watched Revan walk away and disappear for a second time, silence fell in the room. After several minutes, which felt like several lifetimes, someone spoke.
"Well," Bastila said, "I can see now why my arrival was such a disappointment." She attempted a smile but couldn't quite manage it. Carth stared at her grimly. She cleared her throat and shifted awkwardly in her seat. "You say the Exile found this?"
Carth nodded. "A few weeks ago on Korriban. It was only a couple of days old when she found it." After this he lapsed into silence, staring off into the distance.
"I would have thought you'd be happier than this." Bastila murmured gently.
"I was at first. Then I started thinking."
"About what?"
"She should be back by now, damn it!" Carth shouted, slamming his fist into the wall. "That recording is weeks old, she should have arrived on Telos before the Exile."
Bastila winced, surprised by Carth's sudden anger. "You know how things have been recently; there are a thousand reasons why she could have been delayed."
Carth began to pace the floor, clenching and unclenching his fists as he walked. "No, not Revan, nothing can get in her way once she sets her mind on doing something, and you saw how intent she was on getting back here." He came to a halt. Even from where she was sitting Bastila could see the shiver that ran down his back. "Something's happened. She's been captured, or, or hurt, or… I don't know what." His shoulders sagged. "Something bad has happened to her, Bastila. That's the only thing that could have stopped her."
Rising from her seat, Bastila quickly crossed the room to Carth and put her hand on his shoulder. "You're jumping to conclusions." She soothed. He shook her off and resumed his pacing. "Please, Carth." She pleaded. "Don't do this to yourself."
A strangled laugh escaped him. "How can I not?" He moved over to Bastila's vacated chair and fell into it, looking exhausted. "I'm supposed to protect her. I have to worry."
Realising that there was nothing she could do to calm him, she edged towards the door. "I think you could do with some time alone." She said as the door slid open. Carth nodded gratefully and let his head fall into his hands as she left.
For one brief, happy minute he had thought he was getting Revan back. His heart had hammered in his chest while he was waiting for the soldier to escort his guest to his quarters, and then it had plummeted when Bastila walked in. While Bastila watched the recording, he took the opportunity to study Revan more closely than he had done the first time. He recognised the determined look in her eye and the obstinate set of her jaw that meant she had set her mind on something. It didn't matter what Bastila, or anyone else, might tell him. Carth knew Revan too well; if she had decided to return to Telos and then not arrived something had gone very, very wrong.
Revan was dreaming. After leaving Korriban she hadn't started her journey to Telos straight away, although that was her eventual destination. She had decided that there was one last place she needed to visit first. The Unknown Planet. Seeing the young Malek, the Malek who had been her friend, had made her realise how much she had been damaged over the last few years. She wanted to return to Telos as a whole person; or at least as whole as she could be. She needed a place to mourn for her friend, for herself and for the wounds they had inflicted on the galaxy. She chose to take her grief to the Unknown Planet.
During her descent to the planet something had gone wrong with the ship. Revan had never been much of a pilot, or a mechanic, and so she had been helpless to prevent the crash. The tiny ship had plummeted uncontrollably through the air. Its short journey ended when it smashed into the rocky beach, rolling over and over, throwing Revan around the cockpit like a rag doll.
When the ship finally came to a stop Revan was still conscious, though only barely. She had just enough time to register her shattered limbs, the blood that poured profusely from a gash in her stomach, before she drifted into a black abyss. Her body began to shut itself down.
Amazingly, miraculously, she had survived. If it hadn't have been for her connection with the Force she certainly would have died on impact. But she was preserved. Her mind shut itself off from her body, protecting her from the agony she would have felt if she were awake. As the hours passed, her ability to heal, which she had used to help so many other people, began to work itself on her. It drifted slowly through her limbs, sealing torn skin and mending broken bones. While her body was being put back together, her mind wandered away. She dreamed of her friends, her lover and her home.
