Su'cuy! Thank you to DragonRider2000 for reviewing Invader! Your comments mean a lot to me! As usual, I appreciate any feedback readers give to me. Please enjoy, and I hope some more of you review!

This chapter was a long time coming. I think it's finally time Adriaan and Darc straightened things out between them. Hope this chapter clears some things up!

Disclaimer: Star Wars was not created by me, nor was the Mandalorian culture and language. However, all original characters, planets, and creatures belong to me.



Chapter 6

"Don't you see? You need your friends with you, not held at arm's length. In your quest to be self-reliant, have you decided to just cut your friends out of your life?" -- Obi-Wan, to Satine Kryze, Duchess of Mandalore

✶ Kuat City Hotel, 0300, 405 days ABG✶

"Aw, sithspit," Kan said, and Adriaan couldn't agree more. Iratus had died without telling them anything; they had gained nothing from this expedition except bloody knuckles and a lost night of sleep. The only thing Adriaan was certain of now was this: Haak was here, and knew ––– or suspected ––– that she was here, too. The Jedi dearly wanted to know how he had figured it out.

It's not that hard, Adriaan; he's known you for years. He can probably sense you a galaxy away. He's no doubt known you've been here ever since you landed.

"But why is he here in the first place? What is he trying to do on Kuat? What's up with him being the boss dark lord of the Disciples of Ragnos? Why did he attack me tonight?"

He knows you so well, Adriaan. He knew that you would be caught off guard.

Adriaan was alerted by the sound of her Padawan gagging. She looked up and observed how green in the face Kan had gotten.

"Kan, it's all right…"

"I'm going to…if you'll excuse me," Kan choked out, covering his mouth and taking off at a run toward one of the alleys. The sound of violent retching filled the normally quiet street.

"Throwing up," Wolf confirmed. "Common symptom of shock."

Thanks, doctor. Adriaan didn't blame her Padawan; she felt like throwing up herself. She looked at the dead body with contempt. She sneered at how Iratus' hands still clawed at the duracrete, how his glazed-over eyes were rolled back into his head, the way his tongue ––– bright blue from the sithspit poison ––– hung out of his mouth, the grotesque position of his body…

Fierfek you, Iratus, for dying on me like that. I could've used the Intel stored inside your sith-addled brain. A small part of Adriaan was shocked at herself, shocked at how indifferent her attitude was toward the dead sith. The pathetic way he had died had not moved her heart to pity; in fact, she scorned him. But was it wrong to scorn him? He had been evil, and even in his last moments of death he had been far from useful to her. He had been nothing but a hindrance; he had done nothing but attempt to scare her with empty threats, calling her the Hawk's "fledgling" and announcing the return of the "Master" to his "pupil"

The crescendoing sound of Kan's vomiting interrupted her thoughts. Fierfek, what a waste of food, she couldn't help but think.

"Have you gone mad, Adriaan? Get a hold of yourself; it's not his fault he's sensitive to that kind of thing."

I know. But I can't help it. There's something wrong with me, I know it, but I don't know how to fix it. Force grant me strength.

BOOM.

"Uh-oh," Wolf said, his head jerking upward at the sound of the far-off explosion. He tapped on his wrist comlink. "Ember, tell me that wasn't you. Ember? Cor? Anyone? Come in, already! What's your status?"

No matter how hard he tried, all he got in reply was a burst of static. Adriaan pushed down the sense of worry gnawing at her gut. "Could be our ears playing tricks on us, right? Maybe that wasn't an explosion?" she asked the clone hopefully.

"Nope, it was an explosion," Wolf said unhelpfully.

Kan returned from the dark alley, wiping his sleeve across his mouth. His eyes swerved back toward the dead body, and his face went green again. Wolf looked up and noticed the Padawan's expression.

"Need me to get you a bucket, sir?" he asked. Kan's face seemed to regain a little more color as his attention was directed toward the clone.

"No, I can keep it down," he said a little shakily.

"As if there were anything left inside you to keep down," Adriaan said brusquely. Kan glanced at her, surprised at her tone of voice. The Jedi, shocked at herself, hastily amended by adding, "I mean, you were back there for some time, Padawan, so even if you wanted to throw up, all you'd get now is dry heaves ––– which are far more unpleasant than really vomiting, believe me. You sure you're okay?"

"As long as I don't have to clean up this mess," Kan said with a weak attempt at a grin.

"Ah, so that's what all the drama was about," Adriaan said lightly. Then, rather impulsively, she clapped her Apprentice on the back. "You did fine, kid. Really. I wouldn't have made it without you. Either of you."

Her Apprentice looked up at her with ill-disguised astonishment. At first, Adriaan didn't understand why Kan was so surprised at the compliment, but as she thought about it, she didn't wonder.

Shavit, I spend too much time criticizing that I never compliment the kid. I've got to remember to do that more often. For all of them.

"Wolf, this is Ember," the clone's comlink chirped. "Sorry I didn't answer earlier; the shock wave from the explosion scrambled all of our communications devices for a bit."

Shock Wave? Explosion? That didn't sound too good. "Haar'chak, Ember, what the kriff did you guys do?" Wolf asked irritably. "Are you trying to alert the whole city of our presence?"

"It's not any of our faults that that woman was a kamikaze," Kay broke in. "How were we supposed to prevent her driving her speeder right into the wall of a warehouse?"

Adriaan felt her heart sink. Now they had zero cultists left alive to interrogate, unless the man Wolf had slotted in the hotel room hadn't been killed, but the Jedi seriously doubted that. Not only had they lost a night of sleep, the whole city wouldn't ignore a demolished warehouse, and neither would the sith operation ignore the fact that three of their people hadn't returned from a mission. Their objective was compromised; their cover had been blown, unless the cultist operation was really, really dumb, and regarded the deaths of the three cultists as an accident. However, it wasn't likely for the organization to believe the deaths to be accidents; inherently, only Jedi were capable of killing sith. But maybe there was some hope; those cultists weren't exactly topnotch Force-adepts, and could've been killed by a much lesser being than a Jedi Knight.

"No, there is no hope; remember who's in charge of this operation…"

We don't know that yet.

"What further evidence do you need? The cultists have those tattoos, and who else could have come up with that message? The Master's fate is tied to his pupil's; the hawk has returned to finish the training of his fledgling…"

"Shut up," Adriaan said aloud.

"No, really, I'm serious, Adriaan; the damage to the warehouse isn't too bad. This district is deserted at this time of night, and I think we could repair the building before anyone finds out. Really. I don't think anyone even saw the speeder crash; we had left the public lanes a long time ago in the pursuit," Kay said, misunderstanding Adriaan's outburst.

"Well, that's a relief," Adriaan said. "I'm just disappointed she killed herself before we could question her."

"At least we have her compatriot," Klamin said happily.

Wolf and Adriaan exchanged glances. "Ah, yes, we have Lord Iratus, but he isn't exactly, ah, intact," the trooper replied vaguely.

"What do you mean, he's not intact?" Ember demanded. "Don't tell me your cultist crashed into a building, too."

"First lesson when completing a covert ops assignment: don't trust a prisoner to hand over all his belongings. Search him and find the items yourself," Wolf said aside to Adriaan. "You should count yourself lucky that wasn't a bomb."

Adriaan was mortified. She hadn't ever considered that the man would've gotten anything else out except what he said he was getting: a datapad. It had never occurred to her that she had misread her senses; that the man was deceiving her, and was getting out a bomb. Wolf was right; she was lucky that it had just been a suicide pill…she couldn't say the same for Iratus, though.

"Wolf, do you copy? What happened down there? Status report!"

"The good news is Lord Iratus didn't make a big mess when he died," Wolf said. "No going out in a blaze of glory for him. I guess swallowing a sithspit pill was a much more appealing way to perish."

"That's supposed to make me happy?" Ember retorted. "Wolf, your definition of good news is obviously not the same as mine."

"Wow, you're so optimistic, Ember."

"Yeah, well, that's what I get for hanging around the Wicked Club twenty-four seven," Ember muttered. "Their insane jolliness sort of rubs onto you after a bit."

It was nearly dawn when they finally cleaned up all the evidence of the fight from the area. It would have taken longer, but luckily Adriaan had eleven Padawans and twelve very strong soldiers to help her out. It was amazing how diverse the powers of the Force were: it could destroy as well as remake, kill as well as keep alive, daunt as well as encourage. It could render a whole building a pile of dust, or could repair a wall so well that there was absolutely no evidence that a speeder had just crashed headlong into it. It made Adriaan feel she was more of the Force's tool than its Master and practitioner. As she gazed upon the flawless, completed warehouse that had originally looked like it had been bombarded by enemy forces, it brought to her mind just how potent the metaphysical power she and all other Force-sensitives like her wielded. The very fact that they could contain and control such an energy was frankly quite staggering. Such thoughts always made Adriaan feel very small and insignificant, yet awed and honored at the same time. That she would have been chosen, out of the gazillions of beings in the Republic, to bear the gift of being able to harness such a force, seemed impossibly wonderful. It made her feel sorry for all the beings who didn't have the privilege of being able to sense the Force.

But I don't feel sorry for the clones; I don't pity my boys. Look at them: loyal, pragmatic, intelligent, fit, charmingly naïve, irresistibly attractive…oh no, I'm not in love with any of them. I'm just stating the facts. They are handsome. Quite possibly the most attractive male humans I've ever seen, both outside and inside. They're faithful, truthful, compassionate, self-denying, wholesome…yes, I know they kill people on a daily basis, but they're fighting on the side of freedom and justice. They're fighting for people that will probably never be truly grateful for the sacrifices they've made to keep the Republic intact.

I truly wish that once this war is over, they'll get full citizenship, homes, payment, time off from work, and a chance to meet some nice young ladies. They deserve that opportunity: to live their own lives, to get married to good women, to support their own families, to get away from all of this poodoo.

When they got back to the hotel, Adriaan, ready to drop, wearily followed the girls into their room, only to find another mess to clean up. Sighing as her gaze took in the dead body and the broken window, Adriaan rapped her knuckles on the boys' room and called out, "Wolf! What are we going to do about the bod…the bag of groceries?"

"What?!" the clone shouted.

"You know, the one you left in the room."

"Oh…oh, yeah. Oops."

They had inconspicuously gotten rid of Lord Iratus' body by using a disruptor rifle on it. The Jedi hadn't particularly liked the idea of disposing of a body ––– even the body of a sith ––– in such a disrespectful manner, but unfortunately, they had had no other options available to them. They couldn't bury it ––– it was an orbital city, so the foundation was pure duracrete ––– and they couldn't cremate it because it would attract too much attention. So they had used a disruptor rifle to disintegrate the body, tearing it apart by molecule.

"Wolf, go take care of it," Adriaan heard Ember say.

Adriaan swallowed. She hadn't been there when Wolf had disintegrated Lord Iratus; she had been over by the warehouse, repairing the wall and removing the speeder wreckage ––– what had been left of it, anyway. She had had no desire to watch a body dissipate, let alone dissipate it herself. "No, it's okay; just give me the disruptor, and I'll do it," she heard herself saying.

There was a pause on the other side of the door. "You sure?" Wolf asked.

"You put away mine, I'll put away yours. Only fair."

"Well, all right. Lemme get it." She heard the muffled clack of weapons and kit being knocked together and thrown to the floor as Wolf rummaged through his pack. Someone mumbled something inaudible, and she heard a soft whack, followed by a startled yelp. Wolf had hit someone. "Fierfek, I can't open the door with you grunts looking like this. Brush up; look presentable, for kriffing sake."

"All right, all right," Cor murmured sleepily. "In a minute…"

"No. Now."

"But I'm tired," Darc complained. "Can't we just leave him until morning?"

"And stink up the whole place? No, sir, that wouldn't do. Please, just put on some fierfeked pants."

"Boys, you listen to Wolf," Adriaan called out,"because I'm coming in there in about fifteen seconds, and if you guys aren't decently dressed, I'm going to…"

"Okay, okay, just a minute, ma'am!" Darc shouted with hyperbolic enthusiasm. "Right away, miss!"

There was the rustling of blankets being thrown off and articles of clothing being hastily thrust on. She heard one boy snicker. Finally, there was the shuffle of bare feet moving across the floor, and the door was flown open.

"Decently dressed and ready for action, ma'am!" Cor said with a mock salute. Darc was smirking, holding a blanket across the lower half of Cor's body. Ember was sitting on the bed behind them, his head in his hands. Adriaan just stared.

"Uh…" That was all Adriaan could manage before the clone and Darc roared with laughter.

"See the look on her face! Hah hah!" Darc howled, dropping the blanket as he fell and rolled on the floor, in hysterics. Now that the improvised curtain was gone, Adriaan saw what the whole joke was about: Cor had been fully dressed. They had just been pulling her leg.

"You're impossible," she told the two of them, suppressing a grin in spite of herself. This was the first time in a long time that she had seen Cor smile.

"Hah hah! Your eyes were like flying saucers! Priceless!" Darc shrieked, clutching his sides.

"Aw, leave her alone," Wolf said, pushing the two pranksters out of the way. "Seriously, sometimes I can't tell the difference between you and the Wicked Club."

"Then you must be GOODLY blind!" Aedan shouted, sitting bolt upright in his bed. "A child of two could easily tell the difference between that flabby, disgusting, unattractive, GOOD Hutt; and me, the WICKED King, who is the most dashing, WICKED, ripped, WICKED, and WICKED hunk ever born!"

Andre, Nic, and Heatrian coughed as a way of discreetly showing their disagreement. Even they admitted that their Wicked King had a little too much of an ego.

"Here's the rifle," Wolf said, tossing Adriaan the weapon. "For disintegration mode, hold the trigger down for three seconds, then release."

Adriaan eyed the gun dubiously. "Won't it make noise?"

"Nah. Relatively silent. About fifty-three decibels loud."

"Oh. Good."

"Have fun," Ember said a little too offhandedly, pushing her politely yet firmly out the door and shutting it behind her.

Adriaan looked at the weapon in her hand, then turned back to the closed door, hoping Wolf or someone would open it and ask her if she was sure about doing this. Because she wasn't. It wasn't because she was squeamish about killing someone ––– she had only freaked out once, and that had been her first kill…when she had been ten years old. So much for that. No, she didn't want to do this because she had killed people before, but because she had never shot a person that was already dead. She tried to kill people as swiftly as possible, so there was no reason for her to hit someone twice. But to shoot a person that was already dead, to watch his stiff, lifeless body disintegrate before her eyes…something was just plain abhorrent about it.

But very well. Wolf ––– a mere eight year old ––– had done it, so she, at age seventeen, could, and would.

The girls were already asleep when she came back into a room. Perhaps they were too tired to notice a dead body lying on the floor, or perhaps they were too lazy to care. All the better for them; Adriaan had no intention of cleaning up Padawan vomit from the carpet any time that evening…morning, whatever. It was dawn, and Adriaan hadn't had a bit of sleep, and she still had two jobs left.

She nudged the body with the tip of her bare foot. Yep, he was definitely dead. He was all stiff and cold. She hefted the disruptor rifle in her arms and paused for a moment. It was a shame to disintegrate the armor. It was sith armor, but Adriaan wasn't picky about who had made it. It was well-crafted. Besides, Cor was an armor-aholic; if no one else wanted the armor, then she could just give it to Cor. Anyway, it could come in handy if she had to go undercover and try to infiltrate the sith organization. That last justification decided it for her. Taking a knee beside the corpse, she eased the armor plates from it, stacking the pieces neatly beside her. All that was left was the helmet. She took a deep breath and slid it off the head.

Shavit. The cultist was another teenager. Typical. Of course the sith would recruit the most impressionable and rebellious of Galactic citizens: young adults. Great. Just fabulous. Adriaan would have felt better had he been older than herself, but this guy wasn't even as old as Kan.

"Sorry; it was you or my boys, son," she told the cadaver. She smiled at her words. "Son." "My boys." "You or us." Moons and stars, I'm starting to sound like a clone commander. Well, I guess that's what I am now; a military officer. That's what I told the Council, all right: I'd rather be a good officer than a paragon Jedi. Yep, that's what I meant, too. I don't take those words back, not at all.

And a GAR officer wouldn't have scruples about disintegrating a dead body. It was for the mission, and the mission came first. So be it. Adriaan rammed the rifle into her shoulder and squinted through the sights, pointing the gun at the boy's head. The weapon felt amazingly light in her arms ––– more like a toy than a lethal tool.

To think that such a light little thing could carry such demoralizingly destructive power. Size matters not, so says Master Yoda, and I guess that applies to weight as well.

She pressed the trigger and inhaled, counting to three in her head. "Mission comes first," she said, more to the dead body than to herself, and then she released the trigger.

It wasn't so bad, watching the corpse dissipate into smoke. Adriaan had seen worse. It didn't even take that long. Putting her rifle on safety, the Jedi knelt down beside the pile of armor and made a move to lift it up, but something made her pause. The helmet. She put down the armor plates and picked up the head bucket, turning it over so that she could look at the front. It was nicely made, though definitely not Mandalorian style. It would be a welcome addition to Cor's collection; something a little foreign, exotic, alien. It didn't have the characteristic T-visor of the Mandos, which was a shame, for T-visors were so much better than two inadequate eye slits and a small filter to breath through. It was a rather archaic set. No HUD, no rangefinder. Just a body bucket. The gold and black paint job was cool though.

She traced her finger through the grooves of the helmet, ruminating past memories that were best forgotten. She didn't know how long she was sitting there, but she was suddenly aroused by the sound of refresher water being flushed, followed by a door being banged open and footsteps loudly stampeding across the hallway behind her.

Teenagers, Adriaan grinned and shook her head wryly. Always having to make a statement about something.

The steps came to an abrupt halt. She heard the distinctively loud, obnoxious operating of lungs that could only belong to one person: Chun-be. Darc. He who is not my friend. The traitor.

Adriaan sprinted across the space, dodging shrapnel and random explosions, charging forward as if this was her last race. "Darc!"

It was her last race. This was the moment that was truly life, when she was at her most alive: the moment before her death. She saw Darc, his dark head pillowed in his arms as he lay across his dead Master's body.

My Master is dead too. My Master is dead. Darc, I killed…Her heart beat out the words as if it had gained the ability to speak.

The heavy weight of her friend's body dragged her down, trying to force her into the abyss. Everything and everyone that existed was conspiring against her; no one wanted her to succeed. All was against her, all was lost.

Darkness. The kind that is neither comforting nor terrifying; the blackness of nothingness. Of knowing nothing. Of passing out of all knowledge of existence…

When I die, there is not one being, one living thing, be it sentient or beast, who will weep at my passing. I have failed at existing. I have left nothing behind. I am nothing.

Then brightness. She awoke crying and screaming, chained down in the Jedi infirmary. Chained down, she realized moments later, because she had woken up in the middle of surgery. The worst nightmare that any lifeform could experience: waking up in the middle of being operated on. It was evil, all of it.

Where's Darc? Why isn't he here? I was there every second during the time his amputated arm was replaced with a prosthetic one; why isn't he here? There are no cybernetics being placed within me; they are just stitching up my insides, putting my guts back into my gutless self. Darc, where are you?

"He left; he left you," they said. "No, it is not betrayal to forsake a path you were not meant to walk on. It is called the coming of age, and Darc has reached it. He has not betrayed you, Ree."

You don't understand. I don't understand. He doesn't understand. He has not reached a coming of age; he was meant to be a Jedi. It was in his bones. He was meant to be a Jedi, just as I am meant to be a sith. He has not progressed, nor grown in wisdom; he is an ignoramus and a failure of the worst kind. A failure because not only has he come to a standstill, he is moving backwards.

My fate is bound to yours just as the pupil is bound to the Master…

"You know, no one should be up at this hour, least of all you, on whom so much depends." A shadow fell across her, and she didn't need to turn to see whose shape it belonged to. "Follow your own advice, Ree, and get some sleep."

"I can't rest; like you said, so much depends on me, and I have things left to do," she said, putting the helmet aside and rising to her feet, hauling up the stack of armor plates. "If you insist that I at least get some rest, you could help me by taking this set of armor into the boys' room on your way back. That'll save me a few seconds." She turned her attention to the broken window and seriously considered getting Kay Lee up to help her with the task. Kay Lee was a woman of various talents, including the ability to repair objects to their original status, reading her fellow Jedi's battle minds and adjusting her fighting technique accordingly so that their attack became fully effective, and inspiring beings to fight or flee. This last skill gave her Master reason to believe that she was capable of mastering the rare and powerful art of Jedi battle meditation, a power that even Adriaan had not achieved.

I'm not worthy to be her Master; she deserves someone better. Like Mace Windu, or even Yoda. With my background, I shouldn't be training anyone, let alone twelve Padawans. By rights, I shouldn't even be a Knight. What have I done to deserve that rank?

Kay Lee was exhausted, and Adriaan was way more than capable of handling the broken window, so she ended up letting her Apprentice sleep. Gathering the Force within her, she envisioned the pane of glass in her mind, gathering the fallen shards of transparisteel and fitting them together, like the pieces to a puzzle. When she opened her eyes again, the window was back in its frame, whole and perfect, as if it had never been broken.

"Job well done, soldier," she told herself. Yes, that was another one of the clones' habits she had gotten into ––– instigating self-confidence and motivating herself by imitating a superior officer.

"Uh, are you okay, Ree?" Fierfek. She didn't know that Darc was still there.

"Oh, fine," Adriaan said, drawing out a long yawn in the hopes that it would encourage him to go away, "I don't see why you should care, though, seeing how you betrayed me when I needed you most."

"Ree ––– Adriaan, you have no kriffing clue why I decided to leave the Order when I did, so you have no right to call me a traitor."

"You promised to protect me as I had protected you…"

"You're a Jedi, Adriaan; you can bind no being to you, as you can bind yourself to no one. Part of keeping yourself detached is keeping other people from being attached to you."

"For a person without a call to the Jedi Order, you certainly don't hesitate to preach to me like one of my Masters,"Adriaan said frostily. "Seriously, can't you tell I've had enough with Jedi Masters? To Chaos with them! They have done nothing but make my life harder than it should be."

"I speak to you not as a Jedi Master, but as a being who has acquired his wisdom from experience."

"Wisdom? What would you know about that virtue, you son of a bantha? I think even Aedan is more wise than you are."

"I understand your anger, Adriaan, but you have to let it go at some point. I regret not supporting you during your time of need, and I have done my best to repay you for that injustice."

"And what have you done, except join my contingent against my consent and harass my Apprentices?"

"You spoke of me being stupid just a while ago, and yet it is you who is being the moron by saying that!" Darc said, losing patience. "Adriaan, I can't help you hating me for what I did, but can you at least grant me some respect on account of the promises I have kept to you? I don't know what the brix is all about you keeping your Jedi Master and the Haak mumbo-jumbo a secret, but I have not breathed a word about it to anyone. At least the most important promise I've made to you I've kept."

"Yes, 'at least'. Such are the goals you make for yourself in life: the least you can possibly do, but at least you did it, right? Those who do the least may stay safe and perhaps even content for the amount of time allotted to them in this universe. But those who actually leave a trail behind for others to follow, those who live lives of danger, and great pain, those who do not die of old age, but have an extraordinary hilltop death ––– who go out in a blaze of glory before the first gray hairs appear on their head ––– such are the people who strive to do more than 'the least'"

"You rebuke at me now only because you are afraid…afraid of what I know, afraid of what I'll tell Kan and your other Apprentices. It is not me that you hate, but your past; that is why you scorn me ––– because I am the only one here who knows of your past, because I was there."

Adriaan whirled on him, batting his arm away as he moved to place it on her shoulder. "Leave me alone, schutta!"

"Oh, but you are alone, Ree," he said, ever persistent, moving closer so that their faces were nearly touching, forcing her to meet his gaze. "You are a Jedi, Adriaan, and to be a member of that Order is to be alone." He paused to let that thought sink in. "That is part of the reason why I chose to leave. I found that I had become too attached to certain Jedi in my life, and it was only fair that I separate myself from them, because even though I was not destined to lead a solitary life, those people were, and who was I to stand in their way? What right had I? Do you understand what I'm saying, Adriaan?"

Adriaan swallowed hard. Yes, he's right; that's why I chose being a good officer over a good Jedi. Not because I felt it to be right, but because I had given up. I had given up in the struggle to remain detached. I'm little better than he is.

"You surrendered your dreams of becoming a great Jedi Master in order to carry out your duty, the duty that you could have refused, yet you chose. You chose, Adriaan, and therefore the choice to be officer over Jedi was your own to make, just as it was Darc's own choice to opt for being a civilian over a Jedi. Don't hold it against him, Adriaan; who are you to tell him what his vocation is?"

"You could have said goodbye," she whispered.

But Darc shook his head, his gray eyes dark with sorrow. "It was better leaving the way I did. Besides, you always said you hated saying goodbye."

"So I did. Always made me want to cry, and then when I did, I hated myself for not maintaining better control of my feelings."

"I really am awfully sorry I left without making sure you were all right. Can we make a pact and start all over?"

"We can make a pact, Darc, but there is no such thing as starting all over. Our friendship can never be the same as it was a few years ago, and don't get me wrong, it's not because I hate you. It's because we've grown apart. You're a civilian, destined to be great among your kind; I'm a Jedi, fated to be the lowest of my class, and ill-starred, hunted by those who bear grievances against me, bound to the destiny of dead men who live for one brief, glorious time in the universe before perishing miserably, without having made their claim among the heroes of the Republic."

"The clones?"

She nodded. "Don't misjudge me, that doom is not one I resent because I was forced to it; I made that choice out of my own free will, against the wishes of the Jedi Council. It's not a choice I regret. I can't help it; I love them as if they were my own sons."

"You haven't been officially expelled from the Jedi Order, though."

"No, and for only one reason that I can think of: the amount of Apprentices under my tutelage. If the Council expelled me, they would be left with twelve Masterless Padawans to take care of. And some of my students, I'm sorry to say, are not exactly Apprentices because of their skill and discipline. Aedan and his band were made my pupils only because they couldn't be kept under control at the Temple; the Council thought it would be best if they were sent out into the galaxy early, to use the Wicked Club's tireless energy to some good purpose.

"Perhaps you are thinking that if the Wicked Club is such a bother, why doesn't the Jedi Order expel them? Well, for two reasons ––– one, the Jedi Council hasn't lost all hope that the Wicked Club can improve; two, they fear what Aedan will become if he leaves the Order."

"He needs a Jacen Palgwebb for a Master."

Adriaan's head jerked up as the familiar name that she hadn't heard spoken for years was voiced aloud. "Jacen? Yes…yes, that was what they used to call him. Jacen Palgwebb. And I was…"

"His Apprentice."

Her eyes automatically darted toward the Padawans, but they were all sleeping like the dead. They wouldn't hear what she and Darc were saying. "Yes. But that name is nearly forgotten, you know; shadowed by the cursed name of Haak, who killed my Master and made me his slave."

"Why haven't you told your Padawans, Adriaan? Surely they deserve to know."

"Can you give any good reason for me to tell them? Jacen Palgwebb died long ago, and any skill and powers he possessed are forgotten. There is no one left in the Jedi Temple who recalls that name ––– except perhaps Katma Malub, who forgets nothing ––– and the Council, of course. But they would not tell."

"But I would, and wouldn't you rather they heard the terrible tale from your own lips, instead of mine? You know how tactless I am, I could get carried away and get into all the grisly details…"

"No, you wouldn't tell, Darc. Not now, not after all these years."

"Why not? Haak and Jacen are both dead, and as far as I know, the Ree that was my friend is dead, too. I have kept your secret all these years, and all I have gotten in return is your hatred. Why should I keep my promise?"

Adriaan cast aside her fear and attempted to approach Chun-be dispassionately, with reason instead of anger at his veiled threat. "I thought we just decided to make a pact and forget about that matter."

"We haven't made the pact yet."

"Well, then, if not now, then why are we even bothering?" She said with a burst of impatience. It was hard for her to talk to Darc without feeling an overpowering urge to lift him up and break his spineless body in a Force grip, to make him feel the devastating extent of her power.

"Just tell me why I should be keeping all this a secret. Haak is no threat; he's dead, you killed him yourself. There's no harm in telling them about a dead man, is there?"

Adriaan looked at him pityingly. "Ah, that is the problem. It appears that I did not do a, ah…thorough job."

Darc groaned. "You mean he's alive?"

"I met him on Umbria. That was what the fight between me and Kan was about; I didn't want to tell him who Haak was."

"And the cultists have all been wearing those tattoos…" Darc inhaled sharply. "Holy milking sith, Ree, is Haak the one behind all this racket on Kuat?"

"I haven't seen him or sensed him ––– but then, I didn't feel his presence on Umbria, either ––– so it's highly possible that he's in charge. It's also plausible that these people could just be the remnant of his followers."

"Doesn't this further support my point? Your Padawans are all putting their time and their lives on the line by accompanying you on this mission, and you won't even brief them on Intel highly relevant to the objective. Isn't that your job? If you've really made the decision to go military, then you would put your mens' lives first and your personal feelings somewhere farther down the line of importance.

"I'm not saying you're a bad General, Adriaan, I'm just giving you some advice on how to be a better officer. There's always room for improvement. I care about these kids ––– whatever you may think ––– and how would you feel if they died on account of not knowing enough about this cult?"

"It…you misjudge me," Adriaan said, wholeheartedly cursing Darc to Chaos for making her feel so guilty. "It's not my personal feelings about it that prevent me from telling them, it's…well, I'm their Master, their role model, their big sister, and part of my job is to protect them from the ugly things that do exist in this universe. They will, of course, face these horrible things eventually, but in their own time, so there's no reason for them to know about it when they're still young."

"Adriaan, what if you die before they're old enough? It happened to Master Palgwebb and Kan's old Master and Kay's old Master and Marya's old Master and Jordin's old Master, so why shouldn't it happen to you?"

"I've got too much responsibility to die off on them like that."

"Who determines when your death will take place? It isn't you, is it? Seriously, it could happen at any time. What if you died during this mission? Who would be left to take things over for you? Kay Lee? A capable woman, but she still has much to learn, and she has had no experience with sith cultists, nor knows of Haak. Me? No, I am not respected or skilled enough to be in a position of authority with your students."

"The clones can take care of the strategizing part; they've been well instructed in carrying out covert ops assignments. It is to them you must turn to in the event of my passing."

"The clones?" Darc smiled, but his grin was without mirth. "The clones are weak."

Adriaan's fists clenched, and her anger flared up at his dismissive words. Her reaction wasn't Jedi-like. It was the reaction of a big sister, whose brothers were being called names; a mother, whose sons were being dishonored; a military Commander, whose soldiers were being severely criticized. "Just because they aren't Force-adepts doesn't mean they should be regarded as weak."

"I am not speaking of their inability to use the Force. Adriaan, you've seen them; I know who their host is. Jango Fett ––– that great, brutal, strong Mandalorian whom we had the misfortune of meeting during the Goba Shag revolt…"

"Without him, we would still be there, toiling in that pirate nest," Adriaan said sharply. "He was a great help to us."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot, you had a serious crush on him. No wonder you love clones so much…"

Adriaan grabbed Darc by the collar and threw him against the wall, wrapping her hands around his throat so that he couldn't breathe. "How dare you slander me," she hissed. "How kriffing dare you, you fierfeked shutta. E chu ta. Don't you dare say anything like that again, you understand me! I may be the worst Jedi ever spawned, but you can never say that I ever went against that particular rule in the Jedi code. I have never, and will never, have a crush on anyone." She sank her fingers into the fabric of his jacket and threw him down to the floor, releasing him from the strangehold. He groveled on the floor, trying to regain his breath.

"Sorry!" he gasped. "That was below the belt. Entirely my fault."

"Precisely," she answered heartlessly.

"Thanks for agreeing." He brushed his tunic down a bit nervously and continued. "Now, the thing about Jango Fett: these guys are his clones. I know you're rather sensitive about this subject, but these guys were bred to be lesser men than an already low-life bounty hunter scum…"

"I know what you're going to say, and I suggest for your own safety that we forget that line of topic," Adriaan said as smoothly as she could muster.

Darc nodded in assent, though his face betrayed his sadness. "Adriaan, please just be careful with them. I know they're charming and distractingly attractive and strong and loyal and possessing all the qualities I suppose you find admirable in males, but you have to remember the man they were modeled from. I'm a little rusty with the Force, but I pick up things sometimes, and I've been feeling this undercurrent of darkness beneath that facade of charming innocence and intellectual brilliance. Yes, they may be heroes to you, but there's a bad streak in them. Whatever the Kaminoans did to them, they will always have the mark of Jango. Beware of it, Adriaan."

"Darc, while I'm not telling you to disregard what the Force tells you, you have to remember that I've known these boys longer than you have," Adriaan said, choosing her words carefully. "Besides, like you said, you haven't accessed the Force in a long time, so it's highly possible ––– no, it's definite ––– that you're misreading them. Yes, I know they're fallible, but aren't we all? They're better men than most of us are, for they are courageous, selfless, trustworthy, honorable, and undyingly loyal to the Republic."

"See? Undyingly loyal to the Republic; to a government which is perhaps even more corrupt and fallible than a sentient lifeform," Darc pointed out. "They're loyal to a regime, but they've never pledged their allegiance to you."

"Nor do I ask for their allegiance. I'm marked out to be a sith, Darc; the Council knows it, I know it, my Master knew it, and Haak knows it ––– that's why he's been hunting me all these years. I've been labeled as a being that was born evil, the Chosen One of the Sith ––– or anti-Chosen one, if you like ––– and now I'm a gray Jedi, one who walks between the paths of the Jedi and the sith. I don't dare make anyone swear allegiance to me, not with my destiny already determined as it is."

"Adriaan, you can't be born evil; nothing ever is. That is why evil is evil; because it isn't natural to be evil, but to be good…oh, bother, I hate intellectual discussions like this," Darc burst out, frustrated. "Adriaan, you are the one who controls your destiny; not your surroundings, your powers, or any other person. It's all you. So I have as much potential to turn to the dark side as you do."

"Nevertheless, if my fate is to be hunted down by a sith fanatic who believes in some derisible prophesy of the coming of an anti-Chosen One, I can't force anyone to suffer with me. That's why I don't tell them, Darc; the knowledge does not bring peace of mind and wisdom, but torment and insanity. For seven years, Darc, I've borne this terrible knowledge of Haak and his sith cult, and I can't bear the thought of making anyone else suffer what I've suffered. There's no reason for them to; this battle is not theirs. It is mine. I will be the one to face him, in the end; why torture them with the telling of my terrible life story?"

Darc sat down on the bed, putting his head in his hands. "I don't know; it just doesn't feel right."

"Not all good actions feel like they should be, I'm afraid."

"So am I still bound to my promise?"

"To not tell them about the anti-Chosen One prophesy, and the correlation between Haak, his sith sect, and I? Yes."

"Can I tell them about Master Palgwebb, at least? There surely can be no harm in telling them about him, and you know they've all been curious about your mystery Master. They're always wondering how you acquired such a strict teacher mentality."

"From Jacen, I'm afraid," Adriaan said with a smile. "Good old Master Jacen; he'd make you crank out five hundred pushups for the slightest mistake in a sparring match. And then, after a five hour practice, he'd get in your face and demand why you were so stinky and sweaty. If you made a mistake ––– which was often, since he had the eyes of a hawk and would catch an error as slight as a pinky bent at the wrong moment ––– then you ran a mile, or did some Koré, or chin-ups on a bar suspended over a pit of ravenous Vrblthers. If you did everything perfectly ––– a practically fictitious occurrence ––– then you chose between chinups over the pit of Vrblthers, or fighting Jacen Palgwebb. The first day as his Apprentice I made the mistake of choosing to fight him instead of the pit beasts. After that, I always chose Vrblthers.

"Jacen Palgwebb was the hardest but the best Master I could have ever gotten, and my Apprentices would learn much from the stories I could tell about him, but no, I cannot tell. To them, my Master's name is Netari Ptosoy ––– a woman I have never met. They cannot know of Jacen, Darc, because then all they would have to do is go plug in my Master's name into the database in the Jedi Archives, and all his files would come up, and of course, Haak's and Ra'hal's files would pop up too, since I embedded them within my Master's file. It was the only thing I could do to protect the files, because Madam Jocasta Nu and the Council refused my request to erase them from the Archive memory."

"Why the brix would they want Ra'hal and Haak's names still in the Archive memory? They were not persons of particular intelligence, and they were fallen Jedi, anyway. Besides, up until a few weeks ago we thought Haak was dead. Why keep a file on a dead bad guy?"

"I think the Council had their doubts about him truly being dead, but didn't want to tell me for fear of inducing mental trauma. So they kept the files in case he should turn up again, and then they would brief some Jedi that wasn't me and send him off to finish my job for me. I have to say, it was rather decent of them to look out for me like that. They were right in refraining from voicing their suspicions to me."

"You seem to be dealing quite well with the knowledge of Haak still being alive, actually."

"That's because I'm a good actor. I'm terrified," Adriaan answered.

Darc's face underwent a total transformation. "Then that changes the situation entirely. Never before have I heard you admit fear."

"I'd be less scared if I had your promise of confidentiality."

"If you promise to be nice to me again…"

"Sure, whatever. I promise." Adriaan said, knowing that the actual carrying out of her promise would be a million times more trying than simply agreeing to do it.

He held out his hand. "Friends, Ree?"

She took his hand and shook it firmly. "Friends…Darc."

"Then I solemnly swear by the spirit of my dead Master, Twyla Arelan, to never reveal the secret we previously discussed to anyone, no matter their affiliation," he said gravely, and Adriaan felt in her heart that his promise was sincere.

Darc went off into his room shortly after, and Adriaan, her heart buoyed by an unexpected sense of relief, knew that after the events that had just transpired, she would get no sleep that night. So she went to go tell Onor that he was relieved of guard duty, and took vigil in the hallway joining the two rooms, waiting for the Kuat sun to pierce the dark blanket of the night and blind the gleam of the two moons as it heralded the coming of day four hundred and five of the clone war. She stood at attention, heels together, one hand on the saber now openly displayed on her belt, the other cradling the disruptor rifle against her chest. If there were to be any more intruders, Adriaan wasn't planning on firing a second time to dispose of the dead body.

Covert ops were notoriously tedious, with long breaks in between the small yet highly intense bits of peril and action. Adriaan had a bad feeling that day one was going to be the most productive.

Ember had been right; they had gotten quite a lot done in just one day. They had gotten in contact with a suspect and tagged her, killed three sith cultists after engaging in a thoroughly hair-raising chase through Kuat City, and ––– most importantly ––– Adriaan had renewed a friendship that had been broken two years ago. She didn't care that she had renewed her friendship with a weak, flirtatious, excessively chivalrous young man that had neither the skills nor the contacts nor the strength to help her in her struggle against the sith, but when dealing with Haak, Adriaan figured that every ally would soon prove useful.