VIII
Mission woke up with hard-armored hands under her arms and knees. She flinched away from them a moment before she was dumped onto the white floor. Black boots paced in front of her. She scrambled to her feet. The Imperial officer who wore the boots surveyed her disdainfully with blue eyes in a wrinkled human face. His gaze left her quickly, and traveled over the three stormtroopers who stood behind her, then HK-47, who with an ion blaster held at his back by the last stormtrooper stood beside them.
"What is your function?" He asked the droid.
"Destroying meatbags and otherwise giving solace to my master, meatbag."
"Oh…An assassin droid without an Imperial license for operation? I feel sorry for your master. However," He addressed the stormtrooper with the ion blaster now, as if tired of referring to HK-47 in the second person and pining for the third; "It could be useful. Take it down to the tech for reprogramming."
"I think not," said HK-47 in the gleeful, low voice which Mission knew meant that someone was about to be killed. As soon as she turned to look and he moved, though, the ion blaster went off. A puff of steam escaped HK-47's chest panel and he collapsed forward.
"I trust it survived that?" asked the officer.
A stormtrooper nodded.
"Take it down to tech." He waved dismissively and the trooper armed against the droid bent to pick HK-47 up under the arms and drag him away. Mission realized that she was without her weapon and, suddenly, the center of attention. "Put her in a cell for questioning, and as a hostage." Said the officer. Mission could see the cells directly behind his desk, separated from the rest of the office by an impregnable red force field. "We'll question her later. Now, I wanna go home to the supper the Wookiee girl better've cooked me."
The two stormtroopers swept Mission off her feet and hurried her toward the force field. She flailed, trying to knock them off balance as she screamed insults at the officer as he walked out. She stopped when the trooper near her head squeezed her arms and said quietly, "Be glad he didn't order you put in the barracks instead."
"We must rescue them and get out of here, before they search the ships!" Leia stood in the center of the hideout's main room and shouted.
"They won't do anything until night," Han replied. "They're government employees, not carrion birds. Tomorrow we can go and reclaim the ships."
"Aren't you worried about the Falcon?"
"I am." He was stretched out on one of the comfortable couches against a wall. Everyone had discussed earlier what they were going to do tomorrow. Decisions had been made, but cursorily, leaving Leia dissatisfied with the lack of a formal leader and with time she felt was wasted with resting and resettling after the space voyage. Now Luke and the Wookiees were sleeping, in giant hammocks hung from the rafters of the next room. The remaining members of the Ebon Hawk's crew were outside, presumably healing their wounds with the company of others. The droids had remained on the Falcon, safe. Darkness had come quickly to this part of Kashyyyk, seeming to rise up from the so-called Shadowlands instead of down from the turning of the sky. "But I'm glad we're safe. Chewie and Zaalbar are safe."
"You have changed." Leia peered at him. "You have changed." She smiled. "You care a bit more, don't you! I thought the Rebellion was just a bank account for you, sometimes. I thought…when I said…" Her crisp, politician's voice broke, and as she looked at him she seemed to see in his eyes orange reflections from the carbonite freezing chamber.
He wasn't going to say I love you. It was not in his nature, as it was not in the nature of her suitors on Alderaan to be as attractive as him, as dashing or upsetting or lucky. He wasn't, she thought, going to do anything besides sit there with his arms over the back of the couch as if to invite her to sit next to him.
And she would not, at this moment of fear, have it any other way.
The small house encircled the tree, and the walkway encircled that. Revan and Carth stood on the porch-like path farthest from the door to the hideout. Her head lay against his chest, his arms around her waist. The flesh and organs beneath his shirt felt so fragile against her back, so soft…a strange thing, she felt, to think about someone she loved. He was calmly looking at the trees and the moons, his line of sight far above her. She wanted to kiss the underside of his jaw. And yet…
She could paralyze him with a well-placed elbow. She could take him apart, could rupture his heart she felt beating against her back. It unsettled her, the thoughts she was having, and surprised her—
Perhaps there was some reason behind the teachings of the Order on nonattachment.
And how to tell him that, when all she felt was love?
Well did she know that he was not powerless; he was more skilled at piloting and strategy than she was, probably stronger in the basest physical way because he was a male. She should not pity him so.
Was it even pity? It wasn't, she thought. It was something else between them, between the way she thought and the way he did, probably not stemming from her past actions. She had dealt with them, and was content with herself.
But herself contained the Force, and he had never known it.
Or had he? There had been moments…when he seemed to have intuition or foresight like that the Jedi gained. And his son had become a Sith at the academy for darksiders on Korriban…
"Carth," she said.
"Gwen?"
"If I told you that you could become a Jedi, would you accept the offer? If I told you that you had a little bit of Force-sensitivity?"
He looked down at her, eyes gleaming. "Why?"
"Because you may." She did not know what else to say and so did not, able to keep her voice firm although inside was turmoil. What would he think? What had she just done to the life of the person she needed most?
His answer relieved her, although hearing it from him allowed more acceptance of that relief than she had given herself. "The power the Jedi have, is great. It's invaluable. But I don't think it's for me. I know it's not something you can put down, like a hat. But I've been fine without it so far and, not to sound ridiculous, I think I'm too old for a new, cosmic world view." He laughed softly. "I'm not going to start having visions, am I?"
"No." She laughed too. "I will not test you then. But I don't want it to be a difference between us…"
"Was it before?"
"No," she said truthfully. She had a vision, then, not a supernatural one but simply a flight of imagination, in which a Force-powered Carth threw Saul Karath across the bridge of his capitol ship. He would take revenge…use the dark side, such as she had. Was it any less dark without such powers? His revenge had felt empty to him, until finding his son became his true goal…one that had failed, four thousand years in the past.
She turned and embraced him, one sinner to another, and without any psychic knowledge he knew to tighten his arms around her.
"We ought to get to sleep," he said close to her ear. "There's a lot to do tomorrow."
She nodded. "Okay." They walked around the pathway toward the house, passing Anna and Bao-Dur on the way. The Exile was leaning out over the railing, staring hollowly into the night; the Master-apprentice bond beat between her and the Zabrak with a tension Gwen did not see fit to interrupt. She understood the potential hurt she had inflicted on Anna by failing to advise her well on her relationships with the two men she taught. However, maybe the loss, however temporary, of Mical would concrete her opinions so that she could decide between them, if she was going to at all. Gwen passed her by, beginning to long for the hammock she had chosen inside.
The Force surged out of Anna, seeking.
She had not felt him die. He could be out there in the vertical jungle, unable to find her because of Kashyyyk's panoply of life and his own emotions, just as the same blocked her. What she knew of Bao-Dur's emotions, and he kept them quiet, tugged at her too. Again she felt childlike and indecisive, overwhelmed by her own thoughts even without Force-perceptions. I don't feel like a Jedi Master. I don't feel like the woman who survived the Trayus Academy alone. Am I allowed to be human now?...I don't need this…She turned and looked at Bao-Dur. He looked back, placid. The memory of the disastrous training session frightened her, but she knew what he thought of her, she thought.
He wouldn't mind when she threw her arms around him and buried her face against his chest, slightly uncomfortable against the equipment he carried. He put his right arm tightly around her and patted her back with the other hand. "I do not want to hurt you," he said, deep voice rumbling against her. She thought that he meant his arm of electricity and did not know how to reply. "I do not want to hurt you," he repeated, "and I do not know the Force as you do. Yet..I do not need you for the love which you need from me."
She looked up, confused.
"You need consolation now," he said. "I too need it." He sought for words and hurt when he said them, because he knew he was hurting her. "But you have always been the general to me. I cannot help you in this weakness in the way you want. It destroys the image I have of you. Preserve that for me. I know that you are strong. Endure."
Their eyes met and she saw the truth and hurt in him, the thoughts which had only been engendered when she fell against him, that he needed her to stand because she always had. He would tell her that she was strong, because such he believed, and he transferred some of that belief to her. But he did not imagine or no longer imagined love between them, and so he would speak instead of give it, and make her understand. He loved her as an apprentice can love his teacher, but no more, not here and now where more meant weakness.
As she gently, tentatively explored his thoughts, understood the rationales between them and the compliment he was giving her along with the disappointment, their Force bond strengthened. She drew away from him and nodded, remembering herself as she must be in his eyes; the woman on the jagged cliff on Malachor, shouting over the clamor of blasterfire and her own nervous Republic troops…
She could be that again.
The Force flowed happily between them, and so it was that when a third psychic presence intruded on the scene, Anna whirled and was frightened for how she and Bao-Dur must look at this moment—Mical stood far behind her on the porch, leaning on the railing, breathing heavily. His light-colored hair was matted with leaves and his tunic was stained; it was immediately apparent to Anna that he was no phantom but had survived the trackless jungle to get here, only to find his mentor and peer bonding, excluding him from a relationship that, based on his past verbal battles with Atton Rand, he was likely to, even if mistaken, find hurtful—
"Mical!" Anna cried. She ran to him. As she did she almost wished that the ground would shake beneath her, that there would be some physical sign of the mental turmoil she felt and knew he felt. She stopped before colliding with him, and looked carefully at the scratches he had accrued. "Mical, are you alright?"
"I have survived," he said, his polite manner intact, but he sagged against the railing. She held her hands out to heal and he pushed them away.
"It's not what you think—"
"I trust that you noticed that I almost fell to my death, and simply chose to ignore it. Would that be worse than complete ignorance? I do not know…" he pretended to think about it. "Or were you simply distracted?"
"It's not what you think," she repeated, her own breath ragged to match his. "I couldn't sense you. I didn't know whether you were dead or alive, overwhelmed as this place is by life and—people. I…" know that I cannot say I'm sorry for this moment. "Are you alright?" Again she stretched out her hands. "What happened to you?"
"I…fell," He looked out at the jungle, tired. "And was caught on a branch, and followed your presence. I've been climbing like a declawed Wookiee for hours, can I just get some tea--" He collapsed against the railing and this time did not protest when she helped him to walk, and channeled the Force though him.
Relief overwhelmed her guilt and she made him feel that; she set him on a couch in the first room inside the hideout. "Please tell the others, if they're awake, that he's safe," she told Bao-Dur. He nodded and met her eyes. "I'm sorry," she told him.
"For what, General?"
"For that awkwardness, for…" being in love.
"Do not apologize." He went into the other room.
Anna sat with Mical and combed leaves out of his thick hair with her fingers, using Force-healing that flowed from her as her excuse. "I'm such a fool," she murmured. "You won't want me now, not as a master or as anything, when I failed and lost you…"
"That's not true," he said. His eyes were closed, his thoughts serene but jumpy, touching carefully on the subjects she knew had to be brought up. "I will admire you forever. But I see you as human, and faulty, now…and whether that makes you more or less admirable to me is not yet known."
"Thank you for speaking so frankly. I—"
"I trust the Force more now. But…I think," he smiled. "Were you an accomplished master, you would have said you let me fall on purpose, to teach me something."
She smiled too. "Would that have been cruel?"
"No. Birds are pushed out of their nests, Wookiees are sent into the Shadowlands to prove themselves."
"And what have I proven?" Anna murmured. "I...Bao-Dur and I were not…you didn't interrupt anything. Besides grieving."
They looked at one another for a time, unwilling to say any more, frightened or subdued. Perhaps, she thought, the very fact that I am frightened to embrace him now means something more. But this, she felt, would be a terrible time for romance. Bao-Dur saw me as his superior officer. I know that Mical sees me as beautiful, and as a competent Jedi Master. Can I be all of those things? I don't know.
She sat with Mical until she fell asleep.
