"I mean, I know I should feel bad about Taris, and I do, but I don't feel like I've really lost anything."
Canderous sighed, and leaned back in his seat. "Taris was just a planet-sized slime pit, Mission, and you know it."
"I know, and, even though I grew up there, it's not so bad. I guess that's why. It is—was just a big, planetary slime pit."
Canderous nodded. "You don't miss it?"
"Well," Mission said thoughtfully, "I do miss some of the people I knew there, but, I guess I didn't know them that well, and most of them always treated me like I couldn't look out for myself. So, nah, I don't miss it. It's still hard though, you know? To see a planet ripped apart like that…" For a moment, she looked like she was about cry, but composed herself.
"That weapon is an abomination," Canderous snarled.
"Yeah, it really is…what's Mandalore like?"
"Mandalore? Well, you know, if it comes down to it, someone's always got your back. Several someones. With a lot of weapons. Although you'll probably be up against the same odds, unless you're fighting someone stupid enough to attack Mandalore itself, in which case you'll have every Mandalorian behind you when you go to fight them. Even so, you'd better make sure you can handle yourself in a fight. Mandalorians don't respect the weak. Even the more peaceful Mandalorians, like everyone who owns shops and works in public service and private industry and in agriculture are still Mandalorians, still warriors. They'll still fight if their home is attacked, and, as a rule, they'll fight just as well as the most dedicated warriors. There's no such thing as a defenseless bystander on Mandalore." Canderous said all this in a nostalgic way that made Mission wonder how long he'd been home. "At least," he continued, standing up and pacing around the cockpit, "That's what it used to be like. Before that abomination of a treaty the Republic forced on us. Before we were—disarmed," he spat, bitterness and rage dripping from his voice. "We lost everything. All our weapons, all our ships, our Basilisk War Droids, our armor, our resources, the legal rights to control of our own planet. They destroyed us with politics." Canderous sat down, scowling in disgust. "Maybe this isn't such a good idea. Going back will just remind me of what we've lost."
Mission sighed. "Yeah, but we're going to find out who Jessa is, remember?"
"Jessa. Now there's someone who reminds me of how we used to be. She understands how to keep to your honor, but to not be afraid of doing what it takes to win." Canderous sighed. "I think I'll actually be disappointed if she doesn't turn out to be a Mandalorian."
Carth found himself sitting across a desk from Admiral Dodonna, wishing he could be anywhere but there. Well, nearly anywhere. "Admiral, I don't want anything to do with the Jedi, especially not Bastila!"
Dodonna sighed. "Carth, we've been over this. I need someone close to them. Someone I can trust. And your distrust of them means you won't let them hide things from you or trick you into following along with their schemes, which makes you perfect for this."
"I don't want to be associated with anything they do, knowing what they've done!" Carth exclaimed.
Dodonna looked sad. "I know, Carth. Neither do I. I won't order you to do this, but I will ask. You can say no if you want. It won't go on your record or be held against you."
Carth nodded. "Thank you, Admiral. I…I think I'll take the mission."
She smiled. "Thank you, Carth. Master Vandar is in the conference room on deck 2. He'll want to see you."
Carth stood up. "I'll find a way to stop them, Admiral."
"I know you will. But be quick. Bastila's about to leave with some Masters, following a tracker on the Ebon Hawk. You'll be part of their fighter escort. That puts you in a position to move around without them, but still stay with them. Dismissed."
Carth saluted, and strode out of the room.
The Ebon Hawk dropped out of hyperspace above Mandalore, giving Canderous a good look at his home…and the Republic fleet circling it. For a minute, no one said anything, looking at the fleet carefully, as if waiting for an attack. Mission glanced over his shoulder at the console. "What's that? Something behind us?"
Canderous jerked his eyes away from the fleet to stare at the sensor console. "A Republic assault shuttle, with a fighter escort. They must have followed us."
Mission's eyes widened. "How?"
"Bastila must have put a tracker on us. Tell Zhar to get to the top turret. I'll try to lose them. Tell him to take out that shuttle's comm array!" he yelled after her. "it's just behind the cockpit, at the base of the tail." If it loses that, they'll have a harder time tracking us. Not to mention we won't have to listen to officious Jedi nonsense.
A Mandalorian did not run, but neither did he start a pointless battle that there was no chance of winning. Contrary to popular belief, the warrior society did, in fact, believe in tactics and fighting smart. One freighter against that fleet was pointless, honorless suicide. And so Canderous flipped the Ebon Hawk around, turning it sharply to the right and rolling to give Zhar the best fire angle he could.
Mission's yell jerked Zhar out of his meditation. "What's going on?" he shouted back. He could sense other Jedi, very close to the ship. Including Bastila.
"Jedi," she gasped frantically. "they followed us! You need to get to the gun turrets!"
Zhar leaped to his feet, and sprinted out of the room, through a corridor, and up a ladder into the turret.
Mission had followed him to the base of the ladder. "Take out the—"
"—communications array, I know!" Zhar swung the turret around and focused on the shuttle. He gave himself a second to consider what he was about to do, then opened fire. Each shot, guided by the Force and the skill of a war veteran, flew straight into its target. Caught off-guard with its shields down, the shuttle's communications array was blasted to pieces. Zhar followed that up with a few precise shots into the still-unshielded shuttle's engines, then turned his attention to the fighters. One of them swooped over, firing at the turret, but the Hawk's shields were far above average for a ship of its size, probably due to various illegal modifications. Zhar fired back, again aiming to disable rather than kill, and the Aurek-VII strike fighter spun out of control as its engines and left wing were shredded. Zhar knew that this particular variant of the fighter had quite strong shields—he'd flown one himself—so the Ebon Hawk's guns had clearly also received an upgrade. Or five. Focusing on another fighter, Zhar fired, blowing both of its wings off. Glancing briefly at the fleet, he noticed two fighter squadrons approaching, followed by 3 Hammerhead-class cruisers. Off to the side, and Interdictor-class battlecruiser was moving to intercept. If it managed to power up its gravity generators in time, the Ebon Hawk would not be able to escape into hyperspace. Zhar fired again, and the third fighter was blown apart. Unfortunate, but it had to happen sometime. We are on the run, after all. That leaves two disabled, and one still coming. And those other ships. The last fighter was clearly being flown by a more careful and skillful pilot, easily avoiding Zhar's return fire and continuing to burn away at the shields. According to the shield data, however, the fighter was doing almost no damage to the shields at all. In fact, it was firing in some sort of pattern of bursts and single shots, the same pattern, repeating over and over. Zhar's eyes widened as he realized. Blink code! Keeping one hand on the controls, he grabbed a datapad with the other, and started to note down the message.
Tracker on you. Fleet after you. Go to Tatooine. Find star map. SIS will help. Contact phrase is 'Good weather we're having today, eh?'. C.
"Canderous!" Zhar yelled into the comm. "Set a course for Tatooine!"
The two squadrons from the fleet had almost caught up with them, the cruisers lagging behind, but nearly close enough to use their tractor beams, and definitely close enough to shoot. Green fire flashed past the ship, not quite making it through the shields, but nothing could withstand fire from a capital ship's main guns for long.
"We're getting out of here! Hold on!" Canderous yelled from the cockpit.
Then the stars stretched into lines, and then into the shining blue vortex of hyperspace. They'd escaped. Barely.
She stood on the bridge of a starship, watching from behind a metal mask as ships swirled around each other, firing lasers, missiles, dodging, dying, exploding into fiery flowers of death, the Force screaming in agony all around her. Too much…it was all too much…
Without taking her eyes from the battle, she pulled a small device out of her pocket and thumbed the switch on the top. The message was sent. General Surik would know what to do.
Her friends…her allies…her best commanders. They were all scattered, standing on the bridges of different starships or leading the fighter squadrons in a last, desperate attempt to break the Mandalorian lines.
"Lines which I should be on the other side of…" she whispered, too quiet for anyone to hear.
Her other hand, the one that didn't hold the signal device, was wrapped around something small and hard. She uncurled her clenched fingers briefly, looking at the small symbol on its silver chain.
The universe really did hate her. Here she was, commanding an army who hero-worshipped her, fighting in the name of an order and a government she hated, masterminding the slaughter of her own people.
Her eyes blurred with tears, and she angrily blinked them away, clenching her hand tightly around the necklace she didn't deserve to wear, almost feeling the tattoo she didn't deserve to have burning on her shoulder. Symbols of a culture she'd betrayed in the worst possible way. If the Jedi hadn't taken her, hadn't deceived her, the war would have gone very differently…her life would have gone very differently…
Suddenly, the Force screamed even louder, and she sunk to her knees, clutching her head. Ahead, above that slate-gray world, ships and stations were torn from orbit, burning to shreds in the atmosphere before it too, was torn away. The remaining ships fell even harder, shattering their way into the planet's rocky surface. With trembling hands, she pulled off her mask and hurled it aside, then tossed her gauntlets after it and struggled to wipe away the tears brought on by what she'd done; the falling ships, the destruction of her people at her hand, the death screams of millions…
Jessa awoke drenched in sweat and tears. That nightmare had been so vivid. And strangely enough, she could remember having had it before, many times, though, of course, she couldn't remember why. Blasted Jedi. Another relic of that past life. A battle she'd never seen, but remembered in the form of a nightmare.
Someone was shouting.
"—followed us! You need to get to the gun turrets!" Mission? The sound of two sets of running feet, then, more faintly, "Take out the—"
"—communications array, I know!" Zhar? What is going on here?
Groggily, she opened her eyes. Someone had evidently put her in one of the bunks in the crew quarters after her mental duel with Bastila. Her coat, boots, and weapons—except for her knife, which was still in its wrist sheath—had been in a pile next to the bunk, but when the ship had flipped over and rolled, they'd been thrown everywhere, despite the inertial dampers, so the ship must have been doing some pretty crazy flying. Her hair had dried after getting a bowlful of water thrown in her face by Zaalbar—at least she thought it had been Zaalbar—so she'd gotten at least a few hours sleep. Quickly, she checked on her mental shields. Fortunately, what was left of them was still intact, and there was no trace of anyone else in her mind. She didn't feel particularly well rested, but she felt good enough to consider standing up. Groaning, Jessa leaned over and grabbed her boots, slipping them back onto her feet. Tossing her coat and rifle onto her bunk, she picked up her pistol, vibroblade, and lightsaber, and headed up to the cockpit.
Carth kept dodging and shooting, making sure to keep his fighter's weapons on their lowest power setting. He didn't want to burn through the Ebon Hawk's shields before someone on board managed to decode his message. He hadn't asked for this assignment—had protested against it, actually—but now that he had it, he had to make the most of it. Hence the blink code message.
"Gold Leader, this is Red Leader. What's going on over there?"
Carth glanced out at the approaching squadrons and swore. Then he activated the comm unit. "Red Leader, the target's shields are ridiculously strong. I can't make an impact."
"Try to keep them from jumping to lightspeed long enough for our capital ships to come in."
As if. "Got it, Red Leader. Gold Leader out."
Ahead of him, the Ebon Hawk went to lightspeed. Carth only hoped someone got his message.
Jessa entered the cockpit just as the Ebon Hawk went to hyperspace, leaving behind some extremely angry republic pilots and a shuttle full of even angrier Jedi. "Where are we going this time?" she asked.
"Tatooine," Canderous growled. "ask Zhar if you want to know why."
Zhar? "Maybe I will," she muttered. "Where are Zaalbar and Asori?"
Canderous frowned as he looked at her carefully. "Not sure. Somewhere on the ship, obviously. What's that on your shoulder?"
"What?"
"On the right one. Looks like a scar, but there's something else there, kinda blurry, kinda like my eyes keep sliding off it…" Mission muttered.
Jessa looked carefully at her shoulder. "I don't see any…wait. You're right. What is that? It looks like…" she trailed off.
"Like Force compulsion?" Asori said from the doorway.
Jessa frowned. "Maybe. Hey, are you alright? I heard you were pretty upset earlier."
The kiffar woman shrugged. "I've been better. And that is definitely Force compulsion, trying to make you and everyone else think that whatever's there is just a scar. I think I can do something about it…just let me focus…" She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes, putting one hand on Jessa's shoulder. A moment later, she shuddered, and stumbled backwards. "It's to strong for me to break through," she said, shocked. "Zhar?"
"What is it?" came the reply.
"I need your help breaking a Force compulsion."
The other Jedi—former Jedi, Jessa reminded herself, walked in a moment later, making the already crowded cockpit even more so. "How could we all have missed that?" Zhar said, slightly shocked.
"Well, I did have my coat on most of the time, and its sleeves cover whatever this is," Jessa reminded them.
"Alright," Zhar said, putting a leathery hand on her shoulder. "Let's find out what this is."
Asori put her hand on Jessa's shoulder next to Zhar's, and both of them closed their eyes. The blurriness seemed to shift, then dissipated like mist in the wind, revealing a tattoo identical to the one on Canderous's left shoulder.
The big Mandalorian leaned back in his seat, smirking. "I knew we were related. Ohh, the Jedi will be mad. Ha!"
"What does it mean?" Mission asked curiously.
"Mandalorians get one at birth, to signify which clan they belong to," Canderous said. "Yeah, sounds a bit barbaric to others. But it's not done how your tattoos are done. Mandalorians don't believe in harming infants. So we can do it without hurting them. It's a secret art that I'm not going to share with you. Not unless you get adopted into a clan, and get one of your own."
"Well that's good, at least. Do people often get adopted into a clan?"
Canderous laughed. "Not often. Only if they're worthy. There's quite a funny story about one time that happened, back before the war…"
They had come. Alone.
So arrogant, these Jedi. Trusting in their precious light side to protect them. Bandon ran his thumb over the activation switch on his lightsaber. Not yet.
Dorak and Vrook moved deeper into the grove, lightsabers still secured on their belts. Beside him, Juhani bared her teeth in a feral snarl. He could tell the cathar Dark Jedi was bursting to attack them, but…she did not understand. Not yet. Animalistic rage was not the way to use it. You had to control the dark side, not the other way around.
Yes. Now.
Silently, Bandon leaped from the tree, not activating his lightsaber yet. If he could get an easy victory, he would take it.
But he could not. Just as he activated his lightsaber, an inch from Dorak's head, the Jedi Master spun with supernatural speed and deflected the death blow with his green blade. He then stepped back, standing shoulder to shoulder with Vrook, who quickly activated his own blue-bladed weapon.
"So this is what we've been sensing," Dorak commented.
"Darth Bandon. A pleasure to meet you," Vrook sneered. "How is your position as Malak's newest attack dog treating you?"
Bandon grinned, showing all his teeth. "Better than your position as my newest victim is treating you, I'm sure."
With that, Bandon leaped at the Jedi, his crimson blade whirling. He'd only activated one side of his lightsaber, hoping to surprise them with the second blade. That was not the only surprise he had in store for them, though.
Vrook ducked under his first blow, then followed up with his own attack, which Bandon easily blocked before blocking Dorak's swing. After another equally fast exchange of blows, he spun and activated the second blade, piercing an unwary Dorak through the chest. The jedi toppled to the ground, shock showing on his face. Vrook leaped back to gain space, summoning Dorak's dropped lightsaber to his other hand and activating it, crossing the green and blue blades in front of him.
"You will not win this, Sith," Vrook growled, and settled into a defensive stance, just as a green blade appeared out of nowhere and impaled the Jedi Master from behind.
The air rippled and Juhani reappeared, shutting down her lightsaber. "Well, that went well," the fallen Jedi commented offhandedly, as Vrook slumped to the ground like Dorak had.
Just as he had done with all the others on his list, Bandon collected the two Jedi's weapons and attached them to his belt. Four left.
"How did you plan on leaving this planet?" Juhani asked.
Bandon suppressed a sigh. "I have a ship, obviously. But there is one thing we need to do first."
A few hours later, Juhani was able to sneak back into to the Jedi Enclave and complete the task he'd assigned to her. The two Sith then left the planet using Bandon's shuttle, which he'd landed in Dantooine's endless grasslands.
When the Jedi awoke next morning, they found a grisly sight awaiting them.
Vrook and Dorak's bodies, slouched in their Council chairs.
And carved across the wall behind them, with what could only have been a lightsaber, were the words Four left.
And, below that: She will be avenged.
"A message," Vandar said tiredly, rubbing his forehead as he stared at the grisly scene on the recording.
"A message from whom, Master?" Bastila asked worriedly.
Vandar's headache was only getting worse. "Revan."
"But that's impossible, Master, she—"
"Yes, padawan, I am aware of that. However, I did not say it was from her directly. She must have sent someone to leave it, making us think that some Sith fanatic is attempting to avenge a fallen Dark Lord. It matters not, padawan. You know your part in what we must do once we reach Tatooine?"
"Yes, Master Vandar."
Vandar smiled. Perhaps they could succeed after all. "Good. We will not have much time, so we must act quickly. She must not have a chance to fight back."