It was very late in the day when the Jedi, Bastila and Carth returned to the Ebon Hawk. Jolee had met them on the ramp, eager to know what new facts their investigations into Sunry's case might have turned up.
In a rare display of empathy, Bastila had gently taken the old man aside and shared what little they had managed to discover in hushed tones: following a brief audience with the Selkath High Court, they had had the briefest of interviews with Elora, who - predictably - had been less than forthcoming about her husband's recent movements, preferring to dwell at length instead on his career with the Republic army and hero status. After that, it had been lots of going back and forth between the hotel at which the killing had taken place, and the Republic embassy itself. The hotel staff and residents had been hostile and fearful, and it had taken the Order's newest recruit all of his persuasive skill to coax their accounts from them.
The prognosis, Bastila opined, was not good. Especially given the contents of what they'd stumbled across in one of the computers in the Republic embassy itself.
Jolee's shoulders sagged a little when he heard this. Sunry was an old friend, a good man - once. But people changed, and not always for the better. Perhaps Sunry had truly changed, too. A pity. The old Jedi's heart ached within him as he thought of the many good and noble people he had known in his life - people whom he had befriended, people he had trusted... even loved - people who had, suddenly and unaccountably, changed and lost themselves entirely in the process. He shook his head sadly and thanked Bastila, before proceeding to the pantry for some privacy.
Bastila retired to the women's cabin unusually early, deeply troubled. She did not even come out for dinner.
The Jedi closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the wall, letting the water flow freely over his body. Nothing like a hot shower to clear one's mind. Lawyering...! Boy, did he need to clear his mind... so many details to remember... facts, witnesses, who said they saw what, where... when... no wonder lawyers charged an arm and a leg for their work!
Lawyering was not something the Jedi thought he'd like to make a habit of. Following the utter shock of having been 'appointed' counsel for Sunry, no thanks to Jolee and everyone on board the Ebon Hawk, he'd had to brave the full-on assault of what had essentially been a crash course in the fundamentals of Selkath jurisprudence, courtesy of T3-M4. His head throbbed painfully with the recollection.
Who could have imagined that Davik Kang would've actually kept a copy of Professor Z. Azzamezz's Compendium of Galactic Legal Systems in the Ebon Hawk's database? Eh... on second thought, actually that makes a lot of sense - Davik had been a gang lord, after all - you can break all of the rules some of the time, and some of the rules all of the time; but never all of the rules all of the time. A muffled voice coming from outside the 'fresher broke through his reverie.
"Oi! Force-boy! Some of us need a piss!" Only Canderous would talk like that. Reluctantly, the Jedi stepped out of the shower and reached for his towel.
"One minute, Canderous!" Deciding that he could dry himself and dress just as efficiently in the men's cabin, the Jedi hurriedly made himself decent, gathered up his clothes and pressed the door switch. Canderous wasn't a patient man at the best of times, and Force knew what a Canderous with a full bladder would be like.
"'Bout bloody time - worse than a kriffing woman," grumped Canderous as he pushed past the Jedi into the 'fresher. "What the kark did you do in here - whole place is kriffing wet!"
"Sorry, Canderous." Scurrying along the corridor, the Jedi made his way to the men's cabin as fast as his legs would take him. Mercifully, he did not run into any of the females along the way. Once in the safety of the men's cabin, he dressed himself and sat on his bunk to think.
Tomorrow, they would investigate the Sith embassy... see if anything useful or interesting could be gained thereat. And then there was the matter of how he was supposed to present his case in Court - procedure... formalities...? The Jedi frowned. He wasn't sure if he was required to make an opening speech - did the Selkath do that? And what of closing arguments? Oral, or written? Sweet Force..! Would he be expected to provide formal, written submissions? What did the Selkath judges want - pure argumentation, or carefully-researched and footnoted pieces of academia? He hoped that it would not be the latter - this whole lawyer thing was Olys Corellisi to him, he wouldn't know where to start - much less which cases, if any, to quote as precedent... oh, bugger - that was another problem - precedent...! The Selkath - what was that in the Compendium again? About the system of laws used in Manaan? ...did he actually read something about 'time bars' or did he just imagine it? Hang on, did any of those 'time bar' things even apply in the present case!
The pounding in the back of his head was reaching epic proportions. The Jedi rubbed his temples in annoyance. There would be no sleeping tonight, of that he was certain.
Bastila turned in her bunk restlessly. Every nerve in her brain seemed to be on fire. Her heart - she could literally hear it pounding in the stillness of the room. Try as she might, she had failed to attain a state of relaxation which would allow her to drift into slumber. Why? Why did she have to keep coming up - running into situations - smack in... into circumstances where she'd been forced to re-evaluate so many of her most cherished beliefs? Why didn't the Masters prepare her for this? Why were there so many grey areas? Why did she just end up with more and more questions, never the wiser? Were there even any answers at all? Answers that she could accept? There are answers, surely there must be... but you don't want to know them. Why not?
Jolee. She had shared their findings with him. The news had saddened him - clearly the man did not make a habit of suppressing his emotions, for she had been able to feel them through the Force. Sadness - such sadness! And regret... for a great many things, but always over people. People he'd known and cared deeply for. People who had changed, and betrayed themselves in so doing. Change. Revan.
Revan!
Change - Revan had changed, once. It was common knowledge. Proverbial, even. Revan was the poster boy for how good, upstanding Jedi could go horribly, terribly wrong. Every Padawan was well-acquainted with his tragedy - surely one who had fallen so far, so hard, could not change? But he had. Was it truly change, though, if it had been - she shuddered - foisted upon him... forced upon him, unsolicited, uninvited? Wasn't change a choice? It had to be made, voluntarily. The Masters had not given Revan that chance. It was... shameful. Bastila hugged her spare pillow tighter.
...had she, too, changed? Of course she had. No more the... idealistic child-woman she had been at the start of this mission, ready to spout the received wisdom of the Masters with nary a second thought. Ready to judge, to take things almost entirely at their surface value. Bastila cringed at the memory of what she now thought of as her 'younger self' - though in truth, only a few standard months had elapsed since... since the Endar Spire. The beginning. Or had that been the end? It had been both, she now realised. The beginning of a path upon which questions had sprung up readily, like weeds - and the end of golden, honeyed days of simply taking all she had learnt, all the wisdom of the Masters, for granted. So very, very painful.
If she had changed, was she... better now, as a person - as a Jedi! - than she had been before? She did not know what to think - she did not dare to pursue that line of thought. Tatooine. She had learnt much about herself then, about how far she had been willing to go to satisfy her own petty little vendetta; the veil had been torn from off the mirror and for the first time, she looked into her inmost and saw a chimera. Not a chimera, please...! That is not what I am! I am not - that is not all that I am... But it is a part of you, Bastila. And you fed it for years with your anger, and your pain, and your hate. Oh, yes. Hate. Will you deny it now? You cannot.
Shame swept over Bastila like a dark, engulfing wave. Yes, she had cherished her resentment, nourished it, dwelt upon it, given it harbour in her heart - and it had silently grown over the years and matured into something dark and forbidden. But she had chosen otherwise in the end, hadn't she? Only because Revan was there to hold your hand, the jarring thoughts sneered. Was that true? Would she - could she - have made a choice to... change, had Revan not been there? Now, with all that in the past, had she changed for the better? Given up the old vendetta, never to feed any resentment again?
Bastila did not know. It frightened her not to have any answers.
The Jedi never change, she told herself. Oh, they don't, do they? Remember when you saw old Master Sunrider? Who did she have with her? Yes, that is right - you saw old Master Nomi Sunrider with her daughter. Master Vima Sunrider. Didn't old Master Sunrider marry a Jedi? Yes, she did. And so did Master Vima. As did many other Masters you know... Masters from Coruscant, Dantooine, everywhere. Jedi Masters - good, solid folk, all. And they fell in love and married and had children of their own. Families. But that is not what your Master taught you, is it? How consistent...! No, your Master taught you that love - marriage, a family - are forbidden to Jedi. Love and all it brings are attachments, and attachments are to be studiously avoided. They lead to the Dark Side.
Or do they?
The more she tried to resolve it, the more her confusion multiplied, and the deeper grew the abyss of uncertainty that threatened to swallow her whole. How she wished that she could return to the halcyon days of blessed simplicity and ignorance...! You are forgetting the Code, chided the sneering voice. 'There is no ignorance, there is knowledge', it repeated. Bastila shivered in spite of the blanket she had wrapped around her. Ignorance was no longer hers to plead, but neither could she claim to possess the knowledge that ought to have taken its place.
Bastila passed a fitful night, and was glad when the morning came.
"You're going to the Sith embassy and you're not taking HK-47 with you?" asked the Republic officer incredulously. "But - you - buddy! That place - is crawling with Sith soldiers and war droids and what not - maybe even a bunch of Dark Jedi - you can't be serious -" Carth sputtered.
"I am. Don't worry about it, Carth. Bastila and Juhani are coming with me." Bending over, the Jedi tucked in the loose ends of his boot laces securely.
"Protest: Master! This is most unfair! The Sith are sure to resist! Why do you deny me the chance to illustrate to them the futility of their resistance?"
Sigh. Maybe he should put the search for a Pacifist Protocol Package at the top of their next agenda, thought the Jedi. HK's insatiable bloodlust and obsession with violence far exceeded even that of Canderous', and he'd long had the Mandalorian down as a basket case. "HK, this is Manaan. The Selkath enforce a very strict policy of neutrality! Any infraction of that policy is a capital offence."
"Lament: You do not trust me, Master."
Trust! That psychotic droid was talking to him about trust! The Jedi did not know whether he should laugh or be horrified. "Actually, HK - I do trust you. More than... you think I do. I have simply... evaluated the situation and... concluded that your, ah - expertise and reliability... should serve nobl - I mean, greater - causes, than mere... infiltration."
HK-47's central core processor hummed as he processed his Master's words. Greater causes? Expertise and reliability - the Master trusted him, evidently... The droid began running a complex logarithm to determine the import of what he had just been told. Bingo!
"Comprehension: Ah, Master! You are very wise, Master! I understand. You wish to cause unbridled mayhem and chaos within the Sith embassy, but are aware that the fishy meatbags will be watching! Leaving me behind would give you deniability if the fishy meatbags were to ask questions. After all, I am the very model of assassination expertise and the reliability of my termination protocols are beyond doubt, as many of my targets would testify... if they were alive! I must say, Master, you possess some very admirable droid-like qualities..."
"Ah, erm - well, yes. That too, HK. Thank you." Ignoring the barely-suppressed sniggers emanating from where Bastila and Juhani stood waiting, he stood and readjusted his utility belt. Carth gestured at the second lightsaber which hung from his waist.
"Two? I thought you only built the one?"
The Jedi shrugged. "Yeah. This one's... recycled. Bit strange. For a while now I've had the sense that I was missing something - and then I tried out a few moves with two lightsabers instead of one, and it was like... coming home. You know what I mean? ...no, you don't. Well, kind of like - as if I'd always used two, you know? Which is weird, because obviously I haven't..."
"Did you change the crystal?" asked Bastila suddenly.
"For my old one, you mean? Yeah - but I left the new lightsaber as it was. Oh yes - nearly forgot..." The Jedi retrieved a glowing yellow crystal from one of his pockets and gave it to Bastila. "For you, Princess. I'm using a violet crystal... it just felt right. Nice colour combination, see? Red and violet go wonderfully together..." The Jedi unhooked both lightsabers from his belt and activated them, bathing the Ebon Hawk's workshop in a sultry maroon glow.
"Sexy!" cooed Mission approvingly.
"Ha ha ha..! Not exactly what I had in mind, Mission - but I know what you mean," laughed the Jedi as he deactivated both lightsabers and returned them to his belt.
Bastila felt her stomach knot itself together. Two lightsabers - one red, one violet - that was what Revan had been known to carry... both before... and after. She swallowed.
Revan's memories were starting to return.
A few hours later, Bastila and Juhani stood over two fresh Dark Jedi corpses in a large meditation chamber located at the heart of the Sith embassy. A third corpse fell to the floor with a dull thud, its head rolling to a stop a short distance from it.
The Jedi deactivated his weapons and surveyed the grim scene. "I hate disintegrations," he said. "This one gave me no alternative." He stepped back into the meditation chamber and immediately turned his attention to the three footlockers it contained. Some armour... stims... a grenade... Then he methodically searched the bodies of the slain Dark Jedi. A datapad! Bastila and Juhani crowded in to read it.
"...project... apprentices in training... Selkath! Shasa..." the Cathar Jedi frowned. "This is a list of names - some roster, I think. Of the whelps they have taken." She bared her fangs. "Is there more?"
Bastila scanned the lines of text appearing on the datapad. "There is. The - the Sith were... taking Force-sensitive Selkath youth and... training them. Here. To... 'liberate' Manaan." She looked up. "Krayts among banthas!"
The Jedi nodded. "Looks like we got here just in time. This is very, very dirty. Force knows how far along this plot has gone. Come! We need to show this to those poor children!" He set off down the corridor without another word.
Convincing the young Sith aspirants that they had been pawns was not easy, even with the datapad. There had been cries of outrage and disbelief at the start, with some even voicing the opinion that it was 'all a test from the Masters'. All this changed when Juhani produced a token which a dying Selkath had pressed into her palm earlier: one of the aspirants immediately recognised it as a childhood token of friendship and regard and bolted for the medical room, her companions in tow. Shrieks and wails soon echoed along the narrow corridors of the training cubicles as the Selkath youth found the bloody confirmation of what they had been told. None of the young Selkath decided to stay a moment longer in the embassy, and within a matter of minutes, Bastila, Juhani and their amnesiac companion found themselves alone with the problem of how to get out of the embassy undetected.
It was impossible, of course. When they stepped, blinking, into the brightness of the reception lobby, the three Jedi found themselves under arrest and arraigned before the Selkath High Court on charges of breaching neutrality.
"You may defend yourself, though it would be advisable were you to allow an Arbiter to represent you," one of the presiding Judges informed them. "The Arbiter will do so for free."
Bastila and Juhani conferred briefly and whispered to their colleague that this would be a good opportunity for him to hone his litigation skills by watching a real professional. Point, thought the Jedi. "We'll take the Arbiter," he told the Judge.
They returned to the Ebon Hawk late the following afternoon. Juhani literally ran to the shower as soon as she boarded the Ebon Hawk, pulling off the bands which kept her hair in a ponytail as she went. Bastila made a beeline for the pantry. Doubtless she was after her favourite curative, the Jedi said to himself. Tea. The idea was starting to appeal greatly to him, as a matter of fact. Mission and Jolee watched expectantly as he peeled off his boots and tossed them aside.
"Glad to see you made it back, sonny." Jolee's gruff voice had a note of concern in it.
"Me too. Took us straight to the courthouse. These Selkath sure don't waste time..." With a grunt, the Jedi pulled off one sock and then the other. Then he lay spread-eagled on the workshop floor and stared up at the ceiling, exhausted.
Mission squatted beside the Jedi and poked him in the side with a small wrench she was holding. "What's the story, huh?"
"We actually got to front desk without any problems. Then one of the officers in the embassy decided he wanted to shoot us, and things kind of went downhill from there. So we deci - ow!" Mission poked the Jedi in the side with the wrench again.
"Everyone knows about that already," she informed him. "It was all over, like, the Holonet feed last night? With pictures and stuff. Man! You guys really kicked some butt, huh? No wonder they totally arrested your asses," the Twi'lek girl concluded. "You guys got hauled up, yeah? Man! Did they, like, give you lawyers and stuff?"
"...they did - not much bloody use, if you ask me. The chap was a complete joke! How any law school could have unleashed a moron of such epic proportions on society, I just don't know...!" The Jedi sat up and started talking animatedly. "He barely acquired the material facts from us, was more interested in the sound of his own voice than in doing any real listening - and he wasn't looking for anything that might have, you know... helped put our actions in the proper light. Like the fact that the Sith had started training Force-sensitive Selkath youth in secret, intending to use them to overthrow the local government!"
Jolee let out a bark of surprise. "Honestly? That's dirty, my boy. Very dirty. And you have proof?"
"Wouldn't have said it if I didn't, old man," replied the Jedi. "The proof's right here." He drew a datapad out of the folds of his tunic and handed it to Jolee, who read its contents in silence.
"I... take it you will be... putting this to good use? Forget it. Rhetorical question. I'm old, anyway!"
Mission poked the Jedi with the wrench again to get his attention. "Forget datapads, man. So what happened next? They, like, gave you a lousy lawyer? And then what?"
"So I fired him."
"Whoa..." Mission whistled. "And then you guys, like, spoke for yourselves?" Her eyes widened as the Jedi nodded in affirmation. "That's, like, hardcore, man...!"
Jolee snorted. "Hnnh. Practice makes perfect, as us old geezers like to say... hey! Go tear up a few more Sith buildings, son. Then you'll be the best Arbiter Sunry could hope to have..."
The Jedi laughed, appreciating the irony. "You're crazy, old man."