Carth went alone this time, for subtlety's sake, to find their crew and bring them along. The droids were in the droid bay, obviously, and it only took a little urging to get HK to cooperate. It hadn't crossed Carth's mind at all to look for Bastila.

Revan was in their care and control at this point, and while Carth would not nor allow anyone else to hurt her, those who'd followed her didn't know that. He used their lack of knowledge of him to his advantage in persuasion. He found out from HK where Canderous was and brought the droids with him in case he got trouble from the Sith. He didn't bother to be subtle or quiet after he'd found them, since that would only be more suspicious than striding around without a care, which is what he tried to do, but only ended up feeling silly, especially since he heard HK chuckling at him behind his back.

Canderous seemed startled that he was there, with good reason. He'd been in an elsewise empty training room, beating down a battle droids, sweaty and grunting. He jumped when Carth entered the room.

"What are you doing here, Republic?" Canderous growled. He hooked his vibroblade to his belt and threw a towel around his neck.

Carth shrugged. "I escaped. Revan is on the ship." He looked on quietly as Canderous dried his face and his chest's heaving slowed. "You need to come with us."

"I don't need to do anything." He paused. "Where are y'all going?"

"Kashyyyk."

"Ugh. Wookies."

"Would you prefer Tatooine?" Carth said shortly.

Canderous grimaced. Cleaning sand from multiple orifices, every single day. And then there'd been the faceoff with Jagi. He'd take the Wookies over those grim memories any day. "No. But who says I'm going?"

Carth seemed to think for a while. Canderous saw several emotions pass over his face, mostly solemn sadness, but eventually he said, "Well, we've got Revan. You won't stay here without her to… Be with."

Canderous glared at the pilot, feeling his personal experiences violated, but he'd already agreed in his mind to leave. He might have leaved soon anyway, if Revan hadn't done what she did, but on his own…

Because the moment she touched him, his carefully placed and built-up defenses dissolved one-by-one. Because the moment she touched him, he knew he would do anything for her, beyond any reasoning.

So he nodded briefly, then grinned. "Can't do anything without me, eh?"

Carth allowed himself a small smile. "Sure, Canderous. Whatever helps you sleep at night." He left the room, but Canderous got ahead of him and led the way back to the Hawk.

Carth settled down into the familiar pilot's seat and started on the departure sequence. He'd collected all of the crew, except Bastila, and he found himself wondering with some concern where she was. Then an overwhelming fatigue washed over him. He guided them away from the Star Forge, then punched in the coordinates for Kashyyyk. The stars stretched before him as the ship slipped into hyperspace.

He trudged over to the med bay and gazed at Revan for a while, at the makeshift bindings that would never hold her when she woke up. He told the passing T3 to get a neural band on her in a few hours, then collapsed onto his bed in the port dormitory.

He wished away the years. He wished away the ages and the cares and the wrinkled foreheads and the pain and destruction. He wished he could be 8 again, on Telos, sit in his mother's lap and she would brush his hair out of his face and kiss his forehead and nothing in the entire galaxy could possibly be bad. He wished he could run in the grass that would scratch his legs and laugh and not have to organize a crew or give commands or pilot a damned ship. Maybe once this was all over, if it would be in his lifetime, he would just go to Lehon and lay on the beach and sleep.

So they had escaped with Revan… But what would they do with her now that they had her? What could they do about Malak? How could the Republic destroy the Forge while it's churning out fighters as they fire on it? And they still had Bastila's battle meditation against them… There was virtually no chance of victory. The dreadful, heavy feeling that he had done something terribly wrong descended upon Carth's mind.

,.-::-.,.-::-.,.-::-.,.-::-.,.-::-.,

Revan woke up comfortably for the first time in a while. She was on a stuffed mattress placed carefully on a whicker bed frame. The last thing she remembered was being on the Star Forge, and Malak ran from her again… Oh. And then she'd been knocked out, for the second time, by that Force-damned Jedi tranquilizer.

She pushed herself up and looked around. She could immediately tell where she was. Kashyyyk, probably Rwookrrorro, but between the whicker frames of the wall were metal panels. She hadn't recalled any metal-walled rooms on Kashyyyk, except that Czerka station, and that one didn't have whicker at all…

She swung her legs around the side of the bed, but when she tried to get up, she swooned, then had to sit back down- nausea struck her when she'd moved up, a vein around her brain thumping in overtime.

She flourished her hand to Force heal, but nothing happened. She did it again. Her head was pounding. Still, nothing. She took a closer look at the panels, beside her head, pressed her hand against the cool metal, and then it struck her.

A force restraint room.

"FRACK!" she screamed, pounding her fist on the wall. The noise rang out, which only made her head – and her hand – hurt more. She had no use of the Force here, and her lightsaber was gone. She was as useless and powerless as a Force-blind!

She got up and staggered over to the door, trying to ignore her headache, and that she felt like she was about to empty her stomach all over the floor. She pressed the door mechanism. Locked.

Dread and anger settled in her gut. They had her trapped, whoever had her – she was trapped and powerless and she had no idea why she was hurting so badly. But she didn't want to think anymore, about anything. She managed to stumble most of the way back to her bed, settled on the floor next to it, and fell uneasily into sleep.

She woke several hours later with a clear head. When she got up, she felt nothing, except the sore indents from the whicker on her skin. She smelled like sweat and Wookies, so she raided the baskets in the room, set aside clean Jedi robes, and went to shower in the refresher. She would only wear those until she'd washed her old blue ones, which she expected she'd been wearing several days in a row.

With the hot water streaming down her in the shower, she sorted her thoughts out. As long as she got what she needed in here, she would wait to find out her situation before any brash actions. There wasn't any reason to rush, now. Malak would be there for her to… Eliminate, once her imprisonment was over.

As she stepped out of the shower she heard the door slide open. She wrapped a towel around her, smoothed her black hair back, and stepped out of the 'fresher, one hand holding her towel up.

Carth was there, rubbing the back of his beck, looking startled that she wasn't dressed. A deep red blush crawled over his face. Revan glared at him. "You look better tied down," she said coolly, then grabbed her clothes and walked straight back into the 'fresher to change.

Carth's voice came in from the other room. "You've probably already figured out you're on Kashyyyk. The, uh, the Jedi had another enclave, here. Vrook and Vandar, they'd left Dantooine for something, they wouldn't tell me, but either way, they weren't there when it was fired on. Zhar and Dorak weren't as lucky."

"Serves them right," came her reply, muffled, as she pulled a cream-colored tunic over her head.

Carth was quiet for a moment. "We can't trust what you'd do if you defeated Malak, but so far you're the only one likely to beat him…"

"We can't? Fabulous, you've joined them!" Her voice was dripping with sarcasm.

He sighed. "So you're being kept here until the Jedi masters decide what to do."

"Oh, so we're waiting for them, are we- I'll be in here for years, then. Might as well make myself comfortable." She emerged from the refresher, fully dressed, and threw the towel at Carth. He wasn't prepared for it, and it hit him in the face. "Get that cleaned for me, 'kay?"

He pulled it off and glared at her, silent.

"Oh, don't look at me like that, Flyboy. I have every right to be angry at y'all."

"You killed Jolee and Juhani." His voice was cold as ice.

She merely shrugged it off. "Worse's been done. And you better damn well expect it to be done again if they decide to wipe my memory."

"Revan," Carth said, raising his voice. "This isn't you. If… If you were good, at any point, then that goodness is and always will be a part of you."

"Carth," she replied haughtily, raising her voice to match his. "The 'goodness' was fake. Whatever delusion is blinding you, this is who I really am."

"Delusion!? Listen, sister, if you think-"

"If I think what?! I think I of all people would know who I am. Not some naïve, whiney, stubborn pilot!"

"A change in allegiance doesn't mean you have to become an… an obnoxious schutta!"

"That stings, Flyboy. It really does."

"Stop calling me that."

"I can call you whatever I damn well please."

"You are so frustrating!" Carth's chest was heaving, his face red. It almost felt like old times. Almost.

"Of course I'm frustrating. People who are locked up and powerless tend to get a little testy!"

"Like you wouldn't kill us all as we slept if we let you roam?"

"Of course not. That wouldn't be any fun."

"Yeah, because mass slaughter of innocent creatures is a great pastime."

"You, innocent, Flyboy? You're more delusional than I thought."

"I didn't mean me!"

"You think I wouldn't kill you?"

Carth was stunned. He wouldn't have admitted it, but he wanted to believe that she wouldn't kill him, that she hadn't fallen that far. He remained quiet at that, thinking.

Revan saw she'd hit a nerve, and smiled cattily. "I wouldn't hesitate had I the means," she said quietly.

Carth shook his head slowly. "You wouldn't."

She didn't like the sureness in his voice. "You're wrong there, Onasi. I don't care about any of you, anymore."

"But you used to," he persisted. "And I don't believe your conscience has just disappeared. Elizabeth Salo is in there. You just don't want to find her."

Revan fumed at him. "Go space yourself!" she shouted, wishing more than ever that she had Force lightning. Why was what he was saying getting to her so much?

He narrowed his eyes at her, and turned to leave. Revan stormed around him and slapped him, even harder than last time. He raised his hand to where he'd been slapped, not seeming surprised. He shoved her roughly aside and left, the hiss of the closing door a lonely and solemn sound. Revan stared after where he'd been, surprised that he'd done anything against her.

And to her surprise, she felt a small pang of guilt for the way she'd treated him. She tried to shake it off, along with the stunned expression, but the feeling just settled in her gut along with the others. She curled up on her bed and started up at the whicker ceiling.

A Jedi enclave, here, on Kashyyyk. Oddest place she'd ever heard of to put a Jedi anything. Except maybe Korriban. She wondered how they managed to hide it from the Wookies and Czerka.

She let her thoughts wander, and began to play out different ways of destroying Malak in her head. She didn't know how much time had passed, but she jolted up when the door hissed open, and a young girl, maybe 11, was standing in the doorway. She had a bag slung over her shoulder, and she was wearing Jedi robes.

She was rather plain looking – she had brown hair, brown eyes, and a dusting of freckles across her nose. Her stance was confident and she strode right over to Revan's bedside without faltering. "Some of the other padawans tell me you're a dark lord," she said, giving no sign of whether or not she believed it.

Revan laughed. "I am, but not much of one, right now. No use of Force in here." She waved her right hand as though that proved it.

"My name's Nia'la."

"Revan."

Nia'la gasped. "The Revan? From the Mandalorian wars?"

"You were alive back then, pipsqueak?

The sarcasm was lost on her. "Of course I was! But we've learned about 'em anyway."

"And you're not afraid of me?"

"Nope. I woulda done the same thing." She paused, then giggled. "But don't tell Vrook."

Revan laughed, too. "He is terribly prone to lectures, isn't he? I think he spends his free time writing them."

Nia'la grinned. "You're not so bad," she said. Then she turned the bag over on the bed. Out tumbled four mid-sized packets, and two datapads, one of which fell off the edge and onto the floor.

"What's all this?" Revan asked while Nia'la picked up the fallen datapad and placed it on the bed.

"Four books worth of reading material," she said, pointing to the datapads, "and food for a week," pointing to the packets.

"Great," Revan said, picking up one of the datapads, twirling it around between her fingers. "So why didn't Vrookey come himself, eh?"

Nia'la laughed. "You think they'd tell me anything?" She paused, then made a face. "I think I've been employed as a servant girl."

"I don't want a servant girl."

"Good. 'Cus I won't be one." She glanced around, leaned forward, and poked Revan on the forehead. Revan stared at her, bewildered, and Nia'la turned and skipped towards the exit. "My friends dared me!" she cooed, and with that, she disappeared out the door.


Author Comments: I rather like this section. 3 Nia'la is my first original character. I have a pic of her on my sheezy account, which is linked to in my profile... The next sections are full of lovely flashbacks. Yaaay, flashbacks! That means I get to fill up more space with little snippets of the story I can tell without having to write out the entire story from the beginning! HOOZAH! Enjoy your chapters. Please visit 3&4 as their life is draining and I don't want to have to re-post.