Disclaimer: I am no Atris.
X.
Conviction
"Crashed again," I called. "If you're not dead and can hear me, sound off."
"I am here," Kreia said.
"Unh," Atton groaned.
"Bao-Dur?"
I forced my way out of the crushed co-pilot's seat. "Bao-Dur?"
Bao-Dur had been in the back seat nearest the hit wing. The back of his head was bleeding, and power in his prosthetic arm had been knocked out. His metal fist was lying useless on Kreia's side of the shuttle. I felt his other wrist for a pulse. He was still alive. Out cold, and I judged he probably had a bad concussion, but he'd recover.
"Let's go," I said, as Kreia and Atton broke out of their seats, too. The acrid smell of burning metal was getting stronger, and the inside of the shuttle was starting to heat up. "Help me with him."
I picked up Bao-Dur's metal fist and put it into one of his oversized utility pockets. Then I swung an arm under his shoulder, but of course he was too big for me to do much more than budge him. Atton came over, slightly dazed. "This has got to stop happening," he mumbled. As Kreia broke open the shuttle door, Atton helped me with Bao-Dur. The four of us left the shuttle and emerged into the dazzling white light of the sun on the snow. It was very cold.
"We got to find what's up here," I managed through chattering teeth. "Fast. He won't make it if we don't get somewhere warmer."
"Neither will we," Atton grunted, straining under most of Bao-Dur's weight.
"We are not alone!" Kreia warned.
I'd heard the horribly familiar clanking of durasteel legs, too, very operational HK-50 assassin droids came around the nose of the shuttle.
"Irritated Declaration: There you are. It has been extremely difficult to track you down, Jedi," one said.
"Quick Clarification: But now that we have found you, we hope that we can facilitate communications."
"Unnecessary Addendum: And put an end-"
"An end to hostilities, yeah, yeah, I know," I snapped. "You shot down my vessel. Again."
"Unnecessary Clarification: We merely wished to cripple your vessel. Once we tracked your coordinates, we were able to deploy several droids in this location."
"Probing Query: We are, however, curious as to why you chose to come to the remnants of the polar Telos irrigation system."
"Eager Threat: But we are looking forward to extracting your motives for coming here when we place you in torture restraints."
The HK-50 droids spoke in turn. As they all spoke with the exact same inflection and tonality, I found it hard to keep track of which was speaking. I shifted, and Atton, taking the hint, helped me to ease Bao-Dur down onto the snow while I kept talking to stall the fight. "That speech pattern was annoying enough when there was only one of you. How many are there, anyway?"
"Chiding Statement: Oh, Jedi, there are as many of us as are needed to capture or kill our targets," one of the HK-50 droids said.
"Egotistical Boast: And there are far more of us than any one Jedi. Destroy one of us, and more shall rise from the wreckage," boasted another.
"Unnecessary Threat: And our attack protocols are more than a match for you—and your allies."
I shrugged and pulled out my blaster. "Stop with the threats, already. I get it. You're right: they're unnecessary. Let's put those attack protocols to the test."
I fired at the same time as Atton. Kreia reached out with the Force and one droid went down in a shower of sparks. I ducked a blaster bolt and ran, zigzagging to make it harder for the HK-50 droids to get a clear shot, and firing all the way.
The HK-50 droids are excellent at working from the shadows, Aithne. Mass slaughter by sabotage and assassination is their specialty. But straightforward battle is not their forte. Though they certainly have nasty behavior protocols, they're built on subtler lines. Because they were mass-produced, budget cuts were made in their armor and defense. In two minutes I'd cut the other two droids down.
I examined the mechanisms and behavior core of one, but still could not find any clue as to their employer or manufacturer. "We really have to go," I said to Kreia. "I hadn't realized how quickly they would track me. If they're here, how long before the Sith and the big Exchange bosses are on us?"
"You speak the truth. We must hope the Ebon Hawk has indeed been hidden here."
"They said this was the remnants of the Telosian polar irrigation system?" I asked. "Maybe there's a door someplace?"
"Way ahead of you," Atton called from several meters away. "Right here—there's a door into the bank."
"Help me with Bao-Dur—it's freezing out here."
Despite Kreia's abhorrence of anything physical, the old woman was turning blue beneath her hood by the time the three of us, carrying Bao-Dur, had made it to the door of the Telosian irrigation system. The door was unlocked. Kreia opened it for me and Atton.
The warmth was delicious, Aithne. Whatever doubts I'd had about Bao-Dur's lead vanished at once. The place was obviously inhabited. The door closed behind us, and Atton and I lay Bao-Dur back down to take a look around.
We staggered forward a few steps, and my ears were just starting to sting dreadfully as they warmed up, when the lights came on, revealing that we were surrounded. There were six women standing in a circle around us. All of them were clad in white hooded tunics and white pants, and bearing long, lethally sharp electrified spears. Their hair was silvery, and their eyes were icy blue. Echani.
Echani aren't mercs or Exchange thugs. True fighters, almost every one of them. So I paused. "Lay down your weapons and you shall not be harmed," one said.
"Who are you? What is this place?" I asked.
The one that had spoken before narrowed her eyes. "I will not warn you again. Drop your weapons, or we shall take them from you."
Kreia stepped closer to me. "Do as they say," she murmured. "I sense we will come to no harm."
Uneasy, I nevertheless followed the old woman's advice. I drew my blaster and swung off my vibroblade and laid them both on the ground with my pack. Kreia laid down her own vibroblade, and Atton, more slowly than Kreia, but following my lead, put down his blaster, too.
"We'll play along for now," I said, addressing the speaker. "Don't lose them." I stepped away from my weapons. One of the other women signaled the others, and two came to flank me.
"Come with us. The mistress wishes to speak with you, Exile."
I looked back at Kreia, suddenly even more uncomfortable. "Exile? But—"the four other Echani had taken positions around Kreia and Atton, though, hindering them from following me.
One of my guards lowered a spear a few centimeters. "We will not tell you again," she said. "Now come."
They led me away from my companions toward the strange 'mistress' who knew me as 'Exile'. Someone that knew exactly who I was, and who I had been.
"I thought it had been leaked all over space you were a Jedi," Aithne objected.
"A Jedi, yes, and even that I'd served under you. But my title and precise history wasn't common knowledge, and no one yet had referred to me as 'Exile,'" Darden explained.
"So they knew you'd been kicked out of the Order," Aithne said. "I see."
The two Echani guards led me through wide, open rooms. The original purpose of the facility could clearly be seen in the exposed piping and metal walls, but the old planetary irrigation system was being put to a different use. I saw combat training mats, statues. The place looked like an imitation Jedi Academy. Rough, but serviceable. But there was no one here other than the Echani. At all. Our steps echoed through the halls, as if calling for others in the loneliness.
The two women led me through one last passageway, and a cavernous room opened up. This was what had been the well down into the groundwater reservoir. It extended down for miles. I thought I could see water still down in it, but it was so far down it might just have been darkness. A single bridge extended across the meters-wide opening beneath an almost impossibly high ceiling, and on the other side of the bridge was a large, black door. The Echani guards stood back at the door we'd come through, and on the other side, the door opened.
I understood I was to walk across and meet 'mistress' in the middle.
As the woman who had called me here and I came closer together and I identified her face, I felt very cold again, despite the warmness of the chamber. It was somewhat appropriate to meet Atris again in a polar region, I felt. Do you remember her? Have you heard of her? No? She was an Echani Jedi Master. She didn't fight in the Mandalorian Wars, and she was on the Council that exiled me. Echani don't age as perceptibly as humans, so though she had to be around fifty, her face was curiously unlined. I found myself reflecting that she'd be very beautiful if her face weren't so very, very hard. Her eyes were like chunks of ice as we met in the center of the bridge.
She spoke no greeting, but began at once. "I did not expect to see you again after the day of your sentencing. I thought you had taken the exile's path, wandering the galaxy. Yet you have returned—why?"
It immediately came to my mind both that the Ebon Hawk was undoubtedly here and that Atris had stolen it for the sole purpose of arranging a meeting between us. "No," I said. "Your servants took me away from my companions. You tell me where they are first. Bao-Dur was hurt."
Atris' eyes bored into me. "Your concern is noted. Your friends have not been harmed. They have been detained for their safety. I find it…unusual…that you are traveling with others again. I had thought you had forsaken the company of others after the war? Or is that why you are here?"
I folded my arms, irritated. "What, that I started traveling with others again and thought I'd look you up? Atris, you know damn well why I'm here, and it wasn't because I wanted to see you."
"Yet here you are," Atris said. Her voice had already been chill, and now it was subzero. "Perhaps you do not know yourself as well as you think. Regardless, your arrival here begs an explanation. Have you come to face the judgment of the Council, as you did so many years ago? Are you finally willing to admit that we were right to cast you out?"
Her words amazed me, and I was getting angrier by the second. "Have you been waiting to hear it?" I managed, after a moment. "You won't get to. The Council was wrong to cast me out; they were wrong to condemn me for going to war. The Council wanted to assess the threat while people were dying by the millions."
Atris' pale cheeks flushed pink. "So you said, so long ago. I didn't believe it then and I don't believe it now. You sought adventure. You hungered for battle. You could not wait to follow Revan to war. The Jedi Order asked only for time to examine the Mandalorian threat. They urged caution, patience. You defied them. So when you returned you were brought before us. You were a Jedi no longer, and so you were exiled."
I wondered how Atris dared. "What is a Jedi Knight?" I demanded of her. "We were supposed to teach; we were supposed to protect. It's easy for you to sit down here and condemn me, easy for you to say I lusted for battle. You weren't there, Atris! You didn't see it, and you didn't live it. The war was hell, and I hated every minute of it. Every second! I went to protect the defenseless. And on that day when I returned to answer for it you wanted me imprisoned or worse."
Atris' anger had not dimmed in the decade that had passed since we'd last faced one another. "There was much about that day that is difficult to forget—"she said in a loud, ringing voice. "Your words, your defiance. And when you stabbed your lightsaber into the center stone. I have kept it, so I would never forget!"
She plunged her hand into her white robe and drew forth a lightsaber, activating it. It was my very own lightsaber, cyan blue. As I looked at it, Aithne, all of the pain and sorrow of the Mandalorian Wars came back, both what I saw done and what I did myself. All the injustice and anger I felt when I tried to do the right thing afterward, and the Jedi Council met my gesture of reconciliation only with rejection. Atris had been one of the ones that had wanted to take me on as a Padawan as a child, though in the end the Council had decided I would learn better from a Guardian than a historian. Still Atris had watched my career with interest, then when I returned she had pushed for imprisonment, or even worse. And she held my lightsaber, Aithne!
"It wasn't your right!" I cried.
"I have always kept it," Atris said, smiling oddly. "As a reminder of what can happen when your passions dictate your actions. I have kept it, so I would never forget your arrogance or your insult to the Order."
When she said that, it was like a rusty gear clunked into place, like all of a sudden my personal hyperdrive started working again after years of dysfunctionality, and all my anger abated. You see, Aithne, I know why I fought in the Mandalorian Wars and gave the order at Malachor. I knew it then, too. But that was the first time I realized that I would do it again if it meant protecting others, fighting for what's right. I've destroyed worlds, condemned hundreds and thousands of my own soldiers to death. I will always carry that guilt with me. I can't ever be sure of sleeping soundly at night. But Aithne, I didn't carry a memento of my anger around for ten years. I never took revenge. And that evening on Telos, I wasn't the one standing on that bridge over the old reservoir with hatred and delusion in my mind and heart.
I answered Atris. "It isn't arrogance to defy what is wrong. I didn't insult the Order, only what the Order had become. And that day, I was the only one that retained enough respect for the Jedi to return. To be exiled, after that—"
Atris' face softened infinitesimally. "I am not unsympathetic to your feelings. It must have been difficult for you to leave the Order. But you gave the Council no other choice. You gave me no other choice."
I heard the emphasis on the personal, and realized that Atris had broken the rules of the Council herself, and attached to me in some way all those years ago. She had felt betrayed when I'd defied the Council, and she had been letting it torment her for years. I gestured at the still active lightsaber. "With that lightsaber, I defended the weak and upheld the right," I told her.
Her eyes flashed. "Your choice was to meet the aggression of the Mandalorians with more aggression!" she retorted. "That is not the Jedi way!"
"The Jedi were abandoning their sworn responsibilities," I replied. "I and the others that went to war saved the Republic. We kept worlds safe!" It was strange, Aithne. Atris' very accusations were ones that had run over and over in my head for years, but now that I was able to reply to them, I realized once again that I'd been right. With every word I grew more certain of myself.
"There was no guarantee that marching to war would have saved the Outer Rim," Atris argued. "In fact, quite the opposite."
"You're right there was no guarantee we would win when we left," I countered. "We almost didn't. Believe me, I know. But if we hadn't gone, the Mandalorians would rule the Republic. What would a government under them have looked like, Atris?" With their contempt for the weak and everlasting desire to test themselves against oblivion?"
"Perhaps the Mandalorians would have won the physical victory," Atris conceded grudgingly. Quickly she added, "But the real victory lay in th—"
I cut her off, "—In the triumph of pacifism? In the surrender to enslavement and or obliteration, and the tacit compliance in the massacre of worlds?"
"Do not twist my words!" Atris snapped. "A physical victory is not the only victory. Or the only loss."
"You can say that because the Republic still stands," I pointed out. "But what if it had fallen?"
Atris had taken a step back, and her face had not recovered from its angry flush. "You do not kno—"she started.
Sensing victory, I pressed again, "If the Mandalorians had won, Atris, would the Council have deemed it appropriate to fight then? Or would they have merely sat in their temples and meditated on the ramifications of a Mandalorian-run galaxy?"
Atris half-raised my old lightsaber. "How dare you!" she cried passionately. "The Mandalorian Wars should have been your grave and Malachor V is where you should have died!"
I stood there, silent for a moment. I felt it was important for Atris to hear her own hateful words echoing through the reservoir chamber. She did hear them, and she paled slightly. As the echo faded, I spoke. "I agree with you. I wish I had, every day. But I didn't think that you would say so. You are, after all, a proper Jedi. Atris, it's been ten years. I know why I still see Malachor every night. I know why I wake up sobbing in the dark. I know my own solitude, and I know my own anger at the injustice done to me when the Council cast me out—"
Atris' eyes flashed in triumph, she opened her mouth, but I anticipated her and held up a hand.
"You can't dare to tell me that anger is of the Dark Side while you stand there with my lightsaber in your hand throwing ten year old accusations at me!" I snapped. "I'm an Exile. You and the Council made sure of that. I don't have to follow the Jedi way anymore—if there even is a Jedi way to follow, now. But Atris, I'm not the only one standing here that hasn't come to terms with what happened in the Mandalorian Wars. Tell me, how long have you hidden here hating me for what I did, fearing me, and fearing your own confusion?"
Atris took another step away from me, and shut off the lightsaber. She thrust it back in her robe. "You see shadows where there are none, and hate where there is none. You are blind, as always."
I stepped toward her. "Somehow, I don't think so."
Aithne was trembling all over with barely suppressed energy and emotion. "Do you really believe all that?" she asked, unable to hold back anymore. "That we were right?"
"Don't you?"
"Sometimes I don't know," Aithne admitted. "I don't remember how it was before. The Mandalorian Wars—everything that happened—it's all just history to me. I've seen the holos. I've heard the stories. The Mandalorians had to be stopped. But the way we did it changed the ones that fought. Sometimes I'm not sure if winning was worth the cost."
Darden smiled crookedly. "Me either. But I do believe we couldn't have in good conscience made choices other than the ones we made. We took the path we needed to, the necessary path, in the Mandalorian Wars. Were we right? No. And yes."
"You more right than others, though. More right than me. How'd you stay in the Light?"
"Is it a good thing I did?" Darden asked. "I made the pragmatic choices, the cold choices, same as you did, but I couldn't ever detach from them. Others could. Others could recalibrate their morality to justify the things we did, and fell to the Dark Side. Maybe you went crazy, but you stayed stable. I didn't. I went crazy, and I broke. You fell to the Dark Side; I fell into nothingness. Which is worse?"
Aithne regarded the small, dark, serious woman before her, and was silent.
Atris backed down. "Enough! I tire of—fighting with you. You lust for war and you always will. And you have succeeded in distracting me from my original questions. If you have not seen the truth, have not repented, why have you come here?"
I'd won the argument, but Atris had borne her anger too long to change her mind. I sighed. "I didn't want to come here," I answered. "Unfortunately, somebody stole my ship. If you give it back, I can leave."
Atris suddenly took on a more calculating expression. "Your ship? Ah, the Ebon Hawk? It is not your ship. Unless you are admitting to the destruction of the Peragus mining facility."
"Are you admitting to stealing the Ebon Hawk?" I retorted.
"The Ebon Hawk is here," Atris said. "Its records and navicomputer are being dissected to determine what caused the destruction of the Peragus facility."
I snorted. "Good luck with the navicomputer. You'll need it." Neither the Peragus techs nor Atton and I had been able to break in to your voice-locked navicomputer, Aithne, despite our best efforts. It was one of a couple things that puzzled me about the ship, the other being the broken down HK droid in the storage compartment—that was before I knew about HK-47 or that he'd been damaged when those pirates stole the Ebon Hawk. I mentioned neither voice-lock nor droid to Atris, however.
"We are having some trouble with the navicomputer," Atris admitted. "But I think with your cooperation—willing or otherwise—that will cease to be an obstacle. If it is your ship, perhaps I should be questioning you as to what happened—and why you destroyed the facility and murdered all the miners there."
The speech was illogical, desperate to find me in the light in which Atris viewed me, and it demonstrated exactly how messed up Atris was. "I cannot answer that question because it presupposes things that never happened," I said, pointing out the fallacy. "All the miners were dead when the facility was destroyed, dead when I woke up in the med bay."
Atris' face was a mask of cold disbelief. "A facility of over one hundred and fifty personnel, all dead before you awakened? A childish story to mask your crime. And with the facility destroyed, you think there is no way to confirm your story. But I will pry the truth from you, I promise you that."
"Actually, the truth of my story has already been confirmed, twice separately by both the TSF and the Republic," I told her. "Of course, you wouldn't know, hiding illegally down here. But if you asked them, I'm sure they could give you the evidence you asked for. Except you don't want it. Not really. You just want a way to convict me."
"You convict yourself with every word you speak," Atris snapped. "You insist that I hold anger toward you: that I am eager to condemn, but all I seek is that the truth of your crimes be made known and just punishment be dealt."
"You cannot find a truth that does not exist," But it was no good. "The Ebon Hawk isn't yours, Atris," I said, giving up. "Return it."
"Again you insist that it is your ship," Atris said. "But it has had many owners, a fact of which I am sure you are aware. You have no claim over it—even if you did, the destruction you have already caused demands that you be tried and punished for what you have done."
"The destruction of Peragus was an accident. And it wasn't even my accident!"
"Ah," Atris said, folding her arms. "An accident. Something beyond your control. You have not changed. Acting instead of thinking. Putting yourself before the galaxy, before the Jedi. Do you know what you have done?"
"I caused nothing," I repeated. "I did nothing except be present. Telos is in jeopardy. The entire Republic reconstructive initiative is in jeopardy. I know. If I had a ship, I could go look for an alternative source of fuel for Citadel Station, among other things."
Atris wasn't listening. "Without fuel, Telos cannot maintain its orbit," she lectured. "It will crash into the planet, and its destruction will echo across twenty other worlds. Telos was a test, to see if the Republic could mount a restoration effort on the Outer Rim. When it fails, they will not finance another. The other Rim Worlds devastated by the Sith will remain graveyard worlds, devoid of life. And that is the magnitude of your crime."
I leaned back on my right leg and examined my nails, almost bored now. "Wow, it's almost as bad as the Jedi letting the Outer Rim die during the Mandalorian Wars."
"So you still hold to your flawed convictions. If you think to anger me, you are wrong. How is it that you are not content to confine your ruin to yourself—you must spread it to others, wherever you go? Ruin yourself with your actions if you will, but when your actions bring harm to others then you must answer for it."
"No, you are not angered," I murmured. "You have been angry for so long that you aren't listening to me. Atris," I said, more loudly. "I did not destroy Peragus. The Sith did."
Atris stopped short another retort. "The Sith? What do you mean?"
I was relieved something had finally gotten through to the woman. "The Sith came for me on Peragus. They tried to kill me. I escaped on the Ebon Hawk. All the miners were already dead. The Sith pursued, and firing after me, hit and ignited the Peragus asteroid field. It was an accident. Not mine."
Atris concentrated for a moment, and I felt her assessing my words with the Force. "You speak truly," she said at last, surprised. "You have encountered the Sith. I can feel the scars on you. And you encountered them on Peragus? But what would they want there? They can't have been looking for you."
I snorted. "Tell them that. They apparently didn't get the memo that I 'walk the exile's path.' They think I'm the last of the Jedi."
Atris' eyes narrowed. "If you were the best target they could find, the teachings of the Dark Side blind the Sith indeed. I am the last Jedi, not you. You betrayed our teachings, our beliefs…the very core of the Jedi Order. If these Sith attacked you, they will soon realize their mistake. And if you escaped…they most likely let you go, to see if you would lead them here."
"They might have blown themselves up trying to kill me, actually," I mused. "Well—they had a Sith Lord with them. He probably got away. Don't underestimate them, though, Atris. They fight differently than the Sith from the Jedi Civil War, I'm told, and that Sith Lord I met might not be the only one."
Atris sniffed. "Whatever force they bring to bear, it will matter not—if they face a true Jedi, they shall fall."
I almost groaned. It was painfully obvious Atris hadn't fought in the Mandalorian Wars, or much in the Jedi Civil Wars. I paced in a tight little circle—the only breadth the narrow bridge would let me pace in. Unknown numbers of Sith and Atris was the only Jedi in all the galaxy? "Look, are you sure there aren't any survivors from the Civil War?" I asked. "Any Jedi other than you?"
"I said I was the last of the Jedi, Exile, and I did not speak falsely," Atris replied. "There are others who were once Jedi, but no longer. They will not take action against this threat."
Once-Jedi were better than no-Jedi. After all, Aithne, I was an ex-Jedi and I wanted to do something. "We can work with that," I said. "If you have any idea, any whispers of where these once-Jedi are, or were, I can find them. Give me my ship down, and I can track them down. Change their minds."
Atris was surprised. "You…you offer your aid? After turning your back on me…on the Council?" She paused, searched my face. "The Jedi way is not something you embrace out of fear. The commitment is stronger than that, something you never seemed to understand."
I took a deep breath. "I am not getting into this with you again, Atris. This isn't about me being afraid. This is about a threat that needs to be dealt with, and this is me, offering to help you."
Atris thought about this, then she nodded. "If you help me, it cannot be done from here," she agreed. "There are others in the galaxy who may help us against a Sith threat. If you can find them, gain their trust, perhaps our defenses shall be stronger for it. Take your ship, seek them out. If you find them, encourage them to gather on Dantooine. From there, we can call a council and see what may be done."
I bowed. It wasn't much to go on, but it was more than I'd had before. "If there is anyone who can aid us, I will find them," I promised.
"Then I shall send you on your way," Atris said frostily. She clapped her hands, and the two Echani guards at the entrance to the reservoir came forward with a third woman—the one that had hailed me and my companions upon our entrance into the irrigation system. "It is now time for you to depart," Atris told me.
"We shall remove her, mistress," said the third woman. To me she added, "Come with us."
You know how Echani siblings resemble one another to the point where they are indistinguishable? Well most of the guards looked exactly alike, from their noses to the spacing of their eyes to the way they carried themselves. They were obviously sisters. But this one—the speaker—she looked different. It was subtle. Her silvery hair was still cropped short. Her eyes were still icy blue, and she wore the same white uniform and carried the same make of spear as the others. But her lips were just a little bit fuller. Her nose was just a little bit longer, and her eyes just a little wider set. She was a little shorter, a little fuller-figured than the others. And while the others looked at me with contempt, her expression was more…curious.
I started back with the Echani handmaidens toward the main irrigation facility, but the different handmaiden hung back on the bridge with Atris.
"So where can I find my companions?" I asked one of the guards.
The woman didn't even look at me as she replied. "You will find them in the main irrigation channel room in the northern part of the plateau interior. The particle emitters that once governed the flow of water to Telos can double as force cages."
"You locked them up?" I asked, incredulous. "They didn't do anything!"
"They were caged for their safety until we could determine your intent, exile," the guard replied coolly. "Atris cautioned us against your tactics, fearing that your allies would create a distraction. Your companions gave us little trouble, however. The male could have presented some challenge if he had resisted, but he chose not to."
The offhand statement gave me pause. Like I said, the Echani aren't mercs. They're fighters, warriors, even. "Atton could have presented a challenge," I repeated.
"He has had some Echani training. He masks it well, but when you were in danger his mask dropped into a stance we know well."
I swallowed, slowed. The Echani guards were no longer guarding me, so the one I wasn't talking with kept walking, turning left in an atrium-like room and vanishing through another door. I knew Atton could fight hand to hand. I'd heard him disable opponents like that behind my back. I'd seen him take out the assassin in the TSF office, and in the Exchange suites, I had felt him fall into a martial stance when I grabbed his arm before he'd recovered from the firefight adrenaline. But I hadn't ever expected it was anything as rigorous or dangerous as the Echani style. "Where…where could he have gotten that training?" I asked, more to myself than to the guard.
She answered anyway, slowing and turning to face me. "I do not know. The Echani forms are known to be taught to military special forces throughout the galaxy. If the source is a mystery to you, perhaps you should ask him. It would be wise to know those you travel with."
I asked her some other questions—about the location of the Ebon Hawk, about what they did here, about her sister that had spoken to me before, and she answered them with terse politeness, but her words about Atton stuck in my head. She eventually said she had to leave to help her sisters supply and fuel the Ebon Hawk for our voyage, and I bowed, still thinking. Then I set out to rejoin the others.
I found them to the north just like the guard—or handmaiden, as she called herself—had indicated. Bao-Dur was standing now. His head had been bandaged and his arm had been powered back up, which had been a bad move on the handmaidens' part. Of course, they couldn't have known that I had seen it take out far stronger shields in the Telosian base in RZ-0031, and that Bao-Dur would be able to get out the second he decided to do so. Bao-Dur was standing in that force cage solely because he hadn't decided he needed to cause trouble yet.
"General," he greeted me as I came into the room.
Kreia stood from where she had been sitting on the floor of her force cage. "Did you find what you came for?" she asked me.
I looked at her, and felt no uncertainty from her whatsoever as to what I had encountered in the place. "That depends," I answered. "What do you think I was supposed to find here, Kreia?"
"There was something from your past here," she said. "Something unresolved. I feel we did not come to this place by chance—you were led here. This woman who resides here—she did something to you once. Something that hangs upon you still?"
I glanced at Bao-Dur, who was watching with some interest. But he knew me, and I didn't really mind discussing my past in front of him. "Upon her more than me, I think," I told Kreia, "For all that I was the one that ended up exiled. Still, she's not exactly charming."
Bao-Dur's gaze dropped, and he looked troubled.
"Whatever her charm, or lack thereof, you must deal with it," Kreia said. "Unresolved events from our past can create wounds in the present, and the future. And more importantly, they can distract you. Weaken you. It could prove fatal against the enemies we face."
I shrugged. "Atris was one of the Council that exiled me. She's a Jedi."
Kreia sniffed. "There is a Jedi here, perhaps. In that you are correct. Yet there are no students, and this woman, this Atris, surrounds herself with those who cannot feel the Force. Curious."
"The Handmaidens," I said thoughtfully. "I talked to one of them to find out where you were. They seem sure that Atris is going to heal the galaxy and rebuild the Order. Frankly, I think she ought to heal herself first. I knew the Handmaidens weren't students, but you're telling me they can't even feel the Force?"
"Yes, her servants are not Jedi. Their minds are walls, trained to resist tricks of the mind. Their discipline blinds them to the Force as well, even if they were Force Sensitive."
That she had this information made me nervous, and I looked hard at the old woman. "Kreia—how would you know about the minds of the women here? Have you been in their heads?"
The old woman's withered mouth quirked, and she spread her arms. "Invade the mind of another? It is not something done carelessly…or when there is nothing to be gained."
I folded my arms, unconvinced. "Let's talk about it on the way out of here," I said, finally.
"Very well, let us depart."
There was a groan, then, and I turned to see Atton on the other side of the room, on the floor of his cage. I gasped. "Bao-Dur was knocked out in the crash—nice to see you up again, by the way—but what the hell happened to Atton, Kreia? He's out cold!"
"He wasn't knocked out in the crash?" Bao-Dur asked.
I looked at him, wondering what had given him that idea. I pressed the lever to release the force cages and went over to kneel beside Atton. "No, and the handmaiden I talked to said he didn't give them any trouble, so…?"
I picked up his wrist, feeling for a pulse. It was there, strong enough.
"He is only sleeping," Kreia said smoothly. "It seems the journey here has fatigued him."
Something about her tone made me suspicious, and as I watched her, I saw Bao-Dur's eyes were narrowed, too. I just shook Atton, though. "Hey—get up, Atton. It's time to go."
He groaned again and started to sit up. Assured he'd be fine, I rose and went over to Bao-Dur. I clapped him on the back and looked at his bandage. It looked like the handmaidens had treated his injury well.
"I'm sorry I lost consciousness in the crash, General," he said.
"Don't worry about it. Nothing to be sorry for. We all have bad days now and then, right? Are you going to be okay?"
He smiled. "I'm fine, General," he assured me. "Even power has been restored to my arm. This place—we're beneath the polar mesa?"
"Yeah," I confirmed. "Atris—that Jedi Master we were talking about? She decided she'd set up a secret Jedi Academy down here in the old irrigation system."
"This must be where I had detected the energy readings before—and the drain to the restoration shields," Bao-Dur said. He sounded a little annoyed that Atris had been stealing from the Restoration Project. "This room—this place—the system's supposed to be planet wide, like the one on Coruscant. I had been told by the Republic that it was not in use."
"I don't think the Republic knows," I told him. "But on the bright side, the Sith don't know, either. Look, are you ready to go? They don't like me here."
"I am," Bao-Dur said. "General—I'd like to help you out, if I can. Go with you. If your ship is here, I can prepare it to leave."
I was a little surprised, but not displeased by the prospect. "I'd like that," I said after a moment. "Sure. I'm going to need all the help I can get in the next few months, I think. Yeah. The ship's here. Just north and east, or so I've been told. There ought to be a lot of Echani women supplying and fueling it. I'll see you there."
Bao-Dur saluted, not entirely in earnest, which made me feel a little better. "Very well, General," he said. I returned the salute, even more ironically, and waved, and Bao-Dur headed out the eastern door to the chamber.
Atton had just regained his feet, and I went back over to him, a little worried. He seemed to be uninjured, but he was acting like he'd been drugged, though the handmaiden I'd talked to had said all my companions were fine. Finally, though, his eyes focused on me. He smiled crookedly. "Ergh—hey, you're back with us. We were just on our way to rescue you from those ghost women, when…uh, we got locked up."
Before I'd talked to that handmaiden, I might have laughed at the implication that Atton and Kreia alone and unarmed could rescue me from six Echani warrior women, Kreia's strength in the force and Atton's handiness with a blaster notwithstanding. But the handmaiden had affirmed what I had once thought I was only imagining, and now the statement rang more true than a lot of things Atton Rand said.
"Yeah, jails seem to like you for some reason," I managed, forcing a smiled. "But hey, thanks. If I ever need you to rescue me with that Echani training I'll give you a call."
"Echani training?" Kreia repeated.
It took Atton almost two seconds to get it, which proved something really was wrong. But then he asked, "What?" His voice was very, very soft.
I swung the pack which I had been directed to by the handmaiden down off my shoulder and pretended to fiddle with its contents. "You dropped into an Echani combat stance when Atris' handmaidens met us at the entrance, took our weapons, and started to take me away. They saw you. I didn't, but I've seen it once before—in the Exchange suites on Citadel. Thought I'd imagined it. Guess I didn't. These women have spent their entire lives learning those forms." I paused, shrugged, as if it didn't matter. "It's weird, though. Only non-Echani I can think of that learn that stuff are special forces. Covert ops. Where'd you pick it up?"
As I'd spoken, Atton's eyes had started tracking again. With every word he'd listened more carefully. Now he smiled, then laughed. "The stance at the entrance? Don't tell anyone, but you wouldn't believe how many fights you can prevent just by pretending to know that stuff. I mean, it doesn't compare to wearing a lightsaber, but then again, look at what happened to yours." He laughed again, harshly. "C'mon, sweetheart. Special ops. Me?"
Atton didn't exhibit any of the usual liar's tells. He held my gaze without looking away. He wasn't shifting or twitching anywhere, and his entire body was relaxed. It was only the fear I could sense through the Force and the edge in his voice that was usually directed at the situation or whoever was trying to kill us, and not at me, that gave him away. I knew I had hit on something big. "You're a very good liar," I told him. "Really, well done. Kind of sad you've had all the practice to develop the skill. But you don't have to lie to me, you know that?"
Atton went rigid, his mouth razor thin, like it had been the first time I'd almost asked about him. His eyes darkened and he suddenly looked much taller and much more forbidding. "So what if I'm lying?" he demanded. "So what if I am, 'General'? I don't ask any dumb questions about your past, despite the fact that it keeps throwing us into life-threatening situations." He let that echo in the air for a moment, then added. "You want to know why? I figure if you ever want to tell me something, you will. So give me the same respect, all right?"
Before the handmaiden spoke, I'd done my best to ignore the less-than-savory aspects of Atton Rand's character. His sketchiness, his dislike for the Jedi, the times he sometimes seemed to almost enjoy violence, the times he looked at me like he was thinking how best to take me down. I'd figured if he had a knack for landing in trouble, he also had a knack for getting out again. He was handy with a blaster, had a decent sense of humor even if it was sometimes inappropriate, and I'd decided to trust him. But with the revelation of Atton's Echani training, his extreme reluctance to talk about it, it was beginning to look like Atton Rand might be genuinely dangerous, or that he had been. I realized how little I actually knew the man.
But his objections were solid enough. I threw my pack back over my shoulder. "You got it," I told him. "I don't want any dirty little secrets, though it seems you've figured out mine."
"Some secret," Atton snorted.
"Yes, well, I blew up a planet and thousands of people—Mandalorians and my own forces. No matter how much I'd like to forget it, that sort of thing tends to follow a person around. I don't like to talk about it, so it's not fair for me to ask you to talk about something you might not like to remember, either."
I went over to the storage cylinder in the corner of the room and drew out my companions' equipment. I handed Kreia her vibroblade and Atton his blaster and pack. "I know you're helping me, not hurting me," I said to Atton quietly. "So I won't push it. It would've been hard to put you in deep cover in a force cage in a dead facility destroyed by an HK-50 droid. And if you were an assassin, too, you would've killed me already. You've had plenty of opportunity."
Atton had been fuming, but the suggestion that he had had plenty of opportunity to kill me seemed to relax him. "Yeah, I have," he said firmly. Much of the anger had left his voice.
"So whatever you were-?" I shrugged. "It doesn't matter. I just figured if you do have any special combat training it could be a real asset."
Atton holstered his blaster, and smiled at last. "Well, hey, thanks," he said awkwardly. "But you've got the wrong guy. I can fly your ship. I'm good at shooting people, cracking wise, and pretending I know how to fight with my hands."
I didn't believe him. The wariness in his gaze told me that he knew I didn't believe him. But the conversation we'd just had indicated it wouldn't be a good idea to call him on it again. Given what I'd learned, I wasn't sure how far I should push the man. "Fine," I said. "You good to move on? You were a little out of it, before. I was worried."
Atton was surprised. His ears actually turned pink, and I shifted. It was hard to believe that I had such an effect on the man, disturbing. "Nah—don't worry about me," Atton said. "I'm fine. Uh…how're you? The woman here—Atris—Kreia said she was a Jedi? How'd things go with her? You all done?"
I started toward the eastern door. "The handmaidens are supplying the Hawk for us," I repeated. "At least, some of them are. I think some of them are guarding the mistress' chambers to make sure I don't upset her anymore."
"Wait—why're they supplying the Ebon Hawk?" Atton asked as he and Kreia fell in behind me.
"Because we—that is, I—have agreed to go on a galactic ex-Jedi hunt for Atris, in hopes of maybe figuring out some way of dealing with the Sith that are after both of us," I answered.
"And this is our path, then?" Kreia asked.
"Yours, mine, and apparently Bao-Dur's," I confirmed. I stopped then, and looked back at Atton. "Atton—we do have the ship back, though, and you only ever promised to help me that far. If you want, you can fly us to some port and we can find another pilot. Not Citadel, though. The Republic's probably still hanging around and I can't afford to be detained."
Suddenly a door slammed in my head. Emotions swirled around me. I felt command, anger, fear, in a maelstrom of feeling that swamped my still-developing connection to the Force. Without my link to Kreia open, I couldn't sense who was feeling what. I glanced from one to the other of them.
Atton's face had gone tight. "Nah," he said, laughing nervously. "Heh. I'm with you until things start getting better for you. We need to stick together, you know? And who knows? I might be able to help you out of a tight spot at some point."
It was the second time Atton had volunteered to stay against my expectations. The last time, however, on Citadel Station, he had sounded much more like he wanted to stay, for all that he'd given an estimated time of departure. Now he was promising to stay with me for an indefinite period, as long as I needed him, and his words were far more enthusiastic, but his tone was much less so. The fear—yes—it was coming off of him, like the winds of a storm. I did not, however, sense that it was directed toward our legions of pursuers.
Instinctively I looked at Kreia for an answer, some insight into the emotions I could feel coming from Atton, but my 'teacher' was looking away, and her mind was shut tighter than a crime lord's safe. A horrible suspicion curled in my stomach like a parasite, but I could not say what of, so I let it pass. "Are you sure?" I asked Atton. "You want to stay with me?"
"Yeah," Atton said. Then again, more positively, "Yeah. I'm with you." The tension around him lessened then, and for a moment I couldn't understand why. Then I realized that the wording of my second question was more personal, less conflict-directed and more implicit of the partnership that would result from a galactic ex-Jedi hunt together. I turned, cursing myself for an awkward idiot.
"Come on, then."
As we walked out though, I thought what the hell. I didn't know Atton's background or what I thought of him. His obvious attraction to me made me uncomfortable, to say the least. But he wasn't Kreia, semi-Sith and cryptic. He wasn't Bao-Dur, whom I couldn't even look at without remembering the war, for all I was sure I actually liked the Iridonian. Atton wasn't Jedi or Sith, and he wasn't connected at all with my past. So though I didn't know if I liked him, suspected he might have his own nasty past, I did like having him around, even if it was selfish, unfair, and even foolish of me. Strangely, though, at the same time that I thought that he could be an idiot and accompany me if he liked, Kreia's words of using my allies' dependence upon me echoed in my skull, and I felt the cold weight of responsibility for Atton Rand's fate settle in my stomach, and an apprehension of guilt for what he might run into on my behalf.
"Thanks," I muttered belatedly, wishing fervently for Atton to leave. His instincts were right on that it was stupid and dangerous to help me, and I couldn't give him what he wanted. It wasn't like the war, with my soldiers that served another cause. Atton Rand was staying with me for me, and if he got hurt…when he got hurt, it'd be my fault.
"Hey, don't mention it," Atton said, definitively not picking up on my depressed inner monologue. "So. If the ghost women are loading up the Ebon Hawk we can't leave yet, right? So what are we doing?"
He made a good point. We'd left the main irrigation chamber a while back and made our way into the atrium area that led off to the bridge, to the exit to the mesa, and to another hall I hadn't been down yet. Atris had this chamber fixed up like an Academy reception room, with some sort of white marble statue in the center. "Just walking. Probably be the last time we see something that isn't on board the ship for a while. I don't know where we're going…hey—"I stopped.
Behind the statue, an Echani woman was standing off to the side. She had the distinct attitude that she'd been caught hanging around when she wasn't supposed to be. I remembered from the wars when I had caught guards slacking. Further back I had often had the attitude myself when a Master had caught me daydreaming when I was supposed to be studying.
This handmaiden was the different one, the one the guard I had spoken to before had called 'the last of the handmaidens.' She had recovered from her embarrassment now, and she was staring at me with unabashed interest.
I walked over to her. "You are the Exile," she said. "The one Atris warned us about."
Her tone was curious, even cautiously friendly. Her sisters had ignored me, and when I'd talked to that other one, she had spoken with hauteur and contempt. "Yeah, and you're the handmaiden that keeps addressing me when all your sisters don't," I said. "The last of the handmaidens, I think they called you?"
The younger woman's face fell. "I am the last of the handmaidens, this is correct," she confirmed. "I train so that one day that will no longer be true."
"The others said you were easily distracted from that training?"
She really did look like a girl, compared to the others. She stepped back. "It dishonors me that they would say such a thing to an outsider. But I cannot deny the truth in what they say. My thoughts are not always focused on the training. Perhaps once having known the ways of the Jedi, you may understand what occupies my thoughts."
Behind me, I felt Kreia's interest sharpen. "What do you mean?" I asked the girl. "What do you think about, when you're distracted from your training?"
The last of the handmaidens looked up at the statue in the center of the room. "There is much knowledge here," she replied slowly, "And only one of the Jedi remains. There is so much about their ways of battle, their forms, their stances, that may be lost forever if the last of the Jedi is taken from the galaxy."
"I see."
She obviously didn't often get to speak her thoughts. The girl continued, "To the Echani, battle is the purest form of communication," she explained. "Stance, form, discipline are a means of expression and communication. They speak one's heart and one's devotion to their cause."
The girl might very well be right, I thought, but she spoke of what was communicated like it was a thing of beauty. "Devotion to the cause demonstrated through battle," I repeated flatly.
"Yes," the girl said, looking a little confused at my tone. "The methods you use to meet your opponent speak truer than any words can express. When you risk pain or death, there is no truer sacrifice or strength."
I was forcefully impressed both by the girl's insight and by her naïveté. "And what of slaughter?" I demanded. "What of that? Is that, too, a form of communication?"
The girl's spine straightened, and she met my gaze firmly. "It was to the Jedi traitor Malak. It was to the Jedi traitor Revan. When Taris was destroyed, it showed Malak's heart through its execution and intent. It was brutal, without finesse, but it showed his commitment to defeat the Jedi. Yet with Revan, there was the same commitment, but it was a subtle thing, like weaving threads in a tapestry, or strokes upon a canvas. She spoke through battle and tactics in a way that one could never do in words. She showed her heart at Malachor V, and finally at the end of the Jedi Civil War. I believe she was speaking to Malak in that final battle, though few knew it."
Aithne Morrigan's face had gone hard, like the statue in a Jedi Academy itself, and just as cold. "Is this really necessary?" she asked.
"Relating how I met this girl and the types of things she was thinking about? Yes," Darden answered. "The simple truth is that for almost twenty years, your actions have had an enormous impact not only on the galaxy, but on several individuals in it."
"That was a lifetime ago."
"Then why are you upset by it?" Darden asked.
Aithne shuddered. Her golden eyes flashed angrily. Her fists clenched and unclenched. "I can't get away from it," she muttered. "All the way out here, they're still talking."
"Yes, and they always will. What matters is how you deal. So deal," Darden challenged.
As the handmaiden spoke, Kreia's distaste got stronger and stronger in the back of my mind. But I just felt sad. "She killed him," I said bitterly. "No one was there to see it. So who knows what she said. We certainly can't ask her."
"Who'd want to?" Atton murmured. Aithne—I don't. Okay? Whatever went down on the Star Forge between you and Malak is your business. This is just how the conversation went. It's more important for what it says about the girl than what it says about the Jedi Civil War.
The handmaiden looked grave. "What stronger display than death for conveying one's sense of being betrayed by one's own student?" she asked. "Revan's anger must have been great indeed."
Kreia could keep silent no more. "To claim to know anything of Revan's choices or what lay in her heart when Malak fell is conceit, servant of Atris," she snapped. "And whether Revan had any choice in the matter at all is something else you should consider. The Force is a powerful thing to wield…or deny."
I glanced at the old woman. In her anger, she was revealing more of herself than perhaps she intended. The handmaiden answered her, "But to say that seems an untruth, based on what I know of the Jedi," she argued. "The Force can drive others, but there is still choice, is there not?"
"Ah, but at what point does the power the Force exerts submerge any attempt at choice, or free will?" Kreia rebutted. "You have taken a complicated question, servant of Atris, and you have trivialized it with your answer and lack of experience."
She had a point about the handmaiden's gross oversimplification, of course, but I disagreed with the basis upon which Kreia took exception to the girl's theories, and I couldn't help but feel vindicated when Atris' handmaiden replied, "If there is no choice in the Force, then our teachings and actions are for nothing, and I refuse to believe that is true."
Kreia looked about ready to make an acid retort, but I interrupted. "We could debate free will and destiny all day, but your mistress has given me a mission, has she not? Even now your sisters are supplying my ship. I don't think they like me very much. If Atris warned all of you about me, it might explain why. What did she say?"
The girl answered readily enough. "She said you betrayed the Jedi by going to war when it was forbidden to you. You turned on your masters, your teachings, and on yourself."
"Does she?" I asked, surprised. I had thought that Atris would have been too proud to tell her servants about her grudge, but it appeared that wasn't the case. Atris was angrier than I had thought, even.
"That is not all she says," the girl replied. "She says you know nothing of loyalty to any cause except your own animal instincts, and she told us why you fell to the Dark Side."
The injustice and slander angered me. "I didn't give into the Dark Side!" I cried. "I never did!"
The handmaiden watched my face carefully. "Atris says that you fell to the Dark Side in the Mandalorian Wars when you gave into your lust for battle," she replied simply. "Once you tasted war, you could not give it up."
Her emphasis caught me off guard. I paused. The tone of the handmaiden's recital was like she was searching for the truth, like she was not sure herself of the verity of Atris' statements. I changed tack, wondering if I could spare the child Atris' delusions. "Except I did give it up, didn't I?" I asked her. "Why didn't I fight against the Jedi in the Civil War, if I had fallen to the Dark Side and loved war so much?"
Kreia made an approving noise.
But the handmaiden had an answer for this, too. "Atris says when the Dark Lord Revan returned to the Republic, you did not march with them because you had fallen so far you could no longer feel the Force."
Kreia seemed to solidify behind me. As I breathed in, it felt like the breath would freeze my lungs. Because, of course, if Atris and the Council stripped me of the Force, why would Atris tell her servants I had fallen beyond feeling the Force? "I see," I said, very slowly. "And does Atris—has she told you anything else?"
"I believe that is the extent of her expressed feelings towards you," the girl replied quietly. "There are variations at times, but all rise from the same foundation."
I caught the implication. She was subtle, careful, but she was expressing doubt. "You see it, too, then," I said. "Or suspect that what Atris says is not what she feels."
The handmaiden shifted. I sensed her deep love for Atris, and the discomfort that her small doubts caused her. "It is difficult for others to truly speak their heart or listen to it," she said. "The words often prove difficult, or they do not come at all."
I decided I liked this last of the handmaidens. I liked her thoughtfulness, her seriousness, her ability to both doubt Atris' feelings and have compassion on them. And there was something else about her, too. Some radiance that seemed to hang in the air about her. If Kreia hadn't already said that the handmaidens couldn't feel the Force—but I remembered that she had also said that it was their discipline that desensitized them. Softly, I asked the girl, "What do you feel Atris' heart says of me, last of the handmaidens?"
The girl met my eyes. "Without having seen you and Atris fight, I cannot say," she answered. "Battle is a pure form of expression. It is heart and discipline, reduced to movement and motion."
"So if I fought Atris that might make the truth come out?"
"Perhaps," the handmaiden said cautiously. "It may prove truer than conversing with words. In battle, the words are swept away, giving way to actions—mercy, sacrifice, anger, fear. These are pure moments of expression.
I admired her philosophy, incomplete as it was. "You're very different from the others here," I told her. "Not just your appearance—your ideas, too."
She had been at her ease, but now the girl stiffened. "I honor the face of my mother," she explained. "It is not something spoken of in the company of others."
All at once I understood not only the Force Sensitivity I suspected the girl possessed, but also her sisters' coldness toward her. Possibly, even probably, the girl's ranking had nothing to do with her preoccupation with Jedi combat techniques. "I didn't mean to offend you," I said. "It's a good thing."
She relaxed again. "There is no need to apologize," she said. "You merely remarked on something you saw—there is no wrong in that."
The girl was certainly forward enough about her own observations, I thought. "Is it a sensitive subject?" I asked her.
"It is not a sensitive subject, but a subject that requires trust. There is no such trust between you and I, and such trust takes time."
I sighed, realizing that as we'd been talking the others had probably finished loading the Ebon Hawk. "Unfortunately time I don't have," I said, extending my hand. The girl took it, and we shook. "I really am sorry," I told her. "I'd like to get to know you better, I think. Thank you for talking with me."
The simple words elicited such a look of longing on the girl's sensitive face that I caught my breath. "Before you go, Exile…question for you, if I may ask," she said. "You have touched the Force. What does it feel like?"
I'd yet to drop her hand, and now I pressed it. As the sister I had talked with had explained, the handmaidens were forbidden by their vow to Atris to learn the ways of the Force, and with sisters that already disliked her, the question didn't bode well for this the youngest. "Are you sure you want to know?" I asked her quietly. "It's a difficult thing to describe, and I'm not sure it'll make things easier for you."
The girl clung to me, gripping my hand so tightly it began to go numb as the circulation cut off. "Please," she begged. "Tell me!"
I eased out of the girl's grip, and nodded reluctantly. "Close your eyes," I told her. "Imagine awakening, and hearing the heartbeat of the galaxy for the first time. Sensing the life, the energy all around you; the pulse of it all. The currents and patterns in everything, and if you follow them, out, out, they take you along, and you are part of them."
"The Force is like a cloud," Kreia said unexpectedly. "A mist that drifts from living creature to creature, set in motion by currents and eddies. It is the eye of the storm, the passions of all living things turned into energy, into a chorus. It is the rising swell at the end of life, the promise of new territories and new blood, the call of new mysteries in the dark."
As Kreia and I spoke, the girl's lips curved into a small smile. She opened her eyes. "I see. Thank you both. I appreciate you sharing your knowledge with me."
I felt guilty about it, however, sure it would get this child in trouble somehow. As I hitched my pack up on my shoulders and turned to go, I hesitated, and added, "Look—if you ever need anything—find me, okay? I'd love to answer any questions you might have about me or what happened, or maybe—maybe just get to know you. Your way. We could spar, or something. Get to know you, and let you get to know me."
The last of the handmaidens bowed, Echani-style, with her hands crossed over her breast. "It has been my honor, Exile."
She watched us as I led my companions out through the hallway we hadn't been down yet, toward the Ebon Hawk.
As we passed out of earshot, Atton spoke. "You'd talk with her, really? You don't talk to anyone."
"I'd talk to Bao-Dur," I objected. "He was there. And she's different. She just wants to understand."
Kreia snorted. "You crave acceptance, absolution. Have you learned nothing?"
"I have," I told her. "I needed to come here. I was right, Kreia. All those years ago, I was right. Atris was wrong, and she's still wrong, and pardon me if I don't want that girl to suffer for it."
"She is Atris' slave and happy to be so," Kreia said. "You are blind if you do not see it. You weaken yourself with compassion for one too naïve to understand one such as you in the least."
"Well, it won't last long, will it?" I snapped. "We're leaving, and she's staying, and ten to one we don't see her again for a long, long time. Maybe not ever, if the Sith or the Exchange get us."
Annoyed, I sped up and burst into the next room. I was greeted by a cacophony of whistling and chirping. I blinked and stopped. "Teethree?"
Darden finally paused in her tale. "Thank the Force," Aithne muttered. She sprang up, paced the room once, twice, three times. Her chestnut curls flew out wildly behind her with the violence of the motion, and her golden eyes glinted feverishly bright.
"Aithne…" Darden began, rising to her feet as well.
"Oh, she's a lie," Aithne snapped. "You and I both know she's every centimeter the lie the Council intended her to be, though she doesn't cover up anything anymore. She was real right up until the second I found out she wasn't, and she's felt faker every day since. No matter I've got no memory of it, when idiots and innocents speculate about the dark deeds and motivations of Darth Revan, they're talking about me, and I and my friends hear them talking about me."
"They can't understand, and they won't ever understand," Darden said calmly. "Only a Jedi can understand the true power of the pull of the Dark Side, and only a soldier, a commander, can understand the choices that are made in war. As for the choices you made after becoming Aithne—you are Aithne—she's not a lie, she's another truth—only you can say why you made them, and it's your business, and no one else's."
"Don't," Aithne said. "Just don't. I can't take anymore right now. I really can't."
Coming 5/15: Aithne Morrigan is emotionally involved in Darden Leona's story. But with no memory of this woman from her past, how can she know she's trustworthy?
And 5/19: Darden relates both how she found her plan, and how she began to suspect Kreia's.
I'm really excited about this next chapter. Up until now, the story has been more about Darden than Aithne, more focused on what she went through than how Aithne's responding to it. In the next chapter, we return to the present, and Aithne reemerges into prominence recognizably the woman we knew from EoLaD, six years of sadness and turmoil down the road.
Until then, May the Force be with you,
LMSharp