A/N: Sorry about the delay between posts, I'd wanted to post more while on vacation. But my grandfather's very sick so I've been up at my grandparents' a lot this week.
Anyway I'll try to post more, I'm about 10 chapters ahead of this now, so I've got a nice buffer. Wish I could queue chapters to post like I could on tumblr.
(Speaking of which, if you're interested in certain ... extracurricular activities ... I'll put the link to my tumblr writing page at the end of the chapter. My friends keep bugging me to write them, so ... yeah. Two so far, more coming later. Because they won't let me stop. I'll link to the individual pages at the end of their relevant chapters.)

20

Anna and Carth left the lodge with less answers than they'd had before. Juhani and Bastila had appeared with the group outside the lodge; Zaalbar had disappeared. "Where're Mission and Zaalbar?" Anna asked.

"The Hawk," Canderous answered. Juhani's arms were crossed across her chest, dutifully keeping Bastila between herself and the Mandalorian.

"She probably needed time after dealing with her brother," Carth added.

"I'll talk to her later." Anna turned back to the woman staring at her hopefully. "Here. I got him to take it high. Eight hundred credits."

"Eight hundred — that is more than enough for me to . . ." She took the proffered credits reverently. "You have saved my children's lives, stranger. Thank you."

"Go," Anna said. "Get off this rock. And good luck."

She quickly shoved the credits into her pouch. "For whatever it means, stranger, may the Force be with you." She scurried off into one of the residential districts.

"It's good to know we're still one of the good guys," Carth said quietly.

"As long as we don't need those credits later." Canderous' voice was gruffer than usual. Anna glared at him.

"Only a hundred out of pocket. I convinced Fazza to sell high. Juhani, Bastila, you've been deeper in Anchorhead than we have. You know where the droid shop is?"

Juhani nodded. "Yes. It is towards the main gate, past the cantina. Why?"

"I may have a lead on a droid that speaks Sand People." She paused. "Sand Person? No, that doesn't . . . Either way, I need to investigate this. Who's coming?"

"We're being watched," Canderous said, garnering a nod from Bastila and Juhani. "Started right before you went into the lodge."

Anna nodded. "Stay close, then." They headed forward towards the Cantina. "How's your mom?"

Bastila glanced at her and swallowed. "She is supposedly ill. My father is dead. He was killed by a krayt dragon out on the dunes. She asked me to retrieve his holocron."

"Sore spot?"

"Of sorts." She adjusted the top of her robe. "I have put it behind me."

"Yeah. Sure you have. You going to get it for her?"

"I do not know. Mother is a selfish woman who pushed him into doing what she wished. I have doubts about whether or not she is even ill. She does not deserve his holocron. His private thoughts . . ." Bastila shook her head.

"So you'd keep it."

"I said I do not know." She sighed. "I would have thought my training would have helped with this."

Anna didn't answer, and Bastila instead found her arm suddenly slamming into her stomach and stopping her. Ahead of them stood three masked men wearing dark black robes. Thankfully the street was mostly deserted, it being midday and many off working in the mines.

"And there they are." There was a click as Canderous pulled his blaster off his back. Anna's lightsabers were already, unignited, in hand.

"Lord Malak was displeased when he'd learned you'd escaped Taris alive," the central one, obviously the leader, said.

"Let me guess. You're here to remedy that," Anna retorted.

"Kill them."

Anna flung her on-hand lightsaber at the central Sith, overhand, the switch engaging mid-flight. He dodged it and it boomeranged back as Bastila and Juhani disappeared from either side of them, Juhani flying the several feet it took to engage the left Sith and Bastila sprinting to the right. Anna held her ground, forcing the last to come forward to her.

Canderous and Carth had opened fire, Carth trying to shoot out the one in front of Anna and Canderous aiming for whichever offered the best target at the time. Juhani's went down first, one edge of her double-bladed lightsaber finding an opening between his neck and shoulder and cleanly severing the left half of his torso from the rest of his body. Bastila's was next, falling de-handed and beheaded seconds after the first. Anna had apparently been toying with hers, sending him down in a matter of seconds. There was a brief period of silence as the three Jedi stood with lightsabers still ignited as the few miners and citizens around them gaped, and Anna finally straightened up and shut hers off. "Well," she said matter-of-factly. "That's that."

"How did we not sense this?" Bastila asked, kneeling down to check the apparent leader's pockets. "They must have some information on us, or they would have not known who we were."

"Are there any more?" Carth asked. Anna shrugged.

"We'll find out, I suppose." She clipped her lightsabers back on her belt. "Come on. We still have to check out this droid."

Anna started towards the large gate just ahead of them as civilians began to mill back around the site, and the others followed. Bastila found a datapad in the Sith leader's pocket and quickly flicked it on before pocketing it with a quiet gasp.

The Jedi needed to know about this.

She quickly caught back up to them as Anna pushed open the door to the droid shop, startling another Ithorian wearing a tool belt and working on what looked like a moisture generator.

"What is this?" He barked, almost immediately. "A customer I don't recognize? Perhaps you bring off-world money to Yuka Laka?"

"Depends," Anna said, her eyes immediately drawn to what looked like a red protocol droid in the corner. She had little doubt that it was what they were here for — but at the same time it gave her the strangest sense of deja vu, which she promptly dismissed as the fact that it looked like other protocol droids and she was just on edge because of the assassins.

"You are lucky to have come at this time," Yuka Laka continued. "I have one droid ready to go. I just took possession of it — an HK-47 model."

"Never heard of it," Carth said quietly. Anna nodded.

"It must be a rare line," Bastila replied. "Have you?"

Anna nodded, but didn't speak. She knew what the HK stood for, and it wasn't going to lower the price if the Ithorian knew.

"It's a fine protocol translator. I think it's been modified. It claims to understand the Sand People dialect and possesses armor mounts. Combat ready, perhaps? It has some strange quirks, but you can leave it alone if you find its mannerisms amusing. It may be eccentric, but it is stable."

"What price are you thinking for it?"

"It is a very solid machine. I can't let it go for less than 5000 credits."

"That's a rip off. We don't have time for this."

"Shush, Mandalorian."

"Back it off, princess, I—"

"Both of you," Anna said irritably before turning back to Yuka Laka. "Is there any way we can go lower?"

"4000!" Yuka Laka barked immediately. "No less!"

She raised a brow. "You seem eager to sell."

"Ah, no, not really. The first figure was a little high. You never know, the occasional person bites immediately."

Anna sighed. "4000 is still steep. Can we push it lower?"

"Lower?" Yuka Laka sounded legitimately offended. "How low are you expecting me to go? These are hard times, and the droid covered a large debt."

Anna flexed her hand. She didn't think she going to get him to drop the price without using the Force, and she had a feeling that would go over wonderfully with Bastila and Juhani. "Look," she said sweetly. "Drop it a little lower, and I'll make sure to tell everyone who asks about where I got this droid. Everyone. You want more off-world money? I'm your best bet."

Yuka Laka seemed to think, then nodded its hammerhead. "2500, but that cuts me deep." Sure it does, Anna thought.

She sighed. "I'll give you a thousand as a reserve now, and be back tomorrow with the rest." Yuka Laka seemed skeptical until he withdrew the credits from the Hawk account. "Now, the Mandalorian behind me with the large gun? He's itching to kill something. So if that droid is gone when I come back . . ."

"I understand, human. I will see you tomorrow. Promptly. With the last fifteen-hundred credits."

"Yeah." Anna turned on her heel and stalked out.

"Twenty-five hundred credits?" Bastila snapped, as soon as the door had closed. The others looked as skeptical as she was. Anna stalked back towards the docking bay. The suns were beginning to set, and she was not looking forward to being outside on Tatooine after dark. The locals seemed to share her opinion, and were retreating indoors. "What are you doing, Anna? This is out of our reach, it —"

Anna spun on her heel, making Bastila stop inches from her. "It's that or a bloodbath. We either get that droid, or we slaughter an entire village of Sand People tomorrow and somehow managed to sleep tomorrow night."

"We don't have fifteen-hundred more credits," Carth said. "You know that."

"I may have a solution," Juhani said, interrupting Bastila's beginning tirade. "The people in the cantina were speaking of a large swoop race tomorrow morning."

"How big is the purse?" Anna asked.

"Two thousand."

"We're in business." She sighed. "Looks like I'm working on that swoop tonight. Come on."

They hurried through Anchorhead. "You seem eager to get your hands on this droid," Canderous commented.

"None of you know what an HK model is, do you?" Anna asked. They shook their heads. "Hunter-Killer. It's an assassin droid. That means it most likely does know the dialect we want. It's rarer than a legitimate translator droid. I never thought I'd see one in person, let alone have the option of buying one."

"Assassin droids are illegal," Bastila chided.

"And this is how much I care," Anna retorted. "It'll be damn useful, and that is that. It's my ass on the swoop tomorrow so if that doesn't work we'll slaughter Sand People and smile while doing it. How does that sound?"

They reached the end of the walk and opened the bay door to the Hawk. Anna jerked to a halt as a dockworker suddenly blocked her way. "Hello, captain. This is your ship, yes?"

"Uh . . ." She glanced back at the others. "Yes. Yes, this is my ship."

"We've stocked your ship, as requested. There were no hitches in the delivery."

"Good. Good. Um . . . What delivery, exactly, was this?"

He gave her a skeptical look before checking his datapad. "This is docking bay 32, isn't it? Yes, it is, and that's what I have on the requisitions form. Everything is in order. The gizka are your problem now."

"The WHAT?" The question didn't come from anyone they expected, but from Canderous.

"It says right here on the manifest that you ordered a crate of gizka. To be delivered to docking bay 32. That's right here. Now, all I need is your thumbprint for the . . . Wait, where did that datapad go?" He sighed. "At any rate, the gizka are yours. One of the loaders said the crate split open once he put it in your hold . . . Some of them might have gotten loose."

Canderous muttered an extremely long and vulgar swear in Mando'a.

"That happens, I'm afraid. We don't accept liability . . . And we certainly couldn't take the cargo back. Enjoy."

He stalked off, and they sprinted towards the Hawk just in case the damage could be remedied. Mission and Zaalbar met them at the ramp.

"I told them that we didn't order them!" Mission said hurriedly. "They ignored me and put them on anyway and they're everywhere now! It isn't my fault, I swear!"

Anna was suddenly very glad that no one else spoke the same language as Canderous.

#

"Hey."

Carth looked up from the console. "How's the gizka problem?"

Anna sighed. "I bought the poison from the stand outside our bay. I unfortunately do not appear to have the wherewithal to commit the act. Looks like we've got some pet gizka."

"Let Canderous do it."

"And then we have to cart a bunch of dead gizka off the ship." She shook her head as she sank down into the copilot's seat. "Am I crazy? For insisting that we get this droid?"

Carth shook his head. "No. I don't think anyone except for Canderous would support killing an entire village of Sand People — and we wouldn't get any information from them anyway that way. We need to find the Map and they're our best bet."

"I think I just needed someone to say that." She tucked her knees up to her chest. "The swoop's ready to go."

"Good."

"You and Bastila got into it nicely at dinner."

Carth sighed. "We had a disagreement. I'm not surprised she took the Jedi's side." He glanced at her. "What's your opinion?"

"My opinion is that the Mandalorian Wars have been replaced by the Sith and therefore we should stop living in the past," she replied shortly.

"Fair enough."

"Found a weird stowaway in the cargo hold," Anna said, changing the subject. "She's in Mission's care now. She speaks a weird form of Mando'a. Took me a while to figure it out."

"Mission'll take good care of her."

"She's trying to get me to take her to the Sand People village with her." Anna rested her chin on her knees. "I don't want to. Just in case."

"I'm sure she'll stay around when you explain it. If not, Zaalbar's not looking to leave."

"You can keep her here."

Carth stared at her while the words sank in. "How am I —"

"I'm keeping it small. Bastila, Canderous, myself, and the droid. That's it. No more."

"Anna, you're going to need all the help you can get if things —"

"No, Carth. I'm not taking more. If the party's any larger they'll suspect something. That should be enough to keep suspicions down but let us fight our way out if need be."

"It's suicide! Even if this droid can fire a blaster it —"

"Carth, that's final."

"So suddenly you're in charge? I—"

"No one's argued about it so far! Everyone keeps letting me make the decisions so unless you want to step up I—"

"Maybe I should! Maybe —"

"Well if you didn't keep complaining about being in the loop and — besides, this is a Jedi mission and I certainly don't want Bastila in charge!"

"At least she doesn't make decisions for —"

"I've been making decisions for everyone since Taris! Or have you forgotten those three weeks we spent on that gods-forsaken planet?"

"I never said I'd forgotten about it! I—"

Anna pushed herself to her feet, silencing the argument. "Good night, Commander. I need to speak to Bastila."

"Yeah. Probably a good idea."

"I didn't think you'd care." Anna strode back into the ship proper, leaving Carth nudging a few stray gizka out of the way while cursing — again — under his breath.

As usual she found Bastila meditating inside the women's dorm, which was currently empty. She opened her eyes as Anna closed the door behind her. "You remembered that I needed to speak with you."

"Yeah. I figured it was either that or get nagged into an early grave." Bastila pursed her lips. "Don't give me that." Anna leaned up against the wall. "What do you need?"

"I know that this is strange to speak about, with my problems with my mother, but . . ." The door admitted Juhani, an act that did not seem to stop Bastila's discourse. "I do. I have been watching you. Studying you closely to see what kind of progress you have made since your training at the hands of Master Zhar."

"I didn't know if that was you or Carth," Anna retorted dryly. "So how'm I doing?"

"So far I have seen how you have resisted the Dark Side's lure. I know you are aware that the droid could have been purchased today had you resorted to the Force." A subtle nod was Anna's answer. "You need to see what the dangers are in their entirety, for that is what we battle. Only a Master has the ability to truly explain this, but I will do my best."

Anna sighed. "Look. I fled Taris as it fell around us, and I felt every bomb drop like it was hitting me. I've seen evil, Bastila. I don't need lectures on what it is."

"But what we Jedi face is much more," Bastila said sharply. "It is not just giving into anger or temptation — it grows stronger and more insidious the closer you draw. It begs you to commit small acts, then atrocities, demanding more the more you give. And once you resist, it is too late. It twists you up inside and turns you into a mockery of what you once stood for."

Anna raised an eyebrow. "You seem an expert on the subject."

"She is right," Juhani added.

"I never said she wasn't."

"I am no more resilient than any other," Bastila replied. "I simply have the benefit of training you lack. We need only to examine the atrocities the Sith have committed to understand the dark side's terrible pervasiveness. They commit such things gladly because of its power."

"Fortunately I can't see myself ever doing what Malak has done," Anna answered.

"And that is the problem. You will not until you have fallen too far under its sway."

"Bastila, I have not seen any indication of the dark side in Anna," Juhani interjected. "She falls short, as do we all, but she is honest about it."

"And it is easy to think that we would never fall prey to such horror. You know that yourself, Juhani." She nodded. "If only we had the unlimited control, vigilance and foresight we claim to possess. The Sith have only become so powerful because so many Jedi have succumbed to their seduction. They realize that there is no greater weapon than to turn an enemy to your own cause, and use your enemy's own knowledge against them. We are weakened while they are strengthened. And that is why we must fight the dark side, even when the battle becomes wearying."

"I almost think you wrote that out," Anna said. "Did you write it beforehand? Because that was a stunning piece of literature."

"Anna, this is serious! I—"

"Calm down." Anna held up her hands. "I'm only joking. As usual."

Bastila made a noise of frustration.

"And I want you to come clean with us. About your family." Anna crossed her arms. "Now that your mother's crawled out of the woodwork and you've looked shell-shocked half the day."

"We only wish to help you, Bastila. You speak of the dark side with familiarity and the problems you have with your mother will only hurt your own attempt to stay strong."

Bastila sighed.

"I have not spoken to my family since I was taken into the Order, as is customary. I missed my father terribly for a very long time. Relationships with family members are fraught with powerful emotions and therefore discouraged."

"I doubt that's universal."

"No. There are some who even take husbands or wives and enjoy the relationships they have. But that is usually not the case." She glared at Anna pointedly.

"Me and Carth?" She scoffed. "Not in this universe. We wouldn't be able to stop fighting long enough."

"Be that as it may, you should keep that in mind," Bastila said with a little more harshness than was merited. "And once I was older I realized the wisdom of this policy. Love only obscures and confuses the matter, and impedes the sacrifices we must make."

"But even a Jedi cannot control the feelings of the heart," Juhani said.

"No. We must do our best to guard against it but some sacrifices are harder than others."

"You loved your father," Anna said frankly. Bastila nodded.

"We were very close. But I am sure you've realized that I was on poor terms with my mother. Even as a little girl I was old enough to resent the way she treated my father. She pushed him into treasure hunting — I spent all my life before the Jedi on ships traveling from one hunt to the next. She whittled away his entire fortune on these fool ventures, and I hated her for it. I think she was relieved to give me to the Jedi, but my father was heartbroken."

"I'm sure you didn't have the whole picture," Anna interrupted. "We rarely do as kids. And now you regret that you never spoke to your father again."

"No! I . . ." She sighed. "Perhaps a little. But those feelings are dangerous, and —"

"Bantha crap. Feelings make us human. Anything else and we'd be like Canderous." Anna jerked her head back at the garage.

"And you know so well, don't you? The Force comes with a high cost, and I—"

"And I wouldn't give up my relationship with Mission or Carth for the Force." Anna scoffed. "The Force might use us, but we use it right back. It's a symbiotic relationship and I'm sure that having a few attachments isn't enough to send you to Force Hell or wherever Sith go."

"I would not be so flippant about it," Bastila retorted. "That is dangerously close to a Sith viewpoint."

"Let me get my planet-destroying lasers then," Anna replied sardonically. "Look, there's a difference between being evil and actually having a reason to live."

"It is still a viewpoint—"

"So? I never wanted this. I was forced into being a Jedi by the damn Council and, don't worry, I'll do my job. There's enough suffering in this universe as it is and I don't have to add to it, so that should pretty solidly make me a decent person. And when this is over I'll leave, the Jedi never have to see me again, and I'll live out the quiet life I'd like to have somewhere away from you all. Now if you don't mind, I have a swoop to go over."

Anna turned on her heel and strode out of the dorm, stopping only to poke her head back in. "Also, you should find out why your mother wants your father's holocron. I'm sure you only have part of the story and it would behoove you to find out the rest before making a decision."

As the door closed, Juhani looked at Bastila. "I have been there, Bastila. I do not believe she is at risk."

Bastila stared at the door after the retreating smuggler-turned-Jedi. "No, Juhani," she said quietly. "That is not what worries me." She stood. "I must speak to the Council."

Juhani stood. "Bastila, this is not —"

"It is not about our conversation." Bastila left, more quickly than merited, and Juhani sank back onto her bunk.

A/N: Woo review replies!:

REB-ART: WOOHOO! As you can see I'm not going through the Bastila's Mom quest in person, but the behind-the-scenes stuff is what I'm going for. I'm thinking you'll like where it's headed. :D And they really did limit all the light-side responses. I just know that if I had a bunch of people suddenly telling me what to do I wouldn't be deferential to them in the least.

Ash Veran: Oh yes, yes he does.

MK: You've really got a point. This is a messed up crew. I may have to write a crackfic with a group therapy session now ... Wow. I haven't written a crackfic in years.