Chapter 21: Beginning
Things soon settled into a routine on the Ebon Hawk, now registered as the Skydancer, as they traveled towards the Outer Rim. Carth would start Dustil on flying lessons first thing in the 'morning'. Revan took over after they finished with weapons practice in the cargo hold. Then they would all sit down at the holo table to study the OFI mission briefings during the meal hour.
After the meal, Revan would teach Dustil memorization techniques, Jedi lore and simple exercises in learning how to control the Force. Though he knew how to use the Force already, it was all based on manipulating it through negative emotions. Accomplishing the same thing with a calm mind was much harder.
He got a short break, and then it was back to Carth to learn astrogation, hyperspace mathematics and the more technical details of piloting a ship.
Dustil had thought life in the Sith Academy was hard. Now he realized he had had it easy, as he was shuttled between Carth and Revan in their desire to further his education.
It was on one such day that Dustil wobbled to the cockpit and collapsed into the co-pilot's chair.
Carth looked over at his son, who had sat down with a pained grunt. "Rough session today?"
Dustil nodded. "Revan practically beat me black and blue. She'd give me a whack every time she saw my eyes shift when I was about to make a move. I think she's getting her revenge on me for trying to kill her." He rubbed his arms.
Carth smiled sympathetically. "Better that you learn your lessons in practice rather than in real life, right?"
"I wish they didn't have to be so painful, though," Dustil said sheepishly.
"If she had really wanted to get revenge on you, she wouldn't need to do anything so physical. She'd just give you this, this look, and maybe say a few words that'd make you feel like the biggest core-slime in the galaxy," Carth said.
Dustil raised an eyebrow at his father, pausing in the act of rubbing his bruises. "Sounds like you speak from experience."
Carth laughed ruefully and rubbed the back of his neck. "I do."
"Um, I don't suppose you'd tell me how you met her? You said you didn't know who she really was, so I guess she didn't call herself Revan then," Dustil said.
"I would hope you don't think your old man's that clueless, son," Carth said, a smile quirking his lips.
"No, that's not what I meant..." Dustil said, shaking his head.
Carth grinned. "I know, I was just twitting you there." He sat back in his seat and thought back to that time. It seemed so long ago, it felt like another lifetime. For Revan, it had been another lifetime. It was strange, but he couldn't think of Revan with her old name, anymore.
He must've been silent too long, because Dustil prompted him, a little impatiently. "Father?"
"She was a last-minute addition to the crew roster; Bastila had specifically requested that she be transferred aboard... I'd seen her a few times on the Endar Spire, but always from a distance, though. Bastila always had her around in her entourage. Now I know why..." Carth looked at his memories, and saw just how many coincidences there were. He shook his head.
"So Bastila knew who she really was?" Dustil asked.
"Yes. She knew the whole time and didn't tell us, any of us," Carth said. He still felt angry at that, but... it had turned out well, in the end. He said as much to Dustil. "Anyway, we arrived at Taris, straight into an ambush led by the Leviathan. We were completely surprised and outgunned."
Dustil looked pale. "You mean you really were almost blown up on a ship...?"
Carth nodded. "It was very close. The Sith had boarded on several decks, overwhelming us. I convinced Bastila to get to the escape pods and sent out the 'all hands' command, before getting to the pods myself. One of the soldiers helped Revan get to the starboard section, and from there I tracked her on the life support systems. She was the only one left by then.
"She took care of a few Sith all by herself, and repaired a combat droid to take out the group pinning me at the pods. I had waited for her, and I pretty much shoved her in and closed the door behind us. Another minute and we would've been blown up with the Spire." Carth still woke up some nights in a cold sweat, thinking about that extremely narrow escape.
"Our pod crashed into the Upper City of Taris, luckily. Or maybe it was the Force... Anyway, she was hurt pretty seriously. We'd been in such a hurry, she hadn't been strapped in properly. I was alright, so I carried her to a nearby abandoned apartment."
Carth watched the slight woman toss and turn. It had been two days, and she still hadn't woken up. He feared that she might never wake... He turned away, shoulders slumping in defeat, only to turn back at the cessation of noise.
Her eyes were open!
"Good to see you up, instead of thrashing around in your sleep," he said, starting towards her. The woman flipped off the bed and tumbled away from him in a flash. He blinked and found that he had dropped his hands to his blasters automatically at the flicker of movement.
The woman was looking wildly around her, her arms raised to strike and her legs bent in a defensive crouch. She kept him always in her field of vision, he noticed.
"Hey, take it easy." He moved his hands slowly away from his blasters. She relaxed a little. "I'm Carth. I was with you in the escape pod, do you remember?"
The woman moved her lips silently. "Uh... Carth. The one on the communicator, yeah." She put a hand to her temple. "Oh, well, at least I've got all my clothes on this time," she muttered.
Carth raised an eyebrow. "I'm glad to see you're lucid. I was afraid you'd never wake up, after two days of restless sleep, and what looked like real bad nightmares."
She saw her vibroblades nearby and snatched them up. She relaxed some more, now that she was armed, and he hadn't made any hostile moves. "How did I get here?"
"Our escape pod crashed into the Upper City. You were badly injured, but luckily I wasn't, so I carried you here, to this abandoned apartment. By the time the Sith arrived on the scene, we were long gone," he said.
Her eyebrows flew up. She bowed deeply to him. "I guess I owe you my life. Thank you."
Carth waved away her thanks. That's a rather odd gesture. Strangely formal. Still, the Republic has all sorts. "You don't have to thank me. I've never abandoned anyone on a mission, and I'm not about to start now." He sat down, silently inviting her to do the same.
"Um, this'll sound like a really stupid question, but... I wasn't drunk, was I?" she asked him anxiously.
Carth looked at her, slightly bewildered by her question. "No, not that I could see. You had just fought your way from crew quarters to the bridge to the escape pods, on the Endar Spire. I don't think a drunk could've done all that."
"Well, thank goodness for small mercies," she muttered. She ran a hand through her hair. "Wait... I, I think I remember someone else... Trask?" She looked around, as if he were hiding behind the sparse furnishings, and would pop up any second.
Carth's face turned grim and angry. "He didn't make it." She sat down abruptly on a worn chair. He saw that all the blood had drained from her face.
She touched her temple again, as if she were trying to adjust the reception on a holo broadcast. "I... remember. He, he shoved me away and took on some Dark Jedi. Told me to get to the escape pods."
"He was a good soldier. We lost the ship and a lot of good people... and for what? On the hope that Jedi powers would save us, somehow." He paced, as anger, frustration and helplessness warred in his heart and on his face.
"All...? The whole ship? But there must've been hundreds..." She looked at him with a horrified expression on her face.
Carth said nothing, but nodded. He saw that she looked sick to her stomach. And well she should. He felt the same way, when he let himself think about it.
After a few moments of silence, she spoke. "Um, Carth?"
He turned to her. "Yes?"
"Where are we?"
"Taris." He pointed to her datapad, where he had left it on the workbench. She took it up and started skimming rapidly through it.
"I've already entered all of this into your pad, but..." He gave her all of the meager information he had gathered on Taris.
She touched the fingers on one hand, each in turn, to her thumb, brow wrinkled with thought.
"The Sith won't care about a couple of grunts like us, so we should be able to find Bastila without drawing too much attention to ourselves, as long as we don't do anything stupid," Carth finished.
"Er... Bastila?" she asked.
Carth looked up at her, surprised. She looked blank. "That smack to your head must've done more damage than I thought." She frowned at him.
He told her about Bastila, watching her face carefully as he told her about how she and the Jedi had commandeered the Endar Spire, and his own role as an advisor for the mission. She wasn't showing any signs of recognition. Damn. Still, it's not really that important right now.
He sat back down. "I saw on your service records that you understand a remarkable number of alien languages. That's pretty rare in a raw recruit, but it should come in handy while we're stranded on a foreign world."
She slipped gracefully to her feet. Carth was hard put to reconcile this agile woman with the near corpse he'd carried out of the escape pod and watched over for two days.
She took out a vibration cell and installed it into her vibroblade with deft, clever fingers, as she listened to him speak. Carth was impressed. Not many could tinker with an edged weapon so easily and quickly.
"Well, we won't find this Jedi chick sitting on our asses. Let's go scout around," she said, as she made a few experimental passes in the air with the blade.
He nodded. She wasn't the lazy sort, at least. "Good idea. We can use this place as our base. Let's move out."
They stepped out the doors and straight into trouble.
They watched in angry disbelief as an unarmed Duros was gunned down right before their eyes. Then the Sith turned and saw them. Revan wasn't given a chance to talk when the Sith called them Republic fugitives and tried to repeat what he'd done to the Duros on them.
Revan and Carth didn't prove to be such easy targets, though.
Revan ran towards the Sith, blades at her sides, ignoring the two droids, trusting in Carth to take care of them. She dodged the Sith's blaster fire easily and slid on the floor, straight in under his guard. She bent and hooked her right knee around his ankle, yanking him off his feet. He sprawled untidily onto the floor, his arms thrown wide.
The last thing he ever saw was the descending tip of her vibroblade as it entered his eye, straight into his brain.
She rose and gabbled with the Duros in his own tongue. He thanked her and assured them he would dispose of the bodies. She saw that Carth had blown the droids to pieces with an ion blaster.
Carth helped her gather up the Sith's belongings. "Nice moves you showed back there."
"I'd rather have avoided it altogether, but we didn't have a choice." She grimaced and wiped her blade on the Sith's uniform. "What a warm welcome."
Carth sighed. "We can only expect more of the same."
"So what happened on Taris?" Dustil asked.
Carth grimaced. "Better to say what didn't happen on Taris. It was one damn thing after another. Still, we did a lot of good things... not that it mattered much in the end. We had landed in the affluent part of Taris, the Upper City.
"We had to find Bastila, and all of our leads pointed to the Lower and Under City, where people were poorer and life was a lot rougher. But the Sith had put a guard on the elevator that went down there, and non-Sith weren't allowed. So we had to get our hands on some uniforms."
"So what's a pretty lady like you doing in a dump like this?" Yun Genda, a Sith junior officer, asked Revan. He slid closer to her.
They were in the Upper City cantina, scouting out more leads on where to find Bastila. So far, all of their sources said that the rest of the escape pods had crashed into the Undercity. Unfortunately, the elevator was guarded by Sith.
Revan half-lidded her eyes and leaned closer to him. "Oh, I'm a musician. Thought I'd check out the cantina, see if I could do any gigs here."
"A musician, huh? You must've gotten stranded on Taris, too, like the rest of the offworlders. I'm a little surprised you decided to talk to me, what with the quarantine we imposed and all." Encouraged, he slipped his arm around her. "This place is the pits, and everyone looks at us like we're plague carriers."
Carth nearly gagged into his drink as he watched Revan cozy up to the Sith scum. And now she was leaning into his arm! He tried to wash out the bad taste in his mouth with the local rotgut.
He didn't know why he was so bothered by it. They both knew it was their best chance to get some Sith uniforms, to get past the slack guard at the elevator, but... He really didn't want to watch her use her 'feminine wiles' on the Sith, but someone needed to watch her back. Although with the way she could fight, she probably didn't need it.
"It's all in your attitude," Revan was saying.
"Exactly! You know, we could use a little cheering up back at the base. Maybe we could have you play for us," Yun said, layering meanings into his words.
Revan swept her lashes down. "I could always help raise morale for you poor troopers..." She gave Yun a lazy smile, and ran a nail lightly along his arm.
Yun grinned. He started to rub his hand on her arm. "You know, we've got a small party planned after our shifts are over back at my apartment. If you like, you could come on over. Here, I'll mark the location on your datapad." He tapped the location into the datapad she held out to him. "I have to go now. See you at the party!"
Revan kept the smile on her face until she was sure that he had left. Then it transformed into a disgusted snarl. "Young puppy." She swept up Carth's glass from his hand and downed it in one gulp.
"Hey, that was my drink!" Carth protested. He frowned at her.
"I needed it more than you did. You weren't the one getting pawed. Besides, it's your own fault for not being a gentleman and buying me one." She slapped the glass more forcefully than necessary back onto the bar.
"It didn't look like you were too upset with the attention," Carth said sourly. He waved at the bartender to settle his tab.
"Ugh. I'm old enough to be his mother. I like my men to be a little more mature," Revan said. Carth shot her a look, but she wasn't looking at him. She poked him in the ribs. "Come on, time's awasting."
Dustil grinned. "I bet you didn't like that one bit."
Carth chuckled. "No, I didn't. If anyone was going to be pawing her, it'd be--uh, anyway..." He coughed. "We still had to get to that damned party. Fortunately, the Sith didn't know how strong Tarisian ale was..."
Revan and Carth looked around, bemused, at all the collapsed bodies of the Sith party goers, lying around like corpses on a battlefield.
"And I thought I was bad at handling my liquor," Revan commented as she rummaged through packs.
"Tarisian ale's got a kick like a rancor. It can sneak up on you and hit you on the back of the head if you're not careful," Carth replied as he searched through the footlocker.
"Speaking from experience, eh?" She held up a set of gleaming, silver armor. "Ah-hah!"
Carth looked up from his search at her triumphant cry. "Only one?"
"'fraid so. Better than nothing, though." She stuffed it into her own pack. She looked around thoughtfully, and started gathering up unopened bottles of ale.
"Planning on a binge?" Carth asked as he watched her move around the room.
"They could come in handy. We could always sell'em for a few credits, if nothing else. Or we could make some nice firebombs out of them." She peered at an opened bottle. It had barely been emptied, so she stuffed it into the pack, too.
"We're making good progress," Carth observed. He was surprised at how much they had gotten accomplished, in just a few days. He didn't think he could have gotten so far, so fast, by himself. He could've done without her persistent questions, though.
"We make a good team, hey?" She grinned at him. He couldn't help grinning back. She hefted her pack, the contents clinking and sloshing. "Onward and downward."
Carth shook his head. "I know I wouldn't have been able to get so much done in so little time, without her help. We got past the elevator guard with no trouble, but then we reached the Lower City." His nose wrinkled. "And our troubles only just began."
Revan nodded at the Sith guarding the elevator. "Another patrol going into the Lower City, huh? Good luck, and watch out for the swoop gangs. They're mad enough to attack even us," the guard said as he opened the elevator for them. He ignored Carth, probably figuring him for a hireling.
She saluted him and stepped into the elevator, Carth following on her heels.
As soon as the doors closed, she fumbled at the armor's straps. "Quick, help me get this thing off. I really don't want to wander around a gang war with 'please shoot me' clothes on."
Carth helped her worm out of the armor. "Good idea. The swoop gangs might not bother us if we don't provoke them."
Revan gave him a disbelieving look. "You're kidding, right? Anything and everything goes in a gang war. Nobody's safe, especially not outsiders." She slipped her vibroblades out of their scabbards, holding them loosely in her hands.
"Been in a gang war?" Carth asked as he loosened his pistols in their holsters.
"No, fortunately. But I've seen the carnage that gets left behind when all the dust is settled." Revan's features twisted. "Not a pretty sight."
The elevator doors opened. Carth gagged at the stench of garbage, urine, feces and worse things that rolled over them. Revan paled a little, and her nostrils were pinched, but she showed no other reaction.
"Try breathing through your mouth for a moment while your nose gets used to the smell," Revan suggested. "I've been in worse places. Granted, not too many worse. This is near the top of the list. Or maybe the bottom."
Carth took her advice, breathing shallowly through his mouth. He really didn't want the dirty air, laden with who-knew-what contaminants, in his lungs. Unfortunately, he had no environment suit and he couldn't hold his breath for the whole time he knew they'd be here.
Revan looked around at the shabby corridor, the dying light fixtures, the scorch marks of grenade or blaster burns and broken panels, while she waited for Carth to acclimate himself. A burning swoop bike cast flickering light on the walls. She rummaged idly in her pocket.
"Here, this might help," Revan said as she handed a piece of candy to Carth.
Carth took it and popped it into his mouth. He had noticed that she had a serious sweet tooth, buying candy from all of the kiosks they passed, while chatting it up with the merchants for information.
His eyes started to water and he nearly spat the candy back out. "What the hell is this?" he gasped.
Revan smirked at his surprised reaction. "I don't know the name of it, but it's some kind of strong mint."
"'Strong'? I'm surprised you still have your sinuses!" Carth exclaimed. At least it had cleaned out some of the stench from his nose.
"Well, now all you can smell is minty freshness, instead of sewage," Revan said, grinning.
Carth had to admit that it was effective. And it had cleared out his sinuses, too. Not that they had needed the rough treatment.
They stepped warily forward, straight into a skirmish between the Black Vulkars and the Hidden Beks. Outnumbered, the Beks were slaughtered. About ten or fifteen Vulkars turned their attention upon them.
"Well, well. Looks like some townies coming down here to slum it," a Rodian said jeeringly.
Carth and Revan tensed. "We're not worth the trouble," Revan said nonchalantly. "We don't have any credits worth your time."
A human leered at Revan. "She looks a pretty piece. I say we kill the man and take her back for the rest of the gang to enjoy." The rest of the Vulkars laughed coarsely and advanced on them.
Carth's lip curled, but his heart was pounding. They were outnumbered fifteen to two! He snatched his blasters from his holsters. He saw that Revan was watching them with the slightly-unfocussed gaze of an expert swordsman facing multiple opponents.
Revan looked entirely unfazed by the odds. "Come and get me, dickless." She leapt at them, blades raised high, taking them momentarily aback with her aggressive move.
Carth almost swallowed his tongue with fear for her. Insane woman! He started picking off Vulkars while they were distracted by the whirling dervish in their midst. Absolutely crazy!
Revan feinted, swinging at the torsoes and faces of the Vulkars in front. They raised their own weapons to block, but she had dropped and slid between their legs, right into the middle of the group.
The Vulkars were too close together to hurt her effectively, hitting each other more often than not. Revan knew that wouldn't last, so she got her licks in as fast as she could swing her blades.
The human who had leered at her was repaid for the insult by the blade she stabbed up into his crotch. He dropped with a howl, clutching himself, knocking another Vulkar off his feet.
Carth winced, but continued firing; carefully, so as not to hit Revan. He suddenly noticed something else that was strange about her. She was absolutely silent when she fought. No battlecries, grunts or involuntary noises of exertion.
Revan swung her vibroblades left and right at the legs of the Vulkars, squirming through to the back of the knot, towards the burning swoop bike.
The Vulkars were wising by up now; they distanced themselves so that they could strike her without hitting each other. Revan saw that at least they were sufficiently enraged enough to go after her, ignoring Carth and his lethal fire. She saw that several bodies were now lying on the floor, scorched by blaster bolts.
She retreated, sweeping her blades up to parry blows, on the defensive now. She clamped her teeth on one blade hastily but carefully, freeing her hand to rummage in her pack for a grenade. The Vulkars were too close to use a grenade without getting hurt herself, but if she was going to die, she was going to take them with her.
Her hand brushed on the smoothness of glass, instead. She pulled out the opened bottle of Tarisian ale she had stolen. She grinned ferally and spat out her blade. Ducking and dodging blows, not always successfully, she retreated further, closer to the swoop bike.
Revan threw herself back from a Vulkar's stun baton, landing next to the burning swoop. She threw her other blade at a Vulkar, managing to hit him lightly in the chest with it. She wasn't strong enough to impale him with it, alas.
She snatched up a piece of burning debris, ignoring the heat of the hot metal. She bit the cork from the bottle, spat it out and took a swig of the ale, as much as her mouth could hold, all the while keeping her back to the Vulkars.
The rest of the Vulkars had caught up with her by now, about to overwhelm her with sheer numbers. She spun, holding up the burning piece of scrap to her mouth and blew the mouthful of ale straight at them. A plume of flame sprang from her lips, rolling over the unsuspecting Vulkars.
The Vulkars screamed and covered their faces with their arms, though it was too late for some of them, who had had their eyes and faces seared.
She took another large mouthful of ale and repeated the flamethrowing trick, catching the ones in the back. She smashed the still-full bottle over the head of another Vulkar, showering him and some others nearby with ale and splinters of glass. She touched her makeshift torch to him while he was stunned. He lit up quite satisfactorily. He lurched and thrashed around, touching those around him with fire, too.
She stabbed the jagged pieces of the bottle into the gut of another Vulkar still standing, ripping through his combat suit. He screamed and dropped his sword, clutching at the gaping wounds in his stomach. She charged back into the fray, swinging her rough-and-ready dagger.
Carth ran up and shot the Vulkars still alive at point-blank range. He double-tapped the burning Vulkar, who was still thrashing around and screaming, in the head. More as a mercy than anything else.
Revan had slumped against a wall, holding her burned hand and listing to the side. She slid down into a heap even as he came towards her. Carth saw that she had several sword wounds on her arms and legs, some of them pretty deep. A bruise was already blooming on one eye, promising to be quite spectacular the next day.
He injected a medpac on her upper arm. "You are absolutely, positively insane, you know that?" He noticed that her face was slightly singed and ruddy from doing her firebreathing tricks.
She winced as the needle went in, then relaxed as the kolto worked its magic. "Hey, it worked, didn't it?" She grinned at him.
Carth laughed, which set her off. Pretty soon they were holding their sides, laughing their heads off, surrounded by the corpses of Vulkars.
It's battle tension, he thought. But her eyes sparkled charmingly at him.
Dustil gaped at his father. "She did what?"
"You heard me right the first time, son." Carth smiled reminiscently.
Dustil shook his head. "I'm surprised she's survived this long."
Carth laughed. "Me, too. But Revan has always been like that."
"Do I hear my name being taken in vain?" Revan said as she walked into the cockpit.
Carth turned. "You heard right. I was just telling Dustil about our trials and tribulations on Taris."
"And about how insane I was back then, too, no doubt." Revan grinned. She turned to Dustil. "Dustil, we've been working you hard, so I think it's time you got a holiday. I don't know how Carth has been grading you, but you've done very well at the work I gave you."
"You've done real well at piloting, too, Dustil. I guess we have been driving you hard." Carth smiled proudly.
"Uh, thanks," Dustil said, looking surprised at Revan's announcement.
Revan handed Dustil a long, thin box. "A gift, for being so hard working and diligent."
Dustil opened it to see a fine vibroblade, already fitted with upgrade modules. "Wow. Thanks." He took it out and admired it, then resheathed it in the included scabbard.
"The places we'll be going to will probably be in rough neighborhoods, where you won't be favored with good lines of sight for your blasters. I hope you're smart enough to avoid back alley knife fights, but that doesn't mean you won't get caught up in them." Revan smiled at the pleasure she saw in Dustil's face.
"Hey, I got you a present, too, son," Carth said as he reached under his chair for a large package. He handed it to Dustil.
Dustil blinked and opened it. He brushed his hands on a set of light armor, black and gray, with strange markings on it. He also found a pair of gauntlets and combat sensors. "Thanks, Father."
"You're welcome, son. You're going to need all of that, where we're going." Carth looked aside at his instrument panel. "We're coming up on Nar Shaddaa."
Dustil looked at the moon, glittering with refueling spires, repair facilities and spaceports. Hordes of ships, of all sizes and models, came and went, as Carth piloted them through the heavy traffic. "What do you know about Nar Shaddaa, Father?"
"Not exactly the cultural center of the galaxy that I wanted you to see, son. More like the armpit of the universe," Carth muttered as he followed the directions sent to them from Flight Control. "Nar Shaddaa is a moon orbiting Nal Hutta, and the Hutts have made it over into a giant spaceport. It's the hub for all kinds of smuggling operations, for the entire galaxy."
"Paradise is a subjective term. This is a veritable heaven for smugglers of all sorts," Revan commented. "If anyone knows anything about the Sith raids, they'll be here."
Carth set them down in the spaceport closest to the Corellian sector, and they all went to prepare themselves for the first stop in their information-gathering hunt.