A/N: I'm sorry for the silence. Everything in my life sort of went to hell at the same time. On that note while I appreciate getting messages asking me to update, you don't need to. I've had a few chapters of this sitting to go up but didn't have the time or energy to do so and it made me feel more pressured. So I appreciate the thought, but this will always eventually be updated. Hell, there's a fic on my profile that's been dead for three or four years and I still plan on finishing/updating it so seriously, don't worry. This is a trilogy and I gotta get past this one to go on to the second, so ...

That being said, updates are still going to be spotty for the time being. I've got another chapter to go up after this one, and that should go up in the next few days depending on how I feel about editing, and the third depends on how much I need to edit/rewrite on it. I've also started working on my novel again, but once I get my two classes from last semester wrapped up and this stupid damn thesis done (still, yes, it is still the biggest problem around), it'll mostly be working and writing until the fall.

Anyway, hope everyone's held on and here you go.

-20-

The ruins, as they arched out of the hilly landscape, looked much like Trista remembered ... albeit partially destroyed and somewhat overgrown.

The scavenger's camp - such as it was - hadn't provided them with any information beyond the presence of laigraks and a few missing scavengers. A man fitting Vrook's description had come through a few days earlier, as had another man who had not fit the description, but they hadn't seen either leave. That was about all the help they had been, though - they had seemed rather vehement about the group not going into the ruins, as they still claimed to own the salvage, though they hadn't stopped them from leaving.

Trista tugged her coat closer to her, more out of nerves than cold. The area was temperate this time of year - she was just hesitant at returning, and especially at returning to Vrook. She could only imagine how thrilled he would be to see her.

As they rounded the hill towards the Enclave proper and the building loomed ahead of them, Atton whistled. "Damn. Nice little setup they had here."

Whatever reaction Atton had wanted he didn't get, as Kreia immediately took Trista's attention. "Do you feel it?" she asked, wrapping her own robe in a similar manner to how Trista had wrapped herself in her coat. "The wound on this world ... its center is here."

Trista nodded quietly.

"If we succeed in gathering the Jedi, this is where they will gather. And if those are slain, all that remains of the Order will be drawn here as well."

"When?"

"We will know when the time comes. Of that, I am sure." She sniffed slightly as they stepped onto the fractured stone of what had once been a beautifully spindly bridge across a small creek. "And I hope our enemies do not."

"We will need to move quickly once we know, then," Trista replied. "In the meantime-"

"Tris!" Atton lunged forward, grabbing her arm and pulling her back. She stumbled, surprised to see his gun already drawn.

"At-"

"How about you lot take a vacation," he snapped. Trista looked up, and drew her sword. Kreia hadn't moved; fortunately, the others took Trista's movement as a reason to draw their own weapons.

"Announcement." Three of the silver-grey assassin droids had stepped out in front of them, the glow of a stealth field generator dissipating around them. "You have caused us to expend a great deal of effort to find you, Jedi."

"Good. I'd hate to make your job easy," Trista said.

"Annoying recitation: Let us proceed to facilitate communication."

"Threat: Come with us without resistance, Jedi ... or you will come with us in pain."

"No deal," Atton answered for her.

"Pick a droid," Trista said loudly, pulling out of Atton's grasp. As she did she stretched her hand out, dodging the first fire as she focused on the leftmost droid's processes. It slumped, and Atton fired into it until its core sparked and exploded.

The Handmaiden had slid past her, judging by the small streak of dirt that marred the leg of her otherwise white robe. She swung her electrostaff at the droid in the middle, moving in a deceptively fluid motion that seemed more of dancing than fighting. Bao-Dur had opened fire on the one to the right, which suddenly slumped with several sparks before crumpling in on itself. Kreia lowered her hand as the Handmaiden knocked the last one back, and Trista stretched out her hand and twisted. The droid crumpled again, and its head went flying with one hit from the Echani woman's electrostaff.

"Has anyone noticed," Atton started, firing a few last rounds into the one on the right for good measure. "That these guys are really easy to kill?"

"It's crossed my mind," Trista said. "They claim to be assassin droids, but it doesn't seem that they've been given particular upgrades to protect against Jedi. It seems strange that they would hunt them."

Atton scoffed. They were doing it wrong, obviously. Too overconfident in their approach. Had they never even fought a Jedi before? He looked away, clearing his throat. 2. Play +5 for 7. "Right. So. Uh, enclave sublevel, right?"

"Right," Trista confirmed, without seeming to notice his sudden discomfort. "This way."

#

"Oh, what is ..."

Trista nudged one of the insects with her boot, her lip curling slightly. "Ugh. Laigreks." She glanced up at the Handmaiden and sighed. "They're an insect species native here. Once the Enclave got abandoned, they must have moved in. I've never seen them this close to the surface before." She stared into the darkness. "If that's the case, this is going to be a very long trip."

"Someone is coming." Kreia's statement dropped them back into attention, just waiting for a laigrek to scurry out. Trista lowered her sword after a moment, then carefully sheathed it.

Whatever was there didn't feel like a laigrek. It felt different. Confused. Scared.

"Tris," Atton hissed. She shook her head and motioned for them to lower their weapons.

"Come on out," she called. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"Y-you killed my laigreks," a female voice called quietly. Trista caught a flash of movement in a doorway next to them, and settled her eyes on it. "Th-they were my pets."

"Picked a rather nasty pet," Bao-Dur said quietly.

"Were you the thief Suulru is complaining about?" Trista asked calmly. Whoever this was still had the element of surprise, but she still sounded young.

"I'm not a thief! People give things to the Jedi in exchange for service - they were just giving!"

Atton glanced over the party, noting the Handmaiden watching with rapt fascination and Bao-Dur looking the same as he always did, the expressionless bastard. He loosened his blaster again - just in case, he thought.

"Then why did you send your pets to attack me?"

She huffed. "You're just one of them, here to steal what belongs to us."

"You studied here, didn't you?" Trista asked gently. "Were you a padawan?"

"I-I am! And one day ... one day I'll be a Jedi!"

"So you were here when the Sith showed up?"

"I ..." The girl's voice faltered. "I was outside the Enclave, my Master left me with the Matales, but then the Sith showed up there and started asking questions, and they all died, but I hid. And I'm hiding until my master comes back."

"Uh huh," Trista said. "Would you be surprised to hear that I used to be a Jedi?"

That made her creep out a little, giving them their first look at her. She was in tattered Jedi robes, looking as if she hadn't bathed or had a full meal in years, her hair caked and matted and her face gaunt and dirty. "Y-you were? I-I didn't know. You aren't though? Are there any left?"

"A few. One named Vrook came here a few days ago - did you see him?"

"I-I think. Yes. He was here before the Sith. He always yelled about the Dark Side. I sent my laigreks to make him leave, but he just made them ... stop. I was gonna talk to him ..." She crept out a little further. "But then the mercenaries came and took him. They never come here. I ran and hid and there was a big fight. They said they were gonna take him somewhere."

"Probably to collect the bounty," Atton murmured. "A former Council member might be worth even more."

"Probably," Trista replied quietly.

"But I ... I know the stealing was wrong. I was just trying to get money to eat. But I'll do something else. Something that doesn't hurt people."

"Exactly." Trista's voice suddenly turned stern. "The Jedi don't use animals to drive people away, and they don't steal. You had good intentions, but the Jedi do not hurt people. Do you understand?"

She slipped out even more so she was back out of the doorway, her head hung. "I-I understand. It's just ... there was a holocron, and it said bad things. That the Jedi were gone and I needed to do whatever I had to to protect my home."

"You should listen to the lessons your Master had taught you," Trista chided. "Not a holocron, and especially not one that showed up after the Sith were here."

"I-I know. I was just so scared, and -"

"Hey." Trista rested her hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently. "It's all right. We make mistakes. Where did it end up?"

"The salvagers found it," she mumbled, head still hung.

Trista nodded, glancing over her shoulder at Kreia. "We'll grab it on the way back by. We have enough problems without potential Sith holocrons running around." The woman replied with a curt nod, and she turned back. "Do you remember how to get to the old Matale estate?" She nodded. "All right. I want you to hide this," Trista tapped the lightsaber hanging off her belt. "And head there, and tell Administrator Adare that Trista sent you, all right? She'll take care of you until I get back."

"O-okay. I should be able to make it."

"All right. Hurry, you should be able to get there before dark. I'll see you when we get back, all right?"

"Okay. Thanks." The padawan scurried past them and out the door, then turned back. "Oh. I found these. I don't know how to use them, but you might." She dumped a small bag into Trista's hands and hurried away, disappearing into the Dantooine evening.

"You were far too -"

"She was a scarred child," Trista retorted, cutting Kreia off sharply. Atton raised an eyebrow and looked away, hiding a smirk. "After what she's endured, I wasn't going to berate her. If you don't like it, you can go back and wait on the ship."

It didn't take a connection to the Force to sense Kreia's displeasure. Trista's eyes narrowed as she turned on her heel, stalking further into the Enclave.

#

They ran into laigreks - a large amount of them, indicating that they had moved in in force - as they headed deeper into the ruins. Though they hadn't filled in the others on why, Bao-Dur and Trista kept rummaging through storage containers as they found them. The last group of laigreks had ambushed them in a series of connected storage rooms, and in large groups they were both terrifying and extremely hard to beat, so much so that all their skirmishes had quickly become solo kill-or-be-killed matches.

This one was no different.

Atton dropped his blasters into their holsters with a huff, inspecting a tear in one of his pant legs.

"Is anyone hurt?" To his surprise it wasn't Trista who asked, but Bao-Dur. There was a series of quiet answers.

"Tris?" Atton called. She didn't answer, and he spun to see that she wasn't in the room. "Tris!"

"I'm fine," she answered. "Just ... ended up in the next room over."

Atton hurried over to the doorway. Trista's back was to him, and she seemed like she was inspecting something on her shirt. There was a pile of dead laigreks around her. "You all right?"

"Fine," she said, though she sounded distracted.

"You sure?"

Trista turned, and he realized that she'd been tying her coat shut over her chest. "Yeah. Fine. Do you have a medpac?"

Atton nodded and handed her one as she joined him in the doorway. She tore open the package and jabbed the needle into her arm, throwing the used syringe back into a dead laigrek. He glanced down and realized that her shirt and the front of her pants were in tatters, and even her coat looked like it had taken damage. "Did you lose your clothes?"

"Laugh it up, flyboy," she muttered. Atton grinned.

"Aww, so no repeat of Peragus for me?"

The smirk she gave him was the first indication of any change in her eyes. "Maybe if you behave yourself." She readjusted her coat and had walked away by the time he found his voice again. "Everyone all right?"

Another series of affirmative replies, and Bao-Dur straightened up. "I believe this is the last thing we need," he said. Trista strode over and looked down at what he was holding. "All we need are crystals."

"Once we finish up here, there's a cave where we'd all go for them," Trista replied. "We should have time for a side trip."

"I'll add these to the rest then, Gener-" He cleared his throat. "Trista."

"We should probably keep moving," Trista said, louder this time. "While we know Vrook's not here we might be able to find out where they're holding him. If not, it's time to hit up Nar Shaddaa."

"Which will be, as always, a lot of fun," Atton added.

She shook her head and started back out into the corridor, adjusting her falling clothing every so often. Atton chuckled whenever she did, and she kept glaring back over her shoulder. The other two seemed relatively oblivious, and Kreia still radiated disapproval from earlier.

Down the hall was the archives, and Trista had been slowly working their way over. She thought that, if Vrook had been looking for something, that would probably be where he would have headed. She would have been lying if she wasn't wanting to see what Malak had left behind - he would have either had everything destroyed, or he would have ignored it.

Revan would have taken it.

She pushed open the door, and immediately realized that she had been right - on the far end, by the arching windows, there were several dead men, and datapads and a few datacrons still flickered on the shelves. After a quick glance to clear the room she strode forward, kneeling down next to the closest body.

"Lightsaber," she murmured as they joined her. A few feet away was the weapon itself, and she stuck out her hand to pull it to her. It lit into a bright green beam, and she nodded as if it validated something for her. "It looks like Vrook put up a fight. What's this?" She picked up the datapad held by one of the dead men, prying it out of his stiff hand. "They're setting up in the old kinrath caves until they can transport him offworld. We've still got time."

"Where are the caves?" the Handmaiden asked.

"About two hours on the other side of Khoonda. The same place we'd need to go for a focusing crystal." She stood, tucking the datapad away. "I have a document I need to find, and then we should hurry. I don't think this is their only plan."

"You are looking for the old Jedi Master, then." The voice wasn't any of theirs, and it prompted them to turn and their hands to fall to weapons. A blonde man had cut off the exit, standing in between them and the doors with one hand resting on his blaster. He bowed as they turned, though his hand didn't leave his gun. "I am sorry for not announcing my presence earlier, but I was unsure of your intentions. I am a historian and scientist working for the Republic, although I am certain my contemporaries would call me the former."

Trista narrowed her eyes, stepping forward. Atton tried to stop her, but she pushed by. "You look familiar. Have we met before?"

There was a moment of hesitation, then he shook his head nonchalantly. "I'm sure you have seen many people. Faces tend to all look the same after a time, do they not?"

"Right," Trista replied, in a tone that indicated she was not at all convinced. "You say you're a historian, and you're in the old Enclave. So I assume you've got a passing interest in the Jedi. Do you know what happened to them?"

"I do not. It is something of a mystery why they would exile themselves as they have. And it is not the way of the Jedi to vanish in such a way ... especially when the Republic has need of them. And that leads me to fear that something else is at work. Something we cannot see." He shrugged. "Or, it is because everyone hates them these days."

Trista crossed her arms, studying him. "And just why, do you think, people hate the Jedi?"

"The Jedi are often too removed to see such things, rooted as they are in human nature." He folded his hands behind his back, surprisingly falling into a near-perfect parade rest. "And so few outside the Jedi can tell the difference between the Sith and the Jedi. Without that perspective, they believe the Jedi Civil War is the proper name for the last skirmish, while the Jedi clearly see the difference."

"Even though the Jedi have served and protected the Republic, often through sacrifice?"

"Jedi often fall, and cause great harm in the name of peace and protection. I could discuss theories on the falls of Ulic Qel-Droma and Exar Kun, and of Revan and Malak, and the frightening prospect that a single Force-wielder can change the face of the galaxy, but I doubt this is the safest place to do so."

"No," Trista agreed.

"So, let me guess," Atton interjected again. Trista glared back at him. "You hate the Jedi?"

"Of course not. I am here, am I not? Jedi are not supposed to be like the rest of us. They are supposed to see a higher purpose in things. And they are supposed to train students responsibly and well, so that former mistakes are not repeated, though all I have seen are ignorance, arrogance and what those seeds created in the Republic." The man shook his head. "I do not, but I do understand that it is difficult to follow the Jedi Code when so few others have. But that should be something you understand."

"Oh?" Trista raised a brow. "Should I?" She elbowed Atton in the side when he tried to step between them again.

He looked unconcerned, which almost surprised her. "Many Jedi left for the Mandalorian Wars, and that paved the way for the Jedi Civil War ... and yet one did not join Revan when she returned. Or ..." He trailed off slightly. "Are you not Trista Morace, the Jedi Exile?"

Trista cleared her throat, shifting her weight uncomfortably. "Is that a problem?"

"It will not be. However, I have a feeling that our goals will be aligned."

"Is that so?"

He cleared his throat, squaring his shoulders again. "I am attempting to save the Republic - Dantooine and the Jedi Order are absolutely crucial for that goal. Despite the ... difficulties ... of the Jedi Civil War, there are those among the Republic who still favor the Jedi and wish for them to return. And there are admirals of some influence within the fleet who recognize that the Jedi must be found if the Republic is to survive. You came to Dantooine in search of Jedi. Why."

Trista narrowed her eyes again. It didn't have the ring of a question - but a demand. She pursed her lips. He had military training, and she still had the strange inkling that she somehow knew him. And if he had been studying the Jedi he would know more of them in the past decade than she did. "The Sith are moving secretly in the galaxy," Trista finally explained. Kreia released a low huff of air behind her.

::Perhaps you should be less trusting.::

Trista tilted her head slightly. ::Perhaps you should be more. He knows the Jedi from the decade I do not. He may be instrumental.::

::Good. If we take this thing along, ensure it has a use.::

She huffed again. "-and I have information leading to the location of several former Council masters. They will be instrumental in stopping these Sith. As you said I am a former Jedi - I will be unable to stop them on my own."

::I highly doubt that.::

"If the Sith are rising in the galaxy again, then it is strange the Jedi would not be there to meet them - or that there has not been more evidence of the Sith."

"Oh, they're there," Atton interjected. "Blew up Peragus and everything. Speaking of which, don't we have your old friend to find? So, you know, maybe we should be doing that."

She glared over her shoulder at him.

"No, I believe you. I simply find such subtleties among the Sith to be ... strange." His eyes drifted briefly over the others, then returned to hers. "They have been known to practice deception, but that has not been the trend in recent years." He thought for a moment, resting his chin on his hand. "But, it appears our goals are compatible. If you would have me, I can apply my knowledge and skills to your mission."

"Nope," Atton said. "Full up. Hey, Tris, if we leave now we might be able to make it back to the-"

"Your knowledge will undoubtedly be invaluable," Trista interrupted. "Welcome aboard. We're heading back towards Khoonda." Without a word she stalked past him to a shelf, thumbed through a few datapads, picked one, and headed back into the hallway. Atton glared at the newcomer as he stuck close to her.

"Hey, Tris," he started. "You look cold. Take my jacket."

She raised an eyebrow, glancing over at him. "I'm not cold." It was rather warm in the sublevel, she thought. She wasn't shivering or anything.

"No, really. I insist." He glanced back over his shoulder, already shrugging out of it. "You know, you just look chilly."

"I ..." Atton cut off her protest by dropping his jacket around her shoulders. "Uh. All right, then."