A/N: No, I have not fallen off the edge of the universe! I fell into the Starcraft series, which I started playing around the time I published Ch. 24, and it has been a challenge to lure my muse back from there. I am back now, though, and as determined to see this series through to the end as I was when I started. My apologies for leaving off in the middle of the most exciting part of the whole game!
The others had the ship prepped for takeoff, so all Carth had to do was key in the repulsorlifts and throttle up the engines and the ship was rocketing out of the hangar at full speed. The Leviathan's turbolasers attempted to track them, but Carth succeeded in evading every shot. Fighters also scrambled, but by the time they were out in space, it was far too late. With no nearby mass to prevent hyperspace entry, the Ebon Hawk had long since resumed its interrupted journey toward Manaan.
Aboard the ship, the crew was all gathered in the central living room.
"Where's Bastila? What happened to her?" asked Jolee.
"We ran into Malak during our escape," Carth answered. "He would have killed us, but Bastila sacrificed herself so we could get away."
Mission gasped, her lekku twitching violently. "You mean she's… she's dead?"
Jolee shook his head. "Malak won't kill her if he has a choice; don't be foolish. He'd much rather use her battle meditation against the Republic. Turn her to the dark side and the Sith would always be victorious."
"Not to mention, he knows he can use her to get to me," Andra added, her voice dead from physical and emotional fatigue. "But the only way to help her now is to find the Star Forge. And Manaan is the last piece to that puzzle." She turned to go. I desperately need a shower, and some rest, and some time to process everything that's happened before I have to face the others. Especially Carth. The pilot had other plans, however; she had barely taken two steps toward the door when she felt his hand on her wrist in a far from gentle grip.
"Not so fast," he hissed. "You're going to tell the others, and you're going to do it now."
She yanked her arm free and whirled to face him. "Don't you dare do that to me again." The words were soft, but nonetheless carried clearly in the suddenly silent room. The entire crew was staring at the two of them as if they had sprouted horns.
"You don't get to give me orders, Revan," he snapped back, spitting the name like it was the worst sort of insult. If the eyes of the entire crew hadn't been on them already, they certainly were now. Mission's lekku froze mid-twitch.
"Revan? What… what are you talking about? Is this some kind of joke?"
"No, it's no joke," Carth answered for Andra. "The Jedi Council captured Revan and erased the Dark Lord's mind, programming in a new identity. Saul Karath told me before he died and Bastila and Malak both confirmed it."
"You're Darth Revan? This is… this is big. Do you… do you remember anything about being the Dark Lord?" Mission asked hesitantly.
The former Dark Lord settled wearily into one of the chairs. "Only a few flashes, the occasional strange dream or vision. That's it"
"Just a few flashes? Nothing more? Then I don't think there's a problem. It seems to me that if you don't remember anything about being Revan, then it doesn't matter. You are who you are now, right?"
"Of course it matters!" Carth burst out. "How do we know more memories won't come flooding back? How do we know Revan won't suddenly turn on us?" He glared down at the top of the former Dark Lord's head, which was presently bowed in grief and pain. "I've been such a fool! All this time you've been leading me on, persuading me to trust you, listening to our secrets and hearing our plans, and here you were the enemy all along!" Andra's shoulders shook with silent tears, and Jolee nodded pointedly in the direction of the door. The rest of the crew filed out silently, leaving the couple alone in the room.
The Jedi forced herself to raise her tear-streaked face to meet Carth's gaze. "I don't know what to say except I'm sorry. I wish this weren't true."
"Yeah, well, wishing doesn't help matters any. If it did, I would never have met you."
A fresh storm of weeping assailed the Padawan. "You can't mean that!"
"Oh, can't I?" the pilot retorted. "It was you… you killed my wife, you ravaged my homeworld. You destroyed my life!"
"I also saved your son from the Sith," she reminded him. "I don't even remember the rest of it."
"But you still did it, whether you remember or not. And let's not forget who was responsible for Dustil getting captured in the first place."
"Don't… don't do this to me, Carth." She sniffled loudly and reached for a tissue to blow her nose. "I didn't know. How could I have known?"
All at once, the fight seemed to leave him, and he collapsed into a chair near Andra's. "I know. It's the only reason I don't blast you where you sit." The words might have been construed as angry, but his weary tone took any sting out of them. "I just can't…" His voice broke, and Andra thought she saw tears glistening in his dark brown eyes. "Was everything a lie, then? Everything we had together?"
The Jedi shook her head. "No. That's the only thing I know for sure was…is… true."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I've just learned that everything I remember up until just before my assignment to the Endar Spire is a total lie. The only things I know are true are what has happened since then. How would you feel if tomorrow you found out that Morgana, Dustil, Telos… all of that was just a fabrication of the Jedi Council?"
"Point taken," he conceded. "As hard as it is for me to wrap my mind around this, it must be even more of a shock to you. I don't know how you even keep going."
She let out a wry snort. "Not much choice, is there? We had to get off the Leviathan and now that we are, we still have a mission to complete. I started this damn war and I am going to end it, even if it costs me my life. The real question is what about us? Or is there even an 'us' anymore?"
Carth sighed heavily. "I don't know. I want to believe you when you say what we had was real, but I don't know what to believe anymore. Who's to say that your old life won't come back? All of it? Was the woman I met on Taris Revan, or someone else? Will you change into her?"
"I am not going to betray you," Andra vowed, the words soft but heartfelt. "I am not Saul."
"I want to believe you. And you've proven yourself to be a friend of the Republic by your actions so far, whoever you are. Just… give me time. We can talk later, after we've both had a chance to process things."
"Okay." Her arms ached to hold him and be held by him in comfort; more than anything she wanted to bury her head against the rock-hard muscles of his chest and cry until she could cry no more. But there was a distance in his eyes, an almost too deliberate politeness in his movements as he rose from his chair, that warned her not to even attempt such a gesture.
"Well, I guess that's it, then. We've still got one more map to find if we're going to find the Star Forge and save Bastila, so we'd better do it before it's too late." Carth headed off toward the cockpit, and Andra fled toward the women's quarters, just barely managing to seal the door behind her and collapse onto her bunk before the tears started again, great wracking sobs that shook her slender frame from head to foot. She could hear the sounds of knocking outside the room, gentle at first but growing more insistent by the minute, but even if she had been in the mood for company, she couldn't summon up the energy to move after such an emotionally and physically exhausting day. Then the door chimed and slid open and the soft patter of bare feet echoed in the now silent room, followed a few seconds later by the clink of someone setting a tray down on metal. A hand touched her shoulder, but it wasn't the one she most needed to feel just then. It was too small, too alien.
"I… uh… brought you some food. I thought you might be hungry since we didn't get any lunch."
The Padawan rolled over and pushed herself slowly into a sitting position, forcing herself to focus on the young Twi'lek standing next to her bed. "I appreciate the thought, Mission, but I really can't eat right now."
The teenager hopped up to sit next to Andra. "Yeah, I heard what Carth said to you. Uh… not that I was trying to listen or anything but this is a pretty small ship and sound tends to carry…"
"First law of holes: when you're in one, stop digging."
"Right. What I'm trying to say is not all of us agree with him. If it weren't for you, Big Z and I would never have gotten off Taris. We owe you our lives; we won't desert you now."
Though the human thought she had long since cried herself out for the day, the kind words brought a familiar stinging to her eyes. "Thank you." She let out a deep breath and the stab of pain faded back into a dull ache. "I just can't think about it right now. We have to save Bastila and stop Malak; everything else has to wait until after. If there even is an after." She had never doubted it before, but in light of the outcome of her battle with Malak, the whole mission seemed a desperation maneuver doomed to failure. The Twi'lek and the Padawan sat in silence on the bunk for several seconds until finally Andra slid to the floor and grabbed her robe, the slightest wince crossing her face as she remembered who had bought it for her. "I think I need a shower right now." Mission watched her disappear through the door before following her from the room, shaking her head resignedly.
The hot water washed the sweat and blood from her skin and soothed her sore muscles, but it couldn't fix the dull ache that had settled deep in her chest, an ache that had nothing to do with the physical trauma she had endured on the Leviathan and everything to do with the words that echoed again and again in her mind as she scrubbed herself clean. You killed my wife, you ravaged my homeworld. You destroyed my life! Once she had dried herself and dressed, she attempted to find a quiet place on the ship where she could hide from any more expressions of sympathy and support, finally settling on the engine room. The gentle thrumming of the hyperdrive, along with the heat it generated, soothed her enough to let the fatigue of the day send her over the edge into sleep. Even unconscious, however, she could feel the force of chocolate-brown eyes glaring at her. For the rest of her life, those eyes would be there watching, a constant reminder of who she was and what she had done.
Sometime later, she felt a pair of hands on her shoulders shaking her awake. For a moment as she hovered between sleep and waking, she felt a rush of the old joy. She knew those hands! Then she opened her eyes to meet his and her heart sank. Anyone who called brown a warm color had obviously never seen Carth Onasi when he was angry.
"Sorry to bother you but I'd like to check out the engines, see how much damage we took from the Leviathan. Do you mind moving?" The words were as polite as any he might have addressed to one of the other crew members, but spoken with enough of an edge to dash any hopes Andra might have had of him changing his mind overnight. She climbed to her feet and padded from the room, squeezing against the wall as much as she could to avoid brushing his shoulder on the way out. "I didn't mean… I only needed you to move away from the—"
"It's fine." With her one place of refuge on the ship momentarily occupied by the one person she most wanted to avoid, she decided to return to her bunk. At least she could count on not running into Carth by accident there. It did nothing, however, to prevent the rest of the crew from seeking her out. Not long after she returned to the women's quarters, Jolee found her there.
"Whatever you have to say, I don't want to hear it," she cut him off before he could speak.
"Look, I know you've had a big shock and Carth is being an idiot but you don't have to take that out on the rest of us."
She shook her head. "No, he's right. He's right about everything. If we survive this, the Republic is going to charge me with crimes against civilization and they would be perfectly within their rights. If we don't…" she shrugged. "Well, I won't be in a position to worry about much of anything."
The carefree, almost eager tone of her voice made the old man's eyes narrow, and he took her head in his hands, forcing her to meet his eyes. "You want that, do you?"
"What I want is to stop Malak and save Bastila."
"But you're hoping you'll die when Malak does? Is that it?" She met his gaze defiantly and did not answer. "Now, you listen to me. You've been given a second chance most people would kill to have and the right thing to do is to make the most of it. And yes, I know it hurts. I know much better than you realize just exactly what you and Carth are going through right now. I came here to try to help, but you snapped at me before I could even open my mouth."
The Padawan sunk back onto her pillow with sigh. "That's precisely why: I don't want sympathy or understanding because I don't deserve it. I don't deserve a second chance."
Jolee nodded. "Even when everyone else forgives you, you can't forgive yourself. I've been there."
"And you're trying to convince me I shouldn't waste this second chance? How hypocritical." Besides, she added to herself, at least one person on this ship most certainly has not forgiven me at all.
She turned away and Jolee, recognizing the dismissal, left as quietly as he had come. Had Andra bothered to augment her senses with the Force, she might have heard the words 'stubborn fools' muttered under his breath as the door closed behind him.
Out in the hallway, Mission watched him leave, frowning sympathetically when she caught a glimpse of the expression on his face. "No luck?"
"No. She won't listen, and that worries me, but we can't force her to let us help if she doesn't want our support." He shook his head. "Two months of going through every kind of hell together and then he turns on her just when she needs him most."
"Well, we have to do something." Mission's eyes lit up. "And I know just the thing to cheer her up!" The teenager took off running toward the cargo bay, returning a minute later with one of the gizka cradled in her arms. Tiptoeing into the bedroom, she placed it on the bed next to Andra. The creature poked tentatively at the Jedi with one webbed foot, then hopped over and settled himself into the convenient hollow Andra's curled-up form left between her knees and her chest. The human sighed and rolled her eyes inwardly but found herself absentmindedly stroking the creature as she ran through a Jedi calming exercise. Eventually she succeeded in returning to sleep.
That night, she dreamt that she was on Telos. Though she had never been there or seen any pictures, she imagined Carth's hometown as a clean and orderly place with broad streets, plenty of greenery to soften the bleak harshness of the buildings, and parks where children could laugh and run and play… except that everything was in flames now, the streets were choked with rubble, and the only children in sight were lying wounded or dead on the ground or else running around calling out for their families. And some that aren't children as well she noted as she saw a landspeeder flying at breakneck speed toward a collapsed house marked by a slightly scorched sign displaying the number 4185. Even with his back turned, she still recognized the driver and her heart gave a painful lurch as he sprinted directly toward the ruins, shouting at the top of his lungs, "Ana!" A weak moan answered him, and he climbed toward its source, hands thrusting aside the rubble as fast as humanly possible until he uncovered the body of a human woman. From her features, Andra could tell the woman would have been remarkably beautiful under normal circumstances, but she was covered in bruises, scrapes, and burn marks, her blonde hair tangled and matted with blood.
Carth raised his comlink and spoke into it for several moments, his agitation growing by the second as he pleaded with the man on the other end. Finally he flipped it off with a vindictive snap and knelt amid the remains of what was once his house, his wife's body cradled in his arms and clearly going downhill fast.
"Don't just stand there, do something!" he screamed at the other woman, but though she fought with all her might, she could not move a single muscle. "What the hell is wrong with you? You're a Jedi, save her!"
Tears streamed down Andra's cheeks. "I wish I could, Carth. I wish I could."
She awoke to feel wetness soaking her pillow and face, brushing futilely at the drops of salty liquid that refused to stop trickling from her eyes. It was just a dream she tried to remind herself. Just an aspect of my own subconscious mind yelling at me. But she knew her former lover well enough to feel certain that had it actually been him, he would have reacted in much the same way. Sometime while she slept, the gizka had wriggled its way out of her arms and hopped away. Even the animals are afraid of me now. Is this all I have left to look forward to for the rest of my life? She wanted to scream to the universe at large that it wasn't her fault, that she wasn't the same person who had done those things, but such a defense seemed incredibly hollow in the face of Carth's pain, and that of billions more whose lives had been destroyed because of her fall to the dark side. Her own pain she could accept, as she had no one but herself to blame for it, but the look in his eyes continued to haunt her. Not the angry glare which he had sometimes directed at her but the weary gaze, bright with unshed tears, that she had seen for a heartbeat when he let down the wall of anger he had built to protect himself from more heartbreak. More than anything she wanted to comfort him, but she knew that this time she could not, and the ache that caused her was her only companion as she huddled in the darkness awaiting the morning.