Wake Up, It's a Coruscanti Morning

Chapter 29 / Wake Up It's a Coruscanti Morning

The sun hadn't even started to rise over the half-domed sky when Vrook summoned Revan, his mental touch as soft as a hand brushing back the hair from her face.

"I have to go see Vrook," she murmured to Carth. "The Jedi from Manaan—they're here."

Carth hadn't been asleep either. Both of them coiled next to each other, back to back, and lost in their own thoughts. "I know." He rolled over, wrapping his arms around her waist. You have to go now?"

"You know?" Revan felt like she should be surprised, but she was too drained.

They'd had a night of nightmares. The plague from the Underground was in the Temple. Oerin Lin had come down with it—they'd received a message from a strained Ithorian medic who had been waiting for them when they'd returned to her rooms. Their rooms. Where they'd returned after they left Carth's son's body unconscious on a practice room floor.

Because he was Malak. Malak is here and I don't know what to do.

At least Korrie was still asleep. Revan could feel his sleepy half-thoughts like eyelashes brushing against her cheek, even if he himself was in the apprentice dorms.

More disturbingly, Revan could feel Malak as well. Malak was asleep now too—or still unconscious.

Too much to hope he'd have brain damage.

Even as she thought that, she was horrified that she had. Carth's son. He's Carth's son. Whatever happens to his body happens to Carth's son.

"I'll go check on Dustil," Carth said. His voice sounded almost accusing, as if he hadn't forgiven her for Force-choking his son.

Revan rolled over to face him. His eyes were shadowed with fatigue, and every line of his body was tense. "No," she frowned. "You're about to fall over. You need to get some sleep."

"I need to watch Dustil," he growled.

"He's asleep too. Now."

His eyes narrowed. "You can tell? How can you tell?"

"It's… just the Force. I can tell when everyone's sleeping," she lied.

Carth sat up, already reaching for his boots. "We shouldn't have left him alone." Tension was in every line of his face: as was the reason he had been willing to leave Dustil.

You wanted to get me away from him.

Frustration warred with impatience, and she snapped. "No," Revan said. "You need to sleep. Now."

Her husband froze. "I need to sleep. Now." Carth's eyes fluttered closed, and he sagged back down on the mattress.

"Frack," Revan said. Guilt and relief nagged at her.

She grabbed her comm and tapped in a request for Canderous to watch Dustil and why. Nothing phased the Mandalorian; although she suspected this might test that theory.

She couldn't feel Canderous in the Force, but he was probably with Oerin—or as close as the medics would let him be. They'd quarantined Oerin and a few others. She didn't know who: the Jedi who had informed them hadn't been very clear—or there very long.

The Jedi had seemed terrified of Revan. So many of them were terrified of her. It was getting harder and harder to ignore.

"You'll wake up in a few hours," Revan whispered. She pushed the hair back from Carth's forehead, and kissed him softly. "I'm sorry."

XXX

The viewscreen in from of them was a mass of debris: ranging from moon-sized to microscopic. Maneuvering through the soup took the precision of a hyper-surgeon. It made her hands twitch in sympathetic envy.

From time to time, their shields sparked, as smaller rocks from this belt burned on point of impact. But they were holding. They were almost through.

"Stop," Polla said. "This isn't working. Turn the ship around."

Therion D'Cainen didn't even turn his head. "Are you fracking kidding me? I'm in the middle of navving an asteroid belt here!"

"Pollie?" Seiran touched her shoulder.

Abasen was sleeping in a pile of laundry next to the navboard. She automatically glanced his way before continuing.

"I don't want to run. I don't care if it's not smart. A person can't just… ruin someone's life and not have consequences. We need to go to Coruscant. Now."

"What are you going to do?" Therion sounded interested.

"No," Seiran said at the same time. "Absolutely not. It's too dangerous."

"Therion has contacts there," she argued. "Media ones. If we go public, they can't touch us." She folded her arms. "Uncle Boon is in prison because of her! We can't just… do nothing."

"Beya went public," Seiran reminded her.

"Beya couldn't nav her own ship! We can be smart about it. I'm not saying we should storm the Jedi Temple or anything, but this… running and hiding? Being afraid?" Polla turned to him, staring him dead in the eye. "It's not me. It's not you. And it's a bad example for Junior."

"Pollie…." her husband sighed. But she knew that sigh. He knew she was right.

"Turn the ship around, Therion," Pollie repeated. "Or I'll fly her myself."

"You want to?" Her old lover cocked an eyebrow at her, smiled his scoundrel's grin. "Be my guest."

She smiled back, and got up. He made room for her, sliding along the bench so she had the pilot's chair. Her fingers were already flexing over the nav controls, plotting their path back through the drifts to the hyperspace jump point.

"Thanks," she drawled. "Don't mind if I do."

XXX

Canderous hadn't nodded off on the bench: it was more of a light doze. The comm on his arm buzzed, the hepatic shake jolting him awake like a shot of stim.

He rubbed his eyes. They'd been in there for hours now with Lin, according to his chronometer, and still no word on the pup's condition.

"Jett'ai," he muttered in disgust. "Ucah'alla y nik."

The comm was from Revan. He had to read it twice before he accepted that it made sense. And even then, he read it a third time after having an actual shot of stim, just to make sure.

"You're going to have to take care of yourself, Lin," he muttered at the closed door to the medix. "Looks like I have to go babysit a Dark Lord of the Sith."

XXX

"I need to ask you a question," Vrook said. "Before we begin."

Revan stared back. At him and the Jedi next to him. If anything, her uncle looked even more worn and tired than he had on Manaan. "Ask away," she said.

"Did you have Polla and her family killed?"

"Of course not!" Revan opened her mouth to go on, to explain that they weren't actually dead at all; but something made her hesitate. Maybe it was the fact that he could even think she'd do that. Maybe it was the woman beside him, this total stranger who claimed to be one of Revan's old masters. One of Revan's old masters that she'd never fracking heard of.

"I don't know who gave the order," she said, looking away. "I was as shocked as anyone."

"Sometimes even a small death can send it's reverberations across the Force," the Jedi woman said. Her pale eyes glinted.

"Their deaths weren't small," Revan snapped.

"Ah." Master Kae glanced at Vrook. "She seems sincere."

"She is," he grunted. "I... apologize for the question."

"It's fine," Revan said. "I understand."

"Of course you do." He reached across the table clumsily, and patted her hand. "You are my niece."

"She is Revan," Kae said. The trace of a smile crossed her lips. "Or she soon will be."

"When I take back her—my—memories," Revan kept her voice careful: calm, accepting, as if the decision was already made. "What will happen to my memories of… this?"

Everything that I am. The quest for the Star Forge. Carth. Deralia. Finding my son again.

Killing his father.

Her uncle sighed heavily, folding his hands behind his back. "The instability in your current personality comes from the fact that Polla Organa's life was overlaid over Revan's. They had to leave enough of Revan intact for the Rakatan devices to recognize you; but enough of Polla Organa to create a tractable… vessel. When you are restored, the aberrant patterns must be erased." He frowned. "I know how that sounds. The technicians think it is possible you might retain some of the facts from the last year; but not the personality behind it." His smile was sad.

"Instability?" She almost laughed at that, before she realized that might make her look unstable.

"You are a remarkable woman. I think you deserve to know your own life." Vrook sighed, kneading his temples. "Restoring your memories should restore your mind in its entirety."

"And we have need," the woman next to him murmured. It bothered Revan couldn't remember her at all, like a nagging tooth. "The Council has a final task for Revan."

"Final?" Revan echoed. "That doesn't sound good."

Vrook's dark eyes didn't even blink. "We will not hide the truth. It may be… final."

"Revan understood the necessity of sacrifice," Kae added. "We have told you of the threat she identified: the threat that still exists. The threat that needs to be dealt with."

"You want me to leave my son again." Revan shook her head sharply. "No."

The woman scoffed. "You hear our words without meaning. Like having a beloved pupil to turn from you... and forget all you that were." Her pale eyes were disdainful. "Are you really so broken as this?"

Frack off, you old pissant. She glared back at Master Kae. "I don't need to prove myself to you."

Fire flashed in the Jedi's eyes, but her mouth curved up, as if she was pleased. "No, you do not. This is not some Mandalorian proving ground, or a plimfoam war, made like a HoloNet drama. This is the Sith. The real Sith. And they are coming. It is only a matter of time."

Vrook folded his hands. "They say that he has a thousand versions of himself, Revan. Maybe more. He hollows them out as children, and puts his own mind in them."

"Like Malak did to Dustil?" Anger there. Anger for Carth. For his son. And for hers. "You don't even know for sure. You're basing all of this on what Atris said—from a few of my memories! I was half mad! Maybe I… I dreamed the whole thing."

"The others are speaking to Malak now—to confirm it." Vrook rubbed his temples. "I wanted to believe you had a choice, Revan. I didn't want to believe this was true; but Master Kae has shown us. There is a world in the Chorlian system. A dead planet. If one man can destroy all life on a world with only his mind... That is a greater threat than anything we have ever faced."

"It is why the Sith sought out your power," the woman added. "Yours and Malak's. Why they still seek you. There are those among them who want to stop him as much as we."

Revan tried not to shiver. More useless Jedi who don't even care that my dead husband is possessing Dustil's body. "Are you serious? You trust Malak? You trust the Sith?"

"I trust Revan," her uncle said, eyes searching her face. "Make no mistake—you would not enter this alone. We will send others—allies, agents—an entire network to support you."

"D'Reev made up one bogey for the Republic. How do you know this legend of an immortal, world-devouring Sith Emperor isn't just another one of his tricks?"

"We have confirmation. From… other sources."

"Other sources?" She glared at him.

"I have seen the Emperor," said Master Arren Kae. "I followed you to war."

"I don't remember." She looked at the woman again. Pale. Pale eyes, pale hair, pale skin. Her features were wrinkled under her hood. Her accent was standard Core. Bland. Untraceable. She looked perfectly ordinary.

"No," the woman said. "But you will."

"I don't know," Revan said. Something was—something was wrong. It chimed like a note out of tune in the Force. It hung like a black cloud surrounding them.

The comm chimed. Vrook thumbed it open. The infirmary. The medix office. The face of an Ithorian, expressionless to Human eyes; but the tilt of her head and the Feel of the Force was unmistakable.

"I'm afraid I have some bad news." said the Jedi dressed in medic's whites. "Oerin Lin is dead."

Beside Revan, Master Kae closed her eyes.

XXX

When her father didn't return to the hotel that Senator D'Reev had arranged for their new camp, Millifar wasn't concerned. Tradition demanded seven nights under the same tent, ship, or roof as his new wife, in order to seal the bonds of their marriage. Revan and Canderous Ordo had only had five.

But she had expected Oerin Lin and Mekel Jin to return.

Not that she was sitting around uselessly waiting. No. In fact, she had been working quite hard on an analysis of genetic drift in Core space among the nine humanid types: so hard that she'd accidentally stayed up all night with her hair loose and golden down her back, in a barbarian gown made of shimmersilk and embroidered with sea pearls; feet propped up demurely on a hassock, and her console resting carefully on her knees.

She wasn't waiting for Oerin (or Mekel Jin, should he arrive as well); it was simply that, because she was awake, she was the first one to notice when they did not return.

Statistics on Echani and Arkanian populations were spinning in her head. The pleasant evening dreams she'd had about Oerin and Mekel Jin dueling for her honor like the barbarians on the HoloNet Drama Onderon Brave , began to fade. Such fantasies seemed more illusory with every lightening of the Coruscanti sky.

They were both Force users. The Jedi were all Force users. What if they decided to never come back at all?

An hour before the real dawn, Millifar put down her console, got up from the divan, and asked T3 to send a message to Mekel Jin and find out what had caused the delay. It was a perfectly reasonable request; especially for a supercomputer capable of nearly anything.

But to her surprise, the droid balked.

"Error," she said. (Mekel Jin used female pronouns with it, so Millifar did too.) "Mekel Jin is not available at this time."

"But he's always available." It was one of his charms. "Comm him again. I'm sure he'll wake up."

"I can't." T3 sounded almost… uncertain. "He's removed our communications device."

"Why would he do that?"

The computer whirred to herself for a long time. Long enough that Millifar started to lose patience.

"Oerin Lin is… sick," she said finally. "Mekel Jin says it's the Korriban flu: Cross-reference—error. Data is corrupted. No files are available at this time."

"Oerin has the flu?" Millifar shrugged. "So you did talk to Mekel Jin? Are you talking to him now? Is my father there?"

"We need to go there. Now." T3 hadn't answered her. Instead, the astromech started barking and growling; and the three-meter long Wookiee Millifar hadn't even realized was curled in front of the hearth (so closely did his fur resemble the carpet) rose to his feet and started barking back.

Millifar spoke none of Zaalbar's tongue, but the meaning of his roars was clear. Like her, the Wookiee was concerned about Jedi treachery.

"We'll go now," she agreed, grabbing a few daggers and her blaster from the safe in the wall.

She decided against waking the rest of the clan. They had been on this City-Planet for a while, and Millifar was absolutely sure there was nothing she couldn't handle on her own; and certainly nothing she couldn't handle with the help of the Wookiee and the astromech translator. Zaalbar and his people had a very civilized approach to violence. He was quite good at it.

They rode one of the tram devices for several stops, before Millifar got tired of the unarmed crowds pushing and jostling. "Can't we just walk?"

It wasn't that she minded confined spaces… exactly. After all, she would probably spend the rest of her life on ships while the clans rebuilt their Empire. But she had been raised under open sky; and the tram was nothing like a warbird. Almost no one wore armor, and some of them smelled.

The beast groaned his affirmative, as if the stench bothered him too.

Strangely silent, T3 followed them, as they traversed several kilometers of platforms, and causeways. The crowds were less up here, and the sky paled, from gray to white.

Dawn broke over an almost empty plaza. When Millifar had been here before, the place had been bustling. Now, all the shops were closed, and the few sents that were out at this late hour, gave her party a wide berth.

"What about Revan?" Milli asked the T3. "Can you talk to her now?"

"She took off her comm," the droid said. "So, no." If a droid could sound dejected, this one did.

"Why would they both cancel communications with you?" It didn't make any sense.

Unless the Jedi had made them. Millifar frowned.

"I'm not sure," T3 said. "It's all confused. Some of the data was corrupted when I lost connection to my mainframe on Kashyyyk." Her processors whirred. "Do you believe in ghosts?"

"Of the dead?" Millifar asked. "I've been told that the Jedi artifacts can contain personalities of their dead. Some believe Mandalore's mask is such an artifact. And isn't a Jedi ghost artifact how you were formed?"

Mekel Jin had tried to explain it once, during one of their interminable waits for Senator D'Reev to finish some sort of commerce transaction.

"Maybe he's another one then," T3 muttered.

"Mekel Jin?" Millifar was sort of pleased to realize she hoped not. "Did the Jedi kill him?"

The Wookiee growled an interrogative as well.

"No! Not—never mind who! As soon as I know for sure, I'll tell you, okay?" T3 paused. "By the way guys, speaking of dead, I think I have some bad news. Oerin Lin is totally dead. I'm pretty sure."

"What?" That seemed unlikely. "Did the Jedi attack him?" Millifar considered the more likely option. "Or did Lin attack the Jedi? How many did it take to slay him?"

"He died of the flu, I think." T3 whirred again. "I was trying to get confirmation before. I didn't want to freak you guys out if it wasn't true. Then Mekel Jin got the collar off, right after. I have some nanos and stuff in his system, but without the main relay, they'll die off. And I can't get a clear signal anymore. I can't hear anything he's saying."

"Are you sure? About Lin?" Millifar definitely felt something. Regret. The flu? That seemed impossible.

"The Jedi just imposed a quarantine on the Temple." T3 whirred. "Pretty sure, yeah. Mekel thought Lin was dead. They were in a medix or something before the feed from the collar stopped."

"But my father's still inside the Temple! And Mekel Jin."

Belatedly, Millifar remembered she was supposed to worry about Revan and her son too. "Do you know specifically: is it plague or is it flu?" she added. Genetics were more of her area of study, but Millifar had studied some xeno-epidemiology before she selected her Path.

"Error!" T3 cursed to herself in a few different language. One of them was Huttese, Milli knew that one. "I can't access more intel about the flu. It is deemed hazardous to sentient life."

"So?" Millifar shrugged. "Aren't most things hazardous to sentient life?"

"Technically. But I had to make some judgement calls, and all the plague stuff was definitely up there." A sighing noise came from the chassis. "Polla Revan also said to wipe everything about Malak. So I don't really have a good handle on what him possessing Dustil Onasi means either."

"Are you sure she's not broken?" Millifar asked the Wookiee. She must be. Because that was just insane. Of course, their histories were full of examples of Jedi being possessed by dead Sith Lord ghosts; but Dustil Onasi hadn't even been a Jedi. Had he?

Zaalbar groaned a response that sounded as confused as Millifar felt.

"He says he's not sure of anything. Neither am I." Red lights flashed. "Polla-Revan wiped all material hazardous to sentient life from my data core. The same core I can't even access now, and I don't know why!" T3 paused. "This is a shitty day."

"It's barely started." Dawn started to break over the buildings, and the Coruscanti barbarians began to go about their days. Millifar wasn't really sure what most of them did, but it all seemed to involve standing in line for caff as the beginning. "I need to comm my mother," she said. "As an unmarried woman, I can't coordinate a death walk. But let's get breakfast first."

The Wookiee rumbled his assent.

XXX

When word of the armistice came to the Fleet, everyone cheered. Peace had been hard-won; and even a Jedi Padawan in the medic's division knew it. Maybe a Jedi Padawan who was a medic knew it even more than most: because she and her master spent most of their time trying to repair the damage done.

In honor of that distinguished service, Master Imra Lu and Padawan Sheris Loran were assigned to the Honor Guard on the Republic Flagship, The New Hope; to be sent to the skies above Malachor V, as the hosting ship for the signing of the Great Mandalorian Accord.

But then, the day before, Imra Lu summoned her Padawan to tell her the plans had changed.

"You've been reassigned to the Progress," Master Imra said.

"Have I done something wrong?" The Progress wasn't even going to the Armistice.

"Not at all." The white fur that covered Master Imra's face, flattened, and her ears twisted back. Her clawed hand squeezed Sheris's hairless one. "But you need to leave immediately. There's… a special shuttle. Knight Vikor has arranged everything."

Being in the secondary fleet shouldn't be a dishonor, and Padawans weren't supposed to need public affirmation for their good works; but Sheris was disappointed.

And there was something wrong. It was as obvious in the Force surrounding her master as a broken bone.

As they walked to the hangar bay, Sheris went over and over the last few weeks in her mind, wondering how she'd failed. Was it the decision to amputate the Zabrak boy's leg? Her choice of number eight sutures for the transplant? The brain-dead woman with the medulla swelling and the repairs beyond what the Force could fix? Master Imra had said after that Sheris could have tried a shunt and given her more time; but they were out of beds.

She'd also commended Sheris for making the difficult choice, for letting the woman die.

But had that been wrong choice after all?

XXX

There was that delicious beat in the Force when they thought she was Revan: beat of fear, admiration, and confusion; before they noticed the metal arm, the longer hair, and the weakness.

Even now in the early morning, the Temple felt drenched in pity: as if around every corner, another Padawan scurried, looking at her wide-eyed.

She'd interrupted a pack of them, talking in whispers about Padawans, quarantine, and a dead Mandalorian named Oerin Lin. Then one of them looked up and saw her and—

And then came the pity.

Fools. They shouldn't pity Sheris Darkstar.

If anyone, they should pity all the poor nulls on the HoloNet: making up stories about what had happened in the wars, like children telling ghost stories around an alcohol fire in an ice cave. Shivering at the shadows their tiny hands cast on the walls. Children, with no idea that while they were jumping at shadows, they could freeze to death. They should pity poor Beya and the rest of the former Selkath ten. Seven of them dead, when all they'd wanted was home. They should pity all those fools like Master Imra, who died at Malachor. They should pity Meetra Surik: who, by all accounts had gotten Force-stripped instead of wiped for her part in Revan's plan; before taking off again and vanishing somewhere in the Outer Rim.

They should pity the monster lying on a slab in front of her: the man who had promised her a seat above all other Pretenders back on Manaan, where being Sith was almost a merciful game.

Except... there was no reason to pity the dead.

Oerin Lin had been false: sharing her bed, but saving himself. One time she'd mocked his manhood; assuming he was like any other man and would take offense.

She thought they'd duel. Maybe she'd even thought he'd kill her.

He had not. Indeed, he hadn't seemed to understand her scorn.

"It works perfectly," he said. "I check by myself at least twice a day. Thank you for your concern."

"Am I not to your liking?"

Shame then. Shame that a copy as perfect as her had to compete with the rest of the pathetic Revan pretenders. Did one of them have something she did not? She remembered the pain, as the Rakatan machines had twisted her flesh. Not one of the Pretenders had dared as much, had been truly reshaped in Her image.

Oerin actually blushed. "I like you just fine. It's not the right time."

"Is it Mandalorian custom to not...?" Most of the others hadn't known his true nature. But it was hard to hide the clan tattoos on his skin, from someone who had been in the wars. Seen their like before, on the corpses of her slain.

"Not… entirely." His face flushed. Strange, how a man so powerful, so steeped in the dark side of the Force could blush. "I was told to be careful."

She pivoted in front of him, wearing nothing but her smile. "Who would dare tell you anything?"

The Gamemaster pulled away from her. "My mother."

She couldn't help but laugh.

Malak would have tortured her for less than that laughter, back in the old days. But Oerin just stared at her. His hand reached out, and cupped the swell of her breast. His other hand slid to her hip.

"Even without… that. You know, you are very beautiful to me?"

"I know," Sheris said.

Then Oerin began to laugh too.

Their time had never come. Oerin had Sheris mutilated when the real Revan came again. Had it been the real Revan he had wanted? Had he taken her, after he'd left with her, chasing a destiny away from Sheris far across the stars?

Was Lin just like Malak—accepting Sheris as a weak substitute for Revan Starfire?

At least Beya had loved her for herself. After she cut off her arm. And then, Beya had died.

Perhaps that was a bad example too.

Sheris was tired of falling in love with the wrong people. It would be so simple to stop. All she needed to do was stop being Sheris.

XXX

"Is Sheris asleep?" The old man looked up from a stack of datapads. A hovering light globe above his head cast shadows across his face; making him look strangely young. But his eyes were dark and shadowed.

"I left her watching the HoloNet," Yuthura told him. She set the tray of caff down on the only empty corner of the desk. "It's almost morning."

The borrowed office they were meeting in was cluttered with the detritus of at least a few Jedi lifetimes. Datapads, scrolls and bricks that looked like datacrypts from Haruun Kal were stacked on most of the available surfaces.

"Is that wise?" Vrook frowned. "She's already unstable. More news broadcasts might upset her."

"I am not her jailer." Her teeth bared. "We were fellow prisoners, remember?"

"Of course." He nodded. "I only hope we haven't moved from one prison to a quarantine. The sickness from the Underground is getting worse. There have been a few casualties. Even here in the Temple." He raised his eyebrows. "The Gamemaster of Manaan was among them."

"Oh?" Yuthura tried to sound interested, but her thoughts were too troubled. She folded her lekku around her neck, and picked up the broken statue of a manka cat that was lying on the only available bench in the room, setting it down so that she could sit. The news about Dustil—or rather about Malak—preyed heavily on her conscience. "Do you suspect foul play?"

Not only did you fail those boys, but one of them is lost now, possibly forever. Replaced with a madman. Replaced with the man who ruined the Sith.

Vrook sighed. "I don't know. I am more concerned about what will happen if the Mandalorians do."

"Perhaps they'll throw another party. Sheris and I watched the footage again from the last." Yuthura sighed. "I confess to being more concerned that Darth Malak is allowed to inhabit the body of Carth Onasi's son."

"I share your dismay. But Master Atris believes Malak is… necessary. At least for now." To his credit, Vrook didn't sound pleased.

"And Dustil Onasi is not? He's a child."

Vrook kneaded his temples as if they hurt. "There are those in the Council who think we need Revan again. And Malak. To face the Sith."

"Which Sith?" She shrugged, and poured them both cups of the brew. "You mean the remaining warships off Malachor?"

"No." He stared at her, ignoring the caff. "You were headmistress of their training academy. Surely you knew something… of the external threat."

"You mean our former allies?" Yuthura smiled slightly. "Some of my best students came from Ziost. Thalia May is still here."

Vrook shook his head slowly. "No. Not Ziost. The Council say we need Revan's knowledge for this reason." He looked down at the datapads he'd been stacking and sighed. "I wanted her to be returned to herself. To find the peace she has earned. They want to restore her to what she was before. Sith'aerah. Their Jedi General. To fight this greater threat."

Yuthura couldn't help but sigh. "The Republic will tear itself to pieces trying to prevent greater threats." And do nothing about the ones within its own body. Slavery. Poverty. Famine. Suffering.

Vrook put the datapads aside and stared at her. "I don't disagree; but several of the High Council believe that a real war is coming. Larger than any we have ever known. On the edges of the Outer Rim, Revan and Malak found… something, they say. Something that may be coming for us all."

Yuthura couldn't help it. She laughed. "Again?"

"It is not a joke." Master Vrook Lamar reached under the desk and pulled out a holocron. Unlike most, it seemed to be composed of fragments, molded together into a shimmering cube like a child's collection of puzzle pieces. He shoved the holocron across the table towards Yuthura, with the edge of the Force.

She eyed it warily. "Is that—?"

"Yes."

The Sith headmistress Yuthura had been would have laughed at how poorly guarded it was. The Jedi she had become was just frightened. Please don't make me look. What she had seen from the woman's mind on Manaan was enough. Yuthura had her own nightmares.

"It is impossible for one mind to take in the entirety of a life, not without losing itself." Vrook did not touch it with his hands, she noticed, as he levitated the holocron upwards. "And so we shattered the holocron, assigning pieces to each member of the Council. It was these memories that we used to guide her on the path to the Star Forge."

"Guide her?" That was laughable, but something in his eyes just made Yuthura tired. The woman I met on Korriban wasn't guided; she was driven. By her own demons, not yours.

But let Vrook have his beliefs of agency and destiny. They don't matter to the universe. Or to me.

"Can't you just ask the holocron your questions?" There had been a holocron of Jorak Uln the man had recorded back when he was a Jedi. The Sith he became used to love summoning it to see its composure crack when it met itself. Like a never-ending fall.

'If the holocron had not been divided, perhaps. But since it is the life of a woman who was unstable at the time it was taken—"

"You cannot trust the responses." Yuthura began to understand.

"We couldn't trust its nature, and so we split the memories amongst ourselves." He nodded.

"How will giving these memories back to Revan help? Won't she lose her mind again? Become the Dark Lord?"

"I believe not. I believe the woman she has become has had a true redemption. I believe she is my niece. And my niece deserves the memories of her life that were taken from her. But others disagree." He grimaced. "There is even a faction who thinks it doesn't matter what she becomes, as long as she is restored. They… are the ones who saw the last part of her life: after the fall."

"Which memory did you take?" she asked.

"Her memory of my brother and his wife." Vrook stared at her. "Some might consider it a selfish act: there was nothing harmful there, nothing of Sith or the Force. But I wanted to see my own family. As they were." He grimaced. "I have my own darkness. My own… frailties. I did not need Revan's too."

"I… understand." She did not. Admitting a weakness, even in front of an ally was only effective if there was something to be gained in return.

Vrook finally picked up his caff, and slowly took a sip. "I took the first of the memories. Atris, Kae, and Klee took the last."

"I don't believe I know a Master Kae." What she knew of the others wasn't positive. Atris headed the Archives. In her brief time exploring them, Yuthura had noticed sections expunged from the datacore's memory. An archivist that deleted information was hiding something. And Klee was one of the Councilmembers that Master Ferrin had been in contact with back on Manaan.

One of the ones who had refused to lift a finger to set us free.

"Kae was one of Revan's teachers—on Dantooine, for a time." Vrook sighed. "She is an archaeologist." But his eyes shifted slightly, like one of her students when they'd stolen prestige instead of earning it.

And at that moment, for some reason, he reminded her eerily of Mekel Jin.

Is he lying? No. But Master Kae is something more than he lets on. "May I ask what these three masters told you?"

"Of course." Vrook grimaced. "After Malachor V, the remaining Jedi and their Fleet were half-mad. Revan and Malak took them to the Outer Rim to… avoid populated areas. To save the Republic from its own war machine."

"Instead they found the Rakata homeworld, and the Star Forge technology." Yuthura nodded. "Uthar was there. He told me."

But something nagged at her. Something about that narrative didn't make sense.

"No." Vrook shook his head. "The Star Maps were a guide; but the Jedi didn't find the Star Forge. They were shown."

"By the Star Maps," Yuthura nodded.

"No." Vrook shook his head again.

"By the inhabitants of the planet?" Wynn had described the remnants of the Rakatan civilization as a sentient race fallen back into preflight, tribal barbarity.

Vrook shook his head again. "No."

XXX

"We have diplomatic immunity," Gwenarius told the first hapless guard who tried to stop them. "We were summoned! By Revan Starfire herself!"

They had not been summoned; but surely that was just an oversight. She tried not to let concern tinge her perspective. Canderous would have summoned them, had he been able. The fact that he had not didn't mean he too had succumbed to the mysterious plague: it might just mean that he was busy preparing the Lin body for the pyre. Men had rituals too, and it wasn't her place to question. Revan, too, would have summoned them—if she had been raised properly. Gwenarius would have to give her further instruction, as soon as the woman left her religious retreat and rejoined the proper galaxy.

The guardsman looked strangely familiar. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "Our orders are—no one goes in, and no one goes out."

Despite warnings of disease, the steps of the Jedi Temple were lined with protesters. Holoprojected signs scarred the walls of the Temple's public hall.

Jedi Caused the Plague

Why Don't You Help Us?

Down with the Order

Jedi Can Heal: Why Aren't They?

Revan Killed the Kolto

Bastila Lives.

And even more nonsensically:

D'Reev is the Plaguebringer

Three full squadrons of CoruSec in riot gear stood poised around the perimeter. The mood of the crowd seemed tense: possibly because without any proper outlet for their aggressions, the Coruscanti barbarians had no choice but to tear each other to pieces like animals.

"I don't think you understand," Gwenarius told him. She'd ask to talk to his wife, if he were clan. "There are rituals that must be observed to appease the gods."

Gwenarius herself preferred hard science to gods, but mentioning them seemed to work with Coruscantis. 'Honoring the gods' was how they all got permission to carry their weapons openly on Coruscanti transit. Senator D'Reev had signed the dispensation himself.

"He said, move along!" the child in uniform next to him said. She looked scarcely older than Milli. "We've been ordered to start dispersing the crowd. By any means necessary."

"Shut up, Cally," the man muttered, placing his hand on her arm. "They're Mandalorians. Tell them that, they'll take it as a challenge."

"We're not armed. This isn't a day for challenges," Xarga explained. "We're here for a death walk."

"What?" The captain's hand moved—and half his men drew weapons.

Gwenarius raised her arms in a defensive pose. It would not stop blaster bolts if they fired; but she would not die peacefully. Quickly, to avoid shameful blood being shed on a day or mourning, she nudged the boy, whispering in Mandalorian. "You have to tell him what that means. The barbarians don't know."

"I mean…" the boy's neck bobbed with his nervousness. "We're here for our fallen. We're here for Oerin Lin. The Mandalore."

"He's dead," Gwenarius added, in case they didn't know. "So we need his body."

"The blonde one?" The child-guard looked upset. "He's dead?"

"Shut up, Cally," said one of the others, a Twi'lek male. They were an attractive species. Pity, their stock didn't mix easily with humanid.

The roar of a great beast distracted Gwenarius. And then: "Mother!" Millifar pushed her way through the crowd, trailed by the T3 astromech and Zaalbar.

A breath Gwenarius had not willingly known she was holding released. Her firstborn looked well and unharmed. And not ill. Thank the wind.

"You got our comm?" Millifar glanced at the guards, who were still pointing their weapons, and frowned. "Is there a problem?"

"We received your transmission," Gwenarius agreed. "And we've come for him. Did they let you inside at all?"

Milli shook her head. "They said the entire place is quarantined, while the Jedi Medics discover the source of the disease."

"It's pestilence," Gwenarius snapped. "The source doesn't matter." Cold space killed most pathogen. It wasn't cowardice that made her wish they had all just gone with Aemelie to Kuat. Her sister wife was on her way to Peragus now, to retrieve their fleet.

And here they were, entangled on this filthy, pox-ridden planet, without the means to conquer it.

The Wookiee howled.

"Translation: Zaalbar wants to know if Revan and Carth and the cubs are okay." Lights flashed and the droid whirred. "By cubs, he is referring to Malachor and Dustil Onasi."

"We don't know," Gwenarius told him.

The great sentient beast growled back.

"Translation: he is also concerned about Carth Onasi and Canderous Ordo." The unit paused. "And Mekel Jin."

The Wookiee growled again.

"I am too concerned about Mekel Jin too!" the droid snapped, presumably to the Wookiee. "I never should have told you about that collar!"

The Wookiee made a series of barks that almost sounded like coughs. Several sentients took steps back.

"It was not like he was a slave! And you didn't even like him, Big Z! You said he was half madclaw!"

"Can you please moan more quietly?" Gwenarius asked Zaalbar. "We are trying to reason with these outlanders."

The Wookiee's complaints softened to a sound more agreeable to her ears.

"This is above my pay grade," muttered the CoruSec Captain. He gestured toward the gates of the Jedi Temple. A Fosh wearing brown robes had come out and was sitting at main reception desk. "Why don't you take your issue to the Jedi?"

"We will," Gwenarius said, pleased to see that Xarga was already heading that way.

XXX

Their ship pulled into orbit around the small, green, heavily-forested world. Nico didn't even look up from his bluescreens; just kept muttering about relays and generators.

"Warning: This atmosphere is restricted. Scans show your ship lacks authorization to be here. Leave now, and we won't turn you into space dust."

The message repeated, in Ryl, Shyriiwook, and Huttese.

"Nico?" Lena nudged him, hard.

He frowned. "It's just a bluff."

"It is not!" The mechanical voice sounded a little less mechanical now—and a little more like an angry woman. Or—girl. She sounded quite young. The same voice Lena had heard on Tatooine—naggingly familiar—although, of course, that was impossible. "Who is this?"

"Your master," Nico intoned.

"Are you the asshole who cut me off from the nets? I was doing some very important stuff on Coruscant, and now I can't get through." The voice squeaked. "You need to undo that. Immediately."

"Or I'll end you," she added, in a different tone of voice. Still female, much more ominous than the first.

"A personality overlay," Nico murmured. "Not just a subroutine. Sentience. I was hoping—oh, but it's too much to ask! Just tell me, Computer. Are you Revan Starfire?"

"Totally," it muttered darkly. "And I'm going to end you."

"She must have installed her persona in the Kashyyyk terminal! What luck!" Now I can get some real answers about the quest for the Star Forge!"

"Are you kidding me?" The computer made a rude noise.

"I've always wondered," Lena's boyfriend continued on, oblivious. "Did Bastila Shan leave any holocron recordings of herself?"

"Who are you?" The computer really did sound like Revan, but that other voice… it tugged at Lena's mind like an itch on her t'chun.

"I am your creator," he intoned dramatically. "And this is my lovely wife, the Twi'lek Queen Lena Wee."

There was a long silence. Then the navigational board lit up with landing coordinates.

"Access granted," said Revan's voice. "Please proceed to the landing bay indicated."

XXX

"We have come for the body of our fallen warrior." Xarga said the words carefully, gripping his ceremonial torch with both hands. The flames licked above his head, sending a trail of sweet-smelling smoke into the marble arches of the Temple over their heads.

The bird-like Jedi at the reception desk nodded acknowledgement, but then shook his feathered head slowly. His beak clicked a series of chirping trills.

"He says impossible," Revan's computer translated softly, from the chassis of the T3 unit.

"No. It is impossible that you deny us," the boy said, yielding no ground at all to their ancient Jedi foe. "We've come for the body. The Mandalore must be burned upon the sand, under sky and stars."

Standing behind the young warrior with the rest of the women, Gwenarius felt a stab of pride. Xarga showed promise.

More chirping.

"He's sorry, but he says no again. He says this is not usually his post, but the gatekeeper is sick. He says the Temple is under quarantine, and you should all return to your homes."

Was it Gwenarius's imagination, or did the usually irrationally excitable machine sound defeated?

"Get Revan," she whispered to it. Technically out of turn, since Xarga had not completed his task.

"She's turned off her headset," it said.

"Then tell Mekel to get her." Really, this shouldn't be so complex a task for a droid capable of hijacking transport.

The T3 unit seemed to vibrate. "I've lost communication with him too."

"Then go yourself." Gwenarius stepped forward. "Allow our machine inside your walls," she told the Fosh-Jedi.

The Jedi shook his head again.

Something must have gone terribly wrong. She felt an altogether unheadwomanly stab of fear. It was considered for poor form to intrude on one's husband when they were occupied with another wife; but it was even poorer form for the Mandalore to die from the flu in the Jedi Temple—and if the others there were in danger as well….

There was a time for tradition, and there was a time for practical matters. Knowing which was part of a good headwoman's business.

Gwenarius stepped to the side and used her personal comm unit to call Canderous.

"Yeah?" His lack of formality was a clue itself.

"Are you sick?" She did not want to lose him too.

"No. Where are you?" The small image of his face on the portable comm looked grim, the grooves in his face lined deeper than she liked.

"Where are you? " she countered.

"Gwen, I don't know if you'd believe me if I told you."

"I am not asking for a riddle, husband," she narrowed her eyes.

He snorted. "I'm escorting Darth Malak to breakfast."

Her heart sank. "You are delirious. Is there any fever?"

"What? No!" He sounded insulted, as if her suggestion that he might have a weakness was unwarranted; as if she'd never nursed his wounds after Eos or Dxun, or seen the scars on his spine or his grizzled belly. His glare faded then and he sighed. "They told you about Lin?"

"Millifar said the computer told her. She and the Wookiee brought the unit to the Temple." Gwenarius paused. "In a happier time, I would think that would indicate she was ready to make her choice for her First—"

"You don't have to tell me why she was here." Even through the haze of the comm she could see him grimace, hear the tension in his voice. "Did they let her inside?"

"No. She commed us with the news that Lin was dead. A fever, the machine told her. As is proper, she called an Honor Guard and we came, to take his flesh for the pyre."

Another voice, not her husband, mumbled something offscreen. A male voice, not Revan's. "You don't need to be here."

"I have my orders." Canderous said.

The other man muttered something unintelligible.

"Husband!" Gwenarius said. "When are you leaving that place?"

"As soon as I can," snapped. "But half the Temple's under quarantine. The sickness that took Lin—it's serious. Very serious."

"The news reports say it's everywhere," she pointed out. "This City-Planet is too crowded. We would all be safer in stars."

"Aemelie has the ships. You should go."

"Tiring of our domestic life so soon?" She made her voice teasing.

"Not at all." He sighed. "But it's bad, Gwen. And our children are very young."

He didn't need to tell her women's business, she who had buried two children of Ordo in the time he'd been gone. Seen countless others die from the sicknesses after Malachor. Life in sand was hard—that was why their people tried for the stars.

"It's in the Underground too," she told him. "HoloNets is calling it the Jedi Plague."

Her husband's brows drew together. "Stay with D'Reev, if you won't go. You'll be safer there than elsewhere."

"We still need the Lin body."

"You're not gonna get it. They're gonna burn it here." His voice was flat. "Incinerating all the dead. Maybe they already have."

The last son of Lin deserved better than a mass pyre; but Gwenarius was comforted that at least there were no other members besides Revan and the child to be shamed. Still…. "You need to tell her to witness. And her son."

"Revan?"

Did he think she meant anyone else? "She and her son are the last members of Lin. They must see."

"I'll… tell her." His voice was preoccupied. The other voice said something else to him again.

"S'cuy gar," she murmured. Hopefully for a long time yet.

Her husband had an uncharacteristic tinge of sentiment in his voice. "S'cuy gar." He paused. "I love you, and our children."

"We will have more," she promised him. Whether you die of plague too or not. "Clan Ordo will not fall."

XXX

The Mandalorian resented being his escort nearly as much as Malak resented having him: that much was quite obvious. The entire time they'd been at breakfast in the nearly deserted cafeteria, the man had been bent over his comm, whispering.

No doubt reporting to Revan about Malak's evil intentions towards the toast and permacakes.

As they walked through the halls, returning to Malak's newly assigned quarters, he raised one of the boy's eyebrows. "Was the Captain too busy? Usually, he likes to stalk me himself."

"I really wish Revan hadn't made me promise not to kill you," the Mandalorian muttered. "Onasi's asleep."

"I could kill you," Malak snapped. It was infuriating that this body was actually a few centimeters shorter than Ordo.

"You could try." The man cocked his head over his shoulder. "Might be interesting. I wonder which of us has killed more Dark Jedi?" He snorted. "But I think the Jedi escort we've picked up might object."

Malak had been aware of their presence for some time: the older ones. All Council members. Without turning, he knew them. Jopheena. Atris. Hett. Klee..

All the ones who recognize me. Who know my power—

Even as he had that thought, another wave of rage bled through from the child caged within.

XXX

They were on the fracking ship again, which meant that Mekel was really Mekel and not asshole Malak being Mekel just so he could get Dustil to talk again.

Just to make sure, Dustil punched Mekel in the face. The second his fist connected, he smiled, pleased to be right.

"The frack, Telos?"

Mekk's nose was bleeding. Almost worth the doubled pain.

"I'm still here," Dustil pointed out. Time was harder and harder to measure. It could have weeks or years. He didn't know. All he had to go by was his own memories. And occasionally Mekel's. And… most disturbingly of all; once or twice, Malak's. "Did you talk to Malak or not?"

"I didn't have the chance." Mekel wiped his face, with a towel that materialized out of nowhere. "A lot of crap just happened. Oerin Lin's dead. And Mission was… she made me wear this collar? She said it was just a commlink. But it was really a bomb." He paused. "She made me wear a fracking bomb! And Thalia May's sick. Lydie and I are with her. We're all stuck in quarantine now."

I told you that wasn't Mission. "Lydie." Dustil tried to make sense of the rest of Mekel's babble and gave up. "Is she the one with the horns? Or the great rack?"

"I don't think that's an either or situation." Mekel sneezed. "You had the Dreshdae flu, right? I thought I remembered you having it."

"We barely knew each other back then." Back then it had been Dustil and Selene. Mekel had just been the guy in the room next door.

The walls of the ship wavered, looking dangerously close to becoming stone and Korriban.

"Yeah, I had it," Dustil said. With effort, he willed Korriban to disappear again. "It sucked, but not as much as this."

"That means your body's immune. Congratulations. You're not going to die." Mekel's mouth pulled. "Wish I could say the same. I mean, Thalia said I'm not gonna die from it, but she's spiking a fever and the guy Lydie says she kissed just died from it. So who knows?"

"Thalia does," Dustil pointed out. "Usually. Old faithful. It doesn't really matter if I'm not going to die. I'm still stuck." He thought of something. "Maybe you should fracking ask Thalia about me. Does she know about me?"

"Your dads called Malak out in front of her and Lydie and Lin, so yeah—she must."

"He did?" That gave Dustil a funny feeling. He laughed. "He must be shitting himself."

Mekel laughed too. "I think so." One side of his mouth turned up. "I think they all kind of know now? The Jedi? So hopefully, they'll help soon."

"You believe in the Jedi now?"

"I don't know what I believe anymore." The other boy scoffed. "I'm probably having a seizure on the floor of the medix office right now, speaking of shitting oneself."

"Thanks for the mental image," Dustil said dryly. But it made him laugh. He reached out and grabbed Mekel's hand. Somehow… it made them both feel better.

XXX

"So. You going to talk to those Jedi over there?" the Mandalorian asked Malak. "You want some privacy?" He sounded hopeful.

"You may leave us now, if you think your Master would let you," Malak sneered.

His words had the desired effect. Something in Canderous Ordo's eyes hardened. Muttering under his breath, he squared his shoulders and walked away, in the opposite direction down the hall.

He turned towards the Jedi. Strangely, the anger that had fueled his strength was fading as fast as it had come, leaving him… regretful. Almost… sentimental.

I know my judgement is affected—as it was before. I know the dark side leads to madness. I know the boy's rage fuels my strength—at a cost; but if it keeps my son safe—I will pay. I will pay any cost for that.

These fools cannot keep him safe. And if Revan will not, I will have to.

"Malak," Master Jopheena said.

He stopped walking. Laughter boiled like old blood in his throat; but he felt strangely calm. At peace. "Is this an intervention?"

"No." Master Atris took a step forward. "We need your help."

Laughter boiled in his throat. "My… help?"

"Just information," said Master Klee.

XXX

There were five other Padawans on the shuttle, besides Sheris: all of them confused, disappointed, and—at least in the case of Zayne—more than a little rebellious.

Jedi weren't supposed to want public acclaim, but they'd all worked so hard. The Progress , along with the small fleet remaining, was stationed above the frozen waste of a planet called Rekkiad in the middle of nowhere.

Not even in the Malachor system. It didn't seem fair.

Their shuttle landed in an empty hangar bay. Completely empty. No fighters, no cargo, no deckhands.

Not even any droids.

The made their way down the ramp cautiously, clustered together like ice lichen sliding down a rock.

"On behalf of the Republic," Oojoh began, "I'd like to thank each and every one of you for giving me this great opportunity to sit on my ass and do absolutely nothing for the next week."

"On behalf of the Republic," said Zayne. "I accept. This is indeed a great honor—for your ass."

Sheris cracked a slight smile. They were all younger than she was; but that was almost funny.

"Hey. Look!" Padawan Shad elbowed her. "Isn't that the Leviathan?"

Sheris turned back. The bay was still open. Beyond them, hazed by the ship's atmospheric field was an enormous wall of gray, banked with lights. Its Aurebesh lettering was clearly visible: the secondary flagship to the entire fleet was here too.

"Maybe they've brought us to Malachor after all," Sheris said. "I heard Revan and Malak never leave the Leviathan."

"Sure. Generals like to sit on their asses too." Gharn shrugged.

Knight Vikor frowned at them. "Keep moving, Padawans," he said. "I've set up a dormitory for you, in the lower cargo bay."

"Why?" the Falleen asked. Sheris didn't know her name then. It didn't matter, because later, the girl took a new one. "Isn't there room in the regular dorms? Where is everyone?"

All of them could feel it. The ship was nearly empty—running on a skeleton crew, at best.

"Just keep moving," Vikor said.

After—it took Sheris a year to even wonder. Had there really been orders to save them? Had the act of saving them been an act of kindness? Or one final act to send their souls deep into the dark side of the Force for all time?

Vikor said he didn't know. His own master had asked him to pilot the shuttle.

And there was no one left to ask. All of their masters died at Malachor.

XXX

"I always thought I'd kill you," she murmured to Lin's corpse. Softly, so Master Zez Kai, the Jedi's coroner, wouldn't hear. But the man was either asleep or passed out in the next room. Even as a Padawan, Sheris had heard about his weakness for spice and CoruGin.

"Or I thought you would kill me," she added. Her hand reached out and touched his hair.

His hair was still golden, but Oerin's face had gone all gray. Dead, his features looked delicate, like a prince carved in ice.

One of his eyes was half open, like a wink. It made his expression sly, almost calculating.

She leaned forward, suddenly struck by an odd impulse. The ring she'd given him, an old thing she'd found on one of the Mandalorian corpses on Dxun, was still on his slightly swollen finger.

Quickly, almost guiltily, she tugged it off.

"Robbing the dead?" The voice came from behind her, without warning.

XXX

Sheris's memories of the Fall were vague: filled with more shadows than sense—like one long and agonizing scream.

When she regained consciousness, she realized that something had… shifted. They were all huddled together, the six of them, like they were children afraid in the dark. Children, trapped in an ice cave. The other girl was even crying. Gharn's arms were wrapped around Sheris so tightly they left bruises. Her tongue felt hot and swollen in her mouth and she realized she'd bitten it.

The Knight Vikor who unlocked the cargo bay door and led them down a durasteel hall to an assembly room was changed too: pale and silent and shaken. None of them needed to ask what had happened. They had all felt it, all known the moment their Masters did. The death of a world, and the hundreds of thousands in its skies.

But it was as if the pain and death had opened something else: something cold inside of them, Sheris thought: like ice on their skin.

Vikor didn't speak, just left them in an assembly room with a bunch of other Padawans. They'd corralled all the Padawans on the ship away from their masters—those that had masters still alive. Maybe because the Knights all knew what was to come; or maybe to sever any existing bonds between them.

Or, Sheris thought later, maybe it was to protect them. She liked to think it was that.

The Jedi discouraged attachments because they led to emotional confusion: the Sith discouraged them because they made you weak.

Maybe they were just trying to protect them, and keep them strong.

In the days that followed, more than a few Jedi went completely insane. Did things like carve runes into their own flesh. Painted the walls of the ship with excrement. Wandered the halls with their sabers lit, challenging anyone they saw to a test of strength.

A shock troop of commandos was assigned to deal with them. Echani, mostly. Force resistant. The Jedi they didn't kill, they contained. An entire wing on the lower level—formerly reserved for the ship's running track—became something called 'the Asylum.' Because she had medical training, Sheris was assigned to work there. The Force couldn't heal a broken mind; but it could heal the injuries the mad inflicted—on themselves and each other.

In some ways, it was cleaner work than the war had been. Clever and contained.

The nulls—mostly deck crew and the few Fleet officers—seemed to have no idea what had actually happened. They'd seen every Jedi collapse screaming after Malachor V; but after that, when the Jedi all regained consciousness, the nulls seemed to think life would just go back to normal.

At least, as normal as any mass defection from the Republic Fleet into the Unknown Reaches of Space could be.

Some of the nulls even laughed sometimes. Some of them even talked like they really were chasing down the remnants of the Mandalorian Armada out here in the Reach.

Maybe no one had told them they weren't.

The thing was, then the nulls started to vanish. Commander Key'a, who was in charge of communications. One day, she just wasn't there. Second Gunner Raphe? The one with the cute friend? They found his body stuffed between blast doors, near the armory. Lieutenant Vair? Who had been from Hoth too? For reasons that no one could explain afterwards, in the presence of two Jedi Knights, she decided to take a walk into vacuum, without her suit.

Space was cold. Even colder than Hoth. You'd last about thirty seconds before brain function stopped outside in Ch'Tera, where Sheris grew up. She wondered how long it would take in space.

Sometimes she had nightmares that she'd decided to find out.

XXX

She turned. The scream froze in her throat.

The old woman in front of her might as well have been a holoimage or a droid; for as much presence as she held in the Force. But she was dressed in Jedi robes, hood obscuring most of her face.

And something about her was almost familiar.

"I wasn't stealing it. I gave it to him," Sheris said. It was just an old ring, made of beskar, stamped with the insignia of a Mandalorian clan long dead.

He had never given her any promise in return.

"Do you know what happened?" the Jedi asked. Her voice was perfectly calm, but underneath, Sheris thought something boiled, shook, like unstable floe. "How was he infected?"

"I don't know." She didn't. "I just got here—he was already dead. They say—there's some kind of plague."

"And so," the Jedi murmured. "Plans are fragile things. Even mine."

There was sadness in the old woman. It wasn't something Sheris could heal, just something she understand. "I'm sorry," she said politely. "I guess you… did you know him well?"

"As well as any who knew him." The old woman took his gray hand in her own, staring down at the body. "He was a beautiful child."

"A beautiful man too." He had been. As Malak had not—not when she knew him.

"Reliance on beauty is a weakness," the old woman said. She lifted her head. Pale eyes glinted under her hood. "Tell me: you, who followed Revan into the Unknown Reaches: have you ever seen plague like this before?"

"On Korriban," Sheris whispered. "And Ziost."

She'd had it. She'd been sick for weeks. It had killed many of them, weakened more.

"I have as well. Some think this sickness was made to target weakness. But Oerin Lin was anything but weak."

"I don't know." Sheris felt ashamed suddenly. Suddenly, she wanted to know. Suddenly, she felt as if she couldn't rest until she knew. The ring felt cold in her fingers. "I don't know what happened."

"He spoke of you." The woman paused. "Not just you. But you, among the others. He was fond of many women. But I told him to wait until his final blood in stars. Love is a weakness and I needed him strong."

"I wasn't weak by his side," Sheris said truthfully.

Until he tried to kill me. Why did he do that? Was he the same as Malak? Was he really just in love with her?

The old woman sighed. "You must learn to be strong in his absence."

XXX

When Lena and Nico walked off the ship, they were greeted by several Wookiees armed with bowcasters, and one grizzled and scarred Wookie carrying a large, portable holocomm unit.

"Give me a sec," the girl's voice said from the unit's speaker. "We're still setting up, okay?"

"Where's Revan?" Nico asked, as if he was expecting her to actually be here.

Lena elbowed him slightly, willing him to be quiet. The Wookiees seemed larger here than Mission's friend had been on Tatooine. Larger and more ominous.

One of them growled softly: a string of syllables and, incredibly, Nico barked back.

The Wookiee growled again, and then so did Nico: a series of interrogative, almost demanding coughs.

"Fascinating," he added to her. "The language is corrupted, of course, but they still use the syntax based on their masters' tongue! All these thousands of years, and our slaves still remember!"

Several bowcasters clicked, and one of the smaller Wookiees called out a warning whine.

"Just because they don't speak Basic, doesn't mean they don't understand it, Nico!" Lena elbowed him harder.

"You have to forgive my husband," she added to the Wookiees, trying not to panic. "He's…just… I mean, he means well. He wasn't calling you slaves… he's just an ass."

"Husband?" The comm unit said. An image fizzled, then spun to life. Hazed in blue, as blue as she had been in life. The image of Mission Vao's eyes widened. "Congratulations, I guess. Good job on not marrying my loser brother."

Lena frowned. She had thought the voice was… but of course, that was impossible. This had to be a recording, or some kind of computer-generated trick. "Mission?"

"Not in the flesh!" the girl's voice said. "But yeah. Hey, Lena. Can you tell your asshole husband here he needs to undo whatever it was he did that cut me off? Now's a really bad time to be flying blind."

XXX

The first time Sheris realized why the nulls were vanishing was in the cafeteria, of all places, standing in line for breakfast.

Ensign Lewis, who sometimes flirted with her, took the last muffa. Right in front of Knight Davad.

And then, about ten seconds after, Ensign Lewis rose a meter into the air and choked to death.

The muffa fell from his hand. No one wanted it now.

Even Davad seemed shocked by what he'd done. "I'm sorry," he said, uselessly, to the broken body. "I was just… hungry."

The room was so quiet, you could almost hear the Force in it, crackling like a fire. There was something warm there. It was… it was hard to put into words. But all of the Jedi felt it. It was a connection, like a belonging. For the first time since Malachor Sheris actually felt like she was part of a team.

"It's okay," Sheris murmured. She put her hand on Davad's arm. "We understand."

He looked to her, his eyes yellow as a wompa's. "I know."

XXX

"Who are you?" Sheris peered at the woman's face, but all she glimpsed was a shock of white hair, and an amused smile.

"Once a Jedi. Like you. Like my mother before me. Like Revan. Like all of us; women and mothers who have had to face the cruelest choice: sever the bonds with our children for the sake of the galaxy; or live tiny, meaningless lives, cowering in the face of that which will destroy everything—while hoping in vain that it passes us by."

"I have no children."

The Jedi gave an amused snort. "Surely you realize, the memories of her past come with one? Revan had a son. You will have to leave him, to do what must be done."

Master Atris had told Sheris some of it.

"I won't be alone."

"So you think." The Jedi stepped forward, and placed both hands on Oerin Lin's chest. "Her apprentice betrayed you both before: do you expect any less now?"

Stung, Sheris spoke before she thought. "I don't need him!"

The old woman chuckled. "Good." She bent forward. White hair brushed against Oerin's face. "Awaken," she murmured, in his ear.

His hand, the same one Sheris had just pried the ring off of, twitched once. Oerin's half open eye fluttered closed. Then opened all the way. His chest heaved once. Then again.

Sheris smothered a scream with her hands. The woman glanced back at her, face still hidden by the robes. "Forget," she added to Sheris. Her voice was almost conversational.

"I—" Sheris blinked.

XXX

A lot of the Jedi didn't make it. A lot of the nulls didn't either. For months, those that remained on the Progress lived on a ghost ship orbiting a planet in the Unknown Reaches. There were rumors that the planet below was beautiful; that it had beaches, and sun. Some Jedi went down and came back, even more changed than before. She barely recognized Shad when she saw him again. And she never did find out what happened to the other four Padawans.

The Force grew darker and colder. Cold like space.

Sheris was from Hoth and the cold didn't bother her. In fact, she grew to like it. The cold made it easy. Gradually, the Jedi that still lived all became cold too. The mutilations and the madness stopped.

It made her work in the Asylum much easier.

Then one day, a Jedi came from the Leviathan, asking if anyone still had the power to heal.

"I do," Sheris said, stepping forward. She'd healed one of the engineers after that accident with the cooling tanks. Uko had a bad burn on the side of her leg from where the coolant had leaked.

Sheris had only wanted to show everyone else what the cold she felt inside was like.

"You?" The other woman was strong in the Force. Her dark eyes were blue, but they looked almost black. Her eyes hadn't turned yet. Not everyone's did. But her skin looked waxy, as if it had once had more color. Her hair was black, and looped at the top of her head, shaved on the sides. Her eyes narrowed. "Are you Hothan? You look like it."

"I can heal," Sheris told her again. "Does it matter where I'm from?"

The Dark Jedi snorted. "Maybe. Maybe not." Her eyes seemed to peer inside Sheris, as if she could see her very soul. She pulled a vibroblade out of her sleeve and slashed it down, across her wrist. She didn't even flinch. "Prove yourself," she taunted Sheris. "Heal me."

Sheris took her arm in her hands, and concentrated. The cold light came, washing over the woman's arm. When she was done, a hard red line remained, but nothing more.

"You'll do," the Jedi said. "Maybe he won't kill you like the last four."

She took Sheris away. Her name was Beya, but Sheris didn't know that yet. Beya took Sheris to the planet and an ancient stone temple. She took Sheris to a room with two people in it. One of them wore a mask. The other one was Malak.

"Heal him," the masked figure said. Her voice was metallic and cold.

Malak made a noise, but he couldn't speak. The air was thick with the smell of rot. Half of his jaw was gone. Sheris could see the teeth, striped like old wounds, in the pulp of flesh.

She had seen worse, in the wars. Sheris stepped forward, reaching up to cup the damaged skin. Revan was so close behind her. It was then that she noticed they were the same height, her and Revan.

White light sprang from her fingers, enveloping his face. Malak sighed, a gentle sound. She felt his pain ebb away, replaced by the ice purity of the light.

"Thank you," the woman wearing the mask said. Oddly formal, in the madness of the Sith.

XXX

"I—" Sheris blinked.

The fountain in front of her bubbled quietly, propelled by the Force. Her limbs were cramped and cold, as if she'd been meditating for a very long time. How long had she been meditating in the Room of a Thousand Fountains? She remembered watching the HoloNet, and—and then—

Then sadness, because Oerin Lin was dead.

Sheris stood up, brushing her robes, suddenly aware that she wasn't alone.

His hand brushed her hair, moving the strands away from her face. She could feel the warmth of his body not quite touching hers, hear his breath behind her; soft and a little fast, as if he was as nervous as she.

XXX