Where Can I Run To, Where Can I Hide
Chapter 36 / Where Can I Run To, Where Can I Hide
One of the advantages of being a murderer was that the power it bestowed meant Davad no longer needed to sleep. That was also good, because night was the best time for the hunt.
On the summer solstice back home, night and day aligned, and the Dxun moon grew close enough that its atmosphere bled into the sky of their planet; colors of orange and gold mixing with a heartrending blue. That was when Davad, and his brothers, and cousins, and all of their royal escort would mount their great drexl and fly straight up, angling towards that impossible moon, the thread between their worlds. The air would grow thin and their limbs would shake; but they'd still rise, impossibly high—until the moon's heavier gravity took hold, and the wings of their great beasts would falter and fall, plummeting towards the demon moon suddenly below.
That was the true test of a rider's skill, to guide a beast through its fear of falling, fear of oblivion; against all of its natural impulses: to command it to spread its great insectine wings and glide, catching the dense air currents, and angling down, slowly, gentle as a lover's kiss.
Do it wrong, and you would both perish. Like more than one of Davad's cousins—and his eldest sister.
Do it right, and a feast awaited: a feast for man and beast: roasted cannok and slices of sweet, wild melon. Charred and buttery tubers baked in giant pits with tarja pulp; and stolen glasses of spiced tarja wine. And at the end, as the singers began the last verse of the grand design, the hunters would come home for the real celebration: driving the cart pushed by dalgo, with the massive corpse of the zakkeg surrounded by its dead: tame malraas and rophin and Beast-rider alike, who had fallen in its pursuit.
Although Davad Arkan had left for the Jedi before he came of a hunter's age, as a prince of Onderon, he had always been given a piece of the great beast's chewy black heart—raw and feral, like the taste of the hunt in his throat.
He could taste the hunt now, as he stood in the stair near the Knight's dormitories, all but empty now, save for the stragglers. He preferred to take them sleeping, let them slip into dreams before it all stopped; but footsteps were drawing closer, and his pulse pounded with the emptiness in his belly; the hunger that grew with every death, every rationalization, every time he swore to stop, thought of resisting the call that she had put in him, the thing that she had made him become.
"Knight Arkan?" The man sounded surprised, a little embarrassed to see him there. "I was just... taking a walk."
"So was I," Davad told him. There was no fear in the Jedi's scent: his errand, whatever it had been, was only an assignation, a trip to the kitchens, some random, petty indulgence. This was not one of the conspirators Davad and his master were hunting.
"If you'll excuse me…?" the man stepped to the side, and Davad matched him, raising an eyebrow.
"Are you sure you want to leave so soon?" He did not need physical contact now, as he had at first; but he'd found it soothed them. He reached out and caught the other man's arm.
The Jedi had black eyebrows, and a long, bushy face. His frown made grooves in his beard. "Is there… something you need, Knight Arkan?"
"Yes," Davad said. "I have trouble sleeping too." He stepped closer, so that his shoulder brushed against the other man's chest, their faces, nearly of a height, aligned.
The other man had eyes as dark as his own; widening like prey. His mouth pursed under that mat of hair. "Do you…?"
"Yes," Davad said. His other hand locked around the man's waist, and he reached out, inhaling all of it: scent, power, Force. The Jedi staggered on his feet, wide eyes fluttering shut. No time for panic, regret, or fear. A kindness, the only one Davad had left. One of the conspirators, he would have questioned, had to threaten. Followed her orders, the ones stamped upon his soul. But this man was only another meal and there was no reason for prey to suffer.
The comm in his pocket chimed. Once, twice. Insistent. Not now! The man in his arms murmured something, last words that no one cared to hear. Davad drank him deep, trying to ignore how it thrilled him, the flutter of fear, like a drexl's heart descending the gravity well. He straightened. The corpse slipped out of his hands, slid down a few stairs.
The comm chimed again, as he tried to compose himself, ignore the delicious languor in his limbs, and that nagging need: a desire for more. Just one more?
"You must answer her call when she asks, Beast-Lord. You must be hers, as much as you are hers. Both of them trust you, and in the end, it is both you will betray."
He didn't turn around, didn't want to know if she was really there, or just inside his head. He wasn't sure which was worse.
"Yes," he gritted his teeth, straightening his back. "As you wish, Master."
She chuckled, for once as tangible as he was. "Careful. A broken beast cannot serve me."
Shut up, he thought. Go back to your games in the Underground. Go back to your secret war.
"Some fire left." She chuckled again. "Good."
Davad bared his teeth. "Enough." He accepted the call—as much to silence his master's voice as to obey. "Revan." he tried to adjust the comm's angle away from the body, away from anything that would give away his location. The schutta behind him could take care of herself. "It's rather late. Is something wrong?"
XXX
"Nothing will be resolved before morning," Aemelie twisted a lock of her hair and smiled at Revan. "Did you want to join us tonight in our rooms now, or would you prefer to interrogate the false Alderaanian prisoner first?"
What she wanted to do was scour the Force for traces of Oerin Lin. Find out if it was possible that somehow—in addition to Force ghosts, holocrons, and personality overlays—someone was also raising the dead. But where to begin with that?
For the moment, all plans of assuming her real memories vanished. She kept seeing Millifar's face, kept hearing the dead Oerin's broken voice. He said his mother, who the frack is his mother?
"I need a secure room for a comm call," Revan said. "And then I'll speak to the prisoner."
"I'm sure the children would enjoy some interrogation work," Canderous's second wife protested, more stridently than Revan expected. "We could easily create a transcript for you."
"Is there some reason, you don't want me to speak with Therion?" She tilted her head. "Where did you find him again?"
Amelie's eyes were wide and innocent—and lying, Revan thought. "His ship was stranded. We took him in."
"You said that." Revan frowned, but the details had scattered from her mind, upset by the shock of seeing Lin's corpse, apparently walking around Coruscant with all of the man's power of illusion and persuasion. "I also… I want my own room tonight." She tried to remember the proper phrasing in Mandalorian. "On this night may you enjoy our husband's company, while I plot our next battle."
Aemelie sniffed. "I'll tell Gwenarius," she said. "You may use our communications center. It's down the aft stairs, in the second room on the starboard side."
The room wasn't much more than a closet with comms wired into the walls, but she pulled out her own private comm and dialed Davad's code.
It took several chimes before he answered. "Revan." His voice was strained. "It's rather late. Is something wrong?"
"Were you asleep?" She hadn't considered that. "I'm sorry, but this is important."
"No, just—" his comm pulled back from his face, revealing a hallway, the edge of a stair. "Just—not the best of times."
"I won't be coming tomorrow. In fact, I might be delayed longer than that." She lowered her voice, glancing at the door. "Something's come up that I need to resolve."
Maybe dead Oerin Lin can go in a coma next to Malak, her mind mocked. Isn't that how you resolve the things you can't resolve?
"I'm sure whatever it is can be fixed," he said. His eyes kept fixing on something offscreen. Something she couldn't see. "How may I help?"
It was a secure comm, and she trusted him. Revan took a deep breath. "I just saw security footage of Oerin Lin. Taken the day after his death."
"But his body was burned, I thought?" Davad smiled slightly. "You're serious? Where did… where was this walking corpse seen?"
"I didn't say he was walking." It seemed an obvious point, and yet—
"Well, I assume he wasn't sitting, and if he was merely lying there dead, you wouldn't seem this upset." Davad's comm tilted towards a nondescript ceiling, before resolving again with him standing in front of a plain, duracrete wall. "I'm the assistant coroner, Rev. Master Zez was very clear that the body was cremated. Was it just the armor—maybe the armor was all that you saw? I left it for the Mandalorians at the security gate, but in the confusion of the riots, perhaps it was stolen?"
"No." Even after the horrors of the Star Forge, all those Jedi trapped in tanks to fuel Malak's power… somehow, what she'd seen of Oerin seemed worse. "I saw his face. On the recording, he said his mother was a Sith Lord trying to stop the True Sith and he was rotting from the inside out."
"Fire on the wing, he said all that?" Davad's face underwent some peculiar contortions. "Who did he say that to?"
"It doesn't matter. Could it be true? Do you know who his mother is?"
Davad rubbed his temples. His eyes flickered away from her and there was a long pause. "I… might. I have been doing some investigation myself. On the… the missing Jedi from the Temple and—"
"Missing Jedi?"
"Yes." He stared at her again, the smile fading from his face. "Quite a few, actually. Some missing and some appear to be hiding."
"You didn't mention this before."
He gave her a pained smile. "You had your own concerns."
Guilt nagged at her. "If I had known, I would have helped. I'll coming there. Now. Tonight. I can't take the memories, until I know; but I need to know what's happened. Can you—" Her mind scattered, trying to think of the Jedi that she could trust… probably trust. "Can you gather our allies. Yuthura Ban. Iridel. Jopheena. Zhar. Vrook—have you heard from him?" She hesitated. "Sheris, as well, if you think she's sane enough. And Mekel Jin."
"They may not be all available." His smile had faded. Suddenly he looked years older, even through the blurry comm, with lines she had not expected in his dark skin.
"Bring who you can." She didn't like how troubled he seemed. Like things were even worse than she knew.
Davad Arkan nodded slowly. "I'll do my best." He hesitated. "It might be more expedient, if you come alone. The Jedi haven't forgotten the last time they let a Mandalorian in the Temple."
Revan ignored that. "Expect us soon." She cut the comm and stood up, running through the list of possibilities again. I don't know what this means. Would Sheris? Would… Malak?
Dustil's body was still unconscious, and no one seemed to know why. There were too many coincidences, too many obstructions. Davad is hiding how bad this really is from me to protect me.
Canderous was already waiting outside the door, dressed in armor, his daughter by his side, also wearing beskar. They had their helms clipped to their belts, but aside from their faces and size, the armor made them almost identical: blunt and immovable objects.
"It's a matter of honor," Millifar said, before Revan could say anything at all. "If some schutta did that to Oerin, her life is mine."
"This might be dangerous—"
The girl lifted her chin, stubbornly. "I have training. I will not be fooled again by dar'jettai tricks."
Revan looked at Canderous. He nodded slightly. She didn't want to make Millifar feel foolish by saying anything out loud, so she only nodded back.
"We're going to the Jedi Temple," she told them. "If this Sith Lord is there—" is it Arca? Or the Emperor himself?
"Dar'jettai are easy to kill," Canderous said. He nodded at Millifar, who went to a cabinet inset in the wall. It snapped open, revealing rows upon rows of mines and grenades. Revan's eyes stretched down the corridor, all lined with similar doors and wondered, with a chill, just how much weaponry the Mandalorians had bought or acquired. They both went to work, unsnapping the plates in their armor's legs and chest, filling the storage within with grenades. Not for the first time, Revan wondered what happened when such an arsenal was accidentally ignited; but she knew better than to ask.
"Just… give me five minutes," she said. "To see Therion."
"Who?" Canderous looked like he genuinely didn't know.
"The man you shot," she told him.
"He's not dead, I told you."
"But he's conscious?"
"Aemelie was making sure, before she left." The Mandalorian shrugged. "She hasn't commed to say he's dead, so I assume so."
"Five minutes," Revan repeated.
"The barbarian assassin is down the hall," Millifar muttered. "Don't take too long, or we'll go without you."
XXX
"What are we doing?" Lydie Korr whispered. It was dark in the Archives, and she couldn't sense anyone close to them, which was terrifying in and of itself, without adding in the way Thalia May was acting, as if someone was hunting them.
"Put this on," her friend whispered.
Even in the near dark, Thalia didn't look entirely recovered. Her face shone with a layer of sweat, and her fingers was too warm when they pressed something long and flat into Lydie's hands.
"A belt?"
"Stealth belt, the switch is here." Thalia's fingers pulled hers on top of something small and silvery under the buckle. "Put it on first. It needs a body's electrical field to work."
Lydie didn't argue. She didn't question. What they'd seen in the last few weeks had driven away most—if not all—of her curiosity. She'd seen the dead lying in the halls of the Jedi Temple. Officially, they'd all died of plague.
But when Master Croi had called out a warning to her in the Force, he didn't sound sick, he'd only sounded frightened. Her Fosh master had been over five hundred years old. What was there left to be frightening to him?
She'd found Padawan Aleek on the stairs. It almost looked like the Rodian had slipped and fallen… if you ignored the fact that there was a giant… hole inside of her where the Force should have been. No marks on her body at all, but where she had once been, where there had once been a warm, generous spirit who shared her sweets with Lydie after History Class, there was now just… nothing.
Like a hole in the Force. Like a death in the Force itself. Like the death of the Force itself..
And the others. The sick ones in the Medix who were supposed to get better, and then one day, they were just… gone.
Don't think of their names. Don't remember Master Iridel, or your own Master Croi. Don't remember Padawan Aleek, or Knight Devry, of Apprentice Sansi. Don't remember Padawan Rappertunie or your old roommate Aishie Sez, who both went to the clinics yesterday and never came back—
Officially, everything was fine.
And sometimes, especially when she was working at the Medix helping Master Loanin and Padawan Jorde, Lydie thought things were fine too. But then she'd see something out of place, like the empty apprentice dorm, or the blank lecture schedule and everything would shift… and then she'd suddenly feel like she was waking up from a dream with a panic so black that all she wanted to do was run away.
Something—or someone is very wrong here. Something is clouding our minds. Obvious to everyone left. There were rumors that other Enclaves, on other planets, had even closed for good. And Master Atris, who once kept these Archives humming with color and light, had taken all of her personal effects and half the Jedi's databanks and just… disappeared. No one seemed to know where she had gone. No one seemed to even care.
Aunt Marla had told Lydie to watch and listen. Aunt Marla being here was really the only reason Lydie was still here. That, and she had nowhere else to go. Aunt Marla wasn't afraid. And if Master Korr wasn't frightened, then neither was Padawan Korr.
Her still being here had absolutely nothing to do with a black-eyed Padawan who'd never even woken up from his coma, just like the ghost of Darth Malak, who was maybe still in Dustil Onasi's body in the bacta tank beside him. It had nothing to do with the shadows under Master Loanin's gray eyes; although those worried her too.
Azen Loanin never voiced any thought that anything was wrong, but sometimes he closed his research logs, when she approached. And his Padawan, Mical Jorde, who was barely younger than Azen himself, was one of the missing now. Stranger still, Master Loanin didn't seem concerned, or sad about it at all.
"This is dangerous," Thalia warned her. "But I dreamed it. I think you'll be okay, Lydie Korr. I think we both will."
Lydie lowered her voice. "Where are we going? You said you'd tell me when we got to the Archives."
"There." Her friend pointed at the terminals, as dark and blank as the rest of the archives across the room. "Practice turning the stealth belt on and off. Use your fingers, not the Force. The Force might not… work."
Because it's dying? Is the Force dying here? Could that happen? In Master K'timshi's Treatise on the Phenomenology of Energy Exchange, he posited that the Force was a finite entity. Could we run out? Is that why the Jedi are dying too?
"We didn't have to come here to use the nets. I have a term in my room. My… Master Korr gave it to me." The unsaid suggestion, Lydie thought, was that it was safer for Lydie to use the terminal in her room than to come to a dark and empty place like this, when Padawans kept vanishing all over the place.
"No," Thalia murmured. "It has to be here."
"Why?" She was already fastening the belt and flicking the switch. She watched her hand in front of her vanish and reappear.
"It's better if you don't know." Thalia took a deep breath, and handed Lydie a small slip of plimsi. "I dreamed this would work," she murmured, almost more to herself than to Lydie. "Switch on one of the terminals. Look up the names I gave you. Read what you find. Think about what you find. But if you see anyone… especially a man—or something that looks like a man—I need you to turn on the stealth belt and run. Don't think. Just run. As fast as you can. Just... get away. Fast."
"Where are you going?" For it was obvious now that Thalia was going to leave her in this dark and terrifying place that had once been Lydie's favorite place in the galaxy when the room had been full of color and light. "What do you mean, 'something that looks like a man?' Like a Human man? A Twi'lek man?" You can't mean a Zabrak man because Padawan Reeves was the only one here—
"Not Human. Not anymore," Thalia said. "I don't know his name now, only what it will be." Then, she did something strange. She kissed Lydie on the lips, before Lydie could stop her. And before Lydie had time to think about it, she was kissing Thalia back.
Kissing Thalia May was different than kissing Devn Rappertunie, or how she'd imagined kissing Mekel Jin would feel. Thalia's lips were soft and full, and too warm, just like the rest of her. It wasn't bad-different either. When Thalia's forehead brushed against her horns, Lydie's breath caught, and her own hand tightened on the other woman's arm.
But then Thalia pulled away. "Thank you," she said, as if Lydie had done her a favor.
"If you were trying to infect me with plague too, the science says it won't work." That woman who looked like Revan, Padawan Loran, had lectured them all endlessly about the plague when she worked in the Medix. Lydie had heard about how Zabrak couldn't catch it at least a dozen times.
When things seemed normal enough to be annoyed by another person, Lydie couldn't stand Sheris Loran. Of course, now Padawan Sheris Loran spent her days in the Underground Clinics, and probably gave lectures to all the sentients down there instead.
"No." Thalia's eyes were a strange blue-green that didn't match the rest of her Human phenotype. Her lashes curled up at the ends, Lydie had never noticed that before. "I was just afraid I wouldn't have another chance."
"I'm sure you'll kiss lots of people…" Lydie felt her face heat like a Human's. She was pretty sure her horns were flushed red.
"No," said Thalia May. "I won't."
XXX
Most Onderonite curses involve beasts: whether casting aspersions about your enemies' wingspan, or wishing the eggs of their drexl develop a fungal rot. After speaking to Revan, Oerin had time to mutter several under his breath, while the Jedi in front of him stared vacantly through dead eyes at the ceiling.
Already, he'd forgotten the man's name. At first, he'd remembered each one, starting with that Padawan he'd had to knock unconscious in the kitchens to help Oerin Lin escape. Upon returning, the boy had seen him, and all that Davad meant to do was make him forget; but when his mind touched the child's, there was something so—something so primal: like when a bonded beast takes the first mating flight. He could still remember the taste of blood from that experience in his own mouth—and really, what happened next was hardly any different. He hungered, and so he reached for a source to end that hunger—like scratching a sweet itch—and then he was sated and the Miralukan was gone, almost as if he had never existed.
Guilt had followed, at first nearly too much to bear; even as his master's whispers kept reminding him that what they did was necessary to fight the war-yet-to-come; that this strange power of his was a gift, not a curse. (And was it forged from Malachor? Or merely the true manifestation of any Beast-rider's strength? They, who brought the Force into the beasts they controlled: could they all consume it from all the living instead?)
And seeing the hunger sated—for perhaps the first time in his life since he'd abandoned his drexl and his crown to follow the path of the Jett'ai: a noble quest for knowledge at first just meant to stop his people from accidentally stumbling into more repositories of dark side power—which for some reason, Onderon was full of—was like hearing the end to a poem Davad had been trying to end all of his life. Sate a hunger that had never left: one that food, drink, sex, or fighting had never touched.
He'd been taught all of his life that the Force was in all living things; but now he knew: the Force was life. And, maybe ever since Malachor, he had been starving for it, starving to fill himself with something, after all of that death.
"That was too close." Her voice. Also too close. Davad felt her physical presence behind him, but he didn't turn around. Half the time when he did, she wouldn't be there at all. "You shouldn't have taken this one. Not here—not in this hallway."
"She saw nothing." He bent down and lifted the body, not bothering to close the eyes or say any of the prayers he'd said once. Already the hunger was rising again. It was getting worse: one used to last for days, and now he was never quite sated. Now, some days he took two. Once, three.
"We must plan our movements carefully, Apprentice. This is not time for missteps."
Davad laughed, "Did you hear what she said? About your boy? He was seen."
"All the more reason for you to be cautious. We have not finished with this place—nor will we until all life within is gone, replaced by the echoes of its fall. Such a void will attract Tenebrae's attention, and then—"
"She's coming now. Tonight. Soon." He choked back another laugh. "And I'm starving. What if I can't control myself with her, Master? All your efforts, and your apprentice eats your precious Revan Starfire." He exhaled. When he tried, he could sense her easily, moving closer. She shone like a star in Force. He'd had her, he knew her, but all of that was nothing to what he wanted from her now.
"You will not," she commanded. "Control your base impulses, lest you become a beast in truth."
Davad closed his eyes. "Oh, we're far past that." It had been better when Oerin was here too, brief as that period had been. Better when Oerin was alive. Better when she had been far away on her own planet, driving pathetic to pawns to madness instead of him.
An alarm interrupted, strangely prosaic. One of the perimeter sensors he'd set around the now-empty archives. He had been weeding out the Jedi strong enough to still be curious for weeks.
"The Force has given you an offering," his master said. Even without turning he could see her expression: those clouding eyes, that cruel smile on her face. "Take what you find in the archives quickly."
"Are you ready, then?" He asked. "Ready to face Revan?"
"She will not be Revan for much longer." Her steps came closer and her hand gripped his shoulder, a vise grip—and, yet oddly maternal, like Gaia, the queen of Onderon, had never been. "Put down your burden, Beast-Lord. Knight Qal'Istal does not care if his shell lies here, or in your warehouse of corpses. He is beyond your reach."
Davad looked down at the woman's face. Unremarkable. "But someone might see."
"Now is the time for them to see, if they have eyes." She chuckled. "But they will not. Even this will be explained." She laughed again. "Go. "
XXX
"I told you," Seiran said. He didn't sound smug about it, only scared. As scared as Polla was.
"Damnit," she whispered, adjusting the rifle scope, and increasing magnification. The auto target kept trying to lock onto the taller, armored figure; but she jerked it back again, focusing the sight on the dark, curly-haired woman, who walked across the Underground plat like she was on a mission.
"I count six," her husband said, standing next to her with the pair of bi-nok goggles. "If that's not a Mandalorian hunting party, I don't know what is."
"I'm glad you made us change hotels." Not that she felt a lot safer across the street from where Aemelie Ordo had left them before heading off to see her Mandalorian Clan and Darth fracking Revan probably; but at least they had a clear line of sight.
Her finger hovered on the trigger. It would be an easy shot to make. Killing sentient beings probably wasn't any harder than shooting a trawler deer, right? But she would have to take out all six of them—
And I thought you were my friend, Aemelie. I thought you were my friend.
"I took the charge pak out," Seiran said, as if he'd read her mind. "Don't do anything crazy. We paid off the desk, and I hacked the room panel to put us in here. Even if they guess the hotel, they won't know the room number."
"Why did I even bring us to this stinking planet?" Polla let the rifle fall for a sec, and wiped her eyes. "I'm sorry, Seiran. This was a huge mistake."
"You always wanted to see the center of the universe." He snorted. "So did I, to be honest."
"Now, we've seen it." The towers had been pretty enough, but not that different from the ritzy parts of Corellia, or Corulag or Kuat. And the Underground… they might as well be in Nar—except it smelled even worse.
The place they were staying cost 200 credits a night and it was a dump.
True, Polla had to allow that sheer terror was probably affecting her opinion; but at least on Nar Shaddaa she'd never been hunted by a Mandalorian hunting party.
"I thought they were our friends," she repeated lamely. Of course, that was before they'd seen a report about a 'disturbance' at the Skydream Palace, the hotel the Mandalorians had taken over. That was before Therion's comm had gone dark, as had the media contact he'd promised to introduce them to. That was before Aemelie Ordo had pinged Polla's comm six times, "just to find out how she was." That was when they changed hotels, her own paranoia matching Seiran's, for once. That was when they'd gone to ground and set up a guard rotation, just like they were running sweeps at summer camp as kids back home—planning for the revolution that had never come.
As if summoned, her comm chimed again. "Frack." She glanced at it. To her surprise, the number was actually Therion's.
"It's him," she told Sei.
"Answer it," he said, still standing at the window with the goggles. "They've gone inside across the street. I'll keep watch."
Polla hit the response key, but it wasn't Therion D'Cainen's image rotating on tinny vidplayer. It was Aemelie Ordo herself. Again. "Seriina!" Their stalker looked relieved. Incredibly she was smiling. "There you are! I need to w—"
Polla gave a startled yelp, and almost dropped the comm, slamming down the disconnect button. "They've got Therion," she told Seiran. "This is bad—really bad."
"That media contact of your ex's…" his voice trailed off. "Did Therion give you an address?"
Polla nodded. "Yes. Some kind of hotsheet place. Level 47?" She shook her head. "Sublevel 47?"
"That's… about fifteen levels down from here. I think there's public lifts and some stairs? Do you remember which sector?"
"This one." She gritted her teeth. "That's why Therion picked the place across the street for us. He said this was the closest safe part of town to Arca—where we wouldn't get rolled."
"It's not gonna get any closer if we don't move." Polla was already gathering up everything she could, trying to ignore the panic in her chest. Panic and guilt.
Abasen whimpered a little. He had been fussy ever since they checked in. She glanced down at him, still in his black and red sling, wrapped around her shoulders. "Shhh," she soothed.
"Just take the essentials," Seiran told her. "We need to travel light." He reached up and undid his topknot, hair falling awkwardly over his eyes. "We also need to blend in."
Polla nodded, and fished the band out of her own hair. Resting Abasen on her hip, she ran her fingers over the heavy rifle Seiran had given her ages ago. Too heavy. "Good-bye," she told it. "I'm sorry we can't take you with us."
All these things left behind: their farm, her parents, their lives—
Her husband laughed. "It's just a gun."
She wiped her eyes. "It's not the gun, Sei—it's the principle."
"Here. Take these for your principles." Seiran handed her the light blaster, and her throwing knives. "Like shooting a trawler," he said—again. "If it comes to it, don't hesitate. Aim to kill. For Abasen."
Therion's comm began ringing again. Polla tossed it down the fresher and hit flush.
XxX
"I have five minutes," Revan told the Deralian. "Then I have to leave. Then I'm turning you over to the Mandalorians, who like to practice interrogation techniques, even if you don't have anything useful to say."
"There's enough of me to go around, Princess." Even strapped to a chair, Therion D'Cainen was irrepressible. He actually fracking winked.
She paced in front of him, hands behind her back. "You know how the Force works? Anything I want to know, I can just rip from your mind. Anytime."
He stared at her and blinked. There was a long pause.
"Three minutes now," Revan snapped. "Tell me why you're here. Is it revenge for her?"
"You mean Pollie?" He snorted. "Don't try and bluff the spacer who taught her to play pazaak. You can't read my mind, or you'd have kicked me in the choobs. You can't read banthashit."
"Then why?" She took a step backwards. "Surely, you don't think you've got a shot with me."
"Sweet of you to offer, babe, and the red hair is hot, but no. I'm here for credits. This producer offered me a enough to buy a sweet ride, if I shared my stories about all of our good times." He winked. "You gonna begrudge Polla's ex a fortune? Or do you want a cut?"
"You can't," she blurted out, before thinking it through. "There's too much about her and the rest of them on the nets now. You can't add more."
"Pollie always wanted to be famous." He smirked, looking her up and down. "Guess you know that. So what's the problem?"
"You want me to buy you off?" Not that it would work, he'd just come back for more; and he'd always be a risk to them—frack, if he still has those vids from Zeltros—
She didn't want to kill him, even as a part of her brain argued that was the only way to eliminate all the risk.
"Now you're blushing! Kinda cute. Pollie never did that. Do you turn red all over? Or just your face?"
"Your girlfriend is dead. What's wrong with you?" A colder part of her mind was already done with this. Polla and her family already ran. What's the worst he can do? Is it bad enough that I should kill him?
"What's your angle?" He frowned. "You seem pretty involved, worrying about a dead smuggler's reputation."
"I just want to make sure she's… remembered well."
"Didn't you kill her through?" He raised an eyebrow. "That's what everyone's saying."
"And you'd rather they were watching your Zeltros vid?"
"Now that's personal." He paused. "Which Zeltros vid? I go there a lot."
"Only once with Polla." He was still grinning like an ass, like he had all the time in the world. Before he could retaliate with another cheap shot, Revan continued. "Whoever you're selling to, we'll triple it. Sign the rights to my father-in-law's production studio and you'll be a rich man. Don't sign and I'll… I'll tell Suvam Tan what really happened with those mites."
He snorted. "Wow. Being as you're the Sith Lord, I wasn't expecting the same tired threats."
"I'm no Sith. And they aren't threats." She twisted her hand and his bonds fell free, restraints clattering on the floor. "I'll tell Malachi's counsel to expect you in the morning. Go to 100 Thantos One. Legal's on the hundred and eighth floor."
"You're letting me go?" For a second, all the bravado dropped, and Revan said a glimpse of the man that Polla had actually loved. "All you want is a cut of the action?"
"And for you to keep her face out of it. From what I remember you never recorded much with her face anyway. Maybe you could find an actress… someone who looks more like—" She tried to think of something he'd believe—anything to keep Polla's face from being plastered everywhere. "Someone who looks more like me." Plenty of vids like that with my face already.
Therion rubbed his wrists, smirking. "If that's how you want it. Course I'm gonna have to let Arca down slow. You know how those Exchange—"
"Stop." She waved her hand and he did, all of him, every muscle. Revan started at him for a moment, as the color in his face deepened, before she realized he couldn't really breathe. Frack. Stars. Hell.
"Huhhhh—" he made a strange exhaling noise and then gasped. "What the frack was that for?"
"You're working with Arca? You've met her?"
"Not… personally," Therion said. "But Suvam Tan introduced us."
She blinked at him. Why? It doesn't matter. "You're staying here. When I get back, I'll deal with you."
"Fine." He held up a hand. "Can I at least have my comm back? Or… hey, can you send Dessa in?"
Blonde from Rialis, a part of her mind suggested. Credits to spice he's fracking her six ways still Seventhday.
"No comms." She turned to leave.
"Dessa?" Incredibly, he sounded hopeful still.
"Get bent, Therion," Revan slid the door shut behind her.
XXX
Both of Lydie Korr's hearts were pounding in her chest. Thalia's footsteps had trailed away, heading up the spiraling staircase to one of the mezzanine levels.
Maybe this is some lighthearted prank? Like the time Mekel Jin and Dustil Onasi reprogrammed the practice droids to all sing Sith marching songs?
Lydie Korr stood up cautiously, one hand on the stealth belt and the other on the bookshelf in front of her. It held actual books: ancient, and bound. Several thousand had been saved from the ruins of Ossus before the Cron cluster's implosion had destroyed that, and several other systems.
The six meters to the terminals felt like an eternity. Already, she felt like she was being watched—not in the Force, but along every nerve of her body. She'd been half-convinced that the terminal wouldn't turn on, but it did. Only then, did she look down at the piece of plimsi Thalia had handed her.
On it, a list of names:
Jana Novasun
Janna Novasun
Vima Sunrider
Arren Kae
Kreia Lin
Darth Traya
This is the strangest research assignment I've ever had, she thought, as she began typing them in, tagging each for the cross-reference.
XXX
They had reached sublevel 40 when Abasen's wails became impossible to ignore, each one sending a jolt of anxiety through her core. Their son was crying so hard, he'd turned bright red.
And then he started to cough.
He wasn't the only one coughing either. It was crowded down here, more crowded than anything Polla Organa had ever seen outside a club. The streets were womprat warrens of domed sidewalks, curving around giant, rusting durasteel structures that looked like mechanical conduits fueling energies from both above and below. Every few hundred meters starburst intersections supported tiny, artificial suns. Some were too bright and blinding and others so dim she suspected sabotage. The crowd was a beast by itself and she was no longer sure they were going the right way, going any way at all, as it pushed them forward.
Abasen coughed again.
"Git that looked at," a woman next to Polla said. Her cheeks had two orange circles on them, and lekku were crudely tattooed with symbols that looked Exchange… if the Exchange didn't have professional artists capable of doing real work,
"The air down here sucks," Polla told her. "What happened to the scrubbers?"
Seiran pressed her other arm, warningly.
"The air downhere sucks? Sucks?" the Twi'lek laughed. "You used to better, huh?" She made a lewd gesture. "Suck it up, hayseed. Yer kids gonna die."
"What?" She cradled him closer.
"He's got it, huh? You think I dunno? The Jedi Plague. Fracking Underground shake." The Twi'lek chuckled darkly again, and then began to cough herself.
Polla took a step back.
"I heard they're lettin folks with kids to the front of the line," a man behind them said. He was coughing too, great, jagged coughs that sounded like someone gasping.
"I read that it's pretty hard to catch," Seiran said. He was standing behind her now, his body a lean, protective shield against those pushing from behind.
"Maybe uptown," the Twi'lek said, coughing again. "Trick is get the vax. But you know that. Thasswhy yer in this line, yeah?"
"What?" Polla stood on her toes, trying to see ahead of them, but all she could see was more crowd.
"There's some kind of clinic up there." Seiran was taller and he could see. He bent down now, to her ear. "Maybe we should—"
"I got kids!" A female voice behind them called out. Polla turned and saw an exhausted-looking Neimoidian, trailed by three children old enough to walk, and young enough to still sticker onto their mother's arms. "Lemme through."
"Follow her," the Twi'lek urged Polla. "They have to see you first."
Polla looked down at her son. His cheeks were bright red now and his crying had trailed off into an unhappy whimper. In the context, it made her blood run cold. She'd heard about the Plague that was sweeping Coruscant—who hadn't? But she'd thought it was reserved for poor people—and Jedi.
"I think he really does have a fever," she muttered to Seiran.
"We don't have... Idchips," Seiran told someone behind her. "Does that… is that okay? We… lost them. In a fire."
"Lotta fires down here. They won't givafrack. Won even ask."
The Neimoidian and her spawnlets had cleared room through the crowd, and so it was fairly easy to travel through in their wake. Polla looked back, as Seiran trailed behind, elbowing a few sents to keep up. He reached her, just as they reached what seemed to be a clinic entrance; nothing more than a mudset archway into a wall, and what looked like another line within.
"Hello," said a purple-skinned Twi'lek. A purple-skinned Twi'lek wearing Jedi robes and carrying a bondafide lightsaber. She smiled at Polla and Seiran as if it was the most normal thing in the galaxy. "Padawan Loran is seeing parents and children upstairs." She gestured to a second door: small, unmarked, and offset from the main entrance. It was open and the Neimoidian and her children were already vanishing inside, up a curving set of stairs.
"You're… Jedi," Polla said.
"Yes." Violet eyes scanned her face, which was thankfully, like Seiran's, half-covered by goggles. "We're Jedi and we're here to help." The Jedi, who looked like one of those ones from the vids about Revan, glanced down at Abasen. "He's going to be fine," she assured Polla.
"What about plague?" Even if this was one of the Jedi from the vids, she hadn't seemed to react, and Polla had to know. "The people in line said it's plague."
"It doesn't affect children," the Twi'lek told her, which sounded like utter banthashit, like something they'd made up to stop panic.
"Right," Polla muttered. "Maybe I should get the doctor's advice. You guys have an actual doctor? Or just a bunch of Jedi?"
The Twi'lek touched her arm and Polla jerked it back. The woman frowned at her. "I assure you, Padawan Loran has had extensive experience with this contagion. Perhaps she can reassure you herself."
"Not a lot of Jedi where we're from," Seiran added. "No offense."
"None taken, of course." The woman's eyes had already moved past them, to a man holding up his wife who looked like she was about six shades away from being a log at a funeral. He didn't seem so great either.
Seiran followed Polla's glance and then pulled her upstairs.
XXX
WRITINGS OF DARTH TRAYA/ ACCESS Jedi Archives. All access restrictions have been lifted. All information is free to access. Do you want to proceed with this query? y/n
y
Some say there has always been a Darth Traya, for has there not always been one betrayed? For every betrayal, is there not an equal reaction, certain as a fulcrum in the Force itself? Not revenge—no, nothing so petty and mundane. Revenge is a tool for scripters; a pathetic, cringing excuse for a motive. What I seek is not revenge for the wrong that was done to me: I seek an end to the means that allowed it. And this is not a selfish act: success will bring me no reward except death. But perhaps, the galaxy, being free of the Force that suspends all laws of physics and physiology, will finally be free to let true nature take its own course. The strong will be strong for their own merits, and the weak will certainly be no worse than they are now.
There had been so many entries. Vima Sunrider alone had over a thousand external links, each leading to increasingly contradictory sites. Finally, Lydie had started grouping the information into common search patterns. There were only fifty listings, for example, that cross referenced "Janna" (or "Jana") Novasun with anything to do with Sunrider.
And then, if she narrowed the field further, only five of those mentioned Arren Kae, the presumed lover of the Echani General Yusanis during the Mandalorian Wars.
For Darth Traya, all she found was a paragraph.
"Are you some kind of test?"
Her hearts seemed to freeze. Don't turn around, don't turn around. "What?" Lydie was proud of how calm her voice sounded.
"You must be some kind of test. Lydie, is it? Padawan Korr?" The man's voice paused. "Master Korr's niece?"
Too late, Lydie thought of Thalia's warning. But her head was already turning and all that she was saw was—
"Knight Arkan." She let out a sigh of relief. Davad Arkan had been a great help to his old master, Zez Kai-El, ever since the older man had started having attacks of palsy. With all of the death in the Jedi Temple lately, she wasn't sure how they could run the coroner's office without him.
"Were you expecting someone else?" He glanced behind them, and then back and her, and then shrugged. "The archives seem rather empty of late."
"This used to be my favorite place," she said.
"Not mine." He snorted. "Although trust me, I spent years in these stacks."
"You did?" He was one of the Returns, one of the Selkath prisoner Jedi, even. No one really talked about him (no one was really left to talk, they all must be down in the sublevels healing the sick, there must be so many sick); but Davad Arkan was—
"You were in the Mandalorian wars?"
"Of course." She'd surprised him again, she could tell by the puzzlement growing on his face. "As I said, I spent years in these stacks. My master was Vima Sunrider, and she ran the place with an iron fist… when she wasn't off chasing bigger game."
"I don't know what you mean."
"I know." His eyes were a strange brown color that was more yellow than brown. "You're so very young. But strong. Strong in the Force."
"Not really." Were her horns flushed again? How embarrassing.
"Really." His smile flashed. White teeth in a dark face. "Especially compared to your friend upstairs."
"My friend upstairs?" She frowned.
"I know she's there," he shrugged. "The sensor triggered two bodies, not just one. These archives are restricted. We can't just have Padawans wandering here."
"Of course you can't." That seemed reasonable, although she'd thought Knight Arkan was Zez Kai-El's assistant. And—
"I thought your master was Master Kai'El. I didn't know there was a Master Sunrider." She frowned. "Vima Sunrider?" A name from the lists. A name from children's holostories. Lydie hadn't even thought she was real until she'd seen all of those cross-references. Like a bad equation. If Jana Novasun is Janna Novasun is Vima Sunrider is Arren Kae….
Why is the last name on the list Darth Traya?
He nodded at the terminal in front of her. "Naturally, that research on your board is mere coincidence."
The horn buds on her temples throbbed. Her indentations prickled. "I like history."
"So do I." He took a few steps closer. "I thought the history of my own planet was fascinating. "So many struggles between light and dark, like beasts fighting for supremacy."
"You're from Onderon." Lydie nodded. His eyes seemed to reflect the light of the terminal screen, making them almost… glow. "There's a theory that the Beast-Riders are all descended from the children of Freedon Nadd, a Sith Lord who began a rebellion—"
"It's no theory." He reached out and touched her shoulder. "Sometimes I… sometimes I feared that taint was in all of us. In me. It's why I tried to be a good Jedi."
"You are a good Jedi." Lydie felt dizzy, felt her legs tremble; but then he held her up, kept her standing. Helpful, like a good Jedi would.
"No." He wrapped his arms around her, but it wasn't like kissing Thalia, or brushing against Mekel Jin's shoulder. This time, Lydie didn't feel a spark so much as an easing of tension, slipping into a warm bath and letting go. "Beasts don't really fight for supremacy, you know. It's simpler than that."
"What?" Her voice was weak now, a bare whisper.
"They fight for food." His embrace made her ribs creak, her heartbeats slow. "Because they're hungry."
Xxx
"Please, come in," a female voice said. "There's nothing to fear."
Nothing except fear for Abasen. In the time it had taken Seiran to write up their medical records and give them to the gleaming white meddroid in the waiting room, their son had fallen back asleep. But he was whimpering now in his dreams, and wheezing in a way that Polla really didn't like. Didn't like enough to let her family come in range of a Jedi for the first time since her accident.
"I'm just worried he might be—is it the plague?" She started talking as soon as she entered the room, babbling at the beige-robed woman, with a mask covering the lower half of her face, and a loose surgeon's cowl over her hair.
"It's not the plague," the woman said. Her accent was strange, like upper-crust Coruscant mixed with something wilder. "Trust me. He's much too young. May I see?" She held out her hands, and Polla carefully unsnapped Abasen from his self-cleaning blanket—and held him out.
One of the women's hands was artificial, made of some gold metal, but it cradled his body gently, as her other fingers traced a line down his forehead to his chest. "A little fever. Have you been to any new planets recently?"
"We have been travelling," Polla admitted.
"How do you know it's not the plague?" Seiran demanded.
The medix looked up at them. Her eyes were bright green, like all the vids of Revan's eyes. Polla hadn't expected to ever see that color in a real person. "The virus doesn't affect children. Not before puberty. He might be a carrier now, but he won't get sick. Have you all been vaccinated?"
"No. If it's not plague, then what does he have?" Polla pressed. Some small relief at least.
"I think it's just an immune response. Common, when you bring children this young to an entirely new ecosystem. New germs, new…" the woman's voice faltered for a moment and she blinked. "New everything. I… forget the technical term. But he'll be fine. What about the two of you?"
"We're not sick," Polla told her. "And we'll skip the Jedi drugs, if it's all the same to you."
"Not drugs. Vaccine. You can't afford to skip it." The woman sighed. "Are you planning on returning to Deralia in the future?"
"We're not from Deralia," Polla said. Something in her chest seemed to freeze.
"One of the other Outlier satellites? Regardless, there's no plague there now. But if you're exposed, and you don't get that vaccine, you'll be carriers. Do you want to spread it there, before the Republic inoculates the system?"
"The Republic can stick it up their ass if they think they're gonna vaccinate entire planets—" now that she knew Abasen wasn't dying, Polla's indignation returned, spiked by a little fear.
"What made you think my wife's Deralian?" Seiran interrupted, in one of the worst Core accents Polla had ever heard.
The Jedi handed Abasen back to Polla. She was frowning now, staring at Polla's chest, covered by the sling and the self-cleaning eridu blanket-bunting. When Polla stuck him into it, her son squirmed: he'd outgrow it soon.
"Here—" the medix put her hands over Polla's holding Abasen up as Polla fumbled with the straps. "No. Not like that. It should expand at the base if you pull it down."
"Huh?"
"Here." The medix bent forward. They were exactly the same height. Polla could see a strip of red hair, at the crown, where her cowl rested on her skull.
She heard her breath draw in sharply, and the other woman looked up. "You're frightened." She nodded. "Oh. It happens a lot.."
Her fingers moved a little and Abasen slid down into his newly-expanded sling. She stepped back and pulled down the mask, pulled off the cowl.
In person, Revan Starfire looked a lot younger than Polla had expected. And her hair was long, coiled in two tidy braids and looped down her back. A faint smile crossed her lips. "I don't bite."
No, you just ruin lives. Polla stared back, throat dry with fear.
Those green eyes stared into hers and she braced for the confrontation she expected, she'd dreamed of—played out in her head half a dozen ways already; but the Jedi— Revan— just kept staring back. A frown sketched between her eyebrows again.
"I don't care if you lie about being Deralian—one of my best friends was from Deralia and I'd know the accent anywhere. I don't care if you're frightened of me—given recent events, I'm sure the sight of Revan Starfire's face inspires many strong reactions on your planet…." Her voice trailed off and one delicate, red eyebrow raised. "What I really want to know is why your son is wearing a blanket with the D'Reev crest."
XXX
Dreaming it wasn't the same as seeing. The vision of her nightmares: the shadow of the man, surrounded by black, and Lydie's body, collapsed in his arms. Feeling that moment—that death of the Force happening even now. Was her friend still alive? Were her lips still warm?
In her dreams, she saved the girl, but what if Thalia was too late?
I was wrong before. I was wrong about Oerin Lin. What I did made it worse.
Try to change one future and all of the others shift. She had stopped one kind of conquest, only to usher in these shadows; reveal a path that led even more inexorably towards that room, and the man and the broken thing on the bed.
"Nihilus." It would be his name, but it wasn't yet. She'd dreamed of him as a shadow, but now she knew the man he had been. This one. Knight Davad Arkan, a former prince of Onderon.
His head turned, and for a moment, he had no face at all: just a black well of stars, and a voiceless roar, like hundreds screaming. The future again. The one I can't stop.
"The other one." He dropped Lydie Korr, and her friend rolled to the side. One hand twitched, life there still, but oh, in the Force—her friend felt like a ghost. "The friend upstairs. Tell me, little girl, what was the purpose of this little exercise?"
Thalia had been told what to say, how to dissemble; but she'd dreamed other words, and it was those that she used.
"I know you have the mask of Mandalore. You'll paint it white, like a zakkeg skull. Do you know that too? Is that why you kept it?"
He froze.
"It's okay," she murmured. "Your master is busy. My master is keeping her busy. My master will try and stop her—"
"Try?" She saw the hesitation, his features resolved into a face again, and something like hope in his expression.
"All we can do is try," Thalia told him. "I'm trying to save Lydie. Is she dead?"
He glanced down, and she saw the horror cross his face, as the man he still was still Jedi enough for regret. She'd seen that expression in her dreams a hundred times before: it made no difference. A demon is no less dangerous for its conscience.
"Not… yet." He took a reluctant step away from the prone body. "Take her. Take her now and run."
"I can't." She wanted to. "I dreamed of you. Of this."
"You're Padawan May," he said. "Thalia May. One of the Korriban students. The one from Ziost."
"Why did you keep the mask?" she asked. Stall him for time, Jopheena had said. That much, Thalia would do.
"The mask of Mandalore the Ultimate was lost on the Dxun moon. Mandalore the Ultimate died eaten by beasts, beasts controlled by my father. Therefore it's mine."
"So it's the Mandalorians you want?" She hadn't expected that.
He smiled slightly, grimly. "It would be… easier to live among them. No Force sensitives. But no, it's too late for all of that. She's in my head. I have to do what she wants." He looked at Lydie again, and his face twisted. "I don't want to kill them, but I can't stop."
"No." Thalia shook her head. "You can oppose her. Resist. In my dreams you do."
"You're the seer," he nodded. "One of the ones she wants alive." He glanced down at the girl on the ground. "She wanted her too."
"For his shadows." Thalia shook her head. "Knives in the dark. She won't have either of us. Either you kill us here and be lost; or you'll defeat her."
She had dreamed that much, seen the architect of the unraveling in a dark place, beset upon by her own apprentices. She had seen the woman, Darth Traya, Vima Sunrider—women of a thousand names blinded. She had seen her lose.
But she had not seen her die. That was beyond the veil.
The man who would become a monster, become the death of worlds, took another, shuddering breath. "Do you know where he is? Oerin?"
"No," Thalia May said. "But I dreamed where he will be."
XXX
"What?" The woman gaped at her, clutching her son, and taking a step back. "I don't know what you mean!"
"That blanket has the D'Reev crest." Malachor had one like that. When he was small enough to carry, that was so long ago now, that he was as small as their son.
"We found it," the man said quickly. His voice dipped and raised with absurd inflections. "In a charity bin. We needed stuff for our kid, so…."
"Oh." So many suspicions in this new world. How many times had Revan jumped at shadows. A charity bin. Of course. All of their clothes looked ragged and dirty and torn. The Underground was full of cast-offs from the skies.
Maybe it's the same one blanket. He's outgrown it now. Revan felt her eyes start to tear again with foolish sentiment and she blinked hard. Crying was something Sheris would have done, not her. "I'm going to do your vaccinations now."
"You're…." The woman's voice trailed off again.
"Don't fear me." She had to practice the simpering laugh, the way Sheris had once practiced her voice. "I'm not Revan, if that's your concern, although you'd be surprised at how often sentients make that mistake!. My name is Sheris Loran. Padawan Sheris Loran." She shrugged. "I know the resemblance is strong."
The man laughed. "A little uncanny."
"We're both from Hoth. Its Human population has a very small gene pool."
"Oh." The woman looked a little like Beya, underneath those enormous goggles. Same heart-shaped face, and the pointed chin. Deralia has a small gene pool too. Another isolated world. We had that in common, Beya and I. The Deralian's hands went back to the blanket again, stroking the fur lining its edge, feeling the solid weight of her son within.
Revan had done that too, with Malachor, walking through the corridors of the D'Reev apartments, where her son stayed in secret for his own safety—
"Here." She turned to the table, selecting two adult and one pediatric doses. She couldn't sense the Force in any of them—only that fear that so many of the patients had, of her or of the Jedi, or both. Fools. She wanted to shake it out of them. This is going to save you and all of your pathetic worlds.
"He's really okay?" the woman asked.
"He's beautiful," Revan smiled at her. "He just needs some rest and a little time to get used to this planet. Do you have accommodation? Credits?" Not that she could offer them credits. For whatever reason, the Order here played passive roles with its aid. Heal them, but don't help them. They're supposed to help themselves. "I have the name of a few shelters…."
"We're fine," the woman said. Proud, that one. Too much for her own good.
"I was a ref once too." Not for long, but long enough. Eos. Malachor was even younger than this infant. "I—I know it can be hard to accept assistance, when you're used to being free—"
"We're fine," the man repeated. He held out his arm and Revan injected him with the vaccine. The woman was wary, muscles tensing under her fingers, but she accepted it too. And finally, the son, his baby arm soft and round, dark eyes gazing into Revan's with that soft fascination that they all had. It had been the late Master Croi's idea to assign Padawan Sheris Loran to pediatrics, and inwardly, she thanked the Fosh again.
He died after getting the vaccine, he shouldn't have died.
"Do you… do you know the real Revan?" the woman asked.
"Seriina!" Her husband sounded upset. "Apologies, my wife—"
It was a question she'd been asked often before, and she'd created a neutral response. Revan smiled. "I did," she said. "Before the war."
"Was she…" the Deralian's voice trailed off. "Was she… nice?"
"Nice?" No one had ever asked that. The question threw her off balance. "I don't know." Revan smiled slightly, pulling the cowl back up over her braids, the mask over the lower half of her face. "She tried."
XXX
"Vima." Her knees hurt standing, and so Master Jopheena sat down on the bench. She had wanted another day, another week, another year; but the Force was capricious, and what she'd seen from her hidden room with its security feeds of all the temple places, was enough to convince her they were out of time.
"Vima," she repeated. "I know you're here, daughter. Show yourself."
Nothing. Jopheena stared up at the statue of Nomi Sunrider again. Even young, Jopheena didn't think she'd ever looked as beautiful as that bleeding statue. That thought made her laugh—vanity rearing its head at a time like this!
No response, not even a whisper in the Force. Well, that was what made Kae such a formidable opponent. If the fate of the galaxy hadn't been at stake, Jopheena sometimes thought it was appropriate that a mad, Force-possessing Sith emperor should be opposed by a mad, Force-controlling Sith shadow. If only they could fight to the death themselves on some isolated world and leave the rest of us in peace.
But that wasn't how these things went. Unchecked, mad Sith inevitably became even madder Sith.
Slowly, Jopheena thumbed the controls off of her stealth belt and waited some more, letting the memories of lives past—some named and some not—spin through her head, as slowly as clouds after rain. Again and again, she saw the child's face: so young and fearless, so much potential, and so much sorrow. Sometimes its features blurred, becoming Malak and then Vima again, and who was to say which was more real? Once, she even glanced down to find a brown-skinned baby in her arms, and a strong, brown arm wrapped around her waist. His rough beard brushed her face, even if his name was long forgotten.
It took enough time for the sun to lighten in the sky through the dome overhead for her to get an answer.
"Did the Jedi Order say you were Nomi Sunrider?" Arren Kae's dripped with malice. "They lied."
Slowly, Jopheena brought out the holocron, wrapped in white cloth, out of her pocket. "All Jedi lie," she said slowly. "That was one of the lessons that Nomi taught me."
She held up the holocron to the light, eyeing the ysalamiri boxes set in a circle around her bench: hopefully enough. Even if her own memories could not be trusted, the records said Kae had formidable power in the Force.
But still not enough—not for Kae's plans. No. For those she requires an apprentice who shines like a star. An obedient apprentice, for a master so often betrayed—
A figure appeared, like stepping through invisible mist, hardening into flesh and cloth. Gray robes, as if that was some kind of statement. White hair, and eyes as faded and blue as Jopheena's own. Lines scoring the face, making Kae look older than Jopheena had ever felt.
"This is your trap?" The woman laughed. "What are you going to do? Take those memories yourself?"
"Should I tell you my plan, first?" Jopheena asked. "Would that make it more, or less effective? I've guessed yours already."
"You're a senile fool. A patchworked creation." Kae paced before her, grace in her old limbs, hand on the hilt of her saber.
Jopheena touched the shield on her wrist for reassurance. If the woman decided to throw the weapon at her throat, ysalamiri would be no defense; much as they would do nothing against her Force-devouring apprentice. Hold him, Thalia, just a bit longer.
"Perhaps, but I'm a patchworked creation holding the holocron of your memories behind an ysalamiri shield. The life you put in the holocron in Atris's office: the holocron that Revan is to think has her own memories; so you can inhabit her body."
Kae laughed darkly. "Fool. You think that's the only copy?"
"No," Jopheena said. "But it's the only holocron left in this entire Temple that I haven't already destroyed."
Jedi lie. That was one. She'd sent the others out, scattered them, with all of their Jedi exiles, sent them across the galaxy. Good or bad, dark side or light: perhaps never again will all of our knowledge be vulnerable to the corruption of one person. And in all of those, the real memories of Revan Starfire—those she had never found at all. Already stolen or already destroyed; one could only play with the cards in the deck—
It made her laugh sometimes to wonder which of her had been the one who loved pazaak. Somehow, she wouldn't have expected it from Nomi; but you never knew.
Kae's eyes narrowed as she moved within striking range.. "Is there something you want, Master Jopheena?"
"Yes," Jopheena said softly. Her hand not holding the other holocron slipped into her pocket and keyed open the detonator. "I want an end."
XXX
An explosion rattled the hangar bay, as Master Loanin shepherded the last of them into the troop carrier, assisted by the droids, who were all that was left in what had once been Azen's beautiful Medix. He'd been instructed to take off immediately, with all Temple survivors and yet—
Lydie Korr is not here.
Others were missing too. One of those Manaan knights, two of the ones from Corulag that he'd been padawans with. Several… other padawans. Among their number, lurked almost definitely the source of their scourge: the creature he'd come to think of as… 'the Creature.' It was responsible for all the Jedi deaths the plague couldn't explain.
It was a tragedy so many Jedi were lost, but Lydie was the only one with the sharp mind and sharper eyes; the Padawan who understood, even with her minimal training, when he explained about the retroviral adhesions that caused the mitochondrial cell walls to expand, sending the virus to sleep.
Her aunt, Master Marla Korr was here: the only other Jedi Master still extant in the Coruscant Temple aside from the drooling waste that had once been Zez'Kai (here too, but hardly worth counting); although there were five or six others at their clinic in the Underground. He'd given the signal. Yuthura Ban would warn those below. Take them to the safe house. If they had miscalculated, and the Creature was in the Underground instead… the thought did not bear contemplation.
He stared at Marla's face and she stared back impassively. He tried to match the expression, tried not to think about where her niece could be. Master Jopheena had requested Lydie and Thalia's assistance to lure the thing Azen Loanin privately thought of as 'the Creature,' into their web.
A Jedi master certainly can't protest the actions of another Jedi master, especially once several times his age; but he had never thought Jopheena would sacrifice them—only herself. And yet—where we they?
"I smell smoke," one of the children whispered. Too young to be Padawans now. He wondered what would become of them.
"Yes. There was an explosion. Master Jopheena is one with the Force," he said slowly. "And we all must do what we can to survive." He glanced at the tanks where the gravely ill slumbered, among them the bodies of Dustil Onasi and Mekel Jin. Yuthura's drugs would wear off soon (she had only confessed to using them the day before, when Jopheena drew him firmly into their cabal), and, not for the first time, he wondered if the simpler result would be to end their lives now, before those drugs did.
You eliminated the threat of this mind-clouding Arren Kae. But you've still left the galaxy with Lords Revan and Malak. What do you plan to do about that, Master Jopheena? Are you leaving them to me?
Some Jedi purported to hear from the dead. Azen doubted he would be so fortunate.
"We should go," he added, walking slowly towards the front of the ship, and the automated controls. As an Eglantine, he had learned the basics of simulated flying; but aside from the medical arts, his practical education had ended there when his grasping father had sent his sixth son to the Jedi at age seven. "Raise the ramp." He would have raised it himself, if he knew where the control box was.
"Wait," Master Korr said.
A door clanged open on the south wall and then there she was, Thalia May, staggering under the weight of Lydie Korr. The Zabrak was taller than the Ziostian, and only the Force made it possible for her to carry Lydie at all, given their estimated weight and bodily mass.
Thalia May's face was streaked with tears. Azen found himself hurrying down the ramp, thankfully still there, to assist her. He slipped his hand under Lydie Korr's shoulder and their eyes met, above her unconscious head.
"What happened?" he asked. "Is the Creature dead?"
"No," Thalia said. "But he might be a man again." She wiped her eyes on her shoulder and kept walking up the ramp. Lydie's horns had scratched her cheek.
"At least it's over," he murmured. "Given time, we'll rebuild. The Order endures.."
"Maybe," Thalia shook her head. "I can't see beyond the veil."
XXX
"Welcome to Mom's," the Cathar said. She sat above them in a gilded cage. She was carrying what looked like a pretty nice automatic blaster, and wearing nothing except a grenade belt. "I'm sorry, but we're closed, except for deliveries.." She looked them up and down dubiously. "Not taking auditions too. And no children under eighteen."
"We're here to see Arca," Polla said.
"You're a little late for that," the Cathar laughed. "Bitch has been dead for a week." She paused, staring at them. Was it expectation? Was it something else?
"You want a bribe?" Polla was losing patience with everything about this damned planet. They were being hunted by Mandalorians, poked with needles by red-headed Jedi, and frack knew what had happened to Therion, their only ride off this rock. She frowned, knowing how this worked. "Has anyone taken over for Arca? Maybe the next rung down on the ladder?"
The Cathar's tail flicked through the bars. Polla tried to rest a credit on it; only to have it fall to the ground. Tail at least was a holocron. "Maybe." The woman held out her hand, and Polla dropped the credchip into it, where it landed solid as houses. "You could try the guy upstairs. Management style's a little different, but it's all the biz, right?" She winked.
Polla elbowed Seiran until her husband winked back. "Sure," he said, shooting her that look that meant he thought they were walking into a trap. "Is there a name we should use?"
"Lammikins," the Cathar smiled. "Lammikins Lamarillo."
XXX
The grass was strangely sharp, and something itched. It was peculiarly distinct for an afterlife.
Jopheena opened her eyes to see a straggly garden, dappled in deep shade. Above her, surrounding the clearing, soared enormous trees, larger than any she had ever dreamed of. Larger than anything, on any world she ever remembered. They were so tall they made her dizzy. She turned her face back down to the ground.
A pair of brown ankles stepped into view, sinking into the sharp grass. The toes were calloused, and the toenails overgrown and in need of a good clipping. She let her eyes travel up, past the muscular legs in their ripped Padawan beige, to the flat, muscular belly, the chiseled biceps. The smiling face, with its black beard, and its sparkling eyes that tugged in a place of her, a place that she could almost remember.
Somewhere behind them, she heard a child's laughter.
"I have to confess," Jopheena said slowly. "I was expecting Ulic Qel-Droma. Or possibly Andur Sunrider."
The man smiled at her. A good smile, a strong smile. Strong white teeth. A dimple in one cheek. And Force, if he wasn't as handsome as stars. "Disappointed?"
"No." She smiled back. "Can you tell me my name? When I was alive… I never wanted to know."
"Nayama," her husband said. "Nayama Bindo."
XXX