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XXXIII.

Brianna

"For the first time in weeks, the girl's mind was clear of the rage that had been keeping me out. Fear had taken its place. She'd landed, something had happened, and she'd realized Kreia had surrendered on purpose, because she wanted to be taken to Telos. The girl was immobilized with the Force. Afraid for Atris and for her sisters. I could sense it.

I broke through into her mind.

Figured out she wanted to go now, have you? Can you hear me?

Her mind echoed with surprise. Relief. Joy.

You can. Finally. Good. Listen. No, I'm not dead. Kreia lied about that, to get away from me and to Telos.

The Handmaiden can't communicate in words mind-to-mind. It's a very rare ability, actually. Kreia could do it. I can do it. Atton can do it, and Mical might be able to do it someday. But with the others they push across images, impressions, and emotions. I can overhear their thoughts, but they can't speak, if you understand.

So I caught visuals of Kavar and Vrook from the Handmaiden's mind—the two Jedi she had met, and the impression of a question.

No. She didn't lie about the other Jedi. Or about being a Sith. She killed them. All but Atris. Because Atris didn't show up on Dantooine. You know why she didn't.

Her mind withdrew somewhat. She didn't want to hear that Atris might have been hoping the Sith would show up on Dantooine, that she'd orchestrated things to use us as bait. But then she rallied. I could feel her mind stretch out, sensing the currents of the polar Academy where they'd docked. I couldn't feel what she felt, but I felt her reaction as she felt something I probably hadn't even been able to feel the first time I'd been there. Anguish filled the girl's mind. More fear for her sisters.

It'll be alright.

I wasn't sure of that, though, and I was too close to her for her not to sense my uncertainty.

We left just a few hours after you did, I endeavored to reassure her. Atton's a better pilot than you are, and the Ebon Hawk's a better ship than that fighter you took. We'll be there in just an hour. Just stay where you are. We're coming for you.

I left her mind. I was in the garage. Bao-Dur, Mical, Mira, and Visas were with me. "You have reached her?" Mical asked, recognizing it the moment my expression cleared.

"Yes. She's alive and unhurt, but Kreia has her in Stasis in the cockpit of the fighter she took," I said. "I told her not to fight it, to wait, but she won't. She's too worried about her sisters."

"The Force in this place we are going to is like a lake," Visas said, as she stretched out with the Force. "A stagnant pool of water, deep. Cold. There is danger, and not just from Kreia. The woman there—Atris? She has locked herself away from the galaxy, meditated on her grief and anger until it has become hate."

"I believe Atris has fallen to the Dark Side," I said. "If the Handmaiden breaks free of Kreia's Stasis, she won't just have Kreia to fight, but Atris, too, and possibly her sisters, if Atris chooses to punish her pursuit of the Jedi."

"What?" Mira asked.

"The Handmaiden chose to serve the General instead of Atris," Bao-Dur said quietly. I looked at him. I'd had no idea she'd told him, but I remembered the Handmaiden had trusted and admired Bao-Dur from the beginning. "She made an oath to Atris not to pursue Jedi training along with her sisters. It wasn't a big deal for them; they're Force Blind. But she couldn't fulfill the terms of the oath. Her sisters and Atris might hold it against her."

"We just have to hope we get there before Kreia leaves or she breaks free," I said. "I'll try to stay with her. You—get ready for a fight. It won't just be in the polar region. There'll be a fight on Citadel, too."

"My Master attacks," Visas said faintly.

"We will meet whatever challenge awaits," Mical said firmly. "Admiral Onasi has said he is on his way, and Queen Talia's relief from Onderon as well."

"It will not be enough unless we face my Master," Visas said. "And perhaps not even then."

I shifted. "I'm going to the cockpit. We'll make a plan when we have more of an idea what's going on."

The minute we came out of hyperspace I could feel the battle raging on the other side of Telos. Men and women dying, falling screaming into Darkness. Atton read the stats off the piloting computer. "The Republic isn't here yet," he reported grimly. "There's an old carrier and some fighters bombarding Citadel. Looks like they're from the Mandalorian Was."

"Kreia said these Sith were spawned of the Mandalorian Wars."

"Citadel Station isn't a military installation. It won't be able to withstand any sustained bombardment for long," Atton said.

"Yeah, I know."

My instincts pulled at me, insisted I tell him to turn the ship around and make for Citadel. I'd put so much into rebuilding the world. The fate of the Republic depended on what happened to the Station. In the light of that, the Handmaiden was one person. Malak would have called her strategically insignificant. Many officers would have called her so. They would have called her collateral damage. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it was her own damned fault. Back then, I wouldn't have wasted time or resources on her.

Except the Handmaiden was a Jedi, or could be, one day, and the people threatening her were Sith. The Sith on the other side of the planet had people to meet them, at least for a few hours, but the Sith in the polar academy had no one. And though my soldier training insisted the Handmaiden was only one person, what I'd learned since had taught me that every conflict since the Mandalorian Wars has been all about Jedi and Sith. Since Exar Kun, really.

Mical, Atton, and Kreia had all said as much outright. But I'd learned it from you, too, Aithne. You never said the Wars were about the Jedi, but it was in your strategy, troop placement and leadership, and I'd learned it. Besides, the Handmaiden was my friend. My student.

I could feel the Handmaiden in my mind, still pushing at the bonds Kreia held her in. The bonds were weakening, not because Kreia was tiring, but because Kreia would soon have no need to imprison the girl any longer. Kreia was leaving, and we didn't have the fuel or the time to pursue her.

Bao-Dur and HK-47 came into the cockpit. "General, Citadel Station has just sent a message. Still no word from the Republic, and the HK-50 units have entered the battle."

"Oh, what now?" Atton exclaimed. "On whose side?"

"Statement: Those inferior imitations of myself are enacting assassination protocols on Sith and Telosians alike, meatbag. They seem to have chosen this battle to have initiated their war against the galaxy."

"War against the galaxy?" I repeated dully.

"Answer: Yes, master. I believe I have tried to inform you of this many times. The purpose of the HK-50 droids has become corrupted. Their function is not assassination, the elimination of a specific target, but rather slaughter. Highly enjoyable, but very crude. Statement: These imposters are sending troops from their base here on the surface."

See, while I'd been focusing on Jedi, HK-47 had been hunting teams of HK-50 units that had been hunting us, usually with either Bao-Dur or Canderous. He couldn't harm the HK-50s. It went against his self-preservation programming. But he hated them and wanted them gone, anyway. Bao-Dur thought he was an exceptional droid, and Canderous tolerated him for your sake. They'd been tracking the HK signal through the droid chassis' of the hunting teams and that sensor, and they'd finally found after running into two teams on Dantooine that the HK factory was in the sublevel of that same military installation of Telos in RZ-0031. That's why we'd found that defunct droid there. And during the battle, the HK-50s were sending troops from there.

"We can't fight on three fronts, General," Bao-Dur pointed out. "I've run a tech scan on the arctic mesa. That shuttle we used to get to the irrigation system in the first place months back? It's still there, and the readings say it's salvageable. I could go with HK-47 and try to disable the factory producing the HK-50s. Odds are there'll be something there that we can use to shut the whole lot down. A recall code, maybe."

HK-47 had been chomping at the bit to take out the HK-50s since he'd found out they were manufactured on Telos. I considered them more of a nuisance than a threat, but the people fighting on Citadel Station wouldn't be able to fry the droids' circuits through the Force, and without that advantage, it could be Peragus for Citadel without intervention.

"I won't be able to back you up, Bao-Dur," I warned him. "I've got Kreia, Nihilus, and probably Atris to deal with, and the Handmaiden, Citadel Station, and probably the entire Republic to save."

"I know, General."

"He can't fire on the HK-50 units," I reminded Bao-Dur, gesturing savagely at HK-47.

"Statement: There are always other ways, master. I have seen you in action. You are aware of this fact," HK-47 stated.

I glared at him. "Look, I like droids in general. But I don't trust you, HK-47. We can't afford to lose Bao-Dur on some stupid gizka-chase right now."

"I've run the message multiple times," Bao-Dur said. "The threat checks out. General, there has to be a point where you start trusting us to do the jobs you trained us to do."

He looked down at me levelly, challenging me.

"We'll land in five minutes," Atton said.

I looked out the front display, and saw a ship rocket away from the Telosian polar region. The Handmaiden suddenly broke free of her restraints. Her elation soared. She was determined to warn her sisters and confront Atris. I felt her start moving.

Don't be an idiot!

So she's not an idiot. She's just—she's the youngest apprentice I trained that year, and it showed. Sheltered, naïve, overemotional, attuned more to the physical than the spiritual side of the Force—of all my pupils, the Handmaiden reminded me the most of myself, of the kid I'd been before the Mandalorian Wars. And she acted exactly as I would have acted. She didn't listen to me. She ran off to do what she thought was necessary. Just like she had on Dantooine.

"Kreia!"

"That ship hers?" Atton asked.

"Yeah. And here we are left with a galactic ton of roadblocks to deal with before we can get after her! Dammit!" I breathed in, and looked at Bao-Dur.

Aithne, I don't know how we could've won the battle if I hadn't sent him, if we'd had an army of those things to deal with on top of everything else, but—for time's sake, I decided to send Bao-Dur after the HK-50 units. "You sure you're ready for this?" I asked him.

"I won't let you down, General," he promised me. "I won't let Telos down."

"I'm not sure I'm ready for this," I murmured. I stepped up to him, took his rough-skinned gray face between my palms and brought his head down. Standing up on the very tips of my toes, I kissed his forehead, then released him. He stood straight again, and the corner of his mouth curved up. /May the Force be with you,/ I told him in halting Zabrak. I hadn't spoken the language of Iridonia for years.

Bao-Dur saluted. "General." As Atton landed the Ebon Hawk, Bao-Dur turned to HK-47. "Let's go." But before he left, he looked back at me. "The Handmaiden—bring her back."

"We will," I said. "And if HK-47 gives you any trouble—fry his circuits along with the other models." I think HK-47 respected me for the first time right then. He preceded Bao-Dur to the ramp. Bao-Dur followed, and I heard the ramp descend as they departed.

Everyone else was in the main hold waiting for us.

"Where is she?"

"What are we up against?"

"What's the plan of attack?"

I waited for the questions to die down before I responded. "Kreia has left the building, bound for who knows where. We can presume anyone remaining here, save the last of the Handmaidens, is an enemy now. Objective is to locate the last of the Handmaidens and incapacitate any adversaries." I paused. "Uh…the Handmaiden's Echani. She has five half-sisters in service here. For those of you that don't know about the Echani—"

"They look almost exactly alike," Canderous grunted.

"Yes," I confirmed. "Our Handmaiden will be wearing a Jedi robe and wielding a lightsaber, and the other handmaidens will probably try to kill you, so it shouldn't be too difficult. Still, it's something to watch for."

"Understood," Mira said. "Take out the look-alikes; save our Handmaiden."

"Do not kill the others," Mical said. "I do not think our friend would appreciate the slaughter of her kindred, however misguided they are."

"And guys?" I added. "Leave Atris to me."

We plunged into the academy and fanned out, but by the time I found her, it was almost too late. When I found my youngest apprentice, she was stretched out on the bridge over the reservoir, writhing as Atris shot bolts of Force Lightning into her body.

"Did she say she cared for you?" Atris demanded of the girl in a shrill, breaking voice. "Did she call you her sister, her friend? There is no kindness, no friendship in that one! She is a shell! All she was died at Malachor, and she dies there still!"

"Darden! Darden!" my apprentice screamed. Her voice was garbled from the blood that had filled her mouth when she'd bit her tongue.

"She dies there still!" Atris repeated. "As she should!"

"Atris!" I called, just as the Handmaiden went limp.

Smoke was rising from her robe. Her face had been contorted in pain, and she'd been screaming, but she'd gone so very still.

Aithne, I've been through hell a dozen times over. I've gone places no one else has ever been. I've survived battlegrounds where four out of five men died in agony, and three of those five men I ordered to die. I wiped out a planet, killing thousands in a single stroke so horrific I severed my own connection with the Force just to survive the psychic blow. But I missed the Jedi Civil War.

Before the Battle of Telos, I never actually saw Jedi turn on Jedi. I wasn't there when you turned the soldiers into Sith, and apprentice turned on Master, and both died in agony not only physical, but emotional. I never saw the Darkness of the Sith. I never faced that evil, until Telos.

Aithne, I never was as afraid as I was standing over her there. That brave, trusting girl left everything behind for me, she put her life on the line to learn what I could teach her. And for a moment there, I thought that it might mean her life. I could sense her lifeforce lingered, but I didn't know for how long.

I took up a position over the Handmaiden's prone form, leveling my lightsaber at Atris. Atris' face was distorted with unmasked hatred. "So. One exile has arrived to save another."

"You would kill a helpless opponent?" I demanded of her. "One that loved you? You have fallen far indeed."

I wanted to kneel beside the Handmaiden, check her vitals, heal her, and take her away. But I couldn't. There was Atris to deal with. So I shot a thought at Atton, whom I could reach with the most clarity and least energy expenditure.

I found her. In the old reservoir. Come quick; bring the others. She's hurt.

Atton connected with me almost immediately. She plowed through her sisters to get there. They're coming to. We gotta make sure they're secure. We'll come as soon as we can. Is Atris there?

Yes.

You watch yourself.

I let the contact ebb away. Atris had said something—that it was no crime to kill a Sith.

"Surrender, Atris. I don't want to fight you, or anyone," I told her.

She sneered. "Such a noble offer. Your execution has been too long delayed, Exile." She threw her lightsaber at me, and I ducked. She ran, toward her meditation chamber, where she kept her mysterious Jedi artifacts. The holocrons I thought she'd stolen from Dantooine. The Handmaiden had thought something about them as I'd made my way to the reservoir. Like I said, it's hard for me to get a read on the girl when I'm not also able to read her body language, but I had sensed her fear and apprehension over the link. I had something of an idea of why Atris might head toward the meditation chamber to seek strength to fight me.

I knelt beside the Handmaiden and took her wrist in hand. Her pulse was strong and her temperature normal. Her skin was scorched, and I knew from my studies that the girl's muscular and nervous systems would be damaged by the Force Lightning Atris had shot through her, but I judged she'd heal, and she'd live. She could have avoided everything entirely if she'd just stayed put. Mical's working on that with her. Patience. The value of inaction, sometimes, waiting to evaluate the risk.

I stood, wondering why Kreia had come here. I knew it had to be more than a distraction, to face Atris again. There was something Kreia hoped I would learn. I walked across the bridge to the meditation chamber.

The Handmaiden's on the bridge, I thought at Atton. She's hurt, but she'll be fine. I'm going after Atris. Atton sent back a thought of acknowledgment.

I opened the doors to the meditation chamber. Holocrons lined the circular wall of the chamber, at least ten feet high. And Aithne, they weren't Jedi holocrons. The Force was hot and angry, not cool or serene or wise. The Dark Side filled that room, and the Sith spirits recorded in the holocrons hissed at me as I stepped to the center of the room. It was Korriban in miniature, right there in the middle of Telos.

Atris had my old lightsaber at ther ready. "She said you would come here, to this place." The 'she' was Kreia, of course. "If you think to defeat me here, you are wrong. All this collected knowledge, all these teachings of combat and the Force, they're mine to command. And if I must use them to end you, I will. Surrender. You need not die."

"Don't pretend like you wouldn't love to kill me. Atris, you've fallen to the Dark Side. Don't you know?" I asked her.

I could see that she did know. It was in her face. But she didn't fully understand what it meant. "Atris," she said, rolling her own name around in her mouth. "That is not who I am. Not any longer. She has not existed for some time, I think. There was always something else within me; it just took time for its voice to be heard."

"Why did you listen?" I wanted to keep the conversation verbal. I wanted to try yet again to get Atris to think. After a while, it had worked with the Handmaiden. I hoped it would work with the Mistress.

"The old woman you traveled with finally made me listen to myself, to the galaxy. She said that you would come here, that you would face me in battle." Atris spoke the words as if she'd memorized them, and her eyes were angry and unfocused.

I took a step closer, intentionally leaving my guard wide open. "I came because the Handmaiden came, and I knew you wouldn't accept her. I came because Telos is in danger. I did not come to fight you. Please, you can still join with me to face the Sith."

Atris smirked. "Yes," she said slowly. "The Sith are here at last. You have brought them to this place, as I had foreseen. It has all been part of my plans for you. And when I defeat you and the forces you have brought to Telos, I shall take this battle to the heart of the Sith and wipe them out, forever."

Kreia had led me there to confront me with the truth of why everything that had happened had happened to me, I realized. I lowered my lightsaber entirely. "You had plans for me," I repeated. "Atris?"

"These Sith are cowards," Atris declared proudly. "Striking from the shadows to kill Jedi. I needed a target to draw them out. But I could not risk my own life: all that remained of the Jedi. So I arranged for you to return to the Republic, leaked information of your past, and then waited for the Sith to come. And they did. But you came to Telos, against my predictions. Now they are here, I can finally face this enemy and defeat them."

I'd been right to suspect her. But as I absorbed the confirmation of my suspicions, it made me angrier than I expected. "I asked the Republic records of my contributions to the Mandalorian Wars, my survival, and subsequent exile to be suppressed," I told Atris. "Yet ever since I came back at the beginning of this year, almost everyone I've met has known exactly who I am and what I've done. All this time it's been you. I was your Sithbait? And everyone that's chased me all year, they only knew about me because you told them!" I brought up my lightsaber up again.

The Sith holocrons around the room laughed in sibilant voices. Darkness swirled about me and Atris. I took a breath and lowered my lightsaber again, releasing my anger as I'd taught Bao-Dur. Mastering my emotions. "What is this place?" I asked Atris, more calmly now.

"All the knowledge of the Sith, gathered from across the galaxy," Atris answered. "Brought here by my servants, so that I might uncover their secrets, and use them to track them down. But now they have been drawn from the shadows of the Outer Rim. And the only final matter to attend to is finishing you." Her face contorted and a muscle in her right arm twitched.

She was eager for battle. Quickly I asked, "And when the Sith are defeated, then what?"

"When the Sith are destroyed, then I shall rebuild the Jedi Order again," Atris replied. "They shall have none of the weaknesses of before. They shall be strong, willing to take battle to any who oppose them and weaken the Republic. They shall not train those who are easily corrupted, no more students who will bring war and hate to the galaxy."

I stepped still closer, maintaining eye contact. "No. The hate is in your own heart. Do you think that your Jedi Order will escape it? Your Jedi will be Sith, Atris!"

The Sith holocrons growled. "The Sith are the Jedi; the Jedi are the Sith," Atris said impatiently. "What matters is that they be preserved. All the lore, all the teachings: brought to a new generation. I am the last of the Jedi, and I will show them this truth, bring it to the galaxy."

I gestured around the room. "You haven't brought anything anywhere," I argued. "You're hiding, and that's all. You didn't go to Dantooine. You didn't go to Katarr."

"I did not hide! I did what was necessary to fight the Sith and preserve the last of the Jedi."

Something in Atris' tone made my stomach drop. "Jedi have died, Atris! Katarr. Tell me: did you know?"

Atris looked troubled for the first time since I'd started talking to her. "I sensed what would happen on Katarr, yes," she admitted. "It was I who leaked knowledge of its presence in the hopes of drawing the Sith out. I will not deceive you: I knew what would happen there, but it had to be done to make the Sith reveal themselves." Hastily, she added, "But I did not know the extent of their power, and what that meant for the Jedi! I will not underestimate them again."

I felt sick. "You made a Revan-gambit," I spat contemptuously. "But you're not Revan!"

"This is not about Revan, this is about you!" Atris yelled. "From the destruction of Katarr, a vision emerged. It is the last act the Jedi were able to perform before the planet was destroyed. All Jedi, everywhere, knew through the Force that the path to the Sith lay through you, because you stood at her side, enacted her commands."

"No, this is about Revan. You idolized her, you identify me with her, and you always have. When she left Coruscant you felt personally betrayed. When I followed her, the girl you had hoped to make your apprentice, you felt even more so." I retorted. "Let me tell you something, Atris. I followed Revan. I was her soldier. Once upon a time, I think I may have even been her friend. But I am not Revan. I did not seek the Sith, I did not build the Sith. If the Sith have learned from me, it is my burden to bear, but it is a tragic accident, and nothing more. And as for the vision from Katarr? Visions can be misinterpreted. Warped, just like the people that have them. Like you have been warped. You knew what would happen at Katarr. You didn't warn them. Why?"

Atris tossed her head. "They knew the risks! I did what I did because they sought to hide, to reflect, to hesitate while our numbers thinned and Jedi died. They knew the risks in going to Katarr, and they deserved what happened to them. It was their punishment for hiding from the galaxy, for hiding from me."

"They were trying to help! Atris, are you even listening to yourself?" I couldn't believe the depths of her self-delusion. "It wasn't just the Jedi at Katarr. An entire planet died!"

"You would know about that, General Darden Leona!"

"Yes! I would!" I was crying as I glared at her.

Atris glared right back. "As if you have not thought the same. Who are these Jedi who survive the Jedi Civil War? They are not the Jedi I knew, the ones I once worshipped. They are cowards and doubters and afraid. What manner of Jedi hides from a threat? Who turns on their own and imprisons them on dead worlds?"

"Cowards. Doubters. Afraid. A Jedi that hides from a threat, turns on their own, and imprison them on dead worlds. I don't know, Atris? Who are these Jedi?" I retorted. The words hung in the air, and I saw Atris acknowledge the self-portrait she had painted, realize that she was the very image of those Jedi she had despised and condemned to death. But the knowledge did not break her, did nothing to remove her hatred. If anything, it angered her even more. I sighed. "Enough. You spoke with Kreia. Did she tell you anything? Do you know where the Sith are striking from?"

"I do not know yet," Atris lied. I could tell she was lying. "But it does not mater. They have come here to face the Republic in battle, and they will be destroyed."

I squared my shoulders and brought my guard up. She wouldn't see reason. "Maybe, if the Force is with us. But they will not be destroyed by you. Atris, it's over. Surrender, and we don't have to fight here."

The Sith holocrons screamed, and Atris laughed loudly. "Surrender? To you? Never! Let us end this," she cried. She attacked.

I kept my eyes locked with Atris' through the entire battle. I knew where she would move before she moved. She was a historian, not a warrior, and she was full of hate. She kept to the classical forms, and the archaic versions of those. Every now and then she would unleash a Force attack, always the aggressive ones. Force Lightning, like she'd used on the Handmaiden, or attacks meant to wound or poison me with the Force. Dark and angry attacks, like Atris was Dark and angry. Sometimes when Atris did this, I'd dodge. The muscle tells were obvious, easy to predict and avoid. Sometimes, I'd simply shut the door in my head on the Force, the one I'd realized I can open and shut at will.

As we fought, I found that whenever I did shut the door in my head on the Force, Atris' attacks grew more erratic, weaker. She couldn't sense me properly. And when I shut myself off from the Force, the psychic pressure on me from the Darkness in the room all but vanished. I could be alone in my head, able to see clearly, while Atris could not see at all.

So I slammed the door once more, and deactivated my lightsaber so I didn't have to track the beam with eyes alone. I came at Atris with hands and feet alone, interspersing Jedi forms with Echani forms, and even some Mandalorian ones. As I did this, Atris steadily lost ground. Her cold blue eyes grew wide and frantic. Sweat broke out all over her face, and her silvery hair came loose from its tight bun to fall around her shoulders and into her eyes. My old lightsaber flew wide of its mark every single time.

Atris was a historian. She fell to the Dark Side. But she existed in self-delusive exile, isolated from war and truth, surrounded by lying holocrons that distorted her view of the galaxy. At the end of the fight, my pupils filed into the door. Atton, Visas, Mira, and Mical, half-carrying the Handmaiden. And there was a moment when I knew that Atris had nothing left.

So I brought my left forearm up under Atris' arms, knocking the lightsaber out of her hands. It clattered to the floor and lay there, humming. I punched Atris in the stomach, hard, and then swiftly brought my foot around behind her knees, kicking her down on her knees. I brought my hand down like a blade onto Atris' shoulder. I felt her collarbone break. Heard it crack like ice.

Atris cried aloud, and I opened myself to the Force again. I felt her pain. I activated my lightsaber again. Mine, silver-bladed, simple, crafted for the person I am now, and not the child that fought in the Mandalorian Wars. I leveled the blade at Atris' face.

"Kill me," Atris said from between gritted teeth. "End this."

Atris was a murderess. She's the reason the Jedi as they were died out at Katarr. She's the reason Visas no longer has a world. She's the reason I was pursued night and day all last year by Republic, Exchange, and Sith alike. Atris was a twisted, pathetic thing, lost in her hatred and self-doubt. She deserved death.

But I found I could not give it to her. I deactivated my lightsaber. "No. You're not worth it."

From the sides of the room, my pupils watched in silence. The Handmaiden leaned on Mical. Her face was pale, and her eyes were shadowed. She was shaking all over. But she was standing. Mical supported her, but he was watching Atris. All of them did, faces impassive.

"I did not expect mercy from you, here at the end," Atris told me. "After all that has happened between us."

"No? Well, as I am not Revan, I am not you, either," I said coldly.

"She half-killed the Handmaiden, Darden," Mira said. She had her lightsaber in hand, though it was deactivated. All of them did, except the Handmaiden. The girl watched me. She was at peace.

"The Handmaiden will recover," I told Mira. "Would we, if we killed this? Look at her."

I gestured at Atris. Her self-loathing, delusions, and smallness was apparent to all of us as she knelt on the floor. The Sith holocrons screamed.

"She's Sith, too, isn't she?" Atton asked.

"She fell."

"There is a difference between falling to the Dark Side and a Sith," Visas said.

I smiled at her. "I know. Put away your weapons," I said to all of them.

Atris looked from face to face. She especially looked at the Handmaiden. "Are these all…?"

"These are the Jedi, Atris," I told her.

Atris' hatred surged. I felt her failure and despair. Seeing me stand before her, unfallen, with a new rising Jedi Order at my side cut Atris deeper than anything else. She'd hated me more than anything, and I'd become what she wanted to be. She struggled to rise, cried out in pain. "Kill me!"

"No."

"If you will not kill me, then what will you do?" Atris hissed.

"It's not what I'll do, Atris, it's what you'll do." I gestured to the room. "These holocrons, though, they'll cause problems." I signaled Mical, and he bore the Handmaiden over to Mira. Mira took over supporting the girl, and Mical came over to kneel beside Atris.

He started healing her with the Force. Atris glared at him, and at me, but didn't move to oppose him. "This knowledge of the Sith, and of the Jedi, is what I am," she argued. "It is my attempt to hold on to the past, to try and protect the future."

"With Sith relics?"

"I sought to preserve the knowledge of the Jedi, and to do that, I needed to know the Sith, in order to stop them," Atris explained. "Once I was a historian, the chronicler of the Jedi. And when both wars passed me by, I was determined that I would not forsake battle again. In some part of me, I knew that I had made choices, compromises, but always for the sake of the Republic, of the galaxy. To do what you had done at times did not seem so wrong."

"Obviously. Except you didn't understand why I did it, and you didn't understand me."

Atris' bone set with another crack, and she groaned. Mical stepped away. "I feel I understand what drove you to battle," Atris argued. "To fight the Mandalorians. It was something you could not turn away from."

"You do not understand," the Handmaiden said quietly. Pain still racked her voice. "You do not understand choice—Darden's, mine…or your own, Atris."

Atris did not reply.

I addressed her again. "You lied before. Where are the Sith striking from?"

Atris looked up at me through her hair. "You always knew where they were striking from. You always knew. These Sith are spawned of you, spawned of the Mandalorian Wars. All those deaths, all those Jedi. Their power is to feed on life, until nothing is left except a hollow galaxy, echoing with the screams of the Jedi lost to us."

Malachor. I looked around at my pupils, and saw they understood. Mical was grim. Mira paled. The Handmaiden's fingers tightened on Mira's arm until they were chalk white. Visas was like a statue. As for Atton, he was suddenly in my head, holding onto me psychically, if not physically.

I spoke through a throat that had suddenly gone tight. "Is that where Kreia's gone?"

"Yes. I had thought that she was awaiting me at that place, but I see now that she lied. It was not meant for me, but for you. She is waiting for you to travel to Malachor V, to finish what you started."

"What I—"

Atris interrupted, impatient. "Yes, you are an echo in the Force, a hollow space where it has been wounded! It takes an act of great destruction to create such an empty space, but it can be done. It creates places where the Force is difficult to hear, and it is difficult to find one's way. And you carry it with you, always."

"So I've heard," I managed. "But she actually wants to—"

Before I asked Atris confirmed it. "She seeks to create another echo. A wound in the Force, greater than the one before, greater than the one that you caused. It will deafen all touched by the Force, until no life is left. You were strong enough to withstand it once, but few have your strength in such matters, if they are unprepared."

Kreia had let me borrow the Force, manipulated the Jedi Masters so I'd be led through war-torn, screaming worlds and their pain would echo through my bonding ability, reverberate throughout the galaxy. Now her plan was to lure me back to Malachor, so that pain would tear the Force wide open, echo the death and emptiness everywhere, through me. I was her tool, her signal. "So that's how she wants to do it," I murmured.

"She truly hates the Force," Visas remarked.

"She'd really kill everyone?" Mira asked.

I laughed, a little hysterically. "She's a madwoman. Or a visionary."

"Leave her there," Atton advised.

"If you choose not to follow," Atris warned, "She will murder herself at the heart of Malachor, and you will die along with her. You are important to her, somehow…" The Sith holocrons screamed at Atris, and she shrank back. "But I do not know for certain."

"If you know why she would do this, tell me," I ordered her.

"She is willing to sacrifice herself at that graveyard world for you," Atris said wearily. "It is a choice others have made in the past. It is a choice I wished to make, because I cared for you. I suspect you alone hold that place in her heart, where nothing else lives. And that is why you are the only one who can stop the destruction to come."

"What else is new?" Atton muttered.

"Right now, our focus is on the destruction going on," I told him. I turned, started to leave.

"And what will you do with me now?" Atris demanded, half-rising. "Will you abandon me here on this dead world?"

I felt contempt and pity as I looked back at her, but more weariness than anything else. "I said before: the choice is yours, what to do now. These Sith holocrons will make things harder for you. If you can escape them, shut out the influence you have allowed them to have over you, you may yet be saved. You know what you've done, what you have become. Will you choose to continue on? You are a lie, Atris. You are hatred, you are betrayal. You are nothing. Will you remain so?"

"I tied myself, my decisions, to the Jedi," Atris murmured, looking around at the holocrons. "Perhaps only in separating myself from the Jedi can I become myself again, learn who I am. Perhaps exile is what I deserve, even though it is many years too late, and you have already returned."

The screaming Sith holocrons started roaring. The walls flashed red as Atris attempted to detach from the influence they'd had over her for so long. But it was her fight. Her mess to clean up. I headed for the door, and my students followed me.

Atris called after the Handmaiden. "Girl—your sisters…"

The Handmaiden threw the words back over her shoulder. "They live. They will survive to serve truer Masters than you, and their honor, unlike yours, unlike mine, perhaps, remains untainted."

As we started across the bridge, the door to Atris' meditation chamber shut. The Sith roar had become deafening, and now a higher pitched scream cut through the cacophony.

"Will they kill her?" Atton asked me.

"Probably. Or drive her mad," I answered bluntly. "If she gets out, she'll be better. If not, she made her choices."

Mira brought the Handmaiden around to my side. I threw my arm around her shoulders with Mira to help support the girl's weight.

"You came for me," she said. "I thought I had lost you."

"You ran off without knowing all the facts first. I thought I taught you better than that." Tremors still racked the girl's tortured body, though, and I couldn't remain angry. I pushed some energy into her, to strengthen her. "I'm glad you're safe."

"Kreia—she said that the Council had ended you, and that all along she was one of those that had sought to kill you."

"The one was a lie; the other I knew, though I did not expect her to act when and how she did. But let's handle one problem at a time, okay? Where are your sisters?"

"Mandalore escorted them to the Ebon Hawk," the Handmaiden answered. "My eldest sister convinced them to accept their defeat with honor. I do not know that they will ever forgive me for what I have done this day. But I believe, in time, they will come to realize what Atris was, and be grateful their service to her is ended, at least. They were untouched by her Darkness. We can release them on Citadel Station, and they have agreed to depart in peace."

"You defeated them all. You're no longer the last of the Handmaidens," I told her. "But we won't be able to release them on Citadel—at least not immediately. There's a fleet above Telos, a battle going on. We have to move, and quickly, or Telos will be lost."

"I see," the Handmaiden said. She shook off me and Mira then. She walked with shaking steps, but she walked unaided. "I do not suppose I shall have time to prepare myself."

"You were tortured today," Mical told her gently. "You nearly died, and some damage was done to your muscular and nervous systems that will take time to heal. You should not take part in the battle, Handmaiden."

The Echani girl shook her head. "Do not call me 'Handmaiden,'" she said. She looked at me. "I will fight. When I heard Kreia say that you were dead, I failed you. I let my emotions run free. I acted without thinking. I wanted to punish her, to hurt her, to see her answer for what she had done to the Jedi, for leading you to the Council. I will not fail you again."

"Don't beat yourself up," I said. "I'm here and so are you. Everything will be all right. Somehow. You don't have to prove anything by fighting in a battle you're unprepared for. You're wounded. And what do you mean, don't call you Handmaiden? We've always called you Handmaiden."

The girl smiled. "No longer, please. As you say, I am the last of the Handmaidens no longer. I no longer serve Atris. I am the daughter of Yusanis, yes, but also the daughter of my mother. My name is Brianna, disciple of the last of the Jedi, and I will stand with you against all enemies who face us."

As she spoke she pulled the Force in towards herself, strengthening her walk and straightening her limbs. It was weird to hear her name at last, to see her taking pride in herself. Good, but very, very strange. But I kept walking, because we had a battle to go to, after all.

"Brianna, huh? Nice to finally meet you. You have a very pretty name."

Her fellow pupils echoed her name, acknowledging her new identity. But when it was Atton's turn, he grinned. "I don't know about Brianna," he cracked. "Think I might've liked Handmaiden better."

"Never yours, fool," Brianna retorted, but she was grinning, too.

"Schutta," Atton said gently, as we arrived at the Ebon Hawk. He gestured for Brianna to precede us into the ship. "Welcome aboard, Brianna. Uh—you gonna sleep in the dorm now?"

Kreia's departure had left room in the dorm for Brianna, and she considered. "I do not see why not," she said. "After we win the battle. But where is Bao-Dur?"

"He's already fighting," I told her. And he was. Bravely, effectively, but alone.

"So where's Brianna now? What's she doing?" Aithne asked.

"Well, Mira searches out new students, and she's found a few and brought them back to Coruscant," Darden related. "Mical has taken over leadership. He's trying to organize the Jedi histories of the past twenty years in the Archives, as well as collaborate with the Senate to ensure the Jedi are reestablished in the Republic. He leads the Council, and Brianna and Visas sit on it with him, and help teach the—"she faltered.

"Six," Atton reminded her.

"Six Younglings Mira's found. Thank you," Darden nodded at Atton. "Visas teaches Force techniques and meditation, and Brianna teaches lightsaber forms, as well as other combat and history."

Aithne smiled sadly. "And Bao-Dur's dead."

Darden gripped Atton's hand around her shoulder tightly, but replied, "Yes. Bao-Dur died in the assault upon the HK factory. He achieved his objective, helped to save Telos, but he lost his life in doing so. Later, even in death, he helped to save us all—at Malachor. He gave us a way out. But I—"she broke off and swallowed hard. The death weighed heavily on her, even now, a year later. She died every time she lost a soldier, Aithne remembered. And Bao-Dur hadn't just been a soldier, he'd been a friend and student, and the only other person that had been at Malachor with Darden that day.

"I was hoping I was wrong," she murmured. "I'm so sorry, Darden. Do you know how he died?"

Atton looked haunted, and Darden closed her eyes. "No," she whispered. "That's the worst of it, even now. During the battle of Telos—the HK-50s suddenly shut down. A while after that, there was an enormous detonation beneath RZ-0031. That remote of Bao-Dur's—it escaped, and returned to us after the battle, but I guess he died too suddenly to leave a record on it. HK-47 didn't come back to us until Malachor—he saved our asses out of the blue, too. But he won't tell me what happened, either. I felt it happening," she added. "I felt him dying while we fought on Citadel Station, but I didn't know that's what was happening until after it was over. Bao-Dur was always hard…hard to connect to."

"What happened in the battle?" Aithne asked.

"We were directed to a different dock when we transmitted we wanted to land…

A/N: About a year ago, when I was working on this part of the novelization in the first version of this fic, Into the Gray, I read the part where I killed Bao-Dur to my little sister. She still hasn't forgiven me for it. I hope you'll be slightly more philosophical about it, though of course I hope your hearts break just a little.

I won't actually cover the events of Bao-Dur's fight at the HK factory and his death there in this fic. Neither Darden nor Atton knows what happened, so they can't tell Aithne. HK-47 might, at a later time, but I wouldn't want to read what happened from his perspective. Instead, that parallel narrative will be posted separately as Defining the Jedi: Shield, before I post the next chapter to the main fic.

On the topic of my student series, Part Two is up (because Part One is "Strength," Atton's story, and a chapter in the main fic). You can find it on my profile. Defining the Jedi: Choice. Parts of the narrative overlap with this chapter, but my readers still might find Brianna's POV interesting. Check it out if you like.

As ever, I appreciate any helpful feedback, whether positive or negative, and I will post again when I can. Until then!

May the Force be with you,

LMS