As they approached the cell block, Atton and Kaevee started to pull out the clearance badges they had been given, but one of the two guards shook his head and waved them closer. "No need for that, Mister Rand," he called. "The admiral sent word, said you could have a few minutes with the prisoner." As he typed in the passcode for the door, he added, "Though I can't see why you'd want to."
"I can," interjected his partner.
The girl gave him a characteristically oblivious look before following Atton into the cell block. It was identical to the one they had been treated to, but had only one occupant, as the bounty hunters were all being held apart from one another. Not to make light of what that woman and her accomplices put you through, Opelle had said, but it's fortunate for us that they were also on Daluuj. The Judiciary will be very eager get its hands on them.
Mira sat in the far corner of the farthest cell, dressed in plain clothes like the ones Kaevee had been given. Snapping her fingers randomly, she stared at the ceiling with wide, childlike eyes as though she found it somehow captivating. She didn't acknowledge her visitors until they were right outside her cell. Atton sensed a little spike of outrage that she covered over with a falsely disinterested glower. "Got friends in high places, huh?"
"We do," Atton admitted.
"Yeah, I buy that. I'm sure you didn't whore yourself out as an agent for the Republic, or anything like that." She tipped her head toward Kaevee. "That's a page out of your playbook, right?"
Atton gave the girl with a look to keep her mouth shut. She did, but was obviously coiled as tight as a spring—her glare never left the bounty hunter. He wasn't sure exactly why she'd insisted on coming with him, but figured she wanted some kind of closure for what had happened on Daluuj. "You can call it whatever you want. It's none of your concern," he said evenly. "I was just wondering if you felt like sharing who you're working for."
"What'd I get if I told you?"
"My gratitude," he drawled.
Mira guffawed as though actually amused, then ran a finger through her hair. "Sorry, but I'm a little classier than that."
"Eh, it was worth a try. I couldn't save you from going to prison even if I wanted to." Which was the honest truth. Opelle had provided a whole laundry list of things Mira and her friends were wanted for: piracy, smuggling, dozens of contract killings—including, it was suspected, the murder of a Mid Rim senator. "You can color me impressed, though," Atton went on. "Most hired guns wouldn't keep a secret like that, not with a life sentence staring them in the face… Which reminds me, Cole Terrick sends his regards."
Slowly, almost luxuriously, Mira rose and went to the transparisteel barrier. "Well, that's sweet of him… It's real simple, Atton. You don't go blabbing about contracts as big as this one if you care about your health. Now, is there anything else you need my help with?" She glanced impishly at Kaevee. "Girl trouble?"
The girl in question maintained her surprising restraint, continuing to play the part of a Human statue, albeit a very obviously disgruntled one. If she failed to keep it up, the air around her could've ignited.
Staying out of it, Atton wondered whether he had gained a shred of knowledge after all. The way Mira had said it, it seemed like she was keeping her mouth shut about her employer to keep herself safe from him, which suggested he had considerable reach and influence. At any rate, he wasn't just some pissed-off freighter jockey who wanted the Ebon Hawk back after losing it twenty years ago.
So that narrowed it down to "powerful person or organization," leaving Atton with as many options as there were cards in a pazaak deck. Well, better than nothing.
While he mulled this over, Mira apparently lost interest in both her visitors and started inspecting her nails. He watched her for a few seconds, then on a whim said, "You're kind of different from how I remember."
She didn't look up. "Yeah?"
"Yeah, you've got a whole gang now. Well, you did… but you always seemed like the loner type. And I seem to recall you having a conscience back in the day."
"Gotta grow up sometime. And the higher-paying jobs, you usually need a team for 'em…" Abruptly, she offered Kaevee a grimace. "Hey doll, you got something to say or not?"
Though the girl broke her silence then, her mouth barely seemed to move. "I only have one thing to say to you."
"Sure, I can guess, Jedi. This is the part where you explain how you're too good to hate me."
"No, I do hate you." Kaevee took a deep breath then, and a fraction of the rigidity seemed to shudder its way out of her body. "But it's good enough knowing you're going to get what you deserve… That's all."
Mira rolled her eyes and took a lazy step back. "Yeah, whatever you say, honey. Why don't you two blow outta here already? Afraid you're gonna miss me or something? Don't worry. When my crew and I get out, we'll make sure to pay you a visit, catch up…" Her voice had eased itself into a faux-sultry whisper. "I promise."
Atton studied her closely, sensing the emotions exuding from her, as though in a cloud so thick he could taste it: there was contempt, bitterness, a kind of lonesome happiness… and anticipation. She didn't look like much—that is, she didn't look dangerous—but this was the same woman who had single-handedly escaped from an Exchange kingpin's stronghold on Nar Shaddaa, evading its entire retinue of Ubese guards after outfighting a crazed, sword-toting Wookiee and a small pack of tamed kath hounds. Plus, that was all on the same day, six years ago, and even back then this skinny little minx had gotten away with calling herself the best bounty hunter on the Smuggler's Moon.
And that was part of the equation, he realized—everyone who had gotten stuck to Meetra looked like nothing special at first. At first. Atton himself had a lifetime's experience trading in bolshit, and his gut was telling him that when Mira talked about breaking out of a Republic prison, it wasn't just bravado. She could do it.
Unless, he mused, she was to somehow be prevented from ever reaching the prison alive. Unless, for instance, someone happened to telekinetically reach through the transparisteel and crush her throat right now…
Her eyes narrowed as though she was beginning to read the idea on his face.
Atton hooked one thumb over an index finger and popped the knuckle. It was so tempting. She was right there, it would be so easy, and he'd be a ronto's uncle if he said he wouldn't enjoy it. But then what? He couldn't think of any way to make it look like an accident. And given that he'd only been back in the Republic's employ since the previous night, the chances were high that Admiral Opelle wouldn't give him a break on it. The man may have been open to compromises, but it was too soon to test him—too soon for him to forgive even one measly case of extrajudicial murder.
Not to mention, Kaevee was right there in the room with them. Atton didn't exactly expect her to stick up for Mira, but she was still Jedi enough that it would be over the line for her. She was sure to make a fuss and get all hysterical, and then she'd be that much harder to get under control so she could be properly trained. Atris was apparently having a difficult enough time with her already. So it was a draw. Twenty to twenty.
He gave the bounty hunter a wink as he turned away. "Don't take too long, Mira. See you on the dark side." Then he put his hands in his pockets and strolled out, Kaevee close behind.
"Hope you enjoyed that," he told her as the detention area's blast door shut behind them.
"We shouldn't have bothered," she said morosely, looking up the corridor.
That irritated him, and he considered firing back with something that would put her off-balance, like telling her that Jedi aren't supposed to hate people, as she had just admitted to doing. Instead he gave his chrono a look. "I've got to go meet with the admiral. We have some mayhem to plan."
Even though she was deliberately the last one to enter the briefing room, Kaevee drew a number of stares and puzzled looks as she went in. In the days that had passed since being recruited by the Republic, she'd been getting them wherever she went aboard the Valiant. Women seemed to be a minority among the crew, but she supposed the real reason was her Jedi robes; she'd managed to reclaim them only after several laborious hours of finding and then scouring the gargantuan ship's laundry facilities.
Officers and pilots filed into the auditorium and sat down, conversing in hushed, matter-of-fact tones and passing datapads or flimsies back and forth. Just about all of them were Human, but there were a few aliens and protocol droids mixed in, and down in the front row she saw the Devaronian—she still couldn't remember his name—sitting next to Atton and saying something into his ear.
The stage in front of them was dominated by a circular holotable several times as big as the Ebon Hawk's. Beside it, Admiral Opelle stood behind a podium, typing something into a datapad. He looked up—first at Kaevee, then the empty doorway behind her—and then pressed a button. The lights at the very back of the room went out, and the rest dimmed slightly. There were a few last-minute murmurs, then silence.
Suddenly finding herself in darkness, Kaevee shuffled to a back corner of the room, though a few seats were still empty.
The admiral drew himself up and looked slowly from one end of the assembly to the other. "Some of us here," he began pensively, "were at Telos six years ago when the Sith launched a brazen frontal attack against us, which was the first of its kind since they withdrew from the Expansion Rim. After we won that day, my friend and colleague, Admiral Cede, told me that it seemed the Republic hadn't yet escaped from the wars of its past. Speaking today, after six years of relative peace, I think it's safe to say that even back then, he didn't know how right he was."
He paused to activate the holotable, which conjured a glowing red image, the first Kaevee had seen of Malachor V itself—a fusion of several huge, misshapen chunks of rock marred by gigantic cracks, like a giant hand had taken hold of the planet and squeezed. The hologram was just an outline with no real detail at all, but to think that that fractured shape modeled something that had once been an actual, habitable world like so many others made Kaevee's spine grow cold.
The admiral resumed; there was no trace of the almost wistful manner of his preamble. "Reconnaissance data provided by Atton Rand indicates that the Sith academy relies on secrecy as its main defense. This is unsurprising, considering the depletion of their military strength over the past decade. We expect to face a medium-sized defense fleet. Interdictor cruisers will be the backbone, perhaps headed by a Centurion-class."
He continued to narrate as two clusters of icons materialized, one red and one blue, representing the assumed defending fleet and the Valiant's task force respectively. There followed a web of curving lines ending with arrowheads, indicating attack movements and formations, and smaller blips representing fighter squadrons. Kaevee was distracted by the quiet hissing of the door, and she turned her head to see Cole stepping gingerly into the room. After looking from one wall to the other, he joined Kaevee, standing at arm's length, and watched the briefing with his arms crossed.
The hologram changed to a topographical map, showing a rocky landscape shot through with a labyrinth of jagged, twisting canyons and gorges running between mountainous spires. "…two surface targets," the admiral was saying as two shapes on the map were highlighted in yellow. "The first is Trayus Academy, which hosts as many as three hundred dark side adepts. To prevent them from participating in the ground battle, the Monitor will fire on the academy first. It extends deep underground, but with its surface structures destroyed, any Sith who survive the bombardment will be trapped underground."
Kaevee swallowed hard. We're actually doing this, she realized. We're going to do to them what they did to us. The reality was so oddly difficult to comprehend that she almost didn't hear what the admiral said next.
One of the yellow objects, which looked something like a huge bowl, or a funnel, filled the display. Several kilometers across, its interior was thick with pylons and antennae, and sloped down toward a hole in the center which apparently led underground.
"Just three klicks to the west is the second target, Singularity Base, which houses the Mass Shadow Generator inside and beneath this artificial crater. That structure you see encircling the rim is divided into two rings. The outer one serves as a garrison, while the inner one consists of control and monitoring stations for the superweapon's operating crew. After destroying Trayus Academy, the Monitor will collapse the base's theater shield with a surgical turbolaser strike, allowing our dropships to land on the northwest side.
"Our strategy here is textbook—and speed is critical here, as we will likely not be able to send ground reinforcements once the space battle is begun. Sentinel droids will go in first, followed by Major Hawkins' troops, who will penetrate the garrison and fight their way to one of the master control consoles, where Atton Rand will input the activation codes for the Mass Shadow Generator. Since its first use, the superweapon has been kept online in order to maintain the stability of Malachor V's gravity field. Once the codes are entered, our forces will immediately return to the dropships for extraction. This time, the planet—what remains of it—will be completely obliterated, not to mention any ships within its orbit."
Kaevee's eyes drifted to Atton at the mention of his name and found, as usual, that her feelings were mixed. The pilot had already told the crew that Opelle expected the Ebon Hawk's crew to assist in the battle at Malachor. Along with his prediction of what the plan of attack would be—which proved accurate to the briefing—he had made clear what their roles were going to be.
I'll give it to you straight, he had told her. You're not going with me into that base. It's gonna be a bloodbath, even if there's not any Dark Jedi there. You're gonna stay on one of the dropships and help keep our escape route clear.
Her ineffectualness in the firefight on Daluuj wasn't something she'd wanted to be reminded of. If I can't help with the fighting inside, what good am I supposed to do fighting at the dropships?
You're not gonna do any fighting—hopefully. You'll have one job. Just crank your Force senses up as high as you can and keep 'em there, and if any Dark Jedi come anywhere near the LZ, you sound the alarm. Get the troopers gunning at 'em. Otherwise, if they get the drop on you, we're pretty much fracked.
As always, there was some logic to what Atton said, but she still hated it. Had she been asked if she was willing to put her life in danger and accept responsibility for the lives of others? No, she had been told that she would, and in what exact way. She was willing to do those things—ultimately, she was born to do them—but a Jedi wasn't like some common soldier that others could move around like a pawn on a dejarik board.
That was only an annoyance, though. What actually galled her was hearing that Cole was going to be stuck with her, the unspoken reason being in order to keep her out of trouble. Atton might not have been a Jedi, but Kaevee could begrudgingly admit that there were still things she could learn from him, in training and in the field. Cole, on the other hand—what did he know? And what good would he be if some Sith actually did attack the dropships? Kaevee trusted her laigrek more to bail her out of trouble; really, if anything went wrong, she'd probably end up having to save him. Again.
If you can save him again, chided a voice from somewhere inside her. First you think you're so capable…
Down at the end of the room, the hologram reverted back to the orbital image of Malachor, and the admiral started taking questions from the officers. But Kaevee's attention was now captive to her thoughts, and after a few lonesome minutes she fled the briefing room. She snapped out of it by the time she was back at the guest quarters block. At the door to her room, she hesitated, and her eyes went to the next one down.
She'd spoken to Atris once since they were released from the brig. It hadn't gone particularly well.
One who has a troubled spirit is easy to kill, had been the first words out of the old woman's mouth. When she offered again to teach Kaevee to meditate, Kaevee had again refused.
When they had spoken about the coming battle, Atris said she would be remaining on board Opelle's flagship. On Daluuj, I was reckless and stupid, moved by fear. The old are not immune to these… I will stay centered in the Force. I will watch you, as best as I can see in the dark, and give you strength if you need it.
I'm not sure I will need it, based on what Atton tells me, the Padawan had said.
Though Atris' eye had not been visible, it nevertheless had seemed she was giving Kaevee a disapproving glower. It is against my better judgement that you take any part in this battle. But how could you not? The admiral wishes it, and you are a Jedi… I feel there is no other way for you.
What's that supposed to mean? Kaevee had asked.
Yet again Master Atris finds she is not as wise as she once thought; she has failed to find the right words. But if anything I say matters to you, Kaevee, then hear this: whatever instructions Atton gives you, follow them. You are no Jedi Knight. Do not delude yourself otherwise. With finality, the old woman had pointed her cane at the door. Go—and do not disturb me. I must gather my strength. We will speak again.
Even though the Padawan hadn't expected it, she had still been disappointed when Atris didn't say, May the Force be with you.
Kaevee went into her room, brooding, and sat on the edge of her bed. The guest quarters were much cleaner and more spacious than the dorm on board the Ebon Hawk, and each unit sported its own refresher—but it was still just more metal.
Like everyone else in Kaevee's life at the moment, Atris was a difficult person. She was perhaps the most difficult, in a way. Her cryptic utterances were grating, and her obvious antipathy for the Order were intolerable. But even with all that, Kaevee felt guilty for avoiding the fallen-away Jedi so much. She'd admitted to herself that she could learn from Atton; she knew she ought to have done the same with her would-be mentor.
There had to be a way to talk to Atris without feeling naked. Kaevee decided that she would find that way—after Malachor. She would be forthright and speak more openly. Perhaps, then, she would eventually be able to convince Atris that she was wrong about the Jedi.
Kaevee studied the floor idly. She missed her pet. The laigrek had only been stunned on Daluuj, and it would be able to accompany her during the battle, but it was being confined to the Ebon Hawk. As usual, Kaevee was responsible for checking on it—which, of course, would be easier if she could just keep it with her.
She thought of Master Vrook's damaged lightsaber, which was still in the compartment beneath her cot aboard the Hawk. Besides her laigrek, she had very little to keep herself tied to the past.
Tired of thinking, Kaevee sat on the floor and closed her eyes. "I am a Jedi, the Force is with me, I am a Jedi, the Force is with me…"