[The following is the closing segment of the Extraordinary Address of Supreme Chancellor Galligan Barris, given upon the signing of the preemptive Declaration of War against the Second Sith Empire.]
It is true. this will be a terrible struggle, one for which we have not had time to fully prepare. The infrastructure and the weapons that we have been building these past six years will have to be enough for us—but they will, because we have something on our side more powerful than mere weapons. We have the indomitable spirit of our great Republic, that same spirit which has animated and upheld and sustained us in spite of the efforts of every threat from within and without.
That spirit guided us six years ago, when we withstood the Sith's cowardly surprise attack on Telos IV and sent them packing. It strengthened us to overcome impossible odds, as when we held the line against the traitors Revan and Malak, and all their bloodthirsty issue. As, likewise, we endured and triumphed over the Mandalorians, over Exar Kun, and over the imperialist Hutts.
And so we will triumph again. However powerful this new Sith Empire may be, we will be as a rock against which their onslaught will break, because our spirit is greater than theirs. It is greater than theirs because we fight not out of hatred for what we see before us, but out of love for what stands behind us: our homes, our families, our children, our values, and our way of life. For twenty thousand years, a hundred million peoples have lived proudly and prosperously beneath the eight-spoked banner of liberty. And mark my words: come Hell or hard vacuum, they will for twenty thousand more. No armada that cuts between the stars is mighty enough to take that achievement away from us.
"All the same, m'lady, I would be much more confident, had I the benefit of your counsel." Threaded though it was with static, the transmission carried Admiral Varko's voice from the stronghold of Ord Radama to the bridge of the Celestus with enough clarity to convey the man's tentative crossness.
As always, Visas stood facing the hologram though she could not see it. "My mission was not to benefit you, admiral," she replied, "and your duties are unchanged. See to the defense of our territory until our Master returns." With the flick of a thought, she reached to the controls and cut the transmission.
A moment passed in which silence held the bridge, as it now held the Malachor system. As the Celestus continued to stalk the void there, Visas had tried to catch some lingering remnant of the darkness, of the wound that Revan's work had left there at the Mandalorian Wars' end, but there was nothing. As though the ill-fated fifth world had never been, there was neither great light or great darkness in the system, only the slightness of the Force itself, present there only as it was present in all places; no substance and no act, only potential.
Leofel, who had been near-silently conversing with the navigator, turned to Visas and drew near. "M'lady—I take it you will be returning to Dromund Kaas?"
She nodded. "Yes. Nothing remains for me here."
"What about us? It will take less than a day to reach Thule…"
"No, you will accompany me—and see the glory of the new Sith Empire."
The aura of the room was scented with trepidation as her announcement registered, but Leofel's voice betrayed none of it. "As you wish, m'lady. We can be ready for the first jump in moments."
"See to it."
They withdrew from one another, Leofel to the navigator's station and Visas to the spartan solitude of her chamber. The Nagian Corridor would take some time to travel. She had considered sending a transmission ahead of the trip, but decided there was no point in it. Though the significance of Malachor's second destruction would ultimately be nothing compared to its first, it had made an echo which would be heard across the galaxy by those who were awake to hear it; and it was certain that the Exile had heard it, had in some way seen the closing of the wound. It was a wound that she herself had made, and it had been precious to her, just as the wound that was now Katarr was precious to Visas.
Waiting for the jump to hyperspace, waiting for her next trial, she knelt and submerged herself in the Force. As my feet walk the ashes of Katarr, I shall not fear, for in fear lies death; but on Katarr a deep shadow rests, and in the shadows there is power, and…
A few sweet, boring days passed, all of them revolving around the flying curse which was the Ebon Hawk. The first was besmirched by a hangover, but things evened out soon enough. Between his officially joining the crew and the snafu on Daluuj, Cole hadn't had much of a chance to prove his worth as a mechanic, but he did so now, managing to finish tuning the power coupling with only a little help from the Remote.
True to the admiral's word, Ecksee was fully operational when they brought him back online—not to mention just as cranky as before.
During breaks, Atton and Cole occasionally played pazaak, but since they had already killed the ale and had no credits to bet between them—the latter of which, Cole was quick to point out, was not his fault—it was nothing to get excited over.
Atton spent one afternoon in the Hawk's garage, trying to repair his lightsaber after Visas' lightning had shorted it out. As he'd suspected, the power cell was completely fried. Replacing that was easy enough, and it brought the weapon back to life. But no matter what tinkering he tried, its blade still sparked and crackled as resentfully as it ever had, and he gave up trying to stabilize it. In the end, it was just one more reminder not to rely on lightsabers.
Kaevee was something of a ghost during this time. Atton gathered that she was spending her time talking with Atris, sorting herself out and doing her peace-and-serenity-Force thing, so he left them to it. Once or twice Cole complained about the girl not having to pull her weight, but after three days half the spare parts in the cargo hold had been used up, and the Ebon Hawk was about as ready for trouble as it had ever been.
On the third day's evening, Atton took dinner in his room, then wandered a few decks over to a quiet lounge, where he claimed a sofa in the corner and had a look around. Little groups of off-duty crewmembers and soldiers were scattered about, a few playing card games. He recognized pazaak and sakresh among them and mused that he might be able to make a few credits, if he could think of something he had that was worth betting.
He aimlessly stared out the viewport to his left—or tried to. It had been tinted almost to the point of opacity, but he could just barely perceive the vortex of hyperspace blurring past. He lost track of time until the clearing of a throat made him look back. He found the Devaronian looming over him.
"Captain Pollard. How you doing?"
The officer gave a courteous little smile that would have looked a lot better on the admiral's face. "Quite well, Rand. And you?"
"Never better."
"I understand your work on the Ebon Hawk is finished."
"Yeah…"
"That's good. The Valiant's dropping out of hyperspace in an hour; you're to gather your team and prepare for departure." Pollard offered Atton a datastick. "Proceed to this location. You'll be briefed and equipped for your next assignment there."
After eying the datastick soberly for a moment, Atton took it and got to his feet. "Sounds like a plan," he said, though it really sounded like maybe one-sixth of a plan. "I was getting too comfortable around here anyway… Guess things are really happening now, aren't they?"
"Yes. They are."
Though the pilot had left Kaevee alone when it came to the last repairs of the Ebon Hawk—which she was grateful for—he put her back in the co-pilot's seat for their almost unannounced departure. She still didn't feel at home aboard the ship, let alone at any of its controls, but the procedures Atton had drilled into her head were still there. When he threw the lever and shot them past the stars and into the blue abyss, she just held her breath and endured the little flash of sickness that came with it.
They talked a little as they went through the post-jump check, taking their time. It was late in the day. For the second or third time since they'd gotten the news of their new mission, Atton complained about the sparsity of details. Kaevee, however, thought he was secretly glad to be on the move again. For her part, she had mixed feelings about leaving the Valiant. She had no desire to see more action. On the other hand, though, maybe the mission would take them to a planet's surface, to a place where there was an outside, where there was breeze, dirt, animals, a sky…
"It's in a pretty out-of-the-way sector," Atton was saying, drumming his fingers on the console before him. "My guess is, they're going easy on us for this one. Probably no shooting, but who knows?"
Remembering how their supposedly easy trip to Daluuj had gone, Kaevee tensed for a moment. "I really hope not."
"Yeah, well…" A yawn devoured the rest of the pilot's sentence. Looking at her sideways, he started over. "I've got this. Why don't you get some sleep? You look like you need it."
So do you, she thought as she got up. Instead she said, "Atton, tomorrow—I want you to start training me again."
"In what, Force stuff?"
She paused to bite her lip. "Whatever I need to know about."
"I dunno, kid. That's a lot of things. You sure you're ready for that?"
He's just teasing, she told herself. "Yes, I'm ready for that."
"Good… You'll get what you ask for."
Kaevee went out through the main hold, glancing port toward Atris' chamber, then paid the refresher a visit. When she came out, she found Cole standing a few feet off to the left. His gaze met and then bounced off of hers, and they shuffled past each other. Just before entering the refresher, though, the spacer stopped and said his first word to Kaevee since they had parted on Malachor V: "Hey."
She paused in the mouth of the corridor, turned to watch him over her shoulder, and waited, trying to pretend their last conversation hadn't happened. She didn't want to go to bed angry.
"Glad you're alive." Cole's look was difficult to peg—maybe apologetic, maybe something else.
"You too." There was nothing else Kaevee trusted herself to say, and before the torturous moment could go on, she hurried to the starboard dorm. While getting ready for bed, she looked at the door and nursed a brief moment of levity as she remembered coming through it one night and tripping over her laigrek.
Soon after she had turned off the lights and gotten into bed, the comforting feeling evaporated, leaving her with the starless dark and the sleepless tone of the engines. Chaos crept into her thoughts, whispering reminders of the deaths and losses behind her—and questions about the unknowns of the galaxy ahead of her.
A few moments passed, and the darkness lifted briefly as Cole entered and slunk his way into his cot in the opposite corner of the room. As the door slid itself shut and cut out the light of the rest of the Ebon Hawk, Kaevee recalled the spacer's tempestuous manner of sleeping with some dread. She wondered what might have happened to him to cause such an awful restlessness, but quickly enough she returned to her own worries and uncertainties.
It occurred to her that when she finally fell asleep, she would dream—and more likely than not, she would dream of Malachor. Maybe, then, that place was not completely silent, as she had supposed. Rolling onto her side, she reached a hand down into the compartment beneath her cot, where she groped about blindly for a moment before finding what she needed. Settling herself in again, she pictured the room of a thousand fountains and pressed Master Vrook's lightsaber to her heart as she waited for the night to pass.