Chapter Twenty-Three
Consortium Star Destroyer Corsair
Jade woke up in an environment she never expected. An officer's quarters aboard a starship. She would have expected a prison cell or interrogation room, with guards. Instead, if one judged her status based on the room she was in, she would have looked like a guest.
Pushing that thought aside, she swung her legs over the bed and stood up. Instinctively, she looked on her belt and saw that her lightsaber was missing.
That didn't surprise her, considering that she was most likely a prisoner.
The door to her room opened, and none other than her father entered. He looked weary, as if he hadn't been able to sleep.
Tau moved to a nearby chair and sat down in it. Jade didn't know what to say. Her father was a traitor, her mother was dead, and she didn't know where in the galaxy the ship she was on was located.
For several minutes, neither of them spoke. Jade sensed regret and remorse, a sense of duty, fear, a desire to explain what had truly happened, from her father.
"I imagine you hate me for what I've done," Tau finally said. Jade honestly didn't know. She didn't know how long her father had been a spy for the Consortium. Maybe it was a recent decision, and maybe he had been a traitor for all of Jade's life and she never knew it.
Jade remembered Harkaq and the Dark Jedi with the strange, artificial Force-presences. Maybe Tau wasn't acting of his own free will. He showed none of the signs that Harkaq had exhibited, but he was a Jedi master. Perhaps his agent was a better actor than the rest of them.
Jade tried to look at Tau's aura. She felt weariness, sadness, and guilt coming from him, but she could find no hint of the strange presence she had noticed in Asharr's Dark Jedi.
From what she could tell, Tau was acting of his own accord.
"Why?" Jade simply asked.
Tau sighed, "I hated doing it, killing my comrades and friends. But I did it for a noble purpose, Jade."
"What's noble about being a spy and betraying your friends, your family?" Jade questioned.
"I did it for peace," Tau explained, "I did it because the Force falls out of balance. The other Jedi, the masters, they would never accept our philosophy. Trillions of people would continue to die in wars. It has to stop. The Force has to be balanced."
"And your solution was to kill anyone who didn't agree with you."
"Not all of them," Tau corrected, "My intent was to only kill the High Council, the galaxy would have believed that they had died at the hands of Master K'Kruhk in an attempt to end the feud between the two sides. The attack was Asharr's plan, meant to erase any evidence that I was involved. Everyone will believe that the Alliance attacked the temple, the Alliance Chief-of-State and Master K'Kruhk a member of a conspiracy."
"You're blaming your friend and Chief Theron," Jade was disgusted by his plan. He would frame beings who were innocent. "I will take as few lives as I can," Tau's voice no longer sounded regretful, "I will ask Theron to turn himself in. I will have to do something about Asharr, I can no longer trust that she will obey my orders."
"Wait," Jade interrupted, "You don't answer to Asharr?"
"Jade, Asharr was supposed to answer to me."
Jade looked away. She couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"Yes, Jade. I am the one behind all of this."
Jade couldn't bear it anymore. She lashed out and grasped Tau's throat in the Force, anger flooding her mind.
Though shocked, Tau was able to raise a hand, sending Jade back towards the wall, gently pressing her up against the durasteel hull.
He threw up a Force-shield, blocking Jade's attack, coughing.
"I'm sorry Jade," Tau apologized, tears visible in his eyes, "I hope you can understand one day."
Cockpit, Wild Nomad, Atarashi'kei System
"No way Bao, not this time."
"Val, we have to go there. It's the way to find Jade."
"To heck with finding Jade," Val said, "We can bring this tape to the Triumvirate! They can analyze it, find the info, and help us!"
"Tau's probably got warrants on our heads by now. Even if we found someone willing to help, it would take them too long to decrypt the tape…."
"Bao, listen…"
"We'd be wanted fugitives by then, if we aren't now. Tau is taking Jade somewhere important, someplace with important officials…"
"We still can't go to some Imperial stronghold by ourselves!" The Dromund system and the space around it was now Imperial territory. The Stygian Caldera was controlled by Moff Arkus Itecht, who was not only a known militarist, but also the Moff who had secured funding from the Consortium, his aide was the commander of the stormtrooper squad Val had intercepted in the archive on Taris.
"Val, you do this all the time. You have to understand," Bao was growing weary of the argument.
"No. I can't. I've done my job, now I'm done. I've lost enough getting caught up in Jedi business."
Bao was silent. It was clear that Val had an agenda in the matter, though. Bao needed to find out what it was.
"Val, you don't want us to go on the mission," Bao stated, "Clearly you have motives in our safety. I want to know what they are."
"W-well," Val stuttered, an uncommon trait in the Mandalorian, "You're my friend. I don't want you to die, of course."
"We've undertaken missions that were just as risky, and you never complained. Why now?" Bao knew that Val was just trying to make excuses, "Tell me Val!"
"Alright!" Val shouted, "Remember that woman I was involved with fifteen years ago, Miranda? Her last name was Nai-Jal."
Vaguely recalling Val's description of the aspirant healer, Bao suddenly saw where this was headed. He also felt surprised. Val, a parent?
"Riko looks like her. I don't know yet specifically, I asked Emdee to do a DNA test to find out, but she hasn't gotten around to it."
For a moment, Bao was silent as he considered his next words.
"Val, consider this," he finally said, "Riko cares deeply about Jade. They've been friends for years. They have a bond which few Jedi develop. If you don't help us, or even let us rescue her, he'll never forgive you."
Val was silent. It was clear that he had given in.
"Don't worry Val," Bao assured him, "I'll keep Riko out of danger. I promise that he will return safely and in one piece. But we need a pilot and a ship. We need you. So, will you help us?"
Val was silent for a moment. Then he spoke, "I'll do it on one condition. Don't tell Riko. If he is my son, I should be the one to tell him."
"Agreed." Bao detested the idea of keeping secrets from Riko, but it would be worth it.
"All that's left is to find the planet's coordinates. We could fly back to the temple..."
"Actually, we might have them," Val explained. He accessed the datatape.
"Val, the transcripts are encoded..."
"Not the source of the transmissions!" Val explained, "The coordinates are still accessible." A series of numbers appeared on the vessel's holoprojector.
Val nodded. Bao went to the navicomputer keypad and began typing in the sequence. After accidentally Taris on the navigational map, he typed in the second set of numbers.
Those coordinates led past the Stygian Caldera, into ancient Sith space. There was no record of that particular star system in the ship's database.
"That has to be Dro..dromun," Val started.
"Dromund Kaass," Bao clarified.
"It's a good thing I found that stormtrooper," Val commented. Bao could tell how nervous Val was behind his strong demeanor.
The Jedi Knight proceeded to sit down and set the navicomputer to program a route to that world.
"Wait, we're going now?" Val asked.
"We'll just have to steer clear of the cruiser, and we'll be fine," Bao responded.
Within minutes, the navicomp showed a route that would take them through the Caldera's heart and into the specific system.
"Okay..." Val entered the pilot's seat, "Strap in."
The Wild Nomad lifted out of the atmosphere and flew off into the sky, jumping to lightspeed. Curiously, the Consortium warship made no attempt at pursuit.
Mess Hall, Corsair, en route to Dromund Kaas
Tau felt no desire to converse with anyone, or even confront his feelings. This was one of his greatest fears, that he would be forever shunned by those who loved him. Hating himself, that was a price he had long accepted and would be happy to eternally pay, but he had always had the validation that he was protecting his daughter, his family. Now, with his lover dead, his apprentice loose and on the run, and his daughter's hatred, he no longer could say that.
Despite the rumors, Andoan ale couldn't completely drown out something that clawed at him that deeply, no matter how many bottles he drank.
"I wish to be alone, Asharr," Tau said as he felt his old friend approach him.
"Tau," she sat down to him. It had been quite a struggle to bring her to his cause, but at the end of the day, her motives weren't quite so different from his. Tau knew that he couldn't fully trust her anymore.
Tau looked into Asharr's HUD. She wouldn't remove her mask in the company of others, she had grown that comfortable within that identity. Now, it worried Tau, had his friend truly been swallowed up by the mask he had passed on to her?
"Tell me, Asharr," Tau requested, still sounding surprisingly sober, "Am I doing the right thing?"
"Of course you are, Tau," Asharr assured him, sitting next to him, "We've won. Our vision will come to pass."
"I lost all of my closest friends, my lover is dead, my daughter hates me," Tau hissed, "I have lost almost everyone I care about. Our family was deeply hurt today. Now tell me, am I doing the right thing?"
"You placed the needs of others before your own," Asharr replied, "That's a Jedi value, isn't it?"
"Maybe you're right," Tau admitted, "I still have one person I still care about in this universe. And I should try to keep her safe."
"You really should," Asharr removed her mask and retrieved another bottle from the shelves.
Eventually, Asharr departed. Shortly afterwards, Tau was happy that he had at least prevented the Jedi Order from devolving into the regulation obsessed band of enforcers it had become before the rise of the Empire, and was on track to complete the evolution that had begun with Luke Skywalker.
Long after Asharr had departed, Tau began to fear that he had doomed himself and compromised his daughter's safety by divulging how much Jade meant to him.