Atton Rand leaned back in his metal-framed chair, kicked his booted feet up on the dented and rusted table, and threw back the rest of his regrettable drink. He had tried a juma ale, interested in this variation on his reliable juma juice, and had violated the number one rule of galactic bar-hopping: never try an unfamiliar drink in an unfamiliar cantina.

Especially on Nar Shaddaa.

He let out a groan of equal parts boredom and frustration and shot a glance across the table at his brown-haired companion. "He's not coming."

"We can wait a little longer."

"I'm bored, Mira. My drink tastes like kark, the smells in this cantina are rotting my brain, and it's been four hours."

"Yeah, well this wig itches like hell and I'm pretty sure something is growing on me from the fresher." She absently fingered the blaster pistol on her hip while her gaze slowly panned the crowd of patrons. "But my instincts are telling me we need to wait a little longer, and my instincts are never wrong." Her gaze returned to Atton just in time to catch him sarcastically pantomiming her. She glared at him.

"Listen, Red, I trust your famous instincts. All I'm saying is if something doesn't happen soon, I'm going to make something happen." He flopped his chair back onto all four feet and planted his elbows heavily on the table. "And I'm telling you, the wig was unnecessary. Nobody here is going to remember Mira Kelvaren, bounty hunter extraordinaire. It's been five years."

"I rate my reputation and my gorgeous red hair a little higher, thanks," Mira retorted acridly.

"Nobody would've noticed," Atton replied with an eye roll.

"You sure haven't," she mumbled grumpily beneath her breath, grateful that he didn't seem to hear her – or at least pretended not to. "Smuggler, gambler, pilot, Jedi – you'd think you would have learned some patience in at least one of those occupations."

"Patience has never been one of my trademarks."

"You're just cranky because we're back here with all those memories," Mira snorted.

Atton's gaze snapped into sharp focus on his companion. "Patience has never been one of my trademarks," he repeated, this time with a distinct warning edge. It was Mira's turn to roll her eyes, un-intimidated.

"Sorry," she said, though she wasn't.

They lapsed back into the same silence that dominated most of their time here thus far. This moon was heavy with memories for both of them. It was here that both of them had embraced the Force. It was here that he had exposed his true nature to another individual for the first time in years.

It was here that he realized he was falling in love with Aeryn Venachi.

Here, on what might arguably be the scuzziest world in the galaxy. It was also here that she had abandoned him after the final destruction of Malachor V, pleading with him to stay behind and help restore the Jedi Order while she searched for her brother in the Unknown Regions. He hadn't been back to Nar Shaddaa since. At least, until now.

Looking across at Mira, who continued to scan the crowd for their contact, he had to admit that the Smuggler's Moon didn't hold great memories for her either. Aeryn had left them all behind – after himself, Mira had probably taken it the hardest.

Mira's urgent tap on the table in front of his face snapped him out of his reverie. Her eyes motioned toward the door to her right and he followed, quickly recognizing the target of her attention. In the entryway stood their contact, a burly Trandoshan with distinctive orange-tinted skin, unusual for his species. He was speaking to three Durosians that, shockingly, were easily as large as the Trandoshan. After a few seconds, he turned and left, while the Durosians began to wind their way through the crowd in their direction.

"Thrack, you little scumbag," Atton remarked almost casually. While he had never trusted the profit-minded Trandoshan, he couldn't see why Thrack would be tossing aside the handsome sum they were planning to pay for the information he had promised – a solid link to the rumored slaving ring that targeted Force-sensitives.

"He sure is. He pointed us out before I got your attention, but I don't think he knows I saw him."

"We can't let that rat get away. We've got to know why he sold us out." He looked at Mira, his face now all business. "Alright, bounty hunter – you track him down. I'll buy us some time."

Mira stood, quickly glancing over her shoulder to the Durosians, who were much closer now but having a slow time winding their way between tables. "Without blowing our cover," she sternly reminded him.

"Which is why this might take a while," he replied irritably and with an eye roll. "Now get after him." Without another word Mira turned and disappeared into the crowd, moving in the opposite direction of the Durosians.

Turning his full attention to Thrack's hired muscle, Atton noticed they carried stun batons and Merr-sonn stun blasters, but he didn't see evidence of any lethal weapons. Looks like he and Mira were wanted for 'questioning.'

When the Durosians reached their table, only one stopped to confront him while the other two continued moving in the direction that Mira had left. Well, we can't have that, now can we? Identifying an opportunity at one of the nearest tables, he reached out gently with the Force while still maintaining a decidedly unfocused, unconcerned air about himself.

"Hey pal, my drinking partner just left. You want to finish her Corellian whiskey with me?"

The Duro was not amused. Still standing, he leaned forward with one massive four-fingered hand on the table and one holding the stun baton a quarter meter from Atton's chest. "You will come with me," he growled slowly in broken Basic, gesturing with the baton for Atton to stand, giant red eyes focused unerringly on his quarry.

"Buddy, what do you want?" he asked the Duro, letting annoyance seep into his tone. "Have a drink with me." He reached slowly over to Mira's drink, careful to keep his motions unthreatening, and took a quick swig. "See? It's not poison." Though it sure tasted like it. What the hell was she drinking, anyway?

"Come. Now," the Duro reiterated.

"Why don't you tell me what you want?" Atton said with a slight jeer, still trying to stall. Just a few more moments…

In response, his visitor pounded an impatient fist on the table and drove the stun baton to within a few millimeters of Atton's chest. He was unfazed.

"We go now!"

"Alriiight," Atton drawled out sarcastically as he stood slowly, making it clear that was keeping his hands free of his blaster (and the lightsaber hidden in a long rectangular pouch on his belt opposite the blaster). He was about to make his move when one of the bar's patrons at the nearest table took matters into their hands.

"Ruk – rukl'kridnl!" a Nikto stuttered out as he lurched up from his seat in alarm, gesturing frantically to the blaster hovering in mid-air less than a meter behind the hulking Duro. The owner of the blaster, slumped over on the same table as the Nikto, had been too inebriated to notice as it mysteriously worked itself free of the holster and floated away. Atton had been planning to attempt firing it, but when the Duro whipped around to address the shouting and the crashing chair he simply pulled his own weapon and discharged it into the thug's leg – dropping him – and then into the other leg – to make sure he stayed put. Being a reluctant Jedi probably had something to do with not just killing him outright.

Paying no heed to the reaction within the cantina – this was surely not the first such altercation the establishment had seen, though the floating blaster was probably a new twist – Atton raced through the crowd towards the exit which the other two Duros and Mira had passed through. Exiting onto the streets of Nar Shaddaa revealed that he had taken too much time in the cantina; Mira was already out of sight, as were the Duros and, of course, Thrack. He tried reaching out with the Force to locate Mira's bright Force signature, but amidst the throng of sentient life, he identified nothing in particular. Damn, he thought, momentarily wishing for Visas' unique Miralukan gifts. Mira could have gone any direction which, on the Smuggler's Moon, included up, down, and everything in between.

Atton's commlink beeped and he immediately answered, hoping he was about to be spared fruitless searching. Mira's voice came through sounding urgent, and he could hear blaster fire in the background.

"Atton? I'm pinned down!"

"Where are you?"

"Second promenade to the northeast, third level up. At least four enemies armed with… carbines, I think." There was a brief pause during which Atton started sprinting to her location. "I'm in cover but they're flanking me. I figure less than a minute before I might have to blow our identities." By which she meant pull out her lightsaber, that blazing torch of Jedi-dom recognized all across the galaxy.

"Just hold tight. I'm on my way," Atton responded as he entered an open square crisscrossed with overhead walkways. He used the Force to propel himself upward the 7 or 8 meters necessary to clear the railings and landed firmly on the walkway that continued in Mira's direction. Rushing past astounded spectators, he hoped they would chalk up his unnatural feat to anything other than the power of the Force.

When the walkway terminated into the balcony of an adjacent building, Atton once again leaped up another level, landing in an entryway on the next balcony, and summoned a concussive blast of energy that tore the impeding door off its mount and sent it flying well into the next room, himself following closely behind. The hurtling metal door flattened a nearby Aqualish and for a moment he was terrified he'd just killed an innocent bystander; his concern, however, was immediately assuaged as the alien's compatriots turned in unison and opened fire on him.

Atton stopped the involuntary movement of his hand to his hidden lightsaber and instead dove to his right behind a stack of one-meter square durasteel shipping crates. His roll was stopped prematurely by a surprisingly soft and angry object.

"Oof!" Mira was thrown painfully into the corner of one of the crates. She scrambled back to her feet and resumed a defensive stance – peering between the crates at her enemies, blaster drawn – while simultaneously glaring at the offending party. "Dammit Atton, this does not count as helping!"

He looked up at her sheepishly while pulling himself into a crouched position. "But I'm here." He took a quick glance around. "And now that there are two of us, I bet we could throw enough of these crates at them to make our break. Oh, and now there's six of them. There were seven until I made my entrance – you're welcome."

Mira's only reply to his bravado was to roll her eyes. "Fine, that works." She fired off several rounds through the crates to make sure the gang of Aqualish continued to surround their position. Holstering her blaster, she looked to Atton. "On three?"

He nodded and extended his arms, palms open toward the containers. "One." Mira assumed a similar position. "Two." The air seemed to shimmer as they gathered the raw power of the Force about them. "Three!"

There were screams of terror as the wall of crates the thugs were encircling exploded apart, individual boxes flying through the air in a 180-degree arc of random trajectories. Most tried to dodge, but the objects were hurtling at them too fast. Sparks showered through the room as one of the crates impacted a power distribution panel, and then everything was plunged into darkness. After several seconds of silence, Mira activated a lumi-stick.

Every enemy was down, unconscious and slumped on the floor with a crate nearby. "Nice," Atton murmured. "Now, what about Thrack?"

"He disappeared through that exit," Mira indicated at the far side of the large room. Atton started in that direction, but Mira paused to produce a frag grenade from somewhere and casually drop it on the floor where they had been hiding a minute ago. "Gotta make it look like there's a reason for this mess" she replied to Atton's raised eyebrow. They proceeded through the exit, paying no heed to the explosion behind them and the blast of hot air that rushed past.

The two Jedi found themselves in a lightly trafficked concourse. Atton scanned the area but spotted no Trandoshans. He did, however, notice the two Durosians that had followed after Mira. They noticed him as well – one gestured to the other and they began to work their way towards them, stun batons now replaced with blaster rifles.

"I think I found Thrack," Mira announced. Her eyes were closed – she was focusing, trying to differentiate between all the species of sentient life forms in the surrounding area. "A couple of blocks northeast, moving fast… I think he's scared."

"I'm scared too. Our big bad Durosians found us."

Mira's eyes snapped open. They shared a look before taking off at a dead sprint in the direction Mira had indicated. They leaped over vendor stalls and spun between pedestrians, taking the most direct course possible. When they reached an intersection Mira followed her instincts and led them to the right. They rounded a corner and entered a cargo shipping area just in time to hear a blaster shot ring out over the din of loading droids moving back and forth.

A hundred meters away a Gran lowered a rifle that it had been holding with military precision. At its feet was Thrack, smoke rising from a hole in his chest. The Gran noticed their presence then looked to one side at a droid carrying a large cargo container. The three-meter tall machine stumbled suddenly, tilting forward into the stack of crates it had been approaching. A tremendous tumult of clangs followed as the stack chaotically disintegrated all over the area; the droid tried pitifully to recover, but its clumsy efforts only spread the mess further, and their view of the Gran was eclipsed.

Without a moment's hesitation, Atton raced after the assassin, easily clearing the pile of crates with a Force-assisted jump. As soon as he landed on the other side, however, he stopped: the Gran was nowhere to be seen, and there was nothing before him but open landing space that stretched right up to the edge of the docking bay. After that was a sheer drop-off down the side of the building.

Dock workers were rushing toward the accident, but none of them was a Gran. He let out a frustrated sigh, looking around and wondering where it could have hidden. All the other crates were pushed neatly against the walls of the bay, leaving no room for a body to squeeze behind. After visually scouring the area for a few minutes, he turned and clambered back over the heap of containers, conscious of maintaining their low profile now that witnesses were gathering around.

Mira could tell by Atton's face as he returned all too soon that the trail was lost. She also realized that the Durosians must surely be close by now. The last thing they needed was a firefight here in the middle of what amounted to a crime scene, where any precious clues could be destroyed. However, they could hardly leave the body unattended and risk the killer returning to clean things up. She saw Atton was thinking the same thing.

"Give me your blaster," Mira ordered abruptly. "I have an idea."

"Forget it, sister," he replied with a contemptuous snort. "This idea already sucks."

"Come on, Atton. I promise I won't let them shoot you." Mira's tone was cajoling as if reassuring a small child.

Atton grumbled something unflattering and irritably slapped his blaster into Mira's outstretched hand. She accepted it with an eye roll, then promptly turned and disappeared from view into the forest of shipping objects between them and the entrance. "Stay with the body," she called over her shoulder.

"Easy for you to say," he muttered, though he wasn't really in any fear. He knew Mira had his back, no matter how they bickered. Stepping around the body to get a better look, he noticed that Thrack had not drawn his weapon. Actually, judging by the smeared trail of blood on the floor, it looked like he had been running full tilt towards his killer when he had been dropped. Was it possible Thrack didn't know the Gran who had shot him? A guy like Thrack usually had a pretty good idea of who his enemies were – he made them easily enough. Regardless, the sound of charging weapons behind him indicated that any further speculation would have to wait.

Atton stood slowly, hands in the air, turning around carefully to make it clear he was unarmed. He had a typical smart-ass quip ready for the thugs, but he never got to use it.

"Drop your weapons." Mira emerged from the shadows, her blaster in one hand, Atton's in the other, both leveled at the Durosians backs. They each turned just enough to note their predicament before letting their rifles clatter to the ground. "Your boss is dead, and not by our doing. You'd better move along." There was a hard edge to her voice that invited no dispute. The Durosians exchanged glances, shrugged, and left, carefully side-stepping Mira. Her barrels tracked them until they disappeared around a distant corner.

"Maybe we should have questioned them," Atton wondered absently.

Mira shot him a skeptical glance. "You really think they knew anything of value?"

"No," he grunted, petulantly kicking Thrack's body. A small metal cylinder rolled out of a sleeve and tinkled lightly across the floor. He stooped to pick it up; one end had a threaded cap, and something was rattling around inside as he gently shook it. He unscrewed it and tipped its contents into his hand while Mira looked on with intense interest.

"These look like coordinates," Mira said as she picked up and examined a rolled scrap of flimsiplast that had been inside. "A series of them. Could be a hyperspace route."

She looked back into Atton's open palm – he hadn't said a word. "What's with the gem?" She reached out to touch the small, roughly oblong object and froze as soon as her fingers made contact. "Oh."

"Yeah," Atton replied without looking away from the gem. It wasn't just an ordinary gem. It was a lightsaber crystal.

And it was rank with the Dark Side of the Force.

Atton knew that to someone insensitive to the Force, it would probably feel like any ordinary rough-cut crystal, but in his hand, it felt extraordinarily cold and slippery. He suspected by the shape of it that it had never been intended for use in a lightsaber, but by the resonating signature left in it, someone strong in the Force had possessed it for some time or had perhaps specifically focused their power through it. Lightsaber crystals were, after all, unique in their attunement to the Force – impossibly rare for something purely inorganic – and they stored echoes of the energies that swirled around or passed through them.

"You don't think that Thrack…" Mira trailed off.

"I don't know. But I say if those are actual coordinates, we follow them." Mira nodded her agreement. Atton stooped again and gave the Trandoshan's body a thorough search, but turned up nothing more of value.

"We better check in with the council," Mira said later as they were winding their way through the circuitous maze of Nar Shaddaa streets, heading back to the landing pad where their ship was berthed.

"Yeah, we can tell them that this trip was a total waste and we're following it up with a wild bantha chase," Atton replied. He snorted derisively. "I hope Mission's trip was more successful."

Carth Onasi dropped the datapad carelessly on his desk and groaned. If he had known six years ago that a promotion to Rear Admiral would saddle him with this much boring paperwork, he would have turned it down.

He was a born-and-bred pilot, but he lived like a desk jockey. Clipped wings – that's what this promotion had gotten him.

Standing from his chair, he turned around to look out towards the Coruscant sunset. Well… he had gotten a spacious, well-appointed office out of the deal, one that came with an incredible view. Though he had never felt quite as home on the city-planet as he had on Telos, where skyscrapers quickly gave way to lush forests and ascending mountains – before the war, at least – the headquarters of the Republic Navy suited a life-long soldier like himself just fine.

He hadn't gotten out much in the last three or four years – with the restructuring of the Navy, a part of the long, slow recovery from two wars, there was more need for admirals ground-pounding in the halls of power than there was directing fleets in space. About a year after the second battle of Telos he had been recalled to Coruscant. He had originally been incensed, something which he had privately and diplomatically expressed to Admiral Dodonna, his immediate superior. She was sympathetic but unwilling to budge. It wasn't until he had arrived planet-side and learned his new duties in detail that he began to understand the change and lose his deep frustration.

There were aspects of this new position that were off the books.

A few months before his reassignment, their Supreme Chancellor Alond Hydrian – a Khil – had been discreetly contacted by a representative of the Jedi Order. The Chancellor's office, as well as the select included members of the military High Command and the Galactic Senate, were all deeply surprised to discover that the Jedi Order was alive and once again functioning as something that vaguely resembled a coherent institution. Furthermore, they were coming hat-in-hand to request assistance. Given that the Republic had been both saved and nearly crippled by Jedi – particularly Revan – in the last decade, the formal request was greeted with a fair amount of skepticism.

Before he had left known space, Revan had made two personal requests of Carth: make the Republic strong, and keep Bastila safe. Carth chose to view them more as commands from a highly respected superior than as requests from a dear friend.

The first request he had done everything in his power to fulfill, and he had generally succeeded. His reach within the fleet was greater than perhaps was strictly proper for his rank, but he had earned it by championing sound strategies, both in the deployment of military firepower, and in the policies by which the Navy ran.

It also didn't hurt that he was one of the heroes of the Star Forge.

Though a smaller Navy was inevitable, given the still-wounded state of the Republic, it had also become more efficient and agile. The result was a fleet with less absolute firepower that nevertheless helped the Republic regain much of the influence and security it had lost in the previous decade. They were punching well above their weight, in his opinion.

The second request Carth had also given his all to, but with decidedly less to show for it. For the first year after Revan's departure, Bastila had spent most of her time on board the cruiser which he captained. She assisted in all of their engagements with her battle meditation. She sometimes left to aid Jolee with a mission for the Jedi Council. Mostly she meditated, and Carth suspected she had been struggling to find her new center in a world without Revan. She seldom spoke of Revan and made it clear that she was not going to put her life on hold waiting for him to return, if he ever did. Carth was slightly more optimistic, but nevertheless admired Bastila's determination to continue moving forward with or without her former lover. By convincing her of the need for her battle meditation with the fleet, he had kept her close to him and had kept her relatively safe.

Then Katarr had happened.

Overnight, Jedi went from a status of rarified to nearly extinct. In fact, most of the galaxy believed that the twenty-thousand-year-old order had come to a painful end on that day, and many did not mourn the occasion. Bastila had left to find whatever Jedi remained – convinced she was not the only one – and confront whatever monstrosity had perpetrated the crime. It was only at the Second Battle of Telos that Carth had discovered that particular destiny had fallen into the hands of a different Jedi, much to his relief.

Bastila had arrived mere hours after the fighting ceased, and it was the first time in almost three years he had seen or heard from her. But despite his best efforts to keep her around and within his protective reach, she had left again with the promise only that she would be in touch.

When Carth was informed of the Jedi secret nearly two years later, that promise was fulfilled – the emissary of the Jedi Order was none other than Jedi Master Bastila Shan.

He was as surprised by the Order's chosen ambassador as the other higher-ups. Sentiments about Bastila were very mixed within the military, as she had fought both for and against them. Amongst the general public, however, she was something of a legend… if the holovids romanticizing her adventures with Revan were any indication. And no one could deny that she was a consummate diplomat, an inspirational and persuasive speaker, and was generally quite relatable – unlike many other Jedi. Her startling aristocratic beauty didn't hurt either.

It quickly became evident that as a liaison between the Republic and the Jedi Order, she was a perfect fit.

Carth was the other half of that equation, for while there was still distrust on both sides between the Republic and the Order, there was none between these two former teammates. They had worked together effortlessly to procure supplies and funding for a new Jedi academy and to keep its existence secret. They had convinced the military's intelligence division to devote resources to the discovery of Jedi in hiding and potential new Padawans. When Bastila had been required to address the military High Command, Carth was in her corner. And on the rare occasions when the Chancellor had convinced her to be seen with him in public – her presence always silent but noticeable – Carth had steadied her nerves.

In return, Bastila had supplied him with ready updates on his son and had regularly allowed Dustil time to drop in and visit. Usually, Mission was in tow and they were about to embark on some dangerous, Hutt-brained scheme for the Jedi Order, but Carth didn't mind. He had missed out on much of his son's life – he would be grateful for whatever attention he received. He also got to keep in regular touch with Jolee and Juhani, both of whom he had come to like quite a bit.

But some days, all there was to do was paperwork.

Grabbing the next datapad out of the smear of files across his desk, he thumbed through the routine reconnaissance report. No activity of note along the borders of Hutt space. Higher-than-average shipping traffic into Mandalorian space, but no signs of resurgent clan activity. Distantly Carth wondered what Canderous was up to, and if the Mandalorians would ever return to the galactic stage. He hoped not.

He paid special attention to the section from the Kwymar sector, ever-vigilant for another assault on his homeworld. No news there, however. On the next datapad, he learned that pirates had attempted a small raid of the Fondor shipyards – presumably for lucrative raw shipbuilding materials – and had been utterly smashed. That caused Carth to raise an eyebrow. It was a gutsy and stupid move, and he would ensure the perpetrators were tracked down – though the local authorities were probably already on it.

Then he got to a report that had just arrived in the last thirty minutes: a reconnaissance force had been lost in the largely unexplored space between Glee Anselm and Iridonia. A frigate and a few light corvettes had tracked a flotilla of slaving ships for several parsecs until encountering a vessel of unknown origin, which had immediately attacked and destroyed the fleeing slavers before turning to engage the Republic ships.

The ship was only destroyer-sized, but the battle was over in less than ten minutes. It was presumed there were no survivors. He quickly made a silent prayer for the hundreds of lost souls.

The images contained in the last transmission from the frigate showed a lumpy, almost organic-looking vessel. It had none of the angles or predictable curves that Carth was used to on ships – it was the most alien-looking design he had ever seen.

He never claimed to have any attenuation to the Force, but he had instincts born of a lifetime of military service. The destruction of this recon group deserved serious investigation. He started to sift through the fleet roster for ships he could assemble into a task force at Ord Mantell.

He had only located three corvettes and one light cruiser when he was interrupted by the alert to an incoming holo-message. Annoyance turned to pleasure when he saw it was coming through on a very particular channel – a priority communique from Naboo.

"Bastila!" Carth greeted as her holographic head and torso appeared in the air over his desk, adorned by a slight smile. She looked tired but not out of spirits.

"Carth. It's good to see you," the Jedi Master replied evenly and warmly, her voice betraying none of the constant stress he knew her to be under.

"It's not the 19th already, is it Bas? I did drink last night – some of the Tarisian ale that Mission gave me for my birthday – maybe I'm hung-over without realizing it." Bastila laughed lightly at his blatantly pathetic attempt at humor – which had, after all, been the point. He smiled to himself.

"No Carth, I'm early for our monthly meeting. I'm calling because of… well, I'll let you speak to the source." Bastila stepped aside and her visage was replaced by that of an aging, dark-skinned, bald man.

"Jolee!" Carth exclaimed in genuine pleasure. He liked the cantankerous old man for all the same reasons that Revan had.

"Carth. It's always good to talk to someone who acts even older than I am." Jolee's smirk disappeared after a moment, his face turning serious. "Listen Carth, Vandar and I both had the same vision when we were meditating today – we saw a weird, bumpy-looking ship destroy a bunch of other ships. Some of them looked Republic." He paused, clearly aware of the vague nature of his description. "Does any of that mean anything to you?"

Carth was sitting stiffly upright now, all pleasantness gone from his mind. "Actually, that sounds an awful lot like a report I just received. A medium reconnaissance force pursued a squadron of pirates out of Glee Anselm and ran into a ship that destroyed them all." He tapped a few commands on the datapad, and then on the holonet interface. "There. I just sent you the last image from that recon group. Does that look familiar?"

Jolee's attention turned off-screen to watch the image of the alien vessel come through. After a few moments, he let out a low whistle.

"It's a dead ringer. I can get Vandar to confirm it too if you don't trust my ancient eyes."

"That's okay. I had a bad feeling about this one already."

Bastila merged back into view, now sharing the space with Jolee. "We don't know what this means, Carth. It could be nothing. Just the same, would you –"

"I was already assembling a task force to investigate," Carth cut her off. "Between my gut feeling and your Jedi vibes" – Jolee snorted at his description, and he grinned – "I'll go myself. Force knows I've been needing to get out of the office."

"Hah. You may be 25 years younger than me, but I know I can still whoop your soft backside," Jolee crowed, "with just my bare hands – no Force powers. You do look like you've put on some weight."

"And you look like you haven't been with a woman in 40 years."

Jolee burst out laughing, while Bastila's blush was noticeable even through the blue-tinged holo transmission. "Gentlemen!" she admonished them. "Carth, I'll send you the regular update in a couple of days. There's really nothing new to report…"

Jolee's laughter cut off abruptly; he shot Bastila a strongly skeptical look. She looked back at him, sighed, then turned back to Carth.

"Good talking to you, Carth," Jolee said before he disappeared from view.

"You too, old man," Carth replied, but his full attention was already focused on Bastila. "What is it?"

She took a deep breath. Whatever she was about to share, it couldn't be good.

"I think Revan is returning."

Carth's jaw dropped. "That's… good, right? I mean, I miss him at least."

Bastila nodded. "He is missed," she agreed, carefully neutral in her response. "But I worry about what this means for the Republic."

"You're worried about why he's returning." Again Bastila nodded in reply, her lips pressed flatly together and her brow creased. "How do you know – oh. The Force bond." Carth leaned back in his chair and was silent for several beats. "So he might be returning because he accomplished whatever it was he meant to do out there… or he's returning because he couldn't."

"Something tells me it's the latter," Bastila said, sounding regretfully confident.

His mind was spinning. After all these years… what did he do now? Should he start doing something in preparation? Take additional measures to strengthen the Republic? He didn't know what more he could do, certainly not in a short time. He'd been doing his best to carry out the vague orders Revan had left him, and he couldn't help feeling upbeat about the return of the prodigal Jedi – maybe everything was going to be just fine and all he needed to worry about was the reunion.

If his life had taught Carth anything, though, it was to plan for the worst.

"I'll increase recon patrols. And I'll get this task force moving as soon as possible. It's probably nothing. They were in the fringes of the Unknown Regions – we do sometimes encounter aggressive new species by chance," he tried to reassure Bastila. She didn't look particularly encouraged, but then she didn't exactly wear her emotions on her sleeve. She had always exhibited that preternatural Jedi calm, even coldness… except when Revan was involved.

"Thank you, Carth, again. The Order couldn't have asked for a better ally."

"We're partners, Bastila. And the Order couldn't have asked for a better leader."

Bastila blushed modestly and mumbled something under her breath about not being the leader of the Jedi, but Carth knew full well how important she was to the healing group of guardians. After the Star Forge quest, the false modesty that she sometimes displayed had been completely eradicated, replaced by a genuine and sometimes overwrought sense of humility.

"I'll update you as soon as I know something," Carth continued.

"Thanks." Bastila paused, as if just becoming aware of a warning prickle on the back of her neck. "Be safe, Carth."

He flashed her the cocky smile of an ace pilot. "I'll be fine."

The holo transmission ended and Carth was left alone with the mess of datapads covering his desk. Resuming the task of assembling ships to depart from Ord Mantell, he felt a strange swirl of optimism at Revan's return, tempered by the unease that had been easily observable in Bastila.

The galaxy's biggest hero turned villain turned hero was coming home. Now what?