"Hail Mandalore!"
At the edge of the landing bay, a dark and imposing armored figure removed its fully sealed helmet to reveal an equally imposing human face. Scarred and worn, it was a face that had undoubtedly stared death in the eye without blinking. It was a face only the Mandalorian clans could have produced.
"Revan," Mandalore replied neutrally as the Jedi descended the Ebon Hawk's ramp. "I figured you were dead, but by the gods here you stand." He said it as a statement of plain fact and nothing more. They clasped each other's forearms, an ancient warrior's grip that reflected a bond forged in blood and conflict. "You look like hell."
Revan smirked. "I can fix this with a shave. What's your excuse?"
"Ten years following a damned fool crusade for some damned fool Jedi." Mandalore's laugh was deep and rough and grim and it suited the leader of a fearsome warrior culture, and Revan laughed with him.
"You never told me, you son-of-a-Hutt!"
Aeryn emerged from the Hawk now, followed closely by T3 and HK. "Canderous Ordo, famous companion of Revan," she said with heavy sarcastic emphasis. "You knew he was my brother and you never said a word."
Canderous shrugged. "It didn't matter."
"It mattered to me!" Revan could see in the set of her mouth that she was genuinely angry with Canderous. "I hadn't seen him in years! I thought you Mandalorians valued family. One of the six tenets, isn't it?"
"It didn't matter to the mission, and talk is cheap," he gruffly rebutted. "Especially the sentimental kind."
"Don't let him fool you," Revan said jovially. "Even Mandalore has feelings, and cares about people."
"Bah," Canderous replied with a dismissive wave. "Tell me, Exile, is that witch dead?"
"Yes, Kreia is dead. She died on Malachor."
"See? Told you he cares about people."
"She was your mentor!" Aeryn exclaimed.
"One thing I learned from Canderous: never let sentiment get in the way of a good joke," Revan replied.
Canderous laughed again. "It's good to have you back. Let's head to the command center and you can tell me what glory awaits the clans."
Revan eyed him. "Why do you say that?"
"You told me to gather the clans and make them strong again. What else would be here for? Where you go, war follows."
"That it does," he agreed softly.
His sister squeezed his shoulder reassuringly.
They exited and hangar bay and crossed the grassy expanse to the command center. The jungle hills that covered Dxun could be seen in every direction. The open valley that this camp lay in was barely a kilometer wide and long.
"You've made improvements since I was here," Aeryn commented. Every building was taller than she remembered.
"Our numbers have grown," Canderous explained, helmet now back in place. "Every Mandalorian we return to the fold knows of two more that are living like I did after the war – uselessly." He spat the word as epithet. "They long to return to something of honor and glory."
"Your recruitment efforts are going well, then?" Revan asked.
"Exceedingly. The greater challenge has been securing equipment, weapons, and ships." They entered the command center and Canderous dismissed an officer from a workstation. He pulled up a map of the northwest galactic quadrant on a large display and handed Revan a datapad.
"We've restored our claim on Clan worlds – all of them. The Republic didn't care to hold them, so when we got there they were covered in pirates and other scum. They didn't put up much of a fight."
"Yet you're here on Dxun," Revan said as he scrolled through the lists of units that the grizzled warrior had just shared with him.
"It's our forward operating base. This is where I was able to first reestablish a central Mandalorian authority," Canderous explained. "There were many weapon caches left from the war, bunkers that we could build on, and the jungle hides us from prying eyes. But most importantly this is the last place anyone would expect to look, in the heart of the Republic, in a system where we've been beaten twice. And it's helped us practice a new Mandalorian skill – stealth."
Revan grinned. "Good. It was a foreign concept to the Clans during the war. I exploited that weakness many times. Did you ever make it to Malachor to salvage?"
Aeryn winced.
"We started." Canderous shot an irritated look at Aeryn. "We didn't get far before she finished what she began. Most of what we gathered became parts or was melted down for raw material. Plenty of good beskar, at least."
"You have shipbuilding operations then?"
"Several, in uninhabited systems. We have a pre-processing facility hidden underground on Mandalore that delivers components to the assembly yards. Everything we can't produce ourselves we've purchased through shell companies so it can't be traced."
Revan looked up from the datapad. He felt as if he could barely process what Canderous was sharing with him. Frankly, he couldn't believe the warrior he'd known ten years ago was so ingeniously running a shadow empire. "Look at you. Managing supply chains and fake corporations. Where has the money for all this come from?"
"The Republic." Canderous' smug grin was audible. "Actually, from Republic himself."
"You're kidding."
"Onasi was commanding Kwymar sector until a couple of years ago. He didn't have the forces to control all the predatory criminal groups that were taking advantage of the post-war recovery. He started hiring mercenary groups to go after the criminals and let them keep whatever they took in the process. So we created our own mercenary groups. Nobody does it better than Mandalorians," he added proudly.
"I assume Carth doesn't realize it's you," Revan said wryly.
"Kriff no. He was so impressed with our work that he signed contracts with my men. They're still paying out today."
"Canderous, I'm amazed. This is far more than I hoped you'd accomplish." Words failed him at this point. He didn't doubt his ally, but this all seemed too…
"What I think we're both wondering is how you pulled this all together," Aeryn questioned. "You weren't exactly handing out pamphlets on the new Mandalorian empire when I was here, but this kind of organization seemed… well, way beyond you." She was noticeably pleased with this opportunity to harass Mandalore.
"Pah. You can be as bad as that bitch your brother traveled –"
Canderous never finished the sentence because in less than a blink Revan closed the two meters between them and dropped him to the floor with a hyper-precise punch to the neck between his helmet and shoulder armor.
A few Mandalorians rushed to defend their leader but he waved them off from his prone position. Revan stood over him, glaring, his vision red, only now realizing what he'd done.
He didn't regret it.
Canderous coughed. "Still have feelings for her, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Since you've just returned from the dead, I won't make you face me in the dueling circle." Canderous returned to his feet, shrugging the altercation off as if it was an everyday occurrence. Maybe it was. "Anyway, to answer your brat sister's question, I've learned much in the past decade. The Mandalorian Clans can't continue if they don't adapt to the universe today. And a lot of these ideas came from the Queen."
Revan's anger was wiped away by astonishment. "The Queen of Onderon?"
"Queen Talia has been a powerful ally; she's been able to divert resources from the Republic and from her own government without anyone realizing where it's going. She's a bureaucratic and political genius. She suggested that we hire ourselves out to Republic, and she's helped me develop our infrastructure."
"Why?"
"Why is she helping us when we tried to take over her world twice?" Canderous smirked. "Saving her from a coup had something to do with it. Your sister here helped us get talking before she left. And she remembers what the two of you did for Onderon during the war. She believes in the name of Revan, and I told her that's who I'm working for."
"Still… you're no diplomat." Canderous would consider it a compliment.
"I can be persuasive." A distinctly arrogant twinkle in Canderous' eyes told Revan there was much more to the story. "And few people in her government know about this. But she's a visionary; she understands where things are going and doesn't forget where things have been. She'll do whatever necessary to protect her people."
"I don't think I've ever heard you say such nice things about anyone," Revan observed skeptically.
"And you never will again," Canderous growled. "Now, tell me why you've returned, and where the Clans will find battle."
Revan's face turned dark.
"In six months battle will be all around you."
Bastila watched with bated breath as the ungainly transport descended slowly and carefully into the Academy's largest hangar. The thrusters generated a violent wind that whipped her robes about her and yanked strands of hair free of her bun. The hideous ship barely fit, but Atton was managing to bring it down without colliding with the hangar walls; she could sense his furious concentration in the cockpit. And in the rest of the ship, she sensed… everything.
Every conceivable emotion was represented in the hundreds of life forms throughout the ship, save perhaps happiness.
She could sense a smattering of hope, at least.
There was a heavy thud, a violent shudder in the landing struts, and then the ship was down. The engines immediately began to wind down and the gusts abated. Several repair droids scuttled out to service the vessel that leaked colorful fumes from an aft exhaust port. Two boarding ramps lowered, one underneath the flight deck and another midway back on the near side. Atton descended alone from the former. Knight Omras and his team of medics started towards the ship but Atton waved them off.
Bastila watched with intense curiosity as Atton looked up the ramp and waved at someone that they should follow. "It's okay," she thought she heard him say, but he was too far away to tell for certain. After a moment two older children descended, a battered-looking Togrutan girl and a slightly healthier-looking Gotal boy. They peered around the hangar bay cautiously. When the girl's eyes landed on Bastila and the collection of Jedi she stood with, her eyes widened dramatically. She turned two steps back up the ramp and said something. A moment later a stream of nervous children began emerging from the ship.
And they kept coming.
There were so many of them! They pooled at the baes of the ramp, a swelling group that remained tightly clustered together, unready to approach the strange adults.
Valuable cargo. Returning home. Stand by med teams.
That was all the coded transmission had said. No ETA, no coordinates, and only a sequence of numbers and letters to confirm that it had been sent by Mira. Since then they had waited an anxious two weeks for their arrival.
Valuable cargo indeed. Bastila could sense the glow of the Force in each one of these children.
She looked to Vandar. "Would you speak to them, Master? I think the children would respond well to you."
"Because of my stature, you mean?" Vandar asked with a chuckle.
"No, I mean… well, yes, but you also have a very reassuring sense about you. You were always very good at calming me when I was a child."
"And still today," he remarked lightheartedly as he ambled towards the still-growing throng of younglings.
A sharp whistle drew her attention to the other boarding ramp where Mira now stood. She waved the med teams towards her and rushed them into the ship. Bastila could only guess what grim sights awaited them, but she pushed the thought from her mind and approached Atton.
"So the rumors were true." She tried to maintain eye contact with Atton but her gaze kept returning to the huddled mass of miserable, abused innocents. "Where did you find them?"
"At the coordinates we picked off our contact on Nar Shaddaa. They were deep space so we just waited. After a few days, this showed up." He gestured to the freighter, then his voice grew colder. "They tried to sell us the children."
"Sell?" Bastila gasped.
Atton nodded grimly. "The deal was pre-arranged. Sounded like it had been going on for a while. We didn't find any evidence that the slavers knew who they were working with."
"Did you capture any of them?"
"No. We didn't have room on our ship so we had to take theirs. There weren't any survivors."
It seemed improbable to her that Atton and Mira couldn't have captured at least one of the slavers, but she didn't press it further.
Atton reached into a pocket of his jacket. "But there is this." He dropped a small crystal shard into her palm. Immediately she felt an icy cold spread through her hand. The object was possessed of a powerfully evil taint.
"Where did this come from?"
"Same contact from Nar Shaddaa. The slavers were using this as credentials."
"You mean the slavers were Force-sensitive?"
"No, they pressed it against one of the kid's foreheads. When the kid reacted they told us we were legit, but they didn't have any idea how it worked."
Bastila shuddered. The crystal felt like death in her hand and she couldn't wait to be rid of it; what must this have felt like to an innocent, Force-gifted child?
"If it's all right with you, I'd like to go help the kids and save this for the debriefing."
Bastila nodded. Atton was letting his typical apathetic façade slip and she was only too pleased to encourage his compassion. He waded into the sea of children that were now listening quietly to Master Vandar speak. A few of the youngest reached for Atton's hands and he let them grip his fingers.
Vandar was patiently answering an unending stream of questions from the children, so Bastila decided to board the ship. She quickly found her way to the hub of activity in the cargo hold, where the medical team was stabilizing patients and rousing some of them from their healing trances.
The stench was awful.
"The smell's actually gotten better," Mira commented, seeing the look on her face.
"Is this where they kept them?" Bastila asked, surveying the modestly sized hold that had filth in every corner and on every surface.
"Yes," Mira ground out. Bastila didn't need the Force to feel her anger.
"How many are there?" she asked while threading her way between the healers.
"378 total. Forty-four in here that have been in a healing trance the whole time," Mira reported. Her shoulders sagged. "We lost two."
"No one could have done better with the resources you had, Mira," Bastila reassured her. "I bet this ship doesn't even have a med bay."
"It doesn't," the younger woman confirmed. They didn't speak further; neither of them had the heart for conversation. Instead, they busied themselves by helping the med teams to move the children off the ship and into the academy's medical wing. When that was complete they returned to the hangar and occupied the children while healers made their rounds.
The academy's Padawans and older younglings had arrived to play and entertain. There was a mix of crying, laughing, and nervous silence in the crowd. Bastila somehow found herself carrying a sobbing Gotal boy on one hip and a quiet, anxious Twi'lek girl on the other. She wondered if a young Mission had ever been so reserved.
They were beginning to shuffle the children off in small batches to bathe and be put to sleep when Vandar ambled past. "It's wonderful to see your maternal instincts put to good use," he said with a twinkle in his eye and a wave at the two children she held. They were both staring at him wide-eyed, as so many of the Order's younglings did when they first met Vandar.
Eventually, Bastila handed the now calm children off to the care of a Knight, then went looking for the two older children that had left the ship with Atton. She found them sitting on a stack of crates; Atton was regaling them with some story of his days in between the war and meeting the Exile. The Togrutan girl had positioned herself so she could see all the children scattered throughout the hangar area. She must have been one of the eldest, Bastila concluded, and the lightest probe revealed concern for the others, a sense of duty and responsibility to them, guarded suspicion of the adults combined with the hope of being found by Jedi.
This one would be a defender of the weak and defenseless, she could see it clear as day.
"Excuse me, Atton," she interrupted. "I was wondering if I could ask your friends a few questions."
Atton stood. "Varia Lorensa, Goran M'themb, this is Master Shan, the head of the Jedi Order." He said it with almost none of his usual disdain for rank and title.
"Please, just call me Bastila," she said sincerely and extended her hand.
"Bastila? The Jedi princess?" the girl blurted out. Her eyes were a little bit wide now.
Bastila was taken aback but tried to hide it. "I'm not a princess, I am a Jedi." She cast a sharp glance at the Knight standing beside her. "Has Atton been telling you about me?"
He put up his palms in placation. "It wasn't me, I swear."
"It was on a holodrama that I watched with my mom," the girl explained. "You captured Revan and turned him back to the light side, and then he turned you back to the light side after Malak got you. You were his girlfriend."
Atton made a feeble attempt to control his laughter. Bastila was immensely grateful Jolee was not here for this. But the girl looked as if she was meeting a fairy tale that had come to real life and she found herself lacking the coldness necessary to correct her on the details.
"Yes, something like that." She was inwardly quite flustered now and couldn't rally her serenity quickly enough, so she abandoned the questions she had wanted to ask. "Will you come with me to have a healer look at you? Perhaps you can tell me more about this holodrama that you watched."
The girl agreed and gripped Goran's hand to pull him along. Atton followed for the entertainment alone, Bastila was sure. As they walked to the med wing, Varia chatted excitably about the incredibly romantic and adventurous holodrama that had been Bastila's life. It was surreal to hear the pivotal events of her life recited back to her through the lens of a fictional production and an adolescent girl's imagination.
By the time they arrived, Varia was asking how close to fact the holodrama had been and Bastila nearly seized the first available healer to avoid answering. The healer splinted the girl's fractured arm and treated her other unhealed injuries. When she turned to the Gotal boy, however, he shrank back from her scanning instrument.
"It won't hurt," the healer promised, but it did nothing to ease his fearful trembling.
"Perhaps you can assess him without the tools," Bastila suggested.
"I'll try, Master." The healer placed both her hands on the boy's cheeks. "This won't hurt either." She smiled at him reassuringly.
"I'm afraid of doctors," the boy mumbled quietly, then appeared to concentrate on suppressing his reflex and sat perfectly still. After a minute the healer released him with a clean bill of health and a recommendation for careful observation over the next days. Atton led Goran and Varia around the medical wing so they could check in on the other children present. Varia did most of the talking and Goran followed.
The healer pulled Bastila aside once the two were out of earshot. "Master, the Gotal boy felt strange to me, as if he had two presences combined."
Bastila arched an eyebrow thoughtfully. "We'll make sure he comes back regularly for checkups. Perhaps we can learn more over time." She thought of the odd, resonating Force presence that the Jedi Exile had possessed. She had only observed the Exile from an adjacent room, however, and hadn't been able to explore it more fully. "Understanding it may prove important to training him; please let me know if you have any insights after more observation."
The healer nodded and moved away to tend her other patients. Bastila remained where she was, observing the two oldest children as they provided comfort or distraction to the others. A couple of times she witnessed Varia excitedly point another child's attention towards her; she would smile at them while grimacing inwardly; Atton watched her and smirked. Word of her holofame would be spreading. Once Jolee found out, her life would be over.
After a few minutes, Atton left their side and rejoined her.
"Atton, how deep do you believe her trauma goes?"
The aloof Jedi's face was skeptical, to put it mildly. "You're asking me about the psychological health of an adolescent girl that's been through – " he gestured vaguely "– that?"
Bastila nodded, fully aware that he should have been the last person from which she would ever seek such advice.
"Well let me put it this way: two weeks ago she refused to believe that we were there to help. Now she can't stop talking about how true love prevails. She might still be angry and distrustful, but I don't think her time with the slavers messed her up so badly that we can't help her."
"Good," Bastila replied with a smile, "because she needs to be trained as a Jedi, and I want to take her as my Padawan."
"The children have suffered through much."
Teth Tonb, the Council's Sullustan master, spoke in very slow Basic, but it was a credit to him that he could speak it at all. Most of his species never learned to pronounce the difficult sounds. He gazed to the center of their meeting room where a holoprojector displayed the names of ages of rescuees. "They carry many scars, much fear, and anger."
"Their training would be difficult, particularly for the older ones," Vandar noted. "Most of these children are older than we have ordinarily accepted for training."
"We can't just turn these children away," Bastila entreated passionately. If ever she were to leverage the position of leadership that her peers had bestowed upon her, it would be now, for these children. "Most of their families are dead. They have no homes."
"There are many homes that welcome refugees and orphans," Torden suggested. "We certainly have the resources to find caring families to adopt."
Bastila cast a look to Jolee – she knew he strongly supported her position but was remaining frustratingly quiet. He simply regarded her curiously.
"Their scars could make them dangerous if we train them," Teth added.
"Their scars are exactly why we have to train them!" She ignored the reactions to her uncharacteristic outburst and plodded onward. "They need guidance to deal with their past and the powers they have. They are more likely to go astray without training than they are if we take them into the Order." The room was silent and she hoped it was due to the others thinking on her words.
Mical broke the silence. "Speaking as one who was trained well into adulthood, and whose training would be considered incomplete by most standards, I believe these children could overcome their adversity to make excellent Jedi."
Bastila gave him a nod of appreciation for his words, before making another point. "The slaving ring that captured these children is still out there, not to mention whoever is employing them. If we don't take them in, somebody else will. Again."
"These children are pawns," Visas said in that soft and forceful way that only she could manage. "We can empower them to shape their own future. No one else will be able to offer that."
"They must be given the opportunity to choose," Vandar said. "Most of their families were murdered, but the families that are still alive may want their children back."
"Of course, we will honor the wishes of the families," Bastila responded, thinking of the long-dead father that hadn't wanted to pass her off to the Jedi, and the mother she hadn't seen in ages who had been more than ready to do just that. "But those without homes to return to are better off with us than in orphanages or with foster families. At least until we stop whoever has been taking them."
One by one the council members vocalized their assent and the meeting dispersed. On her way out of the room, Bastila was stopped by Visas, who laid a comforting hand on her arm.
"These children are lucky to have you as their champion. This was the right course of action."
"Thank you, Visas," Bastila replied. She was filled with confusion, however. She felt almost irrationally protective towards these children.
"I believe that as Jedi we often fall short of the compassion we ought to express because we become too concerned with future consequence." Visas sighed, perhaps thinking of her own traumatic childhood. "These younglings are here, now, and they need our help. How better to serve the Force than by caring for them in the strongest way possible?"
Bastila impulsively grabbed Visas into a firm hug. "Our help they will have," she promised confidently. With a smile, the Miralukan left.
Bastila turned to the last person remaining.
"You were surprisingly quiet through all that. I know you have a strong opinion on this matter."
"That I do," Jolee agreed. "That I do. But it was nice to see you with some fire in your eyes. I figured if I made things too easy for you, that fire might die down."
Bastila slapped Jolee's shoulder playfully. "I have plenty of fire. I just choose to keep it in check."
"That's not always a good thing, missy. Now, what's this I hear about your starring role in The Jedi Princess?"
Bastila groaned so loudly it echoed through the chamber.