At least seven battle droids were remaining, and they only had two ion grenades left. Carth crouched next to Lieutenant Gillick behind a fallen section of bulkhead. Their cover, pocked with blaster scores on the other side, stood in the middle of the corridor twenty meters from the safety of the nearest corner.

They were the bait, and as his ears were pounded by a cacophony of blaster bolts pinging against their protection, Carth reflected that the degree of their success in luring the enemy was uncomfortable.

The battle droids had already found them and started unloading their cannons, although thankfully they didn't have a direct shot on their targets.

The droids were a model used by Revan's Sith Empire during the Jedi Civil War. They weren't terribly smart, and the Republic military had learned to exploit flaws in their combat logic. For example, when a known threat had taken shelter and there was insufficient space to flank in an overly-wide manner, then the droids would simply hold position at a medium firing distance. They weren't sophisticated enough to coordinate their maneuvers, so all of them would end up congregating at roughly the same location… within range of an average grenade throw.

Of course, that also meant there was a lot of heat coming down on their improvised shield – figuratively and literally. Carth's hands were starting to blister. The lieutenant, who had bravely volunteered for the Admiral's foolhardy plan, wasn't faring much better. If they lost grip on the shield then this strategy would fail, and they would be dead.

"Ready?" Carth ground out over the pain in his hand and the hammering of blows against the metal plate.

Gillick nodded.

"Go!"

Carth took the full brunt of the shield while Gillick grabbed an ion grenade in each hand and flung them over the barrier. He sheltered again just in time for the grenades to go off on impact. A blast of energy hammered the barrier, knocking them to their faces. The plate fell painfully atop their legs. Carth shook off the disorientation and pain and kicked his way from beneath it. The Lieutenant was already standing and together they sprinted for the corner, throwing themselves bodily around it before more droids showed up.

From his prone position on the floor, Carth recognized Hyteru's boots as they stepped past his face. She peeked back around the corner to survey the results. "Four droids down," she reported.

Carth rolled over and sat up. "That helps, at least. Well done, Lieutenant." The young man's grin was broken by a wince as one of his soldiers slapped a kolto patch to the burn across his shoulder.

Something exploded out of sight and the entire group instinctively hit the deck. The bright roar hadn't completely faded before a tremendous crash struck in the hallway that they'd just vacated. Hyteru rose to a crouch and leaned around the corner again.

"I think one of the droids blew its generator. The ceiling collapsed and now the corridor is blocked."

There was an audible collective sigh of relief. Carth got back to his feet and cautiously rounded the corner to inspect the providential barrier. Hyteru joined him.

"Let's get off this level," Carth said, pointing to the space in the destroyed ceiling that was mostly clear of debris. A pair of fallen beams ran upwards, forming a plausible – if tenuous – ramp. There was no sign of the remaining three droids; they were probably searching for another route. The four-legged walkers wouldn't be able to follow them up through the hole. He knew they weren't able to communicate with the station's main systems, or else they wouldn't have needed to smash down so many doors in their pursuit. And they couldn't fit in the turbolifts, which meant it would take them a long time to find a route to another deck.

It took the better part of ten minutes to move everyone up the slanted beams and onto the floor above. They struggled with the droids' first victim, Private Ellers, who was still unconscious. Private Ul'trol, a tech, slipped on the ascent and broke his arm. Still, once the last member of their small group was through their collective anxiety eased. They now had space to think and plan.

"It's been thirty-three minutes since we lost contact with the fleet," Hyteru noted as Carth and Gillick joined her in a huddle.

"That bogey is in position, then," Carth surmised. "We have to assume they've boarded by now. Is the jamming still active?"

Hyteru nodded.

"Okay, let's assume the worst-case scenario – that cruiser belongs to the owners of this station. They are wondering why Khoora hasn't answered, or Khoora has told them that we're on board. Right now they are sweeping the station for us, or have already located us and are heading straight here." Carth paused to let the synopsis sink in. "Captain, what is your XO planning?"

Hyteru wrinkled her brow in concentration. "Our last transmission was cut off, so he's not going to sit idly by and wait for orders. He'll be planning to disable or distract the cruiser long enough to land reinforcements. He'll probably target our last known location, which was the bay with those kids."

"They'll have to disable the shielding on approach to the landing bay, just like we did," Gillick noted.

"Those children will be sucked right out into space," Carth concluded gruffly with a blink and shake of the head. He couldn't stop thinking of those years that he'd missed with Dustil. "Unless that was an airtight container?"

"I don't believe so, sir," Gillick answered.

"We have to get to a ship," Hyteru said. "Something that has a chance of outmaneuvering and outrunning whatever is waiting outside. We need the fighters that were in the cargo bay."

"We'll be headed back toward those droids," Carth cautioned.

"Those fighters were parked right beneath the control room. We could make our way there, blast out the window and rappel down."

Carth was surprised by Hyteru's sudden aggressiveness. He approved. "Let's do it."

"Sir, I'd like to keep my team together if possible," Lieutenant Gillick said.

"Not possible, Lieutenant. I'm sorry. Commander Dorth may already have forces en route. Let's make a secured location for half your squad, and the rest are with us." Gillick nodded with a heavy expression but proceeded to swiftly organize his group.

They found a room with sufficient protective objects and only a few doorways and proceeded to turn it into a meager bunker behind which half of Gillick's squad could take positions, along with the two badly wounded.

"Who here is a pilot?" Hyteru asked with a tone that suggested she already knew the answer. Nobody responded and she didn't look the least bit surprised. Instead, she looked to Carth and shrugged. "I haven't flown a fighter in years, sir."

He scowled in response. She knew that he spent several hours each week in an Aurek or Chela. She knew he was still a certified pilot, and she knew he would be forced off the station to return to the relative safety of the fleet. He gritted his teeth because she was right, and he would be leaving these people behind.

"Fine," Carth growled. "Let's get going, Lieutenant."

"After you, ma'am," Gillick offered to his captain. She shook her head.

"I'll be staying with the wounded, Lieutenant. You make sure the Admiral gets out of here safely."

"With all due respect, ma'am, I think you ought to go as well," Gillick responded bravely. "It's dangerous for you to remain here."

Hyteru snorted. "It's dangerous out there, as well."

"But you'll only have to make it a few seconds before entering the nebula. Frankly, I would rather you and the Admiral were both with the fleet, figuring out how to get us the hell out of here."

Carth interrupted before Hyteru could firmly and authoritatively reject his proposal. "We're messing up your squad dynamics, aren't we, Lieutenant?" he asked with a wry smile.

Gillick, to his credit, managed to mostly hide his relieved grin. "Soldiers behave differently around captains and admirals, sir. We get too concerned about protecting the officers."

"You hear that, Captain? We're a distraction." Hyteru was looking utterly nonplussed. "Lead us out of here, Lieutenant."

Carth and Hyteru followed Gillick as they wended their way silently through corridors and up access ladders. Two of his men brought up the rear. When they arrived in the cargo bay's control room, full illumination had been restored. The container was right where they'd left it, and appeared untouched.

His stomach clenched painfully, knowing what was inside that unremarkable-looking box.

Carth immediately went to the magfield control panel and began entering a sequence of timed commands. It was still working, luckily, whereas many of its neighbors were dark and silent, possibly due to the damage they'd caused in the command center. Lieutenant Gillick stepped up to the broad windows, surveyed the bay, and promptly shot out the window directly above the fighters. The shower of tiny fragments resounded in crystalline tinkling throughout the cavernous space.

The Lieutenant pulled a filament line out of his utility belt and secured one end around the base of a defunct control console. He handed the rest of the spool to Carth, along with a compact mechanical brake. Carth wrapped a loop around his body and proceeded to the shattered window.

"The magfield is going to drop in four minutes. It will come back up after five seconds," he told the lieutenant.

Gillick nodded. "Understood. We'll be here until you're clear."

Carth was still hanging a couple of meters above the fighter when Hyteru hollered down to him. "Company!" A heartbeat later blaster fire ripped out of the control room and sailed across the bay to a destination that Carth couldn't see. He heard snapping impacts of energy bolts against metal and lots of alarmed shouts. The rope jerked suddenly; he looked up to see Hyteru, twelve meters above, joining him on the line. They were running out of time. He let himself drop onto the fighter's back; the impact sent stinging vibrations up through his boots, and a second later he was tumbling towards the deck, all balance lost on the angled surface. At the last moment, he found purchase on an access compartment's handhold, which turned his fall into an arc that ended painfully and abruptly against the side of the ship. He still ended up on the deck winded, probably with a bruised rib, but at least on his feet.

A steady exchange of fire between the control room above and the intruders at the opposite end of the bay kept attention off of Hyteru's descent. Carth sprinted around the fighter's oddly declined wings and to the cockpit, keeping the ship between himself and the firefight. There was a ladder against the hull and at the top of it was a cockpit release; he had hauled himself into the pilot's seat before the canopy was even fully open.

The controls were similar to the CEC systems of the Chela, though arranged in a foreign layout. Overall things were simplified because this fighter was not equipped with a hyperdrive. He started flipping switches to cycle the engines.

A loud clang to the rear made him whip around and reach for his blaster, only to see Hyteru crawling forward along the fighter's back. She stepped nimbly around the raised canopy and dropped into the other seat that was directly behind the pilot. He was still working on warming up the engines when the canopy lowered and the repulsorlifts kicked in.

"How'd you do that?" he called back to the captain.

Their hull was suddenly panging with blaster fire. "Lucky guess," she shouted, struggling to be heard. Though startling, it wasn't going to do much to starfighter armor.

Well, if they got out of here in the next minute.

"Can you bring weapons up?" Carth asked as he grabbed the yoke and pivoted the hovering fighter towards their enemies. They were ducking in and out of the doorway, maintaining enfilade fire on Gillick's position while reducing their own exposure. They weren't risking the exposure to properly aim their shots – it was a distraction. This was a military unit, Carth could tell, and the group had certainly split up. He was certain that some number of soldiers were working their way towards the control room right now.

But who were they? From this distance, he couldn't recognize their uniforms.

A loud double beep brought his eyes down to the low central display just above the yoke. He had active weapons but didn't know what the weapons were.

"I've got cannons," Hyteru reported.

Well then. Carth glided the ship to the right, making sure they were clear of the children's container. When he had a wide berth, he pulled the trigger four times. Four pairs of yellow blasts streaked out from either side of the cockpit, obliterating the doorway and probably several rooms behind it. With the distraction eliminated, hopefully Gillick would know to clear out.

He spun the ship to face the cargo bay's yawning mouth. He didn't have sensors figured out yet, but the shimmering of the nebula outside made it clear the magfield was still active. It would be going down any moment, but a quick scan of his instruments revealed he still didn't have main engines online.

"We're going to drift out on thrusters and jetsam if we don't get that reactor core up," Carth warned Hyteru.

"Just a second," she replied, sounding distracted.

Carth studied the controls while he waited, familiarizing himself with the layout. He had just worked out the countermeasures system when the shimmering disappeared from peripheral vision.

They had five seconds to get into space.

"Engaging thrusters," he announced. They started moving towards the exit at a pace more than fast enough to make their window, but too slow to be anything but a sitting bantha once outside. The instant they were in space he slammed them sideways, away from the mouth of the bay and back towards the uneven rock of the station. It would give them something between seconds and minutes before detection. Craggy rock eclipsed half of their view, glowing softly with the pastel hues of the nebula.

"Mains in four," Hyteru announced suddenly while Carth was furiously studying the sensors, sweating palms firmly on the yoke and throttle. At last, a reassuring thrum ran through their seats as the reactor core spun up to full power. The energy output gauges started a rapid climb, but Carth was waiting until they had maximum acceleration power. Another ten seconds at least.

"I've located the bogey," the Captain reported from behind him. "It's less than seventy degrees from us." A blinking icon appeared on the heads-up display, flagging the vessel's coordinates. "And we're still being jammed."

"Standby weps and countermeasures," Carth ordered. He scrutinized the gauges, imploring them to race upward. Any second now…

The trio of ion engines erupted as he slammed the throttle all the way forward and pulled up hard on the yoke. Instantly the rock disappeared from view as their nose pointed toward the nebula. They gained several megalights in speed before he dove back toward the safety of the asteroid, skimming along only tens of meters above its surface.

They had almost reached the area opposite from the cruiser when Hyteru barked "Incoming!"

A cloud of vaporized rock exploded beneath them, buffeting the small craft. Carth jerked them into a roll and changed direction.

"Missile," she elaborated from behind. "ECM systems didn't detect it. Probably this scow doesn't have the capability." She paused. "Fighters approaching from three-one-seven mark four-four. Six of them."

"Can we outrun them?" he asked.

"Yes, if they're already at top speed. But we have to punch through their net, or head towards that cruiser."

"I choose the net."

Carth ended his wild evasive maneuvers so they could pick up speed. He selected a target point at one edge of the loose formation of enemies – one particular fighter, to be precise – and pointed them towards it. That fighter drifted as the group adjusted their net to keep him away from the periphery, but he doggedly kept his nose right on it. This was also causing them to wander towards the cruiser, but they were committed now. The timing would work out. It had to, or they'd be dead.

"Sir?" Hyteru's voice was fraught with uncertainty.

"Transfer everything to forward shields on my mark," he replied, ignoring her concern.

She didn't make Captain by being unreliable. "Ready," she answered swiftly.

They entered weapons range and yellow laser blasts shredded towards them from the target fighter. Dimly Carth recognized that the opposing fighters looked similar to their own. He also recognized that while they had been arcing to stay near the edge of the net, the other fighters had been maintaining a nearly straight line. They were about to be trapped in between them and the guns on that cruiser. He executed a jagged barrel roll to dodge laser fire and watched the distance shrink between them and the oncoming fighter.

"Now!" He just barely started to jink right then resumed a straight line. The other craft started to match his maneuver, attempted to recover when it changed, and received a glancing blow as their starboard wingtip sheared through one of its engine housings.

"Kriff!" Hyteru cried out as they were thrown against the canopy by the oblique collision. Carth quickly regained control. The shields had absorbed enough of the impact to keep things functioning, as planned. Well, not the weapons, he noted. Or half the sensors.

Or for that matter, the shields.

The engines were still running at full output, though, and the deflector as well. They would need that inside the nebula, which was now mere seconds away.

"Launching flares," Hyteru said with a measure of calm restored to her voice.

Carth's eyes raced over the sensor display and ECM readouts but didn't see anything amiss. "Missile?"

"No, I'm giving Dorth a starting point. Without sensors, we have to wait for them to find us."

In time with her statement, the world outside the canopy disappeared into the faintly glowing nebular fog. Carth made a slow count to ten then changed direction by seventy degrees to throw off pursuers. He cut their speed to one quarter, lest they collide with one of their own, and plotted a route that would keep them moving in a rough circle about the asteroid station; he hoped it would maximize their odds of encountering a Republic ship.

And then they waited.

Several minutes in, Hyteru announced that she had the shields back online, which released some of the tension from Carth's shoulders.

Peering into the thick gas clouds, their eyes had to strain uncomfortably to perceive things that no human could actually see. Ghostly imprints of imagined ships coming to their rescue appeared out of every shifting, near-formless lump of gas. They continued to wait in silence.

"I'm detecting explosions," the Captain said with a frown in her voice. "No more than 10 klicks from here."

Carth's fingers twitched on the yoke. "Has the fleet engaged?"

"I don't think so. The timing is pretty regular. I can't make out much, but I'm guessing they're using missiles to try and flush us out."

There was a soft flash from deeper in the nebula and a second later the fighter rocked lightly. He made course corrections because the shockwave had pushed them back towards the asteroid's bubble. "If we don't go further into this soup, it's going to work."

"The further in we go, the harder it will be to find us. Give my crew ten more minutes."

His jaw clenched tightly. "Ten minutes," he conceded.

Carth held loosely the same course but varied their speed, altitude, and direction as much as possible without deviating too far from a circle. The explosions continued to trail behind a comfortable distance.

Until suddenly their view was engulfed in roiling brilliant color and they were thrown violently off course.

"That was right under us!" Carth hollered over the screeching alarms of a dozen failed systems. He hit the rudders and pulled hard on the yoke to stabilize their crash back towards the bubble.

Nothing happened.

"Sithshit!" he cursed violently. "Controls are gone." He toggled every switch that he knew to be related to the thruster and throttle controls and got no response. Most of the switches weren't even illuminated anymore. He looked up, still blinking spots out of his eyes, and was horrified to see the nebula thinning before them.

They were careening back toward the asteroid station, where bright yellow lights winked at them from the orbiting cruiser. Belatedly he realized those bright yellow lights were turbolasers.

Hyteru saw it too. "I'm dropping shields," she stated with an outward calm that was both impressive and confusing as hell.

Carth twisted in his seat to face her. "What?" he asked incredulously.

"That cruiser is firing at something nearby, but not us," she explained with a smirk. He turned back and saw that indeed the blasts were about ten degrees off from them.

The fighter jerked and Carth jumped in his seat. He scanned the sensors and saw nothing, then looked up to see the gas growing denser again, and the view of the station fading. They were moving backward.

And then he got it.

"Shields reduce tractor beam capture." He faced Hyteru again, who was smiling brilliantly. "Well done, Captain."

"Told you they'd find us. Sir."

Aeryn woke with a start, made to sit up, and was immediately stopped. The arms that were wrapped around her naked frame threw her mind right back into a muddled, sleepy, contented state. The warm skin pressed against hers caused soft, bubbly throbs through her body. She relaxed and for several minutes imagined that every morning had always been just like this one.

But the realization that it hadn't eventually solidified in her mind with a snap. Not one single morning in the last five years had been like this one.

From now on, every morning would be like this one, she resolved.

Excitement flooded her veins, obliterating the hazy fog of bliss. "Atton!" She nudged the man beside her.

Sleepy eyes opened to regard her fondly. "I'm gonna let this slide. Just. This. Once."

"Let what slide?"

"You waking me early." He sat up just the barest amount necessary to wrap both arms around her naked waist.

"It's not early! Atton, it's…" she keyed the environmental controller on the side of their bunk, "it's almost fifteen hundred!" She moved to swing her legs out but was slowed by Atton's stronghold on her torso and defeated by her utter lack of will to resist him. "Come on," she whined half-heartedly, "we should get up."

"We stayed up late last night. They've probably already counted us out of any shifts."

"I feel bad. We should help." Aeryn paused as mortifying thought seized her. "Wait, do you think they heard us?"

"No clue," he shrugged, before an evil grin spread over his face. "They didn't hear me, at least."

Aeryn smacked him.

"Look, we have something no one else does right now. Let's cherish it and let all the cranky single people take care of the ship," Atton persuaded as his fingers dragged hypnotic patterns along the sensitive skin at her ribs. His warm mouth placed smooth, gentle kisses along her spine. She trembled and felt heat grow within her belly, spreading upward and downward. Especially downward.

Turning, she wrapped her arms around her lover's neck and pulled him against her.

"I wish they had what we do," she said sweetly, lost in his hazel eyes, before dragging his mouth to hers and entirely forgetting about everything outside of their bunk.

Revan carefully reinserted the last power cell and threaded the pommel back onto the casing of his lightsaber. He placed it on the floor in front of the squat utility droid to his right.

"Alright, give it a scan and if it looks good, seal it," he ordered T3 as he laid out next to him. The droid swiveled his head partway around to focus one particular sensor eye on it. A shimmering green plane of light projected over the saber hilt, sweeping back and forth repeatedly. After a minute, he dwooped an affirmative sound and extended a small tool arm that moved in a careful circle around each of the weapon's controls, emitting a tiny blue glow as he micro-welded the buttons in place to create a permanent seal against the elements.

"Thanks, buddy." He sat up and patted the droid's flat head affectionately, earning something like a happy coo in response. T3 beeped and a message appeared on the datapad sitting next to them. "I missed you more," Revan answered with a chuckle. "HK makes me laugh, but you and I have far more in common."

At least, that's what he hoped.

Revan stood and ignited his cyan blade. The difference in heft was almost imperceptible, but he had in fact added a substantial reinforcing sheath to the inside of the hilt. He had removed nearly all the components and carefully wrapped them in cloth-like quatritanium carbon mesh. It had been a gift from a Mandalorian armorer on Dxun, something with which the old warrior had been experimenting. When properly laid up and bonded into a metal shell, it was a tremendous enhancer of strength. This precious weapon that had been nearly destroyed shortly before Aeryn rescued him was now crush-proof.

The process of integrating the mesh had been tedious and long and had taken nearly all his time of the last three days.

It was an ideal distraction from the beautiful Jedi Master that troubled his waking and sleeping thoughts.

He whirled the blade into a rapid cyclone of spins until he was satisfied that the balance and performance had not been impacted. With a sigh, he deactivated it, admitting that this project was done. He would have to find some new engrossment that wasn't her.

"I see that you still carry the Mantle of the Force."

Revan spun, surprised that he hadn't felt Bastila's approach. Too distracted, he supposed. And unexpected – she had been avoiding him like the rakghoul plague. "Yes," he answered carefully, afraid that he would somehow drive her off. "It's an excellent crystal."

She stood in the forward entrance to the Ebon Hawk's mechanic bay, regarding him impassively, arms crossed, posture indicating readiness to turn and leave at any moment. "Have you ever considered the implications of bearing that crystal?"

Revan choked down the flash of annoyance. It sounded just like any of the 'high-minded' questions with which she had besieged him during their quest for the Star Forge. Prodding him to consider his role in the universe. Removing himself from day-to-day reality to consider the larger picture. Ignoring the reality around them to consider the philosophy of their choices. It was the thinking that kept the Jedi from intervening in the Mandalorian Wars until he had almost ended them. It was the sort of 'navel-gazing' – as Jolee had put it – that missed the whole point of living.

And also no, he hadn't actually thought about it.

"You think I'm bearing some sort of 'mantle' for the Force?" Countering question for question was safer than answering. He knew he those angry thoughts would slip out. He could never keep himself controlled around her.

"I'm not sure," Bastila returned directly, "but I think that how you perceive the answer to that question is far more important than how I do."

"Why would that be?" he dodged again.

Her answering frown was a crease to her brows, a downward pucker to her lips, a sharpening in her eyes that thrilled him. "So you haven't thought about the implications."

The disappointment in her tone, though, that landed like a vicious boot to the chest.

"I didn't say – I mean no, I hadn't really thought about it. Look, it doesn't matter!" He exhaled angrily, scrabbling for composure. "I don't have to know what destiny does or doesn't await me in order to live life as a servant to the Force."

Bastila studied him intently. Now he wished her gaze was a little less piercing and a lot more open.

"Do you know that I never really knew the Revan of the Mandalorian Wars?"

He rolled his eyes. "Revan of the Mandalorian Wars is me. I remember almost everything. We had hardly met before you captured me."

"I did a lot of reading about you after you left. I wanted to know more about you and your past, since you had not been able to tell me yourself. Most of the Order's records on you had been sealed away, but I was granted access to all of it."

"And?"

"And I think that the Revan of fourteen years ago would have said the same thing."

Revan snorted. "I did say the same thing. Basically. Does that worry you?"

"I don't know," Bastila replied. "I am simply trying to understand who you are, now."

"I'm the same handsome scoundrel Jedi that you've always known," he grinned.

"But I haven't always known you."

She said it calmly, simply stating a fact, not providing the angry reaction he'd expected. She was correct, and he had no response. He looked down at the weapon in his hand. This wasn't the saber he had taken to that first war, nor was it the red blade he'd crafted for the second. This saber felt suddenly as alien as if it was borrowed from a stranger.

Then his fingers clenched it tightly and he remembered.

"We have a lot of work to do on Coruscant. We'll have lots of time to get to know each other again." He hoped she caught the implication about her own changes.

"I'm troubled by the way you attacked Goran – or, whoever he was." Bastila's brows knit together. "It was very… aggressive."

"You're being generous," Revan responded levelly. "It was enraged. I was enraged. I attacked him out of anger and fear for your own safety."

"I doubt that I was in any danger from him at that moment."

"You're right, and I overreacted. Believe me, I'm not normally like that. But I had just seen you for the first time in ten years and I was a bit… emotional." Bastila's steel grey eyes were scrutinizing him as if trying to separate flesh from bone. "It won't happen again," he promised seriously, as the thought settled onto his mind that this was the Grandmaster of the entire Jedi Order. It was a surreal moment of awareness, ushering with it a sense of deference to her position.

Fortunately, it didn't last long. The moment passed and his skin was left itching.

"Look, I hate standing around talking and not doing anything. We'll have plenty of that on Coruscant. You wanna duel, and I'll do my best to answer all your questions?"

She looked to the lightsaber in his hand, to its cousin hanging from her own belt, then nodded. Revan stepped back to give her space and ignited his blade. The Grandmaster shrugged off her robe and brought both her blades to life in a casual spin, before assuming a traditional opening stance. T3 backed into a safe corner.

"I should warn you, I've gotten even better," Bastila remarked with a subtle smile.

Revan grinned broadly. "By practicing against who? Vrook?" He realized the mistake too late. "Frell, Bas, I'm sor-"

"Sith assassins," she cut him off as suddenly as she fell upon him. Amber struck azure with a flash and crackle. Revan paced backward, bending temporarily to her offensive.

"Assassins like what my sister faced?"

"The same," she replied while making an upper right jab. "Most didn't carry lightsabers, but all were extremely skilled with whatever blade they did use."

"How badly did they come for you?" Revan asked, parrying her thrusts then swinging towards her open left flank. His throat turned dry to think of her besieged by stealthy murderers.

"I killed hundreds over the year that they chased us," her voice unstrained while she spun to block.

"Were you with Carth?"

"Some of the time. He couldn't do anything to help, though; they infiltrated the ship we were on a couple of times. I was endangering him and his crew by being there, so I left." She swept her lower blade at his legs and he back-flipped to avoid it, a feat of precision in the low space of the Hawk's cargo hold. "Did you encounter them?"

"No," he answered, driving forward with his back leg and pushing Bastila onto the defensive. "Vitiate's assassins are a different breed. He didn't try to kill me, though. I think he wanted to turn me again."

"I am glad that he didn't succeed."

"He might have if he and I wanted the same things. But he desires power and immortality; my desires are much simpler."

"What do you desire?" Bastila asked, her face etched with genuine curiosity even as she parried his cuts.

"Peace. Freedom." Revan paused, wondering where he should risk adding one more. "Love."

If the last triggered anything in her, he didn't see or feel it. "How can you think peace to be an easily fulfilled desire? Our generation has seen more war than any other," Bastila remarked dourly.

"Still easier than what Vitiate wants," Revan answered, feinting his blade toward her arm then plunging to her leg. Her unharried block suggested she had seen it coming. "I really mean inner peace. And it just so happens that my path towards inner peace has been foiled over and over again by the calling of the Jedi."

He pulled his saber back and spun it overhead to bring it crashing down into her yellow beam.

"You blame the Jedi for your inability to find peace?"

Did she intend to sound so snotty? For a moment he narrowed his focus to the brilliance of his blade clashing with hers, the hissing and spitting energy, and waited for the surge of irritation to fade.

"When I say the calling of the Jedi," he started, grasping somewhat vainly for calm, "I actually mean the calling of the Force." He knew by the way he had to keep clarifying that he was royally kriffing this up.

He laughed bitterly. Always the wrong words with her. It had been so much easier to talk with her when he didn't know himself. Maybe that was the crux of the matter. Only when he existed as an echo of himself could she be with him.

Despair surged within him, and he lashed out physically and verbally.

"The Jedi Order has stood in the way of obeying that call, over and over again, for me and countless others."

Before Bastila could retort he parried away her blade and paused, dropping his weapon to his side. He didn't want to swing at her while feeling this way, though he knew, proudly, that she could handle it.

After all, the one time he'd tried earnestly to kill her, she had prevailed.

"The Jedi Order taught me important skills, gave me discipline, and honed my connection to the Force, but when I left for the Mandalorian Wars, I left the Order forever. I just didn't realize it at the time."

Bastila's expression fell under the finality of his words. "Why?" Her question was barely audible over the hum of their sabers.

"I don't belong." He drove his silver-blue blade into hers, spurred on by a wave of feelings that he didn't care to resolve at that moment. She parried and parried again as he pushed at her defenses with a mild aggression that he knew was revealing his emotional state more than their dampened bond.

"You embrace darker things than most of us can manage," she said, attempting to empathize. "I can understand how it sets you apart, having the ability to embrace passions that would destroy most of us."

Revan rolled his eyes. "I don't embrace passion. I just never embraced repression like the Order wanted me to. I process and accept my feelings like the rest of the galaxy. Passion can be an outcome of that, but it can also be controlled with discipline and practice."

Bastila executed a block that forced him off balance and followed it with a boot to his chest. He stumbled backwards and only barely avoided falling. "Nice one," he grinned before raising his blade to counter-strike. She waved him off, deactivating her weapon.

"I should go check on Varia." The feeble excuse hung in the air, obvious to both of them.

Revan shut off his own saber, then tried to sustain the conversation with a tempting hook. He was nearly desperate for this to continue. "You're wondering what desires have to do with falling or not falling to the Dark Side. Why my desires didn't lead to my corruption by the Emperor."

Bastila stared at him, considering the bait. "I suppose so," she allowed.

"Desires are simply a manifestation of what lies within us – darkness and light. The darkness within rarely contains our stronger desires, though. Power, greed, lust – for most of us that's just noise over the top of what we really want. Fear, anger, and passion are just emotional states. They aren't the reason we fall, but they can drown out our real desires if not controlled or released.

"When you fell, you desired power, but not for power's sake. You wanted control over your own destiny, because up to that point it had been controlled by the Jedi Council. But if one can truly surrender their destiny to the Force, there's no worry about controlling it anymore because you know it's not subject to the whims of flawed sentients."

Bastila crossed her arms and frowned. "Are you saying there should be no Jedi Council to control the direction of the Order?"

"No," Revan responded through a tight jaw. That was not was he was saying, and this was one of those times when he could swear she was intentionally misunderstanding him.

But also yeah, fuck the Jedi Council.

"I'm saying that maybe the Council should spend less time directing the knights and more time supporting their needs. At least," he added hurriedly, "that's what I think the Council should have been doing fifteen years ago. It sounds like things are different now."

"It is utterly strange to hear you speak of things in the past."

She was shifting the conversation again, and Revan had no idea where they were headed next. He didn't know if he would ever become comfortable with the ways she surprised him, when before they had known each other better than themselves before. Their bond was frustrating bereft of clues.

"Why?"

"You didn't know your own past when we were last together."

"Well, you don't need to know the past to be haunted by it. I think knowing my own past has made me more confident."

"Confidence is not something you were lacking."

"Maybe not. But I was lacking purpose. Now I have it."

"And what is your purpose?" Bastila pressed.

"To serve the Force. To kill Vitiate. To preserve the Republic," he responded with steel in his voice.

"What if that is not the Force's will for you?" the Grandmaster countered.

Revan shrugged. "And that is exactly what makes me an imperfect servant. I have a purpose to serve, and a purpose to fulfill goals of my own. So I have to remind myself to keep obeying in each moment, where the will of the Force is actually presented to me, and not think too much about the future, where my own wants lie. The present moment is the only place where we can actually encounter the living Force."

"How can you, the most brilliant strategic thinker of our generation, not spend all your time planning for the future?"

It was so hard to not pounce on the compliment she had just paid him, but he managed. Just barely.

"I do plan all the time. I have ideas and strategies that could save the Republic, which is why I believe that the purpose the Force has for me and my own purposes are aligned." He grinned, unable to resist a moment longer. "And thanks for the compliment."

"I was not complimenting you!" Bastila exclaimed in frustration, her cheeks tinged the faintest pink. "I was simply making an observation about the conflict between your self-proclaimed purpose and your obnoxious nature."

"Strategy isn't obnoxious, it's fascinating!"

"War is not fascinating!"

Revan marched up to her, glaring down into those stormy gray eyes. She defiantly glared back and his pulse thrilled.

"War is coming," he growled. "It doesn't matter whether it's fascinating or not, because it's nearly upon us. So you had better convince the rest of the Council to prepare, because if they aren't in the fight immediately then it will be lost just as quickly as it begins. There won't be the luxury of second-guessing, or waiting for a sign, or arguing over semantics!"

He whirled and stomped out of the mechanic bay, wondering how it was that she always made him so angry. He slammed his back against a bulkhead and tossed his head back to crack against the unyielding metal. It hurt, and that felt good. He deserved the pain. Needed it to focus his mind.

He dragged a palm down his face, sighed, and turned back to apologize.

She was already gone.

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Author notes:

Thank you to everyone who has followed, favorited, and sent me a note about this story! It means so much, and helps me keep going at this when all the other less enjoyable parts of life crowd in too much.

The next chapter is relatively short and punchy, so should be up soon. I'm excited to check in on some of the characters we haven't seen in a while, plus introduce a few new (minor) ones.