Kaevee remembered being terrified when she'd first caught sight of Atris in the space station hangar; she'd thought the old woman was dying. But half a standard day after their escape, she seemed only a little wearier than usual.
Meanwhile Atton had loitered in the Ebon Hawk's medbay, tending to himself while Cole and Ecksee handled the initial hyperspace jumps away from Torque. Kaevee thanked the Force for that; cranky as the droid was at times, she felt certain it had more patience for Cole than she did.
"I understand your feelings," Atris was saying. "We were raised to hold men such as him in contempt. But they are not inferiors, and the truth is we need them, if only to do what we cannot." The old woman's mouth curved in a familiar, ironic smirk. "Ironic, considering the purpose of the Jedi was to do what they could not."
"Yeah, I guess so." Perched at her usual place on the edge of the nearby cot, Kaevee spoke just above the level of a murmur.
Atris turned more serious. "He took several lives. A Sith and his followers, yes, but ones who did not pose any immediate threat to him or to anyone else. It may not have been honorable, but it was prudent. It was not the way of the Jedi to be guided by pragmatism, or so we wished to believe. But in any case, you and I, we are not Jedi, Kaevee, any more than Atton or Cole. We are spies of a sort. Agents, saboteurs... and killers. For a good cause, of course. And yet it troubled you."
The hum of the ship's ventilators filled several seconds.
"It felt wrong," Kaevee said, her eyes half-closed as she remembered the critical moment—the taut web of connections in the Force, the feel of the detonator in her hand. "I knew it was part of the plan, we were supposed to do it. But it just seemed like something Emon wouldn't want me to do."
Atris nodded deeply, her eye invisible beneath her hood but unmistakably piercing. "We do so much to honor the dead. But for you to be paralyzed at a moment of crisis when you needed to act—he would not want that for you either, would he?"
Kaevee had asked herself this question already. "No, he wouldn't. But I don't even know if it really matters, since Cole was there to just do it for me."
"Be kind to yourself. Remember if nothing else that you have a small victory: you didn't repeat your mistake from Malachor."
Kaevee wasn't at all sure that it had been her own discipline and willpower that had gotten her through that particular trial. It certainly hadn't felt that way in the moment, trying to choke down the fear of what might have been happening to Atton and Atris, and to contain her loathing for Cole. But one way or another, she had gotten through it. "I guess I was able to believe Atton knew what he was doing this time."
"If it comforted you to believe that, then by all means continue to do so." Before Kaevee could decide whether she was supposed to laugh, the old woman's head sagged a little. "I am tired now. Please leave me, that I may rest. Meditate on these things. Do not demand answers of the Force."
Kaevee left and drifted about the Ebon Hawk, looping twice through the corridors and the main hold before ending up in the cargo hold. After a few minutes of searching, she retrieved a new blaster pistol from one of the weapons containers. She could practically hear Atton telling her, Try not to lose that one, kid.
She took it to the starboard dorm and placed it gingerly in her bunk compartment. Inevitably her eyes lingered on the damaged lightsaber, and for a long moment she brooded on everything uncertain and unfulfilled in the new life she had found, weighing all those things against what had happened at Torque Highport.
It was a victory; Kaevee could take it for that. As she settled down to meditate, she hoped that it wouldn't be the only one.
