Author's Notes: Here we go, chapter 5. I spent all day on this. I'm not sure its very good, but there we are. Thanks to everyone who reviewed. Let me know if I make any mistakes anywhere please. Hope you enjoy.

Chapter 5

The dreams were different this time. This time I saw myself as though from Revan's perspective. And there was the strange feeling that this wasn't my dream – that it was someone else's and I had just stumbled across it in my sleep.

I sat up and looked around. It was impossible to tell what time it was, as there were no windows or clocks in the entire apartment. In one corner of the room was an enormous Wookie snoring loudly. Curled up by its side was a comparatively tiny blue Twi'lek girl, who couldn't have been older than fifteen. Carth wasn't in the room.

I wondered what the Wookie and the Twi'lek were doing in here. There had been no Wookies or children on the Endar Spire, so they must be locals. I stood up quietly, trying not to wake anybody, and made my way to the bathroom. As I passed Revan on my right I noticed he was sweating and twitching. He must be having bad dreams as well.

When I returned from the bathroom, the Twi'lek was awake. She greeted me 'Good morning' before returning her attention back to her breakfast. I sat at one of the other chairs.

"Who are you?"

"Me? I'm Mission, and the Wookie in the corner is my best friend Zaalbar. You must be Kail's girlfriend." If I had been eating anything, I probably would have choked.

"Girlfriend?" I was horrified at the very idea of being Revan's girlfriend. It was almost sickening. "I couldn't be. I'm a Jedi." I was quite pleased with my excuse, thoughnobody had ever actually said'Jedi must not love'.

"Really? I wish I had force powers. Do you have one of those cool light-swords?" She looked around, trying to spot my lightsaber.

I nodded. "A lightsaber, yes." I took the lightsaber out of the footlocker where I had put it the night before. Ignited, it filled the room with a faint yellow glow.

Mission's eyes were wide and her jaw hung open. "Wow! Can I hold it?" She began bobbing up and down in her seat, hoping I would say yes.

"Ok. But be careful, it's very dangerous." I switched it off and handed it to her.

"Yeah, I know." She took it and inspected the hilt slowly. Then, discovering the 'on' button, she pressed it. The two beams of light shot out, one straight up in the air, the other down through her breakfast, through the table and then through her chair. It had missed her knee by about a centimetre.

She jumped in surprise and dropped the saber. I caught it before it caused any more damage in her inexperienced hands. Like a tap on the shoulder, the force warned me that Revan was waking up.

He yawned loudly, grunted a good morning and went straight to the bathroom. I turned back to Mission. "Where's Carth?"

"I think he is still in the cantina, drinking or playing pazaak. I let him borrow my best deck, so he could win loads of credits. He figures that however we get of Taris, it will be expensive."

"And there's a lot of money to be made in pazaak?" I knew how to play, roughly. I wasn't any good, and had always found the game to be boring.

"It depends how much you wager. Beginners usually begin with about, I don't know, five credits. The best players can turn over thousands in a single evening. Anyway, Carth said he would be coming back about now to get some sleep."

I nodded. "Why are you here, staying with Carth and Re…Kail?"

She smiled, obviously pleased to be able to tell her story. "Well, what happened is, they found out that you were a Vulkar prisoner. So they went to Gadon Thek. He's the leader of the Hidden Beks, the other major swoop gang. They didn't know where Brejik was keeping you, so they decided that Kail would have to ride in the swoop race and win you as the prize. But to be able to win they needed this accelerator to go on the bike, but the Vulkars had stolen it. Anyway, I was the only non-Vulkar who knew how to get into their base…"

Revan emerged from the bathroom, wearing his combat suit. He sat down on the other chair and started eating Mission's leftover breakfast. "…you see, Zaalbar and I like to go exploring so we knew everything about the undercity, and besides, I had nicked the codes to get into the base. Anyway, they came to find us, but Zaalbar had been captured by Gammoreans. Kail and Carth agreed to help me rescue him. So they did, and then Zaalbar swore a life debt. That's just about it, anyway."

After breakfast was finished with, we decided to go to the local cantinas to look for a way off Taris. We had barely stepped out of the apartment when a green Twi'lek ran up with a message. Apparently, a Mandalorian merc wanted to speak to Revan, and would be waiting in the Upper city cantina.

Mission, Revan and I went, leaving Zaalbar to guard the hideout. The Mandalorian was making no secret about his presence in the cantina – he stuck out like a sore thumb. He introduced himself as Canderous Ordo and said that he was working for Davik, the local crime lord, and the exchange.

He took a seat at one of the tables and ordered drinks for all of us. He detailed his plans to escape Taris. He could supply the ship, if we were willing to break into the Sith military base. This would involve stealing a very expensive custom-made astromech droid.

"The droid was made for Davik. If you tell Janice that I sent you, she will sell you it. It will probably cost around two-thousand credits." He said it as though two-thousand credits was easy to come by. Which, in his line of work, probably was.

"How are we going to get that much money?" Revan asked, finishing his drink.

The merc shrugged. "There are a lot of bounties to be collected. You could do them. You could 'borrow' the money. Fight in the arena. Whatever. Just get those codes soon. I will be waiting for you in Javyar's cantina." He downed the rest of his drink in a single go, shouldered his massive repeating-blaster and left.

"Ok, why were you talking to that mercenary?" Carth sat in Canderous' vacated seat.

"He's offered us a way to get off Taris. We just need two-thousand credits." Mission explained cheerily. I was certain she was too young to be drinking that much. "How much did you get playing pazaak?"

"Not enough." Carth took a handful of credit chips out of his pocket and dumped them on the table. Together they amounted to about five-hundred. "And we have another five hundred back in the apartment."

"So we need another thousand. I think the best way would be the arena Canderous mentioned." I suggested.

Revan nodded. "You can't fight – we can't risk bringing attention to you. Mission is too young. Zaalbar is not allowed in the Upper city, and that leaves Carth or myself."

"Forget it. I'm going to bed." Carth said, grumpily, quickly followed by Mission saying "I'm not too young! I can fight!" Carth got up and left.

"I know you can fight, but you won't be allowed. You can stay and watch though." Revan said it in a patronising tone.

"No, I'm going back to talk to Zaalbar." She ran after Carth, leaving me in the uncomfortable position of being alone with Revan.

After a few minutes of awkward silence he spoke. "I'm sorry I shouted at you yesterday. It's been really stressful this last week, what with Carth accusing me of blowing up the Endar Spire all the time and trying to find you. You're not angry at me are you?"

"No." I tried desperately to think of something to say. "Thank you for helping me."

He laughed, a disturbing sound. "Oh, so you admit that I did actually rescue you?"

"No. I rescued myself. But after that, I would have had nowhere to go."

"I see." He looked at my untouched drink. "You're not a fan of alcohol, I take it."

"I like some drinks. This is far too strong. Do you want it?"

"Umm…no. I need to find out about this arena thing. The sooner we get the money, the better. But keep it for me, I might have it later."

I took the drink into the room with a band playing. The music was awful, but it was better than the drunken shouts of grumpy pazaak players. I had barely sat down before an ugly man wedged his carcass into the seat next to me.

His breath stank and his face was like a minefield of pustules. I cringed as he grinned at me. "I don't think I've seen you before. Offworlder?" I nodded.

"Nice. I'm Jergan. What's your name?"

I thought desperately, trying to come up with a fake name for myself. After a too long silence, I decided on using my mother's name, and regretted it as soon as the word was out of my mouth. "Helena."

He raised a dubious eyebrow. "Well, 'Helena', can I buy you a drink?"

Remembering something Mission had said earlier that morning, I attempted to get rid of the slimy Jergan. "My boyfriend will be here soon."

He completely ignored me. "What do you think of this music?" He put his hand on my arm, but I snatched it away.

"It's awful. It's exactly the same as the dreary rubbish they play in every cantina all over the galaxy." I turned towards the door just in time to see Revan come in.

"Well, everyone has their own taste in music. Are you sure I can't get you a drink" This was possibly the most infuriating man I had met all year. Revan noticed Jergan and mouthed to me "Do you want him away?"

I nodded to Revan, and said to Jergan "I'm sure." Revan grabbed Jergan by the collar and hurled him to the other side of the room. He crashed into one of the tables sending drinks and pazaak cards flying. Revan sat down in the now empty chair.

"I've been speaking to the Hutt in charge of the arena. He says that I can fight, and that if I win then I get ten percent of the winnings. Unfortunately, it will bring a lot of attention our way. Do you think we can take the risk?"

"I don't think we have choice. We need the money. How long do you suppose it will take to get enough?"

"I'm not sure. I can do about two fights a day, and there is only five other fighters. So three days, probably."

I nodded. "Ok. You'd better get going."

He took my leftover drink with him, and went back to the Hutt to arrange his first fight. As I left, Jergan gave me a filthy look.

---

The next few days passed slowly. Revan earned three hundred the first day, and seven hundred the next. He decided he would take on the only other combatant so we would have enough credits to buy better equipment. He came back to the apartment that evening with another five hundred credits.

"You wont believe this – I've been challenged to a death match by Bendak Starkiller." I didn't recognise the name, but Mission was obviously impressed.

"The Bendak Starkiller? You're not going to do it, are you? The guy's never lost a fight. Ever!"

"Well, I've kind of already agreed to it. We could use the extra credits… The winnings on this match will be huge."

"You're dead. Come on Zaalbar, want to go exploring?"

"No" The Wookie moaned, but stood up anyway and left with the girl.

"Do you think you will be able to beat this Bendak?" Carth asked.

"I don't know. But I can't pull out now. You and Bastila buy the droid whilst I fight, and then we'll all go on a little field trip to the Sith military base."

Carth's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Oh joy."