Bastila's gaze was heavy upon her back, as were her thoughts; trying to parley with hers for information.
"It would seem that Anelli would be the most sensible destination after we've gathered all the information from this planet."
Sensible Bastila. She wouldn't dwell on what's happening. She wouldn't constantly be kicking herself every moment for not obeying an action she knows to be the wrong one.
"What do you know about it?"
"I know very little about it. Anelli is one of the few planets that, while being in the realm of the Republic, hardly plays a part in it."
The name sounded vaguely familiar, like someone she had met long ago and could not place the name with the correct face.
Whether it was her false identity as a scout or a place Revan had visited she didn't know.
"Let's not jump to conclusions. Telos still has a lot left to answer." One of the most important would be to find something out about it, besides the vagaries she had accepted from Carth. A planet torn apart by war, and yet that didn't explain their hatred of the Jedi, their obvious lack of any kind of motivation to rebuild.
Hell, she had been through many wars and she was still fighting to rebuild herself.
"We have to find someone with authority."
"The leader of this base is a Commander Knowl. It was he who authorized my landing on the planet. He would not go so far as to allow the Ebon Hawk to land however." Katrina turned back to look at Bastila.
"Then where is it?" Bastila frowned.
"They said they would 'find somewhere out of the way'. I do hope it was not at the expense of angering the few officials left on Telos."
"The few officials?"
"Telos is now made up of a few bases like this scattered on the regions of the planet that are still habitable. There aren't any more than five or six, and when they are not being as suspicious and hostile towards us, rumor has it they are as suspicious and hostile towards each other."
It was at the same time understandable and yet unfathomable that such a planet of paranoid disorganization could be Carth's homeworld.
"Where can we find him?"
"My communication with him was not transmitted to this facility. I can only assume that while he is in charge of it, his base of operations lies elsewhere. He was quite..." Bastila paused, searching for the correct word to describe the leader of a band of reclusive veterans. "...terse with me. We'll have to get out of this facility if we're to locate him."
While she was still an excellent scout, however imaginary her training might have been, she still couldn't navigate in a base designed to keep everyone in and everything else out.
She spotted a younger man, somewhere between herself and Bastila, unloading supplies from a few storage containers.
"Excuse me?" The man raised his eyebrows questioningly but otherwise ignored her.
"How can we leave this base?"
"Through the doors. Now if you'll excuse me."
"Are all you Telosian men afraid of two women?" The man stopped for a minute. His face seemed indecisive on the point of whether or not to smile.
"While pretty women are fairly rare around here anymore, I'm still not willing to talk to two of them that could shock me with lightning if I say the wrong thing."
"We are not Sith, we're Jedi," Bastila added.
"Where's the difference?" Her hands, which had so nicely stayed flat at her sides during her time on Telos so far, now saw fit to grasp the man's arm and wrench his attention to her.
"The Sith turn everything they touch black with death and destruction. They understand nothing but complete domination over everything they know of, and what they don't know of they fear. I am not a Sith."
She very nearly choked on the word 'anymore'.
Bastila stared at her with much the same suspicion that still showed plainly on the man's face, despite her grip on him.
Let go of him. Jedi do not throttle people to get them to see their way. Jedi do not try and convert the locals with force.
She forced herself to release him and stepped backwards, trying not to look as sheepish as she felt.
"Well," the young man began haltingly, rubbing his neck. "As long as we're going for long introductions, I'm Nocen."
"Nocen," Bastila continued, her eyes still cast on her, and she could feel their dead weight as easily as a pound of Tatooine ore. "Will you please tell us how we can find Commander Knowl?" Nocen glanced up at Bastila with the clear glass gaze of a pair of blue eyes.
"North past the repair hangar until you find the only set of doors with blaster turrets and guards. Artillery's precious so they reserve it for the doors leading to the outside." Bastila nodded.
She could feel her own failure as if it were a living, breathing being, slapping her on the back with a jovial laugh.
"I'll even lead you there," Nocen murmured, setting down his supplies. "Just to see what Knowl does."
"And what do you think he'll do?" she said, finding her tongue again.
"Seeing as how he wanted to leave you adrift in space, I doubt he'll be too happy to see you at his front door."
Nocen might have just been a supply handler, but he knew his way around the base, which was beginning to feel like a cage with steel walls. He led them down the halls and past the staring workers and guards.
For a while she had tried in vain to figure out how they all knew that she and Bastila were out of place. They had first figured it to be that they were Jedi, whether from their lightsabers or from rumor. Then she had figured it to be that they were women among many men and few women. Now she had given up, settling on the fact that, like another Telosian she had tried to pry information out of long ago, no one here would offer her anything until they were ready to.
"Did you lose much in the war, Nocen?" Bastila asked, another in her steady stream of questioning towards the young man.
Katrina knew she was supposed to be doing something of the same elk, trying to befriend as many as she could. But at the moment, all she could make herself do was follow in morose silence.
"Both parents. A brother or two." Bastila glanced back at her and she shrugged in return.
She imagined everyone on this planet would have a similarly worded summarization of what the war had done to them.
"You must know that we are not the enemy. The Republic did what they thought was necessary."
"I don't doubt they did. But you Jedi, I suppose you thought nothing was necessary?" She recognized that tone. It was the tone Carth used when he had talked about Saul Karath. Bitterness, hurt, and betrayal forced through vocal cords.
At least now it was clear why Jedi weren't exactly welcome on Telos.
She had never been able to blame the Council for that particular sin. She couldn't when she was guilty of a greater evil than doing nothing to aid the Republic in the war: fostering the opposing side.
"The Jedi didn't abandon you-"
"Well, we're here," Nocen said abruptly. Four ancient looking blaster turrets sat near the doors, almost looking as if they were struggling to keep their barrels up in case anyone should wander in. The guards looked similarly rooted in their spots as if they had been bolted there.
"State your name and business with leaving the base." Nocen gestured towards the two of them.
"Katrina." She said nothing more. Bastila snorted impatiently.
"I am Bastila, a Jedi sent to assist in tracking down the attacker of Admiral Onasi. We need to contact a Commander Knowl." The guards seemed unimpressed with this information. Still, they nodded and began the process of opening the doors.
"Coming with us?" she murmured to Nocen. He shrugged.
"Can't hurt to see the sky for a little." She nodded, avoiding Bastila's now irritated face, the one she wore most often when the two were together.
She knew at some point, Bastila would confront her. At some point she would have to answer for these things she was doing, these words that were allowing themselves to escape rather than the ones she knew she was supposed to be saying.
At some point she would probably have to answer for everything, whether she remembered it or not.
She hadn't realized how dark the complex had been until the light broke from between the doors and blinded her momentarily. It was too remnant of the attack and for a moment she was breathing heavily, panicked.
"Been a while since I've been out here." She heard Nocen say, and she knew this was the light of Telos, not the light of her past wounding herself and Carth.
It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust. She might as well have kept them shut.