They had been put into a holding cell that looked like it had been chewed on by an army of tachs for the last twenty years. Her lightsaber could have sliced through it like tissue.
Not only were these people paranoid from fearing attacks, they were also delusional in their ideas that they could possibly defend themselves against said attacks with such antiquated and ruined equipment.
But Bastila had said not to anger them. Hacking her way out of the cell and through the local authorities would probably do just that. So instead Katrina sat idly in the corner of the cell, watching Bastila pace back and forth.
"I'm willing to take bets on whether he'll come or we'll rot first."
"The Commander knows we are not ordinary trespassers; that's why we're in here and not dead."
Footsteps echoed down the long hallway that had led to the cell.
"That's probably him now," Bastila said, taking on her airy, regal bearing that always reminded Katrina of a queen unaware that her crown was on crooked.
"Or it could be our executioner," she added, standing up and moving next to Bastila.
From the end of the hallway, she could tell whomever was coming was angry. Aside from the aggression and rage she could feel so acutely through the Force, the footsteps slammed on the metal floor as if it were to blame for the man's troubles.
From about twenty meters away she could spot a wild growth of gray hair atop the man's head, shockingly silver under the dim faulty lighting.
From ten meters she could see that despite an evident anger towards them, he had a look of utter placidity glued to his face. It might have belonged to a droid.
As he neared the cell, she determined that most of this unseen anger was directed towards her.
"Commander Knowl, I am very glad to-"
"I gave you permission to land," Knowl said, cutting Bastila off. His voice betrayed his featureless expression. "Not to leave the base and begin casing the surface."
"I assure you, we were not 'casing' anything. We were in search of you."
"No one exactly prevented us from leaving it," Katrina murmured.
Eyes of a color somewhere between green and blue stared at her in a deranged fashion.
"There is nothing more you required of me. I allowed you to land. I would have allowed you to leave." While his mouth conversed with Bastila, his eyes seemed to be challenging her to a death match.
"I understand your desire for us to leave Telos as quickly as possible, and I assure you we will, just as soon as we go further into our investigation of the attack."
"Unfortunately you will no longer have the luxury of leaving," Knowl continued, as if Bastila hadn't spoken. "I am confining you to the planet, to this cell in fact."
"Why? What have we done, besides venture out on your beautiful lawn for a while?" She struggled to sound concerned and indignant, as a Jedi should, rather than irritated and put-out as she truly was. "I was under the impression that there was no crime in leaving the base. Or do you keep these people locked up?"
For a split second she thought she saw his upper lip curl up.
"Leave us," he murmured to the single guard that had been posted outside of their cell.
"I attempted to do the right thing, to be compassionate," he began calmly as soon as the guard had disappeared into the end of the hallway. "To follow the light, as you Jedi are so fond of saying."
"But some things," His voice became tighter and tighter, as if some unseen hand were clenching it shut. "Some things cannot be stood for."
She sensed that she had angered him horribly, and she had no idea why.
"I apologize if I've insulted you-"
"Insulted me?" he snarled.
She was backpedaling wildly. Jedi are not brash, Jedi do not make snide comments to an already hostile people.
"Although I run the risk of being shocked by lightning or thrown against a wall or something of the kind by saying it, I should have ordered you shot the moment they brought you in."
There was a cold, empty moment that was the same as every other cold, empty moment when she realized who someone was mistaking her for.
"I am not-"
"Deny all you want to. It won't change the fact that you destroyed this planet and every family on it, from the scouts that found you to my own." Knowl was a strange combination of exhaustion and livid rage, as if he had been angry all his life but was desperately tired of being so.
She dug her nails into her hands furiously.
"Malak ordered the attack on your planet, not Revan." She recognized the defense Bastila was giving. It was the same defense she had been giving anyone who had made similar accusations in the months following the Star Forge.
It was a defense that she had, by now, picked apart and found many holes in.
"With an army you raised and a mentality you helped create." He seemed to have forgotten Bastila was there. All his words were directed at Katrina now.
Say something. Say anything.
"Revan died in an ambush set up by the Jedi. She doesn't exist anymore and you are wasting your anger on the wrong person." None of them seemed very convinced.
"If you've heard of the fact that Revan was rescued and brought back by the Jedi," Bastila began, passing over Katrina's words as if they were embarrassing. "You must also know of the great good she has done since. It was she who struck down Malak and destroyed the Star Forge, and it was she who brought many back from the dark side."
Knowl stayed silent, seemingly too stubborn to concede to either point.
"If you believe I am still Revan, and you still despise me for every wrong I've done to you, why did you help me?"
She seemed to be something she would ask everyone she met. Why haven't you killed me?
"Fortunately for you, you happened to be on a ship with none other than Telos' war hero." His tone was a balance of respect for Carth and disgust that he had prevented him from shooting her.
She suddenly had a vision of herself, surrounded, the angry people of this world holding their rusted weapons out like some primal band of Wookies, and Carth lying in his sickbed in the distance; unable to help her, unable to save her.
"Thank you then, for not leaving me to die." The words, a hedging concession, stuck in her throat but she forced them out all the same.
Knowl's seemingly unflappable facial structure allowed its eyes to narrow at her.
"There was no other alternative." Those words seemed just as hard for him to say as hers had been.
"You did the right thing, Commander Knowl, and the Jedi Council is thankful for it," Bastila added.
"The right thing," He seemed to have selective hearing, only paying attention to certain things they said. "Would have been to let you die."
"Then why didn't you?" she asked again.
"Admiral Onasi is one of the only heroes Telos has left. Not only has he excelled where countless others failed, he's a hero of the people. His family suffered as much as any family on Telos. He helped save the galaxy and the whole planet knows it. Now explain to me the correct course of action when said hero is found adrift and comatose near his home world with the Dark Lord Revan lying underneath him?"
She suddenly remembered Dustil's harsh and unforgiving tone: "You supposedly love him."
"Now I am left at a terrifying crossroads of decision," Knowl's face slowly allowed itself to break free, getting redder and redder with each word. "Do I quietly kill you, risking the certain wrath of the Jedi, the Republic, even the Sith for all I know? Or do I let you live? Once the planet finds out who you are, I couldn't keep you from dying anyways. What happens to these people when they discover that one of their heroes is traveling back to them with a Sith Lord in tow and falls into a coma protecting her?"
I think I'd be hurt worse if I didn't try. Hearing Knowl's words, she couldn't think of anything worse.
"I let you live, I quickly squelch all rumors as to your identity and allow instead the less insidious one of Jedi. And then I allowed you," His venom spat itself over to Bastila. "To land and retrieve her. It was my hope that the two of you would leave immediately before anyone discovered who I had allowed onto the planet."
"But," Knowl clasped his hands behind his back, the rage gone for now and the exhaustion ruling his features. "Like the Jedi you are, you refused to heed to common sense and instead decided to loiter about the planet, venturing onto the surface and talking to anyone you could find."
"We were not wandering around, Commander. We merely wanted to know more about the planet in an effort to help our investigation and the Telosian people."
"Help the Telosian people?" It seemed for a moment that the rage had taken over again. "You destroy the planet, and then you fail to stop her or do anything about it, and now you're here proclaiming you want to help?"
"There's no better way to earn forgiveness," Katrina said, despite the fact that forgiveness was merely a word to her.
Knowl stared back at her, the same stare she had seen on many beings when they had finished berating her for whatever crimes she had committed against them. The look that said her ultimate crime against them was that she hadn't killed them as well.
"That's something Telos can never give you. And the best thing I can do for it is to keep both of you here forever." He turned around and began down the hallway.
"And what happens when the people of Telos discover what you've been doing?" she called after him.
Knowl turned, a faint smile on his face.
"It would be good for the people if they rallied to do anything so ambitious as to come and kill you."