Mission stood frozen for an instant, like a tach before the slaughter. Street smart instincts set in, and Katrina watched her dive behind the desk.
Though not before taking a blaster shot squarely between the shoulder blades.
The Twi'lek cried out, and Katrina heard the clatter of her vibroblades falling to the floor. She turned back towards Ruhol.
Seeing his closest friend threatened, Zaalbar had reacted quickly.
Ruhol lay face down, Bacca's ceremonial blade sticking up out of his back. Zaalbar pulled it out, not making the slightest twitch at the squishing noise it made sliding out of muscle and flesh.
All of them rushed to Mission's side.
"Mission? Are you all right?" The Twi'lek stared up with glassy eyes, a croaking noise her only answer.
Katrina and Bastila reached out for her, letting the Force do what any amount of medpacs probably could not.
She felt overwhelmed; to go from blinding rage and darkness to the healing power of the light side within a matter of seconds was so disorienting that she felt dizzy.
The Twi'lek's eyes closed, lost in the blissful healing sleep of the Jedi. Zaalbar picked her up gently.
"He was not the attacker either," Bastila said curtly, almost admonishing Katrina for reacting so violently.
Katrina returned the Jedi's hard, unforgiving gaze.
So you hid yourself and returned to usurp him. How expected. And impersonating a Jedi...a nice touch, to be sure.
Ruhol's words now came back to her in a flood of memory that she had resisted when he was actually speaking them.
He had thought her dead, but his idea of her death had been on her flagship, when Malak had fired on her. He still thought her a Sith; he couldn't have been her attacker. Why would a Sith Lord be traveling with the Republic's hero?
She rose from her kneeling position, walking over to where Ruhol's body and the datapad lay in the corner, a few meters away from each other.
The datapad's screen flickered in its death throes. Her agitated attack had lacked precision, and she had damaged it as well as Ruhol's grip in the process. She quickly downloaded all the information she could and tossed the lifeless datapad back towards Ruhol's body.
The information she had been able to get was spotty and incomplete. Errors were everywhere, and most files were incomplete or fragmented. It was still a frighteningly lengthy list of blackmail on most of Anelli's influential citizens. She scanned the names that had been recorded along with their files. Her brother's wasn't there.
Katrina released a sigh of relief.
"Again we see that there is more at work here than mere revenge tactics," Bastila murmured, walking over to her side. "Ruhol spoke of another, someone you were trying to usurp."
"He couldn't have meant Malak. He knew Malak was dead," Katrina replied, rubbing her neck thoughtfully.
"And so we must assume that there is someone else, another Sith that has apparently risen."
She thought back to Faris, to his ramblings about how she wasn't 'him', how 'he' had recruited his daughter to the dark side.
"Do you suppose Faris wasn't talking about Malak either?" Bastila tilted her head.
"It is quite possible. Unfortunately, we'll never be able to confirm that the man who hurt him and the man Ruhol referred to are the same one."
It wasn't Malak. It was someone else. An intrepid Sith, who had risen in the shadows and was now longing to emerge from them and become the new face of terror in the galaxy.
Death was somehow at both ends of every Sith's life span. Her death seemed to have been at the beginning of this one's.
She rubbed her eyes. Attempted death, at any rate.
"Look at that datapad. Ruhol claimed to have the secrets of every powerful Anellian on the planet. Perhaps there is a clue as to the identity of this Sith," Bastila said, gesturing to the datapad.
Katrinaobediently skimmed through it. Most of Ruhol's blackmail had involved embezzlement, torrid love affairs, the assassinations of those who had threatened to expose said crimes and the like.
Polygamy, counterfeit credits, black market goods, illegal weapons sales to the Sith...
Wait.
"It looks like Ruhol somehow got his hands on documents implying the sale of illegal weapons to a Sith." Bastila leaned over her shoulder.
"Prototype demolitions ready whenever convenient at agreed price of fifty-thousand credits," Katrina read. "Suggest alternate meeting place; someone may be monitoring systems here at AMC."
"AMC?" Bastila murmured.
"Anellian Mining Corporation." Things seemed to be coming to her as fragmented as the files she was looking at- little bits and pieces that were seemingly useless until moments like this.
"Is there a name with this file?" It had been one of the damaged ones; Katrina could find no source for the fragmented information.
"Wasn't one of the names on our list an officer for the Corporation?"
"Haytham," Katrina answered. She glanced back down at the file.
"The response was, 'Understood. Fifty-thousand as promised will be sent when my Lord comes."
"Fancies himself a Lord already," the Jedi muttered.
Ruhol's evidence of a rising Sith Lord was in the form of the exchanged messages and a short recording. Katrina played it.
A man stood nervously in what appeared to be some type of cell. Katrina recognized the look on his face all too well as he gazed off to the side, his jaw trembling as if he were stammering. He mouthed words that only came out as garbled static, holding his hands up in either acquiescence or defeat.
He didn't have to wait long. Two figures emerged from the direction of his unease. Both were cloaked in the dark robes of the Sith, masks and all. They stood on either side of him, one with his hands behind his back, the other pacing like an animal with its prey in a tree.
When they struck, it was so swift and sudden that even Katrina jumped, despite the fact that it was only a recording. The man's head sliced cleanly from his body and rolled to the ground, off-camera.
She was thankful for a moment that the audio had been damaged, that she didn't have to listen to the shrieks of his quick and merciless death.
She shoved the datapad forcefully into her pack.
"A master and an apprentice?" Bastila finally said.
"If we're lucky," Katrina replied, turning towards the exit.
She ground her teeth together, knowing that no matter how hard she tried, neither her upper or her lower jaw would ever be strong enough to crush the other.
Zaalbar followed her, quietly carrying Mission. Bastila stood for a moment with her arms folded, staring at the body of Ruhol crumpled in the corner.
"And if we are not?" she called out to Katrina.
"Then they're only followers of something much bigger."
"Well?" There was chorus of murmurs from the Committee at her daring, at her audacious behavior.
But she wouldn't cower before them, holding her hat meekly in her hands and shuffling her feet while waiting for their word.
She was Revan, a Jedi; she cowered before no one.
"The Committee has reviewed your request, Jedi Revan." The voice that spoke was halting and hesitant. She narrowed her eyes.
The answer was clear.
"And?" she challenged the darkness. She knew exactly which dark form to glare at. He leaned forward slightly, folding his hands in front of him. His imperturbability only made her angrier.
"Your request has been denied. The Committee's vote is unanimous."
The conceding words wouldn't come, although she knew what she was supposed to say. Maybe if it hadn't been her brother telling her so flatly that there was absolutely no chance that they would support her- that he would support her.
She bowed solemnly, hearing only the slight swishing noise of her robes trailing after her as she exited the chambers.
"Perhaps the Council was right," Malak began after a moment's hesitation. "Maybe we are rushing into a war that doesn't need to be fought-"
She sighed heavily. Sometimes she wanted to rip Malak's doubting and spineless jaws off.
"If you believe that, then why are you following me?"
"You know I believe in the cause as much as you do," he replied defensively. "Being back here is just reminding me of a few things."
She had no time to reflect on what it meant to be back on Anelli. She felt a strange affinity and revulsion at the sight of its red peaks and crimson plains.
She couldn't think of those things right now. What was important was the impending war against the Mandalorians, of making sure it was a victory for the Republic.
She heard a door open behind her.
"How can you call yourself my brother?"
She turned around to face him, Phineas, with a slight frown on his face and his hands, as always, calmly clasped behind him.
"Welcome back to Anelli, Revan. Though I had hoped you might have told me you were coming instead of showing up in front of the Committee."
Neither did she have any time to reflect on her brother, whom had been the only thing from the planet that had crossed her mind during her years of Jedi training. But there was no emotion; there was no passion in the Jedi Order.
Thus her inability to deal with the fact that she was both glad to see him and incredibly hurt that the first words he would say to her were 'Your request has been denied'.
"If I had known you'd turned into a weak-minded political puppet, I wouldn't have come at all."
"What have the Jedi done to you, Revan? You were never this emotional."
"You know the Republic needs all the help it can get." He was taller; the stoic look he had carried in childhood had matured into a constant aura of wisdom
"If the Republic needed help, they should have come to us themselves. As it is, the Committee isn't entirely convinced that this is a war they should get involved in." His voice however: firm, stubborn, and unafraid of her, was just as she remembered it.
"Do you really think I would be wasting your time with this if I didn't think it was worthwhile?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Revan, you would waste your time on droids lobbying for citizenship if you were convinced that they were right." He extended a hand towards Malak.
"Malak. Still at Revan's side I see...It's good to know some things never change." Malak reached an awkward hand out to shake Phineas'.
"You're still good at changing the subject."
"You're still good at dragging us back to it," he replied without missing a beat.
She missed him. She realized it, trying desperately to ignore it.
"You're on the Committee, just like you always said you would be." Phineas smiled softly.
"I'm no Jedi, I admit, but I've done well." Malak slunk off towards the corner of the room, maintaining a respectful distance.
"You look well, Revan. I guess the Jedi don't starve or beat you or anything like that?" She smirked.
"It's not exactly boot camp or anything like that." She reached out to brush a few pieces of dust off his shoulder.
"You do realize what you're getting yourself into, don't you?" he murmured, staring at her hand as it brushed his shoulder. She paused, gripping it for a moment.
"We can't sit idly by and let the Mandalorians take over the galaxy." Her voice was terribly grim whenever she spoke of the war. But she had seen too much of what the Mandalorians did to be nonchalant about it. Decimating entire planets, women, children, without any remorse...
It made her angry.
"Mandalore will pay for his crimes, whether Anelli helps me or not."
"And you know that we can't," he answered shortly.
What good was being the most powerful Jedi in the universe if she couldn't convince a political body on her homeworld, to which her brother belonged, to help her cause?
She turned away from him, folding her arms petulantly in front of her.
"Then we don't have anything more to say to each other, Phineas." He sighed heavily.
"You're just like him, Revan, do you know that?" His voice was hard, that grating quality in it that took over whenever he spoke of the father only he had known.
"I've missed you...you've finally returned after all these years, and now you're going to go off and get yourself killed-"
How could he believe that she would fall, that she was not every inch as powerful as she appeared? How could he not believe in her?
"I am a Jedi, Phineas," she replied coldly. "No mere Mandalorian is any threat to me."
"Malak," her brother called out, laughing nervously. "Tell me you don't agree with this. She's leading you into another rancor den-"
"You are short-sighted, Phineas," Malak replied tersely. "You know nothing of the power of the Force."
His efforts were never impressive, but she cast a look of approval in his direction. He believed in her. He would follow her to the end.
"Revan-" her brother finally sputtered. It was strange to see him at a loss for words, unable to reply. His strength had always been in knowing what to say.
She couldn't help but feel victorious that she had surpassed him in that as well.
"Maybe you'll feel better about it when I return as the victor rather than another proposition to the Committee."
Her brother stared at her. She could feel anger twisting around in his guts.
There would be no end.
"There is no death, Phineas," she said with a knowing smile, "There is only the Force."