Bastila folded her arms, her head held high in triumph. Katrina only glared back, as though the Jedi had been part of whatever Haytham was obviously planning.
"Where did this come from?"
"It was sent to the Hawk from a location somewhere west of Fornia," Canderous said as hecame wandering out from the corridor, fastening various pieces of armor to his clothing as though they were readying to head straight into battle.
"It's evident that he knows something of the Sith," Bastila added, bolstered by the Mandalorian's unspoken support. "He already knows of your presence on the planet, your identity, and of our investigation into Faris and Ruhol."
His knowledge of their investigation didn't faze her. She was surprised more people didn't know about the deaths of two aristocratic and politically involved men. Their ends hadn't exactly been quiet and peaceful.
"And it's also quite clear that he's trying to lure us to him," Katrina replied angrily.
Does this idiot really think I'm not going to realize that this smacks of ulterior motives? Who does he think he's dealing with here?
"Revan," Bastila replied in a tone of disbelief. "Haytham may hold the key to the identities of both the Sith in the recording, the weapon used in your attack, and the knowledge of the true perpetrator."
"And you think it's a wise idea to walk straight into a potential trap?"
Look at me, the good little patient Jedi. She felt smug satisfaction with herself, despite the fact that the absence of rage was probably more due to her being incensed at the fact that this was the best this Haytham character could throw at her.
"There is a possibility that the Sith movement on Anelli is larger than merely the two shown in Ruhol's documents. There may be more than two to deal with," Juhani added hesitantly. The Cathar's loyalty seemed torn between both Katrina and Bastila, unsure of which Jedi was the wiser to support and which the unwise to anger.
"The Jedi princessis probably right on this occasion," Canderous added, grunting as his energy shields locked into place with a satisfying click.
"I understand and respect your tactics, Revan, but we are at least seven strong. Whatever this corporate officer might have waiting for us cannot be any worse than anything we've faced before."
"I'm not afraid, Canderous, and I don't doubt any of us; I just happen to think that to happily frolic into whatever cage Haytham might be setting up is a stupid idea."
"Is that your opinion simply because the idea is mine?" Bastila retorted, her always slightly-perturbed expression coupled with the haughtiness in her tone making her seem like a spoiled child.
Rather than making some kind of snide remark that the dark side hadn't entirely left Bastila after all, Katrina instead shoved the datapad towards the Jedi and stalked off towards the small sickbay.
Mission glanced up at her as she entered, her usually quick motions dulled as though under the influence of a sedative.
"You look like a Wookiee who just had a hairball." Her verbal responses, however, had lost none of their spirit.
"How are you feeling?"
Mission leaned her head back into the bed, closing her eyes.
"This getting shot deal works out pretty well; Zaalbar and Canderous do all the work, and I lay around all day. Of course, it might not have worked out so well if I didn't have a bunch of Jedi around too." Katrina nodded. It was as close to a 'thank you for saving me' as she could expect from the independent and hot-headed Twi'lek.
"So...sounds like there's a pretty good brawl starting out there," Mission murmured, glancing around behind Katrina.
"No, no brawl." She eyed Mission, who had come so close to death without even realizing it. Only she and Bastila could know how much of the Force had been needed to save her.
The thought of the young Twi'lek's narrow escape made her angry.
"What will you do about the mining officer?" Zaalbar growled, entering the room behind her to resume his almost-constant vigil on his friend.
"I sent Big Z out to get the update," Mission explained with a wink to the Wookiee.
Katrina didn't reply, pulling out her own datapad and mulling over the information about Haytham again.
Haytham had probably supplied the weapon, whatever it was. Haytham had sold similar weapons to two unknown Sith, both of which had probably plotted the attack against her.
So, if she followed the chain of reasoning, everything eventually led back to Haytham.
He'll have to learn that it takes more than a thermal bomb to stop me.
"I'll meet with him."
"You cannot go alone. I will follow you," Zaalbar replied. Katrina smiled, reminded again of the Wookiee's life debt to her.
After she had asked him to stay on the Ebon Hawk with Mission, after she had left all of them to be with Carth, it was easy to forget that she had changed his life enough that he would follow her into death.
The thought always gave her comfort: I am Katrina, a Jedi with a green lightsaber, a man that loves me.
"I won't be alone, Zaalbar," she replied, turning and striding back into the center of the ship. "I have a plan."
"That should be it," Canderous announced. The Ebon Hawk hovered over a compound a few kilometers west of the city, like so many other structures built right into the giant red peaks that comprised the planet's surface.
The two main mountainous structures looked like the towers of some kind of castle. Smoke and probably a fair amount of other chemicals churned out of the depths, as if they were the volcanoes of Korriban.
Foreboding structure, a small distance between itself and the populated areas, and we're arriving around sunset. Couldn't be more textbook, Katrina thought.
"This plan isn't exactly...dripping with Jedi ideals," Dustil said, hesitating for a moment as if to choose the correct words.
"I would think keeping all of you out of danger to be a particularly Jedi ideal,"Katrina replied tersely.
"And throwing yourself straight into the frying pan is?"
She glared at the younger Onasi over her shoulder.
"But hey, what do I know?" Dustil said quickly, holding up his hands in surrender. "I'm just the Padawan."
Bastila turned around from where she sat in the co-pilot's seat to watch Katrina as she rose from her chair.
"And people say my ideas are foolish-"
"We'll be ready when you need us." The Mandalorian's tone was commanding and sharp, the tone that must have managed to commands legions of his countrymen in the past.
It achieved what it needed to, and the rest of the party was silent as Katrina nodded and made her way towards the gangplank.
The Hawk hovered near a flat break in the rocks off to the back of the building. Katrina steadied herself as the gangplank lowered, and leapt cleanly onto the ground.
The red earth crunched underneath her feet, and she nodded in acknowledgment to Canderous and Bastila in the cockpit. She then began the process of moving down the rocky slope to the enormous entrance of the plant.
The plan was constructed so that she would have this time to think; to plan, to calm herself so that what almost happened with Ruhol wouldn't assuredly happen with Haytham.
She was the bait; the Hawk was the diversion. Bastila, Canderous, and HK-47 were her backup. They would enter the plant after her, forcibly if necessary. She would lull Haytham into whatever feeling of smug satisfaction he was after, and then with her comrades she would drop him back into reality and find out everything she needed to know. Should something happen, she would use the Force to signal Juhani on the Hawk to cause some minor damage to the plant.
Katrina, however, would enter it as peacefully as possible.
Or die trying, she thought with a morbid smile.
The main entrance to the offices and main distribution center of the Anellian Mining Corporation were made of immense steel with no windows. Four guards stood outside of them, standing vigil over the broad red earthen path leading from the building to the city of Fornia in the distance.
It didn't look like a very beaten path, and Katrina supposed the majority of visitors were either picking up or dropping off goods, or landed at a private dock.
She furtively stuck her hand out, watching as the guards' attention turned to some obscure bolder in the area the Force had distracted them.
Quickly Katrina waltzed out onto the path as if she had been walking it alone all the way from Fornia.
"This is a restricted area. Hours of operation are over, citizen," one of the guards said mechanically as their focused attention on the boulder gradually faded.
"I have an appointment with one of your superiors, a Mister Haytham." The guard nodded in sudden realization.
"You are expected. Please, follow me."
His voice dripped with the overbearing eagerness of a rehearsed script. She shook her head with a smile as she followed the guard through a smaller, hidden door and into the plant.
Practically textbook.
"Your weapon, Master Jedi," the guard murmured, holding one hand out for her lightsaber and the other hoisting his blaster in the air in case she should decide to strike.
Katrina dutifully handed it to him. If the ease of distracting them was any indication, getting her lightsaber back if she needed it shouldn't be a concern.
The guard led her through the sculpted halls of Anelli's sole source of economic income. Rather than building around the mountain, they had shaped it to serve their needs, from long corridors to lighting holders.
They took no chances with droids apparently. Every guard was a sentient. She felt something hanging over the air, something slightly off kilter with the whole picture of a successful company and its security team.
They're Sith, she realized at once. While the absence of their usual uniforms might have fooled casual inspectors, they couldn't fool her.
So the Sith had infiltrated the entire operation. If she hadn't entirely believed Ruhol's recording, this now confirmed that Haytham was linked with the two mysterious Sith.
These Sith were connected to both Faris and Ruhol, and now Haytham. Katrina struggled to think of connections between the three, and could find none.
Other than the fact that she would be responsible for all three of their deaths.
The guard led her into what looked like a large meeting room. A dozen or so other members of the security detail straightened the moment she entered. Two dozen eyes watched her every step, their fingers practically twitching on their blasters. Apparently Haytham was taking no chances.
Katrina eyed the guard who had led her in carefully, nodding to herself in satisfaction when he finally assumed a post in the corner of the room. He had her lightsaber. If he disappeared into the labyrinth of the building, she would be at a definite disadvantage.
She stood there for a few moments. The guard had made no message, summoned no persons. She glanced around warily, ready if the lights were to suddenly go out or if the dark Jedi that she had seen in the recording would come leaping out of some hidden room.
"Forgive me for not meeting you during our hours of operation, but I thought business such as ours was perhaps best conducted off the clock." The voice came from some kind of audio system within the room. Katrina located the speakers in each corner, but the man speaking them was nowhere to be found.
"Haytham, I presume?"
The voice chuckled, echoing off the rocky walls of the meeting room.
"Very astute observation, Master Jedi." He laughed again at his own wittiness, a slightly nasal quality to his voice.
"How about you observe the fact that you agreed to meet with me, not broadcast your own idiocy over an audio system."
She didn't like this. It was disconcerting, being surrounded by disguised Sith without a weapon in her hands, the loudness of his voice within the room, the inability to know where he was or what he was planning.
There is no ignorance, there is no fear.
"You are the one unarmed and alone, Revan," The by-now clichéd hiss that her name had become didn't faze her. "I will do the bargaining in this transaction."
"I imagine you don't get to do much of it in your pathetic little position within this corporation."
She had had enough experience with anger to know that courting it from others could cause them to abandon their carefully constructed plans in favor of unbridled rage.
"I believe we have a few things to share with each other," the voice drawled, unaffected by her bait.
The Sith security officers stared at her. She tried to pretend each of them in turn was Haytham, staring them down until they averted their gazes.
"You know of the attack, then?"
"'We are investigating an attack on a highly respected Republic war hero," She quickly recognized her own voice. "'And the Dark Lord Revan.'"
She didn't sound any less uncomfortable saying her own name on a recording than she did in reality.
"How did you get that?"
Haytham made a small snort of satisfaction.
"My 'pathetic little position' allows me almost complete control over the economy of the planet. Did you really think the Committee's sessions were private? On a planet so obsessed with politics? You certainly don't live up to your reputation."
"And you know of Faris and Ruhol," she added.
Haytham played another recording. Katrina recognized distinctly the death rattles of both men. She shivered.
"You haven't exactly been discreet," the corporate officer said.
"And you know who I am."
Haytham gave an airy sigh, as though bored by her questions.
"Do you really suppose a member of the Committee could hide the fact that he had a Sith Lord for a sister forever?"
He was threatening her brother. She felt her fists tighten.
There is no frustration. There is no impatience. There are, however, a dozen Sith guards surrounding you and you have no weapon.
There is no passion; there is serenity.
"It would seem we are at cross-purposes, Revan," the voice continued. "I have something you want, and you have something I want, and yet to give into either would put the other at a decided disadvantage."
A diversion would be needed, and soon. She struggled to clear her head, knowing she would be unable to reach out to either Bastila or Juhani through the Force if she was muddled by this executive's circles of bargaining.
"You're certainly correct. If I killed you, I definitely wouldn't get the information I desire."
Haytham laughed again at her.
"You see Revan, this is exactly the reason you are no longer the Dark Lord- your supreme arrogance." The disguised Sith guards now seemed to come alive. 'Arrogance' must have been their code word. They raised their weapons at Katrina.
She smirked up at the vastness of the crimson rock wall.
"Attempting to kill me won't make me very sympathetic to this little transaction."
"Ah, but becoming my captive certainly will."
'Captive' slid off the walls as devious as it sounded. The guards began to advance on her.
Her hand was out so fast to extend her lightsaber that it was a complete shock when she went to attack and found there was nothing in her hands.
Panic, much like that which had overtook her awaking on the Jedi Chaser, now invaded her body, paralyzing her for a few agonizing seconds.
The Hawk. Trigger the distraction, there was never a better time, find that guard, get your lightsaber-
Her thoughts were abruptly silenced, and she felt a breeze somewhere around her ankles. She wondered momentarily how funny the look of utter surprise and confusion on her face must have looked as the floor opened up beneath her and she fell.