Amid everything else she was thinking about, Katrina heard the cold hiss of the force field coming to life, keeping her locked in her cell.
Tried, convicted, and practically sentenced. And not unfairly, I might add.
Was this what it would have been like if the entire galaxy knew who she was? The Dark Lord Revan shuttled from world to world, convicted of the same crimes for the same reasons?
She spent a few moments gratefully thanking whatever gods influenced the Council's decision to begrudgingly hide her identity and redemption instead of exploiting it as a lesson for all.
She began to pace back and forth in her cell- a standard prison block, without the dilapidation of the cells on Telos or the open top of Haytham's trap.
It had all gone wrong. This was not supposed to have happened.
Katrina was not supposed to have been silenced mid-argument and sent off to the cells without any hesitance. She was not supposed to have been given no chance to end it all. She should have, at the very least, been able to convince them of Abbas's and Sakh's guilt and their identities as Sith.
He should not have been there.
She hadn't expected him, and that had thrown her and the entire balance of the equation off kilter. Phineas had obviously helped to implicate her, to get her thrown in here before she had a chance to do the same to him.
She ground her teeth together furiously.
Do you suppose Sakh was there as well? If Bastila had spoken the words she wouldn't have been able to hear them through the thick steel that separated their cells.
No. There was too much evidence against him and his history doesn't help. It was probably too dangerous for him to try and be that shameless, she replied.
But Phineas could.
She pounded her fist against the wall. She listened to it echo back up the steel surrounding her, overwhelming for a moment and then dying away to nothing. Bastila hesitated a moment before continuing.
We have very little evidence against your brother other than our own testimony. If we hope to get out of this without more bloodshed, we'll need to find more evidence than what we have.
Katrina wasn't sure it wouldn't end without bloodshed. But she kept that particular opinion to herself.
Speaking of getting out of this, how do you propose we get ourselves out of these cells? I'm not going to sit here and rot until they formally sentence us to sit here and rot.
Dustil was here as well. She couldn't feel his presence as keenly as Bastila's, but it was there all the same, intense and burning somewhere in the prison block.
Dustil, any ideas? she sent towards him tentatively, weakly. There was no response. Either he couldn't hear her, or he didn't want to.
A loud scuffle came from outside her cell. Katrina leaned closer to the force field, getting a shock in her arm as she brushed against it.
"Big Z, try not to break the guy's neck, will ya?" The familiar voice of Mission Vao came echoing down the hallway. "That last one sounded like you cracked something important."
A large hairy arm reached out and thumped the guard standing in front of her cell on the head. He crumpled lifelessly to the ground.
Mission shoved her way in front of the Wookiee, working the controls until the force field quietly died.
"You two work fast," Katrina said, stepping over the guard.
"Correction: Were my methods employed, Master, your escape would have been faster still," HK answered, stepping up behind them.
T3 beeped insistently at her heels, his mechanical arm holding out her lightsaber. She took it gratefully, patting the droid's head.
"HK, you didn't kill anything, did you?"
"Assurance: No, Master, of course not!" The droid seemed to sigh theatrically, though Katrina was sure it was probably just the hum of his circuits.
"May I remind you that I am also a protocol droid, well versed in cultural and social customs in countless societies? To kill the guards would certainly add to your prison sentence and detract from your efforts in bringing a successful case to the Committee."The droidpaused.
"As enjoyable as the activity might prove, however."
Katrina smirked.
"Well, thanks for thinking ahead, HK."
"The guards had us taken to a similar prison block within this political building," Zaalbar growled.
"How did you escape?" Bastila murmured, stepping out of her own cell and taking her weapon.
"Coppertop bust us out," the Twi'lek answered.
"Explanation: Apparently Anellian procedure with criminal droids is to research their capabilities rather than shutting them down or dismantling them. They thought to employ several of my features with their own fledgling battle droid productions." HK lifted his head with pride. "But my capabilities were enough to outwit both them and their research."
"We'll be sure to give you a nice iron-plated medal," Canderous muttered.
Dustil joined them, taking his lightsaber from Mission without a word and inspecting it as if she might have tampered with it.
There wasn't any blinding rage or overwhelming sadness coming from him; and that only made her more irritated at how he was ignoring her.
"Are you all right?" He glanced up at her momentarily before turning his attention back to the weapon.
"Fine."
I hate sullen teenagers.
She found that motherly thoughts were a lot more awkward to have than Master-ly ones, and decided not to try them again.
"T3, think you can hack into their system and find out what they've done with the Hawk?"
The droid rolled obediently to the nearest access port and plugged himself in. He hummed quietly for a moment before answering.
"So they haven't even taken the ship." Mission whistled. "Wow, it's pretty swanky for the criminals around here, isn't it?"
"Clarification: The Anellian authorities have placed the dock under lockdown, but the ship itself has not been tampered with or even boarded. Anellian procedure is to respect personal property until a search becomes vital for criminal prosecution."
"We'll have to break the lockdown without calling any more attention to ourselves," Bastila said.
Canderous nodded, hefting his blaster to his side.
"The droids, the Twi'lek, and the Wookiee can follow me. I'll head back to the ship and make sure it's ready to go when we need to."
"You're not exactly the most inconspicuous group," Katrina said wryly.The Mandalorian gave her that half grimacing smile.
"You let me worry about blending in. The guards won't even know we've been there."
The prison block was, like everything else on Anelli, situated for efficiency and sleek design. A straight corridor had led from the Committee chambers to the cells- not a viable option for an exit. And they couldn't follow Canderous and the others; they were already tempting fate with a giant Wookiee, an assault droid, and a Twi'lek all in one escaping group.
"Revan." She followed Bastila's voice to where the Jedi was pointing. "I believe these panels lead to an electrical access corridor."
Katrina moved to help Bastila remove one. With a final loud crackle of metal against metal, the panel came free. They stood for a moment, waiting for security teams to come barging in from the noise.
"Access for a Kaminoan, maybe," Dustil muttered, glancing down the incredibly slim corridor.
Katrina was already sliding sideways inside of it. She stood nearly sandwiched between two walls, but still able to move. She bit her tongue on some witty retort and instead held her arms out, looking towards Dustil pointedly.
Her Padawan's gaze returned to the floor, getting into the access corridor without another word.
Bastila also gave her a skeptical, somewhat green look, but obediently followed.
Pipes and bulky wires ran the length of the corridor. Katrina carefully squeezed her way past them, watching for any break in the endless wall of steel. Near every access panel exit there was a small label indicating which area it powered.
She inched extremely quietly past the section labeled "Security Control Room".
She ran her fingers along the steel walls as if they were equipped with instant Force-sensors. She felt nothing but the adrenaline of escape and the pounding hearts of the Jedi following her.
When they finally came to a section marked "Committee Member Quarters", it was like static shock connecting with her fingertips.
"I sense their presence," Bastila whispered. "They must have just returned from deliberations."
Their presence, perhaps, but not the one I'm looking for.
Aggravation and stress were in every room, permeating the air around them even though they couldn't see whoever was suffering both.
Warmer, warmer…
Her fingers froze and refused to move, running themselves brusquely over the lines of the panel.
Burning hot.
There was his rage, personal and cold unlike the outrage of any of the others. There was his panic and his scrambling to get control of it, to formulate a plan. There was the soft echo of pacing she could hear if she put her ears up against the wall.
It was her brother, it was Phineas.
Katrina held her palms flat, ready to smash the panel open, to enter with a strident calling card that let him know exactly what her intentions were.
Instead she and Bastila squeezed together and gently opened the panel, placing it carefully on the other side of the wall.
The panel had been in his bedroom. Goosebumps formed on her arms; his rooms were freezing, and completely dark. The only light came from the standard emergency lighting in the baseboards of the walls. She didn't see him, but she could hear him in the next room, still pacing, his breathing coming out like sporadic snorts from his nostrils.
Is he upset because he betrayed me, or because he got caught?
Bastila sighed with relief at coming out of the tight passageway, taking a few wide steps around the room. Katrina found that she couldn't make her legs move in any other direction other than the steps she was taking towards his pacing, his breathing.
A Jedi does not act rashly, a Jedi does not lose control of the situation, she struggled to tell herself, even though the situation felt like fraying thread between a pair of scissors.
Her first step around the doorframe, into the sitting room she had been in before-
Where I shook his hand, gripped his shoulder, embraced him and thanked him and smiled at him and loved him-
Her first step into his field of vision startled him even before he saw her.
Phineas's pacing stopped abruptly as if he had run into an invisible wall. He cocked his head of matted brown hair to one side as if listening for something. His shoulders finally slumped, but he didn't move from the spot he had stopped at.
"Revan?" Her name cracked on his lips, but finally righted itself on the second syllable.
Words came, but none of them kind and nothing she could bring herself to say. Instead she responded by extending her lightsaber. The hiss of the weapon coming to life lingered before fading into its normal hum.
Phineas turned to stare at her, taking a quick breath as though it might be his last chance to have one.
"I thought you were Sakh," he said flatly.
"Would you rather I was?" Her brother gripped the folds of his robe, the sweat on his palms visible even in the dim light.
"No…" He broke into a bitter laugh. "He's coming to kill me, Revan."
The Jedi do not believe in killing their prisoners. No one deserves execution, no matter what their crimes.
It was Bastila's voice she heard in her head, but the real Bastila was standing behind her next to Dustil, watching with a completely blank expression. For once, the Jedi did not seem to know ahead of time what Katrina was supposed to do.
Dustil looked as though he knew exactly what was going to happen and he was only waiting for his part.
"I see you're starting with the lies early this time," she finally said. Phineas's eyes narrowed. "Trying to make me feel sorry for you…"
She trailed off, unable to accept that she already did.
He sighed exasperatedly, and the sheer audacity of it made her grind her teeth together. He was irritated? He felt put-out?
"You think I'm looking for your pity? Sympathy from you is the last thing I'm looking for."
She eyed the chair nearest to her, wanting desperately to reach out and slam it to the floor. She could envision one of the legs splitting down the middle, tiny pieces of wood scattering across the metal plating.
A Jedi does not destroy, a Jedi does not give in to these emotions in front of her Padawan.
Her brother shuddered.
"I'm sorry."
It was only two words. Somehow it translated to 'I tried to kill you and everyone you care about while making you care about me'.
She stalked towards him, lightsaber in hand.
Like everything else he did, Phineas reacted quickly and correctly. His hand shot out, knocking them all to the floor.
Katrina slid up against his couch, pushing herself up and leaping towards him. Her brother's clenched fist was instantly in her face. She felt a tightening in her throat, as if the air was suddenly full of straight pins.
Bastila had already risen from the floor, frozen in attack position, staring at Katrina.
No. I'll do it. The Jedi nodded, gently restraining Dustil.
She kept moving forward, ignoring the pain in her throat. Phineas looked uncertain for a moment, but he finally clenched harder. She gasped, hacking and trying to get the imaginary lump out of her throat.
But she kept coming closer. Phineas froze.
She was ten years old again, and he was the fifteen year old crying over his mother. You are weak.
He was suddenly tripping clumsily over the three stairs that led up to his desk. His breathing was shallow; hers became deep and strong again. He put his hand up feebly, as if it could stop the glowing green blade that was coming closer and closer to his chin.
I'll do it.
"You're going to kill me?" he whispered, his eyes wide, hazel; her own looking back at her in an expression she hadn't thought they were capable of.
"You tried to kill me." He shook his head wildly.
"No, I swear, I don't want you dead, Revan." Phineas struggled to push himself up, still stumbling all over the stairs. "Think! If I wanted you dead, all I'd have to do is alert security. They'd have you tried, convicted, and executed before the end of the night."
"Haytham's Inferno weapons were used in the attack against me. That message is from you to Haytham," Her voice got louder but she did not let its momentum break free. "You called Abbas your Lord. You ordered the weapons that were used to try and kill me."
"I didn't know they would try to kill you! I thought you were dead, I thought you died in the war when Malak attacked you!"
Bastila's face, a yellow lightsaber, a sudden jolt, and darkness.
"I didn't find out until after you landed on the planet. Abbas and Sakh told me right after your first meeting with the Committee."
Dark brown hair, hazel eyes, tall and straight with a firm handshake and an unflappable voice.
"And what happened when you found out?"
He gulped, wiping his nose in his sleeve, looking so much younger, so much more vulnerable.
"When I found out…" He began to pull himself up on the side of his desk, kneeling before her. "When I found out…"
"When you found out, you did nothing." The word was so rough, like the howl of a krayt dragon, complete with its impenetrable skin and overwhelming size. "You didn't tell me, you didn't renounce Abbas and Sakh, you didn't try and have them arrested, you did nothing."
"I was angry!" The voice she remembered was back, fiery red and without a trace of the frightened creature that had been before her a moment ago.
"In case you've forgotten, Revan," he spat, "You're the one that got me involved in the first place-"
"You tried to recruit me into the Sith, Revan."
"Did I succeed?" He gave a triumphant little smile.
"I didn't want to become one of your mindless soldiers, no matter how tempting you made it sound."
"You set me on a path, and then left me there!" Three words seemed to matter in his vocabulary now, and they were 'you', 'left', and 'me'; all three enunciated far clearer than anything surrounding them.
"You left me here with a dead woman, you came back to demand weapons from me, you left me again with a Committee that was beginning to see me as a liability because of my demanding sister. Then you came back for the same reason and that time left me for good with a Master over me and an apprentice constantly looking to be over me too."
"Phinny, are you crying?"
"I am NOT weak!" he bellowed, slamming his hand on the desk. The hand holding the lightsaber reacted and inched closer to him. He bent slightly back in an effort to get away from it.
A Jedi doesn't think about weaknesses. A Jedi doesn't look for any chance to get ahead.
"Why didn't you stand up to them?" She felt like she was having some pointless kids' argument that would end up with his bloody nose either way.
"I have stood up to them, Revan, I've betrayed them!"
"They've been betrayed-"Haytham choked out. "Abbas and Sakh, and-" He fell out of the chair and onto the ground, unable to speak, grasping wildly at his throat as if the hand clenching it closed was tangible and could be pried off.
"How?"
He snorted derisively as if she should have known.
"Who do you think's been keeping you out of the prison blocks up until now? You infiltrated private files of Fornia Demolitions and stole sealed records. You very loudly broke into two private homes, caused thousands of credits worth of damage, and murdered two aristocrats. Did you really think no one had noticed all that wreckage you left behind you?" He waved his hands around, gesturing to the hundreds of imaginary people that might have witnessed her crimes if not for him. "Who do you suppose was running after you cleaning up that mess?"
"You gave me that list of names. You set me on a path, and then left me there,"Katrina echoed mockingly.
A Jedi doesn't deride or mock or make fun of. A Jedi doesn't get at the truth by intimidation and accusations-
The Dark Lord Revan would have impaled him by now.
Phineas was silent.
Clear as day- why did she sense this so easily, so acutely now? How had she not seen it then- there was something he didn't want to tell her. What could possibly be worse than what he had already done?
"Faris, Ruhol…they couldn't have been suspects. You knew Abbas and Sakh planned it. Why did you give me that list?"
Phineas stood, smoothing his robes and hair, his hands finally remembering where they belonged behind his back. His position was somewhat surreal considering her lightsaber was still inches from his face.
"It was always an uneasy balance between Sakh and I," he began, the politician's voice stumbling over 'I' and wanting to say 'us'. "He wanted me dead even before all this. Their failed attempt to assassinate you and your subsequent arrival on the planet only made him want to kill me more." He smiled wistfully, like he was remembering a sunny family picnic.
"Abbas wielded a lightsaber like Sakh could, but he could also debate you to death and destruction. He favored me." 'Favored' dripped with perverse delight.
"The list?" she snapped. Phineas sighed weakly, the sleeves of his robes still wrinkled up against his elbows, revealing his pale forearms.
"Sakh wanted me dead. Abbas needed additional justification for not letting one apprentice kill the other, and I refused to give it to him by killing you."
The wall his confession had been bumping into over and over for the past few minutes suddenly dissolved into nothing and the confession walked up to face her, naked and unafraid.
"I gave you a list of known Sith opposition. Opposition to the Sith on Anelli, but more specifically, those that opposed me-"
He has seduced her, taken her away from her family, from her home. They've taken my Sonia, my daughter, turned her to their evil purposes. They will come tomorrow; He will come and the woman; she will come too.
"After agreeing to supply the Sith with weapons, Faris discovered that his daughter had been recruited into the Sith," Bastila summarized.
"Then who's the man he's sworn to have his revenge on?" Dustil asked.
"Faris…"
Phineas stared straight at her, his face blank and emotionless.
"His daughter was a promising Junior Committee member who was strong in the Force. I convinced her to join the Sith."
"I've amassed the secrets and intrigues of every member on that Committee," Ruhol sneered, "What I hold in my hand is delicious blackmail, Revan. You do know what that means, don't you?"
She heard 'Committee'. She thought of the only voice that had spoken to her, calm, collected, and self-assured. She heard 'blackmail'. She thought of her gentle, well-spoken brother, living a life alone and then having everything he had accomplished ruined by this vindictive little man.
"And Ruhol-"
"Besides hating me by association because of you embarrassing him, he had incriminating communications between myself and Abbas, and apparently the recording you showed me as well."
"These Sith don't know how to conduct business," Haytham said, leaning forward. "They want complete control of the Anellian Mining Corporation. I can already feel them tightening the noose around my neck, trying to oust me from my position. I can't allow that to happen, no matter how powerful they are. But I am no Jedi, and I'm no former Sith Lord."
"Haytham?" Phineas shrugged as if the man had been a vase that had, unfortunately, broken.
"His contacting you was unexpected, but as he said himself, we no longer desired his involvement in our plans. He was becoming too power-hungry. Being one of the heads of the Anellian Mining Corporation he had too much control as it was."
'Power-hungry', 'control', 'opposition'- She found herself struggling to remember that she knew who this man was, that his name was Phineas, that he was her brother, that he was not some pod creature quietly telling her about committing murders and gaining advantages.
"But ask me about Abbas and Sakh, Revan." Phineas was suddenly desperate. "They were on the list too, ask me about them."
"I gave you their names, Revan," he went on anyways despite her silence. "Not because I expected you to kill them, not because they opposed me, but because I betrayed them. Don't you understand? I was trying to help you, I-"
Her gaze silenced him.
"You gave me a list of your enemies and sent me off to kill them for you?"
"Superiority at any cost."
It was Carth's voice she heard in her head, but his son was saying the words.
"He's gone. He said…No…it can't be true, can it? No. No…no, it can't!"
Katrina wondered why the air felt so suddenly cold, so unforgiving. It suddenly felt as though her very breath offended it.
Was this the sick thump he had felt in his stomach with Saul's dying words?
Phineas opened his mouth but he couldn't seem to make anything come out other than his calm breathing. Finally her brother closed his eyes.
"Yes."
"And in that cave." She gulped down something (rage? tears?) "You tried to kill all of us-"
"No, Revan," he said softly. "I stopped so many killing blows that were meant for you."
Turning too late, turning too slowly, Juhani's dull, glassy eyes, her feeble grip, her body dissolving into nothing, only the masked figure with the extended hands at the top of the stairs.
Phineas fell softly to his knees, eyes still closed.
There was what she was doing, and what she was supposed to be doing.
Katrina raised her lightsaber.