The Redemption of Revan
Chapter 3: Trapped on a Hostile World
Mara tossed back and forth on her bed while moaning in her sleep. In her dream she saw a beautiful young woman, about 19, in a fierce battle with a Dark Jedi aboard a Sith capitol ship. He brown hair was whipping repeatedly with each strike upon the Sith. Sweat flowed freely down her forehead as she fought. The neck line of her dark red tunic was drenched in her sweat. She found and opening in the Sith's fighting technique and struck him down. She sighed in relief before walking forward. Mara awoke slowly.
She carefully got out of her bed and looked at Carth.
"Good to see you up, instead of thrashing about in your sleep. You must have been having one hell of a nightmare. I was wondering if you were ever gonna wake up. I'm Carth, one of the Republic soldiers on the Endar Spire. I was with you in the escape pod, do you remember?" Carth said.
"Right. I'm Mara by the way. How did we get here?"
"Well, you've been slipping in and out of consciousness for the past couple of days, so I imagine you're pretty confused about things. Try not to worry. We're safe…at least for now," Carth said to Mara. "We're in an abandoned apartment in the city of Taris. You banged up your head pretty bad when our escape pod crashed. But luckily I wasn't badly injured, so I dragged you away from the crash site into this apartment. By the time the Sith got to the pod, we were long gone."
"I guess I owe you my life, thanks," Mara replied gratefully.
"No need to thank me, I've never left a soldier behind on a mission, and I don't plan to. "Besides, I'm going to need your help. Taris is under Sith control. Their fleet is orbiting the planet, they've declared martial law and a planet-wide quarantine. But I've been in worse spots," Carth said. "I saw on your service records that you understand a remarkable number of alien languages. That's pretty rare in a raw recruit, but it should come in handy when trapped on a hostile world. There is no way the Republic can get anyone through the Sith blockade to help us. If we're going to find Bastila and get off this planet, we can't rely on anyone but ourselves."
Mara was idly messing with her pony tail in front of here. "Why is it so important to find Bastila?"
"That smack to your head did more damage than I thought. Bastila's a Jedi. She was with the strike team that killed Darth Revan. Malak's Sith Master. Bastila is the key to the whole Republic war effort. The Sith must of found out that she was on the Spire, and set an ambush for us in the system," Carth explained. "I believe that Bastila was on one of the escape pods that crashed down here on Taris. For the sake of the Republic war effort, we have to try and find her."
"Any idea where we should start looking for her?"
"We you were unconscious, I did some scouting about. There are reports of a couple of escape pods crashing in the Undercity. That's a good place to start. But the Undercity is a dangerous place, we shouldn't go there unprepared. We won't do Bastila any good if we get ourselves killed."
"The sooner we start looking for her, the sooner we find her. Lets go."
"Good idea. We can use this abandoned apartment as a base. Just remember to keep a low profile," Carth said. "I've heard some grim stories about the Dark Jedi interrogation techniques. They say the Force can do terrible things to a mind. It can wipe away you memories and destroy your very identities! But I figure if we don't do anything stupid, we'll be okay. I mean, after all, they're…they're looking for Bastila, not a couple of grunts like us. Alright ma'am, lets move out."
Mara and Carth left the 'hideout' and we instantly greeted by a Sith soldier and two combat droids interrogating two Duros. "Okay you alien scum! Up against the wall! This is a raid!" the Sith soldier said.
You Sith were here yesterday and didn't find anything! Why do you keep on bothering us? one of the Duros said in his native language.
The soldier pulled up his blaster rifle and shot the Duros three times in the chest before the alien collapsed dead. "That's how us Sith deal with smart-mouthed aliens," the soldier said before turning around to see Mara and Carth. "Hey, what's this? Humans hiding out with aliens? They're Republic fugitives! Attack!"
With that, more fighting commenced and when the other Duros was about to be killed, Mara held her hand out and purple lightning erupted from her palm, frying the droid. Carth, the Duros, and Mara just stared at her palm, amazed.
The Duros was the first to snap out of the trance. "Poor Ixgil, he should of never of talked to the Sith. Thankfully you were here to save us"
"I'm just glad I could help," Mara replied. Mara and Carth walked to the elevator and got in.
"What happened back there?" Carth said.
"What do you mean?" Mara asked.
"The lightning from your palm! That's what I mean!"
"I…don't know, it kinda just…happened" She said shyly.
"That was odd though, anyway, let's go," Carth said, finalizing the conversation.
Mara and Carth were walking towards the Equipment Emporium when Mara turned around. "I'd like to know more about you, Carth," she said.
"Me? Well, I've been a star pilot for the Republic for years, seeing more than my share of wars…I fought in the Mandalorian Wars before all this started. But I've never seen the kind of slaughter these Sith animals can unleash. Not even the Mandalorians were that blood thirsty. My homeworld was one of the first to fall to Malak's fleet. They bombed it into submission and there wasn't a damn thing our Republic forces could do to stop them," Carth said.
"I'm sorry, Carth. That must have been very painful for you," Mara replied.
"I'm just a soldier, I go where the fleet admirals tell me to. I follow my orders and I do my duty. It's just…sighdoesn't seem right that by doing that I failed them. I didn't!"
"Them? Do you mean the people of your homeworld?"
"Yes. No…no, that's not what I mean. I mean…I'm not making much sense, am I? You probably mean well with your questions. Its just that I'm not used to talk a lot about my past, at all actually. I'm used to taking action. Focusing on the task at hand. So let's do that, if you have more questions, ask them later."
Mara continued to walk to the Emporium and gathered information on the Republic escape pods, that some had crashed down in the Undercity. As they were walking to the southern end of Taris, a man was being hassled by two thugs.
"Davik says you missed your last payment," thug one said.
"Davik doesn't like missing payments," said thug two.
"Here! I got fifty credits, that should buy me some time, won't it?" the older man said in a desperate attempt to save his life.
"Sorry, your out of time. Now its all or nothing. Davik can't have people missing payments," thug one replied.
"But I don't have 150 credits! How can I give you credits I don't have?" exclaimed the merchant.
"That's to bad. Davik will want to make an example of you. You're coming with us," said thug two.
"No—help somebody help! They're going to kill me!" the merchant cried out.
"I know we're not trying to attraction attention to ourselves, but are we going to let them drag this guy off?" Carth whispered to Mara.
"Hold on a second, looks like we got ourselves a witness here," thug one remarked to Carth and Mara.
"Davik doesn't like witnesses," added thug two.
"Leave this man alone! Or you will have to deal with me!" Mara shot at the thugs.
"Guess we'll have to teach you to mind your own business!" thug two shot back. Mara whipped out her new pistol and shot the Aqualish between his big beady eyes. Carth killed the human thug with ease as well.
"Thank you! I owe you my life! Those bounty hunters were going to take me away and kill me! My wife warned me not to take out a loan from Davik. Now I cant pay him back! Its not good to owe a crime lord money. He'll keep sending more and more bounty hunters after me until I'm dead!" The merchant wailed.
"Maybe I can help you?" Mara asked.
"You already helped me by saving me from those bounty hunters, so unless you have a spare 100 credits to give me to pay off Davik, there's nothing else you can do."
"Here's 100 credits. Take them," Mara said, pressing the bill into his palm.
"You're giving me a hundred credits? Just like that? I…I don't know what to say! Thank you! Thank you!"
"You're giving him a hundred credits? Generous," Carth remarked.
"Now I can pay off Davik! You saved my life! Thank you! I better bring these credits to him right away!" the merchant said before running away. Mara stooped down a searched the dead thugs and found a hundred credits.
"Heh, what luck."