Chapter 12 – Crash

"They're back!" announced Mira, quickly poking her head through the door to the reception area of the Ithorian Compound.

Atton closed his eyes and felt his heart start to beat again as he sighed in relief. He knew that Jena had been in great danger. He had felt it… the disturbance in the Force. He had also felt it change… something had happened on that ship, but he did not know quite what. He laughed at himself nervously. Here I am thinking about 'disturbances in the Force'… I must really be turning into a Jedi. Next thing you'll know I'll be spouting out nonsensical cryptic sentences. If that happens, I'm getting Mira to feed me one of her grenades. We all know she's been dying to ever since she first laid eyes on me anyway.

The door opened wide and Atton got up anxiously. Lieutenant Grenn walked in, followed by Jena. Atton took a hesitant step toward her; but Grenn had already whisked her into the main room, and closed the door behind her.

"What's this? What's going on?" demanded Atton hotly. "Hasn't she done enough for you people?"

"Admiral Onasi wished to see the Exile," explained Grenn.

Atton furrowed his brow. Onasi… he felt pretty sure they had come across that name when they were aboard the Harbinger while on Peragus. "Was that an order or a request?"

Grenn glanced at him oddly. "That's funny," he said. "That's exactly what she asked. It was a request. It would seem they have a mutual acquaintance he wished to discuss with her."

"Oh." He flopped back down on the chair that was closest to the door behind which Jena had disappeared. A few minutes passed, and still no sign of Jena. What do they have to talk about that's taking so long? If they're just talking about a mutual acquaintance, I don't see why it would have to take this much time. I wonder if they actually know each other.

His thoughts were interrupted as the door opened again. He looked up and saw Jena walk out. He glanced behind her and suspiciously eyed the handsome admiral, still standing by the window.

"What did he want?" he asked with the slightest note of jealousy in his voice, as they walked away together.

"He had a message for someone," she replied softly.

"Someone?"

"Someone," she replied briefly.

"Revan?" he enquired again, not entirely sure how he knew this.

She shot him a scrutinizing glance, but only said, "Yes, Revan." The finality of her tone indicated the matter closed. I thought Revan went beyond the Outer Rim, to the Unknown Regions… How could Jena possibly give her a message? He started getting an odd feeling at the pit of his stomach. What was Jena planning on doing after all this was over? He decided to banish these thoughts from his mind and to concentrate on the present instead.

"So what happens now?" he wondered aloud.

"Now, we go to Malachor V."

"Malachor V!" exclaimed Atton. "But… there's nothing there… the planet is…"

"Dead. Yes, I know." Her tone was very short.

Atton mentally kicked himself. Of course she would know this… Way to open up old wounds, genius. Refusing to say any more, lest he mess up again, he simply looked away from her and stared at the ground as he walked, wondering why they had to go to Malachor.

"Because that's where Kreia is."

Atton quickly looked up. He hadn't asked the question… had he? No, he was quite certain he hadn't. Then how…? He suddenly remembered what she had told him on Dantooine about being able to read him easily. That must be it, then. She guessed that's what I'd be thinking. This seems to be happening more and more, though. He frowned. This was not necessarily a good thing.

"So… Malachor, huh?" commented Mira as she sat down on the copilot seat, one leg tucked under her.

"Yup," replied Atton.

"I wonder why Kreia chose to go there…"

"Why does any Jedi do anything?" He shrugged. "I'm sure she has her weird cryptic reason for it. And Jena's not about to tell us anything, so all we can do is just keep on trucking and follow orders when we get them."

"I thought maybe she might have told you…"

"Why would she have told me? I'm as ignorant as the rest of you. You should try Mical. She talks to him a lot more than to the rest of us."

"Are you still on that?" she asked, smirking slightly.

"Am I still on what? I'm not on anything. I was just making an observation. She talks to Mical more. It's a fact, not a paranoid delusion. It's not like she has a choice, he's always hounding her with questions."

Mira laughed. "Yeah, that certainly is true… he might be easy on the eyes, but he talks like a roomful of Jedi."

Easy on the eyes? He's got teeth like a Gamorrean.

"So you told her, then?" she added significantly.

"Told her what?" he asked gruffly. "I haven't had the chance to give her the time of day since Dantooine. She's been too busy saving the galaxy." His voice had a slightly bitter intonation.

"You really should…"

"No, I really shouldn't," he interrupted. "Look, I appreciate what you're trying to do. I do. I don't really understand why you changed your mind about me, but I have to say, you were probably right before. She has enough to deal with without me hanging off her everywhere she goes. I think I realized that when she left to board the Ravager."

Mira squeezed her eyebrows together. "But… she kissed you."

"What?" asked Atton, bewildered. How does she know that? Did that droid…? Atton wrathfully started imagining all the different ways he could dismantle T3.

"Before she boarded the shuttle to go onto the Ravager. Visas saw you. She told me Jena kissed you."

Atton drew a sigh of relief. "Oh – that kiss." Then hoping Mira wouldn't catch on and ask what other kiss he may have been alluding to, he quickly added, "Yeah… it was just a kiss on the cheek… That's actually what made me realize how much of a distraction I was becoming. I mean, when they decided I wasn't going to go with her, I… I freaked out. Tried to make her bring me with her, against her better judgment. I probably would've done nothing but get in their way if she had. I don't know, ever since I met her I've been focused on wanting to save her… but now I started thinking that saving her might not have to mean rescuing the damsel in distress. Maybe there's something else that I can do to save her. I don't know what… but something." He sighed. "I figure the Force will guide…" He stopped. Okay, I'm this close to asking her for that grenade right now. He shook his head. "Anyway, she's better off without me constantly in her hair. So I'm backing off."

Mira looked at Atton sympathetically for a moment. "You know you're doing the right thing, right?"

"Yeah, I know," he replied briefly. He paused, and then laughed bitterly. "'The right thing'… I don't know if I've ever done the right thing before in my life. Must be all part of my redemption or something."

"Your redemption?" enquired Mira quizzically.

"Nothing you need to know," he rebuked roughly.

She sat silently for a few minutes, staring in front of her uncomfortably. He focused his attention back to the control panel. She then reached into her pocket and pulled out her side deck.

"Wanna play some pazaak?" she asked, flashing her cards under his nose.

"I thought you'd never ask!" he grumbled gratefully.

Malachor V came into view. Atton glanced out the window and shuddered. That is one scary looking planet. He frowned. Where was he supposed to land? The surface was entirely too damaged. There didn't appear to be any sufficiently large areas for the ship, and this electrical storm around him certainly didn't help matters any. The ship started wobbling.

"You guys might want to hold on to something! This landing's gonna be rough!" he called out to the others.

The controls were vibrating in his hands. This is not good. The planet on the horizon started to look like it was swinging back and forth, and did so faster and faster. The ship bumped up against a cliff once, then a second time. This is definitely not good.

"Remember what I said about holding on to something? Yeah, you might want to consider strapping yourself to it!" he yelled over the alarm that had started ringing in the cockpit.

Suddenly there was a large jolt accompanied by a loud noise, and then Atton could feel nothing… nothing except something wet trickling down his forehead.

"Everybody alive?" enquired Atton as he hobbled out of the cockpit. He was greeted by a few groans coming from various parts of the ship. "I'll take that as a yes."

"What the hell was that?" bellowed Mira, getting up and holding her ribcage. "Ouch!" she added under her breath.

"Well, that my dear was the sound of the Ebon Hawk landing on Malachor V."

"So we've landed, then?"

Atton hesitated. "Well, yes and no… We are indeed on Malachor V, but we somehow managed to get wedged between two cliffs. Damn electrical storm pushed us there. I was just about to make a smooth landing, too."

"Sure you were," growled Mandalore sarcastically. He had taken off his helmet and was massaging the top of his head. "So how solidly wedged are we?"

"Pretty damn solidly. I don't think we're going anywhere anytime soon. We'll have to figure something out."

Mical staggered out of the medical room, looking slightly dazed. "Atton, what…?"

"We're stuck. Between two cliffs. You might want to have a look at the crew, to make sure everybody's okay."

Mical stared at Atton's forehead.

"You yourself might need a bit of medical attention, Atton. That's quite a gash you've got on your forehead."

"Nah, I'm fine, just look after the others."

"No, really, you should let me at least bandage that up. You're dripping blood everywhere."

Atton shrugged and followed him into the medical room. Mical bandaged his head expertly. "Hopefully this won't leave a scar… It could be quite an ugly scar if it did."

Atton shrugged again. "Well, then the outside will match the inside. Is Jena okay?"

"I don't know… I only saw those of you who were in the main hold. I should make my way back now. I noticed Mira holding her side… I fear she may have some broken ribs."

The stepped back into the main hold and the entire crew had gathered.

"Irritated Statement: This landing was mediocre to say the least, even for a meatbag."

Oh great. The assassination droid is irritated at me. Well, this day just keeps on getting better.

"Veiled Threat: You are lucky I seem to be missing the limb that is necessary to hold up a weapon, meatbag."

"Yeah, I guess I am. And your threat wasn't exactly all that veiled, by the way."

Bao-Dur's left arm had been damaged by the crash, but he got it working again fairly quickly, and immediately started fixing the various droids. T3 had landed on his head in the storage compartment, and Jena, who appeared to remain uninjured save for some bruises, was in the process of trying to flip him right side up, with Mandalore's help. Visa's sleeve was torn and she had a deep cut on her arm. GO-TO was nowhere to be found; he was later discovered in the hyperdrive room, on the floor, and was promptly repaired by Bao-Dur, who by that time was done working on the other droids.

The commotion slowly started to fade away. With everybody bandaged up as best they could, the crew then had to figure out what to do about getting off the ship… and off the planet! Atton and Bao-Dur proceeded to have a look around the ship to see what would need repairs. They returned to the main hold to discuss their findings.

"Well," announced Atton, "we've evaluated the situation, and like I said earlier, the ship is well jammed into those cliffs, which is actually kind of good, otherwise we'd probably be falling down a ravine right now. We're also resting on a chunk of cliff, but half the ship seems to be hanging over the edge. And we also made the pleasant discover that the hyperdrive is shot. It would still be possible to get off the ship by taking the lift, but I have to wonder why we'd want to do that. There's no point in getting off the ship, because we'd still have no way to get off the planet. There might be a way, if we fix the ship and I start up the engines, to manage to free ourselves… but we'd also risk dropping in a free fall. If that happened, I might be able to steer the ship so we can land without too much of a crash…"

"Too much of a crash?" interrupted Mira.

"Hey, if you have a better idea, by all means, let's hear it."

Mira moodily kept silent.

"Good. Any other objections? Jena?" Atton looked around and frowned. "Wait… Where is Jena?"