Title: Destiny's New Path
Summary: A what if. What if it wasn't Revan on the Bridge when Malak fired on his Master's ship? Suddenly the Apprentice is betrayed by the Master, and Revan then infiltrates the ranks of the Jedi. The Dark Lords mission: turn Bastila to the Dark Side of the Force.
Disclaimer: George Lucas and Bioware own the basis of this FanFic. I am merely entertaining the idea that I am good at making Star Wars stories (stupid ideas).
Author's Note: And so, the death of a character comes (well, the death of more then A character, but that doesn't matter). Mourn them, remember them, then continue reading, got it?
Chapter 15: Carth's Loss
Jolee hurled a large piece of debris at the sealed door with the Force. All it did was make a loud bang and rebound. Seth ignited his lightsaber and slashed at the door. He was thrown backwards about half a dozen feet.
"Okay, I guess that rules out cutting through with a lightsaber." Seth said. The comlink buzzed to life.
"Hey guys," Kayle said. "Don't try cutting through with a lightsaber…" Seth rolled his eyes. Jolee knocked him over again with the Force. "…Erik just tried and he learned how to fly."
"Hey, what's that sound?" Jolee asked.
"That, that would be us splitting up to find the main computer." Kayle said. "We're hoping it will unseal the doors. We've each got a comlink, so if something happens, we'll let you know."
"Okay, Jolee out." Jolee deactivated the comlink, and handed it to Carth. "Seth, come with me, we'll see if we can track them with the Force." Seth nodded and followed the old man into the Ebon Hawk.
For about half an hour, the comlink remained silent except the occasional buzz of static. Then finally, Zora's voice came through. "Carth, we've found the central computer." She said. "Okay, is the door opening?"
Carth looked over. For a second, it looked the same. But then he saw that the seal on it had broken, and it was very slowly sliding open again. "Yes, it's opening."
"Good, I'll just lock it when it's completely-…" She stopped. "What're you doing-?" The sound of a lightsaber activating came over the comlink, and then Zora's scream. Carth pulled out his blaster and rushed in through the half-opened door, running headlong into Kayle.
"Zora needs help!" He said. Kayle nodded.
"We know, we heard it over our own comlink!" He said, and they turned down the passage Zora and Erik had gone down. They ran as fast as they could, but all they found when they arrived was the computer she'd used to open the door; there was no sign of Erik or Zora.
"Zora?" Carth shouted. "ZORA!" Kayle let the Force flow into him, trying to find the other Jedi. They had little doubt now who Revan was. Erik, Revan, had taken their friend. Carth's comlink crackled to life at that moment.
"Zora?" He said hopefully. A synthesized voice came over the comlink.
"She's gone." The voice said. "Zora Firemoon is dead. As will be a few others in, oh, about five minutes."
"The Ebon Hawk!" Kayle said. He and Juhani, both, by far, the best at speeding their movements with the Force, sped out of the room. Bastila ran after them, followed by Carth. They got the Ebon Hawk in three minutes.
Kayle gathered the Force around him, as did Bastila, and they located the problem.
"There's a detonator in the Engine Room!" They said together. They all raced in, and thankfully, one of Kayle many skills was demolitions, and he quickly disabled the detonator, with about ten seconds to spare.
"Okay, immediate problem over. Search the ship for any other problems." He said. Everyone nodded and split up, searching every part of the ship. The Cargo Hold had been sealed off and locked – Carth quickly took care of that from the communications room using the security system – where they found Canderous, Mission, Jolee, Zaalbar and the droids.
"Where's Seth?" Kayle asked.
"Revan took the boy with him." Canderous answered. Bastila ran up behind Kayle.
"No, he didn't." She said. "He's in the Starboard Dormitory." She said. Kayle followed her back to the dormitory, where they found Seth, a stunned look on his face and a lightsaber wound in his chest. "Revan killed him, just like he killed Zora."
No one said much on the trip to Manaan. Bastila and Kayle had found two crystals in the ruins, so they spent most of their time locked away adding to their lightsabers. Bastila's constructed a whole new one, another saberstaff, with a silvery-blue blade. She had gotten Canderous and Juhani to help her make the Emitter Matrix and Power Cell; she found the Lens she needed amongst the junk stuff in the workbench shelves by Davik, and used a Krayt Dragon pearl and the Barab Ore that Kayle had given her on Kashyyyk.
When her lightsaber was finished, and she still wanted to keep her hands busy. So she took out all her robes, and began cutting, sewing and dying. When that was done, half her robes were missing seventy-five percent of the sleeves and the middles, leaving them short-sleeve two-part robes. The other half of her robes now resembled the clothing she'd been wearing when she'd met Kayle on Taris, and she'd dyed them turquoise-blue to match her lightsaber.
She smiled at her handiwork. She had eight robes all up, and seven of them were laid out on her bed. She was wearing one of her new turquoise ones. But, surprisingly, there was still a day or so left before they reached Manaan.
Kayle found the new Bastila much more likable then the old one. He found her with Mission early one morning, both with their legs crossed. When he got closer, he felt a push through their bond telling him to leave. He decided it was best not to interrupt, and turned on his heel and left. Bastila told him later on that she'd been teaching Mission to meditate – the surprising thing was finding a spark of the Force in the Twi'lek girl – a spark Bastila intended to nurture and strengthen.
It took Kayle a moment to realize that Bastila intended to train Mission to use the Force. He wasn't surprised the following morning to find Bastila and Mission sparring with swords. Zaalbar helped teach Mission with sword training as well.
Finally, the silence became too much for Kayle. With Jolee busy with his concoctions, Canderous working on his weapons, Carth mourning Zora still, and Bastila and Zaalbar training Mission, Kayle sought out the only one left who wasn't busy who was not a droid.
He found Juhani sitting by herself in the Storage Compartment. "Watcha doin?" He asked.
"I was…thinking." She said. "I think I am ready to continue our conversation."
Kayle nodded. "What happened after your father died?" He asked.
"After my father died, my mother was left to support me alone. A single non-human woman, living in one of the worst, most violent slums on Taris." Juhani sighed, as if coming upon a bad memory. "It was not easy for her."
"What do you mean?" Kayle asked.
"When my father was killed it seemed that something in her began to die as well." Juhani said. "She worked. She worked as hard as she was able, but over time she began to waste away. I later learned that she was unable to get enough money to feed both of us, and had to start borrowing from the Exchange, a band of cutthroats and smugglers. But even that was not enough..."
"If you do not want to continue…" Kayle began.
"No, I need to talk about this." Juhani said. "I need to share it with someone." She took a calming breath. "She hid what she was doing from me. She gave most of her food to me, so that I would be strong. But she herself was suffering deeply from it. In the end she could go on no longer, and collapsed at the cantina where she worked one day."
Juhani sighed again, and Kayle saw traces of tears in the Cathar woman's eyes, but she continued speaking. "She never recovered. There was nothing really that I could do for her... She left me no money, and no doctor would see her without being paid first. I sat by her bed for days as she lay there dying. I never want that to happen to someone I care about ever again..." Juhani reached into a pocket of her robes. "This was the only possession she left to me." She showed it to Kayle, a small wooden carving with patterns on it.
"But there was still the money she had borrowed... She had never paid it back, and made no provisions for her death. You must understand: the Exchange is brutal. They care nothing for the life of a sentient being. They are the major suppliers of slaves on Taris."
"Slaves…" Kayle muttered. "You were enslaved?"
Juhani nodded. "They thought it was appropriate that, with my mother owing them money, the debt should be passed on to me. And with no way to pay, they took me by force." She snarled. "You have no idea what it is like to be bound like a beast and treated as such. It was the worst time of my life. They treated me like livestock. They were waiting for a buyer to give them some credits for me when the Jedi came to fight the Mandalorians."
"They freed you?" Kayle guessed. Juhani nodded.
"The Jedi could not abide by what they saw there, and drove the Exchange from the face of the world, freeing those of us imprisoned there." She said, and then her face saddened. "But the Jedi soon left to fight their war. And I was left with a dream..."
"A dream?"
"I swore that I would become a Jedi. As soon as I had enough money to do it, I bought passage on a freighter headed for Dantooine." Juhani said. "And we both know what has happened since then."
"Juhani…"
"I am grateful to you for having given me the opportunity to fulfill my dream, rather than become what I hated.
"Someday I may make it up to you, but for now, let us keep on the task at hand." She stood, and walked off in the direction of the Garage.
They arrived at Manaan the day after Mission's training began. Bastila insisted on bringing Mission with them, and Jolee said he had to find an old friend he'd heard was here. Kayle sent T3 and Carth with Jolee, and Mission and Bastila accompanied him to the Republic embassy, and Canderous, Juhani and Zaalbar to go looking for any info in the local cantina.
"Welcome to Manaan." Said the Republic representative. "I am Roland Wann. As the official representative of the Republic Embassy on this planet, I am here to help all citizens of the Republic should they require aid."
"We am on a mission from the Jedi Council, perhaps you can help me with it." Bastila said.
"Uh... of course, of course." Roland said. "I will do whatever I can. But I am only a simple diplomatic representative of the Republic. I doubt I can be of any use to the Jedi Council."
"I seek a Star Map, the remnant of an ancient and forgotten race." Kayle said. The representative shifted nervously. "You know something." Kayle said. It wasn't a question.
"Well... perhaps. But if you want to get information about that, you'll have to do something for me first."
Kayle sighed. "What do you want us to do?" He asked.
"We recently dispatched a submersible reconnaissance droid in the ocean surrounding Ahto City. On it's return trip back to the Republic embassy it was driven off by the firaxan sharks." Roland said. "Its automatic systems floated it to the surface, but we could not retrieve it in time. The Sith were applying subtle pressure to the Selkath authorities for some reason we have not determined, and were able to delay us long enough that they could retrieve the droid before we did.
"The droid's data centers are heavily encrypted, so it will take the Sith several days, we believe, to get to its data. It was captured 12 hours ago. It is imperative that we get it back!"
"Where is this droid?" Bastila asked absently. Her attention had been drawn to a vid-screen. It showed a report on a Republic war hero being arrested. His alleged crime was killing a Sith soldier. It showed a photo of a young woman with a curtain of jet black hair, with a blaster wound in her chest.
"It is heavily guarded, we are sure, in the Sith Embassy here on Manaan. Since we have no remaining soldiers to spare, and certainly not our elite ones, we have no one capable of entering the Sith base and retrieving it." Roland answered. "That is what we would ask you to do."
Bastila saw something not many other people would see in the photo. It was very subtle, but there were hints of the Force around the woman, even though she was dead and it was just a photo.
"How do I get in the Sith base?" Kayle asked.
"That isn't going to be a problem, Kayle." Bastila said. "I have an idea." She took him by the sleeve and dragged him out of the Republic Embassy. "That is, as long as you don't mind posing as a Sith Soldier."
It turned out; Kayle did mind posing as a soldier. Several hours, and six arguments later, Bastila finally gave in and permitted Kayle to pose as a Sith Apprentice instead of a soldier. Bastila would pose as a Dark Jedi, and Mission would be her apprentice. They'd had some difficulty getting their hands on the disguises. Until Kayle lured three unsuspecting Sith onto the Ebon Hawk.
As soon as they were out of sight of the cameras, the Sith attacked Kayle, which Bastila had been hoping for. It meant they didn't have to attack unsuspecting opponents. They easily disarmed and knocked out the Sith, and stole their robes. They locked them in the Cargo Hold with a Force suppression bubble in the room.
They walked up to the guard at the elevator that led down to the Sith Embassy. He obviously didn't need a code for Sith Lords and Dark Jedi, as he just waved them through. On the elevator, Mission activated her stealth unit in case they ran into trouble.
Which they did. "You there! I don't recognize you! How did you get in here?" Demanded a snobby looking woman behind a computer desk.
"Does your disguise get us past her?" Kayle muttered for only Bastila to hear.
Bastila put on her best self-assured look, and stared the woman in the eyes. "We have an appointment. You would not wish to upset our Master, not after…" Bastila racked her brains for the name of the woman she'd seen in the report. "…not after what happened to Deraya."
"Nice try, but I know for a fact that the Sith didn't kill her for going traitor." The woman said. "I saw with my own eyes that Republic Officer killing her. Shot her in the back. But then the Republic meddled in the evidence, so we planted the medal to…" She suddenly realized what she'd said.
"We're authorized to be here." Bastila said, pushing at the woman's thoughts with the Force. "You don't remember what we've been talking about."
"You…you're…No, your Force tricks won't work on me." The woman said, obviously fighting hard to break through Bastila's power. Kayle was stunned at just how much power he felt coming from Bastila. Her power had jumped as fast as dropping a lit match into the grass planes of Dantooine. Even more surprising was the woman's willpower, fighting through Bastila's mind power.
"I…" Bastila focused harder. And suddenly the woman's eyes went blank. She nodded. "You are authorized to be here…" She blinked a couple of times. "I'm sorry, what were we talking about?"
"You were just directing us to the Deconstruction Room."
"Oh, right, it's just down the hall, turn…"
As the Mandalorian, Wookie and Cathar walked down the loading ramp of the Ebon Hawk, you never would have guessed that one of them was a Jedi and the other a Tribe Chieftain. Juhani had dyed streaks of her fur down her semi-bare arms, making them a deep magenta, and her ponytail had been streaked with acid-green. She exchanged her Jedi robes for a grey-blue jumpsuit, and a brown leather vest, and had added a few earrings to her ears.
Zaalbar had dyed much of his brown fur silver and black, and gelled it up (much to his dislike) with the help of Mission before they she and her team had left on their own mission, making it look somewhat matted. He was carrying a heavily modified wookie Bowcaster.
Canderous hadn't needed to do anything; he simply got changed into the black clothes and the red vest he'd been wearing the day he'd met them, back on Taris. The tattoo on his right bicep, showing clearly that he was Mandalorian, was visible, and would make people much more…cooperative, they hoped.
They had barely left the hangar when they ran into an ugly looking Twi'lek. He was a sickly purple, with flecks of pale green down his lekku's. Upon seeing Juhani, he grunted and stared at her, half-hunger half-disgust.
"What the hell is your kind doing here?" He snapped. "Bad enough I have to deal with all these other idiots, but now there's a stinkin' Cathar on this world too?"
"I have as much right to be here as you do, SIR!" Juhani snarled. It was hard to tell if she was acting as a bounty hunter or not.
"A big mouth like that can get you killed." Canderous said menacingly, fingering the hand held cannon.
"Oooh, big Mandalorian, hiding behind his Cathar pet… And a woman at that!" He snarled at the young Cathar. "We should have exterminated all you Cathar when we had the chance."
Juhani's eyes widened, in anger and horror. "Wha…What do you know about my world!" She demanded. Even without the Force, both Canderous and Zaalbar could see that she was infuriated.
"I know enough that..." He stopped suddenly, a look of vague recognition on his face. "Hey, wait a minute... you look familiar somehow..."
Juhani narrowed her eyes at the man. "What…you?"
"You annoy me, scum." Canderous said. Zaalbar saw he was itching to pull the trigger on his blaster cannon. The big wookie shook his head, and Canderous nodded.
"This doesn't concern you, Mandalorian scum." Xor snarled. He turned back the Juhani, giving her a cold stare. "Hm... now where could I have... No, he's dead and she likely is too. I..."
Juhani snapped. "What are you talking about?" She demanded, her hand on her blaster hilt. Canderous had expected her to take a vibrosword, but she had insisted on a pair of blasters.
"Maybe I was wrong. Still, I think a specimen like you would be a nice addition to my collection." Xor nodded, as if he had been arguing with himself. Then he turned to Canderous. "So, tell me Mandalorian, how much would your Cathar cost."
Canderous levelled his blaster cannon at the man's chest. "She's a partner, not a slave." He snarled.
"Now don't be so selfish. We both know Cathar aren't real people anyway." Xor said. All three of them snarled at him with that. The Mandalorians had got a lot of that during the war because of their thirst for battle, and Zaalbar and Juhani had gotten plent of words like that back on Taris. "The females make amusing pets, but males should be put down like the animals they are. I remember one time on Taris..."
Juhani's blasters were out. Not pointed at anyone, but they were out. And there was utter rage on her face. "WHAT DID YOU SAY!" She demanded. "WHAT DID YOU DO ON TARIS, YOU SCUM!"
"Put one of you down like the animals you are. So easy... then I saw one of the females on the auction block, but those darn Jedi..." Xor answered.
"It was you!" Juhani growled, taking a step toward the man, her blasters rising to point at his chest. He didn't seem to notice.
"What? Me? Oh ho! Now I remember where I've seen that pretty little face before." He smiled horribly. "You were the little Cathar I was going to purchase. But those Jedi came and stole my pet away from me!"
Zaalbar roared in disgust. Canderous said a string of insults in Mandalorian, as did Juhani, earning her a shocked stare from both of them.
Xor didn't seem to notice or care. "When I was fighting with the Mandalorians against the Cathar, I developed an appreciation for these creatures. They make excellent servants if properly trained." He turned his horrible smile to Canderous. "Come now, will you let your pet go? I'm sure we can come up with a price we both think is fair."
"You know, I don't have much respect for those who view others as less then human just because they look or act differently." Canderous said, keeping his voice level.
"And I will see you dead for what you have done to my people!" Juhani snarled.
"Er…now, now, don't be hasty."
"Juhani!" A voice sounded from behind Xor. Bastila, Kayle and Mission were standing. Bastila had been the one to speak. "Back off you scum!" She said, sensing the evil within the 'man'. When he ignored her, she emphasized her command with a shove of the Force.
The Twi'lek got up from the ground, turning to snarl at Bastila. He then turned on Juhani. "I will have you yet, Cathar." He scampered away. Juhani took a deep, calming breath, and turned away. "Thank you." She whispered. And then fled back into the Ebon Hawk.