Chapter 12: Enter the Machines

Bastila

"You've been able to hide her all this time, huh?" Carth shook his head as the quartet walked into Bastila's house.

"Nice place," complimented Revan. "Salaries must really be up since I last joined the Order."

Bastila led them through her spacious home towards a darker area. "It was my grandmother's estate," she explained. "It went to me just after we all split up."

There appeared to be nothing but blackness ahead, but Bastila switched on a light. Revan's face lit up as well as she saw the Ebon Hawk docked before her in all its scrappy dignity. Then she heard a series of warm and familiar blips from behind her, and Revan spun around with a happily surprised gasp.

"T3!" she exclaimed. "Nice to have you with us once more."

The energetic astromech droid chirped happily, whirring as it rolled forward through the doorway in which it stood.

"Dooo-WIP?" inquired T3-M4.

"I'll try and explain later, T3," Revan answered. "We should probably get on the Hawk.

Bastila unsealed the glass doors between them and the ship. As the group moved towards her, Bastila shot a surreptitious look at Canderous. What was she sensing from him that worried her so much?

Bastila shook off the fear. She was probably just experiencing quite a bit of paranoia, what with being possessed and attached by these True Sith.

"That awful HK droid is on the Hawk as well," she commented to Revan. "It's been violently looking forward to seeing you again."

Revan acknowledged this, and stayed silent.

Bastila communicated a sense of concern to Revan mentally. Revan returned a feeling of calm. How these machines could inspire such reverence in anyone confounded Bastila. Even as useful as they had been for Revan, there was quite an irony in that machines could evoke such feeling.

As they reached the Ebon Hawk, Bastila watched Revan, who was obviously quite awe-stricken, touch the poles connected to the boarding ramp almost worshipfully. Bastila noticed that both Carth and Canderous were totally fixed on this solemn act, though Bastila shook her head and sighed. Was there really any time for this?

Revan walked up the boarding ramp without a single sound, and the others followed. Bastila boarded last, watching the sentiment with which Carth, Canderous, and even T3 moved into the Hawk.

And they thought she could be odd.

Canderous

Nothing had changed. Even the swoop bike was still there in the garage, near the workbench. Canderous knew that place well, that place that had been almost like home to him on his first journey with Revan. He would stand right there, HK-47 by his side. The two had shared a mutual respect for each others' desire to weed out the weak and defend the strong, like Revan. Of course, HK-47 had never given much credence wo the Mandalorian ideal of honor. In turn, Canderous thought the droid's bloodlust to be a bit excessive. Still, the two had coexisted peacefully enough.

Canderous noticed that Bastila's cleaning girl, who had reappeared, significantly disgruntled, as they returned to Bastila's house, had brought Canderous' possessions onto the workbench: a large handful of stims and the pewter armor that Canderous was working on so diligently.

Leaving this room, Canderous turned and walked back towards the starboard dormitory. Searching beneath the beds, he found that his stash of hyper-adrenal stimulants was still hidden securely. He took the aged stims, wondering if the had fermented by now, and smirked to himself.

Bring it on, Sith, he thought to himself. Pocketing the stims, he returned to the garage, ready to continue work on the armor, when he heard a familiar voice behind him.

"Statement: My Master has requested that all the meatbags join her, the astromech, and myself in the main hold immediately."

Canderous grunted. This sounded exciting.

"Eager threat: My Master may be a patient meatbag," continued the assassin droid, "but I can assure you that I am not. If you do not advance to the main hold immediately, I will be forced to-"

Canderous turned. "Aw, come on, HK, you wouldn't hurt an old companion, would you?"

HK-47 looked the muscular Mandalorian over. "Apology: Why, meatbag Ordo! I had not realized that it was you, as I do find all meatbags to be so dreadfully similar. In that case, I shall rephrase my command."

HK straightened up his slender bronze physique and began again.

"Request: Please, esteemed Mandalorian meatbag, the Master expects your presence in the Main Hold right away."

Canderous looked around the room, recalling all the conversations he had had here, all the times Revan had run frazzled to the workbench, desperately trying to jam an energy cell upside down into a vibroblade or stuff an underlay straight into a piece of heavy armor. The only times she had not struggled at all were when she was elegantly restructuring a lightsaber.

That knowledge had seemed to come as easily to Revan as breathing. It became almosta graceful motion as Revan would slide open her lightsaber, exchanging one rough crystal for a stronger stone.

"Irritated Repetition:" HK began again. "Please report to the Main Hold. Now, meatbag."

Canderous shoved those recollections in his mind for another time. A quieter time.

There were so many recollections, though Canderous. Too many for this ship to even hold.

Revan

"So," concluded Revan, we're just going on a little excursion over to Bakura, all right? Any questions?"

There obviously were, but no one spoke. Revan turned to Carth, who shrugged. Obviously everyone had too much tact to question Revan out in the open.

Except for Canderous.

"Rev, you're a great Jedi," he began, "but that also makes you a terrible-"

Revan gave Canderous a long, melting stare, and he realized how much she did not want to discuss this right now.

"No questions," he grumbled.

Revan scanned the rest of them.

"Good. That's all," she said.

Bastila

Bastila worked alongside Carth, keeping the ship's course monitored and its systems stable.

From the other side of the wall separating the two, Carth spoke nervously. "Bastila," he started timidly.

"Yes, Cart?" she replied calmly, masking her discomfort regarding the question that she knew he was about to ask.

"What... what is she hiding from me?"

Bastila sighed. "Trust issues again, Carth?"

"I mean it. I know I've got a reputation for paranoia, but come on- I'm usually right. And she is an awful liar."

Bastila said nothing. Carth waited for an acknowledgment, some kind of answer, but all he received was Bastila's silence.

"So I am right," Carth answered for himself. "This is more serious than I thought, isn't it?"

Bastila nodded. She did not know, nor did she care, if Carth could see it. Somehow, probably in the most terrible way possible, Carth would discover for himself exactly how serious Revan's journey was. Neither of the pair piloting the ship right now, Bastila felt, would ever learn the whole of it.

"Carth," Bastila finally said pleadingly, "please... You truly love her, do you not?"

"I sure hope that was a rhetorical question."

"Then please, don't ask any more questions. Especially not to her. I am sorry, Carth, but she can't doubt this mission. There is more resting on the fate of this than either of us know, and I swear, someday you will know how much."

If we all make it out of this, Bastila thought gloomily.

Should not have lied.

Should not have kept coming, little Jedi.

You do not know what it is you trespass against.

And all will pay.

Canderous

Polishing the left arm of the silver armor, Canderous turned his head sharply as he heard Revan spring to her feet.

Alert from the stims he had used at the beginning of this shift, Canderous dashed towards the dormitory.

Bastila was, as usual, heavily sleeping, but Revan was standing, staring blankly at nothing in particular. Canderous moved slowly towards her, putting his hands on her trembling shoulders. He tilted up her head and looked into her eyes, but there was a glaze there, and Canderous could barely see a trace of Revan within those hollow eyes.

"Rev," he whispered, "are you o-"

"Back!" exclaimed Revan. Her voice was hoarse and unnatural. "They... they're back for me... and this time..."

Revan gripped Canderous' wrists painfully. Then she shut her eyes, and her grip loosened. As she opened her eyes again, Canderous could tell that she was back to normal again, but significantly weaker.

"Oh..." she murmured, "it's you."

Revan collapsed. Canderous caught her and lifted her tightly curled body out to the medical bay, where he lay her on the bed there and pumped some stims into her slender wrist.

"You'll wake up if it kills you," he muttered. "I want some answers."